AbstractandAs a core area frequently afflicted by wars in southern China, Hunan has undergonethousands of years of war baptism from the disputes in the Chu region in the pre-QinDynasty to the city-massacre disasters in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. However, ithas always maintained a stable ethnic structure, with ethnic minorities such as theDong and Yao surviving, and the Chu descendant group has always dominated theregional population pattern. Based on historical war records as the core basis,combined with surname distribution data and local chronicles, this paper empiricallyanalyzes the core logic and historical value of the Chu descendants “withstanding thefire of history”, and reveals the decisive role of the three major mechanisms of Chudescendants’ resistance, population recovery, and ethnic integration in the survival ofHunan’s ethnic groups. The study finds that the “active resistance — retention ofwomen and children — integration and symbiosis” model of the Chu descendants notonly supported the rapid recovery of their own population, but also built a regionalethnic barrier, preventing external forces from impacting Hunan’s ethnic structure andsafeguarding the living space of surrounding ethnic minorities. The resistance of theChu descendants was not merely a military confrontation, but a strategic choice thattook into account both ethnic continuity and regional stability, which is also the corecode for Hunan to differ from other regions in southern China and for its ethnicgroups to survive for a long time. This paper further deepens the research on Chuculture and Hunan regional history, and provides a new paradigm for the study ofethnic survival in war-torn areas in southern China
Yong Song (Mon,) studied this question.