This narrative is a blend of many sources, some contradicting one another, and all spinning different perspectives. Even authoritative sources don't agree, and none of those of any substance are in English. Consequently the facts presented and the narrative written are my attempt at reconciling those few sources.
However I am grateful to those of you who have taken the time to forward corrections and details, especially Dr. Lau Chun-Fat of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Him Mark Lai from the University of San Francisco. I would encourage everyone to do likewise.
Wars never start of themselves, and the Punti-Hakka Clan Wars are no exception.
When the Ming Dynasty was ousted in 1644 and replaced by the Q'ing (or Ch'ing) Dynasty, very few Chinese were happy about the outcome. Their Han Chinese emperor had been replaced by a foreigner, a "dog" from Manchuria.
The Ming and their supporters fled south to Guangdong Province, where many were eventually captured or killed. Some Ming loyalists retreated to the island of Taiwan in 1661, and eventually ousted the local Dutch settlers. They were led by Zheng Cheng Gong, who was known as "Koxinga" after the Ming emperor had bestowed on him the royal clan name of Zhu. The new Qing emperor, fearing that the people of the coastal region might help these rebels, issued an imperial edict ordering his subjects to move inland for fifty Li, or about 30km, which was enforced from 1662 to 1669. The rebels on Taiwan were finally "pacified" in 1683, though opposition continued for another twenty odd years.
Appeals by the viceroy and governor of Guangdong Province moved Emperor Kiangxi to allow the people to return. Less than half of the original population returned to their homes, leaving the coastal regions strategically under-populated. The emperor encouraged others to emigrate into these regions and granted them money and seed to start their lives afresh. The most significant group to take up this offer for Guangdong Province was the Hakka, meaning "guest" or "stranger", who had different customs, dress and language, and were principally from the upper reaches of the East and Han Rivers.
However Guangdong Province was already occupied by the Punti (ie. "people of the earth"), who were Han Chinese and mostly descended from the earlier settlers. The Punti therefore occupied the best lands, leaving the Hakka the less fertile and mountaineous lands, and the rivers where fishing and piracy seemed to be their chief occupations. Sea robbers and pirates were a periodic sourge, especially in the years 1790-1810, when large piratical fleets caused wide-spread havoc in the Pearl River Delta.
The Punti were not completely unpleased at the arrival of the Hakka, as they provided manpower to work their fields. This cosy arrangement lasted for a few decades, until the Hakka began buying up land and forming their own ethnic enclaves. In Taishan County their numbers grew to about a third of the population, as did the fear of the Punti of dispossession and marginalisation, and defensiveness of the Hakka. For the time being the excesses of this tension were held in check by the strength of the central government.
The Taiping Rebellion exploded into Guangdong Province in 1851. Hong Xiu Quan (or Hung Hsiu Ch'uan), a Hakka from Hua Xian who believed he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ, founded the Bai Shangdi Jiao (or Worship God Sect). He raised an enormous army in neighbouring Guangxi Province, which swept the imperial forces both eastward and northward. Over 20 million people died throughout southern and central China before the rebels were finally defeated in 1864 by imperial forces.
In 1854 the anti-Qing Triads took advantage of the turmoil to lead insurrections in Dongguan and Hua Xian, where they were known as the Red Turbans. They set fire to Foshan, which burned for three days, but were eventually supressed by imperial forces after two or three more years of fighting, pillaging, plundering and destruction by both sides.
As a consequence, Imperial Government control over the more distant counties was severely weakened.
These conflicts spread throughout the region, and quickly developed into a series of wars for control of the southwest corner of the Pearl River Delta. As the rebels were mainly Hakka and the local authorities mainly Punti, the existing animosities fueled a conflict of genocidal proportions, in which the main battlefield was Taishan County.
Very quickly violence broke out in Enping and Kaiping. By 1856 fighting had spread into the south-west corner of Taishan county, and soon engulfed the entire southern regions where many Hakka had settled. In one month of that year "over 3000 people" were killed in Taishan County alone.
The Punti formed their own militias, built walled fortifications and hired mercenaries, which were funded by the merchants in Hong Kong, both European and Chinese. Remittances from sons husbands and fathers on the goldfields of California and Victoria were diverted to these war-like preparations. Villagers would destroy roads and bridges in order to keep the marauding factions away.
Some "500,000 people died", thousands of villages were destroyed, and "more than 100,000 fled" to Hong Kong, Macau, southern Guangdong, Hainan Island and other foreign parts. Much land fell into disuse, famine and disease stalked the land, people grew increasingly desperate and banditry grew rife.
On one occasion "the Hakka surrounded the town of Guanghai, about 100km west of Macao. When the starving inhabitants surrendered on a guarantee that their lives would be spared, the Hakka butchered most of them. The clan tensions in Australia are easily understood".
In other battles many of the captured Hakkas were "sold to the coolie trade" via Hong Kong and Macau. "Among them were twenty to thirty thousand Hakkas who either were sold by the Puntis or had indentured themselves to South America."
The number who died from epidemics and hunger was even higher. It is said that "in March 1864 alone, more than twenty thousand Hakkas who were pinned down at Tailoongdong died of epidemics".
Once the threat to the Imperial Dynasty receded, the Imperial Government began to pay attention to these local genocidal wars. In 1867, imperial troops were sent to suppress all sides, which they did with ruthless and indiscriminate force. Both sides suffered severely.
In order to stabilized the region, the central government followed a time-honoured strategy - separation of the combatants.
They "encouraged" the Hakka to move to Guangxi Province. Those who stayed were given their own independent sub-prefecture, Chixi (or Chikkai), which lay on the south-east coastline of Taishan County. This new department was too small and infertile to be a long-term success, and most of these Hakkas also eventually moved to Guangxi Province.
The Punti took over the territories formerly occupied by the Hakka, but remained both poor and traumatized for many many decades, which drove many to emigrate to South-East Asia, America and Australia for the sake of their families.
In 1912, after the founding of the Chinese Republic, Chixi became a county in its own right, which lasted until 1953, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, when Chixi County was reunited with Taishan County.
Today less than 3% of the population of Taishan County are Hakkas.
There are only two sources I know that go into any detail about the Punti Hakka Clan Wars, and both are PhD theses, and one of those in Chinese script, namely:
Both additional sources and corrections are sought.
Taishan
Genealogy
Copyright: ©2001-3 Jon Kehrer,
Canberra