History of the Zhuang

One believes that his ancestors were the called men of Liujiang, who lived in the region of Guangxi approximately 5.000 years ago, the first human beings of that it has news that have cultivated the buckwheat. Also there assume to them the magnificent paintings of the cliffs of Huashan, which spread along 200 kilometers of shore of river. In a more nearby past there are named two tribes of the lineage of the Yue, the Xiu and the Luoyue like ancestors of the Zhuang. The news that there are about them they speak that in the VIIth century B.C. they were already in the Age of Bronze. In fact in the region there have been excavated numerous drums of bronze of big antiquity.

The term "Yue" is a generic name that names a series of peoples with some common cultural characteristics, who were inhabiting big part of the south of China before our age. The differences between they were so clear that there are usually named "Baiyue" or "Hundred Yue". The Yue warriors were been afraid.

Shortly after the unification of China under the first emperor Qinshihuang, this one sent an expedition to the conquest of the south, with the target to take possession of the rich Canton port. The first Chinese attempts for crossing the current Guangxi region, it found an inflamed resistance of the Yue. To conquer the resistance Yue there were sent more than 200.000 workpeople, mostly punished and forced, to construct the Channel Lingqu that communicating the basin of the river Yangtze with that of the river Zhujiang, allowed to the Chinese troops to cross the region yue and conquer Canton.

In Guangxi three prefectures are established: Guilin, Nanhai and Xiang, which are not the end of the conquest, but scarcely the beginning. In fact, after the fall of the first dynasty Qin, the Canton governors become independent taking the Kings' title of Nanyue, which govern also Guangxi.

Conquered again by the emperor Wudi of the dynasty They Have, begin since then to maintain regular contacts with the Chinese. Since then there have been called they of different forms: Li, Wuxu, Tie up, Tong. Being the last one the name most used until 1965.

In the VIIIth century of our age they have a developed agricultural society, with some gentlemen esclavistas between them. The dynasty Tang, which governs in China, begins intervening in the government zhuang, granting qualifications to some chiefs zhuang and granting grounds zhuang in fiefs to some persons.

In the dynasty Song they begin to be governed by the Tusi, local chiefs who act on behalf of the emperor. This system comes to his climax at the beginning of the dynasty Ming. His principal shortcomings take place for the incapability of the Chinese to recognize the real chiefs of the Zhuang and for the abuse of some of them that prefer to defend the Chinese interests that those of his people. There arise therefore numerous rebellions that put in question the Chinese domination.

To replace it, from middle of the dynasty Ming there is dismantled the system of the tusi that are replaced by imperial officials.

From the beginning of the XIXth century, the presence of the foreigners in the south of China the society begins transforming zhuang, debilitating the traditional markets, provoking a concentration of grounds and the increase of the social differences.

From the first decades of the XIXth century the first western missionaries appear by the grounds zhuang. Some followers manage, but also they find resistances. That sometimes take a violent appearance, as in 1853 when three French parents were murdered.

It is for it that when there arises in the XIXth century the revolutionary Messianic movement known as the Celestial Kingdom of the Taiping, it found good reception between the Zhuang.

The movement was hardly suppressed, what did not prevent during the second half of the XIXth century from being continuous rebellions against the imperial authorities, the principally French missionaries, and the landowners who were oppressing increasingly the peasants zhuang.

During the first half of the XXth century the living conditions of the Zhuang it deteriorated tremendously. From 1949, his culture experiences a series of transformations that they affect to all the aspects of the life of the Zhuang.

At present they do not differ much of the rural populations from the south of China. His traditional garments scarcely are used, and his language opens way to the local dialects.

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