Searching for Roots at the Great Pagoda Tree

The Great Pagoda Tree Ancestral Worship Park in Linfen, located in Hongtong County, Linfen City, Shanxi Province, is the only national 5A-level tourist attraction themed around "root-seeking" and "ancestral worship" in China. The Great Pagoda Tree ancestral worship tradition has been listed as a national intangible cultural heritage. During the Hongwu and Yongle periods of the Ming Dynasty, to restore production, increase population, and develop the economy in provinces severely affected by years of war and drastic population decline, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang implemented a series of measures including migration for land reclamation, rewards for opening up wasteland, military settlements, and merchant settlements. Shanxi became a major source of outbound migrants. Over fifteen years, there were eighteen large-scale official migrations, initially requiring one male from each household and later two out of three males to relocate. Migrants were sent to over 500 counties in Henan, Hebei, Shandong, and other provinces, with more than 1,230 surnames recorded. Today, wherever there are Chinese communities worldwide, descendants of these Great Pagoda Tree migrants can be found. At that time, the imperial court established a migration office in Hongtong County, where migrants from various villages were processed before their departure. The migrants, leaving their hometowns, remembered the great pagoda tree outside the migration office, leading to records in their family genealogies such as "Great Pagoda Tree, Hongtong County, Shanxi," with some even noting more detailed locations like "Laoyawo Gaga Village." Our ancestors in Shandong, having endured war with nine out of ten homes left empty and lands barren, saw the arrival of Shanxi migrants. Through hard work and perseverance, they flourished and gradually transformed Shandong into a major economic hub in East China. Most of the Great Pagoda Tree migrants to Shandong settled in western Shandong, southern Shandong, and east of the Jiaolai River. Over 500 years later, many Hongtong customs are still preserved. Truly, it can be said: "Distance may separate, but not the bond; though time and space may change, the memory of our distant ancestors remains, tracing back to the Great Pagoda Tree of the Ming Dynasty."