Pingle County in Guangxi is located in the south of Guilin, 8 km away from Guilin11. In the Tang Dynasty, formerly known as "Zhaozhou", it was the capital of all previous dynasties and the political, economic and cultural center of southern Guilin. A beautiful and rich Gui Jiang meets Lijiang River, Lijiang River and Chajiang River, from Guilin in Shuozhou to Wuzhou and Guangzhou, and reaches Guangdong directly. In the beautiful ancient city of Lingnan, there lived an ancient family named Tao. The population of Dow family in Pingle County is about 25,000. Most of them live in towns such as Yang 'an, Qinglong, Zhangjia, Tongan and Yuantou, which are at the junction of Zhaoping and Zhongshan in Hezhou City, south of Pingle County. Most members of the Tao family live alone, with a population of six or seven thousand, and most of them live in places with mountains and water. Walking into these villages in Tao Jia, I saw scattered houses, slate streets, gatehouses and ancestral halls, and the ancient style still exists. Every household's hall is dedicated to Taiwan Province, with the words "Wuliutang" or "Xunyang County" written in solid color, and a couplet entitled "A hundred doors look at the book, and five or six people are Gao Shize."
In particular, the unique language they speak is extremely rare in all parts of the south, and the locals call it "local dialect" or "common people". This dialect is quite different from the "Mandarin" (Southwest Mandarin family) widely used by Pingle County and northern urban residents. It has nothing to do with southern languages such as Cantonese, Hakka, Min and Xiang in Guangdong and Guangxi, and has nothing to do with Miao Yao (Yao) and Zhuang Dong (Zhuang) in Sino-Tibetan languages. The scope of this dialect is not large. In Pingle County, only most areas of Yang 'an, Qinglong, Zhangjia and Tong 'an, as well as a part of the population in Yuantou, Ertang and Qiaoting Township are used, and the scope of use is less than 20 kilometers in Fiona Fang. In these areas, the languages such as Tao, Li, Mo, Zhai, Bin and Ou are authentic. Why there is such a unique language in this corner of southern China is a mystery in dialect research.
According to the Tao Family Tree, Pingle Tao family moved from Shandong in the late Tang Dynasty. The ancestor Ying Tao is a descendant of Tao Yuanming, a great poet in Jin Dynasty. Tang Zhaozong was born in Jinshi, with outstanding military exploits, and was ordered to perform his duties in Qingzhou Prefecture. Later, he was promoted to assistant minister of the Ministry of War and named Qiu. In the second year of Tang Tianyou (AD 905), there was unrest in Zhaozhou. At that time, Ying He (the ancestor of the Li family in Pingle County), who stayed in Qingzhou, Shandong Province, was appointed by the court as the general of Zhengnan, and led Mo, Zhai and Bin on an expedition to Zhaozhou. The army suppressed the unrest without mercy. Later, in the fourth year of Tang Tianyou (AD 907), the court changed, and Zhu Wenyi became Tang Weiliang. Ying Tao and other soldiers were ordered to stay in Zhaozhou. Unwilling to be a minister for Liang Zuochen, the soldier returned to the field with Tao Li's words, and lived in the "Li Antang Village" in the south of Zhaozhou (now Taocun Village in Yang 'an Township), becoming the first generation of large-scale immigrants from the Central Plains in Pingle, the ancient city of Lingnan. Since then, the five surnames have intermarried and multiplied from generation to generation. The language they brought from the north has been preserved in the corner of the south, assimilated with the local language and formed a unique local language through historical evolution. According to the research of relevant experts, this dialect belongs to a sub-dialect in North China and Northeast China during the Tang and Song Dynasties. Just because the ancestors moved south to live in Pingle, they were also far away from the outside world, and they "didn't know Wei and Jin Dynasties, let alone Han Dynasty".
At the same time, it is also very interesting to investigate the characteristics of Taojiafeng. Since the ancestors of Yinggong, the Tao family in Pingle County has a clear tooth order and has not been chaotic from generation to generation. When it comes to seniority, the younger generation must respect their elders. Drinking and offering tea have their own order and customs. The villagers are adhering to the legacy of their predecessors, indifferent to fame and fortune, diligent and conscientious, and enjoying themselves in this corner of the south China. And I especially love peaches and willows, and regard these two trees as the symbol of my surname. "Wandering thousands of miles, don't change the local accent; Staying at home and not forgetting peaches and willows is the eternal legacy of the villagers. More interestingly, many people surnamed Tao don't know that they are descendants of Tao Yuanming, but when they ask each other's surnames orally, they often don't call themselves Tao surnames, but say "May 6th". Things have changed. At that time, Ying Tao led the army south and lived in Pingle. After more than a thousand years, Tao's descendants are full of vitality, thriving and flourishing. At present, the population has reached100000, scattered in Bagui, Hunan, Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan and overseas. & gt The preface to Pingle Taos Genealogy basically records the ancestral home of Shandong. Located in Le Jia Village, Zhangjia Town, Pingle County, it was founded in the sixth year of Yongzheng in Qing Dynasty. This was written by Tao Yinggong's 32nd grandson, who was then a martial arts official in Wu Jia, Tao Ju and others. "Tomb Monument" records: After the public banned English characters and the people, Jiangzhou was also a land, Pengze made Yuan Ming shy, Tang Zhaozong had a flat thief, and the public was ordered to defend Qingzhou. Zeng Tai is a paternal Shandong native, and his ancestors are also from Jiangxi. Xunyang is a clique and lives in Mizhou. " Tao Zhuo was born in the first year of Tiancheng in the late Tang Dynasty (Mingzong) (in Xu Bing in 926 AD). He was only four years old when his great-great grandfather Ying Tao died (AD 93 1 year). These prefaces record the birthplace and life of the ancestor Ying Tao, and Pingle Tao is undoubtedly the descendant of Tao Yuanming. However, there is no detailed record about the lineage from Tao Yinggong to Tao Yuanming in all Pingle Tao genealogies. What is the reason? According to the Preface to Pingle Tao's Genealogy, due to its long history, the genealogy was destroyed by soldiers' riots or fires many times, and later generations could only rebuild it according to the epitaph. Therefore, the genealogy of the Tao family in Pingle can only start from the ancestor Tao Yinggong, and the arrangement of lineages began from then on. This incomplete genealogy has become a thousand-year pain for the descendants of Pingle Tao, who have always been proud of their ancestors. In recent years, the Taos in Pingle, like other families with surnames in China, set off a "root-seeking fever" in order to update the genealogy and carry forward the culture of Taos. They sent people all the way to Jiangxi, Hunan, Shandong and other places to inspect, or wrote letters to people named Tao, and even posted on the Internet to verify the missing genealogy.
The enthusiasm of the Tao family in Pingle deeply touched the experts and scholars of China Tao Yuanming Research Association. In 2002, Ling Chengpei, executive vice president of the Society, visited Pingle County from Yifeng County, Jiangxi Province. By consulting the genealogy and stone tablets of the Tao family, Mr. Ling investigated the living habits, language changes, sacrifice methods and generational arrangements of the Tao family, and mastered a large number of first-hand materials. Later, two years later, he personally visited more than 20 provinces and cities across the country, consulted a large number of documents and files of the customs, and basically certified that Tao in Pingle County was indeed a descendant of Tao Yuanming. This year in Tomb-Sweeping Day, 72-year-old Mr. Ling Chengpei personally took himself from Jiangxi and other places to inspect and sort out the "Zhao Zhou (Pingle) Dow lineage" and went to Pingle again for verification. According to the Textual Research on the Descendants of Taos in Zhaozhou (Pingle) edited by Ling Chengpei, the ancestor of Taos in Pingle is the descendant of Tao Yuanming's eldest son Yan and his 10 generation grandson. However, the descendants of Pingle Ying Tao have doubts about their ancestry. They think that there are not enough algebras in the lineage from Tao Yuanming to Ying Tao. Tao Yuanming was born in 365 AD, while Ying Tao was born in the third year of the Tang Dynasty (849 AD). The distance between them is 484 years. According to every 20 years, there should be 24 generations between them. In genealogy, the difference between them is only 10 generation, which is less than the normal generation difference by more than 14 generations, which obviously does not conform to the normal generation difference law. In this regard, Mr. Ling Chengpei also said that he had visited the Tao genealogy in Yifeng County, Fengxin County, Hunan Province, Danyang County, Liuyang County and other places. These genealogies began in Wu during the Three Kingdoms period and recorded the generations of the Tao family. Two of them are similar to Ying Tao, the ancestor of Pingle. One is "Ying Tao", belonging to another Dow family. The other is called "Ying Tao" as "Tang Taiwei, Zhao 'an South Army", which is consistent with the records in Pingle County Dow Genealogy and Pingle County Tombstone. Through the investigation of Pingle county and the textual research of Tao's genealogy in Jiangxi and other places, the historical fact that Tao Yuanming is a descendant of his eldest son Yan is reliable. However, due to the age, there may be some dating omissions. He also said that he would once again live in Shandong to inspect and demonstrate repeatedly, so as to help Pingle Dow continue to search for clans and find out the accurate arrangement of Dow lineage.