Since the Yuan Dynasty, the central dynasty has been practicing the chieftain system in the Miao, Yao, Zhuang, Bai, Yi and Tibetan minority areas in the southwest of China. The chieftain system is a special ruling system produced by the central government's policy of "detaining" these areas after military or political conquest, which is adapted to the backward economy and low social development level of local ethnic minorities. According to the actual situation in different regions, the toast system can be divided into two types: toast and local officials. Tusi refers to the hereditary Xuanwei Division, Fu Xuansi, Pingding Division, Zhen Fu Division and Dragon Lawsuit, which are composed of local minority leaders. Although they accepted the official titles conferred by the central dynasty, the land and people in their areas belonged to them, so they actually belonged to the local regime of the separatist party. Local officials refer to local institutions such as states, prefectures, departments and counties established in accordance with the administrative system of the mainland, and local ethnic minority leaders and heads are appointed as local governors and local prefects. , often in the name of local officials, as a chief. With the continuous development of social economy in southwest minority areas, it has increasingly close ties with politics, economy and culture in the Central Plains, and the chieftain system has increasingly become an obstacle to local production development and social progress, which is also not conducive to the reunification of multi-ethnic countries. Therefore, since the Ming Dynasty, the central government has been carrying out the policy of "returning farmland to streams" in some mature areas, but the scale is very small and the impact is not great, which has failed to cause major changes in the administrative system of the whole southwest minority areas. Some chiefs govern hundreds of miles of territory, and tens of thousands of soldiers cruelly squeeze and plunder the people in their administrative areas. Although local system reform has been implemented in some areas, due to the deep-rooted Tusi system, it is still "deep-rooted, civil and military officials live in the provincial capital, and no one dares to plow for 400 miles."
Since the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the connection between the Central Plains and remote areas has been further strengthened. In particular, a large number of Han people entered the southwest minority areas for reclamation, which brought advanced production technology and lifestyle, which had a huge impact on the backward local toast system and made more and more people demand to get rid of the bondage of the toast system. However, in the early Qing Dynasty, because the central government was busy unifying the country and resisting the invasion of Russia, it was too busy to take care of the reform of the chieftain system in southwest China, which enabled the chieftain system to be passed down. During the Yongzheng period, the ruling power of the Qing court was greatly enhanced, which initially solved the problems of the northern ethnic rebellion and the invasion of Russia, and then began to reform the southwest ethnic minority areas on a large scale. In the fourth year of Yongzheng (1726), E Ertai, the governor of Yunnan and Guizhou, requested that Dongchuan, Wumeng and Zhenxiong, which originally belonged to Sichuan, be transferred to Yunnan nearby, and the place was changed to local and returned to local, which was then widely implemented in Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Guangxi and Hunan. The Qing government set up administrative agencies such as government, agency, state and county respectively, and sent non-hereditary floating officials to govern, which greatly strengthened the central government's control over the area. In the process of implementing the reform, E Ertai and others in charge of the reform adopted two ways, namely, peaceful appeal and military repression, according to different situations in different places. Generally speaking, in Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan and other places, it is mainly to recruit and appease, while in Yunnan, Guizhou and other provinces, it is a large-scale military suppression.
Guizhou is an area where Miao people live in compact communities, and the rule of Qing Dynasty is relatively weak. In the fourth year of Yongzheng (1726), the Qing army attacked Guang Shun Fuzhai and other places, suppressed the resistance of the local Miao people, forced them to shave their hair and change clothes, and tried to protect their armor and check their households. They also successfully recruited more than 1000 Miao villages in Guang Shun (now Huishui, Zhenning, Yongfeng and Anshun). Immediately after that, the Qing army invaded Miao Ling Mountain in eastern Guizhou and the Miao areas in Qingjiang and Du Jiang river basins, and successively occupied Guzhou (now Rongjiang), Taigong (now Taijiang), Qingjiang (now Jianhe), Du Jiang, Danjiang (now Leishan), Bazhai (now Danzhai) and other places, and made an expedition to the Miao villages that refused to surrender, and set up officials to govern them, thus opening up to the outside world. However, the civil and military officials stationed in the local area by the Qing court arbitrarily oppressed the Miao people and extorted money, which caused strong dissatisfaction among the Miao people. In the 13th year of Yongzheng (1735), the Miao people in Qingjiang and Taigong rose up and rebelled against the brutal rule of Qing Dynasty, and captured Kaili and Ping Huang, which shocked the whole scenic spot. The Qing court sent Zhang Zhaoling, the minister of punishments, to suppress it. Zhang Zhao has always opposed the policy of returning home of E Ertai and others, and he doesn't understand military affairs, so that it is protracted and futile. Emperor Qianlong, who had just acceded to the throne, ordered the removal of Zhang Zhao and transferred Zhang Guangsi, who had been actively pacifying Miao before, to Guizhou to take charge of Miao affairs. Zhang Guangsi was divided into three armies, killing immature Miao people everywhere, burning down more than 200 Miao villages 1 0, capturing and beheading 10,000 Miao people, suppressing the resistance struggle of local Miao people, forcibly returning Guizhou to its hometown, and strengthening the rule of the Qing Dynasty in this area.
Yunnan is a region with powerful toast. Some stubborn chieftains and local officials, in order to maintain their traditional hereditary dominance and various privileges, strongly opposed the Qing government's policy of returning to the motherland and even launched armed rebellion. In the eighth year of Yongzheng (1730), Lu Dingkun, the chieftain of Wumeng (now Zhaotong, Yunnan), took advantage of the local Yi people's dissatisfaction with Liu Qiyuan, the commander-in-chief of the Qing army guarding Wumeng, who was corrupt and tyrannical, and led his clansmen Lu and Lu Wanfu to launch a rebellion, kill and capture Wumeng, and surrounded Dongchuan (now Huize, Yunnan) and Zhenxiong. The rebels attacked and killed soldiers by the pond, robbed and transported grain, demolished bridges and blocked the pass, which caused great damage to the ongoing land conversion. E Ertai mobilized more than 10,000 Qing troops to suppress the rebellion in three ways: E Ertai personally supervised the war, and after fierce fighting, the rebellion was finally suppressed, which ensured the smooth progress of local reform. In southern Yunnan, the Qing court got rid of the Tusi and Mutu in Zhenyuan, Zhanyizhou, Zhele, Weiyuan and Guangnan, and sent a colleague to temporarily know that Liu Hong was in Zhenyuan. Mutu Daoru town refused to hand over the occupied land, inciting the local Yi people to kill Liu Hongdu and launch a rebellion. The Qing court sent troops to suppress it, moved all the reformed chieftains and chiefs to other provinces for resettlement, and then marched into the lower reaches of the Lancang River, breaking the dangerous barrier and reaching Mengyang. Except for the toast in Chehe and other places, the others changed their ways, upgraded Pu 'er to a mansion, and sent troops to defend it.
In the Qing Dynasty, the system of "returning farmland to streams" was widely practiced in southwest minority areas, which restricted and eliminated the separatist forces and privileges of local chieftains, strengthened the control of the central government over southwest minority areas, promoted local economic development and social progress, strengthened economic and cultural exchanges among people of all ethnic groups, and consolidated the unity of multi-ethnic countries. The Qing government's policy of ethnic oppression and discrimination, especially the brutal slaughter of people everywhere in the process of quelling the Tusi rebellion, also brought great disasters to the people of various ethnic minorities.