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Zhang Dedi
Early Qing Han Banner official who twice governed Sichuan under Kangxi and asked the court to recruit settlers to reclaim the province's empty land, rewarding officials by the number they brought in.
Mural of the event “Huguang Fills Sichuan”, which this person took part in.
The wars of the late Ming and early Qing left Sichuan depopulated and its fields waste. From the Kangxi reign the Qing state drew settlers from Huguang and other provinces with household registration and permanent title to land they cleared, and in 1727 it ordered Sichuan's counties to register incoming refugees household by household and allot them waste land. Over more than a century settlers rebuilt their homes in Sichuan, built guild halls, and in the same era outside opera tunes took root there.
Also known as Zi Kunyu · Liu Ge
Zhang Dedi, first named Liu Ge, courtesy name Kunyu, was a Han bannerman of the Bordered Blue Banner registered at Zunhua. Rising from a secretaryship in the Imperial Clan Court (1652) to prefect of Shuntian, he became governor of Sichuan at the start of 1664. Sichuan lay nearly empty after the late-Ming wars, and he memorialized that settlers be recruited to reclaim it, with promotion for any civil or military official who brought in a hundred households and opened ten qing of land; the ministry adopted the plan. In 1671 the court set rules for settling migrants in Sichuan, with land tax deferred for five years. The migration that followed later came to be called 'Huguang fills Sichuan'. Reappointed governor in 1674, he defended Guangyuan during the Revolt of the Three Feudatories, was impeached for abandoning the city and dismissed, and died in 1683.
Life and times
Dates Birth year unknown; entered office 1652, died 1683
- 1668Huguang Fills SichuanTook part
- 1668Zhang Dedi Proposes Settlers for Sichuan