As an administrative region, the word Huguang appeared in the Yuan Dynasty and was called Huguang Province, which was directly under the first-level administrative region of the Yuan Dynasty. It is also called Huguang Province for short, including Guangdong and Guangxi.

Map of Huguang in Ming Dynasty (Historical Map of China and Taiwan)

Hunan and Hubei were Huguang provinces, and they were divided and ruled until the third year of Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty (1664). To the south of Dongting Lake is the political department of Hunan and Changsha, the provincial capital. The north is the Hubei Political Department and Wuchang, the capital of Hubei Province. In this way, the original Huguang provinces basically formed the situation of today's four provinces of Hunan, Hubei and Guangdong.

Extended data

In fact, Hunan and Hubei love is a family. After the Han Dynasty divided 13 states, both Hunan and Hubei belonged to Jingzhou. Please note that Jingzhou was not a city at that time, but a huge jurisdiction. Yangzhou, including several southeast provinces. With the changes of history, the two lakes have experienced several rounds of changes.

After the Yuan Dynasty unified the world, the provincial system was established. At that time, Huguang Province was established, which means the vast area south of Dongting Lake. At that time, the jurisdiction of Huguang Province was very large, including Hunan, Hubei, Guizhou, Guangxi, Hainan and the western part of Guangdong Province.

In other words, Huguang Province in that year was equivalent to the sum of six provincial jurisdictions. After the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, although it gradually established the rule of the whole country, the Qing emperor was very insecure about his rule and always worried about being driven back to his hometown in Northeast China. The jurisdiction of some provinces is very large, and the Qing emperor is very worried. Once government officials have the heart of disobedience, it is not without opportunities for the government.

In order to nip the threat in the bud, the Qing emperor decided to separate some provinces with very large jurisdiction. Jiangnan province is divided into Jiangsu Province and Anhui Province, and Shaanxi Province is divided into Gansu Province and Shaanxi Province. As for Huguang Province, Dongting Lake is divided into Hunan and Hubei.