Emperor and Beggars: The Origin of Fengyang Drum Dance

Fengyang, a county in East China's Anhui Province, is well known for the "Fengyang Drum dance," which used to be a dance-song performed by poor wandering musicians and dancers in the streets. It has exerted great influences nationwide on various types of dramas ranging from Beijing Opera to Min Opera in East China's Fujian Province.

Concerning the origin, the story goes like this: Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), was born in Fengyang County, but his blessing did not smile upon people as they had hoped.

The local people at that time were plagued by consecutive wars and famines year after year, and consequently were so impoverished that some people had to feed themselves through begging in the neighboring areas.

They usually begged from door to door in pairs, with one beating the drum, the other beating the gong, and both chanting the sorrowful ditty: "Rich families sell their mules. Poor families sell daughters and sons. Our families have no children to sell. We walk the streets and beat our drums." Therefore, "Fengyang Drum Dance" became synonymous with extreme poverty.

However, even when having a bountiful harvest year, many people continued to beg outside of Fengyang. Why? It is because Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, arbitrarily wielding his imperial power, ordered the migration of 140,000 wealthy households in the neighboring richer areas into Fengyang.

Not allowed to go back to their native places, these immigrants had to find a way to return to visit their relatives and pay respects to their ancestors at their tombs, and so disguised themselves as beggars and beat the drum along the way.

Poignant as it was, Fengyang people begged their way well down into the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and even shortly before the foundation of the People's Republic of China (1949) Fengyang drum dance to almost every part of China.

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