Legend has it that in 1272, imperial concubine Hu Fei (胡妃, pronounced [vu22 fi33] in Taishanese) fled the Emperor's palace with an unwitting merchant. They went to live in the frontier town of Pearl Lane in the Nanxiong (南雄珠玑巷) District. After Hu Fei's true identity was revealed, the merchant abandoned her. Alone and unable to fend for herself, Hu was captured and died in the hands of a band of bandits. Some time later, the Emperor missed Hu and sent out search parties. Upon the Emperor's learning of her murder, rumors ran rampant that the Emperor would destroy the entire town to avenge Hu's death. The frightened residents of Pearl Lane, many of them recent immigrants from central China, elected Gui (阿貴) as their leader and fled south. There were a total of 97 families under Gui and they settled in areas of present day Si Yi (四邑, the Four Counties). Today, many residents of Taishan can trace their roots back to these 97 families. In Taishanese folklore, this exodus is known as the Calamity of the Imperial Concubine Hu (胡妃之祸).

Although details vary, the legend is widely held among many Cantonese speaking communities outside of the Four Counties area as well, with Hu Fei assumed roles ranging from tragic beauty to daring heroine.

My ancestry can be traced back to one of these families. According to our family record, I am the twenty-eighth generation in descent from a Li who first set foot on the Four Counties in 1272. Today, there are about 100,000 Li's in Taishan alone and the majority of them claim to share the same ancestry.

These were turbulent times. Four years after the exodus, Kublai Khan's Mongolian army crossed the Yangtze River and captured the then capital city of Lin An. In 1279, remnants of the Song court arrived at Yamen (崖门), and there, in the heart of Four Counties on the very edge of the empire, they would make their last stand in a battle come to be known as the Sea Battle of Yamen (崖门海战) -- a watershed event that has long been speculated by historians as the cause behind the widespread of the Hu Fei legend. It is also how my maternal ancestor, an officer of the Song court, first set foot on the Four Counties.

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