In 1728, after a series of setbacks against Kublai Khan's invading Yuan (1271-1368) army, the newly enthroned eight year old emperor and remnants of the Song Court set sail for the current-day Four Counties area to seek refuge there, and set up camp in Yamen (崖门). The enemy Yuan forces soon followed. Knowing that they could not match the Mongol army on land, the Song command decided to take the battle to the  sea and built a formidable formation by chaining its fleet of over a thousand boats together on the open water. On the sixth day of the second Moon in the year 1279, the Yuan fleet launched its attack. The battle raged for days and the Yuan army finally broke the Song formation. Sensing defeat, the  young emperor committed suicide, along with much of the royal clan. Historians ascribed this day as the official end of the Southern Song Dynasty (南宋 1127-1279).

Historians long speculated that the Hu Fei legend (胡妃之祸) was a convenient way for the dispersed Song royalist  remnants to hide their identities. Family histories were recorded hundreds of years after the Hu Fei exodus when their descendants had settled down and become prosperous. However, by then many years had past. Memory of their coming to the Four Counties were faded by the passage of time and only the Hu Fei legend endured.

As a result of war and natural disaster, immigration dribbled into the Four Counties area starting as early as the Sui Dynasty (581-618) and turned into a flood by the late Southern Song period. Descendants of this influx, joining the natives and earlier arrivals,  farmed the hilly frontier land together. Due to the passage of time, these people acquired the Four Counties (四邑) group identity. Their language, developed in relative isolation, evolved into what come to be known as the Four Counties dialect family, which is a distinct branch of the Yue language.

Fast forward 600 years later, the Four Counties descendants were on the move again. The Manchu Qing  (清 16444-1912) empire was crumbling. War and famine had devastated their land and they again looked for a new frontier. From Hong Kong to Southeast Asia,  Australia/Oceania, and Europe, emigration exploded. Above all,  across the Pacific to North America and  the land of the Flowery Flag (花旗), the gleaming Golden Mountain beckoned the adventurous. This time, their new frontier was the entire world.

They brought their language with them. Their rural and unpretentious tone became the lingua franca of the Chinatowns dotted across America. Up until the late 60's, a Mandarin-speaking student looking for part-time work at  a Chinatown restaurant might still be shocked by the unexpected reply: