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In a village in Chengbu Miao Autonomous County in southwestern Hunan Province, there is an ancestral hall with a gray brick and concrete structure built during the Longqing period of the Ming Dynasty. It is very prominent in mountain ethnic areas where wooden structure buildings are the mainstay. The villagers surnamed Lan claimed that they were descendants of Lan Yu, the founding minister of the Ming Dynasty, and wrote the four characters "Lanyu's Hometown" on the back wall of the ancestral hall. According to "Records of Taizu", Lan Yu is from Dingyuan, Anhui Province. Why do the Miao people in Hunan claim that they are descendants of Lan Yu? What kind of identity do they have with the Miao ethnic group while claiming that they are descendants of Lan Yu? The study of this book is to reveal the changes and continuation of the social structure and its mechanisms through in-depth observation of such a Miao village and clan with a long history, and to use this as a basis to discuss the issue of ethnic identity.