Local activism and state society relationship in northwest china

Introduction

This is a study of state-society relations in a place in northwest China in the
late imperial period. In the historical studies done on imperial China, one paramount
issue that has captured the attention of historians for decades is the relationship
between the state and the society. Early studies dealing with the roles of “gentry” tried
to understand how the imperial state connected and maintained a stranglehold of the
local society via a group of degree holding elites, whose identities made them both
members of the state bureaucratic system, and leaders of the local communities1.
Building upon the findings done on these works, Philip Kuhn examined the
militarization of the Chinese society in the 19th century and argued that the drastic
changes in the relationship between the state and the local society after the Taiping
Rebellion eventually led to the decline and downfall of Qing empire2. Despite having
varied concerns, all these early western scholarships focused a lot of attention to the
issue of state-society relationship. However, most of the approaches in these studies
looked at the relations from the “national” perspective, and generally did not give too
much attention to the variations that could exist between different localities. This
situation changed after Hilary Beattie published her study on Tongcheng County in
Anhui, where she tried to convince the earlier scholars who were more concerned
with degree holdings that land and lineages were equally important in the

1

T'ung-tsu Ch'ü, Local Government in China under the Ch’ing (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1962); Chung-li Chang, The Chinese Gentry: Studies in their Role in Nineteenth Century Chinese
society (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1970); Ping-ti Ho, The Ladder of Success in Imperial
China; Aspects of Social Mobility 1868-1911 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962).
2
Philip Kuhn, Rebellion and its Enemies in Late Imperial China: Militarization and Social Structure,
1796-1864 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970).

1


maintenance of gentry’s dominance3. In this study, Beattie clearly highlighted the
importance of the examination of a particular place over a lengthy period of time so as
to avoid “the perils of generalizing broadly from a wider range of scattered and
somewhat unsystematically collected evidence”4. Although Beattie realized the
significance of using a particular locality as a case study, her study was still an
attempt to understand the class of “gentry”. Scholars only began to understand the
significance of studying local history after Robert Hymes published his
groundbreaking research on Fuzhou in an attempt to support Robert Hartwell’s
nationally-focused research. Hartwell contended for a fundamental shift towards
localism in the Southern Song based on the disintegration of “professional elite” into
the more locally orientated “gentry”5. With a similar hypothesis in mind, Hymes
conducted an in-depth analysis of the family strategies of Fuzhou elites in the Song
dynasty, and realized that there was a distinctive change in their focus from the
national level to the local level during the Northern-Southern Song transition. This
change in focus in their strategies was what Hymes labeled as the rise of elite localism,
and it was basically a result of a transformation in state-society relations brought
about by the dynastic change6. Hymes’ effort not only highlighted the importance of
examining state-society relationship from a “local” perspective, but also demonstrated
how the methodological approach of using a sample locality to study state-society
relationship can reveal a different insight to the issue. After the publication of this
work, scholars began to take interest in the study of local history as they sought to

3

Hilary Beattie, Land and Lineage in China: A Study of T’ung-Ch’eng County, Anhwei, in the Ming
and Ch’ing Dynasties (New York: Cambridge University Press 1979).
4

Beattie, Land and Lineage in China, p.1.
5
Robert M. Hartwell, “Demographic, Political, and Social Transformations of China, 750-1550,”
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies Vol.42 no.2, 1982, pp.365-442.bridge: Harvard University Press,
1970).
6
Robert Hymes, Statesmen and Gentlemen: The Elite of Fu-chou, Chiang-his, in Northern and
Southern Sung (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

2


comprehend the relationship between the imperial state and the local societies in
different localities. The differences among localities were also specifically highlighted
as the paradigmatic concept of understanding China as a whole gradually became
obsolete.
As the research on local history developed further in the last decade of the previous

century, two inter-related lines of enquiry branched out from the study of state-society
relations. The first is the study of social space, specifically the availability of an
autonomous space at local level for out-of-office elites to operate in. The emergence
of this space is usually the result of a shift in the balance of state-society relationship,
as a withdrawal of state influence at the local level is bound to create vacuums in need
of filling up. The out-of-office elites, who were acting as the social leaders of local
communities, stepped into these vacuums during the various dynastic periods and
acquire this relatively autonomous space which allowed them to make various
contributions to the community at local levels. Hymes and Schirokauer called this
space the “middle level” that existed between the family and the state, where Southern
Song Neo-Confucianist thinkers designed bottom up schemes and proposed local
institutions like private academies and community granaries as alternatives to the

governmental institutions initiated by the centralized government of the Northern
Song7. Similarity, another group of scholars, inspired by the theories of Jurgen
Habermas, argued for the expansion of an extra-bureaucratic “public sphere” between
the “state” and “private” during the post Taiping Rebellion8. Mary Rankin, in her
study of Zhejiang Province, demonstrated the decisive shift in the balance between
the state and the elite society, which gave rise to a public sphere in which elites at the
7

Robert Hymes and Conrad Schirokauer, Ordering the World: Approaches to State and Society in
Sung Dynasty China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp.24-27.
8
William T. Rowe, “The Public Sphere in Modern China,” Modern China Vol.16 no.3, July 1990, pp.
309-329.

3


top of the structures outside the bureaucracy sought to manage areas of community
interests in their capacities as social leaders9. William Rowe made a similar tripartite
division in his study of Hankow City, as he looked into public involvements of
gentries and merchants in areas such as water conservancy, urban street repairs and
philanthropic activities10. Despite the use of different terminologies to describe these
spaces, all these studies acknowledged their existence in different periods in Chinese
history, and also contributed to enhancing our understanding of the actual activities
which the local elites engaged in when there is a shift in balance of state-society
relationships.
The second line of enquiry that extended from early studies of state-society
relationship is the study of local identity. Scholarships dealing with this issue are
generally interested in looking out for a collective consciousness that existed among
groups of local men that saw them identifying themselves with a particular locality.

The formations, transformations, and variations of local identities in different
historical periods were given much attention as researchers sought to understand the
ideological basis behind the social phenomenon of elite localism observed in earlier
studies. Initially, scholars were rather dubious that local identities were highly valued
by most of the elites in imperial China. In his study of Taihe County, John Dardess
made an attempt to undermine the study of local history when he highlighted the
connections between the appeal for a local identity and the benefits it could bring at
the national level. He contrasted the attitudes of the Taihe literati towards their
hometown between the early Ming and late Ming, and noted that the local identity

9

Mary Rankin, Elite Activism and Political Transformation in China: Zhejiang Province, 18651911(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986).
10
William T. Rowe, Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796-1889(Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1984).

4


discourse was seen emphasized in the fifteen century simply because it was
accompanied with bureaucratic success, which in turn brought benefits to the local
man aiming for national success. Dardess observed that identification to the locality
gradually disappeared as Taihe men ceased to be successful in the national scenes and
this observation prompted him to conclude that the local could only be meaningful
when considered in relation to the national.11 In one of the most representative works
dealing with local identity, Peter Bol convincingly countered this argument by making
a claim that the local identity discourse did not disappear from Taihe towards the end
of the Ming dynasty, but instead underwent a change in the scope of discourse. With
his own research on Jinhua Prefecture, Bol revealed the importance of local identity to

local elites. He argued that local identity discourses were not only important in the
local level as means to transform local society, but were also equally important as
they functioned to increase the locale’s participation in national life12. Bol also
demonstrated the variations between the local identities formed in the same locality
but different time period as he contrasted the Song and the Ming’s variation of local
identity among Jinhua men. This no doubt serves to remind us of the intimate
connection between state-society relationships and the formation of local identities.
After the publication of these works, scholars began to conduct more studies to
examine the local identity discourses in various places. Some of the more
representative works dealing with this issue include the studies done on the Ji’an
Prefecture by Anne Gerritsen13, Yangzhou by Antonia Finnane14, and Guangzhou by

11

John W, Dardess, A Ming society: T'ai-ho County, Kiangsi, fourteenth to seventeenth centuries
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).
12
Peter Bol, “The ‘Localist Turn’ and ‘Local Identity’ in Later Imperial China,” Late Imperial China
Vol.24 no.2, 2003, pp.1-50.
13
Anne Gerritsen, Ji'an Literati and the Local in Song-Yuan-Ming China (Leiden: Brill, 2007).
14
Antonia Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou: A Chinese City, 1550-1850 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard
University Asia Center, 2004).

5


Steven Miles15. All these works put much emphasis into the examination of collective
consciousness formed among elites of their respective localities, and contribute to

improve our understanding of state-society relationship in a different perspective.
From the series of work reviewed, the three paramount issues in the study of
local history in late imperial China were thoroughly discussed by various scholars
since the last decade of previous century. However, it is not hard to observe that most
of the localities examined in these studies are concentrated in south China. This
resulted in a severe North-South imbalance in the field of local history, with an
apparent lack of local history research on the northern half of the country. Some
exceptions to the trend include studies done on the rural regions of north China by
Prasenjit Duara16, a region defined as Huang-Yun by Kenneth Pomeranz17, the
northeastern regions of the Henan province by Roger Des Forges18, and more recently
Guanzhong region in the Shaanxi province by Chang Woei Ong19. These academic
works provide us with important insights about state-society relationships in different
time periods in north China. However, it is clear that the subjects studied in these
works are dealing with localities either at the provincial or at the prefecture level;
there is still an apparent lack in research studying the lower level localities in the
north China. Although treating these regional areas with a certain degree of
uniformity proves beneficial for the sake of analytical purposes, it runs the risk of
concealing a lot of variations that could exist between different arenas at the lower

15

Steven Miles, The Sea of Learning: Mobility and Identity in Nineteenth-Century Guangzhou
(Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006).
16
Duara, Prasenjit. Culture, power, and the state: rural North China, 1900-1942 (Stanford, California:
Stanford University Press, 1988).
17
Kenneth Pomeranz, The Making of a Hinterland: State, Society, and Economy in Inland North China,
1853-1937 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
18

Roger Des Forges, Cultural Centrality and Political Change in Chinese History: Northeast Henan in
the Fall of the Ming (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2003).
19
Chang Woei Ong, Men of Letters Within the Passes: Guanzhong Literati in Chinese History, 9071911 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Asia Center, 2008).

6


levels. As demonstrated in the conference volume studying the activities of local
elites in their local spaces, the local arenas in which the majority of the elites could
operate in were only limited to the county level or below, which include market towns
and villages20. Their studies no doubt alert us to the importance of returning to “lower
level” locals after the researches at the higher level have been completed. As such,
this thesis seeks to address the issue of the lack in local history studies conducted on
north China by looking at the state-society relationship in a small county located in

涇陽縣. We will also take a
look at a market town in the county—Luqiao zhen 魯橋鎮—at some point in the
the central part of Shaanxi province—Jingyang County

studies, and attempt to understand the tripartite relationships between the elites
residing in this town, the local elites who were dominating at the county level, and the
state representatives assigned to this town.
The question that arises next: why select Jingyang among all the counties
available in north China? There are a couple of reasons: first, it is our intention to
choose a locality within a region which had already been previously studied. In this
manner, we will have a general understanding of the situation in the region prior to
our study, and can also have the opportunity to make comparisons between the county
and the region whenever applicable. Therefore, we decided to make our selection in
the central Shaanxi province, where the state-society relationships in the Guanzhong

region during the late imperial periods had recently been thoroughly studied21. The
risk of an overlap is, however, hugely reduced because Ong was more concerned with
the larger region that stretched across the central area of the Shaanxi province and
generally did not pay much attention to the individual counties in this region, much
20

Joseph Esherick and Mary Backus Rankin, Chinese local elites and patterns of dominance (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1990), p10.
21
Ong, Men of Letters Within the Passes.

7


like the other studies on north China. The second reason for selecting Jingyang
County as the subject of our study is the county’s resemblance to a “typical” county in
the northwestern region of China. Although we had previously stressed on the
importance of examining the variations that could exist between the “lower level”
localities, it is also in our intention to select a locality that was relatively typical of the
other localities in the same region. This is in contrary to the practices seen in many
local history studies conducted previously, whereby scholars were particularly
concerned with localities which were renowned for having prominent high-ranking
officials or literati with national fame, strong localized scholarship traditions or
exceptionally large number of metropolitan degree holders22. However, as the aim of
this study is to understand the relationships between the state and the local society in a
“common” north China county, precautions were taken to avoid picking a locality
which was exceptionally outstanding in producing national figures and therefore
differed significantly from the typical situation in the region in focus. Jingyang was
selected due to its lack of remarkable characteristics displayed from the initial
screening conducted on the county gazetteers. The sources led us to believe that it was

a prototype of a “typical county” in the region as the county was neither able to boast
of a high level of metropolitan examination success rate, nor produce many prominent
scholars, thinkers, high-ranking officials or even religious leaders that became
nationally renowned across the span of the Ming and the Qing. Yet, among all the
“typical counties” in the region, Jingyang caught our attention because of the rich
amounts of well-preserved primary sources that are still available to us today. These

22

For example, Robert Hymes’ selection of Fuzhou was partly because it was the hometown of Wang
Anshi and Lu Jiuyuan during the two Song dynasties, see Hymes, Statesmen and Gentlemen, p10; John
Dardess’ selection of Taihe county was primary due to the large number of high ranking Taihe men
who dominated the early ‘s court, see Dardess, A Ming society; Peter Bol’s selection of Jinhua
Prefecture boils down to the strong localised Daoxue tradition that was prominent in the locality, see
Bol, “The ‘Localist Turn’ and ‘Local Identity’ in Later Imperial China”.

8


sources include several editions of county gazetteer, one market town gazetteer, and a
whole series of literati’s writings. The availability of these local writings made this
place a suitable and valuable locality for an in-depth local historical study. Therefore,
taking all these factors into consideration, Jingyang County became the obvious
choice for this study.
In order to understand this county in northwestern China, this thesis will be
divided into four chapters to trace the changes of state-society relations across four
different historical periods. As the title suggest, this study will concentrate on the
Ming and the Qing dynasties. The main reason to do so is because most of the
primary sources that are still available today were written during this period; we can
hardly locate any writings from the place that are dated prior to the Ming. Despite

only dealing with the two dynasties, there is still a need to break down this long
period of more than 500 years into shorter ones during the course of our analysis.
Peter Bol had reminded us with his discussion of “localist turn” that the relationship
between state and society is highly fluid and basically changes throughout different
stages of a dynasty. He saw distinct patterns whereby early state building and
centralizing efforts of the state in the early period of the dynasty was bound to follow
eventually by an era of government withdrawal, giving way to a rise of localism23.
Keeping this framework in mind, the four chapters of this study will each deal with a
specific period of historical importance, selected in order to emphasize the transition
of localism that took place within the Ming and the Qing. The first chapter will deal
with the “localist turn” that took place in the Ming dynasty, roughly from the 1480s to
the end of the dynasty. In this period, there was a graduate shift in balance of power
away from the state, giving rise to an expansion of the sphere in which the local elites
23

Bol, “The ‘Localist Turn’ and ‘Local Identity’ in Later Imperial China”, p.4.

9


could operate in. However, we will also argue in this chapter that despite being given
more freedom in public scenes, the Jingyang elites were never given unrestricted
access to handle all the local projects in the county. They were required to work
closely with the state representatives assigned to the county in order to accomplished
most of the projects. For the second chapter, the attention will turn to the early Qing
period where an apparent decrease in the intensity of elite’s activism was observed.
The change in ruling house was accompanied by revitalized vigor among their
representatives, as most of the public projects in this period were accomplished by the
local officials. We will also look into some of the projects initiated by Jingyang men
during this period, and argue that the loss of financial ability due to the poor economic

climate might have contributed to the regression of local activism. The third chapter
deals with the Qianlong period, where a resurgence of local elite activism in the
county took place as the economic situation of the region improved. However, with
the state and its local representatives still very much active and in control, a new type
of relationship between the state representatives and the local men were formed.
Although local men were given more opportunities to contribute in the local scenes,
our study will reveal that the newly formed cooperative relationship was simply one
which functioned to enable local officials to tap into the local resources available. Yet,
eager to regain their roles in local scenes, Jingyang men gladly took up these
supplementary roles, which laid down the foundation to a new rise of localism in the
late Qing period. The last chapter will review the “localist turn” that took place from
the 18th century to the end of the Qing dynasty. As the state power of the Qing empire
began to decline, we can expect a growing number of local projects being taken over
by the increasingly active local elites. This ultimately led to a new height of localism
in the county, whereby an unprecedented large numbers of local projects were

10


accompanied by local men. Our study will also reveal that the local officials did not
retreat entirely from the local scene, as they were seen almost equally as active as
local men in the participation of local projects. However, the actual roles that they
played in these projects had changed drastically, and this reflected the change in the
balance of state-society relationships in the time of a state withdrawal.
To sum up, it should be clear by now that our chapters deal with the changes
of state-society relations in a locality across different periods in the Ming and Qing
dynasties. Although studies on local history had always placed emphasis on the
fluidity of state-society relationships, not many studies up to date have made
conscious efforts to look at the intricate changes that occur in a locality over relatively
shorter time periods. For example, Peter Bol was more concerned with the different

nature of local identity that was formed among Jinhua men between the Song and the
Ming24, while Ong emphasized the changes of state and society relationships in
Guanzhong across three periods from the Song to Qing, without making detailed
division and differentiation to the Ming-Qing dynasties in his discussion25. Our study
hopes to highlight that even within a period of less than a hundred years, the statesociety relationships could change drastically in a locality. The different historical
circumstances in the different time periods will result in different sets of state-society
relationships. At the local level, the interactions and collaborations between the state
representatives and local men changed; the social space available for elites to operate
in altered; the level of local activism fluctuated; the types of local projects local men
engaged in varied. These intricate changes should not be overlooked, and our study on
the local projects accomplished in the various periods should alert us to the

24
25

Bol, “The ‘Localist Turn’ and ‘Local Identity’ in Later Imperial China.
Ong, Men of Letters Within the Passes, pp. 132-202.

11


significance of investigating the transition of state-society relations over relatively
shorter historical periods.
There is a second point to this study: the investigation of the roles played by
local officials assigned to this county in different periods. The interactions between
the state and the local societies involved two parties: local officials and local elites.
However, in most of the recent local history studies, the spotlight was shone on the
local elites. Scholars were eager to understand the formation of their local identities or
research on their activism at the local level, exploring the strategies that they
employed to maintain their dominance on the local scenes. On the other hand, the

roles played by local officials in these localities had been largely neglected and
relegated to secondary importance in most studies. This lack of scholarship attention
cannot be rightfully justified, and by looking closely at how the local officials
interacted with Jingyang men in different periods, we hope to bring awareness that
local officials in fact played significant roles in local societies, at least in the region of
our concern. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to study state-society relationships
and local activism in isolation of these state representatives, and we hope that this
study can bring more attention to this aspect in the field of local history.

12


Chapter 1: The “Localist Turn” in Jingyang County during
the Ming Period

In his study of Guanzhong, Chang Woei Ong argued convincingly that
Guanzhong literati grew concerned about forming their own localized tradition of
Daoxue after the 16th century, signifying a gradual formation of a unique local
identity among the elites in the area. 26 This phenomenon no doubt coincides with the
trend coined by Peter Bol, known as the “localist turn”, whereby the corrosion of the
statist enterprise of the Ming founding led to a rise of localism after the 1480s27 – a
development similar in nature but different in form to what Robert Hymes described
as the rise of localism in the Southern Song. 28 Ong’s work not only confirmed such a
trend in northwest China, but also systemized the study of localism, by proposing the
usage of two sets of binaries—official/unofficial and national/local. These binaries
clearly differentiate the two notions of localism, with the former referring to the
availability of a space for nonofficial elites to operate with a certain degree of
autonomy, and the latter referring to the presence of a consciousness that sees elites
identifying themselves with a particular locality. However, as he was demonstrating
the localist turn in Mid-Ming Guanzhong with the discussion of local identity and the

formation of Guanxue, he seemed to focus on the intellectual sphere, concentrating
more on the discussion of consciousness than on the notion of space. The question
that deserves further consideration here is if this formation of local consciousness was
accompanied by the appearance of an autonomous social space, giving more
26

Ong, Men of Letters Within the Passes, pp. 132-202.
Bol, “The ‘Localist Turn’ and ‘Local Identity’ in Later Imperial China”, pp.15-25.
28
Hymes, Statesmen and Gentlemen.
27

13


opportunities for the elites to operate at the local level. Did the elites capitalize this
space and increase their participations in local matters? Can an intensification of local
activism be observed during this period? Using Ong’s framework, a literati with a
strong “local” identity does not automatically pair up with his preference for a space
for unofficial initiatives.29 Hence, in order to fully analyze the relationship between
the state and the local society during the latter half of the Ming dynasty, there is a
need to look deeper into the social sphere. This is the main aim of this chapter, and
keeping in mind that the Guanzhong identity was already in the formative stage
during this period, we will scrutinize Jingyang County to show that there was a clear
intensification of elites’ participation in local public matters after Mid-Ming. The
nature of elite’s activities will also be analyzed to reveal that not all public matters
were accessible to local elites, demonstrating the restriction of this revitalization of
elite activism, a restriction that lasted until the Qianlong period in the Qing dynasty,
which will be discussed further in Chapter 3.
In order to detect the change in the intensity of local activism, two types of

sources will be used: local gazetteers and the writings of local elites. The records
found in the county gazetteer can be particularly valuable as we began our study by
examining the distribution of elite’s participation in public matters throughout Ming
dynasty. A comparison will then be made to demonstrate the difference in the nature
of public work sponsored by the local officials and the Jingyang nonofficial elites,
once again utilizing the rich resources found in the gazetteers. Lastly, two case studies
will be carried out on Li Jin

李錦 (jinshi 1446) and Wang Zheng 王徵 (1571-1644, js

1622), with the aim of showcasing the local contributions they made, as well as

29

Ong, Men of Letters Within the Passes, p.210.

14


revealing some of the restrictions that these Jingyang figures might have possibly
faced in their efforts to leave a mark in their hometown.

The Distribution and Nature of Jingyang Elite’s Local Activities
throughout the Ming Dynasty

To analyze the autonomous social space that appeared during the mid-Ming
period, we will need to look at the expansion of the elite’s role in the society. As
demonstrated by Robert Hymes in his groundbreaking work done on Fuzhou, areas
such as marriage network, temple building, bridge building, local defense, charitable
estates and benevolent societies can be examined to reveal the changes in family

strategy adopted by the local elites30. In the case of Jingyang County, we can extract
these information from two editions of County gazetteers compiled. The first was
written by Jingyang scholar Li Jin in the Hongzhi era (1488-1505), with the records
updated to 1493. However, this edition was only published in 1547 by Jingyang
magistrate Lian Yingkui

連應魁 (selected student 1532), updated with new prefaces

and two new chapters.31 The subsequent gazetteer compiled was by Jingyang scholar
Wei Xuezeng

魏學曾 (1525-1596, js 1553) during the Wanli era (1573-1620), but this

version was lost during the Qing dynasty and is no longer available to us today. What
we have is the edition compiled by Jingyang magistrate Wang Jiyou

王際有 (jinshi

1647) in 1670, which was an update based on the work done by Wei Xuezeng.32
Through this gazetteer, we can in fact get a very clear picture of the local elite’s
activities that took place in Ming Jingyang, although the strong statist view of Wang
30

Hymes, Statesmen and Gentlemen, pp. 136-209.
1547Jiajing Jingyang xianzhi
(Beijing: Quanguo tushu guan weisuo wenxian fuzhi
zhongxin
, 1992).
32
1670 Jingyang xianzhi

(Kangxi jiu nian keben
).
31

嘉靖涇陽县志
全國圖書館微縮文獻複製中心
涇陽县志

康熙九年刻本

15


might have caused him to omit certain information, an issue for which we will come
back again later on in the chapter.
With these two gazetteers, we can gain insights to the local public works
which the Jingyang elites had participated in. To see the general trend, all the records
on public works involving the leadership, participation or sponsoring by local elites in
the Ming dynasty were noted and summarized according to the date of events into
Table 1. Public works such as famine relief, organization of local defense, restoration
of dams, compilation of local gazetteers, building of temples, as well as founding of
charitable estates, schools and benevolent societies are all accounted for in this table.
We can see at a glance that a vast majority of the events took place after the 1480s.
Keeping in mind that the Ming dynasty was founded in 1368, it is especially striking
that in the first hundred year of the Ming dynasty, the local elites in Jingyang County
were seemingly not engaging themselves in any local contributions. Take the first
entry in Table 1 for example, the entry in the gazetteer did not explicitly state the time
period where Zhao Jing

趙敬 (n.d.) made donations of grains, medicine and coffins in

a year where there was a drought. What was mentioned was that Zhao, was a

散官) due to his contributions in times of

commoner, was given a prestige title (

adverse situations. It was also remarked that his grandson received a provincial degree
in 1414, firmly confirming that Zhao was a Jingyang figure in the early Ming33. What
we might be seeing here is a relatively well-to-do commoner, who tried to climb up
the social ladder by making monetary contributions in times of natural disasters. He
would be deemed to be fairly successful as his descendent did become a degree holder
and entered the ranks of literati. The cases of Cao Yan

曹儼 (n.d.) and Cao Ke 曹恪

(n.d.) in the 1430s were pretty much similar to that of Zhao; the brothers from
33

1670 Jingyang xianzhi , juan 7 renwu, p. 50b.

16


[Table 1: List of Local Public Matters involving Jingyang Elites in the Ming Dynasty]

Date

Nature of Local contribution

Name of contributor

Social status

Description

Remarks

Pre-1414

Famine Relief

Zhao Jing

Commoner

Donation of Grains, Medicine and Coffins

Grandson received Juren in 1414

1436-42

Famine Relief

Cao Yan

Commoner

Donation of Grains (1000shi )

Received insignia of merit in1442

1436-42

Famine Relief

Cao Que

Commoner

Donation of Grains (1000shi )

Received insignia of merit in1442

1460-80

Restoration of School

Feng Guan

Official

Proposed and led the reconstruction of local academy

1490

Water Works

Li Jin

Metropolitan Graduate

Led proposal for opening of dam in County

Chang Gong Dam

1493

Compilation of Local Gazetteer

Li Jin

Metropolitan Graduate

Wrote and Compiled County Gazetteer

Records updated to 1493

1557

Restoration of Shrine

Various Village Leaders

Various

Restoration of Shrine after Earthquake

1565-90

Education

Luo Zun

Metropolitan Graduate

Donation of Books and Funds to County academy

Son received Jinshi in 1583

1578

Compilation of Local Gazetteer

Wei Xuezeng

Metropolitan Graduate

Wrote and Compiled County Gazetteer

Lost after Kang Xi era

1598-?

Construction of Ancestral Shrine

Wu Wenda

Metropolitan Graduate

Building and Maintance of Ancestral Shrine

1598-?

Setting up of Charitable Estate

Wu Wenda

Metropolitan Graduate

Building and Maintance of Charitable Estate

1615-20

Famine Relief

Yao Yuxi

Military Selectee

Donation of Grains and Coffins

1618-40

Local Defense/Famine Relief

Zhao Siqi

Metropolitan Graduate

Fortification of Town/Training of Local Yong

1621-27

Famine Relief

Ren Shaozeng

Government student

Donation of Gold and Grains

1629

Local Defense

Wang Zheng

Metropolitan Graduate

Leader of Local Militia

1629

Local Defense

Cheng Jitai

Metropolitan Graduate

Organisation of Local Militia

1628-44

Local Defense

Zhao Youwu

Tribute Student

Leader of defense in Yun Yang Town

1634

Founding of Charitable Organisation

Wang Zheng

Metropolitan Graduate

Setting uo ofBenevolent Society

1644

Local Defense

Wang Zuo

Government student

Leader of Local Militia against rebellion

?

Temple Restoration

Zhu E

Official

Sponsored temple restoration

Guan Yin Hall

?

Temple Restoration

Xue Xiang

Unknown

Sponsored temple restoration

Hall of the Stone Buddha

?

Temple Restoration

Various Village Leaders

Nil

Sponsored temple restoration

Guan Yin Hall

Reference

义行
制诰
制诰
传
记
志序
记
墓志
志序
宦业
宦业
义行
义行
义行
墓志
义行
义行
墓志
义行
建置

建置
建置
17


Jingyang County were rich commoners who each donated 1000 shi of grains during a
period of drought. Both of them were rewarded with insignia of merit in 144234. Cao
Yan’s son, Cao Ben

曹本 (n.d.) was also rewarded with a stone plaque by the local

official when he responded to an edict and donated 500 shi of grains to the
government35. These were the only three cases of local contributions by Jingyang
figures during the first half of Ming dynasty, and as we had seen, they cannot exactly
be interpreted as local elites trying to expand their roles in the society, but rather
commoners trying to enter the ranks of local elites. Even more striking is that the
edition of county gazetteer that provided us with these information was compiled by
Li Jin during a period when the localist turn was gradually taking place in both
Guanzhong and Jingyang (1480-1500s). Being an active local man himself, Li should
be well informed about the local contributions which his predecessors had made, if
there had been any. Yet, the apparent lack of such records portrayed in his gazetteers
suggests that the lack of activities among local men during the first half of the dynasty
was more of a historical phenomenon rather than a case of preclusion in historical
records.
As we look further down Table 1, we can clearly see the intensification of
elite’s participation in the public realm at the turn of the 16th century. Not only did the
frequency of activities sharply increased, the nature of local projects that the elites
instigated increased in varieties too. Famine relief was no longer the only form of
contribution that the elites made in their home town; projects involving water works,
religious and educational institutions, as well as the organization of local defense all

became their concern. This increase in the scope of public affairs involving the elites

34
35

1547Jiajing Jingyang xianzhi, juan 7 zhigao, pp. 147-8a.
Ibid, juan 3 renwu, p. 57b.

18


signifies the expansion of elite’s role in the society, which in turn points us to the
growing social space available for these nonofficial elites to operate in after the midMing. The devolution of several public functions to the elites, most significantly in
the field of local defense, suggest the declining state power as well as the
degeneration of state’s local agencies towards the end of the dynasty. In the case of
Jingyang, the second and third decade of the 17th century was very much plagued by
natural disasters and peasant revolts. As the central and local government could no
longer handle the massive demands from the various problems, these functions
naturally fell into the hands of the out-of-official elites who were residing in their
hometown during this period. Hence, we can see from the table that most of the eliteinitiated projects recorded during this period revolved around the organization of local
defense and the founding of benevolent societies, with the aim of helping the various
villages tide over the time of distress. Therefore, we can no doubt see a trend in the
case of Jingyang County, where there was an expansion of “unofficial” space after the
16th century: a space where local elites could participate in to improve their leadership
position in the locale. When read together with the formation of local identity among
Guanzhong literati after mid-Ming, we can no doubt conclude that a major shift in the
state-society relationship occurred in this region of China approximately around the
16th century, a change that affected both the intellectual and the social sphere.

The Restriction on Local Elite’s Activism in Ming Dynasty

Although we can see the formation and expansion of the “unofficial space”
through the second half of the Ming dynasty, the existence of such a space did not
19


imply that the state allowed for unlimited and unchecked participation of local elites
in all the various public affairs. There seemed to be some sort of unwritten restrictions,
at least in the Ming dynasty, that precluded the nonofficial elites from sponsoring and
initiating certain public projects. To uncover this restriction, a detailed study on the
nature of local works done by local official needs to be carried out. Table 2
summaries all records found in the two editions of gazetteers relating to the local
public affairs initiated and sponsored by local officials, starting from 1450s. Regional
officials such as the Grand Coordinator of Shaanxi and Concurrent Censor-in-chief

巡抚陕西都御史) are also considered in this table as a large portion of cross-

(

counties water work projects involving Jingyang County were initiated by them.
Other than water works, we can see from Table 2 that the nature of local works
accomplished by Jingyang officials ranged from the restoration of various facilities in
the county seat, to the restoration of the city walls, to organization of local defense.
For the purpose of interpretation, I propose that we separate these officials’
contributions into two categories: the first being the building and restoration of
government institutions and the second one being the contributions in all other local
matters.
As we can see from Table 2, the local officials in Jingyang seemed to busy
themselves mostly with the maintenance and construction of governmental buildings.
These institutions include the county seat offices, the city wall, the Temple to

Confucius as well as the county poorhouse. As these institutions were critical to the
functioning of the local government, the officials assigned to the locale often paid
great attention to these facilities, splashing the majority of their available budget on
the maintenance and upgrading of them. If we compare the works accomplished by
local officials in this category of public affairs to those accomplished by local elites
20


[Table 2: List of Local Public Works Accomplished by Local Official after 1450]

Date

Nature of Local contribution

Name of Local Official

Position Held

Re marks

1450

Restoration of City Wall

Zeng Yu

Magistrate

Repaired the East and West Gates

1450-57

Restoration of Dikes

Pan Min

Registrar

1450-57

Setting up of academy

Pan Min

Registrar

1465-?

Opening of new dam

Xiang Zhong

Grand Coordinator of Shaanxi

1477

Restoration of City Wall

Yu Zijun

Grand Coordinator of Shaanxi

Added North and South Gates

1481

Restoration of Dam

Ruan Qin

Grand Coordinator of Shaanxi

Utilized resources from 5 counties

1489-92

Guang Hui Dam

Founding of County Beadhouse

Chang Heng

Magistrate

1490

Building of Dike

Chang Heng

Magistrate

Chang Gong Dam

1490-1492

Restoration of Government School

Liu Shihe

Magistrate

Refurnished both interior and exterior

1492-1505

Restoration of County Seat

Song Jian

Magistrate

Refurnished whole building

Grand Coordinator of Shaanxi

1506-21

Restoration of Dike

Xiao ?

1547

Publishing of Local Gazetteer

Lian Yingkui

Magistrate

Updated previous version

1547-66

Restoration of County Seat

Qu Jian

Magistrate

Upgraded Front Door

1550-66

Restoration of Grainery

Zhong Dai

Magistrate

1550-66

Restoration of Temple to Confucius

Zhong Dai

Magistrate

1567-72

Upgrading of Grainery

? Ting Nan

Magistrate

1573-?

Restoration of Government School

Fu Haoli

Magistrate

1576

Restoration of Temple to Confucius

Fu Haoli

Magistrate

Added a pond

1629

Local Defence

Lu Zhenfei

Magistrate

Planned Defence Strategy with local elites

1631

Restoration of City Wall

Liang Shichun

Magistrate

Repaired fallen walls

1632

Restoration of Government School

Liang Shichun

Magistrate

Refurnished whole building

1632

Restoration of Temple to Confucius

Liang Shichun

Magistrate

1635

Local Defense

Wang Cheng

Magistrate

Rebuilt after earthquake

Expanded Library

Personally led Local Militia against rebels

Reference

建置
官师志

官师志
水利
建置
水利
建置
记
官师志
建置
水利
官师志
建置
建置
建置
建置
建置
建置
官师志
建置
建置
建置
官师志

21


listed in Table 1, it is not hard to observe that the Jingyang elites in Ming dynasty
were not noted to have contributed in these constructions. As such, the sources lead us
to believe that this category of public works involving the various forms of
governmental institutions was restricted only to local officials; no matter how rich or
locally active the Jingyang elites were, they did not have the privilege of sponsoring

these public works. Even during the last twenty years of the dynasty, when state
power was in serious decline, Jingyang magistrates still managed to make
improvements to the county seat as well as the city wall without engaging the help of
the local elites. This clearly signifies the restriction of this category of public work,
convincing us that the Jingyang elites, despite enjoying a revitalization of local
activism, were never granted unlimited participation in all public matters.
Moving away from the construction of governmental institution, what other
public works did the local officials accomplish in Jingyang? From Table 2, we can see
that local officials were also involved in public works such as water works,
compilation of local gazetteers, setting up of granaries, as well as organization of
local defense. The issue worth highlighting here is that these public works were also
initiated by the local elites, a topic we had discussed in the previous section. The
matter that leaves us pondering is the nature of cooperation in these projects, where
both the local officials and the local elites were involved. How did the two groups
cooperate or even compete as they got involved in the same project? Who assumed
the leadership roles in the event where both parties were present? What were their
relationships and how were the responsibilities distributed? The answers to these
questions can reveal the nature of this category of local works, and we will look into
some of these projects in order to get them. For the rest of this chapter, two Jingyang
figures and their local contributions will be examined, with the aim of revealing the
22


restrictions local elites might have encountered as they tried to participate in local
activities which also involved the participation of local officials.

Gazetteer Compilations and Water Works in Jingyang: Case of Li Jin’s
Involvements

The selection of Li Jin as a figure of case study is a difficult one as we do not

have much information about him, and records of his participation in various projects
are either lost or incomplete. The records of this figure in the gazetteer on the “renwu”
section consisted of only 43 characters36, accompanied by a relatively short tomb

墓表) written by a local named Yang Guozhu 楊国柱 (n.d.)

inscription (

37

. As for

Li’s writings, what we possess is one edition of Jingyang gazetteer without his own
preface, two pieces of record (ji), one regarding the building of a dam in his
hometown38, the other a record of restoration of a temple that did not involve his
participation39, and one poem40. However, a couple of reasons can justify his selection:
the first is that his involvement in local affairs took place around the 1490s, a period
just when the rise of localism was taking place in Jingyang, and the second is that his
involvements happened to be of the same category of public work where the local
officials also participated actively in. Hence, a closer look at the compilation of local
gazetteers and water works in Jingyang County might in fact reveal the relations
between local officials and local elites in the field of public works.
36

1670 Jingyang xianzhi, juan 7 renwu, p. 20a.
Ibid, juan 8 yiwen, pp. 92b-93b.
38
1547Jiajing Jingyang xianzhi, juan 5 shuili, pp. 130-133a.
39
Ibid, juan 11 wen, pp. 258-260a

40
Ibid, juan 13 shi, p.273b.
37

23


As revealed to us based on the limited information available, Li Jin was born
in the Hongzhi era in Changjie Village of Jingyang County, receiving his
metropolitan degree in 1466. He went on with his official duties and was promoted to

南福建道监察御

the position of Investigating Censor of the Southern Fujian Circuit (

史). However, he was eventually removed from office due to rumors spread by his

political opponents, and returned to his hometown where he spent his time “among
the mountains and rivers, drinking wine and reciting poems”. To the best of our
knowledge, his time back in his hometown was not spent entirely on leisure, as much
of his effort was actually put into local public works, most significantly on the
compilation of the earliest edition of Jingyang Gazetteer available to us. As
mentioned earlier, Li Jin’s version of Jingyang Gazetteer did not survive intact
through time. But fortunately, it was republished in 1547 by Jingyang Magistrate Lian
Yingkui, with a new preface written by Jingyang scholar Lü Yingxiang

呂應祥 (jinshi

1532). According to Lü, Li Jin’s version of gazetteer was updated to 1493 and all the
printing blocks were lost. As Lian Yingkui reported to office in Jingyang, he felt the

need to keep local history updated, and set out to gather the remaining few sets of Li
Jin’s gazetteer around the county. With these, he republished Li Jin’s work, adding
two independent chapters at the end of the gazetteer to update the records to 1547.41
This is the set of gazetteer we see today, but unfortunately the two chapters added in
1547 were lost. Hence, what we see today is in fact solely Li Jin’s 1493 work, paired
together with Lü Yingxiang’s 1547 preface.
Although such a source may seem incomplete, it is still possible to discuss and
dissect several issues regarding the local gazetteer compilation in Jingyang. Firstly,
we shall take a look at the roles that the various magistrates played in the county
41

1547Jiajing Jingyang xianzhi, see preface.

24


gazetteer’s compilation. As we do not have any sort of preface or introduction from
the 1493 version of Li Jin’s work, we cannot get any clear indication about the
involvement of the magistrates who were in office during the period of compilation.
However, in his ji regarding the construction of Chang Gong Dam, Li Jin mentioned
that he was familiar with at least two of the magistrates in office during the period,
Chang Heng

暢亨 (n.d.) and Song Jian 宋鑑 (n.d.). If we take a glance at the records

of these two magistrates in the Biographies to the Famous Officials collected in the
gazetteer, it is not difficult to conclude that both officials were very active during their
time in Jingyang. While Chang carried out a project to open a new dam, Song
oversaw the completion of this project after Chang left. Aside from that, Chang
founded the first poorhouse in Jingyang while Song oversaw the refurbishment of the

county seat office building. Between the periods when they were in office, there was
another magistrate on duty by the name of Liu Shi He

劉湜河 (n.d.), who actively

destroyed many temples of inappropriate worship. His contributions also include the
refurbishment of the interior and exterior of the government school. The reason for
stating the achievements of the three magistrates in office during the period when Li
Jin was compiling the gazetteer is to suggest a possible influence or initiation on the
part of these active local officials. This speculation does not seem to be a conclusive
one, as we can find no evidence to back up such a claim. However, if we read this
scenario together with the later gazetteer compilation projects in Jingyang, we may be
more incline to accept such a hypothesis.
The only other time in Jingyang when local elites won the rights to compile
the county gazetteer was in the Wanli era, by Jingyang scholar Wei Xuezeng. Wei
was arguably the most successful Jingyang figure in the Ming dynasty. He attained his
metropolitan degree in 1553, had a successful military career in the central
25