The Order of Places

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015|doi 10.1163/9789004288409_001

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Sinica Leidensia
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VOLUME 119

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The Order of Places

Translocal Practices of the Huizhou Merchants
in Late Imperial China

By

Yongtao Du

LEIDEN | BOSTON

iii

iv

Cover illustration: Routes from Nanjing to the 13 provinces and the frontier. Map in Huang Bians Yitong
lucheng tuji [From Huang Bian, Yitong lucheng tuji, Reprinted in Siku qianshu cunmu congshu, shibu, juan
166, Jinan: Qilu shushe, 1996].
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Du, Yongtao, 1970The order of places : translocal practices of the Huizhou merchants in late imperial China / by Yongtao
Du.
pages cm. -- (Sinica Leidensia, ISSN 0169-9563; volume 119)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-28838-6 (hardback : acid-free paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-28840-9 (e-book) 1. Human
geography--China--History. 2. Residential mobility--China--History. 3. Merchants--China--Huizhou
Diqu--Social conditions. 4. Home--Social aspects--China--Huizhou Diqu--History. 5. Spatial behavior-Social aspects--China--Huizhou Diqu--History. 6. Huizhou Diqu (China)--Social conditions. 7. Huizhou
Diqu (China)--Commerce. 8. China--History--Ming dynasty, 1368-1644. 9. China--History--Qing dynasty,
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Contents Contents

Contents
Acknowledgementsvii
List of Map, Tables and Figuresviii
Introduction1
All-under-Heaven is a Collection of Prefectures and Counties6
Translocality as a Historically Specific Process17
Translocal Practices and the Re-ordering of Places21
1 The Identity of Huizhou and the Reach of Its Merchants28
Huizhou in the Literati Imagination: Locality as a Microcosm of the
Realm29
Merchants from Huizhou: Trade and Geographical Reach50
2 Sojourning in Translocal Perspective: Local Encounters and Place-Based
Identity58
Place-Name Transfer and Local Encounter61
Managing Local Difference: Home and Host Places in the Context of
Sojourning73
Public Participation and Place-based Identity87
Conclusion94
3 The Public for Sojourners: Xiangyi and the Translocal Network of
Public Participation96
The Geographical Dimension of Public Participation98
A Granary for the Home Place102
Restoring the Ziyang Academy: An Old Institution in a New
Context110
Xiangyi Obligations beyond the Native Place116
Conclusion125
4 Translocal Lineage and the Romance of Homeland Attachment128
Studies of Chinese Lineage: Local and Translocal129
The Evolvement of Translocal Lineage Practice: The Pans of
Suzhou134
Demarcation and Inclusion: The Magic of Distance in the Genealogy of
1854138
Obligation and Opportunity: A Tale of Two Places142

vi

Contents

The Romance of Home Place Attachments and Contested Native-place

Identity149
Other Cases of Translocal Lineage Practice157
Conclusion159
5 The Emergence of Multi-Place Household Registration: Translocality,
the State, and Local Communities161
The Early Ming Household Registration System and Human-Place
Relations165
State and Society in Late Ming Household Registration Reforms171
The Early Qing Completion of the Reforms182
Household Registration and Local Community in the Qing194
Conclusion198
6 Routes and Places: Spatial Order in Merchant Geographies201
Statist Perspective and Private Participation in Geographical Writing204
Merchant Route Books as Publications213
The Empire and the Local Places in Merchant Geography221
Conclusion236
Conclusion238
Works Cited245
Index266

Contents
Contents
v
Acknowledgements
vii
List of Map, Tables and Figures
viii
Introduction
1
All-under-Heaven is a Collection of Prefectures and Counties
6
Translocality as a Historically Specific Process
17
Translocal Practices and the Re-ordering of Places
21
Chapter 1
28
The Identity of Huizhou and the Reach of Its Merchants
28
Huizhou in the Literati Imagination: Locality as a Microcosm of the Realm
29
Merchants from Huizhou: Trade and Geographical Reach
50
58
Chapter 2
Sojourning in Translocal Perspective:
Local Encounters and Place-Based Identity
58
Place-Name Transfer and Local Encounter
61
Managing Local Difference: Home and Host Places in the Context of Sojourning
73
Public Participation and Place-based Identity
87
Conclusion
94
Chapter 3
96
The Public for Sojourners: Xiangyi and the Translocal Network of Public Participation
96
The Geographical Dimension of Public Participation
98
A Granary for the Home Place
102
Restoring the Ziyang Academy: An Old Institution in a New Context
110
Xiangyi Obligations beyond the Native Place
116
Conclusion
125
Chapter 4
128
Translocal Lineage and the Romance of Homeland Attachment
128
Studies of Chinese Lineage: Local and Translocal
129
The Evolvement of Translocal Lineage Practice: The Pans of Suzhou
134
Demarcation and Inclusion: The Magic of Distance in the Genealogy of 1854
138
Obligation and Opportunity: A Tale of Two Places
142
The Romance of Home Place Attachments and Contested Native-place Identity
149
Other Cases of Translocal Lineage Practice
157
Conclusion
159
Chapter 5
161
The Emergence of Multi-Place Household Registration: Translocality, the State, and Local Communities
The Early Ming Household Registration System and Human-Place Relations
165
State and Society in Late Ming Household Registration Reforms
171
The Early Qing Completion of the Reforms
182
Household Registration and Local Community in the Qing
194
Conclusion
198
Chapter 6
201
Routes and Places: Spatial Order in Merchant Geographies
201
Statist Perspective and Private Participation in Geographical Writing
204
Merchant Route Books as Publications
213
The Empire and the Local Places in Merchant Geography
221
Conclusion
236
Conclusion
238
Works Cited
245
Index
266

161

Acknowledgments
Acknowledgements

vii

Acknowledgements
The research for and writing of this book has taken over ten years. In the process I accumulated too much debt to teachers, friends, colleagues, and family
members. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, professor Kaiwing Chow tended to its earliest growth as a doctoral dissertation. His continuous concern, guidance, and encouragement after my graduation in 2006 have
provided critical support that helped me through the challenges I encountered. Professor Robert Hegel of Washington University, St. Louis has always
been an inspiring teacher, both in scholarship and in life. Many friends in the
Chinese history and literature fields have witnessed the growth of the book,
and generously lent their support in various forms. I particularly thank Jing
Jing Chang, Lane Harris, Larry Israel, Li Xiaorong, Jeff Kyong-McClain, Steven
Miles, Mei Chun, Sarah Schneewind, Ellen Cong Zhang, Yang Bin, Zhang Jing,
and Zhang Ying, who read either part of or the entire manuscript at different
stages and gave me constructive comments. Back in China, He Zhaohui, Li
Longguo, and Liu Guanglin have been close friends that accompanied my intellectual journey as a historian from the very beginning. My colleagues in the
history department at Washburn University and now at Oklahoma State University have been kind and gentle to me. It is because of my regular pleasant
and uplifting contacts with them that I have found myself no longer that much
of a stranger in America. Finally, I thank my wife, Min, who takes it as her personal responsibility that I become a good scholar. Her joy in my every step
forward is probably purer than my own.
As far as institutional support, I would like to thank the College of Arts and
Sciences at Oklahoma State University, whose travel and summer research
grants have funded several of my trips in the United States and to China.
A Visiting Research Fellowship granted by the Asian Research Institute (ARI) of
the National University of Singapore gave me precious opportunities to communicate with scholars from other parts of the world, and to revise the first
draft of the manuscript in a convenient and comfortable environment. Part of
Chapter 4 was previously published as an article in the journal Late Imperial
China. 27.1 (2006), 3165. (Copyright 2006 by the Society for Qing Studies and
the Johns Hopkins University Press.) I thank the Society for Qing Studies and
the Johns Hopkins University Press for granting permission to use it in the
book.

List of Map, Chart, Tables,

List Of and
Map, Figures
Chart, Tables, And Figures

viii

List of Map, Tables and Figures

Map
1.1

Main routes out of Huizhou53

Tables
2.1 Incomplete list of Huiguan founded by Huizhou sojourners67
6.1 Editions of Late Ming and Qing comprehensive route books222
6.2 Most frequently mentioned places in route book headlines229
Figures
4.1
6.1
6.2
6.3

The genealogy of the Pans135

Map in Huang Bians Yitong lucheng tuji215
Merchant route book description of places217
The upper and lower panels in Tao Chengqings Shangcheng yilan218

Introduction
Introduction

Introduction
This book explores the relationship between people and place in the mobile
empire of Ming-Qing China. Its setting in time, the three hundred years between roughly 1550 and 1850, is often regarded as a cohesive whole for some
long-term socioeconomic trends that persisted throughout these centuries,
such as the substantial commercialization of the economy, the unprecedented
level of urbanization, and the marked expansion of literacy.1 This periods high
level of spatial mobility, among many social groups, serving various purposes,
and involving both men and women, has been richly documented by recent
scholarship.2 This books subject, merchants from the prefecture of Huizhou
(in todays Anhui province), collectively called huishang (lit. Huizhou merchants), were likely the most predominant merchant group of that
era. Despite the relative insularity of their home region, these men were highly
visible in commercial centers of all sizes throughout the empire, thus they arguably epitomized the eras spatial restlessness. Their conspicuous roles in a
wide variety of activities and developments that emerged amid the abovementioned trends the expansion of commerce, the flourishing of print culture, the convergence of new mercantile elites with the old gentry elites, and

On the Ming-Qing continuity and the major socio-economic trends through the late Ming
and the Qing, see Jonathan Spence and John Wills, From Ming to Qing: Conquest, Region
and Continuity in Seventeenth Century China (Yale University Press, 1979), xvii; Frederick
Wakeman, Introduction, in idem., Conflict and Control in Late Imperial China (University
of California Press, 1975); Evelyn Rawski, Economic and Social Foundations of Late Imperial Culture, in Popular Culture in Late Imperial China, eds. David Johnson, Andrew
Nathan, and Evelyn Rawski (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 333.
On a general picture of travel in the late Ming, see Timothy Brook, Communications and
Commerce, in The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 8, eds. Twitchett, Denis and Frederick
Mote (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1998): 579707; and Confusion of Pleasure:
Commerce and Culture in Ming China (University of California Press, 1998), passim. On
conditions of transportation, see Hoshi Ayao , Min-shi jidai kotsu shi no kenkyu
(Tokyo: Yamakawa, 1971). Some works provide discussions on the
travel of particular social groups and individuals. On women travelers, see Dorothy Ko,
Teachers of the Inner Chamber: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China (Stanford University Press, 1995), 219224; on pilgrims, see Susan Naquin and Yu Chunfang,
Pilgrims and the Secret Sites in China (University of California Press, 1992); on the experience of the most famous literati traveler Xu Hongzu, see Juilan Ward, Xu Xiake (15871641):
The Art of Travel Writing (London: Routledge/Curzon, 2000).

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015|doi 10.1163/9789004288409_002

Introduction

the nascent formation of a public sphere have been recognized in a number

of historical studies.3
The focus of this book, however, is a largely understudied phenomenon that
was both essential to these merchants and revealing about their world the
involvement of multiple places in their social lives, including their place of
origin and places to which they traveled, where they stayed temporarily, and
where they permanently settled in pursuit of business. The merchants engagement with these places took diverse forms and occurred in various aspects of
their activities. It could be physical, such as trekking the roads between the
host and home place to fulfill filial obligations or financial, such as mobilizing
resources from the host place and sending them home for local public welfare
3

An early comprehensive study of these merchants commercial activities is Japanese

scholar Fujji Hiroshis Shinan Shonin no kenkyu [A Study of
the Xinan Merchants], in Toyo Gakuho 36.1 (1953): 144, 36.2 (1953): 180208, 36.3 (1953):
335388, 36.4 (1954): 538563. A more recent comprehensive study of these merchant,
including their morals and engagement in cultural activities, is Wang Tingyuan and
Zhang Haipeng, Huishang yanjiu (Hefei: Anhui renmin, 1995). On the analysis of the size
of commercial capital among the most powerful of these merchants, see Ho Ping-ti, The
Salt Merchants of Yang-chou: A Study of Commercial Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century
China, in HJAS 17 (1954): 13068. The subject of commercial expansion, conceptualized as
sprouts of capitalism, dominated the studies of Ming-Qing socio-economic history in
China between the 1950s and 1980s, and yielded large numbers of works. The most influential on the Huizhou merchants role are collected in Jianghuai Luntan Bianji Bu ed.,
Huishang yanjiu lunwenji (Hefei: Anhui renmin chuban she, 1985). In recent studies of
print culture in Ming-Qing China, it is hard to miss references to the commercial publishers and carvers from Huizhou, whose inventories covered almost every subject and whose
carving skills were among the most celebrated. For representative works in this field, see
Kai-Wing Chow, Publishing, Culture, and Power in Late Imperial China: The Making of Early
Modern Culture (Stanford University Press, 2004); Liu Shangheng, Huizhou keshu yu chang
shu (Yangzhou: Guangling sushi, 2003); and Xu Xuelin, Huizhou keshu. On huishangs role
in public projects, see William Rowe, Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City
17961889 (Stanford University Press, 1984). On the mixing of the merchants with the literati, see Yu Yingshi , Zhongguo jinshi zongjiao lunli yu shangren jingshen
[Religious ethics of early modern China and the Merchant
spirit], in idem, Shi yu zhongguo wenhua [the Shi and Chinese Culture]
(Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1987), 441579; and Business Culture and Chinese Traditions Toward a Study of the Evolvement of Merchant Culture in Chinese History, in Dynamic Hongkong: Business and Culture, eds. Wang Gungwu and Wong Siu-lun
(Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Center of Asian Studies, 1997), 184; Chow, Publishing, Culture, and Power. For a critical review of the merchant-literati convergence thesis,
see Antonia Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou: A Chinese City, 15501850 (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004), 264.

Introduction

or lineage construction projects. It might be symbolic, for instance calling

themselves Huizhou men even though they were already officially registered
as residents of their host places or writing a geography book that elevated Huizhou to the center of local places. It could also be pragmatic, such as drawing
upon their Huizhou origins to consolidate as a community when conflicts
arose with natives of the host locale. They might even take advantage of their
multiple place-affiliations to register for civil service examination candidacy
in more than one place. In other words, this book highlights the huishangs
spatial mobility, and investigates how they positioned themselves vis--vis
the multiple places involved in their social lives and imagined the order of
places in their world. We get a glimpse of this dynamic in the following two
examples.
The first concerns a family of Huizhou merchant sojourners. Pan Zaoding
(16581724) was born into a family of Huizhou merchants who were based in
Suzhou. His grandfather had moved there from Huizhou for the salt trade and
the business went so well that his father bought a house in the host city and
settled down there. Both the grandfather and father regularly returned to Huizhou. At the age of two, Zaoding was sent back to Huizhou; at fourteen, he was
brought back to Suzhou to continue his education. When he was seventeen,
Suzhous security was threatened by the Rebellion of the Three Feudatories
(16731681) and Zaoding took refuge in Huizhou. When he was twenty, his
grandfathers death in Huizhou drew him back home again, but he had to leave
soon after the funeral to take part in the civil service examinations in Hangzhou . (Thanks to a special quota, members of merchant households engaged in the salt business in Zhejiang Province and the southern half of Jiangsu
Province were allowed to take examinations in Hangzhou then the headquarter of the regional salt administration.) Between the ages of twenty-one
and twenty-seven, Zaoding continued to chase success in the examinations in
Hangzhou, and traveled between Huizhou, Suzhou, and Hangzhou. Over the
next three years, however, his father assigned him the task of managing the
construction of a lineage hall in Huizhou. When the building project was completed, his father retired to Huizhou and entrusted the business to Zaoding.
After turning thirty, he mostly stayed in Suzhou, but made regular trips back to
Huizhou. When he died at sixty-six, he left nine sons who lived in Suzhou but
maintained their connection with Huizhou and regarded themselves as Huizhou men. More than a hundred years after Zaodings death, his descendants
in Suzhou incorporated a lineage estate that provided charitable aid to agnates
in both Suzhou and Huizhou.
The second example concerns the community of powerful Huizhou salt
merchants operating in Yangzhou, then headquarter of the biggest salt district

Introduction

in the empire. As a group, these men actively mobilized the financial resources
of the salt administration, over which they had some influence, to support local projects in Huizhou and the undertakings of Huizhou sojourners in other
places. In 1752, after a severe drought threatened to devastate Huizhou, they
provided a one-time donation of over sixty thousand taels of silver for the construction of a granary in the home place to prevent future famine. In 1791, after
aggressively petitioning the salt administration, they secured a fund of three
thousand taels to reconstruct an old academy in Huizhou and the annual disbursement of a comparable sum to subsidize students of the academy. In their
petitions they used both the rationale of devotion to the homeland and the
principle of equal treatment for home and host places: since the salt administration had sponsored local academies in Yangzhou, the home of these
merchants (whose business was the source of all the funds for the salt administration) deserved comparable sponsorship. Following these same rationales,
they also organized a continuous flow of funds from Yangzhou to Beijing, either from the salt administrations budget or out of their own pockets, to support Huizhou sojourners construction and maintenance of a huiguan (native
place lodge) in the capital.
To the Pan family in Suzhou, the involvement with multiple places meant,
in addition to frequent travel between those places, multiple registries of identity. Both Suzhou and Huizhou could be called home one current, the other
ancestral. Daily life evolved in Suzhou, while ancestral rituals and kinship ties
extended back to Huizhou. Among the group of Huizhou merchants in Yangzhou, the involvement of multiple places led to their participation in public
projects from afar and concern with local-to-local relations. In both cases,
place of origin remained crucial to peoples social life but lost its status as the
container of such social practices as place identity, kinship, or public participation.
In the context of late imperial China, this involvement with multiple places
stood out as a new phenomenon because of the role locality played in organizing both state power and social life. As I will demonstrate below, the spatial
structure of the empire made local places distinct and in many ways discrete;
the domain of many important practices such as kinship and philanthropy
usually coincided with locality. In this sense, geographic mobility caused not
only the blurring of local boundaries but also the disappearance of some spatial alignments, and hence disturbed the normative mode of human-place relation. But the disturbance went further. The possibility that merchants might
take the civil service examination in multiple places ran against the states
principle of administering that cornerstone institution of the empire
in a place-sensitive way. Moreover, the spatial works merchants wrote

Introduction

often re-arranged local places in a way that undermined the centrality of political capitals. Thus the phenomenon of multi-place involvement also touched
upon the spatial order of the empire. The purpose of this book, then, is to illuminate these evolving socio-spatial interactions in Ming-Qing times through
the case of the huishang.
Two concerns factor into the way I frame the huishang story. The first is the
nature of their mobility: these merchants, while highly mobile, were serious
about their roots in Huizhou and carried an enduring connection to it. The
second is the arena of their activities.4 The name huishang, given to them by
people of other places and translatable as merchants from Huizhou, vividly
demonstrates that their business center of gravity lay outside of Huizhou.5
However, it is not helpful to define the arena of huishang activity quite as
broadly as the Ming-Qing empire, if only for the reason that any activity they
undertook had to take place in a specific location with its own specific conditions. On the other hand, as men rooted in and linked to their place of origin,
the huishang could not act in their host communities the same way as locals
did, even if they were settled and successfully established there. The arena of
their activities included many specific local places, yet was not contained by
any single one. It was rather a newly created social space between local places.
To account for this development, I adopt the term translocal and frame the
huishangs story as one of translocality. The word local denotes the specific
locations of their activities and their roots in the place of origin; the prefix
trans denotes their need and ability to go beyond the local. Since it addresses
both continuity and change in social-spatial interactions, this term captures

I follow Joseph Esherick and Mary Rankin in taking the notion arena to mean the environment, the stage, the surrounding social space, often the locale in which elites and
other social actors are involved. Arenas may be either geographical or functional; and the
concept of an arena includes the repertory of values, meanings, and resources of its constituent actors. See Joseph Esherick and Mary Rankin, eds., Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 11.
On the term huishang, see Wang Tingyuan , Lun Huizhou shangbang de
xingcheng yu fazhan [On the Formation and Development
of the Mercantile Group from Huizhou], in Zhongguo shi yanjiu 1995-3: 3946; Wang
Zhenzhong , Ming Qing wenxian zhong huishang yi ci de chubu kaocha
[Preliminary Investigation into the Word huishang in Ming
and Qing Sources], in Lishi yan jiu 2006-1: 170173. On representative literati writings
about the huishang, see Wang Shizhen , Yanshantang bie ji , Wang
Daokun , Tai han ji. , Gui Youguang , Zhenchuan ji , among
others.

Introduction

more nuances of their spatial mobility than conventional terminologies in the

historiography of late imperial China, such as migration.
The term translocality has often been used by anthropologists and geographers to emphasize the situatedness during mobility in the contemporary
world of globalization.6 I share with these scholars a simultaneous analytical
focus on mobility and locality. However, where their studies treat locality as a
confined situation in a broad sense that includes the home, the village, the
countryside, the city, or the region both within and across national boundaries,
I refer to as locality specifically the lower level entities of the field administration system in the Ming-Qing empire, that is, the county (xian) or the prefecture (fu or zhou). Over the long history of the Chinese empire, prefectures and
counties were clearly defined and demarcated by the imperial state, and explicitly constituted the building blocks of the realm. In the words of the NeoConfucian intellectual leader and official Wang Yangming (14721529),
All-under-Heaven (tianxia) is a collection of prefectures and counties
.7 These administrative entities in turn became strongly felt
markers of identity among the people through the work of local elites. The
huishang, for example, was identified by affiliation with their home prefecture.
The historical specificity and significance of what is studied here becomes
clear only against this background.
All-under-Heaven is a Collection of Prefectures and Counties
If we agree that, as a spatial entity, the local exists only in relation to a larger
entity, this larger entity in late imperial China was obviously the empire, which
defined localities territorial shape and administrative status in the spatial
6

For a review of this concept and its use in these disciplines, see Clemens Greiner and
Patrick Sakdapolrak, Translocality: Concepts, Applications and Emerging Research Perspectives, in Geography Compass 7/5 (2013): 373384. For an example of the use of
translocal across national boundaries, see Marwan M. Kraidy and Patrick D. Murphy,
Shifting Geertz: Toward a Theory of Translocalism in Global Communication Studies, in
Communication Theory 18.3 (2008): 335355. For a study of translocality as local-to-local
connections in their own right without privileging the national, see Katherine Brickell,
Ayona Datta, eds., Translocal Geographies: Spaces, Places, Connections (Burlington, VT:
Ashgate, 2011). For an example of the use of this term in the China field, see Tim Oakes
and Louisa Schein, eds., Translocal China: Linkages, Identities and the Re-imagining of
Space (New York: Routledge, 2006).
Wang Yangming , Gaoping xian zhi xu [Preface to the gazetteer of
Gaoping County], in Wang wencheng quanshu, juan 29.

Introduction

organization of state power.8 From its beginning, the Chinese empires structure of spatial organization had been predominantly a field administration
system called the County and Prefecture (junxian) system. This system organized imperial territory into a spatial hierarchy, with different levels of local
places corresponding to levels in the bureaucratic hierarchy, e.g., the province,
the prefecture, and the county.9 The number of levels in this hierarchy, the
nomenclature and primary functions of government at these levels, the span
of control (number of units controlled in the next-lower level), and the size of
the territory under the jurisdiction of each local government were adjusted
over the course of imperial history according to such factors as population
density and military security.10 These adjustments were often complex, but the
8

10

By spatial organization of state power, I mean the system by which a political system
arranges and rearranges its territories in order to better manage such issues as defense
and resource extraction. See G. William Skinner, Cities and the Hierarchy of Local System, in The City in Late Imperial China, ed. G. William Skinner (Stanford:Stanford University Press, 1977): 275352, for dynamics of this organization in the Qing. See Ruth Mostern,
Dividing the Realm in Order to Govern: The Spatial Organization of the Song State (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2011), for a discussion of this subject in the Song
dynasty; and Joseph Whitney, China: Area, Administration, and Nation Building (Chicago:
University of Chicago, Department of Geography, 1970), for a study of this subject in modern China.
Although advocacy of an alternative that existed earlier, the enfeoffment (fengjian) system, was sometimes voiced by literati to remedy problems of the bureaucracy, and these
arguments persisted into the late imperial period, the chance of its restoration in real
politics was minimal. For more discussion of this issue, see Min Tu-kan, National Polity
and Local Power: The Transformation of Late Imperial China (Harvard University Press,
1989).
Among the numerous Chinese language works on the trajectory of these transformations,
two often-cited recent ones are Zhou Zhenhe , Zhongguo difang xingzheng zhidu
shi (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2005); and Li Zhian,
, et al., Tang Song Yuan Ming Qing zhongyang he difang guanxi yanjiu
(Tianjin: Nankai daxue chubanshe, 1996). The number of levels changed from two during the Han dynasty to three during the age of division, then to
two again in early Tang dynasty. It changed to three again in the late Tang and in the Song
dynasty. In the Yuan it varied in different regions, and could be as high as five. The Ming
and Qing dynasties stabilized it at three. The province was the most unstable and was not
formalized as a territorial entity of administration until the Qing. The county level was
the most stable. Nomenclature and primary functions of local government also varied
from place to place. For example, a prefectural unit could have one of four types of government (fu, zhou, jun, jian) during the Song, and three (fu, zhili zhou, zhili ting) during the
Qing. The number of county-level units within a prefectural unit ranged from one to eighteen (not counting the exceptional imperial prefecture) in the Qing. The circuit (dao) of

Introduction

underlying goal was consistently effective state control in areas such as tax collection, communication between the levels, and the conduct of defense.11
Important foundations for central control of the local during the latter half
of the imperial era were laid in the Song dynasty (9601279). Through a series
of political and institutional maneuvers purporting to strengthen the trunk
and weaken the branches (qianggan ruozhi), the Song state divided administrative authority at the province level, making the reinvented province not an
integrated territorial entity of administration in the strict sense, but a domain
of several regional coordinating officials each with different functional responsibilities and holding jurisdictions not necessarily coinciding with one another.12 Below the province level, prefectures and counties were the primary foci
of local governance.13 For the first time in Chinese history, county and prefec-

11

12

13

the Qing was actually a branch office of the provincial government instead of a formal
level of field administration, although in the studies of governmental organizations it
may be a necessary concern. See Skinner, Cities and the Hierarchy of Local Systems,
301307. The terms for each level vary constantly. For a chart of these terms, see Whitney,
China: Area, Administration, and Nation Building, 74.
For example, in the Qing, the economically prosperous and densely populated areas usually had the fu type of government with a broader span of control for effective tax collection, while the areas that were strategically crucial or complex in their ethnic composition
were equipped with the zhili zhou or zhili ting types of government, with a narrower span
of control for effective defense. See Skinner, Cities and the Hierarchy of Local Systems:
307344. Skinners analysis of the interaction between spatial structures generated by
administration and commerce during the Qing indicates that the state did not rigidly
impose an administrative spatial structure on the society, but rather adjusted according
to the social and economic conditions, and therefore expressed rather than suppressed
circumstances on the ground. However, these adjustments did not change the nature of
states purpose.
In these maneuvers, the immediate target was the military commissions (jiedushi) that
used to overlay prefectures and counties, govern jurisdictions, and collect taxes. Military
commissions were the institutional foundation of the powerful and often intractable
military commissioners that had persisted since the late Tang, a problem that profoundly
worried the Song founders. The re-defined functions of officials at a reinvented province
(called lu, or circuit) level rendered them de facto representatives of the central authority. For example, the main responsibility of a financial intendant (zhuanyunshi), often the
most powerful circuit-level official, was to transmit revenues to the capital, hence facilitating the courts extraction of provincial resources. See Mostern, Dividing the Realm,
Chapter 4, for a more detailed discussion of the process by which the military commissioners were subdued by the Song court.
In the early Song the three hundred-plus prefectures were held responsible for all affairs
of their jurisdictions, ranging from taxation and lawsuits to population registration and
bandit suppression; they constituted the nuclear units of territorial administration. The

Introduction

ture officials became genuine agents of court authority throughout the realm.
Revenue and other resources in local administrative units were all regarded as
the property of the court.14 In the vivid language of the Southern Song scholar
Lu Zhong , The court has only to send a piece of paper to the prefectures
and counties to command with no difficulty at all; it is similar to the way the
body commands the arms and the arms command the fingers.15 Through
these institutional changes, the Song created a territorial administrative system that was almost foolproof against usurpation of power.16 This institutionally buttressed supremacy of the court over the local was retained throughout
the late imperial period.17

14

15

16
17

thousand-plus counties, which carried both hortatory and administrative responsibilities

but only limited authority, were largely the outposts of the prefectures, particularly in
their function of tax collection. See Mostern, Dividing the Realm, 3847, for a summary of
the county and prefecture administrative responsibilities. Population growth and the
increased number of counties, however, soon caused the focus of local governance to be
transferred from the prefecture toward the county. By the end of the Northern Song, as
Robert Hartwell argues, There were 1207 hsien [counties] replacing 306 prefectures as
the primary foci of local government. See Robert Hartwell, Demographic, Political, and
Social Transformations of China, HJAS 42.2 (Dec. 1982): 39596.
The Song financial control of the prefectures was so complete that prefectures were not
allowed to hold resources generated locally. As Ruth Mostern puts it, in theory revenues
and commodities needed to support local expenses would be sent to the circuit or the
capital, and then back to the prefecture. In reality, the prohibitive cost of transporting
goods between local places and the court prompted the invention of instruments such as
bureau compilation of cash and commodities by which ledgers instead of actual goods
were transported to the court bureaus, thus allowed the local resources to stay in the local
places while maintaining the letter of the law. See Mostern, Dividing the Realm, 4445. For
more detailed studies of the Song central control of local finance, see Bao Weimin
, Songdai difang caizhengshi yanjiu (Beijing: Renmin Daxue
chubanshe, 2011); see also Cheng Dengyuan , Zhongguo tianfu shi
(Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 1938), 115116.
Songshi jishi benmo juan 2, Shou bingquan [Taking back the
Military Authority]. The power the court achieved through the early Song institutional
re-arrangement often appeared overreaching in the eyes of contemporary civil officials,
and often was critiqued for the effects of its over-centralization. For example of these
critiques by well-known figures such as Zhu Xi and Su Zhe , see Zhu Xi, Zhu zi
yu lei , juan 128; and Song Shi , juan 339.
Winston Lo, Introduction to the Civil Service of Song China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 1987), 215.
See Li Zhian, Tang Song Yuan Ming Qing, for a general discussion of the central-local
relationship in late imperial China. On the Yuan in particular, see Li Zhian, Yuandai
zhengzhi zhidu yanjiu (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2003).

10

Introduction

Outside the structure of the state, the semi-aristocratic class that virtually
monopolized high offices during the period of Chinas disunion (220587) and
still held much power during the Tang (618907) was replaced by a new type of
political elite that was much broader, more fluid, and whose status rested
not on heredity but on current presence in office.18 The rise of this new type of
elite, often called the literati gentry, has mostly been attributed to the greatly
increased importance of the civil service examinations, a centralized recruitment system that started to penetrate deep into local society in the Song and
connected the new elites closely to the imperial state.19 Heavily depending on
the symbolic (and often also material) rewards distributed by the court, these
new political elites had neither the will nor the wherewithal to directly challenge the political authority of the center.20
Thus in post-Song China we can talk about a political center that was strong
in terms of its relations with both local governments and local societies. For
the realm as a whole, such a strong center no doubt guaranteed its political
unity; but for local places, it meant losing the power to define themselves as
independent entities through political actions such as secession. They could
exist only as component parts of the imperial whole, as a lower-level entity
controlled from above, or, as it runs in Chinese, as difang (the local) vis--vis
zhongyang (the center) or chaoting (the court). The local was defined as such
by the center.
While these changes in the Song bound the local to the national whole more
tightly, other institutional arrangements most notably the management
of finances and civil service examinations at the local level were put in place
to render local prefectures and counties discrete from one another. Song
18
19

20

Robert Hymes, Statesmen and Gentlemen: The Elite of Fu-Chou, Chiang-Hsi, in Northern
and Southern Sung (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 3.
See Edward A. Kracke Jr., Civil Service in Early Sung China, 9601067: With Particular
Emphasis on the Development of Controlled Sponsorship to Foster Administrative Responsibility (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953); Richard Davis, Court and Family in
Song China (Duke University Press, 1986).
On the political effects of the dissolution of the semi-aristocrats, see Naito Torajiro
, Gaikakuteki To-So jidai kan [General View of the Tang
and the Song], in Rekishi to chiri 9.5 (1922): 112; on the civil service system and its penetration into society, see Thomas Lee, The Social Significance of the Quota System in Sung
Civil Service Examinations, The Journal of the Institute of Chinese Studies of the Chinese
University of Hong Kong, 13 (1982); John Chafee, The Thorny Gates of Learning in Sung
China: A Social History of Examination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985);
and Benjamin Elman, Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press. 2000).

Introduction

11

refectures and counties were largely self-sufficient fiscal entities. The prep
fectures, the basic unit of accounting in the Song fiscal system, each had their
own tax quota, record-keeping, and auditing relationship with the court, and
they might present quite disparate financial circumstances one from the next,
as reflected in the Song dictum, The expenses of a place should be determined
according to the resources available to it.21 Similarly, counties also managed
surpluses and deficits largely on their own.22
The penetration of the civil service examination into local society, particularly in the adoption of candidate quotas for each prefecture at the turn of the
eleventh century, further enhanced the discreteness of local places. Because of
the fixed number of candidates a prefecture was allowed to send to the national-level examinations, preparation as well as the rewards of success generated
competition within prefectures. In addition, because the quota of candidates
to participate at the national level was limited, prefectures themselves began
to compete for preferential treatment from the center.23 In this sense, the prefectures ran on separate tracks in terms of their participation in state recruitment.
Policies and institutions designed to make Song local places discrete in their
finances and examination system administration were retained in later dynasties. Yuan fiscal policies were largely carried over from the Song.24 In the Ming,
the local tax quota system grew more fixed, making taxation virtually independent of cultivated acreage. Within local places, an increase in cultivated acreage, if reported at all, as a rule led to internal tax reapportionment instead of
tax increases.25 The fiscal functions of local government in the Ming closely
21
22

23
24
25

The place (di) in this dictum was originally intended to be the circuit, but in time devolved
onto the prefecture. See Bao Weimin, Song dai difang caizheng, 61.
In theory, resource-sharing arrangements with adjacent prefectures within the same circuit were possible under the brokerage of the circuit fiscal intendant. But in reality the
difficulties posed by record-keeping made any such arrangements fairly rare. When these
did occur they were undertaken on a case-by-case basis instead of as a general policy.
County finance was overseen by the prefect who could, in theory, distribute a countys
revenue or expenses to other locations within the same prefecture. But in reality, again,
transportation costs often made it undesirable to physically transport cash and goods
between counties. For representative Chinese language works on this subject, see Wang
Shengduo, Liang Song caizheng shi (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1995), 52123; Bao Weimin,
Songdai difang caizheng, 7072. For a succinct summary of these works on in English, see
Mostern, Dividing the Realm, 4446, 5051.
Lee, Social Significance, 308.
Li Zhian, Yuandai zhengzhi zhidu, 531549.
Ray Huang, Taxation and Governmental Finance in Sixteenth-Century Ming China (Cambridge Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1974), 47.

12

Introduction

resembled those in the Song, with the county as the basic tax-collecting unit,
the prefecture as the basic accounting unit, and the province as the revenue
transmission unit.26 Fiscal separation of local places was also similar to that of
the Song. In the words of Ray Huang, All territories were expected to be selfsufficient and only in exceptional cases were grants-in-aid dispatched from
adjacent districts by order of the central government.27 In the field of examinations, locally sensitive quotas were strictly enforced during the Yuan once
examinations were reintroduced after being suspended in the early years of
the dynasty.28 By the Ming, the examination quota system penetrated even further, from the prefecture to the county level, while preliminary examinations
in these places became more frequent and more formal.29 Closely associated
with the quota systems was the household registration system, which had a
long history in China but reached its apex in the early Ming in terms of effectiveness and coverage. Among its other functions, this system assigned to each
person a clear and supposedly stable place affiliation. In this way the state imposed a one-person-one-place definition of human-place relations, to facilitate management of the localized taxation and examination systems.30
Therefore, in late imperial Chinas spatial organization of state power, local
places were tightly bound to the national polity, yet at the same time were
rendered more conspicuously discrete from one another in certain crucial aspects of administration and social life. Both sides of this seemingly paradoxical
situation for local places attest to the power of the state in ordering space. This
power should be differentiated from what Michael Mann has called a states
real infrastructural power to penetrate society.31 G. William Skinner and
26
27
28

29
30
31

Huang, Taxation and Finance, 22.

Huang, Taxation and Finance, 24.
Li Zhian, Yuandai xiangshi yu diyu wenhua [Provincial Examinations and Local Culture in the Yuan], in Yuandai wenhua yanjiu, vol. 1 (2001): 1437. See
also Yao Dali Yuanchao keju zhidu de xingfei jiqi shehui beijing
[The Trajectory of Yuan Civil Examination System and Its Social
Background], in Yuanshi ji beifang minzhushi yanjiu jikan 6 (1982): 25 69.
Elman, Cultural History of Civil Examinations, 133140.
See Chapter 5 for details on the household registration system.
For Mann, the real infrastructural power is used in comparison and in contrast to despotic power. The latter refers to the range of actions that the ruler and his staff are
empowered to attempt to implement without routine, institutionalized negotiation with
civil society groups, while the former refers to the capacity to actually penetrate society
and to implement logistically political decisions. See Michael Mann, The Sources of Social
Power, vol. 1 of A History of Power from the Beginning to ad 1760 (Cambridge Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 27, 169170.

Introduction

13

Robert Hartwell have demonstrated that while imperial despotism grew

stronger after the Song, the center of gravity in the empires administration
steadily shifted downward, and the governmental effectiveness of the state
within each local society, measured in terms of population-official ratio, actually declined.32 However, in terms of the locals position in the imperial spatial
order, what the center lost in its diminishing involvement in the affairs of each
local society could be made up by its enhanced control of local governments
and its hegemony over local elites.33 Even as the resources the central political
authority could deploy in each local place became more attenuated, its au
thority over the local in general actually grew, producing a stronger frame that
held the parts together. Such a situation, in which locales were bound together
yet discrete, suggests that the local was on its own but not of its own. Local
places were all seated in the same matrix that was the empire, but connected
with each other only through the imperial center. This situation is vividly
32

33

William Skinner has argued that Chinese history saw a decline in governmental effectiveness from mid-Tang on to the end of imperial era, a steady reduction in basic-level
administrative central functions from one era to the next. In Skinners view, this was due
to the tension between population growth and territorial expansion on the one hand, and
the limits on taxation and the communication capabilities of an agrarian state on the
other: A unified empire could be maintained into the late imperial era only by systematically reducing the scope of basic-level administrative functions and countenancing a
decline in the effectiveness of bureaucratic government within local system. See Skinner,
Introduction: Urban Development in Imperial China, in The City in Late Imperial China
(Stanford: Stanford University press, 1977), 1921. Robert Hartwells path-breaking study
on the demographic, political, and social transformations of China between 750 and 1550,
inspired by Skinner, suggests a progressive shift in the balance of power from the central
government to large regional administrations. Hartwell saw demonstrations of this shift
in terms of governmental organizations: (1) an increase in the number and authority of
the lowest level of administration, the district (hsian), and a decline in the importance of
intermediate levels of government, the prefecture (chou and fu); (2) the emergence of
large regional administrations, the province (sheng); and (3) a diminution in the direct
influence of the central government on the routine management of the affairs of the
empire. Hartwells explanation for this shift is the increasing complexity of administrative tasks brought about by population growth. See Hartwell, Demographical, Political,
and Social Transformations, 394395. The notion of a shift toward imperial despotism in
the Song was formulated by Japanese sinologist Naito Torajiro. See Hisayuki Miyakawa,
An Outline of the Naito Hypothesis and its Effects on Japanese Studies of China, FEQ, 14
(1955): 53352, cited in Hartwell, ibid., 404.
Bin Wong has demonstrated that the boundary between state and local elites in late
imperial China was often blurred due to their shared vision of social order and shared
agenda regarding social welfare. See Bin Wong, China Transformed: Historical Change and
the Limits of European Experience (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997).

14

Introduction

illuminated in the periods comprehensive gazetteers (zongzhi), which, as a

genre, flourished for the first time in the Song. As a rule, these gazetteers defined local places as field administration entities, and organized them into a
spatial hierarchy in which all local places existed discretely in the horizontal
dimension, linking only vertically to a higher level administrative center, with
the imperial capital at the pinnacle.34
This pyramidal structure, however, is still not the full story, for the state was
never the only agent that defined the local. Within the parameters set by the
state and proceeding from it, people in local societies actually turned localities
into communities through various social activities, and absorbed the notion of
locality into their self-perception. Our understanding of this issue has benefited greatly from recent scholarship on local history, particularly works related
to the influential localist turn thesis developed by Robert Hartwell and elaborated by Robert Hymes.35 According to this thesis, due to such factors as their
loss of privileged access to office under the expanded examination system and
the insecurity created by court politics, the nationally oriented professional
elite still active in the Northern Song gradually shifted their activities and concerns from the court to their home locales and merged with the locally oriented gentry elite during the Southern Song. As this process unfolded, Chinese
literati elites redefined their career and family strategies and became more locally oriented: They focused less on degree success and office-holding and paid
more attention to local affairs and building networks and influence in their
home places. In the words of Robert Hymes, the Southern Song elite married
locally, lived locally, and in many ways thought and acted locally.36
The localist orientation of the Song literati was paralleled by keen attention
to local affairs that other scholarship has noted among the post-Song literati
elites, which lends support to the suggestion by Hartwell and Hymes that
the localist turn of the Song elite was permanent.37 The most conspicuous
34

35
36

37

For a discussion of the genre, see Yongtao Du, Literati and Spatial Order: A Preliminary
Study of Late Ming Comprehensive Gazetteers, The Journal of Ming Studies, 66 (Sep.
2012): 1643.
Hartwell, Demographic, Political, and Social transformations. Hymes, Statesmen and
Gentlemen.
Conrad Schirokauer and Robert Hymes, Introduction, in idem eds., Ordering the World:
Approaches to State and Society in Sung Dynasty China (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1993), 4. Beverly Bosslers Powerful Relations: Kinship, Status and the state in Sung
China (9601279) (Harvard Univ. Press, 1998) provides detailed analysis of the dissolution
of previously capital-oriented elites during the Southern Song and supplements the Hartwell-Hymes thesis. See also Richard Davis, Court and Family in Song China.
Hymes, Statesmen and Gentlemen, 216. On literati localist orientation during Ming and

Introduction

15

demonstration of literati attention to the local was what Hymes calls their lineage orientation the localist strategy par excellence by which literati sought
to promote zu (descent group) identity, strengthen connections with patrilineal kin, and maintain their social standing as elites in the local arena.38 Other
localist strategies included involvement in local defense, religious patronage,
and support of local learning and education. The intensity of localist engagement varied from time to time, but localism seems to have been resilient and
resurgent, sometimes following an era of state activist policies, sometimes
converging with state activism.39
On the basis of local history scholarship, it is fair to say that the literati elites
after the Southern Song remained profoundly local in their career and family
orientations.40 Along a different but closely related line of inquiry, a recent

38

39
40

Qing, see Hilary Beattie, Land and Lineage in China: A Study of Tung-cheng County,
Anhwei, in the Ming and Ching Dynasties (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979);
Patricia Ebery and James Watson, eds., Kinship Organization in Late Imperial China 1000
1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); Joseph Esherick and Mary Rankin,
eds., Chinese Local Elites; Timothy Brook, Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation
of Gentry Society in Late-Ming China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). On
Chinese language scholarship, see Fu Yiling , Zhongguo chuantong shehui:
duoyuan de jiegou : [Traditional Society of China: Multidimensional Structure], in Zhongguo shehui jingjishi yanjiu, 1988-3:17; On Japanese language scholarship, see Danjo Hiroshi , Mingqing xiang shen lun
[On the Gentry of Ming and Qing], in Riben xuezhe yanjiu Zhongguo shi lunzhu xuan yi
, vol. 2, Liu Junwen ed. (Beijing: Zhonghua
shuju, 1993): 453483. On the demonstration of this orientation in the Yuan dynasty, see
Xiao Qiqing , Mengyuan zhipei dui zhongguo lishi wenhua de yingxiang
[Mongol Rule and Its Impact on Chinas History and
Culture], in idem. Nei beiguo er wai zhongguo: Mengyuan shi yanjiu :
(Beijing: Zhonghua zhuju, 2007); and Su Li , Yuandai difang jingying yu jiceng shehui (Tianjin: Tianjin guji chubanshe,
2009).
The notion of lineage organization as the localist strategy par excellence was used by
Timothy Brook in his Praying for Power, 371 n. 20. On the term lineage orientation, see
Hymes, Marriage, Descent Groups, and the Localist Strategy in Sung and Yuan Fu-chou,
in Kinship Organization, eds. Ebrey and Watson, 114. Hymes study of linage practices in
Fuzhou, Jiangxi also demonstrates that, at least in this place and this respect, the localist
strategy of the literati elites had been continuous since the Song.
Peter Bol, The Localist Turn and Local Identity in Late Imperial China, Late Imperial
China, 24.2 (2003): 4; Timothy Brook, Praying for Power, 321330.
See, for example, Timothy Brook, Praying for Power; Peter Bol, Localist Turn and Local
Identity, 4.

16

Introduction

body of work on literati local identity has demonstrated that the local was not
only an important concern in the literatis social life but also a crucial dimension of self-perception and hence an integral part of literati culture.41 Peter
Bols study of Wuzhou from the Song through the Ming, for example, makes
the case that the local Neo-Confucian tradition constructed by the Wuzhou
literati functioned as a morally superior alternative to the state as a source of
values, hence making locality a powerful factor in defining their shi identity.42
Elite localism certainly points to the separation of elites from the state, but
that separation occurred in a context of the imperial states indisputable power over elites and the unprecedented political integration of the realm. As
Hymes has noted, what made the localist strategies of the Southern Song so
different from those of previous periods such as the Six Dynasties was their
coexistence with a centralized recruitment system that penetrated deep into
local societies.43 For Bol, the Song examination system connected local literati
not only to the state but also to an nationwide literati culture that granted participants in the system a shi identity.44 In this sense, literati discourse about
local identity evolved against the background of a tighter empire-wide cultural
cohesiveness among literati. Their separation from the state was, like the administrative discreteness of localities, expressed within parameters set by imperial institutions.
In sum, when spatial mobility picked up momentum in the late Ming, the
Chinese empire could be viewed as a collection of local places most clearly
defined at the prefecture and county levels. In this empire, centralization of
political power went hand in hand with the localization of social life and administration; identity at both national and local levels was clearly articulated.
Institutional arrangements for local discreteness by no means eliminated
41

42
43
44

For examples, see John Dardess, A Ming Society: Tai-ho County, Kiangsi, Fourteenth to Seventeenth Centuries (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996); Steven Miles, Rewriting the Southern Han, 917971: The Production of Local Culture in Nineteenth-Century
Guangzhou, HJAS 62.1 (June 2002); Sea of Learning: Mobility and Identity in NineteenthCentury Guangzhou (Harvard University Press, 2006); Peter Bol, The Rise of Local History: History, Geography, and Culture in Southern Song and Yuan Wuzhou, in HJAS 61.1
(2001): 3776, Localist Turn and Local Identity; Neo-Confucianism and Local Society,
Twelfth to Sixteenth Century: A Case Study, in Paul Smith and Richard von Glahn, eds.,
The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia
Center, 2003); Chen Wenyi, Network, Community, Identities: On the Discursive Practices of
Yuan Literati (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 2007); Anne Gerritsen, Ji'an Literati
and the Local in Song-Yuan-Ming China (Leiden: Brill, 2007).
Bol, Localist Turn and Local Identity, 27, 32.
Hymes, Statesmen and Gentlemen, 216.
Peter Bol, The Song Examination System and the Shih, in Asia major 3.2 (1992): 149171.

Introduction

17

social and economic connections among local places, as studies of trade and
travel in both the Song and the Ming have made clear.45 But these arrangements did facilitate a sense of local distinctiveness and the articulation of local
identity. A good example of this is the flourishing of local gazetteers from the
Southern Song onward. Most of these gazetteers scope of coverage was either
the prefecture or the county, precisely the levels of administration where institutional arrangements for local discreteness, such as tax and examination quotas, were fully applied. While the nominal compilers of the gazetteers were
often court-appointed local officials, the actual work of compilation was usually done by local literati, and such compilation projects often constituted important venues for localist engagement and the expression of local identity.46
Translocality as a Historically Specific Process
In a centralized empire of distinct localities, the huishang did not simply move
in undifferentiated space. Rather they exited and entered local places clearly
marked out by the state and keenly felt by people in society, where they would
encounter and interact with other mobile people who were also rooted in
and connected to their own home locales.47 A study of geographic mobility in
such context must consider how historically formed pattern of space shaped
the experience of these mobile people, and how mobility in turn shaped the
45

46

47

On economic interactions between local places in the Song, see Mark Elvin, Pattern of the
Chinese Past (Stanford University Press, 1973); Shiba Yoshinobo, Commerce and Society in
Sung China (University of Michigan Press, 1970). On travels by literati, see the recent work
by Ellen Cong Zhang, Transformative Journeys: Travel and Culture in Song China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2010).
James Hargetts examination of Song local gazetteers demonstrates that, compared with
the Northern Song, the Southern Song (and later dynasties) compiled more local gazetteers, served more obviously local interests, and targeted a wider audience who had concerns in local affairs (instead of officials only). Peter Bols study of Wuzhou gazetteers
reached a similar conclusion: in time, Wuzhou gazetteers (which began to be compiled
the Southern Song) became increasingly about the local literati, provided more detailed
definitions of local places and granted them more distinction. See Jame Hargett, Song
Dynasty Local Gazetteers and Their Place in the History of Difangzhi Writing, HJAS 56.2
(Dec. 1996): 405442; Bol, The Rise of Local History.
See Tuan Yi-fu, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (Ann Arbor: University of
Minnesota Press, 1977) for an elaboration on the distinction between space and place,
with the former as undifferentiated and abstract, while the latter as known and endowed
with values.

18

Introduction

normative ordering of space, such as the one-person-one-place type of affiliation and the states vision of local discreteness.
The term translocality, therefore, describes social dynamics across space in
late imperial China at two different but related levels. At the micro level, it is
the practice of rooted mobility within the newly created social space between
local places; or, simply put, the story of the huishang and people like them. At
the macro level, it refers to changes, both real and perceived, to the spatial order of the empire brought about by the type of geographic mobility the huishang epitomized. In both cases, the term addresses a phenomenon strictly set
in late imperial China, where high spatial mobility evolved in a world of local
places.
Just as the concept of transnationalism would be meaningless absent the
rise of nationalism and nation-states, the notion translocality can become an
effective concept for historical analysis only if used against a background of
clearly defined local places and well-expressed local identities. Late imperial
China provides just that setting. There local identity could crystallize at multiple levels of recognized local places with varying strengths, depending on
changing socio-political conditions. During the period in question, the institutionally established distinctiveness of prefectures and counties made the articulation of local identity at these two levels particularly conspicuous
compared to, say, at the village or province level.48 Whether the prefecture or
one of its component counties held primacy in peoples sense of place-identity
could vary from case to case, and from time to time.49 In the case of Huizhou,
as Chapter 1 demonstrates, the powerful image of the prefecture made it the
more enduring and more prominent marker of identity.
As rooted mobility, translocality should be distinguished from several other categories of human movement during the late imperial period, such as
mass deportations by the state (yimin) and the resettlement of refugees (liu
min), which were often characterized by forced relocation and did not grant
48

49

Provincial identity was less represented than that at the prefecture and the county levels
during the majority of the Ming-Qing period. Part of the reason might be that provincial
governance and the province as a territorial entity were fully established as late as the
mid-eighteenth century. On the emergence of the province and its significance in the
formation of territorial order in the China, see Kent Guy, Qing Provincial Governors and
Their Provinces: The Evolution of Provincial Administration (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010). The strong sense of provincial identity, such as the Hunanese identity
described in Stephan Platts Provincial Patriots: The Hunanese and Modern China (Harvard
University Press, 2007), was a nineteenth century phenomenon.
See Dardess, A Ming Society, for a study of the varying scale of local identity during the
Ming.

Introduction

19

people the agency demonstrated by the huishang. There were also populations
of itinerant people, whose mobility can be characterized as rootless drifting.50
In other words, translocality involved certain privileges not available to everyone, such as the choice to move and firm connections with people in the home
community. Needless to say, access to the symbolic resources of local tradition
and local distinctiveness also implied at least some participation in the literati
culture of the home place. The huishangs credentials in this regard are particularly impressive: existing scholarship has demonstrated that merchant households in Huizhou were heavily invested in Confucian learning; merchants
often claimed Cheng-Zhu style Neo-Confucian orthodoxy, the hallmark of Huizhous literati community, as their own as well.51
Of course, both geographic mobility and the articulation of local identity
existed already in the Song. My decision to start the huishangs story of translocal activities in the late Ming is not based on the (still debated) notion that
late Ming commercialization and mobility reached a higher level than in the
Song,52 but rather on consideration that articulations of local identity and lo50

51

52

On the mass deportation and the refugees, see Cao Shuji . Zhongguo renkou shi
(Shanghai: Fudan Daxue chubanshe, 2001), vol. 45. On the wanderers, see
Philip Kuhn, Soul Stealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992).
Works on this issue are numerous. For two useful syntheses, see Zhang Haipeng and Wang
Tingyuan, huishang yanjiu Chapter 7; and Qitao Guo, Ritual Opera and Mercantile Lineage: Confucian Transformation of Popular Culture in Late Imperial Huizhou (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2005), Chapter 2.
Comparisons between Sung and Ming-Qing commercial revolutions have been a muchdebated issue among China historians. Mark Elvins thesis of the fourteenth century
turning point contrasts a qualitative growth in the Song with a quantitative growth in the
Ming and Qing. On the other hand, William Rowe, following William Skinner, characterizes the commercial revolution from the sixteenth century as a diffusion of commercialization and urbanization patterns [of the Song] from more to less advanced regions, and
called the inter-regional trade from the late Ming the routinization of its Song precedent,
which was carried out on an ad hoc basis. But for experts on the Song such as Robert
Hymes, Rowes solution to conceptualize the relation between these two commercial
revolutions simply will not fly. See Rowe, Approaches to Modern Chinese Social History, in Reliving the Past: The Worlds of Social History, ed. Oliver Zunz (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 1985): 236285; and Hymes, Song China, in Asia in
Western and World History: A Guide for Teaching, eds. Ainslie Thomas Embree and Carol
Gluck (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 343. Adding another strain of thought
to this unsettled issue, Paul Smith and Richard von Glahn propose a four-century transitional period in which domestic and international processes and events favored some
Tang-Song trends over others and influenced the ways those trends developed into the

20

Introduction

cal distinctiveness that emerged in the Song appear to have gathered steam
over time. Local gazetteers, which rendered a local place more distinct in
time,53 certainly had added more details to their accounts and further enhanced the sense of community by the Ming.54 The construction of local traditions of Neo-Confucian learning began in the Yuan.55 Lineage construction,
the localist strategy par excellence, was still in its fledgling stage in the Song,
both in the extent of its spread across society and in the intensity of its influence on peoples lives. Further development occurred in the Yuan and Ming.56
If we take the literati attachment to home as a sign of the strength of local
identity, the substantial number of Song officials choosing to retire in places
other than their home locale presents a stark contrast with the Ming, when
retiring elsewhere was rare.57 The requirement that examination candidates
register only through the Confucian schools of their home place, an arrangement that powerfully bound people to their native place, was enforced much
more strictly in the Ming.58 The institution of the huiguan (native place
lodge), by which sojourners ranged themselves along native-place lines,

53
54
55
56

57

58

Ming-Qing era. See Smith and von Glahn, The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003), 6.
Bol, The Rise of Local History, 5253.
On the number of gazetteers in various dynasties, see Zhongguo difang zhi lianghe mulu
.
Chen Wenyi, Networks, Community, Identities.
This general trajectory of the development in genealogy compilation during the Song and
Yuan periods was addressed in Morita Kenji , So-Gen jidai ni okeru sufu
[On the Compilation of Genealogies in the Song and Yuan Periods], Toyoshi Kenkyu 37.4 (1979): 57105. Robert Hymes study of Fuzhou in specific
reached the same conclusion. Genealogy compilation in Huizhou, analyzed in Chapter 1
of this book, confirms this observation. See Chow Kai-wing, The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China: Ethics, Classics, and Lineage Discourse (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), 276 note 55, for a discussion of compilation of genealogies in Ming
and Qing periods. See Chang Jianhua , Zongzu zhi (Shanghai: Shanghai
renmin chubanshe, 1998) for a discussion of the trajectory of lineage practice in late
imperial China.
The phenomenon of Song dynasty scholar-officials choosing places other than their
home locales for retirement was studied by Japanese scholar Masaaki Chikusa
. See his So tai kanryo no yori ni tside [On the Sojourning of the Song Officials], Toyo shi kenkyu 411 (1982); and Baku so shi taifu no shiki to
gaita [Migration and LandPurchases of the Northern Song Literati: A Study Based on the Epistles of Su Dongpo],
Shirin 54.2 (1971).
Ho Ping-ti, Zhongguo huiguan shilun (Taipei: Xuesheng shuju, 1966), 79.

Introduction

21

emerged in substantial numbers in the late Ming but not earlier. All this points
to the question of how much home locality had a bearing on peoples lives in
the Song.59
As to Huizhou in particular, over the roughly three hundred years of the
Song-Yuan-Ming transition we see a steady increase in the number of local gazetteers and local anthologies, in the construction of local traditions, and in
both the intensification and the spread of lineage-building activities. By the
mid-sixteenth century, the identification of Huizhou as a model Confucian
place was well established in local society (Chapter 1). Compared with Song
times, a merchant from Huizhou in the late Ming could call on a more distinctive home image, more fully articulated traditions in the home place, and a
more sophisticated network of people in the home community. Merchants in
the late Ming and Qing called the place our Huizhou (wuhui) and often evoked
its image as a model Confucian place as a way to assert themselves and consolidate as a group (Chapter 2). We have no evidence that their predecessors in
the Song operated this way. Therefore, the story of the huishangs translocal
activities will focus on the late Ming and Qing, and leave the issue of earlier
periods for future studies.
Translocal Practices and the Re-ordering of Places
To frame the story of the huishang as one of translocality requires a twopronged approach. First, we must recognize the structuring force of locality
and examine how the huishangs rootedness in the home locale and their connection with it shaped the ways they perceived themselves in other places, interacted with host town natives, and viewed the places and people they
encountered. Second, it is clear that once these merchants moved beyond the
home locale, certain ideas and practices that had developed in the localized
context of the home place would have to go through modifications. How were
they to fulfill filial obligations from afar, maintain kinship ties in a broader network, and engage in the public affairs of the home locale when no longer a
59

Timothy Brooks comparison of the late Song and late Ming in terms of the gentry society
and public sphere reached a similar conclusion on the gentrys relationship with locality.
According to Brook, What may have differed between the late Song and late Ming was
the extent to which the local elites made its collective presence known in local society
and acted in concert at the county level, its members becoming quasi-legitimate spokesmen on an emerging intermediate ground for representing local public interest. See
Brook, Praying for Power, 24.

22

Introduction

regular resident? What were the implications of taking the civil service examination and participating in public projects in host locales while being a mere
sojourner there in either a legal or personal sense? Therefore, trans implies
not only moving across geographical boundaries but also transforming localized practices and institutions. This does not mean that the huishang transcended the local, because discourses on local identity, ties with the home
locale, and concerns with local community factored into their experiences everywhere. But their ability to move beyond the parameters of a locality meant
they could engage these concerns in different and novel ways. Their strategizing efforts in this multi-place arena whether availing themselves of its manifold resources such as extended social networks and economic opportunities,
or solving problems that they either brought with them (such as filial obligations) or encountered in the new places (such as conflicts with natives) are
what I mean by translocal practices.
Since the huishangs translocal practices involved multiple places, studying
these practices entails a departure from the local history method that has been
influential in studies of social history in late imperial China. This method emphasizes focusing on a particular place (often a county or a prefecture) for
sharper and more precise analysis. By situating the huishang in a newly created
social space between local places, we may gain new understanding of issues
that have so far been studied primarily in local (either urban or rural) settings.
For example, studies of urban sojourners in late imperial China often situate
their experiences in the urban context of the host city and sometimes evaluate
their practice of native-place ties by its compatibility with a set of modern
developments mostly evolved in cities, such as the rise of citywide communal
spirit and the formation of national consciousness.60 Yet the city of late impe60

The tendency to evaluate sojourners native-place tie on its compatibility with modern
development was profoundly shaped by Max Webers influential thesis, which blamed
this tie for hindering the development of city-wide oath-bound communities in China
and hence causing the lack of political, military and organizational autonomy of its cities,
eventually thwarting the social and economic development of the country. See Weber,
The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism (Glencoe, Ill: Free Press, 1951), 1820.
Influential reiterations of the Weberian thesis can be found in Japanese-language works
such as Niida Noboru , Chugoku no shakai to girudo
(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1951), and Imahoori Seiji, , Chugoku hoken shakai no
kozo: sono rekishi to kakumei zenya no genjitsu :
(Tokyo, Nihon Gakujutsu Shinkokai, 1978). For works that question Webers
conclusion but retain his framework of analysis, see Dou Jiliang, Tongxian zhuzhi zhi yanjiu, 18; Ho Pingti, Zhongguo huiguan shilun, English Abstract, 4; Susan Mann, The
Ningpo Pang and Financial Power in Shanghai, in Mark Elvin and G. William Skinner,

Introduction

23

rial China was not only the place where commercial activities intensified and
strangers rubbed shoulders, but also an arena where local places encountered
one another. One can see this in the fact that most of the merchants native
place lodges that mushroomed in urban China carried the place-names of
their home locales. In this sense, sojourning in Ming-Qing China was a demonstration of ones local identity in a different place. By redirecting the sojourning experience from an urban to a translocal frame of analysis, and by
comparing the home-place identity practices of sojourning merchants and the
home-based literati, we may avoid treating the sojourners native-place ties as
something inherited from the past and judging it on its compatibility with
things we think of as modern. Instead we may discover the novelty it represented in the context of late imperial Chinas internal social and spatial dynamics. Therefore I will demonstrate that in contrast to the Huizhou literatis
imagination of their locale as a model for all-under-Heaven (Chapter 1), the
merchant sojourners pride in and attachment to the home locale became a
rallying call for community in the face of conflict with natives in the places
they did business. Huizhous image as the model Confucian place nonetheless
would also serve as justification for Huizhou sojourners to become predominant in other regions (Chapter 2). Therefore, where other local places became
eds., The Chinese City Between Two Worlds (Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1974),
7396; William Rowe, Commerce and Society, Chapters 810, passim; Bryna Goodman,
Native Place, City, and Nation: Regional Networks and Identities in Shanghai, 18531937
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), Chapter 6. See also Richard Belsky, Localities at the Center: Native Place, Space, and Power in Late Imperial Beijing (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard Asia Center, 2009). Other works on the urban sojourners that situated their experience in the urban context but avoided the Weberian framework of analysis include
Emily Honig, Creating Chinese Ethnicity: Subei People in Shanghai 18501980 (New Heaven:
Yale University Press. 1992), which treated common place-origin of the subei people in
Shanghai as part of the mechanism in the construction of ethnic identity; and Siyen Fei,
Negotiating Urban Space: Urbanization and Late Ming Nanjing (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Asian Center, 2009), Chapter 3, which treated the sojourners generally as guest people in
the city, without addressing the issue of their native-place ties. G. William Skinners study
of sojourners did not go into details of the sojourners experience in specific local contexts; rather it depicted a general picture of native-place ties as migration and business
strategies that facilitated economic gain. The same approach was adopted by James Cole
in his study of the social network by natives of Shaoxing that was built upon their same
place-origin. See Skinner, Mobility Strategies in Late Imperial China, in Regional Analysis, vol. 1, Economic Systems, ed. Carol Smith (London: Academic Press, 1976); Urban
Social Structure in Ching China, in The City in Late Imperial China, ed. G. William Skinner
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977); and Cole, Shaoxing: Competition and Cooperation in Nineteenth Century China (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1986).

24

Introduction

concrete and interactions between places frequent, the mechanism of local

identity formation changed. Difference, not sameness, became key.61
Charitable and philanthropic projects undertaken by late imperial Chinese
elites often only covered people of their home locale, making the scope of the
public and local coterminous.62 Sojourners, however, demonstrated a different approach to public engagement. To the huishang the geographical scope of
public was both narrower and broader than the local arena. On the one hand,
their charitable projects in host places, launched under the motto of
xiangyi (native-place obligation), provided assistance to other people of Huizhou origins, creating a particularistic type of public obligation. On the other
hand, the same motto inspired the sojourning merchants to expand their public obligations far beyond the host places where they did business, extending to
Huizhou and other cities where fellow Huizhou men sojourned. The local and
the public thus became distinct domains in translocal practices. Instead of
being fixed on whether elements of civil society in late imperial China ever effectively checked the power of the state, as historians concerned with Jurgen
Harbarmas concept of public sphere have been, I suggest a much-needed
shift of perspective: to investigate the changing relationship between the public and locality on a wider stage that involved multiple places.63 In Chapter 3,
I trace the changing connotations of the word xiangyi from local mens virtue
in the Song to a sojourners moral imperative during the late Ming and Qing,
and demonstrate how the state-sanctioned idea of commitment to home locality helped cultivate public participation beyond the locality.
Lineage practices are usually regarded in current scholarship as localized.
For the sojourning merchants and their descendants, however, the challenging
problem of fulfilling kinship obligations and filial devotion from a distance necessitated new strategies. In Chapter 4 I demonstrate that many new lineages
61

62

63

Peter Bol used a similar phrase to compare local identity formation in the Song and the
late Ming, but did not touch on the factor of spatial mobility. See Bol, Localist Turn and
Local Identity, 45.
Mary Rankin, Some Observations on a Chinese Public Sphere, in Modern China, 19.2
(1993): 158182; The origins of a Chinese Public Sphere, Local Elites and Community
Affairs in the Late Imperial Period, Etudes Chinoises, vol. IX, No. 2 (Fall 1990): 1721; William Rowe, The Public Sphere in Modern China, in Modern China, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Jul.,
1990): 318; Philip Huang, Public Sphere / Civil Society in China? The Third Realm
between State and Society, in Modern China, 19.3 (Apr. 1993): 230.
For these debates, see the special issue of the journal Modern China, Symposium: Public
Sphere and Civil Society in Modern China, in Modern China, 19.3 (Apr. 1993). See also
Frederic Wakeman, Jr., Boundaries of the Public Sphere in Ming and Qing China, Daedalus 127.3 (1998): 167189.

Introduction

25

constituted in host places extended lineage practices to maintain connections

with kinsmen back home. These too were a translocal mode of practice: genealogies recorded kinsmen in both home and host places, and income from lineage estates was sent back to help support lineage activities in the home locale,
and an ancestral-place identity lingered for many generations. As a consequence, a persons connection with his ancestral home might come to compete with his identification with his current place of residence. In Huizhou
society, kinsmen bonding in local politics and through the ritual activities of
ancestor worship played crucial roles in cultivating peoples sense of attachment to the home place (see Chapter 1). But in the translocal mode of lineage
practices, the coincidence of kinship practice and local identity no longer applied.
In sum, at the micro level, translocal practices entailed the different
ways people engaged locality. Investigating these diversified engagements
revises our understanding of some central issues in the social history of late
imperial China, and complicates the picture seen from the local history perspective.
At the macro level, the movement of locally rooted people poses a set of
new questions: When other places and people from elsewhere became a constant factor in social life, how did the mobile population perceive the order of
places in the realm, an issue that they were now more likely to be concerned
with? What were the imperial states responses to this new spatial restlessness
in an agrarian empire where the proper function of crucial imperial institutions (such as the taxation system) depended on a sedentary populace? Given
the states vision of local discreteness on the one hand and societys disturbing
tendency toward mobility on the other, how were human-place relations reshaped in the centralized empire?
Some of the answers to these questions are already implied in the huishangs
translocal practices. For example, the sojourners pioneered the display of their
home place names in multiple host cities by building huiguan or sometimes
transferring place-names from home to their host locales. This resulted in the
juxtaposition of many place-names in peoples daily lives. In their direct interactions with people from elsewhere, the sojourners engaged in discussions of
the differences and compatibilities of local places (Chapter 2). Thus the merchants translocal practices were often accompanied by an understanding of
locality and the order of places rarely seen among home-based literati. More
conspicuous changes came with the imperial states reform of the household
registration system in an effort to manage its mobile population, and the mer-

26

Introduction

chants geographical writings that emerged directly from their increased mobility.
To the imperial state, the increased movement of people in society disturbed its scheme of human-place relations. The states effective control over
an agrarian society required that the population remain sedentary, as can be
seen in the deployment of place-determined quotas for taxation and civil service examinations. Effective enforcement of the Rule of Avoidance in civil officials post assignments, which forbad an official from serving in his place of
origin, also required that each person have a clearly defined and stable placeaffiliation. The most important institution by which the state could tie the entire population to their home locales and assign each person a fixe place
identity was the household registration system. In various ways the translocal
practices of the huishang undermined this stability and stretched the limits of
the household registration system by generating multiple place-affiliations.
For example, thanks to the enduring link with home, people who settled in
new places differentiated zuji (ancestral place) and jinji (current
place), and they could be affiliated with both of them. Sojourners could cheat
by participating in civil service examinations both at home and in their host
locales. The long-term household registration reforms that spanned the late
Ming and the High Qing was partly the states response to this apparently irreversible trend in society. Through these reforms the state gradually allowed
mobile households to reregister in their host places, and adopted terms for the
different types of place-affiliation to facilitate more sophisticated control. The
purpose of these reforms was to minimize the impact of spatial mobility on
the empires administrative structure, yet through this legislation the state also
recognized the legality of peoples movement between places and their multiple place-affiliations (Chapter 5).
Geographical writings by the merchants (most prominently those from Huizhou) took the form of the commercially published route books, which provided information both on routes and on local places. Their target audience
included not only commercial travelers but also literati travelers. In these
books merchants often reorganized geographical information in a way that
suspended the official notion of spatial hierarchy and discrete local places, and
instead represented local places across the empire as a web, horizontally interconnected by trade routes. The sense of home-place identity was often expressed in the elevation of the home locale to a position of prominence in the
network of local places. The continuous publication of these books during the
sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries thus presents a contest over the
spatial order of the empire (Chapter 6).

Introduction

27

As a whole, this study of translocality identifies and examines a socio-spatial process in late imperial China, in which the human-place relationship in a
set of social practices, the states administration of peoples place-affiliation,
and the local-empire relationship in peoples geographical imagination went
through significant transformations. These transformations did not lead to an
overhaul of the basic structure of the Ming-Qing empire, for the vision of spatial hierarchy and local discreteness embodied in the states system of field administration, along with the enduring sense of local identity among people in
society, persisted into modern times. But the social practices of a prosperous
mobile population did change the ways locality was engaged, perceived, and
administrated in this empire of local places.

28

The Identity Of Huizhou And The Reach Of Its Merchants

Chapter 1

The Identity of Huizhou and the Reach of Its

Merchants
Huizhous marked identity, that is, its boundaries, name, administrative status
(as a prefecture), and six constituent counties (She, Xiuning, Wuyuan, Jixi, Qimen, and Yi), were stabilized in the Northern Song and remained stable to the
end of the imperial era.1 Its felt identity, or the local literatis imagination of
their home locale, was a more dynamic phenomenon. Between ca. 1200 and
ca. 1550, roughly corresponding to what many scholars called the Song-YuanMing transition, Huizhous image went through several rounds of renewal and
reconstruction amid localist activities such as academy construction and
lineage building.2 In the Southern Song a discourse emerged about Huizhous
distinctiveness that centered on the places peculiar topography and its bearing on the local people. During the Yuan, with the flourishing of daoxue
() learning in Huizhou, devoted local daoxue scholars emphasized Huizhous status as the ancestral home of Zhu Xi and gave it a new label,
dongnan Zou Lu (the Zou and Lu of the Southeast).3 In the midMing, blossoming lineage practices also started to play a role in defining the
place. In 1566, Huizhous image as the land of lineages was officially inscribed
in the prefectural gazetteer. The latter two layers of Huizhous image as dongnan Zou Lu and as the land of lineages feature prominently in Qing era local
gazetteers and together painted Huizhou unambiguously as a model Confu-

The territory of Huizhou as a sub-provincial administrative unit was set in 771, when its
constituent counties, which lasted throughout the late imperial period, were finally fixed.
The official name of the prefecture had been stable since 1121. See Xinan zhi, juan 1.
On the term Song-Yuan-Ming transition in Chinese history, see Paul Smith, Introduction: Problematizing the Song-Yuan-Ming Transition, in The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition
in Chinese History, eds. Paul J. Smith and Richard von Glahn. (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center. 2003), p. 2. On localist activities in Huizhou during this period, see
Harriet Zurndorfer, Change and Continuity in Chinese Local History: the Development of
Huizhou Prefecture 8001800 (Leiden: Brill, 1989); Keith Hazelton, Patrilines and the Development of Localized Lineages: The Wu of Hsiu-Ning City, Hui-chou, to 1528, in Kinship
Organization, eds., Ebrey and Watson, 137169. For the recording of these activities in
local gazetteers in Huizhou, see Huizhou fuzhi (1502), juan 5.
Zou and Lu are the home places of Mencius and Confucius respectively.

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015|doi 10.1163/9789004288409_003

The Identity of Huizhou and the Reach of Its Merchants

29

cian place a place that excelled in sanctioned Confucian learning and the
kinship practices advocated by daoxue masters.4
Subsequent to this process of local image construction by the literati, and
slightly overlapping with it, was the ascendance of Huizhous merchants. It is
generally agreed that the rise of huishangs mercantile power occurred during
the sixteenth century.5 Their renown throughout the realm as archetypal merchants soon followed. The term huishang had become widespread no later
than the second half of the sixteenth century, as demonstrated by the frequent
references to it in literati writings of the period. With varying intensity in diverse regions, the huishangs commercial activities spanned the entire MingQing empire. A mobile population with deep roots and enduring links with
their home locale, these merchants carried with them the literati-constructed
images of Huizhou and often resorted to their home locales status as a model
Confucian place in their efforts to solve various problems they encountered
away from home.
The first part of this chapter documents the literati construction of Huizhous image. The second outlines the kinds of trade engaged in by the huishang and traces the geographical reach of their activities. Together these set
the stage for the investigation of the huishangs translocal practices and their
impact on spatial order, which follow in succeeding chapters.
Huizhou in the Literati Imagination: Locality as a Microcosm of the
Realm

The Soil and the People: Song Discourse on Huizhous Distinctiveness
The notion of Huizhous topography-based distinctiveness emerged in the
Southern Song together with a discourse that claimed the authority of the local
in matters of judging a persons moral credentials. In an essay commemorating
Cheng Lingxi , a fifth-century local military man who was elevated to
become Huizhous protective deity during the Song, Luo Yuan (1136
1184), the author of Huizhous first prefectural gazetteer Xinan zhi
(pub. 1175), contrasted Cheng with mere social climbers who had made a name
for themselves in the larger world, yet were despised at home:

4
5

See Huizhou fuzhi (1699) juan 2, and Huizhou fuzhi (1827) juan 2, 11.
For discussions on the timing of the rise of Huizhous merchants, see Wang and Zhang,
Huishang yanjiu, 116; Liu Hehui , Huishang shi yu he shi. [When
Did the Huishang Emerge], in Jianghuai lun tan, 24.4 (1982): 4.

30

The Identity Of Huizhou And The Reach Of Its Merchants

There have always been heroic men who achieved much in their military
careers and earned fame in their time, but rarely are they remembered in
their home region for hundreds of generations. In more recent times,
people care only about power and profit, and aim only at taking from this
world. Some of them desert their parents, some sacrifice their children,
and some betray friends, discarding people who are close to them. Enemies might fear their power, but kinsmen do not trust them; they might
earn a position in the emperors court, but not the respect of the local
prefecture; they might be active before the emperor, glamorous among
their peers, and satisfied with their status and wealth, but still unable to
face their kin at home or the graves of their ancestors. So they often stay
in the places where they serve as officials, and, since they cannot return
home, make of their sons and grandsons sojourning outsiders. They
eventually wont be recognized, let alone respected and commemorated
back home for a hundred generations. But Master Cheng of our land is
different.6
In Luos view, the local had the final say regarding a persons moral standing,
while the larger world centered on the court was merely the realm of selfish
careerism. Two generations later, another Huizhou scholar-official Fang Yue
(11991262) took this point a step further to suggest that the local was
by definition a better place for moral cultivation. The occasion for his essay
was a contribution to the reconstruction of a county school by Cheng Bi
(11641242), a high-level court official whose commitment to local affairs fit
well with Luo Yuans ideal of a local worthy:
The sages have taught us that when a man is loyal and trustworthy in
words, and respectable and reliable in deeds, he can make his way even in
a barbarian country; otherwise he cannot make it even in his hometown.
I would say it is easier to make ones way in the barbarian country, but
difficult to do so in ones own home locale. Why? The home locale looks
at how a person normally behaves, while the barbarian place looks at
what he does in the moment. It is easy to do what is right temporarily, but
difficult to hold on to it constantly. Certainly there are shi who hold
high status throughout all-under-Heaven, yet are despised by the shi
dafu of their home locales. So powerful is local judgment! For the
shi trying to cultivate their virtue, the closer they are to home the harder
6

Luo Yuan , Cheng yi tong miao ji [Essay on the Shrine for Cheng
Lingxi], in Luo e zhou xiao ji , juan 3.

The Identity of Huizhou and the Reach of Its Merchants

31

it is to be recognized. It is simply that you can fool the wider world but
not the women and children [of your home place]. What makes Confucius a sage was none other than the chapter of Xiangdang. (Authors
note: Xiangdang is the title of the tenth chapter of Confucius Analects;
it can be translated as home community). All the teachings about governing the state and pacifying all-under-Heaven are embedded here.7
From the viewpoint of state-society relations, one can read Fangs remarks as
an illustration of the separation of the state from its elites and a reflection of
the latters emerging localist strategies. From the perspective of spatial imagination, they illuminate the Huizhou literatis attempt to decouple the true site
where universal values are preserved the locality from the political world
centered at the court by elevating the moral status of the local and making it
more than just an administrative unit in the imperial system. Against this
backdrop, the celebration of Huizhous distinctiveness took on a certain urgency.
The notion of Huizhous topography-based distinctiveness readily satisfied
this need. According to this theory, Huizhous natural endowments its soil, its
rivers, and its isolation helped mold the cherished characteristics of its people. For example, in Xinan zhi, Huizhous steep mountains and stunning rivers
prepared its literati for the work of inspecting and remonstrating, while its isolation bestowed hardworking and stoic qualities on its menfolk and chastity on
its womenfolk. Zhu Xi had also adopted this approach to Huizhous identity,
remarking, Its mountains are elegant and precipitous, its rivers clear and rapturous. People here inherit its qi (, lit. air) and feed off this land for their
living; thus their character and customs cannot but be tough and belligerent.
But the gentlemen here are determined to turn that toughness into lofty conduct and unusual integrity, and they feel particularly ashamed at a lack of righteousness. Thus [Huizhous] custom is such that it is difficult to make people
submit through coercion, but easy to win them over with principle.8 Using
some of the same language, Cheng Bi explains the culture of Huizhous literati
and its relation to their career paths:
Huizhous mountains are sharp and steep, and its rivers are clear, cold,
and rapturous. People are nurtured by the spirits of its mountain and
7
8

Fang Yue , Xiuning xian xiu xue ji [On the Renovation of Xiuning
County School], in Xinan wen xian zhi , juan 13.
Zhu Xi , Xiuning xian xinan dao yuan ji [On the Xinan Daoist
Monastery of Xiuning County], in Huizhou fuzhi (1502), juan 12, 10b11a.

32

The Identity Of Huizhou And The Reach Of Its Merchants

drink its waters its shi dafu cherish integrity and righteousness. You can
kill them but cannot dampen their lofty and heroic spirit. Thus when
they go off to serve the state they make good inspectors and true remonstrators. It has always been like this, not just today.9
This discourse building on Huizhous topography conveys a strong belief in the
organic unity between a places natural configuration and the character of its
people. This belief, mostly based in the influence of the distinctive yet comprehensive qi (air) of a region, has deep roots that can be traced back to pre-imperial China.10 But ever since Chinas political unification in the early imperial
period, local customs were often cast in a negative light: they were deemed
partial, deficient, and thus in need of transformation and cultivation by the
universal values embodied in the imperial state. Often, these cultural transformations symbolized the imperial states efforts at politically absorbing and
subduing the local.11
Whether the Song-era praise of Huizhous topography-based cultural characteristics was a revival of this ancient belief awaits further exploration. What
we can be certain is that such a discourse involves some negative implications.
First, claims about the comprehensive influence of topography on peoples
character bring the literati closer to the common folk, potentially compromising their elevated status. Thus, the statements by Zhu Xi and Cheng Bi take
care to differentiate the topographys effect on gentlemen from its impact on
commoners. Second, local customs included crude and irksome practices at
odds with the gentlemanly ideal of cultivation, a fact that could put Huizhou
literati in an embarrassing position. The advice by Huizhou scholar Cheng
Wen (12891359) to a local official appointed to Huizhous Jixi County,
though made in the Yuan dynasty, vividly illustrates the drawbacks of taking a
topographical approach to define the identity of a place:
9
10

11

Cheng Bi , Ji wang ji shi [Letter Submitted to Executive Assistant Wang],

in Ming shui ji , juan 12.
Roel Sterckxs study has demonstrated that in the pre-imperial period, this belief figured
in a broad natural philosophy that both human and animal inhabitants of regions are
subjected to different qi of their region. Thus, for example, offerings to local gods must
be local animals, and the human physiques and political actions of regions (i.e., the Warring States) were attributed to the nature of the configured cosmic or regional energies
that influenced them. Sterckx, The Animal and the Daemon in Early China (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 2002) p. 103.
See Yu Yingshi , Han dai xun li yu wen hua chuan bo
[Model Officials of the Han Dynasty and the Spread of Culture], in idem, Shi yu zhong
guo wen hua, pp. 129216. See also Mark Lewis, The Construction of Space in Early China
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006), 192212.

The Identity of Huizhou and the Reach of Its Merchants

33

Local customs are something you have to study carefully. Huizhou is a

prefecture located in the mountains, its land is high and its qi is chilly,
and the people are tough and belligerent. Jixi sits on the border between
Huizhou and Xuanzhou, and is particularly isolated and dangerous. At
the beginning of the dynasty, some local officials took advantage of its
status as a newly subdued region; they stared at the place like tigers, and
snatched from the people like hawks. The people could not stand it and
revolted. The court sent troops to suppress the revolt, but the people
made the mountains and rivers their defenses, so the troops could not
subdue them. The people then sent messages stating, Its not that we
dare to rebel, we are just releasing ourselves from unbearable abuses. If
Magistrate Xu were here, there would be no need for military action at
all. Magistrate Xu had been a local official in Huizhou and cared about
the people. But by then, he had been transferred elsewhere. They sent for
Xu, who returned and proceeded to the rebels camp completely unarmed.
But they all went out and surrendered. People conclude that Magistrate
Xu is better than a military commander, but they do not realize that the
people of Jixi can be moved by righteousness but never subdued by
might.12
Chengs sympathy with, and even pride in, local toughness is obvious, for the
overall point he made to his advisee was to treat local customs seriously. But in
this case, the cherished local customs had led the people of Jixi to the worst sin
of all rebellion. All Cheng could do was to ameliorate the seriousness of the
event by repackaging it as a case of people being forced into rebellion because
of their righteousness. The topography-generated qualities of the local people
might be admirable, but certainly could not be praised without reservation.
Why, then, did Huizhou literati choose to tolerate these drawbacks? Why
did they choose to define Huizhous distinctiveness in terms of topographybased customs instead of Huizhous literati culture? The answer lies, it appears,
in the state of Huzihous literati culture itself. In the Southern Song, literati
culture was still relatively novel in Huizhou, and was heavily defined by public
service. Both of these features are addressed in Luo Yuans gazetteer:
Since the Han ... people here have been known for their fierce defense of
their homeland. Later there gradually appeared men of letters (wen shi).
After the Huang Chao rebellion (875884) many cultured families from
the central plain moved here. Some stayed while others moved on, but
local customs became more cultured and elegant (wen ya). By the rise of
12

Cheng Wen , Song Jie zhu bu zhi guan Jixi xu [An Essay for
Assistant Magistrate Jie on His New Appointment in Jixi], in Xinan wenxian zhi, juan 20.

34

The Identity Of Huizhou And The Reach Of Its Merchants

the Song dynasty, famous court officials were being produced here every
generation (ming chen bei chu).13
The fledgling service-based literati culture in Huizhou hardly contributed to
demonstrating the areas distinctiveness. By contrast, its landscape-derived
virtues better served the rising localist sentiment. At the same time, the connection of Song Huizhous literati to the cosmopolitan kultur of the center by
means of public service was strong enough to matter. In fact, all known advocates of Huizhous natural goodness were also officeholders. Praising local customs could bring them closer to the common folk and distance them from the
state, but this did not threaten their links to the state or jeopardized their identity as shi (). In the context of the rising localist turn, this was a reasonable
and affordable strategy for Huizhous literati. Thus, instead of defining their
local place in terms of its literati culture, Huizhou literati defined their culture
by invoking the qualities of the place: Huizhou gentlemens integrity, righteousness, and straightforwardness in serving the state were partly the effect of
their native topography.
Defining Huizhou according to topography-based customs did make it distinctive. But this distinction did not help connect Huizhous literati to the wider literati culture. For Southern Song Huizhou literati and a small number of
their Yuan counterparts, this was not a problem since the connection had already been secured by the examination system and civil service.14 But there
were many Yuan dynasty scholars whose path to serving the state was blocked,
and their participation in nationwide literati culture would depend on their
learning.

Learning and Locality: The Making of a Model Confucian Place
The refashioning of Huizhou as the dong nan Zou Lu occurred as Huizhous
literati culture was transformed. The direct cause of this transformation, the
Mongol conquest and the nearly century-long alien rule over the Chinese
heartland, left the Han Chinese literati politically disenfranchised. For the first
four decades of Yuan rule, civil service examinations were completely abolished. Even after they resumed in 1315, the number of degrees granted and official positions provided were far from comparable to those in the Southern
Song. Over the course of the entire Yuan dynasty, only twenty-three Huizhou

13
14

Xinan zhi, juan 1, Fengsu [customs].

On the examinations role in helping local literati connect to overall literati culture, see
Peter Bol, The Sung Examination System and the Shi, in Asia Major 3.2 (1992): 149171.

The Identity of Huizhou and the Reach of Its Merchants

35

men passed the provincial-level examinations, and no more than five of them
earned the jinshi degree.15
Chinese political culture as a whole survived this disaster, but literati career
strategies had to be substantially adjusted.16 Partly due to their reluctance to
serve an alien dynasty but also because they had lost significant access to channels for political participation, Han Chinese literati no longer participated in
numbers in the civil service, a key pillar of their shi identity during the Song.
Accordingly, they focused on another pillar that of learning to sustain that
identity. Thus, Han Chinese literati became mostly private scholars during the
Yuan. In Huizhou, this change of occupational status may be seen in both biographies of the literati and the flourishing of academies during this period. In
the 1502 prefectural gazetteer, the earliest extant edition after the Yuan, accounts of high officials (xunxian ) stop abruptly at the end of the Southern Song and pick up again only with the Ming. Virtually all entries on
prominent Yuan scholars (shuo ru ) were about people with no official
career or who served only in educational positions. On the other hand, out of
thirty-five records concerning the construction or renovation of academies
from the Song to the beginning of the sixteenth century, fully twenty took
place during the Yuan, attesting to the concentration on learning and education among Huizhou literati.17
Along with these social, political, and institutional changes, Confucian
learning was itself undergoing important changes. Ironically, due to what Benjamin Elman calls the benign neglect of ideological control by the Mongol
court, Han Chinese literati gained autonomy from the political center in the
matter of defining true Confucian learning. Literati had been fighting for this
autonomy since the Song and took as their main battlefield the examination
curriculum. In the absence of an examination system, once the institutional
15
16

17

Huizhou fuzhi (1502), juan 6:2021. Regarding changes in the civil service examinations
during the Yuan in general, see Elman, Civil Examination, Chapter 1.
On the survival of Confucian learning during the Song-Yuan transition, see Xiao Qiqing
, Yuandai de ruhu: rushi diwei yanjin shi shang de yizhang :
[On the Confucian Households during the Yuan: a Chapter in the
Evolution of Confucian Scholars Social Status], in idem, Yuandai shi xin tan
(Taipei: Xinwenfeng, 1983). Lao Yan-shuan, Southern Chinese scholars and Educational Institutions in Early Yuan: Some Preliminary Remarks, in China Under Mongol
Rule, ed. John Langlois Jr. (Princeton University Press, 1981), 107134.
For these events, see Huizhou fuzhi (1502), juan 5, Xuexiao [schools]. Renovation
and reconstruction occurred in Huizhous oldest academy, the Ziyang Academy, more
often than in other cases. Detailed information on these renovations can be found in She
xianzhi (1937), juan 2, Xuexiao.

36

The Identity Of Huizhou And The Reach Of Its Merchants

bulwark of the belles-lettres approach to Confucian learning, the daoxue

school finally prevailed with literati in local society.18 When the Yuan court, in
an effort to enhance their legitimacy among Han elites, eventually decided to
reinstate the examination system, they accommodated the winning party in
this battle and dubbed daoxue the new state-sponsored orthodoxy.19
In Huizhou, the ascendance of daoxue in literati culture is best exemplified
by the changing status of Zhu Xi. During his life time, Zhu Xi made several
visits to Huizhou, where he attracted some followers to his daoxue learning.
After his death, with the gradual increase of daoxue influence on literati culture, Zhu Xi became the heart of a cult devised by Huizhous literati.20 Informal commemoration started immediately after his death in 1200, when his
followers privately erected his image in the prefectural school. When the brief
ban on daoxue was lifted in 1215, the enshrinement of Zhu Xi gathered momentum upon the orders of Huizhous prefect, who was himself a daoxue follower, the first formal shrine was dedicated to Zhu that same year. In 1246, five
years after the five daoxue masters had been canonized by the Southern Song
court, another prefect initiated construction of the first academy dedicated to
Zhu Xi in Huizhou. Over the rest of the Southern Song, all six Huizhou counties
would establish official shrines to Zhu Xi, and more academies would be constructed to promote his teaching.21 By the Yuan, Zhu Xis teachings had profoundly transformed the literati culture of Huizhou. Chen Li (12521334),
one of the most influential Huizhou scholars in the mid-Yuan, stated his position regarding learning:
I was born in the homeland of Master Zhu; therefore I study Master Zhus
teaching. Up to this very day I have been absorbing the best of his teachings about Nature (xing) and the Principle (li). I have humbly labored to
illuminate the teachings of Master Zhu in the books I write I do not like
any book that is not by Master Zhu.22

18
19
20

21
22

See Peter Bol, Examinations and Orthodoxies, for a documentation of this battle and an
explanation of the daoxue schools eventual triumph.
Elman, Civil Examination, pp. 2538.
For a detailed analysis of the canonization and consecration of Zhu Xi, see Thomas Wilson, Genealogy of Way: The Construction and Uses of the Confucian Tradition in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995).
Huizhou fuzhi (1502), juan 5,Xuexiao.
Chen Li , Shang zhang junshou [Letter Submitted to Prefect Zhang], in
Ding yu ji , juan 10.

The Identity of Huizhou and the Reach of Its Merchants

37

Being so proudly and almost exclusively devoted to Zhu Xis learning, Chen Li
belonged to an active community of scholars that also included Cheng Ruoyong (js. 1268), Hu Bingwen (12501333), Ni Shiyi (fl.
1330s), Zheng Yu (12981358), Wang Kekuan (13041372), Zhao
Pang (13191369), and Zhu Sheng (12991370). These men obviously
formed the mainstream of Huizhous literati scene during the Yuan, since they
account for the majority of entries in the section Prominent Confucian Scholars in the 1502 prefectural gazetteer.23
As a group, these scholars strictly identified their own endeavors with Zhu
Xis teachings. They referred to Zhu Xi as their Prefectural Master ()
and regarded themselves as his authentic heirs at a time when various interpretations of his teachings had emerged, subsequent to his death. They diagnosed declining social mores in general and the corrupt moral condition of
literati more specifically as a deviation from the authentic teachings of the
master and believed that this deviation was caused by the erroneous
interpretations.24 Naturally, they took up responsibility for defending the purity of Zhu Xis teachings and trying to reverse the moral decline. Thus, for example, Hu Bingwen took pains to point out where the interpretations of Rao
Lu a noted daoxue scholar in Jiangxi deviated from the masters true
teachings, while another, Ni Shiyi, was said to never teach people what has not
already been clearly explained by the Prefectural Master.25
The most impressive project they engaged in was the development of a new
daoxue genealogy, which designated Huizhou scholars as carriers of the Confucian tradition handed down to them by Song daoxue masters. Chen Li played
an important role in this effort, and was himself regarded as an important link
in this genealogy. As one of his students stated in the epitaph for Chen,
The learning of the sages was extended and accomplished by Master Zhu
of Xinan. After Master Zhus death, scholars everywhere rose in throngs
and wrote their own books. Some had merit and some did not, but all set
up their own brand. Competing with one another, absorbing unheard-of
23
24

25

Huizhou fuzhi (1502) juan 7. For a comprehensive list of Huizhous daoxue scholars, see
Cheng Tong , Xinan xue xi lu .
See Zheng Yu , Shi shan ji , juan 1; Zhu Chan , Dingyu xiansheng mu zhi
ming [Epitaph of Master Dingyu], in Ding yu ji, juan 17; Cheng Minzheng , Dingyu xiansheng xing zhuang [Life of Master Dingyu],
in Ding yu ji, juan 17.
Wang Youfeng , Hu Bingwen zhuan [Biography of Hu Bingwen], in
Xinan xue xi lu, juan 12. Zhao Pang , Ni Shiyi mu biao [Tomb Essay for
Ni Shiyi], in Xinan xue xi lu, vol. 14.

38

The Identity Of Huizhou And The Reach Of Its Merchants

ideas, making unsound arguments, and confusing people, they obscured

the teachings of Master Zhu. Fifty-three years after Master Zhus death,
Mr. Chen was born in Xinan Fearing that Master Zhus true intent was
being muddled by these scholars, Mr. Chen wrote his own books [of commentaries on the classics]. Any discrepancies with Master Zhus ideas
were removed, whatever he implied was explained, and whatever he did
not finish was supplemented and completed. Therefore, the teachings of
Master Zhu were illuminated and started to shine again.26
This discourse became more widespread and further streamlined after Chen
Li, as can be seen in scholars frequent claims that their work never diverted
from the teachings of Master Zhu or all fit into what Master Zhu had said. In
the 1360s, when Zhu Sheng , one of Chens students, retired from his brief
service in Zhu Yuanzhangs court, one of the farewell poems his friends
wrote for him reads:
The Way of Master Zhu connects through the
Brothers Cheng
And is perfectly completed by Mr. Zhu Sheng
The same authentic Way continues today as in
antiquity,
Its age-old wisdom looks difficult yet could be
easy.27

Thus, by the Yuan-Ming transition, dedication to Zhu Xi and his teachings had
become the hallmark of Huizhous literati learning and thus the defining characteristic of Huizhous literati culture. The first known effort to formally pull
Huizhou scholars together and call them a school came in 1508 when Cheng
Tong compiled a biographical anthology of all Huizhous daoxue scholars of the Song and Yuan, and entitled it Xinan xuexi lu [The Genealogy of Learning in Huizhou]. But obviously the consciousness of a learning
community arose much earlier.28
The refashioning of Huizhous image closely followed the redefining of Huizhous literati culture. Beginning from the Song-Yuan transition, Huizhous
26
27
28

Zhu Chan , Ding yu xiansheng mu zhi ming.

Zhu fenglin ji , juan 10.
In fact Cheng Tong revealed in the introduction that his motivation for compiling the
anthology was to defend this tradition, which he saw being encroached on by Wang Yangmings teaching at the beginning of the sixteenth century. See Cheng Tong, Xinan xue xi
lu, preface.

The Identity of Huizhou and the Reach of Its Merchants

39

literati repeatedly compared their home region to the home of ancient Confucian sages. As early as 1281, Fang Hui stated that Huizhou is the Lu () of our
day, and Ziyang Mountain is the Zhu () River and Si () River of our
day.29 Shortly after this, Huizhou literati further secured their localitys sacred
status by digging into the genealogy of the Cheng brothers (Cheng I and Cheng
Hao) and tracing their ancestry to Huizhou. Thus, in 1324, the Cheng brothers
were also enshrined in Huizhous Shrine of Local Worthies. In an essay celebrating this event, Hu Bingwen converted the genealogy of the Way into a series of sacred places that had been home to the sages of antiquity. Not
surprisingly, Huizhou, as home of the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi, was listed
after Ji (home place of Yao), Qi (home place of King Wen), and Lu
(the home place of Confucius), and celebrated as a sacred place.30
The discourses that bound Huizhou to Zhu Xi and compared it to other sacred places eventually resulted in establishing Huizhou as the dongnan Zou
Lu, a phrase coined by Huizhou scholars no later than the Yuan-Ming transition. Of the numerous explanations of this notion, the one provided by Zhao
Pang is most succinct:
In Xinan all learning is based on [the teaching of] our Prefectural Master. The six classics and their commentaries, as well as all the hundred
schools of teachings, had they not been commented upon and accepted
by Master Zhu, our fathers and older brothers would not use them as
teaching materials, and our sons and younger brothers would not study
them. Therefore, while Master Zhus teachings are current in the wider
world, in terms of fluency at explaining them, thoroughness in their illumination, and firmness in hewing close to their meaning, the literati of
Xinan are the most capable. For this reason, people from all four directions refer to Huizhou as Zou and Lu of the Southeast.31

29

30
31

Fang Hui , Huizhou Chong jian Ziyang shu yuan ji [Commemorating the Renovation of Ziyang Academy], in Xinan wenxian zhi, juan 14. Ziyang
Mountain is located near the prefectural seat of Huizhou. Zhu Xis father once lived and
studied there. For this reason, Zhu Xi picked Ziyang as his literary name.
Hu Bingwen , Huizhou xian xian ci ji [On the Shrine for Huizhou Local Worthies], in Xinan wenxian zhi, juan 14.
Zhao Pang, Shang shan shuyuan xue tian ji [On the school land dedication for Shangshan Academy], in Dong shan cun gao , juan 4. For other
references to the notion, see also Wang Kekuan , Wanchuan jia shu ji
[Essay Celebrating the Wanchuan Home School], in Xinan wenxian zhi, juan 16;
Cheng Tong, Xinan xuexi lu, preface.

40

The Identity Of Huizhou And The Reach Of Its Merchants

Since Zou was the home place of Mencius and Lu was the home place of Confucius, this characterization of Huizhou clearly indicated the local literatis intention to mark their home place as the model Confucian place of their time.
In the 1502 prefectural gazetteer, this title was formally promoted to establish
this identity for Huizhou, and it was maintained with pride by Huizhou literati
until the end of the imperial era.32

Lineage as Localist Activity and as Local Image
The rise of Huizhous image as the land of lineages also bore the influence of
daoxue. But it involved many more people and took longer to achieve. What
Robert Hymes calls the literatis lineage orientation emerged in Huizhou no
later than the Southern Song.33 The increasing number of genealogy prefaces
in literati collected works (wenji ) during the Yuan and the early Ming attests to the steady growth of lineage activities.34 Daoxue was crucial to this
process.35 Most of the daoxue scholars mentioned above were themselves avid
32
33

34

35

Huizhou fuzhi, 1502, juan 1, Fengsu.

Harriet Zurndorfer suggests that lineage communities in Huizhou conceivably started
in the twelfth century. Harriet Zurndorfer, Change and Continuity in Chinese Local History:
the Development of Huizhou Prefecture 8001800 (Leiden: Brill, 1989), 35. Zhu Xi and some
of the famous local literati wrote prefaces for genealogies of Huizhou lineages. See Zhu Xi,
Cha yuan zhu shi zupu xu [Preface to the Genealogy of the Zhu Clan
of Chayuan], in Xinan wen xian zhi, juan 18; Wu Jing , Wei yin zhai ji [On
the Weiyin studio] in Zhu zhou ji , juan 11; Cheng Bi, Zhu Huizhou xing zhuang
[Life of Zhu Huizhou] in Ming shui ji , juan 11. Wang Yan, who
earned his jinshi degree in 1170, once led his kinsmen in a legal fight to get back their
ancestral graveyard that was allegedly encroached on by other local strongmen, and
exploited his status as a retired official to seek help from the local magistrate. See Wang
Yan , Jian Hong zai [Letter Submitted to Magistrate Hong], in Shuang xi lei
gao , juan 19.
On the development of lineage practice and lineage institutions in general, see Morita
Kenji, So-Gen jidai; Genealogy prefaces were rare in the wenji of prominent Huizhou
literati during the Song; their number increased during the Yuan. For example, three
pieces appeared in Chen Lis Ding yu ji, another three in Zhu Shengs Fenglin Ji, and two in
Zheng Yus Shishan ji. During the fifteenth century, the number of genealogy prefaces in
literati wenji grew dramatically. For example, Cheng Minzhengs Huangdun wenji
contained ten of them.
Daoxue alone, however, by no means explains the formation and development of lineage
institutions in Huizhou. A recent body of lineage studies set in the Fujian and Guangdong
regions by such scholars as Zheng Zhenman, Michael Szonyi, Hugh Clark, have made
strong cases that social practices on the ground, including competition for local dominance and dealings with the state, played crucial roles in this process. See Zheng Zhenman, Ming Qing Fujian jiazu zuzhi yu shehui bianqian

The Identity of Huizhou and the Reach of Its Merchants

41

lineage activists.36 More importantly, lineage practices were given powerful

impetus by the spread of daoxue teaching, which provided both justification
and guidance for lineage-building activities. These activities engaged both daoxue scholars and literati in general.
With the growth of lineage activities, social life in Huizhou became increasingly organized along lineage lines. Rampant inter-lineage disputes over properties, particularly ancestral graveyards, had long been noted by contemporaries,
and more recently have been studied by modern historians.37 In addition, the
compilation of genealogies and lineage anthologies became an important arena of competition for cultural standing. The practice of seeking prefaces for
genealogies that began during the Song had become a more public activity by
the Yuan, when people frequently turned to famous writers for a preface to
enhance the lineages reputation.38 By the mid-Ming, decorating genealogies
and lineage anthologies with prefaces by celebrated writers had become almost an obsession among lineage activists.39 Such inter-lineage competition
confirms what Hymes found in Fuzhou prefecture in roughly the same period:
descent-group identity, which had been largely a private concern, was becom-

36

37

38
39

(Beijing: Renmin Daxue chubanshe, 2009); Michael Szonyi, Practicing Kinship: Lineage
and Descent in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002); Hugh
Clark, Portrait of a Community: Society, Culture, and the Structures of Kinship in the Mulan
River (Fujian) from the Late Tang through the Song (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press,
2007).
The same phenomenon was noticed by Peter Bol in Jinhua. See Bol, Local History and
Family in Past and Present, in The New and the Multiple: Sung Sense of the Past, ed. Tomas
H.C.Lee (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. 2004), 338.
Modern scholarship on Huizhou social history has documented in detail several cases of
intense and prolonged legal dispute over lineage property in the mid-Ming. See A Feng
, Cong yang gan yuanguijie shimo kan mingdai Huizhou fojiao yu zongzu zhi guanxi
[The Relationship between Buddhism and Lineage As Seen from the Complete Account of the Case of Yanggan Monastery], in Hui xue 2000:116126; Park Won-Ho Cong liu shan fang shi kan mingdai
Huizhou zongzu zuzhi de kuoda [The
Expansion of Lineage Organization As Evidenced by the Case of the Fangs of Liushan],
in Lishi yanjiu 1997.1:3345. Local gazetteers since the late Ming also identified the high
frequency of lawsuits as a major feature of local customs. See Huizhou fuzhi (1566),
juan 2.
Patricia Ebrey, Early Stages in the Development of Descent Group Organization, in Kinship organization, eds. Ebrey and Watson, 47.
See Cheng Minzhengs Huang dun wenji, juan 3435, for examples of the tenacious pursuit of genealogy and lineage anthology prefaces.

42

The Identity Of Huizhou And The Reach Of Its Merchants

ing a matter for public discussion, note, and celebration.40 The ultimate demonstration of how public lineage activities had become in Huizhou was the
compilation of comprehensive clan lists, in which all regional lineages were
evaluated and ranked. The first work of this genre, entitled Prominent Lineages
of Xinan (Xinan da zu zhi ), was produced in 1316 by Chen Li. Several similar works were compiled over the following two centuries, mostly covering clans of Huizhou prefecture as a whole, but occasionally focusing on one
of Huizhous constituent counties.41
The registration of lineage activity as a distinctive feature of Huizhou came
in the sixteenth century. The 1502 edition of Huizhous prefectural gazetteer
included major ancestral shrines in its section on local architecture.42 The belief that Huizhou was outstanding in terms of its lineage activity seems to have
emerged during the Jiajing period (15221566).43 Wu Ziyu (fl. mid- Jiajing period) wrote:
There are millions of ancestral halls south of the Yangtze River, but they
are most numerous in Huizhou, because in our prefecture all surnames
have their zu, all zu have their ancestors (zong), and all ancestors have
their shrines. Affluent kinsmen often single-handedly sponsor their construction without bothering others in the zu. Poor kinsmen make ancestral halls their top priority even when their own houses are leaking,
because they do not want to leave this honor only to their rich kinsmen.44

40
41

42
43

44

Hymes, Marriage, Descent Group, and the Localist Strategy, p. 126.

Chens list was not printed until the mid-Ming. See Guo Qitao, Genealogical Pedigree
Versus Godly Power: Cheng Minzheng And Lineage Politics In Mid-Ming Huizhou, in
Late Imperial China 31.1 (June 2010):2861, for a detailed discussion of its printing in the
mid-Ming. The later projects attempted to either update Chens gazetteer or imitate it
with independent compilations. In 1525 Dai Yanming tried to update Chens gazetteer.
Later on came Zheng Zuos Shi lu Xinan shijia in 1549; Cheng
Shangkuan compiled the Xinan mingzu zhi in 1551; and Cao Sixuan
applied Chens idea to one county in his 1625 Xinan xiuning mingzu zhi
. Unfortunately Dai Yanmings work is no longer extant; it is referred to in
Zheng Zuos preface to Xinan mingzu zhi.
Huizhou fuzhi (1502), juan 1, Fengsu; juan 10, Gong shi (Palaces and Houses).
The building of ancestral halls boomed due to an edict of 1538 that allowed commoners
to build lineage halls and make offerings to their original immigrant ancestor (shi qian
zu). See Chang Jianhua, Ming dai Huizhou zongci de tedian
[Features of Ming Lineage shrines], in Nankai daxue xuebao, 2003.5: 101107.
Wu Ziyu , Sa xi ling shi ci tang ji [On the Lineage Shrine of
Ling Clan of Shaxi], in Da zhang shan ren ji , juan 22.

The Identity of Huizhou and the Reach of Its Merchants

43

In 1566, a similar stance was taken in an updated edition of the prefectural

gazetteer, which substantially reduced the number of family houses to make
room for documenting the ancestral halls. The compiler stated, ancestral
halls appear [in large numbers] only in our Huizhou, and not in any other
prefectures.45 The late Ming and Qing witnessed further development both of
Huizhous lineage institutions and of a discourse according to which Huizhou
was the place where lineages flourished to the highest degree.46 But it is clear
that the image of Huizhou as a land of lineages had been established by the
mid-sixteenth century.
Lineage practices promoted the importance of locality even more powerfully than did daoxue learning. First, they provided ritual and institutional
mechanisms that bound literati to their kinsmen and through them to the
broader home locale. According to the Huizhou scholar-official Cheng Minzheng (14451500), lineages were highly developed south of the Yangtze River because although there had been bad harvests people do not
abandon their homes and move away. Thus they can help each other and avoid
perishing altogether.47 Second, the inter-lineage competition for local dominance and local standing also made it necessary for kinsmen to stay in the
home locale. As Cheng Minzheng put it, maintaining social order via lineages
would not be possible unless people stay together for hundreds of years and
maintain their community with appropriate methods.48 Attachment to ones
ancestral place furthered attachment to the home locale. In this sense, a good
lineage man was simultaneously a true local man.49 It was no surprise that
45

46

47
48
49

See Huizhou fuzhi (1566), juan 21. The number of ancestral halls listed in the chapter
topped two hundred, well above the several dozens of all other kinds of buildings combined.
On the lineages grip on social life in Huizhou during the late Ming and the Qing, see Chen
Keyun , Lue lun mingqing huizhou de xiangyue [On
Community Covenant of Ming and Qing Huizhou], in Zhouguoshi yanjiu, 1990.4: 4455.
Remarks on Huizhou as the quintessential land of lineages are numerous during the
Qing. For examples, see Zhao Jishi , Ji yuan ji suo ji , juan 11, and Jiang
Shaolian , She fengshu lijiao kao , partly preserved in Xu Chengyao
, Sheshi xiantan , 605.
Cheng Minzheng, Huaitang cheng fu jun mu biao [Tomb Essay for
Elder Huaitang of the Cheng Clan], in Huangdun wen ji, juan 43.
Cheng Minzheng, Gulin huang shi zupu xu [Preface to The Genealogy
of Huangs of Gulin], in Huangdun wen ji, juan 22.
Scholarship on local history has long noted the central importance of lineage construction in the development of local domination by elites. For example, see, among others,
Hilary Bettie, Land and Lineage; Robert Hymes, Marriage, Descent Groups, and the
Localist Strategy; Hugh Clark, Portrait of a Community; Hymes, Statesmen and Gentlemen, 124135; Bol, Local History and Family. Robert Hymes study of the Lu family during

44

The Identity Of Huizhou And The Reach Of Its Merchants

with the intensification of lineage activities during the Yuan and early Ming,
the 1502 prefectural gazetteer highlighted a feature among Huizhous customs:
the local people take root in this place and rarely move away (an tu zhong qian
).50
To feature lineage practice as a hallmark of Huizhou, therefore, was to recognize its literatis committed links to the home locale. Unlike the Southern
Song localist rhetoric, literati connections to locality in the lineage society of
mid-Ming Huizhou had a wider social basis and more solid institutional footing. In the Southern Song, calls for Huizhous literati to pay more attention to
the home locale were often raised against the background of neglect of precisely those matters. Wu Jing, while earnestly singing the praises of the topography-based uprightness of elites in his homeland, also lamented that some of
them sojourned to other places after retiring from the civil service.51 In fact,
even Cheng Dachang (11231195), the highest ranked and most revered
Huizhou scholar-official of the entire Southern Song, settled in Huzhou
instead of Huizhou upon retirement.52 In the mid-Ming, the discourse on the
importance of locality per se had been largely replaced by an emphasis on lineage construction. Interestingly, cases of high officials retiring to other places
seem to have decreased dramatically.53

Literati, Locality, and the Imagined Spatial Order
Those 350 years of local image construction in Huizhou appear to have
been cumulative in effect. Later constructs added new layers to old ones but
did not drive them out of circulation. Thus the Southern Song notion of

50
51

52
53

the Southern Song suggests that sometimes the kinship institution (the chia ) was even
seen as the community institution par excellence. See Hymes, Lu Chiu-yuan, Academics,
and the Problem of the Local Community, in Neo-Confucian Education, eds., Wm. Theodore de Bary and John Chaffee (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 454.
Huizhou fuzhi (1502), juan 1, Fengsu.
Wu Jing, Shang shu song gong san ju sanshi yun xu [Preface
to the Thirty Poems Minister Song Composed While Dwelling in the Mountain], in Zhu
zhou ji, juan 12.
See Zhu Kaiyu, Keju shehui, diyu chixu, yu zongzu fazhan: song ming jian de Huizhou 1100
1644 (Taipei: National Taiwan University, 2004), 51.
My reading of Huizhou gazetteers has not yielded any mid-Ming cases comparable to that
of Cheng Dachang of the Song that is, a scholar-official born and raised in Huizhou, who
served the state and retired to somewhere other than Huizhou. In the late Ming and Qing,
however, the situation was very different. Many Huizhou merchants sojourned, and eventually settled, in other local places. Their descendants thus became natives of the host
places, yet still carried a strong and enduring Huizhou identity. Detailed analysis of such
situations will come in Chapter 4.

The Identity of Huizhou and the Reach of Its Merchants

45

topography-based distinctiveness was often appropriated by the Ming-Qing

period local gazetteers and placed side by side with more recently produced
images of the place.54 In the words of Peter Bol, in time the local place grew
even more distinct and gained ever more detail.55 On balance, however, the
center of gravity among discourses on Huizhous image steadily shifted towards its human accomplishments, i.e., daoxue learning and lineage activities.
The Huizhou literatis efforts to define their home place represent a process of
continuous adjustment in response to changing sociopolitical situations.
Defining Huizhou with topography-based characteristics and cultural effects suggested an image of uncultivated raw virtues that was not fully compatible with literati culture and self-image; still, it suited the localist turn among
Huizhou literati during the Song for it immediately made their home locale
distinctive. In the Yuan, however, the important pillar of the Huizhou literatis
shi identity in civil service was lost. To boost a threatened shi identity, they had
to highlight their engagement in learning.
But during the Yuan, there had emerged a tendency of defining different
schools of daoxue learning as connected to specific localities.56 While the nationwide development of this phenomenon awaits further study, there is
strong evidence of it among Yuan Neo-Confucian scholars of Huizhou. Wang
Kekuan, for example, once stated his admiration for the legendary ancient
practice of local learning: The shi born in that good time did not have to leave
home to obtain learning and teachers; the flourishing of character and decent
customs generated by this practice is not something later ages have been able
to achieve.57 Zhao Pang, whose elaboration on the notion of dongnan Zou Lu
was quoted above, defined learning as engagement with the local community:
The Way of learning cannot be held privately and approached hastily. In
Xinan, learning that is rooted in the teachings of the former Prefecture Master
has been carried on through fathers, brothers, teachers and friends. It has a
possibility of being transmitted.58 There must have been signs of the over-development of this tendency because Zhao Pang also warned his comrades not
54
55
56

57
58

See sections on fengsu in Huizhou fuzhi (1502, 1566, 1699, 1827).

Bol, The Rise of Local History: 5253.
See Bol, Neo-Confucianism and Local Society, and Chen Wen-yi, Network, Community,
Identities, for a discussion of the localization of Confucian learning, particularly in
Wuzhou of eastern Zhejiang during the Yuan. See also John Dardess, Confucianism and
Autocracy: Professional Elites in the Founding of the Ming Dynasty (University of California
Press, 1983), 21.
Wang Kekuan, Wan chuan jia shu ji.
Zhao Pang, Shang shan shu yuan xue tian ji.

46

The Identity Of Huizhou And The Reach Of Its Merchants

to group former sages along the lines of locality.59 The fact that Huizhou NeoConfucian scholars referred to Zhu Xi as their jun xianshi (Prefectural Master)
must be understood against this background.
The discourse of local distinctiveness had to be adjusted, for the discrepancy between Huizhous raw goodness and the gentlemanly ideal of cultivation
might undermine its literatis newer claims to authenticity and superiority in
Confucian learning. The notion dongnan Zou Lu thus fulfilled a need of the
time. It was more compatible with the gentlemanly ideal but did not undermine Huizhous distinctiveness. Furthermore, defining distinctiveness in this
way added a new dimension to the identity that the topographical approach
largely missed, that is, Huizhous relation to the rest of all-under-Heaven.
If dongnan Zou Lu marked Huizhou as the model Confucian place, it also
juxtaposed it with other places: To the extent that Cheng-Zhu learning was
embraced universally and defined literati of all places, Huizhou literati, as the
most authentic heirs to this learning, became first among equals. This elevated Huizhou, home to Masters Cheng and Zhu as well as their most authentic
heirs, above other places. But Huizhou was only better in the sense of being
the front-runner in the race toward a goal everyone was pursuing. Distinctiveness was situated in the framework of sameness.60
The growth of lineage practices and the rise of Huizhous reputation as the
land of lineages, only enhanced its standing as a superior place. Lineage practices, like daoxue learning, were universally relevant and received state sanction.61 Defining Huizhou by its superior lineage practices foregrounded its
success as front-runner in a competition involving everyone, for it was the
place where the righteous practice of lineage building was carried out most
thoroughly. At the same time, compared with the daoxue approach to Huizhous identity, the lineage approach addressed yet another new dimension of
locality the relation between a local place and its sublocal components.
The geographical scope of lineage activities in Song-through-Ming Huizhou,
as in other places, was usually the village.62 But the stage on which inter-lin59
60

61

62

Zhao Pang, Hua chuan shu she ji [On the Huachuan Studio], in Xinan wen
xian zhi, juan 16.
This pattern of pursuing a localitys distinctiveness within sameness was not unique to
Huizhou literati. Peter Bol found it among Wuzhou literati during basically the same
period, and suggested the existence of comparable cases in other places such as Fuzhou
in Jiangxi. Bol, The Localist Turn: 612.
State laws in protection of lineage practices and lineage properties appeared no later than
the eleventh century. See Patricia Ebrey, Early Stages: 42. See also Xu Yangjie, Song Ming
jia zu zhi du shi lun (Beijing:Zhonghua shu ju, 1995), 9197.
Patricia Ebrey has argued that post-Song genealogies demonstrated a general concern
with the grouping of people on the ground. Consistent with this concern, lineage

The Identity of Huizhou and the Reach of Its Merchants

47

eage politics evolved was often the county or the prefecture. In Huizhou, the
most vivid illustration of this situation survives in the comprehensive clan
lists, which collect the clans of a county or the whole prefecture, each one
identified by surname and place of residence (typically a village). Cheng
Minzheng once commented on this relationship between local and sublocal
places:
In my homeland, big clans all label themselves with their place of residence. As for those who dont have a place-name associated with them,
you can tell they are lesser names without further inquiry. It is so because
a surname must be labeled with a place-name so that gentlemen have
something to refer to when making marital arrangements, and little men
have something to rely on for protection.63
For Cheng, the village-level place with which a clan was associated was fundamental to the descent groups identity and functioned as a crucial resource
upon which people drew when forging alliances and seeking protection. Yet all
these activities evolved in the political world of the local (i.e., the county or the
prefecture). In inter-lineage politics, the local space was where all the clans
competition for reputation and influence was worked out and where winners
reaped the fruit of their efforts. Although rooted in the villages, lineages looked
to the broader locality as their stage of performance. Thus, in lineage practices, villages were all integrated into the local space as a whole.
More importantly, in lineage practices, literati activism whether at the lineage/village level, the local level, and the national level became identical.
Lineage building was often promoted as part of the daoxue agenda to reform
society from the bottom up, and it shared the daoxue movements universalistic claims. It represented the first step in reforming the broader social and

63

activities tended to be concentrated on limited spaces: they emphasized the noting of

residence shifts, the identification of the first immigration ancestors, and the listing of
ancestral-grave locations to facilitate collective offerings. See Ebrey, Early Stages: 45.
Guo Qitaos survey of Huizhou lineages found that their active space was mostly coterminous with their villages of residence. See Guo, Ritual Opera, 2124, for the spatial scale of
Huizhous lineages. Keith Hazeltons case study of a typical Huizhou lineage indicated
that the members resided in close proximity to one another, the genealogy provided full
information on nearly everyone, and took more care to define the boundaries of the
group. See Keith Hazelton, Development of Localized Lineage: 167. Robert Hymes
study of Fuzhou noted the association of descent-group members, through a common
ancestor, with a specific place below the county level as a fundamental aspect of kinship
identity. See Hymes, Marriage, Descent Group, and the Localist Strategy: 114.
Cheng Minzheng, Gulin huang shi zupu xu..

48

The Identity Of Huizhou And The Reach Of Its Merchants

moral order.64 Zhu Xi himself had elaborated on the connection between social order within a lineage and that in the larger world: The morality of mutual
support and mutual fostering taught by the ancient sages was based on the
relationship between father and son; it extended to a whole clan in the principle of respecting ancestors and organizing kinsmen. Extending again from
one clan to the whole state and even to all-under-Heaven, it became the principle for maintaining order among these levels of society and for preventing
people from dissociation and transgressions.65
Embedded in Zhu Xis lineage theory was the possibility of reconciling the
particularistic engagement in lineage practice with its universalist significance. Lineage advocates, in Huizhou as elsewhere, often drew analogies between the lineage institution and the imperial state: Lineage documents such
as genealogies and anthologies were compared with state-sanctioned official
histories and Confucian classics, and the socio-moral order of one lineage was
comparable to that of all-under-Heaven.66 For example, Cheng Minzheng
called the Cheng clan anthology the model (fan ) of lineages and compared
it to the canons (dian ) of the state. He stated that in a state the subjects will
fulfill loyalty if they live up to the canons, and in a lineage the descendants will
fulfill filial piety if they live up to the models left by their ancestors.67 In this
line of thinking, the social and moral order of the whole world hinged upon
the maintenance of order inside each clan, and lineage was not merely the
concern of one surname, but rather the universal social and moral order writ
small.
Thus with lineage practices permeating the whole of society, different levels
of place became venues where the same kinds of moral engagement could be
worked out. Spatial hierarchy became a concentric moral continuum. As the
land of lineages, Huizhou integrated all its villages, embodied the moral and
social order of the all-under-Heaven, and actively participated in all the activities therein. Still it retained its own distinctiveness as a better place. This
was consistent with its image as dongnan Zou Lu in terms of ethos and proponents. Together, these elements of its reputation powerfully projected Huizhou
as a model Confucian place.
64
65
66
67

Patricia Ebrey, The Conceptions of Family in the Sung Dynasty, in Journal of Asian Studies 43.2 (Feb. 1984): 231. See also Peter Bol, Local History and Family in Past and Present.
Zhu Xi, Zhangxi wangshi zupu xu [Preface to the Genealogy of the
Zhangxi Wang Clan], In Xinan wangshi chong xiu ba gong pu.
See Peter Bol, Neo-Confucianism in History (Harvard Asia Center, 2008), 236246, for a
general discussion of this issue.
Cheng Minzheng, cheng shi yi fan ji xu, in Huangdun wen ji, juan 46.

The Identity of Huizhou and the Reach of Its Merchants

49

In terms of state-society relations, the 350 years between the Southern Song
and the mid-Ming can be characterized as a period of intensified localist activities in Huizhou. Even so, connections between Huizhous literati and empire-wide literati culture were never severed. On the contrary, those connections
were only enhanced over time as learning and lineage activity along with the
renewed civil service created new channels for participation in broader literati culture. Against this background, the literatis adjustments of the local
imaginary can be viewed as efforts to reconcile local distinctiveness and universal relevance. By the mid-Ming, with the notion of Huizhou as a the model
Confucian place clearly established, one may argue that they had found a comfortable position for their home locale in the imagined spatial order of the allunder-Heaven, a position that it would retain over most of the remaining
imperial period.68
In this spatial order, a places distinctiveness lay in its outstanding credentials, as measured by the kinds of criteria embraced by other places. The same
social and moral order was articulated, if not as thoroughly implemented, in all
other places, and every place was supposed to contain the same order as the
whole.69 Thus all places were believed to be more or less the same; every local
place was a microcosm of the wider Chinese world. It was probably for this
reason that Wang Yangming stated that the grandeur of the all-under-Heaven
is a collection of counties and prefectures; if every county and prefecture is put
in good order, all-under-Heaven is certainly going to be in good order (
).70
What is missing in this spatial imagination is the contrast and comparison
with specific other places. In fact, direct reference to other places is rare in
Huizhou literatis discussions of their places distinctiveness during this period. One wonders if this omission was a function of the literati mode of spatial
68

69
70

The ascendance of the huishang led some literati to openly claim mercantile pursuit and
mercantile wealth as a hallmark of Huizhou in the late sixteenth century, but this only
attracted jealousy-driven predation from outside during the Ming-Qing transition. On
this episode in the history of Huizhous images, see Yongtao Du, Lesson of Riches, in
Ming-Qing Studies, 2010:123. In the Qing, unapologetic praise of the mercantilism in
Huizhou and the tendency to define Huizhou by mercantile engagement per se became
rare. Literati writings often highlighted the merchants adherence to Confucian values,
and explained Huizhous commercial success as being environment-driven necessity. See
Zhang Haipeng and Wang Tingyuan, Huishang yanjiu, 381421. See also Yu Yingshi,
Zhongguo jinshi zongjiao lunli; Guo, Ritual Opera, 5074. S
For a discussion of the sameness of social order in all local places, see Wong, China Transformed, p. 121.
Wang Yangming, Gaoping xian zhi xu.

50

The Identity Of Huizhou And The Reach Of Its Merchants

imagination: Since all places were believed to be more or less the same, there
was no need to specify other places distinctiveness they were simply subsumed in the all-under-Heaven. Lacking frequent contact with people of other places, why pay attention to minor differences between places?
A substantially different mode of imagining locality would emerge among
the huishang when they stepped out of their home arena and encountered
other people and places. Before we proceed to investigate this, however, an
examination of the geographical scope of their mercantile activities is necessary.
Merchants from Huizhou: Trade and Geographical Reach
The mercantile tradition of Huizhou can be traced back at least to the Song
dynasty.71 However, it was not until the sixteenth century, in tandem with the
substantial commercialization of the economy in the late Ming, that merchants
from Huizhou became a conspicuous phenomenon across China. Compared
with the Song, the previous high point in the development of Chinas market
economy, late Ming commercialization displayed new features, including the
multiplication of commercial centers; changes in major commodities in circulation, from luxury goods to low-priced bulk commodities such as grain, cotton, and cloth; and the flourishing of numerous market towns that accompanied
the growth of long-distance trade.72 The market economy continued to grow
71

72

For discussions of the historical origins of Huizhous mercantile tradition and explanations of why Huizhou men engaged in commerce, see Fu Yiling Ming-Qing shidai shangren ji shangye ziben (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1956): 5354; Zhang Haipeng and
Wang Tingyuan, 39; Ye Xianen , Ming Qing Huizhou nongcun shehui yu dianpu zhi
(Hefei: Anhui renmin chubanshe, 1983), 98106. Generally, the high quality of Huizhou
handicrafts such as ink and paper, and unique local products such as tea, are mentioned
as positive conditions facilitating the development of local commercial ventures. At the
same time, the hilly environs, lack of arable land, and dense population, as well as the
heavy tax burdens on this area, have been mentioned as negative conditions that pushed
the Huizhou men to pursue commerce away from home.
For example, major Song commercial centers (excluding Kaifeng in the Northern Song
and Linan in the Southern Song, whose commercial significance had more to do with
their political status as the capitals) like Guangzhou, Quanzhou, and Mingzhou were concentrated along the southeast coast, while in the Ming commercial centers began to pop
up along the Yangtze River and Grand Canal, for instance, Jiujiang and Linqing. The entry
of bulk grain into the market was also a new phenomenon beginning in the mid-Ming. In
the Song dynasty the Yangtze delta was an important area of grain production, as reflected
in the famous Song proverb When Suzhou and Huzhou get a good yield, the whole

The Identity of Huizhou and the Reach of Its Merchants

51

during the Qing, reaching its peak in the eighteenth century. The most conspicuous development in the Qing was the expansion of the market zone to
newly cultivated regions of Sichuan, Hunan, and Manchuria. Consequently,
the predominantly north-south trade along the Grand Canal that defined the
spatial pattern of the market economy in the Ming evolved into a more comprehensive network that included both north-south and east-west trade. Crucial to this extended network was the fuller development of trade along the
Yangtze River, whereby the commercialized regions in the upper, middle, and
lower Yangtze areas became integrated into a whole. This nation-wide commercial integration also benefited from the development of trade along the
Pearl River, which enhanced east-west links in the south, and from the opening
of the North Sea Trade , which extended north-south links by connecting Manchuria, North China, and the Lower Yangtze.73
This nation-wide trade network was supported by four major arteries, all of
which were water routes: an east-west artery (the Yangtze River), and three
north-south arteries (the Grand Canal, the Jiangxi-Guangdong water route,
and the Hunan-Guangdong water route). The transportation capacity of the
Yangtze River was limited to its lower reaches from Song times through the
early Ming. From the mid-Ming, its navigable reaches were gradually extended
westward (upstream). By the late Ming, the middle and lower Yangtze were
linked, and during the early Qing, with the cultivation of Sichuan, the upper,
middle, and lower Yangtze were all connected, serving as the most important
commercial route linking the most prosperous economic regions of China.
One consequence of the full development of the Yangtze system was the rise of
Hankou , which connected previously commercialized regions with newly developed ones. The Grand Canal, a vital link between the political center in
the north and the economically more prosperous south, received special

73

empire gets fed (su hu shu, tianxia zu). But by the late Ming, because of the increasing
growth of cash crops in this area, grains had to be imported from the middle Yangtze
region. Accordingly, the Yangtze delta exported cotton and cloth to almost all regions of
the Ming Empire. Mark Elvin noticed the long-distance trade of grain in the Song but
admitted, The trade between the regions was on the whole in more valuable items. See
Mark Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past, p. 171. Market towns first appeared in the Song
dynasty, but it was not until the late Ming that some market towns became points where
goods for the long-distance trade converged. For more about market development in the
Ming, see Wu Chengming, Zhongguo ziben zhuyi yu guonei shichang (Beijing: Renmin
chubanshe, 1985), 217246. See also Li Bozhong, Fazhan yu zhiyue Ming Qing Jiangnan
shengchan li yanjiu (Taipei: Jinglian chubanshe. 2002), 369370.
For the early Qing development of the market system, see Wu Chengming, Zhongguo
ziben zhuyi, 247265.

52

The Identity Of Huizhou And The Reach Of Its Merchants

attention from the Ming government. Although the canal was designated by
the government as the key channel for the transportation of tax grain, it nonetheless served merchants in a number of ways.74 During the Qing, with the
development of the North Sea Trade, the significance of the Grand Canal as a
commercial route declined slightly but was still notable. Both the JiangxiGuangdong and Hunan-Guangdong routes served the areas south of the
Yangtze River, and connected the middle Yangtze with South China. The Jiang
xi-Guangdong route went southward along the Gan River () in Jiangxi. In
Southern Jiangxis Nanan () prefecture, it switched to a short stage of
overland road the famous Meiling Route () across the Dayu Ridge
() and then connected to the Bei River () in Guangdongs Nanxiong () prefecture. The Hunan-Guangdong water route started at the
Xiang River in Hunan, going south to Guilin in Guangxi , and
then followed the Gui River and Xi River consecutively until it
reached Guangzhou . The privileged position of the lower Yangtze region
in this nationwide network of trade was reflected in this interregional transpor
tation system: three of the four arteries the Yangtze River, the Grand Canal,
and the Jiangxi-Guangdong water route converged in the lower Yangtze; the
fourth route, the Hunan-Guangdong water route, eventually connected to this
region through the Yangtze River.75 (Map 1)
The trajectory of the huishangs career corresponded closely with that of the
countrys commercial development in general. Their mercantile power started
to rise during the course of the sixteenth century, then suffered a setback during the mid-seventeenth century political turmoil, but quickly recovered with
the restoration of social and political order in the early Qing. Their activities
reached a peak during the eighteenth century. Among the various trades they
engaged in, the salt trade was doubtless the most important, for their dominance in this field accounted for their power and glamour in the Ming-Qing
period. Farther down the list are grain and lumber the two most important
74

75

For further discussion of the merchants appropriation of official transportation facilities

along the Grand Canal, see Hoshi Ayao, Min-shi jidai, 201. See also Brook, Confusions of
Pleasure, 117.
The Jiangxi-Guangdong route had been used in the early imperial period, but it was not
until the construction of the road crossing the Dayu Ridge in the Ming that it became a
busy and important commercial route. The Hunan-Guangdong route was also an ancient
passage that is mentioned as early as the Qin dynasty, but it thrived as a commercial route
only in the early Qing, with the development of the area surrounding Lake Dongting
. For more details, see Wu Chengming, Zhongguo ziben zhuyi, and Li Bozhong,
Fazhan yu zhiyue.

The Identity of Huizhou and the Reach of Its Merchants

Map 1.1

Main routes out of Huizhou.

53

54

The Identity Of Huizhou And The Reach Of Its Merchants

long-distance commodities as well as pawn-broking.76 They also actively engaged in many other businesses ranging from selling tea and silk to book printing and ink making, but the scale of these activities was smaller. As one
late-sixteenth century merchant from Huizhou explained, Silk traders are just
middle-ranked merchants in our land.77
Consistent with the centering of the nationwide market economy in the
lower Yangtze region, the huishangs commercial activities were also concentrated there.78 This must have begun as early as the Jiajing (15221566) reign of
the Ming, for Wang Shizhen (15261590), the famous late-Ming literatus, noted, Huizhou sojourning merchants are concentrated in Jiangzuo (River East), by which he meant the area roughly corresponding to Jiangnan.79 Not
only did the major cities of this region, such as Yangzhou, Suzhou, and Hangzhou, become the places most frequently visited by the huishang, but the
mushrooming market towns in the region also attracted many of them. In fact
the very establishment and prosperity of these market towns largely resulted
from the business of traveling merchants, among whom the huishang were the
most numerous and influential. For example, the Jiading County gazetteer
compiled during the Wanli reign (15731620) records the rise and fall of a mar76

77

78

79

Scholar agreed on the central importance of the salt trade in the rise of Huizhous merchants, but regarding the ranking of other trades, there remains some slight disagreement. For example, Xu Dixin and Wu Chengming rank pawn-broking, tea, and lumber
ahead of grain. Fu Yiling, however, ranks the grain trade as the second most important,
following the salt trade but above all other trades. See Xu Dixin and Wu Chengming,
Zhongguo ziben zhuyi de mengya (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1985), 103; and Fu Yiling,
Ming-Qing shidai 5556. The material Wu and Xu use to support their argument is the
county gazetteer of She County compiled in the Republican era, which probably reflects
more about the situation in She County in the late Qing, instead of the entirety of Huizhou prefecture over the three centuries between 1550 and 1850. For a detailed analysis of
the grain trade among Huizhou merchants, see Li Linqi , Ming Qing Huizhou
liang shang lun shu [On the Huizhou Grain Merchants During the
Ming-Qing Period], in Jianghuai luntan 1993-4: 7378. For a general description of the
trades engaged in by Huizhou merchants, see Fuji Hiroshi, Shinan Shonin no kenkyu.
Wang Daokun , Ming gu chu shi xi yang wu chang gong mu zhi ming
[Tomb Inscription Commemorating the Late Reverant Wu of the
Ming], in Tai han ji , juan 54.
Fuji Hiroshi provides the most detailed discussion of the geographic distribution of Huizhou merchants activities. See Fuji, Shinan Shonin no kenkyu. Important Chinese
scholarship on this topic includes Fu Yiling, Ming-Qing shidai; Jianghuai Luntan Bianji Bu,
Huishang yanjiu lunwen ji; and Tang Lixing, Ming-Qing yilai Huizhou quyu shehui jingji
yanjiu (Hefei: Anhui daxue chupanshe, 1999)
Wang Shizhen , Yanzhou si bu gao , juan 96.

The Identity of Huizhou and the Reach of Its Merchants

55

ket town called Nanxiang , the most important center of textile trade:
[Nanxiang] used to have many huishang congregated here. All kinds of goods
were traded in the town, making it the most prosperous among all the market
towns. Later on, because of sabotage by local rascals, the merchants moved
away, and the town quickly declined.80 Interestingly, another market town
nearby, called Luodian , grew rapidly. The same gazetteer commented,
Now that the huishang all come [to Luodian], the prosperity of its trade places
it almost on a par with Nanxiang.81 The crucial position of the huishang in the
lower Yangtze region was vividly reflected in the well-known late-Ming saying,
No huishang, no market town .
But the huishangs geographic reach was by no means limited to the Lower
Yangtze. Beyond that, they also set foot in almost every region of the Ming and
Qing empire from Manchuria in the north to Canton in the south, from Sichuan and Gansu in the west to Shandong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang in the east; they
even played an important role in the maritime trade. Sometimes the gathering
of huishang in cities beyond the Lower Yangtze could also lead to their becoming socially dominant. One well-known example of this was Hankou, where
the number and influence of Huizhou merchants profoundly shaped the citys
social life.82 Another example is Linqing along the Grand Canal in Shandong Province, which became an important commercial center as the canal
grew in importance for north-south transportation during the Ming. The lateMing literatus Xie Zhaozhe (15671624) wrote, In Linqing, nine-tenths
of the population consists of merchant households from Huizhou.83 A Huizhou prefectural gazetteer compiled in 1699 provides a list of the major places
to which Huizhou merchants sojourned:
Now almost all the wealthy people in Huizhou have settled in the prefectures Yizhen , Yangzhou , Suzhou , Songjiang ,
Huaian , Wuhu , Hangzhou , and Huzhou . [Other
places include] Nanchang in Jiangxi province, and Hankou
in Huguang province. They have also taken their families and
gone to even so remote a place as Beijing .84
80

81
82
83
84

Jiading xianzhi (1605), 18:7b. For a detailed analysis of Huizhou merchants activities in
Nanxiang and their impact on the local society, see Jerry Dennerline, Chia-ting Loyalists,
70.
Jiading xianzhi (1605), 124125.
For Huizhou merchants activities in Hankou, see William Rowe, Commerce and Society in
a Chinese City 17961889 (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press 1984).
Xie Zhaozhe , Wu za zu , juan 14.
Huizhou fuzhi (1699), juan 2, Fengsu.

56

The Identity Of Huizhou And The Reach Of Its Merchants

Cities mentioned in this list were either major centers of trade in the MingQing empire or crucial locations in the countrywide network of trade routes.
For example, Yangzhou, Yizhen, and Huaian were the administrative and distribution centers for the salt trade; Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Songjiang were
centers of trade for grain, silk, cloth, timber, and other commodities. Hankou
and Wuhu were important trading centers along the Yangtze River, the former
because it was an entrept linking the upper, middle, and lower Yangtze, the
latter because, for Huizhou merchants especially, close as it was to Huizhou it
served as a gateway to many other places. But some cities with a substantial
huishang presence Nanjing and Zhenjiang in Jiangsu, Kaifeng in Henan, and
Linqing in Shandong were not included in this list. Indeed, as the She county
gazetteer compiled in 1609 stated after listing the empire-wide commercial
metropolises No doubt the merchants of this land have reached all of these
above-mentioned metropolises; but even in the corners of the mountains and
by obscure bays of the sea, or in the isolated villages, everywhere you can find
men from this land.85
As merchants who went wherever their business took them, huishang had
earned the reputation of being frequent travelers and sojourners par excellence. In regard to this practice of outward emigration from Huizhou, Wang
Shizhen commented that three-tenths of their people live in the homeland,
while seven-tenths are scattered throughout all-under-Heaven.86 Their movements back and forth between the home locale and their places of business
depended on several secondary commercial routes that connected Huizhou to
the arteries of the empire. The mountains surrounding Huizhou made overland transportation costly. Fortunately, rivers flowing out of the region provided less expensive alternatives, though in many cases a commercial route
was a combination of water and overland. Based on merchant route books
published in the late Ming, a rough picture of the travel routes originating from
Huizhou can be reconstructed.87 (See Map 1)
Among the routes to the lower Yangtze region, the most frequently mentioned was provided by the Xinan River , flowing out of the mountains
of Huizhou eastward to Hangzhou, where it converged with the Grand Canal
and extended northward to Suzhou. Some places along the way, such as the
prefecture of Yanzhou in Zhejiang Province, were regularly
85
86
87

She zhi (1609), juan 10, Huozhi [Commerce].

Wang Shizhen, Zeng Cheng jun wushi xu [Essay for the Fiftieth Birthday
of Mr. Cheng] Yanzhou shanren sibu gao, juan, 61.
Yitong lucheng tuji , 7:28, 7:37, 8:26, 8:8, 8:13; Shishang yaolan
1:19, 1:17, 1:28, 1:32, 1:39, 1:50.

The Identity of Huizhou and the Reach of Its Merchants

57

frequented by Huizhou merchants because of the convenience of transport.88

A second route moved in a northeasterly direction toward Suzhou without going through Hangzhou. It started with an upstream trip along a major branch
of the Xinan River until it crossed the mountains surrounding Huizhou and
entered the Yangtze valley. From there it made use of a waterway made up of
various small branches of the Yangtze that took it through Ningguo County
, Guangde Sub-prefecture , and Huzhou prefecture until
it reached Suzhou. A third route to the lower Yangtze region took a northerly
direction across modern-day northern Anhui , arriving at Wuhu
along the Yangtze River. From there travelers could go on to Nanjing and
Yizhen either along the Yangtze River or by overland roads. There was
also a fourth route that headed off to the northeast, overlapping with the second route mentioned above, but turning straight north at Ningguo County and
then in the direction of Yizhen.
Several other routes linked Huizhou to places along the middle reaches of
the Yangtze. The route between Huizhou and Jiangxi proceeded along the
Chang River , which flowed southwest from Huizhou to Lake Poyang
, connecting Huizhou to the Gan River system. This route was key in Huizhous importation of grain from Jiangxi.89 Also located along this route was
the famous ceramic production and trading center Jingdezhen . The
route to Hubei and Hunan went straight westward, crossing the Yangtze River
at Anqing , taking a shortcut along smaller branches of the Yangtze, until
it rejoined the main Yangtze at Huangzhou in Hubei Province.
From Huangzhou travelers could easily continue on to Hankou by river.
One additional route began in Huizhou and went straight south, making
use of the complex river system that runs across the borderland areas of eastern Zhejiang and northeastern Jiangxi, crossing Wuyi Mountain , and
finally arriving at Chongan County in Fujian Province. From
Chongan, travelers could take the upper branch of the Min River and sail
south to Jianyang , the famous center of printing and publishing, or proceed even further along the Min River to the coastal areas of Fujian.
It was across this vast map of interconnected local places that the translocal
story of the huishang, all men of Huizhou, unfolded. We now turn to that story.
88

89

See Zhu Biheng , Lun Ming Qing huishang zai zhejian qu yan er fu de huodong
[On the Activities of huishang in Yanzhou and
Quzhou Prefectures during the Ming and Qing], in Zhongguo jingji shehui shi yanjiu
(2000-3):1019.
Li Linqi, Huizhou liang shang.

58

Sojourning In Translocal Perspective

Chapter 2

Sojourning in Translocal Perspective:

Local Encounters and Place-Based Identity
By the late Ming, a high level of commercialization and mobility meant that
sojourning, particularly by merchants, had become common in Chinese cities.
The mid-sixteenth century prefectural gazetteer of Hanyang noted that sojourning merchants were counted in the thousands in a market town called
Liujiage.1 Even in the small county town of Jingjiang (in modern-day Jiangsu
Province), the Wanli-era county gazetteer stated, Half of the citys shops were
operated by people from other places.2 In larger urban centers, the merchant
sojourners were even more conspicuous. In Nanjing, for example, local lite
ratus Zhou Hui (1546?) counted over 500 pawnshops operated by
Huizhou and Fujian merchants at the end of the sixteenth century.3 His contemporary Gu Qiyuan (15651628) commented, Pawnshops were
mostly operated by the locals before the Zhengde era (15061521), but today
pawnshops, salt shops, and silk shops are predominantly operated by rich people from other prefectures and other provinces.4
In the Ming-Qing empire of local places, when people of a deep-rooted local
identity moved about, entered and stayed in other local places, and mingled
with people from those and other places, sojourning introduced the possibility
of a changed view of locality and the practice of place-based identity. One gets
a glimpse of such changes by comparing the following two remarks, one by the
late fifteenth-century Huizhou literatus Cheng Minzheng, the other by a midnineteenth century Cantonese sojourner in Shanghai. Cheng, an ardent local
activist and devoted lineage builder, held that the local existed in a nested hierarchy that included the lineage below and the whole Chinese realm above:
With the help of genealogy, the relationship among kinsmen will be
ordered. This is called harmony. From harmony come intimacy and amity.
We will know whom we should love, whom we should take care of, and
whom we dare not neglect. When the order () of one lineage is
1
2
3
4

Hanyang fuzhi (1546), juan 3, Chuangzhi zhi [Institutions and Constructions].

Jingjiang xianzhi (1879), juan 5, Fengsu, citing an earlier edition of the gazetteer compiled during the Wanli era.
Zhou Hui, Jinling suoshi shenglu , juan 3.
Gu qiyuan, Kezuo zhuiyu , juan 2, Min li [Peoples Benefits].

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015|doi 10.1163/9789004288409_004

Sojourning in Translocal Perspective

59

secured, it can be extended to the district (), and further to the whole
country ().5
Missing in Chengs visualization of space are other local places. Cheng was
certainly aware that the country was comprised of a multitude of local places,
but he did not have to mention them, for in his home-based imagination, other
places were subsumed by the whole country and rendered invisible. For the
Cantonese sojourner, however, other places were concrete and tangible realities in his daily life and had to be addressed:
China is made up of prefectures and counties and these in turn are made
up of small villages, and [the people of each] make a concerted effort to
cooperate, providing mutual help and protection. This gives solidarity to
village, prefecture, and province, and orders the country. thus people
from the same village, county, and prefecture gather together in other
places, making them like their own native place.6 [emphasis mine]
On the surface, the nested spatial hierarchy is still there. But here local identity
is engaged in as a form of compatriot solidarity among fellow sojourners. The
author takes pains to highlight that fellow natives now live in other places,
and that China is made up of many prefectures and counties.
These subtle changes remain understudied in the recent scholarship on sojourning in late imperial China. This scholarship has been preoccupied with
responding to Max Webers famous charges that Chinese sojourners nativeplace ties hindered the development of citywide oath-bound communities,
caused a lack of political, military, and organizational autonomy in cities, and
eventually thwarted the social and economic development of the country.
Thus it has been focused on reevaluating the urban sojourners native-place
ties and redeeming their reputation.7 For example, in the mid-twentieth century, Dou Jiliang emphasized the diminishing influence of native-place ties
5
6

Huangdun wenji, juan 34.

Shanghai Guang-Zhao huiguan yuanqi [The Origin of GuangzhouZhaoqing huiguan in Shanghai], cited by Bryna Goodman, Native place, City, and Nation:
Regional Networks and Identities in Shanghai, 18531937 (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1995), 13.
Max Weber, Religion of China, 1820. Influential reiteration of the Weberian thesis can be
found in Japanese scholars such as Niida Noboru . Chugoku no shakai to girudo
, (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1951); and Imahoori Seiji ,
Chugoku hoken shakai no kozo: sono rekishi to kakumei zenya no genjitsu
: (Tokyo: Niho Gakujutsu Shinkokao, 1978).

60

Sojourning In Translocal Perspective

and their replacement by a community spirit that unites all city residents;
Ho Ping-ti argued that huiguan, the institutions founded to enhance nativeplace ties, actually facilitated interregional social and economic integration.
In the 1980s, William Rowes more detailed social history of sojourners in
Hankou called for attention to their increasing participation in host-place public projects and their articulation of locational identity, i.e., identification with
the host places.8 Rowe also made the case that locational identity did not replace the original native-place bond, but rather indicated a multiplication of
place-based identities on the part of urban sojourners.9 Rowes approach to
the native-place bond, which takes place-based identity as a flexible and multi
dimensional formation, has been continued in more recent works by Bryna
Goodman and Richard Belsky, who both argue that native-place tie did not
hinder the development of national identity, but rather contributed to its construction.10
While successfully demonstrating the complexity of native-place sentiment
as well as the variability and adaptability of how these were performed in diverse contexts, the efforts to revise Webers conclusion also tend to examine
the role of native-place ties against the background of one or another process
that we deem modern, such as economic integration, the rise of an urban communal spirit, and the formation of national consciousness. It is, of course, fair
to ask how native-place ties and the huiguan, as traditional sentiment and traditional institution respectively, participated in the transformation of traditional China into a modern nation. But by concentrating on their compatibility
with the modern and the new, we have treated them as factors inherited from
the past and lost sight of the newness the practices of native-place identity
(and sojourning in general) actually represented in late imperial China, particularly compared with literati localism that had become deeply entrenched
by the late Ming when sojourning became a conspicuous social phenomenon.
This chapter will use the merchant sojourners from Huizhou as a case study
and examine these new ways of viewing and engaging locality. The urban centers where they sojourned naturally included natives of the host place
and sojourners from many other places as well. In this situation, sojourners
consciously represented their home places in various ways, and were registered according to their places of origin in the eyes of both the natives and
8

9
10

Dou Jiliang , Tong xiang zhuzi zhi yanjiu (Taipei, Zheng zhong
shu ju 1946), 18. Ho Pingti, Zhongguo huiguan shi lun, English Abstract, 4. Rowe, Commerce and Society, Chapters 810, passim.
Rowe, Commerce and Society, 250.
Goodman, Native Place, Chapter 6; Belsky, Localities at the Center, 16, 135138.

Sojourning in Translocal Perspective

61

sojourners from other places. Although the physical sites of their local places
remained unchanged, the locality of these places actually spread beyond
their borders and encountered one another in the urban centers. In this sense
the situation of sojourning in late Ming and Qing China was not only urban, if
by urban we mean intensive commercial activity and frequent interactions
with strangers, but also translocal, in the sense of the gathering together of
multiple distinct localities. I call this translocal gathering the local encounter.
The first part of the chapter investigates the new geographical consciousness
generated in the context of local encounter, such as the parallel existence of
local places and their symbolic co-presence in urban centers. The second part
examines the Huizhou sojourners strategized use of Huizhous image as the
model Confucian place in handling local politics in the host place, and explores the differences between their understanding of locality and that of the
home-based literati. The third part is a response to Rowes notion of locational identity. It demonstrates that the sojourners participation in public projects was often distinguished from identification with the host locale.
Place-Name Transfer and Local Encounter
In his well-known book on imagined communities, Benedict Anderson takes
note of European colonial settlers place-naming practices in the Americas
during the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, in which the remote places
in the colonies were called new versions of toponyms in the colonists land of
origin, for instance, New York and Nova Lisboa. He calls this phenomenon synchronic novelty: the new was not supposed to be the inheritor or successor of
the vanished old; rather, new and old coexisted within homogeneous, empty
time. Anderson argued that this phenomenon indicates a new geographical
consciousness among the mobile population of the European colonists, a consciousness of being connected to certain regions or communities, thousands
of miles away. This consciousness was in turn based on the technological innovations in the fields of shipbuilding, navigation, horology, and cartography,
mediated through print-capitalism that made it possible for the colonists to
think of themselves as living lives parallel to those of other substantial groups
of people.11[emphasis in the original]
Despite Andersons claims that this phenomenon was uniquely European
and that the world never saw the rise of New Basras or New Wuhan, many
11

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of

Nationalism (New York: Verso 1991), 18788.

62

Sojourning In Translocal Perspective

similar cases of place-name transfer can be found in accounts of Chinese sojourners during that same time period.12 The experiences of the huishang provide abundant evidence in this regard.

A Place-Name Applied Elsewhere: Huizhous Name Represented

beyond Its Borders
Huizhous place-name might be applied to new geographical entities as big as
a whole market town. This occurred in Haizhou sub-prefecture () of
Southern Zhili in the late sixteenth century. Lake Lian of Haizhou had
abundant fish, while several nearby salt yards (belonging to the lianghuai salt
district) provided salt necessary for preserving the fish. This situation made
Lake Lian a perfect location for development of a fishing industry. The local
people, as the district gazetteer comments, were not very enterprising, and so
the natural endowments of the area mostly benefited merchants from other
places the most successful and conspicuous among them being the Huizhou
merchants, who brought in rice and wine, bought the fish, and sold them
somewhere else. In the beginning, the Huizhou merchants had only improvised dwellings in humble sheds along the lakeshore. When more Huizhou
men arrived to seek their fortune, they began to buy land from the locals and
settle down. In time, a market town developed. By the 1570s, Huizhou settlers
had bought so much land from the locals that they decided to name it Xinan
Town (Xinan Zhen ) after their homeland (Xinan being the ancient
name of Huizhou, which was widely used in the Ming-Qing period as an alternative to the official name).13 By the mid-Qianlong era of the Qing, the towns
population had grown to over 15,000 and it prospered from the fish trade.14
In the densely populated heartland of the centralized empire of Ming-Qing
China, the chance for Huizhou sojourners to start a new settlement from
scratch, as in the case of Xinan Town, was rare. In most cases they entered established places and communities. Thus the name Huizhou was often applied
to part of an established city such as a street, a neighborhood, or a newly
constructed site as a sign of the importance and influence wielded by the
Huizhou sojourners. For example, during the late Wanli era, a salt merchant
12
13

14

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 191.

Feng Renhong, Xinan zhen yuanliu , in Qianlong xinan zhenzhi
, cited by Wang Zhenzhong, Huizhou shehui wenhuashi tanwei: xin faxian de 1620
shiji minjian dangan wenshu yanjiu : 1620
(Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chubanshe, 2002), 4450, 6065. The
author also benefited from an unpublished manuscript of Mr. Bu Xingguang ,
a local resident of the town.
Qianlong xinan zhen zhi, Hukou, cited by Wang Zhenzhong, Huizhou shehui wenhua, 65.

Sojourning in Translocal Perspective

63

from Huizhou named Zheng Jiugao settled in the eastern part of the
county seat of Changshan in Zhejiang Province. Changshan is a mountainous county, but its rich local products such as timber and tea, together with
its crucial location at the hub of trade routes between Jiangnan, Jiangxi, and
Fujian, meant that many merchants passed through, especially those from
Huizhou.15 Zheng made a fortune in Changshan and moved his family there.
He purchased dozens of houses surrounding his home, creating a considerable
complex. Meanwhile, other Huizhou sojourners in Changshan were encouraged by Zheng to settle in the same part of the city. Eventually a Huizhou
neighborhood came into being. As the late Ming official Ye Xianggao accounted, Having in mind their ancestral graves in Xinan, they managed to register
this neighborhood as a ward, and named it Xinan Ward (Xinan li ).16
That place-name received formal recognition during the Qing, when it was
registered in the local gazetteers section on the county towns physical layout.17
Another example for which we have relatively detailed information comes
from Hankou , the most important entrept along the Yangtze River during the Qing. Significant numbers of Huizhou merchants had arrived in Hankou and taken up residence there since the beginning of the Kangxi reign; they
constituted the single-most important merchant group in the city until the
eruption of the Taiping Rebellion.18 Between 1694 and 1704, Huizhou sojourners constructed their huiguan, which was named, unusually, the Ziyang Academy (Ziyang shuyuan ). The academy was expanded and renovated
throughout the eighteenth century. The street in front of its complex, enclosed
at each end by ceremonial gates, was dubbed Xinan Alley (Xinan Xiang
). As Rowe has documented, the street was largely constructed by the
Ziyang Academy and was lined with its properties, but during the day it was
open to the public and became one of the busiest shopping districts in Han
kou. Rents from properties along the street generated considerable income for
the academy. Soon the alley outgrew its original scope and became known as
Xinan Street (Xinan Jie ), which indicated its status as one of the few
thoroughfares in the city that were designated Jie. However, the street remained narrow, and the frequent passage of water carriers made it muddy,
15

16
17
18

On the position of Changshan in the commercial network of Ming-Qing China, as well as

the large numbers of Huizhou merchants in that place, see Zhu Biheng, Lun Ming Qing
huishang zai Zhejiang.
Ye Xianggao, Xinan liji [On Xinan Ward], in Jiaqing Changshan xianzhi, juan
11, Yiwen zhi [Literature].
Changshan xian zhi(1723), juan 1, Fangxiang [Streets]; See also Changshan xian zhi
(1886), juan 1.
Rowe, Commerce and Society, 22628.

64

Sojourning In Translocal Perspective

putting off many businesses. With the support of local officials, the academy
bought out more of the residents along the street and finally, in 1775, completely reconstructed it as a major road (tongqu ). The broadened road now
ran all the way down to the banks of the Han River, where Huizhou merchants
had constructed one of Hankous major pier complexes in 1734, also named
after their homeland, the Xinan Pier (Xinan matou ).19
Scattered sources provide somewhat briefer accounts of how Huizhou references appeared in many other places. For example, in Taicang sub-prefecture
() of Southern Zhili, a marketplace developed beside a renovated dam.
Due to the Huizhou merchant sojourners sponsorship of the dams renovation
and their influence in the emerging marketplace, it became known as Xinan
Market (Xinan Shi ).20 In Hangzhou, a district beside the Qiantang
River where many Huizhou merchants landed at the end of their trips along
the river was named Huizhou Dyke (Huizhou tang ) no later than the
mid-eighteenth century.21 In Wuhu, another major commercial center along
the Yangtze River, a river beach where timber merchants from Huizhou and
Linqing (Jiangxi) piled their stocks was known as Hui-Lin Beach (Hui-Lin tan
).22
Applying home-place names in faraway places was not unique to Huizhou
sojourners. Similar cases of place-name transfer were found among sojourners
from other places in Ming and Qing China. For example, in Hangzhou, in addition to Huizhou Dyke, there was also a Yuhang Dyke, named after people from
Yuhang County, and Huzhou Market, a specific marketplace where goods from
Huzhou Prefecture were often concentrated.23
In the cases where we have enough details, such as Xinan Town in Haizhou
and Xinan Ward in Changshan, it is clear that the place-name transfers were
initiated by the sojourners. Their consciousness of being connected to and living lives parallel to the home place was obvious, and comparable to what Anderson referred to as synchronic novelty. But there is something more to these
place-name transfers: First, in some cases it could well have been the natives
who first used the place-name of the dominant immigrants to an area;24
19
20
21
22
23

24

Rowe, Commerce and Society, 304305.

Taicang zhou zhi (1500), juan 7, Yi xing [Right Deeds].
Hangzhou fuzhi (1779), juan 5, Shizhen [market towns].
Wuhu xian zhi (1801), juan 6; Wuhu xian zhi(1913), juan 13.
Hangzhou fuzhi (1779), juan 5, Shizhen; see also Fan Jinmin, Ming Qing Jiangnan shangye
de fazhan [The Development of Commerce in Ming and Qing
Jiangnan](Nanjing: Nanjing daxue chuban she, 1998), 141.
The sources, often local gazetteers, usually did not specify who initiated the use of these
place-names. In the above-mentioned case of Huzhou Market in Hangzhou, a later

Sojourning in Translocal Perspective

65

second, and more importantly, the transferred place-name existed together

with the other place-names already establish in a host place, and both were
used by sojourners and the natives. The transferred place-names constantly
reminded people in the host places of Huizhous existence as a parallel local
place, to the effect that the sign of one place became an integral factor in the
geography of another.

Huiguan and Local Places
The construction of huiguan was another phenomenon of this period that
brought the name of place to locales beyond its border. As an institution specifically serving the sojourners, huiguan were built in substantial numbers in
many cities in the late Ming and this practice flourished in the early Qing.25
Normally a huiguan involved a physical structure named after its patrons
place of origin.26 Thus, on the one hand, its flourishing demonstrated the sojourners sense of connection to their home place; on the other, it created an
enduring reminder in host cities of the parallel existence of other places. The
sheer number of huiguan presented a constant display of various place-names
in hundreds of Ming-Qing Chinese cities.
Although the overall numbers of huiguan in the late Ming and early Qing
are unknown, it has been estimated that at the beginning of the twentieth century there were more than two thousand huiguan in over three hundred Chinese cities and towns, not including Beijing with its almost four hundred
huiguan.27 The geographical distribution of huiguan was uneven, most being
along the Yangtze River, but northern and southeastern provinces also had
their share. Obviously, the number of huiguan a particular place founded
in other locales depended on the scope and intensity of its natives spatial mobility. As the archetypal source of emigrants, Huizhou had among the most

25

26

27

version of the local gazetteer states, People all call it Huzhou Market. See Hangzhou
fuzhi (1898), juan 6, Shizhen [Market Towns], 3b.
Wang Rigen, Wang Rigen, Zhongguo huiguan shi [History of huiguan in
China] (Shanghai: Dongfang chuban zhongxin, 2007), 3870. In the cities of Jiangnan, the
construction of huiguan reached its peak during the first several decades of the nineteenth century. See Fan Jinmin, Qingdai jiangnan huiguan gongsuo de gongneng xingzhi
[On the Function and Nature of huiguan and gongsuo
in Jiannan during the Qing], in Qingshi yanjiu, 1999-2.
Occasionally, a huiguan would be described as a religious or academic institution, using
terms such as temple (shi), palace (gong), or academy (shuyuan). See Belsky, 2021. For
more detailed discussion of the terms used for huiguan, see Wang Rigen, Zhongguo huiguan shi.
Richard Belsky, 3536. For a complete list of Beijings huiguans, see Wang Rigen, Zhongguo huiguan shi, 98111. See also Ho Ping-ti, Zhongguo huiguan, 2433.

66

Sojourning In Translocal Perspective

numerous huiguan. Table 2.1 below shows dozens of huiguan founded by Huizhou merchants in various cities. If we count the numerous charitable projects
such as cemeteries and schools commonly attached to the huiguan, as well as
the steles installed by local governments to protect the interests of the huiguans community, the physical signs indicating other local places parallel existence in Ming-Qing Chinas urban centers must have been quite conspicuous.28
Late imperial literati noticed these physical signs and incorporated them in
their narratives about the cities. Some local gazetteers of the High Qing
included huiguan lists in their description of urban spaces. For example, the
Jiangling (Hubei) County gazetteer compiled during the Qianlong reign
includes a list of eight huiguan and their locations in the gazetteers section on
construction (jianzhi ), which was often reserved for local institutions
such as orphanages and granaries.29 The Xiangtan (Hunan) County gazetteer of the Qianlong reign includes a list of twenty-three huiguan established
there, providing information on their names and locations. Unlike in Jiangling,
the huiguan in Xiangtan were categorized as religious sites, and thus the huiguan list was assigned to the gazetteers section on rituals and sacrifices (dianli ).30 This placement of the huiguan list was probably due to the rituals
soujourners performed to their native-place gods in the huiguan. Just where a
huiguan list was included in the gazetteer thus varied from case to case. For
example, the Jingyan County gazetteer (1795) assigned it to a special section on extra-local issues ( fangwai), while the Dangyang County
gazetteer (1866) put it in a section on local shrines ( ciyu).31 The lack of a
standard position for huiguan lists could well be a sign of huiguans ambiguous
status in the gazetteers patterned narrative on cities, which at its formative
stage did not have such institutions to deal with. Hence the very effort to accommodate them in local gazetteers points to the powerful presence of the
huiguan and the locales they represented in the natives imagination of
their urban landscape.
28

29
30
31

See Ming Qing Suzhou gongshangye beike ji (Jiangsu renmin chuban she, 1981) for examples of steles set up to protect sojourners interests or post the adjudication of disputes
between different place-based groups.
Jangling xian zhi(1794), juan 9, Jianzhi [ Institutions and Constructions].
Xiangtan xian zhi(1889), Dianli qunsi biao huiguan , cited by Wang
Rigen, Zhongguo huiguan shi, 129.
See Jingyan xianzhi (1795), juan 9, and Dangyang xianzhi (1866), juan 9. Many other local
gazetteers provide information on huiguan founded by natives abroad. For examples of
this, see Yixian zhi (1871), juan 10; Leping xianzhi (1681), juan 3; Shaxian zhi (1701), juan 4;
and Fuliang xianzhi (1832), juan 5.

67

Sojourning in Translocal Perspective

Table 2.1
Place

Incomplete list of huiguan founded by Huizhou sojourners1

Name

Source

Founded

Imperial and provincial capitals

Beijing
Beijing
Nanchang

Huizhou huiguan
Xinan huiguan
Huizhou huiguan

Guangzhou

Xinan huiguan

Shuntian fuzhi (1886), juan 14

chong xu Shexian huiguan lu
Chinese Maritime Custom
Decennial Report (Hereafter
CMCDR)2
Wuyuan xianzhi (1920), juan 70

1650s

Jiajing era

Prefecture and sub-prefecture seats

Huaian
Taizhou
Yanzhou
Raozhou
Suzhou
Jiujiang
Zhenjiang
Guilin
Bozhou
Jingzhou
Huzhou

Xinan huiguan
Xinan huiguan
Xinan huiguan
Xinan huiguan
Xinan huiguan
Xinan huiguan
Xinan huiguan
Xinan huiguan
Huizhou huiguan
Huizhou huiguan
Huizhou huiguan

Suzhou

Huijun huiguan

Yangzhou
Changde
Hanyang

Huaian fuzhi (1884), juan 21

Taizhou zhi (1827), juan 27
Yanzhou fuzhi (1883), juan 8
Wuyuan xian zhi (1920), juan 47
CMCDR
Wuyuan xianzhi (1920), juan 48
CMCDR
CMCDR
Bozhou zhi (1895), juan 4
Jingzhou fuzhi (1880), juan 12
Tongzhi Huzhou fuzhi (1870),
juan 40

Jiangsu ming qing gongshang ye

beike ji, 337
Huiguo wengongci Jiangdu xianzhi (1921)
Huizhou huiguan
Changde fuzhi (1813), juan 8
Huizhou huiguan
Hanyang xianzhi (1748), juan 30
County seats

Fuyang
Nanhui
Qinghe
Xuyi
Jiashan

Xinan huiguan
Xinan huiguan
Xinan huiguan
Xinan huiguan
Xinan huiguan

Fuyang xianzhi (1899), juan 11

Nanhui xianzhi (1879), juan 3
Qinghe xianzhi (1883), juan 3
Xuyi xian zigao (1903), juan 16
Jiashan xian zhi (1894), juan 11

Kangxi era

Qianlong era

68
Table 2.1

Sojourning In Translocal Perspective

Incomplete list of huiguan founded by Huizhou sojourners (cont.)3

Place

Name

Source

Dongtai
Susong
Wuxian
Changxing
Haimen
Jiande
Poyang
Jianli
Dehua
Qianshan
Huaining
Jiangyin
Nanling
Shanghai
Wuhu

Xinan huiguan
Xinan huiguan
Xinan huiguan
Xinan gongsuo
Xinan gongsuo
Huizhou huiguan
Huizhou huiguan
Xinan shuyuan
Huizhou huiguan
Huizhou huiguan
Huizhou huiguan
Huizhou huiguan
Huizhou huiguan
Huizhou huiguan
Huizhou huiguan

Yangzhou fuzhi (1801), juan 26

Susong xianzhi (1921), juan 9
Wuxian zhi (1933), juan 30
Changxing xianzhi (1873), juan 1
Minguo Haimen xianzhi,
Jiande xianzhi (1825), juan 16
Anhui tongzhi (1878), juan 250
CMCDR
Dehua xianzhi (1872), juan 52
Qianshan xianzhi (1873), juan 7
Huaining xianzhi (1918), juan 4
Jiangyin xianzhi (1921), juan 3
Nanling xianzhi (1924), juan 3
CMCDR
Wuhu xianzhi (1919), juan 13

Founded

1836
1786

Kangxi era

Market towns
Lili (Jiaxing

Xinan huiguan

CMCDR

late 1800s

Nanxun
(Huzhou
Nanxiang
(Suzhou
Hankou
(Hanyang )
Hankou
(Hanyang )

Xinan huiguan

CMCDR

1831

Xinan gongsuo

Jiading xianzhi (1930)

Tongzhi ear

Ziyang shuyuan

Hankou ziyang shuyuan ji lue

1694

Xinan gongsuo

CMCDR

Hankou
Huizhou huiguan
(Hanyang )
Yangxiang
Huizhou huiguan
()
Chongming
Huizhou huiguan
(Songjiang )

CMCDR
Minguo Wuyuan xianzhi (1920),
juan 42
Minguo Wuyuan xianzhi (1920),
juan 42

Sojourning in Translocal Perspective

Place

Name

Source

Shashi
(Jingzhou )
Shuanglin
(Huzhou )

Huizhou huiguan

CMCDR

Xinan yiyuan

CMCDR

69
Founded

Qianlong era

1This list includes only huiguan institutions that represented Huizhou as a prefectural entity and leaves
aside those representing the individual component counties of Huizhou. It is based on sources accessible to
the author, and hence inevitably incomplete. The list is only intended to illustrate the geographical scope of
Huizhou sojourners huiguan building activities.
2The Chinese Maritime Custom Decennial Report was used by Ho Ping-ti to
retrieve huiguan institutions and their geographical distribution. The Huizhou huiguan listed here are from
Ho, Zhongguo huiguan shilun, 3739.
3If a huiguan was located in a market town, the prefecture in which the market town was located is provided
in the parenthesis that follows.

Another genre that often contains information on huiguan is the random

notes (biji), which started to cover urban life as early as the Song dynasty.32
During the Ming-Qing period, some urban writers began to include lists of huiguan in the notes they jotted on their own cities. For example, Fan Kais Hankou congtan (Hankou Chats, 1822) listed the main huiguan institutions
and their sites in Hankou.33 Gan Xis Baixia suoyan (Trivial Talk
from Nanjing, 1847), recorded nineteen huiguan and their sites:
Nanjing is a meeting place for people from all directions. Its huiguan are
more numerous than in other places. The Zhongzhou (Henan) [huiguan]
is located in Nuomi Alley, the Sanchu (Hunan and Hubei) [huiguan] is
located on Saihong Bridge, the Jingde [huiguan] is in Dangjia Alley, the
Taiping [huiguan] is in Ganyu Alley .34

32

33
34

These are catalogued in the Siku quanshu as miscellaneous notes in the geography section under history (). Siyen Fei provided a brief history of this
genre and applied the generic name ketan (guest chats) to these works. See Fei
Si-yen, Negotiating Urban Space, 188193.
Fan Kai , Hankou congtan jiaoshi , 115131.
Gan Xi , Baixia suoyan , juan 1.

70

Sojourning In Translocal Perspective

As apolitical and unofficial writings, such notes narration of their city was often organized around the authors experience of the city, rather than the set
format of the local gazetteers.35 The inclusion of huiguan lists in these informal works suggests that the symbolic presence of faraway places registered in
urban residents everyday experience in a most concrete and unmediated way,
and became part of the texture of urban life.36
Often the sojourning population in a host city represented multiple local
places, and these men were certainly conscious of each others presence in the
host city. Thus the situation involved mutual observation among people from
multiple places. One indication of this situation was the huiguan builders
keen attention to the construction activities of other sojourner groups. In Suzhou, for example, steles commemorating the founding of a huiguan often explained that the sojourning group from one place decided to construct their
huiguan because all the other places are building huiguan in Suzhou.37
It is clear that the consciousness of parallel existence of faraway places and
connection with them Anderson described among European colonists also existed among the mobile population in Chinas overland empire. Andersons
insight, however, only draws on the European side of the equation, and leaves
aside the native population and the geographical condition of the places before the settlers arrival.
The political and social situation in Ming-Qing Chinas centralized empire
makes it impossible to neglect the native factor. First, the new places where
huishang (and sojourners from other places) arrived and stayed were not uncharted lands waiting to be claimed and named, but rather places already defined by the empire and incorporated into the imperial spatial order. Second,
the adoption of the Huizhou place-name elsewhere was a process that involved not only its sojourners, but also the natives and sojourners from other
places. Their attitudes could vary from welcoming to resistant, and their role as
borrowers or receivers of transferred place-names was by no means negligible.
Thus the spread of Huizhous place-name beyond its borders often resulted
35
36

37

For a brief discussion of the narrative mode of this genre, see Fei Si-yen, Negotiating
Urban Space 190.
Other random notes that provide huiguan lists include: Chen Zuolin , Yundu daoqiao xiao zhi ; Zhu Yixin , Jingshi fangxiang zhi ,
10:21, 43.
For examples, see Jiaying huiguan beiji [Stone Inscription Commemorating the Jiangying huiguan], and Wuan huiguan beiji [Stone Inscription Commemorating the Wuan huiguan], in Ming Qing Suzhou gongshangye beike ji,
350, 364. William Rowe also noticed an increasing tendency for huiguan of different
places to interact with one another. See Rowe, Commerce and Society, 267.

Sojourning in Translocal Perspective

71

not simply in the naming of other places after Huizhou, but in a new juxta
position of Huizhous name with the place-names of other locales. The geographical consciousness embedded in this phenomenon involved the
sojourners and their sense of connection to home, but also the natives and
other peoples in the host place who were mindful of the gathering together of
peoples from different local places. In other words, in China the phenomenon
was one of local encounter rather than synchronic novelty.

Local Encounter in Historical Perspective
The transfer of place-names from place of origin to a new locale has a long
tradition in Chinese history. Wolfram Eberhards study of place naming in
medieval China finds cases of migrants transferring the names of their home
villages to new settlements.38 At a higher aggregate level, county- and prefecture-name transfers occurred during the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317420 ce),
when the state named many southern prefectures and counties after the prefecture and county names of the lost North. Compared with these, place-name
transfer in cases of local encounter was distinct in that, even though a name
might originate at the county level or higher, the transfer, being initiated by
sojourners or natives, was not an action of the state, although local authorities
might eventually recognize and endorse the transferred name. The construction of huiguan followed a similar pattern: Place-names borne by Ming-Qing
huiguan were mostly at the county level or higher, but the construction of huiguan was rarely initiated by the state. In other words, the local in local encounter refers to a place at the county level or above, and the encounter
typically occurred without state initiation.
For this type of local encounter to be possible, at least three conditions had
to be fulfilled. First, the new settlement and the place of origin had to be far
enough apart (at least beyond the home prefecture or home county) to make
the transfer of county or prefecture names meaningful. Second, the number
and influence of fellow native men in the host place had to be sufficient to
form a social force that remained distinct rather than being absorbed by the
host society. Third, the representation of the home locale had to be strong
enough to reach immigrants, so that when they arrived at the new place they
considered themselves from a certain county or prefecture instead of from a
certain village. The name also had to be widely known so that if natives of the
host place did initiate the transfer of place-names, they labeled the sojourners
according to their home counties or prefectures.
38

Wolfram Eberhard, Preliminary Note on Place Names in Medieval China. Journal of

American Oriental Society 74.2 (Apr. 1954): 7174.

72

Sojourning In Translocal Perspective

In the case of Huizhou merchant sojourners of the late Ming and Qing, all
these conditions were fulfilled. Riding the tide of the trade boom that had
reached substantial portions of the realm, Huizhou merchants were traveling
and sojourning within an empire-wide network of commerce. Their success in
host places usually depended on, and also enhanced the prospects of, recruiting kinsmen and fellow native men into business.39 This led to the formation
of Huizhou sojourner communities of considerable size that were famous for
their solidarity.40 As for representations of the home locale and the articulation of local identity at the prefecture level, the literati discourse on Huizhous
distinctiveness had been around since the Southern Song. It is hard to gauge
how deeply this discourse affected individual merchant sojourners, but recent
scholarship on the huishang makes clear that merchants there participated in
literati culture to a substantial degree.41 In this sense, local encounter for Huizhous merchants seems to have been possible only in the late Ming, when
mobility substantially picked up in the context of an already deeply entrenched
discourse on local identity and local distinctiveness. Thus we see the transfer
of the prefecture name accompanying the movement of its people and the
symbolic co-presence of Huizhou with other places emerging in their host cities.
Several clues suggest that this local encounter was not accidental or isolated, but embedded in the historical conjuncture of the late Ming and Qing.
Non-official transfer of county and prefecture names appeared relatively late
in Chinese history. There were no clear cases of it in the Song. In the early
Ming, there were occurrences due to state-initiated large-scale immigration
projects. Thus we see the adoption of many Shanxi county and prefecture
names by settlers in their new villages in the vicinity of Beijing, where many
immigrants from Shanxi were settled.42 Beginning in the late Ming, however,
39
40
41

42

Tang Lixing, Ming- Qing yilai, 7186, 112135. Guo, Ritual Opera, 5155; Fuji Hiroshi, Shinan shonin.
Rowe, Commerce and Society; Rowe, Conflict and Community; Guo, Ritual Opera, 5660.
See works by Tang, Fuji, among others, for detailed descriptions of the Huizhou merchants participation in literati culture. To say merchants participated in literati culture is
different from arguing for a merger of merchant and literati culture, which is an issue still
under debate. To put it simply, the latter implies the literati accepted merchants as social
equals and accepted some merchant values, while the former does not imply this at all.
See Sheng Aiping , Cong Wenzhou diming kan zhe nan renkou qianxi he minzu
ronghe [Migration and Ethnic Melting in
Southern Zhejiang as Seen from Place-Names of Whenzhou], in Wenzhou shi fan xue
yuan xue bao 25:3 (Jun. 2004): 108112; Zhang Zhihui and Chai Shisen ,
Hebei diming ji qi wenhua nei han chu yi [Preliminary
Studies of Place-Names and Their Cultural Connotations], in Hebei shi fan daxue xue bao
22:3 (Jul. 1999).

Sojourning in Translocal Perspective

73

many more cases cropped up. For example, in Taiwan, immigrants from Guangdong and Fujian brought with them dozens of county names and applied them
to the villages where they settled. Forty-five of those names are still in use today.43 In early Qing Sichuan, immigrants from the mid-Yangtze region did the
same.44 The construction of huiguan followed almost exactly the same timeline: they were hardly noticeable in the early Ming, grew substantially in the
late Ming, and came into full bloom in the Qing. Relating these two increasingly intensifying developments to the cumulative development of local identity discourses since the Song, one suspects that the influence of local identity
discourses had grown to such a degree by the late Ming that when people
moved around more widely, they had ready symbols of locality to carry along
with them, which then made this type of local encounter possible.
Recent scholarship has documented the mixing of various locally distinctive practices such as cuisine, opera, and ritual when sojourners met in host
cities.45 The phenomenon of local encounter suggests that in addition to the
mixing of local cultures, sojourning in late Ming and Qing China also created a
situation in which the parallel existence of multiple places and the encounter
of localities were brought to the fore of geographical consciousness. The following sections will demonstrate that in this situation, not only geographical
consciousness but also the practice of local identity went through substantial
changes.
Managing Local Difference: Home and Host Places in the Context
of Sojourning

Unease in the Encounter of Local Places
When it comes to peoples lives, the encounter of localities was by no means
smooth and eventless. In the case of Xinan Town mentioned above, the enviable good fortune of Huizhou sojourners, and especially their bold decision to
43
44
45

Li Rulong, Han yu di ming xue lun gao (Shanghai:Shang hai jiao yu chu
ban she,1998), 2628.
Hua Linfu , Zhongguo diming shihua (Jinan: qilu shushe, 2006)
Yao Bangzhao, Huizhou xue gai lun , (Beijing: Zhongguo she hui ke xue chu
ban she 2003), 33460; Wang Zhenzhong, Huizhou shehui wenhua, 198216; Zhang Chongwang , Shilun Ming Qing shangren de xiangtu shen xinyang
[Preliminary Study of the Cult of Native Place Deities among Ming and
Qing Merchants], in Zhongguo shehui jingjishi yanjiu (1995-3), 5963; Wang Rigen, Ming
Qing huiguan shenling wenhua [Culture of Deities in Ming and
Qing huiguan], in Zhongguo shehui kexue jikan (1994-4), 101106.

74

Sojourning In Translocal Perspective

name the town after their home place, irritated the natives. In 1596 local people filed a petition to the sub-prefects yamen asking that the town be renamed.
The sub-prefects effort to put off the locals with the rationale that the market
town looks magnificent; we would do better not to reverse what is already established, did not work. Few details survive about what followed, but the terse
statement in the local gazetteer, that Cheng Peng, a leader of the Huizhou sojourners community, who held shengyuan status back in Huizhou, led
the [Huizhou] folks to curb them (), suggests some violence might
well have occurred. Conflict over the towns name lasted for several decades,
until 1636, when another sub-prefect finally declared the name Xinan Town
to be permanent.46
This conflict over a towns name, though unusually dramatic, reflects the
uneasy relationship between sojourners and natives empire-wide. As early as
the mid-fifteenth century, Li Xian (14081466), the grand secretary and
compiler of Da Ming yitongzhi , attributed the poverty of his
home place, Dengzhou , to exploitation by cunning merchants from other places.47 By the sixteenth century, such complaints and grievances had become more common from both local authorities and natives in the cities as
well as the countryside. Natives complaints were various. In the countryside,
they blamed sojourners for enjoying undeserved affluence at the natives expense, partly as a result of the taxation and labor conscription system laid
down in the early Ming, which did not count the mobile population in its levies (more on the registration system and state policies on mobile population in
Chapter 5). For example, the early-sixteenth century gazetteer of Mianyang
Sub-prefecture (Hubei) observed that sojourners owned the reclaimed
lake bottom (), which was not subject to land tax, and, since they had no
standing in the household registration system, were not liable for labor service,
either. Thus the natives, who were often poorer, had to shoulder both the land
tax and corve burdens.48 Sometimes the sojourners shrewdness was identified as the cause of the natives plight. According to the 1602 prefectural gazetteer of Chengtian , the people who held most of the land were almost all
powerful and rich people flowing here from other places, while the natives
could only became their servants and hired laborers.49 According to the gazetteer, those outsiders were mostly men of Jiangxi Province, who came to lease
46
47
48
49

Feng Renhong, Xinan zhen yuanliu, cited by Wang Zhengzhong, Huizhou shehui wenhua, 64.
Li Xian, Wu xiang shuo [On My Home Place], in Gu rang wenji, juan 9.
Mianyang zhouzhi (1530), 9.12ab, cited by Fei Si-yen, Negotiating Urban Space, 229.
Chengtian fuzhi (1602), juan 6.

Sojourning in Translocal Perspective

75

land for cultivation and to rent houses for lodging, and in time took root there.
The natives, due to their heavy tax burden, had to constantly borrow money
from the settlers, with double interest and their land and houses as mortgage.
Eventually all these properties fell into sojourner hands.
In the cities, grievances over tax inequality were combined with blaming
sojourners for deteriorating a social morale. The editors of the 1642 gazetteer of
Qingjiang County (Jiangsu) expressed concerns at the overwhelming
presence of guest residents in the county town, which caused a decline in the
plain and simple social customs of the past, enticed urban folk to indulge in
luxurious spending inappropriate to their social standing, and induced literati to engage in mercantile pursuits.50 Sojourners impact on urban social mores was recognized even when they were not particularly the target of criticism.
For example, in Kezuo zhuiyu, an early seventeenth-century book on Nanjing
urban life, Gu Qiyuan deployed the natives (zhu) and the sojourners (ke) as
categories for analyzing the variation in social mores across his native city: The
particular types of natives and sojourners living in a neighborhood, as well as
their relative proportion there, determined the specific social customs (fengsu)
of that neighborhood.51
In the sometimes volatile encounter of people from many local places, Huizhou merchants were particularly vulnerable to host-place hostilities, partly
because of Huizhous renown as a place of mercantile riches. This renown, inadvertently forged and promoted by literati from both Huizhou and elsewhere,
came into wide circulation in the second half of the sixteenth century and almost guaranteed that Huizhou merchants would become a target of jealousy
and resentment by locals in the places where they sojourned. Anecdotes attesting to these tensions abound in literati writings. In the late sixteenth century Li Weizhen recorded an incident experienced by a Huizhou
merchant, Wu Wangnan, during the Jiajing period. Wu sojourned in Songjiang
Prefecture and had accumulated considerable wealth. At the height of
the wokou (lit. Japanese Pirates though many of the pirates were Chinese) disturbance he hastily returned home to avoid disaster. Songjiang locals
took advantage of his absence and set fire to his house. As a result Wu lost all
his property in there.52 Zhu Helings Yu an xiaoji recorded
another incident in Hangzhous Wujiang County that took place around
1600. Due to effective administration by a capable magistrate, the number of
50
51
52

Qingjiang xianzhi, 1.34b, Fengsu, cited by Fei Si-yen, 225.

Fei Si-yen, Negotiating Urban Space, 212222.
Li Weizhen, Wu mu cheng ru ren shou xu [Essay for the Birthday of
Mr. Wus Mother Madam Cheng], in Da mi shan fang ji, juan 40.

76

Sojourning In Translocal Perspective

theft and robbery cases had dropped drastically. Consequently the yamen runners and clerks found themselves lacking opportunities to extract bribes, so
they invited in bandits from nearby Longyou County, who entered the
county seat in secret and robbed the pawnshops of Huizhou merchants in order to dampen their spirits.53
In the seventeenth century, harassment of Huizhou sojourners feature more
frequently in literati writings, and case-by-case hostilities against Huizhou
merchants morphed into stereotypes of the huishang as greedy, aggressive,
and litigious.54 Some literati deliberately blamed all kinds of evil deeds and
malefactions on the huishang. One illuminating example, discovered by the
Chinese historian Wang Zhenzhong, was the modification of a satirical story
from an early sixteenth-century work, Sung gu shu , when it was copied
into the late sixteenth-century book, Yun jian za shi . The original
version tells of a corrupt official from Songjiang who retired and carried home
the huge amount of wealth he had embezzled while in office. One day an old
man came to visit and showed him great gratitude. When asked why, the old
man explained that the local wealth of Songjiang had all been snatched by the
guanfu (government), and now the high official would be given credit for
returning it. In the later book, the author replaced the guanfu with huishang,
but the rest of the story was copied verbatim.55

Men from Master Zhus Homeland: Home-Place Image and HostPlace Usage
In this trying situation, the formation of strong ties among fellow Huizhou sojourners was a natural response. For them, an immediate consequence of living away from home was the sharpened sense of being Huizhou men: they
were labeled as such in the eyes of others, and the label also provided a
53
54

55

Zhu Heling , Fushun liu gong zhuan [Biography of Master Liu of

Fushun], in Yuan xiaoji , juan 15.
Mostly this stereotype was circulated in the popular vernacular novels in which Huizhou
merchants featured prominently. For a brief discussion of Huizhou merchants image in
late Ming vernacular novels, see Liu Yanqin , Ming dai huaben xiaoshuo zhong
de huishang xingxiang [The Image of the huishang in
Ming and Qing vernacular novels], in Ming Qing Xiaoshuo Yanjiu 2004.4:
142155. But it was not limited to this. Non-fictional writings also spread negative images
of Huizhou merchants. For examples of these anecdotes, see Xie Zhaozhe, Wu zazhu.
Other such anecdotes are scattered in the collected works of such literati as Wang Shixing
, Gu Yanwu , and Wei Xueyi .
See Wang Zhenzhong, Ming Qing wenxian.

Sojourning in Translocal Perspective

77

convenient device to organize their mutual bond and mutual help. They could
readily capitalize on the literati discourses about Huizhous identity and its
image as a model Confucian place to rally their compatriots and consolidate
their group integration. Exemplary of this thinking was the enshrinement of
Zhu Xi in the huiguan of Huizhou sojourners across the country during the
Ming-Qing period.56
Such strategic use of this old image meant that the literati discourse had
reached a broader social spectrum. Back in Huizhou, the discourse on Huizhous identity circulated widely among the local literati. But we do not have
evidences indicating that the question What is Huizhou? was a concern to the
common people.57 In the context of sojourning, however, merchants sharpened sense of being Huizhou men meant that the literati discourse on Huizhous identity concerned every man from there, regardless of social status and
intellectual orientation. At the same time, the sojourners understanding of
locality demonstrated subtle yet important differences from that of the local
literati. To the Huizhou literati, the model Confucian place label helped highlight Huizhous distinction within sameness. This sameness was based on the
belief that the pursuit of Zhu Xis daoxue the state-sanctioned Confucian
orthodoxy defined literati culture everywhere. As a localist discourse
launched from the home place and built upon the imagined sameness of places throughout the empire, it involved little discussion of any other specific
places. In the context of sojourning, however, a different logic was needed to
rationalize the new and more concrete mode of relationship between Huizhou
and the host place. The Huizhou merchant sojourners enduring efforts to construct and maintain the Ziyang Academy in Hankou an academy bearing the
literary name of Zhu Xi vividly illustrates how that played out.
Constructing the Academy: Master Zhu as a Rallying Cry
Initially constructed between 1694 and 1704, the Ziyang Academy in Hankou
was actually the huiguan of Huizhou merchants in that city. The purpose of
its construction was to help consolidate the community of Huizhou sojourners. The proclamation of the plan to construct the academy stated, Staying
at home behind closed doors is not what a man should do, but the life of
56
57

Wang Rigen, Zhongguo huiguan shi, 391408.

This does not mean that common people were not influenced by the daoxue movement,
for the daoxue ideas provide inspiration for literati efforts to transform local society
through lineage construction activities, which involved the participation of a much
broader swath of society. But defining What is Huizhou? was an issue that belonged,
properly speaking, to literati gentlemen.

78

Sojourning In Translocal Perspective

s ojourning brought loneliness and longing for ties among fellow native men.
Thus, constructing a huiguan is in line with the ancient sage kings Way of
Rallying the Scattered ().58 It was probably for this reason that an
actual educational facility was not a priority in the sojourners original plan,
and in any case one was not undertaken until 1735, more than thirty years after
the huiguans construction.
The reason for calling their huiguan an academy was to distinguish Huizhou
from all other places, as the preface to the academys gazetteer (compiled in
1736) makes clear:
Huiguan are now prevalent in all-under-Heaven. This academy is a huiguan. But there is a difference. We make sacrifice to the master of daoxue
instead of the false deities of Daoism and Buddhism; what we aim to
achieve is participation in the original forces of the cosmos instead of
pursuing profits and fame All these are missing in the huiguan founded
by other locales.59
In 1694, when construction of the academy was about to begin, Wang Shui, one
of the major advocates and organizers of the project, stated their plan: since it
was going to be a shrine to Master Zhu, the academy should neither involve the
worship of other gods, nor look too shabby because that would not do justice
to their respect for the Master.60 To demonstrate their pride in the home locale,
they hired craftsmen from Huizhou to do the actual construction, and built it
according to the style of lineage shrines in Huizhou.61
The construction process was far from smooth. The first obstacle was a constant shortage of funds. This problem was caused in part by the ambition to
avoid making it too shabby; as the organizers admitted in one of their additional requests for donations, they ignorantly made an overly magnificent
blueprint.62 The most accessible source of funding was of course the Huizhou
sojourners community. To persuade them to support the project, Master Zhu
58
59
60
61
62

Qijian shuyuan xu [Proclamation of the Academys Construction], in

Ziyang shuyuan jilue 8:2a3a
Ziyang shuyuan jilue xu [Preface to the Gazetteer of Ziyang Academy], in Ziyang shuyuan jilue 8:79a81a.
Qijian shuyuan xu.
Ji shuyuan benmo [Account of the Academy from the Beginning to the
End], in Ziyang shuyuan jilue 3:2a5b.
Yu tong xiang shu [Letter to Fellow Native Place Men], in Ziyang shuyuan
jilue 8:15a16b.

Sojourning in Translocal Perspective

79

had to be invoked again and again. For example, in 1698, when the original
budget had been used up, the organizers prepared to solicit a second round of
donations. The fundraising announcement reiterated the significance of the
construction, reminding their fellow native men of the historical position of
Master Zhu: Is our project not important enough? Master Zhu was a sage of
the Song dynasty, and is now revered by the whole world.63 Shortly after this
came another solicitation. This time, the organizers showed some impatience
with their fellow native mens slow response to their request. In the public announcement about this solicitation, an implicit grudge was laid against fellow
natives who squandered money to support Buddhist and Daoist institutions.
After praising Master Zhu, the announcement asked them to withhold their
donations to those temples, which do no good for morality and true learning,
and instead offer those resources to the academy project, which will bring the
six counties of Huizhou eternal glory.64
Judging from the eventual completion of the academy and its magnificence,
the fundraising campaigns among fellow Huizhou sojourners did meet their
goal. The perceived sluggishness of the communitys response to the calls for
donations, however, points to tensions around what defines a Huizhou sojourner. To leaders such as Wang Shui, who were well versed in the literati discourse on Huizhous identity, the logic was clear: Zhu Xi defined Huizhou, and
hence all sojourners from Huizhou; therefore not spending money for the sake
of honoring Zhu Xi was out of the question. To rank-and-file sojourners, however, this logic was not so clear. The fact that they squandered money on Buddhist and Daoist practices suggests that Zhu Xi and his teaching did not have
as much bearing on them as on their leaders. The community obviously was in
need of consolidation, and it was for this purpose that Zhu Xis name was invoked repeatedly. In this sense, the rank-and-file Huizhou sojourners were
pushed to endorse the literati discourse on Huizhou. There is no doubt that the
intrinsic value of Zhu Xis learning was believed to justify that push. But in the
final analysis, the association with Zhu Xi was more to bring glory to the home
locality and to consolidate the community. Zhu Xi, who had represented the
height of moral and intellectual pursuit among Huizhous literati, was now put
to a more practical use.
With this maneuver, Huizhous sojourner community as a whole could
be presented as an advocate of the daoxue masters teaching. This made it
63
64

Zai quan le shu wen [Essay to Encourage Further Donations], in Ziyang

shuyuan jilue 8:4a4b.
Yu tong xiang shu.

80

Sojourning In Translocal Perspective

possible for the academy to receive help from even broader sources. For example, after its initial construction, the widening and straightening of roads
adjoining the academy was accomplished in 1734 with funds donated by Xu
Dengying , an official of Huizhou origins who passed through Hankou
on an official trip and was touched by his fellow native-mens dedication to
Master Zhu.65 The construction of educational facilities at the academy happened under the patronage of Hubei governor Wu Yingfen . Though
not a Huizhou native, Wus respect for Zhu Xi led him to the academy immediately after he took office in 1735. Noting that sacrifices were offered there to the
master but that it lacked an educational aspect, Wu advised the establishment
of a charity school in the academy and volunteered to be its first donor. With
the governor personally taking initiative, the Huizhou sojourners quickly donated funds for the schools construction.66
Battling the Natives: Master Zhu as a Shelter from Hostility
Obstacles to the construction and further development of the academy included not only a shortage of funds, but also conflicts with Hankou natives. The
local people were not particularly fond of the Huizhou sojourners, both because of controversies over property transactions caused by the academys
construction and expansion, and because of the uneasiness they felt at the
academys ostentatious show of power and wealth. To lessen these tensions,
the Huizhou merchants again resorted to the image of Zhu Xi, both to prop up
a veneer of righteousness and to win the support of local officials.
In late 1694, as construction was about to begin, the local residents of the
neighborhood who had sold their land for the building of the academy simply
refused to move. The indignant Huizhou men filed a case with the Hanyang
prefect, claiming that their project was a great undertaking, one that civilizes
the people and helps bring about better customs . The prefect, Dai
Mengxiong , responded quickly and favorably, issuing a notice ordering all the residents of the area in question to move and make room for the
construction.67
While construction was going on, the local people continued to make the
situation difficult. This time the motivation was more likely jealousy, and the
actions they took were better planned. First, they spread critical comments
65
66
67

Kui xing ge ji [Essay on the Kuixing Tower], in Ziyang shuyuan jilue 7:46a
47a.
Yi xue ji [On the Charity School], in Ziyang shuyuan jilue 7:10a11a.
Xing gong shi [Proclaimation of the Start of Construction], in Ziyang shuyuan
jilue 8:45ab.

Sojourning in Translocal Perspective

81

about the academy project, arguing that since Master Zhu was enshrined in
government schools everywhere and received additional sacrifices in the temples built for him in his homeland, there was no need for another such project
here in Hankou.68 Meanwhile, others secretly sought support among officials
of Hubei origin throughout the bureaucracy to block or abort the academy
project. Ironically, and fortunately for the Huizhou sojourners, one of the officials of Hubei origin, then serving in Beijing, descended from a Huizhou immigrant. The Hankou natives obviously did not know this and sent him their
plan of action in hopes that he might lend a hand in the campaign against the
Huizhou sojourners. That official quickly informed his colleague, Wu Zhidan, a
Huizhou man, about the plan. Wu immediately wrote to the managers of the
academy project and reported it. Interestingly, up to the time of this correspondence, Wu and the project manager to had never met. Wus motivation to
get involved is explained in his letter:
Establishing a huiguan in Hankou is a righteous endeavor of people from
wuxiang ( our homeland); enshrining Master Zhu is an undertaking
that elevates scholars and promotes the true learning. It is going to be a
significant enterprise with eternal value. I have regretted that I was not
able to contribute to this project.69
On receiving this crucial information, the organizers of the academy project
took swift action. Quietly they contacted their official connections, both men
with a Huizhou background and men without, to counter the conspiracy. To a
fellow Huizhou man who had previously served as a local official in Hanyang,
the managers entrusted the task of negotiating with the powerful figures backing their opponents. They encouraged him saying, Not only will your fellow
native men here in Hankou be grateful to you, but the spirit of Master Zhu will
also benefit from your protection.70 To another former local official of Hanyang, who was not a Huizhou man but had become fond of the Huizhou sojourners, they submitted a collective grievance in which the managers
debunked their opponents arguments against the academy, emphasizing the
peculiar nature of the project they were undertaking:
Compare an academy of Master Zhu with the lascivious temples of the
heretics. Which is righteous? Which is erroneous? Compare the teach68
69
70

Shang Yao taishi shu [Letter Submitted to Lord Yao], in Ziyang shuyuan
jilue 8:11a12a.
Ziyang shuyuan jilue 8: 9a10a.
Shang Zhang taishi shu [Letter Submitted to Lord Zhang].

82

Sojourning In Translocal Perspective

ings of the Three Principles and Five Invariables and the speeches that
deny obligations to both ones father and ones emperor. Which is helpful? Which is harmful? Now Buddhist and Daoist temples have been
established everywhere. In Hankou alone there are hundreds and the
number is still growing every day and every month. Furthermore, people
from all other places are competing in building magnificent huiguan
halls here in Hankou, and there has never been any negative comment
about this. Why cannot [some people] just leave our Master Zhu be?
The conflict was settled quickly enough not to impede the construction process. Though the available sources do not give us details about their interactions, the Huizhou sojourners good rapport with officials obviously helped
them greatly, as an essay about the growth of the academy written several decades later admitted.71
After its initial construction, the academy continued to expand by buying
land and building rental properties in the surrounding neighborhood. The
rental income was applied to cover the regular maintenance costs of the academy. However, once management of these properties grew slack, some of the
rental income was embezzled by hired managers of non-Huizhou origin. In
1734 the donation by Governor Xu Dengying ignited a new wave of enthusiasm
among the Huizhou sojourners. The new generation of sojourner leadership
thoroughly investigated the management of the properties and filed a case
about the embezzlement with the prefect. This time, the official support was
more obvious. Not only were the lost properties recovered, but also the new
governor of Hubei accepted their request for a commemorative essay. The
academy had the essay inscribed in stone as a warning against further embezzlement. The governors essay, not surprisingly, paid homage to Zhu Xi and
praised the Huizhou mens efforts to enshrine the Master in Hankou.72
Throughout these tensions and conflicts with natives, the real secret of the
Huizhou sojourners victories was the support of officials. To foster good rapport with officials, the practical use of Zhu Xis image was crucial, and when
the merchants sought their support, the noble claims of honoring Master Zhu
and spreading his learning were invariably raised. Similarly, the officials also
granted their support in the name of spreading Master Zhus learning. One
does not need to believe that raising the flag of Zhu Xi was always enough to
influence the decisions of the officials, nor that the publicized attitude of respect for Zhu Xi was never a ruse. As William Rowes study of Hankou has
71
72

Ji Shuyuan benmo.
Fuxinan xiang beiji [Stone Inscription Commeorating the Restoration
of Xinan Alley], in Ziyang shuyuan jilue 8:22ab.

Sojourning in Translocal Perspective

83

shown, what lay behind the good rapport between the local government and
the sojourning merchants were their mutual needs. Huizhou merchants voluntary donations to official projects such as the Orphanage suggest that they
were very aware of this.73 The strategy of playing the Zhu Xi card worked because it allowed the Huizhou men to speak the language of the officials and
appear more congenial to them. (Sometimes this strategy could verge on ingratiation: for example, the Huguang governor-general Bi Yuan who aided
in mobilizing efforts to renovate the academy in 1788, was honored with enshrinement in the academy beside Zhu Xi.74) Accordingly, their conflicts with
the natives were best represented as controversies over whether or not to promote sanctioned learning.
The Dialectics of Difference: Huizhou Sojourners as Cultural
Transmitters
Highlighting Huizhous difference from other places was a tactic the sojourners frequently resorted to both at the academys original founding and in its
later development. Huizhou people differentiated themselves via the universally prestigious daoxue learning whose foremost master had become something of a mascot for their place-based group in a city where peoples of diverse
local origins encountered one another. The sameness of all places implied in
the original model Confucian place idea was suspended as close contact between local places helped move their differences to the fore.
Highlighting difference, however, was not the Huizhou sojourners only
strategy. While it helped them consolidate their own camp and cultivate good
rapport with officials, too much emphasis on difference could backfire. Within
the centralized empire there was no way to establish formal privilege for a
place-based group from another place. As merchants who had come to Hankou for commercial gain, the Huizhou sojourners needed the local community
and had to become part of the host society. For the notion of local difference to
serve the sojourners interest, it had to be fine-tuned to make sure that while
Huizhou was distinguished enough to maintain a superior standing, it was not
so different as to hinder integration.
Fine-tuning Huizhous difference so it became compatible with other places
was the other side of the sojourners strategy. Early signs of this orientation can
be traced to the founding of the academy in Hankou, when the hostility of the
natives was still palpable. For example, in the petitions the sojourners filed
against local residents who refused to move, the prospective academy was
73
74

Rowe, Conflict and Community, 164, 175.

Ziyang shuyuan jilue 7:43ab; 8:47a48b.

84

Sojourning In Translocal Perspective

presented as a place where gentry and common people can come to study and
emulate (). This gesture, together with the claim that their project was one that would civilize the people and help bring about better customs, framed the Huizhou sojourners as transmitters of a higher culture and
civilizers of the host place.
As the sojourners situation improved, this kind of rhetoric became more
common. In 1704, when the construction had been completed, Huizhou merchants, obviously in high spirits, expressed willingness to seek common ground
with people from other places. In one commemorative essay, the author
praised people from my homeland for their adherence to ritual and propriety, and went on to emphasize the civilizing effects they brought to people in
Hankou by the ceremonies conducted in the academy:
People from all over come to see it. They crowd in as in a market; getting
inside the hall, no one can help but be moved, and experience the growth
of dedication to the Way deep in their hearts.75
Another commemorative essay stated that Huizhou sojourners brought the
teachings of Master Zhu and they had come to this city to transform its customs, instead of being transformed. Since Huizhou people have heard Master
Zhus teaching ever since they were born, and abide by the rituals set by Master
Zhu when they grow up, the author argued, their cultivation went deeper.
Therefore, even though the harsh agricultural conditions of Huizhou left them
no choice but to leave home and go into trade, The Principle (li) that is enlightened inside them shines wherever they go, and the rituals they adhere to
are already built into their ears, eyes, hands, and feet. [When they came to
Hankou,] the teachings and spirit of Master Zhu were carried here by them.
Based on this observation, the author regarded the eventual establishment of
the academy as a victory of the universal Way of Master Zhu, and predicted
that thanks to the academy, The teachings of Humanity, Righteousness, Rites,
and Music will prevail and uplift morality in Hankou and the surrounding
area.76 Several years later, when the lecture hall, named Six Waters Hall (
) after the six counties of Huizhou prefecture, was constructed, its signifi-

75
76

Zun dao tang xu [On the Hall of Honoring the Way], in Ziyang shuyuan jilue,
7:5a5b.
Zun dao tang ji [Account of the Hall of Honoring the Way], in Ziyang shuyuan
jilue 7:7a9b.

Sojourning in Translocal Perspective

85

cance was declared to be sprinkling [culture] and perfuming [virtue] among

all the people mingling in Hankou.77
By projecting themselves as the civilizers, the Huizhou sojourners actually
reinscribed Zhu Xi and daoxue as universal symbols, but only after they were
first used to mark Huizhous particularity. Now Huizhous superiority had
turned into a benevolent force of transformation, with Hankou as the place
transformed by the Huizhou sojourners. Difference remained, but it became
reconcilable so long as the inferior embraced the culture of the superior. Local
difference, while being highlighted in the encounter of places, was also resituated within a framework of compatibilities.
As a whole, the history of the Ziyang Academy in Hankou can be viewed as
the Huizhou merchants deployment of literati localist discourse on the home
place to handle the new problem of inter-place relationship in a sojourning
context. In this process, the literatis understanding of Huizhou, characterized
by a balanced view of the places distinction within sameness, went a full cycle. The distinctive side of Huizhou was highlighted first, to consolidate the
sojourners community and to facilitate their struggle to survive. Then balance
was regained when the sameness side of the equation was re-enhanced
through the notion of compatibility. At the end of this cycle, another real and
concrete place Hankou was incorporated into the imagination of Huizhou.
Now the model Confucian place not only excelled in its pursuit of the proper
learning and performance of appropriate rituals, it also entered into productive interactions with another place, and had assumed the role of civilizer and
transformer of other places where the teaching of the Confucian sages had not
yet prevailed. In the Confucian classics, this role, the transformer of the undesired elements of the popular culture in local places, was preserved for the shi
elites. Now it was a particular place, instead of a particular social class, that
assigned itself this role.78

Sojourning and Local Difference in Ming-Qing China
Not every local place had an image as deeply entrenched and powerfully articulated as Huizhou; few sojourning groups in Ming-Qing China were as dominant in their host places as the Huizhou merchants in Hankou; hence few saw
the need or possibility of deploying a home-place image to justify dominance

77
78

Lishui jiangtang ji [Account of the Lishui Lecture Hall], in Ziyang shuyuan

jilue 7:14a15b.
Yu Yingshi, Handai xunli.

86

Sojourning In Translocal Perspective

in the host-place. That said, the Hankou case nonetheless reveals common features in merchant sojourners understanding of locality.
First, common ties with the native place were called upon to strengthen
bonds between fellow sojourners and serve the pragmatic purpose of commercial success. This pragmatic purpose was often expressed explicitly in the mission-statement-like pronouncements around huiguan construction. An 1813
stele celebrating the founding of the Jiaying (Jiangsu) huiguan in Suzhou declares that the flow of money is proportionate with the degree of consolidation among people; when people are consolidated, money will flow in; this is
the eternal truth. Hence, the stele goes on, The connection between compatriots suddenly becomes close once we are out here, although back home it
was not yet appreciated.79 This statement suggests that having a prestigious
home place, as in the case of Huizhou, was a bonus rather than an essential
element for the bonding of compatriots; the mere fact of coming from the
same place was enough to bind them together. On another stele, erected in
1753 by the Jinhua (Zhejiang) sojourners in Suzhou, the text goes so far as to
admit that although the sojourners lived close to each other back home, there
were those who never saw each other in their lives and only met and united
here for business purposes.80
Second, the need for compatriot bonding implied that in sojourners representation of their home places, local difference, rather than the sameness of
local places, was their first concern. Recent scholarship on merchant huiguan
in the Ming-Qing period has demonstrated that in its initial stages of development, sojourners often worshiped gods and worthies from their native place at
these institutions.81 Thus in major commercial cities like Suzhou, the juxtaposition of local huiguan led to the lining up of various local/regional gods and
valorized local historical figures: Xu Xun (often called Xu Zhenjun) from Jiangxi, Guan Yu from Shanxi and Shaanxi, Ma Zu from Fujian, Zhu Xi from Huizhou, the Yellow River God from Shandong, etc.82 Difference was sought even
between places not geographically far apart. The aforementioned stele set up
by the Jinhua sojourners in Suzhou, for example, pointed out, Although
79
80
81
82

Gusu jiaying huiguan yin [On the Jiaying huiguan in Suzhou], in

Jiangsu Ming Qing gongshangye beike ji, 351352
Dai Xi, jinhua huiguan ji [Account of the Jinhua huiguan], in Jiangsu Ming
Qing gongshangye beike ji, 366.
Wang Rigen, Zhongguo huiguan shi, 392.
See Jiangsu Ming Qing gongshangye beike ji, 337441. For a general discussion of this subject, see Wang Rigen, Ming Qing huiguan shenling wenhua. See also Zhang Chongwang,
Shi lun Ming Qing shangren.

Sojourning in Translocal Perspective

87

Suzhou and Jinhua are both south of the Yangtze River, we belong to Wu and
Yue respectively, thus [Jinhua sojourners in Suzhou] inevitably notice differences in the soil and mores
.83 The fact that Wu and Yue, two areas often paired together and
referred to as Jiangnan in other contexts, were consciously distinguished by
the Jinhua sojourners illuminates how increased mobility and contact foregrounded the differences between places.
But highlighted local differences by no means ruled out the notion of compatibility and the possibility of cooperation between places. This was demonstrated in the emergence of complex huiguan dedicated to two or more local
places.84 It was also demonstrated in sojourners eclectic approaches to religious sacrifices inside the huiguan, by which gods and worthies brought from
home were often joined with deities of different local or regional origins, sometimes, but not always, resulting from the enlargement of the huiguans area of
coverage.85
Public Participation and Place-based Identity
Huizhous merchant sojourners were well known for their involvement in citywide public projects in host cities where they were clearly predominant, such
as Hankou and Yangzhou. Basing his work on studies of their public involvement in Hankou, William Rowe formulated the notion of locational identity,
and argued that multiple place-based identities were in play there: nativeplace identity did not prevent the growth of a locational identity; rather the
two could exist side by side.86 The theory of multiple place-based identities,
however, invites further questions if we situate sojourning in a translocal context: how did huishang and their contemporaries understand their multi-place
83
84
85

86

Dai Xi, Jinhua huiguan ji, in Jiangsu Ming Qing gongshangye beike ji, 366.
Bol, Local Identity: 42; Rowe, Commerce and Society, 281283.
Wang Rigen, Zhongguo huiguan shi, 394396. One example of the mixing of local worthies was the case of the Liangguang (Guangdong and Guangxi) huiguan in Suzhou,
where the two most famous native men from the two provinces who had served as Suzhou
officials, namely Hai Rui of Guangdong and Chen Hongmou from Guangxi,
were enshrined together in the huiguans main hall. See Jiangsu Ming Qing gongshangye
beike ji, 345.
Rowe, Commerce and Society, 250. For more general discussion of Huizhou merchants
participation in host-place public projects, see Rowe, Conflict and Community, 91188;
Finnane, Yangzhou, 243250.

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Sojourning In Translocal Perspective

involvement? Was public involvement in host places ascribed the same meaning as that in the home locale? A comparison of public projects in these two
contexts may reveal the sojourners view of locality from yet another angle.

Public Involvement and Locality in the Home Context
In Huizhou, projects for the public good were often ascribed meanings through
an array of cultural symbols the tradition of literati learning, ancestral roots,
or celebrated local customs that reminded people of their locale. Construction and restoration of the local academies, for example, were often perceived
in relation to the places reputation in the Cheng-Zhu-school of daoxue. In his
essay written in 1486 to celebrate the restoration of the Mingjing Academy
in Wuyuan County, an academy sponsored by a Hu lineage but
open to the whole county, Cheng Minzheng reiterated the fact that both Masters Cheng and Master Zhu came from Huizhou, and Master Zhu was a product
of Wuyuan. Then he praised the restoration project for its intention to facilitate the reemergence of real Confucians in this land of Masters Cheng and
Master Zhu.87 Similarly, in the 1690s when the Haiyang Academy of Xiuning
County was restored by the local literati, a commemorative essay acclaimed
Huizhou as the place where authentic daoxue learning had been preserved by
a series of masters since the time of Master Zhu, underscoring the point that
the project was one part of local elites efforts to cooperate with local officials
in rectifying morality and honoring previous masters.88 By evoking the past
sages, these construction projects were ascribed significance not only in the
present (that is, helping to enhance local learning and uplift local moral conditions), but they also fulfilled a historical obligation, namely, preserving the
places glory via traditions started by the former masters.
Huizhous customs and mores could also be invoked on their own account.
For example, in 1751 a famine struck Huizhou and the prefect called for rich
local households to contribute to the relief effort. The response was enthusiastic and the relief campaign succeeded brilliantly. In an essay the prefect wrote
to commemorate the event, he commended the local peoples righteous activities and registered their donations to the construction and maintenance of local bridges, roads, and schools as a demonstration of Huizhous pure social
mores. According to the prefect, the local peoples inclination to aspire to

87

88

Cheng Minzheng, Wuyuan hu shi mingjing shuyuan chong xiu ji

[Account of the Renovation of the Mingjing Academy by the Hu Clan of Wuyuan
County], in Huangdun wenji, 15:3a3b.
Xiuning xian zhi (1823), 7:96a97b.

Sojourning in Translocal Perspective

89

rightness and enhance humaneness () was shaped by both Huizhous topography and the human legacy of previous generations.89
Sometimes promotion of the public good was ascribed meaning specifically
within the context of a village community and against the background of a
family or clan tradition; this was especially true of small projects that pertained to the communitys immediate environs. Huizhous local gazetteers recorded many small public construction works, such as bridges, dams, or roads
that were carried out by the same group of families over many generations.
Usually it was the earlier generations that completed a project and later generations engaged in maintenance or restoration, interpreting their role as fulfilling filial devotion or taking responsibility for the home community.90
A Cheng clan of Xiuning County, for example, decided to renovate a bridge
their ancestors were involved in building because one of them had a dream
about Cheng Dachang, a respected clan ancestor and high official of the Song
dynasty, who reminded him, The fate of our clan is tied to that of the bridge
.91 In another case, Zhao Jishi, compiler of Huizhous
prefectural gazetteer of 1699, embraced the duty of rebuilding a bridge that his
great-grandfather had constructed decades before. After finishing the project,
Zhao sighed with relief that he had fulfilled this obligation to his great-grandfather, who would have been disappointed in the underworld had the greatgrandson remained indifferent to the dilapidated condition of the bridge. At
the same time, he called on future generations of the gentlemen of the village
() to follow in his footsteps and take on improving the home community.92
The specific meanings ascribed to such benevolent activities varied from
case to case. But in most cases, peoples engagement in public projects grew
out of their bond with the local place and was regarded as a continuation of its
various long and living traditions. In this sense, engaging in a local public project identified one with the place in question, and the idea of taking care of the
people of a place was inseparable from the idea of devoting oneself to the
place.
89

90
91
92

He Dashan , She shen juan liang beiji [Stone Inscription Commemorating the Donation of Grains by the Gentry of She County], in She xianzhi (1771),
juan 7.
For examples of this, see Huizhou fuzhi(1566), juan 10, Xuzheng [Philanthropy];
see also She xianzhi (1771), juan 13.
Huizhou fuzhi (1566), juan 10, Xuzheng, 47a.
Zhao Jishi , Chong jian haiyang qiao ji [Account of the Renovation of the Haiyang Bridge], in Xiuning xianzhi (1823), juan 22, 112a113b.

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Sojourning In Translocal Perspective

This coincidence between commitments to the welfare of people and place

was not unique to Huizhou. Activists in the benevolent societies that emerged
in late Ming Jiangnan had a clear vision that charitable activities were to be
carried out for the sake of the social welfare and moral order of their home locale.93 For Chen Longzheng , one of the most well-known such activists, charitable activities had a territorial boundary, the local county, which
constituted a community within which the wealthy should help the poor. The
aim of a benevolent society, Chen held, was not simply a few gentlemen taking
care of the poor, but the entire county doing good. Hence, the benevolent
society supplemented the government-sponsored Community Covenant program in carrying out moral exhortation in local places.94 In his lectures to the
local benevolent society, Chen stressed time and again that the entire county
should be both the subject and the beneficiary of doing good: If every man
does his duty, together we can create the good mores of the county ... if the
entire county shared one mind, depended on one another in situations emergent and non-emergent, planned for the countys future together, wouldnt we
benefit greatly!95

Participation and Identity in the Host Place
What was missing in public projects in the host-places in which Huizhou sojourners engaged was just this coincidence of engagement in public affairs and
commitment to the place that we see in home-place projects. Judging from the
documents where these projects were systematically recorded, such as the gazetteer of the Lianghuai Salt District (Lianghuai yanfa zhi) or the local gazetteers of Yangzhou and Hanyang, neither the huishang themselves nor their
contemporaries (whether officials or non-official literati) interpreted their
public involvement as emblematic of their commitment to the locality. In
most cases, local officials gave minimal recognition to the sojourners, who
were largely passive participants in projects promoted by the officials.96 A vivid example of this can be seen in a comment by Chen Jieke , a salt official in Yangzhou. His analysis, written in the 1750s, of the merchants
involvement with Yangzhou Orphanage takes the perspective of cool realism:
93

94
95
96

Joanna Smith, Benevolent Societies: The Reshaping of Charity During the Late Ming and
Early Ch'ing, in Journal of Asian Studies 46.2 (1987): 309337. Liang Qizi , Shishan
yu jiaohua: Ming Qing de cishan zhuzhi : (Taipei: Jinglian
chuban gongshi, 1997), 6269.
See Liang Qizi, Shishan yu jiaohua, 68.
Chen Longzheng, Jiting quanshu , juan 2324.
See, for example, Yangzhou fuzhi (1801), juan 48, Du xing [Honest Endeavors];
Lianghuai yanfa zhi, juan 159, Yi wen [Literature].

Sojourning in Translocal Perspective

91

Yangzhou is one of the metropolises of the empire. Merchants with their

boats and carts all converge here, and the salt trade brings wealth to
the people engaging in it. Therefore it is very easy to promote the public
good. The officials channel [the merchants] desire for a good reputation
and guide them onto the track of public benevolence; hence the merchants are inspired and have accomplished much.97
In Chens view, the merchant sojourners philanthropic engagement resulted
from the selfish (and no doubt practical) desire for a good reputation, and it
was properly the officials who deserved credit for redirecting that wealth into
the promotion of the public good. Claims like this were not completely without foundation, for in both Hankou and Yangzhou, officials played an important role in the merchants public projects. William Rowes study shows that in
Hankou, merchants contributions to such projects as firefighting and temple
construction were made under pressure from local officials, a situation Rowe
calls buying into a locality.98 In Yangzhou, officials from the salt administration played a critical role in organizing merchant philanthropy during the
Qing, as both Antonia Finnane and Liang Qizi have noticed.99 But official encouragement, even initiative, was also often involved in Huizhou home-place
public projects, as in the case of famine relief mentioned above. While in Huizhou such engagement registered as a demonstration of good local mores, in
Yangzhou the merchants relationship with the local place was not the issue at
all. Beneath this difference in officials attitudes was the common inclination
to identify a person with his native place. Therefore to engage in the public
good in ones home locale was an obvious virtue, while similar engagement in
other places was a more complicated issue.
Civilian literati writers were more generous in praising the merchant sojourners, and often labeled them benevolent persons (shanren ). The notion of the benevolent person was common in local gazetteers in the late
Ming and the Qing. It was often used to refer to virtuous individuals in local
society who contributed to charitable and philanthropic projects on their own
initiative. As such, the term was sometimes mentioned side by side with the
notion of locality (xiang).100 The association between the notions of benevo97
98
99
100

Yan fa tongzhi, 111: 5b6a.

Rowe, Conflict and Community, 164, 175.
Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou, 244; Liang Qizi, Shishan yu jiaohua, 105106.
For example, the Wanli-era local gazetteer of Yangzhou defined benevolent persons as
common people who were diligently devoted to acts of virtue and were called by their
locality Shanren (xiang suowei san ren ye ). See Yangzhou fuzhi (1601),

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Sojourning In Translocal Perspective

lence and locality confirms the general inclination to interpret the geographic
scope of engagement in the public good as coterminous with that of the local
community. But on occasions when a particular merchant sojourner was referred to and praised as a benevolent person, there was rarely any effort to relate his devotion to benevolence (shan) to the locality in question.101 An
illuminating example is the case of Min Shizhang , a Huizhou salt merchant in Yangzhou who is often cited by modern historians as the quintessential merchant philanthropist.102 Mins engagement in philanthropy in Yangzhou
started in the 1650s, about half a century before official involvement in such
enterprises in the early 1700s.103 Wei Xi, the famous scholar during the MingQing transition who was sympathetic to merchants in general and deeply
touched by Mins philanthropic devotion in particular, lauded him as a shanren
in an essay dedicated to him. To Wei Xi, Mins philanthropic devotion was laudable not because it glorified the locality of Yangzhou, but because it illuminated the Way of Benevolence: If Heaven does not give birth to shanren, the
dao of Heaven will perish. If a person does not do benevolent things, his human nature will die therefore if a man lives in the world yet does not engage
in benevolent things, he is not far from being a dead man.104 Another example
involves the famous Huizhou scholar Dai Zhen (17241777) who once
wrote an essay praising a Huizhou sojourner family who had continuously
supported local schools in Yangzhou for over two decades. After listing their
contributions to the school in detail, Dai concluded that the family was praiseworthy simply because the whole family has been continuously benevolent.105

101
102
103
104

105

juan 18. Wang Maohong, a literatus of the Baoying county in Jiangsu province also called
a local philanthropist of his home county the benevolent person of the local community
(yi xiang zhi shanshi ). See Wang Maohong , Baitian caotang wen lu
, 1:718b. Hengjing zhigao, juan 7. Both materials were cited by Liang Qizi,
Sishan yu jiaohua, 63, 66. For a general discussion of the notion of the benevolent person,
see Liang, 6269.
See, for example, Yangzhou fuzhi(1601), juan 18; Yangzhou fuzhi(1801), juan 48.
For a brief biography of Min, see Yangzhou fuzhi(1801), juan 52, Du xing. See also Liang
Qizi, Shishan yu jiaohua, 6465; Antonia Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou, 243.
For details on state involvement in Yangzhous philanthropy, see Liang Qizi, Shishan yu
jiaohua, Chapter 3.
Wei Xi , Shan de ji wen xu lu wei Min Xiangnan zuo
[Extended Record of Benevolent Activities Written for Min Xiangnan], in Wei shuzhi
wenji, juan 10.
Dai Zhen , Wang shi juan li xue tang bei [Stone Inscription Commemorating the Wangs Donation for the Establishing of Schools], in Yangzhou fuzhi
(1801), juan 63.

Sojourning in Translocal Perspective

93

For their own part, Huizhou sojourners often made it clear that they viewed
their host cities as places of business first and foremost, and contrasted them
to the home locale, which commanded their devotion and affection. In Yangzhou, for example, it was common to see the merchant sojourners proud and
nostalgic commemoration of Huizhous simplicity and sincerity juxtaposed
with cool depictions of Yangzhous luxury. The biography of a merchant, Fang
Jiatai, by Cheng Jun, who was also a salt merchant sojourning in Yangzhou,
stated, The local customs of Yangzhou are characterized by gaudy flamboyance and ostentatious luxury, but Fang holds on to his simple nature.106
Sojourners in Hankou left more detailed comments about their host place.
The Ziyang Academys gazetteer published in 1806, when many of their public
projects that served the entire city were either completed or well under way,
included essays that still talked about the host place with a sense of condescension. One of them characterized Hankou as a bustling hub of merchants
where people are busy pursuing trivial and ephemeral gains, and explained
the construction of the hall with the rationale that the sojourning Huizhou
men were afraid that if they stayed there too long, they would fall short of virtue. In contrast, home in Huizhou was characterized as a place where people
of high or low social position, old or young in age, all know how to honor the
moral principles and follow the proper rites, and would not abandon themselves to the trivialities of other places.107 Another essay describes Huizhou
sojourners relationship with Hankou thus: Huizhou men enter the mercantile city yet do not hold the mercantile mentality; they stay in this place but do
not follow its customs.108
This sense of distance from the host locality can also be found in places
where huishang did not enjoy predominance. For example, in a stele commemorating the construction of a huiguan in shengze Town of Suzhou Prefecture, the Huizhou sojourners characterized the host town as a prosperous
place where merchants converge, thus lacking the high moral standards of
home. The purpose of the huiguan, therefore, was to make sacrifices to native
Huizhou sages, and make sure that the merchants children would have something to respect and follow.109

106
107
108
109

Lianghuai yan fa zhi (1693), juan 27, 66a.

Ziyang shuyuan jilue 7:5a5b.
Ziyang shuyuan jilue 7:7a9a.
Wujiang shengze zhen hui ning huiguan yuan shi beiji
[Stone Inscription on the Origin of Hui-Ning huiguan in shengze Town of Wujiang
County], in Ming Qing Suzhou gongshangye beike ji, 355356.

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Sojourning In Translocal Perspective

The above discussion indicates that with the change of context from local to
translocal, the sojourners engagement in public projects were ascribed different meanings. Participation in the public affairs of a host place could be separated from identification with it. This separation, however, by no means
suggests that the sojourners were beyond attachment to locality per se. Their
place-based identity was reserved for the home locale, far away from where
they lived. Therefore, while at home commitments to the well-being of the
people coincided with identification with the place, the relationship between
the local and the public was complicated by the emergence of translocal
practices, an issue we will explore further in the following chapter.
Conclusion
Qiao , the Chinese word for sojourner, means a person who temporarily
stays in another place as a guest, and denotes both life away from home and
the prospect of returning. In this sense, sojourning necessarily implies a lingering identification with one place while living in another, no matter how one
defines the scope of the places. To the late Ming and Qing Huizhou sojourners,
who inherited an especially powerful discourse on local identity, sojourning
entailed the expression of Huizhou identity in many host places. The experiences of Huizhou merchant sojourners examined in this chapter point to exactly this: the transfer of Huizhous name to other places, the construction of
numerous huiguan that carried the Huizhou brand, the deployment of Huizhous image in conflicts with the natives, and the remarks huishang made
about their host places, all constituted expressions of their Huizhou identity in
other places.
Yet the fact that local-identity discourses were common in the mobile empire of late Ming and Qing China determined that sojourning would necessarily involved both close contact and interaction among many locally rooted
peoples and the encounters of the distinctive places these sojourners represented. Within the framework of the local encounter, investigations into the
ways sojourners viewed and engaged in locality indicate that, other localities
became an integral part of their imagination of Huizhou and their expressions
of Huizhou identity, and, more over, the expressions of Huizhou identity were
particularly intensive and extensive. If at home that expression primarily concerned the literati elites, in the sojourning context it involved people of a wider
occupational spectrum; if in the home context the pride at being Huizhou men
was articulated in public events, in a host place it became an important form
of social bonding and hence a constant factor in everyday life. If at home local

Sojourning in Translocal Perspective

95

pride in Huizhou derived from its own history, in the sojourning context it
gained a new dimension in comparison with other places. In other words, the
highlighted presence of other local places encouraged the practice of homeplace identity.
That said, sojourning is by definition a temporary state. In the long run, the
sojourning person or household would either leave the host place or else merge
into its society. In late imperial China, the sojourning mentality could last a
very long time; there is evidence indicating that Huizhou men who officially
reregistered as host-place residents nonetheless participated in the construction of huiguan with other Huizhou sojourners.110 Indeed, as Chapter 4 will
demonstrate, a Huizhou identity could linger for several generations after a
households settlement in the host place. Eventually, however, a migrant
household would shed the sojourning state. The only thing that maintained
Huizhou sojourner communities across late imperial China was the continuous arrival of newcomers from Huizhou, who continued to express a Huizhou
identity as did those who had only recently faded out. Therefore, for the type
of sojourning discussed here to be renewable in the host places, both spatial
mobility and home place attachment were needed. Sojourning was, in this
sense, a translocal practice. The notion of qiao was still used by Huizhou sojourners to refer to themselves in the Republican era.111 In Communist China,
with the suppression of local identity and localist discourses, the use of the
word in domestic contexts soon disappeared. But in the international context,
where national identity is promoted by the state, Chinese living overseas are
still described as qiao.
110

111

For example, when Huizhou merchants were constructing their huiguan in Shengze
Town in Suzhou Prefecture around 1832, those Huizhou natives that had officially reregistered as the residents of the new place and those who had not both participated in the
project, and were addressed as fellow natives (tongxiang) indiscriminately. See Huining
huiguan beiji [Stone Inscription Commemorating the Huining huiguan], in Ming Qing Suzhou gongshangye beike ji, 239. For other cases, see Minguo wu
yuan xianzhi, juan 42, 47, 48.
For example, Huizhou sojourners in Shanghai published their own magazine entitled Hui
qiao yuekan (Huizhou Sojourners Monthly). See Wang Zhenzhong, Huizhou shehui wenhua shi, 446486.

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Chapter 3

The Public for Sojourners: Xiangyi and the

Translocal Network of Public Participation
During the Qianlong (17361795) reign of the Qing dynasty, more sojourning
Huizhou merchants contributed more money, more often, to philanthropic
and charitable projects in Huizhou than ever before. Funds for famine relief,
bridge and road construction, and building and renovation of academies formerly underwritten by local gentry came increasingly from distant places such
as Yangzhou and Hangzhou. In addition, merchant contributions to these projects also took new forms. While individual merchants continued to make donations for small projects, the largest and most celebrated ventures were
collectively undertaken by merchant sojourners of particular cities. In 1752, for
example, after a severe drought wreaked havoc in Huizhou, salt merchants in
Yangzhou pooled over 60,000 taels of silver in a onetime donation for construction of a granary against future famines.
In all such cases, no formal organization coordinated the contributions and
participation. What facilitated the fundraising efforts and justified the merchants commitment in individual as well as collective undertakings was the
idea of a persons obligation to preserve and promote the well-being of the
home place, a sense often referred to as xiangyi (lit. native-place senti
ment).1 This complicates the picture of Ming-Qing philanthropy presented by
recent scholarship, which has focused on such new developments as formal
philanthropic organizations, the notion that the wealthy had an obligation to
take care of the poor, the normally local scope of such projects, and the rationale of maintaining social order.2 The pattern that emerges from the merchants charitable and philanthropic spending in Huizhou was rather that of
public participation from beyond locality, driven by the connection they felt to
their place of origin. Wealth-derived duty toward the poor and the imperative
of maintaining social order were not denied, but the idea that most prominently motivated and helped organize these efforts was xiangyi.
1
2

The idea was sometime also expressed in phrases such as xiangqing , sangzi zhi qing
, sangzi zhi yi , or simply sangzi .
See Joanna Smith, The Art of Doing Good: Charity in Late Ming China. (California University Press, 2009), 284; Fuma Susumu , Zhongguo shanhui shantang shi yanjiu
(Beijing: shangwu yinshuguan, 2005), Chapters 2, 3, and 5; and
Liang Qizi, Shishan yu jiaohua, 6769.

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015|doi 10.1163/9789004288409_005

The Public for Sojourners

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But philanthropy at home place was just one of several dimensions of the
Huizhou sojourners xiangyi-based commitment to public welfare. Additionally, merchants contributed to projects that served fellow Huizhou sojourners
in the same host cities, as well as ones in other cities where Huizhou sojourners needed help. In all these projects, it was the connection to Huizhou that
justified their commitment. And the connection did not have to be with the
physical place of Huizhou; rather, the merchant sojourners recognized a bond
between people based on a common connection with the place. This bond
could be transported and resorted to for mutual assistance from fellow Huizhou natives even though the home place was no longer present. In other
words, the physical place had become a symbol, on the basis of which merchant communities built a network that incorporated fellow natives scattered
across the realm.3
To explore this xiangyi-oriented network of public engagement hinging on
Huizhou, as physical place and as symbol, I will focus here on three highly
celebrated (and well documented) projects undertaken by Huizhou salt merchants sojourning in Yangzhou. Two were located in She County , the primary county (shouxian ) of Huizhou: a granary built in 1752, and a local
academy constructed in 1792. The third involved sponsorship of a huiguan in
Beijing that lasted over seventy years, from the 1740s.4 The period in question,
3

Madeline Hsus study of Taishanese in the U.S. indicates that a network of this type was
actually extended beyond the Chinese realm and functioned in a transnational context.
See Madeline Hsu, Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration
between the United States and South China, 18821943 (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
2000).
Most of the successful Yangzhou salt merchants came from Huizhous She () County.
For this reason, while Huizhou as a whole was often evoked in their discourses of connection and obligation, on many occasions She County was in fact where their commitment
originated and where their priority remained. For example, the granary was supervised by
the prefecture, and so was categorized as a prefectural institution in local gazetteers, but
it was located in the She County. Its managerial guidelines specifically stipulated that
when the standard volume of storage in the She County granary was met, the fund designated to maintain the granary could be used to build branch granaries in other Huizhou
counties, and that if the other counties needed special relief, grain from this granary could
be used. Obviously the priority was She County. The academy, too, was built for the prefecture as a whole, but the management of its funds was entrusted to the instructors of
the She County School (xianxue ). Therefore, with regard to the projects we
examine here, She County often stood for the whole Huizhou prefecture. This confluence
of a She County identity and a Huizhou identity does not seem to been a problem for the
salt merchants. To their thinking, as the county where the prefectural seat was located,
She County was Huizhou.

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the Qianlong reign, was a golden age for Yangzhous salt merchants. Partly because reforms to the salt administration in the 1720s allowed them to buy and
sell an increased quantity of salt for each yin (the certificates by which merchants could participate in this monopolized trade), huishang were able to
rake in tremendous profits.5 Compared with the late Ming and early Qing, this
meant a substantial increase in the salt merchants financial power. It is no
coincidence that beginning in the Yongzheng reign (17221736), salt merchant
contributions to the state grew in both scale and in frequency, reaching their
peak in the late Qianlong years.6 Therefore, the ventures examined here show
the operations of this network at its greatest financial strength.
The Geographical Dimension of Public Participation
Philanthropic projects underwritten by merchants have been cited as evidence
for the argument that a public sphere emerged in Ming-Qing China, whereby
gentry and merchant elites managed such societal programs as famine relief,
welfare, and education with relative autonomy from state control.7 The adoption of this term in the Chinese context has caused heated debate among historians, most of which focus on whether the purported public sphere was in

According to Ho Ping-tis calculation, a small number of major merchants during the

Qianlong reign could each pocket 300,000 taels of silver annually from the salt business,
thus making it possible to amass a fortune amounting to ten million taels within two to
three generations. Ho Ping-ti, The Salt Merchants of Yang-chou: A Study of Commercial
Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century China, in HJAS 17 (1954): 150.
Jonathan Spence provided an in-depth analysis of Yangzhou salt merchants financial
situation during the early Qing. According to Spence, the profit per yin that merchants
could have gained during the Kangxi reign was 1.2 taels, compared with 2.47 taels in the
1730s. The only recorded occurrence of a salt merchant contribution to the state in official
records was in the amount of 35,000 taels. See Spence, Tsao Yin and the Kang-hsi Emperor:
Bondservant and Master (Yale University Press, 1966), 179184. Ho Ping-tis estimate of
merchants rate of profit during the 1730s and after was even higher, at 2.74 tael per yin.
Qianlong period merchant contributions to the state dwarfed those of the Kangxi reign.
According to Ho Ping-ti, the total amount between 1738 and 1804 was 36,370,968 taels. See
Ho, Salt Merchants, 146, 154.
See Rowe, Commerce and Society; The Public Sphere in Modern China, in Modern China,
Vol. 16, No. 3 (Jul., 1990): 309329. Mary Rankin, Elite Activism and Political Transformation
in China: Zhejiang Province, 18651911 (Stanford University Press, 1986); the origin of a
public sphere, Observations. Rankin dates the emergence of a public sphere earlier to
the late Ming.

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99

fact autonomous enough to justify the use of the term.8 Yet the existence of a
more broadly defined public realm a realm between state and society in
which both participated seems to be recognized by all.9 Most scholarship on
the public in late imperial China notes the public realms coincidence with
locality: It arose in local societies where most of the advances in societal integration occurred, evolved in local arenas where services provided by the state
were insufficient, and found legitimacy for elite activism in discourses of local
identity and local community.10 When compared with the normal pattern of
relation between the public and locality, Huizhou sojourners xiangyi-based
projects appear to both conform and deviate: The scope of their activities obviously went beyond the confinement of the local, yet the source of justification
and legitimization for these translocal commitments was unequivocally attachment and loyalty to the native place. Since sojourning was common among
the merchants, and sojourning merchants constituted a conspicuous part of
the growing realm of the public, these projects pose the question of how the
relation between the local and the public changed in a translocal context.
These questions lead us to a peculiar yet largely understudied dimension in
the evolution of late imperial Chinas public realm namely, the dynamics of
its geographical setting. So far, scholarly discussions of Chinas public have
overwhelmingly focused on its political strength in the framework of the statesociety relationship. This developed under the influence of historiographies of
the public sphere in Western Europe, where it emerged together with the ascendance of a propertied new social elite (the bourgeoisie) and an expanding
state apparatus, and stood as representing the former (whose interest was conceptualized as civil society) against the latter (whose power it was to check).11
However, if in China where the pursuit and protection of private property
8
9

10
11

See the special issue of the journal Modern China, Symposium: Public Sphere and Civil
Society in Modern China, in Modern China, 19.3 (Apr. 1993).
This does not mean this public had the capacity to criticize the state or check its abuses
of power; nonetheless it could play a crucial role in organizing and managing various
activities for public welfare that the state was unable or unwilling to undertake. On the
public-oriented activities beyond the categories of philanthropy and charity, see Rankin,
Elite Activism; Rowe, the Public Sphere in Modern China. On the discussion of this
broader notion of the public sphere, see Liang Qizi, Shishan yu jiaohua, 247253, and
Philip Huang, Public Sphere/Civil Society in China?: The Third Realm between State
and Society, in Modern China, 19.3 (Apr. 1993).
Rankin, Observations: 165169; The origins of a Chinese public sphere:1721; Rowe,
Public Sphere: 318. Philip Huang, Third Realm: 230.
Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a
Category of Bourgeois Society (Cambridge: MIT Press. 1991), 1426.

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was never ideologically sanctioned and the social elites separation from the
state was never clear-cut the public emerged first as the commonweal of the
local, and subsequently developed some constructive tension with the latter,
it behooves us to understand the evolution of this public realm in view of the
changing ways locality was engaged, and to figure out how the idea of xiangyi
worked in an extended and more complicated geography of public participation.
The dynamics of geography in the evolution of Chinas public realm can also
be seen in the changing ways historical actors used the term xiangyi. In the late
Ming and the Qing, xiangyi was usually written as , and referred to the
sense of bond between fellow sojourners from the same native place, particularly in activities associated with the huiguan.12 But in texts from the Song and
Yuan periods, both the written form of the term and its connotations were
more complicated. Sometimes the term was written with the character (yi,
rightness), which was interchangeable with (yi) in classic Chinese.13 Thus
could refer to the same kind of bond between fellow native men away
from home. But both versions and could refer to a virtue demonstrated in a strictly local context. For example, Yu Wenbao (, fl. 1240)
juxtaposed xiangyi with kinship ties (zuyi ), affinity (qinyi ),
and friendship (jiaoyi ) as the basic social relations on which a decent
society was ordered.14 In this usage, the term xiangyi obviously denotes a righteous attitude toward people in local society with whom one had no kin, marital, or personal relationship. The Yuan scholar Wu Cheng (12551330)
made this clear when he praised a friend as demonstrating harmony among

12

13
14

Most huiguan records cite the promotion of xiangyi as the purpose behind the founding
of their institution. The Chaozhou huiguan in Suzhou, founded in 1785, stated its goal to
be revering the [native place] gods, bringing [fellow native place] people together, facilitating righteous engagement, and deepening native-place sentiment , ,
, . See Chaozhou huiguan ji [Account of the Chaozhou huiguan], in Jiangsusheng mingqing yilai beike ziliao xuanji
[Stone Inscriptions in Jiangsu Province since the Ming and Qing Times] (Beijing:
sanlian shuju, 1959), 340. For a full-scale discussion of the central ethos of promoting
xiangyi in the institution of the huiguan, see Wang Rigen, Zhongguo huiguan shi.
Kangxi zidian, 1163. (online edition at http://www.KangXiZiDian.com).
Yu Wenbao , Chui jian lu wai ji . A similar juxtaposition was made by
the Yuan scholar Yu Qin (12831333), who described the decline of local social
morality in Shandong thus: recently not only has the practice of xiangyi declined but
even the bond among relatives loosened .
See Yu Qin , Qi cheng , juan 5.

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kinsmen, trustworthiness among friends, and rightness while living in the

home locale .15
This righteous attitude often involved good deeds by residents toward the
whole community of the local place. For example, the literatus Lou Yue
(11371213) praised the founding of a charitable estate intended to cure social
inequality in his home locale as a sign of the local gentlemens cherishing xiangyi .16 In another case, the scholar-official Xu Yinglong (?1168
1248) recorded the story of a local landlord surnamed Li who orchestrated the
construction of a bridge in his home community, and praised his achievement:
People living in the local community compete with each other via power
and influence. Therefore close neighbors are separated by fences as if
they are each from distant places. Rarely are there people who have concern for [community benefit], undertake projects of this nature, and are
devoted to xiangyi . Mr. Li put aside his household (jia) affairs and
cares only for the people of his home locale. Does not this indicate that
he has a noble concern superior to common men?17
In this quote, xiangyi was used unambiguously in reference to the duty toward the local community, which constituted a public realm beyond the private household (jia). Thus in the Song-Yuan period, the term xiangyi could
connote virtuous actions by residents expressing commitment to the local
commonweal, something compatible to the strategies that recent scholarship
of the localist turn has examined, such as xiangli (community rites) and
xiangyue (community compact).18 As late as 1517, a text still refers to devotion
to xiangyi as a demonstration of virtue in the local community by
juxtaposing it with the virtues one demonstrates in office (abiding by official
ethics ) and in the household (respecting household rules ).19
But in Qing sources, as searches on such digital databases as Siku quanshu
and Gujin tushu jicheng indicate, the term was used almost exclusively in
the context of people away from home, and the alternative character had
disappeared. In other words, the term xiangyi had been transformed from
a local mans virtue that operated in the local context and encouraged com
mitment to the local commonweal, to a sojourners sentiment of mutual
15
16
17
18
19

Wu Cheng , Gu yishi luling su jun mu ming [Epitaph for

Hermit Su of Luling], in Wu wen zhen ji, juan 79.
Lou Yue , Yi zhuang ji [On the Charitable Estate], in Yan you Siming zhi
, juan 14.
Gujin tu shu ji cheng, juan 1237: 1415.
Schirokauer and Hymes, Introduction: 55.
Han Bangqi , Xian shanggong mubiao [Tomb Essay for Mr. Shang of
the County], in Yuan luo ji , juan 7.

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bonding in the age of increased spatial mobility. In this context, Huizhous

merchant sojourners could still engage in the local commonweal at home, but
their mode of engagement would be different, as the following cases demonstrate.
A Granary for the Home Place

Grain Storage in Huizhou
In an agrarian empire such as China, which faced chronic scarcities in food
supply, grain storage had long been an important political concern. It was particularly so in a mountainous and grain-deficient region like Huizhou. However, grain storage was handled poorly in Ming Huizhou, as seen from ongoing
literati complaints against and lamentations at the difficulty of transporting
grain into Huizhou during times of famine.20 One reason for such failure must
have been weak state action. The Ming central state often advocated the idea
of establishing local granaries but did not push hard enough for implementation of this policy. The state left the building of granaries to local initiative, and
usually refrained from intervening in their management.21 Without rigorous
state supervision, community granaries and charity granaries, if they were established at all, quickly became dysfunctional due to embezzlement and mismanagement. For example, the thirty-seven community granaries founded in
Xiuning County in 1581 were all dilapidated by the time the Qing took over.22
The poor physical and managerial condition of local granaries in Ming Huizhou was paralleled by Huizhou merchants lack of enthusiasm for granary
building once they decided to spend some of their commercial gains on local
public welfare. Efforts toward famine relief instead mostly took the form of
transporting grain from outside Huizhou and selling it at reduced prices.23
20

21

22
23

Such complaints are commonly seen in local gazetteers and literati wenji from the Song
through the Ming. For a detailed analysis of one extreme case of a blocked grain transportation route that occurred at the end of the Ming, see Yongtao Du, Lesson of Riches:
Mercantile Culture and Locality in Late Ming Huizhou, in Ming-Qing Studies, Spring
2010: 3359
On the Ming states choice not to stress government-run granaries and control food supply, see Pierre-Etienne Will and Bin Wong, Nourish the People: The State Civilian Granary
System in China, 16501850 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies,
1991), 1014.
Xiuning xianzhi (1693), juan 7.
This lack of enthusiasm is revealed by the absence of records in this regard in the local
gazetteers sections on righteous deeds (yixing). See, for example, the section on Yixing

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The Qing government was much more proactive in controlling the food supply. The officially managed ever-normal granaries in local places received sufficient funds, ranging from contributions by private people who were
encouraged to contribute in exchange for jiansheng status, to land surtaxes for granary stocking, to provincial treasury funds, to grain tribute diversions.24 Meanwhile, the Qing government adopted clear interventionist
approaches toward non-officially founded granaries nationwide, such as community granaries, which extended low-interest loans, and charity granaries,
which tackled famine relief.25 In Huizhou, state activism regarding the nonofficial granaries led to a series of community granary reforms that involved
both strengthened government regulations and strict government supervision
over their management.26
But the amount of grain storage in community granaries remained small. In
She County, for example, when the community granary system was systematically reestablished with a strong push from the government in 1724, the whole
county had stored a mere 6,621 shi, compared to the official ever-normal granarys regular capacity of 34,000 shi.27 Meanwhile, charity granaries are barely
mentioned in Huizhous local gazetteers of the Kangxi and Qianlong reigns,
suggesting their lack of significance in this state-led campaign.

24
25

26

27

[Righteous Deeds] of She xianzhi (1937), which copied texts on this subject from all previous editions of the She County gazetteer. It is also suggested by Wang Daokuns Tai han
ji. Of the over one hundred merchant biographies in the book, there is only one occasion
in which the protagonist committed to either a charity granary or a community granary
project in Huizhou. See Wang Daokun, Ming gu Xinan zhen fu huang jigong pei ruren
wangshi hezang muzhiming [Epitaph
for the Joint Tomb of the Late Commander of Xinan Military Station Lord Huang and His
Wife Madam Wang], in Tai han ji, juan 56.
Will and Wong, Nourish the People, 2733.
As early as 1655, the central government ordered circuit inspectors to inspect and audit all
community and charity granaries that existed within their jurisdictions. Huizhou fuzhi
(1827), juan 3.3, Cang ju [Granaries and Other Institutions]. The Yongzheng
emperor even allowed the use of official revenues to fund community granaries. See Will
and Wong, Nourish the People, 38.
Xiuning xianzhi (1693) recorded a 1689 campaign by the provincial government to reform
the community granaries in the county, which include efforts to audit their books and
force previous managers to return the embezzled grain. See Xiuning xianzhi (1693), juan
7. In She County, community granary reform went on several decades, from the early
Yongzheng to the mid-Qianlong reign, eventually ending with the founding of four major
community granaries with government funds and the county magistrate co-opting the
old managers. See She xianzhi (1772), juan 7.
Huizhou fuzhi (1827) juan 3.3. She xianzhi (1937), juan 3.

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Against this background, the huiji ( benevolent relief) granary of 1752,

funded by donations from Yangzhou salt merchants, was a huge step forward.
Its function was to provide famine relief; thus it fell roughly in the category of
a charity granary. But the nature of its funding by sojourning merchants collectively was unprecedented in Huizhou. Not only was it sufficiently funded,
the amount of its storage, designed at 30,000 shi, was close to that of the countys official ever-normal granary. Moreover its management was drastically different from that of the community granaries. While the latter were managed
by unpaid, government-picked managers and depended on continuous contributions from local residents for maintenance, the huiji granary was managed
like a commercial venture: It was run by paid managers and some of its funds
were invested in the financial market.

The Founding and Management of the Huiji Granary
The founding of the huiji granary came about in the wake of a drought of rare
severity that struck Huizhou in 1751. Grain prices rose to one-half tael per tou,
about three times the price of the previous year.28 To make matters worse, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, which were among the main grain suppliers for
Huizhou, also suffered poor harvests. As a result, She County, whose dependence on grain from these two provinces was particularly heavy, was hit extremely hard. Soon the grain market in She County ran out of supplies. In the
relief campaign that ensued, prefecture and county authorities called on both
local gentry and sojourning merchants for assistance. The response was enthusiastic, exceeding the authorities expectations. Donations varied from dozens
of taels to thousands. Many people went to Jiangsu and Zhejiang in person to
purchase grain, which they sold at reduced prices back in Huizhou. After the
famine, the deeply touched prefect He Dashan wrote a commemorative essay to express his admiration for the purity of local customs and the local peoples inclination to engage in right deeds .29
The Lianghuai (Salt District that headquartered in Yangzhou) salt merchants contribution in this campaign was impressive. When the famine was
over, 6,186 taels of silver remained from the donations of salt merchants based
28

29

For Huizhous grain prices during the Qing, see the database of Qing grain prices developed by Wang Yejian (http://140.109.152.38/DBIntro.asp). During the early Qianlong reign,
the market price of grain during normal times in Jiangsu province was 0.07 tael per tou.
See Lianghuai yanfa zi, juan 6.
He Dashan , Qianlong shi qi nian she shen juan tiao beiji
[Stone Inscription Commemorating the Donations and Low-price Sales of Grain by
the She County Gentry], in She xian zhi (1772), juan 7.

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in Hankou (one of the most important distribution center of the Lianghuai

salt), and another 9,334 taels from the donations of salt merchants in Yangzhou. It was probably because of their impressive financial capability that after
the relief campaign, when He Dashan decided to build a large civilian granary
to forestall another such famine, he turned again to the salt merchants. This
time he sought help from the Yangzhou merchants in particular, and he sought
it from them as a group instead of as individuals.
The prefect sent personal letters promoting this project to Yangzhou. By the
next year, 1752, a total of 60,000 taels had already been raised. Among the donors were such prominent salt merchants as Jiang Chun and Ma Yueguan
. Back in Huizhou, He Dashan built sixty warehouses with funds leftover from the 1751 relief campaign. With both funding and buildings ready, the
Huiji granary project was launched. Designed for a capacity of 30,000 shi, each
of its sixty warehouses held 500 shi. The granary was to provide grain for sale at
reduced prices in one specifically defined extremity: when Huizhous grain
market faltered as shipments of grain from outside stopped (the precise situation of the previous year). To prevent spoilage of the stock, a 20 percent annual
replacement through sale and purchase was allowed. Loans from the granary
were strictly and permanently banned, thus making it different from a community granary. Its management was entrusted to a committee of fifteen local
gentry, selected from among people of respectable character and equally respectable family income.30
The government exerted clear supervision over the granary. According to its
charter, the decision to use its stocks for relief purposes had to be made jointly
by the prefectural government and its managing committee. The replacement
of the committee every twelve years had to be worked out jointly by the government and the sitting committing members, and the accounts of day-to-day
maintenance and relief activity expenses had to be submitted to the prefectural government for auditing purposes. But the managing gentry committee
was given substantial autonomy: once the decision was made, actual relief operations were solely left to the gentry committee. As long as no principle-loss
occurred, no official involvement was allowed in the day-to-day management.
With well-balanced roles for both government and gentry, the granary could
stand as a typical state-supervised civilian granary. But the commercialized elements of its management indicate that it was more than that.
The granarys overall starting fund of 60,000 taels was divided in two: one
half for the purchase of grain to fill the warehouses, the other half to be
30

Huiji cang tiao gui [Ordinance of huiji Granary], in She xian zhi (1937),
juan 3.

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deposited in pawnshops. Interest income from these deposits was applied to

the maintenance costs of the granaries, such as hiring custodians, repairing the
warehouses, and paying for the labor involved in air-curing the grain stocks.
Beside the managing gentry committee, who were not paid, an acting general
manager () was hired at the salary of sixty taels a year. The general managers duties included overseeing the physical condition of the warehouses
and the air-curing of the grain stocks, managing hired labor, keeping the granarys books, and coordinating with the pawnshops about the interest payments on their deposits. These arrangements obviously worked well. For more
than a decade, the granarys stock was full, and the interest income kept growing. In 1765, when it appeared that the cost of maintaining the granary was
exceeding the interest income, the prefect (no longer He Dashan) shifted the
managing duty to the pawnshops. According to the prefects reasoning, interest rates on the 30,000 taels of silver the granary had deposited with the pawnshops was too low; therefore it was not unreasonable to let them shoulder the
duties and part of the cost of managing the granary. This proved to be a good
decision, for the granarys prosperity continued. Four years later, in 1769, the
granary was able to use its interest income to fund a nursing home for helpless
elderly people that bore the same name, that is, it was referred to as the huiji
nursing home.

Huiji Granary in Translocal Context
How was the idea for this unusual huiji granary conceived? What made its
smooth materialization possible? The prefect He Dashan was no doubt a capable local official. Having served as Huizhous prefect for the exceptionally
long tenure of nine years, he was later honored as one of its outstanding local
officials in the prefectural gazetteer.31 Nevertheless, it would be surprising if the prefect, a scholar hailing from central Chinas Henan Province, came
up with the plan for a commercially managed granary all on his own. The scarcity of sources makes it impossible to pin down all the details, but some clues
suggest that the merchant community most likely contributed not just funds
but also ideas.
The Xu brothers, Shixiu and Shiye , were among the most successful salt merchants in Yangzhou. Having consecutively headed their own
family business, the older brother, Shixiu, and the younger brother, Shiye, had
also served as head merchant () in the Lianghuai salt administration. In
1750 the two brothers were invited to participate in the celebration of the Qianlong emperors fortieth birthday. Later Shiye would earn the honorary title of
31

Huizhou fuzhi (1827), juan 8, Ming huan [Famous Officials].

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provincial judge (), in view of the brothers contributions to the state.

In 1762, during the Qianlong emperors third southern tour, Shiye joined other
leading salt merchants in lavishly entertaining the emperor in Yangzhou, and
was particularly praised and rewarded in an edict after the tour.
Throughout their careers, the Xu brothers were also avid contributors to
charitable and philanthropic projects in Huizhou.32 Shixius name (since the
brothers ran the same business, it should stand for both of them) was at the
top of the list of donors to the 1751 famine relief campaign and among the leading donors to the granary project.33 More importantly, during Hes tenure as
prefect, the brothers developed a personal relationship with him. In 1761, when
He was serving in his new post in Jiangsu, Shiye paid him a visit on his way
back from Beijing where he had participated in the birthday celebration for the
Qianlong emperors mother. In an essay written for this visit, the former prefect recounted the Xu brothers persistent efforts to promote local welfare, and
mentioned that the older Xu brother, Shixiu, had actually called on people to
donate to the granary project.34 About a decade later, the renewed She
County gazetteer ascribed a more general role to Shixiu when it stated that he
initiated the huiji granary .35
It is perhaps impossible to determine exactly what activity is denoted by the
phrase initiated the huiji granary, but there should be little doubt that, as the
prefects personal friend and a wealthy, well-connected merchant, Xu Shixiu
was involved in the conception of the project. Could it be that the Xu brothers
proposed not only the idea of courting merchants to launch the granary, but
also its method of management? There was no direct reference to this in the
sources, but the later development of the granary suggests it was likely: The
establishment of the huiji nursing home in 1769, using the same funding
scheme as the granary and bearing the same name, was clearly suggested by a
merchant. The presiding prefect of Huizhou noted in an essay celebrating the
homes founding that it was the merchant Fang Chengxu who suggested that
they build it following the examples in Jiangsu province .36 If
the merchant donors did advise on the management of an affiliated institution, why could they not have proposed a commercial style of management for
the granary proper?
32
33
34
35
36

She xianzhi (1937), juan 9.

She xianzhi (1772) juan 7.
He Dashan, Xi gan xiu lu ji [Account of the Road Construction Project in
Xigan], in She xianzhi (1772) juan 17.
She xianzhi (1772), juan 13, Yixing.
Dai Zhicheng , Huiji tang ji [ Account of the Huiji Nursing Home], in
She xianzhi (1937), juan 15.

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Thus, it is likely that the commercialized management style of the huiji granary was born, at least in part, from merchants proposals. However, if the merchants did initially propose its construction to the prefect, they could not
claim full credit for the idea of such a granary. There is another twist to the
granarys origin: the institution of a charity granary fully funded by the salt
merchants was actually first proposed by the Yongzheng emperor in 1726. That
year, the Lianghuai salt merchants in Yangzhou presented a total of 320,000
taels to the salt administration as an expression of their gratitude for the governments merciful policies, which brought prosperity to their business. When
the salt censor Ertai () memorialized the throne about this, the Yongzheng emperor responded by ordering the use of 300,000 taels from this
amount to build charity granaries, a perfect boost to the grain storage campaign the emperor had just launched in Jiangnan a few years earlier. The emperor granted these charity granaries a special name, salt charity granaries
, and specifically instructed Ertai that they should be managed in a commercialized fashion.37 In the following decade, with further donations, more
than a dozen such salt charity granaries were established in the Lianghuai salt
production area.38 Just like the huiji granary of She County built over twenty
years later, these salt charity granaries depended on hired labor for their regular maintenance.39
When the Huizhou drought struck in 1751, Yangzhou salt merchants had actually been engaged in funding commercially managed and imperially-commanded charity granaries for more than two decades. This helps explain why
the huiji granary project came together so smoothly in 1752. It was simply a
transplantation of the Lianghuai model to the merchants homeland. Although
the notion of transplantation was not directly referred to in sources about the
granary, the merchants proposal for the huiji nursing home was unequivocally
to create an institution according to examples in Jiangsu.40 When the merchants made this proposal, they were certainly speaking from experience, for a
large number of the various types of charitable institutions in Jiangsu operated
on donations from the Lianghuai salt merchants.41
37
38

39
40
41

Lianghuai yanfa zhi (1892), juan 6.

Lianghuai yanfa zhi (1892), juan 152, Yan yi cang [Salt Charity Granary]. See
Will and Wong, Nourish the People, 6970, for a brief discussion of the salt charity granaries storage capacities.
Lianghuai yanfa zhi (1892), juan 93, Zheng que men [The Section on State Levies].
Dai Zhicheng, Huiji tang ji, in She xianzhi (1937), juan 15.
See Lianghuai yanfa zhi (1892), juan 151.

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Meanwhile, acting collectively on behalf of the homeland was not new to

the salt merchants either. In 1729 they had collectively raised more than 20,000
taels to help pay off She Countys tax arrears. Afterward, in a stone stele commemorating this accomplishment, the magistrate of She County called their
motivation a kind of dedication based on righteousness about the native
place .42 In 1736 Huizhou and its neighboring areas suffered a modest flood.43 In the interprovincial relief operation that ensued, a portion of the
grain stock in the Lianghuai salt charity granaries was to be transferred to these
areas. But in the following year, before the transfer was completed, the Lianghuai area found itself in need of relief. Provincial authorities in Jiangsu proposed selling part of the Lianghuai charity granaries grain stock at reduced
prices and applying the sale income to Huizhous relief. The salt merchants in
Yangzhou petitioned for a bolder move: sell all the grain stock in the salt granaries to send a larger amount of funds to Huizhou. To dispel the concern about
a stock shortage in the salt charity granaries this move might cause, they
pledged further funds out of their own pockets to make it up. The Qianlong
emperor granted this petition, commenting that since they were doing this
out of concern for their homeland , it should be done as they
requested.44
To answer the question raised at the beginning of this section, the new-style
granary was so readily established in Huizhou because it received strong financial support from an extra-local source, and most likely the specific technique
of granary management was also learned from extra-local sources. The key factor that brought these resources to bear was the merchant sojourners. While
the spread of ideas about social institutions across local boundaries was nothing new in the Qing, sojourning merchants collective endeavors for the betterment of their home prefecture were particularly characteristic of the translocal
context.45 Since granaries were not a conventionally strong area in the huishangs home-place engagement, their swift response and serious commitment
to this project make it clear that for such issues as the home locales subsistence, the notion of xiangyi worked very effectively.
42

43
44
45

Wang Wentan , She yi shen shi gong shu jiu liang bei ji
[Stone Inscription Commemorating the Donation of Relief grain by Gentry of She
County], in She xianzhi (1772), juan 7.
Huizhou fuzhi (1827), juan 5.1, Xu zheng [Philanthropy].
Lianghuai yanfa zhi(1892), juan 6.
As early as the Song, ideas of lineage estate and community covenant had been borrowed
and transplanted to distant locales. See William Theodore De Bary, The Liberal Tradition
in China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983); and Ebrey, Early Stages.

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Restoring the Ziyang Academy: An Old Institution in a New

Context

Merchants and Huizhous Academies
The history of Huizhous academies can be traced back to the Southern Song,
when the Ziyang Academy (different from the Ziyang Academy discussed in Chapter 2 despite the same name) was built in 1245 in honor of Zhu
Xi. Local gazetteers record dozens of academy-building and renovation projects over the succeeding centuries.46 Many of the academies were of very small
size, limited admission to specified groups of people; they functioned as family
or lineage schools, charitable schools, scholars retreats, and even literary societies. Sources of funding for these small academies were diverse but mostly fell
on individual lineages and persons. Renovations of the larger academies that
admitted students from a particular county or even the whole prefecture were
usually initiated by local officials up to the end of the Ming, with funds coming
from a combination of government and local gentry sources. During the early
Qing, initiatives to construct or renovate large academies came more often
from local gentry, but the source of funding was still local.47
This situation changed in the second half of the eighteenth century, when
some merchants started to donate large amounts or single-handedly fund the
construction, renovation, and maintenance of several of the large academies.
For example, in 1749, the aforementioned Xu Shixiu sponsored a major renovation of the Ziyang Academy entirely from his own pocket; the project included
enlarging the dormitory to accommodate eighty students, the purchase of ritual utensils, and rebuilding the kitchen and the bathroom. In addition, Shixiu
also donated 12,000 taels to be used for student stipends ().48 The 1763
renovation of the Huangu Academy in Xiuning was solely funded
by a Huang Tingsong, whose honorary official title of assistant prefect ()
suggests that he was a rich merchant.49 In 1770, another merchant sojourner,
46

47
48

49

See Huizhou fuzhi (1827) juan 3.1 Xuexiao [Schools]. Hsiang-kwang Liu counted 43
academies that had existed in different periods between the Southern Song and the Qing
in She and Xiuning counties alone. See Hsiang-kwang Liu, Education and Society: the
Development of Public and Private Institutions in Hui-Chou, 9601800 (Ph.D. Dissertation,
Columbia University 1996), 97.
See Hsiang-kwang Liu, Education and Society, 110131, for a discussion of the construction,
innovation, and funding of academies in Huizhou in general.
Shuang Qing , Ziyang shuyuan zengzhi xueshe gaohuo ji
[Account of Increase of Student Stipend and Dormitory in Ziyang Academy] in She
xian zhi (1937), juan 15.
Hsiang-kwang Liu, Education and Society, 127.

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Cheng Guangguo, who was engaged in the salt business in Liangzhe salt
district, underwrote the construction of the Wenzheng Academy in
She County. The rationale ran, since Ziyang Academy was open to students of
the entire prefecture, another was needed exclusively for She County.50 Obviously, with merchant funds, She County was able to pursue a higher standard
in its facilities. Against this background, the Yangzhou salt merchants collective efforts to renovate the old Ziyang Academy constituted a continuation of
practices that had become normalized during the latter half of the eighteenth
century. Still, it surpassed all precedents in terms of the scope of merchant
participation, the amount of funds committed, the number and rank of high
officials involved, the level of publicity and the extent of documentation.

Restoring the Old Academy
The Ziyang Academy, the oldest and best-known academy in Huizhou, also
had the highest status because it alone belonged to the prefecture instead of
any particular county. Since its founding by the prefect in 1245, the academy
went through many periods of deterioration, renovation, and change of location, until its site was finally settled at a place behind the She County school in
1512. This re-siting also marked a turning point in the academys trajectory as
an educational institution. It was after this reconstruction that the academy
became the place where forty top students, selected by the prefect from the
prefectural school and the county schools of the six counties, were sent to pursue advanced studies. In other words, it became the leading institution in Huizhous examination-oriented education system. However, just seven years
later, in 1519, a new prefect, believing that the location of the academy within
the city was not ideal for study, built yet a new one on Ziyang Mountain outside the city, bearing the same name and sharing the same components. From
then on, Huizhou had two Ziyang Academies, one in the city, and the other on
the mountain.51
The older Ziyang Academy, in the city, went through several minor renovations over the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But the newer one on the
mountain received the lions share of attention and resources. From its founding all the way through the end of the eighteenth century, mention of Ziyang
Academy referred invariably to the newer one on the mountain. It was to this
institution that promising students were sent for advanced studies, and to this
50
51

Liu Dakui , Wenzheng shuyuan ji [Account of the Wenzheng Academy] in She xianzhi (1938), juan 15.
For a more detailed discussion of the history of the Ziyang Academy, see Liu HsiangKwang, Education and Society, 110118.

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one that the merchant Xu Shiye donated his money. The older academy was
allowed to gradually fall into disrepair until early 1791, when salt merchants in
Yangzhou approached Cao Wenzhi , the former minister of revenue (
), with ready funds to reconstruct the Ziyang academy. Caos father
and brother were both successful Yangzhou salt merchants, and Cao was himself then enjoying a leisurely retirement back in Huizhou when he was asked
to manage the renovation.
What the merchants initially had in mind was, not surprisingly, putting
their resources into the newer, more active Ziyang Academy on the mountain.
In their initial letter to Cao, they asked him to preside over a project that would
enlarge the dormitories, increase the student quota, and raise their stipends
with the funds they had gathered. But when Cao gathered the local gentry for
deliberation on the subject, the prevailing opinion was that the academy on
the mountain did not need further investment. On one hand, space available
for further construction on the mountain was limited; on the other, since the
previous renovation by Xu Shixiu, the newer academy had remained in good
condition, and its operational funding was not insufficient ().52
Thus the local gentry proposed that the funds be used to restore the older
academy instead, and sent the merchants a letter with this proposal.
Back in Yangzhou, the merchants tentatively accepted the change, but it
propelled them into a new round of petitions to and negotiations with the salt
administration. The negotiations had already lasted more than a year, for the
funds for the academy were not coming from the merchants personal donations, but rather were earmarked in the salt administrations discretionary
fund, over which the Salt Censor () of the Lianghuai salt district had
final authority. Prior to receiving the request to change the target of the funds,
the merchants had spent eleven months securing the salt administrations approval before they had written to Cao asking him to take charge of the actual
construction.
The initial petition for these funds was submitted in November of 1789, with
leading salt merchants asking the Lianghuai salt controller (), the second most powerful official in the salt administration, for an annual 2,820 taels
from the discretionary fund to be used for student stipends at Huizhous Ziyang Academy. Their justifications in this petition were several. First, they reiterated the importance of academies, as educational institutions, for the
maintenance of social and political order: It nurtures talents for the state and
assists in achieving the goal of perfect governance. They adopted a properly
52

Cao Wenzhi, Gu Ziyang shu yuan ji [Account of the Old Ziyang Academy], in Shexian jin shi zhi, juan 10.

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humble tone, stating, Although we are engaged in the insignificant pursuit of

commerce, we nevertheless have profound admiration for it [the academy]
(). Second, they praised their homeland, Huizhou, and the Ziyang Academy, where Master Zhu Xis Learning of the Way
originated. Third, and most pointedly, they observed that academies in the
Lianghuai district and various charitable institutions in Jiangsu Province
(where the Lianghuai salt district was located) all received funding from the
salt administration, which ultimately all came from us, the merchants (
). The logic was clearly that the most important academy in the merchants home place deserved comparable treatment. Thus the petition asked
the salt administration to follow the precedent of the Anding Academy of
Yangzhou and provide it [the Ziyang Academy] an annual fund (
), and to make this a permanent rule.53
The salt controller had no objection. So he forwarded the petition to his superior, the salt censor, adding his personal opinion that this matter belongs to
the category of nurturing ones native place , and that it was
fitting to Principle and should be forwarded accordingly.54 The salt censor
approved the petition primarily for the same reason the salt controller did:
This was an effort to nurture the native place. But he slightly revised the original petition: since the discretionary fund was already overstretched, rather
than jeopardize other public expenses, funding for the Ziyang Academy should
come from the salt administrations operational fund instead.
We have no sources about the merchants immediate response to the salt
censors decision. The case could have been closed at that point, for the merchants got almost exactly what they had asked for. But eleven months later, in
October of 1790, they submitted another petition via the salt controller. According to that petition, they had gathered more information about the academy through cooperation with local gentry in Huizhou, and realized that since
there were many more students in the academy than before, the 2,820 taels
provided the previous year was not sufficient; an additional 900 taels were
needed. For this reason, they had not started using the funds. Furthermore,
some of the academys buildings needed renovation, and the road to the
53

54

Huainan gong juan gu ziyang shu yuan gaohuo an you

[ Account of the Donation by Huainan Salt Administration for Student Stipend in Old
Ziyang Academy], in She xian jinshi zhi, juan 10. The following quotes from the merchant
petitions are all from this same document.
Between 1789 and 1791, the serving salt controller was Lu Quan , and the salt censor
was Quan De . See Lianghuai yan fa zhi (1890), juan 131 Zhi ming biao
[Chart of Officials and Positions].

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the Public For Sojourners

mountain needed reconstruction. The cost was estimated at roughly 3,700

taels, which the merchants petitioned the salt administration to provide.
Lastly, the merchants reopened the issue of the specific source of funds for
the student stipends. The operational fund itself varied from year to year, their
petition argued, thus it was not a stable source from which to guarantee the
academys funding. But the discretionary fund had had surpluses every year
since its establishment, and would have sufficient sources to refill it in the
years ahead. Thus, since the discretionary fund was not necessarily overstretched, the merchants wished to go back to their original plan and have a
portion of the discretionary fund earmarked for the Ziyang Academy. As insiders in the salt trade and administration, the merchants were probably speaking
from incontrovertible proof regarding the state of the discretionary fund. But
they had a further reason for their case on this specific issue: the two major
academies in Yangzhou, the Anding Academy and the Meihua Academy, both
received their annual funding as earmarks from the discretionary fund. To assign funds for the Ziyang Academy from the operational fund was seen as discrimination, for it was obviously two similar cases being treated differently,
hence it does not honor the principle of equal treatment.
All the items in this petition were approved by both the salt controller and
the salt censor, again on the grounds that the merchants effort was a case of
sincere embracement of obligation to the native place (), thus it
deserved special praise and honor. It was at this juncture that the merchants
approached Cao Wenzhi about actually putting this fund to work. When the
Huizhou gentrys letter about applying the fund to the older Ziyang Academy
arrived in February of 1791, the merchants again had to petition for redirection
of the funds. A certain degree of embarrassment was inevitable. Coming back
to the salt officials a third time, the merchants began with the apology that
since we have been gone from the homeland for too long, we did not grasp all
the details of the situation on the ground. Even so, their justification for this
third iteration ran along exactly the same lines as the previous petitions: restoring the older Ziyang Academy would give Huizhou two academies; this
would make Huizhou just like Yangzhou, where the older Anding Academy
and the newer Meihua Academy existed side by side.
Restoration of the older Ziyang Academy started soon after the final approval had been received from the salt officials. In the spring of 1792, when the
construction work had been complete, the restored academy was given a new
name, the Ancient Ziyang Academy (). High-profile celebrations
ensued. Anhui Provinces educational supervisor and governor, as well as the
Liangjiang governor-general all contributed commemorative essays. The texts
of all the merchant petitions were inscribed in a stele with calligraphy by the

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115

nationally regarded Huizhou calligrapher, Cheng Yaotian. Following the plan

set out in the original petition, daily management of the restored academy was
entrusted to selected local gentry, with She County educational officials supervising the use of the funds and serving as coordinators with the Lianghuai salt
administration over issues of reimbursement and dispensation.

Xiangyi and the Sojourners Native-Place Devotion
In the case of the Ziyang Academys restoration, the salt merchants were not
responding to an urgent situation. Their commitment was to the betterment of
Huizhou. Throughout the process, the merchants role was clear: it was they
who started the initial petition, pursued the further revision of the petition,
and approached the local gentry about implementing the plan. This was, in
other words, a case of merchant sojourners willing embrace of xiangyi obligation.
The main reason that they sought to tap the salt administrations funds fulfilling this obligation, as can be seen from the petition, was the sense of entitlement to the funds that came from levies on them yet controlled and used by
the salt administration for various projects all over the Lianghuai district. The
tone of the first petition even conveys a subtle sense of grievance against the
officials deployment of the salt wealth the merchants generated but did not
control (it all came from us). Against this background, channeling some part
of that wealth toward the betterment of Huizhou would change this situation
and allow more of their own interest symbolic, if not material to be represented in the distribution of profits from the salt trade.
While the salt officials obviously controlled the financial resources of the
Lianghuai salt district, the merchants succeeded in securing the funding by
their unusual determination and even aggressiveness in the negotiations.
What lent them nerve to interact with the officials with such boldness throughout the process was not the noble cause of education and learning, an area in
which they admitted having insufficient credentials. But the merchants pride
in their homeland could be expressed straightforwardly. Thus their assertiveness as the self-claimed generators of the salt wealth was presented as a resolute request for equal treatment of Huizhou and Yangzhou. On the other side
of these negotiations, the salt officials admitted that the merchants petition
was a cause that promoted the welfare of the home place, the merit of which
was undeniable. In this sense, it was on the point of xiangyi obligation that
both sides could agree. It gave extra appeal to the merchants petition and provided a good reason for the officials to grant the petition.
Back in Huizhou, the whole project soon took on a range of local meanings.
Even though the commemorative records recognized the unusual source of

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funding, the significance they ascribed to the restored academy was no different from other Huizhou academies sponsored by the local gentry. Without exception, the commemorative essays written by officials and local gentry at the
academys reopening all celebrated it as an institution that would make it easier for local gentry to share the local officials burden in educating the people
and helping to maintain social order.55 For their own part, the merchants were
satisfied to hand over to the gentry the projects implementation once they had
secured the funds for it. Their devotion to the home places well-being, operating on a terrain of multi-locality, seemed to focus more on Huizhous equal
treatment with Yangzhou than on the projects actual implementation.
Xiangyi Obligations beyond the Native Place
The granary and academy projects show that with peoples increased spatial
mobility, locality-based public involvement could extend beyond the borders
of the home place and harness resources from elsewhere. In these cases, however, while the physical place of the home locale no longer defined the geographical scope of participation in the public good, it still defined such
projects scope of coverage, because they were meant to improve the welfare of
the home locale. In another category of xiangyi-oriented public engagement,
the scope of coverage also went beyond the confines of the home locale. Projects in this category could operate instead on the perception of a common link
with the home locality and demonstrate more varied relationships with locality.

The Particularistic Public of the Sojourners
Public projects that purported to take care of fellow Huizhou sojourners were
common in sojourners communities, particularly in places such as Hangzhou
and Suzhou where Huizhou men were not able to dominate the cities public
affairs.56 These projects were obviously motivated by fellow natives need for
55

56

Zhu Gui , Chong jian Gu Ziyang shuyuan ji [Account of the

Restoration of the Old Ziyang Academy]; Cao Wenzhi, Gu Ziyang shuyuan ji
[Account of the Old Ziyang Academy]; Shu Lin Chong jian Gu Ziyang
shuyuan ji [Account of the Restoration of the Old Ziyang Academy]; Qin Cao Gu Ziyang shuyuan ji [Account of the Old Ziyang
Academy]; all in Shexian jinshi zhi, juan 10.
The Huizhou merchants public engagement in Suzhou was mostly limited to mutual-aid
activities among the sojourners. Public projects that were open indiscriminately to the
whole urban community, such as granaries and orphanages, were often the work of

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mutual aid in new and often hostile environments. Huizhou merchants dedication to this type of mutual aid was already famous in the late Ming, so much
so that Gu Yanwu cited a widespread characterization: Away from home, Huizhou merchants take the legal disputes of fellow natives as their own and unreservedly devote their resources to help; this is truly because it is reciprocal
and thereby makes a large force of them; ultimately it is for everyones sake.57
The most needed of mutual aid projects were charitable cemeteries (
yizhong) for the temporary burial of fellow native men until the remains could
be transported home. In Qing dynasty Suzhou, Huizhou merchants jointly established no fewer than three benevolent organizations that ran charitable
cemeteries for fellow Huizhou sojourners.58 Some charitable cemeteries were
established by individual Huizhou sojourners in Suzhou for the same purpose.59 These cemeteries must have been an impressive development for the
Qing scholar Zhu Zhen to remark, Huizhou people are known for their charitable activities; wherever they go, they set up charitable cemeteries.60 In addition, other programs that addressed specific needs of Huizhou people living in
other places, such as elementary schooling for children and basic medical care
for everyone, were also common. For example, in 1699 a Huizhou merchant,
Zhang Peilan, established the Xinan Charitable School () in the
market town of Shengze () to provide education for children from
poor Huizhou families.61 In 1795 the huishang in the town established a clinic
called Cunren Tang , where Huizhou men could receive medical care
and temporary lodging.62
This type of mutual aid among sojourners was often undertaken under the
aegis of the huiguan and could be found in sojourner communities everywhere

57
58

59
60
61
62

Suzhous local elites. The same observations can be made about Hangzhou. See the various editions of Hangzhou fuzhi and Suzhou fuzhi. See also Fan Jinmin, Qing dai Huizhou
shangbang.
Gu Yanwu, Zhao yu zhi, juan 3. For a general discussion of the huishangs charitable institutions in Jiangnan, see Fan Jinmin, Qingdai Huizhou shang bang.
Suzhou fuzhi (1883), juan 24, Shan tang [Charitable Instituations]. For a general
picture of Suzhous charitable institutions founded by sojourning merchants, see Wang
Weiping , Ming Qing shiqi jiangnan chengshi shi yanjiu: yi shuzhou wei zhongxin
: (Beijing: Renmin Chuban she, 1999), 287.
Suzhou fuzhi (1883), juan 51, Yi zhong [Charitable Cemetery].
Wu xianzhi (1933), juan 30, Gong suo [Public Institutions].
Shenghu zhi, 467.
Wujiang shengze zhen hui ning huiguan yuan shi bei ji, in Ming Qing Suzhou gongshangye beike ji, 355356.

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the Public For Sojourners

in the Qing.63 They often distinguished people from the same native place
from those who were not, thus appearing more collective than truly public.64
From a Weberian point of view, these compatriot-only projects have been labeled parochialism and blamed for blocking the growth of civic consciousness
and hindering the expansion of the public realm.65 In a translocal context,
however, these seemingly particularistic public projects can be viewed as a
new way to engage the home locale when the home place was no longer the
only locus of public participation. The stated rationale for these mutual-aid
activities was almost always the practice of xiangyi, illustrating the change in
this terms connotation from a virtue of the local man to a sentiment among
sojourners. The lines they drew and maintained between compatriots and all
others defined a select group of people by their common relation to Huizhou,
which allowed the constant renewal of memory of the home locale. The public
projects that exclusively served compatriots away from home thus extended
the commitment to the home locale.
When practiced in host places, this commitment necessarily refocused from
the place to a select group of people defined by the place. But the projects
geographical scope, in both participation and coverage, could be either narrower or wider than the host city. For example, in 1832, when the Huizhou sojourners were constructing a huiguan in Shengze, fellow Huizhou natives from
the surrounding towns also contributed to the project, disregarding the
boundary of [host] places ().66 The Yangzhou merchants decadeslong commitment to underwriting She Countys native-place lodge in Beijing
provides us with a detailed example in this regard.

A Lodge in Beijing and the Merchants in Yangzhou
She Countys native-place lodge in Beijing (), founded in 1561,
was one of the earliest in the history of this institution. Examination can63
64
65

66

Wang Rigen, Zhongguo huiguan shi.

William Rowe first described the sojourners mutual aid projects as collective. See Rowe,
Commerce and Society, 317.
The most powerful articulation of this view was Max Weber, Religion of China, 1320. Midtwentieth century scholarship in Chinese tried to revise Webers conclusion, but continued to apply his basic assumptions on the dichotomy between native-place ties on the
one hand, and the universalistic, rationalistic, and civic mindedness on the other. See
Dou Jiliang, Tongxiang zuzhi; Ho Ping-ti, Zhongguo huiguan. Richard Belsky provides a
brief and succinct review of these works. See Belsky, Locality at the Centry, 713.
Huining huiguan beiji in Ming Qing Suzhou gongshang ye beike ji, 367. On the huishangs
mutual aid across local boundaries of the host places, see Fan Jinmin, Qingdai Huizhou
shang bang.

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119

didates were its original founders, but Huizhous merchant sojourners also participated in both the founding and later development of the institution. Its
original purpose was most likely to provide temporary lodging and a meeting
place for both merchants and literati from the county.67 Three years later, the
lodge bought land and founded a charitable cemetery. In the following decades, the cemetery was gradually enlarged. In 1618, when a complex of houses
were built on the cemetery, the sojourners began to call it a charitable estate
().68
Both the lodge and the estate were abandoned in the turmoil of the MingQing transition. When they were recovered during the 1650s and 1670s respectively, the lodge was renamed Xinan Lodge () and open to men from
the whole of Huizhou, but the cemetery was still called She County Charitable
Cemetery.69 In 1740, a separate She County Lodge was founded because the
prefecture-wide Xinan Lodge was too small for the increasing number of Huizhous literati sojourners in Beijing.70 The estate went with the newly founded
lodge and became its affiliated institution, but was managed separately.71 In
the new She County Lodge, a distinction was made between merchants and
literati. The merchants, most of them in the tea trade, were allowed to benefit
from the burial ground and ritual services the estate provided. But use of the
lodge proper was reserved for literati who were in the capital for either examinations or other official purposes such as reporting to the central government.72
Every edition of the charter of the She County Lodge, issued during the nine
decades between 1740 and 1830 (the last year of the lodge gazetteers coverage),
67
68
69

70

71

72

Ho Ping-ti, Zhongguo huiguan, 1819.

Wang Yuangong , Yi zhuang ji [Account of the Charitable Estate], in
Chong xu She xian huiguan lu, 14.
Kangxi yongzheng liang chao yizhuang juan shu zong lu
[Comprehensive Record of Donations to the Charitable Estate during the Kangxi and
Yongzheng reigns] in Chong xu she xian huiguan lu, 77. In a deed signed in 1683, the cemetery was referred to as She County charitable cemetery (she xian yi zhuang). See Yi
zhuang xin cun quan yue [New Collection of Contracts and Deed of the
Charitable Estate], in Chong xu she xian huiguan lu, 90.
Ling Ruhuan , Xin jian shexian huiguan ji [Account of the
Restoration of She County Lodge], in Chong xu She xian huiguan lu, 25. Little is known
about the fate of the prefectural Xinan lodge after the establishment of this newer one.
Most likely it declined and went out of business, for the newer lodge would almost certainly take away its main constituency and siphon off its sources of funding.
Wu nanxi xiansheng yi zheng yi zhuang you [Account of
Master Wu Nanxis Proposals to Restructure the Charitable Estate], in Chong xu She xian
huiguan lu, 80.
Chong xu She xian huiguan lu, 13.

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the Public For Sojourners

stated clearly that its purpose was to serve examination candidates and civil
officials, and repeatedly emphasized that it was not open to merchants.73 From
1762 on, two of the metropolis officials were selected every year to serve as its
managers.74
Despite its persistent distinction between literati and merchants, the lodge
relied heavily on funds from the salt merchants in Yangzhou from the very beginning. In 1740, after Wu Wei , a civil official serving in Beijing, proposed
the project to his fellow literati sojourners, his first action was to write letters to
the Huizhou merchants in Yangzhou asking for funding. Before he heard back
from Yangzhou, his collaborators had solved the problem by enlisting the support of Huang Luhan , another metropolis official who came from a
Huizhou merchant family in Yangzhou.75 Huangs family was one of the richest
among Yangzhous salt merchants. All three of his brothers were in the salt
trade. Luhan himself might also have started his career as a merchant. The four
brothers were lumped together and nicknamed the four ingots by
Yangzhou locals.76 When solicited for money for the lodge project, the rich and
confident Luhan remarked, For this [you] do not need to bother so many people, I can shoulder it all myself. A significant estate that Luhan had previously
bought for himself, at an estimated value of 160,000 taels, was donated for the
purpose and became the location of the lodge.
In less than ten years, the lodge was already running short of rooms. In 1750,
Wu Wei saw the chance to fund further construction in the empty areas of the
estate: that year, the most powerful of Yangzhous salt merchants were invited
to Beijing for the emperors birthday celebration, and among them were the Xu
brothers, the renowned philanthropists who had played a crucial role in the
huiji granary project. Wu approached them and explained the lodges need for
funds. When the Xus returned to Yangzhou, a letter from Wu followed, pressing
for the funds. The merchants in Yangzhou deliberated on the issue and agreed
to secure () 2,000 taels. But the salt administration happened to be overwhelmed by some other business and pulling together a large contribution to
the state took priority with the merchants. So the proposed funds were delayed
73
74

75
76

For the five editions of the charter, issued in 1740, 1762, 1805, 1814, and 1803, see Chong xu
She xian huiguan lu, 3133; 5661.
Qianlong er shi ba nian zeng yi guitiao [Deliberated and
Expanded Ordinance in the Twenty-Eighth Year of Qianlong], in Chong xu She xian huiguan lu, 3234.
Ling Ruhuan, Xinjian shexian huiguan ji.
Li Dou, Yangzhou huafang lu, juan 12. According to Li Dou, all four brothers made fortunes
in the salt business.

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121

until Huizhou scholar-officials in Beijing reopened the issue almost a decade

later, in 1759.
By this time, the older Xu brother, Shixiu, had died, and Wu Wei had retired
and left Beijing. The new round of fundraising was led by Cheng Jingyi ,
the vice minister of arms, who sent a collective letter to the merchants revisiting the pledged fund. In Yangzhou, the younger brother Xu Shiye, who had
succeeded his brother as the head merchant, rallied his colleagues for a deliberation. The merchants agreed to collect the pledged amount from among
themselves and send it to their fellow natives in Beijing. For unknown reasons,
the collection proceeded more slowly than anticipated. Soon more letters arrived from Beijing, written by scholar-officials who had close personal relations with Shiye, asking him to sponsor the construction personally instead of
waiting to collect the funds from the merchant community. Shiye hesitated
over how to respond. As he confided to a kinsman who was also an official in
Beijing, his concern was not the amount of money but that with a collective
pledge already made and the funds in the process of being collected, he was
afraid that moving ahead on his own would cause embarrassment and render
other merchants zeal to fulfill obligations to their hometown unsatisfied
().77 With the kinsmans explanation of the special urgency of the construction project, and assurance that the
collective donation, when ready, would be accepted for further renovation
projects, Shiye quickly forwarded the needed amount to Beijing from his personal funds.
Since the lodge had very limited regular income (what there was, was gained
mainly by taxing member officials according to rank), throughout the second
half of the eighteenth century it depended on donations for all of its main
construction and renovation projects.78 Occasionally metropolis officials with
deeper pockets, such as Huang Luhan in 1740, were able to make large do
nations, but most of them could only provide modest amounts.79 The most
77

78
79

Xu Guangwen , Huiguan zengkai nanyuan shuzhai ji fuji

[Supplementary Account of the Establishment of Studio in the South Yard of the
Lodge], in Chong xu she xian huiguan lu, 27.
The rate of taxation was announced in the lodge charters.
Besides Huang Luhan, the only large donation from a metropolis official came from Xu
Yincai, who served in the Ministry of Punishment. He made two donations, in 1762 and
1771, at a total amount of 1,800 taels. See Cheng Jingyi , Chong jian lanxin xuan ji
[Account of the Reconstruction of Lanxin Studio], and Qianlong sanshi
liu nian zeng zhi huiguan fang chan ji [Account of the
Expansion of the huiguans Real Estate in the 36th Year of the Qianlong Reign], in Chong
xu she xian hui guan lu, 28, 30. Cao Zhenyong, the Grand Secretary and son of Cao Wenzhi,

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the Public For Sojourners

significant contributions always came from the Lianghuai salt merchants. Literati sojourners involved in the lodges management routinely looked to the
Huizhou merchants in Yangzhou for funds. In 1768, when the manager of the
lodge shared his concern about its budget deficit with Cao Wenzhi, Cao quietly
wrote to his father, the successful salt merchant Cao Jingchen, and asked him
to send something for the lodge from Yangzhou. The elder Cao soon sent 500
taels.80 Before Cao Wenzhis retirement, he collaborated with Bao Zhidao
, the powerful head merchant in Yangzhous salt trade, on an ambitious
fundraising campaign that aimed to raise 30,000 taels from Yangzhou for the
lodge. But they both died before the plan could be realized. In 1804, when the
literati managers planned a new round of substantial renovations, they felt the
estimated cost of 6,000 to 7,000 taels was not likely to be raised from Yangzhou
in a short time. They decided to try more diverse sources and were prepared to
face a prolonged process for the renovation. Fundraising from other sources,
including the Huizhou tea merchants in Beijing and officials serving in the
provinces, did make progress, and helped fund part of the renovation.81 But in
the end, it was again a large donation of 2,100 taels from Yangzhou, this time by
Bao Shufang , Bao Zhidaos son and successor as head merchant, that
completed the renovation campaign in 1808.82
Soon after this round of renovations was completed, there emerged an opportunity that could bring a stable source of substantial income to the lodge. A
special arrangement, by which Yangzhous native-place lodge in Beijing was to
receive sponsorship from the Lianghuai salt administration, was being planned
under the initiative of the powerful official Ruan Yuan , a native of Yangzhou. Hearing of this plan, Huizhous literati sojourners in Beijing quickly took
action. Bao Guixing, the mastermind of the 1808 renovation project and a
would-be Grand Secretary, rallied his fellow Huizhou natives for deliberation.
They decided to jump on the bandwagon. The rationale, as Bao stated, was that
She County is the homeland of the Lianghuai [salt merchants] too; should we

80

81
82

made a one-time donation in 1804, at the modest amount of 200 taels. See Bao Guixing
, Chong xiu she xian huiguan ji [Account of the Renovation of
the She County huiguan], in Chong xu she xian huiguan lu, 51.
Xu Guangwen, Qianlong san shi er nian juan zi huiguan sheng xi ji
[Account of Donations to the Lodge and the Operation to Proliferate the
Fund during the Thirty-Second Year of the Qianlong Reign], in Chong xu she jian huiguan
lu, 29.
Bao Guixing , Chong xiu she xian huiguan ji.
Ibid.

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123

not petition to follow the precedent set by Yangzhou (

)?83
A collective letter from Beijings Huizhou literati was sent to the Huizhou
merchants in Yangzhou. An ideal person to mediate the communication between the two cities was found in Bao Xunmao , a metropolis official,
son of Bao Zhidao and younger brother of Bao Shufang. Following the initiative and some prompting from Beijing, the merchants in Yangzhou started a
round of petitions similar to the one they had used successfully two decades
earlier for the Ziyang Academy: first approaching the salt controller and then
the salt censor. The petition was soon approved. The salt administration decided that beginning in 1811, the She County Lodge in Beijing should receive an
amount of 3,000 taels annually from the salt administrations labor fund, following the precedent of Yangzhou.84
With this tremendous enhancement to its funding, the lodge revised its
charter in 1814. The new charter adopted more generous policies for assisting
examination candidates, including subsidies during the examination season,
banquets for candidates, post-examination travel funds for poor candidates
needing to return home, and subsidies for candidates who chose to stay in Beijing after the examinations. But the greater part of this newly acquired support
was spent subsidizing lower-level metropolis officials. According to the new
charter, every winter a total of 2,500 taels, termed charcoal money ,
should be equally divided by officials with a rank of 4a or lower. The date for
charcoal money distribution was set at the second day after the arrival of the
annual funds from Yangzhou. To receive a share, qualified officials had to be in
Beijing on the day of distribution.85

Xiangyi and Social Networking
With its substantial numbers of both literati and merchants, Beijing presented
a more complicated situation for Huizhous sojourners than other places. The
literati sojourners effort to maintain a distance from their merchant counterparts was clear, but it was always tempered by their common bond to the native place. Key to opportunities to connect was the estate, which was attached
to the institution of the lodge and allowed the tea merchants to participate in
83
84
85

Bao Guixing , Huiguan sui shu jing fei ji [Account of the

Annual Fund for the Lodge], in Chong xu she xian huiguan lu, 54.
Bao Guixing, Huiguan sui shu jing fei ji, in Chong xu She xian huiguan lu, 54.
Jiaqing shi jiu nian xu zeng gui tiao [Further Expanded Ordinance during the Nineteenth Year of the Jiaqing Reign], in Chong xu She xian huiguan
lu, 59.

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the Public For Sojourners

the broader community of Huizhou sojourners, even though use of the lodge
proper was restricted to literati. In the lodges gazetteer, accounts of the lodge
proper and the estate were recorded separately. Regular income for the lodge
was raised by charging the officials according to their rank, and income for the
estate came from taxing merchants according to the size of their business. But
officials also made donations to the estate, and merchants to the lodge.86 In the
course of the renovation project of 1804, a severe budget crisis led managers to
propose increasing the tax on the tea merchants to also cover the lodges overhead, and they were able to get the merchants consent to this. But before the
new rate was implemented, the arrival of a larger donation from Yangzhou
made it unnecessary, so the managers decided to apply funds already secured
from the merchants to the estate.87 For their part, the literati-officials, with their
position and connections, could also provide protection for the merchants. For
example, in 1796, when Cao Wenzhi was serving as acting prefect of the metropolitan Shuntian prefecture, he issued a public warning to the natives there
not to encroach on the estates properties.88 Thus in general, a patron-client
relationship developed between Huizhous literati and merchants in Beijing.
The notion of xiangyi glossed over the different status and interests of these
two groups and helped to produce a community that encompassed both.
But the literati were determined to expand this xiangyi-based community
further, to include the salt merchants of Yangzhou. This effort encountered difficulties. The Yangzhou merchants were wealthier, much more powerful, and
better connected than the tea merchants in Beijing, and thus less subject to the
literati sojourners influence. Geographical distance also made communication difficult. Of all the recorded donations made by the salt merchants, none
were offered voluntarily at the merchants own initiative; the literati always
had to ask. Time intervals between solicitation and the arrival of funds were
often longer than hoped for. But if the literati sojourners influence over Yangzhou merchants had limitations, the lodges decades-long efforts to raise funds
from Yangzhou had been largely successful. The merchants never refused the
86
87

88

See the regulations on these donations in Qianlong er shi ba nian zengyi guitiao..
Xu Guangwen, Qianlong er shi ba nian juan zi huiguan sheng xi ji
[Account of Donations to the Lodge and the Operation to Proliferate the
Fund during the twenty-Eight Year of the Qianlong Reign], in Chong xu She xian huiguan
lu, 29.
The charitable estate had many disputes with natives of Beijing, and the officials played a
crucial role in defending the estates interests. See Cao Wenzhi Qianlong wushinian jianshe fu yin shi jin bei ji [Stone Inscription Commemorating the Prohibitions Announced by the Acting Prefect], in Chong xu She xian huiguan
lu, 96.

The Public for Sojourners

125

literatis calls for financial support, and they played crucial roles in almost every key step in the lodges development.
As opposed to the cases of the huiji granary or the Ziyang Academy, the notion of xiangyi worked in this case even in the absence of a subsistence crisis
or a lofty cause such as education or the home places prestige. It operated
more explicitly at the level of practical concerns, and hence appears more like
a social network that fulfills the diverse needs of diverse social groups. People
involved in these activities the examination candidates, the metropolis officials, Beijing tea merchants, and Yangzhou salt merchants each had their
particular purposes. The tea merchants needed the protection of their fellow
Huizhou men in office; the salt merchants would not need this kind of protection, but maintaining good rapport with fellow native men in high offices was
obviously a smart long-term investment. As for the officials and potential future officials (that is, the examination candidates), socializing was the main
motivation and the explicitly stated goal of their engagement in the founding
of the lodge.89 In general, the lodge functioned as a pivot around which Huizhou sojourners of different social echelons and living in different cities could
gather, and in this sense it served the purposes of networking they all found
crucial.
Conclusion
Chinas first civilian-initiated nationwide famine relief came in 1877. In this
campaign local elites from many places in the south mobilized resources from
their own home places to help the suffering provinces in the north. At the end
of the campaign, some contemporary observers pointed out that [such] efforts to relieve famine across [local] borders have never been seen since time
immemorial .90 By the turn of the twen
tieth century, as Bryna Goodmans work demonstrates, sojourners nativeplace identity had started to play a constructive role in the rise of national
identity in urban centers like Shanghai.
89
90

For the rationale for founding the lodge, see the collection of celebrative essays in Chong
xu she xian huiguan lu, 13.
See Zhu Hu, Kua difang de difang xing shijian: Jiangnan shanhui shandang xiang huabei
de yizhi [Local
Practices beyond the Local: Jiangnan charitable Institutions Expanding to North China]
in Zhongguo shehui kexue yuan jindai shi yanjiu suo qingnian xueshu luntan, 2005. The
quote above is from Songjiang fuzhi(1877), juan 9, Jianzhi [Establishments and
Institutions].

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the Public For Sojourners

Compared with these late Qing developments, the Huizhou sojourners

xiangyi-oriented public engagement in the eighteenth century appeared unabashedly localist in orientation. There is no evidence that that the kind of
famine relief they provided for the home region was extended to other local
places. Meanwhile, access to a xiangyi-based mutual-aid network depended
on ones place of origin, and this restriction was not simply a function of the
limited availability of resources. In 1775 an updated edition of the gazetteer for
the She County Lodge in Beijing clarified its principles about accepting donations: donation from fellow county men was praised for its demonstration of
public spirit (gongyi, ). Outsiders were regarded as having no reason to
donate, and the names of the local officials and clerks back home (at both
prefectural and county levels) who donated in the early stages of the lodge but
were not Huizhou natives were eliminated from the lodges list of donors for
fear of future entanglement.91
Yet this very concern about the contributors place-based identity vividly
illustrates the multi-place context in which the xiangyi-oriented public engagement operated. Indeed, in the Huizhou sojourners projects analyzed
above, both the beneficiaries and the benefactors were conscious of the relevance of other places, and often invoked this in their efforts to promote the
interests of the home locale. In this sense, conditions for the geographical coincidence of the local and the public no longer existed, and the two became
distinct domains.
In this new context, locality no longer defined the geographic scope of public participation. That had grown into a translocal network that incorporated
diverse kinds of social relations, both public and private. This network might
include only a select group in a given place (such as the mutual-aid projects
among the sojourners), or cut across local boundaries and involve several places (as did the native-place lodge in Beijing). The physical place of the sojourners home locale was not necessarily the site of their projects for the public
good; yet when these projects did take place in the home locale, they could
draw on both financial resources and ideas from extra-local sources. In other

91

Chong xu She xian huiguan lu, 12. Donations by people from Huizhous other counties
were allowed and honored in the lodges gazetteer. See fn. 4 above for a discussion of the
relationship between the She County identity and the Huizhou identity. The issue of local
identity at different levels of locality has not been thoroughly studied in current scholarship on local history. Here, in a study of the performance of Huizhou identity beyond
Huizhous borders, suffice it to say that no sources indicate conflicts between local identity at the prefecture and county levels.

The Public for Sojourners

127

words, the sojourners public participation now could engage locality in diverse ways.
The notion of xiangyi stood at the center of this translocal network. Judging
from these cases, it worked by grafting the old, localist orientation of public
engagement onto its new, translocal setting: the idea of devotion to the home
locale justified all decisions to commit personal or collective resources to projects located in Huizhou or elsewhere. Caring about the home locale was an
indisputable claim that the authorities felt easy about endorsing, while back in
Huizhou, the idea of promoting the localitys social and moral conditions had
prompted local gentry participation in projects the merchant sojourners proposed. The local, though it had lost much of its geographical coincidence with
the public, still provided a powerful rationale for public participation. In this
sense, xiangyi-oriented public engagement demonstrated the vitality with
which locality worked in an age of high geographic mobility.

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Translocal Lineage And The Romance Of Homeland Attachment

Chapter 4

Translocal Lineage and the Romance of Homeland

Attachment
In 1854 the Suzhou Pans , one of the most prestigious and powerful
lineages in this city during the Qing period, compiled their first genealogy.
Counting from the first generation Pan Jingwen (16391706), who settled in Suzhou as a salt merchant at the beginning of the dynasty, the Pans had
been living in the city for about 200 years. Between 1769 and the time of the
genealogy compilation, they had produced 8 jinshi degree holders, including a
grand secretary, Pan Shien (17691854). However, strikingly enough,
the genealogy was not prefixed with the place-name Suzhou, as were most of
genealogies compiled in Ming and Qing China. Instead, it was entitled Branch
Genealogy of the Pans of Dafu Dafu being the village in the
She County from where Pan Jingwen, the first sojourner, had migrated two centuries before. Continuing to produce high degree holders in the civil service
examinations and maintaining their reputation and influence in Suzhou, the
Pans would compile four more genealogies up to the early twentieth century,
all bearing the same title. The latest edition of their genealogy, with the same
title, was compiled in 1992 and sponsored by Pan descendants living in the
United States.
But there is more of interest in these genealogies than just their title. Included agnates were mainly the Pans of Suzhou, but there was also a group of
Pans still living in Huizhou: the descendents of Jingwens second son Zhaochen (16641735) who later moved back to the home place while his eight
brothers all remained in Suzhou. About twenty years before the compilation of
their first genealogy, the Pans of Suzhou also incorporated a lineage estate
the Songlin Estate in 1832 under the initiative and leadership
of Zunqi (18081892, jinshi of 1848), who also compiled the genealogy.
Managed jointly by agnates from both Huizhou and Suzhou, the Songlin Estate provided financial aid to both the Pans of Suzhou and their kin from
Huizhou sojourning in Suzhou. The estate also funded lineage construction back in Huizhou where resources were continually poured into the renovation of ancestral halls and the maintenance of the lineage graveyard. In the
1880s, the Suzhou Pans also made it a rule to send some of their local kinsmen back to Dafu Village every two to three years to tend to the ancestral
graves and participate in ancestral sacrifices. According to one of the lineage

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015|doi 10.1163/9789004288409_006

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leaders, this was to remind the Pans in Suzhou of their ancestral roots in
Hui-zhou.1
By the time their first genealogy was compiled in 1854, the Pans of Suzhou
could be regarded as a proper lineage by any definition of this oft-debated
term.2 However, the most striking feature of the Pans lineage practice its involvement with two distant places has not been adequately accounted for in
current studies. It is this characteristic and its impact on the Pan descendants
identity formation that are the subject of this chapter. Since many merchant
families, especially those from Huizhou, had experiences comparable to the
Pans, a study of the Pans lineage practices will illuminate the complex interactions between kinship practice, spatial mobility, and identity formation in
Ming-Qing China.
Studies of Chinese Lineage: Local and Translocal
Historians and anthropologists have long recognized that lineage organizations or, more broadly speaking, kinship ties, played an important role in various aspects of late imperial Chinese society. Following the model formulated
1
2

Pan Zhongrui , Xiangchan jingshe ji , juan 15:33b.

Scholarly usage of the term lineage varies on the criteria of what makes a kinship group
a lineage. James Watson defines lineage as a corporate group which celebrates ritual
unity and is based on demonstrated descent from a common ancestor. See James Waston,
Chinese Kinship Reconsidered: Anthropological Perspectives on Historical Research, in
China Quarterly, 92(1982): 586622. However, Watsons definition, was profoundly influenced by the work of Maurice Freedman, and has been questioned by both anthropologists and social historians, especially about its first criterion, which implies the necessity
of joint possession of property. See Maurice Freedman, Chinese lineage and society: Fukien
and Kwangtung (London: Athlone Press, 1966), 2021; Timothy Brook, Must Lineage Own
Land? in Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 20.4 (1988):7279; Myron Cohen, Lineage
Organizations in North China, in Journal of Asian Studies 49.3 (1990): 509534; Arthur
Wolf and Chang Kwang Chih, The Origins and Explanations of Variation in the Chinese
Kinship System, in Anthropological Studies of the Taiwan Area: Accomplishments and
Prospects, ed., Kuang-chou Li (Taipei: National Taiwan University Press, 1989), 241260.
More recent use of the term began to downplay the notion of joint property ownership,
for examples, see Ebrey and Watson, eds., Kinship organization; William Rowe, Success
Stories: Lineage and Elite Status in Hanyang County, Hubei, c. 13681949, in Chinese Local
Elites and Patterns of Dominance, eds., Joseph Esherick and Mary Rankin, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 5181. Michael Szonyis use of the term lineage even
removed the criterion of ritual unity, and referred to as lineage any self-professed patrilineal descent group. See Szonyi, Practicing Kinship, 4.

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Translocal Lineage And The Romance Of Homeland Attachment

by Maurice Freedman, whose investigations of lineage organization in the

1950s centered on patrilineal descent and corporate property ownership, social
anthropologists produced numerous works in the subsequent two decades
that examined the structure and formation of lineages in China.3 Social historians joined the discussion in the late 1970s and helped to move it from the
Freedmanian focus on definitions and organizational mechanisms to a more
historical investigation of variation in lineage practices in diverse local contexts.
The influential conference volume, Kinship Organization in Late Imperial
China, edited by Patricia Ebrey and James Watson in 1986, clearly demonstrates
that lineage organizations in different regions relied on different mechanisms
to maintain their cohesiveness. Contributors to the volume argued that the
central role played by corporate-property owning in lineage organization
should better be regarded as one variety peculiar to southeast China, instead of
a universal criterion applicable to other regions. David Faures investigation of
lineage formation in the Pearl River delta during the Ming-Qing period shows
that strategic concerns in the politics of local society, such as claiming settlement rights, might have been a factor in the construction of lineages based on
legendary ancestors. More recently, Michael Szonyis study of kinship practices
in Fuzhou Prefecture in Fujian advances the notion of individual and collective strategizing in a local field shaped by various forces, with the purpose of
providing a more complex and multiple vision of lineage formation.4 For example, Szonyis analysis of the interaction between lijia obligations and kinship organization suggests that lineage formation did not necessarily depend
on practices typically found in the construction of elite lineages, such as the
building of ancestral halls and the compilation of genealogies.
But while historical studies of lineage practices call into question some of
the orientations of social anthropologists, they do not question a common assumption underlying all lineage studies: that the lineage is a more or less localized practice embedded in one local society, that it exerts influence in one
locale, and that it would lose vigor and strength once it stepped out of that local arena.
Ever since earlier anthropological explorations of this subject, the geogra
phical scale of lineage activities has been recognized as a crucial element
in lineage development. Although common residence was not considered
a defining criterion to distinguish the lineage from other types of kinship
3
4

For a general review of the literature on Chinese lineage in the 1970s and early 1980s, see
Watson Chinese Kinship Reconsidered.
Szonyi, Practicing Kinship, 8.

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131

organization, it was agreed that, as James Watson phrased it, common residence is essential if a kinship group is to remain intact as a property-owning
corporation for upward of twenty generations a distinguishing feature of the
most powerful and influential lineages.5 Freedmans analysis of lineage organization was carried out primarily at the village level, and used the term local
lineage to refer to a lineages settling in one village and constituting a community. Freedman recognized the existence of lineage organizations and activities beyond the village confines, and for this phenomenon he coined the
term higher-order lineage.6 Watson further divided the higher-order lineage
into two types according to geographic scale: a smaller type confined to a single county and a larger type that extended over two or more adjoining counties
and incorporated several smaller higher-order lineages. Watson reasoned that
while the smaller type of higher-order lineage could retain its effectiveness as
a group, the larger one was necessarily restricted in its potential for concerted
action.
Social anthropologists perception of the geographic scale of lineage activity
is therefore a minimal one: the more local the lineage activities, the more effective. Spatial separation in this sense constitutes a natural threat to the solidarity of lineage organization and the effectiveness of its actions. This assumption
is vividly reflected in Emily Aherns study of segmentation patterns in Chinese
lineage development, which concludes, What leads to groups of kinsmen in
the graphic representation of the genealogy is residence in the same place.
Only if unilineally related kinsmen continued to reside in the same community do they continue to constitute one group within the idiom of the
genealogy.7
Historians interest in the study of Chinese lineage has been shaped from
the very beginning by the local history approach, and has played an integral
part in recent local history scholarship. Under the influence of this approach,
historical studies of Chinese lineages have been carefully confined to local
settings. For example, the enduring Chang and Yao lineages studied by Hilary
Beattie were set in Tongcheng County, Anhui, where they functioned like
5
6

Waston, Chinese Kinship Reconsidered, 608.

The definition Freedman provided for higher-order lineage states that a local lineage
may be grouped with other local lineages on the basis that the ancestors of these lineages
are all descended agnatically from a common ancestor, the whole unit in turn being
focused on an ancestral hall or other piece of property. For this larger scale of group
I propose to use the term higher-order lineage because I cannot for the moment think of
a more appropriate one. See Maurice Freedman, Chinese lineage and society, 2021.
Emily Ahern, Segmentation in Chinese Lineage: A view Through Written Genealogies, in
American Ethnologist, 3. 1(1976): 15.

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Translocal Lineage And The Romance Of Homeland Attachment

long-term collective insurance schemes to assist the growth of a semi-permanent gentry.8 The analysis of lineage activities within a restricted geographical scale can also be found in William Rowes study of Hanyang County. In
gauging the geographic scale of the lineage members social activism and the
range of their influence, Rowe concluded, this [local] community in China as
in Britain might at times be the county . [T]he spatial unit by far most commonly invoked in our genealogies is the subcounty administrative division, the
xiang most Hanyang lineages, in short, seem to have been precisely the sort
of xiangzu identified by Fu Yiling as the characteristic Ming-Qing kinship
group, and their leadership the very type of the xiangshen (subcounty gentry,
or better local elites) so commonly encountered in late imperial sources.9
In a similar vein, in his study of the rise of Confucian ritualism Kai-Wing Chow
also confined his analysis of lineages to local settings in which the gentry made
use of the lineage as an institution that exercised leadership and maintained
order at the local level.10
Similar to the local history approach in the studies of other subjects, the
focus on the local in studies of Chinese lineage is also motivated by a concern
with analytical effectiveness. Michael Szonyi brings out this concern quite
clearly:
One might ask why local history is significant or useful to an understanding of Chinese kinship I believe local history is the best approach
through which to consider multiple genres of sources together, to develop
a detailed picture of the local economic and social context, and to explore
the micropolitics of place, in other words, to turn the source into a story.11
The local history approach certainly has its merits and should be pursued further. By situating lineage practices in their local contexts, it helps connect
them to the complex social, political, and cultural forces shaping local arenas.
However, it must also accommodate the extra-local dimensions of lineage
practice that emerged from the late Ming onward, which sometimes involved
two or more local places separated by county, prefectural, and even provincial
boundaries. The huishang provide good example of this. Since their kinship
ties at home strongly supported and extensively involved in their business
dealings elsewhere, these merchants usually remained involved in lineage
8
9
10
11

Beattie, Land and lineage in China.

Rowe, Success Stories.
Chow, The Rise of Confucian Ritualism, 71.
Szonyi, Practicing Kinship, 7.

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133

a ffairs back home, even after officially registering as residents of their host
places.12 In this circumstance, it is hard to imagine that the translocal scope of
the huishangs social activities did not impact their kinship and lineage practices.
Below, I will make a case for a new mode of lineage practice that emerged in
this situation, by reference to the Pans of Suzhou, whose connection with their
agnates at home in Huizhou was maintained over a prolonged period across
great distances. Since the available categories, whether localized lineage or
higher-order lineage, cannot explain this mode of lineage practice, I call it
translocal lineage and view it as one of the many consequences of increased
spatial mobility in Ming-Qing China. It refers to lineage practices born out of
translocal movements of agnates, involving more than one local place, and
maintaining kinship ties between agnates of these places despite their separation by great distances. I use the word mode instead of type to underscore
the fluidity of the translocal in lineage practice: a localized lineage could acquire translocal dimensions under certain circumstances; kinsmen in different
places could consider themselves to be segmented and independent branches
or part of a whole; a particular lineages translocal activities could be intense in
some periods but tenuous in others; those activities might or might not be institutionalized. As long as the activities of a lineage involve two or more distant
places, I regard it as translocal. For example, lineage practices of the Pans
across Huizhou and Suzhou occurred both before and after the construction of
an independent lineage organization by the Pans in Suzhou, and the intensity
of their kinship activities across the two places varied in different situations.
But I prefer to use the term translocal lineage for both of these periods. In other words, what makes a translocal lineage distinctive is the arena in which it
evolves, which must include two or more locales separated by great distances.
In response to the emphasis in current scholarship on lineage as a strategizing practice, I consider how this strategy was adjusted to deal with evolving
social and economic environments in China beginning in the sixteenth century, when translocal activities became increasingly common. My argument is
two-fold. First, translocal lineage practices emerged in response to tensions
between ritual and moral obligations on the one hand, and circumstances resulting from spatial mobility of merchant-kinsmen on the other. In this situation lineage practices became entangled with connections between distant
local places. Second, the geographic coincidence of kinship identity and local
12

The relationship between Huizhou merchant and kinship practice in Huizhou has been
widely studied. For major works on this topic, see Fuji, Shinan Sonin; Tang Lixing, MingQing yi lai; Guo, Ritual Opera.

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Translocal Lineage And The Romance Of Homeland Attachment

identity that characterized localized lineage practices became untenable in

translocal lineage practices. Kinship identity came to be based on a place far
away from where ones social life was engaged and this profoundly transformed
notions of place-based identity.
The Evolvement of Translocal Lineage Practice: The Pans of Suzhou

The Persistent Ancestral Link: Lineage Practice Beyond the Local
If we count from the incorporation of the lineage estate in 1833 and the compilation of the first genealogy in 1854, the formal lineage organization of the Pans
of Suzhou was created quite late, considering how long they had been settled
in the city. This time lag, as the following analysis shows, can be accounted for
partly by the persistence of their identification with the ancestral home in Huizhou.
Pan Jingwen the posthumously endorsed shiqian zu (first migrant
ancestor) of the Suzhou Pans was brought to Suzhou by his father, a salt merchant involved in the business of the Liangzhe Salt District from the late
Wanli era (15721620). The Liangzhe Salt District had its administrative headquarters in Hangzhou, and its product was distributed over an area that included the whole of Zhejiang Province and the southern part of modern day
Jiangsu Province.13 Suzhou was within this distribution area, and thus the
Pans decision to settle in Suzhou can be explained by their business: transporting and selling Liangzhe salt in Suzhou. Jingwens father rented a house
and sojourned there with his family, which at that time consisted of only four
members Jingwens parents, himself and his elder brother. It seems that the
Pans business did well, because in the early Kangxi era (16621722) Jingwen
finally bought a house in Suzhou and settled down. Fate favored Jingwen better
than his brother, for Jingwen fathered nine sons, while his brother died childless. Thus, biologically speaking, the Suzhou Pans were all descendants of Jingwen, although his second son, Zhaochen, was adopted by his brothers widow
so that his brothers line of descent could continue. (See Figure 4.1)
The early Pans of Suzhou were in an interesting position in terms of the
Ming-Qing household registration system. Officially they were Huizhou men,
associated with their ancestral registration in Huizhou. But because they were
active in the salt business they enjoyed the benefit of a special government
regulation allowing them to register as a merchant household (shangji )
13

For a discussion of the salt trade districts in Ming and Qing periods, see Saeki Tomi
, Shindai ensei no kenkyu (Kyoto: Toyoshi kenkyukai, 1956).

Translocal Lineage and the Romance of Homeland Attachment

135

Figure 4.1 The genealogy of the Pans.

in the salt district headquarters, Hangzhou. This was a non-permanent status

that helped salt merchants children enroll in government schools and take
part in the civil service examinations in their sojourning places. (More on the
household registration system in Chapter 5.) Therefore the early Pans lived in
a place (Suzhou) that was neither their permanent registration place, nor their

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Translocal Lineage And The Romance Of Homeland Attachment

temporary registration place. Given this situation, the early Pans of Suzhou
maintained close links with their ancestral homeland. Jingwen and his father
generously supported lineage construction projects and local famine relief
back in Huizhou, and were both buried back there after they died. All nine
sons were raised with periods of alternate abode in both places, married women from Huizhou, and continued to split their adult lives between Huizhou
and Suzhou.14
The Suzhou Pans involvement in life back in Huizhou helped foster a solid
identification with it. Jingwens great-grandson Mian (17181780) provided
testimony to this in a memorial to his mother, the very first of the Suzhou
women to marry into the Pan clan:
Prior to this, since we Pans came from Huizhou and sojourned in Suzhou,
we rarely married Suzhou people. When my mother married into the
family, our kin were all suspicious of her for fear that the luxurious local
customs of Suzhou would conflict with our family tradition but my
mother possessed the virtues of modesty and frugality every time my
grandmother went home to Huizhou for a visit, she entrusted all family
affairs to my mother . When my mother died, she ordered that no gold,
silver, or jewelry be put into the coffin so that the Huizhou family tradition (Xinan jiafeng ) would be carried on.15
Following the burial of Jingwens sons in Suzhou, and a decline in the family
fortunes three generations later, trips back to Huizhou were fewer, and the
Pans grew more and more absorbed in their lives in Suzhou. However, the
emotional link was never lost. As their place of ancestral origin, Huizhou became an object of longing and, when they could afford it, a romanticized travel
destination. Mians father, who disengaged from the family salt business to
pursue the career of a literatus though he was never able to earn a provincial
(juren) degree in the examinations, was said to have had a free-spirited character. Once, after an evening chat with a cousin about Huizhous famous scenery,
he became so moved by his imagining of this ancestral homeland that he began to talk to his cousin about making a trip back. Several days later, when the
cousin came to visit again, Mians father had already rented a boat, packed, and
was ready to go. Mian himself improvised on his ritual obligations by building
a temporary ancestral shrine beside his own house. He explained, Because my
forefathers regularly went back home to participate in sacrifices, we didnt
14
15

Dafu Panshi zhipu (1869), juan 18, passim.

Dafu Panshi zhipu (1869), 18:33ab.

Translocal Lineage and the Romance of Homeland Attachment

137

build formal shrines in Suzhou in order that our descendants could be reminded of the home place, and refrain from leaving it carelessly.16
The Suzhou Pans identification with Huizhou took priority over Suzhou,
channeling their resources away from Suzhou, and retarding their consciousness of being Suzhou men. This can be seen in their involvement in lineage
construction projects back in Dafu, as well as the inalienable relationship they
maintained between themselves and their agnates there. The lineage construction project in Dafu had started far before Jingwens father moved to Suzhou.
There were two attempts at compiling a genealogy in the Yuan-Ming transition
and the Wanli era, respectively. The first complete genealogy of the Dafu Pans
finally came out in 1651, in part thanks to the sponsorship of Jingwens father,
who was already an established salt merchant in Suzhou. The Pans in Dafu
tried to update the genealogy in the early part of the Qianlong era (17361795),
but failed because the Pans in Suzhou were too swamped by their own financial difficulties at the time to lend a hand.17
But the unfinished project of updating the genealogy weighed as heavily
with Mian as it did with his cousins back in Dafu. Lacking the resources to
bring the project to fruition, Mian acted on his concern vicariously, by composing a preface for the non-existent genealogy. In his preface Mian outlined the
main thread of the genealogys account. According to this thread, the first migrant ancestor of the Pans of Dafu was a man named You, who first moved to
Dafu Village from another locale in Huizhou sometime during the early Ming.
Generations prior to You could be traced all the way back to a legendary Tang
official, who was esteemed as the earliest ancestor of all Pans in Huizhou, and
were treated as remote ancestors whose other descendants were not intended
to be included in the genealogy of the Dafu Branch. This proposed genealogy,
notably, was conceived purely from the perspective of Dafu, in which the earliest settlers in Suzhou, i.e., Jingwen and his father, were not referred to as first
migrant ancestors in the pedigree.18 Even though five generations had lived in
Suzhou, the move from Huizhou to Suzhou still did not register in Mians mind
as sufficient to start a new lineage. For Mian, filial obligation should be directed not to the consolidation of the Pans in Suzhou as a distinct group, but to
their ancestors in Huizhou. The temporary ancestral shrine improvised to carry out his ritual obligations was not temporary in the sense that it was preparatory to building a permanent ancestral hall for the Pans of Suzhou, but in the
sense of it being an ad-hoc substitute for the hall back in Dafu. As Mian ex16
17
18

Dafu Panshi zhipu (1869), 24:9ab.

Dafu Panshi zhipu (1869), 24: 6ab
Dafu Panshi zhipu (1869), juanshou [Opening Materials]: 1a.

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plains it, the raison detre for this temporary shrine was that while sacrifices in
the ancestral shrine were ritually essential, the long distance often prevented
the Pan descendants from going back to Huizhou in person.19
When Yijun (17401830), Mians oldest son, received his jinshi degree
in 1769, the Pans of Suzhou finally saw a recovery of their family fortune. As
expected, Yijun soon resumed the trips to Huizhou, and used his influence to
help his agnates in their controversies with other surnames over sacrificial
land back home. The diary Yijun wrote during his trips, which will be discussed
in detail in the next section, reveals his emotional attachment to Huizhou,
which was still clearly perceived as home. However, substantial changes occurred about this time. In 1769, soon after Yijuns success in the civil service
examination, the Pans gave up their merchant household status in Hangzhou,
and formally re-registered (ruji ) in Suzhou as a local household. The Qing
household registration system in the mid-eighteenth century permitted sojourners to permanently register as a local household in their adopted place
under the condition that they held real estate, land, and a graveyard there.
Though the Pans had fulfilled this requirement since the time of Yijuns greatgrandfather, and had disengaged from the salt trade long ago, they did not
claim this right until the emergence of their first jinshi degree holder. The scarcity of sources prevents us from knowing precisely the reasons for this delayed
change of official status. However, we are certain that the Pans lineage practices in Suzhou, as well as their links to Huizhou, changed after Yijuns generation.
Demarcation and Inclusion: The Magic of Distance in the
Genealogy of 1854
In 1854, after twenty years of continuous work presided over by Yijuns grandson Zunqi, the Pans finally finished the compilation of their genealogy entitled
The Branch Genealogy of the Pans of Dafu. By this time the Pans of Suzhou
were well on the way to reaching the peak of their reputation and power in
Suzhou. Pan Shien (17691854), son of Yijuns younger brother, had
become a grand secretary at court several years before, and retired with great
honor. The Pans boasted eight jinshi degree holders in four consecutive generations, all of them the descendant of Jingwens first son, and more specifically,
all descended from Mian.
19

Dafu Panshi zhipu (1869), 24:9ab.

Translocal Lineage and the Romance of Homeland Attachment

139

In this genealogy, Zunqi paid homage to his great-grandfather Mian for setting the precedent for production of the lineage genealogy. He reviewed earlier
genealogy compilation projects back to the one of 1651, including the failed
effort in the early Qianlong era initiated by his agnates in Huizhou. It looks as
though Zunqi intended his genealogy to build on earlier ones that covered the
Pans of Dafu. However, there was an important subtle difference: this branch
genealogy of the Pans of Dafu was constructed from the perspective of Pans
living in Suzhou.
As his great-grandfather Mian had done, Zunqi traced the origin of the Pan
pedigree to the legendary Tang official, their earliest ancestor. But unlike Mian,
Zunqi treated You not as the first migrant ancestor of the branch to which he
belonged, but a sort of secondary remote ancestor. The generations from You
to Jingwens father occupied a category between the remote ancestors and the
Suzhou Pans proper. For this category Zunqi used an ambiguous term pushou
(, lit. genealogy heading). Therefore, the framework of Zunqis genealogy
consisted of three parts: the remote ancestors between the legendary Tang official and You, the pushou generations between You and Jingwens father, and
the genealogy proper beginning with Jingwen and continuing down to Zunqis
time. As for the principle of coverage, Zunqi stated that the genealogy proper
covers the nine branches descending from the nine sons of Jingwen. The
boundary of the clan was drawn at the generation of Jingwen, who was formally endorsed as the first migrant ancestor of the Suzhou Pans. Within this
boundary, the coverage should be as comprehensive as possible.20
The additional line drawn at Jingwens generation imagined a further division between the Pans of Dafu that did not exist in the time of Mian. The replacement of You with Jingwen as the first migrant ancestor, and confining
coverage to the descendants of Jingwen, all suggest that the event of migration
to Suzhou two centuries before had finally registered as the beginning of the
formation of a new kinship group. In effect, the Pans of Suzhou began to address themselves as a distinctive branch.
Zunqi was very clear about the notion of a branch genealogy and the boundaries he drew for the branch group. While defining the branch as descendants
of Jingwen only, he elaborated upon the reasons for calling his work a branch
genealogy: It was comprehensive only for our branch, leaving members of
other branches aside. As for the lines descended from the brothers of Jingwens father, as well as more distant lines, he stated, They are not covered
because this is a branch genealogy, which cannot include collateral branches.21
20
21

Dafu Panshi zhipu (1869), juanshou: 4ab.

In Dafu Panshi zhipu (1869), juanshou: 4ab.

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Translocal Lineage And The Romance Of Homeland Attachment

Clear though this boundary was, the link with agnates in Dafu was still recognized, as the genealogys title indicates. Normally titles of Qing genealogies
included a place-name and a surname, and followed the pattern genealogy of
X (surname) of Y (place-name). Zunqi was obviously complying with this convention. However, by Zunqis time, the connection between the two proper
names, Dafu and Pan, must have been deeply entrenched after being reiterated
for generations to express reverence for their ancestors; thus, the Pans of Suzhou honored Dafu as the place-name of their lineage. Therefore, just as the
Chinese word zhi (branch) always implies a relationship with gan
(stem), by calling their genealogy a branch and prefixing it with Dafu instead
of Suzhou they immediately implied this relatedness, through ancestral links,
with their place of origin and collaterals back there. Zunqis own explanation
makes this link explicit: It is still headed with the place-name Dafu to show
that we dare not forget where we came from.22
This relatedness was not only rhetorical but also substantial: some Pans living in Dafu were included in the genealogy. These were the descendants of
Zhaochen, Jingwens second son. As mentioned above, the widow of Jingwens
brother adopted Zhaochen, who later followed the family tradition into the
salt trade and fathered ten sons himself. Several generations later, with the decline of salt trade, descendants of half of these ten sons had moved back to
Dafu and permanently resettled there, while the other half stayed in Suzhou.
Officially, Zhaochen was adopted out, and should have been recorded as the
son of Jingwens brother. Zunqi knew this rule very well, so he admitted that
according to the rules of genealogical composition, the descendants of Zhaochen should not be included in this genealogy. However, he continued:
Though our ancestor Jingwen moved to Suzhou, he was still buried in
Huizhou. All the eight branches from his eight sons remained in Suzhou,
and were therefore unable to tend to the ancestral grave. Only the descendants of Zhaochen, half of whom re-settled in Dafu, fulfilled this obligation. Therefore, it is as if they were never adopted out. We should not
exclude them from this genealogy.23
Consistent with the intention to include some of the Pans in Huizhou, the
compilation project itself was carried out as a joint effort of agnates in both
places. Back in 1831, when Shien was still in the office of the Grand Secretary,
he had initiated the genealogy project by sending letters to Huizhou. He asked
22
23

Ibid.
Dafu Panshi zhipu (1869), juanshou: 1b.

Translocal Lineage and the Romance of Homeland Attachment

141

Pan Shiyong, a descendant from Zhaochen, to help collect and compile materials in Huizhou. At the same time, Shien instructed his oldest son, Pan Zengyi
(17921852), a well-known Suzhou philanthropist, to produce a draft genealogy. Zengyis draft was primarily a chart of names of the Pans in Suzhou,
limited to the nine braches descending from Jingwen.24 The genealogy of 1854
was in fact based on Zengyis draft, with editing by the Pans of both Suzhou
and Huizhou, who communicated by mail during this process.25
Therefore, because the genealogy was prefixed with Dafu, included some
of the Dafu residents, and was compiled through the joint effort of the Pans in
both places, the purportedly clear boundary was blurred yet again. The clarity
of the boundary derived from the principle of patrilineal descent, while the
ambiguity arose from the complicated issue of just how to treat the Zhaochen
branch, half of which was in Suzhou, and half in Huizhou. According to the
principle of patrilineal descent, all of the Zhaochen branch as Zunqi well
knew should have been excluded. If residential proximity was the concern,
the Suzhou half of the Zhaochen branch could have been retained while the
Huizhou half was not. However, inclusion of the whole Zhaochen branch was,
as Zunqi stated, justified by the fact that the Huizhou half looked after the ancestral graves. In other words, the Suzhou half of the Zhaochen branch was
admitted into the genealogy thanks to its Huizhou counterpart. In this sense,
ironically, it was the distance between the two places that led to this unusual
decision, because it prevented the Suzhou Pans from personally tending to the
ancestral graves and made the Huizhou agnates indispensable for fulfilling
ritual obligations. This magical effect of distance resulted from the crucial fact
that the first migrant ancestor of the Suzhou Pans came from Huizhou and
was buried back in Huizhou. In the final analysis, it was the Pan agnates movement between places that led to the blurring of lineage boundaries.
Zunqi must have been very aware of, if not bothered by, the complexities
created by having multiple places to account for in the construction of the
lineage. Therefore, in the editorial rules (fanli ) section, he took pains to
explain the use of place-names in the genealogy:
The original location of our family was Huizhou [in Anhui Province], but
we moved to Suzhou [in Jiangsu Province]. In the genealogy, places in
these two provinces will be indicated only by county- and prefecturelevel names, without mentioning the names of the province. This is to
highlight the fact that we are formally re-registered (fuji ) as a
24
25

Dafu Panshi zhipu (1869), juanshou: 4ab.

Dafu Panshi zhipu (1908), 18: 28b, 107a.

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Translocal Lineage And The Romance Of Homeland Attachment

household in Suzhou. As for the fact that generations before, our forefathers were registered in Hangzhou [in Zhejiang Province] because of the
salt trade, that was just a temporary registration ( jiji ). Therefore in
cases when a place in Zhejiang Province is mentioned, the province
name will be included.
Terms used in Qing legislation for formal and temporary re-registration in another place were ruji and jiji, respectively. But in daily language, peoples use of
these terms often varied slightly from the government statues. (See Chapter 6.)
Zunqis used of the word fuji to describe their permanent change of household registration was obviously one of these cases. The careful explanation of
place-names was probably an effort to address the difference between permanent and temporary change of registration, so that, by formally mentioning its
name, Zhejiang was marked as a non-home province. Whatever the real reason
for this treatment of place-names, the fact that Zunqi felt it necessary to explain this difference makes it clear that he was cognizant of both the different
locales to which the family had historical connections, and the complexity
they introduced to working out this new lineage.
In sum, as a work mainly concerned with the Suzhou Pans, this genealogy
bore a Huizhou name, included agnates from Huizhou, and was compiled
jointly by the Pans from both Huizhou and Suzhou. the Suzhou Pans translocal connections with Huizhou continued to influence the lineage groups identity, even after they began to address themselves as a distinctive group.
Obligation and Opportunity: A Tale of Two Places
The Suzhou Pans lineage-building activities started before the completion of
the genealogy. In 1832 Zunqi donated 1,004 mu of land and incorporated it, together with smaller donations from other members of the clan, into the Pans
lineage estate called the Songlin Estate. Using the funds generated by the
Songlin Estate, an ancestral hall was constructed in accordance with Zunqis
vision of the pedigree. The three major shrines of the ancestral hall were dedicated, respectively, to Mian, the most remarkable advocate of the lineage construction; to Jingwen, the first migrant ancestor; and to the legendary Tang
official, their earliest ancestor. Back in Dafu an ancestral hall had existed since
the late Ming, and all these ancestors were also enshrined there. Thus the Pans
had two sets of ancestral halls sited at a great distance apart, a pattern typical
of migrant merchants from Huizhou during the Ming and Qing periods.26
26

For a discussion of the Huizhou merchants construction of ancestral halls in places

where they did business, see Wang Zhenzhong, Ming Qing huishang yu huaiyang shehui

Translocal Lineage and the Romance of Homeland Attachment

143

Aside from supporting collective ancestral observances for all Jingwens descendants, the estates major function was to provide charity for kinsmen in
need. An issue of fundamental import, the condition for receiving charity is
defined in the first rule in Ordinances of the Songlin Estate (Songlin zhuang
guitiao ), issued in 1832. That rule states, We Pans have proliferated and scattered in Suzhou, Huizhou, and other places. Now the boundary of
the charity coverage is set at our great-great-great-grandfather Jingwen. All descendants of Jingwen can receive charity support if needed. Those who are not
descendants of Jingwen should not apply to take advantage of this resource,
nor should they donate or seek to join .27
As we have seen, Shien, the most powerful member of the Pans, had earlier
indicated his intention to include the Zhaochen branch. The rules reference to
the scattered state of the agnates and the restriction of lineage charity to descendants of Jingwen indicate that Zhaochens descendants in Huihzou were
included in the estates charitable coverage. But in 1837, this rule was modified
in a more specific charter entitled Ordinances on Lineage Charity Issues of
the Songlin Estate (Songlin Zhuang Zhanzu Guitiao ). This
document clarified that the descendants of Jingwen were the nine branches,
and then stated that descendants of Jingwen who live in Suzhou are qualified
to receive charity support. But those who live in other places are difficult to
clearly identify (emphasis mine). Therefore as a rule they are not to be covered.28
Two incidents help us understand this drastic change in the lineage policy
on charity, especially the exclusion of Huizhou agnates. The first occurred in
183233. During these two years Huizhou suffered flood, drought, and famine.
Shiyong (the same person Shien had contacted for the genealogy project) was
a local activist in Huizhou who advocated relief. He wrote to Zunqi and Zhengyi requesting financial assistance. A charity project like famine relief always
involved large numbers of people desperately in need of aid, and it was therefore difficult to distinguish lineage members from non-members, let alone
keeping track of branches within a kin group. This kind of general charity obviously constituted a threat to the intended boundary of the estates charity coverage. Zunqi apparently did give Shiyong a hand in this project, because
Shiyongs biographer mentions this anecdote with pride.29 But that situation
must have cautioned Zunqi to find a more effective way to confine coverage.

27
28
29

bianqian (Beijing: Sanlian Shudian 1996). See also Shirai

Sachiko , Huizhou wangshi jiazu de qianxi yu shangye huodong
[Migration and Commerce of the Wangs of Huizhou], in Jianhuai Luntan 1995.1.
Dafu Panshi zhipu (1869), 20:1a.
Dafu Panshi zhipu (1869), 21:6b
Dafu Panshi zhipu (1869), 20:37b39b.

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The second incident also concerns Shiyong. After the establishment of the
Songlin Estate, Shiyong accomplished an admirable feat of filial piety in Huizhou by managing to buy back the Songlin Villa, a retreat house in Dafu that
belonged to Jingwen, after which the Songlin Estate was named. As the former
residence of a revered ancestor, the Songlin Villa had long been a symbol of the
Pans virtue and good reputation. However, with the decline of the family fortunes, it was sold to people of a different surname. Shiyong was ashamed by
the loss of this ancestral residence. Every time he passed by, he lingered, saddened, and only left it with great reluctance.30 Determined to rectify this loss,
Shiyong accumulated savings from his modest income as a scholar, and finally
bought it back. This touching story soon reached Suzhou and eventually the
most powerful of the Pans Shien who was then serving as a Grand Secretary in Beijing. With Shiens intervention, the Pans decided that the Songlin
Estate should send money back every year to support the ancestral sacrifices in
Dafu, and designated Shiyong to manage the funds and the rituals.31
The sources do not state when this happened, but it must have been about
1837, because it was in that year that another lineage charter, the Ordinances
on Ritual Issues of the Songlin Estate (Songlin Zhuang Jisi Guitiao
), was issued.32 This charter includes the rule that the estate should annually send 14,000 wen back to Dafu, to provide for sacrifices to Jingwen. The
money was to be entrusted to a reliable elder chosen from among the agnates
in Dafu and used for the designated purpose. Expenditures were to be reported
to the Songlin Estate immediately after the yearly rituals.
These two documents from 1837 were essentially attempts to clarify and
regularize the Suzhou Pans financial obligations in Huizhou. Now that those
obligations had become purely a ritual matter, Huizhou agnates of the remote
branches were in effect prevented from claiming benefits; even members of
the Zhaochen branch residing in Dafu were not to receive formal assistance.
However, they would still receive special funds for maintaining the ancestral
graves and performing the rites.
Disputes over the coverage of lineage charity were not uncommon in late
imperial China.33 What deserves specific attention is the fact that in the Pan
30
31
32
33

Ibid.
Ibid.
Dafu Panshi zhipu (1869), 21:4a.
Jerry Dennerlines study of lineage practices in Wuxi provides another case in which
controversies over the coverage of a charitable estate constitutes part of lineage dyn
amics. See Dennerline, Marriage, Adoption, and Charity in the Development of Lineage

Translocal Lineage and the Romance of Homeland Attachment

145

case Zunqi tried to sort out the different types of obligations he had in different places. In the first story, Shiyong relied on his Suzhou agnates as an extralocal resource that could play a part in the local affairs of Huizhou. The practice
whereby Huizhou men living outside their native place contributed to local
famine relief in Huizhou was not new. Jingwen, for instance, did just this in the
early Qing. In the famine relief campaign of 1751, Huizhou men living in other
places had also provided generous support to people in the home place. (See
Chapter 3.) Therefore, Shiyongs turning to his Suzhou agnates for assistance
would not have been considered unreasonable. But Zunqi seems to have had a
different understanding of the issue. Being of the third generation since his
grandfather Yijuns official registration in Suzhou, Zunqi clearly thought himself a Suzhou man, something he later expressed in his preface to the genealogy of 1869. As lineage head of the Suzhou Pans for almost half a century, he
had never set foot in Huizhou, so being asked to contribute to local affairs in
Huizhou might well have seemed an onerous duty.
This does not necessarily mean that Zunqis charity activity was strictly limited to his own lineage. He was himself something of a local activist in Suzhou,
serving as general manager of the Wu-Yuan-Chang Granary (Wu-Yuan-Chang
beifeng cang ), the most important local charity project in late
Qing Suzhou, to which he had donated large amounts of land.34 The problem
for Zunqi was, the local affairs to which he felt most obligated were those of
Suzhou. Obligations in Huizhou, however, should be delegated to the lineage.
But it was not easy to define lineage obligations remotely, especially since he
wanted to draw a line through their agnates in the village of Dafu and take responsibility for only a part of them. The second incident must have inspired
him to define the lineage obligation in Huizhou as a ritual one. By regularizing
the funding for ritual obligations, he could use the boundary between the two
places to simplify the involvement in Huizhou, where the boundaries between
different branches of kinsmen, and between local and lineage affairs, were
messy and hard to maintain.
However, this carefully designed regulation was not able to solve the problem permanently. On the one hand, many Huizhou agnates moved to Suzhou
to seek out opportunities, making the boundary between the two places an
ineffective means for enforcing restrictions on lineage charity; on the other

34

in Wu-hsi from Song to Ching, in Kinship organization, eds., Ebrey and Watson, 186
194.
See Yamana Hirofumi , Shin matsu Kososhu no ghiso Sosh h-bi-s no baai
[Charity Granary in Jiangsu during the
Late Qing: the Case of Fengbei Granary of Suzhou], in Toyo Gakuho, 58:12 (1976).

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Translocal Lineage And The Romance Of Homeland Attachment

hand, kinship values per se might be highlighted under certain circumstances,

drawing the attention of Suzhou Pans to more comprehensive lineage obligations in Dafu.
While the 1837 rules on lineage charity cut off regular charitable support to
the Huizhou Pans, those included in the nine branches might still receive
benefits as long as they lived in Suzhou. In the following decades, the Huizhou
agnates of the Zhaochen branch continued to send their youngsters to Suzhou
for business opportunities or for better education in the lineage school. For
example, several of Shiyongs sons and grandsons had extended stays in Suzhou, and received support from their Suzhou agnates.35 Their regular presence in Suzhou is revealed by the bifurcation of their burial places: of the 141
men recorded as Huizhou agnates of the Zhaochen branch in the 1908 edition
of the genealogy, sixteen were buried in Suzhou, while almost all the others
were buried in Huizhou.36 Considering that they would normally try to transport the remains of their dead back to Huizhou, the number of Huizhou Pans
residing in Suzhou must have been substantial.
However, among the Huizhou Pans that flooded into Suzhou were agnates
who were not included in the nine branches. To respond to this situation,
Zunqi reorganized the management of the Songlin Estate in 1837, designating
one seat on the management committee for a representative of the Huizhou
Pans (selected from Zhaochens descendants). The responsibility of this representative was to identify and verify the credentials of beneficiaries among the
Huizhou Pans.37 Another response to the regular presence of Huizhou Pans in
Suzhou was the further revision of the lineage charity charter in 1847: a new
rule was added, stipulating that financial aid in the amount of 5,000 wen should
be provided for the purpose of transporting the coffins of the Huizhou agnates who sojourned in Suzhou and died here. However, a clear warning followed this to the effect that falsely claimed money will be traced, which
obviously refers to the existence of ineligible claimants to such charity benefits.38
The difficulties entailed in trying to maintain a clear boundary became
more obvious in the aftermath of the Taiping Rebellion (18511864). After the
rebels had been pacified, Suzhou went through a wave of lineage construction
because the traumatized local elites saw this as one method for restoring or-

35
36
37
38

Dafu Panshi zhipu (1908), juan 18. passim.

Dafu Panshi zhipu (1908), juan 2, Shixi kao: shunlin gong zhi.
Dafu Panshi zhipu (1908), juan 19: 3b4a.
Dafu Panshi zhipu (1869), juan 21:10a.

Translocal Lineage and the Romance of Homeland Attachment

147

der.39 The Pans lost dozens of lineage members, some in massacres, and even
more during the ensuing chaos. Such traumatic experiences in unprecedented
social turbulence greatly strengthened kinship ties, as Zunqi recounted in
many of his writings after the war.40 To reorganize the dispersed agnates and
repair the damage done to their lineage institutions, Zunqi ventured to build a
collective graveyard in Suzhou, an enterprise not envisioned when the lineage
estate was first established thirty years earlier. This revived zeal for lineage
building might explain Zunqis usually positive response to further requests for
financial support from Huizhou agnates.
Huizhou was also thrown into turmoil by the Taiping Rebellion. In 1866 Huizhou agnates decided to renovate the ancestral hall, which had been damaged
in the war. The method they used to fund the project was to tax each local person in the lineage a certain amount, and turn to their agnates in other places
for the difference. Though this project involved not just the Zhaochen branch,
but also other more distant agnates in Dafu, Zunqi responded positively and
even wrote an essay to commemorate this project.41 Two years later, in the 1868
Ordinance on Lineage Charity Issues the rules were revised again, increasing
the amount of money to be made available to the Huizhou agnates engaged in
transporting coffins back to Huizhou to 8,000 wen. This time the warning about
false claims was omitted, and the purpose of this greater support stated in a
sentimental tone to encourage burial in the ancestral land.42 By the 1880s,
the Suzhou Pans had even put in place a rule that Suzhou youngsters should be
sent back to Huizhou to sweep ancestral graves and renew their links with the
home place.
The question that emerges here is just why the Suzhou Pans took such pains
to take part in the lineage projects back in Huizhou. By the time their lineage
was founded, they were already well established in Suzhou. In terms of social
status and prestige, they had already produced eight jinshi degree holders and
one grand secretary. There was certainly no need for them to raise their prestige by cementing connections with their modest agnates in Huizhou. Recent
studies show that the Pans were also deeply involved in the local affairs of Suzhou.43 Zengyi, Shiens oldest son founded the Fengyu Estate , a char39
40
41
42
43

Fan Jinmin, Qingdai Suzhou zongzu yitian de fazhan [The

Development of Lineage Estate in Qing Suzhou], in Zhongguoshi yanjiu 1995.3.
Dafu Panshi zhipu, (1869), 24:36a37b.
Dafu Panshi zhipu (1992), 157778.
Dafu Panshi zhipu (1869), juan 21:12b.
Yu Xinzhong , Qing zhonghou qi xiangshen de shehui jiuji: Suzhou fengyu
zhuang yanjiu : [Gentry Philanthropy of
Mid- and Late-Qing: A Study of Fengyu Estate in Suzhou], in Nankai xuebao, 1997-3;

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Translocal Lineage And The Romance Of Homeland Attachment

ity institution established for the purpose of benefiting Suzhou local society as
a whole. Zunqi himself, as mentioned above, was also an activist in Suzhou local affairs.44 Obviously, Huizhou agnates were not directly relevant to the social standing of the Pans in Suzhou. Therefore, the explanation must be sought
in the moral and ritual obligations the Suzhou Pans felt toward their ancestors.
An inescapable reality was that their first migrant ancestor, who gave rise to
the new lineage group, was buried far away in Huizhou. Agnates who were
theoretically separate were resiliently linked to them because of the responsibility to take care of the ancestral graves. This situation determined that Huizhou and the agnates living there remained an undeniable part of the ritual
and moral obligations of the newly formed lineage in Suzhou.
However, ritual and moral obligations are never neutral, but always exist in
specific social contexts, and as such they are liable to be contested. The dynamics around defining the scope of these obligations by the Pans of Huizhou and
Suzhou demonstrate just this. The Suzhou Pans consistently attempted to
mark off their kin group and preferred a minimalist definition of obligations.
In contrast, the extended group of Pans in Huizhou who tended to ignore the
boundaries set by the Suzhou Pans expected the broadest possible definition
of the Suzhou Pans obligations. To understand these different attitudes, we
must keep in mind that for the former, kinship ties with their Huizhou agnates
were hardly relevant to their survival and social standing in Suzhou, and therefore were primarily about obligation. But for the latter, the existence of powerful and rich agnates in Suzhou was reasonably perceived as a ready external
source of support. Zhaochens descendants who lived in Huizhou were somewhere in between. For them, the immediate environment was the local community in Huizhou and the extended group of Pan kinsmen in Dafu. Therefore
they surely found it difficult to consider themselves only part of the new lineage forming in Suzhou. Shiyongs family is a good example of this. For the
three generations since his grandfather they had been notable scholars in Huizhou and remained engaged in local affairs.45 Later, his son and grandson attempted independently to compile a more comprehensive genealogy of the
Pans of Dafu, from which the Suzhou Pans had differentiated themselves.
Frequent controversies between different surnames in Huizhou also made it

44

45

Fengyu zhuang fei Pan shi zongzu yizhuang. [The Fengyu

Estate was not Lineage Estate of the Pans], in Zhongguo nongshi, 15:2 (1996).
Besides being one of the managers of the Wu-Yuan-Chang Granary, Zunqi also served as
the director of the Ziyang Academy, a major local academy in Suzhou. See Suzhou fuzhi
(1883), 25:52a.
Dafu Panshi zhipu (1869), juan 20:37b39b; Dafu Panshi zhipu (1908), juan 18:1ab.

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149

necessary for the Pans of different branches to identify with one another and
come together every now and then in solidarity.46 However, their special relationship with the Suzhou Pans also made them eligible for lineage charity in
Suzhou, an opportunity they did not hesitate to take.
In this picture of contested obligations, the Suzhou Pans deserve specific
attention. Although they tried to demarcate their kin group and regulate obligations, the kinship orientation a countervailing tendency persistently
drew them in the opposite direction. The key issue behind such wavering was
the separation of the ancestral place from their place of residence. That separation meant the importance of kinship ties for their social standing in the
immediate environment faded; gradually it might have been reduced to purely
ritual and moral obligations. These circumstances gave rise to the reasonable
desire to demarcate and restrict. But the kinship orientation was not so easily
overcome; it continued to blur the boundaries they drew and motivated them
to embrace their obligations in Huizhou. This tension between ritual and moral obligations on the one hand, and the reality of living far away from their
native place on the other, meant the Pans lineage practice expanded beyond
the local arena and entered a new kind of domain that encompassed two distant places.
The Romance of Home Place Attachments and Contested Nativeplace Identity
Current scholarship on the subject of native place identity has largely focused
on the practice of it in host (usually urban) places, paying particular attention
to the native place lodge (huiguan) as the central institution for these practices. Debates have arisen over how enduring the native place identity of sojourners could be in their adopted urban circumstances.47 In fact, native place
identity was possible only when people moved beyond their place of origin but
maintained a certain kind of connection to it. The practice of native place
identity was thus inseparable from the connection between sojourners and
their places of origin, and therefore had an inherently translocal dimension.
To highlight this dimension, we should take into consideration not only city
46

47

For example, the remotely related Pans living in different villages cooperated in the graveyard controversy against another surname in 1897. Shiyongs grandson participated in this
concerted operation. See Dafu Panshi zhipu (1992), 164143.
Dou, Tongxiang zuzhi; Ho, Zhongguo huiguan; Skinner, Urban Social Structure: Rowe,
Commerce and Society; Conflict and Community; Goodman, Place, city, and nation.

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dwellers representations of their native place in the host locale, but also their
actual engagement and interaction with the native place. In this way, we can
explore their subjective position between the home and host places, and more
fully understand the dynamics of geographical identity formation in the face
of increased spatial mobility.
The above analysis of lineage practices among the Pans of Suzhou indicates
that urban peoples native place ties, derived from entrenched kinship values,
were also greatly reinforced by the institution of the lineage and could be more
resilient than we had previously thought. In the rest of this chapter, I will explore two trips by Suzhou Pans to their home place, and provide an analysis of
how their native place identity was at once perpetuated by kinship values and
lineage practices, and also problematized by their experiences of living in Suzhou.
The first trip was made in 1804 by a delegation led by Yijun, the first of the
Suzhou Pans to earn a jinshi degree and officially re-register as a Suzhou man.
On this occasion Yijun used his status as a jinshi degree holder and his influence as a retired official to help his Huizhou agnates in a dispute with other
surname groups over sacrificial land. Thereafter, the Pans embraced their unprecedented prosperity in Suzhou. Their travel to Huizhou then ceased for
about 70 years, until it was resumed in 1881 and its observance became a rule.
During that period, they clearly expressed a Suzhou identity: shortly before the
compilation of the 1854 genealogy, Shien had, in his writings, already declared
himself a Suzhou native.48 Zunqi also unambiguously identified himself as a
Suzhou man, something evident in the preface he wrote for the revised genealogy in 1869, wherein he stated, we Suzhou people vary in the frequency with
which we update genealogies .
The second trip was made by a delegation led by Zhongrui in 1881. On this
trip the Suzhou Pans unambiguously considered themselves Suzhou men, but
the purpose for which they were sent, to sweep the ancestral graveyards, dictated that they should also identify themselves as descendants of their ancestors, who came from Huizhou and were buried back there. Thus, tension
between a robust local identity based in Suzhou and the persistent kinship
identity based in Huizhou was displayed during the homeland trip. Both Yijun
and Zhongrui kept diaries of their travel, and my analysis will be based primarily on these two accounts.49
48
49

See Pan Shien, Xiao shu sui bi . The self-reference of the author was Pan Shien
of the Wu County (Wu xian Pan Shien ).
Pan Yijun, Zhan mu ri ji [Diary of the Trip to Visit Ancestral Tombs], in Dafu
Panshi zhipu (1992). Pan Zhongrui, She xing riji [Diary of the Trip to She
County], in Xiangchan jingshe ji.

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151

The reason for Yijuns trip was that the sacrificial land dedicated to Jingwen,
due to years of poor management, had been divided up by the agnates in Huizhou, and to a great extent sold off to other surnames. As time went on, the
situation deteriorated even further and the lands immediately surrounding the
grave site were also transferred to other surnames. News of this finally reached
the Pans in Suzhou. Not surprisingly, they saw it as a case of outsiders encroaching on the ancestral graveyard. The indignant Pans assembled and deliberated, quickly reaching a consensus that they should do something about it
because, as Yijun explained, If we remain indifferent, what use are we descendants [to the ancestors]?
On the thirteenth day of the third month, a delegation led by Yijun set off
for Huizhou. After traveling for seventeen days, they arrived at the village of
Dafu on the last day of the third month and began to pay visits to the ancestral
halls and ancestral graves. On the fifth day of the fourth month, Yijun set out to
sweep Jingwens grave, which was located about 45 li from Dafu village. From
the graveyard Yijun went directly to the city, which served during the Ming and
Qing periods as both the prefectural seat of Huizhou prefecture and the county seat of She County.
He spent the next two days visiting the most powerful people in the city: the
prefect and the county magistrate. He also saw the registry officer (jingli, )
of the prefecture and some of his old friends, who were local gentry. As a retired official and a jinshi, Yijuns visits to local officials could have been a common social courtesy among the gentry. But two clues suggest that he intended
to take care of personal business as well. First, he returned to the city again
three days later, on the tenth day of the fourth month, and again met the prefect as well as the registry officer. Second, on the fifth day of the fourth month,
while at Jingwens grave and shortly before his first visit to the local officials,
Yijun wrote a poem in which he lamented how other surnames were encroaching on ancestral lands and expressed his determination to get them back.50 A
merely social visit to local officials would usually not be followed by a second
visit shortly thereafter, nor was it likely to occur if the visitor was feeling indignant. Furthermore, the two meetings with the registry official suggest that Yijun chose to visit officials who could best provide assistance in the recovery of
the lost sacrificial land. Therefore, we can reasonably conclude that Yijun used
his status, influence, and social connections to seek a remedy to the situation
that had led to Pans visit to Huizhou. This conjecture is confirmed by an essay
Yijun wrote commemorating the event:
50

Dafu Panshi zhipu (1992), 1541.

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Based on the deeds, we traced the people who bought it as well as the
prices they paid and paid compensation for all the lands that could be
traced. The redeemed lands, together with the [tiny piece] that was kept
intact and some other lands we bought anew, were incorporated and
endowed to the ancestral hall as designated sacrificial land for our ancestor Jingwen. After appealing to the officials, a stele was placed there to
commemorate this event.51
The controversy was soon settled. Six days after his second visit with the officials, Yijun was ready to return to Suzhou. The amazing speed with which this
complicated case of land transfer was settled, as well as the fact that it received
official endorsement, suggests that as a jinshi degree holder and a retired official who had earned a good reputation while serving in the capital, Yijuns intervention in the local affairs of Huizhou from beyond the local arena was
effective.52 This intervention calls to mind Robert Hymes study of Fuzhou during the Song dynasty, in which local sons of Fuzhou serving as officials elsewhere initiated contact with local officials of their home place to remain
actively involved in local affairs.53 In both cases, events in the home place
caused concern and intervention by the local sons acting from beyond the local arena, and the primary reason behind such intervention is the link of kinship. But there is also a significant difference between these cases. In Hymes
study, the place identity of the sons of Fuzhou was clear and simple their
home place constituted the center of their attention and activities. Serving in
other places did not involve settling there, nor did it give rise to a sense of belonging to those places. But in the case of Yijun, he had officially registered as
a Suzhou man, and so a second locale was involved in the formation of his
place identity.
Given this, Yijuns relationship with Huizhou was inevitably ambiguous. On
the one hand, most of his life had been spent in Suzhou, and by the time of this
trip he had been officially a Suzhou man for about thirty years. His experience
and status there certainly had an effect on his place identity, for it was to Suzhou that he retired from his career as a civil official. Therefore, Huizhou had
51
52

53

Dafu Panshi zhipu (1869), juan 24: 11ab.

In the Ming and Qing periods, legal controversies over landownership could last for
decades or even generations. For examples of these prolonged legal disputes, see Park,
Liu shan fang shi; A Feng, Yang gan yuan, The obsession with legal disputes over land
was also registered as one of the major local customs by Cheng Minzheng, the leading
literary figure of Huizhou in the late 15th century. See Cheng Minzheng, Huang dun wen ji,
juan 35:21a22b; juan 27:12a13b.
Hymes, Statesmen and Gentlemen, 124135.

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153

not been a direct factor in most of his life and, as I argued in the previous section, not relevant to his social standing in Suzhou.
On the other hand, his attachment to the home place was certainly emotional. After settling the controversy over the sacrificial land and before his
return to Suzhou, Yijun enjoyed several days of leisure, drinking and chatting
with his agnates in Dafu village, teaching the children in the lineage school,
and visiting other ancestral graves. Apparently this stirred his poetic imagination yet again, for in a poem composed after his visits to the ancestral graves,
he wrote: village life sustains the close ties of kinship dwelling here we
pledge to uphold the ancestral root forever. The night before he boarded the
boat for Suzhou, he composed another poem, which reads: the land is the
home where I remain attached; the route is familiar after so many trips along
it. Tomorrow I will unfasten the anchor and depart, Oh, the ten thousand viridian mountains all around 54
This resilient sense of belonging and attachment to Huizhou can be partly
explained by the fact that, at Yijuns time, the clear representation of the Suzhou Pans as a distinct kin group still lay in the future and organizing kinsmen
scattered across the city for collective ancestral rituals was not easy. His stay
with agnates in a rural environment and the fulfillment of obligations to his
ancestors must have appealed to him, and sustained his sense of belonging
and attachment. Therefore, although Huizhou was not present in his daily life,
it was also not so far away. Once he returned, the amity and sense of belonging
were quickly renewed. An interesting footnote to this, Yijun made no mention
of Suzhou in his diary until the day he was to return.
The ambiguity of Yijuns position between Suzhou and Huizhou reveals a
changing dynamic in the formation of place identity brought about by translocal activities. The phenomenon of sojourning, settling, and eventually re-registering in other places so common from the late Ming meant that people who
frequently left their local arena had sort out to position themselves in relation
to more than one place. Although a change in ones place of residence and in
household registration status did not immediately overwrite connections to
the home place, or totally determine identity formation, these changes would
take effect in the long run. We can see how this played out in the second trip,
made by Pan Zhongrui, in which the emotional attachment expressed by Yijun
was no longer a factor when the Suzhou Pans returned to Huizhou seventy
years later.
In 1881, another delegation of four Pans went to Huizhou, with a mission to
supervise the construction of a graveyard for the un-interred coffins in Dafu, as
54

Dafu Panshi zhipu (1869), juan 24: 15b.

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Translocal Lineage And The Romance Of Homeland Attachment

well as tending to long-neglected ancestral graves. The reason for this mission
was that due to the custom of choosing geomantically auspicious burial places,
delays in burial became a serious social problem in Huizhou. Some coffins of
the Zhaochen descendants had remained un-interred for more than one hundred years. In 1881, the Huizhou agnates sent a letter to the Songlin Estate asking for assistance in a project designed to resolve the matter. Zunqis response
exceeded their expectations. He decided to build a graveyard for the Huizhou
agnates, as he had done a dozen years before in Suzhou. This mission was entrusted to Zhongrui, who was one generation younger than Zunqi and from a
different sub-branch.55 At this point it had been over seventy years since any
prominent members of the Suzhou Pans had journeyed to Huizhou.
Zhongruis route back to Huizhou was the same as Yijuns: the water route,
starting at Suzhou and proceeding along the Grand Canal to Hangzhou, and
then up along the Xinan River all the way to Huizhou. The route was an ancient one, punctuated by various historical sites and the storied episodes from
across generations of Huizhou immigrant travels. As a well-educated man
Zhongrui knew these very well. Even the inns that had hosted Yijun decades
before, including the owners names, were all familiar. Understandably, the
slow progress along this ancient water route (which took him almost two
weeks) may very well have stirred his imagination about this ancestral home
he had never seen, such that he eagerly anticipated his arrival there. When the
boat arrived in Chunan County, Zhejiang Province a county that had
been previously under the administrative jurisdiction of Huizhou Zhongrui
wrote in his diary, since this used to be part of Huizhou, I can say I have
arrived.56 However, the sentiment of having returned, so prevalent in Yijuns
travel diary was notably missing from Zhongruis. Predominant in the latter are
vivid descriptions of the natural scenery along the route, suggestive of a relaxed and pleasant journey.
The Suzhou Pans arrival was followed by a series of escorted visits around
the village, obviously to familiarize Zhongrui with the ancestral halls as well as
the families of living agnates. The agnates welcome dinners were entertaining,
and the dishes notably different, for Zhongrui noted that these were Huizhou
local cuisine that I never tried before.57
The construction of the graveyard was carried out quickly, with agnates
from remote branches hired for the task. Though there were some complaints
from the workers about wages, Zhongrui easily placated them by suggesting
55
56
57

Dafu Panshi zhipu (1908), juan 18: 23a24b.

Xiangchan jishe ji, juan14:8a.
Xiangchan jishe ji, juan 14:16a.

Translocal Lineage and the Romance of Homeland Attachment

155

that contributing to the lineage project was the obligation of all. What especially caught his attention was the difference in grave styles between Huizhou
and Suzhou. After carefully observing the details of the Huizhou style, he recorded these differences in his diary. The term Huizhou people used for sacrificial land (jitian ) was also different, as he wrote in his diary, Huizhou
people call it goodness graveyard (shanying ).58
While agnate-workers were digging graves, Zhongrui found himself doing
some digging of another sort researching lineage history. The ancestral hall
was full of inscriptions accumulated through the years, celebrating the achievements and virtues of Pan agnates from as early as the late Ming. He also discovered untouched manuscripts written by his forefathers in their preserved
residences. Zhongruis literary skills proved useful here. After some collation,
he was able to figure out the whos who of names on the inscriptions as well
as their relationships with his forefathers. This must have been a pleasant task,
for he listed in his dairy each item of the inscriptions and manuscripts, and
even hand copied some of them to take back to Suzhou.
Buildings were also of major interest to Zhongrui as he toured the village.
The Songlin Studio constructed by Jingwen was frequently discussed among
agnates of Suzhou. Zhongrui also knew from reading the county gazetteer that
it was a noteworthy spot in the county. Yet the dilapidated conditions of the
studio, together with the total ruin and disappearance of some other wellknown buildings connected with memories of his forefathers, really touched
him, and he wrote, This deserves great lamentation.59 However, his sense of
regret was immediately dispelled by the discovery of amusing things. After
walking around a complex of buildings he came upon a shabby shrine to the
Earth God. The shrine was adorned with paintings on the wall, but they must
have been painted by some local amateur, for Zhongrui commented that they
were rustic and laughter-inducing.60
Zhongruis stay in Huizhou was generally pleasant, and the agnates treated
him generously. Prior to the day of Beginning of Summer (lixia ), he spent
two days on a visit to Jingwens graveyard, visited the city on the way back, and
bought a book about the tourist sites in Huizhou. After returning to the village,
Zhongrui received praise from some senior members of the lineage for the
long distance he had traveled to attend to Jingwens grave. On the day of Beginning of Summer he wrote, Huizhou local custom requires that each household should eat soup and cake, and that a younger agnate brought some for
58
59
60

Xiangchan Jingshe ji, juan 14:20a.

Xiangchan Jingshe ji, juan 14:19b.
Xiangchan jishe ji, juan 14:17a.

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him. After completing the graveyard project, Zhongrui made a tour of Huangshan (Mt. Huang), the most famous tourist spot in Huihzou, and then
returned directly from Huangshan to Suzhou.
In his travel diary, Zhongruis identification with Suzhou is conspicuous.
The terms like Huizhou people and Huizhou customs naturally
referred to by Zhongrui indicate his outsiders position. At the same time, unfamiliar things in the everyday life and customs of Huizhou, had to be understood through comparison with those of Suzhou. Suzhou dialect is mentioned
three times in the diary. Two occasions were when he encountered Huizhou
agnates who could speak it (most likely because they had spent some time in
Suzhou). The third time was during his tour to Huangshan when an innkeepers ability to speak Suzhou dialect also amazed him. A local peasant he met on
the Huangshan tour who had been to Suzhou was also recorded in the diary.
Obviously Suzhou was at the center of his consciousness and things related to
it always caught his attention. As a skillful prose writer, Zhongrui later published his account under the title Diary of a Trip to She County. This title, with
its deliberate emotional neutrality, seems an interesting sign of Zhongruis perspective on the place he visited. In the diarys brief preface, Zhongrui describes
the trip as one not to a home place, but to the zuji (the place of ancestors,
literally the ancestors [place of household] registration).
Zhongruis identification with Suzhou did not mean the complete cessation
of relations with Huizhou. Back in Suzhou, he soon submitted a suggestion to
Zunqi that a Huizhou trip be conducted on a regular basis. Every two or three
years, Zhongrui proposed, two or more Pan agnates should be sent to Huizhou
for the ancestral rites, in order to remind the Pan descendants in Suzhou of
their ancestral roots in Huizhou. Zunqi accepted this proposal, and the Huizhou trip was set as a lineage rule. Two years later, another group of three went.
A similar encounter with the unfamiliar things in Huizhou ensued, with the
Suzhou Pans again resorting to comparisons with Suzhou. One of them also
kept a diary of the trip, mentioning that in a tour to the valleys near the Dafu
Village, they saw a pond that looks very much like the Baiyun Spring in our
Suzhou (wu Su ). The pond was stocked with fish, so the Suzhou men and
their Huizhou agnates fished until they grew tired of it, then left.61
From the earliest generation of Jingwen through later generations like those
of Yijun and Zhongrui, the Suzhou Pans perception of their relationship with
Huizhou certainly changed. Huizhou was unquestionably home in the beginning, a place that held all of the affections and responsibilities of her traveling
61

Pan Jiefu , Guiwei zhanmu riji [Diary of the Trip to Visit Ancestral Tombs in the Year of Kuiwei], in Dafu Panshi zhipu (1908).

Translocal Lineage and the Romance of Homeland Attachment

157

sons. But slowly that attachment was contested by another place, Suzhou,
where the descendents of the early settlers built their own social life. For the
travelers like Zhongrui, Huizhou was not the place with which they could identify wholeheartedly. But the historically constructed link with Huizhou was not
to be dispensed with easily. The solution worked out by Zhongrui that is, to
regard Huizhou as the ancestral place, a place important enough to be remembered though no longer ones own, was probably a common pattern.
In localized lineage practices, the home locale was where ancestors were
buried and the stage on which kinsmens social life was played out. Thus kinship identity geographically coincided with local identity, and constituted an
ideal mechanism through which people cultivated sense of attachment to the
home locale (See Chapter 1). With the coming of translocal activities, however,
the place where a sojourners kinsmen lived and his ancestral graves were located was not necessarily the place where he had an active social life. Geographically speaking, local identity and kinship identity became separated.
More than one locale might factor into the formation of a persons place-based
identity. This is vividly illustrated by the concept of zuji, for it immediately
implies an identity that is anchored in another place.
Other Cases of Translocal Lineage Practice
We can identify at least two forces that worked together to make the Suzhou
Pans lineage practice translocal: the perceived ritual and moral obligations
that drew them back to Huizhou, and the social effect of spatial mobility that
separated them from their ancestral homeland. The interaction of these two
forces created the circumstances in which the Pans lineage practices extended
to a larger arena that included distant places. Michael Szonyi has cogently argued that because the Chinese lineage was constructed from an array of representations and practices, which emerged out of a vast number of individual
and group strategies, it should therefore be understood in terms of flexibility
and multiplicity.62 The Pans translocal lineage practice can be regarded as
another variety of this flexible strategizing, one that emerged in the course of
merchants increasing their mobility. This translocal mode of lineage practice
was, with due variation, taken up by many other kin-groups of Huizhous merchants and their descendants.
One case that closely resembles the Pans was another prominent Suzhou
clan the Wangs who also originated in She County of Huizhou and inter62

Szonyi, Practicing Kinship, 204.

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Translocal Lineage And The Romance Of Homeland Attachment

married with the Pans in Suzhou for generations. The Wangs migrant ancestor,
Wang Shangxian (16131670), moved to the city as a merchant during
the Ming-Qing transition. With success in both business and the examinations,
the Wangs soon flourished in the city. Shangxian and his wife were buried back
in Huizhou, but beginning from the generation of his sons, the Wangs switched
their burial place to Suzhou. Nonetheless, in a genealogy compiled in 1749 by
Shangxians grandson, the Wangs still regarded themselves as part of a Huizhou clan, just as in the early genealogical writings of the Pans. Their genealogy of 1849 is where the Suzhou Wangs began to limit lineage coverage to Suzhou
agnates descended from Shangxian. But the drawing of this new boundary did
not interrupt their tomb-tending trips to Huizhou, which had been going on
ever since Shangxian settled in Suzhou. On at least six occasions between 1693
and 1837, the Suzhou Wangs petitioned Huizhou local officials, sometimes together with their Huizhou agnates, for the installation of government steles to
protect their graveyard and sacrificial land. The genealogy compiled in 1897
still provided a route guide from Suzhou to Huizhou. In the 1850s and 1870s, the
Wangs lineage estate in Suzhou issued rules that designated special funds to
subsidize lineage relief and shrine construction in Huizhou, and to cover
Suzhou agnates tomb-tending trips to Huizhou.
The title of Suzhou Wangs genealogies did not carry a Huizhou place-name
as did the Pans.63 But their sense of place-based identity demonstrated a comparable pattern of change. In a petition they submitted to Huizhou local officials in 1693, there was no mention of Suzhou at all, and the petition reads as if
it was submitted by Huizhou locals; the 1784 petition mentions that they were
unwillingly living(che ju ) in Suzhou, and referred Huizhou as the home
place (jia xiang); in a 1826 petition, they referred to themselves as a Suzhou
branch that lived far away in Suzhou; in 1837, a newer petition referred to
Huizhou as zuji and themselves as having relocated to Suzhou.64
Another case, the Wu clan of Haining (in Zhejiang), differed from both of
the Suzhou clans since its lineage practices involved kinsmen living in three
places. The person who initiated this kin-groups translocal activities was Wu
Yiyuan , who moved from Huizhous Xiuning County to settle in Jiaxing
Prefecture in Zhejiang during the Wanli era. Two sons of his brother,
63

64

The Suzhou Wangs genealogies carried the title Wuqu wang shi Zhipu ,
Wuqu being the name of the neighborhood in Suzhou where they settled in the beginning. Between 1739 and 1910 they compiled six editions of their genealogy, all carrying the
same title.
These petitions can be found in Wuqu wang shi zhipu (1897), Zu mu tu [map of
acestral tombs].

Translocal Lineage and the Romance of Homeland Attachment

159

Wanzhen and Wanzhong , followed their uncle to Jiaxing, then

moved further to Haining for business purposes during the Tianqi era.
Wanzhen died childless, so the Wus of Haining were all descended from Wanzhong. In Jiaxing, Yiyuans own descendents formed the Jiaxing branch. Wanzhong and some of his sons were buried back home in Huizhou, while the
Jiaxing branch started to bury their dead in the host place from the very first
generation. In 1786 when the Haining branch compiled their genealogy, the
Wus of Haining continued to actively communicate with their kinsmen in Jiaxing. Their genealogy, which carries a Huizhou place-name in its title, covered
Wu kinsmen in Haining, Huizhou, and Jiaxing, and recorded graveyard information of all three places.65 Reading their genealogies, one can tell that in other respects, the Wus of Haining undertook some of the same lineage activities
as the Pans of Suzhou: trips back to Huizhou to tend graves, cooperation with
Huizhou kinsmen in the compilation of genealogies, and deploying their manpower in Haining to protect graveyards in Huizhou, and so on.
In yet another case, that of the Wangs of Hangzhou, the migrant ancestor
Wang Yuantai (15841639) moved from Huizhous Yi County to Hangzhou where he pursued the salt trade. Like many of the first-generation
immigrants from Huizhou, he was buried back in the ancestral place. Both Yuantai and his son traveled back to Huizhou frequently and contributed to the
renovation of a lineage shrine back there. In 1697 his grandson Shiying, who
had already switched the household registration to Hangzhou and started the
career of a scholar-official, moved Yuantais grave from Huizhou to Hangzhou.
But this move did not terminate the Wangs engagement in lineage activities in
Huizhou. Shiying himself was praised as a gentlemen of great virtue by kinsmen in both Huizhou and Hangzhou. In the mid-18th century Shiyings grandson Shichang contributed over 1,000 taels to the renovation of lineage shrine in
Huizhou.66
Conclusion
All these cases of lineage practice can be viewed as translocal. They all involved
more than one local place, and the kinsmen in question managed to engage in
lineage activities despite the distances that separated them. Digging into more
65
66

Xiuning Houtian Wu shi zongpu .

On the Wangs of Hangzhou, see the multiple editions of their genealogies. My brief
account of their lineage activities are drawn from Pingyang Wangshi jiushier shi xiao
zongpu (1880) and Qiantang zhenqi tang Wangshi jiapu (1930).

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Translocal Lineage And The Romance Of Homeland Attachment

records of lineage activities among the huishang and their descendants, we

probably will find much more such cases. These cases certainly confirm the
notion of the flexibility and multiplicity of late imperial Chinese lineage practices. At the same time they also reveal a new dimension in the formation of
place-based identity in late imperial China.
Just like the construction of huiguan, translocal lineage practice could also
reinforce the mobile individuals and households tie with their lineages place
of origin and prolong their sense of native place identity. Localized lineage
practices were an ideal mechanism through which people cultivated sense of
attachment to the home locale; by their translocal lineage practices, including
ritual obligations to ancestors and moral duties to kinsmen, a sense of loyalty
and belonging to even a remote ancestral place continued to be fostered
among mobile kinsmen. In this sense, translocal lineage practice can be regarded as the persistent residue of localized lineage practices. However, the
mechanism through which attachment to the home place was formed had
changed. Looking at the sojourners pragmatism in dealing with the household
registration system of the state, William Rowe noticed that Huizhou sojourners in Hankow surreptitiously pursued multiple identities: a native identity,
which provided additional opportunities for participating in the civil service
examinations, and a locational identity, which facilitated solidarity with the
place of residence.67 The translocal lineage practices analyzed here points to
the dynamism and instability of this identity formation process. Take the Suzhou Pans for example, as Suzhou men with an enduring concern for Huizhou,
or as Huizhou descendents whose life evolved mainly in Suzhou, neither their
locational identity nor their native identity remained stable and uncontested.
Where spatial mobility caused the separation of kinsmen from their ancestral home, translocal practices emerged as an attempt to reconcile this separation. But to the mobile individuals and households whose social life evolved far
away from the ancestral homeland, disappearance of the geographical coincidence between kinship identity and local identity was a situation they could
not change. In the long run, these newly formed kin-groups increasingly
merged with the social life of their new places, and their ties with the ancestral
home grew increasingly attenuated. Eventually, new branches in the host places would gain a consciousness of being an independent kin-group, and a consciousness of being the locals of their host places. The concept zuji expressed
both their link with the ancestral place and their distance from it, and therefore reflects a multiplied and contested formation of place-based identity in a
translocal situation.
67

Rowe, Hankow: Commerce and Society, 240, 250.

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161

Chapter 5

The Emergence of Multi-Place Household

Registration: Translocality, the State, and Local
Communities
In their translocal lineage practices, Qing-era Huizhou sojourners and settlers
often referred to Huizhou as their zuji, ancestral place. In the parlance of the
Ming-Qing imperial household registration system, zuji denoted both the occupational and the geographical dimensions of a households registration status, although the word ji was originally used in reference to one of the several
occupational categories in the system.1 But in the Huizhou sojourners usage,
zuji referred exclusively to the geographical dimension: ones original place of
registration in contrast to the current one, hence a term of place-identity. This
particular usage was rarely seen in the early and middle Ming.2 Beginning in
the late Ming, when it started to appear in literati writings, the occupational
connotation had not been completely shed, so it was still occasionally used in
reference to ancestral occupational status in the household registration sys-

The word ji referred to the occupational dimension of a households registered status, in

parallel to and distinct from its geographical dimension, which was denoted by another
word, guan . Since in the household registration regulations and occupational status
always came together with a geographical location, people could have omitted one word,
and used ji to denote both. See Wang Yuquan , Ji, Guan, Jiguan , ,
[Occupational and Geographical Aspects of Household Registration], in Wen shi zhishi
1988.2:11722.
The single case in pre-Ming sources where the word zuji was used (limiting the range of
search to the Si ku quan shu) is in Chen Chuns Bei xi da quan ji . However, a check of the context shows that in this case zuji was used in a discussion about
taxing merchants, and referred to the occupation of ones ancestors, not their place of
registration. The loose control of spatial mobility in the Song household registration system also made it unlikely that ones original place of registration could matter seriously in
taxation. Chen Chun, Shang hu sicheng lun chong niu qin he qian
, in Bei xi da quan ji, juan 45. For a discussion of the Song household registration
system, see Su Qilong , Songdai de hukou tongji zhidu
[The Institution of Household Registration in the Song], in Zhongguo shehui jingji shi
yanjiu 1985.1: 4353. Wang Yuquan, who did not have access to the electronic version of
the Si ku quan shu, mentions that he did not see any use of the term zuji in Ming sources.
See Wang, Ji, guan, jiguan.

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015|doi 10.1163/9789004288409_007

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The Emergence Of Multi-place Household Registration

tem.3 The Qing witnessed a steady increase in the use of the term, in which its
occupational connotation quickly disappeared, and its reference to geographic
identity became almost exclusive.4 Writers in the Qing not only wrote about
their own zuji or that of their contemporaries, but also assigned zuji identities
to historical figures who had never used the term.5 Moreover, the state adopted
the term in statutes regulating civil service examinations and official appointments, to distinguish between a persons place of origin and place of current
affiliation. By the twentieth century, zuji had become a common word in dayto-day language, so common that people often forgot the context of its origin
and its original meanings.6
The process of zujis ascendance also witnessed the creation and normalization of other terms of place-affiliation, such as ruji (formal re-registration) and
jiji (temporary registration). The trajectory of these terms, and the long-term
household registration reform their ascendance epitomized, are the subject of
this chapter. My approach to a historical understanding of the reform is to view
it against the background of the rigorous household registration system established in the early Ming. I will begin by discussing the structure of the early
3

4
5

For examples, see Gu Qing , Zeng gongbu zhu shi yang jun pei tai an ren song shi
hezang ming , in Dong jiang jia cang ji
juan 41; Fan Jingwen , Ti jiu ying ji bi shu , in Wen zhong ji
juan 3; Ni Yuanlu , Qing mian jun ji shu , in Ni wen zheng ji
(zoushu) (). juan 11.
Together with the term zuji, a similar term, zuguan, was also used in the Qing period. But
for reasons unknown to me, the term zuguan did not survive.
The most conspicuous examples come from the Si ku quan shu project, in which historical
figures during the Song and before were assigned zuji labels by the editors. See Si ku quan
shu jianming mulu.
This is indicated by the publication of articles in some contemporary Chinese magazines,
analyzing the differences between zuji and jiguan for popular audiences. For examples,
see Zhang Jian, jiguan, zu ji di, chusheng di [ Place Affiliation, Ancestral place, and Birth Place], in Cishu yanjiu 2003-4. Li Guangbo, He wei zuji
[What is zuji], in Honglou meng xue kan 1998-1. A more telling
example is the changing definitions of zuji in various dictionaries. Both the 1915 edition of
Ci yuan (published by Shangwu yinshuguan) and the 1948 edition of Ci hai
(published by Zhonghua shuju) defined this term by contrasting it with jiji and provide a
brief description of the Qing policies on household registration. The newer edition of Ci
hai (published in the 1970s) deletes the historical background of this term, and explains
zuji vaguely by use of another term yuanji (original place). The newer version of Ci
yuan deletes the entry of zuji completely. Hanyu da zidian , published in
1991, also uses yuanji to define zuji. The terms original function of distinguishing between
different place-affiliations has become blurred.

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163

Ming household registration system and its intended function of fixing the
whole population in their home locale. Then I reconstruct the two phases of
reform in the late Ming and early Qing. During the late Ming the unprecedented increase in travel and sojourning posed serious challenges to the sociospatial order set up at the dynastys founding, so the government loosened its
controls around spatial mobility and allowed people to change places of registration under certain conditions. The new terms of household registration
emerged in this context. Some of them, such as jiji, were adopted by the state
to register these changes; others, such as zuji, circulated only in society to denote the substantial social and ritual connections between a person and his
distant place of origin. The registration reforms became more systematic in
the Qing. Not only did the Qing government adopt the term zuji in statutory
laws, but it also clarified the difference between temporary and permanent
registration changes, and adopted the term ruji for the latter. I argue that this
process, which spanned the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, gradually
gave rise to a more sophisticated system for administering the mobile population.
The state was an important factor at almost every turn of the evolution of
Huizhou merchants translocal practices: Its endorsement of the native-place
tie as a virtue facilitated translocal public engagement, and its recognition of
transferred Huizhou place-names settled the disputes between Huizhou sojourners and the local natives. Still, so far the analysis of translocal practices
has touched upon the state only tangentially. My purpose was not to marginalize the state but to highlight translocal practices social nature: its energy came
from social actors instead of state agents, and its forms were inspired by conventions and practices already existing in society. I have presented translocal
practice as, to use a term coined by Roberto Unger, a society-making process
in which people interact with each other through structured networks and
make the conditions of their social existence on the basis of the resources
available to them by virtue of their social position.7 There is no doubt that
state power is one of the many interaction networks in society that people
utilized. To study the new terms of place-identity, however, involves an investigation into translocal practice from the perspective of its direct interaction
with the late imperial states household registration system. This brings the
state to the foreground and will help reveal a process in which state- and soci-

Roberto Unger, Social Theory, Its Situation and Its Task (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1987), 151. The description of the society-making process quoted here is borrowed
from Timothy Brook, The Chinese State in Ming Society, (Routledge/Curzon, 2004), 89.

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The Emergence Of Multi-place Household Registration

ety-making, in the words of Timothy Brook, occurred in overlapping and interactive ways.8
In what follows, I will reconstruct the dynamics of a mutual shaping process, in which an increasingly mobile society and an agrarian state with an inherent dislike of spatial mobility made continuous adjustments in response to
each other. State recognition and legalization of activities across local boundaries occurred in parallel to, and constituted part of, a comprehensive taxation
reform that spanned the late Ming and the early Qing, and united the placeaffiliations of the population with the states fiscal concerns. This move by the
state no doubt was in response to the increased mobility in society that had
already overstretched the early Ming taxation structure, which was dependent
on a sedentary population to function properly. With this reform, spatial mobility became less restricted and the mobile population gained chances to take
advantage of the civil service examination system by participating in examinations in multiple places. On the other hand, the state did not just passively
yield to trends in society. While lifting restrictions on spatial movement, it retained other aspects of imperial spatial structure such as place-sensitive quotas for civil service examinations and the Rule of Avoidance in civil officials
post assignments, both required people to have clear if not always singular
place affiliations. The new categories in household registration and the distinctions they highlighted, between permanent and temporary registrations as
well as between current and original place affiliations, were all intended to
help create more sophisticated data about a persons multiple place-affiliations. By applying these data, the state could keep the spatial structures of the
examination system and official appointments meaningful, and minimize the
impact of translocal activities. In this sense, household registration reforms
can be viewed as a series of interactions between mobile households and the
state wherein spatial mobility was largely free but the state-sponsored channels of upward social mobility still required a stable place-affiliation.
But this was not only a drama between the individual mobile households
and state regulations. A third party was involved the home communities of
the mobile households. By the late Ming, localism had already become a deeply entrenched tradition in most local places, with local identity being integral
to the culture of the educated elites. Prominent local personages, particularly
examination degree holders, regularly received honorable mentions in the local gazetteers.9 With the emergence of multiple place-affiliations and more
8
9

Timothy Brook, Chinese State in Ming Society, 10.

See the standard section on examination degree holders in almost every local gazetteer in
the late imperial period.

The Emergence of Multi-Place Household Registration

165

refined terms to describe them, the home locales of the mobile population responded by creating new categories to claim the prominent among them, so
their ancestral roots could be recognized and their achievements redound to
the glory of the home place. The local communities, the translocal individuals
and households, and the imperial state thus each followed a different rationale
for adopting new terms by which to register place affiliations. Nonetheless,
they contributed to the same process in which zuji, a new way of defining and
registering place-based identity, morphed from novelty to norm. This threeway interaction illuminates the spatial drama of translocality in late imperial
China.
The Early Ming Household Registration System and Human-Place
Relations
With a slight sense of playfulness, historians of modern Europe sometimes
start their narrative of German nationalism with the phrase In the beginning,
there was Napoleon 10 In the same vein we may regard the history of MingQing Chinas household registration system, if not other imperial institutions,
as outflows from and responses to the Ming founder, the Hongwu emperor
(r. 13681398).
Imperial Chinas household registration system usually recorded such
household information as the number of adult males, landholdings, and other
properties in the state books. It was the primary means of state control over
population a most precious resource in an agrarian society. Since the household was subject to the two main categories of taxation labor conscription
and land-tax the household registration system was crucial for fixing the tax
base and laying the foundation of the imperial states fiscal soundness.11 The
importance of the household can be illustrated by the fact that, for the greater
part of imperial history, law codes regulating such important issues as landholding, property, and taxation were all put under the rubric household laws
(hulu ).12 During the millennium-long institution of this system, the early
10
11

12

Thomas Nipperday, Germany from Napoleon to Bismarck: 18001866 (Grill & MacMillan,
1996).
For a discussion of this important institution in general, see Wang Weihai , Zhongguo huji zhidu: lishi yu zhengzi de fenxi : (Shanghai:
Shanghai wenhua chuban she, 2006).
Liu Zhiwei , Zai guojia yu shehui zhijian; Ming Qing Guangdong lijia fuyi zhidu
yanjiu (Guangzhou: Zhongshan
daxue chubanshe, 1997), 2.

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The Emergence Of Multi-place Household Registration

Ming, particularly the several decades of rule by the Hongwu emperor, represent the apex of the comprehensiveness of its coverage, the depth of its penetration into society, and the effectiveness of its control over the population.13
Riding the tide of strong state activism, the dynastys founder established a
household registration system in an extremely high-handed manner.14 This
system was made up of dual institutions, huangce (yellow books) and lijia (village tithing). The former was a comprehensive registration of households
in state-compiled books, copies of which were kept in both local and central
governments offices. Almost all subjects of the empire were assigned one of
four major occupational ( ji) statuses: military ( junji ), commoner (minji
), artisan ( jiangji ), and salt maker (zaoji ). The unprecedented
comprehensiveness of this system can be illustrated by its implementation in
the then-frontier province of Guangdong: Not only did people never before
registered now get called out and entered into state records, but also, and for
the first time, many of the non-Chinese groups became registered subjects of
the dynasty.15 What the general occupational categories defined was not so
much a households occupation as its obligations to the state, which were intended to be hereditary and permanent.16
The lijia system, based on the yellow-book data, was the organization of
population at the grassroots level into self-governing communities of 110
households each. The ten wealthiest households were given the title head
household (lizhang); the other hundred were divided into ten groups of taxbearing households. The main function of the lijia system was fiscal. Every
year, one of the head households would lead a tithing of ten households to collect land taxes ( fu ) and fulfill labor conscriptions (yi ) for the government. The labor assignment of each household was determined by its financial
standing within the lijia unit. Every ten years, the yellow books were to be updated, and the head household obligation was reassigned according to the
new household information. Members of a lijia unit had mutual obligations to
each other: Households that had fled their village or disappeared due to other
13

14

15
16

This evaluation was explicitly expressed by Liang Fangzhong, and supported by the more
recent works of Luan Chengxian. See Liang Fangzhong, Ming dai huangce kao
[Researches on the Yellow Book of the Ming], in Liang Fangzhong jingji shi lunwen ji
(Beijing: Zhonghua shu ju, 1989), 264; and Luan, Ming dai huang
ce yanjiu (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1998), 2, 352.
Edward Farmer, Zhu Yuanzhang and early Ming Legislation: The Reordering of Chinese
Society Following the Era of Mongol Rule (Leidon: Brill, 1995). See also Peter Bol, Neo-Confucianism in History.
Liu Zhiwei, Zai guojia yu shehui zhijian, 3235.
Luan Chengxian, Ming dai huangce yanjiu, 351.

The Emergence of Multi-Place Household Registration

167

reasons would have their taxes and labor conscriptions shouldered by the rest
of the unit.17 In addition to these fiscal duties, the lijia communities were also
assigned such tasks as running the justice system, maintaining cohesion, and
transforming social mores, all supposedly undertaken in a relatively autonomous manner to protect grassroots society from intrusion by local officials and
their notoriously corrupt clerical staff. In this sense, the lijia system reflected
the Hongwu emperors strong suspicion that civil officials were inclined to
abuse the common people and represented his effort to transform society
without unduly expanding the bureaucracy.18
The Ming household registration system was crucial to the proper functioning of the early Ming Empire. It fixed in place both a tax base and tax-collecting
teams it did not have to pay. But more directly relevant to the bureaucracy and
the common people was the labor conscription obligation shouldered via the
lijia system. The Hongwu emperors suspicion of civil officials did not allay his
reluctance to depend on market mechanisms to provide for the day-to-day operation of the government. Thus, while lijia communities were encouraged to
fend off potential official and clerical interference, they were also burdened
with the irksome obligation of providing various unpaid services and supplies
to the local as well as the imperial government, which were counted as different categories of labor conscription or tribute (shanggong wuliao ).
Almost every kind of labor (jailers, doormen, grooms, sweepers, etc.) and all
types of material supplies (candles, paper, sacrificial animals, ceremonial banquets, etc.) the government needed to carry out day-to-day operations were
levied on the lijia, because, as Ray Huang puts it, Aside from li-chia [lijia] requisitions, no other funds were provided for operating expenses.19 In fact, in
addition to the above-mentioned four main categories of households, modern
17

18

19

Liang Fangzhong, Mingdai yitiao bian fa nianbiao [Chronological

Chart of the Single Whip Reform], in Liang Fangzhong jingji shi lunwen ji, 475576, cited
by Liu Zhiwei, Zai guojia yu shehui zhijian, 48.
Sarah Schneewinds study of the Ming founders village policies suggests that the scope of
his distrust was wide and included not only the bureaucrats but also the common folk.
See Sarah Schneewind, Visions and Revisions: Village Policies of the Ming Founder in
Seven Stages. T'oung Pao 87 (2002): 143.
Ray Huang, Taxation and Government Finance, 25. For a more detailed description of the
lijia communities fiscal obligations, see ibid., 2526, 3436. Liu Zhiwei provides a list of
the obligations, including services and material goods, from Nanhai County in Guandong
in the middle of the fifteenth century; see Liu, Zai guojia yu shehui zhijian, 138139. See
also Wei Qingyuan , Ming dai huangce zhidu (Beijing: Zhonghua
shu ju, 1961).

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historians have counted more than eighty subcategories in different local places throughout the empire, all defined by their households specific services or
material goods owed to the government, such as relay-station households (yizhan hu ), butcher households (tuhu ), tailor households (caifeng
hu ), and so forth.20 The bureaucracys reliance on the lijia system only
appears heavier if we take into consideration that during the first hundred or
so years of the Ming dynasty, local governments did not have fixed budgets.
Many expenses incurred in local governance were thus unexpected and had to
be covered through ad hoc labor conscriptions imposed on the lijia.21
The indispensability of the lijia system to the day-to-day operations of the
early Ming bureaucracy meant that the lijia organization had to stay robust.
The households registered in the huangce had to be kept in the villages to
maintain the demographic foundation for the proper functioning of the lijia
system. One Qing commentary on the working of the lijia system captures this
relationship vividly: When taxable individuals flee, the household is burdened;
when households flee, the tithing [unit] is burdened; when the [members of]
the tithing flee, the [remaining households of the] hundred are burdened.22
Herein lies the necessity of the Ming household systems control over mobility
and its ability to fix them in their home locale. The very first article of the Ming
Household Laws addresses the issue of omitting to register households or
household members (tuolou hukou ), and prescribes stick-beatings
for those who failed to register or helped others to evade registration and for
community heads or local officials whose negligence caused the under-registration of population in a place.23 Similarly, runaway households (tao hu
) who stealthily left home to avoid their obligations to the state were to
receive the heaviest beating punishment and be escorted back home to resume their duty.24 In 1391, the emperor ordered national university students in
cooperation with local magistrates to check for runaways in every county and
make sure those people were escorted back to their home places to resume
their livelihood there ().25 Correspondingly, private travel was
20

21
22
23
24
25

See Xu Min , Ming dai shangren huji zhidu chu tan [Preliminary Study of the Registration of Merchant Household], in Zhongguo shi yanjiu 19983: 119. See also the treatise on economy and population in the official Ming History
(Mingshi , Shihuozhi ); and Wei Qingyuan, Mingdai huangce zhidu, 2122.
See Ray Huang, Finance and Taxation, 25. See also Tang Wenji , Mingdai fuyi zhidu
. (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chuban she, 1991), 9398.
Yichuan xian zhi (1753), 811b, cited by Timothy Brook, Chinese State in Ming Society, 33.
The Great Ming Code, article 81.
The Great Ming Code, article 90.
Wanli hui dian , juan19.

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169

unequivocally discouraged in various pieces of early Ming legislation and was

controlled by the issuing of travel licenses. The compiler of the Huang Ming
jingshi wenbian in the late Ming shrewdly grasped this concern with spatial
mobility in the household registration system. His commentary to a fifteenthcentury memorial states, The dynasty founders real intention in giving special attention to the yellow book was not merely to guarantee [the provision
of] tax grains, but more especially to clarify the registration of households and
make sure they all permanently stayed in their home places
.26
The actual contours of the lijia system varied from place to place: some lijia
communities did not have the full number of households prescribed; some
had more than 110, and often had appended with them households not qualified for lijia service due to poverty or lack of adult males; some did not carry
out the non-fiscal functions the court specified. With allowances for these variations, the lijia system nonetheless became established across the Ming Empire, including in cities where it used different terminologies but operated
under the same principle.27 Merchant household did not constitute a category in this system, testimony to the fact that the commercial and mobile qualities of merchant activities did not fit into the early Ming vision of social order.
Shopkeepers in the cities could register under any of the four major categories.
The particular trade they engaged in was recorded by the government, but
those records denote more the specific services they owed the government
than their engagement in commercial activity per se; this is not unlike the ad
hoc use of registration subcategories mentioned above.28
As for the actual implementation of the system, Michael Szonyi and others
have demonstrated the rigor of the early Ming state in hunting down runaway
soldiers and, if the runaway soldier could not be captured and brought back to
fulfill his obligation, haunting other members of the same military household
26

27

28

Ming jinshi wenbian , juan, 63. This comment was made on the memorial by
Ma Wensheng , Fu liuyi yi zheng banji shu , which concerned solving the problem of the floating population and re-invigorating the household
registration system. Against this background of the states dual control of occupational
and geographical identity, the word for the occupational dimension, ji, came to be used to
denote both the occupational and the geographical dimension of a households registered
status, for occupational status always came with a geographical location.
On the lijia system in general, but focusing on the rural areas, see Wei Qingyuan, Mingdai
huangce zhidu; Liu Zhiwei, Zai guojia yu shehui zhijian; and Liang Fangzhong, Mingdai
huangce kao. For a discussion of the lijia system in the cities, see Fei Si-yen, Negotiating
Urban Space, 5764.
See Xu Min, Mingdai shangren huji, 119120.

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The Emergence Of Multi-place Household Registration

(which, as a category, came with the most onerous burdens and was hence the
most undesirable status).29 Modern scholars have long recognized how extremely difficult it was to legally change ones household registration category
in Ming times.30 Social resistance to the system certainly existed, as Sarah Schneewind has documented.31 But on balance, it is fair to say that the early Ming
household registration system projected a principle of fixed human-place relationship, and provided an institutional structure for putting this principle into
operation.
This same principle and its institutional structure also shaped the way the
Ming dynasty administered civil service examinations and civil official posts.
Ming examination candidates could enter the examinations only by enrolling
in the officially established local Confucian schools, which were really more an
administrative than an educational institution.32 Each local Confucian school
had strict quotas and was open only to local residents, thus candidates had to
remain in their home locales to participate. As a result, the educated elites
relationship with their place of origin was fixed and controlled by the state to
a much greater degree than it had been during the Song dynasty.33 Each person
entering the civil service could be identified by his occupational and geographical status in the household registration system with considerable accuracy.
29
30
31
32

33

Szonyi, Practicing Kinship.

Wang Yuquan, Ji, guan, jiguan.
Schneewind, Visions and Revisions.
Ming shi, juan 69. Cheng Baoliang , Mingdai difang xuexiao luqu zhidu chutan
[Preliminary Study of the Admission System in Ming
Local Schools], in Tianjin shehui kexue, 2002.6:133137.
In the Song dynasty, households and individuals could move with relative ease. Although
the Song also preferred its population to take examinations in their home locales, it recognized the need of its mobile population to participate from their new locales and
issued a series of laws regulating these activities. To become a legal resident of a local
place and participate in civil service examinations there, the migrant household or individual had to purchase land and pay tax in the new place. Landholding, rather than actual
residence, was the governments main criterion for establishing place-affiliation. Thus it
was not uncommon in the Song for literati to be able to take examinations in other places
by purchasing land there. See Bao Weimin, Songren jiguan guannian lunshu
[On the Idea of Place-affiliation during the Song], in Zhejiang daxue xuebao,
2007-1: 3646. On the Song residency requirement in civil service examinations, see John
Chaffee, The Thorny Gates of Learning in Sung China: A Social History of Examination
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 5658. See also Thomas Lee, The Social
Significance of the Quota System in Sung Civil Service Examinations, in The Journal of the
Institute of Chinese Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 13 (1982); and Education
in Traditional China: A History (Leiden: Brill, 2000).

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171

We can see this in the Ming Qing li ke jinshi timing bei lu

, in which most of the jinshi degree holders were registered by the formula X (name), of the occupational category (ji) Y, from place Z.34 Corresponding to this, implementation of the Rule of Avoidance among civil officials
became effective only in the Ming dynasty.35 With a strict and effective household registration system in place, the Ming state was even able to require its
retired officials to return to their home locale.36
State and Society in Late Ming Household Registration Reforms

Initial Adjustments
The early Ming household registration system projected a vision of social order
that was both static and sedentary. It was static because its proper functioning
depended on thousands of homologous villages, each with relatively little population growth or land transfer, and on the moral self-discipline of community
leaders, officials, and clerks; it was sedentary because it depended on satisfied
villagers remaining at home, neither pushed out by the unfairness of the system nor lured out by the prospect of commercial profits. None of these could
stand up to the dynamics of social change. By the mid-fifteenth century, tax
34

35

36

Note that the character guan was omitted. Since there was only one place with which a
person was supposed to be affiliated, there was no further division of the category guan
into subcategories. Under these circumstances, the omission of guan would not cause any
confusion, for the notion of place-identity (guan) was implied in the place-names. Similar omissions happened elsewhere. For example, the frequently seen phrase fahui yuanji
dangchai , according to Wang Yuquan, should be read as Fahui yuanji
yuanguan dangchai (sending back to ones original place to fulfill
the obligations defined by the original occupational registration), with guan omitted. See
Wang Yuquan, Ji, guan, jiguan.
The Qing historian Zhao Yi made the argument that the Ming was the first time the
Rule of Avoidance was enforced with any rigor. See Zhao Yi, Shihuan bi benji
[Avoidance of Ones Own Place], in Gaiyu congkao , juan 27. The Ming
observance certainly contrasted with its practice in the Song, when scholar-officials on
entering the civil service were required to state their place-affiliations and expected to
abide by the Rule of Avoidance. But since the state did not control place-affiliation rigorously, it could never be firmly enforced. See Bao Weimin, Song ren Jiguan guannian.
An edict of 1448 dictated that retired officials could stay in the service place under two
conditions: if the home place was one thousand li away or farther, or if the person in question was either too ill or too old to travel back to the home place. The edict was obviously
meant to show mercy to retired officials and purported to grant them more freedom than
they had previously enjoyed. See Wanli Ming huidian, juan 19, Fuji renhu .

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The Emergence Of Multi-place Household Registration

evasion and labor conscription inequality resulting from various legal loopholes, the corruption of local clerks, and the abuses of community leaders had
become rampant and caused large-scale desertions among the villagers. Meanwhile, commercialization of the economy also brought population movement
between different places. In the face of this situation, the government of the
mid- and late-Ming era gradually adjusted the policies of the early Ming.
The earliest adjustments to household registration addressed the phenomena of runaway households (taohu ) and vagabonds (liumin ), which
had become an obvious problem for the Ming state as early as the first half of
the fifteenth century. An edict issued in 1421 by the Yongle emperor (r. 1402
1422) allowed these mobile populations conditional stay in their new places.
But it also dictated that those who had left taxation obligations in the home
place unfulfilled by others must be sent home instead.37 The trend became
clear in the following decades that the previous solution of sending them back
was gradually replaced by the approach of allowing them to stay in the new
places as long as they had already reestablished a livelihood and were willing
to be reintegrated into the host place lijia system. A 1430 edict stipulated the
minimum land a runaway household had to cultivate in order to qualify for reregistration was 50 mu per adult male. In 1437 another edict dictated that the
original occupational category of the runaway households should be retained
when they reregistered in new places. Similar edicts were issued repeatedly
during the rest of the fifteenth century and the early sixteenth century.38 The
consistent orientation, it appeared, was to minimize the impact of runaway
households and vagabonds on the overall lijia system since a total ban of movement proved impossible.
Merchants registration in new places was not a particular issue in these
early policy changes. Compared with the masses of runaways and vagabonds,
the floating mercantile population must have seemed a trivial problem in the
fifteenth century. In the sixteenth century, however, with the growth of commercialization, many wandering merchants started to settle down
with shops in their places of business.39 Merchants began to register in the
states household registration reform horizon. In the beginning, it was the local
37
38

39

Wanli ming huidian, juan, 19.

The phrasing of the 1430 edict was ,
, , . The phrasing of the 1437 edict was
, . , . , .
, . See Wanli ming huidian, juan 19.
Xu Min, Wan ming shang ren qiao yu, dingju hua quxiang yu shehui bian qian
[The Trend of Late Ming Merchants to Settle Down and
the Social Changes it Reflected], in Jianghai xue kan, 2002-1, pp. 134141.

The Emergence of Multi-Place Household Registration

173

governments of commercially significant cities that addressed merchant registration on a case-by-case basis. The main purpose of these adjustments was
similar to those that dealt with runaway households or vagabonds: to absorb
them into the lijia system of the new places. For example, in 1527 an edict ordered local officials in Beijing to allow merchants who had been settled in the
metropolitan region for some time and ran stable businesses to register in the
local community and shoulder labor conscription duties with the natives.40
The more transient floating merchants (fuju keshang ), however,
were not covered by this policy. That same year, the magistrate of Wuhu ,
a distribution center for Lianghuai salt that attracted huge numbers of merchants from Huizhou, reformed local registration to integrate natives and the
sojourning Huizhou merchants into one body for the assignment of labor conscription. Here again, floating merchants were treated differently and required
to make a monetary contribution in lieu of service in person.41 Since in the
Ming lijia system a standing out-of-registration meant free from the governments labor conscription, reforms to legalize newcomers residential status
seemed essential if the government were to maintain relatively fair labor conscription assignments in places like Beijing and Wuhu where sojourners and
newcomers outnumbered the natives. Adjustments continued to be made in
both Wuhu and Beijing for the remainder of the Ming.42
By the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the issue of registering merchants in new places loomed even larger, since it involved more places
and had become a common issue with which local officials had to deal. In his
Shi zheng lu , Lu Kun (15361618) took pains to differentiate all
kinds of mercantile-oriented mobile people from vagabonds and explicitly
stated that shop-owning artisans [and] sojourning merchants are re
spectable people and should not be regarded as vagabonds. Even cart-push-

40
41
42

Wanli ming huidian, juan 19, fu ji ren hu [ fuji household].

Guangxu Taiping fuzhi , juan 12, cited by Wang Tingyuan, Huishang yanjiu,
112.
In regards to Wuhu, Wang Daokun, who wrote in the latter half of the sixteenth century,
noted the righteous deeds of one of his Huizhou contemporaries, who helped Huizhou
sojourners in Wuhu solve problems arising from the local magistrates efforts to register
and assign labor conscriptions. See Wang Daokun, Shou cheng chushi xu
[Essay Celebrating the Birthday of Mr. Cheng], in Tai han ji, juan 10. In regards to Beijing,
the Ming shenzong shilu records a long series of edicts and memorials concerned with
integrating the sojourning population, including merchants, into the household registration system. See Ming shenzong shilu, Wanli wunian shiyue xinyou
and Wanli shinian xinyou .

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The Emergence Of Multi-place Household Registration

ing and load-carrying vendors were to be distinguished from vagabonds.43

Shitu xuanjing , a manual for civil officials written by the early seventeenth-century local official Wang Shimao , offered formulas intended to help officials register different types of temporary populations and
indicates that merchants and farmers were registered as different categories.44
The reforms in household registration paralleled reforms in the taxation
system, which are usually known collectively as the Single Whip reforms.
These were also locally initiated and lasted from the mid-fifteenth century to
the end of the sixteenth century.45 Their main target was inequalities in labor
conscription, whose increasingly heavy burden was caused by illicit levies imposed by local governments and whose unfair distribution arose from community-leader abuses and clerk corruption. The essence of the Single Whip
method with complex variations in detail and time of implementation from
place to place amounted to fixing the overall amount of the labor conscription (yi), converting part of it to land tax (fu), and collecting the combination
of fu and yi in silver. In this way the actual burden of corve labor was greatly
reduced.46 These parallel reforms were actually responses to the failure of the
lijia system laid down in the early Ming, one corresponded to its failure to control mobility, the other its failure to maintain fairness and effectiveness within
local places. The reforms were interrelated in the sense that the monetization
of tax from the lijia system and the reduced reliance on actual corve made it
possible to allow the mobile population to legally stay in the new places.
The symbiosis of these two reforms also explains their parallel development. Neither of them had reached a final form at the Ming dynastys end. The
Single Whip reform would only see its completion in the abolition of labor
conscription in the early Qing. As for household registration reforms, the procedures for allowing merchants to gain legal status in host places throughout
the Ming were temporary and ad hoc in nature. None of the locally initiated
reforms or local experiments for registering urban sojourners became empirewide policies. Judging from the phrasing of the edicts, policies on host-place
registration for vagabonds and runaway households in rural areas were meant
to be applied everywhere, but the terms used in these regulations, fuji (
43
44
45

46

Lu Kun Shi zheng lu, juan 4.

Wang Shimao , Shi tu xuan jing , juan 2, Yanmen ce .
Liang Fangzhong, Yi tiao bian fa [ The Single Whip Reform], in Liang Fangzhong jingji shi lunwen ji,3489; Martin Heijdra, The Socio-economic Development of
Rural China during the Ming, in Cambridge History of China, vol. 8, eds. Denis Twitchett
and Frederick Mote. (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1998): 417578.
Liang Fangzhong, Mingdai yitiao bian fa nianbiao.

The Emergence of Multi-Place Household Registration

175

lit. appended households) or jiji ( lit. attached households), are nowhere

clearly defined. While the requirement of being integrated into the host place
lijia system is clear in many of the edicts, it remains to be seen whether such
registrations implied termination of ones registration status in the home
place. Opportunity for members of reregistered households (merchants or
otherwise) to participate in civil service examinations in their new places was
implied in the existing system and explicitly proposed in some official memorials as a means to attract floating people to settle down and cultivate new
land. There is scattered evidence suggesting that some sojourners indeed took
advantage of this opportunity.47 But clear rules in this regard never appeared
in the legislation.48

The Issue of Shangji (Merchant Households)
Given the marginality of merchants and commerce in the early Ming social
order, the invention of shangji during the Wanli era(15721626), as a formal
category of household registration for salt merchants in particular, attests to
the drastic changes both the Ming state and society had undergone since the
dynastys founding.
Salt production and distribution was monopolized by the state during the
Ming, as it had been ever since the early imperial period: in salt producing areas, the state used the labor of hereditary salt households to produce the
commodity, and granted select groups of salt merchants permission to distribute the commodity in strictly regulated markets within specifically defined salt
districts. While state policies on the production side of the salt industry remained stable throughout the dynasty, the administration of its distribution
went through several major changes. During the first century of the dynasty,
salt merchants gained admission to the salt trade by providing grain supplies
to military stations along the northern border, a system called kaizong. Toward
the end of the fifteenth century, with the monetization of the economy, the
old grain supply of the kaizong system had been converted to monetary payment. Thus, in essence, merchants could simply buy a license to engage in
the highly lucrative salt trade. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, a
47

48

For examples of this type of memorial, see Xu Guangqi , Tuntian shu in

Huangming jingshi wenbian , juan 490, and Zuo Guangdou Ti
wei yikai tunxue shu , ibid., juan 495. As for the actual cases of sojourners taking examinations in new places, the Jiaqing lianghuai yanfa zhi reports that in 1414,
a Huizhou native named Zheng An passed the examination as a local of Yangzhou, the
city where the headquarters of the Lianghuai salt district was located. See Jiaqing lianghuai yanfa zhi, juan 47, cited by Fuji Hiroshi, 240.
See Wanli Ming huidian, juan 19, for the legislation.

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The Emergence Of Multi-place Household Registration

further reform in the salt monopoly allowed holding of a license to become

hereditary, essentially tying salt merchants to the salt industry. In each of these
periods, merchants played an indispensable part in the system.49
The special position of merchants in the salt industry, as well as the industrys special position in the Ming military and fiscal system, explains the favors
salt merchants received from the Ming government, i.e., the special dispensation that allowed their family members to take examinations in places where
their businesses were located. The earliest case of this practice occurred in the
Hedong salt district (covering Shanxi province) in the late 1430s, where a special salt transportation school (yunxue) was established to administer examinations for salt merchant households using a quota separate from the rest of
the local population. The Hedong salt transportation school, however, must be
viewed as an exception in the early Ming: The salt officials had specifically petitioned for the restoration of a Yuan dynasty precedent suspended during the
Hongwu era, and no similar case was known from that period.50 In the most
important salt districts, those of Lianghuai and Liangzhe, salt merchants family members participated in the examinations after reregistering in their host
places and were counted as locals.
Substantial developments came in the mid-Wanli era. In 1585, 1591, and 1601,
special quotas for salt merchants were set for the salt districts of Lianghuai,
Changlu (modern-day Hebei), and Liangzhe, respectively. In the cases of Lianghuai and Liangzhe, no separate institution equivalent to the salt transportation school of Hedong was established, and the administration of these
special quotas was entrusted to the local Confucian schools. These quotas were
dubbed shangji (merchant household), to differentiate them from the quota
for locals.51 Fuji Hiroshi, the first scholar to study this issue, suggested that the
establishment of shangji can be explained by the fiscal troubles the government experienced in the mid-Wanli era, which made it more likely to show
special favor to salt merchants so that salt revenue could be collected more
smoothly. Whether or not this was the case, registering the mobile merchants
was no doubt a conspicuous problem the government faced in the late sixteenth century. Against this background, the establishment of shangji categories in these two major salt districts can be viewed as part of the adjustments
made to tone down the rigidity of spatial mobility control.
But the significance of shangji was not limited to loosening control over spatial mobility. With shangji, a new category of household was put side by side
49
50
51

Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou, 117147.

Fuji Hiroshi, Shinan shonin, 237.
Fuji Hiroshi, Shinan shonin, 235242.

The Emergence of Multi-Place Household Registration

177

with conventional ones in the local governments administration of civil service examinations, to the effect that merchants (if only those engaging in the
salt trade) were formally recognized in the Ming household system. More substantially, the salt merchants standing under this category did not necessarily
imply their incorporation into the local lijia system, and did not depend on
their labor conscription obligations to the government. Therefore, the merchant household category was not merely an addition to the original four categories, but rather a deviation from the principles of the household registration
system altogether: it was not labor service through the lijia system in the home
locale, but monetary contributions via a market mechanism outside the home
place that earned salt merchant households the opportunity to participate in
the civil service examinations.
Like other adjustments over the course of the Ming, the shangji reforms
were initiated at the local level, that is, with the individual salt districts, and
they never became an empire-wide policy during the Ming. Of the ten salt districts, we know of only four that offered shangji quotas. Practices and actual
processes, moreover, varied from district to district. In the case of Liangzhe, of
which we have more detail, salt merchants from Huizhou played a crucial role
in pushing salt officials to petition for the establishment of a shangji category
and quota.52 The shangji quota for each district, if it was established at all, also
varied from year to year.53 It was during the early Qing that the shangji reforms, together with other locally initiated reforms in both household registration and taxation, were finalized and implemented across the empire.

Practices of Registration Change under the Ming
The actual practice of changing ones household registration during the Ming
was a complex picture. As discussed above, locally initiated and locally tested
methods for registering merchants in their sojourning places, mostly urban areas, were not widely applied. The reregistered peoples opportunity to participate in examinations from the host place was never clearly defined either. To
see how Huizhou merchants fared in these circumstances, we must rely on
scattered sources about individual cases.
What can be inferred with the most certainty is that people who were
registered in other places were allowed to take examinations wherever they
were presently located. Anecdotal evidences survive of people with jiji status
52

53

The Huizhou merchants role in establishing the shangji category has been carefully studied in modern scholarship. See Fuji Hiroshi, Shinan shonin, 235242; Wang Zhenzhong,
Huishang, 5865.
Fuji Hiroshi, Shinan shonin, 237.

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The Emergence Of Multi-place Household Registration

enrolling in host place Confucian schools and receiving praise from regional
educational inspectors.54 More substantial evidence comes from records of degree holders in the civil service examinations. Beginning in the Jiajing era
(15211567), Huizhou local gazetteers recorded Huizhou degree holders with
non-Huizhou registration status. The prefectural gazetteer of 1566 records
more than two dozen Ming dynasty juren degree holders of this type. Among
these, the earliest cases were mostly from military households who had passed
the examinations in the places where they were stationed, and clearly marked
as such. Beginning in the early sixteenth century, gazetteer records indicate
that some Huizhou degree holders had non-Huizhou commoner household
status. For example, Zha Yingzhao, who passed the provincial examination in
1520, is recorded in the gazetteer as:
Zha Yingzhao, literary name Ruizheng, from Xiuning, bearing the ji of
Changzhou County [Suzhou prefecture]
55
There were similar cases that were not listed by local gazetteers of Huizhou but
were preserved in other sources, such as the gazetteers of the salt districts.56
This formula for recording degree holders multiple place-affiliations also appeared in the imperial jinshi lists. In the list of 1568, for example, a Zhang Yigui
is mentioned as:

54

55

56

For example, Zhang Hans Song chuang meng yu recorded the story of Hu
Shining (14491530). Hu, a jiji student in Changhua County, wrote an excellent essay in a regular test at the local school. The educational inspector did not believe a
small and remote place like Changhua could produce such a brilliant student. After some
inquiry, the inspector learned that Hu was originally from the Renhe County in
Hangzhou, and commented with some pride at his insight: I knew from the beginning he
was not from here (). See Songchuang meng yu, juan 6.
Huizhou fuzhi (1566), juan 13. The same section of the gazetteer contains many similar
cases. For example, in the class of 1524 provincial examinations, there was Xu Guan, from
She County [Huizhou], registered in Dangtu County [near Nanjing] ;
in the class of 1533 provincial examinations, there was Yu Guang, from Qimen County [of
Huizhou], registered in Jiangning County [near Nanjing] .
For example, the Jiaqing lianghuai yanfa zhi recorded that in 1414, a Huizhou native
named Zheng An passed the examination as a local of Yangzhou, the place where the
headquarter of the Lianghuai salt district is located. See Jiaqing lianghuai yanfa zhi, juan
47, cited by Fuji Hiroshi, Shinan shonin, 240.

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179

Zhang Yigui, commoner, Xiangfu County, Kaifeng Prefecture, Honan Pro

vince; a man of the She County [Huizhou] of Zhili Province (
).57
The order of the place information varied between the local gazetteer and the
jinshi list, probably reflecting the recorders perspective: the Huizhou gazetteer
compilers put a persons place of origin within Huizhou first, while the national list compilers put ones official place of registration first. But it should be
clear from these examples that participation in examinations in ones place of
new registration was a common phenomenon by the sixteenth century, and
people of the time were well aware of it.58
The conditions under which merchants could register in host places are
largely unknown to us. Anecdotal evidence suggests that there were procedures, if only at the local level, that allowed them to do so. For example, forty
years after the Huizhou merchant settlers in Haizhou sub-prefecture developed Xinan town and won the battle over keeping its name (see Chapter 2),
they went to the local government in the Chongzhen era (16271644) and petitioned to register in the host place. Their case, according to the local gazetteer,
was based on the fact that it was consistent with the conventions .59
In Rugao County near Nanjing, the local government in the late Ming followed
a policy that specified: Guest households and outsider households who have
had land, real estate, or graves [here] for twenty years should be allowed to
register in their current place
.60 Since there was no legal distinction between merchants and
other people in terms of household registration, merchant sojourners might
well have been covered by this policy. This requirement, that is, the allowance
for host place registration after twenty years holding of land, graves, or real
57
58

59
60

Li Zhouwang , Ming Qing li ke jinshi timing bei lu ,

Ming longqing er nian .
In Huizhou, all local gazetteers during the late Ming and the Qing included entries about
extra-local degree holders in the section on keju (civil service examinations). For examples, see Xiuning xian zhi (1693), juan 5; Shexian zhi(1772), juan 8. Entries like this are also
found in local gazetteers of other places. For an example during the Ming, see Weiyang zi
(1523), juan 19. For examples during the Qing, see Anqing fuzhi (1721), juan 8, where a special category was invented for people who were originally from Anqing but did not take
examinations in Anqing . See also Huzhou fuzhi (1870),
juan 10, juan 12; Suzhou fuzhi(1883), juan 6063; songjiang fuzhi (1818), juan 47.
Qianlong Xinan zhenzhi, Zazhi : Jiguan [Miscellaneous: Registration], cited
by Wang Zhengzhong, Huishang, 64.
Rugao xianzhi (1830), juan 4, Fuyi [Taxation].

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The Emergence Of Multi-place Household Registration

estate, was issued as a rule across the country at the very beginning of the Qing,
suggesting that by the late Ming it was practiced widely.
Some modern researchers believe that the Wanli era conflicts over auspicious burial land in Hangzhou was related to the merchants attempt to bury
their dead in the host places to fulfill the conditions of registration.61 Lacking
an empire-wide policy, however, the actual processes and conditions of merchant registration must have depended on the local situation and so varied
from place to place. For example, the late Ming literatus Xie Zhaozhe
(15671624) noticed a phenomenon that appeared absurd to him: in Linqing
(Shandong), reregistered Huizhou merchant families had long been sitting the examinations locally, but a certain perverse regional educational inspector was determined to reverse the longstanding local policy and prohibited
merchant family youngsters from the opportunity their families had enjoyed
for generations.62
The number of merchants registering in host places was probably very high
in the last decades of the Ming, particularly in its bustling commercial centers.
In Yangzhou, according to the observation of the late Ming scholar-official
Pang Shangpeng (15241580), There are hundreds of merchant fam
ilies from all provinces reregistered in the constituent counties and sub-pre
fectures .63 Needless to say, among these
newcomers to Yangzhou, the most prominent were Huizhou merchants. In
Linqing, the main commercial city along the Grand Canal in Shandong, Xie
Zhaozhe observed, Nine-tenths of the registered population were merchants
from Huizhou .64 The most revealing evidence on the scale
of these registration changes comes from the examination records. According
to the last Ming gazetteer of Huizhous She County, between 1570 and 1642,
when the dynasty held its last provincial examination, She County alone accounted for fifty-seven juren degree holders bearing non-Huizhou registration
status. Almost all of them came from commoner households registered in their
host places, and the majority of them were awarded their degrees in the seventeenth century.65

61
62
63

64
65

Wang Zhenzhong, Huishang, 65.

Xie Zhaozhe, Wu Za Zu, juan 14.
Pang Shangpeng , Bili jianxue yangyu rencai yili fengjiao shu
[Memorial on the Opening of Schools According to Precedents and Facilitating Custom Change], in Baike ting zaigao, juan 2
Xie Zhaozhe, Wu Za Zu, juan 14.
Xu Chengrao, She xianzhi (1937), juan 4.

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181

Not all late-Ming sojourning merchants of Huizhou, however, actively

sought to change their registration. The local gazetteers of Yangzhou, for example, make it clear that during the Ming, powerful Huizhou clans such as the
Chengs, the Fangs, and the Wus who stayed in Yangzhou for generations yet
always retained their registration status in the home place were numerous
.66 In Huizhou, a She County gazetteer
compiled in the early seventeenth century also noted, Of the countys merchants scattered throughout the country, five or six out of every ten are registered in the host places.67
Still, the above discussion points to the increasingly common practice
among Huizhou merchants of registering in host places and participating in
examinations from these places. It was against this background that the term
zuji, as a reference to geographical identity, started to circulate. Registration in
a new place by no means implied the end of connections with the place of origin, as sojourners translocal lineage practices (see Chapter 4) make clear. Indeed, a prominent Huizhou hero in the Ming-Qing transition, Jin Shen ,
was from a merchant family officially registered in Jiayu County of Huguang
Province. After retiring from office, Jin settled in Huizhou, led local elites efforts to maintain social order, and organized local militia to fend off bandits
during the mid-century crisis.68
The close ties between people and their ancestral homes, and the multiple
place-affiliations demonstrated in the various records of degree holders no
doubt posed potential problems for the government. A memorial sent to the
throne in 1625, for example, proposed a ban on the use of zuji as a pretext for
civil officials to avoid posts in remote provinces.69 The lack of clear regulation
regarding a persons registration status in his home locale after he had reregistered in his host place made it possible for family members to take examinations in either or both places. The general conditions of increased mobility,
combined with this possibility, opened the gate for place-identity frauds (maoji ). By the Wanli era, this had already become a serious problem, as attested by various edicts, memorials, and literati writings.70 But given the
66
67
68
69
70

Jiangdu xian xuzhi (1819), juan 12.

She zi (1601), huozi, cited by Wang Zhengzhong, Huishang, 65.
For a detailed discussion of Jin Shengs career, see Yongtao Du, Lesson of Riches.
Ming xizong shilu, juan 66, Tianqi wu nian shier yue wuxu .
The 1577 version of imperial advice to regional educational inspectors included a clause
on the recently emerged problem of place-identity frauds by which some candidates
would fabricate credentials to take their examinations in less competitive places, or took
examinations in multiple places (
). See Wanli san nian huan ji tixue guan chi yu

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The Emergence Of Multi-place Household Registration

uncoordinated nature of the late Ming reforms, it is hard to imagine the Ming
government handling the problem of human-place relationship with any effectiveness. The completion of the household registration reforms, as well as
devising solutions to new problems the reforms themselves brought about,
would be the task of the Qing dynasty.
The Early Qing Completion of the Reforms

Jiji (temporary) and Ruji (permanent) Status Changes
The war-devastated empire the Qing inherited from the Ming was both mobile
and commercialized. The framework of the household registration system the
Hongwu emperor laid down still existed as the formal basis of taxation, but the
changes in society and the various reform experiments had made the practice
of it very different from the designs of the Ming founder. The new dynasty accepted the overall structure of the Ming system but also took up the completion of its unfinished reforms.
The continuity was necessary partly because the fledgling regime urgently
needed to establish its own tax base and obtain regular revenues, and the Ming
household registration system was the only existing institution that could
serve this purpose.71 Given this continuity, it should be no surprise that the
Qing governments attitudes toward its mobile population strongly resembled
those of the Ming. For example, Qing policies toward vagabonds followed the
same principle as those imposed in the mid-Ming, which tried to attract them
to settle and be organized into the local lijia system.72 The regulation regarding

71

72

, in Wanli ming huidian, juan 78. The Ming shilu entries of the midWanli era provide numerous specific cases of place-identity frauds and official memorials
on this problem. For literati writings on this issue, see Wang Shizhen, Yanshantang bie
ji , juan 82, 83, 84. See also Shen Dexian, Wanli yehuobian ,
juan 14.
See Chen Hua , Qing dai rending bian shen zhidu chu tan
[Preliminary Study of the Census System in the Qing], in Qing shi yanjiu ji, Juan 6,
169194.
An edict of 1655 dictated that all floating people from other provinces who had stayed for
years should shoulder labor services together with the natives; newcomers should start
shouldering labor service in five years
. See Qing huidian (Kangxi edition), juan 23. Actually, throughout
the first half of the Qing, the government pursued consistent policies of encouraging
uprooted peasants to settle in the underpopulated regions such as Sichuan. See Cao Shuji,
Zhongguo renkou shi, vol. 5.

The Emergence of Multi-Place Household Registration

183

civil officials change of residence also showed continuity with the Ming: A
1665 edict clearly required officials to return to their home place after their
termination of service.73
But the Qings recognition of the changed social reality was also clear. Certain late Ming practices that were obviously outdated, such as conscripting labor services from artisan households, were quickly abolished in the first years
of the new dynasty.74 The frequent movement of people and their multiple
place-affiliations was another social reality the new dynasty took note of. Thus,
as early as 1645, the new regime issued a set of government orders regarding
place-identity fraud in civil service examinations:
Students who commit fraud in place-identity (jiguan jiamao )
and name should be excluded, whether they are already enrolled in local
Confucian schools, or not. Those who provided guarantees for them
should be punished as well. If such students have already passed the
provincial examinations, inspectors in the capital and governors in the
provinces are responsible to investigate and report on these cases. The
impostors should be deprived of their juren degrees and sent back
to their original places, to shoulder the labor services they owe. Other
violations and frauds they might have committed should also be punished. If an individuals grandfather or father has been reregistered (ruji)
in a place for over twenty years, and the family has graves, land, and real
property in the place in question they can take examination in such
places, on guarantee by people from the same native place who hold
official status. If they pass the examinations, it is prohibited to claim [cor-

73
74

Qing huidian (Kangxi edition), juan 23

The labor service of artisan households, which had been largely converted to silver payment in the late Ming, was formally terminated in 1645, and artisan households were all
counted as commoners in household registration. Another issue the early Qing government addressed was the illicit levy of goods and services on shops and merchants in the
cities, a rampant problem of malfeasance much hated in the late Ming. The early Qing
addressed this problem through rigorous regulation by both the imperial and local governments. Many early Qing urban stele inscriptions in commercial cities such as Suzhou
vividly illustrated these regulations. On the artisan household issue, see Qing shizu shilu,
Shunzhi er nian wuyue . On the urban stele inscriptions, see Ming Qing
Suzhou gongshang ye beike ji. Xu Min provides a brief summary of these issues. See Xu
Min, Shi lun qingdai qianqi pushang huji wenti [On the
Registration Problem of Sedentary Merchants in the Early Qing], in Zhongguo shi yanjiu,
2000-3: 142.

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The Emergence Of Multi-place Household Registration

ve] exemption in both their zuji and jinji (recent registration) places.75
Issued almost immediately after the Qing dynastys founding, this edict was a
clear sign that the new regime was aware of and sensitive to problems created
by the mobility of its population. As this order shows, the Qing handling of
migrants participation in examinations was characterized by a clarity and uniformity never seen in the Ming. First, its coverage was empire-wide and did not
specify any particular group, hence it had a uniformity that late-Ming reforms
lacked.76 Second, it stipulated clear conditions under which the mobile population could legally take examinations in host places, hence it amounted to a
formal recognition of those opportunities and shored up what the Ming reforms had missed. During the Kangxi (16611722) and Yongzheng (17221736)
reign periods, the Qing state issued more orders urging candidates using fraudulent place-identities to confess their violations and transfer their candidacy
back to their home places to avoid punishment. Some of these orders were issued across the country, others in specific provinces, prefectures, and counties,
but the core of the guidelines set in 1645 twenty years waiting period, ancestral burial, and property holding in host place was applied consistently to
distinguish between legitimate and fraudulent credentials, though the requirement of guarantee by people from the native-place with official status was
dropped.77
In addition, the edict of 1645 also deployed new terminologies that demonstrated the new regimes determination to push the administration of mobile
population to a new level. One of these was the term it used to describe the
process of migrants host-place registration, which was ruji (, lit. entering
the register), instead of jiji or fuji, which had been used in the Ming. This immediately differentiated permanent from temporary migrants at the semantic
level. In fact, by the early eighteenth century, some statutes started to treat
candidates under the jiji category like cases of identity fraud (maoji ), and
further ascribed a sense of permanence to the term ruji. For example, a 1723
statute urged jiji candidates to transfer their candidacy back to their original
75
76

77

Qing huidian (Kangxi edition), juan 52.

The same clarity on migrants examination-related legal status was also demonstrated in
policies concerning vagabonds. A 1690 edict on new immigrants to the [depopulated
Sichuan for land reclamation stated that their sons and brothers would be allowed to
reregister and take examinations locally . See Qing huidian (Yongzheng
edition), juan 30.
For examples, see the edicts on KX 39, YZ5, etc. in Qing huidian shili (Jiaqing edition), juan
313).

The Emergence of Multi-Place Household Registration

185

places; a 1726 statute regulating migrants examinations in Taiwan considered

qualified candidates people who have ruji and are permanently settled
.78
The differentiation between jiji and ruji became common and clear in statutes during the Yongzheng era. A 1728 statute requested home-place officials to
carefully check the jiji candidates home-place identity when their candidacy
was transferred back from the host places, obviously having denied them access to the examinations in their host places. This intention was made very
clear in another statute of the same year, concerning jiji candidates in Wuhu
County (Anhui Province). It first stipulated, as did many other statutes,
that only people who had ruji for over twenty years would be allowed to take
the examinations in Wuhu, implying that others would have to transfer their
candidacy back to the home place. Following this it stated, Those who have
ruji in Wuhu should not be allowed to take examinations in their home places
anymore.79 The establishment of the distinction between jiji and ruji, as temporary and permanent categories of registration, reveals intensified state efforts to clearly define different types of mobile populations and the states
determination to prevent abuses of the examination system by people with
multiple place-affiliations.
The enforcement of this distinction in real life was more complicated. One
often-compromised requirement was ancestral burial, which was both a ritual
sign and a legal proof of permanent settlement. The states clear statement of
this requirement certainly provided more incentive for sojourners to bury
their dead in the host places. For example, the Kangxi era prefectural gazetteer
of Huizhou noted a recent fashion among merchants to carry the bones of
their fathers and grandfathers, and bury them in other places without much
relent .80 But there were many households who claimed local credentials and were able to take the examinations in
host places merely because they owned land and paid taxes, a problem the Da
Qing huidian (Statutory Laws of the Grand Qing) noted on several occasions.81
The new regulations opened the door for a legitimate type of fraud: people
could claim local credentials and take examinations by fulfilling the requirements, yet retain candidacy in their home place.82 The frequent references to
78
79
80
81
82

Qing huidian shili (Jiaqing edition), juan 313.

Qing huidian shili (Jiaqing edition), juan 313.
Huizhou fuzhi (1699), juan 4, fengsu.
Qing huidian shili (Jiaqing edition), juan 313: YZ11, QL2.
See for example the cases recorded under the years of KX 40, YZ6, YZ8, YZ9, QL2, all in Qing
huidian shili (Jiaqing edition), juan 313, Shengtong huji [Household Registration Status of Candidates].

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The Emergence Of Multi-place Household Registration

both of these problems in the Da Qing huidian suggest that under the Qing
standardization of host-place registration, identity fraud in the civil service examinations actually became more common.
While an affront to the state, these frauds could also cause strife between
natives and newcomers in their competition over the limited candidate-quotas of a place. A stele inscription of the later eighteenth century vividly illustrates this host-guest animosity. Drafted by the local magistrate of Anren
County (Hunan Province) at the request of native residents, the stele condemned legitimate identity fraud with indignation: What sort of re-registration is this? If you check their land, graves, and houses, they followed the rule;
but this is just like a neighbor who occupies my house simply because he does
not enjoy his own. All these people have their own home place. Their offense is
graver than that of homeless people who fake local status here.83
In 1739, with the Qianlong emperor newly enthroned, the Qing government
launched a legislative campaign to address these problems by issuing a new
statute that revised the prerequisites for migrants participation in the examinations:
The conventional condition of a twenty years waiting period after ruji for
examination refers to people who had no place to return to ().
As for people who have original registration places where they can take
examination, yet still want the advantage of taking examinations in two
places by owning land and graves in the jiji places, this is wishful thinking
and should not be encouraged. Local officials should investigate, case by
case, and allow a person to sit the examination only if he does not have
an original place to return to, and has fulfilled the post-ruji waiting period.
For those who hold land and graves in the jiji places, and have an original
place to return to (), local officials of both [host and home]
places should communicate with each other, and transfer the candidates
to their home place.84
This new rule was a reversal of the guidelines set in 1645, to the effect that one
needed to not only have established oneself in the host place but also to have
lost connection to the home place to qualify for host-place examination. The
vaguely phrased new requirement of having no place to return to was upheld
83

84

Jianshui tian hou yong jin zhan ji bei [Permenant Ban of zhanji
by Lord Tian of Jianshui], in Anren xian zhi (1819), juan 15: 18b19b. The essay was written
in QL40.
Qing huidian (Jiaqing Edition), juan 313; also see xuezheng quansu, juan 30.

The Emergence of Multi-Place Household Registration

187

throughout the second half of the eighteenth century, with the central government reiterating it several times as it adjudicated cases submitted from local
authorities.85 The only occasion in which the court tried to clarify this requirement was in 1774, when an edict defined it as having only distant kinsmen in
the home place, and no land or real estate there under the persons own name
.86 Yet even with this clarification, pinning down whether a sojourners social and economical standing
in his distant home place met these criteria could be a daunting, if not impossible, task for the often-overstretched local governments. The edict ended with
a warning of severe punishment to people who make ungrounded accusations of local-identity fraud and gather a crowd for vicious assaults
, suggesting levels of local strife the new rule must have only intensified, and foreshadowing more to come.
In 1795 the education inspector of Hubei Province memorialized the throne
about a case in Hanyang County. In that case, the son of a Huizhou merchant who had lived in Hanyang for over forty years had reregistered (ruji) and
took the examinations locally. But the son did not state that he had no place to
return to in his petition for ruji, and Hanyang officials did not conduct a background check with officials of the petitioners home place. Hanyang natives,
probably out of jealousy, filed a charge of fraud with the education inspector.
Following the rule, the inspector adjudicated that the merchants son be deprived of his candidacy, and local officials involved in the case be investigated.87
But when the event was memorialized to the throne, it incurred deliberations
about the rules phrasing in the Ministry of Rites, which led to yet another revision.
According to the revised rule, when a person petitioned for ruji, the local
official should first ascertain whether he had owned real estate and paid land
tax for twenty years; if these conditions were met, the local official should send
notice to the petitioners home place, and the home-place official should make
a record so that henceforth the petitioner and his descendants would never be
allowed to take the examinations in the home place. The requirement of no
place to return to was dropped. The courts rationale was that the phrase no
place to return to in the current rule is vague and easily causes confusion; if
85

86
87

This rule was reiterated in QL10 concerning Shuntian prefecture and in QL29 concerning
Xinning County of Guangdong, as well as Taiwan. See Qing huidian shili (Jiaqing edition),
juan 313.
See Qing huidian shili (Jiaqing edition), juan 313;
Chu Pengling , memorial, in Qianjia shi qi keju maoji shiliao
, 24.

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The Emergence Of Multi-place Household Registration

property-ownership in home locale is taken as a criterion, it may give local officials an excuse for extortion or suppression.88 In effect the revision amounted to admitting that real-life connections between the newly settled and their
home place were impossible to regulate, hence a return to the principle established in 1645. But it went further. First, the ruji procedure and its relationship
to examination credentials were clarified: now the twenty-year waiting period
started from the time of land-tax payment or property ownership, at the end of
which a household was qualified to ruji, and gained the legitimate opportunity
to sit the civil examinations in their host place. Second, the requirement of
ancestral burial in the host place was dropped, simplifying local credentialing
to an issue of property holding and taxation: property ownership, combined
with a twenty year waiting period in the host place, was sufficient to qualify a
person for participation in the local examinations.
With this revision, the conflict over local credentials in new places ended
with a sound victory for the mobile population. While the state seems to have
yielded to the inevitable, its re-iterated requirement of communications between officials of the host and home places confirms its commitment to eradicating multiple-place candidacy. Attesting to his aversion to such fraud, the
Qianlong emperor personally dictated that those who failed to clearly petition
and go through the procedure of permanent registration change (cheng ming
ruji ) will lose their qualification not only in their host place, but
also in their home place, even if they meet the requirements of host place candidacy.89 In the early Jiaqing era(17961820), this extraordinarily harsh penalty
imposed by the Qianlong emperor was neutralized, but the revisions by the
Ministry of Rites were reiterated and remained stable till the dynastys end.90
Thus by the end of the eighteenth century, legal and formal change of place
identity (ruji), as far as examinations were concerned, had become virtually a
regular procedure so long as migrants agreed not to undercut the spatial structure of the examination system.

88
89
90

Qing huidian shili (Jiaqing edition), juan 313, QL59.

Qing huidian shili (Jiaqing edition), juan 313, QL59.
Qing huidian shili (Jiaqing edition), juan 313, JQ3. See Qing huidian shili (Guangxu edition), juan 391, for later reiterations of this policy, such as in JQ12, JQ23, DG28. The early
Jiaqing courts rationale for neutralizing the Qianlong emperors special penalty was that
distinction should be made between people who delayed petition for ruji procedure
because of ignorance and people who purposely delayed petition to try and take the
examination in multiple places. As long as there was no evidence of fraud, people can
petition for ruji anytime. See Qing huidian shili (Jiaqing edition), juan 313, JQ3, JQ9.

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189

Zuji and the Rule of Avoidance
The 1645 edict was also the first time the term zuji was deployed in statutory
law. This edict set out to make a distinction between the ancestral and current
places of registration of degree holders, and hence allow the state to better
administer corve exemptions a privilege given to degree holders by the state
during the Ming and the early Qing by preventing them from claiming that
exemption in multiple places. The distinction between current and ancestral
places, just like that between temporary and permanent registrations, revealed
the new dynastys intention of addressing place-identity fraud not merely as a
nuisance in examination administration, but also as part of the larger problem
of population movement and multiple place-affiliations. But the original concern over multiple-place corve exemptions was soon rendered unnecessary
by early Qing reforms of the taxation and lijia systems. Simply put, these continued and brought to its final form the Single Whip reform of the late Ming.
Beginning in the early Kangxi era and lasting through the last decades of the
seventeenth century, labor conscriptions fulfilled by people in the lijia communities were gradually shifted to a fiscal obligation allocated to the taxable
lands of a local place. Although in theory labor service still existed and was
commuted to monetary payment, in practice the burden was shared by landowners only and hence became part of the land tax.91 The reforms progressed
at different rates in different places, but by the beginning of the eighteenth
century, they were largely in force across the country. On the basis of these reforms, labor conscription was formally abolished in the Yongzheng era.
As a consequence, examination degree holders corve exemption became
irrelevant. It was probably for this reason that in policies on mobile household
registration issued after the 1645 edict, the issue of that exemption was rarely
mentioned. But the distinction between current and ancestral places soon
served another function: to facilitate implementation of the Rule of Avoidance
in official assignments, to make sure civil officials avoided both ancestral places and their current places of residence.
The earliest move toward zuji avoidance was made in 1729 in a statute concerning post assignments for unranked personnel ():
All candidates for miscellaneous positions in the provinces should provide their zuji information in their application. Local officials
should check the accuracy of this information and include them in their
reports to the Ministry of Personnel. These applicants should be assigned
91

Liu Zhiwei, Zai guojia yu shehui zhijian, ch. 4.

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The Emergence Of Multi-place Household Registration

posts in other provinces, but the Rule of Avoidance should be applied in

cases of their zuji .92
By 1741 the rule was extended to cover ranked officials, to the effect that official
personnel with jiji registration () should avoid both the jiji and zuji
places in service.93 The rule was reiterated in 1778 when the shrewd Qianlong
emperor detected a case of violation with his own ear: during a routine audience with a newly appointed associate prefect to Shaoxing Prefecture,
the emperor recognized a slight Shaoxing accent, and, after further inquiry,
learned that he had sojourned in Shaoxing as a boy.94 The emperor was angry
at this discovery, although the anger was hard to justify for the officials sojourning experience in Shaoxing was long since over, and by the time of the
audience he was no longer in the category of personnel with jiji registration.
Most probably due to this ambiguity in the regulation, two years later an
amendment was added to provide regulation specifically regarding people
who had moved their registration from a jiji place back to their original places
. According to the amendment, if the registration had been
moved back for over thirty years, avoidance of the jiji place need not apply.95
Further amendment to the rule of zuji avoidance was made in the early Jiaqing
period for regulating issues of mourning leaves (dingyou ) and postmourning reposting (qifu ) among civil officials with jiji experience.96
Judging from the fact that the several known cases of zuji avoidance suspension were all granted by the emperor himself, the rules enforcement during
the Qing was fairly strict.97 The establishment and implementation of the rule
of zuji avoidance was necessary to save the Rule of Avoidance in a frequently
mobile society, for the rules proper implementation required correct and detailed information about a persons place-affiliations. In the late fourteenth
century the Hongwu emperors legislation on this rule was simply Officials
should avoid service in their home place .98 At that time he
did not have the problem of multiple place-affiliations among his subjects,
92
93
94
95
96
97

98

Qing huidian shili (Qianlong edition), juan 5.

Ibid.
Qing gaozong shilu, Qianlong sishier nian qi yue xia .
Qing gaozong shilu, Qianlong sishisi nian shi yue shang .
Qing huidian shili (Jiaqing edition), juan 114, JQ4; juan 115, JQ4.
For examples, see the case of Zhuang Yougong, in Qing gaozong shilu, Qianlong sanshiyi
nian bayue xia ; the case of Deng Tingzhen in Qing
xuanzong Shilu, Daoguang liu nian wuyue ; the case of Zhou Zhiqi
, in Qing xuanzong shilu, Daoguang liu nian liu yue .
Da Ming ling : Li ling , in Huangming zhishu , juan 1.

The Emergence of Multi-Place Household Registration

191

thus there was no need to bother with such things as zuji avoidance. In this
sense, the very emergence of zuji avoidance testifies to the transformation of
society from the time the Hongwu emperor established his administrative system.

Shangji in the Qing
Another line of the Qing reforms on household registration was the further
expansion and formalization of the shangji category that had first emerged
during the late Ming. On this issue the new dynasty also moved quickly. In 1655
the total number of salt districts endowed with shangji was expanded from the
Ming dynastys four to six; the specific shangji quota for each salt district was
also set. By 1721 the Guangdong salt district also gained a shangji quota, bringing the total to seven.99 The agencies that administered these quotas either
special institutions such as the transportation school in Shanxi (previously
Hedong), or designated Confucian schools in the places where district headquarters were located were also settled. The quotas and their specific administrations went through some adjustment during the Kangxi and Yongzheng
eras, but the basic principle of the shangji, that is, a quota set specifically for
salt merchants, remained unchanged. By the mid-Qianlong era, the rules of
operating shangji had become very clear: people who could be counted had to
be family members (instead of remote kin) of salt merchants who conducted
the salt business beyond (instead of within) the home province; the merchants
had to be currently operating the business (instead of having owned the license previously but sold it to others); and the candidates had to reside in the
places of business (instead of home places).100
In the long run, however, the importance of shangji to the salt merchants
was declining. During the Ming, when procedures for host place registration
were not yet uniform, and migrants participation in local examinations were
too dependent on local conditions, shangji as a favor from the government was
truly a convenience. By the Qing, with further reforms to the registration system, regular channels had been established for people to take the examinations in their host places. Meanwhile, competition within the shangji category
was not necessarily less intense. In Guangdong provincial examinations, for
example, the candidate-to-degree ratio for the shangji category was actually

99

100

The new districts that acquired a shangji quota in 1655 were in Shandong, Shaanxi. See
Xuezheng quan shu, juan 62. The Sichuan salt district gained a shangji quota in 1858, much
later than the other districts. See Sichuan yanfa zhi, juan 25.
Li bu zeli , juan 80.

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The Emergence Of Multi-place Household Registration

higher than among commoners.101 Thus the edge the shangji had provided as a
path to examination candidacy was rapidly disappearing. The symbolic value
of shangji as an imperial favor was also deflating, as separate examination quotas for special groups was no longer limited to the salt merchants. The salt makers in the production areas also came to enjoy their own special quota, and
even the tent people (pengmin ) in Jiangxi, who migrated to the rural
mountain areas of the province and settled among the indigenes, were granted
separate quotas as a special favor.102
In Lianghuai District, where the predominant Huizhou merchants did not
qualify for shangji because their home prefecture Huizhou lay within the same
province as the districts headquarters at Yangzhou, the situation was almost
embarrassing.103 In 1777 the low number of applicants for shangji status forced
the government to cut its quota. Three years later things had deteriorated even
further: if the rule of operation was to be implemented strictly, there would be
only one candidate who qualified for shangji status in Lianghuai. The court
thus decided to completely eliminate the shangji category in Lianghuai.104
Needless to say, the large numbers of Huizhou sojourners and settlers in Yangzhou did take the examinations there and fared pretty well. They simply went
by the regular channel of reregistrating as locals.
As far as the government was concerned, shangji was no longer of great importance, either. As early as 1764, the education inspector of Guangdong proposed to eliminate the shangji quota in Guangdong on the grounds that
violations of the rules were rampant. The courts rationale for keeping it in
place was to avoid merchants rushing to falsely claim local registration and
hence cause confusion in local governance.105 In 1780, the year Lianghuais
shangji program was eliminated, the same proposal was made for Liangzhe,
where the quota was the highest of all the salt districts, but many of the
candidates were actually Hangzhou locals. The Qianlong emperor personally
defended the status quo, but his defense was made on the grounds that
101
102

103

104
105

Xuezheng quan shu, juan 27, shangxue shili , QL27.

Xu Min, Qingdai qianqi, 150. On the special quota for shed people, see Zheng Yueda,
Yimin, huji, yu zongzu: Qingdai zhi minguo qijian Jiangxi Yuanzhou fu diqu yanjiu ,
, : (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2009).
Although the Qing dynasty divided the Ming Southern Zhili into the two provinces of
Jiangsu and Anhui in 1647, Anhuis provincial administration of civil affairs (buzheng shi)
remained in Nanjing till 1760.
Qing huidian shili (Jiaqing edition), juan 305, shangji xue e .
In 1752 more than half of the shangji candidates in Guangdong did not regularly reside in
the salt district as required. The problems with, and the proposed solution to, Guangdongs shangji practice are recorded in Xuezheng quanshu, juan 67, shangxue shili.

The Emergence of Multi-Place Household Registration

193

examination competition in the highly cultured province of Zhejiang was particularly intense, and elimination of the shangji category would make it even
more so. In other words, retaining the shangji of Liangzhe was a favor not to
merchants, but to the locals in Zhejiang.106
Seen against the larger picture of the household registration reforms of the
late Ming and the Qing, the extension of the shangji category and its subsequent loss of importance for both the merchants and the government was a
perfect illustration of the Qing institutional adjustment in response to pressing social realities. An ad hoc solution to the problem of population movement
inherited from the late Ming, the shangji category was taken seriously in the
beginning, but became less relevant because of the wider and more thorough
reforms the Qing undertook.
The trajectory of policy changes to household registration during the first 150
years of the Qing indicates that on the one hand the government persistently
tried to minimize the impact of mobility on the place-sensitive examination
system and the Rule of Avoidance; on the other hand, it largely accepted the
reality of its subjects movement between places and the persistence of links
with their places of origin. Through the rigorous and largely effective reforms,
the Qing developed a more sophisticated household registration system that
clarified the difference between temporary and permanent registrations in
civil service examinations through the procedure of ruji. It distinguished current from ancestral places in the Rule of Avoidance by the new legal terminology of zuji, and changed the status of shangji from a special favor to a
supplementary function. Many of the edicts and adjudications on the rule of
zuji avoidance, on shangji as a formal category of household registration, and
on the procedures of ruji were recorded in the precedents (zeli / shili
) section of the Da Qing huidian during in the Qianlong reign. By the
early nineteenth century, when the Jiaqing edition was compiled, the legislative changes accumulated over the previous 150 years were finally crystallized
into a legislation section proper, which was dedicated to the dynastys enduring and permanent institutions .107 Judging from this formal
legislation, the Qing had become an empire of well-regulated translocal movements at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
106
107

See Jiaqing huidian shili, juan 305.

On the rule of zuji avoidance, see Qing huidian (Jiaqing edition), juan 7; on the categories
of registration and the procedure for formally changing ones place of registration, see
juan 11. On the function of the huidian as an imperial compendium, see the Fanli section
of the Qing huidian (Qianlong edition).

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The Emergence Of Multi-place Household Registration

Household Registration and Local Community in the Qing

Mobile population posed challenges not only to the state. Their home communities also faced problems of how to treat people who had kinship and
other social links with the home place but were registered elsewhere. The most
frequently encountered problem was how to record such people in the local
gazetteers. Recording outstanding local individuals of various categories in the
local gazetteers was integral to the long localist tradition, in Huizhou as in
many other places. Among other functions, these records add more details and
made the local places increasingly distinct in time.108 Therefore, there was no
question but that worthy Huizhou men officially registered elsewhere should
be recorded in Huizhous gazetteers. In fact, from the mid-sixteenth century
on, gazetteers in Huizhou and many other places had started including extralocally registered degree winners in their sections on examination-related
affairs.109
In the Qing, however, the number of Huizhou households registered elsewhere increased substantially when the procedures of registration changed
and related examination opportunities were made clear. The scenario in Huizhou was vividly described in the 1699 prefectural gazetteer: The rich families
of Huizhou have all moved to such places as Yizheng, Yangzhou, Suzhou,
Songjiang, Huaian, Wuhu, Hangzhou, Huzhou, or Nanchang in Jiangxi or
Hankou in Huguang; even to distant places like Beijing, they took their families
and left. Furthermore, they took with them the bones of their grandfathers and
fathers to bury them in those remote places.110 By the early eighteenth century, extra-locally registered Huizhou men often outnumbered those registered
locally for the triennial provincial and national examinations.111 It had become
critical not only to record those Huizhou men but also to clarify the guiding
principle for doing so.
As seen from the occasions when the principle was stated, the approach
to defining local credentials in Huizhou, an important migrant-generating
community, was quite different from that followed by the imperial state in
108
109

110
111

Bol, Rise of Local History.

For examples of other places, see Chongzhen Wuxian zhi, juan 34; Zhaoan
xian zhi (1691), juan 10; Changzhou xianzhi (1753), juan 20; Ningguo xian zhi
(1815), juan 7; Fenghua xianzhi (1901), juan 9; Jiaying zhou zhi(1898), juan 20;
Jingzhou fuzhi(1880), juan 44; Xuyi xianzhigao(1903), juan 8; Jingxian
zhi(1816), juan 14; Ningguo fuzhi(1815), juan 8.
Huizhou fuzhi (1699), 2:66a.
See She xian zhi (1937), juan 4.

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195

administering examinations. The first occasion on which this principle was

clearly stated was in the 1699 edition of the prefectural gazetteer. The editor,
Zhao Jishi, explained covering Huizhous emigrant degree holders this way:
Those [whose family] has been living in this prefecture for generations
but are currently jiji households elsewhere should be recorded this
accords with the truth; if they left [Huizhou] long ago and have become
prominent clans in other places, they should not be included this also
accords with the truth
.112
Zhaos use of the word jiji to describe extra-locally registered degree holders is
inconsistent with the official terminologies of registration change. According
to the rules of the state, jiji was counted as a temporary status and did not
provide access to taking the examinations in a host place. As far as the examination administration was concerned, jiji households remained Huizhou-registered households in the strict sense, and they were supposed to participate in
the examinations back in Huizhou. Thus a discussion of their eligibility for
entry into the local gazetteer was unnecessary. If we look at the gazetteers lists
of degree holders, there is no entry for any person of temporary registration
status in another place. Most likely, Zhao used jiji to refer to people who had in
fact gone through the procedure of ruji and changed their official registration
permanently.
Zhao, writing in the mid-Kangxi era, could cite the lack of clarity in the
states own definition of the ruji procedure to excuse his terminological confusion. But a similar inconsistency in another document on this issue, made by
Huang Chongxing during the Daoguang era (18221850) several decades after the ruji procedure was clarified was hardly excusable. In a discussion about gazetteer styles, Huang first recognized that many people in our
prefecture sojourn in other places, and often they register in these places to
take the examination and enter the bureaucracy ().
Therefore, he went on, local gazetteers sections on degree holders should divide all of them into two parts, with people carrying home place registration
coming first, followed by people with jiji status ().113
Since those who earned degree and entered civil service from other places
were no doubt people who were supposed to have formally re-registered in

112
113

Huizhou fuzhi (1699), juan 9, Kedi [Examination Degree Holders].

Huang Chongxing, Jiji, in Huizhou fuzhi bian zheng (), 574.

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The Emergence Of Multi-place Household Registration

those places, it is clear that Huang used ruji and jiji in a loose and interchangeable way.
If the local documents inattention to official terminology indicates the Huizhou communitys lack of concern with the distinction between permanent
and temporary changes of registration, it is justifiable. The distinction was invented by the state to help it manage the civil service examinations in a mobile
empire. It was a concern that belonged properly to the state. What concerned
the local community the most was not whether a mobile household fulfilled
the states requirement for taking examination in their new locale, but whether they maintained their connections with the home community.
Zhao clearly demonstrated this concern when he stated that what disqualified Huizhou natives for an entry in the local gazetteer was not their formal
registration in other places but their long residence away from Huizhou and
their social standing elsewhere: those who had left Huizhou a long time ago
and become prominent clans in other places were least likely to be an integral
part of the Huizhou community. Huang expressed the same concern in his discussion of guiding principles for the section on noteworthy local personages
(renwu ), a usual section of the gazetteer that also involved making claims
on extra-local Huizhou men. His proposal was to follow the self-identification
of the person in question: if he declared he was a Huizhou man, he should be
included; without such a self-declaration, he should not even if it is crystal
clear that he was from Huizhou.114 In other words, to Huang, a worthy his
torical figures subjective position as a Huizhou man was sufficient for his
inclusion.
The emphasis on active links with the home community, and the use of Huizhou residence as a measure of this link, was also demonstrated on other occasions that involved the issue of how to treat extra-locally registered Huizhou
men. The She County lodge in Beijing (, see Chapter 3), an
institution originally founded to facilitate examination candidates stay in the
capital, periodically issued guidelines on room allocation. The guidelines issued in 1742 stated that there should be no differentiation between those under extra-local registrations (waiji) and those under native-place registrations
(benji); as long as one has evidence of place and kinship identities, all should
be admitted. That said, the guideline also recognized the difference between
native-place registration and extra-local registration, stating that in times of
room shortages, priority should be given to the former.115 In 1764 a revision
114
115

Huang Chongxing, Jiji, in Huizhou fuzhi bian zheng, 574.

Qianlong liu nian huiguan chongyi tiao gui [New Ordinance
Deliberated in the Sixth Year of the Qianlong Reign], in chong xu she xian huiguan lu, 31.

The Emergence of Multi-Place Household Registration

197

made the more subtle distinction that, in times of room shortages, priority
should be given to those with native-place registrations and those with extralocal registrations who are currently residing in the home county; other extralocals should wait until rooms become available.116 In 1814, when a limited
fund to subsidize Huizhou officials serving in Beijing became available, this
same criterion was reiterated: officials with extra-local registration were, in
general, not to receive a subsidy because there are just too many of them to be
comprehensively subsidized; but all who have re-registered in other places
but actually live in the home county should receive [the subsidy] as if they
were registered in their native place
.117
The terminology used by the lodge waiji and benji were different from
that of the state, and created a new distinction from the local communitys
own perspective. Since registration changes resulted from state efforts to register mobile households, the invention of these terms and the distinction they
created can be regarded as the communitys response to, and recognition of,
the effects of state policies. The lodges resource allocation principles indicate
that the local community had ways to narrow the gap between the states and
its own categories and even blur the distinction between them. Judging from
the priority of native-place registration over extra-local registration, official
registration status did matter. But it mattered because it implied possible attenuation of the link with the home community. Therefore, once the factor of
local residence was added to the equation, extra-local registrations could receive the same treatment as native-place registrations. Again, the actual social
link was perceived as more important than official status.
In both gazetteer coverage and lodge resource allocation, the local community demonstrated a consistent tendency toward inclusiveness. In this sense,
the Huizhou communitys approach to its mobile households was almost opposite to that of the state: while the latter drew lines of distinction between
temporary and permanent registrations in the host places or between the different place-affiliations the former tended to downplay or even disregard
those distinctions. The difference between these approaches indicates that the
state and the home community followed distinct logics in responding to the
newly emerged reality of spatial mobility. For the state, mobility threatened
the proper management of examination candidates and civil officials, and its
116
117

Qianlong ershiba nian zengyi guidiao [New Ordinance Added

in the Twenty-Eighth Year of the Qianlong Reign], in chong xu she xian huiguan lu, 33.
Jiaqing shijiu nian huiyi tiaogui [Ordinances Deliberated in the
Nineteenth Year of the Jiaqing Reign], in chong xu she xian huiguan lu, 60.

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The Emergence Of Multi-place Household Registration

solution, not surprisingly, was the invention and enforcement of a system with
more sophisticated categories. The local community, however, saw its challenge as the maintenance of communal cohesion, hence the insistence on the
criterion of social links like residency and personal identification with the
home place. When distinctions based on registration change became common, it was hard for the local community to completely ignore them. But the
local community could always downplay their importance.
In at least one respect the state and local communities joined forces: together they normalized the notion that there were now varied categories of
household registration and that place-affiliation was an issue that had to be
addressed in a multi-local context. This newly emerged sensitivity to the complexities of place-affiliation was not unique to Huizhou. Similar situations
and a similar emphasis on societal links appear in the gazetteers of Suzhou, a
migrant-receiving place. In the Song dynasty Suzhou gazetteers, basically no
distinction was made between natives and sojourners.118 The early sixteenthcentury gazetteer (Gusu zhi ) initiated a section for sojourners, but the
section on local worthies still included many non-natives. Beginning in the
Qianlong era, prefectural gazetteers defined natives and non-natives more
carefully, and the consistently adopted criterion runs: sojourners from other
places or people who reregistered here are all counted as non-natives (liuyu
) while those who had moved here since their ancestors and were
themselves born and raised here are counted as natives.119
Conclusion
At the end of the eighteenth century, the imperial states control over its populations mobility was much less rigid than in the late fourteenth century when
the Hongwu emperors household registration system was laid down. Travel,
sojourning, and migration to other places were virtually unrestricted by the
state during the high Qing. This change in policy did not mean the imperial
authorities were free of anxiety about the fluid population, as Philip Kuhn has
masterfully demonstrated in his study of the late eighteenth-century sorcery

118
119

See Zhu Changwen , Wu jun tujing xuji ; Fan Chengda ,

Wu jun zhi .
Suzhou fuzhi (1748), juan 67, Liuyu [Sojourners]; Suzhou fuzhi (1883), juan 111,
Liuyu.

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199

scare.120 But few proposed a return to the strict controls of the early Ming.
What made these policy changes irreversible was no doubt the translocal
activities of people in society. The states response to this dynamic and en
during social force was the long-term reform of the household registration system as well as the taxation and lijia systems. These reforms amounted to
abandoning the strategy of maintaining imperial spatial order by fixing people
within specific locales. In this sense, the reforms represented the states retreat
from an already impossible goal. The target of the Qing dynastys more sophisticated household registration system, with its new terms, new procedures,
and new rules, was actually management of the countrys examination can
didates and civil officials. What the state gained in this process was a more
rationalized and refined control of a key segment of its mobile population
the elites who aspired to enter the state bureaucracy or were already active
within it.
From the states perspective, this must have seemed the most realistic strategy for maintaining the spatial structure of the imperial bureaucracy without
restricting population movement. Translocal activities that involved people
who neither intended to earn a degree themselves nor expected their children
to move up the imperially sponsored social ladder were left outside strict state
regulation. For example, the Qing baojia system, which played a crucial role in
policing and census-taking, was designed to keep records of all households,
regardless of where they came from.121 This selective control, however, was
powerful enough to shape both the decisions of translocal households and the
way local communities handled those households. Evidence for the former
can be seen in the increasingly common decision by Huizhou merchants to
register in their sojourning places during the Qing. As for the latter, while local
120
121

Philip Kuhn, Soul Stealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 (Harvard University Press,
1992).
In 1649, when the Qing was just beginning to construct the baojia system, it was set as a
rule for its registration of households that whether native or from elsewhere, all should
be included and incorporated . See Qing shizu
shilu, Shunzhi yuannian bayue guihai . The same principle was
reiterated during the Qianlong reign, when the systems orientation was characterized as
to indiscriminately include all indigenous and sojourning population
. See Qingchao wenxian tongkao, juan 19, hukou 1. For a general discussion of
the baojia system in the Qing, see Kung-Chuan Hsiao, Rural China: Imperial Control in the
Nineteenth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1960), ch. 3; see also Hua Li
, Qingdai baojia zhidu jianlun [Short Discussion on Qing Baojia System]. Qing shi yanjiu ji , Juan 6, edited by Renmin daxue Qinshi yanjiu
suo (Beijing: Guangmin ribao chuban she, 1988), 87121.

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The Emergence Of Multi-place Household Registration

gazetteers consistently kept records of degree holders officially registered elsewhere, references to their registration changes attests to the power of state
policies in shaping how the local community constructed narratives about itself in the translocal age. And where the state chose not to exert special control, the local communities followed suit. For example, in Huizhou and
elsewhere, gazetteer sections on right deeds (), whose entries mostly
concern non-degree holders, recorded morally heroic deeds within and outside
their locales indiscriminately, and rarely make any reference at all to the actors
official registration places.122
To conclude, the long-term reforms of the household registration system
was a process that involved interactions among at least three parties: the mobile population, their home communities, and the imperial state. In this process the travelers and sojourners changed residence while maintaining
connections with their home place; the imperial state kept records of the trajectories of the more powerful and ambitious of these people; and the local
communities made claim to the accomplishments of its natives in other places. In the end, the one person, one place type of human-place relationship
gave way to a new multi-place normal.
122

Examples in this regard abound. For one example regarding Huizhou, see Shexian
zhi(1772), juan 13, Yixing. Among the 70 persons that it recorded in the Qing, more than
half were mentioned to have engaged in mercantile activities somewhere else. Some of
them were well-known philanthropists who were almost certainly well-established in
their host places. For example, a Wang Tao was said to have built an orphanage in Taizhou
of Zhejiang, and a Xu Jingqing donated his huge house in Nanjing to be used as the Anhui
provincial educational inspectors field office. As a rule, no information about their registration places was provided. There are two exceptions: a Xiang Junxin was recorded as a
county school student in Renhe county of Hangzhou; a Pan Jingwen (the same Jingwen as
mentioned in Chapter 4) was recorded as a student under the category of shangji. Since
the protagonist in both of these two cases were registered elsewhere, it is clear that the
local gazetteers records of righteous deeds included people who were technically nonlocals. More importantly, the fact that they were both enrolled students, i.e., people who
were pursuing examination degrees, makes their cases exactly the exception that proves
the rule, that is, for people who were not involved in the examination field, the place of
registration was not a concern. If we take into consideration that if a person was not pursuing civil service, his place of registration mattered little to the state, and even less, if at
all, to the home locale community, the disregard demonstrated by the gazetteer appears
perfectly reasonable.

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201

Chapter 6

Routes and Places: Spatial Order in Merchant

Geographies
In 1570 a Huizhou merchant, Huang Bian , who was then sojourning in
Suzhou, published a book entitled Yitong lucheng tu ji (Illustrated Route Book of the Realm in Unity). This book is the earliest privately compiled comprehensive route book extant today.1 It provides information on 144
routes covering the entirety of the Ming realm, mostly through written descriptions, supplemented by a few crude cartographic figures. As a merchant,
Huang had traveled widely in his youth and often encountered situations in
which the routes forward were perplexing, and the effort of making enquiries
frustrating. He asserted, There must be many who are vexed by the complexities of the routes as I have been.2 In the early 1540s, his business eventually
led him to settle in Suzhou, a major hub in the burgeoning empire-wide network of long-distance trade where the goods of all provinces converge.3 There
he traded with merchants from the two capital regions, the thirteen provinces,
and the frontiers, and from them acquired a number of route maps (chengtu
). It was through collating and editing these route maps and cross-checking a variety of other geographical sources including local gazetteers (fangzhi
), comprehensive gazetteers (zongzhi ), and travel experiences of his
own as well as merchants with whom he was acquainted that Huang compiled his route book, a project that took him almost three decades.
Whether or not privately compiled comprehensive route books existed before Huangs, it is clear that in terms of both content and format, Huangs book
contained all the major characteristics of similar works that would follow it;
hence it signaled the establishment of this type of work as a mature genre.
Soon afterward, comprehensive route books started to be combined with other
information deemed essential for merchants, and so they became the core of
another publication genre merchant manuals.4 Publication of compre1
2
3
4

Timothy Brook, Geographical sources of Ming-Qing History (Ann Arbor: University of

Michigan Press, 2002), 8.
Huang Bian, Yitong lucheng tu ji, Xu [Preface].
The phrasing is adopted from the title of Michael Marmes book, Suzhou: Where the Goods
of All the Provinces Converge (Stanford University Press, 2005).
For the term merchant manual, see Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese Merchant Manuals
and Route Books, in Ching-sih Wen-ti 2.9 (1973): 834. See also Chen Xuewen, Ming Qing

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Routes And Places: Spatial Order In Merchant Geographies

hensive route books in this format continued for more than two hundred years
and left more than a dozen titles known to us today, most of them compiled by
merchants. Among these, the key works were all compiled by merchants from
Huizhou. The trajectory of the route book as a genre and the spatial order of
the realm these books portrayed is the subject of this chapter.
Huang clearly intended his book to be a travelers guide. But knowing the
routes, as he saw it, was not limited to facilitating travel from one place to another. It rather meant knowing the geography of the whole realm, or being
able, in Huangs words, to have the territories of the Nine Regions [i.e. the
realm] as if it is in the palm of ones hand .5 The
contents of his book indicate that this was more than just a rhetorical flourish.
In addition to route directions, it also included brief information about hundreds of places along the routes, physiographical analysis of regions, mountains, and rivers, and sometimes historical events associated with the places. In
terms of the breadth of its coverage, the book was nothing short of a general
geography of the Ming Empire. It was probably for this reason that in the late
eighteenth century the editors of the Siku quanshu project catalogued Huangs
book as a zongzhi, or comprehensive gazetteer, the category of geographical
books that was defined as [celebrating] the grand unity (, )
and usually covered the entirety of the empire as a hierarchy of administratively defined local places.6 The tendency toward coverage of the empire as a
whole was continued and pursued even further in route books that came in the
wake of Huangs. Most of them managed to include some brief information on
the empire-wide field administration system that read like an abridged zongzhi, and almost unvaryingly claimed to be a celebration of or in service to the
greatness of all-under-Heaven(tianxia).7 In both orientation and content,
the merchant authors of the route books consciously regarded themselves as
writers of geography of the entire realm.
The inclination of route book compilers to position themselves this way
in fact reflected a widespread interest in comprehensive geography in late
Ming society. In the last century of the Ming, private compilation of zongzhi

5
6
7

Shiqi Shangye shu ji Shangren Shu Zhi Yanjiu (Taipei:

Hongye wenhua shiye you xian gongsi, 1997).
Huang Bian, Yitong lucheng tu ji, Xu.
Si ku quan shu zong mu, juan 68.
This incorporation either came as an appendix at the beginning or end of the route information, as in Cheng Chunyus Shishang leiyao (1626) and Chen Qijis
Tianxia lucheng (1742), or paralleled the latter by occupying the separated upper panels of the books pages, as in Cui Tingzhis Lucheng yaolan
(1728).

Routes and Places: Spatial Order in Merchant Geographies

203

flourished. As if in a sudden burst of enthusiasm, almost ten times more such

works were published in this relatively short period than in the dynastys first
150 years, making the late Ming by far the most productive period for this genre
since its inception during the TangSong transition. Lower-level examinationdegree holders or literati with no examination degree played a crucial role in
this flowering of zongzhi. One of the main themes the literati highlighted in
their geographical writings was ordering the world. Despite their lack of official status their writings were to help others see the world and know the
world.8 If the widespread literati engagement in compiling zongzhi attests to a
diffuse sense of agency over the realms spatial order, route books present us
with a case in which merchants joined the chorus to demonstrate their own
sense of agency in ordering space.
A recent body of scholarship has argued for the convergence of the literati
(shi) and the merchants (shang) in their career patterns, social networking,
and cultural taste during the late Ming and the Qing.9 In many respects the
route books lend support to this thesis. First, there was a convergence in the
intended audience for these books. Huang included not only merchants like
himself, but also officials on inspection tours and sightseers and explorers.10
The epilogue of the book, written by Huangs friend Wu You, a Suzhou bibliophile, also asserted that since it could be used by both literati-officials and merchants, it greatly benefits the all-under-Heaven.11 Some later route books,
such as Cheng Chunyus Shishang leiyao (Encyclopedia for Gentry
and Merchant) and Dan Yizhis Shishang yaolan (Handbook of Key
Issues for Gentry and Merchants), explicitly registered the books prospective
use by both literati and merchants. Second, literati also contributed to the production of route books as preface writers, collaborators in the compiling and
editing process, and even occasionally as the actual compiler. Third, route
books and conventional zongzhi compiled by the literati show signs of mutual
penetration in terms of content: while most route books managed to include
brief information of the empire-wide field administration, some of the literati
also modified their genres convention of representing the empire as an admin8

10
11

For further discussion of the late Ming comprehensive gazetteers, see Yongtao Du, Literati and Spatial Order: A Preliminary Study of Late Ming Comprehensive Gazetteers, in
Journal of Ming Studies 66 (Sep. 2012):1643.
Yu Yingshi, Zhongguo Jinshi Zhongjiao Lunli and Business Culture and Chinese Traditions. See also Kai-Wing Chow, Publishing, Culture, and Power. For a critical review of the
merchant-literati convergence thesis, see Antonia Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou, 264.
Huang Bian, Yitong lucheng tu ji, Xu.
Wu You , Epilogue to Yitong lucheng tu ji.

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Routes And Places: Spatial Order In Merchant Geographies

istrative hierarchy and began to include information about routes and route
networks.12
But route books also demonstrated unmistakable differences from the conventional zongzhi. Their selection of information prioritized merchants needs
and included such information as marketable products and commercial facilities of local places along the routes, often giving short shrift to moral paragons
or land tax data that was deemed useful for statecraft purposes. The framework
they employed to organize local places decisively deviated from the structure
of the administrative hierarchy, since it presented instead a network of horizontally interconnected places. Its mode of narrative was not one that tells
people where a place is, as in the conventional gazetteers, but rather instructs
them how to get there. While the Siku quanshu editors catalogued Huangs
book as zongzhi, the route book was really a new type of comprehensive gazetteer quite different from that compiled by the state or the literati.
If we agree that knowledge is always produced in a specific social and cultural setting, and carries specific meanings and serves specific purposes within
that setting, the route books stand for a distinct type of geographical knowledge, one generated in the course of increased mobility spearheaded by the
merchants and shaped by their particular concerns.13 Literati and their zongzhi exerted influence on it, but it was the merchants who made the genre distinctive. Because of the merchants crucial role in the creation and development
of these works, and their clear sense of agency in writing about the realm,
I regard route books as a merchants geography of the empire. To understand
the significance of the rise of this genre and the spatial order these works projected, we must start with a brief survey of state-dominated geographical writing in China.
Statist Perspective and Private Participation in Geographical
Writing

Geographical Writing and the State
Modern historians have identified a long and continuous tradition of geographical writing in the Confucian tradition, going back to the pre-imperial

12
13

For some examples, see Zhang Rumao , Guang huangyu kao ; and Wu
Xueyan , Ditu zongyao .
On this specific approach to the notion of knowledge, see Joan Scott, Gender and Politics
of History (Columbia University Press, 1999), 2.

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205

period and lasting to the early twentieth century.14 In the Yugong (Tribute of
Yu ) chapter of the Shangshu (Book of Documents ), a text generally
accepted as the earliest geographical document in the Confucian canon, we
see two perspectives on geography one physiographical, the other statist in
parallel. The text begins with the Great Yu moving through the realm, dividing
it into Nine Regions (jiuzhou ), along the physiographical features of
mountains and rivers, and quelling the great flood by building on the natural
patterns of water systems and rechanneling them where necessary. But immediately following this account, the statist view emerges. The Nine Regions in
the post-flood world are conceptualized as sociopolitical units ordered from a
political center:
Thus, throughout the Nine Provinces [Regions] a similar order was
effected: The grounds along the waters were everywhere made habitable;
the hills were cleared of their superfluous wood and sacrificed to; the
sources of the streams were cleared; the marshes were well banked;
access to the capital was secured for all within the four seas. A great order
was effected in the six storehouses of material wealth; the different parts
of the country were subjected to an exact comparison, so that contributions of revenue could be carefully adjusted according to their resources.
The fields were all classified with reference to the three characters of the
soil, and the revenues for the middle region were established.15
Toward the end of the text, the author presents an idealized spatial scheme of
the world, centered on the kings capital and extended grade by grade to the
territories of the barbarians at the margins. In this idealized concentric structure, often referred to as the Five Domains (wufu ), the kings capital was
not only the political center but also the pivot of the cosmic-social order. Yugong was revered and cited by almost all latter-day geographical works. Its
dual concepts of jiuzhou and wufu set up the geopolitical and geo-moral beliefs
that profoundly defined the Confucian tradition of geographical writing,
which has been characterized by a Chinese historical geographer as in nature

14

15

See Wang Yong , Zhongguo dili xue shi (Beijing: Shangwu yinshu
guan, 1955), 116; Tang Xiaofeng, From Dynastic Geography to Historical Geography: A
Change in Perspective towards the Geographic Past of China (Beijing: The Commercial
Press International, Ltd., 2000), ch. 2.
James Legge, trans.The Chinese Classics, vol. 3, Book of Historical Documents, 141. (Taipei,
Nantian Shuju, 1991), 141. Cited by Tang Xiaofeng, 2526.

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Routes And Places: Spatial Order In Merchant Geographies

official, historical, and moral; its central task was to create, describe, and defend a world order that was both politically realistic and morally idealistic.16
The official nature of geographical knowledge that developed early on in
China is made explicit by another text from the Confucian canon, the Zhi
fang () section of the Zhouli (Rites of Zhou ), which was also frequently cited by latter-day geographical works. This text stated that as a branch
of the state, the duty of the office of zhifang was to hold in hand the maps of
all-under-Heaven so as to grasp its territories . In
the same vein, from classical times the submission of maps of a place was seen
as acceptance of political domination, and the possession of accurate local
geographical information regarded as crucial to effective rule.17
The tie between geography and the state grew stronger with the consolidation of the empire. The statist perspective naturally became more prominent.
The inclusion of a treatise on geography (dili zhi ) in the official history
of the Han dynasty (Hanshu ) initiated the genre of dynastic geography,
which organized information strictly along the line of the states field administration. Descriptions of the physiographical regions were retained in the Hanshu, but largely disappeared thereafter. The statist approach of keeping records
of administratively ordered units regardless of their natural regions became
the definitive framework for organizing geographical information.18 Meanwhile the states effort to obtain and control geographical knowledge became
16
17

18

See Tang Xiaofeng, From Dynastic Geography to Historical Geography, ch. 2.

Cordell Yee, Cartography in China, in Cartography in Traditional East and Southeast
Asian Societies, eds. J.B. Harley and David Woodward (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press. 1994): ch. 2.
The one exception was the Treatise on Geography in the official history of the Sui
dynasty (Suishu dili zhi ). See Xin Deyong, Tang dai de di li xue
[Geography in the Tang], in Xin Deyong, Li shi de kongjian yu kongjian de lishi
(Beijing: Beijing shifan daxue chuban she, 2005), 282. See also
Zhou Zhenhe, Preface to Wang shixing dili shu san zhong [Preface to the Three Geographcal Works of Wang Shixing], in wang shixing dili shu san zhong
(Shanghai: Shanghai guji chuban she, 1993). Occasionally there
were maps that carried on this orientation; for example, the Song dynasty map Traces of
Yu presented the realm regardless of administrative units. But its influence was
very limited. In both official and private geographical texts, the statist approach almost
always eclipsed regional description. Interests in physiographical regions were mostly
reserved for studies of Yugong, a scholarship that was categorized as a branch of classic
studies (jingxue). Inside the field of Yugong studies, the impulse to go beyond generic
limits of exegesis and to direct the field toward physiographical studies emerged in Song
and Ming times. For a study of this development in the Song, see Pan Shen , Song
dai de Yu Gong zhi xue [Studies of the Yugong during the Song],

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207

more intensive and more institutionalized. Stories about rulers being keenly
interested in collecting geographies abound. One of the most well-known relates how Xiao He, chief advisor to Liu Bang, the founder of the Han dynasty,
made the acquisition of Qin maps and geographical books his priority when
the anti-Qin armies entered the Qin capital. This information eventually
helped secure Liu Bangs triumph against his rivals. All dynasties of the imperial period had special offices for storing geographical books and maps. Beginning with the Sui dynasty, this function was stabilized in the zhifang bureau of
the Ministry of War, named after the legendary map-controlling institution in
the Zhouli.19 The Song dynasty bibliographer Wang Yinglin explained
the rationale behind official administration of maps and other geographical
works as making them invisible so that the sage-kings could stop treachery
and dispel troubles.20
Another practice that began in the Sui dynasty was the central governments
orders to local governments to submit tujing (lit., maps and treatises,
also called tuji or tuzhi ), which collected maps and factual information on local places such as products and customs.21 This practice was regularized in Tang and Song times. At the local level, it triggered the production of
tujing in large numbers, and eventually led to the emergence of a new genre,
the fangzhi. At the central level, officials started to compile the collected local
submissions into nationwide compendia of geographical information, i.e., the
zongzhi.22 During the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, the central governments requests for local gazetteers continued, and compilation of zongzhi

19
20
21

22

in Lishi yanjiu, 2009-3:.3958. For the Ming, see the late Ming scholar Mao Ruizhengs
preface to his Yu gong hui zhu .
Wang Yong, Zhongguo dili xue shi, 4249.
Wang Yinglin , Tongjian dili tongshi , juan 2.
The beginning of this practice was recorded in the Treatise on Bibliography (jingji zhi
) of the Suishu , according to which, during the Daye reign period (605617),
the court ordered that all prefectures throughout the empire should prepare [accounts
of] their customs, products, and maps, and submit them to the Department of State
Affairs . See also Hargett, Song Dynasty
Gazetteers, 409410; and Lu Liangzhi , Zhongguo ditu xue shi
(Beijing: Cehui chuban she, 1984), 53.
On the TangSong dynasties requests for geographical information from local governments, see Wang Yong, Zhongguo dili xue shi, 4549. On the role of tujing in the origin of
difangzhi and zongzhi, see Hargett, Song Dynasty Gazetteers, 409419; see also Wang
Yong, Zhongguo dili xue shi, 211216. On the Qing, see Ba Zhaoxiang , lun daqing
yitongzhi de bianzhuan dui qingdai difangzhi de yingxiang
[ On the Impact on Local Gazetteers by the Compilation of the Daqing
yitongzhi], in Ningxia shehui kexue 124.3 (2004):6773

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Routes And Places: Spatial Order In Merchant Geographies

based on submitted local gazetteers became a routinized activity of the imperial government. These state-sponsored comprehensive gazetteers, called
yitongzhi (literally meaning unity gazetteer) since the Yuan, thus
became another part of the dynastic geography, in parallel with the treatises of
geographies in the dynastic histories
As the stand-alone geographical compendia sponsored by the reigning dynasty and compiled by its civil officials currently in service, and covering the
entirety of the dynastys territories, yitongzhi most pertinently demonstrate
the statist perspective and the states involvement in the production of geographical knowledge. The example of the Ming dynastys project, the Da Ming
yitongzhi, is illuminating. When it was completed in 1461, the Tianshun emperor himself provided a royal preface, in which he elaborated on the ethos of
knowing and controlling: Under Heaven and above the earth, from ancient
times to the present, all that happened and exists, however trivial, however
magnificent, I shall know.23
The structure of this ninety-juan comprehensive gazetteer, as with all other
dynastic geographies, organizes places along administrative divisions. Each of
the fifteen province-level entities (that is, the two capital regions plus the thirteen provinces) occupies several juan. The text on each province starts with a
brief description of the provinces strategic position and historical evolution,
and continues with entries about its component prefectures, which serve as
the basic organizational units of the narrative. Within each prefecture, the description begins with the celestial region that corresponds to the prefectures
terrestrial location, continues with the historical changes it underwent as an
administrative unit, and ends with descriptions of its component counties. For
each county, the recorded information includes its location in relation to the
23

Zhengtong Emperor, Yu zhi da ming yi tong zhi xu [Preface to the

Da Ming yitong zhi]. The compilation of the Daming yitong zhi was a long process. During
the Ming founding the Hongwu Emperor had requested local gazetteers and ordered the
compilation of several comprehensive gazetteers. The results of these early compilation
projects include the daming zhi shu , the Daming qinglei tianwen fenye
, and the Huanyu tongqu . Beginning with the Yongle Emperor
(r. 14031423), with the dust of dynastic transition settled, the court started to compile a
more detailed comprehensive gazetteer for the dynasty. The project, which would become
the Daming yitongzhi, took several decades of preparation and compilation because of
interruptions caused by political turbulence. For more details on this process, see Zhang
Yingpin , Lun da ming yi tong zhi de bian zhuan [On the
Compilation of the Daming yitong zhi], in Shi xue shi yan jiu, 2004-6. Wang Jianying,
, Ming dai zongzhi ping shu [Evaluating the Ming Comprehensive Gazetteers], in Zhongguo lishi dili lun cong, 1991-2: 177188.

Routes and Places: Spatial Order in Merchant Geographies

209

prefecture seat, the evolution of its administrative status, its population data,
and so forth.
This textual structure produces a hierarchical and standardized picture of
the Ming Empire integrated through its administrative system: Counties are
connected vertically to the prefecture, prefectures vertically to the province,
and provinces vertically to the court. The basic unit of narrative, the prefecture, exists discretely in the text, with no mention of its interconnections with
other prefectures. Provinces also exist as discrete entities. The last two juan of
this ninety-juan gazetteer cover foreign barbarian states that held a
tributary relationship with the Ming, symbolizing the empires centrality vis-vis other states in all-under-Heaven. Corresponding to the emperors declared
intent of knowing everything in his empire, the structure and content of the
Da Ming yitongzhi was a reification of the rulers examination of the land and
the people; its text can be read as a virtual examination of the realm as the
readers eyes go through the book province by province, prefecture by prefecture.

Private Participation and the Statist Perspective in Late Ming

Zongzhi
The widespread use of woodblock printing and the emergence of a publishing
market in China from Song times presented a challenge to state control of geographical knowledge, as private initiatives undertaken to compile and publish
fangzhi and zongzhi became increasingly common. Although it was governmental requests for local information that encouraged the transformation of
the fangzhi format and the increased production of such works, by the Southern Song the compilation of fangzhi had already become an important vehicle
for celebrating local identity and involved a great deal of participation by local
literati. During the Ming and the Qing, the compilation of fangzhi engaged local officials and local literati jointly, instead of being a strictly state-ordered
project. A similar increase in private initiatives occurred in the compilation of
zongzhi over the course of the Song: The Northern Song produced several such
works, most of whose authors were court officials, and the finished works were
submitted to the throne. By the Southern Song, most of the compilers were local officials, and far fewer of them submitted their finished works to the court.
Meanwhile, information designed to entertain non-official readers in society
made up a greater part of the content at the expense of statecraft-oriented
data.24
24

Guo Shengbo , Tang Song dili zongzhi cong diji dao shenglan de yanbian
[The Tang-Song Transformation of Comprehensive

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In the late Ming, private participation in the writing of zongzhi reached a

new level. On the one hand, the number of private projects had dramatically
increased. One author observed, The geographical works on the empire available on the book market now could fill houses ().25
Titles that can be identified today as privately compiled during the last century
of the Ming exceed thirty. On the other hand, the compiling process shifted
further away from the court: authorship increasingly spilled out of the domain
of high-level degree holders and officials to involve a much broader social
spectrum. In the last several decades of the Ming, most of these authors were
holders of low-level degrees or had no degree at all. Diversification of author
status was paralleled by the diversification of intended readers, which often
combined rulers, officials, and ordinary people. The practice of submitting finished works to the court almost completely disappeared. As the production of
such works boomed on the private side, the Ming government stopped its
sponsorship of comprehensive gazetteers after the completion of Da Ming
yitongzhi.26 This, combined with the dynastys slack control of the publishing
market made the late-Ming political center virtually irrelevant in the production of comprehensive geographies of the empire.27
One of the motivations for the literatis pursuits in this field came from their
intensified concern with statecraft (jingshi ) issues, which was triggered
by a perceived crisis of the state in the middle of the sixteenth century. This
sense of crisis was raised by developments on multiple fronts Mongol raids in
the north, the wokou harassment along the southeast coast, and across-the-

25
26
27

Gazetteers from Administrative Handbook to Tourist Guide], in Sichuan daxue xue bao,
2000-6:8592. Two widely circulated Southern Song pieces, Fangyu shenglan
by Wang Xiangzhi and Yudi jisheng by Zhu Mu , made it explicit
that their books were written to guide the literati in sightseeing, place-envisioning, and
literary writing. See Zhu Mus preface to Fangyu shenglan, and Wang Xiangzhis preface to
Yudi jisheng. Peter Bol has analyzed Wangs work by situating it in the social and intellectual context of the Southern Song. See Bol, Rise of Local History: 5464. For a concise
discussion of Zhu Mus work in English, also see Bol, Rise of Local History: 6263. For a
more detailed study of Zhu Mus life and his work in Chinese, see Tang Qixiang, Song ben
fang yu sheng lan xu [Preface to the Song edition of Fangyu shenglan],
in Song ben fangyu shenglan (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chu ban she 1986).
Zhang Rumao, Guang Huang yu kao, Xu (Preface).
For a survey of the flourishing literati zongzhi, see Yongato Du, Literati and Spatial Order,
1623.
Cynthia Brokaw, On the History of the Book in China, in Printing and Book Culture in
Late Imperial China, eds. Kai-wing Chow and Cynthia Brokaw (University of California
Press, 2004), 1720.

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211

board fiscal problems.28 Amidst these concerns, the Da Ming yitongzhi was
widely criticized for being out of date and out of touch with the political and
social realities of the time.29 This provided incentive for private gazetteers to
provide more up-to-date and pertinent information that could address broadly
held concerns around statecraft.
But the flourishing of private engagement in zongzhi compilation involved
more than providing practical content motivated by issues of statecraft. Private gazetteers included such works as abridged versions of the Da Ming
yitongzhi, published as late as the 1570s and 1590s, when the value of statecraft
information in the book was long since deemed outdated, and most works
were explicitly oriented toward facilitating literary writing and sightseeing.30
In fact, the common claim of these works to help people know the realm without stepping out ones door well exceeded the narrowly
defined notion of statecraft. The preface to Lu Yingyangs Guangyu ji
provides a good illustration of this. Lus book focused on famous sightseeing
places and historical figures, and thus was the polar opposite of the trend toward statecraft. But the preface writer defended this deviation by stating that
of the things on which the universe concentrated its qi (air), such as people
of brilliance and places of wonder, though they are not covered by even the
classical geographies, how can learned people and active writers neglect them?
By focusing on these things, Mr. Lus book may really surpass Ban Gus Hanshu
and stand eternally at the level of Yugong and zhouli.31
According to this line of thinking, writing a comprehensive gazetteer is to
practice jingshi in the original sense of the word, that is, to order the world. It
did not necessarily involve becoming a state official or listing administrative
data, but could mean engagement at a broader level: to understand the world
in ones mind and master it through writing about it. The diverse foci of these
gazetteers and all their discussion about seeing the world without stepping
28

29
30

31

For a study of the statecraft concerns in the late Ming literati zongzhi, see Osawa Akihiro
, Shishounogaku kara Yochinogaku he: Chirisho ni mieru Minmatsu
: [From Rhetoric Studies to the Study of the
Land: the Late Ming in the perspective of Geographical Books], in shirin, 76.1(1993):132.
For a general review on the critiques of Da Ming yitongzhi, see Wang Jianying, ming dai
zongzhi ping shu.
For examples of the former category, see Zhang Yingtu , Daming yitong zhi ji lu
(1576); and Sun Lin , Xinke da Ming yitongzhi jilue
(1692). For examples of the latter category, see Lu Yingyang, Guangyu ji
(1600); and Chao Xuequan , Da Ming yitong mingsheng zhi
(1631).
Feng Shike , Xu (Preface), in Guangyu ji.

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out of ones house perfectly fit the ideal of ordering the world. This lofty goal,
together with the rather presumptuous claims of greatness, asserted a new
sense of agency among the literati over the world they lived in, as they were
both empowered and frustrated by the sea changes of society, which included
the unprecedented swelling of their ranks, relatedly congested channels for
entering civil service, drastically increased social and spatial mobility, and the
nascent emergence of a reading public.32 The flourishing of private zongzhi
thus allowed more people to participate in the articulation and consumption
of imperial space and accommodated diverse motivations, sentiments, and intellectual interests.
The state, with its central position in the career ambitions of the literati and
the daunting crises it faced, became a prominent concern in these private gazetteers. The statist perspective, as embodied in organizing geographical information in an administrative hierarchy, was largely retained in all these literati
zongzhi. At the same time, however, the near-complete domination of private
initiatives in gazetteer production opened the gate for perspectives that deviated from and undermined that of the state and the dynastys sole claim over
the realm.
This deviation is vividly demonstrated in the way these gazetteers accommodated various types of new geographical information. Some crucial statecraft information such as that on Yellow River management and Grand Canal
transportation involved several provinces and were hard to fit into the administratively ordered framework. This type of information was often packed
into special sections, either attached at the end of regular province-based
chapters or presented at the beginning before the regular chapters. On some
occasions special sections were designated for physiographical analysis of the
realm, as if to revive the alternative perspectives long suppressed by the statist
demarcations of the geographical space.33 Many of these gazetteers discussed
32

33

Among the many works on late Ming culture, see Timothy Brook, The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998);
and Kai-Wing Chow, Publishing, Culture, and Power.
For example, Wu Xueyans Ditu zongyao discussed a list of physiographical issues that include the Pattern of Mountains and Rivers (), Key Cities and Their Relative Positions (), Strategic Values of the Northern and
Southern Regions (), and the Crucial Position of the ChuanShan Region in
Controlling the Whole Realm (). Li Yunxiangs Huiji yutu beikao quanshu
contained a set of physiographical discussions of the fifteen provinces of
the Ming empire, including their mountains and rivers, their strategic position within the
larger physiographical pattern of the realm, etc. Although the subject matter in these discussions was divided into fifteen units along administrative lines, they differ from the

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213

the territory of past dynasties in cartographic as well as verbal forms, with the
effect of suggesting that dynastic states are as transient as the realm is perpetual.34 In general, the conventional organization and the statist perspective that
characterized the official geography were frequently stretched here and there,
suggesting that the energized field of geographical writing in the late Ming was
pregnant with various new views of the realm. It was against this background
that merchant route books emerged. As the analysis below demonstrates,
these books made even bolder deviations.
Merchant Route Books as Publications
Route information had been available in both map and text forms prior to the
publication of Huangs comprehensive route book. They were called route records (chenglu ) and route maps (chengtu ), respectively, and both
can be traced at least to the Song dynasty.35 The fact that verbal description
eventually became the primary format for recording route information must
have something to do with the lack of accuracy in traditional Chinese cartography. While no Ming or earlier route maps survive, Timothy Brooks study of
maps from the Qing may give us an idea of their level of usefulness. One of
them, You Juyongguan zhi Yangzhou (From Juyongguan to
Yangzhou), transformed the Grand Canal into a straight waterway; another
one, entitled Donghuamen dao Xingjing luchengtu

34
35

general comments on these units in the Da Ming yitongzhi, which focuses on their administrative evolution. Probably for this reason, Li put these discussions together as a special
chapter at the beginning of the book instead of assigning them to the chapters on the
various provinces.
For examples, see Wu Guofus Jingu yudi tu ; and Zhu Yuechun
, Yueshi jindai .
A Southern Song random note Gu hang za ji , by Li Mao , mentioned the
printed route map entitled chao jing lichen tu (Map of Routes to the Capital)
on sale in courier stations near the southern Song capital Linan. This section of Lis book
was preserved in Lu Ji , Gu jin shuo hai, , juan 105. As for the route record,
the late Ming scholar Gu Yanwu preserved a Northern Song piece in his Tianxia
junquo libinq shu. The piece was made by the Northern Song court official Xu Kangzongs
, who recorded the stages (cheng) of his journey to the capital of the Jurchen Jin
state, including the place-names along the route, distances between stages, and some
comments on the places along the way. See Gu Yanwu, Tianxia junguo libing shu (Shanghai: Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1936; reprinted at Kyoto: ChumonShuppansha, 1975), vol. 3,
85a91b. Both Lu Jis and Gu Yanwus book are cited by Timothy Brook, Guides for Vexed
Travelers: Route Books in the Ming and Ching, Ching-shi wen-ti, 4.5(1981): 3334.

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(Route from Donghua Gate to Xingjing) simplified the journey from Beijing to
present-day Shenyang to a straight line.36 Meanwhile, the development of
woodblock printing must also have contributed to the dominance of the text
format, for it could provide larger amounts of information compared to maps.37
The prominence of text over map in the late Ming route records was clearly
illustrated in the making of Huangs book. The compilation process started
with the collection of several route maps from the merchants he traded with,
as he states in the preface. But the main work of compiling involved two other
sources: first, a large number of gazetteers his friend Wu You had collected;
second, oral accounts based on experiences of his own and merchants he was
acquainted with. All these are mentioned in the epilogue written by Wu You.
The final form of the route book relied mostly on text, though Huang did include two maps of the routes in the beginning of the book. But these very simple graphics only present a schematic of the network of trunk routes for the
whole Ming Empire, which would obviously not be of much use to travelers on
the road (see Figure 6.1)
The Ming dynastys earliest route information (in text format) was produced
by the government. In 1394, the Hongwu emperor ordered the compilation of
a book on the roads and mileage of the realm, which was entitled Huangyu
tongqu (Major Routes of the Realm).38 The book covered the officially maintained stage routes from the imperial capital at Nanjing to the frontiers and the thirteen provinces. Information about these routes concerned
their types (overland or water), relay stations, and the distances between the
relay stations.39 Two other early Ming official route books have been identified
by the Japanese scholar Tanii Toshihito: the Jingcheng sizhi shuima yicheng
(Water and Overland Routes to the Capital) and the Nanjing
zhi Beijing yidao fangmian (Courier Routes between
Nanjing and Beijing). These were elaborations of the Huanyu tongqu, adjusted
for the changes in political geography after the capital was relocated from Nanjing to Beijing in the early fifteenth century. Occasional references to such
works in private catalogues indicate some circulation of these works in society.40 However, their popularity and usefulness should not be exaggerated: ref36
37
38
39
40

Timothy Brook, Guide for Vexed Travelers: 3435.

Timothy Brook, Geographical Sources, 5.
Zhang Yingpin, Lun da ming yi tong zhi de bian zuan: 49.
See Huanyu tongqu, reprinted in Yang Zhengtai , Mingdai yizhan kao
(Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2006), 133194.
Zhu Muqis Wanjuan tang Shumu mentioned Huangyu tongqu.
Both Huanyu tongqu and Jingcheng sizhi suiba yicheng were mentioned in Dong Qichangs
Xuan shang zhai shumu . See Tanii Tashihito , Roteisho
no jidai [The Age of Route Books], in Minmatsu Shinsho no shakai to

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215

Figure 6.1 Map in Huang Bians Yitong lucheng tuji [Adapted from Huang Bian, Yitong lucheng
tuji, Reprinted in Siku qianshu cunmu congshu, shibu, juan 166, Jinan:
Qilu shushe, 1996, p. 484]

erences to them were rare, suggesting limited circulation. Moreover, since they
were produced for official use, the information they contained was not suitable for unofficial travelers.41 Besides, the management of stage routes was
strict in the early Ming, and it would have been difficult for non-officials to
make use of these official routes.42

41

42

bunka , ed., Ono Kazuku (Kyoto: Kyoto Daigaku Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyujo 1995), 419.
A piece of evidence that supports this hypothesis comes from an official route book of the
early Qing period: the Qinding fangyu lucheng kaolue , compiled at
the order of the Kangxi emperor (r. 16611722). It listed very little information about local
places on the way except for their names and the distance between them. The only other
information about local places is provided for the major cities serving as an administrative seat, and that focuses on the historical vicissitudes of their administrative status.
On early Ming stage routes management, see Yang Zhengtai, Mingdai yizhan kao; see also
Hoshi Ayao, Min-shi jidai.

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Routes And Places: Spatial Order In Merchant Geographies

The first commercially published route book in the Ming was the Tuxiang
nanbei lianjing Lucheng (Illustrated Route between the
Northern and the Southern Capitals), which appeared in 1536. According to
Toshihito, this book described a route between Nanjing and Beijing, providing
useful information for traveling merchants such as the best places to dock, lucrative local products, historical sites along the way, and so on.43 Obviously the
intended audience for this book was rather different from that of official route
books. Still, the Tuxiang nanbei liangjing lucheng is rarely mentioned in late
Ming writings, its accuracy was not known, and probably the fact that it was
limited to a single route prevented its wide circulation.
Against this background, the publication of Huangs Yitong lucheng tu ji of
1570 can be viewed as a substantial step forward in the development of route
books as a genre, for its coverage of routes was comprehensive, and its selection of information along the route was oriented toward the traveling purpose
of commoners, most notably merchants. Its basic format for the 144 routes covered began with a place-name followed immediately by brief information
about the place, which was in turn followed by the distance from this place to
the next one down the road. The place-names were printed in full-size characters, while local information and distances were printed in half-size characters
(Figure 6.2). Thus the route book reads (and looks) like a series of places strung
together. This format was adopted by all subsequent comprehensive route
books.
The development of the route book genre did not stop with Huang Bians
publication. In the early 1580s, Tao Chengqing , an associate magistrate
of Xinyu County in Jiangxi Province, published the Shangcheng
yilan (Comprehensive View of Commercial Routes) in Fujian.44 In
this book the author appropriated route information from Huangs book and
combined it with other types of information, such as the list of prefecture and
county names of the empire, the local products of each, the royal princes installed in each province and their stipends, the salaries of all government staff,
clothing codes of civil officials and military officers, jingles about common historical and geographical knowledge, stories about ancient capitals, etc. The
43
44

Tanii Tashihito, Roteisho no jidai, 419.

Timothy Brook, Guides for Vexed Travelers: 64. Brook did not pin down the exact time of
the publication. But according to Osawa Akihito, Tao started his service in Xinyu County
around 1582. See Osawa Akihito, Mingmo ditu yu gongdu diyu xing zhengshu de chuxian [Maps and Official Documents in the Late
Ming: The Emergence of Regional Administration Books], in Quanqiu hua xia ming shi
yanjiu zhi xin shiye lunwenji , Vol. 3. (Taipei:
Dongwu Daxue lishi xue xi, 2007), 189.

Routes and Places: Spatial Order in Merchant Geographies

217

Figure 6.2 Merchant route book description of places [From Huang Bian, Yitong lucheng
tuji, Reprinted in Siku qianshu cunmu congshu, shibu, juan 166, Jinan:
Qilu shushe, 1996, p. 550]

pages of the book were organized in a two-panel format, with the lower panel
(xia ceng ) containing route book information, and all the other types of
information accommodated in the upper panel (shang ceng ) (Figure
6.3). The list of prefectures and counties was comprehensive and they were
organized just as in the comprehensive gazetteers. With population data, taxation quotas, and local products laid out behind each of these place-names, the
list constituted nothing less than an abbreviated comprehensive gazetteer.
Non-route information in Taos book was drawn from the popular encyclopedias (riyong leishu) that were being published at the time.45 The combination

45

Chen Xuewen, Mingdai yibu sanggu zhi jiaocheng xinglu zhi zhinan: Tao Chengqing
xinke jingben huayi fengwu shangcheng yilan :
[ A Guide Book for Merchants and Their
Travels: A Study of Tao Chengqings Shangcheng yilan], in Zhongguo shehui jingjishi yanjiu, 1996-1, p. 87.

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Routes And Places: Spatial Order In Merchant Geographies

Figure 6.3 The upper and lower panels in Tao Chengqings Shang
cheng yilan [From Tao Chengqing, Shangcheng yilan.
Original copy held by Naikaku Bunko. Reprinted
from Timothy Brook, Guides for Vexed Travelers: Route Books in the Ming and Ching. Chingshi wen-ti 4.5(1981): 37.]

of this information with the routes was the first time route books had appropriated material from other late Ming genres.
Generic convergence was not limited to route books. From the mid-Wanli
era on, popular encyclopedias, such as the Wanbao quanshu (En-

Routes and Places: Spatial Order in Merchant Geographies

219

cyclopedia of Myriad Treasures) and the Wanyong zhengzong

(Authentic Encyclopedia for Myriad Purposes), started to include route in
formation. Although the practice of including route information in popular
encyclopedias could be traced back to the Yuan dynasty,46 the late Ming encyclopedias included many more routes and much more detailed information
about places along the routes, to the effect that they read like abbreviated versions of the comprehensive route book.47 Meanwhile, moral admonitions and
practical knowledge particularly useful for merchants started to appear in such
works as the 1599 edition of Wanyong zhengzong, and were packed into a special chapter called Merchants and Travel (shanglu men ).48 In other
words, while the merchant route book was incorporating contents from the
encyclopedia, the latter was also beginning to accommodate the needs of merchant users.
But popular encyclopedias contained a compendium of miscellaneous materials ranging from tips on animal husbandry to stories about popular deities.
Much of their content was barely relevant to the merchants. In 1626 another
major step in the transformation of the merchant route book was taken when
Cheng Chunyu, also a merchant from Huizhou, published the Shishang leiyao.
The main part of Chengs book focused on routes, but it also contained brief
information about the empires field administration system, as did Taos book.
This information was formatted as part of a chapter that came after the routes
instead of being put into the upper panels of the route pages. In addition, it
also devoted special chapters to subjects particularly pertinent to merchants,
such as mercantile ethics and tactics (keshang guilue ) and tips on

46

47

48

The Yuan dynasty reprint of a Song dynasty encyclopedia Shilin guangji (Comprehensive Notes on Myriad Things) featured a chapter called Stage Routes to the Capital (Chaojing yicheng ), which provided information about [the route between
Hangzhou and Beijing, such as the names of places along the route and the distance
between places. Tanii analyzed the text of the Stage Routes to Beijing and suggested that
the text actually reflects route conditions during the Northern Song dynasty. What we can
be sure is that so far the earliest known commercially printed text on routes comes from
the Yuan dynasty. See Tanii Tashihito, Roteisho no jidai: 41617.
Wu Huifang studied the various editions of these encyclopedias and found that they use
either a 44-route version or a 15-route version of the route information. See Wu Huifang
, Wanbao quanshu: Mingqing shiqi de mingjian shenghuo shilu :
(Taipei: Zhengzhi daxue lishi xue xi, 2001), 147156.
Mizuno Masaaki , Shinan genban shisho Ruiyo ni tsuite
[ About the Original Xinan Edition of the Shishang leiyao]. Tohogaku, No. 60
(Jul. 1980): 103.

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Routes And Places: Spatial Order In Merchant Geographies

commercial travel (weike shiyao ), all taken from the encyclopedia

Wanyong zhengzong, with slight editing.49
By extracting the knowledge most useful to merchants from encyclopedias
and combining it with comprehensive route information, Cheng created a
book specifically targeted at merchants. For this reason, the Shishang leiyao is
often regarded as the first full-fledged merchant manual.50 The model it set
the combination of routes with other particularly merchant-oriented knowledge became the defining characteristic of all the subsequent such manuals
for the rest of the Ming and the Qing.51 With the emergence of merchant manuals, route information in popular encyclopedias in the seventeenth century
and after gradually shrank.52 On the other hand, after Taos Shangcheng yilan,
route books had always included non-route information.53 Thus the route
book had became a publication genre geared specifically for merchants.54
The route section in Chengs Shishang leiyao includes information about a
hundred routes, covering the whole Ming Empire. Unlike Tao, who copied
route information from Huangs Yitong lucheng tuji, the specific routes and the
way they were arranged in Chengs book was original. In the merchant manuals after Shishang leiyao, route information demonstrated considerable stability: they all follow a program adopted from either Huang or Cheng, with due
updates and modifications. Table 6.1 lists the two original sets of routes by
Huang and Cheng, respectively, and their relationship to the route information
49
50
51
52
53

54

Mizuno Masaaki, Shinan genban, 101.

Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese Merchant Manuals and Route Books; Timothy Brook,
Guides for Vexed Travelers: A Supplement, Ching-shi wen-ti, 4.6 (1981): 130140.
Timothy Brook, Guide for Vexed Travelers: 3839. Supplement: 131.
Brook, Geographical Sources, 10. See also Wu Huifang, Wanbao quanshu, 156.
Thus, Huangs was the only route book that did not include some non-route information.
In his bibliography on MingQing geographical works, Timothy Brook categorized
Huangs book and some of the subsequent route books together and dubbed them route
books, probably because of the limited amount of non-route information they contained.
See Timothy Brook, Geographical Sources, 2427. I prefer to distinguish between Huangs
and all other route books, because only Huangs exclusively covers routes (and places
along the routes). More or less all the other books contained some non-route information.
For example, Lai Shengyuans Shiwo zhouxing, closest to a pure routes book and categorized by Brook as such, nonetheless included a special section on merchant ethics and
tactics (jianghu shi er zhe) ahead of all the route information. Its table of contents also
included non-route information gleaned from popular encyclopedias, such as jingles
about Beijings market and tourist sites, e.g. jingdu er jiqi , jingdu ba jing shuo
, jingdu jiumen shi suo .
Timothy Brook argues that the merchant genre directly grew out of the route book. See
Brook, Geographical Sources, 7.

Routes and Places: Spatial Order in Merchant Geographies

221

in the other manuals of the MingQing period. This relative stability of content allows us to analyze the merchants view of spatial order by focusing on
these two books. (see Table 6.1)
The Empire and the Local Places in Merchant Geography

The Sense of Agency
The route book demonstrated a notable resemblance to the comprehensive
gazetteer in its concern with the empires territory as a whole, and its celebration of grand unity. At the beginning of the genres history, Huang stated that
a reader stood to gain knowledge about the Nine Regions; Cheng Chunyus
Shishang leiyao opened with two maps, one of the entirety of Ming territory,
the other of its northern border. These maps were accompanied by three essays, two of which recount the historical trajectory of the realms administrative divisions and celebrate the Mings territorial greatness, citing the classical
texts such as Yugong and Zhifang, the third discusses strategies of border
defense.55 Dan Yizhi, whose Shishang yaolan (Handbook of Key Issues for Gentry and Merchants) was published in 1626, positioned his work as
supplement to a famous comprehensive gazetteer of the time Luo Hong
xians Guangyu tu ji (Illustrated Book of the Grand Realm)
by providing route information that was missing in the latter.56 In the same
vein, prefaces to most of the route books published during the Qing begin with
a brief celebration of the territorial unity of the dynasty, and situate their projects in this larger context, with the purpose of facilitating travel and knowledge about the great realm.57
Most of the route books combined route information with something resembling an abbreviated comprehensive gazetteer, i.e. the structure of field
administration. Such structure could be as brief as a bare list of place-names
organized along the administrative line of province-prefecture-county, as in
the case of Chen Qijis Tianxia lucheng (Routes All Under the Heaven) (1742); it could also be more detailed and include such data as tax quotas,
55

56
57

The three essays were entitled Yudi tu shuo [On the Maps of Administered
Territories], Jiuzhou tu shuo [ On the Maps of the Nine Regions], and Jiubian
tu shuo [ On the Maps of the Borderlands] respectively.
See Dan Yizhi , Tianxia lucheng tu yin [Introduction to the Maps
of Routes in All-under-Heaven], in Shi shang yaolan .
See, for example, the prefaces to Lu cheng yaolan (pub. 1728), Tianxia lucheng
(pub. 1742), and Tianxia lu cheng shi wo zhou xing (pub.
1774).

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Routes And Places: Spatial Order In Merchant Geographies

Table 6.1

Editions of Late Ming and Qing comprehensive route books

Original Editions of Route Books Later Editions with Adopted Route Information
Author

Title

Time/ Place Editor/ Publisher

of
publication
?/Li Jinde
Shangjun /?
Tao Chengqing
/ ?

Yitong
Huang lucheng tu
Bian
ji

1570

Suzhou

Cheng
Chunyu
Shishang
leiyao

1626
Hangzhou

Hehe Tang /
Hehe Tang
Yisheng Tang
/ ?
Qiufangxin zhai
/ Cuiyin
shanfang tang

Qiufangxin zhai
/?
Chen Qiji / ?
Lai Shengyuang
/ Linglan
tang
Hehe tang /
Baoshan tang

Wu Zhongfu
/ ?

Title

Time/place of
publication

Keshang yilan xingmi tianxia

shuilu lucheng

Shuilu lucheng
Shangcheng yilan

(Tianxia lucheng) shiwo zhou

xing
Shuilu lucheng zhou xing bei
lan
Tianxia lucheng shiwo
zhouxing

1635/Fujian
1617/?
c.a. 1600 /Fujian
1694/Anhui
?/Zhejiang
1738/ ?

Tianxia lucheng zhouxing

beilan
Tianxia lucheng
Tianxia lucheng shiwo
zhouxing

Tianxia lucheng shiwo

zhouxing

Shanggu bianlan

1792/?

Dan Yizhi /?

Shishang yaolan

1728 /?

Dai Shiqi and

Cui Tingzhi /
Wanxuan lou

Lucheng yaolan

1728/?

Tianxia shuilu lucheng

xinbian

1728/Guangdong

Xiao Yizhang /
Fangui tang

1738/?
1741/Fujian
1774/Fujian
1787/?

(Sources: Timothy Brook, Geographical Sources of Ming-Qing History; Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese Merchant
Manuals and Route Books; Chen Xuewen, Ming Qing shiqi shangren shu ji shangye shu shi sanjiu.)

Routes and Places: Spatial Order in Merchant Geographies

223

local products, and numbers of local hundreds (lijia), which were common in
the comprehensive gazetteers.58 Adopting the format of either an upper panel
or a special chapter, these operations worked to the effect of stitching together
the features of these two genres.
By combining route information with abbreviated gazetteer material, these
works could be made to look like comprehensive gazetteers, and hence acquire
some of the prestige of that established genre otherwise it is hard to imagine
why information such as tax quotas would be included, since it was likely of
little use to traveling merchants.59 The rationale for including such data in the
Lucheng yaolan (A Brief View of Routes), as stated by the author of
its preface, Cui Tingzhi, is revealing. Cui admitted that the book was based on
Dan Yizhis Shishang yaolan , which he regarded as almost perfect.
However, Cui remarked, the latters lack of coverage on local produce and tax
grain quotas made it fall short of the standard (
).60 The standard Cui referred to was the areas covered in conventional
comprehensive gazetteers. The element of mimicry, to equip merchant geographies with trappings of a conventional geography, is obvious. However, the
route books efforts to embrace the larger picture and address issues conventionally reserved to rulers and officials indicates that merchants felt empowered to declare that their concerns were not limited to trade and business
travel, and to claim that they, no less than the literati, were capable of holding
the entirety of the realm in the mind. In this sense, they demonstrated a sense
of agency in the ordering of space.
A closer look at the content of the route books, however, suggests that merchants agency operated on a distinct logic and often deviated from the statist
perspective in ways not seen in literati gazetteers. These deviations are demonstrated in the ways they selected information about individual places, the
structure they used to organize local places, and the mode of narrative by
which they conveyed route information.

Redefining Places
Merchants who frequently traveled and did business away from home had
their own priority in selecting information about places along the routes. The
58
59
60

See, for example, Tao Chengqing, shang cheng yilan; Cui Tingzhi, Xinkan tianxia shuilu
lucheng;
Timothy Brook has noticed that the route book was not yet glamorous enough a genre to
be worthy of the efforts of the literati. See Timothy Brook, Guide for Vexed Travelers: 42.
Cui Tingzhi , Lucheng tu xiaoyin [A Small Introduction to the
Route Maps], in Lucheng yaolan .

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Routes And Places: Spatial Order In Merchant Geographies

usual categories of information in fangzhi and zongzhi, such as tax quotas,

population figures, and lists of virtuous men and women were dropped from
the very earliest route book. (Subsequent route books reincorporated some of
this data, but it was always packed together in added sections, instead of being
integrated into the respective sections on routes.) Information on local places
historical evolution as administrative units, again a routine item in both fangzhi and zongzhi, was also removed; the historical aspect of places was often
reduced to occasional mentions of famous historical sites, most probably to
satisfy the curiosity of tourists.
Space thus saved was given to various kinds of pragmatic knowledge and
information printed in half-sized characters following the place-names. (See
Figure 6.2.) Thus places along the routes were largely defined by their relevance to merchants availability and affordability of lodging, the condition of
harbors and fords, and sources of commodities, as illustrated in the following
examples (with the half-sized characters in the original copied also in half-size
here):
50 li to Xuzhou . A horse station is located on the east side of the river; there is a
shortcut via Wenshang County if you can afford to hire draft animals short term; hire
donkeys at the north gate; 20 li to Xin Hekou cross the river [here].61
30 li to Chenguan Ford

. The price for a ferryboat is one catty of flour ...62

Zhangshu Town . Medical herbs from the South and the North are gathered
here. [Southward] 30 li, [to] Linjiang Prefecture 63
40 li further to Changxi .This county produces yellow silk; southward 60 li to

Longshang Station ...64

Yupukou . Salt to Shaoxing should be unloaded here ...65

Conditions of travel, such as the quality of road maintenance, navigability of
rivers, and public security were also often referred to as part of the evaluation
of places. For example,
61
62
63
64
65

Cheng, juan 1, Route 1.

Huang, juan 5, Route 10.
Huang, juan 1, Route 2.
Huang, juan 3, Route 24.
Cheng, juan 1, Route 2.

Routes and Places: Spatial Order in Merchant Geographies

225

The Yuan River rarely has the problem of over-flooding. Traveling

merchants sometimes consider taking this route [to Chenzhou Prefecture] 66
The water route from Guilin Prefecture through Pingle Prefecture to Wuzhou Prefecture is full of robbers, and the boats dont
move forward unless dragged. So merchants usually avoid taking this
route when they are traveling to Wuzhou 67
Sometimes travel advice concerning merchants security on the road was inserted directly with route information:
There are thieves in Shaxi , be cautious From Huizhou to
Chongan , there are lots of hills and the road is narrow the conditions are very difficult for chair carriers. Benevolent merchants should do
them some favor in such a dangerous place.68
From Nanjing through Dengzhou to Liaodong , you
have to face the challenge of navigating the sea; if you take the route
through Beijing and Shanhai Pass , you must be cautious of
robbery. Fortunately the fortresses [along the routes] can be used for
defense.69
North of Shaobo the boatmen are vicious, be careful.70
In contrast to local and comprehensive gazetteers, which depict local places
simply as sites where state power is exerted and tax revenues extracted, or
where the state-sanctioned moral order had been established and maintained,
places in the merchant route books became primarily venues of concrete commercial concerns. Furthermore, the route books rendition of place allowed
merchants to observe and report on the state and its facilities in various local
places. The following examples indicate that the merchants paid keen attention to the commercial policy of local governments and the agents of inspection installed along the trade routes, obviously out of concern for their
businesses:
66
67
68
69
70

Huang, juan 2, Route 14.

Huang, juan 2, Route 15.
Huang, juan 8, Route 4.
Huang, juan 2, Route 13.
Huang, juan 4, Route 21.

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Routes And Places: Spatial Order In Merchant Geographies

Jiangnan prefectures such as Suzhou , Songjiang , and Changzhou do not tax imported goods. Therefore many merchants gather
in Suzhou .71
10 li [to the pass of] Xinling Ding . The charge for passage is usually one
tenth of a tael for each carriage or horse. 10 li [to] Zhentou where a police station is
located ...72
Under the merchants gaze, the states position as the central power for administering and examining society was subtly reversed. A telling example is
the section on field administration structure in Cheng Chunyus Shishang leiyao. In its format, it looks just like an abbreviated version of a regular comprehensive gazetteer, with fifteen parts of the section corresponding to the
thirteen provinces and the two metropolitan regions, each part being further
divided into prefectures and then into counties. However, the content gave
names of the offices supposedly installed in each local place and the actual
circumstances of these offices, with the unstaffed ones clearly marked. Thus
the gazetteer information in a merchant route book could be adapted to give
account of the government operations in each place and report whether the
local system was functioning well. The bureaucratic system became de facto
one of a set of elements in the merchants practical assessment of a place; the
state presence became part of the individual localities, instead of standing
above them.
Human geographer Allen Pred has argued that place should be regarded as
a historically contingent process in which the reproduction of social and
cultural forms, the formation of biographies, and the transformation of nature
ceaselessly become one another.73 To this we may add that a place means different things to people of different positions and concerns in society. The route
books renditions of local places along trade routes reveal traveling merchants
keenly observing places from their own perspective, at the same time they contributed to remaking those places through their own activities.
The route books recording of local places was somewhat hit-or-miss: There
was no strict protocol on what to cover about a local place or which places to
cover. A places entry into the record depended on its position relative to the
routes, but the routes included in a book might vary; the categories of information recorded about a place varied from case to case. In this sense, the route
71
72
73

Cheng, juan 1, Route 10.

Cheng, juan 1, Route 1.
Alan Pred, Place as a Historically Contingent Process, in Annale of the Association of
American Geographers, Vol. 74 (1984): 282.

Routes and Places: Spatial Order in Merchant Geographies

227

book lacked the rigorous structure gazetteers used to define and order all the
individual local places. It was rather like guerrilla tactics in contrast to the gazetteers position warfare approach to geographical writing. However, an examination of the framework by which the route book organized places shows that
it never lacked the power to project its own vision of spatial order.

Reordering Local Places
In contrast to the zongzhis administrative hierarchy, route books organizational structure presents a network of local places interconnected by the
routes. Prior to the publication of Huangs book, networks of courier routes
were recorded in official route books such as the Huanyu tongqu. But those
works covered only the trunk-stage routes linking the imperial capital to prefectural seats within the metropolitan area (zhili) and to provincial capitals.
They were entirely determined by administrative structures. But Huangs route
book went beyond the trunk routes and projected much more powerfully the
complex network of routes and places. Here the route book demonstrated its
most drastic deviation from the statist structure that shaped both official and
literati gazetteers.
Huangs book is divided into two parts, each with four chapters (juan ).74
The first part still follows an administratively determined organization, since it
covered routes from Beijing and Nanjing to provincial capitals, from the provincial capitals to prefectural seats, and within the frontier regions. The internal cohesiveness of this part, in which all the routes in its four chapters are
numbered consecutively, has prompted some researchers to hypothesize that
they might be copied from a single source. The second part is less neatly edited, and each chapters routes are numbered separately. More likely than not,
this part was what Huang himself compiled from the various sources he collected.75
It is in the second part that a new organizational principle emerges. The
four chapters, entitled Jiangbei shuilu (Water Routes North of the Yangtze
River ), Jiangbei lulu (Overland Routes North of the Yangtze River
), Jiangnan shuilu (Water Routes South of the Yangtze River
), and Jiangnan lulu (Overland Routes South of the Yangtze River
), respectively, were organized according to physiographical features and

74

75

The table of contents of Huangs book numbered the routes chapter (juan ) by chapter.
But route No. 7 of juan 9 actually contains 16 separate routes. This makes the actual number of routes 159.
For an analysis of sources for Huangs route information, see Yang Zhengtai, Mingdai
yizhan kao, 133.

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Routes And Places: Spatial Order In Merchant Geographies

transportation conditions instead of administrative division, presumably for

the purpose of a neat presentation.
Places connected by these routes were not classified with regard to their
administrative status. For example, in the chapter on overland routes south of
the Yangtze River, the headings of the first five routes are:
Route from Danyang County of Zhenjiang Prefecture to Nanjing
Route from Hangzhou Prefecture to Qiyun Mountain (in the
Xiuning county of Huizhou Prefecture)
Route from Yizhen County through Ningguo Prefecture to
Huizhou Prefecture
Route from Huizhou Prefecture to Chongan County
Route from Huizhou Prefecture to the town of Huguang
Although the southern capital Nanjing appears in the heading of the first
route, it was by no means situated in hierarchical relation to other places, but
rather at one end of a route linking many places of various administrative statuses. The places appearing in these five headings range from county and prefectural seats to provincial and imperial capitals, and include a pilgrim site
(Qiyun Mountain) as well. This mixing and juxtaposing of place-names makes
it clear that the second part of Huangs route book was intended to present the
Ming Empire in a new perspective, as a horizontally interconnected network of
locales.
Centrality in the new network was redefined. If we take the frequency of a
places appearance in the route headings (as either the beginning or the end
place of a route) as an index of its prominence, it is clear that a new group of
places had assumed the importance formerly held by the different political
centers (see Table 6.2). Some of them were well-known commercial centers
such as Suzhou, Yangzhou, and Hangzhou; others were cities located in the
heartland of the Ming Empire, such as Kaifeng and Huaian, whose own status
as commercial centers could not compare with Suzhou or Hangzhou but
whose geographical location made them the nexus of routes nonetheless. The
capitals were not necessarily excluded from this new category of central places: Nanjing ranks as the sixth most frequently mentioned place. But a places
centrality was by no means determined by its administrative status; thus, for
example, Beijing appeared in headings only four times, in comparison to
Huaians six and Kaifengs five. In general, relevance to commerce and travel
became the criterion for defining a places status in this network; places that
appeared more prominently were obviously those that more people frequented in their commercial and other travels.

Routes and Places: Spatial Order in Merchant Geographies

229

Table 6.2 Most frequently mentioned places in route book headlines

Huang, Yitong lucheng tu ji
(part 2)

Cheng, Shishang leiyao

Lai, Tianxia lucheng shiwo

zhouxing (parts 2 & 3)

Place-name
(# of appearances)

Place-name
(# of appearances)

Place-name
(# of appearances)

Huizhou (15)
Songjiang (11)
Hangzhou (10)
Suzhou (9)
Nanjing (7)
Hukou (7)
Nanchang (6)
Huaian (6)
Kaifeng (5)
Yangzhou (5)
Zhengyang (5)

Huizhou (14)
Hangzhou (8)
Suzhou (8)
Wuhu (7)
Nanjing (6)
Huaian (6)
Beijing (6)
Xuzhou (5)
Kaifeng (5)
Yangzhou (5)

Huizhou (11)
Nankang (11)
Tingzhou (10)
Kaifeng (8)
Huaian (7)
Suzhou (6)
Beijing (6)
Xuzhou (6)
Wuhu (6)
Changsa (5)
Yanping (5)
Zhangzhou (5)

There was, however, another dimension to the logic of the route books ordering of local places: Huizhou, neither a commercial center of nationwide significance nor located on a transportation artery, appears in the headings fifteen
times and is by far the most prominent in this regard. This special status can be
explained only by the fact that it was home to the rising merchant group to
which the compiler himself belonged. It registered as the start or end point of
so many route entries because Huizhou merchants commonly journeyed to
commercial centers and back home. Thus the order of places in Huangs route
book was also determined by the geographical origin of its author. The network vision it projected came together with a localist twist.
All these characteristics are demonstrated to an even fuller degree in Cheng
Chunyus Shishang leiyao. The routes between different levels of administrative centers that occupied the first half of Huangs book are gone; all the one
hundred routes listed in Chengs book are divided between two parts: the first
covers fifty-three water and overland routes north of the Yangtze River and the
second forty-seven routes south of the river. The physiographical division between routes south and north of the Yangtze River in the books overall structure may well have been inspired by Huang, whose book had been in circulation

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Routes And Places: Spatial Order In Merchant Geographies

for some fifty years when Cheng published his. With modest variations, the
places most frequently referred to in the route headings are largely the same as
in Huangs book: Huizhou remains at the top of the list with fourteen mentions, followed by commercial centers such as Suzhou and Hangzhou and
heartland cities such as Kaifeng and Huaian.
The arrangement of routes within each of the physiographical divisions,
however, demonstrates a more complete disregard of the administrative hierarchy model and bolder promotion of the compilers place of origin. In each
part, routes radiating from the same place are neatly grouped together; thus
the books contents move from information on one group of routes to that on
another. Part one starts with eight routes radiating from Huizhou, followed by
six routes originating in Hangzhou. Routes from the southern capital Nanjing
occupy Nos. 28 through 31. Part two begins with four routes from Yangzhou,
then key center of the salt trade. Routes from Beijing are relegated to the end
in Nos. 88 through 95. The two imperial capitals Beijing and Nanjing are among
the places most frequently mentioned in the headings. But the group-arrangement strategy of the book makes them no more than two of the dozen or so
cities frequently visited by travelers; they are fully integrated into the larger
network of places, with no sign of their special status or symbolic meanings. In
contrast, the merchants home place, Huizhou, is elevated to a conspicuous
position at the books very beginning. Yangzhou, the center of the salt trade,
where the most powerful Huizhou merchants sojourned and which they took
as their secondary home, also received special treatment and was featured at
the beginning of its own physiographical division.
The organizing principles Huang and Cheng established the network of
places, the prominence of commercial centers and travel route nexuses, as well
as the promotion of the compilers home place were inherited by the route
books published during the Qing, with slight modifications and updates.
Chengs book was republished under the title Lucheng yaolan (A
Brief View of Routes) after some editing work in 1728. The newer edition retreated from the bold position Cheng had taken and moved routes from Beijing
to the beginning of the book, with the rationale of raising the capital to the
beginning [of the book] so that people know who rules. But the rest of the
structure was largely retained; routes from Huizhou became the second group,
immediately following those from Beijing.76
Most of the Qing route books adopted route information from Huangs
book. The localist twist was still obvious, although the way it worked varied,
76

Cui Tingzhi, Lucheng tu xiao yin. Cui cited Dan Yizhi as his source, but route information in Dan Yizhis Shishang yaolan was almost completely the same as in Chengs book.

Routes and Places: Spatial Order in Merchant Geographies

231

depending on the geographical origin of the compilers. Various editions of

Shiwo zhouxing (Show Me the Routes Around the World), compiled
and published in Fujian, contained more routes starting or ending in Fujian.
The most widely circulated edition, compiled by Lai Shengyuan in 1774, put the
route linking Fujian and Beijing at the very beginning of the book.77 In the
same vein, a route book published in Guangzhou gave more space to routes
within Guangdong Province, and included as many as fifteen routes to or from
Guangzhou itself.78 In general, during the more than two hundred years that it
was actively published, the route books strategy of organizing geographical
information decisively shifted from a hierarchical to a horizontal order of places. Altogether they projected a network of local places considerably denser in
commercially important places and the authors home locales but spreading
out to cover the rest of the empire.

The Ethos of Mobility
Michel de Certeau once identified two distinct modes of narrative in describing places: the map mode and the tour mode. The first is this type: The girls
room is next to the kitchen; and the second: You turn right and come into the
living room.79 For de Certeau, the ethos embedded in these two modes of description are seeing versus going, or tableau versus movement, respectively.
While the tour mode is more easily connected with what he calls manipulation of space, the map mode emphasizes stability of the spatial order. In official gazetteers, places were described as a rule in the map mode. Take the Da
Ming yitongzhi for example, prefecture and county seats of Huizhou were described as follows:
a. Huizhou Prefecture [i.e., the prefecture seat]:
East to the border of Changhua County of Hangzhou Prefecture in
Zhejiang Province, 120 li; west to the border of Fuliang County of Raozhou Prefecture in Jiangxi Province, 270 li; south to the border of Kaihua County of Quzhou Prefecture in Zhejiang Province, 180 li; north to
77

78

79

See Lai Shengyuan, Tianxia lucheng shiwo zhouxin, Table of Contents. Timothy Brook provides evidence showing that Lais route book was the most widely circulated in the Qing.
See Timothy Brook, Geographical Sources, 24; and Guide for Vexed Travelers: 39.
The route book in question was entitled Tianxia shuilu lucheng xinbian
(New Compilation of the Water and Overland Routes of the All-under-heaven), published by Fangui Tang in 1728. For an analysis of this book, see Yang Zhengtai,
Ming Qing shangren diyu bianzhu de xueshu jiazhi jiqi tedian
, in Wenbo (1994-2): 94100.
Michel de Certeau, Practice of Everyday Life (University of California Press, 1984), 118122.

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Routes And Places: Spatial Order In Merchant Geographies

the border of Taiping County of Ningguo Prefecture, 170 li; From the
prefecture seat to Nanjing, 720 li; to Beijing, 4000 li.
b. She County: The place where the prefectural seat is located.
c. Xiuning County: North of the prefectural seat, 65 li.
d. Wuyuan County: Southwest of the prefectural seat, 200 li.
e. Qimen County: West of the prefectural seat, 180 li.
f. Yi County: West of the prefectural seat, 100 li.
g. Jixi County: Northeast of the prefectural seat, 60 li.
Scenic spots were also described in this manner, so that the famous Taoist site,
Qiyun Mountain in Huizhou, was recorded as west of the county seat of Xiuning, 40 li, and Wenzheng Mountain was east of the prefecture seat, 5 li. This
same mode of description was adopted in local gazetteers and literati comprehensive gazetteers. By contrast, merchant route books adopted the tour mode
of description, highlighting the notion of how to get there, as a glance at any
of their entries will show. This mode of narration was a characteristic of the
genre and appeared as well in official route books. But the latter, with their restricted circulation and schematic content, were not intended for commoners.
In contrast, the commercially published route book provided the general traveler with directions over a greatly extended area. Its significance lay more in its
practical convenience than its generic innovation.
Collected writings of literati during the late imperial period provide many
examples of people who resorted to tuzhi for knowledge about a
place.80 The tuzhi was the prototype of local gazetteers during the Sui and Tang
periods. Frequent references to this term in the SongYuanMing period might
be just the habitual use of an old term, which in reality referred to the local
gazetteers. One can imagine the inconvenience of making ones way to a place
that is only vaguely mentioned as being in such and such a direction, as in the
Da Ming yitongzhi.
The lack of travel guidance in conventional gazetteers was consistent with
the states vision of a sedentary and static society in an agrarian empire. In the
early Ming, policies that discouraged or controlled private travel were particularly stringent. The Great Ming Code (Da Ming lu ), drafted in the early
days of the Hongwu reign, made passing a gate or a ford without a license (si du
guanjin ) a crime punishable by eighty strokes, and dictated that
80

For examples, see Ni Yue , Si shan san ting ji , in Qingxi man gao
, juan 16; Huang Zhongzhao , Chong jian sanshan cheng lu ji
, in Weixuan wenji , juan 3. Liang Qian , Song Wu yuanwai zhi
junzhou xu , in Boan Ji , juan 5.

Routes and Places: Spatial Order in Merchant Geographies

233

commoners leaving the home community by more than 100 li should carry
travel licenses (lu yin ). Failure to present a travel license was treated the
same as si du guanjin.81 On the other hand, official travel was facilitated by the
state-maintained courier system, but that was not intended for private use.82
Information about the courier routes was developed by the Ministry of War,
and not supposed to circulate in society.
The late Ming boom in private travel, spearheaded by merchants but also
involving people from other walks of life, suggests that the policies set up in
the early Ming had been reduced to formalities.83 Traveling merchants were
portrayed as coming and going like shooting stars arriving and then setting
off again without taking a days rest in the local gazetteer of Shuiquan County,
a remote place in the inland Gansu Province.84 Meanwhile, the state-sponsored courier system had become barely sustainable thanks to financial difficulties.85 Official travelers often used their travels to assigned posts for private
gain and pleasures; the wealthier among them preferred to stay at private inns
instead of official hostels.86
The merchant route book appeared at just this juncture. Embedded in its
telling you how to get there mode of writing was the ethos of acting and ma81

82
83

84

85
86

The Great Ming Code, articles 241, 242. Limited sources suggest that travel licenses were
administrated by local government at the prefecture level, and [that the application of a
license came with fees. The income from travel license administration must have fed to
the revenue of local government, because the financial record for the central government
does not list this item. The epitaph of a mid-Ming civil official named Zhang Xuan mentioned that while he was serving as the prefect of Jian in Jianxi during the Zhengtong era
(143649), the people of that prefecture were charged 0.04 tael of silver for a travel license,
which all went to the pocket of his predecessor. Zhang Xuan terminated this evil
practice and resumed the old way, charging one guan in paper currency and putting all
the income to local public use. See Tong Xuan , Nanjing xingbu shangshu zhanggong muzhiming , in Ming mingchen wantan xu lu. juan. 20
Hoshi Ayao, Min shin jidai, 554.
In 1492 the censor Tong Rui complained about merchants long-term absence from home
and abandonment of familial responsibilities. Tong reported to the throne that this was
all because [local] officials covet income and issue travel licenses carelessly. To address
the problem, the Ministry of Revenue suggested tightening the administration of travel
licenses in local governments and the mandatory revoking of travel licenses after a period
of one year. See Ming xiaozong shi lu, Hongzhi banian jiuyue .
Timothy Brook, Communications and Commerce, in The Cambridge History of China,
Vol. 8, edited by Denis Twitchett and Frederick Mote (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1998): 630.
Hoshi Ayao, Min shin jidai, 193207.
Timothy Brook, Geographical Sources, 181182.

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Routes And Places: Spatial Order In Merchant Geographies

nipulation of space. It did not openly challenge the imperial spatial order, but
its undermining effect on state control is easy to see. An illuminating example
can be found in the preface Cui Tingzhi wrote to the Lucheng yaolan. The text
opens with a celebration of the ancient sages accomplishments of demarcating the realm into regions and establishing administrative and defensive structures, obviously speaking from the perspective of the rulers. Yet once he has
wrapped up that celebration with the acclaim that there is no place in the
realm that was not installed with structure and discipline, the author continues with all this is for no other purpose than to facilitate the back-and-forth
movements of the travelers.87

Experienced Mobility and the Merchants Order of Places
The route books view of the order of places reminds us of G. William Skinners
influential thesis on agrarian Chinas spatial structure. Skinner distinguished
two hierarchies of central places: one created and regulated by the imperial
bureaucracy for the purpose of field administration, the other generated in
the first place by economic transactions. While the official structure demarcated the realm into a hierarchy of provinces, prefectures, and counties, the
economic structure consisted of eight macroregions in China proper, all defined by physiographical features and each standing as a largely self-sustaining
trading system. While central places in the former were capitals at the different
levels of field administration, in the latter they were marketing and trading
places at different levels of centrality, ranging from market towns to the central
metropolises of the macroregions. Skinners meticulous comparison of these
two structures concluded that though conceptually distinctive, in reality they
overlap to a substantial degree, with many administrative centers also functioning as economically central places, and the official structure often adapting to the changes in the economic structure.88
The route books also register the coexistence of two distinctive structures.
There is no doubt that the route book compilers were aware of the administratively ordered hierarchy of central places, but the maneuver of featuring routes
that linked different levels of capitals and the commercial routes separately in
87

88

Cui Tingzhi, Lucheng tu xiaoyin, in Lucheng yaolan. The appropriation of imperial space
in the route books is comparable to what Marcia Yonemoto calls spatial vernacular in the
commercial mapmaking of Tokugawa Japan, a cultural practice by which commoners
exercised partial power through their use of geographical knowledge and variation in the
form of spatial representations. See Marcia Yonemoto, The Spatial Vernacular In Early
Modern Japan: Knowledge, Power, and Pleasure in the Form of a Map, in Journal of Asian
Studies, 59.3 (2000): 647667.
G. William Skinner, Cities and the Hierarchy of Local System.

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235

Huangs book, and the simple disregard of the administrative hierarchy in

Chengs suggest that they had also noticed the existence of a different, economic, order of places. Their approach to this distinction was to accommodate
the states structures in their coverage of the commercial realm, often by the
simple and somewhat awkward method of assigning them to different parts of
a book and stitching them together. The overlap of central places in these two
structures also registered in the route books, whereby various levels of capitals
joined administratively insignificant locales to form a new group of prominent
places defined by their relevance to commerce and travel.
That said, the route books reflect more closely the merchants travel expe
riences on the ground, which was itself a factor in shaping the centrality of the
places they frequented. In contrast, Skinners structure reflects an overall
birds-eye view of economic transactions at various aggregate levels of space.
Thus the non-official structure of central places that emerges from the route
books shows a rather different shape than the one Skinner re-constructed.
First, different from the eight macroregions that cover the whole China
proper, the route books representation of the economic realm was uneven.
Macroregional metropolises Skinner identified in Chinas west, such as Chong
qing in the Upper Yangtze and Xian in the Northwest, received only occasional
mentions. At least part of the reason for this must be the fact that the route
books were published in the east and mostly served merchants of the eastern
regions. Within the eastern macroregions, the merchants home place or places
close to home were often mentioned more frequently. In other words, the
economic structure of space in the merchant route books strongly corresponded to the geographical origins of the traveling merchants, and as such tilted
heavily toward regions close to their home place.
Second, macroregional boundaries were rarely registered in route books.
Trade routes frequently cut across the boundaries Skinner drew, linking together places in two or more macroregions. The regional metropolises and regional cities in Skinners model, such as Kaifeng and Wuhu, due to their
location closer to the geometric center of nationwide route networks, often
joined the ranks of macroregional metropolises and acquired national-level
prominence in the route books. Here again, the ethos of the route books was
not the structure of space but rather the unstoppable movement of people
across the structured space of the realm. This ethos appears particularly strong
if we consider that a substantial number of the long-distance routes in the
route books were actually overland routes that involved high transportation
costs.
These differences do not disconfirm Skinners model. Had route books been
published in such western cities as Chengdu, there is no reason to doubt that

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Routes And Places: Spatial Order In Merchant Geographies

local places in Sichuan would have received more intensive representation.

The route books disregard of macroregional boundaries may be explained by
the fact that these books served first and foremost merchants who engaged in
long distance trade, whose need of guidance on a route was no doubt more
urgent than a peddler or a farmer traveling to a nearby market town. Considering that Skinners structure concerns market-going activities in general, and
that the vast majority of these activities must have occurred within relatively
short distances from peoples places of residence, the macroregional boundaries constitute meaningful markers of the scope of economic activity for most
of the people. If we view the macroregional metropolises as centers where
goods that came by long-distance trade were distributed within respective
macroregions, the long-distance trade routes that cut across macroregional
boundaries are also compatible with the macroregional model.89 What the
route books urge us to keep in mind, however, is that if market-going activities
did present an economic structure of central places, the way people experienced and perceived it on the ground was conditioned by many factors,
including the momentum of mobility and travelers link with their home places. That spatial dynamic, at least as it was experienced by long-distance travelers and projected in their route books, had an unambiguously translocal
character.
Conclusion
The comprehensive route book served the practical needs of merchants. But
it also demonstrated their general concern with the spatial order of the realm
and was part and parcel of the surging private interest in comprehensive
geography in the late Ming. In this sense it was the merchants comprehensive
geography par excellence. But the route book was not meant to be used exclusively by merchants. Late Ming literati were also frequent travelers, and as such
were part of the intended audience of the route books. Their contribution to
the actual production of these books is also undeniable. In terms of social
practice, the case of the route book adds evidence to the thesis of the
89

In fact Skinner took note of long-distance trade along navigable water routes linking
macroregions. He also outlined the shape of the long-distance trade as dominated by
the great sideways T that tied together five of China's eight regions. The Lower Yangtze
was the cross of the T whose leg to the west was the Yangtze, whose arm to the north was
the Grand Canal, and whose arm to the south was the sea route to the major ports of the
Southeast Coast and Lingnan. See G. William Skinner, Regional Urbanization in Nineteenth-Century China, in The City in Late Imperial China. ed. G. William Skinner (Stanford: Stanford University press 1977), 217n, 234.

Routes and Places: Spatial Order in Merchant Geographies

237

convergence between the shi and the shang. But this does not mean that the
notions shi and shang lost their distinctions at the normative level. After all,
being a shi and a shang entailed quite different orientations in life and career.
As Antonia Finnane has cogently put it, the established social boundary can be
seen as having been blurred if in the arts merchants were portrayed as in their
counting houses rather than in their gardens.90
This difference is vividly illustrated by the difference between the route
books and the conventional zongzhi compiled by the late Ming literati. Despite
all the new categories of information, new topics of discussion, and even ambivalence toward the dynastys sovereignty over the realm, visions of hierarchical space and discrete local places persisted in the literati gazetteers, indicating
the resilience of the statist perspective. The literatis self-appointed role as assistants to the ruler, even if only in a vicarious way, never seemed far away in
their writings about the realm. It was only in the route books that a radical
deviation from conventional geographies emerged: the patterned format and
stock categories of information in fangzhi disappeared and the administratively ordered organization characteristic of zongzhi was suspended in their ordering of local places. Thus they provided a powerful alternative view of the realm,
describing it not as a host of discrete local places connected vertically to political centers, but as an interconnected network of commercial venues, a domain with its own set of prominent places and its own criteria for defining
prominence.

90

Antonia Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou, 264.

238

Conclusion

Conclusion

Conclusion
The Realm of Translocality
The foregoing chapters have told the story of huishang translocality, a story
that tracks locally-rooted actors in an arena between local places. Here the mobile merchants were no doubt the principals, who not only traveled away from
home to survive and prosper, but also carried with them enduring links and
duties in the home place. But others were also active in this arena: their
descendants who faced ritual and moral obligations in the distant place of origin; fellow natives and kinsmen back home who counted on them for support
in times of crisis; natives of their host places who might well perceive them as
intruders; and the state, both imperial and local, that often saw them as a
source of increased revenue or tapped them to underwrite local projects,
but also viewed their mobility as a potential threat to the established spatial
order.
The social makeup of these actors and their specific concerns immediately
differentiated this arena from that of a local society. Correspondingly, re
sources available to them and the strategies they adopted to address needs and
concerns were also often different. With mobile merchants, the common native-place tie, the glamorous image of the home locale, ideologically sanctioned ideal of home-place devotion, as well as multi-place affiliations could
all be used to consolidate the sojourning community, to enhance themselves in
confronting host-place natives, and to facilitate fund-raising for various pro
jects. To home place officials, local elites, and kinsmen, as well as fellow native
men sojourning elsewhere, the huishang represented extra-local financial and
social resources that might be resorted to for dealing with problems at hand.
To local authorities in the host place and the imperial state, mobile merchants
constituted a double-edged new social reality that, since unstoppable, had to
be tolerated but could also be subjected to more refined regulation in household registration.
All these differences, and indeed the existence of the arena itself, made
translocality a distinct realm of social life that was closely related to, but not
confined by, locality. It is important to note that although this books investigation of translocality is focused on merchants from Huizhou, translocal practices a product of local identity combined with mobility was by no means
an exclusively merchant phenomenon or unique to people from one local
place. Recent scholarship has demonstrated the increased spatial mobility in
late Ming and Qing China that involved people from a broad swath of society

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015|doi 10.1163/9789004288409_009

Conclusion

239

and a wide geographical scope. The Huizhou merchants featured here are simply the most visible and prominent of the mobile population in this period.
This spatial restlessness, if viewed against the specific position of locality in
the spatial order and social life since the Song, makes it possible to think about
similar translocal practices on the part of many more people, and hence a
realm of translocality in late imperial China in general. In this sense, the investigation in this book is both an effort to reveal this larger picture and an invitation to further studies along the same line.
Of course, both the empires administrative hierarchy and the elites localist
orientation continued in the late Ming and the Qing, together with the articulation of local identities and local distinctiveness. The dynamics of the relation
between the state and local elites also persisted: in the late Ming the gentrys
grip on local domination only intensified, while the term xiangshen (
local gentry) came into extensive use in the latter half of the sixteenth century;
in the eighteenth century, the rise of state activism converged with and somehow co-opted gentry activism in local societies; with dynastic decline in the
mid-nineteenth century, local elites regained much of the autonomy they had
lost in earlier periods.1 But alongside and between localism and state-locality
relations, the translocal persisted and often interwove itself with the local.
This interwoven coexistence had two key manifestations. First, the home
locality of mobile people played a crucial role in their social practices in the
translocal realm. It featured prominently in their vision of the order of places,
justified networks of public participation across local boundaries, provided a
source of inspiration and a means of organization for sojourners social actions
away from home, and functioned as an enduring factor in the identity-formation of people whose households had resettled elsewhere. Locality worked beyond its boundaries.
Second, what transpired in the realm of translocality also impacted the
community of home locale. Seen in the case of Huizhou, the presence of Huizhou men and Huizhou communities in places beyond Huizhous boundaries
created both new sources of support and new types of problems to handle. In
times of need, such as a crucial stage in an individuals career or a rough period
1

On late Ming gentry activism, see Mori Masao, The Gentry in the Ming Period An Outline of the Relations between the Shih-ta-fu and Local Society, in Acta Asiatica 38 (1980):
37, 47. On the eighteenth century, see Will and Wong, Nourish the People; on the late Qing,
see Kuhn, Rebellion and its enemies in late imperial China: militarization and social structure, 17961864 (Harvard University Press, 1970); Rankin, Elite Activism. For observations
on long-term state-elite relations, see Rankin, Origin of the Chinese Public Sphere, and
Brook, Praying for Power, 321330.

240

Conclusion

in a lineages survival, individuals and clans could seek help from their kinsmen in other places. When disaster hit, the local community as a whole could
call on its prosperous sojourners to lend a hand. On the other hand, the existence of extra-local Huizhou natives posed the question of how to register
them in local documents. Occasionally, the extra-local Huizhou population
could also become a burden the local community had to bear. For example,
during the Ming-Qing transition, when large numbers of Huizhou sojourners
escaped the disorder of the outside world by seeking refuge at home, the problem of grain shortage in Huizhou was suddenly exacerbated.2 In light of these
extra-local factors, Huizhou as a local place should be viewed as the nexus of a
set of social relations that reached many places. Therefore, to reach a rounded
understanding of how locality worked, it is not sufficient to focusing on the
local place in question alone. This leads us to a methodological issue regarding
the influential local history approach in the China field.
Translocality and the Local History Approach
The advent of local history in the 1970s was one of several tendencies that together constituted what Paul Cohen calls China-centered history in the U.S.
historiography on China. Theoretically, these tendencies were a reaction to the
then-dominant challenge-response paradigm and its epistemological foundation Western-centered writing on China.3 Dissatisfied with the conventional
perception of a passive and unchanging China waiting for awakening by the
West, scholars shifted their attention to the internal dynamics of late imperial
Chinese society to discover what indigenous trends accounted for the drastic
changes that coincided with challenges from the West. In terms of method,
understandably, generalizations about a supposedly homogenous Chinese society gave way to attention to local variations in Chinese society. The key assumption of this strategy, as summarized by Cohen, is that because China
encompasses a wide range of regional and local variation, the content and extent of this variation must be delineated if we are to gain a more differentiated,
more contoured understanding of the whole.4 Illustrating the productiveness
2
3

For a more detailed discussion of this event, see Du, Lesson of Riches.
The first work of local history, Frederick Wakemens Strangers at the Gate appeared in
1966. But it was with the publication of Philip Kuhns Rebellion and its Enemies in Late
Imperial China in 1970 that local history started to gain momentum and support among
China scholars.
Cohn, Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on Recent Chinese Past
(New York: Columbia University Press. 1984), 162.

Conclusion

241

of this strategy in their study of Chinese elites, Joseph Esherick and Mary
Rankin argued that the purpose of the local history approach is to emphasize
differences between localities and to better understand the different environments and resources available to elites in different areas of China and different
periods of Chinese history, which naturally produce different types of elites.5
Since local history is first and foremost an approach that questions the reliability of macro-analysis in previous scholarship, it has been heavily oriented
towards breaking the Chinese world into smaller and more manageable spatial
units. Hilary Beattie, one of the early advocates of this approach, described this
orientation as examining a segment of gentry society in one particular place
over a lengthy period of time, thus to a certain extent avoiding the peril of generalizing broadly from a wide range of scattered and somewhat unsystematically collected evidence. The strength of this approach, in Beatties words, lies
in the fact that the study of a strictly delimited area does permit a sharper,
more precise focus than is ever possible in one on a nationwide scale.6 On the
other hand, however, the overwhelming concentration on local settings has
also led scholars to pay insufficient attention to the interactions and connections between local places, a phenomenon conspicuous in late Ming and the
Qing times when people moved frequently between local places. In a sense, it
helps perpetuate the notion of discrete local places projected in the states field
administration system when in fact this scenario was under considerable pressure in the face of a mobile population.
Methodologically speaking, therefore, local history has its own limitations,
just like the empire-wide approach it sought to replace. To account for an
emerging situation in society, adopting a method that recognizes the diversity
of local places but more effectively avoids treating them as discrete seems in
order. This study of the translocal experiments with such a method by situating
the social practices of the mobile people in an arena involving multiple places.
It does not focus on either the local or the empire, but engages them both: it
recognizes the bearing of the home locality in mobile peoples lives and asks
how locality worked in the age of geographic mobility; at the same time it examines how human-place relationship in a mobile context impacted the overall spatial order of the empire.

5
6

Esherick and Rankin, eds., Chinese Local Elites, 11.

Hilary Beattie, Land and Lineage, 123.

242

Conclusion

Translocality and Late Imperial China

How does the study of translocality change our understanding of late imperial
China? The conceptualization of the last empires (Ming and Qing) as late imperial is the hallmark of the so-called late-imperial paradigm that emerged in
the early 1970s. This paradigm, together with China-centered history that it
heralded, calls for attention to the internal dynamics of China prior to its full
encounter with the modern West.7 Translocality was clearly an indigenously
generated historical formation that demonstrated both change and continuity
inside Chinese society in that period: increased mobility, which drove all
translocal activities, was generated by social and economic changes in the late
Ming. The institutional and cultural background to the mobile populations experiences and strategies, such as the centralized empire of local places, the
deeply entrenched sense of local identity, and the continuous articulation of
local distinctiveness, were all rooted in Chinas history; the concerns of the mobile population, such as their ritual and moral obligations back home, were
characteristic of Chinese society. In this sense, the study of translocality further illuminates the late imperial paradigm by applying it to a largely understudied indigenous trend.
By doing so, it provides new answers to a set of important issues, and also
raises new questions. For example, the relationship between state and society,
particularly between the imperial state and social elites, has been a prominent
issue in the late imperial scholarship. But since its early days, largely due to
the influence of the local history approach, this scholarship has tended to conflate society with local society in its analysis of state-society relations. Thus
state-elite interaction became that between the state and local elites, and the
issue of local identity formation was approached within the framework of local-national relation. Studies of public participation focused on its expression
within a local place; lineage practice was assumed to be a localized practice.
If we consider a multi-place situation and focus on mobile people, the picture of state-society relationships becomes more complicated: Here local-tolocal comparisons joined the local-national dyad in the construction of
place-based identity, and local identity and local image were not so much constructed to enhance the literatis moral autonomy vis--vis the state, but rather
to win state support in the local politics of a host place. Public participation
grew into a social network that cut across local boundaries and wove together
different echelons of people from high officials to small merchants. Elites
7

Richard Von Glahn, Imaging Premodern China, in The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History, eds. Paul Smith and Richard von Glahn (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia
Center, 2003), 44.

Conclusion

243

negotiations with the state involved wrapping local interest in state-approved

ideas rather than positioning themselves between court and home in career
strategies. Lineage practices included kinsmen from distant places, and a commitment to lineage building across long distances involved fulfilling perceived
ritual and moral obligations more than maintaining local domination, hence
making lineage construction the romance of home-place attachment rather
than the localist strategy par excellence.
At a macro level, the multi-place framework foregrounds issues about statesociety relation that have been little studied, such as the states new strategies
for administering peoples place-affiliations, and new views of the order of the
empires places that arose through translocal practices. Here the picture of a
contested spatial order emerges: the multi-place household registration system, while no doubt a refined tool of control, was also a sign of the states concession to an irreversible trend in society. In the field of geographical writing,
the absence of state control or even an effort to assert control was even
more conspicuous.
All this points to dynamic processes of social-spatial interaction in China
during the several centuries before its full encounter with the West. The significance of this process vis--vis Chinas modern transformation has not really
been explored in this book, but if one of the original goals of the late imperial
paradigm was to modify the hoary dichotomy between tradition and modernity, and supplement it with in-depth investigations into the trends generated
inside Ming-Qing Chinese society that shaped its trajectory, it behooves late
imperial scholars to evaluate translocalitys significance in terms of its impact
on peoples lives, instead of measuring its compatibility with or contribution to
changes that originated elsewhere. In this regard, many social practices common in twentieth-century China may have been foreshadowed in the translocality of the Ming-Qing period. Consider the complex place-identities by
which a person could receive equal local credentials in more than one place, a
phenomenon expressed by the colloquial laojia (lit. old home) and the more
formal notion of zuji. Then there is the pride and obligation that local sons
away from home felt in contributing to the welfare of the home place, the consciousness of the life-world being made up of many distinct yet interconnected
local places as reflected in the application of distant place names to streets in
many cities across the nation, and the common saying when theres trouble in
one place, help comes from all quarters . Therefore, if
evaluated in indigenous terms, the developments of translocality in the late
Ming and the Qing may have been seminal in shaping Chinese society and history in the twentieth century. Much more work, however, is needed before we
can clearly establish the historical links between this phenomenon and its apparent parallels in modern China.

244

Conclusion

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266

Index

Index

Index
A Feng 41n37, 152n52
Ahern, Emily131
Anderson, Benedict61, 70
Bao Weimin 9n14, 11n21, 170n33
Bao Zhidao 122123
Baojia199
Beattie, Hilary131, 241
Beijing4, 55, 65, 72, 81, 119123, 173, 196197,
214, 216, 227, 228, 230231
Belsky, Richard60
Bol, Peter15n39, 16, 17n46, 20n53, 24n61,
34n14, 36n18, 41n36, 45, 46n60, 210n24
Brook, Timothy164, 213
Cao Wenzhi 112
Chang Jianhua20n56, 42n43
Central-local relation
In the structure of the state69, 1113
In the state control of local societies10,
1516
Chen Li 36, 42
Cheng Longzheng 90
Cheng Bi 30
Cheng Chunyu 203, 219, 221, 222
table, 226, 229
Cheng Dachang 44
Cheng Minzheng 43, 47, 48, 58
Cheng Lingxi 29
Chenglu (route record)213
Chengtu (route map)213
Chow, Kai-wing2n3, 20n56, 132, 203n9,
212n32
Civil Service Examination
Candidate quotas in11, 12
Penetration into local society1011
Multi-place participation in26, 164, 181,
188
Relationship with household registration.
See Household registration
County and Prefecture (junxian) system
714
General features78
Changes in the Song Dynasty89
Dardess, John16n41, 18n49, 45n56

Da ming lu (The Great Ming Code)

232233
Dai Zhen 92
de Certeau, Michel231
dili zhi (Treatise on geography)206
dongnan Zou Lu 28, 39, 4546,
48
Dou Jiliang 59
Eberhard, Wolfram71
Ebrey, Patricia130
Elman, Benjamin10n20, 12n29, 35, 36n19
Ertai 108
Esherick, Joseph5, 15n37, 241
Famine relief
In Huizhou 104. See also Huizhou
Nation-wide125
Fan Jinmin 60n23, 65n25, 117n56,
118n66, 147n39
Fang Yue 30
Fangzhi (Local gazetteer)201, 209
Fei, Siyen23n, 69n32, 70n35, 75n51, 169n27
Faure, David130
Fengyu Estate (Fengyu
Zhuang)147148
Finnane, Antonia2n, 87n86, 91, 92n101,
176n49, 203n9, 237
First migrant ancestor (Shiqian zu)134, 139,
141, 142, 148
Freedman, Maurice130, 131
Fu Yiling 15n37, 50n71, 54n76, 132
Fuji (appended household)141142, 174
Fuji Hiroshi 54n78, 176
Fuma Susumu 96n2
Geographical writing
By merchants26, 216220, 222 table
By literati202203, 209213
Statist perspective in205209
Goodman, Bryna60, 125
Guangyu tu ji (Illustrated Book of
the Grand Realm)221
Guo, Qitao19n51, 42n41, 47n62
Guy, Kent18n48

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015|doi

2014|doi 10.1163/9789004288409_011
10.1163/9789004279278_012

267

Index
Habermas, Jurgen99n11
Hankou 51, 55, 56, 57, 60, 6364, 69,
7785, 91, 93, 105
Hangzhou 3, 54, 55, 56, 57, 64, 75, 134,
135, 138, 154, 159, 180, 192, 228, 230
Hargett, James17n46, 207n21
Hartwell, Robert9n13, 13, 14
Ho, Ping-ti2n3, 20n58, 60, 65n27, 69 table,
98n5, 98n6, 118n65, 119n67
Hongwu Emperor165166, 190
Hoshi Ayao1n2, 52n74, 215n42, 233n82,
233n85
Household registration
In the Early Ming165166, 168
Reforms of164, 171175
Relationship with civil service
examination170, 177179, 191193
For merchants169, 172174, 175177,
191193
Hsiao, Kung-Chuan199n121
Huangyu tongqu (Major Routes of
the Realm)214
Huang, Bian 201202, 216, 222 table,
227228, 229 table
Huang, Ray11n25, 12, 167, 168n21
Huiguan (Native place lodge) 20, 25,
60, 6571, 149
of She County in Beijing118119, 196
Founded by Huizhou sojourners6769
And place names65
Reference in local gazetteers66
Reference in literati writings69
Huishang (Huizhou merchants)1, 5,
1719, 22, 26, 29
Ascendance as a mercantile group50
Geographical Reach5456
As sojourners in Hankou7785
Public participation in host place9094
Public participation in home place88
89
Kinship ties132
Huizhou
Academies in110111
Famine relief104
Grain storage102103
Literati culture of3435
Routes out of5657
Topography-based distinctiveness of
3134

Hymes, Robert10n18, 14, 15, 16, 19n52, 20n56,

40, 41, 43n49, 47n62, 152
Jiji (temporary registration)142,
162163, 175, 177, 184186, 190, 195
Jinji (Place of current registration)26
Kuhn, Philip19n50, 198, 239n, 240n3
Li Bozhong 51n72, 52n75
Li Weizhen 75
Liang Qizi 90n93, 91, 92n103, 96n2,
99n9
Lijia (Village tithing)166168, 169,
172174, 177, 189
Linqing 55, 180
Lineage
And local politics41, 47
As localist strategy15, 20, 24
In Huizhou40, 42
And social order4748
Literati localist orientation1416, 164
Liu Zhiwei 165n12, 166n15, 167n17,
167n19, 169n27, 189n91
Local Encounter
Definition61
Conditions of7173
Conflicts caused by7476, 8083
Local Difference24, 83, 8687
Local history approach240241
Local identity23, 58, 89
Luo Hongxian 221
Luo Yuan 29, 33
Macroregion234236
Mann, Michael12
Mann, Susan22n60
Merchant manual201, 220
Mizuno Masaaki 219n48, 220n49
Model Confucian Place23, 28, 77
Mori Masao 239n
Mostern, Ruth7n8, 8n12, 9n13, 9n14, 11n22
Nanjing56, 57, 58, 69, 75, 214, 216, 228, 230
Native place tie22
As obstacle to modernization59
Of the Pans of Suzhou136137, 143
144, 146
Of the Wangs of Suzhou158

268
Native place tie (cont.)
Of the Wus of Haining158159
Of the Wangs of Hangzhou159
Of the Yangzhou salt merchants9697,
104105, 109, 111114. See also Public
participation
Naito Torajiro 10n20, 13n32
Neo-Confucianism (daoxue)28, 36, 4041,
46, 77
Osawa Akihiro211n28
Pan Mian 136137
Pan Shien 128, 138, 140
Pan Yijun 138, 150153
Pan Zengyi 141, 147
Pan Zunqi 128, 139140, 142, 146148
Pan Zhaoding 5
Pan Zhongrui150, 154156
Place-identity fraud181, 183184, 187
Place-name transfer6265, 71
Pred, Allen226
Public sphere24, 98
Public participation24
Geographical dimension of99
In Home place8890, 9697, 104105,
109, 111114. See also Native place tie
In host places9094
In places neither home nor host118123
Particularistic type of116118
Qianlong Emperor109
Rankin, Mary5n4, 15n37, 24n62, 98n7,
99n9, 129n2, 239n, 241
Rawski, Evelyn1n1
Rowe, William60, 61, 63, 82, 87, 91, 132, 160
Route book26, 201, 203204, 214216
Ruan Yuan 122
Ruji (permanent registration)138, 142,
162163, 184, 187188, 196
Rule of Avoidance164, 171, 189191
Salt administration108, 112114
Schneewind, Sarah167n18, 170
Shangji (merchant household)134, 175177,
191193. See also household registration

Index
Shishang leiyao (Encyclopedia for gentry and
merchant). See Cheng Chunyu
Shirai Sachiko 143n26
Skinner, G. Williams234235
Sojourning5860, 70, 9495
And the understanding of locality8687
Songlin Estate (songlin yizhuang)128,
143144
Spatial mobility
Impact on the administrative structure
26, 197198
Impact on geographical writing212,
233234
Impact on lineage practice133, 150, 157,
160
Impact on local community198
Increase of1, 16, 18, 116, 238239
Of the huishang3, 6, 6566, 160, 197
State control of161n2, 163, 164, 176, 232
State dislike of164, 169
Spatial order
As projected by the field administration
system 79, 1213. See also spatial
organization of state power
As perceived by local literati49
As projected in official geography1314
As projected in merchant geography227231, 234. See also geographical writing
Spatial organization of state power
Definition of7n8
General feature in imperial China7, 12
Changes in the Song Dynasty89. See
also Spatial order, County and
Prefecture system
Spence, Jonathan1n1, 98n6
State-society relation1416, 242243
Sterckx, Roel32n10
Suzhou 3, 54, 55, 56, 57, 70, 86, 116, 117,
128, 134138, 145149, 156, 158, 198, 201,
228
Szonyi, Michael130, 132, 169
Tax quota1112
Tang Lixing 54n78, 72n39
Tang, Xiaofeng205n14, 206n16
Tanii Toshihito 214
Translocal practices
Definition of22

Index

269

See also sojourning; public participation;

native-place tie; translocal lineage
Translocal lineage
Definition of133
Practices of136137,143144, 146, 158159
See also native place tie
Translocality
Definition of56
Implications of1819, 21
As a realm238240
Travel license(lu yin )233
Tujing (map and treatise)207
Tuzhi (map and gazetteer)207, 232
Tuan, Yi-fu17n47

Xiao Qiqing 15n37, 35n16

Xie Zhaozhe 55, 180
Xinan . See Huizhou
Xinan Town Xinan zhen62,
7374
Xinan Ward(Xinan li)63
Xinan Pier (Xinan matou)64
Xinan Street (Xinan jie )63
Xinan Market (Xinanshi )64
Xinan zhi (Gazetteer of Xinan)29, 31
Xu Min 168n20, 169n28, 172n39,
183n74, 192n102
Xu Shixiu 106
Xu Shiye 106107

Unger, Roberto163

Yangzhou 34, 54,55, 56, 87, 9093,

9698, 105109, 111116, 119125, 180181,
192, 230
Yitong lucheng tuji
(Illustrated Route Book of the Realm in
Unity). See Huang Bian
Yitongzhi (unity gazetteer)208
Of the Ming (Da ming yitongzhi)208,
210211, 231
Yongzheng Emperor208209
Yugong ( Tribute of Yu)205, 206n18,
211, 221
Yu Yingshi 2n3, 32n11, 49n68,
85n78, 203n9

Von Glahn, Richard19n52, 242n

Wakeman, Frederick1n1, 24n63
Wanbao quanshu (Encyclopedia of
Myriad Treasures)218219
Wanyong zhengzong (Authentic
Encyclopedia for Myriad Purposes)
219220
Wang Daokun5n5, 54n77,
103n23, 173n42
Wang Shizhen5n5, 54, 56, 182n70
Wang Yangming 6, 49
Wang Yinglin207
Wang Yong 205n14, 207n19, 207n22
Wang Yuquan161n1, 161n2,
170n30, 171n34
Wang Zhenzhong 76
Watson, James129n2, 130, 131
Weber, Max2223n60, 5960, 118
Wei Qingyuan167n19. 168n20,
169n27
Wilkinson, Endymion201n4, 220n50, 222
table
Wu Chengming 51n72, 51n73,
52n75, 54n76
Wu Zhiyu 42
Wu-Yuan-Chang Granary
(Wu-Yuan-Chang beifeng cang)145
Xiangyi (native-place obligation)24, 96,
100101, 115, 124, 126127

Zhao Pang 37, 45

Zhifang
As the chapter of Zhouli206, 221
As a bureau in the ministry of war207
Zhu Sheng 3738
Zhu Xi28, 31, 37, 46, 77, 80, 82
Ziyang Academy (Huizhou)110111, 114
Ziyang Academy (Hankou)
As the symbol of Huizhou superiority
8485
Construction of63, 77
Naming of78
Zongzhi (Comprehensive gazetteer)
14, 201203, 210
Zuji ,26, 156157, 160, 161, 163, 189
Zurndorfer, Harriet28n2, 40n33