MING CHINA by Timothy R. Sedo A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILL

302 Pages·2010·3.18 MB·English

by  Timothy Sedo

LINZHANG COUNTY AND THE CULTURALLY CENTRAL
PERIPHERY IN MID- MING CHINA

by

Timothy R. Sedo

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR
THE DEGREE OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

in

The Faculty of Graduate Studies

(History)

THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
(Vancouver)

December 2010

© Timothy R. Sedo, 2010
ABSTRACT
This dissertation offers a local history of a small, peripheral county located in the most northern
part of Henan Province during the Ming dynasty known as Linzhang County. Henan suffered a
great deal from the wars that recurred frequently from the end of the Six Dynasties Period
through the late fourteenth century and Linzhang County was among its many places that
seemed to “fall behind” as the economic and cultural centres of the empire shifted to the south.
Linzhang could however, claim a direct link with some of the empire’s most culturally central
heartlands of the past. Given that the foundation of the Ming state followed a period of
prolonged alien rule under the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, promotion of such “cultural centrality”
was at the discursive core of the Ming state’s restorationist legitimacy. In this context, even a
small peripheral county that went largely untouched by the dramatic commercial transformations
characterizing southern China throughout the 15th to 17th centuries could rightfully claim a
degree of “centrality” within the Ming realm.
One particular mid-Ming magistrate named Jing Fang, realized this opportunity and in his tenure
actively promoted projects that publicly linked the county to its distant antiquity. In just a few
years Jing Fang successfully rectified Linzhang’s historic record; compiled and edited the
county’s gazetteer; promoted the cult of the region’s most famous ancient culture hero, Ximen
Bao; and renovated the county’s most important historic sites, temples and public buildings.
Jing Fang’s dizzying pace of activity reveals the use and power of a stylized antiquity as a vital
resource for local governance in north China during the mid-Ming period. While the dominant
southern, or Jiangnan model of Ming studies emphasizes relatively autonomous commercial
development and literati academic achievement as the key to late imperial wealth and culture,
this “northern,” or perhaps more precisely “central” study gives more credit to state supervision
and popular culture in the sustenance of the Ming. It also offers a new local vantage point to
begin to rethink the deeply regional characteristics of the composite Ming realm.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract................................................................................................................................ii
Table of Contents................................................................................................................iii
List of Figures.....................................................................................................................vi
Acknowledgements............................................................................................................vii
Dedication............................................................................................................................ix
1 Beyond Jiangnan: Micro-History in the “Culturally Central” Periphery...............1
1.1 Introduction: First Impressions........................................................................................1
1.2 The Jiangnan Model of Ming Studies..............................................................................6
1.3 Beyond the Jiangnan Model...........................................................................................14
1.4 A Regional Approach.....................................................................................................17
1.5 A Mid-Ming A Resource History..................................................................................20
1.6 Gazetteer Sources: From the Macro to the Micro..........................................................25
1.7 Linzhang Gazetteer Particulars......................................................................................32
1.8 Gazetteer Strategies........................................................................................................36

2 Linzhang Orientations: Reading and Seeing the Locality........................................41
2.1 Introduction....................................................................................................................41
2.2 Reading the Locality: a Marginal Preface......................................................................46
2.3 Seeing the Locality: the 1506 Gazetteer’s Prefatory Map.............................................64
2.3.1 Symbolic Scale, Selection and Sign Language..............................................72
2.3.2 Zhong: Power and Authority..........................................................................75
2.3.3 State and Water..............................................................................................80
2.4 Conclusion....................................................................................................................100

3 Creating the Confucian Saint: the Canonization of Ximen Bao............................102
3. 1 Introduction.................................................................................................................102
3.2 Ximen Bao in the Early Textual Record......................................................................109
3.2.1 Inept and Disloyal: the Lushi chunqiu.........................................................109
3.2.2 Impatient and Quick Tempered: the Han Feizi............................................112
3.2.3 Local Resistance to Ximen Bao’s Rule: The Huainanzi..............................113
3.3. The Confucian Shift: Ximen Bao in the Zhan guo ce/Shuo yuan and in the Shi ji.....116
3.3.1 A Confucian Pupil: The Zhan guo ce and the Shuo yuan...........................116
3.3.2 The Canonical Account: the Shi ji...............................................................118
3.4 Contextualizing Ximen Bao and the Shi ji: Shamans, He Bo and
Magical Efficacy.........................................................................................................122
3.4.1 Female Shamans in the Pre-Han Period.......................................................123
3.4.2 He Bo and Water Sacrifices.........................................................................126
3.4.3 The Decline in State Shamanism.................................................................133
3.5 Constructing the Confucian Saint................................................................................135
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3.5.1 Opening the 12 Irrigation ditches: Managerial Efficiency...........................137
3.5.2 What about Shi Qi........................................................................................141
3.6 Conclusion...................................................................................................................144

4 The Religious Rise, Fall and Rehabilitation of Ximen Bao in
Linzhang County: 220 -1644 AD.............................................................................146

4.1 Introduction..................................................................................................................146
4.2 From the Secular to the Religious: Ximen Bao Worship Following the
Han Period....................................................................................................................149
4.3 Ye and the North China Plain during the Six Dynasties Period..................................153
4.4 The Religious and Social Life of the Ximen Bao Shrine during the
Six Dynasties Period...................................................................................................156
4.5 The End of the Six Dynasties and the Fall of the Ximen Bao Shrine..........................160
4.6 The Late Imperial Rehabilitation of Ximen Bao in Linzhang County.........................162
4.6.1 Cultural Centrality and the Mid-Ming Textual Revival of Ximen Bao.......164
4.6.2 Ximen Bao as City God: Building/Renovating Linzhang’s
City God Temple.........................................................................................169
4.6.3 Public Performance and the Restoration of the City God
Temple in Linzhang....................................................................................174
4.6.4 A Mid-Point Renovation?............................................................................177
4.7 Claiming Ximen Bao....................................................................................................179
4.8 Conclusion....................................................................................................................187

5 “From the Minute that he Stepped out of the Cart:” Jing Fang’s
Magistrate Activism in a 1506 Northern Gazetteer..............................................190

5.1 Introduction..................................................................................................................190
5. 2 Finding the Banal Magistrate......................................................................................191
5.3 Career Local Administrators: the Rank-and-File Magistrate.......................................197
5.4 A Transplanted History: The Jing Family in Shandong’s Dingtao County.................200
5.5 Waiting for Work.........................................................................................................209
5.6 “From the Moment that Jing Fang stepped out of the Cart:” An Activist
Magistrate’s Successes..............................................................................................212
5.7 Local Gazetteer as Personal Biography: Jing Fang’s 1506 Gazetteer.........................220
5.7.1 Jing Fang’s Biography.................................................................................225
5.7.2 The Magistrate’s Private/Public Charity......................................................227
5.7.3 The Magistrate’s Moral Sway......................................................................228
5.7.4 The Magistrate’s Statecraft..........................................................................229
5.7.5 The Magistrate’s Judicial Cunning..............................................................232
5.8 Losing the Trail: Jing Fang Record in Subsequent Appointments..............................234
5.9 Conclusion: Jing Fang as Mid-Ming Magistrate..........................................................237

6 Conclusions: Reflections of an Unworthy Magistrate: Linzhang County in
the Late Ming.............................................................................................................241

6.1 Introduction..................................................................................................................241
6.2 Droughts, Famines, Epidemics and Floods: the late Ming Context in
Linzhang County.........................................................................................................242
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6.3 Dislocation and Social Unrest in late Ming Linzhang County....................................246
6.4 Zhang Erzhong in the Late Ming.................................................................................250
6.5 A Brief Record of an Unworthy Magistrate of Linzhang County...............................253
6.6 Conclusions: Reading Back from Zhang Erzhong.......................................................259

Bibliography.....................................................................................................................264
Appendices.......................................................................................................................283

Appendix A: Translation of Ximen Bao Passage from the Lushi Chunqiu.......................283
Appendix B: Translation of Ximen Bao Passage from the Han Feizi...............................285
Appendix C: Translation of Ximen Bao Passage from the Huainanzi..............................286
Appendix D: Translation of the Ximen Bao Passage from the Shuo Yuan........................288
Appendix E: Translation of Ximen Bao Passage from the Shi ji.......................................289
Appendix F: Translation of Yu Xin’s “A Poem for the Ximen Bao Temple”...................292
Appendix G: Historical Chart of Changing Jurisdictions for Anyang and
Linzhang Counties......................................................................................293

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1.1 Historic Monument in Linzhang County……………………………..................2

Figure 1.2 William Skinner’s Physiographic Macroregions……………………................18

Figure 2.1 “Map [of the Terrain] within the [County] Borders” (境內之圖)……………..70

Figure 2.2 “Map of the County Seat” (縣治之圖)………………………………………...71

Figure 2.3 Yao Jianzhi’s Map of the Zhang River During the Shang Period…………......87

Figure 2.4 Yao Jianzhi’s Map of the Zhang River During the Late Zhou Period………....88

Figure 2.5 Yao Jianzhi’s Map of the Zhang River During the Ming Period……………...90

Figure 3.1 Monument to Ximen Bao in Linzhang County……………………………….107

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This dissertation could have never been completed without a great deal of help, support,
and guidance from a number of people. I first stumbled onto this topic when a Ming documents
reading group that I was a part of at the University of Toronto randomly selected a gazetteer
from the Tianyige collection to read in the fall of 2003. I would like to thank the initial members
of this group, Desmond Cheung, Darryl Sterk, Adam Bohnet and Ihor Pidhainy who are
probably just as shocked as I am that somehow our arbitrary selection seven years ago grew into
this dissertation project. While at the University of British Columbia I have had the great fortune
of being surrounded by an incredible group of teachers, scholars, colleagues and friends. I am
extremely grateful to the Centre for Chinese Research and its Director, Alison Bailey, for her
continued support and for graciously housing me and my books over the past few years. At
various stages in this project, I received insightful suggestions, comments and criticism from Leo
Shin, Diana Lary, Alexander Woodside, Timothy Cheek, Alison Bailey, Michael Szonyi,
Thomas Nimick, Roger Des Forges, Jing Liu, Cherie Hanson, Michael Schoenhals, Guo Xiaolin,
Grace Fong and Robin Yates. I also could have not have asked to be surrounded by a better
cohort of classmates. I would especially like to thank: David Luesink, Malcolm Thompson, Dai
Lianbin, Huang Xin, Anna Belogurova, Jack Hayes, Noa Grass, Tom Woodsworth, Nick Simon,
Craig Smith, and Heidi Kong. I am also thankful to all of my friends in China, Shi Lei, Han
Minjie, Che Lin, Chen Runyo, Bao Jiajian, Fu Lingchao, and Mat Morgan who generously
provided me with all of their insider’s knowledge of China. My experiences in China would
have never been the same without it
At key stages of this project I received generous financial support for which I am
thankful including: the Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program, the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Chiang Ching Kuo Foundation. I am also
grateful to other members of UBC’s History Department, especially Gloria Lees, Leslie Paris,
and Danny Vickers who have helped me secure funding at the times when I needed it the most
I reserve a special thanks for the following people who have played important roles in my
growth and intellectual development: to Ralph Crozier, Richard King and Greg Blue who first
introduced me to China and encouraged me every step of the way as I began my studies; to Jason
Young who generously offered to read through the entire dissertation and kept me sane while
finishing this final draft in the cold of a Montreal winter; to Zhang Dewei who I could also count
on for help and guidance through tricky passages of Chinese text; to Matt Irving, John Welk,
Roy Turner, and Ben Liu who kept me honest; to my brother and sister who keep me grounded;
and to Abhishek Kaicker, for always having something intelligent to say about everything– a
warm thank you to all of you. I would also like to offer a very special thanks to my close mate
Desmond Cheung for being with me every step of the way. From U of T to UBC, his friendship,
erudition, and generous help is a major factor behind this dissertation’s completion. I cannot
thank him enough. I am especially grateful to my teacher Timothy Brook who urged me to
pursue my own interests and provided me the intellectual freedom to do so. With patience he
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guided me through Ming sources and was always generous with his time when I had questions
and problems. His learning, dedication, and intellectual curiosity continue to inspire me.
I reserve my last thanks for my wife and my parents. Debbie Wong has kept my spirits
high while completing this dissertation and has provided me with the emotional supported that I
needed to see this project to its completion. She also kept me fed and if you ever have the
fortune of eating her food you will know how truly lucky I am. To my parents, words cannot
express my thanks and gratitude for your support and guidance throughout the years. Writing a
dissertation is a complicated and stressful process and knowing that I could always count on your
love and support means the world to me. I dedicate this dissertation to you.

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DEDICATION

To
 my
 parents

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Chapter 1: Beyond Jiangnan: Micro-History in the “Culturally Central” Periphery

1.1 Introduction: First Impressions
When traveling to a new place, first impressions are always important. In 2006, I had the
opportunity to travel to my area of study, Linzhang County (臨漳縣), for the first time. Getting
there was not particularly easy and required riding a small beat-up “bun-van” from Handan city
located in the southernmost tip of Hebei Province for almost two hours before I reached the
“county city” (縣城) of Linzhang. Linzhang is somewhat off the beaten path. Few Chinese
have ever heard of the place and it is not directly linked to the national highway or railway
system. The preferred mode of transportation for many in the area is still two-wheeled carts
pulled by donkeys. With no large scale industry to speak of, historic sites that are far too
esoteric to be of interest to most people and a predominately agricultural landscape there is little
reason for most to visit Linzhang county. Yet after almost two hours of being thrown around
inside the suspension-less minivan, which somehow managed to magnify every bump in the
potholed road, we emerged onto a pristinely paved circle with a massive spire that soared into
the sky. Amused by a foreigner wanting to stop and look at something so routine to the locals,
the driver in a barely intelligible local dialect asked if I wanted to stop and have a look. I
responded with an enthusiastic “yes” and in seconds I was outside of the cramped van and
walking around the monolith that somehow resembled both a dollar sign and the head of a
mythical creature all at the same time.

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