View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ScholarBank@NUS A PRAGMATIC EXPERIMENT OF RURAL CONSTRUTION MOVEMENT: THE SELF-GOVERNMENT OF WANXI IN SOUTHWESTERN HENAN, 1930-1940 CHI ZHEN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2007 A PRAGMATIC EXPERIMENT OF RURAL CONSTRUTION MOVEMENT: THE SELF-GOVERNMENT OF WANXI IN SOUTHWESTERN HENAN, 1930-1940 CHI ZHEN (B.A. & M.A.), ZHENGZHOU UNIVERSITY A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE Acknowledgements Having completed my PhD thesis, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the following people: Prof Thomas David DuBois; Prof Huang Jianli; and Prof. Ng Chin-Keong. Prof DuBois, my main supervisor and a brilliant young historian, provided me with invaluable instructions, criticisms, and suggestions to revise, reorganize, and polish this thesis. Prof Huang is an outstanding scholar in the field of the Republican history of China. I was indeed fortunate to have him sharing with me his academic wisdom and experience over the past four years. Prof Ng is one of leading scholars of Chinese Studies in Singapore. His ideas and perspectives inspired me greatly in the course of my research. Pursuing a PhD degree is not merely an academic pursue. There are also many administrative matters that need to be handled. Without the assistance from Prof Albert Lau, Prof Ian Gordon, Prof Brian Farrell, and Miss Kelly Lau, it is impossible for me to finish writing this thesis. As such, I wish to express my gratitude to all of them! Last but not least, I would like to thank the postgraduate student community of the Department of History. The various academic and non-academic activities have certainly made my life in Singapore much more meaningful and memorable. I will remember these smiling faces and loving days, FOREVER. i Table of Contents Acknowledgments i Table of Contents ⅱ Summary iii List of Tables and Illustrations ⅴ Introduction 1 Chapter One Setting the Context 27 Weakening State, Active Locality 27 The rural north China: Banditry and social militarization, case of Henan 63 The Rural Reconstruction Movement 70 Chapter Two Militarized County: The Local Self-government of Wanxi, 1930-1940 94 Wanxi in 1920s 94 Mintuan or the people’s militia 101 Autonomy 116 The relationship of Wanxi and the Guomindang’s provincial government 127 Guomindang: The final winner 139 Chapter Three Ideology of the Local Self-government of Wanxi: Peng Yuting’s Regionalism 146 The Academy of Village Self-government of Henan 146 Peng Yuting’s regionalism 149 Peng’s regionalism and Three People’s Principles (sanminzhuyi) 159 Reshaping nationalism 166 Chapter Four Local State Building: The Rural Reconstruction Work in Wanxi 170 Tightening the social control 172 Land survey and tax reduction 180 Developing the local economy 185 Public welfares 197 The development of education 199 Abolishing the bad customs and habits 204 Conclusion 214 Bibliography 220 ii SUMMARY This thesis discusses the local self-government of Wanxi from two perspectives. One is from the central-local relationship, and the other is from the local state building. In the 1930s, some local elites in Wanxi organized mintuan - or the People’s Militia - to suppress the rampant banditry in this remote and hilly region. On the base of powerful local armed force, these elite drove the Guomindang’s administration out of this region and established a local self-government. In the following ten years, they successfully resisted the Guomindang provincial government’s effort of resuming its rule in Wanxi. The local self-government of Wanxi seriously challenged the authority of the state. As such, the history of the local self-government of Wanxi was regarded as a vivid case of Guomindang’s failure in extending the state power. Although it impeded the process of power centralization, the local self-government of Wanxi was one significant rural reconstruction experiment in the 1930s. The elite that ran the local self-government, contributed to the stabilization of the social order, improved the local economy, and developed the rural education in this region. In this thesis, their activities were known as the “local state building”. This term refers that when the central or provincial government was incapable of stabilizing and developing the rural society, the locality, and especially the bandit-and-poverty-ridden counties such as Wanxi, could find itself a feasible way of social development. In the long run, this kind of local effort would prove to be helpful for the national modernization. In the Rural Reconstruction Movement of the 1930s, Wanxi had a distinctive iii feature, which came from its political dimension. When compared with other rural reconstruction experiments, Wanxi did enjoy full autonomy. The autonomy of Wanxi was generated from the local self-government, and the self-government was based on the powerful local armed force. Therefore, we can argue that the local self-government of Wanxi was a blend of local militarization and rural reconstruction. To add, the experiment of Wanxi was led by local elites. They were much less utopian in their vision as compared to the intellectuals in the Rural Reconstruction Movement. The pragmatic dimension of this experiment had contributed greatly to Wanxi’s rural reconstruction work. iv List of Tables and Illustrations Table1: Numbers of county magistrate of Wanxi in the1920s 95 Structure Map one (SM1): The local self-government of Neixiang 118 Structure map two (SM2): The local self-government of Zhenping 120 v Introduction Wanxi Wanxi is located in the southwestern part of Nanyang City of Henan Province, China. It consists of several counties, such as Zhenping, Neixiang, Xichuan, Deng, and Xixia. Because Nanyang was known as “Wan” in the ancient time, the local residents call these counties “Wanxi”—“the west of Nanyang”. Wanxi is a place where three provinces—Henan, Hubei, and Shaanxi—meet. It is surrounded by mountains such as the Mountain Range Qinling and Dabie. In this region, although the number of cultivated land is very small, hills can be seen everywhere. Therefore, the local people call Wanxi “Seven mountains, one river, and minute land (qi shan yi shui liang fen tian 七山一水两分田)”. The traffic in this region is extremely poor. In the 1920s, Wanxi was about four hundred kilometers from Kaifeng, the capital city of Henan Province. It was far from the Beijing-Hankou and Lanzhou-Xuzhou trunk railways. Due to its closeness and lack of cultivated land, Wanxi was one of the most backward regions in Henan. In those days, Wanxi was suffering from the persistent instability and abject poverty. Under such circumstances, bandits became extremely rampant and their frequent and brutal looting, kidnapping, and killing put the society of Wanxi into chaos. Unfortunately, the local governments of Wanxi were incapable and indifferent. Hence, they could not stop the disturbance caused by bandit gangs. To make things worse, some senior officials of the county governments even colluded with bandit chieftains. The worsening situation and the discontent with the local governments 1 motivated local elites of Wanxi, especially those who were educated and intelligent, to take the initiative to prevent the society from falling into the abyss of disorder. The local elite painstakingly reorganized and trained traditional militias, and did their best to upgrade them into a well-organized, strictly disciplined, and combat-worthy local armed force, which was called mintuan, or commonly known as the people’s militia. Among them, Peng Yuting, Bie Tingfang, Chen Shunde, and Ning Xigu made many contributions to build up mintuan. Peng was born in the Zhenping County and had served in General Feng Yuxiang’s army for a long period of time. Subsequently, he was promoted to a senior military position1. Ning came from Deng County and was educated in the Whampoa Military Academy. He participated in the two Northern Expeditions in the 1920s and was a veteran soldier. Bie was a famous military strongman in Neixiang County and he had a powerful private army even before the local self-government of Wanxi. Chen was born in a noble family2 in the Xichuan County and was an active political figure in Nanyang. The four men created the new mintuan and began suppressing bandits. In 1930, Peng Yuting persuaded the other three leaders to incorporate their troops and establish a unified local self-government in Wanxi. Peng Yuting was a “regionalist”3 and had one distinctive political idea, which 1 General Feng had very good impression of Peng’s performance in his Northwest Army. Peng left the Army in 1927. Subsequently, he began his self-government work in Zhenping. Feng did not know much about Peng’s work. After 1930, Feng was defeated by Jiang Jieshi, and became a less significant figure in Chinese politics. It was impossible for Feng to give much more concrete assistance to the local self-government of Wanxi. 2 One of Chen’s forefathers did great work in suppressing Nian Rebellion—a collaboration army of Taiping Rebellion—and was awarded an honor banner from the imperial court. 3 In this thesis, the term of regionalist has two types. One is separatist, who advocates that the locality should be totally independent from the state. The other is not separatist, who just argues that the locality should enjoy more autonomous rights to develop the local society. Speaking generally, the second type 2 he called reshaped sanminzhuyi (the Three Principles of the People). In his mind, when the countryside was in chaos, and the central or provincial government was too weak to give help, the countryside should take its own action to solve serious problems that it was facing. In other words, in the chaotic time of the 1920s and 1930s, the locality should have full-fledged autonomy and became the vital player of stabilizing and developing the rural society.