The Order of Local Things:

Popular Politics and Religion in Modern Wenzhou, 1840-1940

By

Shih-Chieh Lo

B.A., National Chung Cheng University, 1997

M.A., National Tsing Hua University, 2000

A.M., Brown University, 2005

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History at Brown University

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND

May 2010

© Copyright 2010 by Shih-Chieh Lo

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This dissertation by Shih-Chieh Lo is accepted in its present form by the Department of History as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Date______Mark Swislocki, Advisor

Recommendation to the Graduate Council

Date______Michael Szonyi, Reader

Date______Mark Swislocki, Reader

Date______Richard Davis, Reader

Approved by the Graduate Council

Date______Sheila Bonde, Dean of the Graduate School

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Roger, Shih-Chieh Lo (C. J. Low)

Date of Birth : August 15, 1974

Place of Birth : Taichung County, Taiwan

Education Brown University- Providence, Rhode Island Ph. D in History (May 2010)

Brown University - Providence, Rhode Island A. M., History (May 2005)

National Tsing Hua University- Hsinchu, Taiwan Master of Arts (June 2000)

National Chung-Cheng University - Chaiyi, Taiwan Bachelor of Arts (June 1997)

Publications:

“地方神明如何平定叛亂：楊府君與溫州地方政治 (1830-1860).” (How a local deity pacified Rebellion: Yangfu Jun and Wenzhou local politics, 1830-1860) Journal of Wenzhou University. Social Sciences 溫州大學學報 社會科學版, Vol. 23, No.2 (March, 2010): 1-13.

“ 略論清同治年間台灣戴潮春案與天地會之關係 Was the Dai Chaochun Incident a Triad Rebellion?” Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 民俗曲藝 Vol. 138 (December, 2002): 279-303.

“ 試探清代台灣的地方精英與地方社會: 以同治年間的戴潮春案為討論中心 Preliminary Understandings of Local Elites and Local Society in Qing Taiwan: A Case Study of the Dai Chaochun Rebellion”. Taiwan Shih-chi 臺灣史蹟, Vol. 38 (June, 2001): 135- 160.

Teachings:

University of Rhode Island, Feinstein Providence Campus- Rhode Island, Visiting lecturer, 2008-present

Brown University - Providence, Rhode Island Teaching Fellow, Spring 2009

Teaching Assistantships

Brown University - Providence, Rhode Island Teaching Assistant, 2004-2010

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Abstract of “The Order of Local Things: Popular Politics and Religions in Modern Wenzhou, 1840-1940” by Shih-Chieh Lo, Ph. D., Brown University, May 2010

This dissertation offers a new approach to the still dominant state/society

paradigm, which has long assumed that local society would inevitably succumb to

state power in the course of modernization. By applying the concept of “popular

politics,” my work illustrates how common people organized themselves to weather

the great transitions and upheavals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

My research is based on rich sources, including local archives like local

gazetteers, as well as the anthologies and personal diaries of Wenzhou literati, many

of which are only available at Wenzhou, where I have conducted extensive archival,

library, and field research. My study shows that popular religion – not the state – was

the most important social force in the daily life of commoners.

Each chapter of my dissertation presents a different aspect of the relationship

between religion and politics in modern China. I begin the dissertation with an

analysis of two peasant uprisings of the 1860s, to explore interactions between local

officials and the local community before the emergence of a strong Western presence

in the region. The dissertation then identifies a local political reconfiguration

triggered by the rapid penetration of foreign religions, especially Catholicism and

Protestantism, on the heels of Wenzhou’s acquisition of treaty port status in 1877.

Having characterized the nature of what I found to be an unparalleled reconfiguration

of local politics, the project turns to the changing policies of local officials toward the

v area’s most important non-Christian religious event, the Dragon Boat Race, which had been held annually at Wenzhou since the thirteenth century. The dissertation closes with an examination of the policies of the Nationalist regime (1928-1949), focusing in particular on its concerns with indigenous local religious practice. My overall objective is to flesh out the extent to which the Nationalist Party-State apparatus succeeded in molding the common people’s daily life by combining old and new religious systems.

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Table of Content:

Abstract

Introduction:……………………………………………………………………1-25

Chapter One:……………………………………………………………………26-70 How a Local God Pacified Rebellion: Yangfu Jun (Lord Yang) and Wenzhou Local Politics (1840-1860)

Chapter Two:…………………………………………………………………...71-101 The Combat between Local God and Confucians: the Jinqian hui (Golden Coin association) Uprising (1850-1870)

Chapter Three:…………………………………………………………………..102-166 Wenzhou and Christian Impact: Harbinger of New Political Order (1870-1900)

Chapter Four:……………………………………………………………………167-225 Deep Play: Dragon Boat and Reconfiguration of Wenzhou Local Politics (1890-1927)

Chapter Five:……………………………………………………………………226-291 Anti-Superstition Campaign and its impacts on Wenzhou local politics

Conclusion:……………………………………………………………………..292-301

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………….302-321

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Introduction:

Whatever this hegemony may have been, it did not envelop the

lives of the poor and it did not prevent them from defending their

own modes of work and leisure, and forming their own rituals,

their own satisfaction and view of life.

E. P. Thompson (1924-1993), 1978: 163 1

I. Questions:

This dissertation is an attempt to explore the correlation between popular religion and local politics in modern Wenzhou from 1850 to 1950. By using local archives collected from Wenzhou Prefecture 溫州府, which consists of six counties located in the southeastern part of Zhejiang 浙江 Province, I am going to apply the concept of “history from below,” 2 which has been successfully applied in European history, to shed light on the importance of popular religion in Chinese local politics. Additionally, in this dissertation, I offer a new approach to the still dominant state/society paradigm, which has long assumed that society would inevitably succumb to state power as modernization

1 See: E. P. Thompson, “Eighteenth-century English society: class struggle without class,” Social History , vol. 3, no. 2 (May 1978): 133-165.

2 On the discussion of the concept of history from below, see: Frederick Krantz, History From Below: Studies in Popular Protest and Popular Ideology (London: Basil Blackwell, 1985).

1 proceeded. 3 I do this by applying the concept of “popular politics,” which I adopt from its

successful use in studies of European history, 4 to deepen our understanding of what I call

“the order of local things” in modern Chinese society.

By examining the importance of local religious traditions in local society, this

dissertation is also an attempt to reexamine the modernization/secularization theory. The

standard narrative of modern Chinese history incorporates a notion of increasing

secularization, 5 but by doing Wenzhou local history; this dissertation shows that this

3 For a study on the state/society relation in modern China, see Prasenjit Duara’s influential book Culture, Power, and the State: Rural North China, 1900-1942 . In his groundbreaking book, Duara convincingly applied the concept of “cultural nexus of power” to illustrate the interactions between state and society in rural north China since the late nineteenth century. Throughout his book, Duara illustrates a story of how the “modern” state penetrated into local society in the process of “state-making” since the late nineteenth century. Duara implied that society will eventually succumb to the state and their modernization plan. It is not an exaggeration to say that Duara’s thesis has dominated the understanding of state/society relationship in modern China since the early 1990s.

4 Generally speaking, popular politics is common people’s politics. As for the discussion of “popular politics” in the context of European history, see: Tim Harris’s introduction in Tim Harris ed., The Politic of the excluded, .c 1500-1850 , (New York: Palgrave, 2001); Andy Wood, Riot, Rebellion and Popular Politics in Early Modern England , (New York: Palgrave, 2002); and Ethan Shagan , Popular Politics and the English Reformation , (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

5 Pioneering sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) came up with the notion of “secularization” based on his study of human’s religious experience in a modernized society. See Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life , (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). Based on the Durkheimian approach, Berger (1967) defined secularization as “the process by which sectors of society and culture are removed from the domination of religious institutions and symbols. When we speak of society and institutions in modern Western history, of course, secularization manifests itself in the evacuation by the Christian churches of areas previously under their control or influence.” See Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of A Sociological Theory of Religion, (New York: Anchor Books, 1967), 107. Durkheim and Berger’s observations pointed out that the influence of religion has declined in the modern Western world since the age of enlightenment. As early as in the 1960s, C. K. Yang has challenged Liang Qichao 梁啟超 and Hu Shi’s 胡適 “unreligious” and the “insignificance of religion” arguments in his book which discusses the functions of religions in Chinese society. However, the secularization thesis equal to modernization thesis supported by these cultural elites is still influential in scholar’s assessment of modern Chinese history. See C. K. Yang, Religion in Chinese Society: A Study of Contemporary Social Functions of Religion and Some of their historical factors , (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961). As we have seen that in order to compete with foreign countries, the Chinese nation-state as well as cultural elites called for a series of modernization campaigns to attempt to build a modernized/secularized society. Therefore, religion became a major target in the process of state-making. On the other hand, both of the nation-state and cultural elites followed Liang and Hu’s “unreligious” argument to implement the policy of

2 narrative is an oversimplification. In fact, modernization is not a straightforward vehicle to every aspect of local society. Specifically, local religion and its related organizations still played an important role in Wenzhou local politics throughout nineteenth and mid- twentieth century China. In general, prior to this work scholars of religion have focused on the studies of text, ritual, and hagiography, 6 while social historians have not paid enough attention to the fact that local religion functioned as a very important political power in local society. 7 Therefore, in terms of methodology, this dissertation is an attempt to merge the study of religion with social history to understand the changes that happened within the daily life experience of ordinary people in Wenzhou from 1840 to

1940.

“elimination of religion equal to modernization” thesis. For a study of the process, in particularly the interactions between modern Chinese intellectuals and their modernization attempts, see Rana Mitter, A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

6 In the past, scholars of Chinese religion have focused their research mainly on the “deity” and “text”. However, with the growing interest in the study of Chinese popular culture since the 1980s, scholars have started to pay more attention to the importance of popular religion in their understanding of Chinese religion. Increasingly, scholars became more interested in the issue of religion in practice, especially in local society. For studies on the development of this field, see David Johnson et al , eds, Popular Culture in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Donald S. Lopez, Jr, ed., Religions of China in Practice (N. J., Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996); and Daniel L. Overmyer, ed., Religion in China Today (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). It is also noteworthy to list the works of several scholars who have explored the role of popular religion in Chinese local society. See for example, Katz’s (1995) work on the Marshall Wen in Wenzhou 溫州, Zhejiang and Dean’s work in Minnan 閩南 (1993) and Putian 莆田 (1998), Fujian province.

7 There are two major reasons explaining why social historians have not paid sufficient attention to the political implications of religion in Chinese society. First of all, this is because of influence of the modernization-equals-secularization thesis. Secondly, this can be attributed to the methodology of “folk culture studies” 民俗研究 ( minsu yanjiu ). Thus, despite contemporary Chinese social historians ridding themselves of the notion of “class struggle mode” to move on to the study of social history, scholars of this field have relied heavily on the “elite”/“folk” dichotomy along with their modernization-equals- secularization thesis as the major framework for analyzing so-called “folk culture” in Chinese society. To a great extent, this preconceived notion toward folk culture actually limits the possibility of using popular religion to explain local history in a macro perspective. Regarding the study of Chinese folk culture, in addition to the founding fathers of this field, Gu Jiegang 顧頡剛 and Zhong Jingwen 鍾敬文 work, see recent developments in this field in China by Zhao Shiyu 趙世瑜, kuanhuan yu richang: Mingqing yilai de miaohui yu defang shehui 狂歡與日常: 明清以來的廟會與民間社會 (Carnivals in Daily Life: The Temple Fairs and Local Society Since Ming and Qing dynasty), (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2002) and Ye Tao 葉濤, Taishan xiangshe yanjiu 泰山香社研究 (Shanghai: Shanghai Guji chubanshe, 2009).

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II. From Popular Culture to Popular Politics:

The concept of popular politics is actually from British historian and creative critic Peter Burke’s still influential conception of “popular culture.” 8 Burke’s eloquence in addressing the “the two tier mode of cultural conflict” indeed aroused subsequent generations of scholars’ interest in the study of folk culture. At any rate, Burke made a great contribution to deepening scholars’ understanding of ordinary people’s lives.

However, as British historian Harris remarked, this “dichotomy between popular and elite culture encourages us to see the subordinate classes as an undifferentiated group, which clearly does an injustice to social, economic and cultural realities. 9 Thus, in light of the sense of “injustice,” Harris suggests that the questions we historians should ask are both how ordinary people experienced their world and the ways they reacted to it rather than simply reaffirming the gap between elite and folk culture. Thus, Harris proposed to expand the range of “popular culture” out of the elite/popular category. He writes:

Popular culture is not just what ordinary people did to amuse themselves whilst

the toffs went to the opera; it is about how they saw their world, how they lived,

worked, worshipped, what they believed, their attitudes toward the law, politics,

8 Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (New York : New York University Press, 1978).

9 See: Tim Harris, “Problematising Popular Culture” in Tim Harris ed. , Popular Culture in England, c. 1500-1850 (New York: MacMillan Press, 1995), 5. This book is a collection of British historians’ work on the revision of Burke’s conception of popular culture; Tim Harris is now a Professor of history at Brown University in Rhode Island.

4 the church, the supernatural, their family, marriage, in short, perhaps about

everything. 10

In addition to being conscious of the elite/popular dichotomy, Harris and his colleagues remind historians of the danger of Burke’s holistic approach to popular culture, that it inevitably stresses a cultural integration—“it can tend to apply an over-consensual view.” 11 This “over-consensual view,” which is the thesis of cultural integration and standardization, is still very dominant in the field of late-imperial and modern Chinese history. 12 To a great extent, this still influential thesis underestimates the degree of differentiation found in local society such as regional variations, differences in gender roles, and the possibility to challenge the oversimplified notion of national culture as well as grand narratives like modernization and secularization.

As we have seen, Harris and his colleagues are quite cautious to not imitate the concept of popular/elite dichotomy and cultural integration in their understanding of

British local history. Instead of defining popular culture as “the culture of ordinary people or the subordinate classes, those below the level of elite,” Harris and his colleagues proposed to consider culture as a process, constantly adapting itself to new developments

10 Ibid., 10.

11 Ibid., 11.

12 See James Watson, “Standardizing the Gods: The Promotion of T’ien Hou (“Empress of Heaven”) Along the South China Coast, 960-1960,” in David Johnson et al , eds., Popular Culture in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 292-324. Recently, a growing number of scholars have critiqued this “cultural integration” thesis and their works can be found in the special issue of Modern China 33 (January 2007) . See especially, Donald S. Sutton, “Ritual, Cultural Standardization, and Orthopraxy in China: Reconsidering James L. Watson’s Ideas,” Modern China 33 (January 2007): 3-21.

5 and new circumstances, rather than seeing it as a thing or a structure existing in local society. 13 It is clear that Harris and his colleagues are more interested in exploring the dynamic part of history rather than in elaborating on the alleged structural forces in their analysis of history. To them, historians are expected to “explore the complexities of the cultural dynamics … rather than foreclose it by attempting to establish a new consensus. 14 Apparently, the distinctiveness of locality and differentiation within local society replaced the agenda of cultural integration in their study of British local history.

Additionally, even more inspiring for historians of China who are constrained by the cultural integration thesis, is British Reformation historian Duffy (1992, 2001) and

Shagan (2003) use of ordinary English people’s perspective to redress what has been long considered to be a mighty cultural integration installed from above: the Reformation.15

Based on their painstaking research of village archives stored and kept by a churchwarden, Shagan (2003) pointed out that the great success of the Reformation was not how successfully the English church implemented a nation wide conversion, but

13 Regarding this discussion, see: Bob Scribner ‘Is a History of Popular Culture Possible? History of European Ideas , x (1989), 116-136.

14 Harris (1995), Ibid., 4.

15 For a very long time, the standard narrative of the British Reformation was that the English monarch successfully converted British citizens to the Church of England. However, Reformation historian Duffy used evidence he found in villages, especially the liturgy in the church and villagers’ will, to challenge the validity of this standardized explanation of the English Reformation. See: Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992). In a sense, this book is conceived as a contribution to an adequate understanding of both medieval English Catholicism and of the Reformation, which swept Catholicism away. Later, Duffy published another book based on the parish accounts he collected from a village called Morebath in Devon County to answer the question of how the revolutionary upheavals that transformed their mental and material worlds under Henry VIII and his three children. See: Eamon Duffy, The Voices of Morebath: Reformation & Rebellion in an English Village (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).

6 rather how British locals adapted to this change from above in their daily lives. Shagan writes:

We find English subjects accepting and contributing to the new religious order,

using that new order as the basis for their economic activities, their community

organization, and their local politics. In doing so, they absorbed much of the

language, priorities and interpretive framework of the government with whom

they so profitably negotiated…the English Reformation was not done to people, it

was done within them . This dynamic process of engagement between government

and people was, in some sense, itself the greatest success of the English

reformation. 16

Clearly, without this local history perspective in studying the Reformation it would be nearly impossible to explore the dynamic negotiation done between the English Church’s conversion order and local society’s realistic adaptation of this new order in their daily lives.

16 See: Ethan Shagan , Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 25.

7 On the basis of the European social history tradition, 17 Harris and his colleagues not only kept focus on the study of “the popular,” but also wanted to expand previous research of “low politics” into “popular politics,” since “the view that politics was the preserve of the political elite, the top three percent cent of the population, and that ordinary people were not only excluded from politics but did not have any politics in a meaningful sense, that we could study, was still widespread.” 18 In order to accommodate the various forms of politics found in local society, Harris (2001) devised a relatively broad definition of politics:

Politics comprises all the activities of co-operation and conflict, within and

between societies, whereby the human species goes about organizing the use,

production and distribution of human, natural and other resources in the course of

the production and reproduction of its biological and social life. What this means

is that politics is everywhere and in everything.… Politics is at the heart of all

collective social activity, formal and informal, public and private, in all human

groups, institutions and societies, not just some of them…. Politics can be found

in informal and temporary groupings of people, and these informal groups might

include bus queues, football crowds, people meeting for first time on campus site;

17 This social history tradition is embodied mainly by three British Marxist historians: George Rude (1914- 1993), Eric Hobsbawn (1917- ), and E.P. Thompson (1924-1993). The most striking similarity among these three influential historians is that they highly valued ordinary people’s political actions and always wanted to find out the underlying dynamic and reasons behind their collective actions. See: George Rude, Ideology and Popular Protest (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1995) and George Rude, The Crowd in History: A Study of Popular Disturbances in France and England, 1730-1848 (London: Serif, 1995).

18 See: Tim Harris’s introduction in Tim Harris ed., The Politic of the excluded, c 1500-1850 (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 1-29.

8 indeed, we might even find politics among children inventing and playing games,

or among residents of a housing estate. 19

Harris points out that politics is everywhere in almost everything, which also means that an order can be found in everything and everywhere. Thus, politics not only mattered to ruling elites, it mattered to the ruled. According to Harris’s definitions of politics we can define popular politics as being about the exertion of order in ordinary people’s daily life experience.

Therefore, the value of studying popular politics is at least twofold for the scholar of Chinese history: first, it is quite obvious that the politics of ordinary people is understudied, since scholars have spent much energy on high politics and not much on low politics. Secondly, and most importantly, this broad definition of politics can be used to not only shed light on the order of ordinary people’s collective actions, but can also be used to reverse the misconceived notion that ordinary people did not have any politics in a meaningful sense. Throughout this dissertation, I use the concept of “popular politics” to raise the following questions: How did ordinary Chinese people organize themselves to address their shared interest from the late nineteenth to the twentieth century? Second, what changes happened in the field of local religion and local politics in Wenzhou? How did Wenzhou locals feel about the changes happening in their daily life experience? Third, by situating the importance of local religious traditions in Wenzhou local politics, to what

19 Harris (2001), Ibid., 5. Harris’s understanding of politics can be also seen in his first book about London crowds. See: Tim Harris, London Crowds in the Reign of Charles II: Propaganda and Politics from Restoration Until the Exclusion Crisis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

9 extent can we redress the paradigm of modernization and secularization in modern

Chinese history? My answers to these above questions concentrate on religion, arguably the most important social dynamic in the daily life of ordinary people.

In a discussion of the role of popular religion in Chinese local politics, it is impossible to overlook Wolf’s pioneering “bureaucratic mode of Chinese religion.” 20

Based on his fieldwork done in northern Taiwanese villages in the late 1960s, anthropologist Arthur Wolf argued that the “Chinese supernatural world through the eyes of the peasants is a detailed image of Chinese officialdom.” Moreover, Wolf argues that this “gods, ghosts and ancestors” structure was helpful in stabilizing Chinese rural society’s political order. Wolf writes:

Accessed in terms of its [gods, ghost and ancestors mode] long-range impact to

the people, it appears to have been one of the most potent governments ever

known, for it created a religion in its own image. Its firm grip on the popular

imagination may be one reason the imperial government survived so long despite

it many failings. Perhaps this is also the reason China’s revolutionaries have so

often organized their movements in terms of the concepts and symbols of such

foreign faiths as Buddhism and Christianity. The native gods were so much a part

of the establishment that they could not be turned against. 21

20 See: Arthur Wolf, “Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors” in Arthur Wolf ed., Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974), 131-182.

21 See: Ibid., 146.

10 Beneath Wolf’s field work observation, he makes it very clear that there are at least two forms of political powers constructing Chinese local politics: empire bureaucracy and local deities. Together with the presence of local officials, this “detailed image of

Chinese officialdom” is apparently a supra-structural power regulating local residents’ daily behavior including local politics. To a great extent, Wolf actually considered popular religion as a visible mean of socialization from above with these Taiwanese villagers, since the content and practice of popular religion is full of implications for social order and moral standards. 22

Along with Wolf’s work, anthropologist James Watson’s influential

“standardization” thesis highlighted how the Chinese state successfully integrated locals’ supernatural world with the officially-approved orthodox system, particularly in late

Imperial China. 23 The studies of later generations of scholars can be seen as the peak of the cultural integration thesis, in particular historian Hansen’s work on the question of how Song Empire (960-1279 AD) officials incorporated local deities into their official worship system. Dean’s work also convincingly proved the connections between Fujian local religious traditions and Daoism. 24 However, the degree of cultural integration happening in local society was not clarified until Szonyi’s study of the cult of five

22 More discussion on this question can be seen in Emily Martin Ahern, Chinese Ritual and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).

23 See: James Watson, “Standardizing the Gods: The Promotion of T’ien Hou (“Empress of Heaven”) Along the South China Coast, 960-1960,” in David Johnson et al eds., Popular Culture in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 292-324.

24 See: Valerie Hansen, Changing Gods in Medieval China, 1127-1276 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), 29-47, 160-166 and Kenneth Dean, Taoist Ritual and Popular Cults of Southeast China (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993).

11 emperors ( wudi 五帝) in North Fujian Province’s Fuzhou 福州.25 In that article, titled

“The Illusion of Standardization,” instead of reiterating the standardization thesis, Szonyi presented a “conflation” mode to not only show the limit of the state’s promotion of standardization in local society, but also to appreciate the value of local interpretations of their deities and local cultural identity. Moreover, he concluded that: “the history of the five emperors of Fuzhou suggests that what happened was not that state-approved cults expanded, but that local cults were reshaped, manipulated, and represented to bring them in line, in certain contexts, with those approved cults.” 26 Therefore, while other scholars still persisted with the thesis of cultural integration and standardization, Szonyi’s revisionist explanation can be epitomized as “standardization was not [the state] done to people, it was done within them.” As we have seen, the above scholars’ studies all account for the interaction between state and society regarding local religious issues and for recognizing the importance of these local deities in ordinary people’s daily lives.

However, it is still fair to say that most scholars can not totally get rid of the influence of the hierarchical popular/elite dichotomy. They still tend to use a unidirectional cultural integration perspective to describe the unitary “culture” they found in local society. 27

25 See: Michael Szonyi, The Illusion of Standardization the Gods: The Cult of the Five Emperors in Late Imperial China, The Journal of Asian Studies , vol. 56, no.1 (February 1997): 113-135.

26 See: Szonyi, (1997), 131.

27 After reexamining the different approaches to their concepts of culture, Sewell (1999) suggested that “the notion of coherent cultures is purely illusory; that cultural practice in a given society is diffuse and decentered; that the local systems of meaning found in a given population do not themselves come from a higher-level, societywide system of meanings.” To a large extent, Sewell challenges the notion of “cultural integration” by pointing out that so-called integration is only semiotically meaningful. See William H. Sewell, Jr., “The Concept(s) of Culture,” in Victoria E. Bonnell and Lynn Hunt eds., Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the study of Society and Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 35-61.

12 In this dissertation, I am going to explore the political power of popular religion and how its related associations were exerted, extended and challenged in Wenzhou local society from 1840 to 1940. Even though we have a better understanding of the process of how ruling elites took advantage of popular religion to culturally integrate local society, we still do not have a clear picture of the reality of how “the ruled” also used popular religion and its related associations to articulate their concerns in local politics in the course of modern history. In other words, we may already have a clear picture of how the cultural integration thesis works in Chinese society, however, the relationship between religion and politics in local society is still not clear enough. Hence, instead of exploring whether the Chinese empire was successful or failed at controlling popular religion, in this dissertation, I will be paying more attention to the “dynamic process” of the engagements that happened between local government, local elites, and Wenzhou villagers to shed light on the political implications of popular religion in Chinese local society. Among the implications are Wenzhou locals’ response to different regimes’ religious policy toward local popular religious traditions, as well as the challenges launched by the arrival of foreign colonial powers and the Nationalist government into

Wenzhou local politics.

III. Wenzhou: A prefecture Fond of Serving Ghosts:

For centuries, everyone in general would agree that the Wenzhou locals were known to be “fond of serving ghosts (hao shihui 好事鬼).” Generally speaking, this local

13 religious tradition was common throughout all parts of China. A Qing Wenzhou local official Sun Tongyuan 孫同元 wrote about this local religious tradition in Wenzhou:

The king of Eastern Ou (Dongou wang 東甌王) believed in ghosts. The tradition

that he created is too vibrant to be suppressed. All the year round, Wenzhou locals

are busy praying for blessing as well as hiring troupes to compensate their local

deities. 28

Apparently, Sun ascribes the blame to the legendary king of Eastern Ou, who ruled

Wenzhou area during the Han dynasty, for creating this local religious tradition. 29 As a matter of fact, the popular image of King of Eastern Ou among Wenzhou locals was basically twofold: in addition to his devotion to ghosts; he is also famous for his legendary longevity (he allegedly died at the age of 160). Clearly, Sun’s observations made in 1860s Wenzhou illustrate that there is a local explanation concerning their great continuity especially in local deities. In fact, after King of Eastern Ou’s domain was renamed as Wen-Zhou (literally warm prefecture) in Tang dynasty, the flourishing of

28 See: Sun Tongyuan, Yongjia Wenjian lu buyi 永嘉聞見錄補遺, in Chen Ruizan edited 陳瑞贊, ibid, (2006), 40-41.

29 According to Han dynasty historian Sima Qian’s 司馬遷 Records of the Grand Historian (shiji 史記), the King of Eastern Ou is a descendant of Gou Jian 句踐 (?-464 BCE), who is the leader of ancient Yue kingdom ( 越國) in southeastern coast China in spring and autumn period 春秋時期. He supported Emperor Gaozu in founding the Han dynasty, thus Gaozu appointed him as King of Eastern Sea (Dong Hai Wang 東海王) settled in Dongou 東甌, which is current-day Wenzhou. King of Dongou was famous for his longevity. He died in the age of 160 . See: Sima Qian, translated by Burton Watson, Records of the Grand Historian: Han Dynasty 2 (New York: Renditions-Columbia University Press, 1993), 219-224. Also see: Chen Ruizan ed., 陳瑞贊, Dongou yishi huilu 東甌逸事匯錄 (The Collection of Wenzhou local history), (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chubanshe, 2006), 143-144.

14 local deities as well as their role in Wenzhou locals’ daily life experience was depicted in an inscription by Tang literati member, Lu Guimeng 陸龜蒙:

People who live between Ou 甌 and Yue 越 [where Wenzhou is] are fond of

serving ghosts; on mountain tops and along river banks are many temples where

illicit sacrifices are performed. In these temples [are all manner of deities]. Some

are called “generals” (jiangjun 將軍), with appearances firm and heroic, dark and

resolute. Some are called “masters” (mou-lang 某郎); they look warm and kind,

fair and youthful. Those who look like old women and have a dignified

appearance are called “matrons” (lao 姥), while those of beautiful appearance are

called “maidens” (gu 姑) ... The farmers fear [these deities] greatly, at most they

will brain an ox, or failing that slaughter a pig; at the meanest [their offerings]

will not be worse than a dog … To allow their families to want is permissible, but

to allow the gods to lack is never permissible. If one day these worshippers

become lazy and neglect the sacrifices, calamities will surely follow. The young

and the old, the animals and the livestock, all live in dread. 30

In the onset, we can see that Lu’s inscription was used to celebrate the influence of these

“unofficial” local deities in Wenzhou villagers’ daily life as early as the Tang dynasty.

30 See: Lu Guimeng 陸龜蒙, lize congshu 笠澤叢書 vol. 4, “yemiao bei” 野廟碑 (inscription of unofficial temples) in Chen Ruizan ed., 陳瑞贊, Dongou yishi huilu 東甌逸事匯錄 (The Collection of Wenzhou local history), (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chubanshe, 2006), 40-41. The English translation is courtesy of Katz’s (1995) pioneering work on the cult of Marshal Wen in Wenzhou. See: Paul Katz, Demon Hordes and Burning Boats: The Cult of Marshal Wen in Late Imperial China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 29-30.

15 Moreover, combining Lu with Sun Tongyuan’s observation, even after almost one thousand years a great continuity can be found in Wenzhou, especially in how various local deities were embedded in Wenzhou locals’ daily life experience and their local politics throughout Wenzhou history. The agenda of this dissertation is to explore how religion was exerted, challenged, and reconfigured by various powers in Wenzhou politics as they sought to express their agendas of modernization.

After unveiling the continuity of “fond of serving ghosts” in Wenzhou, it is equally important to parallel this “local religious tradition” with a discussion of

Wenzhou’s natural environment. Wenzhou prefecture (Wenzhou Fu 溫州府) is located in southeastern Zhejiang 浙 江 Province, which lies on China’s southeastern coast.

According to historical geographer Wu’s (1988, 2007) study, compared with northern

Zhejiang Province, which had been known as an important part of the Jiangnan 江南 region, Wenzhou Prefecture is largely an alluvial plain surrounded by a mountain chain called North and South Yandang mountains chain 南北雁蕩山脈.31 Moreover, this area is divided by three major parallel rivers running from north to south: Ou River 甌江,

Feiyun River 飛雲江, and Ao River 鰲江, which run into several sub-regional areas as well as county borderlines. 32 Basically, the contours of Wenzhou Prefecture correspond

31 For further discussion of the Wenzhou geographic environment, see: Wu Songdi 吳松弟, 浙江溫州沿海 平原的成陸過程 (Epeirogenic Process of Coastal plain in Wenzhou district, Zhejiang Province), in dili kexue 地理科學, vol. 8: 2 (1988), 173-180. And Wu Songdi, 溫州沿海平原的成陸過程和主要河塘 塘河 的形成 (Epeirogenic Process of Costal Plain and the Formation of Main Seawall, Canal in Wenzhou District) in Journal of Chinese Historical Geography 中國歷史地理論叢, vol. 22:2 (April 2007): 5-13.

32 For example, the Ou River is the borderline of Yueqing, Yongjia County and Wenzhou; the Feiyun River is the borderline of Wenzhou and Ruian County, while the Ao River is the borderline of Ruian and

16 to the alignment of the Yandang mountain chain as well as the border of Wenzhou with other prefectures in Zhejiang province. In short, the Wenzhou alluvial plain is largely isolated from the rest of Zhejiang Province.

Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province

Wenzhou topographic chart

(Source: Google Map)

Pingyang County. Clearly, before the completion of cross river bridges mainly after the establishment of PRC, various size boats were the major means of transportation in Wenzhou Prefecture.

17

In addition to corresponding to the major county borderlines in Wenzhou

Prefecture, these rivers are also major transportation channels between Wenzhou

Prefecture and inland prefectures like Jinhua 金華 and Lishui 麗水. To a great extent, this environment made the transmission route of Wenzhou local religious traditions more traceable. For example, there is significant evidence suggesting that the Wenzhou local vegetarian cult spread from inland Jinhua and Lishui prefectures to Wenzhou Prefecture via the Ou river valley in roughly early Northern Song dynasty (960-1127 AD). Another example is the two foreign religions (Catholicism and Protestantism) coming down to

Wenzhou along the coastline of Zhejiang Province from Taizhou 台州 Prefecture in the late 1850s. As I will show in the following chapters of this dissertation, the indigenous vegetarian cult and the two foreign religions played an important role in Wenzhou history.

At any rate, the closeness of the Wenzhou alluvial plain contributes to the formation of a Wenzhou regional culture and identity called Ou 甌 culture. As Qing-era

Wenzhou literati member Sun Yiyan’s 孫衣言 research indicated, a large portion of

Wenzhou residents emigrated from northern Fujian Province before the establishment of the Song dynasty. 33 However, the diversity within this so-called Ou culture is still too visible to be ignored. 34 Taking the language Wenzhou locals used in their daily life for

33 See: Sun Yiyan 孫衣言 (1815-1895) ed., Zhang Ruyuan 張如元 annotated, Ouhai yiwen 甌海軼聞, (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chuban she, 2005), 1056-1102.

34 As local historian Xu (1998, 2005) indicated, due to Wenzhou’s location between Zhejiang and Fujian provinces, the so-called Wenzhou Ou 甌 culture is a blend of Zhejiang Yue 越 and Fujian Min 閩 cultures. On the other hand, along with the boom of the Wenzhou local economy since 1978, more and more Chinese scholars are getting more attentive to featuring their regional culture. Of course, Wenzhou is not an

18 example, even though there is a Wenzhou dialect (Wenzhou hua 溫 州 話 ) that is supposedly shared throughout all of Wenzhou Prefecture, almost every county also has a specific local dialect. 35 Another highly possible reason behind the existence of a wide variety of dialects in Wenzhou could be due to internal immigration during the tenth century. Despite the diverse backgrounds of Wenzhou locals, it is very impressive that both Yang Fu Jun (Lord Yang 楊府君, also known as 楊府爺) as well as the northern

Fujian origin Chen Jinggu 陳靖姑 cult both flourished in the Wenzhou area. Therefore, it is interesting to think about the correlations between the formation of Wenzhou local identity and local popular religion.

From the Qing dynasty to the present Wenzhou Prefecture (Wenzhou Fu 溫州府) basically consisted of the following seven administrative units, from north to south:

Yueqing xian 樂清縣, Yuhuan ting 玉環廳, Wenzhou fu 溫州府, Yongjia xian 永嘉縣,

Ruian xian 瑞安縣, Pingyang xian 平陽縣 and Taishun xian 泰順縣.36

exception. On the discussion of Ou culture as the mixture of Yue and Min culture, see: Cao Benzhi 曹本治, Xu Hongtu 徐宏圖, 溫州平陽東嶽觀道敎音樂硏究 (Taipei: Xinwenfeng Chubanshe, 2000) and Xu Hongtu 徐宏圖, Kang Bao 康豹 (Paul R. Katz), 平陽縣蒼南縣傳統民俗文化研究 Traditional Folklore and Culture in Pingyang and Cangnan Counties (Beijing: Minsu Chubanshe, 2005). Interestingly, during my field work to Pingyang in 2006, my local friend’s wife, who is a native of Pingyang County, told me she can speak minnan 閩南 dialect, which is working in south Fujian and whole Taiwan.

35 During my fieldwork in Wenzhou, I was told a story saying that during the Sino-Vietnam war (1978- 1979). The Wenzhou dialect was used as the military’s communication code since this dialect is so hard to be acquainted with. It is also amazing to learn that different villagers speak different dialects, even though they lived only a small river away.

36 See: Zhang Zhicheng 章志誠 ed. , Wenzhou Shi zhi, Wenzhou Shi zhi bian zuan wei yuan hui 溫州市志/ 溫州市志編纂委員會 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1998), especially volume 1.

19 Map of Wenzhou prefecture (Source: Google Map)

In addition to the big rivers, there are numerous canals like rivers either stretching out in the field between these three big rivers, which are used for regional transportation and irrigation and also contribute to the dragon boat racing that I will discuss in detail in chapter three. 37

During the Qing dynasty, the top official of the Qing bureaucracy in this region was the Intendant of Wenzhou and Chuzhou Prefectures ( Wenchu Daotai 溫處道台) who was in charge of both military and civic affairs in these two prefectures. The number two man in Wenzhou was the Wenzhou Prefecture Magistrate ( Wenzhou Zhifu 溫州知府).

Although the rank of prefecture magistrate is higher than other magistrates ( Zhixian 知

37 See: Li, Dingrong 李定榮 ed., Wenzhou shi Lucheng qu shuili zhi 溫州市鹿城區水利志 (Beijing: Zhongguo Shuili shuidian chubanshe, 2007).

20 縣), technically, they all report to the Wenchu Daotai. 38 Throughout the Qing dynasty the

Qing Empire did not fundamentally change the administrative structure of Wenzhou prefecture. 39 However, in order to deal with the internal and external crises beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, the Qing Empire indeed adjusted the content of their political mechanism to deal with mounting internal and external crises. As Leung (1990) pointed out, the position of “Daotai” functioned as a “linkage man” between Western powers and the Qing bureaucratic system in Shanghai during the late Qing period. 40 This dissertation will demonstrate how the role of Wen-Chu Daotai as well as his successors functioned in a similar role in the Wenzhou local politics.

38 For pioneering studies on the Qing local bureaucratic system, see Chu T’ung-tsu 瞿同祖, Local Government in China under Qing (Mass., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962) and Hsiao, Gongquan 蕭公權, Rural China: Imperial Control in the Nineteenth century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1960). For a discussion on the district magistrate, see John R. Watt, The District Magistrate in Late Qing China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972). In addition to these earlier studies, Reed’s (2000) research on the county clerks and runners provided us with a clearer image of lower bureaucratic system during the Qing dynasty. See Bradly W. Reed, Talons and Teeth: County Clerks and Runners in the Qing Dynasty (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).

39 See: Liu, Ziyang 劉 子 揚 , Qingdai Difang Guanzhi kao 清 代 地 方 官 制 考 (Beijing: Zijincheng Chubanshe, 1994), 89-96. In terms of the administrative setting in Zhejiang province, the setting of Daotai position reflects the Qing empire’s attitude to this location, since compared with other local officials ranging from governor to magistrate, the Daotai position was more like a mission assignment ( 任務編組) in the empire bureaucratic system. Throughout the Qing dynasty, there were six Daotai in Zhejiang Province. They are Intendant of Zhejiang Tax (Zhejiang liangdao 浙江糧道), Intendant of Zhejiang salt and transportation affairs (Zhejiang Yanyidao 浙江鹽驛道), Intendant of Hangzhou, Huzhou and Jiaxing Prefectures (Hanghujia dao 杭 湖 嘉 道 ), Intendant of Ningpo, Shaoxing and Taizhou Prefectures (Ningshaotai Dao 寧紹台道), Intendant of Jinhua, Quzhou and Yanzhou Prefectures (Jinquyan Dao 金衢嚴 道) and Intendant of Wenzhu and Chuzhou (Wenchu Dao 溫處道). Additionally, the power source of Daotai came from his ability to submit reports directly to the emperor.

40 Likewise, Leung (1990) used the Shanghai Daotai as a case study to illustrate this official as a “linkage man” between foreign powers and the Qing Empire in the course of Chinese modernization. See Leung Yuen sang 梁元生, The Shanghai Daotai: Linkage Man in a Changing Society, 1843-1890 (Singapore: National Singapore University Press, 1990).

21 IV. The Content of Chapters:

Chapter One: How a Local God Pacified Rebellion: Yangfu Jun and Wenzhou Local

Politics (1830-1860)

In this chapter, by examining the case of the Qu Zhenghan uprising, I show the relationship between the local deity Yangfu Jun 楊府君 (Lord Yang) and Qu’s uprising.

After clarifying the question of why the Qu Zhenghan uprising happened, I ask how can local deities such as Yangfu Jun affect Yueqing local politics, especially after the suppression of the Qu uprising? Why and how did Qing local officials work with local deities to maintain their political power over Wenzhou residents? By examining this case,

I argue that this local deity is actually a source of power acknowledged both by Qing officials and local residents. In Qu’s case, local officials used Yangfu Jun as a tool to curb the conflicts between local society and the Qing Grand Council after the Qu uprising.

Chapter Two: The Combat between Local God and Confucians: the Jinqian Hui (Golden Coin Association) Uprising (1850-1870)

After discussing relations between individual local deities and local politics, I use the competition between Jinqian hui 金錢會 (Golden Coin Association) and Baibu hui 白

布會 (White Cloth Association) as an example to illustrate the political function of local religious associations in the local arena. In fact, the competition between these two associations is actually a conflict between two groups of local militia (tuanlian 團練).

However, the biggest difference between these two organizations is the Golden Coin

22 association was a local religious association organized by common people, while the

White Cloth Association was basically a landlord alliance directed by a retired official.

Throughout the discussion of this conflict, I would like to answer the question of how do locals use popular religion to organize around and address their common concerns?

Chapter Three: Wenzhou and Christian Impact: Harbinger of a New Political Order

(1870-1900)

In this chapter, I discuss three “Jiao an” (conflicts between converts to foreign religions and other locals) that occurred in Wenzhou after Wenzhou reopened as a treaty port in 1877. In this chapter, I am concerned with how the arrival of two foreign religions reconfigured Wenzhou local politics. I begin by discussing the secret execution of a

Wenzhou local Catholic convert named Shi Hongao 施鴻鰲, in 1876. This execution took place against the backdrop of a thousand-year long Wenzhou vegetarian cult, which had been suppressed by local officials, and had been labeled as an evil cult by Wenzhou local residents. Not surprisingly, these vegetarian cult followers had also been marginalized in the arena of Wenzhou local politics for centuries. Their marginalized status did not drastically change, however, until they converted to a foreign religion. As conflicts ensued, local officials in the late Qing era decided to invite local converts to be part of the previous gentry dominated problem solving mechanism.

23 Chapter Four: Deep Play: Dragon Boat Racing and Reconfiguration of Wenzhou Local

Politics (1890-1927)

After showing how a new political reconfiguration was triggered by the arrival of two foreign religions, in this chapter, I use Wenzhou dragon boat racing as an example to examine the development of this new local political configuration before the arrival of the Nationalist regime in 1928. In fact, the reconfiguration of Wenzhou local politics was not limited to the changes brought about by foreign religions. Political reform launched by Qing officials in the late nineteenth century also had an affect on local politics. The content of late-Qing reforms, such as the abolition of the civil exam, as well as releasing more political power to local politicians, triggered another round of Wenzhou local political reconfiguration. In order to assess these unprecedented local political changes, I use local officials and local elites’ changing attitudes and policies toward dragon boat racing as a way to shed light on this local political change.

Chapter Five: Anti-Superstition Campaign and Its Impacts on Wenzhou Local Politics

(1927-1937)

Once the Nationalists took over Wenzhou city in 1927, they introduced full-scale daily-life reform programs and ideological campaigns. In this chapter, in addition to discussing the “anti-superstition campaign” launched by the Nationalists, I use local diarists’ accounts and Wenzhou elite’s opposition to the Nationalist's modernization of religion to show that locals did not accept the same definition of modernity as that of the

24 Nationalist regime. Thus, I argue that the so-called modernization was not a straightforward vehicle for state penetration, especially in the field of popular religion and even local politics. In fact, local society had its rules. Wenzhou locals might accept parts of the modernization program (such as hospitals, new-style education, etc.) but not its approach into religion.

25 Chapter One:

How a Local God Pacified Rebellion: Yangfu Jun (Lord Yang) and Wenzhou Local

Politics (1830-1860)

I. Introduction:

In his commemorative inscription granting a title to Yangfu Jun 楊府君 (Lord

Yang, also known as Yangfu Ye 楊 府 爺 in Wenzhou dialect) in 1867, Wenzhou prefecture magistrate 知府 Dai Pan 戴槃 expressed a lingering amazement over the local deity’s divine manifestation twelve years earlier. At the time, Lord Yang had inspired both Yueqing city residents and West District villagers to expel the rebel Qu Zhenghan

瞿振漢 and his followers out of the Yueqing 樂清 county seat in northern Wenzhou prefecture. 1 As Dai wrote at the very beginning of this inscription:

How amazing the recapture of Yueqing County has been! A bandit named Qu

launched a rebellion and marched to Yueqing city in the twelfth month of 1854.

These rebels came together in crowds as quickly as passing clouds and were savage

to city residents. The city residents gave their obedience to Qu and nobody dared to

turn against [the rebels]. One day, all of sudden, the city residents all worked as one

to kill these bandits. [During the battle] the crowd decapitated the leader of this

rebellion. There were as many as 1700 bandits killed on that day. Thus the city

1 The Yangfu Jun cult is still very popular today especially in the southeastern part of Taizhou 台州 prefecture and in the entire Wenzhou 溫州 prefecture. As for the study of Yang Fu Jun cult in the Wenzhou area, see: Jiang Bin 姜彬, 1921-, Jiang Bin Wenji 姜彬文集 (Shanghai: Shanghai Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 2007), 342-345 and especially local folklore specialist Lin, Yixiu 林亦修, Wenzhou Zuqun yu Quyu wenhua yanjiu 溫州族群與區域文化研究 (Shanghai: Sanlian Shuchu, 2009).

26 residents expelled all the bandits from the city and regained control over it. [When I

arrived at Yueqing city asking local people what happened on that day] everyone

spoke with one voice saying that this occurred because of Yangfu Jun’s help. 2

Without Yangfu Jun, Dai indicated admiringly, Yueqing residents may have lacked the inspiration to fight off Qu and his followers. The other stunning information mentioned in

Dai’s inscription is that as many as 1700 “bandits”, who obviously came from Qu’s hometown, were killed by the Yueqing city residents in only four hours of fighting. 3

What is the underlying meaning of this terrifying death toll for Yueqing local politics?

The Qu Zhenghan 瞿振漢 rebellion, led by a Yueqing 樂清 county local elite of the same name, erupted in early 1855. According to Qing (1644-1911) officials’ reports,

Qu and his followers allegedly had organized a group of people calling themselves the

Red Turban Army (Hongjin Jun 紅巾軍). In early 1855, they set off from Qu’s ancestral hall in Hongqiao 虹橋 and attacked the Yueqing county seat. 4 This uprising was not

2 See: Dai Pan, “Yangfu miao beiji 楊府廟碑記” (The Inscription of Yangfu temple) in Jin Bodong 金柏東 edited, Wenzhou li dai beike ji 溫州歷代碑刻集 (The collection of Wenzhou inscription), (Shanghai: Shanghai she hui ke xue chu ban she, 2002), 369-370. This inscription comes from Dai Pan’s other work titled “yangfu zhenjun kanluan xianling ji 楊府真君戡亂顯靈記” (The divine manifestation of Lord Yang ) in Dai Pan 戴槃, Dongou jilue 東甌記略(Dai pan’s career record in Wenzhou) collected in: Dai Pan, Dai Pan sizhong jilue 戴槃四種記略 (Four Journals of Dai Pan’s official career), (Taipei: huawen shuji, 1868 first work, reprint in Taipei, 1969), 85-87.

3See: Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), IIbid., 37. According to Lin Dachun’s journal, 1,456 people were killed on that day. After the massacre, a local elite named Zhao Shiquan 趙士銓 donated money to hire workers to collect the dead. The workers were asked to cut the queue of the dead as proof of their work and to get paid. Lin’s account is similar to Zhao. See: Lin Dachun, Ibid., 24.

4 On the story of Qu Zhenghan uprising, there is an archival collection titled Qu Zhenghan dangan 瞿振漢 檔案 ( Qu Zhenghan archives) currently available in the rare book department of the Wenzhou library. Part of this collection has been published in a journal titled Jindai shi ziliao 近代史資料 (The Materials of

27 suppressed by Qing relief troops, but by cooperation between Yueqing city residents and residents from West District. The reports indicate that so-called West District yimin 西鄉

義 民 (West District righteous people) in particular helped the Qing government suppress Qu’s uprising and thus regain control of the city. Dai’s inscription was basically a transcription of one of these reports that his former supervisor, Wen-Chu 溫處 Daotai

(溫處道台, intendant of Wenzhou and Chuzhou prefecture) Qing Lian, 慶廉 issued immediately after suppression. Strikingly, neither the official on the scene at the time of the rebellion nor Dai, who arrived a number of years later, questioned the local deity’s contribution.

After the Qing regained control over Yueqing city, Qing Lian convened a meeting with the Yueqing local elites to decide what types of rewards should be bestowed upon the people involved in suppressing the uprising. As was routine for each such case of rebellion, after reaching a consensus about the names to appear on the reward list, the official would then prepare a report to the Grand Council asking permission to distribute rewards, like an honorary title or a sum of money, to the individuals named. As Qing explained, however, Yueqing city local elites actually turned down Qing Lian’s original proposal to award them with money on an individual basis. Instead, they asked him to prepare a report requesting a title from the emperor for their guardian deity, Yangfu Jun, to honor his contribution to the suppression of this rebellion. As for the reward money itself, these same local elites suggested that Qing Lian use it to renovate the Yangfu Jun

Modern History) and is currently a part of the Wenzhou local historical material collection. See: Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. Taiping tien kuo shiqi Wenzhou shiliao huibian 太平天國時期溫州史料彙編 (The archival collection of Wenzhou during Heavenly Peace Kingdom) (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chuban she, 2002).

28 temple located in West District. Having served as a local official in the Wenzhou area for ten years, Qing Lian understood the nature of the requests and accepted the suggestions.

Approval of a title for Yangfu Jun arrived in Yueqing in 1867. He was christened Fuyou

Zhenjun 福佑真君 (True Lord of Good Fortune and Blessing) by the Tongzhi emperor (r.

1862-1874).

As is clear from Qing’s report and Dai’s inscription, both officials’ views were in line with the notion that “numinous efficacy responds like an echo” ( youqiu biying 有求

必應), a phrase that described, albeit ambiguously, common understandings of the role of local deities in local politics. Especially noteworthy is the collaboration between the local deity Yangfu Jun, Yueqing local elites, and Wenzhou local officials like Qing Lian, who worked together to address both Qu’s uprising and its subsequent fallout for local society.

Recognizing the extent to which Qing officials acknowledged a need to collaborate with local deities raises a number of compelling questions. First of all, why did local officials need to work with a deity like Yangfu Jun to deal with a disturbance like the Qu

Zhenghan uprising? Moreover, how did the nature of such collaboration map on to the structure of Wenzhou society and local politics? Answering these questions helps us develop a picture of the correlation between local religion and local politics in Qing

China before the Western presence and the arrival of foreign religions in late 1860s.

More than that, however, it reveals the ways in which the Qing attempted to enhance its authority within local society by incorporating popular local deities into to their official sacrifice system (sidian 祀典).

29 II. Yangfu Jun: West District Guardian Deity

According to a 1901 Yueqing local gazetteer, the original appearance of Yangfu

Jun was actually as a Tang (618-907) immortal who was particularly popular among fishermen in the Wenzhou and Taizhou coastal area:

Yangfu Jun is surnamed Yang and named Jingyi 精義. He lived under the rule of

Tang Taizhong 唐太宗 (r. 627 to 649). He had ten sons and all of them went up

the mountains to study Taoism. One day, he and his sons flew to heaven and were

listed on the register of immortals. From then on, he became especially famous

for his efficacy in protecting fishermen. Everyone who prays to him will receive a

response. 5

The earliest known temple to Yangfu Jun was located in Lin’an (present-day Hangzhou city, in northern Zhejiang province) and was established during South Song (1127 to

1279). The cult can thus be traced back to at least the twelfth century. 6 According to the

5 See: Li Dengyun 李登雲, Qian Baorong 錢寶鎔 edited, Guangxu Yueqing xian zhi 光緒樂清縣志 (1901 Yueqing local gazetteer (Taipei: Chengwen Chuban she, 1983 reprint), 641-643. Another popular version of Yang’s hagiography prevailing in Fujian is connected to a local miner group legend that describes Yang as a spirit living in a cave. His cave was finally conquered by Song general Yang Wenguang 楊文廣. On Yangfu Jun and his cave see, Yongjia xian Minjian wenxue jicheng bangongshi edited 永嘉縣民間文學集 成辦公室編, Zhongguo Minjian wenxue jicheng Zhejiang Sheng Yongjia xian gushi Juan 中國民間文學 集成浙江省永嘉縣故事卷, (Yongjia: Yongjia xian Minjian wenxue jicheng bangongshi, 1989), 340-341. Regarding General Yang and his conquest of caves, especially in Fujian, see: Ye Guoqing 葉國慶, Pingmin shiba dong yanjiu 平閩十八洞研究 (Xiamen: Min 24 [1935]) and Li Yiyuan 李亦園, Pingmin shiba dong de minusxue yanjiu 平閩十八洞的民俗學研究 (Nankang: Institute of Ethnology, 1993).

6 See: Qian shuoyiu 潛說友 and Wang Yuansun 汪遠孫 (1794-1836) ed., Xianchun Lin’an zhi: 100 juan 咸淳臨安志 (The Xianchun Lin’an Gazetteer, 1265-1274), (Taipei: Chengwen chuban she, 1970 reprint), 4017.

30 1882 Yongjia local Gazetteer, two other inscriptions regarding the history of the Yangfu

Jun cult had been recorded in previous local gazetteers. One was a Southern Song inscription regarding the first granting of a title to Yangfu Jun, 7 and the second was a

Ming (1366-1644) inscription, written by a local judicial official surnamed Yuan.

Unfortunately, both of these two inscriptions were subsequently lost. 8 Nevertheless, we may still surmise that the cult of Yangfu Jun existed in the Yueqing area since the twelfth century.

How did the cult of Yangfu Jun become connected, as it was in later days, to the

West District of Yueqing, and how did Yangfu Jun become the West District guardian deity? According to a Qing inscription erected in 1777, the villagers of Xigao she 西皋社

(West Marsh Village), located in West District, have celebrated Yangfu Jun’s birthday annually on the 25 th day of the second lunar month since the Ming. However, early on the

Yangfu temple lacked any substantial property, and the celebrants were only able to hold their ceremonies by relying on villagers’ annual offerings and piecemeal donations. Then, during the Kangxi reign (1654-1722) of the Qing, a man named Zheng Wenyu 鄭文玉 made a relatively big donation. Despite the efforts of other local figures to seize this property away from the temple, the temple was ultimately able to retain the property and enhance its influence in the community for many years.

7 For a discussion on the granting of titles in the South Song dynasty, see: Valerie Hansen, Changing God in Medieval China, 1127-1276 . (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1990).

8 See Zhang Bolin 張寶琳 and Wang Fen 王棻 ed., Guangxu Yongjia xian zhi 光緒永嘉縣志 (1882 Yongjia local Gazetteer), (Taipei: Chengwen chuban she, 1983 reprint), 405-407.

31 The struggle over the property reveals the extent to which Qing officials recognized the efficacy of Yangfu Jun as early as the eighteenth century. As recounted in the “Yangfu miao chongzhi sitien ji 楊府廟重置祀田記” (The record about the return of

Yangfu temple’s scarified land):

Zheng Wenyu is native of Santang 三塘 village of West District, Yueqing county

city. Due to his old age and lack of any son, Zheng decided to donate his land and

property to the Yangfu temple, and to serve as the temple janitor. This was during

the Kangxi period. After Zheng passed away, his wife remarried to Mr. Wang of

Yanpen 鹽盆 village . Later on, Wang’s son Wang Shusheng 王書升 desired to

seize back Zheng’s land. He eventually legally annexed Yangfu temple’s

sacrificial land in 1735. However, when Zheng was still alive, he feared that

someone else would occupy the temple property after he passed away. [In order to

leave evidence that would help the temple challenge such efforts] he prepared a

woodblock [record of the donation] and stored it in a secret location. After he

passed away, [someone tossed this plate out of the temple], one of Zheng’s

friends found this plate and made a carving of it next to Zheng’s tombstone to

prove his donation. Later, someone took this woodblock back to the temple and

carved it into the crossbeam of Yangfu temple. 9

9 See: Zhao Yizhao 趙翼照, “Yangfu miao chongzhi sitien ji 楊府廟重置祀田記” (The record about the return of Yangfu temple’s scarified land) in Wu mingzhe edited 吳明哲, Wenzhou lidai beike erji 溫州歷代 碑刻二集 (The collection of Wenzhou inscription, series 2), (Shanghai: Shanghai she hui ke xue chu ban she, 2006), 455-456.

32 The situation nonetheless remained favorable to the Wang family until a new county magistrate; Zhang Fuming 張福敏 took office in early 1777. 10

As the inscription continues:

According to Magistrate Zhang himself, when he was en route to assume the

Yueqing magistrate’s office, he encountered an unexpected typhoon while

crossing a river. Due to the strong typhoon, the boat sank with Zhang onboard. In

the midst of losing consciousness, he saw someone pulling him out of danger.

Eventually, he was safe and sound. Right after this disaster, Zhang dreamed of a

deity telling him: “I am Yangfu Shen 神 (deity). I am the incarnation of power

that pulled you out of danger.” The deity disappeared after saying this. 11

Magistrate Zhang subsequently scheduled a visit to the Yangfu temple. As soon as he stepped inside he was astonished to see that the figure of Yangfu Jun was identical to the deity that showed up in his dream. In order to express his gratitude to this temple, he decided to make a monetary donation to help renovate the rundown structure. That was when he noticed a woodblock inscribed with the words “Zheng Wenyu of the county

10 On background of the Zhang fuming see Li Dengyun 李登雲, Qian Baorong 錢寶鎔 edited. Ibid., 1166 Zhang Fuming is a native of changshou 常熟 in Jiangsu province. He served as the Yueqing county magistrate from 1777 to 1779.

11 See: Zhao Yizhao, “Yangfu miao chongzhi sitien ji 楊府廟重置祀田記” (The record about the return of Yangfu temple’s scarified land) in Wu Mingzhe edited 吳明哲, Ibid., (2006),455-456.

33 gave thirteen mu 畝 (acres) of land to this temple”. 12 Upon seeing this, Zhang immediately suspected that the property had been embezzled and asked why a temple with property would be rundown and in need of repair. The gathering crowd apprised him of the dispute between the temple and Wang family. Then magistrate Zhang immediately summoned the village head ( sheshou 社首) Zhang Huang 張煌, along with Zhou Leshuo

周樂朔 (most likely Zheng Wenyu’s successor as temple janitor) to sort out the property issue. After conducting an investigation, Magistrate Zhang ordered Zhang Huang to prepare a petition to present to the magistrate as a court case. In that petition Zhang

Huang not only asked the Wang family to return the Yangfu Jun temple’s property, but he also took the opportunity to ask permission to expand the temple property by opening two mu of land located in Xiji keng 西漈坑.13 Magistrate Zhang granted his entire petition and soon summoned Wang Shusheng’s three sons to the court, forcing them to return the land to the Yangfu temple or face severe punishment. In the end, the Wang family returned the previously seized land to Yangfu temple. 14

From the preceding account we can see that the Yangfu Jun cult had been flourishing in Xigao village since the Ming dynasty, even in the absence of substantial temple property. At the same time, however, it is also apparent that even as a “god” in local society the power of Yangfu Jun was not omnipotent since the temple had to rely on the intercession of magistrate Zhang to regain its property. That said, the deity was also

12 Ibid. 故心邑民鄭文玉捨田十三畝.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

34 clearly resourceful and found ways of interacting with influential officials to obtain its constituencies objectives. Past scholarship on local deities has focused attention predominantly on the question of how a local deity integrated a discrete local community under one local cult, overlooking the kinds of political interconnectedness evident in this

“mutual rescue” story. 15 Yet, as we will now see, it was this very kind of political interconnectedness that also came into play once again during the suppression of the Qu

Zhenghan uprising.

III. The Background of the Qu Zhenghan Uprising

In addition to the official reports generated regarding the Qu Zhenghan uprising, there were a number of local accounts, which are valuable because they provide us with a local perspective on the origins of the affair. Yueqing literati Lin Dachun 林大椿 (1812-

1863), for example, composed a valuable journal entry on the incident discussing the background of Qu and his family in the following terms:

The leader of the red bandits 紅寇, Qu Zhenghan—also known as Zhenghai 振

海 —had been living on Hongqiao Street in East District, Yueqing county, for

15 In fact, this story of “mutual rescue” between a local deity and a local official is especially common in disputes over temple property and other local interest related case such as disputes over land or irrigation rights in late Imperial China. However, it is fair to say that historians of popular religion in late Imperial China rely heavily on the anthropologist Sangren’s (1987) discussion of the function of “magical power” (靈 ling, efficacy). Based on his fieldwork done in a Northern Taiwanese village in late 1970s, Sangren explored the question of how a local deity integrates different groups of people by using his/her magical power in local society. See: Steven Sangren, History and Magical Power in a Chinese Community (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987). For pioneering research on how a local deity integrates local society, see: Wang, Shih-Ch’ing 王世慶, “Religious Organization in the History of a Chinese Town”, in Arthur Wolf edited, Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974), 71- 92.

35 several generations. His grandfather, Qu Zhaogang 瞿兆崗, had been famous

among villagers for his boxing skills. His father, Qu Jiaxiu 瞿嘉秀, was a poor

county school student and died when Qu Zhenghan was still very young. Qu

Zhenghan was very good at both composing depositions and running a variety of

retail businesses. He gradually accumulated enough money to open a shop selling

pickles and fermented soybean curd in the market. He was not formally educated,

but had a rough idea of writing and reading. He was so smart that he could

understand the ways of the world. Even the craftiest county clerks could not find a

way to bother him. 16

Another local story about Qu, and one worth quoting at length, was collected by Zhou

Qiwei 周起渭, who had served as a high school teacher in Wenzhou in the early twentieth century:

In 1851 the harvest was bad and plague spread widely during the seventh and

eighth months of the year. There were still a lot of fermented soybean curds in

stock and [peddlers found it] almost impossible to clear out their stock.

Meanwhile, the Puqi 蒲岐 peddlers had been carrying fresh fish and shrimp to

Hongqiao everyday. Their booth was at the corner of East Street, close to Qu’s

shop. Each day they always sold out of the seafood they carried to Hongqiao. Qu

16 See: Lin Dachun (1812-1863), “Hongkou ji 紅寇記 (The record of Red Bandit) in Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. Ibid., 8-30. In this account Lin stands with officials condemning Qu and his followers for their bad deeds, which caused this uprising. However, as historians we should be attentive to his relation to Xu Muqian 徐 牧謙, who was his brother-in-law and had a serious feud with Qu Zhenghan’s close friend, Ni Tingmo 倪 廷謨.

36 was jealous of these Puqi peddlers’ good business, and so he wrote a lot of

anonymous yellow paper posters [and attached them] to every corner of Hongqiao

at night. The posters said that tomorrow was a local deity’s birthday and

everybody had to be a one-day vegetarian and was not allowed to consume any

meat. Just as Qu expected, the next day sales of his soybean curd rose

dramatically and no one showed interest in the seafood carried by those Puqi

peddlers. 17

These two stories provide many hints regarding Qu’s family background and circumstances. Qu’s grandfather was most likely a local strongman ( Tuhao 土豪) in their neighborhood. Yet he clearly hoped that through education his son, Qu Jiaxiu, could become a member of the literati. 18 Despite his father’s support Qu Jiaxiu did not fulfill his father’s expectations. Even worse, he died leaving behind a young son, Qu Zhenghan.

The early death of Qu Jiaxiu no doubt had a big impact on the Qu family and their sense of opportunity and this situation must have driven Qu Zhenghan to become a local

17 See: Zhou Qiwei 周起渭, “Qu Zhenghan qiyi silue 瞿振漢起義事略” (The brief description of Qu Zhenghan Uprising), in Jindai shi ziliao 近代史資料 1963 vol. 1, (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1963), 163- 178. Interestingly, I heard similar accounts from an interview with my Hongqiao friend’s grandmother. She can even remember Qu’s soybean curd shop and showed me where it had been located when I visited Hongqiao in the summer of 2007.

18 This story is very close to that of the Wu-Feng 霧峰 Lin Family in central Taiwan. According to Meskill’s (1979) research, members of the Lin family also appeared as a local strongmen in order to guard their local interests and to compete with their local opponents. Later, the Lins investmented greatly in their children’s education to prepare them for the civil exam to become officials. The Lin family made great advances both in their children’s education and family fortune. By the 1850s they had become one of the most prestigious families in Taiwan and continued to be a visible local political power into the 1960s. See: Johanna Menzel Meskill, A Chinese Pioneer Family: The Lins of Wu-feng, Taiwan 1729-1895 (N.J., Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979).

37 merchant. Clearly, Qu enjoyed a reputation of being a savvy, if not entirely upright, businessman among his Hongqiao neighbors. 19

Over time, Qu’s financial situation improved and he decided to take measures to promote himself and his family. He thus helped his younger brother Qu Zhengshan 瞿振

山 enroll in a county school and Qu Zhenghan himself made a donation to the government and obtained a Jiansheng ( 監生 student by purchase ) degree. 20 In addition to investing in education, presumably to fulfill his grandfather’s wishes for Qu Jiaxiu, Qu

Zhenghan also became very involved in local charity to promote the reputation of his family in Hongqiao. From Lin Dachun’s and Zhao Jun’s account, we also learn that Qu launched a food drive campaign to relieve local huger and help the sick in Hongqiao in

1853. Many Hongqiao locals apparently applauded Qu for his good deeds. 21 There are also many records of Qu’s generosity to both his neighbors and even to strangers. 22

19 Similar story can be seen in Susan Naquin’s study of Wang Lun uprising of 1774 and Paul Katz’s research on Yu Qingfang 余清芳’s Ta-pa-ni incident of 1915. See: Susan Naquin, Shantung Rebellion: The Wang Lun Uprising of 1774 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981) and Paul Katz, When Valleys Turned Blood Red: the Ta-pa-ni incident in Colonial Taiwan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005).

20 See: Lin Dachun (1812-1863), “Hongkou ji 紅寇記”(The record of the Red Bandit) in Ma Yunlun 馬允 倫 edited. Ibid,10-11. As for the Jiansheng donation, according to Tang Xianglong’s (1932) research on the relationship between a Jiansheng donation and the Qing financial system, the Jiansheng is awarded to a commoner for donating money to the Qing court. The donator would then be qualified to take the county level exam without attending the county school. The amount of donation in 1827 was about 120 taels; in 1831 it was 108 taels. See: Tang Xianglong, “Daoguang chao juan jiang zhi tong ji 道光朝捐監之統計” (The study of Jiansheng degree donation during Daoguang period, 1821-1851) in Tang Xianglung, Zhongguo caizheng jingjishi lunwen xuan 中國財政經濟史論文選 (Chengdu: Xinan caijing daxue chu ban she, 1987), 30-45.

21 See: Lin Dachun, Ibid.

22 We might thus think of Qu as corresponding to Joseph Esherick’s definition of local elites, which defines elites as “individuals or families that exercise dominance within the local arena.” However, Esherick’s term “dominance” does not really reflect the interpersonal aspect of local politics. As our evidence suggests, Qu’s good deeds allowed him to enjoy a high reputation among the Hongqiao locals, which also allowed him to build his own local militia. To a great extent, there is an exchange between Qu’s good deeds and his

38 However, after 1853, when Qu turned forty, his family’s financial situation, as well as the

Qing Empire on the whole, went into decline. Qu quickly became seriously indebted not long before launching his uprising. Significantly, Qu would not blame his career failures on bad luck, but on the questionable policies of local Qing officials.

During the mid-nineteenth century, the Qing government became embroiled in two national crises. The first was the Opium War (1840-1842), the second the Taiping

Rebellion (1851-1864). The immediate impact of these two crises for Wenzhou residents was an increasingly heavy tax burden. According to Peng Zeyi’s pioneering study of

Qing military expenditure and the indemnity to Britain after the Opium War, 23 the Qing had a total indemnity of 4,260,000 silver taels. 24 In order to meet this obligation, the Qing court ordered the adjoining provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui to raise the amount required for the first payment. British troops had already seized the equivalent of

1,250,000 taels, largely from Shanghai and Yangzhou, on their way to the capital city of

Jiangsu Province, Nanjing. Therefore, these three provinces (Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and

Anhui) had to raise the remaining 3,010,000 taels to pay off the British. As Tang (1934),

Wu (1958), and Peng (1983) have illustrated, 1,410,000 taels was collected from

Zhejiang and Anhui’s provincial treasury (fanku 藩庫) in 1842, of which Zhejiang’s neighbors’ trust in him. As for the discussion on local elites, see: Joseph Esherick and Mary Rankin ed., Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 10.

23 See: Peng Zeyi 彭澤益 shijiu shiji houbanqi dezzhongguo caizheng yu jingji 十九世紀後半期的中國財 政與經濟 (The studies of Chinese financial and economic history in late nineteenth century), (Beijing: Renmin chuban she, 1983). Especially chapter one, which focuses on the indemnity owed due to the Opium War.

24 As for the detailed clause of the indemnity stipulated in the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, see: Horsea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860. (London, New York [etc.]: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1910-18), 304-307.

39 burden was 800,000 taels. 25 At the time, the revenue of the provincial treasury was garnered by taxing local society. The categories of revenue in the coastal provinces consisted of land tax, labor tax, and revenue from their salt monopoly. The only way

Zhejiang officials could meet this high financial demand was by increasing local taxes. .

Zhejiang was held responsible for a greater share than the other provinces because the

Grand Council knew that Zhejiang was relatively peaceful compared with other provinces in 1850s (Zhejiang was not invaded by the Taiping rebels until the early 1860s).

We can get a vivid picture of the impact of the new level of taxation on Wenzhou local society from the diary of Zhao Jun 趙鈞 (1786-1866), entitled Guolai yu 過來語

(Remarks from the Past). 26 On January 12, 1843, just half a year after the signing of the

Treaty of Nanjing which ended the Opium War (August 7, 1842), Zhao Jun complained

25 See: Peng (1983): 11. Peng’s statistics are taken from Wu’s (1958) research on the Opium War’s impact in modern China. See: Wu Jie ed. ( 吳傑), Zhongguo Jingdai Guomin Jingji shi 中國近代國民經濟史 (The People’s Economic History of Modern China), (Beijing: Renmin chuban she, 1958). Wu’s statistics are from the memorial of chief Qing negotiator Yi libu 伊里布 and Qi ying 耆英 to the Daoguang emperor. Moreover, before Wu’s work, Tang Xianglung (1934) 湯象龍 had published an article regarding the question of how China could pay off the indemnity before 1911. See: Tang Xianglung 湯象龍“Minguo yiqian de peikuan shi ruhe changfu de?” 民國以前的賠款是如何償付的？ in Tang Xianglung, Zhongguo caizheng jingjishi lunwen xuan 中國財政經濟史論文選 (Chengdu: Xinan caijing daxue chu ban she, 1987), 73-119. On the details of this memoir, see: Wenqing 文慶 ed., Daoguang chouban yiwu shimo , vol. 6 道光 朝籌辦夷務始末 (The Complete Record of the Management of Barbarian Affair During Daoguang Emperor, 1821-1851), (Taipei: Wen hai chu ban she, 1970 reprint), 48-50.

26 Zhao Jun was a school teacher in Ruian county 瑞安 in southern Wenzhou city. He kept a diary from 1825 to 1865. In his diary he recoded many of the local affairs of Wenzhou prefecture, including the local political affairs, social unrests, and local economic life, especially food and land prices. According to his descendants, Zhao Jun composed a total of seventy volumes. However, there are only around twenty volumes available for scholarly use now. His diary is currently stored in the rare books department of the Wenzhou library. Part of his diary had been published by Jindai shi ziliao 近代史資料 (The Materials of Modern History). Zhao was the teacher of Sun Qiangming 孫鏘鳴, hence he favored the Sun family who organized the White Cloth association against the Golden Coin Association. Although Zhao was close to the Sun family, he criticized Sun’s selfishness when Sun was in charge of allocating local taxes to Wenzhou prefecture. See: Zhou Mengjiang ed. 周夢江, “Zhaojun Guolai yu jilu 趙鈞過來語輯錄” (The Excerpt of Zhao Jun’s Guolai yu) in Jindai shi ziliao 近代史資料 1963 vol. 1, (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1963), 111-205.

40 in his diary that his land was forcibly occupied by a man surnamed Lin, who had been hired by the Ruian magistrate Liang to collect taxes from locals. Needless to say, Zhao was very upset at this injustice but could do nothing to stop it. 27 In 1844, Zhao wrote both sadly and angrily in his dairy on the ruthlessness of the county magistrate:

As the father and mother of the people, the magistrate has a responsibility to take

care of local residents. He is supposed to be sympathetic to the misery of the

common people. But on the contrary, these local officials exploit the current

situation to poison [the common people]. Hence local people can't live in peace

and gradually lose everything they have. There is no way local people can redress

an injustice. In my own humble opinion, in terms of the current situation, the

county magistrate is the most obstructing factor within our land. 28

The Qing financial situation only deteriorated further with the escalation of the

Taiping rebellion as the regular level of tax revenue could no longer cover the government’s urgent military needs. For this reason, the Qing expanded applications to the juanshu 捐輸 system of government subscription to further increase revenue . In an entry dated the 11 th day of Third month of 1854, Zhao condemned the negative effects caused by this tax system in Wenzhou, writing:

27 Ibid., 138.

28 Ibid., 140.

41 Right now in the Wenzhou area nine of ten houses are totally empty; however, the

court still promulgates an imperial edict to urge local people to collect money for

the government. The only concern these prefecture and county level officials had

in mind was to please their superiors and to intentionally disregard local misery.

We all considered this a coercive subscription (lejuan 勒捐). 29

Not only did the Ruian magistrate carry out the new subscription, but some Ruian local elites, like the leading figure of the later White Cloth Association, the retired official Sun

Qiangming 孫鏘鳴, also organized a local executive committee, or ju 局 , to facilitate the work of the juanshu system in Wenzhou. 30 Zhao further accused Sun and other local elites of taking advantage of their position as the core members of the local executive committee to force other local elites to make an extra donation to cover Sun’s and his friends’ quotas. As Zhao explains, the legitimacy of the juanshu system was distorted by local elites and thus questioned by other members of local society. 31

Among those who objected to this new system was Qu Zhenghan, who was hard- pressed to shun the coercion of Sun Qiangming and his Yueqing local colleagues. It didn’t help matters that Sun’s brother-in-law, Xu Muqian 徐牧謙, was a local opponent

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid. The term “Ju” 局 should be translated in English as the “local executive committee”. In most cases, the Ju was setup in local temples. Considering Ju as a political organization in local society is rarely touched upon in past scholarship. Local society, especially local gentry, used Ju as a mechanism to organize themselves to take care of their local concerns, such as defense, religious activity, infrastructure, charity, and other related local affairs. I will go into further detail on Ju later in my discussion on the Golden Coin and White Cloth associations.

31 Ibid.

42 of Qu’s close friend Ni Tingmo 倪廷模.32 In fact, once Xu learned that Qu was heading to flocking to Yueqing city, he knew that Ni and Qu would be after him. Xu immediately fled to Sun’s residence in Ruian County in southern Wenzhou to seek protection. 33 Qu’s opportunity to fight back came as a result of one further component of the Qing response to its mid-century challenges. In addition to asking for money from local society,

Beginning in the 1850s, Qing officials further encouraged local communities to build local militias ( Tuanlien 團練). These militias were to work with the Qing administration at their own expense, either to suppress rebellion or to secure their hometowns from being overtaken by rebel forces. The introduction of the local militia system to Wenzhou brought the growing competition among local interest groups to a new level. 34

In late March of 1853, Qu submitted a petition to the Yueqing County magistrate in order to get permission to build a local militia ( Tuanlian 團練) in Hongqiao to defend

32 In Zhao Jun’s diary, see: Zhao, Ibid., 161-163.

33 See: Lin Dachun, Ibid., 18 According to Lin’s account, once Ni Tingmo and Qu Zhenghan took over Yueqing city, Xu and his two sons fled to the West District of Yueqing to seek shelter. To Xu’s surprise, his tenant refused to provide shelter for his second son, who was ill at the time. Even more embarrassing was the hostile behavior of his tenant who waved a club to drive Xu and his sons out of their property. Xu’s son was shortly arrested by a villager named Zhang Yongao 張永敖 and was sent to Qu’s temporary office in Yueqing. In the beginning, Qu intended to execute Xu’s son immediately but was discouraged from doing so by his colleagues. Xu himself ran into trouble trying to escape. Once he left Yueqing city, Xu hid overnight in the mountains north of the city. However, Xu was caught by Qu’s colleagues with a villager’s help the next morning. To his surprise, Xu was rescued by his friends on his way to Qu’s office. Later, Xu’s friends escorted him across the Ou River after which he ran to Sun Qiangming’s residence safely. From the above description, we can not simply blame Xu and his son’s misfortune for their bad luck. As a matter of fact, their bad experience may have resulted from their popular image with their Yueqing neighbors.

34 See: Frederic Wakeman Jr., Stranger at the Gate: Social Disorder in South China, 1839-1861 . (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966) and Philip Kuhn, Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China: Militarization and social structure, 1796-1864. (Mass., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970). Kuhn also created the still influential concept of “local militarization” to delineate the track of changes of modern Chinese history from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. I will discuss Wenzhou local official’s policy in regards to local militia in detail in chapter two.

43 the town against “ wairu” 外侮 (outside insults). Although the meaning of this term was vague, the magistrate Sun Diyuan 孫滌源 still approved Qu’s petition. 35 Later in June, in order to defend the wider region against Guangdong pirates (Guangting 廣艇 or Tingfei

艇匪), who had been a visible threat to Wenzhou coastal areas since the 1840s, 36 the

Wen-Chu daotai Qing Lian 慶廉, issued an order allowing existing local militia to equip themselves with their own weapons, not including guns and gunpowder. After the issuing of this order, Lin reports that Qu built his own factory to make weapons. 37

Later that year, in July 1853, Guangdong pirates looted Wenzhou city repeatedly, but the general of the Wenzhou garrison, Chi Jiankung 池建功, hesitated to engage the pirates at full scale. According to Zhao Jun’s diary, the pirates looted Wenzhou and

Ruian without encountering any substantial resistance from Qing troops and caused serious material damage to these two places. 38 For Wenzhou locals like Qu, the failure of

35 See: Lin Dachun (1812-1863), “Hongkou ji 紅寇記” (The Record of the Red Bandit) in Ma Yunlun 馬 允倫 edited. Ibid., 10-11.

36 Guangdong pirates had been a serious threat to Wenzhou residents since the early 1840s. According to Zhao Jun’s diary, these Guangdong pirates first showed up in the Wenzhou area with British troops. They soon built a seasonal base in Wenzhou. See: Zhou Mengjiang ed. 周夢江 “Zhaojun Guolai yu jilu 趙鈞過 來語輯錄“(The Excerpt of Zhao Jun’s Guolai yu) in Jindai shi ziliao 近代史資料 1963 vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1963), 136-137. After a decisive battle between Qing Wenzhou marines and these Guangdong pirates in 1860, the Guangdong pirates annihilated the Qing Wenzhou Navy. Henceforth, there was no naval security on either the costal area or the river ferry in Wenzhou until a Fujian marine general, Wu Hongyuan 吳鴻源 led relief troops departing from Taichung, Taiwan to Wenzhou in late 1862. For detailed information about this battle, see: Zhang Bolin 張寶琳 and Wang Fen 王棻 ed., Guangxu Yongjia xian zhi 光緒永嘉縣志 (1882 Yongjia Local Gazetteer), (Taipei: Chengwen chuban she, 1983 reprint), 804-805.

37 See: Lin Dachun (1812-1863), “Hongkou ji 紅寇記” (The Record of the Red Bandit) in Ma Yunlun 馬 允倫 edited Ibid., (2002), 11.

38 See: Zhou Mengjiang ed. 周夢江 “Zhaojun Guolai yu jilu 趙鈞過來語輯錄“(The Excerpt of Zhao Jun’s Guolai yu) in Jindai shi ziliao 近代史資料 1963 vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1963), 163-165.

44 government officials to protect the region from pirates only confirmed that Qing officials and troops were unreliable.

In addition to the various factors identified so far, there were other, more immediate, factors that help explain why Qu’s uprising occurred when it did. In the summer of 1854, serious flooding caused crop failure in Yueqing County. 39 Lin Dachun also reported in his diary that famine and plague ravaged Hongqiao town from February to July of 1854. 40 To overcome these crises, Qu again called for a food drive to aid the poor and hungry. Moreover, the still remote but seemingly promising Taiping Heavenly

Kingdom also loomed large in Qu’s mind, since one of his close friends, Jin Peiquan 金

佩銓 , had just returned from Nanjing, the capital of the Taiping’s Heavenly Kingdom.

Jin’s positive first-hand experiences with the Taipings, combined with the apocalyptic overtones of the recent natural disasters, encouraged Qu to challenge local authorities to end the misery and social injustice caused by the heavy tax burden. In terms of their motivation, Qu activities are close to Elizabeth Perry’s concept of “protective rebellion,” which she developed through a study of late-Qing anti-tax uprisings. 41 Although their overall goals were still not clear, partially due to Qu’s financial situation, Qu still needed to figure out the following questions before he could decide what to do next: What

39 See: Li Dengyun 李登雲, Qian Baorong 錢寶鎔 ed. Ibid., 2269-2271.

40 See: Lin Dachun (1812-1863), “Hongkou ji 紅寇記,” (The Record of the Red Bandit) in Ma Yunlun 馬 允倫 ed. Ibid., (2002), 12.

41 See: Elizabeth J. Perry, Challenging the Mandate of Heaven: Social Protest and State Power in China (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2002), especially chapter two: “Protective Rebellion: Tax Protest in Late Qing China”, 47-75. A similar case can be found in Prazniak’s book about the Qu Shiwen uprising in Shandong province in 1910, see: Roxann Prazniak, Of Camel Kings and other Things: Rural Rebels Against Modernity in Late Imperial China (New York: Rowman& Littlefield Publishers. INC. 1999).

45 measures could ultimately bring an end to their vulnerability to local officials? What potential resources could they mobilize and how many local figures would support them?

Finally, and probably most importantly, how forcefully could they challenge local officials without getting into trouble with central authorities?

In order to come up with some answers to these questions, Qu and his close friend

Ni Tingmo 倪廷模 convened a meeting in a local temple. This meeting was also likely a convention celebrating the establishment of Qu’s local militia. According to Lin’s report on this meeting:

Qu Zhenghan and Ni Tingmo proposed to prepare wine at the Earth God Temple

(Tushen ci 土神祠) on October 13, 1853. They sent county runner Kong Gui 孔

桂 to invite other gentry to attend. Once the participants realized that Qu and his

colleagues were trying to hide their true intentions about their organization, they

started leaving one by one. In the end, there were only seven people left in the

meeting. Ostensibly, they decided to form an alliance to build a local militia to

defend their town. Secretly, they swore an oath to the deity; (after the oath) they

shared wine mixed with incense ash to confirm their devotion. 42

42 See: Lin Dachun (1812-1863), “Hongkou ji 紅寇記” (The Record of the Red Bandit) in Ma Yunlun 馬 允 倫 ed. Ibid., (2002), 12-13. However, according to Qing Lian’s report, Qu held the meeting in Niangniang gong 娘娘宮, which is probably the temple of Chen Jinggu 陳靖姑. See: Qing Lian’s report to Zhejiang governor made on May 12, 1856 in Ma Yunlun (2002), Ibid. , 33-44. For a modern day understanding of the Chen Jinggu cult, see: Brigitte Baptandier, “The Lady Linshui: How a Woman Became a Goddess” in Meir Shahar and Robert Weller ed., Unruly Gods: Divinity and Society in China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii press, 1996), 105-149. Recently, Baptandier published her book on Chen Jinggu cult, see: Brigitte Baptandier, translated by Kristin Ingrid Fryklund, The Lady of Linshui: A Chinese Female Cult (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008)

46

Predictably, Qu was disappointed with the meeting. Moreover, the figure who emerged as the head of the local militia was not Qu Zhenghan but rather a wealthy Jiansheng 監生 named Lian Qingchun 連清純. Because Qu and his friend could not raise enough money to expand Qu’s local militia, they invited Lian to serve as head. Based on Lin Dachun’s account, Lian got involved with Qu’s organization because Lian was inspired by a dream telling him that he would be a king in the near future. Lian grew excited about this dream and went to Qu to discuss it with him. After listening to the substance of Lian’s dream,

Qu said: “You should start working on organizing a local militia to recruit as many soldiers as possible to realize this great dream. I will definitely help you make this great dream come true.” 43 Lian was pleased to hear Qu’s support and decided to set a time to meet Qu’s other friends. The achievements of this meeting were twofold: Qu got both fresh and solid financial resources from Lian to expand the volume and influence of his still small local militia over Yueqing County; and Qu was also able to take advantage of this meeting to reaffirm Lian’s devotion to Qu’s local militia by establishing a seven person brotherhood association. 44

43 See: Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed., Ibid., (2002), 12-13.

44 In examining the role and functions of brotherhood associations in Qing local history Ownby (1996) used the Zhu Yigui 朱一貴 and Lin Shuangwen 林爽文 rebellion as examples to illustrate the connections between brotherhood association, secret societies, and rebellion. Ownby (1996) also singled out the importance of the “blood oath” and its importance for the formation of brotherhood associations. Throughout his book, Ownby shed light on the basic principle and types of organizations that the Qing lower-status people had been compelled to organize. However, there are some interesting differences between Ownby’s Heavenly Earth association and the association in Qu’s case. First of all, Qu and his colleagues were not lower-status people. On the contrary, at least Qu and Lian held the Jiansheng degree bestowed by the Qing authority. Secondly, based on Lin Dachun’s account, they did not practice the blood oath ritual but rather shared wine mixed with incense ash. Moreover, they did not create a specific name for their organization. See: David Ownby, Brotherhoods and secret societies in Early and Mid-Qing China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996).

47

Why, we must still ask, would two Jiansheng choose to challenge Qing authority in the early 1850s? Their titles not only made them eligible to take the county level exam, but also showed that Qu and Lian had once apparently believed in the Qing and its system. Furthermore, this had cost them a good amount of money. Likewise, their title gave them certain advantages that should have helped them secure their family and themselves in the local arena. In other words, we can say they were aware of the importance of adopting various strategies to work with different power agents who coexisted in the local arena, including making donations to officials in exchange for a title and intermarriage with each other to maintain their status. 45

However much we may credit Lian’s dream with providing the final inspiration, in the end these two Jiansheng turned against Qing authorities, indicating at the very least a growing skepticism toward and loss of patience with the Qing’s local representatives. 46

In short, the foregoing factors appear to have brought about drastic changes in the preexisting power structure between Qing authorities and some members of the local community. Given the fact that Qu and his Red Turban Army (Hongjin jun 紅巾軍) only occupied Yueqing city for seven days and were soon bloodily suppressed by cooperation between Yueqing county city and West District residents, it is clear that not all members

45 For a discussion of different strategies that Chinese families employed to maintain their status in local arenas see: Patricia Buckley Ebrey and James Watson, Kinship Organization in Late Imperial China, 1000- 1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).

46 Historians often assume that the relationship between empire and local society can be described as a patrimonial relation. However, some early modern British historians like Hindle (2002) used the establishment of the British Court of Star Chamber as an example to exemplify the fact that the question of whether a system or an empire will be successful depends not only on patrimonial domination, but also heavily on wining common people’s willingness to work with the political authority. See: Steve Hindle, The State and Social Change in Early Modern England, 1550-1640 (New York: Palgrave, 2002).

48 of the local community were part of this changing power dynamic. However, it remains to be seen what kind of strategies or discourses the state could still have draw upon to alleviate this now long-term tension between East District and West District and between local officials and Yueqing local society. For Qing officials to regain the confidence of

Yueqing residents, local deity Yangfu Jun would have to play an active role.

IV. The One-day Massacre in Yueqing City:

After the group’s inaugural meeting, the contour of Qu’s plan was as follows.

First, they planned to loot a neighbor to lure a local security force to come out from the county seat to arrest them. They would then ambush the main force by taking advantage of their superior knowledge of the local geography. If they were successful, they would then proceed to take the county magistrate’s seat. Someone expressed concerns about the shortage of both financial and human resources. In response Qu said, “There is no need to worry about this issue. I know both magistrate Sun and city military commander Yao hoard a lot of money in their offices and residences. This money will soon belong to us once we occupy Yueqing city.” 47 In addition to the officials, the other target on their most wanted list was local elite Xu Muqian, who as noted above was embroiled in a feud with

Qu’s colleague Ni Tingmo. At that time, Xu had also been planning to build his own local militia to secure his local interest, and a rumor was floating around the Yueqing area that Xu had already raised a lot of money and stored it in his Yueqing city

47 See: Lin Dachun in Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed., (2002), Ibid., 12-13.

49 residence. 48 As soon as they took the city, they focused on looting the official bureau, including the magistrate’s office and ordnance depot, to get the money and ammunition to secure their occupation. After that they concentrated on looting Xu’s house.

When Qu entered Yueqing city with less than five hundred Red Turban Army soldiers on February 3, 1855, to their surprise they didn’t meet any substantial resistance.

Yueqing city was essentially under Qu’s control by the morning of February 5, 1855.

During some minor engagements, the city military commander Yao was killed by Qu, while the magistrate Kang Zhengji 康正基, who had assumed office less than two months earlier, was forced to flee to nearby Lishui 麗水 prefecture. Some surviving officials and their friends fled to West District to seek help. Xu Muqian fled to Ruian to seek help from Sun Qiangming. 49 Meanwhile, Qu’s colleague, Jin Aman 金阿滿, tried to launch a parallel uprising in Wenzhou city on the same day to express support in Qu’s actions.

However, his uprising was soon uncovered and suppressed by Yongjia county officials. 50

After taking control of Yueqing city, Qu posted two written summons to placate Yueqing city residents. Regardless of his sincerity in these posted summonses, not all Yeuqing residents were please by Qu’s overall tone. 51 Lin Dachun commented in his journal, “Qu

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid., 13-18.

50 See: Zhang Bolin 張寶琳 and Wang Fen 王棻 ed., Ibid., (Taipei: Chengwen chuban she, 1983 reprint), 804.

51 As for the details of these two posters, see: Zhao Qiwei 周起渭, “Qu Zhenghan qiyi silue 瞿振漢起義 事略” (The Brief Description of Qu Zhenghan Uprising), in Jindai shi ziliao 近代史資料 1963 vol. 1, (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1963), 169-170. Based on Zhou’s accounts, she claimed she got these two written summons from Qu’s genealogy book during her interview with Qu’s offerings in 1927. Regardless of the origin of these documents, according to Zhou’s informant, after the Xinhai revolution of 1911 Qu’s descendants had tried to use these two documents as proof in a petition to the Yongjia county magistrate to

50 claimed himself to be a “ yizhu ” 義主 (righteous master). Although his harsh criticism certainly hit the heart of the matter regarding the current officials’ misrule 切中時弊, I still couldn’t agree with the outrageously arrogant tone that he used to reprimand the

Qing court.” 52

Still, apart from taking over an official bureau and Xu’s house, Qu’s uprising did not cause damage to the rest of Yueqing city or upset residents. As Lin further noted:

Qu’s uprising was not as fierce as other concurrent rebellions. The participants in

the activity were simply passers-by, the weapons they used were blunt, and the

coordinators of their plot were just local disgruntled literati. 53

The ease with which Qu’s obviously irregular troops overtook the city also tells us much about the weakness of late-Qing local bureaucracy. It is clear that the local Yueqing defense troops, as well as the whole Qing local bureaucracy, were too weak to engage

demand the return of Qu Zhenghan’s confiscated property. It is highly possible that use of Qu’s overtures consciously or unconsciously infused some currents of “politically correctness” enhancing their ability to get the property back. Nevertheless, the first document is less controversial, since most of its content corresponds to the worsening socioeconomic condition of the whole of Wenzhou area. Also, in this document, the author reiterated that their goal was to protect their homeland from the Qing officials’ fierce exploitation. This document ended with a request for local residents’ cooperation. The second document is more controversial since the author takes advantage of two non-local elements: anti-Manchu sentiment that was not influential in China until several decades later; and the claim that Qu’s uprising was directed personally by the King of East Yang Xiuqing 楊秀清 of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Although we can’t overlook any possible fallout and connection of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom with Yueqing residents, I cannot locate any proof endorsing Qu’s connection with Taiping Heavenly Kingdom either in private or in official reports about Qu’s uprising. This despite the use of the Taiping factor as a universal reason people applied to explain rebellions in China from the 1850s onward.

52 See: Lin Dachun, in Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed., (2002), Ibid., 18.

53 Ibid.

51 Qu’s troops. Otherwise, Qu would not have been able to enter Yueqing city so smoothly.

Furthermore, as long as Qu and his colleagues did not take excessive action that hurt

Yueqing city residents, it appears that Yueqing city residents were willingly to put up with Qu’s presence as a replacement to the more troublesome Qing officials. However, it is reported that the city residents, as well as West District villagers, watched Qu’s actions carefully to see if he posed a threat to them. Residents seemed to have been persuaded by the two written summons and by Qu’s concentration on looting local official’s offices and Xu Muqian’s residence rather than the rest of the city. This was a powerful demonstration of Qu’s efforts to prove himself to be a righteous master of Yueqing

County. 54 And thus residents did not turn on him that day. However, as it turned out, this mutual nonaggression was only an expedient balance struck between Qu and Yueqing city residents—a balance that was vulnerable to minor conflicts between these two groups that could break the fragile consensus and lead to calamity.

54 Apparently, it is very easy to link Qu’s action to historian E. J. Hobsbawn’s influential discussion on “social bandit” in the European history. See: Eric Hobsbawn, Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the 19 th and 20 th Centuries . (New York & London: W. W. Norton, 1965).

52 Yueqing City

East District

West District

(Source: 1752 Wenzhou Prefecture gazetteer)

At approximately 8 a.m. on February 10, 1855, the seventh day of Qu’s occupation, five people became engaged in a dispute over who had been responsible for losing five hundred wen of money in the city gate. While they were arguing with each other by the city gate, a Yueqing city resident named Yu Bangrong 余邦榮 passed by.

One of the disputers randomly accused Yu as the man who stole the money. Yu angrily denied this random accusation, leading to a severe fight. 55 To clarify this dispute, both parties decided to go to the magistrate’s office to seek a solution even though the

55 Lin Dachun, in Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 21.

53 magistrate was gone. The conflict was not alleviated and turned into a yelling contest between Yu’s and Qu’s camps, or more precisely between Yueqing city residents and

East District villagers. Seeking an abrupt end to the controversy, one of Qu’s colleagues yelled at Yu and other onlookers saying, “If you dare go against my order, I will kill everyone who lives in this city.” 56 This oral intimidation inadvertently provoked Yueqing city residents to fight against the people they now identified as a common enemy: Qu and his East District villagers.

As soon as the threat was issued, Yu and the other Yueqing onlookers became extremely angry. They pulled the man who had issued the threat out of the magistrate’s office and killed him in public with their bare hands. A former Qing solider named Zhou

Tinggua 周廷華 witnessed this scene and struck a gong around the city to notify all city residents that something important was unfolding in front of the magistrate’s office. All of sudden, the Yueqing city residents’ tolerance for Qu’s presence in their town evaporated. People from around the city, including the elderly, children, men, and women, all arrived to fight off Qu’s Red Turban Army wielding hoes, kitchen knives, and wooden axes. Qu himself was stabbed to death by a Qing solider named Tu Chenggao 屠承高; his top aid Jin Peiquan was killed soon thereafter.57 After hearing of Qu’s death, Qu’s

Red Turban Army quickly fell into disarray. West District villagers also flocked to the city, and the conflict between Qu’s troops and Yueqing city residents escalated into an

56 Ibid.

57 Ibid.

54 armed conflict (xiedou 械鬥) between West District and East District villagers. As Lin explained:

Once the city farmers and mountain residents learned of Qu’s death, they all took

up their hoes as weapons and set up check points around the city. They killed any

who wore red turbans. Since some crafty bandits might discard their turbans and

run, they caught and questioned all who passed by, immediately killing every

person speaking with an East District accent 東鄉口音 on the roadside. 58

According Qing Lian’s subsequent official report, roughly 1,400 to 1,500

“bandits” were killed in only four hours of fighting. 59 This terrifying death toll points to a deeper current underlying Yueqing local politics: there must have been a chronic feud between West and East District villagers. In Yueqing city, the location of the magistrate’s office, likely functioned as a buffer zone between these two groups. However, once Qu and his East District neighbors took over the city, this “balance of power” between West and East District villagers was gone. Furthermore, from West District villagers’ viewpoint it was not inconceivable that Qu and his East District neighbors would take this uprising as an opportunity to permanently expand their turf to the West District hometown in the near future. This growing suspicion likely drove West District villagers to watch the development in Yueqing city carefully. Not surprisingly, as soon as they

58 Ibid.

59 See: Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 37. According to Lin Dachun’s journal, 1,456 people were killed on that day. After the massacre, a local elite named Zhao Shiquan 趙士銓 donated money to hire workers to collect the dead. The workers were asked to cut the queue of the dead as the proof of their work and to get paid. Lin’s account is similar to Zhao. See: Lin Dachun, Ibid., 24.

55 learned of Qu’s death, they immediately marched to the city to expel the East District villagers out of the buffer zone and eliminate the potential threat. Thus, it would not be an exaggeration to say that a local feud between East and West District was responsible for the incredibly high death toll that day.

After the massacre, since a power vacuum was left open in the city, Yueqing city residents established a defense committee (fangduju 防堵局) at the City God Temple

(Chenghuang miao 城隍廟), not at the magistrate’s office, to take charge of local defensive efforts until Qing officials returned. This was done as a precaution in case the

East District residents, particularly those from Hongqiao town, came back for revenge.

The next day, February 11, 1855, the fangduju members also decided to formally invite

West District villagers to help them protect the city. 60 This convenient local political alliance between the city and West District, formed with the intention to secure Yueqing city and the West District, suggests that the death of Qu did not convince all parties of the end of his uprising or its potential implications. Indeed, the fallout was only just beginning for locals and Qing local officials alike as different groups of local people raised their individual concerns. For example, West District villagers worried about whether the survivors of Qu’s troops would take revenge on them. East District villagers worried that the new alliance between West District villagers and city residents would help stretch West District influence to East District. Delinquent local officials worried about the coming political repercussions from central authorities and were concerned about regaining locals’ confidence. What is quite interesting is that Qing officials

60 Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 23.

56 deliberately used religion as statecraft to reconcile their standing within local society after this uprising. They realized that popular religion was the most powerful common denominator between Qing authority and both the East and West Village residents. In order to make sure that both the state and the locals were on the same page, Qing authorities actively applied local society’s most powerful discourse, religion, to maintain their supreme position over local, and even, national politics.

V. How Yangfu Jun Pacified the Qu Zhenghan Uprising:

Official Qing relief troops from Ruian—less than one-day’s walking distance from Yueqing—finally arrived at Yueqing city on February 14, 1855. However, since a new military commander was not yet appointed, and because magistrate Kang Zhengji did not return to office until April 24 of that year, Yueqing city remained under the control of the defense committee organized by the local elites. 61 Presumably, the Ruian troops did not want to get involved in this local feud and thus simply stayed in Yueqing city not daring to chase the remnants of Qu’s Red Turban Army out of their home base in

Hongqiao. In fact, like West District villagers, they were very alert to the possibility of revenge from East District villagers.

According to this local version of the Qu Zhenghan uprising, it is clear that no one considered the Qing officials to have anything to do with its suppression. Other notable elements related to the event were circulating, however, in particular two divine

61 Ibid., 24-25.

57 manifestation stories that spread through the city. The first story said that a general dressed in a suit of armor and riding a red horse—an image very close to that of the

Chinese God of War Duke Guan 關公62 —was calling for a counterattack against Qu. The second, told by the survivors of East District, was that a group of chasing troops wearing various ghost masks that resembled the images of ghost soldiers was installed in the temple. Hence they were too scared to resist the troops. 63 Notably, at this point in time there was no talk of Yangfu Jun’s divine intervention, which only later became a part of

Qing official’s standard account of the suppression.

After the suppression, Qing officials busied themselves with preparing reports to their supervisors clarifying their own roles with regard to the uprising and freeing themselves from any possible political prosecution.64 Thus, alongside the local version of the event related above, a second, official version also began to take shape. The official version was created by the Fujian-Zhejiang governor general Wang Yide 王懿德 in his memorial to the Grand Council, made on March 8, 1855, which was itself based on a report addressed to Wang by the Zhejiang governor He Guiqing 何桂清 on February 25,

1855.

62 For a discussion of Duke Guan in late-Imperial Chinese history, see: Prasenjit Duara, “Superscribing Symbols: The Myth of Guandi, Chinese God of War” The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 47, no. 4 (Nov., 1988), 778-795.

63 Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 25.

64 As suggested by Philip Kuhn, Soulstealer: The Chinese Sorcery of 1768 (Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press, 1990) especially chapter nine.

58 In his report to the Grand Council, Wang claimed that as soon as he learned of

Qu’s uprising he sent five hundred Fujian troops to join He Guiqing’s Zhejiang troops, in an effort to put down the uprising. According to his report, this joint troop brigade supposedly crossed the Ou River ( 甌江) from Wenzhou to Yueqing on February 9 th and then worked with Yueqing local elites to crush the “local bandits” ( tufei 土匪). Wang also referred to the report He Guiqing had issued to the Grand Council on February 25,

1855, after Qing officials regained control of the city. 65 The Grand Council’s responses to both Wang’s and He’s reports were standard. On behalf of the Xianfeng Emperor, the

Grand Councilors accepted the two Zhejiang top officials’ explanations and showed no intention of conducting any further investigation about this seemingly minor incident. 66

The next step was then to prepare yet another report to the Grand Council, this time asking for permission to award promotions and monetary rewards to locals who had helped quell the uprising, and thereby formally close Qu’s case. Thus, He Guiqing ordered Wen-Chu Daotai ( 溫處道台, intendant of Wenzhou and Chuzhou prefecture) Yu

Shufeng 俞樹風 to go to Yueqing County to apprise Yueqing locals of the imminent closure of the case and to begin working on the reward list. Yu first unfolded a poster bearing his title and seal that presented the official narrative: that the uprising had been

65 See: Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 31-32. According to the Qing system, from Yongzheng emperor (1723-1735) onward, both Governor General and governor can issue their individual secret reports to the Grand Council. For a discussion about the secret report system, see: Yang Qiqiao 楊啟樵, Yongzhengdi ji qi mizhe zhedu yanjiu .雍正帝及其密摺制度研究 (The Study on the Secret Report System during Yongzheng Period, 1723-1735), (Xianggang: Sheng huo, du shu, xin zhi san lian shu dian, 1981). On the question of how the Grand Council works from Ming to early-Qing see: Beatrice Bartlett, Monarchs and Ministers: The Grand Council in Ming-Ch’ing China, 1723-1820. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).

66 See: Da Qing Wenzong Xian (xianfeng) huangdi shi Lu 大清文宗顯皇帝實錄 (The Veritable records of Emperor Wenzong, 1850-1861), (Taipei: Xin wen feng chu ban gong si, Minguo 67 [1978]), vol. 157. 712, 716.

59 crushed by the joint forces of Qing provincial relief troops and local Yueqing troops, which he said was led by Yueqing local officials.

Yu’s presentation provoked Yueqing locals to respond bitterly. Lin pointed out that the officials and local elites in question, particularly Xu Muqian and the Yueqing magistrate Kang Zhengji, who had been placed on the top of the official reward list, never participated the suppression and in fact fled from Yueqing County as soon as the uprising broke out. 67 Yet, in this obviously fabricated official version, Xu Muqian became the first of the local “righteous people” who helped the Qing relief troops to counterattack Qu. From the perspective of many Yueqing residents, Xu was responsible for causing Qu’s uprising and the ensuing chaos. Indeed, locals understood that the reason why Qu was able take Yueqing city without suffering any substantial resistance was because everyone knew Qu’s targets were only local officials and Xu’s house. 68

Locals also felt the magistrate who fled, Kang Zhengji, was to blame as well. And it was well known that when Kang returned from Lishui to Yueqing after the one-day massacre, he went around begging Yueqing local elites to help him escape political prosecution for having abandoning his post. Some local elites sympathized with Kang’s misfortune and therefore cooperated, submitting a letter to Kang’s superior attesting to his effort against the rebels. They stated in the letter that Kang fought very hard against Qu’s troops and was injured in the battle. It went on to note that, after Qu took over the city, Kang tried to commit suicide but was quickly rescued by locals. Then, after being rescued, Kang

67 Lin, Ibid., 27.

68 Ibid., 15.

60 supposedly worked with other local elites to launch a counterattack against Qu and finally succeeded. 69 For this reason, Kang had joined Xu at the top of official reward list, which also meant that both of them would be free from any further culpability and would be able to take advantage of this fabricated conclusion to take revenge on their local enemy.

Yueqing city residents, who had a widely different interpretation of the sequence of events, refused to accept this official version. Lin Dachun reported that Yueqing locals were so upset they planned to launch another uprising in front of the magistrate’s office directed against the official account of the Qu uprising. 70 With tensions mounting, Yu was forced to leave Yueqing city and return to Wenzhou city on March 17, 1855. To prevent another uprising and placate the Yueqing locals’ agony, the governor of Zhejiang,

He Guiqing 何桂清, appointed Qing Lian 慶廉 to Wenzhou to deal with this potential unrest. Qing was Yu’s predecessor as Wen-Chu Daotai, a post he had held for approximately ten years.71

Soon thereafter, on April 16, Qing Lian arrived at Yueqing County with a small guard force. He proceeded immediately to Hongqiao to meet with Qu-, Ni-, and Jin- family lineage heads (zhuzhang 族長) and asked them to work with him to publicly

69 Ibid., 28.

70 Ibid.

71 Ibid.

61 demolish Qu’s and Ni’s ancestral halls and graves and confiscate their property. 72 During his Hongqiao stop, Qing also summoned Xu to his temporary office to question him regarding the veracity of the account of his alleged achievements. Departing from what they had previously reported, Xu and his brother-in-law, Sun Qiangming, now ascribed blame to poor communication between Qing joint troops, Yueqing residents, and Xu himself, which resulted in a serious misunderstanding to complicate the whole situation.

In the end, Xu admitted that he did not show up in Yueqing city until after the truce. 73

Still, Xu and his colleagues emerged in a favorable light, and locals remained frustrated by the officials’ fabricated conclusions. They continued to lose confidence in Qing officials’ ability to bring a reliable resolution to the growing tension between West and

East District villagers. Qing Lian now realized that he had to seek a balance between maintaining his superiors’ conclusions and winning back the local people’s trust, which would require constructing a new narrative of the events acceptable to both sides.

The proverb “actions speak louder than words” can be seen to have informed

Qing Lian’s strategy to please Yueqing residents. According to Qing’s report to his supervisors and Lin’s journal, after he concluded his stop in Hongqiao and upon entering the city on April 16, 1855, Qing Lian went to every important local temple around

Yueqing city and paid tribute to the local deities.74 Then he promulgated a new poster to the public attributing the successful suppression of the Qu uprising to the Yueqing

72 See: Qing Lian’s report to Wang Youling made on May 12, 1855. in Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 edited (2002), Ibid., 39.

73 Ibid., 40.

74 Ibid., 28, 40, 45, 46, 57.

62 residents’ collective efforts and not to the actions of Qing officials. Qing and his staff understood that this poster was meant to placate local residents’ complaints over Yu’s previous poster and was not intended to offer an official correction of the fabricated stories that had been accepted as truth by provincial officials and even the Grand Council.

After displaying the new poster, Qing convened a meeting with members of the Yueqing defensive committee. He needed to not only resume control of the city’s defense operations from the local elites’ executive committee, but also to discuss the proper distribution of the reward money. Qing proposed to distribute this money to everyone involved in the suppression of the uprising. However, everybody present refused to take any money. 75

There are at least two ways to explain why the Yueqing residents turned down

Qing’s original offer. First, they claimed that it was very hard to determine who actually deserved a reward. Second, and probably more importantly, was that they did not dare to accept money being offered to them as individuals, since they all understood that the survivors of Qu’s coterie would consider this reward list as proof of their participation in the suppression and thus target those individuals named on the list for revenge in the future. Consequently, Qing and Yueqing local elites now had to work together to figure out another approach, especially since the reward money had already been approved by the Grand Council.

After almost eight days of discussion, the most workable common denominator that emerged was the local deity Yangfu Jun. In Qing’s report to Hangzhou prefecture

75 Ibid.

63 magistrate 知府 Wang Youling 王有齡, issued on April 24, 1855, he set the tone for the new interpretation of the events as follows:

Every gentry and common person in the city told me that when launching their

righteous behavior and striking back against Qu they all relied on the help of

Yangfu Jun, who has been worshipped in the Yangfu temple in the West District of

Yueqing County. This fact can be borne out by the evidence. Having served in

office at Wenzhou for years, I can attest to the fact that this deity has been

efficacious in the Wenzhou area for a long time. I have investigated again and again

Yangfu Jun’s divine manifestation during the battles and all voices uttered one and

the same opinion. 76

Instead of distributing the rewarding money to Yueqing residents on an individual basis,

Qing and the residents had reached a twofold final consensus. First, as for the reward money itself, they decided to use part of this money to renovate Yangfu Jun’s temple, located in West District of Yueqing County, to honor the local guardian deity. 77 The remaining money was to be used to accrue “symbolic capital” for the local residents, by building a new monumental archway to commemorate their “collective righteous

76 ed. Ma Yunlun (2002), Ibid., 40.

77 Ibid., 42. In addition to renovating the Yangfu Jun temple, they also allocated money to renovate Duke Guan’s temple located in Yueqing city.

64 behavior.” Second, city residents asked Qing Lian to prepare a report to his superiors to ask a title from the Grand Council for Yangfu Jun. 78

As a result of these negotiations, Qing Lian successfully fulfilled his assignment and regained local residents’ confidence in Qing authority, largely by showing his respect to Yangfu Jun. In the end, the idea of the archway was replaced with a stone inscription, written by Qing Lian and erected in front of the Yueqing magistrate’s office. The inscription stated that Qu’s uprising was brought down by local residents’ collective efforts, as inspired by Yangfu Jun, and not by Qing relief troops. 79 Qing likely opted for a stone inscription instead of an archway due to a shortage of reward money. He was also probably reluctant to further complicate the situation by building an archway, since doing so would have needed the approval of the Grand Council, which might have brought on more problems. Qing also submitted a petition, as promised, to his superior to ask for a title for Yangfu Jun. As Lin reported in his journal, however, since the Grand Council had already recognized that Qu’s uprising was suppressed by Qing local officials, its members could not understand in what way the local deity Yangfu Jun was also related to this incident. 80 Only after Qing Lian’s entourage Pan took office as Wenzhou prefecture magistrate in 1867, did the Grand Council grant the title.81

78 Ibid., 41. As for the discussion about how local elites gain “symbolic capital” by making donation to temples, see: Timothy Brook, Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Society in Late Ming China (Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Asia Center, 1993).

79 Ibid., 46-47.

80 Ibid., 28.

81 See: Dai Pan, “Yangfu miao beiji 楊府廟碑記” (The Inscription of Yangfu temple) in Jin Bodong ed., 金柏東, Ibid., (2002), 369-370. This inscription is transcribed from Dai Pan’s the other article titled “yangfu zhenjun kanluan xianling ji 楊府真君戡亂顯靈記” (The Divine Manifestation of Great Gentleman

65

VI. Conclusion: The Omnipresent Yangfu Jun and Late-Qing China

The Grand Council’s about face reveals its growing awareness of the need to reconcile with local religion and politics during the challenges of the second half of the nineteenth century. Throughout Qing history, the Emperor and the Grand Council relied on different levels of local officials’ reports to rule the empire’s vast territory. The essence of Qing statecraft was to determine whether there were any contradictions in these various reports, and if so, to take these contradictions as clues of possible malfeasance or disorder requiring closer attention. Under different kinds of circumstances, however, the gap between Grand Council politics and local politics had been widening since the late-eighteenth century.82 In order to be considered a capable local official, a magistrate was still expected to have enough knowledge to take advantage of this gap to please his supervisors and to consolidate cooperation and relations within local society.

In Qu’s case we can see that local officials were more than willing to work with local society to fulfill their duty. Qing Lian’s negotiations with Yueqing local elites demonstrated that a popular local deity, Yangfu Jun, was actually the most effective discourse in local society through which he could secure his authority over local society.

Local elites, in turn, borrowed the deity’s influence to re-consolidate their political status within local society. Significantly, the story of Yangfu Jun was not an isolated case of Yang Prefecture) in Dai Pan, dongou jilue 東甌記略 (Dai Pan’s Career Record in Wenzhou) collected in: Dai Pan, Dai Pan sizhong jilue 戴槃四種記略 (Four Journals of Dai Pan’s official career), (Taipei: huawen shuji, 1868 first work, reprint in Taipei, 1969), 85-87.

82 See: Philip Kuhn, Soulstealer: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 (Cambridge, M.A,: Harvard University Press, 1990) and Beatrice Bartlett, Monarchs and Ministers: The Grand Council in Ming-Ch’ing China, 1723-1820 (Berkeley, C.A.: University of California, 1991).

66 history. Evidence shows that similar stories were simultaneously unfolding almost everywhere in Qing China after 1850, pointing to major developments in nineteenth- century national and local politics.

The belated title awarded to Yangfu Jun in 1867 coincided with the unfolding of the Tongzhi restoration (1862-1874). Wright (1957) has characterized the various restoration efforts undertaken by the Qing during the Tongzhi period (1862-1874) as “the last stand of Chinese conservatism,” emphasizing largely the Confucian influences guiding those efforts. 83 The story of Yangfu Jun enriches our understanding of this key period of late-Qing history. When we turn our attention to how officials operated in local society during these years, it becomes apparent that officials had little choice but to seek help from local deities to maintain their legitimacy within the local arena, regardless of the prior status of local cults. Confucian conservatism may have helped shore up legitimacy for central authorities, but another approach was necessary for local politics.

Indeed, by working with local deities to manage local politics, even incapable local officials were able secure an upper hand in local power games, while at the same time freeing themselves of trouble vis-à-vis the wider bureaucratic system. Facilitating local religion by incorporating such deities as Yangfu Jun into an official system became the most efficient solution and expression that Qing officials could use to assure local society’s willingness to be cooperative.

83 Mary Clabaugh Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T’ing-Chih Restoration, 1862- 1874 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1957).

67 The value of this policy was evident not only among those engaged in local negotiation, but also to central authorities as revealed by the Qing’s record of title granting to local cults right before the Tongzhi period. From the table below, we can see a drastic increase in the number of titles the Qing emperor had granted to local deities.

And we can see this dramatic increase happening especially after the Xianfeng period

(r.1850-1858), which coincided with the intensification of internal and external crises threatening the Qing.

Title Granting During the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) 84

Years Numbers of Percentage titles granted

Shunzhi 順治 1644-1661 18 1 0.7%

Kangxi 康熙 1662-722 61 2 1.4％

Yongzheng 雍正 1723-1735 13 10 7.3 ％

Qianlong 乾隆 1736-1795 60 4 2.9 ％

Jiaqing 嘉慶 1795-1820 25 18 13.2 ％

Daoguang 道光 1820-1850 30 23 16.9 ％％％

Xianfeng 咸豐 1850-1861 10 26 19.1 ％％％ 60.2 ％ 74.1 ％％％

Tongzhi 同治 1862-1874 14 33 24.2 ％％％ 43.3%

Guangxu 光緒 1874-1908 33 19 13.9 ％％％

Xuantong 宣統 1909-1912 3 0 0% total 268 136

84 This data from: Zhao Erxun 趙爾巽 (1844-1927), Qing shi gao 清史稿 (Draft Standard History of the Qing), vol.84:59, Li section 3, 2546-2550.

68 Titles granted to local deities in Qing (1644 -1911), by reign period

Reign Period 35 Shunzhi, 1644-1661 30 Kangxi, 1662-1722 Yongzheng, 1723-1735 25 Qianlong, 1736-1795

20 Jiaqing, 1795-1820

15 Daoguang, 1820-1850 10 Xianfeng, 1850-1861 Tongzhi, 1862-1874 5 Guangxu, 1874-1908

0 Xuantong, 1909-1912 number of titles granted

The Qing court awarded relatively few titles to local deities during the so-called “High

Qing” period (1662-1795). In fact, up to 87.3% of titles granted to local deities were made after the High Qing period. And among these, as many as 74.1% were awarded between the reigns of the Daoguang (r.1820-1850) and Guangxu (r. 1874-1908)

Emperors, which corresponds with the waning of Qing power in China and Asia. In viewing the history of Yangfu Jun’s title-granting within the broader context of the history of title granting policy throughout the Qing dynasty, it is clear that both Qing courts and local officials deliberately used local cults as statecraft to deal with local politics after the mid-nineteenth century. In this light, the story of Yangfu Jun in 1860s

Yueqing exemplifies the process of why and how Qing courts and local officials worked with local deities to secure their presence in local politics during a time of mounting

69 internal and external challenges. In this regard, the story of Yangfu Jun typified a reconfiguration of state-society relations in China during this period.

70 Chapter Two:

Troops of Local Gods and Confucians: the Conflict Between the Golden Coin

Association and the White Cloth Association in Wenzhou (1850-1860)

I. Banquet on the Bank of Qiancang 錢倉 River

In around the 1900s, a member of the Ruian 瑞安 local elite, Liu Zhufeng 劉祝

封, recalled the early development of the Jinqian hui ( 金錢會 Golden Coin Association) 1 organized by a local food shop owner named Zhao Qi 趙起 (1832-1863) of Pingyang 平

陽 county in South Wenzhou prefecture. Liu wrote:

Every year, Zhao Qi and his followers held a banquet, which was set on the banks

of the Qiancang river 錢倉江, and invited a troupe to entertain their members

since 1858. Everyone admired and enjoyed this annual gathering. Soon there were

a growing number of young rascals joining them, as well as rich but non-

influential Qiancang residents. They were bullies in their neighborhood. No one

1 As for the basic history of Jinqian hui, see: Nie Congqi ed. 聶叢岐, Jingqian hui ziliao 金錢會資料 (The Archival Collection of Golden Coin Association). (Shanghai: Shanghai ren min chu ban she, 1958). In addition to the archival collection, there is a popular version of this uprising written by Wenzhou local historians, which reflects PRC historians’ strong intention to connect Jingqian hui to the Taiping rebels. See: Ma Yizhong 馬翊中 and Ma Yunlun 馬允倫, Zhenan Jinqian hui qiyi 浙南金錢會起義 ( The Revolt of Jinqian hui of South Zhejiang) (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renming chuban she, 1963). The most recent document collection is, Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed., Taiping tien kuo shiqi Wenzhou shiliao huibian 太平天國 時期溫州史料彙編 (The Archival Collection of Wenzhou During Heavenly Peace Kingdom ) (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chubanshe, 2002).

71 dared to point the finger at their wrongdoing. The influence of this Jinqian

association [over Pingyang County] was more insolent from then on. 2

Furthermore, from Liu’s obviously disdainful tone, it is clear that he did not share the joy of these Pingyang locals. Rather, he regarded this group of Pingyang locals as a threat to local society. Furthermore, as Liu had pointed out, the Jinqian hui had visibly become a popular organization in Qiancang in western Pingyang county before 1860.

For many years, our conventional knowledge of this Jinqian hui uprising has been twofold: scholars used to link this peasant uprising ( Nongmin Qiyi , 農民起義) to a local

Wenzhou “secret society” tradition or the local followers of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. 3

To a large extent, this seemingly over-romanticized image of peasant uprisings has prevented us from exploring the local politics behind these “collective actions” in local society. After having clarified the relationship between a local deity like Yangfu Jun and

Wenzhou local politics in chapter one, I will now explore the significance of “popular

2 See: Liu Zhufeng, Qianfei jilue 錢匪紀略 (The Brief Record of Qian Bandit), in Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (Taiping tien kuo shiqi Wenzhou shiliao huibian 太平天國時期溫州史料彙編 (The Archival Collection of Wenzhou During Heavenly Peace Kingdom), (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chuban she, 2002), 156- 157. Liu composed this article in about 1900, and formally published it in a Wenzhou local magazine titled Oufeng zazhi 甌風雜誌 in 1934. Compared to local retired official Huang Tifang 黃體芳 and Sun Yiyan’s 孫衣言 account on Jinqian hui, Liu’s account consists of more local folklore. He applied the idea of karma and retribution to the discussion of the relevant figures in this incident. The establishment of the Jinqian hui in Liu’s account did not mention the vegetarian cult nor the copper coin amulet, as did Zhao Jun, Huang, and Sun in their account. Rather, his explanation to the title Jinqian comes from an occasion when Zhao Qi and his friends watched a local play titled “Dui Jinqian” 對金錢. Of course, it’s highly possible that Zhao and his partners borrowed this title from this play to name their brotherhood association.

3 As for pervious studies on Jinqian hui, see: Wei Jianyou 魏建猷 ed., Zhongguo hui dang shi lun zhu hui yao 中國會黨史論著匯要 (The Abstract of Chinese Scholars’ Work on Secret Societies), (Tianjin: Nan kai daxue chubanshe, 1985), 157-164. and Wang Xingfu 王興福, Zhejiang Taiping Tian guo shilun kao 浙江 太平天國史論考, (Hangzhou: Zhejiang Renmin Chubanshe, 2002).

72 religious organizations” in late-Qing Wenzhou local politics. This chapter has two main aims. First, I will use the case study of Jinqian hui to explicate the connections between local popular religion and “local militarization”. 4 Secondly, as we saw in the case of

Yangfu Jun in chapter one, the local deity plays a powerful role in the discourse of local politics. I will build on Kuhn’s “local militarization” thesis, and argue that these so-called local militias ( 團練 Tuanlien) are actually local religious group. 5 Moreover, the case study of the Golden Coin Association also exhibits the process of how popular organizations in local society employed religion as a tool to organize local society and address their concerns in local politics.

II. The Start of Jinqian Hui:

Liu Zhufeng’s observation was shared by two other important local literati:

Huang Tifang 黃體芳 and Sun Yiyan 孫衣言. They also harshly condemned Zhao’s banquet as a provocative action that threatened local collective security.6 Nonetheless,

4 It would be an exaggeration to say that Philip Kuhn’s “local militarization” is one of the most influential ideas in the field of late-Qing history. However, Kuhn did not pay enough attention to the role of popular religion in his analysis of local militarization. See Philip Kuhn, Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China: Militarization and social structure, 1796-1864 . (Cambridge M.A.,: Harvard University Press, 1970).

5 I made a similar observation in my previous work on the Dai Caochun 戴潮春 rebellion, which was one of the most serious rebellions in Qing dynasty Taiwan. The conventional thinking about this rebellion is to blame Dai’s connection not only to the secret society, but also the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. However, after securitizing the local materials as well as the Qing archives, I found that Dai’s so-called rebellious association was a transformation from an earlier officially approved local militia. See: Lo, Shih-Chieh 羅士 傑, “ 略論清同治年間台灣戴潮春案與天地會之關係 Was the Dai Chaochun Incident a Triad Rebellion?” 民俗曲藝 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore vol. 138 (December 2002): 279-303.

6 See: Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. ( Taiping tien kuo shiqi Wenzhou shiliao huibian 太平天國時期溫州史料彙 編 (The Archival Collection of Wenzhou During Heavenly Peace Kingdom), (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chuban she, 2002), 91, 128.

73 right before the occurrence of the so-called “Jinqian hui uprising”, there was a growing resentment between Ruian and Pingyang locals. This growing resentment leads us to ask how this seemingly normal banquet became regarded as a threat to local security and with what were these local literati concerned? In fact, the rising of this local religious group,

Jinqian hui, which was not controlled by local officials or local Confucian elites, infuriated local Confucian elites. Consequently, it would be impossible to discuss the

Golden Coin Association uprising without mentioning their main opponents, Baibu hui

白布會 (White Cloth Association). Baibu hui was organized by a Qing Jingguan 京官

(officials who serve in the capital) named Sun Qiangming 孫鏘鳴 and his older brother

Sun Yiyan 孫衣言 of Ruian 瑞安 county in southern Wenzhou prefecture. 7 Similar to Qu

Zhenhan’s case, this so-called “jinqian baibu dou” 金錢白布鬥 (the conflicts between the Golden Coin Association and the White Cloth Association), which occurred in 1862, sheds light on Wenzhou local politics, especially on the competition strategies between two local political powers: local officials and local popular organization in Wenzhou in the 1860s.

Jinqian hui ( 金錢會, Golden Coin Association) was organized by Zhao Qi (1832-

1863) of Pingyang County in southern Wenzhou prefecture. Chinese scholarship on

Jinqian hui to date has been centered on Jingqian hui’s connections to Taiping Heavenly

7 As for the discussion of “jinqian baibu dou” 金錢 白布 鬥 (The Conflicts Between Golden Coin Association and the White Cloth Association)”, see: Liu, Cheng-yun 劉錚雲, “ 金錢會與白布會---清代地 方政治運作的一個側面, The Chin ch’ien-hui and the Pai-pu-hui: A Case Study of Local Politics in the Ch’ing Period” in Xinshixue 新史學 New History , vol. 6:3 (1995.9): 63-94 and Li Shizhong 李世眾, Wanqing shishen yu defang zhengzhi: yi Wenzhou wei zhongxin de kaocha 晚清士紳與地方政治：以溫州 為中心的考察 (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 2006).

74 Kingdom or secret societies in Wenzhou. 8 In this section, however, I considered the

Jinqian hui as a mutual aid organization, as Ownby (1996) has suggested in his book on the Tiandihui ( 天 地 會 Heavenly Earth Association) of the Qing dynasty. 9 On the establishment of Jinqian hui, we must begin with their leader, Zhao Qi 趙起. According to Huang Tifang 黃體芳 (1832-1899), a capital-level official and close friend to Sun

Qiangming, the biography of Zhao Qi is as follow: 10

Zhao was a native of Qiancang 錢倉 in Pingyang County, ran a food shop and

served as a ferry porter on the Qian River ( 錢江). Zhu Xiusan 朱秀三, who lived

on the river bank of Grand Canal in Pingyang, sold medicine and had some

medical knowledge. Both of Zhao and Zhu practiced marital arts since the time

they were young. 11

The reason why Zhao and Zhu organized the Jinqian hui can be attributed to a Jinhua 金

華 pen seller, Zhou rong 周榮, and seven coppers he allegedly acquired from the mountains. The story was recorded by Sun Yiyan:

8 For pervious studies on Jinqian hui, see: Wei Jianyou 魏建猷 (1985), Ibid., 157-164.

9 See: Ownby (1996), Ibid.

10 See: Huang Tifang 黃體芳, Qian luyuan shu 錢虜爰書 (The Record of Qian Bandit), in Ma Yunlun 馬允 倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 90-154.

11 Ibid., 91.

75 The Golden Coin Bandit started around 1858. There was a pen seller named Zhou

Rong from Jinhua, who traveled from Qingtien 青田 to Pingyang. He had some

knowledge on writing and fortunetelling. His wife was from a place named xiaoxi

小溪 of Qingtien. Both of them practiced witchcraft and enticed people to become

vegetarian. Those who joined their cult had to pay 250 coins. After that, they

threw this amount of coins into the boiling water and mixed them with various

charms and spells. After drinking this boiling water, the participators were told by

Zhou that they would be free from harm of weapons. They called this ritual

“tongqianzhuang” 銅錢壯 (copper coin amulet). They gathered in the mountains

on the border between Qingtien and Yongjia 永嘉.12

Due to pressure from the Qingtien magistrate and the approaching Taiping, Zhou and his wife fled to Qiancang of Pingyang around 1858. 13 On May 27, 1858, Zhao Jun mentioned in his diary that he learnt the practice of copper coin amulet from his relative who lived in

Pingyang. 14

It must be noted that the Zhou and his vegetarian cult did not look strange to Zhao

Qi and the rest of the Pingyang residents. There was already a vegetarian cult called laoguan zhaijiao 老官齋教, which was present in Wenzhou as early as the Kangxi period

12 See: Sun Yiyan (1814-1894) 孫衣言, “Huifei jilue 會匪記略” (The brief Record of Golden Coin Bandit), in Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 127.

13 Ibid.

14 See: Zhao Jun, Ibid., 175.

76 (1661-1722). 15 According to the reports of Qing local military officials in 1748, the son of the leader of the cult, Yao Yi 姚繹 moved to Wenzhou to preach the teaching to

Wenzhou residents in the late-Kangxi period. While the Yao family settled in Wenzhou city, some of their family members were enrolled in the county school. 16 Compared to other rebellious vegetarian cults of neighboring provinces such as Fujian and Jiangxi, the

Wenzhou laoguan vegetarian cult that was led by the Yao family did not come to the attention of Qing officials until one of their family members, Yao Hai 姚海, was arrested and executed over his public efforts to spread the cult by collecting money and recruiting believers in Wenzhou in 1827. 17 Moreover, as pointed out by Ma and Han (1991), what really shocked Qing officials was the fact that this “evil cult” was led and organized by prestigious local Confucians. 18 In other words, this laoguan vegetarian cult had been spreading in Wenzhou and was supported by local elites since the early Qing. 19

When Zhou got acquainted with Zhao and his friends, he told Zhao that anyone who held the coins would be blessed. Thereafter, they privately cast coins and sought to sell them to more villagers in order to raise money. To expand this business, Zhao and his partners decided to organize a brotherhood association in the 1860s. The eight core

15 See: Ma Xisha 馬西沙 and Han Bingfang 韓秉方 ed., Zhongguo Mingjian Zhongjiao shi 中國民間宗教 史 (History of Chinese Folk Religion), (Shanghai” Shanghai Renmin chubanshe, 1991), 355. More information about this cult can be seen in: Dai Xuanzhi 戴玄之, Zhongguo Mimi Zhongjiao yu mimi huishe 中國秘密宗教與秘密會社, (Taipei: Taiwan shang wu yin shu guan, 1990), 49-52, 840-852.

16 Ma Xisha 馬西沙 and Han Bingfang 韓秉方 (1991), Ibid., 355-356.

17 Ibid., 357-358.

18 Ibid., 358. Ma and Han claimed that they went to “Jiangnan” conducting fieldwork in 1986 and found out that this Yao family had continued preaching in Wenzhou until 1949. This means they had preached laoguan vegetarian cult for three centuries in Jiangnan, from late-Ming to 1949.

19 I will discuss the activities of this vegetarian cult in chapter three.

77 members of Jinqian hui, including Zhao Qi, Zhu Xuishan 朱秀三 and Zhou Rong, went to the Beishan temple 北山廟 located on a small hill on the outskirts of Qiancang. As mentioned in Huang Tifang’s record:

There was a Beishan temple on the outskirts of Qiancang that worshipped the

Wuxian 五顯 deity 20 . The crowds swore to this deity to form an alliance. They

called each other brother regardless of their age difference. Anyone who wanted

to be part of this association had to visit Zhao’s food shop and pay 500 coins in

order to exchange one of their cast coins. The money they collected all went to the

head of this association. 21

The copper coins were distributed and inscribed with jinqian yiji 金錢義記 (righteous emblem of Golden Coin) on them along with a hongtie 紅帖 ( red certificate) to prove their brotherhood. 22 To a certain extent, Zhao Qi’s Jinqian hui was a mixing of two local

20 For a discussion of the Wuxian deity in Jiangnan China, see: Richard Von Glahn, “The Enchantment of Wealth in the Social History of Jiangnan” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies , vol. 51, no.2 (December 1991): 651-714. I visited the site of this temple in August 2006. This temple was demolished by the Qing right after the Golden Coin Association incident. Compared to other temples located in Qiancang, this temple was relatively small.

21 Huang Tifang, “Qian luyuan shu 錢虜爰書,in Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 91. As for the fee, in both Huang Tifang and Sun Yiyan it is indicated that Zhao collected 500 copper coins from the participants. However, based on Zhao Zhiqian 趙之謙 (1829-1884), who was a visiting tutor in Ruian from 1861-1863, the fee was 100 copper coins for registration, plus 100 copper coins for a red certificate. See: Zhao Zhiqian 趙之謙, Zhangan zashou 章安雜說 (Miscellany of Zhangan), (Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 2002), 13. According to Zhao Jun’s record, the rice price was 100 jin 斤 costing 1500 copper coins in 1857 and 2500 copper coins for same amount of rice in 1863. See: Zhao Jun, Ibid., 171, 202.

22 See the excerpt of Manuscript of Ruian Gazetteer 民國瑞安縣志稿 in Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 74. For the meaning of Hongtie, ter Haar (1998) had convincingly argued that every detailed element found in the Triad’s rite of passage can be linked to either Daoism or Buddhism and even popular religion. Hence, the Triad may be secretive to officials but not foreign to local residents. See: Barend ter Haar, Ritual and Mythology of the Chinese Triads: Creating an Identity (Leiden; Boston; Koln: Brill, 1998). Prior

78 traditions: laoguan vegetarian cults and brotherhood associations. However, the function of jinqian hui was not merely to sell amulets and establish brotherhood membership to collect money. In fact, the Jinqian hui was a popular organization that had local relations with Qiancang.

III. The Boost of Jinqian Hui:

After Zhao Qi established the Jinqian hui in Qiancang area, he took on a partner,

Wang Xiujin 王秀錦, who was a coppersmith in Wanquan 萬全 of east Pingyang county.

In the beginning, Wang helped Zhao to sell copper coins to villagers in the vicinity of

Qiancang. Then, he began to privately cast the coins and expanded the business to his east village hometown without consulting Zhao. Wang’s exploitation of the symbols of their brotherhood greatly infuriated Zhao. Thus, Zhao ousted Wang from the organization.

In response, Wang established another Jinqian hui in the east village of Pingyang to compete with Zhao’s organization, and to continue his business. 23

In order to compete with Wang’s organization, Zhao and his colleagues realized that they had to invent an excuse that would explain the controversy with Wang to the local Pingyang society. Meanwhile, one of Wang’s partners, Cheng Dianying 程殿英

(Cheng Jie 程杰), who held a Gongshen degree 貢生 and served as a pettifogger in to ter Haar’s work on the rituals and texts used by the Triads, Ownby (1995) argued that the Heaven and Earth (aka Triad) society was a kind of popular religion, especially in southeastern China. See: David Ownby, “The Heaven and Earth Society as Popular Religion” The Journal of Asian Studies vol. 54, no. 4 (November 1995): 1023-1046.

23 See: Sun Yiyan, Ibid., in Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 128.

79 Pingyang city, had a litigation dispute with the Qing government related to his nephew.

Cheng’s nephew had committed a capital crime and the county magistrate was waiting to receive final execution permission from the emperor, which typically arrived in the fall.

Prior to the arrival of the final decision, even a criminal of the most serious order would be detained in the county jail. 24 At that time, there was a rumor that Cheng was plotting to break into the jail to rescue his nephew. 25 The acting Pingyang magistrate, Zhai

Weiben 翟惟本, had few resources to deal with the possible prison break. This was largely due to the fact that Zhai had just taken office and had yet to build his own connections in local society. 26

As soon as Zhao knew about this development in Pingyang city, he decided to take advantage of the situation to teach Wang and Cheng a lesson. Under the banner of

24 For the process of implementing the death penalty, see: Derk Boddle and Clarence Morris , Law in Imperial China (Cambridge M.A.,: Harvard University Press, 1973), 91-96; T’ung-tsu Chu, Local Government in China under the Ch’ing (Cambridge M.A.,: Harvard University Press, 1962), 116-129.

25 Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 91-92, 128-129.

26 According to 1926 Pingyang local gazetteer, Zhai took office in 1860, around the same time that Zhao organized his Jinqian hui. During the Qing dynasty, there were two types of top official installed in a county. One was the magistrate 縣令 who was supposed to be in charge of all civil affairs, while the other was a military official called fu jiang 副將(deputy general) or can jiang 參將 (adjunct general). According to the Qing system, the military was under the control of the military official, while the civil official had no military force until the late Daoguang period of the 1840s when local insurgencies where more common. In order to build their own military force, Kuhn (1970) has suggested, that local civilian officials had to recruit local elites and local militia ( 團練), which consisted of either local resident or migration populations coming from other areas to work with them to take care of local security concerns, especially bandit problems. See: Kuhn (1970), Ibid. On the Qing local bureaucratic system, see: Xu Xueji 許雪姬, Beijing de bianzi: Qing dai Taiwan de guanliao tixi 北京的辮子：清代台灣的官僚體系, (Taipei: zili wanbao chubanshe, 1993), and Liu Ziyang 劉子揚, Qingdai defang guangzhi kao 清代地方官制考, (Beijing: zijincheng chubanshe, 1994). For a discussion on the process of local civil officials building their own military force in the local arena since the 1840s, see: Shih-Chieh Lo 羅士傑, Qingdai Taiwan de defang jingying yu defang shehui: yi tungzhi nianjian de dai caochun shijian wei taolun zhongxin 清代台灣的地 方菁英與地方社會：以同治年間的戴潮春事件為討論中心 (1862-1868) Local Elites and Local Society in Ch’ing Taiwan: The Case Study of Dai Cao-chun Rebellion (1862-1868). (M.A. diss., National Tsing Hua University, 2000).

80 righteous aid to local officials, Zhao mobilized several thousands of his Jinqian hui members and marched to Pingyang city to loot several of Cheng’s houses, as well as to publicly distance Wang and Cheng from the Jinqian hui in front of the entire Pingyang population. 27 The benefit Zhao gained from this operation was twofold: first, Zhao earned

Zhai’s trust because of his organization’s righteous behavior in helping the official to deal with the possible threat from Cheng; and second, Zhao also used this chance to polish his banner by telling the local residents that his Jinqian hui had nothing to do with his rival Wang and Cheng’s organization. Just like the grass swinging on the top of a wall,

Wang and Cheng’s supporters, who came mostly from the east villages of Pingyang and

Ruian, moved to join Zhao’s organization. Hence, without Wang the sphere of influence of Zhao’s Jinqian hui would not have been able to expand from Qiancang to the entire eastern part of Pingyang and eventually to the Port villages 港鄉 of Ruian county by the late 1860. 28

No local official could overlook the existence of such a popular organization such as Zhao’s Jinqian hui in their district, especially after they marched into the city area. No later than March 1861, Wenzhou Daotai ( 道台 Wenzhou prefecture magistrate) Zhixun

志勛 formally expressed his concern regarding the development of Jinqian hui to Zhai, the magistrate of Pingyang. This development came after the Wenzhou official arrested a man named Feng Asan 馮阿三, who was reported as a member of Jinqian hui and could

27 Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 91-92, 128-129.

28 Ibid.

81 not explain why he held the keys to Wenzhou’s four city gates. 29 In order to avoid possible political prosecution and to demonstrate his knowledge of local affairs to his supervisor, Zhai decided to heed the advice of the local elite Zhu Hanmian 朱漢冕 and request Zhao to submit a petition to allow him to transform his Jinqian hui into an authorized local militia known as Jinqian Yituan 金錢義團 (the Jinqian righteous militia).

Based on the plan, Zhai conceived the title Jinqian as the combination of the first character of the two places Jinxiang 金鄉 and Qiancang 錢倉 of northwestern Pingyang

County. 30

Zhao accepted Zhai’s proposal to become a registered force. He then requested permission to erect a banner ( shuqi 豎旗) in the southern corner of Pingyang city. Zhao and his followers held a banner worshiping ceremony ( jiqi 祭旗) to formally announce the establishment of their righteous local militia to the entire Pingyang population. In addition, both magistrate Zhai and the county military commander 副將 Wang Xianlung

王顯龍 were invited to attend the ceremony. 31 The symbolic effect of Zhai and Wang’s participation meant a lot to the Pingyang residents. According to Sun Yiyan, after their public endorsement, the local society’s reaction was as follows:

29 Ibid., 129.

30 Ibid., 92.

31 Ibid., 129. For a discussion of the banner worship ceremony, see Paul Katz, When Valleys Turned Blood Red: the Ta-pa-ni incident in Colonial Taiwan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005), 111-112.

82 Common people all thought that the officials took orders from the bandits.

Consequently, they came in great numbers to receive the bandit’s fake money.

The Wenzhou Daotai and Wenzhou prefecture magistrate all reaffirmed the fact

that Jinqian is a licensed local militia, that’s why they did not mention

suppressing Jinqian anymore. From then on, nobody would be capable of curbing

the growth of Jinqian hui.32

Clearly, based on Sun Yiyan’s bitter complaint concerning the development of Jinqian hui, we can see how the Pingyang local officials desperately wanted to cooperate with the local society to secure their power position within the local arena. In this case, however, the concept of local society is relatively complicated. In the following section I will argue that after the downfall of Wang, the Baibu hui 白布會 was organized by Sun Qiangming

孫鏘鳴, an on leave capital official who turned out to be Zhao’s most significant rival in the Wenzhou area. An examination of the conflicts between Jinqian hui and Baibu hui sheds light on the nature of local politics and also on the underlying economic interests and competition between rural Pingyang and urban Ruian.

IV. Troops of local Confucians: Sun Qiangming and the White Cloth Association

The three leading figures of the Ruian Sun family, Sun Qiangming (1817-1901)

孫鏘鳴, his elder brother Sun Yiyan (1815-1897) 孫衣言, and Sun Yiyan’s son Sun

Yirang (1848-1908) 孫詒讓, were very influential in the Wenzhou region in the 1840s.

32 Ibid., 129.

83 Sun Qiangming passed the national civil exam in 1841 and Sun Yiyan passed it later in

1850. 33 Sun Yiyan’s son, Sun Yirang, was a renowned scholar and played a very significant role in the local educational system of Wenzhou.

After Sun Qiangming passed the civil exam he was sent to the Hanlin Academy

翰林院 for six years, between 1841 and 1847, to compile the emperor’s edict. He was then assigned as a reviewer of the 1847 national exam. In this exam, Sun strongly recommended two candidates to the chief examiner: Li Hongzhang 李鴻章 and Shen

Baozhen 沈葆禎.34 After spending almost ten years in Beijing, Sun Qiangming was dispatched to Guangxi 廣西 province in 1850 to serve as the provincial education superintendent 廣西學政. During his tenure in Guangxi (1850-1853), he witnessed the rapid growth of Bai shangdi hui 拜上帝會 (God worshiping society) organized by Hong

Xiuquan 洪秀全, who later became the emperor of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1850-

33 For more on the Ruian Sun Family, see: Hu Zhusheng ed. 胡珠生, Sun Qiangming ji 孫鏘鳴集 (Selected Works of Sun Qiangming), (Shanghai: Shanghai Shehui kexue yuan chuban she, 2003) and Sun Yanzhao 孫延釗, Zhao Liren 周立人, Xue Heyong 徐和雍 ed., Sun Yiyan Sun Yirang fuji nianpu 孫衣言孫詒讓父 子年譜 (Chronicle of Sun Yiyan and Sun Yirang), (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chuban she, 2003). In addition to the recent works listed above, there is a Sun Yirang Chronicle published in 1935. See: Zhu Fangpu ed. 朱芳圃, Sun Yirang nianpu 孫詒讓年譜 (Chronicle of Sun Yirang), (Shanghai: Shang wu yin shu guan, Min guo 24, 1992).

34 See: Hu Zhusheng ed.(2003), Ibid., 689, 710-711, 715-717. Throughout Sun Qiangming’s life, he maintained a close relationship with Li and Shen. As Li for example, after the Jinqian hui incident, Sun lost his job and local reputation because of his failure in dealing with the Jinqian hui. When Li took office as the governor general of Jiangsu area 兩江總督 he recruited Sun to serve as the head of the official academy Ziyang academy 紫陽書院. Later on, Li also wrote a personal letter to Fujian-Zhejiang governor general Zuo Zongtang asking a favor from Zuo to help Sun get rid of previous charges leveled by Sun’s archrival, the current Wenzhou Daotai Zhou Kaixi 周開錫. This was possible because Zhou was Fujian Zhejiang governor general Zuo Zongtang’s 左宗棠 right-hand man and son-in-law. After Sun Qiangming died in 1901, the inscription on his tombstone was prepared by Lin Hongzhang’s long termed secretary Miao Quansun 繆荃孫.

84 1864). 35 Moreover, Sun was besieged in Guilin 桂林 by the Taiping rebels for one month from March to April 18 in 1852. 36 Presumably, Sun must have been very alert to the development of local associations and their derivative, the Taiping rebellion. However, based on the memoir he submitted to the grand council in February 1852, what really worried him were the problems caused by the recruited soldiers ( muyong 募勇). Since the

Taiping rebellion was still in its early stage, Sun expressed concerns over whether these recruited soldiers—especially those from Guangdong—were dependable. Based on his observation, these recruited soldiers were carrying out illegal practices such as having secret communication with local bandits, setting up private tax check points to collect money, and looting wherever they went. 37 The Grand Council agreed with Sun’s report and asked Guangxi local officials to be attentive to the problems that Sun had mentioned in his report. Nevertheless, after finishing the examination affairs in Guangxi in 1853,

Sun submitted a request to the Grand Council for a one-month leave so as to visit his family who were still residing in Ruian. The Grand Council approved his petition and granted him a month’s leave. 38

Actually, the reason why Sun asked for leave was not merely because he wanted to visit his Ruian relatives, but also to help get a handle on the socio-economic crises in

Wenzhou that had been worsening since the 1840s. When Sun Qiangming arrived in

35 For a discussion about Hong and the activities of the God Worship Society, see: Jonathan Spence, God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan (New York: Norton, 1996), 110-125.

36 See: Hu Zhusheng ed. (2003), Ibid., 728.

37 Ibid., 6-7.

38 Ibid., 728.

85 Ruian on March 22, 1853, according to his teacher Zhao Jun’s diary, there were three visible threats to residents. Besides Guangdong pirates and the Qu uprising, there was also a group of cult bandits (jiaofei 教匪) occupying Daluo Mountain (Daluo shan 大羅

山)—the border region between Ruian and Yongjia in 1854. 39 Needless to say, these threats reminded Sun Qiangming of his experience in Guangxi, however, what really bothered Sun Qiangming was the mounting threat from local officials’ coercive subscription (lejuan 勒捐) and the need to protect his family from the danger caused by rebellious tenants’ increasing malice toward their landlords. As Zhao Jun had illustrated in his diary, several serious food riots occurred in Wenzhou as a result of the bankruptcy of the state civilian granary system and the failure, since the 1830s, of pingtiao 平糶 (rice price stabilization). 40

The Sun family’s responses to these threats were twofold. They started building a fort called Fort Anyi 安義堡, located in Pandi 潘棣 of Ruian, in response to Xianfeng

Emperor’s edict calling for residents to help officials resist the Taiping rebels. The edict also asked local officials, as well as officials currently in their hometown, to work closely to fulfill his order. 41 Hence, Sun Qiangming made a report to the Grand Council for

39 Zhao Jun, Ibid., 175. May. 27 ,1858

40 Zhao Jun, Ibid. For more on the state civil granary system, see: Pierre- Etienne Will and R. Bin Wong, Nourish the People: The State Civilian Granary System in China, 1650-1850 (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 1991). For a discussion of the bankruptcy and collapse of the granary system and bureaucracy’s failure to alleviate the damages caused by famine, see: Pierre- Etienne Will, Bureaucracy and Famine in Eighteenth century China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990). For a comprehensive discussion on correlations between grain control and the Qing empire, see: R. Bin Wong, China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997).

41 See: Hu Zhusheng ed. (2003), Ibid., 730-731.

86 permission to organize a local militia in the Wenzhou area. His brother Sun Yiyan joined him after leaving the office as Anqing 安慶 magistrate of Anhui 安徽 province in 1859. 42

Even though Sun Qiangming started organizing a local militia as soon as the edict was issued in 1853, other Ruian local elites, such as Zhang Qiankui 張慶葵, remarked that the

Sun brothers didn’t achieve anything until June 1861 when Sun and his colleagues finally established their White Cloth Association to compete with Zhao Qi’s Jinqian righteous militia. 43 Other records kept by Zhao Zhiqian also mentioned that Sun was very interested in local affairs but didn’t make any concrete contribution to local society because Sun was busy with his four concubines. 44

The reported total number of Jinqian righteous militia ranged from 2,000 to

100,000 in the spring of 1861. 45 Nevertheless, the presence of such a surging popular organization headed by a rural, non-official like Zhao Qi provoked further fear and

42 Ibid.

43 See: Zhang Qiankui 張慶葵, “Ruian Dongqu xiangtuan jiaofei ji 瑞安東區鄉團剿匪記” (The Record of the East Ward of Ruian Suppressing the Jinqian Bandit), in Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid, .177. Zhang Qiankui is Zhang Gang 張棡’s father. This article was finished by Zhang Qiankui in 1889 and kept by his son Zhang Gang and not published until 1926.

44 Zhao Zhiqian (1829-1884), Zhangan zashou 章安雜說 (Miscellany of Zhangan), (Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 2002), 4-5. Reference to his concubine problems are based on his nephew, Song shu’s 宋 恕 (1862-1910), record that Sun Qiangming married twice in his early forties roughly from 1857 to 1858. Eventually he married four women and had 11 sons and seven daughters. See: Hu Zhusheng ed. 胡珠生, Song Shu ji 宋恕集 (Collection of Song shu), (Beijing: Zhonghua shu ju, 1993), 328-329.

45 There are several figures reporting the total amount of Jinqian association membership. According to their major rival Ruian Sun family’s report, they claimed that up until 1861 there were over 100,000 people mostly from Ruian and Pingyang joining Zhao’s Jinqian association. However, according to Sun Yiyan and Huang Ti-fang, another record indicates that Zhao mobilized several thousand people marching to Pingyang city in late 1860. Moreover, the members of the Jinqian association who took part in the first armed engagement between these two associations were also different. Huang reported there were four thousand people taking part in this battle, while in Sun Yiyan’s account there are two thousand people. See: Hu Zhusheng edited (2003), Ibid., 733 and Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 92,129, 157.

87 hostility toward this organization among Wenzhou local elites. Prior to the establishment of the White Cloth Association in June 1861, Zhang Qiankui 張慶葵 and his local elite friends who resided in the river villages 河鄉 of eastern Ruian decided around 1858 to organize an association named lianhuan hui 連環會 (chains of rings association). 46 This was partly in response to their rival Cai Hua 蔡華 taking part in Zhao’s Jin Qian hui.

Despite having served as both a capital-level official 京官 and a provincial-level official,

Sun Qiangming’s student, Liu Zhufeng, admitted forty years later in a memorial that the

Sun brothers actually did not have enough local connections and resources to compete with Zhao’s Jinqian hui of Pingyang and Zhang’s lianhuan hui of river villages in

Ruian. 47

Apparently, the Sun brothers could not form their own organization without their local rich relative Zeng Yanqing 曾 燕 卿 ‘s (aka Zeng Hongchang 曾 鴻 昌 ) local connections and financial support. With Zeng’s help the Sun family got connected to several uncommitted but controversial rich local elites such as Yang Peijian 楊配籛,

Zhang Jiazhen 張家珍, Chen Anlan 陳安瀾 and Wen Ziyu 溫子玉, who resided in

Pingyang and Ruian Counties. 48 On June 8, 1861, according to Liu’s account, the Sun

46 Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 177.

47 It could be noted as embarrassing that no one answered Sun Qiangming’s request when he called for an initiative to discuss their possible strategy to compete with the other Wenzhou local elites. See: Hu Zhusheng edited (2003), Ibid., 733 and Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 157-158.

48 Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 157-158. It must be noted that in Ma Yizhong 馬翊中 and Ma Yunlun 馬允倫’s popular history book on Jinqian hui, published in 1963, actually identified these local elites as tyrants in the Wenzhou area. From their interview with Pingyang residents, villagers called Chen Anlan an old exploiter (lao bopi 老剝皮), since he was a ruthless landlord. As for Zhang Jiazhen, in Ma’s interview, he is a local despot (tu hunagdi 土皇帝) in West Ruian County, and was known for his cruel and

88 brothers set up a banquet meeting at the Longshan monastery 隆山寺, located outside

Ruian city, to discuss organizing a local defense committee in response to Zhao’s Jinqian hui. After the meeting, Sun and his landlord cohorts decided to build a local defense committee called zhongyi tuanju 忠義團局 (aka tuanlian zongju 團練總局) in Longshan monastery. 49 As for their recruitment plan:

Every village will have a militia (Tuan 團), people who join our militia will have

a piece of white cloth as a certificate of their membership. Our members are not

allowed to join Zhao’s Jinqian righteous militia. 50

To a certain extent, we can say that Sun Qiangming’s organization looked more like a local landlord alliance. However, as Zhao Zhiqian 趙之謙 (1829-1884) noted in his memoir, the recruitment method of Sun’s Baibu hui was very different from other local militia and quite similar to Zhao Qi’s Jinqian hui, since the people who wanted to join this association had to pay 140 wen of money to be eligible to participate in a blood oath.

After the oath they received their piece of white cloth with an official seal on it. They

ferocious behaviors. Finally, Yang Peijian was especially infamous for being a notorious loan shark in Jiangnan village, located on the other side of Qiancang River in Pingyang County. Of course, we also have to be aware of the hidden political agenda in Ma’s description of these controversial local elites. However, we can still get a picture of the popular interpretation of these local elites in 1860s Wenzhou. See: Ma Yizhong 馬翊中 and Ma Yunlun 馬允倫, Zhenan Jinqian hui qiyi 浙南金錢會起義 ( The Revolt of Jinqian hui of South Zhejiang) (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renming chuban she, 1963), 4, 20-21, 41-46.

49 Huang Tifang, see: Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 92.

50 Ibid.

89 would then have a meal. 51 However, despite Sun also adopting similar methods to recruit members, Zhao noted that Sun and his Baibu hui were not appealing to most of the

Wenzhou population. 52

In order to expand their sphere quickly, Sun Qiangming adopted an aggressive strategy by annexing other local elites’ militia to build a federation instead of developing a single association. Sun did this because competition between Zhao Qi and Sun

Qiangming in the Wenzhou area forced some Ruian local elites to not support either of them and to instead form a third camp to compete with Zhao and Sun. Based on Wu Iqin

吳一勤’s account, in the beginning they decided to form a new association named tongpai hui 銅牌會 (Copper Plate Association) to compete on equal terms with the White

Cloth Association since they were skeptical about Sun. 53 The life of tongpai hui didn’t last long, however. The Ruian local elites, who mainly resided in East Gate 東門, decided to be part of Zhang Qinkui’s lianhuan hui 連環會 of east Ruian County in roughly July of

51 Zhao Zhiqian 趙之謙, Zhangan zashou 章安雜說 (Miscellany of Zhangan), (Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 2002), 4, 14. Based on Zhao’s record, we can get different images of the Sun brothers, since most of the records on the Jinqian hui were composed by either Sun’s friends or students. As a visiting tutor in Ruian from 1861-1863, he didn’t work for Sun brothers.

52 Ibid., 14.

53 According to Zhao Jun’s diary in 1854, despite Sun Qiangming being his favorite pupil, in the essay titled 記勒捐之弊 “The Harm of Coercive Subscription”, he complained about Sun several times. For instance, he accused Sun of having selfish motives when local officials came to Ruian asking for extra tax funds from local residents to cover current military expansion. Not only did Sun use tax-free privileges, but he allotted these taxes to other people who were not friendly to the Sun family. Sun always threatened to report villagers to authorities if they didn’t meet his demands. Zhao continued to complain that every local landowner followed Sun’s example, which caused damage to the local Wenzhou population. See: Zhao Jun, Ibid., 161-163.

90 1861. 54 The Sun brothers became very upset as soon as they learned of this development and claimed that they would report to officials that Zhang’s association was identical to

Zhao’s Jinqian hui. 55 Presumably, these local elites feared prosecution caused by Sun brothers; they were therefore reluctant to join Sun’s White Cloth Association. 56 This is further proof that Sun and his White Cloth Association were not popular within the

Wenzhou local society. As I will show later in this chapter, the main force of the Baibu hui consisted of mercenaries hired from Taizhou 台州, and even worse is that they invited Guangdong pirates, who had been in Wenzhou for years, to fight against Zhao’s

Jinqian hui. Ironically, even the Sun brothers couldn’t protect their own family, and were forced to flee to Ruian city as soon as Jinqian hui members breached their fort.

V. The Duel Between Jinqian hui and Baibu hui (1861-1862):

The first conflict Jinqian hui and Baibu hui erupted on August 2, 1861 in linyang

林垟 village where Chen Anlan built his mansion between Pingyang and Ruian. What precipitated this conflict was a banner Chen erected in front of his residence inscribed

54 Wu Iqin 吳一勤, a local elite holding 廩生 degree (county stipend receiver), lived in liqiao 麗橋 village, the transportation hub between Ruian and Wenzhou city. He built a fort named Zhongyi bao 忠義堡 in liqiao in 1853 and followed Sun’s order to establish a local militia after Sun announced his local militia plan. Being a supporter of Sun Qiangming, Wu tried to explain why Sun needed to adopt an aggressive policy toward other local elites, especially in Ruian County. See: Wu Iqin 吳一勤, shu xunxuezhai Huifei jilue hou 書遜學齋會匪紀略後 (supplements to Sun Yiyan’s Record on Jinqian Bandit), in Ma Yunlun 馬 允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 200-201.

55 See: Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 177. Even Zhang himself didn’t understand why Sun Qiangming wanted to absorb his militia. There were a lot of other militia groups working in Ruian area at that time. After the battle formally started between Jinqian and baibu, Sun really wanted to improve his relationship with Zhang, but Zhang turned Sun down. In his memorial of 1889, Zhang complained about Sun Qiangming. See: Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 175-177.

56 Ibid., 201.

91 with the characters 安勝義團 (The righteous militia of Ansheng). In the eyes of Jinqian hui members led by a linyang villager named Li Zhizong 李子榮, Chen’s behavior was a provocation to their organization. Hence, Li and other villagers went to Chen’s house and destroyed the banner. Similar incidents happened in other villages, such as guoxiang 郭巷.

After this incident, Chen reported to Wenzhou officials and led the arrest of several local people including the linyang village clerk named Zheng Bugao 鄭步高, who was also a

Jinqian hui member. 57

Zhao Qi was extremely upset about this development, and he gathered approximately two thousand members who left from Beishan temple of Qiancang to attack Chen’s house and guoxiang village. They forced Chen to flee to Ruian city on

August 5, 1861. 58 The next day Chen and other homeless linyang residents went to

Wenzhou city to ask for help, but they only received a lukewarm reply from the Wenzhou prefecture-level officials. In order to calm each side, Wen-Chou Daotai Zhixun 志勛 decided to send Yongjia magistrate Gao liangcai 高樑材 to Pingyang to negotiate with

Zhao. 59 After meeting with Zhao, Gao, and Ruian, magistrate Sun Jie 孫杰 advised Chen to accept the agreement they had reached, which included releasing Zheng Bugao from jail, repairing Chen’s damaged property, and returning the valuables that Zhao and his followers looted from Chen’s house. Chen was too vengeful, however, to accept this

57 Huang Tifang, in Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 92.

58 Ibid., 92-93, 129-130.

59 Ibid.

92 offer. 60 It should also be noted that many Wenzhou prefecture-level officials laid the blame on Sun, since the whole incident started with their unpopular Baibu hui banner.

The officials also intended to make this case a casual civil conflict among villagers and keep a nonintervention policy as had been implemented before.

Chen and Sun were dissatisfied with this decision. However, they didn’t have enough local support to compete with Zhao and his popular Jinqian militia. Hence they raised a large amount of money ( four thousand taels) to assemble a joint force to counterattack Zhao’s hometown of Qiancang. The force consisted mainly of Taizhou soldiers 台州勇61 , Guangdong pirates, as well as some local elites led by their colleagues

Wen Hejun 溫和均 and Wen Ziyu, who had been a long time friend of Sun. After this joint force landed in Qiancang on September 20, 1861, Zhao Qi and his neighbors were too surprised to engage with these professional soldiers. However, due to their unfamiliarity with local battlefield conditions the force, headed by Taizhou soldiers, could not take over Qiancang. Thus, they retreated to their boats shortly after. At Any rate, they still demolished several houses including Zhao’s and forced Zhao and his

60 Ibid.

61 According to Xu’s (1987) studies on the Taiwanese Green Standard system in Qing (1683-1895), both Taizhou soldiers 台州勇 and Taiwanese soldiers 臺勇 had worked closely with Zuo Zongtang 左宗棠, particularly against the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. However, as Zuo complained in his memoir, both Taizhou and Taiwan soldiers were very hard to control since they were all mercenaries. They would not fight for Qing if they didn’t get paid. See: Xu Xueji 許雪姬, Qingdai Taiwan de luying 清代台灣的綠營 (Green Standard in Taiwan during Qing), (Zhonghua Minguo Taipei Shi Nan’ gang: Zhong yang yan jiu yuan jin dai shi yan jiu suo, 1987).

93 followers to flee to Pingyang county city to prepare a full-scale revenge against Baibu hui.

62

The Taizhou mercenaries’ assault provoked anger amongst the Jinqian hui members. As soon as the Taizhou mercenaries left Qiancang, the Qiancang residents turned to attack the nearby Wen brothers’ house in leidu 雷瀆 village. After taking leidu village, these Jinqian members concentrated on attacking Sun’s brother’s fort, which was located outside Ruian city, on September 24 th . On that day, there was only Sun Yiyan defending this fort because Sun Qiangming was in Ruian city. After less than one day, the Jinqian hui members captured and looted Sun’s fort, as well as forced the whole Sun family to flee to Ruian city. 63 The Sun family did not receive a warm welcome from their

Ruian neighbors. Rather both Ruian local elites and local officials condemned the Sun brothers and their colleagues for recklessly provoking this unrest. The Sun brothers were excluded from the local defense committee 籌防局, which was charged with handling these crises. 64 Presumably, we can consider this a response by the Ruian local elites to the

62 Ibid. In both Huang and Sun’s account, they mentioned that with the arrival of this joint force Zhao was forced to flee to Beishan temple on the other side of Qiancang town, and was prepared to commit suicide. Zhao didn’t succeed because his followers stopped him.

63 Ibid., 96-97. According to Zhao Zhiqian’s account, three people were killed in Sun’s fort. One of the three was surnamed Lo 羅, who was Sun’s relative, and he happened to visit Sun’s fort on that day. The Jinqian hui members mistook him as Sun Yiyan and stabbed him to death with 24 cuts. Some commented that Sun must have accumulated enough blessing ( 陰德) to have this person replace him and take the knife. However, Zhao’s comment is opposite to the pervious one. He said, “It’s a great pity that Sun’s offspring can’t be law-abiding, and hence send his innocent relatives to death.” See: Zhao, Ibid. 13.

64 Ibid., 98,162-163. In terms of the question regarding how this JU 局 system worked, based on Huang Tifang and Liu Zhufeng’s account, once they learned that the Jinqian hui were getting ready to attack their city, the Ruian city elites immediately came to the magistrate’s office to have a meeting with the magistrate and inform him of their decision. Then they organized their executive committee in the Ruian Confucian temple 學宮 and called for donations of rice and money. Also, according to Liu, the JU system was also divided into three tiers depending on the size of area they were assigned to protect. The three tiers were

94 rumor that Jinqian hui’s next target was Zeng Yanqing 曾燕卿’s house in Ruian city.

This also reflects the decline of Sun brother’s influence in their hometown of Ruian city.

On October 2, 1861, Cai Hua 蔡華, who was a Gongshen degree 貢生 holder living in yutou village 嶼頭 of Ruian county, 65 marched to Wenzhou city with Zhao Qi and killed several controversial officials particularly Xu Xiangxian 許象賢, who was currently in charge of tax collection and subscription ( 捐輸委員) in Wenzhou prefecture.

They also expelled several curial prefectural officials, including top official Wenzhou

Daotai Zhixun 志勛 to nearby Yueqing County. 66 Just as the Ruian city residents had

Main Ju 大局 in the county granary 縣庫, branch ju 子局 in the four corners of Ruian city and small ju 小 局 in every smaller section if needed. The entire system was designed for defensive rather than offensive use. Hence, before the arrival of Qing relief troops, in order to protect their city, they had to hire Taizhou mercenaries or Guangdong pirates to assist them.

65 Cai Hua 蔡華 (1821-1862) was playing a very important part in Zhao’s campaign against Baibu hui. Based on Huang Tifang’s account, Sun still highly admired Cai for his potential and work ethic. Cai Hua and his younger brother Cai Cen 蔡岑 had just passed the county-level exam allowing them to be eligible to receive a stipend from Qing in 1860. As for their family condition, Huang reported that the Cai brothers owned several acres of land and had run a wood shop in association with Zhao Qi in Yutou for a long time. Moreover, Cai also had a long-term feud with a nearby Lin family member, presumably Lin Xingqiao 林星 樵 (aka 林夢楠 Lin Mengnan) who is also the founding member of Baibu hui. Hence, after the escalating conflict between Jinqian and Baibu hui, it’s predictable that Cai helped his long-term friend Zhao Qi to take revenge on Baibu hui members. See: Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 98. After Cai marched to Wenzhou city and killed Xu, his classmates sent him a jointly signed letter to ask him to surrender to the official. From this letter, we can see Cai’s importance as a promising degree holder in the Wenzhou area. See: Ma Yunlun 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 261-263.

66 Ibid., 99, 132. Hung and Sun give us an account of the two top Wenzhou officials’ response after Zhao and Cao marched to Wenzhou city. The Wenzhou Daotai Zhixun was currently having a banquet party with his concubines while Cai and Zhao were attacking Wenzhou city. Meanwhile, the Wenzhou prefecture magistrate Huang Weigao 黃維誥 had gotten reports from Ruian residents saying that Zhao was going to attack Ruian thus he was in Ruian County. Once Zhixun realized that Zhao and Cai had arrived in Wenzhou city. He was too surprised to engage with them. Instead he fled barefooted with his concubines to a small island named jianxin yu 江心嶼 located in the middle of Ou river 甌江 (a famous scenic spot and later the location of the British consul’s office). They continued to flee to Yueqing for about three days. Zhixun was finally reported killed in a sea disaster on his way to Shanghai to ask for more relief troops. His death is also attributed to the Guangdong pirate who was responsible for escorting him to Shanghai. See: 馬 允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 120,137.

95 feared, Zhao and Cai immediately dispatched around two thousand members to the besieged Ruian city. Qing relief troops arrived on December 11, 1861 and stayed until

January the next year, and were led by three generals: Zhang Qixuan 張啟瑄, Qin Ruhu

秦如虎 and Wu Hongyuan 吳鴻源.67 Without help from the Qing relief troops, it would have been almost impossible for the Ruian city residents to defend themselves. During the two months (October 2-December 11, 1861) of siege, and prior to the arrival of the

Qing troops, Ruian city residents relied on hiring Taizhou mercenaries and their former enemy Guangdong pirates to protect them. However, this protection was only temporary.

On November 17, 1861 both the Ruian and Wenzhou city residents exhausted their common funds by having to pay the high rates charged by the Taizhou mercenaries. 68

Once these mercenaries left, it came down to a decisive battle between city residents and the Pingyang Jinqian hui members that lasted from November 27 to roughly December

11, 1861. It’s also noteworthy that, as this battle was going on, the Pingyang local magistrate Zhai Weiben, who still conceived of the Jinqian righteous militia as a

67 Zhang Qixuan was departing from Jinhua 金華 after they were defeated by Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. As for Qin and Wu, they took Zhejiang Fujian governor-general Qin duan’s 慶端 order to Wenzhou area in late 1861. Qin Ruhu was directly from Fuding 福鼎 County in northern Fujian province while Wu Hongyuan just finished suppressing a rebellion led by Dai Caochun in central Taiwan. For more on Qing officials’ military deployment, see: Fang Yujin 方裕謹 ed., Xianfeng shiyi nian Zhejiang Pingyang Jinqian hui an 咸豐十一年浙江平陽金錢會案 (The Grand Council Archrivals on 1861 Zhejiang Pingyang Jinqian hui Case), in Li shi dang an 歷史檔案 (Historical Archival Quarterly ), no.3 (September 1993). This collection is also available in 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 222-246.

68 Actually, both the Taizhou mercenaries and the Guangdong pirates were a double-edged knife for the Ruian and Wenzhou city residents. For instance, after Zhao Qi and Cai Hua besieged Ruian city, the Ruian city elites came to the Wenzhou prefecture magistrate Huang Weigao 黃維誥, who was currently staying in Ruian city, to inform him that they were going to hire Taizhou mercenaries and Guangdong pirates at their own expense as protection against Zhao and Cai. The Huang and Ruian magistrate, Sun Jie, had no choice but to grant this idea. However, from the later development, it becomes quite clear that these Ruian city elites overestimated their financial capacity and apparently underestimated the size of their fast growing defense bill. Once the mercenaries realized they wouldn’t be getting the money that promised to them they withdrew from the battlefield and even kidnapped local officials and elites for ransom. See: 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 100-104, 133-134, 162-165.

96 registered force under his control, sent four messengers to Ruian attempting to persuade them to take the offer and calm down the whole incident. Clearly, these Ruian residents refused the proposal. 69 At any rate, we can still see the last efforts of Pingyang officials to pacify the conflicts between Ruian and Pingyang, the Jinqian hui and Baibu hui, and urban city elites and rural peasants. Moreover, we can see that the existence of Jinqian hui was apparently not considered a problem to local officials. Rather, their major concern was the feud between city elites, headed by the Sun brothers, and the Pingyang local popular organization.

Along with the Qing relief troops marching into Pingyang to dispel the Jinqian righteous militia, Zhao Qi was forced to leave Pingyang in late January 1862. After disappearing for almost one year, Zhao Qi was killed in Yuhuan 玉環 county, close to

Yueqing in 1863. 70 Zhao’s fleeing also symbolized the end of the conflict between the

Jinqian hui and Baibu hui. Qing officials regained control over Wenzhou. In May 1862,

Sun Qiangming was promoted and resumed his career in Beijing, though he still showed great interest in Wenzhou local politics. After the Sun brothers left Wenzhou, the governor general of Fujian Zhejiang at the time, Zuo Zongtang, appointed Zhou Kaixi 周

開錫, who was also his son-in-law, to be the single top official of the Wenzhou area after

69 See: 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 133. In fact, both Zhai and his military commander Wang Xianlung wrote several letters to General Zhang Qixuan asking him to pardon Zhao in exchange for Zhao’s surrender. Zhang agreed on this deal. However, as Wang was escorting Zhao to Ruian to finish this deal, Zhao changed his mind and instead decided to flee to Qingtien.

70 Zhao Qi fled to Qingtien 青田 County before the Qing relief troops, which were led by Qin Ruhu, took over Pingyang in January 1862. His initial plan was to seek help from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in regaining control over Pingyang County. However, there is no proof suggesting the later presence of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was invited by Zhao. See: 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 123,138,167.

97 the Jinqian hui incident. 71 As soon as Zhou took office, he launched a reform on the sale of local salt and in doing so drew Sun’s discontent. Sun Qiangming wrote several letters by way of his famous student Li Hongzhang to Zuo complaining of Zhou’s salt policy.

Not only did Zuo have an interest in allocating more money from the Wenzhou area to support his military, but he also realized the connection between the Sun brothers and

Zhang Jiazhen 張家珍, who had been in the salt trade in Wenzhou since the 1850s. 72

Consequently, Zuo decided to ignore Sun’s complaints. 73 Hence, Sun Qiangming submitted a memorial to the Grand Council in late 1864 chastising Zhou for his salt tax policy in Wenzhou. 74 According to Sun’s account, he claimed that the new salt tax would incite another rebellion in Wenzhou, thus the Grand Council sent Zuo to further investigate the issue.

71 Wenzhou is an important salt production center in southern Zhejiang province. Since pre-Qing China, when there was a long salt monopoly, almost every following dynasty has exacted a tax from the sale of salt. Along with the decline of Qing in the early nineteenth century, there was a lot of un-taxed /illegal salt selling in the Wenzhou area. However, after these private salt stations were destroyed by a local strongman named Zhang Jiazhen in late 1850s, the sale of salt especially in western Wenzhou was gripped by a Zhang. It goes without saying that Zhang’s salt monopoly and cruel personality had culminated in enough resentment to make him a main target during the duel between Jinqian and Baibu hui. At any rate, once Zhang was killed, there were a lot of people showing great interest, including Wenzhou Daotai Zhou Kaixi, in competing for the huge profit behind the salt business in Wenzhou. There is still not much discussion on this issue. For the discussion on the correlations between salt related livelihood problems and peasant uprisings, see: Ralph A. Thaxton, Salt of the Earth: The Political Origins of Peasant Protest and Communist Revolution in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).

72 Actually, Sun Yiyan wrote a biography for Zhang Jiazhen to commemorate his achievements against Jinqian hui. However, even in Sun Yiyan’s fulsome praise for Zhang, he still used wulai 無賴 (rascal) to describe Zhang’s popular image in Wenzhou local society. According to Sun Qiangming’s student Liu Zhufeng’s account, Zhang was described as a coldhearted person, since he publicly drowned his grandson for simply venting his anger about the rising Jinqian hui. See: 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 149-151, and 161.

73 See: Hu Zhusheng edited (2003), Ibid., 737-738.

74 As for the content of this memoir, see: Hu Zhusheng edited (2003), Ibid., 10-11.

98 Zuo’s response to Sun’s accusation was relatively fierce. In his response to the

Grand Council regarding Sun’s accusation, Zuo meticulously defended Zhou’s salt policy and rebutted Sun’s accusations. At the very end of his memoir he said:

I [Zuo] had been thinking over the reasons of why Zhejiang was more seriously

damaged than Fujian. It’s really a result of the official/gentry 官/紳 and solider/

common people 兵/民 all swayed by their greed and selfishness and acting rashly. I

also mentioned a similar thing in my pervious report: (In Zhejiang area) common

people hated soldiers; local gentry hated local officials. As time went by, the feud

among common people lead to xiedou 械鬥 (armed conflict); while the feud among

local gentry lead to party conflicts. 75

Clearly, Zuo implicitly pointed out Sun’s responsibility in stirring up local people against the Qing. Furthermore, Zuo’s version corresponded to his predecessor Qin duan’s 慶端 first report on this Jinqian hui case. 76 After half a month, the grand council accepted

Zuo’s explanation and dismissed Sun from his current position as a punishment for his fabricated charges made in 1864. Sun was forced to go back to Ruian to be an educator

75 Zuo Zongtang (1812-1885), Memoir: reply to Sun’s groundless accusation. (1864.1.12) in Zuo Zongtang, Zuo Zongtang Quanji 左宗棠全集 (collection of Zuo Zongtang), also available in 馬允倫 ed. (2002), Ibid., 248-252.

76 See: Qin Duan’s memoir prepared in 1861, in Fang Yujin 方裕謹 ed., Xianfeng shiyi nian Zhejiang Pingyang Jinqian hui an 咸豐十一年浙江平陽金錢會案 (The Grand Council Archrivals on 1861 Zhejiang Pingyang Jinqian hui case), in Li shi dang an 歷史檔案 (Historical Archival Quarterly ), no.3 (September 1993). This collection is also available in 馬允倫 ed, (2002), Ibid., 222-246.

99 for the rest of his life. In fact, he was no longer considered a decisive political figure in

Wenzhou local politics after he returned to Ruian in 1864.

VI. Conclusion:

The Sun brothers and their Baibu hui took the blame for stirring up this Jinqian hui uprising. As reasons explored above indicate, Sun’s Baibu hui reflected Sun and their colleagues’ anxiety over the threat to their interests from the overwhelmingly popular religion organization Jinqian hui. Consequently, they spontaneously organized an alliance to compete with the Jinqian hui in the local arena. Unlike the Baibu hui’s profound hostility to the Jinqian hui, however, local officials’ attitude and policy towards the

Jinqian hui was friendlier. The officials also emphasized the practical function of the

Jinqian hui in local society. From their report on the Jinqian hui, we can see that they were aware that the Jinqian hui was linked to a “relatively obscure local tradition,” 77 which had existed quite visibly in their district before they took office. This policy also reflects the basic attitude of local officials toward the local religious activities of

Wenzhou residents during the 1850s. Compared to their predecessors, especially during the High Qing period (1662-1795), whose policy had been affected by so-called heterodoxy paranoia, 78 we see that Qing local officials tended to adopt a more tolerant

77 See: Ownby (1996), Ibid., 117.

78 Both Kuhn (1990) and Ownby (1996) have touched on the issue of heterodoxy paranoia by using different religion related cases, especially those occurring during the High Qing period. To a broader extent however, in the study of Chinese religion there has been a lot of scholarship exploring this so-called heterodoxy paranoia issue. The common weakness of this work is that it overestimates the influence of official ideology and orthodoxy in local society. Inspired by Peter Burke’s research on popular culture in early modern Europe, historians created dichotomies between elite/popular culture and orthodoxy/heterodoxy as a way to way to overcome this weakness. This approach favors an official version

100 policy and held a more realistic and feasible attitude toward the political functions of these local religious traditions in order to ensure their ability to govern local society.

of cultural integration in late-Imperial China. See: David Johnson and Evelyn Rawski ed. , Popular Culture in Late Imperial China . (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Kwang-Ching Liu ed. , Orthodoxy in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); and Kwang-Ching Liu and Richard Shek ed., Heterodoxy in Late Imperial China. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004). Since the 1990s, however, some revisionist scholars have been challenging these dichotomies. Some of them undertook research on local religion demonstrating the various local diversities and various forms of resistance, which challenges the notion of cultural integration in late-Imperial China. See: Meir Shahar and Robert Weller, Unruly Gods: Divinity and Society in China (Honolulu: Hawaii University Press, 1996). Meanwhile, based on his meticulous document research, Barend Ter Haar developed a new methodology in his research, which clearly distinguishes the “stereotype” and “label” from the official dominant document and thereby modifying our earlier oversimplified understanding of the White lotus teaching 白蓮教 in Chinese religious history . See: Barend Ter Haar, The White Lotus Teaching in Chinese Religious History . (Leiden; New York: E. J. Brill, 1992).

101 Chapter 3:

Wenzhou and Christian Impact: Harbinger of a New Political Order (1870-1900)

I. A French Missionary’s Letter:

In his personal correspondence with the Paris church, French missionary Cyprien

Aroud (Chinese name Feng Liehong 馮烈鴻) (1879-1940), the first appointed bishop for the newly established Wenchu Jiaoqu 溫處教區 (Wenzhou-Chuzhou parish), recalled the background of the first Wenzhou local converts who had been recruited in the early

1870s. The correspondence was published in the Ningbo parish newsletter in 1926. 1

Aroud wrote:

The first Catholics in Chakeng Church 茶坑, as well as those from Guxi 菇溪,

Wenzhou 溫州, Ruian 瑞安, Yueqing 樂清 and Chuzhou 處州, were all believers

1 In order to get more closely related to Chinese people, almost every foreign missionary took a Chinese name. According to the current Wenzhou bishop Father Zhu Weifang 朱維方 (1926- ), Cyprien Aroud (1876-1940) was a French missionary who served as a bishop in Wenzhou from 1900 to 1928 when he returned to France because of his chronic eye disease. During his twenty-eight-year tenure, Feng also published a great deal of correspondence, especially with his older brother and the church, which was published in the Annual of Congregation of Priests of the Mission in Paris and Ningbo Jiaoqu Jianxun 寧 波教區簡訊 ( Ningbo Parish Newsletter). Most of his writing was translated into Chinese by a Wenzhou Chinese priest named Fang Zhigang 方志剛. Father Feng played an important role in Wenzhou local charity work and thus enjoyed a high reputation during his tenure there. In addition to flood relief and medical aid, Father Feng worked with Wenzhou local officials and local elites to prevent a Fujian warlord from fighting with a Zhejiang warlord in Wenzhou in 1924. For the biography of Father Feng Liehong, See: Zhu Weifang, 溫州天主教簡史 A Brief History of Wenzhou Catholic Church (Wenzhou: Tianzhujiao Wenzhou Jiaoqu, 2006), 13-15. As for his charity efforts, see: Zheng Jiefeng 鄭頡豐, “Wenzhou Tianzhu jiaohui san da shanshi 溫州天主教三大善事” in Lucheng Wenshi Ziliao 鹿城文史資料 3, (1988):123-126.

102 of the White Lotus Teaching 白蓮教.2 In order to escape from Qing officials’

repression and to seek protection from our Church, they embraced

Catholicism. … Most of them left our Church very soon thereafter and returned to

their old ways (laolu 老路). Very few of them firmly persisted in their Catholic

belief and remained loyal to their belief until they died. 3

Apparently, the first Wenzhou Catholics came from a local sect, the White Lotus

Teaching, which had been prohibited and thus stigmatized by several dynasties for centuries. Moreover, the motive for their “conversion” was to gain political power against

Qing local officials and to secure their cult, rather than to gain any measure of spiritual enlightenment from this treaty-empowered foreign religion. In the eyes of the foreign missionaries the suffering of the White Lotus believers was similar to that of early

Catholic martyrs and thus the members of the White Lotus were understood as being

2 The development of the White Lotus Teaching and the process of how officials labeled them as an evil cult created a “stereotype” for our understanding of this teaching. At the end of his book, Ter Haar discusses a collective fear that happened in the lower Yangtze delta, allegedly related to the White Lotus Teachings. See: Barend Ter Haar, The White Lotus Teachings in Chinese Religious History (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999), 263-281.

3 See: Fang Zhigang 方志剛 trans., “The Record of Shi Hong-ao Execution ( 施鴻鰲事件始末)” in Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 溫州文史資料 vol. 9 (March 1994): 216-225. Fang is a priest who played a very active role in reorganizing the Wenzhou Catholic church after 1950. Under the slogan of the Chinese Catholic Three Patriotic Movement 天主教三自運動 (self autonomy 自治, self support 自養, self preaching 自傳), which clearly echoed the rhetoric of the CCP’s anti-imperialism in 1950 , Wenzhou Catholics decided to sever their ties with the Pope and to build their own independent church. For a discussion of the Catholic patriotic movement, see: Xing Fuzeng 邢福增 and Liang Jialing 梁家麟, Wushi niandai sanzi yundong de yanjiu 五十年代三自運動的研究 (The Three Patriotic Movement in the1950s), (Hong Kong: Jiandao shen xue ji du jiao yu Zhongguo wenhua yanjiu zhongxin, 1996). For a discussion on what happened in Wenzhou, see: Mo Fayou 莫法有, 溫州基督教史 (A History of Christianity in Wenzhou ), (Hong Kong: Jiandao shen xue ji du jiao yu Zhongguo wenhua yanjiu zhongxin, 1998), especially chapters 6-8. Since Catholics worked closely with the CCP in Wenzhou, there had been a so-called Wenzhou mode 溫州模式 to explain the question of why both Catholics and Christians were so vibrant under the CCP regime.

103 under religious persecution. 4 Clearly this was a strong sentiment as we can see from

Father Aroud’s observation, which occurred almost a half-century later. Less clear, however, is why, given the protection offered to them by the Catholic Church, so many of the first Catholic converts nonetheless returned to their “old ways.”

The name White Lotus Teaching was the general name Father Aroud used for the local teachings found in the vicinity of his parish including the Teaching of Non-Action

(Wuwei Jiao 無為教, aka Luo Jiao 羅教), the Laoguan Vegetarian cult (Laoguan

Zhaijiao 老官齋教), the Teaching of Heavenly Reason (Tianli Jiao 天理教), and the

Great Way of Former Heaven (Xiantian jiao 先天教,aka Xiantian dao 先天道). 5 These various local teachings existed in Wenzhou local society long before Catholic missionaries arrived in the Wenzhou area in the late 1860s. In fact, these various local religious groups had great social power despite the fact that they had been declared evil cults by local officials and were politically marginalized in Wenzhou for centuries. Yet, even before the arrival of Catholicism in the mid-nineteenth century, these local cults had managed to resist official persecution and were able to thrive in the local arena for

4 See: J.J.M. De Groot, Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in China vol.2 (Amsterdam: Johannes Muller, 1903).

5 Ibid. For further information about these local teachings, the most comprehensive studies so far have been done by Ma Xisha and Han Bingfang. See: Ma Xisha 馬西沙 and Han Bingfang 韓秉方, Zhongguo Mingjian Zongjiao shi 中國民間宗教史 (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 1992). In addition to Ma and Han, some young Taiwanese scholars have also published many works about popular religion in late Imperial China, especially on the vegetarian cult tradition in China and Taiwan. See: Dai, Xuanzhi 戴 玄之, Zhongguo Mimi Zongjiao yu mimi huishe 中國秘密宗教與秘密會社(The Studies of Chinese Secret Religion and Secret Societies), (Taipei: Taiwan Shangwu yinshuguang, 1990); Jiang Canteng 江燦騰 and Wang Jianchuan 王見川 ed., The History and further perspectives of Taiwan Vegetarian cult 台灣齋教的 歷史觀察與展望, (Taipei: Xinwenfeng Chubanshe, 1994); and Wang Jianchuan 王見川 and Jiang Zhushan 蔣竹山 ed., Ming Qing yilai mingjian zongjiao de tansuo 明清以來民間宗教的探索 (The Studies of Popular Religion Since the Ming and Qing Period), (Taipei: Shangding wenhua chubanshe, 1996).

104 centuries. Still, there influence was limited. Even though they were powerful in Wenzhou local society, it would have been unthinkable for them to be an acknowledged political power. Thirty years later, the situation was reversed. This chapter focuses on the surprising role the Catholic missionaries and local converts played in transforming the

Wenzhou political landscape. Ironically, by aiding this marginal cult in achieving a new kind of quasi-official status, the Catholic Church helped bring about a new social and political context in which the cult no longer needed protection from organizations like the

Catholic Church.

In order to understand this process, two key questions need to be addressed. First, were these local cult followers aware of the political benefits that came with their conversion to the Catholic Church and if so, why did they still choose to leave the church shortly after conversion? Secondly, did they realize that leaving the church also meant they would lose the protective umbrella provided by the semi-official Wenzhou Catholic

Church? To answer these questions I will examine the relationship between these local converts and the Catholic Church in late-nineteenth century Wenzhou. This examination will reveal that there was a significant reconfiguration of local politics during this time.

The history of this transformation can be seen in three episodes of conflict (Jiaoan

教案) between foreign religions and the Wenzhou community between 1876 and 1900.

Past studies of Jiaoan have highlighted the cultural collision that occurred between China and the West after the Qing lifted its ban in 1845 on Catholicism and Protestantism and

105 allowed missionaries to enter and preach in the Chinese countryside. 6 From 1845 to 1900, depending on various definitions of these conflicts, the total number of Jiaoan ranges from 344 to 811 incidents. 7 Early leading scholars in this field, especially Cohen (1963) and Lu (1966), used the concept of “anti-foreignism” to describe the motives behind these local collective actions. 8 However, later revisionist scholarship undertaken by

Esherick (1987) and Cohen himself (1997), turned to an explanation based more on social and local history. 9 However, their research still focuses heavily on the East-West

6 For details of this policy change, see: Cheng Zongyu 程宗裕 ed., 教案奏議彙編 ( The collection of official report on Jiaoan ), (Shanghai: Shanghai shu ju, Guangxu xin chou, 1901), 15-16.

7 There are a number of statistical data that are available for our understanding of Jiaoan. As early as Wu Shende’s 吳盛德 studies, 354 jiaoan are mentioned in the archives he found. See: Wu Shende, Jiaoan shiliao bianmu 教案史料編目 (The Archival Category of Late Qing Jiaoan), (Beiping: Yanjing da xue zong jiao xue yuan shu ji shi, Min guo 30 [1941]). However, based on the statistical studies of jiaowu jiaoan dang 教務教案檔 edited by the institute of Modern History of Academia Sinica, Taiwanese Scholar Chen Yinkun 陳銀昆 (1991) estimated that 811 Jiaoan happened in China between 1860 and 1900. See: Chen Yinkun, 清季民教衝突的量化分析 (1860-1899) The Statistic Studies of Late Qing Jiaoan (1860- 1899) , (Taipei: Taiwan Shangwu yinshuguang, 1991). For the sources employed by Chen, see: Lu Shiqiang 呂實強 and Zhang Qiuwen 張秋雯 ed., jiaowu jiaoan dang 教務教案檔, vol. 1-7 (Taipei: Zhong yang yan jiu yuan jin dai shi yan jiu suo, Min guo 63- [1974- ]). The most recent statistical data analysis was done by the Chinese scholar Su Ping 蘇萍. Based on the cases she collected from another important collection of the late-Qing Jiaoan, edited by Fujian Normal University, the number she obtained was 344. See: Su Ping 蘇萍, Jindai Yaoyan yu Jiaoan 近代謠言與教案 (The Rumor and Jiaoan in Modern China), (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 1998). For the archival collection Su employed for her studies, see: The First Archival Museum and Fujian Normal University, Department of History, Qingmo Jiaoan 清末教案, vol. 1-4 (Late-Qing Jiaoan), (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1996-2000).

8 For these early explanations, see: Lu Shiqiang 呂實強 , Zhongguo guanshen fanjiao yuanyin, 1860-1874 , 中國官紳反教原因, 1860-1874 (The Origin and Cause of the Anti-Christian Movement by Chinese Officials and Gentry, 1860-1874), (Taipei Shi: Nangang : Zhong yang yan jiu yuan qin dai shi yan jiu suo, Min guo 55 [1966]) and Paul Cohen, China and Christianity: The Missionary Movement and the Growth of Chinese Antiforeignism, 1860-1870 (Cambridge M.A.: Harvard University Press, 1963).

9 See: Joseph Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); Nicole Constable, Christian Souls and Chinese Spirits: A Hakka Community in Hong Kong (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Daniel Bays ed., Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996); and Paul Cohen, History in Three Keys: The Boxer as Event, Experience and Myth (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997). In addition to the social history approach to these Jiaoan , recent developments in this field have turned to a more local history perspective on this specific historical phenomenon. See: Alan Richard Sweeten, Christianity in Rural China: Conflict and Accommodation in Jiangxi Province, 1860-1900 (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2001); Ryan Dunch, Fuzhou Protestants and the Making of a Modern China (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001); Joseph Tse-Hei Lee, The Bible and the Gun:

106 “cultural collision” in local arenas, rather than on the local political changes triggered by these two foreign religions. In this chapter I aim to explore the implications of the Jiaoan by looking at the reconfiguration of local politics.

II. The Marginalized Status of the Vegetarian Cult in Late Imperial Wenzhou:

The kinds of local religious groups that Father Aroud identified as White Lotus

Teachings can be traced back in the region’s history to the Sung dynasty (960-1127 A.D.).

As early as 1114, Northern Song local officials had been alerted to the rapid development of the Wenzhou and Taizhou vegetarian cults. Although they promulgated several orders to curb the spread of this cult, 10 their prohibition efforts did not work as well as expected.

The cult, which was labeled as shicai shimo 食菜事魔, did not catch the Sung court official’s attention until the outbreak of the Fang La 方臘 rebellion (1120-1121). During this rebellion, a group of Taizhou and Wenzhou vegetarian cult followers, led by their leader Lu Shinang 呂師囊 from the mountainous Xianju 仙居 area of Taizhou along with a local called Duke of Chen Shisi 陳十四公, responded to Fang’s action and marched to the Taizhou and Wenzhou area. 11 The court’s response to this event reveals

Christianity in South China, 1860-1900 (New York & London: Routledge, 2003); Eric Reinders, Borrowed Gods and Foreign Bodies: Christian Missionaries Imagine Chinese Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004); and Eugenio Menegon , Ancestor, Virgins, and Friars: Christianity as Local Religion in Late imperial China (Cambridge M.A.: Harvard Asian Center, 2010).

10 Xu Song 徐松 (1781-1848) ed., Song hui yao ji gao 宋會要輯稿, (Beijing: Zhonghua shu Ju: Xin hua shu dian zong jing shou, 1957), 刑法 61.

11 For the Fang La rebellion, see: Fang Shao 方勺, Bozhai bian 泊宅篇 ( Beijing: Zhong hua shu ju: Xin hua shu dian Beijing faxing suo, 1983), 98-101, 107-114. For the Fang La rebellion, see: Kao Yu-kung 高 友工, “A Study of the Fang La 方臘 Rebellion,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies vol. 24, (1962-1963): 17-63.

107 the central government’s fear of popular religious organizations and its great frustration with their seemingly ineffective local officials.

As we can see in the following 1131 edict issued by the Southern Sung Court, the emperor severely condemned Wenzhou and Taizhou local officials for their neglect of the local cults called shicai shimo 食菜事魔 (eating vegetables and serving devils) found in their district:

As early as the 宣和 (1119-1125) period, many Wenzhou and Taizhou residents

had been reported as practicing a yaofa 妖法 (evil teaching) called shicai shimo

食菜事魔 (eating vegetables and serving devils). They captivated the minds of

local residents and drove them to occupy our cities. Hence, we had to dispatch

troops to suppress their rebellions. Despite our prior ban of this evil teaching, our

local officials did not enforce this ban strictly. Recently, I found out that some

survivors of these evil teaching followers had changed their original name to

resume their activities. They formed different organizations such as she 社

(society) and hui 會 (association) in Taizhou and Wenzhou area. Among these

illegal organizations reported in the local arena, the most notorious one was an

organization known as Baiyi lifo hui 白衣禮佛會 (The White Cloth Buddha

Worship Association). Also, there was a group of people claiming themselves as

tienbing 天兵 (heaven’s soldiers) and hence formed an association known as

108 yingshen hui 迎神會. There were up to several hundred to several thousand

followers who attended their gathering. They always gathered at night and

dispersed at dawn to spread their evil teaching. The Wenzhou and Taizhou

officials just sat back and did nothing. 12

Such blanket condemnations of the cult traditions and local officials created a lasting legacy of a rebellious and criminalized image of this vegetarian cult tradition. 13 With the

12 Xu Song 徐松, Ibid., 刑法志 112, 紹興年間（ 1131-1162 ）.

13 As for the formation of the criminalized images of vegetarian cult, the earliest record is from a local literati’s miscellaneous notice. In Zhuang Jiyu’s record he indicated “there was a secret society of Manichean inspiration known as the Demon Worshippers in Fukien [Fujian] that spread rapidly to the prefecture of Wen-chou [Wenzhou] and along the coast of Southern Chekiang [Zhejiang] as far as the Yangtze. The sect, directed by an individual known as the Demon King 魔王 with the aid of two assessors called the Demon Father 魔翁 and Demon Mother 魔母, practiced a kind of communism of ownership. New adepts were given free lodging and food, but they had to swear terrible oaths not to reveal the names of their associates and not to violate the interdicts of their sect. Contrary to the actual practice of Buddhism, the prohibition against meat and alcohol were strictly observed, and the violation of this entailed the confiscation of the property of the guilty person.” See: Zhuang Jiyu 莊季裕, Ji le bian 雞肋篇 (useless record), (Shanghai: Shang wu yin shu guan, Min guo 28 [1939]). Over the past several decades, a number of studies have followed Zhuang’s judgmental observation, furthermore, they assume that this vegetarian demon worshipper cult was inspired by a foreign imported religion: Moni jiao 摩尼教 (Manichaeism), largely because the Chinese word for a demon is “mo” 魔 which has the same sound as the “mo 摩” in “Mo-ni 摩尼”. Hence, the stigma of both the vegetarian cult and Manichaeism had been influential in China for centuries. Moreover, this stereotype did not become extinct until the early-twentieth-century Chinese historian Chen Yuan 陳垣 suggested that this thousand-year long assumption might have been a derogatory pun on the founder of Manichaeism whose name is Mani and in Chinese is translated as Mo-ni. Moreover, the contemporaneous historian Wu Han 吳晗 (1941) also confirmed the connection between Manichaeism and later Ming jiao 明教 (light sect), hence, the vegetarian cult had nothing to do with Manichaeism. See: Chen Yuan 陳垣 (1880-1971), “M-ni-jiao ru Zhong guo kao 摩尼教入中國考” (The Diffusion of Manichaeism in China), in Chen Yuan, Ming ji Dian Qian Fo jiao kao: Wai zong jiao shi lun zhu ba zhong 明季滇黔佛教考：外宗教史論著八種 (Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiao yu chu ban she, 2000), 141-210 and Wu Han 吳晗, “Ming jiao yu da Ming diguo 明教與大明帝國”(The Correlation Between the Light Sect and Ming Empire), in his Wu Han shixue lun zhu xuan ji 吳晗史學論著選集 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1984-1988 ), 382-418. Based on Chen and Wu’s pioneering studies on the history of Manichaeism in China, later generation scholars, especially Lieu (1979) and Wang (1991), confirmed the fact that we can no longer directly attach Manichaeism and its later form --- Ming jiao (light sect) to these vegetarian demon worshippers. Furthermore, they also argued that these so-called vegetarian demon worshippers were part of concurrent Buddhism heterodoxy groups prevailing especially in southern China, such as Jingang chan (Diamond Dhyana 金剛禪), Baifo hui (White Buddha association 白佛會), or Er huizi 二禬子 (People of two knots). After scrutinizing the lists of class texts found in an official report, in contrast to Zhuang Jiyu’s 莊季裕 hearsay report, Lieu and Wang suggested that the classic text, which had

109 exception of the Yuan Dynasty, which adopted a relatively loose policy toward local religious organizations, all subsequent dynasties adopted a heavy-handed policy in prosecuting the Vegetarian Cult. Despite the fact that this cult tradition had been flourishing in the local arena for centuries, it was never recognized as a legal teaching.

For what reasons did these different dynasties continue to criminalize this local cult?

We may find some help with this question in the work of historian Samuel Lieu (1998), who, in a comparison of the Roman and Chinese Empire policy toward Manichaeism, concluded as follows:

The fears of the Confucians for Vegetarian Demon Worshippers remind us more

of pagan attitudes towards the Christians than of Christian polemics against

Manichaeism. The Manichaeism in China, like the Christians of pagan Rome,

were not persecuted for the theological contents of their belief but for its legal and

social implications. 14

To a great extent, such “legal and social implications” were derived from the “life style” of the Vegetarian Cult followers, rather than the content of their beliefs. Their

been used by these so-called vegetarian demon worshippers, was not relevant to Manichaeism at all but has a clear connection to the local heterodox Buddhist groups, which had long prevailed in southern China at least from the sixth century. See: Samuel N. C. Lieu, Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire and Medieval China . (Tubingen: Mohr. 1992) and Manichaeism in Central Asia and China (New York; Leiden: Brill, 1998) and Wang Jianchuan 王見 川, Cong Monijiao dao Mingjiao 從摩尼 教到 明教 (From Manichaeism to Ming Religion), (Taipei: Xinwenfeng chuban gongsi, 1991).

14 Samuel N. C. Lieu (1998), Ibid., 168.

110 controversial life style, which included vegetarianism (chizhai 吃齋), gathering at night and dispersing at dawn (ye ju xiao san 夜聚曉散), and men and women intermingling indiscriminately (nan nu za chu 男女雜處) was considered to be in violation of orthodox ethical codes. Officials at the local and imperial level considered these practices a threat and a form of resistance to Confucian norms. Moreover, stereotypes of the cult, which often included images of demons (mo 魔), induced fear among officials that the cult would spread its influence among villagers throughout rural society. 15 Eventually, many members of the local community came to view this cult as a group of people whose interests lay outside of the empire system.

However, the group’s socially marginalized status did not render it powerless or invisible in the local arena. It turns out that this marginalized vegetarian cult was able to form a communal level of political power that lay outside the empire system in Taizhou and Wenzhou by the late twelfth century. A Southern Song Zhejiang local official indicated this development in his 1193 report:

Over the years, there has been a group of so-called daomin 道民 (Way followers)

living in the southeastern part of Zhejiang Province (Taizhou and Wenzhou

prefecture). They belong to the category of vegetarian demon worshipper.

Although they are ostensibly in conjunction with Buddhism and Taoism to

conceal them from popular criticism, in fact, they belong to neither the categories

15 For the role of rumor and fear in Chinese religious history, see: Barend Ter Haar, Telling Stories: Witchcraft and Scapegoating in Chinese History (Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2006).

111 of Buddhism monks and Taoism priests nor of the unlicensed initiate ( tongxing 童

行). Moreover, they have declared themselves independent from our registered

household (bianhu 編戶) system and to be another group of people. Despite the

lewd and filthy behavior they exhibit, which is far beyond an ordinary person’s

imagination, they still strictly obey their sect discipline consisting of celibacy and

a vegetarian diet. 16

As this local official clearly indicated, the vegetarian cult in his district did not belong to any officially recognized religious system. Moreover, the cult followers not only separated themselves from Song officials’ control, but also formed their own identity and community in local society.

How was it possible for these cult followers to create such an isolated community?

How were they able to sustain themselves without working within the empire? Some answers to these questions come from the same official, who continued in his report:

This group of daomin had a great interest in running businesses to make profit.

They considered building shrines and temples, or repairing local bridges as the

way they practiced their teaching. The leaders of this cult were found in every

village and hamlet. These cult leaders just acted like ordinary persons; however,

they organized different kinds of cult gatherings such as burning incense

(shaoxiang 燒香), lighting lanterns (randeng 燃燈), serving vegetarian banquets

16 Xu Song 徐松 (1781-1848) ed., 刑法 130.

112 (shezhai 設齋 ), and classic chartings (songjing 誦經 ). The number of their

participants ranged from several hundred to several thousand; in most gatherings,

they got together and dispersed quickly ( 倏聚倏散). 17

It thus seems that some of the Daomin were merchants rather than peasants. Moreover, their religious practices encouraged them to be actively involved with the secular world.

We should notice that, even from this hostile official’s report, these vegetarian cult followers were not harmful at all but, in fact, were somewhat helpful to their community.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that they were beneficial.

Yet, the growth of this vegetarian cult and their communal associations still worried local officials who warily watched as the cult became an important player in local politics in the Wenzhou and Taizhou areas despite having been labeled an “evil cult” by previous Southern Song officials. As this official continued in his report, pointing to the way the cult challenged Song authority:

They [Daomin] had fabricated different types of fundraisings to support local

infrastructure initiatives. In fact, they created various reasons to collect alms to

levy common people’s money. They also bullied innocent people, thus

tyrannizing over their villagers. Whenever there was a lawsuit against them, in

order to ensure that they win, they raised common funds to bribe the local clerks.

Also, whenever there was a local infrastructure project to be built in their village,

17 Ibid.

113 they privately helped each other to raise funds to achieve it. The network they

built went beyond their hometown and expanded across counties and prefectures.

Every worker and artisan who was involved with this infrastructure, as well as

miscellaneous items and the food supply, came from their cult organization. 18

Thus, it would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that this vegetarian cult had permeated local governance and even enjoyed a high reputation in local society. Perhaps for this reason Southern Song officials and those of subsequent dynasties could not do much more than reiterate their anxieties about this cult in their written reports, as proof of their vigilant governance, since these cult followers did not directly collide with their authority. What really worried this official were the unknown aspects, especially the potential for rebellion by this group. Thus, at the end of his Daomin report, the official only recommended that his supervisor forbid this cult from using the title “ Daomin ” to recruit people, instead of launching a heavy handed suppression, as had been attempted previously.

This official’s recommendation reveals two important trends in relations between the cult and central authorities in late imperial China. First, as long as the cult followers did not have any overt impact on official authority, the officials would tolerate their existence. In fact, from the late twelfth century to the eve of Shi Hong-ao execution in

1876, a period of eight hundred years, there were only three heavy-handed suppressions

18 Ibid.

114 targeting the Wenzhou and Taizhou vegetarian cults.19 During most of this long span of time, the cult and local officials generally coexisted peacefully in Wenzhou local society.

The second important trend to note is that even though this cult and its followers participated in local politics, they still were not able to free themselves from the demonized stereotypes that officials continued to disseminate through the mid-Qing. In fact, even though these officials came to understand that this vegetarian cult was a part of local religious traditions in Taizhou and Wenzhou, they remained reluctant to legally recognize the cult as a religion. This marginalized position did not change drastically until the arrival of Catholicism in late 1860s.

19 After discussing the evolution of Wenzhou vegetarian cults since the Sung dynasty, the following Yuan 元 dynasty (1271-1368) did not launch any prompt heavy-handed suppression of the vegetarian cults prevailing in Wenzhou. The Ming dynasty suppression of this local vegetarian cult tradition did not take place in Wenzhou until the early Ming 明 dynasty, launched by a Zhejiang provincial inspector 浙江提刑 按察使 Xiong Ding 熊鼎 (?-1375), as Song Lien 宋濂(1310-1381) wrote: “There was a xieshi 邪師 (evil teaching) called Da Ming jiao 大明教 (Great Light Sect). They built a very luxuriously decorated temple in Wenzhou. The jobless Wenzhou residents all went to join this teaching. Thus, Xiong sent a report to the Ming court asking it to destroy this cult for two reasons. First of all, Xiong considered this teaching to be part of the Wenzhou residents’ ignorant and blind customs. Secondly, he thought the name of Da Ming Jiao defied the Ming dynasty. Hence, the official confiscated their property and dispersed them to be farmers”. See: Song Lien (1310-1381), “Qi ningwei jingli Xiong Fujung Muzhiming 岐寧衛經歷熊府君墓誌銘 (General Gentleman Xiong Ding’s epitaph)” in Song Xueshi ji 宋學士集 vol. 19 (Anthology of Song Lien). This article was also collected by Sun Yiyan 孫衣言 in a book titled 甌海軼聞. See: Sun Yiyan, Ou hai yiwen 甌海軼聞 (Local History of Ou hai), (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chuban she, 2005), 1214-1215. The other suppression happened during the Qing Yongzheng reign when, according two Wenzhou local official reports, they cracked down on the cult organization allegedly led by a Wenzhou resident named Fan Zisheng 范子盛. Based on this local official’s report, there were over 5,000 followers led by Fan in Wenzhou prefecture. This case ended up with the execution of the cult leader Fan Zisheng. See: Chen Ruizan ed. 陳瑞贊, Dongou yishi huilu 東甌逸事匯錄 (The Collection of Wenzhou Local History), (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chubanshe, 2006), 145-146. In this case, it must be noted that the Qing official had been aware of the potential threat caused by this vegetarian cult, since they had been reported in several south provinces including Zhejiang, Fujian, and Jiangxi. The next suppression of vegetarian cults started with a rebellion allegedly led by Fujian vegetarian cult followers in 1748. This rebellion drew Qing official’s attention to the development of Laoguan Zhaijiao 老官齋教 (Laoguan vegetarian cult). After the suppression, the Wenzhou officials started a series of prosecutions against the local vegetarian cult. See: Ma Xisha 馬西沙 and Han Bingfang 韓秉方 ( 1992), Ibid., 354-368.

115 Before turning to that transition, however, we must first ask: In addition to their active participation with local charity initiatives, what was the most important dynamic that sustained this cult in Wenzhou for several centuries in the face of official stereotyping and legal proscription? To answer this question, C. K. Yang (1961) has offered the following assessment of popular religious sects, noting:

Whatever its content, the salvational proposition was the core of the popular

religion movement that rose in answer to a crisis and developed into a political

opposition under certain circumstances. The basic claim of the sects was their

ability to bring universal deliverance to tortured humanity. 20

Indeed, much as Yang’s observations might suggest, we find that the activities of these sects, including the Wenzhou vegetarian cult, responded swiftly to current events. This is true especially in the case of the livelihood crises, which emerged in the wake of the weakening Qing dynasty beginning in the 1840s in response to internal strains and external challenges. By the mid-nineteenth century the vegetarian cult had become so active as to attract Qing officials’ serious attention.

One official who became newly concerned with the vegetarian cult was the Fujian

Zhejiang Governor General Zuo Zongtang 左宗棠, who led a campaign to suppress an

20 See: C. K. Yang, Religion in Chinese Society: A Studies of Contemporary Social Functions of Religion and Some of their historical factors . (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961), 231. For discussion by western scholars on the traditions of these sects, see: Daniel Overmyer, Folk Buddhist Religion: Dissenting Sects in Late Traditional China (M.A., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976); Hubert Seiwert in collaboration with Ma Xisha, Popular Religious Movement and Heterodox Sects in Chinese History (Leiden: Brill, 2003); and Kwang-Ching Liu and Richard Shek, Heterodoxy in Late Imperial China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004).

116 uprising led by Fujian vegetarian cult followers. Zuo’s report to the Grand Council dated on June 20, 1866, reveals his awareness of the historical importance of the cult and the dangers, from the viewpoint of central authorities, of its most recent manifestations:

The vegetarian cult 齋教 is an evil cult called “eating vegetable and serving

demon” 食 菜 事 魔 that began in the Sung dynasty. This cult started with

abstaining from killing and freeing captured animals. By doing so, it was believed

among these followers that they could eliminate calamity and ward off evils.

Hence, our ignorant commoners were easily converted to this evil cult because of

the influence of the huofu zhishuo 禍福之說 (idea of calamity and good fortune).

Along with the growth of this vegetarian cult, it also turned out that they were

plotting a rebellion to slay our officials and occupy our cities. Once they launched

a rebellion, there were echoes from their believers everywhere. After we

suppressed their rebellion, to my great surprise, the detainees firmly refused to

reveal to us any secrets about their cult. 21

Zuo was just one of many Qing officials who resumed government suppression of the cult, beginning in the 1860s, largely out of recognition of a connection between mid- century rebellions and vegetarian bandit (zhaifei 齋匪) organizations. However, in the long run, government successes and failures in controlling cult organizations would be shaped by the two new foreign religions that were beginning to establish a presence in the

21 Ma (1991), Ibid.

117 region and which would permanently alter the relationship between Confucian officials and this cult.

III. The Catholic Impacts on the “Martyrdom” of Shi Hongao Execution in 1876:

Although the Qing court lifted the national ban on Catholicism in 1845 the first

Catholic missionary did not arrive in Wenzhou prefecture until 1867. It should be noted that in Zhejiang province as a whole, the first Catholic Church was built in Ningbo as early as 1850. This was followed by a southward movement along the coastline to

Taizhou 台州 prefecture, with the first Church being built in Zhaqiao 柵橋 of Huangyan

黃岩 county in Taizhou in 1865. Further southward movement to Wenzhou resulted in the first branch (actually a gathering place) in Liqiao 里橋 village in Yueqing 樂清

County in northern Wenzhou prefecture, close to Taizhou, in 1867. 22 By 1865, there was a group of local vegetarian cult followers in contact with this new foreign religion.

It is clear that cult members sought contact with the church at moments of vulnerability brought about by the new wave of government suppression. For example, when the French Catholic missionaries stepped into Taizhou prefecture in 1865, a

Taizhou silk merchant named Wang Xiande 王先德, who was also the leader of local

22 See: Zhu (2006), ibid, pp. 1-3. A more detailed version of this development can be found in: Guo Mutian 郭慕天, Zhejiang Tianzhujiao 浙江天主教 (The History of Zhejiang Catholicism), (Hangzhou: Zhejiang sheng Zongjiao zhi bianjibu, 1998). , Guo’s book was a reprint of an early collection done by the Zhejiang provincial government in 1993. See: 浙江省宗教志編輯部 Zhejiang sheng Zongjiao zhi bianjibu, Zhejiang Sheng Zongjiao zhi Ziliao Huibian 浙江省宗教志, 資料彙編 （一）, (Hangzhou: Zhejiang Sheng Zongjiao zhi bianjibu, 1993).

118 Wuwei jiao 無為教 (Non-Action teaching) followers, attempted to seek help from the

Catholic Church. The available evidence suggests that before Wang contacted the

Catholic missionaries for help, he had donated money to build a temple located in

Wangxin 王興 village, which is close to Zhaqiao village, as a gathering place for their cult. However, his temple was shortly demolished by the Huangyan County magistrate once the magistrate learned from a secret report that this temple belonged to an evil cult.

Hence, in early 1860s, Wang and his followers were forced to flee to a nearby mountainous area to continue their cult activities. With the arrival of the Catholic Church, the time seemed ripe for a return. 23 In a second episode of early contact, in 1865, there was a huge Wuwei teaching gathering titled Da Zhu Li 大燭禮 (Great Candle Lighting

Ceremony) held by cult followers coming from Zhaqiao and Haimen 海門 of Taizhou prefecture. This ceremony, apparently organized by a Zhaqiao vegetarian cult leader named Zhang Jicai 張基才, was a type of huge cult gathering that inevitably drew the ire of local officials. Indeed, Zhang was heavily fined 400 taels of silver by Taizhou local officials for organizing this ceremony. Zhang could not afford this large a fine and so was put in jail. After his release from the county jail, one of his friends, who was currently studying “Catholicism” with a Catholic French missionary named Fu Daoan 傅道安 in

Ningbo, advised him to work with a Ningbo Catholic missionary. Zhang took his friend’s advice and helped this missionary become acquainted with the Taizhou dialect so that he could preach. Zhang became the first Taizhou Catholic convert on August 15, 1867. 24 By

23 See: Guo (1998), Ibid., 97-98.

24 Ibid., 98.

119 the end of 1868, there were ninety-nine new Catholics registered in the Taizhou parish, at least twenty-five of whom identified themselves as followers of the Wuwei Teachings. 25

Before turning to the impact of this rapid growth on cult organization and its political status, it is worth asking how the Wenzhou vegetarian cult came into contact with Catholicism in the first place. Moreover, why did they choose to ally themselves with Catholicism rather than Protestantism? The decision, as will be seen below, was a product of chance, but it had huge consequences because of the very different roles that

Catholics performed for their converts.

Let us start by analyzing the story about the Wenzhou Laoguan 老官 vegetarian cult leader Gao Jianrong 高建榮. Based on Fang (1994) and Zhu (2006)’s account, Gao was the first Wenzhou Catholic convert. It is worth mentioning that he was also a famous martial arts master in Wenzhou city at that time. Gao came into contact with Catholicism, according to Fang’s translation of a French missionary’s report (1994), as follows:

One day (in 1873), a Yongjia 永嘉 Laoguan 老官 (the alias of vegetarian cult

follower) surnamed Gao (Gao Jianrong 高建榮 aka Gao Laoguan 高老官)

encountered a Yueqing 樂清 Catholic named Lien Jinsheng 連金生. … On that

occasion, Lien shared his understanding of Catholicism with Gao. After this

encounter, Gao was moved by Lien’s sincerity. When he came back to his

hometown, he shared this story with other cult followers. After listening to Gao’s

25 Ibid., 99.

120 explanation, these people were not happy to hear this development. They did

understand, finally, when they needed an introducer to help them when seeking

shelter in a Catholic church. 26

At that time, one of these cult followers asked Gao whether he could expound on the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism, since the latter had spread to

Wenzhou prefecture as early as 1865. 27 Most important of all, Christians had already been active in Quxi 瞿溪, a village of Yongjia 永嘉 county which was much closer to

Gao’s hometown. 28 Comparing the nearby church, some of Gao’s cult followers asked

Gao why they had to seek shelter from a distant Taizhou 台州 Catholic Church instead of the nearby Yongjia 永嘉 Christian church, if both Protestantism and Catholicism are

YangJiao 洋教 (foreign religion). The followers also asked Gao to explain the difference between Protestantism and Catholicism. Naturally, Gao had a very limited understanding of these two foreign religions and so could not convince his challengers. Hence, they suspended discussion on this issue. Meanwhile, however, Gao Laoguan 高老官 went to

26 See: Fang Zhigang 方志剛, (1994), Ibid., 216-217.

27 For the process of how did Christianity entered Wenzhou, see: Gao Jiankuo 高建國, Jidu jiao zhuchu chuanru Wenzhou pianduan 基督教最初傳入溫州片斷 (Brief History of Wenzhou Christianity), Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 溫州文史資料 vol. 9 (March 1994): 343-348. There are also two books available about the development of Wenzhou Christianity. See: Zhi Huaxin 支華欣, Wenzhou Jidujiao 溫州基督教 (Wenzhou Christian), (Hangzhou: Zhejiang sheng Jidujiao Xiehui, 2000) and Bentang Jianshi Bianji xiaozu 本堂歷史 編輯小組, Wenzhou shi Jidujiao Huayuanxiang Jiaotang Jianshi 溫州市基督教花園巷教堂簡史 (1877- 2007) The Brief History of Wenzhou Huayuan xiang Church (Wenzhou: Huayuanxiang Jiaotang, 2007).

28 For the history of Quxi Church, see: Zhong Ling 鍾麟 ed., 瞿溪基督教會記 ( The History of Quxi Church) in Ouhai Wenshi Ziliao 甌海文史資料 vol. 2 (February 1988): 135-137. According to this article, this church was founded by a local elite Lin Fuyuan’s 林福元 mother in Zhaqiao 竹橋 village of Quxi in roughly 1875 in the early Guangxu period. In the beginning, there were only less than twenty believers. All of them lived within this village. Their gathering place was Lin family’s center Hall 中堂. They did not build their own church until 1921.

121 another nearby vegetarian cult leader named Wu Hengyuan 吳恒遠, who lived in Shuang

Getian village 雙隔田 located in the border region of Yongjia 永嘉 and Ruian 瑞安 county of Wenzhou prefecture, to seek advice. Wu also preferred the nearby Quxi

Christian church not the Taizhou Catholic church and was not swayed by Gao’s description of Catholicism. 29 Interestingly, although it seemed that these vegetarian cult followers had reached a consensus on this issue, Gao still insisted that they should seek help from the Taizhou Catholic Church not the Christian Church. Gao’s insistence resulted in a deadlock between Gao and his cult followers, which resulted in deferment of their conversion.

However, because of the increasing aggravation arising from the pressure inflicted by Qing officials since the 1860s, the cult followers began to seek an exit out of this deadlock situation. They all agreed to seek help from one of these two foreign religions to free them from the pressure of the Qing officials. In order to settle the dispute, in the summer of 1874, Gao and his followers reached a consensus by using their own method—divination—to make this seemingly tough decision in front of all of their cult followers. Based on Fang’s (1994) translation, this process occurred as follows:

He (Gao Laoguan) took two slips of paper, writing Jidu jiao 基督教 (Protestantism)

and Tianzhu jiao 天主教 (Catholicism) on them. Then he rolled these two slips up

and put them to a small bamboo bucket. After finishing this preparation, Gao and

his followers prayed to the earth and heaven to provide them the right direction. The

29 See: Fang Zhigang 方志剛 trans. (1994), Ibid., 216-217.

122 content of their prayer reading was as follows: My heaven and earth! You are the

liberator for the suffering; brightness for the blind! Please tell us what religion we

should convert to? [After reading the prayer] They stood up and used a clean

chopstick to pick up one roll. They immediately opened their pick and it read as

Tianzhu jiao. Hence they decided to go to the Taizhou Catholic Church to seek

help. 30

This result silenced all opposition. After they reached consensus, in August 1874, Gao went to the Zhaqiao Catholic Church in Taizhou in the company of Lien Jinsheng. After meeting with Taizhou Catholic missionaries, Gao brought some sacred Catholic items back to Chakeng 茶坑 with him.

Interestingly, Gao learned astonishing news by the way of these French missionaries. In the past month, there had been another group of Wenzhou cult followers who had been in contact with the priests asking about the possibility of joining

Catholicism as well. Presumably, this unidentified messenger had been sent by the vegetarian cult leader, Wu Hengyuan, who had changed his mind and was now in favor of Catholic conversion. As soon as Gao heard this development, he immediately tried to gain the upper handed over Wu and decided to become a catechumen. He invited

Catholic missionaries to hold Mass for his followers. The Mass was scheduled for

November 1874, but was never held. Later, twenty-six of Gao’s vegetarian cult followers,

30 Ibid.

123 as well as Wu Hengyuan, were baptized in the spring of 1875. 31 These were the first

Wenzhou Catholic converts mentioned by Father Cyprien Aroud in his correspondence.

Wu’s own followers would be converted the following year.

Wu’s followers were people from Shuang Getian whom he had met while fleeing on suspicion of his won antigovernment plot. Shi met Wu several years earlier. Even though they converted, we can see that the “old ways” still persisted. In Father Cyprien

Aroud’s report, made in 1926, he wrote:

There was a Ruian native named Wu Hengyuan 吳恆遠 who lived in the Shuang

Getian 雙隔田 village located in the border region of Yongjia 永嘉 and Ruian 瑞安.

[In my understanding], he was a recklessly daring man with a smooth and oily

tongue. He had been honored as the cult leader (Jiaozhu 教主) and Future Emperor

(Weilai Huangdi 未來皇帝) by several thousand vegetarian cult followers. He

started his career in the mountainous area of Qingtien county 青田. After his

antigovernment plot was discovered by Qingtien local officials, he was forced to

flee to Dongxi Mountain 東溪山, about 12 li 里 (Chinese mile) distant from

Wenzhou city. 32

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid., 218-219. Wu’s story reminds us of Zhou rong’s 周榮 vegetarian cult background during the Jinqian hui incident in1860s Wenzhou. Both came from Qingtien and then moved to Wenzhou area for the same reason: to escape the oppression of Qing officials. For a description of Zhou rong, see chapter one.

124 Because he was an outsider and a sect leader the inhabitants of Dongxi Mountain did not welcome Wu and his followers. Consequently, Wu moved to Shuang Getian village 雙隔

田, a less populated area. He could not even afford to build a house and had to dwell in a cave. After a while, Wu was discovered by an old widow surnamed Pan 潘, who was convinced by Wu’s teaching and magic. She not only voluntarily supported Wu’s life but also asked her only son Pan Rucheng 潘汝成 (aka Pan Ashi 潘阿士) to study with Wu .

Later on, Wu married widow Pan’s only daughter and moved into their house.

Afterwards, Wu resumed preaching and successfully attracted a great number of Shuang

Getian villagers to join his cult. 33 In order to be free from the harassment of Qing officials, Wu and his followers went to the Catholic Church one after another. Their conversion was largely complete by early 1876.

Needless to say, the French Catholic missionaries were excited by the growing number of new converts in Wenzhou. The French missionary and Taizhou parish bishop

Joseph Marie Rizzi (Chinese name Xu Zhixiu 徐志修) (1830-1890) announced that his first planned visit to Wenzhou city would be scheduled for April 1876. Later, he cancelled this trip because of a rumor that there would be a rebellion led by former vegetarian cult followers along with Catholics and foreigners in Wenzhou city. Because of this warning, Joseph Marie Rizzi decided to skip Wenzhou city but still went to

Chakeng Church of Yongjia in Gao Laoguan’s hometown. Based on French missionary

Cyprien Aroud’s record, Joseph Marie Rizzi stayed in Chakeng for five days and

33 Ibid.

125 formally converted up to eighty-three catechumens. After this trip, the population of

Wenzhou Catholics reportedly reached its historical high of three hundred. Meanwhile, the number of catechumen was also growing remarkably. The later suspects of an anti- government plot, Pan Rucheng and his brother-in-law Shi Honggao were also among the eighty-three participants in this mass conversion. 34

By examining this connection, we are also in a strong position to answer the question of how the rise of the two treaty-empowered foreign religions, Catholicism and

Protestantism, changed the relationship between politics and religion in Wenzhou in the late 1870s when these foreigners re-entered Wenzhou bearing different faces of political powers.

The rumor that deterred Joseph Marie Rizzi from visiting Wenzhou city should not be seen as completely groundless. We can view the rumor as a response to the new corporation between the vegetarian cult and Catholicism. British historian Shagan (2001) has examined the relationship between rumors and popular politics in the reign of Henry

VIII of 1530s. He suggests that rumors should be read “as evidence for a massive undercurrent of antipathy towards government innovations.” 35 Following this logic, this

Wenzhou rumor should be read as a gauge for accessing the local residents’ antipathy to the Qing government, which was patronizing foreign religions and which led to the unprecedented combination of the formerly marginalized vegetarian cult and the newly

34 Ibid., 220.

35 See: Ethan Shagan, “Rumors and Popular Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII” in Tim Harris edited, The Politics of the Excluded, c. 1500-1850 (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 30-66.

126 arrived foreign religions. Moreover, we should also consider this rumor as a form of daily life resistance by Wenzhou residents to this new combination. 36 If authorities do not have an effective way to manage the escalation of rumors oftentimes some form of extreme behavior such as rioting and rebellion follow. Practically speaking, not only did this rumor impede Father Joseph Marie Rizzi’s Wenzhou trip, but it also drew concerns from

Wenzhou officials and local Confucians about the cult’s activities and the looming threat from this unparalleled phenomenon. Meanwhile, the activities of Wu Hengyuan and his cult intensified the fears of the Wenzhou residents of this so-called evil cult. As Cyprien

Aroud wrote in his 1926 correspondence:

After receiving baptism from Xu, they all [vegetarian cult followers] returned to

their Shuang Getian village 雙隔田. [From then on] they all considered that they

had taken out insurance with the Catholic Church. With the protection provided by

the missionaries, simply showing their chaplet and classic to prove they were

Catholic would free them from the Qing officials’ harassments. [After obtaining the

concession,] these vegetarian cult followers and their leader became unconventional

and uninhibited, and with the growth of their impudence, they claimed their leader

36 As for the connection between discourse and resistance, James Scott had done a great job demonstrating the strong connection and created the idea of “everyday forms of resistance”. See: James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985) and Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990). On the other hand, some British historians have expanded Scott’s idea of everyday forms of resistance and hidden transcripts to their British Social History studies. Many of these have used the rumor, gossip and so- called public opinion, whatever they can collect from local archives, as their material to access common British daily life experience. For the most recent development, see: Bernard Capp, When Gossips Meet: Women, Family, and Neighborhood in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) and Karin Bowie, Scottish Public Opinion and the Anglo-Scottish Union, 1699-1707 (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Royal Historical Society/Boydell Press; Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer, 2007).

127 as emperor ( Huangdi 皇帝). They also required local residents to surrender to their

power and to pay taxes to them. 37

The early vegetarian cult rebellions exhibited no major differences between Wu and any other secret sect rebellion leader. Basically, in the view of local officials, they always gathered a group of followers concealed within an under-populated area to practice their cult. In most cases, local officials would suppress them when their secret activities were uncovered. This time, however, these cult followers advocated their cult openly to the whole Wenzhou local society:

In early August 1876, the cult followers held a ritual called zhudeng dapuhui 燭燈

大普會 (The Great Candle Lighting universal salvation ceremony) in Nanyan 南延

(contemporary wuyan 梧埏 town of Wenzhou city) [only] ten li distant from

Wenzhou city. The moderator Pan Rucheng 潘汝成 openly encouraged the cult

followers to convert to Catholicism during the ceremony and stirred up local

residents’ antigovernment sentiment against the Qing Empire. Hence, a group of

local gentry generated a complaint letter to Wenzhou local officials about their

serious concerns over the recent development of this vegetarian cult. 38

According to the top Wenzhou official, superintendent of Wenzhou Chuzhou prefecture

Fang Dingrui 方鼎銳 (Wenchu Daotai 溫處道台) in a report made to the Fujian Zhejiang

37 Fang (1994), Ibid., 221.

38 Ibid.

128 governor general, the complaint letter to Wenzhou officials was generated by the former leader of Baibu hui 白布會 (White Cloth Association), Sun Qiangming 孫鏘鳴, 39 following this large cult gathering. 40 After this public gathering, the Wenzhou local officials initially took no action against this cult, largely because this complaint was relevant to two controversial figures: a demoted capital official and a newly flourishing local vegetarian cult. Therefore, as long as the situation was still manageable, the

Wenzhou local officials preferred to take no action. However, the rumor that spread among Wenzhou residents became the last straw that forced Wenzhou local officials to suppress this cult, as indicated here:

There was a group of demons (wangliang 魍魎) settling down in two caves, the first

one living in the mountains while the other one was in the city. [We Wenzhou

residents] should be working together to expel them, or they will cause great

damage to the common Wenzhou people. Credulous people were frightened badly,

thus they were in a hurry to produce tinfoil swords as weapons against these

demons. Meanwhile, the rest of the Wenzhou residents were living as if facing a

39 On the connection between Baibu hui 白布會 (White Cloth Association) and Sun Qiangming 孫鏘鳴, see chapter two of this dissertation.

40 The intendant of Wenzhou and Chuzhou’s report, see: Cheng Zongyu 程宗裕 (1901) Ibid., 247-250. Sun should be familiar with the vegetarian cult. Based on Sun’s colleague Lin Mengnan’s 林夢楠 account, he wrote: “on May 31, 1862, at that night, we saw the brightness of candle light from sishi du 四十都. Everybody suspected this candle was from Jinqian bandit’s relief troop and was greatly frightened by this scene. Hence, we sent someone to check whether this lights was from Jinqian hui or not and found out this candle light was from zhaijiao’s (vegetarian cult) dianzhu 點燭 (candle lighting). When we rechecked this point again at dawn, they were gone.” See: Lin Mengnan, Binjiang zhanshou riji 濱江戰守日記 (Diary on the battles along the Qiancang River) in Ma Yunlun, 馬允倫 ed., Taiping tien kuo shiqi Wenzhou shiliao huibian 太平天國時期溫州史料彙編 (The Archival Collection of Wenzhou During Heavenly Peace Kingdom), (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chuban she, 2002), 215.

129 formidable enemy…. Wenzhou local officials issued a poster to calm down this

public panic but all proved to be useless. Instead, the city residents put up a notice

accusing Daotai of conspiring with yangren (foreigner) to launch a rebellion to

against them. 41

It seemed that the very end of this rumor period seriously provoked the Wenchu Daotai.

According to a French missionary’s correspondence, written on August 14, 1876, the

Wenzhou Daotai dispatched five hundred soldiers to Shuang Getian village to suppress the cult. To a certain extent, this action can be considered as Daotai’s immediate response to this rumor. After this suppression, the Qing authority was not able to successfully arrest the cult leader Wu Hengyuan. In fact, they only arrested two important figures of this cult, Shi Hongao and his brother-in-law Pan Rucheng. According to Daotai’s report, the real leader of this cult, Wu Hengyuan, had fled to another county. 42

The Wenchu Daotai started interrogating Shi and Pan the next morning. Although he accused Shi and Pan of owning illegal weapons and getting ready to launch a rebellion, both Shi and Pan denied Daotai’s accusations and insisted they were Catholic. The Daotai was not satisfied with their testimony. There were two points that needed to be clarified.

First, he needed to prove that he had nothing to do with the Daotai-yangren rebellion plot.

Second, he had to find an exit for the foreign Catholics to escape from the charge of rebellion. Clearly, if he could not handle these two issues well, he and his supervisor

41 Fang (1994), Ibid., 221.

42 Ibid.

130 would have to face severe political criminal charges. In order to determine whether Shi and Pan were authentic Catholics or not, therefore, the Daotai summoned a Wenzhou

Catholic missionary named Gu Yugang 顧玉崗 to offer his testimony before the court even though the time was already past midnight. Once the county runner brought the half-naked Gu before the court, his testimony confirmed that both Shi and Pan were

Catholic. Later, the Daotai asked Gu to tell whether the items they had confiscated, which had been obtained through use of weapons and which included an Emperor’s seal, rebellious books (vegetarian cult classic texts), and even a coin moldboard, 43 belonged to the Catholic church. After examining the items, Gu reported that he could not recognize any of them. Gu was sent back to his residence once he finished his testimony. His testimony did not meet the Daotai’s expectation that Shi and Pan were only using

Catholicism to disguise their rebellion plans. 44 In order to make this point more presentable, what the Daotai needed to do was extort a confession from Shi and Pan in which they would admit that they were taking advantage of the Catholic Church’s name to cover their rebellion plot. The Daotai interrogated Shi and Pan from August 16 to 21.

After five days of interrogation, on August 21, 1876, the Daotai summoned Gu

Yugang to his office again and asked him to endorse his final capital crime verdict. It was very hard for Gu to defend these two relatively fresh Catholics. The Wenchu Daotai claimed both of them had committed serious crimes of rebellion and thus the Daotai

43 This coin moldboard reminded me of Zhou Rong’s 銅錢壯 ( Copper Charm) during the Jinqian Baibu dou (The Conflicts between Golden Coin Association and White Cloth Association). In this case, Zhou brought a coin moldboard from Qingtien to Wenzhou. Similar to what was done by Wu’s vegetarian cult, these were sold to villagers to sustain their cult. See chapter two of this dissertation.

44 Ibid, pp.221-222

131 could execute them immediately. Their execution was carried out that night and was not open to the public, something that was unusual at the time. 45 This unusual night execution drew Ningpo French Catholic missionary Su Fengwen’s 蘇風文 serious concern and reminded him of the history of Catholic martyrs. In the following months, he wrote several letters to his superior bishop and to officials at different levels of the Qing government in protest of this secret execution. It also must be noted that, even though this

Catholic missionary completely realized the direct connection between Shi Hongao and the local vegetarian cult, at that time this priest still insisted that both Shi and Pan had been executed as Catholic martyrs. 46

Dealing with the controversy arising from this execution became the main agenda for the Wenzhou local officials, French missionaries, and even the Beijing French ambassador. In the beginning, the French side planned to ask the Chinese officials to formally apologize for this secret Catholic execution, as well as to restore Shi and Pan’s reputation and provide restitution. 47 Later on, this proposal was abandoned at Father

Joseph Marie Rizzi’s suggestion. In his correspondence with Rizzi, the Daotai Fang wrote:

While I was hearing this case, there were a lot of angry Wenzhou residents

attending my court. Even though it was extremely hard to clarify all of the doubtful

45 Ibid, pp. 223 After the execution, as was the usual custom, the Qing officials hung the Shi and Pan’s heads to a pillar near the Shuang Getian village for days. Later, there were three more prisoners executed. They were allegedly the key cadre members of Wu Hengyuan’s cult.

46 Ibid, pp. 223-226

47 Ibid., 224.

132 points, many of the auditors complained that I was being unfair and being partial to

your teaching (Catholicism). During that time, the sound of resentment ran the

length of the road. After my investigation was done, I found out that these two

criminals had secretly plotted a dangerous rebellion. Ostensibly, with very bad

intentions, they made use of your teaching's name to enforce the obedience of the

officials and villagers to their cult. The crime they had committed was the worst

offense of rebellion. Thus, it was impossible to forgive them. [In addition to

investigating their rebellion plot,] I also had to listen to requests by local gentry and

commoners to publicly punish these two serious criminals, not only to manifest our

law but also to calm the unstable feelings of the populace. Recently, the rumor had

gradually cleared away. However, the Wenzhou residents still could not believe that

your teachings had nothing to do with the previous rebellion plot. 48

Connecting this letter to the previous rumors that had impeded Father Xu’s Wenzhou trip, evidently both the Daotai and this French missionary realized that Wenzhou residents were all very upset about this Catholic rebellion rumor. Moreover, the French side also discovered that it was extremely hard to defend this pair of fresh converts, Shi and Pan, who had nothing to do with this rebellion plot. Furthermore, probably the most crucial reason, as the Daotai mentioned at the very end of his letter, was that even after the execution, “the Wenzhou residents still could not believe that your teaching had nothing to do with the previous frightening rebellion plot.” Moreover, as Wenchu Daotai

48 See: Fang Dingrui, “Fu Xu jiaoshi han” 覆徐教士函 (Response to Missionary Xu). In Cheng Zongyu 程 宗 裕 ed., 教 案 奏 議 彙 編 ( The collection of official report on Jiaoan ), (Shanghai: Shanghai shu ju, Guangxu xin chou i.e. 1901), 248.

133 mentioned in his report to Fujian Zhejiang Governor General, Father Joseph Marie Rizzi had requested of him to issue an official sealed poster to protect his church from the still suspicious cowards who loitered around their church. 49

Under these circumstances, therefore, there were not very many choices available to either side. Not surprisingly, they changed their agenda from redressing the Shi and

Pan case to addressing the plight of the present Wenzhou Catholics, who were being badly harassed by Qing soldiers as survivors of the previous suppression. 50 After two rounds of negotiations, the Wenchu Daotai granted these Catholics their compensation requests and granted a permit to build a Catholic Church in downtown Wenzhou city. 51

The resolution looked like a win-win situation for both the Wenzhou official and the local

Catholics. The biggest winner of this resolution, however, was the formerly criminalized vegetarian cult. For centuries, it was inconceivable that they would get help from an outside religion and be able to resist officials, let alone enjoy compensation after suppression. In light of the repercussions of the execution case, it appeared that as long as they did not publicly get involved with rebellious plots, their cult would not only gain protection from the Church, but would also be free from the official’s endless harassment.

49 Ibid., 248.

50 According to Father Feng’s 1926 correspondence, after the suppression, the soldiers refused to leave Shuang Getian village. Instead, they looted some of the homes of these Catholics. There were serious conflicts between Qing soldiers and Catholics in Chakeng, the location of the first Wenzhou Catholic Church and Gao Laoguan’s hometown. It is interesting to note that the more powerful resistance came from the female villagers. See: Fang (1994), Ibid., 224-225.

51 This Catholic Church is located in an alley of the Zhou Family temple 周宅祠巷, close to the Wenzhou Daotai’s office. For the history of this church, see: Xie Yongsan 謝擁三, 周宅祠天主教本堂概況 (The Brief history of Zhou Zhaichi Church) in Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 溫州文史資料 vol. 7 (December 1991): 336-338.

134 In hindsight, it eventually turned out that Shi and Pan were the martyrs for their vegetarian cult, not for Catholicism as the French missionaries assumed. Ironically, Shi and Pan’s sacrifice freed their cult from its previous chronic misery!

In most cases, it seems that after every legend of martyrdom there is an increased degree of revitalization in those beliefs. Taking the Shi Hongao case for instance, the

Wenzhou vegetarian cult jumped at the chance to keep itself alive through help from the

Catholic Church. However, the cult followers still could not capitalize on this change as an opportunity to wipe out, overnight, the thousand-year history of marginalization in

Wenzhou local society. Although the cult did start off by enjoying the benefit of their conversion, their conversion also provoked anxiety in a number of Wenzhou residents especially local Confucians. The execution of Shi Hongao seemed to temporarily alleviate their fear and animosity to this change. Likewise, this case also lead to the cult’s recognition by the local officials, which in turn helped the cult to gain acceptance and move away from their previous marginalized status. However, these gains were short- lived and did not provide a sustained solution to the chronic tensions between this vegetarian cult and local society.

IV. Jiashen Jiaoan 甲申教案 of 1884:

If, as I have argued, the Shi case represented the Qing Wenzhou official’s changing policy regarding the vegetarian cult, our next question should focus on the reactions of the Wenzhou residents to their newly empowered neighbors. In addressing

135 this question I will examine two more jiaoan to explore the reconfiguration of Wenzhou local politics from the 1870s to the 1900s.

First I will discuss the two sets of social factors shaping these Jiaoan. The first, illustrated above, was a longstanding concern among Wenzhou commoners about the dangers vegetarian cult posed to local society. The second was the new foreign presence.

The opening of Wenzhou as a treaty port to the western world came in 1877. 52 After the signing of a convention in 1876, the British installed a consulate office on the small isle of Jiangxin yu 江心嶼, located in the middle of the Ou River ( 甌江). In addition to the consulate office, British officials also built a customs administration ( 甌 海 關 ) in

Wenzhou city, which was the first foreign-run administrative office in Wenzhou history. 53 Along with the establishment of the British consulate office came the consular

52 The reopening of Wenzhou is part of the deal of Chefoo Convention ( 煙台條約) between Qing and British Empire signed in 1876. The Chefoo convention ( 中英煙台條約) was a treaty between the Qing and British Empires, which was signed by Sir Thomas Wade and Li Hongzhang 李鴻章 in Chefoo on 21 August 1876. The official reason for the treaty was to resolve the "Margary Affair," （馬嘉理事件） but the final treaty included a number of items that had no direct relation to the killing of Margary the year earlier. The convention consisted of sixteen articles and was divided into three sections. The first section dealt with the resolution of the Margary Affair, calling for the punishment of the people implicated in the murder of Augustus Raymond Margary the year before and stipulating that an indemnity be paid to Margary's relatives. The second section dealt with official intercourse between the two empires and specified the extraterritorial privileges of British subjects in China. The final section dealt with trade, prohibiting the levying of the Lijin in the treaty ports, outlawing other forms of taxes on foreign goods and opening a number of new treaty ports including Wenzhou. One practical result of the treaty was that the official mission of apology to Britain, led by Guo Songtao 郭嵩濤, became a permanent diplomatic mission in Britain, opening the way for a permanent foreign representation of China. For the detailed content of this convention, see: Wang Tieyai 王鐵崖 edited, Zhongwai jiu yuezhang huibian 中外舊約章彙編 (Collection of Qing Treaties), (Beijing: sanlian chuban she, 1957), pp. 346-350

53 Basically, after the breakdown of the traditional tribute system, the customs service, which was created by British staff to collect custom duties to pay off the treaty money indemnity, also monitored the local socioeconomic conditions. The customs administration would release customs and commerce reports which covered a wide range of local affairs over every ten years. Taking Wenzhou for example; there are reports available for 1882-1891, 1892-1901, 1902-1911, 1912-1921, 1922-1931 for scholars to use to understand the Wenzhou socioeconomic conditions from 1882 to 1931. See: Chen Meilong 陳梅龍 and Jing Xiaopo 景消波, Jindai Zhejiang duiwai maoyi ji shehui bianqian: Ningpo, Wenzhou, Hangzhou Haiguan maoyi

136 jurisdiction 領 事 裁 判 權 , which, as I will discuss later, had visible influence on

Wenzhou local politics. Before Wenzhou reopened as a treaty port in 1877, a local elite,

Xiang Song (1859-1909) 項崧, frankly indicated in his diary that there were very few foreign merchants who would be interested in visiting this still poor and backward small city. By 1900, the foreign population still consisted mostly of missionaries and their families. 54 The religious connections between the foreign population and their religions would have great impact to Wenzhou local politics.

The growth of a foreign religious community did not progress smoothly as is best illustrated by the Jia shen jiaoan of 1884, an event which destroyed one of the city’s earliest Protestant churches. Wenzhou British United Methodist Free Church missionary

William Soothill (Chinese name Su Huilien 蘇慧廉)55 recalling the case many years later

baogao huibian 近代浙江對外貿易及社會變遷:寧波、溫州、杭州海關貿易報告譯編 ( Translations of 10 years customs reports of Ningbo, Wenzhou, Hangzhou written in late 19th and early 20th centuries and several annual commerce reports in the same period ), (Ningpo: Ningpo Chuban she, 2003)

54 See: Xiang Song 項松, Ji Jiashen nian Bayue shiliu shi 記甲申年八月十六事 (Record on August 16, 1884) in 張憲文 Zhang Xianwen ed., 甲申教案及拳民運動的幾則史料 (Material selections of Jiashen jiaoan and Boxer uprising in Wenzhou) in Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 溫州文史資料 vol. 9 (March 1994): 227.

55 William Soothill (1860-1935) is probably one of the most important missionaries in modern Wenzhou and modern Chinese history. In addition to serving as a missionary in Wenzhou for twenty-six years, he also authored a lot of academic work related to Wenzhou history, the Wenzhou dialect, and Chinese religion. Soothill was especially famous for his language ability. He only spent half a year to overcome one of the most complicated local dialects. After mastering the language he could communicate with Wenzhou residents in their own language. Based on his understanding of the Wenzhou dialect, he also created a phonetic alphabet system to improve the Wenzhou literacy rate. He left Wenzhou to become the president of National Shanxi University in 1908. After several administrative positions, particularly in northern China, he left China in 1928. During his Wenzhou tenure, he founded a hospital, a training college, schools and two hundred preaching situations. For his missionary career in Wenzhou, see: William Soothill, A Mission in China . (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1907). After being a visiting professor at Columbia University, Soothill returned to the U.K. in 1935 and was appointed as a Professor of Chinese at Oxford University and was a leading British Sinologist for decades. Soothill married Lucy Farrar (Chinese name Su Luxi 蘇路熙) in 1884 and took her to Wenzhou as well. His wife wrote an account of their years in Wenzhou entitled “A Passport to China.” See: Lucy Soothill, A Passport to China: Being the tale of her Long and Friendly Sojourning amongst Strangely Interesting People (London, Hodder and Stoughton Ltd.,

137 described the challenges to the growth of the protestant community and the renovation of

“Sacred Hall” ( 重修聖殿記) a commemoration to one of his great achievements during his Wenzhou tenure. At the top of this inscription, he mentioned the reason for this extensive renovation, writing:

As early as 1878, British missionary Li Qinghua 李慶華 travelled by ship to China

and lived in the Jiahui 嘉會 neighborhood of Wenzhou city to preach our sacred

Christianity to Wenzhou residents. After only four years, Li went back to daoshan

道山 [mountain of Dao, which means Li passed away]. I [William Soothill] went to

Wenzhou city to continue Li’s work [in 1883]. At the very beginning, there were

very few believers in this city. The next year [1884], we suddenly suffered from a

calamity caused by demons 忽丁魔劫. On that day, there was a group of rascals

looting our valuables, destroying our school, burning down my residence. The next

year, with the British Church’s donation arrival, we were able to rebuild part of our

Holy hall ( 聖殿). [After we finished rebuilding our Hall, however,] attendance at

our Sunday school was still very low. Year by year, the Gospel could not be spread

widely among Wenzhou residents. 56

1931). For Soothill’s academic contribution to the studies of Chinese religion, see: William E. Soothill, The Three Religions of China: Lectures Delivered at Oxford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1923).

56 Jin Bodong ed., 金柏東, Wenzhou li dai beike ji 溫州歷代碑刻集 (The collections of Wenzhou inscription). (Shanghai: Shanghai she hui ke xue chubanshe, 2002), 393-394. This inscription is still available to check in that Church. Interestingly, this inscription is divided into four sections. Each section is part of this church’s main column base.

138 The “calamity” came on October 4, 1884, only about eight years after the Shi Hongao execution. 57 During that conflict between Wenzhou residents and foreign religions, both the Catholic and Christian churches, including the Huayuanxiang Church 花園巷教堂,

Chengxi Church 城西教堂 (Westside Church), and the Catholic Zhouzhaichi church 周

宅祠天主堂 were all severely damaged by angry Wenzhou crowds, allegedly led by a

Ruian 瑞安 farmer named Cai Yanrong 柴岩榮.58 Recent Wenzhou historians such as Hu

(1997) argued that this jiaoan was a result of the Wenzhou residents’ patriotic reactions and “anti-foreigner sentiments” relating to the ongoing Sino-French war since Wenzhou was very close the to main war zones in Fuzhou and Taiwan. 59 In fact, Hu’s assessment is not groundless. As for the flashpoint of this Jiaoan , as William Soothill’s wife Lucy

Soothill wrote after this event:

57 Jiashen 甲申 is the Chinese calendar of 1884.

58 Compared to other Jiaoan, Jiashen Jiaoan 甲申教案 of 1884 (aka the case of Wenzhou Church arson 溫 州焚堂案) has seldom drawn scholars’ attention. For this case, see: Lu Shiqiang 呂實強 and Zhang Qiuwen 張秋雯 ed., jiaowu jiaoan dang 教務教案檔 (Taipei: Zhong yang yan jiu yuan jin dai shi yan jiu suo, Min guo 63- [1974- ]), vol. The first Archival Museum 中國第一歷史檔案館 and Fujian Normal University History department 福建師範大學歷史系 ed., Qing mo jiaoan 清末教案 (The archival of late Qing Jiaoan), (Beijing : Zhonghua shu ju, 1996), vol. 2, 406-409, 424-427, 452-459, 937-938. In addition to official archives, there are some records kept either by missionaries or local literati. See: Xiang Song 項 松, Ji Jiashen nian Bayue shiliu shi 記甲申年八月十六事 (Record on August 16, 1884) in 張憲文 Zhang Xianwen ed., 甲申教案及拳民運動的幾則史料 (Material selections of Jiashen jiaoan and Boxer uprising in Wenzhou) in Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 溫州文史資料 vol. 9 (March 1994): 226-239 and Fang Zhigang 方 志剛 trans., 溫州甲申教案前後 (The Congregation of the Mission’s record on Jiashen jiaoan), in Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 溫州文史資料 vol. 9 (March 1994): 240-253. Also, there are two books written by missionaries who had been lived in Wenzhou since late 19 th century. See: William E. Soothill (1861-1935), A Mission in China (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1907) and Grace Scott , Twenty-six Years of Missionary Work in China (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1897).

59 See: Hu Zhusheng 胡珠生, jiashen Wenzhou jiaoan shimo 甲申溫州教案始末 (The record of Jiashen Jiaoan) in Lucheng wenshi ziliao 鹿城文史資料 vol. 11 (December 1997): 18-24.

139 It was the French war with China, which caused the riot that had taken place in the

city-of-the-South (Wenzhou), two months before I reached there. The [Wenzhou]

people had been in a restless fever of excitement for some time, fearing an attack

from the French, who had attacked Foochow (Fuzhou) directly to the south. 60

“This period of “some time” was roughly from mid-August to October 4, 1884, the early stage of Sino-French war (August 1884 - April 1885). On August 22, 1884, French

Admiral Courbet defeated the Fuzhou Chinese fleet after the battle of Fuzhou. Then they moved on to blockade the northern Taiwan coastline and also frequently appeared in

Zhenhai 鎮海 of Taizhou in Zhejiang, north of Wenzhou prefecture. 61 Although the

French navy did not stop in Wenzhou, the rumors of their appearance certainly made

Wenzhou residents very anxious about a possible foreign attack. Mrs. Soothill described the anxiety and preparation for war in her book, writing:

The city has been officially placarded with instructions ordering each householder

to have ready, outside his door, a heap of big stones. Carpenters worked hard, both

day and night, fashioning huge wooden cases, which were towed some distance

down the bank of the river. When the watching fishermen gave the signal that the

enemy was at the mouth of the river, these stones were to be carried by each

60 Lucy Soothill (1931), Ibid., 4.

61 For French navy’s blockade actions, see: John Dodd, Journal of a Blockaded Resident in North Formosa during the Franco-Chinese war, 1884-1885 (Taipei: Ch’engwen publishing, 1972).

140 householder and emptied into the cases, which were then to be sunk in mid-stream.

Thus an impassable barrier would block the entrance to our river. 62

Along with the escalation of war preparation, there was meanwhile another rumor spreading among Wenzhou residents about Catholics again plotting a rebellion.

Catholic missionary Dominigue Vincent Procacci 63 (Chinese name Dong Zengde

董增德) observed that this rumor was spreading orally and, even more alarmingly, in written form. In his report dated on September 6, 1884, he wrote:

Since August 26, 1884, our followers have seen many people in small gatherings

on the streets whispering to one another to spread rumors as well as to discuss

side street news. The content they have been talking about was that the yangren

洋人 (Foreigner) was going to instigate both the urban and rural Catholics to hold

a gathering [in Wenzhou city] to create a great disturbance. 64

62 Lucy Soothill (1931), Ibid.

63 Dominigue Vincent Procacci (1850-1922) was an Italian missionary. He arrived at Wenzhou in December 1877. At that time, there were about forty Catholics in Wenzhou city. After his fourteen-year tenure, the number of Wenzhou Catholics had increased from 420 in 1878 to 1100 in 1892. He was almost killed during the 1884 Jiaoan. For more detailed information about this missionary, see: 浙江省宗教志編 輯部 Zhejiang sheng Zongjiao zhi bianjibu, Zhejiang Sheng Zongjiao zhi Ziliao Huibian 浙江省宗教志, 資料彙編 （一）, (Hangzhou: Zhejiang Sheng Zongjiao zhi bianjibu, 1993), 163.

64 Fang Zhigang 方志剛 trans,. 溫州甲申教案前後 (The Congregation of the Mission’s record on Jiashen jiaoan) in Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 溫州文史資料 vol. 9 (March 1994): 240-253.

141 According to Dong, once this rumor began to spread, many Wenzhou Catholics became too terrified to go to his Church. Dominigue Vincent Procacci felt deeply uneasy about the circulation of this rumor in the form of written propaganda ( jietie 揭帖), which he felt was most damaging. In the same report, he also mentioned the content of this written propaganda:

The origin of current fears breeds from a written propaganda which someone put

on the gate of our church during the nighttime of August 26, 1884. The content of

this poster said that Catholics are going to hold a consecutive two-day gathering

in this church. About three hundred Catholics would be attending this gathering.

After this gathering, they will start assaulting Wenzhou city. 65

Dong had good reason to be alarmed because these so-called jietie 揭 帖 (written propaganda) played a very important role in mobilizing anti-foreign religious sentiments in the Chinese people during the mid-nineteenth century.

The combination of war preparation and rumor alarmed Wenzhou Protestants as well. In order to be free from the potential damages caused by this collective antagonism against foreign religions, William Soothill of the Chengxi church 城西教堂 (Westside

65 Ibid., 241-243. In fact, local literati sponsored by local elites and even local officials prepared written propaganda. Eventually, this clarification was counter-productive, as we have seen from the Wenzhou case. For these jietie, see: Wang Minglun 王明倫, Fan yangjiao shuwen jietie xuan 反洋教書文揭帖選 (The Collection of Anti-Foreign Religion written propaganda), (Jinan: Qilu shushe, 1984). In this Wenzhou case, as Dong pointed out, most of the anti-Catholic written propaganda came from a Fuzhou scholar who was currently residing in Wenzhou. Dong and British officials immediately reported his name to the Yongjia magistrate; however, Zhang did not arrest this suspect. Instead, the magistrate only issued another poster asking Wenzhou residents to calm down.

142 Christian Church) issued a poster in front of his church saying the Christianity practiced at his church was totally different from Catholicism. Meanwhile, he also urged British

Wenzhou Consul Al Baster and custom superintendent to press Yongjia 永嘉 magistrate

Zhang Baoling 張 寶 琳 to curb this exacerbating situation. However, this ongoing situation grew worse on August 30 th after magistrate Zhang answered these British requests by issuing an official notice bearing his seal attempting to put down the collective panic. This notice served only to verify the previous suspicion of the Wenzhou residents about the official’s ambiguous and partial attitude toward these foreigners and their converts. Thus, the Wenzhou residents started to believe that the local officials and

Catholics were going to work together to launch a rebellion against them. From August

30 th to September 8 th rumors spread in the form of a jietie 揭帖 (written propaganda) contest appearing on the walls and gates of both the Catholic and Christian churches throughout the six counties in Wenzhou prefecture. 66 When one jietie appeared in public, generally the church would react to the accusations by appealing to the official to issue another poster rebutting the accusations listed by the jietie . Then the official would issue another one to defend its previous accusation. Although in this case, the jietie exchange

66 Ibid 242-245. According to Su Ping’s (1998) extensive research on the anti-foreign rumors in late Qing China, she indicated that this written propaganda contest may be reflected in the local politics. Since, as Su suggests, local officials would use rumors as a weapon to overshadow the political influence of these foreign missionaries over local society. Generally, these officials would encourage local elites to release rumors, especially in the form of written propaganda, to provoke the missionaries and also to create fear and anger in the local society. Thus the foreign missionaries had to go to local officials to seek help. Then the officials would release a notice in the form of an official document. In the end, however, this method proved to be counterproductive to the whole situation. We can say that the causes of many jiaoan were that the Qing officials were losing control over the whole situation. At any rate, as Su suggests, there was a consensus among Qing local officials about how to use the two strategies, “correspond to local gentry and commoner” ( 聯絡紳民) and “use commoner to against foreigner” (以民治夷)”, to overshadow the influence of foreign missionaries over local society. See: Su (1998), Ibid., 130-131. However, the key point of Su’s theory was that she underestimated the commoner’s political wisdom as well as overestimated the local official’s ability to control the whole situation. Basically, these strategies were only the excuse that officials used to reduce their responsibility.

143 only last for three rounds shocking news was fermenting among Wenzhou residents, accusing Wenzhou Catholics of digging out the local deity’s eyeballs and removing the heads of nameless corpses to use as a wooden fish while they were chanting Catholic classics. 67

Even more significant, a few days later, rumors began to circulate regarding a connection between Wenzhou Catholics and the vegetarian cult. As reported by

Dominigue Vincent Procacci:

Several days later, the villagers suddenly discovered there were two vegetarian

cult followers (Zhaijiao tu 齋 教 徒 ) digging out the local deity’s eyeballs.

Although they were harshly beaten by the villagers, these angry cowards still

bound them up and sent them to the magistrate. Even after this, the accusation

about Catholics digging out local deity’s eye was still spreading among the

villagers. 68

Therefore, compared to other anti-foreign religion rumors in China, this rumor was in fact a direct attack on the spiritual order system of the Wenzhou residents' local popular religion, which caused fear toward this unbelievable challenge. The rumor reveals new concerns on the part of literati and commoners about the new source of authority in late

Imperial Wenzhou, revealing patterns of evidence elsewhere in China. Cohen (1997) and

67 Ibid., 245.

68 Ibid.

144 Su (2001) have suggested that there were two themes, namely incest and lewd behavior.

These themes reflected the deep-seated anxiety of the Chinese male literati in association with the collapsing of their long-term absolute dominance over the weak, lower status people—women, children, and even the poor once they re-entered Wenzhou in the late

1860s. 69

The foreign religions were appealing to lower socio-economic status people mainly because the principal part of the missionaries’ method was to preach their religion and to convert so-called pagans through charity initiatives. The missionaries employed the strategies that had worked for them in the past, which included taking care of orphans and widows and providing monetary aid and free education to local poor. 70 The practice of providing monetary aid raised at least two concerns among the Wenzhou local

69 In terms of the content of these rumors, Cohen (1997) delineated them as “false bad news” which “drew on the venerable Chinese tradition of scabrous, harrowing, often racist lore about foreigners in general and Christians in particular. The other… may best be represented as a form of mass panic or hysteria of a sort commonly encountered in previous periods of Chinese history and focused unequivocally on death.” See: Paul Cohen, History In Three Keys: The Boxer as Event, Experience, and Myth (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 162-163. Furthermore, based on Su’s (2001) social psychological approach to these anti-foreign religion rumors, she indicated there were two main types of rumors which had been employed by Confucian literati that accused missionaries of committing incest and being lewd. She also pointed out that the content of late Qing rumors were not very different from the Ming dynasty’s anti- foreigner ideas. See: Su Ping 蘇萍, yaoyan yu Jindai jiaoan 謠言與近代教案, (Shanghai: Shanghai Yuandong chubanshe, 2001), 55.

70 Both Catholicism and Christianity launched different kinds of charity initiatives once they re-entered Wenzhou. Generally, it is not an exaggeration to say that in the very beginning they had to buy off local poor to get them to go to their church. Even so, there were still very few Wenzhou converts by the mid- 1880s. Compared to Catholic priests, the British Christian missionaries suffered more difficulties than did their Catholic colleagues. Even William Soothill, who was especially famous for his command of the Wenzhou dialect, from his frank description dated in 1898 was apparently not successful at all in his first decade (1881-1888) in Wenzhou. Soothill’s case is not an exception. As early as 1866, largely because of his strange appearance (a lamb in a suit with blond hair), the first Wenzhou foreign missionary British Cao Yazhi 曹雅直 (aka Cao Yazhen 曹雅真) was considered to be a monster in the eyes of Wenzhou residents. After almost two-year effort, his only and first convert was a poor shoe repairman named Ye Zhong jie 葉 鍾 杰. After that, Cao took Ye’s suggestion and changed his preaching strategy by providing free education and medical care to be more appealing to Wenzhou residents. By the eve of 1884 Jiashen Jiaoan, the number of Christians had reached about one hundred. See: Gao (1994), Ibid,. 343-346.

145 leadership. Previous to the missionaries’ arrival, there were no religious groups that used monetary aid as a recruitment method. In the eyes of Wenzhou residents, this practice attracted a questionable, greedy, and morally inferior people. Secondly, these charity initiatives threatened the moral and political authority of the Wenzhou local officials and elites over local society. In fact, from the perspective of the officials, they were in competition with these foreign religions. Therefore, because of the lack of connection to local society and the absence of a shared perception of each other’s concerns, it is not surprising that we see various levels of conflicts and subsequent frustrations ranging from rumors to armed conflicts among Wenzhou residents, missionaries and their questionable local converts.

It is apparent that Wenzhou officials lost the power they previously enjoyed and could no longer simply suppress the vegetarian cult as they used to do, and even lost the power to deem illegal these two foreign religions. This was largely because of the missionary clauses listed in various treaties. A common saying prevailing in the Taizhou and Wenzhou areas was: daotai yi keyin buju Dong Zengde yi fengxing 道台一顆印 不如

董增德一封信. (The effect of Daotai’s seal was subject to missionary Dong Zengde’s personal letter, which reflected the missionary’s incomparable political power over local society. Therefore, a whole new political drama played out among the Wenzhou population, while the escalation of the Sino-French war aggravated the suspicion and frustration of Wenzhou residents. In fact, the prevailing rumors against Catholics were the incarnation of the collective resentment of the Wenzhou residents to this unparalleled local political change.

146

According to Dominigue Vincent Procacci’s report, after the cessation of the written propaganda contest on September 8, 1884, nothing serious happened until

October 1, 1884. Dong credited this to British Wenzhou officials, who had been pressing

Qing officials to forbid this contest. 71 However, the tension between local Catholics and

Wenzhou residents had not begun to fade away. On the contrary, according to the account of the local elite Xiang Song 項崧, on September 30, the Catholic rebellion rumor was a recurring theme among Wenzhou residents. This time the rumor said that there would be a total of several thousand Jiaofei 教匪 (cult bandits) coordinating a rebellion including

Wenzhou Catholics scheduled for October 1. At that time, the only option for the

Wenzhou officials was to issue yet another poster to clarify this rumor but this persuaded nobody. Instead, Wenzhou commoners became even angrier at the officials’ weak and impartial policy toward Wenzhou Catholics. Wenzhou Daotai and the prefecture magistrate were terrified by the development of this rumor, thus they asked Father

Dominigue Vincent Procacci to temporarily close his church to prevent further damages.

However, the Wenzhou residents were not convinced by their efforts at all. 72

On October 4, 1884, which was only one day after the mid-autumn festival, downtown Wenzhou was packed as usual with the people coming for Jiuhu yueshi 救護

71 See: Fang Zhigang 方志剛 trans., 溫州甲申教案前後 (The Congregation of the Mission’s record on Jiashen jiaoan) in Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 溫州文史資料 vol. 9 (March 1994): 246-247.

72 See: Xiang Song 項松, Ji Jiashen nian Bayue shiliu shi 記甲申年八月十六事 (Record on August 16, 1884) in 張憲文 (March, 1994), Ibid., 228.

147 月蝕 ( save the lunar eclipse). 73 According to Wenchu Daotai, Wen Zhonghan’s 溫忠翰 report to Zhejiang governor Liu Bingzhang 劉 秉 璋 , there was a routine Christian gathering at William Soothill’s Chengxi church 城西教堂, about a minute’s walk from the most bustling area, Wuma street 五馬街 (Five Horses Street), of downtown Wenzhou.

Because of the “save the lunar eclipse,” there were more bystanders than usual standing outside the church, curious about what was happening inside this foreign temple. Soothill was pleased to see these unexpected guests and wanted to invite some of them in to join their activities. To Soothill’s surprise his friendly behavior was considered a provocative act by these bystanders. As Wen wrote in his report:

This Yangren [Soothill] went out to seize one of these bystanders and wrongly

arrested one person and took him into custody in his church. The rest of bystanders

were scared upon witnessing this scene. Soon, these suspicious bystanders heard the

detainee crying out loudly from inside the church. Once they heard this cry, they all

became extremely indignant and disturbed. [Soon] There were more and more

cowards gathered around the church. Momentarily, the angry cowards burst into the

church to rescue this detainee. All of sudden, this incident provoked public wrath.

73 Before the introduction of western meteorology, Jiuhu riyuei 救護日月 was basically an important day through out China. During solar and Lunar eclipse, including Capital: Beijing and every level of local government had to hold a ceremony, which basically including of shangxiang 上香 (burring incense), fagu 伐鼓 (beating drum), 祇跪 qigui (knell down to the lunar deity), to save the solar or lunar eclipse. For the description of this rite, see: Zhao Erxun 趙爾巽 chief editor (1844-1927), Qing shi gao 清史稿 (Draft Standard History of the Qing), 志 zhi 65, 禮 li 9, pp. 2671. This rite was abolished in 1908. See: Min Jie 閔 杰, 近代中國社會文化變遷錄 Jindai Zhongguo Shehui Wenhua Bianqian Lu (Hangzhou: Zhejiang ren min chu ban she: Jing xiao Zhejiang sheng xin hua shu dian, 1998.). On the other hand, the Buddhists believed that their charitable and pious deeds would be double counted at the night of every lunar eclipse. Therefore, many Buddhists go to temple to make a donation or to participate in temple activities to have their gongde 功德 double counted.

148 After burning down Soothill’s church, they moved on to attack the other three

churches [locating in downtown Wenzhou city]. 74

The event was the product of a combination of rumor and timing. Probably the most important reason explaining why the bystanders were infuriated by Soothill’s behavior and burst into his “official protected” Church is the persistent circling of a rumor that the

Yangren 洋人 (western foreigner) would kidnap Chinese children to eat their flesh and organs. This rumor was part of a centuries-long fear of sorcery called cai sheng zhe ge 採

生折割 (organ-snatching).75 According to local elite Xiang Song‘s account, the one who was reportedly forcibly drawn to Soothill’s Church was a young child. 76 Hence,

Soothill’s behavior verified this long-lived rumor of kidnapping and organ-snatching in front of a group of suspicious Wenzhou citizens. The outburst was likely bolstered at the time because residents believed that charitable and pious deeds were doubly counted during the lunar eclipse day. Thus, these bystanders were more willingly to do the “right” thing by attacking the church and rescuing the supposed detainee.

74 Liu’s report to the Grand Council was basically from Wen Zhenghan’s report. In his November 5, 1884 report, he explains the whole story of Jiashen Jiaoan as well as mentions the indemnity clauses between Wenzhou residents and these foreigners. Ten days later, on November 15, the Grand Council approved his report and allowed him to use local taxes to cover this indemnity. For this report, see: The first Archival Museum 中國第一歷史檔案館 and Fujian Normal University History department 福建師範大學歷史系 ed., (1996), Ibid., vol. 2, 407-409.

75 So-called cai sheng zhe ge 採生折割 (organ-snatching) played a central role in Chinese sorcery fear. Especially in local society, people had believed that some evil people or barbarians needed to eat human (especially young child) flesh and organs to increase their energy. In order to fulfill their need, they always kidnapped people. For a long time, villagers used this reason to explain the mysterious missing person in their daily life experience. Based on his exhaustive document survey about this rumor, ter Haar (2006) concluded that different periods had different scapegoats for this fear. After the mid-nineteenth century, with the fast-increasing presence of western population in local society, these western foreigners became the scapegoat. See: ter Haar (2006), Ibid., 106-153.

76 Xiang Song 項崧 (1909) in 張憲文 (March 1994), 228.

149

The missionaries’ offer of free education, particularly for children, lead residents to regard the missionaries as organ-snatchers. As I mentioned earlier, free education was an important component of the missionaries’ conversion strategy. Generally, the package they offered included a stipend to the student which might even extend to cover their family, books, clothing, food and even future marriage matches. 77 In order to ensure the effect of their investment, missionaries preferred to recruit younger children (as young as one or two-years-old) to their schools. After these young children were enrolled, their every activity was limited to the campus, which was not open to the public. Unfortunately, because of the language and cultural barriers between the missionaries and the young

Chinese children, the mortality rate was relatively high in the beginning. Based on

Xiang’s account, the high mortality rate naturally aggravated Wenzhou residents’ suspicion that these missionaries killed and ate young children. 78 Moreover, because it was a profitable business to kidnap young children and sell them to the church to get money, to these missionaries’ surprise, their free education offering contributed to the rapid growth of the child-kidnapping rate in 1880s Wenzhou.

After burning down Soothill’s church, the Wenzhou residents went on to attack the other foreign related institutions in Wenzhou city including the other two churches

(Huayuan xiang church and the Catholic Church in Zhou zhai ci ) as well as the British

Wenzhou customs service building. Although the unrest was under control by dawn, both

77 See: Gao (1994), Ibid., 344-345.

78 Xiang Song 項崧 (1909) in 張憲文 (March 1994), 228.

150 Soothill and Father Dominigue Vincent Procacci were nearly killed before fleeing to

Wenchu Daotai’s office and from there to the British Consul’s Jiangxin isle office. 79 In order to secure the safety of the foreign population, the British Ningpo consul general sent the gunboat, Zephyr, from Ningpo to Wenzhou to protect their compatriots until there was a negotiation. The negotiation centered on monetary compensation between the

Wenzhou officials and the foreigners in early December 1884. In addition to this, the foreigners also demanded that the Daotai look into the criminal responsibility. 80 The

Daotai’s answer to this request was to arrest twelve culprits throughout Wenzhou including the main culprit, Cai Yanrong 柴岩榮. Although these criminals were jailed, not one was executed or severely punished afterward. 81

79 After the Wenzhou residents started attacking the three Churches. Soothill’s first response was to try to communicate with the mobs. His attempts were in vain as the mobs became more frightened when Soothill approached them. They answered Soothill by throwing more stones, forcing Soothill to go to the Wenchu Daotai’s office to seek help. The Daotai at first refused to see Soothill, then after a very long wait, the Daotai told Soothill and the other foreigners to stay in his office but he refused to make immediate efforts to stop the riot. Catholic missionary Dong, on the other hand, had to conceal himself in a pile of wood very close to a stove. He was not rescued by Catholic Qing soldiers until the next day. Dong was terrified by this Jiaoan and decided to leave Wenzhou immediately. He did not return to Wenzhou until July 1885. See: Lucy Soothill (1931), Ibid., 5-8 and Fang Zhigang 方志剛 trans. (1994), Ibid., 247-259.

80 Fang Zhigang 方志剛 trans. (1994), Ibid., 251. After this Jiaoan, based on the French side’s account, the Wenzhou local officials sent a messenger to the British Consul’s office to assure Soothill and Dong as well as to express their intention to compensate them for their losses from the conflict. After several days’ negotiation, they reached a sum of thirty-five thousand cash compensation for the Christians and Catholics.

81 Regarding the main culprit for this jiaoan, the Catholic missionary’s record pointed to a villager, Cai Yanrong 柴岩榮. After securing every document about this jiaoan, however, there was no other proof of Cai being the main culprit. Furthermore, even the report of the Qing Wenzhou local officials to the grand council did not mention Cai at all. On the other hand, in his personal letters to his friend, Wenzhou customs official Li Xicheng 李希程 (1841-1908) said that “although the last August arson case was settled, however, the main culprit has not received any punishment yet. I heard that was because the authorities sympathized with their righteous indignation thus they decided to forgive their ignorant criminal.” Moreover, according to local official’s report, there was no one executed after this case. See: Hu Zhusheng ed., “ 李希程自定年譜及書札 The chronology of Li Xicheng and selection of his personal letter.” See: Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 溫州文史資料 vol. 9 (March 1994): 272-293. For the official concluding report on this case, see: The first Archival Museum 中國第一歷史檔案館 and Fujian Normal University History department 福建師範大學歷史系 ed., (1996), Ibid, vol. 2, 425-427.

151 Both the executions of Shi Hongao in 1876 and of Jiashen Jiaoan in1884 shed light on the changing attitudes of the Wenzhou local officials and residents to the penetration of foreign religions into their daily lives since the late 1860s. Mainly for the sake of practical interests, the Wenzhou vegetarian cult first sought help from foreign religions in order to compete with the other members of local community including the local officials.

Meanwhile, the rising of this unparalleled combination had intensified the heterodox paranoia of the Wenzhou residents against both of them. Thus, the Wenzhou local officials had to adjust their policy to alleviate this collective panic. However, since the development of the two foreign religions and the vegetarian cult were still considered manageable and suppressible, their policies largely vacillated between suppression and toleration. However, Wenzhou missionaries and local converts were equipped with not only stricter missionary treaty clauses but also a greater capability to penetrate into local politics. Emerging as a semi-governmental authority over their neighbors and opponents, these once socially marginalized converts moved boldly to bully their fellow villagers into securing their sure wins over local competition. Along with the escalation of confrontation between local converts and their neighbors, in the summer of 1900 the

Magic Boxer Association incident (shenquan hui 神拳會) also shed light on the process of local political changes happening in the daily life of the Wenzhou residents in the late

1890s.

V. The Magic Boxer Association Incident (shenquan hui 神拳會) of the Summer of 1900:

152 Again, according to French missionary Cyprien Aroud’s later correspondence to

Paris, written in 1936, he recalled that at roughly 10 p.m., May 11, 1900, he was suddenly awakened by a hellish noise from the street outside, where he heard shouting about killing all Yangren 洋人 (foreigners) and burning down all churches. The next morning he also heard that there was a group of unidentified people attacking the churches, especially those located in Pingyang County in southern Wenzhou prefecture.

By late June, the escalation of what was then called the Magic Boxer movement prevented these missionaries from visiting Pingyang. Even worse, there were more attacks that targeted foreign religions throughout the entire month of July. 82 These attacks were conducted by the Shenquan hui 神拳會 (Magic Boxer Association), which was allegedly led by two groups of Wenzhou villagers. The leader of one group was Jin

Zongcai 金宗財, a Pingyang 平陽 vegetarian cult leader , while the other was headed by a Ruian Daoist named Xu A-lei 許阿擂 and his major financial sponsor Zhang Xindong

張新棟. What made this incident different from the previous two jiaoan was the attitude taken by the local officials. In fact, without the participation of the Manchu Wenzhou prefecture magistrate ( 溫州知府), Qixu 啟續, who decided to follow Dowager Cixi’s order to recruit these two groups of people as the tuanlian 團練 (licensed local militia) to expel the foreigners and their religions in early July, this Magic Boxer incident would not have taken place. Eventually, Qixu’s hard-line policy was not carried out and this led to his removal from his position on July 26, 1900. His removal reflected the policy conflict between Beijing and certain southeastern provinces. Wenzhou local officials immediately

82 Fang Zhigang 方志剛 trans., 溫州神拳會與天主教會 (The Wenzhou Magic Boxer Association and Catholic Church) in Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 溫州文史資料 vol. 9 (March 1994): 259-270.

153 arrested both Jin and Xu as well as crushed their Magic Boxer organization after Qi left his office in late July. 83 This Shenquan hui was basically gone after this arrest.

From the above description, it is apparent that the vegetarian cults turned away from the previously friendly relationship they had with the foreign religions. Moreover, this time the violence occurred mainly in villages not in the city. However, Wenzhou local officials again attempted to seek cooperation with local religious organizations, as I have discussed in the first chapter, to implement their policy over local society. This time they were dealing with completely different competitors, the two foreign religions and the originally illegal cult. Thus, Qing officials could no longer resolve these religion- related problems using “symbolic capital” by granting honorary titles or erecting inscriptions to please everyone. By the late 1890s in Wenzhou, these local officials had to make some fundamental changes to accommodate these unparalleled changes. In order to clarify the above occurrences, the questions we need to ask involve the nature of

Shenquan. What are the connections between Shenquan and late 1890s Wenzhou local politics? In the context of Wenzhou local politics, what is the major political implication we can find that arose from this collective action?

For decades scholars used to consider the shenquan 神拳 (literally Magic Boxers) as part of the concurrent Boxer uprising that happened in northern China in 1900.

However, as the Pingyang local elite Liu Shaokuan 劉紹寬 (1867-1942) pointed out in his diary, this Magic Box tradition had been flourishing in the Pingyang area dating back

83 Ibid., 262.

154 to at least the Qianlong 乾隆 period (1736-1795). From that time onward, there was a group of so-called quanfei 拳匪 (Boxer Bandits) in the Wenzhou area. 84 For the sake of local defense, there was also a martial arts tradition along with a number of legendary boxing masters active in both Ruian and Pingyang counties. 85 The difference between quanfei 拳匪 and the boxer tradition was ambiguous and depended on various local factors. Nevertheless, the shenquan 神拳 should be considered as part of this Wenzhou local martial arts tradition. On this point, Esherick (1987) has suggested that the local tradition including boxing and local religion contributed to the formation of the Boxer uprising in northern China in 1900. 86 Turning back to Wenzhou, as early as mid-1898, the Ruian local elite Zhang Guang (1860-1942) 張棡 noted in his diary that there had been a group of Ruian villagers practicing shenquan 神拳 (magic box) in the Mayu 馬嶼

84 See: Liu Shaokuan 劉紹寬 (1897-1942), Liu Shaokuan Ji 劉紹寬集, in Cangnan wenshi ziliao 蒼南文史 資料 16, (March 2001), 178. As a lifelong educator and well-known local elite in Pingyang county, Liu had been devoted to the Wenzhou modern education system as well as being a notable literati in the area. He also played a very important role in Wenzhou local politics. In fact, during the Xinhai revolution, a large portion of Wenzhou local elites supported Liu as the head of their temporary government. However, it turned out that Liu declined this position and even fled to a grocery for two nights to avoid this appointment. In addition to being the editor-in-chief of Minguo Pingyang xianzhi 民國平陽縣志 ( 1926 Pingyang local gazetteer), Liu also had kept a diary entitled Houzhuang riji 厚庄日記 (Houzhuang diary) from 1888 to 1942. This diary consists of forty volumes and is kept in the Wenzhou library. Because of the richness of Liu’s account, parts of his diary have been published in different books or journals.

85 There have been several famous boxing masters in Wenzhou history. Most of these boxers came from Ruian and Pingyang counties. There were two types of boxing masters, one who served local society to train the villagers in defensive skills and another who was the notorious bandit. For the legend of these masters, see: Chen Ruizan ed. 陳瑞贊, Dongou yishi huilu 東甌逸事匯錄 (The Collection of Wenzhou local history), (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chubanshe, 2006), 443-449.

86 In his insightful observations on the Boxer uprising, Esherick (1987) clarified the connections between the Boxer uprising and northern Chinese “popular culture.” The strength of Esherick’s work are at least twofold. First, in terms of methodology, his work made a breakthrough going beyond the “idol of origins” by emphasizing the importance of a socio-economic approach to local history, which is borrowed from French Annual School, to the studies of Chinese social history. Second, by exploring the multiple levels of connections between the Boxer uprising and northern Chinese popular culture, he provided us with a more internal understanding of the Boxer uprising. From Esherick’s understanding, the Boxer uprising was basically the escalation of the conflicts between local counterculture traditions and foreign religion. See: Joseph W. Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).

155 village of Ruian County. On September 30, 1898 (which is a mid-autumn festival), there was a rumor spreading that these Shenquan followers had decided to start a revolt to expel all of the fanren 番人 (barbarians) from Ruian County. To do so, they would jiqi 祭

旗 (worship their banner) at about 1 a.m. then they would march to Ruian city. The dibao

地保 (local runners) were so frightened upon learning of this rumor that they reported the rumor to the Ruian magistrate as soon as they could. The Ruian magistrate ordered the four main entrances of Ruian city to be closed. However, nothing happened at all on that day. 87 At any rate, this false alarm still revealed the following facts: first of all, the

Shenquan had been popular among Ruian villagers; secondly, by 1898, the development of Shenquan had been involved with anti-foreign sentiment; finally, the antagonism of shenquan followers to fanren (most of them would have been their local convert neighbors) had escalated to the point of launching a rebellion.

Several months after the false alarm, in 1899, a roaming Daoist Xu A-lei 許阿擂 set up his shenquan tan 神拳壇 (magic box altar) in Huabiao 華表 village (which is

Dongtian 董田 village of Xincheng town 莘塍). This altar played a crucial role later in the Shenquan hui incident, in Ruian County. Regarding the process of how Xu started this altar, Xu’s main financial supporter, Zhang Xindong’s 張新棟 nephew Zhang

Mingdong 張明東, wrote:

87 See: Zhang Gang 張棡 (1860-1942), Yu Xiong 俞雄 edited, Zhang Gang riji 張棡日記 ( Zhang Gang Diary), (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chubanshe, 2003), pp. 46. As a lifelong school teacher in the Wenzhou area, in addition to describing the daily life from the late nineteenth century to mid-twentieth century in Wenzhou, Zhang Gang‘s diary also provided much first hand information about Wenzhou local religious activities.

156 In 1899, a roaming Daoist Xu Alei built a thatched cottage in Fanqie yuan 蕃茄原

of Huabiao village. There was no furniture at all in his residence. People asked

him [if there was any reason for that setting]. Xu replied: I was here to save the

world and if I do not even need to consume [rice to stay alive. Thus] why would I

need furniture in my house? There was a widow with her only son living next to

Xu’s place. Whenever her son was sick, she went to Xu to seek help. To cure her

son’s illness, Xu would lift up his three left fingers and use his right index finger

to write an amulet on the water as he chanted a charm [to cure her son]. Since the

illness was always minor, Xu’s charms always worked well. His magic power

gradually became known far and wide among the Ruian villagers. From then on,

there were non-stop donations, mainly food, from the villagers. Xu always shared

these donations with villagers, saying I only ate a little thus I could communicate

with my upper immortal [to keep my magic power]. You people better help me to

consume this food and I will be able to keep blessing all of you. Gradually, there

were more and more followers who came to Xu’s altar to seek help. One day, Xu

made an announcement to his followers, saying, “The yuhung dadi 玉皇大帝

(jade emperor) dispatched me chijiao daxian 赤腳大仙 (the great bare foot

celestial) to teach you shenquan fa 神拳法 ( the art of magic box), any gunfire

will not be able to hurt you after being acquainted with this art. Right now, the

fanren only rely on their gunfire; these barbarians would be powerless if their

gunfire was not working.” 88

88 See: Zhang Mingdong 張明東 (1897-1963), Ji Zuren Xindong kongshi 記族人新棟公事 (The Record of Mr. Zhang Xindong) in Ruian wenshi ziliao 瑞安文史資料 5 (1987), 50-52.

157

In fact, the fanren 番人 (barbarian) directed the so-called chi fanren jiao 吃番人教

(Eating Barbarian Religion), which was an alias for converts to foreign religions. 89 Later,

Xu’s provocative announcement attracted a group of Xincheng Shangcun 莘塍上村 villagers, who had been bullied by a notorious Christian local convert named Ni Haier 倪

海兒. They went to Xu to invite him to build an altar in their village. 90 In the days that followed, Xu not only built a new altar in Xincheng Shangcun 莘塍上村, but received firm financial support from an overseas merchant named Zhang Xindong 張新棟 to greatly expand the business of his altar. 91 From then on, the shenquan altar prevailed

89 According to Zhang’s (1987) account, he indicated that Xincheng villagers believed only the people who lost their conscience would join a foreign religion, since the converts had been taking advantage of foreign missionaries’ political power to behave like bullies to the other villagers. Thus Wenzhou residents believed that the foreign religion must be a poison that could totally change people’s minds. In their understanding, the reason that their fellow villagers would join a foreign religion is that they took the poison. See: Zhang (1987), Ibid., 50.

90 The location of the three above mentioned villages, including Xincheng Shangcun 莘塍上村, Xincheng Xiacum 莘塍下村, and Huabiao 華表 village were all located triangularly along the Tang river 塘河. The Tang river is an important canal between Xincheng town and Ruian city. According to a 1998 Xincheng local gazetteer, Ni Haier sold his house to a Christian to build their first church in the Xincheng area in 1895 at a very low price. See: Xincheng Zhenzhi 莘塍鎮志 (1998 Xincheng local gazetteer), (Hefei: Huangshan shushe, 1998), 3-9 and 254-255.

91 According to the account of his nephew Zhang Mingdong (1897-1963) 張明東, Zhang Xindong 張新棟 (1841-1907) was a Huabiao village tenant. Because of his destitution, he decided to do business instead. In order to do so, he sold his father’s green standard army registration ( 綠營軍籍) to be a sugar peddler in Fujian province. After a while, he travelled to Southeast Asia to do business and gradually became rich. During late Tung zhi 同治 and early Guangxu 光緒 periods (1860-1870), he was the only Ruian native doing overseas business in Southeast Asia. Every three or four years, Zhang Xindong would return to Ruian to visit his family. Zhang Xindong became connected to Xu through his older brother, who was either a mental patient or a medium for Xu’s Shenquan altar. Zhang’s family blamed Xu’s altar for causing this knotty problem. Thus, in the very beginning, Zhang planned to knock down Xu’s altar. As soon as Zhang departed for Xu’s altar, some of Xu’s apprentices reported this news to Xu. Xu faced east and awaited the arrival of Zhang. Once Zhang arrived, he told Zhang he was the incarnation of Guanyin 觀音 (Chinese Bodhisattva of Compassion) who had saved Zhang’s life while he was suffering a typhoon on his way back to Ruian. Zhang Xindong was convinced by Xu’s response. From then on, Zhang Xindong became the number one supporter of Xu’s altar. See: Zhang (1987), Ibid., 51-52 and Yu Zhentang 余振棠 ed., Ruian lishi renwu zhuanlue 瑞安歷史人物傳略 (The biographies of Ruian celebrities), (Hangzhou: Zhejiang Guji chubanshe, 2006), 139-141.

158 from Xincheng town to the rest of Ruian County. However, no serious incidents happened between Xu’s altar and Ni’s church until the summer of 1900.

Based on Liu Shaokuan’s diary, along with the development of Xu’s shenquan altar in Ruian, on June 21, 1900 a Pingyang vegetarian cult leader Jin Zongcai 金宗財 had been distributing piaobu 飄布 (aka 票布) in the Pingyang area. 92 In fact, the function of piaobu was close to that of the copper coin that Zhao Qi and Zhou Rong had used for their Golden Coin Association in 1860s Pingyang (see chapter one). At any rate, on July

2nd , according to Liu’s diary, the shenquan piaobu was now ubiquitous in the Pingyang area. Later, Liu also mentioned there had been a rumor about a group of Ruian gelao hui

哥老會 (gathering of brothers and elders) who had gone to Pingyang to check on how many members there were at that time. Soon, there was another rumor saying that the

Shenquan was going to launch a rebellion on August 9, 1900 (which is the ghost festival) to expel all of fangui 番鬼 (barbarian ghosts).93 When faced with this local security problem, the initial reactions of Liu and his local elite colleagues were relatively ambiguous, as they vacillated about whether to join this shenquan organization or to build a Tuanlian 團練 (local militia). In order to settle this argument, they decided to use divination for their decision. Although Liu and his colleagues eventually decided to

92 See: Liu Shaokuan 劉紹寬 (1897-1942), Liu Shaokuan Ji 劉紹寬集, in Cangnan wenshi ziliao 蒼南文史 資料 16, (March 2001), 178-179.

93 See: Liu (2001), Ibid., 179. Regarding Gelao hui and the discussion of Chinese secret society tradition, so far the most detailed research is ter Haar’s (1998) book on Chinese Triad Tradition. See: Barend ter Haar, Ritual and Mythology of the Chinese Triads: Creating an Identity . (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 1998).

159 organize a local militia, their initial ambiguous attitude revealed the fact that they still stood somewhat with their neighbors and sympathized with the angry Magic Boxers.

By the summer of 1900 there was a group of vegetarian cult followers who were turning against this chi fanren jiao 吃番人教 (Eating Barbarian Religion). This is largely because many other groups in the same inferior position had copied their method of seeking help from foreigners and had exploited their new situation even more than had the vegetarian cult followers. By the late 1890s, even the first vegetarian cult followers to create such alliances would turn against the foreign religions. 94 On the other hand, in

1890s Wenzhou, the collision between foreign religions and local society had expanded to include not only xenophobia and heterodoxy paranoia but also political concerns such as controversy over sharing the local festivals as well as property seizure problems. The most well-known case happened in the summer of 1894. Because his Catholic neighbor refused to share the cost of a local temple festival a Ruian native Yang Maonai 楊茂奶

94 There was another larger conflict between the vegetarian cult and foreign religions that happened in Gutian 古田 County in northeastern Fujian province in 1895. In fact, this conflict resulted in the only two anti-government movements led by the laoguan vegetarian cult. The first one happened in 1748 and the second in 1895. As for this jiaoan, according to Lin’s (1989) study, on July 31, 1895, about 150-200 vegetarian cult followers, allegedly led by their cult leader Zheng Jiujiu 鄭九九, set out to attack the Huashan 華山 (Mount Hua) foreign residence area. There were eleven casualties reported after this attack, most of them were British. In the beginning, even the British official admitted that the relationship between the local vegetarian cult and the British was very close. However, the friendly relations ended up in a massacre because the Christian converts infuriated the cult followers by saying yesu da, putuofo xiao 耶穌 大, 普陀佛小 (Jesus is more powerful than Buddha), which was a very serious challenge to these cult followers and their thousand-years long religious tradition. Therefore, according to one British witness’s account, these cult followers held up a banner that read “ longye jiangyao zhengfu waiguoren de shangdi 龍 爺將要征服外國人的上帝 (Dragon master will conquer Foreigner’s God)” and marched to mount Hua to attack the foreigners. For the detail of this Gutian Jiaoan 古田教案, See: Lin Wenhui 林文慧, Qingji Fujian Jiaoan zhi yanjiu 清季福建教案之研究 (The Study of Late Qing Fujian Jiaoan), (Taipei: Taiwan Shangwu yinshuguang, 1989), 144-153 and Lu Shiqiang 呂實強 and Zhang Qiuwen 張秋雯 ed., jiaowu jiaoan dang 教務教案檔, vol. 1-7 (Taipei: Zhong yang yan jiu yuan jin dai shi yan jiu suo, Min guo 63- [1974- ]) especially vol. 5:3.

160 burned down his Church. This arson case ended up with Yang’s formal apology to his

Catholic neighbor, due to the pressure coming from a French gunboat and the Ningpo

French consul in June 1895. 95 Less than two years later in Yongjia county of northwestern Wenzhou in 1896, a Christian convert Xu Dingao 徐 定 鼇 filed an accusation against his lineage leader who refused to allow local Christians to use their ancestral hall as their gathering place. Xu Dingao claimed that he had made a lease with local Christians and forced his lineage leader to ratify it. In addition to accusing his lineage members of impeding the holding of Christian services, Xu also charged his lineage members with stealing his household belongings. After the investigation, the

Yongjia magistrate found that Xu had made false charges to gain profits from this situation. More importantly, the villagers reported to the magistrate that Xu had been responsible for digging out the local deity’s eyeballs. Xu denied this charge and did not receive any official punishment. 96 Apparently, in this triangle of local official, villager and foreign missionary the converts always got the upper hand in the end.

Along with the deepening penetration of foreign religions into Wenzhou local society, we can gather from the missionaries’ pleased tones in their reports to the church that there was a gradual growth in churches and local converts throughout Wenzhou prefecture by the late 1890s. The presence of foreign religions turned out to be a crucial factor in the shifting configuration of Wenzhou local politics. Because of the

95 See: Fang Zhigang 方志剛 trans., 溫州神拳會與天主教會 (The Wenzhou Magic Boxer Association and Catholic Church) in Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 溫州文史資料 vol. 9 (March 1994): 270-271.

96 See: Lu Shiqiang 呂實強 and Zhang Qiuwen 張秋雯 ed., jiaowu jiaoan dang 教務教案檔, vol. 1-7 (Taipei: Zhong yang yan jiu yuan jin dai shi yan jiu suo, Min guo 63- [1974- ]) especially vol. 6:2, 1337-39.

161 missionaries’ frequent intervention in local politics, the previously inferior became superior and the minority became mighty. This bold change led to more frequent collisions between local converts and villagers in their daily lives. Despite the fact that converts could enjoy some privileges they never had before, their conversion did not automatically guarantee a higher social status for them. Although converts had used their conversion as a way to seek upward social mobility, in the eyes of their neighbors they were free-riders who were simply attempting to profit. This reputation as profiteers violated the society’s longstanding “community consciousness” and thus the converts were considered “immoral” by the Wenzhou residents.97 However, under the protective umbrella of the foreign missionary, the traditional political mechanisms, including official and lineage organizations, were rapidly losing their ability to curb these immoral behaviors resulting in unparalleled competition from foreign religions and their local converts. This impotence came along with a deepening frustration that pervaded late

1890s Wenzhou. In the context of escalating frustration among villagers and local authorities it is not surprising that we see the large scale of violence in reaction to these injustices that happened in summer 1900. Behind this seemingly national shenquan hui movement, however, a new mechanism collaborated with the empire and local society was being forged to accommodate these new problems.

97 The discussion of community consciousness and moral economy was not popular among British historians until 1971 when E.P. Thompson published an article entitled “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteen Century” in Past and Present . Based on his fieldwork in 1960s Southeast Asia, Scott (1986) applied Thompson’s conception to explain the question of why Southeast Asian peasants could endure such bad livelihood conditions. However, in another E.P. Thompson article titled “Moral Economy Reviewed,” he argued that he did not think that Scott’s understanding about his conception was right. Thompson wrote that, “he (Scott) is in fact more interested in the patron-client relation in the village rather than in those confrontations or negotiations which mark the European tradition of Food riot.” Both of E.P. Thompson’s works see: E.P. Thompson, Custom in Common . (New York: Penguin Books, 1991). For Scott’s work, see: James C. Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986).

162

VI. Conclusion:

Throughout this chapter it has been made clear that without Catholicism and

Christianity the originally marginalized political minority, the vegetarian cult, could not have entered the central stage of Wenzhou local politics. Moreover, it is also not an exaggeration to say that these two treaty-backed foreign religions triggered a reconfiguration of local politics that was previously unparalleled in Wenzhou history. As we can see, the main theme of Jiaoan was involvement in local politics rather than in understanding diverse religious dogmas. Moreover, the increased participation of the foreign missionaries in local political competitions inevitably led to raising the profile of their local converts—people who were once political minorities. However, every Jiaoan represented a different stage of the Wenzhou local political reconfiguration process. By the 1900s the two foreign religions had transformed their local converts from a marginalized group into an unprecedented local political power. Therefore, the crucial problem presented to the Qing officials became how to harmonize the tension between foreign religions and commoners without losing their superiority over local society.

In order to do this, a slogan minjiao xiangan 民教相安 (The mutual harmony relation between foreign religions and local commoners), was frequently mentioned in the Qing officials’ reports regarding the Jiaoan to their supervisors roughly after 1890s.

From then on, what these local officials did was adjust the existing political mechanism by accommodating the local converts by allowing their entry into this previously

163 untouchable zone. As a matter of fact, after the Boxer uprising, there was a discussion among local officials about establishing a new mechanism in local society. In March

1901, Jiangxi 江西 governor Li Xingrui 李興銳 issued an order to install a new agency called jiaowu gongsuo 教務公所 (foreign religion affair committee) in every county to deal with conflicts related to foreign religion. Li’s idea was that whenever a conflict happened, this local assembly-like agency would be responsible for negotiating with missionaries and their converts to settle arguments. It also deserves mention that the reason local gentry volunteered to join this troublesome agency was not just because of

“elite activism.”98 Rather, what really worried them was the potential reprimand they might receive if they failed to prevent a jiaoan in their town. Depending on how troublesome it was to their superior, different levels of civil exams could have been suspended to punish local gentry and their pupils for their failure to prevent these events in advance. 99 Thus, we can see that the local officials manipulated the “balance of terror” to maintain their superiority over local society. Not very long after, however, Li

Xingrui’s proposal proved unrealistic largely because the environment of local politics had changed from degree holder domination to “exercised from innumerable points” which went beyond Li’s imagination. Thus Li’s proposal was not implemented nationally.

Later, Zhili Fantai 直隸藩台 (Zhili province civil minister) Zhou Fangbo 周方伯 pointed out the fatal weakness of Li’s idea in his proposal which was approved by the Qing court in July 1901. He wrote:

98 For more on the idea of elite activism, see: Mary Rankin, Elite activism and political transformation in China : Zhejiang Province, 1865-1911 ( Stanford, C.A.. : Stanford University Press, 1986 ).

99 See: Cheng Zongyu 程宗裕 ed., Jiaoan Zouyi huibian 教案奏議彙編 ( The collection of official report on Jiaoan ), (Shanghai: Shanghai shu ju, Guangxu xin chou i.e. 1901), 156-158.

164

Since there were very few jiaomin 教民 (local converts) listed in the ranks of the

shendong 紳董 ( gentry and local executive board), we allowed the missionaries

to create a candidate list for the local official. These candidates were expected to

be law-abiding and villager-supporting elders as well as having been members of

the religion for over ten years with a clean background. After verifying these

candidates’ backgrounds, no matter whether they had an official title and rank or

not, the local official issued a yu 諭 (license) assigning them as a member of the

executive board for their church. From then on, on behalf of their church, they

were allowed to enter the magistrate’s office freely to negotiate with us for their

common concerns. The magistrate was expected to treat them equally as if they

were a degree holder like shengyuan 生員 and Jianshen 監生.100

Zhou named this system the Jiaodong 教董 (The local convert executive board) system, in which all members were to be treated equally with other local executive committees headed by “degreed” local elites. Comparing Zhou’s proposal to Li’s, apparently Zhou was more aware of the reality that the foreign religions and their converts’ power was impossible to quash in their district. Most important of all, the selection process was in the missionaries’ hands not in local officials’. To a great extent, the power of the civil

100 This proposal was prepared by Zhili fantai 直隸藩台 (civil minister of Zhili province) in July 1901. In fact, his proposal became the Qing Empire’s foreign religion policy later on by issuing an edict to every county. Zhili fantai was made an example for other province colleagues to follow, since this position was the nearest provincial civil minister to Beijing. So the proposal made by a Zhili official always meant a Grand Council had ratified it. For the detailed content of this long proposal, see: Cheng Zongyu 程宗裕 ed., Ibid., (1901), 171-192.

165 exam, one of the most important ways of attaining political power in China since the tenth century, had been eroded by the influence of foreign religion in the late 1890s. By all accounts, the reconfiguration of Wenzhou local politics triggered by foreign religion was formally finalized in 1901, at which point a key component of local political power structure was formed.

As Wenzhou entered the twentieth century, how did this new configuration work in Wenzhou local politics? What kinds of local political change can we find in Wenzhou in the midst of late Qing and early republic modernization reforms? In the next chapter, I will examine another thousand-year long tradition, dragon boat racing, as a way to explore the repercussions of this political reconfiguration from 1901 until the Nationalists entered in 1927.

166 Chapter 4:

Deep Play: Dragon Boat Racing and the Reconfiguration of Wenzhou Local Politics (1890-1927)

I. Fighting behind the Iron Curtain:

On a hot summer day in early June 1981, Ruian city erupted in a riot. 1 As a result of a collision between two racing dragon boats in Ruian County tens of thousands of villagers flooded out from both sides to take part in a huge armed conflict (xiedou 械鬥).

As a result of this xiedou , as many as 128 people were wounded, a total of 155 homes were destroyed, and 16 national factories were severely damaged. During this incident, angry villagers also attacked local administrative units, including a police station. Due to this xiedou , the whole local community, including factories, retail stores, and public transportation, was forced to shutdown for over a week. 2

Five years later, a similar xiedou happened at about three o’clock in the afternoon on June 11, 1986. According to a Wenzhou communist official’s report, the boat collision between the dragon boats of two villages provoked bystanders’ anger; they began throwing rocks and bricks at the opposing boats. Village officials soon took action to stop this conflict and compelled the bystanders to return to their homes immediately. At the same time, in order to resolve the conflict they dispatched leaders of the offending village

1 The following account is drawn from The Rui-an city neibucankaoziliao 內部參考資料 (inner circuited news), which was released in 2004 and only available in the Wenzhou library.

2 See: Ruian shi difangzhi bangongshi bian 瑞安市地方志辦公室, (Ruian City Local History office), Ruian longzhou huodong jianshi 瑞安龍舟活動簡史 (The Brief history of Ruian dragon boat), (Ruian shi: Ruian shi difangzhi bangongshi, 2004), 16-17.

167 to go to the other village and apologize. However, these efforts proved unhelpful and the situation spun totally out of control. As this Wenzhou communist official wrote frankly in his report:

At about eight o’clock in the evening, some individuals [in Shangwang 上望]

began beating the gong to gather three hundred male villagers in order to retaliate

against [Qianbu 前埠 whose dragon boat collided with theirs]. These Shangwang

villagers, led by their dragon boat banner, rushed to Qianbu along with several

thousand followers to attack Qianbu… As soon as these Shangwang villagers

started off from their village, the Qianbu villagers also beat gongs to gather their

adult male villagers to prepare to fight by installing an electric fence,

accumulating rocks and bricks, as well as taking fire extinguishers, hydrochloric

acid and sulfuric acid etc from a nearby textile factory to defend their village.

During this armed conflict, both sides had wood clubs, farm tools, and threw

bricks and rocks. They also seized hostages from the other side. The top Ruian

County officials went to the scene upon learning the news. In order to pacify the

conflict they took a high-powered loudspeaker from the county government in

attempt to compete with the noise made by these angry villagers. These local

officials urged several local elders and retired carders to address the crowds by

using the high-powered speaker to alleviate this situation. This armed conflict did

not come to an end until four o’clock the next morning, and the local communist

168 organizational official could not rescue these hostages until the following

morning. 3

This armed conflict was called the June 11 incident and was followed by strict bans on dragon boat racing in Wenzhou from 1986 to 2004.

These events immediately raise questions about the nature of these conflicts.

What were these two collective actions about? Why did a dragon boat collision lead to serious armed conflict? Why did Wenzhou residents need to do this? As I discussed in chapter three, the local political reconfiguration triggered by two foreign religions changed the local political environment in Wenzhou beginning in the 1870s. In this chapter I aim to do two things. First I will provide a “thick description” explanation of the “deep play” of dragon boat racing in the arena of local politics. 4 Secondly, I will use the changing attitudes of Wenzhou officials and society toward this local religious tradition to illustrate the development of this new political mechanism. By examining these dragon boat related conflicts, I hope to shed light on the correlations between dragon boat racing and Wenzhou politics as well as the local political reconfiguration since late Qing period. I hope to show that dragon boat racing is not only a thousand- years long religious tradition, but should also be understood as a form of “deep play” in

Wenzhou local politics.

3 Ibid., 18-19.

4 As for the concept of “thick description,” see: Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), especially chapter one. However, my approach to this Wenzhou dragon boat racing is inspired by Geertz’s famous concept of “deep play.” See: Chapter 15, Ibid.

169 II. The Significance of Dragon Boat Racing Festival in Wenzhou:

Similar to the June 6 incident of 1981, both of these two incidents happened on one of the three important Chinese folk festivals: duanwu 端午 (dragon boat festival, aka

Double Fifth festival). On the connections between dragon boat festival and dragon boat racing, there had been an official approval saying that the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar will be a day to commemorate the ancient martyr Qu Yuan 屈原.

Subsequently, zongzi 粽子 (pyramid-shaped mass of glutinous rice wrapped in leaves) and dragon boat competition were made essential parts of the national duanwu festival to commemorate the death of this ancient patriotic poet. 5 There is, however, a vivid contrast between the so-called “standardized” dragon boat festival and the violent armed conflicts that occurred in the Wenzhou area. As a matter of fact, as I am going to illustrate, these armed conflicts have been embedded in Wenzhou residents’ daily life experiences for several centuries. Similar to their policies relating to so-called illicit local popular religions and their deities, the past dynasties’ local officials had been attempting to curb

5 Qu Yuan (ca. 340 BC-278 BC) was a Chinese poet and official from southern Chu during the Warring States Period. His works are mostly found in an anthology of poetry known as Chu Ci . His death is commemorated on Duan Wu or Tuen Ng Festival ( 端午節), commonly known in English as the Dragon Boat Festival. Popular legend has it that villagers carried their dumplings and boats to the middle of the river and desperately tried to save him, but were unsuccessful. In order to keep fish and evil spirits away from his body, they beat drums and splashed the water with their paddles. They threw rice into the water as a food offering to Qu Yuan and to distract the fish away from his body. However, late one night, the spirit of Qu Yuan appeared before his friends and told them that he died because of a river dragon. He asked his friends to wrap their rice into three-cornered silk packages to ward off the dragon. These packages became a traditional food known as zòngzi, although the lumps of rice are now wrapped in reed leaves instead of silk. The act of racing to search for his body in boats gradually became the cultural tradition of dragon boat racing, which is held on the anniversary of his death every year. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qu_Yuan. Also, this festival can also be seen as an example of the high degree of national cultural integration in late Imperial China. However, instead of the above standardized explanation for this festival, according to Huang shi’s 黃石 extensive research on this festival, he has already clarified that there is no direct connection between Qu Yuan and the Dragon Boat festival. Instead, dragon boat racing was closely related to dispelling disease. See: Huang Shi 黃石, duanwu lisu shi 端午禮俗史 (History of Duanwu festival), (Hong Kong: Taixing shuju, 1963), 64-67.

170 this esu 惡俗 (bad custom) but were not successful as we can see from the flourishing of this custom today. Nevertheless, it is still worth asking why a commemorative activity would be linked to a violent armed conflict, particularly in what was officially an atheist period in communist China? 6 Moreover, what is the correlation between these festival activities and local politics in Wenzhou? What kind of local political changes appear by examining local government’s policy toward this annual event? In this chapter, I argue that compared to previous dynasties, the late-Qing and early-Republican local officials took heavy-handed and direct action to curb this thousand-years long local custom, including forcibly sawing the dragon boat into several sections and confiscating them.

This hardliner image is totally different from what modern Chinese historians depict as weak Qing and early-Republic states. Moreover, along with local officials’ changing attitudes to this local religious tradition, which was largely due to the request coming from the development of modernization in China, Wenzhou locals also took advantage of this opportunity to reconfigure the order of their local politics. In addition to reassessing the power of late-Qing and early-Republic regimes in Wenzhou, I am also going to show that the State’s unparalleled hardliner policy was hastening the emergence of local factions (defang paixi 地方派系) in Wenzhou local politics.

6 During the summer of 2008, I went to Wenzhou to conduct fieldwork on dragon boat racing (May 30- June 8). Even the Wenzhou city government had issued strict regulations on this local athletic activity (defang tiyu huodong 地方體育活動). However, as the result of a minor boat collision, there was reportedly a confrontation between local cowards and wujing 武警 (armed police), which happened in 前埠 Qianbu village of Ruian County on the afternoon of June 2. According to my informant, the local media was discouraged from covering this confrontation. However, thanks to the wild spread of digital cameras and the internet we still can easily have some photos.

171 In 2004, Korea made a controversial statement that the Duanwu festival was actually part of Korean indigenous culture not Chinese. 7 Needless to say, this announcement seriously exasperated some Chinese, who adamantly contested what they thought of as an offensive statement. 8 Among the proof compiled by Wenzhou local historians and reporters against this claim the most frequently mentioned was the long history of Wenzhou dragon boat racing that went back to a well-known Southern Song dynasty local literati named Ye Shi 葉適 (1150-1223). 9 In his famous poem, he vividly described the dragon boat racing in late-twelfth-century Wenzhou:

[On the day of duanwu festival] there was a [dragon] boat in every single village

throughout [Wenzhou] county. The banner [on the dragon boat] waving in the air

everywhere like a contest with each other. [We officials] followed [local

commoners’] custom to hold procession to pray for a [peaceful] year. It was not

beneficial at all [for our rule] to take heavy-handed action to strictly forbid this

custom. [On the contrary, if we insisted on implementing this ban,] local

commoners will blame us for misrule. 10

7 This was not proved false until four years later.

8 For example, many of my Wenzhou informants did not start paying attention to this local tradition until the release of this news.

9 Ye Shi 葉適 (aka Ye Shuixin 葉水心, 1150-1223) was a South Song philosopher as well as one of the important founding fathers of the so-called Yongjia xuepai 永嘉學派 ( Yongjia School).

10 Ye Shi 葉適 (1150-1223), shuixin wen ji:29 juan 水 心 文 集 29 卷 (Wenzhou: Lei Hong, Qing Qianlong yi hai [20 nian, 1755]).

172 Apparently, Ye Shi (and probably other late-Southern Song local officials) tolerated this local tradition. Furthermore, Ye Shi clearly discouraged his colleagues from strictly banning this custom since “local commoners will blame us for misrule.” Throughout the

Song dynasty local officials adopted a similar policy of toleration toward this local custom. Even more, some Song local officials expressed their strong interest in this local festival. 11 Not until the late Ming dynasty (1368-1644) did local officials decide to implement stricter policies to curb this local custom as a result of the village conflicts and fighting it often caused. However, compared to late-Qing policy, the Ming officials’ fighting with this local tradition was basically only on paper. Nonetheless, we can see

Ming local officials had begun adjusting their attitude to this local tradition and desiring to restrict it. Their changing attitude can be seen in Jiang Huai’s 姜淮 account about the daily life experience during the regime of Wanli 萬曆 Emperor (1563-1620). Jiang blamed this custom for causing conflict within Wenzhou villagers. As he wrote:

From urban to rural areas [in Wenzhou], almost every village ( lishe 里社) and local

temple ( congci 從祠) had their privately built dragon boat. Whenever the Duanwu

festival approached, meddlesome people ( haoshizhe 好事者) made donations or

launch a fundraising to build or to repair their dragon boat. During the day of racing,

they would steer their dragon boat to ask for money from every household who

offer sacrifices (jihu 祭戶) and their in-laws to make up the pervious cost for the

11 In addition to Ye Shi’s account, we can see a similar description and attitude of Wenzhou dragon boat racing from geography books like Zhu Mu’s 祝穆 Fangyu shenglan 方輿勝覽 (Topography book for visiting places of scenic beauty). The Song people basically considered this boat racing as part of local custom without judgmental bias. See: Zhu Mu 祝穆, Fangyu shenglan 方輿勝覽, (Beijing Shi: Zhonghua shu ju, 2003). This account is also available at: Sun Yiyan 孫衣言 (1815-1895) ed., Zhang Ruyuan 張如元 annotated, Ouhai yiwen 甌海軼聞, (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chuban she, 2005), 1374.

173 dragon boat. They gathered crowds to make a roar [to demand money], setting one

person against another and coerce villagers to force donation. In order to meet their

demands their in-laws always had to pawn their belongings in advance. Nobody

dared to resist their demands. The way they collected money was more effective

than officials. As for the keen competition to contend for the prize, these contenders

fought with each other by using their paddles even over a very minor conflict. It is

also heard that there were people who were injured and even lost their life.

Expensive lawsuits along with the animosity among villagers caused great damage

to these villagers’ daily life. 12

Based on above accounts, the activities of dragon boat racing can be divided into three major stages: beforehand preparation, racing day, and the disputes among villagers over the racing. Moreover, Ye Shi and Jiang Huai’s accounts also reveal two important features of the Wenzhou dragon boat racing tradition: first, as early as the late thirteenth century Dragon boats could be found in every single village throughout Wenzhou prefecture. Second, this annual event was sponsored by lineage organizations or local temples. It also must be noted that these so-called “meddlesome people” came from two important local political authorities: lineage and temple. On behalf of this local political authority, they were allowed to collect common funds to hold this annual event. We can thus say that dragon boat racing had become a popular activity within the Wenzhou community by the late thirteenth century. Why was this seemingly troublesome and expensive event so popular among Wenzhou residents for hundreds of years in the face of

12 Jiang Huai 姜淮, Cai Kejiao 蔡克驕 annotated, 岐海瑣談 Qihai Suotan (The insignificant record of Wenzhou during Wanli period), (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chuban she, 2002), 125.

174 the financial and physical costs? What were the reasons the villagers held this annual tradition?

It is hardly imaginable that Wenzhou residents held such huge and expensive events to celebrate the death of Qu Yuan, who was obviously very distant from their daily lives. In his extensive work titled, History of Duanwu festival (duanwu lisu shi 端午禮俗

史), the early-twentieth-century folk custom scholar Huang Shi 黃石 (1963) argues that this festival actually had nothing to do with the ancient poet, Qu Yuan. Rather, its aim was to expel epidemics (chuyi 除疫). 13 Moreover, the dragon boat racing did not become a nation wide annual event until the late tenth century (which is roughly the Five dynasties and early Song dynasty). The northern Song Hunan 湖南 provincial official

Fang Zhiming 范 致 明 mentioned in his Yueyang fengtu ji 岳 陽 風 土 記 (natural conditions and social customs of a Yueyang, Hunan) the dragon boat tradition held right in Qu Yuan’s hometown. He wrote:

On the eighth day of the fourth month… the temples located on the riverbank all

have [dragon] boats. [They] selected one day in the mid-fourth month to hold

their launching ceremony. [The organizer] will beat a drum to gather people. Then

they sang as they rowed the boat. They did not stop this activity until the day of

duanwu 端午. In fact, they considered boat racing (Jindu 競渡) as a method of

dispelling calamity (rangzai 禳災). [During the boat racing] People who suffered

13 See: Huang Shi 黃石, duanwu lisu shi 端午禮俗史 (History of Duanwu festival), (Hong Kong: Taixing shuju, 1963), 112-113.

175 ill always prepared offerings by the river side to pray for their health. [In addition

to their offerings], they also served wine and meat to reward the crew of dragon

boat [to help them dispel the disease]. [If there is no dragon boat in their

neighborhood], they will sail reed boats to expel plague (songwen 送瘟). 14

From Fang’s description dragon boat racing was actually considered an important vehicle to expel epidemics via water. Thus, on the day of the Duanwu festival, people made sacrificial offers to the plague demon (wenguai 瘟鬼) not to Qu yuan. Due to the fear of epidemics, for the same reason, Wenzhou residents not only held dragon boat races but also sought help from various popular religious deities and rites to defend against epidemics. In addition to going to individual deities and temples to seek help (such as the

Temple of five spirits (Wuling Miao 五靈廟)15 , Marshal Wen temple (Wen Yuanshuai miao 溫元帥廟) 16 and Chen Shisi 陳十四 (aka Chen Jinggu 陳靖姑)17 ), Wenzhou

14 See: Fang Zhiming 范致明 (?-1119), Yueyang Fengtuji 岳陽風土記 (Taipei: Chengwen chubanshe, 1976), 40-41.

15 According to Sun Tongyuan’s account, this Wuling temple (now called lingyinmiao 靈應廟) was built in 1598. Due to the ceaseless plague that happened in Wenzhou, the concurrent acting Yongjia magistrate Lin Yinxiang 林應翔 decided to build Wuling temple on the east side of Wenzhou city to protect the whole Wenzhou city residents from the plague. See: Sun Tongyuan, Yongjia Jianwenlu 永嘉見聞錄 (Information about Yongjia). Available in Chen Ruizan ed. 陳瑞贊, Dongou yishi huilu 東甌逸事匯錄 (The Collection of Wenzhou local history), (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chubanshe, 2006),104-105. As for the study of Wuling deities, see: Richard Con Glahn, “The Enchantment of Wealth: The God Wutong in the Social History of Jiangnan” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies , vol. 51, no. 2 (December 1991): 651-714. As for Qing official’s once tightening policy to this cult, see: Jiang Chushan 蔣竹山, “ 湯斌禁毀五通神：清初政 治菁英打擊通俗文化的個案 (Tang Bing’s ban the Wutong cult: a case study of the repression of Popular Culture by Political Elites in Early Qing China)” Xinshixue (New History) 新史學, vol. 6, no. 2 (June 1995): 67-112.

16 The term “fear of epidemic” is borrowed from Katz’s (1995) pioneering work about the connection between plague relief and the cult of Wen Yuanshuai 溫元帥 (Marshal Wen) in late imperial Wenzhou. Based on Qing Wenzhou official school instructor 溫州府教諭 Sun Tongyuan’s 孫同元 account that in order to send off the plague, Wenzhou residents will held a rite called shuiluhui 水陸會 (celebration of a

176 residents also held different types of rites such as blocking the road with blessings

(lanjiefu 攔街福 ), 18 offering sacrifices to plague demons (jiyigui 祭疫鬼)19 to hold up plague demons (jieyigui 截疫鬼 ) 20 and especially send off demons (song wenguai 送瘟

鬼). One of the most remarkable events according to Sun Tongyuan 孫同元, who served as a Wenzhou official school instructor 溫州府教諭 from 1827 to 1847, occurred especially during the height of plague when Wenzhou residents would not only build an

land and water mass). See: Paul Katz, Demon Hordes and Burning Boats: The Cult of Marshal Wen in Late Imperial Chekiang (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 153-159.

17 See: Wang Fang 王仿, Jin Chongliu 金崇柳, “Yongjia longdeng yu Chen Shisi niang niang 永嘉龍燈與 陳十四娘娘” (The Connection between dragon lantern and Madam Chen Shisi), in Zhongguo Mingjian Wenhua 中國民間文化, 民間信仰研究 (Shanghai: Xue lin chu ban she: Xin hua shu dian Shanghai fa xing suo fa xing, 1994). As for Hagiography of Chen Jinggu, see: Brigitte Baptandier, “The Lady Linshui: How a Woman Became a Goddess” in Meir Shahar and Robert Weller edited, Unruly Gods: Divinity and Society in China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii press, 1996), 105-149 and Brigitte Baptandier, The Lady of Linshui: A Chinese Female Cult (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008).

18 As for the description of lanjiefu 攔街福 (Blocking the road with blessings), this festival ran for one month starting from the fifteenth day of second month to the fifteenth day of third month of lunar calendar. During this festival, the main six streets in downtown Wenzhou were full of roadside offerings as well as decorative lanterns. As for the reason of why did Wenzhou city resident hold this costly one month event, according to the interview done by Kuo, Wenzhou residents believed that by holding this event they will be free from epidemics. See: Guo Zhongyue (Qing) 郭鐘岳, Oujiang Xiaoji 甌江小記, 1878 (Ou river miscellaneous records) available in Chen Ruizan ed.陳瑞贊, Ibid., (2006), 31.

19 As for jiyigui 祭疫鬼 (offer sacrifice to demons), based on Zhao Jun’s 趙鈞 account, who is a lifetime school teacher in Wenzhou, he mentioned there was a fierce plague attacking Wenzhou in 1840 and caused huge casualties. In order to be free from the threat of epidemics, Zhao pointed out that many Wenzhou residents made offerings to beg these demons to give them a break. He also attests that he heard there was a wealthy family setting up a room in their residence especially for these “demons’ that is full of various amenities like food, gold and even gambling paraphernalia. By using these amenities, this wealthy family believed these demons will be enticed to stay at this room. Then they will hire a monk and a Daoist to arrest these demons and send them directly to the Ou River. See: Zhao Jun, Tanhou lu 譚後錄 only available in the special collection department in the Wenzhou city library. However, part of Zhao’s account was published. See: Chen Ruizan edited 陳瑞贊, Ibid., (2006), 40.

20 About so-called jiyigui 截疫鬼 (to hold up demons), based on Huang Han’s 黃漢 account, he pointed out that in Qing Wenzhou, if there was a plague happening in a village, then the adjacent villagers always placed a straw rope on the road to block these demons from entering their village. See: Huang Han, xushouzhai suibi 虛受齊隨筆 available in Chen Ruizan edited 陳瑞贊, Ibid., (2006), 40.

177 altar to hold a rite as mentioned above, but also build a big paper boat to send off these plague demons (wenguai 瘟鬼) to the sea. This event as Sun described it:

In Yongjia, clear and rainy seasons vary, and periods of hot and cold are hard to

predict. The people suffer from seasonal illnesses, and good doctors are few…

[During epidemics,] the people raise money and set up a ritual altar, engaging in

rites which last anywhere from three to seven days. Before these start, the people

build a paper boat, filling it with countless quantities of money and treasures

made of paper. As soon as the rites have concluded, they take the boat to the

estuary and float it away using a “wooden raft.” When the boat is afloat, they set

it afire and let the winds blow it out to sea; to where, no one knows. The masses

believe that this rite results in expelling plague demons and curing all illnesses. 21

Based on Katz’s (1995) pioneering work studying the burning of boats (shao wangchuan

燒王船) in Taiwan and Wenzhou, he concluded that “Rituals involving the expulsion of plague demons by means of a boat flourished throughout southern China.” 22 Moreover, according to diarist Zhao Jun’s account in the mid-nineteenth century, he also pointed out that rich Wenzhou residents would build small dragon boats ( xiao longzhou 小龍舟), along with a huge parade consisting of music play and mobile theater, to send off the

21 As for Sun Tongyuan’s account, see: Chen Ruizan edited 陳瑞贊, Dongou yishi huilu 東甌逸事匯錄 (The Collection of Wenzhou local history), (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chubanshe, 2006), 40. This translation was nicely done by Paul Katz in his 1995 pioneering book on Marshall Wen’s cult in Wenzhou. See: Katz (1995), Ibid., 156.

22 See: Katz (1995), Ibid., 158. Also see his other book which is published in Chinese: Kang Bao 康豹, Taiwan de wangye xinyang 台灣的王爺信仰 (Taipei: Shangding wenhua, 1997).

178 plague demons after they had concluded the rite of offering sacrifice to plague demons

(jiyigui 祭疫鬼 ). 23 Therefore, it is clear that the reason why these southern Chinese residents held this annual event is due to their commons fear of epidemic rather than as a commemoration of the death of Qu Yuan. 24 Moreover, from Qing dynasty Wenzhou native Zhao Jun’s description about small dragon boats, we can also see the close connection between dragon boats and expelling of plague demons in Wenzhou resident’s daily life experience.

In term of the techniques and vehicles that Wenzhou residents used to defend against epidemics, water played a crucial role in the whole process. Water played the role of purifier and transporter in the process of “cleaning” the “dirty” which were the “plague demons” in Wenzhou resident’s daily life. 25 Moreover, on the occasion of “sending off plague demons,” Huang Shi pointed out that the day of the dragon boat festival, which is the fifth day of fifth lunar month, coincided with the rite of plague demons rites in China since Han dynasty. 26 Thus, in addition to the small dragon boats for emergency situations,

Wenzhou residents also build regular size dragon boats to send off the plague demon via both water and the boat.

23 See: Chen Ruizan edited 陳瑞贊, Ibid., (2006), 40.

24 According to Shi Hongbao’s 施鴻保 (1804-1871) Minza ji 閩雜記. In the Fuzhou area every community raised funds to build a bamboo-paper boat, which consisted of several seats for deities, in roughly the fifth or sixth lunar month. After they concluded their rite, they took it to the beach and burned it to send off plague demons. We can also find similar customs in Xiamen 廈門. However, the difference is the Xiamen residents built a real boat not a bamboo paper boat. See: 施鴻保 (1804-1871), Minza ji 閩雜記.

25 See: Mary Doulas , Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London and New York: Routledge, 1988).

26 See: Huang Shi 黃石, Ibid., (1963), 57-67.

179 After exploring the motives of holding dragon boat racing on duanwu festival, we still need to ask one more question: if the key motive is sending off plague demons, why did people hold races, especially given the costs of doing so? Collisions occurred when villagers, sending off these plague demons as quickly as they could, rowed the boats as fast as possible. Without proper race rules and because of the relatively narrow river course, any minor collision would be easily escalate into a full-fledged conflict between the two boats’ crews. According to the late-Ming official Jiang Huai’s complaint about this Wenzhou “bad custom,” he blamed dragon boat racing for causing endless feuds within the local community. Moreover, in local officials’ view the controversies surrounding the dragon boat racing were basically twofold: coercive donation before the racing day and the casualties caused by fighting between the racing boat crews. In addition to coercing donations, the most striking impact on Wenzhou residents’ daily lives was the casualties caused by the dragon boat racing. In fact, the direct cause of the casualties was not from racing but rather from fights that broke out between the crews.

Since most of these participants did not wear life vests and nor did they receive proper safety instructions before racing, it is not surprising that the most common cause of death was drowning. Even several decades later, the suffering caused by the dragon boat racing still lingered in the lives of these villagers. As Jiang Huai wrote:

Lin Shixian’s 林時憲 youngest son died right on the eve of lunar New Year. [In

order to bury his son], Lin and his servant walked to western hill (Xishan 西山).

Once they finished digging the grave, they heard someone was crying indistinctly.

[Out of curiosity and fear], they went to seek where the crying was coming from.

180 Soon they realized that crying was flowing from the river bank.… Later, Lin

inquired his friends about what had happened in that place. People told him that the

location he picked for his son was exactly the place where the drowned victims

were buried after the dragon boat racing in 1542. 27

Thus, from above story, we can see that the memory of these drown victims was still fresh in these villagers’ minds many generations later. Moreover, the cause of their ancestor’s death was reinforced by the holding of annual dragon boat racing events. This memory was an important part of the cause of the inter-village feuds in Wenzhou.

Moreover, this kind of feud was not easy to dissolve unless these villagers were willing to resolve it. Thus, it is not surprising at all that Qing official Sun Tongyuan expressed his deep frustration toward this local “bad custom” in his personal account:

There was always dragon boat racing at the duanwu festival. Those local

meddlesome people rushed on to be the first [during the dragon boat racing], thus

there were always cases of accidentally falling into the river and drowning.

Despite [Wenzhou] local officials issuing strict bans on this [bad custom], they

still could not rectify these villagers’ resolve. This frustration deserved a deep

sigh. 28

In addition to Sun’s frustration his account also reveals the fact that by mid-Qing local officials could not curb Wenzhou residents’ commitment to run this “bad local custom.”

27 Ibid., 212.

28 See: Chen Ruizan ed. 陳瑞贊, Ibid., (2006), 33.

181 Thus, in the eyes of Wenzhou local officials, it turns out that this religious event that was intended to expel epidemics became a lively arsenal in their district.

However, it also must be noted that the ineffectiveness of officials’ ban did not inevitably lead to the aggravation of inter-village feuds. On the contrary, Wenzhou residents had created their own system to regulate this seemingly troublesome annual event. Dragon boat racing events were not only used as a vehicle to ward off plague demons, they were also seen as an incarnation of the local cultural nexus of power in

Wenzhou. 29 Despite past dynasties, Wenzhou local officials kept up their campaign against this local “bad custom.” However, this custom was still enthusiastically supported by Wenzhou villagers even though they had to pay tremendously high expenses. In terms of the deep play in local politics, more crucial than the warding off of demons is the multi-village alliances that operated behind the scenes of annual dragon boat races.

Furthermore, a non-governmental para-political mechanism, which was the incarnation of the Dragon Mother Cult ( longmu 龍母 cult), had been working to regulate this event to keep annual racing from getting out of control. Compared to the content of the previous

29 According to Duara’s (1988) great work, which is based on a six volume investigation of the northern Chinese plain conducted by the research bureau of South Manchurian Railway Company (also known as Mantetsu ) from 1940 to 1942 (p.6). Based on this document, in his award-winning book, Duara provided us a “common frame of reference” to understand “the impact of state strengthening on the organization of power in rural northern China” (p.1). As for his concept of “cultural nexus of power,” as he defined: “The cultural nexus integrates of organizational systems and principles that shape the exercise of power in rural society. These include hierarchies of segmentary or nested type, found, for instance, in the organization of lineages and markets. Hierarchies may be composed of territorial groupings whose membership is based on an ascriptive right, as in certain temple organizations; or they may be formed by voluntary associations, such as water-control or merchant associations. Also part of the nexus are informational networks of interpersonal relationships found, for example, between affines, patrons and clients, or religious teachers and disciples. Organizations may be inclusive or exclusive, single-purpose or multipurpose, and so on”. See: Prasenjit Duara, Culture, Power, and State: Rural North China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), 15-16. Compared to Duara’s upside-down perspective on the state/society relationship, his student Xin Zhang emphasized local elites’ activism as part of Qing and early-Republic’s government. See: Xin Zhang, Social Transformation in Modern China: The State and Local Elites in Henan, 1900-1937 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

182 chapters, I argue that Wenzhou dragon boat racing can also be considered a “living organism” within Wenzhou local politics. In order to understand how this “organism” worked in modern Wenzhou local politics we must explore the intrinsic incentive of this event as well as answer the following questions: how was this dragon boat racing event run? Who organized the events? How a religious event can be considered a “living organism” in Wenzhou local politics?

III. The Festival as performed in Wenzhou:

According to Minguo Ruian xianzhigao 民國瑞安縣志稿 (1935 Ruian County local gazetteer draft), dragon boat racing always started with a rite called “gate opening”

(kai dianmen 開殿門) in a local temple, which served as a prelude to the dragon boat racing:

[On the first day of fourth lunar month] these meddlesome people will open the

central gate of their village temple. [After doing so] they will beat the [dragon boat]

drum to entice villagers gathering in front of the village temple to donate money for

building a dragon boat. Every village that the dragon boats pass through need to

prepare wine and food and an offering table (xiangan 香案) to greet these dragon

boats. 30

30 See: Minguo Ruian Xianzhigao 民國瑞安縣志稿 (1935 Ruian Local Gazetteer). Also, as for the dragon boat in Pingyang county, see: Cheng Zhuoran 程卓然, “Pingyang longchuan Jinxitan” 平陽龍船今昔談 (Brief history of Pingyang dragon boat racing) in Pingyang Wenshi Ziliao 6 平陽文史資料 6 (1988), 85- 89.

183

Even today, Wenzhou residents call these so-called “meddlesome person” toujia 頭家

(event organizer, or in Taiwanese dialect, boss) or dragon boat event (organizer longzhou toujia 龍 舟 頭 家 ) in Wenzhou and Ruian dialects. Interestingly, this term is still mentioned frequently in contemporary communist official’s reports regarding the dragon boat racing. Clearly, these toujia are actually the village leaders since they are allowed to open the central gate of villager’s spiritual center, the village temple. The role of toujia is expected to be in charge of almost everything about the dragon boat, especially the hardest part: fund-raising and crew recruiting.

The next rite, roll calling the names of the dragon boat crews ( dian xian guan 點

仙官), begins after the open gate rite is concluded. During this rite, as many as thirty-six to forty crews are led by their toujia to loudly report their name to the deity, xiangguan deity ( xiangguan shen 香官神), which is worshipped in the village temple. This deity, xiangguan shen, is supposed to guard the dragon boats, which were stored in every village temple. 31 These crews are told that because they praying for peaceful life and

31 Actually, different counties have different names for the crew working on the dragon boat. As we have seen in Pingyang County, villagers call these crews xiangguan 香官. However, in Ruian county, which is about thirty minutes by car, villagers here called these crews shangguan 殤官. Wang Fang 王仿 and Jin Chongliu’s 金崇柳 (1994) conducted fieldwork on the Chen Jinggu cult, which is one of the most flourishing cults in southern Zhejiang province within Wenzhou. In their published fieldwork report, they mentioned that Wenzhou residents used to produce longdeng 龍燈 (dragon lanterns) during the Yuanxiao 元宵 (lantern festival). During the Yuanxiao festival, villagers carry dragon lanterns to their village temple and start a rite to pray for peace for the whole village. When they have nearly concluded the rite, they move on to hold a parade headed by the deities they worship in their temple. Taking Chen Jinggu’s temple for example, Chen will order her guard force wuying taibao 五音太保 to summon thirty-six shangguan 殤官 to start marching in front of the parade procession. Basically, there are three kind of shangguan, which are called nianshang 年殤 (year young dies), yuezhang 月殤 (monthly young dies) and shishang 時殤 (accidental young dies) by villagers. Most important of all, Wenzhou residents believed that these shangguan were responsible for spreading disease. Thus, this is further proof connection the Wenzhou

184 warding off plague demons on behalf of their hometown the village temple deity will bless them to have a safe ride. 32 Unfortunately, such blessings did not prevent boat collisions or armed fighting from breaking out.

After their names are reported to xiangguan shen , the participants take the dragon boat out of their temple and wait until the selected auspicious hour comes (usually between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m.). 33 When the selected hour comes toujia and crews hold another rite called qingshen 請神 (inviting deity to their dragon boat). After inviting deities to their boat, they carry their dragon boat from their temple to the water. This rite is called in Wenzhou dialect shangshui 上水 (launching ceremony). 34 After they put their boat in the water every racing day crew must be on board to practice rowing the boat properly. During this early morning practice session they are not allowed to use any game paddles or drums while they row the boat. Instead, they are asked to silently row their boat back and forth with the bow three times. After they conclude their shangshui rite,

dragon boat to expelling epidemic. See: Wang Fang 王仿, Jin Chongliu 金崇柳, “Yongjia longdeng yu Chen Shisi niang niang 永嘉龍燈與陳十四娘娘” (The Connection between dragon lantern and Madam Chen Shisi cult), in Zhongguo Mingjian Wenhua 中國民間文化, 民間信仰研究 (Shanghai: Xue lin chu ban she: Xin hua shu dian Shanghai fa xing suo fa xing, 1994), 144-145.

32 This is particularly important because the crews are usually peasants that have no training or knowledge of the boats.

33 In most case, the selected hour is always yin 寅 (3 a.m. to 5 a.m.). Because the word yin 寅 is pronounced identically with win 贏 in mandarin and Wenzhou dialect. However, this auspicious hour is not always in reality as well as in name. Since there were no streetlights in Wenzhou until the mid-twentieth century, the lunching ceremony had to be held in dark. Needless to say, it is really a very dangerous thing to have as many as thirty-six unskilled crew members steering a manpowered flat-bottomed boat in dark.

34 In most cases, the “launching ceremony” in Chinese would be xiashui dianli 下水典禮 (down to the water). However, Wenzhou residents insisted using the term shangshui 上水 (up to the water). Because they believed xiashui is ominous. Hence, the term shangshui in Wenzhou local context will be referred to the start of dragon boat racing.

185 they are admitted to join the race.35 However, as these events took place in the dark and without cross-village coordination it was very hard to prevent these quiet dragon boats from colliding. Making matters worse, it was difficult to rescue rowers at this time of night, thus even minor collisions could lead to disaster. According to a circulated report released by the Ruian city government in 2004, one of the most notorious dragon boat shangshui accidents was called shisan an 十三案 (The case of thirteen). This accident cost as many as thirteen lives in a boat collision after the shangshui rite happened in the early twelfth century. 36 Compared to the armed fighting, however, these sporadic shangshui accidents rarely caught the attention of Wenzhou residents, presumably because villagers would blame the accident on the victim’s bad luck. After this shangshui rite is concluded, from then on, these dragon boat crews held several rounds of practice sessions before the arrival of racing day. It must also be noted that in the beginning of every practice session they had to repeat the major part of the shangshui rite inviting the deity to their boat. After every practice session, they carried their dragon boat back to their village temple and turned it over on a customized frame to dry the boat in the air— the dragon boat is not allowed to stay in the river overnight.

35 It also deserves mention that like other male-dominated rituals, women are not allowed to be part of the dragon boat crew and are even forbidden to attend the shangshui rite. Based on my fieldwork in the summer of 2008, this “no women taboo” is still strictly enforced by some toujia who take the authenticity of their rite very seriously. As I was told, villagers have believed that their dragon boat will lose the race or even sink if any woman witnesses the shangshui rite. However, I also noticed that there are about three so- called nulong 女龍 (female dragon boat) whose crews are women only. I asked several villagers why. They all smiled because of my question and explained to me the answer is due to communist party’s gender equality policy since the 1949 liberation. Before then, however, there were no all-female crews in Wenzhou area before 2004.

36 In 1987, there was another launching ceremony accident that happened in Ruian in which six of the nineteen crews were killed. According to communist official’s report, the direct cause of this accident is bad maintenance. On May 30 th at about two o’clock in the morning, only thirty minutes after the launching ceremony, this aged dragon boat was soon dismantled into two pieces and sank into the river. See: Ruian shi difangzhi bangongshi bian 瑞安市地方志辦公室, (Ruian City Local History Office), Ruian longzhou huodong jianshi 瑞安龍舟活動簡史 (The Brief history of Ruian dragon boat), (Ruian shi: Ruian shi difangzhi bangongshi, 2004), 14-15.

186

During every practice session, besides getting acquainted with the skills necessary to rowing this flat-bottomed boat, the villagers also paid tribute to the dragon boat madam (longchuan niang 龍船娘). Usually, they needed to do this before their shangshui rite was concluded. The procession from shangshui (the birth of dragon boat) to visit longchuan niang appears to signal a familial relation between them. Indeed, the hierarchy between the madam of the dragon boat and other village’s dragon boats evolved from the centuries-long dragon mother (longmu 龍母) cult in the Wenzhou area. Based on Ou

(2005) and Xie’s (2007) study in southwestern China, the dragon mother cult flourished in Guangxi 廣西 and Guaizhou 貴州 provinces. 37 However, many records indicate the popularity of the longmu cult (dragon mother) in Wenzhou. For example, the existence of several dragon mother temples (longmu miao 龍母廟) in the mountainous area of Ruian and Yueqing county in Wenzhou. According to the 1572 Yueqing local gazetteer, the prototype of the longmu cult and her legend in the Wenzhou area is as follows:

There was a girl surnamed Jiang 江. She did not get married even at sixteen. One

day when washing clothes by the river, a shinny pebble caught her eye. Out of

curiosity, she picked up that pebble and held it in her mouth for fun while she

37 So far, there are still not much research on the dragon mother cult in the English-speaking world. As far as I can find, there are only two books in Chinese focusing on this dragon mother cult. According to Ou’s (2005) research on the dragon mother cult, he mainly focused on dragon mother’s temple in Guangxi 廣西 province. While Xie’s (2007) book about the dragon mother is basically his fieldwork notes about the dragon mother temple available in Hong Kong. See: Ou Qingyu 歐清煜, Longmu zhumiao han longmu chuanshou 龍母祖廟和龍母傳說 (The first Longmu temple and her legend), (Guangzhou: Guangdong Renmin chubanshe, 2005) and Xie Yongchang 謝永昌, Longmu xinyang yu gangrene zhi baisi 龍母信仰 與港人之拜祀 (The dragon mother cult in Hong Kong), (Hong Kong: Zhonghua wenjiao jiaoliu fuwu zhongxin, 2007).

187 kept washing clothes. All of sudden, she swallowed it accidentally. Then she

became pregnant. Her parents accused her of adultery and almost beat her to death.

Thus this girl went to the riverbank where she picked up the pebble and attempted

to commit suicide. Once she stepped into the water, all of sudden, cloud and mist

covered the sky sparking a thunderstorm. The girl’s belly opened and lizard

creatures came out. In the twinkling of an eye, these lizard-like creatures became

dragons and started flying to the sea. On their way to the sea, these dragons turned

their head to bid farewell to their mother. 38

At the end of this “Virgin Mary” story Wenzhou residents built a temple on that site to worship this “dragon mother.” They did so because villagers believed her dragon sons were in charge of controlling rain and water. 39 Thus, whenever a drought strikes

Wenzhou, Wenzhou local officials along with villagers go to the dragon mother temple to pray for rain. 40 Needless to say, disease and drought are both serious concerns in the daily

38 See: Hou Yiyuan 侯一元, Longqing Yueqing xianzhi 隆慶樂清縣志 (1572 Yueqing local gazetteer), reprint in 1918. This story also available in Li Dengyun 李登雲, Qian Baorong 錢寶鎔 edited, Guangxu Yueqing xian zhi 光緒樂清縣志 (1901 Yueqing local Gazetteer), (Shanghai: Shanghai shu dian, 1993 reprint), 609-610.

39 On the Dragon cult in China, see: Yuan Li 苑利, Longwang xinyang tanmi 龍王信仰探祕 (The China Dragon Cult), (Taipei: Dongda tushu chuban gongsi, 2003). Duara (1988) also uses the dragon cult as an example to discuss the relationship between the local deity and the local irrigation system in northern China. See: Duara (1988), Ibid., 27-38. The most recent discussions on the northern Chinese dragon cult are from Adam Chau (2006) and Du (2007) whose works are based on their extensive fieldwork. See: Adam Chau, Miracle Response: Doing Popular religion in Contemporary China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006) and Du Zhengzhen 杜正貞, 村社傳統與明清仕紳：山西澤州鄉土社會的制度變遷, (Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe, 2007).

40 In 1534, Wenzhou was suffering a drought. As usual, Wenzhou local officials went to the temple to pray for rain. However, the temple did not answer his prayer. There was an unknown elder who said to the Yongjia magistrate Zhou Yiliu 周尹琉, Wenzhou would be raining, if you invited longmu (dragon mother) to Wenzhou. The temple of longmu is ten li (Chinese kilometers) away from Wenzhou city. Then you have to pass through a cliff. After passing the cliff, you will see a deep pool which is called longtan 龍潭 (dragon pool). The longmu temple is right on the cliff next to the pool. Thus Magistrate Zhou sent a runner

188 lives of villagers and it is not a surprising combination to connect dragon boat racing to the dragon mother cult. As a matter of fact, this kind of mother-son hierarchy between dragon mother and dragon son also enhances the dragon boat madam’s legitimacy to regulate this annual event.

Ritual System behind Dragon Boat Racing

son

son son

son son

Dragon mother

son son

son son

Taking the most notorious Ruian dragon boat race as an example, there were more than three so-called longchuan niang available in Ruian County in 2008. It must be noted that these three so-called madams of the dragon boat (longchuan niang 龍船娘) do not appear as a deity statue worshipped in the temple, but rather as a bigger dragon boat equipped with a total of forty-four crew members on board. The size of the boat exemplifies the hierarchical relation between these three bigger dragon boats (Long chuan niang niang) and other villagers’ dragon boats. Compared to the villager’s dragon accompanying this elder to invite longmu to Wenzhou. When they were only half-way back, there was a dragon flying in the air giving out thunder and rain. From then on, whenever there was a drought, local officials would go to longmu temple to pray for rain. See: Min Wenzhen 閔文振, sheyizhi 涉異志 (Unusual Record). This record also available at Chen Ruizan edited 陳瑞贊, Ibid., (2006), 585-586.

189 boat, the longchuan niang is bigger and has more crew members. And, unlike the villagers’ dragon boats, which were only allowed to travel within the sphere of their alliance village, these three longchuan niang are allowed to travel anywhere. Longchuan niang were given this freedom because they were expected to mediate the fighting among her sons, which means other village’s dragon boats. To mediate the conflict, which was largely caused by boat collisions or traveling beyond the boundary, the longchuan niang used their hulls to block the contending sides from one another so as to allow them to cool down. Thus, on the racing day, the longchuan niang will travel to the “hot zone” to prevent possible armed conflict from happening. Among these three bigger boats , the most prestigious longchuan niang comes from the Dongtang temple (dongtang dian 東堂

殿) of xincheng 莘塍 Village in eastern Ruian County. In fact, the previously mentioned shangshui accident, shisan an 十三案 (The case of thirteen), happened while villagers were on their way to pay tribute to this dragon boat madam.

Thus, these three longchuan niang were actually the incarnation of a three-village alliance within Ruian County. The longchuan niang not only alleviated tensions, but also acted as a symbolic power to integrate villages. Moreover, in addition to the dragon mother-son relationship I discussed above, Ruian villagers also sought out brotherhood relationships that resulted in inter-village alliances. When villages formed an alliance they were called xiongdilong 兄弟龍 (brother dragon). On the day of the Dragon Boat festival, these dragon boats travel to visit their brother village to exchange gifts and enjoy

190 a banquet in an annual renewal of their alliance. 41 The area in which they were allowed to travel expanded to include the territory of their brother village. However, brother villages are not necessarily adjacent to one another, thus they have to travel through other village’s territory. This area is the so-called “hot zone” that I mentioned earlier. Many of the boat collisions and conflicts happened in these “hot zones.” Often a village will come to the rescue of their brother village upon hearing of the latter’s involvement in a conflict.

This is the case in the so-called June 11 incident that happened in 1986 as discussed at the beginning of this chapter.

Dragon Boat as village alliance

Dragon mother’s village

village village village

41 Anthropologists have remarked on the importance of gift giving as a form of social exchange, for example, Mauss’s pioneering book on the relationship between gift giving and social exchange. See: Marcel Mauss, trans. Ian Cunnison, The Gift: Forms and Functions of exchange in archaic societies (New York: Norton, 1967). As for the relationship between gift giving and social exchange in China, see: Mayfair Mei-hui Yang, Gifts, favors, and banquets: The Art of Social Relationship in China (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994). Yunxiang Yan, The Flow of Gifts: Reciprocity and Social Networks in a Chinese Village (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996). For a general discussion on Chinese social exchange behavior, see: Yang Liansheng 楊聯陞, Zhongguo Wenhua zhong “bao” “bao” bao” zhi yiyi 中 國文化中報 保 包之意義 (Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Chinese University Press, 1987).

191 From sending off plague demons to building local alliances, the annual dragon boat event epitomizes the “family mode of politics” in villagers’ daily political life. 42 We can see the roles of mother, son and brother that are central to the family mode of politics have been embedded in dragon boat racing events for centuries. In the following part of this chapter, I will discuss the father role—the changing attitude of state and local officials and local elites in this “deep play” during the late Qing period. Keeping in mind the emergence of the new political configuration in 1877, I aim to shed light on the kinds of political changes that occurred in Wenzhou by examining the changing attitudes and policies of officials toward conflicts between local converts and this ancient religious tradition.

IV. Cutting off Dragon Boat: Dragon Boat Racing in Late Qing Wenzhou

After armed conflicts, Wenzhou officials’ biggest concern was the coercing of donations during the dragon boat racing festival. After the shangshui rite, it was not an easy task for every toujia to be able to have his thirty-six crew members regularly running the dragon boat. Some villages’ dragon boat crew started practicing two months ahead of the duanwu festival, which meant they needed more cash to keep their boat running. Thus, these toujia had to create as many channels as they could to garner funds from villagers. Of course, not every Toujia used proper ways to collect money. Even

42 On the conception of “family mode of politics”, in Hunt’s (1990) brilliant book on the changing of “family mode of politics” in post-revolution France, she argues French national politics was firmly connected to the metaphor of patriarchy which was headed by the king before revolution. After the revolution in 1789, however, as she convincingly illustrates, the dismantling of the French Imperial family was synchronizing with the changing of French political culture, which is largely referred to French common’s perception of “national politics.” See: Lynn Hunt, The Family Romance of the French Revolution (Berkley: University of California Press, 1990).

192 worse, some of them took advantage of their responsibility to scam money. There are seemingly endless problems relating to the dragon boat fundraising campaigns in

Wenzhou. 43 Many Qing Wenzhou resident reports indicate that some toujia compelled villagers to donate money. One of the names that these toujia used to collect money from villagers is called longchuanyin 龍船銀 (dragon boat sliver), as Ruian local elite Dai

Bingcong 戴炳聰 reported in the 1860s:

There is usually dragon boat racing in my hometown during the duanwu festival.

According to villagers’ vulgar custom, dragon boat racing participants would go

to their in-laws to demand money [to support their dragon boat]. Mr. Qian of

Xiawan 下灣 village placed grain for security deposit to get a temporary loan

from one of my relatives Mr. Chiyan 赤岩公. He returned his loan on the same

day. [Out of curiosity] Mr. Chiyan asked Mr. Qian: was the grain price high? He

replied: no, the price was still low. Mr. Chiyan continued to ask: was your grain

bad? He replied: no. [The reason] is I had a daughter who married into a wealthy

family. [Before the day of every dragon boat festival] my in-laws always went to

my house to demand dragon boat sliver. [As you know], even though I am not

wealthy, I would rather tolerate hunger but do not dare to violate this custom. Mr.

43 According to the Ruian city government’s report released in 2004, in 1981 there were villagers carrying two dragon drums to their shengchan dasui 生產大隊 (production unit) to demand a donation. These local communist cadres refused their demand, thus these angry villagers beat their drums in front of the unit office for three consecutive days forcing local cadres to shut down their office. These villagers also went to other local institutions, such as hospital and gongxiao she 供銷社 (marketing and supply office) to demand money. If these communist cadres turned down their demands, the unhappy villagers would attack the offices and demand money. See: Ruian shi difangzhi bangongshi bian 瑞安市地方志辦公室, (Ruian City Local History Office), Ruian longzhou huodong jianshi 瑞安龍舟活動簡史 (The Brief history of Ruian dragon boat), (Ruian shi: Ruian shi difangzhi bangongshi, 2004), 22.

193 Chiyan smiled and said, from then on, I will help you out with the dragon boat

sliver, so no need to bring your grain to me again. Later, Mr. Chiyan convened a

lineage meeting telling his lineage member this story. After discussion, in order to

free their in-laws from this endless trouble, this lineage no longer allowed dragon

boat racing to be held in their village. 44

So far, we can see that there were at least three techniques these toujia used to collect money from neighbors. First of all, they beat drums in front of their village temple on the first day of fourth lunar month to collect villagers’ random donations. However, this was done as an announcement to the community to begin fundraising rather than a way to gather funds. After making this announcement in public, they used the most effective method, which was employing the “cultural nexus of power” among these villagers to allot money like what Mr. Qian had encountered in Mr. Dai’s story. 45 For centuries, there were very few villagers who would resist their prestigious neighbor’s demand particularly since it was in the name of warding off demons and praying for blessing.

Third and probably the most notorious method was forced donation. According to the

Ruian local elite Zhang Gang’s 張棡 (1860-1942) account, some toujia expanded the scope of the application from in-laws to the engaged to garner more dragon boat funds.

As he mentioned in his diary entry on June 6, 1907, Zhang Gang blamed the villagers

44 Dai Bingcong 戴炳聰 is a local elite residing in Baotien 鮑田 village of Ruian County. See: Chen Ruizan edited 陳瑞贊, Ibid., (2006), 34.

45 Such as the hierarchical organization and networks of informal relations between villagers. See: Duara (1988), Ibid., 5-6.

194 who used this excuse to bully their neighbors and thus caused serious problems in their village. He wrote:

In hexiang 河 鄉 (river area) of Ruian County, there was an acknowledged

regulation among villagers called huahong yin 花紅銀 (wedding sliver). [This

burden] was applied to the household whose daughter was engaged but not

formally guomen 過門 (pass through husband’s door). The dragon boat builder

would go to groom’s house to demand money to cover the building expenses. The

amount of money they demanded depended on the level of the household wealth.

[Even this looks like a ransom] they still embellished this demand as huahong yin

花紅銀. If villagers resisted their request, on the wedding day these wulai 無賴

(rascals) would gather people to hold up the bridal sedan chair to spoil the whole

wedding. [Even worse,] due to this unpleasant encounter, the in-law would

become enemies. 46

From the above description, this huahong yin is actually a coercive donation. As Zhang

Gang wrote, villagers were so afraid of these unwelcome guests ruining their wedding that they preferred to just give money to these local rascals. Therefore, it looks like because these toujia wanted to build new dragon boats for the sake of the rest of their village, they exploited their neighbor’s wedding ceremonies to gain both fame and wealth from this job. From Dai and Zhang’s report, we can see a certain amount of fermenting resentment within villagers in late-nineteenth-century Wenzhou. After all, no matter how

46 Zhang Gang 張棡 (1860-1942), Yu Xiong 俞雄 ed., Zhang Gang riji 張棡日記 ( Zhang Gang Diary), (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chubanshe, 2003), 125-126.

195 legitimate these excuses of the toujia , the so-called dragon boat sliver and huahong yin was still considered an extra burden to villagers. For centuries, villagers had no alternative but to succumb to this annual request from this “local ritual system.” However, we must ask why did Wenzhou residents not begin to express their resentment and resist this burden until the late nineteenth century? Before I answer this question, it will be useful to lay out the policies of late-Qing Wenzhou officials toward this local religious tradition. Later, will discuss how Wenzhou locals took advantage of this policy change to reconfigure their local politics.

In 1879, the Wenchu Daotai 溫處道台 (intendant of Wenzhou and Chuzhou prefectures) Wen Zhonghan 溫忠翰 issued his nine advisories entitled Dongou jiushuo

東甌九說 (Nine advisories to Wenzhou residents) to Wenzhou locals. 47 One of the nine advisories listed in this booklet, Daotai Wen, expressed his rising concerns over this local costly dragon boat event. He wrote,

The dragon boat racing is held in the fifth month. [During that event] the noise of different musical instruments packs the streets. The duration of events lasts for more than ten days and up to one month. Needless to say, the cost of this annual event is far more

47 Wen Zhonghan 溫忠翰 comes from Taigu 太谷 county of Shanxi 山西 province, he started his office after he earned his jinshi 進士 degree in 1862. In the autumn of 1878, he took the office of Wenchu Daotai. During his eight-year tenure in Wenzhou, from 1878 to 1885, he experienced the most drastic transformation in Wenzhou history when Wenzhou reopened as a treaty port to westerners in 1877. It also must be noted that he dealt with several Jiaoan inclusive Jiashen 甲申 jiaoan of 1884. Moreover, after he took his office in 1878, he spent one year visiting each of the six counties in Wenzhou prefecture. After these visits he published Dongou jiushuo 東甌九說 (Nine advisories to Wenzhou residents) in 1879. This book is only available in the department of special collections at the Wenzhou library. For Wen’s reports on Jiashen jiaoan, see: The first Archival Museum 中國第一歷史檔案館 and Fujian Normal University History department 福建師範大學歷史系 ed., Qing mo jiaoan 清末教案 (The archival of late Qing Jiaoan), (Beijing: Zhonghua shu ju, 1996), 407-409.

196 than a middle-level household’s total property. Even in past prosperous times, this costly event was worrisome. Right now people have to struggle with their livelihood. Under this kind of circumstance, how could you still keep holding this costly event?

In these nine advisories, Wen urged Wenzhou locals to move toward a frugal lifestyle and consider stopping the costly dragon boat event. However, during his tenure, as with past dynasty Wenzhou local officials, Wen only fought this “bad custom” on paper and never adopted specific measures to stop this costly event.

In the winter of 1896, however, Wen’s successor Zong Yuanhan 宗源翰 adopted the most severe policy at the time, attempting to permanently exterminate this thousand year-long local religious event. Diarist Zhang Gang commented on Daotai Zong’s policy in an entry from the eve of the 1897 dragon boat festival:

This years Daotai Zong issued an order to severely prohibit dragon boat racing [in

Wenzhou]. As early as the end of last winter, he dispatched clerks in four

directions to go on an inspection tour. During this tour, Daotai Zong ordered his

soldiers to saw every dragon boat they could find into several sections and hand

them in to his office. He also ordered every shipyard owner in Wenzhou to submit

a deposition to promise that they will not build dragon boats. These shipyard

owners would be severely punished if they violated Daotai’s order. Thus, this

197 custom was perpetually terminated this year mainly because of Daotai’s Zong’s

order. 48

Unlike Wen’s moral advice, Zong’s policy made a tremendous difference as compared with previous Wenzhou local officials. Dismantling dragon boats subsequently turned out to be Wenzhou local officials’ standard procedure to combat this “local bad custom.”

However, even Zong’s heavy-handed measure did not persist long enough to terminate this custom forever. 49 Despite the fact that Zong’s hard-line policy did not persist indefinitely, we can begin to see a prototype of the modern state machine looming in late- nineteenth-century Wenzhou. In order to shed light on the relationship between the political reconfiguration of Wenzhou and dragon boat racing events in the late nineteen century, we must first answer the following questions: why did Wenzhou local officials need to change their long-term policy concerning dragon boat racing? What were the underlying dynamics that made Wenzhou local officials change their previous policy?

What kind of political reconfigurations can be illuminated by examining Wenzhou officials’ changing policy toward this religious tradition?

48 Zhang Gang 張棡 (1860-1942), Yu Xiong 俞雄 ed. (2003), Ibid., 36-37.

49 Ironically, Wenzhou residents resumed the dragon boat racing less than two years later. Based on Zhang gang’s diary, in 1899 he and his daughters went to see dragon boat racing. Based on his account, there were three rounds of dragon boat related fighting. The first case was a fight between houli 後李 and shangxu 上 徐 villagers’ dragon boats on the day before the dragon boat festival. Zhang and his family witnessed the second dragon boat fight between zhiluo 直洛 and jiuli 九里 villagers. Unlike the first two rounds, the third round of fighting between shenluan 沈巒 and yanxia 岩下 resulted in the turn over of shenluan’s dragon boat, which killed thirteen villagers. After the accident, due to the fear of a potential armed conflict, many shenluan and yanxia villagers fled to avoid danger. See: Zhang Gang 張棡 (1860-1942), Yu Xiong 俞雄 edited (2003), Ibid., 51.

198 As discussed in chapter two, local political reconfiguration was triggered by the deepening penetration of foreign religions and their local converts in Wenzhou beginning in 1877. As I suggested in chapter three, by 1900 local converts rose out of their marginalized status and gained a place in the arena of Wenzhou local politics. In order to accommodate this change, Qing local officials had to reconfigure their local political mechanisms by creating either new agencies or new positions to prevent jiaoan 教案

(conflict between foreign religion and local people) from happening in their district. 50 As one might expect, Wenzhou converts refused to help fund the building of dragon boats or other festival-related expenses. Since their refusal was considered by villagers as a

“declaration of independence” from their village order system, serious conflicts between local converts and their neighbors arose.

In the summer of 1894, three years before Daotai Zong‘s unprecedented heavy- handed policy on dragon boat racing, a conflict broke out in Ruian county between local converts and villagers relating to the local festival expense. Because local converts’ refused to meet their neighbor’s money demands, a Ruian villager named Yang Monai 楊

茂奶 burned down their church. 51 Two years later, during the summer of 1896, a similar

50 More case studies can be seen in: Daniel H. Bays ed. , Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Stanford: Stanford University, 1996); Jessie Lutz and Rolland Lutz, Hakka Chinese Confront Protestant Christianity, 1850-1900 (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1998); Alan Richard Sweeten, Christianity in Rural China: Conflicts and Accommodation in Jiangxi Province, 1860-1900 (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2001); and Joseph Tse-Hei Lee, The Bible and the gun: Christianity in South China, 1860-1900 (New York: Routledge, 2003).

51 According to Fang (1994), after Yang Monai burned down the Catholic Church, Ningpo French counsel responded by sending a gunboat to Wenzhou to force Wenzhou officials to deal with this conflict. Due to the pressure, Yang Monai was forced to formally apologize for his arson to local Catholics and reached an agreement on July 25, 1895. Five years later, however, local Catholic converts accused Yang of burning down their church during the Magic Boxer Association in the summer of 1900. They asked the Wenchu Daotai Tong Zhaorong 童兆蓉 to arrest Yang. However, after Daotai Tong reinvestigated this case he

199 conflict happened in Guxi 菇溪 in Yongjia county, which is also the hometown of the first Wenzhou Catholic church.52 Though the local officials’ report did not explicitly point out the connection between the conflicts and dragon boat fundraising, both of these incidents happened in the dragon boat season (the first day of fourth month to the double fifth day in lunar month). Presumably, the so-called local festival expenses were either dragon boat sliver or huahong yin 花紅銀. In addition to these local converts’ devotion to their beliefs, the questionable methods these dragon boat toujia used to collect money also provided legitimacy to local converts to resist their demands. A deadlock developed between local converts and dragon boat toujia and villagers who had been paying for this event. As we can see later, local converts and foreign missionaries’ complaints overwhelmed the Wenzhou local official’s office compelling the Wenzhou officials to stop these events in order to avoid an escalating confrontation between local converts and villagers. This policy was similar to the previous troublesome and seemingly endless

Jiaoan. Clearly, these Wenzhou local officials need to make adjustments to their policy toward this local religious tradition.

found out that it was a fabricated charge. Thus, he refused the French missionary’s request. See: Fang Zhigang 方志剛 trans., 溫州神拳會與天主教會 (The Wenzhou Magic Boxer Association and Catholic Church) in Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 溫州文史資料 vol. 9 (March 1994): 259-270. As for how Daotai Tong dealt with this case, see: Mei Lengsheng 梅冷生, Pan Kuocun 潘國存 ed., Mei Lengsheng ji 梅冷生集 (Collection of Mei Lengsheng), (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chubanshe, 2006), 281-284.

52 On the Guxi incident, See: Hu Zhusheng 胡珠生, Wenzhu Jindaishi 溫州近代史 (History of Modern Wenzhou), (Shenyang: Liaoning Renmin chubanshe, 2000), pp. 155-156.

200 Six years later, in 1902, Zong’s successor Tong Zhaorong 童兆蓉 (1838-1905), formally articulated the connections between dragon boats and local converts. 53 Not surprisingly, he followed Zong’s policy and asked his magistrate to take actions to dismantle dragon boats in order to prevent conflicts from happening in his district. In his order he condemned the practice of dragon boat racing as follows:

There are a lot of wharfs in the coastal areas of Wenzhou prefecture. The dragon

boat racing was particularly popular in this region. In most case, these dragon

boats were supported by only one or two pigun 痞棍 (ruffian). They had various

techniques to collect money. More often than not, they also went to local converts

to ask for money and thus caused many quarrels. Moreover, [these pigun ] always

went to extort money from every wedding ceremony. This was the worst ever

custom in Wenzhou. Besides, the most damaging of all was that the feud would

take advantage of doulong 鬥龍 (dragon boat fighting) to take revenge on their

opponent villagers. The confrontation among villagers repeatedly led into serious

cases in Wenzhou. Taking last year’s homicide case in Yongjia County for

example, there were as many as eleven villagers killed in the dragon boat related

conflict. Even right now, their relatives still launched lawsuits against each other.

53 Tong Zhaorong 童兆蓉 (1838-1905) is probably the most popular Wenchu Daotai in Qing Wenzhou history. One of the most well-known Wenzhou literati, Sun Yirang 孫詒讓, wrote an inscription for him after he died during his tenure in 1905. Moreover, because of his high reputation among colleagues, Tong has a biography in the Qing shi gao 清史稿 (Draft Standard History of the Qing). As for Tong’s career in Wenzhou, see: Feng Jian 馮堅, “Tong Zhaorong yu Wenzhou 童兆蓉與溫州” in Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 9 溫州文史資料 9 (1994), 112-115.

201 Last year (1901), eleven villagers drowned in a dragon boat accident. The lawsuit

between these two parities has still not concluded.54

From the content of Daotai Tong’s order, clearly, his priority was to resolve the potential point of conflict between villagers and local converts, as well as to stop the extortion and potential casualties. Interestingly, the main reason why the highest Wenzhou official,

Daotai Tong, wanted to eliminate the chronic pain among Wenzhou villagers was because of local converts’ complaints rather than villagers’ complaints. In order to resolve this potential conflict, it is not surprising that Wenzhou local officials made a policy of dismantling dragon boats to resolve the outrage caused by this local religious tradition. Moreover, these flat-bottom dragon boats were also used as a main vehicle to attack Wenzhou by transporting rebels crossing Feiyun 飛雲 River from Ruian County during the Jinqian hui 金錢會 incident (Golden Coin Association) of 1862. 55 Therefore, the history of criminal activity associated with dragon boats, along with the potential for jiaoan intensified the Wenchu Daotai’s determination to implement a hard liner policy against the festival. Later, Daotai Tong asked all of his six magistrates to stop dragon boat festivals in 1902.

54 See: Tong Zhaorong 童兆蓉 (1838-1905), “ 嚴禁各屬龍舟並將查禁不力州縣記過稟” in Tong Wenchu gong yishu 童溫處公遺書 (1905). This book is only available at Fu Sinian library at Academia Sinica, Taipei.

55 In addition to using dragon boats to transport troops during the Jinqian hui incident, rebels reportedly used dragon boats to carry burning wood to destroy several of Ruian city’s water gates. See: Ma Yunlun 馬 允倫 ed., Taiping tien kuo shiqi Wenzhou shiliao huibian 太平天國時期溫州史料彙編 (The archival collection of Wenzhou during Heavenly Peace Kingdom), (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chuban she, 2002), 112-113.

202 The gap between the Daotai’s request and the political reality was wider than

Tong had imagined. Even though Daotai Tong had already articulated the content of his request to his six magistrates, the reality was his magistrates only implemented his policy selectively because of different local conditions. According to Tong’s 1902 order, every magistrate was asked to hold an inspection tour in their district and to dismantle every dragon boat they could find before villagers unveiled their boats. They were obliged to submit the head and tail part of dragon boat to the Wenchu Daotai’ s office to prove that they had done their jobs. 56 However, in the same report, Daotai Tong particularly denounced the Ruian and Yueqing magistrates for their failure to fulfill his order. In that report, he said that because the acting Yueqing magistrate Zhang was too weak and succumbed to local residents’ requests he could not fulfill his task. Therefore, Daotai

Tong decided to go to Yueqing himself to implement his dismantling policy. Tong did not punish the acting magistrate. 57 However, Tong was infuriated by the Ruian magistrate

Wang Tingliang 王廷梁 for lying. From Tong’s report, we can still read his anger:

There was only the acting magistrate of Ruian, Wang Tingliang, implementing

my order carelessly. After the Duanyang 端陽 festival (dragon boat festival),

magistrate Wang went to my office in person to submit the parts of the destroyed

dragon boat. He also reported to me that the dragon boat race had been terminated

56 The dragon boat can be divided into three parts: Head, body, and tail. Both head and tail are decorated with a dragon figure, while the body looks like any flat-bottomed boat. In order to reuse the parts to save money, even today in Wenzhou, villagers will take apart the head and tail part when the racing was finished. They will carry the boat body back to their village temple while either discards the head and tail or take them back to temple with the body.

57 See: Tong Zhaorong 童兆蓉 (1838-1905), Tong Wenchu gong yishu 童溫處公遺書 (1905).

203 in Ruian County. However, I previously dispatched staff to Ruian to check

whether the number of dragon boats increased or not. The masses were sharp-

eyed.… The parts magistrate Wang had submitted are nothing more than piles of

junk. How arrogant and conceited he dared to cheat me! 58

Still, it was a situation of “much said but little done.” Eventually, Daotai Tong decided to give Wang a break because he saw that “[Wang Tingliang] was only an acting magistrate and was too bookish to deal with the real local (Ruian) residents.” 59 Tong only ended up recording two demerits for Wang’s failure as a means to warn other local officials to obey his orders. Daotai Tong’s punishment of Wang also acknowledged the resistance of those villagers’ that forced the failure of Magistrates Wang and Zhang’s.

In fact, Daotai Tong’s order put his Ruian and Yueqing magistrates in a very tough position. Although Daotai Tong’s magistrates realized they had to fulfill their supervisor’s order, it did not mean that dragon boat supporters would support this policy.

It was an open secret that everybody, including the Daotai himself, knew that this policy was in response to the complaints of local converts rather than an effort aimed at stopping the annual armed conflicts and bullying in Wenzhou. Despite the demand on residents to financially support this annual event, they all understood that the dragon boat festival was not only a warding off of plague demons, it also functioned as a prayer for taking care of their whole years blessing. Even though the dragon boat caused various problems and endangered some villagers’ lives, it was totally annoying to villagers that local officials

58 Ibid.

59 Ibid.

204 forcibly demolished the symbol of their inter-village alliances. In order to keep the favor of both sides, it was reasonable for these two magistrates to hesitate in carrying out

Daotai Tong’s dismantling order.

It is possible that there was an unspoken consensus among the Daotai, his magistrates, and the villagers. In order to resist the pressure and complaints from local converts the Daotai had to issue his order to his magistrates. The real front line officers were actually the magistrates. A magistrate might have used local resistance as an excuse to avoid a direct conflict with villagers as well as force the Daotai to directly intervene to implement his policy. As a matter of fact, the magistrate’s deliberate weakness certainly can be used to legitimize the Daotai’s direct intervention. Then, the Daotai can blame the magistrate for his weakness to enforce his order by directly deploying his troops.

I am more interested, however, in the fact that Wenzhou officials’ concession to local converts lit a political fire, sparking a series of revolutionary changes in Wenzhou politics. After such concessions were made to local converts, these local converts’ neighbors were also inspired to follow their example and gain a place in local politics. In order to reduce the impact caused by this unparalleled political reconfiguration to the

Qing Empire’s authority, Qing officials incorporated more local interest groups’ voices into their policy making process.

205 Wenzhou Local Politics before 1870

Local officials

Local Society

Villager alliance

Once this floodgate was opened, it was impossible to close it again. As we will see in the following section of this chapter the only option for Wenzhou local officials and local residents was to accommodate this new political situation. Moreover, in terms of political reform, the on-going late-Qing xinzheng 新 政 package (late-Qing reform), which included the abolishment of avoidance law as well as established a local representation system, introduced the concept of local autonomy ( defang zizhi 地方自治) to Wenzhou in the 1900s. Along with the rise of a local voice in politics, Wenzhou residents also used this chance to regroup themselves into local factions (difang paixi 地方派系) in order to participate in late-Qing reform plans. These incentives caused a series of irreversible changes to Wenzhou local society.

206 Wenzhou Local Politics after 1870

County government Local government

Non- Local converts converts

Local society

V. When the Floodgates Opened:

Local converts were not the only residents to complain about dragon boats. Many of the locals were also tired of the annual bullying and destructive fighting and also attempted to end this routine. Even though the motive of the Daotai’s dismantling policy was mainly to placate local converts, village-level local elites also shared this desire to curb this “local bad custom” since this chronic problem had been an immediate threat to their every day life. Moreover, Wenzhou local elites were worried about the degradation of the dragon boat since many of them explicitly complained that some so-called local ruffians took advantage of this event to bully their neighbors. In order to rectify this problem, for the first time in Wenzhou history, villagers worked side-by-side with local officials to oppose this event. The implications of their actions were twofold: first, this was the first time that Wenzhou villagers dared to resist the event largely, which was due in large part to the changing political aura which encouraged them to resist this “bad

207 custom.” Secondly, this was also the first time that villagers were able to directly conveying their opinions of local politics to the magistrate. By examining the interactions between local society and local officials, in particular the magistrate, we can shed light on the effect and development of this political reconfiguration from the late-Qing to the early-Republic period.

On June 6, 1907, Ruian local elite Zhang Gang mentioned in his diary that he and his villager friends were going to meet the Ruian County magistrate, Chen Minglun 陳明

倫, in his office that afternoon. During the meeting, they had a formal talk about the recent overheated dragon boat activity in the area. At the beginning of the meeting,

Zhang and his friends briefed the magistrate on the most recent developments. He wrote:

We went to meet Magistrate Chen Minglun in his office to have a talk in his

huating 花廳 (reception room). Magistrate Chen asked us, “We have issued a ban

on dragon boats, how come villagers still violate the ban?” We replied that there

were more dragon boats than in previous years. There are four places in Ruian

County for dragon boat racing, Gongruishan 拱瑞山 River, Xincheng 莘塍 River,

塘下 Tangxia River and Suifeng 穗豐 River. In general, there are as many as

several hundred dragon boats racing on these four rivers. Magistrate Chen

continued to ask us, “How come there will be so many dragon boats this year?”

208 We replied that it was because local wulai 無賴 (ruffians) want to use this event

as their excuse to extort huahong sliver from their neighbors. 60

From the above description we can see that Zhang and his villager elite friends were not happy to see the overheated dragon boat activity. After explaining to the magistrate several aspects of damages, such as armed conflict and coercive donation, caused by dragon boat activity Zhang Gang and his friends asked their magistrate to take heavy- handed action to suppress this event because of their concerns over local security. As he suggested during that meeting:

[Two days later on June 8, 1907] on the twenty-eighth day of the fourth month,

almost every dragon boat will be finished with the shangshui 上水 rite. Thus, if

your honor ordered your staff to dismantle the dragon boats at that moment,

because of their numerical strength over your staff, these villagers would resist

and conflict would certainly follow. In my humble opinion, your honor better

dispatch one or two staff with several soldiers to each river to suppress the racing

along the river. After the dragon boat festival, then you can dispatch runners

along with didao 地保 (local constable) to dismantle villagers’ dragon boats.

60 For the content of this meeting, See: Zhang Gang 張棡 (1860-1942), Yu Xiong 俞雄 ed. (2003), Ibid. There is no dependable statistical data of dragons boat in Ruian County until Republic Wenzhou (1928- 1949). However, there is another figure provided by Zhao Jun (1986-1866). In his diary, he mentioned in 1827, there were a lot of dragon boats racing in Gongruishan 拱瑞山 River. In addition to dragon boat, there were also caixiang 綵舡 (decorated boat) rowing on the river. Thus, this event attracted many Wenzhou residents, especially women, to attend. See: Zhou Mengjiang ed. 周夢江 “Zhaojun Guolai yu jilu 趙鈞過來語輯錄 “(The excerpt of Zhao Jun’s Guolai yu) in Jindai shi ziliao 近代史資料 1963 vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1963): 112.

209 Meanwhile, it would be very helpful if you could issue a ban on collecting

huahong sliver. 61

Magistrate Chen ended up taking the advice of Zhang and his friends to oppose this dangerous local religious event. Apparently, Zhang and his friends provided a “local knowledge” guideline to the magistrate to implement their previous ban, thus local officials could be more effective in curbing this troublesome event. It looked like a win- win situation for both parties, since local elites could go directly to the magistrate to address their concerns and needs. However, as I will argue below, meetings such as these as well as local society’s changing method of dealing with this thousand-year long local tradition reveals several revolutionary changes occurring in early-twentieth-century

Wenzhou and in the whole of China. We can see that along with the foreign missionaries and their local converts, non-Christian residents were also becoming more involved in local politics and policy-making more than ever due to the new political configuration.

What were the effects of this political reconfiguration in Wenzhou society from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century?

Before Zhang’s meeting with magistrate Chen in 1907, it was totally unthinkable that such a low status elite like Zhang Gang, who failed the provincial-level civil exam and thus only served as a school teacher in Ruian throughout his life, would be qualified to inform the magistrate’s policy-making process from the magistrate’s own office.

Before then, there were only a very few exceptions, like the retired capital-level official

61 See: Zhang Gang 張棡 (1860-1942), Yu Xiong 俞雄 ed., (2003), Ibid. On Qing’s local runner and local constable, see: Bradly W. Reed, Talons and Teeth: County Clerks and Runners in the Qing Dynasty (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).

210 Sun Qiangming 孫鏘鳴 and his brother Sun Yiyan 孫衣言 who could influence local

Wenzhou politics. However, as I have illustrated in the first chapter, the Sun brothers’ involvement in Wenzhou politics was not welcomed at all by their supervisor Zuo

Zongtang 左 宗 棠 . In Zuo Zhongtang’s opinion, he considered the Sun brothers’ involvement in Wenzhou politics troublesome as well as a serious violation of the fundamental rule of Qing local politics: avoidance law (huibi 迴避). 62 Thus, it was not surprising at all that Zuo eventually impeached the Sun brothers’ for their wrongdoings in

1864 and forced them to return to their hometown Ruian in 1865. 63 Under this avoidance law, as Wei (1992) had suggested, local people were not allowed to direct local officials’ policy decisions, and a local official candidate was not allowed to serve in any kind of position in his hometown. 64 However, as we have seen, it turned out that in 1907; even a low status local elite like Zhang and his friends could access the magistrate freely to provide advice and direct policy. 65 If local celebrities like the Sun brothers were demoted

62 On Qing dynasty’s avoidance law, see: Wei, Xiumei 魏秀梅, Qing dai zhi huibi zhi du 清代之迴避制度 (The Avoidance System of Qing dynasty), (Taipei: Zhongyang yanjiu jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1992).

63 See chapter one.

64 As matter of fact, the “law of avoidance” can be traced back to the Han dynasty. According to Chi‘s study, she argued that the Hang dynasty designed the avoidance law to prevent local officials from collaborating with local strongmen in order to create distance between the state and society and maintain the state’s superiority over society. After several dynasties, this avoidance system became embedded in Chinese political culture. Different dynasties’ local officials used to expect that they be detached from local people to maintain their “governmentality” over local society. Based on Wei’s (1992) study, the development of this system reached to its peak during the Qing dynasty. See: Madeleine Chi 戚世皓, “The Law of Avoidance During the Han dynasty” in The Journal of the Institute of Chinese Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong , vol. 6:2 (1973.12): 517-560.

65 In fact, Zhang Gang’s career is very similar with his contemporary Shanxi local elite Liu Dapeng (1857- 1942). Both of them failed to earn higher degree to make official. Zhang did not pass the provincial-level exam while Liu failed the capital-level exam. Thus, Zhang and Liu spent most of their lives as local schoolteachers in their hometowns. However, unlike their previous colleagues, both of them enjoyed the fruit of local political reconfiguration, which meant they could be more powerful in local politics. Moreover, both of them kept their diary since their early twenties until they died in early 1940s. Historian Henrietta Harrison used Liu’s diary to write a book on Liu’s life. See: Henrietta Harrison , The Man

211 because of the violation of avoidance law in early 1860s, how did it happen that thirty years later a low status schoolteacher like Zhang could direct the magistrate’s policy?

The avoidance law had been under criticism since the Qing Empire launched its late-Qing reform plans in the early 1900s. When implementing their reform plan, many

Qing officials called for reforming the “avoidance system”. 66 As early as 1907, the crumbling Qing Empire finally confirmed one local official’s opinions on partially loosening avoidance law. From then on, they allowed county-level officials like magistrates to hire local elites to serve adjunct positions in county government such as shixue yuan 視學員 (superintendent of local schools) and quanye yuan 勸業員 (member of local commerce chamber) in order to move forward with their local educational and commercial reform plans. The main theme of late-Qing reform plan heavily relied on the cooperation from local elites. 67 Later, in 1910 before the outburst of the Xinhai revolution, some local top officials like Shandong Province governor Sun Baoqi 孫寶麒 made a more radical proposal by asking the Grand Council to permanently abolish the avoidance law and to lift the ban on hiring local elites to local government. In his memoir, Sun even

awakened from Dream: One men’s life in a North China Village, 1857-1942 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005).

66 Wei (1992), Ibid., 242-255.

67 See: Dongfang magazine, a Shanghai-based monthly journal that ran from March 11, 1904 to December 1948. In addition to covering news happening throughout China, this magazine also forwarded Qing government’s edicts and policy discussions among officials. To a great extent, this magazine can be seen to epitomize the political transformation that occurred from late Qing through the whole Nationalist China period. As for the discussion on abolishing avoidance law, in 1907 acting Henan education superintendent 河南提學使 Kong xianglin 孔祥霖 made a proposal to the Grand Council asking them to relax restrictions on hiring local people. However, the Grand Council only partially approve Kong’s proposal. At any rate, from then on, local residents were officially permitted to serve as adjunct position especially in the field of local education and commerce in county government. The process of this discussion can be seen in Dongfang zazhi 東方雜誌 vol. 5:5 , (June 23, 1908), 273-275.

212 suggested that natives should be appointed as magistrate in their hometown to avoid corruption. 68 The meaning of this change for Wenzhou local politics was at least twofold: first, local officials could recruit local elites to fill almost every level of positions in local government. Secondly, it allowed officials to take care of local interest groups and their concerns became local officials’ top priority. In the end this thousands-year long political

“custom” in the Chinese empire, along with the official recruiting system—the civil exam—was abolished in less than ten years. Eventually, the pressure from below and reform plans from above forced Wenzhou local officials to respond accordingly.

By examining the interactions between Wenzhou officials and residents in the context of dragon boat racing, we are actually in a position to explore the driving force behind the changes described above. I argue that the local political reconfiguration, triggered by the arrival of two foreign religions in Wenzhou in 1877, contributed to the dramatic increased demand of residents for political participation in local society. Due to the rise of the new political force of local converts (as illustrated in chapter three), Qing local officials had to reconfigure their local political mechanisms, giving local converts a voice in the local political arena in response to the seemingly endless jiaoan . However, the reconfiguration acted much like the opening of a floodgate. Once the gate was opened a series of chain reactions followed. One of the most important effects was the rise of non-Christen residents who, upon seeing the growing influence of converts in their community, wanted similar access and influence in the local political arena. Thus, in order to at least maintain their governmentality over local society, Wenzhou local officials had to grant these non-Christen residents the same rights in exchange for their

68 See: Ibid., vol. 7:2, (April, 1, 1910), 21-28.

213 support. We can say that Qing Empire had succumbed to the villagers equipped with new political demands. 69 These rising demands from local society permanently changed

Wenzhou local politics. This changing political dynamic made it possible for Zhang and his friends to inform their magistrate’s policy.

In addition to exploring the rising local voices in late-Qing Wenzhou local politics it is worth discussing the impact of late-Qing xinzheng 新政 (late-Qing reforms) on

Wenzhou local society and daily life. Or, to put it another way, if the previous ban on dragon boat racing proved to be only battles on paper, why did Zhang and his friends still seek help from the magistrate? What kind of change allowed Zhang and his friends to believe it would be useful to seek out officials help? Duara (1988), in his influential book on rural northern China, argued that late-Qing local government failed to build an effective alternative to replace the “cultural nexus of power” in rural China. Even though

Qing officials implemented different kinds of reforms to modernize China, the lack of a political mechanism in local society hindered modern state-building. Duara argues in his book, however, that Qing officials’ various modernization efforts failed largely because

69 On the question of state-making in modern China, historians have applied nineteenth-century European history methodology to examine the state/society relations in the Qing period. However, as Chauncey (1992) has pointed out, there were at least two stages of the European state-making process. In stage one, the Western European state established the modernized state starting in the sixteenth century and was largely done by the nineteenth century. Stage two is how the state faced a new challenge from a newly middle class people. See: Eugene Weber, Peasants into Frenchman: The Modernization of Rural French, 1870-1914 (Stanford: Stanford University Press,1976); Charles Tilly, Louise Tilly and Richard Tilly, The Rebellious Century (Mass. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1975); and Raymond Grew, “The Nineteenth Century European State,” ed. Charles Bright and Susan Harding, State-Making and Social Movement (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1984), 85-90. After reviewing the literature on the European state-making process, Chauncey (1992) argued that modern Chinese historians have over- emphasized the states role in trying to monopolize power to build a “modernized state.” Chauncey places the emphasis on how the state faced the challenges coming from middle class people. See: Helen Chauncey, Schoolhouse Politicians: Localities and State During the Chinese Republic (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992). As for the more recent ideas by Tilly on social movement, see: Charles Tilly, Social Movement, 1768-2004 (Boulder: Paradigm, 2004).

214 of the “involution” hindering their plans for success. 70 The other aspect that illustrates the reasons for the failure of late-Qing reform is the rapidly increasing social unrests that began when the Qing government started implementing reforms after the Boxer uprising in 1901. Many villagers responded to Qing officials’ reform projects with social unrest

(minbian 民 變 ). Taking Zhejiang Province for example, late-Qing officials’ reform efforts proved to be the catalyst for as many as 178 social unrests from 1902 to 1911 before the Qing Empire was overthrown by Nationalist in 1912. 71 A great portion of the social unrest was a result of villagers’ resistance to taxation. The rapidly growing tax burden was in fact a result of Qing officials’ ongoing costly modernization plans including building new-style schools 72 and local police forces. To deal with these surging

70 See: Duara (1988), Ibid.

71 According to Zhang and Ding’s (1982) study, there were 1028 minbian 民變 (social unrest) occurrences in Qing China between 1902 and 1911. Moreover, as many as 262 of these 1028 events were “anti-new tax” uprisings. For a general discussion on these late-Qing social unrests, see: Zhang Zhenhe 張振鶴, Ding Yuanyin 丁原英 ed., “Qingmo Minbian nianbiao 清末民變年表” in jindaishi ziliao 近代史資料 49 (December 1982): 108-181; First Archival Museum and Beijing Normal University, Department of History, Xinhai Gemin qian shinan jian minbian dangan shiliao 辛亥革命前十年間民變檔案史料 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuchu, 1985); Qiao Zhiqiang 喬志強, Xinhai Gemin qian de shinan 辛亥革命前的十年, (Taiyuan: Shanxi Renmin chubanshe, 1987); and Zhang Kaiyuan 章開沅, Lin Zengping 林增平 ed., Xinhai gemin yundong shigao 辛亥革命運動史稿 (Beijing: Zhongguo Renmin Daxue Chubanshe, 1988). In addition to “revolution discourse,” western scholars also use ideas of “anti-modernity” and “protective rebellion” to explain why villagers used “collective action” as a method to resist official reforms. Much of their research has shown that the causes of these social unrests came from peasant’s resistance to the rapidly increasing tax burden over this ten-year period. For a long time, because of the “revolution discourse,” Chinese people were told the overthrow of the Qing government was because of its incurable corruption and ineffectiveness. In order to proceed to a “modernized” state revolution was the only option. This “politically correct” version of history certainly affected Chinese historians’ view of the Qing dynasty as well as Nationalist China. Both Nationalist and Communist leaders had to highlight the previous regimes’ failure in order to legitimize their revolution. For western scholars’ researches on late-Qing rebellions see: Roxann Prazniak, Of Camel Kings and other Things: Rural Rebels against Modernity in Late Imperial China (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999); Lucien Bianco, Peasants without the Party: Grass-roots Movements in Twentieth-Century China (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2001); and Elizabeth Perry, Challenging the Mandate of Heaven: Social Protest and State Power in China (Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2002).

72 On the discussion of the establishment of new style school in late-Qing Wenzhou, it is impossible to not mention Sun Yirang 孫詒讓 (1848-1908), who is Sun Yiyan’s 孫衣言 son. Sun was the chief designer of Wenzhou modern education. Throughout his life, he established about three hundred new style schools in

215 collective actions, maintaining a reliable local police force to ensure the success of their reform plan became the priority of most Qing officials and the theme of the ongoing state-making process.

After the Qing court unveiled their modern police project in 1901 the Wenzhou magistrate installed a modern police force no later than 1905. 73 The presence of a police force in early-twentieth-century Wenzhou became an important tool of manipulatation by local elite. It turned out that lower local elites could go to the magistrate to ask the police to curb their neighbor’s “illegal” behaviors. In fact, after the meeting between Zhang and the Ruian magistrate in 1907, the magistrate followed Zhang’s instruction and deployed a police force to suppress dragon boat activities every year. Zhang wrote in his diary on

June 20, 1909, just two day before that year’s dragon boat festival:

At about 10:30 in the morning, Ruian Magistrate Yu 餘 led police and staff from

Ruian city by boat to our village to suppress dragon boat activities. Once Xia 夏

family learned of this development, they immediately transported their dragon the Wenzhou area. For a discussion of Sun’s achievements in modern Wenzhou education: see: Li Shizhong 李世眾, Wanqing shishen yu defang zhengzhi: yi Wenzhou wei zhongxin de kaocha 晚清士紳與 地方政治：以溫州為中心的考察 (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 2006) and Zhang Xianwen 張憲文 ed., Sun Yirang yiwen jicun 孫詒讓遺文輯存 Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 5 (May 1989).

73 As matter of fact, in term of new initiatives launched by Qing officials, the new-style school and modern police system are two unparalleled items in local society. After the Qing government launched its reform plan in 1901, both local and capital-level officials urged the Qing court to consider building a modern police force as soon as possible to maintain local security. Wu Zonglian 吳宗濂 in his report dated in 1901 highly praised the safety in foreign concessions in China and gave very high credit to their effective police system. Very soon, the Qing court took Wu’s suggestion and decided to abolish the luying 綠營 ( green standard) and rebuild police force in 1901. For Wu’s report, see: Yu Baoxuan 于寶軒 ed., Hung chao xu ai wen bian: 80 juan 皇朝蓄艾文編 (Taipei: Xuesheng shuju, 1965), 990-991. On the establishment of the modern-style police system in China see: Wang Jiajian 王家儉, Qingmo mingchu woguo jingcha zhidu xiandaihui de li cheng 清末民初我國警察制度現代化的歷程 1901-1928 (Taipei: Shangwu yinshuguang, 1984), 67-69.

216 boat to xinyang 下垟 village. Their plan was discovered by police on their way to

xiayang, and the police ran after this dragon boat but finally could not get it. On

the contrary, the members of Xia dragon boat pushed several police into the [ 塘

tang river] river. Afterward, the police decided to return our village to find the

other target. Once they stepped in our village, they encountered Zhang family’s

dragon boat which was moving out of a local temple. The police immediately

arrested two members of the dragon boat crew, one named Yan Jinying 嚴金英

while the other named Zhang Afeng 張阿豐. After the arrest, they whipped them

in front of the magistrate and the whole village for three hundred hits. The

magistrate also ordered to whip our local runners (dibao 地保) for seven hundred

hits. Moreover, they smashed up the seized dragon boat. Before they left,

Magistrate Yu also dispatched his staff to Zhang’s house to severely punish the

organizer. 74

We can see that the Ruian magistrate heeded Zhang’s instruction to suppress dragon boats by using his newly established police force before the dragon boat festival.

However, it is more interesting to take a look at Zhang’s comments on this incident in his neighborhood. Despite condemning these ignorant villagers (yumang 愚氓) for provoking this unnecessary conflict, he was also astonished by Magistrate Yu’s unprecedented heavy-hand measures like whipping villagers in front of the whole community. 75

74 See: Zhang Gang 張棡 (1860-1942), Yu Xiong 俞雄 ed. (2003), Ibid., 146.

75 Ibid.

217 The demonstration of police power was tough enough to silence quarrelsome villagers. However, in the name of modernization, when this display became a routine in villagers’ daily life, it turned out that villagers also needed to develop methods to work with this new power to either prevent police harassment or to use it to compete with their neighbors. With the near arbitrary police power in their daily lives, villagers also need to regroup themselves to work with this new face of state power. From that year on policemen would ban dragon boats before the racing day. Moreover, on the racing day, the magistrate also deployed patrol boats traveling around the hot zone to dispel racing boats. The police certainly were different from previous local security forces. The police used heavy-handed measures, but unlike earlier security forces, they also had a regular presence within villagers’ daily lives creating an atmosphere of terror to assure that villagers would succumb to their control.

We must keep in mind, however, that the rise of local society was the most important development in Wenzhou local politics since 1877. In fact, it turned out that even though the late-Qing state wanted to tighten its grip over local society, the dominant position of the state in local society was diminished by forces from below like pressure from residents and the local political reconfiguration triggered by foreign religions, as well as reforms from above such as abandoning the civil exam and abolishing avoidance law. To contest with these surging local voices, both late-Qing officials and Wenzhou residents needed to devise new political mechanisms to address their respective concerns.

218 There is a typical story illustrating the above reshaping process at the village level.

As Zhang wrote on May 15, 1914 (ten days before that year’s dragon boat festival), there were two groups of villagers quarreling in front of his house during the early afternoon hours after the police had earlier smashing residents’ dragon boats. After all, several dragon boats including Zhang Luanxiang’s 張鑾祥 boat were smashed by police. Once police left their village, Zhang Luanxiang shortly realized that his loss was due to his neighbor Zhang Chihai’s 張持海 secret report to the magistrate. As expected, Zhang

Luanxiang went to Zhang Chihai’s place to demand an explanation. Their quarrel soon escalated into a full-fledged fight. After the skirmish, Zhang Chihai was seriously injured.

Chihai went to Zhang Gang’s residence to ask him to petition the police officials to punish Zhang Luanxiang for his attack. In the end, Zhang Gang promised Zhang Chihai that he would do so. 76 As is apparent from this story, Zhang Chihai wanted to use Zhang

Gang’s connection with local police to retaliate against Zhang Luanxiang. Here we find villagers taking advantage of police power against their local rivalries. We shall now look more carefully into the development of this patron-client relationship in early-twentieth- century Wenzhou local politics.

The patron-client relationship between villagers and state power was functioning in many forms of local political interest exchanges in Wenzhou. For example, Zhang Gang being invited or elected as local representative to take part in local government. These formerly excluded village elites were now encouraged to give their input to local

76 Ibid., 173-174. Even though there had been a conflict related to the dragon boat, ironically, Zhang Gang still took his three sons and one daughter to watch the dragon boat racing during the festival. In fact, Zhang’s family outing explains why Zhang Luanxiang went to revenge Zhang Chihai. Clearly, the racing was still allowed by police. On that day, according to Zhang Gang’s diary, there were several police patrol boats travelling along with the Xincheng 莘塍 River—the biggest racing venue in Ruian.

219 administrators as well to take charge of the distribution of local resources. It is not surprising to learn that these villagers would regroup themselves to be more effective in taking advantage of this unprecedented opportunity. Based on their “cultural nexus of power” mainly in the form of lineage organizations, these Wenzhou villagers thus formed different defang paixi 地方派系 (local factions). For example Chendang 陳黨 (Chen faction) and Xiangdang 項黨 (Xiang faction) led by two local prestigious Chen and

Xiang families in the early twentieth century. The function of these local factions was to counter one another rather than to build a harmonious society. The conflict between these two factions over local interest was expressed by Zhang in his July 13, 1909 diary entry:

After dinner I went to Xingtong’s (Zhang’s nephew) residence to chat, he told me

he went to Ruian city to attend a meeting regarding local schooling affairs [Ruian

high school case]. The meeting was regulated terribly. The confrontation between

the Chen and Xiang factions arose as a deadlock. Meanwhile, [before they started

voting] the gangxiang 港鄉 and hexiang 河鄉 gentry also fought the scrutineer

Tong Shiyuan 童適園 with their fists. After this conflict several attendees were

reportedly injured. 77

This conflict was the extension of an earlier dispute over the Ruian high school case 瑞安

中學 in 1908. 78 The leader of the Chen faction was Chen Fuchen 陳黻宸 (aka Chen

77 Ibid., 147.

78 Sparking the Ruian high school 瑞安中 學 incident was a debate on whether the Ruian County government should be closing this new-style school which was founded by Sun Yirang. This school was founded by merging several new-style schools in the Ruian area and was renamed Ruian zhongxuetang 瑞

220 Jieshi 陳介石, 1859-1917). 79 Earlier on April 6, 1908, he published an open letter in the

Zhejiang ribao 浙 江 日 報 (Zhejiang daily)—the official media controlled by the

Hangzhou Prefecture magistrate—accusing Xiang Song 項崧 (aka Xing Shenfu 項申甫,

1859-1909), 80 who was the leader of Xiang faction in Ruian county, of occupying the

Ruian high school for their own interest. Each faction and their local proxy mobilized their supporters to fight for their interests. The case quickly escalated into a big faction confrontation in 1908. Connecting the above case to Zhang Gang’s description, we can picture the scene of how eager these villagers were to contribute their voice to the local

安中學堂 in 1906. In fact, before the founder of this school, Sun Yirang, died in 1908, he planned to close this school because of the shortage of financial resources. After Sun died in 1908 Sun’s successors decided to close this school. However, the Xiang family, who was also the member of school board, resisted the Sun faction’s decision. After several rounds of debate, Xiang song won the controlling power of the school. The opposing Sun faction was reluctant to accept this settlement, thus they launched a lawsuit with the Wenzhou Daotai against Xiang Song intent on closing the school. In addition to the lawsuit, there were several rounds of debates in the newspaper. Both sides did their best to play a dirty war. For example, the Sun faction accused Xiang song of embezzling seven thousand taels of school funds. Xiang was so angry upon hearing his accusation that he died in his early fifties. On the discussion of this dispute: see: Li (2006), Ibid., 356-375.

79 Chen Fuchen 陳 黻 宸 (1859-1917) earned his jinshi degree in 1903, only two years before the abolishment of the civil exam system in China. He returned to Zhejiang to take the office of the speaker of the Zhejiang Provincial assembly in 1909. Before he started his career in his home province, he served different academic positions including being a Chinese history teacher at the former Beijing University and dean of the foreign language institution in Guangdong. He was also the main leader of the Zhejiang railway dispute. For more on the dispute see: Min Tu-ki edited by Philip Kuhn and Timothy Brook, National Polity and Local Power: The Transformation of Late Imperial China (Mass., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), especially chapter 6. On Mr. Chen’s work including the open letter, see: Chen Fuchen, Chen Depu 陳德溥 ed., Chen Fuchen ji 陳黻宸集 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuchu, 1995) and Hu Zhusheng 胡珠生 ed., Dongou san xianshen ji bubian 東甌三先生集補編 (Shanghai: Shanghai Shehui kexue chubanshe, 2005).

80 Xiang Song 項崧 (1859-1909) earned his jinshi degree in 1894. Throughout his life, He had been friendly with the Sun family since he was also Sun Yiyan’s student. He also worked closely with Sun Yirang 孫詒讓 on founding new-style schools in Wenzhou beginning in the late nineteenth century. But in the case of the Ruian high school, he resisted Sun’s successors’ decision which led to a big debate on this matter. He paid a high price for this debate: his life. On Xiang Song’s life, see: Yu Zhentang 余振棠 edited, Ruian lishi renwu zhuanlue 瑞安歷史人物傳略 (Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe, 2006). 169-171. Xiang also wrote an important article on the Jiashen jiaoan of 1884. See: Xiang Song 項松, Ji Jiashen nian Bayue shiliu shi 記甲申年八月十六事 (Record on August 16 1884) in 張憲文 Zhang Xianwen edited, 甲 申教案及拳民運動的幾則史料 (Material selections of Jiashen jiaoan and Boxer uprising in Wenzhou) in Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 溫州文史資料 vol. 9 (March 1994).

221 decision-making process. Moreover, everybody believed that this new decision-making process would be more effective than before. Therefore, this case was not only a conflict on paper between so called dashen 大紳 (great gentry) and buyi 布衣 (new raised local elites) as Li (2006) has suggested. In fact, each faction was fueled by their local interest groups to fight for their local interests.

Furthermore, on October 14, 1909 the Qing government unveiled its plan for establishing provincial assemblies in the capital city of every province (except Xinjiang

新疆). The influence of these local factions as well as the activism of local politicians made a revolutionary stride in local politics because of the resulting local assembly elections. From then on, they were able to oversee local administration. 81 Along with the surge of local voices and the penetration of local politicians into national politics, the shadow of populism loomed over the Qing state and even Nationalist China. Both

81 Many scholars have generated explanations on the rise of local elites’ influence over Zhejiang local politics in late Qing. As early as early the 1980s Schoppa (1982) had noticed the difference between “inner- core” and “outer-core” elites’ “function in local politics. His work also did much to erase the caricatured pictures of early-twentieth-century Zhejiang elites. See: R. Keith Schoppa, Chinese Elites and Political Change: Zhejiang in the Early Twentieth Century (Mass., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982). Rankin (1986) applied the concept of “public sphere” to support her idea of “elite activism” to the late- Qing Zhejiang railroad protection movement. It is also noteworthy to mention that her concept of “public sphere” ignited a great debate among modern Chinese historians. See: Mary Backus Rankin, Elite Activism and Political Transformation in China: Zhejiang Province, 1865-1911 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986). Even though the above two book titles mention Zhejiang, they both focus exclusively on Hangzhou, which is the capital city in northern Zhejiang, rather than on the whole of Zhejiang Province. Compared to Schoppa and Rankin’s work, Shen’s (2005) book on the local assembly provides a more detailed picture of this new institution in late-Qing Zhejiang. See: Shen Xiaomin 沈曉敏, chuchang yu qiubian: Qingmo Mingchu de ziyiju yu shenyihui 處常與求變：清末民初的浙江諮議局與省議會 (Beijing: Sanlian shuju, 2005).

222 governments struggled with the proper way to define defang zizhi 地方自治 (local autonomy) in either their reform or modernization plans for modern China. 82

VI. Conclusion:

The enthusiasm over local affairs was considered a progressive attitude among

Wenzhou residents in the early twentieth century. On behalf of their particular local concerns, local factions enthusiastically participated in local politics. As a result, it turns out that the concept of politics expanded from the rulership of one, to the share of rulership. By examining dragon boat racing in Wenzhou in comparison to other scholars’ research on this period in Chinese history, we can see that the state-making process was not a one-way street but the combination of dynamics from below and above. However, the surge of local voices in local politics became a pain to local officials. The Wenzhou daoyin 道尹 (Yuan Shikai regime’s position title for Wenzhou Daotai), Huang Qinglan

82 “ Defang zizhi 地方自治 (local autonomy)” is actually an ambiguous idea to most Chinese villagers. Given the long discussion on the previous dynasty’s ability to exert their rulership over local society, we should realized that the concept of local autonomy in the early twentieth century was actually an important part of late-Qing reform plans as well as the main theme of the later constitution movement. By 1901, the Qing court had launched a series of reforms targeting the issue of local autonomy. Basically, their reform plan contained building western-style representation systems in China. On the discussion of late-Qing representation systems, see: Min Tu-ki, edited by Philip Kuhn and Timothy Brook, National Polity and Local Power: The Transformation of Late Imperial China (Mass., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), especially chapter 5. For a more detailed discussion on the establishment of local councils, see: Roger Thompson, China’s Local Councils in the age of Constitutional Reform, 1898-1911 (Mass., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995). The other explanation considered the local autonomy as the extension of the rising of localism since mid-Qing crises. This explanation originated from the discussion of Qing institution history. On the discussion of changing institution history in the late Qing, see: Liu Wei 劉偉, Wan Qing dufu zhengzhi yanjiu: Zhongyang yu defang guanxi yanjiu 晚清督撫政治：中央與地方 關係研究 (Wuhan: Hubei Jiaoyu Chubanshe, 2006). On the discussion of the rise of defang zhuyi 地方主 義 (localism) in early-twentieth-century China, see: Hu Chunhui 胡春惠, Minchu de defang zhuyi yu lianshengpropprop zizhi 民初的地方主義與聯省自治 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2001 China edition).

223 黃慶瀾, in a personal memo entitled Ouhai guanzheng lu 甌海觀政錄 to these local politicians in 1919 frankly expressed his sentiments:

The fashion in Ruian County is the most unruly in Wenzhou Prefecture. The local

gentry (shishen 仕紳) meddled with almost everything. Even worse, there were

many opinioned local factions in Ruian. Previous magistrates had adopted a

tolerant policy to them. However, it turns out that these local shishen have

become very hard to deal with. 83

As a mater of fact, Huang’s complaints and impatience toward these local factions also revealed the fact that local officials could not function as they desired without these local politicians’ cooperation. Moreover, what really mattered was the development of a the new political reconfiguration beginning in 1877. From the content of Huang Qinglan’s complaint we can also see that by the early twentieth century the “excluded” villagers were actually overwhelming the sphere of local officials. From then on, it is not an exaggeration to say that the elevation of local interests and their concerns permanently changed the environment of local politics.

83 Huang Qinglan (1874-?) served as Ouhai Daoyin from January 1918 to December 1919. He was the longest serving Daoyin in early-republic Wenzhou. See: Huang Qinglan 黃慶瀾, Ouhai guanzhenlu 甌海觀 政錄 (Taipei: Wenhai Chubanshe, 1976 reprint), 44-45. The Yuan Shikai 袁世凱 regime decided to reform the local system in 1914. Yuan’s plan was to use this chance to tune up the Qing local administrative system. In terms of Wenzhou, they only changed the names of local administrators from Wenchu dao 溫處 道 to Ouhai dao 甌海道. The dao system was abolished in 1924. For a discussion on the local system in the early republic, see: Qian Shifu 錢實甫, Beiyang zhengfu shiqi de zhengzhi zhidu 北洋政府時期的政治制 度 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuchu: 1984), 283-292.

224 Before I end the discussion of this chapter, I must also point out that in order to tame the rise of local voices in local politics, both the late-Qing and early-republic regimes introduced various “modernization” plans to local society. Under different slogans ranging from “ xinzheng ” 新 政 (late-Qing reforms) to xiandaihua 現 代 化

(modernization), it is clear that the state’s goal was to rebuild their arbitrary power in order to become a so-called modernized Nation-State. 84 Thus, one of the main agendas throughout twentieth century Chinese history has been the collision of a rising local society with the tightening of state power. In the following chapter, I will explore the question of how this collision happened in the field of local religion policy and Wenzhou residents’ daily lives, especially after the Nationalists entered Wenzhou in 1927.

84 On the discussion between arbitrary power and routine power in Qing political history, see: Philip Kuhn, Soulstealer: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 (Mass., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), 187- 190.

225 Chapter Five:

Anti-Superstition Campaign and Wenzhou Local Politics (1927-1937)

I. Knocking down Yangfu Jun, Yueqing, 1928:

In 1928, a group of students led by the local Nationalist (aka, Kuomintang , 國民

黨 KMT) group Chou Yuesan 仇約三 in Yueqing 樂清 County in northern Wenzhou

Prefecture took it upon themselves the task of destroying local temples. They called themselves the deity-demolishing group ( daoshen tuan 搗神團). Based on Yueqing local historian Fang Zhongbao’s 方宗苞 (1984) account, there were roughly twenty local students who joined this deity-demolishing group. Concerning their actions, he wrote:

The target of this group was to demolish non-Buddhist deities (huishe bu huifo 毀神

不毀佛). As a result of their actions, many local deities’ statues were demolished,

including Chenghuang 城隍 (city god), Yangfu Jun 楊府君 (Lord Yang), 1 his boat,

leigong 雷公 (Lord of Thunder), and Yanluo wang 閻羅王 (king of hell). [Although

they did not demolish the statues of Buddha,] however, they destroyed the four

varja (sidajingang 四大金剛), which stood in front of every Buddhist monastery.

Besides demolishing deity statues, these local youths took Buddha’s riding horses

back to their school to transform them into students’ athletic equipment, as well as

1 For a discussion on the correlation between Yangfu Jun 楊府君 (Lord Yang) and Wenzhou local politics especially in 1860s Wenzhou, see chapter one.

226 transform the bell, which originally belonged to xiyan temple 西岩寺, into their

school’s clock. 2

Fang concluded these actions initiated an anti-superstition campaign ( pochu mixin yundong 破除迷信運動) launched by the Nationalist regime and running from the 1920s to the 1940s in Wenzhou. 3

On a longer time frame, the Nationalist unveiled their various modernization plans as soon as they found their Guangdong revolutionary base right after the fiasco of

1913 Anti-Yuan Shi Kai coup. 4 Taking Nationalist’s modernization plans as a whole, this

Yueqing Nationalist’s anti-superstition campaign can be also considered the prelude to

2 See: Fang Zhongbao 方宗苞, “The Demolish deity group in 1928 Yueqing”, (Yuecheng daoshentuan 樂 成搗神團), in Yueqing wenshi ziliao 樂清文史資料 1 (June, 1984): 116.

3 For a discussion of anti-superstition campaign (pochu mixin yundong 破除迷信運動) in Nationalist China before the outburst of the second Sino-Japanese war in 1937, see: Prasenjit Duara, “Knowledge and Power in the discourse of Modernity: The Campaigns against Popular Religion in Early Twentieth Century China.” The Journal of Asian Studies 50, no. 1 (1991): 67-83. Further discussion can be seen in: Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History From The Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago University Press, 1995), especially chapter 85-114 and Rebecca A. Nedostup, “Religion, Superstition and Governing Society in Nationalist China” Ph.D. diss., (Columbia University, 2001). Her dissertation turned into a book in 2010. See: Rebecca Nedostup, Superstitious Regime: Religion and the politics of Chinese Modernity . (Mass., Cambridge: Harvard Asian Center, 2010).

4 On the 1913 Anti-Yuan Shikai revolution, see: John Fairbank, The Cambridge history of China, v. 12-13. Republic China, 1912-1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), especially chapter four. Moreover, MacKinnon’s (1980) book about Yuan is also worth mentioning. See: Stephen R. MacKinnon, Power and Politics in Late Imperial China: Yuan Shi-Kai in Beijing and Tianjin, 1901-1908 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980). Right after the failure of “the second revolution” in 1913, the Nationalists were defeated by Yuan Shi-Kai 袁世凱 and his Beiyang 北洋 warlord colleagues. After this fiasco, the Nationalists were forced to retreat to Guangdong to rebuild their regime. In order to compete with the North regime which was headed by Yuan Shi-Kai (1859-1916), the Nationalist leader Sun Yat-sen decided to unveil a series of reforms to his party. To a great extent, these reform plans were actually ideological campaigns. Due to their fiasco, the Nationalists were very eager to not only install their version of modernity on Guangdong residents but also recast the contents of their ideology for future propaganda use. In fact, these various reform plans became the blueprint for the later Nanjing decade (1927-1937). At any rate, before the success of the “North Expedition” in 1928, the Guangzhou Nationalist regime had lunched as many experimental measures as they could to implement their revolution.

227 the later “New Life Movement” (xinshenghuo yundong 新 生 活運 動) implemented nation-wide by the Nationalist regime in 1934. The policies of the Nationalist anti- superstition campaigns ranged from banning fortune-telling and local religious festivals to remolding people’s daily life. 5 Thus, it is also fair to say that their ultimate goal was to build a secular modernized society simply like their Western opponents. By opposing their predecessors’ shendao shejiao 神道設教 (Using the Ways of the popular deities to instruct [the people]) policy, which acknowledged popular religion as a vital supplement to local politics, the Nationalists, who were also Pro-Christian, not only denied the importance of popular religion in local politics, but also considered local popular religions as an affront to their modernization plans. Therefore, it is not surprising to see

Yueqing Nationalist supporters (mainly local students) voluntarily organize activities to knock down the focal point of Yueqing County local superstition, Lord Yang (Yangfu jun

楊府君), in order to show their support for this new regime and their modernization plans.

With the arrival of the Nationalist regime in Wenzhou in 1928 the local society underwent a huge transformation, especially in the field of local politics. By knocking down Yangfu jun and the statues of other deities, the members of the Yueqing daoshen tuan 搗神團 believed they were showing their strong devotion to not only reverse the traditional local political order, but also to unveil a “new era” in their lives. However,

5 For a general discussion about Nationalist’s efforts in Guangdong before they unified China in 1928, see: Michael Tsin, Nation, Governance, and Modernity in China: Canton, 1900-1927 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999). In term of so-called custom reform ( fengsu gaige 風俗改革), see: 廣州特別市黨 部宣傳部, 風俗改革叢刊 fengsu gaige congkan (Guangzhou: Nationalist Guangzhou Party Branch, 1930). Also, Poon’s (2008) work on the relationship between Guangzhou city god and Nationalist regime also deserves a mention here. See: Shuk-wah Poon 潘淑華, “Religion, Modernity, and Urban Space: The City God Temple in Republic Guangzhou”. Modern China vol. 34:2 (April 2008): 247-275.

228 these Nationalist did not realize that in the eyes of Wenzhou locals they were actually demolishing the existing local political order.

Chen’s (2002) work on the invention of religion ( Zongjiao 宗教) and Gooassert’s

(2006) study on the relation between the modern Chinese state and religion have suggested that the goal of these new guidelines was to demarcate religion into a dichotomy of legal religion and superstition. 6 Under the new rhetoric of religion, these

Nationalists could not only use this definition to legitimize their own anti-superstition campaign, but they could also accuse almost every local popular religion or illegal cult in local society of superstition. 7 Under this new guideline, as will be seen, almost every local popular religion in Wenzhou, including the top justice deity in local society,

Chenghuang 城隍, was considered to be a part of local superstition and needed to be suppressed. Over time, however, we have considered modernization as not only a straightforward vehicle for local society, but also a significant part of state formation. But

6 Regarding this new guideline of religion, as Chen (2002) and Gooassert (2006) have pointed out; the term zongjiao 宗教 was not used in Buddhism texts but not wildly used in China until late Qing period. On the other hand, this term was actually part of Japanese’s translation. Qing officials and Nationalist applied a newly defined concept of “religion” to compete with the local religion deity. See Chen, His-yuan, “Confucianism Encounter Religion: The Formation of Religious Discourse and the Confucian Movement in Modern China.” PhD diss., Harvard University, 1999, and Chen, His-yuan 陳熙遠, “Zhongjiao/Religion: A keyword in the Cultural History of Modern China 宗教: 一個中國近代文化史上的關鍵詞” in Xinshixue 新史學 No.13:4 (2002), 37-64. Vincent Gooassert, “State and Religion in Modern China: Religious Policies and Scholarly Paradigms” in Bulletin of Modern History Institute 近史所集刊 54 (Nankang: Dec., 2006): 169-209 and Vincent Gooassert, “The Concept of Religion in China and the West” , Diogenes 52 (2005), 13-20 .

7 On Nationalists’ and intellectuals’ ideas on the “anti-superstition campaign,” see Rebecca A. Nedostup, “Religion, Superstition and Governing Society in Nationalist China” Ph.D. diss., (Columbia University, 2001). In addition to the national level discussion of the anti-superstition campaign in Nationalist China, scholars have also begun to look the local version of this campaign. See: Pan Shuhua 潘淑華, “ 建構政權, “解構迷信”: 1929 年至 1930 年廣州市風俗改革委員會的個案研究 in Zheng Zhenman 鄭振滿, Chen Chunsheng 陳春生 ed., Minjian Xinyang yu shehui kongjian 民間信仰與社會空間 (Fuzhou: Fujian Renmin Chubanshe, 2003), 108-122.

229 we have underestimated the antipathy and resistance of locals when their local religious traditions, as well as their local political order, were challenged by the Nationalists.

Given in the name of modernization, the Nationalist’s anti-superstition campaign was not welcomed and even drew resentment from Wenzhou locals largely because of the Nationalists’ obsession with youth, destruction of the past, and arrogance about the superiority of their system of thought over local society. 8 What I am more interested in is the fact that in the name of reform and modernization, some young generations of

Wenzhou locals openly attacked their existing local political orders by denying the value of local religious tradition in local society. Unlike their Confucian predecessor’s attacks on “improper cults” (yingci 淫祠), this time, they attacked several prestigious local deities, including Yang Fujun and even Chenghuang (city god) who had been valued by the state for centuries. 9 These violent changes done by the Nationalists, including knocking down deities and attacking prestigious local deities in order to suppress so- called local superstition, did not change Wenzhou local’s attitudes of their local religion deities and politics as the Nationalist had hoped.

8 See: Rana Mitter, A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World . (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 208.

9 By using the approach of “religion policy” as their main analytic framework to examine the role of religion in modern Chinese history, most scholarship is focused on the question of how the modern Chinese state regulated “religion” nationally, rather than on how religion functioned politically in local and national politics. That explains why most scholars used their work on religion to annotate the elite discourse as well as the modern Chinese state’s affliction of modernity and state formation. See: Mayfair Mei-Hui Yang ed., Chinese Religiosity: Affliction of Modernity and State Formation . (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008). Similar approach to this question can be also seen in: Yoshiko Ashiwa and David L, Wank ed., Making Religion; Making State: The Politics of Religion in Modern China . (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009).

230 Building on previous scholars’ work of intellectuals’ affliction between the representation of modernity and local society, this chapter will take advantage of Wenzhou local diarists’ rich account of local religious affairs to explore the following questions: what happened in Wenzhou local society before and after this first so-called anti-superstition campaign in 1928? Is there any continuity or discontinuity that can be found in the sphere of Wenzhou local religion and local politics? Second, by using this local history perspective, I will also be able to explore the question of how Wenzhou locals reacted to the challenges accompanying this ideology-oriented Nationalist regime’s modernization efforts in their daily lives. How did Wenzhou locals evaluate this anti-superstition campaign? By examining the Wenzhou locals’ responses to religious reforms beginning in the late Qing period, this chapter’s case study will also provide a new window into the role of local religion in Chinese politics. Moreover, under the slogan of this first ever nation wide anti-superstition campaign, these Wenzhou local Nationalists claimed to rectify these so-called “old society superstitions” in local society to build a modernized life style for Wenzhou citizens. As we will see, however, these ambitious Nationalists did not realize that by denying the importance of local deities in local society, in the eyes of

Wenzhou locals, they were in effect denying the legitimacy of the Nationalists and their modernization plans in local politics.

II. The Oscillation between Old and New (1898-1928):

In fact, the aforementioned Yueqing demolishing-deity group ( daoshen tuan 搗神

團) is not too distant from Wenzhou local’s daily life experience. The challenges to

231 Wenzhou popular religion and its related organizations was a major issue in Wenzhou local politics since the abortive “One Hundred Days Reform (aka Wuxu 戊戌 reform)” in

1898. This Wuxu reform was put off shortly by the collaboration of Dowager Cixi and her colleagues. As Gooassert (2006) pointed out, this short-lived reform was the forerunner to the subsequent full-scale religious and education reform called “ huimiao banxue 毀廟

辦 學 (destroy temples to build school),” which caused a revolutionary impact on

Wenzhou local society in the last ten years of Qing dynasty. 10 Essentially, along with the implementation of this dual reform, the Qing court promulgated a series of new edicts ordering local officials to confiscate temple property and transform the temples into

Western-style schools all over China in 1901. 11

After receiving this order, the Ruian magistrate immediately worked with local elites to convert four local temples, including Guangji temple 廣濟廟, Zongyi temple 忠

義廟, Guandi temple 關帝廟, and Xianyou temple 顯佑廟, which were all listed on the official register of sacrifice (sidian 祀典), into the first four new-style schools in Ruian

10 Vincent Gooassert, “1898: The Beginning of the end for Chinese Religion?” Journal of Asian Studies , 65:2, (2006): 307-336. There is relatively little scholarship on the huimiao banxue 毀廟辦學. In fact, most scholars were more interested in the process of establishing modern education institutions in China rather than the temples and local society’s reactions to this conversion. Regarding scholars’ discussion on the educational reform since late-Qing China, see: Paul J. Bailey , Reform the People: Changing Attitudes towards Popular Education in Early 20 th century China (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990) and Helen Chauncey, Schoolhouse Politicians: Localities and State during the Chinese Republic (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992).

11 Lin, Zuojia 林作嘉, “Qingmo mingchu miaochan xinxue zhi yanjiu 清末民初廟產興學之研究 (The study of temple confiscation and building new style school from Late Qing to Early Republic)”, M.A. thesis, Taiwan: Donghai University 東海大學歷史研究所碩士論文, 2000.

232 county. 12 By the end of 1908, there were reportedly over three hundred Western-style schools throughout the six counties of Wenzhou Prefecture, and consequently, there were the same amounts of temples were destroyed due to this reform. 13 Furthermore, in order to cover the budgets of these new schools, similar to other late-Qing reform plans,

Wenzhou local officials needed to not only incorporate more resources from local elites, but they also had to create new tax revenue (even a special tax on oranges) to fund these new and expensive reform plans. 14 Later, the rapidly increasing tax burden triggered an increasing animosity between the Qing government and local society between 1901 and

12 On the establishment of Wenzhou Western-style schools, see: Hu, Zhusheng 胡珠生, Wenzhu Jindaishi 溫州近代史 (History of Modern Wenzhou), (Shenyang: Liaoning Renmin chubanshe, 2000), 203. These four temples were chosen mainly because of their temple property. According to 瑞安近百年大事記 (Major issues of Ruian, 1840-1940), the budget of 360 yuan for each school would be allotted from the temple property, tuition, and local elites’ donation. See: Ruian wenshi ziliao 瑞安文史資料 5 (Nov. 1987), 16.

13 Based on Li’s (2006) book on late-Qing Wenzhou local politics, he spent most of his time concentrating on the confrontation between upper-local gentry and lower-local gentry in late-Qing Wenzhou education reform. See: Li, Shizhong 李世眾, Wanqing shishen yu defang zhengzhi: yi Wenzhou wei zhongxin de kaocha 晚清士紳與地方政治：以溫州為中心的考察 (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 2006). For a discussion on Wenzhou Western-style schools since the late Qing, also see: Hu (2000), Ibid., 203- 210.

14 For centuries Wenzhou’s oranges were famous especially in Southeast China. In 1902, to fund local schools the Wenzhou Prefecture magistrate Wang Chen 王琛 issued an order to levy a special tax called (jujuan 橘捐) on orange farmers. The local orange farmers were upset by this new tax. According to the Wenzhou chengqu Jinbainian jishi 溫州城區近百年記事 (Wenzhou city Chronology, 1840-1949), these orange farmers sent two local elites to submit a petition to Wang to reconsider this policy. But Wang eventually turned down this collective petition. On the contrary, he intimidated these orange farmers’ representatives named Tsai Mingjing 蔡明經 and Zhang Eryan 張爾彥 and threatened that all of them will be severely punished for their resistance. Several days later, there were reportedly as many as several thousands angry and desperate orange farmers holding incense along with other farmers holding their hoes demonstrating in front of Wang’s prefecture magistrate office in Wenzhou city. Once they rushed into Wang’s office, Wang was too scared to flee from Wenzhou city immediately. Soon, Wang was removed from this post. see: Wenzhou chengqu Jinbainian jishi 溫州城區近百年記事 (Wenzhou city Chronology, 1840-1949), in Lucheng wenshi ziliao 鹿城文史資料, vol. 5 (Wenzhou: Zhongguo ren min zheng zhi xie shang hui yi Zhejiang Sheng Wenzhou Shi Lucheng Qu wei yuan hui wen shi ziliao gong zuo wei yuan hui, 1990) , 45.

233 1911. 15 Moreover, it is important to note that the relation between the official register of sacrifices and local society is not irrevocable. From this Ruian example, when the demand rose, interestingly, the first thing to come to officials’ minds was actually these official approved temples! But it would be wrong to assume that the state could simply apply this example to every temple in Wenzhou.

Even though we can see there was remarkable growth of Western-style schools, there were also many demonstrations that targeted these Western-style schools, mainly because some “bad” local elites allegedly took advantage of this dual reform to encroach on temple property. According to the Shanghai based Dongfang zazhi’s 東方雜誌 report dated November 2, 1904, the author bitterly accused some “evil gentry” (lieshen 劣紳) of building Western-style schools as their excuse to embezzle local temple property.

Therefore, without understanding the reason for these villagers’ anger, the author simply denounced these angry locals’ ignorance as launched uprisings to attack these new schools to vent off their frustration. There were more and more uprisings that targeted these newly built Western-style schools throughout China. One month later on December

31, 1904, there was another report lamenting the devastating situation by asking their intellectual audience, if “destroying schools was becoming a fashion in China?” ( huixue guojing chengwei fengqi ye ? 毀學果竟成為風氣耶？). 16 In general, both of these two

15 On the animosity between late-Qing reform and local society, see: Roxann Prazniak, Of Camel Kings and Other Things: Rural Rebels against Modernity in Late Imperial China . (New York: Rowman&Littlefield. 1999) and Elizabeth J. Perry, Challenging the Mandate of Heaven: Social Protest and State Power in China (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2002).

16 See: transshipment from Zhongwai ribao 中外日報 (9/12/1904) “On the current corruption of new style school 論學堂之腐敗”, in Dongfang zazhi 東方雜誌 vol: 1:9, (11/2, and 1904): 200-202. The other article:

234 articles blamed greedy local elites for exploiting this dual reform to not only embezzles local temple property but also to extort villagers to gain profit. Moreover, these reports also revealed the fact that this reform was encountering severe pushback from local society. As this reform went on, instead of disclosing these villagers’ frustration over this reform, the author simply ascribed the blame to the “evil gentry obstacle” to justify the failure of this reform. 17 On the other hand, not very long after this dual reform, Wenzhou local officials also expressed their worries about the mounting controversy of local elites taking advantage of this ongoing dual reform to embezzle Buddhist shrine property. 18

Aside from the property issue, we can also see the fact that there was a certain amount of skepticism among local villagers toward the Qing’s quick-fix educational and religious reform plans, which had already made a visible impact in their daily lives.

Moreover, it also seems that these articles acted on a premise that as long as these reformists could fix the “local bad gentry” obstacle, this dual reform would ultimately be a big success. As for the unwilling villagers: “don’t worry, we know modernization much better than these backward villagers do, and all we need to do is to teach them what

“was destroying school becoming a fashion in China?” 毀學果竟成為風氣耶? can be found in Dongfang zazhi 東方雜誌 vol: 1:11, (12/31/1904):78.

17 Many scholars have pointed out that the support of local elites is very important to every local temple. Thus, it is interesting to think about the question of why all of sudden local elites turned against their local temples. As for the relation between temple and local elites, see: Timothy Brook, Praying for Power: Buddhism and the formation of Gentry Society in Late Ming China . (Mass., Cambridge: Harvard Asia Center, 1994).

18 It should be noted that in order to seize temple property, one of the most frequently used strategies of Wenzhou local elites, especially for Buddhist temples, was the accusation of a monk or nun for violating their monastic rules (qinggui 清規). This legitimized their action to confiscate temple property. In fact, the most frequently mentioned violation is adultery. The discussion of Wenzhou local society’s changing attitude toward Buddhism as a whole is beyond the scope of this chapter, however, I will examine this problem in later work. On the report on the conflicts between Buddhism and local society, see: Dongfang Zazhi 東方雜誌, Zhe-ou daily (Zheou Ribao 浙甌日報) and Zhang Gang (2003), Ibid., 5, 57, 199,362, 406, 412, 417, and 498.

235 modernization it is!” To a great extent, this above progressive attitude, stemming from

“Social Darwinism,” dominated the patterns of interaction between state and society in early-twentieth century China. However, this evil gentry/ignorant peasant dichotomy, reflects these reformists’ (who considered their reform plan as a straightforward vehicle to local society) oversimplification of the key role of local religion and does very little to implement their further modernization plans in local society. In reality, prior to the

Nationalist’s new religious policy, the Wenzhou locals had already embarked on their own version of religious reform to accommodate the challenges coming along with the modernization happened in their daily life beginning in the late nineteenth century.

Apparently, this evil gentry/ignorant peasant dichotomy was used by the so-called reformists to justify their failure.

Therefore, the future of their reform was not as rosy as these reformists assumed, especially when they had to deal with real local politics, which was mainly about local society’s real life concerns. According to the Ruian diarist Zhang Gang’s 張棡 account dated September 19, 1907, he heard there were as many as several thousand Ruian villagers who attacked a newly founded Western-style school located in a village called

Lin jiawan 林家灣. Zhang wrote:

At about two o’clock yesterday morning, there were up to several thousand Lin

jiawan 林家灣 villagers who used the dark to cover their attack on the Western-

style school (xuetang 學 堂 ) in their village. These villagers blamed the

establishment of Western-style schools in their village for ruining their rain-

236 praying rite (qiuyu bulin 求雨不靈) held several days ago. After this uprising,

someone had gone to both the Ruian magistrate’s office and to Mr. Sun Yirang’s

residence to seek help. I have no idea how they will handle this situation. 19

These Linjiawan villagers believed the newly built Western-style school was responsible for ruining their rain-praying pilgrimage to the nearby Chashan 茶山 town in northern

Ruian. 20 Zhang recorded this pilgrimage on August 31, 1907, almost twenty days before this uprising.

The severe drought has lasted for a long while in the Wenzhou area. Villagers

became very desperate for the rain. I heard that there were as many as several

thousands of Xinzheng 莘塍 villagers carrying Hongai ye 紅厓爺 to Longtan 龍

潭 (dragon pool) located in Chashan 茶山 to pray for rain. They left yesterday

and returned today. [Just meeting these villagers’ expectation], the sky was

mostly cloudy with drizzle early this morning. It seems these villagers’ prayer

was answered accordingly. However, it turned out that the sky became clear

19 See: Zhang Gang 張棡 (1860-1942), Yu Xiong 俞雄 ed., Zhang Gang riji 張棡日記 ( Zhang Gang Diary), (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chubanshe, 2003), 128.

20 Later in Zhang Gang’s account dated in 1929, in that account, he gave readers more detailed information about this local “rain praying journey.” As he wrote: [Whenever there is a drought,] there were as many as one thousand Xincheng 莘塍 locals carrying their Hongai shen 紅厓神 traveling to Chashan 茶山 and nearby Daluoshan 大羅山 to pray for rain. The participants were asked to walk under the sun and not allowed to use any kind of umbrella to show their sincerity to this deity to get the rain. On this journey, see: Zhang Gang, Ibid., 437.

237 shortly after eight o’clock. [To these villagers’ surprise,] the rain [granted by their

deities] did not come. 21

Apparently, the reason why these villagers attacked this school was because of their suspicion that the “newly built” Western-style school infuriated the local deity so he did not produce rain. Thus, it is also fair to say that this uprising would not have happened if the “promised” rain had relieved this drought after their pilgrimage journey. Moreover, it was also amazing to see that there were several thousand villagers working together to demolish this Western-style school as early as two o’clock in the morning. In terms of local politics, the meaning of this unusual collective action is at least twofold: first of all, after almost twenty day’s investigation on the failure of their rain praying pilgrimage, apparently these Lin jiawan villagers came to a consensus to blame the Western-style school for causing this trouble in their community. Therefore, these several thousands of villagers decided to demolish this school to remove this priority factor to get the

“granted” rain. Secondly, it is also important to explore the question of why these villagers chose late night to assault this school. Apparently, they wanted to use night time to cover their actions to avoid further prosecution and trouble with local officials. It should also be emphasized that local officials and even later scholars considered the ultimate winner of this hide and seek game to always be state power and its modernization plans. However, this chapter will reexamine this state dominated society paradigm.

21 Ibid., 128.

238 From the above description, we can see that the pilgrimage to Chashan and the rain-praying rite were the villager’s traditional method of taking care of their drought problem. Without the aid of modern forecast technology, however, there is nobody at that time who could guarantee that the ongoing drought was linked to the unpleased local deity who was possibly infuriated by the Western-style school founded in the village. 22

Moreover, based on Zhang’s description, the rain indeed came but eventually proved to be a big disappointment to these desperate villagers. This big disappointment and fear shortly escalated to the collective anger toward the newly built school as their final endeavor to please their local deity to get the granted rain. Despite the fact that the school was built and protected by local officials and local elites, when these new items were suspected of causing harmful impact on the local community, these so-called modernized and state regulated items still had to give way to local religious tradition. 23 Anti- superstition campaign proponents criticized this event, seeing it as proof of the “peasants’ backwardness” and used this point to prove the urgency of their reform plans. However, from the above story we can also see that these angry villagers’ point was not to

22 From a broader perspective, the key part of this controversial issue is all about “efficacy” of their beliefs. Reformists believed in the imperative to change Chinese traditions, while the Wenzhou locals persisted in their reliance on local deities’ power. To put it plainly, because of the “foreign impacts”, there was a split between reformist and local society in mid-nineteenth century China, which extended even to the whole of East Asia. In this Ruian rain praying case, each side insisted on the effectiveness of their solutions; however, neither of them could prove the efficacy of their solution to deal with this visible threat at that moment. Open discussion on this issue was hardly possible between these two sides. For a general discussion of foreign impact to East Asia society, see: Warren I. Cohen, “The Foreign Impact on East Asia” in Merle Goldman and Andrew Gordon edited, Historical Perspectives on Contemporary East Asia (Mass., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000).

23 See: 1986 平陽縣志 The 1986 Pingyang County local history . According to 1986 Pingyang county local gazetteer, before the arrival of accurate forecasting in Wenzhou in the late 1950s, even self- proclaimed atheist communists did not denounce this rain praying rite as superstition. In the official Pingyang local history instead of reiterating the rhetoric of anti-superstition, the Pingyang local Communist official simply claimed that the rain-praying rite was not replaced by a modern forecast system until 1960s.

239 “reposition religion within current social order,” 24 as the so-called reformists desired. For the villagers, rather, finding a workable solution to fix their ongoing daily life crises was more important than fighting on paper.

Following this logic, it is interesting to examine the first anti-superstition campaign in Ruian County in 1906. Compared with the 1907 Linjiawan uprising, this action was actually organized by one of the most prestigious late-Qing Wenzhou celebrities, Sun Yirang 孫詒讓, and several of his new school educated students, who were supposed to be supporters of reform and modernization. The diarist Zhang Gang wrote:

Yesterday my student Chen Gaotang 陳高堂 told me that Mr. Sun Yirang 孫詒讓

accompanied by several of his new school educated students went to Ruian 瑞安

magistrate Zhang’s office to ask him to dispatch clerks to knock down a local

temple. Once they reached the temple, they destroyed this newly built Wuchang

24 In Ketelaar’s (1990) groundbreaking study on Meiji Japan’s religion policy, he focused on the Meiji government along with Japanese Buddhism’s endeavors to reposition Buddhism within post-Meiji restoration social order, since the Meiji government had adopted a hostile policy toard Buddhism. As he said: “The dynamic of interplay of historicist, Nativist, and economic concerns within Japan wove together many threads, domestic and international alike, in the creation of, finally, a new nation and, more specific to our concerns here, a new Buddhism.” In other words, the Meiji Buddhism was fighting hard to be legitimatized by the Shinto dominated Meiji government. Clearly, the controversial point is whether there is a “national religion” guojiao 國教 in China or not. Apparently, especially in the field of local society, the problem of a “national religion” cannot be one of these villagers’ greatest concerns in their daily lives. On the idea of “reposition religion within social order”, see: James Ketelaar, Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan: Buddhism and Its Persecution (N.J., Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). Furthermore, on the discussion of the development of Shinto and Modern Japan, see: Helen Hardacre, Shinto and the State, 1868-1988 (N.J., Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).

240 Palace (wuchang dian 無常殿)25 and tossed the two Wuchang statues to the fire.

[In addition to knocking down the temple], they also tore down every inscribed

board hanged in this temple. Local people who used to be in favor of these

improper cults (yinci 淫祠) all gave in to avoid conflict with Sun and his students.

I [Zhang Gang] was so glad to hear this news! 26

Later historians of Wenzhou as well as Ruian reformists credited this “knocking down of improper cults” with rectifying bad local customs. Thus, it is necessary to figure out what motivated Sun and his students to knock down this local temple. As for this question, according to “Ruian Jinbainian dashiji 瑞安近百年大事記 (Ruian Chronology, 1840-

1940),” in fact, this Wuchang temple had been known as a location of providing witch doctor service to Ruian locals:

This Wuchang palace 無常殿 was actually only auxiliary part of Ruian County’s

granary. For a very long time witch doctors (modaoren 魔道人) used this temple

to pray for divine prescription (xianfang 仙方) to cure the local sick. There had

been a lot of bungles reported. Thus, they (Sun and his students) dragged these

25 The Wuchang 無常 are actually two ghost clerks under the supervision of king of hell (Yanluo wang 閻 羅王). The Wuchang consists of two figures: Black Wuchang 黑無常 and White Wuchang 白無常. According to Chinese folklore, people believed that these two ghost clerks were responsible for arresting people’s spirits to be tried by the king of hell. Thus, Wenzhou residents believed if they could bribe these two clerks they could extend the lives of their sick relatives.

26 See: Zhang Gang 張棡 (2003), Ibid., 112.

241 two Wuchang statues out of the temple and burned them down. They also tore

down this temple while these two statues were burning. 27

As matter of fact, the “divine prescription” of these so-called witch doctors ( modaoren 魔

道人) was an important medical service in the Wenzhou area for centuries. Regarding these local medical providers, the Qing Wenzhou official Guo Zhongyue 郭鐘岳 wrote in a report in the late 1850s:

Wenzhou locals loved working with shamans and believed in Ghost ( haowu

xingui 好巫信鬼). One of the most unthinkable behaviors to me is they would go

to shamans first when any of them were ill. They went to the temple to pray for

their health. On the chosen day of their worship, not only did the closest relatives

not inquire about the details, even the doctor was not allowed to diagnose and

give treatment to the patient. If someone accidently asked what happened to this

patient, their relatives would be extremely angry and treat this person like their

enemy, since they believed their original treatment of this patient had been ruined

(chongpo 沖破) by this person’s reckless question. If their prayers were not

answered accordingly on that day, they might continue to pray for three or even

five more days. In general, these Wenzhou locals just sat by and watched these

patients’ sickness go from bad to worse and from curable to incurable. In my

humble opinion, I realized the fact that the practice of improper cult (yinci 淫祠)

27 See: “ Ruian Jinbainian dashiji 瑞安近百年大事記 (Ruian Chronology, 1840-1940)”, in Ruian wenshi ziliao 瑞安文史資料 5 (November 1987), 20.

242 and witchery (wuzhu 巫祝) had violated our law, however, as for this case in

Wenzhou, I suggested that we should charge these Wenzhou locals with a

cumulative penalty to punish them for doing nothing to save their relatives from

ruin. 28

In addition to deploring this local witch doctor tradition, as I mentioned earlier in chapter three, Guo’s colleague Sun Tongyuan 孫同元 also felt puzzled by Wenzhou locals’ spiritual treatment of epidemics. For example, offering sacrifice to plague demons

(jiyigui 祭疫鬼), 29 to uphold plague demons (jieyigui 截疫鬼), 30 and especially to expel demons (song wenguai 送瘟鬼). Thus, as in the other parts of China, Wenzhou locals became accustomed to employing religion and its magic power as an important method in defending against the unseen threat of epidemic. The witch doctor in the Wuchang temple

28 From Guo Zhongyue ( 清) 郭鐘岳, Oujiang Xiaoji 甌江小記 (Ou river miscellaneous records) in Chen Ruizan 陳瑞贊 ed., Dongou yishi huilu 東甌逸事匯錄 (The Collection of Wenzhou local history), (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chubanshe, 2006), 41.

29 As for jiyigui 祭疫鬼 (offer sacrifice to demons), based on Zhao Jun’s 趙鈞 account, who was a lifetime schoolteacher in Wenzhou, there was a fierce plague attacking Wenzhou in 1840 which caused huge numbers of casualties. In order to be free from the threat of epidemics, as Zhao pointed out, many Wenzhou locals made offerings to beg these demons to give them a break. As he also stated that he heard there was a wealthy family setting up a room in their residence especially for these “demons’ which was full of various amenities like food, gold and even gambling paraphernalia. By using these amenities, this wealthy family believed these demons will be enticed to stay at this room. Then they hired a monk and Daoist to arrest these demons and sent them directly to the Ou River. See: Zhao Jun, Tanhou lu 譚後錄 only available in the special collection department in Wenzhou city library. However, part of Zhao’s account has been published. See: Chen Ruizan ed. 陳瑞贊, Ibid., (2006), 40.

30 About so-called jiyigui 截疫鬼 (to hold up demons): Huang Han 黃漢 pointed out that in Qing Wenzhou if there was a plague happening in a village, then the adjacent villagers always placed a straw rope on the road to block these demons from entering their village. See: Huang Han, xushouzhai suibi 虛受齊隨筆 available in Chen Ruizan ed. 陳瑞贊, Ibid., 40.

243 was also part of this local religious tradition as well as an accepted form of medical care in Wenzhou for centuries. 31

As we are about to see, one of the most important dynamics propelling Sun

Yirang and his students to knock down this long-established Wuchang temple in 1907 was related to the rapid growth of both Chinese and Western medical care services starting in the mid-1880s. The Wenzhou Chinese medical tradition had enjoyed much fame since the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279 A.D.) with their prestigious local

Confucian school, Yongjia School ( Yongjia Xuepai 永嘉學派). Additionally, as early as

1885, a Ruian local reformist named Chen Qiu 陳虯 and three other local Chinese doctors, all of whom were close friends of Sun Yirang, founded the first ever Chinese medicine hospital and medical school, Liji hospital ( Liji Yiyuan 利濟醫院), in Ruian city. 32 Naturally, the growth of the Western medical care system accompanying the

31 In terms of the function of magic and religion in human society, in his pioneering book on the relation between evolution of religion and the decline of “magic” in early modern British rural society, British historian Keith Thomas (1971) suggested that “the growth of urban living, the rise of science, and the spread of an ideology of self-help” contributed to the decline of the influence of magic power in British rural society. Though he argued that the influence of magic power in British society had declined significantly as a result of various factors, in the very end of his book he still suggested that “we must recognize that no society will ever be free from it [magic power].” Thus, as Thomas argued that the influence of magic power was still quite visible in modern British society. The only difference is that these so-called magic powers had to change their face to keep alive for modern society use. See: Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York: Scribner, 1971), 794-798, 799-800.

32 Since the Southern Song dynasty Wenzhou has been well-known for its Confucianism school called Yongjia school 永嘉學派. In addition to studying Confucianism, many of the members of this school also showed their great interest in the study of Chinese medicine. Thus, it is not an exaggeration to say that Yongjia school also functioned as a school for the study of Chinese medicine. Take the development of Western medical education in late Qing as a whole; the first Western medical school was founded by Li Hongzhang 李鴻章 in Tianjin 天津 in 1881. Thus, it is worth noting the fact that Chen Qiu’s Liji medical school 利濟醫院, which was built in 1885, was only four years older than Li’s Tianjin Western medical school. In addition to training Chinese medicine doctors, Liji medical school also published a medical journal to increase the visibility of their school and to preserve the traditions of Chinese medicine. On the brief history of this medical school, see: Chi Zhicheng 池志澄, xinjian liji Yiyuan beiji 新建利濟醫院碑記 (The inscription of Liji hospital), in Wu Mingzhe , 吳明哲, Wenzhou lidai beike erji 溫州歷代碑刻二集

244 arrival of Catholic and Protestant missionaries also proved to be one of the most important changes to medical services in Wenzhou beginning in the early 1870s. 33 It is important to underscore the difference between the introduction of Western medicine and

Western schools. In contrast to the previously discussed Lin jiawan new-style school incidents, there were no public attacks targeted at any Western medical institutions built in Wenzhou. This lack of aggression toward Western medical establishments signals

Wenzhou locals’ acceptance of Western medical services as part of their daily lives.

On the other hand, along with the spreading of reform rhetoric, it turned out that

Sun Yirang and his students considered the witch doctors and Wuchang temple not only an improper cult, but also as embarrassing proof of the backwardness of Ruian. To a great extent, Sun’s actions resembled the chronic tension between royal Confucians and local deities in Chinese history.34 Thus, we ought to wonder why Sun didn’t knock down

(The collection of Wenzhou inscription, series 2), (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue Chubanshe, 2006), 814-815. As for these local scholars’ works on Chinese medicine, see: Liu Shijue 劉時覺 ed., Wenzhou Jindai yishu jicheng 溫州近代醫書集成 (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue yuan chubanshe, 2005).

33 In fact, medical services played an important part in missionaries’ proselytizing methods. However, not until 1897 did these missionaries build their first Western hospital called 定理醫院 in Wenzhou. There is unofficial data saying that before the completion of 溫州白累德紀念醫院 (Blyth memorial Hospital) in 1906, the 定理醫院 had served about 70,000 patients (man-time) and about 4,000 Wenzhou locals were hospitalized from 1897 to 1906. After several transitions, this Protestant hospital 溫州白累德紀念醫院 was headed by British Dr. Stedford 施德福 for over thirty-two years from 1917 to 1949. In addition to providing Western medicine in Wenzhou, this hospital also made great contributions to modern Wenzhou medical education. In order to train doctors, nurses, and maternity assistants Dr. Stedford founded a school for nurses in 1929 and another in 1934 to train maternity assistants. 1949, this hospital was renamed 溫州 第二人民醫院 and continued to provide care . See: Su Hong 蘇虹 ed., 施德福與白累德醫院 (Dr. Henry Blyth and the Blyth Hospital in Wenchow) in Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 溫州文史資料 vol. 3 (October 1987): 139-147.

34 There were some overly enthusiastic Confucian local officials who would actively attack these local improper cults to defend the threat coming from these cults and to protect their Confucianism orthodoxy system. On the discussion of the relationship between Chinese Empire and Confucianism orthodoxy, see: Kwang-Ching Liu, Orthodoxy in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990) and Kai-wing Chow, The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University

245 this Wuchang temple earlier. One explanation depends on the past dynasties of Wenzhou local official’s passive management policy of local religions. As long as these “improper cults” did not openly challenge local officials’ authority, Wenzhou local officials adopted a policy of tolerance toward the practice of these improper cults in local society. 35

However, the real different between Sun’s actions and the Confucian officials’ “ban on local improper cults” ( hui yici 毀淫祠) seems to be that Sun’s actions were aligned with the ongoing discourse of modernization reform. This also explains why Sun and his students would knock down the Wuchang temple but not the Western hospitals. 36

Although it seems contradictory that these two groups of Wenzhou locals took such different actions in regards to their local religious traditions, both the Lin jiawan incident and the Wuchang temple case perfectly exemplify Wenzhou locals’ realistic attitudes toward the use of their local religious traditions.

Certainly, these Wenzhou locals would voluntarily adjust their attitude to local religion according to their daily life needs. And this realistic attitude can be also found in

Wenzhou locals’ chronic debate over so-called local bad customs ( difang esu 地方惡俗) during the early Republic period Wenzhou. It goes without saying that one of the most

Press, 1994). On the question of how local officials defended their Confucianism orthodoxy, see: Jiang, Chushan 蔣竹山, “ 湯斌禁毀五通神：清初政治菁英打擊通俗文化的個案 (Tang Bing‘s ban on the Wutong cult: a case study of the repression of Popular Culture by Political Elites in Early Qing China)” Xinshixue (New History) 新史學, vol.6, no.2 (June 1995): 67-112.

35 On the record of improper cults and local officials’ tolerance policy toward these local cults in Wenzhou, see: Chen Ruizan edited 陳瑞贊, Ibid., 41-42.

36 However, the most complicated part happened from the late-Qing to early-Republic period when both officials and reformists used their ideological slogans (e.g. like anti-superstition or modernization) to generalize these changes, which were virtually made by these villagers. In brief, the officials considered the reform of these “bad customs” as part of their ongoing efforts to reform local backwardness. Local society considered this as a “must be done” issue about their local traditions even the subjects of this reform are two terrible ghost clerks.

246 visible “local bad customs” in Wenzhou was the armed fight caused by the dragon boat racing. In chapter four, I delineated the correlations between dragon boat racing and the formation of local factions in Wenzhou local politics from late Qing to the early twentieth century. As I had discussed, the story of Zhang Gang and his village-level elite friends who went to the Ruian magistrate’s office to ask the police to fix this chronic local problem sheds light on the rise of local factions in Wenzhou local politics. The rise of local factions was mainly due to localization of the foreign impact on China beginning in the mid-nineteenth century. Simply put, the localization of foreign impact contributed to the reconfiguration of Wenzhou local politics leading to the rise of local autonomy in late-Qing and early-Republic China. In terms of local religious policy, however, both

Wenzhou local officials and villagers’ were still concerned with accommodating of the side effects of dragon boat racing rather than attempting to permanently eliminate this local religious tradition.

In an inscription entitled Jinhua longzhou bei 禁划龍舟碑 (Ban on dragon boat inscription) written by early-Republic Yongjia zhishi 永 嘉 知 事 (Yongjia county magistrate in the early Republic period) Liu Qiangfu 劉強夫 dated June 24, 1914, we can see the fact that Wenzhou locals continued to work with early-Republic local officials to negotiate with this local “bad custom.” 37 This inscription reads:

37 After the Xinhai revolution, President Yuan Shikai issued an order renaming all levels of local officials. According to this order, the head of every level of local officials were changed to zhishi 知事. See: Qian Shifu 錢實甫, Beiyang zhengfu shiqi de zhengzhi zhidu 北洋政府時期的政治制度 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuchu: 1984), 301-308. Liu Qiangfu took the Yongjia zhishi office in February 1914. In less than six months Liu was forced to leave his office because of a corruption indictment relating to opium in August 1914.

247 Dragon boat related fighting ( doulong 鬥龍) happened in our Hetoutan 河頭潭

village in 1884. [After this incident,] a total of ten peasants reportedly drowned.

After that, both sides used their victims as an excuse to harass each other and

involved many innocent people. This dispute ended up with the Zhu family

having to spend thousands of dollars (yangyuan 洋元) to placate this chronic

dispute. At any rate, this agreement still hurt villagers’ lives and finances. The

impacts caused by this costly dispute made villagers more cautious about this

annual racing. However, it goes beyond our expectation that some ignorant

peasant ( Wushi yumin 無識愚民) plotted to resume their old habits early this year.

[Once we learned of their plan,] We [Zhu family leaders] gave every effort to

discourage these peasants from organizing this event; so they temporarily shut

down their plan. However, we were so afraid that these peasants would restart

their plan in this coming intercalary month in the lunar calendar 閏 五 月 .

Therefore; we [Zhu family] invited every local elite to have a special meeting on

this issue. After this meeting, we decided to submit a petition to the Yongjia

magistrate to ask permission to erect an inscription to ban dragon boat racing. 38

From the above description, we can see that some of the Hetoutan 河頭潭 villagers were organized by the Zhu family in order to shut down that year’s dragon boat racing. Clearly,

38 This inscription is actually part of Zhishi Liu’s response to the Chashan 茶山 villagers’ joint petition organized by the local Zhu 諸 family. Moreover, the date of this inscription is only four days earlier than that year’s dragon boat festival. According to Wu, this inscription was shortly demolished by villagers and is no longer available in this village. See: Liu Qiangfu 劉強夫,“ Jinhua longzhou bei 禁划龍舟碑” in Wu Mingzhe , 吳明哲, Wenzhou lidai beike erji 溫州歷代碑刻二集 (The collection of Wenzhou inscription, series 2), (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue Chubanshe, 2006), 252-253.

248 the above inscription reveals that this Hetoutan Zhu family wanted to use this joint petition to get their “double insurance,” even from an unpopular local official, to kill this local religious tradition and protect against any possible fallout from the festival like armed fights. This also goes to show us that the supporters of dragon boat racing spoke louder than the Zhu family and thus pushed them to work with this unpopular local official. As Zhang Gang reported in his diary, the Wenzhou local government did dispatch policemen to suppress this local tradition. However, the locals bribed the local officials to stay silence about this annual racing event. Thus, the dragon boat racing was not interrupted by the early Republic local government’s ban. 39

From the debate over dragon boat racing we can that, despite the new medical services available, dragon boat racing did not disappear in Wenzhou because of locals’ belief that by racing annually they were blessed by local deities and freed from the threat of plague. Local officials seemed content to overlook this religious tradition and its implicit influence over society, as long as the activities did not escalate into a huge multiple-village armed conflict. Victims of dragon boat related conflicts were finally able to voice their concerns in local politics, however, the reality is that Wenzhou locals were still firmly supportive of this annual “warding off epidemic” dragon boat racing even in this so-called “reform era.”

39 See: Zhang Gang (2003), Ibid., 306-307. As Zhang wrote on June 24, 1922, he went to see the dragon boat racing with his grandchildren that day indicating that the previous bans on dragon boat proved to be ineffective. He reported in his diary that in addition to old dragon boats, there were several hundred new dragon boats that had been built since early 1922. Although the Wenzhou local government did indeed dispatched police to suppress the dragon boat activity, these Wenzhou locals bribed the police in exchange for the government’s silence on their dragon boat racing.

249 We can easily draw parallels between the 1906 Ruian Wuchang temple case and this 1914 Hetoutan anti-dragon boat racing inscription to explore the changing expectations of local religion in early Republic Wenzhou. The similarities of these two controversial local religious traditions are at least twofold: first, both traditions were related to medical services in Wenzhou for years. Secondly, both of them had accumulated different degrees of misgivings among Wenzhou locals for years.

Consequently, the modification of these two local religious traditions was fueled by the boom of new medical service channels available in Wenzhou since the arrival of the two foreign religions in late 1850s. Despite the important changes occurring in Wenzhou over the previous sixty years, from the above story it is obvious that Wenzhou locals were still willing to support renovating the Wuchang temple in order to keep their witch doctor service available as well as support the dragon boat racing to continue warding off the epidemic during the early period of Republic Wenzhou. But this does not mean that the content of their local religious traditions was not changed by the state. On the contrary, long before the Nationalist’s anti-superstition campaign started in late 1920s, Wenzhou locals had already started working on reconfiguring the content of their local religious traditions to accommodate their daily life needs. However, Wenzhou locals did not unconditionally support the subsequent Nationalist regime’s local religious policies.

Compared with the Nationalist regime’s oversimplified dichotomy of legal religions and superstition, Wenzhou locals were adept at oscillating between local religious traditions and Western modernization, finding the best solutions to address their local concerns.

Simply put, unlike the reformists, and later the Nationalists, Wenzhou locals did not see

250 the situation as all-or-nothing. Rather they sought to negotiation between their local religious traditions and modernization.

Local diarist Zhang Gang’s account of the 1896 and 1925 pest control plans provide an excellent example of modern technology not meeting Wenzhou locals’ expectations. Wenzhou locals had to rely on their familiar local religious traditions to placate the panic caused by unknown forces, in particular natural disaster and looming warfare. Prior to the mass application of chemicals in Wenzhou in the 1960s, the rice pest

(hechong 禾 蟲 ) problem was a severe threat to Wenzhou locals’ daily lives for centuries. 40 The traditional way Wenzhou locals combated these pests was through local deities, especially Marshal Jiang ( Jiang Yuanshuai 姜元帥) and Chen Jinggu (Chen

Jinggu 陳靖姑). According to Zhang’s account, a great number of rice pests ravaged

Wenzhou in the summer of 1896. To deal with this severe livelihood crisis, these villagers’ plan was as Zhang Gang wrote:

On August 6, 1896, my lineage uncles ( zushu 族叔) went to my residence to

discuss how to sweep these rice pests ( saochong 掃蟲). [After the meeting,] we

decided to start it before dawn. [The content of our plan was as follows:] one of

our staff would beat a gong all around our village to notify everyone to start

working in their field to sweep these rice pests. Meanwhile, we would also ask

local Daoists ( yushi 羽士, aka 道士 Daoist) to build a temporary altar (tan 壇) in

40 For statistical data of natural disasters in Zhejiang from the fifth century to the early twentieth century, see: Chen Qiaoyi 陳橋驛 ed., Zhejiang zaiyi jianshi 浙江災異簡志 (The Brief history of Zhejiang Natural Disaster), (Hangzhou: Zhejiang Renmin Chubanshe, 1991).

251 our working fields to serve the incense ash (xianghuo 香火), which comes from

our community-guarding deities (duzhushen 地主神) including Marshal Jiang

(Jiang Yuanshuai 姜元帥) and The Taiyin Holy Mother’s ( Taiyin shengmu 太陰

聖母, aka Chen Jinggu 陳靖姑) temple. The rest of us had to prepare a report

(shuwen 疏文) and went to this temporary altar in person to report our action to

these two deities to ask their help to sweep away these rice pests. 41

The process of the ritual was very laborious. The local pest sweeping procedure consisted of at least two parts: the tenant sweeping the pests in the field, while the landlords prayed to the deity in the temporary altar to help them in their work. When they were working, tenants first collected these pests from their field, and then sent the pests (over 100,000 per day) to the fire or boiling water to kill them. The sweeping lasted up to one week until these tenants had their field “cleaned” of all pests. After one week, on August 12, these landlords concluded this sweeping pest procedure by closing this temporary altar and sending these two deities’ incense ash back to their temples. Zhang notes that after sweeping he and the other landlords held a banquet for the participants to celebrate their success. 42

41 See: Zhang Gang (2003), Ibid., 30-31. From this record, clearly, we can also see that Wenzhou locals also borrowed terms and rituals from Daoist texts to facilitate this “sweeping pest” method. On the discussion of the interactions between Daoism and local cults in southeast coastal China, see: Kenneth Dean, Taoist Ritual and Popular Cults of Southeast China (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993).

42 Ibid., 30-31.

252 Almost thirty years later in 1925, from Zhang’s diary, it is clear the Zhang lost his passion for this religious and laborious method and became skeptical of its efficacy. In his dairy dated on June 28, 1925, the sixty-five-year-old Zhang Gang wrote:

Today at about seven o’clock in the morning, our community employed a

Daoism specialist from Xitian village (xitian shigong 西天師公) to build a

temporary altar constructed from nine tables ( jiutai 九 台 ) to collect pests

(shouhao 收耗). There were up to several thousand villagers from four directions

attending this event.… Everyone was in one voice saying this master’s power is

indeed beyond limitation. However, [as I could recall] there was an identical altar

and performance on my property in about thirty years ago. The Daoism master

also performed a similar procedure in the crowds to collect pests. In fact, I was

not here to attend that event. Furthermore, there was no way to examine whether

this Daoism master’s method was effective on these pests or not. However, what I

really know was once this nine levels altar was built, it cost up to several hundred

yuan to support this event, which also means someone will need to collect money

from these villagers to cover the expense for this master’s performance. 43

From above description, we see that Zhang became skeptical of this traditional method mainly because of budget concerns. He argued in his diary that his method was more effective and cheaper than hiring a Daoist master to deal with these pests. Not surprisingly, Zhang expressed his disappointment that these villagers did not adopt his

43 Ibid., 350-351.

253 method of sweeping pests in the early morning and burning them. 44 As he frankly complained about his neighbors’ unwise decision in his diary:

These ignorant villagers are obsessed with superstition! Hiring a Daoist master

who only relies on his power to collect pests has proven to be expensive, time-

consuming and not 100% effective. Sigh! These villagers still decided to waste

their money on hiring a witch to pray for the deity’s help. Why did they not listen

to my suggestion? If they had, then they might be able to save the rest of their fall

harvest! 45

Meanwhile, Zhang also mentioned that there were back to back natural disasters ravaging

Wenzhou from 1919 to 1924. 46 Even worse, from September 1924 on, the control of

Wenzhou local administration was taken over by a Hangzhou-based warlord named Hao

Guoxi 郝國璽. Once Hao gained control of Wenzhou city his enemy, the Fuzhou-based warlord Peng Dequan 彭德銓, also moved northward to take over Pingyang and Ruian counties to compete with Hao. Along with the escalating tension between these two warlords there was a rumor spreading among Wenzhou locals saying there would be a

44 In fact, Zhang himself wrote a booklet entitled hechong shuo 禾蟲說 (explaining rice pest) in 1896. The content of this book was largely based on his observation on these pests. In that book, Zhang suggested the “sweep pest in the early morning then burn them in the fire” method. One reason Zhang was unable to persuade his neighbors were his declining property value. As a matter of fact, in Zhang’s diary, he mentioned that he had to sell his property to pay off his two sons’ wedding costs as well as dowries for his two daughters. See: Zhang, Ibid., 475.

45 Ibid., 351.

46 Ibid., 320.

254 bloodbath in Wenzhou. 47 Even though this rumor was nothing more than a false alarm, the confrontation between these two notorious warlords caused great panic among

Wenzhou locals. Thus, under this desperate situation, it would have been impossible for local elites to organize villagers to sweep rice pests by hand and kill them as old Zhang

Gang suggested. On the other hand, Zhang’s neighbors’ seemingly unwise decision also reflects the fact that when they could not sweep these pests by hand, the local contemporaries of Hu Shi still considered seeking help from local deities as a solution to such threats, particularly during this extraordinarily hard time.

This above seemingly unwise decision exemplifies Wenzhou locals’ realistic attitudes toward the adoption of local religious traditions and the newly arrived modern methods. Taking a closer look, however, we can also see that their realistic attitude was deeply rooted in the fear of uncertainty. Even though Western modernization, including modern pest control methods, had begun to penetrate Wenzhou in the late nineteenth century, the efficacy and availability of modern pest control had not proven itself to

Wenzhou locals. Thus, the “local deities” and their prestigious magic power were not easily retired from the Wenzhou locals’ list of effective and convenient ways to take care of problems. However, once the “local religious traditions” proved to be not as effective

47 On the confrontation between these two local warlords, see: Zhongguo ren min zheng zhi xie shang hui yi, Wenzhou Chronology, 1840-1949, ( Wenzhou chengqu Jinbainian jishi 溫州城區城區近百年記事) in Wenzhou Wenshi Ziliao 溫州文史資料 5 (1990), 92. Because of the escalating tension between these two groups of warlords, the Wenzhou Daoyin 道尹 (the title of Wenchu Daotai in early Republic period) requested the Pingyang County local elite Lu Wenqi 呂文起 and the Catholic father Cyprien Aroud (Chinese name Feng Liehong 馮烈鴻, 1879-1940) negotiate with these two warlords to prevent the battle from happening. It ended up that Wenzhou citizens had to accumulate funds to bribe these two warlords to accept a truce. On Father Cyprien Aroud’s contribution to this incident, see: Zheng Jiefeng 鄭頡豐, “Wenzhou Tianzhu jiaohui san da shanshi 溫州天主教三大善事” in Lucheng Wenshi Ziliao 鹿城文史資 料 3, (1988): 123-126.

255 as locals had been expected even the venerated local deities like Wuchang would be rapidly “retired” from these Wenzhou locals’ “crisis management methods.” Likewise, it is equally important to note that this realistic attitude is not exclusive to local religion. As we have seen, Wenzhou locals used identical standards to carefully calculate the net effect of ongoing modernization plans in their daily life. More specifically, we can conclude from the above development that since the late Qing period Western modernization had joining the game of local political competition, which had previously been exclusive to Confucian officials and Wenzhou locals. From then on Wenzhou locals had to renew but not abandon their “orders of local things” (local religious traditions) as both of the late-Qing reformists and the Nationalists had planned.

Due to external and internal crises beginning in late Qing, Wenzhou locals and their popular religions went through a substantial change. It is equally important to explore how late-Qing and early-Republic Wenzhou local officials reacted to this change.

During this unprecedented dual reform, as the administrators of both religious and educational reform, did early-Republic Wenzhou local officials also adjust their religious policy accordingly? A personal letter between the Wenzhou daoyin 道尹 (Wenchu

Daotai 道台 in early republic period) Huang Qinglan’s 黃慶瀾 and the Qingyuan 慶元

County magistrate shed light on the religious policy of local official during this time. In this letter dated on July 11, 1918, Wenzhou daoyin Huang Qinglan advised his subordinate magistrate not to be too ruthless in converting a local Buddhist nunnery into an orphanage, as he wrote:

256 [As a local official,] the principle of “using the ways of the popular deities to

instruct [locals]” ( shendao shejiao 神道設教) can make up the insufficiencies of

our law. Recently, the traditional moral teachings have declined, thus it is

essential to employ the deity’s way ( 神道 shendao ) to regulate common people’s

behavior. Thus, if local religious festival s (saihui 賽會) do not cause trouble, we

should not be too eager to suppress such local gatherings. As a public servant in

the political arena, of course, we ought not to publicly promote superstition.

However, because of compelling local circumstances, we also have to realize that

there are some subtle things we should understand without being told [about local

politics]. 48

Even on behalf of the administers of reform policy, Huang’s advice to his subordinate explicitly pointed out an unspoken consensus between local officials and Wenzhou locals that local officials recognize the importance of popular religion in local politics. Thus, even under the pressure to carry out modernization policies, and contrary to nationally renowned celebrities like Hu Shi 胡適 and Liang Qichao 梁啟超 who called for an

“ideological transformation” to build a “unreligious” or “rationalistic” society for, 49 early-Republic Wenzhou local officials did not intend to completely stop using popular deities to instruct residents ( shendao shejiao 神道設教).

48 Huang Qinglan 黃慶瀾, Ouhai guanzhenlu 甌海觀政錄 (Taipei: Wenhai Chubanshe, 1976), 928-929.

49 In the very beginning of Yang’s (1961) influential discussion on the “functions” of Chinese religion in Chinese society, he explained why intellectual celebrities like Ling Qichao and Hu Shi claimed that “China’s unreligious nature lies in the Chinese intellectual’s necessity of emphasizing the dignity of Chinese civilization in the face of the political and economic superiority of the nationalistically-oriented Western world” (p. 6). See: C. K. Yang, Religion in Chinese Society: A study of Contemporary Social Functions of Religion and Some of their Historical Factors . (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961), 3-6.

257

In term of statecraft, Huang Qinglan also made it very clear to his subordinate that cooperating with the ways of popular deities to rule local people is one of the “subtle things we should understand without being told [about local politics]” ( xianling shenhui zhichu 心領神會之處). Like his Qing predecessors, Huang was actually making a point that these local popular religion deities were an important supplement to their ability to govern Wenzhou local society. Despite the government ban on such religious activities,

Huang suggested a non-interventionist policy toward these activities in order to maintain the popular image of local officials and their authority over locals. Moreover, this policy works side-by-side with Wenzhou locals’ realistic attitude of oscillating between modernization and their local religious traditions. At the very least, Huang’s advice reveals that he had no intention to change his permissive religious policy and was reconciled to the influence of local deities on Wenzhou local politics. Later, as we about to see, the ideologically-oriented Nationalist party attempted to turn around this policy, however, their ideology could hardly wipe out the political influence of local deities in

Wenzhou local politics.

III. The Arrogance of Ideology: Nationalist Regime (1927-1936)

After examining the development of Wenzhou local popular religions and local politics from the late Qing to the early Republic, it will be interesting to take a “history from below” perspective to reexamine the development of Wenzhou local religious policy when the revolutionary Nationalists finally arrived in 1927. The prestigious

258 historian He Zhaowu 何兆武 (2005) noted a striking difference between the Qing Empire, the early Republic (aka Beiyang Warlord period 北洋軍閥), and the Nationalist regime in his memoir. He wrote:

Compared to the previous Beiyang Warlord regime, these Nationalists were

equipped with a specific “ideology.” [As I have witnessed that] these Kuomintang

國民黨 (Nationalists) propagandized their “Principle of Three People” (sanmin

zhuyi 三民主義) as well as attempted to politicize China everyday. Before then,

there was nothing at all like this! 50

As a witness of twentieth century Chinese history, He pointed out the most visible difference between the Nationalist regime and the previous political authorities in

Chinese history. Simply put, both the Nationalists and the Communists bundled their ideological campaigns together with modernization plans as their mission. The origin of this mission can be easily found in their nationalist discourse of bringing “enlightenment” and “modernization” to their still “sleeping” compatriots. 51 Moreover, the formation of

50 He Zhaowu is currently a distinguished professor in the department of history at Beijing Tsing-Hua University. He is famous among academics for introducing western historiography to Chinese scholars. See: He Zhaowu 何兆武 (1921- ), shangxue ji 上學記 (The first half of my life), (Beijing: Sanlian Shuchu, 2005), 10-11.

51 This deepening frustration among modern Chinese people can be found in many literary works. One of the most influential works is done by Lu Xun 魯迅. For a connection between Lu’s work and modern Chinese people’s mentality, see: Leo Ou-fan Lee, Voices from the Iron house: A Study of Lu Xun (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987). Furthermore, this frustration later escalated to the anxiety of the extinction of race ( 滅種 miezhong ) in early-twentieth century China. Regarding early-twentieth century Chinese intellectuals’ reaction and anxiety to the “extinction of race”, see: Rebecca Karl, Staging the world: Chinese nationalism at the turn of the twentieth century ( Durham, NC : Duke University Press, 2002 ).

259 this nationalist discourse works side-by-side with the surge of Western-style school graduates in the local political arena. Not surprisingly, these new bloods demanded more political right in both local and national politics. As we have seen, while Wenzhou locals were still calculating the net value of local religious traditions and modernization, these young Wenzhou intellectuals, who became the supporters of the Nationalist and the

Communist parties, simply could not wait for gradual reform. Instead, they demanded immediate change and revolution to change China overnight. 52 With the arrival of a new party-state machine armed by radical intellectual supporters, a severe collision between these youth radicals and Wenzhou local society was to be expected.

In local diarist Zhang Gang’s account, the arrival of the Nationalists in Ruian

County is an astonishing scene. On February 12, 1927, once the vanguard of Nationalists’

“North Expedition army” arrived in Ruian, the Nationalist party branch was shortly established by local hidden Nationalist supporters in Ruian city. On that day, Zhang Gang originally scheduled a meeting with the acting Ruian zhishi 知事 (magistrate in early

Republic period) Yu Zhixia 余子俠. But it turned out that Yu was not in his office when

52 On the discussion of radical intellectuals in modern Chinese history, see: Mary Backus Rankin, Early Chinese Revolutionaries: Radical intellectuals in Shanghai and Chekiang , 1902-1911 (Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press, 1971) and Joseph Esherick, Reform and Revolution in China: The 1911 Revolution in Hunan and Hubei (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976). However, these radical intellectuals’ “ideological transformation” was only a fight on paper and could not be easily cashed in for real-world state-making use. However, as scholars like Fitzgerald (1996) and Harrison’s (2001) work on Nationalist China have shown, the Nationalists indeed made their every effort to cast a new and modern meaning “political culture” over China before the outbreak of the second Sino-Japanese war in the summer of 1937. See: John Fitzgerald, Awakening China: Politics, Culture, and Class in the Nationalist Revolution (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996) and Henrietta Harrison, The Making of the Republic Citizen: Political Ceremonies and Symbols in China, 1911-1929 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Interestingly, both of them claimed their works are inspired by historian Lynn Hunt’s influential book on the transformative nature of French political culture during and after the French Revolution. See: Lynn Hunt, The Family Romance of the French Revolution (Berkley: University of California Press, 1990).

260 Zhang arrived. Later, Zhang was told by his friend about what happened to the top official in their town earlier that morning.

As soon as Zhishi Yu learned the news that the Nationalist army was arriving at

the south gate of Ruian city, he immediately took his sedan chair to greet them.

[To Yu and our surprise, however,] these youth Nationalist publicly assaulted Yu,

[who was still sitting on his sedan chair], and said: do you not realize the fact that

time has changed and your good old days are gone? How can you still act in an

old-style official’s manner like this! Then, these Nationalist youths besieged Yu’s

sedan chair and smashed it into pieces. After this incident, Yu had to hide at his

friend’s house to avoid further conflict with these youths. 53

The next day, the acting Ruian magistrate was so frightened by these Nationalists, or was simply too embarrassed to remain in his office, and he thus secretly fled from Ruian.

However, this de facto coup was just a prelude to subsequent insurrectional political campaigns during the Nationalist regime. In brief, the theme of the following political campaign was how this newly arrived “party” politicized Wenzhou locals with their self- claimed cure-all ideology campaign.

Shortly after the de facto coup, these Nationalist youths started a peasant movement (nongmin yudong 農 民 運 動 ) to encourage peasants to combat their

53 See: Zhang Gang (2003), Ibid, 380-381. In addition to smashing the magistrate’s sedan chair, on the same day, there was another collision between these Nationalist youths and another important local authority—the police. Zhang heard that these newly arrived Nationalists quarreled with local police over a minor conflict between police and these Nationalists’ coolies.

261 landlords. 54 In less than two months, these Nationalists not only built peasant associations

(nongmin xiehui 農民協會), but also held several rounds of peasant rallies (nongmin dahui 農民大會) to introduce their revolution to thousands of rally participants. 55 What worried Wenzhou local elites like Zhang Gang and other landlords was that these

Nationalists also mobilized peasants to loot their landlords’ residence. For example, according to Pingyang 平陽 County local elite Liu Shaokuan’s 劉紹寬 diary, there was a conflict between local elite Wu Xingyu 吳醒玉 and Pingyang Local Nationalists. On

April 8, 1927, thousands of peasants were mobilized by Nationalists and rushed into

Wu’s residence to arrest him and put him on public trial in the Pingyang County magistrate’s office. 56 Wu was shortly released by the magistrate, presumably because the

Nationalists changed their radical peasant movement policy guidelines after the later

Shanghai 412 party wash incident. Nevertheless, Wenzhou Nationalists youths wanted to cut the cord between peasants and local elites in order to fundamentally challenge the traditional local political structure. Nationalists believed that the rally participants were inspired to act by their radical political agenda and that they were united as a “class” in a fight against their enemy—the landlords. However, local Wenzhou residents did not think of these rallies as substantially different from pervious peasant uprising such as the

54 On Nationalist’s “peasant movement” before 1927, especially in Guangdong province, see: Robert Marks, Rural Revolution in South China: Peasants and the Making of History in Haifeng County, 1570-1930 (Madison W.I.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984).

55 See: Zhang Gang (2003), Ibid., 383-384.

56 Liu Shaokuan 劉紹寬 (1897-1942), Liu Shaokuan Ji 劉紹寬集, in Cangnan wenshi ziliao 蒼南文史資料 16, (March, 2001), 149. In fact, earlier in Ruian County, there were three separate incidents of peasants attacking their landlords on March 9, 1927. See: Zhang Gang (2003), Ibid., 382-383.

262 Golden Coin Association (jinqian hui 金錢會) in Pingyang in 1860 or the series of food riots in the 1890s. 57

Moreover, it also must be noted that these peasants did not act randomly, but were highly conscious of the targets they chose. In fact, the victims of these peasant attacks were long considered controversial figures within their community. For instance, in

Zhang Gang’s diary, he mentioned that Wu Xingyu was known as bad gentry (lieshen 劣

紳) in Pingyang County. Zhang also mentioned the notorious Ruian pettifogger (songshi

訟師) Bao nai 鮑鼐. Like Wu Xingyu, Bao nai’s house was also looted by his tenants. 58

Although the later split between Nationalists and Communists led to the end of this radical peasant policy in Wenzhou, these political movements forecasted the ebb of the traditional local political order as well as the rise of the party-state system in Wenzhou in the coming 1930s.

Not surprisingly, the Nationalist’s challenges to Wenzhou traditional political order was not limited to the government organization, but also greatly expanded to the construction of a “new” political culture throughout China. 59 Needless to say, they also did the same thing to local religion traditions. Shortly after establishing the Nationalist party in Wenzhou, they issued an order abolishing the practice of official sacrifice list

57 On the food riots, see: 溫州城區百年記事 (1840-1849.5), Wenzhou Wenshi ziliao 溫州文史資料 5

58 See: Zhang Gang (2003), Ibid., 382, 385, 388.

59 See: John Fitzgerald, Awakening China: Politics, Culture, and Class in the Nationalist Revolution (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996) and Henrietta Harrison, The Making of the Republic Citizen: Political Ceremonies and Symbols in China, 1911-1929 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

263 (sidian 祀典) and permanently stopped the official worship of Confucian, Lord of Guan

關公 and Yu Fei 岳飛, which were held in the spring and fall. Moreover, they also converted the local Confucian temple ( Wenmiao 文廟) into Sun Yat-sen memorial Hall

(Sun Zhongsan jinianchi 孫中山紀念祠). 60 To Wenzhou locals, ever since the Song dynasty (960-1279) these state “standardized” cults were not a totally strange initiative.

As Szonyi (1997) illustrated, we should focus on the question of how locals “conflated” this state-standardized worship with their own local traditions. 61 Regarding Wenzhou locals’ response the Nationalist’s new standardization efforts, Zhang Gang’s account provides us a window to gauge local society’s real reaction as well as their everyday resistance to these insurrectional changes. 62 Under these circumstances the traditional shendao shejiao 神道設教 policy (using the Way of the popular deities to instruct [the people]), which was still valued by early Republic Wenzhou officials and elites, faced fierce challenges—much like the traditional social and political orders.

60 Zhang Gang (2003), Ibid., 386. On the discussion of Nationalist’s religious reforms, also see: Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), especially chapter 3.

61 Regarding the discussion of the “standardization of Gods”, see James Watson, “Standardizing the Gods: The Promotion of T’ien Hou (“Empress of Heaven”) Along the South China Coast, 960-1960” in David Jonathan, Andrew Nathan, and Evelyn Rawski, Popular Culture in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 292-324. On the discussion of Song dynasty’s religion policy, see: Valerie Hansen, Changing God in Medieval China, 1127-1276 (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1990). However, recent revisionist scholars like Szonyi (1997) have challenged local society’s unconditional acceptance of standardization. He highlights the importance of “negotiation between local and trans-local culture, and each leaving a different impact on local society.” See: Michael Szonyi, “The Illusion of Standardizing the Gods: The Cult of Five Emperors in Late Imperial China” The Journal of Asian Studie s, vol. 56, no.1 (February 1997), 113-135.

62 On the concept of daily life resistance, see: James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985) and James Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).

264 The Local Nationalists did not fire up their attack on local popular religion until

March 1928. Much like the Yueqing 樂清 County deity-demolishing group (daoshen tuan 搗神團), these young Ruian Nationalists, who were students of the new-style school, chose one of the most prestigious deities in town—one that had been worshipped by villagers for at least three hundred years—to fire up their challenge to local religious traditions. Zhang commented on their actions in his diary dated on March 23, 1928:

I heard from the Ruian city locals that there was a bizarre happening in Ruian

East Side City God temple (Dongjiao Chenghuang miao 東郊城隍廟) yesterday

night. [What happened was] the Chenghuang statue’s head, hands and feet were

chopped off by unidentified people at night. After chopping the statues, these

suspects threw these parts outside the temple, but left Chenghuang’s clothes and

crown on his seat. Once villagers found this out in the next morning, there were

many villagers flocking to see what happened in this temple. In order to find their

guarding deity’s statues, they looked over around the temple; unfortunately, no

one can find any piece of them. 63

As we can see from Zhang’s comments, these villagers were frightened by this bizarre scene. 64 Paradoxically, for the following reason, it was quite easy for these villagers to find out who was responsible for this provocative behavior. As Zhang wrote:

63 Zhang Gang (2003), Ibid., 410.

64 The first scholar who conducted research on Chenghuang 城隍 as a justice deity in Chinese and Taiwanese society was the Japanese scholar Fukutaro Masuda 增田福太郎 who researched Taiwanese popular religion during the Japanese Colonial period. See: Fukutaro Masuda 增田福太郎, 東亞法秩序序

265

[Regarding the motive of this demolition,] there is a saying spreading among

these villagers. They said there is the Chenghuang festival ( yingshen saihui 迎神

賽會) every year on the day of Qingming 清明 festival in the Ruian area. The

coordinators for this yearly event are called zaiguan 齋官 by these villagers.

Every year before this festival, the villagers will send letters of appointment ( tie

帖) to the zaiguan nominees to authorize them to prepare this festival. In general,

this zaiguan will be responsible for every detailed arrangement regarding this

festival. These villagers all realized the fact that this zaiguan appointment must be

profitable. [As I have heard that,] this year, these villagers have sent their

appointment letter to a local gentry to ask him to serve as zaiguan for this years’

event. However, the local Nationalist party branch ( dangbu , 黨部) was not happy

about this appointment, they gave their every effort to trouble these villagers but

still in vain. Because of the above reasons, everybody is highly suspicious of the

Nationalist party branch plotting conspiracy to against their Chenghuang deity. 65

To a great extent, this deity-demolishing incident is similar to what happened in Yueqing in the same year. In the Yueqing example, however, we did not have the chance to see

說: 民族信仰を中心として (東京都: 大空社, 2001). And 台灣漢民族的司法神: 城隍信仰的體系 (Taipei: Zhongwen chubanshe, 1999). Recently, Paul Katz has conducted research on the discussion of “divine justice” in Chinese local society. See: Paul Katz, “Divine Justice in Late Imperial China: A Preliminary Study of Indictments, Oaths, and Ordeals,” in John Lagerwey, ed., Religion and Chinese Society, Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2004, 869-902 and Divine Justice: Religion and the Development of Chinese Legal Culture (New York: Routledge, 2008).

65 Ibid.

266 locals’ reaction to this so-called “anti-superstition campaign” led by Nationalists. As will be seen, this “anti-superstition campaign” did not end peacefully as Nationalists had hoped with these “ignorant” villagers liberated from the thousand-years long burden of old society superstition. 66 Rather, villager reacted to this so-called “anti-superstition campaign” with confusion and panic.

Two days after this incident, there were several rumors arising among Ruian villagers one after another about the location of this lost Chenghuang statue. These rumors and purported explanations turned out to be the catalyst to another collective action in Ruian County. Zhang wrote:

Today I went to my in-laws to have tea and chat. My in-law told me that the

villagers still could not locate the remains of the demolished Chenghuang statue.

However, there was suddenly a basket artisan ( miejiang 篾匠) rushing into the

temple and climbing to the top of the candle stand ( dengshan 燈山) and shouting:

“the pervious Chenghuang deity has left his office, and his successor will be

taking office shortly. As for the lost statue, you may find it in the dragon boat’s

first turn of the river.” Thus, there were several thousand Wenzhou locals flocking

to Longchuanxiang 龍船巷 River attempting to get this statue out of the water.

After day and night, these villagers still could not find it. In the mean time, there

was another rumor saying that the Ohai high school ( Ouhai Gongxue 甌海公學)

66 These types of “anti-superstition” stories can be seen in: Sherman Cochran and Andrew C.K. Hsieh with Janis Cochran translated, edited and introduced, One Day in China: May 21, 1936 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), especially part three: “Superstitions and popular religion.”

267 students must be responsible for this incident. These villagers found out that

roughly sixteen or seventeen students broke into the temple via climbing the

rockwork behind Chenghuang temple during the night time to strike a vicious

blow to this deity.67

We have seen how anxious these villagers were after this malicious behavior done by local students. Even though these villagers were almost certain of the identity of the perpetrators, there was very little they could do to compete with these Nationalists and their local supporters—the students. The actions the Nationalists took to rectify Wenzhou locals’ superstition, as we can see from above description, were not welcomed at all by the local community. Moreover, Zhang Gang’s following comment signaled concurrent

Wenzhou locals’ fermenting agony over the Nationalists:

If this deity is efficacious, there is no way that these Nationalists could obstruct

this deity’s power. The only thing we saw here was how despicable these local

Nationalists’ trick was. Their villainous scheme only deserved to be harshly

denounced by all of us. [Even though they knocked down the statues,] but there

67 Zhang Gang (2003), Ibid., 410-411. The Ohai high school 甌海公學 was founded in Wenzhou after the anti-imperialist May 30 th movement in 1925. After the first “anti-imperialist demonstration” happened in Wenzhou in 1925, about three hundred students from the Christian-founded Yiwen school decided to leave this school. Most of the school’s students came from another Christian-founded school named Yiwen School. Later, this school became one of the most important Chinese Nationalist powerhouses in Wenzhou before the establishment of PRC in 1949. Zhang Gang served as a Classic Chinese teacher in this school from 1926. See: Hu Zhusheng 胡珠生, “ 從藝文中學到甌海公學” (From Yiwen school to Ohai school) in Lucheng wenshi ziliao 鹿城文史資料 3 (1988): 73-85.

268 was nothing they could do to damage the power of this deity! And also there was

nothing they could do to obstruct our festival. 68

Even though these Ruian villagers swallowed their agony, it did not mean that these

Ruian locals succumbed to the Nationalist’s reform. On the contrary, the subtext here is they were simply too realistic to pay the price of open collision with the Nationalist’s modernization plan and to argue with their so-called “new political culture.”

Ironically, the local Nationalists also felt frustrated because they deeply believed that as a result of their anti-superstition campaign, these villagers would be able to get rid of the “all odds” from local deities. Therefore, the most frequently mentioned reason the

Nationalist used to suppress so-called “local superstition” was the claim that without knocking down local deities these “ignorant” villagers would not be able to be liberated from the shackles of superstition. 69 In contrast to Qing and early-Republic local officials, short, the Nationalists believed they had to knock down local temples to liberate these villagers from the control of local popular religious deities’ “instruction.” Clearly, the

Nationalist’s equated modernization with secularization. However, it turns out that the

Wenzhou locals were not happy to be liberated from the control of these local deities at all. Wenzhou locals were puzzled that the deity knocking down would be relevant to these Nationalists’ still amorphous modernization plans. This disagreement between

68 Ibid.

69 On the slogan the Nationalist use to implement their anti-superstition campaign, see: Sherman Cochran and Andrew C.K. Hsieh with Janis Cochran translated, edited, One Day in China, May 21, 1936 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), especially part 3, 141-200. The original Chinese edition is: Mao Dun 茅盾 ed., Zhongguo de yiri 中國的一日 (Shanghai: Shenghuo shudian, 1936, 9).

269 Nationalists and Wenzhou locals on the role of popular religion in society sheds light on the origin of the following conflicts, especially regarding Wenzhou locals’ practice of local religions. Given that both sides were so insistent on their ways, the following conflicts in the field of religion were very hard to avoid.

According to Zhang Gang’s account, although the Chenghuang statue was gone, the subsequent Chenghuang festival was still held on schedule on the day of the

Qingming 清明 festival on April 5, 1928. Not surprisingly, the local Nationalists were not pleased to see these villagers’ decision. Needless to say, they would not just stand by with folded arms. The difference this time is that they used the threat of “Communist bandits” ( gongfei , 共匪) as their excuse to ban this festival, since the alliance between the Nationalists and Communists had ceased one year earlier in 1927. 70 Zhang commented on how local Nationalists used communist threats to ban the coming

Chenghuang festival:

[On April 6, 1928 (which is this year’s Qingming festival)], as usual, many

Wenzhou locals travelled to rural areas to provide annual offerings to their

70 After the Shanghai 412 party wash incident in 1927, Wenzhou communists were forced to flee to a mountainous area to continue their revolution. After several skirmishes with the Nationalist’s local security forces, in 1930 these communists regrouped themselves to found the “Thirteenth Regional Command of Red Army” directed by a Wenzhou veteran revolutionary Hu, Gongmian 胡公冕 (1888-1979). There were several rounds of skirmishes between this guerrilla force and the Nationalist’s local security force from 1930 to 1949. Eventually, the Wenzhou Nationalists got the upper hand over the communist guerrilla force. On the development of so-called communist bandit problems in Wenzhou since 1927, see: Zhonggong Dangshi Ziliao Chubanshe 中共黨史資料出版社, Hong Shisanjun yu Zhinan tewei 紅十三軍與浙南特委 (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi ziliao chubanshe, 1988) and Ye Dabing 葉大兵, Zhenan Nongmin Baodong yu Hongshisanjun 浙南農民暴動與紅十三軍 (Hangzhou: Zhejiang Renmin Chubanshe, 1984) and Zhejiang Sheng Xinsijun lishi yanjiuhui Zhenan fenhui 浙江省新四軍歷史研究會浙南分會 ed. , Zhenan Wuzhuang douzheng ershinian 浙南武裝鬥爭二十年 (Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo chubanshe, 2005).

270 ancestor’s tombs. One of my friends, surnamed Sun 孫, told me a story right after

he returned from his annual tomb visit. He told me that the local Nationalist

branch ( dangbu 黨部) was upset by yesterday’s Chenghuang festival, thus they

summoned Ruian County magistrate Fang 方 to their office to severely condemn

him saying: using powder painting on their face during this festival is the

communists’ common trick to conceal themselves from our prosecution. Thus,

could you afford the [local security] responsibility if these communist used this

festival to cause trouble in Ruian County? Shortly, Magistrate Fang forwarded

local Nationalists’ concerns to the coordinators of this festival (Zaiguan 齋官).

[Because of this political pressure from local Nationalist,] the Zaiguan did not

have too many choices, so they curtailed the schedule of this festival from one

week to one day. This festival ended up with these villagers sending the deity’s

sedan back to the temple in only one day. How tyrannical ( hengxing zhuanzhi , 橫

行專制) the local Nationalist party branch was! 71

From the above description, certainly, the newly established local Nationalist party–state regime gave their every effort to interrupt this local festival. On the other hand, the above story also reveals the fact that even these local Nationalist had a stronger opinion of this festival. However, the only thing they could do was press the Ruian magistrate to stop this festival. Overall, the presence of Nationalists in Wenzhou local society, as Zhang pointed out, was in great contrast to the Qing and early-republic period local officials

71 Ibid., 411-412.

271 who still recognized the importance of local deities in local politics. Moreover, it turned out that in the eyes of Wenzhou locals, these anti-superstition local Nationalists became the synonym of tyranny. The most important dynamic behind this tyranny was the

Nationalists’ belief that their modernization plan should be a straightforward vehicle to change these villagers’ backwardness. Thus, no one should be able to derail the track of their promising modernization plans. The knocking down of Yangfu Jun in Yueqing and

Chenghuang in Ruian represents Nationalists’ ambition to relegate the “using local deity’s way to instruct local people” to fundamentally change the traditional configuration of Wenzhou local politics. In practice, by knocking down the local deity, they relegated the influence of local religion over Wenzhou local politics. As we will see, contrary to these Nationalists’ expectation, their new religious policy inevitably touched upon a hot button issue in Wenzhou local politics.

The Nationalists’ arrogance of their ideology sheds light on the future direction of their modernization plans in Wenzhou local society. After attempting to ban this

Chenghuang festival, the Nationalist also unveiled a series of modernization plans, especially in the form of political campaigns. For example, in addition to the above stories, one of the most provocative actions taken by these local Nationalists was the conversion of the official shrine of chaste women and filial son ( jiexiaoci 節孝祠) into a local factory and to confiscate its temple property to fund their local women’s liberation movement ( funu yundong 婦女運動). 72 It seems that the original idea of the conversion was simply that the Nationalists needed to figure out a way to fund their “new social

72 Ibid., 417.

272 movement.” However, in the eyes of Wenzhou locals, abandoning this shrine was no different from destroying the bridgehead of the local value system, which had been embedded in Wenzhou local society for centuries. In addition to destroying this symbol of traditional value in local society, the Nationalists also began to introduce a radical land reform plan called, er-wu jianzu 二五減租, which was only carried out in Zhejiang and

Jiangsu Provinces. Based on this plan, the Nationalist regime attempted to permanently redistribute a percentage of yields shared between landlord and tenant. Without proper understanding of local society, however, this land reform plan was shortly aborted on

April 20, 1929. 73 The cause of this fiasco was largely due to the failure of the Nationalists to win the support of landlords. In other words, the Nationalist reform plans did not provide an effective replacement for the “cumulative weight of centuries of structure changes” that both landlord and tenant had to deal with from the late Qing. 74 The local

Nationalist regime claimed that they worked industrially to install a series of modernization measures to local society. However, Wenzhou locals could hardly see the point of knocking down these local prestigious deities or launching a women liberation movement in what they saw as a direct challenge to traditional social and family values.

As a result of the widening gulf between Nationalists and Wenzhou locals the relation between the Nationalist regime and Wenzhou locals gradually deteriorated.

73 Ibid., 428, 430-431.

74 Bernhardt’s (1992) research on the relation between rent, tax, and peasant resistance in the lower Yangzi region from 1840 to 1950 is one of the best discussions. After exploring the structure change to the development of landlordism in lower Yangzi region from 1840 to 1950, Bernhardt argued that, “Landlordism in lower Yangzi region was destroyed not by revolutionary action, but by the cumulative weight of centuries of structure change,” (p. 225) which basically challenged the idea that the CCP’s communist revolution was the only dynamic to crash this long-term landlordism in Lower Yangzi region. See: Kathryn Bernhardt, Rent, Taxes, and Peasant Resistance: The Lower Yangzi Region, 1840-1950 (Stanford: Stanford University, 1992).

273

The subsequent development of the Chenghuang temple festival in Ruian County sheds light on the nature of the relation between local Nationalists and Wenzhou locals.

As I mentioned above, due to local security concerns, the Wenzhou Nationalist party decided to ban this annual popular gathering in 1928. Because of this ban, from 1928 to

1933 this annual Chenghuang festival was suspended in Ruian city. However, this festival was still held in the rural region of Ruian County during this time. This inconsistency between the urban and rural areas of Ruian County reveals that the

Nationalist’s ban was only effective in the urban area of Ruian County. The side effects of banning this festival were far more serious than these local Nationalists had imagined.

It is evident that these Nationalists did not realize that by banning this festival they were also hurting Wenzhou locals’ willingness to cooperate with them. To understand how

Wenzhou locals reacted to this ban, we should start with Zhang Gang’s reminiscence of the peaceful and prosperous aura (shengping qixiang 昇 平 氣 象 ) 75 on the day of

Chenghuang festival in Ruian area before the arrival of Nationalists to Wenzhou.

[April 6, 1933] Following the traditional Ruian custom, on the day of every

Qingming festival, villagers used to take Chenghuang deity out of the temple [to

have a parade around their community] to pacify their community ( anfang 安方).

On that day, villagers not only prepared various offerings alongside the parade

75 My discussion of this peaceful and prosperous aura ( shengping qixiang 昇平氣象) is inspired by anthropologist Robert Weller’s discussion of the importance of 做熱鬧 in the practice of Chinese popular religion in local society. During a book project workshop held in 2007, Weller argued that in addition to the studies of popular religion rituals, we still have to pay attention to the implication of these ritual practices, which usually brought a sense of bustle and excitement to local society.

274 route to greet the deity to express their gratitude to his/her blessing, but also hired

troupes to entertain both deity and the members of community. On that day, the

air is full of sense of bustle and excitement all over my community! The air of

peacefulness and prosperity ( shengping qixiang 昇 平 氣 象 ) is flowing

everywhere around our community on that day. 76

From Zhang’s report we can see that the Chenghuang festival is not only a local religious event but also considered a “carnival” for all of these villagers to enjoy the aura of peace and prosperity in their community. Therefore, the implication of the festival for Wenzhou locals was at least twofold: first, these Wenzhou locals wanted to use this festival to express their gratitude to the local deity for giving them a safe and sound life in the past year; second, because of the air of peacefulness and prosperity, these villagers had a chance to relax on that day and have fun.77 After recalling the air of peacefulness and prosperity in the “old days”, Zhang abruptly changed his tone to bitterly accuse the local

Nationalists of ruining this peaceful aura in their community:

76 Zhang Gang (2003), Ibid., 487.

77 On our past wisdoms about these local festivals ( miaohui , 廟會), many scholars tended to consider these festivals as a “safety velvet” in so-called traditional Chinese society. Like the Taiwanese scholar Li Fengmo 李豐懋 (1993) who used the conception of “wild culture” (kuang wenhua 狂文化) to delineate the “unusual condition” in local society. See: Li Fengmo 李豐懋, 由常入非常：中國節日慶典中的狂文化 in Chung Wai Literary Quarterly 中外文學 vol. 22:3 (August 1993):116-154. Later, Chinese historian Zhao Shiyu 趙世瑜 (2002) connected this concept with his archival and field research especially in China. See: Zhao Shiyu 趙世瑜, 狂歡日常：明清以來的廟會與民間社會 Carnivals in Daily Life: The Temple Fairs and Local Society since Ming and Qing dynasties (Beijing: Sanlian shuju, 2002). In addition to the discussion focused on the “wild culture”, Katz (1995) had applied anthropologists like Victor Turner and Arnold Van Gennep’s studies on “ritual” to understand the communication between deities and local community in these Wenzhou local festivals. See: Paul Katz, Demon Hordes and Burning Boats: The Cult of Marshal Wen in Late Imperial Chekiang (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 170-171. The more recent scholarship on this topic tends to put the temple festival in a bigger social and historical context to understand the importance of these temple festivals in local society. See: Anders Hansson, Bonnie S, McDougall and Frances Weightman ed., The Chinese at Play: Festivals, Games and Leisure (London; New York: Kegan Paul, 2002).

275

[April 6, 1933] From 1927 on (the year Nationalists entered Wenzhou), the

Nation ( guo 國) installed party branch (dangbu 黨部) to Ruian County. The party

branch consists of average quality youths who only deserve to be considered as a

pack of rogues ( huqun goudang 狐群狗黨). They abused Nationalist party's

power to bully other people. Even worse, they randomly extorted money from

whomever they knew. They bragged themselves as the supporter of “anti-

superstition campaign” and arrogantly declared Chenghuang deity as an illegal

cult ( yinci 淫祠). From then on, they did not allow villagers to hold festivals to

greet this deity on the day of the Qingming festival. These bans made the original

prosperity sense (shanhu fengjing 山湖風景) deteriorate sharply into depression

(xiaosuo 蕭索). In fact, all Ruian locals choked with silent fury (gan nu bu gan

yan 敢怒不敢言)! I heard that several days earlier, there was an anonymous

written propaganda poem (niming jietieshi 匿名揭帖詩) pasted right on the main

entrance of the Ruian County government office. The content of this poem

directly disclosed the corruption within the party. Overall, [I have to say that] this

poem has done a very good job of denouncing the party branch for their recent

wrongdoings. In order to read this poem, it was not an exaggeration to say that

spectators stood round like a wall. This scene makes me believe that the so-called

decent way ( zhidao 直道) still exists in people’s mind! 78

78 Zhang Gang (2003), Ibid., 487.

276 From Zhang’s report, it is evident that the Nationalist’s so-called “anti-superstition” measures and other modernization plans did not convince, but rather aggravated

Wenzhou local society. The more enthusiastic these Nationalists were in carrying out their modernization plans, the more antipathetic these Wenzhou locals became. Since both sides were insistent on their attitude toward local religion-related affairs, the relations between the two groups, as we will see, devolved into a game of hide-and-seek.

Although the Nationalists still claimed themselves to be the pioneers of Chinese modernization, because of their provocative actions and corrupt behavior Wenzhou locals did not consider them legitimate or the harbingers of future modernization. Increasingly,

Wenzhou locals viewed Nationalists as ineffective and corrupt in every facet of local politics. For instance, in Zhang’s diary dated August 19, 1933, he mentioned a story told by his third son Zhang Shengtuo 張聖陀, who was a township manager ( xiangzhang 鄉

長) in Ruian County. On that day, Zhang Shengtuo attended a local pest control fund

（ chuchong fei 除蟲費） meeting at the Ruian County government. To his surprise, not being ashamed at all, the Ruian magistrate publicly admitted that the original budget had been misappropriated to cover other “unknown” expenses. Even worse, to these Ruian locals’ surprise, the Nationalist magistrate dared to propose to ask for more money from residents to cover this deficit. 79 After hearing this story, Zhang’s comment on this corruptive Nationalist regime was as follows:

79 Zhang Gang (2003), Ibid., 492.

277 Alas! [These Nationalists claimed that they] had been strictly practicing the

Principles of Three People (sanmin zhuyi 三民主義), but their efforts ended up

losing the population of four provinces of northeast China [to Japan in 1933]. 80

Although our territory is huge, the army is terribly weak ( cuguo wanqianli 蹙國萬

千里). This nation [Nationalist regime] only fed several million of jackals and

wolves ( huanyan shubaiwan cailang 豢養數百萬豺狼) to hurt commoners. These

Nationalists are only good at picking up the fat and then eating them ( zefei

ershiren 擇肥而食人). How a nation like this still could survive in the world

(guo yande erbuwan 國焉得而不亡). 81

Besides denouncing the corruption of the Nationalist local regime, Zhang’s comment also marks his deepening disappointment about Chiang Kai-shek regime’s controversial non- resistance policy and seemingly endless diplomatic failure with Japan. Thus, because of the concurrent internal and external failures, Wenzhou locals’ confidence in the

Nationalist regime was quickly deteriorating. Without proper check and balance mechanisms in Nationalist Wenzhou, the Nationalists could simply disregard popular responses and forcibly have their plans done, especially when they still could exploit

“modernization” as their campaign slogan to rectify so-called backward local society and to justify their wrongdoings.

80 The background is the “Tanggu Truce” (times called the Tangku Truc e (traditional Chinese: 塘沽協定; simplified Chinese: 塘沽协定; pinyin: Tángg ū Xiédìng). This truce was a cease-fire signed between China and Empire of Japan in Tanggu District, Tianjin on May 31 , 1933 , formally ending the Japanese invasion of Manchuria which had begun two years earlier.

81 Ibid.

278

Nevertheless, the looming threats from Japan since early 1930s led to the

Nationalist decision to tighten their grip on every aspect of Wenzhou local society and to accelerate the speed of their scheduled modernized plans. For a long time, traditional wisdom said that the Nationalist regime along with the communists took advantage of this external crisis to mobilize Chinese citizens’ nationalist sentiments and implement their modernization plans as well as to envision their future revolution. 82 However, this was not what was actually was happening in Wenzhou. The following episode, written by

Zhang Gang on the first day of 1934, reflects the fact that these Nationalists’ endeavors gained nothing but more resentment from Wenzhou locals.

[January 1, 1934], I met my nephew named Leisheng ( 類生) who returned from

Ruian city earlier this afternoon. He told me that several months ago, two local

Nationalists named Xie Xizhu 謝希祖 and Zhang Yishan 張一山 knocked down

the temple of the young gentlemen Liu (Liu Xianggong miao 劉相公廟). After

that, everybody in the city was upset about their misbehavior ( heyi wubu baoyuan

合邑無不抱怨). Several days later, there was a report saying that Zhang Yishan

died violently. [Even more,] it was said that before he breathed his last breath, he

82 On the general discussion of how the Nationalists and Communists took advantage of the Sino-Japanese war to envision their image of a modern nation-state and future revolution see: Kathleen Hartford and Steven M. Goldstein, Single Sparks: China’s Rural Revolution (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1989); Chang-tai Hung 洪長泰, War and Popular Culture: Resistance in Modern China, 1937-1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Mark Selden , China in Revolution: The Yenan Way revisited (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1995); and Hans J. van de Ven, War and Nationalism in China, 1925-1945 (New York & London: Routledge, 2003). It is only recently that scholars have focused on the relation between religion and resistance in the second Sino-Japanese War, see: Xue Yu, Buddhism, War, and Nationalism: Chinese Monks in the Struggle against Japanese Aggressions, 1931-1945 (New York & London: Routledge, 2005).

279 shouted that he was seeing a group of ghost clerks flocking to his bed to arrest

him. 83

According to this story, local Nationalists were punished by ghost clerks who carried out posthumous justice. It matters little whether this story is true or false. What is more important is that this story reveals that the local Nationalists took over previous local officials’ image of parental official ( fumu guan 父母官), but still became immoral evil persons who deserved to be severely punished by the final fort of Wenzhou locals’ moral teaching: ghost clerks. 84

Of course, the above ghost story could not curtail Nationalist’s still ambitious modernization plans. On the contrary, similar resentment toward the Nationalist regime intensified shortly because of their intervention in Wenzhou locals’ posthumous world. In

December 1935, there was a colonel surnamed Yang 楊 ( Yang Tuanzhang 楊團長) who came to Wenzhou to carry out Hangzhou Nationalist regime’s “custom reform plan”

(fengsu gaige 風俗改革, which was part of the anti-superstition campaign). The reform targeted the most visible local customs in Wenzhou—sheltering relatives’ coffins in

83 Zhang Gang (2003), Ibid., 502. As for this Xianggong 相公 temple, according to 民國瑞安縣志稿 there is a temple called qiwu xianggong mi ao 七五相公廟 in Yuhu 玉壺鎮 town, which is located in the western mountainous part of Ruian County. The importance of this temple to Ruian locals can be illustrated by the fact that one of the most famous Wenzhou celebrities Sun Qiangming 孫鏘鳴 also wrote an inscription for this temple. Moreover, during my 2006 fieldwork in Taishun 泰順, I also found out that the cult qiwu xianggong still flourished in that mountainous area. Most interesting of all, the contemporary Taishun villagers went to this temple to pray for the winning numbers for their community gambling game called liuhecai 六合彩.

84 It is interesting to bring up scholar Paul Katz’s (2008) discussion on underworld justice and the notion of “the Judicial Continuum” in late Imperial China. See: Katz (2008), Ibid., 24-60.

280 resident’s homes ( tingguan 停 棺 ). 85 Once he stepped into Wenzhou city, Yang immediately issued an order asking Wenzhou locals to bury these coffins within three days or the Nationalist army would forcibly smash these “abandoned” coffins. All of a sudden, everybody in Wenzhou city was busy with transporting these coffins to nearby mountainous area to escape from this Colonel Yang’s “tyranny.” What was most shocking to Wenzhou locals was the way Colonel Yang dealt with the “abandoned coffins” ( wuzhu zhiguan 無主之棺). The sixty-five-year-old Zhang commented on this unprecedented tyranny that extended even to their posthumous life:

Yang’s soldiers collected these abandoned coffins then burned them down in

public or directly threw these coffins into the Ou River ( 甌江). In the following

several days, the odor of these burning coffins still filled the area of almost all of

Ruian County. It was very sad to see this miserable scene. Such tyranny has never

ever been seen or recorded in all ages. This colonel Yang was so ferocious that

nobody dared to stop him. In fact, he whipped anyone with his rattan who tried to

stop him. Alas! It is a deep sorrow that common people ( limin , 黎民) have no idea

what to do with their hands and feet whether they were alive or dead (shengsi

wucuo 生死無措).86

85 On the discussion of “sheltering their relatives’ coffins in their residence ( tingguan , 停棺)” see: Lu Jin 陸 進, Dongou zhanglu 東甌掌錄, also available in Chen Ruizan ed. 陳瑞贊, Ibid., 37.

86 Ibid., 525.

281 Compared with the Nationalist regime’s self-claimed non-resistance policy toward Japan it is not surprising at all that Ruian locals considered these Nationalists’ “modernization plans”—a ruthless intervention into Wenzhou locals’ daily lives—as a tyranny to disturb their lives.

The Nationalist’s arrogance of ideology shortly led to a confidence crisis within

Wenzhou locals, since Wenzhou locals realized that these Nationalists’ new ideology could not be seen as a realistic solution for their common concerns. While the Nationalist regime was in power from 1927 to 1937 their enforcement of the “anti-superstition campaign” as well as the “custom reform plan” became an annoying pain in the lives of

Wenzhou residents. As in the above-mentioned Colonel Yang story, the Nationalist regime claimed that they had rectified the local bad traditions. In the mean time, they also seriously infuriated Wenzhou locals by intervening in local religious activities. In thinking about this confrontation between locals and Nationalists, I draw upon Duara’s

(1988) influential “involution” thesis, which argues that in order to build their ideal nation-state, the Nationalist’s needed to destroy the “cultural nexus of power” in local society. The Nationalist’s efforts to destroy the cultural nexus of power not only eroded their popular image with Wenzhou locals, but also overthrew the traditional moral authorities in local society. 87 In the end the Nationalists failed to fill the vacuum they created. However, in contrast to Duara’s pessimistic observation, as we saw in the above discussion, a key part of the “cultural nexus of power” was that popular religions were still vibrant and continued to work as an important component in the field of Wenzhou

87 See: Duara, (1988), Ibid., 253-257; (1995), Ibid., chapters 3 and 4.

282 local politics competing with Nationalist regime’s anti-superstition campaign and their new political culture. Therefore, it is fair to say that Wenzhou locals were not as ignorant as these Nationalists imagined. Despite political pressure from the Nationalist party-sate system, they still persisted in their realistic attitude examining the “efficacy” of both

Nationalist modernization plans and their local popular religious traditions. Hence, they did not engage in an all-or-nothing strategy of totally embracing either modernization or popular religion in local politics and in their daily lives. In the following part of this chapter, I will examine how Wenzhou locals publicly resisted Nationalists’ local religion policies and continued the practice of their local religious traditions. I will also redress the ongoing competition between popular religion and modernization/secularization in modern Chinese history.

V. The Purchase Price of the Anti-superstition Campaign:

China was in turmoil in the late 1930s. In addition to escalating tension between

China and Japan, the Wenzhou local communists ( gongfei , communist bandits 共匪 or

Hong Shisan Jun , The Thirteenth Regional Command of Red Army 紅十三軍 on

Communist party’s side of history) residing in the mountainous area of Wenzhou

Prefecture posed a more visible threat to the Wenzhou Nationalist officials. Even though the Nationalist regime tried to manipulate the mounting internal revolts and foreign invasions to justify the urgency of consolidating their rulership, the 1937 Ruian

Chenghuang festival illustrates the fact that Wenzhou locals had lost their appetite for the

Nationalist’s guidelines for “saving the country.” The following episode indicates that in

283 the minds of Wenzhou locals, the initially reform-minded and ideology-oriented

Nationalists became synonymous with “plague demons” in their own language.

Since the Japanese troops did not attack Wenzhou city until early 1939, the 1937

Chenghuang festival in Zhang Gang’s hometown, Tingtien 汀田 village, was still held as scheduled. In his diary dated February 18, 1937, Zhang Gang was pleased to see the previously mentioned air of peacefulness and prosperity ( shengping qixiang 昇平氣象) appearing again in his village. It should be noted that the nearly seventy-year-old Zhang

Gang claimed he had never seen another festival held in his village bigger than the one held that year, and this despite such a trying time in China. 88 At that year’s Qingming festival in April, all the Chenghuang temples around Ruian County (except the

Nationalist-based Ruian city, which was still not allowed to hold the Chenghuang festival) held their festivals. 89 Even under mounting threats from Japan, Communists, and

Nationalists in the late 1930s Wenzhou locals still did not forget the birthday of their local deities. Apparently, even outside political authorities’ propaganda regarding the looming crises related to Japan or Communists could not divert attention away from this annual festival. Of course, the other explanation is in order to face this unpredictable menace from Japanese invaders, Wenzhou locals went to their local deities to pray for

88 Zhang Gang (2003) Ibid., 533.

89 Ibid., 535.

284 protection. 90 It is clear that these villagers deliberately ignored the Nationalist ban on local festivals.

In order to prepare for the Sino-Japanese war, the leader of the Nanjing

Nationalist regime, Chiang Kai-shek, promulgated the National General Mobilization

Law ( guojia zongdongyuanfa 國家總動員法) in 1931 and Marital Law ( jieyanfa 戒嚴法) in 1934 to empower every level of government to collect resources and tighten control over local society. 91 After the promulgation of these two laws, the local Nationalists changed their focus from modernization to preparing for the coming war with Japan.

Subsequently, Wenzhou Nationalists could use these two laws to squeeze both human and monetary resources from local society to support the war against the Japanese and

Communists. However, the Nationalist regime did not cease banning so-called “wasteful” local superstition activities like festivals. In the following account provided by Zhang

Gang in his diary dated February, 3, 1938, we can see that the scenario that happened here is basically an advanced version of hide-and-seek between Nationalists and

Wenzhou locals. More precisely, it turned out that there was a silent consensus between

Nationalists and Wenzhou locals to keep their religious related activities alive.

90 It is interesting to point out that right after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in early July 1937, there was a special announcement 啟事 on the front page of the Wenzhou Nationalist’s newspaper Zhe-ou daily 浙甌日報 saying there will be a 三教聯合護國水陸法會 held in Wenzhou city.

91 On the content of marital law and other related laws, see: 中國第二歷史檔案館編, 國民黨政府政治制 度檔案史料選編 (Hefei: Anhui Jiaoyu Chubanshe, 1994), 297-299. In regards to the National Mobilization law, see: Xu Baiqi 徐百齊 ed., Zhonghua minguo fagui daquan 中華民國法規大全 (Shanghai: Shanghai Shangwu yinshuguang, 1937).

285 There were several New Year festivals ( henian , 賀年) held in Daishi 岱石,

Zhoutien 周 田 and Jiuli 九 里 villages [which are close to Zhang Gang’s

hometown Tingtien 汀田]. [As usual,] these villagers also hired itinerant troupes

to express their gratitude to their community deities. Unfortunately, because the

villagers turned down the local adjunct police’s ( jingding 警丁) request for a bribe,

in order to take revenge on these villagers, these part-time policemen reported to

city police officers ( jing guan 警官) stationed in Ruian city to invite them to

suppress these New Year festivals. Once the city police officers arrived, the

troupe showing was shut down and everybody was forced to leave. These police

officers totally ruined these villagers’ pleasure. I [Zhang Gang] realized the fact

that we should not have fun when our nation is facing the current crises [from

Japanese invaders]. At least, it is still our best luck since the enemy is not here yet,

thus we can enjoy the New Year festival peacefully. Nevertheless, this festival

held by these innocent peasants ( yumin 愚民) should be seen as an indicator of the

current trouble free and peaceful scene ( taiping jingxiang 太平景象) in our

village. Simply because these local adjunct policemen did not get the bribe does

not mean they can recklessly spoil the common people’s fun. 92

Zhang’s comments reveal an important fact that the New Year festival would not have been interrupted if the local policemen had been bribed and thus had not reported the festival to their supervisors. Based on Zhang’s observation, it is not an exaggeration to say that the Nationalists were responsible for ruining these villagers’ fun and the feeling

92 Zhang Gang (2003), Ibid., 550.

286 of peaceful life. However, we can also tell that Wenzhou locals had bribed the Nationalist local officials to look the other way regarding their annual local religious festivals. What is important to notice is that even during wartime Wenzhou locals still persisted in holding their annual festival regularly to express their gratitude to their community deities for protecting them from the damages of war. Moreover, the above story also indicates that the Nationalists had failed in their anti-superstition campaign, since their modernization plan, as well as the Nationalist propaganda had not fundamentally changed

Wenzhou locals’ religious practices. Rather, Wenzhou locals realized that the

Nationalists’ “modernization plans” and anti-superstition campaign efforts had their price.

As long as they paid a bribe to Nationalist officials no one impeded their festivals. In the mean time, however, the Nationalist officials exchanged their governing authority for this bribe. To a great extent, we can say that Wenzhou locals had configured a mechanism to tame the Nationalist’s modernization plans and anti-superstition campaign by bribing local Nationalist officials. From then on, despite the high-minded rhetoric Nationalists used to talk about their reforms, Wenzhou locals rather chose to work the right purchase price to deal with the Nationalist government.

While the Nationalist regime was complacent about their achievements in eradicating local superstition in Wenzhou, they did not realize that their governing authority has been localized by local society. What was even worse for these Nationalists was that they lost the minimal respect within local society they were supposed to have.

As we are about to see, Wenzhou locals equated the popular image of the Nationalist

Zhejiang top ranking officials with their chronic livelihood threat: “plague demon”

287 (wenshen , 瘟神). In Zhang’s diary dated February 10, 1938, he mentioned that there was a report saying that the current executive committee chair of Zhejiang Province (Zhejiang sheng zhuxi 浙江省主席, Zhejiang governor in Nationalist regime), Huang Shaohong 黃

紹 竑 , would be spending his week-long Chinese New Year holiday in Wenzhou

Prefecture. Zhang writes:

[February 10, 1938, which is the fourth day of Chinese New Year holiday], there

was a festival held in Xincheng 莘塍 village. [Since Xincheng is very close to

Ruian city,] thus there were many policemen and soldiers coming from Ruian

attempting to suppress this local festival. [As usual], they were going to forbid the

parade ( yingshen 迎神) and troupe ( yanxi 演戲). But how come the festival held

in my town [Tingtien 汀田 (which is about ten kilometers away from Xincheng)]

at the same time could be free from these Nationalists’ disturbance? We really

have to give credit to Zhejiang Province executive committee chair Huang

Shaohong’s 黃紹竑 recent inspection tour of Ruian city. Thanks to Haung’s

inspection tour, the Ruian County government and local police bureau had to

deploy every unit of their force to guard Huang’s inspection tour, thus these

policemen did not have spare time and personnel travelling further to ruin our

festival. Without the disturbance of Nationalists in our village, the air of

peacefulness and prosperity ( shengping qixiang 昇平氣象) was vibrant in my

village. Eventually, every villager sang and accredited Marshall Jiang (Jiang

288 Yuanshuai 姜元帥 ) for demonstrating his efficacy [in protecting them from

Nationalist official’s harassment]! 93

Apparently, Mr. Huang’s inspection tour unintentionally saved Tingtien villagers’ annual festival. Moreover, Tingtien villagers accredited this “New Year miracle” to their community guardian deity, Marshall Jiang ( Jiang Yuanshuai 姜元帥), for protecting them from the troublesome Nationalists. It is fair to say that Zhang Gang’s neighbors considered the Nationalist officials a threat to their original peaceful and prosperous life.

After all, these Wenzhou locals believed that their community guardian angel was so efficacious that he drew this officious state power away to protect their New Year festival.

It would have been totally unthinkable for Qing and early-Republic Wenzhou local officials to be seen as “plague demons” by Wenzhou locals. Clearly, Wenzhou locals no longer respected their local officials. Simply put, this was the price Nationalists paid for their arrogance of ideology.

In concluding this discussion on the competition between local popular religious traditions and local politics in Nationalist Wenzhou, it would be an oversimplification to say local popular religions eventually won the battle against Nationalist’s modernization plans. The Wenzhou local Nationalists were significantly different from their predecessors’ shendao shejiao 神道設教 policy (using the way of the local popular deities to instruct [the people]), which considered popular religion as a vital supplement to local politics. In light of modernization and the underlying “ideological

93 Ibid, 550.

289 transformation,” Wenzhou local Nationalists refused to continue this long-term local religious policy when implementing their reforms. However, even after knocking down several important local deities including Yangfu Jun and Chenghuang, as well as banning local festivals, these self-described modern Nationalists could not provide a workable replacement for Qing officials’ shendao shejiao 神道設教 policy and fit themselves into the order of Wenzhou local politics. As I discussed above, the Nationalists’ desire to reform local religion came to be nothing but a mounting frustration both to this regime and to local society. We can see this mutual “frustration” in Zhang Gang‘s comments on the Nationalist’s local religious reform policy:

Since the establishment of the Republic of China ( Minguo 民國) regime in

Wenzhou in 1927, the Nationalist party and their small factions within their party

ascended to the central stage of local politics. They considered the knocking down

of superstition as their outstanding idea ( zhuojian 卓見) as well as demolishing

statues as their great achievement ( haoju 豪舉). From thirteen years ago, they also

attempted to ban every local festival in Wenzhou. [However,] their ban not only

led to the deserting of streets and markets ( jieshi liaolu o 街市寥落) but also to

the waste of our valuable holidays ( jiajie kongguo 佳節空過).94

Zhang’s sarcastic tone (“outstanding idea” ( zhuojian 卓見), “great achievement” ( haoju

豪舉)) points to an important fact that although these Nationalists wanted to make a clear distinction between popular religion and local politics in order to build a modern and

94 Ibid., 580.

290 secularized Chinese nation-state, they misunderstood and underestimated the inseparable relationship between local religions and local politics. To a great extent the Nationalists showed more interest in “ideological transformation” than in Wenzhou locals’ day-to-day concerns. After all, the anti-superstition campaigns launched by these Nationalists to reform these villagers’ religions were simply like the endless struggle of Sisyphus with his huge boulder on hill.

291 Conclusion:

In his pessimistic tone, historian Duara describes the narrative of modernization in modern history in the following sentences:

The dominant narrative of modern Chinese history in both China and the West is

the narrative of modernization. This had been seen as a painful and uncertain

process, which has, nonetheless, inched toward a full modern consciousness in

distinct phrases. 1

Duara’s critique of Chinese modernization is not groundless. However, after exhibiting the correlations between religion and politics in Chinese local society from 1840 to 1940,

I can not help but thinking: who really suffered most from this painful and uncertain process to a full modern consciousness in modern Chinese history? These nationally renowned politically leaders who failed to implement their modernization plans as they desired, or the unnamed locals with obscured images, who had been “constructed as the people as backward and in need of strong state supervision.” 2 Is this still the only

1 See: Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History From the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 206.

2 See: Ann Anagnost, “The Politics of Ritual Displacement.” In Charles Keyes, Laurel Kendall, and Helen Hardacre ed., Asian Visions of Authority: Religion and the Modern States of East and Southeast Asia (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994), 221-254. To a great extent, why Chinese intellectuals acted willfully to implement their modernization state is mainly because of the inspiration of the Meiji restoration. In addition to admiring Japanese’s success, there was a belief fermenting among Chinese people that if a small nation like Japan can do it, why can’t China do it. Thus, most of the content of late-Qing reform is basically inspired by or directly transplanted from Japan. In this process, the differences between China and Japan are painstakingly ignored by these intellectuals. In order to get rid of these Chinese intellectual’s “myth” about China and Japan, scholars need to do comparative research to understand the background instead of following these celebrities’ teachings without question. As for the comparative viewpoint of East

292 approach we can use to understand the modernization process in twentieth century

China? 3

To answer this question, Duara argued that the modern Chinese historian should no longer insist on the idea of “linear history” or the notion of “enlightenment.” Instead, he came up with a conception of “bifurcated history” to contextualize the dispersed meanings, which had been concealed by the modernization narrative, to enrich the study of modern Chinese intellectual history. The advantage of this “bifurcated history,” as he wrote, is that it:

Seeks not only to evoke the dispersed meaning but to disclose the ways in which

this past may have provided the cause, the conditions, or the affinities which

enabled the transformation. 4

Asian modernization, see: Merle Goldman & Andrew Gordon ed., Historical Perspectives on Contemporary East Asia (Mass., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000).

3 In addition to modernization, the other dominate narrative of modern Chinese history is Chinese Nationalism. And it is not an exaggeration to say that these two “grand narratives” worked side by side to dominate our understanding of modern Chinese history. The common ground of these two grand narratives came from inquires made by various intellectuals on how the Chinese reacted to the internal and external crises since the mid-nineteenth century. In my opinion, one of the most comprehensive reviews on this “save the country” (jiuguo 救國) literature is made by Cohen (1984) in his work on modern Chinese historiography. See: Paul Cohen, Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984). From then on, many scholars followed Cohen’s “China-centered approach” to study Chinese history, however, most scholars still focus on whether early-twentieth century China was characterized by a weak state and strong statist discourse or not. In the name of modernization and its hidden evolutionary perspective, many scholars argue that the glue between weak state and strong statist discourse in modern Chinese history is the numerous ideological campaigns and revolutions. However, question such as how well these political movements changed commoners’ daily life experience as well as “local politics”, or how locals reconfigured their local political mechanism to deal with the challenges coming from the state are still rarely touched on by scholars. See: John Fitzgerald, Awakening China: Politics, Culture, and Class in the Nationalist Revolution (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996); Michael Tsin, Nation, Governance, and Modernity in China: Canton, 1900-1927 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999); and Henrietta Harrison, The Making of the Republican Citizen: Political Ceremonies and Symbols in China, 1911-1929 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

293

Therefore, Duara’s challenge to linear history sheds light on the fundamental limitation of the modernization narrative: modernization should be a straightforward vehicle into every corner of human society. Duara asks why this straightforward vehicle became a

“painful and uncertain process” in modern Chinese society and even Western society? He ascribed this painful and uncertain process to the fact that modern Chinese intellectuals lost their connections to their local society. 5 In an epitaph-like paragraph for modern

Chinese intellectuals, Duara elaborated on the importance of the living cultures of “mass” and of “tradition” in the process of Chinese modernization.

Yet the consuming commitment of Chinese intellectuals to the narrative of

modernity had tended to produce a monologism…. In this process, the narrative

had obscured the vitality of popular culture, religion, and their associational life

and delegitimized the critique of modern ideologies originating outside of modern

discourses. Despite the repeated persecution of the intelligentsia by the Chinese

state, it is the shared narrative which has thrown so many of them repeatedly into

the arms of the state and at the same time alienated both from the living cultures

of “mass” and of “tradition.” While the state has made effective use of the

4 See: Duara (1995), Ibid., 234.

5 Even though there are some works suggesting that many Chinese intellectuals made great devotion to enlighten the “lower status of people” to fulfill their modernization dream, however, these scattered efforts did not form a visible power to change the track of modern Chinese history. In my opinion, the spotty efforts only partly answer the question of why this “Chinese enlightenment movement” failed. In fact, the key problem here is that these intellectuals assumed that they had the privilege to “re-educate” local society. As for the research of these “lower class enlightenment movement,” see: Hung, Chang-tai, Going to the People: Chinese Intellectuals and Folk Literature, 1918-1937 (Mass., Cambridge: Harvard Asia Center, 1985) and Li, Hsiao-Ti 李孝悌, 清代的下層社會啟蒙運動 (Lower Class Enlightenment in the Late Ch’ing Period, 1901-1911), (Nankang: Institute of Modern History, 1992).

294 narrative of modernity to expand its own powers, the Chinese intelligentsia had

robbed itself of alternative sources of moral authority which it might have found

in history and popular culture. 6

Clearly, Duara has made a very clear point explicating why modern Chinese intellectuals and the modern state suffered various difficulties in fulfilling their modernization plans.

In his works, the battle among Chinese intellectuals, the modern state, and local society in the process of modernization is actually a depressing zero-sum game. 7 Based on his work on northern China and discussions about the modernization narrative in modern

China, it turned out that the modernization and modern state not only caused a moral and power vacuum in local society, 8 but also formed a rupture between new intelligentsia and old Chinese society. 9 Though Duara brought “popular culture, religion, and their associational life” into his analysis of modern Chinese intellectual history, however,

6 See: Duara (1995), Ibid., 226-227.

7 See: Prasenjit Duara, “Knowledge and Power in the Discourse of Modernity: The Campaigns Against Popular Religions in Early Twentieth Century China”, The Journal of Asian Studies , no. 1 (February 1991): 67-83. A similar approach can be also seen in Anagnost (1994) and Nedostup’s (2001) PhD. Dissertation. See: Rebecca A. Nedostup, “Religion, Superstition and Governing Society in Nationalist China” PhD. diss., (Columbia University, 2001).

8 See: Prasenjit Duara, Culture, Power, and the State: Rural North China, 1900-1942 (Stanford: Stanford University, 1988), especially chapter 6.

9 This sense of rupture, along with the strong implication of discontinuity, pervades not only Duara’s theory, but also throughout the work of post-colonial scholars. To assert his “post-colonialism” approach to modern Chinese history, Duara combined the discussion about the collapse of the local cultural nexus of power with the changing role of the intelligentsia in modern China “to reveal history outside of the categories of “History” in return of the repressed.” Even under this effective slogan, it must be noted that, simply like the other post-colonialist scholars, the examples Duara used to build his theory are limited to the national celebrities and the state apparatus rather than the real changes that happened in common people’s daily life and did not touch upon how the supposedly “repressed” locals reacted to the state power. Thus I argue that Duara only partially answers his challenge to the idea of linear national history. In order to completely challenge the national history, as this dissertation suggests, instead of combating with different celebrities’ teachings, we should shift our attention to local society to understand how modernization expressed locally by these repressed locals. As for Duara’s post-colonialist theory, see: Prasenjit Duara ed., Decolonization: Perspectives from Now and Then (New York: Routledge, 2003).

295 instead of exploring how this “mass” and “tradition” accommodated modernization in local society his works still largely focuses on why modern Chinese intellectuals and the state failed to modernization. And he expounds at length on how Chinese intellectuals dealt with this “rupture” between state-imposed modernization and local society. 10

The stories I present in this work demonstrate how commoners interpreted modernization. In fact, the very idea of a rupture is constructed by the intelligentsia to secure their reformist position. However, we know that the modernization is not merely a discourse among intellectuals, but also a dynamic process happening within ordinary people’s daily life experience. Therefore, I argue that the vision of modernization is not monopolized by intellectuals; in fact, the commoners also had their own vision of modernization. To shed light on the process of how Chinese ordinary people’s modernization was expressed locally, I focused on the role of popular religion and its related associations in Wenzhou local politics. As we have seen, to these Wenzhou locals, modernization was not a zero-sum academic debate over different teachings. Instead, modernization is more like a new input coming along with the Western presence starting in the mid-nineteenth century to reconfigure the existing order of their daily life.

10 As early as the 1970s, anthropologists also have questioned the notion of rupture in the modernization thesis. Based on their fieldwork, pioneering anthropologists such as Geertz had already emphasized the importance of “continuity” rather than a “rupture” in their approach to the tension between modern states and the “primordial ties” in a modern society. In a relatively short essay, Geertz sharply pointed out that there was a tension between a newly built nation-state and local society coming from the conflict between new states and local society in 1960s Southeastern Asia. Geertz wrote: “The new states are abnormally susceptible to serious disaffection based on primordial attachments. By a primordial attachment is meant one that seems from the ‘givens’—or, more precisely, as culture is inevitably involved in such matters, the assumed ‘givens’—of social existence: immediate contiguity and kin connection mainly, but beyond them the givenness that stems from being born into a particular religious community, speaking a particular language, or even a dialect of a language, and following particular social practices.” See: Clifford Geertz, “Primordial Ties” in John Hutchinson & Anthony Smith ed., Oxford Reader: Ethnicity (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 40-45.

296

While commoners were already developing their way to express modernization, modern Chinese intellectuals and modern states still insisted on “instructing” their definition of modernization to the common people in order to build a homogenous modern society. As we have seen that this unilateral insistence led to a fiasco. At any rate, their insistence indeed revealed the following important facts. First of all, we can see modern Chinese intellectual’s raising anxiety on their social status. As Duara pointed out, along with the development of modernization the modern Chinese intellectual was actually losing their influence in local society. Secondly, their insistence also exemplified their mounting fear of dealing with the growing strength of local voices beginning in mid-nineteenth century China. In order to overcome this anxiety, modern intellectuals and the state imposed a “standardized” modernization to wipe out the local varieties to build a modern nation-state. In this nation-building/state-making, what Duara did not point out is how local society competed with this standardized version of modernization with their own localized modernization. In other words, along with the new local political configuration since late Qing, the voices coming from local society became a visible challenge to the central regime and their standardization narratives. This also explains why local commoners were not overwhelmed by the modernization narrative and did not fundamentally change the role of popular religion in their daily life as the modernization/ secularization theory suggested. 11 Instead, they came up with their own ways to

11 As for the discussion of secularization, according to Berger’s definition: “By secularization we mean the process by which sectors of society and culture are removed from the domination of religious institution and symbols… Put simply, this means that the modern West has produced an increasing number of individuals who look upon the world and their own life without the benefit of religious interpretations.” See: Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (New York: Anchor Book, 1969), 107-108. However, thirty years later, in order to contextualize the “global religious resurgence,” Berger totally changed his secularization and admitted his secularization theory was a mistake, since he

297 implement their own modernization. As I have shown in my previous chapters, popular religion and it associated organization continued to play an important role in modern

Wenzhou local politics even as modernization progressed. 12

Each chapter of my dissertation represents a different aspect of the relationship between religion and politics in modern China. I began the dissertation with two peasant uprisings respectively from the 1850s to the 1860s, to explore the interactions between the local officials and the local community before the emergence of a strong Western presence in the region. In the case of Yangfu Jun, we can see that the local deity is actually considered as powerful discourse in the arena of local politics. Moreover, as I demonstrated, that local deity was also manipulated by different groups of locals and local officials to take care of their various concerns either in local and national politics.

Following this logic, in chapter two, by examining the story of Golden Coin Association rebellion, I grounded this rebellion in a conflict between a local religious group and a landlord alliance in Wenzhou in the 1860s to highlight the role of popular religion related groups in local politics.

found out that much of the world today is as religious as ever. See: Peter Berger, The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics (Washington, D.C.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), 2-4. Also, as the twentieth century British historian S.J.D. Green (1996) pointed out, religion still played a very important role in industrial Yorkshire in the twentieth century. See: S.J.D. Green, Religion in the age of decline: Organization and experience in Industrial Yorkshire, 1870-1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

12 Moreover, according to anthropologist Mayfair Mei-Hui Yang’s (2005) fieldwork conducted in Wenzhou beginning in the early 1990s, popular religion and its associated organizations are still playing a very important role in contemporary Wenzhou society, especially in the sense of spatial struggle. See: Mayfair Mei-Hui Yang, “Spatial Struggles: Postcolonial Complex, State Disenchantment, and Popular Reappropriation of Space in Rural Southeast China,” The Journal of Asian Studies 63 no. 3 (August 2004): 719-755.

298

In Chapter 3, I highlighted the local political reconfiguration triggered by the rapid penetration of foreign religions, especially Catholicism and Protestantism, shortly after Wenzhou’s opening as a treaty port in 1877. For years, scholars assumed the clash between colonial powers and local traditions accounted for “anti-foreignism.” By examining religious related conflicts in Wenzhou city in detail, the story I present in this chapter is different from our traditional understandings of how foreign colonialism successfully dominated their colonies. Based on my case study in Wenzhou, the picture I offer here is how a long marginalized and criminalized Wenzhou local vegetarian cult took advantage of the treaty-empowered foreign religions to escape prosecution by local officials and to rapidly ascend to the central stage of local politics. With the rise of local converts in local politics, in order to maintain their governing authority Wenzhou local officials had to come up with a new political mechanism to accommodate all political requests coming from either the local converts or non-converts. Clearly, this unparalleled local political configuration was made possible by the arrival of two foreign religions.

In Chapter four I discuss the subsequent development of this unparalleled configuration of local politics by examining the changing policies of local officials toward the area’s most important non-Christian religious event, the Dragon Boat Race, which had been held annually in Wenzhou since the thirteenth century. According to the local diarist’s reports, this annual competition always caused severely xiedou (armed conflict) and heavy casualties among various villages in Ruian area at least from the late

Ming period through to the present. By examining this dragon boat ritual as well as local

299 society’s changing attitude toward this local religious event since the late nineteenth century, I unfold the process of how Wenzhou locals regrouped themselves to express their political demands and deal with the new state’s modernization efforts.

Chapter five examines the policies of the pro-Christian Nationalist regime (1928-

1949), focusing in particular on its concerns with indigenous local religious practices, to examine the conflict between the self-described modernized-party state and local society.

In this chapter, by using local diarists’ accounts, I offered a local version of the “anti- superstition campaign” during the Nationalist regime. I argued that what really infuriated

Wenzhou locals was not the modernization and anti-superstition campaign itself, but the

Nationalist’s arrogant attitude toward their local religious traditions. As we have seen, the

Nationalists painstakingly ignored the traditional shendao shejiao 神道設教 policy (using the way of the local popular deities to instruct [the people]), which late Qing and early republican period local officials has abided by. The Nationalists, on the other hand, arbitrarily knocked down local prestigious deities’ statues and temples. The Nationalist regime believed they were carrying out modernization in local society for the public good.

Wenzhou locals, however, felt as the diarist Zhang Gang did when he bemoaned that these Nationalists as only “a group of jackals and wolves” ( huanyan shubaiwan cailang

豢養數百萬豺狼 ) disturbing commoners’ daily life. After all, the anti-superstition campaigns launched by these Nationalists to reform these villagers’ religions were simply like the endless struggle of Sisyphus with his huge boulder on hill. On the other hand, it

300 is also clear that even under the “terror” imposed by the party state, local society still insisted on their connection to local popular religion as well as their own political order. 13

My overall objective is to emphasize the continuity as well as the process of reconfiguration found in common people’s daily experience, rather than insist on the notion of “ruptured modernity,” a notion which clearly only exists in the intellectual’s mindset, in fleshing out our understanding of modern Chinese history. After exhibiting the correlations between politics and religion and the local political reconfiguration in

Wenzhou prefecture from 1840 to 1940, I do not think that Wenzhou locals would share the same feelings of rupture with modern Chinese intellectuals and even Duara. Instead,

Wenzhou locals took advantage of these “ruptures” to reconfigure their daily lives and implement their version of modernization. What this long process does show is that modernization is not done to the people, it was done within them.” 14 Moreover, the dynamic process of engagement and reconciliation between the modern Chinese state and

Wenzhou locals, in some sense, is itself the greatest success of the “Chinese modernity.”

13 Here the concept of “terror” is from the French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard (1924-1998). Based on his work about France’s occupation of Algeria, Lyotard introduced a notion of ‘terror’ that he develops more fully in his later works, indicating the suppression of Algerian culture by the imposition of foreign (French) cultural forms. As he developed this idea later in his influential The Postmodern Condition , he evaluates so-called modern history: “The nineteenth and twentieth centuries have given us as much terror as we can take. We have paid a high enough price for the nostalgia of the whole and the one, for the reconciliation of the concept and the sensible, of the transparent and the communicable experience. Under the general demand for slackening and for appeasement, we can hear the mutterings of the desire for a return of terror, for the realization of the fantasy to seize reality. The answer is: Let us wage a war on totality; let us be witnesses to the unpresentable; let us activate the differences and save the honor of the name.” See: Jean-Francois Lyotard, “ The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge , trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), 81-82.

14 I borrow this idea from the successful use in the study of European local history, in particular their discussion about the impact of Reformation to British rural society. See: Tim Harris ed., The Politic of the excluded, c. 1500-1850 (New York: Palgrave, 2003) and especially his student Shagan’s (2003) book. See: Ethan Shagan , Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

301 Bibliography:

This Bibliography is divided into two sections: Primary sources in Chinese and Secondary and Western Language Sources. Primary Sources in Chinese is further subdivided into Archives, Gazetteers, Inscriptions, and Other Primary Sources in Chinese and Japanese. Location is indicated for rare works only.

Gazetteers

Chen Yongqing 陳永清 ed., Qianlong Ruian Xianzhi 乾隆瑞安縣志 (1749 Ruian gazetteer). Shanghai: Shanghai Shudian, 1993 reprint. Hou Yiyuan 侯一元 ed., Longqing Yueqing xianzhi 隆慶樂清縣志 (1572 Yueqing gazetteer), reprint in 1918

Huang Zhengyi 黃徵義 ed., Jiaqing Ruian xianzhi 嘉慶瑞安縣志. (1808 Ruian gazetteer)

Blockprint available in Harvard Yeching library Lei Xi 雷 铣 ed., Guangxu Qingtien Xianzhi (1876 Qingtien gazetteer). Shanghai: Shanghai Shudian, 1993 reprint. Li Wan 李琬 ed., Qianlong Wenzhou Fuzhi 乾隆溫州府志 (1752 Wenzhou gazetteer). Shanghai: Shanghai Shudian, 1993 reprint. Li Dengyun 李登雲, Qian Baorong 錢寶鎔 ed., Guangxu Yueqing xian zhi 光緒樂清縣 志 (1901 Yueqing local Gazetteer), (Shanghai: Shanghai shu dian, 1993 reprint) Liu Shaokuan 劉紹寬 ed., Minguo Pingyang xianzhi 民國平陽縣志 (1926 Pingyang

Gazetteers ). Beijing Shi : Beijing tushu guan chu ban she, 2003. Luo Wensheng 駱文盛 ed., Yongle Yueqing Xianzhi 永樂樂清縣志 (1418 Yueqing Gazetteers). Shanghai: Shanghai guji shu dian, 1981 reprint. Ma Shengyong 馬升永 ed., Yueqing Xianzhi 樂清縣志 (2000 Yueqing Gazetteer). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2000. Minguo Ruian xianzhi gao 民國瑞安縣志稿 (Draft of 1936 Ruian gazetteer) available in Wenzhou city library. Qian Shuoyiu 潛說友 and Wang Yuansun 汪遠孫 (1794-1836) ed., Xianchun Lin’an zhi: 100 juan 咸 淳 臨 安 志 (The Xianchun Lin’an Gazetteer, 1265-1274). Taipei: Chengwen chuban she, 1970 reprint.

302 Song Weiyuan 宋維遠 ed., Ruian Shizhi 瑞安市志 (2003 Ruian Gazetteers). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2003. Tang Yijun 湯一鈞 ed., Xincheng Zhenzhi 莘塍鎮志 (1998 Xincheng local gazetteer), (Hefei: Huangshan shushe, 1998) Wang Guotai 王 國 泰 ed., Kangxi Yongjia xianzhi 康 熙 永 嘉 縣 志 (1682 Yongjia gazetteer). Shanghai: Shanghai Shudian, 1993 reprint. Wang Zan 王瓉 and Cai Fang 蔡芳 ed., Hu Zhusheng 胡珠生 complied. Hongzhi Wenzhou Fuzhi 弘治溫州府志 (1503 Wenzhou prefecture gazetteer). Shanghai: Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chubanshe, 2006 reprint. Xu Shunqi 徐順旗 ed., Yongjia Xianzhi 永嘉縣志 (2003 Yongjia gazetteer). Beijing: Fangzhi Chubanshe, 2003. Zhang Bolin 張寶琳 and Wang Fen 王棻 ed., Guangxu Yongjia xian zhi 光緒永嘉縣志 (1882 Yongjia local Gazetteer). Taipei: Chengwen chuban she, 1983 reprint. Zhang Huangfu 張皇輔 ed., Kangxi Qingtien Xianzhi 康熙青田縣志 (1686 Qingtien Gazetteer). Shanghai: Shanghai Shudian, 1993 reprint. Zhang Zhicheng 章志誠 ed., Wenzhou Shi zhi 溫州市志 (1998 Wenzhou Gazetteers). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1998. Zheng Liyu 鄭立于 ed., Pingyang Xianzhi 平陽縣志 (1993 Pingyang Gazetteers). Shanghai: Hanyu Dachidian chubanshe, 1993. Xiao Yunchun 蕭耘春 ed., Cangnan xianzhi 蒼南縣志 (1997Cangnan Gazetteers). Hangzhou: Zhejiang Renmin Chubanshe, 1997

Other Primary Sources in Chinese and Japanese

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303 Dai Pan. Dai Pan sizhong jilue 戴槃四種記略 (Four Journals of Dai Pan’s official career). Taipei: huawen shuji, 1868 first work, 1969 reprint in Taipei. Dongfang zazhi 東方雜誌 Fang Shao 方勺. Bozhai bian 泊宅篇.Beijing: Zhong hua shu ju: Xin hua shu dian Beijing faxing suo, 1983. Fang Yujin 方裕謹 ed. Xianfeng shiyi nian Zhejiang Pingyang Jinqian hui an 咸豐十一 年浙江平陽金錢會案 (The grand council Archrivals on 1861 Zhejiang Pingyang Jinqian hui case), in Li shi dang an 歷史檔案 (Historical Archival Quarterly), No.3 (Sep., 1993). Fang Zhigang 方志剛 trans. 溫州神拳會與天主教會 (The Wenzhou Magic Boxer Association and Catholic Church) in Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 溫州文史資料 Vol. 9 (March, 1994): 259-270. Fang Zhigang 方志剛 trans. “Wenzhou Jiashen Jiaoan qianhou 溫州甲申教案前後” (The Congregation of the Mission’s record on Jiashen jiaoan) in Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 溫州文史資料 vol. 9 (March, 1994): pp. 246-247. Fang Zhigang 方志剛 trans. “The record of Shi Hong-ao execution ( 施鴻鰲事件始末)” in Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 溫州文史資料 vol. 9 (March, 1994): 216-225. Fang Zhiming 范致明 (?-1119). Yueyang Fengtuji 岳陽風土記. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1991 reprint. Fang Zhongbao 方宗苞. “Yuecheng daoshentuan 樂成搗神團 (The Demolish deity group in 1928 Yueqing)”, in Yueqing wenshi ziliao 樂清文史資料 1 (June, 1984): pp. 116. Feng Jian 馮堅. “Tong Zhaorong yu Wenzhou 童兆蓉與溫州” in Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 9 溫州文史資料 9 (1994), pp. 112-115. First Archival Museum and Beijing Normal University Department of History. Xinhai Gemin qian shinan jian minbian dangan shiliao 辛亥革命前十年間民變檔案史料. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuchu, 1985. Gao, Jiankuo 高建國. “Jidu jiao zhuchu chuanru Wenzhou pianduan 基督教最初傳入溫 州片斷 (Brief History of Wenzhou Christianity)”. Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 溫州文史 資料 vol. 9 (March, 1994): 343-348. Guo Zhongyue (Qing) 郭鐘岳, Oujiang Xiaoji 甌江小記 (Ou river miscellaneous records). Available in Harvard Yeching Library Hong Bingwen 洪炳文(1848-1917). Shen Buzhen 沈不沈 ed. Hong Bing wen ji 洪炳文 集 (Collection of Hong Bingwen). Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chuban she, 2004. Hu Zhusheng ed. “ 李希程自定年譜及書札, The chorology of Li Xicheng and selection of his personal letter”. in Wenzhou wenshi ziliao 溫州文史資料 vol. 9 (March, 1994): 272-293. Hu Zhusheng 胡珠生 ed. Sun Qiangming ji 孫鏘鳴集 (selected work of Sun Qiangming). Shanghai: Shanghai Shehui kexue yuan chuban she, 2003. Hu Zhusheng 胡珠生. “Jiashen Wenzhou jiaoan shimo 甲申溫州教案始末 (The record of Jiashen Jiaoan)” in Lucheng wenshi ziliao 鹿城文史資料 vol. 11 (December, 1997): 18-24.

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