The Construction Of Cultural Family In Late Qing Dynasty

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties,many local gentries established a scholarly cultural mechanism of inheritance in a family form,produced radiation influence,and formed an image of the so-called "cultural family" in the local area.In the late Qing Dynasty,with the rapid change of the social environment,it was difficult for gentry families to fully follow the long-term success model to seek family development.Therefore,according to the current situation and their own characteristics,some gentry families such as Ruian’s Sun family adjusted themselves to the new environment to get a quick rise and long lasting.The so-called Ruian’s Sun family began with Sun Yiyan and Sun Qiangming brothers’s success of the imperial examinations in the late Qing Dynasty.For lacking solid foundation in local area,Ruian’s Sun family relied only on the official status of the brothers to get rapid promotion of status,and reached its peak in the early days of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.When Sun Qiangming returned to Ruian as an official in Guangxi according to the purpose of the decree,he and his family wanted to join in competition for the central position of local power.Through the way of building fort,training local troops and collection and so on,Sun Yiyan brothers intended to follow the path of Zeng Guofan,to consolidate the dominant position of their family in the local area.But in this process,the contradictions between Sun and the other local powers intensified.After the outbreak of money events,the accumulated danger resultedin the local forces in the game of the local forces for the Sun brothers was finally exposed.In this crisis,not only the Sun brothers’ struggling to run the resulted in vain,but also Sun Qiang Ming’s career came to an end.After this hit,Sun Yiyan began to reflect on the building strategy of his family,and decided to give up the political as the center of plan with turing to guiding the construction of the family to the academic and cultural direction.Yongjia academic scholars which were influencial during the Southern Song Dynasty were generally considered a distant cultural memory in the late Qing dynasty.The Sun brothers found the vast space of it,they chose a famous scholar Sun Xidan who lived during the early Qing Dynasty as a combination point of geography,sholarship and blood.Then,the Sun family began to construct the relationship between Yongjia school and itself step by step in order to enrich the family culture.Despite in the context of scholarship construction,Sun made little creation,even more in order to obtain a wider recognition,Sun intended to mix the inheritance of literature and philosophy.By a large number of long-term literature collecting and finishing work for local literature,Sun Yiyan still gradually reinforced the rural authority of his family,and get on with"familization of local scholarship" process along the individual and family’s path.In order to meet the turning of family’s plan,the Ruian Sun family also constructed some family facilities.Through the construction of new houses and the revision of genealogy,the Sun family tried to fill its unsubstantial family history.To highlight the characteristics of the family as a cultural heritage,the Sun’s established its own family educational institutions-Yishan Cishu,and its own library-Yuhai building.During this period,the core idea of the family strategy is also reflected in the curriculum of Yishan Cishu and the rules of Yuhai building.The establishment of these family facilities and a certain degree of publicity is also consolidating Ruian Sun’s cultural family image.After Sun Yiyan’s death,his descendants made some amendments on the strategy of family development to cater to the new era.They plan to make their family back to the center of local political arena through cultural and educational work.With the passage of time,the Sun’s cultural family’s image has become more stable,but the Sun’s intervention in local affairs can not be compared with new generation of local gentry such as Xiang Song,Chen Fu Chen,Chen Qiu,Song Shu and so on.The new generation of local gentry who master the local cultural right to speak admitted and made full use of the historical status of Sun Yiyan,Sun Qiangming and Sun Yirang to reconcile the the game among local forces.At the same time,the Sun family itself who lost the right to interpret the members of them who passed away,has become a fresh historical memory and a"living monument."In the historical environment of late Qing Dynasty,the development of the gentry family faced an unprecedented test,but also a special opportunity created by special time.Though the Ruian Sun’s is a case,it can reflect how the gentry families solve the common problems.The different paths the gentry families chose would lead then to different paths of development.The acceptance process of "Cultural family"image which is accepted as a local historical and cultural monument is not lead by its shape,but by the late local gentry according to their need to make selective processing and use.