From Turncoat Officials To Prominent Family-A Historical Study Of "Liunanzhai" In Yishui(Since The Late Ming Dynasties)

"Liunanzhai" is a "culture symbol" formed in the local society of Yishui since the Ming and Qing Dynasties.Originally,it only had the meaning of "building space",specifically referring to "Bagua House"-the mansion of the Liu family,a local prominent family.With the family development and the continuous expansion of social prestige,"Liunanzhai" gradually became a code of the Liu family,a prominent family in Yishui.Throughout the history of the Liu family,from the late Ming Dynasty to the late Qing Dynasty,"Liunanzhai" has gone through the identity conversion of"immigrants","merchants","scholars","turncoat officials" and "prominent family",among which,"turncoat officials" and "prominent family" are the most typical identity characteristics of "Liunanzhai" since the Qing Dynasty.Affected by such factors as family migration,political turbulence,change of imperial power,public opinion shifting and social mobility,"Liunanzhai" did not advance smoothly in the process of evolving into a "prominent family",and had been always perplexed by"identity".Especially during the dynastic transition from Ming to Qing,the identity conversion of Liu Yingbin,fourth-generation member of the Liu family,from an"official of the Ming Dynasty" to an "official of the Qing Dynasty",produced the most profound impact.Through the conversion of political identity,Liu Yingbin,an important member of "Liunanzhai",ensured his family survival and continuity in troubled times,but paid a heavy price-serving two dynasties.Such a particular experience had become an unchangeable historical fact,and brought trouble to the subsequent development of his family.In a sense,under the shadow of the national mainstream ideology,the descendants of "turncoat officials" had been faced with heavy public opinion pressure.Therefore,in addition to adopting general survival strategies like devoting themselves to imperial examinations and doing charity work,the elites of the Liu family continued to make identity adjustments and conduct image construction so as to ease the tense social relation.The Liu family members were not natives.Due to immigration status,their ancestors suffered from local discrimination.Although Liu Zhiren,second-generation member of the Liu family,acquired wealth by engaging in trade,he was still regarded as an outsider by the natives,and failed to obtain identity from the local society.In the social context of frequent interactions between scholars and merchants in the late Ming Dynasty,to improve their social status,Liu Zhiren and his son Liu Li encouraged their offspring to devote themselves to imperial examinations so as to achieve the identity conversion from merchants to scholars.After Liu Yingbin,fourth-generation member of the Liu family,succeeded in the imperial examination and entered the official career,the Liu family ascended amongst the official circles.With the change of the family identity and the rise of social status,the Liu family began to carry out cultural activities,e.g.,worshiping Buddha,making donations,building a study,uniting with distinguished families by marriage,and inviting famous personages to write epitaphs,which allowed the family to gradually rise to fame,and laid a foundation for its way to a prominent family in the Qing Dynasty.Meanwhile,in the political turmoil of continuous party conflicts and corruption during the late Ming Dynasty,the Liu family suffered political risks and challenges:Liu Yingbin,an official of the Department of Selection of the Ministry of Personnel,had frequent conflicts with eunuchs and influential officials on selection of officials,and received harsh criticism,becoming a "greedy official" in the view of historians of the Southern Ming Dynasty.During the dynastic transition from Ming to Qing,the Chinese society had dramatic changes in the aspects of politics,economy,thoughts and culture.At different stages in different areas,the political thoughts and practice of scholar-officials often showed different status.The career choice became a difficulty to be faced by scholar-officials.Under the influence of "Yangming’s philosophy","Taizhou School","Li Zhi’s heresy",as well as Buddhism and Taoism since the late Ming Dynasty,Liu Yingbin did not "die for the country",but obeyed the trend of the times to keep his nose clean,showing a cooperative attitude towards the ruler of the Qing Dynasty.It is not only due to the practical needs of surviving and restoring social order,but also closely associated with Liu Yingbin’s career setbacks and fatalism.In the second to third year of the Shunzhi Period,Liu Yingbin served as Governor of Anhui.After taking office,Liu Yingbin took some effective measures politically,including giving explicit instructions to the civilians of Anhui,disbanding the militia and abolishing miscellaneous levies,and coordinated troops militarily to pacify "local bandits","lake robbers" and the anti-Qing movement carried out by the residual regime of the Ming Dynasty,thereby making a huge contribution for the Qing army to pacify the rebels of Anhui Province.Liu Yingbin made political achievements in the period of pacifying the rebels of Anhui,but the ruler of the Qing Dynasty still had doubts about him.It is related to the policy on treating Han intellectuals implemented by the regime of the early Qing Dynasty.On the one hand,the Qing government attached great importance to the role of the Han intellectuals in seizing power,and continued to absorb the Han intellectuals into the new regime;on the other hand,the Qing government did not have enough trust in the Han intellectuals serving as provincial governors.With the improvement of the military situation,the Qing government appointed a lot of Han people in the Manchu army to be local governors in place of the Han scholars.In this context,tied down by such incidents as "his second son Liu Gong resisting the Qing Dynasty" and "abuse of official documents to military officers",Liu Yingbin was dismissed from office by the Qing government,and had to immigrate to Huaiyang,facing the problems of "being belong to neither the Ming Dynasty nor the Qing Dynasty" and "identity crisis".In the early Qing Dynasty,the public opinion against "turncoat officials" was loose.In the period of living in Yangzhou,Liu Yingbin established an extensive network of friends by carrying out cultural activities like reciting poems,composing verses to praise objects and recall the past,and visiting cultural sites with the local officials,the officials of the Ming Dynasty who capitulated to the Qing Dynasty,the adherents of the Ming Dynasty,hermits and various scholars to relieve his identity crisis to some extent.Based on the double pressure from outside and himself,Liu Yingbin conducted a series of self-image construction activities,including publishing Collected Poems of Pingshantang,writing a memoir titled Pacification Events in Jiangnan and the autobiographical notes titled Notes of Meeting Immortals,and creating the Spring Festival ceremony of "kowtowing facing the south".Liu Yingbin constructed such historical images as the "Scholar during the Dynastic Transition from Ming to Qing",the "Official Loyal to the Country" and the "Supernatural Image" by means of the above cultural practices,foreshadowing the moralization and clan construction of the later generations,as well as the development into a local prominent family.With the increasing stabilization of the ruling of the Qing Dynasty,"loyalty and filial piety" advocated by Neo-Confucianism gradually became the national mainstream ideology.Especially after Emperor Qianlong ordered some scholars to compile Biographies of Turncoat Officials,the public opinion against "turncoat officials" became harsh.In such a case,the trouble caused by the "turncoat official"experience was prominent,becoming a difficulty unable to bypass in the development process of the Liu family.Affected by the traditional concept of "loyalty and filial piety","Liunanzhai" had to face the double public opinion pressure from the nation and the society.Thus,compared with ordinary scholar-official families in the same period,"Liunanzhai" has much more difficulty in exploring the way to a prominent family.To achieve family prosperity,the elites of the Liu family adhered to the tradition of literati culture,and made unremitting efforts inside and outside the family.Guided by the traditional literati thought-"cherishing one’s nobleness as a nobody,striving for the society’s righteousness as a somebody",some elites of the Liu family served as officials,and showed diligence in politics and people’s livelihood;the others were unwilling to enter the official career,and chose to benefit their hometown.They both won a good reputation for "Liunanzhai" in the local region.As a decisive local force in Yishui County,on the one hand,the elites of the Liu family widely participated in local public affairs concerning compiling county annals,advocating academy construction,making donations to help disaster victims,giving alms to weak and poor people and defending the local region;on the other hand,the Liu family continued their cultural tradition of uniting with distinguished families by marriage to further expand and consolidate the local power network of the Liu family.Through the above effort,"Liunanzhai" received certain recognition at the state level and the local society level,which laid a solid foundation for the Liu family to be a prominent family.In addition,the elites of the Liu family were well aware of the negative impact of their special historical experience of being "turncoat officials" during the dynastic transition,so they carried out corresponding image construction and identity adjustment activities within their family.In compiling the family pedigree,the elites of the Liu family cleverly remolded,reproduced and reconstructed "historical information" by means of "deity creation","memory loss" and "celebrity effect" to form favorable "historical memories" to the development of the Liu family:They incorporated the mythological stories in the early history of their ancestors into their family pedigree,formed their "family myths",and created a "supernatural" image focusing on some ancestors of the Liu family,including Liu Zhiren,Liu Yingbin and Liu Wei,who appeared forbidding;in daily folk practices,they created a mysterious,benevolent and omnipotent social image through such "folk practices" and "folk symbols" as "Bagua House","Baoshantang" and "Plain yet Large-scale Funerals";in the process of compiling the Local Annals of Yishui,the elites of the Liu family gave full play to the social influence of a big clan,and incorporated the imperial examination achievements of the Liu family and their ancestors’ glorious deeds into the local annals,making them part of the county-wide public history.Through the above activities,"Liunanzhai" was shrouded in mystery.As a result,the local civilians were awe-struck by it."Liunanzhai" became a cultural and political center outside the local county government.As "Liunanzhai" had an unparalleled voice and control over the local area,the social myth of "Chunyang Painting" was gradually derived when"family myths" spread to the folk society.Thus,"Liunanzhai" became more mysterious,eliminating and reducing the negative impact of the "special history" to some extent.Through a series of culture symbols and image construction activities,the Liu family alleviated its tense relations with the nation and the society under the mainstream ideology,established and consolidated the political and cultural authority of "Liunanzhai" in the local area,and became a prominent family famous for imperial examinations in Yishui County.Through the above effort,"Liunanzhai" overcame the discourse predicament of"turncoat officials" to some extent,and finally developed into a prominent family,but historical burden brought by the identity tag of "turncoat officials" still existed.On the one hand,the experience of Liu Yingbin serving both the Ming and Qing Dynasties has become not only an unchangeable historical fact,but also an indelible historical memory,with legends,official writings and folk unofficial history as carriers.On the other hand,as a social individual,"Liunanzhai" was unable to resist against the national mainstream ideology,and had to passively adapt itself to it and make active adjustments.Under the national mainstream ideology of the Qing Dynasty and the modern nationalism,the identity of "turncoat officials" has become a social topic to question and criticize the Liu family.The history and culture of "Liunanzhai",as a focus of public concern and local authority,had been a "culture symbol" for cultural construction and historical memory of the local society.In the process of political evolution and changes of social ideas,"Liunanzhai" did not advance smoothly,and was faced with severe challenges.The tax system integrating poll tax into land tax implemented during the reign of Emperor Yongzheng affected the interests of the elite class,and caused the conflict between the state and the local force to be prominent;the Biographies of Turncoat Officials compiled during the reign of Emperor Qianlong caused the public opinion against the officials who served the Ming Dynasty before capitulating to the Qing Dynasty to be harsh;with the increasing opportunities for the lower class to be promoted upward,as cultural and social mediators,old imperial examination elites were faced with the challenge against their status launched by the newcomers;under the influence of the"Han Nationalism" advocated by the radicals of the bourgeoisie in the late Qing Dynasty and the "Proletarian Revolutionary Thought" proposed by the Communist Party of China,the gentry class was deemed as the leftover evils of feudalism and the targets of the revolution.All these produced a huge negative impact on "Liunanzhai".In the changes of the above political systems and social thoughts,due to the value disorder resulting from the transfer of the dominion and the interpretation right,the history and images of "Liunanzhai" became contents of "expression of feelings" and"memory construction" for the local civilians,and formed such social legends as"’Liunanzhai’ and Qingzhou Qicheng(Manchu City)","Pu Songling Serving as a Teacher in ’Liunanzhai’","General Li Wu","Geomantic Omens of ’Liunanzhai’",as well as "Liu Guanxiang’s Night Visit to ’Liunanzhai’".These legends express the local civilians’ sarcasm,doubts and challenges on "Liunanzhai" based on some social ideas,and culturally reflect the popular thoughts and value orientation in that historical context.The local civilians expressed their emotions and opinions in the respects of social trends,value orientation and life pursuits by means of a series of folk literary fabrication.