Research On The Problem Of Disputartiousness In South Of Yangtze River In Qing Dynasty

The South of Yangtze River was one of the regions where the social economy develops most vigorously in the whole country in Qing Dynasty. The commodity circulations accelerated and various commodity exchanges frequently happened on the base of the development of agriculture and handicraft. The commodity economy had become prosperous. With the development of social economy and growing of population, the civil disputes for the economic interests increased. The local civil litigation cases were numerous and complicated. They were mainly civil disputes and minor criminal cases, such as marriage, fields and debts or fighting and stealing. The complex lawsuits and disputes formed the tendency of"disputartiousness", reduced the morality of"harmony"and"no disputes", aggregated the corruption and degeneration of officials, impacted the regular social order, intensified the social contradictions and caused the serious social problems.The tendency of"disputartiousness"had a long history in South of Yangtze River and became roaring in Ming and Qing Dynasties. It derives from objective elements of the social economy and culture and subjective factors of aggregative characters. It caused by the simplification of lawsuit procedure and also the litigation masters'personal element. The rulers had carried out various measures to restrict the increase of litigations and the local district magistrates tried their best to quiet down the disputes. The local elites positively helped the government and played an important role in it.The dissertation aims to deepen the understanding of social development in South of Yangtze River and the thought of frequent litigations in the modern society from the point of history by the analyzing the social tendency of disputartiousness, the types and characters of civil dispute cases, the social crises of disputes and different measurements adapt by governors.