The Country's Watchman

Zheng Guangzu was ordinary gentry in Jiangnan Delta during Qing dynasty. This thesis shows the lower gentry’s living world based on the study of Zheng’s family, life, dream and travel,.In Ming and Qing dynasties, the gentry were one of the most important forces in the society. However, the lower layer of gentry groups had few opportunities to go down to history than the upper layer. Ancients made moral values, great writing and meritorious service as " Three Immortality Rucker", so many gentries who knew himself having not moral values and contributions to the government because of the identity or chance had chosen writing, so as not to be submerged in the mighty torrent of history. Zheng Guangzu had been known for his notes "Yi Ban lu ", and we also have the opportunity to notice such ordinary and extraordinary lower gentry.Zheng Guangzu had been through a long period of time which was from the late period of Qianlong to the early period of Tongzhi in Qing Dynasty in his lifetime. The empire had sunk deeper and deeper into the mire because of the domestic trouble and foreign invasion after the Qing Dynasty, which turned it from prosperity to decline. However, the Zheng family in Dongzhang city, in the time of Zheng Guangzu, had been developing. Therefore, in the public and personal concerns, Zheng Guangzu must strive to maintain the collapsing social order and play an important role in the lower gentry. He was actively involved in disaster relief, water conservancy, maintaining public orders and local affairs, at the same time editing his genealogy, building the cemetery and managing family affairs, which were also common in other lower gentry’s family. Zheng Guangzu and his family was a mirror of lower gentry’s life in that time.Meanwhile, through the describes about Zheng Guangzu’s dream and travel notes, we can understand the world of the squire’s life in different aspects, and how he recognized the changes of the society.In Zheng Guangzu’s life world, he witnessed comic and tragic scenes about the people he socialized with---the officials, gentries, citizens and farmers, from whom we can get a glimpse of the Qing Empire from the end of the18th century to the mid-19th century.