Life History Of Jiading Gentry Hou Qiceng In The Period Of Ming-Qing Transition

The Anti-Qing Rebellion in Jiangnan during the period of Ming-Qing transition and the group of literaties participating in the resistance have always attracted much attention.However,under the influence of nationalistic way of thinking,the literati in late Ming era represented by "loyalists" are still seriously modeled in the current study,which caused the lost of the uniqueness and richness of their individual lives,affecting our in-depth understanding of the history of Ming-Qing transition.In view of this,this article introduces the ideas of history of everyday life,using the diary of Hou Qiceng as a famous gentry in Jiading as the basic historical data,to show his life in the days shortly after Qing Dynasty built its rule in Jiangnan as far as possible,including his life perception,leisure activities,diseases and medical treatment,social interactions and political activities,etc.,to observe the combination of political,economic,social,cultural,ideological and other factors with daily life,and observe from the perspective of life that why he was involved in the Anti-Qing Rebellion in the form of hiding Chen Zilong who was a famous scholar in the fourth years of Shunzhi.Hou Qiceng’s family suffered a home-breaking disaster for participating in the Anti-Qing Rebellion in Jiading in the second year of Shunzhi,which led to a great change in Hou’s life.Besides,the trauma consciousness and crisis mentality became the main content of his life perception.Under the influence of this mentality,Hou focused on maintaining his self-identity as a "Confucian scholar” and " adherent of Ming Dynasty ",and thus devoted himself to poetry and believed that his own malaria was mainly caused by external pressure.Hou still held his loyalty to the Ming Dynasty while under the rule of Qing Dynasty,but he did not have the desire to participate the Anti-Qing Rebellion,because of his strong will to protect his family.He also showed his opposing attitude towards his relatives and friends who wished to join the rebellion.However,the officials of the Qing Dynasty intended to punish Hou’s family through confiscating his properties and levying his lands.Therefore,Hou’s desire to revenge,trauma consciousness,and crisis mentality were continuously strengthened,his physical condition was deteriorating,and his spirit was also on the edge of collapse,which were the possible reasons that Hou hid Chen Zilong in emergency as irrational choice.This ostensibly was a choice based on political attitudes.In fact,it was more obvious in relation to the state of life.The conclusions of this article indicates that the research of history of Ming-Qing transition should focus on individual lives,delving into the realm of everyday lives of individuals,paying attention to the impact of political turmoil and social changes on individuals and their cognition of Ming-Qing transition as a historical process,which would be helpful for our deep comprehension about this complex period of time.Secondly,using the idea of history of everyday life in the study of the gentry in late Ming era is helpful to integrate existing works in the fields of political history,socio-economic history,cultural history,and intellectual history,and to restore the life image of the gentry in late Ming era.Finally,the study of history of everyday life should boldly transcend the boundary between the concepts of “daily” and “non-daily”,transforming political,economic,social,ideological,cultural and other factors into the content of human lives,and then applying its own ideas to understand these human activities as “non-daily” factors,promoting the convergence of micro-history and macro-history,and strengthening the integration within the history discipline.