The Belief Of Longsha Prophecy In The Late Ming Dynasty And The Regional Governance Of Jiangxi

"Longsha prophecy" is a folksy tale derived from the belief of xu'xun which rooted in Jiangxi local society.According to this prophecy,when xu'xun has been gone for at least 1240 years,there will be 800 celesitals who come from Wuling could re-enact his immotal myth,and a sandbar which regenerate at the opposite of Longsha will be the singnal of this situation.As far as the prophecy itself is concerned,at the latest to the Southern Song Dynasty,the prototype of this prophecy has been already formed.As the result of the processing in the next generation by the leaders of Jingming Daoism,a sect that also originated in this province,this prophecy eventually became completed in Yuan Dynasty,which means the addition of time restriction and other elements.After that,during the late Ming,Longsha prophecy was widely spread in the Jiangxi local society where the center was Nanchang,and flourished for a pretty long time.Under the influence of that trend,the selection method and the roster of the immortals in Longsha prophecy,was widely be perceived as the most attractive part in this era.Owing to the selection implications,and the confueianization of xu'xun's as a religious idol,with the influence of the tendency of the combination of three religions in this time,the local gentry has took the initiative to became one of the vital contributors who not only accepted it,but also disseminated it and expected the prophecy came true.But in terms of the dominant power or the leaders of this event,the status of Jingming Daoism has been supplanted by local governors.Thanks to the high popularity of this prophecy,the new manipulator did not use violence to curb or even forbid the spread of it.In contrast,they were willing to try to embraced it,and make it as a supplement to social control by emphasized the positive requirements in its connotation.When it comes to the results of this approach,there were two kinds of feedback has been received.On the one hand,the elite culture dominated the apparent process of the“remove deification" in the Longsha prophecy,which makes its external expression form and the inner belief system all belong to the values which accepted by Confucianism.On the other hand,it was the concealed process of the"deification" in the regional society,which is the companion of the mysticism in the mass culture.This not only included the practice of spiritual mysticism,but also included the substitution and replacement of xu'xun,the core character of this prophecy.To conclude,what this kind of development structure reflects is the game that participates in both sides of regional governance,and the key to these two different outcomes may rooted in the fact that traditional Chinese spiritual world,especially beliefs,is hierarchical.