A Legal History And Legal Anthropology Research On The Cases Of Religious Groups And Farmers Competing For Mountain Forest In Laoshan Area Since The Middle And Late Ming Dynasty

Laoshan Mountain is located in Tsingtao city,Shandong Province,which is the main mountain range of Shandong Peninsula.It stands on the coast of the Yellow Sea and is surrounded by the sea on three sides,that is,east,west and south.It is only connected to land in the north.The whole mountain area is about 446 square kilometers.In China,it is not only a famous Taoist holy place,but also a precious place for Buddhists to practice in history and even in today.In addition to the Taoists and Buddhists,there are also farmers and fishermen.In order to compete for living resources,there are numerous disputes over mountain forests and farmlands among the Taoists,the Buddhists,farmers and fishermen,which leads to lawsuits.The paper is intended to study these cases from the perspectives of legal history and legal anthropology,so as to explore the judicial practice of China during the Ming and Qing dynasties.To be more specific,the paper intends to examine two cases in detail.The first case takes place during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty and is centered on a dispute between Buddhism and Taoism over the real estate issue in the Haeinsa Temple of Laoshan Mountain.The dispute involves HanShan,a famous Buddhist master in the middle and late Ming Dynasty,a local Taoist elite named Geng Yilan,the Emperor Wanli,Wanli's mother the Empress Dowager Cisheng,the imperial concubines and the local officials in Shandong.It is a famous public case in the history of Buddhism and Taoism in China.The second case is in the late Qing Dynasty.The two parties involved are Taoists from Taiqing Palace of Laoshan Mountain and farmers nearby the Laoshan Mountain.They have a dispute over the right to use the mountain forests,which causes their fight with weapons.At last,the farmers occupied the Taiqing Palace and Taoists are driven away.The paper breaks through the traditional research paradigm of legal history which is based on documents.In addition to paying attention to the use of various documents,the anthropological method of field study is used in the paper.A large number of local Buddhists,Taoists,farmers and fishermen are interviewed.At the same time,the archaeological method of surveying cultural relic is also adopted in the paper.The author goes deep into the hinterland of Laoshan Mountain,climbs the coastal cliff,and conducts on-site exploration and searches for the evidence of cliff carving on forest property boundary left by Taoist groups in history.From the perspective of epistemology,the paper holds that the two historical cases not only own the value of legal history research(discussing civil legal disputes),but also state the nature of traditional Chinese society to the world.To some extent,through the two cases and the judicial process of handling them,some truth and rules of social operation in the era of traditional empire can be seen.Therefore,the two cases are a window for us to observe the ancient China.