The Musical Life Of Merchants Along The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal In The Ming And Qing Dynasties

The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal was first created in the 5th-3rd centuries BC,and since the Yuan Dynasty,when it was cut off and straightened,it has taken a north-south course,linking Zhuo County（Beijing）,the political centre in the north of China,with Yuhang（Hangzhou）,the economic centre in the south.Through maintenance and repair during the Ming and Qing dynasties,the Grand Canal became the artery of water transport in ancient China.The ease of transport facilitated the development of commerce along the canal,with merchants using the waterways to make their mark on the historical stage.The musical life of the merchants reflects the subjective need for waterways and music,revealing the music of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal as music of man-made waters.Descriptions of the musical lives of the passenger merchants along the canal are scattered piecemeal throughout historical sources such as Ming and Qing dynasty literati notes,novels and local history books.Considering the feasibility of the exposition,in order to restore as complete a picture as possible of the musical life of the merchants,we need to start from three aspects:the historical background of the formation of the merchant community,the musical participation of the merchants,and the musical space of the merchants.In terms of the historical context,we first consider the macro historical context of the ’diversion’ of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and the rise of commerce along the route,and then move on to detail the formation of the two merchant communities（Shan-Shan merchants and Huizhou merchants）in microcosm,pointing out the regional and musical characteristics of the two communities.In terms of musical participation,historical records related to the merchants’opera activities,opera consumption and patronage,and opera criticism are extracted,classified and reconstructed,with the intention of observing the differences in the musical behaviour of the merchants in different scenes,as well as the socio-cultural impact caused by their opera consumption and criticism.In terms of musical space,scenes were not only the physical space that hosted musical events,but also accomplished the production of social meaning in their interaction with music.The three types of guest music venues,differentiated by social function,provide the context for the musical participation of guest musicians and complete the description of their musical lives.Given ethnomusicology’s academic interest in exploring the meaning behind music,the description of the musical life of the merchants,consisting of these three aspects,is interpreted as a historical musical ethnography.The regional identity of the Shanxi merchants and the ’Confucian’ self-identity of the Huizhou merchants are clearly presented in their musical lives as the real meanings behind their musical behaviour.