Tseng Chu And Shanghai Society In The Late Qing Dynasty

After the Opium War,a large number of immigrants crammed into Shanghai with the dislocation of Chinese traditional four-class society.Social structure has changed.At the end of the 19th century,merchants and gentry mixed and penetrated to form a social elite group with multiple identities.Tseng Chu was one of them.After the opening of Shanghai,Tseng Chu moved with his paternal generation from Fujian to Shanghai and then engaged in trade.With the multiple influences of hometown relationships,occupation relationships,geographical relationships and marriage relationships,the Tseng family finally integrated into Shanghai society in the late Qing dynasty.Under the guidance of the traditional views of benevolence,virtue and fame,Tseng Chu actively paid attention to social responsibilities in addition to his family responsibilities.He not only focused on lowering rice price,participated in disaster relief,and established coffin home,but also took part in charitable relief many times and participated in many social organizations.During the new policy in the late Qing dynasty,he joined the shanghai chamber of commerce and made his own contributions in new-style education and industry.In the practice of participating in Shanghai’s local public welfare for many years,Tseng Chu has become a member of the social network with hometown and occupation connections,and has accumulated social capital.His ability and sense of responsibility for caring about social welfare have improved,and his political participation has become more active.At the same time,he also expanded the scope to participate in local affairs.He actively participated in Sino-Foreign negotiations,and he was also very active in education and other fields related to local autonomy.He turned his attention from Shanghai to the whole country and even the world.In the process of participating in local affairs,he realized the upward mobility of classes and completed the acquisition and integration of multiple identities.At the beginning of the 20th century,under the interaction of internal and external troubles,the crisis of national governance was increasingly severe,the capacity of national governance was declining,political thoughts such as reforms and revolutions were numerous,and the society was surging.Shanghai merchants,represented by Tseng Chu,expanded the public domain to the country by caring about local public welfare.As an independent political force,they stepped onto the stage of history and played an important role in the transformation of the modern country in China.