The Gentry,clans And Local Society In Wenzhou In The Middle And Late Ming Dynasty

Hou Yiyuan was a native of Yueqing,Wenzhou,a seventeen-year scholar of Jiajing,and an official envoy to Jiangxi.Although he has been an official abroad for more than 20 years,he has lived in the countryside for a short time,and hou Yiyuan actively participated in local affairs after his official duties and after Zhi Shi returned to his hometown.After the Ming Dynasty,the Hou clan frequently won meritorious names through economic accumulation and cultural accumulation,and the Hou clan frequently won meritorious names during the Jiajing and Wanli years,and there were four generations and four jinshi.During the Jiajing period,Hou Yiyuan and his father Hou Tingxun completed the organization of the clan through the revision of the family tree,the establishment of ancestral shrines and the establishment of strict clan covenants.Under the leadership of Hou Yiyuan,the Hou family established an extensive marriage network with the Keju and cultural clans of Yueqing and Wenzhou in the generation of Hou Yiyuan’s children.At the same time,it had contacts with the Wenzhou government and officials,participated in local city building,disaster relief,and anti-Japanese affairs,and played an important role in the local political and cultural rights network.In the fifth year of Longqing(1571),Hou Yiyuan was invited by Hu Yongbin of Yueqing Zhi County to study the Yueqing County Chronicle,and had a dispute with the Yueqing Zhao family because of the matter of Xiu Zhi.The dispute between Hou and Zhao was ostensibly over whether Zhao Zhilu should be included in the tradition,but in essence it was a struggle between the local clans for the right to compile county chronicles.Hou Yiyuan chose materials that were conducive to highlighting his clan status,so that Hou’s articles and deeds could be passed on to future generations along with the county chronicle.However,in his later years,Hou Yiyuan still encountered many setbacks in the handling of events in local society.The incident of Che Shan’s servant monument shows that in the process of expanding and infiltrating the local political and cultural rights network,the servant gentry will also encounter a backlash,and its impact will be limited.Focusing on Hou Yiyuan’s activities,this paper explores the power relations and social changes of wenzhou local society in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.