Wang Family And Social Changes In Suzhou Since Ming And Qing Dynasties

This article focused on the Wang’s clan in Suzhou. Though combing its lineageorigins, and studying the development of lineages since the Ming and Qing Dynasties,we try to connect the lineage with the local society of Suzhou area, and examine therelationships between the country and lineage, the lineage and social control of grass-roots unit, the lineage and social change. If we can clarify these relationships, thatmeans much to know the Chinese traditional society and her modernization.The Wang’s clan is the largest surname in Huizhou,who had grown a lot sinceTang Dynasties.They endowmented the traditional of Huishang went out and migratfor business,Suzhou was their most important migratory dicection.Since the late Mingand early Qing Dynasty, Wang’s clan started to migrate from Huizhou to Suzhou andsettle in Suzhou one after another for business.“Wang clan of Shi Tangqiao”,“Wangclan of Wuqufang”,“Wang clan of Qiantang”,“Wang clan of Loumen”,“Wangclan of Shan Tang”,“Wang clan of Panmen Mei Jiaqiao”, and “Wang clan ofDonghua Qiaoxiang” could be considered as the typical representatives, whoinvolved in all walks of life and played a decisive role in all fields in Suzhou. Aftermany years of development, in business, Wang’s clan has become a strong andpowerful team in Suzhou.While achieved the success in business, they started to establish the clanorganization, build the ancestral hall, compile genealogy and set Yizhuang. At thesame time, without hesitating money, they cultivated talents to participate in theimperial examination. By the joint efforts of several generations, each branch ofWang’s clan achieved great success in the imperial examination and gained a goodcombination between the Merchants and Confucianism. Most of those Wang’sscholars exhibited their great talent in writing. There were sprouting out a largenumber of prominent representatives, such as " Four Wang in Suzhou ","PanxiTalent"," Two Wang of Lou Men Wang’s clan"," the Top one among WengTonghe’ssix disciples ","One of the Three Great Proser of the Qing Dynasty", and "One ofZhang Tai yan’s four disciples". There are other scholars who conducted deepresearches on calligraphy, poetry, calligraphy and painting, collection and so on,which not only enhanced cultural literacy of Wang’s clan as a whole but alsoaccumulated and formed the family tradition of "Shang Wen Chong Confucianism" inorder to improve the social status of Wang clan.For a clan from outside, it could be a long and painful process to really integrateinto the local society and gain the recognition, which usually went through a long andarduous process, as well as was subjected to various social pressures. Given this, onthe one hand, Wang’s clan took advantage of the marriage circle to active cling localdistinguished families in Suzhou, in order to rapid completion of the immigrantnativalization. On the other hand, via expanding its circle of friends, it establishedgreat social network in order to maintain and improve its influence. From the actualeffect, Suzhou Wang’s clan embraced the success through the joint efforts of severalgenerations, and gradually became a distinguished family in Suzhou.However, the cyclical social unrest also had great influence on the developmentof the clan organization in traditional society. The Taiping rebellion was undoubtedlya great blow for Wang’s family in Suzhou while the clan organization showed strongadaptability as an important part of the traditional social organism, which could make adaptive adjustment to meet changes of social environment. Soon after the war, theysuccessfully reconstructed the clan organization and restored their business graduallyand recurred the clan’s vigor. With the coming of foreign power, the businessmenamong Wang’s clan struggled to make the switch from the tradition to the modern.Although suffered from a huge blow by war of the Taiping, Wang’s clan, especiallythose Bourgeois with fame actively participated in the war against Taiping army,instead of just passively waiting, who made great effort and helped Qing governmentachieve the success of the war. And more importantly, they shouldered importanthistoric mission of the post-war reconstruction of the social order and played animportant role on power and leadership identity in local society. They alsoparticipated actively in local self-government in the late Qing Dynasty, for example,active involvement in Suzhou Institute of local self-government, Suzhou’s publiccommunes, social welfare of Suzhou and other political movements. It is particularlyworth mentioning that Wang Mingluan of Qian Tang Yu Su, and Wang Fengying,Wang Rongbao and Wang Wang Dongbao of Lou door, exerted profound influence onthe political situation in the late Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic.Even though the traditional lineage was under constant onslaught of externalfactors, they continued to reinvent themselves with great adaptability as well asflexibility, and then gradually achieved transformation from tradition tomodernization with taking modern factors into consideration. In fact, this kind oftransformation of Wang clan in Suzhou occurred shortly after the Taiping rebellion.With the going-on social change, the modernization’s trend of Wang clan was moreobvious during the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic period. For one thing, theWang’s merchants carried out a modern transition from the association and hall to thechamber of Commerce. However, a clan’s regression arose before the China’s waragainst Japan. In terms of its commercial operation, Wang’s clan cooperated withforeign business capital, where appeared a trend of the comprador, and tried to investin new industries Therefore, the traditional financial industry’s evolution to modernbanking was underway by Wang’s clan. Although they consciously tried to strideforward to modernization, they still fell into a dilemma due to this new emerging classevolved from traditional merchants who bore heavy burdens, and faced thecontradictions between the old and the new with a difficult growth, and were unableto get rid of their own limitations. For another, owing to the abolition of the imperialexamination system in the late Qing Dynasty, the gentry among Wang’s clan gainedtheir own transformation, some of who became new-style merchants, some of whobecame local transactors of the New Deal by learning new knowledge, part of whogrew into freelancers such as newspapermen. The last part of them became modernintellectuals and many of them engaged in the field of education, which could be ahighlight in Wang’s clan development between late Qing Dynasty to Republic ofChina in Suzhou. Obvious examples include Wang Dezhang, Wang Fengying, WangJiayu, and Wang Maozu. It is just the transformation to education, which creates alarge number of New China’s academicians, engineers, professors and scholars underthe new education regime.