Literature Research To Merchant Biography Of The Corpus In The Mid-Ming Dynasty

The mid-Ming dynasty is a period of major changes in the Chinese history, and the commercial waves promoted by businessmen is one of the main reasons for this social change.Because the life attitude of seeking fame and gain of merchant and literati, there were a lot of social intercourse articles for merchants.for example biography, tombstone, birthday essays.Although there was the suspect of the "flattering epitaph" and "flattering stranger"in these trustee entertainment texts, it does not affect them as the most important literature of Ming Dynasty in merchant activities.Merchants biography has a higher value of literature than tombstone and birthday essays.So it has an important role to promote sociol-economic, ideological and cultural, literary and artistic research for the arrangement of the Ming Dynasty merchant biography documents.The view from the emergence and development of the businessman biography, it can be traced back to " Records of the Historian".Since then, the merchant biography in the official history tends to conceal, but it did not completely disappear;in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, there were a significant number of merchants biography in local history; businessman biography in corpus can be traced back to the Yuan Dynasty.Before the Ming dynasty the businessman biography were almost all for businessmen who have the feature of eminent hermit,whose character of accepting bribes and trustee entertainment is not obvious.They with the Song businessman epitaph together are as the source of the Ming Dynasty merchant biography.There were a large number of businessman biography for general merchant which appeared in the mid-Ming, because of the combination of the two aspects of businessman who for honorary and literati who for benefit.So the character of accepting bribes and trustee entertainment is very obvious in this type of biography.In addition, the mid-Ming businessman biography inherited the tradition of poetical justice,so the stage of development of mid-Ming businessman biography can be divided into three genres:businessmen biography which is for these who have the feature of eminent hermit, the cunning businessman biography and general merchants biography.The biographer of the mid-Ming is a total of50in"Complete Collection in Four Treasuries","Continuation of Complete Collection in Four Treasuries"and " the Cun Mu of Si ku quan shu". The native place of these writers can be divided into Jiangsu and Zhejiang area, Huizhou and other regions. In Jiangsu and Zhejiang area,the author of Jiangsu particularly accounted for the majority. Different writers have different group characteristics, such as most writers of Jiangsu and Zhejiang area who were powerful person, with the characteristics of diversity and complexity; writers of Huizhou region who were from the merchant family, not official status; authors of other areas who mostly were cultural celebrities and not easily make biography for businessmen. In the mid-Ming biographer create160biographies in all, most of biographees were merchants of Huizhou Province. This shows it was in line with the actual situation that the Huizhou merchants shared the same rotten tastes with Suzhou scholars.The industry of the biographee can be divided into the salt merchants, pawnbroker,timber merchant,and other industry businessman.Different industries businessmen have different level of the education and different extent of the charitable giving. The relation between the biographer and the biographee can be divided into six types, such as family relationship, mentoring relationship, friend relationship, countryman relationship, public relations, undiscovered relationship and unknown relationship. With the development of the mid-Ming businessman biography, non-relatives relationship gradually dominate such as countryman relationship, friend relationship, which reflects commercialization trends of the mid-Ming businessman biography are becoming evident.Businessman biography.merchants epitaph,merchant guilds and birthday essays have similarities because most of them are social intercourse articles.At the same time.they have obvious differences because of the different role of these stylistic. These types of writing both have Similarities and differences about biographers and biographees.In terms of content, businessman biography pay more attention to the narrative of biographees than businessman epitaph, but less to the posthumous biography.In terms of style, businessman biography focus on real, and it can do lively.Businessman posthumous biography is particular and comprehensive in content.Businessman epitaph is true but not necessarily elegant. There are large differences among three of them.Businessman biography focus the narrative of biographees fine line, and show a true and lively style.This point make the businessman Biography had a higher value than businessman epitaph and businessman posthumous biography in literary value and historical value.The businessman biographies between in corpus and local chronicles have close contact which both have similarities and differences.The difference make them have the possible that they have a mutual influence.Both of them aspire true in the Style, but businessman biography is more briefer in the local chronicles than which is in corpus.The latter pay attention to the details and language of the characters to mold characters image,thus it has a higher literary.The dominant ideas of businessman biography in the local chronicles is the Confucianism in terms of value orientation.In contrast, businessman biography in corpus truly reflect the inner world of a businessman. So the value of businessman biography in corpus is higher than which is in the local chronicles in studying the fields of the faith and real life of businessmen and so on.