Cultural Ecology Of The Formation Of An Important Town Of Human Culture

Three important cultural towns were formed in the cultural development of Hubei Province:Jingzhou in The Spring and Autumn Period and The Warring States Period;Xiangyang in the Eastern Han and Three Kingdoms; Huangzhou in the Ming Dynasty. Huangzhou Prefecture in Hubei Province in the Ming Dynasty ranked first in its population, the number of chinshih(jinshi), the number of ancient academies of classical learning and the number of the authors who made contributions to the Hubei Literary Records and its Addendum, etc.. With its highly-developed education and culture, Hunagzhou has seen talents and masters in large numbers."The Four Great Classical Novels" were associated with the eastern region of Hubei Province; Academic thoughts were the most advanced at that time; The Compendium of Materia Medica by Li Shizhen and the astonishing speech made in Huang’an and Macheng by Li Zhi, were the "Gemini" in science, technology and humanity and therefore Huangzhou Prefecture became the important Town of Humanity. In some way, the cultural prosperity was based on the flourishing culture of the counties, especially Macheng in the north, Qizhou in the south, and Huanggang in the middle. In the Ming Dynasty, in the eastern region of the Hubei Province, three major cultural circles were established:Huang’an-Macheng in the north, Huanggang-Qishui in the middle and Qichun-Huangmei-Guangji in the south; In the eastern region of the Hubei Province, four cultural centers were formed:the center of the Imperial Examinations, the center of advanced philosophy, the center of developed literature and the center of medicine. The formation of the humane atmosphere was determined by its geopolitics, historical precipitation, economic development, education, ethos of giving lectures after forming an academic association and some other factors. The regional culture in Huangzhou experienced rise, development, prosperity and extinction(regeneration). The culture of Huangzhou Prefecture in the Ming Dynasty was in its prime as the traditional culture and had shown a great vitality. Although the culture of Huangzhou Prefecture in the Qing Dynasty was in the leading position, it had become rigid; while the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China were the times when the Eastern Culture and the Western Culture agitated each other and traditional culture was transformed into modern culture. Although Huangzhou Prefecture was not the center in Hubei Province, it became an important Town of Humanity in the Ming Dynasty, which has a great significance to both the research of regional culture and present cultural development from the cultural and ecological study into the formation of the humanity atmosphere. This article consists of five chapters and focuses on the formation of the important Town of Humanity.The first chapter is the outline, mainly discussing the external conditions of how Huangzhou Prefecture became the important town of humanity in the Ming Dynasty. In politics, there were two obvious changes in Huangzhou Prefecture:Wuchang became the regional center of Hubei Province and Huangzhou Prefecture was adjacent to Wuchang, therefore changing the unfavorable situation which has existed for thousand years and obtaining advantages in region; Qizhou and Huangzhou were unified, and the situation formed in Qin and Han Dynasties was changed. The unified situation has contributed to the communication of the people at home, the interflow of goods and commodities and the interaction of cultures, improving the overall strength in the east of Hubei Province. Large population from Jiangxi Province immigrated into Hubei and Hunan Provinces, which not only provided lots of labor force for the economic development, but also optimized the population structure, improved the population quality and benefited the development of education and culture in Hubei Province, as Jiangxi Province was an area where culture was advanced.In the Ming Dynasty, agriculture transferred from Jiangsu&Zhejiang Provinces. A situation when Huguang had a Bumper crop, the country would be free from hunger. Food production was prosperous and the plains along the Yangtze River were among the areas where food production was prosperous. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Hankou(the river outlet of Han River) was very developed and five rivers in the east of Hubei Province were connected to Hankou by the Yangtze River, forming a river net similar to the highway system now and promoting the development of the export economy. The economy of the east of Hubei has seen a flourish and Huangzhou turned into a superior prefecture from an inferior one in a short time. Economy was the basis of the cultural prosperity.Chapter two explores why Huangzhou became the center of Imperial Examinations. This chapter takes Macheng as an example and probes into the cultural ecology of the popularity of imperial examinations. The number of scholars in Huangzhou Prefecture ranked first in Hubei Province and the number of scholars in Macheng was the highest among all the counties of Hubei Province, surpassing the number in Xiangyang and other prefectures, and therefore Macheng was a typical example. The popularity of imperial examinations in Macheng in the Ming Dynasty first benefited from the development of export economy and the accumulation of wealth and land of some Big Families. The advantage of economy couldn’t lead to the success of imperial examinations in a short time. The number of scholars in Macheng in late Ming Dynasty was far larger than in early Ming Dynasty and this indicated that it was a long time before the success of economy brought about the success of imperial examinations and during this period the key was education. Big families in Macheng established academies of classical learning and invited reputable masters to give lectures, improving the success rate of imperial examinations. The Spring and Autumn Annals by Feng Menglong and Suology by Li Zhi had much to do with the success of Imperial Examinations in particular.The third chapter studies how Huangzhou Prefecture became the center of advanced philosophy in late Ming Dynasty. There were three milestones in Neo-Confucianism of Song and Ming Dynasties, the highest categories of which were heavenly principles, intuitive knowledge and childlike innocence respectively and the philosophy whose highest category was childlike innocence was created by Li Zhi. It was the mountains and rivers and humanity in the east of Hubei Province that brought up Li Zhi. In the Ming Dynasty in the east of Hubei Province, leftish Wang Yangming doctrine sprang up and as Huang’an and Macheng were Academic Highlands, famous scholars came to the east of Hubei Province to give lectures early or late. After Li Zhi came here, one organization with cohesive force and centripetal force came into being and interacted with cultural centers as Beijing and Nanjing and communicated with famous scholars from around the country. Li Zhi’s academic debate with Geng Dingxiang was the key to the formation of his advanced philosophy.Chapter four talks about the reasons for the prosperity of poetic creation and the formation of prose style. This chapter first represented the general of poetic creation in the east of Hubei Province in the Ming Dynasty and then studies the poetry of women and female entertainers in the east of Hubei Province in folk vision as well as studies the poetry by the scholar officials in the east of Hubei Province in the Ming Dynasty by analyzing the text. In order to avoid mediocre and fragmentation brought about by case study and folk vision, in the study, the author not only highlighted the local literature but also stressed the regional characteristics and the interaction of the mainstream poetic world Gong’an School and Jingling School in mid&late Ming Dynasty. The prosperity of literary creation and the prose style were based upon the culture of the east of Hubei Province; associations&lectures and theory of preserving childlike innocence proposed by Li Zhi were the key factors in the popularity of Chu spirit in the east of Hubei Province.The fifth chapter explores why the Huangzhou Prefecture became the medical center of Hubei Province. Medical culture in Hubei has a long history and can date back to the primitive society, formed from Warring States Period and the Qin and Han Dynasties and developed in Sui, Tang, Song and Yuan Dynasties, forming two peaks in Jingzhou and Xiangyang in Han and Jin Dynasties and in the east of Hubei Province in Ming and Qing Dynasties respectively. This chapter surveys from the perspective of quantity by using bibliometric methods and finds out that both the number of medical figures and the number of medical works in Huangzhou Prefecture ranked first in Hubei Province. Among all the counties of Hubei Province, Qichun enjoyed the largest number of medical figures and the number was12, surpassing the number in Hanyang, Xiangyang, Yunyang, De’an Prefectures; Li Shizhen was one of the excellent medical figures. The number of medical works, which were all written by Wan Mizhai in Luotian, was the largest and reached29, exceeding the number of the medical works in Wuchang, Hanyang, Chengtian, Xiangyang, Yunyang, De’an and Jingzhou Prefectures. Li Shizhen and Wan Mizhai’s contributions to pharmacology and medicine were very important for the medicine in the east of Hubei Province. On the survey into the ecological culture for the formation of the medical center in the east of Hubei Province, this chapter explores the natural and social conditions on which Li Shizhen wrote Compendium of Materia Medica, with case study employed on Li Shizhen and his Compendium of Materia Medica.