Emperor Qianlong's Southern Inspection Tours:Its Influence On The Literature And Culture In Kiangnan

Emperor Qianlong's inspection tours in Kiangnan(the south of Yangtze River)are the most remarkable among all the tours by the emperors in the past dynasties,of which the high frequency,the large scale,the significant impact and the wide spread in the later ages are indeed unprecedented in the history of China.Through his lifetime,Emperor Qianlong had taken his tours of inspection in southern China for six times,which was viewed by himself as one of "the two major events" in his reign for half a century,as well as the prominent strategic position in the rules of the Qing Dynasty.The inspection tour included a great number of affairs,such as the river training,seawall building,investigation of the officials' performance,survey of the national conditions,inspection of the military force,and the specialized examinations for the scholars.Moreover,it also contains the objectives of adding the quotas of the Provincial Examination,giving favored treatment to the reputable elderly people,visiting some local academies,offering sacrifices,appreciating the landscape of Kiangnan,and so on.In general,Qianlong's inspection tours are of great significance in the function of maintaining the national unity and linking up the economic and cultural communication between the south and north of China,as well as the achievements in the water conservancy projects of Yellow River,Huaihe River,the canals,and the seawall of Chekiang.Besides the political and economic significance,the southern inspection tours also have a special status in the development of literature and culture during Qianlong period.The functions of conciliating and placating the intellectuals of Han people,especially the intellectual circles of Kiangnan,have made an all-round influence on the construction of Kiangnan cultural ecology,as well as the formation and transmission of the regional image.The literary creation related to the southern inspection tours has been a part with unique value in the literature of the middle term of Qing Dynasty.The dissertation is aimed to discuss the southern inspection tours of Qianlong from the following aspects.Chapter One focuses on the interaction between Qianlong's inspection tours and the cultural ecology of Kiangnan.On the one hand,Qianlong developed its functions of integrating and shaping the cultural ecology of Kiangnan,with the means of adding the quotas of the Provincial Examination,holding imperatorial interviews,rewarding the reputable elderly people,attaching importance to the sacrificial rites,etc.In turn,the scholars in Kiangnan made an either obsequious or expostulatory feedback,or even ambiguous reaction,in which profound political and cultural background are contained.Chapter Two makes a research on the contact between Qianlong and the scholars in Kiangnan in his southern inspection tours,whose extension in time and space provided a special platform for the association and interaction between the southern and the northern scholars,the Manchus and Han people,the high-ranking officials,nobles and the ordinary ones,the emperor and the scholars in Kiangnan.Choosing three representative scholars in Kiangnan:Shen Deqian,Qian Chenqun and Hang Shijun,this chapter makes an analysis of the complicated motivation of their contact,and the exemplary significance and limitations through the study of the contact between Qianlong and them.Chapter Three is concerned with the research on the Zhaoshi for a certain subjects.Zhaoshi is a special kind of cultural measurement for Qianlong to draw over the scholars in Kiangnan.It is worthy of the researchers' deep insight into the time,system,the grand occasions of selecting the talents for Zhaoshi by Qianlong himself in the southern inspection tours,the great impact in the society of Kiangsu and Chekiang,and the important effects on the cultural policy formulated in the middle term of Qing Dynasty.In Chapter Four,the great numbers of poems and comments of Qianlong on Kiangnan,as well as the related inscriptions,have become a kind of transmission medium,which has enriched the cultural and historical deposits,and played a certain role in the molding and transmission of the Kiangnan image.Therefore it is valuable to investigate the influence on the local culture made by the inspection tours of the emperors.Chapter Five still makes a study of the shaping and transmission of Kiangnan image in the southern inspection tours of Qianlong:architectures and paintings.The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the architectures,paintings,and even the reconstructions caused by the southern inspection tours,resulting in a discussion about how the inspection tours developed the image of the places of interest in Kiangnan,making them endowed with unique historical heritages and regional memories by means of ontology constructions and the publicity of replicative ones.Chapter Six attaches importance to the research on the poems created by the Emperor Qianlong,which is characteristic chronicles and of high historical values for its reflection of the purposes,contents of the southern inspection tours,and its involvement in the laws and institutions of the emperor's inspection tours,as well as the endemic culture in Kiangsu and Chekiang.Above all,a great number of narrative poems about the water conservancy projects of Yellow River,Huaihe River,the canals,and the seawall,recorded the forming process of the policies related to this,corroborating the materials of official history and memoir.In the field of art,Qianlong's poems in the southern inspection tours have great artistic characteristics—the unprecedentedly abundant responsorial poems and rhyming binomes,the typical style of interpretational comments,and also the distinction between the earlier poems and the later ones.Chapter Seven is mainly about the research on the imperially assigned poems in Qianlong's southern inspection tours.The retinues,the crew welcoming the emperor and the local scholars created a great quantity of poems related to the inspection tours,which included approximately every kind of style,with a certain value in the field of art and documentary sources.Especially the Fu for the inspection tours is an important component for the resurgence of the Fu in Qing Dynasty,and also the direct outcome of the atmosphere of the flourishing age in the times of Qianlong.