'Cunshe' and the gentry in Ming and Qing times: Institutional transformation in rural society of Shanxi Province's Zezhou prefecture (Chinese text)

Zezhou, at the southern end of Taihang Mountain in the southeast of Shanxi province, has a long history of agricultural civilization. Spirits related to rain-praying were popularly worshipped in localities. When the North Song dynasty made its capital at Kaifeng, Zezhou became much nearer to the political center of the state than before. Official awarding of titles to the local spirits and regulating the sub-county administrative units were two main policies that the government had employed to control local society. These policies were effective in Zezhou. Some changes were obvious in the villages: the sacrificial offerings to the earth god in the village altar every spring and autumn were replaced by the offering to the rain spirits in the village shrine. Villages around the new shrines or temples were organized by this new cult in addition to sub-county level government arrangement. Cunshe (territorial sacrificial association) became the basic social organization outside the family in the countryside. The wars between nomadic and Han regimes in north China broke the lineages in Song times. The Jin and Yuan reigns that followed the Song relied on the cunshe to form the basis of its local administration.; In the Ming dynasty, Ming Taizu had restructured county society by the lijia system, in which the sacrificial organization lishe was incorporated to help maintain social morality and social order. This reform in Hongwu era had influenced Zezhou country in some aspects but the influence did not last. From mid-Ming times on, cunshe, symbolized by the cult of the spirits and the she temple, substituted the lishe as the basic community organization in the countryside again. At the same time, the gentry had become increasingly important in local society. To meet the challenges from commercialization and social mobility, the gentry tried lineage reconstruction in the countryside but they seem not to have been successful as they had desired. They also attempted to reform the organization and the function of cunshe to practice Confucian doctrines in the country. The gentry's compromise with the cunshe in time allowed the cunshe to improve its authority in social affairs.; The gentry of Zezhou and their families, with great success in civil service examinations, became local heroes and saviors during the rebellious and chaotic Ming-Qing transition. In the mid-Qing, they declined service to the government and local society while cunshe became much more active and powerful in country life. Changes in fiscal and tax policies brought changes to local administrations as well. Cunshe, as a non-official system in the rural area, came to control more and more village affairs. In the last years of the Qing dynasty, cunshe had actually become a local self-government organization and was authorized by the county government in various degrees.; The history of cunshe in Zezhou reveals the close relationship between the cult of she and social integration in the rural area. Cunshe there was both a religious and a territorial organization. Its architectural structure also provided a public space for the community. The long interaction among the state, gentry and cunshe in Zezhou gives a typical example of traditional administration in rural China. Religion and cult in a community worked alongside formal institutions of the state for the control of local populace.