The Research Of Folk Secret Jiaomen In Jiangxi Province During The Qing Dynasty

Through the comparison and analysis of the folk secret religion, the folk religion, secret community and correlative terminologies, this article adopts folk secret Jiaomen (教门, not religion) to represent "the evil cult" which was called by the traditional officials. By using the local chronicles and other pertinent information, this paper codifies the general situation of the folk secret Jiaomen in Qing Dynasty and Jiangxi Province respectively, focusing on the process and activities of Dachengjiao (大乘教) , one important Jiaomen. Meanwhile, it analyzes the reasons why the Dachengjiao had so a constant and lasting development and probes into the control system of Qing Dynasty on it.Folk secret Jiaomen was prevalent in the Qing Dynasty, it had a great influence on the whole nation, especially in Jiangxi Province, where Huang's Dachengjiao and Wu's Dachengjiao were the most active and waged some rebellions against the government. The folk secret Jiaomen of Jiangxi Province in the Qing Dynasty had affected six states and forty counties, pervading Zhejiang Province, Fujian Province, Guangdong Province, Hubei Province, Hunan Province, Sichuan Province, Guizhou Province and so on. Even it had an impact on the daily lives of officials and common people. The reasons of its generating and developing are as follows: factors about geography and economy, defects of the political system and bureaucratic structure, floating of population, reduction of the status-control, popularization of religious scriptures, paralysis of the religious doctrine, etc. The Qing Dynasty central and local governments took various steps to control the folk secret Jiaomen, including strengthening the legislation and the Baojia system(保甲制), checking to promote or punish the relative officials , differently treating the leaders and followers, and so on.Although the folk secret Jiaomen has some advantages, it has more disadvantages. When taking lawful measures to manage the folk secret Jiaomen, we should not neglect the cultural means; we should concern more about the living condition and psychological needs of the common people.