A Brief Inverstigation Of The Famous Qinhuai Prostitutes In Middle And Late Ming Dynasty

Qinhuai reputed prostitutes in middle and late Ming Dynasty are those ladies of pleasure in whorehouse flourished around Qinhuai River. They were recorded and known by contemporary and later generations. Qinhuai reputed prostitutes had been cultivated by modern academy and literature masters to special cultural classics during hundreds of years, and had become into being a mixed culture with history and emotion, integrity and humiliation, scholars and prostitutes.Nanjing (also called Jinling), with Changing River as its natural moat, was a significant city, and the life around Qinhuai River was the most typical scenery of Nanjing in Ming dynasty. Qinhuai River whose anabranches distributed as enervation was one hundred and ten kilometers long, and stretched to the east of Wuding Bridge in the southeast of Nanjing city then detached to two anabranches, inside and outside. The anabranch outside along the south wall of the city was known as the moat while the other inside got into the city through the Dongshui barrier of Tongji Gate, rounded the southern part of the city, and got out through Xishui barrier of Shuixi Gate. The two anabranches got together outside the Xishui barrier and flew to northwest until Huimin Bridge over Sancha River then poured into Changjiang River. The stories about reputed prostitutes happened around Qinhuai River—the anabranch inside Nanjing city. The initial whore industry in Ming dynasty was developed under the imperatorial supervision in Jinling. Jinling became the capital when Zhu Yuanzhang came into power. In order to show the prosperity of that time, Fule Yard and sixteen buildings were built for legal prostitutes on the Qinhuai Riverside and collected money for cosmetic as tax to increase the treasury of country. The whore industry in Ming dynasty followed the legal prostitutes system in Tang and Song dynasty. The legal prostitutes belonged to Manner Ministry which was a part of Art Apartment. The official prostitutes were consisted of original music personnel, criminal's female relatives and women from Mongolia left in old China. According to this system the officials could be served by the music prostitutes in banquet, but were not allowed to accommodate in Fule Yard where only merchants could enter. However, Ming government prohibited the whore industry during Xude Period because all the officials indulged themselves with compotation and prostitutes without concerning government affairs. Till Jiajing Period the demimondes like sixteen buildings were reduced, only Nanshi, Zhushi and Jiuyuan were left.The stagnate whore industry did not recover until Zhende Period, emperor Wu Zong liked music and selected music prostitutes to Art Apartment, which prompted the whore industry. Furthermore emperor Wu had a trip in Jinling and greatly changed the social ethos there, facilitated the prosperity of Qinhuai. With the influence of social ethos and custom of scholars, successful candidates and bel-sprits congregated to appreciate flowers and prostitutes. Later this activity became into a fashion and produced such literature works as Shi Nv List in Qinhuai, Appreciating Prostitutes in Jinling, Gen Shi and Ban Qiao Miscellanea. These works made some talent prostitutes become famous and be remembered by after generations. Because of Wu Zong's travel to south and scholar's appreciation the whore industry in Qinhuai prevailed and reached its prosperity. The famous prostitutes in Nanjing city formed an influential female cultural colony, Qinhuai stories became a term of culture.We can find that the reputed prostitutes of Qinhuai in middle and late Ming dynasty were different from ordinary prostitutes through investigating the life of them. These prostitutes who were tolerant, charming and knowledgeable usually made friends with famous scholars. All of these reasons resulted in their critical role in literature world. The relation between them and literature world was like that between emotion and culture. Under the influence of these liberators for a long time, the prostitutes absorbed the soul of culture and moral a lot. They were distinguishable in talent, beauty and art, also mastered musical instrument, chess, painting and calligraphy, which brought them to be equal with men on literature and art. According to The Survey of Women in Past Dynasties written by Hu Wenkai, individual corpus in Ming dynast recorded thirty-three famous prostitutes and twenty-one Jinling prostitutes in it, another three—Gu Mei, Dong Bai and Ge Nen who experienced Ming and Qing dynasty were listed in Qing dynasty by Hu Wenkai. Furthermore another eleven were recorded in other works. At the same time, Qinhuai reputed prostitutes mastered painting and calligraphy, Ma Xianglan and Gu Mei were good at painting orchid and rock, Lin Nuer and Fan Shuangyu did well in landscape, Hao Wenzhu and Ma Ruyu were accomplished in regular script. Besides the skills above, most Qinhuai prostitutes were histrionic experts. That is to say, Qinhuai reputed prostitutes in middle and late Ming dynasty actually were recognized as educated people without considering they were male or female.Qinhuai reputed prostitutes who were gentle, beautiful and elegant, instead of dandifying themselves, pursued simplicity and elegance. We could find evidence from their daily life, clothes and living environment which showed their graceful and restrained quality. Although the whore industry was always for high profit which the merchants could satisfy, Qinhuai reputed prostitutes chose scholars as their friends even ideal end-result. Qinhuai reputed prostitutes with high cultural accomplishments and spiritual pursuit forgathered different personages and learnt from these scholars. They became generous and righteous, also concerned the fate of Ming dynasty, advocated integrity and upheld justice when the country was threatened by the enemies (called Qing dynasty after). These famous prostitutes were not ordinary literators because of the influence they made to the society even to the history. But they could not get rid of the identity—whore due to the morality.