The Research Of Gui Yang Church Case

The definition of church cases generally refers to the contradiction and the conflict between the Chinese people and the West Christianity, which had happened in the process of its transition to China. But the church cases in this paper only refer to the legal actions and the foreign affairs, which caused by the various foreign countries making use of church to oppress Chinese people. The Qing dynasty failed in the war; it made big powers get large amount of privilege, and the west missionary had the legal status in China and privilege of exploiting from Chinese people. All those privileges made the most of missionaries became imperious politics person and the economy plunderer. Before this they were the sage and the disseminator of glad tidings, they advised people to do good things and so on. The missionary s'evil deed has brought about belief , survival and the nation crisis for Chinese People, so the Chinese people took up a weapon and fight with the church and the great power for survival. The church cases broadly appeared in the 1860s. The targets of retaliation were the missionary who contacted with Chinese People intimately and the pioneers in aggression of China. There were countless negotiations between China and foreign countries, large number of money for damage and many people were killed.The church cases had enormous complexity and lasted long time because of the extremely complex history environment of modern China. This established the historical status and the research value of church cases in the modern China history. It will make us understand the change of thought within Chinese literary intelligentsia social stratum, and what's more, it is possible to explore the thought evolution within the common people in the Chinese local society. Since 1980s, the scholars had fully realized the importance of the church cases study, and then reached a climax of this study. The church cases study not only has been a topic of the modern Chinese history research, but also becomes the important topic of Chinese cultural history, the ecclesiastical history, as well as the philosophy thinking history and the foreign relations history.The Guiyang church case is the combination of church case in QingYan occurred in Xianfeng 11 year (1861) Dragon Boat Festival and the church case in KaiZhou happened in Tongzhi first year (1862)Festival of Lantern. It was the first church case in which the foreign missionary was killed after the sign of the Beijing Treaty, and also was a church case in which the local highest military and administration senior officials received a severe penalty because of their action, the negotiation between China and foreign countries had lasted several years, so The Guiyang church case is the harbinger of retaliation church. It created the upsurge of retaliation church together with the other church cases at the same time. So the reason of its occurrence cannot contribute purely to the Guizhou local official's ignorance and crudeness, but it had the profound politics, economical cultural reasons.In front of home and overseas situation, the Qing dynasty's attitude provided the most advantageous environment for the occurrence of church case. For the help of the great powers'military force and promotion, the missionary not only obtained the legal status, but also got larger territory than ever before, it enlarged from five coast trading ports to inland. Their status changed from common people to a privileged community which has a large number of special rights. The great powers usually made use of military force to deceive and threat Chinese Qing dynasty, it hurt the Chinese people's feeling, and the Qing government was so helpless and contradictory in face of the missionary's work. So the ruler of Qing dynasty always had this kind of view that if you are afraid of getting into trouble you could settle the quarrel and make peace with the parties involved or you give up. The Qing dynasty must preserve the China's Confucianism etiquette in view of the Chinese government's dignity and the pressure of literary intelligentsia while they gave the missionary legal status and all sorts of privileges under the big powers threat. Therefore the ruler requested the officers to preserve the Chinese government's dignity and not to hurt the people's felling when dissolved the church cases. At the same time, the battle between the Qing dynasty and the revolutionary disturbed the social peace. The ruler of Qing dynasty complied with the foreign countries'each request but didn't strictly carry it out , the government was in a dilemma and adapted both sides foreign policy, it provided the microenvironments for the domestic people invaded church ,the same as the Guiyang church case.As s matter of fact, the senior official Tian Xingshu and He Guanying are the main initiators and approvers in Guiyang church case, They published the secret official letters jointly because the missionary's acts are eccentric and unreasonable, in the secret official letter the Catholicism was the target of expellee and the enemy like the other religious sects and illegal parties. The Guiyang church case happened because of the officers'movements. After that the government began to investigate and deal with it, the officials of Guizhou protect themselves by their own rights and power and the chaotic current political situation, it brought about lots of troubles and made the investigation last long time, their behaviors clearly embodied the Guizhou magistrates and the gentries'hatred to the missionary work and displayed their own power. The result of investigation was very unfair because the government had decided to protect the missionary and punished the Guizhou magistrates, it sacrificed the entire Guizhou's benefit actually. From then on the Guizhou officials and the common people all"fear the missionary as a tiger", the church expanded day by day in Guizhou, the local officials'fear to trouble caused the bishop Hu Fuli want to receive a yard after taking an inch, he interfered the local lawsuits and the local politics, therefore the church cases happened repeatedly because of the gradually increasing hatred for the missionaryThe gentlemen's influence in the Guiyang church case cannot be neglected. The Chinese gentlemen were a privileged strata and a unique social group in China, they enjoyed high prestige and infinite authority, but after the missionary entered into China, their illegal activities and tort not only damaged the Chinese farmer's benefits, but also split the authority, prestige and respect which the gentlemen obtained. So the gentlemen spread lots of rumor in order to protect their rights, they organized and participated the battle between the people and the church. And the farmer became the strongest and the most permanent strength for counter-Christianity. The Guiyang church case happened in this kind of situation, which officials, gentlemen and people all opposed the Christianity, the Guizhou officials played the most important role, and the gentlemen was the main organizer and performer, the farmers'dispersible and non-organization spontaneous struggle provided a good opportunity to the officials and the gentlemen.