From Sand-transport-boat Owner To Official-gentry

With the rise and development of the industry of sand-transport-boat, there were a group of owners of sand-transport-boat in Shanghai local. Ge's family is the early owner of sand-transport-boat. The sand-transport-boat of this family flourished between the period of Qianlong and Jiaqing at Qing Dynasty. And it declined in the period of Daoguang to Xianfeng. Then they lost their fame in this industry. Ge's family was poorer and poorer from then on. The later descendants of this family tried their best to the pursuit of being official-gentries by the imperial examination. Based on family genealogy records, gazetteers, corpus and diaries, the author discussed Ge's family from the 1^st generation to the 6^th generation. The representatives of this family started their business on the management of sand-transport-boat, and the descendants of Ge's family tried to work hard for the imperial examination to achieve great success in the official career. This is a changing history for Ge's family. The Brothers named Ge Yuanxiang and Ge Yuanrui who are the 1^st generation of Ge' family started their business on the management of sand-transport-boat. Then past to the 2^nd and 3^rd generation, the members of Ge's family tried their best on studying, and found the way to develop their family. Ge Xueli of the 4^th generation achieved remarkable success in the imperial examination. He became a provincial graduate in 1862. As the first person who successed in the imperial examination, his action and the education for his children are the points of my paper. The different life of Ge Shida,Ge Shiqing,Ge Shijun who are the 5^th generation of Ge's family. Ge Shida joined in army after several failures in the imperial examination. He became a staff of Pan Dingxin in 1862. Then he came to the northward to accept battle with Nian Army with Pan's army. After several years, he entered into the officialdom in Shanxi province, such as the transport governor of Shentie, the governor of Yu She, the staff of Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Pingding and so on. Ge Shiqing became a provincial graduate in 1888.Then he failed in four exams. He done the second class in the examination called Da Tiao, then obtained the occupation of teaching, and came back to Shanghai. As lived in hometown all his life, he had own opinions about the defence of Shanghai local. He proposed the theory of local militia and pao chia. Ge Shijun studied in Longmen college for long time and took part in many examinations of several colleges. He was concerned about westernization and edited "Collected Essays on Statecraft" and "A collection of westernization". He was acquainted with Oka Senjin and Song Shu. And the occupation of the 6^th generation are in the way of education and offical. Ge's family which is the early owner of sand-transport-boat earned much money through this industry, but the pursuit in their heart was to be success in the official career by the imperial examination. So they mostly sought developing way for themselves and their families in the traditional field. Otherwise fathers pinned great hopes on their sons, and invited famous teachers for sons. They hoped their sons would be in a plain way for the future. In the period of Daoguang, Ge's family was poorer and poorer, this hope is very important to the whole family. The author discusses the history of Ge's family, and seeks the important influence of individual factors, family factors, political factors and social factors on the changes of this family. It is the most important for the fame of families and the public opinion. And the crucial factor of the fame is in connection with the traditional imperial examination.