Canal Watershed Legal Culture Research

The Grand Canal in China.also known as the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.Starting at Beijing, it passes the watersheds of five river systems,through Tianjin and the provinces of Hebei,Shandong,Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the city of Hangzhou.The oldest parts of the canal date back to the 5th century BC,although the various sections were finally combined during the Sui Dynasty.During the Mongol Yuan Dynasty,the government,A summit section was dug across the foothills of the Shandong massif during the 1280s,shortening the overall length by as much as 700 km and linking Hangzhou and Beijing with a direct north-south waterway for the first time.In Ming and Qing Dynasty,the Grand Canal developed into a new age,which brought a lot of treasures to the cities along the coast.Someone said that the Grand Canal likes the Chinese characters,it also promote some cities more and more booming.Through the observation of the legal cultural perspective,we could explain all sorts of legal cultural phenomenon during the Ming and Qing dynasties.This article contains four parts,which mainly discuss legal cultural phenomenon which affect the political power and social condition during the Ming and Qing dynasties.The part of introduction briefly discusses why chose this theme.Part one introduces the research path, which contains the background of the Grand Canal,and the situation of legal culture in Shandong regional canal.Part two explains the relationship between river department and locial government.The main function of Grand Canal is water transport of grain to the capital,and this also is the important way to maintain national operation.Part three points out Merchants'guild and its subordinate venues,which arose the business activities.Besides that,it improve people's flow, and promote the development of the society.Part four introduces a kind of folk faith called Four Kings of Gold Dragon that had much extensive influence on land of Canal Zone in the period of Ming and Qing.During such interaction process,Four Kings of Gold Dragon became official-oriented and lost the folk position to accord with orthodoxy thoughts of statel.In the end,the article points out the investigation of the legal culture about the Grand Canal will help us to research the state of law in the implementation of the realistic situation.