A Study On Preaching Imperial Edict In The Qing Dynasty And Related Narrative Works

Preaching imperial edict in the Qing Dynasty is a kind of the politicalmeans of feudal rulers to civilize people. Its content originates from Six ImperialEdicts promulgated by the Ming emperor Zhu Yuanzhang. The Qing dynastyemperor KangXi expanded it into sixteen imperial edicts. From then on, the sixteenimperial edicts as the homiletic entries must be read by the Qing Dynasty’s people.The governments of the Qing Dynasty issued decrees, and enforced preachingimperial edict across the country. The purpose of this activity is to constraint,standardize people’s behavior, and make people be kind. At first, it was executed bythe official, and then gradually be popular among the folk. Some kind villagers andthe folk charity often raised funds to preach imperial edict. The content and form ofpreach imperial edict have changed as time went by. At the beginning, it justpreached philosophical connotations, which made people feel bored. In order to meetthe psychological needs of the audience and to persuade indoctrination, the storiesincluding karma thought came into being. Therefore, under the background of theprevailing, the Qing Dynasty gradually formed a unique type of the novel, namelypreaching novels. The novel with the aim of encouraging justice has a fixed narrativestyle and its text adopts a way of rap, which is combined by the verse and prose. Itsstory theme is derived from the sixteen imperial edicts. It promotes deep ideas ofkarma.Preaching imperial edict in the Qing Dynasty is one of ways to cultivate thesociety. Its development evolution and the rise of stories with it are regarded as aunique cultural phenomenon, which has a certain researching significance. The paperis divided into six chapters to study. The first chapter is an introduction and pointsout that significance of the topic, status and methods, etc. The next three chapters mainly referring to the official documents, local Chronicles and other ancient booksin the Qing Dynasty, systematically explain the emergence, prosperity and recessionabout preaching imperial edict in the Qing Dynasty, introduce the situation of thespreading and evolution across the country and present its ceremony and regulations.The last two chapters mainly discuss its development by talking about the exampleof “Chuanke novel” and select a few works as the main research object to discuss thesource of the material and the artistic achievement of the novel.