The Imperial Examination Society And Regional Order: A Study Of Song Dynasty Notable Families In Xiuzhou

The period of two Song Dynasties is of great frequency in social mobility. This is not only embodied in the horizontal regional population movement, but also in the vertical one among different social classes. In inspecting the population and social mobility of Xiuzhou area in Song Dynasty from the perspective of regional history, it shows that most of the notable families in Xiuzhou moved in from other places at the turning point between the two Song Dynasties, most of whom chose to settle in counties of Jiaxing, Haiyan and Chongde, with less to choose Huating which is of similar prosperity with the other three. The reason-might be that the regional economy of Huating area had been developed at an earlier stage and become mature, leaving little space for new residents. Among the local notable families in Xiuzhou, the Iv family, Zhu family, Liu family and Chen family all lived in Huating from the earliest generation, while the Wenren family, Lou family and Shen family lived in Jiaxing from the earliest generation. This side reflects the central status of Huating and Jiaxing in Xiuzhou area. Among those the Lv family and Zhu family had been declined since the mid and late North Song Dynasty while Lou family and Liu family are the two gradually rose from mid-to-late North Song Dynasty. The prosperity and decline of these families actually indicated that they were facing the national background of a society with fierce competition and the turning point from peace to turbulence.To observe the degree of social mobility in Xiuzhou area in Song Dynasty in terms of imperial examination, there are around two-thirds of the candidates who passed the imperial examination were of no distinguished family background. Even if among the notable families such as Lou family and Tao family in Jiaxing, they developed into regional notable families through great efforts from ordinary families or magnates, among which many can be counted as the newly developed big families. From the angle of the time maintaining official status of these notable families, the development of a family is deeply affected by the relatively open and fair national systems such as imperial examination and the thriving and stagnancy of the state. Besides, unstable factors such as the lifespan of the family members and individual intelligence etc. as well as the influences of local immature clan construction conditions in Xiuzhou were also involved. Therefore to maintain a family is extremely difficult.In addition, it shows from the marriage features of notable families in Xiuzhou that the elite class represented by the families that had passed the imperial examination observed the marriage principles of "marriage between families of equal social rank" and "geo-convenience", though marriage forms such as marrying with cousins and hereditary marriage system were still common in notable families. It proves that these families meant to be connected to support each other. However from the turning direction of family marriage chosen and the expanding change of marriage circle, we found that any marriage launched still followed the two principles mentioned above. It is common to find notable families in Xiuzhou established marriage with officials and notable families in Suzhou. This is a regional feature of in Xiuzhou. On the one had this is caused by the geo-factor; on the other, big and numerous families in Suzhou are a good choice for marriage of that in Xiuzhou. This is in fact the maximum optimization of the two marriage principles. Even the hereditary marriage system was adopted because of the equal social rank between the two families. Objectively speaking, marriage between notable families is good for maintaining their family status. But from their subjective perspective, it should be the phenomenon of "a bamboo door should be matched with a bamboo one; a wood door should be matched with a wood one." This is a cross-cultural issue and a representation of human culture.Based on relationship of notable families in Xiuzhou and social change, the local government had little financial and administration power as the central government adopted a system of high centralization of state power. The central government’s power was often only stretched to county level and this made there existing regional responsibility flaws such as construction of "bridges and roads" in regional spaces and made these regional space responsibilities not clear enough. Thus naturally the local government needs the local powers represented by regional notable families and temples to support the maintenance of the local social order. For the absence of these responsibility spaces the notable families had the opportunities to catch the dominant power to these spaces. Accordingly they could make some contribution to the regional society as well as establish their local prestige. This feature or trend is evident in the faith space represented by ancestral halls and temples as well as the construction and maintenance of public service facilities.Lastly, it is noteworthy that within the Xiuzhou area, Huating County has an obvious specialty. First, its water infrastructure tasks are heavier than the other three counties. Second, folk belief and Buddha worship in Huating are more prosperous among the local people, but their attitude to regional education is not that passionate. Nevertheless notable families in Huating were more active in participating in regional public welfare services. From the study of notable family group in Xiuzhou we found that there are actually two regional centers in the area. Huating’s special status and characteristics in Xiuzhou made it rapidly developed into a separate administrative district after entering into the Yuan Dynasty.