Literati,Opera,Garden: The Life Word Of Jiangchun,the Huizhou Merchant Residing In Yangzhou During Qing Dynasty

In the middle period of the Qing Dynasty, the salt industry of Yangzhou was prosperous, and the Lianghuai salt merchants, who were mainly born in Huizhou, had accumulated vast amount of capital over the years. Yangzhou, with its huge amount of salt capital and its convenient geographical location, had become a hub of commerce,especially salt business, and the center of culture and art in the south of China. Influential businessmen, such as two Ma families and Jiang Chun, were enthusiastic about the culture of Yangzhou. Their participation in culture, through patronization, had a deep influence on the cultural and academic development of Yangzhou. A unique culture of Yangzhou city emerged, and almost all culture symbols like Yangzhou gardens, opera,painting and calligraphy, education and folklore bore a deep mark of salt merchants.Since the middle and later of Ming Dynasty, the salt merchants began to advocate the Confucian moral values of honesty and justice beside their business. They were eager to strengthen their children's moral education and upheld the unity of bureaucracy and business, in the hope that it could stabilize, even promote their social status. Most of Yangzhou salt merchants had a good feeling about Confucianism,and they liked gathering Confucian scholars around themselves. They built gardens, invited celebrities,and joined in the literati group. This paper tries to presents a panorama of the life of Yangzhou salt merchants by focusing on Jiangchun's life. Jiangchun was an influential person in the salt business during the middle period of Qing Dynasty. He had been the president of Department of the Lianghuai Commerce for almost fifty years, but his influence was far beyond this. He liked befriending celebrities, supporting opera and building gardens. He always invited celebrities to enjoy scenery, have dinner, compose poems and appreciate the opera in his personal garden. This kind of garden gathering,representing a way of leisure life,was very common among the literati then. Yangzhou salt merchants, represented by Jiangchun, were eager to follow this way of life, and eventually left their marks and profoundly affected the culture of Yangzhou city through their Conscious contribution to Yangzhou. This article tries to uncover Jiang Chun's life world and the panorama of Yangzhou salt merchants through Jiang Chun's communication with literati, Jiang Chun's relationship with opera development of Yangzhou, Jiang Chun's doings of building gardens and activities in his gardens, and finally, Jiang Chun's personal acquaintance with Emperor Qianlong.