Rural Squire Governance And Regional Social Construction In The Late Qing Dynasty And The Republic Of China

In the late Qing Dynasty and the Early Rpublic of China,Wenzhou society was in turmoil,with serious social contradictions.Various kinds of uprisings constantly emerged,among which the representative events were the Money Club event in 1858 and the Shenquan Club event in 1900.The rural squires all over Wenzhou achieved honours and titles as well as the unprecedented military privileges in local society for the credit of organizing militia corps traning and suppressing uprising.Chen Xiaoyuan and his son furthermore consolidated and promoted their authority and prestige in local society by participating in the two events.It laided the foundation of them to participate in local governance and grass-roots social and culture construction.Chen and his son gathered a large number of literati,gentries and believers to participate in the local society and cultural construction by making use of the core location advantages and cultural belief resources of Xufu palace and its location which promoted the construction and development of the regional society and had a strongradiation effect on benefiting the whole Wenzhou area.At the same time,it has left precious faith,culture and folk trade heritage,which has become valuable material and spiritual wealth today.Studying the case of Chen and his son will provide positive guidance and reference for the construction and development of local society today.This paper is divided into four parts to elaborate.The first part is the introduction,which mainly introduces the background and significance of the topic,main research methods,the definition of the concept of "squire" and the life experience of the Chen and his son.The second part mainly describes the historical background of Chen's family and their authority forming experience.In his section,it summarizes not only the characteristics of the change of power structure at the grassroots level in Wenzhou,but also the decline of local government power and the further expansion of squire power at that time.Thus,it explores the process of the expansion of the authority of Wenzhou gentry group represented by Chen and his son.The third part mainly introduces the historical and cultural core location of Xufu palace and its location and the social organizational force of Xufu Palace,which reveals the reason why the squires used the temples as a belief platform to participate in local governance and regional social construction.The last part mainly introduces a series of social and cultural practices carried out by Chen and his son on the basis of Xufu palace.It describes the radiationinfluence of the elite communication circle which take Chen and his son as the core on the whole Wenzhou area at that time.It also summarizes a series of important material and spiritual wealth,such as the belief heritage,cultural heritage,business heritage and so on,lefted behind to future generations,which achieved from the construction of regional social culture participated by the gentry group represented by Chen and his son.