Huizhou: Local Identity and Mercantile Lineage Culture in Ming China

by Qitao Guo

Overview

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Huizhou studies the construction of local identity through kinship in the prefecture of Huizhou, the most prominent merchant stronghold of Ming China. Employing an array of untapped genealogies and other sources, Qitao Guo explores how developments in the sociocultural, religious, and gender realms from the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries intertwined to shape Huizhou identity as a land of "prominent lineages." This gentrified self-image both sheltered and guided the development of mercantile lineages, which were further bolstered by the gender regime and the local religious order. As Guo demonstrates, the discrepancy between representation and practice helps explain Huizhou's triumphs. The more active the economy became, the more those central to its commercialization embraced conservative sociocultural norms. Home lineages embraced neo-Confucian orthodoxy even as they provided the financial and logistical support to assure the success of Huizhou merchants. The end result was not "capitalism" but a gentrified mercantile lineage culture with Chinese—or Huizhou—characteristics.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520385214
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	03/15/2022
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	303
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Qitao Guo is Professor of History at University of California, Irvine and author of Exorcism and Money: The Symbolic World of the Five-Fury Spirits in Late Imperial China and Ritual Opera and Mercantile Lineage: The Confucian Transformation of Popular Culture in Late Imperial Huizhou.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Map of Huizhou x

Introduction 1

Part I Local Identity

1 Cheng Minzheng and the Rise of Huizhou Consciousness 13

2 A Land of Prominent Lineages 50

Part II Mercantile Lineage Culture

3 Wang Daokun and the Promotion of Mercantile Lineage Culture 83

4 "A Confucian Heartland of Women" 111

5 The Local Religious Order 134

Conclusion 160

Appendix: Summary of Wang Daokun's Huizhou Merchant Biographies 163

Abbreviations 171

Notes 173

Chinese Character Glossary 209

Bibliography 227

Index 239

Editorial Reviews

"This book not only strengthens and advances the study of Huīzhōu but also makes a signature contribution to the study of late imperial China by revisiting longstanding questions about the formation of lineages through the study of Huīzhōu in the Míng dynasty."

Religious Studies Review