Local Literature and History - Bao Weimin: A Brief Discussion on the Origins and Types of Jiangnan Towns

He Xiaofang/Finishing

On November 29, 2021, Professor Bao Weimin of the School of History of Chinese University gave an academic lecture entitled "A Brief Discussion on the Origin and Types of Jiangnan Towns" at the 5th Advanced Seminar on Local Literature and History of East China Normal University. He started from Lu You's "West Village" and interpreted his poems to show the life scenes, the origin of the market and the types of levels in the rural areas of eastern Zhejiang during the Southern Song Dynasty. Later, taking Wuqing Town in Zhejiang Province as a case study, a unique comment was made on the research paradigm of "professional towns" and Jiangnan towns. Finally, two types of population and urbanization level of modern Jiangnan towns are discussed, namely, the Jiangnan area can be divided into the central zone belonging to the Jiaxing type and the marginal zone belonging to the Yinxian type. This lecture was presided over by Professor Huang Chunyan, Department of History, East China Normal University.

The "West Village" of land tourism: the origin of the market in rural areas and its hierarchical type

In-depth analysis of the ecology of rural grassroots society under the county-level regime in the traditional period is a long-term focus of academics. Bao Weimin concentrated on the interpretation of the poems of the famous poet Lu You of the Southern Song Dynasty, and through the poetic exaggeration and reverie of the literati, he excavated historical information that could be used, and then showed the "rural world" in Lu You's mind. He first combined the poem "YouShan Xi Village" and the schematic diagram of Jian Lake in the Northern Song Dynasty, and discussed the scale and form of the rural settlements in the Shanhui Plain where the land travel lived, and its hometown was located between the three mountains, the terrain was high in the south and low in the north, and the distribution of villages was quite dense.

The relationship between agricultural economy and market is an extremely important perspective for observing traditional Chinese villages. Scholars are accustomed to dividing the market from the rural grassroots villages and cities to the prefectural county markets into three levels. Bao Weimin analyzed it in conjunction with Lu You's "Poetry Draft" and pointed out that the dupu bridges such as the East Village, the West Village, and the Dupu Bridge, which are "chickens in the isolated village of the small city", belong to the grass-roots market; while the plum market, Keqiao, Pingshui, and other agricultural products such as tea trade and bayberry exchange at the water and land transportation nodes and the mountainous intersection of the plains belong to the intermediate market; and at the next level, it is Shaoxing Fucheng, which is the central market. Among them, it occupies the advantage of traffic arteries, and is distributed in several important markets in the plain-hill junction area and the main streams and waterways, which is both a distribution center for mountain goods and a resale point for external commodities.

In short, the rural areas of the Southern Song Dynasty basically formed a network system composed of different levels of markets, which undertook the functions of farmers' daily rice and salt exchange and the transfer of bulk agricultural products to the outside world.

Wuqing Town Case: Professional Economy and Professional Town

Roughly from the Southern Song Dynasty, there has been significant population pressure in the Jiangnan region. As the population continued to grow and farmland resources were depleted, the Jiangnan region slowly won new development space by adjusting its agricultural economic structure, that is, from a single food crop to a professional economy combined with cotton and mulberry grains. Under the professional economic structure, farmers have to rely on the market for their livelihoods, selling textiles in exchange for food and other necessities. Therefore, it is in this context that the municipalities, which are commercial centers in rural areas, have further developed.

In recent years, in the field of Jiangnan municipal research, the academic paradigm of "professional municipalities" has become increasingly eye-catching. Bao Weimin briefly reviewed the research of Chinese academic circles on municipal economies in the past century. Mr. Fu Yiling's article "Analysis of the Economy of Jiangnan Towns in the Ming and Qing Dynasties" first proposed the term "professional towns", pointing out that the development of Jiangnan towns and cities was "based on the development of social production at that time, that is, commerce, handicrafts, commodity production, currency circulation, etc.", and some towns had a close relationship with the silk weaving industry. Later, Taiwanese scholar Liu Shiji's book "Professional Towns in jiangnan in the Ming and Qing dynasties" pointed out that the changes in the agricultural structure of Jiangnan during the Ming and Qing dynasties "have developed to a high degree of specialization" and "various professional towns have come into being", and put forward the basic professional categories of silk and silk weaving, cotton and cotton weaving, rice and other basic professional categories in The Southern Towns of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Since then, the economic research of Jiangnan towns has entered the "flourishing stage" mentioned by Ren Fang in the Chinese mainland, the concept has been continuously strengthened, the paradigm has been established, the professional categories of the towns have become more and more diversified under the pen of scholars, and finally even the so-called "one town, one product" has emerged. In view of this, Bao Weimin pointed out that the academic paradigm of "professional towns" has its inherent rationality because it more accurately reflects the most distinctive content in the process of Jiangnan's economic development. However, with the strengthening of the paradigm and the various incomplete applications of this paradigm by scholars, it is inevitable that the ills of "overcorrection" will arise, that is, "excessive reinforcement of the paradigm".

Based on this, he took Wuqing Town, Zhejiang Province as a case study, analyzed the agricultural economic structure of Wuqing Town and its surroundings, and listed all the contents of the industrial and commercial industries in Wuqing Town, reaching as many as 63 kinds, to reflect the economic composition of Wuqing Town in the late Qing Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty. On the basis of detailed historical data, it is proposed that although the mulberry industry is the most important component of grain crops in the rural economy of Wuqing Town, it is exaggerated to say that it occupies an absolute dominant position and then stipulates the "professionalism" of the town economy.

Development level: Jiaxing type and Yinxian type

To what extent have the changes in the size and structure of population agglomeration in Jiangnan towns in modern times affected the improvement of the level of urbanization in the region? This is the basic factor that determines the level of modernization of the municipality. Taking Jiaxing County in northern Zhejiang and Yinxian County in the eastern Zhejiang Province in the 1930s as typical examples, Bao Weimin proposed two types with different levels of development: "Jiaxing type" and "Yinxian type".

The so-called Jiaxing type has these characteristics: First, the population of the middle market accounts for the vast majority of the total population of rural towns; second, the vast majority of shops in the town are open every day, and the level of urbanization or quasi-urbanization in the town is very high; third, from the perspective of the occupational composition of the town population, the agricultural population is relatively small, and the centrality of the town as a commercial area is relatively clear, so the population of the town, especially some of the population belonging to the middle market town, which is prosperous in commerce, has obviously exceeded the local nature.

As for the type of Yinxian County, there is a clear difference between it: First, the lack of a large-scale, prosperous commercial, and 10,000-person super-large town, which reflects that the rural professional economic development of Yinxian County is relatively backward, so it has not yet formed a certain professional economic center within the county; second, there are fewer intermediate markets, and the number of grass-roots markets is more than Jiaxing, and the distribution is wider, so the proportion of the population of the town and town area in the total population of the county is much lower than that of Jiaxing; Third, more importantly, the agricultural population still accounts for the majority of the population structure of the rural towns and towns in Yinxian County. Most towns have not yet become a single commercial center in the countryside, but are at a level where agriculture and commerce are combined, half cities and half townships, basically regular markets, rather than the Jiaxing type, most of which have developed to the level of daily markets.

The distinction between the above two types has a certain universal significance. Roughly speaking, the population of modern towns and towns in the above-mentioned central areas of Jiangnan, that is, the eastern and southern district cities of the Taihu Lake Basin, the capitals of Su, Song, Hang, Jia, Hu and other prefectures through which the Grand Canal and its important tributaries pass, as well as the areas around these central areas, or the marginal areas of Jiangnan, that is, the Ningshao Plain, Hu, the western part of Hangzhou and the ning, zhen, Chang, and Xi north of Suzhou, may be classified as Yinxian while acknowledging that there are still certain differences within them.

Finally, Bao Weimin once again stressed that we must "fully understand the complexity of historical society and be wary of overly bright theoretical induction." In research, the paradigm is only a perspective on the problem and a tool for analyzing the problem, we need to consider whether it is applicable, whether it is in line with the facts, and pay attention to the complexity of history.

(This article has been reviewed by Professor Bao Weimin)

Editor-in-Charge: Zhong Yuan

Proofreader: Liu Wei