Text/Shanshan Shi
The Ancestral Temple is a religious form of interaction between the scholars and the people that has arisen since the Song and Ming dynasties, and has built a community between the scholars and the people at the grassroots level, which is independent of the imperial power, and is found by the scholars to be able to realize the operation of "feudalism in counties" to change the Qin system of the empire. Unfortunately, this promising community of scholars and people was corrupted by the Dukes of Wei and the eunuchs, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty was strictly controlled in the rear, and failed to exert its huge potential.
The shrine allows the people to participate in the evaluation of magistrates
Although the Donglin party valued "public opinion" and "public opinion", as Dardis said, at that time "the absolute monarchy had reached its peak". Births may be a very obvious exchange.
When two Tang Dynasty officials, Tuo Meng, asked for the reconstruction of their temples, Zheng Liangbi, the governor of Chaozhou Prefecture, took the lead in donating money to rebuild them. Fang Zhi records that "when the reconstruction was completed, the Chao people used the Zhenghou Yougongsi Temple as the ancestral shrine. ...... Most of the people who are in the ancestral hall are eared for the temple. In the inscription written by another scholar, it is also emphasized: "Those who are born of the ancestral hall of Zheng Hou should not forget their original desires from the people." ”
The ancestral shrine of Wang Pan in the Ming Dynasty
Similarly, the Chronicle of another Fang Zhi records that "the people of the people set up a shrine (Gaozhou Prefect Kong) shop, and Ji Qigong was six things." The meaning of such words made the Donglin Party members deeply uneasy.
Around the forty-third year of the Wanli Calendar (1615), at the request of the villagers of Hui'an, Luo Risheng, the deputy envoy of Jiangxi Tixue, wrote a memorial record, which recorded and even supported the common people in judging the official government, but also expressed the dissatisfaction of the scholars.
When a major flood washed away all the bridges in Hui'an, Fujian Province, in one day, Chen Shu of Zhixian reacted quickly, collecting donations and labor, and asking Zhusheng Wu Zhenyuan and others to preside over the reconstruction of an important bridge more than twenty miles from the county seat. After the completion, the "fathers and children" who often need to walk across the bridge rushed to see and praised Zhixian for not overworking the people in the process of rebuilding the bridge. They said, "They are so diligent in their difficulties, and the people of Liji are so great in their dealings, they must not fail to worship in their land." So they came to ask Luo Risheng to write an essay, and Le Shi thought it was a memorial.
The Luo clan strongly agreed with the gentry standards of the Donglin people, and referred to the bureaucratic group that had been established in Hui'an as "Our Party". He described his own perception of the Chen clan: when he was young, he admired Chen's writings; later, he learned about the good governance of the Chen clan, which were the focus of the gentry, such as "Xiu xue palace, new temple appearance, more lamb pheasant, li qi Shuo, Qing fu adultery" and so on.
He convinced himself, or wanted his readers, "Our Party," to be convinced:
The people dance and sing, and the shrine is by the bridge, and the one who is waiting for this intention is not in vain to the bridge. Confucius said: "Si Minye, the reason why the three generations are straight and straight."
The husband and wife have a seal of life, and would rather love it. Therefore, if you go to the place one day, you will think and worship it, and show your imagination. In its officialdom, it is a monument. To bathe in virtue, to reveal the grace of the waves, to have a transmission, not to make or restrain it. Therefore, where the stakes are removed, the intention of habituation and affection is also. The habit of the husband and the affection, and the likeness of the imagination, are all due to the inability of the Scythians to help themselves. There is no need to meet the knot. Its si is called the ancient straight road also.
Hou Fang played the most, the chief planner, and the former was the Duke of Yuan, who neglected Hou Zhixing gaodi and Yiyu County. However, the throne of the marquis will start from here, and the people want to be prosperous, and when they are poor? Dance chant, Yu Kefusun Elder Disciple? Remembered for not quitting.
Luo Risheng truthfully wrote that the common people built the ancestral hall in order to repay Chen Shu for rebuilding the bridge quickly and frugally. But he repeatedly emphasized in the text, and assured Confucian readers, that what Chen did was what an exemplary magistrate should do to correct the "improper" worship of the people: he was not only a government official, but also the kind of person that the scholar officials repeatedly praised.
Although the ancestral hall stood next to the bridge, Luo still denied that simply rebuilding a bridge would allow Chen Shu to enjoy the ancestral temple. He insisted that the relationship between the county and the commoners was holistic: "The relationship between the husband and the wife, and the likeness of the imagination, are all out of the inability of the Slovak people to be themselves." ”
This is certainly not to say that the Chen did what the people wanted, or did what they wished (i.e., let the gentry donate rather than levy servitude and taxes), so the people rewarded the Chen as if they were the superiors of the Chen.
However, any claim that the Chen clan responded to the needs of the people may be particularly troublesome here, because when the people built the temple and erected the monument, the Chen clan was still in office.
Luo's reference to the Analects here seems to refer to the question of flattery, but instead of justifying (the hypothetical) Accusations of Luo Risheng flattering Chen, it acknowledges that the populace has taken the power to evaluate and reciprocate magistrates into their own hands, and tries to reduce the exchange of interests in this relationship through romantic metaphors.
The Ancestral Temple was a social mechanism independent of the imperial power
The people bear witness to good governance. However, are officials able to enjoy their lives because their virtues are recognized by the people, or because they are the result of the people's choices?
The populace does not merely recognize or accept the value of magistrates. In the most extreme way, the public's affection for him is also part of the official's value.
The Dezheng Monument of the Twenty-sixth Year of the Wanli Calendar (1598) (generally speaking, the erection of the monument did not require the participation of civilians, because the ancestral shrine had not yet been built, although the author of the inscription predicted that it would be built in the future) explains:
Gong Xuan Huai also, Tao Xin pondered and did not want anything to his people; Gong Went to Huai Ye, and fu xuan theory could not bear to forget his justice. Gong Da Demin Yahweh? The people live up to their promises? For a while, it is prosperous, that is, why should the two histories list the good and the good be added?
What makes Zhang's praise is not his ruling behavior and objective achievements, but the judgment of the local people.
Senior officials such as Hanlin Scholar and Li Chunfang, The Rebbe Shangshu, also made similar arguments.
In his memorial to Wang Sanyu in the eighth year of the Wanli Calendar (1580), he followed the custom of quoting allusions to the metaphor of parents and the thought of Gantang, and emphasized the "reality" of Wang's political achievements to meet the requirements of the Great Ming Law, and believed that the ancestral hall itself could become a tool of governance by satisfying or expressing the people's feelings.
Just as popular support makes the gods useful, so popular sentiment contributes to good governance.
By the 17th century, populism in the Book of The Nativity had developed further, and the people were not only judges of the good and bad officials, but also an important source of their governance effectiveness.
The monument erected by the local scholar Hou Zhenghu for his fellow scholar Wang Yuanyi in the same year, which was written in about the thirty-third year of the Wanli Calendar (1605), described his various virtues as described in the second chapter, but conceived it more concretely and completely.
He used the word "with the people", probably created in contrast to the "with people" in the Chinese, interpreting it as "winning the hearts of the people according to the will of the people", just as the cognate "with heaven" is interpreted as "who conforms to the heavenly path, he receives heavenly help".
According to the inscription, Yuncheng County has been in trouble, and few people have the ability to deal with its various problems. "The sixth year of the duke is in my people, and the naked son is pregnant with him, and he governs with all his own desires." I don't know whether "my people" by Hou means "all of us" or "the people of this county."
First, the inscription records the good governance that Wang Zhixian tried so hard to avoid disturbing the people and bringing all kinds of additional burdens, and concluded: "It is the reason why I am with the people."
Second, Wang discussed various matters with the "people" every day, and he admonished and taught the people to establish harmonious relations through various means such as setting up the "List of Good deeds" and "the wood of affirmation". Hou Shi commented: "It is the public and the people."
Third, the prince also built bridges and planted trees, and the "sincere prayer" was finally answered by Ganlin, "It is the heavens that the public begs for and the people also."
Fourth, he also "please keep the warehouse for the deserters, please give relief to the poor, and cook porridge to help the hungry", all three of these requests were finally approved. Hou would not explicitly state that Zhang made the bureaucracy "with the people", but this is clearly a parallel argument. And the arrangement of the order also shows that winning the cooperation of the bureaucracy is even more amazing than moving the heavens.
Fifth, the Wang clan also worked to improve school and upper education, building the Wenchang Ancestral Hall (a place to pray for success in the examination) and the Zhongchen Ancestral Hall. "It is a thousand years of temperament and people." Hou Zhenghu finally wrote: "And why should the people be with the public? The people are not competent for the corpse blessing, and le zhi zhen sleeps, and the rest is a record of the strategy. ”
In a unified political universe, Wang Yuanyi is close to the people and ensures that the people are not troubled; he pays attention to social harmony and good relations, so that the people can be close to him; he goes along with the times and makes the heavens and the earth close to the people; he manages the bureaucracy and makes the government and the people close; he improves education and reorganizes the palace of learning, so that the people can be close to the great traditions.
The Palace of Learning is a place of worship
All this he did through "with the people." Therefore, the people will also "reconcile" and place their virtues above the official positions, just as they would appoint him permanently with a statue, a prayer, a stone tablet: it was a permanent appointment, and it was an appointment almost independent of his original examination system, personnel promotion, and selection of the Son of Heaven.
Even so, it is no wonder that both the Donglin Party and Wei Zhongxian strongly advocated the legitimacy of their respective ancestral shrines; it is no wonder that the eunuchs' claims of such legitimacy and moral authority, although expressed in the ancestral halls personally approved by the emperor, also caused street protests, eclipses, headless zombies, and the mournful cries of the city's people over the decadent politics.
The Ancestral Temple inspired "feudalism in counties"
Under the background of the political theory of the writing and practice of the Shengci Temple, the Donglin Party members look relatively conservative, and Gu Yanwu's political criticism in the early Qing Dynasty seems to be less "shocking" and more like the "natural result" of the development of Ming Dynasty thought.
Based on social welfare considerations, Gu Yanwu proposed an incentive paternalistic policy that allowed the best magistrates to serve in the local government for life and pass on their positions to heirs or protégés. Miranda Brown traces the theoretical origins of Gu to Cui Yu (170) during the Eastern Han Dynasty.
Gu also drew more directly on the various systems that existed at that time, in addition to the toast system in the southwest region, there were also local shrines and memorial systems.
Gu Yanwu's great theory of "feudalism in counties"
Inspired by the ancestral temple and toast system
Like other writers in the late Ming Dynasty, Gu Yanwu was also complaining: "In this era, there are no officials who do not build a shrine, but there are those who have destroyed their images and changed their masters." Quoting these allusions, Gu Yanwu mentions that Di Renjie's ancestral hall was destroyed because of his son's evil deeds (although this example seems to be a warning of succession to a local office).
He also added a case of a court official governing a border county, Zhang Qi was widely loved by Yue Wei Taishou, his son Zhang Xiang later succeeded him, but lost the hearts of the people, the barbarians wanted to rebel, and the elder warned to remember his father's good. Gu Shi therefore commented, those who destroyed Di Renjie's ancestral hall are inferior to these barbarians?
Therefore, Gu Yanwu did not merely condemn the proliferation of ancestral temples, but suggested that the promotion of bureaucrats should be determined by local reputation, and a bottom-up commemoration system was formally established, which he noted in the numerous Fang Zhi he read to compile the Book of The Diseases of the Heavenly Counties and The People's Republic of China.
Gu Yanwu suggested allowing states and counties to "retain" excellent magistrates and institutionalize the key functions of this operating system. He believes that an excellent official will love the people like a son and deserve the reputation of the local people as a "parent official".
Echoing the allusions in the ancestral records—-- good officials "rule the Family of Yu and treat the people as sons"—Gu Yanwu believes that "natural emotions" make everyone value the love of father and son more than the righteousness of the king.
He then further deduced that such officials should be permanently incorporated into the localities. Gu bureaucratized the behavior of life and ritual and carried it on into the future, while Hou Zhenghu believed that "with the people" could make officials achieve political achievements. This great thinker of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties put forward his own theoretical ideas on the basis of the concepts expressed in such ancestral records.
Officials attach great importance to local commemorations, but there is also a general recognition that such commemorations may also be motivated by pressure rather than sincerity. My point is that this central issue – the corruption of power and lies – is an inevitable contradiction, and that popularly accepted political concepts are the key to resolving this contradiction.
In cases where power creates corruption, in order to prove the authenticity of the official's achievements, inscription authors often emphasize wide public approval as evidence. In order to avoid accusations of self-aggrandizement and flattery, which is often justified, local subjects should be allowed to make de facto institutionalized political statements, and the right of local subjects to make such statements should be declared very clearly.
Resorting to populism is a socialized solution, not imposed by the State. There is no provision in the Great Ming Law that prohibits the establishment of ancestral shrines or monuments in localities, and as long as they are not directed by officials, after they have left office, and have indeed made remarkable achievements, they can erect monuments for them.
Some shrines were openly set up by the gentry. Fang Zhi records that Gao Kui of Jinxiang Zhi County, "Yi Shi Dafu believed and obeyed, for the Lisheng Ancestral Hall". In the Song Dynasty, the "Shi Led the People" established a shrine for the former Zhi County, and it was sacrificed in the twilight, which still existed in the Ming Dynasty.
Similarly, the "political deeds" stipulated in the Ming Law can also include the establishment of schools, the establishment of altars to give lectures, and the rectification of morale. The prominence of the issue of people's livelihood in the discourse system of the temple is not directly prescribed by the law, but is an extension of its social nature.
Once the standards for such articles are well established, the Donglin Party will adopt them and adjust them according to their own needs. But as Mr. Chow points out when discussing public anger, sometimes they choose to change in the opposite way.
Mihrui quoted Li Sancai's remark that "the people have long been the lord of the people", but he strongly opposed portraying it as "the foundation of primitive democratic ideas". Rather, they legitimized the vision of "another kind of authoritarianism" in the desire for a gentry to make decisions in place of the emperor.
The study of the ancestral hall and the ancestral record can make us realize the deep roots of the populism of the Donglinshi people's pretentious posture, and can also understand the background of Gu Yanwu's proposal of "feudalism in counties and counties".
And when the Donglin Party members are withering away, the stone monuments and ancestral halls built earlier are still standing. Therefore, although in the Ming History records that they dominated the struggle against Wei Zhongxian, they did not actually have the final say.
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