Motivations for, and Consequences of, Village and Lineage (Xiangzu) Development by Jiangxi Scholars of the Wang Yangming School: The Case of Liukeng

Abstract

Since the 1980s, the issue of the relationship between the state and local society and the local scholarly elite in traditional China has become an increasingly important area of scholarly research.1 Particular attention has been paid to the large-scale organization and development of lineages by the gentry in the late Ming.2 However, the role played by Wang Yangming's School of Mind, which, from the mid-Ming on gradually became one of the dominant philosophical schools and of which Wang's followers in Jiangxi were among the principal supporters in mediating the relationship between the state and the scholarly elite, has not yet been studied in detail. Most previous research has focused either on Wang Yangming's Community Pact of Southern Gan (Jiangxi) or on his measures to reconstruct local order.3 Much less attention has been paid to the involvement of Wang's followers in village and lineage development and the various measures they adopted to smooth out social contradictions. These efforts led to a partial yielding of control over local society [by the state] to the local scholarly elite. Since the school of Wang Yangming [hereafter the Wang school] had by that time already come to dominate intellectual and political circles, and many of its followers held high office, with both the position and power to implement their ideas and the school's "assemblies for discourses on learning (jiangxue)" at the village level, this shortcoming in the scholarship is something that ought to be addressed. This paper is a case study of the Dong lineage of Liukeng village, Le'an county, Fuzhou prefecture, in the eastern part of Jiangxi. It considers how followers of the Wang school engaged in village and lineage development, and considers their motives and the consequences of their activities in the context of the larger society.4