The People of Counties and Prefectures: The Fate of Commoners Between Order and Chaos (Latitude and Longitude Series)

Famine and the ravages of war, law and morality: for ordinary people, there are mountains they can never escape. An ambitious work devoted to turning history without a record into recorded history. Drawing on Ming and Qing local gazetteers, it uncovers the lives and fates of ordinary people in prefectures and counties. Acclaimed historical writers Shen Xubin and Du Junli have written long prefaces in recommendation. The history of ordinary people is the true history: the degree holders who embodied scholarly refinement, the gentry merchants who amassed great wealth, the common folk who labored in the fields, the chaste widows and virtuous women who upheld their virtue... These minor figures, lost in local gazetteers and recorded in only a few words, made up the vast majority of people swept along by history. Almost all official histories cast emperors, kings, ministers, and generals as their protagonists. Influenced by this tradition, modern historical studies also tend to focus on the rise and fall of dynasties, court intrigue, and meritorious officials and famed generals. The common people, who made up the overwhelming majority, are often presented merely as background. Through close readings of Ming and Qing local gazetteers, along with a painstaking survey of imperial edicts, memorials, notebooks, genealogies, inscriptions, and other documents, this book rescues brief accounts of people lost in the historical record and paints a vivid portrait of the people of prefectures and counties. This book focuses primarily on Xiqi in the Guanzhong region, drawing mainly on local gazetteers from the western prefectures, including the Qishan County Gazetteer compiled during the Qianlong era, as well as other Ming and Qing documents and archives. Starting with representative figures from prefectures and counties, it examines degree holders who embodied scholarly refinement, gentry merchants who amassed great wealth, common folk who labored in the fields, and chaste widows and virtuous women who upheld their virtue... By exploring their lives and fates, it seeks to reconstruct the circumstances of ordinary people in prefectures and counties under autocratic rule.