When Local Society Took over Functions of the Administrative Community System:The Rise of Ward Agencies and Ward Societies in Huizhou in the Qing Dynasty
After the late Ming Dynasty,especially after the Mid-Qing Dynasty,Huizhou(徽州)and Western Jiangxi(赣西)regions witnessed the emergence of such local organizations as ward agencies(图局)and ward societies(图会).The rise of these organizations seemed to be closely connected to the periodic problems of additional taxation and excessive allocation of corvée labor.These organizations took various forms,due to differences in ecological environment,local power structure and other factors.But they had one thing in common,that is,they were established to specifically handle affairs related to land taxation and corvée labor in their own areas.The rise of such organizations,which existed outside the administrative community system(图甲制度),but mainly dealt with the affairs inside this system,means that they began to take over the functions of administrative community organizations and that the latter increasingly relied on the former to maintain their own regular operations.In the course of the founding of many such agencies and societies,groups of people who originally didn't have close social connections got together to deal with the frequent excessive extraction of resources by the imperial state.In this sense,they belonged to the society"made"by the imperial institutions,which not only shows how the imperial institutions shaped the society,but also reveals a noteworthy phenomenon concerning the evolution of the society in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
administrative community organizationlineage-communitycharitable wardward agencyward society
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