Historical Writing,Identity Transformation of Military Households,and Textual Shaping of Chorography:A Study on the Song Family of Taozhou during the Ming and Qing Dynasties
Military households were a crucial component of the Garrison system and a unique social class during the Ming Dynasty.In the early Ming,the Song family ancestors rose out of their military exploits to be hereditary military officers from the Banner troops.In the 19th year of the Chenghua period(1483),one of them was promoted to be the military commander of Taozhou Garrison,and the family became a top local military household.This position was hereditary through primogeniture till the end of Ming.It is inferred that the Hereditary Order of the Military Position included in the Song family genealogy is a manuscript of the record of this position's succession as part of the missing Taozhou Garrison Selected Records of the Military Position Selected Records.During the Qing Dynasty,the succession was discontinued and the family began to pursue scholarly careers.Over centuries,many of its members became scholars after county and provincial level examinations,gentry and tribute students.Closely interacting with other local scholarly families,it transformed into a regional elite scholarly family,and a prominent member was even deified as God of the Garrison Temple.In Emperor Guangxu's reign,the Hereditary Order of the Military Position and the legends of Garrison Temple God Song written in their genealogy were collected into the chorography compiled by the officials.In terms of the writing logic,these texts as the main body of the genealogy transformed from official archives to folk literature,and then from the family records back to the official writing system.Ultimately shaped through local chorography,these private folk literature and local oral history objectified the Song family's history in a broader range and became a local social consensus and public knowledge,which influ-enced the formation of local historical and social memory.
military householdsTaozhouThe Song Family Recordsfamily identity transformation
万方数据
维普
