Crimson Rain: Seven Centuries of Violence in a Chinese CountyStanford University Press, 2007 - 437 pages This brilliantly crafted narrative explores the roots of violence in Chinese rural society over the past seven hundred years, based on the study of a single highland county, Macheng, Hubei province, in the Great Divide Mountains separating the Yangzi valley from the North China Plain. Between the expulsion of the Mongols in the mid-fourteenth century and the invasion of the Japanese in 1938, Macheng experienced repeated, often self-inflicted waves of mass extermination of segments of its population. This book argues that, beyond its strategic military centrality and ingrained social tensions, cultural factors such as popular religion, folklore, collective memory, and local historical production played key roles in the continued proclivity of the county's population for massive carnage. In the process, the history of Macheng also provides a case study in the way events and trends of national significance in the history of China have been experienced at the local level. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
The Social Ecology of Violence | 17 |
Kings of Light | 43 |
Boom Time | 61 |
The Heretic | 83 |
In the Tigers Mouth | 109 |
Extermination | 136 |
Dongshan Rebellion | 161 |
Heavenly Kingdom | 191 |
An Interlude of Modernity | 219 |
The Cauldron | 239 |
Conclusion | 321 |
Abbreviations | 329 |
381 | |
Selected Glossary | 401 |
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Common terms and phrases
Army Baiguo bandits baogao baojia Beijing bondservant campaign central century Chen Cheng Chengmagang China Chinese command Communist county gazetteer county seat county's cultural Dabie Shan Dong Dong Biwu Dongshan dynasty early elite Eyuwan Feng forces Geng Dingxiang Guomindang Hankow Henan highlands Hu Linyi Huang Huang-Ma Huang'an Huanggang Huangzhou Hubei Hubei Provincial imperial Jiang Jiangxi jinshi juan late Ming leaders Li Zhi Li's lineage Linyi literati Liu Junfu Luotian Macheng City Macheng County Macheng magistrate MCXJZ MCXZQB Mei Guozhen Mei Zhihuan military militia Minguo ribao Republican Nationalist native nongmin official Party peasant associations Qing rebellion rebels Red Spears regime revolution ribao Republican Daily rural shi zongpu Shirong Sichuan SKQS social Songbu Taiping Tang Tianwan tion United Front violence Wang Baoxin Wang Shusheng Wu Sangui Wuchang Wuhan Xia Douyin Xia's Yangzi Yu Chenglong Yuan Yuan Hongdao zhai Zhang Guotao Zheng Zhou
Popular passages
Page 386 - The Socio-economic Development of Ming Rural China (1368-1644): An Interpretation.
Page 392 - Friendship and Its Friends in the Late Ming," in Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, eds., Family Process and Political Process in Modern Chinese History.
Page 384 - Struve, ed., The Qing Formation in World-Historical Time. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004.