The General Theory of China’s Genealogy 9811563764, 9789811563768

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Heming Wang

The General Theory of China’s Genealogy

The General Theory of China’s Genealogy

Heming Wang

The General Theory of China’s Genealogy

Heming Wang Shanghai Library Shanghai, China Translated by Jun He East China University of Science and Technology Shanghai, China

Junnong Xu Hefei Normal University Hefei, China

Kerry Allen London, UK

Funded by the Chinese Fund for the Humanities and Social Sciences ISBN 978-981-15-6376-8 ISBN 978-981-15-6377-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6377-5 Jointly published with Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press The print edition is not for sale in China Mainland. Customers from China Mainland please order the print book from: Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press. Translation from the Chinese language edition: “中国家谱通论” by Heming Wang, © Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House Co., Ltd 2010. Published by Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. © Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Contents

Part I 1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 What Is Genealogy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Types of Genealogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 The History of Genealogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 The Value of Genealogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Part II 2

3

4

Concepts and Definitions 3 3 9 18 24

Chronological Studies

The Origin of Chinese Genealogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Chinese Genealogy Originated from the Matriarchal Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Oral Genealogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Patrilineal Oral Genealogies Originated from Matrilineal Ones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Knotted Rope Genealogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Genealogies that Used Oracle Inscriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 Bronze Genealogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The Birth of Chinese Genealogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Comprehensive Genealogies Appeared During the Zhou Dynasty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 The Authorized Genealogical Institution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 The Publication of the Di Xi Pian and the Shi Ben . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 The Development of Genealogies During the Han Dynasty . . . .

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How Chinese Genealogies Prospered (I) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Reasons Genealogies Prospered During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Genealogical Works and Genealogists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 The Content and Characteristics of Genealogies . . . . . . . . . . . . .

79

35 38 45 49 53 55

60 65 66 71

80 86 90

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Contents

How Chinese Genealogies Prospered (II) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Reasons Official Genealogies Developed During the Tang Dynasty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Three Large-Scale, Official Genealogical Compilations . . . . . . . 5.3 Private Genealogies Developed Drastically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 The Content of Genealogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 Types of Genealogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6 Famous Genealogists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7 The Imperial Genealogies of the Tang Dynasty . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

97 98 100 105 107 111 112 115

The Transformation of Chinese Genealogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Official Genealogical Compilations Were Abolished While Private Ones Blossomed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 The Five-Generation Pedigree Chart Established by Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Genealogical Reform in the Song Dynasty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Zhu Xi’s Thoughts on Genealogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5 Brief Introduction to the Gu Jin Xing Shi Shu Bian Zheng and the Shi Zu Lue in the Tong Zhi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.6 The Imperial Genealogies of the Song Dynasty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.7 How Genealogies Transitioned During the Yuan Dynasty . . . . .

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The Perfection of Chinese Genealogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 The Number of Genealogies Increased Sharply During the Ming Dynasty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Zhu Yuanzhang’s Sacred Edict of Six Maxims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 Ming Dynasty Genealogies Followed Zhu Xi’s Ethics of the “San Gang” and the “Wu Chang” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 Improvements to Genealogies in Both Style and Content . . . . . . 7.5 Ancestral Temples and Their Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.6 Grand Collections of General Genealogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.7 Cheng Minzheng’s Genealogical Methodology and Verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The Popularization of Chinese Genealogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 Comparing the Styles of Ming Dynasty, Qing Dynasty and Republic of China Genealogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2 The Sharp Increase of Qing Dynasty and Republic of China Genealogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3 The Renewal of Genealogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4 Receiving Genealogies for Maintenance and Inspection Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.5 Zhang Xuecheng’s Genealogical Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.6 The Genealogies of Ethnic Minorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.7 The Imperial Genealogies of the Qing Dynasty . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

187

119 124 128 134 140 144 148

153 155 157 161 171 176 180

187 190 196 199 202 214 233

Contents

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8.8 8.9

Three Genealogical Prefaces Written by Sun Yat-Sen . . . . . . . . . 239 Famous Genealogists of the 20th Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

9

Contemporary Genealogical Compilations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1 A Brief Introduction to Taiwan’s Genealogical Compilations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.2 A Brief Introduction to the Mainland’s Genealogical Compilation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3 Genealogical Compilations from Both Sides of the Strait and Overseas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.4 The Inheritance and Innovation of Contemporary Genealogies, Compared to Traditional Ones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.5 Large-Scale General Genealogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.6 Inheriting Chinese History and Culture to Promote Cultural Exchanges Both at Home and Abroad . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

255 255 260 264 269 274 280

Part III Thematic Studies 10 The Style of Chinese Genealogies and Their Content (I) . . . . . . . . . . . 10.1 Titles of Genealogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.2 Encomiums for Ancestors’ Portraits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.3 Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.4 The Lists of Compilers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.5 The Preface on Genealogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.6 Genealogical Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.7 List of Imperial Grants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.8 The Methodology of Genealogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.9 The Origin and Flow of Surnames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.10 The Pedigree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

291 291 294 296 298 300 304 307 309 311 314

11 The Style of Chinese Genealogies and Their Content (II) . . . . . . . . . . 11.1 Biographies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2 Family Disciplines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.3 Customs and Rites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.4 Ancestral Temples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.5 Tombs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.6 Clan Property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.7 Deeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.8 Art and Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.9 Generational Orders, Rank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.10 Codes for Receiving the Genealogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

323 323 325 328 336 341 345 349 352 355 360

12 The Number of Chinese Genealogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.1 Statistics on Chinese Genealogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.2 Key Collectors in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.3 Key Collectors Abroad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

365 365 372 378

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Contents

13 Family Names Recorded in Chinese Genealogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1 Family Names that Still Exist in Chinese Genealogies . . . . . . . . 13.2 The Origins of Chinese Surnames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3 The Development Stages of Chinese Surnames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.4 The Characteristics of Chinese Surnames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

387 387 394 397 408

14 The Body and Soul of Chinese Genealogies: Taking the Genealogies of Huizhou as an Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415 14.1 The Body of Chinese Genealogies: The Five-Generation Pedigree Created by Ouyang and Su . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415 14.2 The Soul of Chinese Genealogies: The Neo-Confucianism of Zhu Xi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422 15 Illustrations in Chinese Genealogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.1 Portraits of Ancestors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.2 Drawings of Residences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.3 Drawings of Ancestral Temples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.4 Drawings of Cemeteries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.5 Other Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

431 431 436 439 443 449

16 The Transformation of Chinese Genealogical Functions . . . . . . . . . . . 16.1 The Budding Stage: For Eugenic Purposes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2 The Development Stage: For Political Purposes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.3 The Popularization Stage: For Ethical Purposes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.4 The Contemporary Stage: For Cultural Purposes . . . . . . . . . . . . .

457 457 463 469 475

Appendix A: List of Genealogy Websites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481 Appendix B: Table of Chinese Dynasties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487

About the Author

Heming Wang is the director of the Institute of Historical Documents at Shanghai Library and an award-winning Chinese genealogist. He is the author of more than ten books, including The General Theory of Ancestral Temples in China, A History of China’s Genealogy, Revealing China’s Genealogical Culture, and The General Theory of Ethnic Minority Genealogies in China.

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Part I

Concepts and Definitions

Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 What Is Genealogy? As this book is titled The General Theory of Chinese Genealogy 中国家谱通论, readers will naturally ask: What is genealogy? There are many different books covering different aspects of genealogy, such as jiapu 家谱 (family genealogy), zongpu宗谱 (patrilineal genealogy) and zupu 族谱 (clan genealogy). So why does this book simply refer to “genealogy”? Let’s begin by answering the first question: what is genealogy, or what is the definition of genealogy? One must consider that ancient and modern scholars have had different opinions on the answer to this question. Below are some such responses, which have been compiled in chronological order. Song Dynasty writer Su Xun 苏洵: “The Su clan genealogy is the lineage of the Su clan.”—Su Shi Zu Pu Yin 苏氏族谱引 (The Preface of the Su Clan Genealogy). Ming Dynasty writer Fang Xiaoru 方孝孺: “Genealogy can be a general record of ancestors near and far, their names, taboo names and reign titles. Genealogy can also be lists of ancestors near and far, and lists of rituals dating back hundreds of generations. A sequence of names is called a pedigree; a record of marriages and officialdom is called a book. The epoch of emperors, the history of vassals and the biography of intellectuals together form genealogies. Genealogies can be renewed by adding future generations. They contain the origin of a surname, records of generations near and far, and show male descendants in patrilineal sequence dating down from their founding ancestors. Zheng Xuan said: genealogy is like a family’s general plan, when the plan is laid out, the details are easy to arrange.”1 —Zu Pu Xu 族谱序 (Preface of Clan Genealogy). Ming Dynasty writer Huang Rubing 黄儒炳: “A country has a history and a family has a genealogy. Genealogy is a kind of history. According to common practice, a state historian must know the meaning of Chun Qiu 春秋 (the Spring and Autumn Annals), to understand the leadership and how the state system has adjusted. A 1

Xun Zhi Zhai Ji 逊志斋集 (Xunzhi Studio Collection), Vol. 13.

© Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2023 H. Wang, The General Theory of China’s Genealogy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6377-5_1

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1 Introduction

genealogist should also know the meaning of Chun Qiu to understand the kinds of human relations defined by moral codes, and how customs have adjusted.”2 — Fang Qian Lin Shi Jia Pu Xu 方前林氏家谱序 (Preface to Fangqian’s Lin Family Genealogy). Qing Dynasty writer Zhang Xuecheng 章学诚: “There is history to the world, history to a country, history to a family, and history to a person. The history of a person can tell us someone’s status and aspirations; the history of a family can be discovered through family records and archives; the history of a country can be discovered through the gazetteers of cities and counties; together these all collectively form the history of the world.”3 During the second year of Xuantong reign (1910), the writer of the Cheng Family Lineage in Renli, Jixi 绩溪仁里程世禄堂世系谱 wrote: “A family has a genealogy just as a country has a history. History details incidents of praise and blame, while a genealogy records the origin and flow of a family. Therefore, it is necessary to elaborate on the sequence of generations, and to show the adjusted behavior of family members, so that future generations can trace back their roots.” Ci Hai 辞海—Encyclopedic Dictionary of Mandarin Chinese (1979 edition): “an old genealogical book that records the generations of families and the achievements of prominent figures.” Ci Yuan 辞源—Etymological Dictionary of Chinese Characters (1986 edition): “a feudal age book that records family lineage and achievements.”4 Liu Guanwen 刘贯文: “A genealogy is a specially formed history book that records the development of a clan.”—The Task of Genealogy Research 谱牒学研究 的任务. Yang Dongquan 杨冬荃: “A genealogy or lineage enumerates all of the characters from one consanguineous group. It can also be said that—as long as the descendants of the same ancestor are listed one by one—it constitutes a simple family tree.”5 — Study on the Origin of Chinese Genealogy 中国家谱起源研究. Ouyang Zongshu 欧阳宗书, summarizing the definitions of genealogy by ancient and modern scholars: “A genealogy is a book that mainly records the lineage and deeds of clan characters in ancient Chinese patriarchal society, and its family development history is recorded in a special form.”6 —Chinese Genealogy 中国家 谱.

Shi Zu Dian 氏族典 (Histories of clans): Lin Xing Bu (Surname Lin 林). In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng 古今图书集成 (The Compendium of ancient and contemporary books). 3 Wen Shi Tong Yi Jiao Zhu 文史通义校注 (Collating and annotating all-embracing delineations of literature and history), Essay 1, Vol. 6. Request for the establishment of department annals in cities and counties. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1985. 4 Ci Yuan 辞源. Beijing: Commercial Press, 1986. 5 Genealogical research 谱牒学研究. Beijing: Bibliography and Documents Publishing House, 1989 (1). 6 Chinese family genealogy 中国家谱. Beijing: Xinhua Publishing House, 1992: 4. 2

1.1 What Is Genealogy?

5

Pan Shiren 潘世仁: “A genealogy is a record that reflects the important political, economic and cultural activities of a family and its development.”7 —Genealogy: Rich Historical Records 家谱——内涵丰富的史籍. In my November 11, 1997 article Developing Genealogical Resources to Carry Forward History and Culture 开发谱牒资源, 弘扬历史文化 published in Wenhui Daily, I put forward that genealogy “is the historical records of a consanguineous clan’s lineage and achievements.” Modern Chinese Dictionary 现代汉语大辞典 (1997 edition): “a book in which feudal families recorded the lineage and achievements of their prominent figures.” Yang Dongquan, during a 1998 seminar on Chinese genealogy at the Shanghai Library: “a genealogy is a systematic list of characters’ lineage and other records, belonging to a certain consanguineous group with common ancestors.”8 —New Definition of Genealogy 家谱定义新说. Dictionary of Chinese History 中国历史大辞典 (2000 edition): “a general record in the past of a family’s line and the achievements of its prominent figures.” Wanyan Shaoyuan 完颜绍元: “a book that records the blood ties of family members.”9 —Culture of Chinese Names 中国姓名文化. Xu Jianhua 徐建华: “Family genealogy is written in tabular form and in a special book format, and records the family lineage and deeds of important figures.”10 — Chinese Family Genealogy 中国的家谱. Liu Liming 刘黎明: “so-called ‘genealogy’ is a pedigree chart of a family or a clan.”11 —Ancestral Temples, Spirit Tablets and Genealogies 祠堂 灵牌 家谱. Modern Chinese Dictionary 现代汉语辞典 (fifth, 2005 edition): “a book that records family lineage and the achievements of its prominent figures.” The above definitions of genealogy have no fundamental differences, except the 1980s Chinese Etymology definition, which is slightly biased. All of these writers hold that genealogy is a record of lineage structure, figures from the same consanguineous group, and their achievements. To expound it from different angles: some in a narrow sense think that genealogy is just a record of family lineage; others in a broad sense think that, with the development of society, genealogical records have been expanded to include family stories and the deeds of specific figures. Some focused on the attributes of genealogy thinking that it is a family history, while others emphasize it is a written record in book form. Others are broad in their definitions to include non-written genealogy. However, which definition is the more scientific and all-encompassing? 7

Genealogical research. Beijing: Bibliography and Documents Publishing House, 1989 (4). Yang Dongquan 杨冬荃. New definitions of genealogy 家谱定义新说. Chinese genealogy research 中国谱牒研究. Shanghai: Shanghai Classics Publishing House, 1999: 40. 9 Culture of Chinese names 中国姓名文化. Shanghai: Shanghai Classics Publishing House, 2001: 37. 10 Chinese family genealogy 中国的家谱. Tianjin: Baihua Literature and Art Publishing House, 2002: 1. 11 Liu Liming 刘黎明. Ancestral temple, spirit tablet and family genealogy 祠堂·灵牌·家谱. Chengdu: Sichuan People’s Publishing House, 2003: 163. 8

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1 Introduction

In order to answer this, we must first understand the definitions of “ji¯a” 家 (family) and “pˇu” 谱 (genealogy). According to Xu Shen 许慎 in the Shuo Wen Jie Zi 说文 解字 (An Explication of Written Characters), “ji¯a” 家 is a pictographic character because “宀” looks like the roof of a house for people to live in. They raise “shˇı” 豕 (pigs). These were an early symbol of an agro-pastoral economy, where there was collective pig raising and changes to private pig raising. The “people” within the family character are defined as a couple or a family living in a room together. Therefore, “ji¯a” can be defined as an organization of parents and children working and living together, based on the matrimonial relationship between men and women—the most basic consanguineous group. Historians have various explanations for “pˇu” 谱. The Shuo Wen Jie Zi Gu Lin 说文解字诂林 (a compilation of all previous commentaries to the Shuo Wen Jie Zi) says: “It is a [book] record.” The Shi Ming 释名 (Explanation of Names) says: “It is a list of events.” The Shi Ji Zheng Yi: San Dai Shi Biao 史记正义·三代世表 (Annotations on Historical Records: Three Generations’ Charts) says, similarly: “It is a list of affairs.” That is to say, it is the arrangement of similar things for direct observation. The Wen Xin Diao Long: Shu Ji 文心雕龙·书记 (The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons: Letters and Notices) says: “For the general registration of common people, there are records and books… they must be universal, so successive generations are arranged in order and things are well documented.” That is to say, it describes the importance of detailed and comprehensive records.12 Later genealogists have had their own understandings of it. From the above definitions/analyses of “ji¯a” and “pˇu”, we can see that “ji¯a” refers to a certain consanguineous group and “pˇu” refers to the comprehensive and systematic arrangement of similar things. Therefore, when “ji¯a” and “pˇu” are combined, this means: “a description of the carrier of blood lineage”. Although genealogy has various names, multifarious content, manifold definitions, and myriad types, the briefest, most basic description of genealogy should be: “a description of the carrier of blood lineage”. Two things are important to note in this definition: it must refer to blood lineage, in a narrow sense because of the consanguinity of a family, in a broad sense because of clans, multiple kinship families and large clans which have multiple branches from a progenitor. Secondly, there must be a pedigree. It can be simple and only detail several generations, such as the pedigree of grandfathers, fathers, sons, grandsons, etc. The pedigree can also be the generations that have descended from one progenitor, or the various branches that have been descended from one progenitor. It is more accurate to define genealogy as “a description of the carrier of blood lineage”. This definition encompasses “recording” and “narrating”, which are two aspects of genealogy. “Recording” mainly refers to written genealogy, while “narrating” mainly refers to oral genealogy. The aforementioned definition is allencompassing to include the genealogy of a family and a clan, as well as hundreds of families and clans. It not only refers to book-type genealogy, but other types such 12

Yang Dongquan. New definitions of genealogy. Chinese genealogy research. Shanghai: Shanghai Classics Publishing House, 1999: 37.

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as stone-tablet genealogy, and cloth genealogy. It includes non-written genealogies, such as knotted rope genealogy. It also includes mature and complete genealogies after the Song Dynasty, as well as the most primitive genealogies, such as oracle and bronze genealogies. At the same time, this definition excludes family history records that do not systematically record lineage, biographies, histories, etc. Although these family records describe the historical events of a family, they cannot be called a genealogy because they are not a complete list of family lineage. This is the core of genealogy and the only criterion to distinguish whether something is a genealogy or not. Now that we have answered what “genealogy” is, we will approach the second question. There are many book titles which reflect genealogy, among which, the “jiapu”, “zongpu”, and “zupu” are common. This book looks at the “jiapu” alone as a representative summary of all genealogical books, for the following reasons: First, since the Tang Dynasty, genealogy has come to be the most popular subject in genealogical books. There has been a developmental process in the names of genealogical books produced during the earlier Chinese dynasties. In the Zhou Li Shu 周礼疏 (Annotations on the Rites of Zhou), Kong Yingda 孔颖达 called the imperial genealogies Di Xi 帝系 and vassal genealogies Shi Ben 世本. In the Han Shu: Yi Wen Zhi 汉书 艺文志 (The Official Dynastic History of the Han Dynasty: Monograph on Literature), the imperial and vassal genealogies were called Di Wang Zhu Hou Shi Pu 帝王诸侯世谱 (Pedigree Charts of the Imperial Family). During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Pei Songzhi’s 裴松之 (372–451) San Guo Zhi Zhu 三国志注 (Annotations on the Records of Three Kingdoms) and Liu Xiaobiao’s 刘孝标 (463–521) Shi Shuo Xin Yu Zhu 世说新语注 (Annotations on the New Tales of the World) named genealogical books after a certain surname. But at this time, genealogical books also had other names, such as Yangxiong’s Family Genealogy 杨雄家牒 cited by Wen Xuan Zhu 文选注 (Annotating selections of refined literature); The Zhi Family Lineage 贽氏世本 cited by Shi Shuo Xin Yu Zhu; the Yang Family Blood Lineage 杨氏血脉谱, and the Yang Family Branch Lineage 杨氏枝分 谱 recorded in the Sui Zhi 隋志 (Annals of the Sui Dynasty). The Shi Shuo Xin Yu Zhu also cited the Wang Family Genealogy 王氏家谱, the first book to use the word “genealogy” in its title. The Xin Tang Shu: Yi Wen Zhi 新唐书 艺文志 (The New Official Dynastic History of the Tang Dynasty: Monograph on Literature) contained genealogical books with various names, such as the “jiapu” 家谱, “bielu” 别录: special recording, “biaopu” 表谱: tabular book, “shipu”氏谱: genealogy, “zupu”族 谱, “shijia”世家: family document, “jiadie”家牒: family genealogy, and “jiashi”家 史: family history. Among these books, “jiapu” was used 21 times, far more than any other name,13 indicating that the phrase was popular during the Tang Dynasty. Although genealogical books in the Tang and later dynasties had other names, the “jiapu” became the most common name in later years. Secondly, because genealogy reflects the lineage and achievements of a clan, “jiapu” can best summarize all kinds of genealogical books. As mentioned above, genealogical books mostly use the terms “jiapu”, “zongpu”, or “zupu”. “Jia” 13

Xin Tang Shu 新唐书 (The New Official Dynastic History of the Tang Dynasty), Vol. 58.

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家(family), “zong”宗 (patrilineality), and “zu” 族 (clan) all refer to social organizations where people have the same blood line, but their range and scope is different. “Jia” is the most core/basic relationship, and refers to marriage and kinship-based social units. “Jia” includes parents, children, and other relatives that live together. “Zong” is much larger, and includes descendants in linked patrilineal sequence, descended from a group’s founding ancestors. “Zu” is the largest, and is a general term for relatives who are related by blood. Therefore, although family genealogy, patrilineality genealogy, and clan genealogy all record the lineage and deeds of a consanguineous group, “genealogy” is a basic principle at its core, so it is more appropriate and natural that it represents/summarizes genealogical books. If we thumb through the 1999 book Ci Hai, we find a special entry on “jiapu”: “an ancient genealogical book that records the generations of a family and the achievements of its prominent figures—also known as the ‘zongpu’, ‘zupu’ and ‘jiasheng’: family record’.” The Ci Hai has no entry on “zongpu”, and it only briefly describes “zupu” as “the pedigree of a clan”. Therefore, it can be seen that the Ci Hai uses “jiapu” alone to summarize all genealogical books. The same is true of the Dictionary of Chinese History (2000 edition), which has an identical entry on “jiapu” to that of the Ci Hai. The Dictionary of Chinese History has no entry on “zongpu” or “zupu”. The Modern Chinese Dictionary (2005 edition) has entries on “jiapu” and “zupu”, but not on “zongpu”. It defines “jiapu” as “a book that records a family’s lineage and the achievements of prominent figures”. It defines “zupu” as “a book that records a clan’s lineage and the achievements of prominent figures”. This goes to show why it is more appropriate/representative to summarize all genealogical books under the term “jiapu”. To conclude, it is best to summarize all genealogical books as “jiapu”. As mentioned above, out of all of the terms that refer to social organizations where members have shared blood ties, the term “jia” 家 (family) is the most basic. Families are the basic cells of human society, and the core social unit in a bloodline relationship includes parents, children, and other relatives that live together. A wider genealogy could include one’s great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, grandfather, father, sons, grandsons, great-grandsons and great-great-grandsons. These are the “nine grades of relationships, or jiuzu” 九族,14 and the “five degrees of mourning attire or “wufu” 五服15 are the closest blood relationships. “Zong” and “zu” have an even wider scope, so although the descendants of a patrilineal group or clan come 14

Translator’s note: The “nine grades of relations” (九族) is an important concept when it comes to application of laws and observing rituals. It refers to nine generations from great-great-grandfather down to great-great-grandchildren. 15 Translator’s note: The “five degrees of mourning attire” (五服) define not only the proper attire, but also the proper mourning ritual one should observe when a relative has died. Appearing in writings as early as the Rites of Zhou, mourning rituals developed over the years. By the time of the Qing dynasty, it was set down in law that there were five degrees, or grades of mourning according to the relationship one has with the deceased. The closer a person is related to the deceased, the higher the degree of mourning that is observed. Conventionally, clans adopted the five degrees of mourning according to unwritten definitions that determines the difference between close and distant relatives.

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from a common ancestor, they are arguably not as close as the “nine kinships” or “five degrees”. Therefore, and without a doubt, members of a consanguineous group feel a stronger family bond than the bond in a patrilineal group or a clan. This leads people to naturally think that family genealogy feels stronger and closer than patriarchy or clan genealogy. Consequently, it makes sense that most of the genealogical books in the past few centuries have been called “genealogies”. Some titles include: • Pan Guangdan. 1929. A Brief History of Chinese Genealogy. Eastern Miscellany, 26 (1). • Yang Dianxun. 1944. The General Theory of Chinese Genealogy. Quarterly Bulletin of Chinese Bibliography, New Vol. 3 (1–2). • Wu Xinli. 1988. China’s Genealogies and Their Academic Value. Historical Studies, 6. • Yang Dongquan.1989. Study on the Origin of Chinese Genealogy. In Genealogical Research, 1. Bibliography and Document Publishing House. • Ouyang Zongshu. 1992. Chinese Genealogy. Xinhua Publishing House. • Ge Jianxiong. 1997. Family Genealogy: Its Values and Limitations as Historical Document. Issues in History Teaching, 6. • Xu Jianhua. 2002. China’s Genealogies. Baihua Literature and Art Publishing House. • Liu Liming. 2003. Ancestral Temple, Spirit Tablet and Family Genealogy. Sichuan People’s Publishing House. Some of the above works are of great importance. I think there are two reasons why the authors discuss their genealogical books under the term “jiapu”: firstly, it better summarizes of all genealogical books and secondly, using genealogy to discuss genealogical books makes people feel closer.

1.2 Types of Genealogy China’s genealogies are numerous and diverse. Considering that the vast majority of existing genealogies are book genealogies, we can divide genealogies into two categories: book genealogy and non-book genealogy. The first genealogy to consider is book genealogy, which is written or printed on paper and then bound into books. Today’s existing genealogies are mainly book ones, with more than 99% being book genealogies so to speak. Many of these books are kept in private collections, but most are stored in public institutions of different sizes in China and abroad, mainly in libraries. Among them, the Shanghai Library has the largest collection of family genealogies. Since the establishment of the Shanghai Library in July 1952, all the leaders have attached great importance to the research work of collecting, purchasing, sorting, and developing genealogical documents. According to statistics, the Shanghai Library has collected over 21,000 collections of genealogies with nearly 200,000 copies.

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This accounts for more than one third of the world’s genealogies, so it is called “Half of China’s Genealogies”. When entering the stack room of genealogies in the Shanghai Library, we can see colorful, a wide variety, and beautiful genealogies categorized under different names, such as “jiapu”, “zongpu”, “zupu”, “gongfang pu”公房谱: public genealogy, “hepu” 合谱: combined genealogy, “fangpu” 房谱: branch genealogy, “zhipu” 支谱: branch genealogy, “tongpu” 通谱: general genealogy, “tongpu” 统谱: general genealogy, “fenpu” 坟谱: cemetery genealogy, “cipu”祠谱: ancestral temple genealogy, “jiashi” 家史, “jiazhi” 家志: family history, “jiadian” 家典: family rituals, “jiasheng” 家乘, “jibu” 祭簿: offering book, “jiadie” 家牒, “zongbu” 宗簿: clan book, “zongzhi” 宗 志: clan history, “shijia” 世家, “shixi” 世系: family pedigree, “shilu” 世录: generation chart, “shipu” 世谱: family history, “hanggpu” 行谱: generational genealogy, “shidie” 世牒: family pedigree, “putu” 谱图: genealogy illustration, “rending ce” 人 丁册: generation name chart, “yudie” 玉牒: imperial genealogy, “dixi” 帝系, “zupu” 祖谱: ancestor genealogy, “xuemai pu” 血脉谱: bloodline genealogy, “lianzong pu” 联宗谱: joint genealogy, “huipu” 会谱: general genealogy, “zongpu” 总谱: general genealogy, “yuanliu” 源流: origin and flow, “yuanyuan lu” 渊源录: record of origin, “xiande zhuan” 先德传: virtuous ancestors, “qingfen lu” 清芬录: record of virtuous ancestors. These numerous and spectacular genealogies can be classified. In terms of content, genealogies can be divided into: (1) Family genealogy and clan genealogy. It records the lineage, characters, and deeds of a family or clan, which accounts for the overwhelming majority of family genealogies. (2) Imperial genealogy. It records the lineage, characters, and deeds of imperial families, such as the Imperial Family Genealogy of King Duoluoxunqin or the 14th Son of Saint Emperor Zuren 圣祖仁皇帝十四子多罗恂勤王玉牒. This records the family line of Yunti 允禵, the 14th son (also known as the 14th brother) of emperor Kangxi of Qing Dynasty, and is stored at the Shanghai Library. (3) Ancestral temple genealogy. It records the building, maintenance, function, contract, and management of clan ancestral temples and is composed of two parts: picture and text. An example of this is the Renovation of the Main Ancestral Temple by Fu Family in Dongshan, Jinhua, Zhejiang 浙江金华东山傅氏 修葺大宗祠 in the 38th year of the Reign of Qianlong of Qing Dynasty (1773), where the details of Fu’s 傅 renovation of the ancestral temple are recorded, and is kept at the Shanghai Library. (4) Cemetery genealogy. This records the position, orientation, renovation, sacrifice activities, and other aspects of cemeteries of family ancestors which also consists of two parts: picture and text. (5) Joint genealogy. Generally, family genealogy only relates to one surname, but there are also some related to two or more surnames. Joint family genealogies, such as Genealogies of the Xiao Family and the Jiang Family in Wuyuan, Jiangxi

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萧江家乘 can be found in the 30th year of the Reign of Emperor Daoguang of Qing Dynasty (1850), which contains the two surnames: Xiao 萧 and Jiang 江. In terms of coverage, genealogies can be divided into: (1) Family genealogy, patrilineality genealogy, and clan genealogy, which record the lineage, characters, and deeds of a family or a clan. (2) Branch genealogy. As a family or a clan multiplies, it is often divided into several branches. The genealogy compiled by the branches is called branch genealogy, whose range is smaller than that of the parent family or clan. (3) General genealogy. As known by its name, it is a family genealogy of the same surname in various regions, covering a wide range. For example, the Shanghai Library collects General Genealogy of Wang Families 王氏通谱 in 20th year of the Reign of Emperor Guangxu of Qing Dynasty (1894), which is a comprehensive grand genealogy including Wang families in Taiyuan 太原, Langya 琅琊, Sanhuai 三槐, and other regions. It is rich in content on a larger scale as it has 82 volumes in total. In terms of version, genealogies can be divided into: (1) Ancient genealogy. It mainly refers to thread-bound genealogical books printed on Xuan paper and published before 1949, with vertical characters and rightturning pages. (2) Paperback genealogy. It mainly refers to new genealogical books published after 1949, with lead-print horizontal characters and left-turning pages. Since the division of 1949 is recent, it is only relative. Some new genealogical books are printed in the style of ancient books and look very archaic. The above classifications in terms of content, coverage and version are only rough divisions; if looked at further, subdivisions can be made by last surname, region, date, print form, etc., but we will not go further here. In short, book genealogies are numerous and varied. The second is the non-book genealogy. In addition to book genealogy, there are some non-book genealogies. Although there may not be many, there are different varieties that are quite distinctive and some have important historical value. They mainly include: (1)

Oral genealogy: genealogies that have been passed down from generation to generation by oral transmission and reflect a family’s lineage. In ancient Chinese classics, the family lineage of the era before the emergence of writing was recorded. For instance, The Shan Hai Jing 山海经 (The Classic of Mountains and Seas) recorded the family lineage of Yan Di 炎帝 (or Huang Di in various texts, surnamed Jiang 姜 and nicknamed “Shennongshi” 神农氏) and Di Jun’s 帝俊 family lineage. These genealogies were passed down from generation to generation by oral transmission; that is, they were oral genealogies that were later written down. These oral genealogies of Shengnongshi and Di Jun are interlinked by name; in other words, the last syllable or the last two/three syllables of each descendant’s name has been placed before

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the name of the subsequent descendant. For example, the family lineage of Shengnongshi is as follows: “Yan Ju bore Jie Bing 节并; Jie Bing gave birth to Xi Qi 戏器; and Xi Qi bore Zhu Rong 祝融”, such a link facilitates memorization, recitation, and circulation. The custom of our primitive ancestors orally transmitting genealogies has been well preserved among some ethnic minority groups. Before the written language came into being, the Mongolians had a custom of “telling family lineage and deeds with their mouths.” The custom of transmitting genealogies orally has been passed down and well preserved into the present in some minority groups. since the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, Chinese researchers have conducted ethnic surveys, and they have found evidence of oral genealogies that have been passed down from generation to generation in some ethnic groups that did not have their own languages. For example, the Nu ethnic group in Bijiang county of Yunnan practiced linked oral genealogy, so some senior people can recite the names of more than forty generations of ancestors. Linked name genealogy that has been transmitted orally to this day includes both patrilineal and matrilineal oral genealogies. Oral genealogy has the two basic elements of blood lineage and pedigree. It is the most primitive form of Chinese genealogy and also the oldest. Knotted rope genealogy: genealogical information was recorded by tying knots on ropes. Before the writing came into being, China had experienced the era of tying ropes to remember events, using ropes to tie knots to help people remember things. “The ancient [Chinese] used ropes to rule and the later sages shifted to use deed.”16 “The ancient people had no words, so when things needed to be sworn, they would use rope to tie a big knot for a big thing and a small knot for a small thing, and the amount of knots depends on an amount of different things. Using rope as a reference is enough to govern each other.”17 In ancient times, people not only used rope to record their lives, but also tied knots to keep counts of their generations and family lineage, which is why it is called primitive knotted rope genealogy. The Oroqen people in northeast China have the custom of tying knots to remember things. As late as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they used horsehair ropes to tie knots to show how many generations there are in a family: three knots mean three generations and five knots mean five generations. The Xibe people in northeast China have a silk rope about two feet long, which is their knotted rope genealogy. A few dorsal bones on the rope indicate how many generations the tribe has gone through; a few bows and arrows indicate how many men there are in this family; a few red cloths indicate how many women there are in this family. They venerated this silk rope and hung it in the middle of the wooden beam of their house. Such horsehair ropes and silk ropes were their family genealogies.

Zhou Yi: Xi Ci, Vol. 2 周易·系辞下传 (Books of Changes). Published by Imperial Academy in the 13th year of the reign of Tongzhi (1875). 17 (Tang) Li Dingzuo 李鼎祚. Jiu Jia Yi 九家易 cited by Zhou Yi Ji Jie 周易集解 (Annotations on Book of Changes). Published in the 36th year of the reign of Jiajing (1812). 16

1.2 Types of Genealogy

(3)

(4)

(5)

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Like oral genealogy, knotted rope genealogy already contains two elements of blood lineage and pedigree, and is also the most primitive form of Chinese genealogy. Different from oral genealogy, knotted rope genealogy is the most primitive physical genealogy in China. Oracle inscription genealogy: genealogy engraved on tortoise shells and animal bones. Before writing was created, people relied on oral transmission and rope knots to remember their family lineage, but over time it was inevitable to make mistakes. After writing came into being, people began to write things down on oracle bones. The bones recorded family lineage or the genealogy on tortoise shell and animal bones, and was considered oracle genealogy. According to researchers, at least three fragments of oracle bones can be identified as the oldest family genealogy. One of them is now in the British Museum, which records the names of 14 people from 11 generations of Er 儿 family during Wuding period (1250–1192 BC) and it is a very complete oracle genealogy of noble family lineage. Oracle inscription genealogy is the most primitive and the oldest written physical genealogy. Bronze genealogy: genealogy inscribed on bronze vessels. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin, with its main ingredient as copper, but a certain proportion of tin is added to make a cast vessel look bluish-gray, so it is called bronze. In the existing Shang Dynasty bronze vessels, there are four belonging to bronze genealogies, which are enshrined in an ancestral temple to worship ancestors and record lineage as well as to make descendants never forget their ancestors and add sacrifices of time, so that ancestors’ lineage can be eternal with vessels. Just like oracle genealogy, bronze genealogy records family lineage by writing and becomes the oldest physical genealogy by writing in Chinese history. Stone tablet genealogy: genealogy inscribed on a stone tablet. The reason why family genealogies were engraved on stone tablets was very clear: “engraving on stone meant it can be handed down forever”. In the Han Dynasty (206BC– 220AD), this kind of genealogy was very popular. Sanlao Stone Genealogy 三老碑 in the 28th year of the reign of Jianwu in the eastern Han Dynasty (52) and Sun Shuao Stone Genealogy 孙叔敖碑 in the 3rd Yanxi year of the reign of emperor Huan of Han Dynasty (160) are famous families of the Han Dynasty. Compared to oracle inscription genealogy and bronze genealogy, stone genealogy is more mature and richer in content. In addition to the record of family members’ lineage, names, dates of death, the above two stone genealogies also record achievements and virtues of ancestors, the purpose of the monument, and other content. They arrange names and seniorities so: the vertical is father and son, the horizontal is husband and wife, brother and sister. Such genealogy has obvious relationship with that of later generations. Stone genealogy has remained for a long time, so when paper genealogy was born, there were still some families chose to “carve in stone” while compiling paper genealogies. For example, Su Xun, a famous literary writer in the Song Dynasty, while hosting the compilation of The Su Clan Genealogy, built a pavilion to the southwest of his great-great-grandfather’s cemetery and inscribed his family genealogy on a stone tablet in it. The practice of carving

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genealogy in stone tablet lasted until the creation of the Republic of China. For example, in Xianghao village, Liuzhai township, Nandan county of Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, the Mo Family Shaomu Clan Genealogy 莫姓哨 目族谱 carved in Republic of China was found, which recorded the origin, lineage, pedigree, and generation name chart of Mo family, and its full text has 412 characters.18 Compared with previous genealogies, the content of stone genealogy is richer and more comprehensive. The popularity of stone genealogy in the Han Dynasty continued to the Republic of China, indicating that the history of stone genealogy is as long as 2000 years. Pagoda genealogy: as the name implies, it refers to genealogy engraved on pagodas, generally on its stone body. So it is, in a sense, an extension of stone genealogy. Cuijiaping, Linxian county of Shanxi Province preserves a complete pagoda genealogy carved in the Ming Dynasty, which is very symbolic. According to its inscriptions, the pagoda was first built in the 16th year of the reign of Jiajing (1537) and rebuilt in the 16th year of the reign of Jiajing(1547), with “a diameter of more than 5.5 feet, a surrounding area of about 16.4 feet, and also includes seven floors about 26.2 feet high”.19 Its seven floors consisted of finely carved six-sided gravels, bluestone blocks, and gravel eaves; flowers are carved on gravels, letters are engraved on bluestones, and the Cui family genealogy and those of other surnames are engraved on the bluestone blocks of the first and second floors. Cuijiaping pagoda genealogy obviously has the following characteristics: one is the coexistence of Buddha and genealogy on pagoda lets people worship Buddha and ancestors at the same time, which is a development and supplement to “respect ancestors, worship patriarchy and unite clans”. For instance, the purpose of family genealogy in Song and Yuan Dynasties and the “three cardinal guides and five constant virtues”, aims the family genealogy of the Ming Dynasty, so it has a unique and profound meaning; the second is the coexistence of multiple genealogies. It not only contains six Cui family genealogies that have formed a general genealogy of Cui families, but also genealogies of a dozen other surnames, which gather on a pagoda to form a large genealogy group, which is extremely rare in the history of Chinese genealogy, so it has a high value as historical data as a precious physical data. Cloth genealogy: family genealogy written on cloth. On March 10, 2006, Anhui Business Daily published a report entitled Family Genealogy Written on Cloth 写在布上的家谱, which said, on the morning of March 9, 2006, villagers of Pei village, Huanglu town, Jucao district, Chaohu city of Anhui province displayed a huge genealogy written on cloth, which was 276 cm long and 166 cm wide, recording the lineage of the Pei family for over 700 years and

Ouyang Zongshu 欧阳宗书. Chinese family genealogy 中国家谱. Beijing: Xinhua Publishing House, 1992: 15. 19 Li Ronghai 李荣海. On pagoda genealogy carved during the reign of Jiajing in Cuijiaping, Linxian county of Shanxi province 浅谈山西临县崔家坪嘉靖石塔家谱. Genealogical research. Beijing: Bibliography and Document Publishing House, 1992. 18

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19 generations, with clear and neat writing and painted decorative pattern. It has been preserved for nearly 100 years on a piece of textile, so it is known as cloth genealogy. Not only Anhui has cloth genealogy, but also Maochen township, Xiaogan city of Hubei province, and other places have many. In the northern countryside, it is also known as “cloud” or the “sacred scroll”. The cloth genealogy in Chaohu city of Anhui province is a rare and large piece. Generally, cloth genealogy only has a simple pedigree chart, because at that time some families did not have the strength to compile a complete genealogy, so they just used a piece of white cloth to write down the names of the male ancestors of the past generations as a family genealogy. It is stored at ordinary times and only put up in the middle hall for worship at festivals. After the festival, it will be stored again. Sacred scroll genealogy: refers to the pedigree chart written on a long scroll, which is like a picture on a piece of paper and it can usually be rolled up into a scroll. As it contains the names and images of ancestors, it is called sacred scroll genealogy. It has something in common with cloth genealogy in that it mainly records the names of the ancestors of past dynasties and there are images in between. It is rolled up and stored during ordinary times and opened to be hung up for worship at festivals. Beijing Zhongtao Ancient Art Appraisal Technology Development Center identified in July 2004 an Anhui collector’s Sacred Scroll Genealogy of the Ye Family in Jinhua of Zhejiang 浙江金华叶 氏家谱书画卷, a sacred scroll genealogy that is of important literature and art value. This long scroll is a genealogy in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. It is 32 cm high, 480 cm long and made up of five sections. The preface section is a seal script calligraphy by Zhang Xiaoxiang, a zhuangyuan (the title given to the scholar who achieved the highest score on highest level of the Chinese imperial examinations) in the Southern Song Dynasty. It says: “May next generations have consistent luck in getting promotions as an official, and lead a clean and frugal life”. The first section is An Imperial Edict to Yeheng, the Judge of Dali Temple issued by emperor Gaozong of the Song Dynasty and dated “the afternoon of June 7 in Shaoxing in the 30th Year of the Reign of Emperor Gaozong”. The second section is a half portrait of Yeheng by an anonymous hand. The third section is an inscription for Ye Family’s scroll, which is a poem with seven characters to each line written by Fan Zhongyan, a famous writer and politician in the Song Dynasty. The fourth section is General Genealogy of the Ye Family: Pedigree Chart, which is the most important content of the long scroll genealogy and is preceded by an epilogue revealing the historical origin of the Ye family in Jinhua of Zhejiang province. Neat lower cases fully recorded 25 generations of the Ye family from the Zhou Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty by adopting a five-generation pedigree chart. This kind of chart was innovated by Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun. And because of this, the scroll is less than 5 m long, yet it records 25 generations of the Ye family, including the generation name chart, officialdoms in clear writing and lineage. This piece has overcome the shortcomings of some genealogies that have chaotic and confusing rankings of numerous descendants far and near, so it has high cultural relic value.

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(9)

Paper genealogy: the pedigree chart written on paper, similar to cloth genealogy written on cloth. Paper genealogy has had a very long history. In the tombs of Sui and Tang Dynasties in Asina, Turpan, and Xinjiang of China, two pieces of paper genealogies were unearthed, one is an incomplete clan genealogy of a surname in Wei, Jin, Northern, and Southern Dynasties, while the other is also an incomplete family genealogy of a surname between the Han Dynasty and the Sixteen States, all written on paper. Later, book genealogy was born, but some families did not have the strength to compile a complete book genealogy, so they wrote the names of the family ancestors on paper similar to a book genealogy, which was stored at ordinary times and taken out for worship at festivals, and even continued to fill in the names of the nearest family members. The Duuren-Güyeng Genealogy 图林固英雄谱 in the Mongolian Autonomous County of Kharchin, Liaoning Province is a very distinctive Mongolian genealogy. It records the clan of the last emperor’s son-in-law, Duuren-Güyeng. It was written from top to bottom by hand in Mongolian, and is eight meters long and 1.7 m wide. It was usually rolled up while in storage, but opened during days of worship or holidays. It records the names and social status of the descendants of Duuren-Güyeng, from the ninth year of the Huangtaiji era (1635) to the first year of the Xuantong era (1909). Altogether, it lists 14 generations of descendants. 1904 people are recognized in total in this genealogy, and 1153 were granted various official titles by the Qing Imperial Court. There were 22 first-class tabunans, three second-class tabunans, 43 third-class tabunans, 1019 fourth-class tabunans, 13 jasays, one infanta, 63 beidis, two beizis, four zhenguo dukes, 22 associate ministers, four zuosuotumeng directors, one interior minister, eight ministers of justice, and eight emperor’s minions. 386 people were granted non-titles, and there were 365 lamas. This genealogy records nearly 300 years of Mongolian history, and traces the Mongolians back some 1000 years. It fills in some of the blanks previously left in the Mongol Dynasty history after Emperor Yuanshun’s reign. It therefore has high value as a cultural relic.20 (10) No-word genealogy: a physical genealogy without written records and it is a very unique kind of genealogy. Areas inhabited by Miao people, such as Xiaomaopoying village and Miaozhai village, Xuanen county, Enshi Tujia, and Miao autonomous prefecture of Hubei province and Hangzhai village, Huayuan county, Xiangxi Tujia, and Miao autonomous prefecture of Hunan province preserve no-word genealogies. Miao people here keep this cultural custom: a piece of refined green or black cloth without words is sealed in a small bamboo tube. Miao people call it “biao, 表 (table)” and hold a grand ceremony of “entering table” and “leaving table” every time a person is born or dies. When a baby is born, they take out “table” and veer it twice, meaning “entering table”. When a family member dies, they take out “table” and reverse Zhang Wenguang 张文广. Historic clan genealogy is national treasure: the Duuren-Güyeng genealogy in the Mongolian Autonomous County of Kharchin 悠悠族谱, 民族瑰宝——喀左蒙 古图林固英雄谱. Liaoning Today, 2003 (6).

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it twice, meaning “leaving table”. “Table” is the most confidential item in the Miao family. The ceremony of “entering and leaving tables” shows that Miao people want to keep the blood relationships important to the family, but do not want to leave any written evidence. Within the clan, each person keeps their own pedigree in mind and knows themselves have entered “table” or genealogy. However, outside the clan, no one knows anything about it. This token, called as “table” by Miao people, serves as a family genealogy. This refined cloth called as “table” is actually a “no-word genealogy”.21 In the traditional culture and customs of Miao people, the preservation of no-word genealogy is closely related to its tragic history. Miao ethnic group is an ancient nationality, but also a calamitous and constant migrating one. Throughout history, the successive dynasties have been brutally repressed and suppressed Miao people. In constant war and displacement, it is very dangerous to write down their family tree in detail. In order to preserve their own nationality, Miao people had to adopt the form of “no-word genealogy” and turned its genealogy inherited from generations into an internal firm belief, only held by “entering table” and “leaving table” as a simple ceremony to serve the function of compiling genealogy and inheriting family lineage. It not only prevents nationality blood from being interrupted and confused, but also covers up its original appearance and keeps confidential to the outside world. That Miao people chose anonymity to protect themselves in “no-word genealogy” is a vivid reflection of the tragic history of Miao people, and at the same time, it has added a rather distinctive new species to Chinese genealogy. (11) CD and film genealogy: it is to use modern science and technology to record book genealogy onto CDs and microfilms. It is actually an extension of book genealogy, but it’s hard to fit into the category of book genealogy as far as its carrier type is concerned. When a book genealogy is recorded into CD and microfilm, its volume is greatly reduced. It has great advantages: firstly, it is convenient for preservation and collection. The small size of CD and film genealogy makes it very easy to keep and collect, and also very easy to carry and mail; secondly, turning book genealogy into optical disk and microfilm is conducive to the protection of ancient books. Currently, the existing book genealogies are mainly ancient ones printed in Ming and Qing Dynasties and the Republic of China and about 60–70 % are the only existing ones, especially those printed before Ming and Qing Dynasties, of which all are precious cultural relics. These ancient book genealogies collected in public units, are substantially and repeatedly provided for readers to read and even copy, are bound to suffer irreparable losses. If they are turned into CD and microfilm and then provided to readers, it will greatly benefit the precious books with protection and the genealogical documents will extend their lifespan; thirdly, it is convenient for readers to read, and even to check online. Readers can use their computers to access CD and film genealogy, and it is very convenient to Zhou Xingmao 周兴茂. No-word genealogy of the Miao nationality in Hubei Province 湖北苗 族的无字家谱. Journal of Guizhou Nationalities University, 2004 (6).

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copy if needed. If CD and film genealogies go on online, readers from thousands of miles away can also access the Internet to check it, which is far beyond the reach of book genealogy. Of course, it should be noted that CD and film genealogy has a relatively short lifespan, reportedly no more than 100 years, but with the development of science and technology, this kind of defect can be quickly overcome. To sum up, Chinese book genealogies are numerous and non-book ones are diversified, both being precious historical and cultural heritages of Chinese nation.

1.3 The History of Genealogy Based on the definition that genealogy is “a description of the carrier of blood lineage” and the historical analysis of the compiling style, content, function, method and other factors of genealogy which covers 5000 years, the history of genealogy can be roughly divided into seven stages: origin, birth, prosperity, transformation, perfection, popularization, and new compilation. (1) The origin stage: from matriarchal society to the Shang Dynasty (1600–1046 BC). Since genealogy is “the carrier of describing blood lineage”, its origin must be closely related to the formation of different blood lineages. It is well known that human beings in the early era of group marriages and living lives that conducted sexual incest in a large and confusing scales, so there is no stable blood lineage to follow with certainty. Later, with the prohibition of marriage between parents and children, brothers and sisters, and even all the collateral relatives of the mother, human beings entered clan society based on blood relationship. Descendants of the same ancestor lived together, produced together, shared distribution, shared inheritance of property, shared sacrifice to ancestors, conducted joint revenge of blood clan, and were buried in the same cemetery after death, thus forming a clan group with common blood. The matrilineal clan society based on women appeared first and then gradually developed into patriarchal clan society based on men. Engels pointed out: “The clan is a primitive formation from human society based on blood.”22 Marx said, “The function of clan name is to make clan members to remember the common lineage…Clan name itself is evidence of a common lineage.”23 Since the original clan society has formed a blood lineage and ranked seniorities by generations, it makes possible the germination of “the carrier of describing blood lineage.” Studies on paleoanthropology, sociology, and archaeology show that Chinese genealogy originated from matriarchal clan society, and its mark is oral genealogy as well as knotted rope genealogy. 22

Marx and Engels. Complete works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 3. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1975: 300. 23 Marx. Abstracts of ancient society by Morgan. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1965: 172.

1.3 The History of Genealogy

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Ancient Chinese classics, such as the Di Wang Shi Ji, the Shan Hai Jing, and etc., recorded the family lineage before the writing appeared. These genealogies were first handed down through generations of oral transmission, which became oral genealogy, and then written down. These oral genealogies, often linked genealogy, i.e., the last or two or even three syllables of the last generation’s name are placed before the name of the next generation, such a link facilitates memorization, recitation and circulation. The customs of oral genealogy of primitive ancestors are well preserved among some minorities. For example, ethnic minorities in Mongolia and southwest China all retain the custom of “telling family lineage and deeds with mouth”. China’s ethnic minorities, such as Manchus, also retained the method of tying knots to record family members’ situation, forming a special knotted rope genealogy. The research of paleoanthropology, sociology and archaeology shows that oral genealogy and knotted rope genealogy began in the late matriarchal society. In the Shang Dynasty, oracle genealogy carved on tortoise shell and animal bones and bronze genealogy engraved on bronze vessels appeared in China. Both oracle genealogy and bronze genealogy are physical genealogy recorded in writing, a step ahead of oral genealogy and knotted rope genealogy. However, the contents of oracle genealogy and bronze genealogy are simple, which only record the lineage of father, son and brother, so they are not complete family genealogies in the sense of richer content and mature style. Oracle genealogy and bronze genealogy of the Shang Dynasty, come together with oral genealogy and knotted rope genealogy, constitute the oldest and most primitive genealogies in China. In general, they belong to the budding period of Chinese genealogy. (2) The birth stage: from the Zhou Dynasty (1046–221 BC) to the Han Dynasty (206 BC–AD 220). With the development of clan society, Xia and Shang Dynasties, primitive genealogy gradually broke away from primitive form and reached a new level of development in the Zhou Dynasty, which established patriarchal system based on blood relationship evolved from clan organization and set up inheritance system of the eldest son by the first wife. Under patriarchal system, the eldest son controls ownership of the land, country, and family, plays a dominant role in clan by hosting sacrifices and divinations, has the responsibility of uniting clan, managing clan affairs, guiding armed forces of clan, and enjoys political and exploitative rights to other clan members. From emperors to gentries, all were divided and the distribution of property and power was determined by blood relation, so as to consolidate slavery. Thus it can be seen that patriarchal clan system is also family system, whose core content is that only the eldest son by the first wife can inherit the title of clan and the rank of ancestor, while the other sons can only set up minor clans as collateral branches of the clan or family. Based on the need of such strict hierarchy identity system, family genealogy of “establishing lineage and distinguish seniority” and recording blood relation far and near, legitimacy, concubine, and birth order had a considerable development in the Zhou Dynasty. Not only did each noble family inscribe their family lineage and activities on ritual wares and sacrificial vessel out of the need of respecting ancestral clan, but also various vassal states set

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up special officials to be responsible for the compilation and management of family genealogies of all noble families and established a perfect set of system of letting historiographers compile genealogies. The system has created a number of genealogists and the first batch of Chinese genealogical works. Among genealogical works in the Zhou Dynasty, the most complete and systematic one is the Shi ben, which records the origin of surnames, lineage and residence, creation before death, posthumous titles and other deeds of emperors, nobles and officials from Yellow Emperor to Spring and Autumn period and Warring States period, “consisting of fifteen volumes, such as Genealogy of Emperors, Genealogy of Nobles, Genealogy of Ministers, Clans and Surnames, Residence, Creation, Posthumous Titles, etc. The Shi ben is not only an ancient summative genealogical work gathering imperial lineages in one book, but also the forerunner worshiped by grand genealogical works of later generations. The publication of genealogical works such as the Shi Ben indicates Chinese genealogy has been separated from its original form, marking the official birth of Chinese genealogy. (3) The prosperity stage: from Wei, Jin, and the Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty. Chinese genealogy was born in the Zhou Dynasty, developed in the Han Dynasty and entered its golden age from the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty. In the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, officials were selected by nine-rank system. Politically, aristocratic families monopolized official career and controlled government. Economically, the development of landlords and manors led to the expansion of clan power. Therefore, genealogy became a tool for families to protect their special interests. Zheng Qiao 郑樵 (1104–1162) pointed out in the Tong Zhi 通志 (General treatises): Shi Zu Lue Xu 氏族略 序 (Preface to the history of family clans), “since Sui and Tang Dynasties, there have been official genealogy and family genealogy. The election of officials must base on official genealogy, and marriage must base on genealogy.” In order to meet the needs of compiling genealogies and maintaining family status, the state set up special genealogy bureau and genealogy officials, and genealogies were kept as important data in the bureau. In the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, compiling genealogies become such a common practice that a large number of genealogical books were written, and a large number of scholars engaged in compilation and research of genealogies. Two genealogical schools represented by Jia and Wang were formed, which played an important role in the development of Chinese genealogy. In the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, family genealogy is characterized by the integration of political showboating of great officials and dignitaries and marriage between families of equal social rank and affined relatives. Therefore, the function of genealogy in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties was to advocate family background and distinguish marriages to protect the rights and interests of family groups. The development of Chinese genealogy reached a new height during the Tang Dynasty. The ruler of Tang Dynasty was a new aristocrat in Guanlong area, so in order to consolidate the rule of the new empire and

1.3 The History of Genealogy

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improve the political status of new aristocrats from poor families and common landlords, it was inevitable to suppress the old power in Shandong to establish the highest position of the Li family and Guanlong aristocracy. In order to obtain social and legal recognition, new gentry with royal families as the core must write down their highest social position into genealogies. Therefore, from the beginning of the reign of Emperor Taizong, while strengthening imperial examination, the government consistently used genealogy as a powerful tool to change the previous standard of family name measurement. Through the Tang Dynasty, according to the will of rulers, three official campaigns to compile genealogies were launched, i.e., Annals of Surnames during the reign of Emperor Taizong, Records of Surnames during the reign of Emperor Gaozong and Records of Surnames in the Great Tang Dynasty during the reign of Emperor Zhongzong. Through the above official campaigns aiming at “only respecting royal families of today”, genealogical works achieved the purpose of suppressing the old power, and established the highest status of Li and Wu families. In the new noble group, the royal family and meritorious officials of Tang Dynasty were the main component, replacing royal families in Shandong and Southeast China as its social foundation to consolidate feudal rule of Tang Dynasty. In the late Tang Dynasty, the poet Liu Yuxi’s famous poem “swallows which skimmed by painted eaves in bygone days are dipping now among the humble homes’ doorways” is a true portrayal of power change of old and new gentries at that time. While the compilation of official genealogies in the Tang Dynasty was large in scale, the compilation of private genealogies also developed rapidly. The practice of compiling private genealogies was very common, which gave birth to a considerable number of private genealogies and a number of famous genealogists. Unlike genealogists of Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, those of the Tang Dynasty not only presided over the compilation of official genealogies, but also participated in that of private genealogies. The Tang Dynasty was a critical period serving as a link between past and future in the development of Chinese genealogy. (4) The transformation stage. The Song Dynasty was an important period of reform and transformation in China’s genealogical history, which extended to the Yuan Dynasty. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties (220–589), and the Sui and Tang Dynasties (581–907), both official and private genealogies were prosperous. However, by the Song Dynasty, these trends had changed. First, official genealogies fell into desuetude. The patriarchal clan system and the aristocratic families suffered a fatal blow as a result of the further implementation of the imperial examination system, the late Tang Dynasty’s peasant uprising and the Five Dynasties’ successive years of war. Official genealogies lost their practical value and significance, as they no longer showed the social status of the elite. Consequently, they faded away. Private genealogies subsequently prospered. However, they were destroyed by continuous wars within the Five Dynasties. Yet some were recovered, and they developed during Emperor

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Renzong’s Song Dynasty reign (1010–1063). They even became more prevalent during the Southern Song Dynasty. During the Song Dynasty, there were significant changes to how genealogies were compiled/revised, compared to those of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern, and Sui and Tang Dynasties. The first is in purpose. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, genealogies mainly had a social and political function. They were used to select officials, find matches for marriage, and distinguish noble and humble. By the Song Dynasty, the social and political functions of genealogies had more or less disappeared. Instead, they had a moral, educational function, and taught people to revere their ancestors, unite with other clans, respect their elders and care for those they love. The second is in form. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and the Sui and Tang Dynasties, both official and private genealogies were compiled. But during the Song Dynasty, official genealogies were abandoned, and private genealogies developed instead, and quickly. The imperial court no longer had a special agency to compile and manage genealogies. Genealogies instead became purely private affairs. The third is in genealogical chart. Before the Song Dynasty, genealogies were generally not unified over how many generations they included in one pedigree chart. Some included seven generations, some included six, and some five, etc. During the Song Dynasty, however, Ouyang Xiu and Sun Xun implemented a five-generation pedigree chart according to the principle of having “close relatives”, reflected in the “five degrees of mourning attire, or “wufu”, and “nine grades of relationships, or jiuzu”, which was extremely influential and was commonly adopted during the Song Dynasty. This meant China entered a new stage of development, in terms of the methodology for genealogical compilations. The fourth is in genealogy content. During the Song Dynasty, the contents of genealogies matured and became much richer due to the popularity of private genealogies, their significant change in function, and the popularity of Ouyang’s and Sun’s “five-generation” pedigree styles. The fifth is the change to how often genealogies were renewed. Before the Song Dynasty, some genealogies were revised, but it was not common practice and revisions normally only happened after a long period of time. However, during the Song Dynasty, when the practice of compiling private genealogies was more common, people began revising their genealogies repeatedly. Zhu Xi 朱熹, a neo-Confucian master, said, “it is not filial to renew your family genealogy after more than three generations”. He further promoted the popularity of renewing genealogical records after the Southern Song Dynasty. In short, the Song Dynasty was in an important period of reform and transformation for genealogies and basic frameworks were established for later generations. (5) The perfection stage. During the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), Chinese genealogies developed into a more mature style. There were new, inevitable developments after the transformation and transition of genealogies in the Song and Yuan Dynasties (960–1368). These were closely related to the politics, economy, and culture of the Ming Dynasty, which was the late period of Chinese feudalism.

1.3 The History of Genealogy

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After entering the Ming Dynasty, feudal rulers took filial piety as the rule of country, paid great attention to genealogy compilation, and took Zhu Xi’s ethical thought of “three cardinal guides and five constant virtues” as the tenet of compiling genealogy, which promoted new development of genealogy compilation in the Ming Dynasty in that its number was greatly increased and there appeared a large scale of joint family genealogies and general clan genealogies. (6) The popularization stage. In the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the amazing number of high quality, rich content, and huge volumes of family genealogy can be regarded as the peak period of Chinese family genealogy. But in terms of basic content and style, it is basically consistent with the Ming Dynasty and is just a continuation of Ming Dynasty genealogy. In the whole history of Chinese genealogy, the greatest characteristic of family genealogy in the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China was its popularity. Although in terms of style and content, the genealogy of Qing Dynasty and Republic of China had no breakthrough compared with that of the Ming Dynasty, it had a great development in terms of quantity. Most of the more than 50,000 species of genealogies in existence today were compiled in the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, when not only the Han people compiled genealogy, but also Mongols, Manchuria, Hui, Yi, Miao, She, and other ethnic minorities influenced by Han people did as well. Genealogies were compiled not only in mainland China, but also in overseas places where Chinese live. In the southern regions of the Yangtze River where the economy is developed, every village and family compiled genealogies and constantly renew them, which becomes a cultural custom for all of the people. (7) The contemporary stage. During the past five decades, on both sides of Taiwan strait, and even in overseas places where Chinese people live, there has been a spontaneous upsurge in compiling new genealogy. New compilation is a continuation, development, extension, and innovation in the history of Chinese genealogy. In just a few decades, this upsurge of new compilation has been more powerful, numerous, and influential than any historical stage of Chinese genealogy. In the past 50 years, this upsurge in genealogy first appeared in Taiwan, China. Taiwan has been China’s territory since ancient times, and the vast majority of Taiwan’s people have migrated from the mainland, so they have blood relationship with mainland residents and have profound patriarchal and ancestral feelings towards the mainland. For nearly 50 years, the two sides of Taiwan strait have been artificially isolated, and Taiwan people have set off a wave of compiling family genealogy. Taiwan Genealogy Catalogues published in 1987 contains 10,613 Taiwan family catalogues, of which more than 70% have been compiled in the last 50 years. In the past 50 years, there has been an upsurge in new compilation in mainland China, which mainly formed after the 3rd plenary session of the 11st central committee in 1978. With the establishment of the Party’s ideological line of emancipating mind and seeking truth from facts, academic research field gradually overcame influence of “left” and presented a booming scene.

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The once barren and untouched genealogy research attracted attention again in the mainland. Since the 1980s, mainland newspapers began to publish articles on genealogy research, and various cities set up genealogy research organizations and held academic seminars on genealogy and the cultural activities of compiling new genealogies were spontaneously initiated among the people. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the activities have become more active, resulting in a number of super-large joint family genealogies and general clan genealogies, and showing the characteristics of close cooperation between two sides of Taiwan strait and family members at home and abroad in compiling new genealogies. In the past 50 years, genealogies compiled in both Taiwan and mainland China, compared with old genealogy in the history, has inherited, continued, criticized, and innovated its purpose, style, and content to meet the needs of new era. If one would place genealogy under the guidance of feudal thoughts which played a certain role in consolidating the foundation of feudal society, then today’s genealogy under the guidance of socialist thoughts could make clan members love their family, hometown, and socialist motherland more deeply by participating in compilation activities. In growing activities across Taiwan strait, family members with the same surname on both sides jointly set up compilation committee, formulated compilation rules, collected information, and finally published genealogies to learn more about their ancestors before them. This whole process is also an opportunity for people from both sides to identify their relatives with a blood relationship and traditional culture of Chinese nation, which directly promotes and enriches the exchanges between two sides in various aspects, carries forward the history and culture of Chinese nation, and enhances national cohesion plus self-confidence. From the above brief description of the history of Chinese genealogy, we can see that the cultural customs of compiling genealogy for 5000 years are an integral part of the history of Chinese civilization and also a fine cultural tradition worth inheriting and carrying forward.

1.4 The Value of Genealogy When considering the value of genealogy, we should be answering two questions: What role has genealogy played in society during China’s 5000-year history? And what value is there in organizing, developing, researching and renewing these genealogies today? Genealogy is a signifier of cultural ideology, and it has roots in many areas of society, politics and economics. These in turn serve its foundation. As for the role that Chinese genealogy has played in society over the last 5000 years, this can be assessed by looking at three key periods. During the period when genealogy originated, it mainly had a eugenics function.

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There is much archaeological data proving that the Chinese people lived as early as one million years ago. However, during that time, the earliest, primitive human beings had just been separated from the animal kingdom, that is, from apes to apelike men, and then to humans during the early/middle Paleolithic era. At that time, productivity was low and people still lived in groups. There were no restrictions on sexual activity between family members or close relatives, and it didn’t matter how old or young a sexual partner was. As long as they were of the opposite sex, there was sexual activity. This type of behavior was typically known as a “group marriage”. But by the late Paleolithic period, there was a developed understanding of productivity, and primitive human beings found that relationships between members of the same blood-line were not conducive to future generations. They became disgusted with unrestricted promiscuity between immediate family members and came to realize that “if men and women with the same family name were married, they would not give birth to healthy offspring.” So it became necessary for them to distinguish between clans and tribes of different lineage. As well as this, the seniority of clan/tribe members of the same lineage also needed to be distinguished. This made it possible for blood lineages to be recorded and narrated. However, writing had not yet been created by human beings; people used oral and knotted genealogies and dictated these genealogies by heart. Offspring became carriers for recorded genealogies, and these genealogies enabled the prevention of unrestricted sexual activities between lineal relatives. It also meant that people could ensure the healthy birth and child-rearing of future generations. People attached great importance to these genealogies just for this function alone. China’s most primitive oral and knotted genealogies came into being as various blood groups formed to meet the needs of healthy reproduction, and therefore we can see how they had a special eugenics function. When genealogy first began to prosper it came to have a political function. During the Zhou Dynasty, the patriarchal clan system was based on consanguinity. The state attached great importance to genealogies that recorded how close consanguinity was. The Zhou Dynasty adopted a centralized method of recording and managing all aristocratic genealogies, and historians established complete systems of genealogies, and a number of genealogical works. These manifested as the Da Dai Li Ji: Di Wang Pian 大戴礼记·帝王篇 and the Shi Ben 世本. Genealogies at that time consolidated the patriarchal clan system and the ruling Zhou Dynasty. During the Han Dynasty, status was granted to many princes and lords close to the imperial family. This further strengthened the rank and consanguinity of the emperor and his subjects. The Han government set up a special organization to manage the pedigree charts of the emperor, imperial princes and lords, thus leading to a large number of official genealogies. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the government registered all families that belonged to the elite “Servicemen” 士 class and divided members of that class into nine “ranks” 品. All of this was managed by a group of specially chosen local dignitaries, known as “Rectifiers” 中正 who were from aristocratic families. Peoples’ family backgrounds became the main basis for them being selected and appointed as officials. Because of this, the role of genealogy became extremely important. It became the basis for both granting status to noble

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1 Introduction

families and selecting officials,24 therefore, the government, the rich and the powerful attached great importance to it. During the Tang Dynasty, the Li and the Wu clan consolidated the rule of their newly-built empire by presiding over three large-scale official compilations of genealogies. The government adapted the previous standard of measuring clan status via these official genealogical works. It used genealogies to fix its vested interests in various political forces. A new aristocratic group was established within the Tang imperial family, and meritorious statesmen became the core, social foundation. The government replaced the old aristocratic group (the elite class from Shandong and the noble families of the southeast) with the new aristocracy. To summarize, during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, genealogies mainly had a political function. They helped the government select officials, and were also important in helping the aristocracy monopolize official careers and control government affairs. During the Tang Dynasty, the compilation of genealogies helped cultivate the power of the new class of servicemen and suppress the power of the old class. This shows that during the Tang Dynasty, the social and political functions of Chinese genealogy had reached a new stage. During the era that genealogy was being perfected and popularized, it mainly had an ethnical function in society. In the early Ming Dynasty, China’s genealogy matured, and became much more standardized in style and content. This was inevitably the trend during the Song and Yuan Dynasties. During the Ming Dynasty, it was also closely related to the politics, economy and culture of China’s late feudal society. People inherited the ethics of “being close to those who should be close and respecting those who should be respected” in the Song and Yuan dynasties, and during the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Xi’s “three cardinal guides and five constant virtues” were further developed as guiding ideologies. The three guides—ruler guides subject, father guides son, and husband guides wife—were hierarchical relationships established on the basis of blood ties, and feudal political systems based on the relations of patriarchal clan. The five constant virtues—benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and fidelity—indicated the relationship between ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, brothers, and friends. These guides applied to everyone and had priority over any other principle. During the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Xi’s ruling position became ingrained in Neo-Confucianism, and the “three cardinal guides and five constant virtues” became a mainstream ideology. It became widespread across various fields and in all aspects of social life. Within central and local academies, villages and private schools, students were instilled with these three guides and five virtues. Promoting and practicing them naturally meant that they were acknowledged in genealogies. The three guides and five virtues can be found in many genealogies complied during the Ming Dynasty: the prefaces of family genealogies, family laws, clan rules, biographies and other records. During the Qing Dynasty, the compiling of genealogies became widespread throughout the country, even in remote villages. This was a result of the Qing government adhering to traditional Chinese culture, in order to maintain its own rule. When the Qing government entered the Central Plains, they followed the “three cardinal guides and five constant virtues”, ruling the nation 24

Liu Chong Zhuan 柳冲传 (The life of Liu Chong). In the Xin Tang Shu, Vol. 199.

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with filial piety and actively advocating the nationwide compilation of genealogies. During the 9th year of Shunzhi reign (1652), i.e. the 9th year of the Qing dynasty establishing Beijing as its capital, the government reissued Zhu Yuanzhang’s the Sheng Yu Liu Yan 圣谕六言 (The Sacred Edict of Six Maxims) to the whole nation. It encouraged people to be filial to their parents, respectful to their elders, to live in harmony with their neighbors, discipline their children and grandchildren, be content with their calling, and to do no evil. During the 9th year of Kangxi reign (1670), the Qing government further promulgated the Sheng Yu Shi Liu Tiao 圣谕 十六条 (The Sacred Edict of Sixteen Maxims) to the whole country. Filial piety and harmonious clans were pushed as top priorities. Emperor Yongzheng attached great importance to the Sixteen Maxims and he explained them one by one. In 1724, during the second year of his reign, he issued the 10,000 character Sheng Yu Guang Xun 圣 谕广训 (Amplified Instructions on the Sacred Edict). In this, the Emperor explicitly requested the “compilation of genealogies to link those estranged” and he advocated that people compile family genealogies. The Qing government also promoted Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism with the “three cardinal guides and five constant virtues” at its core. It publicized The Sacred Edict of Six Maxims, The Sacred Edict of Sixteen Maxims and Amplified Instructions on the Sacred Edict to make them household names. From the above, we can see that genealogies compiled during the Ming and Qing Dynasties regarded the three cardinal guides and the five constant virtues as important, and they did everything possible to implement Zhu Xi’s philosophies. Their purpose was to safeguard Zhu Xi’s philosophies and promote the feudal principles of loyalty, filial piety and righteousness, thus consolidating clan systems and strengthening feudal rule. As the function of genealogical records has evolved over the last 5000 years, we can see that genealogy, as a symbol of cultural ideology, is closely related to the social, political and economic situations of the time. Genealogy has helped shape China’s society, politics and economy. The genealogies rooted in China’s patriarchal feudal society are deeply branded with feudalism. There is much feudal dross in genealogies, including feudal absolutism, ethical principles and superstition. It should also be pointed out that since families compiled genealogies to raise their family’s status/prestige, there were inevitably drawbacks during the process of compilation, e.g. false claims of emperors/celebrities as ancestors, and the promotion of good while concealing evil. However, one should not take a nihilistic attitude towards genealogy—a historical and cultural phenomenon—and dismiss it. As Deng Xiaoping once said: “Things belonging to the cultural field must be analyzed, distinguished and criticized by Marxism on their ideological content and expression.”25 We should “analyze, distinguish and criticize” genealogies from the viewpoint that history is the only thing that matters. We should carefully organize, develop and study genealogies, “take

Deng Xiaoping 邓小平. Selected works of Deng Xiaoping 邓小平文选, Volume 3. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1997: 44.

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1 Introduction

them in their essence and discard their dross”26 and renew them according to new viewpoints. In this way, genealogies can play a special and valuable role in various materials. They can promote academic and cultural research, strengthen education, promote the construction of modern civilization, facilitate the identification of roots, play a role in promoting the great cause of reunifying China, and further promote the construction of a harmonious society. They are of great value. First, cultural relics are of foremost importance. There are many rare Chinese genealogies around the world. The earliest known genealogy, the Xian Yuan Lei Pu 仙源类谱, is a transcript of the Song Dynasty’s inner courts. It was compiled over nearly a thousand years, and includes some entries from the Ming Dynasty, some entries collated by celebrities, and some copies of genealogies. All of these have value as cultural relics. According to statistics from the Bibliography of Rare Books in China 中国古籍善本书目, 746 kinds of genealogy are listed as rare books, but the true figure far exceeds this. These genealogies are all national, cultural relics, but there are many more valuable cultural relics in the form of non-literary genealogies, such as oracle inscriptions, and bronze, stone tablet, pagoda, even cloth genealogies. China’s genealogies are not only diverse, but numerous. According to statistics in the General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies 中国家谱总目 (Zhongguo jiapu zongmu), there are over 70,000 Chinese genealogies scattered around the world in public and private collections. If we dismiss duplicates, 52,401 kinds of Chinese genealogy have been catalogued. Again though, the actual number of genealogies far exceeds this number. In China, genealogies are extremely precious, and they have historical and cultural heritage. Many genealogies were burned during political movements, especially during the ten-year Cultural Revolution. Others were hidden in libraries or archive departments, piled up in corners, where they were left to rot, or covered in dust and mildew, resulting in irreparable losses. Such behavior was contrary to the principle of inheriting historical and cultural heritage. Consequently, after the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee, people began to recognize, once again, that genealogies were important historical documents. Genealogies with a long history are key components in China’s splendid cultural heritage. We should raise awareness of them, conduct further research into them, inherit these precious historical and cultural heritages and carry forward the spirit of the Chinese nation. There is a secondary, data value in genealogies. At the turn of the twentieth century, famous historian Gu Jiegang 顾颉刚 said: “The wealth of our country’s historical records is incomparable in the world. However, there are a number of reasons why it is difficult to call official historical books, recognized by generations, complete and accurate histories. At present, there are two ‘big gold mines’ to be developed in Chinese historiography, namely, local chronicles and genealogies. Genealogy has long been ignored by historians, but it contains endless, valuable historical materials

Jiang Zemin on the construction of socialist spiritual civilization 江泽民论社会主义精神文明 建设. Beijing: Central Literature Publishing House, 1999: 228.

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29

that are not recorded by “official historical books”.27 Liang Qichao 梁启超, a wellknown historian, added: “Family genealogy… is one of the most important pieces of historical material. For example, it can be used to test the laws of how family systems were organized, the average age and average life span of marriages in different places at different times, the inheritance of fathers and mothers, the ratio of male and female offspring, comparative birth and death rates etc.… there is no other way of obtaining information besides genealogy.”28 Indeed, genealogical records are extensive. They describe in great detail history, lineage, migration, population movements, mountains and rivers, family names, imperial examinations, biographies, weddings, funerals, and family rules. Genealogical data is a treasure trove of documents for social, historical research, and it aids the studies of history, economics, sociology, folklore, ethnology, religion, anthropology, demography, education, ethics, chorography, genetics and the natural sciences. Lots of first-hand data can be drawn from genealogies, as well as special data, which cannot be replaced by other records. Genealogies can be used to confirm historical judgments, correct supposed factual information, solve unsolved issues, and supplement the deficiencies of official historical records. Many such examples can be provided here. For example, when Shanghai was bidding for the 2010 World Expo, it was initially believed that China was involved in World Expos as early as 1867, based on the records of Wang Tao 王韬, a modern scholar from Wuxian. He wrote “Roaming with Records-the Museum Spectacle” while visiting a World Expo in Paris. However, it was later discovered that the Xu clan in Beiling (now Zhongshan, Guangdong Province) had recorded the reign of Guangxu in detail, and it included historical data on an ancestor named Xu Rongcun. Xu had brought “Rong Ji Lake Silk” 荣记湖丝 to the first World Expo in London in 1851, and had won gold and silver prizes. This meant that China had been connected to the World Expo some 16 years earlier; thus, Chinese genealogy has important value, as a record of data. Third, there is a moral value in genealogy. Genealogies generally contain family mottos, family rules and family laws. Of course, there are many feudal ideas including: “the ruler guides the subject, the father guides the son, and the husband guides the wife”, “the three obedient behaviors (in ancient China, a woman was required to obey her father before marriage, her husband during married life, and her sons in widowhood), and “the four virtues” (fidelity, physical charm, propriety in speech and efficiency in needlework). However, many ethical norms are still strongly advocated today. These include: respecting your elders, looking after your parents, being nice to your friends and brothers, respecting your teachers, caring for your close neighbors, practicing frugality, caring for the lonely, abstaining from prostitution, luxury and gambling, showing a patriotic spirit by caring for the country and its people, and pursuing self-improvement and the truth. Many old genealogies not Lin Qitan 林其锬. Historical evolution and modern value of genealogical functions 家谱功能的 历史嬗变与现代价值. Study of Chinese Genealogy 中华谱牒研究. Shanghai: Shanghai Science and Technology Literature Publishing House, 2000. 28 Liang Qichao 梁启超. The total achievements of Qing dynasty scholars in sorting out old studies 清代学者整理旧学之总成绩. In China’s academic history in the last 300 years 中国近三百年学 术史. Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 1985: 480. 27

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1 Introduction

only contain family rules and laws, but traditional virtues formed by the Chinese nation over thousands of years. These play a positive role in promoting the construction of modern civilization. On 18 April, 2009, Premier Wen Jiabao met Qian Fu, the top advisor of Taiwan’s Cross-Strait Common Market Foundation, at the annual Boao Forum for Asia. He mentioned the “Qian family motto”, saying: “I know the family motto of the Qian Wang Temple in Hangzhou; it goes: ‘do not seek benefits for yourself, but for the world’. This means the same as Sun Zhongshan’s oftenquoted ‘When the great way prevails, the world’s community will have an equal share of all’.” Qian Fu was deeply touched. Traditional ethics have dialectical unity with modern civilization. The construction of modern civilization must be based on traditional culture. Traditional culture will only have vitality if it is endowed with the spirit of the times. Today, we should strengthen our socialist construction of spiritual civilization and civic morality. However, socialist morality cannot be built inside a vacuum, just as Citizen Morals Construction Implement Outline points out. “We should inherit the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation that have been formed over thousands of years.” That is to say, we should absorb and transform the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation, and make them an important part of our socialist, civic morality, as well as an integral part of our family virtues, and our professional and social morality. Fourth, genealogy has value for people seeking to find their roots. Family origins and pedigree charts are regarded as the most important content in genealogical records. Generally, genealogical recordings are made of every family member’s name or courtesy name, birth and death date, their spouses, grandparents outside of the bloodline, and burial place. Although they are complicated, the relationships between family members, young and old, can be seen at a glance because the lineage of clans is highly organized. This has proven important information to people nowadays, seeking to find their roots and their ancestors, and only genealogy can provide such information. Since the Shanghai Library’s Genealogy Reading Room opened to the public at the end of 1996, it has received more than 100,000 visitors (domestic and overseas) and carried out more than 50,000 consultations. Many visitors have come to inquire about their own family trees. Whenever they have looked up their ancestors, their excitement has been indescribable. On 4 May, 1997, the Vice President Rong Yiren made a special trip to the Shanghai Library to look up the Rong family tree. When he found his name in the book, he was very excited. He was pleased to have returned to Shanghai and made the visit in his old age. There has been a prominent trend of overseas Chinese seeking out their roots, especially those who have been overseas for a long time. Most of them have close ties with their hometown and are eager to go back to their roots and find their ancestors. They have dreams of seeing the world, but the hearts of wandering children. Many overseas travelers’ dreams of discovering their roots and their ancestors have become a reality today. Those who have returned to their hometowns have found their ancestral roots and blood ties with the help of genealogical records. In April 1988, the first thing former Philippine President Corazon Aquino did when she arrived in China was visit her relatives and pay tribute to her ancestors in the village of Hongjian in Zhangzhou, Fujian province. She offered incense to her ancestors in the Xu Clan Ancestral Hall

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and said, “I am a daughter of the Hongjian Village”. This caused a sensation both at home and abroad. The Hongjian Xu Family Genealogy of 18 Generations 鸿渐许 氏十八世许渊家谱 played an important role in helping Mrs Aquino find her blood relatives. Visiting one’s hometown, one’s former residence and one’s motherland has become the trend of the times. The Chinese nation has a strong cohesion and centripetal force. Searching for one’s roots via genealogical records helps strengthen the cohesion and centripetal force of Chinese at home and abroad. It also helps further promote the great cause of reunifying the motherland. Genealogies also have a cultural value. Broadly speaking, genealogies as cultural relics, materials, morals, roots etc. can be incorporated as one great culture. Now let’s discuss how genealogy has been important in showing the inheritance of Chinese history and culture, as well as the promotion of a harmonious culture. The Chinese nation is an ancient civilization with a history of 5000 years. Compiling official histories, local gazetteers, and genealogies has become a fine tradition in Chinese history and culture. The world has seen many great civilizations, but only the Chinese have survived for thousands of years, have stayed standing in the east, and maintained their position as important players on the world stage. This has something to do with China’s cultural traditions. Lu Xun 鲁迅 said in his article the Li 礼 (Rituals) that “China’s country is based on families.”29 The social foundation of the Chinese nation that has survived for thousands of years is the family. Tens of millions of families have continued to maintain their genealogies through compilation and maintenance. They have laid a solid, social foundation for the continuous development of China’s 5000year civilization. The family is the cornerstone of society. No matter whether we’re talking about the feudal, patriarchal society of the past or today’s socialist society, the family has always been the most basic unit in Chinese society. Only when the family is harmonious, civilized, stable and prosperous can civilization progress and develop in a prosperous way. If we say that genealogy played a key role in consolidating the foundation of China’s feudal society, then today’s genealogy not only carries forward the long history and culture of the Chinese nation, but it can also make clan members love their families, hometowns, and socialist motherland more deeply—via participation in compilation activities. For example, on 7 June, 1986, a female writer named Bing Xin 冰心wrote a preface to the Xie Clan Genealogy in Hengling 横岭 谢氏族谱.” Clan genealogy is family history connecting the past and the future,” she wrote. “The attention and care given to family histories is the starting point of loving the motherland and the people.” Many places have promoted the compilation of new genealogies, and have therefore carried forward China’s history and culture, enhancing national cohesion and confidence. Today, new, socialist genealogies are an inheritance, reform and innovation of old genealogies. They are a cultural activity that meets the requirements of the socialist era and they are increasingly appearing among the people. They help build a harmonious society, and they play a positive role in promoting China’s history and culture, cultural exchanges across the Taiwan Strait, and the moral construction of socialist citizens. Lu Xun 鲁迅. Complete works of Lu Xun 鲁迅全集, Vol 5. Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House, 1973: 351.

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Part II

Chronological Studies

Chapter 2

The Origin of Chinese Genealogy

2.1 Chinese Genealogy Originated from the Matriarchal Society Ancient and modern scholars have collectively made seven statements about the first Chinese genealogy: (1) It originated during the Song Dynasty. This view is mainly influenced by two famous Song Dynasty writers, Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun. Ouyang and Su compiled the Ouyang Shi Pu Tu 欧阳氏谱图 (The Ouyang Family Genealogy) and the Su Shi Zu Pu 苏氏族谱 (The Su Clan Genealogy) respectively. Their five-generation pedigree system was highly praised and it laid the foundation for later generations to compile their genealogies. So some people believe that Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun were the founders of Chinese genealogy. Wen Tianxiang, a national hero from the late Song Dynasty, said: “Ouyang started by using clan genealogy, followed by many others.”1 Ci Hai, in their 1979 published works, defined genealogy as “an old genealogical book that records the generations of families and the achievements of prominent figures, which began in the Song Dynasty”. (2) It originated during the Han Dynasty. Those who hold this view believe that the aristocratic families founded Chinese genealogy, as Sima Qian, a famous historian of the time, mentioned in his Shi Ji. “When did genealogy originate? After Sima Qian’s Records of the Historian.”2 “When did clans compile their genealogies? After Sima Qian wrote Records of the Historian.”3 “The genealogical system began with the 30 Longmen aristocratic families. Their

Li Xing Bu (Surname Li 李). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. Tao family genealogy in Jiujiang 九江陶氏家谱, the second year of Huangqing reign (1313). 3 Ming Dynasty Ren Daye 任大冶: The preface of the Chu family genealogy. Chu Xing Bu (Surname Chu 储). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. 1 2

© Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2023 H. Wang, The General Theory of China’s Genealogy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6377-5_2

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(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

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family genealogies recorded their names, titles, marriages, deaths, burials and deeds in detail.”4 It originated during the Zhou Dynasty. As early as the Eastern Han Dynasty, Huan Tan said in his Shi Ji: San Dai Shi Biao (Records of the Historian: Three-Generation Pedigree) that genealogy had originated in the Zhou Dynasty. According to the Liang Shu: Liu Yao Zhuan 梁书·刘杳传 (the official dynastic history of Liang, Biography of Liu Yao), genealogy originated in the Zhou Dynasty. Tang Dynasty historian Liu Zhiji 刘知幾 also said in the Shi Tong 史通 (Perspectives on the Chinese historiography): “Genealogy originated in the Zhou Dynasty.” The views of these famous people have influenced many later genealogists. Some genealogists state that The Wang Branch Genealogy in Huaixi 槐溪王氏支谱 during the sixth year of Xianfeng reign (1856) is a verified genealogy that originated in the Zhou Dynasty. In 1929, Pan Guangdan also stated this view in A Brief History of Chinese Genealogy. In 1944, Yang Dianxun stated in his General Theory of Chinese Genealogy that “the study of Chinese genealogy originated during the Zhou Dynasty”. In addition, other works hold the view that genealogy originated during the Zhou Dynasty: Chang Bide’s 昌彼得 1969 Problem Solving Taiwan’s Publicly Collected Genealogy; Luo Xianglin’s 罗香林 1971 Study on Chinese Genealogy; Yang Tingfu’s 杨廷 福 1980 Origin of Chinese Genealogy; and Cang Xiuliang’s 仓修良1984 On the Development of Genealogy and Its Literary Value. More recent works, including the Culture of Chinese Names, and the Philology of Genealogy also hold this view. It is the most popular view among researchers studying genealogy that it originated during the Zhou Dynasty. It originated during the Shang Dynasty. This view is mainly held by those experts that study oracle bone inscriptions, such as Guo Moruo 郭沫若, Chen Mengjia 陈梦家 and Yu Xingwu 于省吾. They believed that family lineage existed in the form of oracle bone inscriptions during the Shang Dynasty.5 It originated during the Xia Dynasty. Ouyang Zongshu holds this view. In his book Chinese Genealogy, he said: “According to the original concept of genealogy, the arrangement of lineages of the same blood group is a simple, family genealogy, and we believe that genealogical archives existed as early as the Xia Dynasty.” Liu Guanglu 刘光禄 also held this view, as he explained in his article Brief Research on Genealogy. It originated amidst patriarchal gens. Chen Zhi 陈直, a history professor from the Northwest University, said in his article Discovering and Searching for Genealogical Forms in the Northern and Southern Dynasties: “the origin of genealogy came after the patriarchal gens were established.”6 It originated amidst matriarchal gens. Yang Dongquan first presented this view in his article On the Origin of Chinese Genealogy. He not only made use of oracle bone inscriptions and those on ancient bronze objects, but he also used

Kong family genealogy in Xiaoyi, 1981. Ouyang Zongshu. Chinese family genealogy. Beijing: Xinhua Publishing House, 1992: 53. 6 Journal of Northwest University, 1980 (3). 5

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Chinese ethnology and folklore to sequence various forms of genealogy before the written form emerged. He therefore drew the conclusion that “the origin of Chinese genealogy was much earlier than the Zhou Dynasty… it was the product of the matriarchal gens”.7 Li Xiaolong 黎小龙 further discussed this view in The Origin of Genealogy Based on Ethnological Data. He first analyzed the basic idea that genealogy originated after the gens, but decided: “The family pedigree appeared via the late matriarchal gens after their families formed; the emergence of families’ and clans’ blood pedigree was the origin of genealogy.”8 Each of these seven statements sounds reasonable in a certain way. One of the important reasons why there are different views on the origin of genealogy is that people have different understandings of what genealogy is. In the previous section, we commented on the various definitions of genealogy, and we came to the conclusion that it is most accurate to define genealogy as “a description of the carrier of blood lineage”. So the origin of genealogy must be closely related to the formation of different blood lineages. In ancient times, primitive human beings lived in groups and there were no restrictions on their sexual activity. It was impossible for them to produce genealogies as there was no stable blood lineage. Marriages happened between parents and children, and brothers and sisters. But soon, these relationships, even those within the matriclan line, were forbidden and regarded as a form of incest. Human beings subsequently entered clan societies, based on their lineages. Those who descended from a common ancestor lived together, produced together, and shared their wealth, including inherited property. They carried out sacrificial ceremonies together, took collective revenge on other blood clans, and were buried in the same cemeteries after death, all of these actions demonstrating that they were a group with a common blood. Lü Chengzhi vividly described these blood relationships in A Brief History of the Chinese Patriarchal Clan System, saying that they “start with understandings of blood lineage” and that “blood relationships must have started within the matriclan society.”9 As Engels said: “These gens were organized according to the mother’s right; but there was a discovery of the primitive form, out of which developed the later gens, and these were organized according to the father’s right. The gens as we find it were among the ancient, civilized people. The Greek and Roman gens—the old riddle of historians—now found explanation in the Indian gens, and a new foundation was thus laid for civilization’s entire, primitive history.”10 That is to say, our human ancestors first formed matrilineal clans and these subsequently developed into patrilineal ones. Both matriarchal and patrilineal clans in primitive society were families that had been formed by combining blood ties. In matriclan societies, the clan leader was 7

Genealogical research. Beijing: Bibliography and Documents Publishing House, 1989 (1): 54. Genealogical research. Beijing: Bibliography and Documents Publishing House, 1989 (3): 26. 9 Lü Chengzhi 吕诚之. A Brief history of the Chinese patriarchal clan system 中国宗族制度小史. Longhu Bookstore, 1935: 2.3. 10 Engels. The origin of family, private ownership and state. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1961: 15–16. 8

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usually a woman, and she was in charge of her children. Lineage was counted on the basis of the matrilineal line. Men were not permanent residents, whereas women were stable clan members. Members of clans were descendants of a common female ancestor. However, men increasingly played a more important role in leading the production of labor, and matriclan society began to transition into patriclan society. Men became the core members of clans and they also became clan leaders.11 Increasingly, when a woman got married, she went to live with her husband, and her children became the charge of the father. Lineage was calculated on the basis of the patrilineal line. The children in clans were all descendants of a male ancestor. Since primitive clan society was based on blood lineage and it counted generations by lineage, this may have led to genealogy becoming “the carrier for recording and narrating blood lineage”. Was China’s genealogy supposed to originate from matriarchal clans? Paleoanthropological and sociological studies show that Chinese genealogy originated from the matriclan society with symbolic oral and knotted rope genealogies. However, compared to the latter, oral genealogies are a more primitive form.

2.2 Oral Genealogies The ancient Chinese classics made records of family pedigrees that had existed before writing was created. The Di Wang Shi Ji recorded the family genealogy of Emperor Baoxishi 包牺氏 (surnamed Feng 风): “After Baoxishi died, Nüwashi 女 娲氏 became the empress, also surnamed Feng. After Nüwashi died, there were 15 generations including Datingshi, Baihuangshi, Zhongyangshi, Lilushi, Lilianshi, Hexushi, Zunlushi, Hundunshi, Haoyingshi, Youchaoshi, Zhuxiangshi, Getianshi, Yinkangshi, and Wuhuaishi.” And the Hai Nei Jing 海内经, along with the 18-volume Shan Hai Jing recorded the family genealogies of Emperor Yan 炎 (surnamed Jiang and nicknamed “Shennongshi”):“Yan Di’s wife Ting Yao, a lady from the Red River Tribe, gave birth to Yan Ju. Yan Ju bore Jie Bing; Jie Bing gave birth to Xi Qi; and Xi Qi bore Zhu Rong. Zhu Rong was consigned to the Yangtze River, and he fathered Gong Gong, the water god. Gong Gong fathered Shu Qi……Gong Gong also sired Hou Tu, the earth deity, and Hou Tu bore Ye Ming.” It also recorded the genealogy of Di Jun, who was believed to be the first ancestor of the Eastern tribes: “Di Jun gave birth to Yu Hao. Yu Hao bore Yin Liang; and Yi Liang bore Fan Yu 番禺, who was the first to use a boat. Fan Yu gave birth to Xi Zhong; and Xi Zhong bore Ji Guang 吉光, who invented the cart.” These genealogies were passed down from generation to generation by oral transmission; that is, they were oral genealogies that were later written down. The oral genealogies of Shennongshi and Di Jun were interlinked by name; in other words, the last syllable or last two/three syllables of each generation’s name was placed before the name of the next generation. For example: “Yan Ju gave birth to Jie Bing, Jie 11

4.

L˝u Chengzhi. A Brief history of the Chinese patriarchal clan system. Longhu Bookstore, 1935:

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39

Bing gave birth to Xi Qi, Xi Qi gave birth to Zhu Rong.” This linked name system is similar to the thimble technique employed in Farewell Song of the White Clouds—a poem by Li Bai, the most famous poet of the Tang Dynasty (AD 618–907): Floating over the Qin and Chu Mountains are white clouds, And the white clouds follow you wherever you go. Wherever you go, they will be with you, When you enter the Chu Mountains…

Such links help people to memorize, recite, and circulate their genealogies. The custom of our primitive ancestors orally transmitting genealogies has been well preserved among some ethnic minority groups. Before the written language came into being, the Mongolians had a custom of “telling family lineage and deeds with their mouths.” The Shi Ji 史集, a fourteenth century Mongolian history book, recorded the habit of the ancient Mongolians passing on their genealogies orally. It said: “Mongolians have the habit of preserving the genealogy of their ancestors and teaching every child to learn it. They regard the genealogical discourse as clan property, so every one of them knows about their tribe and its origin.” The Secret History of the Mongols recorded Genghis Khan’s lineage, and included more than 20 generations of his ancestry: “There was a bluish wolf which was born having [his] destiny from Heaven above. His spouse was a fallow doe……There was a Bataˇciqan which was born when they had encamped at the head of the Onan River…… The son of Bataˇciqan [was] Tamaˇca. The son of Tamaˇca [was] Qoriˇcar Mergen. The son of Qoriˇcar Mergen [was] A’uˇjam Boro’ul. The son of A’uˇjam Boro’ul [was] Sali Qaˇca’u. The son of Sali Qaˇca’u [was] Yeke Nidün. The son of Yeke Nidün [was] Sem Söˇci. The son of Sem Söˇci [was] Qarˇcu. The son of Qarˇcu [was] Borˇjigidai Mergen…… The son of Borˇjigidai Mergen [was] Toroqolˇjin Bayan……The sons of Toroqolˇjin were the twain, Duua Soqor and Dobun Mergen……After that Dobun Mergen was passed away, Alan To’a without a husband, then bare three sons. They were named Buyu Qadagi, Buyatu Salˇji, and Bodonˇcar Mungqay……[He who] was born of the wife which Bodonˇcar himself had taken was named Barim Si’iratu Qabiˇci…… The son of Qabiˇci was Menen Tudun. The sons of Menen Tudun were the seven, Qaˇci Külüg……Qaidu, the son of Qaˇci Külüg, was born of Mother Nomolun. The sons of Qaidu were the three, Bai Šingqor Doyšin……The son of Bai Šingqor Doyšin was Tumbinai Seˇcen……. The sons of Tumbinai Seˇcen were the twain, Qabul Qahan……The sons of Qabul Qahan were seven. Ökin Barqay, the eldest, Bartan Ba’atur……The sons of Bartan Ba’atur were these four……Yesügei Ba’atur……Then, when Yesügei Ba’atur came, having spoiled the Tatar such as Temüˇjin Üge and Qori Buqa of the Tatar, then when Hö’elün ܡjin was with child, at the moment when she was at Deli’ ün Hill of the ˇ Onan [River], even then Cinggis Qahan was born. At the moment when he was born, he was born, holding in his right hand a clot of blood the size of a knuckle bone. Such [was the manner in which] one gave [unto him]the name Temüˇjin.”12 The 12

The secret history of the Mongols (Vol. 1.). Translated and edited by Francis Woodman Cleaves. Published for the Harvard-Yenching Institute by Harvard University Press, London, England, 1982.

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2 The Origin of Chinese Genealogy

Fig. 2.1 Yi minority group oral genealogies linked by name

Mongolians memorized family pedigrees of some 23 generations, spanning 600 to 700 years, even before writing came into being. These examples show how popular linked name genealogies were among the ancient Mongolians.13 In 1953, when Liu Yaohan went to the Ailao mountain range in Yunnan to conduct a social and historical survey of the Yi 彝 ethnic group, he discovered three linked name genealogies of the Meng family. These had been preserved in the Biography of Ailao’s National Heroes 哀牢夷雄列传, written by Xia Zhengyin 夏正寅 (1839– 1937) during the Qing Dynasty. One of these oral genealogies was Zhang Xinggui’s. It was originally recorded in the Yi language, and was translated into Mandarin by Xia Zhengyin as follows (see Fig. 2.1). The above shows a total of 36 generations. The collation of the secret history of the Mongols 蒙古秘史校勘本. Inner Mongolia People’s Publishing House, 1980: 913–930.

13

2.2 Oral Genealogies

41

Many minority groups in southwestern China did not have their own written language. Oral genealogies were popular among these groups, as they were easier to memorize. In 1921, Ding Wenjiang went to Yunnan and Guizhou to investigate geology. While he was there, he collated the book The An Clan’s Pedigree 安氏世纪, in which he recorded the 114-generation oral genealogies of the Shuixi-based tusi14 An clan, part of the Yi ethnic group. The book is divided into two parts. The first part contains the clan’s early lineage, in which names are interlinked across 30 generations (the translations here will be given in Pinyin according to the pronunciation): (1) Ximu Zhe (2) Zhedao Gong (3) Gongzhu Shi (4) Shiya Li (5) Liya Ming (6) Ming Changfu (7) Changfu Zuo (8) Zuoa Qie (9) Qie Yazong (10) Tanya Yi (11) Yiya Ji (12) Ji Poneng (13) Poneng Dao (14) Dao Muyi (15) Muyi Chi (16) Chiya Suo (17) Suoya De (18) De Xisuo (19) Xisuo Duo (20) Duo Biyi (21) Biyi Du (22) Duxi Xian (23) Xianxi Tuo (24) Tuoa Da (25) Daa Wu (26) Wua Nuo (27) Nuozhu Du (28) Duzhu Wu (29) Wulao Cuo (30) Cuozhu Du The second part records subclan genealogies, which contains 84 generations in total (the translations here will be given in Pinyin according to the pronunciation): (1) Du Muwu (2) Muqi Qi (3) Qi Yahong (4) Hongya De … (46) Si Ageng (47) Ageng Awen (48) Awen Luonan… (60) Buyi Ayi (61) Ayi Aluo (62) Aluo Adong (63) Adong Dawu (64) Dawu Laonai… (76) Anzuo Zhiwu (77) Zhiwu Laocheng (78) Laocheng Luoxi (79) Luoxi Feishuo (80) Feishuo Laogu (81) Laogu Laode (82) Laode Laodian (83) Laodian Yifen (84) Yifen Mingzong According to experts’ analysis, “the first 30 generations of the An family genealogy should be in the clan or even the matriarchal clan period.”15 The Luo 倮 ethnic group (also known as Lahu) of Xikang, Sichuan province also has oral genealogies. Fu Maoji 傅懋勣 recorded Luo Hong’s family genealogy during his research in the region in the 1930s. “Fig. 2.2 shows that there are 54 people spanning 14 generations, with a clear family pedigree and pedigree charts.”16 The habit of transmitting genealogies orally has been passed down to modern times among some minorities. After China was founded in 1949, scholars conducted ethnic surveys and found that many oral genealogies handed down from generation to generation were not transcribed into writing because these groups did not have their own written languages. The family pedigree of Yunnan’s Hani 哈尼 ethnic group is generally linked by the names of fathers and sons. Every adult male can trace his family history by reciting the linked genealogies handed down from his ancestors, thus determining the blood 14

Translator’s note: Tusi refers to native chieftains or tribal leaders who were permitted to rule over a certain region and were acknowledged as imperial officials but who ultimately answered to the Emperor. 15 Wu Xiaolong 武小龙. Origin of genealogy from ethnological data 从民族学资料看家谱的起 源. Genealogical Research. Beijing: Bibliography and Documents Publishing House, 1993 (3): 20. 16 Ouyang Zongshu. Chinese family genealogy. Beijing: Xinhua Publishing House, 1992: 11.

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2 The Origin of Chinese Genealogy

Fig. 2.2 The linked name genealogies of the Luo ethnic group

relationship between himself and his people. These genealogies were still in circulation after liberation, and they generally contained between 40 and 50 generations. According to the recitation of one specialist, there are seventy-one generations in the pedigree of a tusi named Li in Situo, Honghe. The transliteration of this 72.generation linked genealogy is as follows (the translations here will be given in Pinyin according to the pronunciation): Mu Weng, Weng Tong, Tong Ma, Ma Yao, Yao Zhang, Zhang Bai, Bai Zhang, Zhang Yu, Yu Tuilei, Tuilei Zong, Zong Moke, Moke Yi, Yi Titu, Titu Li, Li Bangbai, Bangbai E, Emu Ran, Ran Zata, Za Tapeng, Tapeng Ju, Ju Xinong, Xinong Na, Na Keli, Keli Nong, Nongli Yao, Yao Mushi, Mushi Kong, Kong Moshi, Moshi Shu, Shubu Hai, Hai Muyang, Muyang Zi, Yang Zi, Zi Li, Li Zhou, Zhou Xu, Xu Ka, Ka Bu, Bu Wei, Wei Mu, Mu Zha, Zha Long, Long De, De Ji, Ji Sa, Sa Gao, Gao Gao, Gao Long, Long Sa, Sa Bo, Bo Ke, Ke Zhe, and Zhe

2.2 Oral Genealogies

43

Ju. “Although the first generations of these genealogies did not distinguish human beings from ghosts, later family pedigrees were all real.”17 Generally, ethnic minorities adopted a top-to-bottom naming system when they orally transmitted their genealogies. So they linked their grandfather’s, father’s and son’s name in a single recitation. However, there were also some ethnic groups that did the opposite, and started with the son’s name. A 1950s survey on ethnic minorities in southwestern China found that the Wa 佤 ethnic group kept this special type of oral genealogy. When they memorized their family members, they used a bottom-to-top naming system and started with the son’s name. They added the father’s name to the son’s name, and this became a generation. The father’s name was then added to the grandfather’s name for another generation, and this continued all the way back to the first ancestor. For example, in such a family genealogy, “San Bili—Bili Song” represents two generations. “San Bili” means that San is the son of Bili, and “Bili Song” means that Bili is the son of Song. It shows the relationship of three generations: son, father and grandfather. The father-son linked name genealogies of the Wa people do not limit which son’s name should be linked to the father’s, so every son’s name could be linked. An adopted son’s name could also be linked to his foster father’s, but in the process, he must abandon his biological father’s name and family genealogy. After a child is adopted by another family, he/she could no longer recite their biological family genealogy, or take their biological father’s surname. They have to change their surname and recite their foster father’s family genealogy to show that they will always belong to that family. Almost every member of the Wa clan can memorize their family genealogy (some people can also remember other people’s). This is true of the elderly, as well as many young people, even women and children. The Wa clan had a father-son linked name genealogical system, in which the most apparent feature is that the earliest generations are basically the same: “Puyi Sigang” and “Sigang Lihe”. The following is a comparison of the Wa clan’s Yongou and Amang families’ oral genealogies in the village of Masan (the translations here will be given in Pinyin according to the pronunciation) (Table 2.1). Why did this clan link their son’s and father’s names together? Why did they practice the bottom-to-top system instead of the top-to-bottom one? They said that it was catchy and easy for future generations to memorize, so they will never forget their ancestors.18 Oral family genealogies were very common among ethnic minorities in southwestern China. In the 1950s, the Wa clans of Yunnan province’s Yongguang, Ximeng County and Banhongzhai, Cangyuan County also practiced the father-son linked

Yang Dongquan. Study on the origin of Chinese genealogy 中国家谱起源研究. Genealogical Research. Beijing: Bibliography and Documents Publishing House, 1989 (1):73. 18 A survey of the Wa ethnic group’s society and history 佤族社会历史调查. Kunming: Yunnan People’s Publishing House, 1983: 137. 17

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2 The Origin of Chinese Genealogy

Table 2.1 The Wa clan’s Yongou and Amang families’ oral genealogies in the village of Masan Serial number

The Yongou Family Genealogy (27 Generations)

Generation

The Amang Family Genealogy (26 Generations)

1

Sigang Lihe

1

Sigang Lihe

2

Puyi Sigang

2

Puyi Sigang

3

Wo Puyi

3

Lun Puyi

4

Er Wo

4

Kang Lun

5

Tuo Er

5

Heliamu Kang

6

Keloumu Tuo

6

Bule Heliamu

7

Suo Keloumu

7

Niqi Bule

8

Haoke Suo

8

Keluomu Niqi

9

Gelang Haoke

9

Geai Keluomu

10

Biou Gelang

10

Geluohe Geai

11

Ni Biou

11

Lü Geluohe

12

Qieen Ni

12

Kan Lü

13

Pulang Qieen

13

Buluoen Kan

14

Qiete Pulang

14

Biya Buluoen

15

Kelai Qieye

15

Peiqi Biya

16

Mei Kelai

16

Wen Peiqi

17

Jun Mei

17

Kelehe Wen

18

Gang Jun

18

Xia Kelehe

19

Geng Gang

19

Qimu Xia

20

Kang Geng

20

Huiqi Qimu

21

Meng Kang

21

Luoke Huiqi

22

Kelong Meng

22

Suiqi Luoke

23

Tewai Kelong

23

Qiu Suiqi

24

Sa Tewai

24

Song Qiu

25

Song Sa

25

Kuai Song

26

Bili Song

26

Su Kuai

27

San Bili

name system.19 Senior members of the Miao 苗 ethnic group in southeast Guizhou also had a habit of reciting their family genealogies, and some could even memorize 57 generations.20 Some members of Yunnan’s Pumi 普米 ethnic group could also recite over 30 generations of their genealogies.

19

A survey of the Wa ethnic group’s society and history. Kunming: Yunnan People’s Publishing House, 1983: 14. 20 Ethnic minorities in Guizhou 贵州的少数民族. Guiyang: Guizhou People’s Publishing House, 1980: 12.

2.3 Patrilineal Oral Genealogies Originated from Matrilineal Ones

45

In the early 1950s, Liu Yaohan conducted a social and historical survey of the Yi minority group. In 1956, their population in Liangshan was approximately one million, of which about three fourths had oral genealogies. For ethnic Yi men, the ability to recite one’s clan’s genealogy was a basic condition for them to establish themselves in society. They all learned during childhood to recite their genealogies, and it became habit. They could recite the names of dozens of ancestral generations in one go. This ability enabled them to obtain many social conveniences. As the Yi proverb goes, “You can go around the clan and survive without carrying solid foods. Relying on the clan, all three generations will be safe.” It was not enough to just memorize your patrilineal genealogy; people also needed to know the matrilines of their “uncle” lineage. As another proverb goes: “If you cannot recite your father’s genealogies, the clan will not recognize you; if you can’t recite your uncles’ (on your mother’s side), your relatives won’t recognize you.”21 This showed that oral genealogies played a very important role in the social life of the Liangshan Yi people.

2.3 Patrilineal Oral Genealogies Originated from Matrilineal Ones We have discussed oral genealogies in the previous section and father-son genealogies linked by name. They were the products of a male-centered/patriclan society. Were there other types of oral genealogies before them? Since the matriclan society predated the patriclan society, are there matriarchal genealogies linked by name that reflect the matriclan society? Sociological and ethnological investigations have given us a definitive answer. In Yunnan, the Nu 怒ethnic group in Bijiang uses a linked name system for their oral genealogies. People from Village No. 9 in Bijiang’s District One could recite the names of 41 generations. They called themselves “the Nujiang natives,” and they are also known as the Douhuo Clan, which can be roughly translated as “the people living above.” Legend has it that the first ancestor of the Douhuo Clan was a woman named Maoying Chong. This name means “a person descended from the sky,” and the Douhuo people take this as an honor. The linked name lineage of the Douhuo Clan can be seen as follows (the translations here will be given in Pinyin according to the pronunciation): 1. Maoying Chong

2. Chong Luobing

3. Luobing Zhe

4. Zhe Maote

5. Maote Beng

6. Beng Xiyao

7. Xiyao Wei

8.Weiwei Qu

9. Quwei Neng

10. Nengbo Chi

11. Chichi Wei

12. Weiluo Bie

13. Bie Xiaxiu

14. Xiaxiu Da

15. Da Juliu (continued)

21

Liu Yaohan. The collected surveys and research work related to the Yi ethnic group’s society and history 彝族社会历史调查研究文集. Beijing: Ethnic Publishing House, 1980: 109.

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2 The Origin of Chinese Genealogy

(continued) 16. Juliu Gu

17. Gu Xiyou

18. Xiyou Bin

19. Bin Haogei

20. Haogei Chou

21. Chou Nayao

22. Nayao Quan

23. Quan Xiayou

24. Xiayou Shi

25. Shi Jucai

26. Jucai Nu

27. Nu Nuju

28. Nuju Gu

29. Gu Juanxue

30. Juanxue Du

31. Dulao Di

32. Dilao Wu

33. Wulao Qiu

34. Qiulao Man

35. Manlao Cui

36. Cuinue Man

37. Mane Jiao

38. Jiaozou Ou

39. Outong Shou

40. Shoukan Du

41. Duji Zhou

……

The Douhuo people are convinced that their first ancestor, Maoying Chong, is a woman. Setting aside the mythological accruals, this reveals a rational historical kernel: male-dominated, patrilineal oral genealogies evolved from a woman—that is, the primogenitor—just as patrilineal clans developed from matrilineal clans.22 In his book the Collected Survey and Research Works of the Yi Ethnic Group’s Society and History, Liu Yaohan recorded the oral genealogies of two Yi families: the Gu Hou and the Qu Nie. The Gu Hou family recorded 38 generations of genealogy as follows (the translations here will be given in Pinyin according to the pronunciation): Gu Hou—Guhou Hezhi—Hezhi Heda—Heda Mowa—Mowa Rie—Rie Meiji— Meiji Meia—Meia Mieye—Mieye Mieji—Mieji Jibo—Jibo Jienie—Jienie Suduo— Suduo Boe—Boe Yilu—Yilu Yiji—Yiji Yiwu—Yiwu Ahou—Ahou Dengzi— Dengzi Dalu—Dalu Fusha—Fusha Duopu—Duopu Miyi—Miyi Ajue—Ajue Houe—Houe Puji—Puji Azhe—Azhe Erjia—Erjia Buji—Buji Eyi—Eyi Amie— Amie Erzi—Erzi Jibu—Jibu Jie—Jie Huozu—Huozu Zuluo—Zuluo Jiha—Jiha Lumuzi—Lumuzi Shugei. And the Qu Nie family recorded 39 generations of genealogy as follows (the translations here will be given in Pinyin according to the pronunciation): Qu Nie—Qunie Qubu—Qubu Mue—Mue Ziwu—Ziwu Biewu—Biewu Afu— Afu Anie—Anie Adu—Adu Erpu—Erpu Nimu—Nimu Eyu—Eyu Alu—Alu Kaikai—Kaikai Bier—Bier Asu—Asu Lezi—Lezi Gechu—Gechu Geyi—Geyi Geguo—Geguo Azi—Azi Yili—Yili Biezi—Biezi Ribu—Ribu Qimo—Qimo Wupo—Wupo Bigu—Bigu Abie—Abie Ari—Ari Leri—Leri Niexie—Niexie Hari—Hari Bumo—Bumo Awai—Awai Ayu—Ayu Pingzuo—Pingzuo Jin—Jin Tianjia—Tianjia Jiaomu—Jiaomu Niehe. The Gu Hou and Qu Nie were ancient brother nationalities. Both originated from the Qu Mu Wu Wu family and they continued for five generations.

22

A survey of the Nu ethnic group’s society and history. Kunming: Yunnan People’s Publishing House, 1981: 37.

2.3 Patrilineal Oral Genealogies Originated from Matrilineal Ones

47

Liu Yaohan verified that Luoluo was the great grandmother of both Gu Hou and Qu Nie, and that Gu Hou and Qu Nie were not brothers, but sisters. Therefore, it can be concluded that the five generations preceding Gu Hou and Qu Nie were successive, matrilineal pedigrees made up of linked mother and daughter names. In other words, the oral genealogies of the ethnic Yi group’s Gu Hou and Qu Nie families began more than 40 generations earlier, and consisted of mothers’ and the daughters’ names. So the patrilineal oral genealogies that were linked by the fathers’ and the sons’ names originated after the matrilineal ones.23 Similar situations existed with oral genealogies among other ethnic minorities. According to a survey conducted in the 1950s, during the Wa people’s 2000-year history, they were a matriarchal society for approximately 1000 of those years. Hundreds of years of patriarchal, social development led to primitive society transitioning before 1949 to become a class-based society. The survey found that some Wa clan family genealogies detailed more than 20 generations, and some as many as 42 generations. Legend has it that “people invited Ge Lei Nuo and Ge Li Ci as leaders. Ge Lei Nuo was a man and Ge Li Ci was a woman. They got married. Ge Li Ci created the truth, and from then on, there was an order of brothers, as well as men and women. Women understood reason before men, and men had to listen to women. Later, Ge Li Ci did not want to be a leader, so she asked Ge Lei Nuo to lead. But whenever the man found something that he did not understand, he still asked the woman for advice. Women led for 30 generations, while men led for 20 generations.” We can infer from this legend that the Wa people’s oral genealogy—that which is still in circulation—was a matrilineal genealogy made up of mothers’ and daughters’ names some twenty generations ago.24 A Survey of the Bulang 布朗 Ethnic Group’s Society and History revealed that in the early 1950s, the Bulang ethnic minority in Yunnan still maintained genealogies linked by names of mothers and sons/daughters. Those who lived in the Bulang Mountains had no surnames, only first names. The character “Yan” 岩(literally meaning rock) was added before every male’s name, and “Yu”玉 ( literally meaning jade) before every female’s name. This was the only feature distinguishing males from females. The order was as follows: the eldest son was called “Di”, the second “Zhan”, the third “Gang”, the fourth “Bu”, the fifth “Pa”, the sixth “Su”, the seventh “Sao” and the eighth “Hong”. The eldest daughter was called “Ying”, the second “Wang”, the third “Wen”, the fourth “Ai”, the fifth “Niu”, the sixth “E”, the seventh 23

Liu Yaohan. The collected surveys and research work related to the Yi ethnic group’s society and history. Beijing: Ethnic Publishing House, 1980: 121. 24 A survey of the Wa ethnic group’s society and history. Kunming: Yunnan People’s Publishing House, 1983: 5.

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2 The Origin of Chinese Genealogy

“O” and the eighth “Ao”. After the naming of a child, the second character of the mother’s name was linked to that child’s name, therefore the genealogy was a special system which linked mothers’ and sons’/daughters’ names. For example:

This naming system meant that the mother-daughter link was relatively complete, while the mother-son link only existed for one generation. There was no link between father and son. This showed that, at that time, the Bulang people were still transitioning from a matriclan to a patriclan society. Although a patrilineal society had already basically been established, this family genealogy showed that the father-son genealogical links had not yet fully formed. The mother-son/daughter linked name system, a remnant of matriarchal clan, was still preserved. This can also be seen in the Bulang marriage system. Marriages among the Bulang people happened in three stages: first there was the Ganbo (the engagement), then the Ganneimu (the wedding) and finally the Ganjiaote (moving the wife from her residence to her husband’s). During the Ganbo and Ganneimu, the husband had to go to his wife’s residence. However, according to Bulang custom, even after the wedding, the couple still lived and worked separately within their own families. The husband just stayed at his wife’s house at night. It was only during farming season, when the wife lived and worked onsite that the visiting husband could eat with his wife. During that period, children were not only nurtured by the wife, but they also belonged to the wife’s clan. It was generally three years after the wedding that the man could take his wife back to his own residence, and then

2.4 Knotted Rope Genealogies

49

they would hold the Ganjiaote. These customs were the remnants of a matriarchal society, but in 1964, this custom was still widespread among the Bulang people.25 Similar customs were common among the Naxi 纳西 ethnic minority group in Yongning, Xishuangbanna. According to the book The Matriarchal System of the Naxi People in Yongning, the Naxi people named their matrilineal blood lineage the “siri” 斯日. There were oral, matrilineal genealogies in these siris. The 15-generation matrilineal genealogy of A Zai Bu Ze’s siri in the township of Tuozhi is one of them: Bu Ze—Nabu Kate—Naji Dema—Naka Dema—Naka Caier—Caier Dema—Naka Dema—Dashi Dema—Naka Dema—Eche Bute—Dema Caier—Dema Sezhu—Ge Tu—Danshi Dema—Dashi Dema.26 Matriarchal clans still remain among some ethnic minorities in Taiwan, and they still carry their genealogies. According to The Society and Culture of Taiwan’s Indigenous People 台湾土著民族的社会与文化 written by scholar Li Yiyuan 李亦园, “the largest kinship groups of the Mataian were the ones with a matriarchal lineage… each group was descended from a legendary female ancestor, but was represented by a family that had long been patriarchal… all of the special genealogies handed down along this lineage were matriarchal genealogies centered on women.”27 From the above examples, it can be clearly seen that in ancient Chinese society, there were not only patrilineal oral genealogies but also matrilineal ones. Patriarchal oral genealogies were the product of patriarchal clans, whereas matriarchal oral genealogies were the product of matriarchal clans. Just as patriarchal clans developed from a society of matriarchal clans, so did patriarchal oral genealogies. Since the definition of genealogy is “the details of blood lineage carriers” and oral genealogies contain both blood lineage and pedigrees, we can argue they are the most primitive form of Chinese genealogy. A large number of early oral genealogies show that oral genealogies originated from the matriclan society.

2.4 Knotted Rope Genealogies Knotted rope genealogies existed around the same time as oral genealogies, and were one of China’s most primitive forms of genealogy. Before writing came into existence, people in China tied knots into ropes as a way of keeping records. Knots helped people remember certain key events. Much has been documented in ancient Chinese books on how knotted ropes were used to govern the state. According to the Zhou Yi: Xi Ci II 周易·系辞下 (Book of Changes: The Great Treatise II), “In the highest antiquity, government was carried on successfully by the A survey of the Bulang ethnic group’s society and history 布朗族社会历史调查. Kunming: Yunnan People’s Publishing House, 1981: 58. 26 Yan Ruxian 严汝娴, Song Zhaolin 宋兆麟. The matriarchal system of the Naxi people in Yongning 水宁纳西族的母系制. Kunming: Yunnan People’s Publishing House, 1983: 39. 27 Yang Dongquan. Study on the origin of Chinese genealogy. Genealogical Research. Beijing: Bibliography and Documents Publishing House, 1989 (1): 73. 25

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2 The Origin of Chinese Genealogy

use of knotted cords (to preserve the memory of things). In subsequent ages the sages substituted for these written characters and bonds. By means of these (the doings of) all the officers could be regulated, and (the affairs of) all the people accurately examined.”28 This book clearly states that before writing was invented, people tied knots into ropes to record their memories. Xu Shen wrote in the preface of Shuo Wen Jie Zi 说文解字 (An Explication of Written Characters), “During the reign of Shennongshi, knotted ropes were used to manage the country and record affairs.” The Tang Dynasty writer Li Dingzuo quoted Jiu Jia Yi in his Zhou Yi Ji Jie 周易集 解 (Collected Annotations to Book of Changes), “The ancient people had no words, so they tied large knots into ropes to record big events, and small ones into ropes to record less important events. They also tied knots into ropes when they needed to make a promise or a vow. The number of the knots a person tied pretty much depended on the number of things they wanted to record. All parties kept ropes in their homes as evidence, and these were used as a way of governing one other.” Till modern times, some ethnic minority groups in remote areas of China still used this method; the Hani people in Yunnan, the Monba people in Tibet, and the Gaoshan people in Taiwan used this method. Abroad, some Persians, Mexicans and Peruvians also use this method. People tied knots into ropes to keep accounts, make records, and transmit information. They also used ropes to record the events of family members and it was a way of recording a family’s lineage. Therefore, there was a special phenomenon of knotted rope genealogies. The Oroqen people lived in the Hailar River Basin of the Greater Khinggan Mountains in Heilongjiang Province. They were one such group that tied knots in ropes as way of documenting events. They used this method as a way of counting, and it was also as a way of recording their lineage. As recently as the 17th/eighteenth century, they tied knots in horsehair ropes to show how many generations there were in their families. Three knots meant that there were three generations and five knots meant that there were five generations. They venerated these ropes and hung them on wooden beams in the middle of their homes. These ropes were their original genealogies. In the 1980s, Zhang Qizhuo conducted research into the ethnic minorities living in Xiuyan, Liaoning. His research work Manchu in Xiuyan29 revealed how the Manchu and Xibe people (among others) used knotted ropes to keep records and genealogies. The Manchu people attached great importance to ancestral worship. Almost every family had an ancestral position on its western wall. They did no hang ancestors’ portraits, but instead used colorful, foot-long silk strips to represent them. They placed these inside a wooden box, along with genealogies, arrows left behind by their ancestors, and sacrificial scrolls. This box was then placed on an ancestral board. To the right of this board, a memorial tablet for the “Zisun Mama” 子孙 28

Zhou Yi: Xi Ci, Vol. 2 (Books of Changes). Published by Imperial Academy in the 13th year of Tongzhi reign (1874). 29 Zhang Qizhuo 张其卓. The Manchu in Xiuyan 满族在岫岩. Shenyang: Liaoning People’s Publishing House, 1984.

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妈妈 was placed—the goddess who presides over offspring, who is also known as “Fotuo Mama” 佛托妈妈, “Suotou Mama” 锁头妈妈, and “Tuotuo Mama” 托托 妈妈, literally meaning “Mother Kindness”. The Manchu people believed that she could protect their offspring, by keeping them safe, and in reproduction. They placed a paper bag known as the “praying for children pocket” in front of her tablet. Inside this bag, about 22ft’s worth of string was placed, that was five different colors. The Manchu people held different sacrificial activities. The most important event was known as the daji 大祭 (big sacrifice), and this generally lasted for three days. On the first day, family members worshiped the Divus Guan and sacred images of the Guanyin (the Goddess of Mercy who heard people’s cries around the world). On the second day, the family made offerings to heaven and earth, and on the third day, they made offerings to the Zisun Mama. As well as offering sacrifices to the Zisun Mama, they would erect a willow tree to the east of the main door. They would then pull the “descendants’ rope” out of its bag and tie it to the tree’s branches (see Fig. 2.3). The day after offering sacrifices to Zisun Mama, the Manchu people would hold a “lock-hanging/changing” ceremony. Children would kneel in front of Zisun Mama’s memorial tablet, and an old lady would dip willow branches in clean water and sprinkle it on their heads. Boys wore red-colored thread around their necks and girls wore blue-colored thread. The wearing of these necklaces was known as “hanging the lock”. After three days, the children would take off their thread necklaces and store them in a cloth bag. When it next came to worshiping their ancestors, these children would take their thread necklaces out of the bag, and tie them to pieces of string. Some families asked their children to take their threads out and tie them to a piece of string before sunset on that day. If a girl got married, there would be a ceremony either before the wedding or after she gave birth, to help change her lock.

Fig. 2.3 The Manchu people used string to record their genealogies

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Her husband’s family would prepare two pigs, two jars of wine and two buckets of yellow rice for her to take back to her mother’s and pay tribute to Zisun Mama. This was a process known as “changing the lock”. Evidently, the lock-hanging/changing ceremonies were thought to echo the way that people in primitive society used knotted-ropes to keep records. This is given that they specifically showed how family members were recorded in genealogies. “Hanging the lock” meant listing new members in a families’ genealogies. “Changing the lock” meant removing a daughter from her mother’s genealogy and adding her to her new husband’s. The “descendants’ rope” was, therefore, a knotted rope genealogy. Some people may argue that the “descendants’ rope” served as knotted genealogies for the Manchu people were not clear enough to record their family lineage. Then, the genealogies of the Xibe 锡伯 people were much clearer—they recorded the generations of family members and the number of children in a family. Like the Manchu, the Xibe attached great importance to ancestral worship. However, rather than setting up portraits of their grandparents, they placed portraits of their parents. Three years after their parents died, the Xibe people would remove their grandparents’ portraits, and send them to a secluded place in the mountains. They would replace the ones that had once stood in their ancestral shrine with portraits of their parents. The ancestral shrine was generally set up close to the western wall, with two wooden, ancestral boxes placed inside. The box positioned to the south was for Zisun Mama, the legendary female ancestor. Like the Manchu people, the Xibe ethnic group regarded Zisun Mama as a goddess who kept them safe and enabled them to prosper in reproduction. Zisun Mama was represented by a 20-foot-long silk rope, with small bows and arrows, boots, quivers, cradles, copper coins, cloth strips and bones (often the taluses of pig hind legs) attached to it. This silk rope would usually be placed inside a paper bag. During Spring Festival, the Xibe people would take it out, place it within the shrine’s southeast corner, burn incense and kowtow. They would then place it back inside the paper bag on the second day of the second lunar month.30 Senior family members with many children and grandchildren would be invited to make the silk rope. When a new child was born, they would add a bone to the rope. If a boy was born, they would also hang a bow and arrow; if it was a girl, they would hang a piece of red cloth. The Xibe people’s ceremony for erecting the ancestral box was very grand and mysterious. It was usually held at midnight and only local people were allowed—no outsiders. During the ceremony, cattle were slaughtered and given to the ancestors as sacrificial offerings. Memorial ceremonies would also take place at midnight, but on these occasions, no cattle would be slaughtered. This 20-foot-long silk rope that the Xibe people preserved served as their knotted rope genealogy. The dorsal bones on the rope indicated how many generations each family had; bows and arrows indicated how many men there were in the family, and red cloths indicated how many women there were. Knotted rope genealogies 30

Translator’s note: In Chinese culture, the dragon is an auspicious animal that dominates clouds and rains. According to the Chinese folk legend, the 2nd day of the 2nd lunar month is thought to be the day that the dragon awakes and raises its head. So this day is known as “The Dragon’s head-raising Day”.

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were generally more reliable than the horsehair ropes of the Oroqen people or the descendants’ rope of the Manchu people. When the author of Manchu in Xiuyan visited the Xibe people in the 1980s, he found that the silk ropes that had served as knotted genealogies were still preserved, but that many were only covered with colored cloth strips. Their function as genealogical records had significantly been weakened, but they were undoubtedly physical relics, and they showed that Zisun Mama, the female ancestor of the Xibe people, was still remembered and respected. From the above, it can be seen that knotted ropes were a record of a family’s lineage and pedigrees. They applied to the same consanguineous groups, and specific ropetying ceremonies were important in primitive society. Horsehair ropes, descendants’ rope, and silk ropes all served as knotted rope genealogies. It wasn’t only ethnic minorities that had this habit; other groups including the dominant Han ethnic group also did this. Like oral genealogies, knotted rope genealogies were a primitive form of genealogy that recorded both blood lineage and pedigree. However, they differed in that knotted rope genealogies were much more physically primitive. When did knotted rope genealogies originate? Chang Jianhua said in his Patriarchal Records: “Judging by the way the Xibe and Manchu people used ropes to serve as their genealogies and to worship Zisun Mama, knotted rope genealogies may have originated from matriarchal clans.”31 Mr. Chang’s analysis is reasonable. The Manchu and Xibe people highly respected their female ancestor and called her “Zisun Mama”. They worshiped her as a “goddess that gives blessings to their offspring in the form of reproduction and prosperity”. The string or rope that families used to record their genealogies was highly respected and treasured. It is inferred that knotted rope genealogies—like oral genealogies—originated during the late stage of China’s matrilineal societies.

2.5 Genealogies that Used Oracle Inscriptions During the early Shang Dynasty, the most primitive, written genealogies appeared in China: genealogies that used oracle inscriptions. Before writing was created, people relied on oral transmission and knotted ropes to record their family lineage, but over time it was inevitable that mistakes were made. After writing became popular, people began to make records on oracle bones. These bones—often animal bones; the scapula of cattle was particularly popular but tortoise shells were also used—recorded peoples’ family lineage and genealogies. According to the research of relevant experts, three oracle bones have been confirmed as the oldest genealogies. The first was recorded in the Yin Qi Bu Ci 殷契卜辞 (Yin ruin’s oracle inscriptions) compiled by Rong Geng 容庚 and others (sequence number: 209); another was recorded in the Yin Xu Wen Zi Yi Bian 殷墟文字乙编 compiled by Dong Zuobin 董作宾 (sequence number: 4856); the Chang Jianhua 常建华. Patriarchal records 宗族志. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1998: 227.

31

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Fig. 2.4 The Er 儿 Family Genealogy on cattle scapular bones

final one was recorded in the Ku Fang Er Shi Cang Jia Gu Bu Ci 库方二氏藏甲骨 卜辞 (sequence number: 1506).32 According to Chen Mengjia, the first one followed the structure “the son of X was X”. For example, “the son of Yang was Hong, and the son of Hong was Yu.” The second one followed the structure “XX’s son was named XX”. The third bone is part of the shoulder-blade of cattle, about 22 cm long and 22.5 cm wide. The inscriptions were written on the front of the bone, with a total of 13 lines. Except for the first line with five characters, the rest were four characters per line, engraving from top to bottom, from right to left. The third mentioned oracle bone was purchased by the American Presbyterian Missionary in Weixian, Shandong sometime between 1903 and 1909. It can now be found at the British Museum (see Fig. 2.4). The inscriptions on this oracle bone were of an aristocratic family’s pedigree. The Er family recorded a total of 14 names: 11 father and son relationships, two brothers’ relationships and one relationship that remains unknown. This genealogy recorded at least 11 generations of the Er 儿 family’s lineage, and was extremely precious. However, there has been some debate over the authenticity of these oracle bone inscriptions. Experts including Hu Xiaoshi 胡小石, Dong Zuobin, Guo Moruo, Rong Geng, Tang Xuan 唐玄, Jin Xiangheng 金祥恒, Yan Yiping 严一萍, and Hu Houxuan 胡厚宣 believe that it is fake. Hu Houxuan, a history researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, published an article in 1979 at the Chen Mengjia 陈梦家. A summary of Yin ruin’s oracle inscriptions 殷墟卜辞综述. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1988: 499.

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2.6 Bronze Genealogies

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second annual meeting of the Chinese Academy of Ancient Chinese Characters. He said then that the oracle bone inscriptions were fake, based on several factors including the handwriting, markings, the meaning behind certain words, names, and various lines. Other experts, including Zhang Zhenglang 张政烺, Sun Haibo 孙海波, (the Japanese) Shima Kunio 岛邦男, Yi Zhen 仪真, Yu Xingwu, Zhao Xiyuan 赵锡元, Tsung Yi Jao 饶宗颐, Li Xueqin 李学勤 believe that it is genuine. In recent years, most scholars have come to agree with them. In 1985, at the Third Asian Genealogy Academic Seminar held by the Guoxue Literature Museum of Taiwan, Zhang Bingquan published “China’s Earliest Genealogy—the Er Family’s Genealogy on a Cow’s Scapula Bone”. In this paper, he reviewed the existing debate on the authenticity of the various inscriptions. He judged, based on the time of the centuries-old inscriptions: “that this is a real one, and should be recorded as the earliest genealogy in China that we can still see today.”33 Chen Mengjia said that this piece of oracle bone was carved during the Wu Ding era. Wu Ding was the 23rd king of the 10th Shang Dynasty, some 3,200 years ago. And so this type of genealogy, if we can think back as far back as the Shang Dynasty, meant that China was already recording family lineage characters in tabular form more than 3,000 years ago. The names in the above three genealogies were not included in the Shang Dynasty’s imperial records, so obviously, they were not members of the imperial family. However, it can be inferred that they were kept by noble families, given that they were early records of lineage in writing. The first and second genealogies contained few words, and so some people suspect that the third inscription was false because it differed from these. Nevertheless, the format of these two genealogies, detailing “the son of so-and-so is called so-and-so” etc. provided the third genealogy with sufficient authenticity and reliability.34 All three genealogical lineages were paternal and followed the structure “the son of XXX is XXX” and “the younger brother of XXX is XXX”, instead of “the daughter of XXX is XXX”. It can be seen from these that only men had a place in family genealogies, whereas women did not. This indicates that paternal rule was absolute during the Shang Dynasty.

2.6 Bronze Genealogies During the Shang Dynasty, another physical genealogy existed at the same time as genealogies on oracle bones: bronze genealogies. These were genealogies that were Zhang Bingquan 张秉权. China’s earliest genealogy - the er family’s genealogy on a cow’s scapula bone 中国最早的家谱——牛胛骨上的儿氏家谱. Minutes of The Third Asian Genealogy Academic Seminar 第三届亚洲族谱学术研讨会会议记录. United Daily News Cultural Foundation National Studies Literature Museum of Taiwan 台湾联合报文化基金会国学文献馆 (Eds.), United Publishing Company, 1987. 34 Yang Dongquan. Study on the origin of Chinese genealogy. Genealogical Research. Beijing: Bibliography and Documents Publishing House, 1989 (1): 59. 33

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carved on bronze. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin, and its main ingredient is copper, but a certain proportion of tin made cast vessels look bluish-gray. Among the remaining bronze wares of the late Shang Dynasty, four genealogies have been found that contain special records of family lineage. All of these are detailed in Luo Zhenyu’s Three Generations of Ji Jin Wen Cun.35 One genealogy can be found on the bronze “Zu Ding” 祖丁 dagger (also known as “Zu Yi” 祖乙 dagger), with six characters: Zu 祖

Zu 祖

Zu 祖

Ding 丁

Yi 已

Yi 乙

Three other daggers were unearthed in Yizhou (now Yixian County, Hebei Province), and are now preserved inside the Liaoning Provincial Museum. The inscriptions on the “Da Zu Ri Yi 大祖日已” dagger are as follows: Da 大 Zu 祖 Zu祖

Zu祖 Zu祖

Zu祖

Zu 祖

Zu祖

Ri 日 Ri 日

Ri日 Ri 日

Ri日

Ri日

Ri日

Yi 已 Ding 丁

Yi 乙 Geng 庚

Ding 丁

Yi 已

Yi

The inscriptions on the “Zu Ri Yi 祖日乙” dagger are as follows: Da 大

Da 大

Zhong 中

Zu祖

Fu父

Fu父

Fu父

Fu父

Fu父

Fu父

Ri 日

Ri 日

Ri日

Ri 日

Ri日

Ri日

Ri日

Yi乙

Gui癸

Gui癸

Gui癸

Gui癸

Gui癸

Yi 已

The inscriptions on the “Da Xiong Ri Yi 大兄日已” dagger are as follows: Da 大 Xiong兄

Xiong兄

Xiong兄

Xiong兄

Xiong兄

Xiong兄

Ri 日

Ri 日

Ri日

Ri 日

Ri日

Ri日

Yi已

Wu戊

Ren壬

Gui癸

Gui癸

Bing丙

The bronze “Zu Ding” dagger recorded the names of either three ancestors or three generations of ancestors. They were all named after the clan branches. Rough estimates place the dagger from the Shang Dynasty based on its shape and characteristics. Some people think that the other discovered bronze weapons were cast around the same time, so they are collectively known as the “three daggers”. They are also known as the “three daggers in Yizhou” because of where they were found. The first Luo Zhenyu 罗振玉. Three generations of Ji Jin Wen Cun 三代吉金文存. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2005: 1954–1957.

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2.6 Bronze Genealogies

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Fig. 2.5 Bronze genealogies: The “three daggers in Yizhou”

is named “Liu 六 (six) Zu 祖 (ancestor) Dagger”, the second is named “Liu 六 (six) Fu 父 (father) Dagger”, and the third, “Liu 六 (six) Xiong 兄 (brother) Dagger” (see Fig. 2.5). Chen Jiameng said: “According to the engraved illustrations and characters on the three daggers, we can see that they were not made for practical use, but for display.”36 Yang Dongquan said: “These bronze daggers, which are simply inscribed with the ancestry of ancestors and brothers, and the date of their deaths, should be genealogical carriers of a family dedicated to ancestral temples, used to sacrifice ancestors and record lineage. Their purpose was to engrave characters on them, and record Chen Mengjia 陈梦家. A summary of Yin ruin’s oracle inscriptions 殷墟卜辞综述. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1988: 500.

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genealogies, so that descendants would not forget the date their ancestors died. Their ancestors would live on forever within these bronze wares. Later generations had exactly the same intention, but engraved the names of their ancestors and the dates of their deaths in stone, displaying them in ancestral temples.” Yang also said that it was reasonable to infer that the three daggers recorded six to eight lineages of this family/clan.37

The genealogies inscribed on oracle bone and bronze that appeared in the Shang Dynasty were a step forward compared to oral and knotted rope genealogies. It can even be said that a qualitative leap had taken place. Genealogies inscribed on oracle bone and bronze were recorded in writing, and therefore were the oldest written records in China’s history. However, the ones mentioned above were simple in both style and content, recording only the names and lineages of fathers, sons and brothers. They did not detail any other family matters. Although they might be viewed as great progress compared to oral and knotted rope genealogies, they can only really be called the most primitive and oldest genealogies. They are not full-scale genealogies—ones with either rich content or a mature style. The Shang Dynasty oracle bone and bronze genealogies, along with oral and knotted rope genealogies, constitute China’s oldest and most primitive genealogical records. In general, they can be viewed as products of Chinese genealogy’s budding period.

37

Yang Dongquan. Study on the origin of Chinese genealogy. Genealogical Research. Beijing: Bibliography and Documents Publishing House, 1989 (1): 63–66.

Chapter 3

The Birth of Chinese Genealogy

During the Xia and Shang dynasties (2070–1046 BC), China’s clan society developed, and the country’s genealogy transformed from its primitive form. It reached a new development stage during the Zhou Dynasty. This was because the Zhou government had an established patriarchal system, based on lineages that have evolved from the clan system, that is, primogeniture. Under this system, the King of Zhou claimed to be the son of Heaven (Tianzi, 天子) and he was honored as the Big Head (Dazong, 大宗) by all under Heaven. His eldest son was unanimously acknowledged as the successor to the throne, and this system remained unchanged for generations. The brothers (both legitimate and illegitimate) of the eldest son were enfeoffed as Feudal Lords, and they became Big Heads in their own lordly domains. But they were also Small Heads (Xiaozong, 小宗) to the King of Zhou and their respective thrones were succeeded by their own eldest sons. The brothers of the eldest sons were instated as Ministers (卿) and Grand Masters (大夫). They were Small Heads to their elder brothers but Big Heads in their own sub-clans. Only the Big Heads got to rule the empire, and preside over the state and the family. They also had the power to preside over sacrifices and divinations. They were responsible for reuniting clans, managing clan affairs and commanding their clan’s armed forces. They were also entitled to wield political power and exploit other clan members. From the King down to basic Servicemen (士),1 everyone was granted and allocated property and power based on their lineage. Slavery was consolidated. Thus it can be seen that the patriarchal clan system not only applied to clans, but to families. Their core message was that the eldest son of the first wife could inherit a clan title, and the rank of an “ancestor”. Other sons, however, could only set up minor clans, and become sub branches of the original clan or family. Based on the fact there was a strict, hierarchical system, family genealogies “established lineage and distinguished seniority” by recording blood relations, near and far. During the Zhou Dynasty, the legitimacy 1

Aristocrats in the service of the Feudal Lords were graded in three categories; in descending order of rank: Ministers (卿), Grand Masters (大夫), and Servicemen (士).

© Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2023 H. Wang, The General Theory of China’s Genealogy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6377-5_3

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of claims, recognition of concubines, and the order of birth meant that genealogies underwent considerable development. Every aristocratic family inscribed their family lineage and activities on ritual wares and sacrificial vessels to show that they respected their ancestors, but the government also appointed special officials to be in charge of compiling and managing aristocratic families’ genealogies. They established a perfect system that has enabled historiographers to compile genealogies. This system, in turn, has led to China having a number of genealogists and a first batch of Chinese genealogical works. Chinese genealogy was officially born during the Zhou Dynasty.

3.1 Comprehensive Genealogies Appeared During the Zhou Dynasty During the Zhou Dynasty, aristocratic families enjoyed engraving their lineage on bronze wares as a symbol that they respected and worshipped their ancestors. The hereditary system implemented by the Zhou government made people realize how important blood relations were. This in turn raised people’s awareness about the importance of worshipping their ancestors. By casting inscriptions on ritual vessels such as the Ding Yi 鼎彝, people could show off their ancestors’ status. In Zhouyuan, the birthplace of the Zhou people during the late Shang Dynasty, a large number of bronze artefacts were unearthed, most of which were ritual vessels carved by aristocratic families and clans during the Zhou Dynasty. Inscriptions included the names of ancestors and their virtues, and their exploits and any awards they had been granted were often found at the beginning of the inscription. The names of the people who had cast the bronze wares could be found at the end of the inscriptions. Ding Yi inscriptions of this kind were usually presented in ancestral temples as sacrificial vessels. Each generation cast an inscription vessel for their ancestors, and these were displayed one by one. Not only did these vessels record the deeds of each ancestor, but they ensured that the lineage of the family was preserved. The bronzeware inscriptions in clan/family ancestral temples showed the exact series of a family’s genealogy, and how it had been revised and had accumulated over generations. These family inscriptions were actually the private genealogies of the Zhou Dynasty. According to the Li Ji: Ji Tong 礼记·祭统 (The book of Rites: Summary Account of Sacrifices), it was important that the writers’ names were included, when inscriptions were made by descendants and carved on sacrificial vessels. Normally, these inscriptions only praised ancestors’ virtues, and didn’t belittle their faults. They generally described the ancestors’ morality, credit, honors, awards, and what they were famous for.2 The act of descendants detailing their ancestors’ names and deeds, along with their own names, was a record of lineage. All Ding Yi inscriptions recorded Shi San Jing Zhu Shu: Li Ji 十三经注疏·礼记 (Commentaries on thirteen classics of Chinese literature: the book of rites), Vol. 49.

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a family’s lineage and deeds. They were no different, in this respect, to the genealogies of later generations content-wise. Also, the principle of “saying the virtuous but not the evil”, implemented under the Ding Yi system, was also adopted by later genealogists.3 Some of these inscriptions still exist; some only show the records of a few generations, whereas others show much more. Some only record the order of pedigree, whereas others contained detailed stories of ancestors. Most of the existing Zhou inscriptions were made by children for their fathers. They show both names on them, and thus the natural lineage of father and son. The Chang Zun 昌尊 inscription indicated that it was made by Chang to honor his father Ri Geng. There were also inscriptions that recorded the order of pedigree. The inscription on the Qin Gong Zhong listed the order of ancestors over four generations: the first ancestor (Qin Xian gong), Wen Gong, Jing Gong and Xian Gong.4 If the caster himself—Qin Gong or Qin Wugong—had also been listed, there would have been records of five generations’ lineage. Of the many bronze inscriptions that are now spread all over the world, the most complete records of family lineage can be found on the Wei family’s sacrificial vessel. This was unearthed in 1976 in the village of Zhuangbai in Fufeng County, Shaanxi Province. The Shan family’s sacrificial vessel, which was unearthed in 2003 in the Yang Jiacun village in Mei County, Shaanxi Province, is also worth noting. The Wei family’s sacrificial vessels were known as “the Qiang Plate” (see Fig. 3.1) and “the Xing Clock”. There are 284 characters inscribed on the Qiang Plate. The plate first lists the family’s lineage and then it praises the deeds of the six kings of the early Zhou Dynasty (The Kings Wen, Wu, Cheng, Kang, Zhao and Mu). It then describes the major events that happened during five generations of Wei family ancestors, those that happened during the six kings’ reign. Together with Qiang, the plate maker himself, the names on the plate form a list of six generations of lineage,5 as follows:

great-great-great grandfather grandfather

father

great-great grandfather

great grandfather

Qiang

Yang Dongquan. Study on Zhou dynasty genealogy 周代家谱研究. Genealogical Research. Beijing: Culture and Art Publishing House, 1991 (2): 37. 4 Yin Zhou Jin Wen Xu Lu 殷周金文续录 (The study of Bronze Inscriptions in Yin and Zhou Dynasty). Chengdu: Sichuan People’s Publishing House, 1984. 5 Ibid. 3

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Fig. 3.1 Rubbings of “the Qiang Plate”

After Qiang died, his son Xing made the Xing Clock to honor three generations of ancestors. The inscriptions on the clock recorded the notable events of those figures, plus himself, and therefore a total of four generations of lineage were recorded: great grandfather

grandfather

father (Qiang)

Xing

As we can see from these two inscriptions, Qiang was the father of Xing, which makes Qiang’s father Xing’s grandfather, and Qiang’s grandfather Xing’s great grandfather. If we connect the two lineages, we can see the seven successive generations of the Wei family:

Fortunately, the two bronze sacrificial vessels, the Qiang Plate and the Xing Clock, were unearthed in the same kiln, and so they were easy to identify as sacrificial vessels from the same family. These kinds of sacrificial vessels were common among the aristocratic families of that time. Each generation cast inscriptions on the vessels of

3.1 Comprehensive Genealogies Appeared During the Zhou Dynasty

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Fig. 3.2 A rubbing of “the Lai Plate”

previous generations. The vessels were then arranged and displayed in the ancestral temple in sequence. In this way, the lineages of family members descended in one continuous line, and the family’s lineage appeared complete.6 On 9 January, 2003, a bronze kiln from the Western Zhou Dynasty was discovered in Yang Jiacun, Meixian County, Shaanxi Province. 27 bronze artefacts with inscriptions on them were unearthed. They were a complete set of crockery owned by the Shan family, a prominent aristocratic family during the Western Zhou Dynasty. This discovery was praised as being “unprecedented” by academia. One of the 27 bronze artefacts was the Lai Plate, a water container with a height of 20.4 cm, a diameter of 53.6 cm, a belly depth of 10.4 cm and a weight of 18.5 kg. This detailed the Shan family lineage. There are 21 lines of inscriptions on the plate—about 17 characters per line. There are a total of 372 characters (see Fig. 3.2). The inscription on this plate was the longest of any on the 27 unearthed bronze artefacts. There are 100 characters more on the Lai Plate than on the Qiang Plate. It was the longest piece of manuscript discovered on a bronze artefact since 1949. It can be seen from the inscriptions that the Lai Plate was a bronze genealogy. It recorded the lineage and activities of the Shan family, a prominent aristocratic family who lived during the Zhou Dynasty. Lai was the owner/maker of this piece of bronze ware; he was the eighth-generation descendant of the Shan family. According to his inscriptions, his earliest ancestor Shan Gong helped the Kings Wen and Wu 6

Yang Dongquan. Study on Zhou dynasty genealogy. Genealogical Research. Beijing: Culture and Art Publishing House, 1991 (2): 41.

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administer the land newly occupied by the Zhou Dynasty, after the Shang Dynasty was destroyed. The following ancestor Shu Gong assisted King Cheng in managing the country. The third listed ancestor Xin Shizhong helped King Kang fight invaders and handle government affairs. The fourth ancestor Hui Zhonglifu helped the Kings Zhao and Mu during the crusades against the Chu State. The fifth ancestor Ling Bo had a duty to assist the Kings Gong and Yi. The sixth ancestor Yi Zhong assisted the Kings Xiao and Yi in making the nation greater. The seventh ancestor Gong Shu, who was Lai’s father, was a virtuous assistant to the King Li. The eighth listed descendant was Lai himself, who was an assistant to King Xuan, the emperor of the then dynasty. He handled government affairs and was an official in charge of forestry and agriculture. The Lai Plate bronze genealogy gave the Shan family’s clear lineage and full, accurate content about their history. There were eight generations who assisted twelve kings during the Zhou Dynasty, and it can be seen that the Shan family held an important position during the Western Zhou Dynasty. This family was a prominent member of the aristocracy, second only to the Duke of Zhou and the Duke of Zhao. The Lai Plate was clearly a rich and informative piece of bronze ware during the Western Zhou Dynasty, and it has important, historical value. According to Luo Bi’s 罗泌 Song Dynasty work, the Lu Shi 路史, some believed that the Shan family’s heritage was linked to King Cheng’s youngest son, Zhen. However there are solid, historical facts that the Shan family originated from Shan Gong, the first ancestor who assisted the Kings Wen and Wu, thus disproving Luo Bi’s records.7 The Lai Plate takes the eight generations of the Shan family as its main line and each descendant is linked to the lineage of the twelve kings they assisted during the Western Zhou Dynasty. The list is as follows: Shan Gong

Gong Shu

Kings: Wen Wu Cheng

Xin Shizhong

Kang

Hui Zhonglifu

Zhao

Mu

Ling Bo

Gong

Yi

Yi Zhong Gong Shu

Xiao

Yi

Li

Lai

Xuan

The records of royal lineage during the Western Zhou Dynasty listed on the Lai and Qiang Plates have high, historical value. In the 1920s and 1930s, the school of ancient skepticism ignored the ancient history of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the dynasty that preceded the Eastern Zhou. People expressed doubts about the royal lineage of the Western Zhou dynasty listed in Sima Qian’s Shi Ji: Zhou Ben Ji 史记· 周本纪 (the basic records of Zhou). Some scholars believed that Sima Qian had not listed the Kings Gong, Yi, Xiao and Yi chronologically in his works. However, Qiang listed the names and titles of Kings on the Qiang Plate: Wen, Wu, Cheng, Kang, Zhao and Mu. He did this when he was recording the lineage of his own family—the Wei family. The Lai Plate not only added to the credibility of the early Western Zhou’s royal family lineage, but it also added credibility to the later dynasty that there were Zhang Runtang 张润棠. A Review of Bronze Wares Collected in the Yang Jiacun Kiln in Mei County 眉县杨家村窑藏青铜器述评. Baoji University of Arts and Sciences Newspaper, 2000 (5).

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not records of on the Qiang Plate. It included the Kings Gong, Yi, Xiao, Yi, Li and Xuan. Therefore, the bronze artefacts that were discovered firsthand proved that the entire Western Zhou royal family lineage records of the Shi Ji: Zhou Ben Ji were accurate. It is not surprising that the excavation of the two plates, and especially the later discovery of the Lai Plate, caused a sensation in academic circles.

3.2 The Authorized Genealogical Institution During the Zhou Dynasty, the government attached great importance to genealogies that recorded blood lines and showed how close consanguinity was, because blood ties were what the patriarchal clan system was based on. Tang Dynasty Confucian scholar Jia Gongyan said: “The Emperors’ genealogies are known as the Di Xi, and the lords, ministers, and grand masters’ are known as the Shi Ben.” So it can be seen that the ancient emperors and nobles both paid attention to lineage, and they appointed officials especially to take charge of it. The central government and all of the feudal states appointed historiographers to record, assemble and maintain the genealogies of the nobles. They developed a complete system of genealogical compilations. According to documented records, the historiographers that managed the imperial genealogies were known and ranked as “junior scribes”. The Zhou Li: Chun Guan 周礼·春官 (Rites of the Zhou: minister of rites) said: “junior scribes are responsible for establishing the royal lineage, distinguishing the order of royal family members according to their generation and birth order, determining their position in the ancestral temples based on how close they are/were to the emperor, and telling the emperor the dates of death and names of their ancestors, in case of sacrifice.” Qing Dynasty historian Shao Jinhan added: “Junior scribes are special officials that record and maintain the genealogies of the royal families.”8 Special officials were also appointed during the Zhou Dynasty to manage the lineage of lords and ministers. They were known as “grand scribes”. According to the Guo Yu: Jin Yu Jiu 国语·晋语 (Discourses of the states: discourses of the Jin), Zhi Xuanzi, the minister of the Jin State, wanted his son Zhi Yao to be his successor. However, Zhi Guo, one of the grand ministers from the Zhi clan, advised Zhi Xuanzi to make the bastard Zhi Xiao his successor. Zhi Xuanzi did not listen. Zhi Guo knew that Zhi Yao was not virtuous and that he would lead to the extinction of the Zhi clan someday. Therefore, Zhi Guo went to the grand scribe and applied to break away from his clan and change his surname to Fu. In the end, the entire Zhi clan perished; only Fu survived. This story shows that grand scribes were in charge of the clan pedigrees of various lords and ministers. “Royal secretaries” were also in charge of lords’ and ministers’ genealogies. In the records of the Zuo Zhuan: Xiang Gong Shi Nian 左传·襄公十年 (The commentary of Zuo, during the tenth year of Shao Jinhan 邵晋涵. Preface to the Shi family genealogy in Yuyao 余姚史氏家谱序. Nan Jiang Wen Chao 南江文钞, Vol. 6.

8

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Xiang Gong’s reign) (563BC), after Lord Jin had eliminated the State of Biyang, he asked the royal secretary to choose the wisest people from the Yun clan as heirs, and let them migrate to Huo. In that way, the Yun clan could go on worshiping their ancestors and preserve their clan. So the royal secretary, whose role was to maintain royal documents, was also an influential person. To prevent the order of different generations from falling into disarray, each feudal state also appointed special officials to take charge of state affairs and genealogies. Their role was to ensure that the patriarchal clan system and the enfeoffment system were implemented. According to the Guo Yu—Lu Yu Shang 国语·鲁语 (Discourses of the states: discourses of the Lu), the State of Lu set up the official “Gong”, “Shi”, “Zong” and “Zhu” posts, to manage clan lineage. Han Dynasty Wang Yi 王逸 said in his Li Sao Zhu 离骚注 (Annotations on the Lament) that during the Warring States Period, the official in charge of the Chu State’s royal lineage was known as the “San Lü”. In the Shi Tong, Liu Zhiji said: “The State of Chu has set up a post for a Grand Master San Lü, who is responsible for recording and managing the imperial genealogy of the Chu State.” Qu Yuan, a well-known, patriotic Chinese poet, once served as the Grand Master San Lü, and he took charge of the three imperial lineages—Zhao, Qu and Jing—of the Chu State. The Zhou Dynasty genealogies were not only simple records of blood lineage, but they were also used as teaching material in government schools to educate aristocratic children on political enlightenment. Both the Guo Yu: Chu Yu 国语·楚语 (Discourses of the states: discourses of the Chu) and the Guo Shi Jing Ji Zhi 国史经 籍志 (Bibliographic treatise of the dynastic history of the Ming) said that by learning about the illustrious and virtuous former kings recorded in lineages, children could achieve long-term prosperity. If they learnt about the fatuous and self-indulgent former kings, they would fail their people. The education of lineages/genealogies encouraged descending rulers to learn from past ruling experience.9

3.3 The Publication of the Di Xi Pian and the Shi Ben During the Zhou Dynasty, the centralized recording and management of aristocratic genealogies meant that a large number of genealogical works were produced. They summarized the genealogies and lineages of previous and existing generations. These works were important in symbolizing the development of Chinese genealogies. However, as Pan Guangdan said: due to wars and other reasons, the only Zhou Dynasty genealogical works that are still known to exist are the Da Dai Li Ji and the Shi Ben.10 The Da Dai Li Ji: Di Xi Pian systematically recorded blood lineage from the legendary era before writing was invented. It is the only relatively complete Zhou Dynasty work surviving now. Although the Da Dai Li Ji was written during the 9

Ouyang Zongshu. Chinese family genealogy. Beijing: Xinhua Publishing House, 1992: 60. Pan Guangdan. A brief history of Chinese genealogy. Eastern Miscellany 1929: 26 (1).

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Han Dynasty, many of its chapters are from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. The Di Xi Pian is one such work from these periods. It said: “Shaodian gave birth to Xuanyuan, who came to the throne under the title of Yellow Emperor 黄帝 (Huangdi). Huangdi lived at Xuanyuan hill, and married a woman of ‘Western range’ land called Leizu. Leizu was his principal wife, and bore him two sons, both of whose descendants held Imperial sway. The eldest, named Xuanxiao, or Qingyang, dwelt on the Jiang stream, and the other, who was named Changyi, dwelt on the Ruo stream. Changyi married a woman from the Shu hills (Sichuan) named Changpu, who bore him a son, Gaoyang. Gaoyang came to the throne under the title Emperor Zhuanxu. Emperor Zhuanxu had a son, Qiongchan. Zhuanxu died, and Xuanxiao’s grandson Gaoxin came to the throne under the title of Emperor Ku. Emperor Ku married a daughter of Chenfeng, who bore a son named Fangxun (‘The highly meritorious’). He also married a daughter of Juzi, who bore a son Zhi. Emperor Ku died, and Zhi reigned in his stead. Zhi reigned badly and died, and his brother ‘The highly meritorious one’ reigned under the title of Emperor Yao. Shun was a native of Jizhou, ploughed on Li mountain, fished in Thunder lake, made pots on the bank of the river, fashioned various articles at Shouqiu, and went now and then to Fuxia……When Shun was twenty years old he was noted for his filial piety, and when he was thirty the Emperor Yao asked if he was fit to reign. Shun went to the great plains at the foot of the mountains, and, amid violent wind, thunder, and rain, did not go astray. Yao then knew that Shun was fit to accept the empire……”11 It recorded the lineage of the Yellow Emperor Xuanyuan’s 轩辕 family, and included the names of emperors, spouses, and additional relatives, including some other than their own. In total, it made mention of 38 males and 13 females. The Di Xi Pian is a systematic account of the blood ties between different, ancient ruling groups in China. It contains rich information on China’s ancient history. We know from the Di Xi Pian that Zhuanxu 颛顼, Diku 帝喾, Yao 尧, Shun 舜, and Yu 禹 were all descendants of Huangdi. This book also recorded the details of how these emperors abdicated their thrones and it narrated the change of sovereignty from Xia, to Shang, to Zhou. Qi 启 was the founding father of the Xia Dynasty; Qi 契 represented the Shang Dynasty, and Houji 后稷 represented the Zhou Dynasty. There are three key characteristics to note about the Yellow Emperor’s genealogy in the Di Xi Pian. First, it adopted a unique branch-by-branch narrative method. After it narrated one branch, it then turned to another branch, thus ensuring that the relationship between branches were clearly distinct. There were also distinctive features to note in the recorded content. Although the genealogy focused on male relatives, it also provided a narrative on the situation of their spouses. This genealogy presented some obvious characteristics that the Emperor was part of a patriarchal clan. It only recorded the names of sons, but not daughters. Some branches of the genealogy recorded the names of spouses, but they only listed the wives’ husband’s family name, rather than their surnames/maiden names. This fully reflected the dominant status of

11

https://ctext.org/ens.

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the male clan at the time. The material in the Da Dai Li Ji: Di Xi Pian was useful to Sima Qian in writing the Shi Ji.12 Out of all of the Zhou Dynasty genealogical works, the most complete, systematic genealogy is the Shi Ben. Liu Xiang said in his Western Han Dynasty book, the Bie Lu: “The Shi Ben was scribed by ancient historians and it recorded the names and posthumous titles of emperors, lords and ministers since the Yellow Emperor. It consists of fifteen volumes.”13 During ancient times, there were different theories about who wrote it, but many scholars agree with Liu Xiang, and believe that it was scribed by ancient historians. The origins of the Shi Ben are obscure. The earliest references to it were during the Han Dynasty. The Han Shu: Yi Wen Zhi said that it originated during the Yellow Emperor’s reign and that it ended during the Spring and Autumn Period. Chen Mengjia said in the Liu Guo Ji Nian 六国纪年 (Histories of the six states) that it was written by the Zhao people at the end of the Warring States Period. He estimated that it was published between the 13th and 19th years of Qin Shihuang’s reign (234BC ~ 228BC), some 60 to 70 years later than the Zhu Shu Ji Nian 竹书纪年.14 Academics generally agree that the Shi Ben was written by a historian during the late Spring and Autumn Period or the early Warring States Period. Shi means 世 “generation” and Ben means 本 “origin”. So as its title suggests, the Shi Ben recorded emperors’, nobles’ and officials’ surnames, lineage and residence, the rules and systems created during the reign, and their posthumous titles and other deeds.15 It began during the Yellow Emperor’s reign and spanned the Spring and Autumn period and Warring States period, in fifteen volumes. It was, however, destroyed to some extent during the Qin Dynasty. Several Western Han scholars wrote commentaries on the Shi Ben, namely Liu Xiang, Song Zhong, Song Jun, Wang Shi, and Sun Shi. These were then widely copied into later editions of the book. However, the original text was partly lost during the Tang Dynasty and it was then completely lost during the Southern Song Dynasty. Gao Sisun compiled a new version of the Shi Ben based on the remaining fragments. During the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), scholars continued to collect fragments of the Shi Ben and eight different versions were compiled. They were all published together by the Commercial Press in 1957. The eight compilers were Wang Mo 王谟, Sun Fengyi 孙冯翼, Chen Qirong 陈其 荣, Qin Jiamo 秦嘉谟, Zhang Shu 张澍, Lei Xueqi 雷学淇, Mao Panlin 茆泮林, and Wang Zicai 王梓材. “With the exceptions of Qin Jiamo’s and Wang Zicai’s versions, which rearranged the text in chronological order, the others all have similar chapters. Judging from the

Yang Dianxun 杨殿珣. 1994. The general theory of Chinese genealogy 中国家谱通论. Quarterly Bulletin of Chinese Bibliography 图书季刊, New Vol. 3, Issues 1–2. 13 Liu Xiang 刘向. Bie Lu 别录 (Bibliography), Vol. 1. 14 Shi Ben Ba Zhong 世本八种 (Eight versions of the Shi Ben). Beijing: Beijing Library Publishing House, 2008: 3. 15 Zhou Li : Chuan Guan. 12

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citations, Mao’s version is the most rigorous, followed by Lei’s.”16 The following is a brief introduction to the main content of the Shi Ben, based on the material compiled by Mao. He divided the Shi Ben into seven chapters: (1) The Chapter on Emperors: it recorded the imperial genealogies down from the mythical Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors to the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasty emperors and their deeds. The lineage of Emperor Yao was recorded as follows: “Yao was the great-grandson of the Yellow Emperor. The Yellow Emperor’s son was Xuanxiao; Xuanxiao’s son was Qiaoji; Qiaoji’s son was Diku, and Diku’s son was Yao. The Emperor Yao married the daughter of Sanyi, who became the Queen. The Queen gave birth to Danzhu.” This chapter also recorded the lineage of the Shang Dynasty: “Zuyi died, and his son Emperor Zuxin came to the throne. Emperor Zuxin died, and his brother Wojia, i.e. Emperor Wojia, came to the throne. Emperor Wojia died, and Zuding, that is Emperor Zuding, who was Wojia’s elder brother, was put on the throne. Emperor Zuding died, and his brother Wojia’s son, Nangeng, that is Emperor Nangeng, was put on the throne. Emperor Nangeng died, and Emperor Zuding’s son Yangjia, that is Emperor Yangjia, was put on the throne. In his reign the power of the Yins declined. Ever since the reign of Zhongding the legitimate heir had been set aside, and junior scions put on the throne instead. These used to fight and displace each other. For the last nine generations there had been anarchy, and the princes neglected to come to court.”17 (2) The Chapter on Feudal Lords: it recorded the genealogies and deeds of the feudal lords. Taking the lineage of Lord Lu as an example: “Boqin gave birth to Xi and Jiu; Xi gave birth to Fu and Yu; Fu gave birth to Ju and Di, and Ju gave birth to Ao and Zhi.” The lineage of Lord Qi reads: “Wang gave birth to Ji; Ji gave birth to De; De gave birth to Cimu, and Cimu gave birth to Buchen.” (3) The Chapter on Ministers: it recorded the genealogies and deeds of ministers in various feudal states. It includes the genealogy of Zang, a senior official who was in the Lu State. It also recorded the lineage of Gao, a senior official who was in the Qi State. “Jingzhong gave birth to Zhuangzi; Zhuangzi gave birth to Qingzi; Qingzi gave birth to Xuanzi; Xuanzi gave birth to Hou, and Hou gave birth to Zhi.” (4) The Chapter on Surnames: it recorded the surnames of people from various states and their origins. The history of the surname Jiang 姜 is recorded as follows: “Emperor Yan is surnamed Jiang and he is nicknamed the “Shennongshi”. Xiang Shen of Xuzhou (now Xuchang in Henan Province), surnamed Jiang, is the wife of Emperor Yan.” (5) The Chapter on Residence: it recorded the residence and migration trends of emperors, lords, and ministers. For example: “The Yellow Emperor made Zhuolu (now in Hebei Province) the capital city. The Emperor Shun lived in Guirui (now in Shanxi Province). During the Zhou Dynasty, King Wu lived in 16 Publishing Instructions for the Shi Ben Ba Zhong. Beijing: Beijing Library Publishing House, 2008: 5. 17 Https://ctext.org/ens.

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Fenghao (now in Hebei Province). King Yi moved to Quanqiu (now in Shaanxi Province). When King Ping acceded to the throne, he moved to Luo (now in Henan Province). Huangong Jie of the Western Zhou State lived in Henan, while Huigong Ban of the Eastern Zhou State lived in Luoyang (now in Henan Province).” (6) The Chapter on Creations and Inventions: it records the creations and/or inventions of famous emperors, lords, and ministers. It stated that: “Suiren 燧 人invented fire. Shennong made herbs to cure people. The Yellow Emperor made crowns. Cangjie invented characters. Sui 随 invented the “sheng” (a wind instrument with a reed pipe), which was four inches long and had twelve reeds. It looked like a phoenix. Hui invented the bow. Dukang 杜康 made wine.” (7) The Chapter on Posthumous Titles: it recorded the posthumous titles of emperors, lords, and ministers. For example, “when Do Bo died, Di Lu was put on the throne, whose posthumous title was Jing Gong”; “Xingfu 行父 (died 568BC) was the grandson of Ji You 季友 (one of the sons of Duke Huan of Lu 魯桓公), so his family name was Jisun 季孙. Xingfu was a high minister in the state of Lu 魯 during the Spring and Autumn period (770 BC–476BC) and his posthumous title was Ji Wenzi 季文子.”18 Mao only collected a limited number of fragments of the Shi Ben, as did the writers of the other seven versions. All of them were far from what the original text was; yet we can still get a general picture of what the original, genealogical work looked like. It was rich in content, covered a wide scope and contained complete, bloodline genealogies. For these reasons, this book far surpassed the brief descriptions of genealogies carved on oracle bones and bronze in the Shang Dynasty. It fully “recorded and narrated blood lineage and deeds”. Therefore, academic circles widely recognize the Shi Ben as the first piece of work on Chinese genealogy. The Shi Ben broadly represented Zhou Dynasty works on genealogy. The content recorded in the book was the same as that which was recorded by the aristocrats of the time. If we compare the Da Dai Li Ji: Di Xi Pian to the the Shi Ben: Di Wang Pian, we can see that most of the content is basically the same. Both books recorded the Yellow Emperor’s lineage in the same way, but they used some different phrases (for example, “went into labor”/”gave birth to”). This indicates that both books were referencing from a common source of information, and it is possible that the Shi Ben directly drew from the Da Dai Li Ji. In addition to these two books, there was also another book on genealogy, which was handed down during the Zhou Dynasty. This was the Chun Qiu Gong Zi Xue Mai Pu 春秋公子血脉谱 (The Blood Lineage of Lords during the Spring and Autumn Period). It is said to have been written by Xunzi and it mainly records the lineages of feudal lords from various states, during the Spring and Autumn Period. It was the first book to include “lineage” in its title out of any piece of work on genealogies/lineage in China. As it is the only piece of surviving text on ancient genealogy, the Shi Ben has had an important influence on the genealogical research of later generations. Whenever genealogists and historians trace clan lineage, they always reference the Shi Ben. 18

Shi Ben Ba Zhong. Beijing: Beijing Library Publishing House, 2008: 815–962.

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Ming Dynasty writer Song Lian (1310–1381) said: “Anyone who has a surname can find that their name originates from these two books: the Shi Ben and the Blood Lineage of Lords.”19 The Shi Ben was a growing genealogical work in ancient China; it included the genealogies of various dignitaries and families. But it was also a pioneering work by the masters and forefathers of genealogies; it served as an omnibus for future generations. Its publication indicated that Chinese genealogy has broken away from its original form, and had matured into a more formal form. The Shi Ben serves as an important link between the past and the future and its records of Chinese genealogy and history make it of milestone significance.

3.4 The Development of Genealogies During the Han Dynasty After Qin unified China, he abolished the enfeoffment system and established a fully centralized, autocratic, national empire. This was a blow to the clans and the patriarchal organizations. The government appointed a chamberlain for the Imperial Clan (Zongzheng, 宗正) to be in charge of compiling and maintaining the royal genealogies. They ranked lower than the counselor-in-chief (Chengxiang, 丞相), and no other special officials were appointed. As the Qin Dynasty attached less importance to genealogy than its predecessors, and Qin ruled for only 15 years, none of the genealogical works of the Qin Dynasty were handed down. The Han Dynasty learnt lesson from the Qin Empire and the government restored its feudal character. Princes and marquises were rewarded regardless of whether or not they had the same surname as the Emperor. During the reign of Emperor Wu (141-87BC), other schools of thought were deposed and Confucianism was upheld. The hereditary and blood line systems were further strengthened, and clan power was restored and developed. “Genealogy began to rise during the Han Dynasty.”20 At that point, Chinese genealogy entered a new development stage. First, the establishment of special administrative organizations led to the Han having a number of official genealogies. The Han Dynasty began compiling family genealogies for emperors, princes and lords respectively, to meet the needs of large-scale enfeoffment and to ensure the hereditary succession of princes. They also set up special organizations to manage them, and this led to the Han having a large number of official genealogies. The hereditary and enfeoffment system of the Han Dynasty was, as with other dynasties, closely related to the patriarchal clan system, and carried out according to blood lines. The emperor was at the center, and all of the imperial family members and relatives were listed: grandfathers, fathers, their brothers and their descendants. Lou Xing Bu (Surname Lou 楼). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng (The Compendium of Ancient and Contemporary Books). 20 Yang Dianxun. 1994. The general theory of Chinese genealogy. Quarterly Bulletin of Chinese Bibliography, New Vol. 3, Issues 1–2. 19

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These figures were granted different titles and feudal domains and they enjoyed different privileges according to their kinship. These imperial family genealogies, which recorded the kinship and closeness of imperial family members, “cannot be ignored because they are related to the tradition of inheritance”.21 The Han Dynasty also attached great importance to the management of imperial genealogies. The Emperor Gaozu (256-195BC) followed in the footsteps of Qin, and appointed a special chamberlain official for the imperial clan. Pan Guangdan said in A Brief History of Chinese Genealogy: “The Qin did not follow many of the patterns of previous dynasties, but they did keep the post of Chamberlain for the Imperial Clan. The Han followed to have one of nine Chamberlains in the central government.22 The Court of the Imperial Clan, which was a feature of the Tang and Song Dynasties (known then as the Zongzheng Si, 宗正寺), the Yuan Dynasty (known then as the Zongzheng Yuan, 宗正院), and the Ming and Qing Dynasties (known then as the Zongren Fu, 宗人府) originated during the Han Dynasty.” The Han Dynasty’s Chamberlain of the Imperial Clan was usually someone chosen by the imperial family. He was responsible for maintaining the genealogies of the imperial family and monitoring the conduct of imperial family members.23 The imperial genealogies maintained by the Chamberlain actually existed in two forms; one was the form recorded for five generations with each of the emperors at the core. The other was the genealogy of feudal lords with the same surname. The title of “Chamberlain” changed several times during the Han Dynasty24 ; however, the responsibility and status of the role remained the same as the Zhou Dynasty “Junior Scribe”. During the Han Dynasty, it wasn’t only the imperial offspring that bore the noble title of “marquis”. A government official who had made great contributions could also be enfeoffed as a marquis, and their offspring could inherit this status. The Han government created special agencies to manage the hereditary genealogies of these officials. These specialized agencies led to the birth of official genealogies. According to the Han Shu: Yi Wen Zhi, there are 20 volumes of The Genealogy of Emperors and Lords.25 Other works included Ying Shao’s The Genealogy of Serviceman, the Yingchuan Prefecture Governor Liao’s The Wan Family Genealogy, Yang Xiong’s The Family Genealogy and The Official Genealogy of Deng Family.26 None of these genealogical works were handed down because “the turbulent political situation at the end of the Han Dynasty led to many genealogical books going missing.”27 However, 21

Ibid. Translator’s note: A kind of imperial household administration that existed in the form of the so-called Nine Chamberlains. 23 Hou Han Shu: Bai Guan Zhi 后汉书·百官志 (The official dynastic history of the later Han dynasty: biographies of a hundred officials), 26. 24 Han Shu: Bai Guan Gong Qing Biao 汉书·百官公卿表 (The official dynastic history of the Han dynasty: biographies of a hundred lords and officials). 25 Pan Guangdan. A brief history of Chinese genealogy. Eastern Miscellany 1929: 26 (1). 26 The Wang family genealogy of Jixi 绩溪汪氏世宗谱. The 37th year of the Qianlong reign (1772). 27 Zhi Yu Chuan 挚虞传 (The life of Zhi Yu), Jin Shu 晋书 (The book of Jin), Vol. 51. 22

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because “the lineage of the emperor’s clan and the lords was a matter of heredity”,28 there was no doubt about the important role they played in political life. Second, with the revival of feudal power, the Western Han Dynasty saw a surge in non-official genealogies. After the Han Dynasty was established, the government ruled the nation by implementing a policy of doing nothing that went against nature. This led to people enjoying a degree of long-term stability. A stable, social environment provided the foundation and conditions for patriarchal power to grow, breed, and develop. Genealogy was a part of the patriarchal system, and its revival and development during the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, meant that the private genealogies that had disappeared during the Warring States Period and the early Han Dynasty began to appear again. They grew rapidly, not only in quantity, but also in quality. Sima Qian 司马迁 was the first person to record and narrate the pedigree of any Han genealogy. At the beginning of his Shi Ji: Tai Shi Gong Zi Xu 史记·太史公自 序(the autobiography of Sima Qian), you can read the Sima family’s genealogy. Sima Qian started by recording himself, and then he traced backwards nine successive generations of his family lineage. Cuo’s grandson was Jin; Jin’s grandson was Chang; Chang was Wuze’s father; Wuze was Xi’s father; Xi was Tan’s father, and Tan was Sima Qian’s father. (His family tree: Cuo 错-.-Jin 靳-.-Chang 昌-Wuze 无泽Xi 喜-Tan 谈-Qian 迁.) He not only narrated and recorded his ancestors’ names, he also described the era they lived in, their official positions and deeds, etc. In addition, he described the sub-branches of the same clan and the origins of the Sima surname. For these reasons, this family genealogy was included in the preface of a book. Later, many genealogies were written in this self-narrative way. After Sima Qian completed his family’s genealogy, many Han Dynasty scholars followed suit one after another. Yang Xiong’s Western Han Dynasty genealogy can be found in his Han Shu: Yang Xiong Zhuan 汉书·扬雄传 (The life of Yang Xiong). Ban Gu’s Eastern Han Dynasty genealogy can be found in his Han Shu—Xu Zhuan Pian. Both of these genealogies followed the style of Sima Qian’s autobiography; they narrated and recorded the origins of their surnames and family lineage, and described the era they were living in, family members’ official position, deeds, etc. During the Han Dynasty, an additional, special type of genealogy independently appeared, in addition to the form that attached a self-prefaced genealogy at the front of the book. One such genealogy was the Han Shu—Kong Guang Zhuan, which recounted the lineage of Confucius for 14 generations. “Kong Guang, whose courtesy name is Zi Xia, is the 14th generation of Confucius. Confucius gave birth to Yu Li; Li gave birth to Si Ji; Ji gave birth to Shang Bo; Bo gave birth to Jia Qiu; Qiu gave birth to Zhen Ji; Ji gave birth to Gao Chuan; Chuan gave birth to Shun, and Shun became Counselor-in-Chief of the Wei State. Shun had two sons, Fu and Zi Xiang. The younger son, Zi Xiang, was granted the title of Erudite by the Emperor Xiaohui, and he was made a Grand Mentor. Xiang’s son was Zhong, and Zhong had two sons, Wu and An Guo. Wu gave birth to Yan Nian, and Yan Nian gave birth to Ba, whose

28

Pan Guangdan. A brief history of Chinese genealogy. Eastern Miscellany 1929: 26 (1).

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courtesy name was Ci Ru… Ba had four sons, and Kong Guang was the youngest of them.”29 The lineage of Kong Guang’s family can be seen as follows:

Confucius (Kong Zi)-Li-Ji-Bo-Qiu-Ji- Chuan-Shun- Fu Zi Xiang-Zhong-Wu-Yan Nian-Ba---Fu An Guo Jie Xi Guang

The genealogical data in the Han Shu—Kong Guang Zhuan obviously came from Kong Guang himself. His family passed down the family genealogy from generation to generation via Confucianism, and some great scholars were born into this family. Ouyang Xiu said in his Han Dynasty work the Preface to the Wang Family Genealogy in Yuxi Hengyang 衡阳渔溪王氏谱序 that both scholars and dignitaries wrote and maintained their family genealogies in a variety of ways.30 This even became a fashionable trend in Han society. In his Song Dynasty book, the Preface to the Book of Genealogies, writer Su Xun discussed the role of private genealogies that had appeared since Qin and Han Dynasties, and continued into the Tang Dynasty. He wrote: “Although the Officials of the Qin and Han Dynasties no longer lived in the world, they lived in the minds of the people for hundreds of generations. Even those ancestors without temples or clans would be remembered as long as genealogies existed.” Third, a new kind of genealogy, the stone tablet genealogy, appeared and became very popular during the Han Dynasty. The reason why family genealogies were engraved on stone tablets was very clear: “engraving on stone meant it can be handed down forever”. It was a far more advanced method of preserving genealogies than on oracle bone or bronze. This kind of genealogy was especially popular during the Han Dynasty. During the second year of Emperor Xianfeng’s reign in the Qing Dynasty (1852), the Sanlao Stone genealogy was unearthed in Yuyao County, Zhejiang Province. It was engraved around the 28th year of Emperor Jianwu’s reign in the Eastern Han Dynasty (52) (see Fig. 3.3). Kong Guang Zhuan 孔光传 (Biography of Kong Guang). In the Han Shu, Vol. 81. Wang Xing Bu (Surname Wang 王). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng (The Compendium of Ancient and Contemporary Books).

29 30

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Fig. 3.3 A Rubbing of the Han Dynasty Sanlao Stone Genealogy

The stone tablet is divided into two parts with a vertical line. The genealogy is on the right, and this is divided into four sections with horizontal lines. The first section contains records of the names of grandparents and their dates of death; the second section records the names of parents and their dates of death; and in the third and fourth sections, the names of brothers and sisters are recorded. People in each section were arranged according to generations; a top-and-bottom layout meant that there was a father-son relationship, and a left-and-right layout meant that there was a husband-wife or brother-sister relationship. The genealogies of later years were closely related to this “generation table”, indicating that tabulated genealogies were a relatively popular form at the time. The left half of the tablet detailed the merits of the three seniors, and the purpose of making the tablet. From the inscriptions we can see the names and dates of birth of grandparents and parents inscribed on the

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stone. The writers wanted to conform to what the Chun Qiu 春秋(Spring and Autumn Annals) required, which was to let future generations know what to avoid.31 Another example of a stone genealogy is the Sunshu Ao stone tablet, which was built during the third year of Emperor Yanxi’s reign (160), sometime in May. Sunshu Ao 孙叔敖 (630BC–593BC) was a court minister serving the administration of King Zhuang of Chu during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. He had three sons: the eldest was granted a fief based in Gushi, the youngest was based in Jiangling, and the middle son was based in San .. Wubo, one of Sunshu Ao’s descendants of some ten generations, was once Governor of Bohai. Wubo had two sons. And the inscriptions on the tablet showed that the records of generations prior to Wubo are incomplete, but the following five generations of male family members are listed.32 Their lineage is listed as follows: Wubo

_ Bowei

_Zhongwei

_ Shibo

_ Zizhong .

_Xiaobo

_Wen

_Shixin

_ Zhangdu _ Lanqing _ Zhongyang _ Shutong _ Weigong _ Liuqing

__ _ Huiming _ Ciqing _ Shenggong _ Zhiqing _ Yanqing _ Shaodu

This kind of stone genealogy was much more mature than the oracle and bronze ones. “The inscriptions were carved by Duan Guang, the county magistrate of the county where the Sun family was from. This genealogy recorded successive generations of the Sun family; [we know this] because at the end of the inscription, there are three characters indicating that it is a genealogy.”33 Four, the styles of genealogies have expanded, and their contents are more detailed. The styles of family genealogies during the Han Dynasty can be broadly divided into two types: tabulated or narrative genealogies. Tabulated genealogies used tables or supplemented written descriptions to represent family lineage and characters. Each table consisted of several horizontal and 31

Translator’s note: There was a taboo among clans; they discouraged the repeated use of ancestors’ given names. Generally, ancestral names that went back seven generations were avoided. This type of taboo is no longer observed in modern China. 32 Hong Shi 洪适. Li Shi 隶释, Volume 3. 33 Chang Jianhua. Patriarchal records. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1998: 239.

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vertical grids; vertical grids indicated generations and each grid represented one generation. Horizontal grids listed people of the same generation by birth order. In this way, generations and birth order did not get mixed up, and it was clearly determined who was first in line for inheritance. During the Han Dynasty, emperors, lords, and meritorious officials generally adopted this form of genealogy. In the Han Shu, the genealogies of lords, princes, and meritorious officials were listed in tables; they probably drew inspiration from official, hereditary genealogies. In addition, many private genealogies used this style. The Sanlao Stone genealogy is one such example, but it did not use a vertical grid or indicate the number of generations it had recorded. Narrative genealogies recorded both family lineage and characters. Generally speaking, they traced the origin of surnames back to remote ancestors, and then they narrated from the first ancestor down to the latest descendants, generation by generation. They often used phrases such as: “XX gave birth to XX”, “XX’s son is XX”, and “XX’s brother is XX” to express the relationships between father and son, and older and younger brothers. The above cited genealogies are the preface to the Shi Ji (a private genealogy); Yang Xiong’s preface to the Han Shu: Xu Chuan, Confucius’ genealogy, and the Sunshu Ao stone genealogy.34 Some scholars argue that there are three distinctive styles of Han Dynasty genealogy. Chen Zhi said in his article, the Discovery and Search for Genealogical Forms During the Northern and Southern Dynasties: “Han Dynasty genealogies can be divided into three styles: one is a horizontal grid style, which is written in chronological order—such as the three-generation lineages of, emperors, lords, and meritorious officials listed in the Shi Ji after Emperors Gao and Hui. The second style takes family names as the unit, describes the origin of the family name, and then describes peoples’ lineage and official position. Examples include Wang Fu’s Qian Fu Lun: Shi Zu Pian 潜夫论·氏族篇 (Comments of a recluse: clans) and Ying Shao’s Feng Su Tong Yi: Xing Shi Pian (风俗通义·姓氏篇, Customs: Family Names). The third style is a continuous narrative, such as the preface to the Shi Ji, Han Shu: Xu Zhuan, and the Sunshu Ao stone genealogy.35 Family genealogies became more detailed during the Han Dynasty. Not only did the royal family and other aristocrats have special agencies set up by the government to record and manage their genealogies, but non-hereditary families also compiled their genealogies in various forms. This was the case for middle/lowerlevel ranking government officials, grassroots county and township officials, and Confucian scholars and scribes. Whether they had official or private genealogies, they mainly recorded the names and official positions of lineal ancestors. They also recorded information such as how the family name originated, the origin of their ancestors, their place of residence, deeds, occupation, burial place, collateral ancestors, female relatives, given names, and dates of death. Their genealogies also 34

Yang Dongquan. Study on Han dynasty genealogy. Genealogical Research. Beijing: Bibliography and Document Publishing House, 1992 (3): 44. 35 Chen Zhi. Discovery and search for genealogical forms during the Northern and Southern Dynasties 南北朝谱牒形式的发现和索隐. Journal of Northwest University 西北大学学报1980 (3).

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included a preface and postscript, which detailed their reasons for making a genealogical record. Of course, not all of these details made it into every Han family genealogy, but during the Han Dynasty, genealogies were more informative than Zhou Dynasty genealogies. The forms of genealogy also developed during the Han Dynasty. One of most prominent forms was genealogies that were carved out of stone. Some people recorded their genealogy on steles, some on the back of tombstones, and some inside tombs. This form had not appeared before the Han Dynasty and it became very popular. Since then, it has been used by later generations and has become one of the most important forms of preserving the original features of China’s genealogies. Genealogies also had many more functions during the Han Dynasty. Those of the Zhou Dynasty were mainly used in the political and social sphere. However, during Han Dynasty, genealogies further developed into the fields of historiography and culture. During the early days of mankind, many historical facts could not be passed down to later generations, due to backwards methods of recording. Therefore, ancient families passed down genealogies via people’s memories of ancestors, and this became valuable, historical data. The earlier the historical works were, the more valuable it was. China’s first, general record of history, the Shi Ji written by Sima Qian, contained many simple details about lineage. “The Shi Ji recorded more than 10 generations in a total of 21 chapters, so they accounted for nearly one-sixth of the whole book.”36 The Wu Di Ben Ji 五帝本记 The Five Emperors’ Biographies) recorded the lineage of Xuanyuan Gongsun from Shaodian, the father of the Yellow Emperor, to Shang, over 11 generations. The Xia Ben Ji 夏本记 (Xia’s Biography) recorded the lineage of Si, from the Yellow Emperor to Xia Jie over 17 generations. Much of the book’s content was purely records of lineage, with no other historical facts. However, Ban Gu’s Han Shu used an extensive amount of historical material for his genealogical works. Chen Zhi proved this in his paper Discovery and Search for Genealogical Forms during the Northern and Southern Dynasties.37 Obviously, the records of family lineages in historical works such as the Shi Ji and the Han Shu are basically derived from various genealogical carriers before/since the Zhou Dynasty. To summaries, the Han Dynasty genealogies were more comprehensive in style, had more detailed content, took on much more diverse forms and had wider usage than those compiled during the Zhou Dynasty. This indicated that Han genealogies had become increasingly mature, thus laying the foundation for them to prosper in the future.

36

Yang Dongquan. Study on Han dynasty genealogy. Genealogical Research. Beijing: Bibliography and Document Publishing House, 1992 (3): 47. 37 Chen Zhi. Discovery and search for genealogical forms during the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Journal of Northwest University 1980 (3).

Chapter 4

How Chinese Genealogies Prospered (I)

Chinese genealogies prospered during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. Yang Dianxun stated in his General Theory of Chinese Genealogy, that “Chinese genealogy entered a golden age during the Wei and Jin, and Southern and Northern Dynasties. Private genealogies were all submitted to and maintained by the government. Special officials were appointed to take charge of them. With an increased number of genealogical works appearing, some of them were even included in the Sui Zhi 隋志, which recorded the official dynastic history of the Sui Dynasty (581–618). Special catalogues were also created for preserving and consulting works.”1 No genealogical works during these periods have been found so far. According to Zheng Qiao’s Yi Wen Lue in the Tong Zhi, there were 155 genealogies and genealogical works produced during these five dynasties—which were spread out over 2365 volumes. Nineteen genealogies are cited in Pei Songzhi’s annotation of the San Guo Zhi 三国志 (Annals of the Three Kingdoms) and 36 genealogies are cited in Liu Xiao’s annotation of the Shi Shuo Xin Yu. In his General Theory of Chinese Genealogy, Yang Dianxun recorded the genealogical works that had been cited in the San Guo Zhi: Wei Shu, Shi Shuo Xin Yu, Sui Zhi, and Tang Zhi 唐志(Annals of the Tang Dynasty), among other books, as being from these periods, and he divided them into the following categories: Family genealogies: recorded the lineage of a clan or a family. There are 62 genealogies for the following families: Yu 庾, Hua Jiao 华峤, Sun 孙, Ruan 阮, Kong 孔, Ji 嵇, Liu 刘, Chen 陈, Wang 王, Guo 郭, Hu 胡, Cui 崔, Zhuge 诸葛, Zhou 周, Xie 谢, Wu 吴, Tao 陶, Zhi 贽, Yang 羊, Yangbing 羊秉, Xie 谢, Xu 许, Heng 恒, Feng 冯, Yin 殷, Lu 陆, Gu 顾, Yang 杨, Fu 傅, Yu 虞, Wei 卫, Wei 魏, Wen 温, Cao 曹, Li 李, Yuan 袁, Suo 索, Dai 戴, Jia 贾, Hao 郝, Han 韩, Xi 郗, Zhang 张, Xun 荀, Zu 祖, Wang 王, Sima 司马, Sima 司马, Lu 路, Su 苏, Du 杜, Gui 炅, Yang 阳, Cai 蔡, Fan 范, Wei 韦, Yang 杨, Yang’s genealogy and cemetery genealogy, Yang’s sub-clan genealogy, Pan 潘. 1

Yang Dianxun. 1994. The general theory of Chinese genealogy. Quarterly Bulletin of Chinese Bibliography, New Vol. 3, Issues 1–2.

© Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2023 H. Wang, The General Theory of China’s Genealogy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6377-5_4

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General genealogies: recorded the pedigrees of many Chinese families. There are 23 general genealogies as follows: the Shi Xing Lun 氏姓论 (On Family Names), the Zu族 family (10 volumes), the Jin晋 family (712 volumes), the Bai Jia Pu 百 家谱 (2 volumes), Xing Yuan 姓苑 (1 volume), Bai Jia Ji 百家集 (10 volumes), Shi Zu Yao Zhuang 氏族要状 (15 volumes), Jian Ke Pu 见客谱, Xu Bai Jia Pu 续 百家谱 (4 volumes), Nan Zu Pu 南族谱 (2 volumes), Bai Jia Pu Shi Yi 百家谱拾 遗 (1 volume), Bai Jia Pu 百家谱 (30 volumes), Bai Jia Pu Ji Chao 百家谱集钞 (15 volumes), Bai Jia Pu 百家谱 (20 volumes), Xing Shi Ying Xian Pu 姓氏英贤谱 (100 volumes), Bai Jia Pu Chao 百家谱钞 (5 volumes), Zhu Xing Pu 诸姓谱 (116 volumes), Bai Guan Pu 百官谱 (20 volumes), Bai Jia Pu 百家谱 (15 volumes), Bai Jia Pu Shi Tong 百家谱世统 (10 volumes), Qin Biao Pu Lu 亲表谱录 (1 volume), Zhu Ke Pu 诸刻谱 (30 volumes), and Fu Xing Pu 复姓谱 (1 volume). Commandery genealogies: recorded numerous families’ genealogies in one or more commanderies. There are a total of 13 such books: Collections in Eighteen Commanderies (710 volumes), Southeast Collections (15 volumes), Wang Sikong’s Collection of Commanderies (11 volumes), Yizhou 益州 (40 volumes), Guandong and Guanbei (33 volumes), Yizhou (30 volumes), Jizhou 冀州 (2 volumes), Hongzhou 洪州 (9 volumes), Jizhou吉州 (8 volumes), Jiangzhou 江州 (11 volumes), Collection of Commanderies (8 volumes), Yuanzhou 袁州 (8 volumes), Yangzhou 扬州 (5 volumes). Imperial genealogies: recorded the royal family’s genealogy. There are a total of 15 such books: Han emperors (3 volumes), Clan genealogies (4 volumes), Qi emperors (10 volumes), Liang and Qi emperors (13 volumes), Yongyuan period of Qi (5 volumes), Datong period of Liang (3 volumes), Liang emperors (5 volumes), Late Wei emperors (2 volumes), Late Wei emperors (4 volumes), Emperor Xiaowen of Wei (1 volume), Fang Si Ge of Late Wei (1 volume), Late Qi (1 volume), the Yuwen Clan of Zhou (578–579, 1 volume), and the Shi Pu. We can see that there were numerous genealogical works spanning more than 300 years from the Jin Dynasty Emperor Wu’s reign (265), to the Sui Dynasty Emperor Yang’s reign (618).

4.1 Reasons Genealogies Prospered During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties Politically speaking, the prosperity of genealogies was closely related to the implementation of a system of gradations called the Nine Ranks by Rectifiers.2 The ruling groups of the feudal era were especially strict about selecting talent and establishing relevant systems. In an effort to consolidate their rule, a special recruiting system was implemented during the Western Han Dynasty. Emperors and governments could directly call up eminent people to take posts in the court. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, personnel recruitment involved recommendations. Appointers 2

Ibid.

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judged a person’s moral character and their ability according to comments made about them in society, especially those made by prestigious people. Therefore, for the most part, the Eastern Han officialdom was an aristocracy; sons and favored friends of officeholders easily found placements, whereas commoners went unnoticed. In such circumstance, a person’s family/background was of critical importance. During the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Pi 曹丕, the King of Wei, took suggestions from the Minister of Personnel, Chen Qun 陈群. He instituted the system of Nine Ranks by Rectifiers during the first year of Yan Kang (220). Throughout the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the governments registered all families that rightfully belonged to the elite class of Servicemen. The Rectifiers (Zhongzheng, 中正) then classified men of that class in their jurisdictions, and assigned them to one of nine ranks. The ranks theoretically reflected their meritoriousness: upper-upper, upper-middle, upper-lower, middle-upper, middle-middle, middle-lower, lower–upper, lower-middle, or lower-lower. The decisions of the Rectifiers were submitted to the Ministry of Education, where they were cross-checked, and then handed over to the Ministry of Personnel. The Ministry of Personnel then determined people’s official posts according to their assigned ranks. But who could qualify as a Rectifier? Only local dignitaries qualified as Rectifiers. They were appointed by the Ministry of Personnel in each Region (Zhou, 州), Commandery (Jun, 郡), or District (Xian, 县) as Senior Rectifiers, Rectifiers, or Junior Rectifiers respectively. “The King of Wei established the Rectifier-ranking system. It favored noble offspring and frowned upon poor scholars. All of the important personnel posts such as Senior Rectifier, Assistant Magistrate, Rectifier, and Personnel Evaluator were occupied by the country’s nobility.”3 As a result, rectifier posts were completely monopolized by members of aristocratic families. Rectifiers were supposed to evaluate candidates for office based on three criteria: the reputation of a candidate’s family over several generations, their own moral character, and their competence. However, in practice, especially during the Western Jin Dynasty, the criterion of competence was increasingly overshadowed by candidates’ family background. Thus genealogy played an important role when it came to official recruitment. Song Dynasty writer Wen Tianxiang 文天祥 (1236–1283) described this phenomenon in the Ba Wu Shi Zu Pu 跋吴氏族谱 (Postscript to the Wu clan genealogy), “From the Wei and the Jin Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty, the mechanism was always to emphasize a person’s family history, and so family genealogies became very important.”4 Both the government and the Chinese elite attached great importance to genealogy, since it facilitated the selection of officials and proved their identity/status.5 Rectifiers needed genealogies to know more about candidates, and candidates needed them to prove their family’s background and worth. Obviously, genealogies served a special function at that time. “Because of the ranking system, someone with a good family background could make a Chamberlain, no matter how mediocre they were. Whereas someone from Liu Chong Zhuan 柳冲传 (The life of Liu Chong). In the Xin Tang Shu, Vol. 199. Wu Xing Bu (Surname Wu 吴). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. 5 Liu Chong Zhuan 柳冲传 (The life of Liu Chong). In the Xin Tang Shu, Vol. 199. 3 4

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a poor family might feel ashamed and like they did not deserve a title, even if they were junior officers. People in society liked boasting about their origins. In order to distinguish between the noble and the poor, the government prioritized the compilation of genealogical works at that time.”6 After any genealogies were completed, they were meant to be reported to the government.7 The Servicemen class wanted to perpetuate the predominance of the hereditary elite in government, and they tried to prevent poor people from intruding into the noble families and claiming they themselves were aristocratic or had an aristocratic connection through marriage. The Servicemen proposed that the government pass legislation to determine which families belonged to their class. Servicemen that were approved by the law were then listed as having official genealogies, to prevent others from falsely identifying as that group.8 The result of this was that all of the occupants of higher offices came from great families, whereas commoners were only appointed to lower-ranking positions. Pan Guangdan concluded that the Nine Ranks by Rectifiers system perpetuated the status of wealthy and influential families. It became the driving force for the development of genealogies during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. Secondly, the prosperity of genealogies was directly related to the development of the farm economy and the expansion of clan power.9 During the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the landlord system gradually took shape. Landowners dominated the fields of the wilderness, and they owned hundreds of buildings. During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the intensification of land annexation and the implementation of the Nine-Rank system meant that local magnates further expanded their power. They and their families completely controlled all levels of political power, from central to local. They were part of a powerful political system that lasted for hundreds of years. These magnates accumulated large amounts of land. Because the government imposed various taxes and corvees on peasants, this forced them to flee to seek the help of large landlords. These magnates were thus able to turn them into “private property”. These big landlords used clan relations to control a large number of labor forces and enslaved them. They became so influential that during the Eastern Jin and Southern Dynasties, five regional groups of aristocratic families formed across China. “In the south, the biggest families were surnamed Wang 王, Xiao 萧, Xie 谢 and Yuan 袁; in the southeast, the biggest families were surnamed Zhu 朱, Zhang 张, Gu 顾 and Lu 陆; in the central Shaanxi plain, it was Yang 杨, Du 杜, Liu 柳 and Pei 裴; in central plains, it was Cui 崔, Lu 卢, Wang 王 and Zheng 郑; in the northwest, it was Yuan 元, Yu 于, Yuwen 宇文 and Zhangsun 长孙.”10 6

Yang Dianxun. 1994. The general theory of Chinese genealogy. Quarterly Bulletin of Chinese Bibliography, New Vol. 3, Issues 1–2. 7 Ming dynasty Wang Daokun 汪道昆. Preface of the Yuan family genealogy of Qianjiang 潜江袁 氏家谱序. Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. 8 Jin Yang Qiu 晋阳秋 (Summer in Jinyang). In the Tai Ping Yu Lan 太平御览 (Imperially inspected anthology of the Taiping era), Vol. 214. 9 Pan Guangdan. A brief history of Chinese genealogy. Eastern Miscellany 1929: 26 (1). 10 The Wang family genealogy of Jixi. The 37th year of the Qianlong reign (1772).

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These local magnates employed private armies to defend their domain and clans, in efforts to both enslave the people and safeguard their economic interests. Aristocrats such as Cao Cao 曹操, Sun Jian 孙坚, Li Dian 李典, Tian Chou 田畴, Li Tong 李通, and Xu Zhu 许诸 organized clan forces and suppressed peasant uprisings. The four big families of the south also had their own clan forces. Private armed forces could be found all over the country, especially in Jingzhou and Jiangxi. In order to maintain their clan armies, local magnates used blood relatives and clan ideologies to win over and control clan members. Genealogies became a tool to use to their advantage. Therefore, aristocratic families actively compiled genealogies, and during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, their behavior was effective in promoting the prosperity of genealogical records.11 Thirdly, the prosperity of genealogy was also closely related to people’s attitudes toward marriage. After the aristocratic families became a powerful force, they not only needed maintain their political privileges, but their marital privileges. The elite Servicemen class tried every possible means to suppress commoners. There was a huge difference between the two classes. They sat in different seats, rode in different carriages and wore different clothes. When it came to choosing a “marriage object”, the elite strictly prohibited anybody from marrying someone of a lower class.12 Even the emperor could not interfere. Here is a vivid example. Beyond the Great Wall, there was a man named Hou Jing 侯景, who was a member of the Jie tribe from the Xianbei ethnic group. He was originally a general under the Northern Qi’s powerful minister, Gao Huan, but he later surrendered to Emperor Wu of the Liang (464–549). Believing that he had made great contributions to the Liang, Hou Jing asked Emperor Wu if he could marry a woman from either of the two famous clans of the South: Wang 王 or Xie 谢. But even though he was an Emperor, Wu did not dare to grant Hou Jing the request. He was too afraid of offending the local magnates. He told Hou Jing: “The Wang and Xie families are too influential; you would not be a perfect match. Try asking the Zhu 朱 and Zhang 张 families.” Soon after, Hou Jing launched a rebellion and he occupied Jiankang, the capital of the Liang Dynasty. He married the Princess Liyang, the daughter of Emperor Wu. However, Hou Jing did not regard this as an honor. He still held a grudge against the two aristocratic families, the Wang and Xie, for not allowing him to marry their daughters. He said resentfully, “One day, I will exile the Wang and Xie daughters and marry them to slaves.”13 During that time, the Servicemen from the upper and lower class, the southern, northern and central regions, and ethnic minorities, each formed their own respective marriage groups, and they married within these for generations.

11

Liu Liming. Ancestral temple, spirit tablet and family genealogy. Chengdu: Sichuan People’s Publishing House, 2003: 176. 12 Ming dynasty Ren Dazhi 任大治. Preface of the Chu clan genealogy (储氏宗谱序). The Chu family. Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. 13 Hou Jing Zhuan 侯景传 (The life of Hou Jing). In the Nan Shi (A history of the Southern Dynasties), Vol. 80.

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Since marriage is based on the principle of equality, and family genealogies were the basis for matchmaking, they became a powerful tool for aristocratic families to safeguard their privileges and interests. Therefore, in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, all of the aristocratic families enjoyed compiling and maintaining genealogies that showed their family’s background and status. This social phenomenon can be seen in Zheng Qiao’s Shi Zu Lue Xu in the Tong Zhi and the Genealogies of the Xiao Family and the Jiang Family in Wuyuan, Jiangxi, the latter of which was written during the 30th year of the Daoguang era (1850). As it was common for people to be appointed as officials or married based on their family’s background, it was also common that people were dishonest about their genealogies.14 As a saying goes, “People of the Han Dynasty enjoyed seeking a path towards officialdom; the Wei and Jin people emphasized their big family names, while the people of the Southern and Northern Dynasties liked to deceive each other about their family’s history.”15 There were many people who resorted to deceit and forged their family’s history when compiling genealogies. There were many examples of this. During the Southern Dynasties, Wang Taibao 王泰宝 bought off Jia Yuan 贾渊, a then genealogist, in an attempt to include his family in the genealogy of Langya Wang 王, the largest influential family. But the Director of the Imperial Secretariat Wang Yan 王晏 found out and turned Jia Yuan in. In accordance with the law, Jia should have been executed. However, Jia’s son kowtowed to the Emperor, begging for exemption until his forehead bled, and his father was exempted from capital punishment.16 Here is another such story. During the Western Jin Dynasty, Wang Yuan 王源was the great-grandson of Wang Ya 王雅, the Chief Administrator. His father and grandfather had once held high positions in the government as well. Although his family belonged to the class of Servicemen, he himself did not accumulate much fortune. Wang Yuan had lost his wife, and he wanted to take a concubine, but he didn’t have enough money. Then he heard that Man Zhangzhi 满璋之, who came from a very wealthy family in Fuyang, wanted his son Man Luan 满鸾 to get married. So Wang Yuan plotted to get his daughter married to Man Luan. He thought that he could then ask for a dowry of 50,000 yuan to take a concubine for himself. In the pursuit of this aim, he checked the Man family’s genealogy and found that not only Man Zhangzhi and Man Luan were officials, but that two of their ancestors had been Defender-in-Chiefs during the previous Emperors’ reigns. Wang Yuan believed that the Wang 王 and Man 满 families were a good match, but others in the Servicemen class thought otherwise. The Director of the Imperial Secretariat Shen Yue 沈约, who had suggested Emperor Wu pay attention to genealogical records, said that the Man clan had no solid evidence to prove their origin. Shen Yue even accused Man Zhangzhi of forging his own family genealogy, and said that Wang Yuan’s attempt 14

The Wang branch genealogy in Huaixi. The sixth year of the Xianfeng reign (1856). Ming dynasty Jiao Hong 焦竑. Preface of the Jin clan genealogy in Wangxi 汪溪金氏族谱序. The Jin 金 family. Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. 16 Jia Yuan Zhuan 贾渊传 (The life of Jia Yuan). In the Nan Qi Shu 南齐书 (The book of Southern Qi), Vol. 52. Zhonghua Book Company, 1972. 15

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to marry into the Man family was mercenary, disgraceful and shocking. He argued that Wang Yuan should be removed from the aristocracy and his official residence and locked up for life.17 This became a major scandal in the Southern Dynasties. Even the Emperor was no exception to such scandals. When Emperor Wu’s son Xiao Zong 萧综 surrendered to the enemy at the front line, Emperor Wu had no choice but to remove his son from his own family genealogy. It can be seen from the above examples how genealogy was closely linked to the interests of aristocratic families.18 During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, governments attached great importance to genealogies, because they not only served as the basis for appointing officials, but they had a direct impact on tax revenue. As the Servicemen were the highest class in society, they didn’t need to perform corvee labor. If commoners wanted to escape from doing labor, they had to pretend to be Servicemen. Therefore, it became especially common for ordinary people to pretend to belong to a noble family when they were compiling their genealogies. During the Southern Dynasties, Emperor Wu realized this, and following the advice of the Director of the Imperial Secretariat, Shen Yue, he investigated the matter. Some fake genealogies were subsequently corrected. The Emperor also ordered the genealogist Wang Senru 王僧孺 to revise the Genealogies of the Hundred Families. The government also set up a special agency for maintaining genealogies, and an imperial official was appointed to take charge of the agency. It can be seen from the above how the correctness of genealogies not only affected the interests of the nobles and the landlords, but it also influenced political stability, the amount of tax revenue people paid, and the number of people performing the corvee. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, people attached great importance to the names of their parents and grandparents. When they interacted with one another, they tried to avoid saying the same characters, or characters that sounded the same as the other person’s parents’ names, as this would be regarded as disrespectful. The Six Dynasties paid close attention to the custom. One would even cry if they heard another people saying their ancestors’ names. According to the Ren Dan 任诞 in the Shi Shuo Xin Yu, when Huan Xuan was summoned to the capital in the year 387 to take up the post of Frontrider (as an attendant and mentor in the entourage of the Heir Apparent), his friend Wang Chen 王忱 came to visit. Wang Chen was slightly drunk after taking a cold-food powder, a type of traditional Chinese medicine. Huan Xuan set out some wine for him, but since he was unable to drink it, he unthinkingly said to his attendants, “Have them warm (using the character “wen” as 温 warm) the wine and bring it back.” After hearing this, Huan Xuan burst into tears and began choking with grief. This was because Wang Chen had violated the Chinese naming taboo, by naming Huan Xuan’s deceased father Huan Wen 桓温 when he said the word “warm” (“温” is pronounced “wen”). This made Wang Chen feel so embarrassed that he left. The best way to avoid offending Wen Xuan 文选 (Selections of refined literature), Vol. 40. Liu Liming. Ancestral temple, spirit tablet and family genealogy. Chengdu: Sichuan People’s Publishing House, 2003: 174.

17 18

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other people was to become familiar with their genealogies. Genealogies and naming taboos were important knowledge to have in society, and studying them became a prevailing fashion of the time. As a result, scholars who did not know enough about genealogy were not selected to be personnel officers. According to the Wang Yan Zhuan (The life of Wang Yan 王晏) in the 24th Volume of Nan Shi (History of the Southern Dynasties): “During the Yongming period (483–493), Emperor Wu wanted his cousin Xiao Luan 萧鸾 to take over from Wang Yan as a selection official. But Wang Yan said: ‘Xiao Luan is smart, but he is not familiar with all of the family names. I’m afraid he cannot hold this position.’ And that was it.”19

4.2 Genealogical Works and Genealogists The governments of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties established special agencies and appointed officials to compile the genealogies of aristocratic families, so that they could maintain their status. “A genealogical agency should be headed by someone who is erudite and informed. They should know everything about genealogy.”20 These agencies had three tasks: “to collect, compile and edit, and review all genealogies and assemble them into a comprehensive book.”21 Genealogies provided genealogical agencies with important data. During the Wei Dynasty, rectifiers, recorders, and personnel evaluators had access to the genealogies that were kept in their regions/commanderies. After the first year of the Xianhe period in the Jin Dynasty (326), all of the genealogies that had been specifically maintained by the Department of State Affairs were set up in a storeroom. The compilation of genealogies was common practice at that time, and a number of genealogical works sprung up. A number of scholars also began appearing, who were specifically engaged in genealogical compilation and study. “Zhi Yu was the first to write a genealogical book spanning ten volumes; Jia Bi, Liu Zhan, Wang Sengru, and He Chentian followed in the footsteps of Zhi and they wrote tens of thousands of words in hundreds of chapters. Genealogies were flourishing.”22 In A Brief History of Chinese Genealogy, Pan Guangdan listed the important genealogical works of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties as follows (Table 4.1): From the above table, we can see how genealogical works flourished at that time. We can also see that the most famous genealogists were born into two specific families: the Jia 贾 and the Wang 王 family. The Jia family was deeply interested in the study of genealogy. Five members of the Jia family became genealogists, and they were spread across six generations 19 Yang Dianxun. 1994. The general theory of Chinese genealogy. Quarterly Bulletin of Chinese Bibliography, New Vol. 3, Issues 1–2. 20 Zheng Qiao. Shi Zu Xu. Shi Zu Lue. In the Tong zhi 通志 (General treatises). 21 Pan Guangdan. A brief history of Chinese genealogy. Eastern Miscellany 1929: 26 (1). 22 The Wang family genealogy of Jixi. The 37th year of the Qianlong reign (1772).

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Table 4.1 Important genealogical works of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties Dynasties Writers

Works and volumes

Jin

Zhi Yu 挚虞

Records of Clan Zhao and Mu (10 volumes) 族姓昭穆记

Jin

Jia Bi 贾弼

Genealogies of 18 Regions and 116 Commanderies (712 volumes) 十八州百一十六郡谱

Song

Wang Hong 王弘

1 volume

Song

He Chengtian 何承天

Surnames (10 volumes) 姓苑 The Guan Family Genealogies in the Late Wei Dynasty (several volumes) 后魏河南官氏志

Song

Liu Zhan 刘湛

Hundred Families Genealogies (2 volumes) 百家谱

Qi

Wang Jian 王俭

Hundred Families Genealogies (10 volumes) 百家集谱 New Collection of Genealogies in Regions (12 volumes) 新集 诸州谱 Various Families Genealogies (116 volumes) 诸姓谱

Qi

Jia Xijing 贾希镜

Clan Essentials (15 volumes) 氏族要状

Liang

Wang Sengru 王僧孺

Hundred Families Genealogies (30 volumes) 百家谱 Copy of the Hundred Families Genealogies (15 volumes)百家 谱集 (抄) Copy of the Southeastern Families Genealogies (10 volumes) 东南谱集抄 Genealogies of 18 Regions during the Reign of Emperor Wu in the Liang Dynasty (690 volumes) 梁武帝总责境内十八州 谱 The Fan Family Genealogies (several volumes) 范氏谱 Xu Yilun Family Genealogy (1 volume) 徐义伦家谱

Liang

Xu Mian 徐勉

Hundred Officials Genealogies (20 volumes) 百官谱

Liang

Liu Xiaobiao刘孝标 Annotations of the Shi Shuo Xin Yu (6 volumes) 世说新语注

Liang

Jia Zhi 贾执

Hundred Families Genealogies (20 volumes)百家谱 Copy of the Hundred Families Genealogies (5 volumes) 百家 谱钞 Surnames and the Virtuous (100 volumes) 姓氏英贤谱

Sui

Jia Guan 贾冠

Preface to Liang’s Princes Genealogies (3 volumes) 梁国亲皇太子序亲簿

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from Jia Bizhi to Jia Guan. They all made important contributions to genealogy. The six generations were as follows: Jia Bizhi—Jia Feizhi—Jia Xijing—Jia Zhi—?—Jia Guan. Jia Bizhi was the founder of the Jia family genealogy. During the first year of the Taiyuan period in the Eastern Jin Dynasty (386), Jia Bizhi was recruited by the imperial court to write and compile genealogies. He “devoted himself to the mission and collected records from some one hundred families”.23 Finally, he completed the Genealogies of 18 Regions and 116 Commanderies.24 The book was then used as the basis for selecting officials during the Eastern Jin Dynasty. The government maintained a copy of this book and assigned special personnel to take charge of it. Jia Bizhi’s son, Jia Feizhi, was also a genealogist. Jia Bizhi’s grandson, Jia Xijing, wrote 15 volumes of Clan Essentials. Jia Xijing’s son, Jia Zhi, wrote 20 volumes of the Hundred Families Genealogies, 5 volumes of the Copy of the Hundred Families Genealogies, and 100 volumes of Surnames and the Virtuous. Jia Guan, the grandson of Jia Zhi, wrote three volumes of the Preface to Liang’s Princes Genealogies. The Jia family was thus a famous family of genealogists at that time. The Wang family was also famous for the contributions its members made to genealogy. Wang Hong and Wang Jian, who were grandfather and grandson, made the greatest contributions. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, it was common for people to avoid saying each other’s grandparents’ or parents’ names. This was a taboo; if it was violated, there were negative repercussions. Because Wang Hong was proficient in genealogies, he knew how to behave at both official and private social occasions.25 He was spoken highly of by both scholars at the time and later generations. Wang Jian wrote a supplement to Jia Bizhi’s book during the reign of Yongming (483–493). He expanded on the original book (which was two volumes), and turned it into a moderate ten-volume book. It was neither too complex nor too simple. He also wrote 12 volumes of the New Collection of Genealogies in Regions and 160 volumes of Various Families Genealogies. In the book A Study of the Origin of Genealogy—The Wang Sub Clan Genealogy in Huanxi, the genealogists of the two families were summarized as follows: “genealogy started with Jia Bizhi, and Wang Hong and Wang Jian carried his work forward. Therefore, the genealogical works of Wang and Jia run parallel.” “Many studies of surnames and clans can be found in Han Dynasty works such as Deng’s official genealogies, Ying Shao’s clan genealogies, and Wang Fu’s Qian Fu Lun 潜夫论 (Comments of a recluse). However, it wasn’t until the Jin Dynasty that Jia Bizhi and Wang Hong started to write books specifically about genealogy. The Song Dynasty writer He Chentian, Qi Dynasty writer Wang Jian, and Liang Dynasty writer Wang Sengru all learnt from Jia and Wang.”26 It is worth mentioning that Wang Jia Yuan Zhuan 贾渊传 (The life of Jia Yuan). In the Nan Qi Shu 南齐书 (The book of Southern Qi), Vol. 52. Zhonghua Book Company, 1972. 24 The Wang sub clan genealogy in Huanxi. The sixth year of the Xianfeng era in the Qing Dynasty (1856). 25 The Wang sub clan genealogy in Huanxi 槐溪王氏支谱. The sixth year of the Xianfeng era in the Qing Dynasty (1856). 26 Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. 23

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Sengru was also a famous genealogist; he inherited the genealogical achievements of Jia and Wang, and further explored and developed them. Wang Sengru served as a genealogical officer during Emperor Wu’s Liang Dynasty reign (464–549). He wrote six genealogical books that were spread across 750 volumes, and was a well-known genealogist during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. As compiling genealogies was prevalent and there were a growing number of genealogical books during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, genealogical documents appeared as an independent category in the bibliography of many ancient books. Although many genealogical works had previously been produced, they were not classified as an independent, specialized category. They were broadly included within the relevant categories of the “six arts” or under “numerology” attached to the official history of Yi Wen Zhi. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, things changed. The Liang Dynasty writer Ruan Xiaoxu 阮孝 绪 (479–536) was the first to specifically categorize genealogy in his book, the Qi Lu 七录 (Seven Records,). This bibliography was divided into an inner part (neipian 內 篇) and an outer part (waipian 外篇). The inner part was divided into five sections (lu 录 “records”) of books, namely Confucian Classics (Jing dian lu 经典录), records and biographies (Ji zhuan lu 记传录), “masters” and military strategists (Zi bing lu 子兵录), belles-lettres and anthologies (Wen ji lu 文集录), and mathematical and mantic treatises (Shu ji lu 术伎录). The outer part included Buddhist (Fo fa lu 佛法 录) and Daoist (Xian dao lu 仙道录) writings. The Ji zhuan lu was split into 12 categories. Those were: National History, Calendar Annotations, Past Affairs, Official Affairs, Rituals and Codes, Legal Affairs, Pseudo-History, Miscellaneous Records, Ghosts and Gods, Land, Genealogy, and Records. As we can see, the eleventh category was genealogy. Forty two kinds of genealogical works were listed, and these were spread across 423 books and 1,064 volumes.27 The specific establishment of the genealogy category reflected the sharp increase of genealogical documents at that time. Genealogies were subsequently arranged into various comprehensive catalogues, and genealogy became a specialized subject. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, genealogies impacted how official, authorized histories were compiled. They also affected their content and form. After the Han and Wei Dynasties, genealogies were used in many of the annals and biographies of official historical books, such as the Wei Shu 魏书 (The Book of Wei) written by Wei Shou during the Northern Dynasty.28 They were valuable in what they documented and so could not be ignored; they recorded a wealth of important first-hand information such as how a clan originated, the biographies of clan figures, their migration and settlement history, marital status, and offspring as well as related political, economic and cultural events. Because it included genealogical content, the Wei Shu was different to previous books of historical records. Genealogical data made up for a lack of historical records, and so it was reasonable for the Sui Shu 隋 书 (the Book of Sui) to include it in its history section. 27 28

Qian Liang Wen 前梁文, Vol. 66. The Gu Jin Zheng Shi Pian 古今正史篇 (The official dynastic histories) in the Shi Tong.

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Due to the growing influence of genealogies, some official books of historical records included details of families’ backgrounds and the rules of the aristocracy. This made them read more like family or clan genealogies. Examples included the Jin Shu 晋书 (the Book of Jin) compiled during the Tang Dynasty and the Song Shu 宋 书 (the Book of Song) written by Shen Yue. These books not only recorded details on Wang Dao, Xie An, Wang Hong and Xie Hongwei, they also narrated their families’ backgrounds, and therefore looked just like genealogical works. Both Li Yanshou’s 李延寿 Nan Shi 南史 (the official dynastic history of the Southern Dynasties,) and the Bei Shi 北史 (the official dynastic history of the Northern Dynasties,) were written in the form of family biographies based on lineage. Chen Shou’s 陈寿 (233–297) San Guo Zhi 三国志 (Annals of the Three Kingdoms,) and Fan Ye’s Hou Han Shu 后汉 书 (the official dynastic history of the Later Han Dynasty,) were also influenced by genealogy. The Wei Shu contained mostly family biographies, and detailed the family history of the biographee, his descendants and sub clans. Some books contained a list of people’s names under the biographee.29

4.3 The Content and Characteristics of Genealogies Although there were a large number of genealogical books written during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, frequent wars meant that many of these books were destroyed. During the fifth year of the Yongjia era (311), Liu Cong, the leader of the Xiongnu tribe in northern China, captured Luoyang, the capital city of the Western Jin Dynasty. His army burned and plundered the city, in an event now known as “the Rebellion of Yongjia”. Some 30,000 books that had been collected and preserved by the Western Jin government were destroyed. A similar incident occurred during the third year of the Chengsheng era, during the Liang Dynasty (554). During the Western Wei army’s occupation of Jiangling, on the eve of surrender, Emperor Xiao Yi vented his resentment towards the national subjugation on books, and he ordered 140,000 public and private books to be set on fire. Therefore, all of the genealogical books of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties were destroyed. However, some of their contents and characteristics were found by later generations on physical objects, such as carved stone genealogies. During the 1960s and 1970s, two genealogies were unearthed from the Sui and Tang tombs in Turpan, Xinjiang. One was the incomplete genealogy of an unknown family. It was unearthed in 1973 from tomb number 113 at the Astana Cemetery (see Fig. 4.1).30

Zhang Yanxia 张艳霞. The role of genealogical archives during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties 论魏晋南北朝谱牒档案的作用. Journal of Hunan City University 湖南城市 学院学报, Nov. 2004. 30 Documents of the unearthed objects in Turpan 吐鲁番出土文书, Vol. 3. Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1981: 64. 29

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Fig. 4.1 A copy of the original genealogy of an unknown family during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties

It can be seen from the copy that the owner of the genealogy came from an influential family in Hexi. Four of the twelve people listed on the genealogy were either level 5 or 6 prefects or generals of commanderies. This genealogy was presented as a chart. The boxes contained the names of family members along with their official titles and bios. In many instances, only the most recent, official occupation was listed. The chart focused on the male members of the family; wives were listed on the left hand side together with their maiden names and their fathers’ official titles. There are two columns, and six generations of family members are listed. There are five or six parallel lines above the two columns, and these indicate where there were distant ancestors or members of the same clan. According to Wang Su’s textual research, the genealogy that was discovered was an exact copy of an original genealogy. He based this on the owner of the genealogy’s family, their surname and the time that they were living. Qu Yue brought the genealogy with her from her mother’s family after she married Zhang Shun. Zhang was buried in tomb No 113. Because this was a Qu family genealogy, it was named the Qu Family Genealogy in Xiping 西平麴

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氏族谱.31 This genealogy was compiled during the early days of the State of Gao Chang (502).32 Another genealogy was discovered that belonged to an unknown family. It was unearthed in 1966 at tomb number 50 at the Astana Cemetery. Eight pieces of the genealogy remained, although they were cut into the shape of shoes, and appeared incomplete.33 Each piece was divided into several columns, and each column represented a generation. Brother and sister relationships were listed from right to left in descending order, and each person’s name occupied a .. For male members of the family, their courtesy name would be recorded first and below that, their name. If they had ever been an official, their title would be placed at the right or left of the .. However, only the given name of female family members was recorded in the .; if a woman was married, her spouse’s name would also be recorded. There was a . specially devoted to a legitimate son’s spouse, and this could be found on the left hand side of the son’s .. In the ., the woman’s identity as “wife” was recorded, and her maiden name was listed below. Wang Su speculated that this genealogy, like that found in tomb number 113, was brought by the spouse of a Song family member from her original family. Wang Su determined from various historical records and unearthed materials that “the owner of the genealogy was from Dunhuang, and this may have been the Zhang family’s genealogy. Some of the place names and official titles it recorded only existed during the Qin and Han Dynasties, and some were used during the 16 kingdoms period. These indicated the time when the owner was alive. This genealogy was earlier than that of the one found in tomb 113, and is of greater value.”34 There were also stone genealogies discovered from the Northern Dynasties. This is the Northern Wei Dynasty’s “Xue Xiaotong Yi Hou Quan 薛孝通贻后券” (see Fig. 4.2). The Xue Xiaotong Yi Hou Quan was carved by the Xue 薛 family in Hedong during the first year of the Taichang era in the Northern Wei Dynasty (532). It was unearthed in 1920 in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, at the Xue family’s ancestral temple. There were 17 lines of inscriptions, and 112 characters on each line. The figures described in the Xue family genealogy were handed down and noted in official, historical records. The Life of Xue Bian in the 42nd Volume of the Wei Shu and the Grand Councilor’s genealogy in the Xin Tang Shu are consistent with what was described in the “Yi Hou Quan”. Xue Xiaotong was Xue Daoheng’s father and Xue Shou’s grandfather. The Life of Xue Daoheng in the Sui Shu (Volume 57) held the same information. Although the Xue family genealogy was only 200 characters long, every single character showed that this family were a group of local magnates in Wang Su 王素. A new probe into the genealogy of an unknown family unearthed in Turpan 吐 鲁番出土某氏族谱新探. Dunhuang Studies 敦煌研究, 1993 (1). 32 Translator’s note: the King of Gaochang was surnamed Qu 麴. 33 Documents of the unearthed objects in Turpan, Vol. 3. Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1981: 180–184. 34 Wang Su. A new probe into the genealogy of an unknown family unearthed in Turpan. Dunhuang Studies, 1993 (1). 31

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Fig. 4.2 A rubbing of the Northern Wei Dynasty’s “Xue Xiaotong Yi Hou Quan”

Hedong. All of their ancestors were dignitaries. Li Chuanyin said: “The northern Han servicemen under the rule of the Xianbei ethnic group clearly established genealogies for three reasons: to glorify and illuminate their ancestors; to warn descendants not to forget their ancestors and their glory… and to let future generations know the origin of their family’s virtues. Of course, their fundamental purpose was to maintain ideological and cultural traditions.”35 Another surviving stone inscription is the epitaph of Li Yuanhua. She was the concubine of the Northern Wei Dynasty’s King Wuxuan of Pengcheng (see Fig. 4.3). The tablet was carved in August, during the fifth year of the Zhengguang era (524). It was unearthed in 1920 in Zhangyang Village, Luoyang. The genealogy was inscribed on the back of the tombstone. Li Yuanhua’s 李媛华 stone genealogy showed obvious characteristics that the Li 李 were a powerful family. It not only described the official positions of her grandfather, father and brothers, but it also recorded the official positions of her sisters and their husbands. The official position of her grandfather on her mother’s side was also listed. Li Yuanhua came from Longxi. Her relatives included the Zheng 郑 family in Xingyang 荥阳, the Lu 卢 family in Fanyang 范阳, the Cui 崔 family in Qinghe 清河 and the Feng 冯family in Changle 长乐. These were all influential, aristocratic families during the Northern Dynasties. This genealogy shows that Li Yuanhua’s family and the powerful families of the time belonged to a closed marriage group.36 From the above, we can see that the private genealogies of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasty were basically the same in style as those in the Han Dynasty. Li Chuanyin 李传印. Genealogies and politics in the Northern dynasties 北朝谱学与北朝政治. History Monthly 史学月刊, 2003 (4). 36 Chen Zhi. Discovery and search for genealogical forms during the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Journal of Northwest University 1980 (3). 35

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Fig. 4.3 A rubbing of the Northern Wei Dynasty “Epitaph of Li Yuanhua, Concubine of the King Wuxuan of Pengcheng”

They can be broadly grouped into two categories: tabulated genealogies, or narrative genealogies. Tabulated or fragmented genealogies, used boxes and lines to represent family lineage. Parallel boxes represented the relationships between husbands and wives, but also the relationships between brothers and sisters. Horizontal grids listed people of the same generation by birth order. Some carved stone genealogies were narrative genealogies. Family lineage and related deeds were gradually narrated and recorded in these genealogies by successive generations of family members. Although the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasty genealogies were basically the same in style as those in the Han Dynasty, a few things mark the specific characteristics of the former: 1. Genealogies mainly contained the lineage and official history of family members, and any instances where people were appointed as officials. Four of the 12 people in the genealogy unearthed at tomb number 113 were listed as prefects or generals. Li Yuanhua’s epitaph not only recorded the official positions of her grandfather, father, brothers and other immediate family members, but also the official positions of her sisters’ husbands and even the grandfather on her mother’s side. These were all recorded to show that the Li family had had many dignitaries, and they were closely related to other aristocratic families during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.

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2. Family genealogies of that time were comprehensive. They centered on one family and extended only to in-laws. For example, the genealogy unearthed from tomb number 113 was inferred to be the Zhang family’s genealogy, but members of the Song 宋, Ma 马, Suo 索 and Dong 东 families who were related by marriage were also recorded. Another example was the epitaph of Li Yuanhua. It was mainly written by the Li family, but there were also records of her in-laws from the Zheng, Lu and Cui families—all of whom were big families during the Northern Dynasties. This family genealogy showed how marriage was based on the principle of equality during that time. 3. Information was recorded on both male and female family members. There were records of men’s courtesy names and their official titles. Women’s names and their fathers’ official titles were also recorded. The genealogy unearthed in tomb number 113 included all of the family’s daughters names, which indicated that women held a certain position in the family. From the above, it can be seen that the genealogies of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties advocated detailing family backgrounds and marriage details, in order to safeguard the interests of the aristocratic families.

Chapter 5

How Chinese Genealogies Prospered (II)

The prosperity of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasty (220–589) genealogies culminated during the Tang Dynasty (618–907). Zheng Qiao stated in the Shi Zu Lue Xu of Tong Zhi: “The field of genealogical study reached its peak during the Tang Dynasty.” In his article, Genealogical Changes during the Tang and Song Dynasties, Gong Pengcheng said: “The genealogies compiled in the Tang Dynasty were a combination of official and private affairs, as they were during the Six Dynasties.”1 Chen Jiexian said in his article A Brief Account of Tang Dynasty Genealogies: “Generally speaking, the genealogies of the Tang Dynasty could be divided into two types: official and private genealogies. The former mainly described the origin of a family’s name, a family’s history, marriages, and any official positions held. It was a practical document to show off a family’s status. It also served as proof of identity, and helped people enter the officialdom. This kind of document, stylistically, followed in the footsteps of Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasty genealogies. The content of private genealogies was more or less the same as in official ones. However, because compilers of the latter did not need to follow government regulations, they were freer in style and more comprehensive in content. All family affairs, either big or small, could be recorded.”2 Now let’s look at the two types, one by one.

Minutes of The First Asian Genealogy Academic Seminar 第一届亚洲族谱学术研讨会会议记 录. 1984. United Daily News Cultural Foundation National Studies Literature Museum of Taiwan 联合报文化基金会国学文献馆. 2 The First International Academic Conference Proceedings on the Tang Dynasty 第一届国际唐 代学术会议论文集. 1988. Taipei. 1

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5.1 Reasons Official Genealogies Developed During the Tang Dynasty The development of official genealogies during the Tang Dynasty was mainly because of a struggle between old and new aristocrats. However, it was also because genealogies played a key role in the political and social life of the Tang people. During the Tang Dynasty, the system of Nine Ranks by Rectifiers was abolished. Instead, the imperial examination system was implemented. The criteria for selecting talent changed—previously, it was important that candidates emphasize their family history. Under the rectifier-ranking system, only men of good breeding, and members of the “great family” class were considered appropriate candidates for official appointments. However, under the imperial examination system, the criteria emphasized candidates’ skill in literary composition. Any candidate who passed the civil service recruitment examination—held/supervised by the Ministry of Personnel—could obtain fame and an official position.3 This new system for selecting officials was more democratic. The new system did not fall into place overnight. During Emperor Wen’s Sui Dynasty reign (581–604), candidates only needed to take two kinds of examinations, which evaluated candidates’ meritoriousness and talents. During the Sui Dynasty (604–617), Emperor Yang arranged for talent to be divided into 10 specific categories, and prospective officials needed to be nominated for one of those categories. During the early Tang Dynasty, further improvements were made to the examination process. All servicemen 士 were required to take examinations. There were many different types of examination that were regularly conducted during the Tang era, but only five standard examinations. The two most prestigious exams led to qualifications in Classicism (mingjing 明经) and recognition as a Presented Scholar (jinshi 进士). These examinations were based on Confucian traditions and they tested candidates’ classical erudition and literary skills. They were written examinations, but sometimes included an oral test. The three less prestigious examinations were on calligraphy, mathematics, and law. Men who passed (jidi 及第) the examinations reported to the Ministry of Personnel to be assigned prestigious titles. It didn’t matter what someone’s family history was, whether they were an aristocrat, commoner, landlord, or peasant, they were appointed as an official as long as they passed the examination. This system went against everything the Rectifier-ranking system had put in place, and was a heavy blow to the aristocratic families and elite servicemen class. However, the aristocratic families were still very powerful, and many of the officials who presided over these examinations and headed the Ministry of Personnel came from those families. It was inevitable that some of these officials engaged in malpractice for personal gain, and they used their influence and their own private opinions when judging candidates’ literary skills. In other words, they could select Ming Dynasty Wang Shizhen 王世贞. Preface of the Chen clan genealogy 陈氏族谱序. Shi Zu Dian 氏族典 (Histories of clans): Chen Xing Bu 陈姓部 (Surname Chen). In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng 古今图书集成 (The Compendium of ancient and contemporary books).

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children from eminent families and dismiss the talents of poor families. It is estimated that 116 people from the Lu 卢 family, an influential clan in Fanyang, became Presented Scholars during the first year of Xingyuan reign (784) and the second year of Ganfu reign (875). Nevertheless, after the imperial examination system was put into place, a number of commoners also passed these examinations, particularly the exam to become a Presented Scholar. Subsequently, they also were appointed into high-ranking positions. Many of the Tang Dynasty’s grand councilors, famous ministers and celebrities were originally Presented Scholars. People of that time no longer boasted about their family’s status, but about having passed the Presented Scholar exam. The imperial examination system prevented the once-powerful forces from developing politically, as it paved the way for common landlords to enter officialdom. During the late Sui Dynasty, there were also prominent peasant uprisings, and these were a huge blow to the once-powerful aristocratic families. The descendants of many former “big families” lost their noble titles (including the Yan 燕 and the Zhao 赵 families). Some entered poverty (such as the Qi 齐 and the Han 韩 families). However, during the hundreds of years of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the aristocratic families were able to expand, and they still had a lot of status in society. It was hard to change centuries-old habits of advocating people based on their family history and blood lines.4 According to the sixth volume of the Bei Meng Suo Yan 北梦琐言 (a collection of Song Dynasty novels): “Grand Councilor Wei Gongzhou went on an expedition to the South China Sea and he took with him a young fellow named Liu Qian. Although Liu was a young, low-ranking man, he demonstrated that his performance was extraordinary. Wei wanted to marry his daughter to Liu. However, Wei’s wife said that Liu was not in their league because he was not from an aristocratic family. She was worried that people would criticize them. So she asked Wei’s aides to prevent it.”5 People still valued the old elite, and boasting about one’s high prestige and/or status was still common in Chinese society. The aristocratic families of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, especially the Cui 崔, Lu 卢, Li 李 and Zheng 郑 families from Shandong province, remained as powerful and haughty as before. They asked for huge dowries to raise their social status whenever families expressed an interest in marrying their daughters.6 During Emperor Taizong’s reign (627–649) in the early Tang Dynasty, even important ministers such as Fang Xuanling, Wei Zheng and Li Ji were vying to marry into the Shandong aristocracy. Li Jingxuan 李敬玄was a new aristocrat working as the Minister of Personnel. He was actually born into a family of commoners, but he was married three times, and all of his wives were members of the Shandong aristocracy. However, he still felt that his family background was not good enough. 4

Yang Dianxun. 1994. The general theory of Chinese genealogy. Quarterly Bulletin of Chinese Bibliography, New Vol. 3, Issues 1–2. 5 Quoted from Gong Pengcheng. Changes in genealogies during the Tang and Song Dynasties 唐宋族谱之变迁. Minutes of The First Asian Genealogy Academic Seminar. United Daily News Cultural Foundation National Studies Literature Museum of Taiwan, 1984. 6 The Wang family genealogy of Jixi. The 37th year of the Qianlong reign (1772).

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So he merged his family’s genealogy with the Li family’s.7 Grand Councilor Wang E shamelessly asked a famous Shanxi general, Wang Hong, to adopt him as a son so that he could raise his status. He offered Wang Hong’s family fame and official positions in exchange for recording him in their family’s history. These two examples are indicative of how despicable the new aristocratic class was, and how they tried to gain the status that the old elite had had by any means whatsoever. The old and the new aristocratic class were truly birds of a feather. The feudal rulers of the Tang Empire were new nobles from the Guanlong (Guanzhong of Shaanxi and Longshan of Gansu) regions. In order to consolidate their new imperial governance and to raise their political status and social positions (especially royal upstarts who came from poor families or were common landlords), they implemented a number of measures to suppress the old Shandong elite. They aimed instead to establish the Li family at the top of the Guanlong aristocracy. In order to obtain social and legal recognition, the new gentry needed to write down in their genealogies their highest obtained social position, and place any connections to the royal family at the genealogy’s core. From the beginning of Emperor Taizong’s reign (627–649), the imperial examination system was strengthened, and the government began using genealogy as a powerful tool to shift earlier perceptions about a family’s name. During the Tang Dynasty, compilations of genealogies helped cultivate the power of the new gentry and suppress the power of the old gentry.

5.2 Three Large-Scale, Official Genealogical Compilations Throughout the Tang Dynasty, one of the most significant moves made by those in rule was the distribution of three major, official compilations of genealogies. These were the Shi Zu Zhi 氏族志 (Annals of Clans) during Emperor Taizong’s reign (627–649), the Xing Shi Lu 姓氏录 (Records of Surnames) during Emperor Gaozong’s reign (650–683) and the Da Tang Xing Zu Xi Lu 大唐姓族系录 (Records of Tang Empire Clans and Surnames) during Emperor Zhongzong’s reign (684).8 The first of these was the Shi Zu Zhi. According to volume 2 of the Shi Zu Dian in the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng (The Compendium of Ancient and Contemporary Books), during the sixth year of the Zhenguan era (632), Emperor Taizong ordered high-ranking officials including Gao Shilian, Wei Ting, Cen Wenben, and Linghu Defen to compile a new, family register for the empire. He decided this after consultation with Grand Councilor Fang Xuanling 房玄龄. He was dissatisfied with the original Shi Zu Zhi, believing that it only reflected the power of the Shandong aristocracy. The emperor accused the big families of being too proud and constantly gloating about their clans and families. He felt that they were too geared towards seeking wealth and dowries. The emperor asserted that the new compilation should aim to “correct and revise the surnames and clans”. 7 8

The life of Li Jingxuan 李敬玄传. In the old book of Tang 旧唐书, Vol. 81. The Wang family genealogy of Jixi. The 37th Year of the Qianlong reign (1772).

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He suggested that the team responsible for the compilation “collect genealogies from all over the country and verify their authenticity based on historical records.” Emperor Taizong’s decision showed that the Tang Dynasty paid more attention to official genealogies than ever before. In order to accomplish the emperor’s task, Gao Shilian 高士廉 called together officials and scholars who were familiar with the great-family class—known as servicemen. They collected a huge number of genealogies, verified pedigrees, and then divided people’s family names into nine grades. The team headed by Gao Shilian worked carefully and meticulously. This was made evident in the Dai Clan Genealogy in Xiuning 休宁戴氏族谱, which was written during the fifth year of the Chongzhen era (1632). This book detailed how the Dai 戴 family was listed as a grade 3 family in the revised Shi Zu Zhi. “During the reign of Zhenguan (627–649) in the Tang Dynasty, Dai Zhide—who was then the vice director of the Secretariat and Chancellery Departments, i.e. a third-rank official—submitted his genealogical records to the Ministry of Personnel. The records contained the origin of his family name, his ancestors’ official positions, and their lineage during past dynasties. Gao Shilian and the other editors examined his records according to the standards stipulated by Emperor Taizong. They then concluded that the Dai family qualified as members of the servicemen class and that the family name Dai was a grade 3 surname.”9 Gao Shilian and his team took examining the pedigree of members of the aristocracy very seriously. However, they did not really understand that Emperor Taizong’s ultimate aim was to restrain members of the old aristocracy. Consequently, they followed the old social conventions and still ranked members of the Cui 崔, Lu 卢, Li 李 and Zheng 郑 family, the old aristocrats of Shandong, as grade 1 citizens. Emperor Taizong was furious when he saw their draft. He told Gao Shilian: “I have no hatred of the Cui, Lu, Li or Zheng families in Shandong, but they have clearly declined and have not made the rank of officials for several generations. How can they still claim to be grand ministers and regard themselves as members of the servicemen class? They are doing this so that they can ask for more money and property when they marry their daughters to the rich. They are arrogant and superficial, and I don’t understand why people still think so highly of them. I have asked you to edit and revise the Shi Zu Zhi so that I can honor meritorious officials in the current government. Don’t you value these official titles? Today, those with privileged clans/family names need to earn their place in the present court; their family history from several generations ago is irrelevant, their ranks will be determined based only on their current, official posts.”10 After Gao Shilian and his team were criticized by Emperor Taizong, they revised their draft. During the 12th year of the Zhenguan era (638), a new version was submitted which included 293 family names from 1,651 households. It was a jurisdictional, genealogical book and each family name was graded from 1 to 9. The Dai Yuankai 戴元凯. The Dai Shi Kai Yuan Biao Xu 戴氏开源表序 (Preface of the Dai clan pedigree). The third year of the Jingding era (1262). 10 The Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng, Vol. 2. 9

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surname Li 李 was ranked grade 1 as it was the royal family name (Emperor Taizong’s real name was Li Shimin; Taizong was his courtesy name). The emperor’s consorts’ surnames were ranked as grade 2, and the Shandong aristocratic families were ranked grade 3. Cui Mingan, whose family had previously been first-rank, was now graded as third-rank. These rankings meant that members of the Cui family were no longer able to obtain first-rank, official positions within the state office. After the revised Shi Zu Zhi was completed, it was distributed nationwide. The surnames were rearranged and shown via a legislative perspective, rather than showing status. The Shi Zu Zhi elevated the political status of the Li family and the upstarts from the Guanlong regions. It also suppressed the power of the old elite, including the Cui 崔 family from Shandong Province. A new, large group of aristocrats formed, with the Li family at the center. A number of meritorious officials and consorts became aides, as did some upstarts who had not been born into the aristocracy. These people effectively consolidated the rule of the new empire. The second large-scale, official genealogy was the Xing Shi Lu. Some two decades after the Shi Zu Zhi was published, the elite families rose and fell. More and more commoners passed their imperial examinations and they became part of the new elite. However, while these commoners achieved new social status, they were not yet recognized officially. So it was proposed that a new genealogical book be written that was fitting with these new social conditions. A senior official named Li Yifu, who was ashamed of his nameless family, saw that it bothered Empress Wu Zetian 武则天 that she was born into a poor family. Li Yifu and Xu Jingzong, the then head of the secretariat, jointly reported to Emperor Gaozong (650–683). They said that the Shi Zu Zhi did not contain the Wu family and they suggested that it was amended. They obtained support from Wu Zetian. The general principle of the revision was to “include all of those attaining the fifth official rank or above”. The specific revisions were recorded in the second volume of the Shi Zu Dian in the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. During the fourth year of the Xianqing era (659), Emperor Gaozong issued a decree to convert the Shi Zu Zhi into the Xing Shi Lu. This new book collected 235 family names from 2287 households. 58 of the original surnames were removed and 636 new households were added. One notable addition to the Xing Shi Lu was the listing of the Wu 武 surname as a first-grade family name. All other surnames were graded according to family members’ official positions. Those above what was known as the fifth grade were also recorded in this book. Upon the promulgation of the Xing Shi Lu, the old book, the Shi Zu Zhi, was confiscated and burned.11 The Xing Shi Lu further expanded upon the scope of the servicemen category, and it improved the social and political status of those senior and middle-level officials who had entered office via the imperial examinations. This meant that the commoners and servicemen became more socially integrated. The Xing Shi Lu was yet another shattering blow to the old aristocracy. During Emperor Gaozong’s reign (650–683), the Li 李 family of Zhaojun (now in Hebei Province), the Cui clan of Boling (now in Hebei Province), the Cui clan of Qinghe (now in Hebei Province), the Lu clan of Fanyang (now in Beijing and Hebei 11

The life of Li Yifu 李义府传. In The old book of Tang, Vol. 82.

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Province), the Zheng family of Xingyang (now in Henan Province), the Wang family of Taiyuan (now in Shanxi Province), and the Li family of Longxi (now in Hebei Province) were the seven old noble families. The emperor tried to suppress their power, and he banned marriage between members of these families. However, these prominent families considered it shameful to marry anyone outside of this group. So they married each other anyway, but cancelled their grand wedding ceremonies and just quietly sent their daughters to their husbands’ families.12 In short, the Xing Shi Lu reflected how there were changes to the internal relations of the feudal ruling class during Emperor Gaozong’s reign. The Xing Shi Lu was ultimately a political tool for Wu Zetian. She was the only female emperor in Chinese history, and she used it to consolidate her reign. The third large-scale, official genealogy was the Da Tang Xing Zu Xi Lu. Between the Shenlong period during Emperor Zhongzong’s reign (706) and the Kaiyuan period during Emperor Xuanzong’s reign (713), the Shi Zu Zhi was once again revised. This time, it was genealogist Liu Chong who proposed revisions.13 Liu Chong was studious, knowledgeable, and well-versed in genealogies. He told the emperor that since the Wei and Jin Dynasties, there had been frequent rises and falls for the nobility. He said that this meant that the old version of the Shi Zu Zhi did not accurately reflect the latest situation. Emperor Zhongzong followed Liu Chong’s advice and agreed that he, along with eight other officials/historians convert the Shi Zu Zhi into the Da Tang Xing Zu Xi Lu (200 volumes).14 It was completed in July 714 AD.15 The Da Tang Xing Zu Xi Lu was revised during the reign of Emperors Zhongzong and Xuanzong. They were both successors of Wu Zetian. The new version expanded on the Xing Shi Lu. The compilers shared the same values as those who compiled the original book, and they followed the same guidelines.16 In addition to the above three government-driven genealogies, there were several other works that are worth mentioning as they exhibited official characteristics. These were: the Bai Jia Lei Li 百家类例 (The Genealogy of a Hundred Families), the Yuan He Xing Cuan 元和姓纂 (Collection of Family Names During the Yuanhe Era), the Huang Shi Xin Pu 皇室新谱 (The New Genealogy of the Imperial Family), and the Huang Tang Yu Die 皇唐玉牒 (The Imperial Genealogy of the Tang Dynasty). Ten volumes of the Bai Jia Lei Li were written by Jia Zhi during Emperor Suzong’s reign (758). The Yuan He Xing Zuan was originally compiled by Wang Ya during Emperor Xianzong’s reign. Later, Wang’s family was killed by eunuchs in what was known as the Ganlu Incident (835). Lin Bao 林宝 took over the work, and he completed ten Compilation of economic and historical materials from the Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties 隋唐五 代经济史料汇编校注, ed. Wang Yongxing 王永兴, 1987: 395. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. 13 Liu Chong Zhuan 柳冲传 (The life of Liu Chong). In Xin Tang Shu, Vol. 199. 14 Die Pu Men 谱牒门 (Genealogies). Guo Shi Bu 国史部 (State history). In Ce Fu Yuan Gui 册 府元龟. 15 Liu Chong Zhuan 柳冲传 (The life of Liu Chong). In the Xin Tang Shu, Vol, 199. 16 Compilation of economic and historical materials from the Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties, ed. Wang Yongxing, 1987: 395. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. 12

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volumes. In the preface of the Zhi Zhai Shu Lu Ti Jie 直斋书录题解 (Commented library catalogue of the Zhizhai Studio), vol. 8, Chen Zhensun (1183–1262) said that the Yuan He Xing Zuan was compiled because Emperor Xianzong (806–820) was angry that his officials had granted domain in Taiyuan to a man from Tianshui. In order to prevent officials from repeating such mistakes, Emperor Xianzong ordered the compilation of a book that officials could refer to whenever they granted titles or land. The Huang Shi Xin Pu was written by Liu Fang and there were 20 volumes. During the second year of Kaicheng reign (837), The Huang Tang Yu Die was written by Li Qu and Lin Bao; there were 110 volumes. Although the government did not order these works to be edited, they were in line with the political needs of the time, and respected the will of the government. So in those respects, they were similar to official genealogies. Compared to the official genealogies of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Tang Dynasty genealogies contained many new features and were different in a number of ways: (1) Their purpose was different. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the ruling class were the aristocratic families. They edited their genealogy to distinguish themselves from commoners, and to ensure that their privilege was not violated. They safeguarded their political and social status and ensured that their interests monopolized the government by making sure they were promoted to higher ranks. The aristocracy of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties formulated the official Nine Ranks by Rectifiers system to ensure that they had a hereditary monopoly; however, the government compiled these genealogies to prevent others from falsely identifying as part of the elite. After the Tang Dynasty was established, some high-ranking officials still wanted to marry into the old aristocratic families, even though these families were going through political and economic decline. The rulers of the Tang Dynasty were not from the old aristocracy, and so in order to consolidate their rule, they advocated that official genealogies exclude and suppress the old aristocracy. They used a method instead that improved the social and political status of the royal Li family. (2) Family names were ranked in different ways. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, surnames were ranked according to family members’ social status and fame. Commoners were excluded from the register altogether and they were never allowed to enter. But during the Tang Dynasty, the ranking system ignored the status of previous generations. The imperial family was put first, followed by those who had obtained high, official ranks. Members of the old aristocracy were either demoted or expelled altogether from genealogies. (3) The Tang Dynasty paid closer attention to official compilations of genealogies. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the government established special agencies and appointed officials to write and compile official genealogies. Some genealogies were designated to professional genealogists. However, during the Tang Dynasty, it was the supreme ruler who directly presided over such compilations. He/she appointed senior officials such The

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Grand Councilor to manage special teams who could compile and finalize genealogies. They also entrusted some work to professional genealogists and historians. These genealogical revisions were used politically, and after a number of severe attacks as a result of them, the elite/noble families of the Six Dynasties declined. Many scholars and landlords entered into official circles around the middle of the Tang Dynasty. They achieved higher political and social status as a result of the officially revised genealogical books, despite their poor backgrounds.17 It is clear why Emperors Li Shimin and Wu Zetian ordered the compilation of official genealogical books: to consolidate their vested political and social interests by repressing the old aristocratic families, and to establish new groups with their family occupying the highest position. They did not aim to destroy the original elite (the Shandong and noble families of the southeast); they simply wanted to replace them and consolidate their own feudal rule. A famous poem by late Tang Dynasty poet Liu Yuxi 刘禹锡, reads, “The swallows from the distinguished families now fly into the commoners’ courtyards”, and it accurately portrays how power at that time changed hands from the old and new aristocracy. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the Huang Chao Uprising dealt a further, heavy blow to the aristocracy and elite, as it swept across China. As a result, a situation developed in the Five Dynasties, whereby “official recruitment and marriage were no longer based on a family’s background”.18

5.3 Private Genealogies Developed Drastically Official genealogies became extremely prosperous during the Tang Dynasty, and they were huge in scale. Meanwhile, private genealogies also developed rapidly. Many Song Dynasty works contained relevant records on this. These included Zhang Jun’s 张浚 Chen Shi Zu Pu Xu 陈氏族谱序 (Preface to the Chen Clan Genealogy),19 Ouyang Xiu’s Yu Wang Shen Pu Shi Pu Tie 与王深甫论世谱帖 (A Discussion with Wang Shenpu about Clan Genealogies),20 and Xu Yuan’s 许元 Xu Shi Shi Ci Tu Xu 许氏世次图序 (Preface to the Xu Family Pedigree).21 They showed that officials were ordered by the emperors to revise genealogies during the early Tang Dynasty. This information was corroborated by the Compilation of Economic and Historical Materials during the Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties. Both the Ouyang family and the Xu family in Anchang, Shanyin (now Zhejiang Province) submitted their genealogies to the Tang Dynasty government. During the Tang Dynasty, it was not only the old aristocracy that compiled genealogies to honor their ancestors and pass down to later generations; the commoners were The Life of Qi Tifou 辛替否传. In the Old book of Tang 旧唐书, Vol. 101. Zheng Qiao. Shi Zu Lue Xu. In the Tong Zhi, Vol. 25. 19 Chen Xing Bu (Surname Chen 陈). Shi Zu Dian. In The Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. 20 Wang Xing Bu (Surname Wang 王). Shi Zu Dian. In The Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. 21 Xu Xing Bu (Surname Xu 许). Shi Zu Dian. In The Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. 17 18

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keen on doing this too. Even if someone’s family had been unknown for tens of generations, if a descendant suddenly stood out and became a senior official overnight, he would create his own family genealogy and claim that he had inherited the glory of his ancestors.22 During the Southern Song era, Zhu Xi, a preeminent Neo-Confucian master, said: “The Tang people attach great importance to clans and families, so every family has their own genealogy.”23 During the Tang Dynasty, private genealogies were especially popular. There were several major, official genealogical compilations completed during the Tang Dynasty, and the government went to great lengths to collect folk genealogies. During the sixth year of the Zhenguan period (632), Emperor Taizong ordered the revision of the Shi Zu Zhi. He asked Gao Shilian and Cen Wenben to collect folk genealogies, and include these, along with the dynastic historical records, in the new Shi Zu Zhi.24 During the Tang Dynasty, private genealogies provided official genealogies with important material, but also official history books and similar works. “The Grand Councilors’ genealogies and the origin of surnames in the Book of Tang were cited and sourced from private genealogies.”25 A considerable number of private genealogies were compiled during the Tang Dynasty. Hong Mai (1123—1202) said in the Rong Zhai Sui Bi 容斋随笔 (a collection of essays): “Private genealogies had already been adopted when the Book of Tang was written; when Ouyang Xiu wrote the New Book of Tang, he used many private genealogies that had been maintained by government agencies. Altogether, there were 369 grand councilors recorded in the Book of Tang. They came from 98 families/clans, so the New Book of Tang references the existence of at least 98 private genealogies. The government agencies kept the genealogies of grand councilors, but also many others.”26 There were 95 Tang Dynasty genealogical books, and they spanned 1617 volumes.27 Apart from the aforementioned official genealogical works (the Shi Zu Zhi,28 the Xing Shi Lu, the Da Tang Xing Zu Xi Lu, the Bai Jia Lei Li, the Yuan He Xing Cuan, the Yong Tai Xin Pu, and the Huang Tang Yu Die) the vast majority of genealogical works were privately compiled. Some 40 genealogies were named after a certain family/clan, and most of these spanned between one and three volumes. Examples included Li Kuangwen’s Li Family Genealogy (one volume), Kongzhi’s Surnames Miscellaneous (one volume), and Liu Zhiji’s Study of the Liu Family Shi Tong: Yi Li 史通·邑里 (Perspectives on the Chinese historiography: people and the countryside). 23 Hu Xing Bu (Surname Hu 胡). Shi Zu Dian. In The Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. 24 Preface to the Mingjing Hu clan genealogy in Xicun, Longjing 明经胡氏龙井西村宗谱卷首, 1927. 25 Pan Guangdan. Genealogy and patriarchal system. Eastern Miscellany 1930: 27 (21). 26 Yang Dianxun. 1994. The general theory of Chinese genealogy. Quarterly Bulletin of Chinese Bibliography, New Vol. 3, Issues 1–2. 27 Xin Tang Shu, Vol. 58. 28 Xing Shi Pu. Yi Wen Zhi. In the Xin Tang Shu, Vol. 85. 22

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Genealogy (three volumes). These genealogies were relatively simple and brief in content. However, there were also several genealogical books that were spread across a large number of volumes, including the Sun Family Genealogy (15 volumes), Wei Ding’s Wei Family Genealogy (10 volumes), Pei Shouzhen’s Pei Family Genealogy (20 volumes), The Wang Family Genealogy (15 volumes), and Liu Zhiji’s Liu Family History (15 volumes). These books were freer in style, yet more comprehensive in content. They could record any family affair, big or small. During that time, there were two types of genealogy according to their titles: general genealogies and branch genealogies.

5.4 The Content of Genealogies It has been difficult to find the original texts of the aforementioned private genealogies, yet we can still get a general picture of what they looked like from relevant documents and remnants preserved in the Dunhuang Grottoes. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng, there is an article entitled “Shi Xi Pu Xu 世系谱序 (Preface to Genealogies)” in the Shi Zu Dian section. It was written by a leading Tang Dynasty calligrapher, Yan Zhenqing (709–784). He described the origin of the Yan 颜 family name and the official positions that had been held by his ancestors. Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072), the famous Song dynasty poet, historian, and statesman, said that he was fortunate to have been able to see the Yan family genealogies. We can infer from this that the Yan family genealogies were some of the most abundant genealogical works handed down from the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. These genealogies showed off their high social status and long history of officialdom. Volume 428 of the Quan Tang Wen 全唐文 (the entire collection of Tang period literature) contains the Postscript of Yu Clan Genealogy in Henan, which was written by Yu Shao (713–793) during the late Tang Dynasty. According to the postscript, the Yu clan had been prominent since the Northern Zhou Dynasty. The founding ancestor of the Yu clan was Yu Jin, who was one of eight important Northern Zhou Dynasty ministers. Yu Jin had nine sons, eight of whom were granted noble status and ranked as dukes. One was appointed a prefect of the Hengzhou prefecture. During the Tang Dynasty, the families of the six younger sons gradually declined; however, the three older sons’ families flourished. Their descendants Yu Zhining (588–665), Yu Xiulie (702–772) and Yu Cong (?-881) all became Grand Councilors successively for the Tang Imperial Court. From the postscript, we can see that the Yu clan’s genealogy was revised twiceduring the Tang Dynasty. It was first revised by Yu Zhining during the early Tang Dynasty, and then by Yu Shao during the reign of Zhenyuan (785–805). The two revised genealogies were slightly different in style and content. Yu Zhining’s version was split into two parts: the preface, and the text itself. The preface narrated what titles the noble clan members had been granted, their marriages, and their official positions. The text spanned nine volumes, and each volume recorded one family. Yu Zhining’s aims were to record every family member’s official and

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Fig. 5.1 A remnant of a Clan Genealogy of Heaven Commandery bamboo shoot

marital status, and to show that the early Tang Dynasty still regarded blood lines as the social stratum standard, inheriting the tradition of the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The second revision was completed by Yu Shao during Emperor Dezong’s reign (792). Many earlier genealogies were destroyed or lost during the An Lushan Rebellion, and so Yu Shao disregarded former regulations and compiled a completely new clan genealogy. There was a slight change in style, and the genealogy was divided into three parts: the preface, the text and the postscript.29 Yu Shao’s revised genealogy paid more attention to a five-generation principle, popularized by Song Dynasty writers Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi. It reflected a transition from the Jian and Tang dynasties to the Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties. The FiveGeneration Pedigree Genealogy created by Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi was inherited from this genealogy, and the principle was then widely used by genealogists during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In addition to the relevant documents, private Tang Dynasty genealogies have been preserved in the Dunhuang Grottoes (Fig. 5.1). Over the last century, a number of Dunhuang documents have resurfaced, the majority of which were written scriptures from the Tang Dynasty. However, a number of Tang Dynasty family/clan genealogies have also been found (see Table 5.1).30 The following are examples of family/clan genealogies and commandery genealogies. The Clan Genealogy of the Heaven Commandery, preserved in the Dunhuang documents, contained scripture on five pieces of bamboo (see Fig. 5.2). It was written Guo Feng 郭锋. The compilation of genealogy in Jin and Tang Dynasties 晋唐时期的谱牒修 撰. The Journal of Chinese Social and Economic History 中国社会经济史研究, 1995 (1). 30 Liao Qingliu 廖庆六. Clan genealogy philology 族谱文献学. Taiwan: SMC Publishing Inc 台 湾南天书局有限公司, 2003: 47. 29

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Table 5.1 Tang Dynasty Clan Genealogies Title

Type

Collector

Collector No

The Di Family Genealogy 翟氏家谱

family genealogy

British Museum

Stein collection No. 5778

The Fan Family Genealogy 氾氏家谱

family genealogy

British Museum

Stein collection

Clan Genealogy of Zhenguan 贞观氏族志

Commandery genealogy

National Library of China

No. 79

Clan Genealogy of the Heaven Commandery 天下郡望氏族谱

Commandery genealogy

British Museum

Stein collection No. 5861

Clan Genealogy of the Xin Ji Heaven Commandery 新集天下姓望氏族谱

Commandery genealogy

British Museum

Stein collection No. 2052

Clan Genealogy of the Dunhuang Commandery 敦煌望族谱

Commandery genealogy

The Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris

Pelliot collection No. 2625

Clan Genealogy of the Xin Ji Heaven Commandery 新集天下姓望氏族谱

Commandery genealogy

The Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris

Pelliot collection No. 3191

Shi Zu Zhi 氏族志

Commandery genealogy

The Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris

Pelliot collection No. 3421

by Li Linfu and others during the late Tang Dynasty and the reign of Tianbao (742– 756). It recorded clan members from the commandery. All 398 surnames of members were registered by the government. Anyone who was not included in this registry was not allowed to marry anyone who was listed. So it can be seen that this book was compiled to distinguish families in terms of marriage. According to volume eight of the Zhi Zhai Shu Lu Jie Ti 直斋书录题解 (Commented library catalogue of the Zhizhai Studio), the book served as a reference book at the time. Of the many genealogical documents preserved in the Dunhuang Grottoes, the most detailed one was the Clan Genealogy of the Xin Ji Heaven Commandery (see Fig. 5.3). This genealogy recorded 801 surnames of people across the county. It was split into ten volumes. From the preface, we can see that the content of this genealogy was knowledge that people needed to master, in order to settle down and get on with their pursuits. Its content was in accordance with the territorial administration of the Tang Dynasty, and was arranged in the following order: section, prefecture and commandery. Each commandery listed the names of elite families in the area, and it contained a minimum of three surnames, and a maximum of 40 surnames. It is

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Fig. 5.2 A remnant of a Clan Genealogy of Heaven Commandery bamboo shoot

Fig. 5.3 A remnant of the Tang Dynasty Clan Genealogy of the Xin Ji Heaven Commandery

speculated that this genealogy was an outline of an original, official genealogy, as it served as a common reference book for people to consult. It also only listed the surnames of several distinguished families, without stating whether certain people belonged to this family, and in this way, it did not function as a genealogy. Ren Jingtian believed that it was written after the 14th year of Dali (779). Wang Zhongluo also thought it was a product of the Dali period, and that it was written before the first year of Yuanhe (806). However, Mao Hanguang argued that the book “was written between the 15th year of the Yuanhe era and the 13th year of the Xiantong era (820–872). It seems that it was written privately by ministers. It is difficult to verify whether it was inherited.”31 31

Chang Jianhua. Patriarchal records. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1998: 256.

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5.5 Types of Genealogies There were many types of private genealogy during the Tang Dynasty, but genealogies generally followed in the footsteps of those that had been produced during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. Genealogies from this period can be broadly divided into the following categories: biographies (jiazhuan 家传), pedigrees (jiapu 家谱) and narratives (jiazhuang 家状). 1. Biographies. The private genealogies of the Tang Dynasty were mainly biographies. Generally, they were compiled and maintained by each family. The government collected some of these and stored them so that they could be included within official compilations. The Zhi of Tang Shu 唐书·志 (Annals of the Book of Tang) included the following biographies: Linghu Defen’s Family Biography 令狐氏 家传, Ma Yu’s 马宇 two-volume Family Biography 段公 (秀实) 别传, Li Fan’s 李繁 10-volume Family Biography 邺侯 (李泌) 家传, Zhang Maoshu’s 张茂 枢 eight-volume Family Biography 河东张氏 (延赏) 家传, and Pei Shouzhen’s 裴守仁 20-volume Family Biography 裴氏家牒. In the Dunhuang manuscript, there was also a Fan family biography written by the Tang people 敦煌氾氏家 传. Both single and multi-volume family biographies were written during the Tang Dynasty. The number of volumes seems to be based on whether a biography was written by a single family or a number of clans. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, most family biographies were written by peoples’ descendants. After the Tang Dynasty, most family biographies (including the Guo and Yan family’s) were written by ghostwriters. This showed that the function of family biographies changed socially and politically. 2. Pedigrees. Private genealogies were first called “pedigrees” during the Western Jin Dynasty. According to the Jing Ji Zhi: Jiu Tang Shu 旧唐书·经籍志 (Records of Classics in the Old Book of Tang): “Huangfu Mi wrote three volumes of the Wei Family Pedigree 韦氏家谱.” Huangfu Mi was born in the Western Jin Dynasty, and his was the earliest official, private genealogy to be called a “pedigree”. The Zhi of Tang Shu recorded the genealogies of the following people/families: Li Yongxiu (two volumes 李用休家谱), the Wei family in the Jingzhao Commandery (two volumes 京兆韦氏谱), the Zhang family in Qujiang (one volume 曲 江张氏家谱), Xu Yilun (one volume 徐义伦家谱), Liu Yan (one volume 刘晏 家谱), Liu Xing (one volume 刘兴家谱), Zhou Changqiu (one volume 周长球 家谱), the Yang family (one volume and their cemetery records 杨氏家谱状并 墓记), the Yang clan (one volume杨氏谱), the Xie clan (one volume谢氏谱), the Su clan (one volume苏氏谱), the Shi clan (one volume 施氏家谱), the Wan clan (one volume 万氏家谱), the Fu clan in Beidi (one volume北地傅氏谱), the Zheng clan in Xingyang (one volume 荥阳郑氏家谱), the Dou clan (one volume 窦氏家谱), Xian Yu (one volume 鲜于氏家谱), the Li clan in Zhaojun (two volumes 赵郡李氏家谱), Ji Wangshen (one volume 纪王慎家谱), Jiang Wangyun (one volume 蒋王恽家谱), the Li clan (one volume 李氏房从谱), the Wei clan (one volume 韦氏诸房略), and the Yang clan (one volume 杨氏枝分

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谱). In addition, there were also Tang Dynasty genealogies with titles such as the Yang Clan Bloodline (杨氏血脉谱), the Xue Clan Bloodline (薜氏血脉谱) and the Zhang Clan Bloodline (张氏血脉谱—Unearthed Epitaph). We can see that many of the genealogies quoted above were not very long, and that most were single volumes. They were predominantly simple, pedigree charts and they were written separately without any miscellaneous content. 3. Narratives. The term “narrative” was first used in the Tang Dynasty. Narratives seemed to take the form of a report to the government. They detailed family members’ official status and then briefly narrated each generation in a chart. The Yuan He Xing Cuan cited the narratives of the following families: Pang (one volume 庞氏家状), Lu Qian (three volumes 唐左常侍卢虔家状), the Yu clans in Jiangling (three volumes 江陵于氏家状), Qijun Licheng (three volumes 齐郡历城于氏家状) and Chang’an (three volumes 长安于氏家状), the Su clan in Zhaojun (three volumes 赵郡苏氏家状), the Chen clan in Wudang (three volumes 武当陈氏家状), the Xin clan in Xiadao (three volumes 狭道辛氏家 状), the Yuan clan in Hedong (four volumes 河东袁氏家状), the Han clans in Hedong (four volumes 河东韩氏家状) and Guangling (four volumes 广陵韩氏 家状), the Yan clan in Nanchang (four volumes 南昌颜氏家状), Niu Fengji (five volumes 春官侍郎牛风及家状), and the Hou clans in Dantu (five volumes 丹 徒侯氏家状) and Jiangjun (five volumes 绛郡侯氏家状).32

5.6 Famous Genealogists Both official and private genealogies developed considerably during the Tang Dynasty. The Tang Ren Dian唐人典 (Tang Dynasty Classics), edited by the Tang people, was split into 12 categories, and the twelfth of these was genealogy. This showed that genealogical compilations were popular at the time. Liu Zhiji, a famous historian, once advocated that genealogies should become a part of the nation’s history. This showed how valuable the Tang Dynasty regarded genealogies, and subsequently, genealogies rapidly developed. Famous genealogists were as important as the large number of genealogical works produced during the Tang Dynasty. Liu Fang made some comments on eight of his fellow genealogists during the reign of Emperor Suzong (756–761). He said: “Lu Jingchun could have been regarded as the number one genealogist during the most prosperous era of the Tang Dynasty, followed by Liu Chong and Wei Shu. Li Shousu was also an expert in surnames. There then appeared another group of well-known genealogists: Li Gong ‘an, Xiao Yingshi, Yin Yin and Kong Zhi.”33 There were also a number of famous historians such as Gao Shilian, who edited the Shi Zu Zhi, Lin Bao, who edited the Yuan He Xing Zuan, Liu Jing (the grandson of Liu Fang), who Guo Feng 郭锋. The compilation of genealogy in Jin and Tang Dynasties 晋唐时期的谱牒修 撰. The Journal of Chinese Social and Economic History 中国社会经济史研究, 1995 (1). 33 Liu Chong Zhuan 柳冲传 (The life of Liu Chong). In The Xin Tang Shu, Vol. 199. 32

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compiled the Xu Pu, and Liu Zhiji, who compiled 15 volumes of the Liu Family History. In his article ‘A Brief History of Chinese Genealogy’, Pan Guangdan listed a number of famous Tang Dynasty genealogists and their works as follows (Table 5.2): From the above list, we can see that “there were many Tang Dynasty genealogists. We will examine them in three periods: the early, middle and late Tang Dynasty.” In the early Tang Dynasty, the main genealogists were Lu Jingchun and Liu Chong. Lu Jingchun (?–697) was born in Linqing, Beizhou (now Shandong province). At the end of the Zhenguan era (627–649), Lu became the Adjutant of Shenzhou. During Wu Zetian’s reign (690–692), he was first the Directorate of Ceremonials and then the Remonstrance Secretary. He studied national history and became an Academician at the Chongxian Academy. “Lu Jingchun did extraordinary, genealogical work and he Table 5.2 Famous Tang Dynasty genealogists and their works Dynasty

Famous Genealogists

Tang

Lu Jingchun

Works Zhu Xing Lue Ji (20 volumes) Yi Guan Pu (60 volumes)

Tang

Liu Chong

Da Tang Xing Zu Xi Lu (several co-authors)

Tang

Wei Shu

Kai Yuan Pu (20 volumes) Da Tang Shi Si Jia Gui Zu (1 volume, co-author: Wu Jing) Guo Chao Zai Xiang Jia Zu (1 volume, co-author: Xiao Yingshi) Bai Jia Pu Li (3 volumes)

Tang

Liu Zhiji

Liu Shi Jia Shi (15 volumes) Liu Shi Pu Kao (3 volumes)

Tang

Kong Zhi

Bai Jia Lei Li (several volumes) Xing Shi Za Lu (1 volume)

Tang

Li Qu

Da Tang Huang Shi Xi Pu (1 volume) Tang Huang Shi Wei Cheng Lu (1 volume) Huang Tang Yu Die (110 volumes, co-author: Lin Bao)

Tang

Li Kuangwen

Tian Huang Yuan Pai (1 volume) Sheng Tang Xie Ri Lu (1 volume) Yu Die Xing Lou (1 volume) Li Shi Fang Cong Pu (1 volume) Huang Sun Jun Wang Pu (1 volume) Yuan He Xian Zhu Pu (1 volume) Li Shi Jia Pu (1 volume)

Tang

Li Bao

Yuan He Xing Cuan (10 volumes)

Tang

Liu Fang

Yong Tai Xin Pu (20 volumes)

Tang

Liu Jing

Xu (Yong Tai) Pu (10 volumes)

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was venerated as a guru by later generations in this field.”34 He wrote 60 volumes of the Yi Guan Pu 衣冠谱 (Official Genealogies) and 20 volumes of the Zhu Xing Lue Ji 著姓略记 (A Brief Account of Family Names). These works greatly influenced the development of genealogical study during the Tang Dynasty, and explain why Liu Fang regarded Lu as the greatest genealogist of his time. The Xin Tang Shu said: “During the early Tang Dynasty, only Lu Jingchun was deemed a famous genealogist. Later on, Liu Chong, Wei Shu, Xiao Yingshi and Kong Zhi wrote several great books as well, but they all followed in Lu’s footsteps.”35 Liu Chong (?–717) was born in the Yu Township, Puzhou (now Shanxi Province). “Liu Chong was very knowledgeable, and was especially proficient in genealogy; he was second only to Lu Jingchun in fame”. During Emperor Zhongzong’s Jinglong reign (707–710), “Liu Chong became a policy advisor and he was in charge of compiling the nation’s history”.36 During the first year of Emperor Zhongzong’s reign (705), he was involved in compiling the Xing Zu Xi Lu 姓族系录 (Detailed Records of the Origins of Surnames and Growth of Clans). It was completed during the second year of Emperor Xuanzong’s reign (713) and was finalized the following year (714). In total, it spanned 200 volumes. During the middle of the Tang Dynasty, the main genealogists were Wei Shu and Liu Fang. Wei Shu (?–757) was born in Wannian, Jingzhao (now Xi ‘an, Shaanxi Province). During the fifth year of Emperor Xuanzong’s Kaiyuan reign (717), he was commissioned to compile a book in the Secret Pavilion. “Wei Shu loved studying genealogy. While he was working in the Secret Pavilion, he read Liu Chong’s 200-volume Xing Zu Xi Lu that was stored there. He transcribed all of the volumes by himself. Subsequently, he also completed 20 volumes of the Kai Yuan Pu 开元谱(Genealogies of the Kaiyuan Era).”37 Wei Shu made significant achievements and he was highly regarded in the field of genealogy. Liu Fang was a fellow genealogist who had many academic interactions with Wei Shu. He was born in Hedong, Puzhou (now Shanxi Province). He entered official circles during the late Kaiyuan era of Emperor Xuanzong’s reign, and he was mainly involved in organizing historical compilations. Liu Fang was an excellent genealogist and he wrote 20 volumes of a royal genealogy, which later became known as the Yong Tai Xin Pu 永泰新谱 (New Yongtai Genealogy). The famous genealogists of the late Tang Dynasty included Liu Jing, Li Qu and Lin Bao. Liu Jing was the grandson of Liu Fang. He was a member of the Imperial College between the years 825 and 827, and he became a Presented Scholar. He was a royal LU Jingchun Zhuan 路敬淳传 (The life of Lu Jingchun). Confucianism (Part 2). In the Jiu Tang Shu, Vol. 189. 35 LU Jingchun Zhuan 路敬淳传 (The life of Lu Jingchun). Confucianism (Part 2). In the Jiu Tang Shu, Vol. 199. 36 LU Jingchun Zhuan 路敬淳传 (The life of Lu Jingchun). Confucianism (Part 2). In the Jiu Tang Shu, Vol. 189. 37 Wei Shu Zhuan 韦述传 (The life of Wei Shu). In the Jiu Tang Shu, Vol. 102. 34

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scribe three times. During the fourth year of the Kaicheng era (839), he was ordered to revise the Xu Huang Shi Yong Tai Xin Pu 续皇室永泰新谱(Continuation of the New Yongtai Genealogy). Liu Jing became accomplished not necessarily because he was good at genealogy, but because the New Yongtai Genealogy was his grandfather’s work. Nevertheless, he inherited his grandfather’s ambition and fulfilled Emperor Wenzong’s task. After the Tang Dynasty, genealogical study saw a declining trend. Lin Bao and Li Qu were the two leading figures in the Tang Dynasty. Lin Bao was especially famous for his knowledge of genealogies during the late Tang Dynasty. He wrote ten volumes of the Yuan He Xing Zuan during Emperor Xianzong’s reign. During the second year of Emperor Wenzong’s reign (837), Lin Bao and Li Qu jointly wrote 110 volumes of the Huang Tang Yu Die. This was the last, large-scale, official Tang Dynasty compilation. During the fourth year of the Kaicheng era (839), Li Qu was commissioned to compile the Empress’ Genealogy. He also wrote a volume of the Da Tang Huang Shi Xin Pu 大唐皇室新谱 (The New Genealogy of the Imperial Family during the Tang Dynasty). Lin Bao and Li Qu were the last genealogists before the role declined in the late Tang Dynasty. It is worth noting that the genealogists who were around before the Tang Dynasty—i.e. the Jia and Wang families in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties—compiled their genealogies to safeguard the old aristocracy, demonstrate their legal status, and further consolidate the emperor’s rule. However, the genealogists of the Tang Dynasty were mainly responsible for suppressing the old gentry, and praising the new gentry. They were geared towards demonstrating the legal status of the new gentry, and they further consolidated the rule of the new Tang Dynasty. Previously, genealogical experts were mainly involved in compiling and editing official records, and writing up the origins of hundreds of surnames. However, during the middle of the Tang Dynasty, private genealogies became prosperous, and famous genealogists not only took charge of official compilations, but they also directly compiled private genealogies. This shows that the Tang Dynasty was a critical period between past and future in the history of Chinese genealogies.

5.7 The Imperial Genealogies of the Tang Dynasty During the Tang Dynasty, imperial genealogies reached a new stage, and this became an important indication of how prosperous genealogies had become. The ways they were organized and compiled were innovated and developed. The Tang Dynasty inherited the practices of previous dynasties in terms of the methods they used for imperial genealogies.38 The Court of the Imperial Clan was standardized in the Tang Dynasty. This originated in the Qin Dynasty and had since been one of the central government’s nine courts. It was headed by the chief minister, who was usually an imperial prince, and they were assisted by two vice ministers, two Yang Dongquan. A brief account of the imperial genealogies of past dynasties 历代皇族谱牒述 略. Historical Archives 历史档案, 1988 (1).

38

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assistant directors, one note-taker, and an office manager. The chief minister was responsible for maintaining the imperial genealogies and monitoring the conduct of imperial family members.39 The court was principally staffed with competent imperial relatives. During the late Tang Dynasty, the Imperial Genealogy Office was specially set up in the Court of the Imperial Clan. It was headed by one director and one compiler. During the early Tang Dynasty, the Court of the Imperial Clan began to establish imperial genealogies. It preserved them pretty well. According to relevant records, during the Yongtai era (755–766), Liu Fang, an erudite genealogical specialist at the Court of Imperial Sacrifice, wrote 20 volumes of the Huang Shi Xin Pu. He wrote these based on the documents that had been maintained by the Court of the Imperial Clan. They were presented to the emperor by then-Chief Minister Li Qi. So we can infer that the genealogies preserved by the Court of the Imperial Clan were complete and intact for some 150 years—between the early Tang Dynasty’s Wude era and the Yongtai era. There were an abundance of imperial genealogies during the Tang Dynasty. In A Brief Account of the Imperial Genealogies of Past Dynasties, Yang Dongquan categorized them as follows: Genealogies dedicated to the emperors (“Yu Die”玉牒). During the second year of Daihe era (828), Li Qu (et al.) made the following report to the emperor: “The Emperor’s genealogy needs a title so that it can be handed down forever, like the dynastic history books.” So the Emperor called it the “Huang Tang Yu Die” (The Imperial Genealogy of the Tang Dynasty).40 This was the earliest record in Chinese history that the imperial genealogy was known as the “Yu Die”. Li Qu recommended that this type of genealogy should record only the emperor and not his family. During the first year of the Kaicheng era (836), Emperor Wenzong asked Chief Minister Li Hongze about the work of the Court of the Imperial Clan. Li Hongze said at the time: “The imperial genealogy has not been compiled or revised since the reign of Emperor Suzong (756)”. Therefore, Emperor Wenzong instructed them to write the Seven Emperors’ genealogies, which were finally completed during the second year of the Kaicheng era (837). Several important books including the Xin Tang Shu and the Tong Zhi made mention of Li Qu and Lin Ba’s 110-volume Huang Tang Yu Die. Genealogies dedicated to the empresses. The Tang Hui Yao 唐会要 (an institutional history of the Tang Dynasty) recorded that during the fourth year of the Kaiyuan era (716), the vice minister of the Dali Temple, Li Qu, was requested by the imperial court to compile the Empress’s genealogy.41 Genealogies for imperial princes and princesses. Volume One of the Sheng Tang Xie Ri Pu 圣唐偕日谱 recorded the names and dates of birth of all the emperors’ sons

Section 5.3 of Functioning officials 职官三. In Volume 44 of the Jiu Tang Shu. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. 40 The Imperial Clan 宗正寺. In Volume 65 of the Tang Hui Yao 唐会要 (an institutional history of the Tang Dynasty). 41 Empresses 皇后. In Volume 3 of the Tang Hui Yao. 39

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and daughters—from Emperor Gaozu down to Emperor Zhaozong.42 Volume One of the Huang Sun Jun Wang Pu 皇孙郡王谱 recorded the names of all grandsons that had been enfeoffed within domains—again, from Emperor Gaozu to Emperor Xianzong. Volume One of the Yuan He Xian Zhu Pu 元和县主谱 recorded the names of thirtynine princesses between the Yuanhe era (806) and the third year of the Kaicheng era (838). These three books, compiled by Tang Dynasty imperial genealogical officer Li Kuangwen, were handed down to the Song Dynasty. Genealogies for the whole imperial family. Books included: the Huang Zu Xi Tu Pu 皇族系图谱 (Pedigree Charts of the Imperial Family), written by Liu Fang at the command of Emperor Daizong (762–779) and 20 volumes of the Huang Shi Xin Pu, edited Liu Fang during the second year of the Yongtai era (766). During the fourth year of the Kaicheng era (839), Hanlin Academician Liu Jing, the grandson of Liu Fang, compiled ten volumes of the Xu Huang Shi Pu. This book followed the style of the Huang Shi Xin Pu and recorded all imperial genealogies dating back to Emperor Dezong’s reign (780). Li Qu wrote one volume of the Da Tang Huang Shi Xin Pu, which was subsequently included in the Song Dynasty General Catalogue of Chongwen 崇文总目. Li Qu and Lin Zan compiled one volume of the Huang Shi Wei Cheng Lu 皇室维城录 during the Wanli era (1573–1620) of the Ming Dynasty. It was included in Chen Di’s Catalogue Collection at Shishan Hall 世善堂藏书目 录, which indicated that it was passed down during the Ming Dynasty. To summarize, during the Tang Dynasty, new progress was made with imperial genealogical compilations. They inherited the practices of previous dynasties, but significant achievements were made with them and there were a variety of types. They contributed significantly to the prosperity of Chinese genealogies. Imperial genealogical compilations entered a new stage and these had a profound impact on those that were compiled in the Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Song Dynasty Chen Zhensun 陈振孙. Volume 8 of the Zhi Zhai Shu Lu Jie Ti 直斋书录解题. Shanghai: Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House, 1987: 228.

42

Chapter 6

The Transformation of Chinese Genealogies

The Song Dynasty was an important period of reform and transformation in China’s genealogical history.

6.1 Official Genealogical Compilations Were Abolished While Private Ones Blossomed During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties (220–589), and the Sui and Tang Dynasties (581–907), both official and private genealogies were prosperous. However, by the Song Dynasty, these trends had changed. First, official genealogies fell into desuetude. The patriarchal clan system and the aristocratic families suffered a fatal blow as a result of the further implementation of the imperial examination system, the late Tang Dynasty’s peasant uprising and the Five Dynasties’ constant wars. Official genealogies lost their practical value and significance, as they no longer showed the social status of the elite. Consequently, they faded away. Private genealogies subsequently prospered. However, they were destroyed by continuous wars within the Five Dynasties. Yet some were recovered, and they developed during Emperor Renzong’s Song Dynasty reign (1010–1063). They even became more prevalent during the Southern Song Dynasty. Many scholars have written about the changing trends in their works. During the Northern Song Dynasty, Ou Yangxiu wrote A Discussion with Wang Shenpu about Clan Genealogies,1 and Su Xun wrote The Su Clan Genealogy. During the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhang Jizhi 张即之 (1186–1263) wrote the Preface of the Li Clan Genealogy in Lanxi 蓝溪李氏宗谱 during the third year of the Jingding era (1262). During the Yuan Dynasty, Huang Jin 黄溍 (1277–1357) wrote the Preface of Clan Genealogies.2 During the Ming Dynasty, Gui Youguang 归有光 (1507–1571) 1 2

Wang Xing Bu (Surname Wang 王). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. Huang Xing Bu (Surname Huang 黄). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng.

© Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2023 H. Wang, The General Theory of China’s Genealogy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6377-5_6

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wrote The Weng Family Genealogy in Longyou 龙游翁氏家谱 and Wang Daokun 汪道昆 (1526.1593) wrote the Preface of the Yuan family Genealogy in Qianjiang.3 During the Qing Dynasty, Qian Daxin 钱大昕 (1728–1804) wrote the Shi Jia Zhai Yang Xin Lu 十驾斋养新录 (The Record of New Discoveries by Shijiazhai), and the Genealogies of the Xiao Family and the Jiang Family was compiled during the 30th year of the Daoguang era (1850). Modern writers Pan Guangdan and L˝u Chengzhi’s wrote A Brief History of Chinese Genealogy4 and A Brief History of the Chinese Patriarchal Clan System5 respectively. Now let’s analyze the main reasons why official genealogies faded away during the Song Dynasty. As the imperial examination system expanded, it became important that talented candidates were selected based on their skills in literary composition rather than their breeding. So genealogies became less important. As noted earlier, during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, officials were appointed based on the Nine Ranks by Rectifiers system, and the aristocratic families monopolized official positions. The children of the aristocracy, even ones with no talent, could serve as high-ranking officials. The aristocracy also paid close attention to finding a proper match in marriage. We know that family genealogies were used for official recruitment and marriage, and that the government set up special agencies to manage the genealogies of imperial and noble families. It was common practice for “the election of officials to be based on official genealogies, and marriages needed to be based on family genealogies”.6 During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the imperial examination system was introduced, and this came as a heavy blow to the old aristocracy. However, the imperial Li and Wu families had no aim of destroying the original elite (the Shandong families and the noble families of the southeast); they simply wanted to replace them and consolidate their own feudal rule. They attached great importance to official genealogies and created three largescale, official genealogical compilations. Although the imperial examination system suppressed the old gentry and prevented them from entering officialdom, people still attached great importance to the former elite’s status in terms of who they married and their habits. As a result, many senior officials and members of the Li royal family married into the old aristocratic families. During the Song Dynasty, the imperial examination system was perfected and was more rigorously adopted. After that, it was no longer the case that officials were appointed or marriages were carried out based on someone’s family background. The whole social atmosphere changed, and official genealogies lost their practical value. That is to say, by the Song Dynasty, the government had no need for institutions such as the genealogical agencies of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern, and Sui and Tang Dynasties. It didn’t need to collect,

Yuan Xing Bu (Surname Yuan 袁). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. Eastern Miscellany, 1929: 26 (1). 5 L˝ u Chengzhi. A Brief history of the Chinese patriarchal clan system. Longhu Bookstore, 1935: 37. 6 Zheng Qiao. Shi Zu Lue Xu. In the Tong Zhi, Vol. 25. 3 4

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compile or manage the genealogies of servicemen. Official genealogies came to an end. The endless wars of the late Tang Dynasty and Five Dynasties were another key reason why official genealogies faded away. The peasant uprising of the late Tang Dynasty lasted seven years. It started during the fifth year of the Qianfu era (878), when Huang Chao 黄巢 claimed the throne. Huang Chao led a million troops to conquer more than half of China, including Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Henan and Shaanxi. This came as a heavy blow to the aristocracy. Afterwards, China experienced frequent dynastic changes (the Later Liang, Tang, Jin, Han, and Zhou Dynasties, as well as the Ten Kingdoms) over a 54-year period (907–960). There were many wars, and families/clans moved frequently. Once again, this dealt the original aristocracy a heavy blow, and they disintegrated one after another. The wars of the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties also impacted ideas about marriage. Peoples’ family background was no longer valued, and a large number of official and private genealogies were lost or destroyed. The original copies of some official genealogies were maintained by the government. However, most were destroyed due to the wars and frequent regime changes. During the first year of Emperor Xizong’s reign (880), Huang Chao led his army into Chang’an, and they burned all the palaces and government offices. All of the ancient books, including genealogies, were torched, and more than 50,000 other books were destroyed. During the eighth year of the Kaibao era (975), the Northern Song army attacked Jinling, the capital city of the Southern Tang Dynasty. More than 10,000 books were torched. During the later Tang Dynasty, Dou Luge 豆卢 革 (?-927) said: “The documents in the Imperial Court to check one’s lineages are incomplete”,7 suggesting that genealogies themselves were either incomplete or had been lost. The copies of genealogies that had been collected and stored by individuals were either destroyed by the wars or lost along with their owners. During the Five Dynasties, Doulu Ge asked palace attendant Guo Chongtao 郭崇韬, “As the King of Fenyang (i.e. the famous Tang Dynasty general Guo Ziyi 郭子仪) came from Daibei and your ancestors came from Yanmen (then in Daibei), are you his descendant?” Guo Chongtao replied, “Our family’s genealogy was lost during the war. My father told me that I am a great-grandson of the King of Fenyang.”8 But Guo Chongtao was unable to confirm this himself. This showed that there were heavy genealogical losses during the war. By the Song Dynasty, official compilations of genealogies were no longer necessary for ensuring official appointments or marriages. And because many old genealogies had been lost, the government had no means for compiling these genealogies again even if it intended to. Official genealogies inevitably fell into desuetude.

Doulu Ge Zhuan (The life of Doulu Ge 豆卢革传). In the Xin Wu Dai Shi (A new history of the Five Dynasties 新五代史), Vol. 28. 8 Guo Chongtao Zhuan (The life of Guo Chongtao 郭崇韬传). In the Jiu Wu Dai Shi (An old history of the Five Dynasties 旧五代史), Vol. 57. 7

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There were many reasons why private genealogies flourished during the Song Dynasty. The first is that the feudal government supported and advocated them. After the Song Dynasty, genealogies no longer functioned as career or marriagemaking documents. Instead, they had an educational purpose, and descendants used them to pay respects to their ancestors and find fellow clan members. By paying respects to their ancestors and consolidating clans, descendants ensured that their families were more cohesive. This was undoubtedly conducive to social stability. Therefore, the Song Dynasty government consolidated its rule by supporting and advocating private genealogical compilations. Chang Jianhua quoted a passage from the “Imperial edict of Emperor Zhenzong (998–1022) to order civil and military officials to compile genealogies during the Song Dynasty” in Volume One of The Liu Clan Genealogy in Yuanyi in Yichun, Jiangxi Province. The imperial edict showed that Emperor Zhenzong thought highly of family genealogies that had a long history. He asked his officials to narrate and make records of the origins of their ancestors, so that he could know how many great figures/families there were under his reign. It is generally believed that the private genealogical compilations of the Song Dynasty were influenced by Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun. However, this imperial edict predated Ouyang and Su’s compilations. Obviously, the private compilations of the Song Dynasty servicemen prospered mainly because the government widely advocated and supported private genealogies. Secondly, during the Song Dynasty, social/economic development, the prosperity of cities, and the rise of large clans all played a part in the promotion of private genealogical compilations. The Song Dynasty had a prosperous social economy, and an active commodity economy. The agriculture and handicraft industries developed, and there was more maritime trade. At that time, a number of major cities became prosperous. These included Chang ‘an, Kaifeng, Luoyang, Suzhou, Yangzhou, Hangzhou, Quanzhou and Guangzhou, and they attracted rich merchants from all over the world. The government shifted its economic center to the south, and establishing the capital in Hangzhou. The government had fierce enemies, and it had sluggish internal affairs. However, many towns in the south, especially in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, became increasingly prosperous due to social and economic development. As the annexation of rural land intensified and urban commerce became more prosperous, many large clans accumulated substantial wealth. Zhu Xi said at the time: “Today, many rich families occupy thousands of hectares of land; they are even richer than princes.”9 During the Southern Song Dynasty, the Zheng 郑 family in Pujiang set aside 250 µ of farmland for sacrifice. They set another 1500 µ of farmland aside and reserved it especially for their sons and daughters to use for marriage. We can say with some confidence that the Zheng family owned more than 10,000 µ.10

Collected works of Zhu Wen Gong 朱文公文集, Vol. 68. Xu Yangjie 徐杨杰. A history of the Chinese family system 中国家族制度史. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1992: 381.

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So while the old aristocracy gradually declined due to dwindling political support, many new, indigenous magnates rose due to economic prosperity. These families and township/county officials depended on each other. They had many relatives, and they attached great importance to genealogies. According to Wuyuan’s Cheng sub-clan genealogy, “A genealogy to a clan is like the history to a nation. Clans use genealogies to narrate their origins and to define the seniority of clansmen and the closeness of their kinship.” Zhang Zai 张载 (1020–1077) said: “To win the hearts and minds of the people, take in clan members and establish customs so that one knows his origin; a clan should establish pedigree charts and imperial clansman.”11 The economic strength of clans provided the necessary conditions for the compilation of genealogies. “As clans are large, there are many things that need to be recorded, so they need sufficient financial and human resources. Since the Southern Song Dynasty, the contents of clan genealogies have expanded rapidly and there have been a great number of works.”12 Thirdly, book printing became unprecedented during the Song Dynasty, and this meant that genealogical compilations became more prosperous. Before printing was invented, all books were copied by hand, which was timeconsuming, and laborious. It meant that many books were poor in quality, expensive and there were few copies of then. It was difficult to disseminate books, and there were few in circulation. Before the Tang and Song Dynasties, many important works—including genealogies—were lost was because they were copied by hand and few copies were available. According to relevant research, engraving was invented in China during the Tang Dynasty. Books could be easily copied by engraving lettering, and this meant that they could be printed and spread more widely. However, printing was in its infancy during the Tang Dynasty, and in some areas, there was limited content to inscribe. As a result, copying works was still the mainstream during the Tang Dynasty. Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms passed before book printing entered a new stage of development, and this was during the Song Dynasty. There became numerous printing businesses all over the country, and many places including Sichuan, Hangzhou, Fuzhou, Huizhou, Jiankang, and Bianliang became book carving centers with their own distinctive characteristics. The organizations that engraved books developed three systems for official engravings, square engravings and private engravings. At that time, many families opted for private engravings for their genealogies, and genealogical works were printed in order of how many houses/branches they had. The quality of printing genealogies improved significantly over time, and this meant that genealogical compilations also significantly developed. Fourthly, during the Song Dynasty, private genealogies also prospered due to some acts of corruption in the education system. Patriarchal clan system 宗法. Jing Xue Li Ku 经学理窟 (Assembled principles of classical Learning). In the Collected works of Zhang Zai 张载集. 12 Sheng Qingyi 盛清沂. On Song and Yuan genealogies and the establishment of the new patriarchal clan system 试论宋元族谱学与新宗法之创立. Minutes of The Second Asian Genealogy Academic Seminar. United Daily News Cultural Foundation National Studies Literature Museum of Taiwan, 1985. 11

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The imperial examination system became stricter and more standardized, yet the local education system became extremely corrupt. Sima Guang said: “After the Qingli era (1041), schools were set up nationwide; however, most of them only recruited idle officials as teachers, and they gave them private benefits. Most officials did not teach at all; instead, they spent all day playing with the children of rich families. Those who practiced prudence felt ashamed and did not want to get involved.”13 Due to the decline of schools, it became difficult to train talent. As a result, some bureaucrats, scholars, officials and indigenous magnates vigorously promoted a family-orientated education, and they either educated their children on how to be famous, or to learn a certain skill. There are many records of this in relevant Song Dynasty literature. Examples include The Chen Family’s School in Xukai 徐铠陈氏书堂记 in Volume 888 of The Quan Tang Wen 全唐文 (the Complete Tang Dynasty Literature), and Xu Xuan’s 徐铉 The Hu Family’s School in Hualin, Hongzhou 洪州华林胡氏书堂记 in Volume 28 of the Xu Gong Wen Ji 徐公文集 (Collected Works of Xu Xuan).14 At that time, family schools had to recruit students and establish school premises, and they also had to decide how to treat hired teachers. Because this was a public education affair that involved teaching the children of clan members, this was a subject that needed to be discussed with the whole clan. Specific regulations also needed to be made. Many family genealogies noted that there were specific provisions for private schools, charitable estates, and free schools. In his collected works, He Shan made reference to this kind of school. In the section on clan genealogy and family rules, he clearly stipulated that family schools needed to be staffed by head teachers, who were responsible for inviting teachers and friends to the school to develop skills.15 As a result, family-run private schools rapidly developed, and charity schools/institutes promoted the prosperity of clan genealogies.

6.2 The Five-Generation Pedigree Chart Established by Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun During the reign of Emperor Renzong (1023–1063), Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun, two of the eight Tang and Song Dynasty masters, compiled genealogies for their kin. These were the Ouyang Family Genealogy 欧阳氏谱图 and the Su Clan Genealogy 苏氏 族谱 respectively, and both authors introduced new objectives, principles, styles and methods. They met new requirements of the people by introducing new functions and 13

Sima Guang. Yi Gong Ju Zhuang. In the Sima Wen Zheng Gong Ji (Collected Works of Sima Guang 司马文正公集), Vol. 27. 14 Translator’s note: Xu Xuan 徐铉 (916–991), a poet during the Five Dynasties and the early Northern Song Dynasty. 15 Quoted from Gong Pengcheng’s genealogy and Neo-Confucianism in the Song dynasty 宋代 的族谱与理学. Minutes of The Second Asian Genealogy Academic Seminar. United Daily News Cultural Foundation National Studies Literature Museum of Taiwan, 1985.

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styles to their genealogies, and these vigorously boosted the development of private genealogies during the Song Dynasty. Ouyang Xiu wrote the Ouyang Family Genealogy during the Jiayou era (1056– 1063) of the Song Dynasty. Ouyang attached great importance to genealogy. In 1043, while he was editing the New Book of Tang, he designed four genealogical/annalistic tables and included them in the book. These tables revealed the bureaucratic hierarchy of the Tang administration, and the events/successions of grand councilors, powerful clans, and families. “In the ‘Grand Councilor’s Pedigree Chart’, he initiatively cited a wealth of private genealogical data and supplied the details of 369 grand councilors and 98 lineage organizations.”16 While he was editing the book, Ouyang found that some family/clan members were not even clear about their own lineage. Consequently, he decided to take the old family genealogy and make enquiries about certain individuals, so that future generations could understand their ancestors’ legacies. He managed to obtain volumes of genealogies that individuals had maintained, which were neither complete nor elegant in language. But he was able to use these to identify where there were contradictions, and to organize a list of pedigrees. During the social unrest of the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, many clans disintegrated, and genealogies were lost. The genealogical scholars of the Song Dynasty had no patterns or rules to follow, and had no choice but to make new ones.17 That was the case with Ouyang, which he elaborated upon in his article “A Discussion with Wang Shenpu about Clan Genealogies”.18 Ouyang Xiu undertook a historical task by inventing a new ‘Ouyang style pedigree chart’. He combined the styles of many history books and charts, and began recording his own genealogy, beginning with his ancestor Ouyang Wan, the Magistrate of Anfu. He described his family members’ migration history, their marriages, official positions, titles, posthumous names, births/deaths, and burial sites. He sought clarification on various peoples’ lineage and drew up pedigree charts. Thanks to these charts, he ultimately completed a new family genealogy that he could pass on to later generations. Ouyang’s pedigree chart was new to family genealogies. Each chart recorded the genealogical history of only five generations. A new chart would be created once the records of five generations were complete. The first pedigree chart descended five generations down from someone’s great-great-grandfather. Each great-greatgrandson then became the great-great-grandfather in a new pedigree chart, which then descended for another five generations, and so on. Ouyang used this method based on the rites of the Zhou Dynasty. These stipulated that only family members within five generations could be classed as “close”. Those beyond that needed to belong to a different chart. Ouyang was clearly passionate about providing concise facts and seeking to divide truth from fiction when it came to family lineage. We 16

Bao Yongjun and Cang Xiuliang. Ouyang Xiu’s Contributions to Genealogy. Social Science Front, 2007, 6. 17 Liang Zhouhan Zhuan 梁周翰传 (The Life of Liang Zhouhan). In the Song Shi (A history of the Song Dynasty), Vol. 439. 18 Wang Xing Bu (Surname Wang王). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng.

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can also see his thought process behind “making the details of distant relatives brief while making the close ones more detailed”. The purpose of writing this kind of genealogy was to carry forward the legacy of a family’s ancestors. In the Preface to The Ouyang Family Genealogy (see Fig. 6.1), Ouyang Xiu said: “The Ouyang family was prominent in Luling (now in Jiangxi Province), for three prosperous decades during the Song Dynasty. Four of my uncles became Presented Scholars. During the later three decades, I also, along with my two nephews, passed the exam [to become a Presented Scholar].” Ouyang family members repeatedly passed the imperial examinations and many entered officialdom. They inherited the legacy of their ancestors and followed the ethical code of Confucianism. In other words, they showed loyalty to the monarch, filial piety to their parents, were free from corruption, and learnt to sufficiently establish themselves. Ouyang Xiu hoped that the descendants of his family could inherit their ancestors’ virtues and honor their glory. He believed that if society as a whole compiled this kind of genealogy, they would respect their elders and ancestors more, care for their loved ones and the clans would ultimately be united”. He expressed this view in the Preface to the Wang Family Genealogy from Yuxi in Hengyang.19 Su Xun completed the Su Clan Genealogy during Emperor Renzong’s Zhihe reign (1054–1056). Su wrote this genealogy so that clansmen within the family ““wufu” “20 would read it and show better filial piety towards their parents and ancestors. His ultimate goal was to encourage people to respect their ancestors and become more united. Su Xun said in the Preface to the Su Clan Genealogy: “Alas! By reading this genealogy, people will develop the sentiments of filial piety and submissiveness. When these sentiments are not present, there is no celebration whenever a happy event occurs. There is no compassion when someone is troubled. When there are no celebrations, and no compassion, then [one’s relationship with others] is that of a stranger encountering another along the road. If we are brothers, and as brothers we came from the same, single body, but I look upon you as a stranger this is tragic. To be divided as such that we might become strangers even though we come from the same body—this is why I have compiled this genealogy.”21 Su Xun’s intention was, like OUYANG Xiu’s, to encourage people to respect and care for one another by understanding and subsequently compiling their genealogies. The Su Clan Genealogy included editorial principles, pedigree charts and biographies. Su Xun adopted a similar method to Ouyang Xiu, but he put more emphasis on the importance of siblings. He used horizontal and vertical lines to connect 19

Wang Xing Bu (Surname Wang王). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. Translator’s note: the “five degrees of mourning attire” (五服) not only mean the proper attire, but also the proper mourning rituals one should observe when a relative has died. This idea appeared in literature as early as the Rites of Zhou, and mourning rituals developed over the years. By the Qing Dynasty, it was set in law that there were five degrees, or grades of mourning according to the relationship one had with the deceased. The closer a person was, the higher a degree of mourning they needed to observe. Conventionally, clans adopted the five degrees of mourning, but they didn’t as strictly define the differences between close and distant relatives. 21 The preface to the genealogical principles of the Su clan genealogy 苏氏族谱·谱例序. In the Jia You Ji (Collected Works of Su Xun 嘉祐集), Vol. 14. 20

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Fig. 6.1 Ouyang Xiu’s manuscript in the preface to the Ouyang family genealogy

various siblings and the chart he used expanded from top to bottom and right to left. With regards the five generation principle, Su’s pedigree chart was even stricter than Ouyang’s. Ouyang’s and Su’s genealogies were much richer than those written in previous dynasties. The five-generation pedigree charts that they created prompted later generations to revise their genealogies. Su Xun quoted Ouyang Xiu in his Preface to the Su Clan Genealogy. “Both of us compiled genealogies not only to serve our own families, but also to serve as a sample so that others could revise their own genealogies.”22 Since Ouyang and Su were two of the famous “Eight Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties”, their works were very popular and had a great influence on later generations. “People followed in their footsteps and established family temples to worship their ancestors. They also compiled family genealogies to educate their clansmen on the order of seniority”.23

Su Xing Bu (Surname Su 苏). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. The Huang Family Genealogy in Xin’an 新安黄氏会通谱, 14th year of the Hongzhi era in the Ming Dynasty (1501).

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Many servicemen, having been inspired by Ouyang and Su, compiled new genealogies. Zeng Zhao 曾肇 compiled the Zeng Family Genealogy, Xu Yuan 许元 compiled the Xu Family Genealogy, Fan Zhongyan 范仲淹 compiled the Continuation of Family Genealogy, Wang Huiyou 王回有 compuled the Cui Family Genealogy in Qinghe, Zhu Changwen朱长文 compiled the Zhu Family Genealogy, and You Jiuyan游九言 compiled the You Family Genealogy. Wang Anshi王安石, Wen Tianxiang文天祥 and Huang Tingjian黄庭坚 also compiled genealogical works. Song Dynasty officials had to report to the Imperial Court and obtained approval before they could compile private genealogies. Song Dynasty writer Wang Zao 汪藻 stated in his Preface to the Chen Kangbo Genealogy: “The Minister of Personnel Chen Kangbo 陈 康伯 reported to the court and asked for permission to compile his family’s genealogy. The emperor granted his request and asked Wang Zao to write a preface to it.”24 With the popularity of Ouyang’s and Su’s pedigree charts, genealogies flourished and regular Song Dynasty civilians were also influenced by them. From official historical records we can see that official genealogies were largely abandoned in favor of private ones during the Song Dynasty. In the history section of the New Book of Tang, 95 types of genealogical book are listed, spanning 1617 volumes. In the History of the Song Dynasty, 110 types of genealogical book are listed, spanning 437 volumes. There were more types of genealogical book recorded in the History of Song than in the Tang Dynasty, but there were fewer volumes. The reason for this is that there were several official Tang Dynasty genealogies, including the 100-volume Shi Zu Zhi, the 200-volume Xing Shi Pu (also known as the Xing Shi Lu), the 200-volume Da Tang Xing Zu Xi Lu, the 712-volume Shi Ba Zhou Pu (Genealogies in Eighteen Commanderies), and the 110-volume Huang Tang Yu Die. There were 1322 volumes of official genealogies alone; however, during the Song Dynasty, there was no such official book. The Song Dynasty did not implement a system demanding that private genealogies needed to be submitted to the government; therefore, there were more than 110 types of genealogy that were scattered around and held by commoners.

6.3 Genealogical Reform in the Song Dynasty During the Song Dynasty, there were significant changes to how genealogies were compiled/revised, compared to those of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern, and Sui and Tang Dynasties. (1) Different purposes. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, genealogies mainly had a social and political function. They were used to select officials and find matches for marriage. However, many of the aristocratic families that were powerful during the Wei and Jin Dynasties declined during the Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties. By the 24

Chen Xing Bu (Surname Chen 陈). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng.

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Northern Song Dynasty, the social and political functions of genealogies had more or less disappeared. Instead, they had a moral, educational function, and taught people to revere their ancestors, unite with clan members, respect their elders and care for those they love. All of these traits were and are still considered outstanding virtues in Chinese culture. Many scholars have discussed the transformation of genealogical functions, including Pan Guangdan in A Brief History of Chinese Genealogy and Sheng Qingyi in the Current Style of Genealogical Compilation 当前编修家谱之 体例. It wasn’t only Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun that regarded their family genealogies as having a moral, educational function; other literati and servicemen at the time thought so too. “Song Dynasty celebrities including Wang Anshi, Wang Huiyou, Sima Guang, Zeng Zhao 曾肇 (1047–1107, a politician of the Northern Song Dynasty), Mao Jian 毛渐 (1036–1094, a Presented Scholar of the Northern Song Dynasty), You Zhu 游麈, Zhu Changwen, and Zhu Xi expressed similar ideas about why they were compiling family genealogies: to pay respect to their ancestors, and unite clans.”25 Du Zhengsheng said: “The genealogies that had existed before the Song Dynasty had all “been submitted to the government and were maintained by special agencies. They were used to select officials. Song and Yuan genealogies were privately compiled, and they aimed at strengthening the cohesion of clans. This was the key difference between the genealogies of the Song and Yuan Dynasties and those of previous dynasties.”26 We can find many similar discussions on these changes in the following books: the Hong Family Genealogy (written in Jiangcun during the eighth year of the Yongzheng era); Yuan Dynasty Zeng Di’s曾迪 Comments on Genealogies Privately Compiled by Song Dynasty Ministers27 ; Chen Kaixu’s 陈塏叙 Preface to the Continuation of the Cheng Family Genealogy (written in Shanhe, Qimen during the 15th year of the Yongle era, 1417); Zheng Xianmin’s 郑先民 Preface to the Wang Clan Genealogy (written during the Ming Dynasty),28 and Chen Tu’s 陈图 Preface to the Chen Family Genealogy (also written during the Ming Dynasty).29 To summarize, during the Song Dynasty, genealogies were compiled that had a new function and meant later generations had a brand new kind of genealogical book. (2) Changes in form. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and the Sui and Tang Dynasties, both official and private genealogies were compiled. But during the Song 25

Gong Pengcheng. Changes in the genealogies during the Tang and Song dynasties. Minutes of The First Asian Genealogy Academic Seminar. United Daily News Cultural Foundation National Studies Literature Museum of Taiwan, 1984. 26 Du Zhengsheng 杜正胜. On Traditional Families 传统家庭试论. Family and Society 家族与社 会, ed. Huang Kuanzhong 黄宽重 and Liu Zenggui 刘增贵. Beijing: China Encyclopedia Publishing House, 2005. 27 Quoting Sheng Qingyi’s On Song and Yuan genealogies and the establishment of the new patriarchal clan system. 28 Wang Xing Bu (Surname Wang 汪). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. 29 Chen Xing Bu (Surname Chen 陈). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng.

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Dynasty, official genealogies were abandoned, and private genealogies developed instead, and quickly. The imperial court no longer had a special agency to compile and manage genealogies. Genealogies instead became purely private affairs. Zhang Xuecheng, a well-known Qing Dynasty historian, mentioned this phenomenon in his works.30 He noted that during the Song Dynasty, a system gradually took shape for each family/clan to compile its own genealogy. There was a general consensus for this system and relevant management regulations at the time, according to records in the Zheng Family Genealogy in Shuangqiao and the Preface to the Revised Zheng Family Genealogy in Shuangqiao. In A Brief History of Chinese Genealogy, Pan Guangdan summarized the different forms of the genealogy during the Wei, Jin, Sui and Tang Dynasties, and the Song Dynasty. “Genealogies went from being official and openly accessible, to private and viewable to family members only. Before the Sui and Tang Dynasties, families needed to submit an extra copy of their genealogy to the government whenever they completed one. During the Tang Dynasty, the Chief Councilor was in charge of genealogical compilations. At that time, all genealogies were maintained by special agencies, and only officials had access. Some famous genealogists like Wang Hong and Liu Xiaobiao had a rare opportunity to glimpse their contents and used them as a guide on how to conduct themselves. They subsequently accomplished great works that inspired other people. Ordinary people, however, were not allowed to borrow, circulate or copy from the genealogies that were kept in people’s homes. After the Five Dynasties, the role of Genealogical Officer no longer existed. Consequently, families compiled and maintained their own genealogies, without seeking reference from others. They recorded their family pedigrees privately, without showing them to others. But people also lost interest in viewing genealogies outside their homes as well.” The private genealogies of the Song Dynasty were generally compiled by clansmen, so they preferred that compilers were respected and educated people from within their clan. Some, however, invited famous ministers or literati of the time to compile their genealogies. This happened with the Xu Clan Genealogy, which was compiled by Wang Anshi, and the Yan Family Genealogy, which was compiled by Wen Tianxiang. It was very common for families/clans to ask celebrities to write the preface or postscript to their family genealogies. (3) Changes in method. The pedigree charts were generally viewed as the most important thing in a genealogy. Before the Song Dynasty, genealogies started with a specific ancestor and descended down to the compiler himself. Genealogies were generally not unified over how many generations they included in one pedigree chart. Some included seven generations, some included six, and some five, etc. During the Song Dynasty, however, Ouyang Xiu and Sun Xun implemented a five-generation pedigree chart according to the principle of having “close relatives”, reflected in the “five degrees of mourning attire,

A study on the revision of historical works 论修史籍考要略. In the Zhang Xucheng’s Work 章 氏遗书, Vol. 5. Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1982.

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or “wufu”, and “nine grades of relationships, or jiuzu”.31 The first chart started with the founding ancestor and descended down for four additional generations. The fifth generation descendants in the first chart then became the first ancestors in a second chart, and these again, descended for four more generations. So altogether, two such charts would include nine generations of family members. Although some descendants of a patrilineal group or clan could have come from a common ancestor, they were arguably not as close as those who were included within the “nine grades of relationship” or “five degrees”. This method was standardized by Ouyang and Su after they reviewed earlier genealogical rules. They adapted them to the needs of the times for private genealogies, and they were extremely influential and were commonly adopted during the Song Dynasty. Later generations also used them, and this meant China entered a new stage of development, in terms of the methodology for genealogical compilations. Wen Tianxiang, a prominent national hero during the Southern Song Dynasty, said in his Postscript to the Li Family Genealogy that “clan genealogy was created by Ouyang and others followed his footsteps.” The Li Family Genealogy took the Su Clan Genealogy as a guide.32 Many other genealogical works produced during the Song and Ming Dynasties used the five-generation table. Those compiled during the Song Dynasty included: Wang Zao’s Preface to the Chen Kangbo Genealogy,33 the Hong Family Genealogy in Guanyuan (compiled during the 53rd year of the Ganlong era), and Zhang Jun’s Preface to Chen’s Genealogy.34 Those compiled during the Ming Dynasty included Luo Hengxin’s Preface to the Wang Clan Genealogy in Nanyang, Chenghai,35 Zou Tonglu’s Preface to the Ning Family Genealogy in Sanyang,36 the Chen Clan Genealogy in Xianyuan, and the Jiang Clan Genealogy in Fenghua. From the above examples, we can clearly see that this method was profoundly influential during the Song Dynasty and beyond. (4) Changes in content. During the Song Dynasty, the contents of genealogies matured and became much richer. This was due to the popularity of private genealogies, their significant change in function, and the popularity of Ouyang’s and Sun’s “five-generation” pedigree styles. Zhang Jun wrote the Preface to the Chen Clan Genealogy for the Southern Song Dynasty Minister of Personnel, Chen Kangbo. It was included in the Shi Zu Dian 氏 族典 (Histories of clans): Chen Xing Bu 陈姓部 (Surname Chen). In the Gu Jin Tu 31

Translator’s note: The “nine grades of relationships” (九族) was an important concept when it came to applying laws or observing rituals. It refers to the nine generations from great-greatgrandfather down to great-great-grandchildren. 32 The Wen Shan Ji 文山集 (Collected works of Wen Tianxiang), Vol. 14. Taiwan: Commercial Press, 1986. 33 Chen Xing Bu (Surname Chen 陈). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. 34 Chen Xing Bu (Surname Chen 陈). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. 35 Wang Xing Bu (Surname Wang 王). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. 36 Ning Xing Bu (Surname Ning 宁). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng.

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Shu Ji Cheng 古今图书集成 (The Compendium of ancient and contemporary books). The preface summarized the genealogy’s five main contents as follows: the preface to the old genealogy, the origin of the family name, the social status family members enjoyed and where they lived, the pedigree chart, and members’ biographies. The pedigree chart followed Ouyang’s five-generation style. We can see that genealogies developed during the Song Dynasty based on the Ouyang and Su styles, and this has been backed up in other literature. Genealogies became more standardized in content and style, and they included tables, annals, diagrams, narratives, and principles. Preface: Described how the genealogy was compiled and/or renewed, the official positions and virtues of ancestors, and the significance of compiling the genealogy. Origin: Described the origin of the family surname and the family’s migration history. Principle: The basic principle behind compiling the genealogy. Pedigree chart: This followed Ouyang Xiu’s style and listed family members for five generations. Family members were listed in order of birth, and it was made clear where they stood to make an inheritance. Narratives: Immediate family members’ official positions, marriages, children, and dates of birth/death were briefly listed. Family instructions: Guidelines for descendants to follow. Clan property: Ancestral temples, tombs, charitable estates, etc. Biography: Recorded members of a clan who had become officials or were notable for good deeds/skills. Artistic works: Included Imperial Court and government edicts granted to the family/family members, and any poems/articles composed by family members, etc. Even though it wasn’t the case that every Song Dynasty family detailed all of the above contents in their genealogies, they were nevertheless richer in content than previous genealogical records. (5) Changes to how often genealogies were renewed. Before the Song Dynasty, some genealogies were revised, but it was not common practice and revisions normally only happened after a long period of time. However, during the Song Dynasty, when the practice of compiling private genealogies was more common, people began revising their genealogies repeatedly. Zhu Xi, a neoConfucian master, said, “it is not filial to renew your family genealogy after more than three generations”.37 He further promoted the popularity of renewing genealogical records after the Southern Song Dynasty. Some revised genealogies were based on those that had been written in previous dynasties. The Jiang Clan Genealogy in Jiyang 济阳江氏宗谱 (1929) outlined how the Jiang clan had compiled and revised their genealogies during the Han, Jin, Sui and Tang, and Song Dynasties. During the Ming Dynasty, Wang Daokun wrote the Preface to the Genealogies of Sixteen Clans, and summarized the history of the Wang family’s genealogies. “Our genealogy is an old one. It originated in the Jin Dynasty 37

The Xie Family Branch Genealogy in Fanchuan, Shexi, 1925.

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and was completed during the Tang Dynasty. By the Song Dynasty, only the most recent generations of relatives were listed on it.” Some revised genealogies were completed after the Northern Song Dynasty. According to the Cao Clan Genealogy in Xiuning, the Cao family compiled and revised their genealogies four times between the Zhihe Bingshen era (1056) and the Shaoxi Xinhai era (1191). They renewed their genealogies on average every 30 years. The Wang Clan Genealogy in Wukou Wuyuan 婺源武口王氏宗谱 was revised during the third year of the Jiayou era (1058) in the Northern Song Dynasty. Revisions were made to the nine-generation charts and pedigree charts during the fourth year of the Jiading era (1211) in the Southern Song Dynasty. Genealogies of the Xiao Family and the Jiang Family in Wuyuan, Jiangxi (compiled during the 30th year of the Daoguang era) (1850) recorded how it was revised during the Yuanfeng era (1078) of Northern Song Dynasty. It was revised a second time during the Renwu era (1222) and a third time during the Xianchun Bingyin era (1266) of Southern Song Dynasty. There were also some genealogies that were compiled and revised during the Southern Song Dynasty. One example is the Sun Clan Genealogy in Fengcheng, Jiangxi Province, which was completed during the nineth year of the Gandao era (1173), and then revised twice respectively in 1199 and 1265. Over a century, the Sun clan revised their genealogies three times.38 Revisions were more common and frequent after the Southern Song Dynasty. While these genealogies were being revised, there became a number of “branch genealogies”. As Qing scholar Qian Daxin pointed out, as compiling genealogies became increasingly common,39 a problem occurred. Clans multiplied and developed, meaning that there were more and more descendants. It was too complicated to record all of their genealogical information (dates of birth/death, official positions, and place of burial). So in order to solve this problem, the compiler generally adopted the principle put forward by Ouyang Xiu, i.e. by taking the compiler as the central point, and specifically recording those who were close to him in detail. Only brief information was given about distant relatives or they were ignored altogether. This was where branch genealogies appeared. Examples included the Sima Sub-clan Genealogy, the Qi Liang Sub-clan Genealogy, and the Yan Guo Gong Zheng Sub Clan Genealogy, all documented in the Yi Wen Zhi of The History of the Song Dynasty. To summarize, the Song Dynasty was in an important period of reform and transformation for genealogies. During this period, basic frameworks were established for later generations, and an important foundation was laid for perfecting and popularizing genealogy during the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, and the Republic of China.

WU Cheng 吴澄. The preface to the revised Su family genealogy in Fengcheng 丰城孙氏续谱 序. In the Wu Wen Zheng Gong Ji 吴文正公集 (Collected works of Master Wu Wenzheng), Vol. 32. Shanghai: Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House, 1992. 39 Qian Daxin. Shi Jia Zhai Yang Xin Lu. Nanjing: Jiangsu Chinese Classics Publishing House, 2000: 246. 38

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6.4 Zhu Xi’s Thoughts on Genealogy Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200), whose courtesy name was Yuanhui 元晦 (or Zhonghui 仲晦), whose literary name was Ziyang 紫阳, and who was self-titled Hui’an 晦 庵 (or Huiweng 晦翁), was born in the Southern Song Dynasty. His family came from Wuyuan County, Huizhou (now in Jiangxi Province). Zhu was a preeminent Neo-Confucianism (“lixue” 理学) Master, and his ideas considerably influenced traditional Chinese thought and culture. He was a scholar with a vast knowledge of the classics, commentaries, histories, astronomy, and geography, and this was reflected in his large number of works. Zhu attached great importance to genealogical compilations. He not only personally compiled his family’s genealogy—The Zhu Family Genealogy in Chayuan, Wuyuan 婺源茶院朱氏世谱, he was also invited to write the prefaces of more than ten other kinds of genealogy. Zhu made a number of important statements on the purpose, principle, content and compiler of these genealogies, and his genealogical thoughts are an important part of the study of Neo-Confucianism. The Complete Works of Master Zhu 朱子全书 was edited by Zhu Jieren, Yan Zuozhi and Liu Yongxiang. It took ten years to publish, but was finally released in 2003. It is by far the most complete collection of Zhu Xi’s writings, and it spans 27 volumes. It includes more than 10 genealogical prefaces written by Zhu Xi. They are as follows: The Zhu Family Genealogy in Chayuan, Wuyuan, revised during the Republic of China; The Preface to the Zhou Family Genealogy in Ziyan 紫严周氏谱序, published in the second year of the Qingyuan era (1196); The Original Preface to the Xin Clan Genealogy in Jinan 济南辛氏宗谱原序, published during the middle of the Qingyuan era (1196.1201); The Old Preface to the Xin Clan Genealogy in Jinan 济南辛氏宗谱旧序, published during the middle of the Qingyuan era (1196.1201); The Preface to the Wang Clan Genealogy 王氏族谱序, published during the Qianlong era in the Annal of Xianyou County, Vol 48; The Preface to the Hu Clan Genealogy 胡氏族谱叙, published in the Shi Zu Dian in the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng, Vol. 86 and the Annal of Wen’an County, Vol. 9. Zhu Xi was a famous scholar, so many Ming and Qing Dynasty genealogical compilers imitated the method and style he used in his prefaces. They did this to raise the value of their own family genealogies. As a result, we must carefully examine the many so-called “Zhu Xi’s prefaces” to identify which ones are fakes and which are genuine. The editors of the Complete Works of Master Zhu carried out extensive research into Zhu Xi’s official posts, work and life experience during the years that genealogies were compiled, and they believe that the prefaces noted below were not genuine: The Original Preface to the Revised Zheng Family Genealogy in Xingyang 重修 荥阳郑氏世谱原序, compiled during the Republic of China;

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The Preface to the Huang Clan Genealogy 黄氏宗谱序, published in the Huang Clan Genealogy in Duchang; The Preface to the Wu Clan Genealogy 吴氏族谱序, published in the Seventh Edition of the Wu Clan Genealogy in Shicheng; The Preface to the Zhu Family Lineage in Peiguo 沛国朱氏世系源流序, published in the Zhu Clan Genealogy in Peiguo, Vol. 1; The Preface to the Luo Clan Genealogy in Chengkan 呈坎罗氏宗谱序, published in the Cong Chuan Zu Zheng Lu; The Old Preface to the Revised Xiang Clan Genealogy 项氏重修宗谱旧序, published in the Revised Xiang Clan Genealogy, Vol. 1; The Original Preface to the Dai Clan Genealogy in Zhugang 竹冈戴氏宗谱原 序, published during the Guangxu era in Yu Huan Ting Zhi, Vol. 13. The Old Preface to the Jiang Clan Genealogy in Nancheng, Xianyi 仙邑南城蒋 氏宗谱旧序, published in the Jiang Clan Genealogy in Nancheng, Xianyi. These editors took their editing and proofreading work extremely seriously, and their work should be regarded as credible. They believe they have not obtained all of the prefaces that Zhu Xi wrote, because he did not leave behind a manuscript when he was invited to write these for close relatives and friends. At that time, there were a limited number of printed copies of genealogies. Some were only preserved in their original form by family members. Few outsiders were permitted access to them, and so it’s impossible for the editors of the Complete Works of Master Zhu to have collected every preface that Zhu Xi wrote. When I was selecting and collecting Chinese genealogical data in 2007, I found more than 40 articles written by Zhu Xi, including prefaces, postscripts, biographies, epitaphs, letters, and encomiums for portraits. These came from genealogies in various different regions and during various different periods. Most were not included in the Complete Works of Master Zhu that was published in 2003, here are some of them: The Original Preface to the Clan Genealogy in Xiangcheng 芗城族谱原序, published in 1998; The Shi Clan Genealogy Prefaced by Wengong 文公赠石氏宗谱序, published in the 50th year of the Qianlong era (1785); The Postscript of the General Genealogy of the Ouyang Family 欧阳氏通谱跋, published in the Eighth Edition of the Ouyang Clan Genealogy in Lianjiang, Jiangxi in 1993; The Chen Clan Genealogy Prefaced by Zhu Xi 陈氏宗谱朱熹序, published in the Chen Clan Genealogy in Hengshan, Hunan in 2001; The Preface to the Genealogy of the Prominent Family in Yue State 越国世家乘 序, published in the Wang Family Genealogy in Luohe, Huainan in 2002; The Preface to the Revised Genealogy during the Qingyuan Era 庆元续修谱序, published in the Ge Clan Genealogy in Quantang, Anhui in 1911; The Preface to the Wang Clan Genealogy汪氏大族谱序, published in the Revised Wang Subclan Genealogy in Shexi, Anhui in 1919; The Preface to the Clan Genealogy 宗谱序, published in the Pan Clan Genealogy in Xin’an and compiled during the Wanli Era (1573–1620).

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Comprehensive analysis into Zhu Xi’s original articles shows that he had profound and comprehensive ideas about genealogy. Firstly, Zhu Xi wrote the prefaces of mainly famous and powerful clans/families. Those can be divided into four categories: (1) Zhu Xi’s own family genealogy. Zhu Xi compiled The Zhu Family Genealogy in Chayuan, Wuyuan for his family. He prefaced it with a short account of why he was compiling this genealogy. During the Chunxi Bingshen era (1176), when Zhu was 46 years old, he returned to Wuyuan, his hometown in Huizhou, and he visited the tombs of his ancestors, only to find that all of them had gone. He read his family’s old genealogy and felt that he had become estranged from his ancestors. Their bones and flesh had been scattered because their tombs had not been carefully preserved. As a result, he decided to renew his family’s genealogy by revising the lineage so that he could show it to his clan.40 (2) Celebrities. Zhu Xi spoke highly of the Wang 汪 family in Xin’an (now in Anhui Province). Six Presented Scholars were born and raised in this family over six generations, and this was unprecedented at the time. Zhu Xi wrote a preface to the Wang clan genealogy, saying: “no other clans compare to the Wang clan in terms of nobility and wealth.”41 Zhu also wrote a Preface to the Wang 王 Clan Genealogy for much the same reason.42 (3) Virtuous families. In his preface to Ouyang Xiu’s family genealogy, Zhu Xi wrote that the Ouyang family was a powerful and influential family, and that they had lived for some 300 years in Jizhou since the Tang and Song Dynasties. He particularly emphasized that they were a family of virtue.43 (4) His research peers. Zhu Xi wrote a number of prefaces for the peers and friends that studied Neo-Confucianism with him. During the second year of the Qingyuan era (1196), Zhu wrote a preface for the Ge 葛 family based in Jixi (in Anhui), because some of its descendants had conducted research with Zhu into Neo-Confucianism. Zhu got to know a lot about the family so that he had enough to write.44 He also wrote prefaces for other peers from the Shi 石 family45 in Zhejiang and the Pan 潘 family46 in Anhui. From the above we can see that the great Neo-Confucian master Zhu Xi actively compiled genealogies for his family, and he was glad to write genealogies for many famous families. He was in contact with many of the famous families of the time, The Zhu Wulin clan genealogy in Ziyang 紫阳朱氏武林派宗谱, the eighth year of the Jiaqing era (1803). 41 The Revised Wang Subclan Genealogy in Shexi 歙西汪氏重修支谱, 1919. 42 Complete Works of Master Zhu 朱子全书, Vol. 26. Shanghai: Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House & Hefei: Anhui Education Publishing House, 2003. 43 The eighth edition of the Ouyang clan genealogy in Lianjiang, Anyuan, Jiangxi 江西安远濂江 欧阳氏八修族谱, 1993. 44 The Ge clan genealogy in Quantang, Jixi, Anhui 安徽绩溪泉塘葛氏宗谱, 1911. 45 The Shi clan genealogy in Nanming, Xinchang, Zhejiang 浙江新昌南明石氏宗谱, the 50th year of the Qianlong era (1785). 46 The Pan clan genealogy in Xin’an 新安潘氏宗谱, Wanli Era (1573–1620). 40

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and he attached great importance to genealogies as cultural documents. Zhu Xi’s special emphasis on writing genealogical prefaces for the families of peers/friends who studied Neo-Confucianism was a result of his lifelong advocacy for Confucian orthodoxy. Secondly, in his prefaces, Zhu Xi made practical and realistic expositions on the origin of each family’s/clan’s surname, the progenitor, and the first ancestor to move to the family’s given location, along with any other related family migration history. He had a disdain for families who had compiled their genealogies using fraudulent documents, and those who falsely claimed celebrities as ancestors/clung to the dignitaries.47 Zhu always tried his best to overcome these malpractices by conducting thorough research into the origin of family names and establishing a solid basis for each genealogy, before he wrote his prefaces. Since Zhu collected data from various sources, he did not give a general analysis; instead, he introduced each surname according to what he could ascertain to be the actual situation of each family. In his preface to the Wang 汪 family genealogy, Zhu wrote a comprehensive account of the origin of the family surname, the family’s founding ancestor and their pedigree chart.48 In his preface to the Shi 石 family genealogy, Zhu analyzed the origin of the family name and the family’s migration history.49 Where there were genealogies that contained the same family names, Zhu Xi explained their origin according to different sources and actual situations. Examples are present in the Preface to the Hu Clan Genealogy50 and the Original Preface to the Xiangcheng Clan Genealogy.51 It was difficult to trace the origin of some family names, so instead of introducing the progenitor, Zhu Xi provided genealogical information about the first ancestor who had migrated to the family’s present location. He then detailed the history of the family. For example, when Zhu wrote his own family’s genealogy, he listed Zhu Huan as the first ancestor in his lineage chart, because he was the first Zhu family member who had moved to Chayuan.52 In the Preface to the Zhou Family Genealogy in Ziyan, Zhu Xi began by introducing the first ancestor who had migrated to Ziyan, and their previous migration history. The first ancestor of the Zhou family was Jin, who was also known by his courtesy name, The Shi clan genealogy prefaced by Wengong 文公赠石氏宗谱序, the Shi clan genealogy, Nanming, Xinchang, Zhejiang, the 50th year of the Qianlong era (1785). 48 The Preface to the Genealogy of the Prominent Family in Yue State 越国世家家乘序, published in the Wang Family Genealogy in Luohe, Huainan, Huaiyuan, Anhui 安徽怀远淮南洛河汪氏宗 谱 in 2002. 49 The Shi clan genealogy prefaced by Wengong, the Shi clan genealogy, Nanming, Xinchang, Zhejiang, the 50th year of the Qianlong era (1785). 50 Complete Works of Master Zhu, Vol. 26. Shanghai: Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House & Hefei: Anhui Education Publishing House, 2003. 51 The Original Preface to the Clan Genealogy in Xiangcheng, the 10th edition of the Hu Clan Genealogies in Anhua, Hunan, 1998. 52 The Zhu Family Genealogy in Chayuan, Wuyuan, Complete Works of Master Zhu, Vol. 26. Shanghai: Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House & Hefei: Anhui Education Publishing House, 2003. 47

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Tian Xi. The family came from Xiangfu (now in Henan Province). After Jin travelled with the Emperor to the south, he was appointed the Directorate of Education. He then moved the family to Zhuji (in Zhejiang Province).53 For some families, it was difficult to trace the progenitor and their migration history. When Zhu Xi was invited to write prefaces for their genealogies, he just gave a brief introduction to the family, and avoided talking about the origin of their surname. In the Postscript of the General Genealogy of the Ouyang Family, he simply said: “the Ouyang family has lived in Jizhou for some 300 years since the Tang and Song Dynasties”.54 In the Original Preface to the Xin Clan Genealogy in Jinan, Zhu Xi explained the profound meaning behind revising that genealogy. In the Old Preface to Jinan’s Xin Clan Genealogy, Zhu gave a vivid description of his travels with Xin Jiaxuan to the Wuyi Mountains. However, he only mentioned the origin of the surname Xin 辛 in one sentence55 ; he did not write anything about the family’s progenitor or the first ancestor who had migrated to the area at the time of writing. To summarize, what Zhu Xi wrote was based on facts and evidence. Thirdly, in all of his genealogical prefaces, Zhu Xi elaborated on how Chinese genealogies had risen and fallen, and how they had recovered and developed from the perspective of the establishment, following the abolition of the patriarchal clan system. Zhu Xi believed that during the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties when patriarchal feudalism was practiced, a number of family names were created, and they were arranged clearly according to generational orders.56 After the King Ping of Zhou moved east to Luoyang, the patriarchal clan system was destroyed. This was when genealogy came into being, and the system of distinguishing generations was preserved.57 During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and the Sui and Tang Dynasties, genealogies were highly regarded, and they were developed.58 However, after the Tang Dynasty, only the genealogies of the rich and Confucian families were valued. But during the Song Dynasty, people, once again, attached great importance to genealogical compilations.59 Zhu Xi described this long process of Chinese genealogical development before the Song Dynasty. His descriptions were concise and comprehensive, and they 53

The Preface to the Zhou Family Genealogy in Ziyan, Complete Works of Master Zhu, Vol. 26. Shanghai: Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House & Hefei: Anhui Education Publishing House, 2003. 54 The eighth edition of the Ouyang clan genealogy in Lianjiang, Anyuan, Jiangxi, 1993. 55 Complete Works of Master Zhu, Vol. 26. Shanghai: Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House & Hefei: Anhui Education Publishing House, 2003. 56 The preface to the clan genealogy, the Pan clan genealogy in Xin’an, Wanli Era (1573–1620). 57 The Chen clan genealogy prefaced by Zhu Xi, the Chen clan genealogy in Hengshan, Hunan, 2001. 58 The preface to the Hu clan genealogy, Complete Works of Master Zhu, Vol. 26. Shanghai: Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House & Hefei: Anhui Education Publishing House, 2003. 59 The preface to the clan genealogy, the Pan clan genealogy in Xin’an, Wanli Era (1573–1620).

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conformed to the historic reality, thus shedding light on the evolution of Chinese genealogy. Fourthly, Zhu Xi elaborated on the purpose and significance of compiling genealogies in many of his prefaces. In the preface to the Ouyang family genealogy, Zhu Xi wrote: “genealogy shows the difference between the young and the old, and it is also a reminder of the hearts of the people.” He asked that people pay close attention to their customs and not forget their origins.60 Fifthly, Zhu Xi often made important expositions on the content, style and accomplishment of genealogical compilers. In the Preface to the Wang Clan Genealogy, he summed up the style and content of genealogies as “literature” and “lineage” consecutively and he further refined them.61 He believed these were key to compiling genealogies. Some scholars pointed out: “The prefaces written by Zhu Xi discovered so far have not involved the Ouyang Xiu or Su Xun style.”62 This is not the case. In fact, Zhu Xi praised so highly of their styles that he made mention of it many times when he wrote prefaces for these genealogies. For example, in the Original Preface to the Clan Genealogy in Xiangcheng, Zhu Xi said that only by implementing Ouyang and Su sytles can a genealogy serve the purpose of defining the seniority of clansmen and the closeness of their kinship, so that every member in the clan/family could have their proper position and contributions recognized. Zhu Xi said that the personnel in charge of compilations must have been—like himself—truth-seekers that had sought to keep their accounts realistic.63 He carefully researched the origin of his own family and how it had developed, and his spirit of seeking truth is commendable. To summarize, Zhu Xi made important expositions on how genealogies had evolved, along with their function, style, role and editing methods in many of his genealogical prefaces. This showed that he paid close attention to the cultural activities both civilians and officials participated in. The fact that he gave a large number of genealogies prefaces at that time, and provided substantive content, significant research and profound expositions, shows that he was a cultural celebrity during the dynasties that he was alive. Zhu Xi had a famous saying: “If a family has not compiled or revised their genealogy for three generations, they are not filial to their ancestors.”64 This has been widely quoted and used by many other compilers. Zhu Xi’s genealogical expositions were broad and profound, and they connected the past with the future. He enriched the theoretical treasure trove of Chinese genealogies, and 60

The eighth edition of the Ouyang clan genealogy in Lianjiang, Anyuan, Jiangxi, 1993. Complete Works of Master Zhu, Vol. 26. Shanghai: Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House & Hefei: Anhui Education Publishing House, 2003. 62 Lin Zhenli 林振礼. Exploring the prefaces written by Zhu Xi, 朱熹谱序发微. History of Chinese Philosophy 中国哲学史, 2001(1). 63 The Preface to the Revised Genealogy during the Qingyuan Era, published in the Ge Clan Genealogy in Quantang, Anhui in 1911. 64 Zhu Shuo 诸说. In the Wang clan genealogy in Pingyang, Xiuning, Anhui, the 22nd year of the Guangxu era (1896). 61

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exerted an important influence on how Chinese genealogies were compiled/revised after the Southern Song Dynasty. Zhu Xi’s genealogical ideas were closely related to his Neo-Confucian thoughts. His prefaces, along with the objects and content he chose to reference, were all consciously or unconsciously connected to Confucian orthodoxy. In his prefaces, Zhu Xi presented a model for all clans, that is the Wang clan in Xin’an. In the preface he wrote to the Wang clan genealogy, he fully affirmed the family’s ethics and lineage,65 but he also depicted the ideal world organized according to “natural principles” that Zhu Xi had pursued all his life.

6.5 Brief Introduction to the Gu Jin Xing Shi Shu Bian Zheng and the Shi Zu Lue in the Tong Zhi The most important Song Dynasty books about the origins of Chinese family names are Deng Mingshi’s Gu Jin Xing Shi Shu Bian Zheng 古今姓氏书辩证(A Critical Review of Old and New Books on Family Names) and Zheng Qiao’s Shi Zu Lue in the Tong Zhi 通志·氏族略 (The History of Family Clans in General Treatises). The Gu Jin Xing Shi Shu Bian Zheng was written by Song Dynasty scholar Deng Mingshi. It was supplemented by his son Chunnian and it spanned 40 volumes. The author included surnames that had been found in two old historical books: the Zuo Zhuan (The Commentary of Zuo Qiuming 左传) and the Guo Yu (Discourses of the States 国语). He divided them into sections according to different rhyming groups, and he used Song Dynasty family registries the Xi Ning Xing Zuan 熙宁姓纂 and the Song Bai Guan Gong Qing Jia Pu 宋百官公卿家谱 to cross-reference his book. He carried out detailed reviews and examinations, hence the title Gu Jin Xing Shi Shu Bian Zheng (A Critical Review of Old and New Books on Family Names). It took Deng Mingshi and his son some twenty years to complete this book—from the Zhenghe era of the Northern Song Dynasty, to the Shaoxing era of Southern Song Dynasty (1134). It is more detailed and accurate than any other book on family names. The original version has been lost; however, The Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) encyclopedia Yong Le Da Dian 永乐大典 contains fragmentary quotations from it. A more modern, reconstructed version of it was written during the Qianlong era of the Qing Dynasty (1736–1795) based on the Yong Le Da Dian. It contained—and still contains—40 volumes and it preserved the contents and style of the original book. Compared to other important historical works on Chinese family names including the Yuan He Xing Zuan 元和姓纂, the Zai Xiang Shi Xi Biao in the Xin Tang Shu 新 唐书·宰相世系表 and the Shi Zu Lue in the Tong Zhi 通志·氏族略, the Gu Jin Xing Shi Shu Bian Zheng had several, distinct advantages:

65

The Preface to the Wang Clan Genealogy, published in the Revised Wang Subclan Genealogy in Shexi, Anhui in 1919.

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(1) The Gu Jin Xing Shi Shu Bian Zheng extensively cited ancient documents on surnames. Pre-Qin and Han dynasties documents included the Shi Ben世本, the Feng Su Tong Yi 风俗通义, the Han Shu Ji Jie Yin Yi 汉书集解音义, Shi You’s Ji Jiu Pian 急就篇. The Wei, Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties documents included Ge Hong’s Shen Xian Zhuan (Biography of Immortals 神 仙传), Zhang Hua’s Bo Wu Zhi 博物志, Huangfu Mi’s Di Wang Shi Ji 帝王 世纪, Yu Yu ‘s Fu Xing Lu 复姓录, He Chengtian’s Xing Yuan 姓苑, Wang Jian’s Bai Jia Ji Pu 百家集谱, Jia Zhi’s Xing Shi Ying Xian Zhuan 姓氏英 贤传, Zhang Quan’s Nan Yan Lu南燕录, etc. Literature in the Tang Dynasty included Li Lishe’s Sheng Shi Pu 盛氏谱, Kong Zhi’s Xing Shi Za Lu 姓氏杂录 and Zhang Jiuling’s Xing Yuan Yun Pu姓源韵谱. Song Dynasty works included Zhen Zi’s Qian Xing Bian 千姓编, Shao Si’s Xing Jie 姓解, Cao Dazong’s Xing Yuan Yun Pu 姓源韵谱 and Deng Mingshi’s own book Chun Qiu Si Pu 春秋四 谱. Many of the above works had been destroyed or lost during the wars of past dynasties. He Chengtian’s Xing Yuan 姓苑, Jia Zhi’s Xing Shi Ying Xian Zhuan 姓氏英贤传, Zhang Jiuling’s Xing Yuan Yun Pu 姓源韵谱, and Caizhenzi’s Qian Xing Bian 千姓编 had all been lost before the Song and Yuan Dynasties. “Fortunately, these documents were preserved in the Gu Jin Xing Shi Shu Bian Zheng. Although some only contain fragmented quotations, they can still be used to compile or supplement other historical records. They are of great value and have helped to document and collate many other ancient books. They have also helped in studies of their circulation and authenticity.”66 (2) The Gu Jin Xing Shi Shu Bian Zheng documented some prominent families’ surnames, their origins and detailed information about their geographical history. The data quoted in it is more precisely than in similar works like the Yuan He Xing Zuan. To illustrate this point, here’s an example. The entry on the surname Wang 王 in the Yuan He Xing Zuan has long been lost. The one kept today is a supplement by Qing Dynasty writer Hong Ying, according to the Mi Ji Xin Shu 秘笈新书 (A New Book on the Secret Collections). This recorded that those surnamed Wang were mainly found in the following commentaries: Tianshui, Dongping, Xincai, Xinye, Shanyang, Zhongshan, Zhangwu, Donglai and Hedong. However, the Gu Jin Xing Shi Shu Bian Zheng quoted an original entry on Wang from the Yuan He Xing Zuan, saying that there were people surnamed Wang in 24 commentaries, including in Fengyi, Changsha, Jincheng, Guanghan, Guangling, Liaocheng, Chang’an, Gaoling, Henei, Hejian, Lantian, Shangdang, Yejun, Guangping, Huayin and Leling. This information from the original Yuan He Xing Zuan had clearly been lost during the Qing Dynasty, because Hong Ying had not found it. Looking at a modern edition of the Yuan He Xing Zuan, it can also be seen that there was little information on the surname Xiao 萧; however, the Gu Jin Xing Shi Shu Bian Zheng contains much more information on this family name. The Gu Jin Xing Shi Shu Bian Zheng also Wang Liping 王力平. Deng Mingshi and his Gu Jin Xing Shi Shu Bian Zheng 邓名世与古今姓 氏书辩证. Wenxian Quarterly 文献, 2006 (3).

66

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provided new historical material on ethnic minority surnames and the origin and distribution of surnames during the Northern and Southern Song Dynasties. These have helped fill gaps in historical records. (3) The Gu Jin Xing Shi Shu Bian Zheng helped add to historical records a considerable number of surnames that had not previously been documented in the Yuan He Xing Zuan, such as Peng 蓬, Gongqi公綦, Zong踨, Fenghou 逢侯, Shitu 施 屠, Ti提, Ti 梯, Qi 畦, Xihe 西河, Lin 邻, Fen 纷, Yan 鄢, Diao 凋, He 禾, Fang 防, Xiang 香, Chang 长, Kuang 狂, Rongqi 荣锜, Chou 稠, Nan 男, Youshui 游水, Youshi 右师, Lan 榄, Zui 最, Zuo 胙, Man 曼, Chengqiu 乘丘, Fan 汎, Di 抵, Zhi 觯, Wei 伟, Wan 晚, Zuoqiu 左丘, and Suo 琐, etc., totaling more than 40 surnames.67 After the Gu Jin Xing Shi Shu Bian Zheng was published, it was highly valued by scholars and had a huge impact on later research into family names. Zhu Xi called it a well-researched and comprehensive Song Dynasty book on surnames. The Shi Zu Lue in the Tong Zhi was written by Zheng Qiao and published during the 31st year of the Shaoxing era (1161) of the Southern Song Dynasty. Zheng Qiao, also known by his courtesy name Yu Zhong, was around at the same time as Deng Mingshi. The Tong Zhi is made up of 200 volumes, and gives an institutional history of China from its beginnings through to the Tang Dynasty (618–907). The Shi Zu Lue is a monograph on surnames, and it documents 2255 surnames. The author made references to the Yuan He Xing Zuan and divided the surnames into 32 categories according to their origins. He also wrote an overview to the book and listed 13 surnames that he deemed “often confused”. In his overview, he wrote 13 articles that systematically explore each surname and their origin, the divisions/combinations of lineage organizations, and family pedigrees. These have been of great value to academics studying surnames in China. How do you overcome the biased exposition of historical records prior to the Tang Dynasty and clarify family names’ origins and their source? Zheng Qiao put forward many insightful ideas in the Shi Zu Lue. (1) Zheng Qiao looked at the functions of Chinese surnames in ancient China and he analyzed their development. Before the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, there were two types of family name: ‘clan names’ (xing 姓), and ‘lineage names’ (shi 氏). The xing were believed to have originated from prehistoric, matriarchal societies, and it is possible they once represented maternal lineage. In contrast, the shi emerged in later patriarchal societies and they were used to identify different branches of clans; having a shi was regarded as a sign of prestige. The xing were used to address women, such as Ji 姬, Jiang 姜, Ying 嬴, Si 姒, Gui 妫, Ji 姞, Yun 妘, Zhou 婤, E 姶, Fou 妚, Lao 嫪, and the shi were used to address men. After the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, however, the distinction between the xing and shi became less clear. The two terms were eventually fused into one word that generally meant ‘family name/surname’.

67

Ibid.

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(2) In the Shi Zu Lue, Zheng Qiao briefly introduced the types, functions, agencies and development processes of Chinese genealogies before the Sui and Tang Dynasties. He said that during those periods, both the government and commoners had maintained genealogical records, and that these were used for recruiting officials and pairing couples for marriage. The governments of that time established genealogical offices, and they appointed erudite and informed genealogical figures to take charge. However, during the Five Dynasties, it became broadly accepted that “official recruitments and marriages were no longer based on a family’s background”, so many genealogical books were lost.68 (3) Zheng Qiao’s most important analysis in the Shi Zu Lue was into the shortcomings of previous works on surnames. He elaborated more on the origins and types of Chinese surnames. He said: “When people discuss Chinese surnames, they generally trace back to the Shi Ben 世本 and the Gong Zi Pu 公子谱. Both of these quote information from the Zuo Zhuan (The Commentary of Zuo Qiuming 左传). According to Zuo Qiuming, Chinese surnames can be broadly grouped into the following categories: as relationship names, stylistic names, posthumous names, status names, occupational names, and locative names.” Zuo has been referenced in many books on surnames. During the Han Dynasty, he was referenced in the Deng 邓 Official Genealogy, Ying Shao’s Shi Zu Pian, and the Wan Xing Pu written by Liao, the Grand Protector of Yinchuan. During the Jin Dynasty, he was referenced in Jia Bi’s Bai Jia Pu and Xu Mian’s Bai Guan Pu. During the Song Dynasty, he was referenced in He Chengtian’s Xing Yuan, and during the Tang Dynasty, he was referenced in the 100-volume Shi Zu Zhi, Liu Chong’s 200-volume Da Tang Xing Xi Lu, Lu Jingchun’s Yi Guan Pu, Wei Shu’s Kai Yuan Pu, Liu Fang’s Yong Tai Pu, Liu Can’s Yun Lue, Zhang Jiuling’s Yun Pu, Lin Bao’s Xing Zuan, and Shao Si’s Xing Jie. Zheng Qiao stated: “Although there are many works on surnames, they could be broadly divided into three types. The first type is those that focus on the radicals of the Chinese characters. The second is those that focus on the four tones and how the surnames sound. The third is those that focus on where the surnames were popular geographically, especially prominent ones. However, many books are limited in content and contribute little to research on surnames.”69 To clarify the origin of surnames, Zheng Qiao looked in classic books, like the Yuan He Xing Zuan, the Shi Ji, the Chun Qiu, and the Shi Pu. He also simplified some 100 books of his own including the Shi Zu Zhi, the Shi Zu Yuan, and the Shi Zu Yun. He then divided the surnames into 32 different types according to whether family members had been emperors, lords, grand ministers, ministers, servicemen or craftsmen. Each of the 2255 surname belonged to a certain clan, and they were divided into 32 categories. In the Shi Zu Lue, Zheng Qiao explained the origin of each 68 69

The Shi Zu Lue Xu. In the Tong Zhi, Vol. 25. Ibid.

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surname, and any noted important historical figures’ given names, stylistic names, birth places, official positions, honors and deeds. (4) Zheng Qiao carefully researched and provided clarity on the origin of certain surnames that had previously created confusion. He listed 350 surnames that had previously detailed the wrong origin, and backed them up with sources. These surnames were divided into 13 categories. To summarize, although the Shi Zu Lue is effectively little more than an outline of Chinese family names, it is also an important monograph connecting the past with the present. Since the Song Dynasty, it has considerably influenced studies of family names and genealogical documents. It has milestone significance as an important work in these studies.

6.6 The Imperial Genealogies of the Song Dynasty A hereditary enfeoffment system was implemented in ancient China. The governments of each dynasty attached great importance to lineage and the clans of the royal family. They wrote imperial genealogies and set up special organizations to manage and revise them. The imperial genealogies were the most noble and special of all China’s genealogies. During the Song Dynasty, the feudal imperial powers were strengthened, and imperial genealogies reached a new stage. There were new types with new functions, and there were new systems of management for compilations.70 The Song Dynasty inherited the practices of the Tang Dynasty and it kept the Court of the Imperial Clan as the agency for compiling and maintaining imperial genealogies.71 The Song Shi categorized five types of genealogies: (1) “Yu Die (玉牒)”. During the sixth year of the Dazhongxiangfu era (1013), Emperor Zhenzong ordered the Court of the Imperial Clan to classify the emperor’s genealogy as a Yu Die.72 During the third year of the Tiansheng era (1025), Emperor Renzong instructed the Court of the Imperial Clan to document the empress’ deeds in the Yu Die.73 According to the Song Shi, the Yu Die recorded in chronological order the emperor’s personal activities and related deeds from his birth to his death. It also recorded the deeds of the empress. It included all decrees, rewards/punishments, granted domains, permanent residences, harvests, and auspicious events.74 During the Song Dynasty, Wang Shanjun 王善军. Research on Song Dynasty Imperial Genealogies 宋代皇族谱牒考实. Historical Archives 历史档案, 1999 (3). 71 Imperial Lineages 宗室世系, 1. In the Song Shi (History of the Song Dynasty 宋史), Vol. 215. 72 Records of Emperor Zhenzong 真宗纪, Vol. 3. In the Song Shi 宋史 (History of the Song Dynasty), Vol. 8. 73 Xu Zi Zhi Tong Jian Chang Bian 续资治通鉴长编 (Continuation of history as a mirror), Vol. 464. 74 Records of functioning officials, 4. In the Song Shi (History of the Song Dynasty 宋史), Vol. 164. 70

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(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

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the feudal autocracy was further strengthened, and in order to highlight that the emperors were sovereign rulers, the government specifically set up Yu Die imperial genealogies to include within historical records. “Shuji (属籍)”. The word “Shuji” was derived during the early Song Dynasty when the imperial genealogies were being compiled. The Song Hui Yao Ji Gao said: “During Emperor Zhenzong’s Xianping reign (998–1003), he instructed the Court of the Imperial Clan to construct a Shuji Building.”75 According to the Song Shi, “during the late Tang Dynasty, many Shujis were lost or destroyed because of constant wars.” So Shujis did not have chance to mature in either style or content. Later, after the imperial genealogies had been further classified, the Shuji were identifiable as those that focused more on the general members of the royal family—including female members—than on the emperor. They had a narrative style, and they described members of the family with the same family name, but also the blood relationship between them and their ““wufu”“ relatives. The Zong Fan Qing Xi Lu 宗藩庆系录. This genealogical record narrated the lineage and inheritances of imperial family members, and it was continuously compiled by descendants for a number of generations. The Xian Yuan Ji Qing Tu 仙源积庆图. During the ninth year of Emperor Zhenzong’s Dazhongxiangfu reign (1016), the Chief Minister of the Court of the Imperial Clan, Zhao Anren, requested that an extra imperial genealogy be compiled, like the Tang Dynasty works, the Tian Huang Yuan Pai Pu 天潢源 派谱. This was a systematic account of the blood ties between different ruling groups. This later genealogy was named the Xian Yuan Ji Qing Tu. It was similar in style to the Tian Huang Yuan Pai Pu. As the name ‘Tu 图 (literally meaning picture)’ suggests, it painted a picture of the relationships between members of the imperial clan. The Xian Yuan Lei Pu 仙源类谱. All imperial genealogies contained a comprehensive record of members of the royal family, including their surnames, marriages, official and/or hereditary titles, honors/punishments, and dates of birth and death.76 The Xian Yuan Lei Pu recorded male and female family members. It included a biography of each member who had obtained an official title or had carried out notable deeds (see Fig. 6.2). During the 27th year of Emperor Gaozong’s Shaoxing reign (1157), Taizu’s, Taizong’s and the King Dao of Wei’s Xian Yuan Lei Pu were presented and housed in the imperial genealogical office. The government held a grand ceremony, and 210 officials from the office were promoted.77 We can see how important that book was to the Song Dynasty government.

Imperial genealogies played an important role in determining who the imperial clans were, so the emperors and the government attached great importance to them being compiled, preserved, and renewed. Functioning officials. In the Song Hui Yao Ji Gao 宋会要辑稿, Vol. 20 (55). Records of functioning officials, 4. In the Song Shi (History of the Song Dynasty 宋史), Vol. 164. 77 Dynastic reigns since the Jianyan era (1127) 建炎以来系年要录, Vol. 176, 1157. 75 76

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Fig. 6.2 The Song Dynasty imperial genealogy, the “Xian Yuan Lei Pu”

During the first year of Emperor Zhenzong’s Xianping reign (998), the government built a Shuji Building for the Court of the Imperial Clan to use. However, you could hardly call it an organization for compiling genealogical records. During the first year of the Jingyou era (1034), the imperial court founded a special Imperial Genealogical Office at th request of Li Shu, for the compilation of genealogies. It was a subsidiary of the Court of the Imperial Clan. The Southern Song Dynasty inherited the system that had been in place during the Northern Song Dynasty, and it established the Imperial Genealogical Office during the 12th year of the Shaoxing era (1142). Most of the time, the office was responsible for compiling these genealogies; however, there were occasions when the Court of the Imperial Clan took direct charge of affairs. During the early Song Dynasty, there were not a fixed set of royal genealogy compilers. An unspecified number of them were given temporary appointment by the emperor. However, following Liang Zhou’s request, the Court of the Imperial Clan established a number of officials as permanent compilers of royal genealogies. All of the imperial genealogies were accumulated by the Court of the Imperial Clan. The Court’s duty was to record their daily affairs. The dates of imperial clan members’ births, deaths, name-giving ceremonies, marriages, official appointments and meritorious deeds were registered in real-time. Every year, the Court of the Imperial Clan was entrusted to collect the details of clan members, who were either scattered abroad or who served as officials outside the capital city. This helped them to establish a household registration system, and gather personal files on every member

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of the imperial clan. This abundance of raw material was naturally important for the compilation of imperial genealogies. The Song Dynasty government established a system for regularly compiling imperial genealogies. During the first year of the Kangding era (1040), the following was written: “the genealogies of our ancestors have been revised; they will now be updated once a year from now on. A new edition will be compiled every ten years.”78 The system for compiling genealogies more regularly came into place after the reign of Emperor Renzong. The Court of the Imperial Clan established special regulations, and these clearly stipulated that the Zong Fan Qing Xi Lu needed to be revised once a year; the Xian Yuan Ji Qing Tu every three year, and the Yu Die, the Xian Yuan Lei Pu, and the Shu Pu every ten years. These regulations helped improve the compilation system. However, they were not that strict in practice, and they varied according to situations. Different types of writing and binding materials were used for different royal family members, according to their rank. However, all of the materials were specially made, luxurious and expensive. These completed genealogies were specially preserved and carefully protected. The originals were kept at either the Yu Die Temple or the Shuji Building inside the Court of the Imperial Clan. Several extra copies were sent to other locations to ensure that the text was preserved. During the late Northern Song Dynasty, all of the genealogies preserved at the Court were lost or destroyed by invaders. As a result, during the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty, the government had to supplement them. During the Song Dynasty, there were many kinds of imperial genealogy, and these helped strengthen the empire’s feudal autocracy. An important function of these genealogies was to distinguish which of the imperial clans’ relationships were close or distant to the emperor. This subsequently provided a basis for the distribution of power and wealth. All members of the imperial clan shared social wealth and social power according to the close or distant relationship they had with the present or previous emperors. The royal family’s genealogical records highlighted the status of the imperial branch. Many history books also recorded the emperor’s activities and political affairs, such as the Qijuzhu 起居注, Shizhengji 时政记 and the Calendar. During the Song Dynasty, a kind of Yu Die was compiled within the royal genealogy, and this recorded all aspects of the emperor’s moral and political affairs. It became known as “the most important, national book”. Obviously, it was a way of flaunting the emperor’s personal status by highlighting and publicizing his affairs. But it achieved its purpose, and strengthened the feudal, autocratic rule of the Song Dynasty government. Liang Qichao was a modern history master, who once said that China’s official, feudal history was “the genealogy of emperors and lords”. That was indeed the case. Out of the 25 official histories, the most detailed is the Imperial Clan Genealogy 宗 室世系表 published in the Song Shi 宋史 (History of the Song Dynasty). The authors of the Song Shi used a great deal of information from the imperial genealogies of the Song Dynasty. 78

Xu Zi Zhi Tong Jian (Continuation of History as a Mirror 续资治通鉴), Vol. 177.

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6.7 How Genealogies Transitioned During the Yuan Dynasty As noted earlier, the Song Dynasty was an important period in China’s genealogical history for reform and transformation. During the Ming Dynasty, most genealogical compilations and/or revisions were perfected in terms of style and content. The types of genealogy had been refined, and they were even regionally distributed. However, during the Liao, Jin and Yuan Dynasties, especially the latter (1206–1368), there were still changes to the way people compiled their genealogies. Generally, the Yuan Dynasty inherited the practices of the Song Dynasty. Private genealogical compilations were still popular for two key reasons. The Yuan Dynasty was a society of both Chinese Han and non-Han tribes. However, under Mongolian rule, the requirement for ordinary families/clans to gather and unite was more urgent, and there was new fervor for genealogical compilations. Wang Song, an instructor at the imperial school said in the Jixi Wang Family Genealogy: “It was beneficial for the government to promote genealogical compilations because the Chinese Han and non-Han tribes have intermixed and their names have become complicated and confusing.” Private genealogies were also still the trend because a great number of genealogical records had been lost. Between the Song and the Yuan Dynasties, there were constant wars, and people moved more frequently. When this happened, private genealogies were lost along with their owners. The Yuan people noted that even the powerful families struggled to preserve their family records during the wars.79 Similar statements can be found in Jixi’s Geng 耿 Clan Genealogy in Yuchuan and Ming Dynasty writer Song Lian’s Preface to the Fang 方 Clan Genealogy.80 Some people estimated this heavy loss. The Fujian-based writer Wu Hai estimated that only one in ten private genealogies would survive.81 The Henan-based writer Xu Youren said in his Zhi Zheng Ji that only 1% or 2% of the ministers’ genealogies would survive the wars. Yuan Dynasty writer Yuan Jue made similar estimations.82 Their comments show that the wars of the Song and Yuan Dynasties caused serious damage to the clans and their genealogies. There was considerably more destruction in the north than in the south. After all, the south had become a place of cultural prosperity; the servicemen and scholar-officials there made a habit of compiling family genealogies and most of them maintained this habit no matter what situation they faced. After the Yuan Dynasty wars, genealogical work became more difficult and complex. The famous Yuan Dynasty scholar Huang Jin said in the Preface of the Huang Family Genealogy: “During the Tang Dynasty, the genealogies of people Wu Hai 吴海. The Wei sub clan genealogy 魏氏支谱图叙. In the Collected works of Wenguozhai 闻过斋集, Vol. 2. 80 Fang Xing Bu (Surname Fang方). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. 81 Wu Hai. The preface to the Pan family genealogy 潘氏世谱序. In the Collected works of Wenguozhai, Vol. 1. 82 Sheng Qingyi. On Song and Yuan genealogies and the establishment of the new patriarchal clan system. Minutes of The Second Asian Genealogy Academic Seminar. United Daily News Cultural Foundation National Studies Literature Museum of Taiwan, 1985. 79

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with the surname Huang 黄 could be found in eight commanderies: Jiangxia, Huiji, Lingling, Baxi, Dongjun, Jiangling, Luoyang, and Jinan. However, only the genealogies from Jiangxia have been found. It is difficult for people to trace their roots because many official and private genealogical records have been lost.”83 The Ding 丁 clan experienced the same difficulty when they were compiling their genealogies. They searched everywhere for sources and relevant documentation, and eventually managed to complete a one-volume family genealogy. This recorded their ancestors’ official appointments, honors, articles, poems, and epigraphs.84 Because so many genealogies and related documents had been lost, on average it took the Yuan people a decade to compile their genealogies. They had to refer to various books, and extensively question previous generations about the origin of their families. Some searched for the remaining pieces of incomplete genealogies that had been handed down to them, and they collected and examined all available records. They experienced much greater difficulties revising their genealogies than their ancestors during previous dynasties. As was the case during the Song Dynasty, the genealogies compiled during the Yuan Dynasty had an educational purpose, as Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun had advocated. They were written so that descendants could pay respects to their ancestors and consolidate their clans. They also advocated respecting seniors and caring for loved ones. Yuan Dynasty writers Li Cun85 and Wang Li86 wrote genealogical prefaces confirming that the Yuan people understood this was the function of their genealogies. However, as Xu Ming stressed in the Preface to the Taiyuan Clan Genealogy in the Fang Gu Ji 芳谷集 (collected works of Fanggu), the Yuan people paid more attention to finding fellow clan members, because the wars had made it difficult for them to find their relatives. They also used their genealogies to preserve customs and orders. Yuan Dynasty genealogists followed the principles advocated by Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun, and many of them gave high praise to the five-generation pedigree chart that they had invented. Yuan Dynasty writer Xu Youren,87 poet Dai Liang88 and scholar Huang Jin89 also affirmed that this method of giving more detail to the close relatives and less to distant ones, believing that it was useful in genealogical compilations.

Huang Xing Bu (Surname Huang 黄). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. Chen Lü 陈旅. Preface to the Ding family genealogy 丁氏世谱序. In the Collected works of Anya Hall 安雅堂集, Vol. 4. 85 Li Cun 李存. Preface to the Shu clan genealogy 舒氏族谱序. In the Collected works of Aian 俟 庵集, Vol. 20. 86 Wang Li 王礼. Preface to the Tang clan genealogy in Xiayang 夏阳汤氏族谱序. In the Collected works of Linyuan 麟原合集, Vol. 2. 87 Xu Youren 许有壬. Preface to the Huang clan genealogy in Putian 题莆田黄氏族谱. In the collected works of Zhizheng 至正集, Vol. 72. 88 Dai Liang 戴良. Preface to the Zhang family genealogy 章氏家乘序. In the collected works of Jiulingshanfang, 九灵山房集, Vol. 6. 89 Huang Xing Bu (Surname Huang 黄). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. 83 84

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However, some Yuan people criticized Ouyang’s and Su’s style, including senior official Li Qi,90 scholar Xu Mingsha,91 and Neo-Confucianist Zheng Yu.92 They all thought that genealogies needed to be broader, and that historical records shouldn’t be restricted to only five generations. They believed that relatives beyond the five generations should be included in the family’s pedigree chart. They attempted breakthroughs by tracing back their distant ancestors further. Chang Jianhua examined 25 Yuan Dynasty genealogies and looked at how many generations were recorded. He wrote the results in his book Patriarchal Records 宗 族志. “Three genealogies record fewer than ten generations; 16 genealogies recorded 10–20 generations; three genealogies recorded 21–30; one genealogy recorded 50; one recorded 62, and one recorded 72.” From this we can see that many Yuan Dynasty genealogical records went further with their pedigree charts, instead of using the fivegeneration charts that Ouyang and Su had created. The genealogies of that time were broader and thicker. Many servicemen switched to this method to trace back their founding ancestors because while they were under foreign rule, they needed to gather and consolidate their clans. The genealogies compiled by the Yuan servicemen had other distinctive features. They were richer in content. Dai Biaoyuan said: “These genealogies elaborated on the lives of each clan member—male and female. They included their dates of birth and death, given names, virtuous deeds, and burial sites. They also recorded female members’ relatives on their mothers’ side.”93 The servicemen included all clan members regardless of whether they were rich or poor. During the second year of the Zhizheng era (1342), Liang Kejia wrote: “The genealogies are passed on to descendants, and they need to be edited promptly so that they don’t fall into disarray, or are destroyed. Every clan member—regardless of whether they are virtuous or not—should be included within these genealogies. No one should be excluded just because they are poor.”94 Yuan Jue expressed the same opinion.95 The genealogies of the Yuan Dynasty servicemen also placed a special emphasis on the pensions of old/lonely clan members. Some even mentioned the pensions of neighbors. Dai Biaoyuan said: “The clan will help the poor, old, disabled, destitute, or widowed, those who are unable to stand on their own feet. The clan will also fund those who are too poor to pay for their own weddings or funerals.”96 Li Qi 李祁. Preface to the Yu clan genealogy 俞氏族谱序. In the collected works of Yunyang 云 阳集, Vol. 3. 91 Xu Mingshan. The Xiang clan genealogy. In the collected works of Fanggu 芳谷集, Part 2. 92 Zheng Yu 郑玉. Preface to the Fang clan genealogy 方氏族谱序. In the collected works of Shishan 师山集, Vol. 1. 93 Preface to the Sun clan genealogy in Fuchuan 富春孙氏族谱序. In the Collected works of Yanyuan 剡源文集, Vol. 10. 94 The Liu clan genealogy in Xiguan, Piling 毗陵西关刘氏宗谱, the second year of the Guangxu era (1876). 95 Yuan Jue 袁桷. Preface to the Wei clan genealogy in Linchuan 临川危氏族谱序. In the Collected works of Qingrong Jushi Ji 清容居士集, Vol. 22. 96 Preface to the Sun clan genealogy in Fuchuan. In the Collected works of Yan Yuan, Vol. 10. 90

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The servicemen emphasized that they were compiling genealogies to advocate an ethical education, strengthen their customs and promote orthodox thoughts. They wanted their descendants to know as much as possible about their roots and origins. Ouyang Xuan97 and Yang Fu wrote: “Since the patriarchal clan system was abolished a long time ago, genealogies are the only thing we can rely on to unify families/clans, distinguish the Chinese Han ethnic group from others, and ultimately, win people’s hearts by showing we support certain etiquette and customs. Alas! That is why we need to compile genealogical records.”98 The servicemen of the Yuan Dynasty often invited celebrities to write the prefaces and/or postscripts of their genealogies, to increase their family’s influence. This was a common practice prior to the Yuan Dynasty; Zhu Xi and Wen Tianxiang wrote many of these. However, according to Pan Guangdan, it was more common in the Yuan Dynasty for people to invite famous scholars and powerful, senior officials to do so.99 The servicemen of the Yuan Dynasty attached great importance to compiling and maintaining genealogies. They learnt lessons after losing many genealogies during the war. They compiled and printed a large number of genealogical books, but also carved a number of genealogies onto stone tablets. They wanted to ensure that the lineage of their ancestors could not simply be torched, or easily damaged, so they sought ways that their lineage could be “handed down forever”. More genealogies were carved on steles in the Yuan Dynasty than in any other dynasty. Examples include the Shi family genealogy in Ziyang, Sichuan province100 and the Feng family genealogy in Jiujiang, Jiangxi province.101 Genealogies were often carved onto the shaded side of an ancestors’ gravestone. Zheng Yu from Shexian County, Huizhou compiled a list of fifteen generations of ancestors (descended from the founding ancestor), and had it carved on the shaded side of his grandfather’s tombstone.102 The Ding family from Wu Xing bought multiple tombstones for carving on, and they considered that the writing on them needed to face inwards, towards the tomb side of the temple.” Some clans also carved inscriptions within their ancestral temples. One example was Hu Zhu, a native of Dongyang, Zhejiang Province. He wrote the “Preface to the Song Clan Ancestral Temple”, and the Song Clan inscribed it in their ancestral hall, as a tribute to their ancestors.103 The Ouyang clan from Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province also carved Preface to the Ouyang clan genealogy in Fangli 防里欧阳氏族谱序. In the Collected works of Guizhai 圭斋文集, Vol. 7. 98 The Yang family genealogy in Renfeng, Puyang, Pujiang, Zhejiang 浙江浦江浦阳人峰杨氏家 乘, 21st year of the Daoguang era (1841). 99 Pan Guangdan. A brief history of Chinese genealogy. Eastern Miscellany 1929: 26 (1). 100 Preface to the Shi Bingwen Ziyang genealogy 题史秉文资阳故谱序. In the Dao Yuan Xue Gu Lu 道园学古录 (Records on learning the antiquity at Dao Garden), Vol. 5. 101 Preface to the Feng family genealogy 冯氏家谱序. 102 The Zheng family stone genealogy 郑氏石谱. In the Collected works of Shishan 师山集, Vol. 1. 103 The Song family lineage 宋氏世谱记. In the Collected works of Chunbaizhai 纯白斋类稿, Vol. 20. 97

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“the Ouyang Family Genealogy” on a stone slab inside the ancestral hall, near the western wall.104 These practices encouraged people to look at the stone tablets, and to remember their ancestors and their merits. They strengthened the cohesion of families, and were successful in encouraging descendants to respect their ancestors. During the Yuan Dynasty, there were some problems with the practice of tracing back ancestors using genealogical records. Many descendants made false claims that they had celebrity ancestors in order to raise their family’s status. This problem had already existed before, but it worsened during the Yuan Dynasty. Many Yuan Dynasty scholars and later generations noted this trend. The poet Chen Gao rebuked such behavior, and said it was slander to one’s ancestors.105 The writer Liu Yueshen,106 famous painter Wang Li,107 Neo-Confucianist Zheng Yu,108 and Ming Dynasty Grand Minister Song Lian109 also condemned this behavior. This shows how common a problem it was during the Yuan Dynasty.110 The Yuan Dynasty genealogies were based on the Ouyang and Su Xun style of genealogical chart, but they were richer in content than those of the Song Dynasty. Many were still incomplete, however, compared to those of later generations. The Yang Family Genealogy in Renfeng, Puyang (Pujiang, Zhejiang) is one such example. It was divided into 16 sections and detailed the origin of the family’s surname, family members’ general pedigrees and sub-pedigrees, their accomplishments in the imperial examinations, posthumous events and posthumous writings. It also detailed the family ancestral tablets, the relatives on the female family members’ mothers’ side, along with biographies, miscellaneous works, sacrificial rules/family rules, and properties, such as sacrificial fields or cemeteries. This showed that the Yuan Dynasty genealogies were richer in content than those of later generations. However, their main records and pedigrees were relatively simple. Much of the remaining content in these genealogies was often incomplete, not standardized, or strictly classified, so a mature style of genealogy didn’t develop. The genealogies of the Yuan Dynasty were unlike those of later generations, and this meant that Zhu Xi instilled his NeoConfucianism into all aspects of genealogy. The Yuan Dynasty genealogical records had characteristic styles and content during the era of Mongolian rule, but they clearly transitioned from those of the Song Dynasty, and became more standardized during the later Ming Dynasty. Preface to the Ouyang family genealogy in Jiujiang 九江欧阳氏家谱序. Chen Gao 陈高. Preface to the clan genealogy 族谱序. In the Bu Xi Zhou Yu Ji 不系舟渔集, Vol. 10. 106 Preface to the Yang Youzhi family genealogy in Luoyang 洛阳杨友直家谱序. In the Collected works of Shenzhai Ji 申斋集, Vol. 3. 107 Preface to the Liu clan genealogy in Xiapai 夏派刘氏族谱序. In the Collected works of Linyuan 麟原合集, Vol. 1. 108 Preface to the Fang clan genealogy 方氏族谱序. In the Collected works of Shishan 师山集, Vol. 1. 109 Postscript of the Hu family genealogy 题寿昌胡氏谱后. In the Collected works by Song Wenxian (Song Lian) 文宪集, Vol. 12. 110 Chang Jianhua. Patriarchal records. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1998: 282. 104 105

Chapter 7

The Perfection of Chinese Genealogies

During the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), Chinese genealogies developed into a more mature style. A large number of new genealogies sprung up and they had clearer principles and were more standardized. There were new, inevitable developments after the transformation and transition of genealogies in the Song and Yuan Dynasties (960–1368). These were closely related to the politics, economy, and culture of the Ming Dynasty, which was the late period of Chinese feudalism.

7.1 The Number of Genealogies Increased Sharply During the Ming Dynasty During the Song Dynasty (960–1279), private genealogies made considerable progress. This was due to the government advocating them, an emerging elite class, a booming printing industry, and leading literati like Ouyang Xiu, Su Xun, Zhu Xi and Wen Tianxiang helping to publicize their lineages. According to the Yi Wen Zhi in the Song Shi, there were 110 types of genealogy at the time. After the Yuan Dynasty, the volume of genealogies continued to increase. According to Akigorou Taga’s A Study of Chinese Clans, 188 types of genealogical book were recorded in Yuan Dynasty works.1 However, many were destroyed in the wars of the Song and Yuan Dynasties. Some influential Song and Yuan genealogies (including imperial genealogies) were later found scattered around the world. They are as follows: The Ouyang Family Lineage 欧阳氏谱图, compiled by Song Dynasty Ouyang Xiu, Completed Works of Ouyang Xiu; The Su Clan Genealogy 苏氏族谱, compiled by Song Dynasty Su Xun, the Si Ku Quan Shu;

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Akigorou Taga. A study of Chinese clans, Book 1. The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, 1981:155–161.

© Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2023 H. Wang, The General Theory of China’s Genealogy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6377-5_7

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The Zhu Family Genealogy in Chayuan, Wuyuan 婺源茶院朱氏世谱, compiled by Song Dynasty Zhu Xi, The Complete Works of Master Zhu; The Fang Clan Lineage in Shexian, Anhui 汉歙丹阳河南方氏衍庆统宗图谱, compiled by Song Dynasty Fang Guisen, edition of the 16th year of the Chongzhen era in the Ming Dynasty (1643); The Cheng Shi Gong Sub Lineage in Xiyuan (7 Volumes) 溪源程氏势公支谱, narrated by Song Dynasty Cheng Qi, updated by Ming Dynasty Cheng Xu, Revised by Cheng Shihua, transcribed from the edition of the Jiajing era (1522–1566) in the Ming Dynasty; The Xian Yuan Lei Pu 仙源类谱, 30 volumes, compiled by Shi Hao, transcribed from the song Dynasty Palace Treasury; The Luo Clan Genealogy in Bolin 柏林罗氏族志, collected by Luo Yuan; The Zong Fan Qing Xi Lu 宗藩庆系录, 22 volumes, transcribed from the song Dynasty Palace Treasury; The Huang Clan Pedigree in Zuotian 左田黄氏宗派图, compiled by Song Dynasty Huang Tianqu, the late Ming and early Qing edition; The Revised Wu Clan Genealogy in Shangshan 商山吴氏重修族谱, 2 volumes, compiled by Song Dynasty Wu Hao, edition of the 16th year of the Chongzhen era in the Ming Dynasty (1643); The Cheng Xu Lun Tang Genealogy in Jixi 皖绩程里程叙伦堂世谱, Anhui, compiled by Song Dynasty Cheng Qi, the Qing Dynasty edition; The Pan Clan Genealogy 潘氏族谱, 2 volumes, compiled by Song Dynasty Pan Lüsun, the Ming Dynasty edition; The Sun Family Genealogy 孔氏祖庭广记, 12 volumes, compiled by Jin Dynasty Sun Yuancuo, edition of the first year of Töregene’s reign (1242); The Shao Family Genealogy 邵氏世谱, compiled by Yuan Dynasty Shao Guizi, the Yuan Dynasty edition; The Zhan Clan Genealogy in Qingyuan 庆源詹氏族谱, compiled by Yuan Dynasty Zhan Sheng, the Yuan Dynasty edition; The Wang Clan Genealogy in Xin’an 新安汪氏族谱, compiled by Yuan Dynasty Wang Yunlong, the Yuan Dynasty edition; The Wang Clan Genealogy 汪氏渊源录, 10 volumes, compiled by Yuan Dynasty Wang Songshou, revised in the 13th year of the Zhengde era (1518); The Wang Family Genealogy in Xin’an, Jingcheng 新安旌城汪氏家录, seven volumes, compiled by Yuan Dynasty Wang Zhao, edition of the Taiding era (1324– 1328); The Wang Clan Genealogy in Xin’an 新安汪氏庆源宗谱, compiled by Yuan Dynasty Wang Yao, the Yuan Dynasty edition; The Chen Clan Genealogy 陈氏谱略, compiled by Yuan Dynasty Chen Li, Ding Yu Ji in the Si Ku Quan Shu.2

According to The bibliography of rare, ancient Chinese books 中国古籍善本书目, Research on Huizhou clans 徽州宗族研究, etc.

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Half of the above genealogical books have now been preserved in Huizhou. Ninetenths of the Song and Yuan genealogies were destroyed in the wars of the Song and Yuan Dynasties. The Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) founder, Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398), implemented an ideological and cultural policy with “filial piety” at its core. More and more families accepted the principle of “respecting their ancestors and becoming more united”. The national economy, and especially the economy south of the Yangtze River, developed. It became a cultural custom to compile genealogies all across the country, and this meant that the number of genealogies rose significantly in the Ming Dynasty. According to relevant data, we can make an informed judgement as to how many Ming Dynasty genealogies still exist. The Bibliography of Rare, Ancient Chinese Books published the details of 746 rare books in its history section. These included books on family histories, family genealogies and imperial genealogies,3 and 439 were produced during the Ming Dynasty. However, this bibliography did not include many ancient books found overseas. For various reasons, it did not fully reflect the rare Ming Dynasty genealogies that have been maintained by relevant organizations, at least as far as the mainland is concerned. Take the Shanghai Library as an example. When The Bibliography of Rare, Ancient Chinese Books was edited in the 1980s, it only included some 20 types of Ming Dynasty genealogy. However, according to the latest statistics, the Shanghai Library now actually holds 251 types of Ming Dynasty genealogy. This is ten times what had been originally cited in the bibliography. We can estimate that there are around 1000 types of Ming Dynasty genealogy worldwide. This is factoring in that thousands were compiled at that time, but many were destroyed due to wars/other incidents. The fact that there went from being 200 types of recorded genealogy in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, to thousands of types in the Ming Dynasty, shows that there was a sharp increase in the number of genealogical compilations.

7.2 Zhu Yuanzhang’s Sacred Edict of Six Maxims Many of the genealogies compiled during the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty cited Zhu Yuanzhang’s “Six Maxims”, and this was often prominently positioned in these genealogies in an extra-large font (see Fig. 7.1). During his early reign, Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, compiled his edict. He wrote: “behave with filial piety towards your parents, be respectful to your elders, live in harmony with your neighbors, discipline your sons and grandsons, work contentedly at your occupations, and refrain from evil.” He ordered this edict to be read publicly to the people, for them to follow. This became known as the famous Sacred Edict of Six Maxims 圣谕六言. 3

The Bibliography of rare, ancient Chinese books, Shanghai: Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House, 1991.

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Fig. 7.1 Zhu Yuanzhang’s Six Maxims

Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang went to great lengths to consolidate the feudal rule of the Ming Empire after he established the capital in Nanjing during the first year of his reign (1368). His army defeated the separatist forces of various places and he helped unite the whole country. He used his political power to abolish the Secretariat and all of the traditional Grand Councilor posts, so that no official or group of officials should ever have sufficient power to threaten his personal authority. He offered economic rewards to people who opened up the wastelands, and he asked his troops to work on the state-owned State Farm tracts. They built water conservancy channels, and helped the economy recover and develop. Zhu Yuanzhang stressed the importance of an ideological education and he enacted the edict of the “Six Maxims”.4 This 36character edict was simple, yet profound, and it had rich connotations. The first two maxims focus on “filial piety”. They reflect the essence of feudalist thought on the “San Gang” 三纲 (three cardinal guides) and the “Wu Chang” 五常 (five relationships). Ethically, they focus on the relationships between monarchs and ministers, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives. They state that the son should show filial piety towards his father in the father-son relationship, and that this is the basis for all other relationships. Other relationships are derived from this, because a loyal minister must be a filial son, and a filial son must be a loyal minister. The last four maxims are about social order at feudal grass-roots, and how the ultimate goal is “harmony”. Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to promote his feudal, ethical thoughts on “filial piety” to build a harmonious society and eventually consolidate the autocratic rule of the Ming Dynasty. 4

Gu Yingtai 谷应泰. The major events of Ming history 明史纪事本末, Vol. 14.

7.3 Ming Dynasty Genealogies Followed Zhu Xi’s Ethics of the “San Gang” …

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Many Ming Dynasty genealogies either placed Zhu Yuanzhang’s “Six Maxims” in the frontispiece, or in the family/clan rules section, to dissuade family members from any wrongdoing. During the Wanli era (1573–1620), the Cui 崔 Clan Genealogy in Hai’an, Jiangsu Province was compiled and it began with the “Six Maxims”. It stated: “The founding Emperor taught us how to behave with his six maxims. Each one should be observed. Those who abide by them are good people. Failing to observe any of them will make you an evil person. Our clan members should gather in the ancestral hall and listen to these being read. Try to be kind and good people, and correct any mistakes once you make them. Being a good citizen in this prosperous era will mean that your children will have endless blessings.” Other examples included the Ye 叶 Clan Genealogy in Xiuning; the preface to the Li Patrilineality Genealogy written by Li Shanchang 李善长 (1314–1390, the statesman who helped Zhu Yuanzhang establish the Ming Dynasty),5 and Wang Shijin’s The Patrilineality Rules.6

7.3 Ming Dynasty Genealogies Followed Zhu Xi’s Ethics of the “San Gang” and the “Wu Chang” As noted earlier, prior to the Song Dynasty, genealogies had a social and political function. They helped the government select officials and the elite families to arrange marriages. During the Song Dynasty, genealogies had a moral, educational function. Their aim was to make descendants revere their ancestor and unite with others via lineage. During the Ming Dynasty, the guiding ideologies for genealogical compilations were the “San Gang” and the “Wu Chang”. The ethical standards in these were advocated by Zhu Xi, the Southern Song Dynasty’s great synthesizer of Confucian thought. Zhu Yuanzhang’s “Six Maxims” correlated with Zhu Xi’s Jia Li 家礼(Family Rituals) in that they mentioned “capping” rituals,7 weddings, funerals, and ancestral rites. The Ye Clan Genealogy in Xiuning distinguished between the two, saying that the “Six Maxims” acted as a charter that all families should follow, but they needed to implement these via behavior and norms according to Zhu Xi’s Family Rituals. By doing so, families/clans could “maintain prosperity and make inheritances from the ancestors that they could pass down to future generations.” Generally speaking, Zhu Xi’s ethical thoughts had an important influence on the genealogies of the Ming Dynasty. What was most distinctive about them was that they incorporated the “San Gang” 三纲 (Three Cardinal Guides) and the “Wu Chang” 五常(Five Relationships) into their prefaces, or the section on clan rules/family Li Shi Bu (the Li 李 clan). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. Wang Shijin 王世晋. Clan rules and customs 训俗遗规, Vol. 3. 7 Translator’s note: the ancients performed “capping” rituals when it was determined that a youth (aged between 15 and 20) had become an adult. 5 6

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instructions. They became the guiding ideology to people of the Ming Dynasty and subsequent dynasties on how to compile their genealogies. Zhu Xi (1130–1200) considered himself a follower of the Cheng brothers8 from the Northern Song Dynasty. He elaborated on their metaphysical theories to develop his own School of Principle, which became known as Neo-Confucianism (“lixue” 朱 子理学). Zhu Xi played an active role in reviving Confucianism and developing it to have an institutional basis. The ethics of “San Gang” and “Wu Chang” were at its core. These ethics had already existed for a long time, even before Zhu Xi, but the NeoConfucians of the Song Dynasty—especially Zhu Xi, who theorized, standardized and popularized them—made them an important part of the ruling feudal ideology. Zhu Xi went further and put forward the concept of “heavenly principles that can be revived once all human desires are eliminated” as a reason for implementing these ethics. He said that people should abide by them, and he hoped that the emperor would enforce them. Although these propositions came to be welcomed because they strengthened the centralization of feudal society, the rulers of the Southern Song Dynasty did not realize this at first. For a few years (near the end of his life), Zhu Xi’s teachings were condemned by the government as “spurious”. Decades after his death, however, they came to receive unprecedented political support. This shift in the government’s position perhaps reflected the political needs of the time—because rulers found it worked to their advantage to recognize the school of Confucianism as the most correct/orthodox way of teaching. During the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Xi was regarded as the second most influential philosopher in Chinese history, after Confucius himself. In the second year of the Jiading era (1209), Zhu Xi got the posthumous title of Zhu Wen Gong. In the fifth year of the Jiading era (1212), his commentaries on the Four Books became required reading for all who hoped to pass the civil service examinations. In the third year of the Baoqing era (1227), he was conferred the posthumous title of Xin Guo Gong, being changed to Hui Guo Gong in the third year of the Shaoding era (1230). In the first year of the Chunyou era (1241), Emperor Lizong decreed that the central figures of Zhu Xi’s Learning of the Way—Zhou Dunyi, Zhang Zai, Cheng Hao, and Cheng Yi—as well as Zhu Xi himself be enshrined in the Confucian temples, thereby elevating him to Confucian sainthood. In the fifth year of the Xianchun era (1269), Emperor Duzong decreed that Zhu’s ancestral home in Wuyuan be named “Wen Gong Que Li”. In the first year of the Zhiyuan era (1335), Emperor Huizong decreed that the Zhu Xi Wenmiao (Confucian temple) be constructed and that Zhu Xi be granted the posthumous title of Qi Guo Gong in 1336. Since then, Zhu Xi had also been worshipped by rulers like Confucius.

Translator’s note: Two brothers, Cheng Yi 程颐 and Cheng Hao 程颢developed metaphysical theories about the workings of the cosmos in terms of li (principles and patterns) and qi (vital energy, material forces, psychophysical stuff).

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Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang credited Zhu Xi with “illuminating the way”. His commentaries on the Four Books: the Great Learnings, the Doctrine of the Mean, the Analects of Confucius, and the Mencius 四书集注, along with the annotated Five Classics 五经, were part of the core curriculum for scholars aspiring to be officials. The Four Books were central to the civil service examinations up until 1905, and education on the Classics often began with Zhu Xi’s commentaries, and the importance of understanding them. Emperor Chengzu (1414)—the successor of Zhu Yuanzhang—ordered a compilation of A Complete Collection of the Five Classics 五经大全, A Complete Collection of the Four Books 四书大全 and A Complete Collection of Philosophical Essays 性理大全. They were completed in 1415 and the emperor wrote the preface himself. They were then officially promulgated and honored, and they dictated which scholars were selected for the next 200 years of the Ming Dynasty. This showed the importance of Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism. The core values of Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism were the “San Gang” and the “Wu Chang”. The “San Gang” or “Three Cardinal Guides” said that the ruler guides the subject, the father guides the son, and the husband guides the wife. They showed the hierarchical relationships in feudal society, which were based on blood ties and the feudal political system (which in itself was based on patriarchal clan relations). The “Wu Chang” or “Five Relationships” detailed the relationships between rulers and ministers, parents and children, husbands and wives, older and younger brothers, and friends. They represented ordinary virtues that were essential to ensuring the implementation of the three cardinal principles. During the Ming Dynasty, the popularity of Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism meant that the “San Gang” and the “Wu Chang” became mainstream ideologies. They penetrated all industries and were included within all aspects of social life. All across the education sector (even in private schools), the government instilled these ethics. The publicity and practices related to the “San Gang” and the “Wu Chang” naturally led to people aiming to compile genealogies. The prefaces, family/clan rules, and biographies in Ming Dynasty genealogies were often filled with content related to the “San Gang” and the “Wu Chang”. This was especially the case for genealogies that were compiled in Xin’an, Zhu Xi’s hometown. Here are some examples of how the Three Cardinal Guides featured. The ruler guides the minister: as a minister, one should be loyal to his emperor. Both the Wang Clan Genealogy in Wukou, Wuyuan and the Hu Clan Genealogy in Mingjing contained content, saying it was a requirement that clan members remember the eight rules of “filial piety, fraternal love, sincerity, truthfulness, courtesy, righteousness, honesty, and shame”, and that clan members who have become officials in the court “forget their private interests and their families for the sake of the country” and “serve the monarch with loyalty”. The father guides the son: as a child, one should be filial to his parents. The Wang Clan Genealogy in Xianyuan and the Hong Family Genealogy in Jinshan contained content that said: “filial piety is the first thing one should consider before we do other things, and it is the foundation of benevolence”.

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The husband guides the wife: as a wife, you should obey your husband. The Ge Clan Genealogy in Jixi and the Huang Family Instructions in Shexian said: “male members of the family should train their wives to follow the ‘Three Obediences’ and the ‘Four Virtues’, to be seen as serene and frugal. They should show filial piety towards their uncles and aunts, serve their husbands with courtesy, treat their sistersin-law with courtesy, treat their children with kindness, be diligent in their household chores, not be idle in their needlework, not buy luxury clothing or food/drink, not gossip, not be cruel to their maids and their husbands’ concubines, and not go out of the village to play, for example by watching operas or admiring flowers in the mountains. If they break these rules, both the wife and the husband will be punished.”9 There were other rules, like: “If their husbands die, they should never remarry.”10 The “Three Cardinal Guides” wrote that the husband guides the wife, and the “Three Obediences” 三从 and the “Four Virtues” 四德 ensured that this happened. They referred specifically to how a woman’s life was dominated in traditional society: she was required to obey her father before marriage, her husband during married life, and her sons in widowhood. The “Four Virtues” referred to feminine virtues. They were: having moral conduct, speaking properly, having a modest appearance, and being diligent in one’s work. The “Five Relationships” focused primarily on the conduct of men. They cut across all aspects of society, and highlighted the most crucial relationships from rulers down to commoners. They said that each party had moral responsibilities. For example, it was the duty of a minister to serve his ruler, but it was also the ruler’s duty to exist for the minister. There were reciprocal duties placed on parties in other relationships too. The “Five Relations” were essentially a statement of what moral relationships were in Confucianism. Here are some examples of the Five Relationships. The family instructions of the Dunxutang Xu Clan Genealogy in Nanguan, Jixi 安徽绩溪南关惇叙堂许氏宗谱 explained how the Five Relationships work in the family. (1) The relationship between the monarch and his subjects. The emperor should be kind to the people; officials should be loyal to the country. The emperor should be wise, and his ministers should be loyal, that is, the monarch and his ministers should be righteous. (2) The relationship between the father and the son. The father should be kind, the son and daughter-in-law should be filial. (3) The relationship between the husband and the wife. The husband should be righteous, the wife should be virtuous. (4) The relationship between brothers. Brothers should love one another and show mutual respect. (5) The relationship between friends. One should keep one’s word and be faithful to their friends. The Song 宋 Clan Genealogy in Xiuning contained similar instructions and rules. It also stated punishments if people violated them. Some families inscribed family rules that contained the “three cardinal guides and five relationships” on stone tablets to show visitors, as Song Lian recorded in Zhao Huafu 赵华富. Research on Huizhou clans 徽州宗族研究. Hefei: Anhui University Press, 2004: 373. 10 Jixi’s Geng clan genealogy in Yuchuan 绩溪鱼川耿氏宗谱. 1919. 9

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his Puyang Lianxi Wang Family’s Inscription on the Gates of Righteousness how the Wang 王 family did.11 Some families drew their pedigrees on scrolls and hung these in the home, so that future generations could learn about them. Some clan chiefs preached a moral education to their clansmen during family dinners or gatherings. Every morning before breakfast, the Zheng 郑 family from Pujiang assembled family members in the central hall. They stood in a certain order and listened to their parents (or a special person assigned by their parents) read out family instructions/sage wisdom. They delivered exhortations and admonitions.12 The Huo 霍 family of the South China Sea gathered twice a month in the family bedroom. They paid homage to their ancestors in front of the ancestral tablets, and listened to their parents preaching the family precepts and the sayings of the sages.13 The Pang 庞 family of the South China Sea gathered every evening on the 10th and 25th of each month. They learnt the family precepts, family rules and the sayings of the sages. Family members would discuss how to put their theories into practice, and they would express their opinions.14 Many families/clans took these sessions very seriously, and they could go on for some time without boredom. Some families indoctrinated Zhu Xi’s sermons into their family rules and regulations. They also stipulate within the family rules that children should be familiar with Zhu Xi’s primary school books on feudal etiquette. These said that children should refrain from indecent/impolite behavior,15 in order to further consolidate feudal rule.16 To summarize, the genealogical compilations of the Ming Dynasty did everything possible to implement Zhu Xi’s ethical thoughts, and they emphasized the importance of the “three cardinal guides and the five relationships”. Their ultimate aim was to rectify social customs, safeguard Zhu Xi’s thoughts, and promote the feudal principles of loyalty, sincerity, filial piety and brotherhood. In this way, they hoped to consolidate the patriarchal clan system and strengthen feudal rule.

7.4 Improvements to Genealogies in Both Style and Content Many genealogies compiled during the Song and Yuan Dynasties (960–1368) included the following: a preface, a list of principles, achievements family members made in their imperial examinations, imperial grants, verification of ancestors, pedigree charts (and annotations), biographies, the details of ancestral tombs, and family members’ articles, poetry and prose. Wang Xing Bu (Surname Wang 王). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. Zheng Wenrong 郑文融. The Zheng family rules 郑氏规范. 13 Huo Tao 霍韬. Huo Weiya’s family rules 霍渭厓家训. 14 Pang Shangpeng 庞尚鹏. The Pang family rules 庞氏家训. 15 The Cai family genealogy in Xinzhou 新州蔡氏家乘. 16 The Du clan genealogy in Xianyuan, Huangshan 黄山仙源杜氏宗谱, compiled during the 21th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1895). 11 12

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We analyzed ten significant genealogies compiled during the Jiajing era (1522) and the Chongzhen era (1644) of the Ming Dynasty, and found the content in midto-late Ming Dynasty genealogies was generally more mature and richer. The ten genealogies are as follows: The Xie Clan Genealogy in Wangyuan 王源谢氏孟宗谱 (1537), The Cheng Clan Genealogy in Shanhe, Qimen 祁门善和程氏谱 (1541), The Ge Clan Genealogy in Jiqingfang, Jixi 绩溪积庆坊葛氏族谱 (1565), The Ye Family Genealogy in Shadi 沙堤叶氏家谱 (1579), The Wang Clan Genealogy in Xin’an 新 安王氏统宗世谱 (1607), The Cui Clan Genealogy in Hudun 虎墩崔氏族谱 (1612), The Cao Clan Genealogy 曹氏统宗世谱 (1615), The Revised Yu Clan Genealogy 重修俞氏统宗谱 (1621), The Wang Clan Genealogy in Wukou 武口王氏统宗世谱 (1623), The Yang Clan Genealogy in Huicheng 徽城杨氏宗谱 (1630), The Zhu Clan Genealogy 朱氏通宗谱 (1631), The Dai Clan Genealogy in Xiuning 休宁戴氏族 谱 (1632).These genealogies often contained the following: a preface, a list of principles, details on the origin of the family surname, credentials, pedigree charts (and annotations), the details of ancestral temples and burial sites, family members’ migration history and any official positions held, ancestors’ portraits, family documents, biographies, family/clan instructions, family trees, notes on how genealogies could be verified, a geographical map of the family residence, poetry and prose, family customs, information on historical remains, notable neighborhoods, information on how to receive a copy of the genealogy, and information relates to genealogical charts, titles and updates. (1)

Pedigree charts. Ming Dynasty genealogies developed largely as a result of the Ouyang and Su families’ styles. These families used five-generation pedigree charts to record their family lineage. Each chart recorded the genealogical history of five generations. A new chart would be created after the records of five generations had been completed. These charts have been used to trace back dozens—even hundreds—of generations. The Cui Clan Genealogy in Hudun indicated in its “principles” section that it had been compiled in accordance with the styles of Ouyang Xiu, Su Xun and other famous genealogists. However, it also added and deleted generational records as it saw fit. The first pedigree chart descended five generations down, beginning with a great-greatgrandfather. Each legitimate great-great-grandson then became the great-greatgrandfather in a new pedigree chart, and this descended for another five generations. Illegitimate great-great-grandsons became great-great-grandfathers in new branches of pedigree charts. As a result, genealogies became an outline for a hundred generations of families, and they saw breakthroughs from the original framework that Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun had created. The Ye Family Genealogy in Shadi contained a similar pedigree chart. The Bi clan in Xin’an compiled their genealogy during the fourth year of the Zhengde era (1509). They changed the way they recorded clan members and narrated their pedigree charts. The first pedigree chart in their genealogy listed five generations of descendants starting with the Bi clan’s great-greatgrandfather. However, the clan did not list the great-great-grandson (five generations descended) as the great-great-grandfather in the second chart. Instead,

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the second chart began with sixth generation descendants, and descended five generations down to the tenth generation. The third chart listed descendants eleven to fifteen generations descended, and so on. To help future generations understand the clan’s subordinate relations, family members drew small circles around the names of family members who were six, eleven and sixteen generations descended. The Wang Family Genealogy in Yunchuan, Wunan, which was compiled during the 21st year of the Qianlong era (1756), adopted similar methods. Some large clans had a more open approach when it came to including family branches, and they compiled large, genealogical charts to show their lineage. For example, the Revised Wang Family Genealogy in Jixi (compiled in 1508) stipulated: “If some branches have not been included in the genealogical charts of the Xin’an clans, a unified style can be adopted, and this lineage can be extended. This will make them an integral part of a grander genealogy.” The Shi Zhuan 世传 (annotations of pedigree charts). The Shi Zhuan refers to the annotations on pedigree charts, to supply details such as people’s courtesy names, literal names, dates of birth/death, official positions, marriages, children, and cemetery of burial. Some annotations were directly placed under family members’ names, while others were listed on a separate sheet.17 During the Ming Dynasty, many genealogies expanded on their pedigree charts and annotations. There was nothing in the Ouyang/Su style of genealogy that stipulated there should be annotations to include daughters, second wives or concubines. Breakthroughs were made during the Ming Dynasty. In the genealogical principles section of the Sun Family Genealogy in Yuyao, which was compiled during the era of Wanli (1573–1620), information was provided on daughters, along with their husbands’ names and official titles. This genealogy also recorded information about wives and concubines. If the mother of the eldest son was a concubine, he would be listed before the son born by the male family member’s first wife. The principles of Ming Dynasty genealogies went beyond the limitations set by the Ouyang/Su style of genealogy.18 However, it was still uncommon for there to be regulations on the recording of children, and so the Sun Family Genealogy in Yuyao was quite unusual in that respect. Many genealogies made restrictions on the annotations of women, in line with the ideology of the “San Gang” (three cardinal guides) and the “Wu Chang” (five relationships). The Bi Clan Genealogy in Xin’an and the Wang Clan Genealogy in Wukou stipulated that only virtuous women and faithful widows should have details recorded about them in the annotations. The Bi Clan Genealogy in Xin’an gave specific details about how to write annotations on good and evil clan members, so that future generations could promote the good and turn from evil.

Principles of The Ge clan genealogy in Jiqingfang, Jixi 新安毕氏族谱凡例. The 44th year of the Jiangjin era (1565). 18 Zhang Haiying 张海瀛. A survey of genealogy in the Ming Dynasty 明代谱学概说. Genealogical research. Beijing: Bibliography and Documents Publishing House, 1992 (3). 17

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To summarize, specific annotations were included next to pedigree charts in Ming Dynasty genealogies. Family instructions. The family instructions in Ming Dynasty genealogies were similar to those of the Song Dynasty, i.e. study hard to become an elected official, show integrity, raise a harmonious family, educate children and grandchildren, and stay away from corruption. Some families quoted precepts composed by famous people in their Song Dynasty genealogies, e.g. those written by historian Sima Guang and the great politician, Fan Zhongyan 范仲淹. However, during the Ming Dynasty, the family precepts developed significantly in quantity, content and form. Because the Ming Dynasty rulers strengthened their autocratic ideology and culture, content related to Cheng and Zhu’s Neo-Confucianism can be found in the introductions of many family genealogies. A copy of The Song Clan Genealogy in Xiuning from the 32nd year of the Kangxi era (1693) contains “family instructions”, which were formulated during the Ming Dynasty. These are particularly representative of the era. There are ten instructions, which are as follows: (1) Respect your ancestors and maintain harmony within the family; (2) Stick to your ethics; (3) Be content with your lot and behave properly; (4) Abide by laws and principles; (5) Enter the officialdom by studying hard; (6) Store sufficient food in the event of a famine; (7) Parents should be diligent in teaching their children to abstain from arrogance and extravagance; (8) Make sufficient progress in different ways; (9) Set up free schools for future generations; (10) If a family has no descendants, they should adopt children from relatives within the clan. These ten instructions were elaborated on in great detail, and they gave weight to the Zhu Xi’s philosophy. The second instruction in particular urged that clan members abide by ethics. The family instructions sought to educate family members, but also to “punish” them or teach them a moral lesson. When family members violated certain behaviors, the family law would be used to punish them, provided the sentence was light. Otherwise, the official law would be used to punish them. The prospect of punishment meant that the family instructions deterred family members from carrying out bad behavior. Chastity. Ming Dynasty genealogies placed significant emphasis on the “San Gang” (three cardinal guides) and the “Wu Chang” (Five Relationships). These genealogies followed the principles of the “three obedient behaviors and the four virtues”, and they taught family members to “value men over women”. Specific restrictions were imposed on detailing women in these genealogies. However, on the other hand, many publicized and encouraged widow chastity, and they included “stories of these faithful widows”. The Yang Clan Genealogy in Huicheng compiled in 1630 had very specific regulations on how to record women. It stipulated that female members were only recorded by their “lineage names” (shi 氏) not “clan names” (xing 姓) because women were not allowed to go out of the inner quarters. It also stipulated that if a woman remarried after her husband died, she would be excluded

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from her family genealogy. She would be regarded as having violated the principle of “being loyal to her husband until her death”. The Ge Clan Genealogy in Jixi compiled in 1565 wrote that all family conflicts arose from women. Therefore, it stressed that it was not wise to take advice from women. This genealogy also had high demands on what women said and did. It said: “women should be serious in their family affairs, and men should not be confused with women. Women should be familiar with the important principles of the ‘three cardinal guides’, the ‘five relationships’, the ‘three obedient behaviors and the four virtues’.” The Xie Family Clan Genealogy compiled in 1537 had a specific appendix on how clan women should ensure their chastity. The Jin Family Genealogy also had a special section, which contained a list of celibate women and their deeds during the Ming Dynasty.19 Here are examples of how some widows in the Jin family did after their husbands died. A woman surnamed Li cut her hair and disfigured her face to turn down the proposal from other men. Another woman surnamed Zhu starved herself for seven days to death. Another woman surnamed Ji lost her husband when she was only 20 years old, but she never got remarried. Although she lived a harsh life, she managed to brough her son up. After her son died, she helped raise her grandchildren. These vivid records were in sharp contrast to the strict stipulations on ordinary female members being included in genealogies. Expulsion. During the Ming Dynasty, any clansmen who violated the “San Gang” (three cardinal guides), the “Wu Chang” (five relationships) or broke family rules were “expelled and removed from their family genealogy”. Only good behavior was recorded in genealogies, to show the integrity of the family’s lineage. According to the Revised Wang Family Genealogy in Jixi, “Compiling genealogies is like writing about history. History is a record of national affairs, both positive and negative. Genealogies are a record of family affairs. However, often, only good things are recorded in genealogies, whereas bad things are forbidden. The compiler is often afraid to speak the truth. Those who have committed crimes, violated the family rules or have stolen ancestral graves should be removed from their genealogy as a warning to others.” The Ye Clan Genealogy in Xiuning had a wider scope about who should be “expelled”. It said that descendants who “indulged in evildoings, were scornful towards clansmen with the same surname, committed incest, sold family genealogies, discarded the handwritings of their forefathers or were conniving thieves, should be expelled from the family pedigree.” Since removing someone’s name was regarded as a severe punishment, some family members had their titles taken away instead. Some genealogies outlined the distinction between family members either being expelled or having their titles removed. According to the Wang Family Genealogy in Yunchuan, Wunan: “Clansmen who committed minor crimes and showed

The Jin family genealogy 金氏统宗谱. The third year of the Guangxu era (1877).

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repentance could have their names kept in the family genealogy. However, annotations on them, such as their courtesy name, and literal name would be removed, the idea being that they were to start again with a clean slate.” Literature and art. In order to show the merits and glories of family members, it was common for Ming Dynasty genealogies to publish ancestors’ poems, articles, historical biographies, inscriptions on ancient bronze artefacts or stone tablets and other literary/art items. Genealogies increasingly included such content. The Zhu Clan Genealogy expounded on the significance of publishing ancestors’ literary and art achievements. It said: “Introducing literature into genealogies is a way of showcasing the merits and achievements of ancestors. The historical biographies, inscriptions on ancient bronzes and stone tablets, poems, articles, artifacts, and antique collections recorded in The Collected Works of Master Zhu 朱氏文集 can be passed on to later generations.” The Ye Clan Genealogy in Xiuning, compiled during the 11th year of the Hongzhi Era (1498), elaborated on the reasons for compiling the Yi Fang Lu 遗 芳录 (The Record of Ancestral Treasures). “In the past, literary articles were not recorded in genealogies. But now, all of the famous poems and articles written by family members have been compiled and attached to these genealogies as items of heritage. This is why the book is called the Yi Fang Lu. Ancient literary articles have been collected and recorded by genealogists. The later generations will follow suit.” When we opened the catalogue of the Ye Clan Genealogy in Xiuning, we saw two key things. There was plenty of literature and arts-related content, including poems, elegies, words of praise, prefaces to birthday poems, biographies, brief biographical sketches of the deceased, epitaphs, funeral orations and even geographical maps. Nearly every item of cultural heritage had been gathered by the clan and published, to enrich the pages of the genealogy. A large proportion of the genealogy was literature and arts-related. The main text in Volumes 1–4 of the genealogy was as follows: old and renewed genealogies, records and a branch catalogue. There were merely 30 words in the catalogue, whereas the attached Yi Fang Lu had over 200 words of text, not including the title. This showed that the compilers of this genealogy placed a great emphasis on literature and the arts. Genealogical Preservation. After a clan had completed its genealogy, it often strengthened the preservation of its family pedigree by formulating a set of regulations. A family genealogy “could only be passed on to clansmen. If anyone in the family lent a genealogy to outsiders, he would be regarded as having committed treason.”20 The Wang Clan Genealogy in Chengbei, Xiuning, compiled by Wang Rang during the Ming Dynasty’s Chenghua era (1465–1487), said that family

Yang Dianxun. 1994. The general theory of Chinese genealogy. Quarterly Bulletin of Chinese Bibliography, New Vol. 3, Issues 1–2.

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Fig. 7.2 The full family names and courtesy names of those who owned copies of the Revised Cheng Family Genealogy in Shandou, Xiuning

members were forbidden from giving their genealogy to others, otherwise “clansmen would suffer from public punishments”. The principles of the Hong Family Genealogy, compiled during the Ming Dynasty’s Jiajing Era (1522–1566) said: “Each copy of the genealogy has been marked with a number. At annual family reunions, members should verify each other’s genealogy. If any genealogical copy has been either lost or given to others, the family should severely criticize this person.” At the end of the Revised Cheng Family Genealogy in Shandou, Xiuning, compiled during the Ming Dynasty’s Tianqi Era (1621–1627), it said: “There are forty-four family branches and over 400 people have a claim on the genealogy.21 Claimants have registered their full name, courtesy name and artistic name. For example, number one is Henan branch and their claimant is Keren; number two is Dexing Fenghuang branch and their claimants are Renfu, Fuliang, Shang, Fu, Sheng, Rang and Fubin; number three is Dexign Lukou branch and their claimants are Yongning, Chun, Tang and Song, etc. (see Fig. 7.2) The family has stringent requirements regarding the preservation, and inspections/examinations of genealogical material.”

The Revised Cheng Family Genealogy in Shandou, Xiuning 新安休宁山斗程氏本支续谱. Compiled by Cheng Lüchu 程履初. The Ming Dynasty edition.

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In order to prevent counterfeiting, the Wang Clan Genealogy in Wukou compiled during the third year of the Tianqi era (1623) stipulated that when family members made a claim on the genealogy—which they did in numerical order—they should place a seal on the genealogy’s perforation. The regulations in the Dai Clan Genealogy in Xiuning compiled in the fifth year of the Chongzhen era (1632) were even more comprehensive. They stipulated that after a genealogy had been compiled, the original wood-carving of the printed genealogy should be immediately destroyed. They also said that the genealogy’s distribution number should be handed over to the local county government for preservation, to facilitate future inspections and comparisons. In this way, counterfeit genealogies could be identified and destroyed. Renewing Compilations. Ming Dynasty genealogies were renewed more frequently than any other genealogy. It became tradition for genealogies to be continuously renewed after a number of decades. The Wang Clan Genealogy in Wukou, Wuyuan was renewed every 60 years. During the Chongzhen era, the Zhao Clan Genealogy in Jiangsu made it a requirement that descendants renew the genealogy more frequently, “once every 30 years or once every 50 years”. According to the preface of the Revised Dong Clan Genealogy in Wuyuan, the Youshan branch of the Dong family renewed their family genealogy nine times. They renewed it between the Dade era of the Yuan Dynasty and the Republic of China era. It was renewed three times during the Yuan and Ming Dynasties: during the seventh year of the Yuan Dynasty’s Dade era (1303), the sixth year of the Ming Dynasty’s Zhengtong era (1441) and the sixth year of the Ming Dynasty’s Zhengde era (1511). The Jiang Clan Genealogy in Jiyang (1919) showed that the Jiang family began compiling the Jiang Family Records as early as the Han Dynasty, and this was renewed by later generations. “Many generations of descendants have been renewing the family genealogy.” The Jiang Family Genealogy in Jiyang can be traced back to the Han Dynasty, and the Wang Clan Genealogy can be traced back to the Jin Dynasty.22 Some genealogies, like Genealogies of the Xiao Family and the Jiang Family in Wuyuan, Jiangxi and the Revised Wang Family Genealogy in Shexi, published a list of people who had contributed by renewing genealogical compilations (see Table 7.1). Table 7.1 Statistics show that the Wang family in Shexian renewed their genealogy 21 times over 1400 years—between the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the early Qing Dynasty. It was renewed twice during the Eastern Jin Dynasty, three times during the Tang Dynasty, three times during the Song Dynasty, three times during the Yuan Dynasty, nine times during the Ming Dynasty and once during the Qing Dynasty. It was renewed the largest number of times during the Ming Dynasty. Although many genealogies were renewed prior to the Ming Dynasty, it became a tradition that genealogies were renewed once a decade in that era, and this tradition continued into the Qing Dynasty.

Wang Daokun 汪道昆. Preface of sixteen clans’ genealogy 十六族谱序. Wang Xing Bu (Surname Wang 汪). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng.

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Table 7.1 The Renewal Year and Compiler of Genealogies of the Xiao Family and the Jiang Family Dynasty

Compiling year

Compiler

Song

1078

Zong 总

1222

Tingjian 廷坚

1266

Runshen 润身

Yuan

1305

Yuanzhen 元珍

1316

Jun 濬

Ming

1373

Yuzu 裕祖

1541

Quan 铨

1561

Wenshi 文式

1569

Zhen 珍

1604

Yingdou 应斗

Qing

(9)

1605

Yinghan 应翰

1788

Dalin 大林

1815

Yuanwei 元炜 and his brother Yuanhuang 元煌

1848

Yuanwei 元炜 and his nephew Ying 膺

Genealogical compilations imitating official histories. During the Ming Dynasty, the format of genealogies underwent one major change: they started imitating official histories. During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, some scholars had already drawn comparisons between genealogies and official histories. During the Zhenghe era of the Song Dynasty (1111–1118), the Fang Family Genealogy in Baiyuntang, Yuekeng 瀹坑方氏白云堂家谱 published in its preface a list of genealogies that were similar to official histories. During the Ming Dynasty, a large number of dissertations were written that compared genealogies and official histories. The Ge Clan Genealogy in Jiqingfang, Jixi pointed out that “compiling a genealogy is like writing history. History is a record of national affairs, both positive and negative. Genealogies are a record of home affairs. But only good things are recorded in genealogies; bad things are forbidden.” Around the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Chen Xianzhang 陈献章 from Xinhui, Guangdong said in the preface of the Tang 汤 Clan Genealogy: “A genealogy to a family is like history to a nation”. According to the Li Family Genealogy in the Xiuyi Village 休易村李氏族 谱, which was compiled during the Wanli era of the Ming Dynasty (1573– 1620), family genealogies were regarded as a part of history. The Wang Clan Genealogy in Wukou said that national histories and family genealogies had a comparative focus and significance. During the late Ming Dynasty, Zhu Shishi said in the Zhu Clan Genealogy, “A country has history; a family has a genealogy. Both should make records so that people can remember them. The idea of the genealogy originated from Sima Qian, who wrote historical biographies. Their development can be attributed to Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun, who wrote genealogical methodologies.”

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Since genealogies were becoming assimilated with official histories, some Ming Dynasty genealogical compilations directly followed the style of official histories. The Shi Zu Dian in the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng 古今图书集成·氏 族典 contained the published Preface of Sixteen Clans’ Genealogy 十六族 谱序, which was written by Wang Daokun during the Ming Dynasty. Wang’s preface was the 10th item in that genealogy. The first item was the annals; the second and third detailed hereditary houses; the fourth, fifth and sixth item were pedigree charts; the seventh and eighth item were ranked biographies, and the ninth and tenth item were chronicles. Annals, hereditary houses, charts, ranked biographies and chronicles were also chapters in Sima Qian’s Shi Ji 史 记. The Preface of Sixteen Clans’ Genealogy adopted a similar style, and this showed that genealogical compilations imitated official histories. Some Ming Dynasty genealogists actually added some content to official histories via genealogies. For example, the Bao Family Genealogy in Shancuntang, Shexian 歙新馆鲍氏善存堂家谱 compiled during the first year of the Guangxu era (1875) said: “The conferment of honorary titles by imperial mandate during previous dynasties should be recorded. Relevant biographies or historic works should be collected and registered to highlight the glories of ancestors. Accounts of meritorious service should be recorded as well to demonstrate the integrity and morality of a family.” Some genealogies leveraged content from official histories for verification.23 (10) Verifying genealogies. During previous dynasties, a number of well-educated scholars accused people of malpractices and called on genealogies being examined and verified. Their aim was to ensure that greasy, imposter behavior was ruled out during the process of compiling genealogies. When Wen Tianxiang was writing the preface to the Wang Family Genealogy in Wukou during the second year of the Deyou Era (1276), he said that such approaches were neither sensible nor wise. After the Ming Dynasty, there were more and more genealogies. A number of scholars and genealogists proposed examining old ones and verifying the deeds of ancestors, based on the country’s official, historical information. The idea was that their content should not create stigma or be added to arbitrarily increase the volume of the genealogy. It should be geared towards achieving unity among clans and showing that family members respected their ancestors more. The Su Clan Genealogy in Xin’an compiled during the third year of the Chenghua era (1467) specified that “the deeds of ancestors must be based on official histories. If there are no relevant records [on them], we should refer to other literature and guarantee that no content is added to arbitrarily increase the size of the genealogy or create stigma.” The Ge Clan Genealogy in Jixi compiled during the 44th year of the Jiajing era (1565) suggested that the

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Genealogies of the Xiao Family and the Jiang Family in Wuyuan, Jiangxi. The 30th year of the Daoguang Era (1850).

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deeds of ancestors were not recorded without sound evidence and that overexaggerated content should not be included within compilations. This was the desired method of compilation. During the 15th year of the Yongle era (1417), Chen Kai wrote the Cheng Clan Genealogy in Shanhe, Qimen. He argued that the purpose of genealogies was to show that family members revered their ancestors and wanted to unite clans. In his preface, he cited Cheng Bangda’s practice of treating everyone equally without discriminating. Bangda compiled genealogies to pay tribute to his ancestors and carry forward their spirit. The reason genealogies were revised was to supplement missing information, correct errors and verify facts. By tracing inaccuracies to the source, family members showed that they respected the deceased and aimed to unite their clan. This was regarded as the right way to compile genealogies.24 Chen Kai suggested that when family members renewed their genealogies, they should add missing parts, correct existing errors and verify the facts. He was completely on point. The Wang Clan Genealogy in Xin’an compiled during the 35th year of the Wanli era (1607) gave four specific examples of behavior that demonstrated shortcomings in genealogical compilations: (1) Citing non-authoritative sources from ancient times; (2) Flattering people with power and influence; (3) Discriminating family members by removing their names from genealogies or giving up on genealogical compilations due to lack of clan resources, but then attaching their names to genealogies. The compilers believed that people could overcome the above four shortcomings by not citing non-authoritative sources from ancient times, relying on influential officials, discriminating against or expelling others, and giving up easily on their genealogy/not compiling a true genealogy. The above claims summed up the issues should be addressed during process of revision, and they served as an important reference point for genealogical compilations after the Ming Dynasty.

7.5 Ancestral Temples and Their Properties After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, many genealogies added ancestral temples and their properties as an important content. For a clan the most important events were building ancestral temples and offering sacrifices. Ancestral temples were built to trace family roots and pay respects to ancestors.25 If ancestral temples were an architectural representation of clan consciousness, then genealogical records were the textual representation of it. Giant clans had engraved versions of genealogical records, whilst smaller clans had more humble hand-copied versions of it. The genealogical records served the purpose of keeping clan genealogy in a neat order, and ensuring that the family blood pure over the next thousand years. 24 25

The Cheng clan genealogy in Shanhe, Qimen. The 20th year of the Jiajing era (1541). Rules of ancestral temples. In the Gu clan genealogy in Kuaiji 会稽顾氏族谱.

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Genealogical record compilations were carried out in the ancestral temple. As it was a top priority of the clans, it involved a number of tasks, which were carried out by different people. There were people tasked with making record modifications, men tasked with constructing a modification plan, candidates who assisted in compilation, and several people who styled the records, collected data, and gathered donations. The clan leader would gather relevant personnel for a meeting in the ancestral temple to discuss these issues, and at relevant times, recordings of clansmen’s birth, death, burials and marriage would also be drawn up. After the genealogical records were updated, the ancestral temple would hold a grand ceremony to celebrate its completion. This involved lively music, with drums and gongs, and the main worshiper and co-worshiper would offer sacrificial animals and silks at the temple alter. All clansmen would kowtow before the ancestors, drink wine and both give and receive blessings. After the ceremony, a large dinner would be held in the ancestral temple, and an opera performance would be performed. During the 15th year of the Jiajing era (1536), Emperor Ming Shizong, at the suggestion of the Grand Academician Xia Yan, issued an official order for people to worship their ancestors. Since then, many ancestral temples have been constructed all over the country. Most ancestral temples of a non-governmental nature during the Ming Dynasty were built according to the design described in the Family Rituals of the Zhu Family: Ancestral Temples. This book instructs that the temple gate should face south, and in the middle of the Grand Hall, there should be a front shrine. On the left and right sides of the Grand Hall, there should be two side shrines. The memorial tablets of ancestors are placed inside the shrine. Ancestral worship was very popular during the Ming Dynasty. However, many families did not have the funds to build a temple and carry it out. Things changed substantially during the mid-Qing Dynasty, and many families became devoted to raising the funds to build an ancestral temple. By the Qing Dynasty, ancestral temples could be found all over the country in different sizes and scales. Some clans had become so large that they even had several thousand people. Regardless of whether a clan was big enough, many clan temples, and corresponding sub-clan temples were built. Many more were built in the Qing Dynasty, particularly in places where clan systems were advanced. The guidelines of the Qing government regarding clan, family and ancestral temples, had also become a lot more clear and specific. China’s clan system became an important factor for feudal society rulers to consider, and clan leaders’ powers were especially recognized during the Ming and Qing dynasties. As a result, ancestral temples became a key symbol of feudal clan organization. Because China at this time had been influenced by Neo-Confucianism and the “hierarchical ethical order”, filial piety was regarded as a cherished ethic and ancestral temples were a sacred place that could not be altered. The increased importance of ancestral temples also became obvious in that sacrificial rituals became a key event in clan families’ lives and a symbol of family unity. In the Southern Song Dynasty, family and clan genealogical compilation became increasingly popular, alongside the construction of ancestral temples. The two trends seemed to stimulate one another, and in the Ming and Qing dynasties, genealogical compilation reached its prime, and was popular in nearly every household. Ancestral temples of the Ming

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and Qing dynasty are known today for being some of China’s most important temple architecture. The Ming and Qing Dynasties were periods of great development for ancestral temple construction. At this time, China boasted great economic strength, and the country also paid close attention to culture and civilization. As a result, families all over the country built ancestral temples in their hometowns and competed with each other, by means of constant renovation and expansion. Genealogies during the Ming and Qing Dynasties and in the Republic of China highlighted the processes and styles of ancestral temples built by various families. Here are a few examples: Ren, Wen 任、文—They introduced the family ancestral temple adopting the “three-section” model, consisting of gate, hall and bed chamber. Shen 沈—The Shen family highlighted the construction process and the internal structure of the ancestral temple. Guo 郭—The Guo family enumerated the position of ancient ancestors’ altars in the Xiang Hall. Guo also gave particular focus to the inscriptions of Yang Chaozeng, the Governor of Sanjiang, and Shi Kefa, Grand Academician of Wuying Temple and Minister of War. The purpose was to demonstrate the nobility of the family temple and the importance of its ancestral hall. Wang 王—In its genealogy, the Wang family detailed much of the history behind their ancestral temple. It was initially built at the height of the Ming Dynasty, but was then destroyed during the late dynasty during the war. It was repaired in the 19th year of the Qianlong era (1754), and expanded in the eighth year after the Republic of China was founded. He 贺—The He family described genealogical editing during the third year of the Yongzheng era (1725); and the construction of the ancestral temple during the eighth year of the Jiaqing era (1803). Jiang 江—The Jiang family introduced the “four-section” structure to their ancestral temple. This consisted of a bed chamber, middle section, front section and gate. Zhong 钟—The ancestral temple of the Zhong family consisted of two temples standing side by side. The left one was the “Dinghui (meeting hall) temple”, and the right one was the “Paiwei (tablets) temple”. The Zhong family’s ancestral structure was quite special during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The above examples demonstrate that families have long attached great importance to the construction of their ancestral temples; and that these temples occupy different positions in their genealogy. However, each family has vividly recorded their family’s ancestral temple architecture with abundant pictures and texts in their genealogical books. The Cai Clan Genealogy in Youxian, Hunan contained a map of the ancestral temple (see Fig. 7.3). There are two paragraphs behind the ancestral temple map, which introduce its geographical location, architectural overview and preparation process. It can be seen that there was a development process in preparing the Cai family’s ancestral temple: during the era that ancestors Yuan Li and Yuan Dao lived, they built a family bedroom, and then “changed it into the Ancestral Temple”, and moved

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Fig. 7.3 The ancestral temple map contained in the Cai Clan Genealogy in Youxian, Hunan

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from the beginning to the ancestral hall as the first ancestor. Since then the family made several renovations. Because the ancestral hall was small and the descendants had no place to worship, it was in 1589 that the original ancestral hall was “built with a front porch and a memorial archway”. As a result, the ancestral hall became “slightly elegant”. China’s ancient ancestral temples were usually built in view of beautiful scenery, i.e.: close to the mountains and waters. This demonstrated the ancient Chinese’s focus on the ecological environment, as well as the philosophy of the unity of heaven and human beings, and ultimately, returning to nature. For instance, the Tan family in Xiangtan, Hunan province decided to build their ancestral temple during Emperor Jiaqing’s reign in the Qing Dynasty. They visited many places in search of a location, but most places turned out to be “bad” until they found the Zhoujia Mountain. They considered the location “embraced by hills and rivers”, with a “hidden geomantic omen” and so “the ancestral temple was finally built”. In another example, the Liu family in Li’nan, Hunan province described in their genealogy how their ancestral temple was built on “an auspicious land of treasure”. It is said that “there emerged numerous sages and wealthy men”, “owing to the lucky omen of the landscape”. Ancestral temples varied from region to region in China, and those built after the middle Ming and dynasty showed many distinct features. The most exquisite ancestral temples built during the Ming Dynasty can be found in Huizhou. In ancient China, merchants from Huizhou were extremely wealthy and they donated a lot of money towards the construction of ancestral temples in their hometown. Therefore, it is widely believed that ancestral temples built in Huizhou between the mid to late Ming Dynasty are of the highest quality. They are also where the highest concentration of ancestral temples can be found. According to statistics from the Studies of Clans in Huizhou by Zhao Huafu, 47 clan temples were built in Huizhou by the end of the Ming Dynasty. Of those, three were built in the Song Dynasty, five were built in the Yuan Dynasty, and 39 were built during the Jiajin era (1522–1566) and Wanli era (1573–1620) in the Ming Dynasty.26 Most ancestral temples of a non-governmental nature during the Ming Dynasty were built according to the design described in the Family Rituals of the Zhu Family: Ancestral Temples. This book instructs that the temple gate should face south, and in the middle of the Grand Hall, there should be a front shrine. On the left and right sides of the Grand Hall, there should be two side shrines. The memorial tablets of ancestors are placed inside the shrine. Large-scale worship involved a lot of preparation. First, clans needed to prepare their ancestors’ memorial tablets (also known as spirit tablets, wooden tablets, god tablets, family tablets), as it was believed that their ancestors were closely affiliated with these. Spirit tablets were usually small, rectangular pieces of wood. Each tablet represented one ancestor and they were carefully crafted, some with finely carved flowers on them. Memorial tablets were usually placed erect in the bed hall of a temple in 26

Zhao Huafu. Research on Huizhou clans. Hefei: Anhui University Press, 2004: 242–246.

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strategic positions. The memorial tablet in the middle was often for the ancestor who had moved the clan from their birthplace or the original first ancestor. The size and shape of memorial tablets was strictly regulated. The Song Dynasty government instructed that each board be one chi (1/3 m) long, four cun and five fen wide, and five cun and eight fen thick. Each tablet needed to contain the characters: “The spirit tablet for the honoured [name]” on it. When memorial tablets were not in use, clansmen would place these in cloth bags and store them in painted boxes. They would then be taken out and placed on tables in the bed hall during ancestral worship. The spirit tablet of the first ancestor or the ancestor who relocated the clan was known as “Bai shi bu tiao”, literally, “enshrined on this table forever and never to be moved, even after one hundred generations”. On either side of this tablet, the spirit tablets of deceased fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers and greatgreat-grandfathers were arranged. Regulations insisted that spirit tablets over four generations old should be moved to an adjacent table. Annually on Qingming Festival and Winter Solstice Festival, Qi clan in Xiafu Village hold in its clan ancestral temple a large-scale ancestor worship activity, the most important and most ceremonious one among all worship activities of this clan. There is a series of preparation work to do beforehand, including discussing ancestor worship agenda and related matters, scrubbing sacrificial instruments and displaying them in the hall, purchasing food and other goods for the ancestor worship and so on. Besides, an announcement will be posted in advance to make people have a mental preparation and arrive on time in accordance with the relevant regulations. It was believed that the spirits of the ancestors gathered in ancestral temples, and therefore, this was the place where clan members conducted worship ceremonies. During the Ming Dynasty, great family events were discussed in meetings chaired by the clan leader. These included the updating of the genealogical book, renovation of the ancestral temple, the election of a clan leader and the purchase of land for tombs. If any clan member broke the law or the clan rules, the ancestral temple would become the family court. The clan leader would hold a trial, in which the member or members who committed wrongful deeds would be judged and/or punished. Normally, in such a situation, clan members and the middle-class of the community were allowed to audit the trial, because their presence had a great impact and promoted social discipline. Ancestral temples in the Ming Dynasty became a central focus point on which clan members could come together, and bond with their bloodline. Through ancestral worship and similar activities, they became united and formed close-knit family organizations.

7.6 Grand Collections of General Genealogies A large number of “hui tong pu” (会通谱) and “tong zong pu” (统宗谱) genealogies emerged during the Ming Dynasty. They became especially popular since the middle Ming Dynasty, when society developed and the population grew rapidly.

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General genealogies, as their name infers, are family genealogies that included people with the same surname from various regions. They, therefore, covered a wide range.27 They appeared as a result of the development of clan organizations, and they symbolized the perfection of a specific genealogical editing style. These genealogies include: the Xin’an Cheng Shi Zhu Pu Hui Tong 新安程氏诸谱会通compiled during the Jingtai era (1450–1456), the Huang Shi Hui Tong Pu 黄氏会通谱, the Xin’an Cheng Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu 新安程氏统宗世谱, and the Xin’an Huang Shi Tong Pu 新安黄氏通谱 compiled during the Hongzhi era (1488–1505), the Wang Shi Tong Zong Pu 汪氏统宗谱, the Lingnan Zhang Shi Hui Tong Pu 岭南张氏会通谱, the Zhang Shi Hui Xiu Tong Zong Shi Pu 张氏会修统宗世谱, and the Zhang Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu 张氏统宗世谱 compiled during the Jiajing era (1522–1566), the Wang Shi Tong Zong Zheng Mai 汪氏统宗正脉, the Wu Kou Wang Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu 武口王氏统宗世谱, and the Xu Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu 许氏统宗世谱 compiled during the Longqing era (1567–1572), the Gu Jin Wan Xing Tong Pu 古今万姓统 谱, the Chong Xiu Yu Shi Tong Pu 重修俞氏统谱 and the Yu Shi Tong Hui Da Zong Pu 俞氏统会大宗谱 compiled during the Wanli era (1573–1620). The most distinctive feature of general genealogies was that they were large in scale. For example, The Huang Shi Hui Tong Pu, which was edited during the Hongzhi era (1488–1505), recorded twenty-five branches of family members. The first ancestor recorded was Huang Yuanji, who relocated to Xin’an during the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and settled there when he became the satrap of Xin’an. The largest general genealogy is the Zhang Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu, which was compiled by Zhang Xian and Zhang Yanghui during the Jiajing era (1522–1566). It noted that the Zhang family name was given by the Yellow Emperor. It survived over thousands of years, and contained 117 branches of family members. They were: Chenliu, Daliang, Duling, Peiguo, Wuyang, Nanyang, Xianguo, Longhushan, Xiyang, Fanyang, Xiagui, Wujun, Qinghe, Jiangzuo, Xiangyang, Luoyang, Changle, Jinhua, Chishanzhen, Runtian, Xinzhuang, Tangtou (Huizhou prefecture), Yibei, Xiangxi, Huangjintan, Xuanhuafang, Jialu, Youting, Dongxi, Bishan, Huanzhu, Yutan, Wan’an, Shuinan, Shuige, Nanyuan, Liaotou, Linxi, Mantian, Zuocha, Xuekenkeng, Censhan, Shicen, Youcha, Chakoku, Dongyuan, Wuyang, Huanbei, Shaoqian, Jiakou, Shaocun, Zhantian, Dingtan, Zhangtan, Zhufang, Shanglu, Baita, Hedong, Guocun, Jinfang, Jiahui, Xuchong, Shengtan, Shishan, Ximatou, Ximen, Baisha, Caojinjing, Cangwu, Cheban, Zhongtian, Fengxi, Zhongjing, Xiaogangkou, Zhangkeng, Liukou, Liangtan, Yujing, Tanxi, Zhongjing, Zhucun, Meihu, Xinwu, Jingtan, Bayuan, Pengche, Nanhu, Xichogn, Chamuwu, Wangjiayuan, Songzipu, Wuyuan, Shuiche, Yaofan, Tangtou (Raozhou prefecture, Jiangxi), Shanghe, Meilin, Toutian, Houtian, Huanggang, Dayuan, Jiexi, Suoziyuan, Dazhou, Liruipi, Daowan, Chengtian, Gangdong, Donghu, Fanxieyuan, Matan, Qujiang, Chengdu, Mianzhu, Dingxing, Chonghua, and Xiulin.

The preface of the Cheng family general genealogy in Xin’an 新安程氏会通谱序. The second year of the Jingtai era (1451).

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The Zhang Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu recorded family members in almost every Chinese province. It contained a “Geographical Map of the Zhang Family’s Ancient and Modern Migration”, and listed more than 120 residences in Beijing, 170 in Nanjing, 90 in Jiangxi, 80 in Zhejiang, 140 in Huguang, 140 in Sichuan, 130 in Shaanxi, 110 in Henan, 100 in Shandong, 100 in Shanxi, 60 in Fujian, 70 in Guangdong, 70 in Guangxi, 80 in Yunnan, and 10 in Guizhou. More than 1470 residences spanning 15 provinces were included on the map, and it is truly a work of art.28 It is completely understandable for this kind of masterpiece to have appeared during the middle Ming Dynasty. At that time, there was long-term peace and stability in society, and this meant that the populations and power of clans increased. Clans subsequently thought of grand genealogies as a necessity, to assemble their various family branches. By this time, Chinese genealogists had accumulated two hundred years’ of experience since the Song Dynasty. Genealogies had become more mature and they had a standardized format and contents. This meant that genealogists were fully capable of compiling extra-large genealogies. The Ming government supported and even encouraged people to do so, but they urged that they cite Zhu Yuanzhang’s “Six Maxims”, since this was beneficial to them consolidating their rule. During the Ming Dynasty, the prosperity of the Huizhou merchants meant that there was greater clan power in that region. There were few wars in Huizhou because it was located in the mountains, yet it was rich in culture and the study of humanities was popular there, so genealogical compilations were likewise popular. The ancestral temples built in Huizhou during the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty were of the highest quality.29 This area is also where the highest concentration of genealogies has been found, especially general genealogies. For example, there were the Taiyuan Wang Shi Hui Tong Shi Pu, the Wang Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu, the Xin’an Wang Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu, the Wukou Wang Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu, the Zhu Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu, the Zhu Shi Tong Zong Pu, the Xin’an Xiao Jiang Da Tong Zong Pu, the Xin’an Wu Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu, the Wang Shi Tong Zong Pu, the Hong Shi Tong Zong Pu, the Qing Hua Hu Shi Tong Hui Zu Pu, the Cao Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu, the Xin’an Huang Shi Hui Tong Pu, the Xin’an Cheng Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu, and the Gu She Xie Shi Tong Zong Zhi. Most influential Huizhou families had compiled their general genealogies. In order to meet the demand for genealogies, some aristocratic families set up genealogical organizations during the Ming Dynasty. These were known as genealogical bureaus, and they specialized in large projects. Dozens of people worked in these large bureaus. According to the Wukou Wang Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu, during the Longqing era (1567–1572), the Wang family recruited many people to compile their family’s general genealogy. It took them some ten years to complete. During the Tianqi era (1621–1627), the Wang family decided to revise their genealogy. This Zhang Haiying 张海瀛. A survey of genealogy in the Ming Dynasty 明代谱学概说. The 3rd series of Genealogical Research. Bibliography and Literature Publishing House, 1992:108. 29 Cheng Xing Bu (Surname Cheng 程). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. 28

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time, it took some 30 compilers twelve years. The Cheng family in Xin’an published a list of co-editors and collators in their general genealogy. It involved 57 people from 26 branches of the family: from Shexian County, Xiuning, Qimen, Yi County, Wuyuan and Jixi. The largest general genealogy is the Zhang Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu, which was compiled by Zhang Xian and Zhang Yanghui during the Jiajing era (1522–1566). 248 people worked on this, including two chief editors, 32 editors, 29 assistant editors, 38 proofreaders, 22 scribes, 75 pioneers, 16 sponsors, 11 assistants, two graphic designers, 15 engravers, three printers and three bookbinders. The popularity of general genealogies led to one great work being compiled, which gathered many major genealogies from ancient times to the present. This was the Wan Xing Tong Pu 万姓统谱 (General Register of the Ten-Thousand Surnames) and it was compiled by Ling Dizhi during the seventh year of the Wanli era (1579). It spanned 140 volumes and contained more than 3700 surnames. It also contained six volumes of Li Dai Di Wang Xing Xi Tong Pu 历代帝王姓系通谱 (Imperial Surnames of Past Dynasties) and 14 volumes of Shi Zu Bo Kao 氏族博考 (A Survey of Clans). This book listed surnames according to how they sounded. It imitated Lin Bao’s Yuan He Xing Zuan 元和姓纂 in that it listed surnames according to these tones (in order: the yinping: mid-falling; yangping: mid-rising; shangsheng: low-level; qusheng: high-level; rushing: high-short). The respective tone was listed under each surname, in order to distinguish the origin of each surname. Famous people with these surnames were then listed and their deeds/life stories recorded. Although the title of this book suggested it was a catalogue of surnames, it was also a biography of influential people, so can be thought of as a combined anthology of genealogies and biographies. In the preface, Ling Dizhi 凌迪知 (1529–1600) stated that he came up with the idea to compile the Wan Xing Tong Pu after reading Su Xun’s Preface to the Su Clan Genealogy. Ling Dizhi believed that all surnames originated from the Yellow Emperor alone. Since the Su Clan Genealogy was able to unite all the Su clans as one family, he thought the Wan Xing Tong Pu could also lead to connections between the tens of thousands of surnames, and ultimately link all clans as one family. Su Xun said in his preface: “By reading this genealogy, people will develop a sense of filial piety”, and Ling Dizhi also believed that reading the Wan Xing Tong Pu would lead to people developing a sense of filial piety. The famous scholar Wang Shizhen spoke highly of this book. Ling Dizhi was able to collect many surnames from genealogical books of previous dynasties because he was able to refer to many books that were available at the time. He used three types of reference book. The first type is the books on surnames, such as the Xing Zuan 姓纂 (the six-volume edition by Qian Mingyi), the Qian Xing Bian 千姓编 (the one-volume edition by Wu Keji 吴可几), the Xing Yuan Zhu Ji 姓源 珠玑 (the four-volume edition by Yang Xinmin 杨信民), the Shi Zu Da Quan 氏族 大全 (16-volume edition), Shi Zu Lue 氏族略 in the Tong Zhi Shu 通志书 (eightvolume edition), Shi Zu Men 氏族门 in the Bai Kong Liu Tie 白孔六帖 (one-volume edition), the Han Ren Xi Xing 汉人希姓 (one-volume edition), Xing Shi 姓氏 in

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the Wen Yuan Ying Hua 文苑英华 (four-volume edition), and Shi Zu 氏族 in the He Bi Shi Lei 合壁事类 (21-volume edition). The second type is the 22 books of histories and chronicles, i.e. regional and county chronicles, such as the Da Ming Yi Tong Zhi 大明一统志 (the whole nation), the Shi San Sheng Tong Zhi 十三省统 志 (thirteen regions), and the Ge Jun Xian Zhi 各郡县志 (every commandery and district). The third type is the works of Ming Dynasty scholars, such as the Si Shu Ren Wu Kao 四书人物考 (the four books that do textual research on characters), the Huang Ming Jin Shi Kao 皇明进士考 (research on Presented Scholars of the Ming Dynasty), the Wu Zhong Wang Zhe Ji 吴中往哲记, and the Wu Xing Ming Xian Lu 吴兴名贤录 (famous and distinguished people in Wuxing). Ling Dizhi’s extensive collection efforts mean that the Gu Jin Wan Xing Tong Pu has come to be regarded as a masterpiece. It combines the genealogical books of various families, and is also a monograph of family names. It has had a huge influence on Chinese genealogical compilations, both during the Ming Dynasty and afterwards.

7.7 Cheng Minzheng’s Genealogical Methodology and Verification Among Ming Dynasty general genealogies, the Xin’an Cheng Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu compiled during the 18th year of the Chenghua era (1505) was regarded to have better qualities and greater influences. Cheng Minzheng 程敏政 (1445–1499), whose courtesy name was Keqin and literary name Huangdun, was from Xiuning, Anhui province. At the age of 10, Cheng Minzheng was recommended to the imperial court as a prodigy and studied at the Hanlin Academy. In the 2nd year of the Chenghua era (1464) when passing the highest imperial examination, he was conferred the title of compilation official at the Imperial Academy and gave lectures to the crown prince from time to time. After Emperor Hong Zhi ascended the throne, he was promoted to Junior Zhanshi and scholar officialdom (an official position under crown prince in the Ming Dynasty) and then became the deputy minister of Ministry of Rites. As the top scholar at the Imperial Academy, he was known to be knowledgeable and engaged in historiography. He compiled the Xin’an Wen Xian Zhi 新安文献志 (the Literary Documents in Xinan), the Huang Ming Wen Heng 皇明文衡 (Literary Documents during the Ming Dynasty) and the like, and participated in the compilation of the Ying Zong Shi Lu 英宗实录 (Documentary Records of Emperor Ming Ying Zong), and the Song Yuan Gang Mu 宋元纲目 (The Compendium of Song and Ming Dynasties). He compiled multiple genealogies like the Xin’an Cheng Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu and Xiuning Pei Guo Cheng Shi Ben Zong Pu. He also wrote prefaces for a number of clan genealogies. His Huang Dun Wen Ji 篁墩文集 (Collected Works of Huangdun) preserved the results of his researches on clan genealogies.

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Cheng Minzhen studied a lot of historic literature and accumulated profound historiography knowledge. He was keen on examining and correcting the errors in the predecessors’ historical books. Chen Minzhen also developed a strong interest in family history and pedigree. During the Tianshun Era, he was immersed in studying new genealogies, reviewed the old genealogies and referred to other relevant books for 20 years. Finally, he compiled the Xin’an Cheng Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu in the 18th year of the Chenghua era (1505). The Xin’an Cheng Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu spanned 20 volumes. The preface written by Chen Minzheng is published in Volume 1. The first volume also contained 38 old genealogies, catalogues, principles and verification of the genealogy. Cheng Minzhen wrote in the preface: he compiled the genealogy based on his study of old genealogies over the past 20 years. He spent 6 months, when staying at home for mourning the death of his father, on compiling this Xin’an Cheng Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu that covered 44 clan branches and thousands of clan members, with the great support from his clansmen. The Xin’an Cheng Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu listed Xiufu 休父 as the first ancestor because he was conferred the noble title of Cheng Bo due to his contributions to Emperor Zhou Xuanwang (827BC–782BC). Yuan Tan was the first ancestor who relocated to the present location. Since the beginning of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, he moved from Dong’e to Xin’an and settled down in Huangdun, Anhui. His descendants migrated to Qimen, Xiuning, Jixi, Wuyuan and other places, divided into 44 clan branches. The 20 volumes of Xin’an Cheng Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu registered the 44 branches’ clansmen according to their family pedigrees. The first line of the pedigree chart was their names, followed by date of birth and death, official position, academic achievement, marriage, offspring, cemetery and other information in the second annotation line. There were thousands of names registered on this pedigree. The 44 branches are as follows: Huantang, Xianyuan, Censhandu, and Changhanshan in Shexian; Longshoushan, Fengling, Gaoan, Changjing, Jinzhu, Huanxi, Shayang, Zhangmu, Xiangtian, Xiangshan, Zhouxi, Chengdong, and Xiyuan in Wuyuan; Shanhe, Yuyan, Baixi, and Chengcun in Qimen; Chengli, Fangshi, Renli, and Xiaogu in Jixi; Chachuan, Tangwei, Shuaikou, Shandou, Linxi, Fuxi, and Peiguo in Xiuning; Yutian in Kaihua; Jingdezhen and Chengshan in Fuliang; Fenghuang, Lukou, Nanxi, and Xinjian in Dexing; Chengyuan in Guixi; Meiyan, Shicheng, Hechong, and Xiaozhangmu in Leping. According to certain genealogical methodology, Cheng Minzhen recorded the 44 branches and thousands of clansmen on the Xin’an Cheng Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu. His genealogical methodologies were included in the section of Principles. And the ten principles can be summarized into four main aspects. First, the historiography principle of credit investigation. In order to compile the Cheng Family’s general genealogy, Cheng Minzhen opposed the indiscriminate introduction of all Cheng’s branches into the genealogy. Instead, he proposed to investigate and authenticate the Cheng’s clans after the Tang and Song Dynasties concerning their old pedigrees, achievements, former cemeteries, before they were qualified for the genealogy. The old genealogies should also be verified from the perspectives of historiographers. If similarities, differences or errors were found in the

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old genealogies, they should be compared to other genealogies in the past dynasties for verification. If there were common parts, then they could be adopted. If there were mistakes but already corrected, they could also be qualified for the genealogy, or otherwise leave them vacant. Cheng Minzheng observed the historiography principle of credit investigation, which was also reflected from the annotation line under the name of clansmen. “Only write the proven facts. If unknown, then leave it vacant. Any exaggerated compliments are not recorded.” Second, the genealogy illustration including “xiao zong” and “tong zong”. Regarding the genealogy illustration of T Xin’an Cheng Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu, Cheng Minzhen changed the original six-generation chart. Instead, he adopted Ouyang Xiu’s style that recorded the genealogical history of only five generations, which is also known as the “xiao zong” style. The first pedigree chart descended five generations down from someone’s great-great-grandfather. Each great-great-grandson then became the great-great-grandfather in a new pedigree chart, which then descended for another five generations, and so on. In this way, the first and the second charts recorded nine generations, indicating the intimate degrees of five mourning apparels and nine clans. As the pedigree chart of the 4th Clan of Xin’an She Huangdun shows, its Lingxi 灵洗, Wenji 文季, Xiang 乡, Yu 育 and Jie 皆 from the 13th generation to the 17th generation constituted the first chart, while Jie then led the second chart followed by Hong 弘, Dabian 大辨, Wenying 文英 and Hao 皓. From Lingxi to Hao, there were nine generations that suggested the relationship of the five mourning apparels of the 4th clan of Cheng Family’s She Huangdun pedigree, and covered the emotional bond of the nine clans (see Fig. 7.4). It was difficult for a general patrilineality genealogy to record over thousands of clansmen with Ouyang Xiu style chart. “The branch genealogical charts cannot reveal the whole picture”, and hence Cheng Minzheng opted for the “tong zong” to illustrate the general genealogy. Based on the pedigree chart of “tong zong” and “ancestors and sons rather than the wife’s eldest sons”, he followed the chronological table of the Shi Ji and the prime minister (in feudal China) table of the Tang Shu to establish the largest Huizhou Cheng Family’s general genealogy, including 44 branches centering the first immigratory ancestor Cheng Yuantan. Third, the educational significance of the annotation line in the genealogy illustration. The 2nd to the 7th line of the principles specified the annotations under the name of clan members: whether the descendants migrated or not, the name of the clan, whether they had off springs or not, whether they adopted kids or not. If they ever committed crimes, broke relationships with others, invaded the ancestral graves, sold the clan genealogy, defied ancestors, abandoned handwritings left by forefathers or had poor-matched marriages, their names would be removed from the list of genealogy. In addition to the general introduction, whether they were righteous with female virtues and paragon of chastity was recorded as well. These regulations were consistent with the mainstream ideologies of the “San Gang” 三 纲(three cardinal guides), “Wu Chang” 五常 (five relationships), and “Three Obedience and Four Virtues” 三从四德 in the Ming Dynasty, which played the role of indoctrination.

7.7 Cheng Minzheng’s Genealogical Methodology and Verification

183

Fig. 7.4 The pedigree chart of Xin’an She Huangdun in the Xin’an Cheng Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu

Fourth, the format and style of compilation. The first part was composed of a preface, principles as well as the verification of the genealogy based on the examination and correction of various branches’ pedigrees as references. The pictures of ancestral graves and shrines were placed in the second part of the genealogy. The literature and art of the clan members was included in the Yi Fan Ji 贻范集 (Collected Works of Ancestral Legacy) “attached to the genealogy to pass on to the future generations”. In general, the genealogical methodology of the Cheng family’s general genealogy compiled by Cheng Minzheng featured two combinations. First, the rigorous historiography principle of credit investigation was combined with the compilation of family genealogies, integrating the patriarchal clan spirit with meticulous academic

184

7 The Perfection of Chinese Genealogies

spirit. Second, adapt to the requirements of clan genealogy compilation and combine the “xiao zong” with the “tong zong” in order to make the genealogy a normative and proven academic one. In the preface of the Xin’an Cheng Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu, Cheng Minzheng implied: “Our clansmen shall not forget the origins, respect the ancestors and other members, safeguard family foundation, recite teachings of the deceased, preserve the patriarchal clan system and observe the cardinal principles so that the whole clan could unite as one. Other families and clans shall also be encouraged to follow the model of Cheng Family’s general genealogy.” Cheng Minzheng hoped that the general genealogy should serve as a sample for the others. Cheng Minzheng introduced the historiography principle of credit investigation into the genealogy compilation, to “clarify and correct the confusions and errors that existed in the old genealogies for the past 20 years.” He put forward 37 rules of Genealogical Verification and published them at the beginning of the Xin’an Cheng Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu, which has approximately thousands of words. The Genealogical Verification was mainly about the Cheng’s family pedigree, branches and relevant migration sites, time, people and events, or the so-called “Cheng Qi’s Genealogy”. Cheng Qi 程祁 was a senior official of the State Affairs Department in the Song Dynasty and once compiled 30 volumes of the Cheng Family Genealogy that started from the origination of the surname Cheng to the descending five generations. The coalition and division history of family pedigrees was clearly and completely recorded. Since Cheng Qi’s family pedigree was compiled, Cheng’s generations have followed its model to compile their genealogies. Cheng Minzheng read Cheng Qi’s family pedigree from the perspective of historiographer. On one hand, he commended the contributions made by Cheng Qi. But on the other hand, he doubted the authenticity of the content of the early Cheng’s lineages due to lack of historic evidences. As a result, Cheng Minzheng examined the old pedigrees and verified the contents based on the references of other books, in order to reach a scientific conclusion on earlier family pedigrees since the surname Cheng was adopted. Cheng Minzheng found the Chen Liu Genealogy compiled by Cheng clansman in the Northern Song Dynasty and compared it to the Wen Yuan Ying Hua written in the Song Dynasty. He discovered in it that the inscriptions on the Cheng Changshi’s Monument by Li Yi during the 16th Year of the Kaiyuan era in the Tang Dynasty (728) were the names from Zhong Zhuang Gong’s grandson “Xiang” 乡 to the descending 5th generation “Da Bian” 大辨, the same as the genealogical name list recorded in the Chen Liu Genealogy, namely “Xiang -Yu- Jie- Hong—Da Bian”. But the compiler of Cheng Qi’s family pedigree, Cheng qi, didn’t see the Cheng Changshi’s Monument in the Chen Liu Genealogy and the Wen Yuan Ying Hua. As a result, Cheng Qi’s family pedigree only recorded the migration of Zhong Zhuanggong’s offspring to Zhongshan and Da Bian was the 5th generation. However, during that time there was no name list of the family pedigree. According to the Chen Liu Genealogy and

7.7 Cheng Minzheng’s Genealogical Methodology and Verification

185

Li Yi’s Cheng Changshi’s Monument that was hundreds of years earlier than the Yuan He Xing Zuan, Cheng Minzheng concluded that Lin Bao’s Yuan He Xing Zuan, known as the guidebook of surnames, was not entirely reliable. This might have caused mistakes in Cheng Qi’s family pedigree. After a series of investigation and verification, Cheng Minzheng denied the Cheng Qi’s family pedigree that had been passed down for a long time. He managed to compile his Xin’an Cheng Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu, “All the lineages during the Zhou and Qin Dynasties in the Cheng Qi’s family pedigree were not adopted, in order to show the authenticity of this genealogy.”30 When renewing the genealogy, Cheng Minzheng adopted the methodology of investigation and verification based on reliable resources, and abandoned Cheng’s family pedigree before the Song Dynasty inherited from his clansman Cheng Qi in the Northern Dynasty. From the academic perspective, he was meticulous about revising the family genealogy in order to meet the standards of academic research. Nevertheless, the existing earlier family pedigree had already become a symbol of recognition for Cheng’s clansmen. If it were abandoned, it would be hard for them to accept from the emotional perspective. As a result, once Cheng Minzheng’s “verification of genealogy” was released, it triggered great controversies among the Cheng’s family in Huizhou. Some Cheng’s branches accepted Cheng Minzheng’s proposal of genealogy revision, but others still insisted on Cheng Qi’s family pedigree. “From the founding of country to the descending five generations, we strictly followed the Song Dynasty high official Qi’s family pedigree and never dared to add or remove one word.”31 Moreover, the compiler of the Annotations of Cheng’s Family Clan Migration discussed with Cheng Minzheng about his “verification of genealogy”: “If new clans wanted to be added to the genealogy, one should follow the family pedigree written by Cheng Qi and verify the authenticity. Concerning the general genealogy compiled by the scholar, we shall follow the right parts, correct the mistakes and add the missing parts.” The attitudes towards Cheng Minzheng’s Xin’an Cheng Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu were: “follow the right parts, correct the mistakes and add the missing parts”. It seemed desirable but there was a prerequisite that “If new clans wanted to be added to the genealogy, one should follow the family pedigree written by Cheng Qi and verify the authenticity.” In essence, it overrode the perspectives validated by Cheng Minzheng’s “verification of genealogy”. As a renowned scholar in the Ming Dynasty, Cheng Minzheng incorporated the family genealogies, prefaces and verification of genealogies into the Collected Works of Huangdun, which exerted great influences on the future generations. The Cheng’s family in Huizhou respected the academic achievements made by Cheng Minzheng, but they were reluctant to accept the results of investigation in his verification of genealogy. This reflected an internal contradiction between Cheng Minzheng’s Verification of genealogy 谱辨. In the Xin’an Cheng Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu. The 17th year of the Chenghua era (1504). 31 The revised Chen family genealogy and the principles in Shuaidong 率东程氏重修家谱加凡例. The Jiajing (1522–1566) edition. 30

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7 The Perfection of Chinese Genealogies

academic verification and Huizhou clansmen’s family culture. Despite Cheng Qi’s earlier pedigree that “traced back to the founding of country to the descending five generations with hundreds of clan branches and generations” restructured the ancestral lineages, it adapted to the emotional demands of Cheng’s clan culture. “Under this circumstance, Cheng’s branches naturally opted for the Cheng Qi’s version given its tracing far back to earlier ancestors. Though Cheng’s family respected Cheng Minzheng and admired his academic research and investigation ability, they were still reluctant to accept the verification result. This was indeed ironic for scholars engaged in genealogy compilation.”32

Chang Jianhua 常建华. A preliminary study on genealogical issues in Cheng Minzheng’s Xin’an Cheng Shi Tong Zong Shi Pu 程敏政新安程氏统宗世谱谱学问题初探. Hebei Academic Journal 河北学刊, 2015 (11).

32

Chapter 8

The Popularization of Chinese Genealogy

China’s genealogical history reached its peak during the Qing Dynasty (1616–1911) and the Republic of China (1912–1949) era. This is because a large quantity of high-quality, rich content was produced during these periods. However, the content and styles of these genealogies were largely consistent with those produced in the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). What marked Qing Dynasty and Republic of China genealogies as distinctive were that they were especially popular.

8.1 Comparing the Styles of Ming Dynasty, Qing Dynasty and Republic of China Genealogies First, let’s look at some examples in Table 8.1. Table 8.1 contains 19 genealogies from the Huizhou area. Seven were written during the Ming Dynasty, seven during the Qing Dynasty, and five during the Republic of China era. The Huizhou genealogies are a good comparison point because the Huizhou merchants were notably successful, and their local culture grew significantly as a result. This meant that the quality and quantity of genealogies compiled there were some of the highest in the country during the Ming/Qing Dynasties and the Republic of China era. Consequently, they had great significance and were given representation at a national level. If we compare the genealogies of several periods from the same area, this will help us see the development trend and the regularity of genealogical compilations. From the above table we can see that the genealogies compiled during the Ming Dynasty often contained the following content: a preface, principles, the origin of the family surname, pedigree charts, biographies/biographical notices, encomiums for ancestors’ portraits, paintings of tombs, epitaphs, ancestral hall paintings, congratulatory poetry and prose, family instructions, credentials, records of female members who practiced chastity in widowhood, a geographical map of residence, colophons and figures/characters for collecting copies of genealogies. From this, we can see © Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2023 H. Wang, The General Theory of China’s Genealogy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6377-5_8

187

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8 The Popularization of Chinese Genealogy

Table 8.1 Styles of Ming Dynasty, Qing Dynasty and Republic of China Genealogies Title

Year of compilation

Main content

Su Clan Genealogy in Xin’an 新安苏氏族谱

1467

Old preface, pedigree charts, 15 preface, epitaph, biographical notices, congratulatory poetry and prose

Ye Family Genealogy in Xiuning 休宁陪郭叶氏世谱

1498

Old preface, representative branches, pedigree charts, preface, epitaph, biographical notices, congratulatory poetry and prose, geographical map of Xin’an, characters/numbers for collecting the copy of the genealogy

4 volumes and appendixes (I, II, III)

Bi Clan Genealogy 新安毕氏族谱

1509

Preface, principles, local chronicles, pedigree, congratulatory poetry and prose, paintings of tombs, codes for collecting the copy of the genealogy

8 volumes and appendix

Xie Clan Genealogy in Wangyuan 王源谢氏孟宗谱

1537

Verification, origin of the surname, pedigree, credentials, family instructions, encomiums, epitaph, records of female members who practiced chastity in widowhood

10 volumes and appendix

Cheng Family Genealogy in Shanhe Qimen 祁门善和程氏谱

1541

Principles, verification, pedigree charts, ancestral temples, tombs, a geographical map of residence, colophons

14

Ye Family Genealogy Shadi in Qimen 祁门沙堤叶氏家谱

1579

Preface, origin of the surname, family instructions, pedigree charts, biographies

13, 5 survived

Dai Clan Genealogy in Xiuning 休宁戴氏族谱

1632

Credentials, biographies, origins, official posts, deeds, ancestors’ portraits, branches, pedigree charts

15

Xia Family Genealogy in Gumu 古睦清溪紫峰夏氏宗谱

1679

Preface, principles, residence, pedigree charts, credentials, congratulatory poetry and prose, biographies, postscript

8

Preface, pedigree charts, biographies/biographical notices, origins, encomiums for ancestors’ portraits, paintings of tombs, epitaphs, poetry and prose, codes for collecting the copy of the genealogy

48

Revised Li Clan Genealogy in 1771 Santain, Wuyuan 婺源三田李氏重修宗谱

Volume

(continued)

8.1 Comparing the Styles of Ming Dynasty, Qing Dynasty and Republic …

189

Table 8.1 (continued) Title

Year of compilation

Main content

Volume

Wang Family Genealogy in Jixi 绩溪汪氏世守谱

1772

Old preface, epitaphs, origin of the surname, pedigree, codes for collecting the copy of the genealogy

10

Zhan Clan Genealogy in Qingyuan Wuyuan 婺源新安庆源詹氏宗谱

1784

Migration, origin, pedigree, 18 pedigrees of branches, paintings of tombs, postscript

Sun Family Genealogy in Yixian 黟县孙氏家谱

1812

Principles, origin, map of 4 village, biographies, origin of the surname, pedigree charts, ancestral temples, tombs, codes for collecting the copy of the genealogy

Bao Family’s Shan Cun Tang Genealogy in Shexian 歙新馆鲍氏善存堂宗谱

1875

Principles, credentials, biographies, ancestral temple rules, ancestors’ portraits, paintings of tombs, ancestral hall paintings, pedigree charts, migration history, corrections and supplements

16

Revised Wang Clan Genealogy in Qimen 祁门王氏重修宗谱

1889

Preface, an edict on the Sixteen Maxims, credentials, principles, family instructions, family rituals, encomiums for ancestors’ portraits, biographies/biographical notices, epitaphs, origins, pedigree charts, paintings of tombs, ancestral hall paintings, records of female members who practiced chastity in widowhood, generational charts, postscript

10

Wu Shen De Tang Clan Genealogy in Shexian 歙县北岸吴慎德堂族谱

1921

Preface, encomiums, principles, pedigrees, codes for collecting the copy of the genealogy, old preface, chronicles

14

Wang Clan Genealogy in Tanchuan Jixi 绩溪坦川越国汪氏族谱

1925

Preface, principles, 22 credentials, encomiums for ancestors’ portraits, biographies/biographical notices, poetry and prose, pedigree charts, migration history, ancestral temple rules, family instructions, ancestral temples and their property, village map, tombs, miscellany, codes for collecting the copy of the genealogy, postscript (continued)

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8 The Popularization of Chinese Genealogy

Table 8.1 (continued) Title

Year of compilation

Main content

Volume

Hong Clan Genealogy in Feishan 飞山洪氏宗谱

1931

Preface, instructions from ancestors, principles, geographical map of residence, ancestral hall paintings, ancestral temple rules, ancestors’ portraits, generational charts, origins, original pedigree, biographies, branch genealogy, tombs, numbers for collecting the copy of the genealogy, account, postscript

12

Fang Clan Genealogy in Wenzheng Shexian 歙县问政方氏宗谱

1937

Preface, principles, ancestors’ portraits, origins, original pedigree charts, biographies, paintings of tombs, epitaphs, postscript

4

Fang Clan Genealogy in Henan 歙县河南方氏宗谱

1945

New preface, old preface, principles, family instructions, geographical map of residence, charts of origin, pedigree charts, epitaphs, official posts, biographies, poetry, encomiums for ancestors’ portraits, paintings of tombs, codes for collecting the copy of the genealogy, postscript

10

that the genealogies of the Ming Dynasty were rich in content and near-perfect in style. The content/style of Chinese genealogies did not change in either the Qing Dynasty or the Republic of China era; there was little in the way of innovation. So we can say that during the Ming Dynasty, Chinese genealogies matured and were perfected, and they basically reached their final form. The genealogies of the Qing Dynasty and Republic of China era were just a continuation of those of the Ming Dynasty.

8.2 The Sharp Increase of Qing Dynasty and Republic of China Genealogies Although there were no breakthroughs in terms of the style/content of Qing Dynasty and Republic of China genealogies, the number of genealogies produced during these periods sharply increased. The Shanghai Library has the largest collection of Chinese genealogies in the world—more than 21,000 types of genealogies (including newly

8.2 The Sharp Increase of Qing Dynasty and Republic of China Genealogies Table 8.2 Ming Dynasty Genealogies in the Shanghai Library

Area

Type

Anhui

151

Zhejiang

58

Jiangxi

19

Jiangsu

9

Hunan

3

Shandong

1

Shanxi

1

Unknown

9

Total

191

251

revised ones). It hosts over one-third of the world’s surviving Chinese genealogies. Now let’s compare some of them Table 8.2. As can be seen from the above table, a large majority of Ming Dynasty genealogies came from Anhui Province, especially the Huizhou area (many came from the counties of Shexian, Xiuning, Qimen, Jixi and Yixian). The second largest collection came from Zhejiang Province—mainly the cities/counties of Chunan, Wuyi and Jinhua. The third large collection came from Jiangxi Province, mainly the county of Wuyuan, which was part of Huizhou (now Anhui) during the Ming Dynasty. The fourth largest collection came from Jiangsu, mainly the cities/counties of Kunshan, Danyang, and Suzhou. It is estimated that there are approximately 1000 types of Ming Dynasty genealogy still in existence nationwide, and a quarter of those can be found at the Shanghai Library. Table 8.3 shows the number of genealogies surged during the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China era. A total of 13,124 types have been recorded, more than 50 times that of those recorded in the Ming Dynasty. More than 500 types of genealogy were recorded in Zhejiang, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi and Anhui province. Zhejiang was home to some 6000 types. Ming Dynasty genealogies could be found in seven provinces/autonomous regions; whereas Qing Dynasty and Republic of China genealogies could be found in 27 regions (none were found in Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Tibet, Ningxia or Xinjiang). Within individual provinces, genealogies were distributed extensively. In Zhejiang, they were distributed across 70 cities/counties, 53 cities/counties in Jiangxi, 49 in Jiangsu, 44 in Hunan, 38 in Anhui, and 30 in Fujian. In Guangdong, Sichuan, Shandong, and Hubei, genealogies were distributed in more than 20 cities and counties. It wasn’t only the number of Qing Dynasty and Republic of China genealogies that increased, the surnames that were included in them also increased significantly. Within the 251 Ming Dynasty genealogies maintained by the Shanghai Library, 60 surnames were listed (see Table 8.4). However, within the Qing Dynasty and Republic of China genealogies, the number of the surnames reached 335. Thirty-eight surnames were included in more than 100

192 Table 8.3 Qing Dynasty and Republic of China Genealogies in the Shanghai Library (by the end of June 2002)

8 The Popularization of Chinese Genealogy Area

Type

Number of cities/counties where genealogies are distributed

Zhejiang

6365

70

Hunan

2709

44

Jiangsu

2067

49

Jiangxi

569

53

Anhui

544

38

Shanghai

396

10

Fujian

115

30

Hubei

89

22

Guangdong

82

22

Sichuan

42

22 21

Shandong

26

Henan

20

9

Guizhou

15

7 12

Shanxi

14

Yunnan

12

6

Hebei

11

8

Chongqing

10

6

Guangxi

7

6

Shaanxi

7

6

Beijing

5

3

Taiwan

4

5

Tianjin

4

2

Gansu

4

2

Hainan

2

2

Liaoning

2

2

Jilin

2

2

Helongjiang

1

1

genealogies. For example, the surname Zhang 张 appeared in 748 genealogies (see Table 8.5). There are 9324 genealogies from the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and the Republic of China era. They account for approximately 85% of all the genealogies kept in the Shanghai Library. Twenty-eight surnames (Mao, Shi, Lu, Lin, Fan, Shi, Jiang, Zhu, Yao, Ma, Lu, Tao, Cao, Gao, Ge, Dong, Feng, Zeng, Deng, Xiao, Lu, Zhong, Ying, Yan, Tan and Gu) appear in over 50 genealogies. There are some surnames in these genealogies that are made up of two characters, including Shangguan 上官, Shentu 申屠, Situ 司徒, Sima 司马, Duanmu 端木,

8.2 The Sharp Increase of Qing Dynasty and Republic of China Genealogies

193

Table 8.4 Surnames Included in Ming Dynasty Genealogies, in the Shanghai Library Surname

Type

Surname

Type

Surname

Type

Surname

Type

Wu 吴

25

Pan 潘

5

Gu 顾

2

He 何

1

Cheng 程

24

Zheng 郑

5

Xiang 项

2

Du 杜

1

Wang 汪

20

Cao 曹

4

Yang 杨

2

Shao 邵

1

Wang 王

13

Ye 叶

4

Luo 罗

2

Lu 陆

1

Zhang 章

9

Xu 徐

4

Peng 彭

2

Zhou 周

1

Fang 方

9

Sun 孙

3

Tong 童

2

Zhu 竺

1

Zhu 朱

7

Xiao 萧

3

Zhong 钟

1

Liu 柳

1

Jiang 江

7

Xu 许

3

Ma 马

1

He 贺

1

Zhang 张

7

Yu 俞

3

Kong 孔

1

Zhao 赵

1

Hong 洪

7

Ge 葛

3

Lu 卢

1

Jia 贾

1

Jin 金

7

Dai 戴

3

Shi 石

1

Qian 钱

1

Chen 陈

7

Mao 毛

2

Liu 刘

1

Gao 高

1

Xie 谢

7

Wei 韦

2

Hua 华

1

Huang 黄

6

Bi 毕

2

Jiang 蒋

1

Hu 胡

6

Yan 严

2

Bao 鲍

1

Li 李

6

Yu 余

2

Han 韩

1

Huangfu 皇甫, Ouyang 欧阳, Wenren 闻人, Zhuge 诸葛 and Shushu 疏束. There are also some ethnic minority surnames including Aisin Gioro 爱新觉罗, Wanyan 完颜, Majia 马佳 and Borjigin 博尔济吉特. The number of genealogies compiled in the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China era far exceeded the number compiled in the Ming Dynasty, and the number of surnames in them was far greater. However, during these later eras, the printed genealogies that were in the public domain were unevenly distributed geographically. Generally speaking, people in the south were more interested in compiling family genealogies than in the north, and they paid more attention to this custom. After

194

8 The Popularization of Chinese Genealogy

Table 8.5 Surnames Included in Qing Dynasty and Republic of China Genealogies, in the Shanghai Library (over 100 genealogies) Surname

Type

Surname

Type

Surname

Type

Surname

Type

Zhang 张

748

Hu 胡

291

Xie 谢

139

Qian 钱

108

Chen 陈

728

Jin 金

221

Yu 余

137

Luo 罗

108

Wang 王

659

Zhao 赵

213

Xu 许

135

Dai 戴

105

Li 李

492

Shen 沈

209

Fu 傅

135

Yuan 袁

100

Liu 刘

489

Jiang 蒋

181

Lou 楼

132

Ding 丁

100

Wu 吴

476

Zheng 郑

174

Yu 俞

123

Tang 唐

100

Zhou 周

434

He 何

169

Hong 洪

113

Zhang 章

100

Zhu 朱

378

Sun 孙

160

Pan 潘

112

Peng 彭

100

Xu 徐

377

Fang 方

151

Ye 叶

110

Huang 黄

363

Wang 汪

145

Guo 郭

109

the Southern Song Dynasty, the south became much more economically developed. People’s cultural needs were promoted, and this meant that genealogical compilations became prosperous. In addition, the clan system developed rapidly in the south— particularly during the Qing Dynasty. The famous historian Lü Simian 吕思勉 said in his History of China’s Systems 中国制度史: “During ancient times, when it came to inhabiting a region as a clan, the north prevailed in the south, whereas in modern times, the south prevailed in the north.” During the Qing Dynasty, almost every clan in the south had an ancestral temple, and every organization with lineages in it had a genealogy”. The prevalence of the clan system in the south meant that there was a guaranteed organizational structure in place for compiling these genealogies. After the Southern Song Dynasty, many people from the north migrated to the south, meaning that two particularly powerful clans emerged: the Hakka 客家 and the Tujia 土家. However, these two groups obviously didn’t get along. In order to safeguard the interests of their respective clans, both the Hakka and the Tujia clans compiled genealogies to unite people of the same lineage and show that they revered their ancestors. Their actions meant there was vigorous promotion of genealogies in the south. The Qing Dynasty Grand Academician Zhu Shi 朱轼 (1665–1736) said that the literati of the north couldn’t name their ancestors dating back more than five generations. He said on the contrary, rural farmers in the south could name their ancestors

8.2 The Sharp Increase of Qing Dynasty and Republic of China Genealogies

195

from the Song, Tang, Han, Qin and Zhou dynasties.1 Zhong Qi 钟琦 said in his Huang Chao Suo Xie Lu 皇朝琐屑录 (Petty Records of the Qing Imperial Court), more specifically: “Whereas people from Sichuan, Gansu, Yunnan and Guizhou province know little about genealogy, people from the southern provinces value it and every clan has one.”2 It is true that almost every family/clan in that region compiled a genealogy during the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China era, and they were constantly renewing them. Genealogical compilations were a widespread cultural custom for people in the south. There was a clear reason why genealogical compilations were so popular: because the Qing government had aspirations to maintain its grip on power. It promoted traditional Chinese culture, and the ethical policy of governing the nation with filial piety. It actively advocated private genealogical compilations after entering the Central Plains. During the ninth year of the Shunzhi era (1652) when the Qing Dynasty established its capital in Beijing, the Qing government re-issued Zhu Yuanzhang’s Sacred Edict of Six Maxims nationwide. This told people to: “behave with filial piety towards your parents, be respectful to your elders, live in harmony with your neighbors, discipline your sons and grandsons, work contentedly at your occupations, and refrain from evil”. Later on, Emperor Kangxi delivered an edict on the Sixteen Maxims 上谕十六条 during the second year of his reign (1670). Each maxim contained seven characters, and these were neatly written on small slips of wood, and placed in public offices. They told people to: (1) pay just regard to filial and fraternal duties, in order to give due importance to the relations of life; (2) respect kindred, in order to display the excellence of harmony; (3) let concord about among those who dwell in the same neighborhood, in order to prevent litigations; (4) give the chief place to husbandry and the culture of the mulberry-tree, in order to procure adequate supplies of food and raiment; (5) hold economy in estimation, in order to prevent the lavish waste of money; (6) magnify academical learning, in order to direct the scholar’s progress; (7) degrade strange religions, in order to exalt the orthodox doctrine; (8) explain the laws, in order to warn the ignorant and obstinate; (9) illustrate the principles of a polite and yielding carriage in order to improve manners; (10) attend to the essential employments, in order to give unvarying determination to the will of the people; (11) instruct the youth, in order to prevent them from doing evil; (12) Suppress all false accusing, in order to secure protection to the innocent; (13) warn those who hide deserters, that they may not be involved in their downfall; (14) complete the payment of the taxes, in order to prevent frequent urging; (15) unite the Bao 保 and Jia 甲 (ten families form a Bao; ten Bao constitute a Jia. The Jia has its elder, the Bao its chief.), in order to extirpate robbery and theft; (16) settle animosities, that lives may be duly valued.3 From the first two maxims, we can see that the Qing government regarded The preface to the Gao family genealogy 高氏家谱序. In the Collected Works of Zhu Wenduan 朱文端文集, Vol. 1. 2 Liu Liming. Ancestral temple, spirit tablet and family genealogy. Chengdu: Sichuan People’s Publishing House, 2003: 190. 3 The sacred edict of Emperor Kangxi containing sixteen maxims. Translated by the Rev. William Milne. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1870. 1

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filial piety and harmony among clans as especially important. Emperor Yongzheng, the son and successor of Kangxi, considered that the conciseness of these maxims could create misunderstandings about how to utilize them. As a result, he wrote the 10,000-character Amplification 圣谕广训 on them, which he published during the second year of his reign (1724). He ordered it to be read publicly to the people on the first and fifteenth of each month. Emperor Yongzheng urged that laws be put in place to ensure that people met the second maxim. He ordered the “repairing of genealogies to link those estranged” and he explicitly advocated the compilation and revision of genealogies. The Qing government also promoted the three sacred edicts through various channels, and made them household names. These ethical policies advocated by the Qing government meant that some servicemen regarded revising genealogies as a practical way of showing filial piety. During the third year of the Yongzheng era, the Wu clan responded to the holy Amplification edict by assembling their clansmen, and revising their genealogies to link those estranged. During the fifth year of the Yongzheng era (1727), they reprinted the Preface to the Origin of the Wu Family.4 Many families quoted the sixth and sixteenth maxim at the beginning of their genealogy as guiding ideologies (see Fig. 8.1). Some families listed “follow the Sacred Edict of the Sixteen Maxims” as the first family rule in their genealogies.5 More often than not, the ideas of “filial governance” and “harmonious clans” promoted in the sixteen maxims were applied to entire family genealogies. This was evident in the Hong Family Genealogy in Taoyuan, printed in 1747. The policies implemented during the Qing Dynasty had a huge influence on people and the popularity of genealogical compilations became more widespread, reaching all social strata and most regions.

8.3 The Renewal of Genealogies The Qing people attached great importance to updating their genealogies. They wanted to maintain their continuity and the integrity of family lineages. “Generally speaking, most people renewed their genealogies every 30 years.”6 The Zhu Clan Genealogy in Yuyao 余姚朱氏宗谱 explained the reason behind this practice, saying that it takes thirty years for a generation to “grow up”. During this period, the older generation is often still alive, while the new generation has grown up. The latter is old enough to write down enough relevant information about the blood relationships in their family. The view was that if family members waited longer than 30 years, it would become easy to forget or confuse the family lineage/branches,

The Wu family genealogy 吴氏家谱. Tongzhi (1862–1874) edition. The Feng family genealogy 丰氏家谱. The 32nd year of the Guangxu era (1906). 6 The Wang clan genealogy in Shuangshan 双杉王氏宗谱. The 17th year of the Guangxu era (1891). 4 5

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Fig. 8.1 Emperor Kangxi’s Sacred Edict of Sixteen Maxims

family members’ deeds and other such information. Zhu Xi, the Song Dynasty neoConfucian master, said, “It is not filial to wait longer than three generations to renew your family genealogy”. But by the Qing Dynasty, it was “not filial to wait more than 30 years to renew your family genealogy”. This showed that the Qing people attached much more importance to updating genealogies than people of the previous dynasties did. Although it was common to say that “genealogies should be revised once every 30 years”, it was not a mandatory rule. Some families suggested minor revisions to genealogies every 30 years and major revisions every 50. Some advocated minor revisions every 20 years and major ones every 40.7 Some advocated minor revisions every 20 years and major revisions every 60.8 These different time limits show how common it was to renew genealogies during the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China era. Although it was often stipulated that genealogies should be renewed every few decades, it was sometimes not that easy for every family to follow the rules in time, due to social or economic reasons. “The Ge 葛 family genealogy was first compiled by Xiang Gong during the Qianxing era of the Song Dynasty (1022). It was revised The Fang clan genealogy in Henan, Shexian 歙县河南方氏宗谱. 1945. The Meishan branch of Cheng family genealogy in Hanxi, Wuyuan 婺源韩溪程氏梅山支谱. The first year of Xuantong era (1909).

7 8

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by Yu Gong some 170 years later, and then by Zong Gong some 200 years later during the Ming Dynasty. Three hundred years later, the family planned to revise it, but failed to do so because of a lack of funds. They waited for another 30 years and finally updated it in 1911.”9 The Cheng family10 and the Hu family had similar situations renewing their genealogies. The Hu family completed three genealogical compilations in 1680, 1760 and 1838. They said: “As time flies, it becomes harder to record what family members see and hear, and even harder for them to keep in touch with each other.” Revisions were often made in genealogies to supplement information on the dates of births/deaths and marriages, and to detail the burial sites of family members. They were often done in one of two ways: Some revisions relied on an accumulation of daily information/records. Genealogies such as the Revised Zeng Clan Genealogy in Wucheng and the Cai Family Genealogy in Xinzhou stipulated that clansmen should report their dates of birth/death, along with their burial sites, marriages and migration history to the ancestral hall once a year. They were instructed to register them in the “Record of Years” or “Record for the Revised Family Genealogy”, so that they could be later used to update genealogies. The Manchu people were influenced by the Han ethnic group and they also accumulated data to prepare for genealogical renewals. According to the Manchu Wu Clan Genealogy, “one or two of the seven branches are elected as heads of the clan, and they should keep a sample genealogical book to hand. They can then examine each branch against this book and see whether any members of the family have been left out of the clan genealogy. If there are any, they can be recorded in this book and updated later.”11 Other genealogies suddenly crammed content into their renewals. The Revised Hu Clan Genealogy of the Rende Hall in Qinghua 清华胡仁德堂续修世谱 (1917) said: “Our old genealogical records have been around for seventy-nine years. Since they were produced, many generations have been born into this family. It is too complicated to describe and record them all. And some ancestors’ burial sites have gone.” In order to revise the genealogy, five families from the clan set up a genealogical bureau in the clan ancestral hall. Each family identified its own lineage and they sent this data to the bureau, so that their clan genealogy could be updated. Many families did not have an old genealogy to base their revisions on. They had to use a temporary “cramming” method similar to the Hu clan.

The Ge clan genealogy in Quantang, Jixi 绩溪泉塘葛氏宗谱. 1911. The Meishan branch of Cheng family genealogy in Hanxi, Wuyuan. The first year of Xuantong era (1909). 11 Zhang Qizhuo. The Manchu in Xiuyan. Shenyang: Liaoning People’s Publishing House, 1984: 63. 9

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8.4 Receiving Genealogies for Maintenance and Inspection Work During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China era, there were no significant changes—compared to the Ming Dynasty—in how genealogies were received, and subsequently maintained and examined. However, there were much stricter requirements. There was sometimes a grand ceremony in the ancestral temple to celebrate clansmen receiving their own genealogical records. In smaller clans, families were given their own code, and when genealogical records were updated, they were able to use this to receive a copy. The Hong Family Genealogy in Jiangcun 江村洪氏家谱, compiled during the eighth year of the Yongzheng era (1730), stipulated that “after genealogical records have been completed, a quota must be assigned to them, and they must be numbered. There should be 34 genealogies at any given time”. This was considered a sufficient number. Numbering methods varied. Some numbered their genealogies using the ancient Chinese numerical symbols: Jia 甲 (one), Yi 乙 (two), Bing 丙 (three), Ding 丁(four), Wu 戊 (five), Ji 己 (six), Geng 庚 (seven), Xin 辛 (eight) etc. Others used an alternative system for numbering them, e.g. the Tian 天, Di 地, Xuan 玄, Huang 黄, Yu 宇, Zhou 宙, Hong 洪, Huang 荒12 etc. method. Others simply listed them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and others used special words to emphasize their importance. When a recipient received a genealogical record, he/she would often sign an acceptance form. Some families had additional, strict rules on receiving genealogies. Many insisted that genealogical records were not only handed out according to codes, but that they should have official seals on them. This prevented them from being mistaken for fake genealogies. Placing authentic codes on genealogical records helped ensure that only family members received them, and that the clan stayed pure.13 Many families adopted other measures to prevent fake genealogical records from being distributed; they destroyed the original master copy,14 after all genealogical copies had been printed Fig. 8.2. After a family received a genealogical copy, the clan would give them very strict instructions on how to keep it safe. The Wang Genealogy in Qimen, compiled during the 15th year of the Guangxu era (1889), stipulated: “After it has been received, the genealogy should be wrapped in 10 layers of packaging, and not taken out unless given permission. You should construct a box in which to hide it. If it becomes damp, you should bring it outside into the sunshine, so that bookworms don’t eat it.”

12

Translator’s note: the eight characters are from the thousand-character Classic, and read out in order, they meant the sky is dark, the earth is yellow, and the universe is in a chaotic state. 13 The Zhu clan genealogy in Zizhuang 紫庄朱子族谱. The 29th year of the Kangxi era (1690). 14 The Fang clan genealogy in Chengnan, Jixi 绩溪城南方氏宗谱. 1919.

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Fig. 8.2 The codes for clansmen to receive the genealogy, on the preface of The Fang Clan Genealogy

The Jin Clan Genealogy in Jingzhao, Qimen 祁门京兆金氏宗谱, compiled during the third year of the Guangxu era (1877), stated: “after you receive a genealogical record, you should hide it somewhere safe, and ensure that it cannot be exposed to insect or rat bites, or contaminated by oil/ink. You must prevent it from being altered, copied or sold. If you distribute false copies, you will face public judgment and be punished as an unfilial descendant.”15 The Wang clan genealogy in Yunchuan, southern Wuyuan 婺南云川王氏世谱. 21st year of the Qianlong era (1756).

15

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Some clans said that “if your genealogical records are destroyed by accident or by force”, you should immediately report the incident. Other clans were stricter, and said that if family members lost genealogical records, those responsible would be “sent to court and punished by law”. Many clans attached great importance to genealogical inspections at the ancestral temple. Some clans often left a copy of the genealogy at the temple, so the public could view it as a model on which to base their own copies. Some clans stipulated that genealogical records should be inspected triennially. Most clans stipulated that on the day of ancestral worship, the person or persons that had received original genealogical records should bring them in person to the ancestral temple for inspection.16 The Li Clan Genealogy in Heshan 鹤山李氏宗谱 (1917) stipulated that “in the years of Zi 子, Wu 午, Mao 卯 and You 酉,17 on the eve of Qingming (Gravesweeping) Festival, each clan should bring their genealogy to the family ancestral temple for inspection.18 Some clans said that there should be fines if you damaged your genealogy. They considered damage to genealogies a criminal offence, and regarded those who committed such an act as “unfilial”. They felt they should be “severely punished”.19 During the Republic of China era, people made changes to the way they collected and maintained genealogies. “Ordinary people were influenced by European customs, and their concept of the family changed. Family members were a part of society. Genealogies recorded the history of a family, and this could be made public. There was a law against those who falsely claim celebrities as ancestors/clung to their dignitaries. Calamities involving fire or water meant that many private, cultural relics were destroyed or disappeared. It was beneficial for families to hand their genealogies over to the government, as they could be easily protected. Furthermore, by keeping genealogies hidden/private, descendants may not be able to ensure its upkeep. Therefore, most genealogies compiled since the Republic of China era have been submitted to major libraries, to prevent them from being lost.” The principles of the Ye Clan Genealogy in Xinzhou 新州叶氏家乘 (1925) stated: “Fifty copies will be printed this time. After each member of the 48 families in our clan has received The Wang family genealogy in Ruoxi Qixi 祁西若溪琅琊王氏家谱. 21st year of the Guangxu era (1895). 17 Translator’s note: In Chinese calendar, years are counted with a combination of two numbering systems: heavenly stems and earthly branches. They are collectively known as Stem-Branch or Gan-Zhi 干支. The 10 heavenly stems are tiangan天干: jia 甲, yi 乙, bing 丙, ding 丁, wu 戊, ji 己, geng 庚, xin 辛, ren 壬, gui 癸. The 12 earthly branches are dizhi 地支: zi 子, chou 丑, yin 寅, mao 卯, chen 辰, si 巳, wu 午, wei 未, shen 申, you 酉, xu 戌, hai 亥. When counting years, each heavenly stem is paired with an earthly branch to form the Gan-Zhi sexagenary cycle that starts with jiazi. So the first year is jiazi 甲子, the second is yichou 乙丑, and so on. At year eleven, the first element jia 甲 of Heavenly Stems will be used again. So the eleventh year is jiaxu 甲戌. Then, the thirteenth year is bingzi 丙子 because the first element of Earthly Branches is used after the last element. 18 Yang Dianxun. 1994. The general theory of Chinese genealogy. Quarterly Bulletin of Chinese Bibliography, New Vol. 3, Issues 1–2. 19 Ibid. 16

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a copy, there will be two copies left. These two will be called the ‘shi’ 诗 and ‘pin’ 品, and they will be submitted to the Jiangnan Library and the Zhejiang Library respectively, for preservation.”

8.5 Zhang Xuecheng’s Genealogical Theory Zhang Xuecheng (courtesy name Shizhai 实斋, literary name Shaoyan 少岩) was a native of the Kuaiji district, located in present-day Shaoxing, Zhejiang province. He was born in the 3rd year of the Qianlong Era (1738) and died in the 6th year of the Jiaqing Era (1801). He became a Presented Scholar (jinshi 进士) in the 43rd year of the Qianlong Era (1778). He was appointed archivist (dianji, 典籍) at the Directorate of Education and served as a teacher in local academies including the Dingwu Academy in Dingzhou, Lianchi Academy in Baoding, and Wenzheng Academy in Guide. Later he became an assistant to provincial educational commissioner Zhu Jun in Anhui province and read Zhu’s collections. After that, he became a secretary of Bi Yuan (1730–1797), Governor-General of Hubei and Hunan provinces and the surrounding areas. He suffered many mishaps in his life and was forced to compile family genealogies for others to make ends meet. Despite a lifetime of frustration, he made remarkable achievements in academic research and literature. Zhang Xuecheng was an outstanding historiographer with a great passion for history since he was a teenager. He never gave up his research on histography until late years. His major works included the Wen Shi Tong Yi 文史通义 (General Principles of Literature and History), the Jiao Chou Tong Yi 校雠通义(Comprehensive Principles of Bibliography), and the Shi Ji Kao 史籍考 (A Comprehensive Investigation of all Historical Works). He was very confident in his research on historiography and said: “I have gifted talents for history study. I believe my pioneering research could inspire the future generations.”20 Zhang Xuecheng was not bragging about himself. As a philosopher, Zhang Xuecheng argued that scholarly studies should be geared to meet practical needs. He proposed the idea of “writing to convey Dao.” Zhang systematically expounded the proposition that “the six Confucian Classics (The Book of Changes, The Book of History, The Book of Songs, The Book of Rites, The Book of Music, and The Spring and Autumn Annals) are all about history.” His views on ethics and history, and how he categorized historiography, historical materials and historical records endowed new contents and significances for the traditional Chinese historiography. He could be crowned as the master scholar of Chinese feudal society historiography theories. Zhang Xuecheng was a remarkable chorography scholar. He had unique insights into the historical theories, but in order to earn livings he could not write a comprehensive history. Hence, he applied the historiography theories in the compilation of local chronicles. He compiled the Hezhou Chronicles 和州志, Bozhou Chronicles 20 Letters to the family 家书. In Posthumous works of Zhang Xuecheng 章学诚遗书 (Vol. 9). Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1985.

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亳州志, Yongqing County Chronicles 永清县志, Hubei General Chronicles 湖北 通志 and other chronicles, and proposed a whole system of theories including the origin, evolution, style, material selection, investigation, verification, and compilers’ quality. This contributed to the establishment of a comparatively complete discipline and theoretical system for ancient Chinese chorography. Zhang Xuecheng was known as a great genealogist. From the age of 30 to later years, he had been compiling family genealogies for others, or provided guidance for other genealogists. For example, in the 31st year of the Qianlong era when Zhang was 29 years old and worked for the Directorate of Education, his cousin Yuanye consulted him about the compilation of the branch pedigree of Zhang’s family in Kuaiji. In the 43rd year of the Qianlong era when Zhang was 41 years old, his good friend Zhou Zhenrong wanted to compile a genealogy and discussed with him about the style of compilation. Zhang not only provided detailed guidance but also compiled part of the genealogy for him. In the 54th year of the Qianlong era when Zhang was 52 years old, the Anhui provincial educational commissioner Xu Ligang was compiling the Xu Family Genealogy and he asked Zhang for advice. In the first year of the Jiaqing era when Zhang was 58 years old, he went to Xuzhou to proofread the Shen 沈 Family Genealogy in Gaoyou and wrote the preface, narration and other articles. In the 4th year of the Jiaqing era when Zhang was 61 years old, Wu Lanting compiled the clan genealogy and consulted Zhang via letters. During this process, Zhang summarized the predecessors’ essays on genealogist based on his theorical practices on historiography and chorography, and conducted in-depth explorations on many important issues like the nature, style, compilation principle, efficacy and collection of Chinese genealogies. He proposed a comparatively comprehensive genealogy theory and became an outstanding genealogist in his generation, “Until the contemporary era, the greatest contributor to genealogy should be Zhang Xuecheng.”21 Zhang’s genealogy theories have exerted profound influences on the compilation and revision of Chinese genealogies. Zhang Xuecheng’s genealogy theories are as follows. (1) The nature of genealogy. He said in the Postscript of the Chen Clan Genealogy in Yixing 宜兴陈氏宗谱书后 and A Letter to Feng Qiushan on Compilation 与冯秋山论修谱书: “Genealogy is family history.”22 In his Preface of Daming County Chronicle for Sima (an official post from ancient China, 司马) Zhang Jifu,23 Consultation Invitation on Zhou County Chronicle,24 and 21

Pan Guangdan. Zhang Xuecheng’s genealogy theories. The Journal of Humanities, 1931 (2): 8–9. 22 Posthumous works of Zhang Xuecheng (Vol. 13). Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1985. 23 Wen Shi Tong Yi Jiao Zhu 文史通义校注 (Collating and annotating all-embracing delineations of literature and history), Vol. 8. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. 24 Wen Shi Tong Yi Jiao Zhu, Vol. 6. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company.

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the Preface to Liu Zhongjiegong’s Chronical, he also clearly indicated that a family genealogy is a family history.25 He also clarified the relationship between family genealogies, historiography and chronology, namely genealogy is the “branch of historiography”. He stated in many articles that Three Generations’ Charts (San Dai Shi Biao, 三代世表) in Sima Qian’s Shi Ji was based on Five Emperors’ Genealogies (Wu Di Xi Pu, 五帝系谱) and the Book of History (Shang Shu, 尚书). The Prime Minister’s (in Feudal China) Genealogies in Ouyang Xiu’s Xin Tang Shu belonged to genealogy. This view serves as the foundation of Zhang’s genealogy theory. It should be pointed out that scholars before Zhang Xuecheng had already illustrated that. For example, Liu Zhiji in the Tang Dynasty wrote 15 volumes of the Liu Family History, which demonstrated the idea of “a genealogy is a family history”.26 Since the Southern Song Dynasty and Ming Dynasty, there were many similar statements about the principles of genealogy and preface of clan genealogy. For example, Song Dynasty Zhu Xi’s The Original Preface to the Clan Genealogy in Xiangcheng27 and the Preface to the Revised Genealogy during the Qingyuan Era,28 Ming Dynasty Wang Shizhen’s Preface of Li Gong’s Clan Genealogy in Rongquan,29 Wang Daokun’s Preface of the Jiang Clan Genealogy in Xinan,30 and Bei Zhigao’s Preface of Bei Qinxiu’s Family Genealogy compiled during the 34th year of the Wanli era (1606).31 Zhang Xuecheng summarized the predecessors’ statements on the nature of genealogy and combined them with his compilation practices in historiography, chronology and genealogy. He then elaborated it in a more structured, deeper way, which exerted more influences on the future generations. As Sheng Qingxin pointed out in his article On Zhang Xuecheng’s Genealogy Theory: “He accumulated some relevant authoritative historical essays in the past and combined them with the genealogy theories to come up with more structured, reader-friendly and profound statements that were widespread and easy to understand by the public. Until now, the majority of clan genealogists still admire Zhang’s definition. It has played a facilitating role in making clan genealogy more like a family history. Zhang’s contributions are still worthy of praise.”

25

Posthumous works of Zhang Xuecheng (Vol. 2). Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1985. Wen Shi Tong Yi Jiao Zhu, Vol. 6. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. 27 The tenth revised genealogy of the Hu family in Anhua, Hunan. 1998. 28 The Ge clan genealogy of Quantang in Jixi, Anhui. 1911. 29 Wang Shizhen 王世贞. The preface Li Gong’s clan genealogy in Rongquan 荣泉李公族谱序. In the four works of Yanzhoushanren 弇州山人四部稿, Vol. 70. 30 Wang Daokun. Preface of the Jiang Clan Genealogy in Xinan. In the Tai Han Mo Fu, Vol. 5. 31 Preface of the revised Bei family genealogy in Yidu, Yiwu 续修义乌一都贝氏宗谱引明序.Quoted from Sheng qingyi’s On Zhang Xuecheng’s genealogical theory 论章学诚的谱学. Taipei: The National Palace Museum Research Quarterly 故宫学术季刊, 1983 (1), 1. 26

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(2) The evolution of family genealogy. Zhang Xuecheng made some comments on the origin of genealogies in some of his works including the Preface of Gaoyou Shen’s Family Genealogy,32 Some Thoughts on Family Genealogies,33 Principles of Hubei Tongzhi’s Clan Genealogy34 and the Preface of the Origin of Surnames.35 Zhang agreed with the view that “all the rules are determined by heaven”, which was not appropriate. However, he was correct and insightful about the ideas that genealogies originated from the civil society, that Sima Qian’s Wu Di Xi Die originated from ‘granting surnames’ in the enfeoffment system and ‘zhaomu’36 in the patriarchal clan system, that the Shi Ben and the Lineages of Heredity Succession were genealogies of the time, and that there were special officials responsible for genealogies. During the Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties, the development of genealogies in China reached a peak. Zhang Xuecheng concluded the reasons for the prosperity in the Preface of Clan Genealogies in Hezhou: “Since the Wei, Jin and Six Dynasties, there emerged more and more eminent families. Scholars and officialdoms followed the will of Sima Qian’s Heredity Houses and started to compile family biographies. Like Wang Su’s Family Biography (Jia Zhuan 家传), Yu Lan’s Family Record (Jia Ji 家记), Fan Wang’s Family Archive (Shi Lu 世录) and Lu Xi’s Family History (Jia Shi 家史) and the like belonged to the category of designated family book. As for Zhi Yu’s Zhaomu Biography (Zhao Mu Ji 昭穆记), Wang Jian’s Various Household Pedigrees (Bai Jia Pu 百家谱), He’s Family’s Collection of Surnames (Xing Yuan 姓苑) and Jia’s Account of Meritorious Service (Yao Zhuang 要状) and other compilations could be categorized into history books or popular books without clear standards. However, the stricter the requirements for genealogies, the more prominent the families would be. For instance, Liu’s family in the State of Pei, Li’s family in Longxi, Wang’s family in Taiyuan, Xie’s family in Chenjun, though their descendants were scattered around in many places, they were widely recognized as eminent clans with their own genealogies. After the capital was relocated to Luoyang in the Wei Dynasty, eight distinguished families, ten honorable surnames, 36 famous clans, 92 eminent surnames were also moved to Henan and Luoyang. The members of those established families and clans of various surnames were scattered around the whole country and compiled their own genealogies. During the Qi and Liang Dynasties, the trend of compiling genealogies became even more popular, with the examples of Collection of Jizhou Surnames and Collected Genealogies of Yangzhou Families written by Wang Jian and Wang Sengru respectively.37 32

Posthumous works of Zhang Xuecheng (Vol. 21). Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1985. Posthumous works of Zhang Xuecheng (Vol. 23). Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1985. 34 Posthumous works of Zhang Xuecheng (Vol. 24). Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1985. 35 Posthumous works of Zhang Xuecheng (Vol. 8). Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1985. 36 Translator’s note: "Zhao"昭 and "Mu" 穆 referring to different levels of seniority in a clan or family. 37 Wen Shi Tong Yi Jiao Zhu, Vol. 6. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. 33

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Zhang Xuecheng pointed out in the Shen Family Genealogy in Gaoyou that at that time genealogies should be submitted to the feudal office since there were designated officials responsible for this. Zhang also made sharp comments on the disadvantages of attaching oneself genealogically to one of the eminent houses.38 Since the Song Dynasty, the development of genealogy in China marched into a new stage. The principles of genealogical compilations shifted from serving the social and political function to the ethical and moral function, i.e., before the Song, genealogies were used for official recruitment and marriage, and distinguishing social hierarchies. During the Song, they were used to respect ancestor and unite clansmen. The content and format of genealogy compilation have changed dramatically. Genealogies no longer needed to be submitted to the government. This is something Zhang pointed out.39 After the Song Dynasty, there emerged many disadvantages of family genealogies due to “exaggerated statement and self-bragging”. Zhang Xuecheng said: “Since the genealogies were not regulated by the officials, the descendants could compile their own pedigrees with exaggerated praises of their grandparents, which might have distorted the fact and history. Some even counterfeited the rank of nobility in their genealogies. No matter the family background was humble or noble, they labelled themselves dominant family complacently. For example, all of the Wang 王 and Xie 谢 families compiled their own ranked biographies because they had official ranks. But the authenticity of those could not be verified. What’s more, some people surnamed Li 李 or Liu 刘 pretended to be the members of the prominent Longxi Li’s family or eminent Peiguo Liu’s family. Given the above disadvantages, it would be better not to have those genealogies at all.”40 In conclusion, Zhang Xuecheng gave a general introduction about the development and evolution of genealogy in China in his essays. He pointed out the drawbacks of genealogy compilation in the past generations and analyzed the root causes to alert the future generations. Zhang’s viewpoints on Chinese genealogy theories were based on the lessons learnt through the process of compiling Chinese genealogies in the past thousand and hundred years. (3) The format of genealogy. Zhang Xuecheng said that a genealogy included such main parts as pedigree charts, archives/records, pictures, biographies, literature and art, and the preface of old genealogies. The first part is the pedigree chart. Zhang believed that the pedigree chart in the genealogy, also known as the generational table, adopted the format of horizontal

The preface of the Pu family’s branch genealogy in Xijing, Jiashan 嘉善茜泾浦氏支谱序. In Posthumous works of Zhang Xuecheng. 39 Posthumous works of Zhang Xuecheng (Vol. 13). Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1985. 40 Wen Shi Tong Yi Jiao Zhu, Vol. 6. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. 38

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lines and italic scripts,41 was bonded by chalk lines and had only real name, seniority in the family on it without annotations.42 Zhang Xuecheng also voiced his opinions on how to make the chart in family genealogies. He believed that: a pedigree chart was mainly for recording the family lineage, which should be consistent from top to down. In other words, it could be traced back to 20 or 30 earlier generations.43 Accordingly, he suggested that it was inappropriate for many genealogies to only record five generations, without tracing back to the preceding generations, because it would inevitably bring about confusions in the structure of branch lineages. Zhang Xuecheng also suggested that pedigree charts be adopted in local chronicles. He earnestly practiced what he advocated and incorporated many charts in each of his compiled local chronicles, like The Chart of Figures, The Chart of Officials, The Chart of Tax, The Chart of Clans, The Chart of Prominent Families and the like, taking full advantage of the charts. “To apply genealogical charts in the local chronicles is the original idea raised by Zhang.”44 The second is archives/records. Zhang said, “The archive is the annotation of chart, which lists courtesy name, art name, date of birth and death, wife and concubine, son and daughter and other contents. The archive is normally placed after the chart. The relationship between chart and archive might be explained as longitude and latitude.” Zhang Xuecheng further talked about the advantages of chart and archive: “People could judge the intimacy between different members from the chart and then refer to the annotations of archive for more details. Now both chart and archive only have 10 pages that people could easily understand.”45 The third is the picture, such as the portrait, and grave topographic maps. Zhang Xuecheng believed that pictures were an indispensable part of compiling history books. In terms of compiling genealogies, they were also necessary because their function could not be replaced by charts and archives. “Pictures are like a silent history while archives and pedigrees are like non-word books. These two are complimentary and indispensable.”46 Zhang Xuecheng proposed two types of pictures in genealogies: One is the ancestors’ portraits. Zhang Xuecheng deemed that the portrait originated from Fuyan Buddha Hall. The ancestor worshiping activities started in the Tang Dynasty and became popular in the Song Dynasty. Cheng Zi in the Song Dynasty advocated a prudent attitude towards shadowgraph, because if not handled carefully the portrait might resemble others, not the ancestors. Zhang Xuecheng believed: The portrait of the ancestors, if they wore the court dress and crown with luxurious and colorful silk decorations, it could be hung up to worship, but it might be lost in the long term. So, he suggested the portrait of genealogy should “be sketched in black and white,

41

Posthumous works of Zhang Xuecheng (Vol. 13). Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1985. Posthumous works of Zhang Xuecheng (Vol. 23). Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1985. 43 Posthumous works of Zhang Xuecheng (Vol. 13). Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1985. 44 Posthumous works of Zhang Xuecheng (Vol. 13). Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1985. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. 42

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engraved on the panel and attached to the genealogy, so that it could be reserved and memorized for a longer period of time”.47 Another type is the ancestors’ grave topological maps. Zheng Xuecheng emphasized on the importance of ancestors’ grave topological map in the genealogy. If the locations of ancestors’ graves were not recorded, then this information would be lost and the later generations could not find them back. As a result, “It’s indispensable to record these in the genealogy. The topological map of the ancestors’ graves should be marked down in the family pedigree and passed on to the future generations.”48 The fourth is biographies. Zhang Xuecheng held that not all the family members could write or compile genealogies and biographies. Only those of “noble character and high prestige” could be qualified for biographies.49 There were distinctions between genealogical biography and annotation archive: The dates of birth and death were written in the line of archive in a fixed format and everyone could have it. Zhang stressed the significance of genealogical biography, so he proposed that one should collect more resources to write the genealogical biography than those needed for historical biography. In this way, family biographies could also be served as evidence for historical biographies. Targeting the problem of “exaggerating the compliment for grandparents”, he suggested that family biography should be “evidence-based and conform to the facts.”50 Zhang also quoted the historical biography and “Virtuous Woman Chapter” in local chronicles to demonstrate the theory of “internal biography”. He proposed to add “Internal Women’s Biography” as a moral model for other women to follow and observe and as an example to teach other women in the future. For married women, they could both have “internal biography”and “external biography” if their morality was worthy of respect. As for unmarried women, their filial behavior could be recorded in the “internal biography”. Also noteworthy was that the women in the “internal biography” of genealogy proposed by him were different from those in the “Chapter of Virtuous Women” that only recorded “loyal, obedient, frugal and heroic” women. All those who “serve both the husband and son virtuously, manage the household industriously and thriftly, have talents in literature and live in harmony with concubine or servant girls” could be compiled in the “internal biography”, the scope of which was far bigger than that of historical biography: “The scope of local chronicle is bigger than that of historical biography, while family genealogy than local chronicle.”51 The fifth is literature and art. Zhang Xuecheng mentioned in the Shen Family Genealogy in Gao You the content and significance of literature and art, namely the articles in the literature and art chapter of genealogy should be literary, including ancestors’ memorial to the throne, biographical notices, textual researches, poems and verses and etc.. The advantage was not only to reserve important literature 47

Ibid. Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 48

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resources but also to supplement the genealogical biography in order to play the role of educating the descends about “loyalty and filial piety”. The “Literature and Art Chapter” could be divided into internal and external parts. The internal chapter was about ancestors’ writings and works in the past generations, while the external chapter covered the clansmen articles written by authors of other surnames. The descendants should refer to both articles in the internal and external chapters to correct errors.52 The sixth is the “Preface and Principles of Old Genealogies”. Zhang Xuecheng said that among all the books, only local chronicles and family genealogies needed to be renewed continuously. The ancestors have spent great efforts on compiling the genealogies, so when the descendants renewed them, they should incorporate the preface and principles of old genealogies into the updated genealogy. Zhang Xuecheng proposed that they should also add the connotation and morality of the principle. It was like we shall not forget the source when we drink water. “If the later generations copied the ancestors’ works but didn’t write their preface and principle, or only reserved the preface and postscript but didn’t mention their connotation and morality of principle, it was like forgetting the source when drinking water.”53 Zhang Xuecheng not only listed various factors of genealogy format, but also applied them when he guided the compilation of genealogies. In the founding year of the Jiaqing era (1796), Zhang Xuecheng was proofreading the Shen Family Genealogy in Gaoyou while he was in Yangzhou. He designed the chapters for this genealogy: 1. Credential; 2. The Origin Chart of Family Pedigree; 3. Table of branch lineage; 4. Archive; 5. Biography; 6. Internal Biography; 7. External Biography; 8. Portrait; 9. Grave Topological Map; 10. Internal Literature and Art; 11. External Literature and Art; 12. Preface and Principle of Old Genealogy. Altogether there were twelve chapters. He briefly introduced each chapter in the Preface of Shen Family Genealogy in Gaoyou. As a result, the Shen Family Genealogy in Gaoyou is a practical example of how Zhang Xuecheng applied the principles of genealogy. (4) The principles of compiling genealogies. Zhang Xuecheng’s principles of compiling genealogies were put forward in view of some drawbacks that existed in the past dynasties and in the society at that time. Zhang Xuecheng disclosed nearly all the shortcomings of genealogy compilation right to the point, like “attaching oneself genealogically to one of the eminent houses”, or “privately compiled genealogies being full of false and partial information”. Zhang thought that if the genealogy was counterfeit, it would be better no to have it. He even pointed out that the hazards caused by this would be a matter of life and death for genealogy. First, unify the genealogical methodology. Zhang Xuecheng pointed out in Some Thoughts on Family Genealogies: “Compiling genealogies is a specialized discipline and its recording method must be fairly standardized and uniform. However, since genealogists write their own books, each 52 53

Ibid. Ibid.

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person’s choices will inevitably lead to mixed formats and styles.”54 In order to achieve uniformity, Zhang Xuecheng suggested that it was not possible to merely rely on the individual genealogists or the private efforts of one or two scholars to improve the level of compilation, but must adopt organized planning and initiatives. To that end, Zhang Xuecheng proposed: (1) Each prefecture and county established the department of chorography with genealogy collection as one of the responsibilities; (2) Organize experts and scholars to set a uniform standard for the format and style of genealogies collected in the department of chorography and guarantee a standardized record; (3) Add columns like “Clan Table” and “Eminent Clan Table” in the compilation of prefecture- and county-level local chronicles. Apply the uniform format and style of compilation. Zhang Xuecheng’s proposals were quite insightful, like adding the “Clan Table”, “Eminent Clan Table” and other columns in the local chronicles seemed rather feasible; But organizing scholars to set a standardized requirement for the format and style of different family genealogies were very difficult to realize. Second, speak out frankly without reserve. Zhang Xuecheng supposed that genealogists should regard themselves as historiographers. When compiling genealogies, their statements and comments should be objective and impartial as much as possible. Bias and prejudice were not allowed between the lines. In other words, they should speak out frankly without reserve to make genealogy an objective and impartial record of the family history. Zhang Xuecheng said that Ouyang failed to do so when he was compiling his family genealogy. Ouyang Xiu’s ancestors had once “compromised their integrities just to make a living”.55 When Ouyang Xiu was compiling the genealogy, he “covered up” the fact and skirted around the official position that his ancestor had taken for making a living. Zhang Xuecheng advocated a “straight-out” writing style instead of “covering up” the facts. Zhang called on genealogist to learn from Sima Qian and Ban Gu, because “the facts and statements in Sima Qian’s and Ban Gu’s family genealogies were consistent with those in other people’s works. They respected and recorded the facts without being biased towards their own ancestors.”56 It was disappointing that though Ouyang Xiu was a historiographer, his compilation of genealogies was not as impartial as those of Sima Qian and Ban Gu. Zhang Xuecheng also disagreed about omitting or covering up the raffish, illegal or monarchal clansmen in the genealogies. He proposed that genealogists shall not be concerned about anything. Instead, they should speak out frankly without any reserve and stay impartial when compiling the genealogies. Third, respect all the ancestors. Zhang Xuecheng believed that when compiling a genealogy, one should not only respect the ancestors of his own lineage, but take a humble approach to the ancestors of other branches. Zhang Xuecheng advocated that the narration and title of ancestors from both the main and branch lineages should be treated equally, rather than looking down on the branch and respecting only the main lineage. 54

Posthumous works of Zhang Xuecheng (Vol. 23). Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1985. Posthumous works of Zhang Xuecheng (Vol. 21). Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1985. 56 Posthumous works of Zhang Xuecheng (Vol. 23). Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1985. 55

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Zhang Xuecheng pointed out that Su Xun did not follow this principle when he compiled his genealogies. Zhang Xuecheng also suggested that the shortcomings of self-interest in the genealogy were not uncommon. He quoted Ji Xiaolan’s Ji Family Genealogy as an example. Its preface set the rules that ancestors exceeding 13 generations shall be called “Gong” (a title of honor for seniors), 14 generations only courtesy name, under 15 generations only name; Main blood lineages and branches were treated differently, because the branches” 13 generations could only be called the courtesy names. According to the rules, if a new generation revised or compiled the genealogy, the titles of four generations should be modified. The procedure was so complicated that ordinary people could not comprehend. The shortcoming of treating main lineages and branches differently was against the impartiality of historiography that narrates everyone’s stories without discrimination. This has also brought many inconveniences to the later generations of genealogists. Fourth, balance the simple and complex. Zhang Xuecheng proposed the idea of “balancing the simple and complex”, which was illustrated in the letter to Feng Qiushan. Then, Feng Qiushan invited Yao Xibao from Tongcheng to preface a genealogy. Yao wrote in the preface: “Based on my experiences of compiling genealogies for Youshu, Ru Zilun and others, I think genealogies should not be too complex. The pedigree should be condensed and simple in small volumes so that it’s more portable and easier to be spread by the later generations. It should adopt the format of chart like the ancient genealogy.”57 Then, Feng Qiushan wrote a letter to Zhang Xuecheng and asked for his opinion on “simplified genealogies”. Zhang Xuecheng refuted this viewpoint in his reply to Feng Qiushan. He believed that genealogies should balance both the simple and complex, depending on the number and credibility of ancestor deeds. If there were plenty reliable resources, then it was not appropriate to omit or delete them. If the resources were not credible, then they should not be quoted in the genealogy. Zhang Xuecheng argued that compiling genealogies should be based on facts and “balance the simple and complex”.58 (5) The utility of genealogies. Zhang Xuecheng mentioned in his compiled Preface of Clan Genealogies in Hezhou that there were ten benefits of genealogies, which was reconfirmed in his later works of the Preface and Principle of Eminent Clan Genealogies in Tongzhi, Hubei. From the ten benefits, Zhang Xuecheng believed that the utility of genealogy was multi-faceted. The first and second were about uniformity of genealogical methodology; The third, fourth and seventh were about the functions of identifying official ranks, assisting elections and facilitating marriages; The fifth and sixth were about genealogy and social order, law and demographic movement; The eighth and nineth were about the memorial and model functions of genealogy for eminent families, and The preface of the Feng family genealogy in Daohou, Daizhou 代州道后冯氏世谱序. In Collected works of Xibaoxuan 惜抱轩集, Vol. 3. 58 Discussion on genealogical compilations with Feng Qiushan. In Posthumous works of Zhang Xuecheng (Vol. 13). Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1985. 57

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public education; The tenth was about the resources in genealogies that should be investigated and served as references by later generations. Zhang Xuecheng demonstrated the above ten aspects to highlight the utility of genealogy in a comprehensive and objective manner, which provide some reference values until now. (6) Maintenance and management of genealogies. Zhang Xuecheng proposed each prefecture and county to establish the department of chorography. It was an institute for compiling local chronicles as well as collecting and writing genealogies in that prefecture and county. He said in the Proposal to Establish Department of Chorography in Prefecture and County: “After families compiled their genealogies and individuals composed the biographies, they shall submit the copies to teachers and scholars in the academy for their opinions and verification. Once the errors were corrected, those documents could be collected by the department of chorography.”59 He further pointed out in the Preface and Principle of Eminent Clan Genealogies in Yongqing: “If genealogies were under the coordinated management of the government, then people would have official records and the powers and influences of various families and clans could be balanced.”60 Zhang Xuecheng advocated that genealogy should be preserved and managed by the department of chorography in prefectures and counties for two purposes: First, because family genealogies were easy to lose, the department of chorography was capable of keeping them for a long time. In other words, if genealogies were collected by the department of chorography, it could not only overcome the defect of “scattering around at home”, but also take full advantage of the rich content in genealogies to contribute to the compilation of national history and local chronicles.61 Second, if genealogies were managed by the department of chorography, then officials could organize teachers and scholars to unify the compilations, collect public opinions and normalize the format of genealogies. Zhang believed that private compilations had many errors. He analyzed the reasons why private genealogies had so many shortcomings: “When individuals compiled their own genealogies, they tended to justify themselves.” In order to address those issues of private compilations, Zhang proposed to establish the department of chorography in prefectures and counties that could preserve literature, manage the local chronicles, unify and manage the compilation of those collected private genealogies. The department should not only guarantee the authenticity and credibility of the facts in genealogies, but also make impartial comments on the events and individuals involved in genealogies, and standardize the formats of compilation. In a word, Zhang Xuecheng attempted to leverage the power of government and rely on “teachers and scholars” to unify and revise the genealogies in a coordinated way. “Once the errors were corrected, the genealogies could be collected”. In this way, the shortcomings of “counterfeit names, exaggerating the compliments of ancestors, treating main lineages and branches with discrimination, 59

Wen Shi Tong Yi Jiao Zhu, Vol. 6. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. Wen Shi Tong Yi Jiao Zhu, Vol. 7. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. 61 Wen Shi Tong Yi Jiao Zhu, Vol. 6. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. 60

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overstatement, losses of evidence.” could be completely tackled. Zhang has given much thought to this, but it was extremely difficult to achieve the goal. To sum up, Zhang Xuecheng’s genealogy theory is very systematic, which provides deep insights into the nature, evolution, format and style, compilation principle, utility and collection of genealogies. Zhang’s statements on the genealogy theory are very targeted. Based on his practical experiences, he criticized many shortcomings of genealogy compilation in the society such as forgery and omission and came up with his insightful remarks. Especially concerning Ouyang Xiu’s and Su Xun’s theories, on one hand he gave full recognition: “Among all the genealogists in the Song Dynasty, Ouyang and Su were the most renowned figures whose genealogies were not far-fetched but evidence-based, embodying the meticulous spirit of the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chun Qiu 春秋). But on the other hand, he criticized that Ouyang’s genealogies lacked the significance of historiography while Su’s genealogies had the issue of justifying oneself. He also condemned the indiscriminative quotation of the principles of Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun’s genealogies: “People admired Ouyang Xun and Su Xun but their sources of ancient genealogies were yet verified. People didn’t know that Ouyang and Su were not historiographers and their genealogies had many errors. But the public just blindly complimented and believed them.” Though the comments were quite sharp, they were right on target. Most importantly, Zhang Xuecheng elaborated on genealogies from the perspective of a historiographer. According to his understanding of “genealogy as one part of history”, Zhang applied the theory, concept and methodology of historiography to explain the issues of genealogy theory. This was a reflection of historiography in genealogy theory. Zhang’s genealogy theory was an integral part of the theoretical framework of historiography. Zhang’s genealogical ethics was based on the theoretical foundation of historiography, and has been incorporated into the theoretical framework of historiography. This was the greatest contribution that Zhang Xuecheng made to China’s genealogy theory. His dissertation on genealogical ethics was so profound and comprehensive that he has exceeded any other well-known genealogist since the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. Zhang Xuecheng’s genealogical ethics has exerted great influences on the compilation of genealogies by the later generations. Especially the ideas of “genealogy is family history” and “genealogy is a part of history” were widely applied in the principles of genealogy compilation by the later generations of genealogists. But to be honest, the influence of Zhang Xuecheng’s genealogy theory was far less than that of the Ouyang and Su styles of the genealogy and Zhu Xi’s “Three Cardinal Guides and Five Constant Virtues”. As famous literati in the Tang and Song Dynasties, Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun had written the Ouyang Family Genealogy and the Su Clan Genealogy that were included in their collected works and spread widely. Especially the “five-generation pedigree chart” created by them adapted to the clansmen’ demands of ‘revering and uniting the lineage’. As a result, their pedigree style became the fundamental framework of genealogy compilation in the later generations. As a Neo-Confucianist, Zhu Xi was the most influential ideologist during the late of feudal society. His “Three Cardinal Guides and Five Constant Virtues” was the mainstream

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ideology in the society, which was regarded as the spiritual pillar by the later generations of genealogy compilers. Undoubtedly, its influence was profound. However, the impact of the historiographer Zhang Xuecheng’s genealogy theory was less than that of Ouyang, Su and Zhu, though it was more comprehensive, in-depth and scientific. The reason was that the compilation principles proposed by Zhang Xuecheng were against the mission of “revering and uniting the lineage”, were irrelevant to their hopes of strengthening the clan organization through genealogy compilation and conflicted with the “clan relationship of the five mourning apparels” and “the emotional bond of the nine clans”. Therefore, it was not surprising that its influence on the genealogy compilation was not as much as that of Ouyang, Su and Zhu. This once again showed the sadness and sarcasm of scholars who advocated the rigorous method for genealogy compilation. There was a designated chapter on Cheng Minzheng’s genealogical methodology and verification in our discussion on Ming Dynasty genealogies. It was pointed out that Cheng Minzheng’s genealogical methodology was quite scientific, but due to the same reason encountered by Zhang Xuecheng during his compilation, his methods could not be fully implemented when he renewed Cheng’s family genealogy. We expressed deep sympathy for Cheng’s sadness as a scholar and compiler. After all, Cheng Minzheng was a senior bureaucrat in the Ming Dynasty and presided over the compilation of the Cheng Family’s General Genealogy in Xin’an. However, Zhang Xuecheng’s experiences were much more miserable. He once said: “Over the past 30 years, I have suffered from bitter and hunger, and struggled to make a living with pen and ink. In order to survive, I had to compile local chronicles and family genealogies for others. It was like the needlewomen making wedding dresses for others but they never have the chance to wear new gowns. I tried to write my own genealogies and historiography works but failed to get the support from local officials.”62 To Zhang Xuecheng, the founder of China’s genealogy theory who had no chance to carry his ideals and lived a lifetime of frustrations, we would like to show our deepest sympathy and tribute.

8.6 The Genealogies of Ethnic Minorities During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China era, it was not only the Han people that compiled genealogies. The Mongols, Manchurians, Hui, Yi, She and Miao people did as well, as did people from other ethnic minorities. They were largely influenced by the Han people. 1. Mongols Mongolian genealogies have a long history, and they can be traced back to the most primitive, oral genealogies. As noted earlier, The Secret History of the Mongols 蒙古秘史 recorded the lineage of Genghis Khan, and it included more than 20 62

Posthumous works of Zhang Xuecheng (Vol. 29). Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1985.

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generations of his ancestry, spanning 600 to 700 years. This book was mainly based on the oral genealogies that prevailed among Mongols at that time. Other history books such as The History of the Yuan Dynasty 元史 and The New History of the Yuan Dynasty 新元史 also recorded Temujin-Genghis Khan’s and other families’ genealogies and lineages. During the seventeenth century, when Mongolia became a vassal to the Manchu people, a distinctive feature of the Qing Dynasty military system was that it was divided into two separate organizations. There were the banner units of the Manchu people, the allied Mongols, and the Chinese who had joined the Manchu cause during the overthrow of the Ming Dynasty, and there were also the Green Standards units of surrendered Ming Dynasty soldiers. In order to maintain this new feudal system, complete records needed to be kept on the banner owners’ families. The Court of Colonial Affairs (Lifanyuan, 理藩院) supervised all of the Qing government’s official relations with various Mongol tribes under the Manchu overlordship. Consequently, it had to preserve the detailed pedigrees of the feudal nobles in Mongolia, so that it could deal with their inheritances or any relevant disputes. The lineage of the Sönid Right Banner 苏尼特右翼旗 in Inner Mongolia is an example of one of these records. It was maintained by the Court of Colonial Affairs. During the seventh year of the Chongde era (1642), Seüse, a former Mongolian lord, was awarded the Zasag Töriin Duuren Jun-Wang. This was a title of nobility that could be inherited without limit to a number of later generations. Seüse’s second son Shagidai inherited the title during the fourth year of the Shunzhi era (1647), then Shagidai’s oldest son Güngge inherited it in 1670. The following then inherited it: Güngge’s oldest son Loojang (1673); Shagidai’s second son Ayusi (1675); Ayusi’s oldest son Darijab (1693), Darijab’s oldest son Wanchinchisuren (1729); Wanchinchisuren’s oldest son Danzantseren (1741); Wanchinchisuren’s second son Langguntseren (1744); Darijab’s third son Tserendorji (1751); Tserendorji’s oldest son Tseren-gombo (1769); Tseren-gombo’s oldest son Ratnasidi (1802), Ratnasidi’s son Burnisiri (1826); Burnisiri’s son Bodamangala (1855) and Bodamangala’s son Namjilwanchig (1863). Demchigdonrob, the last person on the pedigree and the only son of Namjilwanchig, inherited his father’s title during the 34th year of the Guangxu era (1908). During the second year of the Republic of China era (1913), he was knighted and became a prince. He became known as Prince De 德王 (Prince Demchigdonrob) and was notable for being 31 generations descended from Genghis Khan.63 It became necessary for every Mongolian banner to keep records on their noble families’ lineage, due to titles and knighthoods being inherited. Families were meant to report their records to the Lifanyuan and, in principle, the basic genealogical data in these needed to be checked once every three years. Unfortunately, wars and other events meant that many were lost, which is a great pity. However, the genealogies of some prominent Mongolian families have been completely preserved to this day. The genealogy of the Mongolian Borjigin clan, 63

Sechin Jagchid. General introduction to Mongolian genealogies. Minutes of The Third Asian Genealogy Academic Seminar, United Daily News Cultural Foundation National Studies Literature Museum of Taiwan, 1987.

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which included the descendants of the Yuan Dynasty emperor, is one such example. It was compiled by Lomi from Kharchin during the 13th year of the Yongzheng era (1735). The original manuscript was written in Mongolian, and later translated into Chinese and Manchu by the author. During the 48th year of the Qianlong era (1783), Lomi’s grandson, Becingge, updated and revised the genealogy. The Mongolian and Manchu versions of the Boljijin genealogy have never been found, but several organizations have copies of the Chinese transcript, including the China National Library, the Inner Mongolia Academy of Social Sciences Library, and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Library. The most complete version is held in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Library. It has the preserved Qing Dynasty manuscripts, which span three volumes. This first volume is called the Mongolia Borjigid Clan Genealogy, and it is split into two parts. Part one traces the origins of this imperial clan to Enedheg, from Emperor Shun’s reign, to the Yuan Dynasty (1333–1370). Part two lists the family’s lineage, from Emperor Zhao’s reign (1370–1378) to the Qing Dynasty. The second volume, A Study on the Mongolian Pedigree, was compiled by Becingge. It contains pedigrees that have been cited from books including the Secret History of the Yuan Dynasty, the History of Yuan, and the Mongolian Genealogy. It also includes a map that shows the distribution of Mongolian surnames. Each pedigree includes captions that show Becingge’s textual research. The third volume contains A Biography of Gerbolod, written by Dekun. It is unknown when this book was originally written. This biography mainly describes the lineage of Gerbolod, the ninth son of Dayun Khan. The contents of this biography are much richer than the Qing Shi Gao (Draft of Qing History 清史稿) version.64 From the brief introduction above, we can see that the Mongolian Borjigin Clan Genealogy preserved a large number of precious, historical documents. These are of high value to anyone studying Mongolian history. A number of Mongolian genealogies were also updated, to factor in the influences of Han Chinese cultures and customs. One such example is the Sa Family Genealogy in Yanmen (Fuzhou, Fujian). The ancestors of the Sa family were largely recognized as miscellaneous aliens (semu 色目).65 However, they made notable achievements in the military, and won the praises of Kubilai for guarding the area from northern Shanxi to Daizhou on his command. The grandson of Sa Dula was born in Yanmen, Daizhou (now Daibei County, Shaanxi Province). The surname “Sa 萨” was given to him as an honor by Yuan Dynasty Emperor Yingzong, and the family continued using the surname. During the first year of the Yuantong era (1333), Sa Zhongli, the son of Sa Dula’s second brother, Sa Yezhi, became a Presented Scholar. He was subsequently recruited as a proofreader in the Fujian Province Secretariat. He began living in the capital city, Fuzhou, and became the first Sa family member to settle in 64

Nagusainkhuu. A brief introduction to the different versions of the Mongolia Borjigid Clan Genealogy. The Wen Xian (Documentation文献), 1988 (2). 65 Translator’s note: During the Yuan Dynasty, the population was divided into four groups: (1) Mongols, (2) Miscellaneous aliens, mostly Central Asian Muslims, (3) Residents of Northern China, including the Khitan, Jurchen, and Chinese subjects of Jin, and (4) the Southern Chinese, i.e. all former subjects of the Southern Song.

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Yanmen. This family’s genealogy was revised eight times between the Ming/Qing Dynasties and the Republic of China era. The revised Sa family genealogies described in detail the family in Yanmen’s origin, family members’ pedigrees, where they lived, their migration habits, and their celebrity deeds. These genealogies are full of information and they are, stylistically, relatively complete. They vividly show the historical process of how the Mongols and the Han integrated, and are therefore of important research value. The Duuren-Güyeng Genealogy in the Mongolian Autonomous County of Kharchin, Liaoning Province is a very distinctive Mongolian genealogy. It records the clan of the last emperor’s son-in-law, Duuren-Güyeng. It was written from top to bottom by hand in Mongolian, and is eight meters long and 1.7 m wide. It was usually rolled up while in storage, but opened during days of worship or holidays. It records the names and social status of the descendants of Duuren-Güyeng, from the ninth year of the Huangtaiji era (1635) to the first year of the Xuantong era (1909). Altogether, it lists 14 generations of descendants. 1904 people are recognized in total in this genealogy, and 1153 were granted various official titles by the Qing Imperial Court. There were 22 first-class tabunans, three second-class tabunans, 43 thirdclass tabunans, 1019 fourth-class tabunans, 13 jasays, one infanta, 63 beidis, two beizis, four zhenguo dukes, 22 associate ministers, four zuosuotumeng directors, one interior minister, eight ministers of justice, and eight emperor’s minions. 386 people were granted non-titles, and there were 365 lamas. This genealogy records nearly 300 years of Mongolian history, and traces the Mongolians back some 1000 years. It fills in some of the blanks previously left in the Mongol Dynasty history after Emperor Yuanshun’s reign. It therefore has high value as a cultural relic.66 2. The Manchu people Manchu genealogies have a long history, and they can be traced back to the most primitive knotted rope genealogies. All of the primitive Manchu families had a “descendants’ rope”, which was 22ft’s worth of string in five different colors. Family members tied knots in this rope to show how many generations there were. When a new child was born, they added something to the rope. If a boy was born, they hung a bow and arrow made of bamboo; if a girl was born, they hung a piece of colorful cloth. The rope was then placed inside a paper bag, known as the “praying for children pocket”, and hung on the western wall. On days of sacrificial offerings, the whole family would kneel in front of the rope. The Manchu people went from knotted rope genealogies to books around the time that the Eight Banners System was established in the Qing Dynasty. When this system was established, the original clans fell apart; or rather, they became more established among the government and the people. The population census and registration data were subsequently stored in the archives of each banner. The Man Wen Lao Dang was the first genealogy to record the activities of Emperor Taizu Nurhaci’s family, and it was compiled during the Qing Dynasty. After the seventeenth century, it was a Zhang Wenguang 张文广. Clan genealogies are the national treasures 悠悠族谱 民族瑰宝. Liaoning Toady, 2003 (6).

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government requirement for one person to present his family genealogy as proof of identity when inheriting an official position. This led to many families subsequently compiling family genealogies. A large number of Manchu genealogies emerged after the Manchu became dominant. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the rulers implemented an ideological and cultural policy with “filial piety” at its core. The emperors during the Kangxi and Yongzheng eras demanded that families “compile/revise genealogies to unite the clans”. As the supreme rulers advocated this, and Manchu lifestyles and customs became increasing Sinicized, people accepted the Han people’s cultural custom of compiling genealogies. As a result, a large number of Manchu genealogies also began to appear. Some Manchu genealogies were only written in Manchu, such as the Ula Clan Lineage (see Fig. 8.3). Ula, also known as Hulun, was a powerful ally of the Jurchen tribes during the late sixteenth century. He was based primarily in what is today China’s Jilin province. Another example is the General Genealogy of the Manchu Clans in Eight Banners. This book spans 80 volumes, and was completed during the ninth year of the Qianlong era (1744). It is based on the original archives and genealogical books of prominent Manchu families. It is rich in content and informative. It is the most important reference book for studying the origin and development of the Manchu clans from the Eight Banners during the Qing Dynasty. This genealogy is now also available in Chinese. Some genealogies were written in both Manchu and Chinese, such as the Tatara hala Family Genealogy. It was compiled during the 23rd year of the Guangxu era (1897). Some of its content, like the preface, principles, and the family’s origin, were narrated in Chinese. However, the original prefaces were written in both Chinese and Manchu. All of the Manchu scripts were pronounced with Chinese characters (see Fig. 8.4), and this showed that the Manchu people themselves were becoming increasingly unfamiliar with their own language during the late Qing Dynasty. Some genealogies were only written in Chinese, such as the Hongyigong Genealogy in the Xianghuang Banner. This genealogy was written during the Qing Dynasty, and it spans 15 volumes. It includes a preface, the family principles, a biography of Hongyigong, and his lineage. This genealogy is rich in data and was deeply influenced by the Han peoples’ genealogies.

Fig. 8.3 A genealogy written by the Ula clan in Manchu

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Fig. 8.4 The Tatara hala Family Genealogy written both in Chinese and Manchu

Another example is the Hong Clan Genealogy, which was compiled during the 17th year of the Daoguang era (1837). It describes the Hong clan’s ancestral home, the banner they belonged to, the origin of the family surname, residences, family members’ migration history, celebrities, gravesites, places of sacrificial land, and the Chinese characters the family used, in generation order. This genealogy was revised in 1935 by Hong Rujun. Another example is Ma Jia’s Genealogy, which was revised three times: in 1821, 1877, and 1927. The final edition spans five volumes, and contains a preface by Zhao Erxun and Yuan Jinkai. Analysis into the evolving styles and content of Manchu genealogies shows that they went from being simple and brief, to complex and detailed. The family lineage chart was the main piece of content in the early Manchu genealogies. However, by the late Qing Dynasty/Republic of China era, the content in genealogies had become relatively standardized. For example, the 1940 General Genealogy of Irgen Gioro hala, compiled in Benxi County, included: (1) a preface; (2) the original prefaces of previous genealogies; (3) the General Genealogy of Irgen Gioro hala; (4) research

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into the relocation of the toponymic tribes; (5) the titles of branch genealogies; (6) family instructions; (7) the ancient family precepts; (8) the names of clan leaders; (9) rules set by clan leaders; (10) information on the clan; (11) regulations during sacrificial events; (12) pictures of the “wufu”; (13) the names of family members who were provincial-level officials; (14) annotations; (15) pedigree charts; (16) notes. “The content in this genealogy is representative of what is standard; it is similar to that found in most genealogical books.” The Manchu people generally followed the style and content of the Han people when they compiled their genealogies. These genealogies became more influential over time, especially the parts where their purpose, principles, pedigree charts and generational orders were listed. The information on the family precepts, clan rules, sacrificial events and artistic achievements was also somewhat similar to that found in Han genealogies. However, the Manchu genealogies also had some unique characteristics in their content and form. First, Manchu genealogies often preached that genealogies needed to be compiled so that a family could trace their origin, give glory to their ancestors, and subsequently pass on instructions to future generations. This is the same reason that the Han people compiled their genealogies; however, there was another important reason why the Manchu people compiled genealogies. During the Qing Dynasty, the Eight Banners System instructed that genealogies needed to be provided as proof, so that descendants could inherit official positions and status. According to the regulations of the Eight Banners System, the Khan, Beile, and Grand Ministers were the ruling class. To prevent members of the ruling class from being confused, a strict household registration system was formulated. This stipulated that the Eight Banners registry should be edited once every three years, and that each assistant leader was responsible for drawing up a household registration list. This was meant to include the official names of fathers and brothers, children, brothers’ sons, and household servants. Because one’s identity and inheritance were so closely related to family genealogies, every family, especially the prominent ones, attached great importance to genealogical compilations after the Manchu people became dominant. The General Genealogy of the Manchu Clans in Eight Banners which was completed during the ninth year of the Qianlong era (1744) played an essential part in genealogical compilations. Some specifically Manchu characteristics are also displayed in the content of Manchu genealogies. For example, the Manchu people attached great importance to sacrificial offerings, and in many genealogies, there is a special chapter dedicated to sacrifice. Although traces of Sinicization are evident in several ceremonies, the primitive culture of Manchuria is very much apparent. The Manchu people learned rites from the Han people, such as burning incense and candles, kneeling three times and placing one’s head to the floor nine times when offering sacrifice. However, the custom of offering live sacrifices was obviously an old custom from Manchuria. There were Manchu nouns and terms in the content and titles of many Manchu genealogies. For example, the Giorca Hala Family Genealogy in Fuling compiled during the 12th year of the Jiaqing era (1807), the Soqoro Hala Family Genealogy compiled during the 16th year of the Guangxu era (1890), the Hitara Hala Family Genealogy in Yongling compiled during the 23rd year of the Guangxu era (1897), and

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the Samala Hala Family Genealogy compiled during the 13th year of the Republic of China era (1924).67 As Song Xiaolian said in the preface he wrote for the Tatara Hala Family Genealogy during the 23rd year of the Guangxu era (1897), the Manchu people kept the Manchu nouns and terms because they did not want to forget their ancestors. There were also many Manchu nouns in the genealogies, such as “ama” 父 (father), “eme” 母 (mother), “mukunda” 总族长 (chieftain), etc. During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China era, a considerable number of genealogies were compiled by the Manchu people; almost every clan/family had one. This is shown in research from The Manchu in Xiuyan, published in 1984. Xiuyan is located north of the Liaodong Peninsula, and is a multi-ethnic county dominated by the Manchu people, with a population of 240,000. During an investigation, the author determined that most Manchu families had a genealogy. A survey at the time showed that 28 kinds of genealogy had been found, some of which were written in Manchu and Chinese, others just in Chinese. “A large number of genealogies have been preserved by various clans in Liaoning, and the compilation of genealogical literature by the Manchu people began in the mid-seventeenth century. It subsequently became trendy to compile genealogies. The Manchu genealogies are woodcut and typographical; they have been printed over 100 times. There are also a large number of manuscripts, and dozens of these have been repeatedly copied. A preliminary investigation has determined that there are more than 500 family trees that have been preserved by the Manchu people in Liaoning province: in Benxi, Liaoyang, Xinbin, Xiuyan, Fengcheng, Gaixian, Shenyang, Huanren, Zhuanghe, Wafangdian, Tieling, Kaiyuan, Fushun, Beizhen, Xinjin, Yixian, Haicheng and Xingcheng. The actual number of preserved family trees actually exceeds this number.”68 In addition, a number of Manchu genealogies have been preserved in Jilin, Heilongjiang, Northern China and other parts of the country. To summarize, Manchu genealogies, of which there is a considerable volume with distinctive content, are of high importance to studies of Chinese genealogy. 3. The Hui ethnic minority The Hui people are one of China’s ethnic minority groups, and they are widely distributed across Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai, Henan, Hebei, Shandong, Yunnan, Anhui, Xinjiang, Liaoning, Guangxi, Beijing, and other places. Consequently, Hui genealogies are scattered all across the country. The Ningxia Library contains 23 genealogies and related reference material. 14 of these genealogies belonged to the Hui people, i.e. more than 60%. “Out of these Hui genealogies, the oldest is the Zhang Family Liuzhentang Genealogy 六箴堂张 氏家谱 and the Tie Family Genealogy 铁氏家谱, which are both over 600 years ago. The Dai Clan Genealogy 戴氏宗谱 is 570 years old, and the Tuo Family Genealogy 脱氏家谱, the Feng Family Genealogy 冯氏家谱 and the Hei Family Genealogy Li Lin 李林. Research on Manchu clan genealogies 满族宗谱研究. Liaoning Nationality Publishing House, 2006: 12. 68 Li Lin 李林. Selected Manchu family genealogies 满族家谱选编. Liaoning Nationality Publishing House, 1988: 9. 67

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黑氏家谱 are over 300 years old. The most valuable genealogies in terms of the historical data they provide are the Zhang Family Liuzhentang Genealogy, The Dai Clan Genealogy, the Tie Family Genealogy, Hei Family Genealogy and Tuo Family Genealogy. Collected Ma Clan Genealogies 马氏族谱全集 contains the most local characteristics.”69 The National Library of China says that there are 17 different types of Hui genealogy, including the Juzhentang Ma Clan Genealogy 聚真堂马氏宗谱. “Out of these genealogies, the oldest is the Hei Family Genealogy, which is thousands of years old. The Zhang Family Liuzhentang Genealogy spans 630 years of history. The Dai Clan Genealogy is 600 years old, and the genealogies of the Tuo, Feng and Tie families contain around 560 years of history.”70 According to the article entitled “The Genealogies of the Hui People in Guangxi and Their Historical Value”, there are 14 kinds of Hui genealogy in Guangxi. The earliest of these is the Bai Clan Genealogy 白氏族谱, which was compiled in 1419 during the Ming Dynasty. The most recent genealogy is the Hai Clan Genealogy in Luzhai 鹿寨海氏族谱, which was compiled in 1989. The remaining 12 genealogies were compiled during the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China era.71 According to a survey conducted in Zhaotong, Yunnan Province, there are 180,000 Hui compatriots living in the area, and they account for more than a quarter of the 640,000 Hui people living in Yunnan Province. “Our field data show that there are 118 different surnames for the Hui people in the city, and more than 20 of these are traditional Hui surnames, including Ma 马, Sai 赛, San 橵, Hu 虎, Na 纳, Zhang 张, Li 李, Yang 杨, Mi 米, Suo 所, Tie 铁, Kong 孔, Ruan 阮, Qi 戚 and Zhen 甄. Every surname indicates a clan with their own family tree and rules. The largest number of Hui genealogies in Yunnan province can be found in Zhaotong; these are written in Chinese and indicate that the people there have a long history. The largest group of Hui people are surnamed Ma.”72 However, as earlier noted, Hui genealogies were widely distributed. They had a long history and there were a considerable quantity of them. The Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China era were the main periods when Hui genealogies were compiled. What is most characteristic of Hui genealogies is how they permeate the spirit of Islamic culture, and they show how the Hui people developed historically. China’s Hui ethnic minority group did not form by integrating with the original clans/tribes of China; they were mainly immigrants who brought their native ethnic traits and Xie Meiying 谢梅英 and Lin Weili 蔺炜丽. Analysis of historical value and characteristics of Hui genealogies in the Ningxia Library 宁夏图书馆回族家谱文献的史料价值及其特点分析. Shaanxi Contemporary Library, 2003 (4). 70 Wang Huabei 王华北 and Wang Ping 王苹. Hui genealogies and culture. Northern Ethnic Groups, 2005 (4). 71 Weng Qianlin 翁乾麟. The genealogies of the hui people in Guangxi and their historical value 广西回族的族谱及其史料价值. Research on Hui Ethnic Minority, 2001 (3). 72 Hu Qing 胡青 and Ma Liangcan 马良灿. Three dimensions of Hui genealogies: ethnic origin, family rules and human relations 回族家谱的三个维度: 族源、族规与人伦. Hui Studies, 2007 (2). 69

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subsequently integrated with the Chinese. They formed during a diverse cultural era; many came at a time when Confucian culture was dominant among the Han people. The preface of the Ma Family Genealogy and History 太师马家谱历史系统 图考, which was compiled during the 33rd year of the Qianlong era (1907), is a good representation of the characteristics of Hui genealogies. The Ma family was an immigrant group who came to Shaanxi from the Western regions, and they accepted Confucian culture for many years. However, they still retained their Islamic culture, and therefore were loyal to their own belief system, while accepting the Confucian culture of the Han people. The spirit of Islamic culture has been clearly reflected in rules and regulations of Hui genealogies. The Fu Clan Genealogy 傅氏宗谱 compiled in 1938 is one such example. Its clan rules stipulated that the senior should care for the young, and the young should respect the senior, which reflects typical Confucian thoughts. However, they also demanded that their clan people should abide by the “five rules of Islam”, which is the basic requirement of Islam for every believer. The ten family rules in the Ma Family Genealogy in Xiaba 下坝马氏家谱 (written during the seventh year of the Jiaqing era in the Qing Dynasty, 1802) are also a good representation of the Hui people’s genealogical culture. They mention relationships, religion, marriage, duty, religious rules, and family management. The content on observing religious practices and rules has obvious Islamic connotations, e.g. not being allowed to “enter the devil”. But there is also content in line with Confucian culture, e.g. on observing filial piety, taking propriety as the basis, not carrying out road robberies, adultery, or any evildoings.73 The Hui people were mainly foreigners who integrated with the Chinese. Because the Hui people were largely practicing Muslims, it was necessary for them to properly manage their relationship between religion and the clans. Therefore, the style and content of Hui genealogies ended up being much simpler than those of the Han people. “The Guangxi Hui genealogies—as far as most genealogies are concerned— are generally divided into three parts: a preface, ‘clan disciplines’ and a lineage table or pedigree chart.”74 Some genealogies were simply lists of genealogies, or peoples’ lineage written on white paper. For example, the Bai Genealogy 白氏家谱, preserved by Bai Wenyun 白雯云 and Bai Xiangyun 白香云, who were the fifth generation descended from the Bai family in Shenyang, was a simple genealogical list. It was 88 cm long and 38 cm wide, and written on white paper. It recorded seven generations of lineage after the Bai family relocated from Shenyang, and in total listed the names of 144 people. As the Hui are one of China’s most important ethnic minorities, the Hui genealogies add bright colors to studies of Chinese genealogy as a whole, with their unique Islamic cultural characteristics. Unlike the Mongolian and Manchu people, who compiled some genealogies in their own language, the Hui people compiled all their genealogies in Chinese. The reason for this is that the Hui people did not all speak the same language; some spoke 73

Ibid. Weng Qianlin 翁乾麟. The genealogies of the hui people in Guangxi and their historical value 广西回族的族谱及其史料价值. Research on Hui Ethnic Minority, 2001 (3).

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Arabic, others spoke Persian. After they became a defined ethnic group, they used Chinese much like the Han people. Some genealogies had a few Arabic characters on their cover, but the Hui genealogies were generally compiled in Chinese. 4. The Yi ethnic group The Yi people mainly live in southwest China, and they have a long history and cultural traditions. Like other ethnic minorities, the Yi people had a custom of passing on their genealogy orally, and they had been doing this since ancient times. Yi genealogies played an important role in China’s genealogical development. Because southwestern China has deep mountains and long valleys, enclosed spaces and generally, a poor geographic environment, it has traditionally had strong clan and family concepts, to help people survive and develop. The Yi people have long had a cultural tradition of compiling genealogies to maintain the bloodline of the Yi families. There are two main types of Yi genealogy: written and oral genealogies. According to relevant records, during the Han and Jin Dynasties, the Yi people created their own language, but only a few performers and members of the elite were able to master it. As a result, there were not many genealogies compiled in the Yi language. However, some Yi genealogies have survived to the present day. For example, in Eshan County, Yunnan Province, a copy of the Shi Clan Genealogy 施 氏宗谱 exists in the ancient Yi language. It has been well-preserved in a wooden box. In Liangshan, Sichuan Province, there exists the Shi Lie Re Ancient Genealogy 什列惹古系谱 and in Guizhou, the Bei Lan Kao 贝兰考. The National Library of China also has a collection of Yi genealogies, such as the Xu Jia Pu Jing 叙家谱经, Xu Jia Pu Ying Zu Ling 叙家谱迎祖灵, Feng Jia De Xi Pu 凤家的系谱, A Jiao Po Jia De Xi Pu 阿教颇家的系谱, Gu Hou Qu Nie Xi Pu 古侯曲涅系谱. Most have been written on pieces of white cotton. Some Yi genealogies are similar to Chinese genealogies, in that they were carved onto stone walls. For example, on the cliff of the Fayi Village in Luquan County, Yunnan Province, there is an inscription of the Luo Wu Xian Dai Ming. It was written by an aboriginal officer from the Feng family in Wuding during the early Jingtai era (1450–1456) of the Ming Dynasty. In addition, some Yi genealogies have been preserved in the ethnic group’s historical records. The Creation Records of the Yi People 彝族创世志 is one such example, which includes 22 clan genealogies from the Heng 恒 family, 24 from the Bu 布 family, and 39 from the Mo 默 family. In 1953, Liu Yaohan went to the Ailao mountain range in Yunnan to carry out a social and historical survey into the Yi people. He discovered three genealogies that were linked to the Meng family. These had been preserved in the Biography of Ailao’s National Heroes 哀牢夷雄列传, which was written by Xia Zhengyin 夏正寅 (1839–1937) during the Qing Dynasty.75 Most Yi families had an oral genealogy. For most Yi men, being able to recite one’s clan’s genealogy contributed towards them establishing themselves in society. Liu Yaohan 刘尧汉. The new proof that the Mong family, the ruler of Nanzhao, belongs to the Yi people 南诏统治者蒙氏家族属于彝族之新证. In the Liu Yaohan. The collected surveys and research work related to the Yi ethnic group’s society and history 彝族社会历史调查研究文集. Beijing: Ethnic Publishing House, 1980.

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They could recite dozens of generations of ancient family members in one go. Having such ability gave people many social conveniences. As the Yi proverb goes, “You can go around the clan and survive without solid foods, but relying on the clan means that all three generations will be safe.” It was not enough to just memorize your patrilineal genealogy; people also needed to know their “uncle’s” matrilineal lineage. As another proverb goes: “If you cannot recite your father’s genealogy, the clan will not recognize you; if you can’t recite your uncles’ (on your mother’s side) genealogy, your relatives won’t recognize you.”76 These proverbs show that oral genealogies played an important role in the Yi people’s social life. The names of fathers and sons generally linked the family pedigrees of the Yi people, as these were easiest to memorize. When people memorized their family members’ names, they used a bottom-to-top naming system and started with the son’s name. They recited a generation by then adding the father’s name to the son’s name. They then recited another generation by adding the grandfather’s name to the father’s name, and continued in this way back to the original ancestor. Most oral genealogies linked the names of fathers and sons, but a few linked the names of mothers and daughters. Just as the patriarchal clan system developed from the matriarchal clan society, the father-and-son-linked genealogies developed from mother-and-daughter linked genealogies. The Yi genealogies had the following remarkable characteristics. (1) They have a long history. The Southwest Yi Records 西南彝志, written during the late 17th/early eighteenth century, recorded that the Yi people arrived some 4000 years ago, during the flood era when the 31st generation Dumu was born. Many chapters describe the first thirty-one generations descended from the original ancestor Ximuzhe: the main families/branches and their lineage, prominent figures and notable historic events.77 In the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, the Yi people can trace their ancestors back some 70 to 80 generations with their genealogies. If a generation spanned 25 years, then 80 generations would make a 2000-year history for the Yi people.78 Some Yi people can even trace their ancestors back more than 140 generations, i.e. to the Age of Mythology. When Zheng Weiqiang 郑伟强 conducted a field survey in Sichuan in August 2002, he met a 60-year-old Yi man, Gutenie, who lived in a Yi Village in Ganluo County. He could recite data from his genealogy dating back more than 140 generations. He could also recite the genealogies of eight other families. The genealogies of the Yi ethnic group showed, with their long history, that there were, historically, big families of the Yi people among the Chinese nation. 76

Liu Yaohan. Analysis of patrilineal clan system and clan slavery from Yi genealogies in Liangshan. The collected surveys and research work related to the Yi ethnic group’s society and history. Beijing: Ethnic Publishing House, 1980:109. 77 Wang Guangrong 王光荣. Discussing Yi genealogies and family branches from the perspective of national folk culture 从民族民间文化谈彝族谱牒家支. Guizhou Ethnic Studies, 1991 (3). 78 Zheng Weiqiang 郑伟强. A study on Yi genealogies 彝族谱牒之研究. Journal of Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, 2004 (1).

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(2) The genealogies of the Yi people are widely distributed, and many have been found in Yi villages in Southwest China. The Liangshan Yi Language Compilation and Translation Bureau in Sichuan Province has three copies of The Bimo Genealogy 毕摩家谱 and more than 20 branch genealogies. The Ethnic Affairs Commission in Yanyuan County has dozens of Yi genealogies from the Liangshan area. These are currently being collated and published. Many Liangshan Yi scholars have also translated and published many precious Yi genealogies, such as the Longyun and Its Naji Clan Genealogy 龙云及 其纳吉氏族谱系, the Ba Qie Family Genealogy 巴且家族系谱, the Gu Hou Family Branch Genealogy 古侯家支谱系, the Qu Nie Family Branch Genealogy 曲涅家支 谱系, and Shi Lie Re Gu Xi Pu 什列惹古系谱. A large number of Yi genealogical documents have been found distributed across Guizhou Province. The Bijie Yi Translation Group has collected more than ten kinds of Yi genealogy, such as the Jun Yu Gen Yuan 君域根源, the Xu Mu Xi 叙母系, the Xu Du Mu Shi Shao 叙笃慕实勺, the Ke Bo Shi Jia 克博世家, the A Zhe Jian Shi 阿者简史, the Xu Pu Xi 叙谱系, the Xu Du Mu Tian Jun 叙笃慕天君, the Xu Bo Le 叙播勒, the Yi Zu Da Pu 彝族大谱, the De Bi Zu Pu 德彼族谱, the Che Le Shi Xi 扯勒世系, the De Bu Jian Shi 德布简史, the De Shi Shi Pu 德施氏谱, and the Che Le Jian Shi 扯勒简史. Many have been collected in Hezhang County, Weining County and the city, Liupanshui. Yunnan Province is rich with Yi genealogies, and many have been found distributed across Yi residential areas. The Chuxiong Yi Cultural Research Institute has collected more than 30 Yi genealogies from areas including Wuding, Yuanmou, Luquan, and Shuangbai, such as the A Ben Po Pu 阿本颇谱, the Yi Zu Jia Pu 彝 族家谱, the Yang Shi Jia Pu 杨氏家谱 (4 volumes), the Qie Bao Pu Xi 且保谱系 (2 volumes), the Zu Xian Ming Ci 祖先名次(3 volumes), the Zu Xian Dai Xu 祖先 代序 (2 volumes), the Shen Zu Pu 神祖谱, etc. The following institutes also have Yi genealogies: The Chuxiong Prefecture Archives, Wuding County Ethnic Affairs Commission, Eshan County Ethnic Affairs Commission, Jianshui Ethnic Research Institute, Qujing District Ethnic Affairs Commission, Shiping County Ethnic Affairs Commission, Ninglang County Language Commission, and the Zhaotong District Ethnic Affairs Commission.79 (3) Father-and-son linked genealogies, transmitted orally. As noted earlier, the Yi people had their own writing system. However, only a few people were able to master this system, so most genealogies were oral genealogies, and these linked the names of fathers and sons. This kind of genealogy originated from the ancient Qiang 羌 ethnic group. The Yi people are descendants of the Qiang people, and they preserved this cultural custom. According to the Biography of Nanzhao in the Tang Dynasty, the Meng 蒙 family and the rulers of the Nanzhao Yi people had oral father-and-son linked genealogies. However, their genealogies only recorded Hua Lin 华林. Analysis of Yi historical genealogy archives 彝文历史谱牒档案探析. Ideological Front 思想战线, 1997 (3).

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the names of men, not women. If a man did not have a son, his lineage would be forgotten. Because many of the Yi people didn’t know their own language, they passed their genealogies down from generation to generation by word of mouth—linking the names of fathers and sons. It was important that families were familiar with their genealogy so that they could participate in social activities. A person who didn’t know his family tree would not be recognized by his family members. So the Yi people not only familiarized themselves with their family genealogy, they also made their children recite the family genealogy from an early age. It was important that they understand the basic situation of their family, its origin and the distribution of family members. This cultural custom has been preserved for thousands of years. According to Zheng Weiqiang’s 2002 survey, there are around 1000 large and small clans in Liangshan, Sichuan Province, and many come from a clan background. The names of their ancestors can be found in their pedigrees, which list the names of fathers and sons. So we can see that the cultural customs of the Yi people were not only developed over thousands of years, they were somewhat restored in the new era. Yi genealogies have a long history, and many have been widely distributed and passed on by word of mouth. Their key characteristic is their primitiveness, but they also reveal a lot of content, including various aspects of the Yi people’s social history. They are an important and precious resource to anyone studying the Yi people’s ancestry, philosophy, society, economic development, political systems, ethnic origin or cultural customs. Yi genealogies are an important part of Chinese genealogical study. 5. The She ethnic group. The She 畲 people are a large minority group, mainly found in the southeast of China. The earliest She people resided in the mountainous regions of Fujian, Guangdong and Jiangxi province. They lived a self-sufficient life, and had no contact with the outside world. During the mid-Tang Dynasty, the government set up official units there, and a large number of Han people moved in. The She people were forced to migrate to other regions to escape feudal oppression and discrimination as a result of the Tang regime. Some moved to the border areas of Fujian, Zhejiang and Jiangxi. The She people were sparsely populated and they were surrounded by Han influences. Consequently, their economy, social life and ideologies underwent profound changes. The She people did not have their own writing system, and they accepted the pure, feudal culture of the Han people. As feudalism became more prominent, the culture and customs of the She and Han people gradually merged and converged. However, the She people still retained some of their own characteristics, and these are shown in their genealogies. (1) The She people attached great importance to their families’ origin and bloodlines, and they enjoyed compiling genealogies. When communication grew between the She and the Han people, the She people recognized that they were in a weak position, but they had a strong, national consciousness that made

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them deeply believe in ancestral worship – this was, to some extent, influenced by Han culture. This consciousness came to manifest itself in the practical act of compiling genealogies. So many She genealogies survived the Ming, Qing Dynasty and Republic of China era. The genealogies of the She people have mainly been preserved in Fujian, in institutions like the Fujian Provincial Library, the History Department of Xiamen University and the Jianou Archives. Many libraries and university libraries in other provinces also have collections of She genealogies, including the Beijing Library and Nanjing Library. There are also some She genealogies in Taiwan, such as two copied of the Lan Shi Xie Zhong Gong Fang Pu in Ninghua, Fujian 福建宁化蓝氏 协忠公房谱 that were printed during the 44th year of the Wanli era (1616), the Lan Shi Shi Xi Zu Pu in Zhangpu 漳浦蓝氏世系族谱 compiled during the sixth year of the Tongzhi era (1867) and the Zhong Clan Genealogy in Yingchuan, Changle, Fujian 福建长乐颖川钟氏族谱 compiled during the 27th year of the Daoguang era (1847).80 Before the Qing Dynasty’s Qianlong and Jiaqing era (1736–1820), genealogies were largely handwritten, but there would be a printed copy at the back. The oldest existing She genealogy was compiled in the middle of the Ming Dynasty; the rest that have been recovered were mainly compiled during either the late Qing Dynasty or the Republic of China era.81 After the She people completed their clan genealogies, they would gather representatives from families of the clan to hold a sacrificial ceremony. During this ceremony, the genealogy would be offered up, and then formally published. The ceremony normally started early in the morning and finished the following morning. The custom of offering sacrifices to mark a genealogy being completed has lasted for hundreds of years. Family members offered sacrifices, prayed and offered blessings to their ancestors, so that they could live in peace and prosperity. (2) The She genealogies were deeply influenced by the Han genealogies, and this is evident in their style and content. These genealogies included a preface, family principles, details of the family’s origin, the family precepts and rules, the official positions of descendants, portraits and biographies, and information on ancestral temples/graves, the orders of generations and pedigree charts. The She genealogies emphasized that “if a family has genealogy, it is like a country having a history”. They largely followed Ouyang Xiu’s and Su Shi’s “fivegenerations” style. Some She families asked local Han literati or professional genealogists to compile their genealogies Others asked them to write prefaces, biographies, articles or poems for their genealogies. The Lei Clan Genealogy 雷氏族谱 in Jinjiang was compiled by a private tutor surnamed Chen; the Zhong Clan Genealogy 钟氏族谱 in Fuding and Xiapu, eastern Fujian was compiled by Han intellectuals Xie Bin 谢滨. Fujian She genealogy archives and its value 福建畲族族谱档案及其价值. Fujian Archives, 2001 (4). 81 Xu Xuyao 许旭尧. On the basic characteristics of She genealogy culture 谈畲族谱牒文化的基 本特点. Library Research and Work 图书馆研究与工作, 2003 (3). 80

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with the surnames Zheng and Zhang. The Lei Clan Genealogy in eastern Fujian was compiled by Han Confucian scholars from Wenzhou and Chuzhou, Zhejiang Province. This practice of asking Han scholars for help compiling genealogies meant that the genealogies of the She people were often consistent with those of the Han people. (3) The She genealogies retained their own characteristics. The She people are a stray minority. They have a weak culture and very few traditions compared to the Han people. Their weak position has meant the She people have come to adopt national customs that are self-respecting and self-abasing, i.e. ones that imitate the wider Chinese culture. However, while absorbing Chinese culture customs, they tried to maintain their own independence with their own culture and customs. Special content on the “Zu Tu” 祖图 and “Gao Huang Ge” 高皇歌can be found in their genealogies, and these show how the She people have tried to maintain their own cultural independence. The “Zu Tu” was painted onto a white cloth in different colors. There were also portraits of auspicious animals, an archer and a hunter, ancestors of the clan, left and right doors depicting gateways to the gods, a golden rooster, and a jade hare. The main body of many genealogies was two comic strips depicting and describing the legendary experiences of the She ancestors and the origins of Pan 盘, Lan 蓝, Lei 雷 and Zhong 钟, collectively known as the “Changlian” (see Fig. 8.5). The Gao Huang Ge, also known as the Pan Hu Ge, is based on the legend of Pan Hu. It details the life of Pan Hu, i.e. how he was born and raised, his fame and fortune, and how he transformed into a man from a dragon-dog and married a princess. The Gao Huang Ge has circulated in various manuscripts and every generation of the She people has sung its story to their young. It is widely regarded as the heroic epic that details the origin of the She people.

Fig. 8.5 The “Zu Tu” drawn during the 14th year of the Qing Jiaqing era (1809), preserved within the Chongru She Township, Xiapu County, Fujian Province

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The Zu Tu and the Gao Huang Ge describe and detail the origins of the She people in the form of art and literature, and these visual elements are notable characteristics in She family genealogies. It made them easier for people to understand, remember and accept than written genealogies. In addition, the She people had a specific habit of naming and ranking generations. The She people had many types of name: nicknames, real names, legal names and taboo names. Legal names were especially given to those involved in teaching or learning activities, and taboo name were chosen at funerals for those who had died. The She people also had a special method for remembering the order of generations. These characters were constantly circulated and repeated as a symbol of generations. For example, the Zhong 钟 clan used the characters “da” (big, 大), “xiao” (small, 小), “bai” (hundred, 百), and “wan” (ten thousand, 万); the Lei (雷) clan used “da” (big,大), “xiao” (small, 小), “bai” (hundred, 百), “qian” (thousand, 千), and “wan” (ten thousand, 万), and the Lan (蓝) clan used “da” (big,大), “xiao” (small, 小), “bai” (hundred, 百), “qian” (thousand, 千), “wan” (ten thousand, 万), and “nian” (thought, 念). To summarize, the She genealogies vividly show that the She people were, historically, greatly influenced by the Han people; however, they managed to retain some of their own culture and social customs at the same time. 6. Miao ethnic group The Miao are one of the important ethnic minorities in China, and the Miao people are mainly found in Guizhou, Hunan, Yunnan, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hubei, and Guangdong. The Miao people have a long history, and one of their most outstanding cultural traditions/customs is their “no-word” genealogies. “No word” genealogies have been preserved by the Miao people in areas including the Xiaomaopoying village and Miaozhai village in Xuanen county, Enshi Tujia, the Miao autonomous prefecture of Hubei province, the Hangzhai village in Huayuan county, Xiangxi Tujia, and the Miao autonomous prefecture of Hunan province. The Miao people in these regions have a cultural custom of keeping a piece of refined green or black cloth. No words are written on it, yet it is sealed in a small bamboo tube. The Miao people call this the “biao, 表 (table)” and they hold a grand ceremony every time a person is born or dies. This is known as “coming to the table” and “leaving the table”. When a baby is born, they take out the “table” and turn it over twice, to indicate that they are “coming to the table”. When a family member dies, they take out the “table” and turn it in the opposite direction, to signify that someone is “leaving the table”. The “coming to the table” and “leaving the tables” ceremonies show that the Miao people value the bloodline relationships in their family, but that they do not want to leave any written evidence. Within each clan, each person memorizes their own pedigree and knows that they themselves are at the family “table”. The Miao people’s “table” serves as the family genealogy, and the refined cloth, known as the “table”, is actually a “no-word” genealogy.82 Zhou Xingmao 周兴茂. The No-word genealogies of the Miao people in Hubei Province 湖北 苗族的无字族谱. Journal of Guizhou Minzu University 贵州民族学院学报, 2004 (6).

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According to relevant research, the Miao people in the Xiaomaopoying Village, Xuanen County, Hubei Province, migrated from the Hangzhai Village in Huayuan County, Hunan Province. There are more than 300 km separating these two places, and they are in two different provinces, but after more than 200 years, they are still interlinked by language and have completely consistent customs. They all keep “noword” genealogies, and rely on this to connect their own people and family members. This shows the inner cohesion of the Miao people. The traditional custom of preserving a “no-word” genealogy is closely related to the Miao peoples’ tragic history. The Miao people were an ancient nation, but its people were constantly migrating and they experienced much disaster. Throughout history, and during successive dynasties, they were brutally repressed and suppressed. Historically, the Miao people were constantly in danger as the rulers of successive dynasties cruelly surrounded and suppressed them. During the Qianlong era (1736–1795) and the Jiaqing era (1796–1820) in the Qing Dynasty, the Miao people of western Hunan decided they could no longer bear the oppression of the feudal dynasties. There was an uprising among the Miao people, but the Qing government carried out a large-scale operation to surround and suppress them. Constant wars and migration made it difficult and dangerous for the Miao people to narrate and record detailed, written genealogies. To preserve their own identity, the Miao people adopted “no-word” genealogies and they had the firm, internal belief that they had inherited those from earlier generations. They held simple “coming to the table” and “leaving the table” ceremonies; these functioned as a way of helping them compile a genealogy and inherit their family lineage. It not only prevented family bloodlines from being interrupted and/or confused, it meant that the Miao people preserved their genealogy in its original form and it was kept confidential from the outside world. The tragic history of the Miao people is vividly shown in their decision to choose anonymity by protecting themselves with “no-word” genealogies. At the same time, however, the Miao people added a distinctive new species to Chinese genealogy. The Miao people have both “no-word” and written genealogies. There is a copy of the Jiang Family Genealogy 姜氏家谱 in the Wendou Miao Village, within Jinping County, the Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture. It is not complete, yet valuable. This genealogy was compiled by Jiang Zuoqing during the second year of the Guangxu era (1876). It contained more than 3000 characters including the Preface was written by Wen Qi during the twelfth year of the Qianlong era (1747), the Records written during the Qianlong and Jiajing eras, and the Preface to the Ancestral Halls written by Zai Wei during the twentieth year of the Daoguang era (1840).83 The contents written by family members in the last 200 years show that the Jiang family tree was compiled/revised several times during the Qing Dynasty. So the Jiang Family Genealogy is a revised genealogy. Yang Yougeng 杨有赓. Social and economic development in the Wendou Miao region during Ming and Qing Dynasties: an analysis of Jiang family genealogy 文斗苗族地区的明清社会经济 发展状况. Journal of Guizhou Minzu University, 1989 (4).

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Jiang Chunli is taken to be the original ancestor of the Wendou Miao people, and Zuoqing wrote the Jiang Family Genealogy, which lasted for nine generations. The names of family members over the last 200 years are listed as follows: Chunli-Fengtai-Xiangyu-Junning-Nanqiao-Shichao-Xingwei-Yucui-Zuoqing. This genealogy has preserved many important pieces of material, including information on the forestry’s development in the Wendou area. The towering ancient fir trees in the Wendou area are made of the same imperial wood that contributed towards the building of the imperial court. During the Wanli era of the Ming Dynasty, the residents of Wendou dug fields and mountains to plant Chinese fir trees, and these provided the imperial court with great materials. The family member six generations descended in the Jiang family widely hoarded timber and made huge profits. Records showed that the Miao people in Guizhou had a much closer relationship with the central government because of their involvement in transporting wood. During the Qing Dynasty, more information signified that the Miao people were able to develop their culture in the Wendou area. Chinese culture barely influenced Wendou during the Ming Dynasty. During the Shunzhi era (1644–1661) of the early Qing Dynasty, Jiang Chunli, the original Miao ancestor of the Jiang family, moved from Tonggu to Wendou. He brought with him his advanced understandings of Chinese culture, and he promoted marriage and burial etiquettes in Wendou that he had learnt in Tonggu. He also set up schools to help improve the cultural quality of the Miao people. The Jiang clan advocated the idea that “a good scholar will make an official”, during the Daoguang period, and three clan members became Provincial Graduates (juren 举人), while 23 clan members were granted titles as Cultivated Talents (xiucai 秀才). This showed that the local folk customs of the Miao gradually merged with the advanced Han culture. To summarize, both “no-word” and written Miao genealogies are of important value. The above briefly introduces the genealogies of the Mongolian, Manchu, Hui, Yi, She, and Miao people, as well as those of other ethnic minorities during the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China era. Other ethnic minorities including the Korean and Bai people also had genealogies. Generally speaking, the genealogies of ethnic minorities in China had a long history, and there were various types and a considerable quantity of them. Historically, the deepening exchanges between different ethnic groups in China show that ethnic minorities were deeply influenced by the Han people, yet they maintained their own characteristics, and this is shown in their genealogies. The genealogies of ethnic minorities greatly enrich the content of Chinese genealogical studies as a whole, and they are an indispensable part. They help us know more about these groups’ historical development and their cultural customs, and they provide a lot of historical information on how the Chinese nation was formed.

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8.7 The Imperial Genealogies of the Qing Dynasty During the Qing Dynasty, imperial genealogies were designated as “Yudie” 玉牒 or “jade records”. The Qing Dynasty inherited the practices of the Ming Dynasty in terms of the methods used for compiling/revising imperial genealogies. During the first year of the Ming Dynasty’s Hongwu era (1368), the government set up The Court of the Imperial Clan. It was staffed with a Director, Left and Right Associate Directors, and Left and Right Assistant Directors. They were in charge of the royal family’s “Shuji” 属籍, and compiling genealogical records on time. The Ming Dynasty government stipulated that every August, the imperial palace should report the dates of birth of newborn babies to the Court of the Imperial Clan. The palace also needed to provide information on whether the children were legitimate or illegitimate, and their mothers’ names. The Court recruited personnel to compile an imperial genealogy every ten years, and this contained information of the palace’s children (both legitimate and illegitimate), their hereditary and non-hereditary titles, their dates of birth/death, marriages, funerals and so on. During the fifth year of the Hongzhi era (1492), the Ming Dynasty government decided to construct a building near the Wenyuan Pavilion. It wanted to preserve its important, national archives including the historical records of previous dynasties and the imperial genealogies. Throughout the Ming Dynasty, the government compiled different kinds of imperial genealogies, such as the Tian Huang Yu Die 天潢玉牒, the Yu Die 玉牒, the Ming Zong Zhi 明宗支, the Da Ming Pu Xi 大明谱系, the Da Ming Zong Pu 大明宗 谱, and the Zong Shu Qin Shu Fu Tu 宗属亲疏服图. Unfortunately, wars and other events have meant that only one volume of the Tian Huang Yu Die is known to have been handed down.84 During the Qing Dynasty, the government learnt the lessons of previous dynasties—especially the Ming Dynasty. It consolidated its rule and safeguarded the imperial power. It also improved and perfected its internal management system with regards the imperial family. It established a system for compiling imperial genealogies because it was beneficial to the government to unite the imperial lineages, stabilize title-granting orders and regularly distribute salaries and food. During the nineth year of the Shunzhi era (1652), the Qing government officially established the Court of the Imperial Clan, with one director, a Left and Right Associate Director, and a Left and Right Assistant Director. All positions were held by royal family members. The court was responsible for recording information on royal family members, compiling and maintaining genealogies, and managing royal affairs.85

Yang Dongquan 杨冬荃. A brief account of imperial genealogies of all dynasties 历代皇族谱 牒述略. Historical Archives 历史档案, 1988 (1). 85 The Court of the Imperial Clan 宗人府. In the Da Qing Hui Dian 大清会典 (jurisdictional corpus on administrative matters compiled during the Qing Dynasty), Emperor Qianlong’s reign, Vol. 1. 84

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All royal family members needed to be direct descendants of Giocangga, the grandfather of the Qing Dynasty founding emperor, Nurhaci. They were divided either along the main line or the lateral line based on their relationship with Nurhaci. The main line began with Taksi, the father of Nurhaci, and its members wore golden belts around their waists as a symbol of their closeness. These were known as the “yellow belts”. Taksi’s uncles and brothers were positioned along the lateral line. They wore “red belts”.86 If anybody from either of these family lines committed a crime, they would be expelled from the family and treated like a commoner. Because of the belt system, the Qing Dynasty imperial genealogies were divided into two categories. One had a yellow cover, the other a red cover, and this distinguished how close family members were to the emperor. Aside these two categories of genealogy, the government also compiled a special “Di Xi Yu Die” 帝系玉牒 genealogy, which highlighted the supremacy of imperial power. This was a separate genealogical book that detailed the emperor’s direct bloodline. This type of genealogy was relatively simple because it only included the emperor and his princes. Their names, order of birth, and titles were listed under the name of the emperor from each dynasty. The heir to the throne was placed in the center, with other princes to the right and left hand side. Each emperor and his princes occupied one page. From the 12th year of the Shunzhi era (1655) onwards, the government decided to compile and revise the imperial genealogies once a decade. This lasted until the 13th year of the Xuantong era (1921). However, during the Shunzhi, Kangxi and Yongzheng eras, the governments counted the last year the genealogy had been revised, so they actually revised their genealogies once every nine years. It wasn’t until the Qianlong era (1736–1795) that the government switched and decided not to count the last of revision. There were two other times when the government did not strictly abide by this rule. After a genealogy was revised in 1742, it should have been updated in 1752, but it was actually updated in 1747—five years earlier. The final revision conducted by Puyi, China’s last emperor in 1921, also did not strictly abide by this rule. Altogether, 28 revisions were made during the Qing Dynasty, spanning 12 generations over more than 260 years. Every revision to an imperial genealogy was carried out according to population data over the last ten years. The names of newborns were added in red ink at the end of the most recent genealogy, and the names of those who had died were written in black.87 In 1662, it was estimated that around 1000 people were recorded in genealogies. By 1921, that figure was around 150,000. “These genealogical records, which have been revised once a decade, have provided the most complete and accurate historical data on the population of pre-modern China”.88 86

Ibid. Ibid. 88 Liu Sufen 刘素芬, Li Zhongqing 李中清, et al. A preliminary study on Qing Dynasty imperial genealogies in the Court of the Imperial Clan 清代宗人府玉牒资料初探. Minutes of The Sixth Asian Genealogy Academic Seminar. United Daily News Cultural Foundation National Studies Literature Museum of Taiwan, 1993. 87

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The Qing government introduced a strict population reporting system to ensure that people compiled/revised imperial genealogies correctly. Early on, during the third year of the Chongde era (1638), the Royal Family realized the importance of lineage and started to implement strict regulations.89 In 1652, they introduced more rules, and stipulated that after a child was born into a family line connected to the imperial house, they should be registered in a booklet, following an inspection from the head/leader of the palace. This booklet was then submitted to the Court of the Imperial Clan by the fifth day of the first lunar month. In 1764, due to the population of the royal family sharply increasing, the government asked families to submit their booklet once every three months. Any imperial house that failed to do so would be punished, and the person responsible for the booklet would also bear some blame. The materials submitted would be carefully verified by the Court of the Imperial Clan. They compiled various booklets, including the household register, the red booklets for males/females, the birth booklet, the death booklets for males/females, and the marriage booklet. These booklets were the basis for each imperial genealogy. The Court of the Imperial Clan would ask the Emperor for approval before officially compiling/revising a genealogy. Once they had gained approval, the Court set up a genealogical office, and the Emperor sent ministers to oversee the personnel involved in these compilations.90 Like many offices, this one was only temporary because genealogies were only compiled once every ten years. Staff were overseen by a single or several supervisors and vice supervisors selected by the Emperor. There was also an organizer (normally a Grand Academician), a general compiler from the Court of the Imperial Clan, two controllers, eleven compilers, twelve archivists, and 36 examiners/copyists. These persons came from the Grand Secretariat, the Ministry of Rites or the Hanlin Academy. The Qing government recorded the names, titles, appointments, dates of birth and death, and marriages of each member of the royal family. They also recorded members’ birth mothers’ maiden names, children’s names, wives’ surnames, and the names and titles of their fathers-in-law and sons-in-law. When these genealogies were first compiled, they didn’t list all this content. However, regular activities and efforts to update them mean that the content recorded in these genealogies has increased and become more standardized. When compilations were first made in 1662, the registry booklet had not yet been established, and information was not included on descendants’ dates of birth/death, marriages. The names of wives and fathers-in-law, and any convictions and the reason for them were also not included. However, in 1670, when the imperial genealogies were revised, family members’ dates of birth, marriage and death, reasons for the rise/fall, and the official positions of their sonsin-law were all included. The genealogies of the Shunzhi and Kangxi eras were only written in Manchu. During the first year of the Yongzheng era (1723), the government approved the recruitment of two Han Chinese masters to work in the temporary The Court of the Imperial Clan 宗人府. In the Da Qing Hui Dian 大清会典 (jurisdictional corpus on administrative matters compiled during the Qing Dynasty), Emperor Kangxi’s reign, Vol. 1. 90 The Court of the Imperial Clan 宗人府. In the Da Qing Hui Dian 大清会典 (jurisdictional corpus on administrative matters compiled during the Qing Dynasty), Emperor Guangxu’s reign, Vol. 1. 89

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genealogical office. After that, information on newborns was registered in Manchu and Chinese. After that, the Qing Dynasty imperial genealogies were consistently written in Manchu and Chinese, and their format and contents were likewise uniform. During the 12th year of the Qianlong era (1747) those revising genealogies began placing the names of adopted sons under the name of their adoptive fathers. In addition, the surnames of mothers, wives, and sons-in-law were rewritten, according to the Manchurian Eight Banners Clan Genealogy 八旗满洲氏族通谱. During the 17th year of the Daoguang era (1837) a new rule was introduced; regardless of whether the Empress had children or not, she would be recorded in the genealogy. Concubines—but only those with children—would be recorded. These changes were what marked the style and contents of Qing Dynasty imperial genealogies. The Qing Dynasty imperial genealogies were recorded in two different formats: vertical and horizontal. The vertical format recorded generations and the horizontal version showed family members’ affiliation to the main, royal line. There were great differences between the two in narrative and each layout had its own emphasis. But both complemented one another. The genealogies had two different patterns and formats, they were either vertical (large: zhige dadang 直格大档; small: hengge dadang 橫格大档), or horizontal (large: zhige xiaodang 直格小档; small: hengge xiaodang 橫格小档). The vertical format consisted of 16 columns per page, with one or two tables (ge 格) per person. Each booklet normally included one generation (bei 辈). The horizontal format consisted of 13 rows per page. There were also 13 rows per table, and each row was one generation, so several generations were found on one page. The name of the oldest person in the family line was written in the first row on the first page. All of the generations that followed were written one row deeper. This was a very popular genealogical format (see Fig. 8.6). There were two editions of the Qing Dynasty imperial genealogies. The large edition was roughly 90 cm long, 45 cm wide and generally 50 ~ 80 cm thick. The thickest volume of this edition was 140 cm long and it weighed more than 200 kg. The small edition was roughly 54 cm long, 31 cm wide and 10 cm thick. This edition was made of light paper, so it was easier to use and carry. After a genealogy had been completed, it was wrapped in either yellow or red silk, and place in a cabinet for storage. Prior to the 25th year of the Qianlong era (1760), three copies of the imperial genealogies were produced, and they were archived in Beijing’s Huangshicheng Royal Achieves, the Court of the Imperial Clan, and the Ministry of Rites. After 1760, only two copies were produced; one can still be found in the Huangshicheng archives, the other in the Shengjing (now Shenyang) Jingdian Pavilion. The Qing Dynasty imperial genealogies showed the concept of hierarchy in feudal China. As the emperor enjoyed the highest status, he had a separate genealogy compiled for him. The “yellow belt” genealogies also began with the emperor and descended down by order of seniority. However, the emperor’s name was almost taboo; every place where his name appeared, it was covered with a small piece of yellow silk as a marker of respect. In most cases, the emperor’s reigning title was written instead of his real name. During the Kangxi era (1662–1722), the emperor

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Fig. 8.6 Prince Heshuo’s Family Genealogy compiled during Emperor Renzongrui’s reign

asked his descendants to begin including generational orders.91 The names Yin 胤 and Hong 弘 were given in this era; Yong 永, Mian 绵, Yi 奕, and Zai 载 were given during the Qianlong era (1736–1795); Pu 溥, Yu 毓, Heng 恒, and Qi 启 were given during the Daoguang era (1821–1850), and Tao 焘, Kai 闿, Zeng 增, and Qi 祺 were given during the Xianfeng era (1851–1861). There were provisions regarding the radical of the second character.92 Those who violated the generational orders would be severely punished. During the early years of the Jiaqing era (1796–1820), one of the princes, Mianyi, violated the royal naming regulations because he included the “gold” (金) radical in the names of his two sons. The emperor took away his official positions and asked him to correct their names. This was quite a severe punishment. The Qing Dynasty imperial genealogies also fully demonstrated feudal ethics, such as the “three obediences and four virtues”, and the ideas that “men are superior to women”, and “women’s only value is in having sons/having a son to consolidate her married status”. In ancient China, women had no independent political status; 91

Translator’s note: Generational orders were names assigned by the ancestor of a clan to descendants in a specific order. Every generation was given a character, which was generally taken from a propitious, rhyming verse. It was usually one character from a two-character given name, and this was referred to as a “generation name”. Generation names distinguished the rank of a person in a clan’s hierarchy. 92 The Court of the Imperial Clan 宗人府. In the Da Qing Hui Dian 大清会典 (jurisdictional corpus on administrative matters compiled during the Qing Dynasty), Emperor Guangxu’s reign, Vol. 1.

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they were only attached to their husbands or sons. This was even the case within the royal family. Before the Daoguang era, only the empresses and concubines with children were recorded in genealogies. But as noted earlier, things changed during the Daoguang era. Nevertheless, even if female family members were included in the genealogy, there was often little information on them. The way they were recorded was totally different to how princes and other male family members were recorded. For example, during in the ninth year of the Xianfeng era (1859), the revised genealogy contained more than 100 words on Prince Yixin and his family. The records on female grandchildren were much simpler than on male grandchildren; their names did not appear in the genealogy. They were just described as xx’s (first, second…) daughter.93 The royal family regarded its genealogies as sacred objects, and they held grand ceremonies whenever they stored these genealogies. During the 13th year of the Shunzhi era (1656), three copies of a completed genealogy were scribed, and these were stored by the Beijing Huangshicheng Royal Achieves, the Court of the Imperial Clan, and the Ministry of Rites. After the 25th year of the Qianlong era (1760), only two copies of the genealogy were made, and these were stored in the Huangshicheng and Shengjing archives. In 1760, the Court of the Imperial Clan and the Ministry of Rites drafted a system on the rituals for preparing and delivering genealogies for storage. This system was commissioned by the Emperor, and therefore, there were strict requirements that it be implemented. The Directorate of Astronomy 钦天监 needed to choose an auspicious day for a storage ceremony. On that day, the Court of the Imperial Clan erected a small, colorful shed in which to place the genealogies. The Ministry of Rites played music outside, and they were accompanied by ceremonial staff holding yellow dragon flags. The Supervisor of the Imperial Genealogical Office led the officials involved in compiling the genealogies in a procession. They all wore court dress, and kowtowed to the genealogies. After the Emperor inspected the genealogies, one copy was sent to the Beijing Huangshicheng Royal Achieves, with Manchu and Chinese officials kneeling all the way. When the other copy was sent to Shengjing for storage, there was a similar amount of grand etiquette involved in seeing off the genealogy, but the government also requested that clean water be poured on the street, loess be paved, and colorful sheds be set up in every area the genealogy passed. When the genealogy arrived at the Shanhaiguan, the Shengjing General sent officers to receive the genealogy. Local civil and military officials came out of their offices and knelt in greeting. The genealogy was displayed in the Chongzheng Hall, then sent to the Jingdian Pavilion for storage.94 The copy of the genealogy stored in the Huangshicheng Royal Achieves has now been preserved by the Chinese Historical Archives, with over 2600 books.95 The copy Zhao Yanchang 赵彦昌 & Li Guohua 李国华. Viewing the patriarchal clan system in the Qing Dynasty from its imperial genealogies 从清代玉牒看清代的宗法制度. Manchu Minority Research 满族研究, 2007 (1). 94 Zhang Hong 张虹. How Qing Dynasty imperial genealogies were transported to Shengjing 清 代玉牒如何运至盛京. Manchu Minority Research, 2006 (1). 95 Qu Liusheng 屈六生. Qing Dynasty imperial genealogies 清代玉牒. Historical Archives 历史 档案, 1984 (1). 93

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stored in Shenyang’s Jingdian Pavilion has been collected by the Liaoning Provincial Archives. It is among 1060 books of imperial records that were compiled/revised— 27 times—during the Qing Dynasty.96 In addition, the National Library of China, the Shanghai Library, and a number of university libraries including Tsinghua, Jilin, and Nankai have a small collection of genealogical publications. The Qing Dynasty imperial genealogies were well documented, neatly written, beautifully bound, voluminous, and available in Manchu and Chinese. They are the best preserved of all the royal genealogies, and they are the only Chinese imperial genealogies that has been systematically preserved to the present day. They have been kept in superior storage conditions and have avoided fire and moisture. They have also been kept at the right temperature and humidity, so the covers of these genealogies are still shiny and like new. They contain extremely precious, historical material on the Qing Dynasty population, title inheritance system, courts, laws/regulations, the Manchu-Han culture and genealogies.

8.8 Three Genealogical Prefaces Written by Sun Yat-Sen Sun Yat-sen (also known as Sun Zhongshan, 1866–1925) was one of the great, democratic revolutionists of modern China, and during his career, he attached great importance to genealogical compilations. In May 1912, after he resigned as the provisional president of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen went to Guangzhou to join the Sun Clan Association. He delivered a speech at their meeting, in which he said: “My four hundred million compatriots are descendants of the Yellow Emperor, and there was no concept of a clan in the beginning. Once people began multiplying, they began adopting surnames. With a surname, came a family, and these countless families make a country.”97 Sun Yat-sen’s views on the compilation of genealogies can be found in relevant literature. Later, during one of his speeches on nationalism, Sun Yat-sen profoundly elaborated on the origin of the family and the relationship between families, clans and the nation. In 1916, 1920 and 1923, Sun Yat-sen wrote the prefaces to the Sun, Kan and Zhan family genealogies respectively. During the winter of 1916, Sun Yat-sen was invited by Sun Kewei 孙可畏 and Sun Yaqiao 孙亚翘, members of the United League in Hubei Province’s Hanchuan County, to write the Preface of the Sun Clan Genealogy 孙氏宗谱序.98 The content was as follows: I have clung to nationalism and for decades, have called on overseas Chinese to fight for it. During the autumn of 1911, my ambitions were achieved. Since I 96

Zhang Hong. How Qing Dynasty imperial genealogies were transported to Shengjing. Manchu Minority Research, 2006 (1). 97 Speech at the welcome meeting of the Sun Clan Association in Guangzhou 在广州孙氏宗族 欢迎会上的演说. Selected works of Sun Yat-sen 孙中山集外集. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, July 1990. 98 Rao Songqiao 饶嵩乔. A newly discovered lost essay written by Sun Yat-sen 一篇新发现的孙 中山佚文. Annals of Guangdong 广东史志, 1997 (1).

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am mindful of the urgent situation, I often communicate with talented people. Last winter, I talked with my kin, Sun Kewei and Sun Yaqiao, in my Shanghai residence about current affairs. A few days later, they brought their family genealogy, which had been compiled by their father, and asked me for a preface. I said: “My aims are for an overall situation shaping the world, but you have narrowed things down to just a genealogy?” They said: “Everything must have a starting point, from familyism to nationalism. Great harmony in the world has already been achieved in the Republic of the Five Nationalities as a result of nationalism. You have accomplished great works! Don’t you remember the saying that ‘men of virtue love and care for their loved ones’?” When I heard this, I grew in respect and replied: “You are benevolent because you hold ambitions about saving the world; you are righteous because you have never, and will never, betray your family; you abide by the rites because you have asked me to write a preface to honor your father’s wishes; you are wise because you understand the republicanism of our nation, demonstrated by your knowledge of familyism.” As Mencius said: “Those who realize that they have the ‘four beginnings’ (benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom) know how to expand on them.” In April 1920, Sun Yat-sen wrote the Preface to the Revised Kan Family Genealogy in Hefei 合肥阚氏重修谱牒序, at the request of Kan Jun 阚钧.99 This genealogy was compiled by Kan Yanmin 阚彦闵 and his family. A wooden edition was released in 1921, spanning 30 volumes. Sun Yat-sen spoke highly of Kan Jun in the preface. Kan Jun had served as regimental commander, and a chief of staff and director at the Opium-banning bureau since the 1911 Revolution. In 1915, he participated in the subsequent revolution, the one where Sun Yat-sen opposed Yuan Shikai.100 Kan Jun was kind and generous, and fought bravely in the war. Sun Yat-sen praised Kan Jun and compared him to Feng Yi 冯异, a general under Liu Xiu 刘秀 during the Eastern Han Dynasty. Feng had achieved outstanding things during the war, yet was also very modest. Whenever he was rewarded for his merits, Feng always left and hid under the tree, and was consequently nicknamed “General Big Tree”. The third preface written by Sun Yat-sen was for the Fifth Revised Zhan Clan Genealogy 五修詹氏宗谱. In 1922, Zhan Dabei’s family in Hubei Province’s Qichun County decided to revise their genealogy for a fifth time. At the request of Zhan Dabei 詹大悲, Sun Yat-sen wrote the preface to their genealogy in January 1923. This genealogy was revised by Zhan Yingkui and other clan members. It was carved at the Dunmu Hall in 1923 and consisted of 19 volumes. Sun Yat-sen wrote the preface to the Zhan family genealogy because of the contributions Zhan Dabei had made during the 1911 Revolution. He had a close relationship with Sun Yat-sen. Zhan Dabei was born into a scholarly family in 1887 in Tianjiaqiao, Qichun. In 1910, Zhan founded the Dajiang Newspaper in Hankou, which became an effective mouthpiece for Zhan to propagandize the revolution. Selected works of Sun Yat-sen 孙中山集外集, ed. Chen Xulu 陈旭麓 & Hao Shengchao 郝盛 潮. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1990 (7). 100 Translator’s note: Yuan Shikai (1859–1916), Chinese army leader and reformist minister during the Qing dynasty (until 1911) and then the first president of the Republic of China (1912–16). 99

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After the Wuchang Uprising, Zhan Dabei established the Hankou Military and Political Sub-government. He became one of the most important figures after the 1911 Revolution and he established direct contact with Sun Yat-sen. In August 1912, Zhan was appointed the Minister of Communications for Hankou. He was responsible for liaising with party officials from Sichuan, Hunan, Anhui and Henan province. Zhan was elected a member of the Hubei Provincial Council in 1913, and then he joined Sun Yat-sen during the second revolution. During the movement against the Northern Warlords, Zhan Dabei helped Sun Yat-sen organize the military government. He went to Sichuan at Sun Yat-sen’s command to win support from the Sichuan Army. In May 1918, Sun Yat-sen was forced to resign and leave for Shanghai. During that time, he lost the support of the Guangdong military overlord. Zhan Dabei also left Sichuan for Shanghai. In November 1920, Sun Yat-sen returned to Guangzhou to organize the military government, and he served as the president. Zhan Dabei accompanied him and served as the base camp propagandist. He was ordered to go to Sichuan, and asked to try to obtain the Sichuan Army’s support again. In June 1922, Chen Jiongming revolted and shelled the presidential palace. Sun Yat-sen’s life was put in danger, and he spent more than 50 days in a warship. Zhan Dabei stayed with him and shared his hardships. In August, Sun Yat-sen returned to Shanghai, along with Zhan. From the above, we can be seen how Zhan Dabei formed a close friendship with Sun Yat-sen during his revolutionary career.101 The Zhan family in Qichun, Hubei Province, was very prominent, and its members attached great importance to renewing genealogies. In 1922, Zhan’s family prepared to renew their genealogy for the fifth time, and Zhan Dabei paid close attention to this matter. He was deeply influenced by traditional culture and was regarded as an outstanding representative of the family. Since he had a close relationship with Sun Yat-sen, the President of the Republic of China and a great man of our times, it was reasonable for Zhan to ask Sun to write the preface to his family’s genealogy, and win honor for his family. Sun Yat-sen gladly agreed. The three prefaces written by Sun Yat-sen are important materials when studying his genealogical ideas and political thought. First of all, Sun Yat-sen raised the idea that revising genealogies could help maintain the clans and unite the nation. He therefore gave new life to Chinese genealogical theories. In his Three Principles of the People: The Principle of Nationalism lectures, Sun Yat-sen said: “China has an exceedingly compact family with clan groups and families, so the clan sentiment of the Chinese is deep-rooted.” Sun Yat-sen also said: “As I see it, if we take fine sentiments as the foundation, it will be easy to bring together the people of the country… In the West, the individual is the unit, but in China, things cannot be the same as in the West, since the state and the nation are not identical. When citizens are welded together as a state, foreign countries will not have the same advantages that China has. “Sun Yat-sen advocated that “the clan

Liu Qing 刘清. An important document on Sun Yat-sen 研究孙中山的一篇重要文献. Journal of Huanggang Normal University 黄冈师专学报, 1999 (4).

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should be used as the foundation for expanding the nation”, and that “the Chinese should build upon their clan structure to unite China.”102 So, how to unite the families and clans? Sun Yat-sen believed that compiling genealogies was important. In the reface of the Fifth Revised Zhan Clan Genealogy, Sun Yat-sen said that by compiling genealogies, families could reaching the realm of human harmony, as they would all be united under heaven as one big family. Compiling genealogies would make people care about others beside their own family. Sun Yat-sen advocated that people compile genealogies to unite the families and clans, so that they could move “from familyism to nationalism” and so there could be “great harmony in the world”.103 He infused his revolutionary content with traditional content about “consolidating the clans”. His aim was to maintain family unity. Sun Yat-sen gladly wrote the prefaces to the Sun, Kan, and Zhan family genealogies during the setback period of the 1911 revolution. This showed that he respected traditions. But more importantly, Sun Yat-sen extracted traditions from genealogies to shape his ideas for the Three Principles of the People. He stated that he would transform familyism into nationalism for a great revolutionary cause. In this way, genealogical compilations no longer had a narrow function; they were no longer used to simply maintain clans, nor as a means for maintaining the feudal patriarchal clan system. They were used as a way to realize a revolution. In his three prefaces, Sun Yat-sen sublimated the traditional “show respect to ancestors and consolidate the clans” function of genealogies, and added his own revolutionary content. He made compiling genealogies a means of realizing a bourgeois, democratic revolution. He greatly innovated China’s genealogical theory. Sun Yat-sen also advocated that clan organizations should become organizations with local autonomy and a model for the spirit of autonomy in their defined regions. Sun Yat-sen wrote his three prefaces while reflecting on the political situation after the 1911 Revolution. He took advantage of the time between the high and low tide of political struggles to concentrate on theoretical innovation. Sun Yat-sen’s Republic of China was meant to be a country “of the people, by the people, for the people”. However, after the Republic of China was founded, Sun Yat-sen was disappointed with its politics and bureaucracy. “As a result of the revolution, the phenomenon that has presented itself is worse than that of the Manchu era”. Many Republic of China officials killed, oppressed and plundered innocent people, and they were corrupt. These officials were unreliable, so Sun Yat-sen turned his attention instead to the 400 million people who made up the population. “If we want to correct these mistakes, there is no other way; we need people to study autonomy, exercise autonomy, and study the autonomy of the people”.104 On 1 March, 1920, roughly a month before he wrote the preface to the Kan family genealogy, Sun Yat-sen finished an article on the implementation of local Three principles of the people: the principle of nationalism 三民主义·民族主义. In Complete Works of Sun Yat-sen, Vol. 9. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, November 2006. 103 The preface of the Sun clan genealogy. 104 Speech at Shanghai Institute of Civil Administration 在上海民治学会的演说. In Complete Works of Sun Yat-sen, Vol. 5. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, November 2006. 102

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autonomy. “One county should be adequate as the scope of local autonomy. If there is no county, several villages should be confined, and those with fields spanning 20 or 30 miles could also be pilot areas.”105 He suggested autonomy include: 1. Checking household registrations; 2. Establishing relevant organs; 3. Determining the land price; 4. Constructing roads; 5. Reclaiming wasteland and 6. Establishing schools. His form of local autonomy seems to offer people more opportunities to participate in decision-making than previously. By emphasizing the importance of local autonomy, Sun was a guide to everyone on creating a more democratic society. It was because of the above that the Kanji Township in Hefei caught Sun Yatsen’s attention. Sun Yat-sen listed the contributions that the Kan family had made. Family members were either directly devoted to following the six guiding ideas on local autonomy, or they helped lay the foundation for them. He believed that the Kan family’s genealogical activities were a kind of local autonomy, and he encouraged the family “to focus on improving [their] customs, pay attention to education, and combine [their] talents, to keep alive [their] ancestors’ indomitable minds and [their] work for the country. In the future, the achievements of the Kan family will be recorded in the historical annals.” Sun Yat-sen felt it was promising that families compile genealogies and carry out other genealogical activities, and that such behaviors demonstrated the six ideas about local autonomy. When we consider the Hukou—this kind of survey was rare before the Qing Dynasty, but the content in genealogies could make up for this. Sun Yat-sen said: “We are not lacking in statistical methods in China. There are very detailed family genealogies for every surname of every ethnic groups; this is evident.”106 In 1923, when Sun Yat-sen wrote the preface of the Zhan Clan Genealogy, he further affirmed that genealogies were a special means of preserving family information. He felt that it was also conducive to implementing local autonomy and that the “malpractice of governing affairs” could be overcome. From the above, it can be seen that the three prefaces Sun Yat-sen wrote not only took clan genealogies to new heights, they also demonstrated new directions for clans in terms of local autonomy. After Sun Yat-sen summed up the lessons of the 1911 revolution, it was his political proposition that people implement local autonomy. Although ultimately, the Kanji Township in Hefei did not become a pilot area for local autonomy due to its historical conditions, Sun Yat-sen’s ideas that local autonomy should start from grass-roots were very insightful. Sun Yat-sen proposed that clan activities should be linked to local autonomy, and it should be further affirmed that his ideas undoubtedly injected new vitality into genealogical compilations. In one of his prefaces, Sun Yat-sen gave contradicting views on the Yellow Emperor and Chi You 蚩尤 even though there had traditionally been disregard for

The implementation of local autonomy 地方自治实行法. In Complete Works of Sun Yat-sen, Vol. 5. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, November 2006. 106 Speech at Shanghai Institute of Civil Administration. In Complete Works of Sun Yat-sen, Vol. 5. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, November 2006. 105

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Chi You. He accused the Yellow Emperor of “implementing an imperial system”, but called Chi You the “first revolutionist in China”. In traditional Chinese culture, Chi You has long been considered the first wicked person. Sima Qian said in the Shi Ji, “The princes all came and did homage, but Chiyou, the fiercest of all, could not be subdued.” Chi You was the most stubborn and powerful enemy of the Yellow Emperor—the first ancestor to be nationally recognized by the Chinese people. “Chiyou was a rebel, who did not obey the Emperor’s command, so the Yellow Emperor, levying an army of the princes, fought against Chiyou, captured, and slew him in the desert of Zhuolu.”107 After the Yellow Emperor defeated Chi You, he ordered Chi You’s body to be chopped in half, and for his head to be buried separately. The characters “Chi 蚩” and “You 尤” have been described as paradoxical, fallacious, contrary, disorderly and alien. Consequently, Chi You has become synonymous with sin. Sun Yat-sen, however, went against this traditional idea. In the preface of the Kan Family Genealogy, he traced the origin of the Kan family name, and praised Chi You as “the first revolutionist in China”. He praised his creativity and his spirit—for being prepared to die rather than surrender. At the same time, he accused the Yellow Emperor of “being an imperialist” who imposed the immoral title of a “rogue” on Chi You. Sun Yat-sen’s evaluation of the Yellow Emperor and Chi You can be linked to his revolutionary career. While Sun Yat-sen was devoting himself to the democratic revolution overthrowing Manchu, he respected Hong Xiuquan as “the first anti-Qing Dynasty hero”. He prided himself on being “a second Hong Xiuquan”. After the 1911 revolution, although on the surface the Qing Court appeared to have been overthrown, the monarchy was not really eliminated. Later on, Yuan Shikai proclaimed himself Emperor and Pu Yi also became Emperor. Sun Yat-sen realized that peace would not come to the Republic of China if the monarch was not abolished. He felt that it was necessary to oppose the monarchy and this was the basic for his calling a revolution. To do so, he needed to further promote the spirit of resistance. So it was against this political background that Sun Yat-sen wrote his shocking article on heroism. To summarize, in his three prefaces, Sun Yat-sen managed to combine the traditional concepts of Chinese genealogies with his own revolutionary ideas about implementing the Three Principles of the People. He took traditional theories about genealogies to new heights, and made major breakthroughs in Chinese genealogical theory with his innovative ideas. In his three prefaces, Sun Yat-sen expressed the revolutionary ideals of the Three Principles of the People. He made political propositions about local autonomy, and showed his revolutionary spirit and that he was against the monarchy. All this showed how great Sun Yat-sen was.

Wu Di Ben Ji 五帝本纪 (Annals of the Five Emperors). In the Shi Ji, Vol. 1. Zhonghua Book Company, 2000.

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8.9 Famous Genealogists of the 20th Century During the twentieth century, there have been a number of famous scholars studying Chinese genealogies at home and abroad, including Liang Qichao 梁启超, Pan Guangdan 潘光旦, Luo Xianglin 罗香林, Akigorou Taga 多贺秋五郎, Sheng Qingyi 盛清沂, and Gu Tinglong 顾廷龙. They have put forward new opinions on the value of Chinese genealogical documents—introduced western scientific views—to enhance their theoretical connotation, elaborated on their development and evolution from a macro perspective, and made outstanding contributions to collecting genealogical data. Here I will mainly introduce Pan Guangdan, Luo Xianglin, and Akigorou Taga. Pan Guangdan (1899–1967), whose courtesy name was Zhong Ang, was born in Baoshan County (now Shanghai), Jiangsu Province. He studied at Tsinghua School (predecessor of Tsinghua University) from 1913 to 1922. In 1922, he went to the United States to study biology, zoology, and genetics and obtained a master’s degree. Then he worked at the American Eugenics Memorial, engaging in anthropology and eugenics research. After returning to China in 1926, Pan Guangdan taught at Tsinghua University, Central Institute for Nationalities, and other institutions, and became a famous eugenicist, sociologist, and genealogist in China. Pan Guangdan was a great scholar, well-versed in the learning of both Chinese and Western cultures. He was diligent in scholarly research and authored many great works. The Editor’s Preface of Pan Guangdan’s Anthology evaluated Pan’s academic achievements as follows: “He has been engaged in the teaching and research of eugenics, the history of social thought, family systems, talents, sexual psychology, and ethnology, and has made outstanding contributions to genealogy, eugenics, etc., in-depth research on Confucianism, and has unique insights within educational thought. Pan has also translated and annotated many western academic classics. His works contain some six million Chinese characters.”108 Pan did not write a lot on Chinese genealogy; however, the genealogical works that he did write played a significant role in his academic career. Here are several representative genealogical works. A Brief History of Chinese Genealogy was published in Eastern Miscellany in 1929. Because it is only a “brief history,” the description is relatively brief. However, Pan Guangdan managed to discuss the development of Chinese genealogy in a clear and concise way: “The genealogy has a long history. The lineage of the ancient emperors and lords was managed and maintained by special officials…… During the late Zhou Dynasty, feudal lords fought with each other… The only genealogies that can be seen today are the Di Xi Xing in the Da Dai Ji and the Shi Ben…… During the Warring States Period, the Chu State had Grand Masters take charge of the imperial genealogies, and Qu Yuan tried to become one of the maters……. Ordinary families in the Han Dynasty did not have detailed genealogies, but imperial families and lords did because the genealogies were related to inheritance traditions…… During the 700 years between the Wei and Tang Dynasties, Chinese genealogies 108

Pan Guangdan’s Anthology 潘光旦文集, Vol. 1. Beijing: Peking University Press, 2000.

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prospered with five distinctive features: the government set up a national Bureau of genealogy; there were generations after generations of experts in genealogy and surnames; genealogical works occupied a special position in Chinese classics; there were many genealogical works; and there was a close relationship between genealogy and historiography……. Old genealogies were destroyed because of continuous wars within the Five Dynasties. And no new genealogies appeared because the government was no longer in favor of compiling them…… During the past 1000 years since the Song Dynasty, genealogies have had three features: official genealogies were largely abandoned in favor of private ones, and genealogies no longer functioned as career or marriage-making documents, nor as historical data.”109 Although Pan’s article is short, some ideas in it are debatable. However, there has not been a similar work before, so it has an indisputable pioneering significance in the study of Chinese genealogy, and it drew a lot of attention when it came out. Prominent Families in Jiaxing during the Ming and Qing Dynasties was written in 1937 and published by the Commercial Press in 1947. Pan Guangdan said in the preface that he was most interested in two research topics besides teaching and reading: one was genealogy, and the other was talent.110 This book uses a wealth of genealogical data to discuss the relationship between noble families and talents, trying to link the study of genealogy and talents. Out of the 97 kinds of reference books listed in this book, 46 kinds are genealogy and 17 kinds are imperial examination papers. Pan Guangdan patiently collated, sorted, and organized the large amount of literature. First, he collected data/information on the people of these families, and then he classified them into 97 consanguinity systems. Finally, he linked the systems via their marriage relationship to form a network of consanguinity. With this network, Pan Guangdan studied the relationship between heredity and talent. He found that noble families were more likely to nurture talents. This may be because that people in noble families inherited some cultural heritage or had a great life experience, but it is mainly due to the “genetic factor.” Pan found many talents in the network of consanguinity that he studied, including members of the “Fu She 复社” (the Restoration Society, an important political and academic organization in the late Ming Dynasty)—2.6% of the country and 42.1% of the commandery, “Wei Ke 巍科” (the top four in the imperial examinations)—6% of the country and 67.5% of the commandery, “Hong Bo 鸿博” (a special imperial examination)— 6.5% of the country and 26% of the commandery, and some famous scholars—11% of The Portraits and Biographies of Scholars in the Qing Dynasty 清代学者象传 (written by Ye Yanlan and Ye Gongchuo) that had been published and 7% of the total.111 This shows that “the network is where talents are produced.”112 In the book, Pan Guangdan applied eugenics, which originally belonged to natural science, to genealogy, and took genealogy data as the first-hand data for talent research, thus 109

Pan Guangdan. A brief history of Chinese genealogy. Eastern Miscellany 1929: 26 (1). Preface of Prominent families in Jiaxing during the Ming and Qing Dynasties 明清两代嘉兴 的望族·自序. In Pan Guangdan’s Anthology, Vol. 3. Peking University Press, 2000. 111 Pan Guangdan’s Anthology, Vol. 3. Beijing: Peking University Press, 2000: 382. 112 Pan Guangdan’s Anthology, Vol. 3. Beijing: Peking University Press, 2000: 375. 110

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combining genealogy and talent studies. With abundant materials and unique insights, the book had combined natural science with social science, which was praised by fellow academics.113 What’s the Significance of Genealogy was written and published in Eastern Miscellany in 1947. Pan Guangdan wrote this article as a preface to the Wang Family Genealogy in Huanggang 黄冈王氏家谱. Pan Guangdan said: “As long as the family system exists, genealogies can never be abandoned.” The most important element of genealogies is their functions. In the past, genealogies mainly had the following functions: revering the lineage, paying respects to their ancestors, consolidating clans, preventing people of the same surnames from marrying, selecting officials, maintaining one’s family status, and finding matches for marriage. However, in modern society, the social structure has undergone significant changes, the patriarchal clan system has disintegrated, and the consciousness of clan organization has faded. As a result, some of the seven functions are obviously out of date and must be abandoned or need to be revised carefully. After analyzed the ancient meanings and functions, Pan Guangdan put forward four new functions: cultivating the eugenic consciousness for a better future, enhancing personal understanding of one’s own character, promoting human genetic research, and establishing a specialized section in history research. Pan Guangdan also pointed out in this article: “We hope that there will be scholars who are willing to study genetics, biology, psychology, society, and human subjects besides historiography, and re-establish a specialized discipline of genealogy so that it will become an independent scientific training and cooperate with historiography, biological science, and social science.”114 The lofty realm described by Pan Guangdan in the 1940s still has important guiding significance for genealogical study. The above three articles were written by Pan Guangdan in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s respectively. Actually, he had also written many other genealogical works, which can be roughly divided into four categories: (1) general analysis, such as Genealogy and Patriarchy 家谱与宗法, Zhang Shizhai’s Genealogy Theory 章实斋 之家谱学说, New Interpretation of General Genealogy 通谱新解; (2) using genealogies to conduct specialized research on talents, such as the Distribution, Transplantation, and Inheritance of Chinese Painters 中国画家的分布、移植与遗传, the Study of the Pedigree of Chinese Actors 中国伶人血缘之研究, and the Talents of Modern Suzhou 近代苏州的人才; (3) chronicles of historical figures, such as the Cui Dongbi Chronicle 崔东壁年谱, Zhang Shizhai Chronicle 章实斋年谱, Yuan Shu Chronicle 袁枢年谱, and Dun Fu Chronicle 钝夫年谱; (4) pedigrees of some figures, such as the Cunren Bookhouse’s Pedigree of Historical Figures 存人书屋历史人物世系表 稿, which was compiled based on the books of the Annal of Three Kingdoms 三国 志, the Book of the Jin Dynasty 晋书, the History of the Southern Dynasty 南史, the Chen Shude 陈树德. Pan Guangdan and Chinese genealogy 潘光旦与中国谱学. In Roots of China—Proceedings of the Cross-Strait Symposium on Genealogy 中华之根——海峡两岸家谱 研讨会文集. Beijing: Chinese Literature and History Publishing House, 2005. 114 Pan Guangdan. What’s the significance of genealogy? 家谱还有些什么意义 Eastern Miscellany 1929 (43): 12. 113

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History of the Northern Dynasty 北史, the History of the Sui Dynasty 隋史, Old Tang Book 旧唐书, Shi Shuo Xin Yu 世说新语, Selected Works 文选, and Three Hundred Famous Scholars in the Han, Wei, and Six Dynasties 汉魏六朝三百名家集.115 As a famous eugenicist, both Pan’s general works on historical genealogy and his special works on talent research using genealogy were inseparable from eugenics. All his works are of pioneering significance. Professor Mei Yibao said in commemoration of Pan Guangdan’s centennial birthday that Pan “has made great efforts in the study of Chinese genealogy, and can be called the figure of authority.”116 Luo Xianglin (1906–1978), whose courtesy name was Yuan Yi and literary name was Yi Tang, was born in Xingning, Guangdong Province. He was a Hakka of Han nationality. After 1924, he studied at Chengtian English School, National Chengchi University, and Tsinghua University. After graduation, he engaged in the research of local chronicles, national history, and genealogy. In 1936, he was the first director of the Zhongshan Library in Guangzhou. Since 1951, he worked in the Chinese Department of Hong Kong University and lived in Hong Kong for a long time. Luo Xianglin said: “Since I graduated from university, I collected Chinese genealogies and wrote various related papers and monographs.”117 Luo Xianglin wrote forty monographs and more than 200 papers. He devoted his whole life to collecting genealogical data and studying genealogical theory, which was an important contribution to the study of Chinese genealogy. Luo Xianglin was born into a family of book collectors, and developed a habit of constantly copying and collecting books. In order to study genealogy and write biographies of famous people, Luo collected more than 200 kinds of genealogical data of surnames and transcribed some such as Pu Shougeng’s Family Genealogy 蒲寿庚家谱, the Sun Clan Genealogy in Zhongba Zijin 紫金忠坝孙氏族谱, and the Genealogy of Chinese Capitan of Malacca 马六甲华人甲必丹的系谱. Luo also actively sorted out the catalogue of Chinese genealogies. The Guangdong Genealogies Collected by the Guangdong Provincial Library was transcribed by Luo Xianglin when he was working in Guangzhou. When he went to the United States for vacation in 1963, Luo compiled the Catalogue of Chinese Genealogy in the Hanhe Library of Harvard Yanjing Society 哈佛燕京学社汉和图书馆所藏中国族谱目录. There are two other major genealogical catalogues compiled by Luo: the Catalogue of Chinese Genealogy in the Hong Kang Fung Ping Shan Library 香港大学冯平山图书馆所 藏中国族谱叙目 and the Catalogue of Selected Chinese Genealogies 中国族谱择 要叙录. All the genealogical catalogues above are included in the second part of A Study of Chinese Genealogy 中国族谱研究, written by Luo himself. Chen Shude 陈树德. Pan Guangdan and Chinese genealogy 潘光旦与中国谱学. In Roots of China – Proceedings of the Cross-Strait Symposium on Genealogy 中华之根——海峡两岸家谱 研讨会文集. Beijing: Chinese Literature and History Publishing House, 2005. 116 Equilibrium and Harmony, Order and Cultivation: Commemorating the Centenary of Pan Guangdan’s Birth 中和位育: 潘光旦百年诞辰紀念. Beijing: China Renmin University Press, 1999: 106. 117 Luo Xianglin. Yi Tang Wen Cun Xu Bian 乙堂文存续编. Hong Kong: Zhongguo Xueshe 中国 学社. Quoted from Liao Qingliu’s Clan genealogy philology. Taiwan: SMC Publishing Inc, 2003. 115

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Luo Xianglin deciphered some unsolved academic cases by using genealogical data. In his Study of Chinese Genealogy, Luo said, “During the 22nd year of the Republic of China, the Memorial Book of Sun Family Ancestors, which was stored in the former residence of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, was found in Cuiting Township, Zhongshan County, Guangdong Province. It had been unknown to the previous historians or scribes. In the 26 years of the Republic of China, Hong Xiuquan’s Genealogy (Hong’s Genealogy in Huaxian 洪氏宗谱) was found in Guangzhou, which proved that Hong Xiuquan 洪秀全 (1814–1864), the king of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, came from Hakka. In 1939, in Kunming, Yunnan, I found the Textual Research on Zheng He’s Genealogy 郑和家谱考释 written by Li Shihou 李士厚. This proved that Zheng He’s ancestors were of Hui ethnic group. In 1940, in Guilin, Guangxi, with the help of Jia Yuan and Peng Lin Lu Jun, I obtained Pu Shougeng’s Family Genealogy in Dehua, Fujian Province. This proved that Pu Shougeng was an envoy of Quanzhou at the end of Song Dynasty, and his predecessor was indeed a Hui who had entered China from the Western Regions. In 1941, I found an old version of Sun Yat-sen’s genealogy, which proved that his ancestors moved to Xiangshan from Zijin, Dongjiang, and belonged to Hakka. In 1949, I obtained in Guangzhou the Pu Family Genealogy in Ganjiao, Nanhai and the Pu Family Genealogy in Gangtong Village, Sanya, Yaxian, which proved that many Arabian people immigrated to Guangdong during the Song and Yuan Dynasties. My research on Chinese genealogy gradually made some discoveries.”118 Luo Xianglin used genealogical data to write a pioneering work on Hakka history research. Hakka is an important part of the Han nationality, going from migratingliving to abroad-migrating-living to abroad again. With their unique living style and tenacious vitality, Hakka people have created their own unique culture and became a special ethnic group with a large population, wide distribution, and talented people. As a Hakka, Luo Xianglin had a special liking for Hakka history research. He has written many handed-down works by using genealogical data: First, An Introduction to Hakka Studies 客家研究导论 (published by Xishan Book Collection in 1933), which was the first masterpiece in China to systematically study Hakka history and traditional culture. The book gives a comprehensive and in-depth discussion on the origin, social organization, living customs, cultural model, language system, and ethnic distribution of Hakka and its position in history. Second, Hakka Origins 客 家源流考 is divided into four parts: introduction, the structure and evolution of the Chinese nation, the migration and system of Hakka in the Chinese nation, and the distribution of Hakka and its natural environment; Third, the Compilation of Hakka Historical Materials Collection 客家史料汇编 (published by Hong Kong Chinese Society in 1956), which is a compilation of forty family genealogies collected by Luo Xianglin, including Sun, Li, Wu, Zheng, Wang, He, Chen, Zhang, Hua, and Zou, is of high historical value.” The three books constitute the ‘trilogy’ of Luo Xianglin’s Hakka studies, so he is known as the pioneer and founder of Hakka studies.”119 118

Luo Xianglin. Study of Chinese Genealogy. Hong Kong: Zhongguo Xueshe, 1971: 2–3. Wu Jianhua. Luo Xianglin’s contribution to genealogical research 罗香林对谱牒研究的贡献. Academic Forum 学术论坛, 2001 (4).

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Luo Xianglin’s most important contribution to the theory of Chinese genealogy is his work A Study of Chinese Genealogy. He wrote it in English when he was a professor at the University of Hong Kong. The book was published in Volume 14, No.1 of the Gazette of the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese version was published by the Hong Kong Society in 1971. Its content is divided into five parts: introduction, upper part, middle part, lower part, and conclusion. It discusses the historical significance of Chinese genealogy research, the origin, evolution, and characteristics of Chinese genealogy, the inheritance and preservation of Chinese genealogy, and the academic status of Chinese genealogy. In A Study of Chinese Genealogy, Luo Xianglin emphasized the significance of studying Chinese genealogy. He pointed out: “The so-called official history and local chronicles in China can only describe how the government implemented policies, the establishment of the system and the local governments, whether the financial plan worked, how the famous people succeeded and failed, and the settlement of the border people, and that’s all. However, the migration history of all ethnic groups and how they mixed and assimilated still have to be recorded and consulted by the genealogies of each surname.”120 So, we can see the important value of Chinese genealogy to Chinese history research. Luo Xianglin concluded: “It is the study of genealogy that has a crucial relationship with the future expansion of Chinese historiography.”121 In the section “The Origin, Evolution, and Characteristics of Chinese Genealogy”, Luo Xianglin also discussed the origin and inheritance of Chinese Genealogy between the Zhou Dynasty and the Han Dynasty, how both the government and the people paid attention to the genealogy between the Wei and Jin dynasties and the Tang dynasty, the privately compiled genealogies during the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties, the reason why genealogy was not taken into account and its influence during the Qing Dynasty, and the development and evolution trend of Chinese genealogy. In summary, Luo Xianglin made various contributions to Chinese genealogy theory, which occupy an important position in the genealogical study of the twentieth century. Akigorou Taga (1912–1990), a Japanese expert on China studies, was a professor at the Central University and the National Library University of Japan. He devoted most of his life to China’s issues, especially to the study of Chinese genealogy, and achieved fruitful results. Akigorou Taga “has been engaged in genealogy research for a long time. In 1960, the Oriental Library published ‘Genealogy Research Information.’ Since then, he has been conducting genealogy research for twenty years and has not relaxed for a moment.”122 Akigorou Taga’s genealogical thought is embodied in “accepting scientific research grants from the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports in 1980,” Book I and Book II of A Study of Chinese Clans were published by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science in 1981 and 1982 respectively.

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Luo Xianglin. Study of Chinese Genealogy. Hong Kong: Zhongguo Xueshe, 1971: 2. Luo Xianglin. Study of Chinese Genealogy. Hong Kong: Zhongguo Xueshe, 1971: 12. 122 Akigorou Taga. A Study of Chinese Clans 中国宗谱的研究, Book 1. The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, 1981: 1. 121

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A Study of Chinese Clans shows his contribution to Chinese genealogy, which mainly includes the following points. First, it has made important contributions to the collection and collation of Chinese genealogical data. The printing of China’s genealogy is limited, so it is strictly forbidden for families to sell; this makes genealogy preserved by common people for a long time. Since modern times, Chinese genealogy has gradually been collected by libraries and other institutions, and has been stored abroad. However, the collection is still scattered and lacks a complete catalogue to reflect it, which brings great difficulties to the research and utilization of these materials. Akigorou Taga made a comprehensive survey of Chinese genealogy scattered all over the world, and made a reading survey of more than 3000 kinds of Chinese genealogy in Japan, the United States, and other places. Finally, he compiled a catalogue of Chinese genealogy covering the whole world, which became the main content of A Study of Chinese Clans (Book II). He sorted out Chinese genealogy according to surname, book title, volume number, album number, year, editor’s name, serial number, and collection place. He also gathered statistics on the printing forms of each genealogy (wooden movable type, seal printing, litho printing, copper movable type, written copy, transcript, engraving, etc.) and even the layout, length, and width of each genealogy collected in Japan and the United States, and tried to give the people who used genealogies as much information as possible. The Catalogue of Existing Genealogy 现存宗谱目录 in A Study of Chinese Clans (Book II) consists of three parts, and it is the first comprehensive catalogue to reveal the collection of Chinese genealogy scattered at home and abroad.123 Second, on the evolution of Chinese genealogy. According to A Study of Chinese Clans (Book I), Akigorou Taga called the genealogy before the Song Dynasty “ancient genealogy” and the genealogy edited by Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun in the Song Dynasty “modern genealogy.” Akigorou Taga recognized genealogy as the product of aristocratic society, and the genealogy was under the control of the state. For the purpose of consolidating rule and controlling the clan, the state organized the official genealogy. After the great social turmoil in the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties and the implementation of a strict imperial examination, the value of official genealogy revision rose far above what it was in the past, and the power of the scholar-bureaucrat class rose. The folk genealogy revision with the main function of “consolidating the clan” became highly valued, and genealogical revisions in the Southern Song Dynasty greatly increased. Entering the Yuan Dynasty, compiling genealogies became more prevalent. During the Ming

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At the end of the twentieth century, the comprehensive catalogues to reveal the collection of Chinese genealogy scattered at home and abroad are as follows: Chinese Genealogies at the Genealogical Society of Utah: An Annotated Bibliography 美国家谱学会中国族谱目录 (1983), Genealogical Data Research Center of Shanxi Academy of Social Sciences: the Catalogue of Chinese Genealogy 中国家谱目录 (1992), the National Archives Bureau and other units: The Comprehensive Catalog of Chinese Genealogies 中国家谱综合目录 (1997). The above three catalogues were published later than Akigorou Taga’s Study of Chinese Clans (Book II), which was published in 1982.

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Dynasty, genealogical revisions were no longer a unique phenomenon of scholarofficials and wealthy clans, but extended to the outside and gradually penetrated into the common people. According to the analysis of numerous documents and materials, Akigorou Taga believed that in the developed areas of Jiangnan culture in the Ming Dynasty, the revision of genealogies became a common cultural phenomenon. At this time, most genealogies were printed and engraved. Akigorou Taga believed that genealogy became more and more popular ever since the Qing Dynasty. During the Guangxu and Xuantong eras, it entered a mature period. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, genealogy is still very popular among overseas Chinese outside the mainland, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, and clan associations have appeared at the same time. Akigorou Taga’s description of the development track of Chinese genealogy is generally consistent with historical facts. Third, the regional characteristics of genealogy. Akigorou Taga believed that Chinese clan genealogy is a kind of genealogy compiled by clans, a written record of strengthening clan combination and clan activities, and the most conclusive historical record of identifying ancestors and identifying bloodlines. To the clans, genealogy is similar to the Bible for Christianity, in the sense that it is very sacred and has a strong religious meaning. Chinese genealogy developed in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, showing regional characteristics. Akigorou Taga studied the style and content of genealogy in different places, and divided Chinese genealogy into four types. First, the Central China genealogy, in which Jiangsu genealogy has more records about Yizhuang, Zhejiang and Jiangxi pay more attention to recording ancestral halls and sacrifices, Anhui genealogy has more holy words, family rites and family precepts, and Hubei and Hunan genealogy have more family precepts, five service pictures, and display pictures. Second, South China genealogy and Guangdong genealogy has many forms, such as clan branch genealogy, grace genealogy, ancestral temple genealogy, tomb genealogy, art genealogy, and family genealogy, while Fujian genealogy is quite similar to Huazhong genealogy, which pays more attention to reflecting the historical tradition of the clan. Third, there are few existing genealogies in North China, and their genealogical styles are relatively simple. Shandong genealogy lacks more catalogues and common examples, while the Hebei genealogy catalogue and common examples are more complete and detailed than Shandong genealogy, and Shanxi and Henan genealogy are more standardized and detailed than Hebei genealogy. Fourth, the Northeast Genealogy, influenced by North China Genealogy, has begun to take shape, but its content is simple, and its genealogy form is rough and incomplete. Besides the Han nationality, there are a certain number of Manchu genealogies and Mongolian genealogies in Northeast China.124 Xiong Yuanbao. Akigorou Taga’s research on Chinese clan genealogies 多贺秋五郎的中国宗 谱问题研究. The Journal of Chinese Social and Economic History 中国社会经济史研究, 1994 (4).

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Fourth, the expansion of Chinese genealogy. According to Akigorou Taga, the development, popularity, and popularization of Chinese genealogy firstly lies in the center of Chinese culture and economy, and then gradually expands around as the population migrates, and is absorbed by the surrounding areas. Obviously, the characteristics of South China Genealogy are closely related to the southward spread of Han culture. Northeast genealogy is the result of the spread of North China’s genealogy to the north, and Manchu and Mongolians in Northeast China also cultivate genealogy, which reflects the assimilation process with Chinese culture. Chinese genealogy spread further to the north, south, and east, which produced and formed the genealogies of Vietnam, Korean Peninsula, and Ryukyu Islands, and had a great influence on the genealogy that was popular in Japan in modern times. Of course, due to regional differences, it is affected to different degrees and has local characteristics. Vietnam’s genealogy is relatively simple in content and lacks regulations such as family rules. The genealogical style of the Korean Peninsula is more detailed, and its genealogical prefaces, principles, pedigree charts, biographies, epitaphs, and tomb maps are not much different from those of Chinese genealogy. The genealogy of Ryukyu is more deeply influenced by Chinese genealogy, which is not only similar in style and content, but also uses the reign titles during the Jiajing, Kangxi, Qianlong, and Jiaqing eras. Additionally, in his monograph A Study of Chinese Clans, Akigorou Taga discussed the family rules and education of Chinese genealogy and the compilation of genealogies in Chinese circles outside the mainland after 1949. Because of Akigorou Taga’s pioneering academic value in the study of Chinese genealogy, the two huge volumes of A Study of Chinese Clans finally won the highest award in Japanese academic circles—The Japan Academy.

Chapter 9

Contemporary Genealogical Compilations

During the past five decades, there has been a spontaneous upsurge in compiling new genealogy on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, and even in places overseas where Chinese people live. The new compilations are a continuation, development, extension, and innovation in the history of Chinese genealogy. In just a few decades, this upsurge of new compilations has been more powerful, numerous, and influential than any historical stage in Chinese genealogy.

9.1 A Brief Introduction to Taiwan’s Genealogical Compilations In the past fifty years, this upsurge in genealogy had first appeared in Taiwan, China. Taiwan has been China’s territory since ancient times and the vast majority of Taiwan’s people have migrated from the mainland, so they have blood relations with mainland residents and have profound patriarchal and ancestral feelings towards the mainland. Many have built ancestral temples in their own settlements. They also have a fine tradition of compiling genealogies. For nearly fifty years the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have been artificially isolated, and Taiwanese people have set off a wave of compiling family genealogies. As early as 1945, Chen Rende from Tainan founded the Taiwan Genealogy Society. In order to investigate existing Taiwan genealogies, he traveled from Tainan to Taipei to collect relevant genealogical data. In 1956, the Taiwan Provincial Literature Committee decided to conduct a general survey of Taiwan genealogies that have been collected by the people. They carried out spot checks, starting with the surnames Ma 马 and Bai 白. Then they sent the Clan Association to conduct the survey on a larger scale. For example, in 1957, the Lai 赖 Clan Association of Taichung sent people to collect data and write the Lai clan genealogy. © Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2023 H. Wang, The General Theory of China’s Genealogy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6377-5_9

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In 1977, Professor Dai Yanhui, a famous historian, was invited to establish the Taiwan Clan Genealogy Society so as to promote the collection, compilation, and research of genealogy in Taiwan. The year after, the Society held an exhibition on genealogical data in Taipei. Since 1982, it has also toured various places and held many seminars. In 1985, the Society published Genealogy and Clan Organizations, which comprehensively introduced nineteen World Clan Associations and 58 Province/City Clan Associations in Taiwan. In 1977, the Research Association of the Origin of Family Names in Taiwan Province was established in Taichung, and genealogical reports, academic seminars, and exhibitions were held. The quarterly journal “The Origin of Taiwan” 台湾源 流 has been published in more than forty issues, with a large number of papers on genealogy and the origin of family names. In 1981, Taiwan’s United Daily News Cultural Foundation founded the National Studies Literature Museum. It focuses on collecting Chinese documents, with genealogy as the main content, for academic research and social inquiry. The Museum also held four genealogical workshops (each one month long) free of charge to teach genealogical knowledge and train genealogical talents, which effectively promoted the development and research of genealogical work in Taiwan. From 1983 to 1996, the Museum held seven academic seminars on Asian genealogy, and seven proceedings were published afterwards. In 2003, the Taipei Literature Association carried out a series of activities, including “genealogy study,” “collection of genealogies and display of ancestor portraits of surnames,” “garden tour of family name origins,” “ancestral hall rootseeking tour.” These activities were welcomed by the general public, and achieved the aims of collecting genealogies, teaching the correct methods of genealogy, and advocating the academic research of genealogy, arousing the citizens’ recollection of history, and promoting the integration of ethnic groups. During the past fifty years, Taiwan has published a number of genealogical bibliographic works, among which fifteen major works have collected a total of some 36,600 genealogies. However, there are not only a large number of copies in each work but several bibliographies were also repeatedly calculated, so the actual number is about 10,000. (1) (2)

(3) (4)

(5)

Chang Bide 昌彼得: Taiwan’s Publicly Collected Genealogies 台湾公藏族 谱解题 (published in 1969 and collected 133 genealogies). Wang Shiqing 王世庆 and Wang Jinxue 王锦雪: the Draft Catalogue of Taiwan’s Publicly and Privately Collected Genealogies 台湾公私藏族谱目 录初稿 (published in 1978 and collected 1218 genealogies). Sheng Qinyi 盛清沂: the Catalogue of Chinese Genealogies 中国族谱资料 目录初辑 (published in 1982 and collected 1900 genealogies). Telford, Ted A: Chinese Genealogies at the Genealogical Society of Utah: An Annotated Bibliography 美国家谱学会中国族谱目录 (published in 1983 and collected 3140 genealogies). Chen Meigui 陈美桂: the Catalog of Taiwan Genealogies 台湾区族谱目录 (published in 1978 and collected 1218 genealogies).

9.1 A Brief Introduction to Taiwan’s Genealogical Compilations

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Liao Qingliu 廖庆六: the Catalog of Genealogies in Waiwaizhai 万万斋藏族 谱目录 (published in 1987 and collected 10,613 genealogies). Huang Wenxin 黄文新: Taiwan’s Bibliography: Genealogies (I) 台湾文献书 目解题: 族谱类 (一) (published in 1992 and collected 43 genealogies). Chen Meihui: the Catalog of Taipei Genealogical Books 台北市文献会族谱 资料图书目录 (published in 1994 and collected 662 genealogies). Liao Qingliu: the Catalog of Origins of Surnames and Genealogies 姓氏源流 谱牒展览图书目录 (published in 1995 and collected 1014 genealogies). Liao Zhengxiong 廖正雄: the Catalog of Genealogies in Yilan Archives 宜兰县 史馆谱系基本资料目录 (published in 2000 and collected 439 genealogies). Chen Longgui 陈龙贵: the Catalog of Genealogies in Taipei Palace Museum 台北故宫博物院所藏族谱简目 (published in 2001 and collected 10,300 genealogies). Chen Weiyuan 陈威远: the Catalog of Genealogies in Taipei Municipal Literature Committee 台北市文献委员会族谱目录 (published in 2002 and collected 835 genealogies). Ye Junpei 叶钧培: Genealogies in Jinmen 金门的族谱资料 (published in 2003). Center for Chinese Studies 汉学研究中心: the Catalog of Genealogies in Taiwan 台湾地区家谱联合目录资料库. National Taiwan Normal University 台湾师范大学: the Catalog of Genealogies on Taiwan Genealogy Information Network 台湾族谱资讯网族谱目 录.1

Among the fifteen works, the most important one is the Catalog of Taiwan Genealogies edited by Chen Meigui. The chief-editor is Zhao Zhenji, director of the Institute of Genealogy, Chinese Culture University. This is one of the most important achievements in the development of genealogical resources in Taiwan. A group of organizations and individuals in Taiwan were eager to find their roots and pay homage to their ancestors, and with the support of the Genealogical Society of Utah, they conducted carpet interviews on genealogy throughout Taiwan, hence the publication of the Catalog. The Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU) is a cultural institution in America under Mormonism. Since 1938, it has hired some 100 people to copy and collect the archives in various countries through micro-technology. The GSU now maintains a collection of over 3140 Chinese genealogies preserved on microfilm and available for public use in its main library, which was established in 1894 in Salt Lake City, Utah, as well as in over 700 branch libraries located through a worldwide network of family history centers. The GSU collected Chinese genealogical data in several steps. First, it filmed the genealogy collected in the Columbia University Library, Library of Congress, Yanjing Library of Harvard University, Oriental Library of Japan, National Library of Congress, Toyo Culture Research Institute, etc. Based on this, the GSU published Liao Qingliu. Clan genealogy philology 族谱文献学. Taiwan: SMC Publishing Inc 台湾南天书 局有限公司, 2003; Center for Chinese Studies. New Books (monthly), 2003.

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a genealogy catalog entitled Chinese Genealogies at the Genealogical Society of Utah: An Annotated Bibliography. The catalog contains an annotated bibliography of 3140 Chinese genealogies, which reflects the collection of Chinese genealogies outside of China’s mainland and Taiwan. Second, since 1974, the Society cooperated with genealogical institutes and experts in Taiwan, conducted thorough research in various towns and villages in the north, middle and south of Taiwan, and used microfilm technology to collect folk genealogies. After seven years, more than 700 volumes of family genealogy microfilms in Taiwan were taken. The master film is stored in a special “cave” of the GSU in Salt Lake City, while the secondary film is available for relevant institutions and experts or for public use in Taiwan. Experts from the Taiwan Genealogical Research Society and other institutions edited and processed the microfilms, and completed the Catalog of Taiwan Genealogies. It was published in 1987 and became the most complete catalogue to reveal the genealogical collection in Taiwan. The Catalog of Taiwan Genealogies shows the following notable features. 1. It reveals that the number of genealogies collected in Taiwan ranks among the best in China. According to the General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies 中 国家谱总目, there are 52,401 genealogies, mainly in public collection units, that exist in the world. Various regions in China, including Taiwan and Hong Kong, have different numbers of genealogies, and countries such as the United States, Japan, Korea, Canada, Britain, and France also have a certain number of Chinese genealogies. Shanghai maintains the largest collection, with nearly 20,000 genealogies, followed by Beijing (8100 genealogies), Zhejiang (6600), and Shanxi (5000). Jiangsu, Guangdong, and Fujian maintain 3000 genealogies respectively. According to the Catalog of Taiwan Genealogies, there are more than 10,000 genealogies in Taiwan (mainly preserved by the people), second only to Shanghai. It is an important part of the treasure house of Chinese genealogies. The famous Qing Dynasty historian Zhang Xuecheng said: “There is history to the world, history to a country, history to a family, and history to a person. The history of a person can tell us someone’s status and aspirations; the history of a family can be discovered through family records and archives; the history of a country can be discovered through the gazetteers of cities and counties. Together these all collectively form the history of the world.”2 As Sun Yat-sen said: “China has solid family and lineage groups, and Chinese people value much about families and lineages.”3 There are so many genealogies in Taiwan, which fully shows that Taiwan residents, like the mainland people, have inherited fine cultural traditions of the Chinese nation, and the tradition of renewing genealogies has also been carried forward in Taiwan. 2. It reflects that Taiwan residents are closely related to mainland provinces by bloodline. The Catalog of Taiwan Genealogies contains 10,613 family genealogies. 2754 have not indicated where their ancestral homes are, 7757 have ancestral homes in mainland China, and only 102 have ancestral homes in Taiwan. Out 2 3

Posthumous works of Zhang Xuecheng, Vol. 14. Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1985. Complete Works of Sun Yat-sen, Vol. 9. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, November 2006.

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of the 102 genealogies, thirteen of them belong to the surname Hong 洪, twelve to the surname Li 李, nine to Wang 王, nine to Huang 黄, six to Lin 林, five to Chen 陈, four to Liu 刘, Su 苏, and Guo 郭, and three to Wu 吴. If we trace these surnames further back, we can find that the ancestors of these surnames were based in the mainland. The Catalog also shows that many surnames in Taiwan share common ancestors with related surnames in China’s mainland, such as Zi Qiao 子乔 (Wang’s primogenitor), Bi Gan 比干 (Lin’s primogenitor), Li Zhen 利贞 (Li’s primogenitor), and Tai Bo 泰伯 (Wu’s primogenitor).The facts fully show that most of the ancestors of Taiwan residents came from the mainland. Among the Taiwan genealogical records, Fujian is the ancestral home of 4510 genealogies, ranking first, followed by Guangdong with 2132 genealogies. In other words, the ancestral homes in Fujian and Guangdong account for more than 60% of the family genealogies. Since the ancestors of the Taiwan people mostly came from Fujian, Zhao Zhenji 赵振绩, a Taiwan genealogist, wrote The Relationship between the Origin of Fujian and Taiwan 闽系源流与台湾之关系 as the preface of the Catalog of Taiwan Genealogies. This article expounds on the origin of Fujian, the distribution of people who migrated from Zhangzhou and Quanzhou of Fujian to Taiwan, and the special relationship between Fujian and Taiwan. 3. Most genealogies have been updated or newly compiled during the past fifty years. In the Catalog of Taiwan Genealogies, there are some precious ones compiled during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, but on the whole, most were compiled during the last fifty years. Take Li’s 李 genealogies as an example. The Catalog has collected 570 genealogies of the Li clans, with 322 clearly indicating the compilation years. Out of the 322 genealogies, only thirteen were compiled during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, 35 before 1949, and the remaining 274 were newly compiled in the recent fifty years. Another example is the 767 Lin’s genealogies collected in the Catalog, among which 371 are clearly marked with the printing and publishing years, including two in the Ming Dynasty and nine in the Qing Dynasty, 48 were printed before 1949, and 312 after 1950; that is, more than 84% were printed in the recent fifty years. Another example is Xiao’s genealogy. The Catalog of Taiwan Genealogies has collected 285 genealogies, of which 157 are clearly marked with the editing date, including four edited in the Qing Dynasty, twelve before 1949, and 141 in the recent fifty years, accounting for 90% of the entire Xiao genealogy. Take the surnames with few genealogies as an example, such as Lan’s genealogy, which includes 27, nineteen with exact editing dates, including two from the Qing Dynasty and one before 1949, and sixteen edited in the recent fifty years, accounting for 84%. Another example is the Wei family’s genealogy, which includes 36 genealogies, of which nineteen have exact editing dates, all of which were edited in the recent fifty years. By analogy, more than 80% of the genealogies revealed in the Catalog of Taiwan Genealogies have been compiled in the recent fifty years, and the number can reach more than 8000. It can be seen that in the past fifty years, Taiwan folks have indeed set off a wave of genealogical compilations, and seeking the roots of the ancestors is a vivid manifestation of the strong cohesion of the Chinese

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nation. Although the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have been separated for fifty years due to human factors, the vast number of Taiwanese people have expressed a strong desire to seek their roots and ask their ancestors, turn their hearts to the mainland, and return to the motherland by compiling genealogies.

9.2 A Brief Introduction to the Mainland’s Genealogical Compilation During the past fifty years, there has been an upsurge in new compilations in China’s mainland, which was mainly formed after the third plenary session of the 11th central committee in 1978. With the establishment of the Party’s ideological line of emancipating minds and seeking truth from facts, the academic research field gradually overcame the influence of the “left” and presented a booming scene. The once barren and untouched genealogy research attracted attention again in the mainland. Since the 1980s, mainland newspapers began to publish articles on genealogy research. On July 11th, 1988, with the support of the National Archives Bureau and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Shanxi Academy of Social Sciences established the China Genealogical Research Association and held two national genealogy academic seminars in 1988 and 1991. The Association published four issues of Genealogical Research, with some eighty articles on genealogy research and surname origin, which actively promoted genealogical research in Chinese mainland. In February 1994, Shanxi Academy of Social Sciences established the Genealogical Data Research Center. Other provinces and cities such as Jiangxi, Fujian, and Shanghai followed suit and have also set up genealogy research associations. Publishing institutions in Hunan, Guangxi, Sichuan, and Beijing successively published books such as Chinese Family Names 中华姓氏谱, A General History of Chinese Family Names 中华姓氏通史 and The Chinese Family Names Series 华夏 姓氏丛书. At the end of the twentieth century, the Shanghai Library began to collect and develop genealogical data, which attracted the attention of peers at home and abroad. The Shanghai Library is a large-scale public research library modeled after the National Library in China, with a book collection of twelve million volumes. For decades, under the guidance of the acquisition principle of “taking what others discard” by former curator Gu Tinglong 顾廷龙, the Shanghai Library has attached great importance to the collection of genealogical data. Up until now, it has collected 21,000 kinds of genealogical data with 190,000 copies, making it the largest collection of original Chinese genealogies in the world. However, in the past, the library did not put sufficient effort into the collation of genealogies. Since the opening of the new Shanghai Library at the end of 1996, priority has been given to the task. With the strong support of the municipal government, the library invested some 100,000yuan in funds every year, and had technicians repair the worn-out genealogies. Up until now, nearly 40,000 copies have been repaired. The Shanghai Library has set up a genealogy academic research center to take charge of the collation, development,

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consultation, and research of genealogies. It was also the first library that opened up a genealogical reading room in China’s mainland for readers to consult. The Shanghai Library also held the “National Symposium on Genealogy Development and Utilization” in November, 1998. Participants had a heated discussion on the academic value, writing style, development, and utilization of genealogy. After the meeting, 36 relevant papers were published. In May 2000, the International Symposium on Chinese Genealogy in the New Century was held. Nearly 100 scholars from Japan, Singapore, the United States, Vietnam, Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other countries and regions attended the grand meeting. The conference held a heated discussion on the compilation of the General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies, the digitization of genealogies, the newly-compiled genealogies, and the comparison between Chinese and foreign genealogies. After the meeting, 35 relevant papers were published, indicating that genealogy research at home and abroad has reached a new level. In December 2003, Xiamen CPPCC, the Shanghai Library Genealogy Academic Research Center, and Xiamen University Taiwan Research Center jointly held “The Root of China-Cross-Strait Genealogy Academic Seminar” in Xiamen. More than 140 experts and scholars from Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Kinmen gathered in Xiamen and attended the largest grand meeting of genealogy academia in China. Participants provided more than 100 papers and abstracts, and held a heated discussion around the value and resource development of genealogy, the collection and cataloging of genealogy, the case study of genealogy, the cross-strait origin, and the investigation of newly revised genealogy, which played a positive role in promoting the study of genealogy across the Taiwan Strait and jointly revitalizing Chinese genealogy. During the past thirty years, the mainland has not only made important achievements in genealogy research but has also done the great, basic work of managing genealogical data. In 1984, the Second Division of the National Archives Bureau, the History Department of Nankai University, and the Library of the Institute of History of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences jointly edited the Comprehensive Catalog of Chinese Genealogies, which received strong support from the government. In the same year, the National Archives Bureau, together with the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education, jointly issued the Notice on Assisting in Compiling the Comprehensive Catalog of Chinese Genealogies to libraries, museums, cultural management committees, cultural centers, and archives bureaus in mainland China. Since then, more than 400 units in the mainland have submitted a catalog of their collections or a catalog of genealogies collected in their region. This book contains 14,719 Chinese genealogy catalogues from before 1949. It was the most important bibliography reflecting the collection of Chinese genealogies at that time, and it was a fruitful result of cooperation. Since 1998, the Shanghai Library has hired experts from Fudan University, East China Normal University, and the Anhui Academy of Social Sciences to work with researchers from its Historical Document Center. It took two years to complete the Abstracts of the Shanghai Library’s Chinese Genealogy Collections 上海图书馆 馆藏家谱提要, which was officially published by the Shanghai Chinese Classics

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Publishing House in May 2000. This is not only a genealogical bibliography but also a monograph on genealogical abstracts. The book contains 11,700 kinds of genealogy and nearly 100,000 copies. It not only includes surnames, book titles, compilers, and publishing years, but it also summarizes the first ancestor, the first ancestor who relocated to the present location, migration routes, and important figures and their deeds of each genealogy. It is a pioneering academic research work in the collation of Chinese genealogy. In the past thirty years, the vigorous genealogical research and genealogical data collation work in the mainland has greatly promoted the civil genealogical revision work in mainland China. Among them, Fujian Province is ahead of other provinces and cities in the mainland in terms of genealogy research. Fujian established a provincial research society on the origin of surnames earlier, and also established research societies or genealogical societies in Zhangzhou, Xiamen, and Jinjiang. Over the past twenty years, Fujian has published a lot of genealogical works, thus achieving fruitful results. With the active promotion and support of overseas Chinese and compatriots from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao, a series of activities such as compiling new genealogy have also been set off in all parts of Fujian. For example, Jinjiang City, which is separated only by a strip of water from Taiwan, established the Jinjiang Genealogy Research Association in 1997, collected and collated more than 500 kinds of genealogical data at home and abroad, published more than twenty issues of Jinjiang Genealogy Research, and held academic seminars such as “Viewing Fujian-Taiwan Relations from Genealogy” and “Genealogy Research and the Overseas Chinese,” attended by scholars at home and abroad many times. The Jinjiang Genealogy Research Association actively promoted the development of folk genealogy, and held a Jinjiang genealogy exhibition in the library on December 29th, 2000, in which there were more than 400 new genealogies. Folk genealogical compilations in other areas of Fujian, such as Zhangzhou and Xiamen, have also developed rapidly. The above activities in Fujian Province not only enlivened the academic research atmosphere of genealogy in mainland China, but also promoted the civil genealogy revision work in other provinces and cities. Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, and other regions are closely followed by Fujian Province in the areas where the compilation of new genealogies has been concentrated in the mainland in the recent thirty years. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, because of the rich wealth, developed culture, strong clan concept, and other reasons, compiling genealogy has been at the forefront of all regions in China. In the past thirty years, the continuous revision of new genealogy mainly takes place in rural areas. After the implementation of the Party’s reform and the opening-up policy, great changes have taken place in the rural economy. Farmers in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, and other regions have quickly solved the problem of food and clothing, and have begun to stride towards a well-off society. After the improvement of the farmers’ material life, there were new requirements for spiritual life and cultural needs. As a result, the traditional cultural activities of compiling genealogy have been revived under the new conditions, and spontaneous activities of compiling new genealogy have appeared. The development of the rural economy and the increase of the farmers’ income also

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provided a material guarantee for the expenses of compiling new genealogy cultural activities, such as discussion, business trip, communication, compilation, printing, and so on. The situation of developing new genealogies in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, and other places is illustrated by taking Wuxi and Jiangyin of Jiangsu as examples. Wuxi has profound historical and cultural heritage, and there are many genealogies in its history. According to the Abstracts of the Shanghai Library’s Chinese Genealogy Collections, there are 77 surnames in Wuxi and about 800 kinds of family genealogies. Meicun is the birthplace of the surname Wu 吴 in China. In 1999, Wu formed the editorial board of Chinese Wu’s Genealogy, with Mr. Wu Weixun as the editor-in-chief, and cooperated with the Wu clan people around the world to compile the Grand Genealogy. With the support of the Wu clan people at home and abroad, it is planned to be eight volumes, and three volumes have been published so far. The compilation of the Chinese Wu Clan Grand Genealogy 中华吴氏大统谱 has greatly promoted new compilations in Wuxi. On December 11th, 2007, the Xinmin Evening News made a special report on compiling new genealogy in Wuxi. This paper introduces the establishment of the Ancestral Hall Culture Research Society in Wuxi City in 2004, which has received 194 donated volumes (copies) of 32 families and 53 branches, most of which were revised in 2005. According to incomplete statistics, sixteen surnames such as Hua 华, Ma 马, Rong 荣, and Fan 范 are still being edited. At present, the upsurge of continuing genealogy in Wuxi is in the ascendant. Jiangyin, which is adjacent to Wuxi, has a tradition of revising genealogies in history. According to statistics, Jiangyin had more than 100 surnames in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and more than 200 genealogies were scattered in the libraries and private families. Since the reform and opening-up, there have been surnames such as Huang 黄, Su 苏, Chen 陈, Bian 卞, Cao 曹, Jiang 江, Li 李, Zhang 张, Hua 华, Wu 吴, Tang 唐, Pan 潘, Liu 刘, Cheng 承, Duan 段, and Pu 浦, and there are also Miao 缪, Sha 沙, Xu 徐, Wang 王, Xue 薛, Zhang 张, Wu 吴, Fang 方, Xu 许, Gao 高, and Zhang 章. In June 2007, in order to further carry out the work of genealogy revision, the Genealogy Culture Research Association was established with the approval of the Municipal Cultural Bureau and the approval of the Civil Affairs Bureau. This marked that genealogy theory research and genealogy revision work in Jiangyin had entered a new stage. In fact, the upsurge of revising new genealogy can be said to spread all over the country, not just in Fujian, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, and other regions. This is fully reflected by the readers received in the genealogical reading room of the Shanghai Library and the new genealogy collected in the genealogical stacks of the Shanghai Library. Since the genealogy reading room of the Shanghai Library officially opened to the public in December 1996, it has received about 100,000 readers, among which a small number are researchers from universities or research institutions engaged in genealogy research; the vast majority are readers from all over the world, including Chinese people at home and abroad, who come to consult the old genealogy in order to edit new genealogy. The genealogy reading room of the Shanghai Library also received thousands of letters or calls from readers, most of which put forth various questions of consultation and asked for answers in compiling new genealogy. In the past ten years, the genealogy library above has received more than 2000 new

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genealogies presented by the genealogy editorial boards, and the genealogy books are located in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and all over the provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions of China. It is no exaggeration to say that in the past thirty years, a new wave of genealogy revision has really started in China.

9.3 Genealogical Compilations from Both Sides of the Strait and Overseas During the past fifty years, the greatest feature of this upsurge of compiling new genealogy in Taiwan and China’s mainland is that clansmen on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and at home and abroad work closely together to promote it. The main reason for this feature is that Taiwan and the mainland not only have a geographical relationship, but also have a blood relationship—and blood is thicker than water. There are 23 million residents in Taiwan, most of whom are Han Chinese, and there are 450,000 ethnic minorities, accounting for 2% of the population. Both Han people and ethnic minorities have strong blood relationships with the mainland. Most of the early Taiwanese residents emigrated directly or indirectly from Chinese mainland. Taiwan’s written history can be traced back to 230 AD. At that time, 10,000 officers and men were sent to Yizhou (Taiwan) by Sun Quan, King of the Wu State during the Three Kingdoms Period. According to the investigation materials, Shen Ying 沈莹, a native of Wu in the Three Kingdoms, wrote the Lin Hai Shui Tu Zhi 临海水土志 from 264 to 280 AD, leaving the earliest, most detailed, and precious record of Taiwan in the world. A large number of Han residents from mainland China migrated to Taiwan mainly during the Song and Yuan Dynasties and especially in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Yan Siqi and Zheng Zhilong set up their strongholds in Beigang, forming a maritime business group that attracted mainland residents to travel to Taiwan. After Zheng Zhilong surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, it coincided with the drought in Fujian; he suggested that people suffering from the drought should go to Taiwan and be given cattle and seeds to devote themselves to farming. This was the beginning of large-scale immigration. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Zheng Chenggong’s 25,000 soldiers marched into Taiwan from Kinmen, expelled Dutch invaders, and recovered Taiwan. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians followed Zheng Chenggong to Taiwan. After the Qing government banned travelling by sea, more and more mainland people immigrated, but they all went to Taiwan privately. In the fifty-fourth year of the Qianlong era (1785), the ban was officially lifted, and mainland people going to Taiwan has entered a new period. When Taiwan recovered after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the ancestral home in mainland China accounted for 91.6% of Taiwan’s total population. According to the latest statistics, there are 1694 family names in Taiwan. Among them, Chen 陈, Lin 林, Zhang 张, Wang 王, Huang 黄, Li 李, Wu 吴, Cai 蔡, Liu 刘, and Yang 杨 are listed as the top ten surnames. Like Fujian, half of the people in Taiwan are surnamed either Chen or Lin. With the large

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number of immigrants from the mainland, advanced production technology was introduced into Taiwan. This promoted Taiwan’s economic development and made Taiwan a new agricultural region rich in rice and sugar, thus providing important conditions for cross-strait trade. With increasing economic ties between the mainland and Taiwan, feudal dynasties also paid great attention to developing and managing Taiwan politically, establishing and perfecting various administrative agencies, and making Taiwan a part of the central government’s jurisdiction. In the 1970s, Taiwan set off a craze for root-seeking. Since October 16, 1978, Taiwan’s Young Warrior’s Daily had published a series of stories that inspected the flesh-and-blood relationship between Taiwan and the mainland in detail, from the aspects of Taiwan compatriots’ surnames, religions, cultures, and customs. These stories pointed out that the ancestral roots of Taiwan are in Tangshan, which is the mainland of the motherland. On June 11, 1979, Taiwan’s China Times published an article entitled Native Origin, bloodline and Root, stating that Taiwan is our direct root, and this root is embedded in a bigger root—China. In 1987, Taiwan opened up the mainland’s policy of visiting relatives, and root-seeking officially formed into a craze. In the past twenty years, Taiwanese have come to the mainland to visit relatives, travel, and do business every year, and in 2000 the number even reached 2.85 million. Among them, some hold genealogies to find their roots, some look for ancestral graves to worship their ancestors, some rely on their names to find their sources, some attend meetings and form community organizations to visit their ancestors, and many others look for their ancestral homes by making phone calls or writing letters. Henan is one of the main birthplaces of Chinese surnames, and Taiwan compatriots always start from south Fujian and end at Henan. After the Taiwan compatriots returning to the mainland went to Fujian and Guangdong, they also went to Henan to pursue their ancestral roots. Statistics show that more than 100,000 Taiwan compatriots travel to Henan to find their roots every year. Many of them have enhanced their understanding of the motherland and their hometown through root-seeking activities to worship their ancestors, and actively contributed to the construction of their hometown, such as donating school buildings, preparing hospitals, building bridges and highways, building scenic spots and investing in the economic construction of hometown, etc. All these have promoted the development of economic, cultural, and educational undertakings in their hometown. For example, the World Su Clan Association invested one billion yuan in Jilin when the World Su Clan Grand Genealogy 世界苏氏大族谱 was published in Changchun, Jilin. This effectively promoted the modernization in the hometown of Su clan; another example is Taiwan’s Wang Guangya 王广亚, who invested 120 million yuan to set up the Shengda Economic and Trade Management College in Xinzheng, the hometown of the Yellow Emperor. Many of those who participated in the activities of seeking roots and ancestors were leading figures in Taiwan’s political, military, academic, and economic circles. At the age of 94, Mr. Chen Lifu, a Kuomintang veteran living in Taiwan, personally wrote an inscription to Chen Shizhong, an associate researcher of the Yongchun County Cultural Center, a fourth generation Chinese in Malaysia, and the president of the Chenshi Friendship Origin Research Association in Yongchun County: “Do

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not forget this and do not forget gratitude is the eternal standard of morality.” Mr. Gu Zhenfu, the former chairman of the Taiwan Strait Exchange Foundation, whose ancestral home was Yongchun, also sent a letter to the family members on August 27, 1993, saying: “Everyone has the heart to find roots, and they can take the right opportunity to do it.” Lu Chuansheng, a famous Taiwanese lawyer, is Lu Xiulian’s brother. He agrees with Chinese culture very much, never denies that he is Chinese, and is proud of Chinese people. In 1989, 1991, and 1993, he led a delegation to visit his ancestors in Nanjing County, Zhangzhou, Fujian. On March 23, 2001, he led more than fifty Lu clan members in Taoyuan in returning home to worship their ancestors, and held a grand ceremony at Fangyuanchi, a Lu ancestral temple. There is a well in front of the Fangyuan Pool, and the ancestors of Lu’s family lined up to drink the well water, which indicated that drinking water should remember the source. In the upsurge of root-seeking by Taiwan compatriots, there are both individuals and families, and many of them form large groups or come to the mainland to find their roots by region and surname. Taiwan compatriots are so keen to find their roots, as Zhao Haosheng, an American Chinese, said: “To summarize, I am a Chinese, and Chinese blood is still flowing in my body.” One of the important reasons for Taiwan compatriots to actively return to the mainland and seek their ancestors is to renew their genealogies. Because the most important part of genealogy is the pedigree chart of the family, it faithfully records the reproduction process of the family from the first ancestor to the next generation. After moving to Taiwan, in order to renew the pedigree chart, the family must trace back to the source, actively cooperate with the ancestors of the mainland, and collect all kinds of old genealogy, so as to successfully complete the renewal task. Similarly, in China’s mainland, especially in Fujian and Guangdong, many families in history have migrated to Taiwan and other places for reproduction. In order to fully reflect the continuation of lineage, it is necessary to contact the clansmen who migrated to Taiwan and other places to newly compiled a complete genealogy. For example, the Lin Clan Genealogy in Yushan 玉山林氏宗谱 was compiled in 1928 by clan members both in Shibi Village, Shishi, Taiwan, and the mainland. It recorded in detail the situation where 916 people moved to a natural village in Taiwan for ten consecutive generations. With the deepening of cross-strait exchanges, there are numerous examples of families going to Taiwan and clansmen from mainland China compiling genealogies together. For example, Chen Wenlong, chairman of the Chen Clan Association in Yilan County, Taiwan, went to the Jianhu area of Fujian Province eleven times since 1988, and received strong support from his hometown of Chen, collecting eleven old Chen genealogies. On this basis, he compiled books such as The Origin of the Chen Family in Jianhu 鉴湖陈氏源流 and promoted the Chen clan on both sides of Taiwan to jointly compile clan genealogies. Another example is the Xu Clan Genealogy in Donghaitang of Xinzhuangzi 新庄子东海堂徐氏族谱, published in Taiwan in 2001. During the renewal of its editorial board, it collected more than ten old Xu genealogies from all over the world, including the genealogy of Rui Penggong after crossing Taiwan in Lufeng, Guangdong, and the genealogy of Tian Huigong in Jieyang, Zhenping, Changle, and other places in Guangdong. It was by absorbing and referring to the old Xu genealogy from all over the Taiwan Strait

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that the Xu Clan Genealogy was finally renewed into this new genealogy with a clear lineage. For example, in order to renew the Xie genealogy, the Xie Clan Association in Taiwan specially formed an editorial board, including nine editors from Taiwan and twenty editors from the mainland. The editor-in-chief was Xie Shaoxuan, who had traveled across the Taiwan Strait for two years and finally completed the feat of publishing a hardcover genealogy for the first time in 600 years. In January 2002, he officially published the Xie Clan Grand. Genealogy in Jiaoling 蕉岭谢氏大族谱. Xie clan descendants worldwide. The genealogy included Xie’s descendants distributed in Taiwan, mainland and other parts of the world. Apart from Fujian and Guangdong, many genealogies in other parts of the mainland were compiled by both sides of the Taiwan Straits. For example, Cheng Jikuan, who went to Taiwan in 1948, was from Putao Village, Xiaotian Town, Shucheng County, Anhui Province. After going to Taiwan, he served as Chairman of the Taiwan Fufeng Enterprise Co., Ltd., Executive Director and Director General of the Shucheng County Association, and Director of the China Cross-Strait Marriage Coordination Committee. In 1979, he initiated the establishment of the Association of Traveling to Taiwan in Shucheng County, Anhui Province. After retiring in 1993, he returned to Shucheng County fifteen times and contributed to the construction of water pipes, the improvement of water equipment, and the donation of books to Sanyuan Middle School. He was particularly enthusiastic about compiling the Cheng genealogy. As the convener, he has invited the Cheng clan people in his hometown to make the genealogy charter, discussed the fund-raising method, and put great energy and material resources into it, and finally revised the Cheng Clan Genealogy in Longshu 龙舒程氏宗谱. On May 30, 2007, he sent a letter to the Shanghai Library, giving the Cheng Genealogy to the above library collection, which can be used by the Cheng clan people to find their roots and researchers to study genealogy. For thousands of years, the Chinese nation has migrated and multiplied in not only Taiwan, but also Southeast Asia and even all over the world. Chinese sons and daughters all over the world have blood relationships with the mainland of their motherland. Therefore, in the recent fifty years, not only did the clansmen on both sides of the Taiwan Straits actively cooperate and participate, but the compatriots and overseas Chinese at home and abroad also actively participated, forming a new situation in which Chinese people all over the world jointly edited new genealogies. There are too many such cases. The compilation of the Chinese Zou Clan Genealogy 中华邹氏族谱 has been strongly supported by the Zou clan people at home and abroad. On October 26, 1992, eighteen representatives from five branches of four counties in southeastern Hubei initiated the compilation of the Zou genealogy. First, it was confined to Hubei. Later, the Zou clan people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait responded. In June 2001, a Zou clan congress was held, and 98 people from fifteen provinces and cities in mainland China, Taiwan, and South Korea attended the meeting. The meeting decided to jointly revise the Chinese Zou Clan Genealogy and set up editorial boards and editorial departments accordingly. The joint revision of the Zou clan genealogy has received strong support from clansmen at home and abroad. By the time the first

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volume was published in 2007, more than 2000 branches and 599 clan representatives had participated in the joint editing, covering 28 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions in Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and clansmen from Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Canada, Denmark and other countries. During the compilation, all the Zou clan people at home and abroad sought their roots and recognized ancestors, explored Zou’s history and culture, and made contributions to carrying forward the Yanhuang culture and strengthening the cohesion of the Chinese nation. The compilation of the Zhuang Clan Genealogy 庄氏族谱 also reflects the vivid situation that Zhuang clan people at home and abroad jointly edit genealogy. On January 8, 2000, more than 100 representatives of the Zhuang clan in eight provinces and cities across China and Hong Kong held a meeting of Zhuang clan representatives at home and abroad, at which they decided to compile Zhuang clan genealogy. After the meeting, clansmen from 21 provinces, cities, and autonomous regions and more than 400 counties and overseas countries expressed their participation in Zhuang’s joint genealogy. The editorial board of the Zhuang Genealogy has received more than 1000 copies (pieces) of genealogy, and family history data sent by clansmen at home and abroad. According to the distribution of Zhuang clan people at home and abroad, the editorial board decided to compile eleven volumes of their clan genealogy. Volume 1: Fujian; Volume 2: Guangdong; Volume 3: Shandong Luju; Volume 4: Zhangzhou, Jiangsu; Volume 5: Zhejiang; Volume 6: Hunan; Volume 7: Hubei; Volume 8: Jiangxi, Sichuan, Chongqing, Guangxi; Volume 9: Other provinces in China; Volume 10: Taiwan; Volume 11: The Zhuang clan in overseas regions, including Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia and other countries and regions. The above-mentioned structure of eleven sections of Zhuang’s Genealogy shows that the process of compiling Zhuang’s Genealogy has become a process in which Zhuang people at home and abroad unite and cooperate to carry forward Zhuang’s excellent culture and promote the construction of a harmonious society. After all, the compilation of genealogy only takes a few years. In order to make the exchange and mutual assistance activities between clansmen with the same surname at home and abroad regular and to promote the exchange and mutual assistance activities, many clans have further organized clansmen associations, friendship associations, and other organizations on the basis of compiling genealogy. The birth of the World Ye Clan Friendship Association is a vivid example. There are more than 10 million Ye clan people in the world, distributed in 47 countries and regions. On October 6, 2000, the inaugural meeting of the Association was held in Yexian County, Henan Province. 323 representatives from eight overseas countries and regions and 13 domestic provinces and cities attended the meeting. The meeting unanimously approved the establishment of the World Ye Clan Friendship Association, elected the leaders for the Association, and passed its Constitution. The purpose of the association is: the association supports national laws and regulations and abides by various government laws and regulations. It was established in order to build a contact network of Ye community organizations all over the world; Contact the global Ye clan feelings, worship the ancestors, carry forward their virtues, establish harmony among

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the clan, and help and benefit each other; It was established to provide opportunities and conditions for the communication and exchange between the Ye community and Ye people all over the world. The main tasks of the association are: 1. Promote world peace and human progress; Serve the society and contribute to the prosperity of the country. 2. Mobilize the global Ye surname population to raise funds to build a Ye Gong Cemetery and repair the Ye Gong Temple; to preside over the study of Ye Gong culture (revision of the genealogy) and the restoration of Ye Ancestral Hall. 3. Organize and hold an annual ancestor worship ceremony at Qingming Festival and a celebration on the ninth day of September every year. 4. Provide economic and trade information consulting services for legal person enterprises named Ye, and assist the development of the enterprises. 5. Constantly expand and improve the global contact network between the Ye community and the Ye people, contact emotions, and communicate information; Reward outstanding students; to edit the Journal of the World Ye Friendship Association, which aims at fellowship, communication, and research on Ye Gong culture. After the establishment of the Association, the second Congress was held in Yexian in October 2004. More than 600 delegates attended the meeting and signed eighteen cooperation projects amounting to 1.3 billion yuan, which became an important activity combining Ye Friendship with the economic prosperity of the ancestral land. In March 2007, the Association held its annual meeting in Xiamen, and decided to hold its third congress in Yexian in 2008. It can be seen from this that the birth and activities of organizations such as the Friendship Association have made activities for those of the same clan at home and abroad, which are established by compiling genealogy and develop into regular behaviors, which are of great significance.

9.4 The Inheritance and Innovation of Contemporary Genealogies, Compared to Traditional Ones During the past fifty years, compared to the older genealogy of history, the genealogy compiled in Taiwan and mainland China has inherited, continued, criticized and innovated in style and content, which meets the needs of the new era. Chen Shaoqing’s 陈绍謦 views on the style of the newly-compiled genealogy in Taiwan in the past fifty years are quite representative: we should try our best to keep the original style of the genealogy, because too many modifications may cause most clansmen to resent or lose interest. However, we must make it modern; that is, make it a record of a family’s history, and, at the same time, make it research material for social science. In 1963, Sheng Qingyi thought that modern genealogy should not only inherit the old genealogy, but also have a modern significance. For this reason, he proposed that

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the modern genealogy style should have nineteen items: naming, inscription, imperial grants, preface, principles, textual research, lineage, historical records, images, records, family instructions, tombs and fields, temples, historical sites, clan groups, miscellanies, statistics, creation and invention, and revision of genealogy. Compared to the old genealogy of the past, the first fourteen items mainly extend the old genealogy style, while the last five items mainly reflect the modern significance of genealogy, which is a new style, or the original style is expanded. For example, the style of “creation and invention” is much wider than the content of “art and literature” from the old genealogy. In A Brief Introduction to the Collection Genealogy of Yilan Archives: How to Compile A Genealogy, Liao Zhengxiong argued that the basic format of modern genealogy should include the following contents: 1. The origin and development of the surname: distinguish the origin and evolution of the surname and the important development process of the surname. 2. Migration process and distribution: The migration process from the mainland to Taiwan and the current distribution of family members can be emphatically described, such as the migration time and the reasons and experiences of the ancestors who crossed Taiwan and entered Lanzhou. 3. Pedigree chart: the lineages that can be traced back to the ancient surname source, or only the lineages that can be known in recent times. In addition to the traditional style of Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun, it can also be treated in combination with the relevant symbols of anthropology. 4. Important notes: such as academic experience, brief biography, blood type history, time and place of tombs, etc. 5. Continuation page: The form can be designed according to individual needs, which is convenient for future generations to fill in. 6. Family address book: it is convenient for family members to contact feelings and contacts. 7. Map photos: you can attach relevant maps, signs, old photos or family photos, etc. 8. Postscript: to describe the motivation, process, and feelings of compiling genealogy. Liao Zhengxiong’s suggestion is relatively concise, as it combines many styles of old genealogy and adds the content of contemporary ethnic communication and maps, which is more suitable for the needs of compiling the genealogy of contemporary ethnic groups. Compared to the old style, there are indeed many innovations. Looking through the genealogy compiled in Taiwan during this period, some of them are on a large scale. For example, in 1983, the World Chen Clan Grand Genealogy 世界陈氏宗亲大族谱 prefaced by Kuomintang veteran Chen Lifu recorded the pedigree chart of forty-five generations since the first ancestor. Some of them are simple, even written by hand, and mainly record the family lineage, including the distribution of their own people after crossing Taiwan, so that future generations can know where their ancestors are and not forget their ancestors. However, both large-scale and simple genealogies have improved in style and content.

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The most obvious is that, according to the principle of equality between men and women, women are famous in genealogies, and some women who remarried are also recorded. Taiwanese genealogy compiled at this stage generally adopts the vernacular and new punctuation marks. Printing takes form in paperback, and the character arrangement is from vertical to horizontal. In summary, genealogy meets the requirements of the times from content to form, and is innovative. Liao Qingliu, has a discourse in his book Genealogy Bibliography4 on the compilation of Taiwan’s genealogy in the past fifty years: “In Taiwan in the last half century, due to the influx of people from the mainland and the influence of the first immigrants from Fujian and Guangdong on ethnic structure and social concepts, the genealogy has adopted new technologies, so there have been some changes in the way, genre, content, and layout of compiling genealogy. During this period, the quality of genealogical documents varied, and scholars were hired to assist in editing, family clansmen edited by themselves, and genealogists were commissioned to edit each. Hardcover was the main binding method, and it was also common to attach color photos. To be fair, in this period, with the promotion of some people who were interested in genealogy studies, the trend of genealogy revision has penetrated into all levels of society. Genealogical workers collect and transcribe the data of various lineages throughout the province; a pedigree society was established, and genealogy exhibitions and academic seminars were held; there are also those who sponsor the native people of mainland China and jointly renew their genealogy. Therefore, genealogy has been re-emphasized by the academic circles on both sides of the strait, the publication of genealogy books has increased one after another, and the style and content of genealogy compilation have become more complete.” This serves as a general summary of Taiwan’s new genealogy in the past fifty years. In the past fifty years, the upsurge of folk genealogy revision in China’s mainland was not only numerous, but also strove to meet the requirements of the socialist era in terms of content and style. It criticized and inherited the old genealogy, brought forth new ideas, actively took historical materialism as a guide, and compiled and revised new genealogy in the socialist era with new viewpoints, styles, materials, and ways. The Chinese Yang General Genealogy 中华杨氏通谱, compiled by the editorial board of Yang’s Genealogy, edited by Yang Qing, and published in 2007, has made valuable explorations in this respect and gained successful experience, becoming a new genealogy with distinctive features. Yang is one of the ten most popular surnames in China. According to the census statistics, the Yang population is about 46 million, accounting for about 3% of the national population and ranking sixth. Together with the Yangs overseas, there are about 50 million people. In the long historical process of the Chinese nation, after the efforts of generations of Yang people, the Yang family gradually formed a glorious tradition of vigorous and promising self-improvement, loyalty from generation to generation, heroism, loyalty to the country, and unimpeachable reputation. It was an arduous task for the editorial board of the Yang genealogy, according to the 4

Published by SMC publishing Inc. in 2003.

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requirements of the socialist era, to newly compile a genealogy that fully displays the Yang family with a long history, a large population, and a rich collection of humanities. How to set the structure is the first difficult problem when compiling new genealogy today. Chinese genealogy has a tradition of updating, and updating the old genealogy is based on the original style, such as the preface, principles, portraits, imperial grants, the origin of surnames, family rules and laws, ancestral halls, lineages, biographies, family property, contracts, tombs, arts and writing, generational order, and numbers/characters to claim genealogy, etc., which will update relevant family information for decades, mainly including lineages and other materials. Today, when we compile a new family tree, obviously we cannot just copy the columns of the old one to supplement the relevant information. So, what articles are set in the new genealogy? After repeated studies, the editorial board of the Yang genealogy, determined that the genealogy is based on the eight sections of ancestral roots, migration and reproduction, ancestral records, inscriptions and epitaphs, ancestral precepts and family instructions, glorious history, cultural style, and poetry and prose, which not only meets the basic requirements of genealogy, but also meets the needs of the new era. This structure is beneficial to patriotism and national traditional education for Yang descendants. It also helps the family members trace family ancestry and roots. How to deal with the rich family information of the old family tree is another difficult problem when compiling new genealogy. The old genealogy is rich in prefaces and postscripts, family name origins, family migration, lineages, family precepts, customs and etiquette, ancestral graves, biographies, poems and essays, economic contracts, charitable estates and free schools, etc. When the old genealogy is renewed, all the old genealogical data is absorbed into the renewed genealogy word by word. However, it is hard to determine whether these data are true or false. When compiling the Young clan genealogy, the editors seek truth from facts, eliminate the false from the old genealogies. For the old genealogy with official history, the original records of official history and ancient provincial, government and county annals shall prevail. For the old genealogy without official history and local chronicles as the basis, or for those whose conclusions are obviously inconsistent with the facts, they should be revised. Controversial data in academic circles should be identified by later scholars. In view of the different opinions about the origin of Yang’s ancestral roots in different places in the genealogy, the editors take the records of national history and the physical data obtained from underground excavation as the main basis for investigation and research. They put forward their own opinions as they take the method of coexisting and seeking common ground while reserving differences. It should be said that the way editors deal with the old genealogy data when revising the Young genealogy is desirable. How to make the new genealogy full of new ideas from the times is another difficult problem in compiling new genealogy. To compile a new genealogy, it is necessary for the editors to “remove the coarseness and extract the essence, remove the falsehood and preserve the truth” from the old genealogy data; On the other hand, the editors must adapt to the requirements of the times. For this reason, the editors of

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the Chinese Yang General Genealogy have adopted the following methods: First, they have clarified the purpose of compiling the genealogy. Second, they have divided the genealogy into ancient volume, contemporary volume, and overseas volume. There is a section of figures in the latter two volumes, which focuses on the examples of martyrs, heroes, and models who have made contributions or sacrificed blood in various periods since the Revolution of 1911 in order to safeguard the reunification of the motherland and revitalize China. Third, in accordance with the spirit of equality between men and women, women family members are also recorded in the genealogy. The Contemporary Volume includes names, places of birth, dates of birth, occupation, educational background of the daughter-in-law and the granddaughter-in-law. The married daughter’s information is also included as well as her husband’s. Fourth, in the compilation of pedigree charts, the genealogy of all the houses listed should be summarized, brief and even-leaping, which provides convenience for seeking the Yang roots and ancestors at home and abroad. These editing methods are creative ways to meet the needs of the times, and they also have enlightening effects. The Chinese Yang General Genealogy, as its name infers, is a family genealogy that includes people with the same surname Yang 杨 from various regions. General genealogy is a large-scale genealogy that has become popular with the long-term peaceful environment of society and the rapid reproduction of family population since the middle of the Ming Dynasty. Today, Yang is a great family with a population of 50 million, and its distribution is very scattered. It is imaginable that it is difficult to compile this general genealogy of “combining thousands of people in one family and unifying thousands of people into one person.” It is impossible for the editors to include all the pedigrees of the Yang people in the world in the Yang genealogy. For this reason, they have set the following choices and restrictions on the Yang lineages in the genealogy compilation: (1) The prominent families who had great influence on Yang’s development in the early period (Pre-Qin, Han, Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern Dynasties); (2) Families who moved to all parts of the country during the Sui, Tang, Song, and Yuan Dynasties and have since prospered and made contributions to the nation; (3) Families who moved to various places at home and abroad since the Ming and Qing Dynasties and are still prosperous; their descendants demand to be included in the general genealogy; (4) The origin of the branch is clear, there are no obvious confusions—or even if there are some confusions, the branch is willing to work with the editors on the revision; (5) A family or an individual who voluntarily requests to be included in the genealogy because of the unclear origin or loss of lineage caused by war and disaster; (6) Yang clans among the ethnic minorities who have no official history or local records, but are willing to be included in the lineages of this genealogy. These editing rules not only conform to the basic principles, they are also practical. Generally speaking, tens of millions of new genealogists have made great efforts to compile new genealogies with new styles and content, and have gained many successful experiences. The compilation method of the Chinese Yang General Genealogy is detailed because their experience is relatively mature and representative, and has reference significance.

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9.5 Large-Scale General Genealogies In the new stage of genealogy revision, a number of “hui tong pu” 会通谱 and “tong zong pu” 统宗谱 genealogies have emerged. They are large in scale, rich in content, and innovative in genre. We have selected a few to introduce one by one. The fifth revision of the Kong Zi Shi Jia Pu 孔子世家谱 (Confucius Family genealogy). It is the most complete family genealogy that has been maintained for the longest time in China. The Confucius family genealogy was originally a manuscript, which was printed for the first time during the third year of the Yuanfeng era in the Northern Song Dynasty (1080). After that, it was renewed four times during the Tianqi period of the Ming Dynasty (1621–1627), the Kangxi period (1662–1722) and the Qianlong period (1736–1796) of the Qing Dynasty, and the Republic of China. The fourth renewal began in 1928, when the Confucian government submitted a request for the renewal of the Confucius Family Tree, which was approved. The eight-year-old Kong Decheng 孔德成 was appointed as the president. Kong Decheng a 77th generation descendant of Confucius in the main line of descent. He was also the final person to be appointed Duke Yansheng and the first Sacrificial Official to Confucius. It took the Confucius clan two years to collect data and seven years to compile the genealogy, which was successfully completed in 1937. It spans 109 volumes and has 154 copies, including 79 generations and 560,000 Confucius clan members. In 1987, Kong Decheng’s cousin Kong Deyong 孔德墉 went from Hong Kong to Qufu to attend the International Confucius Culture Seminar and met Gu Mu and Kuang Yaming, two founders of the Confucius Foundation. Kuang Yaming suggested: “The Kong Zi Shi Jia Pu has been passed down for more than 2500 years, and it was revised during the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, and the Republic of China. If we stop revising it now, we will become historical sinners.” At home and abroad, people of the Confucius clan demanded to renew their genealogy, and Kong Deyong decided to take up the responsibility. In October 1996, Kong Deyong flew to Taiwan to discuss the matter with his cousin, and Kong Decheng agreed. In March 1998, the Confucius Genealogy Renewal Committee was established in Hong Kong, with Kong Deyong as president, Kong Dechi 孔德篪 and Kong Defang 孔德坊 as vice presidents, Kong Deqing 孔德庆 as office director, and Kong Dewei 孔德威 as editorial director. In June 1998, the Committee issued a report to the clan people, thus officially started fifth renewal work. The five people of the 77th generation made every effort to set up an office in Jinan for the renewal, which was responsible for the domestic search and liaison and data collection. Then branches, offices, groups, and liaison stations were set up in other places. The fifth revision of the Confucius Family genealogy was full of new ideas from the times. First of all, according to the principle of “equality between men and women”, the genealogy also included women for the first time, breaking the old system that lasted for 2500 years. Among the 1.2 million Confucius clan people currently included, there are about 200,000 women. Secondly, there is no distinction between ethnic groups. Some descendants of Confucius married ethnic minorities, and their descendants can also enter the genealogy - again, regardless of nationality. Many descendants have settled abroad,

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and they can undoubtedly enter the genealogy. According to the population statistics of South Korea in 1987, there are 17,207 Kong families with 72,382 people in South Korea, and now South Korea has sent information on 50,000 Kong clan people for the compilation. Among the descendants registered for the fifth renewal, the highest generation is the 68th with a generation character of “Chuan” 传, and the lowest is the 83rd with a generation character of “Nian” 念, with fifteen generations in between. Statistics show that the Committee has collected the data of 1.3 million Confucius clan members. There are also 560,000 people from the old genealogy revised during the Republic of China and their deceased descendants, so the new genealogy would include some two million people with more than 50 million words. The fifth revision plan was completed in 2009, 2560 years after Confucius was born. The Chinese Wu Clan Grand Genealogy 中华吴氏大统宗谱 was edited by its Compilation Committee and the editor-in-chief was Wu Weixun. The genealogy was officially launched in early 2000, with seven volumes planned. The first volume “Preface” includes the inscriptions and preambles of emperors from all dynasties; Volume 2: Origin and Flow, with the Yellow Emperor—Gugong Danfu (the sixteenth generation of the Yellow Emperor)—Tai Bo-Fu Chai as the source, Fu Chai - Qing as the flow. The third volume records the lineages from the Yellow Emperor to Tai Bo. The fourth volume “Reproduction” includes the relocation of various clans and their development. Volume 5, “Figures”, consist of more than 5000 people from the Qin and Han Dynasties to modern times, plus about 150 famous overseas clansmen. Volume 6, “Cultural Relics”, has Wu historical sites, ancient sites, ancestral halls, ancient tombs, unearthed cultural relics, jade articles, paintings, pottery, purple sand, inscriptions, etc. Volume 7, “Postscript”, includes all kinds of family photos. Wu Weixun pointed out in the Preface: “The compilation of the Chinese Wu Clan Grand Genealogy should follow the historical materialism advocated by Chairman Mao Zedong, take history as a mirror, take genealogy as the foundation, seek truth from facts, eliminate falsehood, and keep on developing. It should abide by Deng Xiaoping’s theory of reform and opening-up, base itself on the domestic market, face overseas, and cover the Tai Bo descendants at home and abroad. It should carry forward the spirit that Jiang Zemin’s innovation is the hope of the nation and the driving force of the country’s prosperity. It should bring forth the new through the old and strive to complete reliable lineages that are rich in content and suitable for ancient and modern times.” The first volume of the Chinese Wu Clan Grand Genealogy was officially published by the Shanghai Far East Publishing House in April 2002. The Zheng Clan Grand Genealogy 郑氏族系大典 was edited by its Compilation Committee and the editor-in-chief was Zheng Zixiu. On November 16, 2001, the Zheng Clan Historical and Cultural Seminar and the First Meeting of Compilation Committee of the Zheng Clan Grand Genealogy was held in Xingyang, Henan Province, which officially started the compilation. This genealogy is a great classic shared by members of Zheng family all over the world. In order to complete the compilation task, the editorial board paid special attention to collecting extensive data and collecting thousands of miles of scenery. The first collection activity lasted for 34 days from March 16 to April 18, 2002, passing through four provinces and

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traveling thousands of miles, collecting hundreds of relevant materials. From May 13 to July 6, 2002, the second tour lasted for 55 days, passing through Hubei, Jiangxi, Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Shanghai, with a journey of more than 7000 km and collecting more than 1000 sets of relevant materials, which laid a good foundation for compiling the grand ceremony. The Zheng Clan Grand Genealogy is divided into eight parts and spans nineteen volumes. The first part contains Volume 1 (Introduction) and Volume 2 (Ancestors). The second part contains Volume 3 (Ancestors) and Volume 4 (Legends). The third part contains Volume 5 (Sacrificial offerings), Volume 6 (Narratives), Volume 7 (Migration) and Volume 8 (Preface and Postscript). The fourth part contains Volume 9 (The Essence of Works from All Dynasties), and Volume 10 (Mottos). The fifth part contains Volume 11 (The Essence of Village History), Volume 12 (The Essence of Family History), and Voloume 13 (The Essence of Achievements). The six part contains Volume 14 (Elites of Modern Time) and Volume 15 (Talents of Modern Time). The seventh part contains Volume 16 (Clans). The eighth part contains Volume 17 (Clans), Volume 18 (Zheng Culture Research), and Volume 19 (Bai Hua Yuan). The first, second, and third parts have been officially published by the Zhongzhou Ancient Books Publishing House. The Chinese Zou Clan Genealogy 中华邹氏族谱. From June 25 to June 28, 2001, 98 representatives of the Zou clan at home and abroad met in Wuchang and decided to jointly revise their genealogy. Zou Zongbin was the honorary director of the Compilation Committee, and Zou Musheng was the deputy director and secretarygeneral of the editorial board and director of the editorial department. The basic principle behind the revision was “to respect their ancestors, consolidate clans, trace family ancestry and roots”. Co-editing genealogy is beneficial to the family, nation, society, and country. The guiding ideology is: “take history as the clue, genealogy as the foundation, and blood relationship as the link.” The principle of compiling genealogy is “inheritance, unification, truth-seeking, and innovation”. According to statistics, there are millions of Zou people in 29 provinces/cities, autonomous regions, Hong Kong and Taiwan in China and eight countries take part in the genealogical compilation. 599 official representatives of the Zou clan have been recorded in the genealogy. The Chinese Zou Clan Genealogy is divided into eight volumes. The main contents of the first volume are: Zou’s origin, migration history, figures, and art and literature, which mainly highlight the lineage of Zou’s distant ancestors and the deeds and culture of ancient celebrities. The second to sixth volumes are the lineage and humanistic summaries of each ancestor, starting from the ancestor to those during the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. The main contents of the last two volumes are to record the deeds of contemporary celebrities and the selection of artistic works. The main features of the genealogy are as follows: First, the system is complete and the context is clear. The Zou clan has two origins, one from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Song Dynasty, a descendant of the Shang Dynasty, and the other from the Lilouguo during the Warring States Period. Both are descendants of the Yellow Emperor. Second, it is a comprehensive, systematic, complete, informative, and innovative genealogy, which covers Zou clan’s information all over the world. The Chinese Zou Clan Genealogy (Volume I) was officially published by

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the Chongwen Bookstore in Hubei Province in February 2006, and its launching ceremony was held in Wuchang on January 20, 2007. Yang Qingren is the editor-in-chief of the Compilation Committee of the Chinese Yang General Genealogy 中华杨氏通谱. In March 2004, a group of enthusiastic people from Fujian provinces held a symposium in Fuzhou with representatives of the Yang people from sixteen provinces and cities in the mainland of China, and unanimously passed the resolution of uniting clansmen at home and abroad to make concerted efforts to compile the Chinese Yang General Genealogy. They set up a compilation team. The Chinese Yang General Genealogy is a large-scale book based on the whole of China and faces the world, which helps the people of the Yang family to find their roots, recognize their ancestors, and unite their clan members. It was compiled by the Yang ethnic groups at home and abroad who volunteered to join and participate in the compilation. They shared resources, obligations, rights, and interests. This genealogy strives to inherit the genealogical cultural tradition of predecessors, and is full of new ideas from the times, so as to achieve the integration of ancient and modern times, the combination of Chinese and foreign countries, and form a mutual connection. The book is divided into three volumes: the Ancient Volume, Contemporary Volume, and Overseas Volume. In the Ancient Volume records the Yang family’s history between the Tang Dynasty and the third year of the Xuantong era in the Qing Dynasty (1911). The Contemporary Volume starts from the successful founding of the Democratic Republic in the Revolution of 1911 to the publication of this volume in 2008. The Overseas Volume starts from the time when the ancestors moved from the ancestral home of the mainland to the present place of residence, and ends when this volume is published. In order to meet the requirements of the times, to educate future generations on patriotism and national tradition, and to provide convenience for the overseas Chinese all over the world to find their roots, recognize their ancestors, and return to their ancestors, the genealogy consists of eight parts that comprehensively and accurately reflect the history of the Yang ancestors who were vigorous and promising, striving for self-improvement, loyal, patriotic, and innocent and their contribution to the nation, to inspire future generations to establish the national spirit with patriotism as the core. The Zhuang Clan Genealogy 庄氏族谱. From January 8 to 9, 2000, more than 100 representatives of the Zhuang clan in eight provinces and cities across China and Hong Kong held the first meeting of clansmen in Shenzhen, and decided to compile the Zhuang Clan Genealogy. They specifically set up an editing committee, with Zhuang Zuojing as chief editor. The basic principles of genealogy revision are to clear the source, study the history, seek to divide truth from fiction, take the old genealogy as the foundation, take the national history as the basis, and achieve the purpose of tracing family ancestry and roots and uniting clans through genealogy revision. The framework of the Zhuang Clan Genealogy is as follows: (1) congratulations and inscriptions; (2) the history of the first ancestor, the origin of the Yellow Emperor, and the temple photos; (3) the origin of the surname; (4) arts and literature; (5) the leaders’ discussion of genealogy; (6) the Zhuang sages’ principles of genealogical revision and prefaces; (7) Zhuang family’s celebrities, princes and kings, and presented scholars; (8) the ancient famous sages; (9) relocation (maps and

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tables); (10) the sponsors of the publication and their photos and brief introductions; (11) color photos and brief introductions of prominent family members of modern times; (12) centenarians and their photos; (13) an introduction to imperial tombs of past dynasties; (14) encomium for ancestors’ portraits; 15. color photos and instructions of the ancestral temple and tombs; (16) geographical location, funding situation, and new photos of the residents of Zhuang descendants at home and abroad; (17) arts and culture; (18) genealogical prefaces; (19) genealogy-revision institutions and activities; (20) the discussion of several problems left over from Zhuang history; (21) appendix. According to the plan, the Zhuang Clan Genealogy is compiled by provinces, regions, and countries. It is divided into eleven volumes. The World Ye Clan General Genealogy 世界叶氏总谱. In August 2008, the genealogical committee held a preparatory meeting in Shenzhen. They decided to compile a classic masterpiece - The World Ye Clan General Genealogy that runs through ancient and modern times and covers both China and foreign countries. Ye Zhaofu, Chairman of Hong Kong Sun Group and China Enterprise Fund Management Co., Ltd., donated RMB2 million to fund the genealogical revision. The meeting unanimously elected Ye Zhaofu as chairman of the editorial board and editor-in-chief of the editorial department, and established relevant institutions. The World Ye Clan General Genealogy is based on China and facing the world, which can trace the origin, recognize the ancestors, and unite the clan members. It is compiled by the ethnic groups at home and abroad who volunteered to join and participate in the study. They share resources, obligations, and rights. The content of the genealogy is as follows: the first volume includes the preface, portraits of ancestors, famous scholars on genealogies. The volume of preface and postscript includes prefaces, selected preface, and postscript from the old genealogy. The volume of ancestral origin includes the origin of the surname, ancestral virtues, summary of the Ye family, development of the surname, and the origin of the Ye genealogy. The volume of pedigrees includes Ye’s pedigree charts and migration histories, Ye’s ancestors’ names and related historical materials in provinces, cities, counties, and districts in China as well as in some countries and regions in the world, Ye’s five-generation pedigree charts in China and some countries and regions in the world. The volume of figures includes Ye’s ancestors, celebrities of past dynasties and modern times. Education volume: instructions from the ancestors, inspirational articles, filial piety, etc. Art Volume: essence of the genealogical records, introduction to the Ye family’s holy land Songyang, the origin of the surname, etc. Sacrificial Volume: Sacrificial etiquette in Yegong Cemetery, ancestral hall codes, sacrificial monuments, epitaph selection, ancient temples, famous peoples’ tombs, contemporary restored temples, etc. Hongming Volume: Introduction of the World Ye Friendship Association, Articles of Association, the minutes of previous major events, the list of employees of previous associations, and the list of donations at home and abroad; The volume of general reference: studies on Chinese genealogy, name studies, famous temples, feng shui studies, religious practices, and health preservation studies, chronology of Chinese generations, chronology of historical events, total registered population in previous generations, and interpretation of Chinese history. The general structure of

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the World Ye Clan General Genealogy tries to inherit the genealogical culture tradition of predecessors and is full of new ideas of the times in order to comprehensively and accurately reflect the history of Ye ancestors who are vigorous, self-improving, loyal, patriotic, and self-disciplined and their contribution to the nation, and inspire future generations to establish the national spirit with patriotism as the core. The Chinese Qiu Clan Genealogy 中华丘氏宗谱 is edited by its Compilation Committee, with Qiu Jiaru as the chief editor. In December, 2001, the China Qiu Genealogy Research Association was established in Chaozhou, Guangdong Province, and Qiu Jiaru was elected as its president. On September 9, 2002, more than 230 Qiu clansmen from home and abroad gathered in Shenzhen, officially announcing the establishment of the “China Qiu Clan Association,” and Qiu Jiaru was elected as the president, marking the official compilation of the Chinese Qiu Clan Genealogy. Qiu Jiaru generously donated RMB10 million as a special fund for compiling the genealogy, and took the villa in Shenzhen as the office, thus ensuring the smooth development of the compilation work. The compilation is a huge systematic cultural project that records the ancestral lineage of 3000 years, attracts numerous tribes at home and abroad, and gathers the descendants of Qiu family all over the world. It is also an unprecedented great feat of the Chinese Qiu family. The guiding ideology of its compilation is: “Adhere to historical materialism, respect history, seek truth from facts, clarify lineage, inherit Chinese surname culture, carry forward virtues from ancestors, provide a basis for the majority of clansmen at home and abroad to trace family ancestry and roots, enhance national identity and cohesion, make contributions to promoting social and economic development and peaceful reunification of the motherland, and realizing clan harmony, social harmony and world peace.” Its compilation principle is: “refer to the Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun’s genealogy methods—horizontally line the lineage, run through the time. Oppose subjective judgment, oppose unification, and do not take the risk of recognizing other branches, houses, and ancestral sources.” The Genealogy is divided into two parts: the general part and the local part. The general part contains ten volumes. The local associations in different places are responsible for compiling the local part. Under the leadership of President Qiu Jiaru and through the efforts of all the Qiu clan people at home and abroad, the compilation work went smoothly. According to the statistics at the end of 2008, more than 400 local associations have been established in all parts of the country, more than 260 local genealogies have been successfully published, and 100 more genealogies are being compiled. In September 2008, the author was invited to visit the compilation office and saw a surname with a population of several million, with a formal genealogy editing office and capable genealogists. In just six years, more than 260 partial genealogies were successfully published, which was refreshing, deeply educated, and encouraging. They adhere to correct compiling principles and proper methods. The spirit of compiling genealogy of the Qiu clan people, represented by President Qiu Jiaru, is even more admirable. In the past six years since the founding of the Association, Qiu Jiaru has spent 20 million yuan on genealogy revision. Since the founding of the Association, while organizing the revision of the genealogy, it has also repaired more than 2000 ancestral temples and tombs with historical relics value. Qiu Zongxian has invested hundreds of millions in building

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schools, and each branch has raised tens of millions of yuan to promote the Education Fund and funded and rewarded more than 2000 poor students and outstanding students in order to train Chinese Qiu talents. The Chinese Qiu genealogy revision work and clan friendship activities have achieved a comprehensive harvest. Qiu Jiaru can be called “the first person in the genealogy of the Chinese Folk Federation.” It can be clearly seen from the above brief introduction of several, super-large genealogies that the new genealogy revision work of the recent fifty years has far surpassed any period in Chinese history in terms of the scale and organization of genealogy revision, innovation of style and content, number of people entering the genealogy, and coverage and functional effect. This indicates that Chinese genealogy revision has indeed entered a new stage of development.

9.6 Inheriting Chinese History and Culture to Promote Cultural Exchanges Both at Home and Abroad How do you evaluate the tide of compiling new genealogy, which has appeared mainly on both sides of the Taiwan Strait in recent fifty years, including all Chinese at home and abroad? The author thinks that, although some people deviate from the track of healthily compiling new genealogy, on the whole, the trend of compiling new genealogy should be fully affirmed. Undeniably, there are some phenomena such as mixed editing quality and mixed editing process. 1. Some editors of the new genealogy do not grasp the relationship between inheritance and innovation. It is called the new genealogy, but the style and content are basically a continuation of the old genealogy. Even some obvious disadvantages of inequality between men and women in the old genealogy continue to be retained in the new genealogy, which shows a lack of a sense of the times and seriously affects the quality of the new genealogy. 2. Some editors of the new genealogy deliberately pursue the completeness and clarity of the lineage since the first ancestor of the family; some editors make patchwork to get a complete lineage table, which is not a scientific attitude of seeking truth from facts. Some genealogical tables in the old genealogy, such as the Confucius genealogy, are relatively complete, but many of them are in short supply or pieced together. Comparing the genealogical tables of various branches with each other often leads to various contradictory places, which is totally understandable. Because a family comes down from its old ancestor and has gone through dozens or even hundreds of generations, it is normal to have omissions. The compilation of the new genealogy is verified according to official history and other materials, and it is good to clarify the family lineage table, but it cannot be deliberately pursued. If you cannot sort it out and do not want to force it, you can take the method of the coexistence of various theories and seek common ground while reserving differences. For most genealogies, the pedigree

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table after the Song Dynasty is most realistic, while the pedigree arrangement before Song Dynasty is often short, vague, or contradictory. Therefore, we should take a questioning attitude in order to seek truth from the facts, and deliberately pursuing pedigree integrity does not necessarily conform to the historical reality of the family. In some rural areas, the editors of the new genealogy failed to handle the relationship between the family, the local party, and government leaders, and the process of editing the new genealogy became a process of expanding family power, which hindered the implementation of national policies and regulations and affected the development of local socialist spiritual civilization. Some editors of the new genealogy do not implement the principle of democracy and voluntariness, but force family members to pay a certain fee. The financial cost of compiling genealogy is neither systematic nor open and it lacks supervision, which leads to some people achieving the purpose of only collecting money by editing genealogy. In some places, there is the situation of comparing each other’s genealogy. Some families are afraid that if they do not revise their genealogies, they will be looked down upon and have no power. The cadres take the lead in revising the genealogy, and the villagers have to pay the bills.5 In the current upsurge of compiling new genealogy, many websites have appeared, most of which are arranged according to surnames; there are also websites with root-seeking natures. The establishment of these websites can promote family members to find their roots, exchange editing experiences, and carry out genealogical research. However, some websites claim they are ready to include the thousands and thousands of genealogies in the world on their platforms, which is commendable but unrealistic.

As far as its mainstream and general direction is concerned, revising genealogy should be fully affirmed. First of all, we review the related discourses of the pioneers of the democratic revolution, the leaders of the Party, and the state on genealogy in the past hundred years, which will be helpful in understanding the current new trend of genealogy revision. Sun Yat-sen, the forerunner of China’s democratic revolution, said in his speech at an alliance meeting in Japan in 1905: “The Chinese nation described through genealogy has expanded from great clan unity to great national unity, which is a good traditional concept of the Chinese people…. In my opinion, the relationship between Chinese nationals and the state structure puts family first, then the clan, and then the country.” In May 1912, after Sun Yat-sen resigned as interim president, he returned to Guangzhou, and said at the Sun Family Association: “My four hundred million compatriots are descendants of the Yellow Emperor, and there was no concept of a

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Beijing Youth Daily 北京青年报, February 14, 2005.

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clan in the beginning. Once people began multiplying, they began adopting surnames. With a surname, came a family, and these countless families make a country.”6 Another example is the Zhou Family Old Eighth Branch Genealogy in Baisuitang, Baoyouqiao, Shaoxing which was kept in the Lu Xun Memorial Hall in Shaoxing. In 1939 Zhou Enlai wrote with a writing brush: Enlai, courtesy name, Xiangyu, the great-grandson of Qiaoshui, the eldest grandson of Yunmen, the eldest son of Maochen, and the adopted son of Zanchen, whom was born between 5 to 7am on the 13th day of the second lunar month during 24th year of the Guangxu era (March 5, 1898). His wife was Deng Yingchao. According to the “Shangyu Daily” published on June 17, 2000, Lu Xun was 23rd generation of Zhou Ao, the first ancestor of the Zhou family who moved to the current place, and Zhou Enlai was the 24th generation. In 1969, when Zhou Enlai visited Lu Xun’s third brother Zhou Jianren at the Beijing Hotel, he said: “I have checked the genealogy, you are an elder member of my family, and I should call you uncle.” Mao Zedong read the Mao Clan Genealogy 毛氏族谱 preserved by Mao Luzhong with great interest when he was a young student at Dongmaotang Private School in Shao shan, and learned about the origin of the Mao family and the important value of genealogy. In 1958, when he held an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau in Chengdu, he said: “Collecting lineages and genealogy and studying them can reveal the law of human social development and provide valuable information for human geography and settlement.” On June 27, 1959, he bowed to his parents’ grave in Shaoshan. Then he came to Mao Zhengong’s ancestral hall, which was empty, but he still bowed three times. Others told him that there was no ancestral tablet in the ancestral hall; he said: “Let’s take three bows anyway”. He also said: “The ancestral tablets are a memorial.”7 In October 1989, Deng Xiaoping supported his younger sister Deng Xianfu and his daughter Deng Rong in returning to Guang’an, Sichuan Province, to find the Deng Genealogy and to find their roots and worship their ancestors. The genealogy records that the Deng ancestors moved from Ji’an, Jiangxi Province to Guang’an, Sichuan Province in the early Ming Dynasty, and Deng Xiaoping was the 19th generation. Deng Xianfu and Deng Rong paid a visit to Deng Xiaoping’s parents’ tomb, according to family tree records. Jiang Zemin inspected the Shanghai Library on May 4, 2000, and specially consulted the Jiang Family Genealogy of Jinaopai in Jiyang 济阳江氏金鳌派族 谱. He said, “Genealogy is a kind of culture that can show some fine traditions and pass down thousands of years of civilization. It is helpful for Chinese at home and abroad to trace their roots and family ancestry; it has its value, but it should be treated dialectically”.8 According to Jiang Zemin’s relatives, Jiang’s great-grandfather came 6

Speech at the welcome meeting of the Sun Clan Association in Guangzhou. Selected works of Sun Yat-sen. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, July 1990. 7 Pang Xianzhi 逄先知 and Jin Chongji 金冲及, ed. Biography of Mao Zedong 毛泽东传. Central Party Literature Press, 2003: 956. 8 Wang Heming 王鹤鸣. Party and state leaders care for the new Shanghai Library 党和国家领导 人对上海图书馆新馆的关爱. Edits of Shanghai Literature and History 上海文史资料, Vol. 129, 2008 (12): 81.

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to Yangzhou from Huizhou, and the title of their ancestral hall in Jiang’s hometown Yangzhou was Yongsitang; the title of their ancestral hall in Jiangwan, Wuyuan, Jiangxi was also Yongsitang, so it was confirmed that Jiang’s ancestral home was Jiangwan, Wuyuan. On May 21, 2001, Jiang Zemin inspected Jiang Village in Jingde and mentioned in the “Jiang Ancestral Hall” that “we were a family 500 years ago”. On May 30th, he made a special trip to visit Jiangwan Wuyuan.9 Hu Jintao inspected the Shanghai Library on November 10, 1997, and visited the genealogy reading room with great interest. He told the accompanying staff that the Hu Ancestral Hall in Jixi, his hometown, is very large, so they can go and have a look. In May 2005, when Hu Jintao met with James Soong, chairman of the People First Party in Taiwan, he sent Soong the Seventh Revision of the Song Clan Genealogy of Shitanfang in Zhaoshan, Xiangtan, which was engraved in 1941. The profound implication shows that compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait have a blood relationship thicker than water. Rong Yiren visited the Shanghai Library on May 5, 1997, and spent the longest time in the genealogy reading room, mainly referring to the Rong Family Genealogy compiled in 1935. He said, “When I saw ‘Yi Ren, born in the fifth year of the Republic of China, the fourth son, graduated from St. John’s University,’ I was very excited.” The staff in the library asked him: “Have you seen the family tree before?” He said he knew there was a family tree, but he had not seen it. The staff indicated that they could copy a set of lineage tables for him. After Rong returned to Beijing, he mentioned many times that he had found his family tree in the Shanghai Library. It became a very gratifying thing for him when he returned to Shanghai for the last time in his later years. The aforementioned examples on genealogy discussed by the pioneers of the Chinese revolution, the leaders of the Party, and the state in the past hundred years, as well as their activities of respecting ancestors and asking for their roots, are undoubtedly helpful for us to understand the significance of compiling new genealogy today. Secondly, the special documents issued by the national cultural department in the past thirty years on the compilation of a Chinese genealogy catalogue will provide some references for us to understand the current tide of genealogy revision. There are mainly two documents. The first was issued in 1984. At that time, the Second Division of the National Archives Bureau, the History Department of Nankai University, and the Library of the Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences jointly compiled the Comprehensive Catalogue of Chinese Genealogy, which is a large-scale joint catalogue reflecting the collection of Chinese genealogy in mainland China. Previously, although there were dozens of catalogues on Chinese genealogy, most of them were genealogical catalogues of one region or one unit. In order to make the compilation of this joint catalogue involving books, archives and cultural departments across the country smooth, the National Archives Bureau, together with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Culture, jointly issued the Notice on Assisting in 9

LI Jun 李俊. Jiangwan 江湾. Collection of Hui Studies 徽学研究丛刊, 2002 (3): 2.

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Compiling the Comprehensive Catalogue Of Chinese Genealogy (Guo dang hui zi [1984] No.7) to various cultural departments, cultural management committees, and archives bureaus in mainland China. Because the contents of this document cited by some units are different, the full text of this document is published as follows: Cultural departments (bureaus), cultural management committees, archives bureaus, the Beijing Library, institutions of higher learning of all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government: “Genealogy is a part of China’s precious cultural heritage that needs to be explored urgently. It contains a great deal of information about demography, sociology, ethnology, folklore, economic history, biographies, clan systems, and local history. It is not only of great value to academic research, but also plays a great role in some current works. However, due to the scattered family tree collection in China and the absence of a special catalogue, the excavation and research work of the genealogies in China has not been worked on for a long time, which is in line with the fact that foreign scholars and institutions have spared no effort to collect Chinese genealogies and made many achievements in research. At the same time, with the implementation of the policy of opening to the outside world, many Taiwan compatriots and overseas Chinese rooted in the mainland are becoming more and more homesick, and they also need their genealogies to find their own blood relationships. In order to promote the research and utilization of genealogy in China, explore the motherland’s cultural treasure, change the status of Chinese genealogy research, and give full play to the important role of genealogy in academic research and United front work, the Second Division of the National Archives Bureau, the History Department of Nankai University, the Library of the Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and other units plan to compile the genealogy stored in various libraries, museums, cultural centers and archives into a relatively complete Comprehensive Catalogue of Chinese Genealogy, which is planned to be completed by the end of 1985. In order to assist in compiling this catalogue, please inform local libraries, museums, cultural management committees, cultural centers, archives, and other collection units, and submit the genealogy catalogues of their collections and their personal collections to the National Archives Bureau before the end of March 1985, in accordance with the editorial rules of this book. Individual units with large reserves shall not be submitted later than the end of June 1985.” The second time was in 2001. The Comprehensive Catalogue of Chinese Genealogy, published by the Zhonghua Book Company in 1997, is a fruitful result of cooperation between more than 400 books and archives departments in mainland China, and it was the most important catalogue reflecting the collection of Chinese genealogy in mainland China at that time. However, due to various objective conditions, there are still a large number of genealogies, especially Chinese genealogies, collected overseas. In June 2000, the Conference on the Co-construction and Sharing of Chinese Literature Resources sponsored by the National Library of China was held in Beijing. Representatives of forty-two Chinese libraries at home and abroad attended the conference, and studied and coordinated on “Promoting the Co-construction and Sharing of Global Chinese Literature Resources.” It was decided that the Shanghai Library should be in charge of compiling the General Catalogue

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of Chinese Genealogy as a continued development of compiling the Comprehensive Catalogue of Chinese Genealogy, and will greatly increase the Chinese genealogy catalogues collected in the mainland and overseas. In November 2000, the first compilation conference of the Comprehensive Catalog of Chinese Genealogy was held in the Shanghai Library, attended by representatives from 25 major genealogical collection units at home and abroad. Chen Qilin, Director of the Social and Cultural Library Department of the Ministry of Culture of China, was invited to attend the conference to guide the work. Participants requested the Ministry of Culture to issue a document to promote the progress of this work. Therefore, in February 2001, the General Office of the Ministry of Culture issued the Notice on Assisting in Compiling the General Catalogue of Chinese Genealogy” (Ban she tu han [2001] No. 29), which reads as follows: Cultural departments (bureaus) of all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government, National Library, and the Shanghai Library: Genealogy is a historical catalogue that records the lineage, characters, and deeds of a blood group with the same ancestry. It forms the three pillars of the historical building of the Chinese nation, together with local chronicles and official history, and is a part of China’s precious cultural heritage. Genealogy contains a great deal of information about demography, sociology, economics, history, ethnology, pedagogy, biographies, and local history, which is of great value for academic research, and is also of great significance for Chinese people at home and abroad to find their roots, recognize their ancestors, and enhance national cohesion. For this reason, the National Archives Bureau, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Culture issued a special document on November 20, 1984, the Notice on Assisting in Compiling the Comprehensive Catalogue Of Chinese Genealogy (Guo dang hui zi [1984] No.7). After more than ten years of efforts, the Comprehensive Catalogue of Chinese Genealogy was officially published by the Zhonghua Book Company in 1997, which played an important role in the collation of Chinese genealogy and providing academic research. However, due to various objective conditions, a large number of genealogies failed to be collected, especially a large number of Chinese genealogies collected overseas. In June 2000, the Conference on the Co-construction and Sharing of Chinese Literature Resources sponsored by the National Library of China was held in Beijing. Representatives from 42 Chinese libraries and Chinese data collection units from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, the United States, the Netherlands, and other countries and regions attended the conference. The meeting conducted research and coordination on “Promoting the Co-construction and Sharing of Chinese Literature Resources in the World,” and decided that the Shanghai Library should preside over compiling the General Catalogue of Chinese Genealogy. As the continuation and development of the compilation of the Comprehensive Catalogue of Chinese Genealogy, it will greatly increase the Chinese genealogy collected overseas, and at the same time expand the collection scope and increase the description items. The General Catalogue of Chinese Genealogy is a basic work in the development and utilization of Chinese genealogy resources. Its completion will actively promote

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the study of genealogy and further strengthen the Chinese peoples’ sense of identity with Chinese civilization. During the compilation, each region determines a responsible unit as the editorial unit of the General Catalogue of Chinese Genealogy, which is responsible for the compilation of genealogical entries in the region. The editorial unit is mainly composed of some provincial libraries and other units (see appendix). In order to assist in compiling the Catalogue, please inform local libraries, cultural centers and other collection units, do a good job of mapping the genealogy items in their own units, coordinate a relationship with the local genealogy collection agencies, actively assist the editorial units of the Catalogue, and compile the local family tree catalogue according to the compilation requirements to ensure that it is smoothly compiled. The two documents of the national cultural department on compiling the Chinese genealogy catalogue were originally published above, from which we can see that they not only played an important role in organizing and promoting the compilation of the joint catalogue of Chinese genealogy, but also the discussion on the value of Chinese genealogy was of guiding significance to how to compile and understand new genealogy. Third, the new genealogy compiled in the past fifty years should be fully affirmed if it will be placed in the long, 5000-year history of compiling genealogy in China. Chinese genealogy has had a long history of 5000 years since its germination. As the cultural carrier of ideology, genealogy is not only the product of a specific economy, politics, and society, but also serves a certain economy, politics, and society, and its social function is constantly changing and developing. When Chinese genealogy sprouted from a primitive matriarchal clan society, Chinese genealogy in the primitive form held the social function of eugenics and superior education, and played an important role in the healthy reproduction of descendants of clan consanguinity groups. During the rising period of China’s feudal society, Chinese genealogy adapted to the political needs of aristocratic families and was in a prosperous development stage. Genealogy played the social functions of rank and marriage, and actively served the aristocratic families in inheriting official positions and controlling government affairs. China’s feudal society entered the late stage, and Chinese genealogy was popularized among the people. Influenced by the mainstream consciousness of Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism, Chinese genealogy played the ethical function of the “San Gang” 三纲 (three cardinal guides) and the “Wu Chang” 五常(five relationships) and actively served to consolidate the feudal social order at that time. Today, the activity of compiling new genealogy under the new socialist conditions serves as the inheritance, reform, and innovation of the old genealogy, and it is a cultural activity among the people to meet the requirements of the socialist era. It is worth mentioning that the newly-edited genealogy in mainland China has made many new explorations in editing content, materials, and methods in accordance with the requirements of the socialist era, and gained a lot of useful experience that way. The new genealogy is the transformation, change, and sublimation of the old genealogy. In summary, it is to compile a new family tree with new ideas, new materials, and new methods.

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The so-called new viewpoint means trying to compile new genealogy from the viewpoint of historical materialism. Today, many editorial boards of new genealogy strive to take Marxism-Leninism, the Mao Zedong Thought, the Deng Xiaoping Theory, and the important thought of “Three Represents” as the guidance, adhere to the scientific development concept, compile new genealogies from the viewpoint of historical materialism, abandon the feudal dross of old genealogies, actively carry forward the spirit of the socialist era, and strive to serve the construction of two socialist civilizations by compiling new genealogies. The Chinese Wu Clan Grand Genealogy is quite representative of the new genealogy. The so-called new data’s purpose is to compile a new family tree by extensively collecting various new data from contemporary family members and their main places of residence according to the basic style of the family tree. We are in a new era of socialism. These new materials must first reflect socialist content and have the characteristics of the socialist era. Pedigrees are an important part of genealogy. The newly edited genealogy of the past thirty years, according to the principle of “equality between men and women,” continues to record the names and birth and death dates of male and female members of the family. Compared to the old genealogies, many new genealogies not only continue to record the names of contemporary family members, but also focus on the list of family members with a college education or above, especially the family members who made certain contributions to the democratic revolution, socialist revolution and construction, rejuvenating the country through science and education, and the construction of the two civilizations. This is undoubtedly beneficial to strengthening the communication among family members, set up advanced examples of family members, encourage their self-improvement and dedication, and promote the building of family virtues. The so-called new method is for the purposes of setting up a genealogy compilation organization according to the principles of democracy and consultation, and to carry out the compilation of new genealogy. In the past, the compilation of old genealogy was generally led by the patriarch who organized the genealogy organization, appointed the compiler, raised the expenses for genealogy, and carried out the work of genealogy revision. In the new society, men and women are equal, and family members are equal politically despite their successive generations. In normal, modern life, there is no such thing as “patriarch” that manages “clan affairs.” The principles of The Zhao Clan Genealogy in Wuyun 五云赵氏宗谱 clearly pointed out that “the patriarchal clan system and clan activities that hinder social, political, and economic stability must not be illegally restored.” In recent years, as the genealogy is newly built in various places, members of the family who have a certain reputation and are enthusiastic about revising genealogy generally organize genealogical organizations, implement compilers, formulate new genealogy styles and ways to collect data, and determine ways to raise funds. Then, through extensive collection of data by ethnic groups, they formally enter the genealogy editing work. In the process of editing, we should not engage in sectarianism or superstition, whether family members are involved or not, and implement the principle of voluntariness.

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Raising funds is a prominent problem, which is generally solved by collecting donations from ethnic groups with better economic conditions, voluntary donations from family members, and selling new genealogy books that have been compiled. Therefore, the tide of compiling genealogy in the recent thirty years should be fully affirmed. If one would place genealogy under the guidance of feudal thoughts, which played a certain role in consolidating the foundation of feudal society, then today’s genealogy, under the guidance of socialist thoughts, could make clan members love their family, hometown, and socialist motherland more deeply by participating in compilation activities. In growing activities across the Taiwan Strait, family members with the same surname on both sides jointly set up compilation committees, formulated compilation rules, collected information, and finally published genealogies to learn more about their ancestors before them. This whole process is also an opportunity for people from both sides to identify their relatives through a blood relationship and learn traditional culture of Chinese nation, which directly promotes and enriches the exchanges between two sides in various aspects, carries forward the history and culture of the Chinese nation, and enhances national cohesion as well as self-confidence.

Part III

Thematic Studies

Chapter 10

The Style of Chinese Genealogies and Their Content (I)

By the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Chinese family genealogies had matured and had become comprehensive. They were complete in style and contained rich content. Their content varied and they were compiled in different ways, but completed genealogies followed the same basic style and contained the same basic content.

10.1 Titles of Genealogies When we view a genealogy, the first thing we often see is the title on the cover, such as “jiapu”, “zongpu”, “zupu”, “fangpu”: branch genealogy, “shipu”: family history, “zhipu”: branch genealogy, “tongpu”: general genealogy, “tongpu”: general genealogy, “fenpu”: cemetery genealogy, “cipu”: ancestral temple genealogy, “shijia”, “shixi”: family pedigree, “shilu”: generation chart, etc. Among them, the “jiapu”, “zongpu”, and “zupu” are common. This often describes whether the genealogy is a family or a clan genealogy. The most important details on the title page are the dwelling place and the family name, i.e. the family that the genealogy belonged to and the place that they lived in/came from. For instance, the Wang Clan Genealogy in Gaoling, Wantong 皖 桐高岭汪氏宗谱, which was compiled during the 31st year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1905), is a clan genealogy belonging to the Wang family from Gaoling in Tongcheng County, Anhui province. Another example is the Cao Clan Genealogy in Shicun, Xiaoshan 萧山史村曹氏宗谱, which was compiled by Cao Han and others during the sixth year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1880). This is a clan genealogy belonging to the Cao family from Shicun in Xiaoshan, Zhejiang province. The dwelling places listed on some genealogies indicate that they only contain family members from villages or townships, like the Zhang Clan Genealogy in Zhangzhen 章 镇张氏宗谱, which was compiled by Zhang Zuliang and others during the 11th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1885). But where exactly is Zhangzhen located? By referring to this genealogy, we can determine it is the Zhangzhen in Shangyu, © Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2023 H. Wang, The General Theory of China’s Genealogy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6377-5_10

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Zhejiang province. Some genealogies don’t list the dwelling place, only the family name, like the Xia Clan Genealogy 夏氏宗谱 and the Zhang Family Genealogy 张 氏家乘, and this has led to problems retrieving data from them and making them accessible. When we compile catalogues of genealogies for the Shanghai Library, we must investigate genealogies that don’t list or have ambiguous dwelling places, and give them a complete title. For example, the Xia Clan Genealogy, which was compiled by Xia Hexi and others during the sixth year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1880), is now titled the Xia Clan Genealogy in Danyang, Jiangsu (江苏丹阳) 夏氏 宗谱. The Zhang Family Genealogy, which was compiled by Zhang Yuanshan during the fifth year of the Republic of China era, is now called the Zhang Family Genealogy in Pinghu, Zhejiang (浙江平湖) 张氏家乘. When specific dwelling places are listed in genealogies, it is easier to retrieve data from them and make them accessible. Some family genealogies include the names of ancestral temples and commanderies in their titles. Examples include the Revised Wang Genealogy in the Sanhuaitang, Suzhou, Jiangsu (江苏)苏州三槐堂王氏续修家乘 (compiled during the Qing Dynasty’s Qianlong era, 1736–1795), the Third Revision of the Huang Clan Genealogy in the Yajitang, Pingxiang, Jiangxi (江西萍乡) 雅积堂黄氏三修族谱 (compiled during the 12th year of the Republic of China era 1923), the Zhang Clan Genealogy of the Qinghe Commandery in Shanghang, Fujian (福建上杭州)清河郡 张氏宗谱 (compiled during the 34th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era, 1908), and the Zhu Clan Genealogy in the Zhenshuitang, Yue’an, Xianju, Zhejiang (浙江 仙居)乐安珍水堂朱氏宗谱 (compiled during the 12th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era, 1886). The Sanhuaitang and the Qinghe Commandery are renowned. Incorporating their names in the titles of genealogies not only illustrated the family lineage, but was also for the purpose of showing off. Some genealogies included ancestors’ names and generational order in their title, like the Fourth Revision of the Liao Family’s Dexing Combined Genealogy in Wugang, Hunan (湖南)武冈廖氏德行公裔四修合谱 (compiled during the 32nd year of the Republic of China era, 1943). The earliest ancestor of this genealogy, Faxiang, relocated from Taihe, Jiangxi during the early Ming Dynasty, to Wugang, Hunan. He travelled with his sons: Dexing, Dewen, Dezhen and Deju. Afterwards, the descendants of Dewen, Dezhen and Deju relocated to other places, one by one. Dexing’s family stayed in Wugang. The aforementioned genealogy is that of Dexing and his descendants. The Han Di and Mei Huai Family Pedigrees of Da Er Gong, the Eighth Branch Ancestors of the Zhao Clan in Dagang, Dantu, Jiangsu, (江苏丹徒) 大港赵氏第八大分二公裔下汉杕渼分宗谱 is another genealogical example. The earliest ancestor of this genealogy was Zi Chi, who lived in Dagang town, Dantu. His family members seven generations descended were divided into 18 branches. This genealogy was compiled by Han Di and Mei Huai, two family members of the eighth branch ancestor, You Shou (whose generation name was Da Er Gong). The inclusion of this ancestor’s generation name in the title helps us identify which branch this genealogy belonged to. It was tradition for Chinese family genealogies to undergo revisions. The dates of revisions were often included in the titles of family genealogies. Examples include The Revised Ye Clan Genealogy in Yanzhuang, Rundong, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu (

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江苏镇江)润东严庄叶氏重修族谱 (compiled during the fifth year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era, 1879), The Nineth Revision of the Jiang Clan Genealogy in Daolin, Ningxiang, Hunan (湖南)宁乡道林蒋氏九修族谱 (compiled during the 15th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era, 1889), and The 19th Revision of the Fu Clan Genealogy in Dongshan, Jinhua, Zhejiang (浙江金华)东山傅氏十九修宗 谱 (compiled during the 10th year of the Republic of China era, 1921). The titles of family and clan genealogies differ considerably. Most family genealogies list the details of family members with one surname, from one clan and one branch. Few are “general genealogies”, which list family members from multiple regions, clans and branches.1 General genealogies are large-scale family genealogies that emerged and developed during the late Ming Dynasty, when there were no wars and families grew rapidly. One example is the Wang 王 General Genealogy (compiled during the 20th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era, 1894) which combined members of the Wang family from Tiayuan, Langya and Sanhuai. It included family members that had scattered across different places, and altogether there are 102 volumes spanning 82 books. Another example of a general genealogy is the Zhang 张 General Genealogy, which was compiled during the 14th year of the Ming Dynasty’s Jiajing era (1535). It combined members of the Zhang family from Qimen, Wuyuan, Xiuning, Yixian, Jixi, Qianxian, Shengde, Jingxian, Nanling, Shitai, Guichi, Fuliang, Dexing, Leping and other places. Some genealogies say they are “joint family genealogies” in their title. These are family genealogies that include two or more family names. One example is Genealogies of the Xiao Family and the Jiang Family in Wuyuan, Jiangxi (compiled during the 30th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Daoguang era) (1850). The surname of the original ancestor of this clan was Xiao 萧. However, the first-generation ancestor in this genealogy is listed as Zhen 祯. During the Tang Dynasty, this person changed their surname to Jiang 江, and lived with their family in Shexian, Huangdun. Their descendants scattered; they moved to south Anhui and other provinces, but still called themselves “offspring of Xiao and Jiang”. There are similar family genealogies: the Zhang Liao Jian Clan Genealogy 张廖简氏族谱,2 the Jiang Lu Ji Clan Genealogy 姜卢纪氏族谱,3 and the Lai Luo Fu Joint General Clan Genealogy 赖罗傅联宗大 族谱.4 These genealogies also show a certain historical relationship between different surnames.

1

The preface of the Cheng general genealogy in Xin’an. Compiled during the second year of the Ming Dynasty’s Jingtai era, 1451. 2 Zhang Qingfeng, ed. Taizhong: Xinyuandong chubanshe 新远东出版社, 1959. 3 Editorial Committee of the Jiang Lu Ji Clan Genealogy 姜卢纪氏族谱编委会. Penghua: Shanggong wenhua chubanshe 商工文化出版社, 1967. 4 Lai Guomin 赖国民 and Lai Jifen 赖济汾, ed. Taizhong: Lai Luo Fu Clan Association 赖罗傅宗 亲会, 1970.

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10.2 Encomiums for Ancestors’ Portraits When we open a family genealogy, the first thing we often see is a portrait and encomium for the family’s ancestors. This is because after the Song Dynasty, it was principle that Chinese genealogical compilations “pay respect to ancestors and consolidate clans”. There are at least a few or at most a dozen ancestor’s portraits in family genealogies. They can be roughly divided into three types: 1. Portraits of the earliest ancestor and the first ancestor that had relocated to the family’s existing location. Take China’s most popular surname Wang 王 as an example. The first known ancestor with the surname Wang was Emperor Zhou Lingwang’s prince, Jin. His descendants could be found in two commanderies: Taiyuan and Langyang, during the Qin and Han Dynasties. As a result, there are portraits of Emperor Zhou Lingwang, Prince Jin, and King Langyang in quite a few Wang family genealogies, including the Wang Clan Genealogy in Qianmei, Shanyin, Zhejiang 浙江山阴前梅王氏宗谱, and the Wang Clan Genealogy in Tanling, Wuyuan, Jiangxi 江西婺源檀岭王氏宗谱. The first color portrait, “King Langyang’s Deadee”, appeared in the Wang Family Genealogy in Shanxian, Zhejiang 浙江剡县王氏家谱. This called King Langyang the Wang family’s first ancestor. In the first volume of the Fang Clan Genealogy in Qimen, Anhui 安徽祁门 方氏宗谱, there is a portrait of the “Fang family’s first ancestor, Prince Lei”. It recognizes Prince Lei, a ninth generation descendent of Shennong, the Yan Emperor, as the family’s earliest ancestor. His surname was Jiang 姜. There is a portrait of Wu Long in the Wu Clan Genealogy in Bohaixi, Pucheng, Fujian 福 建浦城渤海西吴宗谱. Wu Long 吴龙 was regarded as the first ancestor, after he relocated to Pucheng. In this genealogy, the following are all listed on the genealogy’s cover: the era it was written in (Song Dynasty), the place the family migrated to/from (from Zhejiang to Pucheng) and the family’s status (details are listed about the first ancestor that had relocated). 2. Ancestors within the “wufu”. After the Song Dynasty, ancestral worship involved worshiping the family’s first ancestor, the first ancestor that had relocated to the family’s existing location, and four generations of ancestors within the “wufu”, namely the great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, grandfather and deceased father. During this period, there were portraits of ancestors within the “wufu” in family genealogies, as well as portraits of the original ancestor and the first ancestor at the family’s existing location. The Revised Wang Clan Genealogy in Lingzhixiang, Shanbei, Zhejiang 浙江剡北灵芝乡王氏续修宗谱, which was compiled by Wang Hengtian during the 10th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1884), included 30 portraits of ancestors within the “wufu”. The earliest portrait is of the Xineng Gong’s Deadee, who was born during the seventh year of the Qing Dynasty’s Qianlong era (1742). The most recent portrait is “A Portrait of Zhencan Gong Smiling”. He was born during the first year of the Qing Dynasty’s Tongzhi era (1862). Portraits of the original ancestor and the first ancestor at the

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family’s existing location are considered to be relatively sensationalist, whereas portraits of ancestors within the “wufu” are, comparatively, more authentic. Their appearance, facial expressions and costumes were drawn based on what people had seen or heard. When members of the Wang Clan in Lingzhixiang, Yanbei, Zhengjiang worshiped their ancestors, they had a deep impression of their ancestors based on those portraits; they helped consolidate the cohesion and unity of the Wang clan. 3. Celebrity clan members. When family members compiled a genealogy, they recognized that there could be a gap of hundreds of years, or even thousands of years between the original ancestor/the first ancestor at the family’s existing location, and their ancestors within the “wufu”. Therefore, it was not possible to paint portraits for every ancestor. So families/clans chose to paint portraits of celebrities: people who were renowned for their morality, noble titles, achievements or literature works. In the preface of the Wang Clan Genealogy in Shashan, Kunshan, Jiangsu 江苏昆山砂山王氏宗谱, there is a portrait of only one person: the famous scholar Wang Bo from the Tang Dynasty. This in spite of the clan existing for over 1500 years—from the Wei and Jin Dynasties, to the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era. During the Song Dynasty, the Bao Clan Genealogy in Runzhou, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu 江苏镇江润州包氏族谱, compiled by Bao Mengkui et al. during the 13th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Daoguang era (1833), published a portrait of Baogong. The Shi Clan Genealogy in Xiaoshan, Zhejiang 浙江萧 山史氏宗谱, compiled by Shi Jin during the 18th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1892), published a portrait of Shi Kefa. He was a 49th generation descendent of the family’s original ancestor. There were normally a dozen words of praise written alongside portraits. They extolled the appearance, achievement and/or morality of these ancestors. These words of praise were often written by descendants. An example can be found in the Fang Clan Genealogy in Qimen, Anhui, which was compiled by Fang Jinsheng et al. during the eighth year of the Qing Dynasty’s Tongzhi era (1869). Alongside “The Portrait of Qing Deng Shi Lang Ben Jiao Gong”, the following compliment was written by clansman Sun Guojin: “a man of righteousness and piousness with lofty virtue; worthy of respect”. Alongside another portrait of “Qing Deng Shi Lang Zhao Ling Gong”, the following is written: “A man who takes himself seriously but is lenient towards others; is of noble character and high prestige”. This was written by Jin Sheng, the man’s grandnephew and compiler of this genealogy. In some family genealogies, words of praise were written by celebrities. The highest level of honor was the emperor’s eulogy. In the Lü Clan Genealogy in Xixiang, Yuyi, Shangyu, Zhejiang 浙江上虞虞邑西乡吕氏宗谱, there is a portrait of Lü Mengzheng 吕蒙 正 (944–1011), a famous minister during the Song Dynasty. He was behind the emperor’s eulogy, and therefore was described as “a man of generosity and magnanimity, of great erudition and scholarship, who made remarkable contributions to the Imperial Court”. In the Wang Clan Genealogy in Qianmei, Shanyin, Shaoxing, Zhejiang, there is a portrait of Wang Zuo. He was the Minister of the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Revenue during the Southern Song Dynasty. In 1194,

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Emperor Song Guangzong praised him and wrote a eulogy beside his portrait: “The Imperial Court compliments: a man with great talents in statecraft, the top scholar in the imperial examinations, the backbone of the state and a model citizen for later generations.” Some of the eulogies alongside ancestors’ portraits in family genealogies were written by famous ministers and officials. The Shao Clan Genealogy in Shaoyi, Shaoxing, Zhejiang 浙江绍兴绍邑邵氏宗谱 includes one such eulogy alongside the first portrait of Shaoping. This was written by a Changsha official, Jia Yi, during the Han Dynasty. He said: “Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, Shao family members have consistently been conferred with noble ranks and are thought of highly by the emperors. During the twilight years, Shao officials have often retired and gone into seclusion after achieving great success.” In the Song Clan Genealogy in Guyu, Shangyu, Zhejiang 浙江上虞古虞宋氏宗谱, there is a eulogy alongside a portrait of Song Hong. This was written by Sima Guang during the Song Dynasty, and says: “a man of resourceful knowledge who has accumulated much, has made great contributions to the court and society, and is a well-respected and accomplished minister that no one can match.” The Neo-Confucian master of the Southern Dynasty, Zhu Xi, had great influences on family genealogies after the Southern Song Dynasty, because of his neo-Confucian theories. Therefore, many eulogies alongside ancestors’ portraits were written by him. One example is the eulogy accompanying Shao Cheng’s portrait in the Shao Clan Genealogy in Shaoyi, Shaoxing, Zhejiang. Zhu Xi wrote: “He is a man of prowess, who has displayed strength and has helped safeguard the country and its citizens. Due to his great contributions and achievements, his name will remain immortal throughout history.” It is worth noting that some eulogies, purporting to be Zhu Xi’s, have been identified as fake. One example is the eulogy written alongside Wang Zhaoji’s portrait in the Wang Clan Genealogy in Taixian, Jiangsu. Who was Wang Zhaoji? The family genealogy states that Wang was born in 1377 and died in 1449. However, Zhu Xi was born in 1130 and died in 1200, during the Southern Song Dynasty. So we know that this eulogy was a forgery, because it was not possible for Zhu Xi to have written words of praise for Wang Zhaoji, born two hundred years later in the early Ming Dynasty. However, inside this genealogy, there are stamps reading “Zhu Xi” and “Hui An”, Zhu’s courtesy name.

10.3 Table of Contents When opening a family genealogy, we first see the ancestors’ portraits and then the table of contents, which reveals what this genealogy contains and how it is organized. For example, the table of contents of the Bi Clan Genealogy in Xin’an, Anhui 安 徽新安毕氏族谱 (compiled during the fourth year of Ming Dynasty’s Zhengde era, 1509) is as follows: The beginning includes 12 old and new prefaces, 15 principles, 25 local chronicles; Volume 1 to Volume 8 include pedigrees; The ending includes

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poems and proses; The appendix includes cemetery maps and figures/characters used to collect copies of genealogies. The table of contents of the Xiang Clan Genealogy in Gumuqingxizifeng, Shexian, Anhui 安徽歙县古睦清溪紫峰项氏宗谱 (compiled during the 18th year of Qing Dynasty’s Kangxi era, 1679) is as follows: Volume 1 includes preface, principles, old preface; Volume 2 to Volume 6 include pedigrees; Volume 7 includes credentials, poems, proses, praises, biographies, and inscriptions; Volume 8 includes credentials, prefaces, praises, biographies, annals, poems, proses, records of personage, postscripts, etc. The table of contents of the Cheng Xu Lun Tang Genealogy in Chengli, Jixiin 安徽绩溪程里程叙伦堂世谱 (compiled during the 29th year of the Republic of China era, 1940) is as follows: The beginning includes contents, prefaces, principles, cemetery maps, ancestral temple maps, ancestors’ portraits, deeds, announcement; Volume 1 to Volume 10 include pedigrees; Volume 11 includes credentials, poems, proses, biographies, and inscriptions; Volume 12 includes prefaces, family instructions, generational orders, sacrificial offerings, people in charge of repairing ancestral temples and revising genealogies, and postscripts; The ending includes estate and cemetery maps. If we compare the table of contents included the genealogy of the Ming Dynasty to that of the Republic of China, we can find that: Over the past 400 years from the 4th year of the Ming Dynasty’s Zhengdu era (1509) to the 29th year of the Republic of China (1940), the table of contents of family genealogies has basically remained the same. Contents in the Ming Dynasty genealogy included new and old prefaces, principles, the origin of the surname, family pedigree, cemetery maps, credentials, biographies, poems and proses, portrait encomium, family instructions, figures/characters used to collect copies of genealogies, etc.; The family genealogy contents in the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China contained similar items, with minor changes in the sequence and name. This reflects that during the Ming Dynasty, Chinese genealogies matured and were perfected, and they basically reached their final form. The genealogies of the Qing Dynasty and Republic of China era were just a continuation of those of the Ming Dynasty without further development and innovation. Second, family pedigrees are the main body of Chinese genealogies, which record the name list of all the generations from the first ancestor to the compiler, including the surname, last name, courtesy name, dates of birth and death, career and official positions, information on the wife and offspring, cemetery location and other contents, accounting for an important share in the genealogy. In the genealogies listed above, family pedigrees account for nearly three quarters of the contents. In some genealogies, the proportion of pedigree is even higher, like The Jin Clan Genealogy in Xiuning, Anhui 安徽休宁金氏族谱 (the 13th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Qianlong era, 1748). Its table of contents has 19 volumes. The introduction of different family pedigrees starts from Volume One. The first volume introduces five pedigrees:

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Jingzhao, Nanyang, Jiankang, Gusu and Tonglu; Starting from the second volume, each volume introduces the pedigrees in different places; Until the 18th volume, it introduces Tangzhen and Zhulin pedigrees; Only the 19th volume is about family biography. In short, the contents about different family pedigrees account for 95% of the genealogy. The so-called Jin Clan Genealogy in Xiuning could also be called The Jin Family Pedigree Chart in Xiuning. Third, in terms of the compilation style, family genealogies inherit the recording and narration methods of official history and chorography, including diversified forms like history, charts, tables, chronicles and biographies. But apparently they still retain its own genealogical features like patriarchal content, and illustrated recording methods like deadee, homestead, ancestral temples, tombs and etc.

10.4 The Lists of Compilers Many genealogies have the lists that include the names and tasks of all who have participated in the compilation of previous and current genealogies. For example, the Ge Clan Genealogy in Quantang, Jixi, Anhui 安徽绩溪泉塘葛氏宗谱 compiled during the 3rd year of the Qing Dynasty’s Xuantong era (1911) has included the names of the compilers: Compiling year

Compiler

Compiled the genealogy during the 1st year of the Song Dynasty’s Qianxing era (1022)

Xiang Gong

Revised the genealogy during the 2nd year of the Song Zongyu Gong, Pan Gong, Fang Gong Dynasty’s Qingyuan era (1196) Revised the genealogy during the 5th year of the Ming Taishou Gong, Mingzong Gong Dynasty’s Hongzhi era (1492) Revised the genealogy during the Mimou year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1879)

Chengyu Gong

The Ge Clan Genealogy in Quantang, Jixi, Anhui has a detailed list of compilers: Supervisors: Lü Gui, Cheng Dian, Cheng Yuan Finance: Ming Zhan Co-compilers and Contributors: Ming Han, Cheng Zhang, Ming Yi, Dai Jian Compiler and Editor: Guang Han Checkers: Ming Zhan, Ming Yi Proofreaders: Lu Gui, Ming Yi, Ming Zhan, Guang Sheng.

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Genealogies of the Xiao Family and the Jiang Family in Wuyuan, Jiangxi compiled during the 30th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Daoguang (1850) reveals the name list of all the compilers: Dynasty/compiling year

Compiler

Song/1078

Zong

Song/1222

Tingjian

Song/1266

Runshen

Yuan/1305

Yuanzhen

Yuan/1316

Jun

Ming/1373

Yuzu

Ming/1541

Quan

Ming/1561

Wenshi

Ming/1569

Zhen

Ming/1604

Yingdou

Ming/1605

Yinghan

Qing/1788

Dalin

Qing/1815

Yuanwei and his brother Yuanhuang

Qing/1848

Yuanwei and his nephew Ying

Zhu Xi said, “If a family has not compiled or revised their genealogy for three generations, they are not filial to their ancestors”. Therefore, it became tradition for genealogies to be renewed every 60 years. Genealogies of the Xiao Family and the Jiang Family in Wuyuan, Jiangxi, was renewed 14 times in 770 years between the Song Dynasty’s Yuanfeng era and the Qing Dynasty’s Daoguang era, on average once every 55 years. The Revised Wang Family Branch Genealogy in Shexi, Shexian, Anhui (the 8th year of the Republic of China) listed all the compiling years, titles of genealogies and compilers, which gave us much important information. First, the Wang Family in Shexi, Anhui has a long history of revising genealogies. Since the Eastern Jin Dynasty’s Xiankang era the first year of the Republic of China, the tradition has lasted for some 1600 years without any interruptions. This is rarely seen in family genealogies. Though the earliest “marriage official certificate” in the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the “marriage certificate” in the Tang Dynasty had no such character as “pu 谱” (genealogy), when describing the “certificate” concerning relevant clansmen, one must tell the origin of the clan’s surname, the relocation history and the past pedigrees. Therefore, the so-called “certificate” has all the main elements necessary for a family genealogy. It’s understandable why Wang used it as the basis for the earliest family genealogy. Second, if someone wanted to compile family genealogy privately in the Eastern Jin and Tang Dynasties, the family representative (normally an official) should report to the imperial court for approval. It is causally related to the political function of family genealogy at that time. In the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Nine Ranks system was implemented. The official positions in the

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imperial court were inherited in renowned noble families. Marriage must be wellmatched. It was a common practice for the election of officials to be based on official genealogies, and marriages needed to be based on family genealogies. In order to maintain the purity of blood lineage and prevent other names or imposters, the feudal government established a genealogy bureau to take charge of genealogy compilation. The compilation of private family genealogy must be reported to the imperial court for approval. After the Song Dynasty, the imperial examination became more complete, while being officials and getting married were more about talents. The political function of family genealogy for inheriting official titles was turned to ethic function. Accordingly, the private compilations no longer need to be reported to the imperial court, which created conditions for the popularization of family genealogies. Third, this genealogy does not list the names of ordinary compilers, only the main authors of the prefaces of all previous genealogies. Some are famous for their contributions and noble titles, like Huaian Marquess Wang Xu in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Yueguo Gong Wang Hua in the Tang Dynasty and etc.; some are social celebrities, like Zhu Xi in the Southern Song Dynasty, Lian Jiefu in the Yuan Dynasty and etc. This has largely increased the value of this genealogy. Indeed, not all the family genealogies would list all previous compilers one by one. Some just list the relevant personnel who just revised the genealogy. For example, the Wang Clan Genealogy in the Yueguo, Tanchuan, Jixi, Anhui compiled in 1925 listed the general manager, deputy manager, chief compiler, encomium compiler, editor, investigator, painter, repairer, proofreader, printer, collector, general affairs, publisher and etc. This genealogy was revised during the Republic of China era, and hence the compilers and their responsibilities are more specific with more modern titles. Some family genealogies neither have the name list of previous nor the current compilers. Instead, they elaborated on the reason why the genealogy was revised in the preface of the genealogy. For example, The Hong Clan Genealogy in Taoyuan, Qimen, Anhui (compiled during the 26th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era) used one paragraph to list all the personnel including supervisor, finance, donator, chief compiler and painter, and describe the reasons why they took the positions. This is far more concrete than purely listing the names.

10.5 The Preface on Genealogy Prefaces are an important part in family genealogies. The origin of the family name, the migration of the family, the reason, purpose and process of revising genealogies, relevant compilation theory and other major issues are listed in the preface one by one. The following is an example of the preface of the Cao Clan Geneagloy in Wangchuan, Jixi, Anhui 安徽绩溪旺川曹氏宗谱 compiled during the 16th year of the Republic of China (1927).

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(1) The origin of the family name. The preface clearly indicates that Cao 曹 originated from the surname of fief. “Our surname has a long history. Since the son of Emperor Wen of Zhou, Zhen Feng was enfeoffed the fief of Cao, his descendants then used the surname of fief.” (2) The migration of the family. The preface suggests that the Cao family in Wangchuan relocated from Qingzhou, Shandong in the late Tang Dynasty to Shexian, Xinan, and then to Jixi during the Song Dynasty. (3) The reason for genealogical revision. The Cao family once compiled a clan genealogy in 1615 but it was not complete. So they decided to revise the genealogy in the 5th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Kangxi era (1666). (4) The purpose of genealogical revision. In the first year of the Qing Dynasty’s Kangxi era, the purpose of Cao’s revised compilation was the same as that of other families: “If a clan has a genealogy, the members would respect their ancestors, arrange later ancestors in sequences with Zhao (昭, ancestors of the second, fourth and sixth generations) on the left and mu (穆, ancestors of the third, fifth and seventh generation) on the right, distinguish the close and distant relatives and identify members of the own family. If the clan genealogy were not compiled, the family’s origin and ancestors could be traced back by later generations with no sequence arrangements, no close or distant relationships and no difference between members of the family’s surname and people of other surnames. Then the root of the family would be lost.” The so-called “paying respect to ancestors and consolidating clans” is all about this. By the 16th year of the Republic of China (1927) when the Cao family revised the genealogy, they did not understand the significance of overthrowing the Qing Dynasty of the 1911 Revolution, and thought it violated “the state legal system and patriarchal clan system that have been around for thousands of years”. Therefore, the preface of their genealogy not only highlighted “Pay respect to ancestors and consolidate clans”, but also emphasized on “leverage the patriarchal clan system to safeguard the state legal system” through revising genealogy, to “unite fathers, sons, brothers, husbands and wives and all the other clansmen, and the patriarchal clan system to maintain the state legal system.” (5) The process of revising genealogy. The revision of Cao family’s genealogy started in the first year of the Kangxi era in the Qing Dynasty, jointly initiated by the 23rd generation descendants Ying Xing, Ying Shi and other members. During the process of revising the genealogy, the 23rd generation descendant Jusuoweng 聚所翁 made outstanding contributions. “From the ancestor Dajiugong to the current generation, each branch is clearly stated, with specific dates of birth, death and marriage. We have paid great efforts in this work.” Other family members also actively participated. Unfortunately, the revision was completed in 1666 winter in the Kangxi era of the Qing Dynasty but not yet printed. However, Jusuoweng who worked hard on this for more than ten years died in 1667 and didn’t see the printed genealogy. The above process of revising the Cao Family Genealogy is very clear. (6) Genealogy theories. Among the genealogy theories, the contributions of Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun to China’s genealogy are well recognized: “Since the Han and

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Tang Dynasties, the genealogy theory has emerged and developed but most of the genealogies were privately compiled. After Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi compiled their own clan genealogies in the Song Dynasty, other literati and officialdoms also started to compile their genealogies. Since then, it’s been hundreds of years.” The first preface of the Cao Clan Genealogy in Wangchuan, Jixi, Anhui was written by the former compiler of the imperial academy Jiang Zhiyin when it was published and printed in the 16th year of the Republic of China (1927). The preface also included 19 relevant materials of the preface and postscript of all the previous genealogies, around 12,000 words. When revising the family genealogy, all the previous prefaces would be included in the new one, which is a common phenomenon in china’s history of genealogy compilation. This is very beneficial for us to understand the development and changes in the principle of revision. In some genealogies, the old and new prefaces take a big portion. For example, the Guo Clan Genealogy in Tianxia, Wanzai, Jiangxi 江 西万载田下郭氏宗谱 (the wooden type edition in the Republic of China) includes 39 old prefaces, nearly 40,000 words. Who writes the preface? The clansman, mainly those who preside over the compilation work or enjoy great reputation in the family; Or, some social celebrities who are known for their morality, noble titles or literature works. There are many celebrities who have written prefaces for family genealogies, such as Yan Zhenqing 颜真卿, Ouyang Xiu 欧阳修, Su Xun 苏洵, Zhu Xi 朱熹, Wen Tianxiang 文天祥, Lu Xiufu 陆秀夫, Wang Daokun 汪道昆, Li Shanchang 李 善长, Wang Shipeng 王十朋, Wang Shizhen 王世贞, Zhao Mengfu 赵孟頫, Fang Xiaoru 方孝孺, Song Lian 宋濂, Wang Mingsheng 王鸣盛, Zhang Zhidong 张之 洞, Li Hongzhang 李鸿章, Hu Shi 胡适, Yuan Shikai 袁世凯, Zhang Binglin章炳 麟, Sun Yat-sen 孙中山, Li Zongren 李宗仁 and others. Among the prefaces written by celebrities for renowned families, three of them have exerted great influences on the genealogical compilations in later generations. One is the Preface of the Su Clan Genealogy that Su Xun started to compile during the second year of the Song Dynasty’s Zhihe era (1055). He pointed out that revising genealogy was an important means to respect ancestors and consolidate clans; The other one is the Ouyang Family Genealogy compiled by Ouyang Xiu during the 4th year of the Song Dynasty’s Jiayou era (1059). The third one is the preface Zhu Xi wrote for the Zhu Family Genealogy in Chayuan, Wuyuan, Jiangxi during the 10th year of the Song Dynasty’s Chunxi era (1183). The purpose, principles and methods of revising genealogy mentioned in their prefaces are widespread with great influences on later generations for thousands of years. For the prefaces written by celebrities, we need to analyze them individually because some are real while some are counterfeit just for attaching themselves genealogically to one of the eminent houses. This mix of authenticity and forgery phenomenon is really striking in the preface written by Zhu Xi. As the most influential ideologist in the late Feudal Society in China, Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism has deep impacted on the compilation and revision of Chinese family genealogies.

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As mentioned above, Zhu Xi really emphasized on the revision and compilation of family genealogies but did it on his own. He revised the Zhu Family Genealogy in Chayuan, Wuyuan, Jiangxi. When other families were compiling their genealogies, it was a natural thing to invite Zhu Xi to write prefaces for them. I have collected nearly twenty prefaces written by Zhu Xi. In these prefaces he wrote for other families, Zhu Xi further applied the genealogy theory he proposed in the Zhu Family Genealogy in Chayuan, Wuyuan, Jiangxi. For example, when he wrote the Preface for the 9th Revised Hu Clan Genealogy in Anhua, Hunan, he made the historical status of family genealogy the same as that of national history, namely: “A genealogy to a clan is like the history to a nation. If a nation doesn’t have history, how to verify the tradition, authenticity, the rise and fall of the emperors in the past dynasties? If a family doesn’t have genealogy, how to verify the authenticity of Zhao and Mu, the origin of lineage, the branch and descendants?” In the Original Preface to the Xin Ckab Genealogy in Jinan compiled during the middle of the Song Dynasty’s Qingyuan era (1195–1201), he emphasized the principle of revising genealogy: “The significance of revising genealogy is to arrange the sequence of Zhao and Mu, the senior and junior, the officialdom and the ordinary, the distant and the close to maintain the family as a whole.” In the Postscript of the Ouyang General Genealogy in Lianjiang, Anyuan, Jiangxi, he also stressed: “The reason why genealogy arranges the sequence of the Zhao and Mu, the senior and junior is to consolidate the clan; Such customs could make people memorize their origin.” In the Preface of the 9th Revised Hu Clan Genealogy in Anhua, Hunan, Zhu Xi highly appreciated and recommended the genealogy styles adopted by Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun: “Since the ancient times, genealogy has been really important. The genealogies made by Ouyang and Su are regarded as classics. The genealogy is for tracing back the family origin, ranking the superiority and inferiority, distinguishing the close and distant relationships, as well as the similarities and differences… other clans and families all follow the genealogy styles of Ouyang and Su”. In the Ge Clan Genealogy in Quantang, Jixi, Anhui (the 3rd year of the Xuantong era in the Song Dynasty), Zhu Xi believed that the personnel in charge of compilations must have been seekers that had sought to keep their accounts realistic, “Genealogy is the history of a family, so it can’t be false or forged.” These opinions are very insightful, which enrich the theories of Chinese genealogy. However, some so-called “Zhu Xi’s prefaces” are fakes. Obviously, the prefaces to the following seven genealogies are forged: the Hong Family Genealogy in Jiangcun, Xiuning, Anhui (the 8th year of the Yongzheng era in the Qing Dynasty), the Wu Clan Genealogy in Xunyang, Fujian, the Dai Jin Dun Family Genealogy in Xiuning, Anhui (the 23rd year of the Republic of China), the Revised Zheng Family Genealogy in Xingyang, the Zhou Clan Genealogy in Taichang, Jinhua, the Huang Clan Genealogy in Duchang, the Liu Clan Genealogy in Wenling. For these seven genealogies, the so-called Zhu Xi’s preface turned to be the same version. Except for the difference in surnames like “Hong” 洪, “Wu” 吴, “Dai” 戴, “Zheng” 郑, “Zhou” 周, “Huang” 黄, “Liu” 刘, all these prefaces are exactly the same. Apparently they are all counterfeit. Similar situations are also seen in the so-called “Wen Tianxiang’s Preface (Postscript) of Genealogy”. The Yu Clan Genealogy in Xiuning, Anhui (the 47th year

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of the Qianlong era in the Qing Dynasty), The Revised Huren Detang Genealogy in Qinghua, Wuyuan, Jiangxi (the 6th year of the Republic of China), The Jiang Da Min Gong Clan Genealogy in Chun’an, Zhejiang (the 33rd year of the Kangxi era in the Qing Dynasty) all published the so-called “Wen Tianxiang’s preface (postscript) of genealogy”, and they are the same version. Except for the difference in surnames like “Yu” 余, “Hu” 胡, “Jiang” 姜, other characters are the same. So, there must be counterfeits. How to identify those counterfeit prefaces in family genealogies and the imposture phenomenon introduced in the following chapters? We know that by the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and the Republic of China, Chinese genealogies have fully developed and popularized, especially in economically developed regions. Nearly every household in every county compiled family genealogy and compared with each other. It became a culture custom for everyone. Thousands of family genealogies were produced during that period. Among them, some were compiled by scholars who were knowledgeable with great literary thoughts. Their works could be regarded as top notch in field of family genealogy. Nevertheless, quite a few family genealogies were compiled by the ordinary people. In order to satisfy people’s demands for compilation, professions of compiler worker or compiler were created, to compile genealogies for the mass public. In order to adapt to the tuft hunting mindset of the public, they normally put the celebrities’ preface and celebrity ancestors into the family genealogy, which left many counterfeit traces and deteriorated the quality of the genealogy. Nowadays, when we collect and research the ancient family genealogies, we not only need to verify the authenticity of the preface and blood lineage, but more importantly critically inherit the essence of the insights, contents and styles of the old genealogies. Only by this way could the traditional, history and culture of family genealogy make new contributions to consolidating Chinese people and building a harmonious society under new circumstances. As for the specific issues of distinguishing the authenticity of family genealogies, we could not be overcritical on the ancient people, but rather hold a tolerant attitude towards such phenomenon, according to the compilation principle of Chinese genealogy “What can be believed would be passed down as it is; What is doubted would be passed down as it is.” After all, it is an understandable phenomenon in the traditional family genealogy culture in China.

10.6 Genealogical Principles Genealogical principles introduce the principle, style, content of a genealogy. As an integral part of the genealogy, it is normally placed before or after the preface. Both the Wang Clan Genealogy in Wukou, Wuyuan, Jiangxi 江西婺源武口王氏统宗世 谱 (the 3rd year of the Ming Dynasty’s Tianqi era, 1623) and the Revised Li Clan Genealogy in Santian, Yixian, Anhui 安徽歙县三田李氏重修宗谱 briefly explain the function and content of genealogical principles: according to relevant rules of etiquette, genealogical principles serve as a guideline and framework to distinguish

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the Zhao from the Mu, the right from the wrong, and to make the details of distant relatives brief while making the close ones more detailed. In the principle chapter of the Hu Wenmingong Clan Genealogy in Qinghua, Wuyuan, Jiangxi 江西婺源清华胡氏文敏公宗谱 (the 23rd year of the Qing Dynasty’s Jiaqing era, 1818), there are both revised principles included in the genealogy and the old principles in three other genealogies. Referring to the four principles’ contents, we know that principles are mainly for clarifying the following rules that need to be observed in the genealogy compilation: (1) (2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

(9)

The first ancestor. The surname Hu 胡 originated from Man Gong. Then Man Gong is regarded as the first ancestor. Record both the good and evil things. As the history of a family, it should document the actual events, instead of merely recording the good things. Therefore, both the good and evil things must be noted down as exhortation. Clarify the clan relationship. In the past, genealogies were only involved with the main clan. The branches of wife and daughter was not recorded, which caused missing information. But now all the clan members including the branches of wife and daughter are all documented. Distinguish the senior from the junior. The sequence of generation names is used for telling the senior from the junior, to clarify the order of the superior and inferior and respect the elderly generations. The same surname. All the members with the same surname are recorded, be it humble or noble. People with other surnames would not be included in the clan genealogy. Avoid the name for the respected people. The ancestors’ names shall be avoided as taboo. When naming the descendants, people should be cautious and avoid using the ancestors’ name. Genealogy illustration. The genealogy illustration is made of stems and branches, to clarify the blood lineage and generation sequence. The line sequence should be highlighted to distinguish the senior and junior. If someone has official title, he should be addressed according to the rank of nobility. If someone is called Gong without official title, it means superiority and respect. The last name, courtesy name and generation ranking are recorded in details under the illustration chart. If a male member marries with the daughter of certain official with certain surname, it should record the wife’s clan. If a female member marries with the guy of certain official with certain surname, it should record the female’s clan. The rule of affinities. For the main and close lineages, the names for the respected people should be avoided; For the branch and remote linages, the generation sequence should be clarified; For the superior and elderly, they should be addressed Gong; For the inferior and junior, they should be addressed their names; For the officials and nobles, they should be addressed with their titles. This is the principle of Su Xun’s genealogy.

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(10) For the deceased without heirs, they should be addressed Mou (某, somebody), Yao 夭 (morality), Zhi 止 (end) and Wu Zi 无子 (no heir). This is the principle of Ouyang Xiu’s genealogy. (11) Three types of “Die-Young”. The premature death is divided into three types: Zhang 长, Zhong 中 and Xia 下. The Zhang Shang 长殇 means death at the age of 16–19. If the deceased is already married, then he would be compiled into the generation ranking as an adult. The Zhong Shang 中殇 means death at the age of 12–15, and the deceased is compiled into the genealogy as Yao but not included in the generation ranking. The Xia Shang 下殇 means the death at the age of below 8–11, and the deceased is not noted in the genealogy. (12) Three types of inheritors with other surnames: if from a respectable family, he could be written in the genealogy; If from a humble background, then he would not be recorded; if from an unknown origin, then he would not be recorded either. (13) Three types of adoption and renunciation: if adopted by other surnames, he would be recorded with an annotation of “adopted by some surname”, but his descendants would not be recorded; If the adoption interrupts the original generation ranking either up to down or down to up, then he would not be recorded; If someone becomes a monk or moves out of the family, he would be recorded. Those who commit crimes would not be recorded but left with an annotation. (14) Three types of retuning to one’s own clan after being adopted: If someone’s stepfather has heir and he is willing to return to the own clan, then he would be recorded; if his stepfather doesn’t have heir and he is the only heir, then he could not return to his own clan and cannot be recorded; If the grandfather is adopted by others, his sons and grandsons cannot return to the own clan and cannot be recorded. (15) The undisclosed glories of the ancestors should be truthfully recorded without omissions. (16) There are six taboos that cannot be written in the genealogy. The six taboos are about tarnishing the ancestors. If found, it should be deleted. (a) Betray ancestors; (b) Betray the party (The remnant of an overthrown clique is called rebel); (c) Commit crimes; (d) Corrupt morals; (e) Break faith; (f) Denigrate (Impudicity, marry with people of humble origins). (17) Mark “to be continued” or “end” to the branches’ genealogy. For different branches, if there are records in the old genealogies but no updates of their migration or investigations of their descendants, the words “to be continued” would be marked under their names for future supplements. If they don’t have descendants after investigation, then the word “End” would be marked to avoid any imposture. (18) As the old saying goes, we shall not judge someone’s achievements before his death. If his descendants commend his glories and achievements, then it’s not self-bragging. The benevolent deeds that benefit the offspring shall be truthfully recorded without exaggeration.

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(19) If someone is filial and loyal to the imperial court, no matter he is still alive or dead, young or senior, his virtuous behavior shall be commended. (20) After all genealogy copies are printed, the original master copy shall be destroyed immediately. The above Principles in the Hu Wenminggong Clan Genealogy in Qinghua, Wuyuan, Jiangxi is quite representative in the family genealogy in the Qing Dynasty. From the above 20 principles, we could learn the following: (1) Very specific and detailed. That principle regulates that: “Man Gong is regarded as the first ancestor”; the senior and junior is distinguished through the generation ranking. The premature death is divided into the Chang, Zhong and Xia three types according to the age; There are also clear regulations on those adopted by other names or who become monks. Undoubtedly, this regulation could normalize the principles of family genealogy compilation. (2) Highlight the feudal hierarchy thinking. The principle stipulates that the name for respected ancestors should be avoided cautiously as taboos; If the family members are officials or nobles, they shall be addressed their titles; The respected ancestors shall be addressed Gong; The inferior ones shall be addressed their names; The sequence of the superior and inferior shall be strictly maintained; Those who commit crimes or born in humble background shall only be annotated underneath or be omitted. These all manifest the feudal hierarchy thinking. (3) Demonstrate the loyalty and filial piety thoughts of the feudal society, as shown above in the No. 19 principle. (4) Reflect the feudal patriarchal clan thought. The above No. 16 and No. 20 principles are used for maintaining the purity and solidarity of the feudal family. (5) Observe the genealogy compilation experiences of Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun. The genealogy not merely refers to the compilation style of Ouyang and Su like the illustration chart, but also draws the lesson and successful experiences of Ouyang and Su concerning the specific compilation methods. (6) Make some innovations on the compilation content. The above principles of The Hu Family Genealogy have made some breakthroughs in terms of recording “both the good and evil deeds”, which should be fully recognized.

10.7 List of Imperial Grants The list of imperial grants is mainly about the imperial edict, imperial mandate and plaque granted by the Emperor to the officials, relatives and virtuous women of a family. The reason why those contents need to be recorded in the family genealogy is due to: First, showing off the glorious history of the ancestors; Second, educating the later generations not to forget the imperial grace. Therefore, such imperial edict and mandate are normally place in a prominent position in the genealogy. For example, The Volume One of The Rong Clan Genealogy in Wuxi, Jiangsu 江 苏无锡荣氏宗谱 (the 24th year of the Republic of China, 1935) has the Preface, the

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Table of Contents, Principles, etc. The Volume Two is the Imperial Edict, containing 18 articles of the imperial mandates and edicts over the past 1200 years between the 3rd year of the Daye era in the Sui Dynasty (607) to the 2nd year of the Guangxu era in the Qing Dynasty (1876). Based on the analysis of the abovementioned, we can learn that: (1) The Rong family in Liangxi, Wuxi, Jiangsu is a prestigious and well-respected clan in China. Since the Sui Dynasty to the Tang, Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties, they all had family members who were officials and granted with the imperial edicts or mandates by emperors. The bounties bestowed by monarchs have been for this family members for nearly one thousand years, which is rarely seen in other family genealogies. (2) The scope of objects granted with imperial edicts and mandates had been enlarged. During the Sui Dynasty, only the officials were given the imperial edicts, like Rong Quan, the official in the ministry of war and Rong Pi, the imperial censor, not for their relatives. By the Tang Dynasty, the coverage was bigger. The object for grant was not only limited to Rong Cunshen, the imperial censor of the ministry of war, but also to his father Rong Ting. After the Song Dynasty, the scope became even bigger, including the father, mother, wife and children of the official, and even the grandparents of the official. By the Qing Dynasty, even the parental grandparents were included in the scope. (3) The content and format of the imperial edict and mandate is either oral or concrete. In the Sui Dynasty, there were two imperial mandates, but only in the oral format to praise the “loyalty and righteousness” with no concrete contents. During the 2nd year of the Tang Dynasty’s Zhenyuan era (628), the imperial mandates became more concrete, like conferring the title of senior official to Rong Ting, the father of the imperial censor Rong Cunshen, due to his “great education to Rong Cunshen and cultivating him to be such a great official”. During the 22nd year of the Ming Dynasty’s Wanli era (1594), Rong Kai, the father of Rong Shicheng the magistrate of Xiajin county, Shandong, was conferred with the title of “Wen Lin Lang, magistrate of xiajin county, Shandong”. After the Song Dynasty, the wives, mothers and grandmothers of both civil officials and military officers were awarded the title of honor such as “Ru Ren” 孺人 (Child Nurturess,), “Yi Ren” 宜人 (Lady of Suitability), “Gong Ren” 恭人 (Respectful Lady) and etc. Although the mothers or wives of the magistrate in the Ming and Qing Dynasties could be granted with the title of “Ru Ren”, it was merely a respectful honor with no substantial allowances. (4) The reasons for granting edicts and mandates changed. In the Sui Dynasty, the purpose was to commend the officials who contributed greatly to the imperial court. For example, praising the minister of the ministry of war Rong Quan for his “fight against disasters and enemies”; praising the imperial censor Rong Pi for his contributions to “legislation and anti-corruption” and the like. By the Tang Dynasty, especially after the Song Dynasty, the purpose was to reward the talents who scored high in the imperial examination and those who “practiced the funeral services and showed filial piety to the deceased parents”. As for

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awarding the father and grandfather of the official, the purpose was to underline their successful education, namely “their education methods, encouragement, and impartment of statecraft”. In terms of rewarding the wife, mother and grandmother of the official, the purpose was to stress the “three obediences and the four virtues”, namely the so-called “wifely submission and gentleness” and “practicing the doctrine of women and serving both the husband and the children” and etc. The changes of the contents of imperial mandates and edicts in the past one thousand years reflect the deepening of the statecraft of the feudal rulers. After the Song Dynasty, Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism became the mainstream theory in the society, while the rulers emphasized more on “governing the country with the thought of filial piety” and at the same time strengthened the imperial examination system. After the Song Dynasty, the content and object of imperial edicts were expanding, which reflected the strategy of governing the country with the thought of filial piety.

10.8 The Methodology of Genealogy The methodology of genealogy is mainly a collection of the ancient classics, especially the quotations of the principle, significance, theory and method of genealogical compilation by scholars in the past dynasties. The author has collected a dozen of materials of genealogical methodology in the genealogies such as The Wang Clan Genealogy in Jixi, Anhui 安徽绩溪汪氏宗谱 (1772), the Wu Shendetang Clan Genealogy in Beian, Shexian, Anhui 安徽歙县北岸吴慎德堂族谱 (1921), the Wang Clan Genealogy in Pingyangjun, Xiuning, Anhui 平阳郡汪氏宗谱 (1896), the Chen Family General Genealogy in Taoyuan, Qimen, Anhui 安徽祁门桃源陈氏通公家谱 (1862), the Hu Wenmingong Clan Genealogy in Qinghua, Wuyuan, Jiangxi 江西婺 源清华胡氏文敏公宗谱 (1818), the Yu Clan Genealogy in Huanshan, Yixian, Anhui 安徽黟县环山余氏宗谱 (1917), the Wang Branch Genealogy in Huaixi, Wuyuan, Jiangxi 江西婺源槐溪王氏支谱 (1856), the Huang Clan General Genealogy in Xin’an, Anhui 安徽新安黄氏大宗谱 (1752), the Xu Clan General Genealogy in Xin’an, Anhui 安徽新安徐氏宗谱 (1738), the Xie Family Branch Genealogy in Fanchuan, Shexi, Anhui 安徽歙县范川谢氏支谱 (1925), the Wang Clan General Genealogy in Jiyang, Jingde, Anhui 安徽旌德济阳汪氏统宗谱 (1919), the Hong Family General Genealogy in Guanyuan, Wuyuan, Jiangxi 江西婺源官源洪氏总 谱 (1788), and the Revised Wang Subclan Genealogy in Shexian, Anhui 安徽歙县 汪氏重修支谱 (1919). After comparison, I found that different scholars’ quotations are basically the same. The only difference is how many quotations these scholars cited. The dozens of family genealogies were compiled during the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China era. It is highly possible that their quotations might be copied from each other. Most of the above family genealogies put the methodology in the “Volume One” or “Part One”, to show that the compilers really emphasized on the relevant monographs by the ancient sages. The Chen Family General Genealogy in Taoyuan, Qimen, Anhui

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has one paragraph to introduce the methodology, which highlights the importance of citing literati’s theories: “All the theories relevant to genealogy compilations by the previous scholars are recorded here… as a reference and introduction”, and “to make people read with admiration and respect.” The number of quotations of scholars’ genealogy theories is relatively more in the Pu Shuo (A Talk on Genealogy) in the Wang Clan Genealogy in Pingyangjun, Xiuning, Anhui. It included 29 items of quotations from the Tang Dynasty poets and other 21 literati and scholars such as Shi Lin 石林, Zhu Xi, Tao Yuanming, the Wang Yi Zhuan in the Nan Shi (The Southern History·Biography of Wang Yi), Su Dongpo, Lü Donglai 吕东莱, Wang Jing 王荆, Cheng Yichuan 程伊川, Ouyang Xiu, Su Laoquan 苏老泉, Sima Guang’s the Zong Pai Ji 宗派记 (Records of Various Clans), Huang Shangu 黄山谷, Lü Benzhong 吕本中, Lu Xiangshan 陆象山, Chen Beixi 陈 北溪, Hu Wufeng 胡五峰, You Mozhai 游默斋, Dong Shenshan 董深山, etc. These quotations are involved with every facet of genealogy compilation. Concerning the compilation and revision methods, Zhu Xi said: “Those superior to me are called Gong, while those inferior to me are called Lang. This is the method of compilation.” Lu Xiangshan said: “If the facts were lost or cannot be verified, one should record the real situation without any concealment. One could refer to the genealogies made by Sima Gong and Ouyang Gong.” But most of the quotes mainly explain the principle and significance of genealogy revision, namely the importance, like Cheng Zi said: “Consolidate the clansmen and collect the clans’ customs to make people memorize their origins. This is the purpose and significance of the patriarchal clan system.” As Cheng Yichuan said: “The importance of genealogy lies in its tracing back to the origin, so that the clansmen could respect their ancestors.” Lü Benzhong said: “If a country has no rules, then it would cause unrest; If a family has no rules, then it would cause trouble. Hence, the rite, music, social order and law are the rules of the country; the clan genealogy is the rule of the family.” Chen Beixi said: “Genealogy is the root of people.” Give the importance of compiling and revising genealogies, the ancient scholars called on: “People cannot live without genealogies! It should take much time to compile a genealogy! We must learn the genealogy theories! We must compile genealogies!” The Neo-Confucianism master Zhu Xi in the Southern Song Dynasty even raised the significance of genealogy to a level of filial piety: “It is not filial to renew your family genealogy after more than three generations!”. The above monographs on genealogy theory by literati and scholars are placed in a very important place in the family genealogies, to demonstrate that the authors use these principles as guidelines to for compilation. This also provides important materials for the repository of genealogy theory. But when we review the aforementioned monographs, we have to point out that one master is missing—Sima Qian and his arguments. When writing the famous history works the Shi Ji (the Grand History of China), Sima Qian quoted many genealogy resources available at that time. Sima Qian has made numerous statements on genealogies. It’s indeed a pity not to incorporate Sima Qian’s comments into the “genealogical methodology”. Perhaps, our ancestors have already been aware of this when compiling the monographs of family genealogies of all the previous scholars. Therefore, there are some supplements of genealogy principles and theories in the family genealogies. For

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example, the Huang Clan General Genealogy in Xin’an, Anhu has one specialized chapter of the San Family Genealogy Method, and three articles of Sima Qian’s The Preface of Sima Qian Genealogy, Ouyang Xiu’s The Preface of Ouyang Genealogy, and Su Mingyun’s The Preface of Su Genealogy. It also points out: “The emergence of genealogy started from Sima Qian, then Ouyang Xiu, Su Xun and other literati and scholars in the history. The dissertations on genealogy theory are worthwhile for us to learn and research, a true treasure of historical cultural heritage.”

10.9 The Origin and Flow of Surnames Where do I come from? Where is my root? These are the questions that all the Chinese people are really concerned with. The “origin and flow of surnames” is a crucial part of a family genealogy, which could answer the questions. The so-called “origin” means the source of the surname, the first ancestor with this surname and the first ancestor who relocated to the current place; The so-called “flow” is about the migration and branches of family. Nearly each family genealogy has a specialized chapter on the origin and flow of surnames. Or the origin of surname is mentioned in the relevant content in the preface of genealogy. The following are some examples. The Wang Clan Genealogy in Wuchuan, Sandu, Jixi, Anhui 安徽绩溪三都梧川 汪氏宗谱 (the 21st year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era, 1895) expounds on the ancient legendary origin of the surname Wang: “Our clan’s first ancestor is Wang Gong, son of King Lu Cheng Gong and younger brother of Xiang Gong. His mother is Madame Ni. It’s said when he was born there were characters on his hands, with the word “Shui 水” (water) on the left hand and the word “Wang 王” (King) on the right hand. So, he was named Wang. At young age, he was bright and smart. When he grew up, he had made great contributions to the Kingdom of Lu and was granted with the fief of Yin Chuan. The third generation of his clan became the official Sima and chanted the praises of Him. His descendants adopted his surname Wang.” The Revised Wang Clan Genealogy in Longchi, Wuyuan, Jiangxi 江西婺源龙池 王氏续修宗谱 (the 26th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Daoguang era, 1846) introduces the superior status of the surname Wang in the Tang Dynasty and the main source of the surname: Emperor Tai Zong in the Tang Dynasty commanded the senior official of the Ministry of Official Personnel Affairs Gao Shilian and others to compile the genealogies, “in the early Kaiyuan era in the Tang Dynasty (713), Liu Chong and Xue Na revised the genealogies, determined 26 surnames as national pillars and 16 surnames as national clans. The King Langya in Taiyuan belonged to one of the surnames. Wang’s ancestors are the descendants of the prince Jin of the Emperor Ling in the Zhou Dynasty. The majority of the descendants are talented and gifted.” The Jin Clan Genealogy in Jingzhao, Qimen, Anhui 安徽祁门京兆金氏宗谱 (the 20th year of the Republic of China, 1931) introduces that the first ancestor who relocated to the Dongyi, Qimen of the Jin Family is Ting Ou Gong.

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The Su Clan Genealogy in Xin’an, Xiuning, Anhui 安徽休宁新安苏氏族谱(the first year of the Qing Dynasty’s Qianlong era, 1736) introduces the origin of surname Su is fief: “The ancestors of Su were from Gaoyang. The surname of the sixth generation was Kun Wu, who was granted with the fief of Su. So he was named after Su. His fief Su was located in the west of the Ye county.” The Origin and Flow of Li Family in The Li Clan Genealogy in Yantian, Xingyuan, Wuyuan, Jiangxi 江西婺源星源严田李氏宗谱 (the 14th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Qianlong era, 1749) introduces that the surname Li originated from the ancient legend: “Li comes from Emperor Zhuan Xu (surname Ying) from Gao Yang Family. Zhuan Xu’s son is Da Ye. Da Ye’s daughter is Nu Hua. Nu Hua’s son is Gao Tao, courtesy name Ting Jian, who became Emperor Yao Dali. Dali’s son is Yi. Yi’s son is En Cheng. After the Xia and Shang Dynasties, the descendants were named after the official title Li. When it came to the period the Emperor Zou, Li Wei with courtesy name De Xu was put to death because he offended the Emperor Zou. His wife Chen Guoqi and son Li Zhen fleed away to the place called Yin Hou and finally survived there. Afterwards, they changed the surname to Li.” The “Origin and Flow of Surnames” in a family genealogy not only elaborates on the origination of the clan’s surname, but also introduces the history of family migration after the surname is obtained. Here are some examples. The Wang Clan Genealogy in Wuchuan, Sandu, Jixi, Anhui introduces the relocation process of Wang Family to Xin’an, Anhui: “The 4th generation official Yue Gong first relocated to Luo Yang. The 23rd generation General Gao Gong went on expedition and won military merits. The 26th generation Yun Gong was the prefecture chief in Yuyang. He advocated filial piety and loyalty to the imperial court and became a respected minister in the period of the Emperor Shun in the Han Dynasty. The 31st generation Wenhe Gong suppressed the Yellow Turbans armies and was granted with the title of General Long Xiang. In the 2nd year of the Jian’an era, there was unrest in the Central China. He was deployed to crack down on the bandits in Qianyi and his family also relocated there. The 33rd generation Xindu Marquis Che Gong firstly moved to stay in Xin’an. He is the first ancestor who relocated to to Xin’an. The 36th generation Yi County Magistrate Daoxian Gong settled down in Yi county and thus the descendants all stayed here.” The Li Clan Genealogy in Yantian, Xingyuan, Wuyuan, Jiagnxi introduces the relocation history of Li to Wuyuan: “The first ancestor Jing Gong took refuge in Huangdun in Yi county due to the unrest of Huang Chao Uprising. After that, his descendants moved to Jietian and gave bith to three sons, named Zhong Gao, Zhong An and Zhong Heng. Zhong Gao had three sons, named De Peng, De Luan and De Hong. De Luan Gong relocated from Jietian to Yantian and had three sons, named Hu, Xu and Hai. Hai Gong gave birth to two sons, named Ren Zheng and Ren Jian. Ren Jian lived in Zhong Cun. So, he is the first ancestor who relocated to Zhong Cun.” The Ge Clan Genalogy in Jiqingfang, Jixi 绩溪积庆坊葛氏族谱 (1565) introduces the relocation process of Ge family to Jixi, Anhui: “Ge was the descendant of Ge Tian but then changed to the surname of Guo. It was said he lived in Jurong, Jiangnan. By the period the Emperor Ming of the Tang Dynasty, Yingxiang Gong’s

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eldest son Wu Dao Gong stayed in Yang Xi for 12 generations until Liu Er Gong. In the Song Dynasty, the family moved to Jiqingfang in the west of the Yi. After that, the descendants all lived there. By the Baoqing era in the Song Dynasty, Song Yu Gong tired to revise the family genealogy and regarded Wu Dao Gong as the first ancestor who relocated to Jixi. Since the surname was given, till Wu Dao Gong it’s been 49 generations. Till Zong Yu Gong, it’s been 63 generations. The genealogy has been through the turmoil of war but still was not finished. By the Yuan Dynasty, Chong Dao Gong revised it but the records of ancestors before Liu Er Gong were all gone. Therefore, Liu Er Gong was considered as the first ancestor.” The Zha Clan Genealogy in Wuyuan, Jiangxi 江西婺源查氏族谱 (1892) introduces how the Zha family relocated from Jiujiang to Xuancheng and finally to Wuyuan, Jiangxi. The Wang Branch Genealogy in Tengxi, Xiuning, Anhui 安徽休宁藤溪王氏摘 支世谱 (compiled during the Qianlong era, 1736–1795) introduces that the firstgeneration ancestor Xi Xiang Gong initially lived in Wu Kou, while the branches of his descendants migrated from here to other places. Because Wang is a major surname with much population. There were a large number of Wang branches that moved from Wukou to other places. And they were all listed in this genealogy, altogether up to 500 branches that relocated from the original place of Wukou and now are scattered around in Southern Anhui, Northern Anhui, Jiangsu, Jiangxi and other areas. The Relocation Annotation of the Cheng Clan Genealogy in Xin’an, Anhui 安 徽新安程氏统宗列派迁徙注脚纂 (1928) introduces the development of Cheng’s locations after the surname was obtained: “The Cheng in Xin’an originated from the first ancestor Bo Fu, who was an official of Emperor Cheng of the Zhou Dynasty. Bo Fu was granted with the fief of Guang Ping Cheng Guo. Then he was given the surname Guo. Guang Ping was his prefecture, which was the first location. The 14th generation descendant Sun Ying Gong moved to Xinzhou, Taiyuan, which was the second location. His second son Bo Xian was the ancestor of one of the family branches. He was granted with the fief of ancient Chongzhou, Shandong. His descendants lived in Donghe, which was the third location. The 45th generation descendant the prefecture chief Sun Yuantan in the Eastern Jin Dynasty relocated from Dong Anan to Xin’an, and settled down in Huangdun, Haiyang, which was the fourth location. Since then, the Cheng generation lived in Xin’an but other branches moved out of Huang Dun.” Many genealogies investigated the “origin” and “flow” of their own clans. For example, The Bao Zhu Cun Tang Clan Genealogy in Xinguan, Yixian, Anhui (the first year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era) lists a chapter of The Research on the Original Place of Surname, which quotes relevant works about the surname Bao in the history for later generations to compare and analyze. The Qi Yu (Language of Qi): Bao 鲍, descendants of the surname Si 姒. The Yuan He Xing Zhuan (Genealogical Compilation of Family Names in Yuanhe Era): Si, the surname of Xia Yu’s descendants. Bao Jingshu was an official in the Kingdom of Qi 齐. The name Bao came from the Chinese character of abalone 鲍 he ate.

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The Gu Jin Xing Shi Bian Zheng (A Critical Review to Old and New Books on Family Names): Bao is the surname Si’s descendants in the kingdoms of Xia 夏. The Yun Fu Qun Yu (Rhyming Dictionary): Si is the surname of Xia Yu’s descendants. Bao Jingshu was an official in the Kingdom of Qi. The name Bao originated from the Chinese character of abalone 鲍 he ate. Bao Jingshu’s son was Shu Ya. His grandson was Guo Dai, a minister in the Kingdom of Qi. The Xing Shi Zhuan (The Compilation of Surnames): Bao’s surname is Si. Bao is the descendants of Qi officialdom. The Shi Zu Zhi (The Clan Records): Bao is the descendants of Xia Yu. In the Zhou Dynasty, there was a person called Jingshu, who was an official in the Kingdom of Qi. His name Bao came from the Chinese character of abalone. The Shi Xing Pu (The Genealogy of Surnames): Bao’s surname is Si, but the origination is unknown. It’s said that Bao is the descendants of Xia Yu, located in Shang Dang and Dong Hai. The Dai Clan Genealogy in Xiuning, Anhui (the 5th year of the Ming Dynasty’s Chongzhen era) analyzed the Dai branch in Jiangnan: “The surname Dai originated in the Song Dynasty. Since then, the Dai clan was distributed in three areas, Jiao Guo, Ji Yin and Guang Ling. The clan in Jiang Nan originated from the first ancestor Ji Gong who relocated to Jin Ling. Before Ji Gong, though Jing Gong relocated to Shan Yin and Zun Gong relocated to Kuai Ji, their clansmen were scattered around and these two branches’ descendants were not as famous as those of Ji Gong branch. Therefore, there was a divide between the Jiangnan (southern part) and Jiangbei (northern part) branches.” The Zha Clan Genealogy in Wuyuan, Jiangxi (the 18th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era) verified the history of the Zha branches after they relocated to Xin’an, Anhui. According to the Xin An Ming Zu Zhi, there are mainly two flows of the Zha into Xin’an: First, the branch of minister Wen Hui that lived in the north of Xiuning city. Second, the branch of Wenzheng that lived in the Fengshan, Wuyuan. The socalled “Zha Wanlin in Xiuning” is an imposter of Zha 查, whose real surname is Li 李. The purpose of analyzing the facts is to unveil the imposture issue. It is worthwhile to praise the serious attitudes towards the origin of ancestors in family genealogies.

10.10 The Pedigree The pedigree is also called generation biographies, pedigree table, pedigree chart etc. It is a chart that records the name, courtesy name, date of birth and death, official title, wife and children, cemetery location and other contents of the family members from the first generation. It is the main body of the Chinese family genealogy, the main clue for later generations to seek their ancestral roots, as well as the main standard to distinguish family genealogy from local chronicle, family biography, family history and other books. The pedigree accounts for a significant portion, normally half or over three-quarters of the genealogy.

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Fig. 10.1 The pedigree chart of the Fang family Baiyuntang Clan genealogy in Yuekeng, Yixian, Anhui

In order to deepen the understanding of family pedigree, please refer to the following photocopied pedigree of The Fang Family Baiyuntang Clan Genealogy in Yuekeng, Yixian, Anhui 安徽黟县瀹坑方氏白云堂宗谱 as an example (see Fig. 10.1). From the figure, we could see that the right part is the names of family pedigree: From top to down is the sequence of senior and junior generations; From left to right is the sequence of lineal descent and concubine’s children. The left part is the mini biography of figures, mainly introducing the courtesy name, profile, date of birth and death, marriage, cemetery and offspring. In this chart, the names of family pedigree and the introductory biographies are separated. But in some pedigrees, the names and biographies are placed in the same chart. For example, the pedigree chart in the Sun Family Genealogy in Guzhu, Yixian, Anhui 安徽黟县古筑孙氏家谱 (the 12th year of the Daoguang era, 1832) (see Fig. 10.2). In the above family pedigree, the names and biographies are placed in the same chart, for the convenience of search and reading. In the pedigree chart of the old family genealogies, only the names of male were listed not the female. This reflects the men-centered feudalism thought that men should enjoy higher status than women. By the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, some family genealogies started to list the names of female members on the pedigree chart. In the newly

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Fig. 10.2 The pedigree chart of the Sun family genealogy in Guzhu, Anhui

revised family genealogies in recent decades, both men and female have their own spots on the family pedigree chart, which reflects the thought of “men and women are equal” and the progress of the era. The family pedigree chart starts from the first generation, and then to the generation that compiles this genealogy, which normally has tens of generations and even sometimes over a hundred generations. Before the Song and Yuan Dynasties, there were no regulations about how many generations should be put in one chart in the family pedigree. Some were 10 generations in one chart and some were 9. Like the below Wang Clan Genealogy in Xin’an, Anhui (see Fig. 10.3). The above chart shows 11 generations from the 45th to the 56th are in one chart, while 10 generations from the 56th to the 65th and from the 65th to the 74th are in one chart respectively. This is because “the pedigree could not be too complicated, otherwise it’s really hard to search and read.”5 Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun in the Song Dynasty compiled the Ouyang Family Genealogy and the Su Clan Genealogy respectively, and concluded the compilation principles of the previous generations. In order to adapt to the demands of the development of genealogy compilation in The Wang Clan Genealogy in Wuchuan, Sandu, Jixi, Anhui 绩溪三都梧川汪氏宗谱, the 21st year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1895).

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Fig. 10.3 The pedigree chart of the Wang Clan genealogy in Xin’an, Anhui

the Song Dynasty, they proposed the style of five-generation pedigree based on the previous arrangements (see Fig. 10.4). As seen in the chart, from Jingda to Xun is five generations in one chart. The second chart is from Xun to Jing, Zong, again five generations. The Five-generation pedigree arrangement proposed by Ouyang and Su had great impacts on later generations. The Revised Wang Family Genealogy in Yixian, Anhui published and printed during the Zhengde era in the Ming Dynasty mentioned that: “In the old genealogies, there were 9 generations in one chart, which lacked the significance of Small Head. The biographies were placed after the family branch chart, which lacked the significance of Big Head. The five-generation chart proposed by Ouyang could clarify the sequence of generations.” The Fang Clan Genealogy in Qimen, Anhui published and printed in the 13th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Tongzhi era (1874) pointed out: “The compilation format follows Ouyang’s five-generation chart, starting from the first generation to the fifth generation. And then the ancestor of the fifth generation is regarded as the start of the 6th generation, then moving on to the 10th generation.” The Revised Hu Ren De Tang Genealogy in Qinghua, Wuyuan, Jiangxi published and printed in the 6th year of the Republic of China (1917) noted that: “The previous

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Fig. 10.4 The pedigree chart of the Ouyang Family

genealogy had 7 generations in one chart. But now it’s suggested to have five generations in one chart (the Gengcheng year of the Qianlong era), so that the genealogy outline is more clear with fewer names on it; Under the names are several items including the generation ranking, courtesy name, parents, date of birth and death, wife and children and others. It’s more reader-friendly and easy to verify.” All in all, “Since Ouyang and Su’s genealogy style was generated, it has been used as a standard and model.” It has also laid a solid foundation for the basic layout of the family pedigree chart of genealogies in later generations. In the history of Chinese genealogy, the five-generation pedigree chart proposed by Ouyang and Su was a milestone. Why? First, Ouyang and Su’s five-generation pedigree chart demonstrates the relationship of “wufu” and the traditional ethics of Jiuzu. Take the above “Ouyang Family Pedigree Chart” as an example. The first chart is the five generations of Jingda, Sengbao, Wei, He and Xun. In ancient China, if within the five generations, it’s called Funei (服内), which means if a family member passed away, the relatives within the five generations must wear the mourning dresses according to the rules, also called within the “wufu”; If outside the five generations, the relationship of relatives is pretty distant. Then there is no need to wear the mourning dresses. This is called outside the “wufu”. Five generations in one chart perfectly interprets the relationship within the “wufu”. The second chart starts from Xun, to Tong, Youming, Chang, Jing, again five generation. The first chart and the

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second chart are connected together, covering the great-great-grandfather, greatgrandfather, grandfather, father to son, grandson, great-grandson and great-greatgrandson, altogether 9 generations to demonstrate the close relationship of the Jiuzu advocated in ancient China. Such five-generation pedigree chart proposed by Ouyang Su is widely recognized by the compilers in later generations. For example, The Wu Clan Genealogy in Taihu, Changxi, Shexian, Anhui 安徽歙县昌溪太湖吴氏宗谱 (1765) mentioned: “Each chart has five generations. The second chart starts with the fifth generation, followed by the sixth generation. The first and the second chart have 9 generations, meaning the “jiuzu”. Each chart only renders five generations, meaning the “wufu”. This is the format and style of Ouyang and Su’s genealogies.” Also, in the Wang Clan Genealogy in Qimen, Anhui: “the genealogy should adopt the format of Ouyang’s pedigree chart, which starts from the ancestor to the great-greatgrandson with five generations per chart. It demonstrates the meaning of “wufu”. The five generations could be regarded as one family, while the family members within the five generations shall follow the traditional mourning dress system of the “wufu”.” In addition, the Shao Clan Genealogy in Huayang, Jixi, Anhui (the 36th year of the Republic of China) pointed out that: “the family pedigree chart contains five generations, echoing the “wufu”. The fifth generation is used as the first one for the second chart. Each chart is followed by brief biographies, which is more convenient for readers to read.” Second, Ouyang and Su’s five-generation pedigree chart adopts the principle of “prioritizing close relatives”, which solved the issue of chaotic lineages caused by a large number of descendants and the long family history. “The old genealogy adopted 10 generations in one chart or 9 generations in one chart. But since the pedigree was too complicated, it was very difficult for people to search and read. Now the five-generation pedigree chart is neither too complex nor too simple, and extremely convenient for reading.”6 Ouyang and Su’s five-generation pedigree chart originated from the Small Head Method, which features that the chart doesn’t record distant relatives outside the ““wufu” “and five generations. The great-great-grandson becomes the first one of another chart. In this way, although from the same ancestor, the close and distant relatives could be well distinguished. The descends of different branches could be the first ones in their specific charts. For example, in the Ouyang Family Pedigree Chart, only the descendants of the main linage are recorded. As for the descends of other branches like Liang, De, Qi and Yun, since they are outside the “wufu”, they are not recorded in this chart. Such methods could help serve the purpose of prioritizing close relatives in details and get rid of the previous complex format. The close relatives and distant relatives are well distinguished. “The records of numerous descendants are clear and well-organized.”7 Third, Ouyang and Su’s five-generation pedigree chart has been widely recognized and renowned since its inception. The Song Dynasty where Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi lived is a transitional period of genealogy in China. In terms of the compilation The revised Wang family genealogy in Shexian, Anhui 安徽歙县重修汪氏家乘, the Ming Dynasty’s Zhengde era (1506–1521). 7 The preface of the Ouyang family genealogy. 6

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principle, the social and political functions of “election, marriage and hierarchy” are turned to the ethic and moral functions of “revering and uniting the lineage”; With regard to the format, before the Song Dynasty both the official compilation and private compilation co-existed. By the Song Dynasty, the official compilation was “abolished”, while the private compilation emerged. Ouyang and Su compiled their own clan genealogies, so did other literati and officialdoms, like Zeng Zhao’s 曾肇 Zeng Family Pedigree Chat, Xu Yuan’s 许元 Xu Family Pedigree Chart, Fan Zhongyan’s 范仲淹 Revised Family Genealogy, You Jiuyan’s 游九言 You Family Pedigree etc. Amid the trend of private compilation, people naturally started to discuss and study the pros and cons of the previous genealogies, especially the main body, to compare and analyze the ranking method of the pedigree chart. Against such backdrop, Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun launched the five-generation pedigree chart that features the Small Head, to adapt to the urgent demands of private compilation in the society at that time. Back then, Ouyang Xiu once said to Su Xun: “Compiling genealogies shall not only be the task of us two, but also the task of everyone in the country.”8 This shows that Ouyang and Su compiled genealogies not merely for respecting ancestors and consolidating the clans, but also for establishing a model for other people. Ouyang and Su are one of the most famous eight scholars in the Tang Dynasty, with masterpieces and great works widely spread in the country. Ouyang and Su’s genealogy compilation exerted great influences on later generations. “Ouyang and Su also attempted to compile family genealogies to consolidate their own clans. Therefore, people around the country also followed the suit. They started to build ancestral temples for sacrifice activities and compiled genealogies to distinguish the superiors and inferiors.”9 Ouyang compiled the Ouyang Clan Genealogy and incorporated it in his collected works so that everyone in the country could read it.10 Various family pedigree charts all start from the first-generation ancestor and end at the generation that compiles this genealogy, normally more than ten generations or 80–90 generations and even more than a hundred generations. For example, The Fang liushan Zhen Ying Miao Hui Clan Genealogy in Yichun, Anhui (the 19th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Qianlong era) said: “So far, there are 161 generations that span over a thousand year.” The first generation of various family genealogies is sometimes called the first ancestor, or the first ancestor who relocated to the current place, or the first ancestor with the surname, or the founding ancestor and etc. The calculation of pedigrees in most of the genealogies starts from the first ancestor or the first ancestor who relocated to the current place. But are the names and history of the pedigree since the first ancestor all real? The answer is: something is real and something is imposture. Normally speaking, the pedigrees after the Song and Yuan Dynasties, when the later generations started to compile genealogies, are more authentic and reliable because revising genealogies has become a custom after the Song and Yuan Dynasties. But the family pedigrees before the Song and Yuan Dynasties were very Wu Xing Bu (Surname Su 苏). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. The Huang family general genealogy in Xin’an 新安黄氏会通谱, the Qing Dynasty copy. 10 Works of Wu Wenzheng 吴文正公集, Vol. 55. 8 9

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ambiguous as they were compiled long time ago. Accordingly, the authenticity and reliability of those pedigrees should be analyzed case by case. According to the chapter of “Preface of Genealogy”, families normally have the mindset of seeking connections with those in power to show off the glories of the ancestors. Therefore, most of the first ancestor and the first ancestor who relocated to the current place in the genealogy are emperors, feudal princes, saints and nobles. Many Wang family genealogies list the prince Jin of Emperor Ling in the Zhou Dynasty as their first-generation ancestor, while Wu family genealogies regard the eldest prince Tai Bo of Emperor Wen in the Zhou Dynasty as their first-generation ancestor. A few family genealogies even incorporate celebrities in the past dynasties into their own pedigrees. For example, the Li family regards Li Shimin as the ancestor; the Zhang family lists Zhang Liang and Zhang Fei as their clan members; the Xiao family considers Xiao He as the ancestor, and the like. For those scenarios, we need to analyze them case by case. Given the obvious flaunting and comparing mindset in society, it must have caused some fabrications or imposture of the firstgeneration ancestors when people compiled the family genealogies. Plus, the professions like “genealogy master” and “genealogy writer” came into being during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, in a bid to satisfy this flaunting and comparing demands in the society. As a result, various families fabricated their pedigrees, and sought connections with powerful and affluent figures or trumped up new figures in the history.11 Of course, the phenomenon of “seeking connections with celebrities to show off the glories of ancestors” only appeared in part of family genealogies. Many compilers held a serious attitude towards their own ancestors and lineages. For example, Zhu Xi proposed that genealogy compilation must be based on facts. Some serious scholars in recent dynasties also criticized such phenomenon, like The Zhou Clan Genealogy compiled by Zhou Shangwen in the Ming Dynasty: “Recently, the compilers endeavored to reach for those in power and incorporate them into their genealogies. But, the ultimate purpose of genealogy is to respect the ancestors, instead of borrowing others’ ancestors as their own ancestors.”12 However, not all the ancient people would recognize the celebrities as their ancestors. For instance, after Zhu Yuanzhang became the emperor, he once attempted to establish Zhu Xi as his ancestor after learning the above phenomenon. But once in the imperial court, he asked a official surnamed Zhu who was his ancestor. That Zhu official didn’t recognize Zhu Xi as his ancestor. Zhu Yuanzhang thought: since this junior official didn’t seek connections with Zhu Xi, why should I make Zhu Xi as ancestor? I came from the Huang Jue Temple, and there is nothing to be ashamed of! Therefore, he gave up the idea of making Zhu Xi as his ancestor.

Wang Fen 王棻, ed. The wang clan genealogy in Rouqiao 柔桥王氏宗谱, the Qing Dynasty copy. 12 Ibid. 11

Chapter 11

The Style of Chinese Genealogies and Their Content (II)

11.1 Biographies Biographies, also known as bios, are brief biographical accounts of the deceased. They mainly record the deeds of clansmen, their lofty virtues and noble titles, and any of their achievements and literary works. Tombstone inscriptions and epitaphs are types of biographies. The subjects of biographies are often closely related to the politics, economy, education or culture of a set time, and this is reflected in the recorded experiences of the subject. The authors of biographies are normally celebrities. Therefore, biographies are not just a part of a family genealogy; they are of important literary value. The following are examples. (1) The Zhong Shu Gong Tombstone Inscription 仲舒公神道碑 in the Wang Family Jinyuanshantou Branch Genealogy in Wukou, Wuyuan, Jiangxi 江西婺源武口 王氏金源山头派支谱 (compiled during the fifth year of the Daoguang era, 1825). This was written by Han Yu 韩愈, a famous Tang Dynasty literati. He wrote a vivid account on Wang Zhongshu’s morality and works. Wang made a great regional chief of Wuzhou by defeating the epidemic and drought during the Tang Dynasty. (2) The Biography of Xiang Gong 湘公传 in the Ge Clan Genealogy in Quantang, Jixi, Anhui (compiled during the third year of the Xuantong era, 1911). This was written by the famous Song Dynasty minister, Wang Anshi 王安石. He gave a vivid account of how Ge Xiang, at the age of nine, had won praise from Emperor Zhen, due to his intelligence and wisdom in the first year of Xiangfu era (1008). In 1013, the Emperor appointed Ge Xiang as the head of General Services Office. In 1015, he was in charge of the Confucian Apprentice Examination. (3) The Brief Biographical Account of the Song Dynasty Ministry Councilor, Xu ti, 宋司封员外郎许公逖行状 in the Dunxutang Xu Clan Genealogy in Nanguan, Jixi, Anhui 安徽绩溪南关惇叙堂许氏宗谱 (compiled during the 15th year of the Guangxu era, 1889). This was written by the famous Song Dynasty author, Ouyang Xiu. He wrote a first-hand account detailing Xu Ti’s 许逖 floodprevention deeds, and his contributions to ethnic integration. Xu Ti was ordered © Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2023 H. Wang, The General Theory of China’s Genealogy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6377-5_11

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by the Emperor “to be the Xing Yuan Fu official and renovate the damaged Shan He weir”. The water from the weir irrigated more than 40,000 ha of farmland, and was said to have been built by Xiao He during the Han Dynasty. When Xu Ti inspected the collapsed weir, he told his followers that Xiao He had assisted the Han Emperors in conquering their enemies, and had still found time to build this weir for the farmers. “The ancient saints did everything that they thought was beneficial for the public. How can we not take actions to repair the dam that benefits its people?” He then led the labors to repair and renovate the weir, and he supervised the project himself. One day, a stone broke loose and he injured his left foot. But he worked even harder and went to all efforts to see this project through. After the renovation work was completed, the local farmers had a great harvest. Xu Ti was then promoted to Minister and he was dispatched to Jing Hu. There were many barbarians and aboriginal tribes in southern Jing Hu. Every year, they wreaked havoc on the neighboring counties. Xu Ti said: “I’m able to domesticate birds and animals, to say nothing of barbarians!” He called on the tribal chiefs in the region to negotiate. They were all convinced by his words and didn’t commit any crimes over the next three years. When Xu returned to the Imperial Court, Emperor Zhen commended him for his talent and his contributions. The Xuan Gong Tombstone Inscription 宣公神道碑铭 in the Zhang Clan Genealogy in Wujin, Jiangsu 江苏武进张氏宗谱 was written by the Southern Song Dynasty’s Neo-Confucianism master, Zhu Xi. He introduced Zhang Shi’s academic history, while promoting his own Neo-Confucian theories. The Shu Xiang Gong Epitaph 蔬香公墓志铭 in the Wang Family Jinyuanshantou Branch Genealogy in Wukou, Wuyuan, Jiangxi (compiled during the fifth year of the Daoguang era, 1825). This was written during the Qing Dynasty by the head of the Tongcheng School, Yao Nai 姚鼐. Yao provided details on Wang Tingyan’s 王廷言 career, his benevolent rule as an official, and their friendship. The Gu An Gong Epitaph 穀庵公墓志铭 in the Dunxutang Xu Clan Genealogy in Jixi, Anhui (compiled during the 16th year of the Guangxu era, 1890). This was written during the Qing Dynasty by a teacher of the Emperor Guangxu, Sun Jianai 孙家鼐. Sun wrote an analysis on why members of the Xu family had been officials for generations. “The great achievements of earlier ancestors, and help from other official bodies are the reasons they have been officials for generations.” The Biography of Hu Wenfu 胡文甫君传 in the Hu Clan Genealogy in Zunyi, Jixi, Anhui 安徽绩溪遵义胡氏宗谱 (compiled during the 24th year of the Republic of China era, 1935). This was written during the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era by Xu Chengyao 许承尧, a compiler at the Imperial Academy. He wrote: “Hu Wenfu was one of the National University Students 国学生 at the Qing Dynasty’s Directorate of Education 国子监, a central government agency headed by a Chancellor that oversaw schools at the dynastic capital. His family lived in Zunyi, Jixi County, for generations. The Hu family in Zunyi are descendants of Song Anding, and they relocated from Huzhou to the Hucun

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village. The family’s 11th generation ancestor moved to Jixi and he became a well-respected member of the community. Hu Wenjun’s father was named Rong, and he was a diligent and amicable person. He started doing business in Jianping with his father and brothers while he was a kid. In April, during the 11th year of the Xianfeng era, he was taken away by Taiping troops. He was detained for years, but fled and returned to Jixi. When he returned, he found his house had been damaged and all of his family members had gone. He discovered that all of his relatives had died during a war. The corpses of his mother Wang 汪, his wife Li 李 and his brothers had not been found. He was engulfed by despair.” This quote provided a first-hand account of what had happened in April during the 11th year of the Xianfeng era (1861), when the Taiping army had invaded. From the above examples, we can see that there is a lot of important literary material to be found in biographies. It is also worth noting that the biographies in genealogies were normally written by local celebrities. A few of their accounts have already been incorporated into these celebrities’ collected works, but some have not, and remain scattered around in various genealogies. If these could be compiled, they would undoubtedly supplement missing pieces of history.

11.2 Family Disciplines There are many types of family disciplines in family genealogies. These are constraints or regulations written by family members to educate descendants on the clansmen. According to The Introduction of Ancestral Temple Rules in The Xiang Clan Genealogy in Dongxi, Xianyuan, Taiping, Anhui 安徽太平仙源东溪项氏族 谱 (compiled during the 11th year of the Guangxu era, 1885): “The rules of a family are like the laws of a country. If a country has laws, its officials and citizens will receive rewards and/or punishment. If a family has rules, its clansmen will receive rewards and/or punishment. The rules of a family and the rules of a country play a similar role.” The Family Instructions in The Dunxutang Xu Clan Genealogy in Jixi, Anhui said: “The instructions and rules given by the sages have all been included in the Six Classics. Why is domestic discipline still necessary? Because domestic rules can cover areas that have not been included in the sages’ instructions. Only scholars have read the Six Classics; ordinary people never read poems or articles. Without family instructions, people would not understand these ethics, or at least they would not respect good manners. So family instructions need to be in a simple language that women and children can comprehend. Every spring equinox and winter solstice, when people pay worship to their ancestors, the family should publicly promote its family instructions. If descendants read these carefully and observe the rules, then the family’s future will be very promising!” The domestic disciplines were like a state’s laws. They included guidance on social etiquette, and instructions that needed to be

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presented to clansmen once a year during days of worship. Naturally, they became an important part of a family’s genealogy. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, every family had content and/or chapters in their genealogy on domestic disciplines. There were ten family rules listed in the Dunxutang Xu Clan Genealogy in Nanguan, Jixi, Anhui. Before these, there was a special chapter on “Ethics”, which described the differences between humans and beasts. It said that people could learn ethics by reading books. It urged farmers, labors, merchants, women and children to learn and practice ethical behavior, so that they could be good people, just like scholars. If scholars studied ethics but didn’t observe them, they would be regarded as inferior to the above groups. The “Ethics” stipulated a number of things. First, that there needed to be a righteous relationship between the Emperor and his officials. He needed to be benevolent and to take care of his citizens. He needed to be wise and not fatuous. And officials needed to be devoted to the country. They needed to be loyal and not treacherous. The ethics also stipulated that there needed to be affinity between fathers and sons. Fathers needed to take care of their children and daughters-in-law, and guide them to understand and observe ethical behavior. Children and their spouses needed to be obedient to their parents. The ethnics also stipulated that there needed to be a harmonious relationship between husbands and wives. Husbands needed to preserve their moral integrity and understand that obscenity was the source of all evil. If their wives failed to give birth to an heir, they could marry concubines but not indulge in lasciviousness themselves. Women needed to be faithful to their husbands until they died, and they needed to cherish their virginity. There were also ethics guiding the relationship between brothers. Older brothers needed to take care of their younger brothers, and younger brothers needed to respect their elder brothers. Finally, the ethics included lines about friendship. People needed to make good friends, not bad friends; they needed to keep promises to friends and be true to themselves and others. People needed to persuade their friends not to do bad deeds. They would often conclude by saying: “If all descendants, children, men and women comply with the Ethics, they will be good, blessed people. They can benefit from these blessings, as can their offspring, and the family will become more prosperous. If family members do not comply with the Ethics and behave like beasts, they will not be tolerated by society and they will not be counted as descendants!”. The ten family rules listed in the Dunxutang Xu Clan Genealogy in Nanguan, Jixi, Anhui are as follows: (1)

(2)

Be filial to your parents. As the ancient saying goes, filial piety is the origin of all decent behaviour. If a person is unfilial to his parents, even if he does other good deeds, we may think that his good deeds are false. To be a filial son, you must love and respect your parents, and work hard to preserve your integrity. Preserving your integrity with a kind heart and doing good deeds will distinguish you with God as a truly filial son. A filial son must also have offspring, who he must also educate in the ways of filial piety. Worship your ancestors. To be filial to your parents, you must show filial piety to your parents’ parents and their ancestors from earlier generations.

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This can be done through worship: by trimming the grass at the graves of your ancestors, or by restoring their ancestral temple, to keep the souls of your ancestors at peace. A filial son must also restore their family’s genealogical records, to preserve the ancestral origin. When choosing a burial ground for your ancestors, ensure that there is no water and no ants near it, and it is guarded against the natural elements. Do nothing to stop the funeral or the burial of your ancestors. When you worship your ancestors during different seasons or during different festivals, sacrificial food should be cooked hot with the smoke rolling northwards, because the ghosts and the Gods cannot enjoy raw or cold food. Respect educators from all walks of life. Educators know the ways of the sages, so it goes without saying that we should respect them. No matter what you wish to become in the future, be it a scholar, farmer, artisan or merchant, you have to study to know about trade etiquettes, so you have to hire a teacher. A teacher should be experienced, polite and thoughtful. If you are a student, you should not forget the kindness that a teacher shows towards you. If a teacher shows you no kindness, you should not wish him any blame. Even if you are already very talented, you should not show arrogance towards your townsmen, or behave god-like in your township. Even if you do not become rich or famous, if you study hard and do good deeds; your ancestors will still be proud of you. Men should not trespass into a boudoir. Men should stay in men’s bedrooms and women in women’s boudoirs. This is a very important moral, as every family should cherish its family name. If there are love affairs inside a boudoir, the people within it will be ashamed and become detestable, even if they have wealth and rank. If you can show distinction between men and women, you will be honorable and respectable, even if you are poor/humble. Even if you are an old woman, you should not enter a male bedroom in a temple to burn incense, or allow monks to enter your boudoir on the pretext of chanting. A husband should set an example and stand by his wife. If men are seen as righteous, their wives will not dare be seductive. Maintain a harmonious relationship with your brothers. All clansmen, grandparents, fathers and peers are brothers. A clan is a large family and if every family is harmonious, then the whole clan is harmonious. You would not make enemies with other clans, so why would you make enemies with your clansmen? Maintain a harmonious relationship with all generations of your clan, and preserve the good name of your ancestors. Seek a proper career path. Faith and filial piety is handed down from generation to generation, and the purity of clans is maintained without criminal records or unfaithful/remarried women. Future generations should ensure that they learn from their ancestors and choose a proper career path. There are four jobs that are viewed as being respectable, which are: scholar, farmer, artisan or merchant. There is nothing wrong with being a geologist or a doctor; however, these are difficult professions to learn and should you not learn them well, you may later harm others with your incomplete knowledge. If you seek to be a

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geologist or a doctor simply to receive others’ food and fortune, then you are viewed as being no better than a beggar. (7) Pay your grain tax on time. If you pay the grain taxes timely, you can rest in peace, and as a common person, you will be blessed. Only during war time or during natural disasters can you be excused from timely paying your grain tax to the Emperor. However, if you do not pay your grain tax timely during normal times, you can expect officials to come to your home and insist you pay interest. You may be punished, and you may even go bankrupt. Every year during harvest, you should aim to pay the grain tax first, before doing anything else. Even if you are famous, do not think that you are above paying the grain tax, as later you will regret it. (8) Avoid lawsuits. As a common person, if you manage to go a lifetime without ever going to court, you will be blessed. (9) Refrain from evil influences. Bury and worship your ancestors according to proper regulations, and abide by Confucianism. Do not believe in the heterodoxy of monks. (10) Do not drown your daughters (a terrible custom in Ningguo County, Anhui Province). It can be said that wild beasts are ferocious but they never eat their own children, so those who drown their own daughters are more ferocious than wild beasts. If this is not banned, clan purity will be ruined. There are many reasons clansmen have given for drowning daughters i.e. they are not as valuable as sons, they are too poor to raise them, etc. Such excuses are all nonsense, and the ancients stipulate that everyone has the right to kill an unfilial person. Therefore, those who drown their own daughters should be subject to capital punishment. The above ten rules were viewed as coarse, but popular and easy to understand. They were fairly typical of the rules in many genealogical records. Ancient Chinese morals have formed and developed over a long period of time in feudal society, and can be seen as having had both positive and negative elements. Some were quintessential, but others were regarded as just dregs. Many of the above clan rules reflect the good moral character of the ancient Chinese people, i.e. respecting the elders and loving the young, educating children, working hard, adhering to your integrity, not having love affairs, and not swerving from principle when you are poor. However, rules like “the monarch rules ministers, the father rules his son, the husband rules his wife” etc., and “the three obedience rules” and “four virtues of wives” reflect early hierarchical thoughts about superiors and inferiors.

11.3 Customs and Rites There was normally an independent volume in family genealogies for the customs and rites. These were given different names, like: customs, family etiquette, marriage

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and funeral customs, sacrificial ceremonies, rites, etc. They were an integral part of a family’s genealogy. The “Custom and Rites” volume of the Xiang Clan Genealogy in Guixi, Shexian, Anhui 安徽歙县桂溪项氏族谱 (compiled during the 16th year of the Jiaqing era, 1811) expounded on the importance of “recording customs and rites in genealogies”. “Different places have different customs and rites. As Xin’an is the hometown of the Neo-Confucian master, Zhu Xi (also known as Wen Gong), it is famous for customs and rites. However, these rites have changed as time has passed. So, it’s imperative that customs and rites are incorporated within genealogies, so that later generations can be educated on them, and they can cultivate good social manners.” The customs and rites in genealogies covered a lot of ground. According to the Dictionary of Ancient Chinese Customs 中国古代礼俗辞典 edited by Xu Jialu 许 嘉璐, there are seventeen different categories of customs/rites. There were customs and rites on: costumes, food, accommodation, transportation, methods of communicating, marriages, funerals, sacrificial activities, the patriarchal clan system, names and courtesy names, holidays, the military, the divisions of districts, official titles, criminal legislation, the education sector and the imperial examinations. Four of these customs/rites were regarded as especially important, and they included rituals. There were “four rituals” for: capping, weddings, funerals, and ancestral rites. After the Southern Song Dynasty, various family genealogies mainly followed the “four rituals” as stipulated by Zhu Xi in his Jia Li (The Family Rituals). Take the Family Rituals in the Yu Clan Genealogy in Huanshan, Yixian, Anhui (compiled in 1917) as an example. First, the capping ritual. Ancient men needed to attend a capping ceremony when they became adults. Any man between the ages of 15 and 20 could participate in a capping ritual. This was normally held in the family’s ancestral temple, and was chaired by his father or brother. It included a very complicated ritual, which included the following steps: (1) Three days before the ceremony, an honorable guest would be chosen to perform the rite. This would either be a friend or a respected clansman. (2) Tying the man’s hair in a bun and covering the bun with a “Xi” (a piece of black silk). On the day of the capping ceremony, attendants would stand in the ancestral temple in order of age, and they would welcome guests into the hall. The man being capped would sit on his heels. His hair was coiled into a bun and then tied with a piece of black silk (which was 2ft 2in in width and 6in in length). Afterwards, he would be presented with his cap. (3) The capping ceremony. The honored guest would address the capped person by saying: “Today on this auspicious day, I present this cap to you. From now on, you shall behave like a real adult. I wish you a healthy and long life.” The honored guest would then “cap” the man, by placing the cloth cap on his head. This was normally made of black linen, and a clasp would be used to pin the bun in place. The guest would present the man with a cap, black clothes, a leather strap and shoes. Finally, the guest would present him with a scarf, an official uniform, a jade-encrusted belt, a leather strap, and boots.

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(4) Choosing a courtesy name. The guest would begin by delivering a congratulatory speech to the capped person. He would then announce the man’s courtesy name, and from that moment it would mean that he had become a respectable adult. After that, no one was allowed to address him directly by his former name, only his seniors. He could only be called by his courtesy name. (5) Paying tributes to the elders. After a courtesy name was given, the capped man needed to worship all of the ancestors in his family temple, and then pay tribute to his parents and other people of seniority. He then visited his tutor and the friends of his father. These acts signaled that the capped person had become an adult, and was widely recognized by all walks of life. Second, the wedding ritual. Any man aged between 16 and 30, and any woman aged between 14 and 20 could marry. A go-between would decide who was a match and they would communicate with both parties. If the woman agreed with the gobetween to the marriage, the man could then propose. He would arrange for people to send gifts to his fiancée before officially proposing to her. If she said yes, the man would then send betrothal presents to the woman’s home. These were collectively known as the “Na Bi” 纳币 (the “bride-price”). An auspicious date would be chosen for the wedding, and this was the most important marriage rite. The day before the wedding, the woman’s family would send people to the bridegroom’s home to decorate the matrimonial room. On the wedding day, the bridegroom’s father would worship his ancestors in the family temple, and then ask his son to escort the bride to the temple to perform this ritual. The bridegroom would ride a horse to his fiancée’s home. The bride’s master would accompany her to the temple, and give her instructions on how to worship her future husband’s ancestors. She would be dressed in her wedding attire and helped into her carriage. Once the bride had arrived at the bridegroom’s home, the couple would perform a wedding ritual. This involved bowing to Heaven and the Earth, bowing to their parents and bowing to each other. Then would then be seated and made to drink from the “nuptial cup” (a wooden ladle). The wine they drank would taste bitter, and this symbolized that in the future, the couple would have shared happiness and woe. On the wedding day, a banquet would be held for all of the guests. The following morning, the newly-weds would visit the husband’s parents and his elders. The day after that, the master would introduce the couple to the ancestral temple. This would signify that the daughterin-law had become an official member of her husband’s family. The following day, the couple would visit the wife’s parents and relatives. This was the final stage of the wedding ritual, and once completed, would signify that the wedding ritual had come to an end. Third, the funeral ritual. When people were seriously ill, they would be moved to the main hall of the house. When they died, a “necromancy” ritual would be performed. This was known as the “Fu” 复 (resurrection). To perform the “Fu” ritual, a member of the family would climb onto the family rooftop, holding the clothes of the deceased. He/she would face north and call the name of the deceased three times. Afterwards, this person would roll up the deceased’s clothes and cover

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the corpse with them. This symbolized that his/her relatives didn’t want them to die, and that the family hoped their soul would return to their body. The funeral was normally chaired by the eldest son. If there was no eldest son, then it would be performed by the eldest grandson. When a family member died, people would bathe the deceased on the same day. They washed their body and their hair, shaved them and combed their hair, and cut their nails. They would then move the corpse to his/her bed and decorate the mourning hall. This involved placing a flag with the name and title of the deceased on a bamboo stick, and placing it in front of the coffin. Relatives and friends of the deceased could then cry and perform worship in front of the coffin. The same night, a dutiful son would often sleep beside the coffin, as an act of respect. The next day (day 2), there would be a ritual known as the “Xiao Lian” 小敛 (laying the corpse in the coffin but not closing the lid). The dead would be placed on a quilt and dressed in their burial clothes. They would then be wrapped in a quilt. The following day (day 3), the “Da Lian” 大敛 (the closing of the coffin lid) ritual would take place. The deceased would be placed in the coffin. Relatives would see the deceased one last time, and they would cry loudly and say their farewells. Once the coffin lid was closed, the coffin would be covered with the flag. The funeral would then take place in front of the coffin. On the fourth day of mourning, relatives within the “wufu” would dress in different mourning clothes, according to what their relationship was with the deceased. These clothes were known as “ready-made suits” (see Figs. 11.1 and 11.2). After the “Da Lian” ceremony and before the deceased was buried, there was a period of waiting. During this period, people would visit the memorial hall day and night, and mourn the deceased. Every time guests came to express their condolences, the host needed to cry with them. Three months after a family member had died, there would be a burial ceremony. On the day of the burial, incense would be burned and the coffin would be carried to the hearse. There would be a funeral procession headed by the host, who would walk and cry at the same time. When the coffin arrived at the graveyard, it would be dragged by a rope to the pre-dredged tomb and then smoothly hoisted into it. The flag would then be placed on the coffin, and other funerary objects would be placed either side. The coffin would then be draped with a cloth and covered in soil. “A grave would be four-feet deep. A small stone tablet would be erected in front of the grave, also at a depth of four feet.” When the coffin was buried, the host would cry loudly as a final farewell to the corpse. After the deceased was buried, there would still be a series of sacrificial activities. These were often the following: The “Yu Ji” 虞祭 (sacrificial ceremony to calm the spirits). The purpose of the Yu Ji was to calm the spirits of the deceased. During the Yu Ji, a spirit tablet was officially established for the dead. This was made of mulberry and the official title and courtesy name of the deceased would be engraved on it. The spirit tablet would then be presented on the sacrificial altar. The Yu Ji would be performed three times. The “Zu Ku” 卒哭 (an activity to cease wailing, after the Yu Ji). The Zu Ku would be held on an odd-numbered day after the final Yu Ji. The Zu Ku signified that family members should stop crying and suppress themselves from showing their grief.

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Fig. 11.1 Clothing graph (1) (From the Yu Clan Genealogy in Huanshan)

The “Fu Ji” 附祭. The Fu Ji was a ceremony that involved placing the spirit tablet in the ancestral temple, so that people could offer sacrifices to both the deceased and their ancestors. The whole funeral ritual lasts 100 days: from the date of death, to the burial three months later, to the Yu Ji (performed three times) and finally to the Zu Ku. It was required that relatives of the deceased wear mourning attire during the mourning period. There were five categories of mourning attire according to each members of the “wufu”’s relationship with the deceased: the Zhan Cui 斩衰, Qi Cui 齐衰, Da Gong 大功, Xiao Gong 小功 and Si Ma 缌麻. The Zhan Cui was the heaviest type

11.3 Customs and Rites

Fig. 11.2 Clothing graph (2) (From the Yu Clan Genealogy in Huanshan)

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of attire. The character Zhan 斩 means a hemless-stitch, and the character Cui 衰 refers to the top part of the mourning outfit, which was made of a heavy type of raw linen. The thread residue on this outfit would be on the outside, to show that the wearer’s grief could not be concealed. The bottom of the Zhan Cui was a hessian cloth apron, which was known as the skirt. The wearer of the Zhan Cui would also wear straw sandals and carry a bamboo cane; the latter was known as the “mourning stick”. Sons would wear the Zhan Cui for their fathers; fathers would also wear the Zhan Cui for their eldest son, wife or concubines. Unmarried daughters would also wear the Zhan Cui for their father. They were meant to wear the Zhan Cui for three years, but most wore it for around 27 months. The Qi Cui was second in rank after the Zhan Cui. This was also made of raw linen. The word Qi 齐 means “to sew something up”, and the “something” in this instance was the edge of the outfit. There were four classes of Qi Cui depending on the period of mourning, and the relationship between family members. The first class of the Qi Cui was also called the Qi Cui. This was worn for three years when a father died, by his wife and the eldest son. The second class of Qi Cui was the Zhang Qi; this was worn for one year. The word Zhang 杖 referred to the Zhi Zhang 执杖, a piece of attire that a father would wear when his mother died. A husband would also wear this when his wife died. The third class of Qi Cui was without the Zhang Qi. This was also worn for one year. Men wore this when either their uncle’s parents, brothers, or any sons other than their eldest died. Women wore it for their parents; daughters-in-law wore it for their husband’s parents, and grandsons/granddaughter wore it for grandparents. The fourth class of Qi Cui was worn for three months. People wore this outfit for great-grandparents and great-great-parents. The Da Gong 大功 followed the Qi Cui in order of rank. It was made of fine linen. The word Gong 功 meant that the cloth was processed. The Da Gong was an outfit that men wore to mourn married sisters and aunts, cousins and unmarried cousins. Women wore the Da Gong to mourn their husband’s grandparents, their granduncles’ parents and their brothers. In-laws also wore it to mourn their eldest son’s wife. People wore the Da Gong for nine months. The Xiao Gong 小功 followed the Da Gong in order of rank. This was also made of fine linen, but was more exquisite. The Xiao Gong was an outfit that men wore to mourn their granduncles’ great-uncles, cousins’ parents, cousins, and maternal grandparents. Women wore the Xiao Gong to mourn their aunts, sisters and brothers’ wives. The Xiao Gong was worn for five months. The Si Ma 缌麻 was the lightest in color of any outfit worn by members of the Wu Fu. It was made of refined linen. It was known as the Si Ma because it was as thin as silk. It was worn by men to mourn their great-grandparents, grandparents, great-uncles, brothers, grandsons, nephews, sons-in-law, parents-in-law and maternal uncles. They wore it for three months. It is clear that the mourning system gave more privilege to men than women. Wives needed to wear the Zhan Cui for their husbands for three years, whereas husbands only needed to wear the Qi Cui for their wives for a year. The system also

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showed that there was a clear division based on whether there was lineal descent or whether descendants were offspring of concubines. Concubines’ children needed to wear the Zhan Cui when their mother died, but children of lineal decent didn’t need to wear mourning attire at all when their father’s concubine died. When the eldest son of lineal descent died, his father needed to wear the Zhan Cui for three years. When a grandfather died, his eldest lineal grandson would wear mourning attire for him. This showed how important blood lineage was. There were customs for close relatives within the “wufu”, yet fewer for distant relatives outside of the “wufu”. People outside of the “wufu” were only really regarded as being relatives in as far as that they shared the same surname. To summarize, the mourning dress system was closely related to the feudal system.1 Fourth, sacrificial rites. The ancient Chinese placed a lot of emphasis on sacrificial activities. There were a wide range of them and they involved complicated rituals. Sacrificial rituals were normally held in the ancestral temple. The main rites were as follows: (1)

Determining the host. Normally the host of sacrificial rituals would be the clan master. “If the clan master is still young… then select a person over 50-yearsold who is energetic and familiar with the customs and rites. They will assist the young master.” (2) Fasting. For the first three days, people would fast. They would not eat meat, listen to music or have sexual intercourse to keep their minds clear. (3) Arranging the sacrificial implements the day before the ritual. The incense burner would be placed on a table (the altar) in the middle of the ancestral temple. The wine cup, meat plate, censer, and other items would be placed on the table. (4) Standing according to rank. On the morning of the ritual, the host, executor and attendants would stand in order of generation and superiority. The sequence of lineage was determined according to the Zhaomu patriarchal system. People within the same lineage stood in age order. (5) Welcoming God. The host would place the spirit tablets of the first ancestor, great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, grandfather and father on the altar. (6) Offering incense. Incense would be burned in the censer three times. (7) Pouring the wine. The wine would be poured into the wine cup on the altar. (8) Offering the blood of the livestock. The blood of the livestock would be presented on the altar. Raw meat, cooked meat, rice and food would then be presented. (9) Reading congratulatory messages. The host would read congratulatory messages, while the clansmen knelt. (10) Presenting tributes. Three tributes would be offered, and wine would then be poured into cups on either side of the altar. Liver and cooked meats would then be presented. Zhao Pijie 赵丕杰. Customs and rites in ancient China 中国古代礼俗. Beijing: Language and Culture Press 语文出版社, 1996.

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(11) Drinking the wine and eating the meat. The tributes would be distributed according to the number of households and participants. People could take the meat with them to eat at home. The sacrificial ritual would then come to an end.

11.4 Ancestral Temples In family genealogies, ancestral temples are also known as clan ancestral temples (simplified Chinese: 宗祠; pinyin: z¯ong cí), branch ancestral temples (simplified Chinese: 支祠; pinyin: zh¯ı cí), home ancestral temples (simplified Chinese: 房祠; pinyin: fáng cí), family ancestral temples (simplified Chinese: 家祠; pinyin: ji¯a cí), ancestors’ temples (simplified Chinese: 祖祠; pinyin: zˇu cí), or just the ancestral temple (simplified Chinese: 祠堂; pinyin: cí táng). Ancestral temples are an ancient Chinese sacrificial and memorial type of architecture; the character “ci (祠)” connotes a sacrifice which is intended to express gratitude and memorial. They are an integral part of genealogy and occupy an important position in it. Ancestral temples in the genealogies consist of two parts: pictures and texts, with pictures as the main part, and texts are used to annotate the pictures. The pictures of an ancestral temple are mostly architectural style and frame structure. There is also a landscape map to illustrate the houses and landscapes around the ancestral temple, so the whole picture of the ancestral temple is clear at a glance. Some pictures of an ancestral temple also sketch the sacrificial vessels and ancestral tablets in the temple. The pictures also mark what the ancestral temple belongs to. Most ancestral temples belong to a certain family, and there are also general temples belonging to a clan. The pictures of the ancestral temple in a tongpu (general genealogy) usually cover all the ancestral temples of a large family in the whole province and even spanning several provinces and autonomous regions. Generally, there are captions beside the pictures of an ancestral temple, which illustrate its architecture, purpose and management. (1) Introduction to the location and architecture of ancestral temples. Clan ancestral temples were the places where clansmen worshiped their ancestors, made clan rules, and discussed important matters. The clans viewed the construction of ancestral temples as very important. Some big clans, in order to enhance clan awareness and cohesion, built large clan ancestral temples next to their homes and held worship ceremonies regularly. For example, the Chen Family Ancestral Temple, also known as the Chen family Academy, is located in No. 34 Enlong Alley, the seventh Zhongshan Road, Guangzhou City, Guangdong province. It was built between the 14th year and 20th year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty (1888–1894), jointly funded by all the families with the surname Chen in 72 counties of Guangdong province. It is an ancestral temple with a comprehensive mixture of Chen clan branches. The temple consists of a front courtyard, west courtyard, east courtyard

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and the back courtyard, covering an area of 16,000 m2 , with a floor area of 6400 m2 . Based on the principles of aesthetics, buildings of various sizes are laid out symmetrically in a plane square space. Numerous decorative techniques were used, such as wood, stone and brick carvings, potteries, frescoes, and bronze and steel moulds. (2) Elaboration on the process of setting up ancestral temples and including them in the genealogy. Genealogies during the Ming and Qing Dynasties and in the Republic of China highlighted the processes and styles of ancestral temples built by various families. Here are a few examples: Ren 任 and Wen 文 They introduced the family ancestral temple adopting the “three-section” model, consisting of gate, hall and bed chamber. Shen 沈 The Shen family highlighted the construction process and the internal structure of the ancestral temple. Guo 郭 The Guo family enumerated the position of ancient ancestors’ altars in the Xiang Hall. Guo also gave particular focus to the inscriptions of Yang Chaozeng, the Governor of Sanjiang, and Shi Kefa, Grand Academician of Wuying Temple and Minister of War. The purpose was to demonstrate the nobility of the family temple and the importance of its ancestral hall. Wang 王 In its genealogy, the Wang family detailed much of the history behind their ancestral temple. It was initially built at the height of the Ming Dynasty, but was then destroyed during the late dynasty during the war. It was repaired in the Jiawu period of Emperor Qianlong’s reign, and expanded in the eighth year after the Republic of China was founded. He 贺 The He family described genealogical editing during the third year of Emperor Yongzheng’s reign; and the construction of the ancestral temple during the eighth year of Emperor Jiaqing’s reign. Jiang 江 The Jiang family introduced the “four-section” structure to their ancestral temple. This consisted of a bed chamber, middle section, front section and gate. Zhong 钟 The ancestral temple of the Zhong family consisted of two temples standing side by side. The left one was the “Dinghui (meeting hall) temple”, and the right one was the “Paiwei (tablets) temple”. The Zhong family’s ancestral structure was quite special during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The above examples demonstrate that families have long attached great importance to the construction of their ancestral temples; and that these temples occupy different positions in their genealogy. However, each family has vividly recorded

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their family’s ancestral temple architecture with abundant pictures and texts in their genealogical books. (3) The layout of ancestral temples. Temples have existed in the Wei and Jin dynasties, as well as the Sui and Tang Dynasties; however, they have no fixed architectural style, and have varied according to both place and time. Based on the rules for temple-building stated in the Family Rituals by Zhu Xi (a master of Neo-Confucianism in the Southern Song Dynasty), we can glean a few understandings about the way in which ancestral temples are often built. Family Rituals stipulates that: (a) (b) (c) (d)

They should be built to the East of the owners’ residence The temple should be large enough to accommodate all family members There must be sufficient room to store clothing and sacrificial utensils The building must be guarded by the eldest son of the family in each generation (to ensure the continuation of family traditions).

Since Family Rituals was written, many families have followed these rules in building their own, modern ancestral temples. Of course, during the Song and Yuan Dynasties, a few ancestral temples evolved from their ancestors’ residence, with the layout varying according to folk customs in regional areas. Consequently, it was often difficult to distinguish whether a building was a house, or was intended to be an ancestral temple. In terms of construction, ancestral temples can be divided into three types: those that were built according to Zhu Xi’s Family Rituals model; those that were converted from a former residence into an ancestral temple; and those that were newly built to accommodate familial growth. For ancestral temples with three sections and two courtyards, the three basic architectural elements are its gate, Xiang hall and bed hall. The gate is the single most important structure at the front of the ancestral temple, and serves as the ceremonial entrance point. It is the first structure on the central axis. The Xiang hall is also known as the worship hall. This is the temple’s main area, where memorial ceremonies were held and family matters were discussed. The bed hall is the site to place ancestral tablets, and it gets its name because it is seen as where the gods rest in peace. The bed hall is the most important building in the ancestral temple, so it boasts the most extravagant architectural form, and occupies the largest and tallest space. Inside the bed hall, the ancestor’s portraits are hung on the walls. There are altar, which holds incense burner, flags and other furnishings. On both sides at the rear of the hall, there are small, separate rooms, known as the interchambers. These rooms store ancestral tablets, ritual utensils, family genealogical books and so on.

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(4) The Functions of Ancestral Temples. The character “ci 祠” connotes the worshiping of the ancestors, one of the most important functions of ancestral temples. There were complex and diverse forms of ancestral worship in temples, but they can largely be divided into three categories: regular, special and large-scale worship ceremonies. Regular worship ceremonies were carried out on the mornings of Shuori (the first day of a lunar month) and Wangri (the 15th day of a lunar month). These ceremonies were small-scale and usually only involved one representative from each family. Special worship ceremonies were carried out at the ancestral temple on special occasions, such as birthdays, weddings and births, when a clansman had been promoted to official rank/higher office, or when a family member had obtained a title of nobility. Large-scale worship ceremonies were carried out by the whole clan and were the most important events within ancestral temples. They were not strictly regulated in the early Ming Dynasty, but it was held that they should be conducted four times a year, in the second month of each season. The most extravagant large-scale worship ceremonies were usually carried out during Tomb Sweeping Festival and the winter solstice. These events ran for longer and had a higher attendance than other ceremonies, and they involved a number of after-worship activities. During Tomb Sweeping Festival and the winter solstice, all adult clansmen was required to worship in the ancestral temple. Those who were disloyal or unfilial, had committed adultery, gambled/stolen goods, or were unemployed, were not permitted to enter the temple. And those who were absent without proper reason were punished. During Tomb Sweeping Festival, both ancestral worship and tomb sweeping were conducted. Usually, clan families would worship the tomb of the first ancestor and then sweep the tombs of their ancestors with a branch. After that, they would return to the ancestral temple to carry out rituals. Ancestral temples were an important place for elderly clansfolk to teach feudal ethics to younger clansmen. It can therefore be said that the ancestral temple served as an important place to inherit historical knowledge and guidance. The education of morals was often taught at the same time as ancestral worship. Before the start of a sacrificial ceremony, many clans would appoint a clan leader or assign a special person to act as a preacher. This person would read aloud clan rules and help clansmen understand the content of the genealogical record, so that they could work and behave according to feudal proprieties. Ancestral temples also provided clan members with a significant meeting place for business. Whenever there were important business issues, the clan rulers would discuss and make decisions within the ancestral temple. These included: issues associated with genealogical record compilation, temple construction, memorial arch erection, the construction and repair of irrigation and water conservancy systems, the construction and repair of bridges and roads, collecting taxes, collecting donation and relief, and mediating conflicts.

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As the place to promote indoctrinations and clan rules, the ancestral temple was regarded as the place to implement clan rules when there were internal dissensions. (5) Supplying sacrifices from the temple’s fields. A number of activities took place inside ancestral temples, and those included: construction and renovation work; the preparation of sacrificial instruments and food; sacrificial rituals; management work; teaching; award ceremonies for clansmen; and relief work for orphans and widows. All of the above relied on funding, which mostly came from the provisions of the surrounding fields. In Family Rituals, Zhu Xi lay out a set of official rules for ancestral temples—of which one was that fields should provide for the sacrifices involved in ancestral worship. For example, according to the clan’s genealogical records, the Hong clan’s ancestral temple, known as the Dunmu Hall was affiliated with 395 fields. These included the three fields in front of the ancestral temple (for which the original rental cost was two jin per ten cheng [7.5 kg]), the six mu of the Kutian Mound in Hongcun Duan (for which the original rental cost was two jin per seven cheng), and the Daqiu Field beside the Tongchu Stream. The Hong clan’s 395 fields for sacrificial purpose were the family’s most important collective assets, as the income from these ensured that all public welfare activities were guaranteed to proceed smoothly. Fields for sacrificial practice were obtained in one of four ways: Ancestral heritage. Inscriptions on the Liu clan’s ancestral tablets (in Qixia, Quanshuidian, Shandong province) from the fourth year of Emperor Tongzhi’s Qing Dynasty reign stated that: the temple was led by Liu Yongxing; and that the fields provided for sacrifices were purchased using income from the sale of graveyard trees, and rental inheritance. Donations. Descendants donated their own fields for ancestral sacrifice. Purchase. Most of the fields that were used for sacrificial purposes were purchased by clansmen. According to records from the Li Clan Genealogy of Hou Jiang Ge Zhuang, in the third and twelfth year of Emperor Tongzhi’s reign, descendants of the Li clan, led by the eighth-generation forefather Li Liangdong, purchased 80 mu of fields “to provide for sacrifices”. Appreciation of earlier established fields. The Li clan from Dongcheng in Ningxiang, Hunan province used the appreciated income from earlier purchased fields to buy additional land, as well as houses. (6) The management of ancestral temples. Illustrations and postscripts of ancestral temples in the genealogies elaborated on how to manage the temples. Conduct during sacrificial worship was a key focus of ancestral temples. However, there were also rules for the routine management of temples, and a wide range of temple events. The Tan clan from Zhutang in Changsha, Hunan province developed a detailed set of rules that were effective in ensuring both of the above. They were as follows:

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(a) The clan leader is in charge of the affairs of the clan and the leader of the subclan in charge of the affairs of the sub-clan. One talented person with a high reputation, good moral traits and a strong work ethic is appointed the supervisor of the ancestral temple and this person manages its business. (b) All of the tax grain, silver, and financial items should be recorded in the clan accounts book after winter sacrifice and the blessings rituals. Calculation and verification of the clan funds should be carried out by the clan leader and the sub-clan leader. (c) The supervisor of the ancestral temple is responsible for coordinating work and arranging the successor of each post. All of those involved should honour their duties properly. The successors and departing staff should ensure that there is a smooth handover process. (d) The ancestral temple supervisor is responsible for administering the tax grain, but he has no right to charge tax on the tenants. (e) An honourable and diligent person—even if they have a different family name— can be nominated as an ancestral temple butler, whose responsibilities are keeping the consecration lamps and incense burning, and keeping the temple clean and tidy. (f) There will be rewards for achievements in literature, the military sciences and for those newly pass the civil recruitment examinations, to encourage the positive and diligent conduct of clan members. To conclude, ancestral temples were the most important sites in the Ming and Qing dynasties to foster clan organization and unite clansmen—by governing ancestral worship practices and other similar activities.

11.5 Tombs The tomb was where ancestors were buried. According to the “Respect Ancestors and Consolidate Clansmen” principles and demands, it was integral that the tomb be included in a family’s genealogy. The tomb, like the ancestral hall, would be displayed with a diagram and accompanying text. The diagram would be the main piece of content, and it would be accompanied by a short text explanation. Both the diagram and the text would describe the tomb. There are many types of tomb diagrams in family genealogies. Most genealogies only contained a diagram of one person’s tomb (although sometimes they also included that person’s wife). Other times, family genealogies included diagrams or maps showing the location of multiple peoples’ tombs. For example, in the Map of the Xiong Family’s Combined Tombs in Sunjiashan Yiyang, Hunan, there are over 200 tombs. Some tombs were inside the ancestral temple; the diagrams of these were known as “Tomb and Ancestral Temple Diagrams”. Some diagrams/maps of tombs included the surrounding landscape, and these were known as “Landscape Maps of Tombs”. Looking at the diagrams of tombs from different regions, we can draw the

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conclusion that those in family genealogies from the southern regions were much richer. They often contained symbolism and were much more exquisite. Those from the northern regions were much simpler and cruder. There were often many annotations before or after the tomb diagram. These were normally on the following things: (1) The importance of the tomb diagram/map in the family’s genealogy. The Ma Clan Genealogy in Linxia, Gansu 甘肃临夏马氏族谱 (1946) says: “Thanks to the tomb diagram, descendants can know where their ancestors are buried and which tomb belongs to which ancestor.” “Without a diagram of the tomb, descendants would have no idea which ancestor is in which tomb. The diagram means that, centuries later, descendants can have a clear idea of the location of each tomb and who it belongs to. Therefore, the tomb diagram is really useful.” The Revised Pu Clan Genealogy in Qianjian, Wuxi, Jiangsu 江苏无锡前涧浦 氏续修宗谱 (compiled during the 25th year of the Jiaqing era, 1820) says: Family genealogies are meant to consolidate the clan and make clan members respect their ancestors. The descriptions about the family tombs should be detailed; they should “record the details of each ancestor’s tomb as a reference point for later generations, so that they know the location of each tomb, and can set up fences and plant trees. Knowing the location of the tombs means that family members can sweep them and prevent damage to them, thereby showing that they respect their ancestors and can help consolidate the clan.” The above paragraph summarizes tomb diagrams/maps in genealogies. “Record the details” of tombs in family genealogies so that it is convenient for later generations to “recognize the tombs based on those diagrams”. Descendants can then “pay tributes to their ancestors”, “respect their ancestor and consolidate the clan”. (2) The grave master and the orientation of the tomb. The grave master and the location/position of tombs were clearly listed in annotations next to the tomb diagram/map. This made it easy and convenient for later generations to sweep the tombs. An example can be found in the Zou Clan Genealogy in Runzhou, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu (Compiled during the eighth year of the Daoguang era). It says: “The tomb is located in the Xianren mountain range, in a village called Chiziyu in Nangang. It can be found in the southern part of the town, in the 17th district. It faces Chou territory at the front, and Wei territory at the rear. There are two pits and three coffins on this land. The two coffins in the main pit are for seventh generation ancestor Hui Zhonggong and his wife Shen. The coffin in the tomb pit on the left is for the eighth generation ancestor He Zhigong.” (3) Choosing the orientation of a tomb. The ancient people placed a lot of emphasis on feng shui. They believed that the orientation and location of their ancestors’ tombs could determine the prosperity of later generations. Therefore, in many family genealogies, there were notes on

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feng shui in the ancestral tombs. These were recorded as annotations alongside the tomb diagrams/maps, and were a way of showing off. For example, the Li Family Genealogy in Lanzhou, Gansu (Compiled during the 19th year of the Daoguang era) says: “Here is the ancestral tomb; it is located along the ‘dragon claw’ axis. It sits in the northeast and faces the southwest. This means the family will have continuous growth.” Over the last 400 years, the Deng 邓 family in Yuanjiang, Hunan has cultivated many talented offspring, both in the literary and military fields. They claim that this is because their ancestor Wen Zhigong’s tomb is “located in a place that gathers the essence of heaven and the earth”.2 (4) Renovating a tomb. Since the location and orientation of a tomb are related to the idea of “respecting one’s ancestors and consolidating the clan”, descendants renovated tombs as a “tribute to the spirit of their ancestors, and as a blessing to later generations, so that they could prosper.” Ru Gong, the first ancestor of the Xu Family in Nanguan, Jixi, Anhui, was born in the late Tang Dynasty. He was buried in the Tangtou mountain range in Huangdun, Shexian. Ru Gong’s descendants were spread out across various parts of Wan’nan, and they became well-respected families. But during the Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties, the location of Ru Gong’s tomb was unknown. During Emperor Kangxi’s Qing Dynasty reign, Xu’s descendants visited the Tangtou mountain range in Futing to look for his tomb. This is recorded in the family’s genealogy. They finally found the location of Ru Gong’s tomb after multiple attempts. They then decided to “renovate the tomb and purchase the fields in front of the tomb, to build a sacrificial stage and an upright stone tablet. They then arranged for the clansmen to visit the tomb and offer sacrifices on a regular basis.”3 (5) The tomb-sweeping system. Many families had specific regulations on when tombs should be swept. One example was the Dai 戴 Family in Ningxiang, Hunan. After the family’s 11th generation ancestors Chang Gong and Zhao Jie Gong (from Xiangshan) set up their own branches, the ancestors of Chang Gong built a tomb for him in Ningyi. His descendants multiplied there and lived in groups. Clansmen under Chang Gong decided that: during tomb-sweeping festival, descendants should offer sacrifices to their ancestors.4 Other examples are Xi Shen Gong and his wife Zhao, who were ancestors of the Sun Family in Xianyang (an area near the Yellow Mountains in Anhui). They were The third revision of Deng clan genealogy in Yuanjiang, Hunan 湖南沅江邓氏三修族谱, the 26th year of the Guangxu era (1900). 3 The Dunxutang Xu clan genealogy in Nanguan, Jixi, Anhui, the 15th year of the Guangxu era (1889). 4 The fourth revision of Dai clan genealogy in Weining, Ningxiang, Hunan 湖南宁乡沩宁戴氏四 修族谱, the 30th year of the Guangxu era (1904). 2

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buried at the foot of the Lu Mountains. During the wars of the Ming Dynasty’s Yong Le era, the ornamental columns in front of Xi Shen Gong’s tomb were damaged. The stone statues in the front of the tomb were also damaged. During this period, the family’s system of sacrificial rituals was abandoned for an extended period of time. During the 13th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Tongzhi era (1874), one of the ancestors, Dao Gong, revived this family tradition. He purchased fields on a 14-mu plot in Gaozhou. He installed tablet inscriptions on the walls of the Dun Xu Hall and introduced specific regulations on tomb sweeping activities. These were as follows: on the second day of the Spring Community Festival (Chunshe, a traditional Chinese festival), each branch of the family needed to arrange for one person to sleep in the Dun Xu Hall. On the dawn of the following day, these family members needed to wear hats and dress in formal clothing, and sweep the tombs of their first ancestor in the Lu Mountain range. This was 25 li (500 meters) away from the hall in Gaozhou. After they had finished performing this sacrificial rite, they would return to the Chun Xu Hall for a group meal. The next day, they would all return home. Any remaining funds for this sacrificial ritual would be distributed among the participants, and they could use this on transportation.5 (6) The sacrificial field. Funding was required to construct, maintain and carry out daily activities at the temple. However, the establishment of a tomb and related sacrificial activities also required a degree of economic support. The aforementioned Sun Family from Xianyang organized representatives from its family branches to visit the Lu Mountains and offer sacrifices. They were required to provide food, accommodation and their own transportation fees, during the second day of the Spring Community Festival. However, it was crucial that they also provide funding for a 14-mu plot of land. Otherwise, any sacrificial activities would be carried out in vain. Similarly, other families needed to purchase land for sacrificial activities, so that they could guarantee that regular, sacrificial activities could continue. (7) Managing the tombs. Like with the ancestral hall, families established systems so that they could strictly manage their tombs, sacrificial fields, and tomb temples/buildings. The Gong Family purchased land in the Huangyang Mountains—in Xinyi, Yiyang, Hunan. During the early Ming Dynasty, they had ancestral tombs for four branches of the family (Gong Rong, Gong Hua, Gong Fu and Gong Gui). The descendants of these families contributed funding towards the land of these tombs. To ensure that they were maintained, “the four branches reached an agreement and made several rules for later generations to follow”. These were as follows: (a) The burial ground should not go beyond the tomb of the ancestors. Violators should be punished by the clan.

The Sun clan genealogy in Xianyang, Huangshan, Anhui 安徽黄山岘阳孙氏族谱, the 23rd year of the Guangxu era (1897).

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(b) The trees should be planted within the scope of the tombs and managed by all of the clansmen. Anyone who cuts these trees without permission should be punished. (c) The four branches of the family must own and manage the assets for the tomb and related sacrificial activities. These should not be sold.6 In order to guarantee that sacrificial activities operated normally, families needed to purchase land, formulate a management system for the tombs, and also establish a specialized ancestral temple/building beside the tomb. By doing so, they could ensure that the tomb and its surrounding area were serviced regularly. The Qin Clan Genealogy in Yinxi, Yin County, Zhejiang 浙江鄞县鄞西秦氏宗谱 (compiled during the 7th year of the Daoguang era, 1827) stated that the Cao Tomb was for the ancestor Guo Yan Gong. To strengthen management over that tomb, a “Jing Yuan Zhuang” building was built at the southeast of the tomb. “The building is located in the southeast of the tomb, and it faces the south. One room is beside the river, and there are three main rooms. In the middle, there is a place for burning incense. The Jing Yuan Zhuang has walls, doors, windows and wooden fences. There are enough cooking utensils, tables and chairs in the kitchen. The building has a security guard, who is responsible for taking care of the wood. Every year, the 400-mu plot of land yields 400 jin’s worth of grain. This belongs to the four branches of the family.”

11.6 Clan Property The clan property means the collective properties owned by the family, including land, ancestral temple, residence building, warehouse, temple, bridge, commercial business and etc. The properties are set up to carry out the principle of “respecting ancestors and consolidating the clan”, and to maintain the expenses for worshiping ancestors, building temples, compiling genealogies, raising and educating clansmen. The most important property is field. Take the clan properties in the Hong Clan Genealogy in Taoyuan, Qimen, Anhui (the 26th year of the Guangxu era) as an example. The genealogy has 6 volumes. The first volume is new and old genealogy prefaces and principles. The second volume is about imperial mandate, figures, virtuous women and etc. The third and fourth volumes are about family pedigree. The fifth and sixth volumes are about temple, school, ancestral hall, sacrifice field, tomb graph and so on. In other words, the fifth and sixth volumes are about the properties of the Hong Clan. Now I will introduce the clan properties according to the genealogy sequence. The twelfth revision of the Gong clan genealogy in Wuling, Yiyang, Hunan 湖南益阳武陵龚氏 十二修族谱, the 34th year of the Guangxu era (1908).

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(1) Temple. The temples build by the Hong Family in the past years are: Wen Chang Ge Temple. Located at the foot of Ben Tun Zhu Mountain. It was built after the ancestor Xian Ting donated the Da Zi Tang ancestral hall. The Emperor Wenchang was worshiped by the clansmen in this temple. Guan Di Ge Temple. Located on the top of the Wen Tai Ge at the entrance of village. It was said that the ancestor Wen Yan donated money and built it. The Guan Di Ge enshrined and worshipped the Guan Gong, Zhou Cang and Guan Ping. Du Gong Temple. Located on the right outside of Dong Men. It was rebuild during the Tongzhi era in the Qing Dynasty and enshrined Du Gong, Dragon King and Earth God. Shi Hou Temple and Bian Hou Temple. Located in the Tai Wei Miao. The two temples enshrined Sun De (Shi Hou) and Xiang Sheng (Bian Hou), who were said to have settled down here. In the 2nd year of the jiading era in the Song Dynasty, they were promoted to General Shi and General Bian. In the 4th year of the chunyou era, they were promoted to Marquis Fu Ling and Marquis Fu Shun. Wang Wang Temple. Located in the opposite of Duandui river in Hong village. It enshrined the 9th son of King Wang. The statues of King Wang Hua and his wife Qian were erected here. Guan Yin Pavilion. Located on the top of Wen Tai. It enshrined Buddha and Guanyin Bodhisattva. The above temples and buildings have something in common with other families, but also have their unique family characteristics. (2)

(3)

Bridge. The Hong Family said: “Since Qimen has many lakes, rivers and mountains, bridges can be seen everywhere so that travelers do not need to wade into the water…. The bridges built by the Hong Family are recorded in the genealogy to make the later generations memorize the virtues of our ancestors.” Tao Yuan Bridge. Built by Hong Fu in the Ming Dynasty. Yu Shu Bridge. Built by the Kun branch and Shu branch. Shang Nan Bridge. Located on the river in the front of the Wang Wang Temple in Hong Village. According to the Fengshui master, it could not be built by stones. Therefore, it’s still built by wood until now. Xia Nan Bridge. Located on the river in front of the Tai Wei Temple. In the 3rd year of the Tongzhi era, it was rebuilt by wood. School. The Hong Family believed: “A clan and family should build schools to cultivate talents. At the age of eight, children should go to elementary school to learn the basic manners. At the age of fifteen, they should go to advanced school to learn the statecraft. The establishment of school has a long history.” The schools set up by the Hong Family are: Xiang Feng Shu Wu, located in the Wen Chang Ge. Qing You Shu She, located on the left side of the Wen Chang Ge. Shi Dai Shu Wu, located in the Ning Wu Kou. Now destroyed.

11.6 Clan Property

(4)

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Song Tao Shu She, located in Gui Zhu Wu and used as a reading place. Now destroyed. Chi Shan Shu She, located in Chi Shi Keng. Now destroyed. Shi Feng Shu Wu, located in the Kuo Wu. The horizontal inscribed board in the book house is titled San You Tang. Now destroyed. Nan Shan Shu Wu, located at the back of Shi Gu Hall. Now destroyed. Jing Ye Shu She, located at the Xima Alley in the eastern city and built by Cheng Zai. Shou Yan Zhai, located on the right side of the ancestral temple and renovated by Yin Nan. The horizontal inscribed board on the gate is titled Bi Yun Shan Guan. You Xin Shu Wu, located in the Dunren neighborhood in the eastern city and built by Dao Shan and his brother Zan Shan. Ancestral Hall. The Hong Family said: “Since the Ming Dynasties, our clan has relocated to this place for three generations and thus proposed to build an ancestral temple. With the help of officialdoms, scholars and donations from wealthy businessmen, the temple was successfully built within several months …. However, there were hundreds and thousands of clansmen in our family. If all gather in the temple, it would be overcrowded. Therefore, the Xiang branch and Shou branch built another temple…. Other branches also echoed this idea and built their own ancestral halls.” The main Hong Family’s ancestral halls and residences are: Dun Mu Hall, built during the Wushen year of the Jiajing era in the Ming Dynasty (1548). Pi Cheng Hall, built by Yong Ying and others for their ancestor Xiang Yigong. Shen Wei Hall, built by Ru Yuan and others for their father Shou Ergong, a successful candidate in the imperial examination in the Ming Dynasty. Shi Gu Hall, built by Sheng and Ye brothers. Destroyed by soldiers in the second year of the Tongzhi era in the Qing Dynasty. Zhi Gu Hall, built by Chengwen for his father Shi Dinggong, a successful candidate in the imperial examination. Now destroyed. Hao Chi Pavilion, built by Shang Tong, a successful candidate in the imperial examination in the Ming Dynasty. Now destroyed. Shi Lang Di, built by official Yan Jian in Bingzhou in the Ming Dynasty. Now destroyed. Hong Lu Di, built by Shi Yi from Hong Lu Temple in the Ming Dynasty. Destroyed by soldiers in the 2nd year of the Tongzhi era. You Shi Di, built by officialdom Shi Ying from Wen Hua Dian in the Ming Dynasty. Now destroyed. Zhong Xian Di, built by Shi Qian prefecture magistrate Bing for his father Hao and ancestors. Destroyed by soldiers in the 2nd year of the Tongzhi era. Da Zi Hall, located in the She Jia Duan and built by Jian Gong. The greatgrandson Guang Ting combined it with the ancestral temple. During the Wuzi year of the Kangxi era in the Qing Dynasty, Ting Guang and his brother Ting Su rebuilt in the Dong Xi Ma Alley to inherit the ancestors’ will.

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Bao Feng Di, built by Shi Ying for his father Kong Mei. The Third Generation Senior Official’s Residence, located in the Dun Ren Li neighborhood in eastern city and built by Jian Shan for his ancestor Bing Jie and father Ze Jian. Cheng En Hall, located in the Dun Ren Li Neighborhood in eastern city and built by Xun Daojiong. During the Xianfeng era in the Qing Dynasty, Zeng Guofan once settled down here. (5) Sacrifice field of ancestral temple. The establishment and maintenance of ancestral temples, especially those old ones, require a large amount of funding, which comes from the sacrifice field. The sacrifice field of Dun Mu Hall of Hong Ancestral Temple includes 395 places, which are the most important properties of the Hong Clan. (6) Yi Tian (Community Field), is the field property for supporting or maintaining the life of the clan. The Hong Family set up the Yi Tian to “support the life of the poor”, including 316 properties from Che Tian Ke No. 24 to No. 32 and other fields. It is the second largest family property after the sacrifice field of the ancestral temple. (7) Yong Ji Warehouse. Yi Tian is established by the Hong Clan to support the poor families, while Yong Ji Warehouse is for disaster relief. In the mid of the Ming Dynasty, there were more than 900 members and servants in the Hong Family. Those with properties were wealthy and those without properties were poor and needed help. In the case of flood or draught, the supply of food would be interrupted. Then the clansmen were gathered in the ancestral temple to discuss the proposal of establishing a community warehouse. They raised thousands of silver currencies to set up the warehouse and purchase grains as reserve. Three elders were selected to be the board members for management. “The establishment of a community warehouse for poverty and disaster relief” was commended by the clansmen as a “philanthropic act”. (8) School field. The above Hong Family has set up multiple schools including “Xiang Feng Book House” to cultivate talents. The daily activities of schools relied on funding support, which came from the revenue of field, like the Hong School Field. There were 38 school field properties including Jin Zi Pai, Fen Ting Kou, Tian Er Qiu and others. (9) Xing Xian Wen Association Field (Talent Association Field). In order to cultivate more family members “who could make great contributions to the family and country”, the Xing Xian Wen Association was established, which means “gathering great talents”. The members would hold gatherings regularly to study literature, poem and rituals, with the aim to “become great talents for the family and state”. To that end, the Xing Xian Wen Association Field was set up to support the daily activities of the association. There were 98 properties in the Xing Xian Wen Association Field. (10) Graveyard. The Hong Family believed: “The life of people is limited. Both the lifetime and post-mortal time should be given great importance. A great location with the fusion of mountain and river must be selected as the graveyard to bury the deceased’s coffin. The descendants must provide maintenance for

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the graveyard to prevent it from disastrous weather or worms, so that the spirits of ancestors could rest peace and the future generations would be blessed. The graveyard for the death is of ultimate significance!” Also, the ancestors’ graveyard is the most important property for the Hong Clan. The Hong Family has altogether 34 graveyards that buried the ancestors from the 22nd generation to the 36th generation. The above Hong Clan Genealogy in Taoyuan, Qimen, Anhui has rich and comprehensive contents with family characteristics. The purpose and method of setting up clan properties are very typical and representative.

11.7 Deeds The deeds, which were also known as testaments, written pledges, acts, archives etc. were receipt related to the clan’s property, and they could often be found in the family’s genealogy. The family’s main property was its land, so there were often a large number of receipts in a family’s genealogy related to land purchase, or a sales account. For example, the Wang Combined Clan Genealogy in Xin’an Anhui 安徽新安王氏合修宗谱 (compiled during the 29th year of the Daoguang era, 1849) contained a “field sales receipt”. The residence where the clansmen stayed was also an important piece of family property. There were many receipts for residential properties in family genealogies. They had an influence on how prosperous descendants were, so relevant deeds were normally attached to the floorplan in a family genealogy, to prevent any financial disputes. For example, in the Revised Hu Branch Genealogy in Anding, Zhishui, Yuanjiang, Hunan 湖南沅江芷水安定胡氏续修支谱, a toft deed is attached to the residential diagram. This recorded land that siblings bought/sold during the 18th year of the Daoguang era (1838). Zong Shu and Zong Yang were brothers, who sold land to their brother Zong Shi for 19,800 cents. Once this land had been sold, it could be exploited by the new owner. So the genealogy states: “The sales contract will be passed on to the new owner’s descendants as a credential.” The ancient Chinese called the residence where people lived the Yang Residence; the tombs were ancestors were buried was called the Yin Residence. The Yin and Yang Residence were both important pieces of family property. Land contracts would also take up a certain proportion of a family’s genealogy. For example, the Cheng Family’s Meishan Branch Genealogy in Hanxi, Wuyuan, Jiangxi 江西婺源韩溪程 氏梅山支谱 (compiled during the first year of the Xuantong era, 1909) contained the “Jin Xian Wu Bao Zu An 金线坞保祖案卷”. This was an archive of material on how to protect the ancestral residences of the Jin Xian Wu. Two deceased mothers are buried in the Shi Zhong ancestral temple: the 34thgeneration descendant, Madame Hu Shiwu, and the 35th-generation descendant, Madam Ye Ersa. A number of well-respected sages and family ancestors are also buried there. But after the Song Dynasty, questions arose about the boundaries of

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the mountain where the temple is located. The household records and measurements indicate that some of the land should belong to the Cheng family. Earlier this year, a number of thieves surnamed Fang, Li and Wu felled trees here unlawfully. After the clansmen took the matter to arbitration, a stone tablet was erected as a warning. Content on “temples for local, respectable people who have died” and “inscriptions on stone tablets” are recorded in family genealogies. When the Wang Clan revised the Wang Clan Genealogy in Shuangqiao, Wuyuan, Jiangxi 江西婺源双桥王氏宗谱 during the 19th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1893), they included a “catalogue of mountains, graves and taxation contracts”. These included “critical contracts” drawn up by earlier ancestors. Examples included “a contract with Zhang Sida, a neighbor to the tomb, during the sixth year of the Xianhua era”, “a cooperation agreement between the Duwei Brand and Sun Xingli during the ninth year of the Wanli era”, and “a contract with the Han Li Brand’s Sun during the 10th year of the Wanli era”. There is also a special report on the “verdict of the ancestral grave mountain case with Sun during the 10th year of the Wanli era”—this is a thousand words long. These “critical contracts” were published in the revised genealogy, so that “the efforts of those parties who had obtained deeds could be fully recognized, and so that descendants could protect the ancestral tombs from thieves.” Most of the deeds that were published and recorded in a family’s genealogy addressed economic disputes that had arisen between different clans. These were mostly related to land, residences or graveyards. However, some receipts showed that there were economic disputes within the same family, and these required negotiations. For example, the Revised Hu Clan Genealogy of the Rende Hall in Qinghua, Wuyuan, Jiangxi stated that Hu Rushou and other ancestors were buried in a graveyard on the Zhuang Qian Mountain. However, Hu Rongjin, another ancestor from the same clan, purchased land for a graveyard along the neighboring Ma Zhabei Mountain. During the sixth year of the Jiajing era, there was a land dispute between the two. They sued each other at the local government office. “Officials persuaded them to negotiate with each other, given that they share the same ancestor”. After they negotiated, both parties drew up contracts for the “Ma Zhabei Mountain”. This contract settled the controversy that had arisen between the two parties. Some family genealogies record economic disputes with graphics, as well as written deeds. One example was the Fourth Revision of the Shi Clan Genealogy in Zhongxiang, Xiangtan, Hunan 湖南湘潭中湘石氏四修族谱. This recorded the boundaries of the Hutian and the Yintian Mountain ranges. They were managed for hundreds of years by the Shi Ancestral Temple; old and new contracts show this. During the Guangxu era, the Song Family modified the graphic in the contract. They marked out a new ditch between the Song family’s mountain and the Shi family’s mountain. This changed the flow of water in the region and meant that the Shi family suffered a drought on more than 80 µ’s worth of farmland. They subsequently sued the Song family. After three trials, the Song defendant fled, and the graphic was changed back. “This graphic is reserved here as a reference for later generations”.

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The contracts and receipts recorded in family genealogies were often only available to a few family members. However, some receipts addressed economic disputes that involved multiple families. When this happened, families often needed to engrave a stone tablet as a warning to the public that government officials were handling a dispute. This happened during the early Ming Dynasty, after Xu Genying from Jixi, Anhui was buried in the Dong Huo Garden in Yanwukou, Yangxi (in northern Jixi). Between the Ming Dynasty and the first half of the Qing Dynasty, pines and cypresses were planted in the graveyard. However, after the Heavenly Dynasty, “the descendants failed to take care of their ancestral temple or its graveyard, so evil people began prying in the tombs.” During the seventh year of the Guangxu era (1881), a local tyrant, Zhang Dingyuan, illegally felled trees in the tomb area. He also moved the coffins of family members who were not surnamed Xu, into the mountains, to put in a new pit. Thirteen coffins were stolen from the Xu family graveyard, so the family appealed to the magistrate in Jixi County. But the officials were bribed by Zhang and the lawsuit never went ahead. Members of the Xu family subsequently went to Nanjing on three occasions, to appeal this case. Finally, after eight years, “the county magistrate made his final judgement, and a stone tablet was engraved as a warning to the public”. This said: “To people living near the graveyard, please be aware that it is illegal to sell any of the trees within the remit of the Xu Family tombs.” After that, “there were no more thieves or illegitimate loggers”.7 Contracts, receipts and engraved stone tablets were publicized to prevent a family from having their benefits infringed. But some families also disclosed contracts and engraved stone tablets to the public as a way of supervising their own clansmen. It was rare, but it prevented them from committing imposture. The Ye Family Genealogy in Xinzhou, Shexian, Anhui (Compiled during the 14th year of the Republic of China era) lists two cases: The land appropriation case, during the 50th year of the Kangxi era; The community property donation case, during the third year of the Daoguang era. There was a contract for “The Community Property Donation Case”, requiring that the public supervise their clansmen. It says in the family’s genealogy that Ye Xin, a senior official at the Ministry of Revenue (Ye Daochaun’s father) “is a filial and amiable person who saves daily necessities. He uses these to accumulate funds, so he can purchase property and establish rules/regulations that can support the clansmen.” However, it goes on to state that it’s a pity “he failed to purchase enough property to realize his ambitions”. Ye Daochuan inherited Ye Xin’s will, and therefore his unfulfilled objectives, and consequently spent years accumulating funds. He rented out around 1200–1300 properties, and donated the funds from these to charity. “The leasing fees provide food for widows, widowers and lonely elderly people; they also cover marriage, funeral, coffin and study expenses, and will help my late father fulfil his dreams.” A special regulation was drawn up for charitable properties and this was approved by the Grand Coordinator of Zhejiang, These regulations were then 7

The Dunxutang Xu clan genealogy in Nanguan, Jixi, Anhui, Vol. 9, the 15th year of the Guangxu era (1889).

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engraved on a stone tablet. The regulations banned stealing/selling properties and imposture. It was required that all descendants follow them, and that these rules be handed down. The Ye Family Genealogy in Xinzhou, Shexian, Anhui 安徽歙县新州叶氏家 乘says: in a modern era, some families have implemented modern methods to safeguard the rights and interests of their ancestral tombs, i.e. by drawing up contracts, establishing institutes, establishing a tomb protection association and/or charters. According to the “Tomb Protection Association Case”, there was a man living in Hangzhou called Ye Ximing, who originally came from Xinzhou in Shexian, Anhui. Along with others, he believed that the ancestral home of the Ye Family was Xinzhou; however, seeing as his ancestors had relocated to Hangzhou, he was regarded in the city as a local. The family’s ancestral tombs were entrusted to and managed by local officials, but while people were scrambling for graveyards, there were many cases of tombs being stolen or sold in Sishan. As a result, the Ye family consortium founded an organization to protect the tombs. They elected a president and a vice-president, negotiated, and finalized the association’s charters. They then filed a report and gave full public disclosure to the director of the Zhejiang provincial police department and the Hangzhou county magistrate. Both the police department and the county magistrate agreed to work with them and offer help. The association asked that branches of the Ye Family verify their ancestral tombs in Hangzhou, and contributors would be rewarded with 10 silver dollars. The association also said that this message would be “communicated to all parties.” It seems that they did this because the actions of the association—in collaboration with the local police department and county magistrate—could not be completed without funding from the Huizhou merchants. In conclusion, there are various types of contracts/receipts in family genealogies. These not only show a clan’s economy, culture and customs during the late feudal/Republic of China era, but they also provide us with a first-hand resource that can be used to assess the economic strength of various families at that time.

11.8 Art and Literature Family genealogies sometimes contained art or literature. Often there were articles written by or about the clansmen, epistolary novels/art, bamboo slips, memorials, poems, tablet inscriptions, and prefaces. The Sheng Clan Genealogy in Longxi, Changzhou, Jiangsu 江苏常州龙溪盛氏宗谱 (1943) is made up of 30 volumes, and volumes 27–30 are articles and commentaries. In size, they account for approximately a seventh of the entire genealogy. So it can be said that art and literature are an important proportion of a family’s genealogy. The content on art, literature, and articles/commentaries was very important. The Sheng Clan Genealogy in Longxi, Changzhou, Jiangsu contains a section called ‘The Record of Articles and Commentaries’. This is divided into two parts. The first part is ‘words of advice’, and this mainly contains commentaries on the Sheng clansmen.

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The second part is made up of family articles, i.e. articles written by the clansmen. It was made up of select, high-quality commentaries and articles; duplicates or noneducational ones were not incorporated. The Record of Articles and Commentaries was regarded highly by later generations. The articles written by the Sheng clansmen in the Sheng Clan Genealogy demonstrate this. During the Ming Dynasty, the Longxi branch of the Sheng Family relocated from Jinling to Changzhou. The first ancestor to move was named Rui. This genealogy incorporates articles from the 12th generation ancestor Sheng Long, the 13th generation ancestor Sheng Kang and the 14th generation ancestor Sheng Xuanhuai. These are included in the Record of Articles and Commentaries. Sheng Kang’s literary works are especially prominent. Sheng Long’s 盛隆 “Tablet Inscription on Rebuilding the Gutao Academy” introduces how the Gutao Academy was renovated. Sheng Long chaired the academy, and he was also an official in Deqing, Ani and Shanyin. Seven of the cases that were handled by him are included in the Han Mo Zhi 翰墨志 (Record of Articles and Commentaries), including a case entitled “Zhu Songgao Accusing Shen Guichang of Illegally Occupying his Fields and Property.” These records of case hearings provide us with references and resources that can help us understand the economy and society in Zhejiang during the Qing Dynasty’s Daoguang era (1821– 1850). Sheng Long wrote a commentary at the end of the article “Xu Tong et al. Accusing Tong Xuan of Deception and Forcing a Widow into Marriage Case”. He wrote: “When I was an official in Zhejiang, every day I handled between two and six cases, old and new. At the time, there were too many cases to count, so I selected one or two as typical examples that would alert the public. I once wrote an inscription that said: I will not show favoritism or commit irregularities. I don’t love money. I’m an impartial and incorruptible official, who will faithfully enforce the law and make judgements.” This commentary, although a bit boastful, showed how Sheng Long heard cases at the time, as an official. The 13th generation ancestor Sheng Kang 盛康 was an official based in Jiangsu, Anhui, Hubei and Zhejiang for over 40 years. He was an official during the Qing Dynasty’s Daoguang, Xianfeng and Tongzhi eras. There are many articles written by him in the Han Mo Zhi. There is also a poem that he wrote at the age of 80: the “Ba Shi Zi Shu Si Lu” (A Discussion on the Four Virtues at the Age of 80). Sheng Kang’s article “The Luzhou Government’s Bulletin Encouraging Grain Sales” described how the Luzhou government encouraged people to sell grain after a natural disaster hit the Wuwei Zhou. Rewards were offered to grain sellers. “Since there was a great shortage of food and grains in the city, some merchants pushed up their prices to earn more profit… hence, the local government issued a notice to the local citizens.” This said: “Merchants should sell their storage grains to people at the market price; otherwise, they should raise funds and donate their grains to charities that can feed local citizens. If they do so, they would be rewarded. If they don’t, and are found to be disobeying the rules and hiking their prices, their grains will be confiscated. This will not be tolerated and they will be punished according to the law.”

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Sheng Kang also wrote a proposal to the General on selling Huai salt to Hubei and other regions. It reads, “Following an investigation, I found that Hubei is the source of this salt [and] Chu (Hubei) is a transportation hub that connects the private salt business of Chuan, Lu, Yue, Jing, Huai Nan, and Huai Bei.” However, it adds “Merchants have taken advantage of the multiple routes into Chu to transport salt illegally. Over the past ten years, we have not been able to track the sales of salt.” As a result of this issue, he proposed an alternative approach. He said: “When we followed Ming Dynasty regulations, the amount of salt determined the scope of distribution. Since the salt yielded in Huai is higher than anywhere else, due to its close proximity to the sea, this is distributed to the rest of the country. However, if the demand rises, the burden will be too heavy on the Huai salt. We need to come up with an alternative solution. I propose that we solve this problem by introducing both Chuan and Huai salt to Hubei.” Two of Sheng Kang’s articles in the Han Mo Zhi—“The Changzhou Local Troops’ Report and Suggestions” and “The Imperial Envoy Xiang Junmen’s Official Reply”—described how local troops were established in Changzhou, Jiangsu during the mid-nineteenth century. Kang Sheng, an official in Changzhou, presented suggestions about local troops to the imperial envoy, Xiang Rong. He said: “I’m a Changzhou official. I was ordered by the Emperor to organize the local troops, and this was welcomed by the local people. But in recent months, many controversies have arisen. Those who support local troops oppose the recruitment of temporary soldiers. Those who support the recruitment of temporary soldiers oppose the establishment of local troops. I think both local troops and temporary soldiers should be used.” Xiang replied to Sheng Kang’s letter, saying: “Changzhou is located along a strategic passage in Jiangsu. Establishing local troops is a priority. If we complete this task, everything will come together and we will conquer our enemies… I agree with you that both local troops and temporary soldiers should be used. Outside of wartime, temporary soldiers can live normal lives, but they could definitely offer help with thieves. They could be paid monthly out of the charity donations given to Changzhou. The temporary soldiers could also follow local troops to fight in battles. But in emergencies, they could be dispatched back to Changzhou, and could fight enemies there. It is imperative that there is cooperation between the local troops and temporary soldiers.” Sheng Kang wrote a “Response to the Imperial Order and a Petition to the Throne”. During the 5th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era, the Emperor issued an imperial order. This stated that “Both Chinese and foreign officials could submit petitions to the throne, if they have opinions to state.” Sheng Kang responded to this imperial order and submitted a petition to the throne. It said: “I suggest we assess the international situation before declaring any wars.” His analysis was that “The countries in Europe are of no threat to China, but we need to be vigilant of Asian countries—Russia and Japan in particular. Japan’s attempts to invade Taiwan, Korea and Ryukyu are just a beginning. If they find a loophole, they will take advantage

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of it, and place Taiwan in danger! Taiwan is too close to Fujian and Zhejiang. If Taiwan is conquered, there will be disastrous consequences.” Sheng Kang also wrote an analysis in the 1870s on China’s situation. He made insightful suggestions like “Defense spending should be prioritized”. Sheng Xuanhuai 盛宣怀 was the 14th generation descendant of the original Sheng Family ancestor. He founded many enterprises including the China Merchants Steamship Navigation Company and the China Telegraph Office. He also occupied many important positions in the Tianjin Customs and the Ministry of Posts and Communications. A few of his monographs can be found in the Record of Articles and Commentaries. However, one of his articles, “A Preface on Lin, Hu and Zeng’s Petition to the Throne” (Compiled during the 2nd year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era, 1876) was not included. This article described how Sheng Xuanhuai was acting on the orders of his father to compile the preface. “During the Daoguang era, Lin Gong was the commander-in-chief of Chu. He achieved much in his official career. His biggest achievement was introducing the salt policy to Hubei. In addition, Lin Gong received an order from the Emperor to go to the frontiers. Hu and Zeng were also dispatched to southeastern China and they helped the Emperor gain power in that region. All three officials had successive positions in Chu, and they made great political and military achievements. My father met Lin Gong and he worked for Hu and Zeng. He witnessed their diplomatic policies and strategies that helped pacify the borders and repel enemies. Therefore, my father asked me to compile the 20 volume “Lin, Hu and Zeng’s Petition to the Throne”. We can see from the above that the articles and monographs in the Sheng Clan Genealogy’s “Han Mo Zhi” were not simple family affairs; they were also of great educational value to the public. They are still of great value to us, and are a useful reference on the politics, economy, military, education, and culture of the late Qing Dynasty/mid-nineteenth century.

11.9 Generational Orders, Rank The generational orders in family genealogy, also called family rank, hierarchy, Zhao and Mu sequence and etc., are for recording the given names in a lineage organization and distinguishing the hierarchies of family members. The generational orders of the Mao Clan Genealogy in Shaoshan, Xiangtan, Hunan 湖南湘潭韶山毛氏族谱 are: Li Xian Rong Zhao Shi

立显荣朝士

Wen Fang Yuan Ji Xiang

文方远济祥

Zu En Yi Ze Yuan

祖恩贻泽远

Shi Dai Yong Cheng Chang

世代永承昌

Xiao You Chuan Jia Ben

孝友传家本 (continued)

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(continued) Zhong Liang Zhen Guo Guang

忠良振国光

Qi Yuan Dun Sheng Xue

起元敦圣学

Feng Ya Lie Ming Zhang

凤雅列明章

Mao Zedong 毛泽东 belongs to the “Ze” (泽, radiance) generational order, while his father Mao Yichang belongs to the “Yi” (贻, gift) generational order, and his grandfather Mao Enpei 毛恩培 belongs to the “En” (恩, kindness) generational order. They are the 14th, 13th and 12th generation in the generational orders. The generational orders of the Deng Clan Genealogy in Guang’an, Sichuan 四 川广安邓氏宗谱 are: Yi Ren Cun Xin, Ke Shao Xian Xing. 以仁存心, 克绍先型。 Deng Xiaoping 邓小平 belongs to the “Xian 先” generational order, while his father Deng Shaochang 邓绍昌 belongs to the “Shao” generational order. Deng Xiaoping’s former name is Deng Xiansheng 邓先圣. When he was in school, his teacher thought “Xian Sheng” means “superior to the saints” and was inappropriate, so he changed the name to Deng Xixian 邓希贤. When Deng Xiaoping studied and did part-time job in France, he used the name Deng Xixian. After 20 years since then, he changed his name to Deng Xiaoping. The generational orders of the Jiang Family Genealogy of Jinaopai in Jiyang (the 15th year of the Republic of China) are: Hong Guo Shao Shi Ze, 洪图绍世泽 Pi Xian Zhen Jia Sheng. 丕显振家声 Jiang Zemin 江泽民 is the “Ze” (泽, radiance) generational order, while his biological father Jiang Shijun 江世俊 and his adoptive father Jiang Shihou 江世侯 belong to the “Shi” (世, world) generational order, and his grandfather Jiang Shaoyue 江绍 岳 belongs to the “Shao” (绍, continuation) generational order. They are the 64th, 63rd and 62nd generation in the generational orders. Many family genealogies stress the importance of the generational orders when publishing the characters for their lineages. For example, the generational orders are used to avoid confusions of generations between son and father, descendant and ancestor, nephew and uncle, clarify one’s status in the family, distinguish the Zhao and Mu and tell the superiority from the inferiority. Given that, all families put great emphasize on the revision of generational orders. For instance, the Wang Clan Genealogy in Shuangshan, Taiyuan, Wuyuan, Jiangxi 江西婺源太原双杉王 氏宗谱 (the 13th year of the Republic of China, 1924), in order to determine the clan’s generational orders, “discussed with the clansmen for several times and fianlly selected 20 provisional characters”:

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Li Yue Cheng Jia Xue

礼乐承家学

Shi Shu Qi Hou Kun

诗书起后昆

Yi Mou Hong Zu Yin

诒谋宏祖荫

Sheng Wu Jing Qian Ren

绳武景前人

Like the Wang Clan Genealogy, the generational orders of many family genealogies contain in-depth connotations. For instance, the generational orders of the Lü Clan Genealogy in Dafu, Xin’an, Shexian, Anhui 安徽歙县新安大阜吕氏宗谱 (the 24th year of the Republic of China, 1935) symbolize the meanings of piety, kindness, benevolence, success (pass the imperial examination), poem, book, revitalization, home and glory with all the family members. Some family genealogies use ancient poems to determine the “sequence of the Zhao and Mu”, like the Wu Clan Genealogy in Houtian, Xiuning, Anhui 安徽休宁 厚田吴氏宗谱 (the 23rd year of the Daoguang era, 1843). The generational orders in some family genealogies are divided into male and female rankings, as shown in the Cheng Clan Genealogy in Miangu, Jixi, Anhui 安 徽绩溪绵谷程氏宗谱 (the 30th year of the Guangxu era, 1904). The male ranking is as follows: An Ying Guo Zong Yan

安应国宗延

Jian Li Wei Xian Zhi

建立维先志

Dun Yong Mao Hong Ji

惇永懋宏基

Chang Ming Zhen Xian Shi

昌明振显仕

Yuan De Shi Ke Cheng

元德时克承

Jia Dao Zi Long Qi

家道自隆起

Kan Yan Ce Da Ting

刊彦策大廷

Ming Yan Qi Shou Shi

名言期寿世

The female ranking is as follows: Jiao Zhen Zhi Rong Fang

娇贞芝容芳

Qin Xian Feng Yuan Xiu

钦贤凤媛秀

Rui Xiang Cui Ai He

瑞祥粹蔼和

Juan Xian Qing Shu Mao

娟娴庆淑茂

Lian Hui Su Hua Yan

莲蕙素华妍

Yu Zhu Xie Hao Ou

玉珠谐好偶

Duan Jing Mei Ying Gui

端敬美英闺

Jing Shun Cheng Jia Zhu

静顺成佳助

Also, the generational orders in the Wang Clan Genealogy in Yueguo, Tanchuan, Jixi, Anhui 安徽绩溪坦川越国汪氏宗谱 (the 14th year of the Republic of China, 1925) are divided into the male and female rankings.

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As can be learnt from the character meanings of the male and female rankings, men shoulder the responsibilities of safeguarding the country and home, while women must follow the “Three Obedience and Four Virtues” to assist men at home. As the Chinese family genealogies are constantly revised, the generational orders also continue to extend. The renewed generational orders after the 24th generation published in the 40th year of the Qianlong era (1775) in the Hu Clan Genealogy in Zunyi, Jixi, Anhui are as followed: Zheng Ming Ding Wei

正名定位

Yu Si Rong Chang

裕嗣荣昌

Xian Zu Xi Zuo

显祖锡祚

Ji Xu Yong Kang

继序永康

By the 24th year of the Republic of China (1935) when the family genealogy was revised, “the generational orders were extended by 16 characters after the 41st generation”: You Chang Li Ben

由常立本

Shang Cai Chong Shi

尚采崇实

Zi Er Da Tong

自尔大同

Yi Qi Fan Ji

奕其蕃吉

The generation orders in the Hong Clan Genealogy in Feishan, Shexian, Anhui 安徽歙县飞山洪氏宗谱 (1935): the 10 characters from the 31st generation to the 40th generation are: Guang Jun Xi Ming Hua

广俊喜明华

De An Rui Ji Chang

德安瑞吉昌

This genealogy has been revised till the character Ji 吉. Then it extended another 10 characters: Dun Ren Fu Jing Li

敦仁敷敬礼

Cheng Zu Shu Ji Xiang

承祖树基祥

From the character Dun 敦 of the 41st generation to the character Xiang 祥 of the 50th generation. The generational orders after the character Xiang of the 50th generation would be extended by the descendants. The family pedigrees in various genealogies have minimum dozens of generations and maximum hundreds of generations. But the generational orders might not necessarily start from the first ancestor or the first ancestor who relocated to the current place. Regarding this, the “One Hundred Generation Pedigree Chart” in the Jiang Family Genealogy of Jinaopai in Jiyang, Jingde, Anhui (1929) provides us

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with relevant information. From the first-generation ancestor Ge Gong 革公 to the 20th generation Shao Gong 韶公, there were no generational orders. The generational orders started from the 21st generation, but by the 59th generation they were still not normalized with no literary contents. From the 60th generation to the 100th generation, the generational orders began to be more standardized with literary contents: Hong Tu Shao Shi Ze

洪图绍世泽

Pi Xian Zhen Jia Sheng

丕显振家声

Cheng Zu Xu Xi Jia

承祖训锡嘉

Ming Xun Er Zuo Qi

名勋尔作奇

Ying Xue Dao Xi Jian

英学道希坚

Sheng Jing Bang Song Tai

圣经邦颂泰

Ping Wen Ming Chang Guo

平文明昌国

Zuo Shang Da Nai Guang Rong

祚上达乃光荣

According to the Wang Branch Genealogy in Huaixi, Wuyuan, Jiangxi (the 6th year of the Xianfeng era, 1856), the generational orders mainly started after the Song Dynasty. There were no generational orders before the Song and Yuan Dynasties, when the lineage was normally ranked by numbers. Since the Ming Dynasty, the generational orders have been adopted so that people could “know the generation and family rank by the names”. As can be learnt from the above, there are diversified contents in the generational orders, which are not only an important part of Chinese family genealogy, but also an integral part of the Chinse surname culture. After the liberation, people no longer choose names according to the generational orders. Few families still follow the original generational orders to pick names. Nevertheless, amid the new trend of compiling family genealogies in the recent decade, some families have revised the generational orders in their new family genealogies to be used as a reference for family members to choose names. For example, after 16 years’ great efforts by the Zou clansmen, the five-volume Chinese Zou Clan Genealogy was issued in January, 2007. In this genealogy, the “one hundred characters of generational orders” is newly compiled based on the opinions from Zou family members in various regions. Dong Lu Gao Feng Yuan

东鲁高风远

Fan Yang De Ze Chang

范阳德泽长

Xi Sheng Chong Li Yi

希圣崇礼义

Xiang Xian Bing Zhong Liang

象贤秉忠良

Ji Xu Cheng En Mao

继序承恩茂

Yan Geng Rong Shi Chang

延赓荣世昌

Mu Lin Dun Xiao You

睦邻敦孝友

Qi Yan Yin Hua Zhang

期彦胤华章 (continued)

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(continued) Bao Shu Huai Yu Sheng

宝树怀宇盛

Lan Gui Man Ting Fang

兰桂满庭芳

Qin Wei Shu Shan Jing

勤为书山径

Zhi Dao Xue Hai Hang

智导学海航

Hong Yi Kun Peng Yi

弘毅鹍鹏翼

Tu Xin Long Feng Xiang

图新龙凤翔

Fan Xing Lang Qian Kun

繁星朗乾坤

Jin Ke Kun Yu Tang

金科焜玉堂

Wen Tao Zhi Yao Shun

文韬致尧舜

Wu Lue Zhen Jia Bang

武略振家邦

Jing Zu Jian Gong Ye

敬祖建功业

Wan Dai Zhu Hui Huang

万代铸辉煌

The editorial committee of the Chinese Zou Clan Genealogy regulated that clan members with locative surnames used the above generational order from the 81st generation, while whose names came from a feudal territory or state used the order from the 69th generation.8 The “one hundred characters of generational orders” is an admirable exploration of the historic generational orders in the new era. In summary, the generational orders contain abundant contents of Chinese traditional culture. It’s a valuable historical and cultural heritage that we should inherit critically, promote and innovate.

11.10 Codes for Receiving the Genealogy In order to keep the purity of the clan and prevent spurious genealogies that were being manufactured to serve as charters for surname associations, after the genealogy was revised, it would be printed according to the number of houses and branches. Copies were distributed within the clan only. Each family signed for their copies according to relevant codes. There were specific regulations on receiving and inspecting genealogies. A grand ceremony was sometimes held in the ancestral temple to celebrate the clansmen receiving their own genealogical records. In smaller clans, every family was given their own code, and when the records were updated, they were able to come forward and receive a copy. In “The Genealogical Records of the Hong (洪) Clan in Jiang Village” (during the eighth year of Emperor Yongzheng’s reign) it is stipulated that “after the genealogical records are completed, a quota must be to them, and they must be numbered, so

8

Newsletter on compilation of the Zou pedigree 邹谱编纂简讯, Vol. 18.

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that there are 34 genealogical records at any given time”, which was considered a sufficient number. Numbering methods varied. Some numbered their genealogical records using ancient Chinese numerical symbols, such as Jia 甲 (one), Yi 乙 (two), Bing 丙 (three), Ding 丁 (four), Wu 戊 (five), Ji 己 (six), Geng 庚 (seven), Xin 辛 (eight) and so on. Others used an alternative system for numbering them, i.e. Tian 天, Di 地, Xuan 玄, Huang 黄, Yu 宇, Zhou 宙, Hong 洪, Huang 荒 etc. Others simply listed them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and others used special words to emphasize their importance. When receiving a genealogical record, the recipient would often sign an acceptance form. Some families had additional, stricter rules for receiving these records. Many insisted that genealogical records not only be handed out according to codes, but that they also have official seals on them. This prevented them from being mistaken for fake genealogical records. Placing authenticity codes on genealogical records were regarded as important in ensuring that those who received them were family members, and thus ensuring the purity of the clan. To prevent fake genealogical records from being distributed, many families also adopted another measure: destroying the original master copy of the records, after all genealogical periodicals had been printed. After a family received their own genealogical records, every clan was given very strict instructions on how to keep it safe. “The Genealogical Records of the Wang Clan in Qimen County” (1889) stipulate that “After it has been received, the genealogical records should be wrapped in ten layers of packaging, and not taken out without permission. You should construct a box in which to hide it. Whenever conditions inside are damp, you should bring it outside into the sunshine, so that the bookworms don’t eat it.” “The Genealogical Records of the Jin Clan in Jingzhao Village, Qimen County” (1877) state that “after receiving the genealogical records, we should carefully hide it, ensure that it is not exposed to insect or rat bites, and that it can’t be contaminated by oil or ink. We must prevent it from being altered, copied or sold. If you are found distributing false copies, you will face public judgment and be punished as an unfilial descendant.” Some clans stipulated that “if your genealogical records are destroyed by accident or by force”, you should immediately report the incident. Other clans were stricter, and if genealogical records were found to be lost, responsible candidates would be “sent to court and punished by the constitutional law”. Many clans attached great importance to the inspection of genealogical records within the ancestral temple. Some clans would often leave one genealogical record in the temple, so the public could view it as a model on which theirs should be maintained. Some clans stipulated that genealogical records should be inspected triennially. Most clans stipulated that on the day of ancestral worship, the one who originally received the genealogical record must be the one to bring it to the ancestral temple for inspection.

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In “The Genealogical Record of the Li Clan in Heshan City (1917)” it is said that “on the day before Qingming (Grave-sweeping) Festival in the years of Zi 子, Wu 午, Mao 卯 and You 酉, every clan should bring their genealogical record to their family’s ancestral temple, in order that it be inspected. Some clans stipulated that if you damaged your genealogical record, you would be fined. Some clans considered that damage to a genealogical record was a criminal offence, and that those who committed this act were “unfilial” and should be “severely punished”. “The Genealogical Record of the Li Clan in Heshan City (1917)” is one such example. It reads that “If a genealogical record is found to be lost, you will be expelled from the family and no longer be recorded in later genealogical records.” During the Qing dynasty, Hu Yuanxi from Yi County in Huizhou City made detailed descriptions about the process of repairing “The Genealogical Record of the Hu Clan in Yi County”. He said that first, clansmen would convene in the Benshi Hall of the ancestral temple, and hold a public discussion over issues of genealogical style, poll taxing, hiring assistant stewards and gathering donations. The clansmen would then collect donations in the Jing’ai Hall of the ancestral temple. For the next six months, they would compile the genealogical records in the Zhongde Hall, and form a master copy of the genealogical record. After the master copy was completed, they would choose an auspicious day on which to carve wood printings of the new genealogical record. It took approximately five months in which to complete the printing. Clansmen would then worship these records in the ancestral temple. The earliest ancestors would be worshipped on the third day after Spring Festival, and common ancestors would be worshipped on the sixth day, and migrating ancestors on the nineth. Before this ancestral worship, three stages would be erected in three places: one at the entrance to the Benshi Hall, one in Shuang Xikou, and one in Shang Tingtan. Among the three stages, the stage before the Benshi Hall was regarded as the most important, and also went by the name “the flower stage”. The ancestral temple’s Benshi and the Jing’ai halls were decorated with lanterns and streamers. Before the Benshi Hall, a floor bridge was also installed, as high as the middle threshold. Paved with red carpet, the floor bridge was decorated with ancient bronze vessels, five glass lamps and corner lamps with red tassels. In the hall, an altar would be erected, nearby which was a basin stand containing the family’s genealogical record and a number of antique artefacts. Throughout the temple, many lamps with dangling pearls were hung on the walls, whilst corner lamps with red tassels were solely found to hanging inside the temple entrances. Two deacon plates were hung under the porch, and four gold paintings by renowned Ming Dynasty artists were hung in the middle hall. Two large banners were placed along the temple’s winding corridor, by the artist Tong Pak Fu, and the calligrapher Wen Zhiming. On the fifth day after Spring Festival, a basin was brought inside the temple. This contained sacrificial food arranged in the shape of classic symbols; for example, rice

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was decorated in the shape of a flower vase, and sesame was arranged so that it took the shape of people. In the temple yard, there were high tents erected that were covered with multicoloured cloth, which in the sunshine were said to blaze with color. Within these tents, there were incense burner tables and iron lampstands for flowers. Big bright red drapes were hung before the Jing’ai Hall, and these were decorated with ancient artefacts, iron pictures from Wuhu City, and many flower and bird paintings. Six paintings were hung in the middle of the hall. The antechamber was full of lamps with dangling pearls, as well as paintings by the renowned artist, Shen Shitian. In the middle of the antechamber was a large, sacrificial table, on which were several ancient stoves. In the front and back hall of the temple were bronze bottle paintings and ancient porcelain paintings. Within the temple entrances was red yarn and coloured lanterns. Outside the temple, there were four stages for daily opera performances. Three theatrical troupes were invited to play from the second to the twelfth day after Spring Festival, and they would perform over 60 performances altogether. On the especially important third day after Spring Festival, the three troupes would play simultaneously on all three stages from morning till night, and would play 10 performances on this day alone. On the sixth day after Spring Festival, the master copy of the genealogical record was burned to prevent fake copies being distributed. The ashes of the master copy were placed in a wooded box, and this was carried to the Tianma Mountain to be buried. On the 11th day after Spring Festival, the new genealogical records were handed out to clansmen. Finally, on the third day of the following month, monks in the Ciguang Temple of Huangshan Mountain were invited to chant for three days. Only after that, could it be said that all the procedures for genealogical record repair were finally complete. To summarize, the procedures involved discussing, compiling, printing and worshiping the genealogical record. The master copy would then be burnt, and new, updated copies of the record would be handed out. Genealogical record modification and worship involved the grandest celebrations in the ancestral temple, so there were always a crowd of spectators, often as many as tens of thousands of villagers. They would celebrate for the full 10 days after Spring Festival, often without incident, i.e. fire, thefts, drunk fighting or gambling. This demonstrates the simple, gentile nature of the ancient people who lived in the South of the Yangtze River. We have fully introduced the styles of family genealogies and their content. There are around 20 distinctive aspects, and these help us gain an understanding of Chinese family genealogies. If we assess these genealogies alongside others, we can summarize that Chinese family genealogies have the following basic characteristics: (1) Patriarchal content. It can be seen in the title that most family genealogies are a historical record of a certain surname. Family genealogies were normally compiled by an editorial committee, which was made up of clansmen. They

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included lots of content: the origin of the family’s surname, the family’s migration history, family members’ pedigrees, biographies, customs and rites, information on the ancestral temple/tomb, domestic disciplines, art and literature, and the order of generations. This content centered around the family, and it recorded the deeds of the clansmen. It was effectively a family encyclopedia. (2) Continuous records. It was traditional for Chinese family genealogies to be revised. Descendants normally referred to the earlier style and content of a family’s genealogy when they made revisions. Pedigree charts, family migration records, and population growth records illustrated how descendants showed continuity. For example, the Sheng Clan Genealogy in Longxi, Changzhou, Jiangsu showed that the family history of Sheng Xuanhuai was revised seven times. It was first revised by the ninth generation descendant Sheng Shixian, during the 28th year of the Qianlong era (1763). The final revision was made by the 15th generation descendant Sheng Wenyi, during the 32nd year of the Republic of China era (1943). On average, a revision took place once every ten years. The Sheng Family Genealogy shows continuity in its content and style. There is a line in this genealogy, instructing descendants to “follow the previous style of the family’s genealogy, without making additions or deletions”. Revised Chinese genealogies were markedly different to other historic works in that they underwent frequent revisions yet maintained a somewhat standardized style. (3) Different styles and formats. The 20 distinctive aspects of family genealogies show us that genealogies are diverse in style and format. They contain: historical records (i.e. the origin of the family’s surname and the family’s migration history); tables (i.e. pedigree charts and biographies); graphs (i.e. ancestral temple charts, tomb maps, residential diagrams); records (i.e. records of ancestral temples and academies), and biographies (i.e. brief biographies of important figures). In addition, some genealogies include encomiums, ancestors’ portraits, inscriptions of praise, poems, and lists of generations in order. It is also worth noting that some family genealogies have absorbed the styles of official histories and local chronicles, particularly compilations. The most important pedigree chart in a family genealogy often uses the same ranking method as official history books like the Shi Ji (The Grand History of China) and the Han Shu (The Book of Han). Some chapters in family genealogies are titled “Records”, and these have adopted the same narrative method as local chronicles. To summarize, the styles of family genealogies are diversified, inclusive and comprehensive. They show the history of a family, and paint a general picture of that family. The famous historian Zhang Xuecheng in the Qing Dynasty pointed out: “The significance of genealogy to family, local chronicle to county and history to country is the same.”9 Indeed, family genealogy, local chronicle and national history constitute the three pillars for Chinese history. Genealogy is of the greatest significance in terms of its quantity, duration and wide influence among people. It is an integral part of China’s precious cultural heritage that needs to be deeply explored. Zhang Xuecheng. Preface of Daming County Chronicle for Zhang Jifu 为张吉甫大名县志序. In Posthumous works of Zhang Xuecheng. Beijing: Commercial Press, 1936: 36.

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Chapter 12

The Number of Chinese Genealogies

12.1 Statistics on Chinese Genealogies Chinese genealogies are important part of Chinese history and culture, but how many Chinese genealogies are there on earth? “Removing duplicates, there are about 15,000 kinds of Chinese genealogies in China, Japan and the US” This is a result verified by Chang Jianhua in his Summary of Chinese Genealogy Collection and Research1 according to the basic information he masters. “From ancient times to modern times, our ancestors compiled countless kinds of genealogies, but after years of erosion, there are still over 20,000 kinds,” which is estimated by Lai Xinxia and Xu Jianhua in their book Chinese Chronology and Genealogy published by the Commercial Press in 1997. “According to incomplete statistics, existing genealogies of over 30,000 kinds are precious treasures in Chinese literature, reflecting splendid culture of Chinese nation.” This is a passage in the preface of Portraits of Chinese Ancestors with Different Surnames edited by the National Library and published by Nationalities Publishing House in 1999. These are estimates and obviously to know the accurate number of existing Chinese genealogies, we must make a thorough investigation of public and private genealogies at home and abroad, which is a very difficult task. In order to adapt to new demand of economic globalization and knowledge networking for Chinese literature resources in June 2000, the National Library of China convened in Beijing at a global conference on the co-construction and sharing of Chinese literature resources attended by the world’s major Chinese literature resource collectors. The conference identified eight co-construction and sharing projects of Chinese literature resources, one of which was the project General Catalog Chang Jianhua 常建华. Summary of Chinese genealogy collection and research 中国族谱收藏 和研究概况简说. Genealogical Research. Bibliography and Document Publishing House, 1989.

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of Chinese Genealogies hosted by the Shanghai library. The project aimed to catalogue the collection of Chinese genealogies around the world (mainly by public collectors and private ones as much as possible) and created an opportunity to investigate Chinese genealogies. With the support of nearly a thousand Chinese collectors and thousands of private collectors around the world, the catalogue was completed in eight years and officially published by the Shanghai Classics Publishing House. According to statistics at the end of 2003, the Shanghai Library collected 76,781 kinds of Chinese genealogies in various regions at home and abroad. 76,781 refers to the total number of Chinese genealogies collected by various units, some of which contained duplicates. If you remove duplicates, it would be 52,401. 52,401 is a relatively accurate number obtained through various research, careful compilation, and joint efforts for eight years by public and private collectors at home and abroad, which makes up the following characteristics: (1) Large quantities At the beginning of this article, it was quoted that there were three estimated numbers of existing Chinese genealogies, namely 15,000, 20,000 and 30,000. After the survey from the General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies, the relatively accurate number was 52,401, which greatly exceeded the original estimate. Previously, the largest number of Chinese genealogies was listed in Comprehensive Catalog of Chinese Genealogies which was jointly compiled by the Second Department of State Archives Bureau, the Department of History of Nankai University, and the Library of History Institute of CASS since 1984. In order to ensure this catalogue, the State Archives Bureau worked together with the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Education and jointly issued the Notice on Assisting Compilation of Comprehensive Catalog of Chinese Genealogies to libraries, museums, cultural management units, archives, and other units throughout the mainland. For thirteen years, the catalogue collected a lot of genealogies that were stored by 400 units including books, archives, relics and culture departments. Meanwhile, it transcribed Chinese genealogy catalogues that were published in Taiwan, Japan, and North America among other places and was published by Zhonghua Book Company in 1997 to include 14,719 kinds of Chinese genealogies. Recently, the General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies collected 52,401 kinds, which was more than three times as many as that of the Comprehensive Catalog of Chinese Genealogies had collected. Among ancient Chinese books, gazetteers and genealogies are similar. A gazetteer is an encyclopedia of a place, while a genealogy is a historical record of a family sharing the same ancestry. According to the statistics of the Comprehensive Directory of Chinese Local Gazetteers edited by Zhu Shijia 朱士嘉 and published by Commercial Press in 1958, there are 7413 kinds of local gazetteers in libraries throughout mainland China, plus 232 in Taiwan, and 80 in the US. This added up to a grand total of 7725, a relatively complete figure to reveal old Chinese gazetteers. In 1985, the Union Catalogue of Chinese Local Gazetteers that was edited by Beijing Astronomical Observatory of CAS and published by Zhonghua Book Company was based on the Comprehensive Directory of Chinese Local Gazetteers edited by Zhu Shijia and

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it collected over 8200 kinds of local gazetteers from 190 public libraries, libraries with scientific research units, libraries of colleges and universities, museums, cultural and historical centers, and archives in 30 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. There were 500 more kinds compared to the Comprehensive Directory of Chinese Local Gazetteers. 8200 is the exact number of old Chinese gazetteers. The Comprehensive Directory of Chinese Local Gazetteers has six times as many genealogies (including some new genealogies) as gazetteers, indicating genealogies are indeed important part and precious treasure of Chinese history and culture. (2) Wide distribution The General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies incorporated more than 50,000 kinds of Chinese genealogies that were collected from around the world. This included those collected from 31 Chinese provinces, different municipalities, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and those collected throughout North America such as areas like Washington, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Utah, Toronto, Vancouver, and Ottawa. In Japan information was collected from Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka. As for the rest of the world, information was found in South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Australia, France, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. It can be said that in all parts of the world where Chinese live in a greater concentration, you can find their information from this catalogue of genealogies collected by locals. The project of the General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies was officially launched in 2000. Due to the Shanghai Library’s communication with domestic and overseas libraries over the years, we have known that quite a number of overseas Chinese literature resource collectors have Chinese genealogies and some have quite a considerable amount. For example, the United States’ Utah Genealogy Library, Library of Columbia University, Library of Congress, Harvard-Yanjing Library; Japan’s Oriental Library, National Library of Congress, Kyoto University Library; and relevant units in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh city, Australia’s Sydney, and Singapore, all collect Chinese genealogies. What about other countries and regions? After visiting Canada in 2003, it was found that libraries in Ottawa, Vancouver, and Toronto all collected Chinese genealogies. The library of Toronto, in particular, has more than 100 kinds of Chinese genealogies. After visiting Korea in 2004, it was found that the National Library of Korea and Library of Congress also have Chinese genealogies. In 2005, a group was organized to visit Europe and found some Chinese literature collectors there such as the French National Library, the British National Library, the Library of Sinology Institute of Heidelberg University in Germany, and the Chinese Library of Sinology Institute of Leiden University in the Netherlands, which all collected Chinese genealogies. While visiting family in Sweden in 2005, I found a Chinese library named the Oriental Library in Stockholm that has collected over 100,000 books and is the main collector of Chinese literature in northern Europe. When exploring the library to borrow books, I found it had three kinds of Chinese genealogies, one of which has not been included in the General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies. It can be seen that as long as we go to interview groups with a large collection of overseas Chinese literature and visit overseas places where Chinese people live in a high concentration, we will often find traces of Chinese genealogies.

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This proves that the wide distribution of these groups around the world is not an exaggeration. (3) Shanghai, Taiwan, and Beijing are among top collectors When analyzing genealogy collectors in various regions as reflected in the General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies, we can find Shanghai, Taiwan, and Beijing are far ahead of other regions. The Shanghai Library accounts for the majority of genealogies in Shanghai, which is mainly attributed to Gu Tinglong, whom was a senior curator of the Shanghai Library. Since 1950s, Mr. Gu paid great attention to the collection of documents such as genealogies, local gazetteers, examination papers written in red, and etc. According to a procurement principle it says, “I pick up what others discard.” Under the influence of “left” ideology at that time, historical documents such as genealogies were sent to waste sites and paper mills for processing, but Mr. Gu and his people rescued a large number of documents such as genealogies from being destroyed. Since 1995, the rescue of historical documents in the Shanghai Library has received great support from municipal government, so the library has increased its collection and search for historical documents including genealogies. As a result, the collection of genealogies in the Shanghai Library has reached 21,000 kinds (about 2000 of which are new ones), accounting for more than one-third of existing Chinese genealogies. Taiwan has an impressive collection of 10,000 kinds genealogies, which have two distinct features: firstly, most of ancestral homes of Taiwan genealogies are in the mainland, especially in Fujian and Guangdong, which indicated the earliest ancestors of Taiwan residents are basically from the mainland and that Taiwan residents are closely related to those from the mainland. Secondly, most of Taiwanese genealogies have been compiled in the last 50 years. Taking Li family genealogies as an example, the General Catalogue of Chinese Genealogies includes 323 kinds of Li family genealogies in Taiwan with clearly-marked compilation dates. Among them, 13 were compiled during Ming and Qing Dynasties, 35 were edited between 1912 and 1949 during Republic of China, and the remaining 275 were compiled in the last 50 years, accounting for more than 85%. Other surnames were similar and due to human factors, the two sides of Taiwan strait have been separated for 50 years, but the Taiwanese have active efforts to compile genealogies that reflect their strong desire to seek the roots in the mainland and to return to the motherland. The third largest collector is Beijing, whose main collection units are the National Library, the Library of History Institute of CASS, the Library of Peking University, the Library of CAS, the Library of Renmin University of China, and etc. The largest collection is in National Library with over 3200 kinds, second only to the Shanghai Library. The National Library not only has a higher quantity, but also a better quality. (4) Zhejiang ranks the first According to statistics, there are 12,778 kinds of genealogies in Zhejiang, which account for a quarter of the total Chinese genealogies and is ranked the first among all provinces or cities. The General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies includes 608 surnames, nearly half, 299, of which are from Zhejiang genealogies. Of over 12,000

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kinds of Zhejiang genealogies, half are collected in Zhejiang and the half in other areas. Among those in Zhejiang, there are many famous ones. For example, the Jiangshan Archives Bureau and MaoYouxiang from Lanxi natural village or Jiepai village, the Shimen town of Jiangshan collected the Mao Clan Genealogy in Qingyang, Jiangshan, Zhejiang which was compiled during the 8th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Tongzhi era (1869). This recorded Mao Zedong’s ancestor lineage since the Tang Dynasty. One of the branches of the Mao clan moved to Ji’an, Jiangxi after the Song Dynasty and Mao Taihua’s descendants moved to Shaoshan, Hunan, where Mao Zedong is a grandchild from the 20th generation. Another example is the Zhou Family Old Eighth Branch Genealogy in Baisuitang, Baoyouqiao, Shaoxing which was kept in the Lu Xun Memorial Hall in Shaoxing. In 1939 Zhou Enlai wrote with a writing brush: Enlai, courtesy name, Xiangyu, the great-grandson of Qiaoshui, the eldest grandson of Yunmen, the eldest son of Maochen, and the adopted son of Zanchen, whom was born between 5 and 7 am on the 13th day of the second lunar month during 24th year of the Guangxu era (March 5, 1898). His wife was Deng Yingchao. Both genealogies are important cultural relics. Zhejiang genealogies take the lead for two reasons: firstly, Zhejiang has a long history of culture with many genealogies compiled in the past Dynasties. Since Lin’an (present-day Hangzhou) became the capital of the southern Song Dynasty, China’s economic center moved further south, which created a boom in the entire Jiangnan region. In particular, Wu-Yue region’s economy began to lead the country. Development of economy, the prosperity of cities, and rise of great clans would certainly promote cultural undertakings. After the southern Song Dynasty in Jiangnan region with Zhejiang as the center, academies were set up everywhere, ancestral halls stood in great numbers, scholars rose to fame, and the proportion of success examined in imperial exams was far ahead of other regions. Sticking to the principle of “respecting ancestors, worshiping patriarchy and uniting clans” which was advocated by Zhu Xi, master of Neo-Confucianism, genealogy compilation in Jiangnan areas was also in the forefront. During Ming and Qing Dynasties, in Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, and so on, every family in each village compiled their genealogies, which almost became a cultural custom of the whole nation and continued from generation to generation. This laid a foundation for the large number of genealogies in today’s Zhejiang. Secondly, the Zhejiang Library has done a lot of solid and detailed work in the process of compiling the General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies. In order to make a comprehensive survey of Zhejiang genealogical resources, and under strong support of the Zhejiang Cultural Department and the Zhejiang Archives Bureau, the Zhejiang Library motivated a total of 102 public collectors across Zhejiang, which included libraries, archives, museums, units of cultural relics, local gazetteers, colleges and universities, and nearly 200 staff members to take part in the work for four years to finally figure out the genealogical resource distribution in Zhejiang. Particularly, they went to the countryside to interview private collectors. After repeated publicity and a great deal of detailed and in-depth work, over 3000 genealogies collected by the folk have been dug out, accounting for half of Zhejiang’s collection. This is very

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rare in the cataloging work of genealogies, so to speak, great oaks from little acorns grow, making it possible for the number of genealogies of Zhejiang to be more than that of other provinces and regions. (5) Chen, Zhang, Wang, Li and Liu are on top According to the General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies, there are 2990 kinds of genealogies for the surname Chen, followed by Zhang with 2597 kinds, Wang with 2512 kinds, Li with 2157 kinds, and Liu with 2029 kinds. The above five surnames respectively have over 2000 kinds of genealogies. Surnames with 1001 ~ 2000 kinds are listed in order as follows: 黄Huang:1733

吴Wu:1631

周Zhou:1222

杨Yang:1197

徐Xu:1091

林Lin:1028

Surnames with 501 ~ 1000 kinds are listed in order as follows: 朱Zhu: 941

胡Hu: 815

郑Zheng: 806

爱新觉罗Aisin Gioro: 791

许Xu: 685

叶Ye: 636

何He: 596

谢Xie: 596

赵Zhao: 550

萧Xiao: 531

罗Luo: 511

Surnames with 101 ~ 500 kinds are relatively more: 汪Wang: 466

孙Sun: 466

蔡Cai: 466 郭Guo:444

彭Peng: 441

曾Zeng: 441

方 Fang: 387

程Cheng:380

钟Zhong: 377

金Jin:371

蒋Jiang:362

邓Deng:359

潘Pan:343

吕Lv:336

高Gao:328

唐Tang:305

马Ma:299

江Jiang:292

洪Hong:289

袁Yuan:288

廖Liao:285

戴Dai:284

丁Ding:283

曹Cao:275

傅Fu:253

冯Feng:244

卢Lu:241

章Zhang:236

范Fan:234

姚Yao:229

梁Liang:227

钱Qian:224

赖Lai:220

宋Song:202

谭Tan:195

苏Su:195

俞Yu:192

邹Zou:186

董Dong:185

陆Lu:185

汤Tang:182

毛Mao:182

施Shi:178

魏Wei:175

颜Yan:165

顾Gu:158

姜Jiang:156

韩Han:149

龚Gong:148

严Yan:145

楼Lou:140

熊Xiong:140

詹Zhan:134

蓝Lan:132

任Ren:132

欧阳Ouyang:130

温Wen:123

雷Lei:121

陶Tao:121

易Yi:121

古Gu:119

黎Li:115

石Shi:115

尹Yin:114

童Tong:111

游You:111

秦Qin:110

倪Ni:108

文Wen:104

史Shi:104

孔Kong:104

简Jian:101

These surnames are basically consistent with today’s top-ranked surnames.

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According to the fifth population census in 2000, China has 3490 surnames, and the top 100 are: 1. 李Li

2. 王Wang

3. 张Zhang

4. 刘Liu

5. 陈Chen

6. 杨Yang

7. 赵Zhao

8. 黄Huang

9. 周Zhou

10. 吴Wu

11. 徐Xu

12. 孙Sun

13. 胡Hu

14. 朱Zhu

15. 高Gao

16. 林Lin

17. 何He

18. 郭Guo

19. 马Ma

20. 罗Luo

21. 梁Liang

22. 宋Song

23. 郑Zheng

24. 谢Xie

25. 韩Han

26. 唐Tang

27. 冯Feng

28. 于Yu

29. 董Dong

30. 萧Xiao

31. 程Cheng

32. 曹Cao

33. 袁Yuan

34. 邓Deng

35. 许Xu

36. 傅Fu

37. 沈Shen

38. 曾Zeng

39. 彭Peng

40. 吕Lv

41. 苏Su

42. 卢Lu

43. 蒋Jiang

44. 蔡Cai

45. 贾Jia

46. 丁Ding

47. 魏Wei

48. 薛Xue

49. 叶Ye

50. 阎Yan

51. 余Yu

52. 潘Pan

53. 杜Du

54. 戴Dai

55. 夏Xia

56. 钟Zhong

57. 汪Wang

58. 田Tian

59. 任Ren

60. 姜Jiang

61. 范 Fan

62. 方Fang

63. 石Shi

64. 姚Yao

65. 谭Tan

66. 廖Liao

67. 邹Zou

68. 熊Xiong

69. 金Jin

70. 陆Lu

71. 郝Hao

72. 孔Kong

73. 白Bai

74. 崔Cui

75. 康Kang

76. 毛Mao

77. 邱Qiu

78. 秦Qin

79. 江Jiang

80. 史Shi

81. 顾Gu

82. 候Hou

83. 邵Shao

84. 孟Meng

85. 龙Long

86. 万Wan

87. 段Duan

88. 雷Lei

89. 钱Qian

90. 汤Tang

91. 尹Yin

92. 黎Li

93. 易Yi

94. 常Chang

95. 武Wu

96. 乔Qiao

97. 贺He

98. 赖Lai

99. 龚Gong

100. 文Wen

The top 5 in the above table are Li, Wang, Zhang, Liu, and Chen, while the top 5 in existing genealogies are the same in different order, namely Chen, Zhang, Wang, Li, and Liu. Chen genealogies rank the first mainly due to the major proportion of Chen genealogies in Fujian and Taiwan that are included in the General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies. Fujian and Taiwan are always reputed to “be half occupied by Chen and Lin.” For example, the Catalog of Taiwan Genealogies issued by Taiwan Family Genealogy Research Society in 1987 is the most complete catalogue in Taiwan with 10,613 kinds of genealogies and 252 surnames. Chen, Lin, Zhang, Huang, Li, Liu, Wang, Wu, Yang, and Xiao are the top 10 clans. Chen is top one with 1068 kinds of genealogies, accounting for one tenth of the Catalog of Taiwan Genealogies. Incorporating Chen genealogies, which rank first in Fujian and Taiwan, into the General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies is bound to make Chen to be on top. Six surnames with 1001 ~ 2000 kinds of genealogies are: Huang, Wu, Zhou, Yang, Xu, and Lin respectively ranking 8th, 10th, 9th, 6th, 11th, and 16th among today’s top 100 surnames. These two results are relatively consistent. 11 surnames with 501 ~ 1000 kinds of genealogies are: Zhu, Hu, Zheng, Aisin Gioro, Xu, Ye, He, Xie, Zhao, Xiao, and Luo, whose rankings in today’s top 100 surnames, except for Aisin Gioro, are respectively 14, 13, 23, 35, 49, 17, 24, 7,

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30 and 20, all ranking high. The General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies has 791 kinds of Aisin Gioro genealogies, mainly because it contains a large number of royal genealogies from the Qing Dynasty. Of 45 surnames with 101 ~ 500 kinds of genealogies, most are included in today’s top 100 surnames. The above comparison shows the surname order of existing genealogies is close to that of today’s surnames.

12.2 Key Collectors in China To further understand the number and distribution of existing genealogies from a micro perspective, main collectors from around the world should be introduced one by one. Firstly, we will introduce the main collectors in China. (1) The Shanghai Library The collector with the largest quantity and the best quality should be the Shanghai Library. The Shanghai Library was established in July 1952. In September 1995, the Shanghai Library and the Shanghai Institute of Scientific and Technical Information merged to become the first provincial and municipal library and information association in China. It is located at 1555 Middle Huaihai Road, Shanghai, covering 120,000 square meters and having 50 million documents and materials, including 12 million books. It has 1.7 million ancient books, 170, 000 rare books, and many features in genealogies. Through the efforts of several generations, especially from its honorary curator Mr. Gu Tinglong who saved tens of thousands of genealogies from paper mills in the early period of liberation and combined with wide collection through other means, the Shanghai Library has become the world’s largest collector of Chinese genealogies. According to statistics, it has over 19,000 kinds of genealogies compiled before 1949. Plus 2000 kinds of new ones, it has 21,000 kinds, about 190,000 copies in total. Its characteristics are as follows: Firstly, it has wide coverage. Its genealogies cover most provinces and districts in China, most in Zhejiang and Anhui, then in Jiangsu, Hunan, Sichuan, Fujian, Shandong, Hebei, Hubei, and Jiangxi. There are less from Gansu, Guizhou, and Guangdong. Zhejiang genealogies concentrate in Jinhua, Yuyao, Shangyu, and Cixi while Anhui genealogies concentrate in Huizhou. Secondly, it has more surnames. According to statistics in 2000, its genealogies have 328 surnames. Zhang with 638 kinds of genealogies ranks as number one, followed by Chen with 622 kinds, Wang with 542 kinds, Wu with 424 kinds, Liu with 420 kinds, Li with 418 kinds, Zhou with 366 kinds, and Xu, Huang, Zhu, Hu, and Yang respectively with over 200 kinds. There are over 80 little-used surnames, such as 吾Wu, 承Cheng, 寻Xun, 师Shi, 生Sheng, 危Wei, 谌Chen, 港Gang, 后Hou, 平Ping, 阳Yang, 璩Qu, 青Qing, 斜Xie, 揭Jie, and etc. Its order of most-used surnames is slightly different from those of the National Library of China and the United States’ Utah Genealogical Society (microfilm genealogies); it has its own characteristics.

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Thirdly, it has the best quality. Genealogies in the Shanghai Library are mostly block-printed versions and wooden movable types from the Qing Dynasty and Republic of China. It has over 200 kinds of genealogies from the Ming Dynasty, many of which have preserved painted portraits. It also has many manuscripts, master copies, and celebrity genealogies with the earliest being Xian Yuan Lei Pu 仙源类 谱 of Song Dynasty, all with high data value. Fourthly, it has Shanghai characteristics. A considerable part of its genealogies is about those who came to Shanghai from other places to develop a career after the opening of the Shanghai port. For example, the Ye Family Genealogy in Shenlangqiao, Dongguan, Zhenhai recorded the story of the earliest comprador Ye Chengzhong. Ye opened a foreign trade firm and silk reeling factory in Shanghai, which is of great historical value for the study of Shanghai’s modern history. Economic data preserved by the Li Family Genealogy in Hefei (compiled in 1928), the Sheng Family Genealogy in Longxi (compiled in 1943) and the Rong Family Genealogy in Wuxi (compiled in 1935) reveal the traces of Shanghai’s modern industrial development in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century from a unique perspective. The above shows that in terms of quantity and quality, genealogies in the Shanghai Library are of vital importance in existing genealogies. (2) The National Library of China The National Library of China, formerly known as the Beijing Library, has the second highest collection of genealogies, second only to the Shanghai Library. Established in 1909, it has a collection of about 22 million books. It is the general library of China, and covers 170,000 square meters. At the beginning of its establishment, under the influence of curator Liang Qichao, it attached a great importance to collecting genealogical data. In 1928, it wrote letters to all social sectors, asking for genealogies. By 1950, its collection had grown to 348 kinds. In the subsequent “land reform” and other campaigns according to procurement principle it is quoted as, “I pick up what others discard,” its scholars widely collected genealogies and constantly increased the amount. To strengthen the efforts in sorting out local gazetteers and genealogies, it established the Local Chronical and Family Genealogy Center in 1990, when genealogies has reached 3006 kinds. Now its genealogies complied before 1949 has reached 3200 kinds. Its genealogies not only have high quantity, but also high quality and are characteristically very different: Firstly, it covers a wide range. Three provinces with the most genealogies are Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui, followed by central and southern China, then by Hebei, Shandong and Northeast China, and lastly by northwest China. Secondly, it has many surnames, totally 268 ones, 12 of which have over 50 kinds of genealogies, Wang with the most with 142 kinds, followed by Chen with 134 kinds, and Zhang with 101 kinds. Thirdly, it has high quality versions, such as the two versions in the Song Dynasty. The earliest one being Shi Hao’s Xian Yuan Lei Pu, a hand-copied version. It has 322 kinds of genealogies in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. According to the statistics of the Bibliography of Ancient Chinese Rare Books, it has almost half of the genealogies

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classified as historical biographies and rare books. What is particularly valuable is that it collects a rare book titled the Incomplete Volume of Surnames, No. 79. Dunhuang’s version of the Tang Dynasty. The content is divided into two parts: the first part records all counties and surnames, totally 66 counties and 266 surnames. For example, its first sentence is “Yang County belonging to Bingzhou has three surnames, i.e., 仪Yi, 景Jing, 鱼Yu”. The second part records Gao Shilian’s memorial to the throne and an imperial decree dated May 10, from the 8th Zhenguan year of the Tang Dynasty. At the end, there is a postscript by the copier dated the first Kaicheng year of the reign of emperor Wenzong of Tang Dynasty. Although scholars still dispute the date and nature of this book, its literature value is unmatched. Fourthly, its ethnic minority genealogies are characteristic. Those written in Chinese consist of 19 Eight Banners genealogies, 2 Mongol genealogies, and many royal family genealogies. Those written in minority languages consist of 21 genealogies in Manchu languages and 11 genealogies in Mongolian, Yi and, Tibetan languages, which are all very precious. (3) Genealogical Data Center of Shanxi Academy of Social Sciences In July 1988, with the support of the State Archives Bureau and CASS, Shanxi Academy of Social Science led the establishment of Chinese Genealogy Society and published its own journal titled Genealogical Research. In February 1994, the Shanxi Academy of Social Science formally established the Genealogical Data Center. Since its establishment, the center has made great efforts to strengthen the collection, sort and research of genealogical data, and pay great attention to basic theory research and self-construction of the discipline. In the past 20 years, it has published more than 20 books, issued more than 50 papers, and been invited to attend international and domestic academic conferences for many times. Meanwhile, it has also provided effective services for overseas Chinese to find their roots and ancestors. It collects over 400 surnames and over 6000 genealogies (some are microfilms, which ranks second in China. In 2003, it launched a “seeking source” website, www.xunway-yuan.com, a communication and consultation platform for a wide range of researchers, enthusiasts, and collectors. Since 2006, Genealogy Symposium as a periodical in the form of serialized books edited by the center has been published annually by Shanxi Publishing House. (4) The Hunan Library Established in March 1904 as initiated by Zhao Erxun, then governor of Hunan province, the Hunan Library was one of the earliest public libraries in China. In May 1984, it moved to Shaoshan Road, Changsha, covering 43,700 square meters. By the end of 1990, it has collected 3.16 million volumes, including 950,000 ancient books, 5000 rare books, 15 volumes of the Shuo Wen Jie Zi inscribed from the Song Dynasty, long volumes of Buddhist Scriptures of Lei Feng Pagoda inscribed in Five Dynasties, and etc. According to statistics, it has 1176 genealogies, second only to the Shanghai Library and the National Library of China. Among them, six rare genealogies, such as the Zhou Yuan Gong’s Lineage and Legacy 周元公世系遗芳 集 (15 volumes), Extensive Records of Kong Family Ancestors 孔氏祖庭广记 (12

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volumes), the Li Family Genealogy in Fengcheng 丰城李氏族谱, the Re-engraved Genealogy of Kang Family in Mengtan 重刻蒙潭康氏族谱, etc., were listed into the Bibliography of Rare, Ancient Chinese Books. (5) The Anhui Library Built in 1913, the Anhui Library is also one of the earliest public libraries in China. Located at 76 Wuhu Road, Hefei, it has 2.4 million books, 400,000 ancient books, 3121 kinds and 30,707 volumes of rare books, among which is the Expanded and Annotated Phonetic Interpretation of Tang Literary Collection of Liu Zongyuan inscribed from the Yuan Dynasty, Pinluo Temporary Manuscript handwritten by famous calligrapher Liang Tongshu in the Qing Dynasty, and Kang Wei Travel Notes by Yao Ying from the Qing Dynasty which are some of the more precious options. Among all existing genealogies, Huizhou occupies an important position, so the Anhui Library took advantage of unique conditions and visited Huizhou in southern Anhui many times, resulting in over 200 kinds of genealogies of a high quality, especially Huizhou genealogies. Wang and Xie Families Lineages 王谢世家 (30 volumes), the Wang Clan Lineage 汪氏世范录, Famous Clans in Xin’an 新安名族 志 (2 volumes), the Wang Clan Origin Record 汪氏渊源录 (10 volumes) and the Fan Clan Genealogy in Xiuning 休宁范氏族谱 (9 volumes) are among its 31 kinds of genealogies listed into the Bibliography of Rare, Ancient Chinese Books and twothirds of them are unique copies, so its collection of rare books is second only to the National Library of China and the Shanghai Library. (6) The Zhejiang Library As one of the public libraries with a long history in China, the Zhejiang Library is the provincial literature information collection and service center. It consists of a new and main building on Shuguang Road, a branch on Gushan Road, a dormitory on University Road, and Jiayetang Library in Nanxun district of Huzhou, covering 47,000 square meters with 6 branches and 27 circulation stations throughout Zhejiang. It has a collection of 4.7 million books. One of China’s four surviving pieces is called Si Ku Quan Shu and is kept in Wenlange as its top treasure. It also has a very rich collection of genealogies, a total of 1076 kinds, including rare and precious versions. It has attached great importance collecting genealogies and caught the opportunity of participating in the compilation of General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies. Under strong support of Zhejiang Cultural Department and Zhejiang Archives Bureau, it has organized the staff of provincial libraries, archives, and other systems to investigate and catalogue Zhejiang’s genealogical resources for four years and finally compiled the Abstracts of General Catalog of Zhejiang Genealogies. The catalogue has 2.55 million words, includes 12,778 kinds of Zhejiang genealogies, and was published by Zhejiang People’s Publishing House in 2005 to become the first bibliographical book of Zhejiang Cultural Research Achievements. (7) The Tianyige Library Built in the 11th year of the reign of emperor Jiajing during the Ming Dynasty (1532), the Tianyige Library is the earliest private library in China, located in Ningbo,

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Zhejiang. Its original owner Fang Qin (1506–1585) was a resident of Yinxian, Zhejiang and was a successful candidate in the highest imperial exam in the 11th year during the Ming Dynasty’s Jiajing era (1532). His highest official position was the right assistant minister of the Department of Defense. Fan was studious all his life and liked to collect books. This collection increased day by day, so he built a tower to keep them and named it Tianyige Library, which mainly features a collection of the Ming Dynasty local gazetteers, records of successful candidates in the highest provincial exams, metropolitan exams, and martial exams. According to statistics, it also collects 403 kinds of genealogies. In particular, Four Volumes of the Huang Ming En Ming Lu 皇明恩命录 (a block-printed version in the 9th year of the Ming Dynasty’s Jiajing era), Volume One of the Chong Xiao Lu 崇孝录 (a block-printed version in the 3rd year of the Ming Dynasty’s Longqing era, compiled by Qian Fenglai 钱凤来), Non-divided Volume of the Wang Family Genealogy in Wukou 武口王氏 统宗世谱 (a block-printed version in the 4th year of the Ming Dynasty’s Longqing era, compiled by Wang Xi 王铣 and others), and the Zeng Family Genealogy in Luling 庐陵曾氏家乘 (a block-printed version during the Ming Dynasty’s Jiajing era, compiled by Zeng Konghua 曾孔化) are among its 11 kinds of genealogies listed into the Bibliography of Rare, Ancient Chinese Books. (8) Jilin University Library Built in 1946, Jilin University Library is located at 83 Jiefang Road, Changchun and covers 25,000 square miles. It collects 2.17 million books, of which 1.49 million are written in Chinese and 680,000 written in foreign languages. It is a university library with the largest collection of genealogies in the mainland. According to statistics, it collects 861 kinds of genealogies. In particular, the Fang Clan Genealogy in Ancient Shexian 古歙方氏宗谱 (6 Volumes), the Revised Jiang Clan Genealogy in Jiyang 重 修济阳江氏族谱 (8 Volumes), the Li Clan Genealogy 李氏族谱 (3 Volumes), and the Zhou Clan Genealogy in Xishan 锡山周氏宗谱 (4 Volumes) which are among its 12 kinds of genealogies listed into the Bibliography of Rare, Ancient Chinese Books. (9) Library of History Institute of CASS Built in 1954, Library of History Institute of CASS is located at 5 Jianguomennei Inner Street, Beijing, covering 1500 square meters and has 700,000 books as it is the largest library in the CASS system. It mainly collects professional historical literature, of which nearly 30,000 volumes are rare books. Its collection features Huizhou contracts and documents from the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties. According to statistics, it has a collection of 980 kinds of genealogies as a library which the most genealogies in a scientific research system. According to common practice, it should have more genealogies listed into the Bibliography of Rare, Ancient Chinese Books, but we only found the Beginning and End of Yanggan Temple Dispute Written by Luo Family (Volume 1) in it. Besides, according to the genealogy part of General Catalog of Microfilms, the library has over 2000 kinds of micro genealogies mainly of the Ming and Qing Dynasties as well as the Republic of China.

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(10) Taiwan Central Library The Central Library was established in Nanjing in 1933, moved to Chongqing during the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and returned to Nanjing after the victory of the War. In 1949, it moved to Taipei, where it was originally built in the botanical garden on Nanhai Road. Because it was not spacious enough to accommodate readers and books, it was planned to be rebuilt in 1978. Located at 20 North Zhongshan Road, Taipei, the new library is a seven-storey ochre building covering 30,000 square meters, which was officially opened to the public in September 1986. The library has 2 million books, including over 12,000 rare books, about over 125,000 volumes. Its genealogies are divided into two parts: one is ordinary books of about 160 kinds, of which most are paperback books compiled and published in the past 20 years and then later collected in a general book stack room. The other is the thread-bound ancient book, with a total of 27 kinds, of which 25 kinds of rare books are collected in the rare book stack room. Among these 25 kinds of rare books, the Study on Wei Clan in Shipu is a manuscript by the author in Tianshun during the Ming Dynasty, while the Huang Family General Genealogy, the Zhang Clan General Genealogy, the Wang Clan Genealogy in Fuze and the Renewed Cheng Clan Genealogy in Shuaikou of Xiuning are block-printed versions in the Ming Dynasty. The Chen Family Genealogy in Fengxi, Gaoyou and the Dai Clan Genealogy are hand-copied versions in the Ming Dynasty, all with high quality. (11) Literature Library of Taipei Palace Museum Located in the Palace Museum in Shilin district, Taipei, the Literature Library is a sole building to the right of the administrative building of called the “Palace Museum.” This library is famous for its collection of ancient and rare books of past Dynasties as well as files and documents of the Qing Dynasty. To carry out function of the collections, Taipei’s “Palace Museum” officially opened its literature library in April 1996. The library is best known for its collection of ancient and rare books such as the Si Ku Quan Shu kept in Wenyuange, block-printed versions in Wuying Hall, and the Cabinet Library with about 180,000 volumes. It collects archives of the Qing Dynasty, including imperial comments written in red, cabinet library archives, and military archives totaling over 400,000 pieces in total. Rich collections of micro genealogies are one of its important features. In March 1996, Taiwan’s United Daily News donated to the library 3132 volumes of micro genealogical data. They are divided into two types: Chinese genealogies (9970 kinds) and Korean and Ryukyu genealogies (192 kinds), totaling 10,162 kinds. Of these Chinese genealogies, about 3200 kinds concern Taiwan and over 6000 kinds concern regions outside Taiwan. Those Chinese genealogies are dominated by Han nationalities, but also include a small number of Manchu and other ethnic minorities ones. Apart from being collected in libraries and archives departments in the mainland and Taiwan, the original copies of those micro genealogies are mainly collected in Japan’s Oriental Library, Japan’s National Library of Congress, East Asian Library of Columbia University, America’s Library of Congress, and Feng Pingshan Library of Hong Kong University. The

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Literature Library of Taipei known as the “Palace Museum” is the second largest collector of Chinese micro genealogies in the world, only second to the United States of America’s Utah Genealogy Library. (12) Library of Ethnology Institute of Academia Sinica The library was established in September 1955, which covers 2000 square meters and has 159,000 volumes, which focus on ethnology, sociology, psychology, Taiwanese studies, religious studies, overseas Chinese studies, and other related disciplines. Its main collection is Taiwanese data during the Japanese occupation period, religious investigation data, temple accounting books, land declarations, ancient texts and deeds, rare books, and so on. It collects over 1100 microfilms, mainly of Chinese genealogies, over 1100 kinds. It is a collector of relatively more micro genealogy data in Taiwan. (13) Libraries of Hong Kong University Libraries of Hong Kong University, especially Feng Pingshan Library (donated by Feng Pingshan in 1931, with a collection of 490,000 books), is the largest collector of genealogies in Hong Kong. According to the Catalogue of Chinese Genealogy compiled and printed in June 1997 by a consultation group of the Feng Pingshan Library, 374 kinds of original genealogies are collected in different Libraries throughout Hong Kong University, of which nearly 300 kinds are collected in the Feng Pingshan Library. About a quarter were compiled during the Qing Dynasty and Republic of China while three quarters were compiled after 1949. More valuable ones include the Lin Clan Genealogy in Xiapu Village, Kengkou , Dabu District, Xinjie which was compiled in the 35th Wanli year (1607) of the Ming Dynasty, the Qiu Clan Genealogy in Henantang compiled by Qiu Zuosheng and Qiu Zuotai in the 44th year of the Ming Dynasty’s Wanli era (1617), the Pu Clan Genealogy compiled by Pu Songling during the 27th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Kangxi era (1688). No units in mainland China has the above three genealogies. In addition, the libraries collect over 300 micro genealogies, mainly copied from America’s Utah Genealogy Library and other parts.

12.3 Key Collectors Abroad Now we will introduce the major foreign organizations that collect Chinese genealogies. (1) National Diet Library (Japan) The National Diet Library was established in February 1948 and is now located in Nagata-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo. It has two origins: one is the libraries of the House of Peers and the House of Representatives in the former Imperial Diet established in 1890; and the other is the Imperial Library established in 1872 under the Ministry of Education. Most of these collections were transferred to the present National Diet

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Library. It serves as both the library for the Diet, Japan’s two-chambered legislature, and a national library, holding copies of every book published in Japanese. With a collection of 7.8 million books, it is the largest public library in Japan. Its characteristic collections: constitutional materials (230,000 pieces in total, which are the literature materials of modern Japanese political development in the late nineteenth century and the personal collections of modern Japanese political, diplomatic, military and industrial figures), parliamentary materials (450,000 copies of important materials such as parliamentary proceedings of 30 countries including Japan and government gazette of about 100 countries), and scientific and technological materials (25,500 foreign scientific and technological journals, patent reports, doctoral theses, etc.) Among them, there are about 250,000 Chinese ancient books, books and materials, including documents of Qing Dynasty, local chronicles, genealogy, books, magazines and newspapers, etc. According to statistics, the museum collects 403 kinds of Chinese genealogy, most of which are editions of Qing Dynasty and Republic of China. There are 15 kinds of engraved and banknote editions before Qianlong, among which there are 3 kinds of Ming engraved editions, namely, the Wang Family Genealogy in Wukou (Longqing Edition), A Brief Collection of Sima’s Origin in Sushui (Wanli Edition) 涑水司马氏源流集略, and the Wang Clan Genealogy in Ximen, Xiuning (Jiajing edition) 休宁西门汪氏族谱, which are of high value. (2) Toyo Bunko (Japan) Located in Tokyo, Japan, Toyo Bunko covers an area of 3687 square meters and consists of 4 main areas with a total construction area of 7134 square meters. It is Japan’s largest Asian Studies library. Toyo Bunko was established in 1917 after the Japanese Mitsubishi Group purchased Australian Morrison Library. After the Revolution of 1911, Morrison became a political adviser to the Presidential Office of the Republic of China. Because of his professional needs and personal hobbies, he bought many western books about China, which was quite famous at that time. After Toyo Bunko was established, in addition to Morrison’s collection, it also acquired a large number of books from Asian countries, including China. In 1924, the library set up a research department specifically collecting books, publishing the research results of Japanese scholars, and spreading knowledge on Asian Studies, so as to promote the development of the research in Japan. After the Second World War, Toyo Bunko became a branch of the National Diet Library. There are 800,000 books in the library, including 425,000 books in Chinese and Korean and 325,000 books in Western languages. In addition to China and Korea, there are Japan, Mongolia, Siberia, Central Asia, West Asia, India, Southeast Asia and so on. The collection of Asian materials is so concentrated that it is unparalleled not only in Japan but also in the world. There are more than 4000 kinds of old Chinese local chronicles in the Chinese collection, including 20 copies of the Yong Le Da Dian, the imperial examination papers of the Qing Dynasty and the Tripitaka. The library collects more than 800 kinds of Chinese genealogical originals and 5 million copies of miniature genealogical data, making it the unit with the largest collection of

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such data in Japan. The genealogies, such as the Engraved Cheng Family Genealogy in Xin’an of the Ming Dynasty, are of high quality. Each family genealogy is placed and well preserved in a special envelope. (3) Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo (Japan) The Institute of Oriental Culture was founded on November 26, 1941 in the University of Tokyo. Its purpose is to comprehensively study Oriental culture. At the beginning of its establishment, there were three departments: Philosophy and Literature History Department, Legal Political Department and Economic and Commercial Department. When carrying out research work, attention should be paid to the organic combination of literature research and field investigation, and classical research and modern research should be carried out together. The library of the Institute has a research room, stacks and offices. In order to further collect the literature information about Oriental Studies and provide literature information services for researchers at home and abroad, the Oriental Studies Literature Center affiliated to the Institute of Oriental Culture was established in 1966, focusing on collecting books from China and Korea, photocopies of Chinese newspapers and magazines, Arabic manuscripts and references and other literature and newspapers in various parts of Asia, and carrying out the business of compiling ancient books catalogue and modern Chinese books catalogue, investigating ancient books, holding lectures on ancient books and publishing series books. The Institute of Oriental Culture has collected 500,000 Chinese books, among which economic materials, legal trial materials, music books and drama materials of the Qing Dynasty are quite distinctive and precious. According to the Chinese Classification Catalogue of the Institute, there are 344 kinds of Chinese genealogy collected by the Institute (some of them are collected in relevant series, and there are about 270 kinds of original genealogy). Most were compiled during the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China era, among which 9 kinds including the Pan Family Genealogy in Dexiaoli, Wuxing were published and copied during the Ming Dynasty. (4) Kyoto University Asian Studies Unit (Japan) The Kyoto University Asian Studies Unit was established in April 1965 and is affiliated to the Institute of Humanities of Kyoto University. The unit is located in Yoshidahonmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, covering an area of 4223 square meters and a building area of 2428 square meters. It was built in 1930 by the Cultural Department of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the funds of boxer indemnity. The Document Center is mainly responsible for collecting and sorting out the documents and materials related to Oriental Studies for researchers inside and outside Kyoto University, and actively carrying out document and information activities related to Oriental Studies. The Kyoto University Asian Studies Unit contains about 300,000 Chinese books, including books from the Republic of China, 28,000 ancient books collected by Tao Xiang, anthology of Ming Dynasty, local chronicles and so on. In addition, there are

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100,000 materials of Longmen Grottoes and Yungang Grottoes, 3600 Oracle bones in the Yin Dynasty, 10,000 stone rubbings, and 50,000 maps and photos of local conditions and customs in China during the Republic of China. Among them, there are more than 50 kinds of Chinese genealogy, and some miniature copies of Chinese genealogy. It has a publication entitled “Oriental Literature Category”. (5) Columbia University’s East Asian Library The East Asian Library of Columbia University is located on the campus of Columbia University, and its address is Broadway and West 116th Street. Founded in 1901, Columbia University East Asia Library is the earliest library in North America to collect East Asian literature. Chinese books were collected as early as the early days of the establishment of the library, and Li Hongzhang donated the Complete Collection of Illustrations and Writings from the Earliest Times to the Present. There are more than 400,000 Chinese books, most of which are history, philosophy and literature books. Chinese local chronicles and genealogy are the collection features of the museum, and they contain Oracle bones. According to relevant reports, the East Asian Library of Columbia University ranks first in the United States, with more than 2000 genealogies. In fact, the genealogy of the museum is far more than that, including the genealogy of China, Japan and South Korea. All genealogical documents are arranged according to classification. Under a certain category, Chinese, Japanese and Korean genealogies are concentrated in one place. The exact number of Chinese genealogies is not clear because there is no special catalogue of Chinese genealogy. It is estimated that there are more than 1000 kinds of old genealogies in China, and there are many new genealogies donated by Chinese from all over the world in the past two decades. Chinese genealogy is stored in rare stacks and ordinary stacks. Most rare genealogies are Ming Dynasty versions, such as the Chen Genealogy in Tengxi. The genealogy looks complete and of high quality, which is packed in special envelopes. (6) Harvard-Yenching Library Harvard-Yenching Library is located in Harvard University, Boston, Cambridge, USA. It was founded in 1928. It was originally called Chinese-Japanese Library and belongs to Harvard Yanjing Institute. In 1965, it was officially renamed HarvardYenching Library. The library is the university library with the largest collection of East Asian literature in the western world, with a collection of 900,000 volumes, including 560,000 Chinese books, ranking second in the United States. The collection of Chinese materials in the library is characterized by ancient books and local documents. After the opening of the museum, under the auspices of curator Alfred Kaiming Chiu, a large number of ancient Chinese books were collected, mainly in the Song, Yuan, Ming and early Qing dynasties. After years of collection, there are more than 1500 volumes of rare ancient books, among which 187 are carved in Ming Dynasty, most of which are rare and isolated books. Chinese local chronicles are the collection focus of the museum, with more than 3800 copies, among which there are 28 kinds of Ming Dynasty engravings with high quality.

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The collection of Chinese genealogy began in 1930s. Harvard alumni collected and acquired a large number of genealogies in Beijing, most of which were collected by Columbia University’s East Asian Library, and a few were kept in Harvard-Yenching Library. There were more than 200 kinds of them. Most of them were wooden movable type books in the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China era, including more than ten kinds of manuscripts and manuscripts. Among them, the genealogy in Xiaoshan area was mostly, and only one kind of Ming Dynasty engraving was the Cheng Clan Genealogy in Xiuning. More than 200 genealogies are stored in rare stacks and common stacks. (7) Library of Congress The Library of Congress, located in Washington, DC, was founded in 1800, with a building area of over 300,000 square meters and 4200 employees. It is the world’s richest and largest library with the largest collection of Chinese books except China. The history of collecting Chinese materials in this library can be traced back to 1869. In that year, the Tongzhi Emperor of China presented 933 volumes of 109 works to the Library which started the prelude of collecting Asian documents in the Library of Congress and became one of the richest databases for collecting Asian documents in the world. The Chinese Department of the Library of Congress was established in 1928. After years of collection, there are 754,300 Chinese books, of which ancient books and local historical materials are its collection features. There are more than 2000 kinds of rare ancient books in China, among which more than 1500 kinds are Ming Dynasty engravings; There are about 4000 kinds of local chronicles in China, most of which are engraved in Ming and Qing Dynasties; There are about 500 kinds of old genealogy in China, most of which have been photographed by Utah Genealogical Association. (8) Family History Library of Utah, USA The Library, located in Salt Lake City, USA, is a cultural institution under the Mormon Church in America. Mormon doctrine attaches great importance to families and advocates eternal marriage. In order to meet the needs of the majority of believers to find their roots and appease the dead, a genealogical library was established in 1894. Over the past hundred years, the library has extensively interviewed and photographed relevant materials from all over the world. Up to now, it has collected 274,000 books and more than two million miniature copies, involving more than 300 million surnames, and has become a library specialized in collecting archives of the dead in various countries. A total of 17,099 Chinese genealogies, 5043 local chronicles, 4375 household registration books in Northeast China and 1293 imperial examination materials in Qing Dynasty were collected. Most of the above materials are microfilm copies, and only over 300 books in 17,099 genealogies are originals, such as the Complete Collection of Wu Family Genealogy in the Qing Dynasty. Although there are not many originals of Chinese genealogy in the library, the number of miniature copies

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is still considerable. At present, the Shanghai Library has the largest collection of genealogy in China, with a total of 21,000 kinds. Followed by the National Library of China, with 3200 kinds. There are 17,000 kinds of microforms in the Family History Library of Utah, which shows that there are a large number of microforms. (9) Toronto Public Library, Canada The public library of Toronto, Canada, built in 1884, contains 12 million copies/piece, involving more than 100 languages. All the Chinese collections of the library are scattered in various branches. At present, there are 100,000 Chinese books, most of which are published in Hong Kong and Taiwan, which are rich in content, but basically meet the needs of ordinary immigrant readers. The museum has the largest collection of Chinese genealogy in Canada, with more than 100 kinds of Chinese genealogy, most of which are compiled and published in Taiwan in recent 50 years. (10) Chinese Library, Institute of Sinology, Leiden University, The Netherlands The Chinese Library of Leiden University Sinology Research Institute was established on December 20, 1930. Its Chinese library is first-class in Europe in terms of book collection, professionalism and management level. There are 300,000 books here, and besides Chinese, there are many Japanese and Korean books; There are both contemporary Chinese books and many rare books of ancient books. Other materials include 4000 periodicals (there are more than 1000 periodicals at present), newspapers, microfilms and slides. The collection subjects are mainly literature, history and philosophy, but also other subjects, such as astronomy, Chinese medicine and biology. The library features the collection of sinologist Robert Hans van Gulik, the activities of Jesuits in China in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, and historical materials along the coast of China. The museum is one of the largest collections of Chinese genealogy in Europe. According to statistics, there are 49 kinds, most of which are Taiwan genealogy published in 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and most of them are printed copies, involving more than 40 surnames such as Zhou 周, Zhuang 庄, Pan 潘, Lü 吕, Guo 郭, Zhao 赵, Xiao 萧, Lin 林, Jian 简, Wang 王, Chen 陈, Ye 叶, Xie 谢, Hong 洪, Liu 刘, Zheng 郑, Li 李, Zhang 张, Dai 戴, Cao 曹, Zhan 詹, Lu 卢, Hou 侯, Yang 杨, Xue 薛, Hu 胡, Sun 孙, Song 宋, Ke 柯, Zhong 钟, Xu 徐, Fan 范, Lan 蓝 and Fei 费. Among them, Zhang 张 and Liao 廖, Ke 柯 and Cai 蔡, Lai 赖 and Luo 罗, Jiang 姜, Lu 卢 and Ji 纪 are clan unity genealogies. (11) Library of Sinology Institute, Heidelberg University, Germany The library of Sinology Institute of Heidelberg University, Germany, was established in 1962 and is the main unit for collecting Chinese literature in Germany. There are 120,000 volumes of monographs, 330 periodicals, 12 newspapers (20,000 periodicals and 1000 newspapers in total), and more than 10,000 microfilms and films. Featured collections include Qing Dynasty literature, Buddhist and Taoist literature, modern Chinese music and audio-visual materials, etc. In addition, many electronic databases of ancient books published in mainland China and Taipei have been ordered, including the Si Ku Quan Shu, Thirteen Classics, Twenty-five History and full-text databases of newspapers and periodicals. The Chinese genealogy collected

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by the museum mainly includes the Shi Family Genealogy in Linxi (Puxian County, Shandong Province), the Su and Zhou United Clan Genealogy (Wugong County, Shaanxi Province), the Chen Family Genealogy (Yunxian County, Hubei Province) and the Zhou Family Genealogy, all of which have been compiled and published in Taiwan in recent 50 years. (12) French National Library (Bibliotheque Nationale de France) The French National Library, built in 1368, has been one of the oldest libraries in the world for more than 600 years. With a building area of 360,000 square meters and a collection of 11.3 million volumes/piece. The Chinese collection of the library is divided into two places: the Oriental Literature Branch of the Manuscript Department and the Chinese Room of the Oriental Literature Department. The Manuscript Department began to collect Chinese literature at the end of the seventeenth century. There are 150,000 kinds of ancient books printed by wood carving and movable type, hundreds of manuscripts and more than 500 kinds of periodicals, and there is also a rich collection of local chronicles. The Chinese Room of Oriental Literature Department was established in 1976. Its main task is to purchase Chinese literature from the nineteenth century to the present. At present, there are 20,000 volumes of Chinese books in this room, mainly for literature and language subjects. Books published in mainland China after 1949 are the main collections, as well as research documents on Chinese history and modern culture. The collection of Chinese genealogy in this museum is small in number, but of high quality. For example, The Imperial Genealogy of the Qing Dynasty, compiled by the imperial genealogy office of the Court of the Imperial Clan, is a transcript of the early Qing Dynasty. It records the descendants of Taizu Emperor Gao’s second son Prince Dai, the seventh son Prince Abatai and the fifteenth son Prince Duo Duo, and the third son Shu Erhaqi of Xianzu Emperor Xuan. The Wang Family Branch Genealogy in Biling, Changzhou, Jiangsu is the movable type of Sanxitang made during the fifty-second year of the Qing Dynasty’s Qianlong era (1787). The most precious one is the Records of Prominent Families in Dunhuang, Gansu written in the Tang Dynasty. (13) British Library The British Library is one of the earliest libraries in the world. As an important part of the British Library, the British Museum Library was established in 1753 and has a history of more than 250 years. The British Library came into existence in 1973 as a result of the British Library Act. Parliament’s vision was for a single institution at the heart of the UK’s information network, which would aid scientific and technological research, business, the arts and humanities. To make this happen, several organizations were brought together to create a national library: the British Museum Library, the National Central Library, the National Lending Library for Science and Technology, and the British National Bibliography. The British Library is a huge organization, with more than 2300 staff, more than 20 million books and 54,000 periodicals in various languages, and has established relations with more

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than 400 libraries in more than 60 countries. The museum features domestic monographs, archives, continuous publications submitted according to law, abundant overseas contemporary books, early printed books in Britain and overseas, and eastern and western manuscripts since the writing came into being. The museum has the largest collection of Chinese genealogy in Europe, with more than 60 kinds of high quality genealogies. For example, the Xu Clan Genealogy in Youtian Village, Xinjie, Hong Kong is a copy of the Ming Dynasty; the He Family Genealogy in Jujiangjun, Guangdong is a transcript from the Qing Dynasty’s Kangxi era; the Zheng Family Genealogy in Bao’an Guangdong and the Lin Family Genealogy in Bao’an, Guangdong are copies of the Qing Dynasty, all of which are rare books at home and abroad. What is especially precious is that the British Museum Library has a number of clan genealogies privately compiled during the Tang Dynasty, between the 14th year of the Dali era (779) and the first year of the Yuanhe era (806). For example, The Di Family Genealogy (Stein collection No. 5778), Clan Genealogy of the Heaven Commandery (Stein collection No. 5861), and Clan Genealogy of the Xin Ji Heaven Commandery (Stein collection No. 2052).

Chapter 13

Family Names Recorded in Chinese Genealogies

Family names/surnames are the most basic form of identification in society. They are important as they enable people to communicate, and they help people maintaining blood ties and distinguishing between clans/groups. Chinese surnames have a long, rich history. Each surname has a meaningful origin and an interesting story behind it. This chapter explores the origins of Chinese surnames and their evolution and distinctive characteristics. The content of this chapter is based on existing Chinese genealogies, and it reveals how Chinese surnames with rich connotations are an integral component of China’s profound history and culture.

13.1 Family Names that Still Exist in Chinese Genealogies In order to study the surnames of Chinese genealogies, we need to look at the genealogies that are still in existence. Luckily, we can get the information we need from the General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies 中国家谱总目. The Catalog was officially launched in June 2000 and is an internationally shared resource for projects related to Chinese literature. It has the support of firms that hold nearly 1000 major collections of Chinese literature resources around the world, and it took eight years for the Shanghai Library to complete the project. According to the General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies, there are 52,401 genealogies worldwide. These can mainly be found in public collection units.

© Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2023 H. Wang, The General Theory of China’s Genealogy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6377-5_13

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13 Family Names Recorded in Chinese Genealogies

Six hundred and eight surnames have been recorded in the General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies. These are arranged in alphabetical order as follows: A A/E/Ke 阿,Ai 艾, Aisin Gioro 爱新觉罗, An 安, Ao 敖. B Ba 巴, Ba 把, Bai 白, Bai 柏, Bai 拜, Bai 栢, Ban 班, Bao 包, Bao 暴, Bao 鲍, Bei 孛, Bei 贝, Bi 祕, Bi 毕, Bian 卞, Bian 边, Bie 别, Bin 宾, Bing 邴, Biru Hala 碧鲁, Borjigin 孛尔只斤, Borjigin 博尔济吉特, Borjigin 博尔济锦, Bu 布, Bu 卜. C Cai 才, Cai 采, Cai 蔡, Cang 苍, Cao 曹, Cao 操, Cen 岑, Chai 柴, Chang 昌, Chang 常, Chang 畅, Chao 晁, Chao 巢, Chao 潮, Chen 陈, Chen/Shen 谌, Cheng 成, Cheng 承, Cheng 程, Chi 池, Chi 迟, Chou 侴, Chu 初, Chu 楚, Chu 褚, Chu 储, Cong 从, Cong 丛, Cui 崔, Cun 寸. D Da 达, Da 答, Dai 戴, Dan 但, Dang 党, Dao 刀, Dao 道, Deng 邓, Di 狄, Di 邸, Di/Zhai 翟, Dian 佃, Diao 刁, Ding 丁, Diwu 第五, Dong 董, Dou 陡, Dou 钭, Dou 窦, Du 杜, Du 都, Du 堵, Duan 段, Duanmu 端木, Dun 顿, Duo 多. E Er 佴. F Fa 法, Fan 范, Fan 樊, Fang 方, Fang 房, Fei 费, Feng 奉, Feng 封, Feng 俸, Feng 冯, Feng 凤, Feng 丰, Feng 酆, Fu 伏, Fu 扶, Fu 府, Fu 符, Fu 富, Fu 傅, Fuqa Hala 富察. G Gai/Ge/Guo 盖, Gan 干, Gan 甘, Gan 淦, Gang 冮, Gang 刚, Gao 郜, Gao 高, Gaojia 高佳, Ge 戈, Ge 葛, Gejele Hala 葛哲勒, Geng 耿, Giorca hala 觉尔察, Gong 弓, Gong 公, Gong 宫, Gong 贡, Gong 巩, Gong 龚, Gongye 公冶, Gou 勾, Gou 苟, Gu 古, Gu 谷, Gu 辜, Gu 顾, Gu/Jia 贾, Guan 官, Guan 管, Guan 关, Guang 光, Gui 桂, Gui 贵, Gui 归, Guo 果, Guo 郭, Guo 过, Guo 国, Guwalgiya 瓜尔佳. H Hai 海, Han 汉, Han 韩, Hang 杭, Hao 郝, He 何, He 和, He 贺, He 赫, Hei 黑, Heng 衡, Heseri Hala 何舍里, Heseri Hala 赫舍里, Hong 洪, Hou 后, Hou 侯, Hu 户, Hu 虎, Hu 胡, Hu 扈, Hua 花, Hua 华, Huan 宦, Huan 环, Huang 黄, Huangfu 皇甫, Hui 惠, Huo 火, Huo 伙, Huo 霍, Husihari Hala 扈什哈理, Huwangjiyaer 瑚 旺济雅尔, Huyan 呼延.

13.1 Family Names that Still Exist in Chinese Genealogies

389

I Irgen Gioro/Yiergenjueluo 伊尔根觉罗. J Janggiya Hala 章佳, Ji 吉, Ji 李, Ji 季, Ji 计, Ji 纪, Ji 姬, Ji 戢, Ji 嵇, Ji 稽, Ji 冀, Ji 籍, Gu/Jia 贾, Jian 翦, Jian 蹇, Jian 简, Jiang 江, Jiang 姜, Jiang 蒋, Jiao 焦, Jiao 矫, Jie 揭, Jin 井, Jin 金, Jin 晋, Jin 靳, Jing 荆, Jing 敬, Jing 景, Jing 靖, Jing 经, Jiu 纠, Ju 巨, Ju 车, Ju 居. K Kai 开, Kaketa 卡克他, Kan 阚, Kang 亢, Kang 康, Ke 柯, Kong 孔, Kou 寇, Kuai 蒯, Kuang 匡, Kuang 况, Kuang 邝, Kuang 旷, Kuyala 库雅喇. L Lai 来, Lai 赖, Lan 蓝, Lan 兰, Lang 郎, Lao 劳, Le/Yue 乐, Lei 雷, Leng 冷, Li 列, Li 利, Li 厉, Li 黎, Li 励, Li 礼, Li 郦, Lian 连, Lian 廉, Lian 练, Liang 梁, Liao 廖, Lijia 李佳, Lin 林, Lin 蔺, Ling 凌, Linghu 令狐, Liu 六, Liu 柳, Liu 留, Liu 刘, Long 隆, Long 龙, Lou 娄, Lou 楼, Lu 陆, Lu 鹿, Lu 逯, Lu 路, Lu 鲁, Lu 卢, Lu 芦, Luan 栾, Lun 伦, Luo 骆, Luo 罗, Lv 吕, Lv 闾. M Ma 马, Ma 麻, Mai 麦, Majia 马佳, Mao 毛, Mao 茅, Mao 冒, Mei 梅, Mei/Mi 糜, Meihele 梅和勒, Men 门, Meng 孟, Meng 蒙, Mi 米, Mi 宓, Miao 苗, Miao 缪, Min 闵, Ming 明, Mo 莫, Mo 磨, Mou 牟, Mu 木, Mu 睦, Mu 慕, Mu 穆. N Na/Nuo 那, Nahla 那拉, Nai 乃, Nan 南, Ni 倪, Nian 年, Nie 聂, Nimaca Hala 呢 吗察, Ning 甯, Niu 牛, Niu 钮, Niuhuru Hala 钮祜禄, Nong 农. O Ou 区, Ou 欧, Ouyang 欧阳. P Pan 盘, Pan 潘, Pang 逄, Pang 庞, Pei 裴, Peng 朋, Peng 彭, Pi 皮, Piao 朴, Ping 平, Pu 浦, Pu 普, Pu 蒲, Pu 濮. Q Qi 亓, Qi 祁, Qi 戚, Qi 綦, Qi 齐, Qi 漆, Qian 千, Qian 潛, Qian 钱, Qiang 强, Qiao 乔, Qin 秦, Qin 覃, Qin 钦, Qing 青, Qing 卿, Qing 清, Qing 庆, Qiu 仇, Qiu 丘, Qiu 求, Qiu 邱, Qiu 裘, Qu 曲, Qu 屈, Qu 璩, Qu 瞿, Qu 蘧, Quan 全, Quan 权, Que 阙, Qumu 曲木.

390

13 Family Names Recorded in Chinese Genealogies

R Ran 冉, Rang 穰, Rang 让, Rao 饶, Ren 任, Rong 戎, Rong 容, Ronng 荣, Ru 汝, Ru 茹, Ruan 阮, Rui 芮. S Sa 萨, Saertu 萨尔图, Sahala 撒哈拉, Saiyite 赛一特, Sakda 萨克达, Sang 桑, Sha 沙, Shan 山, Shan 闪, Shan 单, Shang 尚, Shang 商, Shangguan 上官, Shao 邵, She 佘, Shen 申, Shen 沈, Shen 慎, Sheng 生, Sheng 盛, Shentu 申屠, Shi 世, Shi 石, Shi 史, Shi 是, Shi 施, Shi 时, Shi 师, Shi 释, Shou 首, Shou 寿, Shu 束, Shu 舒, Shuai 帅, Shui 水, Shushu 疏束, Si 司, Si 姒, Si 斯, Sima 司马, Sitara Hala 喜塔 喇, Situ 司徒, Song 宋, Su 粟, Su 苏, Sui 眭, Sui 隋, Sun 孙, Suo 索, Suo 锁. T Tan 谈, Tan 檀, Tan 谭, Tang 唐, Tang 汤, Tao 陶, Tatara Hala 他塔喇, Teng 滕, Teng 腾, Tian 田, Tie 铁, Tong 仝, Tong 同, Tong 佟, Tong 童, Tu 涂, Tu 屠, Tuan 团, Tumen 图门, Tuo 脱. U Uya 乌雅. W. Wan 宛, Wan 万, Wang 王, Wang 汪, Wanggiyan 完颜, Wei 危, Wei 韦, Wei 尉, Wei 隗, Wei 蔚, Wei 卫, Wei 魏, Wen 文, Wen 问, Wen 温, Wen 闻, Weng 翁, Wenjia 文佳, Wenren 闻人, Wu 毋, Wu 伍, Wu 吾, Wu 巫, Wu 吴, Wu 武, Wu 乌, Wu 邬, Wueerge 吴俄尔格, Wuxile 吴西勒, Wuya 吴雅. X Xi 郗, Xi 席, Xi 习, Xia 夏, Xiahou 夏侯, Xian 冼, Xian 鲜, Xiang 向, Xiang 相, Xiang 项, Xiao 肖, Xiao 筱, Xiao 萧, Xie 偰, Xie 解, Xie 谢, Xin 辛, Xin 忻, Xing 邢, Xing 幸, Xing 星, Xiong 熊, Xiu 修, Xu 胥, Xu 徐, Xu 许, Xu 须, Xu 续, Xuan 玄, Xuan 宣, Xuan 禤, Xuanyuan 轩辕, Xue 薛, Xun 荀, Xun 寻. Y Yan 言, Yan 彦, Yan 晏, Yan 焉, Yan 鄢, Yan 燕, Yan 阎, Yan 颜, Yan 严, Yang 仰, Yang 羊, Yang 阳, Yang 扬, Yang 杨, Yanja Hala 颜扎, Yao 姚, Yao 尧, Ye 叶, Yi 以, Yi 伊, Yi 衣, Yi 易, Yi 奕, Yi 益, Yin 尹, Yin 印, Yin 殷, Yin 鄞, Yin 银, Ying 应, Yong 用, Yong 雍, You 尤, You 游, Yu 于, Yu 羽, Yu 余, Yu 郁, Yu 于, Yu 禹, Yu 俞, Yu 鱼, Yu 庾, Yu 喻, Yu 虞, Yu 余, Yuan 元, Yuan 袁, Yuan 原, Yuan 员, Yuan 源, Yue 月, Yue 岳, Yue 悦, Yun 云, Yun 恽, Yuwen 宇文. Z Zang 臧, Zao 皂, Ze 迮, Zeng 曾, Zha 查, Zhan 占, Zhan 展, Zhan 粘, Zhan 湛, Zhan 詹, Zhan 战, Zhang 章, Zhang 张, Zhao 招, Zhao 赵, Zhen 真, Zhen 甄, Zheng 政, Zheng 郑, Zhi 支, Zhi 植, Zhong 仲, Zhong 锺, Zhou 周, Zhu 竹, Zhu 朱, Zhu 竺,

13.1 Family Names that Still Exist in Chinese Genealogies

391

Zhu 祝, Zhu 诸, Zhuan 颛, Zhuang 庄, Zhuge 诸葛, Zhuo 卓, Zi 自, Zi 资, Zong 宗, Zou 邹, Zu 祖, Zuo 左. There are 552 single surnames and 56 compound surnames. Among the 56 compound surnames, there are 30 surnames with two characters: Shangguan 上官, Qumu 曲木, Gongye 公冶, Wenjia 文佳, Shentu 申屠, Linghu 令孤, Sima 司马, Situ 司徒, Yuwen 宇文, Nahla 那拉, Lijia 李佳, Wuya 吴雅, Wanggiyan 完颜, Huyan 呼延, Huangfu 皇甫, Xuanyuan 轩辕, Majia 马佳, Uya 乌雅, Gaojia 高佳, Xiahou 夏侯, Diwu 第五, Janggiya Hala 章佳, Fuqa Hala 富察, Shushu 疏束, Biru Hala 碧鲁, Tumen 图门, Duanmu 端木, Wenren 闻人, Ouyang 欧阳, Zhuge 诸葛. There 18 surnames with three characters: Kaketa 卡克他, Tatara Hala 他塔喇, Guwalgiya 瓜尔佳, Heseri Hala 何舍里, Wuxile 吴西勒, Nimaca Hala 呢吗察, Kuyala 库雅喇, Meihele 梅和勒, Sitara Hala 喜塔喇, Gejele Hala 葛哲勒, Niuhuru Hala 钮祜禄, Heseri Hala 赫舍里, Sahala 撒哈拉, Saertu 萨尔图, Sakda 萨克达, Saiyite 赛一特, Yanja Hala 颜扎氏, Giorca hala 觉尔察。 There are five surnames with four characters: Borjigin 孛尔只斤, Wueerge 吴俄尔格, Husihari Hala 扈什哈理, Borjigin 博尔 济锦, Aisin Gioro 爱新觉罗. There are three surnames with five characters: Irgen Gioro/Yiergenjueluo 伊尔根觉罗, Borjigin 博尔济吉特, Huwangjiyaer 瑚 旺济雅尔. These surnames can all be found in existing Chinese genealogies. However, since many genealogies have been lost over the years, we are unable to include other surnames that once appeared in Chinese history. We know that there are far more than 608 surnames. However, this number alone is incredible and of great significance. Now let’s compare some of these surnames. (1) Comparing records with the surnames in published genealogical catalogs. The Catalog of Taiwan Genealogies 台湾区族谱目录 was issued by the Taiwan Family Genealogy Research Society in 1987, and it is the most complete genealogical catalogue in Taiwan. It lists 10,613 genealogies and 252 surnames. The Comprehensive Catalog of Chinese Genealogies 中国家谱综合目录 was published by the Zhonghua Book Company in 1997. It includes 14,719 Chinese genealogies and 451 surnames. Its compilers spent thirteen years collecting genealogies that were stored by some 400 units. The Shanghai Library has the largest collection of Chinese genealogies in the world. The Abstracts of the Shanghai Library’s Chinese Genealogical Collection 上 海图书馆馆藏家谱提要 was published by the Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House in 2000. It contains 11,700 genealogies and lists 328 surnames.

392

13 Family Names Recorded in Chinese Genealogies

The above three catalogs are the biggest volumes of genealogies. On average, they contain about 350 surnames. However, the 608 surnames listed in the General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies far exceeds this figure. (2) Comparing records with the Bai Jia Xing (A Hundred Family Names 百家姓). The Bai Jia Xing was edited during the Song Dynasty and it hugely influenced later generations. It recorded 440 Chinese surnames. Zhao 赵 Qian 钱 Sun 孙 Li 李

Zhou 周 Wu 吴 Zheng 郑 Wang 王

Feng 冯 Chen 陈 Chu 褚 Wei 卫

Jiang 蒋 Shen 沈 Han 韩 Yang 杨

Zhu 朱 Qin 秦 You 尤 Xu 许

He 何 Lv 吕 Shi 施 Zhang 张

Kong 孔 Cao 曹 Yan 严 Hua 华

Jin 金 Wei 魏 Tao 陶 Jiang 姜

Qi 戚 Xie 谢 Zou 邹 Yu 喻

Bai 柏 Shui 水 Dou 窦 Zhang 章

Yun 云 Su 苏 Pan 潘 Ge 葛

Xi 奚 Fan 范 Peng 彭 Lang 郎

Lu 鲁 Wei 韦 Chang 昌 Ma 马

Miao 苗 Feng 凤 Hua 花 Fang 方

Yu 俞 Ren 任 Yuan 袁 Liu 柳

Feng 鄷 Bao 鲍 Shi 史 Tang 唐

Fei 费 Lian 廉 Cen 岑 Xue 薛

Lei 雷 He 贺 Ni 倪 Tang 汤

Teng 滕 Yin 殷 Luo 罗 Bi 毕

Hao 郝 Wu 邬 An 安 Chang 常

Le/Yue 乐 Yu 于 Shi 时 Fu 傅

Pi 皮 Bian 卞 Qi 齐 Kang 康

Wu 伍 Yu 余 Yuan 元 Bu 卜

Gu 顾 Meng 孟 Ping 平 Huang 黄

He 和 Mu 穆 Xiao 萧 Yin 尹

Yao 姚 Shao 邵 Zhan 湛 Wang 汪

Qi 祁 Mao 毛 Yu 禹 Qiu 秋

Mi 米 Bei 贝 Ming 明 Zang 臧

Ji 计 Fu 伏 Cheng 成 Dai 戴

Tan 谈 Song 宋 Mao 茅 Pang 庞

Xiong 熊 Ji 纪 Shu 舒 Qu 屈

Xiang 项 Zhu 祝 Dong 董 Liang 梁

Du 杜 Ruan 阮 Lan 蓝 Min 闵

Xi 席 Ji 季 Ma 麻 Qiang 强

Jia 贾 Lu 路 Lou 娄 Wei 危

Jiang 江 Tong 童 Yan 颜 Guo 郭

Mei 梅 Sheng 盛 Lin 林 Diao 刁

Zhong 钟 Xu 徐 Qiu 邱 Luo 骆

Gao 高 Xia 夏 Cai 蔡 Tian 田

Fan 樊 Hu 胡 Ling 凌 Huo 霍

Yu 虞 Wan 万 Zhi 支 Ke 柯

Zan 昝 Guan 管 Lu 卢 Mo 莫

Jing 经 Fang 房 Qiu 裘 Miao 缪

Gan 干 Xie 解 Ying 应 Zong 宗

Ding 丁 Xuan 宣 Ben 贲 Deng 邓

Yu 郁 Shan 单 Hang 杭 Hong 洪

Bao 包 Zhu 诸 Zuo 左 Shi 石

Cui 崔 Ji 吉 Niu 钮 Gong 龚

Cheng 程 Ji 嵇 Xing 邢 Hua 滑

Pei 裴 Lu 陆 Rong 荣 Weng 翁

Xun 荀 Yang 羊 Yu 于 Hui 惠

Zhen 甄 Qu 曲 Jia 家 Feng 封

Rui 芮 Yi 羿 Chu 储 Jin 靳

Ji 汲 Bing 邴 Mei/Mi 糜 Song 松

Jin 井 Duan 段 Fu 富 Wu 巫

Wu 乌 Jiao 焦 Ba 巴 Gong 弓

Mu 牧 Wei 隗 Shan 山 Gu 谷

Che 车 Hou 侯 Mi 宓 Peng 蓬

Quan 全 Xi 郗 Ban 班 Yang 仰

Qiu 秋 Zhong 仲 Yi 伊 Gong 宫

Ning 宁 Qiu 仇 Luan 栾 Bao 暴

Gan 甘 Dou 钭 Li 厉 Rong 戎

Zu 祖 Wu 武 Fu 符 Liu 刘

Jing 景 Zhan 詹 Shu 束 Long 龙

13.1 Family Names that Still Exist in Chinese Genealogies

393

Ye 叶 Xing 幸 Si 司 Shao 韶 Gao 郜 Li 黎 Ji 蓟 Bo 薄

Yin 印 Su 宿 Bai 白 Huai 怀

Pu 蒲 Tai 邰 Cong 从 E 鄂

Suo 索 Xian 咸 Ji 籍 Lai 赖

Zhuo 卓 Lin 蔺 Tu 屠 Meng 蒙

Chi 池 Qiao 乔 Yin 阴 Yu 鬱

Xu 胥 Neng 能 Cang 苍 Shuang 双

Wen 闻 Shen 莘 Dang 党 Zhai 翟

Tan 谭 Gong 贡 Lao 劳 Pang 逄

Ji 姬 Shen 申 Fu 扶 Du 堵

Ran 冉 Zai 宰 Li 郦 Yong 雍

Xi 郤 Qu 璩 Sang 桑 Gui 桂

Pu 濮 Niu 牛 Shou 寿 Tong 通

Bian 边 Hu 扈 Yan 燕 Ji 冀

Jia 郏 Pu 浦 Shang 尚 Nong 农

Wen 温 Bie 别 Zhuang 庄 Yan 晏

Chai 柴 Qu 瞿 Yan 阎 Chong 充

Mu 慕 Lian 连 Ru 茹 Xi 习

Huan 宦 Ai 艾 Yu 鱼 Rong 容

Xiang 向 Gu 古 Yi 易 Shen 慎

Ge 戈 Liao 廖 Yu 庾 Zhong 终

Ji 暨 Ju 居 Heng 衡 Bu 步

Du 都 Geng 耿 Man 满 Hong 弘

Kuang 匡Guo 国 Wen 文 Kou 寇

Guang 广 Lu 禄 Que 阙 Dong 东

Ou 欧 Shu 殳 Wo 沃 Li 利

Wei 蔚 Yue 越 Kui 夔 Long 隆

Shi 师 Gong 巩 She 厍 Nie 聂

Chao 晁 Gou 勾 Ao 敖 Rong 融

Leng 冷 Zi 訾 Xin 辛 Kan 阚

Na/Nuo 那 Jian 简 Rao 饶 Kong 空

Zeng 曾 Wu 毋 Sha 沙 Mie 乜

Yang 养 Ju 鞠 Xu 须 Feng 丰

Chao 巢 Guan 关 Kuai 蒯 Xiang 相

Zha 查 Hou 后 Jing 荆 Hong 红

You 游 Zhu 竺 Quan 权 Lu 逯

Gai/Ge/Guo 盖 Yi 益 Huan 桓 Gong 公 Moqi 万俟 Sima 司马

Shangguan 上官 Ouyang 欧阳

Xiahou 夏侯 Zhuge 诸葛

Wenren 闻人 Dongfang 东方

Helian 赫连 Huangfu 皇甫

Yuchi 尉迟 Gongyang 公羊

Tantai 澹台 Gongye 公冶

Zongzheng宗政 Puyang 濮阳

Chunyu 淳于 Chanyu 单于

Taishu 太叔 Shentu申屠

Gongsun 公孙 Zhongsun 仲孙

Xuanyuan 轩辕 Linghu 令狐

Zhongli 钟离 Yuwen 宇文

Zhangsun 长孙 Murong 慕容

Xianyu 鲜于 Lvqiu 闾丘

Situ 司徒 Sikong司空

371 of those 440 Chinese surnames can also be found among the 608 surnames listed in the General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies. So most of the surnames in the Bai Jia Xing can be found in genealogies that still exist today. Sixty five of the surnames listed in the Bai Jia Xing are not included in the General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies. These were uncommon surnames, e.g. Zan 昝, Ben 贲, and Hua 滑. (3) Comparing records with present-day surnames. According to China’s fifth population census in the year 2000, China has approximately 3490 surnames. The 100 most common surnames are as follows:

394

13 Family Names Recorded in Chinese Genealogies

1. 李Li

2. 王Wang

3. 张Zhang

4. 刘Liu

5. 陈Chen

6. 杨Yang

7. 赵Zhao

8. 黄Huang

9. 周Zhou

10. 吴Wu

11. 徐Xu

12. 孙Sun

13. 胡Hu

14. 朱Zhu

15. 高Gao

16. 林Lin

17. 何He

18. 郭Guo

19. 马Ma

20. 罗Luo

21. 梁Liang

22. 宋Song

23. 郑Zheng

24. 谢Xie

25. 韩Han

26. 唐Tang

27. 冯Feng

28. 于Yu

29. 董Dong

30. 萧Xiao

31. 程Cheng

32. 曹Cao

33. 袁Yuan

34. 邓Deng

35. 许Xu

36. 傅Fu

37. 沈Shen

38. 曾Zeng

39. 彭Peng

40. 吕Lv

41. 苏Su

42. 卢Lu

43. 蒋Jiang

44. 蔡Cai

45. 贾Jia

46. 丁Ding

47. 魏Wei

48. 薛Xue

49. 叶Ye

50. 阎Yan

51. 余Yu

52. 潘Pan

53. 杜Du

54. 戴Dai

55. 夏Xia

56. 钟Zhong

57. 汪Wang

58. 田Tian

59. 任Ren

60. 姜Jiang

61. 范 Fan

62. 方Fang

63. 石Shi

64. 姚Yao

65. 谭Tan

66. 廖Liao

67. 邹Zou

68. 熊Xiong

69. 金Jin

70. 陆Lu

71. 郝Hao

72. 孔Kong

73. 白Bai

74. 崔Cui

75. 康Kang

76. 毛Mao

77. 邱Qiu

78. 秦Qin

79. 江Jiang

80. 史Shi

81. 顾Gu

82. 候Hou

83. 邵Shao

84. 孟Meng

85. 龙Long

86. 万Wan

87. 段Duan

88. 雷Lei

89. 钱Qian

90. 汤Tang

91. 尹Yin

92. 黎Li

93. 易Yi

94. 常Chang

95. 武Wu

96. 乔Qiao

97. 贺He

98. 赖Lai

99. 龚Gong

100. 文Wen

According to relevant statistics, more than 87% of China’s Han population has one of the 100 most popular surnames. All of these surnames can also be found in the General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies. We can see from this that the 608 surnames recorded in existing family genealogies were not only popular, many were—and still are—the most important surnames in Chinese history. So we can say that these 608 surnames are somewhat representative of Chinese surnames as a whole.

13.2 The Origins of Chinese Surnames Altogether, 608 Chinese surnames have been recorded in family genealogies, and many of these genealogies reveal the origin of a family’s surname. Surnames are symbol of a family unit. People began communicating by using one another’s surname. There is much archaeological data to suggest that the Chinese people lived as early as one million years ago. However, during that time, the earliest, primitive human beings had just been separated from the animal kingdom. Apes became ape-like men, and then humans, during the early/mid-Paleolithic era. At that time, productivity was low and people still lived in groups. The Lie Zi: Tang Wen 列

13.2 The Origins of Chinese Surnames

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子·汤问 says that sexual activity between family members/close relatives occurred without restrictions, and it didn’t matter how old or young a sexual partner was. As long as both parties were of the opposite sex, there was sexual activity. This type of behavior was typically known as a “group marriage”. But by the late Paleolithic period, there had become a much greater understanding of productivity. Primitive human beings found that relationships between members of the same blood-line were not conducive to future generations. They became disgusted with the idea of unrestricted promiscuity between immediate family members, and came to realize that “if men and women with the same family name are married, they will not give birth to healthy offspring.”1 So it became necessary for them to distinguish between clans and tribes of different lineage. Around the same time, continuous reproduction led to people living in different areas. Large clans/tribes naturally had several branches, and it became necessary to distinguish between these branches. One way of doing so was with surnames. And so surnames originated some five or six thousand years ago within a matriarchal clan society. The Bai Hu Tong: Xing Ming 白虎通·姓名2 asks: “Why do people need surnames? Surnames can encourage people to show kindness and love, and they can make people treat their loved ones well. They can also help people distinguish whether they can marry each other or not. Surnames can make people love each other, and they mean that people feel sad when their relatives die. They stop people from marrying others with the same surname. According to feudal ethics, they are valuable to human relationships.” The ancient form of the Chinese character for “surname” (xing, 姓) was composed of the words for “human 人” and “birth 生”, to show that surnames were created by people. However, the Eastern Han Dynasty writer Xu Shen said in the Shuo Wen Jie Zi: “Surnames were created by people… [but] they originated from women.” The combination of the characters for “female 女” and “birth 生” in the word “surname 姓” was first seen on the Zu Chu Wen 诅楚文 stone carving. It is believed that this was engraved during the Qin Dynasty. Many of the surnames that originated in ancient China, i.e. “Hao 好”, “Si 姒”, “Yao 姚”, “Jiang 姜”, “Ji 姬” and “Ying 赢” generally contain the nü (女, meaning “female”) radical, and this suggests that they originated from matriarchal societies and were based on a maternal lineage. Before the Warring States period, only aristocratic families had hereditary family names; ordinary people did not. There were two types of family name during this period: clan names or xing 姓, and lineage names or shi 氏. The noble clans had a xing and it is believed that these originated during prehistoric times from a matriarchal society. It is possible that they once represented maternal lineages. In contrast, the shi emerged during the later patriarchal society and these were used to identify different branches of clans. Having a shi became a symbol of prestige. Before the Western

Quoted from Wang Zeshu 汪泽树. Family names, courtesy names and nick names 姓氏·名号·别 称. Chengdu: Sichuan People’s Publishing House, 2003: 5. 2 Translator’s note: a literary protocol of the discussions on the relationships between politics, cosmology and philosophy, which were held in 79 CE in the Bai Hu Guan (White Tiger Hall). 1

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Zhou Dynasty (1046–771 BC), women were addressed by their xing, whereas men were addressed by their shi. Later, the shi became more prominent than the xing. A large number of shi appeared during the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Period (770–476 BC). Most present-day Chinese surnames trace their origin back to these periods, when Chinese society was feudal. The king/emperor governed all of the country’s land, but he granted royal family members and favoured officials various landholdings or fiefdoms. Some of these later became states in their own right. In many cases, the inhabitants of these fiefdoms adopted the names of their territory as a symbol of their lineage. This contributed to the remarkable increase of shi during these periods. There were constant wars between different states in ancient China, and these eventually led to the demise of the noble clans. At the beginning of the Spring and Autumn Period, there were roughly 170 states. However, smaller states gradually became annexes of more powerful states. By the end of the Warring States Period, there were only seven major states remaining. Eventually, the state of Qin, led by the emperor Qin Shi Huang (259–210 BC), annihilated the other six states. He united the nation in 221 BC. During that time, there were no hereditary fiefdoms or hereditary titles i.e. Dukes, Marquises, Earls, Viscounts, or Barons. Even royal family members were not awarded fiefs. And so the shi completely lost its role as a symbol of status and power. It simply became a symbol of a family’s bloodline. At this time, all classes started to adopt surnames. And so the distinction between the xing and the shi became less clear. The two were eventually fused into a compound word that generally meant “family name”’. It should be noted that before the birth of the xing and the shi, there were many tribes/clans named shi, according to ancient Chinese legends and documents. There were references to the Pan Gu Shi 盘古氏, Tian Huang Shi 天皇氏, Ren Huang Shi 人皇氏, and Wu Long Shi 五龙氏 during the earliest material. During the Xunfeiji period, there were 22 Shi including the Ju Ling Shi 钜灵氏, Huang Shen Shi 黄神 氏, Gui Wei Shi 贵隗氏, Kong Sang Shi 空桑氏, and Ci Ju Shi 次居氏. During the Yintiji period, there were 13 Shi, including the Chen Fang Shi 辰放氏, Shu Shan Shi 蜀山氏, Hun Dun Shi 混沌氏, You Chao Shi 有巢氏, Sui Ren Shi 燧人氏, and Yong Cheng Shi 庸成氏. During the Fuxishi period, there were Gong Gong Shi 共工氏, Bai Huang Shi 柏皇氏, Zhu Xiang Shi 朱襄氏, Hao Ying Shi 昊英氏, Li Lu Shi 栗陆 氏, Hao Xu Shi 郝胥氏, Kun Wu Shi 昆吾氏, Ge Tian Shi 葛天氏, Yin Kang Shi 阴 康氏, Zhong Huang Shi 中皇氏, and Nü Wa Shi 女娲氏. After that there were Shen Nong Shi 神农氏 and You Xiong Shi 有熊氏, who were also known as Emperor Yan and the Yellow Emperor. There are claims that the surname system was created by Fu Xi Shi 伏羲氏.3 The above shi refers to the name of big clans, tribes and clan alliances during the primitive human period. This shi is unrelated to the shi that came into being after the birth of the xing in China.

Yuan Yida 袁义达, Zhang Cheng 张诚. Chinese surnames: population genetics and distribution 中国姓氏: 群体遗传和人口分布. East China Normal University Press, 2002: 3–4.

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13.3 The Development Stages of Chinese Surnames Chinese surnames have undergone three development stages. The first stage was during ancient times, when surnames were first created. In Volume 23 of the Ri Zhi Lu 日知录 (Records of Daily [Gains] in Knowledge), Qing Dynasty scholar Gu Yanwu wrote that he had discovered 22 ancient surnames in pre-Qin literature. They were: Gui 妫, Si 姒, Zi 子, Ji 姬, Feng 风, Yi 已, Ying 嬴, Ren 任, Ji 姞, Qi 祁, Mi 芈, Cao 曹, Yun 妘, Dong 董, Jiang 姜, Yan 偃, Gui 归, Man 曼, Xiong 熊, Wei 隗, Qi 漆 and Yun 允. The surnames Si, Ji, Ren, Qi, Cao, Dong, Jiang, Xiong and Qi can still be found in genealogies that exist today. Most ancient Chinese surnames were a totem of sorts. The word “totem” comes from the Native American language, and it means “a title, symbol, or emblem of a clan and their relatives”.4 In the Abstract of Morgan (Ancient Society), Marx said: “The word totem is a sign or symbol of a clan.” That is to say, in ancient society, a totem was a material marker that was used by primitive human beings to identify a specific group or individual. Many totems were established after the clan system had matured. Because primitive human beings were not very productive and they had poor living environments, they only knew the world based on their own experiences and/or imagination. In order to distinguish from other clans, or to explain the origin/characteristics of their clans, they took a certain animal, plant or astrological constellation as a symbol of their clan. They regarded this totem as a common ancestor and a protector of the clan. Some even believed that their clan had a blood relationship with a certain creature or natural phenomenon, and that they were descendants of this totem. Many records in ancient history/legends prove that surnames originated from totems. The Chinese people were commensurate with the descendants of Emperor Yan and the Yellow Emperor. Both are regarded as totems. Emperor Yan, surnamed Jiang 姜, was a man with sheep-shaped headdress, and so the descendants under Emperor Yan had a sheep as a totem. The Yellow Emperor, whose surname was Ji 姬, belonged to a tribe known as the You Xiong (bear, 熊) Shi. And so this tribe took bears as their totem. The descendants of the Yellow Emperor lived in what is today known as Youxiongzhixu and Xiongshan in central Henan province. Primitive human beings not only took animals as their totems, but also plants. The surname Dong 董 can be traced back to Emperor Zhuan Xu 颛顼, a descendant of the Yellow Emperor. It was said that Zhuan Xu had a son named Cheng 称, and Cheng had a son named Lao Tong 老童. Lao Tong’s son was Wu Hui 吴回 and Wu Hui’s son was Lu Zhong 陆终. Lu Zhong had six sons, and they each formed a separate tribe. Hui Lian, the second son of Lu Zhong, was the leader of a tribe that was good at making ropes out of straw. A dong was a type of grass that was used to make rope. And so the tribe took the dong as their totem, before using the word Dong as their surname. The surname Cao 曹 is another example. This can be traced back to the descendants of the Yellow Emperor. Lu Zhong’s fifth son was called An, and his Wang Dayou 王大有. Seeking the roots of ten thousand years of China 寻根万年中华. China Modern Economics Publishing House, 2005: 213.

4

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13 Family Names Recorded in Chinese Genealogies

tribe was based in what is now the Zhouzhi district of Shaanxi Province. This is an area that is rich with jujubes. Jujubes were an important food source to the tribe, and so they regarded this as their totem. Primitive human beings also took constellations as their totem. The Yellow Emperor had a grandson named Zhang Hui 张挥. His clan took the Zhang Star as their clan totem. In Chinese astronomy, this is the fifth star in the Summer series of the Twenty-Eight Mansions. The Hui clan also invented bows 弓 and arrows, and so this led to the clan name Zhang 张 containing the radical for a bow. Some ancient Chinese surnames came from ancient legends. The surname Ren 任 is one such example. It is said that the Yellow Emperor and his fourth concubine Mo Mu had two sons: Cang Lin 苍林 and Yu Yang 禺阳. Ren was an ancient city (now Renqiu in Henan Province), and this was allocated to Yu Yang, who became the leader of the Ren clan. This was one of 12 important clans during the Yellow Emperor ‘s reign, and descendants had the surname Ren. The surname Zi also came from an ancient legend. There is a story from ancient times about a woman bathing in a river, finding a swallow’s egg and eating it, thus becoming pregnant and giving birth to a big tribe. Her descendants took “Zi” 子 as their surname because the word “Zi” means “egg”. People with the surnames Song 宋 and Xiao 萧 were branches of the Zi 子 tribe. Some ancient Chinese surnames were regional names. Zheng Qiao said in the Tong Zhi: Shi Zu Lue of: “People were granted surnames according to where they lived. Those who lived in Yaoxu were granted the surname Yao 姚; those who lived in Yingbin were granted the surname Ying 赢; those who lived in Jishui were granted the surname Ji 姬, and those who lived in Jiangshui were granted the surname Jiang 姜.” It is believed that Emperor Yan 炎 was born in Jiangshui (which is modern-day Qishan County, Shaanxi Province), hence his surname was Jiang. After the Chinese states were unified by Qin Shi Huang in 221 BC, surnames devolved to the lower classes. The differences between the xing and the shi became more blurred. The shi surnames, many of which have survived to the present day, often derived from a xing. Some were reserved by the royal family to preserve their central lineage, but other lineages took their own shi. Out of the ancient xing, only Si 姒, Ji 姬, Ren 任, Qi 祁, Cao 曹, Dong 董, Jiang 姜, Xiong 熊, and Qi 漆 survived as common surnames. Chinese surnames underwent a second development stage when the clan society became a class society, i.e. from the Xia and Shang Dynasties to the Qin and Han Dynasties. During this period, Chinese surnames developed considerably. Zheng Qiao tried to clarify the origin of many surnames during this era. He divided them into 32 categories in the Tong Zhi: Shi Zu Lue. The main categories are as follows: (1) State names. These were names that came from a feudal territory or state. During the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the territories outside of the royal domain were allocated to the Feudal Lords. These were collectively known as “the various Marquises”, and they had fiefs which were known as States. These included the Yu 虞, Xia 夏, Shang 商,

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Zhou 周, Lu 鲁, Wei 卫, Qi 齐, and Song 宋 states. The Shi Zu Lue noted that the names of these states became the surnames of lords and their descendants. The surnames Cheng 程, Fang 房, Hu 扈, Du 杜, Lei 雷, Liao 廖, Gu 顾, Ruan 阮 and Peng 彭 came from the names of states during the Xia and Shang Dynasties. These surnames have all been listed in family genealogies, and most are separate from the surnames Si 姒 and Zi 子. The surnames Ji 季, Ran 冉, Bi 毕, Lu 鲁, Cai 蔡, Cao 曹, Chen 陈, Jin 晋, Zheng 郑, Wu 吴, Xu 许, Xue 薛, Jiang 江, Teng 滕, Han 韩, Jiang 蒋, Yan 燕, Jia 贾, Jiao 焦, Ying 应, Yang 杨, Guan 管, Zhu 祝, Lu 吕, and Wei 魏 came from the names of states during the Zhou Dynasty. These surnames, likewise, can all be found in existing family genealogies, and most of these surnames are sub-branches of the surname Ji 姬. (2) Locative names. Most locative Chinese surnames derived from large political units, i.e. the fiefs and estates that were granted to favored ministers. Examples are the surnames Cui 崔, Lu 卢, Bao 鲍, Yan 晏, Zang 臧, Fei 费, Liu 柳, and Yang 杨. Some of these surnames were adopted to commemorate an ancient state—in some cases a state that had been invaded or destroyed by a more powerful state. If the family name survived, it was a record that the state had once existed. Other locative names came from fiefs that were granted to important officials. Descendants often inherited the name of the fief as a family name. This was a common practice, particularly during the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046-771 BC) and the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC). The surname Cui 崔 derives from the surname Jiang 姜. Bo Yi, the founding father of the Lü State, was a descendant of the Yan Emperor. One of his descendants, Lü Shang (also known as Jiang Ziya), was granted the Qi State for helping King Wen of Zhou to destroy the Shang State. Jiang Ziya’s son, Ding Gongji, became his successor, and Ding’s son, Ji Zi, gave the state to his brother, Shu Yi. He then became the third generation monarch of the Qi state. Ji Zi moved to Cuiyi 崔邑 (now Zouping in Shandong Province), and his descendants took Cui as their surname. (3) Taking an ancestor’s first name/courtesy name as a surname. The ancients, especially the aristocrats, were given a courtesy name when they reached adulthood, in addition to their first name. Some first names/courtesy names then became the family name of clans. Taking the name of an ancestor as a clan’s surname meant that a clan could commemorate the merits of their ancestor, show off his/her glorious origin, and the long history of the clan. This practice was very common among the ancients. Here are some surnames that derive from first names or courtesy names. The surname Bai 白 came from Bai Yibing, a famous Qin State General. During the Spring and Autumn Period, his grandfather, Bai Lixi moved from the Yu State to the Qin. He became the Counselor-in-Chief, and had a son named Meng Mingshi. Meng then had a son named Bai Yibing. Biyi was his courtesy name and Bing was his given name. Because Bai Yibing made great achievements under the State of Qin, his successors took Bai as their surname.

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The surname Zhang 张. Tang Dynasty writer Lin Bao said in the Yuan He Xing Zuan that the surname Zhang can be traced to the lineage of the Yellow Emperor. He said it originated from his fifth son, Hui 挥, who invented the bow (gong 弓). This was an important weapon during ancient times. The motion of stretching (zhang 张) to bend the bow and align the arrow gave rise to the word zhang 张 as a common surname, which is composed of two individual characters: gong 弓 (a bow), and chang 长 (lengthening). A descendent of the Zhang family, Xie Zhang 解张, settled in the Jin State during the Spring and Autumn Period and became a minister. His name was Xie Hou, and Zhang was his courtesy name. Because the ancients always put their courtesy name before their first name, Xie Hou was also known as Zhang Hou. During the famous Battle of Lu, Zhang Hou became renowned for his military service. He served as the imperial guard of King Jin and helped the King lead the Jin army to defeat the Qi army. His descendants then took his courtesy name, Zhang, as their surname. The surname You 游. The first You family ancestor was Gong Ziyan from the Zheng State. During the Spring and Autumn Period, Gong Ziyan’s courtesy name was You, so his descendants took the name You as their surname. It was somewhat common for lords and ministers to take their ancestor’s first name/courtesy name as their surname. There are many more examples. The son of the Emperor Wen of Song, Gan, had the courtesy name Xiang Wen, so Gan’s descendants took Xiang 向 as their surname. Other surnames that derive from ancestors’ first names/courtesy names include: Gao 高, Yu 鱼, Hua 华, Kong 孔, Ming 明, Bao 包, Duan 段, and Yuan 员. (4) Taking an ancestor’s posthumous name as a surname. Royal family members and nobles were often given a posthumous name, as well as a first name and courtesy name, to honor the achievements they had made during their lifetime. Examples in existing genealogies are as follows: The surname Wen 文. This can be directly traced back to Ji Chang, i.e. the King Wen of Zhou. Wen was the posthumous title given to Ji Chang, so his descendants took Wen as their surname. The surname Kang 康. After King Wu of Zhou took over the Shang State, he granted the district of Kang (now northwest Yuzhou in Henan Province) to his brother, who became known as Kang Shu. When King Cheng of Zhou acceded to the throne, there was an uprising in the state. Kang Shu helped the king stop the rebellion, and he was granted Chaoge (now Qixian County in Henan Province). He established the Wei State and became the first monarch of Wei, known as Wei Kangshu. His son, Wang Sunmou, was granted the posthumous title Kang Bo. So his descendants took Kang as their surname. In addition, the surnames Ding 丁, Dai 戴 and Mu 穆 came from posthumous titles granted to ancestors. (5) Taking a person’s common name as a surname. The surname Wang 王. When he was 15-years-old, the Prince Jin of Zhou helped his father King Ling govern the country. During the 22nd year of King Ling’s reign

13.3 The Development Stages of Chinese Surnames

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(550 BC), a flood occurred near the capital city of Luoyi. Prince Jin was demoted and became a commoner, because he improperly advised King Ling on how to control the floods. Zong Jing, his heir, had once held an official position in the Zhou Royal Family, but he moved to Taiyuan to avoid subsequent rioting. The Taiyuan people called Zong Jing’s family the “Wangs” because Wang 王 meant “royals”. Jing Zong’s descendants subsequently took Wang as their surname. The vast majority of people surnamed Wang can have their origins traced back to Taiyuan. Another example is Zhou 周. After the King Ping of Zhou established his capital in Luoyi, he granted Ruzhou to his illegitimate son. The people of Ruzhou referred to his son’s family as the Zhou Family, and so his descendants took Zhou as their surname. (6) Occupational names. According to the Shi Zu Lue in the Tong Zhi, some Chinese family names came from people’s occupations or their official posts. For instance, the surnames Taishi 太史, Taishi 太师, Sima 司马 and Sikong 司空 were originally the names of official posts. During the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, many official positions were set up, and so descendants of those who held such positions took these titles as their surnames. Statistics show that around 100 surnames come from official positions. Many surnames in family genealogies, e.g. Sima 司马, Situ 司徒, Wei 尉, Shangguan 上官, Ji 籍, Shan 山, Yang 羊, Qian 钱, Shi 师, Bu 卜, Yue 乐, Yun 云), Shi 史 and Xi 席 come from ancestors’ official positions. Here are a few examples. Shi 史 was the title given to historiographers. Shi were often recruited on temporary duty assignments, but they referred to officials who were involved in compilation work related to the Imperial Diary, True Records, and similar historical records. Originally, the Shi were Editorial Directors, then personnel from the Tang-Song Historiography Institute. Eventually, they included Senior Compilers and their associates at the Hanlin Academy. The first famous historiographer worldwide was Cangjie 仓颉. He was the historian of the Yellow Emperor, and he was also known as Shi Huangshi 史皇氏. As official positions were hereditary, his descendants took the official name title Shi as their surname. The surname Sima 司马, which literally means “to be in charge of horses” (i.e. a member of the cavalry), was a title given to the bourgeois and it was used throughout most of China’s imperial history. It was often used to refer to people who worked in the Ministry of War, and military dignitaries in the royal government. There were many famous members of the Sima family in ancient China, including Sima Qian, who was a great historian during the Western Han Dynasty and the author of the Shi Ji (Historical Records). Other famous relatives included Sima Xiangru, a famous Western Han Dynasty writer, and Sima Guang, a famous Song Dynasty historian and the author of the Zi Zhi Tong Jian 资治通鉴 (Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government, one of the most important traditional histories of China). Situ 司徒 was the title given to officials who were in charge of national security and military affairs. During the Spring and Autumn Period, the vassal states and their descendants had Situ officials, and their descendant took this as their family name. One of the sons of Xia Wu, a minister during the State of Wei, was appointed as a

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Situ. His successors subsequently took Situ as their surname, and that has survived to this day. The title Bu 卜, meaning “divination”, was given to astrologers or fortune tellers. The Wei 尉 were originally judicial officers in charge of punishment or prisons. Throughout imperial history, the title Wei was often given to people who worked in the military. Sometimes it was honorific, and sometimes it referred to a person who had administrative responsibilities, i.e. not someone in active field service. The surname Wei originates from this title. The surname Ji 籍. The word “Ji 籍” originally meant “ancient books and documents”. During the Spring and Autumn Period, the Jin State recruited Ji officials to preserve the ancient books of the country. The Jin Dynasty minister Bo Mi was one such official, and his descendants took Ji as their surname. (7) Surnames based on a sibling’s ranking. The characters Meng 孟, Bo 伯, Zhong 仲, Shu 叔 and Ji 季 were originally ordinals. They were used in courtesy names to indicate a person’s rank among his/her siblings. They were assigned to adults who had siblings that were the same gender. The courtesy name of the eldest brother would be prefixed with the word “Bo” (or “Meng” if he was born to a secondary wife); the second eldest male’s name would contain the prefix “Zhong”; the youngest male would prefix his name with the word “Shu”, and the rest would have the prefix “Ji”. For instance, Confucius’ courtesy name was Zhong Ni 仲尼. The Duke Huan of Lu (711-694 BC) had four sons. His eldest became his heir, and subsequently the Duke Zhuang of Lu. His other three sons—respectively Qingfu 庆父, Shuya 叔牙 and Jiyou 季友—became important officials, and during the reign of Duke Zhuang, they gained substantial power within the state. Because the power of the three brothers was hereditary, the descendants of Duke Zhuang’s brothers used their ordinal numbers as family names to distinguish their respective branches in the House of Ji. (8) Taking a skill as a surname. In ancient China, it was common for descendants to inherit their fathers’ businesses. As a result, descendants inherited their fathers’ skills. They avoided competition from their peers by maintaining a professional name, and this was passed down from generation to generation. In many cases, this professional name became the surname of the family. Examples in existing genealogies are the surnames Tao 陶, Bu 卜, Zhen 甄, Duan 段, Wei 韦, Yi 弈, Wu 巫 and Zhong 钟. Tao 陶. This surname has two origins, and both have a long history. One came from the Emperor Yao, as it was said that his clan originally made pottery 陶. Since the emperor’s surname was Tang, his clan was named the Tao Tangs. The descendants of the Tao Tangs were known as the Tao Wei. The surname Tao also is linked to the Emperor Shun, whose clan was also good at pottery making. During the Zhou Dynasty, Emperor Shun’s descendants still made pottery. Yu Si was known as the Tao Zheng of the Zhou Dynasty, and he passed this official position and craft onto his son. As a result, his descendants adopted the Tao surname.

13.3 The Development Stages of Chinese Surnames

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Bu 卜. This surname was associated with people who were involved in the art of divination. Because there were complicated procedures associated with oracle bone divination—i.e. repairing, drilling, burning, checking, engraving etc.—special people were recruited during the Shang and Zhou Dynasties to do this. This was a job that couldn’t be done by ordinary people, and the descendants of those recruited inherited this occupation. These family members subsequently took Bu as their last name. The following people were all associated with divination: Bu Yan of the Jin State; Bu Tu, the father of the Qin State, and Bu Chuqiu of the Lu State. Their successors took Bu as their surname, like Bo Shang, one of the disciples of Zhong Ni. The surnames Zhen 甄, Yi 弈 and Wu 巫 also come from occupations or skills. A zhen is a type of pottery, and families with this surname may have specialized in this skill. The ancestors of the Yi family made chess pieces, and the Wu family were believed to be wizards. The most important stage of development for Chinese surnames was between the Xia/Shang Dynasties, and the Qin/Han Dynasties. According to the book Chinese Surnames: Population Inheritance and Population Distribution (by Yuan Yida and Zhang Cheng), there were approximately 1800 surnames during this period. These showed the basic patterns of early Chinese surnames and they laid the foundation for others. Chinese surnames underwent a third stage of development between the Qin and Han Dynasties, and the Qing Dynasty. Over this 2000 year period, they abundantly developed. There were very few new surnames during this time, but there were many opportunities for people to change or gain a new surname. As there became more exchanges between the Han Chinese and various ethnic minorities, new channels emerged for the integration of surnames, and there became a complicated blend of different surnames and differentiations of the same surname. Let’s look at the ways in which family names were created or acquired other than in the ways mentioned above. (1) An honorary title was bestowed upon someone by the Emperor. A name was sometimes given to a man by the Emperor in appreciation of his contributions to the kingdom or country. When a man accepted this, he had to abandon his ancestors’ surname. He therefore risked being accused of forgetting his ancestral roots. However, it was still seen as a blessing and a glory, and benefited his children, so he was often willing to accept this surname. During the Zhou Dynasty, the practice of “giving surnames” was important because it helped foster new social organizations. It was related to the enfeoffment system, and hence there were state names, locative names and posthumous names. After the Qin and Han Dynasties, surnames were “given” as a gift to recipients, so that they could improve their status. New surnames meant that recipients could serve the royal family, and these new surnames helped ensure that descendants were loyal to the royal family. Before the Qin Dynasty, when a surname was “given”, it was entirely new. However, after the Qin and Han Dynasties, the surnames that were given were already in existence. Recipients often took the surname of the emperor’s

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13 Family Names Recorded in Chinese Genealogies

own family, and this became their surname, as well as their descendants’. So when a new surname was granted, the recipient and his family would change their surname; however, they were not given a brand new surname. After the Qin and Han Dynasties, there were many instances of surnames being given. Liu Bang, the founding Emperor of the Han Dynasty, gave the surname “Liu 刘” to a number of heroes with different surnames. This meant there were suddenly a large number of people with the surname Liu. When Liu Bang first became emperor, he discussed where to establish the capital with his ministers. Since most ministers were from the East, they suggested Luoyang. However, Lou Jing, who was from the Qi state, opposed this. Lou was eloquent, and had a lot of influence over the emperor. He finally persuaded Liu Bang to build his capital in Chang ‘an, and he therefore lay the foundations for the Han people for the following centuries. After Liu Bang established his capital in Chang ‘an, he granted Lou Jing the surname Liu, and his name changed to Liu Jing. During the Tang Dynasty, the royal family was surnamed Li 李. They were a noble family in Longxi. Once the Tang Dynasty was established, many of the officials who had helped the Li family to conquer their enemies were given the surname Li. During Emperor Gaozu’s reign, General Xu Shiji was granted the surname Li, because he had made outstanding military achievements. His name became Li Shiji. Others were also given the surname Li, including Luo Yi (the Lord of the Yan State), Du Fuwei (the King of Wu), Bing Yuanhong, Hu Da’en, Qi Zihe, and Dong Zhongchen. They were granted this surname for their role in assisting the founding father, so the descendants of the Xu 徐, Luo 罗, Du 杜, Bing 邴, Hu 胡, Qi 祁 and Dong 董 clans all changed their surnames to Li. During the Tang Dynasty, China prospered. Its cultural exchanges with foreign countries flourished. However, because the surnames of different nationalities/ethnic minorities were incompatible with those of the Han people, many changed their surnames and adopted Chinese ones. The Tang Dynasty government gave some defected foreign leaders the surname Li 李. After the heads of the ancient ethnic groups, the Mohe, Xianbei, Khitan, and Shatuo surrendered to the Tang Dynasty, they all took the surname Li. Today, Li is one of the most popular surnames in China. This is because people with many different surnames became members of the Li family during the Tang Dynasty. The custom of “giving surnames” continued throughout the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. During the late Ming/early Qing Dynasty, Zheng Sen became Zheng Chenggong, a famous soldier. He was a Cultivated Talent at the age of 15, and he went to study at the Imperial Academy in Nanjing when he was 21. The emperor liked him very much, and so he was given the same surname as the emperor—Zhu 朱. His first name also changed, to Chenggong (成功), which literally means “success”. When an emperor granted a surname to a hero or someone they favored, they often gave the recipient the royal family’s surname. However, some emperors granted a different surname. It is worth stating that they did not give out the royal surname often, probably because they considered that it could easily be abused.

13.3 The Development Stages of Chinese Surnames

405

Out of all the emperors of previous dynasties, Wu Zetian was involved in the most trickery when it came to granting surnames. After establishing the Zhou Dynasty, she gave the surname Wu 武 to those who helped her ascend to the throne. However, she also punished those who had offended her by changing their names. She renamed Wang 王, the Empress of the former emperor, Zhongzong, as Mang 蟒 (meaning python). The concubine Xiao 萧(meaning a type of grass), who was once favored by the former emperor, Gaozong, was renamed Xiao 枭 (meaning “publicly beheaded”). Wu Zetian also changed the surnames and first names of her political opponents. For example, she renamed the Songmo Governor Li Jinzhong 尽忠 (meaning “very loyal”), Li Jinmie 尽灭 (meaning “completely perished”). The Chen Zhou secretariat Sun Wanrong 万荣 (meaning “great glory”) was renamed Sun Wanzhan 万斩 (meaning “beheaded”). By changing a word, she made a world of difference. (2) To avoid disaster or a taboo. Some families adopted a new surname to replace an earlier name. There were many reasons for this. Sometimes a family name had to be changed because it happened to be part of the given name or title of a new emperor. It was taboo in ancient China to bear a name that was identical to any part of the emperor’s name. So anybody that was unfortunate enough to have such a name had to come up with a new one. Other people had a new family name bestowed on them by the emperor in recognition of their services, or in some cases as a punishment. Some people also changed their family name to escape a feud or from persecution, as in many other cultures. Other family names emerged in variant forms through mispronunciation, mistranscription, or simplification. During the Qing Dynasty reign of Emperor Tongzhi, some Muslims adopted the surname Ming 明 to show their appreciation toward the Ming government. They supported the idea of overthrowing the Qing government and reclaiming the Ming Dynasty. So some people took the surname Ming and adopted it as a surname. (3) A new surname was adopted after migration. Historically, in China, populations moved for one of three key reasons. Some chose or were forced to immigrate. During the Qin and Han Dynasties, the emperors consolidated their rule by forcing people to migrate to areas under centralized control. They also forced farmers to migrate so that they could open up the wastelands; they made them adopt policies that combined administrative orders with material incentives. Large-scale immigration continued throughout the later dynasties. For example, during the Han Dynasty, the founding emperor Liu Bang ordered his descendants and the noble families of the six states to migrate to Fangling, Guanzhong. The Tian 田 clan arrived in eight stages, and so the local people named them after the order in which they arrived. So surnames ranged from Diyi 第一 (meaning “the first”) and Di’er 第二 (meaning “the second”) to Diba 第八 (meaning “the eighth”). The surname Diwu 第五 (meaning “the fifth”) can still be found in existing family genealogies. There were also refugees. The Han Chinese originally resided in the north and west of China. However, they gradually moved into the southern and eastern parts

406

13 Family Names Recorded in Chinese Genealogies

of China. They moved during various periods of history, due to wars, uprisings, coups, and, in particular, because the north of China was under continuous invasion from nomadic groups like the Huns, Mongols, Jurchens (or Manchus), Khitans, Tangutians, and the Xianbei. Because of different dialects, the surnames of some families changed according. During the Qin and Han Dynasties, many people with the surname Han 韩 moved to Jianghuai. However, because people with the local dialect read Han 韩 as He 何, the character changed along with the sound. This is how the surname He 何 appeared. Some other new surnames emerged because of a homonym. Guo (guó, 虢) became Guo (gu¯o, 郭), and Yuan (辕) became Yuan (袁). Some people also went into exile. Feudal law was extremely cruel, and when people were under political persecution or faced criminal punishment, they were either beheaded or went into exile. Crimes often had consequences for a man’s wife and children, sometimes even his whole clan. So these people and their family members often had to go into exile. During a confrontation period between the Liao, Song and Jin Dynasties, there was a family surnamed Wanyan 完颜. They were members of the Nüzhen people. After the Yuan Dynasty destroyed the Jin Dynasty, many innocent Nüzhen people were killed. Many in the Wanyan family changed their surname to Wan 完 to avoid persecution. The Qiu 仇 family also changed their surname to Qiu 求; the Shu 踈 family changed their surname to Shu 束, and the Xiong 熊 family became the Neng 能 family. These families changed their surnames while they were seeking asylum. And so this is how the above three new surnames came into being. (4) Someone changed their surname during the process of national integration. The Han Chinese who migrated southwards had a major impact on the original inhabitants of southern China. In time, these people came to be assimilated by the Han people. Some of the nomadic ethnic groups were attracted by the prosperity of Han culture, and they adopted Han cultural practices. There was also a surge of such people taking Han Chinese family names. The surnames of the Han Chinese and various ethnic groups were integrated in a variety of ways. Some surnames that were unique to the Han nationality were later accepted by ethnic minorities. Some of the Manchu people took the first character or homophone of their name as their surname, after it was transliterated into Chinese characters. The surname Guan 关 is a Manchu surname; it comes from the original Guarjia 瓜而佳. The Manchu surname Dong 董 came from Tongjia 佟佳; Xu 徐 came from Shumulu 舒穆禄 and Bu 卜 came from Buercha 卜尔察. Some people chose to translate the surnames of their own languages into corresponding, monosyllabic Chinese characters. Because the surname Akezhan 阿克占 means thunder (Lei, 雷), people with this surname took Lei as their Chinese surname. The word Bila 毕拉 means “river”, and so people with this surname took the homophonic word “He 何”, meaning river 河 as their Chinese surname. People with the surname Bayan 巴颜, meaning “rich”, took the equivalent word Fu 富 as their Chinese surname. Many of the surnames that were unique to ethnic minorities were integrated into the Han Chinese language, and so they became Han Chinese surnames. These ethnic minorities therefore became inseparable from Han culture. Many ethnic minority

13.3 The Development Stages of Chinese Surnames

407

people were absorbed into the families of those with major Chinese surnames, i.e. the Zhang 张, Wang 王 and Li 李 families. During the Han and Tang Dynasties, the Zhang 张 family came to include Huns, Jie, Koryo, Xianbei, Uighur, and Khitan people. Many Jurchen people changed their surname to Zhang 张 during the Jin Dynasty, as did the Tangut people from Xixia during the Song Dynasty, the Mongols during the Yuan Dynasty and the Manchus during the Qing Dynasty. So the population of the Zhang 张 family grew rapidly. A similar trend saw many people adopting the surname Li 李. During the Tang Dynasty, members of the Shatuo, Bianhe, Uighur, Qidan and Tubo ethnic minorities changed their surname to Li, as did the Dangxiang people from Xixia during Song Dynasty, and the Mongols, Manchus, and the Nuzhen people from Xu Jin Guo during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The Tusi people from Northwest China and the indigenous people from Southwest China also changed their surnames to Li so that they could ethnically integrate. This meant that, similarly, there was a huge surge of people with the surname Li. Some foreigners chose to change their surname to Wang 王. There were many Huns who did so during the Han Dynasty, as did the Kuer Clan from the Western Qiang, the Tuowang Clan from Korea, and the Wuwan Clan from Xianbei during the Northern and Southern Dynasties. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Hu people from Yuezhi in the Western Regions, the Uighur Hebusi Clan and the Khitans became Wangs. During the Jin Dynasty, the Jurchen Wanyan and Yelu people became Wangs, as did the Dangxiang people from the Western Xia regime during the Northern Song Dynasty, the Mongols during the Yuan Dynasty, and the Wanyan and Yila clans from Manchu during the Qing Dynasty. Over time, most foreign surnames became Wang. This was originally a Han surname in northern China, and it meant that Wang 王 surpass Li 李 as the most popular surname. This is still the most popular surname today. In addition to Wang 王, Li 李 and Zhang 张, some other surnames—that can be found in existing genealogies—provided fresh blood as a channel for ethnic minorities to integrate their surnames with those of the Han Chinese. These include Yuwen 宇文, Huyan 呼延, Kang 康, Mi 米, An 安, Zhu 竺, Shi 石, Sa 萨, Lian 廉, Yan 颜 and Huo 火. (5) Simplified compound surnames. Before the Qin Dynasty, the feudal patriarchal clan system naturally developed, and this meant that every generation of aristocrats was divided into separate branches. Each new branch had its own surname. The more branches there were, the more surnames, and inevitably, some surnames were similar or the same. To avoid similarities, some families adopted compound surnames (a Chinese surname made up of more than one character). This happened largely during the late Spring and Autumn Period. Among Confucius’ 72 disciples, there were 23 people with compound surnames. Surnames were an important in communication. However, there were inconveniences to having a compound surnames and/or personal appellation. Therefore, it was deemed necessary to simplify them. After the Qin and Han Dynasties, compound surnames decreased significantly. They were simplified in one of three ways. Some compound surnames were divided into two “individual surnames”, e.g.:

408

13 Family Names Recorded in Chinese Genealogies

Ouyang (欧阳)—Ou (欧) and Yang (阳). Zhuge (诸葛)—Zhu (诸) and Ge (葛). Mengsun (孟孙)—Meng (孟) and Sun (孙). Sima (司马)—Si (司) and Ma (马). Zuoqiu (左丘)—Zuo (左) and Qiu (丘). Guliang (谷梁)—Gu (谷) and Liang (梁). Some compound surnames became a single character, e.g.: Situ (司徒)—Si (司). Gongbo (公伯)—Bo (伯). Bushu (步叔)—Bu (步). Yuezheng (乐正)—Yue (乐). Qidiao (漆雕)—Qi (漆). Zuoren (左人)—Zuo (左). Dongguo (东郭)—Guo (郭). Xianqiu (咸丘)—Qiu (丘). And some surnames disappeared altogether. Examples include: Gongzhi (公治), Gongxi (公晳), Gongxi (公西), Gongjian (公肩), Gongyi (公仪), Haosheng (浩生), and Rangsi (壤驷).5 The simplification process meant that every year, the number of compound surnames decreased. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Ying Shao included some 500 common surnames in his Feng Su Tong Yi: Xing Shi Pian. Roughly 160 of those were compound surnames, approximately 33% of the total. The Bai Jia Xing, which was written in the Northern Song Dynasty, contained 440 common surnames. However, this book only contained 32 compound surnames, roughly 8% of the total. Nowadays, there are more than 3500 surnames commonly used by the Han Chinese. There are roughly 250 compound surnames still in existence, and these account for approximately 7% of the total.

13.4 The Characteristics of Chinese Surnames (1) They have a long history. The majority of Chinese surnames are ancient and they have existed for some five or six thousand years. Many Chinese surnames originated between the Xia and Shang Dynasties and the Qin and Han Dynasties, i.e. some 3000–4000 years ago. China was the first country in the world to introduce surnames. Surnames existed in other parts of the world by about 1000 AD. Once a surname was born, it underwent a gradually development process before entering common

5

Wang Zeshu. Family names, courtesy names and nick names. Chengdu: Sichuan People’s Publishing House, 2003: 43.

13.4 The Characteristics of Chinese Surnames

409

usage.6 In continental Europe, the need for surnames arose because there were few family names. They developed over approximately 600 years, but only really saw widespread usage in continental Europe in the last 400 years. Most surnames came from Greek, Hebrew, Teutonic, and Latin, and they often had strong religious connotations. The Jews in France and Eastern Europe didn’t have surnames until the nineteenth century; before the eighteenth century, Jews only had first names. The history of some 1000 Jews and their ancestors is recorded in the Bible; there are mentions of many Abrahams, Jacobs, David, and Solomons, etc. None have surnames. During the late eighteenth century, the Habsburg Dynasty of Austria-Hungary forcibly ordered Jews to assimilate, and they were told to adopt surnames. The European rulers at the time followed suit, and they forced the Jewish community to quickly adopt surname, or else face severe punishment. The administrative departments in some regions intervened, and they created surnames and forced the Jews to register these. So some absurd and insulting surnames appeared, like Affenkraut (skinny monkey), “Ochs Schwartz” (bull tail), and Eselkopf (donkey head). During the 1930s, the Nazi regime in Germany forced the Jews to change their names again. This meant that the already chaotic Jewish surnames became even more chaotic. It wasn’t until a decade or so later, when Israel was founded, that the Jews were finally able to erase the shame left by history on their surnames. Influenced by Chinese culture, Japanese surnames came into being during the late fifth century, but they were uncommon. Only those who were deemed nobles, gods or warriors had surnames, and in the country’s social and political structure, hereditary titles represented status and power. Sometime before 1875, the Meiji Restoration government issued a decree to implement a household registration system. It made it a requirement that every Japanese person should have a surname, and so people hurried to find one. Many people took the name of their own residence as their surnames; so all of a sudden, there were 30,000 new surnames in the country.7 Surnames in Japan only really have a history of around 100 years, and so they only really enjoyed popularity during this time. Many Japanese people didn’t know how to choose their surnames, so many took “Suzuki”, which meant that they were an official in the hands of God. They felt that having this surname would bring them good fortune and Suzuki became the most popular surname in Japan. To summarize, there are historical, ethnic, cultural and traditional reasons why different countries and ethnic groups have certain surnames. The surnames in many countries have a short history; however, those in China have a long history, and the Chinese nation should be proud of them. (2) They have rich connotations. Chinese surnames have a clear origin, but different meanings and profound connotations. As mentioned earlier, the Song Dynasty writer Zheng Qiao divided Chinese 6

Yuan Yida, Zhang Cheng. Chinese surnames: population genetics and distribution. East China Normal University Press, 2002: 1. 7 Yuan Yida, Zhang Cheng. Chinese surnames: population genetics and distribution. East China Normal University Press, 2002: 2.

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13 Family Names Recorded in Chinese Genealogies

surnames into thirty-two categories in his Tong Zhi: Shi Zu Lue. In the earlier Han Dynasty books, the Feng Su Tong Yi: Xing Shi Pian (by Ying Shao) and the Qian Fu Lun: Shi Zu Pian (by Wang Fu), there are nine categories of surnames. They all arrange surnames according to their origin. These books show that Chinese surnames have a range of origins, and that the content behind them is profound. They also show that surnames belonged to complete systems. Many important historical and cultural topics in China, i.e. human evolution, population development, the evolution of folk customs, marriage, the clan system, ethnicity, ethics, genetic information etc., are closely related to surnames. There is a full system for Chinese surnames in humanities, and they are a bright pearl in China’s history and culture. Because Chinese surnames have rich connotations, there have been many works on them. Some writers recognize that they predate the Qin Dynasty, e.g. noting that the official in charge of managing the Chu State’s royal lineage was known as the “San Lü”. In the Shi Tong, Liu Zhiji said: “The State of Chu has established a post for a Grand Master San Lv. He will be responsible for recording and managing the imperial genealogy of the Chu State.” Qu Yuan, a well-known Chinese poet, once served as the Grand Master San Lv. He was responsible for recording the three imperial lineages— Zhao 昭, Qu 屈and Jing 景—of the Chu State. The Shi Ben records the origin of various surnames, and the lineage of emperors, nobles and officials. It begins with the Yellow Emperor, and traces through the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, Ban Gu’s Bai Hu Tong Yi, Wang Fu’s Qian Fu Lun: Shi Zu Pian, and Ying Shao’s Feng Su Tong Yi: Xing Shi Pian offered further elaboration on the origin of surnames. A large number of works on surnames also appeared during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and the Sui and Tang Dynasties, as these were periods when genealogies prospered in China. Jia Bi was one of the most famous and most important genealogists of that time; he compiled 712 volumes on Chinese genealogies. These categorized the families of 116 commanderies in 18 regions during the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Other notable works during this era include He Chengtian’s Xing Yuan, Wang Jian’s Xing Pu, Wang Senru’s Bai Jia Pu, and Xu Mian’s Bai Guan Pu. During the Tang Dynasty, a number of important pieces of literature were written on surnames, including the Shi Zu Zhi (compiled during Emperor Taizong’s reign), the Xing Shi Lu (compiled during Wu Zetian’s reign), and the Da Tang Xing Zu Xi Lu (compiled by Liu Chong). The Yuan He Xing Zuan, which was written by Lin Bao, listed 1232 Chinese surnames, and this had a notable influence on later generations. During the Song Dynasty, three prominent pieces of literature were written: Deng Mingshi’s Gu Jin Xing Shi Bian Zheng, Zheng Qiao’s Tong Zhi: Shi Zu Lue, and the Bai Jia Xing—the author of this is unknown. The Xu Tong Zhi and the Xu Tong Kao were important works during the Ming Dynasty, and the Qing Chao Tong Zhi, Ba Qi Man Zhou Shi Zu Tong Pu, and Zhang Shu’s Xing Shi Xun Yuan during the Qing Dynasty. The reformists Tan Sitong and Liang Qichao also discussed the origin, evolution and importance of surnames in their modern works, the Liu Yang Tan Shi Pu and the Yin Bing Shi He Ji. After the 1950s, there were few scholarly works written on surnames, due to the influence of the Leftists. However, during the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central

13.4 The Characteristics of Chinese Surnames

411

Committee in 1978, a large number of works on Chinese surnames came out, and research on this topic entered a new era. The Plenum promoted the ideas of ideological emancipation and in-depth reform. (3) They are relatively stable. Gu Yanwu, a famous philosopher during the late Ming/early Qing Dynasty, has long expounded that: “Surnames will not change for thousands of years.” This invariably means that Chinese surnames are stable. First, a person’s surname does not suddenly change. It is given to him by his father, and generally remains with him until his death. However, a person can have different first names: a birth name, official name, stage name, pen name, alias, etc., as well as a courtesy name and literary name. Lu Xun’s surname was Zhou, the same as his father. This never changed, even though he had dozens of pen names. Secondly, many surnames have remained the same since they were created. There are 608 surnames in existing genealogies, and many of these came from ancient surnames. Most were born between the Xia and Shang Dynasties and the Qin and Han Dynasties, and so have lasted more than 2000 years. This shows just how concrete Chinese surnames are. As mentioned earlier, Chinese surnames evolved in three historical stages. The most important period was during the Xia, Shang, Qin and Han dynasties. During this period, many of the surnames that emerged—based on ancient surnames—came to constitute the basic pattern of surnames that we see in the world today. How many surnames did China have during previous dynasties? No one has ever counted them. However, the following data is quoted by Yuan Yida and Zhang Cheng in their Chinese Surnames: Population Inheritance and Population Distribution (Table 13.1). We can see from the above table that between the early Han Dynasty and the early Republic of China era (some 2000 years), although China’s population increased from 32 million to 406.6 million, the number of Chinese surnames only increased from Table 13.1 The estimate number of Chinese surnames during different periods before 2000 Dynasty

Year

National population (10,000)

Estimate number of Chinese surnames

Early Western Han Dynasty

87 BC

3200

1800

Mid-Eastern Han Dynasty

188

5960

2020

Early Western Jin Dynasty

300

2240

1680

Early Tang Dynasty

752

6000

2020

Early Northern Song Dynasty

980

3530

1830

Early Yuan Dynasty

1279

5520

1990

Early Ming Dynasty

1381

6720

2060

Qing Dynasty (During Qian Long’s reign)

1762

21,040

2540

Early Republic of China era

1912

40,660

2850

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13 Family Names Recorded in Chinese Genealogies

1800 to approximately 2850. The most common, basic Chinese surnames emerged during the Xia, Shang, Qin and Han Dynasties. We can argue that most of the Chinese surnames that emerged over the last two thousand years are based on these 1800 surnames. After the Qin and Han Dynasties, Chinese surnames increased, decreased or changed, but these 1800 surnames largely stayed the same. Therefore, we can say that Chinese surnames, on the whole, are relatively stable. (4) They exist in a hierarchy. As mentioned earlier, before the Warring States period, it was only the aristocratic families that had hereditary family names. Ordinary people did not have family names. There were two types of family names during this early period, xing (姓), or “clan names”, and shi (氏), or “lineage names”. The noble clans had a xing and it is believed that their family names came from a matriarchal society during prehistoric times. It is possible that the xing once represented maternal lineages. In contrast, the shi emerged during a later, patriarchal society. The shi were used to identify different branches of clans, and having a shi was seen a symbol of prestige. Before the Western Zhou dynasty, women were addressed by their xing, while men were addressed by their shi. In later years, the shi became more prominent than the xing. The number of shi rose significantly during the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Period. Most people can trace their surname back to these periods, when China had a feudal society. The King/Emperor governed all of the land in the country, but at the same time, he granted members of the royal family and his favorite officials landholdings or fiefdoms. Some of these later became states in their own right. In most cases, the inhabitants of these fiefdoms adopted the names of their territory as their family name, as it was a symbol of their lineage. This contributed to the remarkable increase of shi during these periods. There were constant wars between different states in ancient China, and these eventually led to the demise of the noble clans. At the beginning of the Spring and Autumn Period, there were around 170 states. The smaller states were gradually annexed by the bigger, more powerful states. By the end of the Warring States Period, there were only seven major states remaining. Eventually, the state of Qin, led by the Emperor Qin Shi Huang, annihilated the other six states. He united the nation in 221 BC. After that, all classes gradually acquired surnames. The distinction between the xing and the shi became less clear, so the two were eventually fused into a compound word, generally meaning ‘family name’. Some surnames had a degree of prestige; the surname Li 李 during the Tang Dynasty, Zhao 赵 during the Song Dynasty and Zhu 朱 during the Ming Dynasty had political connotations. When families were bestowed with these surnames by the emperor, they regarded it as highest favor and a reward. After the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the hierarchical difference between men and women became apparent. Some women were deprived of their surnames and became subordinates. Many women in A Dream of Red Mansions are mentioned in the context of their partner, e.g. Wang Xing’s wife, Lai Kai’s wife, Wang’s wife, Lai’s wife, Lin Zhixiao’s wife, Zhuang Zifang’s woman and Qin Xian’s woman. Women began

13.4 The Characteristics of Chinese Surnames

413

using their fathers’ surname before getting married, and then took their husbands’ surname. Some added their father’s surname to their husband’s surname to form their own name. According to Yang Naiwu and Xiao Baicai, one of the four legends of the late Qing Dynasty, Ge Pinlian’s wife was Ge Bi 葛毕; Ge 葛 was her husband’s surname and Bi 毕 was her father’s surname. (5) They had patriarchal characteristics. When a new surname was created, it didn’t matter whether the clan was old, and the main ancestor was female, or the clan was new and the main ancestor was male, the patriarchal system was implemented. During China’s late feudal era, the feudal clans strengthened, and the patriarchal nature of Chinese surnames became more pronounced. To summarize: Chinese surnames have been passed down from generation to generation over thousands of years. They have gone hand in hand with the development of Chinese history. They have coincided with records on the formation and development of the Chinese nation, and they represent the country’s special “blood culture”: the blood, national veins and cultural context of the Chinese nation, the cultural genes of Chinese civilization. Surnames are an important part of China’s traditional culture. They are rich and profound, and they have relevance to multiple disciplines, including anthropology, demography, genetics, archaeology, philology, history, ethnology, folklore, and linguistics. They are a stable feature of Chinese history, and they vividly show the origins of Chinese civilization and the evolution of social form. They once played a special role of ensuring family cohesion, and this has become an essential feature of China’s national culture and national unity. Chinese surnames have a unique history in the world, and they are an important part of the country’s long history and culture.

Chapter 14

The Body and Soul of Chinese Genealogies: Taking the Genealogies of Huizhou as an Example

The Huizhou family genealogies that we will discuss in this chapter refer to those from the six counties (Shexian, Yixian, Jixi, Qimen, Xiuning, and Wuyuan) of the Huzhou Prefecture, during the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the Republic of China era. The Huizhou genealogies are an integral part of Chinese genealogical studies. In recent decades, this author has looked at more than five hundred Huizhou genealogies, which are being stored in units in Shanghai, Beijing, Anhui and other places. They have concluded the following: the five-generation pedigree created by Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun during the Song Dynasty constitutes the fundamental framework of Huizhou family genealogies, and thus can be called “the body of Huizhou family genealogies.” The Neo-Confucian thoughts of Zhu Xi during the Southern Song Dynasty became the spiritual pillar of Huizhou family genealogies and they penetrated them in all aspects. These thoughts can therefore be called “the soul of Huizhou family genealogies”.

14.1 The Body of Chinese Genealogies: The Five-Generation Pedigree Created by Ouyang and Su Genealogy is a general term for “jiapu”, “zupu”, “zongpu”, “jiasheng”, “tongpu”, “shipu”, or “fangpu”. It records the family lineage and deeds of important figures. Most genealogies include the origin of the family name, the family’s migration history, pedigree charts, good deeds, customs and rituals, ancestral temples, tombs, and document. The pedigree chart normally takes up over three quarters of a family genealogy. As the most important component, it constitutes the fundamental framework. It is also the basic characteristic and necessary condition to judge whether a book could be regarded as a family genealogy. Chinese genealogy has a long history and can be traced back to the time when China entered a civilized society. Oracle genealogy and bronze genealogy of the Shang Dynasty constitute the oldest and most primitive genealogies in China. During © Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2023 H. Wang, The General Theory of China’s Genealogy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6377-5_14

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the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and the Sui and Tang Dynasties, both official and private genealogies were prosperous. It was common practice for “the election of officials to be based on official genealogies,”1 and marriages needed to be based on family genealogies. The Song Dynasty was an important period in China’s genealogical history. After the Song Dynasty, genealogies no longer functioned as career or marriage-making documents. Instead, they had an educational purpose, and descendants used them to pay respects to their ancestors and find fellow clan members. Consequently, they faded away. Private genealogies subsequently prospered. The renowned literati Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun in the Song Dynasty compiled the Ouyang Family Genealogy and the Su Clan Genealogy respectively. They summarized the predecessors’ principles of genealogy compilation and created the fivegeneration pedigree chart—also known as “The Ou-Su Style”, which is praised highly by the later generations and set a basic format for later genealogical compilations. Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072), courtesy name Yongshu, literary name Zuiweng, or Liuyi Jushi, was born in Luling (now in Jiangxi Province). He compiled the Ouyang Family Genealogy during the fourth year of the Jiayou era (1059) of the Song Dynasty. In the Preface to The Ouyang Family Genealogy, Ouyang Xiu the purpose: the Ouyang family was prominent in Luling. His family members repeatedly passed the imperial examinations and many entered officialdom. They inherited the legacy of their ancestors and followed the ethical code of Confucianism. In other words, they showed loyalty to the monarch, filial piety to their parents, were free from corruption, and learnt to sufficiently establish themselves. Ouyang Xiu hoped that the descendants of his family could inherit their ancestors’ virtues and honor their glory. Su Xun (1009–1066), courtesy name Mingyun, literary name Laoquan, was born in Meizhou, Meishan (now in Sichuan Province). Su Xun started to write the Su Clan Genealogy during Emperor Renzong’s Zhihe reign (1055). Su Xun said in the Preface to the Su Clan Genealogy: “Alas! By reading this genealogy, people will develop the sentiments of filial piety and submissiveness.” So he hoped that the genealogy would encourage his clan members to respect their ancestors and become more united. Su Xun especially praised Ouyang Xiu’s compiling style, so he “included Ouyang Xiu’s genealogical principles in his own genealogy.”2 The two genealogies were compiled by Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun during the same era, which both served the moral function of “paying respect to ancestors and consolidating clans”. In terms of compilation styles, there are more commonalities between the two: First, a family’s pedigree chart and brief biographies of the family figures are in the same family genealogy. Prior to that, the family genealogy only had the pedigree chart that reflected all the generations since the first ancestor. The brief biographies of the family figures were not recorded in the family genealogy, but rather included in Liu Chong Zhuan 柳冲传 (The life of Liu Chong). In the Xin Tang Shu, Vol. 199. Chang Jianhua 常建华. Patriarchal records 宗族志. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1998: 263.

1 2

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another book. For instance, in the Shi Shuo Xin Yu, Liu Xiao annotated the Li family biography and genealogy as well as the Yuan family biography and genealogy. In the Sui Shu, family biography is categorized into Biography, while family genealogy is in the category of Genealogy. Ouyang Xiu and Sun Xun innovated a new way. In Ouyang Xiu’s family genealogy, there are both Ouyang family’s pedigree chart and brief biographies that record the figures’ names, courtesy names, official titles, spouses, tombs and other information. Su Xun’s Su Clan Genealogy further recorded his family members’ names, courtesy names, official positions, spouses, tombs and other contents below the names of ancestors in the pedigree chart. In other words, the pedigree chart and biography are combined into one, not only recorded in the same family genealogy but also in the same chart. With regard to the style of family genealogy, Ouyang and Su created a precedent of integrating the chart and biography in one family genealogy. Second, five generations in one chart. In the past clan genealogies, there was no regulation on how many generations should be in one pedigree chart. Some were ten generations, nine generations, seven generations or eight generations. If “the pedigree chart is too complicated, then it’s hard for search.”3 Hence, Ouyang Xiu analyzed the reason, in the Preface of Ouyang Family Genealogy, why the prominent families in the late Tang Dynasty lost their generation sequences. That was because those prominent families’ genealogies had no pedigree charts. In order to address such shortcoming, he officially proposed the five generations in one pedigree chart and listed Ouyang family pedigree chart (see Fig. 14.1). As seen in the picture, the five generations—Wan 万, He 和, Ya 雅, Xiao 效, and Tuo 讬—are in the first chart. Ouyang Wan is the great-great-grandfather of Tuo. In ancient China, Fu Nei means within the five generations. The five generations in one pedigree chart created by Ouyang Xiu reflect the bond of the Fu Nei. The fifth generation Tuo is ranked as the first one in the second pedigree chart. Tuo 讬, Bin 彬, Jun 俊, Ao 翱, and Chang 菖 the five generations are in the second chart. There are all together nine generations in the first and second charts, ranging from the great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, grandfather, father to son, grandson, great-grandson and great-great-grandson. These nine generations reflect the relations of the Jiu Zu. The Su Clan Genealogy is also a five-generation pedigree chart. Third, distinguish close and distant relatives. The five-generation pedigree chart by Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun belongs to the Small Head. It overcomes the drawback of chaos caused by numerous generations in the past dynasties. According to Ouyang and Su’s five-generation pedigree chart, the fifth generation is ranked as the first one in another chart. It’s the great-great-grandson in the first chart (Tuo is the great-greatgrandson of Wan) and the great-great-grandfather in the second chart (Tuo is the greatgreat-grandfather of Chang). From Wan to Chang, there are nine generations, with the connections of wufu and jiuzu. The relatives outside the five generations are not recorded in the chart, which is a typical Small Head. The great-great-grandson is the head of another pedigree chart. In this way, though they are from the same ancestor, The Wang Clan Genealogy in Wuchuan, Sandu, Jixi, Anhui 绩溪三都梧川汪氏宗谱, the 21st year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1895).

3

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Fig. 14.1 Ouyang Family’s Five-Generation Pedigree Chart

the closeness of relatives could be told. Hence, the descendants in various lineages only record their close relatives. For example, the Tuo lineage only records their own descendants, while the offspring of Mo, Tang, Hong and Wu are not included in the chart. The close and distant relatives could be distinguished to achieve the goal of “giving more detail the close relatives and less to distant ones.”4 Ouyang and Su’s methodologies of integrating chart and biography, fivegeneration pedigree chart and distinguishing close and distant relatives have exerted great influences on the later generations, and laid a solid foundation for the genealogy compilation. The reasons why the five-generation pedigree chart by Ouyang and Su has such a great influence are two-fold. On one hand, it adapts to the demand of compilation and refers to the predecessors’ methods; On the other hand, it’s due to the great reputation of Ouyang and Su who were famous scholars among the eight masters in the Tang and Song Dynasties, with widespread literature works. “Ouyang included the Ouyang Family Genealogy in his collected works and published to the public.” Thus, the huge influences are quite understandable.

4

Ouyang Xiu. Preface to the Ouyang family genealogy. In Collected works of Ouyang Xiu, Vol. 17.

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The five-generation pedigree chart by Ouyang and Su has such a long-lasting and profound influence on the later generations that could be reflected in the Huizhou family genealogies. For example, 48 Huizhou clan genealogies covered 6 counties and 33 family names, including all the important local surnames. In terms of the compilation time, the earlies one was the Su Clan Genealogy in Xin’an, compiled in the 3rd year of the Chenghua era in the Ming Dynasty (1467), while the latest one was the Shao Clan Genealogy in Huayang, Jixi in 1947, with a gap of nearly 500 years between the two. From this, it could be seen that the five-generation pedigree chart created by Ouyang and Su truly had a profound and in-depth impact on the family genealogies in Huizhou. The compilation style of Huizhou genealogies mostly followed the fivegeneration pedigree chart by Ouyang and Su. But if comparing the details, it could be divided into four types: The first type: The five-generation pedigree chart. The fifth generation is ranked as the head of another chart. The pedigree and biography are combined into one (see Fig. 14.2). Ji Gong 积公, Xun Gong 寻公, Yuan Yi Gong 元奕公, Gong Gun Gong 公衮公, and Bi Xuan Gong 碧璇公 (The first generation to the fifth generation) these five generations are in one chart. Bi Xuan Gong 碧璇公, Zong Qi Gong 宗器公, Yuan Qi Gong 远期公, Bo Han Gong 伯汉公, and De Han Gong 德涵公 (The fifth generation to the ninth generation) these five generations are in another chart. Under the names of each generation, there are information like the name, courtesy name, official title, couple, children, death, tomb and etc. The pedigree and biography are combined

Fig. 14.2 Huang Clan pedigree chart in Zuotian

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in one chart, fairly self-explanatory. This style follows Ouyang Xiu’s compilation methodology: the fifth generation Bi Xuan Gong is ranked as the head of another pedigree chart. Namely, Bi Xuan Gong is the great-great-grandson of Ji Gong and the great-great-grandfather of De Han Gong in the new chart. In each pedigree chart, there are five generations. There are nine generations in two pedigree charts. The relations of “wufu” and “jiuzu” are contained in the charts. The second type: the five-generation pedigree chart with the sixth generation as the head of another pedigree chart. The pedigree and biography are combined into one (see Fig. 14.3). Yuantan 元潭, Chao 超, Feng 冯, Feng 丰, and Jingxiu 景秀 (the first generation to the fifth generation) these five generations are in one pedigree chart, while Yuanzhen元镇, Baoyun 宝云, Faxiao 法晓, Yinjuan 隐隽, and Daozong 道宗 (the sixth generation to the tenth generation) these five generations are in another chart. Under the names of pedigree figures are the brief introductions. Slightly different from the first type of chart, it is not the fifth generation Jingxiu that is ranked as the head of another chart, but rather is the sixth generation Yuan Zhen that is ranked as the head of another chart. In order to link the sixth generation and the fifth generation, the name of the sixth generation Yuanzhen is marked with “the son of Jingxiu”. Such chart also belongs to the five-generation pedigree chart, with the significance of Wu Fu. But there are ten generations in the two charts, and therefore the relations of Jiu Zu cannot be reflected.

Fig. 14.3 The pedigree chart in The Cheng Xu Lun Tang Genealogy in Chengli, Jixiin

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The Third type: The five-generation pedigree chart with the fifth generation as the head of another chart. The pedigree and biography are separated (see Fig. 14.4). Shaowei 少微, Gong 巩, Quan 泉, Quan 铨, and Shuzhen 叔溱 (the first generation to the fifth generation) these five generations are in one chart, while Shuzhen 叔 溱, Ju 矩, Ming 明, Daolong 道隆, and Jin 晋 (the fifth generation to the nineth generation) these five generations are in another chart. Similar to the first type, the fifth generation like Shutao is ranked as the head of another chart. In this way, Shutao is both the great-great-grandson of Shao Wei in the first chart and the great-greatgrandfather of Jin in the second chart. Namely, there are five generations in one chart and nine generations in two charts; However, the different part is that there are no text introductions under the names of the figures. Instead, their profiles are attached after the pedigree chart with the title of “Biography”, including the introductions of Shao Wei, Gong, Quan, Quan, Shutao and others, like names, courtesy names, official titles, spouses, children, death, tombs and other information. The pedigree and biography are separated, not in the same chart. The Fourth type: The five-generation pedigree chart, with the sixth generation as the head of another chart. The pedigree and biography are separated (see Fig. 14.5). Yijian 易简, Shou 寿, Wenyun 温允, Sheng 晟, and Hanqing 汉卿 (the first generation to the fifth generation) these five generations are in the one chart, while Ze 泽, Tian 畋, Hui 惠, Chun 纯, and Wenying 文颖 (the sixth generation to the tenth generation) these five generations are in another chart. Similar to the second type, the sixth generation like Ze is the head of another chart. In order to link the sixth generation and the fifth generation, this chart adopts the matching method to correlate these two; Differently, there are no text introductions under the names of figures, but attached after the pedigree chart with the title of “Brief Biography”, including the profiles of Yijian, Shou, Wenyun, Sheng, Hanqing and other clansmen

Fig. 14.4 The pedigree chart of the Wu Clan Genealogy in Houtian, Xiuning

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Fig. 14.5 The pedigree chart of the Su Clan Genealogy

according to the pedigree sequence. The pedigree and biography are separated, not in one chart. What are the proportions of the above four types of five-generation pedigree chart in Huizhou family genealogies? We selected 50 types from a vast number of Huihou family genealogies: the first type is 15, 30%; the second type is 10, 20%; the third type is 15, 30%; the fourth type is 5, 10%; others (do not belong to the above four types) are 5, 10%. Among the 50 types of family genealogies, as many as 45 adopt the five-generation pedigree chart by Ouyang and Su, accounting for 90%, which shows that Ouyang and Su’s style enjoys the most advantages and has been adopted by compilers since the Song Dynasty. This proportion also basically reflects the share of the five-generation pedigree chart by Ouyang and Su in all the Huizhou family genealogies. Throughout the development history of Chinese family genealogies, the fivegeneration pedigree chart by Ouyang and Su charted a new stage that has continued for nearly thousands of years with milestone significance.

14.2 The Soul of Chinese Genealogies: The Neo-Confucianism of Zhu Xi Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200), whose courtesy name was Yuanhui 元晦 (or Zhonghui 仲 晦), whose literary name was Ziyang 紫阳, and who was self-titled Hui’an 晦庵 (or Huiweng 晦翁), was born in Wuyuan, Huizhou in the Southern Song Dynasty. As a great synthesizer of Confucian thought, Zhu Xi was the most influential ideologist during the late of feudal society. His Neo-Confucianism was the mainstream ideology in the society, which was regarded as the spiritual pillar by the later generations of

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genealogy compilers in Huizhou. This is a rational conclusion that we have drawn after looking through hundreds of Huizhou family genealogies and analyzing the opinions, thoughts and influences of Zhu. In recent years, the author has collected over 40 articles written by Zhu Xi including preface, postscript, brief biography, epitaph, letter and encomium from numerous family genealogies (mainly Huizhou family genealogies) in various regions during different periods. Among the genealogy prefaces by Zhu Xi, he has made important remarks on several issues such as the historical status, significance, compilation style, content of family genealogies and compiler’s qualities. Zhu Xi regarded the historical status of family genealogy on a par with national history, which has great influences on the compilation of family genealogies. The famous historian Zhang Xuecheng in the Qing Dynasty made further elaborations on this: “The significance of genealogy to family, local chronicle to county and history to country is the same.” Indeed, family genealogy, local chronicle and national history constitute the three pillars for Chinese history and they are integral parts of Chinese history and culture. With regard to the bias against genealogy compilation that “it’s nothing more than bragging about ancestors’ wealth and clan’s power”, Zhu Xi pointed out: “The significance of genealogy is to arrange the sequence of Zhao and Mu, and distinguish the senior and junior, the officialdom and the ordinary, the distant and close relatives to maintain the family as a whole.”5 He also mentioned in The Postscript of the General Genealogy of the Ouyang Family: “The reason why genealogy arranges the sequence of the Zhao and Mu and distinguish the senior and junior is to consolidate the clan.”6 “Such customs could make people memorize their origin. If the descendants could obey the rules, then they could improve themselves and contribute to the family. On a larger scale, they could assist the emperor and govern the public. The Confucianism is passed on from generation to generation with a striking importance unmatched by other theories.”7 Zhu Xi’s famous statement “if a family genealogy is not compiled within three generations, the descendants are considered to be unfilial” is widely quoted by compilers. Apparently, Zhu Xi’s insights into genealogy compilation has been incorporated in his Neo-Confucianism theory with the core of the “San Gang” 三纲 (three cardinal guides) and the “Wu Chang” 五常 (five relationships). He not only elaborated on the significance of genealogy compilation on the theoretical level, but also established a model for us—the prominent Wang family in Xin’an. “The Wang family in Xin’an is so superior that other clans cannot compare with……though there are many descendants in the family, the distinguishment between the superior and inferior is clear. Although the clan is prominent, the distant and close relatives are well distinguished. During the tomb sweeping in Spring and Autumn, weddings 5

The original preface to the Xin clan genealogy in Jinan. The Xin Clan Genealogy in Qianshan. The postscript of the general genealogy of the Ouyang family, published in the Eighth Edition of the Ouyang Clan Genealogy in Lianjiang, Jiangxi in 1993. 7 The preface to the Wang clan genealogy, published during the Qianlong era in the Annal of Xianyou County, Vol. 48. 6

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and funerals, the descendants all obey the rules. Despite the disparity between the rich and poor, the clansmen all unite as one and respect each other. The Wang Family Genealogy has played an important education role.”8 Zhu Xi not only recognized the Zhao and Mu ethics of the Wang Clan, but also pictured an ideal world organized by the “Heavenly Principles” that he has aspired for the whole life. In terms of the family genealogy style, Zhu Xi appreciated and advocated Ouyang and Su’s practice. From Zhu Xi’s view, only the style and format proposed by Ouyang and Su could realize the principles of Zhao and Mu ethics that “identify the origin, arrange the sequence of the superior and inferior, distinguish the close and distant relatives, and ascertain the difference and similarity.”9 Zhu Xi also touched upon the content of family genealogy and the qualities of compilers. He categorized the genealogy content into two parts “literature” and “pedigree”, really precisely.10 In order to write the pedigree origin and literature review well, the compilers must have qualities to pursue the truth. Zhu Xi walked the talk. In his Zhu Family Genealogy in Chayuan, Wuyuan, he conducted a thorough investigation on the origin of pedigrees: “Our ancestors lived in Huangdun, Shexian, Shezhou and were said to be from a prominent family in Wu county. During the Tianyou era in the Tang Dynasty, Taoya became the prefectural governor of Shezhou. After conquering Wuyuan, he commanded our ancestor to lead thousands of soldiers to garrison this place and granted him with the title of Cha Yuan Fu Jun. Since then, the ancestor and his family relocated to Wuyuan and were buried there after death.” Zhu listed Zhu Huan as the first ancestor in his lineage chart, because he was the first Zhu family member who had moved to Chayuan. According to Zhu’s investigation, the Zhu family in Danyang, Yongcheng, Bozhou, though “there was only one gate away”, didn’t belong to his clan because “they were not originally from Wu county”. Zhu Xi “looked through the old genealogies and realized the difficulties of tracing back to early ancestors and tomb locations. So, he decided to compile the Zhu Family Genealogy in Chayuan, Wuyuan.” In summary, Zhu Xi made numerous important monographs on the function of genealogy and compilation method, which reflected that the officialdom like him attached the same importance to this civilian cultural activity like ordinary people. The era when Zhu Xi lived was the late feudal society in China. Facing the falling Song Dynasty, Zhu Xi proactively incorporated the genealogy compilation activity that was involved with thousands of households and influenced the later generations into his core theoretical system with the core of “San Gang” and the “Wu Chang”, in order to consolidate the feudal hierarchy system. Zhu Xi’s efforts were well paid off. When we opened the genealogies of six counties in Huizhou region, the etiquette standard that features the capping, wedding,

8

The preface to the Wang clan genealogy, published in the Revised Wang Subclan Genealogy in Shexi, Anhui in 1919. 9 The original preface to the clan genealogy in Xiangcheng, published in 1998. 10 The preface to the Wang clan genealogy, published during the Qianlong era in the Annal of Xianyou County, Vol. 48.

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funeral and sacrifice by Zhu Xi has become the important contents of genealogical regulations, as well as the key criterion for etiquette education and clansmen’s behavior. Zhu Xi’s feudal code of ethics is mainly concentrated in the works like the Jia Li 家礼 (Family Rituals), the Ji Yi 祭仪 (Sacrificial Rite), and the Gu Jin Jia Ji Yi 古 今家祭仪 (Family Sacrificial Rites in History). Especially the practical guideline of the Family Rituals reflects Zhu Xi’s spirit of ritual study and is adopted by thousands of households. In the feudal patriarchal clan system, the capping, wedding, funeral and sacrifice were rituals that ordinary families must learn. The Family Rituals written by Zhu Xi is simple and clear and easy to operate and practice. That’s why it has been given great importance by numerous compilers and was recorded in family genealogies for further practice. Huizhou is Zhu Xi’s hometown. The influence of Zhu Xi’s Family Rituals is more striking.11 Zhu Xi was born in Wuyuan. The Family Rituals is followed and practiced in the Wuyuan region with specific principles and regulations. Local people not only need to obey the Family Rituals for capping, wedding, funeral and sacrifice, but also practice the “etiquette standards” in daily communication.12 Some families in Wuyuan proposed to observe the Family Rituals with a set of etiquette to be “neither extravagant nor frugal”13 ; some families proposed that “the rituals of capping, marriage, funeral and sacrifice shall not be over extravagant, or otherwise it was against the Family Rituals.”14 Some families made specific regulations on the sacrificial date and objects, according to the Family Rituals: “Sacrifice is about worshipping the ancestors. A family must have an ancestral temple, where their ancestors are worshiped. On the New Year, Beginning of Spring, Winter Solstice Festival and death anniversary, the clansmen must offer sacrifice to the ancestors piously. The oblations and sacrificial utensils are up to each person, but the sacrificial ritual must follow Zhu Xi’s Family Rituals.”15 The Jixi region followed the Family Rituals and also emphasized on “neither extravagant nor frugal”. The Shu Clan General Genealogy in Huayang (the 9th year of the Tongzhi era) and the Cheng Xu Lun Tang Clan Genealogy in Chengli, Jixi (1940) made the same regulation in the chapter of family rules: “Serving the parents while living and giving proper burial after death have been the obligation of the offspring for centuries. The wise has done too over, whereas the fool has not done enough. Neither of them is correct. Regarding the funeral and sacrifice, Zhu Xi’s Family Rituals advocated “neither extravagant nor frugal” rituals, which was the Golden 11

The Li clan genealogy in Heshan (1917). Genealogies of the Xiao family and the Jiang family in Wuyuan, Jiangxi. The 30th year of the Reign of Emperor Daoguang of Qing Dynasty (1850). 13 The revised Wang clan genealogy in Longchi, Wuyuan, Jiangxi. The 26th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Daoguang era (1846). 14 The Wang branch genealogy in Huaixi. The sixth year of Xianfeng reign (1856). 15 The Wang clan general genealogy in Jiyang. 1919. 12

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Mean. But how come recently there were adverse opinions? …… All the funeral and sacrifice rituals and sacrificial offerings must follow the etiquettes of Zhu Xi, neither extravagant nor frugal to maintain the Golden Mean.” By the late nineteenth century, due to the influence of the “exotic habits”, there were disrespectful phenomenon like “eating meat and drinking wine” or “not hastening home for the funeral” in the funeral ritual. Some families denounced this and proposed that “funeral is such an important ritual that no family could ignore. The exotic habits include not distinguishing the generation orders, not wearing the correct mourning apparels, not arranging proper burial or even eating meat, drinking wine and not hastening home for the funeral. We must follow Zhu Xi’s Family Rituals.”16 The Song Clan Genealogy in Xin’an (1917) recorded: “All the funeral rituals must follow the Family Rituals by Zhu Xi and center on the condolence.” In Shexian, in order to obey the Family Rituals, the relevant etiquette education started from the kids.17 The Fang Clan Genealogy in Henan (Shexian) compiled in 1945 made specific regulations on the manners and behavior of attending sacrifice: “During the sacrifice, everyone must be properly dressed and stand solemnly according to the generation order, and must not speak, lean on the wall, laugh or shake the fan. Everything must follow the Family Rituals of Zhu Xi to avoid any etiquette mistakes.” The Family Rituals was followed in the Yixian region. The local people believed that the regulations of the four rituals of capping, wedding, funeral and sacrifice by Zhu Xi’s Family Rituals must be incorporated in the genealogy with annotations or even illustrations so that the readers could “know how to put into practice”. The Family Rituals was followed in the Xiuning region. The local people believed that it must be combined with the ordinary manners and behavior like “keep silence when moving” and “be aware of the residence” and achieved “courtesy and manners at any time at any place”. In the Qimen region, “If the four rituals of capping, wedding, funeral and sacrifice did not follow Zhu Xi’s Family Rituals, it also could not adopt the monk’s protocol, or otherwise it would be against the ancestral instruction.”18 The “ancestral instructions” recorded in the Ye Family Genealogy (the 7th year of the Wanli era) raised specific requirements for “reading books and practicing etiquettes”: “One must not be lazy and argumentative, must not neglect studies and work, must not indulge oneself in plaything, must not be extravagant and violent, must not bully others. Those who behave well and kindly would be rewarded; those who commit sins would be punished; those who do not repent would be expelled.” The family genealogies in Huizhou counties not only made important regulations on the preface, principle and family rule following Zhu Xi’s Family Rituals, but also copied and strictly implemented the Family Rituals with regard to the specific rituals of capping, wedding, funeral and sacrifice. Referring to the chapter of “Capping The Yao clan genealogy in Jixi 绩溪姚氏宗谱. The 16th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1890). 17 The Xie family branch genealogy in Fanchuan, Shexi. 1925. 18 The Jin family genealogy in Jinzhao. 1931. 16

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Ritual” in the “Family Etiquette” recorded in the Yu Clan Genealogy in Huanshan, Yiqian compiled in 1917, all the steps and texts are basically the same, with only one word of difference, namely: in the Family Rituals, “Tomorrow morning, display the funeral costumes” (厥明宿兴陈冠服); in the Yu Clan Genealogy, it was changed to “Early in the tomorrow morning, display the funeral costumes” (厥明夙兴陈冠服); The character “Su” 宿 was changed to “Su” 夙. The Huizhou family genealogies in the Ming and Qing Dynasties and during the Republic of China period, on one hand, followed Zhu Xi’s etiquette theories to regulate the clansmen’s behavior; On the other hand, they leveraged Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism to rebuild clansmen’s morality and thought. For the former one, the regulations on the rituals of capping, wedding, funeral and sacrifice in the Family Rituals could guide the clansmen to follow step by step; for the latter one, Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism thoughts of “Three Principles and Five Virtues” could unconsciously influence the clansmen through school education. The Huang Family Genealogy in Xin’an compiled during the 14th year of the Hongzhi era in the Ming Dynasty (1501) had a summary on the schools established in Huizhou region for clarifying Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism thoughts: “Tens of hundreds of households are all studying Zhu Xi’s theories; Xin’an has witnessed a batch of Confucianism scholars since Zhu Xi clarified his Neo-Confucianism, called the “Southeastern Confucianism Center”. The schools and academies in Xin’an have outnumbered other counties and regions.” Zhu Xi made a clear point himself on the purpose of establishing schools: “If there are schools in all the regions in the country, the public would receive education, cultivate themselves, manage their family and state affairs in order to better serve the emperor.”19 There were plenty of academies in Huizhou region, according to the statistics of Research on Huizhou Clans, altogether 104. Most of the academies were established by clans and predominantly taught Zhu Xi’s theories. Some academies appealed to the emperor for a royal banner to raise their status. The clans also set up private schools in Huizhou. The main curriculum of these schools were Zhu Xi’s schools of thoughts. According to the Cheng Family’s Meishan Branch Genealogy in Hanxi, Wuyuan, Jiangxi, the clansman Zhi He studied in a private school since childhood and made up his mind to provide education for the clan. He then tightened his belt and worked arduously. In the 7th year of the Zhizheng era (1347) he established a private school in his hometown Songshan. Zhi He advocated that: “The establishment of private schooling is to impart the theories of Zhu Xi. The lecturer from the Hui An Academy is responsible for teaching this.” Apparently, Zhi He aimed to enhance the status of private schooling so that the Cheng Family’s descendants could learn Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism thoughts. The schools in Huizhou required the clansmen to be well acquainted with Zhu Xi’s works. Through school education, Zhu Xi’s theories were deeply rooted in

19

Collected works of Zhu Wen Gong, Vol. 75.

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people’s hearts so that the clansmen “would be influenced by the saint’s wisdom”20 and “would not behave indecently.”21 Besides, Huizhou family genealogies further regularized the Neo-Confucianism thoughts advocated by Zhu Xi into the family rules that required the clansmen to “stay on the same pace” and implement thoroughly. The 38 articles in the Family Canon revised by the Li Clan Genealogy in Heshan, Yixian were representative. “All the revisions must be based on the principles of Zhu Xi and refer to the works of great Confucianists. The basic framework is four rituals. …… Here are the 20 articles of Wu Family Canon; for the controversial issues within the family, we set up another 13 articles; in the 5th year of the Republic of China, the 15th generation descendant Sun Qiqun added another 5 articles; thus, there are 38 articles in total. Our clansmen read them day and night, reflect on themselves and earnestly put them into practice. The family ethos is similar to that of Zhu Xi’s hometown Ziyang.” Let’s find out the contents in the Family Canon that was based on the “principles of Zhu Xi”. The family genealogy compiler pointed out in the opening that the purpose of the Family Canon 家典 was to “eliminate the mistakes and fallacies in the mundane world and rejuvenate the ancient wisdom to the current world”. With that aim, the rituals of capping, wedding, funeral and sacrifice in our family should all follow the Family Ritual by Zhu Xi.” However, obeying the four rituals was apparently not enough. The Family Canon further required the clansmen to “study diligently and practice the courtesy manners”, “memorize the benevolence and righteousness by heart at any time”, “dress properly when entering the ancestral hall and stay solemn in front of ancestors”, “stand up when the elder brother comes and move according to the sequence of generation”, “the inferior and junior must not offend the superior and elder”, “women must be obedient and filial to elders and husband”, “women must strictly abide by the family rules; Playing cards and singing ditties are not allowed”. If the descendants “committed indecent assaults, the parents shall give them a lesson; If they did not repent, the parents shall beat them hardly; If they still did not repent, the parents shall send them to the feudal government for sentence.” “Their names would be eliminated from the clan genealogy”. The Family Canon is a set of regulations about what the clansmen should do, what they should not do and how they would be punished by the family rules in case of committing crimes. The Family Cannon specially emphasized that: “The 38 articles of Family Canon are critical to cultivating oneself, managing home affairs, contributing to the society and consolidating the clan”. The Family Canon specified and regularized Zhu Xi’s etiquette requirements and Neo-Confucianism thoughts. In order to make the 38 articles widely known by households, the Family Canon regulated that: “On the fourth day of the first lunar month, July 15th and the Winter Solstice Festival, the clansmen shall gather in the ancestral temple and offer sacrifices. On the very three days each year, the family instruction shall be read aloud to all the clansmen. After they return home, the father shall give instructions to the son. So shall the elder brother to the junior and the husband to the wife. Let each household be aware of the 20 21

The Cheng family’s Meishan branch genealogy in Hanxi, Wuyuan. 1909. The Ye family genealogy in Xinzhou. 1925.

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family rules and put into practice.” The Li Clan Genealogy in Heshan, Yixian was compiled in 1917, already in the era of the Republic of China, but its Family Canon still insisted on the “principles of Zhu Xi” and “The Four Rituals”, which required the clansmen to “read every day and night, reflect on themselves and earnestly practice the rules” and “let each household acquaint with the rules”. As could be seen, Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism thoughts had a far-reaching influence in Huizhou region. In the Huang Family General Genealogy in Xin’an compiled in the Mid Ming Dynasty: Since the Southern Song Dynasty, Xin’an has become the “Southeastern Confucianism Center” due to “Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism”; By the early Republic of China, the Li Clan Genealogy in Heshan proposed to insist on “Zhu Xi’s theories” continuously so that their hometown would be like a “Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism Center”. The above showcased that Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism thoughts were like a main line that existed in all the Huizhou family genealogies since the Southern Song Dynasty to the Republic of China period. As the spiritual pillar of Huizhou family genealogies, Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism has become the soul of Huizhou family genealogies. The family genealogy compilation activity that has been around for thousands of years in China is a unique cultural phenomenon in the history of China. Due to the large quantity and high quality, Huizhou family genealogies become an integral part of Chinese family genealogies. An in-depth analysis of the basic format (Ouyang and Su’s five-generation pedigree chart) of Huizhou genealogies and their core values (Zhu Xi’s neo-Confucianism thoughts) is conducive for us to further understand, develop and study the tens of thousands of Chinese family genealogies—the precious historical and cultural heritage in China. It also plays an active role in promoting Chinese history and culture, enhancing Chinese ethos and cohesion, and contributing to the peaceful reunification of China.

Chapter 15

Illustrations in Chinese Genealogies

Illustrations were an integral part of Chinese genealogical literature. Genealogies included portraits of ancestors, residential charts, ancestral hall charts, tomb charts, academic charts, free school charts, and scenic spot charts. There were many types of illustration, and they displayed an abundance of content. They often showed the artist’s exquisite drawing skills, and were accompanied by encomiums and translations. They were an important part of Chinese genealogical literature. However, monographs and theses on genealogical literature rarely incorporate these illustrations; they tend to be neglected by people. After 2003, the author realized that these illustrations have academic, cultural and artistic value, and so they have collected, sorted and compiled relevant material on them.

15.1 Portraits of Ancestors In many family genealogies, there are portraits of ancestors. Beside the portraits are normally encomium with a dozen of words. The portraits of ancestors play an important role and are placed at the top of the first volume of family genealogies. When we open a family genealogy, the first thing we often see is a portrait and encomium for the family’s ancestors. There are at least a few or at most a dozen ancestor’s portraits in family genealogies. According to the statistics of the Collected Portraits of Chinese Ancestors of all Surnames, this book has collected 723 types of family genealogies and 7511 portraits, on average 10 portraits per genealogy. Portraits of ancestors in family genealogies can be roughly divided into three types: (1) Portraits of the earliest ancestor and the first ancestor that had relocated to the family’s existing location. Take China’s most popular surname Wang 王 as an example. The first known ancestor with the surname Wang was Emperor Zhou Lingwang’s prince, Jin. His descendants could be found in two commanderies: Taiyuan and Langyang, during the Qin and Han Dynasties. As a result, there are © Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2023 H. Wang, The General Theory of China’s Genealogy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6377-5_15

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portraits of Emperor Zhou Lingwang, Prince Jin, and King Langyang in quite a few Wang family genealogies, including the Wang Clan Genealogy in Qianmei, Shanyin, Zhejiang, and the Wang Clan Genealogy in Tanling, Wuyuan, Jiangxi. The first color portrait, “King Langyang’s Deadee”, appeared in the Wang Family Genealogy in Yanxian, Zhejiang. This called King Langyang the Wang family’s first ancestor (see Fig. 15.1). In the recent thousands of years since the Zhou and Qin Dynasties, due to social turbulence, the Wang clansmen relocated from west to east, and from north to south

Fig. 15.1 The portrait of Jin, Emperor Zhou Lingwang’s prince

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in order to survive. The Wang clans that moved to different locations normally put the portraits of the first ancestor who relocated to the current location in the important place in family genealogies. For example, during the 5th year of the Qianfu era in the Tang Dynasty (878), the ancestor of Wang clan in Huaixi, Wang Xixiang and his brothers relocated to Huangdun, Huizhou and settled down there. Then he became the first ancestor of this Wang clan who relocated to Wukou, Wuyuan, while his portrait is placed as the first one in the Wang Branch Genealogy in Huaixi, Wuyuan, Jiangxi. In addition to the Wang family, other families are also the same. For instance, there is a portrait of Wu Long in the Wu Clan Genealogy in Bohaixi, Pucheng, Fujian. Wu Long was regarded as the first ancestor, after he relocated to Pucheng. In this genealogy, the following are all listed on the genealogy’s cover: the era it was written in (Song Dynasty), the place the family migrated to/from (from Zhejiang to Pucheng) and the family’s status (details are listed about the first ancestor that had relocated). (2) Ancestors within the “wufu”. After the Song Dynasty, ancestral worship involved worshiping the family’s first ancestor, the first ancestor that had relocated to the family’s existing location, and four generations of ancestors within the “wufu”, namely the great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, grandfather and deceased father. During this period, there were portraits of ancestors within the “wufu” in family genealogies, as well as portraits of the original ancestor and the first ancestor at the family’s existing location. The Revised Wang Clan Genealogy in Lingzhixiang, Yanbei, Zhejiang, which was compiled by Wang Hengtian during the 10th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1884), included 30 portraits of ancestors within the “wufu”. The earliest portrait is of the Xineng Gong’s Deadee, who was born during the seventh year of the Qing Dynasty’s Qianlong era (1742). The most recent portrait is Zhencan Gong. He was born during the first year of the Qing Dynasty’s Tongzhi era (1862). Portraits of the original ancestor and the first ancestor at the family’s existing location are considered to be relatively sensationalist, whereas portraits of ancestors within the “wufu” are, comparatively, more authentic. Their appearance, facial expressions and costumes were drawn based on what people had seen or heard. When members of the Wang Clan in Lingzhixiang, Yanbei, Zhengjiang worshiped their ancestors, they had a deep impression of their ancestors based on those portraits; they helped consolidate the cohesion and unity of the Wang clan. (3) Celebrity clan members. When family members compiled a genealogy, they recognized that there could be a gap of hundreds of years, or even thousands of years between the original ancestor/the first ancestor at the family’s existing location, and their ancestors within the “wufu”. Therefore, it was not possible to paint portraits for every ancestor. So families/clans chose to paint portraits of celebrities: people who were renowned for their morality, noble titles, achievements or literature works. In the preface of the Wang Clan Genealogy in Shashan, Kunshan, Jiangsu, there is a portrait of only one person: the famous scholar Wang Bo 王勃 (650–676) from the Tang Dynasty, although the clan had existed

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for over 1500 years—from the Wei and Jin Dynasties to the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era. Wang Bo was a renowned literato in the Tang Dynasty, enjoying equal popularity as Yang Jiong 杨炯, Lu Zhaoling 卢照邻, Luo Binwang 骆宾 王. They are commented as “Four Paragons of Early Tang”. Many Wang family genealogies regarded Wang Xizhi 王羲之 (303–361), the most celebrated of Chinese calligraphers, as their ancestor. Some Wang families even incorporated excerpts of Wang Xizhi’s calligraphy into their genealogies. For example, the Wang Branch Family Genealogy in Dongsha, Jiangsu 江苏江阴东沙王氏支谱 inscribed Wang Xizhi’s calligraphy excerpt in their family genealogy and wrote, “Our ancestor Wang Xizhi was a great scholar, who was especially skilled in calligraphy. It is said that a carpenter once found that the ink of the characters Wang Xizhi had written had gone almost one centimeter into the wood because of his forceful stroke. He once made the Cao Jue Ge 草诀歌 (Grass-style Writing) for the later generations to learn the skills of grass-style writing.” Some families placed portraits of scholars and literati among their ancestors in the genealogies, but most put portraits of elites among their family members. For example, the Wu Clan Genealogy in Shita, Yixing, Jiangsu 江苏宜兴石塔吴氏宗 谱 listed the portrait of Wu Cunhui and Wu Yu who used to be the prime ministers at important places. Because Lü Yijian was the head of the secretariat for twenty years and assisted three emperors, he was awarded with the praise “Integrity and Righteousness” and a stone tablet of honor. When he became the prime minister, he once recommended Fan Zhongyan, Han Qi, Wen Yanbo, Pang Ji, Liang Shi, Zeng Gongliang and others to the imperial court, who then were entrusted with important posts. The encomium of “Yijian Gong Portrait” highly appraised Lü Yijian and his portrait occupied an important position in the Lü Clan Genealogy in Xixiang, Yuyi, Zhejiang. There were normally a dozen words of praise written alongside portraits. They extolled the appearance, achievement and/or morality of these ancestors. These words of praise were often written by descendants. An example can be found in the Lü Clan Genealogy in Xixiang, Yuyi, Shangyu, Zhejiang, there is a portrait of Lü Mengzheng a famous minister during the Song Dynasty. He was behind the emperor’s eulogy, and therefore was described as “a man of generosity and magnanimity, of great erudition and scholarship, who made remarkable contributions to the Imperial Court”. Another example was Wang Zuo 王佐 from Shanyin, Zhejiang, who was the minister of the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Revenue in the Southern Song Dynasty and passed away in the 2nd year of the Shaoxi era (1191). The Wang Clan Genealogy in Shaoxing, Zhejiang listed his portrait. The Emperor Guang of the Song Dynasty gave high appraisals beside his portrait and called Wang Zuo as the pillar of the dynasty.

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Some of the eulogies alongside ancestors’ portraits in family genealogies were written by famous ministers and officials. The Shao Clan Genealogy in Shaoyi, Shaoxing, Zhejiang includes one such eulogy alongside the first portrait of Shaoping. This was written by a Changsha official, Jia Yi, during the Han Dynasty. He said: “Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, Shao family members have consistently been conferred with noble ranks and are thought of highly by the emperors. During the twilight years, Shao officials have often retired and gone into seclusion after achieving great success.” In the Song Clan Genealogy in Guyu, Shangyu, Zhejiang, there is a eulogy alongside a portrait of Song Hong. This was written by Sima Guang during the Song Dynasty, and says: “a man of resourceful knowledge who has accumulated much, has made great contributions to the court and society, and is a well-respected and accomplished minister that no one can match.” The encomium of the portrait of Wang Gong in the Wang Clan Genealogy in Kunshan, Jiangsu was written by Su Shi. The Neo-Confucian master of the Southern Dynasty, Zhu Xi, had great influences on family genealogies after the Southern Song Dynasty, because of his neo-Confucian theories. Therefore, many eulogies alongside ancestors’ portraits were written by him. One example is the eulogy accompanying Shao Cheng’s portrait in the Shao Clan Genealogy in Shaoyi, Shaoxing, Zhejiang. Zhu Xi wrote: “He is a man of prowess, who has displayed strength and has helped safeguard the country and its citizens. Due to his great contributions and achievements, his name will remain immortal throughout history.” It is worth noting that some eulogies, purporting to be Zhu Xi’s, have been identified as fake. One example is the eulogy written alongside Wang Zhaoji’s portrait in the Wang Clan Genealogy in Taixian, Jiangsu. Who was Wang Zhaoji? The family genealogy states that Wang was born in 1377 and died in 1449. However, Zhu Xi was born in 1130 and died in 1200, during the Southern Song Dynasty. So we know that this eulogy was a forgery, because it was not possible for Zhu Xi to have written words of praise for Wang Zhaoji, born two hundred years later in the early Ming Dynasty. However, inside this genealogy, there are stamps reading “Zhu Xi” and “Hui An”, Zhu’s courtesy name. The Chinese family genealogies have been through two major stages of development. Before the Song Dynasty, family genealogies mainly served as a political function for official career or marriage.1 After the Song Dynasty, family genealogies were transformed into a moral education function, predominantly for respecting ancestors and consolidating clans. We could also see such a functional shift from the encomium of the ancestors’ portraits. For example, the portrait of Wang Qiong published in Wang Family Genealogy in Shaoxing, Zhejiang. Wang was from the Wei Dynasty. The Emperor Wen of the Wei Dynasty esteemed the pedigree and regarded the four surnames of Cui, Lu, Wang and Zheng as the most privileged ones, while Wang Qiong belonged to one of the four classes. Back then, marriage should be well-matched. Wang Qiong had a joint-marriage with the Jin family, the relatives of the emperor. The encomium 1

Zheng Qiao. Shi Zu Lue Xu. In the Tong zhi 通志 (General treatises).

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of the portrait of Wang Qiong disclosed such information and implied that Wang Qiong’s family was prominent and well-established that could enjoy many privileges. However, the encomiums after the Song Dynasty witnessed some changes. For instance, the portrait of Shen Liangxi published in the Shen Clan Genealogy in Wucheng, Jiangsu. Born between the Song and Yuan Dynasties, Shen was the first ancestor in the family who relocated to Wucheng. The encomium of his portrait was: “He was a man of great benevolence and piousness”. Another example is the portrait of Wang Weishan in the Wang Clan Genealogy in Jixi, Anhui. Wang was born in early Qing Dynasty. According to the genealogy, he was “an amiable person and respected elders”. The encomium of his portrait was: “He was a man of great talents and good characters. He was amiable to neighbors and respectful for the seniors”. These two examples fully reflected: since the Southern Song Dynasty, under the influence of Zhu Xi’s “benevolence and piousness”, the principle of genealogy compilation was “respect the clansmen and ancestors”. As Shen Shilu2 and Shen Mao3 stated in the encomiums they wrote respecitvely for Gentelman-literateur (a prestige title for civil officials) Shen Yu Gong and Subprefectural Magistrate of Daizhou Mao Gong, many family genealogies spent a lot of efforts in publishing the ancestors’ portraits and encomiums so as to ‘accumulate virtue and merit’.

15.2 Drawings of Residences Drawings of residence, also known as residential chart or ancestral house chart, depict the place where clansmen live. Some drawings are relatively simple, which only mark the location of the clansmen’s residence, but they are actually the floor plan. Some residence drawings cover a large range, not only marking the locations of each surname and each village, but also marking the residences of the same surname in that region. For example, on the drawing of the Yu family residence in Tongxu county, Henan province, the locations of the family are clearly demonstrated. As for the residence drawings, most are for one surname and one village. Some of the drawings have topographical advantages of mountains and waters, so the locations of village residents need to marked one by one, as well as the topology, transportation and waterways near the residence. For instance, the drawing of Zhu Village Residence in Jingxian, Anhui Province (see Fig. 15.2).

The Shen clan genealogy in Liangxi, Wuxi, Jiangsu 江苏无锡梁溪沈氏宗谱. Compiled during the 23rd year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1897). 3 The Shen clan genealogy in Yangxi, Yixing, Jiangsu 江苏宜兴洋溪沈氏宗谱. Compiled during the 22nd year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1896). 2

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Fig. 15.2 The drawing of the Zhu Village Residence in Jingxian, Anhui Province

The drawing of Liu Family’s Nanshan Residence in Guichi, Anhui, the drawing of Zu Family’s Topology in Pucheng, Fujian and etc., featured refined painting skills, which increased the impression of the residence. “Why are there such wide and long drawings of residence in family genealogies?” The Guo Clan Genealogy in Zhuji, Zhejiang, The Renewed Hu Branch Genealogy in Yuanjiang, Hunan, The Liu Clan Genealogy in Ningxiang, Hunan, and The Renewed Lu Clan Genealogy in Jingde, Anhui all pointed out that the reason for painting the drawings of residence is that “the descendants who relocated to remote places could find where the ancestral residences were based on this map, so that they would not forget where they originally came from.” There are drawings of residence in family genealogies, firstly for manifesting the difficulty of starting up business by ancestors; secondly, for the convenience of the clansmen who relocated to other places to trace back to their origins and memorize their hometowns; thirdly for the later generations to respect and worship the ancestors. From the texts of the residence drawings, it could be learnt that the residences of all families were carefully selected, normally habitable places with picturesque sceneries where human and nature could coexist in harmony. The Fan Clan Genealogy in Dan County, Sichuan used one poem to introduce the residence drawing left by the ancestors to the offspring. The annotation of the drawing of the Tao’s Fengshan Mountain residence in the Tao Clan Genealogy in Puyang, Zhejiang pointed out: “Fengshan Mountain became the Feng Shui treasure house of the Tao 陶 descendants,” The Lü Clan Genealogy in Zhang Village, Ningyang, Shandong introduced the reason why

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the Lü 吕 ancestors chose Zhang Village, Ningyang as their family residence. Similarly, it was because that place was a fengshui treasure: “In the east, there is a Liushan Mountain. In the south, there is a huge jadestone. The residence is surrounded by mountains and waters that gather the essence of the earth.” The reasons why family residences were located in beautiful sceneries are, on the one hand due to the habitability, “like a landscape painting”, and on the other hand due to “great talents cultivated in propitious places”, which would be conducive for the development of descendants. The introduction of the residence drawings in the Zhu Clan Genealogy in Shexian, Anhui mentioned this concisely. The annotation and texts of the residence drawings in the Hu Family Genealogy in Rugao, Jiangsu illustrated that “a remarkable place produces outstanding people” based on the fact that their family had had a flourishing population in the past two hundred years. The residence drawing in the Zhu Clan Genealogy in Shangyu, Zhejiang stated the same reason: “We choose the Fengshui treasure land for building the residence so that the future generations will become prosperous.” Since the environment of the residence is so important that it would influence the prosperity of the offspring, when publishing the drawings of residence in family genealogies, the contracts relevant to residences were normally included to avoid economic conflicts. Like: the toft contract attached to the residence drawings in the Renewed Hu Branch Genealogy in Yuanjiang, Hunan, recorded the land deal resources between brothers in the 18th year of the Daoguang era of the Qing Dynasty (1838): The Zong Shu and Zong Xi brothers of the Hu Family abandoned their businesses and sold the bamboo mountain land in Yujia Garden to their brother Zong Shi with the price of 19 strings of 800 coins. Since they sold the land, the buyer and seller had drawn the line to prevent any future conflict. “the land sales contract served as a certificate for the future generations as a reference”. Some family genealogies not only publish textual contracts, but also record the economic disputes of residences in pictures. For example, the Fourth Revision of the Shi Clan Genealogy in Zhongxiang, Xiangtan, Hunan recorded that the Hutian Mountain has been under the management of the Shi family ancestral hall for hundreds of years, which could be proved by the new and old deed. During the years of the Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty (1875–1908), a person surnamed Song altered the deed and opened a ditch between the mountain boundaries of Song and Shi to divert the pond water, which caused Shi’s 80 mu field to be scorched. Later, the Shi filed a lawsuit against the Song. However, after three times of court trials, the Song ran away. Thus, the original deed was recovered. “Now the deed was reserved for the future generations”. Many similar deeds and contracts are reserved in family genealogies, with the aim to preserve the fengshui treasure land, prevent economic disputes and guarantee the prosperity of the offspring. Those contracts and deeds also provide the first-hand material for the descendants to understand the status quo of the society and economy at that time.

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Chinese feudal society is a self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy. Reflected in the residential map, there is often one village and one surname, while the clansmen all live together without other surnames. For example, the Zhu Family Genealogy in Shangyu, Zhejiang: “Over the 400 years since the Song Jianyan, there have been great talents cultivated from the family. The residence is surrounded by four mountains and one river.” The characteristic of living in groups means when passers-by meet, they greet each other without telling their surnames. As long as you tell which village you live in, your surname will naturally be known. Because people lived in groups, many villages were named after surnames. For example, in Shexian, Anhui Province, according to the Xin’an Ethnography, there are nearly 20 families named after their own clan names, such as Huang 黄 Village, Song 宋 Village, Wang 王 Village, Chen 陈 Village, Yao 姚 Village, Jiang 江 Village, Zhu 朱 Village and etc. However, with the development of commodity economy, the full-closed and selfsufficient economy gradually collapsed, changing from one clan living together to mixed surnames living together. Some annotations of the residence drawings have vivid records. The ‘residential drawing record’ of the Huang Family Genealogy in Luojiang Xiangyin, Hunan 湖南湘阴罗江黄氏家谱 reflected the living and economic situations of the rural areas in 1928: “In this village, there lived both our clansmen and inhabitants with other surnames. Most of the villagers were engaged in agriculture-related work.” “It produces rice and mud peas, especially mud peas which are usually used to feed pigs. Women can weave. Therefore, mini pigs and cotton cloth are also one of the exports. The firewood, taro, bamboo, tea, and hemp are also sufficient for local people’s needs.” It depicted a vivid scene in the rural area of Luojiang, Xiangyin, Hunan, where the surname was Huang, mixed with different surnames, and the natural economy was the main pillar, but the commodity economy has developed. The pictures included in the Dong Family Genealogy, Yingaotang, Yin County, Zhejiang 浙江鄞县鄞高塘董氏家谱 not merely reflected the distribution of residence places in Jin County, but also introduced the living status of other surnames, like Gao, He, Wang, Yin and etc. in 1935. At the same time, according to the “incomplete parts of ancient scripts, neighborhood hearsays and oral accounts”, it made introductions to the Zhong De Hall, slab bridge, Shu De Hall, Zheng Yi Hall, Qin Ren Elementary School, Ning De Hall, Gao’An Fire Station, Defense Corps, Hui Long Bridge, Hui Lan Bridge, Ning Heng Driveway and other architects and institutes. It unveiled the history mixed surname living together and the development of modern institutes like the Fire Station and Defense Corps since the Republic of China, offering a panoramic view of the society, economy, culture and customs of the rural townships in the 1930s.

15.3 Drawings of Ancestral Temples Drawings of ancestral temples, also known as drawings of clan temples, family temples, shrines, or Xiang halls, depict venues in which clan members carry out

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Fig. 15.3 The drawing of Shanyi Ancestral Temple in Changsha, Hunan Province

ancestral worship. Most of these pictures are architectural styles and frame structure patterns of ancestral halls, and there are also landscape pictures around the ancestral halls, such as the Shanyi Ancestral Temple in Changsha, Hunan Province (see Fig. 15.3). When we open the family genealogies of Ming and Qing Dynasties, we can see that the drawings of ancestral temples and their annotations occupy an important position because ancestral temples have a long history and people’s understanding of them have been deepening. In ancient China, ancestral temples were places where people performed ancestor worship ceremonies. There are many records of such contents in the pre-Qin literature. According to the Book of Rites 礼记, people during the Zhou Dynasty held that top priority should be given to the construction of ancestral temples. In other words, when an imperial palace was built, the ancestral temple would be the first element to be constructed, followed by the stable and the treasury house, and finally the rooms of residence. People believed that the deceased’s spirit still existed in another world after death, and that their ancestors were their protectors. The Book of Rites’ Royal System 礼记·王制 made detailed stipulations about the system of constructing ancestral temples: seven temples were often given to the Emperor, five to the feudal lords,

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three to the Grand Masters, two to senior servicemen, and one to Junior Officials. Temples could not be established for commoners. The stipulations reflect that clans of different hierarchy had different clan ancestral temples and different sacrificial rules. The seven temples of the Emperor were the Xiang halls for the father, grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather and earlier ancestors of the Emperor. For the feudal lords, the first of the five denoted temples was for the first granted feudal lord; the other four were shared by his deceased descendants. For the Grand Master, the first of the three temples was given to a chosen ancestor, who would be worshiped first. Servicemen only had one temple, and within, his earliest granted ancestor would be worshiped. Civilians were not permitted to establish temples, though sacrifice could be offered at the halls of their family. During the Qin Dynasty, emperors paid little attention to the clan system. After the Han Dynasty was established, the ancient clan temple system resumed. Worship of the ancestors was common, in both the royal and civilian families. Compared with the pre-Qin period, there were big changes during the Han Dynasty, one of which was the emergence of mausoleum temples. The practice of constructing mausoleums next to ancestral temples by the royal families of the Han Dynasty influenced both the officers’ and civilians’ behaviour. The practice of using these temples for funerals and sacrificial ceremonies similarly became even more popular. Han Dynasty ancestral temples were constructed above ground, and used as a site to host sacrificial ceremonies for the ancestors buried in the mausoleums. They were divided into two types: one of which was the wooden-structured temple; the other was the stone-structured temple. During the Wei, Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties, although mausoleum ancestral temples and their sacrificial ceremonies declined, their temple sacrificial rituals were resumed gradually. Generally speaking, with the exception of a few noblemen and high-ranking officers who had the authority to build home temples, most people could only offer sacrifices to their ancestors in the living hall using memorial tablets. During the Tang Dynasty, ancestral temples were developed into family temples. In principle, only officials who ranked above the fifth grade were allowed to build family temples. A proposal for building a family temple needed to be made to the imperial court. And after an ancestral temple was built, some applicants required an additional statement from the imperial court in order to gain approval for carrying out temple rituals. The ancestral temples established during the Song and Yuan Dynasties were based on Zhu Xi’s design. Zhu examined some basic etiquette regarding the rules for building ancestral temples, such as building a temple to the east of the residence. He also suggested establishing the architecture of ancestral temples, from which there were a few basic principles to follow. First, the construction area should be large enough to accommodate clan members. There were problems over time with this, as clans became increasingly large, and many temples were unable to accommodate all of their members. This meant that temples had to be re-built and their site expanded.

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Second, there should be enough room to place/store ancestral relics. Third, the ancestral halls should be guarded by imperial clansmen. There should not be division over who this was; clans wanted to ensure that there was continuation of clan ancestral temples for future generations. Most ancestral temples of a non-governmental nature during the Ming Dynasty were built according to the design described by Zhu Xi in his Family Rituals. This book instructs that the temple gate should face south, and in the middle of the Grand Hall, there should be a front shrine. On the left and right sides of the Grand Hall, there should be two side shrines. The memorial tablets of ancestors are placed inside the shrine. Ancestral worship was very popular during the Ming Dynasty. However, many families did not have the funds to build a temple and carry it out. Things changed substantially during the mid-Qing Dynasty, and many families became devoted to raising the funds to build an ancestral temple. By the Qing Dynasty, ancestral temples could be found all over the country in different sizes and scales. Some clans had become so large that they even had several thousand people. Regardless of whether a clan was big enough, many clan temples, and corresponding sub-clan temples were built. Many more were built in the Qing Dynasty, particularly in places where clan systems were advanced. The guidelines of the Qing government regarding clan, family and ancestral temples, had also become a lot more clear and specific. It was believed that the spirits of the ancestors gathered in ancestral temples, and therefore, this was the place where clan members conducted worship ceremonies. During the Ming Dynasty, great family events were discussed in meetings chaired by the clan leader. These included the updating of the genealogical book, renovation of the ancestral temple, the election of a clan leader and the purchase of land for tombs. If any clan member broke the law or the clan rules, the ancestral temple would become the family court. The clan leader would hold a trial, in which the member or members who committed wrongful deeds would be judged and/or punished. Normally, in such a situation, clan members and the middle-class of the community were allowed to audit the trial, because their presence had a great impact and promoted social discipline. Ancestral temples in the Ming Dynasty became a central focus point on which clan members could come together, and bond with their bloodline. Through ancestral worship and similar activities, they became united and formed close-knit family organizations. Ancestral temples were where clans offered sacrifices to their ancestors, and each clan had its own rules about governing the temple. Conduct during sacrificial worship was a key focus of ancestral temples. However, there were also rules for the routine management of temples, and a wide range of temple events. The Tan clan from Zhutang in Changsha, Hunan province developed a detailed set of rules that were effective in ensuring both of the above. They were as follows: (1) The clan leader is in charge of the affairs of the clan and the leader of the subclan in charge of the affairs of the sub-clan. One talented person with a high reputation, good moral traits and a strong work ethic is appointed the supervisor of the ancestral temple and this person manages its business.

15.4 Drawings of Cemeteries

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(2) All of the tax grain, silver, and financial items should be recorded in the clan accounts book after winter sacrifice and the blessings rituals. Calculation and verification of the clan funds should be carried out by the clan leader and the sub-clan leader. (3) The supervisor of the ancestral temple is responsible for coordinating work and arranging the successor of each post. All of those involved should honour their duties properly. The successors and departing staff should ensure that there is a smooth handover process. (4) The ancestral temple supervisor is responsible for administering the tax grain, but he has no right to charge tax on the tenants. (5) An honourable and diligent person—even if they have a different family name— can be nominated as an ancestral temple butler, whose responsibilities are keeping the consecration lamps and incense burning, and keeping the temple clean and tidy. (6) There will be rewards for achievements in literature, the military sciences and for those newly pass the civil recruitment examinations, to encourage the positive and diligent conduct of clan members. Ancestral temples in Ming and Qing Dynasties became the center of a family/clan, symbolizing its unity. Through ancestral worship and other activities, as well as effective management, with blood relationship as the link, the clansmen were firmly united and became a strict clan organization.

15.4 Drawings of Cemeteries Drawings of cemeteries define the tombs where the ancestors are buried. For those drawings, some tombs and ancestral temples are combined and are called the drawing of mausoleum temples, while some tombs including the mountains and waters nearby are called the tomb topology drawing. Those tomb drawings are mostly of one person (some include the wife), and sometimes of multiple owners. The Wu Family Cemeteries in Suzhou, Jiangsu has over 100 cemeteries; The Xiong and Sun Families Combined Cemeteries in Yiyang, Hunan has over 200 tombs. These drawings of cemeteries are mostly from the southern region, while some are from the north, like the Zhang Family Cemeteries Map in Tianshui, Gansu. The drawings of cemeteries from the South are more exquisite with rich contents, while those from the North are relatively succinct and rough. Why are the locations of ancestors’ tombs marked in details? It’s mainly for the descendants to “know where the tombs are located”4 so that they could protect,

4

The eighth edition of the Tan family branch genealogy in Chijiangwan, Zhongxiang, Xiangtan, Hunan 湖南湘潭中湘赤江湾谭氏八修支谱, 1938.

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preserve and sweep the tombs to achieve the purpose of respecting ancestors and consolidating clans.5 Tomb sacrifices derived from ancestor worship, like ancestral halls, and had a long history. Wei Song from the Qing Dynasty said: “The tomb sacrifice began in the Xia Dynasty.”6 After the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States period, folk tomb sacrifices have been quite popularized. Every Qingming Festival (Tomb-sweeping Festival), people come to the tombs of their ancestors to weed and add soil, or hang some paper on the branches, or put a wooden stick on the grave, hang paper money or tape, offer sacrifices, burn the “spirit” money and bow down. A sacrificial ceremony was held to place the mourning for the ancestors and request the ancestors for blessing. Tomb ceremonies were carried out in family units, and some were carried out in a group. In addition to the Tomb-sweeping Festival, tomb ceremonies are also held on the death anniversary and winter solstice. If there are new burials, they will be sacrificed before the Spring Community Day. In the ancient times, there was a saying that “a new grave must be sacrificed before the Spring Community Day”. In fact, the mentality of requesting ancestors’ blessings has been manifested as early as when the deceased was buried: people believed in the superstitions of Fengshui, and had the bad habit of suspending funerals and burials, for fear that a bad selection of tombs will be detrimental to the ancestors or harm their descendants. After the Song and Yuan Dynasties, as more and more private ancestral temples were established, people attached even greater importance to tombs and sacrifices. First, people emphasized more on the selection of tomb location. The Xingchang Gong Cemetery of the ancestor of the Yi 易 family in Ningxiang, Hunan, is located in Jiangjundong, Xixiang, Liuyang. “From the Eastern Jin Dynasty to now (the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era), this land has been picturesque and lush while the surrounding hills and valleys became barren.” The tomb “collected the essence of the mountains and rivers”, so it was “ever-lasting and solid.”7 In the past 400 years since the Deng 邓 family in Yuanjiang, Hunan, great talents have been cultivated from generation to generation. This is mainly because the ancestor Wen Zhi Gong was buried in the Huangziping tomb, “the Fengshui master said the tomb was located in a treasure land with the essence of nature.”8 The Jia 贾 family tomb in Pujiang, Zhejiang: “It looks like a long snake with a protruding tongue, surrounded by golden cities.”9 Secondly, people emphasized more on the renovation of tombs. 5

The revised Pu clan genealogy in Qianjian, Wuxi, Jiangsu. Compiled during the 25th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Jiaqing era (1820). 6 The Yi Shi Ji Shi 壹是纪始 (Validation of all details from the roots), Vol. 4. 7 The ninth edition of the Yi clan genealogy in Ningxiang, Hunan. Compiled during the 16th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1890). 8 The third edition of the Deng clan genealogy in Yuanjiang, Hunan. Compiled during the 26th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1900). 9 The Jia clan genealogy in Wuwei, Pujiang, Zhejiang 浙江浦江武威贾氏宗谱. Compiled during the 5th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1879).

15.4 Drawings of Cemeteries

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The Lei 雷 family in Xiangtan, Hunan echoed the emperor’s governance of “benevolence and piousness” and proposed to renovate the tombs. The standards for renovation were very high and different: First, the ancestral tombs of the three generations must be built by granite and renovated frequently; Second, the tomb mountain must be well preserved and renovate to make it last for thousands of years; Third, thousands of pine trees and cypresses should be planted near the cemeteries. Guards shall be hired to take care of the trees. The purpose of renovating the ancestral tombs is to “calm the spirit of the ancestors and request for blessings”.10 The first ancestor of the Xu 许 family in Nanguan, Jixi, Anhui, Ru Gong was born in late Tang Dynasty and buried in the Tangtou Mountain, Shexian. The descendants of Ru Gong were distributed in Southern Anhui and other provinces and became local prominent families. But after the Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties, the location of Ru Gong tomb was lost. During the Kangxi Era of the Qing Dynasty, the descendants of the Xu Family visited and repeatedly investigated the Tangtou Mountain based on the records of family genealogies. Finally, they confirmed that it was where their first ancestor Ru Gong was buried. They decided to “renovate the cemetery and erect a stone tablet”, and gathered the descendants to offer sacrifices on a regular basis.11 Third, the tomb sacrifice system became more complete. Since the first ancestor, all the Li 李 family members were buried in the cemeteries in Lanzhou, Gansu; Although the cemeteries had a vast territory, it was difficult to accommodate more and more tombs due to due to the proliferation of later generations. Therefore, since the twelfth generation, regulations have been made according to the distinction between elders and juniors: the eldest branch can continue to bury their ancestors in this cemetery, while other junior branches can choose other places for burial. In the choice of burial locations, the principle of “absolute distinguishment between seniority and inferiority” has been implemented.12 Many families made specific regulations on the time of tomb sacrifice. For example, the Dai 戴 family in Ningxiang, Hunan stated: “Every year at the Tomb-sweeping Festival, the clansmen shall offer sacrifices to ancestors.”13 The first grandmaster of the Sun 孙 family in Xianyang, Taiping, Anhui, Xi Shen Gong and his wife Zhao, were buried at the foot of Lushan Mountain. After suffering from the Yongle Campaign, the ritual system was naturally abandoned. In the 13th year of Emperor Tongzhi era (1874), his ancestor Dao Gong inherited his predecessors and purchased 14 mu of sacrifice fields in Gaozhou. Another tablet inscription was embedded on the wall of Dunxu Hall in Gaozhou, and specific regulations were made for the tomb worship: On the next day of Spring Community Festival, one The sixth edition of the Lei clan branch genealogy in Zhuzhou, Zhongxiang, Xiangtan, Hunan 湖 南湘潭中湘株州雷氏六修支谱. Compiled during the 17th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1891). 11 The Dunxutang Xu Clan Genealogy in Nanguan, Jixi, Anhui. Compiled during the15th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1889). 12 The Li clan genealogy in Lanzhou, Gansu. Compiled during the19th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Daoguang era (1839). 13 The fourth revision of Dai clan genealogy in Weining, Ningxiang, Hunan. Compiled during the 30th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1904). 10

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person from each branch was dispatched to the Dunxu Hall in Gaozhou for accommodation; At dawn the next day, the person was fully dressed up and went to the tomb of the first ancestor of Lushan, which was 25 miles away from Gaozhou to offer sacrifice. After the ceremony, he returned to the Dunxu Hall for dining; On the third day, everyone returned home. The rest of the money for tomb sacrifices was shared to them for paying the expenses of the round trip.14 Just as the construction, maintenance and daily activities of an ancestral temple need financial support, the construction of tombs and the organization of tomb sacrifice activities also need a certain amount of economic support. The above-mentioned Sun family in Xianyang, Taiping, Anhui was able to organize representatives of various branches to go to Lushan Mountain from tens of miles away to carry out tomb sacrifices, and to ensure the cost of accommodation and transportation. The key was to purchase 14 mus of sacrifice fields, or otherwise such activities as sacrifice ceremony were purely empty talk. Similar to other families, wherever there is a normal tomb sacrifice activity, there must be sacrifice fields as a financial guarantee. For example, in the cemeteries of the Shen 申 family in Suzhou, Jiangsu, the main coffin pit is a joint tomb that belonged to Wen Ding Gong and his wife. In order to ensure the normal development of the Shen family’s tomb sacrifice activities, more than 250 mus of sacrifice field and 117 mus of tomb mountain” were purchased. In addition to taxation, the income from the sacrifice field was exclusively used for sacrifices. Another example is the cemeteries of the ancestors of Zou family in Nangang Village, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu. There were three coffins and two pits. This mountain had three land deeds, a total of two mus, “All the firewood will still be given to the seller to pay for the guarding fee.”15 Some families’ graves were gradually purchased and increased. In order to ensure the normal progress of the tomb sacrifice activities, the families not only specially purchased the sacrifice fields, but also set up temples or villages beside the tombs to strengthen the daily management of the tomb areas. For example, Qin Guoan’s tomb is located in the Zhou Jia Cao cemeteries of Qin 秦 family in Yinxian County, Zhejiang Province. In order to strengthen the management of the tomb, the Qin family built a “Jing Yuan Zhuang” in the southeast of the tomb: “Sitting north and facing south, there are one room by the river and three rooms in the main house”, “The stove and kitchen utensils are guarded by villagers.” They are responsible for the daily care of the tomb area and the work of the tomb sacrifice (see Fig. 15.4). Similar to ancestral temples, in order to strengthen the management of tomb areas, sacrifice fields, tombs, and village houses, each family has established corresponding management systems. The Gongjiaao land in Huangyang Mountain, Xinyi County, Hunan Province was the ancestral graves purchased in early Ming Dynasty by the

14

The Sun clan genealogy in Xianyang, Taiping, Anhui. Compiled during the 23rd year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1897). 15 The Shen clan genealogy in Suzhou, Jiangsu. Compiled during the 21st year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1895).

15.4 Drawings of Cemeteries

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Fig. 15.4 The drawings of cemeteries of Zhou Jia Cao of Qin family in Yin County, Zhejiang

Gong clan’s four branches, Rong, Hua, Fu and Gui. In order to strengthen management, “the four branches established the contract and took their individual receipts, so that their descendants could abide by the rules and regulations.” The key points of the regulation are:

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(1) It is not allowed to cross the ancestors on horseback in the burial. Offenders are returned to the clan for punishment; (2) The trees in the territory are under public management, and if there are unauthorized fellers, they will be sent for punishment; (3) The sacrifice fields are public properties that belong to the four branches and are never allowed to sell. The “Regulations on Mausoleum Temples” formulated by the Wang family in Wuyuan, Jiangxi Province during the 48th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Qianlong era (1783). The ritual regulations are more specific: (1) The main hall of the mausoleum temple, dedicated for the first ancestor, shall be closed in normal time. During the major festivals, those who live in the ancestral hall will go to the family hall in the city to fetch the keys one day in advance, open the main hall, and decorate the incense lamps. After the incense lamp is extinguished, the main hall will be locked again and the original key will be delivered to the family hall in the city without delay. (2) Select an honest man with other surnames from another village to guard and maintain the tombs. The family purchased 5 mus of field for the guard to plough and live on what the land produced as the payment for his guardship of the tomb. (3) The descendants of the clan could not lodge in the ancestral hall or heap up objects. (4) Everyone must be fully dressed up for the sacrifice activities in the ancestral hall and offer one catty of sacrifice meat to the ancestors. Those who are not dressed up could not offer sacrifice meat.16 Since the cemetery is related to the reproduction and prosperity of a family, the economic disputes over the feng shui treasure land and the plunder of trees and other objects in the cemetery have occurred from time to time. In order to protect the interests of the family cemetery, many families had to resort to the government, demanding that the cemetery area must be measured. For example, there are more than 100 ancestor tombs in the Wu family cemeteries in Suzhou, Jiangsu. During the fifth year of the Jiaqing era (1800), the area of the tomb was measured at 19 mus and 2.5 cm. Later, part of the land was arrogated by the He family. In order to prevent the land from being arrogated by other surnames, in midsummer in the 9th year of the Daoguang era (1829), “The official Chen Kunquan remeasured the area and found that the land was obviously arrogated by others.” Therefore, a new map was drawn, “The Map of Wu Family Cemeteries in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, as a reference and testimony for the future generations.”17 Genying, the uncle of the Xu family in Jixi, Anhui, was buried in the East Huojiayuan of Yanwukou, in the early Ming Dynasty. From the Ming Dynasty to the mid 16

The Wang clan genealogy in Shuangshan, Wuyuan, Jiangxi. Compiled during the 19th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1893). 17 The Wu clan genealogy in Gaowu, Suzhou, Jiangsu 江苏苏州皋庑吴氏家乘. Compiled during the 33rd year of the Qing Dynasty’s Qianlong era (1768).

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Qing Dynasty, pine and cypresses were cultivated in the tomb area. However, since the Hongyang Rebellion, “the tomb sacrifices were no longer frequently conducted.” In the 7th year of Emperor Guangxu Era (1881), a local bully named Zhang Dingyuan fell the trees unlawfully on the right side of the tomb and moved the coffins of the non-Xu family to the mountain. A total of 13 coffins were stolen in the tomb area of Xu family. The Xu family had to file a lawsuit to the Jixi County governor, but the county government was unable to try Xu’s case in justice Xu due to Zhang’s bribery. The descendants of the Xu family went to Nanjing three times for appeal. The trial has lasted for eight years, with the final judgement: “The trees and cypresses in the tomb area of the Xu Family are not allowed to be felled unlawfully. The tombs in that area are not allowed to be stolen. If anyone violated the above rules, he would be prosecuted and sentenced accordingly. Since then, ‘there were no more thieves and robbers in that area.”18 There are quite many similar examples as the Xu family’s case. This provides important information for future generations to understand and study the society, economy and folk culture at that time. In addition, since the annotations on the tombs were all written by family relatives, the credibility was relatively high. Those annotations can sometimes make up for the missing parts and correct the errors in the official history. The annotation of Du Fu’s tomb in the Tang Dynasty in the Du Clan Genealogy in Pingjiang, Hunan is an example. Both the new and old Tang Shu (The Book of Tang) mentioned the tomb location of Du Fu: “He died in Leiyang and was buried in Yanshi.” The Du Clan Genealogy provided more accurate information for the location of Du’s tomb: it was not in Yanshi, but in Pingjiang! The clan genealogy attached to the Du Gong Bu Mu Bian (The Identification of Du Fu Tomb) pointed out: in September during the 5th year of the Tang Dynasty’s Dali era (770), Du Fu returned from Hunan to Qin and suffered from a severe cold on the boat. Then he died in Pingjiang and was buried in the Tianjing Lake 10 miles away from the Pingjiang county. At that time, Du Fu’s son Du Zizong failed to bury him due to illness. Instead, his son or Du Fu’s grandson took the responsibility to bury Du Fu in Pingjiang. From this example, we could further understand the historical values of tomb maps and annotations.

15.5 Other Illustrations Other illustrations involve libraries, academies, studies, free schools, public schools, and landscape maps. China is well-known for its time-honored history and well-developed culture. Various types of historical collections are distributed across the country. There are national-level book collection institutions, such as Wen Jin Ge, Wen Yuan Ge, Wen Lan Ge and etc., but most of them are libraries built by families. Among the more 18

The Dunxutang Xu Clan Genealogy in Nanguan, Jixi, Anhui. Compiled during the15th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1889).

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famous ones are Qian Qing Tang, Tian Yi Ge, Chuan Shi Lou, Jia Ye Tang and etc. The scholar Hong Liangji in the Qing Dynasty gave a special introduction to the Pei Feng Ge Library built by Zhu family in Jingxian, Anhui Province, highly praising that the Zhu family’s collection cannot be matched by those of the other bibliophiles in the Jiangsu, and Zhejiang provinces.19 The library building is generally built in a pleasant place with great sceneries. For example, the Shu family’s Library in Xiangxiang, Hunan: “The tributaries of Xiangshui River converge at the mouth of the river and reach Tantai. The library is built next to it, facing the city and with the river at the back. The great-grandfather Qing Yang once read books in the building. He collected thousands of volumes of ancient and modern books. That’s why the building is called Library. There are two floors in the library. Climbing up to the second floor, one can view the panorama of the mountains and river.”20 The Yue Fu Garden of the Zhu family in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province was the place where the fifth-generation ancestor of the Zhu Family in the Northern Song Dynasty had studied. For hundreds of years, Zhu’s Yue Fu Garden has been like a paradise on earth, and has become a place for local officialdoms to have academic exchanges and chants.21 In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, generally affluent families set up academies as learning places for their children. For example, the Guo family in Zhuji, Zhejiang, “our ancestor Xue Yan Gong established an academy at the foot of Beishan Mountain called “Chao Yang (Sunrise) Academy”.22 Some academies were really large. For example, the Ni family’s Zishan Academy in Jingxian, Anhui Province has more than 40 rooms, which took over 5800 silvers and eleven years to finish. “Located in the Zishan Village, the academy is called Zishan Academy. The Zi (purple) in the name means luxury. ……From Wen Chang Ge to Chun He Xuan, there are over 40 rooms in total, which cost 5800 silvers. It had been built for eleven years from the 33rd year (1768) to the 43rd year (1778) of the Qing Dynasty’s Qianlong era.”23

The renewed Zhu clan branch genealogy in Zhangxiangdu, Jingxian, Anhui 安徽泾县张香都朱 氏续修支谱. Compiled during the 33rd year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1907). 20 The Shu clan genealogy in Tantai, Xiangxiang, Hunan 湖南湘乡谭台舒氏族谱. Compiled during the 14th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1888). 21 The Zhu clan genealogy in Guwu, Wuxi, Jiangsu 江苏无锡古吴朱氏宗谱. Compiled during the 10th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Tongzhi era (1871). 22 The Guo clan genealogy in Zonghe, Zhuji, Zehjiang 浙江诸暨宗和郭氏宗谱. Compiled during the 8th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Jiaqing era (1803). 23 The Ni clan seventh branch genealogy in Xinzishan, Jingxian, Anhui 安徽泾县新紫山倪氏七 甲支谱. Compiled during the 53rd year of the Qing Dynasty’s Qianlong era (1788). 19

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Generally, academies have a history of several hundred years. Inevitably, there might occur some accidents. Some academies were burnt to ashes during the wartime. For instance, the Bi Quan Academy in Xiangtan, Hunan built by the first ancestor of the Hu family, Wen Ding Gong was demolished by soldiers for several times during the war. During the Qing Dynasty’s Qianlong era (1736–1795), “the academy was thoroughly rebuilt and renovated. Five acres of land was purchased in front of the ancestors’ cemeteries by eight branches of the descendants.”24 Some academies were embezzled and occupied for other purposes. For example, the famous scholar in Tongcheng in the Qing Dynasty, Fang Bao wrote the ‘Records of Repairing the Shuangfeng Academy’ for the Sun Clan Genealogy in Rongcheng, Baoding, Henan. Here is a vivid record: ‘Sun Zhengjun from Rongcheng took refuge in the West Mountain in Yizhou. His former residence in this place was turned into Shuangfeng Academy by his disciples. After Zhengjun relocated to Henan and his disciples returned home, the academy was appropriated by the local natives. “Some parts of the academies broke down due to no repair and maintenance for years. The family tried every means to renovate the academy. For example, the Cai Family Study House in Youxian County, Hunan: Cai Xuesong established this study house in Youxian, Hunan in early Ming Dynasty. It was renovated twice during the Ming Dynasty’s Wanli era and the Qing Dynasty’s Kangxi Era (1712). However, after a long time of no repair, the academy inevitably collapsed. In 1777, the clansmen all worked together and spent several months and over 200 golds on the renovation.” Over the past 400 years, the academy has been renovated for three times. The renovated academy was “majestic and grand”, which attracted numerous officialdoms and celebrities to visit.25 The Xiangxi Humble Cottage in the west of Xiangyue, Hunan was a study house built by Wang Chuanshan, a renowned scholar in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty. Wang Chuanshan has been teaching and writing book for over 30 years, with hundreds of volumes of works left to the future generations. After his death, he was buried in the Gao Po Ding near the cottage. His descendants turned that cottage into an ancestral hall. However, both the “Xiangxi Humble Cottage” and Chuanshan’s ancestral hall had been through bumps and grinds. The bandits near the cottage coveted the forest of Chuanshan’s cemetery and fell the trees unlawfully, which caused that “the tomb had no trees in surroundings while the cottage had no complete wooden doorsills”, arousing public indignation. As a result, during the 4th year of the Daoguang Era (1824), a ban was issued: “all the trees in the cemetery of Chuanshan are not allowed to be felled unlawfully. If anyone was found to violate the rules, he must be severely sentenced.” However afterwards, the unworthy descendants of Chuanshan sold a dozen mu of fields of the cottage to the person surnamed Zhu. The rest of the land was not sufficient enough for sacrifice activities. The Zhu person not only tended to purchase more of the sacrifice fields, but also arrogated and 24

The eighth edition of the Hu clan seven branches’ genealogy in Yongtian, Yinshan, Xiangtan, Hunan 湖南湘潭隐山涌田胡氏七房八修支谱 1929. 25 The ninth edition of the Cai clan genealogy in Lutian, Youxian, Hunan 湖南攸县渌田蔡氏九修 族谱 2001.

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cut the trees in the cemetery, which again aroused public anger. Hence, in August in the 11th year of the Xianfeng era (1861), another ban was issued: “Those who arrogated others’ land and fell the trees in the cemetery must suffer from severe punishments.” By the 2nd year of the Xuantong (1910), the local inspector set up a stone tablet as boundary for the sacrifice fields near the Xiangxi Humble Cottage, cultivated trees surrounding the tomb and drew maps of cemetery as a reference. Thanks to the bans and regulations, the famous study house of Xiangxi Humble Cottage has been well preserved.26 Some aristocratic families or prominent clans not only built academies, study houses in their habitats, but also followed the county government to establish the imperial examination centers where the clansmen could gather together and exchange academic ideas, in order to encourage the talents in the clan to participate in the imperial examination and achieve success in their official careers. For example, the clansmen of the Bu Family in Yiyang, Hunan, in the Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty, participated in the imperial examinations but they did not know each other. In order to make the exam candidates learn from each other, the family purchased the ancestral hall of the Wang Family in the Yihai Year of Emperor Guangxu (1875) that was then renovated and used as the imperial exam center after several months of construction. On the second year, many young talents of the Bu Family joined the exam and achieved great scores, which lived up to the expectation of the entire clan.27 Similar to the family ancestral hall, the maintenance of tombs requires the financial support of land properties. The learning places like family academy, study house, imperial examination center also need financial guarantee in order to maintain normal operation. Accordingly, many families had real estates and free schools and etc. For example, the Zeng Family in Shilian, Xiangtan, Hunan, in the 23rd year of Emperor Guagnxu Era (1897), the clan discussed and decided to establish land properties and free schools with specific regulations.28 After the Republic of China, many academies, study houses and free schools were transformed to contemporary elementary schools that continued to receive family support for school running. For example, the He family in Yueyang, Hunan “reached a consensus in 1949 to donate part of their land properties to the Gao Tang Elementary School so that the children of the tenant Wu family could study there.”29

The fifth edition of the Wang clan genealogy in Hanjiang, Hengyang, Hunan 湖南衡阳邗江王 氏五修族谱 1917. 27 The seventh edition of the Bu clan genealogy in Yiyang, Hunan 湖南益阳卜氏七修家谱. Compiled during the 13th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1887). 28 The seventh edition of the Zeng clan genealogy in Shilian, Xiangtan, Hunan 湖南湘潭石莲曾氏 七修族谱. Compiled during the 27th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1901). 29 The He clan genealogy in Pingqiao, Yueyang, Hunan 湖南岳阳坪桥何氏族谱 1949. 26

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The He family in Yueyang, Hunan not only provided support for education, but also actively organized cultural and entertainment activities. There was always a custom of sacrificial play in Yueyang, Hunan. In the past, the He Family set up a simple stage for performances. After several years, the wood of the stage was corroded, which not only wasted money for repair but also compromised the audience’s interests in the play. In 1934, the Xu family chose an appropriate land and built a performance stage. After three months, the stage was completed, sitting in the west and facing the north, with ample room for military and singing plays of operas.30 The illustrations in this part are mostly landscape pictures. Like the Liao’s Four Season Sceneries in Nanhai, Guangdong, the Mao’s Jin Tang Hall Eight Sceneries in Jiangyong, Hunan, the Shi’s Eight Scenaries in Liuyang, Hunan, the Wang’s Ten Sceneries in the Kingdom of Yue, Nanling, Anhui and etc. From these pictures, we could see a live and vivid scenery of the rural areas in the southern part of China.31 Are the scenery paintings listed in family genealogies merely for impressing the future generations? According to the Mao Clan Genealogy in Jiangyong, Hunan, the landscape painting was not only for impressing the future generations, but also for showcasing “the environment of the motherland”, so as to trigger people’s passion for their hometown. Most of the illustrations in family genealogies feature one painting with one scenery and one event. However, the 11 paintings from the Xu’s Basking in Sunshine Painting to the Drinking in the West Garden in Spring, reflected the 400 years of Xu’s family history. They not only covered the major events that occurred in the history of Xu family but also provided important historical material for the Ming and Qing Dynasties. One of the painting is the Xu’s Basking in Sunshine Painting, which revealed the family motto established by the 4th-generation ancestor Fa Sheng Gong of the Xu family “Stay Indifferent to Fame and Wealth”: Fa Sheng Gong was born in early Ming Dynasty. Throughout his life, he never coveted vanity and fame. What he aspired for was family harmony and reunion. The 6th painting is the Xu’s Ploughing Painting, which revealed the 16thgeneration ancestor of Xu Family, De Zan Gong’s military achievements during the maritime war. After the war ended, he returned home and plough as usual. He inherited the spirit of the ancestor “Stay Indifferent to Fame and Wealth”. This painting vividly depicted the 16th-generation ancestor De Zan Gong’s behavior of “staying indifferent to fame and wealth”. The 10th painting is the Farewell Banquet in the Wei Garden, which reveals the banquet held by Xu Run and his brothers in the Yihai Year of Emperor Guangxu Era (1875). At that time, the Qing government implemented a new policy of reform to change the situation of poverty and weakness, and put forward the concepts of “Combine the Chinese essence and Western utility” and “Learn from the Advanced technologies in the West in order to Resist the Invasion of the Western Powers “, by 30

Ibid. The Liaoweize hall genealogy in Nanhai, Foshan, Guangdong 广东佛山南海廖维则堂家谱. Compiled during the 28th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Daoguang era (1848).

31

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dispatching young children to the United States to learn Western technology. Xu Run held a farewell banquet in Wei Garden to see off his younger brothers, Wuchen and Jianchen before they went to study in the United States. The Farewell Banquet in the Wei Garden also mentioned that his third sister and brother Ji Cheng “had already gone abroad”, indicating that after the mid-nineteenth century, Guangdong and other places were first affected by European countries. As a result, their awareness and actions of going abroad to learn the advanced Western skills were leading in the country.32 It’s worth mentioning that Xu Rongcun, a member of the 16th generation of the Xu family in Beiling, Zhongshan, Guangdong, is the first person in China to participate in the Expo. In the twenty-first century, Shanghai bid for the World Expo. But before 2002, it is generally believed by the academic circle and the public that the relationship between China and the World Expo originated in 1867. Because this year, Wang Tao, a modern reformist thinker and a literato from Wuxian County, Jiangsu Province, happened to arrive in Paris, France, and visited the World Expo. He wrote an article entitled “Travel Notes: The Impression of Museums”, which described the grand scenes of the Paris World Expo at that time. Just as Shanghai’s bid to host the 2010 World Expo was in full swing and everyone agreed that “China’s first participator in the World Expo was Wang Tao, a literato in the late Qing Dynasty”, Xu Xizeng, a descendant of the Xu family in Beiling, Zhongshan, Guangdong and a retired professor of Jiaotong University, announced to the world that the relationship between China and the World Expo began at the first World Expo in London in 1851, and his ancestor Xu Rongcun participated in that Expo. The basis is the Xu Clan Genealogy in Beiling, Zhongshan, Guangdong, which records in detail: Xu Ruiheng, courtesy name Deqiong, literary name Rongcun, was among the first batch of merchants to start up silk and tea business in Shanghai after the opening of Shanghai port. When he learned that Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom invited more than ten countries to attend the World Exposition in London in 1851, he immediately packed 12 bags of silk and brought it to Britain to participate in the exhibition. Because his Rong Ji Lake Silk was the best of silk, it won the golden and silver awards (see Fig. 15.5). According to the illustration: the World Expo was held in London. Exhibitors from the five continents took their treasure products to attend. Xu Gong sent twelve bundles of the Rong Ji Lake Silk from 40,000 miles away to participate in the London Expo. There were hundreds of different types of silk in the Expo, piling up like a small hill. However, after they saw Xu Gong’s silk and compared it with other products, all of them agreed that Xu’s silk was second to none. Queen Victoria was happy to learn this news and rewarded Xu golden and silver awards, as well as a painting as a gift. The historical fact that Rong Ji Lake Silk won the awards was proven in the literature report of the First World Expo in London published in 1852. 150 years ago, Xu Rongcun from the Xu family in Beiling, Zhongshan, Guangdong became the first person to participate in the World Expo with a pioneering spirit and won The Xu clan genealogy in Beiling, Zhognshan, Guangdong 广东中山北玲徐氏宗谱. Compiled during the 10th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era (1884).

32

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Fig. 15.5 The Rong Ji Lake Silk of the Xu from Beiling, Zhongshan, Guangdong Won the Golden and Silver Awards at the First World Expo

the honors for China. Based on the historical materials recorded in the Xu Clan Genealogy in Beiling, Zhongshan, Guangdong, the relationship between China and the World Expo could be traced back to 16 years earlier. This example again showed that the illustrations and annotations in the literature of Chinese family genealogies have important historical values.

Chapter 16

The Transformation of Chinese Genealogical Functions

Chinese genealogy has a long history and its origin can be traced back to the late period of the primitive matriarchal clan society. The 5000-years history of genealogy can be roughly divided into the following stages: origin, birth, prosperity, transformation, perfection, popularization, and new compilation. The cultural customs of compiling genealogy for 5000 years are an integral part of the Chinese civilization. As for the role that Chinese genealogy has played in society over the last 5000 years, this can be assessed by looking at three key periods. During the period when genealogy originated, it mainly had a eugenics function. When genealogy first began to prosper it came to have a political function. During the era that genealogy was being perfected and popularized, it mainly had an ethnical function in society. During the recent five decades when genealogy was newly compiled, it had a cultural function.

16.1 The Budding Stage: For Eugenic Purposes What is genealogy? Throughout the ages, there have been dozens or even hundreds of definitions. In my November 11, 1997 article published in Wenhui Daily, I put forward that genealogy “is the historical records of a consanguineous clan’s lineage and achievements.” Strictly speaking, this definition is not broad enough because it only contains book-type genealogy. So I think it is more accurate to define genealogy as “a description of the carrier of blood lineage”. This definition is all-encompassing to include both written and non-written genealogy, such as oral genealogy and knotted rope genealogy. It not only refers to book-type genealogy, but other types such as stone-tablet genealogy, and cloth genealogy. It also includes mature and complete genealogies after the Song Dynasty, as well as the most primitive genealogies, such as oracle and bronze genealogies. It includes the genealogy of a family and a clan, as well as the general genealogy of several families and clans with the same surname. At the

© Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2023 H. Wang, The General Theory of China’s Genealogy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6377-5_16

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same time, this definition excludes family history records that do not systematically record lineage, biographies, histories, etc. Two things are important to note in this definition: it must refer to blood lineage, in a narrow sense because of the consanguinity of a family, in a broad sense because of clans, multiple kinship families and large clans which have multiple branches from a progenitor. Secondly, there must be a pedigree. It can be simple and only detail several generations, such as the pedigree of grandfathers, fathers, sons, grandsons, etc. The pedigree can also be the generations that have descended from one pro-genitor, or the various branches that have been descended from one progenitor. Since genealogy is “the carrier of describing blood lineage”, its origin must be closely related to the formation of different blood lineages. It is well known that human beings in the early era of group marriages and living lives that conducted sexual incest in a large and confusing scales, so there is no stable blood lineage to follow with certainty. Marriages happened between parents and children, and brothers and sisters. But soon, these relationships, even those within the matriclan line, were forbidden and regarded as a form of incest. Human beings subsequently entered clan societies, based on their lineages. Descendants of the same ancestor lived together, produced together, shared distribution, shared inheritance of property, shared sacrifice to ancestors, conducted joint revenge of blood clan, and were buried in the same cemetery after death, thus forming a clan group with common blood. As Engels said: “The clan is a primitive formation from human society based on blood. These gens were organized according to the mother’s right; but there was a discovery of the primitive form, out of which developed the later gens, and these were organized according to the father’s right. The gens as we find it were among the ancient, civilized people. The Greek and Roman gens—the old riddle of historians— now found explanation in the Indian gens, and a new foundation was thus laid for civilization’s entire, primitive history.”1 That is to say, our human ancestors first formed matrilineal clans and these subsequently developed into patrilineal ones. Both matriarchal and patrilineal clans in primitive society were families that had been formed by combining blood ties. In matriclan societies, the clan leader was usually a woman, and she was in charge of her children.2 Lineage was counted on the basis of the matrilineal line. Men were not permanent residents, whereas women were stable clan members. Members of clans were descendants of a common female ancestor. However, men increasingly played a more important role in leading the production of labor, and matriclan society began to transition into patriclan society. Increasingly, when a woman got married, she went to live with her husband, and her children became the charge of the father. Lineage was calculated on the basis of the patrilineal line.

1

Marx and Engels. Complete works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 3. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1975: 300. 2 L˝ u Simian. A brief history of the chinese patriarchal clan system. Longhu Bookstore, 1935: 4.

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Was China’s genealogy supposed to originate from matrilineal societies? Paleoanthropological and sociological studies show that Chinese genealogy originated from the matriclan society with symbolic oral and knotted rope genealogies. However, compared to the latter, oral genealogies are a more primitive form. The ancient Chinese classics made records of family pedigrees that had existed before writing was created. For instance, Shan Hai Jing (The Classic of Mountains and Seas) recorded the family genealogies of Yan Di (or Huang Di in various texts, surnamed Jiang and nicknamed Shennongshi): “Yan Di’s wife Ting Yao, a lady from the Red River Tribe, gave birth to Yan Ju. Yan Ju bore Jie Bing; Jie Bing gave birth to Xi Qi; and Xi Qi bore Zhu Rong. Zhu Rong was consigned to the Yangtze River, and he fathered Gong Gong, the water god. Gong Gong fathered Shu Qi … Gong Gong also sired Hou Tu, the earth deity, and Hou Tu bore Ye Ming.” It also recorded the genealogy of Di Jun, who was believed to be the first ancestor of the Eastern tribes: “Di Jun gave birth to Yu Hao. Yu Hao bore Yin Liang; and Yi Liang bore Fan Yu, who was the first to use a boat. Fan Yu gave birth to Xi Zhong; and Xi Zhong bore Ji Guang, who invented the cart.” These genealogies were handed down orally through generations; that is, they were oral genealogies that were later written down. The family line of Shengnongshi and Di Jun a linked name genealogy transmitted orally. The oral genealogies of Shennongshi and Di Jun were interlinked by name; in other words, the last syllable or the last two/three syllables of each descendant’s name has been placed before the name of the subsequent descendant. For example, “Yan Ju bore Jie Bing; Jie Bing gave birth to Xi Qi; and Xi Qi bore Zhu Rong.” This linked name system is similar to the technique employed in classic Chinese poetry. See the below example—the following is a poem by Li Bai, the most famous poet of the Tang Dynasty (AD 618–907): Farewell Song of the White Clouds Floating over the Qin and Chu Mountains are white clouds, And the white clouds follow you wherever you go. Wherever you go, they will be with you, When you enter the Chu Mountains…

Many of the customs of our primitive ancestors, including orally transmitted genealogies, have been well preserved among some minority nationalities. In Yunnan, the Nu ethnic group in Bijiang uses a linked name system for their oral genealogies. People from Village No. 9 in Bijiang’s District One could recite the names of 41 generations. They called themselves “the Nujiang natives,” and they are also known as the Douhuo Clan, which can be roughly translated as “the people living above.” Legend has it that the first ancestor of the Douhuo Clan was a woman named Maoying Chong. This name means “a person descended from the sky,” and the Douhuo people take this as an honor. The linked name lineage of the Douhuo Clan can be seen as follows (the translations here will be given in Pinyin according to the pronunciation):

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1. Maoying Chong

2. Chong Luobing

3. Luobing Zhe

4. Zhe Maote

5. Maote Beng

6. Beng Xiyao

7. Xiyao Wei

8.Weiwei Qu

9. Quwei Neng

10. Nengbo Chi

11. Chichi Wei

12. Weiluo Bie

13. Bie Xiaxiu

14. Xiaxiu Da

15. Da Juliu

16. Juliu Gu

17. Gu Xiyou

18. Xiyou Bin

19. Bin Haogei

20. Haogei Chou

21. Chou Nayao

22. Nayao Quan

23. Quan Xiayou

24. Xiayou Shi

25. Shi Jucai

26. Jucai Nu

27. Nu Nuju

28. Nuju Gu

29. Gu Juanxue

30. Juanxue Du

31. Dulao Di

32. Dilao Wu

33. Wulao Qiu

34. Qiulao Man

35. Manlao Cui

36. Cuinue Man

37. Mane Jiao

38. Jiaozou Ou

39. Outong Shou

40. Shoukan Du

41. Duji Zhou

……

The Douhuo people are convinced that their first ancestor, Maoying Chong, is a woman. Setting aside the mythological accruals, this reveals a rational historical kernel: male-dominated, patrilineal oral genealogies evolved from a woman—that is, the primogenitor—just as patrilineal clans developed from matrilineal clans.3 Similar situations existed with oral genealogies among other ethnic minorities. According to A Survey of the Wa Ethnic Group’s Society and History in the 1950s, during the Wa people’s 2000-year history, they were a matriarchal society for approximately 1000 of those years. Hundreds of years of patriarchal, social development led to primitive society transitioning before 1949 to become a class-based society. The survey found that some Wa clan family genealogies detailed more than 20 generations, and some as many as 42 generations. Legend has it that “people invited Ge Lei Nuo and Ge Li Ci as leaders. Legend has it that “people invited Ge Lei Nuo and Ge Li Ci as leaders. Ge Lei Nuo was a man and Ge Li Ci was a woman. Ge Li Ci created the truth, and from then on, there was an order of brothers, as well as men and women. Women understood reason before men, and men had to listen to women. Later, Ge Li Ci did not want to be a leader, so she asked Ge Lei Nuo to lead. But whenever the man found something that he did not understand, he still asked the woman for advice. Women led for 30 generations, while men led for 20 generations.”4 We can infer from this legend that the Wa people’s oral genealogy—that which is still in circulation—was a matrilineal genealogy made up of mothers’ and daughters’ names some twenty generations ago. 3

A survey of the Nu ethnic group’s society and history. Kunming: Yunnan People’s Publishing House, 1981: 37. 4 A survey of the Wa ethnic group’s society and history. Kunming: Yunnan People’s Publishing House, 1983: 5.

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From the above examples, it can be clearly seen that in ancient Chinese society, there were not only patrilineal oral genealogies but also matrilineal ones. Patriarchal oral genealogies were the product of patriarchal clans, whereas matriarchal oral genealogies were the product of matriarchal clans. Just as patriarchal clans developed from a society of matriarchal clans, so did patriarchal oral genealogies. Knotted rope genealogies existed around the same time as oral genealogies, and were one of China’s most primitive forms of genealogy. Before writing came into existence, people in China tied knots into ropes as a way of keeping records. Knots helped people remember certain key events. Much has been documented in ancient Chinese books on how knotted ropes were used to govern the state. According to the Zhou Yi: Xi Ci II (Book of Changes: The Great Treatise II), “In the highest antiquity, government was carried on successfully by the use of knotted cords (to preserve the memory of things). In subsequent ages the sages substituted for these written characters and bonds. By means of these (the doings of) all the officers could be regulated, and (the affairs of) all the people accurately examined.” This book clearly states that before writing was invented, people tied knots into ropes to record their memories. The Zhuangzi 庄子also states that “in the past, people used ropes to keep records.” This method is still used today by some ethnic groups in remote areas of China. The Hani ethnic minority group in Yunnan, the Tibetan Menba and Taiwan’s Gaoshan people use this method. Abroad, some Persians, Mexicans and Peruvians also use this method. People knotted ropes to make records, keep accounts and transmit information, but they also used ropes to record the events of family members and to record lineage. Therefore, there was a special phenomenon of knotted rope genealogies. In the 1980s, Zhang Qizhuo conducted research into the ethnic minorities living in Xiuyan, Liaoning. His research work Manchu in Xiuyan revealed how the Manchu and Xibe people (among others) used knotted ropes to keep records and genealogies. The Manchu people attached great importance to ancestral worship. Almost every family had an ancestral position on its western wall. They did no hang ancestors’ portraits, but instead used colorful, foot-long silk strips to represent them. They placed these inside a wooden box, along with genealogies, arrows left behind by their ancestors, and sacrificial scrolls. They did no hang ancestors’ portraits, but instead used colorful, foot-long silk strips to represent them. They placed these inside a wooden box, along with genealogies, arrows left behind by their ancestors, and sacrificial scrolls. This box was then placed on an ancestral board. To the right of this board, a memorial tablet for the “Zisun Mama” was placed—the goddess who presides over offspring, who is also known as “Mother Kindness”. The Manchu people believed that she could protect their offspring, by keeping them safe, and in reproduction. They placed a paper bag known as the “praying for children pocket” in front of her tablet. Inside this bag, about 22ft’s worth of string was placed, that was five different colors. This custom using string was a type of knotted rope genealogy. The Oroqen people who live in the Hailaer River Basin of the Greater Khinggan Mountains in Heilongjiang Province tied knots to keep track of events. As late as

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the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they used horsehair ropes to tie knots to show how many generations there are in a family: three knots mean three generations and five knots mean five generations. They venerated these ropes and hung them on wooden beams in the middle of their houses. Such horsehair ropes and silk ropes were their family genealogies. When considering the value of genealogy, we should be answering two questions: What role has genealogy played in society during China’s 5000-year history? There is much archaeological data proving that the Chinese people lived as early as one million years ago. However, during that time, the earliest, primitive human beings had just been separated from the animal kingdom, that is, from apes to ape-like men, and then to humans during the early/middle Paleolithic era. At that time, productivity was low and people still lived in groups. This type of behavior was typically known as a “group marriage”. There were no restrictions on sexual activity between family members or close relatives, and it didn’t matter how old or young a sexual partner was. But by the late Paleolithic period, there was a developed understanding of productivity, and primitive human beings found that relationships between members of the same bloodline were not conducive to future generations. They became disgusted with unrestricted promiscuity between immediate family members and came to realize that “if men and women with the same family name were married, they would not give birth to healthy offspring.” So it became necessary for them to distinguish between clans and tribes of different lineage. As well as this, the seniority of clan/tribe members of the same lineage also needed to be distinguished. This made it possible for blood lineages to be recorded and narrated. However, writing had not yet been created by human beings; people used oral and knotted genealogies and dictated these genealogies by heart. Offspring became carriers for recorded genealogies, and these genealogies enabled the prevention of unrestricted sexual activities between lineal relatives. It also meant that people could ensure the healthy birth and child-rearing of future generations. People attached great importance to these genealogies just for this function alone. In the early 1950s, Liu Yaohan conducted a social and historical survey of the Yi minority group. In 1956, their population in Liangshan was approximately one million, of which about three fourths had oral genealogies. For ethnic Yi men, the ability to recite one’s clan’s genealogy was a basic condition for them to establish themselves in society. They could recite the names of dozens of ancestral generations in one go. This ability enabled them to obtain many social conveniences. As the Yi proverb goes, “You can go around the clan and survive without carrying solid foods. Relying on the clan, all three generations will be safe.” It was not enough to just memorize your patrilineal genealogy; people also needed to know the matrilines of their “uncle” lineage. As another proverb goes: “If you cannot recite your father’s genealogies, the clan will not recognize you; if you can’t recite your uncles’ (on your mother’s side), your relatives won’t recognize you.”5 This showed that oral genealogies played a very important role in the social life of the Liangshan Yi people. 5

Liu Yaohan. The collected surveys and research work related to the Yi ethnic group’s society and history. Beijing: Ethnic Publishing House, 1980: 109.

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People also showed great respect to knotted rope genealogies. Like the Manchu, the Xibe attached great importance to ancestral worship. The ancestral shrine was generally set up close to the western wall, with two wooden, ancestral boxes placed inside. The box positioned to the south was for Zisun Mama, the legendary female ancestor. Like the Manchu people, the Xibe ethnic group regarded Zisun Mama as a goddess who kept them safe and enabled them to prosper in reproduction. Zisun Mama was represented by a 20-foot-long silk rope, with small bows and arrows, boots, quivers, cradles, copper coins, cloth strips and bones (often the taluses of pig hind legs) attached to it. The Xibe people of northeastern China had a two-foot-long silk rope that served as their knotted rope genealogy. A few dorsal bones on the rope indicate how many generations the tribe has gone through; a few bows and arrows indicate how many men there are in this family; a few red cloths indicate how many women there are in this family. This silk rope would usually be placed inside a paper bag. During Spring Festival, the Xibe people would take it out, place it within the shrine’s southeast corner, burn incense and kowtow. They would then place it back inside the paper bag on the second day of the second lunar month. The Xibe people’s ceremony for erecting the ancestral box was very grand and mysterious. It was usually held at midnight and only local people were allowed—no outsiders. During the ceremony, cattle were slaughtered and given to the ancestors as sacrificial offerings. China’s most primitive oral and knotted genealogies came into being as various blood groups formed to meet the needs of healthy reproduction, and therefore we can see how they had a special eugenics function.

16.2 The Development Stage: For Political Purposes During the Xia and Shang dynasties, China’s clan society developed, and the country’s genealogy transformed from its primitive form. During the Zhou Dynasty, aristocratic families enjoyed engraving their lineage on bronze wares as a symbol that they respected and worshipped their ancestors. During the Zhou Dynasty, the government attached great importance to genealogies that recorded blood lines and showed how close consanguinity was, because blood ties were what the patriarchal clan system was based on. The Zhou Dynasty adopted a centralized method of recording and managing all aristocratic genealogies, and historians established complete systems of genealogies, and a number of genealogical works. These manifested as the Da Dai Li Ji: Di Wang Pian and the Shi Ben. All these meant that Chinese genealogy was officially born during the Zhou Dynasty and made great progress. During the Han Dynasty, status was granted to many princes and lords close to the imperial family. This further strengthened the rank and consanguinity of the emperor and his subjects. The Han government set up a special organization to manage the pedigree charts of the emperor, imperial princes and lords, thus leading to a large number of official genealogies. With the revival of feudal clan power, the

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mid-Western Han Dynasty saw a surge in private genealogies. “The prosperity of family genealogies began in the Han Dynasty.”6 Chinese genealogies prospered during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. Yang Dianxun stated in his General Theory of Chinese Genealogy, that “Chinese genealogy entered a golden age during the Wei and Jin, and Southern and Northern Dynasties. Private genealogies were all submitted to and maintained by the government. Special officials were appointed to take charge of them. With an increased number of genealogical works appearing, some of them were even included in the Sui Zhi, which recorded the official dynastic history of the Sui Dynasty (581–618). Special catalogues were also created for preserving and consulting works.” His statements summarized three characteristics of the prosperous genealogies during the period. (1) An increased number of genealogical works appeared. No genealogical works during these periods have been found so far. According to Zheng Qiao’s Yi Wen Lue in the Tong Zhi (General treatises), there were 155 genealogies and genealogical works produced during these five dynasties—which were spread out over 2365 volumes. Nineteen genealogies are cited in Pei Songzhi’s annotation of the San Guo Zhi (Annals of the Three Kingdoms) and 36 genealogies are cited in Liu Xiao’s annotation of the Shi Shuo Xin Yu. In his General Theory of Chinese Genealogy, Yang Dianxun recorded the genealogical works that had been cited in the San Guo Zhi, the Wei Zhi, and the Shi Shuo Xin Yu, among other books, as being from these periods, and he divided them into the following categories: family genealogies (there are a total of 62 such genealogies), general genealogies (there are a total of 23 such books spanning 1119 volumes), commandery genealogies (there are a total of 13 such books spanning 889 volumes), and imperial genealogies (there are a total of 15 such books spanning 57 volumes). There were numerous genealogical works spanning more than 300 years from the Jin Dynasty Emperor Wu’s reign (265), to the Sui Dynasty Emperor Yang’s reign (618). (2) The government appointed special officials to take charge of genealogies. The governments of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties established special agencies and appointed officials to compile the genealogies of aristocratic families, so that they could maintain their status. “A genealogical agency should be headed by someone who is erudite and informed. They should know everything about genealogy.”7 These agencies had three tasks: “to collect, compile and edit, and review all genealogies and assemble them into a comprehensive book.”8 Genealogies provided genealogical agencies with important data. During the Wei Dynasty, rectifiers, recorders, and personnel evaluators had access to the genealogies that were kept in their regions/commanderies. After the first year of the Xianhe period in the Jin Dynasty (326), all of the 6

Yang Dianxun. 1994. The general theory of Chinese genealogy. Quarterly Bulletin of Chinese Bibliography, New Vol. 3, Issues 1–2. 7 Zheng Qiao. Shi Zu Xu. Shi Zu Lue. In the Tong zhi 通志 (General treatises). 8 Pan Guangdan. A brief history of Chinese genealogy. Eastern Miscellany 1929: 26 (1).

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genealogies that had been specifically maintained by the Department of State Affairs were set up in a storeroom. (3) With many genealogical works appearing, a number of scholars also began springing up, who were specifically engaged in genealogical compilation and study. “Zhi Yu 挚虞 was the first to write a genealogical book the Zhao Mu 昭穆 spanning ten volumes; Jia Bi, Liu Zhan, Wang Sengru, and He Chentian followed in the footsteps of Zhi and they wrote tens of thousands of words in hundreds of chapters. Genealogies were flourishing.”9 During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the most famous genealogists were born into two specific families: the Jia 贾 and the Wang 王 family. The Jia family was deeply interested in the study of genealogy. Five members of the Jia family became genealogists, and they were spread across six generations from Jia Bizhi to Jia Guan. They all made important contributions to genealogy. The Wang family was also famous for the contributions its members made to genealogy. Wang Hong and Wang Jian, who were grandfather and grandson, made the greatest contributions. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, it was common for people to avoid saying each other’s grandparents’ or parents’ names. This was a taboo; if it was violated, there were negative repercussions. Because Wang Hong was proficient in genealogies, he knew how to behave at both official and private social occasions.10 He was spoken highly of by both scholars at the time and later generations. The reason why the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties became the “golden age” of Chinese genealogies was directly related to the development of the farm economy and the expansion of clan power. During the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the landlord system gradually took shape. Landowners dominated the fields of the wilderness, and they owned hundreds of buildings. During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the intensification of land annexation and the implementation of the Nine-Rank system meant that local magnates further expanded their power. They and their families completely controlled all levels of political power, from central to local. They were part of a powerful political system that lasted for hundreds of years. These magnates accumulated large amounts of land. Because the government imposed various taxes and corvees on peasants, this forced them to flee to seek the help of large landlords. These magnates were thus able to turn them into “private property”. These big landlords used clan relations to control a large number of labor forces and enslaved them. They became so influential that during the Eastern Jin and Southern Dynasties, five regional groups of aristocratic families formed across China. “In the south, the biggest families were surnamed Wang 王, Xiao 萧, Xie 谢 and Yuan 袁; in the southeast, the biggest families were surnamed Zhu 朱, Zhang 张, Gu 顾 and Lu 陆; in the central Shaanxi plain, it was Yang 杨, Du 杜, Liu 柳 and Pei 裴; in central plains, it was Cui 崔, Lu 卢, Wang 王 and Zheng 郑; in the northwest, it was Yuan 元, Yu 于, Yuwen 宇文 and 9

The Wang family genealogy of Jixi. The 37th year of the Qianlong reign (1772). The Wang sub clan genealogy in Huanxi. The sixth year of the Xianfeng era in the Qing Dynasty (1856).

10

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Zhangsun 长孙.”11 These local magnates employed private armies to defend their domain and clans, in efforts to both enslave the people and safeguard their economic interests. Aristocrats such as Cao Cao, Sun Jian, Li Dian, Tian Chou, Li Tong, and Xu Zhu organized clan forces and suppressed peasant uprisings. The four big families of the south also had their own clan forces. Private armed forces could be found all over the country, especially in Jingzhou and Jiangxi. In order to maintain their clan armies, local magnates used blood relatives and clan ideologies to win over and control clan members. Genealogies became a tool to use to their advantage. Therefore, aristocratic families actively compiled genealogies, and during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, their behavior was effective in promoting the prosperity of genealogical records.12 More importantly, the prosperity of genealogies was related to the social and political purposes the genealogies served to recruit officials. As known to all, the ruling groups of the feudal era were especially strict about selecting talent and establishing relevant systems. In an effort to consolidate their rule, a special recruiting system was implemented during the Western Han Dynasty. Emperors and governments could directly call up eminent people to take posts in the court. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, personnel recruitment involved recommendations. Appointers judged a person’s moral character and their ability according to comments made about them in society. During the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Pi, the King of Wei, took suggestions from the Minister of Personnel, Chen Qun. He instituted the system of Nine Ranks by Rectifiers during the first year of Yan Kang (220). Throughout the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the governments registered all families that rightfully belonged to the elite class of Servicemen. The Rectifiers then classified men of that class in their jurisdictions, and assigned them to one of nine ranks. The ranks theoretically reflected their meritoriousness: upper-upper, upper-middle, upper-lower, middle-upper, middle-middle, middle-lower, lower–upper, lower-middle, or lower-lower. The decisions of the Rectifiers were submitted to the Ministry of Education, where they were cross-checked, and then handed over to the Ministry of Personnel. The Ministry of Personnel then determined people’s official posts according to their assigned ranks. But who could qualify as a Rectifier? Only local dignitaries qualified as Rectifiers. They were appointed by the Ministry of Personnel in each Region (Zhou, 州), Commandery (Jun, 郡), or District (Xian, 县) as Senior Rectifiers, Rectifiers, or Junior Rectifiers respectively. As a result, rectifier posts were completely monopolized by members of aristocratic families. Rectifiers were supposed to evaluate candidates for office based on three criteria: the reputation of a candidate’s family over several generations, their own moral character, and their competence. However, in practice, especially during the Western Jin Dynasty, the criterion of competence was increasingly overshadowed by candidates’

11

The Wang family genealogy of Jixi. The 10th Year of the Qianlong reign (1745). Liu Liming. Ancestral temple, spirit tablet and family genealogy. Chengdu: Sichuan People’s Publishing House, 2003: 176.

12

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family background. Thus genealogy played an important role when it came to official recruitment. Song Dynasty writer Wen Tianxiang (1236–1283) described this phenomenon in the Ba Wu Shi Zu Pu (Postscript to the Wu clan genealogy), “From the Wei and the Jin Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty, the mechanism was always to emphasize a person’s family history, and so family genealogies became very important.”13 Both the government and the Chinese elite attached great importance to genealogy, since it facilitated the selection of officials and proved their identity/status.14 Rectifiers needed genealogies to know more about candidates, and candidates needed them to prove their family’s background and worth. Obviously, genealogies served a special function at that time. The Servicemen class wanted to perpetuate the predominance of the hereditary elite in government, and they tried to prevent poor people from intruding into the noble families and claiming they themselves were aristocratic or had an aristocratic connection through marriage. The Servicemen proposed that the government pass legislation to determine which families belonged to their class. Servicemen that were approved by the law were then listed as having official genealogies, to prevent others from falsely identifying as that group. Pan Guangdan concluded that the Nine Ranks by Rectifiers system perpetuated the status of wealthy and influential families. It became the driving force for the development of genealogies during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. The result of this was that all of the occupants of higher offices came from great families, whereas commoners were only appointed to lower-ranking positions. After the aristocratic families became a powerful force, they not only needed maintain their political privileges, but their marital privileges. The elite Servicemen class tried every possible means to suppress commoners. There was a huge difference between the two classes. They sat in different seats, rode in different carriages and wore different clothes. When it came to choosing a “marriage object”, the elite strictly prohibited anybody from marrying someone of a lower class. During that time, the Servicemen from the upper and lower class, the southern, northern and central regions, and ethnic minorities, each formed their own respective marriage groups, and they married within these for generations. Since marriage is based on the principle of equality, and family genealogies were the basis for matchmaking, they became a powerful tool for aristocratic families to safeguard their privileges and interests. Therefore, in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, all of the aristocratic families enjoyed compiling and maintaining genealogies that showed their family’s background and status. This social phenomenon can be seen in Zheng Qiao’s Tong Zhi: Shi Zu Lue Xu. The prosperity of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasty (220–589) genealogies culminated during the Tang Dynasty (618–907). The social and political purposes that genealogies served also showed new features. During the Tang Dynasty, the system of Nine Ranks by Rectifiers was abolished. Instead, the imperial examination system was implemented. The criteria for selecting talent changed—previously, it was important that candidates emphasize their family 13 14

Wu Xing Bu (Surname Wu 吴). Shi Zu Dian. In the Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng. Liu Chong Zhuan 柳冲传 (The life of Liu Chong). In the Xin Tang Shu, Vol. 199.

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history. However, under the imperial examination system, the criteria emphasized candidates’ skill in literary composition. Any candidate who passed the civil service recruitment examination—held/supervised by the Ministry of Personnel—could obtain fame and an official position. This was a new system for selecting officials. It didn’t matter what someone’s family history was, whether they were an aristocrat, commoner, landlord, or peasant, they were appointed as an official as long as they passed the examination. This system went against everything the Rectifier-ranking system had put in place, and was a heavy blow to the aristocratic families and elite servicemen class. However, it was hard to change centuries-old habits of advocating people based on their family history and blood lines. During the hundreds of years of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the aristocratic families were less influential, yet they still had a lot of status in society, especially the Cui 崔, Lu 卢, Li 李 and Zheng 郑 families from Shandong province, remained as powerful and haughty as before. The feudal rulers of the Tang Empire were new nobles from the Guanlong (Guanzhong of Shaanxi and Longshan of Gansu) regions. In order to consolidate their new imperial governance and to raise their political status and social positions (especially royal upstarts who came from poor families or were common landlords), they implemented a number of measures to suppress the old Shandong elite. They aimed instead to establish the Li family at the top of the Guanlong aristocracy. In order to obtain social and legal recognition, the new gentry needed to write down in their genealogies their highest obtained social position, and place any connections to the royal family at the genealogy’s core. From the beginning of Emperor Taizong’s reign, the imperial examination system was strengthened, and the government began using genealogy as a powerful tool to shift earlier perceptions about a family’s name. Throughout the Tang Dynasty, one of the most significant moves made by those in rule was the distribution of three major, official compilations of genealogies. These were the Shi Zu Zhi 氏族志 (Annals of Clans) during Emperor Taizong’s reign (627–649), the Xing Shi Lu 姓氏录 (Records of Surnames) during Emperor Gaozong’s reign (650–683) and the Da Tang Xing Zu Xi Lu 大唐姓族系录 (Records of Tang Empire Clans and Surnames) during Emperor Zhongzong’s reign (684).15 These genealogical revisions were used politically, and after a number of severe attacks as a result of them, the elite/noble families of the Six Dynasties declined. Many scholars and landlords entered into official circles around the middle of the Tang Dynasty. They achieved higher political and social status as a result of the officially revised genealogical books, despite their poor backgrounds.16 It is clear why Emperors Li Shimin and Wu Zetian ordered the compilation of official genealogical books: to consolidate their vested political and social interests by repressing the old aristocratic families, and to establish new groups with their family occupying the highest position. They did not aim to destroy the original elite (the Shandong and

15 16

The Wang family genealogy of Jixi. The 37th Year of the Qianlong reign (1772). Qi Ti Fou Zhuan (The Life of Qi Tifou). In the Jiu Tang Shu, Vol. 101.

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noble families of the southeast); they simply wanted to replace them and consolidate their own feudal rule. To sum up, during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, genealogies mainly had a political function. They helped the government select officials, and were also important in helping the aristocracy monopolize official careers and control government affairs. During the Tang Dynasty, the compilation of genealogies helped cultivate the power of the new class of servicemen and suppress the power of the old class. This shows that during the Tang Dynasty, the social and political functions of Chinese genealogy had reached a new stage.

16.3 The Popularization Stage: For Ethical Purposes The Song Dynasty was an important period of reform and transformation in China’s genealogical history. There were significant changes in genealogies’ principle, form, genealogical chart, content, and revision. The Song Dynasty was in an important period of reform and transformation for genealogies and basic frameworks were established for later generations. During the Yuan Dynasty (960–1368), especially the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), Chinese genealogies developed into a more mature style. During the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), every village and family compiled genealogies and constantly renew them, which becomes a cultural custom for all of the people. The function of Song Dynasty’s genealogies changed from serving social and political purposes to ethical ones. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and the Sui and Tang Dynasties, both official and private genealogies were prosperous. However, by the Song Dynasty, these trends had changed. First, official genealogies fell into desuetude. Second, private genealogies prospered. The main reason why official genealogies fell into desuetude during the Song Dynasty was that as the imperial examination system expanded, it became important that talented candidates were selected based on their skills in literary composition rather than their breeding. So genealogies became less important.17 As noted earlier, during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, officials were appointed based on the Nine Ranks by Rectifiers system, and the aristocratic families monopolized official positions. The children of the aristocracy, even ones with no talent, could serve as high-ranking officials. The aristocracy also paid close attention to finding a proper match in marriage. Family genealogies were used for official recruitment and marriage, and that the government set up special agencies to manage the genealogies of imperial and noble families. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the imperial examination system was introduced, and this came as a heavy blow to the old aristocracy. Although the imperial examination system suppressed the old gentry and prevented them from entering officialdom, people still attached 17

The Li clan genealogy in Lanxi, prefaced by Zhang Jizhi during the third yar of Southern Song Dynasty Emperor Jing’s reign (1278).

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great importance to the former elite’s status in terms of who they married and their habits. As a result, many senior officials and members of the Li royal family married into the old aristocratic families. In order to establish the status of the imperial Li and Wu families, the Tang government attached great importance to official genealogies and created three large-scale, official genealogical compilations. However, the imperial Li and Wu families had no aim of destroying the original elite (the Shandong families and the noble families of the southeast); they simply wanted to replace them and consolidate their own feudal rule. During the Song Dynasty, the imperial examination system was perfected and was more rigorously adopted. After that, it was no longer the case that officials were appointed or marriages were carried out based on someone’s family background. The whole social atmosphere changed, and official genealogies lost their practical value. That is to say, by the Song Dynasty, the government had no need for institutions such as the genealogical agencies of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern, and Sui and Tang Dynasties. It didn’t need to collect, compile or manage the genealogies of servicemen. Official genealogies came to an end. There were many reasons why private genealogies flourished during the Song Dynasty. During the Song Dynasty, social/economic development, the prosperity of cities, and the rise of large clans all played a part in the promotion of private genealogical compilations. The Song Dynasty had a prosperous social economy, and an active commodity economy. The agriculture and handicraft industries developed, and there was more maritime trade. At that time, a number of major cities became prosperous. These included Chang ‘an, Kaifeng, Luoyang, Suzhou, Yangzhou, Hangzhou, Quanzhou and Guangzhou, and they attracted rich merchants from all over the world. The government shifted its economic center to the south, and establishing the capital in Hangzhou. The government had fierce enemies, and it had sluggish internal affairs. However, many towns in the south, especially in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, became increasingly prosperous due to social and economic development. As the annexation of rural land intensified and urban commerce became more prosperous, many large clans accumulated substantial wealth. Zhu Xi said at the time: “Today, many rich families occupy thousands of hectares of land; they are even richer than princes.”18 During the Southern Song Dynasty, the Zheng 郑family in Pujiang set aside 250 mu of farmland for sacrifice. They set another 1500 mu of farmland aside and reserved it especially for their sons and daughters to use for marriage. We can say with some confidence that the Zheng family owned more than 10,000 mu.19 To summarize, while the old aristocracy gradually declined due to dwindling political support, many new, indigenous magnates rose due to economic prosperity. These families and township/county officials depended on each other. They had many 18

Zhu Xi. Collected works of Zhu Wen Gong, Vol. 68. Xu Yangjie. A History of the Chinese Family System. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1992: 381.

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relatives, and they attached great importance to genealogies. The economic strength of clans provided the necessary conditions for the compilation of genealogies. “As clans are large, there are many things that need to be recorded, so they need sufficient financial and human resources. Since the Southern Song Dynasty, the contents of clan genealogies have expanded rapidly and there have been a great number of works.”20 The prosperity of the private genealogical compilations of the Song Dynasty was directly related to Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun. During Emperor Renzong’s reign (1023– 1063), Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun, two of the eight Tang and Song Dynasty masters, compiled genealogies for their kin. These were the Ouyang Family Genealogy and the Su Clan Genealogy respectively, and both authors introduced new objectives, principles, styles and methods. They met new requirements of the people by introducing new functions and styles to their genealogies, and these vigorously boosted the development of private genealogies during the Song Dynasty. Many servicemen, having been inspired by Ouyang and Su, compiled new genealogies. Zeng Zhao compiled the Zeng Family Genealogy, Xu Yuan compiled the Xu Family Genealogy, Fan Zhongyan compiled the Continuation of Family Genealogy, Wang Hui compuled the Cui Family Genealogy in Qinghe, Zhu Changwen compiled the Zhu Family Genealogy, and You Jiuyan compiled the You Family Genealogy. Wang Anshi, Wen Tianxiang and Huang Tingjian also compiled genealogical works. With the popularity of Ouyang’s and Su’s pedigree charts, private genealogies flourished and regular Song Dynasty civilians were also influenced by them. The prosperous private genealogies of the Song Dynasty met the practical needs of new gentry and great houses in revering the ancestor and uniting the lineage. The social function transformed compared to the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, when mainly had a social and political function and were used to select officials and find matches for marriage. However, many of the aristocratic families that were powerful during the Wei and Jin Dynasties declined during the Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties. By the Northern Song Dynasty, the social and political functions of genealogies had more or less disappeared. Instead, they had a moral, educational function, and taught people to revere their ancestors, unite with clan members, respect their elders and care for those they love. Many scholars have discussed the transformation of genealogical functions, including Pan Guangdan in A Brief History of Chinese Genealogy and Sheng Qingyi in the Current Style of Genealogical Compilation.It wasn’t only Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun that regarded their family genealogies as having a moral, educational function; other literati and servicemen at the time thought so too. “Song Dynasty celebrities including Wang Anshi, Wang Huiyou, Sima Guang, Zeng Zhaozhi, Mao Jianzhi, You Zhu, Zhu Changwen, and Zhu Xi expressed similar ideas about why they were compiling family genealogies: to pay respect to their ancestors, and unite clans.”21 20

Sheng Qingyi. On Song and Yuan genealogies and the establishment of the new patriarchal clan system. Minutes of The Second Asian Genealogy Academic Seminar. United Daily News Cultural Foundation National Studies Literature Museum of Taiwan, 1985. 21 Gong Pengcheng. Changes in the Genealogies during the Tang and Song Dynasties. Minutes of The First Asian Genealogy Academic Seminar. United Daily News Cultural Foundation National Studies Literature Museum of Taiwan, 1984.

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We can find many similar discussions on these changes in such books as the Hong Family Genealogy (written in Jiangcun during the eighth year of the Yongzheng era) and Zeng Di’s Comments on Genealogies Privately Compiled by Song Dynasty Ministers.22 In a word, during the Song Dynasty, genealogies were compiled that had a new function and meant later generations had a brand new kind of genealogical book. As was the case during the Song Dynasty, the genealogies compiled during the Yuan Dynasty had an educational purpose, as Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun had advocated. They were written so that descendants could pay respects to their ancestors and consolidate their clans. They also advocated respecting seniors and caring for loved ones. Yuan Dynasty writers Li Cun23 and Wang Li24 wrote genealogical prefaces confirming that the Yuan people understood this was the function of their genealogies. During the Ming Dynasty, Chinese genealogies developed into a more mature style. They had clearer principles and were more standardized. There were new, inevitable developments after the transformation and transition of genealogies in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. These were closely related to the politics, economy, and culture of the Ming Dynasty, which was the late period of Chinese feudalism. During the Ming Dynasty, the guiding ideologies for genealogical compilations were the “San Gang” and the “Wu Chang”, based on Song and Yuan Dynasties’ ethical standards of making descendants revere their ancestors and care for their loved ones. The ethical standards in the “San Gang” and the “Wu Chang” were advocated by Zhu Xi. Zhu Xi (1130–1200) considered himself a follower of the Cheng brothers25 from the Northern Song Dynasty. He elaborated on their metaphysical theories to develop his own School of Principle, which became known as Neo-Confucianism (“lixue”). Zhu Xi played an active role in reviving Confucianism and developing it to have an institutional basis. The ethics of “San Gang” and “Wu Chang” were at its core. These ethics had already existed for a long time, even before Zhu Xi, but the NeoConfucians of the Song Dynasty—especially Zhu Xi, who theorized, standardized and popularized them—made them an important part of the ruling feudal ideology. Zhu Xi went further and put forward the concept of “heavenly principles that can be revived once all human desires are eliminated” as a reason for implementing these ethics. He said that people should abide by them, and he hoped that the emperor would enforce them. Although these propositions came to be welcomed because they strengthened the centralization of feudal society, the rulers of the Southern Song Dynasty did not realize this at first. For a few years (near the end of his life), Zhu Xi’s teachings were condemned by the government as “spurious”. 22

Quoting Sheng Qingyi’s On Song and Yuan genealogies and the establishment of the new patriarchal clan system. 23 Li Cun. Preface to the Shu 舒 clan genealogy. In the Ai An Ji 俟庵集, Vol. 20. 24 Wang Li. Preface to the Tang 汤 clan genealogy in Xiayang. In the Lin Yuan He Ji 麟原合集, Vol. 2. 25 Translator’s note: Two brothers, Cheng Yi and Cheng Hao developed metaphysical theories about the workings of the cosmos in terms of li (principles and patterns) and qi (vital energy, material forces, psychophysical stuff).

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However, rulers soon realized they were wrong. They found it worked to their advantage to recognize the school of Confucianism as the most correct/orthodox way of teaching. A few years after Zhu Xi died, the Southern Song Dynasty began to give him the posthumous title like “sage”. During the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Xi was regarded as the second most influential philosopher in Chinese history, after Confucius himself. After the Ming Dynasty was established, the founding Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang took Liu Ji’s advice and continued to use the imperial examination system that was introduced during the second year of Yuan Dynasty Emperor Renzong’s reign (1315). That is, Zhu Xi’s commentaries on the Four Books: the Great Learnings, the Doctrine of the Mean, the Analects of Confucius, and the Mencius, along with the annotated Five Classics, were part of the core curriculum for scholars aspiring to be officials. Emperor Chengzu (1414)—the successor of Zhu Yuanzhang—ordered a compilation of A Complete Collection of the Five Classics, A Complete Collection of the Four Books and A Complete Collection of Philosophical Essays. They were completed in 1415 and the emperor wrote the preface himself. They were then officially promulgated and honored, and they dictated which scholars were selected for the next 200 years of the Ming Dynasty. This showed the importance of Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism. The core values of Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism were the “San Gang” and the “Wu Chang”. The “San Gang” or “Three Cardinal Guides” said that the ruler guides the subject, the father guides the son, and the husband guides the wife. They showed the hierarchical relationships in feudal society, which were based on blood ties and the feudal political system (which in itself was based on patriarchal clan relations). The “Wu Chang” or “Five Relationships” detailed the relationships between rulers and ministers, parents and children, husbands and wives, older and younger brothers, and friends. They represented ordinary virtues that were essential to ensuring the implementation of the three cardinal principles. During the Ming Dynasty, the popularity of Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism meant that the “San Gang” and the “Wu Chang” became mainstream ideologies. They penetrated all industries and were included within all aspects of social life. All across the education sector (even in private schools), the government instilled these ethics. The publicity and practices related to the “San Gang” and the “Wu Chang” naturally led to people aiming to compile genealogies. The prefaces, family/clan rules, and biographies in Ming Dynasty genealogies were often filled with content related to the “San Gang” and the “Wu Chang”. There was a clear reason why genealogical compilations were so popular for Qing Dynasty people all over the country, even in remote and poor places: because the Qing government had aspirations to maintain its grip on power. It promoted traditional Chinese culture, and the ethical policy of governing the nation with filial piety. It actively advocated private genealogical compilations after entering the Central Plains. During the ninth year of the Shunzhi era (1652) when the Qing Dynasty established its capital in Beijing, the Qing government re-issued Zhu Yuanzhang’s Sacred Edict of Six Maxims nationwide. This told people to: “behave with filial piety towards your parents, be respectful to your elders, live in harmony with your

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neighbors, discipline your sons and grandsons, work contentedly at your occupations, and refrain from evil”. Later on, Emperor Kangxi delivered an edict on the Sixteen Maxims during the second year of his reign (1670). Each maxim contained seven characters, and these were neatly written on small slips of wood, and placed in public offices. They told people to: (1) pay just regard to filial and fraternal duties, in order to give due importance to the relations of life; (2) respect kindred, in order to display the excellence of harmony; (3) let concord about among those who dwell in the same neighborhood, in order to prevent litigations; (4) give the chief place to husbandry and the culture of the mulberry-tree, in order to procure adequate supplies of food and raiment; (5) hold economy in estimation, in order to prevent the lavish waste of money; (6) magnify academical learning, in order to direct the scholar’s progress; (7) degrade strange religions, in order to exalt the orthodox doctrine; (8) explain the laws, in order to warn the ignorant and obstinate; (9) illustrate the principles of a polite and yielding carriage in order to improve manners; (10) attend to the essential employments, in order to give unvarying determination to the will of the people; (11) instruct the youth, in order to prevent them from doing evil; (12) Suppress all false accusing, in order to secure protection to the innocent; (13) warn those who hide deserters, that they may not be involved in their downfall; (14) complete the payment of the taxes, in order to prevent frequent urging; (15) unite the Bao 保 and Jia 甲 (ten families form a Bao; ten Bao constitute a Jia. The Jia has its elder, the Bao its chief.), in order to extirpate robbery and theft; (16) settle animosities, that lives may be duly valued.26 From the first two maxims, we can see that the Qing government regarded filial piety and harmony among clans as especially important. Emperor Yongzheng, the son and successor of Kangxi, considered that the conciseness of these maxims could create misunderstandings about how to utilize them. As a result, he wrote the 10,000-character Amplification on them, which he published during the second year of his reign (1724). He ordered it to be read publicly to the people on the first and fifteenth of each month. Emperor Yongzheng urged that laws be put in place to ensure that people met the second maxim. He ordered the “repairing of genealogies to link those estranged” and he explicitly advocated the compilation and revision of genealogies. The Qing government also promoted the three sacred edicts through various channels, and made them household names. These ethical policies advocated by the Qing government meant that some servicemen regarded revising genealogies as a practical way of showing filial piety. During the Yongzheng era, the Wu clan responded to the holy Amplification edict by assembling their clansmen, and revising their genealogies to link those estranged. During the fifth year of the Yongzheng era (1727), they reprinted the Preface to the Origin of the Wu Family.27 Some families indoctrinated Zhu Xi’s sermons into their family rules and regulations. They also stipulate within the family rules that children should be familiar with

26

The sacred edict of Emperor Kangxi containing sixteen maxims. Translated by the Rev. William Milne. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1870. 27 The Wu family genealogy. Tongzhi edition.

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Zhu Xi’s primary school books on feudal etiquette. These said that children should refrain from indecent/impolite behavior, in order to further consolidate feudal rule. To summarize, the genealogical compilations of Ming and Qing Dynasties did everything possible to implement Zhu Xi’s ethical thoughts, and they emphasized the importance of the “three cardinal guides and the five relationships”. Their ultimate aim was to rectify social customs, safeguard Zhu Xi’s thoughts, and promote the feudal principles of loyalty, sincerity, filial piety and brotherhood. In this way, they hoped to consolidate the patriarchal clan system and strengthen feudal rule.

16.4 The Contemporary Stage: For Cultural Purposes In the past 50 years, there has been a spontaneous upsurge in compiling new genealogy across China, especially in Taiwan. Compiling new genealogy is a continuation and development of old genealogy, a cultural phenomenon adapting to social and public needs. It is called new genealogy not only because of its new version, but also because of its content innovation such as the leap and sublimation of old Chinese genealogy in the new era. Social function of new genealogy also changed fundamentally from ethical function of serving feudalism to cultural function of serving socialism. In the past 50 years, there has been a high tide of renewing genealogy in Taiwan. In 1987, Taiwan Family Genealogy Catalogue edited by Zhao Zhenji fully reflected this phenomenon. The catalogue contains 10,613 kinds of genealogies and 252 surnames. Chen is the first with 1068 kinds, followed by Lin with 768 kinds. Chen and Lin are main surnames in Fujian, indicating that Taiwan residents have a particularly close relationship with the neighboring Fujian. As for compilation date, most genealogies were compiled in the last 50 years. Taking Li family genealogies as an example, the catalogue contains 570 kinds of Li family genealogies, 322 of which have exact compilation dates. Among them, 13 were compiled in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, 35 were compiled in the Republic of China (from 1912 to 1949), and the remaining 274 were new ones compiled in the past 50 years, meaning that over 85% were compiled in the past 50 years. For another example, the catalogue collects 285 kinds of Xiao family genealogies, 157 of which have exact compilation dates, including 4 compiled in the Qing Dynasty, 12 in the Republic of China, and 141 in the last 50 years, accounting for 90%. The above two genealogies are randomly selected as examples, which clearly show that the two sides of Taiwan strait have been artificially separated in the past 50 years, but the vast majority of Taiwan people express their strong desire to go to the mainland and to return to their motherland by means of continuously renewing their genealogies. Of the Taiwan genealogies renewed during this period, many were actually the result of the close cooperation and joint efforts of the same clan on both sides of Taiwan strait. For example, to compile Chen clan genealogy in Jianhu lake area, Chen Wenlong, chairman of the Chen Clan Association in Yilan County of Taiwan, went to Jianhu lake area, Zhangpu of Fujian eleven times since 1988. He got great support from Chen family members in his hometown. He

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collected eleven copies of old Chen family genealogies and with this information, he compiled books such as the Origin and Development of Chen Family in Jianhu Lake Area. He also encouraged the Chen clan on both sides of Taiwan straits to work together on the compilation of Chen Clan Genealogy in Zhangpu and Taiwan, and had it published in 1995. In China’s mainland, with the establishment of the Party’s ideological line of emancipating mind and seeking truth from facts at the third plenary session of the 11th central committee of CCP in 1978, the once barren and untouched genealogy research attracted attention again in the mainland. Among provinces and cities in the mainland, Fujian was the first and most active one in studying and compiling new genealogies. Relatively early, Fujian established a provincial Surname Origin Research Society and also set up Genealogy Research Societies in Zhangzhou, Xiamen, Jinjiang, and other places. Under the active promotion and the support of overseas Chinese and compatriots from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, a series of activities such as compiling and renewing genealogies were initiated all over Fujian, some were compiling genealogies together with Taiwan clan members. On December 29, 2000, Jinjiang held an exhibition of Jinjiang family genealogies in the Jinjiang Library, among which more than 400 kinds were newly compiled. The above activities in Fujian not only activated academic research atmosphere of genealogy study in the mainland, but also directly promoted cross-strait academic exchanges and root-seeking activities. In other parts of the mainland, people also spontaneously carried out cultural activities of compiling new genealogies. As the largest collector of Chinese genealogies, the Shanghai Library in recent years has begun to pay attention to the collection of new genealogies. According to statistics, the Shanghai Library has collected over 2000 new kinds of genealogies, most of which are donated by relevant departments or individuals for general readers to read and use. The World Wu Clan Association has established a compilation committee of Chinese Wu Clan Unified Genealogy at Taibo Temple in Meili of Wuxi, the birthplace of the Wu clan, to compile a unified genealogy covering Wu clan members all over the world. In order to support this massive folk culture project, Wu families located all over the world “come together from all directions” and have been actively providing new genealogies of their regions, houses, and branches to the compilation committee, with a total of over 300 genealogies and over 200 kinds of lineage data about Wu clan, all of which were newly compiled in the past 30 years. In the mainland of China, it is no accident that the upsurge of compiling new genealogies began in the late twentieth century. Firstly, it is the result of gradual removal of “leftist” influence in ideological and cultural sphere. As an important part of China’s historical and cultural heritage, genealogy with official history and gazetteers constitute an important pillar of Chinese historical literature. The Shiji (Historical Records), an immortal masterpiece of Sima Qian, the founder of Chinese history, obtained a lot of valuable materials from the genealogies he could see at that time. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Liang Qichao called genealogy “a treasure of the historical world” in his Chinese Academic History of Nearly 300 Years and collected genealogies to

16.4 The Contemporary Stage: For Cultural Purposes

477

carry out research to “achieve immortal success”. But for a long time, genealogy has been treated unfairly, dismissed as feudal dross beneath attention. In the Land Reform, the Great Leap, the Cultural Revolution, and other movements, a large number of family genealogies kept in ordinary people’s homes were purchased by waste stations. They were sent to paper mills to later be turned into pulp. Even those kept in libraries, archives, and museums were piled in the corner of a warehouse to be covered in mildew, eaten by moths, and gathered with dust. In the academic field, genealogy was rarely studied, but neglected and lacked historical materialism research. After the third plenary session of the 11th central committee of the CPC in 1978, genealogy began to attract people’s attention as the academic field began to advocate emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts. In 1980s, the National Genealogy Research Association was established and many seminars on genealogy were held in the mainland. Many papers on genealogy were published, and people began to analyze its function and value from the perspective of historical materialism. As academic research field cleared the influence of “leftist” ideology, the value of genealogy has also been re-recognized by the public. Meanwhile, new genealogies were first compiled in some places with right conditions. Secondly, the compilation of new genealogy mainly takes place in rural areas, directly due to rural economic development in the past three decades and improvement of farmers’ cultural needs. After China began reforming and opening up, Anhui farmers first implemented a production responsibility system that linked remuneration to productivity or output. Then the system was in place throughout much of the Chinese countryside, thus the rural economy has undergone major changes. In many areas, farmers have rapidly solved problems of food and clothing and started to stride towards a moderately prosperous society. After the improvement of farmers’ material life, there are new requirements on spiritual life and cultural needs. In areas where rural economies are relatively prosperous, such as Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Fujian, and Hunan, traditional cultural activities of renewing genealogies have been revived under new conditions and spontaneous activities of farmers in compiling new genealogies have appeared. Rural economic development and improvement of farmers’ income also provide material assurance for various expenditures in cultural activities of compiling new genealogies, such as discussions, business trips, communications, writing, printing, and etc. Thirdly, it is influenced by the practice of “compiling official history and local chronical in golden age”. Compiling official history, local gazetteers and family genealogies are fine traditions of Chinese history and culture. As early as September 1972, the Modern History Institute of CASS set up the Research Office of History of the Republic of China, which is engaged compiling the data of the Republic of China and writing the history of the Republic of China. It has successively published several volumes. Meanwhile, various provinces and cities have also strengthened the research of local history which resulted in great achievements. In 2002, the CPC central committee decided to set up a Qing history compilation commission to recompile Qing history. After the third plenary session of the eleventh central committee of the CPC, the upsurge of “compiling official history and local chronical in golden age” was also set off in China. The State Council has set up guidance group for Chinese

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local gazetteers. Special organizations for compiling local gazetteers have been set up in various provinces, cities, counties, and even some towns. By the end of twentieth century, there were over 6000 kinds of county annals and professional gazetteers newly compiled in China, whose role in the construction of socialist two civilizations has been valued and affirmed by all sectors of society. In 1980s, the upsurge of compiling histories and gazetteers in China directly promoted the compilation of new genealogy, especially in economically developed areas where every village and every family are compiling genealogies. Browsing through new genealogies compiled in the past 30 years, there are quite a few named Clan History, Clan Records, Surname Records and so on. From content to style, there are products for the unity of histories, records, and genealogies. Fourthly, it is promoted by non-governmental exchanges between Chinese at home and abroad. Over the past 30 years, China’s reform and opening up, economy and culture, and other major undertakings have been changing with each passing day. Chinese at home live a happy life and Chinese abroad are coming back for frequent exchanges. In particular, economic and cultural exchanges across Taiwan straits have been further carried out. The Communist Party and state leaders have repeatedly made proposals for peaceful reunification of motherland, which have been warmly echoed by Chinese at home and abroad, including their Taiwan compatriots. In 1987, Taiwan authorities relaxed the restrictions on Taiwanese people’s visits to the mainland, thus exchanges across the Taiwan straits have developed unprecedentedly. The roots and culture of the 23 million Taiwanese people are related to the mainland with blood being thicker than water. On the one hand, Taiwanese compatriots have raised the tide of compiling new genealogies, tracing back and connecting their roots in the mainland. On the other hand, they have visited the mainland to find their roots and ancestors, expressing their wish to the mainland and to realize reunification at an early date. The efforts of Taiwanese compatriots to renew genealogies and find roots has enriched and strengthened exchanges across the Taiwan strait, and has directly promoted genealogy compilation work in Fujian, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Henan, Shanxi, and etc. Old genealogies served the ethical function of the “San Gang” and the “Wu Chang”, while new genealogies have undergone essential changes. They have the cultural function of serving the socialist era, and now play a positive role in the construction of a harmonious society. The cultural function of new genealogies is shown in the following aspects: Firstly, it can carry forward Chinese national history and culture as well as enhance national cohesion. The Chinese nation is an ancient civilization with a history of 5000 years. Compiling official history, local gazetteers, and genealogy are fine traditions of Chinese history and culture. There are several great civilizations in world history, but only the Chinese nation has survived for thousands of years, still stands in the east of Asia, and becomes an important member of the world. This has something to do with China’s cultural tradition of compiling official history, local gazetteers, and genealogy. Lu Xun pertinently pointed out in Rites that “the country of China is based on family.” Whether in patriarchal society in the past, or in today’s socialist

16.4 The Contemporary Stage: For Cultural Purposes

479

society, family is the cell of society and family has always been the most ‘grassroots’ unit in society. Only when families are harmonious, civilized, stable, and prosperous, can social progress and prosperity have a deep and solid foundation. If we say genealogy under the guidance of feudal thoughts played a certain role in consolidating the foundation of a feudal society, then today’s genealogy under the guidance of socialist thoughts not only can carry forward a long history and culture of a Chinese nation, but can also make clan members love their family, hometown, and socialist motherland more deeply by participating in compilation activities. For example, on June 7, 1986, a woman writer named Bing Xin wrote a preface to Xie Clan Genealogy in Hengling: “Clan genealogy is family history connecting the past and the future. The attention and care to family history is the starting point of loving the motherland and the people.” Practice has proved that many places, via activities of compiling new genealogies, have indeed carried forward Chinese history and culture, and enhanced national cohesion and confidence. Secondly, it can promote cultural exchanges across the Taiwan strait and strengthen cohesiveness of Taiwanese compatriots and overseas Chinese. China’s mainland and Taiwan region share common blood and cultural origins. In the past 30 years, the upsurge of compiling genealogies appeared on both sides of Taiwan strait, which is the result of the expansion of cultural exchanges between residents on both sides. With the continuous expansion of cross-strait genealogy compilation activities and the strengthening of root-seeking activities, it has further promoted and enriched various economic and cultural exchanges between the mainland and Taiwan, deepened mutual feelings and understanding, and strengthened the cohesiveness of Taiwan compatriots and overseas Chinese. Taiwan has been an integral part of China’s territory since ancient times. In the past 50 years, the mainland and Taiwan have been artificially isolated, but Taiwanese people want to return to the motherland soon. In growing activities across the Taiwan strait, family members with the same surname on both sides jointly set up a compilation committee, formulated compilation rules, collected information and finally published genealogies. Such a whole process is also a process of people from both sides to identify with blood relationship and traditional culture of Chinese nation. It directly promotes and enriches exchanges between two sides in various aspects and will surely play a role in promoting peaceful reunification of the motherland at an early date, just as the preface of Rao 饶 Clan Genealogy points out, “Clan genealogy is the basis for Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao people as well as overseas Chinese to return to the mainland to search for their roots and ancestors, it is a token of their blood ties with their relatives in the motherland. So clan genealogy is also an important material for patriotic education, which plays an important role in promoting the reunification of the two sides of Taiwan straits and the unity of Chinese at home and abroad.” Thirdly, it can promote the building of socialist civic morality and enhance the affinity of family members. Today, we should strengthen the construction of socialist spiritual civilization and socialist civic morality, but socialist morality cannot be built in a vacuum, just as Citizen Morals Construction Implement Outline points out, “we should inherit traditional virtues of Chinese nation that have been formed for thousands of years.”

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That is to say, we should absorb and transform traditional virtues of Chinese nation into an important part of socialist civic morality and an integral part of socialist professional morality, family virtues and social morality. Recently, general secretary Hu Jintao further put, “eight honors and eight disgraces” for civic morality code of conduct. It contains traditional virtues of a Chinese nation, which have been formed for thousands of years, such as respecting the elders, being diligent and thrifty in managing family, loving labor, befriending neighbors, and loving the motherland. In new genealogies of various regions, there are generally contents such as family virtues, family conventions and civilization conventions that are absorbed from many positive elements of old family rules and laws. For example, the “statute” section of the Zhao Family Genealogy specially included the Social Morality Song which said, “brocaded and embroidered China, polite state with rites, ancient and civilized country, erect in the east; a time of prosperity, reform to be strong, social ethics and morality, writer another new chapter; people in the society, enjoy work and company, pull together in troubles, respect themselves and others……” Four words in each sentence are catchy and easy to spread. It is inherited and developed from old family rules and laws under new conditions, which can also play a positive role in enhancing family members’ affinity and forming basic moral code such as, “patriotic and lawabiding, sincere and honest, united and friendly, diligent and thrifty, dedicated and committed.” To sum up, Chinese genealogy is known as a cultural carrier, whose most core element is the blood lineage and pedigrees. The earliest clan blood lineage formed in China provided the possibility for the budding of Chinese genealogy. The primitive Chinese genealogy served social function of eugenics as well as played an important role in the healthy reproduction of descendants of the clan and blood group. Then during the rising period of China’s feudal society, Chinese genealogy adapted to political needs of powerful families and was in a prosperous stage when it had the social function of selecting officials and marriage, actively helped powerful families to inherit official positions of and control government. Next in the late feudal society of China, Chinese genealogy became popular among the common folk. Later influenced by mainstream ideology of Zhu Xi’s neo-Confucianism, Chinese genealogy assumed ethical function of “three cardinal guides and five constant virtues,” serving actively to consolidate feudal social order at that time. And finally today, the activities that compile new genealogies and are carried out under socialist conditions are inheritance, reform, and innovation of old genealogies, cultural activities that appear in common folk to meet the requirements of socialist era, and assuming social functions of building socialist harmonious culture. It will play a positive role in moving forward with Chinese history and culture, to promote cross-strait cultural exchanges, enhance socialist civic morality, and build a harmonious society to continue to research more information about Chinese genealogy.

Appendix A

List of Genealogy Websites

上海图书馆家谱数据库 《各姓家谱》 网站

search.library.sh.cn/jiapu www.iz123.cn/user/gexingjiapu/

My Heritage Netor网同纪念|寻根问祖 爱心家谱 安徽家谱 安徽省图书館谱牒资源 安徽鹞石周氏论坛 百度家谱 百姓家谱 百姓源·缘 百姓源·缘 宝树网宝树族谱 蔡氏宗祠 曹氏家谱查询网 常州家谱 潮汕风情网族谱 陈氏宗亲论坛 陈氏族谱 谌族网 初氏族谱 祠堂博览 慈利李氏族谱网 崔氏族谱 崔氏族谱 大族谱网 戴氏宗亲网 邓氏族谱邓姓之源网 杜氏宗亲网

www.myheritage.cn www.netor.com/family.asp www.axjp.cn cm.ahlib.com: 9080/ahjp/ www.ahlib.com/ah/gjb/gcjp-index.htm ahysz.5d6d.com baike.baidu.com/view/32577.htm www.baixun.com w5.noweb.cn/bxyuan/index.php www.bxyuan.cn www.xieshi.org www.cs138.net/Index.asp www.caoshi.net www.qingyan.com/ www.csfqw.com/html/39/list1.html bbs.chens.org.cn/index.asp www.chens.org.cn/lingcun shenzuwang.2008red.com www.chushizupu.com www.ahexpo.org/index.shtml lijiapo.wangzhan8.com/main.asp cszp.vip.sina.com/ www.cszp.com www.chinadazupu.com www.dai888.net/index.html www.dxzy.org/index.asp dushizq.cn

© Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2023 H. Wang, The General Theory of ChinaÃ¢ÂŁÂ™s Genealogy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6377-5

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Appendix A: List of Genealogy Websites

方氏网络 方氏网 佛山图书馆藏梁氏族谱 高氏家谱网 各地族谱华夏李氏网论坛 耿氏宗亲网 郭氏宗源信息网 郭氏宗族谱 汉家刘氏网 河南省炎黄姓氏历史文化基金 会

www.5fangs.net/index.htm www.fangshiwang.com my.dongua.com/lrxin/blog!entry/643.entry www.gsjp.net/Index.asp bbs.hxls.cn/forumdisplay.php?fid = 15 www.gsjpw.com gszyw.com/index.aspx?pageID = 1 www.gszzp.com www.liuhome.com/index.asp www.yhxswh.com

河南魏氏宗亲网 胡氏家谱网 胡氏宗亲网 胡氏族谱

www.hnweishi.cn/Index.html hmmshoe.com www.hszqw.com.cn www.hangzhou.com.cn/20081222/ca1633156. htm www.library.hn.cn/jpcx/index.htm www.cnsurname.com www.hszqw.com swwjls.cn www.hxtian.cn/index.html www.chwu.com.cn shun.coca.com.tw/ ~ huan/ www.huang99.cn www.genoom.com/zh/家谱 artxun.com/tag/2/jiapu-625/1.html copies.sinoshu.com/jiapu www.jiapu.com www.cngcn.cn zs999.yiji.com www.pzhqx.com/jsjp/ www.jxlsw.com/index.php?xname=TIFTF41 www.sopuu.com/index.php?ctype=gedcom www.kong.org.cn www.chinakongzi.com/2550/gb/wskl/kzjp.htm kuanglu.com www.leeyan.info/lbg/ www.lsjp.zj001.net/index.php?xname=AVF GGU0 www.lsw.cc www.glxf.com.cn www.bughome.net www.bigan.cn/

湖南省家谱收藏中心 华人百家姓论坛 华氏宗亲网 华夏三文五吉刘氏族谱网 华夏田氏网 华夏吴氏网 黄六成公家谱 黄氏研究 家谱和家庭树 Genoom 家谱网 家谱网 家谱网 家谱文化网 嘉应张氏 简氏家谱 江西刘氏网 姜公桥徐氏族谱 孔氏宗亲网 孔子家谱 匡氏族谱 黎氏大族谱 李氏家谱镇海横河 李氏网 李氏族谱网 林氏家谱网站 林氏宗亲网

Appendix A: List of Genealogy Websites

483

凌氏宗亲网 刘氏家园 龙氏族谱

www.lingmiao.net www.htliu.net/ www.zhanxian.cn/fangchanjiaju/fangchanzhon gjie/2008/06/18/06180743304362.shtml 陇西李氏文化网 www.lxlswh.com 罗氏家园 www.luos.org/start.asp 梅氏宗亲网 www.meiem.org 闽台宗祠网 www.86zcw.com 闽台宗祠网 www.zongci.com.cn 南安市图书馆馆藏谱牒目录 lib.nanan.com/dfwx/pudie.htm 欧阳氏网上宗祠 family.netor.com/?id = &bID = 36,612 潘氏宗亲网 www.pans.cn 彭氏家谱 www.416000.home.sunbo.net/ 乔氏宗亲网 qiaosw.com/Index.html 秦网 www.myqin.net 全球贾姓网站 qqjxdwz.2008red.com 日照焦竑及焦氏文化研究会中 www.rzsf.com/zwc1 国焦氏 瑞安图书馆馆藏谱牒 山西/杨氏族谱 山西家谱书目 山西省图书馆家谱数据库

www.ralib.net/Article/test.asp www.yangjiajiang.com lib.sx.cn/secdir/zjsx/jpsjk/index-jpsm.htm lib.sx.cn/ftrweb/NATION3.DLL?ListResult? SessionID = 218.1.116.121&PageNum = 1 library.sx.zj.cn/sxlibjp.asp 绍兴图书馆——家谱数据库 深圳书香世界网族谱 www.cct5000.com/news/classic/zp/ 世界冯氏宗亲会网站 worldfengshiweb.bokee.com/ 世界傅氏网 www.86fs.com 世界何氏网 www.sjhsw.com/Index.html 世界王氏寻根网 bfjc.cenya.com/%E8%B0%B1%E7%89%92 %E5%9B%BE%E7%89%87/tabid/4028/Default. aspx www.syzh.org 世界叶氏总谱 隋氏族谱网 www.sui.org.cn/ 台湾地区家谱联合目录资料库 rarebook.ncl.edu.tw/rbook.cgi/frameset5.htm 台湾族谱寻根网 genealogy.hyweb.com.tw/welcome.htm 汤氏会社 www.tangshi.org/index_new.php 天下匡氏网 www.txksw.com www.54wang.com 王氏家谱网 威海戚氏族譜 www.whqszp.com 韦氏宗亲网 www.weijiaren.com www.wxzqw.cn/ 文氏宗亲网 无锡市图书馆稀世家谱 www.wxlib.cn/szzy/xsjp/xsjp.htm 吴氏在线 www.cnwu.net

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Appendix A: List of Genealogy Websites

夏氏宗亲网 崤函网地方志鉴谱牒编修

cnxia.org/Default.asp www.xhw.gov.cn/BigClass.asp?typeid=29&Big Classid=150 信氏宗亲网 www.xinhome.com.cn/index.html 熊氏家族网 www.xsjzw.com 徐氏宗亲网 www.xu-shi.com 薛氏宗亲网 www.98518.net/xue/index.asp 寻根网 www.xgwz.cn 闫姓大家庭 yanfamily.blog.jiaodong.cn/index.html 炎黄脉络 nj-yhml.cn 叶氏族谱网 www.yeszp.cn 易氏网 www.yishi.org.cn 尹氏家族_Q吧 qbar.qq.com/u2010724 余氏百科余氏家族百科资料大 imyu.cn/wiki 全 豫章王氏网 袁氏家谱网 袁氏研究网 曾氏宗亲网 翟氏族谱. 詹氏网 张氏家谱网 章氏文化研究 漳州江夏论坛谱牒研究 赵氏家谱网 中根网 中国白氏后裔交流网 中国家谱网 中国林氏宗亲网 中国台湾网族谱首页 中国新家谱网 中国姓氏谱牒 中国熊姓网 中华百家姓 中华程氏网 中华崔氏网 中华大族谱 中华大族谱 中华大族谱平台 中华郭氏家谱 中华何氏网 中华家谱知识_家谱历史

www.yzwangs.com www.yuanscn.com/web/ www.yuanss.com www.zengshi.net zhaishi.home.sunbo.net/show_hdr.php?xname = G0DTL21&xpos = 2 www.zhan.org.cn zupu.zszh.org www.zhangzijun.com xiadong.5d6d.com/forum-6–1.html zsjpw.2008red.com www.zongen.com bbs.zgbs.net/index.php www.chinajiapu.com www.04138.com/Content.Asp?ID=80 www.chinataiwan.org/zppd www.xinjiapu.com www.pudie.com www.zgxiong.com/ www.10000xing.cn www.2cheng.com www.cuixing.com/index.asp www.dazupu.com www.leeyan.info/cbg/ www.dazupu.net familytree.netor.com/?no = 1028 10000xing.cn/ × 021/wjx.html www.yywzw.com/show.aspx?id=247&cid=138

Appendix A: List of Genealogy Websites

中华刘氏族谱网 中华丘氏网 中华唐氏一族 中华唐氏宗亲网 中华王氏网 中华伍氏网 中华姓氏谱牒 中华姓氏文化园 (百家姓祠) 中华姓氏寻根网 中华徐氏网 中华许氏族谱 中华鄢氏网 中华姚氏宗亲交流网 中华周氏网 中华邹氏族谱网 中华族谱 中华族谱, 虎虎虎族谱 重庆傅氏宗亲网 朱氏宗亲网 邹氏宗亲网 族脉网 族谱录

www.zhlsw.com/ www.qius.org qun.51.com/tangzu www.china-tang.com.cn/supe www.chinawang.org/index.php www.chinawu.net www.pudie.com www.zhxswhy.com www.chinasurname.com www.xuschina.com www.chinaxu.net www.zhonghuaysw.cn www.yaogens.com www.chinazhou.com/html/index.html www.china-zou.com www.zhonghuazupu.org/ www.ttt.net.cn/zupu/index.php www.cqfu.com/cqfs/index.htm www.zhuweb.cn/zhu/index.html zousw.com www.youstem.com/index.php www.zupulu.com/

Last accessed 10 May 2009 (by Wu Huizu)

485

Appendix B

Table of Chinese Dynasties

Period of the Three Sovereigns (unverified) 三皇时代

Fu Xi伏羲

About 2852–2697 BC

Nüwa女娲 Shen Nong 神农

Period of the Five Legendary Rulers Huang Di黃帝 (Yellow Emperor) About 2697–2184 BC (unverified) 五帝时代 Zhuan Xu 颛顼 Di Ku 帝喾 (Emperor Ku) Yao 尧 (Emperor Yao) Shun舜 (Emperor Shun) Xia Dynasty夏

2070–1600 BC

Shang Dynasty商

1600–1046 BC

Western Zhou Dynasty西周 Eastern Zhou dynasty 东周 770–256 BC

1046–771 BC Spring and Autumn Period 春秋

770–476 BC

Warring States period 战国

475–221 BC

Qin Dynasty秦 Han Dynasty 汉 206 BC–AD 220

221–206 BC Western Han 西汉

206 BC–AD 25

Eastern Han 东汉

AD 25–220

Three Kingdoms Period 三国

AD 220–80

Jin Dynasty 晋 AD 265–420

Western Jin 西晋

AD 265–317

Eastern Jin 东晋

AD 317–420

Southern and Northern Dynasties 南北朝 AD 386 (or 420)–589

Southern Dynasties 南朝

Song 宋 AD 420–79 Qi 齐 AD 479–502 Liang 梁 AD 502–57 (continued)

© Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2023 H. Wang, The General Theory of ChinaÃ¢ÂŁÂ™s Genealogy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6377-5

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(continued) Chen 陈 AD 557–89 Northern Dynasties 北朝

Northern Wei北魏 AD 386–534 Eastern Wei 东魏 AD 534–50 Northern Qi 北齐 AD 550–77 Western Wei西魏 AD 535–56 Northern Zhou北周 AD 557–81

Sui Dynasty 隋

AD 581–618

Tang Dynasty 唐

AD 618–907

Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms 五代十国 AD 907–79

Five Dynasties 五代

AD 907–60

Ten Kingdoms 十国

AD 902–79

Song Dynasty 宋 AD 960–1279

Northern Song 北宋

AD 960–1127

Southern Song 南宋

AD 1127–1279

Liao Dynasty 辽

AD 907–1125

Jin Dynasty 金

AD 1115–1234

Xixia Dynasty 西夏

AD 1038–1227

Yuan Dynasty元

AD 1206–1368

Ming Dynasty 明

AD 1368–1644

Qing dynasty 清

AD 1616–1911

Postscript This book is a continuation of my Revealing China’s Genealogical Culture 解冻 家谱文化 monograph published by the Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House in 2002. In September 1995, I was transferred from the Anhui Local Records Office to the Shanghai Library to serve as Party Secretary. I also served as Director of the Institute of Historical Documents. The Shanghai Library is a large, research-oriented public library and second only to the National Library in China. It has 10 million books and 30 million documents, among which there are 3.7 million historical documents. We decided that recovering historical documents was a priority—particularly genealogies and the archives of Sheng Xuanhuai—and we gained the support of the leaders of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee and the municipal government. I was directly responsible for recovering these genealogical documents. The Shanghai Library is personally guided by the old curator Gu Tinglong, and other previous leaders, and it attaches great importance to genealogical collections. In 1995, the

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library had 12,000 genealogies, and nearly 100,000 copies. These accounted for about a quarter of the Chinese genealogies that are currently in existence. However, at the time, these genealogies—for various reasons—were left scattered in stacks and piled up in corners, left to be eaten by insects. Some were moldy and dusty. On 9 January, 1996, the Shanghai Library held a mobilization meeting to discuss recovering these historical documents. A genealogy rescue and collation team was set up, and they officially began collating, developing and researching family genealogies. Their tasks involved: (1) Removing dust and mildew from genealogies, rearranging them and putting them on shelves; (2) Arranging for technicians to repair damaged genealogies. By the year 2000, 30,000 copies had been repaired; (3) Creating a genealogical reading room, so that readers could consult genealogies. This was opened to the public in December 1996 as part of the new Shanghai Library, and was the first of its kind on the China’ mainland; (4) Organizing a special team to compile the Abstracts of the Shanghai Library’s Chinese Genealogy Collections. This was officially published by the Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House in the year 2000 and it won second prize during the Third National Ancient Books Collation Awards; (5) Hosting an International Symposium on Chinese Genealogies. The team’s work has been welcomed by readers and researchers, and leaders of the Party and the state who have visited the Shanghai Library have further affirmed their work. It has attracted the attention of the media both at home and abroad. The genealogies of the Shanghai Library, which were left in a corner to be buried, are now being read by readers and researched online. This has been a “revealing” process, so along with my colleagues at the Genealogical Research Center, I planned and compiled the book Revealing China’s Genealogical Culture. The contents of this book include my published media articles on genealogy, a brief introduction to some celebrities’ genealogies at the Shanghai Library, and media reports on the library’s genealogical compilations and how they have been arranged, developed and researched. The book is roughly 200,000—characters-long and was published by the Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House in 2002. In October 2000, I retired from my post as Party Secretary of the Shanghai Library and the Shanghai Institute of Science and Technology Information. Since then, I have devoted all of my energy and time to collating genealogical documents as Director of Development and Research at the Institute of Historical Documents. Professor Hu Shengwu, my history instructor when I was a graduate student at Fudan University, and the Institute of Qing History at the Renmin University of China, encouraged me many times to write a monograph on the history of Chinese genealogy. After he learned that I had retired from my post, he advised me to devote five years of time to this process. He said that I would surely yield results. During my process of sorting through and researching the Shanghai Library genealogies at the end of the twentieth century, I strongly felt that favorable conditions enabled me to complete my scientific research: 1. The Shanghai Library has a unique collection of genealogical documents, and these provided me with an abundance of first-hand, genealogical data for writing monographs.

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2. Over the last 30 years, a number of academic monographs have been published on genealogies at home and abroad. These monographs discuss the evolution of Chinese genealogies, and they have greatly enriched writing on China’s genealogical history. 3. Over the last century, and especially during the last thirty years, some 2000 papers on Chinese genealogies have been published at home and abroad. Many of these describe how Chinese genealogies have evolved and aged. These papers provide rich information and insightful analysis. They have great reference value as pieces of literature on the history of China’s genealogies. 4. Over the last 20 years, there have been numerous case studies on Chinese surnames, genealogies and family histories. In recent decades, thousands of new genealogies have emerged. Some of these are large-scale. These “micro” case studies are of great reference value to writers of China’s “macro” genealogical history. Filling in the gaps of China’s genealogical studies is a pioneering cultural project. It involves completing an academic monograph on the history of Chinese genealogies and requires solid data, a complete system, clear viewpoints and accurate analysis. It is very difficult to achieve high-quality results in this task, for a number of reasons: 1. The work covers a long time span. There are some 5000 years between the origin of genealogies and the most recently revised genealogies. Although my predecessors and some existing scholars have made great achievements in their research, their material, as a whole, is still relatively weak. Up to now, there has not been a systematic and large-scale academic monograph on the history of China’s genealogy. This monograph will discuss how Chinese genealogies have developed over 5000 years, and it will make an organic connection between the new genealogies of the last 50 years, and how historical genealogies have evolved and developed. It is a rather arduous task to analyze how genealogies have developed, and detail their origin, birth, prosperity, transformation, perfection, popularization and where there are new compilations. But it is a pioneering one. 2. The reference material on genealogies is rich but scattered, and there is still much material that needs to be identified. The reference material on this subject is extremely rich, and there are currently more than 50,000 genealogical records. But some important reference material is scattered across voluminous historical documents. It can be found in official histories, local chronicles and anthologies. It is conceivable that it is difficult to collect and sort this data. Moreover, there is much family tree data that still needs to be identified. All of this makes the task of compiling and using genealogical data extremely difficult. 3. Genealogies are all-encompassing; they include the origin of surnames, encomiums for ancestors’ portraits, a family’s migration history, prefaces, genealogical principles, pedigrees, biographies, family disciplines, customs and rites, information on ancestral temples, tombs, clan property, deeds, art and literature, as well as the generational order and rank of family members, and codes for receiving genealogies. It can be said that family genealogies are an encyclopedia of a family. This makes them a special subject in China’s history. They include

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not only historical information, but also information on economics, sociology, pedagogy, demography, ethnology, folklore, genetics and many other disciplines. This, however, makes it only more difficult to implement this task. In order to complete my scientific research, I followed the instructions of my teacher Mr. Hu Shengwu. I first was immersed into these genealogical documents in October 2000. I “listened to nothing else and studied genealogical books with all my heart”. In the process, I did the following: 1. I extensively and systematically collected and collated genealogical documents. Over the last 10 years, I have consulted more than 2000 genealogies in Shanghai, Beijing, Anhui and other places. I have extracted and made copies of important data, and have sorted them into eighteen categories. I detailed the titles of genealogies, the encomiums for ancestors’ portraits, the compilers, prefaces, genealogical principles, imperial grants, genealogical methodologies, the origin of surnames and how they developed, and families’ pedigrees, biographies, family disciplines, customs and rites, ancestral temples, tombs, clan properties, deeds, art and literature. I also listed family members’ generational orders, ranks, and their codes for receiving genealogies. These categories laid a solid foundation for writing a history on Chinese genealogy. 2. I collected, browsed and studies books, papers and expositions on genealogy dating back to ancient times. The National Press Index Database revealed that there were 2117 papers written on genealogy between 1850 and 2008. I am over 60-years-old, but I am still a latecomer to genealogical research. Therefore, I paid special attention to collecting, browsing, studying, analyzing and comparing various works, papers and expositions on genealogy, dating from ancient times to the present. I took these materials as examples, and they have helped me find the nutrients for writing monographs on genealogical history. 3. I presided over the General Catalog of Chinese Genealogies for the National Social Science Fund Project during the Tenth Five-Year Plan. (This project was completed in 2007; it received excellent reviews, and was published by the Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House in 2009.) I undertook the task of selecting and compiling material from the catalogue for a Qing Dynasty literature collation project hosted by Chen Jianhua. This was entitled “A Select Collection of Data on Chinese Genealogies”. I have also participated in many seminars, exhibitions and conferences—both at home and abroad—on family trees. All of these have helped me write my monographs. 4. I have written a series of papers on the big topic of China’s genealogical history. Over the last 10 years, I have published more than 20 Chinese genealogical papers, and I have written around 300,000 words in historical journals, university journals, books and periodicals. I have also written for Wenhui Daily, and compiled special material on genealogies and historical documents. Some of my papers have been reprinted by Xinhua Digest and various other newspapers and magazines. Each paper has been a small achievement in the process of writing a history on China’s genealogy.

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It has dawned on me that my difficult, scientific task is far from enough when it comes to Chinese genealogy. I am extracting data from a sea of genealogical documents, and I am basing my views of genealogical history on the achievements of my predecessors and pioneers, who formed their own systematic views. My genealogical research has developed from a scattered series of papers into academic monographs and has meant that genealogical research has made leaps and bounds. I feel that in order to write on China’s genealogy history, we should be good at applying a micro perspective by collecting and digesting many types of data, and being brave enough to grasp the writings of Chinese genealogical history from a macro perspective. I have paid special attention to the following in my research methods: 1. Refining and preserving genealogical data on the basis of extensive, in-depth and focused research. When it comes to looking at the development and evolution of Chinese genealogies, their style, content, function and editing method are discussed as key points. These categories have also helped reveal the development track of Chinese genealogies over the last five thousand years. 2. Adopting a crisscross approach. The development and evolution of Chinese genealogies can be discussed from a vertical perspective, i.e. focusing on their definition, origin, birth, how they have prospered, transformed, been improved, popularized or revised. They can also be discussed from a horizontal perspective, i.e. focusing on their style, content or volume, the surnames within them, their illustration or their function. This crisscross approach means that, inevitably, some viewpoints and material will be repeated. But on the whole, this approach can show how Chinese genealogies have developed and evolved over the last five thousand years. 3. Looking at the specific historical and social environment of a genealogy during a specific period of time. To understand how genealogies have evolved, it is important to understand that genealogies cannot be isolated from the context in which they have developed. They need to be accompanied by an analysis of the political, economic, cultural and educational environment of the time, and readers need to understand family members’ folk customs and mainstream social consciousness. Family genealogies can then be made more detailed, and a much richer description can be given for how a genealogy has development. 4. Looking at comprehensive material on China’s history, economics, sociology, demography, folklore, ethnology, genetics, etc., to analyze the country’s genealogical history via multiple perspectives. It has taken me ten years to sharpen my sword. When I was retired from the post of Party Secretary in 2000, I was still in my prime. This year, I finished the manuscript for this monograph, and it has taken roughly ten years. The last 10 years, my research work—although late—has blossomed. In October 1963, I entered my fifth grade as a history student at Fudan University. At that time, I was already president of the Fudan University Student Union. The person in charge of the Fudan Party Committee spoke with me, and said that they hoped I could take my postgraduate entrance examinations at Fudan. I would then be able to continue being president of the Student Union for another three years, and

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this meant they would avoid having to choose a new student union president. At that time, the requirements of the Party Committee stipulated that I was to be a graduate student. I was determined to avoid becoming a political instructor and becoming a political cadre after graduation. Instead, I wanted to be involved in research work and enter the world of academia. My plans didn’t work out; my graduation in July 1967 coincided with the Cultural Revolution. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, I presided over and was a participant in the activities organized by the conservative Red Guards of Fudan University. I was involved in the activities that were organized by the Red Guards across all colleges and universities in Shanghai. At that time, I met with Cao Diqiu and Yang Xiguang, leaders of the Shanghai Municipal Committee. When the rebels of Fudan came to power, I was the first to bear the brunt of this. In May 1968, I was assigned to work in Anhui (the worst area in the distribution scheme for graduate students at that time). I then worked at the Anhui Library, the Anhui Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of History and the Anhui Local Records Office. I was transferred back to the Shanghai Library in September 1995 and was retired from my post as Party Secretary of the Shanghai Library in October 2000. When I first graduated, I worked at the Anhui Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of History, and I was engaged in historical research. At other times, my positions have meant that I have only been able to do research work in my spare time. Therefore, I am deeply touched that I have been able to devote all of my time, energy and effort to genealogical research over the last ten years. I have cherished this time. I know that I am a late bloomer, and although my work has taken a decade, I am still a latecomer to genealogical research. On 5 July, 2009, I submitted my project completion report for the “History of Chinese Genealogy”. I stated that my findings were of “academic value and application value” by making the following evaluation: My achievements in the field of Chinese genealogy have been pioneering. They are of great academic value and fill in many of the blanks that are currently in Chinese genealogical research. Over the last 100 years, especially the last 30, considerable achievements have been made with regards Chinese genealogical research. It is an important part of China’s traditional culture. More than 2000 papers on Chinese genealogy have been published, along with a number of academic monographs, both at home and abroad. However, there is not yet a complete, large-scale volume of work on the history of Chinese genealogy. I have spent ten years filling in the gaps of existing Chinese genealogical works. My work is based on previous studies, and I have gone to great efforts to write a history on Chinese genealogy. My work contains solid data, a complete system, clear viewpoints and accurate analysis. For the first time, I am proposing a study on how Chinese genealogies have developed over the last 5000 years that is divided into seven stages. These are: the origin of genealogies, their birth, how they have prospered, transformed, been perfected, popularized, and spawned new revisions. The definitions of genealogies, their birth, transformation, popularization and values have all been inherited, developed and innovated. Over the last 50 years, newly revised genealogies at home and abroad have also been of

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pioneering, academic significance, compared to the more popular, specialized historical ones. They have become an important organic part of how Chinese genealogies have developed and evolved. Zhang Xuecheng, a famous Qing Dynasty historian, pointed out that: “The significance of genealogy to family, local chronicle to county and history to country is the same.” Genealogies, local chronicles and official histories together constitute an important pillar of how Chinese history has developed. However, the collation, development and research of genealogical data have obviously lagged behind official histories and local chronicles. Therefore, this work will also play a certain role of promoting how genealogical resources have developed. It will also show how these resources have inheriting China’s national culture. For people compiling new genealogies, this subject is of great significance as a reference point. Over the last 30 years, there has been a notable rise of “historical revisions” and “annals being revised in prosperous times”. There has been a spontaneous surge of people compiling genealogies, on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. These have almost reached the point whereby full surname compilations are revised, or full villages. When people compile a new genealogy, there is a general method of renewal that is generally adopted, according to the lineage and universal style of old genealogies. The relevant lineage of family members, data on them, and the date of renewal are added, and the genealogy is continued. The biggest problem that family members have encountered when compiling new genealogies is over how to treat the old genealogical data, and whether they supplement the data with new viewpoints. Based on the development track of Chinese genealogies, this work looks at the style, content and function of genealogies during different periods, and it summarizes and comments on how new genealogies have been compiled. Therefore, the research findings in this work have certain reference value to new genealogists, in terms of how they understand the development and evolution of Chinese genealogies from the perspective of historical materialism. It is also valuable in helping them understand how to bring forth new ones and compile new genealogies. In my project completion report, I summed up that there are “problems in the existing findings, that are either insufficient or lacking, and they need to be studied in-depth”: Chinese genealogies have existed for 5000 years in China. They are rich in content and profound. It has been an arduous task to describe how they have evolved in only 500,000 characters. However, I have been planning this project since 1996, and over the last ten years, I have gone all out to implement it. I have worked hard to complete the basic research that was expected for this project, but after strict examination, I have still found that there are some shortcomings. For example, the discussions on the origin of genealogies and their early development stage are a bit rough because there is insufficient reference material. I have adopted both a vertical and a horizontal approach in my methodology, so some of my material and viewpoints are repeated from time to time. The genealogies of ethnic minorities are an important part of Chinese genealogies. However, due to space limitations, they are only discussed during the Qing Dynasty and Republic of China eras. The genealogies of some ethnic minorities, including the Bai, Koreans and Tibetans, are not discussed. In the

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future, it will be possible to revise and supplement these above deficiencies. It also may be possible to write a “Study on Chinese Ethnic Minority Genealogies”. Then this information could be sorted out, developed and studied. During my studies, I have felt strongly over the last 10 years that Chinese genealogies are an important part of China’s traditional culture. They have profound connotations, and are a piece of precious, historical and cultural heritage that are worth summarizing in-depth. Personally, I think that my own studies of genealogical documents over the last 10 years are just the beginning. In the future, I am determined to delve further into the sea of genealogical documents, and make new achievements collating, developing and researching these documents. I would like to thank the historical document center, the reader service center, the document providing center and the other Shanghai Library departments. I would also like to thank Chen Jianhua, Wu Huizu and Chen Zhongwei for providing information on Chinese genealogies, Lin Hua for re-illustrating some of the pictures, and Wang Xingkang, Zhao Changping, Lü Jian and Wang Jun at the Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House for their support. Finally, I would like to thank my wife Feng Fengzhen for helping me collect/sort through information, and type millions of words of manuscript over the years. I would like to express my gratitude to He Jun, Xu Junnong, and Kerry Allen for their meticulous translating, editing and proofreading, and to M. Erdenebaatar at Inner Mongolia University for giving us the benefit of his linguistic advice on English transliterations of the Mongolian names mentioned in this book. Wang Heming