Civilian literary gatherings (Nanshe Research)

Author: Luan Meijian
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: In the history of the development of modern literary societies in China during the first half of the 20th century, whether it was the Baishi Society or the Yuanyang-Hudie Society during the same period as the Southern Society, or later organizations such as the New Youth Society, the Literary Research Association, the Creation Society, the Yushi Society, the Xueheng Faction, the Modern Review Faction, and the Lunyu Faction, the vast majority of them were established in modern metropolises such as Shanghai, the economic center of China, or Beijing, the political center. The Southern Society was officially founded in 1909 at Zhang Gongci in, Suzhou, a place with a strong feudal and folk character. Its tradition and uniqueness led previous literary historians to often classify it as part of classical Chinese literature. Checking the Cihai (Comprehensive Dictionary) - Literature Volume, it is evident that the "Southern Society" is listed as the last among Chinese classical literary societies and factions. It seems as if classical Chinese literature maintained its traditional characteristics consistently until the Southern Society, after which Chinese literature embarked on a completely new path of modernization. However, the issue lies in this: From its inception to its establishment, development, and eventual fragmentation, the Southern Society spanned several decades, seemingly parallel to the entire course of modern Chinese literary history. If the Southern Society is excluded from the history of modern Chinese literature, one cannot help but ask: Did classical Chinese literary traditions coexist alongside the development of modern Chinese literature? Or, was the previous perspective on modern literature too narrow and monotonous? Although there are many factors contributing to this traditional understanding of the Southern Society, its choice of location for founding and its adoption of traditional and folk methods during its activities were undoubtedly significant reasons for its classification as classical literature. In the turbulent early 20th century, publications such as Liang Qichao's New Fiction (1902), Li Boyuan's Illustrated Novels (1903), Wu Jianren and Zhou Guisheng's Monthly Novels (1906), and Wang Yunzhang and Yun Tieqiao's Monthly Novel Magazine (1910) either advocated political reform and the promotion of a democratic republic or emphasized light entertainment to cater to urban readers, all strongly reflecting the new demands and tastes of the political and cultural transformation during this critical period. However, although some members of the Southern Society called for democratic political reforms, its most prominent and concentrated impression was that the Southern Society was nationalist and opposed the Manchu Qing Dynasty. Why did the Southern Society exhibit such strong nationalism? Why did it so fiercely oppose the Manchu Qing Dynasty? The answers to these questions are deeply intertwined with the origins of the Southern Society's founding and the true motivations behind its appearance in the literary scene at the beginning of the 20th century. Here, the geographical context provides the primary and most focused lens for observing the Southern Society's founding. The timeline must be traced back to 250 years ago, to the late Ming Dynasty. In the long history of Chinese civilization, the economic center of China underwent a significant regional shift from north to south. During the Wei and Jin periods, the large-scale migration of aristocratic families to the south, combined with the completion of the Grand Canal during the Sui Dynasty, which connected northern and southern China, rapidly transformed the Jiangnan region into the country's most prosperous economic center. By the Song Dynasty, people could easily appreciate the region's importance and wealth from phrases like "When Suzhou and Lake Tai are prosperous, the whole country is prosperous" and "Heaven above, Suzhou and Hangzhou below." By the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, the prosperity of Jiangnan reached its peak. Farming and sericulture flourished, merchants gathered in large numbers, and the urban middle class emerged in cities like Suzhou, Hangzhou, Jinling (Nanjing), and Yangzhou, some of which had grown to sizes of around one million people. The scientist Xu Guangqi recorded in his Agricultural Policies that silk-reeling techniques such as "five people accomplishing the work of six" and "one stove consuming the fuel of three" were widely used in Jiangnan. Another scientist, Song Yingxing, in his work Treatise on the Mysterious Arts of Heaven and Earth, noted that silk-reeling efficiency had greatly improved and craftsmanship had become highly complex in areas like Suzhou and Songjiang. With the advancement of productivity, the emerging capitalist production model of "capitalists investing and workers laboring" also gradually took root in Jiangnan. The capitalist sprouts that seemed to signal the end of the ancient feudal empire had by the late Ming Dynasty become a tangible reality in Jiangnan. The talented scholar Tang Yin described the prosperous scene in Suzhou's Changle Gate in his poem Changle Gate as a Market:
"Three thousand jade-sleeved beauties in towers above and below,
Millions of gold flow east and west.
Where does the market cease at dawn?
In the four corners, all is different."
He depicted the vibrancy of Suzhou in the late Ming Dynasty. Simultaneously, He Liangjun, in his Collected Discourses of the Four Friends Study, pointed out that in Suzhou and Songjiang at the time, "Few people once pursued commerce, but now those who abandoned farming to engage in industry and commerce were three times as many as before." With the development of commercial economy, several famous commercial cities in Jiangnan rapidly rose. "Narrow lanes and broad streets were adorned with splendid markets; alleys and markets were densely arranged, and bridges stood like teeth." "Merchants from all directions converged in these places, and boats from Shu and Yue navigated day and night at the gates," forming prosperous and renowned commercial cities. Taking Wujiang County in Jiangsu Province, where many members of the Southern Society later gathered, as an example, there were only seven market towns in the early Ming Dynasty, but by the Jiajing era, they had developed into fourteen large towns. Among them, the typical town of Qingcuidi, which had only hundreds of people in the early Ming, had grown into a major silk hub with tens of thousands of inhabitants by the late Ming. This is reflected in literature, such as the Three Words and Two Captures compiled by Feng Menglong and Ling Yingchu, which left behind many literary scenes of commercial cities and the urban middle class. Although the late Ming Dynasty was marked by eunuch rule and corrupt governance, the Donglin Party members, who fought bravely against the feudal bureaucratic class led by Wei Zhongxian, revealed a sharp conflict between emerging capitalist sprouts and the decaying feudal bureaucratic system at the deep level of productive forces and relations. However, with the mass emergence of the urban middle class, the growing prosperity of commercial cities, the rapid increase in social wealth, and the severe opposition and subversion of outdated feudal values and ethical norms in people's minds, the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty held a pivotal position in the history of Chinese civilization. Among the accounts of historians, one can faintly sense the impending great transformation of Chinese history, a dawn somewhat similar to the European Renaissance, as if it were about to appear in the ancient land of the East. However, in 1644, with the suicide of the Ming Emperor Chongzhen on Coal Mountain in Beijing, the Manchu cavalry swept across the Central Plains, and this dawn of capitalist sprouts vanished like a dream. P001-003