淸代 錦屛縣 加池寨의 經濟的 有力層과 少數民族 社會 ― 『淸水江文書』의 加池寨 斷賣 文書를 중심으로 ―(2)

Abstract

The existence of the Documents of the Qingshui River must have brought new attention to the minority community in the province. The study is aimed at examining the behavior of influential people following the first paper that unearthed influential people based on Jiachi village single-sale documents in the Documents of the Qingshui River. Thus, unlike the first paper, which intensively analyzed single-sale documents among the documents related to Jiachi village, the 1-2-5 series documents, which record only the contents of conflicts, lawsuits and crimes between individuals, was used as the main materials here. The social aspect of Jinping district, which appears in 1-2-5 series documents, was clearly a society where extreme conflict and competition existed, and it was clear that influential people were engaged in mudslinging for their own interests, and the main contents of this paper were as follows. First, we can first confirm that there were serious social crimes, such as murder and rape, as well as crimes such as theft and default on repayment of debts, which were no different from any other Han Chinese society. However, due to the nature of the Jiachi village society, which focuses on forestry, among these various crimes, the most notable were the so-called ‘yuejieqiangkan(越界强砍, cut down a tree by invading the border)’ acts, and most of the lawsuits between individuals, which account for about 80 percent of 132 documents affiliated with 1-2-5, were due to the acts mentioned just above. Second, this illegal lumber barber was more than just an antagonism between individuals, and lawsuits and conflicts developed among the villages. However, it is noteworthy that the main driver of the illegal logging was the gentlemen of Jiachi village, and the participants were the influential figures who had fallen economically in the Jiachi village. For example, documents from 1-2-5 affiliates show that Wang Zhihao(王治浩), originally belonged to a poor class but had been at odds with Jiang Zuoxing(姜佐興) since joining the ranks of the gentlemen, and that once rich Jiang Chaoying(姜朝英) and Jiang Chaobi(姜朝弼) sold almost all of their assets to Jiang Zuoxing. The stories of these characters provide important clues that society has undergone many changes between Daoguang and Xianfeng periods, while social mobility has been quite frequent. Third, illegal practices involving various crimes and timber have been frequent, but on the other hand, it is also confirmed that the powerful have devoted themselves to protecting their forestry, which is the basis of their economic activities. The specific aspects are well illustrated in the measures to prevent the bandits, which have occurred frequently since the Daoguang period. It is the fact that in the joint efforts of the influential people to prevent bandits, forestry must be protected uniformly in addition to routine measures such as cooperation for blocking bandits and blocking entry of suspicious individuals. This clearly means that the most basic purpose of defending against outside invasive forces, such as bandits, was to protect forestry, which is the basis of society, beyond simply maintaining local security. In this regard, it is also very significant that not only fines were imposed on those who violate forestry protection, but also that the fact of the crime was widely publicized to the community. Finally, most of the characters in the 1-2-5 series are obviously members of the Jiang clan, but it is also meaningful to note that they are descendants of Jiang Fuchen(姜輔臣), who are different from the Jiang clan of the Siheyuan(四合院), which was mentioned in the previous article. The reason for this is that the documents are tracking individual figures appearing in Documents of the Qingshui River, breaking away from case-by-case studies such as sale of the forestry fields, the peculiar customs of minority society, occurrence and settlement of disputes between indviduals, inheritance, and women's status. Given the fact that the Jiang clan of Jiachi village still has documents to buy the forestry fields so far, access to such individual figures is a good example to prove the long-term continuation of minority society, which naturally requires more diverse research on this issue.