207ĈčĆĕęĊė 7
The Changing Landscape in
Rural South Fujian in Late-Ming Times:
A Story of the “Little People” (1)
Changing Socioeconomic Conditions in Rural Fujian
In 1506 for the βirst time the local gazetteers recorded that a small
band of “Guangdong plunderers” had raided Zhangzhou prefecture.
They came very likely from the Chaozhou area of eastern Guangdong
bordering southern Fujian. Perhaps, the incident itself was insigniβicant.
However, the successive intrusions of Guangdong plunderers into
Zhangzhou and also Quanzhou shortly thereafter in the years that
followed signal a turning point in local socioeconomic conditions. All
these events marked the beginning of a new chapter in the socioeconomic
development of southern Fujian.
There is a surprising amount of information about the hard time
experienced by the ordinary peasants, known as “little people” (xiaomin),
a term used by contemporary writers to mean the mass of the commoners.
Somewhat unexpectedly, the descriptions of their hardships are found
in compilations or writings by high- and low-ranking ofβicials as well
as the literary gentry who assisted in compiling local gazetteers. In line
with the emerging scholarship on statecraft, whose writers were most
concerned with people’s well-being, the local gazetteers are windows on
the current conditions in local society.
The late Ming era saw the rapid development of China’s commodity
economy and monetization. In the 1950s and the 1960s Mainland Chinese
scholars used to describe the phenomenon as “budding capitalism” in
Chinese history. Nevertheless, the opposite side of the coin revealed a
great contrast to the favorable picture of the socioeconomic conditions
in Ming China. In this and the next chapters, the intention is to understand
Ming society through the lens of the ordinary agriculturists.