清末济宁阻滞边缘化的现代转型

Resisting Peripheralization Through Modern Transformation in Late Qing Jining

地处山东西南的济宁,因其在以作为帝国生命线的大运河为动脉的南北交流中的居中位置,一直是中国晚期帝制时代最重要的工商都市和区域中心。在19世纪下半叶,随着漕运的败落、清朝中央集权的式微和东部沿海以西方因素为导引的工商业的崛起和扩张,济宁同整个北方内陆运河地区一起急剧衰退,并在山东乃至全国经济的层级体系中迅速向边缘位置滑落。然而与临清和其他内陆运河城市的命运不同,济宁作为一个城市个体并没有完全没落。清末济宁通过现代转型以阻止边缘化的特殊经历以及当地精英的活动,充分展现了当地人士在兴建新式交通运输系统、调整地方经济取向和城市功能的努力。济宁变革的成功和挫折的经验,是中国城市现代化的一种典型写照。

Jining of southwest Shandong remained one of the significant national economic metropolises and regional urban centers in late imperial China due to its crucial intermediary position in the north-south interaction along the Grand Canal—the empire’s lifeline. In the latter half of the 19th century when canal transportation decayed in the wake of the decline of the central imperial power of the Qing dynasty and the influx of Western capitalism from the eastern costal areas, Jining, as well as the whole northern inland canal region, fell off, and was downgraded to a somewhat marginal status in both the provincial and national hierarchical systems. Notwithstanding, unlike Linqing and most other canal cities, Jining did not collapse. This article surveys the distinctive experience of Jining’s struggle against peripheralization through modern transformation in the late Qing. Centering in the elites’ activities, this article examines the local people’s attempts in constructing railway and modern land route systems to replace the decaying canal and adjusting the local economic makeup towards the coastal modern economy, which consequently held back the locality’s regression. This article also touches on certain characteristics of Chinese urban modernization as epitomized in the partial success and frustration of Jining’s early transformation.