侠气与民情 19世纪中叶地方军事化演变中的社会转型

“Xia-Qi”(Chivalry) and Mores:Social Transformation Brought about by Local Militarization during Taiping Rebellion

太平天国运动对晚清帝国的冲击不仅体现在财政税收、人口、土地关系等社会结构要素上,更重要的是人心与世风之变以及由此形成的新的社会民情基础。这一世风丕变特别体现在:地方为应对太平军冲击而进行的军事化运动中伴生的失范型暴力,是以"任侠之气"的精神伦理作为军事动员的内在组织原则而导致的后果。"侠气"这一精神伦理以"力"的无限扩张为法则,与传统帝国政治结构中的宗法、乡礼、师道以及凝结在地权上的依附关系形成巨大张力,由此造成军事化组织与国家政治的背离。"力"的无限扩张法则打碎了帝国政治所依赖的身份与等级结构,导致了夷平化的社会形态出现,从而对传统政治治理构成挑战,并最终召唤了用现代革命的方式推进政治和社会变迁的时代的到来。

The impacts on social structure of the Late Imperial China were catastrophic during Taiping Rebellion. In addition to mutations in fiscal system, population and ownership of land, a major change made to the Imperial was the morality and mores, which predicated a new social condition. This change was mainly reflected in the violence in the local resistance to Taiping Rebellion, and was a result of the spread of ＂Xia-Qi＂ （chivalry）, the ethical principle of the local military mobilization. ＂ Xia-Qi ＂ is a key conception to better our understandings of the ethical principle of the civil societies in Chinese history. At the end of Ming Dynasty, ＂Xia-Qi＂ transformed to an abstract spirit which could be discovered in any social stratum. Based on an exploration of local militarization in Wenzhou province in the mid 19th century, this research also discovers that ＂Xia-Qi＂ not only played a role as organization mechanism in local militarization, it also provided an inner foundation for the shape of a new society. ＂Xia-Qi＂ was a law of individual power leading to countless rebellions against the Imperial because of its opposition to the traditional orders in patriarchal system, rates in villages, the authority of Confucians and dependant relationships in the Imperial China. As a result, the law of power in ＂Xia-Qi＂ destroyed the hierarchical structure of the Imperial and produced a social equalization which rendered the traditional governance in crises. This also caused the coming of modern revolution which resulted in a series of social and political transformations and the collapse of the traditional governance. The constitutional reform in the late Imperial on the one hand meant a new power relationship between the central and the local governments, on the other showed a reconstruction of morality.