This article uses case studies to examine the rainmaking activities of provincial military governors during a historical period when a decentralized China suffered from frequent droughts.On the one hand,it analyzes wh...This article uses case studies to examine the rainmaking activities of provincial military governors during a historical period when a decentralized China suffered from frequent droughts.On the one hand,it analyzes why their rainmaking has been interpreted in a very negative light and demonstrates that progressive intellectuals writing in the Republican-era(1912—49)print media were crucial to fostering misunderstandings of the rainmaking activities of these“warlords”as superstitious and backward.On the other hand,it argues that public ceremonies of praying for rain served as a crucial venue for the military governors to perform their local authority and make a claim to political legitimacy.Some of them pursued efficacy by all possible means,including experimenting with Western“scientific”rainmaking techniques of concussion and fire,which suggests that their rainmaking efforts were not merely a utilization of traditionalism,but drew from a complex and eclectic rainmaking culture emerged in early twentieth-century China.In an age when truly effective weather modification methods had not yet been discovered,the highly visible public rainmaking activities of warlords,regardless of results,constituted an integral and important dimension of their local governance,particularly in desperate times,amidst prolonged and severe droughts when popular feeling was unsettled and volatile.展开更多
This article proposes a new way of viewing Republican-era warlords. Through an examination of the life ofLi Dequan, the second wife of warlord Feng Yuxiang, it displaces Feng from his typical military and political co...This article proposes a new way of viewing Republican-era warlords. Through an examination of the life ofLi Dequan, the second wife of warlord Feng Yuxiang, it displaces Feng from his typical military and political context, scrutinizing instead the ways that Feng and Li interwove the private intimacies of love, marriage, and family life into their public and political lives. In the Republic, Feng and Li, like many prominent figures of the time, shared elements of their private lives with journalists and, through them, a broader reading public, posing for photographs with their children on their way to school and inviting reporters to family events. Feng and Li utilized this newfound intimacy between public and political leaders to cultivate public sympathy and support. By the early PRC, Li--following Feng＇s sudden 1948 death--was named the first Minister of Health of the People＇s Republic of China and her roles as wife and romantic object fell away. Instead, she focused on mothering the nation. By the late twentieth century, emphasis on the Li and Feng romance reappeared in writings about the couple, and while these narratives drew on the Republican-era stories, it was made to seem that Li＇s feminism rather than Feng＇s modernity had facilitated their true love. Though the warlords have often been seen as destructive, exploring Feng＇s and Li＇s lives demonstrates that factional militarists and their families contributed to a new political culture grounded in a gendered national narrative that merewrite family and nation.展开更多
文摘This article uses case studies to examine the rainmaking activities of provincial military governors during a historical period when a decentralized China suffered from frequent droughts.On the one hand,it analyzes why their rainmaking has been interpreted in a very negative light and demonstrates that progressive intellectuals writing in the Republican-era(1912—49)print media were crucial to fostering misunderstandings of the rainmaking activities of these“warlords”as superstitious and backward.On the other hand,it argues that public ceremonies of praying for rain served as a crucial venue for the military governors to perform their local authority and make a claim to political legitimacy.Some of them pursued efficacy by all possible means,including experimenting with Western“scientific”rainmaking techniques of concussion and fire,which suggests that their rainmaking efforts were not merely a utilization of traditionalism,but drew from a complex and eclectic rainmaking culture emerged in early twentieth-century China.In an age when truly effective weather modification methods had not yet been discovered,the highly visible public rainmaking activities of warlords,regardless of results,constituted an integral and important dimension of their local governance,particularly in desperate times,amidst prolonged and severe droughts when popular feeling was unsettled and volatile.
文摘This article proposes a new way of viewing Republican-era warlords. Through an examination of the life ofLi Dequan, the second wife of warlord Feng Yuxiang, it displaces Feng from his typical military and political context, scrutinizing instead the ways that Feng and Li interwove the private intimacies of love, marriage, and family life into their public and political lives. In the Republic, Feng and Li, like many prominent figures of the time, shared elements of their private lives with journalists and, through them, a broader reading public, posing for photographs with their children on their way to school and inviting reporters to family events. Feng and Li utilized this newfound intimacy between public and political leaders to cultivate public sympathy and support. By the early PRC, Li--following Feng＇s sudden 1948 death--was named the first Minister of Health of the People＇s Republic of China and her roles as wife and romantic object fell away. Instead, she focused on mothering the nation. By the late twentieth century, emphasis on the Li and Feng romance reappeared in writings about the couple, and while these narratives drew on the Republican-era stories, it was made to seem that Li＇s feminism rather than Feng＇s modernity had facilitated their true love. Though the warlords have often been seen as destructive, exploring Feng＇s and Li＇s lives demonstrates that factional militarists and their families contributed to a new political culture grounded in a gendered national narrative that merewrite family and nation.
