1. See William Rowe, Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796–1889 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984).

2. David Faure, "What Made Foshan a Town? The Evolution of Rural-Urban Identities in Ming-Qing China," Late Imperial China 11, no. 2 (December 1990): 1–31.

3. See the works of the Chinese economic historian Fu Yiling on Ming-Qing merchant capital; Ye Xian'en and Harriet Zurndorfer on Huizhou; and Shiba Yoshinobu on Jiang-nan, among others. For late imperial China, the cycles of regional systems are presented in the works of G. William Skinner.

4. For family institutions and women, see the works of Patricia Ebrey and Dorothy Ko. For popular religion, see those of Atsutoshi Hamashima, Valerie Hansen, and Richard Van Glahn.

5. See the works of Joanna Handlin Smith, Craig Clunas, and Timothy Brook on Ming commerce and culture.

6. See Kenneth Dean and Zheng Zhenman, Fujian zongjiao beiming huibian: Xinghua fu fence (Epigraphical materials on the history of religion in Fujian, Xinghua region) (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 1995).

7. See David Faure, "The Lineage as a Cultural Invention," Modern China 15, no. 1 (January 1989): 4–36.

8. Marie-Claire Bergère, The Golden Age of the Chinese Bourgeoisie, 1911–1937, trans. Janet Lloyd (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). See also Huang Yifeng et al., Jiu Zhongguo minzu zichan jieji (The national bourgeoisie in Old China) (n.p.: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1990).

9. See Wang Gungwu, "The Culture of Chinese Merchants," University of Toronto–York University Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies, working paper series no. 57, 1990. He argues that overseas Chinese merchants thrived within their own culture when they were free from bureaucratic restraints.

10. See Liu Kwang-ching, "Chinese Merchant Guilds: An Historical Inquiry," Pacific Historical Review 57, no. 1 (1988): 1–23; see also his book Jingshi sixiang yu xinxing qiye (Economic thinking and new enterprises)(Taipei: Lianjing, 1990).

11. See Mary Rankin, Elite Activism and Political Transformation in China: Zhejiang Province, 1865–1911 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986); Keith Schoppa, Chinese Elites and Political Change: Zhejiang Province in the Early Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982); essays by Keith Schoppa, Lenore Barkan, and David Strand in the volume of essays edited by Joseph Esherick and Mary Rankin, Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990); see also Susan

12. See Helen Siu, "Recycling Tradition: Culture, History, and Political Economy in the Chrysanthemum Festivals of South China," Comparative Studies in Society and History 32, no. 4 (1990): 765–94; and afterword to The Culture of Scholarship, ed. Sally Humphreys (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997), 139–86. See also, "Where Were the Women? Rethinking Marriage Resistance and Regional Culture History," Late Imperial China 11, no. 2 (December 1990): 32–62.

13. See Elizabeth Perry, introduction to pt. 3, "Urban Associations," in Urban Spaces in Contemporary China: The Potential for Autonomy and Community in Post-Mao China, ed. Deborah Davis, Richard Kraus, Barry Naughton, and Elizabeth Perry (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 297–301; also Elizabeth Perry, "Trends in the Study of Chinese Politics: State-Society Relations," China Quarterly (September 1994): 704–14. See also ‘Public Sphere’/‘Civil Society’ in China? Paradigmatic Issues in China Studies, the special symposium volume of Modern China 19, no. 2 (April 1993).

14. For the materials on Xinhui county, Guangdong, please refer to chaps. 3–5 of Helen Siu, Agents and Victims in South China: Accomplices in Rural Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). For a sample of historical essays on Guangdong produced by our research group, see David Faure and Helen Siu, eds., Down to Earth: The Territorial Bond in South China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995).

15. See Hsiao Kung-chuan, Rural China: Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1960); also Frederic Wakeman Jr. and Caroline Grant, eds., Conflict and Control in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, 1975).

16. Boundaries were blurred. Merchants emulated literati lifestyles and unsuccessful literati turned themselves into prosperous entrepreneurs. See historical materials on Huizhou, and Shiba Yoshinobu, "Ningpo and Its Hinterland," in The City in Late Imperial China, ed. G. William Skinner (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977), 391–440.

17. See Craig Clunas, Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991), and Timothy Brook, The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998), on the deeply felt impact of commercial wealth on culture and society during the Ming. See the insightful essay by Yu Ying-shih, "Business Culture and Chinese Traditions—towards a Study of the Evolution of Merchant Culture in Chinese History," in Dynamic Hong Kong: Business and Culture, ed. Wang Gungwu and Wong Siulun (Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, the University of Hong Kong, 1997), 1–84.

18. Susan Mann, Local Merchants and the Chinese Bureaucracy, 1750–1950 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987), 27–28.

19. See David Faure, "A Note on the Lineage in Business," Chinese Business History 1, no. 2 (April 1991): 1–3. For a longer version of the paper, reprinted from the Second Conference

20. David Faure, "Lineage as a Cultural Invention"; also Faure, "What Made Foshan," 1990.

21. See the introduction to David Faure and Helen Siu, eds., Down to Earth.

22. See also David Faure, "The Emperor in the Village: Representing the State in South China," in State and Court Ritual in China, ed. Joseph McDermott (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

23. On the industries and lineages of Foshan, see a series of articles in Guangdong lishi xuehui, ed., Ming Qing Guangdong shehui jingji xingtai yanjiu (Research on the society and economy of Guangdong in the Ming and Qing) (Guangzhou: Guangdong renmin chubanshe, 1985), in particular, the following articles: Luo Yixing, "Ming Qing shiqi Foshan yetieye yanjiu" (Research on the iron industries of Foshan during the Ming and Qing); Ye Xian'en and Tan Dihua, "Lun Zhujiang sanjiao zhou de zutian" (On the ancestral estates of the Pearl River delta); Cao Tengfei and Tan Dihua, "Guanyu Ming Qing Guangdong yetie ye de jige wenti" (On several issues of the iron industries in Ming-Qing Guangdong); Tan Dihua and Ye Xian'en, "Fengjian zongfa shili dui Foshan jingji de kongzhi ji qi chansheng de yingxiang" (Feudal lineage power and the impact of its control over Foshan's economy); Zheng Kecheng, "Huo Tao de zhengzhi zhuzhang he jingji sixiang—du Ming shi. Huo Tao juan zaji" (Huo Tao's political views and economic thinking—on reading Ming History, the Biography of Huo Tao). See also documents from Ming Qing Foshan beike wenxian jingji ziliao (Economic historical materials from stone inscriptions of Ming-Qing Foshan), ed. Guang-dong sheng Foshan shi bowuguan et al. (Guangzhou: Guangdong renmin chubanshe, 1987).

24. See Tan Dihua and Ye Xian'en, "Fengjian zongfa shili dui Foshan jingji de kongzhi ji qi chansheng de yingxiang," ed. Guangdong lishi xuehui, 144–64.

25. For Jiangnan, see the works of Yoshinobu Shiba, Susan Mann, and Mark Elvin, among others.

26. The magnificent mansions of the Huizhou merchants, their lineage organizations, and their academies were public testimonies. In order to secure a solid grounding for their mercantile operations, merchants had tried to cultivate patronage and territorial bonds through native associations, trade guilds, charity, the buying of degrees, and support of popular religion. See the works of Ye Xian'en, Tan Dihua, and Luo Yixing in Ming Qing Guangdong shehui jingji xingtai yanjiu, ed. Guangdong lishi xuehui, 1985. For the relationship between popular religion and commercialization, see Valerie Hansen, Changing Gods in Medieval China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); Richard Van Glahn, "The Enchantment of Wealth: The God Wutong in the Social History of Jiangnan," Harvard Journal of Asian Studies (1991): 651–714; see also Atsutoshi Hamashima on the Chenghuang temples in Jiangnan. For the late Qing, see Madeleine Zelin, "The Rise and Fall of the Fu-Rong Salt-Yard Elite: Merchant Dominance in Late Qing China," in Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance, ed. Joseph Esherick and Mary Rankin (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), 82–112; see also Lynda Bell, "From Comprador to County Magnate: Bourgeois Practice in the Wuxi County Silk Industry," 113–39, in the same volume.

27. See Ye Xian'en, Ming-Qing Huizhou nongcun shehui yu dianpu zhi (Rural society and the system of bond servants in Huizhou during the Ming and Qing) (Anhui: Anhui renmin

28. See Ye Xian'en, Ming-Qing Huizhou nongcun shehui yu dianpu zhi, 43.

29. See ibid., 42–56, on the small amount of privately owned land and the vast lineage estates in Huizhou.

30. See Harriet Zurndorfer, Change and Continuity in Chinese Local History: The Development of Hui-Chou Prefecture, 800–1800 (Leiden: Brill, 1989); see also essays in Liu Shen, ed., Huizhou shehui jingji shi yanjiu yiwenji. Ye Xian'en asserts that apart from bond servants, migrant laborers—known locally as the shed people (pengmin)—were also a source of labor in the lumber, salt, and tea enterprises for which the Huizhou merchants were known (Ming-Qing Huizhou nongcun shehui yu dianpu zhi, 84–85, 110–16).

31. See Helen Siu, Agents and Victims, chap. 4.

32. The Yuan village (Yuan jia cun) next to Chakang, the native village of Liang Qichao in Xinhui, was one such village of bond servants. In Chaolian, an island off the coast of Jiangmen, the established lineages all had bond servants. See also Tan Dihua, "Ming Qing shiqi Zhujiang sanjiao zhou de shipu" (The bond servants of the Pearl River delta in the Ming-Qing period), in Guangdong lishi wenti lunwen ji (Selected essays on issues of Guangdong history) (Taipei: Daohe chubanshe, 1993), 45–72.

33. Ye Xian'en, Ming-Qing Huizhou nongcun shehui yu dianpu zhi; see also Fu Yiling's work on Fujian, where there had been numerous challenges and conflicts over former bond servants who became prosperous and who tried to establish their own ancestral halls. For similar cases in the Pearl River delta, see Liu Zhiwei's chapter, "Shawan of Panyu County," in Down to Earth, ed. David Faure and Helen Siu, 21–43.

34. Her study focuses on the Fan lineage of Xiuning county in Huizhou prefecture. Xiuning and Xi counties are the two regions that produced numerous literati and merchants. See Harriet Zurndorfer, "Local Lineages and Local Development: A Case Study of the Fan Lineage, Hsiuning Hsien, Hui-chou, 800–1500," in Change and Development in Chinese Local History (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989). She argues that the investments in lineage land and charity might not be large, but through financing the compilation of lineage genealogies and occasional charity, merchants were able to confirm their native roots and maintain ties in Xiuning. She uses the example of a Fan Huo, who lived lavishly as a salt merchant in Yangzhou. During serious floods and famine (in 1539 and 1542), he gave huge donations to the victims. However, Zurndorfer argues that these were public acts with political and commercial agendas, just like his giving expensive gifts to friends and officials. He showed no interest in relieving the everyday needs of his kin.

35. See David Faure, "Lineage as a Cultural Invention"; Helen Siu, "Recycling Tradition."

36. See Ye Xian'en, Ming-Qing Huizhou nongcun shehui yu dianpu zhi, chaps. 3–5.

37. See ibid., 187–92. It is important to note that some of the degree holders had had urban residences for generations but claimed various rural counties in Huizhou as their places of origin.

38. The neo-Confucians Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi, and Zhu Xi were claimed to be natives of Xi county, one of the six counties within the Huizhou prefecture (also known as Xin'an). See Ye Xian'en, Ming-Qing Huizhou nongcun shehui yu dianpu zhi, chap. 5.

39. This runs counter to a top-down approach on state ideology and political control by Hsiao Kung-chuan.

40. For example, the grandson of Zheng Jinglian, a salt merchant who resided in Yangzhou, and Jiang Heting were famous patrons of these operas. See Ye Xian'en, Ming-Qing Huizhou nongcun shehui yu dianpu zhi, 227.

41. See ibid., chap. 5 on Huizhou. On the elaborate gardens in Jiangnan in the late Ming where interests of merchants and literati mingled, see Joanna Handlin-Smith, "Gardens in Ch'i Piaochia's Social World: Wealth and Values in Late-Ming Kiangnan," Journal of Asian Studies 51, no. 1 (February 1992): 55–81.

42. See Ye Xian'en, Ming-Qing Huizhou nongcun shehui yu dianpu zhi, 78.

43. See Keith Hazelton, "Ming Qing Huizhou de zongzu yu shehui liudong sheng" (Lineages and social mobility in Huizhou during the Ming and Qing), in Huizhou shehui jingjishi yanjiu yiwenji, ed. Liu Shen, 76–96, fn. 27 (the article was translated by Liu Zhiwei and Chen Chunsheng). The original reference can be found in Yong Rong et al., Sifu chuanshu zongmu, vol. 1, Shengyu (Imperial edicts) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1965), 2.

44. See Luo Yixing, "Territorial Community at the Town of Lubao, Sanshui County, for the Ming Dynasty," in Down to Earth, ed. David Faure and Helen Siu, 44–64.

45. See Ye Xian'en, Ming-Qing Huizhou nongcun shehui yu dianpu zhi, chap. 3, sec. 6.

46. See Philip Huang, The Peasant Economy and Social Change in North China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985).

47. See Prasenjit Duara, "State Involution: A Study of Local Finances in North China, 1911–1935," Comparative Studies in Society and History 29, no. 1 (1987); Culture, Power, and the State: Rural North China, 1900–1940 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988).

48. See Guangzhou gongshang jingji shiliao (Historical materials on business and economy in Guangzhou), a special volume on commercial and industrial enterprises in Guangzhou during the early decades of the Republic, Guangzhou wenshi ziliao 36 (1986).

49. See Helen Siu, Agents and Victims, chaps. 4–5.

50. See David Strand, "Mediation, Representation, and Repression: Local Elites in 1920s Beijing," in Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance, ed. Joseph Esherick and Mary Rankin (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), 218.

51. Our sites were Huicheng (Xinhui county capital) and Jiangmen on the Xi River system at the western edge of the delta, Xiaolan town of Xiangshan county, the settlements (xiang) of Shawan in Panyu county further southeast. There are also Foshan City, and Lubao of Sanshui county where North River joined the delta.

52. See Ye Xian'en and Tan Dihua, "Ming Qing Zhujiang sanjiao zhou nongye shangye hua yu xushi de fazhan" (The commercialization of agriculture and the development of markets and towns in the Pearl River delta during the Ming and Qing), in Ming Qing Guangdong shehui jingji xingtai yanjiu, ed. Guangdong lishi xuehui, 57–97. See also Tan Dihua, "Qingdai Zhujiang sanjiao zhou shangpin jingji de fazhan yu tudi wenti" (Commodity production and land tenure in the Pearl River delta during the Qing), in Guangdong lishi wenti lunwen ji, 81–98.

53. See Luo Yixing "Ming Qing shiqi Foshan yetieye yanjiu," 75–116. See also Tan Dihua, "Cong ‘Foshan jieli’ kan Ming Qing shiqi Foshan gongshanye de fazhan" (To view the development of commerce and industry in Foshan during the Ming and Qing from reading ‘Neighborhoods in Foshan’), in Guangdong lishi wenti lunwen ji, 225–42.

54. See Zhao Shisong, comp., Sanjiang Zhaoshi zupu (The Zhao lineage genealogy of Sanjiang) (Hong Kong: n.p., 1937). The Zhao lineage of Sanjiang xiang (village), which owned extensive diked fields to its southeast, claimed to have descended from the entourage of the last Song emperor, who was defeated by the Mongols in the area. Another record involved

55. The sands reclaimed were situated in the eastern part of Xinhui county, the northern part of Xiangshan (after 1925 renamed Zhongshan) county, and the southern part of Panyu county. These sands were eventually known as the Xihai shiba sha, Donghai shiliu sha, and Wanqing sha.

56. See Kikuko Nishigawa, "Qingdai Zhujiang sanjiao zhou shatian kao" (An examination of the sands of the Pearl River delta during the Qing), trans. Cao Lei, Lingnan wenshi 2 (1986): 11–22, originally published in Tōyō gakuho 63, nos. 1 and 2 (1981): 93–136. See also Tan Dihua, "Qing dai Zhujiang sanjiao zhou shangpin jingji de fazhan yu tudi wenti," in Guangdong lishi wenti lunwen ji, 81–98.

57. See Huang Qichen, "Ming Qing Zhujiang sanjiao zhou de shangye yu shangye ziben cutan" (An initial exploration of commerce and commercial capital in the Pearl River delta during the Ming and Qing), in Ming Qing Guangdong shehui jingji xingtai yanjiu, ed. Guangdong lishi xuehui, 187–236.

58. See Ye Xian'en and Tan Dihua, "Lun Zhujiang sanjiao zhou de zutian," 22–64.

59. See David Faure and Helen Siu, eds., Down to Earth, on the evolution of the lineage complex in the Pearl River delta.

60. See the works on Kikuko Nishigawa on the local bureau for protecting the sands in Shunde county; see also Tan Dihua, "Xiangzu dizhu dui Zhujiang sanjiao zhou diqu de kongzhi yu husha de yuanhui" (The control of the Pearl River delta by lineage landlordism and the rise of the sands protection apparatus), in Guangdong lishi wenti lunwen ji, 155–74.

61. See Helen Siu and Liu Zhiwei, "Lineage, Market, Pirate, and Dan—Ethnicity in the Pearl River Delta" (manuscript under review).

62. The prohibition of sea trade (haijin) was relaxed in 1685, but the Qing government in 1757 closed the coastal ports, except Guangzhou, to foreign trade. See Huang Qichen, Deng Kaisong, Xiao Maosheng, "Guangdong shang bang" (The Guangdong merchant group), chap. 5 of Zhongguo shida shang bang (The ten dominant merchant groups of China), ed. Zhang Haipeng and Zhang Haiying (Hefei: Huangshan shushe, 1993); see also Li Longqian, "Ming Qing Guangdong duiwai maoyi ji qi dui shehui jingji de yingxiang" (Foreign trade in Guangdong during the Ming and Qing and its impact on society and the economy), in Ming Qing Guangdong shehui jingji xingtai yanjiu, ed. Guangdong lishi xuehui, 279–312.

63. On the circulation of silver in Guangdong during the Ming-Qing period, see Chen Chunsheng, "Qing dai Guangdong de yin yuan liutong" (The circulation of silver dollars in Guangdong in the Qing), in Ming Qing Guangdong shehui jingji yanjiu, ed. Ming Qing Guang-dong sheng shehui jingji yanjiu hui (Guangzhou: Guangdong renmin chubanshe, 1987), 206–36.

64. For comparison, see Fu Yiling, Ming Qing shidai shangren ji shangye ziben (Merchants and merchant capital in the Ming and Qing) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1956), on the sea trading groups from Fujian; and Ye Xian'en, Guangdong hangyun shi (Gudai bian) (The history of sea transport—volume on the premodern period) (Beijing: Remin jiaotong chubanshe, 1989), on the merchant groups from the port of Zhanglin near Shantou in eastern Guangdong.

65. See Zhang Wenyin, "Ming Qing Guangdong zhongxi maoyi yu Zhongguo jindai maiban de qiyuan" (The East-West trade in Guangdong during the Ming and Qing and

66. Some material on Huicheng is drawn from Helen Siu, Agents and Victims, chaps. 2–5. When the chapters were written, they were not focused on the issues I am now exploring. I have also done a conscious rereading of the research materials for this essay.

67. See Tan Dihua, Guangdong lishi wenti lunwen ji, 95. Also, according to a local saying, He Xiongxiang accumulated 350 qing of sands in his lifetime, which he divided among his sons before his death. Jiuzisha, a strip of river marshes he nonchalantly gave to his newborn ninth son after he had divided his estate, grew in value to 6,000 mu. While other properties were taken over or sold over the centuries, Jiuzisha remained the property of the ancestral estate He Wenyi Gong tang until the twentieth century. It was a testimony to the power of the He lineage in Huicheng. See He Zhuojian, "Shangshufang He shi fengjian zuzhi" (The feudal organization of the He lineage in Shangshufang), Xinhui wenshi ziliao 1 (1963): 51–56.

68. There were the Tan lineage in Chengnan, the Mos of Nanmen, and the Xu of Nanbiantang. According to a document on the rules for the Xu lineage, the author lamented that "for a hundred years or so after the founding ancestor moved from Kaiping to Xinhui, the lineage was prosperous, with literati honors and commercial achievements; but in the last few decades, the lineage has sadly declined." See "Xinhui xiancheng Nanbiantang Xu xing zugang" (The lineage charter of the Xu in Nanbiantang of Xinhui county capital) (manuscript, Huicheng, 1936). In the late 1970s, the ancestral halls of the Mo lineage at the southern edge of Huicheng were still standing.

69. For example, two lineage genealogies in the area recorded these events: Xinhui Sanjiang Zhaoshi zupu (The lineage genealogy of the Zhao surname of Sanjiang), and the Chaolian Lubian Lushi zupu (The lineage genealogy of the Lu surname in Lubian neighborhood of Chaolian). A Liang lineage genealogy in the neighboring Zhongshan county also recorded similar hardships. See (Zhongshan) Kanxi Liangshi zupu, 5a-5b, "Qianmu zupu xu" written in the twelfth year of Kangxi (1673), Zhongshan 1927 edition.

70. For example, the founders of a Chen surname group settled in Tianma village (xiang) a few miles south of Huicheng during the Ming. A member of a seventh generation who was a degree holder moved to Wufuli, a neighborhood outside the southern gate of Huicheng. An ancestral hall was built for him in the fifteenth year of Jiaqing's reign (1711) in Wufuli. In the nineteenth century, his tablet was deposited in the Xi'nan shuyuan (academy) of Huicheng and in the higher-order lineage hall of the Chens at Xiguan, the merchants' quarter in Guangzhou. See Chen zu shi pu (The lineage genealogy of the Chen surname) (Huicheng, 1923).

71. See Tan Dihua, Qingdai zhujiang sanjiaozhou de shatian (1991), 79.

72. See "Zhiqing zuci luocheng gongding cigui fu zhengxin lu" (The hall regulations at the establishment of the Zhiqing ancestral hall, with a directory of donors attached) (n.p., 1901).

73. Guan Xiekuang estimated that the fifteen largest grower-dryers of fan palms monopolized about 90 percent of the business; see Guan, "Jiefangqian Xinhui kuiye jingying gaikuang" (The fan palm business in Xinhui before liberation), Xinhui wenshi ziliao 12 (1983): 1–28.

74. Under it were these guilds: the Lianxing gongzhan for the growers, Lianxing tang for the palm-drying fields, Tongren tang for fan-making shops, and Guangshun tang for the long-distance traders.

75. According to a document of Jimei tang, a guild for palm-drying and fan-making businesses, 693 signed on as members between 1713 and 1845.

76. See "Jimei tang huigui bu" (The rules of Jimei tang) (manuscript, Huicheng, n.d.).

77. See Guan Xiekuang, "Jiefangqian Xinhui kuiye jingying gaikuang."

78. See Mo Yinggui, "Ying shang Taigu yangheng jin bainian zai Huanan de yewu huodong yu Mo shi jiazu de guanxi" (The activities of the British company Butterfield and Swire in south China for the last hundred years and the relationship with the Mo lineage), Guangdong wenshi ziliao 44 (1985): 77–131.

79. Members often advanced credit for growers with the expectation of a specific supply of fans at a set price. It was difficult to collect during harvest, when growers were tempted to sell to higher bidders.

80. See Susan Mann, Local Merchants, chap. 7. See also Nie Ergang, Gangzhou gongdu (Public announcements while in office in Gangzhou) (n.p., 1863).

81. See Guan, "Jiefangqian Xinhui kuiye jingying gaikuang"; Lin hengji folded before the Japanese war, and Liu yiji continued into the early years of the People's Republic. Land reform documents from the Xinhui Records Office (dang'an guan) reveal vast estates owned by Liu yiji. Members of these enterprises were powerful representatives in the guild and later in the Xinhui Chamber of Commerce; for the citrus peel enterprises, see He Zhuojian, "Jiefangqian de Xinhui chengpiye" (The citrus peel business in Xinhui before liberation), Xinhui wenshi ziliao 20 (1965): 111–21.

82. For more detailed descriptions of the academies, please see Helen Siu, Agents and Victims, chap. 4.

83. See also Helen Siu, "Recycling Tradition."

84. The Red Turbans disturbance broke out in 1854 and spread to various parts of the Pearl River delta in 1855. The group was put down in the 1860s.

85. For a general documentary history of the Red Turbans in Guangdong, see Guang-dong sheng wenshi yanjiu guan and Zhongshan daxue lishi xi, comp., Guangdong hongbing qiyi shiliao (The just uprisings of the Red Turbans in Guangdong), vol. 1 (Guangzhou: Guang-dong renmin chubanshe, 1992). For events around Huicheng, see Chen Xiangpu, Gangcheng zhenge ji (A chronicle of preparing for battle in Gangcheng) (n.p., 1855); Tan Zu'en, Xinhui jingbian shilue (An account of rebel suppression in Xinhui) (1855; reprint, Guangzhou: Zhongshan tushuguan, 1960). A record in Tan's accounts mentioned that the Fan Palm Guild was taken over by some rebel troops for a moment.

86. The three townships were Chaolian (with established lineages of the Lu, Chen, Ou, and Pan surnames), Hetang (with the Rong and Li surnames), and Waihai (the Chens). Some notorious rebel leaders during the Red Turbans attacks also came from these townships.

87. See Tan Dihua, Guangdong lishi wenti lunwen ji, 155–74, who quoted from "Yan chi Dongnan gongyue geshen lun" (On putting the gentry of the Dongnan alliance under strict order), in Gangzhou gongdu by Nie Ergang.

88. In Guangzhou, for example, there were the jiu da shantang (Nine Great Charitable Associations). Apart from offering the usual relief for the poor, they diversified quickly into promoting new technologies, women's education, training for local self-government (difang zizhi), and maintaining public order. See Tang Yusheng, comp., Chuan Yue shehui shilu chupian (The initial compilation of social records of all Guangdong) (Guangzhou: Diaocha chuan Yue shehui chu, 1909). For a detailed analysis of the cultural and political impact of merchants in Hong Kong in the late nineteenth century, see a study of the Tung Wah Hospital by Elizabeth Sinn, Power and Charity (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1989). A summary of her argument is found in "Philanthropy and the Business World," in Dynamic Hong

89. See "Xinhui cheng Tongshen shantang Renji yihui Taoze yihui Zequn yihui xizi shicha zhimai baigu ershiwu qi zhengxinlu" (The twenty-fifth directory of donations for Tonshen, Renji, Taoze, Zequn charity associations for welfare and burial in Xinhui) (Huicheng: Yixing, 1936).

90. See Helen Siu, "Subverting Lineage Power: Local Bosses and Territorial Control in the 1940s," in Down to Earth, ed. David Faure and Helen Siu.

91. See Lun Haibin, "Mani ren daohui ‘Minhui ribao’" (People from Mani ransacked ‘Minhui daily’) Xinhui wenshi ziliao 6 (1983): 47–50.

92. The opening ceremonies of the festival were officiated by Liang Bingyun, head of the third district and an appointee of the Nationalist government, and He Naizhong, a local resident and onetime adviser to the warlord Feng Yuxiang. A trade fair was organized in Hefeng Shuyaun (academy), which had been built by lesser surnames in town to compete with the established lineages.

93. See Zhongshan wenshi ziliao, nos. 1–3, for descriptions of the local bosses in the sands of Zhongshan county. The most powerful companies were the Minsheng gongsi (company), based in Xiaolan, and the Minli gongsi, based in Minzong, an outpost in the sands.

94. He Yanggao, formerly a large landlord in Xiaolan and a local historian, estimated that in Sisha, a strip of sands southwest of Xiaolan, the area held by these bosses increased from 400 mu to about 7,500 after the war (personal interview, 1986).

95. On a detailed analysis of the rise of the He lineage in Shawan, see Liu Zhiwei, "Lineage on the Sands: The Case of Shawan," in Down to Earth, ed. David Faure and Helen Siu, 21–43. Beidi was a popular deity in south China. In Shawan, local inhabitants had made it to symbolize the authority of the first emperor of the Ming dynasty. His temple, together with the Liugeng tang of the He lineage, was the cultural and political center of Shawan.

96. The former were referred to as "female guns." They used force for defense. The latter were branded as "male guns." They supposedly used force to prey on others.

97. I see this as the beginning of the cellularization of the villages in the twentieth century. The process reached its height in the Maoist period, when the administrative machinery of the Communist Party reigned supreme. See Siu, Agents and Victims.

98. Ibid., chap. 5. See also chapter by Siu in Down to Earth, ed. David Faure and Helen Siu, on the reworking of the lineage tradition in three communities in the Pearl River delta. For the ritual efforts of militarists in other areas, see Edward McCord, The Power of the Gun: The Emergence of Modern Chinese Warlordism (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993).

99. See Nantian suiyue (The times under the southern sky), a special volume of Guangdong wenshi ziliao 37 (1987), on the warlord Chen Jitang in Guangdong during the 1930s.

100. See Guan, "Jiefangqian Xinhui kuiye jingying gaikuang."

101. There was Liang Hongye, whose father was a juror and who himself bought a minor degree. The other gentry leader was from the old He family of Huicheng, a He Ruoshan, who was head of the Xinhui Chamber of Commerce.

102. See Mai Bingkun and Huang Xiaonan, "Xinhui cheng shangtuan shimuo" (The entire account of the merchant militia in Xinhui), Xinhui wenshi ziliao 3 (1965): 1–19.

103. A document in 1948 listed members of the guild and their contracted growers. Among the growers were known local bosses. The documents also showed that many growers

104. See Siu, Agents and Victims, chaps. 4–5. See also Xinhui shuyuan dongshi licaiyuan, comp., "Choujian Xinhui shuyuan zhengxin lu" (The directory of donations for building the Xinhui Academy) (Huicheng: Yixing, 1927); and "Xinhui shuyuan gongding changji ji guanli zhangcheng" (The estate rituals of Xinhui Academy and its operating regulations) (Huicheng: Yixing, 1927).

105. See "Xingjian Xinhui shuyuan de jingguo" (An account of the building of Xinhui Academy), Xinhui wenshi ziliao 2 (1964): 30–36, compiled by the journal's editors.

106. See Xinhui cheng yuanhe shanghu weichi tuan, comp., "Chenghui Huihe lian'an puwei shimuo ji" (An account of redeeming the land attached to shops along the banks of Huicheng) (Huicheng: n.p., 1924).

107. See Mo Rongfang and Xu Zhongtao, "Xinhui xian caicheng zulu de jingguo" (The account of tearing down the city and building roads in Xinhui county), Xinhui wenshi zilaio 2 (1964): 20–30.

108. See David Faure, "Lineage Socialism and Community Control: Tanggang xiang in the 1920s," in Down to Earth, ed. David Faure and Helen Siu, 161–87.

109. See Guangdong Gangzhou shangbu zhangcheng quanjuan (The complete constitution of the Gangzhou commercial port in Guangdong) (Hong Kong, 1911). See also an account of the planning of the port in Zhongguo shangye xinshi (New knowledge on China's commerce) (n.p., n.d.), 178–82.

110. See He Zhiyi, "Xiangzhou kaibu jiqi shengshuai" (The opening of Xiangzhou port and its rise and decline), Guangdong wenshi ziliao 46 (1985): 87–97.

111. See Liu Bogao, "Xinning tielu xingjian shi zai Xinhui yudao de difang shili de zunao ji qita" (The obstacles from local power groups met by the building of the Xinning Railway in Xinhui), Xinhui wenshi zilaio 9 (1983): 9–11. See also Zheng Dehua and Lucy Cheng, Taishan qiaoxiang yu Xinning tielu (Taishan, a land of emigrants and the Xinning Railway) (Guangzhou: Zhongshan daxue chubanshe, 1991).

112. In Down to Earth, the contributors argue that local society in the delta was integrated into the Chinese imperial order through constant redefinitions of lineage, territory, ethnic identity, and religious rituals. They focus on the symbolic and instrumental means used by local inhabitants to position themselves within an evolving Chinese culture and polity.

113. The term da tian er came from the Chinese domino game. It was used locally to describe local bosses who exerted dominance over a territory.

114. This is the main argument in Agents and Victims, a historical account based on my ethnographic fieldwork in Xinhui.

115. I have tried to deal with this question in previous publications: see Helen Siu, "Socialist Peddlers and Princes in a Chinese Market Town," American Ethnologist 16, no. 2 (May 1989): 195–212; "The Politics of Migration in a Market Town," in China on the Eve of Tiananmen, ed. Deborah Davis and Ezra Vogel (Harvard University Press, 1990), 61–82; and "The Reconstitution of Brideprice and Dowry in South China," in Chinese Families in the Post-Mao Era, ed. Deborah Davis and Stevan Harrell (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 1993), 165–88.

116. There may be conflicts of interest among levels of government and between center and region, but the connections with the state bureaucracy remain important for good business. See Elizabeth Perry, "China in 1992: An Experiment in Neo-authoritarianism," Asian Survey 33, no. 1 (January 1993): 12–22; see Dorothy Solinger, Chinese Transition from Socialism: Statist Legacies and Marketing Reforms, 1980–1990 (New York: Sharpe, 1993); see also Jean Oi, "The Role of the Local State in China's Transitional Economy," China Quarterly 144 (December 1995): 1132–49, on local state corporatism.

117. See Siu, "Community Festivals in South China: Economic Transformation and Cultural Improvisations," in China Review, ed. Lo Chikin et al. (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1995), chap. 16, 1–17.

118. See Helen Siu, "Redefining the Market Town through Festivals in Contemporary South China," in Town and Country in China: Identity and Perception, ed. David Faure and Tao Tao Liu (Basingstoke, England: Macmillan, forthcoming).