南潯・湖社與國民黨--南潯與近代中國之二

Abstract

Jiangnan (usually referring to lands immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze Rive) has always kept its economic prosperity since Ming and Qing Dynasty. Famous towns continue to emerge. Numerous merchant princes once lived in Nanxun (Wuxing prefecture, Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province), making it the richest place in China. From the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, the rich merchants of Nanxun extended their industry to Hangzhou, Shanghai, etc., and attracted people from all places and various circles to establish relations with them. Relying on the relations constructed among countrymen, consanguinities, affinities, condisciples, teachers and friends, persons of the same business and occupation, their influences on politics, economics and culture radiated all over the nation. Among them, the families of Zhang, Pang and Zhou, etc. had a close relationship with the newly rising political powers such as the Zhongguo Tong Meng Hui (the Chinese United League) and the Kuomintang. In the 1920s, Huzhou merchants, who were then sojourning in Shanghai, established Hu She, an association of countrymen from Huzhou, and rich merchants of Nanxun acted an important role in it. Along with the establishment of the Kuomintang's reign in China and the changing of its core leaders into persons belonged to the Zhejiang Group, members of the Hu She sought connection with one another in the name of native comrades, but not countrymen, and rose step by step in the regime of the Kuomintang. The relations among the Hu She members also became an important element which influenced the internal combats among different factions of the Kongmintang. Reviewing this phenomenon, we can realize that minimized area study and classified monographic study, inevitably with a mechanical use of foreign ideas, break up the internal and holistic link, universally existing in Chinese society, into pieces.