Gender and Early Qing Historical Memory: The Case of Yangzhou Women

Title

Gender and Early Qing Historical Memory: The Case of Yangzhou Women

Author

Wai-Yee LI

Page

289-344

DOI

Abstract

References to the Yangzhou massacre of 1645, a key event in the Qing conquest of China, span many genres, including miscellanies, fiction, local gazetteers, poetry, and biographies. In these writings, the fate and choices of Yangzhou women emerge as a prism determining the memory of trauma and a crucible defining historical judgment. In "An Account of Ten Days in Yangzhou," probably the most compelling narrative of violence during the Ming-Qing transition, the author Wang Xiuchu condemns women who shamelessly consorted with Qing soldiers and tried to profit from their loot and turns them into the emblem of the shame of conquest. This implied logic of blame surfaces in a variety of writings, notably the relentless unfolding of crime and punishment in Sequel to the Plum in the Golden Vase by Ding Yaokang. However, Ding’s castigation of Yangzhou decadence ends up almost as ambiguous vindication. In the process women are transformed from culprits into victims, and images of their licentiousness give way to their moral authority as witnesses and judges of their times. The counterpoint to the negative portrayals of women is the elevation of women who died resisting real or potential violation as political martyrs in local gazetteers, historiography, poetry, and biographies. The negotiations behind the logic of praise testify to the social functions of eulogizing "chastity martyrs," as well as to the complex process of defining their varying political meanings. In an era where concrete, detailed depictions of violence during the dynastic transition are often rare, the suffering female body also becomes the venue for remembering trauma. As Yangzhou returned to prosperity during early Qing, the memory and erasure of trauma can be traced in the diverse images of Yangzhou women and the ambiguous role of sensual, feminine imagery in the poetic exchanges defining literary communities that often included literati who made different political choices.

Keyword

gender, trauma, historical memory, crime and punishment, chastity martyrs, erasure

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