Ming-Qing Documents

I. 20 Modern Day Narratives

When reading the collection of stories in this section, one needs to keep in mind that over the past several decades, numerous researchers have conducted fieldworks and oral interviews in Chongyang, visited  members of the Zhong lineage there, and concluded their version of the Zhong Renjie Rebellion. In addition, since the outbreak of the rebellion, China as a country has went through several shifts of regimes, and countless reforms–each regime during its different period held distinctive ideologies, which inevitably had an impact on the state's perception of the Zhong Renjie Rebellion. Therefore, one has to assume that the modern narratives on Zhong Renjie Rebellion are built upon layers of reconstructions of the original event that by and large reflect the pursuits of a particular time period. 
 

Zhong Renjie in folktales of present in Zhongguo Minjian Gushi Jicheng ("中國民間故事集成")

Zhong Renjie in folktales of present Chongyang (中国民间故事集成全国编辑委员会, Zhongguo minjian gushi jicheng 中国民间故事集成. 北京___中国ISBN中心, 1992-, vol.16 湖北卷, 132-134).


 

Textual Research on Zhong Renjie Rebellion (鍾仁傑起義史實考)

written by Chen Hui, printed by Zhong Lineage of Chongyang County (湖北崇陽鍾氏宗親會). 

download the text here

This in fact is a journal article published in Huazhong Normal University Xuebao (華中師範大學學報) in 1984. The author, based on materials that he collected in his field work and other archival documents, argued that despite Zhong Renjie being an intellectual, nonetheless his family background belonged to the peasant class and that the rebellion should be viewed as a class struggle against oppressions. He also argued that this rebellion was a precursor of the later Taiping Rebellion, to which he holds a praiseful attitude.

One may agree or disagree with his arguments. It is worthy noting that he got to read the Zhong genealogy from the family–unfortunately till this day this genealogy has not been accessible to others. Why the Zhong lineage decided to print this journal article remains unknown. 

 

Legends of Zhong Jiu (鍾九傳說) 

collected and compiled by Zhong Sheng, printed by Zhong Lineage of Chongyang County (湖北崇陽鍾氏宗親會).

download the text here

This is a collection of 15 stories of Zhong Renjie, covering from his mysterious birth to the legendary death. The compiler, Zhong Sheng, does not give an introductory note, hence we do not know from where he obtained such stories and to what extent he tailored them. 

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