Fu Yingzhen Sets Up the Community Compact, 1574

Background

The earliest entry in the gazetteer on schooling the populace is for 1375, when orders were given for community schools to be established in every county. The community compact of 1574 was set up by the magistrate Fu Yingzhen in Lishui itself, and its content was the expounding of the Hongwu emperor's Sacred Edict.

What was done

神宗万历二年甲戌，知县傅应祯设乡约，申明太祖圣谕。凡讼者必先由乡约评之，期年无讼。增置学田。 — Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer, 卷之一·邑纪·神宗万历二年甲戌

Translated: In the second year of the Wanli era, the zhixian (county magistrate) Fu Yingzhen set up a community compact and expounded the Sacred Edict of the founding emperor. All who brought disputes had first to be judged by the compact, and for a year there was no litigation. School fields were also added.

Three things are recorded: the compact and the expounding of the Sacred Edict; the requirement that disputes be judged by the compact first; and the addition of school fields in the same year. The phrase "for a year there was no litigation" is the gazetteer's summary of the result.

Consequences

The compact operated below the county level, and disputes passed through it before reaching the magistrate, adding a stage before official hearing. The gazetteer gives no change in the number of cases, only the phrase about a year without litigation. In 1577 the magistrate Wu Shiquan petitioned with the Eight Proposals for Convenience and added a screen wall in front of the school; in 1578 he rebuilt the main hall, the second gate and the rear hall of the county office; in 1579 further school fields were added in a good year, when a sheng of rice cost only three cash. The run of entries shows county government in the early Wanli years occupied mainly with schools, granaries and public buildings.

The gazetteer's "community compact" chapter

Juan 3 of the Kangxi gazetteer, "Institutions", has a separate chapter on community compacts, recording their rise and decline in Lishui and adding detail to the entry for 1574:

岁久弛废，虚名徒存，不知敦俗化民此其首务。嘉靖间知县王从善行之，后无继者。万历间知县傅应祯复行之，每乡设乡约堂一所，立约长副，置二簿登记善恶，间行劝惩。崇祯戊寅，知县陈汝益再行之，尤重其事。至我国朝，司风化者皆能力持，至今不废云。

Translated: Over time it decayed and became an empty name, though nothing is more important to reforming customs than this. In the Jiajing period the magistrate Wang Congshan carried it out, and after him there was no successor. In the Wanli period the magistrate Fu Yingzhen carried it out again: in every township one compact hall was set up, with a compact head and deputy, and two registers to record good and evil, rewarding and punishing from time to time. In the wuyin year of Chongzhen the magistrate Chen Ruyi carried it out once more, giving it special weight. Down to our dynasty, those charged with transforming manners have all upheld it, and it is not yet abandoned.

From this several things follow: the compact in Lishui did not begin in 1574 — Wang Congshan had already carried it out in the Jiajing period, so Fu Yingzhen "carried it out again"; his arrangement of "one compact hall in every township, with a head and deputy, and two registers to record good and evil" supplies the rules and structure that the annals omit; and in 1638 the magistrate Chen Ruyi carried it out once more, and it was still in use in the early Qing. This chapter, like the annals, comes from the Kangxi gazetteer and counts as a single source.

Uncertainties

First, the gazetteer gives neither the rules of the compact (beyond "one hall in every township" in the compact chapter), nor how its heads were chosen, nor how many were set up in the county.

Second, the phrase about a year without litigation is a summary with no case numbers or records of the compact's hearings behind it.

Third, the relation between the compact and the community schools ordered in 1375 is not stated; whether they met in the same places or were run by the same people cannot be checked.

Fourth, on whether the compact long survived: no later entry in the annals mentions it, but the gazetteer's compact chapter records that Chen Ruyi carried it out again in 1638 and that it was still in use in the early Qing; the record stops with the Kangxi edition, and nothing later is known.

Fifth, a search across all seven source layers found this material only in juan 1 and juan 3 of the same Kangxi gazetteer (juan 3 adding the rules and Chen Ruyi's revival of 1638), with no independent record in the standard histories, the veritable records, the provincial gazetteer or any other source. Juan 3 is still part of the Kangxi gazetteer and counts as one source, so this matter rests on the county gazetteer alone and confidence remains medium.