The Death of Woman Wang

This chapter explores how Spence’s sources talk about T’an-ch’eng. The historian Feng K’o-ts-an, author of Local History of T’an-ch’eng, notes the many disasters that hit the area; while one might expect an equal number of “Blessings” and “Catastrophes” (2), T’an-ch’eng had far more catastrophes than blessings. Feng’s own time in the area was unlucky. Although he had the highest rank in literary education one could receive, chin-shih, professional failures dogged him. He moved to T’an-ch’eng to serve as magistrate but was fired for “incompetence” (2), taking work instead as a teacher and as the chief editor of the Local History. For 50 years before Feng’s time, T’an-ch’eng had suffered a long series of disasters, including the White Lotus revolts, famine, earthquakes, poverty, and bandits. The overthrow of the Ming Dynasty and the conquest of the country by the Manchus, who reached T’an-ch’eng in 1644, did nothing to improve the region.

Spence’s second major source is Huang Liu-hung—another man who passed China’s exam and subsequently became the magistrate of T’an-ch’eng. In his later memoir and handbook, “[H]e wrote movingly of his attempts to come to terms with the misery that once surrounded him” (13). The problem was not only the conditions in T’an-ch’eng, but also a crisis of morale. Many people were dying by suicide, so Huang issued a decree warning that officials would not collect the bodies of those who died by suicide, who would therefore become ghosts (13-14). The sources agree that T’an-ch’eng was an unusually superstitious region. The people believed in many different spirits and relied on local shamans and female mediums (15). Confucianism, which was the official religion of China, was “remote” to the people of T’an-ch’eng, but it was believed that Confucius himself came to T’an-ch’eng seeking wisdom from a local nobleman.

Finally, Spence introduces P’u Sung-ling, who wrote extensively about the bandits that terrorized the region, the earthquakes that occurred, the violent revolt of December 1661, and the stories of female mediums who could summon powerful spirits from the region. P’u shares a story from his childhood about a magician who had his young son climb up a magic rope and retrieve a bowl of peaches before a group of officials.