The Tiandihui, also known as the Heaven and Earth Association or the Triads, was one of the earliest, largest, and most enduring of the Chinese secret societies that have played crucial roles at decisive junctures in modern Chinese history. These organizations were characterized by ceremonial rituals, often in the form of blood oaths, that brought people together for a common goal. Some were organized for clandestine, criminal, or even seditious purposes by people alienated from or at the margins of society. Others were organized for mutual protection or the administration of local activities by law-abiding members of a given community. The common perception in the twentieth century, both in China and in the West, was that the Tiandihui was founded by Chinese patriots in the seventeenth century for the purpose of overthrowing the Qing (Manchu) dynasty and restoring the Ming (Chinese). This view was put forward by Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries who claimed that, like the anti-Manchu founders of the Tiandihui, their goal was to strip the Manchus of their throne. The Chinese Nationalists (Guomindang) today claim the Tiandihui as part of their heritage. This book relates a very different history of the origins of the Tiandihui. Using Qing dynasty archives that were made available in both Beijing and Taipei during the last decades, the author shows that the Tiandihui was founded not as a political movement but as a mutual aid brotherhood in 1761, a century after the date given by traditional historiography. She contends that histories depicting Ming loyalism as the raison d'etre of the Tiandihui are based on internally generated sources and, in part, on the "Xi Lu Legend," a creation myth that tells of monks from the Shaolin Monastery aiding the emperor in fighting the Xi Lu barbarians. Because of its importance to the theories of Ming loyalist scholars and its impact on Tiandihui historiography as a whole, the author thoroughly investigates the legend, revealing it to be the product of later - not founding - generations of Tiandihui members and a tale with an evolution of its own. The seven extant versions of the legend itself appear in English translation as an appendix. This book thus accomplishes three things: it reviews and analyzes the extensive Tiandihui literature; it makes available to Western scholars information from archival materials heretofore seen only by a few Chinese specialists; and it firmly establishes an authoritative chronology of the Tiandihui's early history. "An important book. . . . Murray has astutely sifted through a huge body of primary and secondary sources in both Chinese and English to present an excellent historiographical study of the origins of the Heaven and Earth Society. . . . This is a book well worth reading."― China Review International “An important book. . . . Murray has astutely sifted through a huge body of primary and secondary sources in both Chinese and English to present an excellent historiographical study of the origins of the Heaven and Earth Society. . . . This is a book well worth reading.”—China Review International Qin Baoqi is with the Qing History Institute of People's University in Beijing. The Origins of the Tiandihui The Chinese Triads in Legend and History By Dian H. Murray STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Copyright © 1994 the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-8047-2324-4 Contents Copyright Page, Dedication, Preface, Introduction, • • • 1 - Beginnings: The Eighteenth Century, 2 • • • - Spread and Elaboration: The Nineteenth Century, • • • 3 - The Tiandihui in Western Historiography, 4 • • • - The Tiandihui in Chinese Historiography, ... 5 - The Tiandihui in Myth and Legend, Conclusion, Appendixes, Notes, Character List, Bibliographies, General Bibliography, Index, CHAPTER 1 Beginnings: The Eighteenth Century The Tiandihui, as we know it today, was founded at the Guanyinting (Goddess of Mercy pavilion), Gaoxi township, in Zhangpu county, Zhangzhou prefecture, Fujian province, sometime in 1761 or 1762. It was a most ordinary product of a most extraordinary environment, merely one of several similar societies to emerge in the Minnan-Yuedong heart of the Nanyang trade zone. The area where it sprang up, also referred to by some Western scholars as the Southeast Coast macroregion, encompassed portions of southern Fujian and eastern Guangdong (plus Taiwan). Comprising approximately 47,224 square miles, even the mainland parts were set off from the rest of China by high mountain regions and internally divided by their own peaks and streams. Separate river systems washed the narrow plains of the region's major prefectures, while rugged terrain divided the settlements into highlands and lowlands, Hakka and Hokkien. The Physical and Economic Environment of Zhangzhou Prefecture Zhangzhou, the southernmost of Fujian's four coastal prefectures, lies in the he