Fountain of Fortune

The most striking feature of Wutong, the preeminent God of Wealth in late imperial China, was the deity's diabolical character. Wutong was perceived not as a heroic figure or paragon but rather as an embodiment of greed and lust, a maleficent demon who preyed on the weak and vulnerable. In "The Sinister Way", Richard von Glahn examines the emergence and evolution of the Wutong ...

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The most striking feature of Wutong, the preeminent God of Wealth in late imperial China, was the deity's diabolical character. Wutong was perceived not as a heroic figure or paragon but rather as an embodiment of greed and lust, a maleficent demon who preyed on the weak and vulnerable. In "The Sinister Way", Richard von Glahn examines the emergence and evolution of the Wutong cult within the larger framework of the historical development of Chinese popular or vernacular religion - as opposed to institutional religions such as Buddhism or Daoism. Von Glahn's study, spanning three millennia, gives due recognition to the morally ambivalent and demonic aspects of divine power within the common Chinese religious culture. Surveying Chinese religion from 1000 BCE to the beginning of the twentieth century, "The Sinister Way" views the Wutong cult as by no means an aberration. In Von Glahn's work we see how, from earliest times, the Chinese imagined an enchanted world populated by fiendish fairies and goblins, ancient stones and trees that spring suddenly to life, ghosts of the unshriven dead, and the blood-eating spirits of the mountains and forests. From earliest times, too, we find in Chinese religious culture an abiding tension between two fundamental orientations: on one hand, belief in the power of sacrifice and exorcism to win blessings and avert calamity through direct appeal to a multitude of gods; on the other, faith in an all-encompassing moral equilibrium inhering in the cosmos.

List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments XI
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1.: THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CLASSICAL
CHINESE MONETARY ANALYSIS
Functions of Money
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List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments XI
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1.: THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CLASSICAL
CHINESE MONETARY ANALYSIS
Functions of Money
Typology of Money Origins and Nature of Money in Early Chinese Thought
Monetary Doctrines in the Guanzi
The Classical Synthesis of Monetary Analysis
Paper Money and Classical Monetary Analysis
CHAPTER 2.: TRANSITION TO THE SILVER ECONOMY, 1000-1435
Erosion of the Bronze Coin Monetary Standard
The Yuan Regime of Paper Money
The Demise of Paper Money in the Early Ming Dynasty
CHAPTER 3: COINAGE IN THE DAWNING AGE OF SILVER, 1435-1570
The Rise of Private Coinage
Chinese Coin and the Japanese Monetary System
The Retreat of Coin
Monetary Policy in the Later Jiajing Period
CHAPTER 4: FOREIGN SILVER AND CHINA'S "SILVER CENTURY," 1550-1650
Maritime Trade and the Influx of Foreign Silver
The Circulation of Specie in East Asia during the "Silver Century"
Quantitative Estimates of Silver Imports in Late Ming China
CHAPTER 5: COIN VS. SILVER: EXPANSIONARY POLICIES OF THE WANLI REIGN, 1570-1620
Inadequacy of Silver as the Monetary Standard
Monetary Policies of Zhang Juzheng
Postmortems on Zhang Juzheng's Monetary Offensive
Rising Value of Coin
The Second Wanli Coinage Offensive
The Sovereignty of the Market
CHAPTER 6: THE GREAT DEBASEMENTS: THE TIANQI AND CHONGZHEN REIGNS, 1620-1645
Fiscal Crisis and Monetary Expansion
Operation of the Ministry of Revenue Mints
Fiscal Distress and Monetary Retrenchment
Deterioration of Coin in the Chongzhen Period
Radical Experimentation: The Campaign to Restore Paper Currency
CHAPTER 7: THE "MONETARY CRISIS" OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
Early Qing Currency Policy
Depression and Deflation in the Early Kangxi Period
Responses to Economic Depression: Bullionism vs. Economic Autarky
Bullion Movements in the Late Seventeenth Century
New Wodd Silver and the European Price Revolution
The "Seventeenth-Century Crisis" Hypothesis
CONCLUSION
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
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