The Li-nien chi, recently published in the Ch'ing-tai Ji-chi hui-ch'ao 清代日記〓抄 (Shanghai Jenmin Ch'u-Pan she 上海人民出版社 ed.), is a memoir written by Yao T'ing-lin (姚廷〓, 1628-1697?), a native of Shanghai. As Yao Yung-chi (姚永済), a brother of Yao T'ing-lin's grandfather, was a high-ranking official during the Late Ming, the Yao became one of the famous clans in Shanghai. After the Ming-Ch'ing transition, however, the Yao clan declined, and Yao T'ing-lin, no longer a member of the affluent local elite, was forced to earn his living by working at various jobs. The purpose of the present paper is to offer some findings gained through an analysis of miscellaneous entries in the Li-nien chi concerning such subjects as human relations, economic life and local administration. Though Yao Yung-chi's patronage and assistance greatly helped Yao T'ing-lin in his youth, that help was not based on a clan institutional organization for mutual aid among kinsmen, but on the personal sympathy which existed between Yung-chi and T'ing-lin. The lack of organizational power might have been one of the causes of the rapid decline of Yao clan. To earn a living, Yao T'ing-lin was engaged in various jobs throughout his life including work as a trader, managerial landlord, yamen clerk, independent farmer, and teacher. His choice of these jobs was based on a sharp sense of the advantages and disadvantages involved, although sometimes his expectations were not realized. Both the justice meted out by the courts and taxation levied by the Ch'ing local government directly influenced the lives of people in local society ; and when the local folk felt the expenses of lawsuits and tax-paying too burdensome, they relied on such personal measures as mediation on the part of relatives and friends or private arrangements with yamen clerks in order to protect themselves from ruin.

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