One of the contributing causes of the Opium War was price rise of silver in China, which began to show its sign in the late Chia-ch'ing period(嘉慶年代) and continued to rise through Tao-kuang period(道光年代). That price rise disturbed the Chinese economy, bringing about overall serious problems such as financial difficulties of the state government and impoverishment of peasantry. Confronted with them, the Chinese government officials detected that the reason for the rise of price of silver was the decrease of domestic silver in amount on account of its outflow from China through opium smuggling. They, therefore, turned to the measure to regulate opium trade. As to a concrete step, there was a difference of opinion between those who insisted on putting a stricter ban on the opium trade and those who thought it better to give official approval to it. But in dealing with this problem they were unanimous in their intention of resorting to the Canton Commercial System (広東貿易制度) which was the mainstay of the state control over the foreign trade. After all Lin Tse-hsu (林則徐) used armed forces in implementing the Canton Commercial System. The Loss of the Opium War, however, broke up that system, which gave the Chinese officials a great shock-a shock tremendous enough to make them change their policy. Since they were deprived of the control over the foreign trade, they gave up regulating the opium trade as a measure to check the silver outflow from their country, and began attempting currency reform instead. Obviously it was a drastic or rather a backward change of the measure to counter the silver problem. From then on, the Chinese government officials advocated to limit the use of silver, then to abolish it, and finally they came to look up to the currency system in the ancient China as an ideal. The content of their measure to counter the silver problem thus became conservative; they even sought after the illusion of reviving the acient currency system. So far, many of the studies on the Opium War have approached it mainly by analyzing exterior factors, and the studies of its interior factors have been comparatively few. This article attempts to grasp historical relevance of the Opium War in terms of domestic situation of China, by taking up mental sttitude of the Chinese government officials manifested in their measure to counter the price rise of silver.

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Eight trigrams sect (Pa-kua-chiao 八卦教) was the most popular religious secret society in north China through the Ch'ing dynasty, and in the process of its expansion we can often find a lot of boxing training by its members. In this paper we will consider the relationship between the Eight trigrams sect and boxing training such as I-ho-chuan (義和拳), etc.. Eight trigrams sect is said to have been founded by a man called Li Ting-yu (李廷玉) in either the Shun Chih (順治) or Kang Hsi (康煕) reign periods at the beginning of the Ch'ing dynasty. It was organized according to the principle of the division into eight trigrams, and also divided into a "Wen" (文) or literary sect, and a "Wu" (武) or military one which had widely developed itself ; the society consisted of four "Wen" trigrams and four "Wu" trigrams. The combination of Eight trigrams sect and boxing training had already taken place in early Yung Cheng (雍正) period. In the Wang Lun (王倫) rebellion (1774), which was raised by a society called Ching-Shui-Chiao (清水教), a branch of the Eight trigrams sect, the boxing styles used inside the sect had been Pa-kua-chuan (八卦拳, Eight trigrams boxing), Chi-hsin-hung-chuan (七星紅拳 Seven star red boxing), and I-he-chuan (義合拳, Righteous harmony boxing). From this we can see that the I-ho-chuan was the same as the White Lotus religion or more precisely as the boxing which had combined with the military sect of Eight trigrams sect, Ching-Shui-chiao. From the incident of the I-ho-chuan in 1778, 1783 and 1786, we can guess that the I-ho-chuan had close relationship with the Li (離) trigram, a branch of the Eight trigrams sect. In 1813, Eight trigrams sect raised an uprising. A careful examination of the materials on the boxing in this uprising such sources as those on general leader of the military sect, Feng Ke-shan (馮克善), the group members led by Sung Yueh-lung (宋躍〓) and the case of Ke Li-yeh (葛立業) who learned and practiced I-ho school boxing (義和門拳棒), show that I-ho school boxing had been practiced inside Sung Yueh-lung's group in the Chili-Shantung boundary area, and that this group belonged to the chain of Li trigram. Hence we can easily identify the I-ho school as one of small regional group in the Li trigram in Eight trigrams sect. It becomes clear that the reason why boxing was combined with the Li trigram, representative of Wu trigrams, depends on the principle of organization. The boxing practiced in the Eight trigrams sect had been influenced by its religious thought, and came to have incantationary-religious characteristics, The I-ho-chuan and Eight trigrams sect in Chin-hsiang (金郷) county seem as though they were in conflict, but this example proves that there was a close relationship between the two. It is clear that historically boxing such as the I-ho-chuan, Pa-kua-chuan, etc., expanded widely in the north-west Chili-Shantung boundary area and south-west region of Shantung, by maintaining continuous relationship with Eight trigrams sect. Another phenomenon, however, also appeared. Social disturbance and confusion after the late Tao-Kuang (道光) period, brought about a wide expansion of the boxing training that was not directly related with Eight trigrams sect. The boxing which had combined with Eight trigrams sect, though taking on religious character, gradually started to secede from it, was accepted as a function of violence or defence in rural society. In the Hsien-Feng (咸豊) and Tung-Chih (同治) Periods, boxing which had permeated into rural society gradually came to be related to "Tuan militia" (団) and the "Allied village societies" (lianzhuanghui 連荘会) coexisted with the order of rural society, and built up the social foundation for the organization of I-ho-chuan society. Eight trigrams sect, not only scattered widely in this way, but also combined forces with bandits in the process of the mutual permeation with

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This article discusses the relationships that existed between literati and actors during the Jiaqing 嘉慶 and Dongguang 道光 eras of the Qing dynasty. It was during the late Ming period that actors came to be frequently patronized by literati and thus gained a certain amount of social prestige, despite their inferior social status as jianmin 賤民. However, things began to change after the advent of the theater during the mid-Qing period, when actors began being seen in the company of literati. Furthermore, the portraits of actors and drawings done by actors themselves were an important part of such companionship. There was only one condition: that any actor had to belong to a "first class" theatrical company; that is to say, literati only befriended actors who were celebrity figures in the eyes of the common people. Therefore, in this sense, such actors were not completely dependent on their literati patrons. It was at that time that the dramatic work, Zhuangyuan Furen 状元夫人, portraying a wealthy actor befriended by a poor literati, enjoyed a great deal of popularity. The author argues that appearance of the work was the result of important changes in social context and represents not only an opportunity for certain actor to move out of their condition of social inferiority, but also a significant historical change marking the transition from the late Ming to the mid-Qing period.

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