Mobility to Other Locations: A Study on the Spread of the Cult of Lord Yan from Jiangxi to Hubei in the Ming–Qing Era

Abstract

In the Yuan Dynasty, Lord Yan 晏公 was worshipped by the people of Jiangxi 江西 as a water god, but there was no consensus on the identity of the god and the process of his deification. During the transitional period between the Yuan and Ming dynasties, the cult of Yan Gong was increasingly popular among different social groups in the Qingjiang 清江 region. Later, thanks to a combination of officials, merchants, and immigrants, its spatial scope was extended to Hubei 湖北 Province. During the Hongwu 洪武 (r. 1368–1398) period, the cult of Lord Yan in Hubei was so prevalent that multiple groups of people were enthusiastically involved in the construction of Lord Yan temples; thus, many temples shot up along lakes and the main tributaries of the Yangtze River, constituting a geographical distribution pattern with a concentration in the central and eastern parts and a scarcity in the west. The reason for this was the multidimensional interaction of migration activities, the cross-regional economic activities of merchants, and the promotion of folk beliefs by local officials since the Ming–Qing era, which encompasses the historical evolutionary features of actors competing for the cult of gods and control of regional social power.