From Religious Leader to Local Lord:A Discussion on the Transformation in Identity Construction in the Rebellion of Sun En and Lu Xun

During the reign of Emperor An of the Eastern Jin Dynasty,Sun En’s group,which relied on the beliefs of the Tianshi Dao to motivate their congregation to revolt,became a rapidly rising force in the civil wars of the late Eastern Jin Dynasty.At the beginning of the revolt,Sun En in fact presented two identities of religious and secular leaders,although the latter image was not practiced more.His successor Lu Xun,on the other hand,responded to the changes in the situation by repeatedly proposing a new political discourse of “the party of righteousness” along with Huan Xuan,Liu Yu,and others,and by constructing a complete image of “Fangbo”(“方伯”，local lord) and his ideology both internally and externally,which enabled the group to successfully re-emerge from the quagmire of defeat.At the same time,this transformation of identity construction is also closely related to the historical fact that the main source of soldiers for the reconstruction of Lu Xun’s forces in Lingnan has changed.The above findings reflect the realist tendency of Sun En and Lu Xun’s rebellion,which had not been sufficiently paid attention to in the past,as well as the continuous and consistent evolution behind them.