When Dorgon entered Beijing in June 1644, the new Qing dynasty
proclaimed
a general amnesty, enforced regulations against rape
and enslavement,
and abolished the Ming military surtaxes that
people had been resisting.
Areas where the Manchus campaigned
had their taxes cut in half,
and others who surrendered got one-third
off theirs.
This strategy won over most of Zhili and Shandong
in northern China.
In 1645 the Manchus expelled all Chinese with
smallpox or skin diseases from Beijing.
After the Ming emperor Chongzhen committed suicide at Beijing
in April 1644,
the Ming administration attempted to carry on in
the south at Nanjing
amid urban riots, strikes, raids, and insurrections.
The Prince of Fu was next in line to rule, and Fengyang viceroy
Ma Shiying
had him brought to Nanjing in June 1644 and proclaimed
Emperor Hongguang.
Shi Kefa had 30,000 troops.
Nanjing expected
six million taels annual revenue
but needed more than that just
for military expenses.
Court expenses and plans for an imperial
wedding soon bankrupted the ministries.
Appointments were made
by bribery.
Ming forces hoped to stop Qing advances at the Yellow
River,
but the threat of Li Zicheng's fleeing army invading the
Yangzi River valley provoked a mutiny in the Ming army.
In January
1645 Dorgon's younger brother Dodo led a Manchu invasion
that
crossed the Yellow River and captured Luoyang,
while Dorgon's
older brother Ajige chased Li Zicheng's army of 60,000 into Huguang.
Dodo added 138,000 surrendering Ming troops to his army and besieged
Yangzhou,
which surrendered 100,000 troops in June, the month
Li Zicheng was probably killed.
Qing general Li Chengdong lost
his brother
and many troops besieging Jiading and then massacred
20,000 people.
The siege of Jiangyin began in August 1645 and
lasted 81 days.
The 60,000 people refused to surrender and were
slaughtered by the Qing army
of 240,000 that lost 67,000 men during
the siege
and another 7,000 in the street fighting.
In the next
generation five million acres of land around Beijing were given
to Manchus,
many of whom did not know how to farm and hired Chinese
tenants.
In 1646 the Complete Text of Land and Labor specified
the taxes on cultivated land.
Ming regional commander Xuzhou invited General Gao Jie to a
feast,
had him murdered, and then went over to the Qing side.
Shi Kefa tried to defend Yangzhou,
but Dodo's army massacred them
and killed Shi Kefa.
The Prince of Fu fled Nanjing before the
Qing army arrived in June 1645;
but he was captured, sent to Beijing,
and died the next year.
The Manchus offered leniency to rebels
who surrendered
and gave them comparable administrative positions.
All non-clerical men had to show loyalty
with a shaven pate, long
queue, and Manchu dress.
Recalcitrant communities suffered massive
loss of life and property.
The rebel Zhang Xianzhong ruled Sichuan
tyrannically.
He beheaded and maimed thousands of scholars and
their families
and even executed many of his own troops.
In late
1646 he abandoned Chengdu and set it on fire, moving east on a
scorched-earth campaign until the Qing defeated and killed him
in January 1647.
Ming efforts in the lower Yangzi region slowed the Manchu advance.
Lu became regent for cities on the east coast from 1645
until
1651 and had an army of about 200,000.
In the winter of 1645-46
starvation caused many of Lu's troops
to go home or turn to looting
and extortion.
Even paying only 40,000 troops to defend Fujian
would cost 862,000 taels a year.
Huang Daozhou led a campaign
but was defeated by the Qing army in February 1646;
he was executed
in Nanjing two months later.
Ganzhou tried to hold out with 40,000
Ming troops
while Regent Lu fled to the Zhoushan Islands in July.
The Prince of Tang was the Longwu regent in Yenping and Fuzhou
of Fujian,
but he was captured and executed in October 1646.
The Ming regent Yongming was proclaimed Emperor Yongli in December
1646
and struggled against the Shaowu challenger.
Dorgon squelched
an alleged conspiracy and asserted
dictatorial control over the
Qing regime.
He sent Meng Qiaofang to defeat a hundred thousand
Muslim rebels
who had occupied Lanzhou in Gansu.
In 1648 ten thousand
Muslims were killed in one battle.
When the leaders were captured
in Suzhou, 8,000 Muslims were beheaded.
In February 1650 Manchu
forces invaded Guangdong.
Canton (Guangzhou) was captured, and
many were massacred in November,
including Shaowu and several
Ming princes.
Meanwhile the Yongli court was retreating southwest
and reached Yunnan in 1651,
alienating the people of Guangdong.
Many communities defended themselves against any intruders—
Manchus, Ming troops, loyalist bands, rebels, or bandits.
The Confucian
historian Wang Fuzhi remained loyal to the Ming dynasty
and struggled
with intrigues in the Yongli court. He wrote,
In a world in which disaster has reached its climax
and one stands alone,
trying to bring the country back to moral consciousness,
one must not grieve over one's loneliness.
In the future there will arise those
who will carry on the task.1
Dorgon reversed Qing policy by imposing 2,490,000 taels in
surtaxes
on nine provinces to pay for his summer palace in Jehol.
He went hunting in winter and died on the last day of 1650.
A
month later Ajige was imprisoned for plotting a coup
and was forced
to take his own life later in 1651.
Dorgon's academic advisor
Ganglin was dismissed and executed.
Young Emperor Shunzhi began
ruling for himself and issued
an edict in April 1651 to eliminate
corruption.
Grand academician Feng Chuan was accused and replaced
by Chen Mingxia,
who was then also charged with corruption.
Tantai
went along with the first but not the latter,
but he was put to
death for arrogant abuse of power while serving Dorgon.
Chen was
executed for moral insensitivity and being loyal to the Ming dynasty.
A Manchu linguist tutored eunuchs,
who were given positions in
the imperial household.
The Fifth Dalai Lama was accompanied
by
3,000 Tibetans in 1652 when he visited Beijing.
In 1652 Ming general Li Dingguo led campaigns in southern Huguang
and eastern Guangxi, using elephants and native warriors.
As they
entered the city of Guilin, Qing's chief general Kong Youde committed
suicide.
Li Dingguo led his forces in Guangdong,
but in January
1655 he suffered a major defeat by Qing reinforcements.
Ming general
Hong Chengchou had been captured by the Manchus in 1642
and commanded
their southern operation.
He attacked the Ming loyalists in Hunan,
Sichuan, and Guangdong,
driving them into Guizhou and Yunnan,
where he did not pursue them for three years.
He implemented relief
programs to rebuild the economies and win back the people.
He
forbade his soldiers to harass the people and even beheaded a
general
who had allowed his men to pillage and rape.
Li Dingguo
had helped the Yongli emperor to exterminate a rival faction
from
Anlang that supported Sun Kowang,
and then in 1656 Li moved the
court from there to Yunnanfu.
Sun's generals turned against him
in the battle against Li Dingguo in eastern Yunnan,
and in December
1657 Sun surrendered to Qing authorities.
Three well fed Qing
armies led by Wu Sangui, Doni, and Robdei
defeated Li Dingguo's
weakened army in January 1659
while Emperor Yongli fled from Yunnanfu
to Burma.
Only Yongli and a few followers made it to the Burman
capital at Ava.
Burman king Pindale gave him asylum, but the Burman
council deposed
and executed Pindale in June 1661.
His brother
Pye Min succeeded him and fought the Chinese.
Finally Yongli was
turned over to Wu Sangui's officers and killed in May 1662.
Wu
Sangui was appointed military governor of devastated Yunnan;
Geng
Jimao was transferred to Fujian, where his father had been prince;
and Shang Kexi governed Guangdong.
Another effort of Ming resistance was led by the powerful maritime
trader,
Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga).
Beginning in 1647 he gained
control over his Zheng clan by 1651,
and by 1654 he controlled
the Zhangzhou prefecture
and negotiated with Qing officials for
eight months.
He organized a force of 250,000 men with 2,300 ships,
and in 1656 assaulted Quemoy and defeated the Qing fleet.
In 1657
Zheng moved up the coast to Zhejiang,
and by 1659 he was attacking
the lower Yangzi region.
He besieged Nanjing in August, but Qing
cavalry and infantry
destroyed his army in September.
Zheng Chenggong
retreated to Taiwan and persuaded the Dutch to depart in 1662.
Family intrigues and a disease seems to have caused
his insanity
and death in June 1662.
His son Zheng Jing held on to his position
in Taiwan
even after Fujian was taken over by the Qing in 1664.
The Manchus established an aristocratic hierarchy of nine ranks
for its nobles;
but as each incumbent noble died, the family dropped
one rank.
Unless the emperor rewarded someone for conspicuous
merit,
the family after a few generations would return to being
commoners.
In 1658 Emperor Shunzhi revived the Hanlin Academy
and the grand secretariat according to Ming traditions.
The Hanlin
Academy under one Manchu chancellor
and one Chinese chancellor
only admitted
graduates of the highest metropolitan exam.
They
did research, wrote memorials, and recommended lecturers.
The
next year they published the Complete Book of Land Tax and
Services,
and magistrates had to list all those in arrears.
A bribery scandal tarnished the Beijing provincial examination
in 1657,
but the metropolitan examination was given in 1659
to
celebrate the victories over the Ming remnants in the southwest.
Emperor Shunzhi became depressed after his favorite consort
died
in September 1660; he got smallpox and died in February 1661.
The will produced by the Manchu regents after Emperor Shunzhi
died in February 1661
has been generally recognized as a forgery,
because he accused himself
of various faults including laziness,
extravagance, neglecting military issues,
favoring eunuchs, and
distrusting Manchu advisors.
The document also named the four
Manchus who were to govern as regents
(Soni, Oboi, Ebilun, and
Suksaha) for his seven-year-old smallpox-immune son Xuanye,
who
became Emperor Kangxi (r. 1661-1722).
The new government abolished
the Thirteen Offices that had been controlled by eunuchs,
executed
officials favored by the late emperor,
reduced the influence of
censors and the Hanlin Academy,
and after a trial beheaded eighteen
Han Chinese for tax delinquency.
An edict banned binding the feet
of female children,
and disobeying families were punished.
In
1662 the entire eastern coast from Shandong to Guangdong was ordered
evacuated so that they would not supply the Zheng regime on Taiwan.
In 1665 Kangxi was married to Soni's granddaughter over Oboi's
objection.
Soon after Soni died in August 1667, Kangxi began to
rule for himself.
Suksaha was investigated and executed along
with several of his relatives;
other families involved were enslaved.
Meanwhile Emperor Kangxi had been secretly tutored in Chinese
by two eunuchs.
Most Manchus learned the Chinese language,
and
by 1670 translators were being dismissed.
In 1668 the Manchus
banned the Han Chinese from Manchuria.
Mixed marriages were prohibited,
and Beijing became a segregated city.
In 1669 Soni's son Songgotu
helped the Emperor remove the last two regents.
Kangxi accused
Oboi of manipulating appointments, blocking memorials
from getting
to the Emperor, and using a clique to make government decisions.
After a short trial, Kangxi had nine in Oboi's clique executed
and others lashed.
Oboi died in prison, but Ebilun was granted
a reprieve.
Kangxi equalized the ranks and salaries of Manchus
and Chinese officials,
and he increased the pay of soldiers.
He
reversed the policy of Oboi that had removed
inhabitants from
the southeast coast.
In the south Wu Sangui had increased his jurisdiction from
Yunnan
to include Guizhou and much of Hunan and Sichuan.
Shang
Kexi from Canton governed Guangdong and part of Guangxi,
and a
third Chinese general, Geng Jimao, governed Fujian.
To keep their
loyalty, the Qing capital was sending them ten million taels a
year.
Their sons married daughters of Manchu nobles.
In 1671 Shang
Kexi became ill and turned Guangdong over to his son, Shang Zhixin.
Geng Jimao died that year and was succeeded by his son Geng Jingzhong.
When Shang Kexi asked permission to retire to Manchuria in 1673,
Kangxi agreed to his transfer and then to similar requests
by
Wu Sangui and Geng Jingzhong.
Kangxi's order for them to give
up their domains in the south
led to the War of the Three Feudatories.
Wu Sangui rebelled in December; he proclaimed a new Zhou dynasty,
and hundreds of officials in the south defected to his side.
Geng
Jingzhong revolted in 1674 and invaded Zhejiang.
In 1675 Mongols
led by Burni rebelled in Manchuria and marched on Mukden.
The
Emperor sent an army but also offered him amnesty.
Burni was defeated
by the Qing army and killed by Korchin Mongols.
In 1676 Shang
Zhixin imprisoned his father, who remained loyal to the Qing,
and rebelled in Guangdong, but that year Geng Jingzhong surrendered
to the Qing.
The next year the cruel Shang Zhixin surrendered,
and Wang Fuchen, governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, returned to Manchu
loyalty.
The arrogant Wu Sangui could not hold his forces together
and died of dysentery in 1678.
The Qing army won back Jiangxi
in 1679, Sichuan in 1680, and Guizhou in 1681
as besieged Wu Shifan,
Wu Sangui's grandson, committed suicide.
Hundreds were beheaded,
and even the leaders who surrendered
were executed by the Qing
armies.
Emperor Kangxi did order the release of women, children,
and refugees
who had been forced into the rebel camps.
Bannermen
were appointed to govern the southern provinces,
and revenues
began flowing back to Beijing.
Exams were resumed, but very few
scholars came north from this distrusted region.
Zheng Jing retreated to Taiwan and died there.
Shi Lang, whose
relatives had been arrested and executed by Zheng Chenggong
in
the 1640s, led the Qing assault in 1683 on Taiwan,
which was captured
and became a prefecture of Fujian.
After 1685 the Banners were
no longer allowed to confiscate new land,
and customs houses opened
up trade in Canton, Zhangzhou, Ningbo, and Yuntaishan.
China suffered
an economic depression in the second half of the 17th century
because of the depopulation and devastation caused by the Ming-Manchu
war.
In 1688 more than ten thousand soldiers mutinied in Wuchang.
In 1679 a special examination was held in Beijing, and Kangxi
invited 188 scholars
to work on an official history of the Ming
dynasty; only 36 declined.
After Songgotu lost favor in 1683,
the Xu brothers joined with others
to oppose the wealthy Mingju,
who in 1688 was removed for corruption.
The Xu family used a gang
of men to assault people, disrupt trials,
and kidnap children
into slavery, but Mingju's relatives ousted them in 1690.
The
Emperor usually only dismissed officials guilty of corruption,
but those who were involved with the heir apparent were executed.
Factional struggles at court caused Kangxi to fear a plot to replace
him with Yinreng,
his only son by the Empress, who died when he
was born in 1674.
For siding with the crown prince, Songgotu was
imprisoned in 1703 and died there.
After Yinreng had an affair
with one of his concubines,
the Emperor would no longer let any
of his concubines spend the entire night with him.
Kangxi was offended
by Yinreng's procuring of young boys,
and in 1708 he had him arrested.
The same year he disgraced those who suggested
that his eighth
son Yinsi be chosen as his successor.
In 1712 Yinreng was pronounced
insane and deposed.
Adam Schall von Bell had begun teaching Chinese officials how
to make guns in 1642,
and he wrote a book on the subject.
The
Jesuits continued to be influential in the Manchu court.
In 1650
he was authorized to construct the first Catholic church in Beijing,
but in 1665 Yang Guangxian published a book criticizing Christianity
and the calendar that Schall had devised.
In 1675 Ferdinand Verbiest
arranged for the casting of cannons
for the campaign against Wu
Sangui.
The Portuguese presented the Emperor with an African lion
in 1678
and were allowed to retain their trading base at Macao.
Emperor Kangxi listened to the advice of Jesuits on science and
mathematics,
especially after Verbiest had been proven correct
on the calendar in 1689.
They cured him of malaria by using quinine,
and in 1692
he issued an edict of toleration that allowed Christians
to preach in China.
Joachim Bouvet returned to France and brought
back more Jesuits in 1698,
hoping that their knowledge of science
would open the way
for the conversion of the Emperor and China.
However, Pope Clement XI sent Bishop Maillard de Tournon, who
arrived in 1705
and clashed with the Emperor over accommodating
Christian practices to Chinese rites.
Kangxi believed that giving
the papal legate authority
over the other Jesuits would cause
serious difficulties.
He expected them to continue to do homage
to Confucius,
because he considered it a civil rather than a religious
ceremony.
Most of the Jesuits agreed to sign the Emperor's agreement,
but several Franciscan, Dominican, and other missionaries
refused
to do so and were deported.
Kangxi noted that the Jesuits were
more concerned about a world
they had not entered than the one
in which they were living.
Yet their work helped produce an imperial
atlas in 1718
that was superior to its European counterparts.
In the north Russians had begun moving east in 1581.
They founded
Tobolsk in 1587, Tomsk in 1604, Yenisseisk in 1619,
Yakutsk in
1632, Okhotsk in 1638, and by 1648 had reached the Kamchatka coast.
They founded Irkutsk by Lake Baikal in 1651, Nerchinsk in 1658,
and built a fort at Albazin in 1665.
Emperor Kangxi sent a force
that seized Albazin in 1685;
but the next year he began negotiating,
and in 1689 Russian and Chinese envoys agreed upon a treaty at
Nerchinsk.
Its six articles established the border between Siberia
and Manchuria,
dismantled the Albazin fort, allowed trade with
passports,
extradited fugitives and deserters, allowed foreign
citizens to remain,
and forgave all past incidents.
In the late 1670s the Dzungars had conquered western Xinjiang.
Olod leader Galdan had been trained by the Fifth Dalai Lama
and
attacked Outer Mongolia in 1686.
After they came south to Jehol
and threatened Beijing,
in 1690 Kangxi sent a force led by his
two half-brothers; but Galdan held them off.
In 1696 Kangxi himself
led an army of 80,000, leaving as regent Yinreng.
They crossed
the Gobi Desert and drove the Dzungars north of the Kerulen River,
defeating Galdan in the battle of Jao Modo;
he fled into the Altai
mountains and died in 1697.
The Dzungars turned back a 1705 Qing
incursion into Tibet.
In 1715 Olods led by Zewang Araptan attacked Hami,
and two years
later his cousin Chereng Dondub invaded Tibet
with 6,000 Dzungars.
After they killed the Dalai Lama and replaced
him,
Kangxi felt justified in taking over Lhasa with the Qing
army in 1720.
Emperor Kangxi worked hard, eating only two meals a day
and
commenting on about fifty memorials each day.
He also had a system
by which some memorials could be sent directly to him
so that
he would not be controlled by the Grand Secretariat.
In 1670 he
promulgated the following Sacred Edict of sixteen moral maxims
and commanded they be read twice each month.
1. Stress filial piety and brother love to exalt human relations
2. Be sincere to your kindred to manifest the virtue of harmony.
3. Maintain peace in your local communities to absolve
quarrels and litigations.
4. Emphasize agriculture and sericulture to insure a full
supply of food and clothing.
5. Promote thrift to save expenditures.
6. Expand schools to rectify the behavior of scholars.
7. Reject heterodox doctrines to honor the orthodox learning.
8. Make known the laws to warn the foolish and obstinate.
9. Manifest propriety and righteousness to cultivate good customs.
10. Accept your own calling to the end that the minds of all
may be stabilized.
11. Admonish your children and youngsters against evil-doing.
12. Eliminate false accusations to preserve the good and innocent.
13. Refrain from protecting fugitives to avoid collective punishment.
14. Complete tax payments to dispense with official prompting.
15. Cooperate with the baojia neighborhood organizations
to forestall burglary and thievery.
16. Resolve vengeance and animosities to guard your own lives.2
More than twenty times Kangxi expressed his policy
that Manchus
and Chinese were to be treated equally.
Each of the six ministries
was headed by three Manchus and three Chinese.
In the provinces
the governor-generals were usually Manchus,
but most of the administrators
were Chinese.
If the governor-general was Chinese, then the governors
under him were Manchus.
Senior officials were not allowed to serve
in their home provinces
so that they would be less likely to abuse
their authority.
He sought to prevent trouble and warned officials
against causing trouble.
Between 1684 and 1707 Kangxi made six tours of the southern
provinces
to inspect water systems and visit academies.
Although
taxes were difficult to collect, he refused to raise them.
In
1711 he froze the ding tax, which was a kind of poll tax
on persons,
even though population was growing fast.
This edict
prevented officials from making adjustments for growth,
migration,
and agricultural changes.
In 1713 his imperial decree converted
the corvée labor quota to a head tax on men;
but since
the number of men in each district had been frozen,
these essentially
became a land tax.
Kangxi supported literature by sponsoring the
publishing of the Complete Tang Poems,
the translation
of Chinese classics into Manchu,
work on an immense encyclopedia,
and the publication of a dictionary.
He also patronized painters.
Usually tolerant, he was sensitive to the Ming threat to the Qing
dynasty,
and in 1713 he had Dai Mingshi executed for his interest
in the southern Ming regimes after 1644.
In his Valedictory Edict
issued upon his death on December 20, 1722,
Kangxi had written,
To be sincere in reverence for Heaven and ancestors
entails the following:
Be kind to men from afar and keep the able ones near,
nourish the people,
think of the profit of all as being the real profit
and the mind of the whole country as being the real mind,
be considerate to officials and act as a father to the people,
protect the state before danger comes
and govern well before there is any disturbance,
be always diligent and always careful,
and maintain the balance between leniency and strictness,
between principle and expediency,
so that long-range plans can be made for the country.3
Because of the conspiracies involving his second son Yinreng,
Kangxi refused to proclaim the name of his successor.
In recent
years he had trusted his fourth son, Yinzhen, with fifteen special
assignments.
Yinzhen claimed that Kangxi had named him verbally
and in his will,
and at the age of 44 he became Emperor Yongzheng.
Kangxi's third son Yinzhi was a top-level prince and had been
made editor
of the imperial encyclopedia, and the fourteenth son
Yinti led the campaign
against the Khoshote Mongols in Tibet.
Yongzheng had Yinzhi arrested for having conspired against the
late Emperor,
and he removed Yinti from command, assigning him
to oversee Kangxi's mausoleum.
Yinsi was made a top-level prince
and was appointed
to the Emperor's new advisory council.
Yintang
was sent to the northwest and was later convicted
of conspiring
to take over the government.
In 1726 Yinsi was arrested, and both
Yintang and Yinsi died in prison the next year.
Yongzheng put Sichuan's governor-general, Nian Gengyao,
in
command of the army fighting the Koshotes led by Lobjang Danjin.
After being transferred to Hangzhou, Nian was accused of 92 crimes.
Instead of being beheaded, Yongzheng allowed him to commit suicide
in 1726.
Imperial advisor Longgedo was tried for 47 crimes and
died in prison in 1728.
Zeng Jing read the writings of Lu Liuliang
(1629-83), who criticized the Manchu rulers.
After natural disasters
in the southern provinces in 1728,
Zeng sent his disciple Zhang
Xi to the Shaanxi-Sichuan governor-general, Yue Zhongqi.
Zeng
accused Yongzheng of murdering his father, brothers, and loyal
officials.
Yue Zhongqi informed the Emperor, and he proscribed
Lu's writings and punished his descendants and disciples.
After
Zeng and Zhang confessed to sedition and rebellion,
they were
allowed to return to Hunan.
Yongzheng suspected Catholic missionaries
of using the Roman alphabet as a code,
and he criticized the factional
influence of the church.
However, he tolerated them, stating in
1726,
"The distant barbarians come here attracted by our
culture.
We must show them generosity and virtue."4
Emperor
Yongzheng ordered a documentary account of the Zeng conspiracy
published,
and he argued against Lu Liuliang's racist theory that
the Manchus should not rule China.
The Emperor noted how the Qing
regime had rescued the Ming dynasty from rebels
and fostered peace
and prosperity by controlling crime
while expanding territory,
population, and cultivated land.
Yongzheng was strongly influenced by Confucian philosophy
and
was interested in Chan Buddhism.
In 1724 he wrote an essay amplifying
the instructions in the Sacred Edict of Kangxi.
On strengthening
clans he suggested that clan members are like parts of one body.
If one part hurts, the whole body hurts, making necessary filial
piety,
brotherly love, harmony, willingness to endure for others,
and charity.
He observed that the orthodoxy of Buddhism is being
concerned with the heart,
not the talk about fasts, processions,
temples, and idles
that lazy monks and priests use to swindle
people.
Individuals should control themselves
so as not to break
the law and also to admonish others.
Yongzheng prepared lectures
that were given by local scholars twice a month.
The Emperor wrote
another essay on the dangers of factions,
which he warned lead
to corruption and bad judgment
by erecting a barrier between ruler
and minister.
The encyclopedic Gujin tushu jicheng (Complete
Collection of Illustrations
and Writings from the Earliest to
Current Times)
was completed in the Kangxi reign and was published
in 1728,
totaling 800,000 pages with more than a hundred million
Chinese characters.
Like his father, Yongzheng worked hard and spent many hours
selecting officials and evaluating them.
He formed a council in
the inner court to control the outer bureaucrats
during the transition
but disbanded it in 1725.
He relied on his brother Yinxiang until
he died in the Dzungar war in 1730.
By then the Emperor had formed
the grand council of top advisors.
Yongzheng sent Oertai to govern
Yunnan and made
Li Wei minister of revenue to remove corruption.
After Tian Wenjing supervised famine relief in Shanxi,
he was
used to improve finances in Henan and Shandong.
Tian proposed
sending officials to the provinces to learn their craft,
and the
Emperor eventually implemented this.
Yongzheng continued his father's
policy of getting secret memorials directly,
and these gave him
many ideas for reforms.
Kangxi's reluctance to enforce taxation had left the treasury
depleted,
and much corruption and embezzlement in the provinces
meant that the poor were overtaxed while landowners avoided taxes.
Surtaxes had been added to pay for the cost of melting down the
silver into ingots
for the central government, but these had been
greatly increased to provide
the needed revenues for local use
and were exploited by greedy officials.
Yongzheng wrote in an
edict in 1725,
"When the flesh and blood of the common people
is used to rectify the deficits
of the officials, how can there
not be hardship in the countryside?"5
He approved a fixed
meltage fee and increased salaries from 45 taels a year
to at
least 600 so that officials could be honest.
The meltage fees
also enabled provincial officials to redistribute taxes
from the
wealthy regions to the needs of the poor.
At the end of Yongzheng's
twelve-year reign he left the treasury
with sixty million taels
of silver.
In 1723 and again in 1729 Suzhou textile workers went
on strike for better wages
and the right to build a hospital,
an orphanage, and a meeting-hall.
Yongzheng was concerned about
rebellion but commended
the governor for only arresting and interrogating
22 workers.
Yongzheng implemented land reclamation by waiving taxes for
a time
on newly opened land, by rewarding officials who promoted
resettling
of previously wasted lands, and by giving loans to
the poor
so they could migrate to the frontiers and buy seed,
cattle, tools, and food.
Yongzheng curtailed the privileges of
the scholars by limiting their tax exemptions,
by making sure
they paid their taxes, and by prosecuting those who abused tenants.
The Chinese had been discriminating against some musicians, ethnic
minorities,
and certain occupations that had become hereditary.
Such "mean people" had not been allowed to take the
examinations.
Yongzheng abolished this discrimination in 1723
and enforced it with a series of edicts through 1731.
Guizhou
suffered from poverty and raids by Miao.
After the battle for
Dingguang in 1726, Oertai offered amnesty
and free land to encourage
people to return to the land.
Others lost their farms to Qing
soldiers,
and native chiefs were replaced by Qing administrators.
Mining was encouraged in Yunnan, and the state ended its monopoly.
Within a few years copper production more than quadrupled.
Smoking
tobacco had become popular in China during the 17th century,
and
soldiers sent to repress the rebellion on Taiwan in 1721
brought
back the custom of smoking opium.
As addiction spread in China,
Yongzheng punished severely
growing, selling, and smoking of opium.
However, he came to recognize the right to sell medicinal opium
for health reasons.
Yongzheng cancelled the independent commands of the banner
chiefs,
bringing them under his imperial control.
He ordered the
Qing troops to withdraw from Lhasa,
because he had good communication
with Tibet.
However, he had to send 3,000 troops to put down the
Khoshote rebellion
led by Lobjang Danjin in 1724.
Five years later
eastern Tibet became the Yazhou prefecture,
but native chiefs
governed.
A supplementary treaty with Russia made at Kyakhta in
1727
established a longer boundary between Mongolia and Siberia,
and trade was allowed at Kyakhta as well as at Nerchinsk.
A Russian
caravan was allowed to trade with Beijing every third year,
and
a Russian Orthodox church was also maintained in the Qing capital.
Two years later Yue Zhongqi led a campaign into the Gansu corridor,
but they were badly defeated in 1731
and made a truce with the
Dzungars the next year.
On Taiwan aborigines rebelled; in 1732
they were joined by five tribes,
but Qing forces crushed the revolt
by the end of the year.
Emperor Yongzheng had written the name of his successor and
locked it in a casket,
enabling his fourth son to become Emperor
Qianlong in 1736
without controversy at the age of 24.
He also
inherited his father's advisors, Oertai and Zhang Tingyu.
A faction
criticized Oertai for forcing defeudalization and Sinicization
on the Miao people in the southwest, causing devastation and misery.
In the mid-1730s Chen Hongmou (1696-1771) helped organize
650
charitable schools for the Miao in Yunnan.
He also compiled a
critical anthology of educational writings called
Bequeathed
Guidelines of Five Kinds that began appearing in 1739
and
became very influential.
In 1737 Qianlong tried to ban making
liquor from grain in northern China,
but this was ineffective
and not enforced.
He reduced the influence of eunuchs by decreeing
in 1742
that they could not rise above the fourth grade in the
civil service.
Oertai continued to dominate policy until he died
in 1745.
After the Miao rebellion supported by the Hmong and Yao
peoples
was put down in 1740, Chinese moneylenders invaded
and
with usury managed to take over much land.
Soldier colonists used
Miao and Yao as slaves
to work the abandoned or confiscated lands.
Qianlong had Zhang Guangsi executed in 1749 for having suppressed
the Miao.
The examinations had minority quotas,
but many Chinese
claimed to be Miao or Yao in order to pass.
Competition became
stiffer with increased population,
as the total number of positions
for magistrates in the empire
was surpassed by the number of Zhuren
degrees earned every third year.
Another Miao rebellion would
erupt at the end of Qianlong's reign in 1795
to try to expel the
intruders and recover their land.
During Qianlong's long reign the Qing empire
nearly doubled
both in territory and population.
Chinese partible inheritance
meant that land was equally divided between sons,
and the average
farm decreased to about 2.5 acres.
Peanuts, corn (maize), and
sweet potatoes were introduced from America
and could grow on
hillsides.
Rice production increased, but the price increased
fivefold
in the second half of the 18th century, as did the price
of cotton cloth.
Cultivating land on the military frontiers allowed
the reduction of taxes.
Qianlong continued the Qing policy of
relying on Manchu governors in the provinces
with mostly Han Chinese
as prefect administrators and county magistrates.
He instructed
the governors to prosecute corrupt prefects and magistrates
and
arrest provincial students who bully people or cause trouble.
Hang Shizhun criticized the Emperor's favoring of Manchus and
frontier Chinese
over qualified Chinese scholars, but he was dismissed
in 1743.
Qianlong wanted to leave a literary legacy and composed
more than 42,000 poems and many prose works.
He collected paintings
and imposed his calligraphy on them.
Missionaries helped design
a summer palace for Qianlong that was completed in 1747
and was
embellished with paintings by Guiseppe Castiglione and Jean-Denis
Attiret.
In 1747 he tried to stop the selling of Miao children
by Sichuan racketeers.
Qianlong was deeply upset by the death
of a son and his empress in 1748,
and he punished more than a
hundred senior officials
for not mourning the empress properly.
He also punished military officers who failed in battle.
After
two years of war the Qing were defeated by the Golden Stream (Jin
Chuan)
people in Sichuan in 1749, and he had two grand secretaries
and an imperial commissioner put to death.
Just as the Chinese empire was ruled by the edicts of the emperor
without a legislature,
the local counties were under the jurisdiction
of the magistrates,
who acted as investigators, judges, and juries.
Suspects were harshly treated in jails and were often tortured
into confessing.
For the convicted with money, small amounts of
silver could be paid to avoid flogging;
720 taels covered banishment,
and 1,200 taels
got one a reprieve from beheading or strangulation.
Sometimes allowances were made based on the ability to pay.
A
gentleman who had passed the examinations could not be prosecuted
by a magistrate until he had been stripped of that status,
and
such gentlemen were also exempt from corvée labor service
and the poll tax.
The baojia system organized ten jia
of one hundred households each into a bao.
The headman
was responsible for registering everyone and maintaining law and
order.
The baojia concept made everyone in the community
responsible for all,
and friends and neighbors might be penalized
for the illegal acts of others.
This community process also helped
relieve those in need.
In the late 1750s the Manchu bannerman Zhaohui led the Qing
army in the conquest
of extensive western territory that was named
Xinjiang, meaning "new territories."
When the cities
of Kashgar and Yarkand were captured in 1759,
many Dzungars were
slaughtered.
The name Dzungars was wiped out, and those left were
called Oloths.
The Qing government paid about 20,000 troops
more
than three million taels annually to garrison Xinjiang.
The Manchus
allowed the Muslims to keep their religious traditions,
and they
did not have to shave their heads and wear a queue.
Trade in copper,
gems, saltpeter, wool, and slaves prospered,
but the Qing government
controlled the mining of gold and jade.
More Mongolian tribes
were also brought into the Qing empire.
About half of the 200,000
banner soldiers were stationed near Beijing,
and more than 600,000
troops in the Green Standard army
were used for fighting wars
against the Miao and in Xinjiang.
Qianlong tried to unify the
diversity of the empire
and in 1764 relaxed the ban on inter-marriage
with Chinese minorities.
In the late 1760s Qing forces fought
Burma over control of the Shan people.
Chinese merchants imported
much cotton from Burma up the Irrawaddy River.
Qianlong tried
to impose a trade embargo to punish King Hsinhpyushin;
but this
was not effective and only made the local people unfriendly.
The Qing army managed to pacify the Tibetans
in western Sichuan
between 1771 and 1776.
Qianlong celebrated the victory by having Jin Chuan monks executed
and exhibiting others in caged
carts in Beijing.
These two wars cost the Qing twice as much as
the entire conquest of Xinjiang.
In 1774 Muslim troops were sent
to quell a White Lotus rebellion in Shangdong
led by Wang Lun,
an expert in martial arts and herbal healing.
His followers captured
towns and part of Linqing
before they were slaughtered by the
Chinese army.
Customs taxes on growing commerce quadrupled between
1735 and 1795,
helping the Beijing treasury to increase from
40
million taels in 1750 to 80 million in 1780.
However, Hong Liangji
warned in his book On Clothes and Food that
the increasing
population was consuming supplies
that would no longer be there
for the next generations.
Yang Xifu (d. 1768) had given four reasons
for the increase in poverty:
population growth, concentrated land
ownership,
ocal granaries setting rice prices, and increased
consumption.
For a while the new land in the west absorbed many
of the unemployed poor people
from the interior, but late in Qianlong's
reign
the population of China surpassed 300 million.
He rejected
proposals to restrict migration because he believed that peasants
should be free to move where they can find opportunity.
He listened
to the advice of Zhili governor Sun Jiagan not to disturb the
rights of
Chinese cultivators who had taken over lands from Manchu
bannerman unable to farm.
In 1778 Qianlong announced that he would
retire at the end of 1795
at the completion of China's sixty-year
cycle
and so as not to surpass the 61-year reign of his grandfather
Kangxi.
The immense project of compiling The Complete Works of the
Four Treasuries
began in 1773 and was completed in 1784.
The
four categories were classics, history, philosophy, and literature.
Scholars collected 11,000 works and published 3,457 of them in
79,070 volumes.
Ming founder Yongle was considered a usurper,
and his Encyclopedia of 11,095 volumes was criticized
for
its antiquated arrangement and Daoist prayers.
Emperor Qianlong
ignored the literati who wanted him to close
urban teahouses and
wine shops or ban embroidered robes,
because he believed that
making them illicit would just increase their value.
While scholars
were searching from house to house for books,
a great inquisition
was carried out.
In twenty years 151,725 books were destroyed,
having more than 3,000 different titles of which 2,000 were lost
to posterity.
Books were condemned for anti-Manchu references
or for containing
geographical and other information that might
affect national defense,
and in the 1780s plays with vulgar language
were also censored.
In 1777 Wang Xihou was executed for having
compiled a dictionary
that criticized the dictionary of Kangxi's
administration.
Even stone texts were effaced and replaced with
new messages.
Qianlong also attempted to eradicate Christianity
in 1746 and again in 1784.
The Emperor executed 56 Gansu officials
in 1781 for selling examination degrees.
Yet late in his reign
Qianlong began to sell lower degrees to raise money.
In 1781 Qianlong announced his plan to add 20,000 troops,
but
his advisor Agui opposed the spending.
Some had become quite wealthy,
and salt merchants
contributed twelve million taels for half the
cost.
Zhao Yi (1727-1814) argued that the state would become bankrupt
unless it used peasant militias and minority soldiers.
Muslims
in Gansu revolted twice in the 1780s.
In 1787 a Qing army of 60,000
was used to defeat the Triad rebellion on Taiwan.
The Emperor
had to recruit Chinese peasants to fight
but had no plan for demobilization
after the war.
The Qing court was allied with the Le dynasty of
Vietnam and punished
the Chinese miners who had caused a disturbance
at Hanoi in 1767.
When the Tay-son brothers led a revolt in 1786,
the Le heir fled to Guangxi and appealed for Chinese help.
After
Nguyen Hue moved Vietnam's capital to south of Hanoi,
Governor
Sun Shiyi of Guangxi and Guangdong proposed the conquest of Vietnam.
His soldiers occupied the capital but were attacked while they
were celebrating
the new year of 1789; they lost 4,000 men and
fled back to Guangxi.
These invasions harmed Chinese commercial
interests.
Learning from the quagmire in Burma, Qianlong made
peace with the Nguyen ruler,
who was willing to pay tribute.
In
1791 Qianlong banned the use of Nepalese money in Tibet
and ordered
Gurkha merchants to leave.
The Qing army invaded in 1792 and drove
the Gurkhas back to Nepal,
which began sending tribute to the
Qing capital every five years.
During the 18th century the Chinese economy greatly developed.
A favorable balance of trade with other countries imported increasing
silver.
Paper notes also helped the money supply.
A warming trend
in the climate coupled with improvements in the soil,
farming
tools, irrigation and drainage, and intensive cultivation
increased
productivity in grain and other foods.
This prosperity and additional
territory allowed reductions in taxes
for most of the century,
and China was powerful enough
to deter or defeat rebellions and
foreign aggression.
Community organizations helped collect taxes
and the command economy
with mutual cooperation relieving the
poor and famines.
Many people migrated to new regions and formed
market towns.
Commerce and industry grew; but still 94% of the
people lived in rural communities,
and 80% were farmers.
In the
Canton area 20,000 people processed iron and marketed its products.
Most communities were primarily self-sufficient with the customary
economy
being about three-quarters of the total economy.
Emperor Qianlong became enamored of the young bannerman Heshan
in 1775
and promoted him quickly to the grand council, police
commandant,
revenue minister, lieutenant general, and to authority
in the Four Treasuries office.
In 1786 Heshan became grand secretary
and began receiving graft
for appointing his friends and relatives
throughout the empire.
During his reign Qianlong prosecuted thirty
governors for corruption;
but when he began confiscating the supplementary
salaries of officials,
many turned to embezzling funds to pay
fines or give requested donations.
Yet while he punished provincial
officials,
Qianlong failed to purge the corrupt officers in his
capital.
He no longer received the secret memorials as his father
and grandfather had,
and thus he was blind to the corruption.
Qianlong ordered prefectures and counties to provide relief for
those in need,
and charitable granary networks were established
to stave off famines.
By 1792 more than 20,000 peasants were being
fed in the capital's soup kitchens
even though they were only
used temporarily by itinerant laborers.
Many avoided urban soup
kitchens because of epidemic diseases.
The British East India Company had been trading informally
with the Chinese
at Canton (Guangzhou), Zhousan, and Xiamen (Amoy)
since the 1630s.
In 1699 they established a factory at Canton.
Thirteen Hong merchants had factories or commercial agencies
outside
the city walls of Canton.
In 1720 they organized a guild that
was called the Cohong.
Three percent of business transactions
were put into the Consoo (Gongsuo) fund
to relieve those who became
insolvent.
In 1759 trader James Flint was arrested and imprisoned
three years
for violating Qing laws.
In 1760 maritime trade was
limited to Guangzhou
and was conducted each year only between
October and March.
After 1785 the Hong merchants had to pay
an
annual tribute of 55,000 taels to the imperial court.
The foreign
factories at Canton were under strict rules that
prohibited women,
firearms, or loans to Hong merchants,
nor were they allowed to
have Chinese books or learn Chinese.
The silver the British paid
for silk, porcelain, tea, and other goods
went from three million
taels in the 1760s to sixteen million taels in the 1780s.
To reverse
this trend, they began trading opium they brought from India,
and this went from one thousand chests of opium in 1773 to 4,054
chests in 1790.
By 1800 the English were buying 23 million pounds
of tea annually.
George Macartney arrived as the special envoy
of George III in 1792.
He refused to prostrate himself on the
floor before Emperor Qianlong
but said he would bow on bended
knee as he would to King George.
In 1793 he was received by the
powerful Heshan,
but the Emperor refused to make any special trade
agreement with the English.
Although Qianlong announced his abdication at the end of 1795,
he continued to rule through Heshan, who took over numerous offices
and acquired an enormous fortune.
When Qianlong died in 1799,
Qianlong's son, Emperor Jiajing,
accused Heshan of corruption
and forced him to commit suicide.
By various means Heshan had
amassed 800,000,000 taels.
The main charge was that he had embezzled
money
that was supposed to be used to quell the White Lotus rebellion
that began in 1796,
and then he lied that the war was going well.
The White Lotus religion worshiped the Eternal Mother,
and the
rebellion went on until 1804.
During the last years of the Ming dynasty, a group of Chinese
literati
formed the Society of Renewal to revive the Donglin party
that had been crushed by the eunuch Wei Zhongxian.
Jin Shengtan
wrote essays on popular literature and plays,
but he was beheaded
for siding with students protesting
at the funeral ceremonies
for Emperor Shunzhi in 1661.
Huang Zongxi (1610-96) opposed rule
by eunuchs or the Manchus.
In 1649 he went to Nagasaki to organize
resistance.
In 1662 he published A Plan for the Prince,
arguing for the liberal principles
that the prince and ministers
should serve the people rather than the reverse.
He recommended
that basic laws replace imperial edicts
and that a prime minister
and other ministers should have more power.
He suggested curtailing
eunuchs by reducing the number of emperor's wives.
Examinations
should be broader,
and advancement should also be by recommendations.
"Eight-paragraph essays" and poems had to follow rigid
formulas
using antithetical comparisons, and one could be eliminated
by the wrong use
of a word, by breaking the rhyme scheme, or by
poor calligraphy.
Only by passing the governmental examinations
could one enter the class of gentlemen.
Yet the exams did allow
extraordinary opportunities to intelligent men who studied hard.
The best half of about 20,000 civilian positions were filled by
those with degrees.
In 1679 Huang declined to work on the Ming
history project.
Instead he wrote a history of Chinese philosophy
during the Song and Yuan eras,
but it was unfinished at his death.
Wang Fuzhi (1619-92) also belonged to the Renewal Society.
After supporting the southern Ming emperor Yongle, he retired
to write.
He believed that societies are transformed by natural
evolution
and continually make progress, and he argued that the
modern concept
of private property made the ancient ideal of equal
land division obsolete.
Gu Yenwu (1613-82) became very influential
even though his book was not published until 1695.
His foster
mother fasted to death in protest of the Qing regime.
He pioneered
historical criticism and philology,
and he also analyzed the political
decadence of the late Ming era.
He found that the central administration
and its provincial agents
had become divorced from the people.
Because civil servants were not trusted, numerous regulations
were imposed from above, reducing initiative and adaptability
to local conditions.
He urged more local autonomy.
Gu was also
a geographer, economist, and strategist,
and he traveled extensively
for 22 years to do his research.
He criticized the influence in
the Ming era from the Song Neo-Confucians
and the idealistic Wang
Yangming,
whom he noted had been affected by Chan Buddhism.
Gu
proposed going back to the early commentaries from the Han dynasty,
and his new textual criticism became known as "Han Learning."
His research methods emphasized originality, utility, and extensive
evidence.
Yen Yuan (1635-1704) turned against Neo-Confucian idealism
for
a more practical approach.
In 1696 he was put in charge of
an academy in Hebei and implemented
a curriculum that included
military training, archery, riding, boxing, mechanics,
mathematics,
astronomy, and history.
He believed that real knowledge must have
practical application.
Although he was little known by his contemporaries,
his ideas were promoted
by his disciple Li Gong (1659-1733).
Dai
Zhen (1723-77) proposed the motto,
"One must not let oneself
be deceived either by others or by oneself."6
He criticized
the distortions of the
Neo-Confucian
philosophers on the work of Mencius.
He believed that the morality of practical life is based on the
instincts
of survival, hunger, sexual desire, and other needs
and passions,
and that these are all manifestations of the Way (Dao).
He argued that the principles of the Song philosophers
prevented
the young and humble from expressing themselves and
fulfilling their goals.
Dai Zhen rejected meditation and sudden
enlightenment
and recommended study, investigation, reasoning,
and sincere action.
Zhang Xuecheng (1736-96) recommended studying
the regional histories of China
because the Way is known through
its historical manifestations.
Because of the intense competition
for limited government positions,
many scholars spent their time
teaching in the academies
and writing on the classics and histories.
Bi Yuan (1730-97) was governor of Shaanxi and organizing
the writing
of thirty-three regional histories.
Confucian philosophy in the
18th century emphasized evidential research (kaozheng).
Chen Hongmou (1696-1771) was one of the most successful governors
in Chinese history.
He believed that everyone could be educated,
including women of every class.
Some women managed to become recognized
as poets.
Yuan Mei (1716-98) was a poet who advocated rights for
women;
he opposed polygamy (though he had concubines) and the
binding of little girls' feet,
an aristocratic custom that had
begun in the Song era.
The early Qing rulers banned foot-binding,
but they soon stopped enforcing it in Chinese households.
Yuan
Mei studied Manchu in Beijing but failed his Manchu exams in 1742.
After his father died, he resigned from his official position
and made his living the rest of his life by his writing.
In 1753
he moved his mother, wife, and concubines to Harmony Garden.
Yuan
Mei recognized the love of wealth and sex as natural human desires
and suggested that without them the human race would have become
extinct.
He also observed that some people who do not have feelings
often act in wicked ways.
He disliked religions like Buddhism
that tried to deny human desires.
He also criticized Confucian
traditions that follow a narrowly defined straight line
of transmission
through the Neo-Confucian Cheng
brothers and Zhu Xi.
He believed that art is the Dao (Way)
taking form.
Pursuing art with refinement expresses the Dao,
but in imitation both the Dao and art are lost.
Yuan found
that singing poems is pleasant to the feelings
and that nothing
stops anger better than poetry.
He wrote that when one is at peace,
nature and inspiration are revealed.
China continued to be a patriarchal society,
and many women
were confined to the home,
where they were taught to spin and
weave.
Widows were expected to be chaste, but married men could
take concubines.
Age was greatly respected, and the younger were
expected to defer to the older.
Profound thinkers such as Spinoza,
Leibniz, Goethe, and Adam Smith
admired Chinese culture.
Leibniz
gathered material from Jesuits
and in 1697 published a book on
new Chinese things.
During the European era of enlightenment Voltaire,
Holbach, and Diderot argued that
Confucian society in China proved
that a culture could be ethical without being Christian.
Li Yu (1611-80) wrote several comedies in the 1660s,
but the
two most famous plays of the early Qing era are
The Palace
of Eternal Youth by Hong Sheng
and The Peach Blossom
Fan by Kong Shangren.
Hong Sheng (1645-1704) spent more than ten years working on
he Palace of Eternal Youth and completed it in 1688.
The
story is based on Bai Juyi's poem "The Everlasting Sorrow."
The play was immediately popular, but production the next year
during a period
of national mourning drew the attention of the
censor.
Emperor Kangxi read the play, dismissed the producer,
expelled Hong Sheng from the Imperial College,
and struck numerous
scholars from the Official List.
The story of a tragic romance
at court during the An Lushan rebellion
was apparently too controversial
for this insecure Manchu emperor.
Hong Sheng retired in Hangzhou
to a life of poetry and wine
until he fell into a river and drowned.
The play is set at the court of Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712-56),
who is called by his popular name Ming Huang.
He was known for
patronizing musicians, dancers,
and actors in his Pear Garden
Academy.
The Tang empire had been expanded, but later in his reign
military expenses
of guarding the new frontiers caused hardships
for the peasants.
An Lushan is a Tatar general about to be executed,
but he persuades the eunuch Gao Lishi and the Emperor to give
him another command.
Ming Huang falls in love with the beautiful
Yang Yuhuan
and in 1745 makes her his main concubine.
He elevates
her three sisters as duchesses,
and Lady Yang is sometimes jealous
of them.
Her cousin, Yang Guozhong, becomes prime minister.
Efforts
to bring Lady Yang fresh lychee fruit by special couriers
causes
the death of two blind peasants.
On the seventh day of the seventh
moon in 1751
the Emperor and Lady Yang vow undying love to each
other.
In 1755 An Lushan rebels, and the Emperor has to flee.
Some guards mutiny and kill Yang Guozhong and the Guo duchess,
blaming their family for ruining the empire.
To help the Emperor
escape, Lady Yang takes her own life.
Two years later he finds
that her body has vanished.
A necromancer finds her on a fairy
mountain and takes the gold hairpin
and jewel box the Emperor
had given her back to him.
Ming Huang stops eating and dies so
he can be
with Lady Yang, a goddess of the moon.
Kong Shangren (1648-1718) was a descendant of Confucius
and became a doctor in the Imperial College.
The Peach Blossom
Fan was produced in 1699 and also was
a long southern drama
(in 40 scenes) and an immediate success.
This romantic drama poignantly
portrays the
fall of the Ming
dynasty between 1643 and 1645.
In a house of pleasure run by Li
Zhenli a 16-year-old girl is named Fragrant Princess
by the painter
and poet, Yang Wencong.
Hou Fangyu has just passed the examination,
and he writes a poem on her fan.
She rejects expensive clothes
sent by the
corrupt dramatist and politician, Ruan Dacheng.
General
Zuo Liangyu says that his troops are hungry
and that he is having
difficulty restraining them.
Yang tells Hou that Ruan may arrest
him because he is a confederate of Zuo;
but a stronger motivation
is that
he is jealous of Hou's relationship with Fragrant Princess.
News arrives that Emperor Chongzhen has hanged himself.
Hou travels
to Shi Kefa, who has been promoted to
President of the Board of
War in Nanjing.
Hou explains the reasons why they should not support
Prince Fu as emperor.
Shi refuses to see the resentful Ruan.
Ma
Shiying brags of his new power for having made
Prince Fu the Hongguang
emperor.
Hongguang appears, and a eunuch announces that
Ma is
now prime minister and minister of war.
Ma accepts Ruan as his
private secretary.
Yang becomes a councilor in the ministry of
ceremonies.
He summons Fragrant Princess, but she is contracted
to Hou and refuses to go.
The poet Ding comments, "No matter
how rich you are,
you cannot buy what is not for sale.
Both threats
and coercion are useless."7
In the on-going civil war Gao
Jie tells Shi why he became a rebel.
Shi pardons him and assigns
him to defend the Yellow River region,
sending Hou to advise him.
Yang Wencong tells Ma Shiying why Fragrant Princess refused
Tian's proposal,
and Ma sends men to force her.
Her foster mother
Li urges her to accept the 300 taels and submit,
but Fragrant
Princess says that Ruan and Tian are part of eunuch Wei's clique.
She beats off Yang with her fan and knocks her head on the floor
until she faints.
Li tells Yang that she will impersonate the
girl.
Yang paints the fan with leaves so that the blood stains
resemble peach blossoms
and shows it to Fragrant Princess.
She
asks her singing teacher Su to take the fan to Hou.
Ma and Ruan
come for her, and she accuses them
of promoting their personal
ambition and pandering to the Emperor's lust.
Yang stops the angry
Ruan, who is kicking her,
but Ruan and Ma order her to work in
the Inner Court.
The Emperor tells Ruan that he appreciates his
new play, Swallow Letter,
and he orders Fragrant Princess
to memorize her role.
Disregarding Hou's warning, General Gao
is invited to a dinner
by a disgruntled commander and is murdered.
Traveling Su meets Li, who was driven out of Tian's house by his
shrewish wife,
and she is now married to a boat officer.
Li and
Su find Hou, and Su gives him the fan.
Hou finds the painter Lan
living in the room of Fragrant Princess.
Hou meets with the bookseller
Cai and two scholars of a club
reviving the Donglin party, for
which they are arrested by Ruan.
Judge Zhang is a reclusive Daoist
and keeps them in protective custody.
Su insists on seeing General Zuo so that they can impeach Ma
and Ruan.
At the first anniversary of Emperor Chongzhen's death,
a messenger brings the public impeachment for seven crimes.
Ma
and Ruan decide to appeal to northern generals
against the large
forces of Zuo and go into hiding.
When General Zuo Liangyu learns
that his son
has let his troops pillage and loot, he kills himself.
General Shi Kefa with only three thousand men gallantly
tries
to defend Yangzhou from the northern army.
Rioters strip Ruan
and Ma of their possessions.
They learn that the northern troops
have crossed the Yangzi
and that Hongguang has fled Nanjing.
Su
finds Fragrant Princess and tells her the prisoners are freed.
They decide to go to Zhang's retreat.
Hongguang asks General Huang
Degong for protection;
but two generals named Liu arrive and abduct
Hongguang to take him to Beijing,
as Tian wounds Huang, who commits
suicide.
Shi Kefa has fled fallen Yangzhou and learns
that Nanjing
is besieged; so he drowns himself.
Hou and his friends go to the
retreat of Zhang,
who commemorates the Ming martyrs.
The ghosts
of Shi Kefa, Zuo, and Huang appear,
but the apparitions of Ma
and Ruan fall from the ridge of the immortals.
Zhang notes the
karmic circle.
Finally Hou and Fragrant Princess are reunited,
but Zhang persuades both to become Daoists.
In an epilog three
years later a Manchu official tries to track down
the retired
scholars, who flee into the hills.
Wu Jingzi (1701-54) was from a scholarly family in the province
of Anhui.
He passed the first preliminary government examination
in 1720,
but after his father's death he squandered his inheritance
by his extravagant generosity.
He lived in Nanjing and wrote poetry
and prose to amuse his friends.
In 1736 he passed up an opportunity
to take a special imperial examination.
His proudest achievement
was contributing the remainder of his fortune
to renovate a temple
dedicated to past sages.
He spent about ten years writing his
great satirical novel, The Scholars,
and completed it in
1750, though it was not published until about 1770.
The first chapter is a prolog and describes Wang Mian,
who
lived during the end of the Yuan dynasty
and had already been
the subject of two biographies.
Young Wang has to take care of
water buffaloes but studies as he does so.
One day after it rains,
he notices the beauty of plants and flowers
and decides to learn
how to paint.
Wang masters astronomy, geography, classics, and
history,
but he does not seek an official position.
He even declines
to accept an invitation from the magistrate
because he and the
wealthy Wei oppress the common people.
Wang makes a living selling
his paintings and also writes great essays.
Before his mother
dies, she makes Wang promise he will not become an official.
Wang
Mian tells the future founder of the Ming dynasty
who has become
the Prince of Wu that goodness and justice
can win over the people;
even the weak people of Zhejiang will not submit to force.
Later
when Zhejiang authorities intend to offer him a position,
Wang
escapes to live in the mountains as a hermit.
The rest of The Scholars is fictional and follows the
lives
of various intellectuals from 1487 to 1595.
Many of the
characters are based on people Wu knew,
and Du Shaoqing is considered
autobiographical.
During the Ming dynasty even a young man under
twenty years old
who has passed the exams is considered senior
to any old man who has not.
In the second chapter the elderly
Zhou Jin
manages to pass the exam and become an examiner.
Poor Kuang Zhaoren is given money and a warm coat by Ma Qunshang
so that he can return home.
There Kuang works hard selling cooked
pork and bean curd,
studying while he dutifully takes care of
his ailing father.
They are nearly forced to leave their house,
but then it burns down.
They rent a place at a monastery.
Kuang
is helped by the village leader Pan and Magistrate Li,
and he
passes the examinations.
His examiner emphasizes that moral character
is more important than literary attainment.
When they learn that
Kuang has placed first on the prefectural exam,
suddenly the family
is thrust into the aristocratic class.
Before he dies, Kuang's
father tells him to take care of his worthless brother
and warns
him about putting fame and rank above virtue,
advising him to
marry a humble girl rather than try to improve his status
by marrying
into a rich family.
Magistrate Li has been dismissed, and people
demonstrate to block his removal.
When the ringleaders are rounded
up,
Kuang is suspected and flees to Hangzhou.
On the way Kuang Zhaoren meets Jing Lanjiang, who tells him
that
many intellectuals have a low opinion of bagu (eight-paragraph)
essays.
Jing has his poetry published in anthologies.
He brings
Kuang into a circle of wine-drinking poets,
and Kuang makes money
editing 300 essays.
The bailiff Pan warns Kuang about Jing and
his friends
but pays Kuang to forge a writ in a plot to abduct
a woman for a wealthy man.
Kuang also trades clothes with Jin
Yan and takes an exam for him.
Pan arranges for Kuang to marry
the daughter of a runner.
Reinstated, Li invites Kuang to Beijing,
and Kuang sends his wife to his family in the country against
her wishes.
He passes the exam and is recommended for the Imperial
College,
but he learns that Pan has been accused of many serious
crimes.
Kuang does not admit he has a low-class wife,
and Censor
Li offers him a marriage to his niece with the wedding expenses
paid.
She is beautiful, and Kuang is very happy;
but he learns
his first wife died because she was so unhappy.
Kuang declines
to visit Pan in prison because he fears it will ruin his reputation.
Kuang Zhaoren has ignored the advice of his dying father,
and
his story offers an ironic contrast to the reclusive virtue of
Wang Mian.
Generous Du Shaojing often invites friends for dinner.
Bao
Dingxi has come to him to borrow money to finance an opera troupe.
Du declines to go see Magistrate Wang
and even regrets that he
passed the district examination.
Du orders a servant to pawn a
chest of clothes
so that he can pay for the funeral of his tailor's
mother.
Du is taking care of the ailing Lou and tells his steward,
Whiskers Wang, to sell some of his land for 1300 taels.
When Magistrate
Wang loses his position, Du offers him a place to stay.
Before
he goes home to die, Lou gives Du this warning and advice,
You will soon come to the end of your property!
I like to see you acting in a just and generous manner,
but you must consider with whom you are dealing.
The way you are going on,
all your money is being tricked out of you
by people who will never repay your kindness;
and while we say charity expects no reward,
you should distinguish between those who deserve help
and those who don't.8
However, Du continues to be reckless with his money.
He gives
up his house and moves to Nanjing, where he rents a house.
He
provides money for the Lou clan to buy a burial ground.
Du is
invited to the provincial capital for an exam,
but he declines
a position and runs out of money on his way home.
He donates 300
taels for a temple commemorating Dai Bo of the 12th century BC.
He pretends to be ill to avoid working for Governor Li.
Gao criticizes
Du for going through an estate of 60,000 taels in less than ten
years;
but others admire Du, and his writing is valued.
Zhuang
Shaoguang helps arrange the sacrifice at the new temple
and refuses
to accept any position in Beijing;
but he is asked to propose
educational reforms and agrees to submit them.
The Emperor gives
him a house by Lotus Lake in Nanjing, where he can write.
When
Zhuang's guest Lu Xinhou is arrested for having banned books,
Zhuang sends letters to high officials,
resulting in Lu's release
and the informer being punished.
Yu Yude becomes a teacher and tries to perform acts of kindness
secretly.
After failing, he passes the palace examinations and
is admitted to the Hanlin Academy.
Zhuang persuades Du to receive
Dr. Yu, and they become good friends.
Yu pays Du to write an epitaph.
Yu agrees to be the master of sacrifice for the ceremony at the
Dai Bo temple.
As an examiner, Yu does not turn in a scholar for
cheating so that he will not lose face.
Filial Guo notes that
Du Shaojing is famous throughout the empire for his liberality.
Yu and Du gather money to help Guo in his career.
After many more
episodes, in the last chapter four new characters are introduced,
but they are more like the reclusive Wang Mian;
the Dao Bo temple
has fallen into ruins.
At the end of the novel Old Yu has cast
off his official robes
and has decided to practice religion alone.
Wu Jingzi has written a realistic comedy of manners that satirizes
the rigidity
of the examination system and the limitations of
office holding.
Even though Du appears somewhat foolish financially,
the theme of private charity shines through and is brought
to
greater perfection in the example of Dr. Yu.
Cao Xueqin (c. 1715-63) was known as the grandson of Cao Yin,
who served Emperor Kangxi as Textile Commissioner in Suzhou and
died in 1712.
The fortunes of the Cao family were declining,
and
in 1727 Li Xu was imprisoned for having offered sing-song girls
to Prince Yinsi.
The next year Xueqin's father Cao Fu and Sun
Wencheng were dismissed
and had their estates confiscated.
Cao
Xueqin drew on the difficult experiences of his family
to write
what many consider the greatest Chinese novel.
David Hawkes has
translated it into English as The Story of the Stone in
five volumes,
but it is more generally known as The Dream of
the Red Chamber.
The first chapter states that Cao Xueqin
worked on it for ten years
and revised it five times, but he died
before it was finished.
Manuscripts were passed around the family
for comments,
and texts of the first eighty chapters dated 1754
and 1760 have survived.
Alterations were probably made to keep
it from being destroyed
during Qianlong's literary inquisition,
and Gao E edited and published the completed version with 120
chapters in 1792.
Cao Xueqin began the novel by explaining to the reader its
mythical origin.
The Goddess Nuwa repairs the heavenly dome
but
leaves one stone unused that she gives supernatural powers.
A
Buddhist monk and a Daoist priest find the stone,
which asks them
to take it into the dusty world.
The monk transforms it into a
pendant of translucent jade.
The stone also has provided dew to
nourish a plant
that later incarnates as Black Jade, and it is
found in the mouth
of Baoyu (Precious Jade) when he is born.
Zhen
Shiyin, while reading in his home at Suzhou,
falls asleep and
meets the Buddhist and the Daoist,
who proposes they go down to
the mortal world
along with descending spirits to save a few.
They show the stone that is labeled "Precious Jade of Spiritual
Understanding" to Shiyin.
On an arch to the Illusion Land
is written a couplet suggesting that truth and fiction,
the real
and unreal can change into each other.
As the two immortals pass
through the archway, Zhen Shiyin wakes up at home.
The barefoot
monk is with the lame Daoist
and advises Shiyin to sacrifice his
baby daughter, Lotus (Caltrop),
to the Buddha, or she will bring
misfortune upon her parents.
The monk and the Daoist separate
and agree to meet later.
Young Jia Yucun notices a pretty maid (Apricot), and she returns
his glance.
When Shiyin hears poor Jia Yucun reciting poetry,
he offers to pay his expenses to the capital to take the exams.
A careless servant loses little Lotus in town,
and two months
later Shiyin's house is burned down in a big fire.
He takes his
family to his wife's father Feng Su.
After two years, Shiyin's
money is gone, and he goes off with the lame Daoist.
The new prefect
is Jia Yucun, and he summons Apricot and marries her.
Yucun is
arrogant and corrupt, and he is removed for malfeasance.
He gets
a job tutoring five-year-old Black Jade (Lin Daiyu),
the daughter
of salt commissioner Lin Ruhai.
She goes to live with her grandmother
and meets her cousin Jia Baoyu,
who considers girls more pure
than men.
Baoyu has a jade pendant; but he throws it down
because
neither of his sisters nor Black Jade have one.
Lotus has been
sold to Feng Yuan and then to Xue Pan,
whose servants have killed
Feng Yuan.
Lady Wang, Baoyu's mother, lavishes affection on Black
Jade.
After visiting Jia Rong's wife Qinshi in her room,
Baoyu
dreams of the disillusionment goddess, who tells him
that his
licentiousness is pleasing to maidens.
Baoyu then has his first
sexual experience
with his maid Pervading Fragrance (Aroma).
Lady Wang's niece Phoenix (Xifeng) is married to Jia Lian
and
helps hungry relatives by giving them twenty taels of silver.
Baoyu gets Qinshi's brother Qin Zhong into his school.
Baoyu shows
Precious Virtue (Xue Baochai) his magic jade,
and he sees her
golden locket.
She advises him that drinking heated wine is less
harmful than cold wine.
School-kids get into a fight, and Jia
Rui is blamed for not controlling the situation.
Qinshi is ill.
Phoenix puts off enamored Jia Rui by standing him up in the cold
and by sending disguised Jia Rong, enabling Jia Qiang to blackmail
Rui for fifty taels.
Rui still sees Phoenix in a magic mirror.
Black Jade leaves to visit her ill father.
Qinshi dies, and commentators
have suggested
she committed suicide because of her adultery.
Phoenix is put in charge of her elaborate funeral,
magnified by
Jia Zhen's thousand—tael bribe that gives Jia Rong official rank.
Phoenix strictly commands the servants and has one flogged for
being late.
Phoenix reluctantly agrees to help an old nun at a
convent
and makes 3,000 taels by getting a viceroy to break up
a proposed marriage,
though the two disappointed lovers commit
suicide.
Qin Zhong persuades a pretty nun to give in.
His father
finds out and gives Qin a thrashing, and both father and son soon
die.
Black Jade's father dies too, and Phoenix's husband Jia Lian
brings her back to the home of her Grandmother Jia.
Cardinal Spring
(Jia Yuanchun), Baoyu's older sister, is promoted to imperial
concubine,
and she is allowed to visit her family in Prospect
Garden.
Each family member has two older women as servants and four
maids,
not counting those who do the cleaning.
Much of the novel
is a realistic portrayal of the sisters, cousins, and their maids
in the Jia household and their interactions with each other, often
involving jealousy.
Baoyu likes to spend most of his time with
these women
and enjoys the taste of perfumed lip rouge.
When Phoenix's
daughter comes down with smallpox,
Jia Lian moves to the outer
compound and sleeps with the cook's wife.
After Lian comes back
to Phoenix,
his maid Patience finds a strand of hair but does
not tell Phoenix.
During a game of conundrums, Baoyu's father
Jia Zheng becomes depressed
by the unfortunate images and quits,
allowing his son to relax.
The imperial concubine suggests that
Baoyu, his sisters, Black Jade,
and their maids move into Prospect
Garden that had been made elegant for her visit.
Grandmother Jia
approves, and Zheng urges his son Baoyu to study.
Mingyen secretly
gets novels and plays for Baoyu,
who is inspired by the Romance
of the Western Chamber.
He loves the intelligence of Black
Jade, but they often argue.
Jia Huan, Baoyu's brother by a different
mother,
is disliked by all the maids except Rainbow.
Huan becomes
jealous and spills hot wax on Baoyu's face.
The old sorceress
Ma Daobo arrives and receives five pounds of oil
to pray for Baoyu,
and Huan's mother Zhao pays her fifty taels
to use black magic
on Baoyu and Phoenix.
For three days Baoyu and Phoenix act like
lunatics and become delirious;
Grandma Jia blames Zhao.
The Buddhist
monk and lame Daoist visit to revitalize the corrupted pendant,
and Baoyu and Phoenix recover.
Lady Wang catches her son Baoyu flirting
with her maid Golden
Bracelet and dismisses her.
Black Jade is ailing; Baoyu advises
her to stop worrying and accidentally
confesses his love for her
in the presence of his maid Pervading Fragrance,
who says that
Golden Bracelet has jumped into a well and died.
Officers of the
Prince come to Baoyu to find out where the actor Jiguan is.
Blaming
Baoyu for this homosexual affair and the girl's suicide,
Zheng
gives his son a terrible beating until Lady Wang stops him.
Grandmother
Jia also says that he must kill her first.
Zheng repents, and
Grandmother counsels him that
in disciplining his son he should
know where to stop.
Baoyu dreams of Jiguan, and Golden Bracelet
forgives him.
Black Jade grieves for Baoyu and becomes more ill.
Pervading Fragrance tells Lady Wang that her son needed the lesson.
Precious Virtue accuses her brother Xue Pan of informing on Baoyu,
who loves Black Jade more than her.
Jia Zheng is appointed a grand
examiner and leaves the compound.
Quest Spring proposes a poetry
club and is joined by
Baoyu, Black Jade, Precious Virtue, and
others.
Jia Lian and Phoenix quarrel, and both blame the maid
Patience;
but Lian finds it easier to apologize to his maid than
his wife.
Phoenix has delayed the paying of allowances
so that
she can make money on short-term loans.
Actor Liu Xianglian is a friend of Baoyu but dislikes the homosexual
attentions
of Xue Pan so much that he gives him a beating.
Pan's
sister Precious Virtue advises her mother not to bring charges
in order to avoid a scandal.
Xue Pan leaves the capital, and Lotus
stays with Precious Virtue.
Phoenix has a miscarriage, and Lady
Wang asks Quest Spring to manage the household.
She makes sure
the precedents are followed and does not give out extra money.
Baoyu learns from the maid Purple Cuckoo that
Black Jade is going
back to Suzhou, but medicine helps him recover.
Purple Cuckoo
says that Black Jade and Baoyu would be a perfect match,
and she
quotes the proverb that it is easier to get much gold
than an
understanding heart.
Jia Rong persuades the lecherous Jia Lian
to marry beautiful You Erjie secretly,
and Lian buys a nearby
house for Erjie and her sister Sanjie,
who threatens blackmail
and makes demands.
You Sanjie has fallen in love with actor Liu
Xianglian
and vows not to marry anyone else.
Liu is reconciled
with Xue Pan by saving his life from bandits.
Jia Lian suggests
that Liu marry Sanjie, and Liu gives his sword as a pledge.
Liu
talks with Baoyu and decides to break the engagement.
When Sanjie
hears of this, she cuts her throat with the sword.
Liu realizes
she loved him, cuts off his hair, and goes away with the Daoist
priest.
Phoenix learns of her husband's secret marriage.
While
Lian is away on business, Phoenix invites Erjie to live in her
home
as second wife; but she tells the maid to treat Erjie badly.
Phoenix even arranges to have a suit brought against her husband
Lian.
Erjie has a miscarriage after a doctor makes a wrong diagnosis.
Then Erjie kills herself by swallowing gold.
A young maid called Simple finds a purse embroidered
with two
naked figures and shows it to Lady Wang.
This leads to a search
of the maids' rooms.
Baoyu is saddened by the marriage of his
sister Welcome Spring.
Xue Pan marries Cassia (Xia Jingui) but
finds her too domineering
and turns to her maid Cherry (Moonbeam).
Cassia says she does not mind as long as it is open;
but when
she sends in Lotus, Cherry accuses Xue Pan of rape.
Lotus is transferred
to Xue Yima's daughter Precious Virtue.
Baoyu goes back to school
and studies for his exams.
Black Jade dreams that Jia Yucun comes
and takes her home to marry;
she appeals to Grandmother Jia, and
Baoyu says she is betrothed to him;
but he plunges a knife into
his heart.
Black Jade wakes up crying.
Phoenix suggests that Baoyu
is ordained to wed Precious Virtue.
Black Jade hears of it and
neglects her illness.
Then she learns that Baoyu is going to marry
someone
in the garden and recovers with hope.
Grandmother Jia
decides on Precious Virtue and orders that Black Jade not be told.
Baoyu loses his jade pendant, and the imperial concubine dies.
The matriarchs accept Phoenix's suggestion that
Baoyu be told
he is engaged to Black Jade.
She learns that Baoyu is not marrying
her and wishes to die
to pay the debt of love from a former life.
At the wedding Baoyu removes the bride's veil and discovers Precious
Virtue;
he thinks he must be dreaming.
While this is happening,
Black Jade dies.
Months later Baoyu recovers and becomes a real husband to Precious
Virtue.
The Garden is haunted by the ghosts of Qinshi and others
until some Daoist priests dispel them.
Jia Zheng is accused of
letting his subordinates be corrupt.
Two other members of the
Jia family are arrested and have their property confiscated,
but
Zheng's title and property are restored.
Grandmother Jia dies,
and bandits abduct the nun Exquisite Jade.
Phoenix, before she
dies, is haunted by You Erjie and others she persecuted.
The Buddhist
monk arrives to restore the jade pendant
and talks with Baoyu,
leaving without the reward.
Baoyu tells his mother that the place
where the monk lives
"is far if you think it is far and near
if you think it is near."
Baoyu's sister Compassion Spring
threatens to commit suicide
if she is not invested as a Daoist
priestess.
Baoyu studies for the exams with Jia Lan;
both pass,
but Baoyu disappears with the monk and the Daoist.
Pervading Fragrance
is married, and Precious Virtue gives birth to a son.
Cassia tries
to poison Lotus but accidentally poisons herself.
Lotus becomes
Xue Pan's chief wife but dies a year later in childbirth.
Finally
the stone returns to its place with its story of Baoyu.
This complex novel portrays the matriarchal aspects of Chinese
society,
as the women have the dominant roles in the home.
Baoyu
much prefers the company of women and wishes they would never
marry.
He and two other characters renounce the world to become
Daoists.
Thus this depiction shows how the feminine side often
balanced
the patriarchal aspects of Confucianism.
The red mansions
were the women's quarters, and this subtle domestic world,
where
feelings were usually more important than ideas,
often reflected
the reality of dreams.
1. Tu T'ung-chien lun 28:13a quoted in "The Patriot
and the Partisans" by Ian McMorran
in From Ming to Ch'ing
ed. Jonathan Spence, p. 159.
2. The Rise of Modern China by Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, p. 74.
3. Emperor of China: Self-portrait of K'ang-hsi ed. Jonathan
Spence, p. 143-4.
4. Quoted in The Search for Modern China by Jonathan D.
Spence, p. 84.
5. Ibid., p. 76.
6. Quoted in A History of Chinese Philosophy by Jacques
Gernet, p. 513.
7. The Peach Blossom Fan by K'ung Shang-jen, tr. Chen Shih-hsiang
and Harold Acton,
p. 127.
8. The Scholars by Wu Ching-tzu, tr. Yang Hsien-yi and
Gladys Yang, p. 412-3.
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