CHAPTER 1
A Rugged Partnership
The Intellectual Elite and the Imperial State
Let us begin with a doggerel titled “Exhortation to Studies” (Quan xue wen), allegedly composed by Emperor Zhenzong of the Song (r. 998–1022):
To enrich one’s family, no need to acquire good farmlands,
In books there are thousands of bushels of grains.
To have a comfortable home, no need to pile up bricks,
In books there are houses made of gold.
Don’t worry that you have no retinue when you travel,
In books there are carriages lined up for you.
Don’t complain there is no matchmaker to find you a wife,
In books there are jade-like beauties.1
No doubt, the prospect of dramatic upward mobility presented so seductively here could be a powerful motivation for education and for the literati’s participation in the triennial cycle of examinations. However, in their relationship to the state power, Chinese intellectual elites had other things at stake, things that were more important than “houses made of gold” or “jade-like beauties.”
CHINESE INTELLECTUALS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICE
Since the ancient times, Chinese intellectuals, or the shi, had always considered themselves the mainstay in the learning of the dao, the principle that was supposed to be the governing force of all relations in society as well as in the cosmos. Idealistically, adherence to the dao was their ultimate commitment, transcending all materialistic pursuits. For Confucius, that commitment was the distinguishing quality of a “superior man” (junzi): “The superior man seeks the dao and is indifferent to food . . . and the superior man is concerned about [the lack] of the dao and not about his poverty.” A shi should uphold the dao for its own sake, and not for any egoistic considerations: “A man can promote the dao which he follows, but the dao cannot promote the man.”2 Mencius took over that idea from Confucius and further elaborated it: “When there is the dao in the world, one follows the dao all his life; when there is a lack of the dao in the world, one lays down his life for the dao.”3
In the Confucian imagination, the halcyon era of antiquity under the rule of the legendary sage-kings remained the ultimate model for later historical periods to emulate. The social harmony in that lost golden age was seen as based on a seamless unity between the dao and political power, or shi 勢. “Wise kings in antiquity,” as Mencius observed, “devoted themselves to goodness, forgetting their own exalted positions” (hao shan er wang shi).4 The Mencian words were echoed by the early Qing scholar Wan Sida (1633–83): “Yao, Shun, Yu, Tang, King Wen, and King Wu were all scholars who became rulers” (ru er jun zhe). According to Wan, that was the reason that “in those times the lineage of the dao learning was highly esteemed, society was harmonious, people were warm-hearted and honest, and there was nobody who would undermine the dao.”5 That happy union between the dao and political power, however, did not last forever. In Confucius’ own time, the Spring and Autumn period (841–476 BCE), “rituals corrupted and music crumpled” (lihuai yuebeng). Paradoxically, however, it was precisely this disruption and disintegration of cultural order that was responsible for what Yu Yingshi has called a historical “breakthrough” (tupo), for it catalyzed the formation of the shi as a new and self-conscious social group.6 As the era of the sage-kings had long passed, the intellectuals, in defending and advocating the dao, could no longer take support from the political powers for granted. That was the beginning of the bifurcation of the two traditions: the daotong (lineage of dao learning) and the zhengtong (lineage of state power). The daotong, as Fei Xiaotong has informed us, was “a crucial notion in traditional literati’s political consciousness.”7 As a tradition to be passed on from one generation to the next, it had endowed the Confucian project of establishing a moral order on the dao with a teleological meaning, which in turn became associated with the Confucians’ sense of historical responsibility: “A shi should not be without a broad mind and vigorous endurance. His burden is heavy and his course is long. He takes perfect virtue as his responsibility—isn’t that burden heavy? He never ends it until his death—isn’t that course long?”8
That Confucian sense of social obligation easily translated into a desire to participate in governance. The daotong, therefore, was never insulated from the zhengtong. Rather, the Confucian intellectuals were clearly aware that they would not be able to realize their ideal of perfect moral order simply by working in closed studios. Considering themselves both morally and intellectually superior, they were eager to demonstrate their worth by running state affairs: “When a country is well-governed, poverty and ignominy are things to be ashamed of. When a country is ill-governed, opulence and decency are things to be ashamed of.”9
For many centuries, the shi were indeed the most qualified candidates for official positions. Their moral, political, and administrative aspirations were well registered in the celebrated Confucian tenet, “internal sageliness and external kingliness” (nei sheng wai wang).10 The relationship between nei sheng and wai wang was best expounded in The Great Learning (Daxue): “The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the kingdom first ordered well their own States. Wishing to order well their States, they first regulated well their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. . . . Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy.”11
To the Confucians, self-cultivation and participation in governance were thus not only in a seamless continuum but also complementary to each other. “In obscurity a man makes perfect his own person,” as Mencius exhorted, “but in prominence he makes perfect the whole Empire as well.”12 Yet a true Confucian scholar would never be content with making perfect only his own person. As suggested in the progressive order in the passage from The Great Learning, moral cultivation of the self was considered not an end in itself but the premise for the larger moral project, namely, making perfect “the whole empire.” Believing in the perfectibility not only of their individual selves but also of the Chinese civilization at large, Confucian intellectuals found it impossible to detach themselves from governance and secular politics. Tu Wei-ming has put it most astutely: “Had they been offered a comparable choice of rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s in which the kings minded political business and the Confucians were allowed to devote themselves wholly to cultural matters, they would have had to reject it.”13
Ever since the shi became a self-conscious social group, they had always considered government service crucial for their moral project of “making perfect the whole empire.” “The four classes of commoners—scholars, farmers, craftsmen, and merchants—have their respective occupations. Scholars are the ones who study in order to take up official positions” (xue yi ju wei yue shi).14 In the eyes of many Confucian intellectuals, it was their heavenly endowed birthright to be civil officials. “One who studies well should become an official” (xue er you ze shi), as Confucius himself said tersely.15 “A shi losing his official position,” observed Mencius, “is like a feudal lord losing his state. . . . A shi taking office is like a farmer cultivating his land.”16 By saying so, Mencius considered office-holding simply a defining attribute of a scholar. Xunzi, on his part, used the term “gentlemen” (junzi) to refer to scholars. Despite all the differences between them, Xunzi’s view of the intellectual’s social role was quite similar to Mencius’. According to Xunzi, the “gentlemen” should be the ones in charge of social matters: “Heaven and Earth gave birth to the gentlemen, and the gentlemen are the ones to manage the matters between Heaven and Earth.”17 For the literati, to be bolted out of officialdom was thus not merely to be deprived of the vocational choice that they had been taught they were destined to take. More importantly, it would signify the shattering of a moral and political ideal that they had cherished for centuries as a social group.
THE LITERATI’S DECLINING SOCIAL STATUS
Throughout Chinese imperial history, the intellectuals’ participation in governance necessarily meant some kind of collaboration between the forces representing those two traditions, the daotong and the zhengtong. For a considerably long period, Chinese rulers were generally willing to accept and respect the collective status of the shi as the upholder of the daotong. To exploit their intellectual and moral resources, rulers even had to treat some of the shi as mentors (shi) or friends (you). Duke Huan of the Qi (r. 685–643 BCE), for instance, was fully aware that he would not be able to govern effectually without the help of men of intelligence and talent. When Bao Shuya recommended Guan Zhong (d. 645 BCE), who had once almost killed Duke Huan on the battlefield, the duke paid respect to his future adviser profusely by having Guan Zhong “perfumed thrice and bathed thrice” before he went a long way to meet him in person.18
Indeed, the civil service from the shi was often the most crucial buttress for political sovereignty. The king of the Qin, Ying Zheng (r. 246–210 BCE), would not have become the First Emperor of a unified China without the counsel of his top advisers, especially Han Fei (d. 233 BCE) and Li Si (d. 208 BCE). For Liu Bang, the founding emperor of the Han (r. 206–195 BCE), it was the court ritual and music instituted by the scholars such as Shusun Tong (fl. 206 BCE) that helped establish his dignity as monarch.19 However, even when many of them served prominently in civil bureaucracy, the shi were never truly share-holders of the state power, which belonged ultimately to the throne. Confucius remained no more than a “commoner king” (suwang) despite all the dazzling titles that the rulers of successive dynasties bestowed on him, and his followers in all subsequent historical periods were often among the earliest to defend the throne against any possible usurpers.
In general, the daotong in the pre-Qin times managed to hold its own in its interaction with the zhengtong, as the state power consistently found itself in need of the support from the shi both morally and intellectually. That situation, however, started to change during the Qin (221–206 BCE). After its unification of China, the suddenly exalted power of the imperial state found a most intense expression in the First Emperor’s decision in 213 BCE to “burn books and bury scholars alive” (fenshu kengru), which was tantamount to a blitzkrieg on the daotong. The situation of course changed considerably during the Han. Soon after taking the throne, Liu Bang was wise enough to realize that, while he had won the empire by fighting on horseback, he would not be able to rule the empire on horseback as well.20 He issued an edict where he appeared—following the examples of King Wen of the Zhou and Duke Huan of the Qi—a sincere and eager seeker for talent: “No kings were more prominent than King Wen of the Zhou; and no lords were more prominent than Duke Huan of the Qi. Both were successful because of the assistance from men of abilities. . . . Those among the men of virtue and ability who are willing to follow me—I can make them prominent and esteemed. I hereby make this intention of mine known to the entire empire.”21
During his long reign, Emperor Wu of the Han (r. 140–88 BCE) issued several edicts calling on officials at different levels to recommend men of virtue and talent—xianliang fangzheng, as they were called—to replenish the bureaucratic ranks. Adopting the proposal by Dong Zhongshu (179–104 BCE), himself a product of the xianliang fangzheng selection, Emperor Wu endorsed Confucianism as the orthodox ideology of the empire, and knowledge of the Confucian classics, especially Chunqiu and Gongyang, became a criterion in official selection.22 Despite such policy changes on the part of the imperial state, however, Chinese shi by then had irrevocably lost the autonomous standing they had once enjoyed. As the daotong was no longer in a position to counterpoise the zhengtong, intellectuals could no longer be mentors or friends to the rulers, instead becoming merely servants to their imperial master. This passage by Dongfang Shuo (154–93 BCE) perhaps best describes the general conditions of Chinese shi throughout post-Qin times: “When lifted they are as lofty as above the clouds, and when suppressed they are as lowly as at the bottom of an abyss. When consulted they are like tigers, and when neglected they are like rats.”23
Indeed, Dongfang Shuo’s own dual status as an erudite scholar-writer and a court jester (nongchen) functioning as no more than a plaything for the emperor epitomizes the situation of Chinese shi under imperial rule. Yet Dongfang Shuo did not actually live in the worst of times from the intellectuals’ perspective. In a sense, one may consider the history of imperial China as a process of sustained intensification of state power, which culminated in the Ming and Qing periods. Wu Han’s description of the changes in court etiquette vividly reflects the shift in the balance of power between the ruler and the intellectual elite. According to Wu, top scholar-officials sat with the emperor during the Tang; they stood in front of the seated emperor during the Song; but they had to prostrate themselves and kowtow to the emperor during the Ming and Qing.24
In particular, scholars have noted a significant change in court politics from the Song to the Ming.25 Whether the Northern Song scholar-official Wen Yanbo’s (1006–97) famous statement that the emperor “rules the empire along with the literati” (yu shidafu zhi tianxia) reflects faithfully the political culture of the day or just his wishful thinking, it may be said that Song literati enjoyed a relatively stable relationship with the throne.26 Throughout the Northern and Southern Song, rarely were courtiers put to death or subjected to severe physical torture.27 The relatively relaxed political atmosphere was conducive to what Yu Yingshi calls Song literati’s “political subject consciousness” (zhengzhi zhuti yishi).28 In contrast, Ming rulers were notorious for their brutal killing and various forms of persecution of civil officials. Shen Defu’s (1578–1642) Wanli yehuobian offers detailed accounts of the appalling disgrace of the wives and daughters of executed officials and the horrendous sufferings of those who survived the cruel penalties of “flogging at court” (tingzhang) or “standing pilloried in public” (lijia).29 As an extremely humiliating and often fatal punishment, “flogging at court” had been used only sporadically during the Tang, but it became instituted in the Ming as a standard penalty for civil officials. The morbid relationship between the throne and civil bureaucracy during the Ming is summarized by Liu Zongzhou (1578–1645): “The emperor was increasingly suspicious of the ministers and treated them as slaves, and the ministers were increasingly fearful of the emperor and maintained a distance from him as remote as that between the states of the Qin and the Yue.”30 Such alienation and mistrust between the shi 士 and the shi 勢, as some scholars argue, may have contributed more to the eventual demise of the dynasty than either the peasant rebellions or the Manchu military threat.31
THE IMPERIAL POWER’S APPROPRIATION OF THE DAOTONG
If the transmission of the dao learning and state power had been two lineages more or less separate in previous periods, they seemed to converge during the Ming and Qing. The rulers’ absolute political power gave them the unchallenged authority not only in government affairs but in moral and intellectual matters as well. They could interpret, select, and even censor the canonical writings and commentaries in whatever ways would promote their rule, as exemplified by Zhu Yuanzhang’s suppression and then expurgation of Mencius (Mengzi), one of the most studied and revered works in the Confucian canon. By usurping the moral and ideological authority of the daotong, the rulers anointed themselves as new “sage-kings.” Take the Yongle emperor Zhu Di for example. He completed in 1409, with the help of the Hanlin academicians, a work titled Laws of the Mind in the Sages’ Learning (Shengxue xinfa). While the four-volume work was first presented to the crowned prince as part of his educational curriculum, it was actually intended for all literati across the empire to follow, as it covered virtually every aspect of the moral philosophy in the Cheng-Zhu learning.32 A few years later, under Zhu Di’s auspices, a collection of commentaries on the Four Books and Five Classics, titled Wujing Sishu daquan, was compiled, followed by a compendium in the dao learning with the title Complete Collection of Writings on Nature and Principle (Xingli daquan). These works remained the core of the examination curriculum throughout the Ming dynasty despite occasional challenges from scholars.33 Liang Qichao (1873–1929) went so far as to suggest that “they were almost the only books that many Ming literati ever read.”34 By initiating such projects and deciding on the selection of classical commentaries, Zhu Di made himself appear not only as a faithful apostle of the Chen-Zhu doctrine but also as the one to reauthorize it as cultural and philosophic orthodoxy. Meanwhile, to put an imperial imprint on the nation’s literary and intellectual legacy, the emperor sponsored the colossal encyclopedic project that resulted in the compilation of the Great Compendium of the Yongle (Yongle dadian). It was to be rivaled in scale only by the Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries (Siku quanshu), a similar project under the auspices of Emperor Qianlong three centuries later.
In general, the relationship between the Han literati and the Manchu state during the High Qing period—roughly from the mid-seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth—was more subtle and complex. In the early Qing, it was particularly complicated by the ethnical sentiments of Ming loyalists who refused to serve under the new regime.35 The anti-Manchu feelings, however, started to wane as Emperor Kangxi, reversing the hard-line policies of the Oboi regency (1661–69), adopted a more conciliatory and mollifying attitude toward the Han literati, especially those from the Jiangnan (Lower Yangzi) region.36 His most successful initiative to recruit the service of Han scholars was the special boxue hongci (literally, broad learning and grand words) examination in 1678. While it was boycotted by the most prominent Ming loyalists including Gu Yanwu (1613–82) and Huang Zongxi (1610–95), the emperor did manage to win over several important scholars of the day with his magnanimous treatment of the candidates.37
In the meantime, Qing rulers continued to uphold Confucianism as the state ideology and maintained the status of neo-Confucianism as the foundation of the examination curriculum. In 1657, Emperor Shunzhi (r. 1644–61) decreed to dedicate to Confucius the honorific title of “Supremely Consecrated Master” (zhisheng xianshi), exactly the same title as dedicated by Emperor Jiajing (r. 1522–66) of the Ming.38 Emperor Kangxi even traveled to the Confucian Temple in Qufu to pay tribute to Confucius in person.39 Under Kangxi’s auspices, several new editions of Confucian classics were published, including Comprehensive Elucidations on the Book of Changes (Zhouyi zhezhong), Collection of Commentaries on the Book of Poetry (Shijing chuanshuo huizuan), and Collection of Commentaries on Spring and Autumn (Chunqiu chuanshuo huizuan). A series of works that highlight the Cheng-Zhu learning were compiled in the final decade of Kangxi’s reign, including Complete Works of Master Zhu (Zhuzi quanshu) and Essential Meanings of the Works on Human Nature and Principle (Xingli jingyi), a long series of book projects comparable to the one during the Yongle reign of the Ming.
Despite the differences between them, Qing rulers obviously learned something from their Ming predecessors in their treatment of the literati. As a harsh means of political control, the literary inquisition (wenziyu) under Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong is well documented.40 Apart from that, many Qing measures to keep the literati on a tight rein were actually inherited from the Ming. For instance, following the suit of Zhu Yuanzhang who had a whole set of conduct codes for students inscribed on a horizontal stele (wobei) in the Imperial Academy (Guozijian), Emperor Shunzhi of the Qing installed a horizontal stele of his own as a stern warning to the students.41 Like Zhu Yuanzhang’s Grand Announcement (Dagao) and Sacred Edict in Six Maxims (Shengyu liuyan), tracts of moral and legal admonitions to the literati empire-wide, Emperor Kangxi issued his Sacred Edict (Shengyu) in 1670, on the basis of which Emperor Yongzheng decreed his Sacred Edict for General Admonitions (Shengyu guangxun) in 1724. Both tracts, like their Ming precedents, were to be used in “local examinations and moral lectures by local officials.”42
Ironically, Qing rulers’ emulation of the Ming practice helped change many Han literati’s early perception of the Manchu regime as one of foreign conquerors who would rupture Chinese cultural tradition. It helped create an impression that the Manchu rule was an extension of the Ming and thus rendered meaningless any lingering nostalgic attachment to the toppled dynasty. To be sure, anti-Manchu sentiments died hard in certain circles, but generally speaking the relationship of Han literati to Qing rulers, starting perhaps in the late years of Kangxi’s reign, became more political than ethnical. More importantly, following their Ming examples, Qing rulers, especially Kangxi, successfully established themselves as the new standard bearers of the daotong tradition. Li Guangdi (1642–1718), Grand Counselor (Daxueshi) under Kangxi and a prominent Confucian scholar of the day, was perceptive enough to understand the significance of his imperial master’s patronage of the dao learning: “From Master Zhu to His Majesty on the throne, it has been another five hundred years. It corresponds to the expected time span for the advent of a kingly ruler to embody the sages’ teachings. . . . Our respected Emperor has received the mandate of Heaven to carry on the lineage of the dao in order to enhance it into a grand scheme (yi yi yu dayou).”43 Kangxi was said to be the one who had taken over the torch of the daotong from Zhu Xi (1130–1200). For the emperor, political power and moral and intellectual authority had become one, as he declared: “The corpus of the ancient sages’ words admonishes people of thousands of generations. This is daotong, and this is zhitong [lineage of political state] as well” (Daotong zai shi, zhitong yi zai shi yi).44
What Li Guangdi said about Emperor Kangxi was echoed decades later by a less prominent but by no means less known scholar, Zeng Jing (1679–1735), who was imprisoned, and later executed, for attempting to incite a rebellion against Emperor Yongzheng.45 Whether or not he was sincere in his statement of repentance, Zeng said precisely what Yongzheng wanted to hear from the literati across the empire:
Emperor Shengzu’s [i.e., Kangxi] mind was Heaven’s mind, and Emperor Shengzu’s virtues were Heaven’s virtues. Therefore all matters in governance and all conventions from our ancestors must be subjected to Emperor Shengzu’s criteria. . . . In recent years there have been prominent achievements both in warfare and in peace and repeated advents of auspicious auguries. The yin and the yang mingle in perfect harmony, and the people live in comfort and abundance. The Four Seas have become a realm of bliss, and the Myriad Names are sharing prosperity and happiness. That is indeed because His Majesty’s virtues match those of the Two Sovereigns and Three Kings. It is therefore beyond any doubt that his reign is just as successful as those of Yu, Xia, Shang, and Zhou.46
Indeed history was believed to have come full circle, as these Qing rulers made themselves revered as second coming of the sage-kings of antiquity. From the Manchu rulers’ perspective, to further Confucianize the imperial state was the most effective measure to legitimize their regime and to moralize the social life. In the eyes of the intellectual gentry, however, it was blatant usurpation of the moral supremacy from the daotong, of which they had been spokesmen for centuries. What happened between Emperor Yongzheng and the licentiate Zeng Jing, despite its ethnical overtone, was primarily a political battle.47 In a way, it may be considered an epitome of the intellectual elite’s relationship to state power in the late imperial times: when the literati were losing their moral and intellectual primacy to political authorities, it became imperative for them to make adjustments to their agenda.
THE LITERATI’S REFOCUSING FROM STATE TO SOCIETY
One central idea on the agenda of the daotong had been that of dejun xingdao, or gaining the support from the ruler in practicing the dao. Obviously, within the political structure of imperial China, dejun xingdao represented the Confucians’ best chance to tame the beast of imperial power and make it cooperative to the Confucian project. It could be an expeditious channel for the Confucians to reach the goal of wai wang, or external kingliness. To that extent, it summarizes much of the moral and political meanings of the literati’s government service. In Chinese history, Zhuge Liang (181–234), prime minister of the state of Shu during the Three Kingdoms period (220–80), was often considered paradigmatic of a civil official winning wholehearted support from his imperial master.48 Also considered exemplary was the political alliance between the Northern Song reformer Wang Anshi (1021–86) and Emperor Shenzong (r. 1068–85), which was indicative of the generally constructive dynamic between the literati and the imperial power of the time.49
The closest Ming counterpart to Wang Anshi was perhaps Zhang Juzheng (1525–82), the de facto prime minister during the early years of the Wanli reign (1573–1619). More than anyone else, he was responsible for a brief period of prosperity in the empire. Just like Wang Anshi, who was acclaimed by Emperor Shenzong as his “mentor and minister” (shichen), Zhang Juzheng served as both teacher and chief adviser to his young emperor, ironically another Emperor Shenzong.50 As was symptomatic of the much altered political culture of the Ming, however, the imperial pupil changed color soon after Zhang’s death and almost had his former teacher’s body disinterred and whipped.51 Yet, at least during Zhang’s lifetime, the emperor was too young and too inexperienced to be a harsh master. To that extent, Zhang was actually much more fortunate than many other scholar-officials in late imperial times.
One prominent example of those less fortunate scholar-officials was Wang Yangming (1472–1528), founder of the so-called school of Wang Learning (Wang xue) that had a pervasive influence on many literati of the late Ming and Qing. In 1506 Wang memorialized the newly inaugurated Emperor Wuzong (r. 1506–21), appealing for leniency on behalf of some of his colleagues who had affronted the powerful eunuch Liu Jin. As a result, he was flogged at court and then banished to a remote post in Longchang, Guizhou. This brutal punishment may have been the catalyst for the transmutation of Wang’s thinking. Realizing that it was now completely impossible for the literati to “gain the support of the ruler in practicing the dao,” Wang turned in a new direction. As Yu Yingshi puts it, Wang’s new theory about liangzhi, innate knowledge in everyone’s mind, “marks an epoch-making change in Confucian political concepts,” because it led to “the notion of juemin xingdao [awakening the people to practice the dao].”52 Clearly, from dejun xingdao to juemin xingdao it was a political and intellectual reorientation for the literati, or a shift of focus from the ruler to the people and from the imperial state to the rest of the society at large.
A similar change was reflected in the general perception of government service. Many members of the intellectual gentry gave up the idealistic view of participating in governance as a vehicle for their ultimate moral fulfillment. In the early Ming, for instance, some scholars tried hard to evade official appointments, which prompted Zhu Yuanzhang to institute the penal code against “the literati within the boundaries of the empire who refuse to be employed by the sovereign” (Huanzhong shidafu buwei jun yong).53 In the early Qing, there were of course many instances of boycotting government service, which were perhaps no less political than ethnic in nature. As the daotong was declining and its ethical and intellectual supremacy seized by the imperial state, government service lost much of its moral luster. To be sure, there was no lack of examination candidates competing for the limited number of vacancies in officialdom, but what remained as a major motivation for office seeking was the prospect of earthly remunerations. As Wang Yangming complained angrily in his letter to a friend, “In recent times the so-called ethics has come to mean no more than official rank, and the so-called official rank no more than wealth and privilege.”54 For many literati, becoming an official or remaining a commoner was just a banal choice between two different ways of livelihood. In Fei Xiaotong’s pungent words, it was a choice between “breaking one’s backbone” (from bowing obsequiously to people in higher power) and “breaking one’s arms” (from laboring arduously and painstakingly).55
Without downplaying the importance of the intrinsic reasons within the intellectual movements themselves, one may consider the changed shi (士)–shi (勢) relationship the most crucial external factor for intellectual developments in late imperial China. William T. de Bary has cautioned us that one should view the “seeming introversion of Ming thought and its apparent quietistic tendency” against the adversities in the sociopolitical environment: “Nothing was more real and practical for the thinker and scholar in that age than the preservation of his life, his integrity, and his fidelity to essential Confucian values in the face of such overwhelming odds.”56 Realizing that the days of dejun xingdao were irrevocably gone, many literati started turning away from the state power, if not blatantly in action then at least in thought. An immediate corollary was what de Bary terms a trend of “individualism” in late Ming thought.57 Among Wang Yangming’s followers in the so-called Taizhou school, Wang Gen’s (1483–1541) famous personal idiosyncrasy, He Xinyin’s (1517–79) uninhibited formulations of individual desires, and Li Zhi’s (1527–1602) defiant iconoclasm can perhaps all be considered expressions of a pervasive sense of disillusionment. Indeed Wang Gen never sought an official appointment, He Xinyin renounced any further attempt in the examinations after winning a juren degree, and Li Zhi voluntarily resigned from official service into a private life of study and contemplation.
Scholars who did not consider themselves Wang Yangming’s followers also reacted to the clampdown of imperial power, and some of them were even more vehement and vocal. Among them, Lü Kun (1536–1618) boldly argued for a higher authority of the moral and intellectual tradition, which he called li, over the imperial state.58 During the Ming-Qing transition, Gu Yanwu fiercely assailed the examination system, especially the rigid bagu essay format. In the meantime, he drew a distinction between guo (state) and tianxia (nation, society, or civilization); by doing so he powerfully challenged the traditional view of political sovereignty that equated the emperor with the empire.59 In a similar vein, Huang Zongxi made a pungent accusation against the autocratic monarchy system: “[The emperors] thought that all powers in the empire were derived from them, and therefore they felt justified to monopolize all the advantages in the empire to themselves and impose all the disadvantages upon others. To deter the people in the empire from being selfish, they made their revered private interests the public cause of the empire. Once it started that way it never stopped, and as time went on it came to be taken for granted. They regarded the empire as an enormous piece of property to be handed down to their sons and grandsons.”60
An equally scathing critic of the imperial power was the early Qing scholar Tang Zhen (1630–1704), who had the courage to call “all the rulers since the Qin” “thieves.” According to Tang, “Rulers alone were responsible for all the chaos in the empire” (luan tianxia zhe wei jun), and for that reason their power should be limited.61 It is of course debatable whether such vehement condemnations of imperial power were fully justified. After all, if rulers were to blame for any chaos in the empire, they should deserve some credit for social stability and prosperity as well. However, the voices from Gu Yanwu, Huang Zongxi, Tang Zhen, and others clearly signaled a growing mistrust of state power and an increasing awareness of the distinction between serving the nation and society and serving the imperial state, despite all the subtle connections between those two types of service.
Consistent with their call to differentiate the emperor from the empire, Gu Yanwu advocated “management of the nation and pragmatic application of knowledge” (jingshi zhiyong), and Huang Zongxi brought up the slogan “administer the empire to benefit the people” (zhi tianxia wei min yong). They were certainly not isolated proponents of useful and practical knowledge. The late Ming already witnessed the launching of an intellectual trend of turning away from abstract textual scholarship associated with the examinations toward forms of learning that were more practical and useful to society and the people. Several scholars made major contributions in different disciplines: Li Shizhen (1518–93) in medicine, Xu Guangqi (1562–1633) in agronomy and astronomy, Xu Xiake (1586–1641) in geography, and Song Yingxing (1587–?) in technography, to name only a few most prominent examples. During the Ming-Qing transition, Fang Yizhi (1611–71) distinguished himself as a scholar of remarkable versatility, leaving his imprints in various disciplines ranging from philology and literature to geometry and physics. For him, the Confucian concept of gewu, or “investigation of things,” was not such an abstract notion as glossed by the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi; nor did it mean an effort in one’s mind as Wang Yangming understood it. Rather, it meant concrete and detailed studies of physical objects in the external world, including the cosmos itself.62 This reinterpretation represented a conscious effort to channel scholarly attention from the neo-Confucian “pure talk” (qingtan) to tangible subjects in natural sciences.
Such a spurt of intellectual interests in “learning of substance” (shixue) paved the path for the advent of the so-called Yan-Li School in the early Qing, represented by Yan Yuan (1635–1704) and his student Li Gong (1659–1733). For Yan Yuan, true knowledge lied only in practice, and “the superficial words are more disastrous than burning books and burying scholars alive.”63 The indulgence in empty words, as Li Gong saw it, was a major reason for the downfall of the Ming: “There were no capable ministers in court and no down-to-earth officials within the empire. Sitting in the commander’s headquarters and commentating on The Chronicle of Zuo [Zuo zhuan], composing poems and delivering orations when the enemy troops were approaching the city—such were the practices shared by senior officials. They dismissed achievements in practical matters as trifles, and gasped for breath from writing books day and night, calling them works to pass down to posterity. As result, river dikes were broken and fish were mashed, and people were plunged into misery and sufferings.”64
When Yan and Li condemned empty words and advocated learning of substance, they pointed the spearhead directly at the teaching of the Cheng-Zhu school, which they considered deviating from the pristine Confucianism. Yan Yuan made it clear in his characteristically inflammatory words: “The ‘nature’ [xing] that the Song scholars [Song ru] talked about was not the same as what Mencius meant, and the Song scholars’ dao was not the same dao as upheld by Yao, Shun, the Duke of Zhou, and Confucius. . . . Only by eliminating one tenth of Cheng and Zhu does one become able to understand one tenth of Confucius and Mencius.”65 Since the Cheng-Zhu learning was endorsed by the imperial power as the state ideology and adopted as the kernel of the examination curriculum, the assault from Yan and Li on neo-Confucianism carried tremendous political ramifications.
Separate from but also related to the intellectual interest in “learning of substance” was the enduring movement of Evidential Studies (kaojuxue). The history of the movement can be traced all the way to the mid-late Ming, when scholars such as Yang Shen (1488–1559), Gui Youguang (1506–71), and Jiao Hong (1540–1620) looked up to the Tang and Song times for models in classic scholarship. In the early Qing, the movement received an impetus from such prominent figures as Gu Yanwu and Yan Ruoqu (1638–1704), whose meticulous studies in philology and classic exegesis exemplified the spirit of intellectual empiricism. Yet evidential scholarship did not reach its full swing until around the mid-eighteenth century, when it assumed the status as the mainstream methodology in academic studies. As representatives of the renewed fascination in textual studies, Hui Dong (1696–1758), Dai Zhen (1724–77), Duan Yucai (1735–1815), Wang Yinzhi (1766–1834), Qian Daxi (1728–1804), and Wang Niansun (1744–1832) achieved a great deal in systemizing, authenticating, and annotating an enormous corpus of classic texts.66
The so-called Qian-Jia Han learning (Han xue), by which the movement of Evidential Studies that flourished during the Qianlong and early Jiaqing reigns (1796–1820) is often referred to, was therefore the acceleration of an intellectual trend that had started much earlier. Externally, it has often been associated with the literati’s evasion of literary inquisition from the imperial government, as the literati felt, in Liang Qichao’s words, “the literary net was excessively tight” (wenwang tai mi).67 More recent studies by Chinese scholars have called that view into question. “The achievements of the Qian-Jia evidential scholarship,” argues Guo Kangsong, “were not so much because of the literary inquisition as because of the intellectual development within the evidential scholarship itself.”68 To be sure, literary inquisition certainly was not the only means for the Qing government’s political and ideological repression. A more pervasive measure was the state’s monopoly of the established official discourse of the Cheng-Zhu orthodox learning. “Qing court,” as the modern Chinese historian and philosopher Qian Mu has observed, “venerated the Cheng-Zhu school in order to shackle everyone across the entire empire.”69 As the sanctified and ossified official discourse, neo-Confucianism was jealously shielded by the political authorities and perpetuated in the examination system. As there was little room for the literati to participate in that discourse, they needed different arenas for their talent and knowledge. Textual research promised to be one such arena, especially since the government might consider it a useful red herring for the literati’s intellectual curiosity. Yet the innocuous and apolitical nature of Evidential Studies was more apparent than real. With their high regard for Han scholars such as Xu Shen (58–149), Ma Rong (79–166), Zheng Xuan (127–200), and Jia Kui (174–228) and their criticism of Song scholars, especially the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi, the evidential scholars expressed a strong mistrust of the neo-Confucian metaphysical speculations. That academic query, in the meantime, cast serious doubt on the political authorities that privileged and valorized the Cheng-Zhu learning as the official ideology.
THE POLITICAL SETTING FOR CHINESE VERNACULAR FICTION
As the brief survey in this chapter demonstrates, the relationship to the state power was always crucial to the aspirations of Chinese literati as a social group. And the evolution of that relationship was always a pressing reason for literati to adjust their expectations and redefine their roles in society and culture. The Confucian intellectuals’ participation in government service was closely associated with their ideal of building a moral order on the dao, and their cooperation with the state seemed the most feasible avenue for the realization of that ideal. In general terms, however, there was a growing sense of disillusionment with imperial power among intellectuals, which reached a new height in the late dynasties. Accompanying that disillusionment was a trend in intellectual thinking that attempted to distinguish service to the state from service to society and the people. Along with that distinction emerged a new understanding of the Confucian concept of participation in social affairs.
Thus, Chinese vernacular fiction came into existence at a historical moment: diachronically, the agelong partnership between the daotong and the zhengtong had entered its final stage; synchronically, the bond between the literati and the imperial state became very complex and far-reaching. How do the fictional works produced in this setting fit in the larger picture of the daotong-zhengtong contention? How can they be considered the literati’s efforts to negotiate with the value system sustained by political power? And how can they be interpreted as reflections of the literati’s rethinking of their identity and historical mission? These are the questions to be addressed in the following chapters.