Notes

INTRODUCTION

1 For a case in point, compare C. T. Hsia’s A History of Modern Chinese Fiction and his The Classic Chinese Novel: A Critical Introduction. It is apparent that the approach in the former is much more political than in the latter.

2 Chen Xizhong et al., eds., Shuihu zhuan huipingben, 1:28.

3 Yang Minglang, “Yingxiong pu juanshou,” reprinted in Zhu Yixuan and Liu Yuchen, eds., Shuihu zhuan ziliao huibian, 231.

4 Tianhuazang Zhuren, Ping Shan Leng Yan, 10–15.

5 Shuhui Yang, Appropriation and Representation, 126.

6 Lukacs, Theory of the Novel, 45.

7 Aristotle, The Poetics, 17.

8 See, for example, Hayden White, “Getting Out of History.”

9 Hans Georg Gadamer, for instance, maintains in Truth and Method (New York: Continuum, 2004) that hermeneutic consciousness is in motion because it constantly merges the horizon of the past with that of the present.

10 Gallagher and Greenblatt, Practicing New Historicism, 7.

11 Ibid., 15.

12 For a discussion of shi and its evolution from a military term for “strategic advantage” to the concept of a ruler’s “political purchase,” see Ames, The Art of Rulership, 65–107.

13 For more thorough discussions of the origins of the terms shi and shidafu, see Yan Buke, Shidafu zhengzhi yansheng shigao, 29–72, and Ge Quan, Quanli zaige lixing, 4–19.

14 Cihai (Shanghai: Shanghai cishu, 1979), 515.

15 Bol, “On the Problem of Contextualizing Ideas,” 73.

16 Naquin and Rawski have noted that a “source of unresolved tension” for the Qing government during the eighteenth century “was the discrepancy between the state’s desire to reach outside the bureaucracy and control localities and its inability to do so without the cooperation of local elites.” See Naquin and Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteen Century, 11.

17 Fei Xiaotong has argued that the separation of the daotong from the zhengtong, or lineage of political power, started with the reverence for the legendary Duke of Zhou (Zhou Gong), the regent for King Wu of the Zhou (Zhou Wu Wang) (r. 1115?–1079? BCE), and was completed with the advent of Confucius himself. See Fei Xiaotong, “Lun shiru,” 26. Mencius dwelled on the succession of “virtue” (de) among the ancient sages. He was very close to proposing a lineage of the daotong, even though he did not use the term.

Among Confucian scholars of the subsequent ages, Han Yu (768–824) was the one who first attempted a formal lineage of the daotong, which, according to him, came from the ancient sage kings (Yao, Shun, Yu, Tang, Wen, and Wu) down to Duke of the Zhou, and then to Confucius and Mencius. Han Yu expressed his anxiety, which was perhaps shared by many other Confucian scholars of the time, that “nobody has taken over the legacy since the death of Meng Ke.” Yet that anxiety itself, paradoxically, evidences a continuous consciousness among leading Confucian scholars of the lineage of the dao learning. See Han Yu xuanji, 267.

According to Yu Yingshi, it was Zhu Xi’s (1130–1200) student and son-in-law Huang Gan (1152–1221) who extended the lineage of the daotong to reach the Northern Song Confucians Zhou Dunyi, the Cheng brothers, and Zhang Zai, and finally Zhu Xi himself. See Yu Yingshi, Zhu Xi de lishi shijie, 1:16. On the specific names in the daotong, there was never a true consensus among Confucian scholars, especially in the late imperial periods. For instance, there was a debate whether Zeng Shen (505–436 BCE) or Yan Yuan (521–490 BCE) should be regarded as the link between Confucius and Mencius. For the purpose in this book, however, such details are not very important, because daotong here refers more to the Confucian tradition at large than a list of sages’ names.

18 Tu Wei-ming, “The Sung Confucian Idea of Education,” 147.

19 Gramsci, An Antonio Gramsci Reader, 235.

20 Foucault, Power, 329.

21 Ibid., 340.

22 Wang Dingbao, Tang zhiyan, 1:3.

23 It is generally believed that the examination system had its inception in the Sui period (589–618), but it was during the Tang, especially under the reign of Emperor Taizong, that the system took significant steps of development. It is stated in Wang Dingbao’s Tang zhiyan (1:3): “The jinshi examinations originated in the middle of the Daye period of the Sui and flourished in the late Zhenguan and early Yonghui periods of the Tang. Even high-ranking officials would not feel good about themselves without a jinshi degree.” Also see Chen Maotong, Zhongguo lidai xuanguan zhidu, 110–68; Wang Daocheng, Keju shihua, 2–9. However, it was not until the Song that “the most important positions in government were occupied by jinshi,” as the function of the examination system shifted from restricting the power of the aristocracy during the Tang into establishing a civil bureaucracy. See Ichisada Miyazaki, China’s Examination Hell, 115–16

24 Elman, “Changes in Confucian Civil Service Examinations,” 111.

25 Elman, A Cultural History, xvii.

26 Foucault, Power, 333. Expounding the nature of pastoral power, Foucault writes: “This form of power is salvation-oriented (as opposed to political power). It is oblative (as opposed to the principle of sovereignty); it is individualizing (as opposed to legal power); it is coextensive and continuous with life; it is linked with a production with truth—the truth of the individual himself” (333).

27 Yu Yingshi, Shi yu Zhongguo wenhua, 100.

28 Foucault, Power, 332.

29 Ibid., 332.

30 Clare O’Farrell, Michel Foucault, 46.

31 Ge Zhaoguang, Zhongguo sixiang shi, 477.

32 Hayden White, “Getting Out of History,” 147.

33 Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 70.

CHAPTER 1. A RUGGED PARTNERSHIP

1 Equally popular among schoolboys was a poem by the Song scholar Wang Zhu (11th cent.), which includes these lines: “The Son of Heaven values heroes, / And wants you to study the writings. / All occupations are inferior, / Exalted is only book-learning.”

2 Legge, Confucian Analects, 302–3; translation modified.

3 Yang Bojun, Mengzi yizhu, 2:321.

4 Yang Bojun, Mengzi yizhu, 2:303; D. C. Lau, trans., Mencius, 183.

5 Wan Sida, “Ming ru yanxinglu xu,” in Shen Jia, Ming ru yanxinglu, 1:1/a-b.

6 Yu Yingshi, Shi yu Zhongguo wenhua, 92.

7 Fei Xiaotong, “Lun shiru,” 24.

8 Legge, Confucian Analects, 210–11; translation modified.

9 Ibid., 212; translation modified.

10 It may be ironic that the expression first appears in the chapter “Tianxia” in Zhuangzi. That, however, did not prevent the Confucians from adopting it as a most succinct dictum for their mutually complementary intents of moral cultivation and political participation.

11 Legge, Confucian Analects, 357–59.

12 Yang Bojun, Mengzi yizhu, 2:304; D. C. Lau, Mencius, 183.

13 Tu Wei-ming, “The Sung Confucian Idea of Education,” 145.

14 Ban Gu, Qian Han shu, 24.2/b.

15 Liu Baonan, Lunyu zhengyi, 405.

16 Yang Bojun, Mengzi yizhu, 1:142; D. C. Lau, Mencius, 108.

17 Wang Xianqian, Xunzi jijie, 104.

18 Anonymous, Guoyu, 6.3/b-4/a.

19 Following elaborate performances of the ritual and music at court, a delighted Liu Bang uttered the outcry: “I finally got to know the majesty of being the emperor today.” See Sima Qian, Shi ji, juan 99, 8:2723.

20 When Liu Bang bragged about having won the empire by fighting on horseback, Lu Jia, a scholar-official and exponent of education and cultural cultivation, retorted with the question: “You have won it on horseback, but how can you rule it on horseback as well?” See Sima Qian, Shi ji, juan 97, 8:2699.

21 Ban Gu, Qian Han shu, 1B.20/b.

22 Fan Wenlan, Zhongguo tongshi jianbian, 2:50–51.

23 Dongfang Shuo, “Da ke nan,” 45.3/b-4/a.

24 Wu Han, Zhu Yuanzhang zhuan, 160–61; also Wu Han, “Lun shenquan,” in Wu Han, Fei Xiaotong et al., Huangquan yu shenquan, 51.

25 See, for example, Yu Yingshi, Song Ming lixue yu zhengzhi wenhua.

26 Li Tao, Xu Zizhi tongjian changbian, 221.5/b.

27 According to Yu Yingshi, the pledge of “No killings of courtiers and remonstrators,” allegedly made by the founding emperor Taizu (r. 960–75), was not to be found in firsthand historical sources; however, it did become a tenet for subsequent Song rulers in general. See Yu Yingshi, Song Ming lixue yu zhengzhi wenhua, 15. Gu Yanwu (1613–82) considered the relatively benign treatment of the intellectuals one of the four major reasons for the longevity of the Song dynasty, which lasted over three hundred years. See Ri zhi lu jishi, 15:1224–25.

28 See Yu Yingshi, Zhu Xi de lishi shijie.

29 Shen Defu, Wanli yehuobian, 2: 454–83. About the early Ming officials terrified by Zhu Yuanzhang’s tyranny, Zhao Yi (1727–1814) gave this account: “Every morning when the officials in the capital went to the court, they would always bid farewell to their wives and children. If they came back home safe and sound in the evening, they would always celebrate with their families for having lived another day.” See Zhao Yi, Nianershi zhaji, 9:680–81.

30 Liu Zongzhou, Liuzi yishu, 2.15/b.

31 For an analysis of the demise of the Ming, see, e.g., Shinian Kanchai, Wan Ming qishi nian, 275–301.

32 The work is said to “discuss moral integrity (dexing), self-cultivation (xiushen), caution with words (shenyan), caution with action (jinxing), diligence (qinli), vigilance (jingjie), thrift (jiejian), charity (jishan), following the sages’ teaching (chong shengxun), admiring the worthies (jing xianfan), waiting upon the parents (shi fumu), serving the ruler (shi jun), waiting upon the parents-in-law (shi jiugu), ancestry worship (feng jisi), motherhood (muyi), familial harmony (muqin), love for children (ciyou), support for the subordinates (daixia), and proper treatment for marriage relatives (dai waiqi).” See Cao Renhu and Ji Huang, Qingding xu wenxian tongkao, 173.-15/b.

33 In 1473 an official reported to Emperor Chenghua (r. 1465–87) that errors had been found in the texts collected in Wujing sishu daquan, but the emperor rejected the proposal. In 1484, a Confucian scholar from Wuxi submitted his revised version of Zhu Xi’s Sishu jizhu (Commentaries and annotations on the Four Books), but Emperor Chenghua would not tolerate any tampering with Zhu Xi’s words and had the scholar imprisoned.

34 Liang Qichao, Zhongguo jin sanbainian xueshushi, 3.

35 Ethnical sentiments, however, should not be considered the sole reason for all the boycotts of the Manchu regime. Lynn A. Struve has pointed out that this ambivalence regarding office-holding “should be viewed integrally with long-standing misgivings toward the civil service examinations (whether under Ming or Qing auspices), and toward public service itself.” See Struve, “Ambivalence and Action: Some Frustrated Scholars of the K’ang-hsi Period,” 327.

36 About the economic and cultural prominence of the Lower Yangzi region for much of the Qing dynasty, see Susan Naquin and Evelyn S. Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century, 147–58.

37 In addition to a series of banquets, Kangxi made a gesture of respect toward the candidates by announcing that the examination would have been unnecessary if not for the purpose of providing an opportunity for them to demonstrate their erudition. The emperor’s conciliatory overture was also reflected by the topic line for the poetic composition as part of the examination: “All people under heaven are one family” (Tianxia wei yijia). See Xu Ke, Qing bai leichao, 2:706–7. Furthermore, the emperor was exceptionally generous in passing and grading the candidates. See Chen Maotong, Zhongguo lidai xuanguan zhidu, 428–29.

38 Jiang Liangqi, Donghua lu, 122.

39 Xu Ke, Qing bai leichao, 1:241.

40 See, for example, Luther Carrington Goodrich, The Literary Inquisition of Ch’ien-lung; Ding Yuanji, Qingdai Kang Yong Qian sanchao jinshu yuanyin zhi yanjiu.

41 Chen Dongyuan, Zhongguo jiaoyu shi, 416–17.

42 Elman, A Cultural History, 135.

43 Li Guangdi, Rongcun quanji, 10.3/b-10.4/a.

44 Aixinjueluo Xuanye, Qing Shengzu Ren Huangdi yuzhi wenji, 19.4/b.

45 Inspired by the ideals of the Ming loyalist Lü Liuliang (1629–83), Zeng Jing, a licentiate from Hunan, denounced what he called Yongzheng’s several crimes, including usurpation of the throne, and attempted to instigate Yue Zhongqi (1686–1754), the governor-general of Sichuan and Shaanxi, to rebel against the Manchu court. After Zeng was arrested and forced to write his statement of repentance, Yongzheng had Zeng’s statement, along with his edicts on the case and the record of the interrogation, publicized in a volume titled Dayi juemi lu (Record of being awakened from befuddlement by the cardinal principles). Yongzheng then distributed copies of the book to all scholars empire-wide for mandatory reading, and used Zeng, whose life he decided to spare (until he was executed by Yongzheng’s son and successor, Emperor Qianlong), as a living example of a scholarly revolt subjugated.

46 Zeng Jing, “Gui ren shuo,” 180.

47 This is clear from the transcripts of the interrogations of Zeng Jing that are included in Dayi juemi tan. Besides the issue of ethnicity of the Manchu rulers, which Zeng Jing had exploited in his seditious instigation, the interrogations actually touched upon many other topics ranging from the civil service examinations to disaster relief and even mintage of copper money. The topic that was debated most extensively was, not surprisingly, that of the ruler-subject relationship.

48 Pei Songzhi has this comment on Zhuge Liang: “He served as prime minister and was heartily respected by all the courtiers. That was because of the full trust from Liu Bei as well as his own outstanding abilities. He acted as regent over all state affairs, had all the powers but remain prudent, and made decisions on behalf of the sovereign yet did not incur suspicions. That was why he was beloved by the ruler, the officials, and the common people.” See Chen Shou, Sanguo zhi, 5:934.

49 Despite all the differences between Wang Anshi’s xinxue (New School) and Zhu Xi’s lixue (School of Principle), Zhu Xi and other Southern Song neo-Confucians actually followed Wang’s model of dejun xingdao, when they tried, although unsuccessfully, to win the support from emperors Xiaozong (r. 1163–89) and Guangzong (r. 1190–94). See Yu Yingshi, Zhu Xi de lishi shijie, 2: 850–53.

50 Li Tao, Xu Zizhi tongjian changbian, 233.22/b.

51 Zhang Tingyu et al., Ming shi, 19:5652.

52 Yu Yingashi, Song Ming lixue yu zhengzhi wenhua, 38.

53 Zhang Tingyu et al., Ming shi, 8:2284 and 8:2318. Also see Zhao Yi, Nianershi zhaji, 9:677.

54 Wang Yangming, Wang Wencheng quanshu, 4.26/a.

55 Fei Xiaotong, “Lun shenshi,” 7.

56 Wm. Theodore de Bary, ed., Self and Society in Late Ming Thought, 6.

57 See de Bary, “Individualism and Humanitarianism in Late Ming Thought,” 145–247.

58 Lü Kun, Shenyin yu, 79.

59 Gu Yanwu, Ri zhi lu jishi, 3:1014.

60 Huang Zongxi, Ming yi dai fang lu, 1–2.

61 Tang Zhen, Qian shu, 196.

62 For an account of Fang Yizhi’s reinterpretation of gewu, see William J. Peterson, “Fang I-chih: Western Learning and the ‘Investigation of Things.’”

63 Yan Yuan, Cun xue bian, 2.

64 Li Gong, Shugu hou ji, 1:39.

65 Yan Yuan, Xizhai jiyu, 1:3.

66 Hu Shi has observed that the success of the evidential scholars derived from four characteristics of their research: their historical vision, their use of philology as a tool, their inductive methodology, and their emphasis on evidence. See Hu Shi, “Dai Dongyuan de zhexue,” 31.

67 Liang Qichao, Zhongguo jin sanbainian xueshushi, 27.

68 Guo Kangsong, Qingdai kaojuxue yanjiu, 66.

69 Qian Mu, Guoxue gailun, 276.

CHAPTER 2. ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS

1 Zhang Xuecheng, Zhang shi yishu waibian, juan 1. Excerpted in Zhu Yixuan and Liu Yuchen, eds., Sanguo yanyi ziliao huibian, 692.

2 In his Sanguo yanyi kaoping, Zhou Zhaoxin notes the difference between the ways of selecting narrative material in the novel and Chen Shou’s (233–97) Sanguo zhi. While Chen Shou attempts to provide a panoramic view of that historical period, the novelist “only selects what would serve his own purpose and plan” (74). Similarly, Wu Zuxiang observes that the writer of Three Kingdoms “utilizes the Three Kingdoms stories to express his political views on the reality of his time and projects in them his own ideals and wishes.” See Shuo bai ji, 20.

3 Peter R. Moody, “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Popular Chinese Political Thought,” 178.

4 Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang, History and Legend, 134.

5 This is what Robert E. Hegel suggests in his discussion of the late imperial Chinese writers of historical fiction: “By presenting their fiction as popularized history, thus as a recognized way of transmitting proper moral values to posterity, novelists could nominally identify with Confucian historiography even if facetiously. Official histories seldom provided sufficient details to make a good story; hence a novelist was free to make up what he needed, ostensibly secure in the belief, although perhaps less than totally seriously, that he was performing a somewhat meritorious act of writing.” See Hegel, Reading Illustrated Fiction, 29.

6 See, for example, Zhang Peiheng, “Guanyu Luo Guanzhong de shengzu nian,” 107–11.

7 See Zhang Guoguang, “Sanguozhi tongsu yanyi chengshu yu Ming zhongye bian,” 270–71.

8 For instance, Shanzhou, one of those Yuan place-names that appear in the interlinear notes, was officially renamed Yilingzhou during the Ming. But in an epigraph for the fifteenth-century official Yang Wenke (d. 1465) collected in Ming wenhai (Siku quanshu ed., 442.12/b-13/a), it is said that one of Yang’s sons was appointed to an official position in Shanzhou (ling Shanzhou panguan). Also mentioned in the notes is Jiankang, a Yuan name for the Nanjing area. According to Ming yitong zhi (Siku quanshu ed., 6.5/b-6/a), the jurisdiction of Jiankang Lu (Jiankang Prefecture) was established in the early Yuan, but it was renamed Jiqing Lu (Jiqing Prefecture) in 1329. Zhu Yuanzhang in 1356 adopted the name Yingtian Fu (Yingtian Prefecture) for the area, and after the founding of the Ming in 1368 it started to be referred to officially as Nanjing, or the Southern Capital. Yet the name Jiankang may have continued to be used during the Ming. In juan 71 of Ming shi (6:1711), it is said that Zhu Yuanzhang summoned a group of Confucian scholars “to Jiankang.” In another epigraph collected in Ming wenhai (434.6/b), the Southern Capital is referred to as “the imperial capital Jiankang.” In the Wanjuanlou edition of Sanguo yanyi, the interlinear notes on place-names often refer to Ming yitong zhi, a geographic work published in 1461, yet some of the notes still contain place-names such as Yidu Lu, which is obviously a Yuan term. It may seem that people in the Ming were either remarkably liberal or irredeemably sloppy in their use of place-names. Whatever the case, the use of place-names from the previous Yuan period did not seem to be a politically sensitive issue.

9 See Zhang Peiheng, “Guanyu Jiajing ben Sanguozhi tongsu yanyi xiaozhu de zuozhe”; Yuan Shishuo, “Ming Jiajing ben Sanguozhi tongsu yanyi nai Yuanren Luo Guanzhong yuanzuo”; Ouyang Jian, “Shilun Sanguozhi tongsu yanyi de chengshu niandai.”

10 For a debate on the significance of the Ming place-names in the interlinear notes, see Ouyang Jian, “Shilun Sanguozhi tongsu yanyi de chengshu niandai”; Zhang Guoguang, “Sanguozhi tongsu yanyi chengshu yu Ming zhongye bian”; and Zhang Peiheng, “Zaitan Sanguozhi tongsu yanyi de xiezuo niandai wenti.”

11 The twentieth-century Chinese scholar Zheng Zhenduo (1898–1958) observed: “There remains skepticism about the authorship of Water Margin. As for Three Kingdoms, however, there is little doubt that it was written by Luo Guanzhong.” See Zheng Zhenduo, “Sanguozhi yanyi de yanhua,” 192. Indeed, little has changed since Zheng Zhenduo made that assertion in 1930s.

12 In the second entry following that for Luo Guanzhong, for example, the biographic note for the early Ming playwright Gu Zijing mentions Gu’s expertise on Zhou Yi, his knowledge in medicine, his oratory eloquence, and his exquisite yuefu poems. See Jia Zhongming, Luguibu xubian, 281–82.

13 Luguibu xubian, 281. The date for Luguibu xubian cannot be earlier than 1424, because the compiler states that more than sixty years had passed since he had met Luo Guanzhong for the last time in 1364.

14 Sanguozhi tongsu yanyi, 1:5.

15 Of those Yuan place-names in the interlinear notes throughout the 1522 edition, two stand out as the most significant because they contain the term lu, the Yuan equivalent to the Ming term fu (prefecture). Indeed, one of those two, Yizhou Lu, occurs in juan 2. That could suggest that it was before or shortly after the demise of the Yuan when the novelist was at that early point of the composition. The lone other instance of lu is in the name Guiyang Lu. It takes place in juan 11, but its status is more ambiguous because it is not unequivocally referred to as a “contemporary place-name.”

16 Zheng Zhenduo asserted that all extant versions of the novel were derived from the 1522 edition, with minimal and negligible textual variations (“Sanguozhi yanyi de yanhua,” 213). Anne E. McLaren has challenged that view by pointing out that the opening chapters in one of the pictorial editions contain considerably fewer written characters but cover more narrative details than their counterparts in the 1522 edition. See McLaren, “Popularizing The Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” 173.

17 See Liu Cunren [Ts’un-yan Liu], “Luo Guanzhong jiangshi xiaoshuo zhi zhenwei xingzhi,” 82–83. Yu Chaogui has noted that the 1522 edition does not feature the character Hua Guan Suo, the Shu general Guan Yu’s third son, as the zhizhuan editions do. From there Yu speculates that the earliest Three Kingdoms text might contain a Hua Guan Suo ingredient, which could have been dropped out in Tongsu yanyi but kept intact in the zhizhuan tradition. See Yu Chaogui, “Sanguo yanyi banben er ti,” 204–5. Gail King has also informed us of a textual discrepancy between the Hua Guan Suo episode in the Württemberg fragment dated 1592 and its counterpart in the 1605 Lianhuitang edition. King suggests that, as that discrepancy was most likely caused by a scribal error in the 1592 text, the inclusion of Hua Guan Suo in the novel “dates from before 1592.” See King, “A Few Textual Notes Regarding Guan Suo and the Sanguo yanyi,” 91.

18 Andrew Plaks, The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel, 365.

19 One of the embedded poems in the 1522 edition has been identified as a composition by a fifteenth-century writer, Yin Zhi (1427–1511). See Wang Liqi, “Luo Guanzhong yu Sanguozhi tongsu yanyi,” 254. Wang asserts that that poem, along with several others in the 1522 edition, could have been inserted by Zhang Shangde, the author of one of the prefaces and possibly the editor of the edition. Additionally, there are interlinear notes in the 1522 edition that may suggest revisions over an earlier version, and that process of revision could have been a multi-tiered one if those notes themselves were inherited from a textual antecedent, rather than written by the editor of the 1522 edition himself. Yu Chaogui has called our attention to some of such notes (“Sanguo yanyi banben er ti,” 55).

20 Yuan Shishuo considers it “most likely” that the 1522 edition retains all the features from the Luo Guanzhong text, and he regards the citation of a fifteenth-century poem in juan 21 an isolated interpolation by the editor(s). See Yuan’s “Ming Jiajing kanben Sanguozhi tongsu yanyi nai Yuanren Luo Guanzhong yuanzuo.”

21 Yang Bojun, Mengzi yizhu, 1:186; D. C. Lau, Mencius, 128.

22 What happened in the court between Zhu Yuanzhang and his top civil officials concerning the Mencius was particularly revealing of the confrontation between the imperial authority and the intellectual elite. The emperor threatened to have any protestors executed. Risking his life, Qian Tang remonstrated defiantly: “If I die for Meng Ke [Mencius] it will be a glorious death.” Miraculously, Zhu Yuanzhang was moved by Qian’s audacity and sincerity, and left Mencius’s status in the official pantheon intact. See Ming shi, 13:3982. According to Chen Jian’s Huang Ming tongji jiyao, however, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the archers to shoot at Qian Tang, but afterward sent him to the imperial hospital to have his wounds treated (4:465).

23 See Zhu Ronggui, “Cong Liu Sanwu Mengzi jiewen lun junquan de xianzhi yu zhishifenzi zhi zizhuxing”; Yin Xuanbo, Zhongguo Mingdai jiaoyu shi, 28.

24 Zhu Yizun, Jingyi kao, 235.17/b.

25 Song Lian’s biography in Ming shi states that Song died in Kuizhou on his way to exile to Sichuan, but curiously mentions no cause of his death. See Ming shi, 12:3788. According to Gu Yingtai’s Mingshi jishi benmo, Song died of illness (2:58–59). Based on some unofficial sources, however, one modern scholar has suggested that Song could have committed suicide out of despair. See Zhan Changhao, “Shilun Ming chu daru Song Lian zhi si.”

26 Ming shi, 6:1697.

27 During the Hongwu reign the academy had two campuses, located respectively in the capital Nanjing and Zhu Yuanzhang’s hometown Fengyang of Anhui. The Fengyang campus was much smaller and became defunct in 1393, and the instructors and students moved to the Nanjing campus. In 1402, Emperor Yongle set up a new campus in Beijing. The two campuses coexisted for the remainder of the Ming dynasty, though the Nanjing campus remained the larger one for many years even after Beijing replaced Nanjing as the primary capital in 1421. As an indicator of the size of the Imperial Academy in the early Ming, the numbers of the students for some years during the Hongwu reign are recorded in Nanyong zhi: 2728 in 1371; 577 in 1382; 766 in 1383; 980 in 1384; 969 in 1390; 1532 in 1391; 1309 in 1392; 8124 in 1393; and 1829 in 1397. See Chen Maotong, Zhongguo lidai xuanguan zhidu, 270.

28 Chen Maotong, Zhongguo lidai xuanguan zhidu, 277; Yin Xuanpo, Zhongguo Mingdai jiaoyu shi, 54.

29 Ming shi, 13:3952.

30 Nanyong zhi, juan 10, quoted in Chen Maotong, Zhongguo lidai xuanguan zhidu, 278–79.

31 Ming shi, 13:4019; also Gu Yingtai, Ming shi jishi benmo, 3:48–49.

32 For some of the so-called Jianwen martyrs—Qi Tai, Huang Zicheng, Fang Xiaoru, Lian Zining, Zhou Xuan, Zhuo Jing, Chen Di, and others—see Ming shi, 13:4013–30; Ming shi jishi benmo, 3:48–61. Benjamin A. Elman has offered a vivid English retelling of the Fang Xiaoru story in his “‘Where is King Ch’eng?’ Civil Examinations and Confucian Ideology during the Early Ming, 1368–1415.”

33 It is stated in Lunyu: “The Master said, ‘Extreme is my decay. For a long time, I have not dreamed, as I was wont to do, that I saw the Duke of Zhou.” See Legge, Confucian Analects, 196. Zhu Xi has made this comment on those words from Confucius: “In his prime years Confucius had aspired to follow the dao of Duke Zhou, and that was why he sometimes met him in his dreams.” See Lunyu jizhu (Siku quanzhu ed.), 4.2/a.

34 Zhu Yizun, Jingyi kao, 235.17/a-b.

35 Elman, A Cultural History, 118.

36 Ibid., 79.

37 For the sake of convenience, I refer to the author of the Mencius simply as Mencius, but this does not amount to an unquestioning acceptance of the master’s authorship of the work.

38 Yang Bojun, Mengzi yizhu, 1:219; D. C. Lau, Mencius, 144.

39 Yang Bojun, Mengzi yizhu, 1:171; D. C. Lau, Mencius, 121–22.

40 Yang Bojun, Mengzi yizhu, 2:328; D. C. Lau, Mencius, 196.

41 Yupi tongjian gangmu, juanshou shang, 18/b.

42 Mao Zonggang, “Du Sanguo zhi fa,” in Sanguo yanyi ziliao huibian, 293–94; David T. Roy, trans., “How to Read The Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” in David L. Rolston, ed., How to Read the Chinese Novel, 152.

43 Cheng Yizhong argues that Three Kingdoms is much more critical of the late Han emperors and the corrupt court politics than Sanguozhi pinghua and that the novel’s attitude toward most members of the imperial clan, such as Liu Biao and Liu Zhang, is largely derogatory: “Luo Guanzhong truly is not partial for anyone only because he is a Liu.” See Cheng, “Chongti jiu’an shuo Cao Cao,” 173. Another scholar, Liu Xiaoyan, considers “orthodox rule” (zhengtong) an issue related to but separate from the pro–Liu Bei stance in Three Kingdoms, with the former inherited from the histories and the latter from the popular Sanguo cycles. See his “Zhengtongguan yu Sanguo yanyi,” 84. Zhou Zhaoxin also argues against the view that the characterization of Liu Bei may have been influenced by the notion of “orthodox rule”: “Even those who believed in orthodox rule would not necessarily venerate Liu Bei as the orthodox ruler or to denigrate Cao Cao. The idea of orthodox rule should not be mixed up with the pro-Liu and anti-Cao tendency [in the novel].” See Zhou Zhaoxin, Sanguo yanyi kaoping, 98. Zhou Jialu makes a similar argument in his “Shilun Sanguozhi tongsu yanyi dui chuantong sixiang wenhua de fansi,” 63–64.

44 See, for instance, Luo Guanzhong, Sanguozhi tongsu yanyi (hereafter SGZTSYY), 1:245; 3:1401; 3:1909; 4:2557. On another occasion (4:1624), it is Zhuge Liang who voices that argument on behalf of Liu Bei himself, for the purpose of retaining Jingzhou and thwarting Zhou Yu’s demand of handing it over to the Wu. My English translations of the excerpts from the novel are all based on the 1522 edition of Sanguozhi tongsu yanyi. Compare with corresponding passages in Moss Robert’s excellent translation Three Kingdoms: A Historical Novel, which is based on the Mao Zonggang version.

45 Chen Shou, Sanguo zhi, 4:877. The same passage, in slight verbal variation, is also found in Zhu Xi’s Yupi Tongjian gangmu, 13.83/b.

46 Sanguozhi pinghua, 813.

47 Mao Zonggang, “Du Sanguo zhi fa,” 295; David T. Roy, “How to Read The Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” 156, translation slightly modified.

48 In the 1522 edition, Cao Cao blames Xu Chu and holds an elaborate funeral for Xu You. Following that passage there is an interlinear comment: “This is an example of Cao Cao’s unscrupulousness. He wishes to have Xu You killed but doesn’t want to stir up a controversy. So he pretends to say something like that” (SGZTSYY, 2:1069). Mao Zonggang observes in his chapter commentary: “The one that kills Xu You is Cao Cao, not Xu Chu. Xu You affronted Cao several times and Cao had wanted to get rid of him for a long time. If he killed Xu You he would have been criticized for having slain a friend and meritorious adviser. So he uses Xu Chu’s hand to do it.” See Sanguo yanyi ziliao huibian, 351. Another commentator, Li Yu, holds a similar view on the incident. See Li Liweng piyue Sanguo zhi, 365.

49 From the password “chicken ribs” that Cao Cao has issued, Yang Xiu sees Cao’s undeclared intent and tells his men to get ready for a retreat: the battle is like a chicken rib, with little meat on it but some remaining flavor. Cao has Yang executed on the charge of ruining the morale of the soldiers, which may be merely an excuse. The narrator of the yanyi offers the comment: “Although Cao could employ men of abilities, he was jealous of them all his life and didn’t want to see anyone’s talent superior to his own” (SGZTSYY, 4:2318).

50 Hua Tuo’s proposal to cleave open Cao Cao’s skull is not found in Sanguo zhi or Hou Hanshu (History of the Later Han). In both sources, the physician is said to stall Cao Cao’s summons with a fabricated excuse of his wife’s illness. When Cao finally found out the truth, he put Hua in prison and soon had him executed. See Chen Shou, Sanguo zhi, 3:802–3; Fan Ye, Hou Hanshu, 112B.11/b. In both works, Cao Cao did not die shortly after the execution of Hua Tuo as the novel has it, although in Sanguo zhi Hua’s death is said to be followed by the death of Cao Cao’s son Cangshu.

51 Sanguozhi pinghua, 806.

52 Zizhi tongjian (Siku quanshu ed.), 61.5/b.

53 Yang Bojun, Mengzi yizhu, 1:83; D.C. Lau, Mencius, 84.

54 In his commentary on chapter 36, Mao Zonggang notes the structural relationship between the Xu Shu story and the debut of Zhuge Liang: “Before Zhuge Liang’s numerous clever strategies and shrewd tactics later in the work, Shan Fu’s casual display of his talents serves as an introduction.” See Sanguo yanyi ziliao huibian, 357.

55 In his memorial to Liu Bei’s son and successor, Liu Shan, the historical Zhuge Liang put down these lines: “Despite my lowly status, the Previous Emperor deigned to visit me three times in my thatched cottage and consulted me on the current matters of the empire.” The whole text of the memorial is included in “Zhuge Liang zhuan” (Biography of Zhuge Liang) in Chen Shou, Sanguo zhi (4:920).

56 Chen Shou, Sanguo zhi, 4:912.

57 According to Pei Songzhi, it was stated in some earlier sources that Zhuge Liang went to see Liu Bei in Fancheng. Liu treated the young visitor as just another ordinary scholar before he became impressed by Zhuge’s incisive analysis of the military situation. Pei Songzhi refutes that account by citing Zhuge Liang’s Chushi biao. See Sanguo zhi 4:913–14. Pei’s dismissal of those earlier sources is not compelling, as the two accounts are not mutually exclusive—to say Liu Bei went to visit Zhuge Liang three times does not preclude the possibility that Zhuge had visited Liu before.

58 Andrew Plaks has noted that many sequences of action in Sanguo plays and fiction are based on the pattern of “triple occurrence,” relying upon “trebling effect” as typical of folklore and popular literature (Four Masterworks, 383–84). Elsewhere I consider the frequent use of the number of three in Shuihu zhuan a residue from the novel’s oral antecedents, where it could have been used as a mnemonic device by the storytellers (Out of the Margins, 84).

59 Cao Xuewei argues that Zhuge Liang should be considered primarily a Confucian figure who nevertheless demonstrates Daoist elements in his thinking and actions, but he maintains a difference between Daoism in the regular sense and the Daoist tendency in Zhuge Liang, which he calls “Daoism at a more sophisticated level.” See Cao Xuewei, “Daojiao yu Zhuge Liang de xingxiang suzao.”

60 Sanguo zhi pinghua, 807–9.

61 Zheng Qian, ed., Jiaoding Yuan kan zaju sanshizhong, 397.

62 Apart from Bowang shaotun, I have perused these Sanguo zaju plays that feature Zhuge Liang as a major character: Liu Xuande zui zou Huanghelou (The intoxicated Liu Xuande goes to Yellow Crane Tower), Zou Fengchu Pang lue si jun (Pang Tong, the fledgling phoenix, takes four districts), Cao Cao ye zou Chencang lu (Cao Cao moves to Chencang at night), Yangpingguan wu ma po Cao (Five warriors defeat Cao Cao at Yangping Pass), and Shoutinghou nu zhan Guan Ping (Marquis of Shouting kills Guan Ping in fury). Another zaju, Shiyangjin Zhuge lun gong (Zhuge Liang dwells on meritorious service), should not be considered a Sanguo zaju because it features Zhuge Liang as a ghost, but even the ghost follows the same format of Daoist self-introduction. Except for Bowang shaotun, all these plays, even though some of them might be of Yuan origins, are extant only in Ming texts, and are all collected in Wang Jilie, ed., Guben Yuan Ming zaju and Zang Jinshu, ed., Yuanqu xuan.

63 Yi Yin was a legendary counselor to King Tang, founder of the ancient Shang dynasty (ca. 16th cent.—ca. 11th cent. BCE). Jiang Ziya, also known as Jiang Shang or Lü Shang, was the chief adviser to King Wen, founder of the Zhou dynasty (ca. 11th cent.—256 BCE), who later helped King Wu, King Wen’s son and successor, in overthrowing the tyrannical Zhou, the last ruler of the Shang. Both Zhang Liang and Chen Ping were counselors and strategists for Liu Bang, founding emperor of the Han dynasty. Geng Yan and Deng Yu were both aides to Liu Xiu (r. 25–56), who defeated the usurper Wang Mang and founded the Eastern Han (23–220).

64 Li Liweng piyue Sanguo zhi, 476.

65 One of the measures the Han state took to maintain the dominance of Confucianism over other schools of thinking was to establish positions of academic officials (xueguan) each specializing in one of the Confucian classics. The title for those officials was boshi. There were boshi for such canonized texts as Classic of Poetry, Analects, Spring and Autumn Annals, Classic of Filiality, Mencius, and Erya. Each boshi was entitled to take fifty students, or boshi dizi, who were qualified for official appointments. See Chen Dongyuan, Zhongguo jiaoyu shi, 24 and 44.

66 There were two different channels of recommendation in the chaju system: xianliang fangzheng (virtuousness and righteousness) and xiaolian (filiality and honesty). As the terms may suggest, both forms of recommendation were supposedly more heavily dependent on a moral evaluation than textual scholarship. While xianliang fangzheng was operational in the early Han, xiaolian became the regular form of recommendation throughout the rest of the dynasty. Even though the recommended candidates were usually not tested on the classics, starting with Emperor Wen (r. 179–157 BCE) they had to pass a test of “policy questions” (cewen) before they became qualified for official appointments. See Chen Maotong, Zhongguo lidai xuanguan zhidu, 58–62; Xie Qing and Tang Deyong, eds., Zhongguo kaoshi zhidu shi, 34–36.

67 See Chen Dongyuan, Zhongguo jiaoyu shi, 249. It is stated in Ming shi: “[The examination writing] basically imitated that of the Song jingyi, but in the tone of the ancients. It was in the format of parallelism, and was called bagu” (6:1693). According to Gu Yanwu, Wang Anshi, in his late years, came to regret instituting the jingyi shi as the standard format for the examination writing: “I intended it to turn pedants into scholars, and did not expect it to turn scholars into pedants!” See Gu Yanwu, Rizhilu jishi, juan 18.2:1410.

68 Liu Bei refers here to chapter 10.7 of the Mencius. See Yang Bojun, Mengzi yizhu, 2:248; D. C. Lau, Mencius, 157–58. Confucius highly commended the gamekeeper’s refusal to answer Duke Jing’s summons.

69 The text of the 1522 edition contains an interlinear note that retells the story of Duke Huan. Slightly different versions of the same story can be found in Chen Houyao’s Chunqiu Zhanguo yici (Siku quanshu ed.) 17. 8/a, and Xue Yuji’s Chunqiu biedian (Siku quanshu ed.) 2.3/b-4/a.

70 Ming shi, 8:2318.

71 Yang Bojun, Mengzi yizhu, 1:89; D. C. Lau, Mencius, 87.

72 Yang Bojun, Mengzi yizhu, 1:248; D. C. Lau, Mencius, 157.

73 Yang Bojun, Mengzi yizhu, 2:297–98; D. C. Lau, Mencius, 180–81.

74 Zhou Zhaoxin has noted that historically, these two battles were won by Liu Bei before his recruitment of Zhuge Liang. See Zhou, Sanguo yanyi kaoping, 111–12. Obviously, the novelist attributes these victories to Zhuge Liang to make Zhuge’s debut as a strategist more dramatic and impressive. Zhou Wuchun has noted a similar effort in the novel to bolster Zhuge Liang’s image as a resourceful military adviser. The elaborate event of Zhuge Liang “borrowing” arrows from Cao Cao with boats full of straw bundles may have been based on the similar but much sketchier episodes in Sanguo zhi and pinghua where the feat is attributed, respectively, to Sun Quan and Zhou Yu. See Zhou Wuchun, “Cong Sanguo yanyi Chibi zhi zhan tan lishi he xiaoshuo de guanxi,” 34–35.

75 See Andrew Plaks, The Four Masterworks, 436.

76 In his commentary on chapter 85, Mao Zonggang observes: “You may want to ask whether the Previous Emperor’s proposal of Kongming taking over the imperial authority is genuine or phony. The answer is: It is genuine if you take it as genuine, and it is phony if you take it as phony. It is impossible to make Kongming do what Cao Pi has done, because out of his personal honor he will neither dare nor bear to do such a thing. Because he knows Kongming will neither dare nor bear to do it, [the Previous Emperor] lets him hear these words, so that he will support the heir apparent all the more wholeheartedly.” See Zhu Yixuan and Liu Yuchen, Sanguo yanyi ziliao huibian, 439.

77 Here is one example of the use of the term shouzu in describing the way Liu Bei treats his sworn brothers: When Guan Yu is surrounded by the Wu forces and the Wu official Zhuge Jin tries to persuade Guan Yu to surrender, Guan says this in reply: “I was but a warrior from Jieliang. By his favor my lord has treated me like his hands and feet [yi shouzu dai zhi]. How can I betray my honor and surrender to the enemy?” (chap. 76, 4:2454). Xiong Du considers the sworn brotherhood in Three Kingdoms and Water Margin a trope for the idealized ruler-minister relationship. See Xiong Du, “Zhongguo fengjian junchen guanxi de biange yanbian.”

78 According to Ming shi jishi benmo (3:48), Zhu Di, in response to Fang Xiaoru’s denouncement, ordered soldiers to cut Fang’s mouth, and “the cut was so deep as to reach both ears.” Fang was forced to watch the executions of his relatives and friends before he was put to death by dismembering.

79 Xu Qianxue, Zizhi tongjian houbian (Siku quanshu ed.) 4.5/b. In 966, Emperor Taizu accidentally found from the back of a copper mirror that his current reign title Qiande had been used in an earlier period. He was disappointed and blamed it on the ignorance of his civil officials, especially the prime minister Zhao Pu, who was not a scholar and therefore not very knowledgeable of history.

80 Huang Zongxi, Ming yi dai fang lu, 5.

81 See the comment (zan) at the end of the biographies of Li Shanchang and Wang Guangyang. Ming shi, 12:3775.

82 Ming shi, 26:7907.

83 Ibid., 12:3781 and 27:7906.

84 Su Tongbing has proposed this hypothesis in his “Mingdai xiangquan yanjiu,” 1–9.

85 Huang Zongxi, Ming yi dai fang lu, 5.

86 Those works include the Judge Bao cihua collected in Ming Chenghua shuochang cihua congkan (Collection of chantefables from the Chenghua reign of the Ming dynasty) and works of fiction such as Bao Longtu pan baijia gong’an (Bao Longtu judges a hundred cases), Longtu gong’an (Bao Longtu cases), Longtu erlu (Recorded Bao Longtu stories), Sanxia wuyi (Magistrate Bao and his valiant lieutenants), and others.

CHAPTER 3. THE SCHOLAR-LOVER IN EROTIC FICTION

1 Elman, A Cultural History, xxiv.

2 I conceive a continuous spectrum of eroticism covering some of the late Ming and early Qing fictional works that feature a young scholar as lover. For my purpose here, I consider the difference in the degrees of eroticism among these works less significant than what they share in common, namely, the dynamic interplay between the man’s sexual quest and his experience in the examinations. In that sense, a work such as The Carnal Prayer Mat may be regarded as more akin to Ping Shan Leng Yan, a typical work of the scholar-beauty genre with few explicitly sexual scenes, than it is to a work that is equally pornographic but features no scholar-lover, such as Xiuta yeshi (Unofficial history of the embroidered couch). This approach here partially overlaps with that of Keith McMahon in his Misers, Shrews, and Polygamists, where he makes a useful distinction between the “chaste ‘beauty-scholar’ romance” and the “erotic ‘scholar-beauty’ romance” (103, 127).

3 Zhao Feiyan waizhuan, putatively written by Ling Xuan of the Han period, tells the story of Zhao Feiyan, the empress of Emperor Cheng of the Han (r. 33–7 BCE), and her enchantment of the emperor. Daye shiyiji, also known as Sui yilu (Previously unrecorded accounts of the Sui) and Nanbu yanhua lu (Record of the courtesans of the south), was traditionally attributed to Yan Shigu of the Tang. It narrates the sexual escapades of Emperor Yang of the Sui (r. 604–18) during his trip to the southern city of Yangzhou. Yang Taizhen waizhuan, allegedly authored by Yue Shi of the Song, describes Tang Xuanzong’s (r. 712–56) life in the palace chamber with his favorite concubine Yang Yuhuan.

4 According to Li Shiren, the earliest publication of Ruyijun zhuan could be roughly dated to the reign periods of Chenghua (1465–87) and Hongzhi (1488–1505). See Ouyang Jian and Xiao Xiangkai, Zhongguo tongsu xiaoshuo zongmu tiyao, 48. For modern scholarship and an annotated English translation of Ruyijun zhuan, see Charles R. Stone, The Fountainhead of Chinese Erotica.

5 Li Zhi, Fen shu, yuan 1. Fen shu Xu Fen shu, 40.

6 Yuan Hongdao, “Letter to Mr. Gong Weichang,” Yuan Hongdao jijian jiao, 1:205.

7 Zhang Dai, Langhuan wenji, 199.

8 Patrick Hanan, The Chinese Vernacular Story, 80. Hanan states that at one extreme of the spectrum of Feng Menglong’s personae is “the wit, the ribald humorist, the bohemian, the drinker, the romantic lover.” Also see Zhao Yi, Nian’ershi zhaji, 9:718.

9 For a discussion of Zhu Xi’s stance on sexual desire and sexual love, see Ping-cheung Lo, “Zhu Xi and Confucian Sexual Ethics.”

10 Kai-wing Chow argues that Confucianism in the Ming was eroded by a movement of syncretism within itself, a tendency to tolerate and compromise with both Buddhism and Daoism. See Chow, The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China, 22–33.

11 For a study of these moral handbooks, see Cynthia J. Brokaw, The Ledgers of Merit and Demerit.

12 Both texts of these ledgers of merits and demerits, along with many others, are collected in Daozang jiyao (Collectanea of selected Daoist texts).

13 R. H. van Gulik, Sexual Life in Ancient China, 246–50.

14 These sources include, but obviously are not limited to: Lü Xiangxie’s Kechang yiwenlu, which includes Guochao kechang yiwenlu, Qian Ming kechang yiwenlu, Zhisheng kechang yiwenlu, and Xiaoshi kechang yiwenlu; Qian Yong’s Lüyuan conghua; Li Diaoyuan’s Danmo lu and Zhiyike suoji; Huang Zuo’s Hanlin ji, Liang Gongchen’s Chishang caotang biji, and the anonymous Dengke lu and Dengke lu zhuan.

15 Lü Xiangxie, Qian Ming kechang yiwenlu, 1.3/b. The phrase bu ke is a pun here. It usually means “should not” or “be prohibited from,” but it was also used among examination candidates to refer to the almost unattainable status of zhuangyuan, the top graduate from the palace examinations. Apparently, the Cao Nai story was well known among the examination candidates of later times. In Yu Jin’s Xichao xinyu (337), Chen Zhihua, the zhuangyuan of 1724, rejects the advances of a beautiful young woman from a neighboring household while he was preparing for the examinations. Following Cao Nai’s example, he writes the four characters Cao Nai bu ke on a slip of paper and pastes it to the right of his seat.

16 Wang Jian. Qiudeng conghua, 1:23–24.

17 Lü Xiangxie, Guochao kechang yiwenlu, 1.6/a.

18 Guan Yu, the famous general of the Three Kingdoms period, came to be worshiped as a deity during the Tang period. In the numerous imperial decrees of the Tang and Song times, Guan Yu was referred to by his lifetime title of nobility, Han Shoutinghou. During the Yuan, he was often referred to as Guan Wang (Prince Guan)—as in Guan Hanqing’s (fl. 1279) zaju play Guan Dawang dufu dandaohui (Prince Guan attends the meeting all by himself with a single broadsword)—or Wu’an Wang (Prince of Wu’an). In the middle of the Ming, Guan Yu was even given an imperial status and referred to as Guan Di (Emperor Guan), a practice continued by the Manchu rulers of the Qing. On the evolution of the worship of Guan Yu, see Luo Kanglie, “Wenxue he lishi zhong de Guan Yu”; Li Huiming, “Chuanshen wenbi xie Guan Yu: Guan Yu yishu xingxiang shenshenghua zhi lishi bianqian.” Kam Louie’s Theorizing Chinese Masculinity contains a chapter that discusses Guan Yu as the representative of what Louie calls wu masculinity (22–41). However, it is interesting to note that in numerous anecdotes from Qing sources Guan Yu, a warrior in his lifetime, was made a deity that decided on the reward or punishment for a scholar in the examinations. To that extent, his function overlapped with that of Wenchang Dijun, the deified icon of Confucius who was generally regarded as the god in charge of scholars’ fame and success.

19 Wang Shizhen, Chibei outan, 2:526–27.

20 Lü Xiangxie, Guochao kechang yiwenlu, 1.10/a. According to Shen Defu’s Wanli yehuobian (2:413), body searches at the examination sites were very rigorous during the Jiajing reign period (1522–65), when two imperial counselors (yushi) were put “particularly in charge of the searches and inspections” at the entrances. Offenders were to be pilloried in front of the Ministry of Rites for a month, before sentenced to imprisonment. Later, the searches became increasingly stringent, and the candidates had to “unbutton their garments and take off their hats to be searched thoroughly.”

21 Lü Xiangxie, Guochao kechang yiwenlu, 3.3/a.

22 Yu Jin, Xichao xinyu, 61.

23 Li Wa is the heroine in Bai Xingjian’s (776–826) wenyan tale “Li Wa zhuan” (Story of Li Wa). As a courtesan, Li Wa nurtures her distressed scholar lover Young Master of Yingyang (Yingyang Gongzi) and encourages him to return to the examinations, which leads to his success.

24 Ji Yun, “Ming Yi’an huanghou waizhuan,” 2–3.

25 Qinding Daqing huidian zeli (Siku quanshu ed.), 172.24/b-25/a. Also see Rawski, The Last Emperors, 170.

26 Qinding Daqing huidian zeli, 172.27/b.

27 Spence, Emperor of China, 123.

28 Xu Ke, Qing bai lei chao, 2:485.

29 Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) may be a case in point. She was selected by Emperor Xianfeng (r. 1851–61) in 1852 as a concubine of the sixth rank, but she rapidly reached the zenith of political power in about a decade.

30 There were fourteen ranks for palace women during the Han dynasty. For the Tang period, palace women were organized in six “bureaus” (ju) and twenty-four “departments” (si). In the early Ming, Zhu Yuanzhang followed the Tang model but simplified the system to six “bureaus” and one additional “department,” with the position of bureau leader in the sixth rank (liupin). See Zhang Tingyu et al., Ming shi, 12:3503–4. The ranks of imperial concubines were of course higher. During the Tang, imperial concubines with titles of guifei, shufei, defei, and xianfei were all in the first rank, the so-called nine ladies (jiu pin) in the second rank, and the nine with the title jieyu in the third rank. The other members of the imperial harem were in the range from the fourth to the eighth rank. Later Ming and Qing rulers inherited this institution of stratified imperial harem. During the Qing, the imperial consorts were also differentiated in eight ranks, with the empress at the top, followed in descending order by the status groups of huangguifei, guifei, fei, pin, guiren, changzai, and daying. See Rawski, The Last Emperors, 132.

31 About the corruption in the examination system, especially bribery and favoritism, see Benjamin A. Elman’s A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China, 195–207, 224–28.

32 In Ban Gu’s Qian Han shu, Wang Zhaojun (i.e. Wang Qiang, fl. 33 BCE), a palace woman under Emperor Yuan (Yuan Di) (r. 49–33 BCE), is said to have volunteered to be married to the king of the Xiongnu in a noble act of self-sacrifice for peace after the Xiongnu proposed an alliance by marriage (Siku quanshu ed., 94.12/b-13/a). In Xijing zaji (Miscellaneous records of the western capital), however, the cause of Wang’s exile is said to be Mao Yanshou’s misrepresentation of her beauty (Siku quanshu ed., 2. 1/a-b). The Wang Zhaojun story also appears in Liu Yiqing’s Shishuo xinyu, where Mao Yanshou is referred to as a “palace painter” but not by name (142).

33 The Tang poets Li Bai (701–62) and Bai Juyi (772–846), each composing numerous poems on Wang Zhaojun, could be considered representatives of the sustained poetic fascination with the legendary palace beauty. Wang Anshi (1021–86) of the Song also left us with two famous poems on Zhaojun, titled “Mingfei qu” (Tunes on Mingfei). The earliest known prose story in the Zhaojun tradition is perhaps “Zhaojun bianwen” (Transformation story on Zhaojun). During the Yuan, a number of zaju plays were based on the Zhaojun story, including Guan Hanqing’s Han Yuandi ku Zhaojun (Emperor Yuan of the Han laments on Zhaojun), Ma Zhiyuan’s (1251?–1321?) Han gong qiu (Autumn in Han palace), and Zhang Shiqi’s (13th cent.) Zhaojun chusai (Zhaojun travels to the northern frontiers). See Zhong Sicheng, Luguibu (Registry of ghosts), 105, 108, and 112.

Among these Zhaojun plays of the Yuan, only Han gong qiu is extant. The Ming and Qing periods witnessed a proliferation of Zhaojun plays, including the anonymous He rong ji (A story of pacifying the frontier) and Zhaojun zhuan (Story of Zhaojun), Xue Dan’s (fl. 1644) Zhaojun meng (Dream of Zhaojun), Chen Yuxiao’s (16th cent.) Zhaojun chusai, Chen Zongding’s (Ming dynasty) Ning hu ji (A story of placating the barbarians), You Tong’s (1618–1704) Diao pipa (Lamenting over the pipa), and Zhou Leqing’s (1785–1855) Pipa yu (Words from the pipa), to mention only a few extant ones. For an account of the evolution of the Wang Zhaojun tradition in premodern Chinese literature, see Zhang Wende, Wang Zhaojun gushi de chuancheng yu shanbian.

34 In his long poem Li sao (Encountering sorrow), Qu Yuan uses the images of fragrant plants and beautiful women to refer allegorically to his own lofty personality under the siege of political calumnies. For a discussion of Qu Yuan’s description of the ruler-minister relationship by using language and images pertaining to sexual union, see Paul Rakita Goldin, The Culture of Sex in Ancient China, 34–37. Qu Yuan’s practice marks the beginning of a literary convention. As Hellmut Wilhelm has pointed out, some works of fu during the Han period evoke the image of a neglected wife that is often an expression of an official out of the favor with the ruler. See Wilhelm, “The Scholar’s Frustration: Notes on a Type of Fu.” For a discussion of the gender implications in Li sao, see Song Geng, The Fragile Scholar, 43–60.

35 Zou Yang wrote a letter in prison to the prince Liu Wu, which contained these lines: “Beautiful or ugly, a woman would be a target of jealousy once admitted to the palace. Worthy or unworthy, a shi would suffer from calumny once he is at the court.” See Sima Qian, Shi ji, juan 83.

36 Ming Taizu wenji (Siku quanshu ed.), 13.16/b.

37 Shen Defu, Wanli yehuobian, 2:621.

38 See Martin Huang, Negotiating Masculinities in Late Imperial China, 72–86.

39 Zhao Yuan, Ming Qing zhi ji shidafu yanjiu, 317.

40 See Yong Zheng, Dayi juemi tan, 159.

41 Huang Zongxi, Mingyi daifang lu, 2.

42 No name, real or pseudonymous, is ascribed to this twelve-chapter novel, although it is said to have been compiled by a certain Qishan Zuochen and commentated by Li’an Jushi. The work is also known under the title Huqiu hua’an yishi (Story of the flower adjudication in Huqiu). In his foreword to the modern facsimile edition of the novel in the Guben xiaoshuo jicheng, Wang Xiaohai calls attention to the novelist’s mention of a carnival known as saishen yinghui, which was popular in the Jiangnan area during the late Ming and the early Qing before the local authorities cracked down on it in 1685. The novelist describes the festival as being “all the rage twenty years ago.” Wang Xiaohai also informs us that the artist for the illustrations in the novel was Huang Shunji, who was also responsible for the illustrations in the 1660 edition of Xu Jin Ping Mei (A sequel to Jin Ping Mei). Based on such evidence, Wang tentatively dates Nükaike zhuan to the early years of the Kangxi reign (1662–1722).

The general plotline of the novel seems to conform well to the scholar-beauty fiction, but the fact the leading women characters here are courtesans, instead of maidens from elite families, puts the novel in a smaller company with such nineteenth-century works as Pinhua baojian (Treasured mirror for ranking flowers), Hua yue hen (Traces of flowers and the moon), and Qinglou meng (Dream of the courtesans). However, none of these later novels contains an examination for female scholars in the plot. Nükaike zhuan, therefore, is unique as a precursor of both the “courtesan novels” and the novels like Lü mudan (The green peony) and Jinghua yuan (Flowers in the mirror) that feature an examination for women. The earliest work in either group is Lü mudan, which was first published in 1800. It is remarkable that Nükaike zhuan predates both groups of works by at least a century.

43 Nükaike zhuan, 15.

44 Ibid., 128.

45 The scholar-courtesan romance in Nükaike zhuan reflects a fascinating seventeenth-century phenomenon in the major cities of Jiangnan—what may be called an interfusion of literati culture and courtesan culture. Several prominent literati figures enjoyed romantic relationships with leading courtesans with remarkable literary and/or artistic accomplishments. The most celebrated couples included Qian Qianyi (1582–1664) and Liu Rushi (1618–64); Wu Weiye (1609–72) and Bian Yujing (1623–65); Mao Xiang (1611–93) and Chen Yuanyuan (1624–81) and, later, Dong Xiaowan (1623–51); and Hou Fangyu (1618–55) and Li Xiangjun (1624–?). The last couple of course becomes immortalized in Kong Shangren’s (1648–1718) chuanqi play Taohua shan (The peach blossom fan).

For recent studies of famous late Ming and early Qing courtesans and their liaisons with literati figures, see the articles collected in Ellen Widmer and Kang-I Sun Chang, eds., Writing Women in Late Imperial China, including Apul S. Ropp: “Ambiguous Images of Courtesan Culture in Late Imperial China,” 17–45; Wai-yee Li: “The Late Ming Courtesan: Invention of a Cultural Ideal,” 46–73; and Dorothy Ko: “The Written Word and the Bound Feet: A History of the Courtesan’s Aura,” 74–100. Also see Allan H. Barr, “The Wanli Context of the ‘Courtesan’s Jewel Box’ Story,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 57, no. 1 (June 1997): 107–41.

46 Timothy Brook observes that, for many late imperial Chinese scholars, “taking a courtesan became an act of allegory. Highly cultured males could fictionalize their dilemma as tragic men by buying women trained in certain culturally admired ways and taking on the courtesan’s persona of the suffering female to express their sense of victimization.” See Brook, The Confusions of Pleasures, 231.

47 Nükaike zhuan, 30.

48 For all titles of Qing examination officers, including zhukao (chief examiner), tongkao (associate examiner), and jianlin (superintendent), see Liu Zhaobin, Qingdai keju, 29–34.

49 This description reflects a close simulation of the postexamination celebrations during the Qing. For an account of the celebratory activities of the successful candidates following the palace examinations during the Qing, see Chen Dongyuan, Zhongguo jiaoyu shi, 399–400.

50 Dorothy Ko, “The Written Word and the Bound Feet,” 83. According to Ko, the most popular drinking game among courtesans in the late Ming was called “Name the Candidate,” during which the women were ranked and named with the titles for top examination graduates. That drinking game soon led to a flourish of the practice of ranking the courtesans with the titles of the degree-holders, commonly known as hua’an (flower adjudication) or huabang (flower roster). Li Yu’s play Shen luan jiao (The cautious lovers) offers a good illustration of the mutual mirroring between sexual selection and the civil service examinations. In the play, a group of young scholars plan for a hua’an for the courtesans. They begin the game by selecting the female zhuangyuan, bangyan, and tanhua, ranked with the same titles as the top graduates from the palace examinations, and then let those top courtesans select their clients from among the scholars, who are in turn called the male zhuangyuan, bangyan, and tanhua. See Li Yu quanji, 2:431–32.

In chapter 30 of Rulin waishi, two scholars sponsor a similar competition for theatric female impersonators. See Wu Jingzi, Rulin waishi, 358–61; The Scholars, 383–86. Xu Ke’s Qing bai lei chao contains several accounts of such “flower adjudications” and “flower rosters” for actresses and courtesans in Beijing and Jiangnan during the early Qing (11:5096; 11:5149–50). Xu is insightful on the cause of the rage of this practice: “Literati scholars were obsessed with the examinations wherever they were, and they unwittingly let that obsession find a way to express itself when they used the terms in the examinations such as zhuangyan, bangyan, and tanhua in ranking the women” (11:5096).

51 The work is attributed to the pseudonymous Su’an Zhuren, or “Master of the Taoist temple in Suzhou.” A preface by the pseudonymous writer Nongxiang Zhuren (Master of handling the incenses) is dated 1670, which suggests that the novel may have appeared in print in that year or slightly later.

52 Su’an zhuren, Xiu ping yuan, 8.

53 A modern edition of the novel was published in 1994 by Taiwan daying baike gufen youxian gongsi. There are no explicit indications of the date of the work in the text or its prefatory materials. However, the pseudonymous author, Zuili Yanshui Sanren (Wanderer in the mist and water of Zuili), is the same as that of Nücaizi shu (Story of talented women), Yuanyang mei (Matching of the destined lovers), and a number of other fictional works. As the earliest known edition of Nücaizi shu is dated to the Shunzhi reign (1644–61), and Yuanyang mei is said to be emendated by Tianhuazang Zhuren, to whom several seventeenth-century fictional works are attributed, the author of Taohua ying may have lived in the early Qing, most likely contemporaneous with Tianhuazang Zhuren.

54 Keith McMahon considers such a potent polygamist as Wei Yuqing “the sexual boss who sits at the top of society.” See McMahon, Misers, Shrews, and Polygamists, 10.

55 In another erotic novel, Xinghua tian (Days of apricot blossoms), attributed to Gutang Tianfang Daoren, the parallel of the polygamist’s womenfolk to an imperial harem is even more obvious. The principal wife, when formerly inaugurating her position, has all ten concubines seated on her sides in the order of their ranks. She then issues her decree on the management of the house, designating each of the concubines for specific duties. See Xinghua tian, 259.

56 Li Yu, Shi’er lou, 24.

57 Ibid., 22. The expression “snapping off a cassia twig” (zhe gui) is frequently used in traditional Chinese literature, especially poetry, as a metaphor for a success in the civil service examinations. It originated in the biography of Que Shen in Jin shu (History of the Jin). When Emperor Wu of the Jin (i.e., Sima Yan, r. 280–289) asked Que Shen for his self-evaluation, the latter replied: “When I took the policy examination for the recommended xianliang, I won the first place among the candidates from across the land. It was like [snapping off] the first twig from the cassia grove.” See Jin shu (Siku quanshu ed.), 52.6/b-7/a. The Tang poet Wen Tingyun (812?–866) wrote the lines in a poem congratulating a friend of his on passing the metropolitan examinations: “Delighted to know my old friend snapped the cassia twig recently / I pity myself as still wandering lonely and adrift.” See Quan Tang shi (Siku quanshu ed.), 578.14/a-b. Subsequently, the expression “snapping off a cassia twig” set off what may be considered a chain of metonymic associations. “As people believe there is a cassia tree in the moon, the ‘cassia twig’ comes to refer to the ‘cassia in the moon’ [yuegui]. Again, as there is said to be a toad [chan] in the palace of the moon, ‘cassia’ in the expression is sometimes substituted by ‘toad,’ and ‘receiving the degree’ [dengke] is sometimes referred to as ‘reaching the toad’ [dengchan].” See Pan Yongyin, Song bai lei chao, 5.19/b-20/a. Obviously, Li Yu’s usage of the expression in the story, where he associates a success in the examinations with the beautiful moon goddess Chang’e, represents a further extension of the metonymic signification.

58 Li Yu, Shi’er lou, 92.

59 Ibid., 93.

60 In the title of the story, Mengmu, or Mother Meng, refers to Mencius’s mother. It is said that the woman moved her residence three times before finally settling down near a school in order to give her son a wholesome upbringing. For the story, see Liu Xiang, Gu lienü zhuan (Stories of ancient women) (Siku quanshu ed.), 1.15/a. For centuries, this story remained a model for parental teaching and moral edification. One therefore feels the thrust of parody to see that allusion become part of the title for a story about male homoerotic love, which was, even though by no means uncommon in seventeenth-century China, considered by many to be a form of perversion.

61 Li Yu, Wusheng xi, 111–14.

62 Li Yu, Liancheng bi, 371.

63 Ibid., 376.

64 Ibid., 382.

65 The novel, also known as Jue hou chan (The Chan Buddhist converted after his awakening), is ascribed on its first page of the text to a Qingchi Fanzheng Daoren (Daoist transformed from his former self as a crazy lover). It was first explicitly attributed to Li Yu by the seventeenth-century scholar Liu Tingji in his Zaiyuan zazhi (Miscellaneous notes of Zaiyuan). Liu, however, did not document any source for that attribution, which leaves room for the debate on Li Yu’s authorship among modern scholars. Chun-shu Chang and Shelley H. Chang, for instance, assert in their Crisis and Transformation in Seventeenth-Century China that Li Yu’s authorship “has not been proved by logically acceptable evidence.” Their conclusion is based on three arguments: There were no contemporary records associating the work with Li Yu; if Li Yu was indeed the author, he should have no reason not to claim the authorship, since he was already known as notoriously unconventional; and if Li Yu did write the work, there is no explanation as to why he did not try to make a profit out of it when he was in financial difficulties (234–35). In contrast, modern Chinese scholars on vernacular fiction such as Lu Xun and Sun Kaidi either accepted or acquiesced in Li Yu’s authorship of The Carnal Prayer Mat. Most Western scholars of Chinese fiction support the attribution as well. In their Li Yü, Nathan Mao and Liu Ts’un-yan endorse the attribution by making a detailed study of the similarities between The Carnal Prayer Mat and Li Yu’s other writings (91–95). Patrick Hanan, in his The Invention of Li Yu, observes: “So distinctive is his brand of fiction that although the novel has never actually been proved to be by Li Yu, one has only to read it alongside his stories to feel the truth of the attribution” (76). Robert Hegel proclaims in his The Novel in Seventeenth-Century China that the attribution is “at least . . . as justifiable as the identification of most earlier novelists” (183). Recent studies by Chinese scholars on the authorship of The Carnal Prayer Mat include Huang Qiang’s “Rou putuan wei Li Yu suo zuo neizheng,” which enumerates a large number of verbal parallels between the novel and Li Yu’s other works. Based on the overwhelming thematic and stylistic affinities between The Carnal Prayer Mat and those works indisputably by Li Yu, I believe the attribution of the novel to Li Yu is well grounded. Obviously, however, the issue of authorship is not essential to my discussion of the novel here.

66 Li Yu, Rou putuan, 154; Hanan, The Carnal Prayer Mat, 24.

67 Li Yu, Rou putuan, 155; Hanan, The Carnal Prayer Mat, 25.

68 Miyazaki Ichisada, China’s Examination Hell, 76–79.

69 Li Yu, Rou putuan, 216; Hanan, The Carnal Prayer Mat, 79.

70 Li Yu, Rou putuan, 215–16; Hanan, The Carnal Prayer Mat, 78–79. During the Qing period, the metropolitan and palace examination papers were usually graded by a group of imperially appointed examiners, fourteen in the early Qing and eight after the Qianlong reign. According to Shang Yanliu, five different symbols were used in the grading: circle, triangle, slant line, vertical line, and cross. Those papers that were graded the top rank were usually marked with circles from all the examiners, and those with one or two triangles would be slightly inferior, so on and so forth. So the number of circles from the examiners was an indicator of the grades of the candidates. See Shang Yanliu, Qingdai keju kaoshi shulu, 114–15. Zhu Pengshou, who served as an examiner for the last palace examination of the Qing, reports a slightly different grading system consisting of only four symbols: circle, triangle, dot, and vertical line. See Chen Maotong, Zhongguo lidai xuanguan zhidu, 401.

71 Li Yu, Rou putuan, 216–17; Hanan, The Carnal Prayer Mat, 79–80.

72 Li Yu, Rou putuan, 221; Hanan, The Carnal Prayer Mat, 84.

73 Those candidates who had passed the examinations would consider themselves disciples of the examiner who granted them the success and would call themselves mensheng (pupils) in front of their mentor. According to Wang Shizhen, this mentor-protégé relationship was very significant in the Ming period, especially during the Wanli reign (1573–1620): “Once the mentor-disciple relationship was established, it became a lifetime bond.” Starting in 1658, the Qing government tried to reverse the trend, banning the appellations of “mentor” and “pupil” on public occasions between the officials who had been examiners and those they had passed in the examinations. See Wang Shizhen, Chibei outan, 1:18. Li Yu, Rou putuan, 417; Hanan, The Carnal Prayer Mat, 243.

74 Li Yu, Rou putuan, 259; Hanan, The Carnal Prayer Mat, 115.

75 Li Yu, Rou putuan, 391; Hanan, The Carnal Prayer Mat, 222.

76 Li Yu, Rou putuan, 395–96; Hanan, The Carnal Prayer Mat, 225.

77 See, for example, Dorothy Ko, “The Written Word,” 83–84.

78 Li Yu, Rou putuan, 237; Hanan, The Carnal Prayer Mat, 96.

79 Li Yu, Rou putuan, 277; Hanan, The Carnal Prayer Mat, 131.

80 Li Yu, Rou putuan, 299; Hanan, The Carnal Prayer Mat, 148.

81 I. A. Richards has observed: “At one extreme the vehicle may become almost a mere decoration or coloring of the tenor, at the other extreme, the tenor may become a mere excuse for the introduction of the vehicle, and so no longer be ‘the principle subject.’” See Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric, 100.

82 Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor, 173. Original italics.

83 The ninth-century scholar Zhao Gu, referring to the examination system during the Tang, left us with these lines: “Emperor Taizong came up with a really farsighted strategy / which made all men of talent work hard till their heads turned gray” (Taizong Huangdi zhen chang ce / Zhuande yingxiong jin baitou). See Wang Dingbao, Tang zhiyan, 1:1.

84 Ma Duanlin, Wenxian tongkao, 29.6/a.

85 Tuo Tuo et al., Song Shi, juan 440.

86 Zhang Tingyu et al., Ming shi, 6:1693. One conspicuous exception among the Ming rulers was Emperor Wanli. Because of his long-term stalemate with his top civil officials over the designation of an heir to the throne, the reclusive sovereign developed an inveterate apathy toward state affairs, and often failed to show up in person at the palace examinations.

87 Chen Maotong, Zhongguo lidai xuanguan zhidu, 392.

88 Wu Jingzi, Rulin waishi, 77; Yang and Yang, trans., The Scholars, 77; translation slightly modified.

89 Legge, Confucian Analects, 330, translation slightly revised.

90 Ibid., 222.

91 M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, 23.

92 Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor, 214.

CHAPTER 4. THE SCHOLARS

1 See, e.g., Hu Shi, “Wu Jingzi zhuan”; Qian Xuantong, “Rulin waishi xin xu.”

2 C. T. Hsia observes that “the objects of ridicule comprise many other types besides scholars and pseudo scholars obsessed with examinations.” See Tsia, The Classic Chinese Novel, 225.

3 See Timothy C. Wong, Wu Ching-Tzu, 62. Wong also refutes other critical approaches that consider The Scholars as “nationalistic, or democratic, or pro women’s rights,” but those views have been much less influential.

4 See Paul S. Ropp, Dissent in Early Modern China, 89–119.

5 The commentator in the Wuxian Caotang edition calls chapter 37 “the first culmination of the book” (diyige da jieshu). See Rulin waishi huijiao huiping ben, 2:461 and 2:515.

6 Shuen-fu Lin, “Ritual and Narrative structure in Ju-lin wai-shi,” 249 and 256.

7 Stephen J. Roddy, Literati Identity; Shang Wei, Rulin waishi and Cultural Transformation.

8 Stephen J. Roddy, Literati Identity, 131.

9 Ibid., 130–46.

10 Shang Wei, Rulin waishi and Cultural Transformation, 26.

11 Nian Gengyao, one of Yongzheng’s confidants and ablest aides before his succession, quickly fell out of favor with the new emperor despite his meritorious service in the positions of governor-general of Sichuan and governor-general of Shaanxi and Gansu. After demoting and then imprisoning him, Yongzheng finally ordered Nian to commit suicide. Qian Mingshi was implicated in the Nian case because he praised Nian in his poems, even though they were written before Nian fell out of imperial favor.

12 Jiang Liangqi, Donghua lu, 452.

13 Shanghai shudian chubanshe, ed., Mingjiao zuiren tan, 5.

14 Ibid., 49.

15 Dayi juemi lu, in Yong Zheng, Dayi juemi tan, 174.

16 Both quotations are from the chapter “Ba you” in Lunyu. The first line is taken from the sentence that reads: “The Master said, ‘The full observance of the rules of propriety in serving one’s prince is accounted by people to be flattery” (Shijun jinli ren yi wei chan ye). The second quotation is from the sentence, “Confucius replied, ‘A prince should employ his ministers according to the rules of propriety; ministers should serve their prince with faithfulness” (Jun shi chen yi li, chen shi jun yi zhong). See Liu Baonan, Lunyu zhengyi, 62; Legge, Confucian Analects, 161.

17 Lunyu, “Yan Yuan.” See Liu Baonan, Lunyu zhengyi, 271; Legge, Confucian Analects, 256.

18 Yongzheng here refers to the sentence that reads: “When [Confucius] was in the ancestral temple or in the court, he spoke minutely on every point, but cautiously.” See Liu Baonan, Lunyu zhengyi, 196; Legge, Confucian Analects, 227, translation slightly modified.

19 Yang Bojun, Mengzi yizhu, 1:89; D. C. Lau, trans., Mencius, 86. When Gongsun Chou accuses Mencius of not showing enough respect for the King of Qi, the master argues that he was actually more respectful by trying to discuss with the King “the way of Yao and Shun” (Yao Shun zhi dao) while many other scholars in the Qi did not even consider the King a worthy interlocutor on benevolence and righteousness (he zu yu yan ren yi ye). In other words, Mencius showed his respect for the ruler by trying to enlighten him.

20 Dayi juemi lu, 174–75.

21 Yang Bojun, Mengzi yizhu, 1:248; D. C. Lau, Mencius, 157.

22 Gao You, annotated, Huainanzi, 334.

23 Dayi juemi lu, 176–177.

24 Wu Jingzi, Rulin waishi huijiao huiping ben, 1:1.

25 Rulin waishi, hereafter RLWS, 1; The Scholars; hereafter Scholars, 3, translation modified.

26 Rulin waishi huijiao huiping ben, 1:32.

27 See Timothy C. Wong, Wu Ching-tzu, 70ff.

28 See, e.g., C. T. Tsia, The Classic Chinese Novel, 210–11; Stephen J. Roddy, Literati Identity, 113–14; Zhang Guofeng, Rulin waishi shilun, 27–28; Shang Wei, Rulin waishi and Cultural Transformation, 125–26.

29 Rulin waishi huijiao huiping ben, 1:5.

30 Yang Bojun, Mengzi yizhu, 1:247–48; D. C. Lau, Mencius, 157.

31 Duan Ganmu climbed over a wall to avoid meeting with an official, and Xie Liu bolted his door to refuse admittance to a visiting official. Both anecdotes are mentioned in Mencius (Yang Bojun, Mengzi yizhu, 1:152; D. C. Lau, Mencius, 112).

32 For the ends of Liu Ji and Song Lian, see Zhang Tingyu et al., Ming shi, 12:3781; 12:3789–90; Gu Yingtai, Ming shi jishi benmo, 2:58–59.

33 At the end of the opening chapter, the narrator challenges those “writers and scholars” for referring to Wang Mian as commissioner of records (canjun) and insists that Wang “never served as an official for a single day” (RLWS 17; Scholars 18). In Ming shi, Wang Mian is said to have been recruited by Zhu Yuanzhang and was made a commissioner of records (ziyi canjun) when Zhu captured the district of Wuzhou (Ming shi, 24:7311). The narrator of RLWS, as Stephen J. Roddy informs us, may be echoing Zhu Yizun’s (1629–1709) version of Wang Mian’s biography, where Zhu in a similar manner questions the credibility of Wang Mian’s acceptance of the official position. See Roddy, Literati Identity, 114–15. It may be irrelevant to verify which theory is more reliable, as the fictional version of Wang Mian is obviously not obligated to be consistent with its historical counterpart. At any rate, however, the novelistic Wang Mian’s avoidance of officialdom seems consistent with a prevalent practice of intellectuals in the early Ming, when many of them turned down offers of administrative positions. See, e.g., Zhao Yi, Nianershi zhaji, 9:677–78.

34 C. T. Hsia, The Classic Chinese Novel, 212.

35 Following the line in the novel that Prince Wu’s attendants “tethered their horses beneath the willows by the lake,” Zhang Wenhu comments in an interlinear note: “These were the trees that the buffalos used to be tethered to, and all of a sudden they were used to tether the horses! The buffalos would probably say, ‘Your Majesty has unexpectedly encroached upon our domain.’” See Rulin waishi huijiao huiping ben, 1:13.

36 See Rulin waishi huijiao huiping ben, 1:32.

37 The novelist may be deliberate in contrasting Kuang Chaoren with Wang Mian. Apart from the similar deathbed scenes, the episode that Kuang Chaoren reads at night in a temple and draws the attention from the country magistrate who happens to be passing by (RLWS 204; Scholar 214) mirrors part of the Wang Mian biography in Ming shi (24:7311).

38 Marston Anderson, “The Scorpion in the Scholar’s Cap,” 265.

39 Yue Hengjun, “Ma Chunshang zai Xihu,” 142.

40 Ibid.

41 That comical effect is noted by Zhang Wenhu. See Rulin waishi huijiao huiping ben, 1:204. Huban was a tablet that an official would hold in hand when received in audience by the emperor.

42 Yu Yingshi, Shi yu Zhongguo wenhua, 107.

43 Fan Zhongyan, Fan Wenzheng ji, 7.5/b.

44 Yang Bojun, Mengzi yizhu, 2:308; D. C. Lau, Mencius, 185, translation slightly modified.

45 Lü Kun, Shenyin yu, 54.

46 Gu Yanwu, Ri zhi lu jishi, 13:1014.

47 Huang Zongxi, Ming yi dai fang lu, 2.

48 Ibid., 3.

49 Paul Ropp sees a similarity between Wu Jingzi and Gu and Huang in their critical attitude toward the examination system, but he maintains that similarity “suggests not so much their intellectual influence on him as the persistence of serious problems in the system itself” (Dissent in Early Modern China, 100–101). Zhang Guofeng, in contrast, believes in a more substantial intellectual link between Wu and the two early Qing thinkers. Wu’s close friend Cheng Tingzuo (1691–1767) was not only associated with Yan Yuan and Li Gong but also a tremendous admirer of Gu Yanwu and Huang Zongxi. Cheng Jinfang (b. 1718), another close friend of Wu’s, was a devout follower of Gu and Huang while keeping a distance from the more iconoclastic stance of Yan and Li. See Zhang Guofeng, Rulin waishi shilun, 12–17.

50 Rulin waishi huijiao huiping ben, 2:501.

51 Li Hanqiu, Rulin waishi yanjiu, 95.

52 Yang Bojun, Mengzi yizhu, 1:232–33; D. C. Lau, Mencius, 150.

53 The notion of liyin may have an origin that can be traced to the Western Han dynasty (206–24 BCE). Dongfang Shuo, a palace humorist, observed: “One can escape from the world and keep one’s self intact by living in the palaces. Why should he have to hide in the deep mountains and in a thatched cottage?” Inspired by Dongfang Shuo, the Tang poet Li Bai (701–762) expressed disillusionment of his official career in these lines: “People in the world know no Dongfang Shuo, / A great hermit within the Golden Gate is the Banished Immortal” (zhexian, i.e., Li Bai himself). The fourth-century writer Wang Kangju has left us the celebrated couplet: “Petty hermits hide in hills and marshes, / Great hermits hide in the court and marketplaces” (Xiaoyin yin lingsou, dayin yin chaoshi). Traditionally the practitioners of liyin were considered “middling hermits,” or zhongyin, between great hermits (dayin) and petty hermits (xiaoyin). Examples of liyin include the Tang poet and bureaucrat Wang Wei (701–61) and the Song scholar-officials Wang Anshi and Ouyang Xiu (1007–72) in their late years. See Wang Debao, Shi yu yin, 80–85. For another typical example of liyin in the Tang poet Bai Juyi (772–846), see Xiaoshan Yang, Metamorphosis of the Private Sphere, 11–50.

54 Wu Jingzi, Yijia fu bing xu. In Zhu Yixuan, ed., Ming Qing xiaoshuo ziliao xuanbian, 2:886–87. Li Hanqiu suggests that the two lines that contain “catching lice” and “following the soaring geese with my eyes” allude to Ji Kang. See Li Hanqiu, Rulin waishi yanjiu, 218.

55 Wu Jingzi, Yijia fu bing xu. In Zhu Yixuan, ed., Ming Qing xiaoshuo ziliao xuanbian, 2:887.

56 Wu Jingzi, Wenmu shanfang ji, juan 4. Excerpted in Zhu Yixuan, ed., Ming Qing xiaoshuo ziliao xuanbian, 2:891.

57 This point is made even more piquant by the historical fact that, during the Ming, in which RLWS is set, Nanjing was indeed one of the two capitals for the empire. It was made the capital of the empire after the founding of the dynasty in 1368. In 1421 Emperor Yongle moved his imperial court from Nanjing to Beijing, which became the principal capital for the rest of the dynasty, but Nanjing retained both its name and status as the “southern capital.” See Ming shi, 1:99. In 1645, the second year after his inauguration in Beijing, Emperor Shunzhi of the Qing decreed to demote the status of Nanjing and made it the capital of the province of Jiangnan. See Jiang Liangqi, Donghua lu, 80. Among modern scholars, Shang Wei argues that the novel gives Nanjing “its role as the center for the revival of the Confucian ritual by setting it in a binary contrast with Beijing, the political center of the empire,” and he also suggests that the literati taste and sensibility in Nanjing contrasts with the “philistines, hypocrites, and shams” in the other Jiangnan city of Hangzhou (Rulin waishi and Cultural Transformation, 291).

58 Lunyu, “Taipo.” In Liu Baonan, annotated, Lunyu zhengyi, Zhuzi jicheng, 1:154.

59 Li Hanqiu, Rulin waishi yanjiu, 81.

60 See, e.g., Huang Zongxi, Mingyi daifang lu, 7–14; Gu Yanwu, Ri zhi lu jishi, juan 16 and juan 17; Gu Yanwu, “Shengyuan lun” (three essays), in Li Guojun, ed., Qingdai qianqi jiaoyu lunzhu xuan, 1:233–237; Cheng Tingzuo, Qingxi wenji, especially juan 9; Ruan Kuisheng, Chayu kehua, especially juan 16.

61 See Liang Zhangju, Zhiyi conghua, 26.

62 Ibid., 4.

63 See the numerous comments on the bagu writing collected in Liang Zhangju’s Zhiyi conghua, especially those by Li Guangdi, Zhang Boxing (1652–1725), Fang Bao (1668–1749), and Yu Zhengxie (1775–1840). It should be noted that the style of the bagu essay was more than a purely formal issue. As it was also referred to as shiwen (modern or contemporary prose), it might, on the one hand, be regarded as a relatively new form of writing and thus carry some appeal as such. On the other hand, the bagu essay, with rigid structural rules of its own, had ties to several other prose forms of past ages. As suggested by the prevailing slogan “use the ancient style in the modern prose” (yi guwen wei shiwen), the bagu essay had certain stylistic affinities to the classics in pristine Confucianism, the parallel prose (pianti wen) of the Han period, and the forceful but largely unadorned writings of Tang-Song essayists, especially Han Yu (768–824), Liu Zongyuan (773–819), Ouyang Xiu (1007–72) and Wang Anshi. It may therefore be argued that the form of the bagu essay was ideologically rooted in a long tradition of prose literature.

64 Stephen J. Roddy, Literati Identity, 54.

65 Gu Yanwu, Ri zhi lu jishi, 16:1247. The so-called shiba fang (eighteen halls) refers to the eighteen associate examiners in assistance to the two principal examiners during the Ming period, each of whom was supposed to read the examination answers on a certain topic in a separate room. A published anthology of sample bagu essays written by such examiners, who were believed to be particularly familiar and skilled with the essay form, was often called shiba fang ke (eighteen-hall printings).

66 Benjamin Elman has noted that the bagu collections compiled by Lü Liuliang, Dai Mingshi (1653–1713), and other early Qing editors “turned the official ranking of eight-legged essays by the examiners inside-out. In effect, there were now two public tribunals for the genre. One derived from the official rankings of candidates. The other represented the views of literati outside the official compounds” (A Cultural History, 409). I suspect that this “unofficial” attitude toward the selected essays may have been an important reason for the popularity of such privately compiled collections.

67 For detailed information and discussions of this particular anthology, see R. Kent Guy, “Fang Pao and the Ch’in-ting Ssu-shu-wen,“ 160–72; Kai-wing Chow, “Discourse, Examination, and Local Elite,” 192–95.

68 Kai-wing Chow, “Discourse, Examination, and Local Elite,” 194.

69 See Liang Zhangju, Zhiyi conghua, 12–13; R. Kent Guy, “Fang Pao and the Ch’inting Ssu-shu-wen,” 164.

70 In his “Daxue bian” (A Scrutiny of the Great Learning), Chen made the assertion: “The language [in the Great Learning] is ostensibly from the sages but the meanings are actually taken from Buddhism. The words are drifting and rootless, deceptive but ultimately going nowhere.” Quoted in Zhao Jihui et al., eds., Zhongguo ruxueshi, 777.

71 See Elman, A Cultural History, 505.

72 Ibid., 506.

73 Naquin and Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century, 66.

74 Elman, A Cultural History, 518–19.

75 For examples of Emperor Kangxi’s remarks against the pseudo moralists, see Jiang Liangqi, Donghua lu, 203 and 315.

76 Jiang Liangqi, Donghua lu, 140 and 149.

77 Quoted in Elman, A Cultural History, 538.

78 Quoted in Zhang Guofeng, Rulin waishi shilun, 96–97.

79 That view may have been shared by many Qing scholars and writers. Wang Shizhen (1634–1711) once met a commoner who was known to be a good poet. When Wang read some of his poems, he found them to be rather awkward. Wang afterward mentioned it to one of his friends, who responded by saying: “That was exactly because the man had never practiced the contemporary essay!” The anecdote was cited approvingly by Liang Zhangju, who observed: “While the contemporary essay is different from poems and archaic writings, one will not be able to present his ideas systematically in those forms without first becoming at home with the bagu essay” (Zhiyi conghua, 35).

80 Rulin waishi huijiao huiping ben, 1:247.

81 Jin He, “Rulin waishi ba,” in Zhu Yixuan, ed., Ming Qing xiaoshuo ziliao xuanbian, 2:919.

82 Hu Shi was the one who first suggested the parallel. See his “Yan-Li xuepai de Cheng Tingzuo,” 132–33.

83 Major cases of literary inquisition during the Yongzheng reign included the Wang Jingqi case in 1726, the Xie Jishi case and the Zha Siting case in 1727, the Zeng Jing case in 1729, the Lu Shengnan case in 1730, the Qu Dajun case and the Fan Shijie case in 1731, and the Shen Lun case and the Wu Maoyu case in 1735, among others. The Qianlong period is also known for its harsh literary inquisition, but most cases were dated later than 1750, after Rulin waishi was completed.

84 Rulin waishi huijiao huiping ben, 1:234.

85 According to Jin He’s “Rulin waishi ba,” Wu Jingzi, soon after moving to Nanjing, led a project joined by other scholars to build a temple called xianxian ci (Sanctuary for the ancient worthies) in the southern outskirts of the city, in honor of Tai Bo and over two hundred and thirty other sages. See “Rulin waishi ba,” in Zhu Yixuan, ed., Ming Qing xiaoshuo ziliao xuanbian, 2:918.

86 See, e.g., Hu Shi, “Yan-Li xuepai de Cheng Tingzuo”; Chen Meilin, “Yan-Li xueshuo dui Wu Jingzi de yingxiang,” in his Wu Jingzi yanjiu, 1–14; Paul Ropp, Dissent in Early Modern China, 76 and 105; Stephen Roddy, Literati Identity, 63–73; Shang Wei, Rulin waishi and Cultural Transformation, 36–52; Li Hanqiu, Rulin waishi yanjiu, 78–80; Zhang Guofeng, Rulin waishi shilun, 9–18. Zhang, however, warns against attaching too much importance to Wu Jingzi’s tie to the Yan-Li school. He suggests that Gu Yanwu and Huang Zongxi’s influence on Wu was perhaps just as significant.

87 Zhong Ling, Yan Xizhai xiansheng yanxing lu, 20.

88 Qian Mu has observed that while Yan Yuan was staunch in rejecting textual studies, his disciple Li Gong “was not completely able to follow the master’s path.” See Qian Mu, Guoxue gailun, 267. Engaged in annotating the classics such as Lunyu, Zhongyong, Shou yi, and Shi jing, Li Gong demonstrated an interest in textual scholarship that placed him in a kinship with scholars of the Qian-Jia Han Learning.

89 Li Gong, Lun xue, juan 2, quoted in Zhao Jihui et al., eds., Zhongguo ruxue shi, 781.

90 It is interesting to note that the word shixue, or in the same sense, shi, is used a couple of times in The Scholars, quite ironically, to refer to a mastery of the bagu skills. In chapter 3, Fan Jin rebukes the examination candidate Wei Haogu for wasting his time on “miscellaneous studies” (zaxue) while “neglecting the real business” (buwushi) (RLWS 36–37). In chapter 10, Compiler Lu (Lu Bianxiu) speaks of Yang Zhizhong in front of the visiting Lou brothers: “Among people like him, many appear to be brilliant but few have genuine learning [shixue]. If he is truly a good scholar, why did he fail to pass the examinations?” (RLWS 127).

91 This is basically consistent with C. T. Hsia’s division of the novel into three parts “flanked by a prologue and an epilogue.” According to Hsia, part 1 (chaps. 2–30) is about those “in search of rank, fame, and wealth.” Part 2 (chaps. 31–37) is about “the good scholars” who “gather to perform the ritual of worship at the Tai Bo Temple.” Part 3 (chaps. 37–54) “comprises a miscellaneous group of stories without apparent design” (The Classic Chinese Novel, 224). The verdict that the final part is “without apparent design,” however, may well be debatable, as my discussion shows.

92 Stephen Roddy, Literati Identity, 137.

93 Marston Anderson, “The Scorpion in the Scholar’s Cap,” 268.

94 C. T. Hsia, The Classic Chinese Novel, 237

95 Shang Wei, Rulin waishi and Cultural Transformation, 90.

96 Robert Hegel has made this comment on the conclusion of Water Margin: “The novel thus ends where it began, with little accomplished and no new era of reinvigorated rule to replace the corruption of the past.” See Hegel, Reading Illustrated Fiction, 31.

97 Hu Yiming and Zhou Yueliang, Rulin waishi yu Zhongguo shi wenhua, 33.

98 Shang Wei, Rulin waishi and Cultural Transformation, 87.

CHAPTER 5. THE STONE IN DREAM OF THE RED CHAMBER

1 While information of Cao Xueqin’s life remains inadequate, several poems by Cao’s friends Dunmin and Duncheng, marginalized members of the Manchu imperial clan, offer us a glimpse into the novelist’s wretched situation in Beijing. For Cao’s relationship to Dunmin and Duncheng, see Wu Enyu, “Dunmin, Duncheng he Cao Xueqin”; for selected poems by the two Manchu poets, see Yi Su, ed., Honglou meng juan, 1–7.

2 Qing Gaozong shilu, juan 3, 9:195–96.

3 Ibid., juan 211, 11:709.

4 Ibid., juan 227, 11:933.

5 Philip Kuhn, Soulstealers, 221, original italics.

6 Ibid., 232.

7 According to the late Qing scholar Li Yuerui (1862–1927), some of the leading scholars of the Qianlong period sank to an unprecedented depth in their efforts to curry favor with the throne. Li claimed that the volumes of Twenty-Four Histories (Ershisi shi), a compendium that was compiled under Emperor Qianlong’s auspices, were filled with errors. Instead of results of negligence on the part of the compilers, these errors, as Li Yuerui believed, were deliberately created in order to be corrected by Qianlong, the ultimate proofreader. The emperor and scholars colluded with each other to create an illusion of the ruler’s academic superiority over the scholars. Ironically, Qianlong took delight in the flattery but not the toil of proofreading itself, leaving many of the errors permanent on the pages. See Wang Xuetai, “Kang Yong Qian san chao duiyu shiren de xunhua.”

8 Cao Xueqin and Gao E, Honglou meng, henceforward HLM, 2:436; The Story of the Stone, trans. David Hawkes and John Minford, henceforward SS, 2:206.

9 Wang Xuetai, Youmin wenhua yu Zhongguo shehui, 69–70.

10 Contemporary Chinese scholar Liu Weiwei has noticed the change from the late Ming to the Qianlong period, using two scholar-artists, Xu Wei (1521–93) and Zheng Xie (i.e., Zheng Banqiao; 1693–1765), as examples. While Xu was dejected and eventually became deranged after he was compelled to give up his aspiration for a bureaucratic career and became a high-ranking official’s staff member, Zheng calmly resigned from his office to become a professional painter. See Liu Weiwei, “Wan Ming yu Qing zhongye shanren xintai bijiao yanjiu.”

11 Naquin and Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century, 124.

12 Most of such accounts are to be found in volume 5 and volume 9 of Qing bai lei chao. For failed examination scholars’ professions, also see Ping-ti Ho, The Ladder of Success, 35–37 and 303; Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy in Ch’ing China; Naquin and Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century, 123–27; Robert Hegel, Reading Illustrated Fiction in Late Imperial China, 13–17.

13 Li Chen considers legal counseling a major profession for former examination candidate during the Qing. By Li’s estimate, there could be “more than 3,000 legal advisors working in the local yamen in any given year” during the eighteenth century. See Li Chen, “Legal Specialists,” 24.

14 In the jiaxu manuscript copy, there is a marginal note by Red Inkstone (Zhiyanzhai) that reads: “Xueqin used to have a book Fengyue baojian with a preface by his younger brother Tangcun. Now Tangcun has passed away. When I saw the new [text] it reminds me of the old [text], and that was why I still followed it [gu reng yin zhi].” See Zhiyanzhan chongping Shitouji: Jiaxu ben, henceforward Jiaxu ben, 15. In the Jiaxu ben, the quote attributed to the novelist is included in the “Fanli,” which precedes the opening chapter and is separated from the chapter head by a half-blank page. According to Wu Shichang, the “Fanli” was formerly Tangcun’s preface to Cao Xueqin’s Fengyue baojian, possibly an early version of his Honglou meng. Wu speculates that Red Inkstone followed the format in Fengyue baojian by retaining Tangcun’s preface in the new text of Honglou meng in commemoration of Cao Xueqin’s dead brother. See Wu Shichang, Honglou tanyuan, 107–8.

15 That practice in the gengchen text is then followed by all later recensions, including the earliest typographic editions (1791 and 1792) sponsored by Cheng Weiyuan and Gao E. In this study, I still refer to this opening statement of the novel as “Fanli,” for the sake of convenience.

16 Wai-yee Li, Enchantment and Disenchantment, 164.

17 Jiaxu ben, 5.

18 Jiaxu ben, 16–17.

19 Yu Pingbo (1900–90), for example, believed the quote in the “Fanli” to be the most reliable channel for getting to know Cao Xueqin and his state of mind at the time of writing the novel: “If we do not even believe Mr. Cao’s own words in the preface, what can be more reliable evidence?” See his “Honglou meng bian,” 504.

20 For instance, the Southern Song (1127–1279) official Zhang Jun (1097–1164), one of the most staunch advocates of resistance against the invasion of the Jin (1115–1234), was praised as having achieved the “meritorious deeds of mending the heaven and bathing the sun” (butian yuri zhi gong). See Chen Bangzhan, Song mo jishi benmo, 16.9/a. In Cheng Shilong and Chen Si’s Liang Song mingxian xiaoji, one sees these lines in Chen Si’s elegy on Yue Fei (1103–42), the best known Southern Song anti-Jin general who was imprisoned and then executed by his political enemies: “Please collect those frail bones mottled with stains of moss, / And present them to our emperor as stones for mending the heaven” (356.1/b). Southern Song poet Xin Qiji (1140–1207) left us these lines expressing his tenacity to fight for the imperial state when the northern half of the empire was occupied by the Jin: “A man now has his heart hardened like steel, / In an effort to mend the fracture of the heaven.” See Jiaxuan ci, 1.8/a-b.

21 Huang Tingjian, Shangu ji waiji, 2.11/a.

22 Y. H. Zhao, The Uneasy Narrator, 118.

23 Jiaxu ben, 1.

24 One of the most famous uses of the term is in the Confucian Analects, where Confucius dwells on the moral desirability of empathizing with others: “Now the man of perfect virtue, wishing to be established himself, seeks also to establish others; wishing to be distinguished himself, he seeks to distinguish others. To be able to judge of others by what is nigh in ourselves [nengjin qupi]—this may be called the art of virtue.” See Legge, Confucian Analects, 194. Later, qupi became a key notion in Chinese understanding of the linguistic sign, suggesting the formation of many of the written characters as combinations of both mimetic and analogic elements in language. In Shuowen jiezi, Xu Shen (58?–147) considers qupi a crucial principle in forming the semantic-phonetic ideographs, or xingshengzi: “What are called xingsheng are those graphs that are named after the matter and supplemented by an analogic component [yi shi wei ming, qupi xiangcheng]. The graphs jiang and he are examples.” See Shuowen jiezi (Siku quanshu ed.), 15.2/a.

25 As related in the opening chapter of the novel, the narrative inscribed on the surface of the mythic stone is brought into a long process of transmission, and five different titles are used at different stages of that process: “Shitou ji” (Story of the Stone), “Qingseng lu” (Record of Brother Amour), “Fengyue baojian” (Magic mirror for the romantic), “Honglou meng” (Dream of red mansions), and “Jinling shier chai” (Twelve Beauties of Jinling). While they could have been titles that Cao Xueqin tentatively used at different times for his work, they refer in chapter 1 to the inscription on the stone, rather than the novel itself. All known versions of the novel are titled either Shitou ji, as in the cases of the two earliest manuscript copies Jiaxu ben and Gengchen ben, or Honglou meng, as in the cases of Qi xu ben (a manuscript copy with a preface by Qi Liaosheng) and the Cheng-Gao typographic editions. In the “Fanli” at the beginning of the Jiaxu ben, three titles, Honglou meng, Shitou ji, and Fengyue baojian, are mentioned, but only Honglou meng is said to be the general title for the whole novel (zong qi quanbu zhi ming). See Jiaxu ben, 1.

26 Jiaxu ben, 11.

27 On the relationship between the Stone and Baoyu, there is an inconsistency in different versions of the novel. In the early manuscript copies like Jiaxu ben and Gengchen ben, the Stone is transformed into a jade of the size of a fan-pendant, either by the two wandering immortals or by its own magic power. When Divine Luminescent Page (Shenying Shizhe) is reincarnated as Baoyu to fulfill his predestined tragic love with Crimson Pearl Plant (Jiangzhu Xiancao), who is to be reborn as Lin Daiyu, the jade comes to the mundane world with Baoyu, contained in the boy’s mouth. In the Cheng-Gao editions, however, both the jade and Divine Luminescent Page who is to be reincarnated as Baoyu are said to be metamorphoses of the magic Stone. In the early manuscript copies, which seem to suggest a bifurcation of Baoyu and the baoyu (the precious jade transformed from the Stone), the latter is on several occasions granted the status of a detached observer or a scribe. Yet the narrative is by no means consistent in that regard, which may have necessitated the revision in the Cheng-Gao editions. Obviously this is not the occasion to discuss this issue fully. Suffice it to say, it may be well advised to consider Baoyu and the baoyu as two complementary components of the mythic Stone’s sublunary existence. That seems to be corroborated by the fact in the novel that each time the jade is lost Baoyu becomes ill. Toward the closure of 120-chapter version of the novel, the novelist seems to have a good reason in making Zhen Shiyin say: “Baoyu is the Stone, the precious jade” (Baoyu, ji baoyu ye) (HLM 4:1518; SS 5:371).

28 Anthony Yu, Rereading the Stone, 179.

29 In chapter 5, when Goddess Disenchantment shows Baoyu the pictures and poems portending the fates of the girls around him, she begins to fear that she might be “in danger of becoming responsible for a leakage of celestial secrets,” as she is aware how “intelligent and sharp-witted” Baoyu is (HLM 1:58; SS 1:135–36). In a marginal note, Red Inkstone observes: “Throughout the book all the words denigrate Baoyu and all the people ridicule Baoyu. All of a sudden these words come out of Disenchantment’s mind. It is indeed a message that goes beyond all the other messages (yiwai zhi yi)!” See Jiaxu ben, 140.

30 What Jia Dairu says here carries a striking affinity to what Mr. Lu says to his daughter in chapter 11 of Rulin waishi, where he regards the skills in the examination composition as essential and prerequisite for all other forms of literary writings: “If you write bagu essays well, then whatever literary form you use—and this applies even to lyrics or descriptive poems—you will express yourself forcefully and exactly. If, however, you cannot write bagu essays well, then all your writing will be unorthodox and third-rate” (Rulin waishi, 139; The Scholars, 142).

31 Anthony Yu argues that Jia Baoyu’s father and tutor express “a deeply entrenched view of what constitutes intellectual priority and ethical obligation for a young man of Bao-yu’s social status and upbringing.” See Anthony Yu, Rereading the Stone, 181.

32 In Ming shi there is this statement about the curriculum of the examinations during the Ming period: “The civil service examinations followed the past models of the Tang and the Song, but the approach of evaluation was slightly modified: Questions for official selection were exclusively based on the Four Books and the Five Classics. . . . This was all decided by Emperor Taizu and Liu Ji” (juan 70, 6:1693). Despite the mention of the Tang and Song in that statement, however, Ming examination curriculum was closer to the Yuan model. One reason, according to Benjamin Elman, “was to get away from the purely literary criteria for the selection of imperial officials” that had been prevalent during part of the Tang and Song periods. Zhu Yuanzhang’s personal distrust in literary talent may also have led to his political partiality for examination candidates from the culturally less developed north. See Elman, A Cultural History, 89–90.

33 Chen Maotong, Zhongguo lidai xuanguan zhidu, 369.

34 Dong Qichang, Rongtai bieji, juan 1; quoted in Qian Zhongshu, Qian Zhongshu lunxue wenxuan, 3:339.

35 Zhuoyuanting zhuren, Zhao shi bei, 62.

36 This rhetorical question, in two rhymed heptasyllabic lines in the Chinese original (Dangjin tianzi zhong wenzhang, zuxia hexu jiang Han-Tang), is most likely not the novelist’s invention but may have been a common witticism among scholars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Chen Jitai, a late Ming scholar, had tried to borrow from his uncle a copy of Can Tang (The late Tang) before he eventually succeeded in the jingshi examinations in 1634. As the book was obviously irrelevant to the examination learning, the uncle replied in two lines that were only slightly different from Zhou Jin’s in Rulin waishi: “Dangjin tianzi zhong wenzhang, zuxia hexue song Han-Tang” (Since the emperor attaches importance to the [eight-legged] essays, why should you read about the Han and Tang dynasties?). See Chen Dongyuan, Zhongguo jiaoyu shi, 344.

37 Maram Epstein considers Jia Zheng’s departure an event that marks the shift toward “the aesthetic values associated with qing” in the garden: “From this point on, the cousins engage in poetry competitions, landscape painting, and musical composition.” See Epstein, Competing Discourses, 158.

38 Wang Xilian, “Xinping xiuxiang Honglou meng quanzhuan juanshou.” Excerpted in Zhu Yixuan, ed., Ming Qing xiaoshuo ziliao xuanbian, 2:680.

39 Jiaxu ben, 19.

40 If the magic Stone takes a biform sublunary existence in both Baoyu and the baoyu (jade), the former is indisputably its principal agent that is responsible for the making of the “Story of the Stone.” Cao Xueqin from the outset may have attempted to create a fictional “author” of the stone fiction, but because of a dualistic approach to the jade and its human double, the authorship is sometimes attributed solely to the jade. One example is in chapter 15. When Baoyu threatens to “settle accounts” in bed with his friend Qin Zhong, the jade cunningly refuses to go into details, citing its limited “point of view” caused by the fact that Wang Xifeng has put it under her pillow for the night (HLM 1:170; SS 1:300). Yet the jade’s “point of view” obviously is not sustainable in the narrative, as it is not consistently in a position to witness all narrative events. Later editors of the novel may have been aware of that difficulty. In chapter 18 in the gengchen manuscript copy, when Yuanchun pays a visit to her family, the jade once again comes to the foreground of the narrative, marveling on the spectacular and extravagant scene and reminiscing about the misery and loneliness it once experienced as the abandoned stone block at the foot of the mountain. See Zhiyanzhai chongping Shitou ji: Gengchen ben, (henceforward Gengchen ben), 1: 377–78. That passage dramatizing the jade as a narrator separate from Baoyu came to be deleted in the Cheng-Gao typographic editions.

41 Wai-yee Li has observed that Dream of the Red Chamber is “probably more burdened with the implications of the reality-illusion, truth-falsehood (zhen-jia) dialectics, and the idea of emptiness (kong) than any other work in the Chinese xiaoshuo (narrative fiction) tradition.” See Li’s Enchantment and Disenchantment, 155–56.

42 Anthony C. Yu, Rereading the Stone, 141.

43 This is indicated by the word “therefore,” or gu in the original: “He therefore concealed the real events and, by means of the Precious Jade of Luminous Intelligence, related this story of the stone.” In her Enchantment and Disenchantment, Wai-yee Li has noticed this peculiar usage with insight: “The leap of logic in the word ‘therefore’ conceals a break between experience and the representation of experience. The causal connection asserted is fraught with ambiguity” (157). From the stance I am assuming here, that “break” can also be said to be between the dreams as mental/psychological illusions and a fiction as a textual illusion. In that sense what is concealed here is of course the entire process of fiction making. But that concealment may have been a deliberate one, as that missing gap is to be filled by the novel itself, which is, to reiterate, both a fiction and a fiction about the making of that fiction.

44 “Nonbeginning [Wushi] said: ‘He who responds when asked about the Way does not know the Way. Thus, although one may ask about the Way, he doesn’t learn anything about it. For the Way is not to be asked about, and questions about the Way are not to be answered. If one asks about what is not to be asked about, the question is futile. If one answers what is not to be answered, the answer is inane. In this fashion, those who counter futility with inanity are unobservant of the universe without and unaware of the great origin within. Thus they cannot pass over Kunlun and wander in grand emptiness [bu you hu taixu].’” See Victor H. Mair, trans., Wandering on the Way, 220.

45 Kong Yingda, Zhouyi zhushu, 11.19/b-20/a.

46 Zhang Zai et al., Zhangzi zhengmeng, 86–87. According to Fung Yu-lan, Zhang Zai’s theory of taixu and qi takes as its premise certain ideas in the Book of Changes (Yi jing). See Fung Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, 2:481. It is beyond any doubt that Cao Xueqin was familiar with the theory about taixu and qi. In chapter 31, Shi Xiangyun tries to enlighten one of the maidservants by saying: “The yin and the yang are from the ether. It is the ether that endows on things their distinctive forms” (HLM 2:378; SS 2:122, translation modified).

47 The concept of qi played a prominent role in the thought of Cheng Yi (1033–1107), who believed that the evolution and transformation (hua) of qi was responsible for the spontaneous generation of all forms of existence. Zhang Zai’s influence was quite obvious, even though Cheng Yi did not acknowledge it explicitly. Assimilating Zhang Zai’s proposition that taixu is filled with the material force of qi, Zhu Xi, as one modern scholar puts it, revised Zhang’s philosophical system “by subordinating material force to principle, so that the principle became the ruler of material force.” See Ren Jiyu, “Chu Hsi and Religion,” in Wing-tsit Chan, ed., Chu Hsi and Neo-Confucianism, 363.

48 Among the Ming-Qing thinkers, Wang Fuzhi was probably the one most interested in the concepts of taixu and qi. In his annotation of Zhangzi zhengmeng, Wang makes this comment on the movement of qi in the space of taixu: “When [the ether] is dispersed into the Great Void, it resumes its original form of the mist [yinyun], but it does not become annihilated. When it condenses and gives births to all kinds of things, it is not a magic trick but caused by the constant nature of the mist. . . . The dispersion and condensation of the ether, the beginning and end of lives, the movements back and forth, in and out, are all spontaneous with an intrinsic tendency and cannot be stopped” (Zhangzi zhengmeng, 87). Modern Chinese scholar Hou Wailu considers the yinyun in Wang Fuzhi’s thinking quite close to the philosophical—although not scientific—concept of “material.” See Hou Wailu, Zhongguo sixiang tongshi, 5:57–58.

49 Shuen-fu Lin, “Chia Pao-yu’s First Visit to the Land of Illusion,” 78.

50 The Tang empress Wu Zetian is fictionalized in numerous works of premodern fiction, regularly as a beautiful but ruthless female ruler with an insatiable appetite for both power and sex. Lady Yang, whose name was Yang Yuhuan (719–56), was the favorite concubine of Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–56) of the Tang. The tragic love between them, celebrated in Bai Juyi’s (772–846) famous poem “Changhen ge” (Song of everlasting regret), is repeatedly reenacted in works of fiction such as Sui-Tang yanyi (A popular history of the Sui and the Tang) and Shuo Tang (Telling of the Tang). Even in fictional works where she does not appear as a character, she is frequently referred to as a typical plump beauty. Flying Swallow, whose name was Zhao Feiyan (?–1 BCE), was the empress of Emperor Cheng (Cheng Di) (r. 32–7 BCE) of the Han. She is often celebrated in premodern Chinese fiction as the best representative of female slimness and gracefulness, especially in contrast with the buxom beauty of Lady Yang. Xi Shi, who lived in the fifth century BCE, was a native of the kingdom of Yue. Like Lady Yang, Xi Shi is frequently evoked in the xiaoshuo tradition as both a stunning beauty and a femme fatale. Hong-niang is a maidservant in the chuanqi story “Yingying zhuan” by the Tang poet Yuan Zhen (779–831). She serves as a facilitator of the love affair between her beautiful mistress Yingying and the young scholar Student Zhang (Zhang Sheng). The story later provided the subject matter for Wang Shifu’s (fl. 1280) play Xixiang ji (Romance of the Western Wing), which happens to be one of the favorite books for both Baoyu and Daiyu in Dream of the Red Chamber.

51 The novel does not mention Baoyu’s reading of any titles in fictional literature until chapter 23. When Baoyu feels bored, his servant Tealeaf buys him copies of fictional works from outside the Jia residence, including the ones about Flying Swallow, Empress Wu Zetian, and Lady Yang. Indeed these are exactly some of the figures that the decorative objects in Qin Shi’s room are associated with, which corroborates the conjecture that the décor of Qin Shi’s room does not suggest romantic love so much as fictional sensuality. That Baoyu is not shown reading any such books in earlier chapters does not mean he has his first contact with those books in chapter 23. Actually, when he receives those books from Tealeaf, he is obviously already well acquainted with their contents: he “took one look at this gift and was enraptured,” even before he read a single line in any of those volumes (HLM 1:268; SS 1:462).

52 Jiaxu ben, 127.

53 Shuen-fu Lin, “Chia Pao-yü’s First Visit,” 101.

54 Jiaxu ben, 130.

55 Yu Yingshi has pointed out that the Great Prospect Garden is “an earthly projection of the Illusory Land of Great Void.” Yu suggests that the description of the scenery in the garden in chapter 17 can be considered “an elaboration and enlargement” (jiaxiang he fangda) of what Baoyu sees on his arrival at the celestial land. See Yu Yingshi, “Honglou meng de liangge shijie,” 38.

56 Pan Zhonggui, Honglou meng xinjie, 92.

57 At the start of the song-and-dance suite of Honglou meng, Disenchantment cautions Baoyu that only those who are “in the know” (gezhongren) will be able to follow the meaning of the performance (HLM 1:60). In an interlinear note Red Inkstone asks: “Who are those that are in the know? Is Baoyu in the know? Is the Stone in the know? Is the author? Is the reader?” (Jiaxu ben, 144). Surprisingly, Red Inkstone does not include Disenchantment in his suggested list of possible “knowers,” but obviously the goddess is more “in the know” than any other characters in the novel.

58 The line appears in the form of a question: “Since first the world from chaos rose, who is the most constant lover?” (HLM 1:60; SS 1:138, translation modified). Red Inkstone answers that question in his interlinear note: “Who else can that lover be if not the author? On second thought, I say anew: Not the author but the Stone” (Jiaxu ben, 145).

59 The name Qin Keqing, as has been suggested by numerous scholars and critics, can pun on different homophonic structures: qing-ke-qin (to be endeared for her passion), qing-ke-qing (to be toppled with passion), and qing-ke-qing (to be disdained for her passion). Toward the end of chapter 8, one is informed that Qin Shi has another name, Jianmei, which is identical to that of Disenchantment’s younger sister. But throughout the novel nobody ever refers to Qin Shi by that name.

60 In chapter 111, the novel offers a gloss of qing in the words of Qin Keqing’s spirit, where qing is called the “natural state” of love before the stirring of the passion within (weifa zhi qing): “Earthlings treat lust and love as one and the same thing. By this means they practice all manner of lechery and immorality, and pass it off as ‘harmless romance.’ They do not understand the true meaning of the word ‘love’ [qing]. Before the emotions of pleasure, anger, grief and joy stir within the human breast, there exists the ‘natural state’ of love; the stirring of these emotions causes passion. Our kind of love, yours and mine, is the former, natural state. It is like a bud. Once open, it ceases to be true love” (HLM 4:1402; SS 5:210).

61 In a marginal note, Red Inkstone exclaims: “Marvelous! It refers to itself as having fallen to the root of passions and therefore useless for the restoration of heaven.” See Jiaxu ben, 7.

62 Ibid., 351.

63 Ibid., 58.

64 The four imperial visits to Cao Yin’s residence took place in 1699, 1703, 1705, and 1707. For an account of those visits, see Jonathan Spence, Ts’ao Yin and the K’ang-hsi Emperor, 138–51.

65 Jiaxu ben, 339.

CODA

1 Yu Yingshi, “Qian Mu yu xin rujia,” 51.

2 David Swartz, Culture and Power, 89.

3 Bakhtin has observed that an authoritative discourse is “located in a distanced zone, organically connected with a past that is felt to be hierarchically higher. It is, so to speak, the word of the fathers. Its authority was already acknowledged in the past. It is a prior discourse.” See Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, 342; original italics.

4 To some extent, this “centrifugal” force in Chinese vernacular fiction is comparable to that in the Western novel. Discussing the novelistic discourse, Bakhtin writes: “In the history of literary language, there is a struggle constantly being waged to overcome the official line with its tendency to distance itself from the zone of contact, a struggle against various kinds and degrees of authority.” Ibid., 345.

5 Feng Menglong, Yushi mingyan, 1.

6 Naquin and Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century, 59.

7 Gui Zhuang Ji, juan 3. Quoted in Zhao Zifu, Mingdai xuexiao yu keju zhidu yanjiu, 304.

8 Li Yu quanji, 1:165.

9 Mianxingtang shiji, juan 2. Quoted in Zhu Yixuan, ed., Ming Qing xiaoshuo ziliao xuanbian, 2:899.

10 Jin Shengtan, in particular, was persistent in using caizi to refer to Shi Nai’an, whom he believed to be the writer of Water Margin, the novel that he called The Fifth Book of Genius.

11 In Wang Yangming’s epitaph for a scholar-turned-merchant Fang Lin, Fang is said to have retorted his friend’s question on his change of profession by saying: “How do you know that a scholar cannot become a merchant and a merchant cannot become a scholar?” Citing Wang Yangming’s epitaph, Yu Yingshi considers Fang Lin a relatively early example of a scholar’s conversion to commerce, an example to be followed by many more literati in the later Ming and Qing. See Yu Yingshi, Shi yu Zhongguo wenhua, 525–40.

12 One example is Yu Xiangdou (fl. 1596), a publisher and bookseller of vernacular fiction in Jianyang. Timothy Brook describes the ways in which the merchant meticulously affected a scholar’s style and demeanor in an idealized portrait of himself. See Brook, The Confusions of Pleasure, 213.

13 Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel, 32.

14 Robert E. Hegel, Reading Illustrated Fiction, 59.

15 For a discussion of the broad and heterogeneous readership of vernacular fiction in late imperial China, see Hegel, Reading Illustrated Fiction in Late Imperial China, 63–65.

16 Using Water Margin as example, Liangyan Ge has presented a discussion of the significance and impact of written Chinese vernacular as a new literary language for fiction. See Ge, Out of the Margins, 186–97.

17 Pu Songling, Liaozhai zhiyi, 562.

18 Feng Menglong, Yushi mingyan, 1.

19 Edward LiPuma, “Culture and the Concept of Culture in a Theory of Practice,” 19.

20 To be sure, early Qing scholars, including Gu Yanwu and Wang Fuzhi, denounced the influence of Wang Yangming and his disciples in the leftist Taizhou school, especially Li Zhi, as a reason for the collapse of the Ming rule. That, however, does not change the fact that their own ideas were largely developed on the basis of Wang’s thinking. Liang Qichao, in his Zhongguo jin sanbainian xueshushi, put it this way: “They all had once been—perhaps they would be unwilling to acknowledge it—nurtured in the bosom of their ‘mother,’ the Wang Yangming school” (15).