NOTES
ABBREVIATIONS
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TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION
1 Its relative tranquility moved one literary scholar to characterize the era as “a uniquely dull period in the history of Chinese civilization.” See Bryant, “Poetry,” 400.
2 This final function was undertaken by the Censorate, whose personnel often commanded immense prestige and reported directly to the throne.
3 The same pattern took place in the second century during the Eastern Han dynasty, with disastrous consequences.
4 Langlois, “Hung-wu,”140.
5 In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Buddhism revived, thanks to renewed state patronage and scholar-officials dissatisfied with sterile Confucian orthodoxy.
6 In this case, “brushed” implies a sense of casualness, as if the brush and not the author did the writing. One label for this genre is suibi (following the brush).
7 Why the drop? First, China’s economy and publishing industry experienced prolonged decline during the Yuan-Ming transition (1350–1370) and the Ming’s first century, because of armed conflict, social dislocation, and state policies. Second, court gossip had long been a staple of biji, but the early Ming’s political turmoil made recording palace affairs a difficult and potentially dangerous enterprise. As Hok-lam Chan noted, “During the century [1398–1498], there were few attempts among private historians, partly because of the lingering imperial taboo and partly because of the inaccessibility or lack of verifiable sources, to write the history of Ming T’ai-tsu’s reign.” See Chan, “Ming T’ai-tsu’s Manipulation,” 42.
8 The two works are Shudong riji by Ye Sheng (1420–1474) and Shuanghuai suichao by Huang Yu (1425–1497).
9 Xie, Ming-Qing biji congtan, 5–7. In his magisterial survey of the genre, Chen Wenxin said that Lu’s work “stands out apart from the hollow intellectual climate of the Ming dynasty.” See Chen, Zhongguo biji xiaoshuo shi, 442.
10 Extensive uses of Lu’s work appear in Smith, “Impressions,” and Brook, Troubled Empire. Many excerpts are also cited in an authoritative collection of Ming socioeconomic primary sources. See Xie, Mingdai shehui jingji.
11 See Zhang, Ming shi, 286.7342.
12 Basic biographies include Wu, “Lu gong mubeiming,” in Qian, Wudu wencui xuji, 44.49b–53a; Cheng, “Canzheng Lu gong zhuan,” in Cheng, Huangdun wenji, 50.25b–29b; and “Lu Rong,” in Guo Tinxun, Benchao fensheng renwu kao, 21.7a–8b.
13 Qian, Wudu wencui xuji, 44.49b–53a.
14 Cheng, Huangdun wenji, 50.25b–29b.
15 “Lu Rong,” in Guo Tinxun, Benchao fensheng renwu kao, 21.7a–8b.
16 “Shizhai gao xu,” in Wang Ao, Wang Ao ji, 210–11.
17 For example, Wu Kuan’s collected works total seventy-eight chapters, and those of Cheng Minzheng ninety-three chapters. Ye Sheng’s collected works are not extant, but forty chapters of his memorials survive.
18 The bibliography section of the Ming dynastic history lists the work with thirty-eight chapters, rather than the thirty-seven chapters extant today. See Zhang, Ming shi, 99.2469. A manuscript copy was made in 1726. Copies of this text and the 1501 edition are in the National Central Library in Taipei, and microfilm copies are in the Library of Congress and Princeton University Library.
19 Wang Ao hints at this possibility in his preface. Wang praises Lu’s written work but does not quote from it, or reminisce about their friendship. His preface groups Lu with the Kunshan literati, Zhang Tai (1468 jinshi) and Lu Yi (1463 jinshi), whom Lu associated with. Wang’s remarks begin with comments on these two other men before turning to Lu Rong. Lu Rong’s work, apparently, did not warrant Wang’s exclusive attention. “Shizhai gao xu,” in Wang Ao, Wang Ao ji, 210–11.
20 SXW 21.1a–11b. Lu at the time was gentlemen of the interior at the Ministry of War, and its 5b ranking placed him at the tenth rung of the eighteen-rung bureaucratic hierarchy. The dynasty’s own political history, Veritable Records (Shilu), has several references to Lu, and a summary of this memorial receives by far the most space. See Ming Xiaozong jing huangdi shilu, 20.470–74.
21 “Lienü zan yin,” SXW, 37.5b–6a. Lu notes that such illustrated collections were widespread. That he had the pictures painted for him suggests the paucity of printed works in the mid-fifteenth century. For more on this topic in later centuries, see Carlitz, “Social Uses.”
22 In fact, Xu eventually had five daughters, raising the possibility that this exchange with Lu took place even earlier. See Wu Kuan, “Huguang Xu jun muzhiming,” in Wu Kuan, Jiacang ji, 60.14b.
23 “Shu Qidong yeyu,” SXW, 32.10b–11a. The two works were Qidong yeyu and Guixin zazhi.
24 “Shu Shuidong riji hou,” SXW, 32.7b–8a.
25 Ye’s memorials survive in great abundance, as seen in the forty-chapter Ye Wenzhuang gong zoushu, but this collection appeared in 1631, long after Lu’s death. In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century catalogs, his other prose and verse works amount to only one or two fascicles.
26 This characterization of the Ming appears in Dardess, Ming China.
27 For a general outline, see Wu Die, “Tan Shuyuan zaji.”
28 McDermott, Village, Land, and Lineage, 269.
CHAPTER ONE: SOCIAL LIFE
1 A “singing loft” can be understood as a fifteenth-century nightclub.
2 Penglai, in Chinese lore, is an island inhabited by immortal beings.
3 Spring breezes are a metaphor for blessings.
4 Jiao rites, linked with the Buddhist and Daoist religions, sought blessings from the gods and to expel harmful spirits.
5 Lau, Mencius, 57 (3A.3).
6 This entry, in both editions, begins with a few sentences concerning astrology that bears no relationship with the rest of the text, and so I have excised it.
7 Lu cites The Book of Rites. See Legge, Li Chi, 90. The original passage, specifying that penal laws governed commoners and ritual prescriptions regulated elites, highlighted the strict distinctions that ought to separate classes. Lu, as we see, interpreted the line very differently.
8 “Inner” and “outer” usually refer to different areas of the household, separated by gender. Lu, however, apparently refers here to different quarters separated by generations.
9 This version appears in a twelfth-century collection of anecdotes. See Shao, Shaoshi wenjian lu, 8.80–81.
10 These are two genres of funerary biographies. Records of conduct were composed first and often were the basis for entombed inscriptions, which were shorter and more prestigious. They might commemorate anyone, both officials and nonofficials, and women as well as men. One copy was engraved in stone and placed in the tomb, and others were on paper and circulated, sometimes very widely.
11 Sima Guang and Wang Anshi were illustrious scholar-officials and political rivals in the late eleventh century.
12 These lines refer to the famous Tang love tale, Yingying zhuan (The story of Yingying).
13 The Prince of Shu was Zhu Chun (1371–1423), the eleventh son of the Ming founder. He was known for his scholarly interests. Lu conflates two events, the reburial of Song’s remains, which took place in the Yongle reign, and the reconstruction of Song’s shrine, carried out in 1485 during the Chenghua reign.
14 Zhang Xun was a Tang dynasty (618–907) official who, although vastly outnumbered, heroically fought off rebel armies until he was surrounded and killed. Cults dedicated to his memory and virtue spread later throughout the empire.
15 Li Han, a late eighth-century official, wrote an account of Zhang Xun’s service for the Tang. The story of Boyou, also known as Liang Xiao, comes from Zuozhuan, a commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals. Zuozhuan was China’s first important narrative history and part of the extended Confucian canon. The account refers to a vengeful ghost feared by the common people. See Durrant, Li, and Schaberg, Zuo Tradition, 1425.
16 The Yulin Army served as the imperial troops during the early Han dynasty. “Yulin” here means “feathered forest,” with the feathers suggesting their swiftness and the forest suggesting their great numbers. The second “Yulin,” pronounced the same way, means “being soaked in the rain” and explains why the temple was built without a roof.
17 The first “Sangu” means “three orphans” and the second one means “three maidens.”
18 Yao was the first Chinese mythical sage-king. His son was named Zhu, and his fief was called Danyuan. He was thus known as Danzhu.
19 The word for “pig,” or zhu 豬, has the same pronunciation as the name of Yao’s son, Zhu 朱. Dan 丹 likewise means “cinnabar,” a very reddish compound used often in China to make red dyes and paints.
20 A prayer wheel, with eight faces. Turning the wheel enables Buddhist devotees to earn karmic merit without reading the scriptures.
21 The wheel handles probably had human figurines.
22 Healthy social customs and strong families, Lu elsewhere noted, produced good genealogies, while disordered, false ones reflected and brought on degenerate social mores. See SXW 16.11a–12a.
23 That is, a victim of injustice.
24 I take “empty and open” to mean unbraided.
25 A genre of romantic Chinese opera, identified with south China.
26 Women bowed twice to men, in Chinese ritual practice.
27 Zhu Xi’s guide to ritual practice was the most influential Confucian ritual manual of late imperial times. Zhu worried that the prospect of such valuables inspired grave robbing. See Ebrey, Chu Hsi’s Family Rituals, 85.
28 Zhu Gaosui (1383–1431), third son of the Yongle emperor. The rams and tigers refer to carved stone sections of the tomb.
29 Such local groups were societies engaged for mutual defense and moral improvement. They sought to fill in the power vacuum left by the disintegration of the lijia system and to curb the ill effects of rural commercialization.
30 An upright if sometimes rash individual, Luo had a short, stormy career. Ming biographies characterize him very favorably, and shrines were built in his honor. Although a few accounts refer to the covenant, only one other one that I have seen confirms the murders reported above, which helps explain Lu’s surprise. Luo’s case represents how the misdeeds of notable men often went unmentioned and how the biji genre provided a forum to reveal such unpleasant matters.
31 Shouguang, a Shandong place-name, refers to Liu Xu (1426–1490). Jiaxing is a Jiangsu place-name, and I do not know whom Lu refers to.
32 In the same text, Ouyang Xiu said that most of his literary composition had taken place on top of three things: horses, pillows, and toilets.
33 Lu cites a couple from a poem in The Book of Songs. See Legge, She King, 276.
34 Spirit road steles, placed on the path leading to the tomb, were stone inscriptions detailing the deceased’s life and generally were reserved for high officials. Grave declarations were stone inscriptions placed right at the grave. Burial records, a relatively rare term, refers to entombed inscriptions.
CHAPTER TWO: FAMILY AND GENDER
1 Although The Biography did not survive, the imperial recognition probably ensured that the affair would be remembered.
2 Women’s fidelity, always an important elite value, took on heightened significance in Yuan and Ming China. For an introduction, see Carlitz, “Shrines.” As this story shows, however, commoner widows did remarry. Moreover, that the son from the first marriage insisted on managing the burial rites illustrates that, despite her remarriage, he still was devoted to his mother, or at least found it necessary to demonstrate his filial piety.
3 That is, she served him like a wife.
4 Titled wives refer to women honored officially by the court and called, for example, Lady of Suitability.
5 Wang suffered this disgrace in 1477 but later recovered and served with distinction on the northwest frontier.
6 Lu does not identify which god, but the presence of blood sacrifices means that the deity did not belong to the Buddhist or Daoist religions and probably was a local god.
7 “Wind and dust” is a term for the brothel quarters.
8 Zhu Yingtai concealed her sex and attended the school dressed as a young man.
9 According to the gazetteer, during the Sun En uprising, the Yin defender-in-chief and eventual founder of the Liu Song dynasty, Liu Yu (366–422), saw Liang in a vision aiding him in his struggle against the Sun En rebels (ca. 399). The rebels eventually fled, and the state built a shrine for Liang to honor his divine intervention. See Ningbo fuzhi, 11.537b.
10 For a thorough introduction and translation of different versions of this extremely famous love story, see Idema, Butterfly Lovers. In the 1950s and 1960s, the story became the subject of highly acclaimed movies made in China and Hong Kong.
11 The term best translates the word lu, an insult denoting uncivilized prisoners and used often by Han writers to refer to hostile foreigners.
12 Yang cited a story said to take place in 62 CE. While picking herbs on Mount Tiantai in Zhejiang, Liu Chen and Ruan Zhao became lost. They met two women immortals, married them, with peaches as part of the wedding feast, and spent “half a year” with them. When they returned home, seven generations of their descendants had passed. The two men were said to disappear eventually, in 383. I have not found the sources for the Han River or Mount Baling references, but Yang clearly casts aspersions on Wang’s virtue.
13 Ye, Shuidong riji, 14.141.
14 Chaupur, a south Asian game of chance, was played in China since the early third century. I have not been able to ascertain precisely the odds that the Xia family faced, but they must have been very long.
15 “Native officials” were non-Han, aboriginal leaders on the southwest frontier, co-opted by the Ming government in its long-term colonization of the region. Offices were hereditary, and native officials, barred from the examination system, had no Confucian education.
16 Seeking a historical precedent, Lu Rong turns to the official history of the Sui dynasty, quoting and summarizing a biography of another accomplished woman in the southwest. See Wei Zheng, Sui shu, 80.1800-–1803.
17 According to Ming law, the presence of those male kin would have prevented her from becoming an official.
CHAPTER THREE: POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
1 The Duanwu festival, held on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, was the most important summer festival in late imperial China. It commemorated the heroic suicide of the poet-statesman Qu Yuan, who drowned on this date in 278 BCE after the Chu kingdom’s ruler heeded the slander of Qu’s enemies and exiled him. The most popular festival activities are dragon boat racing and the making of zongzi, a dish made of glutinous rice and various fillings, wrapped in bamboo leaves.
2 This is a court competition inherited from the foreign Liao (907–1115) and Jin (1115–1234) dynasties and adopted by the Song (960–1279). Willow trees were set up in a field, and archers on galloping horses shot at them. Attending these performances granted viewers considerable prestige. For a study, see Robinson, Martial Spectacles,186–204.
3 This term is not found elsewhere, and I assume Lu refers to a pond on palace grounds.
4 Noteworthy local officials, as seen here, on occasion became cult figures, receiving shrines, offerings, and prayers dedicated to them after they left office. At times, these demonstrations of devotion began while the individual was still living. For this phenomenon in Ming times, see Schneewind, Shrines.
5 This sum would have been about half again as much as the salary granted to the highest-ranking officials, which was 1,044 dan. See Hucker, “Ming Government,” 51.
6 Changes refers to The Book of Changes, known also as the Yijing, one of the five Confucian classics. This excerpt comes from the second part of the “Appended Explanations” section. See Ruan, Zhou yi, 166.
7 The Three Dynasties of remote antiquity are Xia, Shang, and Zhou.
8 Zhou quotes the Confucian philosopher Mencius (f. late fourth century BCE). The full remark is “Goodness alone is insufficient for good government; the law unaided cannot make itself effective.” See Lau, Mencius, 76 (4A.1).
9 Tang and Yu were alternative names for the earliest sage-kings, Yao and Shun.
10 In 1380 Grand Councilor Hu Weiyong (?–1380) was executed on charges of creating a faction and plotting to seize power. The subsequent purge of his associates, followers, and their families led to the deaths of at least fifteen thousand people.
11 In 1390 the state embarked on a new purge of the supposed Hu faction,
12 Qi is a key but nearly untranslatable Chinese concept. It can refer to vital energy, atmospheric conditions, breath, air, and the life force. See Ziporyn, Zhuangzi, 215. Qi is the basic material stuff of the cosmos, both tangible and intangible. Qi is always changing, whether seen in terms of the yin-and-yang balance or in the processes of degeneration and regeneration. The health of a society’s qi depends in large part on the conduct of the ruler and state policies. The concept also plays a central role in Chinese medicine.
13 Lu draws from Lau, Mencius, 45 (2B.5).
14 This lengthy, courageous defense of Confucian values clearly won Lu’s approval and illustrates the greater career and personal security enjoyed by late fifteenth-century officials in comparison with their late fourteenth-century counterparts. Zhou and his memorial appeared in many late Ming and Qing anthologies, and Lu’s entry marks one of the earlier and even perhaps the earliest reference.
15 The South Garden, south of Beijing, was an enclosure where emperors took their leisure and hunted.
16 Zhang Shicheng was one of the Ming founder’s main rivals in the civil wars before 1368.
17 This document, promulgated and revised several times by the Ming founder, dealt mostly with imperial princes.
18 In Grand Pronouncements, issued in the late 1380s, the Ming founder held forth on crime and punishment, and right and wrong, addressing officials and commoners. The work circulated very widely.
19 These four punishments accounted for four of the Five Punishments employed by the short-lived Qin dynasty and other preimperial regimes, which later eras viewed as representing a brutal, pre-Confucian age. Their use would suggest that Ming officials did not know this basic history and that the dynasty lacked the benevolence that certified its political legitimacy.
20 Lu uses the euphemism “northern courtyard” to refer to the emperor’s earlier Mongol captivity.
21 The five military commissions were the dynasty’s most important military officials.
22 During the early 1470s, Ming forces repeatedly defeated Mongol Oirat armies in the northern part of contemporary Shanxi province. Despite these victories and expansion of the Great Wall, the frontier remained insecure. See Dardess, More Than the Great Wall, 219–49.
23 The “imperial palanquin” is the royal carriage and sometimes functioned as a metaphor for the emperor himself.
24 The Chinese considered owls to be inauspicious omens.
25 The Duke of Ying was the title of Zhang Fu (1375/1378–1449), a decorated general who died in the Tumu disaster. Kuang Ye (1385–1449) had opposed Yingzong’s personal participation in the northern campaign. He later accompanied the emperor and died in combat.
26 Esen was head of the Mongol Oirat confederation.
27 Xi Ning was among those captured with Yingzong. While in captivity, Xi urged the Mongols to continue their advance into China. Eventually, the Mongols returned Xi to the Ming state, which soon executed him.
28 After the Tumu debacle, Yu successfully organized Beijing’s defense. His bluntness, though, offended political rivals. They fabricated charges of treason and had him tried and executed after Yingzong’s restoration in 1457.
29 Shi later played a major role in the coup d’état that resulted in Yingzong’s restoration and Yu Qian’s execution. He briefly dominated capital politics, but his excesses led to his imprisonment and execution in 1460.
30 The altars of soil and grain, key parts of imperial ritual, were metaphors for the dynasty.
31 Samarkand, in contemporary Uzbekistan, was the capital of the Timurid Empire. Lions, as early as 1413, had occasionally been part of its tribute package to the Ming.
32 At the suburban temples, the emperor presented sacrifices to heaven, earth, and his ancestors.
33 The Spring and Autumn Annals chronicled political events from 722 to 481 BCE. It was said to have been composed by Confucius, which granted it canonical status. Lu refers to a passage from Zuozhuan, which reads, “The Heaven-appointed king sent Jiafu to us to seek chariots: this was not in accord with ritual propriety. The princes do not offer chariots and official regalia, and the Son of Heaven does not ask for goods.” See Durrant, Li, and Schaberg, Zuo Tradition, 125.
34 Chuogenglu was a large mid-fourteenth-century collection of miscellaneous notes. One entry said, “Lions’ bodies are short and small. They resemble very closely the macaques and dogs that people keep as pets.” See Tao, Chuogenglu, 24.289. For more on the controversies concerning imported exotic animals, see Robinson, Martial Spectacles, 278–357.
35 Lu praised Zhou Chen at length in his eight-point 1488 memorial to the throne. See SXW 21.5a–b.
36 The assumption was that these lands would no longer be taxed.
37 A golden tally served as a certification badge, bestowed by emperors on princes, permitting their entrance and departure to the capital and palace. During the Ming, golden tallies in theory remained under lock and key with the Directorate of Credentials, a palace agency staffed by eunuchs. Only emperors and empress dowagers had the authority to order their dispensation. Yu and Wang were charged with seeking to put Prince Xiang on the throne, instead of the Yingzong emperor.
38 Prince Xiang was Zhu Zhanshan (1406–1478), brother of the Xuande emperor and eldest son of Empress Zhang. The events described here took place in 1435, twenty-two years before charges were brought against Yu and Wang.
39 The three Yangs were Yang Shiqi (1365–1444), Yang Rong (1371–1440), and Yang Pu (1372–1446), who played central roles in early fifteenth-century court politics and national administration.
40 That is, their posthumous reputations would not have been rectified.
41 These scholar-officials all served in the Yuan dynasty government.
42 Xu Heng was a noted neo-Confucian scholar.
43 The additional water would presumably slow the current.
44 For more on the failure of Ming copper coin and paper money to become standard currency, see von Glahn, Fountain of Fortune, 70–97. Hongwu Rhymes established a standard pronunciation for Chinese characters.
45 A li is a small fraction of an ounce. Chinese cash had a square hole in the middle, and one string ideally should link a thousand coins. The coin also bore the reign name in which it was cast. Lu makes the same observation in his eight-point memorial in 1488. See SXW 21.9a.
46 An eighth-century predecessor to Hongwu Rhymes.
47 These remarks on the Ming founder’s legislation suggest how later scholar-officials might fault the policies of those who had created the dynasty. They contrast markedly with the near-universal approval and veneration that Song literati expressed toward their tenth-century founders. See Hartman, “Song History Narratives.”
48 Chen Liang was a Song-dynasty scholar-official. In fact, during the fourth century, the Former Qin occupied the Yellow River plain, the Central Kingdom’s core. The Jin ruled territory south of Yangzi, a region partially civilized in Han ways but still peripheral in the orthodox elite geographical imagination. For more on Chen’s views, see Tillman, “Proto-Nationalism.”
49 Wu Zetian (r. 690–705), the only Chinese empress to rule the empire in her own right.
50 Unmasking conspiracies could earn one promotions and honors.
51 Lu played a major role in bringing Wei to justice, as mentioned in several biographies.
52 The Jurchen Jin dynasty invaded north China in 1127, which sent the Song government fleeing south and commenced a bloody war that ended in 1141 with the Chinese cultural heartland under Jurchen rule. The Grand Councilor Qin Gui, then and centuries later, was seen as the central villain for pursuing appeasement policies and persecuting patriotic figures who sought to recover the north.
53 Gou Jian, ruler of the Yue kingdom, endured decades of personal austerity as he single-mindedly planned to avenge his battlefield loss to the Wu kingdom and his years of captivity there. He eventually destroyed Wu. The two emperors refer to Song Huizhong (r. 1101–1125) and Song Qinzong (r. 1126–1127), whom the Jurchen took away north as their prisoners.
54 Lin’an (lit. “Provisional Security”) was Hangzhou’s name during the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279), connoting that the court’s residence there was temporary and that the Song would soon return north.
55 Hangzhou, with its hills and landmark West Lake, is renowned for its natural beauty.
56 Gaozong’s father, Emperor Huizong, and his half-brother, Emperor Qinzong, died in Jurchen captivity.
CHAPTER FOUR: DEITIES, SPIRITS, AND CLERGY
1 At the battle of Baigou (in Hebei) in 1400, armies supporting the rebellious Prince of Yan, the future Yongle emperor, defeated forces loyal to the Jianwen emperor (r. 1399–1402) in bloody combat.
2 This entry relates a case of spirit-writing, a sort of Chinese séance. After purification rites, people summoned the gods or spirits, and asked them questions. The god or spirit would take possession of a brush or stylus, aided by a human, and provide answers. Both clergy and laypeople conducted such sessions, and the practice continues today.
3 This character can refer to the first star or the first four stars of the Big Dipper constellation. Extended meanings include “the best,” “the first,” or “the leader.” In this case it refers to the top-ranked candidate. The constellation had a central place in Chinese religion and was viewed variously as the source of life and the celestial guardian of the state.
4 The “ghost” 鬼 and “ladle” 斗 refer to the components of the character kui 魁. Brush (bi) and ingot (ding) are puns for biding or “to be sure to.” In other words, the valedictorian is bound to succeed.
5 Chinese tombs usually were located in auspicious sites that would bring security and prosperity to the living and the dead. Geomancy, as this expertise was known, had long been part of Chinese culture. Officials viewed the prospective imperial grave location as especially favorable and did not want the spirits of commoners nearby, perhaps plagued with maleficent influences, to diminish or even pollute the blessings that the imperial spirits could be expected to enjoy.
6 In Nanjing, the Hongwu Gate was the southern gate of the imperial palace. The Chaoyang Gate was the city’s eastern gate, the Tongji Gate faced south, and the Hanxi Gate faced west. In Beijing, the Zhengyang Gate (known today as Qianmen) and the Daming Gate were the southern gates of the Forbidden City. I have not found sources that explicitly discuss these prohibitions. In the Chinese worldview, the emperor faced south, the source of yang forces and their blessings. North was the seat of dark yin forces and baleful influences, and belonged to the dead. Conceivably, bringing the dead through passages linked to yang forces risked polluting these thoroughfares.
7 The Beishang Gate leads north out of the imperial palace in Beijing.
8 A title given to prominent Tibetan clergy managing Buddhist affairs during the Mongol Yuan dynasty.
9 The Register of Sacrifices (Sidian), which listed the deities that received state offerings, in effect defined official religion. Deities not in the register technically were illegitimate, should not receive official patronage, and faced possible state suppression. Growing urbanization late Tang and Song dynasties led to the emergence of cults to the “gods of city walls and moats,” usually called “city gods.” City gods acted as the unseen partners of local officials, who gave offerings to them on seasonal occasions and during emergencies in return for supernatural assistance.
10 Daxinglong Temple, built on an extravagant scale, was completed in 1448, and the court ordered its reconstruction after a fire the next year. In the early sixteenth century, its grounds were converted into a hall for discussing military affairs, and it later became a site for archery practice and tournaments. Dalongfu Temple was finished in 1453 and received court support well into the eighteenth century.
11 In other words, eunuchs ordered their construction. Eunuchs were among the most important patrons of Buddhist temples in Ming Beijing. See Naquin, Temples, 180–85.
12 Marriage granted the deceased a share of the offerings given by the next of kin to the dead and helped lessen the danger that unfulfilled, hungry ghosts might trouble the living. As many ethnographies have shown, these practices continued well into the twentieth century.
13 The term “marchmount” refers to one of the five sacred mountains, which inspired intense religious devotion in dynastic China. One was located in each of the four cardinal directions, as well as in the center of China proper. The eastern marchmount, which received the greatest reverence, is Mount Tai in Shandong.
14 Haoli is located on the southern face of Mount Tai, and its underworld precincts govern the land of the dead. “Thearch” means “divine ruler” and is also part of the Chinese term for emperor.
15 “Krakens,” a term given to legendary water monsters, also refers to crocodiles. The Chinese viewed them as a subspecies of dragons and attributed to them fearsome powers. Another term for these creatures is “flood dragon.”
16 Zhou Chu was a Jin dynasty official, and Xu Xun was a fabled immortal.
17 Reading you 由 as tian 田.
18 Unlike in other dynasties, which relied on canal transportation, the Yuan state also shipped southern grain to its northern capital by ocean-going vessels. The daughter of the Lin family later became the divinized Mazu or Tianfei, worshiped especially by seafaring communities in south China and Southeast Asia to the present day.
19 Zhang Daoling is the putative founder of the organized Daoist religion.
20 Yin usually is associated with women and yang with men, although individuals necessarily possess both qualities.
21 Yao and Shun were the first two sage-kings of high antiquity.
22 A bay is the area, often rectangular, between the four-column spaces supporting a building.
23 I have not been able to find the identity of this person.
24 Zhang Han (fl. early fourth century), who grew homesick while serving at the capital Luoyang, resigned his post, and returned home to Wu. Lu Guimeng (?–881) was a reclusive poet who lived near Suzhou.
25 Fan Li, fearing that Yue king Gou Jian might turn on him, fled north, changing his name and becoming a very successful merchant.
26 The Grand Historian refers to Sima Qian (c. 145–c. 85 BCE), the greatest historian of ancient China. In fact, Sima wrote about Fan’s business success and praised his philanthropy. See Sima, Records, 338.
27 Zhang Liang was a key advisor to the Han dynasty founder, Han Gaozu (r. 206– 195 BCE). After Gaozu’s death, Zhang left his official post and in reclusion took up the pursuit of longevity. Master Redpine was a famous mythical immortal.
28 The Yue king, Gou Jian, gave Xishi, a noted beauty, to the Wu king. Her charms so distracted the Wu ruler that Yue eventually destroyed his unprepared kingdom. One legend proposes that Fan Li took Xishi away after Wu’s destruction. Histories paint Consort Xia (fl. mid-sixth century BCE) as a great femme fatale, leaving in her wake several murdered husbands, rulers, and ministers. Lord Shen counseled his ruler to avoid her, but he himself eventually eloped with her and defected to a rival state.
29 The remark actually does not come from The [Book of] Rites but Zuozhuan. See Durrant, Li, and Schaberg, Zuo Tradition, 301.
30 The brothers Taibo and Zhongyong were sons of the Zhou king Tai in high antiquity. When the king designated another brother as heir apparent, Taibo and Zhongyong fled south, tattooed their bodies, and cut their hair so as to allay suspicion that they might wish to be Zhou rulers. They became the first and second rulers of the Wu kingdom. Yanling Jizi (fl. 559 BCE) refused to become the Wu ruler, despite his brother’s wishes, and retired to farm.
31 Reading 孰 as 就.
32 Ci, sometimes translated as “song-lyrics,” was a Chinese poetry genre, characterized by informality and association with the entertainment quarters.
33 “Completely muddy” and “without a mark” refer, I believe, to Lu Rong’s seeing that his name did not appear on the placard listing successful jinshi examination candidates in 1463.
34 Kimnara is a heavenly musician in the Buddhist pantheon. Its image resembles humans. However, its horns inspire doubt as to whether it is a god or human. It is also one of Guanyin’s manifestations, which perhaps explains its presence in a government office. See Xingyun, Foguang dacidian, 5895c–96b.
35 A pejorative name for the Southern Tang dynasty (937–975).
36 “Perfected one” is another Daoist term for immortal.
37 The work, which circulated widely, offers a complex amalgamation of Daoist, Confucian, and Buddhist practices and concepts.
38 After her father drowned, Cao E wailed for seventeen days at the riverside and then drowned herself. Officials erected a stele in her honor, and her cult endured for centuries.
39 The bodhisattva Guanyin ranks as the most acclaimed Buddhist deity in late imperial China. A small island seventy miles away from Ningbo, Mount Putuo is revered as a Buddhist sacred mountain and has attracted scores of pilgrims for centuries up to the present day. For a thorough study, see Yü, Kuan-yin.
40 Jia Sidao became a Southern Song grand councilor, and posterity faulted him for his mismanagement of the Song resistance against the Mongol enemy.
41 In the traditional view, souls had two parts, which included ten components. Three were cloud-souls and seven were white-souls. At death, they separated, with the former leaving the body to float elsewhere, while the latter returned to the earth. For a discussion of this concept’s roots, see Needham and Lu, Science, 85–93.
CHAPTER FIVE: KNOWLEDGE, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE NATURAL WORLD
1 Literally, “old swine woman dragon,” or a term for the Chinese alligator.
2 Another term for the Chinese alligator.
3 Lu Rong refers obliquely to the mass trials and executions of the Hongwu era, which derived partly from alleged conspiracies against the throne.
4 The ancient Five Phases theory characterized the world as a series of dynamic combinations of properties attributed to wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Their relationships were seen to govern the processes of the human body and its health. See Unschuld, Medicine.
5 The book, by Zhang Congzhen (1156–1228), makes this claim. See Unschuld, Medicine, 321–22.
6 Lu might be citing Prescriptions from the Birth Treasury (Chanbao zhufang), an anonymous work dated to 1167.
7 These herbs were thought to be effective in relieving abdominal pain.
8 The Autumn Office handled calendrical matters and belonged to the state’s Directorate of Astronomy.
9 It is unclear if Lu refers here to the larger kinds, known sometimes as Napa cabbage, or the smaller ones, called bok choy.
10 The founder of the mythical Xia dynasty in high antiquity.
11 Qi assisted Yü in governing the empire.
12 Kunwu is credited with inventing ceramic vessels.
13 Lu uses the neo-Confucian term qiongli, translated often as investigating (or realizing) things to the utmost and finding their rational, inherent patterns.
14 “South of Shao” refers to the second chapter in The Book of Songs.
15 Lu cites a passage from Mencius. See Lau, Mencius, 127 (6A.7).
16 Lu uses the term shuilun, a general term for wheels that employ hydraulic power to operate other machines. The device he describes here resembles a tongche (cylinder wheel).
17 Lu refers to a story in Zhuangzi, in which Confucius’s student Zigong, traveling in Hanyin, met an old man descending into a well, fetching water, coming out, and then watering his field. Zigong suggested a well-sweep for an easier, more efficient method. The man rejected Zigong’s idea, arguing that clever devices would lead to crafty minds and prevent one from grasping the Way. For an English translation, see Graham, Chuang-tzu, 186–87.
18 Salt, an essential part of the Chinese diet, was in name a state monopoly, and its revenues composed a key part of the general income. However, the government relied heavily on merchants for the distribution and sale of salt, selling them vouchers or licenses to legally do so. In practice, the operation was marred by shifting standards, remarkable red tape, smuggling, mismanagement, and corruption. The same voucher might entitle a merchant to possess widely varying amounts of salt, depending on the time and place. Large salt merchants were the wealthiest businessmen in the empire.
19 I follow here the version found in Huang Wei, Pengxuan leiji, 68.1521. Bean Garden reads 107,500 vouchers, which would mean that the state, improbably, exacted virtually no taxes from the enterprise.
20 Households registered by the government as salt producers.
21 The herb was used for abdominal pains and diarrhea.
22 Chinese materia medica prescribed human urine for many conditions, such as pulmonary ailments, abdominal discomfort, and sunstroke. See Li Shizhen, Fowls, 975–76.
23 This work, by the scholar-official Zhen Dexiu (1178–1235), commented on Great Learning, one of the Four Books, and demonstrated how application of its teachings would improve government.
24 In these two paragraphs, I have drawn on the partial translation of this entry by Peter J. Golas in the mining volume in Science and Civilization in China. See Golas, Chemistry, 344, 346.