Ming China Research Articles

John W. Dardess. A Political Life in Ming China: A Grand Secretary and His Times.

That Ming-dynasty emperors, assisted by only some 20,000 officials, could govern their vast territory has awed sixteenth-century Jesuits and modern historians alike. Offering a clue to how the political organization enabled such economy are some 230 extant letters from Xu Jie (1503–1583), who was appointed, in 1552, to the Grand Secretariat and promoted, in 1562, to chief grand secretary, the highest position in the central government, reporting directly to the emperor. John W. Dardess makes excellent use of these letters, translating and setting generous portions of them into a gripping account of Xu's political maneuverings. Xu insinuated himself into military affairs, counseled provincial officials and generals, strove to promote policies he favored, fended off rivals, and advised the emperor, all the while surviving an environment where missteps could lead to one's impeachment, even execution. Dardess's accounts of Xu's role in the defense of the northern frontier and southeastern coast, which were besieged, respectively, by Mongols and marauding “pirates,” illuminate both the emperor's centralized command and Xu's ambition. Although he was posted in Beijing and never visited the northern frontier, Xu managed, through correspondence, to gather enough information from provincial officials to make decisions about the allocation of goods and the deployment of troops. Taking advantage of the crises—and of his mastery of such matters as hydraulic engineering, regulating grain prices, accounting, and provisioning the military with food—Xu made personnel and policy recommendations to the emperor and spoke on the emperor's behalf.

Change of Ming Taizu and Ming Taizong’Diplomatic policies and Ming China’s Relations with the East Asia Countries

Change of Ming Taizu and Ming Taizong’Diplomatic policies and Ming China’s Relations with the East Asia Countries

Sentimentalism and the “Cult of Qing”: Writing Romantic Love in 18th-Century England and Late Ming China

This essay analyzes a crucial difference in the ways in which erotic feelings are articulated in the sentimental novel from eighteenth-century England and Feng Menglong’s stories of qing from late Ming (1573–1644). It compares Feng’s stories and Samuel Richardson’s novels with a focus on how they chart the courses of love affairs. The essay argues that English sentimental novels accentuate psychological depth while their Chinese counterparts preclude depth with ritualized expressions of feelings. The contrast goes a long way to explaining the bifurcation of English and Chinese fiction in modern eras; one gives rise to several nuanced forms of psychological realism, modulating narrative perspectives as a way of mimicking the complex workings of layered consciousness. The Chinese stories of qing, on the other hand, suggest a different theory of love, one that downplays subjective control of feelings in favor of the effects of social or accidental circumstances. They evolve into a fictional tradition that aestheticizes and stylizes qing, reducing it to a surface of fixed patterns by virtue of inserting verse pieces into prose narratives.

The Altar of Great Gratitude: A Korean Memory of Ming China under Manchu Dominance, 1704–1894*

With emphasis on the Korean performance at a special altar designed to pay tribute to the memory of Ming emperors, this paper looks at the way in which Korean elites under Manchu dominance recalled Ming China and actually summoned the ghosts of Ming emperors unto their political stage. From the early sixteenth century, Ming China had been honored in Chosŏn as the suzerain-father, with the result that the Ming became the object for Chosŏn filial piety as well as loyalty. Chosŏn’s submission to the Manchus in 1637, however, forced an ideological crisis upon the Chosŏn leadership since the country’s compromise with the Manchus meant that the Chosŏn king and court officials had violated two primary Confucian values, those of loyalty and filial piety, on which the ruling mechanism of the dynasty had been based. The establishment of the Altar of Great Gratitude (Taebodan) within a Chosŏn royal palace in 1704 was designed to offset the violation and visibly demonstrate Chosŏn’s righteous obligations to the fallen Ming regardless of the real geopolitical circumstances. Thereafter, Chosŏn kings regularly performed sacrifices for three Ming emperors on the anniversaries of those emperors’ deaths. These rituals continued until Seoul was occupied by the Japanese in 1894 on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War, implying that mainstream Chosŏn elites under Manchu dominance still sought to live spiritually under an imaginary Ming order.

The Art of Domination: How Qing China Became a Regional Hegemon

This paper examines a period of East Asian history when the region was dominated by a regional hegemon: the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), and discusses the implications for understanding China’s broad international behavior today. The central question is two-fold: How does a political actor become a hegemon in its region of the world? And once it becomes dominant, how does the hegemon maintain its supremacy in the international system and minimize resistance by lesser political actors? I argue that a political actor becomes a regional hegemon through expansion and accumulation of relative power and manages its dominance through establishing rules of the game for the system. The Manchus of the Qing dynasty expanded from a small area in present northeastern China to become the preponderant state in East Asia, its hegemony lasting more than 150 years. The Qing conquered Ming China, Mongolia, and Xinjiang, and incorporated Tibet into the empire. Qing rulers skillfully adopted a strategy of domination that combined both force and diplomacy and used its preponderant power to establish tributary rules of the game to govern interactions between political actors in the system. Through the use of military force and institutional innovation, the Manchus were able to achieve regional hegemony in East Asia and eliminate security challenges to its dominance. The present boundary of China is a legacy of Qing territorial reach. Like its imperial predecessor, China’s current rise cannot be divorced from a consideration of relative power. The international distribution of power holds the key to understanding Chinese foreign policy today.

Screen of Kings: Royal Art and Power in Ming China. By Craig Clunas . Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2013. 248 pp. $57.00 (cloth).

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Book review: Art by the book: painting manuals and the leisure life in late Ming China, written by J. P. Park

Book review: Art by the book: painting manuals and the leisure life in late Ming China, written by J. P. Park

Friendship among Literati. Matteo Ricci SJ (1552–1610) in Late Ming China

This article investigates how the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) regarded friendship as an attribute of the Chinese literati and how the importance of this male bonding helped him shape the notion of a literatus in Ming China, which he eventually communicated back to his European readership. A first section of the article analyzes Ricci’s treatise on friendship, the Jiaoyou lun (1595), his first work written in Chinese. A genuine interest in the theme of friendship became his first — and well-aimed — approach to the literati elites. The Jiaoyou lun reflects a winding path of literary adaptations of classical western authors juxtaposed with Confucian notions of friendship. A second section of the article is dedicated to the friends Ricci made in different cities and from different intellectual traditions and schools. Ricci experienced different kinds of friendship with different types of literati, which did not, however, prevent him from narrowing the category of literatus to that of Confucian. Ricci defined Confucianism as the sect of the literati, which in Ricci’s eyes comprised scholars engaged in literary activities and scholarly debates on the one hand, and a strong sense of duty to contribute to good, stable government on the other. Ricci saw now problem uniting these two major orientations and being embodied in the Confucian literatus. Finally, a third section is dedicated to some concluding remarks on how Ricci exploited the experience — and redefined the notion —of friendship in Ming China. By taking on the task of defining the identity of the Confucian literatus, Ricci became a versatile friend to the Chinese literati, ably adopting “multiple identities” and roles.

John W. Dardess. A Political Life in Ming China: A Grand Secretaryand His Times

John W. Dardess. A Political Life in Ming China: A Grand Secretaryand His Times

Autarky and the Rise and Fall of Piracy in Ming China

We examine the impact of rigorous trade suppression during 1550–1567 on the sharp rise of piracy in this period of Ming China. By analyzing a uniquely constructed historical data set, we find that the enforcement of a “sea (trade) ban” policy led to a rise in pirate attacks that was 1.3 times greater among the coastal prefectures more suitable for silk manufactures—our proxy for greater trade potential. Our study illuminates the conflicts in which China subsequently engaged with the Western powers, conflicts that eventually resulted in the forced abandonment of its long upheld autarkic principle.

The Jesuits and the Portrait of God in Late Ming China

The Jesuits and the Portrait of God in Late Ming China

Screen of kings: royal art and power in Ming China

Chapter One: 'A Fence and a Screen' Chapter Two: The Kingly Landscape Chapter Three: The Writing of the King of Jin Chapter Four: The Painting of the King of Zhou Chapter Five: The Jewels of the King of Liang Chapter Six: The Bronzes of the King of Lu Chapter Seven: Remembered Lanterns References Bibliography Acknowledgements Photographic Acknowledgements Index

Cute and Monstrous Furbys in Online Fan Production

Cute and Monstrous Furbys in Online Fan Production

Culture, knowledge and diplomacy in contemporary EU–China relations—reflections on the legacies of Matteo Ricci

The worlds that Matteo Ricci lived in—early modern Europe, Ming China and the pre-Westphalian international order—are vastly different from the world of the 21st century, when accelerated globalization binds China and Europe together as never before and when global international society is moving decisively beyond Westphalia. How much are the legacies of Matteo Ricci still relevant, 400 years on, to enriching the relationship between China and Europe in the 21st century? This paper starts with a brief overview of the civilizational encounters between China and Europe and the unfolding of their turbulent and often troubled relationship over the last four centuries of wars, collapse of empires, internal convulsions, nation-state building, scientific and industrial revolutions and great economic transformations. Against this historical narrative is the discussion of Matteo Ricci as a cultural agent, a knowledge broker and a practitioner of public diplomacy in fostering Sino–European relations in its nascent years. The paper argues that even in an increasingly globalized world, Matteo Ricci’s conception of culture, his wisdom about the power of knowledge and his practice of people-to-people diplomacy remain valuable in informing both China and the EU, two aspiring global players, in their search for a viable China–EU strategic partnership.

La Chine des Ming et de Matteo Ricci (1552–1610): Le premier dialogue des savoirs avec l’Europe (review)

La Chine des Ming et de Matteo Ricci (1552–1610): Le premier dialogue des savoirs avec l’Europe. Édition établie par ISABELLE LANDRY-DERON. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf/Institut Ricci, 2013. 242 pp. J20 (pb). ISBN 978-2-20409617 -1 The year 2010 marked the 400th anniversary of the death of Matteo Ricci (Chinese name Li Madou 利瑪竇, 1552–1610), the first Jesuit to reside in Beijing. During that year, a large number of academic conferences took place around the world in commemoration of the man who is regarded as a pioneer of exchanges between China and Europe in the early modern period. The volume under review contains the proceedings of one such conference, organized by the Paris Ricci Institute, and held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. It was entitled ‘‘L’échange des savoirs entre la Chine et l’Europe au temps de Matteo Ricci’’ (The exchange of knowledge between China and Europe in Matteo Ricci’s time). Isabelle Landry-Deron’s introduction contextualizes Ricci’s life and itinerary, and highlights the main issues that are discussed in the three parts of the volume. Firstly, how did Ricci succeed in establishing residence in Ming China, taking into account the characteristics of Ming society and culture? Secondly, what religions were present in this empire in Ricci’s time, and what representations of these religions have been constructed in history and historiography? The third part of the book deals with the sciences in Ricci’s work and in the exchanges between Europe and China. The structure of the volume mostly follows the schedule of the conference. Part 1 opens with a synthetic note by Michel Cartier, discussing Ricci’s status in China: as there were no European residents in the Ming Empire at the time, it is indeed necessary to explain how Ricci succeeded in living there for more than two decades. As Cartier argues, the protection of local officials played a key role there; curiosity towards the foreigner, rather than interest in his religion, was the most frequent motivation among them. This explains the fragility of the mission’s status to the end of Ricci’s life and thereafter. The next two papers follow up this line in that they focus on those members of the Chinese literati elite who had contact with Ricci. Frédéric Wang discusses the scholars and officials who met Ricci during his time in Nanjing, which was the empire’s secondary capital at the time. There, Wang argues, Ricci drew the sympathy of a number of followers of the intuitionist philosopher Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472–1529), who were also influenced by Buddhism; they seem to have formed a rather restricted network. Once in Beijing, on the other hand, Ricci befriended a number of strongly anti-Buddhist officials, a stand that was closer to Ricci’s own. This contribution gives some valuable insight into both the social and intellectual dimensions of the Chinese networks on which the founding of the Jesuit mission to China relied. Shenwen Li’s contribution follows an approach that is in a sense symmetrical to that of Frédéric Wang, by discussing Ricci’s two trips to Beijing from the missionary’s own standpoint, showing that they were linked to the need felt by the Jesuits for a Portuguese embassy to the Ming court, which in their view could alone secure the possibility of a long-lasting evangelizing enterprise in China. In the last contribution of this first part, Viviane Alleton discusses the knowledge and representations of the Chinese language and script in sixteenth-century Europe; she shows that Ricci contributed to the knowledge of linguistics in both China, where his work drew 230 BOOK REVIEWS scholars’ attention to the alphabet, and in Europe, where the relatively accurate account that he gave of the Chinese languages was reshaped, and somewhat distorted, by a search for a universal language, and the use of the grammar of European languages as a yardstick to assess other languages. Part 2 of the volume also comprises four contributions; only the first three are directly relevant to religion. Françoise Aubin offers a panorama of the various polities that surrounded the Ming Empire...

Vietnamese Occupation of the ‘Lower Cambodia’, and the Role of ‘the Long Môn Soldiers’ of Ming China

Vietnamese Occupation of the ‘Lower Cambodia’, and the Role of ‘the Long Môn Soldiers’ of Ming China

Challenging the Reigning Emperor for Success


 
 
 The late Ming monk Hanshan Deqing forced his way into a Buddhist service held around Wanli 10 (1582) to pray for the birth of the imperial heir. His action has long been seen as a heroic act that challenged the Wanli Emperor for the benefit of the state, yet an act that would lead to his exile later. However, this paper demonstrates that it was Deqing’s desperate but deliberate attempt to seek support from the inner court. This strategy helped Deqing to rise to a leading Buddhist master in late Ming China, but it asked him to pay a high price by getting him involved in court strife. This paper reveals the fragility of the late Ming Buddhist revival under the pressure of contemporary politics.
 
 

Sleights of Capital: Fantasies of Commensurability, Transparency, and a “Cultural Bourgeoisie”

This article argues that the concept of cultural capital as it is generally used in the study of the modern West constitutes a catachresis with three fundamentally problematic aspects: it shortchanges the productive capacity of capital; it assumes a commensurability between different types of aesthetic production and consumption that cannot obtain; and it overlooks the crucial contribution of individual labor to the accumulation and exchange of cultural capital. If we turn our attention from nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe to early modern (Ming and Qing) China, the first of these three objections finds a relatively satisfactory answer in a society that defines an elite class as a class in large part through aesthetic production: the national civil service examination system grounded Chinese political, economic, and cultural orders from the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries. Even in this “best-case” scenario, however, it becomes clear that the assumed commensurability on which the trope of cultural capital is predicated, and the spontaneity and directness with which it is supposed to manifest itself, with little room for individual agency and efforts at self-representation, remain substantial obstacles to a nuanced understanding of the complicated relationship between aesthetic and material production. The article concludes with an inquiry into the specific work that discourse on cultural capital accomplishes in the contemporary global academy: the trope of cultural capital turns out to serve best not as a tool for the critical analysis of past cultural production but rather as the ideological foundation for a new sense of the aesthetic in the Internet era.

The Genesis of Global Crisis

The Genesis of Global Crisis Geoffrey Parker (bio) Geoffrey Parker’s Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century (Yale University Press, 2013) is one of the most important history books of the last year. It has been widely heralded as an extraordinary scholarly achievement. Parker makes the case for a link between climate change and the worldwide catastrophe that occurred 350 years ago. We asked Parker to begin our forum with an account on the book’s long gestation. Then three prominent scholars, Kenneth Pomeranz, J.R. McNeill, and Jack Goldstone, comment on Global Crisis, followed by Parker’s rejoinder. I remember as if it were yesterday the moment when I became interested in the Global Crisis. I had read while an undergraduate the articles on “The General Crisis” by Eric Hobsbawm and Hugh Trevor-Roper, as well as the papers critiquing their views, published in the journal Past & Present between 1954 and 1960.1 Although breathtakingly erudite, the limited scope of the debate surprised me: none of the authors strayed far beyond the conceptual and geographical framework stated in the title of Hobsbawm’s first article—“The General Crisis of the European Economy in the Seventeenth Century.” I knew that there was something missing, but I did not realize what it was until one evening in 1976 when I listened to an interview on BBC Radio with John A. Eddy, a solar physicist. Eddy had just published a paper in Science on the “Maunder Minimum”—the period between 1645 and 1705 when virtually no sunspots appeared—and he speculated that the prolonged “sunspot minimum” noted by contemporary astronomers during (ironically) the reign of the “Sun King,” Louis XIV, caused an episode of global cooling that earth scientists had christened the Little Ice Age. Eddy also hinted that the Little Ice Age might have contributed to the General Crisis, a suggestion that I found so plausible and exciting that my former doctoral advisee, Lesley M. Smith, and I decided to edit a collection of essays on the subject. We requested and received Jack’s permission to include his essay in our volume of essays, entitled The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century, published in 1978.2 The debate first took a global turn in 1989 when William S. Atwell, a historian of Ming China, put together a panel on “The General Crisis in East Asia” at the annual meeting of the American Association for Asian Studies. The following year Modern Asian Studies published the contributions by John Richards, Anthony Reid, Niels Steensgaard, and William Atwell.3 In 1997 Lesley Smith and I included these essays in a new and expanded edition of The General Crisis, and a few months later I realized that I had identified my next research project. Click for larger view View full resolution A late 17th-century English woodcut. From The two constant lovers . . . (London, 1695). Courtesy of the Beinecke Library, Yale University. An email to a friend in February 1998 described what happened next: Last night I awoke at 4 AM and realized that I wanted to write a book about the General Crisis of the seventeenth century—not a collection of essays (been there, done that) but an integrated narrative and analytical account of the first global crisis for which we possess adequate documentation for Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe. My account would adopt a Braudelian structure, examining long-term factors (climate above all), medium-run changes (economic fluctuations and so on) and “events” (from the English Civil War and the crisis in the French and Spanish Monarchies, through the murder of two Ottoman sultans, the civil wars in India and sub-Saharan Africa to the collapse of Ming China and the wars around the Great Lakes of North America). Besides examining each of the upheavals of the mid-century, the book would offer explanations of why such synchronic developments occur with so little warning and why they end. Although not the first “general crisis” known to historians, it is the first one for which adequate data exists worldwide. Since it addresses issues of concern today— the impact of global climatic change and sharp economic recession on government and...

明代 前期 外國 使節의 身分證明 方式과 國家間 體系

明代 前期 外國 使節의 身分證明 方式과 國家間 體系