Ming Loyalists Research Articles

Fresh Faces for Those Full of Emotions: Zhu Suchen's Qinlou Yue

Abstract Unlike Zhu Suchen's 朱素臣 (1621?–after 1701) other extant chuanqi plays that survive only in manuscripts, Qinlou yue 秦樓月 (The Moon Shining upon the Qin Tower) was printed in a deluxe woodblock edition during the Kangxi period. This carefully executed imprint features an array of paratextual elements: preface; illustrations with matching poems by prominent seventeenth-century literati figures; a poetry collection by Chen Susu 陳素素, a Yangzhou courtesan cast as the heroine of the play; and an appendix with women writers' poems commenting on Susu's poetry and portrait. Such a design points to an editorial choice to stage both a male-centered literati reading community and a cohort of women writers from the Jiangnan area who gather to celebrate women's literary talent on the book page. By examining how these two bodies of readers reach a sense of solidarity in distinctive ways, this article aims at a better understanding of the xinxi 新戲 (new plays) of Suzhou as an important regional phenomenon of cultural production. Qinlou yue in the book's physical form makes use of the realms of both commercial and private printing to appeal to Ming loyalist sentiments widespread among the southern elite, and to embrace a new sense of womanhood epitomized by women writers and readers who had achieved iconic status in the Jiangnan region.

Expounding Neo-Confucianism: Choice of Tradition at a Time of Dynastic Change—Cultural Conflict and the Social Reconstruction of Early Qing

明清易代之际, 满汉文化易位、政治权力换手以及士大夫个人命运的转折将传统 的变革推到了个人和群体面前。在所有这些冲突中, 满族统治阶层、汉族理学官僚、 汉族遗民士人对于各自传统的捡拾、遗弃、变换及其决断无可置疑地居于核心地位。 在激烈的政治文化之外, 以理学为代表的儒学, 采取既不批判现实也不反传统的政治 立场, 通过讲理 (讲理学) 与清政权碰触、试探, 确立了新传统; 以康熙为首的清政 权与理学官僚展开了互动, 确立了儒学化的新文化传统; 在亲眼目睹了清政权的文化 选择后, 晚明遗民的政治心态发生了转变, 放弃了其传统观。这些对于传统的抉择, 其特殊时期的视角和激烈的程度以及并非诉诸武力的方式, 颠覆了我们对于中国传统 的种种约定俗成的结论。 关键词: 理学 康熙 儒学化 遗民 During the dynastic change from Ming to Qing, the Manchu and Han cultures also changed places. The transfer of political power and the change in the fortunes of the scholar-officials pushed change in tradition to the forefront for both individuals and groups. In all these conflicts, the crucial element was undoubtedly the way the Manchu ruling stratum, Han Neo- Confucian officials and the Han loyalists of the Ming dynasty retrieved, deserted or changed their own traditions. Outside the intense political culture, Confucianism, typified by Neo- Confucianism, took a political stance that neither criticized existing realities nor opposed tradition. By expounding Neo-Confucianism, its followers made contact with and tested out the Qing regime, establishing a new tradition. The Qing regime, with Emperor Kangxi as its head, interacted with Neo-Confucian officialdom and established a new Confucianized cultural tradition. Having personally witnessed the Qing regime’s cultural choices, the political attitude of the late Ming loyalists underwent a transformation and they relinquished their own view of tradition. These choices in relation to tradition, with differing perspectives depending on the times and differing degrees of intensity, along with the absence of a resort to force, subvert our stereotypical judgments about Chinese tradition.

Ignoring Ming Loyalists’ Criticism and Conveying History with Feelings: Love of Wu Meicun’s Life and the Eulogy for the Ming Dynasty

Ignoring Ming Loyalists’ Criticism and Conveying History with Feelings: Love of Wu Meicun’s Life and the Eulogy for the Ming Dynasty

Marriage and Mourning in Early-Qing Tributes to Wives

This paper examines a range of texts from the early Qing period in which husbands pay tribute to their wives, looking closely at three contrasting pairs of cases: works written by An Zhiyuan (1628-1701) and Pu Songling (1640-1715), who enjoyed long and happy marriages, by Chen Gongyin (1631-1700) and Xu Fang (1619-71), associated with the Ming loyalist cause, and by Chen Weisong (1626-82) and Chen Que (1604-77), stricken by guilt over their wives’ untimely deaths. Particular areas of attention include the relationship between an author’s choice of literary form and the effect achieved, and the implications of these texts for an understanding of gender relations in seventeenth-century China.

From Liaodongese Refugee to Ming Loyalist: The Historiography of the Sanggok Ma, a Ming Migrant Descent Group in Late Joseon Korea

This paper investigates the construction of biographies of Ming migrant descent groups during the Late Joseon as a product of the interaction of diverse social and political forces. With a focus especially on the biographies of one migrant-those of Ma Shunshang or Pengzhi, the founder of the Sanggok Ma descent group-this paper argues that the biographies were created by the interaction of the Joseon court and the Ming migrant descent groups themselves. Ming refugees to Joseon had been of little interest to the Joseon court at the actual time of their migration. However, during the mid-eighteenth century, ideological changes within the Joseon court resulted in the descendants of Ming migrants being reclassified as exemplars of Ming loyalism. This in turn resulted in the creation of hagiographic biographies of the original migrants. For the Joseon court, the presence in Joseon of the descendants of Ming loyalists with appropriate backgrounds was vital for official Ming loyalist ideology, while for the descendants of Ming migrants the claim to be remnant subjects of the Ming was a strategy for raising their social status. All of these elements leave traces within the text of the biographies themselves.

Identity and Function in Sino-Vietnamese Piracy: Where Are the Minh Hư ơng?

Abstract In 1773, a group of rebels sparked a civil war that disrupted the Vietnamese-speaking world for thirty years. Historians recognize that “Chinese” pirates played a key role in the campaigns of the Tay Son, after whom the war was named. This article attempts to clarify Chinese participation by analyzing a little-known Sino-Vietnamese community named Minh Hương or Ming Loyalists, who evolved from the same water world as the Chinese pirates, yet appear absent from the conflict. Findings suggest that we have overlooked the depth and complexity of “Chinese” and Minh Hương involvement.

Trauma and Transcendence in Early Qing Literature (review)

Reviewed by: Trauma and Transcendence in Early Qing Literature Zhu Mei (bio) Wilt L. Idema, Wai-yee Li, and Ellen Widmer, editors. Trauma and Transcendence in Early Qing Literature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard University Press, 2006. xi, 533 pp. Hardcover $60.00, ISBN 0-674-01775-7. The early Qing was an extraordinarily creative and vibrant period in Chinese literary history. Among the studies that center on the traumatic experiences of Chinese intellectuals caused by the collapse of the Ming dynasty and the Manchu conquest of China, this volume is a pioneering one in the West. It is the fruit of two separate conferences sponsored by the Harvard-Yenching Institute in June 2000 and June 2001. Before this volume, the study of early Qing literature in China focuses on how early Qing scholars and officials adjust their lives under a foreign regime. Moral evaluation and political attitudes toward the Qing government have been the fundamental standards to judge the literati's place in the history of literature. The contributors to this volume, the leading Western scholars in this field, quite convincingly have called for a comprehensive rethinking of the aesthetic and literary significance of the Manchu conquest reflected in the works of the most famous remnant subjects. Although the Ming-Qing transition as a historical event was almost an apocalyptic experience, characterized by unspeakable rupture, violence, and devastation, contributors to this volume see it as a period of cultural innovation and rupture of literary traditions, the birth of a new literary mode. With this new perspective and theoretical framework, I find it quite enlightening for the editors to chose "trauma and transcendence" as a theoretical sounding title. Idema, Li, and Widmer situate the literature of this period in trauma theory, at the intersection of poststructuralist, deconstructionist, and psychoanalytic theoretical approaches. At the same time, they pull it away from the moral-political interpretations that are commonly associated with it in China. Moreover, the capacity of language to articulate the experience of historical trauma is viewed as transcendence, which not only refers to a specific existential status but also relates to the cognitive faculty. Specifically, the transcendence examined in artistic and literary merits in literary works selected in this collection can be better termed "aesthetic transcendence." The twelve chapters in this volume and the introductory chapters on early Qing poetry, prose, and drama understand the writings of this era wholly or in part as attempts to recover from or transcend the trauma of the transitional years. Therefore, transcendence here can be understood as this volume's defining feature at two different levels: transcending traditional moral and political evaluation to aesthetic evaluation, a first layer; and a second [End Page 210] layer, exploring the way of transcending traumatic experience of dynastic transition from latter Ming to early Qing through literary works. The twelve chapters cover a range of literary genres that deal with "historical trauma and aesthetic transcendence." They are divided into three different sections: poetry, prose, and drama. Each part is preceded by a general introduction to the part as well as a more detailed introduction for each genre by an editor. Part 1 examines early Qing poets represented by Qian Qianyi, Wu Weiye, and Hanke. By investigating the depth of the poets' lyrical engagement with the historical crisis, the contributors to this volume attempt to reassess their place in the canon. Part 2 contains five chapters on fiction, memoirs, and other kinds of prose that offer as many approaches to modern readers' understanding of the transition between 1644 and 1700. Oki Yasushi focuses on the lives of Mao Xiang (1611-1693) and Yu Huai (1616-1696). Robert Hegel's "Dreaming the Past" is similarly concerned with the individual, focusing on Chu Renhuo (1630-1705). Ellen Widmer's study is also organized biographically, but it offers yet another perspective on Ming loyalist experience and can be taken as an exemplary study in this field. Widmer's chapter on Huang Zhouxing's prose is titled "Between Worlds: Huang Zhouxing's Imaginary Garden." Widmer points out that utopia in spirit, Jiangjiu yuan, is the imaginary subject of Huang's prose piece Jiangjiu yuan ji and other pieces such as his...

Conflicting Loyalties: Fugitives and “Traitors” in the Russo-Manchurian Frontier, 1651-1689

AbstractFor many contemporary historians, the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk was not only the first diplomatic treaty between China and a European power, but also an example of a peaceful boundary settlement, which ended the protracted conflict between the two expanding empires. Yet despite modern emphasis on territorial demarcation, clarity of border signs hardly dominated this seventeenth century conflict in the Far East. In fact, careful examination of the published Russian archival record of Muscovite-Qing diplomatic correspondence reveals that competition for tributary allegiances of indigenous and settler populations proved to be a much greater source of tension between the two empires. Ultimately, the mercurial loyalties of local Tungus and Mongol tribes as well the cross-nation desertions of Cossacks, military commanders and Ming loyalists drove both Qing and Muscovite officials to stabilize their shared frontiers through negotiation.

Fu Shan's world: the transformation of Chinese calligraphy in the seventeenth century

For 1,300 years, Chinese calligraphy was based on the elegant art of Wang Xizhi (AD303-361). But the 17th-century emergence of a style modelled on the rough, broken epigraphs of ancient bronzes and stone artifacts brought a revolution in calligraphic taste. By the 18th century, this led to the formation of the stele school of calligraphy, which continues to shape Chinese calligraphy today. A dominant force in this school was the eminent calligrapher and art theorist Fu Shan (1607-1685). Because his work spans the late Ming-early Qing divide, it is an ideal prism through which to view the transformation in calligraphy. Rather than seek a single explanation for the change in calligraphic taste, the author demonstrates and analyzes the heterogeneity of the cultural, social and political processes behind it. Among other subjects, the book covers late Ming interaction between high and low culture; the role of publishing, the Ming loyalist response to the Qing; and early Qing changes in intellectual discourse. In addition to the usual approach of art historians, it adopts the theoretical perspectives of such fields as material culture, print culture, and social and intellectual history.

Heroic Images of Ming Loyalists: A Study of the Spirit Tablets of the Ghee Hin Kongsi Leaders in Singapore. By David K.Y. Chng. Singapore: Singapore Society of Asian Studies, 1999. Pp. vii, 157. Illustrations, Tables, Appendices, Bibliography, Index.

Heroic Images of Ming Loyalists: A Study of the Spirit Tablets of the Ghee Hin Kongsi Leaders in Singapore. By David K.Y. Chng. Singapore: Singapore Society of Asian Studies, 1999. Pp. vii, 157. Illustrations, Tables, Appendices, Bibliography, Index. - Volume 31 Issue 2

The Origins of the Tiandihui: The Chinese Triads in Legend and History

The Tiandihui, also known as the Heaven and Earth Association or the Triads, was one of the earliest, largest, and most enduring of the Chinese secret societies that have played crucial roles at decisive junctures in modern Chinese history. These organizations were characterized by ceremonial rituals, often in the form of blood oaths, that brought people together for a common goal. Some were organized for clandestine, criminal, or even seditious purposes by people alienated from or at the margins of society. Others were organized for mutual protection or the administration of local activities by law-abiding members of a given community. The common perception in the twentieth century, both in China and in the West, was that the Tiandihui was founded by Chinese patriots in the seventeenth century for the purpose of overthrowing the Qing (Manchu) dynasty and restoring the Ming (Chinese). This view was put forward by Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries who claimed that, like the anti-Manchu founders of the Tiandihui, their goal was to strip the Manchus of their throne. The Chinese Nationalists (Guomindang) today claim the Tiandihui as part of their heritage. This book relates a very different history of the origins of the Tiandihui. Using Qing dynasty archives that were made available in both Beijing and Taipei during the last decades, the author shows that the Tiandihui was founded not as a political movement but as a mutual aid brotherhood in 1761, a century after the date given by traditional historiography. She contends that histories depicting Ming loyalism as the raison d'etre of the Tiandihui are based on internally generated sources and, in part, on the Lu Legend, a creation myth that tells of monks from the Shaolin Monastery aiding the emperor in fighting the Xi Lu barbarians. Because of its importance to the theories of Ming loyalist scholars and its impact on Tiandihui historiography as a whole, the author thoroughly investigates the legend, revealing it to be the product of later - not founding - generations of Tiandihui members and a tale with an evolution of its own. The seven extant versions of the legend itself appear in English translation as an appendix. This book thus accomplishes three things: it reviews and analyzes the extensive Tiandihui literature; it makes available to Western scholars information from archival materials heretofore seen only by a few Chinese specialists; and it firmly establishes an authoritative chronology of the Tiandihui's early history.

Voices from the Ming-Qing Cataclysm: China in Tiger's Jaws.

This fascinating book presents eyewitness accounts of a turbulent period in Chinese history: the fall of the Ming dynasty and the conquest of China by the Manchus in the mid-seventeenth century. Lynn Struve has translated, introduced, and annotated absorbing testimonies from a wide range of individuals-Chinese and Europeans, missionaries and viceroys, artists and merchants, Ming loyalists and Qing collaborators, maidservants and eunuchs-all telling stories of hardship and challenge in the midst of cataclysmic change. Until now, biographies of individuals who lived in the late Ming and early Qing periods have been either in-depth studies of important intellectuals or portraits sketched from the historical record and amplified by the imaginations of present-day authors. This book is the first to provide actual comment from a variety of people in different social stations. Some of the documents made accessible to Western readers are little known even to Chinese scholars. The book also breaks new ground by offering examples of the diversity in Chinese historical writing: rustic histories, tendentious reports, self-serving memoirs, family letters, official memorials, and other forms of records. Together these translations provide evidence of the increasing articulateness about personal experience that characterized writing in late Ming times.

On the Origin of the Gelaohui

Various theories have been put forward, both in China and abroad, as to the origin, character, and name of the Gelaohui, which was the most widespread and powerful society of the late Qing. For a long time the most prevalent view among historians was that the Gelaohui and the Tiandihui both emerged from the anti-Qing, Ming loyalist organization formed by Zheng Chenggong in the Kangxi period (1662-1722). This view originated with bourgeois revolutionaries of the 191 1 period such as Tao Chengzhang (191 1) and others. They invented the far-fetched historical pedigree in order to make use of the societies to stir up revolution, and, embellished by certain secret society writings, this story has taken on a positively mysterious quality (Liu Shiliang, 1946; Liu Lianke, 1940; Zhu Lin, n.d.). After Liberation, and even today, although the error of this theory has been pointed out, it still has a certain amount of influence. In recent years, however, the discovery of a great deal of archival material has provided even clearer proof that this theory is entirely without basis.

THE SOUTHERN MING IN CHINESE PERIODICALS: A TENTATIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY

Interest in the history of the Southern Ming (1644–1683) has existed in China for a very long period of time, but comprehensive and systematic studies of the topic are still to be developed. The earliest studies by the Ming loyalists working in the face of suppression by the early Ch'ing court, were largely efforts to record the historical events of the period. Some notable writings available today are Cha Chi-tso's TSUI WEI LU and LU CH'UN-CH'IU, Ku Yen-wu's MING-CHI SAN-CH'AO YEH-SHIH, Huang Tsung-hsi's HSING-CH'AO LU and HUNGKUANG SHIH-LU, Wang Fu-chih's YUNG-LI SHIH-LU, and Wen Jui-lin's NAN-CHIANG I-SHIH. Writing in various forms about the southern Ming continued to appear in the later years of the Ch'ing. Hsu Feiyun's TS'AN MING SHU, Hsu Nai's HSIAO T'lEN CHI-CHUAN and HSIAO T'lEN CHI-NIEN, Yang Feng-pao's NAN-CHIANG I-SHIH SHIH-ERH PA, and Ch'ien I's NAN MING SHU are among the important works produced in the mid-Ch'ing. The term “Southern Ming” (Nan Ming) came from Ch'ien I's work and has been used by Chinese historians ever since. Unfortunately, Ch'ien's work is no longer in existence today.