Nine
Politics, Language, and the New Text Legacy

During the last decades of the eighteenth century the population of China reached 300 million. Such growth, accompanied by concomitant increases in gentry competition for land, education, and official status, adversely affected all Chinese. The atmosphere of corruption wrought by Ho-shen and his cronies was in fact only symptomatic of the Ch'ing state's efforts to cope with its inner decay. Internal rebellions such as the Chin-ch'uan (1770-76), Wang Lun (1774), White Lotus (1796-1805), and Eight Trigrams (1813) uprisings ended a long period of relative peace dating from the K'ang-hsi Emperor's reign (1662-1722). Dislocations in the grain tribute system along the Grand Canal, which provided south China's tax revenues to the imperial government in Peking, and corruption in the salt administration revealed the depth and pervasiveness of the problems faced by the court and bureaucracy.

With the aid of some hindsight, Confucian literati blamed such decline on the Ho-shen era, finding in Ho-shen a convenient target for gentry dissatisfaction. Literati opposition to Ho-shen by Chuang Ts'unyü and his Ch'ang-chou followers was thus part of their larger response to the institutional problems of the late Ch'ing. Ho-shen's brief rise to power overtly jeopardized literati standards of honesty and service and covertly created the desire for reform for which New Text Confucianism stood. Blanket denunciations of Ho-shen concealed the degree to which many Confucian literati-officials had joined him in betraying orthodox political values.

Advocates of Sung Learning, Han Learning apologists, and proponents of New Text studies all recognized that an appropriate statecraft program was necessary within late imperial political culture. Given the "constitutional" framework of the Ch'ing empire, whereby the Classics remained the rhetorical guide in political matters, any reformist initiative had to find its historical precedent in the Classics.^[1]

During the early decades of the nineteenth century, Confucian scholars increasingly appealed for an end to what they regarded as petty debates between Han Learning and Sung Learning partisans. Following the lead of New Text scholars such as Liu Feng-lu, Wei Yuan, and Kung Tzu-chen, many called for a comprehensive reassessment of the Confucian classical vision and its statecraft legacy. It was necessary, most thought, for scholars to come to grips again with the social, political, and economic problems at hand. The statecraft concerns once peculiar to Ch'ang-chou schoolmen were now the province of the leading scholar-statesmen of the nineteenth century.

Political Crisis and the Ch'Ien-Lung to Chia-Ch'ing Transition

Political activism following China's defeat in the Opium War (1839-42) spurred renewed interest in the Tung-lin partisans, the most important instance of literati solidarity to date. The reemergence of ch'ing-i (voices of remonstrance, lit., "pure criticism") in the nineteenth century largely reflected changing gentry perceptions of late Ming initiatives to legitimate gentry-based politics in the imperial state. The image of the Tung-lin partisans moved from one of a "selfish" (ssu ) political faction to that of a group of concerned literati whose aim was to address the public (kung ) needs of their time. The abortiveness of late Ming politics (see chapter 1) was now challenged in the precincts of the late Ch'ing state.

Although it is unlikely that renewed interest in Tung-lin was touched off by Ch'ang-chou partisans, the prefecture's intimate ties to the Tung-lin legacy in Wu-hsi rendered its scholars uniquely able to appreciate their seventeenth-century predecessors. Both Tung-lin and New Text were part of a political evolution that in the nineteenth century resulted

[1] Li Chao-lo, Yang-i-chai wen-chi , 14.1a-3a. On the complexity of the Ch'ing "decline" see Naquin, Shantung Rebellion, pp. 148-64. Cf. her Millenarian Rebellion in China .

in a remarkable transformation of literati attitudes toward political reform.^[2]

Ming-style literati activism that emerged after the Opium War was preceded by a chorus of late-eighteenth-century voices critical of the political corruption of the last decades of the Ch'ien-lung Emperor's reign, known as the Ho-shen era. Members of the Chuang lineage in Ch'ang-chou were part of this chorus, particularly Chuang Ts'un-yü, who had couched his criticism, as we have seen, in the classical language of Kung-yang Confucianism. During the 1780s and 1790s, we should recall, the emperor had conferred great power and prestige on Ho-shen, a Manchu imperial guard.

As the emperor's favorite, Ho-shen was able to amass a personal fortune said to be second only to the imperial treasury. Eventually, factional politics reappeared on the Confucian political stage. Given the circumstances, such factions were predictable and were tolerated as long as they remained out of the public arena. Ho-shen's imperially sanctioned suicide under the Chia-ch'ing Emperor (r. 1796-1820), symbolized an important transition from the Ch'ien4ung to the Chia-ch'ing reign. But internal factional alignments within the inner and outer courts unexpectedly burst their imperial boundaries and entered the public arena.^[3]

The divisive politics of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, which pivoted around Ho-shen's questionable character and purportedly despotic machinations, reveal changing literati political perceptions and intellectual interests from the final years of the Ch'ien-lung reign up to the Opium War. Controversy over Ho-shen led to the formation of covert literati alignments in the 1790s that during the early years of the Chia-ch'ing reign emerged as self-righteous "voices of remonstrance" (ch'ing-i ). The consequent revival of interest in the Tung-lin political legacy was in part the product of contemporary events. These events produced in the minds of nineteenth-century reform-minded Confucian literati a reminder of the beleaguered status of earlier Tung-lin partisans vis-i-vis an imperial government dominated by a dangerous imperial favorite.

Tung-lin partisans had squared off against Wei Chung-hsien, who had usurped control of the imperial bureaucracy. Late-eighteenth-century Confucians faced a palace guard, Ho-shen, who had usurped

[2] For the Ch'ang-chou position on the Tung-lin revival, see Polachek's Inner Opium War . Cf. Eastman, Throne and Mandarins , pp. 20-29.

[3] Nivison, "Ho-shen and His Accusers," pp. 209-43.

imperial power for himself and his accomplices. Ch'ang-chou literati in particular compared Ho-shen with Wei Chung-hsien, using outraged and self-righteous rhetoric. Just as Ch'ang-chou's Chuang T'ing-ch'en discreetly snubbed Wei in the 1620s, Chuang Shu-tsu epitomized Ch'ang-chou disdain for Ho-shen (whom he dared not confront) in the 1780s. The political initiative shifted to the "voices of remonstrance."^[4]

The Problem of Factions-Again

Political tactics and alliances were forged during the late eighteenth century within the legal limits set by the imperial state. Like their Ming predecessors, Ch'ing emperors viewed horizontally aligned groups of gentry-officials as factions threatening the sanctity of vertical loyalties that culminated in the person of the emperor himself. The ideological constraints within Confucian political culture against gentry factions (factions = disloyalty and factions = private interests) were frequently voiced by Ch'lng emperors. In the seventeenth century Manchu emperors reaffirmed that literati factions were selfish and exclusivistic organizations that clashed with the public interests of the dynasty.

As early as 1652, licentiates (sbeng-yuan ) participating in the imperial examination system were forbidden to associate with large numbers of peers or to form alliances or join parties (tang ). Both the Yung-cheng (r. 1723-25) and Ch'ien-lung emperors, for instance, repeatedly attacked literati factionalism, basing their objections on the ground that literati were supposed to be public protectors of the state. In their view, selfish interests of individuals organized into factions had precipitated the fall of the Ming dynasty and would similarly affect the present dynasty if factions were again allowed free rein.^[5]

In an edict issued during the first year of the Yung-cheng reign (May 22, 1723), the role of literati factionalism in the Ming debacle was explicitly condemned: "Factionalism is an extremely bad pattern of behavior. At the end of the Ming, cliques were set up and plotted against each other, with the result that they all suffered injury together. This tendency has not yet been arrested." In addition to the long-standing Confucian injunction against factions, Manchu rulers invoked the Ming dynasty as a recent example of what happens when orthodox Confucian political values are overturned. Manchu emperors could, with

[4] Susan Mann (Jones), "Hung Liang-chi," pp. 8-11, 85-87, 137-39.

[5] See Ta-Ch'ing Kao-tsung Ch'un-huang-ti sbeng-hsun , 192.10a-1 la, and Nivison, "Ho-shen and His Accusers," pp. 223-24.

overt irony, portray themselves as protectors of Confucian political culture from the excesses of a native Chinese dynasty.^[6]

The Yung-cheng Emperor was sensitive to the threat posed by factions—his insecurity most likely arising from his own faction building, undertaken in order to cement his own claim to succession in the last years of the K'ang-hsi reign. In 1724 the Yung-cheng Emperor prepared a lengthy essay entitled "On Factions" ("P'eng-tang lan") in which he disputed Ou-yang Hsiu's famous essay by the same title justifying factions. Late Ming Tung-lin and Fu She partisans had drawn considerable moral support from Ou-yang's essay. As we have seen in chapter 1, Ou-yang Hsiu's essay differentiated self-interested factions from public-minded alignments. In the process, he defended the latter as an appropriate form of literati association within the state's vertically aligned power structure.

Ou-yang's rhetoric was unsuccessfully tested by the Tung-lin partisans in the shifting political winds of the late Ming. A key element in the futility of Ming politics was the failure of public-minded factions to gain imperial legitimacy. Nevertheless, as the Yung-cheng Emperor's open and well-publicized rejoinder to the influential essay reveals, the threat of covert factions was never totally eliminated. The emperor, who succeeded his father with the help of a well-placed faction that manufactured a façade of imperial unanimity, in effect presented a position paper denying political groups even a semblance of legitimacy.^[7]

Donald Munro and David Nivison observe that the Yung-cheng Emperor's essay on factions was authoritarian. Imperial interests, the emperor contended, always coincided with the greatest "public good" (ta-kung):

Heaven is exalted and earth is lowly, and so the ruler and minister are differentiated. The essential duty of a minister is simply to know that he has a ruler. Then his sentiments will be firm and disciplined, and he will be able to share his ruler's likes and dislikes. This is [the meaning of] the saying "one in virtue and mind, high and low are bound together." Sometimes, however, people's minds harbor several interests, so that they cannot accept the ruler's preferences, and consequently the sentiments of superiors and inferiors become opposed and the distinction between noble and base is overturned. This is what always comes of the habit of forming cliques and factions.

[6] Ta-Ch'ing Shih-tsung Hsien-huang-ti sheng-hsun , 19.lb, translated in Nivison, "Ho-shen and His Accusers," p. 224.

[7] Munro "Concept of 'Interest' in Chinese Thought," pp. 184-86. Cf. Nivison, "Ho-shen and His Accusers," p. 225.

Factions were by their very nature opposed to the impartial standards of right and wrong that informed the public good of the state:

The ruler fears that what he will see will not always be totally appropriate. Therefore, he opens his mind to entertain a variety of opinions. But it is necessary that all these opinions be of the utmost in rectitude. If this is so, and the ruler follows one, the choice will be directly compatible with the greatest public good. But those that move in cliques embrace biased opinions to mystify the ruler by their words. If the ruler by mistake acts on such opinion, then this will transform the ruler's intent for the greatest good into the most selfish of things.

Although the emperor's polemic is evidence of the enduring presence of factions, his essay translated official Confucian concerns into imperial policy and orthodox ideology.^[8]

Similarly, the Ch'ien-lung Emperor shared earlier suspicions concerning factional groupings of officials and upheld the limits of literati presumptions in political life enunciated by his father. Nivison describes a 1781 case in which the emperor decided against the persistent requests of Ch'ien Tsai (1708-93), then under secretary of the Ministry of Rites, who had memorialized that the tomb of the sage-emperor Yao (tr. r. 2356-2255?? B.C. ) be moved from its mistaken location in Shan-hsi to a town in Shan-tung Province. A seemingly innocuous request. But given the umbilical cord tying Confucian orthodoxy to imperial prestige, the Ch'ien-lung Emperor saw in the bickering surrounding the case the issues that had powered earlier gentry factions opposed to the imperial will. The emperor delivered his edict with a pointed warning:

Ch'ien Tsai is essentially a man of slow understanding, and this matter moreover is merely of archaeological importance. Therefore, we do not hold his fault to be serious. But if he were guilty of this sort of incessant bickering on administrative matters of importance, we would surely deal severely with him. At the end of the Ming, whenever some incident occurred, the hubbub among the officials filled the court. In their many litigations they made use of their public position to serve their private interests. At first, each one set up his own clique; this led to rival factions, with resulting harm to the government and a constant deterioration in the activities of the state. We cannot forbear to cite this as a pointed warning.^[9]

Wary of ritual debates that had compromised the moral legitimacy of Ming imperial policy, the Ch'ien-lung Emperor even refuted the opin-

[8] Ta-Ch'ing Shih-tsung Hsien (Yung-cheng) huang-ti shih-lu , pp. 343-44, translated in Munro, "Concept of 'Interest' in Chinese Thought," p. 185. Cf. Nivison, "Ho-shen and His Accusers," pp. 225-26.

[9] Ta-Ch'ing Kao-tsung Ch'un-huang-ti sheng-hsun , 192.10a-lla, translated in Nivison, "Ho-shen and His Accusers," pp. 223-25.

ion of Ch'eng I (1033-1107), a linchpin of the Neo-Confucian orthodoxy to which the Ch'ing imperium subscribed. We find the emperor at odds with elements in the Neo-Confucian agenda that did not jibe with Manchu imperial prerogatives. Ch'eng I had addressed three memoranda to the throne while he was imperial tutor early in the Che-tsung Emperor's reign (1086-1100). These represented, according to Nivi-son, "one of the most extreme claims in Confucian literature for literati dominance over the emperor."

Ch'eng I claimed that the best rulers followed the advice of their chief advisors and that the best government existed when regents such as the Duke of Chou assisted youthful rulers and educated them in virtue. Addressing the throne, Ch'eng wrote: "Generally speaking, if in the course of a day the emperor is in the company of worthy men much of the time and is in the company of monks and concubines only a small part of the time, his character will automatically be transformed, and his virtue will become perfect." Contending that the best rulers had honored virtuous ministers, Ch'eng I concluded "the most important responsibilities in the empire are those of prime minister and imperial tutor in the Classics."^[10]

The Ch'ien-lung Emperor thought Ch'eng I's views—otherwise part of the Ch'eng-Chu imperial ideology—tantamount to lèse-majesté:

Who after all employs a prime minister if it is not the sovereign? Suppose a sovereign merely dwells in lofty seclusion, cultivating his virtue and trusting the fortunes of the empire to his chief minister rather than concerning himself with it. Then even if he is fortunate and chooses ministers like Han [Ch'i, 1008-75] and Fan [Chung-yen, 989-1052], he will not avoid contention among his high officials; and if he should be so unfortunate as to choose ministers like Wang [Tseng, d. 1038] and Lü [I-chien, d. 1044], how is the realm to escape disorder? Surely this will not do. And if a chief minister habitually thinks of the world's welfare as his own sole responsibility, as if he had no sovereign before him, his conduct would surely be intolerable.

Ch'ing emperors, like their Ming predecessors, endeavored to exalt the throne at the expense of the bureaucracy and their chief ministers. In the process, factions were self-righteously denounced.^[11]

For both the Yung-cheng and Ch'ien-lung emperors, factionalism arose when scholars and officials chose to advance their selfish interests

[10] In the Erh-Ch'eng ch'üan-shu , see I-ch'uan wen-chi (Complete works of the two Ch'engs, Ch'eng l's collected essays), ts'e 2, 2.2a-4a. Cf. Nivison, "Ho-shen and His Accusers," pp. 230-31.

[11] See the Ch'ien-lung Emperor's "Shu Ch'eng I lun ching-t'ing cha-tzu hou," p. 2, translated in Nivison, "Ho-shen and His Accusers," p. 231.

through "unconstitutional" (that is, horizontally defined) peer organizations. As we have seen, this imperial position drew its ideological and epistemological strength from the long-standing rejection of organized gentry politics in the imperial state. Nivison succinctly summarizes the imperial position before the rise of nineteenth-century "voices of remonstrance" (ch'ing-i):

It was never conceded that men might band together out of disinterested motives—to defend the state, to protect the throne, to work for common "principles." The scholar-intellectual's contribution to government, if he made any, was to be a loyal official; if he had anything to say, he was to say it directly to the throne (if he was entitled to) and was to trust the emperor's judgment. In particular he was not to question the emperor's choice of men or suggest that he was abandoning his power to others. And so while factionalism, at least of the self-serving sort which officially was all it ever was, continued in fact, the fact had to be denied: factionalism could not be conceded to exist in such an illustrious era as Ch'ien-lung, the Age of Celestial Splendor.

Remarkably, all this rhetoric did not survive the transition to the Chia-ch'ing era. The Ho-shen affair became a watershed for moves to reformulate literati prerogatives vis-ô-vis the state and its imperial institutions. Tung-lin-style activism, submerged for a century and a half, reappeared as an instructive precedent rather than as evidence of selfish factionalism.^[12]

Literati Perceptions of Ho-Shen

Like the eunuch usurpation during the Ming, the Ho-shen affair altered Confucian discourse on gentry-official responsibilities vis-à-vis the welfare of an imperiled dynasty. For a faction to succeed in imperial politics required access to the emperor's favor. By gaining imperial support, Ho-shen could with relative impunity assemble a formidable group of supporters who were identifiable as a powerful clique in imperial and provincial politics. This unorthodox—many viewed it as illegitimate—road to power had been the key to eunuch influence for several earlier dynasties.

Opposition to Ho-shen in the 1790s, like opposition to the eunuch Wei Chung-hsien in the 1620s, brought together a disparate collection of literati and bureaucratic dissatisfaction to form a polarized faction.

[12] Nivison, "Ho-shen and His Accusers," p. 232.

Behind the unified ideological façade of the Ch'ien-lung Emperor's last two decades of direct and indirect rule (he "retired" in 1795, yielding titular power to his son), covert power alignments appeared that would later emerge as overt "voices of remonstrance."^[13]

In the eyes of many Chinese and Manchus, the threat that Ho-shen posed to Confucian political life and official careers conveniently exceeded the dangers of factionalism. When the ideological objections to factions were challenged in lurid literati accounts of Ho-shen's subversion of the throne for personal profit and greed, imperial bans on "factions" were portrayed as morally suspect. The Confucian opposition now held the high ground. Their "public-minded" (kung ) duty as concerned Confucians was seen to conflict with the selfish (ssu ) predators feeding on imperial access. The terms of discourse on political factions were slowly reversed in the 1790s.

Little actually changed until the death of the retired Ch'ien-lung Emperor in 1799. Important court officials such as Chuang Ts'un-yü, for example, could not speak out directly. Hence in the 1780s Chuang chose New Text interpretations of the Annals, as we have seen, to disguise his misgivings about Ho-shem A decade later, heeding the advice of ministers who were aligned against the handsome and well-placed Manchu, the Chia-ch'ing Emperor slowly effected Ho-shen's demise. Upon taking personal command of the government, the new emperor invited all qualified officials to memorialize the throne on the problems facing the dynasty. This privilege of submitting opinions to the throne (yen-lu, lit., "pathway for words") signified an opening of the political process after decades of the throne's rejection of unsolicited advice.^[14]

Many of Ho-shen's opponents, surprisingly, were Han Learning scholars. They rallied around the Manchu Grand Counselor A-kuei (1717-97) and Chu Kuei (1731-1807), a northern Chinese who was a friend and former tutor of the Chia-ch'ing Emperor. A-kuei was a colleague and associate of Chuang Ts'un-yü when the latter served in the Grand Secretariat a decade earlier. Chu Kuei's elder brother, Chu Yun, was a highly respected Han Learning scholar and patron of k'ao-cheng research. Chu Kuei—himself a supporter of Han Learning and evidential scholarship—had been recalled to Peking by his former imperial pupil to serve as head of the Board of Civil Office in the Ministry of Rites. The role of Han Learning scholars in opposing the Ho-shen fac-

[13] ibid., pp. 232-43.

[14] Ibid., pp. 240-41. See also Hucker, "Confucianism and the Chinese Censorial System," pp. 182-208.

tion demonstrates a degree of political involvement that has never been associated with the k'ao-cheng movement. It suggests that the typical portrayal of Hah Learning as apolitical philology needs to be revised substantially.^[15]

Among the Han Learning antagonists Chu Kuei had assembled, Hung Liang-chi, Sun Hsing-yen, and Chang Hui-yen were Ch'ang-chou natives. The contributions of Ch'ang-chou scholarship and statecraft traditions among the Chu Kuei group should not be underestimated. Hung and Chang were closely associated with the Chuang lineage in Ch'ang-chou, for example. Given Chuang Ts'un-yü's opposition to Ho-shen in the 1780s and his association with A-kuei (whose efforts to promote the official career of Chuang's nephew Shu-tsu were sabotaged by Ho-shen [see chapter 3]), Ts'un-yÿ's classical studies took on special meaning for Chu Kuei's group. Two years after Ho-shen's death, for example, Chu prepared a preface for Chuang Ts'un-yü's Correcting Terms in the Spring and Autumn Annals that lauded the author's efforts to enunciate the Kung-yang vision of the Annals. As we have seen, the latter was encoded with anti-Ho-shen sentiment.^[16]

For many among Chu Kuei's group the emperor's moves to remove Ho-shen from power did not go far enough. Although he acknowledged that many of Ho-shen's followers must have shared in crimes attributed to Ho-shen, the emperor could not allow the slightest criticism of his father, who had given Ho-shen the scope to maneuver in court. Moreover, the Chia-ch'ing Emperor wished to avoid a full-scale purge, which was the only way to weed out the Ho-shen faction. Instead, he chose to view Ho-shen as responsible for corrupting those below him. The enemy was not a faction but an individual. With Ho-shen gone, the loyalty of officials, he hoped, would return to where it belonged—the person of the emperor.

The Hung Liang-Chi Case

But the emperor's limited response to the Ho-shen subversion was challenged in late September 1799, when the Ch'ang-chou literatus Hung

[15] See my Philosophy to Philology , pp. 13-26, 105-7. Nivison's account in his "Ho-shen and His Accusers," pp. 209-43, is filled with the names of Ho-shen antagonists who were Han Learning scholars: Chiao Hsun (1763-1820), Sun Hsing-yen (1753-1818), Hung Liang-chi (1746-1809), Wu I (1745-99), Wang Hui-tsu (1731-1807), Chang Hui-yen (1761-1802), among others.

[16] Chu Kuei, "Hsu" (Preface) to Chuang Ts'un-yü, in Ch'un-ch'iu cheng-tz'u , pp. 1a-2a. See also Wang Hsi-hsun, Ch'ieh-chu-an wen-chi , pp. 203-204, 221-23, for a discussion of the opposition expressed by Chang Hui-yen and Chuang Shu-tsu to Ho-shen.

Liang-chi dramatically called for the court to address the Ho-shen era as a factional problem. Hung's veiled criticism of the throne (presented to Prince Ch'eng [1752-1823] because Hung was not entitled to address the emperor while serving as Hanlin academician) was unprecedented. Hung's passionate remonstrance with the Chia-ch'ing Emperor represented the opening salvo in the revival of literati political activism in the nineteenth century. Tung-lin-style political behavior had returned, although its fate hung in the balance as the emperor pondered his response to Hung Liang-chi's challenge. Hung's colleagues, friends, and supporters all feared that Hung's audacity would cost him his life.^[17]

A protégé of the emperor's confidant Chu Kuei, Hung Liang-chi sent Chu a copy of his letter. Prince Ch'eng delivered Hung's letter at once to the emperor, who, enraged by Hung's audacity, immediately removed Hung from his Hanlin post. Angered even more by Hung Liang-chi's distributing the letter behind his back to Chu Kuei and others, the Chia-ch'ing Emperor demoted Chu Kuei, his former mentor, by three official ranks for not transmitting the copy of the letter Chu had received from Hung until the emperor called for it. The Ministry of Punishments, after convening in an emergency session with the Grand Council, recommended that Hung be decapitated for the crime of lèse-majesté. Chu Kuei's faction faced a crucial juncture. The emperor now had an opportunity, with the full ideological support of Confucian political theory, to eradicate the polarized forces that had compromised his initial policy decisions.

Susan Mann has described the furor that Hung's arrest aroused in Peking literati circles. After his incarceration, Hung Liang-chi's Ch'ang-chou landsman and cousin Chao Huai-yü—then a grand secretary in the imperial bureaucracy—visited Hung's cell the evening of his arrest. Mann poignantly describes this meeting:

[Chao Huai-yü] walked through the cluster of guards who were still avidly comparing versions of the case, took one look at Hung (who, by this account, was seated in bonds on a straw mat), and burst into tears. Hung beckoned him inside, somehow unloosed his "bonds" and poured them each a glass of wine. Chao could not swallow. Finally, Hung said, "I have done what I did openly, before everyone. There is nothing to discuss. What are you trying to hide from me?" Chao finally burst out that he had learned a death sentence was pending. Hung took a big bite of food. Then he looked up and said, "I know I'm going to lose my head." There was a pause, and he

[17] Nivison, "Ho-shen and His Accusers," pp. 240-41, and Susan Mann (Jones), "Scholasticism and Politics," 30-32.

added, "Why should you be hitter that I am going to die this way?" And he went on eating.

Hung held the moral high ground, deliberately and openly reaffirming the right of a concerned Confucian official to remonstrate the court.^[18]

As a member of a coterie of Han Learning scholars in Ch'ang-chou that had gained national prominence in the 1780s, Hung Liang-chi had been a poor outsider who had studied briefly in the Chuang lineage school as a youth (see chapter 2). His decisive letter was at first sight a radical departure from his k'ao-cheng studies in geography, epigraphy, and classical studies. But from the angle of Ch'ang-chou statecraft traditions—which we have studied in light of the Wu-hsi Tung-lin legacy and the Chuang and Liu lineages of Wu-chin—Hung Liang-chi's letter expressed long-latent political concerns, Political and statecraft agendas had remained an important factor in Ch'ang-chou traditions in general and among members of the Chuang and Liu lineages in particular.^[19]

What prompted this sudden explosion of political concern? The eruption occurred after Ho-shen's suicide. Clearly the Ho-shen era had generated anger, frustration, and a sense of futility as the corruption of Ho-shen's henchmen and the military defeats in local rebellions rent late imperial state and society apart. Important clues to this decisive transformation in literati perception may be found in the political career of the doyen of eighteenth-century Ch'ang-chou learning, Chuang Ts'un-yü, whose turn to Kung-yang Confucianism signified, as we have seen, his dismay over the political corruption of the 1780s. Chuang's elucidation of the Annals reveals a significant shift in focus from typical Old Text erudition to a more voluntaristic Confucianism. Voluntarism and activism were derived from the Kung-yang Commentary, whose portrayal of Confucius as an "uncrowned king" during the declining centuries of the Chou dynasty were analogous to the declining fortunes of the Ch'ien-lung reign during the Ho-shen era.^[20]

Hung Liang-chi's 1799 letter, then, like Chuang Ts'un-yü's Kung. yang Confucianism, was not an isolated protest appearing from nowhere. The political and social forces that had shaped Ts'un-yü's clas-

[18] Susan Mann (Jones), "Hung Liang-chi," pp. 158-59. See Pei-chuan chi , 51.3a-3b, Li Huan, Kuo-ch'ao ch'i-hsien lei-cheng , 132.27a-27b, and Yun Ching, Ta-yun shan-fang chi , p. 163, for accounts of this episode.

[19] See Susan Mann (Jones), "Scholasticism and Politics," pp. 30-33, on the problem of reconciling k'ao-cheng studies and political dissent in Hung's intellectual development.

[20] Schwartz, "Foreword" to Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Intellectual Trends , pp. xi-xxii.

sicism in the 1780s carried over into the 1790s when Hung Liang-chi challenged imperial policy and publicly represented literati activism. Two heirs of Ch'ang-chou's elite traditions had articulated intellectual and political currents at the turn of the nineteenth century that would mushroom into major movements for the remainder of the dynasty. Four decades before the Opium War, literati activism and New Text voluntarism were on the ascent.

The Literati Reemergent

Chuang Ts'un-yü's criticism was veiled, as we have seen, in classical studies. Ts'un-yü himself did not speak out directly, no doubt because he and other officials had lost the ear of the Ch'ien-lung Emperor to Ho-shen. Chuang only witnessed Ho-shen’s rise to power. Hung Liang-chi, however, protested it. It would be too much to attribute Hung's 1799 letter to the influence of Chuang Ts'un-yü's Kung-yang Confucianism. Yet both were products of literati debates surrounding Ho-shen's position in state politics. In addition, both Chuang and Hung drew on Ch'ang-chou traditions of statecraft and scholarship to articulate their respective positions. And Hung's relations with the Chuang lineage in Ch'ang-chou had long been intimate, going back to his childhood and continuing into his mature adult life. More a Han Learning scholar than New Text advocate, Hung Liang-chi's statecraft interests nonetheless bore the stamp of the "learning of Ch'ang-chou."^[21]

Hung's letter is clearly the work of a man who lived to see the end of Ho-shen and the subsequent promise of reform under a new emperor. When the reform failed to materialize, Hung felt compelled to break the silence:

But I am torn by an inner conflict that I cannot resolve. On the one hand I am beset by my deep devotion to my master; on the other, I dare not forget the true significance of the advice from teachers and friends. Now I am merely a Hanlin [academician]. It is not part of my duty to remonstrate. But I can think of many times, in the few years since I became an official, that I have enjoyed unusual favor in serving my country. An official does not receive such favor without repaying it. Nor would a subject dare to seem as if he had feelings that he had not voiced completely.

Hung's decision to protest as a concerned Hanlin academician may also be explained in light of efforts then underway to reconsider the

[21] See Hung's exchange of scholarly views with Chuang Shu-tsu in Hung Liang-chi, Hung Pei-chiang shih-wen chi , vol. 1, pp. 250-51 (chüan 6). See also Polachek, Inner Opium War.

limited role of the Hanlin Academy, which had become devoid of political concerns.^[22]

Yao Nai, a Sung Learning advocate distressed by the apolitical vocations of most Hah Learning scholars, composed an essay entitled "On the Hanlin Academy" ("Han-lin lun"). He complained of the superficiality of the academy's purely literary concerns and its failure to encourage candor. Criticizing the Hanlin Academy's loss of its remonstrance function (chien-shu), which it shared in earlier dynasties with imperial censors (yü-shih yen-kuan), Yao Nai, perhaps mindful of Hung Liang-chi's letter to Prince Ch'eng, complained:

For this reason, the gentleman searches after the Way. Petty men seek after [literary] techniques. The [public] responsibility of the gentleman is expressed through the Way. The responsibility of the petty man is expressed through [literary] techniques. . ..Of course, the Way is contained within [literary] technique. Yet it would be better if expressed through loyal remonstrance and public debate, which encompass the greatness of the Way. Simply to use phrases and graphs to occupy the time of a Hanlin academician only limits him to [literary] technique.

Yao pointedly added that Ming Hanlin academicians surpassed their Ch'lng counterparts as voices of remonstrance. Hung Liang-chi's 1799 letter in many ways was an early form of ch'ing-i protest patterns that became characteristic of nineteenth-century gentry activism.^[23]

Hung Liang-chi appealed to the literatus as a concerned individual, not to any particular faction. By going it alone, Hung was able to sidestep the full force of Confucian strictures against literati cliques. His solitary stance may in part account for the Chia-ch'ing Emperor's decision to exile Hung to Chinese Turkestan instead of having him summarily executed. More important, the emperor's mercy signaled that literati dissent would be tolerated as long as it was voiced through appropriate channels.^[24]

A vital precedent, imperially authorized, had been established, and Hung Liang-chi's letter became a celebrated case throughout the Ch'ing empire. Hung was treated as a hero by adoring crowds and admiring gentry he met on the way to exile in far-off I-li. The Chia-ch'ing Emperor, cognizant that an execution would unintentionally spread terror

[22] Pei-chuan chi, 51.6b, translated in Mann (Jones), "Hung Liang-chi," p. 161.

[23] Yao Nai, Hsi-pao-hsuan ch'üan-chi, 1.4a-5a. See Polachek, "Literati Groups." Cf. Whitbeck, "Kung Tzu-chen." For a somewhat dated discussion of ch'ing-i see Eastman, Throne and Mandarins , pp. 20-29.

[24] Nivison, "Ho-shen and His Accusers," p. 242.

throughout the bureaucracy and thus prevent other officials from speaking freely and offering him needed advice, maintained that he had never considered killing Hung. In fact, he claimed he was keeping Hung's letter near his bedside as a constant reminder of a ruler's obligations in affairs of state.

In fact, the emperor pardoned Hung Liang-chi in 1800 and allowed him to return after a drought in Peking resulted in the ritual granting of amnesties to propitiate heaven. In the official pardon, the emperor publicly blamed himself for punishing a remonstrating official. Rain immediately fell, according to the imperial account, and the emperor composed a poem to commemorate the occasion, which was included in one of Hung Liang-chi's collected writings.^[25]

Susan Mann observes that Hung Liang-chi regarded himself simply as an honest Confucian official in the finest tradition of official remonstrance (yen-lu ). She adds:

But to students of imperial power and its changes in the Ch'ing dynasty, Hung's letter marks the beginning of the shift of the balance, away from the throne and out into the ranks of the bureaucracy. For Hung's ruler not only failed to halt, but was unable to discern, the fading of imperial authority that Hung and his contemporaries had been watching for "twenty or thirty years."

By 1800 the political climate in China had changed. The Chia-ch'ing Emperor had tolerated what previous emperors—particularly the Yung-cheng and Ch'ien-lung emperors—had expressly forbidden, namely, unauthorized public censure of the throne.^[26]

The Hung Liang-chi case did not legitimate factions, however. Consequently, the Chia-ch'ing Emperor's efforts to lessen the autocratic aura of the throne did not retract or even modify Confucian injunctions against collective political participation. In fact, the emperor feared that a policy of vindictiveness against the remnants of Ho-shen’s cronies would revive the destructive factionalism of the late Ming. He had been lenient with Ho-shen's followers to avoid divisions at the court. Now he dealt leniently with Hung Liang-chi as well.

Tung-lin-style factionalism thus remained expressly forbidden by imperial fiat and Confucian ideology. Within a nineteenth-century imperial system caught between internal rebellion and external imperialism,

[25] Susan Mann (Jones), "Hung Liang-chi, " pp. 159-60. See Ta-Ch'ing Jen-tsung Jui (Chia-ch'ing) huang-ti shih-lu , 50.44a.

[26] Susan Mann, "Hung Liang-chi," p. 160, and Nivison, "Ho-shen and His Accusers," p. 243.

however, China's lettered elite increasingly sought political legitimacy for their role in determining their fate. "Voices of remonstrance" came forth and attempted to redress literati grievances and to ameliorate the dynasty's problems. Factions and parties took shape around contemporary political, social, and economic issues.^[27]

Hung Liang-chi's dramatic 1799 letter marked the first overt re-emergence of gentry activism within the institutional and ideological confines of the late Ch'ing Confucian imperium. The Ch'ien-Chia transition had altered the focus of debate within which New Text Confucianism and statecraft issues would be rhetorically utilized during the nineteenth century. It was not accidental, then, that both statecraft politics and New Text theory contributed to the ideological integrity that ch'ing-i factions needed in order to vie for the upper hand in imperial politics and to gain the political leverage required to deal with the decay of the Ch'ing imperial state.

As the dynasty faltered, the influence of its scholar-officials grew stronger. Seeking precedents, ch'ing-i groups reevaluated their seven-teenth-century predecessors, and the Tung-lin legacy was reopened for particular study and possible emulation. Efforts by late Ming Tung-lin activists and early Ch'ing statecraft scholars to redefine literati solidarity within the state bureaucracy were now reinterpreted as heroic examples for contemporaries to address the problems of the early nineteenth century.^[28]

The Politics of Language

Literary debate during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reflected changing literati values in scholarship and politics. Both Sung Learning in T'ung-ch'eng and New Text studies in Ch'ang-chou, for example, were intimately tied to revived interest in ancient-style prose (ku-wen ) as the appropriate expression of Confucian values. The language of politics, T'ung-ch'eng and Ch'ang-chou stylists contended, was poorly served by the academic lexicon of Han Learning scholars. At issue was political conviction vs. scholarly impartiality. T'ung-ch'eng and Ch'ang-chou advocates of ku-wen regarded the parallel prose (p'ien-t'i-wen ) of Han Learning and examination essays (pa-ku-wen ) as the antithesis of Confucian ideals.

[27] Ta-Ch'ing hui-tien shih-li, vol. 22, p. 17091, edict dated fourth Year of Chia-ch'ing. Cf. Polachek, Inner Opium War .

[28] Whitbeck, "Kung Tzu-chen," pp. 16-17. See also Eastman, Throne and Mandarins , pp. 16-29, and Rankin, "'Public Opinion' and Political Power,"

Literary Genres

We describe earlier in this study the links between literary expression and statecraft rhetoric, specifically noting that the ancient-style-prose tradition in Ch'ang-chou dated back to T'ang Shun-chih in the late Ming. Later Ch'ang-chou literati maintained that T'ang exemplified the ideal of Confucian literary expression, "Prose is a vehicle for the Way" (wen i tsai tao ). We find here Confucian justification for literary pursuits in which any account of moral and political ideals was tied to the narrative form used to express those ideals. Ch'ing dynasty literary men in Ch'ang-chou and T'ung-ch'eng in particular believed that Confucian values were inseparable from a certain narrative style best exemplified in the classical writings of the ancients.^[29]

Differences between accounts of Confucian ideals by Sung Learning advocates and those by Hah Learning advocates corresponded to disputes over what narrative form best captured the central characteristics of Confucian private and public life. It was consequently no coincidence that areas where Sung Learning traditions remained prominent (most notably in T'ung-ch'eng and Ch'ang-chou) in the eighteenth century, despite the popularity of Hah Learning, were also strongholds of ancient-style prose. It is an odd paradox (or convenient sublimation) that Sung Learning, with its rhetorical denigration of the metaphysical status of human desires, would be associated with a literary genre such as ku-wen, in which political conviction could be expressed so directly. It is equally paradoxical that Hah Learning, with its affirmation of human desires, could be tied to parallel-prose styles that favored dispassionate narrative over literary flair.^[30]

When compared with their Sung-Ming Neo-Confucian predecessors, k'ao-cheng scholars were generally less interested in poetry. When they did write it, the verse was usually taken less seriously both by themselves and by critics. The opposite had been true in the Sung through Ming period, when T'ang dynasty poetic models were the rage. Huang Tsung-hsi and Ku Yen-wu, for instance, were important figures in early Ch'ing changes in literary criticism. Stressing classical erudition, both Huang and Ku placed classical studies (ching-hsueh ) in a much more important position than the writing of poetry.

[29] Hsu K'o, Ch'ing-pai lei-ch'ao , 70.31-37. See also Yeh Chia-ying Chao, "Ch'ang-chou School," pp. 153-61. On the wen i tsai tao ideal formulated by Chou Tun-i (1017-73), see James J. Y. Lin, Chinese Theories of Literature , pp. 114, 128.

[30] For a discussion see MacIntyre, After Virtue , p. 135. See also my "Criticism as Philosophy."

Poetry, although still acceptable as an ancillary art, was considered of marginal value for the statecraft concerns that were the pillars of Confucianism. Historical and classical research, in their view, had priority. Writing in defense of his research, Ku Yen-wu explained. "The learning of a gentleman is used to illuminate the Way and is applied to save the world. If one writes nothing but poetry and [examination] essays, this indicates that one only has a petty talent for forming words in flowery ways. Of what use is it?"^[31]

Eighteenth-century Han Learning scholars such as Hui Tung followed these leads, limiting their literary interests to textual annotations of poetic collections and anthologies. Applying a k'ao-cheng approach to poetry, Hui Tung's literary interests, according to Kondo Mitsuo, represented the kind of scholarly poetic discourse one would expect in a time when evidential research was popular.

Because academic and literary fields interacted, k'ao-cheng research techniques were employed to study and classify—that is, to anthologize—the poetry and prose of earlier eras. Kondo Mitsuo has argued that the triumph of evidential research in the Yangtze Delta during the eighteenth century symbolized a major transformation in poetic discourse and literary criticism. Wu Hung-i, in his recent analysis of Ch'ing poetics, also stresses the role k'ao-cheng scholarship played in literary criticism. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries an important movement in the criticism of poetic diction, phrasing, rhymes, and metrics was complemented by the establishment of a consistent theory of poetics. According to Wu, Ch'ing critics thought they had finally succeeded in identifying the phonic patterns and poetic dictions that gave poetry its aesthetic power.^[32]

The appreciation of poetry among Ch'ing literati, when compared with Ming Confucians, was not overwhelming. Textual specialists such as Yen Jo-chü (despite participation in his father's poetry society), Yao Chi-heng, and Tai Chen, for example, left behind almost no poetry whatsoever. Ch'ien Ta-hsin, for instance, sought renown as a classical and historical scholar and was dismayed when he achieved fame as a

[31] For Ku Yen-wu's remarks see Ku T'ing-lin shih-wen chi, p. 103. See Yamanoi yu^[*] , "Ko^[*]   Sogi^[*] no gakumon," pp. 33-35, and "Ko Enbu no gakumon kan," 74-75.

[32] Kondo Mitsuo, "Kei To^[*]   to Sen Taikin," pp. 715-16, and "Koshogaku^[*] ni okeru bunsho hyogen^[*] kyori^[*] ichi shiju^[*] ." "Theoretical consistency" refers to the prosodic rules for ko-tiao (form and style) and shen-yun (spirit and tone) that pervaded Ch'ing poetics. See also Wu Hung-i, Ch'ing-tai shih-hsueh ch'u-t'an ; James J. Y. Liu, Art of Chinese Poetry , pp. 67-69, 77-80; and Liu, Chinese Theories of Literature , pp. 45, 88-97.

poet after his verse was published in literary anthologies over which he had no control.

Similarly, the historian Chang Hsueh-ch'eng (1738-1801) intentionally wrote very little poetry. He explained: "History's main concern is politics, and verse is not really of importance." Poetry, Chang thought, was at best bad prose. Chang Hsueh-ch'eng was particularly dismayed with and jealous of the popularity of what he considered to be Yuan Mei's "vulgar" poetry.^[33]

Nevertheless, poetry continued to be studied and practiced by Ch'ing literati—k'ao-cheng scholars included. During the Ch'ing, poetry often complemented the work of the scholar. Chu I-tsun and Ch'en Wei-sung achieved considerable reputations for their influence on the revival of the difficult genre of tz'u (lyric poetry), in addition to their highly respected textual studies. In the late eighteenth century in Ch'en Wei-sung's native Ch'ang-chou, lyric poetry became a literati passion important enough to be recognized as the "Ch'ang-chou school" of lyric poetry.

Chao I became famous as a Ch'ang-chou stylist of tz'u, although his major efforts were spent in k'ao-cheng work on the Dynastic Histories. Likewise, Chang Hui-yen's well-known lyric poetry, which represented the pinnacle of the Ch'ang-chou school, was less important to him than his Han Learning studies of the Change Classic (see chapter 4). Until the nineteenth century, then, scholarship took precedence over poetry or prose, and a man's literary production was considered little more than an ornament for precise scholarship.^[34]

Ancient-Style Prose in the Ch'Ien-Chia Transition

The T'ung-ch'eng and Yang-hu schools of ancient-style prose (the latter in Ch'ang-chou) carried literary debates into the nineteenth century, when new social and political conditions made activist Confucians seek more appealing literary vehicles for political discussion. The Han Learning vs. Sung Learning debate was frequently disguised as a literary

[33] Chang Hsueh-ch'eng, Wen-shih t'ung-i , pp. 585-89. See Kondo, "Sen Taikin no bungaku," and "Kei To^[*]   to Sen Taikin," pp. 705-706. See also Nivison, Chang Hsueh-ch'eng, pp. 134, 137, 246, and Kawata, "Shindai gakujutsu no ichi sokumen," 97-98. For Yen Jo-chü's links to his father's poetry society, known as the Wang She (Society of expectations), see Li Yuan-keng, "Wang She hsing-shih k'ao."

[34] Aoki, Shindai bungaku hyoronshi^[*] , pp. 546-53. See also Wu Hung-i, "Ch'ang-chou-p'ai tz'u-hsueh yen-chiu," pp. 33-62, and Lung Mu-hsun, "Lun Ch'ang-chou tz'up'ai," 1-3, 20. On Chang Hui-yen's turn from literature to classical studies see Wang Hsi-hsun, Ch'ieh-chu-an wen-chi , p. 204.

quarrel. In contrast to the dispassionate genres of literary criticism and poetics associated with Han Learning, a body of critical theory on prose writing also became prominent in the late eighteenth century.

Literary critics who favored parallel-prose styles could invoke the compositional principles used in writing "eight-legged" (pa-ku ) civil service examination essays. Li Chao-lo, a Ch'ang-chou critic of ku-wen, even questioned the authenticity of ancient-style prose, contending that parallel prose represented the true narrative order within which the classical vision had been articulated. Li's argument represented vintage Han Learning: because ku-wen was a T'ang-Sung literary form, its ties to the Han classical legacy were distant and questionable. Han Confucians had composed in parallel prose, demonstrating to Li that the latter was nearer to the time of the ancients and thus more likely to be the way the ancients expressed their views. Predilection for parallel prose among more apolitical evidential research scholars meant that reading replaced recitation. Expository prose required styles of expression that emphasized dispassionate content over emotional form.^[35]

Even the T'ung-ch'eng school of ancient-style prose was influenced by these compositional principles. Literary stylists mixed their genres freely. Li Chao-lo could complain about the T'ang-Sung origins of ku-wen, for example, but he still became known as a master of its form. Fang Pao, the doyen of T'ung-ch'eng Sung Learning, asserted that literary composition should have "models and rules" (i-fa ) to follow. Yao Nai, the late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century spokesman for T'ung-ch'eng Sung Learning, later stipulated eight criteria for evaluating good prose writing.

Yao claimed that style should be united with content. But even he advocated proficiency in evidential studies, although only as a complement to literary training (wen-chang ) and moral philosophy (i-li ). Juan Yuan accused the T'ung-ch'eng scholars of stealing their compositional principles from the eight-legged essay form. Fang Pao, according to some, "used ancient-style prose for contemporary-style [examination] essays and used contemporary-style essays for ancient-style prose." Similarly, Yao Nai's examination essays were compared to his kuwen .^[36]

Rhetorically, however, nineteenth-century vindicators of kuwen fre-

[35] On the literary debate see Li Shen-ch'i nien-p'u , 2.7a-7b. See also Hsueh Tzuheng, "Hsing-chuang" (Obituary for Li Chao-lo), pp. 2b-3a. Cf. Ching-i Tu, "Chinese Examination Essay."

[36] Yao Nai, Hsi-pao-hsuan ch'üan-chi, (1984 ed.), pp. 47-48 (chüan 4), includes a preface for Hsieh Ch'i-k'un's (1737-1802) Hsiao-hsueh k'ao, a specialized reference and descriptive bibliography for k'ao-cheng studies. See also pp. 80-81 for Yao Nai's letter to Ch'in Ying (1743-1821), which discusses his efforts to balance moral philosophy, literature, and philology as complementary fields of Confucian studies. For a discussion see Wang Tse-fu, "T'ung-ch'eng-p'ai te i-fa," pp. 125-33, and Ch'iao Kuo-chang, "Lun T'ung-ch'eng-p'ai ku-wen ho Ch'ing-ch'ao te wen-hua t'ung-chih," pp. 136-37, 138-39. Cf. Pollard's discussion in his Chinese Look at Literature , pp. 140-57, and Leung Mankam, "Juan Yuan," pp. 109-30.

quently ridiculed the eight-legged essay as a hybrid genre that had evolved from Ming dynasty literary forms. Ancient-style prose was defended as a superior genre of literati expression, especially when compared with what was considered the overly rigid and uncreative composition principles employed in examination essays (shih-wen, lit., "contemporary-style essays"). In the late nineteenth century ku-wen advocates called for an end to the "eight-legged" essays required of all examination candidates. Some Sung Learning scholars at times supported changes to an examination format that enshrined Sung Learning.^[37]

Yao Nai's 1779 Ku-wen tz'u lei-tsuan (Classified collection of writings in ancient-style prose), for instance, comprised ancient texts that were classified into thirteen categories—e.g., critical essays, colophons, letters, epitaphs, and so forth. Yao's work served as an alternative textbook, in contrast to collections of examination essays, which brought together in convenient form many of the more polished essays written in ku-wen. Later, Li Chao-lo compiled his P'ien-t'i-wen ch'ao (Transcriptions of parallel-prose writing) to counter the popularity of Yao's collection. Genres became as much a part of Ch'ing scholarly debate as Confucian doctrine.^[38]

Yao Nai's complaint about Hanlin academicians, described earlier, was that they devoted too much time to literary questions, presumably examination essays. Instead, he favored a more activist stance whereby Hanlin members would remonstrate with the throne concerning issues of state. Ancient-style prose, according to the T'ung-ch'eng partisans, was not an escape from political responsibility but, rather, served as the appropriate literary means for literati to proclaim their political opinions to the throne and others. T'ung-ch'eng stylists like Yao Nai, Yao Ying, and Fang Tung-shu saw no contradiction between political activism and proficiency in ku-wen. One was reflected in the other, they contended.

[37] Ching-i Tu, "Chinese Examination Essay," pp. 405-406. See also Ch'ien Chunglien, "T'ung-ch'eng-p'ai ku-wen yü shih-wen te kuan-hsi wen-t'i," pp. 151-58.

[38] Edwards, "Thirteen Classes of Chinese Prose," pp. 770-88. See also Chiang Ihsueh, "Tan yu-kuan T'ung-ch'eng wen-p'ai te chi-ko wen-t'i," pp. 77-87.

Activism and Literary Fellowship

James Polachek has described the centrality of literary or aesthetic fellowship in forging peer group collaboration in Peking before the Opium War. Tolerance for literati remonstrances after the Chia-ch'ing Emperor's lenient treatment of Hung Liang-chi translated into the creation of numerous poetry associations in the early nineteenth century; such associations had been banned after the purge of the Tung-lin partisans in the seventeenth century. Their return to favor in the nineteenth century in turn meant that lineage strategies for local organization were no longer the only legitimate form of gentry association tolerated by the state (see chapter 1).^[39]

Poetry associations, according to Polachek, "served as templates for more ambitious kinds of network-building, such as occurred when the literati mobilized for independent political action." They therefore became socially acceptable frameworks within which shared ideals "tended to draw the lettered elite into durable units of political cooperation." Consequently, the prominence of literary fellowship, when evaluated in light of earlier discussion of stylistic debates between dispassionate Han Learning scholars and politically motivated Sung Learning advocates, was not a sign of elite idleness. Rather, it symbolized the use of more activist ancient-style-prose rhetoric by literati associations. Frequently the latter opposed what they considered the apolitical stance taken by eighteenth-century Han Learning scholars.^[40]

The "re-rhetorization" of stylistic expression did not produce political interest groups per se, but the formation of aesthetic fellowships did bring like-minded Confucians together into loose political alliances. As in the late Ming, such groups would eventually adopt overt political stances in the face of social, political, and military crises. Polachek shows how more vocal organizations of ch'ing-i ("voices of remonstrance"), so much a part of the late Ch'ing political landscape, derived from these earlier fellowships of literati. Although associations tended to reorganize literati around stylistic—that is, aesthetic—issues, they contained political overtones. We will discuss these groups below in light of the revival of interest in Tung-lin-style activism. For example, in the nineteenth century the activist image of the Ming loyalist Ku Yen-wu began to supersede his earlier reputation as a pioneer of evidential research. The literati group that coalesced in the 1830s around the Han

[39] Polachek, Inner Opium War .

[40] Ibid.

Learning scholar Chang Mu perceived in Ku's reformist intent an antidote to contemporary dynastic dislocation. In 1843 Chang Mu and his group erected a temple in Peking to pay tribute to Ku Yen-wu and thereby to justify their own political activism.^[41]

Compared with the professionalized scholarly roles and apolitical associations of eighteenth-century k'ao-cheng scholars, nineteenth-century literary associations provided a framework for gentry political commitments. Hung Liang-chi's explosive emotionalism (pu te i ) in his 1799 letter to Prince Ch'eng, when compared with his dispassionate philological and geographical studies, gives us a clue to the politics of language in Han vs. Sung Learning debates. In due course, the language of politics after the Ho-shen era slowly but decisively began to shift from dispassionate Han Learning classical models to politically charged themes associated with T'ung-ch'eng ku-wen and Ch'ang-chou New Text studies.^[42]

Ancient-Style Prose in Ch'Ang-Chow

The Yang-hu school of ancient-style prose in Ch'ang-chou—a precursor of the literati clubs that came into vogue during the nineteenth century—comprised a diverse collection of local Confucians, for whom literary achievement went hand in hand with classical studies. Preeminent as stylists, Chang Hui-yen and Yun Ching were the mainstays of ku-wen in Ch'ang-chou. Their contacts with a broad range of Ch'ang-chou literati created an influential group there, which shared a feeling of literary fellowship and political concern for what they considered the deleterious effects of the Ho-shen era. The Yang-hu group, correspondingly, was broadly based enough to include Han Learning and Sung Learning within its areas of aesthetic interest.^[43]

This Ch'ang-chou group of literary and political fellowship also included Chao Huai-yü, Huang Ching-jen, Hung Liang-chi, Liu Feng-lu, Chuang Shou-chia, and Li Chao-lo, who participated in the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries either directly or indirectly. Along with Chang Hui-yen and Yun Ching, these men represent a notable convergence of Ch'ang-chou statecraft traditions, literary currents, and New Text studies.

[41] See Kuhn, "Late Ch'ing Views," p. 15, and Guy, "Evidential Research Movement," 100.

[42] Polachek, Inner Opium War.

[43] Wilhelm, "Chinese Confucianism," pp. 309-10.

The Kung-yang Confucianism of Chuang Ts'un-yü and the New Text Confucianism of Liu Feng-lu were part of a more general change in literati attitudes in Ch'ang-chou toward their roles in Confucian political life. It would be too much to assert that New Text studies brought about these changes. Kung-yang theory confirmed, however, many of the conceptual and literary changes brought about by the debate between Sung Learning and Hah Learning.^[44]

As an example of the overlap between literary concerns and New Text classicism we can cite Chang Hui-yen's readiness to interpret lyric poetry as the repository of "esoteric meanings" (wei-i ) presented by worthy men to express their hidden, critical views of contemporary events. Requiring a level of classical erudition comparable to that in parallel prose and a stylistic complexity comparable to that of ancient-style prose, lyric poetry became an appropriate poetic vehicle for literati expression of Confucian values and sentiments. Appropriating praise-and-blame theory that had long been applied to Confucius's Spring and Autumn Annals and Poetry Classic —particularly by Former Han New Text Confucians—Chang Hui-yen assumed that tz'u contained the same kind of indirect criticism of political affairs. Just as the Annals and Poetry classics represented, through allegorized (pi ) prose and poetry, direct confirmation of the decline of classical values during the Eastern Chou dynasty, so too the works of lyric poets were allegorized reflections of their society. In effect, Chang Hui-yen was reading into tz'u what Chuang Ts'un-yü had discovered in the Kung-yang Commentary: the written legacy of the past provided leverage for criticizing the affairs of any age.^[45]

Statecraft, Reform, and the Tung-Lin Revival

Statecraft rhetoric was not new in the nineteenth century. Statecraft traditions dating back to the Ming dynasty had survived in Ch'ang-chou and elsewhere because elite families and lineages maintained their dual roles as officials of the empire and local leaders. The Chuangs and Lius in Ch'ang-chou were but two examples of such traditions in the Yangtze Delta. What was new in the nineteenth century, however, was

[44] For Liu Feng-lu's ties to these literary currents and his involvement with other Ch'ang-chou literati see Chao Chen, P'i-ling wen-lu , 2.33a. See also Whitbeck, "Kung Tzu-chen," pp. 1-7.

[45] Yeh Chia-ying Chao, "Ch'ang-chou School," pp. 157-62.

the overwhelming reformism of statecraft discourse. The status quo was no longer the point of departure for nineteenth-century statecraft.

Statecraft rhetoric in the Confucian lexicon was not always reformist. More often than not flood control, bandit suppression, calendar adjustment, and institutional change were seen within the general framework of daily and continual system maintenance. Too often we overlook the underlying pattern of statecraft discourse in late imperial China by automatically equating statecraft with reformism. We assume that reformist rhetoric signifies a revival of statecraft, when in fact it has been the Confucian's raison d'être since antiquity.

Those who uncritically accept the passionate calls for reform in nineteenth-century China typically assume that political statecraft had disappeared in the eighteenth century. Our account of the New Text school in eighteenth-century Ch'ang-chou demonstrates that statecraft remained an important undercurrent in Han Learning and k'ao-cheng. Governmental efficacy during the Ch'ien-lung Emperor's reign before the Ho-shen era, when compared to earlier dynasties, indicates that someone was fairly effectively running the empire. The political and social institutions required by a complex society in turn required bureaucratic and technical experts to preserve them. The very existence, moreover, of the Chuangs and Lius as a "professional elite" of office-holding families specializing in government service forces us to reject the notion that there was a statecraft revival in the nineteenth century.

Although Han Learning and evidential research took the brunt of nineteenth-century criticism of eighteenth-century classical scholarship for its dispassionate expression and apolitical scholarly roles, Han Learning scholars themselves had reacted against the excesses of Hoshen's henchmen. They themselves touched off debates on the proper role of literati in political affairs. Many Confucians came to recognize that traditional stopgap measures could not solve problems of population increase, imperial corruption, and foreign imperialism. As our subsequent discussion of the Ch'ang-chou native Yun Ching will show, many Confucians in the early nineteenth century already perceived that imperial policy and institutions required a major overhaul in order to replace the outmoded forms of land and tax control then in place.^[46]

The more Confucians recognized the nation's plight, the more they called for statecraft reforms. Statecraft reform thus replaced statecraft

[46] On Yun Ching see Wilhelm, "Chinese Confucianism," pp. 309-10. Cf. Hartwell, "Demographic, Political, and Social Transformations of China," pp. 417ff, and Metzger, Internal Organization of Ch'ing Bureaucracy .

system maintenance. In due course the less reformist statecraft of the eighteenth century was overlooked in a passionate critique of everything associated with the late Ch'ien-lung reign and the Ho-shen era. New Text Confucianism was itself a product of this transition. Chuang Ts'un-yü's clarification of Confucian voluntarism in light of the Kung-yang Commentary was essentially conservative in intent. In the nineteenth century, however, New Text rhetoric was applied to activism and reformism.

The Tung-Lin Revival

Emotional calls for reform of the imperial institutional structure became more frequent as the Ch'ing dynasty entered its final century of rule. Overlapping strands of classical studies, statecraft rhetoric, and literary currents in the early nineteenth century legitimated gentry participation in national political affairs. Ch'ang-chou in particular contributed to these developments.

As we have seen, Chuang Ts'un-yü's Kung-yang studies represented a response to the corruption of the Ho-shen era. Hung Liang-chi's controversial 1799 letter to the throne represented an overall criticism of moral laxity and literati evasion of political responsibility. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, Yun Ching commended the flexibility and adaptation that had informed the sages' handling of administrative policy. Chuang, Hung, and Yun were all products of the "learning of Ch'ang-chou."

A sense of moral crisis during the Ch'ien-Chia transition and increased tolerance for official remonstrance to the throne combined to deepen interest in earlier gentry moral protest and political criticism. Literati were now more concerned about their own abdication of political responsibility in affairs of state than with being accused of political factionalism. Of particular relevance to the "voices of remonstrance" was the precedent established by the Tung-lin partisans. According to Judith Whitbeck, "Once the efforts of the late Ming activists came to be viewed as exemplary of literati moral resolve in a time of troubles, the rationale that supported these restraints ceased to be valid, and the way was open for a revival of literati activism."^[47]

Attempts to reeducate nineteenth-century Confucians about their Tung-lin predecessors placed the late Ming Tung-lin debacle in a new light. The scholar-official Wang Ch'ang (a Han Learning advocate who

[47] Whitbeck, "Kung Tzu-chen," pp. 16-17, and Polachek, Inner Opium War.

in his student days had studied in Su-chou with Ch'ien Ta-hsin and Wang Ming-sheng) late in his life began to compile a history of the Tung-lin Academy. He conceived of the project as a first step in reviving interest in the Tung-lin legacy. Literati in Ch'ang-chou welcomed his initiative.

Both Chao Huai-yü and Li Chao-lo, each members of Ch'ang-chou literary groups, helped to reprint the works of seventeenth-century Tung-lin and Fu She activists. Wang Ch'ang similarly compiled the works of the late Ming statecraft enthusiast Ch'en Tzu-lung and compiled a chronological biography (nien-p'u ) for him. A key figure in the Ch'ien-Chia transition in Ch'ang-chou, Li Chao-lo, prepared biographical accounts in which he lauded the moral resolve of his Tung-lin predecessors.^[48]

Grandnephew of the distinguished Han Learning scholar Ch'in Huit'ien, Ch'in Ying (1743-1821)—a Wu-hsi native and follower of Chang Hui-yen's ancient-style prose—helped Wang Ch'ang to collect materials on the Tung-lin Academy, which Wang hoped to include in an account of all academies in the empire. Wang thought the register of academies would serve to propagate moral teachings (ming-chiao ), championed in the late Ming by Tung-lin partisans.

Ch'in Ying also prepared a commemorative essay for the 1797-99 renovation of the Tung-lin Academy in which he stressed the importance of Wu-hsi literati in national affairs during the late Ming. The repair would, according to Ch'in, allow Tung-lin to flourish again as a center for Wu-hsi literati interests and to help Confucians escape the shackles of an education oriented simply to passing the imperial examinations. He was careful to add, however, that the harm brought by late Ming factionalism must be avoided. Writing about the Tung-lin Academy in 1799, Ch'in Ying, like Hung Liang-chi, could not openly justify political factions for literati.^[49]

But in a 1795 essay that commemorated the discovery of autograph manuscripts of the Tung-lin founder Ku Hsien-ch'eng, Ch'in Ying reevaluated Ku's role in the factionalism that plagued the Ming dynasty. Noting the antifaction dictum enunciated by Confucius himself, Ch'in

[48] Li Chao-lo, Yang-i-chai wen-chi, 10.5b, 6.1a-2b, 6.30a-32b, 7.3a-4a. See also Hummel et al., Eminent Chinese, pp. 102-3, 805-7.

[49] See the Li Chao-lo biography in Chuan-kao , no. 6774(1-3), at the National Palace Museum, Taipei, and Wei Yuan chi , pp. 358-61. On Ch'in Ying see Hsu K'o, Ch'ing-pai lei-ch'ao , 70.34, and Ch'in Ying, Hsiao-hsien shan-jen wen-chi, 4.11a-12a, 5.40a. See also Yao Nai's letter to Ch'in Ying in Yao's Hsi-pao-hsuan ch'üan-ch i (1984 ed.), pp. 80-81 (chüan 7).

Ying nonetheless praised Ku Hsien-ch'eng's efforts to infuse the Tung-lin party with "public-minded" (kung ) concerns.

According to Ch'in Ying, Ku Hsien-ch'eng had not been guilty of organizing a political faction (tang ). Rather, Ku had brought together a "group" (ch'ün, lit., "social grouping") of like-minded literati for the common good. Confucius had said: "The gentleman is conscious of his own superiority without being contentious. He comes together [ch'ün ] with other gentlemen without forming cliques [tang ]."^[50] Ch'in Ying attempted an intriguing end run around the ideological objections to the formation of parties or factions in Confucian politics. Seeking to carve out limited space for literati "groups" to form, Ch'in cited Confucius's authorization of such "groups" to circumvent the contemporary view that "factions" were forbidden. Ch'in Ying's effort to legitimate literati groups as ch'ün was picked up by late Ch'ing New Text reformers such as K'ang Yu-wei and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, who made the concept of ch'ün the centerpiece for their stress on political renovation.

For instance, K'ang Yu-wei, in his Ch'ang-hsing hsueh-chi (Notes on studies at Ch'ang-hsing), went on from where Ch'in Ying had left off to include a notion of "human community" (ch'ün ) in his political proposals. Benevolence (jen ) in concrete social terms was the mode in which humans associated with each other and formed communities, according to K'ang. Under the rubric of "communities," K'ang sought to legitimate gentry political organizations within the imperial system.

For his part, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao made K'ang Yu-wei's formulation of ch'ün (community) the centerpiece of his own emphasis on political renovation. In an essay entitled "On Community" ("Shuo-ch'ün"), Liang (as Hao Chang has perceptively observed) downplayed the moral aspects of benevolence and analyzed instead "the vital problems of political integration, political participation and legitimation, and the scope of the political community." Early-nineteenth-century Tung-lin advo-cares such as Ch'in Ying were Confucians who unquestioningly operated in an imperial context. But Liang Ch'i-ch'ao stepped out of that tradition, although he still carried forward concepts of political organization bequeathed by his predecessors.^[51]

[50] Lun-yü yin-te, 32/15/22, and Lau, trans., Confucius , p. 135. Ku Hsien-cheng's manuscripts may have emerged because of the changing political atmosphere. A member of the Ku family showed the manuscripts to Ch'in Ying.

[51] Ch'in Ying, Hsiao-hsien shan-jen wen-chi , 6.11a. Cf. Frank Chang, Ancestors, pp. 322-53. See K'ang Yu-wei, Ch'ang-hsing hsueh-chi, pp. 9a-9b. For a discussion see Hao Chang, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, pp. 45, 95-100, and Wakeman, "Price of Autonomy," pp. 64-66. See also Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Yin-ping-shih wen-chi , vol. 1, pt. 2, pp. 3-4.

Ch'in Ying admitted that the Tung-lin partisans, despite their moral courage, had become embroiled in the political chaos of the late Ming. The tragedy was that Ku Hsien-ch'eng had never anticipated factional strife when he assembled his followers at the Tung-lin Academy. Reversing the long-standing view that the Tung-lin partisans helped to precipitate the factionalism that brought down the Ming dynasty, Ch'in Ying asserted that they had become entangled in political forces neither of their making nor in their control:

Master [Ku Hsien-ch'eng] had already passed away before he could suffer the poisonous affairs that would follow. Moreover, what followed was not anything he could have foreseen. Consequently, I have often said that the Tung-lin calamity was not Master [Ku's] fault. Nor was the fall of the Ming the fault of the Tung-lin [partisans].

Ch'in's remarks reveal that the ideological premises of the imperial proscription against literati political activities were again being tested.^[52]

Further interest in the Tung-lin partisans was evinced by Kuan T'ung and Fang Tung-shu in the 1820s and 1830s. Admired by Fang Tung-shu, Kuan was a proponent of statecraft initiatives in the 1820s to deal with breakdowns in administration then occurring along the Grand Canal. In an essay on changing political and social customs (feng-su ) from the Ming to the Ch'ing dynasties, Kuang T'ung contended that the Ch'ing had gone too far in eliminating "voices of remonstrance" from the political arena. Although factionalism required drastic measures, the resulting quiescence made for a cultural environment in which no one took responsibility for needed reforms.

Cloaking his discussion of political values in an appeal for cultural change, Kuan maintained that "with regard to the ruler, officials and the people are not his bones and meat" for him to do with as he pleased. Kuan added: "There has never been a case when the customs of the empire have not changed [pien]. The literati of the empire make a show of calling for reform of institutions [kai fa-tu ]. If customs do not change, then men of talent do not appear. Even with [reformed] institutions, who will put them into effect?" For Kuan T'ung, earlier dynasties perished because they were unable to keep pace with changing times. Successful dynasties were those that recognized the need to correct policy mistakes. Kuan T'ung's discussion implied that the literati were now more concerned with examination success and scholarly prestige and were thereby losing their voice in political affairs (wu-ch'üan ). New

[52] Ch'in Ying, Hsiao-hsien shan-jen wen-chi, 6.11a-11b.

cultural values were required that would encourage scholars and officials to deal with the problems of the age.^[53]

Similarly, Fang Tung-sbu, a defender of Sung Learning, acknowledged the Tung-lin partisans for their political concern and activist spirit. In a letter to Lo Yueh-ch'uan, then serving as a prefect, Fang presented his defense of Tung-lin-style activism as an antidote to the apolitical scholarly values championed by Han Learning. After introducing what was to become among Sung Learning advocates a stereotypical portrayal of Hah Learning as politically uninvolved and morally unconcerned with affairs of state, Fang wrote admiringly of the statecraft concerns of late Ming Confucians, who had been devoted to practical affairs in contrast to contemporary k'ao-cheng bookworms.^[54]

Fang's presentation sounded very much like the Ming loyalist Huang Tsung-hsi's famous mid-seventeenth-century account of the Tung-lin school:

Today, when people talk about Tung-lin, they associate the Tung-lin party's disaster with the fate of the Ming house. So mediocre men use this as an excuse to accuse Tung-lin of causing the loss of our country to the Manchus and refer to it as the Two Parties. Even those who know better say that although many men of Tung-lin were gentlemen, the group included certain political extremists, and their associates were not all gentlemen. In the end they were no better than the partisans of the Later Han period. Alas, this is all nonsense!

Fang Tung-shu's letter to Prefect Lo contained an impassioned rejection of charges that Tung-lin activism (Tung-lin ch'ing-i ) had been responsible for the fall of the Ming dynasty. In effect, Fang was overturning the Ch'ing dynasty consensus that factionalism precipitated by the Tung-lin partisans could be singled out as the culprit in the late Ming debacle. Refuting an "explanation that had for over a century been accepted by gentry and literati," Fang noted that, "based on his investigations," such charges against the Tung-lin activists had no foundation (i-wei pu-ran ). He charged that the moral resolve and commitment of the partisans to mainstream Sung Learning based on the teachings of Ch'eng I and Chu Hsi had been overlooked in the haste among Chinese and Manchus in the seventeenth century to locate a scapegoat for the Ming debacle. Rhetorically, Fang asked: "Of those who at that time weakened the nation and brought its downfall, did they all come from

[53] Kuan T'ung, Yin-chi-hsuan wett-chi, ch'u-chi, 4.1a-3b.

[54] Fang Tung-shu, I-wei-hsuan wen-chi , 6.6a-9a. On Fang Tung-shu see my Philosophy to Philology , pp. 242-48.

the Tung-lin activists?" Of course not! According to Fang, had not the eunuchs led by Wei Chung-hsien and other imperial or gentry factions been more responsible? These latter "evil parties" (hsieh-tang ) contrasted with the high-minded goals and moral resolve of the Tung-lin party.^[55]

Supplanting the accepted wisdom concerning the fall of the Ming, Fang Tung-shu traced its decline to the national conditions (kuo-shih ) brought on by a breakdown in political consensus in the 1620s. "We can say that those who would blame the Tung-lin [party for the Ming collapse] have not thought through the ins and outs of the matter," Fang contended. Imperial power had been delegated to unscrupulous eunuchs and officials, for which Ming emperors bore the ultimate responsibility: "If the ruler had known how to employ talent and high ministers had been public-minded and fair without private interests, then parties of like-minded individuals (p'eng-tang ) would not have appeared." Ming despotism (chuan-ch'üan ) had hatched factions and plots that would bring the dynasty to its knees.

According to Fang Tung-shu, "the fall of the Ming in the end had nothing to do with the 'voices of remonstrance' (ch'ing-i)" represented by the Tung-lin party. By undercutting the consensus concerning the Tung-lin partisans, Fang endeavored to infuse an activist spirit in his fellow literati in the hope that it would replace what he considered the amoral erudition of contemporary Han Learning scholars. Such efforts were encouraged under a broad range of rhetorical devices. Both Sung Learning and New Text Confucianism added fuel to the cause of statecraft and reform. Moreover, Fang Tung-sbu's defense of the Tung-lin party presented nineteenth-century Confucians with a role model for their activities. Ideological proscriptions against factions yielded to renewed gentry activism.^[56]

From Lineage Descent Groups to Gentry Alliances

Political alliances among like-minded gentry became more defensible in the nineteenth century. The role of state ideology in channeling gentry solidarity away from horizontally aligned individuals into more acceptable organizations based on descent, (which we describe earlier)

[55] Fang Tung-shu, I-wen-hsuan wen-chi, 6.10b-lla. For Huang Tsung-hsi's account see his Ming-Ju hsueh-an, pp. 613, and the translation in Records of Ming Scholars, pp. 223-24.

[56] Fang Tung-shu, I-wei-hsuan wen-chi, 6.11b-15b.

weakened. This process reversed the late Ming and early Ch'ing pattern whereby kinship ties replaced nonkinship alliances as the predominant strategy for gentry mobilization. Earlier Northern Sung and late Ming efforts to legitimate gentry political organizations were repeated in the late Ch'ing.

Ch'ing-i groups in the nineteenth century increasingly represented the reemergence of gentry factions based on horizontally aligned peer groups. Descent remained an important source of gentry solidarity in local society, but in the broader provincial and national political arenas kinship strategies gradually became secondary. As in the seventeenth century, Tung-lin-style associations of concerned literati began to dominate political discussion.

Changes in New Text Confucianism during the early nineteenth century were a case in point. Protected and promoted by two powerful lineages in Ch'ang-chou, which had used descent to further their local and national interests, New Text ideas in the eighteenth century represented a local school of scholarship in which kinship ties were its raison d'être. After Liu Feng-lu, however, New Text ideas transcended their origins in the Chuang and Liu lineages. Changes in political climate meant that the Kung-yang agenda no longer required lineage support for survival and legitimacy. New Text ideas prospered in the nineteenth century as a vehicle for literati alliances that favored statecraft rhetoric and institutional reform.

Where lineages had once sufficed for gentry mobilization, and kinship conferred the Confucian authorization that such mobilization required, gentry were now raising their more activist political voices in Tung-lin-style literary cum political organizations. Reform ideology during the early nineteenth century was built around the confluence of conceptual changes and literary debates that we shall pursue in our final remarks. Changes in both the language of politics (to which the Ch'ang-chou New Text school had contributed) and the politics of language were interwoven and inseparable.^[57]

The Language of Politics

In Ch'ang-chou Prefecture, gradual changes in the language of politics were reflected by two parallel and overlapping developments. On one hand, we have the more voluntarist and reform-minded classical views

[57] Cf. Harootunian, Toward Restoration, pp. 129-245, on the culture of politics and the politics of culture.

of the Chuang and Liu lineages, expressed through the classical writings of Chuang Ts'un-yü and Liu Feng-lu. Kung-yang Confucianism affirmed an image of Confucius as an activist in a time of moral and political crisis. This activist portrait emerged and became increasingly popular during the Ch'ien-Chia transition, when social and political crises were denoted as a moral crisis by Hung Liang-chi and others. The changing image of Confucius during the Ch'ing dynasty—from Sung Learning moralist to Han Learning teacher—had evolved into that of a New Text activist, corresponding closely to the conceptual and literary changes described earlier.^[58]

On the other hand, these developments were contemporaneous with literary debates in Ch'ang-chou. In addition, Yang-hu County (in Ch'ang-chou Prefecture) became a center for ku-wen literary currents, which eventually vied with the T'ung-ch'eng school for preeminence in Ch'ing literary circles. Classical discourse and literary forms of expression complemented each other as the language of politics in the nineteenth century. This homology between classicism and literature was typified by the reformist writings of the Ch'ang-chou literatus Yun Ching.

Yung Ching

A confidant of members of the Chuang lineage, particularly close to Chuang Shu-tsu, Yun Ching is another interesting embodiment of the overlap of ancient-style prose in Ch'ang-chou and New Text studies. His use of New Text ideas will serve as a fitting conclusion to our account of the development and transformation of New Text Confucianism before the Opium War. Fifteen years before Kung Tzu-chen and Wei Yuan studied under Liu Feng-lu in Peking, statecraft reform and New Text theory had already been clearly articulated in Ch'ang-chou. In many ways, Yun Ching demonstrates that ideas enunciated by late Ch'ing reformers such as K'ang Yu-wei were not without precedent.

Well-read in the Classics and Dynastic Histories, Yun Ching never attained high office. In fact, late in his career he was impeached from his position as first-class subprefect of Nan-ch'ang Prefecture, Chiang-hsi Province, and retired from public life in 1814. Yun's family had long been known for aesthetic pursuits. A forebear, Yun Shou-p'ing, had earned his living as a painter rather than serve the conquering Manchu

[58] Shimada, "Shinkai kakumeiki no Koshi^[*] mondai," pp. 3-8.

dynasty. Ironically, Shou-p'ing became regarded as one of the great Ch'ing landscape painters. The Yun family had achieved high status during the Ming dynasty, but because of its Ming loyalism a family member never again obtained similar official prominence during the Ch'ing.^[59]

In a series of eight essays entitled "Successive Reforms During the Three Dynasties" ("San-tai yin-ke lun"), Yun Ching provided a unique window on the wedding of ancient-style prose as a medium of political expression and New Text theory as a vision of institutional change. Yun Ching, for example, used the theoretical premise of progressive institutional change during the Three Dynasties to invoke the reformist spirit of the sages. For our purposes, Yun's essays epitomize the conjunction of conceptual, political, and literary themes that we have explored to this point.

Drawing on the key Kung-yang notion of epochal change during the Hsia (2205??-1767? B.C. ), Shang (1766?-1122? B.C. )., and Chou (11227-221 B.C. ) dynasties (san-sbih, lit., "three epochs"; see chapter 7), Yun Ching cited institutional reform (yin-ke ) initiated by the sages to defend the notion that it was not only legitimate but also necessary for institutions to change in accord with the times. Long before K'ang Yu-wei and the impact of the West was felt, New Text Confucianism had escaped its Han Learning origins and become an overt channel for legitimating contemporary political change.^[60]

The New Text Legacy: From Philology to Politics

The opening salvo in Yun Ching's series of essays demonstrated how much conceptual change had been incorporated in both the New Text and ancient-style prose agendas:

In ordering the empire, the sages did not use excessive force to control the situation. They sought out the means to keep things within bounds and that's all. By necessity, they employed means that would accord with human feelings [jen-ch'ing]. Consequently, the middle way for institutions [chung-chih, that is, neither too autocratic nor too lenient] was the model of the sages.

[59] Wilhelm, "Chinese Confucianism," p. 309, and Hummel et al., Eminent Chinese , pp. 959-60. See also Wu-chin Yang-hu hsien ho-chih (1886), 26.46a-46b. For Yun Ching's ties to members of the Chuang lineage, see Yun, Ta-yun shan-fang chi , pp. 182-83, 211, 226, 232.

[60] Yun, Ta-yun shan-fang chi , pp. 4-12 (ch'u-chi chüan 1).

The expression "accord with human feelings" (ho hu jen-ch'ing ) resonates with the late-eighteenth-century reevaluation of human aspirations, exemplified by Tai Chen's notion that "the sages ordered the world by giving an outlet to people's feelings." Tai Chen in the 1770s attacked what he considered the moral straitjacket of Ch'eng-Chu orthodoxy but limited his critique to scholarly issues. By Yun Ching's time the context had changed, however. Yun placed his discussion of the classical affirmation of human desires within a general discussion of political change, whereby the goal of reform was to accord with human aspirations. As a k'ao-cheng scholar, Tai Chen had not yet made the link between reevaluation of Neo-Confucian moral theory and institutional reform.^[61]

Contrasting the sages with the rule of the five hegemons (wu-pa ), who had usurped the kingship prerogative during the Eastern Chou dynasty, Yun Ching stressed the need for institutions that did not conflict with human feelings: "With regard to human feelings, if they do not reach extremes of indiscretion, the sages by necessity would not reject them. This was the Way of the Three Dynasties." Unfortunately, according to Yun, the "glory of early antiquity" had been lost during the era of the Spring and Autumn Annals (722-481 B.C. ) and the Warring States period (403-221 B.C. ), despite efforts during the Hah dynasties to revive the sagely teachings. The institutional structure of the empire, ever since the rapacious policies of the Ch'in dynasty (221-207 B.C. ), had never recaptured its earlier ideals or models. Yun Ching's intention in writing on the Three Dynasties was to clarify the legacy of the sages: "Consequently, I have discussed [the Three Dynasties] in detail, seeking out the origins of kingly government and investigating its vicissitudes in order to overturn the theories of the various Confucian erudites. I hope thereby that we can be enlightened concerning the sagely way of ordering the empire."^[62]

Yun's second essay discussed ancient land policy in light of early feudal institutions, which guaranteed the people proper sustenance from the fields they cultivated. Yun Ching observed that the sages had adapted policy to changing conditions, recognizing that institutions could not remain glued to the past. As feudal institutions had become increasingly inappropriate, Yun went on, the sages had devised new

[61] Ibid., "San-tai yin-ke lun i," p. 4. On Tai Chen's position see my "Criticism as Philosophy," pp. 172-75.

[62] Yun, "San-tai yin-ke lun i," p. 4.

ways to solve land tenure problems that would accord with the needs of the people. Yun Ching rhetorically concluded:

Therefore I say, even the sages would not oppose those who go beyond the middle way of government or those who are not satisfied with the middle way, as long as they do not overtly go against human sentiments. For this reason, if I am right, we can understand the means by which the Three Dynasties were at peace and well-governed for a long period. If, however, I were wrong, then the times of [the sage-kings] Yü, T'ang, Wen, and Wu would have long since been lost and forgotten. Would their sons and grandsons have had even one day of rest? [Yet, their views] hold for ten thousand generations.^[63]

Flexibility was the sine qua non of proper governance of the people.

In the third essay, Yun Ching drove home his main thesis. The secret to successful government was adaptation. Blindly following the ancients was wrong. The ancients themselves had created order by according with the times: "With regard to preceding dynasties, [the sage-kings] changed what could be changed. What could not or need not be changed they preserved. That was all there was to it. "

The example Yun Ching cited to verify his thesis was the well-field (ching-t'ien ) system, a feudal model for egalitarian land tenure that was frequently invoked by Confucians from Mencius through the late empire as the ideal. Quoting the Kung-yang Commentary, Yun Ching argued that even this hallowed Confucian ideal had long since been deemed inappropriate because conditions no longer prevailed that would enable the system to work. To maintain the egalitarian ideals of the well-field system under conditions of empire expansion and population growth, Yun contended, required adjustments and changes to the system "to accord with the times in order to equalize human feelings" (yin-shih i chün min-ch'ing ). Successive changes in land tenure worked out during the Hsia, Shang, and Chou dynasties served as both models and warnings. The legacy of the sage-kings was not engraved in stone.^[64]

Yun Ching began to test the limits of Confucian ideals in the fourth essay. Historical realities, must take precedence over political and moral abstractions:

The well-field system was a model that could not be discarded. Yet, in the end it was discarded. Confucians have all blamed and cursed [the Legalist]

[63] Ibid., "San-tai yin-ke lun erh," pp. 5-6.

[64] Ibid., "San-tai yin-ke lun san," pp. 6-7.

Shang Yang [d. 338 B.C. ] for this. Shang Yang's crime was in initiating the Ch'in [dynasty] policy of separating land into private parcels [ch'ien-mo ], which extended from the area within the pass to the east [that is, the Wei River valley in northwest China]. Discarding the well-field system was not [Shang] Yang's crime. When a model is about to be put into practice, the sages cannot prevent it. When a model is about to be discarded, the sages cannot prevent that [either].

By rejecting the Sung Learning fixation on unalterable Confucian social and political principles, Yun Ching attempted to reintegrate institutional flexibility with Confucian statecraft. Remarkably, he cited an indirect defense of Legalism in order to gainsay the rhetoric of idealistic Confucians.

Institutions survived, according to Yun, because they accorded with the desires of the people (yin min chih yü ). When they no longer did, they were discarded. The well-field system worked when the empire was limited in size and population. Appropriate to a small kingdom, it was impossible to put into effect when the empire grew substantially:

For this reason, people living during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods could not see the benefits of the well-field system enjoyed by earlier generations. What they saw instead was how they suffered from the harm of the equal-field system. Its advantages were long since past and thus easily forgotten. Its harm was close-at-hand, and thus it was quickly gotten rid of.^[65]

Institutional change occurred because of unceasing changes in the heavenly Way (t'ien-tao ) and human affairs (jen-shih ). In fact, the Ch'in dynasty marked the boundary between antiquity and imperial China, according to Yun Ching. Institutional changes that followed were not the work of Legalist criminals, but rather resulted from the unalterable (pu-te pu-jan ) march of time:

Before the Ch'in [dynasty], what was put into practice at all levels of the state and society were all institutions of the Three Dynasties. After the Ch'in, what has been put into effect at all levels of state and society are not all derived from the institutions of the Three Dynasties. The well-field system is one example. What would the sages' position be on this? I say, the sages cannot be predicted. Nevertheless, their writings ali remain, and we can scrutinize and learn from them. . ..

If Confucius and Mencius had been born during the time of the first emperor [of the Ch'in, that is, Shih-huang], would they necessarily have pressured the empire to revive the well-field system? Alas! This is a view that vulgar Confucians are sure to defend.

[65] Ibid., "San-tai yin-ke lun ssu," pp. 7-8.

Yun Ching was broadening Confucianism to include a notion of progressive change within the empire's institutional framework.^[66]

All of the first four essays in the series were composed in 1800. Nine years later Yun Ching returned to them and prepared the final four essays. In essay five Yun turned his attention to tax issues. During the Three Dynasties, he contended, land taxes were high, one in ten, but the state mobilized its resources equitably through a corvée to meet public and military requirements. After the Three Dynasties, however, land taxes were low, one in thirty, but people no longer shared equitably in their labor duties, with slaves and hired laborers performing corvée for the wealthy.

The people, happy under the equitable policies of the Three Dynasties, now succumbed to sadness and rancor. Growing social and material divisions among the people produced parasitism. Growing trade and specialization meant that more and more unproductive groups depended on less and less productive people. This dangerous development could not last for long. According to Yun Ching, the nourishing potential of heaven and earth could not support such conflicting developments.^[67]

Envoking an ideal time when the people had cultivated the land of the empire as free peasants, Yun Ching then held up the present by way of contrast when only the wealthy owned land and the poor tilled the soil as tenants. An endless cycle of poverty was the product of this inequitable land system, Yun concluded. A "disease of agriculture" (nung-ping ) was the way he described it. Yun's account of antiquity reflects more recent agricultural developments, which we trace in chapter 1. Specifically, Yun's notion of a shared corvée was a stalking-horse for the comprehensive li-chia land and tax system that had been pride of the first Ming emperor. The drift of peasants into tenancy after the Three Dynasties resembled late Ming social changes. It was then that the forces of commercialization and monetarization in the farm economy culminated in the Single-Whip tax reforms, effectively dismantling the labor service statutes of the tax system and forcing many peasants into tenancy and bond servant status. For Yurt Ching, antiquity was a mirror for contemporary problems.

Likewise, artisans and merchants suffered from economic disloca-

[66] Ibid., p. 8.

[67] Ibid., "San-taj yin-ke lun wu," p. 8.

tions produced by an inequitable tax system after the Three Dynasties. Unlike today, Yun Ching explained, the sage-kings of antiquity had devised policies to increase the productivity of the four groups of people (ssu-min, that is, gentry, farmers, artisans, and merchants) to meet the demands of society. Because the four groups were now becoming less numerous, the needs of the larger society could no longer be met. Old social distinctions had become anachronistic. Yun proposed the following solution:

What was the Way of the sages? In my view, they did not create difficulties for the four [groups of] people. What is the Way of not creating difficulties for the four [groups of] people? In my view, this is done by not creating difficulties for [those engaged in] farming, crafts, or commerce, but at the same time stressing no more than the supervision by the gentry.

One can see between the lines of this narrative that Yun was pointing to the growing problems of overpopulation and rural poverty that by the Chia-ch'ing Emperor's reign had become endemic. Confucians were asked to loosen their control over peasants and merchants.^[68]

The sixth essay turned to the military institutions of the Three Dynasties. The Hsia, Shang, and Chou had all instituted what Yun Ching called a "commoners' army" (min-ping ), which depended for its logistical support on an organizational infrastructure that allowed men on duty to avoid nonmilitary tasks. Off-duty soldiers provided the food, clothing, and weapons. The Chou dynasty in particular had fallen because its leaders had not maintained the organizational structures necessary for a "commoners' army."

Yun added, however, that as the size of the empire grew, small-scale local troops were no longer appropriate in major military battles. In a small kingdom, one could expect a soldier to be a farmer as well. But in later periods of large empires, this military strategy was self-defeating. Forcing military men to double as farmers led to military decline. Compelling farmers to double as soldiers led to agricultural decline. Changing conditions of warfare in an expanding empire made older organizational forms obsolete.

Yun Ching said that during the Han and T'ang (618-906) dynasties further reforms of the military system had been introduced. Confucians, using models derived from the Three Dynasties, criticized the reforms when they failed to live up to ancient ideals. According to Yun Ching,

[68] Ibid., pp. 8-9.

however, this criticism was misplaced. What was important was to make changes appropriate to the present situation. A "commoners' army" should be organized in the latest and most advanced ways possible. To restrict military organization to forms appropriate to a small kingdom in ancient times would be counterproductive.^[69]

Ancient administrative policies dealing with obligatory state labor service occupied Yun Ching's attention in essay 7. After discussing the myriad state-assigned labor duties during the Three Dynasties (land tax, military tax, farming tax, etc.), Yun contrasted the egalitarian ideals of the ancient system of shared local responsibilities with the inequities of later dynasties. Under the umbrella of a discussion of antiquity, Yun described the post-fifteenth-century monetarization of state labor duties, which we summarized in chapter 1. The result was the virtual disappearance of the labor service tax as a locally shared responsibility. The rich were able to hire others to take their place.

Yun Ching observed that since the middle of the T'ang dynasty, when the empire tilted economically toward the rich farmland in south China, the earlier system whereby government officials performed most state labor duties (kuan-i ) was no longer sufficient. Population growth and the expansion of the empire during the late T'ang and Sung dynasties required labor service from the people to help keep pace with the tax and military system previously handled by officials. The Ming li-chia system represented for Yun Ching the bureaucratization of this long-term process, as local village leaders accepted more state responsibilities and were given official titles for their efforts. This change, Yun held, sought to address the inadequacies of earlier corvées.^[70]

What was now required, Yun Ching went on, was further reform to ameliorate the inequities that had built up in the state labor service since the Sung and Ming dynasties. Labor service now fell most heavily on the shoulders of those who could least afford it, while those who could afford it were increasingly able to evade their tax responsibilities. Yun defended an evolutionary perspective on institutional reform: "There are no institutions in the empire that are [totally] without harm. There are no affairs that do not [in any way] cause unease for the people. One should select what accords with the requirements of the times and effect it in such a way that its deficiencies are lessened."

[69] Ibid., "San-tai yin-ke lun liu," pp. 9-10.

[70] Ibid., "San-tai yin-ke lun ch'i," pp. 10-11.

The benefits of the labor service, according to Yun, had long since been left behind: "If we realize that the labor service of officials can be lessened, then we can eliminate vexing matters. If we realize that the labor service of the people can be completely abolished, then all within the empire will be overjoyed and responsible ."^[71] By 1800 Confucians such as Yun Ching had recognized that the corvée was counterproductive.

In the eighth and final essay Yun Ching presented an eloquent summation of his position. The sage-kings had put in place a system of government that was still appropriate to the present, he contended, but the exact institutions and policies of that idealized system were subject to modification:

From the above we can observe that the way the sages ordered the empire can be realized. If the gains [from government institutions] have not reached completion, then one doesn't change everything [pu pien-fa ]. If the benefits [derived from political structures] are still incomplete, then one doesn't change [those] structures [pu i-ch'i ]. This is common sense. . ..The way of the early kings was to make changes that accorded with the times [yin-shih shih-pien ].

Sage-kings had bequeathed a notion of flexibility that avoided the extremes of totalistic reform or reactionary preservation.

The "middle way for institutions" (chung-tao) allowed the sages to navigate freely between political extremes. In conclusion, Yun Ching lashed out at Confucian ideologues and formalists who appealed to the sages for empty ideals:

Those Confucians and erudites cannot go far enough in honoring the sages and worthies, but they have thereby ignored the general populace. They dare to follow ancient ways but are cowards when it comes to present requirements. They are earnest in believing in specialties [chuan-men ] but are weak in examining all the possibilities. Is this sufficient to know the sages?

To counter the chaotic words (luan-yen ) of those who had grasped only a small Old Text faction (i-chia ) of the wisdom of the sages, Yun Ching vociferously favored a New Text Confucian statecraft agenda that emphasized pragmatism in making necessary reforms.^[72]

Yun Ching's ancient-style-prose essays articulated Confucian statecraft

[71] Ibid.,p. 11.

[72] Ibid., "San-tai yin-ke lun pa," pp. 11-12.

within an evolutionary perspective. The Three Dynasties were models (fa ) for Confucian statecraft, not institutional icons. The well-field system, local "commoners' army," and state corvée were for Yun Ching early anachronisms that had long since proved ineffective. Yun portrayed Confucius and the sages in his essays as creative innovators who operated according to the limits placed on them by the "realities of the times" (shih-shih ). But the portrayals were carefully modulated. A friend and frequent correspondent of the New Text scholars Chuang Shu-tsu, Liu Feng-lu, and Sung Hsiang-feng, Yun Ching expressed through his essays a vision that combined the moral ardor of ancient-style prose with New Text voluntarism. A form repopularized in the late eighteenth century for expressing Sung Learning moral philosophy was tempered by Yun Ching with an affirmation of human aspirations and the need for institutional reform. The dispassionate Han-Learning-style examination of China's institutional history was infused with statecraft concern for the present.^[73]

Yun Ching's essays on the Three Dynasties were not well-researched exercises in k'ao-cheng erudition. They were emotional calls by an activist Confucian to find new solutions to old problems. Aroused Ch'ang-chou literati exemplified by Chuang Ts'un-yü, Hung Liang-chi, and Yun Ching were products of an economic and social crisis exacerbated by the political recriminations generated by the Ho-shen affair. Conceptual change that stemmed from Han Learning currents of thought and added epistemological leverage to dismantle the rigorous formalism of Neo-Confucian political orthodoxy neatly dovetailed with activist Tung-lin-style political rhetoric. Intellectual change spilled over into statecraft rhetoric.

Wei Yuan, Liu Feng-lu's student and follower, similarly managed a celebrated synthesis of New Text voluntarism and statecraft reform. In writings that resembled the evolutionary scheme for institutional change laid out much earlier in Yun Ching's 1800-1810 essays, Wei Yuan also discussed the irrevocability of change:

From the Three Dynasties and before, Heaven was completely different from the Heaven of today. The earth was completely different from the earth of today. People were all different from the people of today. Moreover, things were all different from the things of today. . ..

Sung Confucians only talked about the Three Dynasties. The well-field system, feudal organization, or civil service examination procedures of the

[73] ibid., "Yü Sung Yü-t'ing shu," (Letter to Sung Hsiang-feng), p. 142, and "Ta Chuang Chen-i hsien-sheng shu" (Reply to Mr. Chuang Shu-tsu's letter), p. 226.

Three Dynasties by necessity cannot be revived. Such [talk] only allows those who are practically oriented to criticize Confucian methods for their ineffectiveness. According to the way the gentleman creates order, if it is attempted without [according with] the mind-set of the Three Dynasties and before, only vulgarity will result. Not knowing the circumstances and conditions in [changes] from the Three Dynasties to the present has produced ineffective [government]. . ..

The past, although the basis for the present, was not an eternal ideal. Just as last year's calendar does not apply to this year, so "those who speak adoringly of the past must test it in the present."^[74]

Yun Ching had set New Text studies on a course that would ultimately lead to the triumph of political discourse over classical philology among late Ch'ing Confucians. Unheralded and unread in twentieth-century scholarly circles, Yun brought to virtual completion the political implications of Chuang Ts'un-yü's turn to Kung-yang Confucianism in the 1780s and the formation of the Ch'ang-chou New Text school. By 1810 classical scholarship and political discourse were reunited in a post-Neo-Confucian form, whose Confucian legitimacy came more and more from efforts to unify Han and Sung Learning. By rereading Yun Ching's tour de force, we can better understand the intellectual, social, and political winds of change felt by New Text Confucians thirty years before the Opium War.

[74] Wei Yuan chi, pp. 47-49, 156-58.