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This paper, with an emphasis on the four treasures of study, aims to elaborate the key role played by the Southern Tang in shaping the lifestyle of the Song literati. From their point of view, the values of the four treasures of study from the Southern Tang were not just confined to their delicate craftsmanship and practical functions but also anecdotal tales and artistic merits. Against this background, the four treasures of study did not pass into oblivion following the downfall of the Southern Tang but could continue to gain fame and popularity due to the promotion and propagation conducted by the Song literati. As a result, the four treasures of study closely associated with the Southern Tang became essential components to shape lifestyle of the Song dynasty. During the interactions between the Song literati and the four treasures of study in question, a strong sense of interdependence prevailed which efficiently indicates their delicate relations with and appreciation for such artistic works. Due to different backgrounds and life experiences, their sentiments and associations about the four treasures of study from the Southern Tang were unique; their ways of interpretation and projections in imagination were also different from one another. All of them contributed to great diversities in their literary compositions. However the importance of the four treasures of study originating in the Southern Tang should not be exaggerated. Gradual decrease in number and subsequent disappearance diminished the cultural significance of the Southern Tang; the decline was further intensified by the products made during the Song era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some thinkers during the Ming-Qing transitional period tended towards monistic thought, which emphasized that li (principle) and qi (material force), xin (heart/mind) and qing (sentiment), and xing (nature) and qing are one rather than two. There were even those proposing extreme arguments that all the conceptual distinctions made by Song-Ming Confucian scholars could be eliminated and all pairs of concepts could be unified. This paper aims to illustrate this kind of thought in terms of its appearance, formation, theoretical meanings, and evaluation. An appropriate understanding of this kind of thought can help not only better interpret the philosophies of individual Confucian scholars， including Wang Yangming, Zhan Ganquan, Luo Zheng’an, Liu Jishan, and Huang Lizhou, but also explain the transformation of Confucianism (a paradigm shift) during the Ming-Qing transitional period. Section one of this paper is an introduction. Section two analyses five different meanings of the thought of oneness in Song-Ming Confucianism and points out that monistic thought is indeed a fault generated by an overemphasis of some meanings of the thought of oneness. Section three investigates the appearance and formation of monistic thought and the final section looks at its influence on the transformation of Confucianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the Jesuits’ contribution to the translation of Daodejing in the early modern period. The authors, in the first part, trace the development of the Jesuits’ discussions about Daoism and find that, as early as Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) and Niccolò Longobardo (1559–1654), Daoism was introduced to European readers. Among the literatures concerning China in the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, Longobardo was the first to mention the golden passage of Daoism concerning the “trinity.” In the second part of this paper, the authors deal with the first available Western translation of Daodejing, by Jean-François Noëlas (1669–1740), a colleague of the figurist Jesuit Joseph-Henri de Prémare (1666–1736), in the 1720’s. Both of them claimed that, according to Daodejing, the doctrines about the revelation of the triune God and of the Incarnation were recorded in Daodejing and thus already known to the ancient Chinese. Lastly, by comparing the figurist Jesuit writings of Prémare, Noëlas, and Pierre-Martial Cibot (1727–1780), the authors try to clarify the different interpretations of Dao, “trinity,” and the Chinese Trigrammaton Yi-Hi-Wei, which were the crucial and influential concepts of Daoism that drew academic attention later in European intellectual communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-Ming period, the spirit-writing cult of Lüzu (or Ancestor Lü Dongbin) has been so popular within the Daoist milieu that it was regarded as the mainstream development of Daoism in the past few centuries. In other words, Lüzu’s spirit-writing cult has been one of the main features of Daoist development since mid-Ming times. This paper focuses on exploring the overall development of Lüzu’s spirit-writing cult from the late Ming Wanli reign (1573–1620) to the Qing Jiaqing reign (1796–1820). The present study shows that Lüzu’s spirit-writing cult in this specified period was in general characterized by four religious features. First, religious groups and spirit-writing altars were established by devotees of Lüzu, the Transcendent Lord of Spirit Writing. Secondly, these devotees of Lüzu’s spirit-writing altars were mostly Confucian scholars who piously practised Lüzu’s cult, rather than traditional Daoist priests or ministers. Thirdly, to save mankind, Lüzu, as commanded by superior celestial Lords of Dao such as the Heavenly Worthy of Primordial Beginning (Yuanshi tianzun 元始天尊), the Jade Emperor (Yühuang shangdi 玉皇上帝) or the Supreme Lord Laozi (Taishang daozu 太上道祖), descended frequently to various spiritwriting altars to teach Daoist scriptures (i.e. the so-called “feiluan xinghua” 飛鸞行化 [to convert people by spirit writing] or “chuijing chanjiao” 垂經闡教 [to teach people through revealing scriptures]). And fourthly, with the increasing popularity of Lüzu’s spirit-writing altars since the Ming-Qing era, the immortal Lü Dongbing won his obvious and continual promotion in the celestial rank as a result of his devotees’ worship. This research is based on the extant collections of multiple Lüzu scriptures that emerged from Lüzu’s spirit-writing altars throughout China from the Ming Wanli period to the Qing dynasty. A holistic perspective is adopted to collect, arrange, and analyse these materials so as to explore the general historical context in which Lüzu’s spirit-writing cult developed in the Ming-Qing era and to study the related literati spirit-writing groups. Besides, through investigating how devotees of Lüzu’s spirit- writing altars in different places continuously built up Lüzu’s spirit-writing cult, this paper reveals how Lüzu’s celestial status and divine connotations had been promoted and expanded continually at these altars during the period 1573–1820. It is worth noting that the literature involved in this part of the discussion includes nineteen pieces of “Lüzu gao” 呂祖誥 (Lüzu’s Spirit-altar Transcript) the author gathered from different editions of Lüzu quanshu 呂祖全書 (Complete Writings of Ancestor Lüzu). Lastly, this paper will discuss the underlying reason the Qing imperial court conferred on Lüzu the title “Xieyuan zanyun chunyang yanzheng jinghua fuyou dijun” 燮元 贊運純陽演正警化孚佑帝君 and included him in the official worship in the ninth year of the Jiaqing reign (1805), which led to an empire-wide worship (tongsi 通祀) of Lüzu as ordained by the Ministry of Rites. The author concludes that the authorized worship of Lüzu at the official and local levels in the Qing dynasty was the result of a boom in the popularity of Lüzu’s spirit-writing cult during the period 1573–1820. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mdo-smad-chos-'byung (The Political and Religious History of A-mdo) is one of the most influential historical works in Tibetan historiography which contains many place names in Tibetan history, involving, at the beginning of this book, Bru-sha and Sbalti, two significant names. However, Bru-sha and Sbal-ti have not been exactly translated from Tibetan into Chinese by scholars. In effect, Bru-sha and Sbal-ti are closely related with Bolü or Bolor in Chinese historical records. Accordingly, this paper discusses the evolution of the relevant toponyms, the interaction between different ethnic groups, and culture change in the areas of Bru-sha and Sbal-ti based on analyses of the past of Great Bolor and Little Bolor. Furthermore the author tentatively considers Chinese translation of Bru-sha and Sbal-ti in different contexts from his painstaking research. Meanwhile, several crucial historical facts are presented for the first time in light of this research. In addition, Chinese translations of some titles, proper nouns and terms in this paper mirror the ideas and principles of translation studies in praxis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1920s witness the beginning of an age in which the Chinese leftist writers were deeply influenced by the Japanese leftist movement and extensively translated the Russian- Soviet literature and literary theories from Japanese. On the other hand, from the European intellectuals, the Chinese modernists gained an understanding of the development of both the Russian and international leftist cultural movement after the October Revolution. In 1934, the prominent Chinese modernist poet, Dai Wangshu, translated into Chinese Les Poètes dans la révolution russe, a literary piece written by Benjamin Goriély (1898-1986), translator and critic of Russian literature, born to a Russian Jewish family in Warsaw, who studied in Germany and Belgium, and eventually immigrated to France in 1930. Between 1934 and 1941, the Chinese translation of Les Poètes dans la révolution russe was published in various forms in five stages, and the publication went through the period of the development of Chinese proletarian literature led by the League of Left-wing Writers (1930-1936) and the period of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). From a transcultural perspective, this paper aims at investigating the discussion on Russian-Soviet literature during the revolutionary period in Les Poètes dans la révolution russe by putting emphasis on the development of leftist cultural movements in Russia, France, Belgium, and China.This paper will firstly examine the French and Belgian leftist intellectuals' different viewpoints on proletarian literature by focusing on Francophone leftist newspapers and literary journals as well as recently published letters between French leftist intellectuals and the Russian communist party. Secondly, this paper will investigate how Dai Wangshu introduced the Russian-Soviet literature and literary theories to China from the Francophone leftist intellectuals' point of view, and how he examined both the personal and historical situation of Chinese modernist writers in China. Finally, this paper will examine the Chinese translation of Les Poètes dans la révolution russe published between 1934 and 1941 in the historical context of the Second Sino-Japanese War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1125, the Jurchens tore up the military covenant with the Northern Song, and launched southward. After the fall of the capital Kaifeng, Huizong, Qinzong, as well as a large number of clan and common people were captured by the Jurchens. Emperor Gaozong inherited the throne and created the Southern Song dynasty. In order to safeguard the continuity of the new regime, he and his prime minister had to face many political issues. Lü Yihao (1071-1139) was the key prime minister of Gaozong to overcome the crisis and safeguard the regime. In this paper, the discussion focuses on four issues: (1) describes the expansionist policy from the mid-Northern Song; (2) retrospectively examines Lü Yihao’s family background, as well as his participation in civil examinations; (3) tracks the first three major stages leading to the officialdom of Lü Yihao; (4) provides a detailed analysis of the character of Lü Yihao. By the above discussion, this paper tries to sum up the requisite conditions for a wartime prime minister to have. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies a rare genealogy Wangshi yuanyuanlu (Record of the Roots of Wang's Family) preserved in Columbia University, and scrutinizes its edition, author, date of publication, and reason for being compiled. Although most Chinese genealogies were produced from the sixteenth to twentieth century, the copy was able to be authentically traced to the Yuan dynasty, for many honorifics to the Yuan court can be perceived in the text and some family members' names were obviously translated from Mongolian. The author, Wang Songshou, was an official-literati in Huizhou prefecture in late Yuan times who used the genealogy to emphasize the orthodox origin of his family and furthermore endeavoured to build a whole glorious history of all Wang's families that he knew. However it was an arduous task, with some tint of illusion, because it is easy to find gaps in the pedigree, although it is purportedly continuous. The paper states that the most important motives for Wang Songshou to devote himself to the enterprise of genealogy were rooted deeply in his family's history. In the transition period from the Song to the Yuan dynasty, Wang Yunlong, father of Wang Songshou, joined the Mongol army, built his military reputation, and finally saw his family enter the upper class. As many other local elites in Huizhou in Yuan times, Wang's celebrated history was actually short and their social power depended heavily on the cooperation with Mongol rulers. Wangshi yuanyuanlu was not only a genealogy but also a symbol of a new direction of social mobility in Huizhou in Yuan times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discovers the names of five governors of the Qin dynasty Dongting commandery, and finds that there were four possible locations of the commandery capital. Having determined that the “Qianling yi you xing Dongting” bamboo manuscripts were envelopes delivered from Dongting commandery to Qianling county, and Dongting commandery controlled over at least fourteen counties, we can draw a map on this basis. Based on these findings, this paper argues that the counties interacted with each other through document delivery, transportation, logistics, judiciary, official disposal, migration, and prison labour. This paper then indicates that in the Dongting commandery, all of the soldiers and officials, even at the lowest level, came from places other than the Dongting area. Non-native officials, soldiers, civilians, and criminals together constituted an immigrant community. Considering that the locals seemed to have no legitimate military power, political power or living space within the city, the Dongting area could be regarded as a colonial society. The Dongting commandery is typical of the “strong government, weak society” phenomenon. For the Qin government, the commandery system was a powerful institution to monitor regional society. However, implementing such harsh rules upon the remote south also reflected the excessive state apparatus, which might explain the quick collapse of the Qin dynasty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hypothesis put forward by Wei Zhengtong and Xu Fuguan, that Xunzi had never read the Mencius, is questionable. This paper seeks to prove that there are matching passages shared between the Xunzi and the Mencius. By the same token, this paper further examines the relationship between the uXing e" chapter found in the Xunzi and the 6 tXing shan chapter which was lost from the extant version of the Mencius. The author also tries to prove that the "Xing e" chapter was written by Xunzi,s followers or disciples instead of Xunzi himself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper attempts to reinterpret the organization and administration of the tianguan ... institutions situated in Hexi ..., which were established by the Han government during the reign of Emperor Wu as one of the regional administrations duguan ..., and served as important units in military farming .... The paper argues that nongzhang ..., instead of being merely a district ... level official subordinate to nongling ..., should be classified as the magistrate in the bureaucracy of tianguan; and nongsefu ... should be considered as the real district-level official of tianguan. The paper further examines the changes within the bureaucratic framework of tianguan in Juyan ..., showing that there were two radical reformations in its framework: the first one occurred between the reign of Emperor Zhao and Emperor Xuan, which led to the establishment of a more organized structure and uniform boundary; the second happened in Wang Mang's reign as part of his land reforms, which involved not only a renaming of the bureau from tianguan to xiantian ..., but also a restructuring from a bureau which was not committed to civilian administration, to a quasi-county organization that processed direct control over people within its jurisdiction. The remaining parts of the paper primarily use xingma ... tianguan in Jianshui ... as an example, demonstrating the communications between tianguan and regional military units, i.e. commandants ... and companies ..., where the tianguan was located, and revealing that although tianguan was theoretically a regional branch office directly controlled by the Superintendent of Agriculture ..., it was supervised by regional military units in most administrative aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Established in Shanghai in 1935, the newspaper, Lih Pao (LP) attracted a huge number of readers with its compressed and popular editorial strategy. The LP broke the record for the highest circulation rates since the appearance of daily posts in China. One major founder of the newspaper, Cheng Shewo (1898–1991), was a renowned journalist and journalism educator. He launched newspapers and vocational schools in journalism in different places. He also participated in politics. In 1937, when Shanghai fell into the hands of the Japanese, publication of LP was suspended. It was resumed on 1 April 1938 in Hong Kong. In the founding manifesto, the Hong Kong Lih Pao (HKLP) promised to inherit the spirit of the LP of Shanghai, and retain the layout structure of its Shanghai predecessor. However, there have been different perspectives on the relation between Cheng Shewo and HKLP. The issuer of the HKLP and a former senior staff of the LP, Sa Kongliao, recalled that it was he who established the HKLP with financial support from the Chinese Communist Party, while Cheng Shewo’s recollection gives no hints of it. Some even said that there were other sources of funds. As a matter of fact, there were also very different understandings of who was the real person in charge of the HKLP, especially concerning the direction of the supplements. A close study of the content and later research of the HKLP reveals that there were struggles among different camps for the control of the HKLP. Through analysing the relaunching of LP in Hong Kong and the different remarks on its core members by later researchers, this paper tries to recompose the actuality of the HKLP, and to trace out the alterations and modifications of the past by different antagonistic forces. This study also disputes the common discourse on the production mechanism of Hong Kong literature during the Anti-Japanese War period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many stories about the life of Confucius. People of the Han particularly enjoyed painting or sculpting the story of how Confucius met Laozi on their ancestral halls or tomb walls. Perhaps this was due to the fact that this story, as the people of the Han knew it, was multi-faceted. It was capable of presenting different, complex interpretations depending on the understanding of the tomb owners or family members. It could represent the great sage of learning, or a revered teacher; and also, since people of the Han viewed Laozi as a sublime immortal, it could represent the pursuit of the sublime world facilitated by the great sage of learning. The dao pursued by the tomb occupant might be the dao as understood by the Ru [Confucian] scholars; or it might be the dao of the Daoists or of the specialists and devotees of the sublime immortals. As [Confucius] had said, "If I heard about the dao in the morning, I could die peacefully in the evening," and so they compared this to the event of Confucius hearing about the dao from Laozi. It didn’t matter which dao it was: that could depend on the explanation that best satisfied each individual’s heart and mind, after which they could peacefully move on towards the ultimate events of a human life. According to the research done in the present paper, the youth between Confucius and Laozi ought to be Xiang Tuo, who symbolizes those prodigies bom full of knowledge. Confucius took these two—one old, one young—to be his teachers to show that a sage is flexible in his choice of teacher. In the legends of the Han. although Confucius was a great sage, in some respects he was not as good as this pair of figures, one old and one young. As far as it concerned a follower of the Ru [Confucian] programme, who worked all his life to become sagely, this image of the great sage who yet had aspects that were not as good as other people’s—whereas in contrast Xiang Tuo was a prodigy bom full of knowledge—implied that if one did not become a great sage of learning, it was not entirely one’s own fault， and did not need to occasion so much regret. However, from another viewpoint, the scholarofficials of the Han dynasty firmly believed that there was no essential difference between a sage and ordinary humans. With just the proper devotion to work, anyone could be like that. For this reason the sage with extraordinary circumstances of birth or extraordinary physical features, often appearing in apocryphal texts, seems not to have found so much favor here: the sage with extraordinary physical features was never depicted in Han painting. Based on the presently available tomb paintings or ancestral hall paintings of the theme of Confucius meeting Laozi, we can say that the tomb owners were all devotees of Ru [Confucianism] or Ru devotees who served as officials. In the Han dynasty, Confucianism enjoyed a great rise in popularity and spread everywhere. Nevertheless, the areas formerly occupied by the states of Qi and Lu were after all its original domains. In the Eastern Han, a time that was deeply conscious of regional viewpoints, depictions of Confucius meeting Laozi were particularly common in the Shandong area. This should have something to do with the fact that Confucius was from the state of Lu [in Shandong] and that his disciples were mostly from the areas of Qi and Lu: so that the relations between Confucianism and these areas were particularly deep. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the end of the Song and beginning of the Yuan, a new trend in phonology books emerged. In addition to traditional yunshu (rhyme books) such as Guangyun, Jiyun, and Libu yunlile, a kind of rhyme dictionary called shiyun (poetic rhyme), which inserted poetic phrases or couplets after rhyme characters, also became very popular. The earliest example of this type of book was Hu Jizong9s Shixue huotao yayun dacheng at the end of the Song. Books still available today include Yin Shifu's Yunfu qunyu (Yuan dynasty) and Shixue jicheng yayun yuanhai edited by Yan Yi (c. fourteenth century), Yunzao edited by Yang Shen (1488-1559) in the Ming, Wuche yunrui edited by Ling Zhilong (c. sixteenth century), and so on. And from the Kangxi period of the Qing dynasty, the Yuding peiwen yunfn formed a comprehensive epitome of this category. The editing format of Yongle dadian, a Ming leishu (encyclopedia), was directly influenced by Yunfu qunyu. Poetic rhyme books (shiyun shu) and rhyme books (yunshu) such as Guangyun belonged to different branches in traditional bibliographies: rhyme books belonged to the xiaoxue sub-branch in the branch of jing (classics), while poetic rhyme books belonged to the leishu sub-branch in the branch of zi (philosophical book). Poetic rhyme books had closer relations to poem composition; they belonged to books of poetics in terms of function. Since previous research on this topic has been scarce, this paper examines the origins, developments, formats, and functions of poetic rhyme books. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the multi-levels of narration in The Story of the Stone. It discusses the different functions of these levels, the possibilities they provide to our interpretation of the novel's meaning, and the interaction and inter-connection of these levels to form a complete and consistent structure. The paper argues that the multiple narrative points of view lead to a juxtaposition of multiple levels of narration in the novel. The levels serve different functions and interweave with one another, rendering a complex narrative structure overall. The two Buddhist and Daoist monks, going back and forth across levels, not only manipulate the fates of its main characters, they also highlight the inter-connections between the multiple worlds and the multiple meanings in the Story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The story of Xu Fu ... has stimulated the imagination of both Chinese and Japanese artists and scholars for many centuries. The legend first appeared in Japan in the latter half of the Heian period (794-1186) and its popularity grew with increased circulations of associated texts in subsequent years. The boom reached its peak during the Tokugawa period (1603-1868) when scholars, writers, and artists were actively engaged in the discourse, showing the rise of national consciousness and the complicated feelings towards China among Tokugawa Japanese. Scholars of Xu Fu in both Japan and China have hitherto examined the Xu Fu story with an archaeological or philological emphasis, paying special attention to the issue whether Xu Fu had actually landed in Japan. This paper, however, looks into the legend from an intellectual and textual perspective. It studies the significance of the Xu Fu discourse in relation to the Tokugawa history and the Sino-Japanese relations. Xu Fu has become a metaphor in Sino-Japanese discourse, a subject matter that scholars take advantage of in their discussion of bilateral ties. Two major different accounts of Xu Fu are found in Tokugawa writings--Xu Fu as a transmitter of Chinese culture to Japan and Xu Fu as a refugee to Japan. To a certain extent, these two accounts represent diverse views that the Tokugawa intellectuals conceived of the Sino-Japanese cultural relationship. Through a textual analysis of Tokugawa writings, this paper aims to examine the way in which the Japanese scholars of the time overcame the dilemma of accepting Chinese culture without compromising their national or cultural identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Daoist concept of repentance based on four contemporary liturgical texts, commonly used in the Guangdong and Zhejiang areas, of rituals for feeding and sublimating ghosts. The four liturgical texts are Xiantian hushi jilian youke ... (Prior Heaven Ritual for Feeding and Refining the Ghosts), Qingxuan jiyao liandu shishi keyi ... (Qingxuan Ritual for Feeding and Subliming Ghosts), Taiji Lingbao jilian keyi ... (Ritual for Oblatory Refinement of Taiji Lingbao), and Taishang Quanzhen Penghu liandu jinji fashi keyi ... (Ritual for Distributing Food and Sublimation of Penghu). Sublimation rituals find their roots in the Yellow Register Retreat ... of the Six Dynasties through the Tang period, in which retribution was one of the key concepts in the understanding of transgressions; and with retribution comes the fear of indictment and suffering in hell. Beyond this, rites in which orphan ghosts are summoned to listen to teachings about penitence are found in all four liturgical texts. Penitential litanies of the following structure can also be postulated in the texts: (1) Pronouncing the kulou's ... (skeleton) lamentations; (2) Setting the orphan ghosts free from worldly attachments; (3) Repentance litany; and (4) Release from indictment. Through structural and textual analysis of the penitential litanies in the four sublimation liturgical texts, the author of this paper argues that salvation of ghosts and lost souls hinges essentially on the ritualization of penitential teachings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to examine in depth the Latin translation of Mencius by the Belgian Jesuit François Noël (1651-1729), a masterpiece that assumes paramount importance in Western intellectual history. Included in his Sinensis Imperii Libri Classici Sex (1711), the translation is the first publication of Mencius in a European language. Jean Pierre Abel-Rémusat's (1788-1832) disparaging remarks of Noël's translation in the early nineteenth century have exerted considerable influence on the academic community for a long period of time, though Rémusat himself viewed the Latin language as an ideal medium for translating Chinese classics. A handful of contemporary scholars have attempted to redress the balance, but a formal study of this work is still lacking. This paper attempts to compare the manuscript with the printed versions of Noël's Mencius, and discuss some of the major differences between the two. Noël's work is full of protracted paraphrases of Medieval Latin, and this can be conceived as a product of cultural translation under the principle of domestication in early modern Europe. It is known that Noël attracted widespread criticism for his conscious effort to intermingle the text and the commentaries. However, as the Jesuits were evidently not able to translate separately the Four Books and the commentaries during the seventeenth century, it was necessary for them to add the commentaries to the text in order to make the translation more intelligible to the literati in the Western world at that time. For precisely the same reason, Noël's paraphrastic renderings did not only come from the original Chinese text and the commentaries, but also from his own elaboration. He ventured to combine the commentaries by Zhu Xi ... (1130-1200) and Zhang Juzheng ... (1525-1582) and rearrange the contents in an organized manner. Noël did not mention Zhang in his translation, yet curiously, he pointed to Zhang's Sishu zhijie?? in most cases when he quoted Mencius in Philosophia Sinica, particularly in the third treatise of the book. Noël referred to some other Chinese works as well in the interpretation of Mencius, including Sishu mengyin ... and Rijiang Sishu jieyi ..., but the quotations of these works in Philosophia Sinica were not necessarily found in his Latin translation. Scholars have put forward a number of explanations to account for the later publication of Mencius in Europe as compared with the other three of the Four Books. When we observe this Latin translation and some other evidence, the point that Mencius's ideas contradict the Catholic ecclesiastical views in fact does not constitute the most compelling reason for the exclusion of Mencius from Confucius Sinarum Philosophus published in 1687. It is worthy of note that, in the process of translation, Noël in general did not distort the original meanings of the words or sentences in Mencius that were apparently at odds with Christian philosophy, though there were cases where he misinterpreted the translated materials, intentionally or not, in Philosophia Sinica. Moreover, Noël was cautious in picking appropriate Latin words to introduce key concepts in Mencius as being part of his work to synthesize the philosophy of Mencius and Christianity. It was not rare for him to use two Latin words of similar meanings to stand for one Chinese character. The author seeks to prove that there is good reason for Noël to use pietas instead of humanitas (employed by Stanislas Julien [1797-1873] and Angelo Zottoli [1826-1920]) to translate the term ren ' in Mencius, and there is also sufficient evidence to vindicate his reluctance to differentiate cor and animus in translating xin .... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Official documents and local gazetteers of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) recorded primarily the facilities and administrative organizations of prisons at the local level, without much mention of the actual daily operations in jails. On the other hand, in many of the late Ming vernacular tales, local prisons were described as a netherworld controlled by corrupt clerks and their ruthless underlings, where bribery and murders are recurring narrative motifs. These fictional references, nonetheless, often serve as source materials for scholars who conduct critical discussions of the prison as well as the legal systems of the time. In addition, they often mix up the two different provincial judicial systems of the Ming and Qing dynasties, treating them as one intact institution. In the light of the Mengshui zhai cundu, a characteristic casebook published at the end of the Ming dynasty, this paper attempts to explore the interactions between the sophisticated, if not tedious, provincial judicial review procedures and the administration of local prisons in late Ming China. It discusses the differences in the provincial judiciaries between the Ming and the Qing. Through authentic judicial cases, this paper examines the first hand experiences of prefectural judges and other legal officials assigned to the jails, and analyses the problems in the local prisons in Guangdong and, possibly the whole country, in late Ming China. It concludes with a discussion of the critical impact that the prison administration inflicted upon the quality of justice in the legal system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flourishing during the Qian-Jia period, Wang Qisun was a representative literary figure. His life story and acquaintances, personal ethical standards, achievements in literature and calligraphy, even his criticism of the academic atmosphere at that time, were important markers of the Qian-Jia academic landscape. However, perhaps due to his having been defined as a writer, the majority of research about him focuses on his achievements in poetry, essays or even classical prose; while his academic achievements and values, which are actually great research problems about the academia of mid-Qing dynasty, have not yet been fully understood and assessed. That includes the criticisms of academic phenomenon of that day reflected in his poems and essays, his academic opinions motivating these criticisms and his life choices as a scholar, which not only show his personality characteristics, but also reflect the complicated phenomena of academia in the mid-Qing dynasty. So, the purpose of this paper is not to emphasize his literary achievements, styles, and his position in the literature history of Qing dynasty, but to find related discussions about academic judgements and life pursuits that exist within his massive academic comments, and then to place these discussions into the academic transition after the mid-Qing dynasty and to analyse their implications for himself and their subsequent academic influences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, based on the life and career history of Su Jian (1016-1076), examines the practice in the Northern Song for civil officials to be in charge of military affairs. As far as this author observes, a good number of modern scholars tend to interpret the civil-military relations in terms of the prominence that the government placed upon the civil and its efforts to de-emphasize the military. The life and the career history of Su Jian, however, shed new light on this political practice. When Su was serving in counties and prefectures as a civil official, he needed to handle not only the livelihood of his subjects as well as the civil administration; more importantly, he also had to manage military affairs because of the political instability caused by banditry and mutiny in the region. In other words, to ensure regional peace and order, any official in such a capacity would have to be militarily capable. In addition, Su's subsequent reassignment to the military was a clear indication that a crossover from the civil to the military was not an impossible move. In fact, by giving an additional military post, a civil official was charged with intensive involvements with local governance and territorial expansion. Su's service record offers itself for further discussion on the issue of civil-military relations, an issue that deserves to be re-examined, redefined, and reinterpreted. The paper also looks at Su's vehement resistance against foreign invasions and his death in the siege of Yongzhou, a territorial confrontation resulting from the expansion campaign promoted by Wang Anshi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Xianzhi fu shengquantu (also named the Guangzhou shengcheng quantu, Map of Guangzhou City) in the Nanhai xianzhi (Gazetteer of Nanhai), compiled by Pan Shangji and Deng Shixian et al. in the fifteenth year of Emperor Daoguang's reign (1835), includes the locations of government and schools, as well as the locations of shrines, Daoist and Buddhist temples in urban and rural Guangzhou. In contrast to maps printed in gazetteers in the Ming and early Qing dynasties, this map does not adopt the realistic painting method; instead, it accurately labels streets inside and outside the city. With the geographic information of the temples and streets provided on the map, researchers can better observe and analyse the spatial distribution and historical development of the temples in Guangzhou during the Daoguang period and further understand the relationship between the economic development and geographic change of this city during the Ming and Qing dynasties. This paper first examines the distribution of the temples by locating the 78 temples inside the city of Guangzhou based on the Daoguang edition of the Guangzhou shengcheng quantu. After careful examination and calculation, the revised map with the 78 temples shows the general distribution and connections between the positions of the temples, and this information will be used to discuss the relationship between the temples and the development of the old, modem and rural areas of the city. This study combines traditional local materials, including the steles in the temple, with spatial data, namely, the Guangzhou shengcheng quantu, to rewrite the history of the temples in the context of the changing space, which is beyond the scope of traditional documentary research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prestige of Chen Li (1810-1882) is based mostly upon his study of Confucian classics and phonetics, but his works of ci were also highly valued by scholars in the late Qing. In recent years, a large number of materials, such as the Collected Writings o f Chen Li and Manuscripts o f Qing Literati were published. Nevertheless, due to the lack of a complete posthumous collection, few people have focused on his works in literary criticism. These newly found manuscripts have been made public for the first time; they include the Juemiao haoci jian housed in the National University of Singapore, the Baishi daoren sizhong in The University of Hong Kong and the University of Macau. Especially his comments on Juemiao haoci jian are an excellent corpus for a full analysis of Chen Li9s literary criticism and his poetic achievements. First, this paper investigates when and under what kind of circumstances Chen Li made these comments. Then it analyses the reason Chen Li chose the Zhexi school as his model of ci, considering the two aspects of the cultural transplantation of Jiangnan and his social relationship with ci society. At last, it discusses Chen Li9s concept of ci and his comments on various poets. Chen Li9s theory of ci is apparently influenced by Zhang Yan, and shows a preference towards Jiang Kui, even though Xin Qiji's and Shi Dazu9s influence can be observed in early days; while his attitude toward Zhang Yan and Xin Qiji changed afterwards. This article is based on Chen Li's comments in the manuscripts, and some other related prefaces and postscripts, to reexamine his theory of ci. Chen Li is considered as an epitome of an immigrant from Jiangnan. With the aid of newly found manuscripts, it is hoped that a comprehensive investigation of Chen Li can be achieved in both aspects of biography and literature. In addition, it also benefits us to realize the development and spread of the Zhexi school in Guangdong during the late Qing dynasty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the possibility of Zhu Youdun having access to the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms (hereafter referred to as the novel) at the time when he composed the drama entitled Guan Yunchang Righteously and Bravely Refuses Gold (hereafter referred to as the drama). By comparing the depiction of the character Xiahou Dun in the two works, we believe that the novel did not exist in 1416. Zhu's characterization was based essentially upon the negative portrayal of Xiahou in traditional works such as the Sanguozhi pinghua, where he was cast in a role completely different from what we find in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. This paper examines three episodes in these two works: (1) the officer whom Guan Yu defeats before he kills Yan Liang; (2) the person who blinds Xiahou, and (3) the farewell letter penned by Guan Yu. All three cases show that Zhu possessed no awareness of these details in the novel, which leads one to conclude that the novel did not exist in 1416. The date of its composition would have to be within the period of 1435-1457. Its authorship, generally attributed to (1330-1400), would also have to be refuted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous discussions of the Liuzi focus primarily on its authorship, but, as the issue is complex, this problem remains unresolved even in current research. Other than authorship, the relationship between the Liuzi and the philosophical works of the Qin-Han period has not been closely looked at. This paper compares and contrasts the Liuzi with corresponding chapters in the Huainanzi and also with the extant version of the Wenzi, and examines the sources from which the Liuzi drew its references. By comparing the Liuzi with these two earlier works, this paper shows that the Liuzi modified its source materials in various ways, including summarizing, expanding, and paraphrasing. Specific examples are cited to illustrate the extensive modification made to the original texts. Furthermore, there is a discussion on the dating of authorship as well as the textual history of both the Huainanzi and the extant version of the Wenzi [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examination aids were a major type of publications in the Qing dynasty. These aids were largely produced by the commercial printing houses and were widely circulated in book markets. They included commentaries on the Four Books and Five Classics as well as anthologies of the eight-legged essays, rhythmic poems, and policy essays. These aids had greatly simplified the preparation for civil service examinations and had helped prepare candidates in two major areas: knowledge they needed to acquire before they sat for the examination and techniques on answering the examination questions. This paper examines the impact on commercially-printed examination aids in the Qing dynasty as well as the strategies and measures adopted by the government to eliminate the negative effects. There are three parts in this paper. Part one outlines the publishing activities of these commercially-printed examination aids, as well as the major types of aids published in the dynasty. Part two examines the impact these aids as well as the reactions from the government and the public toward them. Part three discusses the strategies and measures adopted by the Qing government to eliminate the negative effects. However, failure in the education system, cheating and fraud in examination, and negligence of education officials and examiners had reduced the effectiveness of these strategies and measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important issue for the study on military system of the Han dynasty is the employment of labours as agents to undertake conscriptions. Confined by deficiency in historical records, scholars in the past could only mostly rely on historical official materials and annotations made in the Han and Wei dynasties in their discussions of this issue. However, Han wooden and bamboo strips unearthed in Dunhuang and Juyan in the early period of the last century have brought a new dimension to the scholarly discussion. Researchers have remarked that strips inscribed with the character yong … are mainly of the category of mingji … (official documents registering information of servicemen or goods). But as for the transcription, title, and format of these strips, their researches have not yet provided a detailed understanding. The present paper attempts to develop the understanding of the aforementioned concern and further substantiate knowledge of the buji … on Han strips, in particular the category of mingji. The study on collection of buji serves as the foundation of this paper. It also demonstrates its viewpoint that these mingji should be designated "zu yong zuo mingji" …. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionalists have long hailed Xiao Tong as the key editor of the Wen xuan, justifying their belief with reference to the Liang shu. However, Japanese scholar Shimizu Yoshio is sceptical about its validity, arguing that his involvement is falsified and unfounded. Subsequently, he proposed Liu Xiaocuo to be the true editor. However, many Chinese mainland scholars have resounded in disagreement. This paper endeavours to contribute to this long-standing Wen xuan editorship debate through a thorough analysis of the differences between the poems of Xiao and Liu and the new literary styles of the Qi-Liang period. Xiao and Liu approached the trend of innovation in Qi and Liang with distinctly different attitudes. Xiao remained traditional in his approach, demonstrating little interest in the trend of innovation. Conversely, Liu's poetry exuded the colour and vigour of Yongming literature. When the selection of works in the Wen xuan is concerned, it is evident that Jin and Song literary works were of primary importance while records of Yongming literature were few and secondary in nature. With this in mind, one is more inclined to believe that Xiao's traditional literary style bears greater semblance to that of the Wen xuan. Hence, on the basis of the above literary similarity, this paper argues that Xiao's editorship of the Wen xuan is beyond doubt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literary magazine Xin wenyi (La Nouvelle littérature) was issued by the Shuimo Bookstore in Shanghai in September 1929 and the magazine remained in the literary picture till April 1930. This short period of time, however, happened to witness the foundation of the League of Left-wing Writers in February 1930. The publication of the Xin wenyi and the rise of the League of Left-wing Writers, therefore, transpired in the same historical context. While keeping abreast of the latest literary trends of the world, the Xin wenyi showed a deep concern about the changing political situation in China. It introduced into China different or even contradictory tendencies of the world literature. This paper aims at studying the vanguard position the Xin wenyi played in both the artistic and ideological development and its literary inclination which contrasted with the mainstream literature of the Leftists of the time. The paper will proceed in three directions. First, it will examine the concept of "avant-garde" manifested by the Xin wenyi and the promotion of "New Literature" which covered different ideological tendencies. Then, by focusing on the literary and artistic criticism translated in the Xin wenyi, it will investigate the relationship between this literary magazine and the Leftist literature as well as the ambivalent attitude radiated from the former to the latter. It will also look at the cases discussed in the criticism translations, in which writers and artists achieved a balance between art and ideology. Finally, the paper will study the proletarian literature written by the editors of the Xin wenyi and will further examine the dilemma between pure aesthetic and ideological commitment demonstrated in their works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One's ideas and acts are not only influenced by his education background and scholarly orientation, but also by the intellectual environment he is exposed. Most of the researches on Zhao Pang (1319-1369), a prominent Confucian scholar of Huizhou in the late Yuan dynasty, focus on his thoughts of fusion of Zhu Xi (1130-1200) and Lu Jiuyuan (1139-1193), as well as his contributions to the study of Chunqiu. Focusing on Zhao's studying tours, his thought and scholarly life, this paper examines the characteristics of his thought and its relations with the late Yuan Zhu Xi School of Huizhou, and the significance of his devotion to the study of Chunqiu in the Yuan dynasty. It shows that Zhao left his birthplace Huizhou in his youth to the provinces Jiangxi and Zhejiang in search of competent classical teachers because the Zhu Xi School which once flourished in Huizhou was declining. His encounters enabled him to reflect and criticize the deficiencies of the intellectual trends of Huizhou, and, after having completed his study tours, he advocated the doctrine of weiji (learning for one's own self) and fanji (reflecting upon one's own self) as a prescription of the intellectual deficiencies of the locality. It also shows that Zhao, being a staunch admirer of Zhu Xi throughout his life, actually argued with Lu Jiuyuan in favour of Zhu Xi in the essay "Duiwen Jiangyou Liujunzi ce", which researchers usually consider as evidence of his intention to fuse Zhu Xi and Lu Jiuyuan into one thought. Finally, the paper shows that Zhao and his teacher Huang Ze (1259-1346), the eminent Chunqiu scholar, not only had followed Zhu Xi's methods in researching the Classics, but also kept perfecting the deficiencies of Zhu Xi's classical scholarship, especially that on Chunqiu, thereby confirming the importance of Zhu Xi's learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Toward the end of the Eastern Han dynasty, Emperor Xian considered the Hanshu too voluminous and ordered Xun Yue to copy and edit it. Xun Yue summarized Hanshu's contents in the annalistic format. He started his writing in the third year of Jian'an (198) and finished it in the fifth year of Jian'an (200). Since Xun Yue adapted the Hanshu for his Hanji, which is the first book to set up the compilation system of dynastic history presented in a chronological format, attempts have been made to probe the relationship between the Hanshu and the Hanji. Hanji initiated the new annalistic form of chronological Chinese historical classics. Nevertheless, very few scholars have devoted to the study of Xun Yue's method in compiling documents. This paper aims at comparing and contrasting the Hanji with the corresponding chapters in the Hanshu, and investigating how Xun Yue compiled documents. By comparing the extant versions of the Hanji with the Hanshu thoroughly, this paper shows that the former modified the latter in various ways, either by summarizing, expanding, or paraphrasing. In addition to studying the parallel passages found in both titles, this paper illustrates the typical examples of the different modifications on the Hanshu by comparing with the Hanji in order to show this extensive reworking. This paper also reviews some of the problems of the modern Hanji edition by Zhang Lie. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how Sanyuan gong in Guangzhou managed to produce a Daoist ritual text on shishi (offering of food) and liandu (salvation through sublimation) that has been and still is commonly used in the Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau areas since the early Qianlong and Tongzhi periods. It is apparent, on the one hand, that Sanyuan gong had compiled the Xiantian hushi jilian youke (Liturgy for Anterior Heavens for Tending the Food to Save and Sublimating [the Souls of the Deceased] in Darkness) based on the Taiji Lingbao jilian keyi (Ritual for Sacrificing to and Sublimating [the Souls of the Deceased], in the Lingbao Tradition of Taiji) of the Zhengyi tradition of Suzhou. It is also known, on the other hand, that the Daoist masters of Sanyuan gong had taken up various liturgical practices from the Sazu tieguan liandu shishifa (Method for Offering of Food and Alchemical Salvation with the Iron Bottle of Patriarch Sa [Shoujian]) of the Quanzhen School. This paper therefore argues that the Xiantian hushi jilian youke stands out uniquely and distinguishes itself from the Taiji Lingbao jilian keyi. Building upon the study of the Xiantian hushi jilian youke by Chen Yaoting, this paper examines the text from a historical perspective, the finding of which does not support Chen's inference of the compilation of Xiantian hushi jilian youke being completed by the Daoist master Jin Yunzhong (fl. 1224-1225) of the Southern Song period. This paper concludes that the Xiantian hushi jilian youke was produced by the Daoist masters of Sangyuan gong. The ritual structure and process had been formulated and compiled by these Daoist masters. Widely disseminated in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau over the past fifty or so, the text was assimilated and used by many Daoist devotional organizations there. It has established itself as the most representative Daoist ritual text on shishi liandu in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the life and work of Qian Haiyue (1901-1968), a rarely known Chinese historian of the twentieth century. Qian's compilation of the History of the Southern Ming, a grand project that took him four decades to accomplish, virtually fell on deaf ears. It was not until 2006, or almost four decades after his tragic death, that his History of the Southern Ming was formally published. This paper argues that it was personal bad luck, as much as the paradigmic shift from traditional Chinese historiography to modern Chinese historiography, that leads to silence by which Qian and his work were engulfed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the re-establishment and development of the Three Capital Guards (san ya ... ) military system: the Palace Command (dian qian si ... ), the Metropolitan Cavalry Command (ma jun si ... ), and the Metropolitan Infantry Command (bu Jun si ... ) during the reign of Emperor Gaozong ... (r. 1127-1162) of the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279). Previous studies all focused on Northern Song's (960-1127) Three Capital Guards and their capabilities, and Southern Song's Three Capital Guards were neglected. The author considers this topic an important issue in Song military history. This paper is divided into four parts. The first part traces the corruption of the Three Capital Guards system during the reign of Emperor Huizong ... (r. 1101-1125) and Qinzong ... (r. 1126-1127). The second part analyses the rising power of General Yang Yizhong ... and his Shenwu Central Army (shenwu zhongjun ... ). Yang rebuilt the Palace Command, and commanded this capital guard for nearly thirty years under Emperor Gaozong. The Shenwu Central Army is regarded as the predecessor of the Palace Command. The third part focuses on the process of rebuilding the Three Capital Guards. The last part evaluates the role played by the Three Capital Guards in important political and military affairs during Gaozong's reign. Finally, the author concludes that the significance of the Three Capital Guards system reconstituted under Gaozong is that it is an "internal-oriented," not an "external-oriented" defense system. This is the main difference of the Three Capital Guards between the Northern Song and the Southern Song dynasties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is without question that Lin Shu made a great contribution to the modernization of China. Almost all writers of the May Fourth generation first came to know the Western literature mainly through Lin's efforts. However, there was a surprising rupture in the evaluation of Lin's translation activities. Comments about the merits of Lin's translations were totally overturned in the May Fourth period to the extent that his appearance as a translator of Western literature was regarded as a "strange event." A major ground for this was certainly the fact that Lin, who translated 213 Western works into Chinese within a period of less than twenty years, actually knew none of the Western languages. Past studies on Lin's translation activities were mainly concerned with comparing Lin's translations with the source texts and finding out their discrepancies. The present paper tries to show that this kind of investigation presupposes the modern idea that translation should centre on the source text and therefore typifies the intervention of the discourses of modernity into historical studies. By using Lin as a case study, it tries to reappraise the current view on translation in the late Qing from the perspective of post-colonial studies and discuss several important topics in it, including the role, the responsibility, and the authority of the translator. At the end of this paper, the author tries to explain the roots of this particular literary norm on translation and the transition, following the modernization of China, from this view to the modern idea that translation should centre on the source text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, in the arena of Classical Chinese literature study, the term Jian'an fenggu is generally conceptualized as the representative feature of the literary works, especially poetry, of the Jian'an period (196-220). Some use the terms Han-Wei fenggu or Jian'an fengli instead, and "Han-Wei" refers also to the Jian'an period. However, despite the popularity of the term, the explicit content of Jian'an fenggu has been an issue under constant controversy. Re-examining the literary histories since the late Qing dynasty, one can notice the obvious growth of popularity of the term as well as rapid changes of its content. As a matter of fact, to conceptualize Jian'an fenggu as a representative feature of a literary epoch is a way of understanding literary history that comes along with the rise of new approaches to literary history writing. This paper traces how Jian'an fenggu becomes an unavoidable term in the literary history of the past few decades, in order to explain why the term is on the one hand widely adopted, yet on the other hand its meaning has never reached a consensus. This paper also tries to show how researches might be led astray by using the term casually without a full consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a joint study of the prophecies attributed to Liu Bowen in circulation in Taiwan during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Liu Bowen was the courtesy name of Liu Ji, an eminent adviser to the Ming dynasty founder Zhu Yuanzhang (Ming Taizu, r. 1368- 1398). Since the late seventeenth century during the Ming-Qing transition, however, under the name of Liu Bowen, Liu Ji has been systematically mythologized as a legendary figure, becoming known as a clairvoyant prognosticator and an ingenious builder of imperial cities in modern times. In addition to a profusion of prophecies attributed to him during periods of social and political crises, he is best known as the author of a prophecy book known as Shaobing ge (Baked Cake Ballad), prophesying the events of China during the last six hundred years with incredible accuracy and proposing means of salvation. While his name and his works have been well known in mainland China, the Shaobing ge and other prophecies attributed to him were also in vogue in Taiwan under Japanese colonial rule and have remained in circulation in the island since its return to Chinese suzerainty after the Second World War. This paper is divided into four parts, with contributions shared by both authors. The first part gives a summary of the state of research on Liu Ji's Shaobing ge, tracing the inception of its prophecies in the late Ming and early Qing to the work of fiction writers and the propagandists of the anti-Manchu sectarian organizations and secret societies in the eighteenth century. Additional prophecies attributed to Liu Ji proliferated thereafter onto the 1930s. The earliest edition of Shaobing ge which the authors have seen or in their possession was printed in the late Guangxu period (1875-1908) but it was probably based on much earlier cruder manuscripts. The book has been well received in Taiwan since that time. The second part examines Taiwanese publications under Japanese colonial rule attesting to the popularity of Liu Bowen's alleged prophecies. The first source was discussions on the origin of the Shaobing ge and its purposes by Taiwanese scholars published in the Sino-Japanese Taiwan daily newspaper Taiwan Riri Xinbao, dated November 20 and December 3, 1898, the thirty-first year of Meiji. There one commentator suggested that the author of Shaobing ge may have been an adviser to the leaders of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in the mid nineteenth century, and pointed out that several individual prophecies later collected in the Shaobing ge were already well known in Taiwan at that time. Another Taiwanese publication gives information that Liu Bowen had been adulated by the local people as a deity of salvation and the Shaobing ge had been cited by ringleaders of the anti-Japanese Taiwanese uprising in Tainan in 1915 to presage victory. The third part of the paper examines the worship and distribution of Liu Bowen's alleged prophecies known as Liu Bowen chen or Liu Bowen xiansheng xianchu jiujiebei wen by a group of followers of the banned sectarian organization known as Yiguan Sect in the city of Gaoxiong in southern Taiwan in the 1960s. It reproduces the recently declassified police records of the Guomindang Government on these episodes with an analysis of the contents of the prophecies and the motives of the worshippers. It shows that the worshippers harbored no political agenda but aspired to blessings from Liu Bowen for a healthy and happy life. The final part of the paper gives a textual analysis of the Liu Bowen chen or Liu Bowen jiujiebei wen propagated by sectarian organizations in Taiwan with similar non-violent social goals.… [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper refutes the established opinion that Zhu Yuanzhang's Grand Pronouncements (Dagao) lost its legal authority during the Xuande reign (1426-1435). It makes a case that at least three of its items were continuously enforced in the judicial system until the end of the Ming. As reflected in numerous legal publications from the Jiajing reign (1522-1566), after the accession of Emperor Shizong, there was a trend demanding the reintroduction of ancestral rules, including the Dagao. As a result, in Hu Jie's ... Baiyi xinpan, a collection of his model legal case reports composed in 1536-1537, a case is judged by quoting the Dagao item "Buddhist or Daoist monks not complying with ancestral teachings." By consulting some judicial cases concerning monks from the Chongzhen reign (1628-1644) alongside Hu's case, this paper reveals that mid and late Ming judges punished offenders in accordance with this Dagao item. For offences such as Hu's case that were originally miscellaneous capital crimes, however, the offenders were merely sentenced to a beating with heavy stick or enforced a return to secular life. The change of punishments in this case reflects a possibility that, from the Jiajing reign on, there was a new relationship between the Great Ming Code and the Dagao. While a judge might employ a Dagao item to define a crime, he must determine the punishment by referring to the article of the Code to which the Dagao was attached. Another possibility for the change of punishment is that this Dagao item was employed after the Jiajing reign only for the definition of crimes, yet by incorporating a new regulation governing the secular engagements of monks introduced in 1500 into this old title, its original punishment is replaced by the new measures prescribed in the new regulation. Moreover, ceasing the application of the Da Ming lügao ... in 1497 only implies that the Dagao items concerning the administration of death penalties were no longer enforced. In fact, the Dagao item "Fleeing from military exile of corrupted officials and clerks who had imposed evils to the common people for many years," through which the offenders could be punished by military exile, which is one degree lighter than death penalties, was still employed by the daily encyclopedia Santai wanyong zhengzong ... ... published in 1599 as a valid charge for common people launching complaints against corrupted officials and clerks. Finally, this paper discusses the change of scope in the practical application of the Dagao item "Reduction of punishment by one degree through possession of the Dagao" that occurred throughout the Ming period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his Changchun daojiao yuanliu, Chen Minggui (1821-1881) remarked that "when we asked the Daoist temples either on Luofu shan or in the provincial city for the origin of their lineage, they all responded that they belonged to the Quanzhen order." The 1942 Annual of Guangdong reported that "there were many local Daoist temples scattering in the counties [of Guangdong]. Their administration was modelled on the Daoist (Quanzhen) temples on Luofu shan." In the past, scholarly study of the Quanzhen order founded in Guangdong during the early Qing period was not very advanced. The only exceptions are the Changchun daojiao yuanliu by Chen Minggui and Luofu shan zhibu by Chen Botao (1855-1930). Although the two Chens' first scholarly history of the Quanzhen lineage began in Guangdong, their impact was not so much evident. This paper attempts to trace the history and transformation of the Quanzhen lineage on Luofu shan. It makes extensive use of the collected epigraphy of temple steles, local gazetteers and local historical materials, and some anecdotal jottings and stories as key sources to reconstruct the historical development of those Quanzhen temples. The present paper covers three main parts. It begins with a study of the beginning of the Quanzhen lineage founded in Guangdong during the reign of Kangxi (1662-1722). It then attempts to reconstruct the transmission of the Quanzhen lineage on Luofu shan. Part two will trace the history of the Daoist Monasteries of Chongxu guan and Sulao guan with a particular focus on the issue of how they changed to the Quanzhen lineage. Finally, it will attempt to reconstruct the history of the Daoist Monastery of Yuanmiao guan in Huizhou city nearby Luofu shan. The Monastery was founded in the Song, and survived through the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties to the present day. In early Qing, the Monastery underwent a reformation with the result that it changed to the Quanzhen lineage. In conclusion, the present study finds that the Daoist temples of Quanzhen lineage on Luofu Mountain, Huizhou as well as those in other cities of Guangdong were developed after a disengagement from their originally established local tradition. Since the early Qing, the Quanzhen lineage had been considered as a Daoist order officially endorsed and publicly promoted by the imperial policy. Influenced by this trend, Daoist temples on Luofu shan respectively reformed themselves by making connection with the Quanzhen lineage. With the support of the local Qing officials and local gentry, the conversion of Daoist temples on Luofu shan was completely realized. One can find the later spread of Quanzhen tradition in other Guangdong Daoist temples after the middle of Qing and the trend continues to the present day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Ming times, anti-government revolts based at the Big Rattan Gorge (Datengxia) area in central eastern Guangxi had great consequences for the social security and ethnic relationship of the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi. The Ming court responded to the regional turmoil with three large-scale military campaigns, respectively launched in 1465, 1528, and 1539. The first of these campaigns involved the largest number of soldiers and had the greatest of historical impact. The military leaders of this campaign were assistant censor-in-chief Han Yong and commander-in-chief Zhao Fu. But Qiu Jun, a Guangdong native from Hainan, then a compiler in the Hanlin Academy, was also an important figure in the campaign because the court had formally adopted his strategy for the military actions and their aftermath. Han Yong did not in effect put Qiu Jun's strategy into action, but neither was he able to end decisively the turmoil despite his successes on the frontline. The present paper studies the century-long Ming government policy in dealing with ethnic risings in Guangxi as a background for the 1465 campaign. It then analyzes the strategy and tactics Qiu Jun and Han Yong respectively devised for the campaign itself and for postwar rehabilitation. It further analyzes Qiu Jun's strategy for long-term control of the Yao and Zhuang aborigines, which he devised a decade or more after the 1465 campaign. The paper argues that Qiu Jun and Han Yong each proposed their strategies in accordance with different interests: Qiu for those of Guangdong natives, Han for the campaigning soldiers. Han lacked a plan for the long-term peace of the area concerned. Unlike Qiu, who eventually proposed a self-government for the ethnic Yao and Zhuang and a cultural policy for drawing the aborigines to the government, Han relied on military suppression and the effect of deterrence. Nevertheless, Qiu's measures for rehabilitation were mostly ignored by the mainstream bureaucracy. During the two decades after the 1465 campaign, only his proposal for rewarding native officials who helped the government in the campaign was put into practice. The turmoil of the Gorge area continued as a result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A leader of the Doubting Antiquity Movement of the 1920s, Gu Jiegang (1893-1980) was well known for his cultural iconoclasm. But in the 1930s, he experienced a drastic change in his intellectual life. Partly in response to Japanese expansion in Manchuria and northern China, Gu no longer practised “learning for the sake of learning.” Instead, he used his academic writings to mobilize his fellow countrymen to defend their nation. As a result, he changed both the purpose and the content of his academic writings. Unlike his previous works which challenged the Confucian orthodoxy, he affirmed the Chinese tradition. Rather than exposing the hypocrisy of national memory, he participated in creating a collective memory for national resistance. In this paper, the author examines these changes in Gu’s thoughts and links them to the broader context of the Sino-Japanese War (1937- 1945). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When discussing Liu Shipei's Classics Studies, scholars have often focused on Liu’s doctrine about equating “Classics” and “History.” However, the doctrine appeared only in the early period of Liu’s works and, on the contrary, the later period of Liu’s works emphasized the distinction of “Classics” and “History.” Through discussion of the later period of Liu’s scholarship on the Zuo zhuan, this paper aims on the one hand to analyze the reason for Liu’s differentiating “Classics” and “History” at that time, and on the other hand to point out that Liu’s scholarship on the Zuo zhuan in his later period considerably supported the scholarship on the Zuo zhuan in the Han dynasty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the word frequency of bird names in the Chinese Buddhist classics. Findings show that among the 53 kinds of birds present, cranes, swan geese, swallows, and warblers occur most frequently, in particular in the Chan volume of the Chinese Buddhist classics. These images of birds are most commonly found in poems composed by Chan monks and are of a literary, artistic, and religious nature. To date, there have been no specialist studies into the images of birds in Chan poems, therefore this study will fill this research niche. By focusing on the occurrence and images of swan geese, swallows, and warblers, this study first investigates the use of these three birds in the Chinese Buddhist classics, and then provides a discussion of the symbolic meaning of these birds in poems by Chan monks. This sheds light on the Chan Buddhist connotation of the birds and helps gain a better understanding of the intentions of Chan monks, the esthetic appeal of these images, and artistic thought in composing poems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collected works by the Ming founding emperor is a magnet for historians' attention, as they are important primary sources to understand Ming Taizu and his times, especially when almost all other records of his rule had been banned or destroyed by his descendants. Apart from several editions of the Ming Taizu yuzhi wenji, there is an overlooked collection entitled Da Ming Taizu huangdi yuzhiji that contains unexplored materials not found in all other sources. This paper examines the Yuzhiji by comparing it with different editions of the Yuzhi wenji regarding three aspects, namely, its wider range of works collected, those edicts collected in the form of original vernacular language, and those essays exclusively collected in the Yuzhiji. It aims at showing the importance of reexamining the Yuzhiji so as to discover hidden facts of the Hongwu era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents the coinage during the Jiajing reign (1522-1566) with the objective of showing why the Ming government issued copper cash, but instead ultimately used silver bullion as its unit of account. Throughout the long reign of forty-five years, the Jiajing government attempted to establish a single form of legal money. As early as 1527, when the government cast the Jiajing coins, it considered the money as merely one of many forms of legal tender. Besides the Jiajing coin, the government also accepted tax remittances paid in various kinds of coins produced in different reigns and dynasties. This policy brought into play Gresham's law of "bad money driving out the good." Inferior coins from earlier dynasties and outlaws prevailed. As a solution, in 1552 the Jiajing emperor ordered that taxpayers should pay the government with only Jiajing coins. However, the effort to drive those inferior private coins, now in the shape of Jiajing coins, out of market was still in vain. In 1565, at last, the government gave up collecting tax payment in copper cash. It accepted silver bullion originally paid in coins. From then onwards, silver bullion played a prime role in the fiscal policy of the Ming government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article centres on the text of the Great Learning associated with Zhan Ruoshui (1466-1560) and Fang Xianfu (1485-1544), as well as the interpretation of their positions. It explores the competitive reaction to it that rapidly emerged among the Neo-Confucian elites, and the impact of this competition on the highly regarded friends and mentoring relationships in the Neo-Confucian discourse during the formal establishment of Wang Yangming's (1472-1529) Old Edition of the Great Learning and its explanation. In specific discussions, this article focuses on the exchanges and debates related to the Old Edition of the Great Learning. First, it explores the progress whereby Zhan Ruoshui completely rejected the text of the Old Edition of the Great Learning at first, followed by showing passive acceptance towards it, yet actively involved himself in the dispute over interpretation of the book finally. Second, the paper reconstructs how a short-term mentor-student relationship was being established between Fang Xianfu and Wang Yangming, after which time the differences in interpretation of Old Edition of the Great Learning gradually became more distinct, leading to a philosophical parting of the ways with irreconcilable differences. Furthermore, we can reflect on the writings of future generations about the mentoring relationship on this basis as well. Indeed, the above discussion is important for us to observe why Neo-Confucian scholars were all competing in seeking to establish a new classic text and independent discourse at the beginning of the sixteenth century when the mainstream ideologies and classical foundation were being questioned. From this perspective, it will also lead us to consider the changes in characteristics of the friends, mentoring relationships, and schools in the Neo-Confucian discourse of that time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1814, Li Huaiyuan, alias Li Yao, Ayao (Ayew), a linguist (tongshi) in Guangzhou, was arrested and thrown into jail by the Chinese authorities, apparently for his service to the British traders in bringing letters and presents to a senior minister in Beijing. The British made various attempts to rescue him, including suspending trade with the Chinese. Ayew was ultimately sent to exile to Xinjiang. The present paper examines this so-called "Ayew Incident" in the history of East India Company trade in China. It analyses the real causes for the arrest of Ayew and explains how and why the British would want to rescue him at the risk of great loss in revenue. It hopes to demonstrate the significant role and position played by the linguists in the Canton System and Sino-British relationship in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Critique of the social contract," an important post-Republican era political article by Yan Fu, has attracted much attention from scholars. Most of the discussions, however, have failed to note that the article was a translation adapted from Thomas Huxley's "On the natural inequality of men." Huxley wrote the article to discourage nationalization of land in Britain. To serve his own political agenda, however, Yan devoted a good deal of effort to translating it. Therefore, by including Huxley in his review, the author of this paper examines Yan's work from a new perspective. Huxley's "On the natural inequality of men" actually represents a series of public debates he had had with Herbert Spencer in The Times and other media. His Evolution and Ethics (also translated by Yan) was another product of this debate. To better understand the position that Huxley held in Yan's mind, it is important to revisit the dialogue between Huxley and Spencer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the ritual reforms during the Hongwu reign, in the name of "using Chinese ways to abolish barbarian customs" ..., or "restoring antiquity" ..., the reform of clothing played an important role. Faced with popular apparel deriving from Jin and Yuan dynasties, mixing clothing styles from different ethnicities, nations, and social hierarchies, the Ming government launched a costume reform that lasted more than thirty years and involved all the social hierarchies. During this far-reaching process, the so-called "Great Ming Clothing System" ... was gradually established. The newly born Ming government, in manipulating the identities of various groups through the formation of a sumptuary system, obtained its cultural orthodoxy by interacting with Confucian rites. This paper will explore the details of this reform and analyse its political motivation and effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-Song, the Song court built a large number of forts along the northwest frontier as an important means of defense against the Xixia .... When the two sides competed to control the strategic Heng shan ... area, Jintang Fort became the critical focus of contention between the two nations. As far as the author can tell, little is known about Jintang Fort, except from the documents found in Heishui cheng ... that retain some information from the Huizong ... reign. This paper aims at exploring the fort's special geographical location, using the Heishui cheng documents as the main source material, together with other relevant information, and investigating, for the time of the late Northern Song dynasty, the institutional settings of the fort's military supplies, and its management and staffing responsibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]