Search

The are 12 pieces of biographies of Gao Gong written by authors in the Ming and Qing dynasties in which the attitude towards Gao Gong was positive, then negative and finally positive again. The final evaluation about Gao Gong is near the historical fact. To amend Gao Gong’s Biography in History of Ming Dynasty of Chinese Book Company edition, it is needed to abide the principle that the comment must come from the history and comprehensively analyze the historical materials. Meanwhile, an impartial principle must be followed and must not be prejudiced by first impressions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is primarily concerned with the Chinese history and rural society, using the example of Sanmentang village as a case, to illustrate the internal relations of timber trade activities and regional social change in the downstream areas of Qingshui river basin. It probes into the complicated relationship between nongovernmental contracts and local timber trade during the period of late Ming dynasty (AD1368-1644) and early Qing dynasty (AD1644-1911) in China. It explores regional social history, social structure changing process and its main driving factors. The findings reveal the direct effects of commercial activities on regional economic development, and its indirect impacts on local community. Findings also reveal the historic significance of stone tablets and contractual documents in old China. Finally, relationship of "timber trade → economic development → social change" is shown to be evident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A society and scholarly culture united in its use of one language dominates the general view of Late Imperial China’s sciences. Recent studies have suggested, however, that in the past, as in the present, multilingual practices might have been the norm. Asian-language historians have shown that Chinese script embraced many tongues, intonating the characters in different dialects and giving them new meanings in Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese. Rather than assuming that a hegemonic approach to language was a given in historical China, this essay suggests that we should ask why—or even if—this was the case, given that scientific knowledge was continuously transmitted to China from other learned traditions (Persian, Indian, European) and that new objects and practices entered Chinese learned discourse from diverse vernacular cultures that flourished on the local level throughout the empire. The essay discusses how to understand scientific and technological developments against changing views of Late Imperial China as a culture enmeshed in plurilingual practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a survey and critique of recent endeavours to establish statistical foundations for a chronology for the great divergence based upon trends and levels in relative wages. Our reading of the bibliography in Chinese labour history, together with a preliminary investigation into other primary sources, suggests that the Kuznetsian paradigm for empirical economics may not be viable for the construction of analytical narratives for the Chinese and other premodern imperial economies in South and West Asia. Nevertheless, two datasets currently in print will continue to be quoted to lend support to numerically grounded speculations for levels and trends in real wages and welfare for the families of wage-dependent urban workers in China over the eighteenth century. Statistical evidence for the Ming and Qing dynasties calibrated for the purposes of comparing real wage levels for wage-dependent labour between China and western Europe can, however, be placed on a spectrum for accuracy and inferential analysis that runs from 'unfounded guess work' to 'plausible conjectures'. The unwelcome contention of this article is that the data published and potentially available for China (and probably for India and the Ottoman Empire) stand close to the unfounded guess work end of that spectrum. Meanwhile, and as a speculative conclusion, we offer a conjecture that the 'real wages' for Qing China's tiny proletariat, whose income included high proportions of wages in kind, have remained as elusive as they were when the real wage debate began a decade ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a report from a June 2-4, 2016 ancient history conference hosted by the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin university in Berlin, Germany. Topics of presentations delivered include the reactions of native North Americans to knowledge of ancient Roman and Greek cultures, Arabic construction of ancient history, and periodization of the Han, Ming, and Qing dynasties of China and their characterization as ancient versus modern.

The article discusses official and unofficial perspectives of torture in the Ming and Qing dynasties of China. Topics discussed include the difference between torture and torment, the practice of torture according to late imperial Chinese law being legal only when it was applied as part of a legal proceeding by a judicial official, and handbooks written to shed light on the role of torture in the judicial process.

By examining transformations of Manchu-Chosŏn relations from 1616 to 1643, the author argues that the Manchu regime invoked its new position of the 'Central Kingdom' to construct its politico-cultural identity as 'Zhongguo' before 1644. After it imposed a 'younger brother' relationship on Chosŏn in 1627, the Manchu regime developed a new political discourse regarding Chosŏn, the Ming, and other political entities. In this way, it started claiming centrality in the Chinese world. It also expressed the goal of transforming into Zhongguo and began barbarianizing other countries as a concurrent process of its Sinicization. By further imposing the Zongfan (a.k.a. tributary) relationship on Chosŏn in 1637, the Qing started to replace the Ming's central position in the Chinese world and eliminate its former identity as barbarian. The intensive Qing-Chosŏn communications between 1637 and 1643 strengthened the Qing's identity as Zhongguo and contributed to the rise of the 'Chosŏn Model' for Qing China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper inspects three versions of the Jingming zongjiao lu (Record of the Lineage and Teachings of [the School of] Purity and Brightness). It introduces the many different scriptures contained in this compendium and explores its relationships to the Ming-dynasty Daozang (Daoist Canon) to offer a deeper understanding of the key sources of this school in the Ming and Qing dynasties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Language & History is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the tradition of silk birthing hanging gifts from the Ming and Qing dynasties in China from 1368 to 1911, with details on the practice of conserving shattered hangings. Topics include details on the presence of hangings at the Hong Kong Museum of History, details on the different precious materials, dyes, and threads present in silk hangings, details on the effect of storage conditions on deterioration of silk hangings, and details on the use of adhesive treatment to reinforce the painted silk.

Abstract: Blue-and-white porcelain is a kind of famous underglaze color porcelain in Chinese ceramic history. In this paper, 13 pieces of blue-and-white porcelain shards collected in Beijing were adopted as samples. Microstructure characteristics and distributions of chemical elements were investigated. Quartz and mullite were the main crystalline phases in blue-and-white porcelain bodies. The column-like crystals in the glaze were anorthite crystals. Microstructures of interaction layers in the blue decorations could be divided into two categories with morphologically distinctive microstructures: column-like and flower-like structures. The coloring elements surrounded by dense anorthite crystals mainly concentrated in the center of interaction layers, and the cobalt blue pigments were identified as cobalt aluminate (CoAl2O4). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper mainly for proposing of "School of Songjiang Drama", focusing on a specific composer, music clubs, music theory analysis, referring to the formation of the main features of the established literary genres, revealing that there are still a lot of suspense about the defining of "School of Songjiang Drama". Meanwhile, the attempt by dynasty about "School of Songjiang Drama", have a better understanding about Songjiang musical altar in Ming and Qing Dynasties, in order to initiate are - evaluation about drama achievement of Songjiang musical altar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jiangnan in Ming and Qing Dynasties is a fundamental economic zone, wealth and taxes powerhouse, and its county administrative is very troublesome. At the same time because of the imperial prosperity, gentry intensive, industrial and commercial landlords are powerful, Jiangnan is the place where local interests and national interests are very prone to conflicts. County is the basis of the ruling dynasty, the effective display of county administration is a prerequisite for local development. The heavy liturgical, corrupt official, social conflicts, dynastic order crisis and so on in Jiangnan, all these problems need to cleanup start from the grassroots country administrations. The nervous relations between officials and the public, officials give the public tremendous liturgical pressure and barely able to maintain the balance between them, are the real problems faced with the county officials, "county community", which should exist in Jiangnan was popular influenced by courtiers and the rich, county officials need to carefully grasp the local gentries' trends, avoiding its threats and hazards to official police, and take full advantages of their impact for promoting the official full control of urban and rural society, try to guide the local society tend to healthy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I use data covering 267 prefectures over four centuries to investigate two questions about historical China. To what extent did weather shocks cause civil conflict? And to what extent did the historical introduction of (drought resistant) sweet potatoes mitigate these effects? I find that before the introduction of sweet potatoes, exceptional droughts increased the probability of peasant revolts by around 0.7 percentage points, which translates into a revolt probability in drought years that is more than twice the average revolt probability. After the introduction of sweet potatoes, exceptional droughts only increased the probability of peasant revolts by around 0.2 percentage points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the end of the fifteenth century, the Ming state redirected the entire flow of the Yellow River into the course of the Huai River in order the facilitate the transport of tribute grain. This shifted the major problems of water control from the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River to the Huaibei region. Huaibei was viewed as ‘a local interest’, as opposed to the ‘general interests’ represented by the central government, and was sacrificed for those general interests. These policies, which were continued under the Qing dynasty, created widespread and frequent flooding in the region, causing short-term famine and destruction and leading to long-term economic decline. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Western missionaries began to arrive in China in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, prompting a meeting between Chinese and Western medicine. At first, the Jesuits placed Chinese medicine on an equal footing with Western medicine. Widening social disparities between China and the West, however, later caused Western people's valuation of Chinese medicine to sink. Christian hospitals flourished following the Opium War (1840-1842); and to a certain extent, medical missionaries began to acknowledge the value of traditional Chinese drugs. They used scientific methods to analyze the components of Chinese drugs but widely criticized the principles of Chinese medicine and slighted Chinese medical practitioners. Lacking an effective exchange between Chinese and Western medical circles, Western doctors universally questioned the basic value of Chinese medicine. After the Republic of China was founded, the missionaries' medical cause experienced internal and external changes. The development of medical schools at Christian universities provided the conditions for the missionaries to conduct in-depth research of Chinese medicine, while Western-trained Chinese doctors' introductions of Chinese medicine redressed the missionaries' misinterpretations of the canons of Chinese medicine. In particular, some medical missionaries, who had spent a long time in China and had studied the medical arts in conjunction with Chinese doctors, developed a "sympathetic viewpoint" via these interactions and began to recognize the value of Chinese medical principles, treatment experience, and drugs, setting a precedent for Westerners to understand and utilize the knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No later than 1620, the Chinese of the Ming Dynasty started to cast muzzle loading smooth bore bronze cannons following European models. After two decades of effort, the Ming army was able to manufacture in 1642 high quality “Dingliao grand general” cannons, which combined the advantages of advanced cast-iron technology developed in southern China and iron-bronze composite barrels invented in northern China more than a century before. Later on, Han craftsmen in the Qing army also began to mass-produce cannons with a similar structure, the “Shenwei grand general” cannons, in 1644. The quality of these composite cannons was considered unsurpassed in the 17th century because they were not only lighter and cheaper than bronze cannons, but their barrels could also endure stronger explosive pressure. Yet, this advanced cannon-casting technology was forgotten in the long peaceful period after Qing’s unification of China. The Qing army was forced to cast cannons in large quantities when the First Opium War erupted in 1840. Composite-metal technology became valued again, and cannons that weighed as heavy as six tons, such as the “Yaowei grand general,” were made. However, because the inner barrels were not homogeneous and the metal quality was unsatisfactory, these new cannons were no match against Western artillery, and the Qing army could not resist the Western invasion. Although muzzle loading smooth bore cannons reached their peak in the mid-19th century, they finally faded from history because of the rise of rifled artillery. This article will introduce forty-four extant Ming-Qing composite-metal cannons which have been neglected by historians, as well as attempt to compare them with similar cannons in the Netherlands and India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an examination of a disruption of diplomatic relations between Taiwan and China that occurred in the late 17th century due to a disagreement over hairstyles and clothing. Zheng Jing, representing Taiwan as a leader of an anti-Qing resistance organization, was steadfast in his refusal to show loyalty to the Qing dynasty by having his men shave their heads and wear Manshu-style riding jackets. Zheng chose to preserve the Han style of clothing and hairstyles which featured long hair accompanied by topknots and robes. The article examines the social importance of clothing and hair and explores the negotiations that took place between Zheng and the Chinese.

Dissects the cotton economy in China and its impact on local society in Shanghai county during the Ming-Qing period. Cotton and cotton goods as the staple crop of peasant households; Long-distance trade; Official and nonofficial cotton trade; Rise and fall of brokerage; The growth of the market; Conclusion.