The Mainstream Prose in the Early Qing Dynasty: The Prose Writing Network of Adherents of Ming Dynasty from the Perspective of Li Shixiong.

The literature of the adherents of late Ming and early Qing Dynasty has been a hot issue in literary study. The previous research focused more on the adherents' poems, but little on their rose. As a result, some great prose writers have been neglected, their position in literary history has not been acknowledged, and the whole picture of the prose writing network of the adherents remains unclear in the representative works of the Chinese prose history. Li Shixiong, an obscure prose writer in the works of literary history over the last 100 years, is such a symbolic figure among the adherents. Out of the mission awareness of an adherent of Ming and his cultural choice of being another Sima Qian, the great Chinese historian Li Shixiong spent over 40 years composing a considerable number of poetic and vigorous prose works imbued with loyalty and indignation, combining bitterness of feeling and elegance of form. Li proved to be a prose giant not only adored by intellectuals all over the country during his lifetime, with an honorable title of leader of the literary circles by Huang Zongxi, an authority on 17th century prose, but also appreciated after his death by various emperors like Kang Xi, Yong Zheng and Qian Long, and emperors in late Qing. The greater symbolic value of Li Shixiong lies in the fact that his prose wiring and historical influence are just the tip of the huge iceberg of the pivotal function which the adherents occupy in the evolution of prose at the turn of Ming and Qing Dynasties. These adherents developed close intimacy through daily communication and frequent travels together to meet other friends, and became sworn brothers because of their similar ages. Their prose writing formed a large and extensive noded network. One of the nodes was constructed by the group of Yi Tang prose writers and Peng Shiwang, Li's best friend, was among them. Except for the small nodes of individual writers such as Li Shixiong, Fu Zhanheng and Qian Chengzhi, there were larger nodes of prose writer groups: the Three Mountains on the River's south in Jiangxi province (i. e., the Peak in Xinjian, the Bun Hill in Xinzi and the Chengshan in Nanfeng) ; Beitian in eastern Guangdong; Banqiao in Nanjing, Xixi in Hangzhou, and Wanxi in Changshu, as well as other laces like Wenquan, ""Ruizhu and Jianjiang. "These writers constituted a network covering China's Southern Guangdong, Western Fujian, Mid-Anhui, Nanjing, Zhejiang Province and almost the whole province of Jiangxi. There were countless subnetworks with Li Shixiong, Wei Xi, Qu Dajun, Wang Youding, Huang Zongxi and Zhang Dai as nodes. With frequent communication among large and small nodes, the prose wring of the adherents of Ming formed a large, self-perpetuating and well-linked network, covering most of the anti-Qing districts, occupying an undisputed central position and exerting great influence on other prose writers in the early Qing, and ushered in a period of high prosperity of prose writing. For example, in the years from 1676 to 1681, prose writers adhering to Ming such as He Jie and Peng Shiwang strongly felt the impact of the large number of famous prose writers and their unprecedented creativity in the two or three decades, and declared that prose writing was at its peak. Following such a train of thought and with down-to-earth textual research, this paper fills the blank in the macro-study of prose writing of the adherents of Ming at the beginning of Qing Dynasty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]