Buying and Selling Law Books in Qing Beijing

AbstractBeijing was an emerging legal publishing center in late imperial China and at least 60 commercial editions of law books were published there in the Qing. Beijing commercial publishers established close connections with the central government, which enabled them to obtain internal legal and administrative information and to print it for profit. Thanks to their close connections with other printing centers in places like Jiangnan and Jiangxi, Beijing publishers had convenient access to fine editions of legal books in the national book market. In the early 19th century when Jiangnan editions rose to dominance, Beijing publishers adjusted their publishing strategies by republishing Jiangnan editions and reducing the number of their own editions. During the Taiping war, Beijing publishers took the opportunity to expand their business. In the late Qing, Beijing was a flourishing legal printing center, selling a variety of legal books at affordable prices to readers who wanted to learn the law.

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CORPSE ADMONITION: WU KEDU AND BUREAUCRATIC PROTEST IN LATE QING CHINA

Journal of Chinese History ◽

10.1017/jch.2017.14 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 109-143

Author(s):

Ying-kit Chan

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Unintended Consequence ◽

Late Imperial China ◽

Political Issues ◽

Late Qing ◽

Late Imperial ◽

Arbitrary Power ◽

Late Qing China ◽

Imperial China ◽

Further Development

AbstractIn late imperial China, an extremely small number of bureaucrats adopted corpse admonition (shijian尸諫) to protest with their death what they regarded as inadequacies or failings in the imperial structure. This article introduces the case of Wu Kedu 吳可讀, who killed himself to protest the designation, by the late Qing empress dowagers Ci'an and Cixi, of Guangxu as the emperor, and as the adopted son of Xianfeng and not as the heir to Tongzhi. The article argues that Wu Kedu's suicide, which was highly praised during and after its time, was an attempt to sway bureaucratic opinion to put a check on the arbitrary power of empress dowagers, but instead had the unintended consequence of reinforcing it. More importantly, Wu Kedu's corpse admonition was a precursor of the outpouring of voices of remonstrance over political issues at the turn of the twentieth century, leading to further development of the Chinese “constitutional agenda.”

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Lars Laamann, Christian Heretics in Late Imperial China: The Inculturation of Christianity in 18th and Early 19th Century. Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia 41. London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2005. xvi + 204 pp. ISBN: 978-0-415-29779-0. £65.00; $120.00.

Itinerario ◽

10.1017/s0165115300000838 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 31 (2) ◽

pp. 170-171

Author(s):

Joseph Tse-Hei Lee

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

19Th Century ◽

Modern History ◽

Late Imperial China ◽

Early 19Th Century ◽

Late Imperial ◽

History Of ◽

Imperial China

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Biographies of Buried Memory in Late Imperial China - Burying Autumn: Poetry, Friendship, and Loss. By Hu Ying. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2016. ix, 380 pp. ISBN: 9780674737204 (cloth). - Fiction's Family: Zhan Xi, Zhan Kai, and the Business of Women in Late-Qing China. By Ellen Widmer. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2016. xvi, 329 pp. ISBN: 9780674088375 (cloth).

The Journal of Asian Studies ◽

10.1017/s0021911818000062 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 77 (2) ◽

pp. 495-500

Author(s):

Nanxiu Qian

Keyword(s):

Harvard University ◽

Late Imperial China ◽

Late Qing ◽

Late Imperial ◽

Late Qing China ◽

Imperial China

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Texts and Technologies in Chinese Silver Metallurgy, Twelfth to Nineteenth Centuries

East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine ◽

10.1163/26669323-04901003 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 49 (1) ◽

pp. 9-82

Author(s):

Yang Yuda ◽

Nanny Kim

Keyword(s):

Textual Analysis ◽

Oral Histories ◽

Minor Importance ◽

Late Imperial China ◽

Late Qing ◽

Late Imperial ◽

Research Gap ◽

The Subject ◽

Imperial China ◽

Silver Exploitation

The silver metallurgy of late imperial China has rarely been the subject of specific studies because silver exploitation has long been considered of minor importance and traditional sources are scarce. This article is an attempt at filling the research gap of the period from the Song to the late Qing. With a focus on the silver mines of the Southwest and the adjoining borderlands and employing an approach that combines textual analysis with the study of remains and oral histories, it presents a systematic discussion of process steps and traces technological transformations.

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