“A Time of Pure Yin”
This chapter explores the thought of three famous thinkers who lived through the fall of the Ming dynasty and rise of the Qing. Each of them: Wang Fuzhi, Huang Zongxi, and Gu Yanwu, had personally experienced the horrors of Ming eunuch power, and used their writings, and strategies of evidential research (kaozhengxue), to analyze it. Relying on writings by earlier thinkers, particularly Wang Shizhen and Mao Yigong, Wang, Huang, and Gu articulated a gold standard for eunuch management. Their ideas about the dangers of eunuch literacy, the importance the emperor limiting his numbers of eunuchs, and the need for separation between inner and outer realms of government and the palace would impact the emperors studied in this book
2011 ◽
Vol 35
◽
pp. 187-225
2016 ◽
Vol 45
◽
pp. 111-138
Keyword(s):
Keyword(s):