Research on the Economic History of Dali in the Late Ming Dynasty under the Background of Social Transformation

The Ming dynasty was one of the most prosperous dynasties in ancient China and one of the most distinctive and important periods in the history of Chinese feudal society. The late Ming dynasty was an important turning point in social and economic development. In the context of social transformation, the development of commercial agriculture caused structural changes in the agricultural economy and rural society; the prosperity of regional commercial trade, the growth of merchant power and the formation of inter-regional market networks created a new stage in the development of regional commerce. This paper examines the economic development of the Dali region in the late Ming dynasty from a regional perspective against the backdrop of social transformations, taking into account the economic development of the region in the late Ming dynasty in terms of factor inputs and outputs of economic activities, foreign trade and commercial development, and finance and finance. The findings of this paper can provide a reference for deepening the study of regional economic history and promoting regional economic development.

On the Female Images in Feng Menglong's "Three Volumes of Stories"

Feng Menglong’s "Three Volumes of Stories" involves many female images. "Being bought and sold at arbitrarily" was the common destiny of women in that period; "cheating for love" was a new love choice made by women under the influence of the Enlightenment in the late Ming Dynasty; "getting married" can be said to be the resistance of women who were forced to fall in the past dynasties to their fate.

East Asian Cartographic Print Culture

Alexander Akin examines how the expansion of publishing in the late Ming dynasty prompted changes in the nature and circulation of cartographic materials in East Asia. Focusing on mass-produced printed maps, this book investigates a series of path-breaking late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century works in genres including geographical education, military affairs, and history, analysing how maps achieved unprecedented penetration among published materials, even in the absence of major theoretical or technological changes like those that transformed contemporary European cartography. By examining contemporaneous developments in neighboring Choson Korea and Japan, the study demonstrates the crucial importance of considering the broader East Asian sphere in this period as a network of communication and publication, rather than as discrete units with separate cartographic histories. It also reexamines the place of the Jesuits in this context, arguing that in printing maps on Ming soil they should be seen as participants in the local cartographic publishing boom and its trans-regional repercussions.

The Influence of Jiangnan Collectors on Artistic Vitality in the Late Ming Dynasty

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the artistic vitality in the late Ming Dynasty from three different perspectives: social function, collector group and collector noumenon. Art in the late Ming Dynasty is in a vigorous development trend. Through a series of collection activities of three representative collectors in Jiangnan area Xiang Yuanbian, Dong Qichang and Li Rihua, the vivid picture of art collection is connected, the historical situation of art creation in the late Ming Dynasty is reproduced, and the influence of collectors in Jiangnan on art vitality in the late Ming Dynasty is elaborated.

Taking Late Ming Dynasty Printmaking as an Example to Analyze the Influence of Consumption on the Development Direction of Art

From the end of the 15th century to the beginning of the 16th century, great changes have taken place in the history of the world, called the “Great Navigation era”, which has gradually opened the prelude to “globalization”. China in the late Ming Dynasty was just in this division point, from economy to thought, all blooming in the elegance of an empire, and the book publishing industry in Ming Dynasty developed rapidly and brightly with the blessing of the Ming Taizu’s “imperial edict except book tax”. Book illustration is inspired by the original function of reading picture interpretation and on essential means of participating in market competition. Illustration books are very popular, almost to the point that there is no book without intention. At the same time, the illustration transitioned from narrative to decorative. This change relates to the fact that the illustration has changed from narrative to decorative. It is because of the change in their demand that the citizen class has become the key customer group to have a great relationship, which has led to a change in art illustration in the late Ming Dynasty.

Seng Zhao’s The Immutability of Things and Responses to It in the Late Ming Dynasty

Seng Zhao and his collection of treatises, the Zhao lun, have enjoyed a particularly high reputation in the history of Chinese Buddhism. One of these treatises, The Immutability of Things, employs the Madhyamaka argumentative method of negating dualistic concepts to demonstrate that, while “immutability” and “mutability” coexist as the states of phenomenal things, neither possesses independent self-nature. More than a thousand years after this text was written, Zhencheng’s intense criticism of it provoked fierce reactions among a host of renowned scholar–monks. This paper explores Zhencheng’s main points as well as the perspectives and motives of his principal adversaries in order to shed light on the nature of philosophical discourse during the late Ming dynasty.

Liu Zongzhou

Liu Zongzhou 劉宗周 (personal name Xianzhang 憲章, courtesy name Qidong 起東, literary names Niantai 念台, Jishan 蕺山; b. 1578–d. 1645) was an important Neo-Confucian thinker in the late Ming dynasty (1368–1644) of China. Born as a posthumous child in Shanyin (Shaoxing) of the Zhejiang province, he was brought up by his mother, educated by his maternal grandfather and became a successful candidate of the metropolitan and palace examination in 1601. In 1621, as the Supplementary Secretary in the Ministry of Rites, he began to impeach the corrupt but powerful eunuch Wei Zongxian. In 1624, he declined the offer to be Junior Vice Commissioner of the Office of Transmission, and his status was reduced to that of a commoner. In 1629, he resumed office as the governor of Shuntian Prefecture, and resigned the next year to establish the Zhengren 證人 Association and to lecture at the Shigui 石匱 Academy. In 1636, he became Senior Vice Minister of Works. Yet he soon resigned to criticize the Senior Grand Secretary Wen Tiren 溫體仁, and this led to the degradation of his status to a commoner again. In 1642, he was promoted to Censor-in-chief, but he was relieved of his office when he antagonized the emperor by trying to save two censorial officials. During the fall of Beijing, he resumed his office as Censor-in-chief. He attacked the corrupt officials Ma Shiying 馬士英 and Ruan Dacheng 阮大鋮 and finally left his office. His official career lasted for forty-five years, during which he had held office six and a half years, was in active service at court only four years, and had been degraded to the status of commoner three times. With the fall of Nanjing and Hangzhou in succession to the Manchus and his decision to express his loyalty and patriotism to the country, he ended his life by fasting for twenty days. Liu distinguished himself as a Neo-Confucian philosopher and scholar. The main doctrines of his teaching are “vigilance in solitude” (shendu慎獨) and “sincerity of will” (chengyi誠意), which originate from the two Confucian classics Doctrine of the Mean and Great Learning. Huang Zongxi 黃宗羲 (b. 1610–d. 1695), his important disciple and a well-known intellectual historian, placed him and his school of thought in the last part of Huang’s influential work, The Records of Ming Scholars. Huang not only compared him to the most significant Neo-Confucian philosophers, but also hinted that his philosophy signified the final summation of the Neo-Confucian tradition from the Song to Ming dynasties. He is commonly regarded as one of the most important Song-Ming Neo-Confucian thinkers. It is the creativity and depth of his philosophy that deserves scholars’ attention.