Yuan And Ming Eastern Zhejiang Scholar Groups

The eastern area of Zhejiang Province has been ihe main area since the Southern Song dynasty in which Confucianism and Zhu Xi's philosophy prevail. It produced lots of elites especially in the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties. Due to similar philosophy and frequent visits, they gradually formed a large and closed-related group of scholar-officials.In the late Yuan dynasty, the first generation of scholar-officials in this area, represented by Song Lian and Liu Ji, entered Emperor ZhuYuanzhang's administration at a large scale and became senior consultants who played a crucial role during the Yuan-Ming transition. After the Ming dynasty was founded, these scholar-officials were persecuted and exterminated by Ming T'ai-tsu because of their criticizing again his unprecedented autocracy. The second generation of scholar-officials, represented by Fang Xiaoru, was reemployed by Jianwen administration after the death of Ming T'ai-tsu to help implement reforms and to rectify the too harsh centralized control of Ming Tai-tsu. However, the Prince Yen launched a rebellion and usurp the throne. Elites of the scholar-officials loyal to Jianwen administration, along with their disciples, were almost cracked down in the 1402 Slaughter. The Confucianism tradition that lasted over 100 years in the east Zhejiang Province was destroyed and the once powerful as well asinfluential scholar-officials began to come to their end.This thesis makes a comprehensive analysis of the special group of scholar-officials existing in such a turbulent time. It aims to provide enough information to reflect the living situation, internal relationship, social influence and the role they played during the late Yuan and the early Ming. The whole historical process of the forming, developing as well as declining of this group is illustrated completely in the thesis. Meanwhile, taken as a miniature, the scholar-officials in the east Zhejiang mirrored scholar-officials all over the country in the early Ming during which centralized power of the emperors reached an unprecedented degree. By studying the case, the thesis analyzes the interactive mode between autocratic imperial authority and scholar-officials, and explores different aspects of China's traditional scholar-officials including their ideas of serving the country, their choice of officialdom or retreat and their moral integrity.