Middle And Late Ming Lectures Movement :1526-1626

The dissertation consists of four parts: the introduction, the text, the conclusion and the appendix with its focus on the development of jiangxue movement in the late Ming Dynasty, especially in the period from Wang Yangming to Donglin. It also covers the relationship between jiangxue and the following issues: politics, learning, social ethics and so on. hi a way, jiangxue is a comparatively unique cultural phenomenon of Ming dynasty, a reflection of the social economic prosperity of Ming Dynasty, and also the inherent requairment of Yang-ming school. During the reigns of emperor jia-jing, long-qing, wan-li, tai-chang and tian.-qi, jiangxue movement developed quickly in shuyuan, huiguan, jingshe, shanfang, ancestral hall, examination halls, Buddhist temples, Taoist temples, and scenic spots. At that time Jianghui spread widely in the whole country, especially in the southern places such as Nanzhili, Jiangxi and Zhejiang provinces. Wang Yangming, the founder of jiangxue movement, devoted himself to jiangxue hi his late years, and founded two early jianghui, namely Jishan Shuyuan jianhui and ZhongtiangeyVang/zw/. He also encouraged his disciples to found more and more jianghui like Xiyinhui. After his death, the government's unfair treatment to him aroused his disciples' great passion for jiangxue to memorize Wang by setting up lots of academies and develop his theory. Then regional jianghui became popular, and the awareness of fellowship grew stronger. Scholars gave lectures in their hometowns as well as the places where they held official positions, and also launched a united jianghui of Jiangxi and Zhejiang. However, after the prosperity in the late Jiajing period, jiangxue movement was severely suppressed by Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng, grand secretaries respectively in the periods of Long-qing and Wan-li, partly due to the inherent problems with the movement. Of course there might be some reasons for the suppression, but the scholars began to think about the problems with jiangxue movement, and tried to endow the movement with new responsibilities of safeguarding or restructuring social ethics. Best representatives were Geng Ding-xiang and Donglin scholars. In order to reestablish the social order, Dongling school advocated the learning of Zhuxi, shifting the theme from the learning of ming-and-heart to the learning of Zhuxi, and starting the movement of renaissance of Zhuzhixue in the late Ming and early Qing. In this century, politics, scholarship and ethical problems played multifarious role in the jiangxue movement, which ruined the external circumstance of jiangxue, and finally led to the suppression by the government. The destruction of Shoushan academy symbolized the end of jiangxue in Ming dynasty. Looking back at the whole process of jiangxue in Ming dynasty, we can see an apparent tendency fromopen-mindedness to close-mindedness. Such a conclusion seems to be contrary to the view that the culture in late Ming is open-minded and illuminative. However, we try to divide the jiangxue movement into two parts: Wang Yangming'sy/a/jgn/e and Wang Gen's jiangxue. The former is academic, and the later plebeian. In jiajing period, when the two schools strived for the same target and communicated frequently, jiangxue at that time was open-minded, active and radical. Later the political repression from government and the concern for social ethics of the orthodox scholars, worsened the circumstances of plebeian jiangxue. On the other hand, the academic jiangxue became more conservative and old-fashioned. Backed up by their political and economic power, the academic jiangxue narrowed the scope of plebeian jiangxue little by little, and finally wiped out the plebeian jiangxue from the mainstream. Since then, the conservative characteristics of jiangxue in late Ming came into being, and inherited by jiangxue movement in early Qing.