Literati And Factional Political Struggle During The Jia Jing Reign(1521-1567) Of The Ming Dynasty

The Jiajing reign is an important turning point in the long history of more than270years of Ming Dynasty. This paper tries to combine literati’ s literary creation and their political activities, focusing on the influence of factional political struggle on their living conditions and psychological state. There are mainly three parts. The first part discusses the origin and characteristics of factional political struggle during the Jiajing reign, which consists of two forms, one is the struggle between the Cabinet and the Ministry, while the other within the Cabinet. The reasons for the emergence of factional political struggle also include two:The establishment of the Cabinet system and Emperor Jiajing’ s rule strategy. The second part makes a study of the the relationship between factional political struggle and the fate of the literati. Standing in different positions, different people have a variety of fates. In this section, the Eight Intelligents in Jiajing period, the Later Seven Masters School, the Tang-Song School and Wang Yangming disciples are key objects. The third part focuses on the literati’s mind under factional political struggle, exploring their contradictions between morality and interests, active and passive, enterprising and retirement through the analysis of Tang Shunzhi, Xu Wei, Xue Kan, Wang Shenzhong, Li Kaixian, Mao Kun, Li Panlong and Wang Shizhen.