The Mythistorical Chinese Scholar-Rebel-Advisor Li Yan: A Global Perspective, 1606-2018 900442105X, 9789004421059

Table of contents :
Dedication
Contents
Preface
List of Figures and Maps
Introduction
1 The Textual Origins and Growth of the Story in Jiangnan
2 Acceptance of the Story by the Qing State
3 Persistence of the Story in the Republic
4 Flourishing of the Story in the Early People’s Republic
5 Renewed Doubts about the Story
6 Toward a Solution to the Li Yan Puzzle
7 Li Yan’s Places in Chinese History
Postface: Comparisons and Contrasts with Other Scholar Rebel Advisors around the Globe
Appendix A: The Principal Periods of Chinese History
Appendix B: A Selective Family Tree of the Lis of Tang Village
Glossary
Sources
Index

Citation preview

The Mythistorical Chinese Scholar-Rebel-Advisor Li Yan

Leiden Series in Comparative Historiography Editors Axel Schneider Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik

volume 12

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/lsch

The Mythistorical Chinese Scholar-Rebel-Advisor Li Yan A Global Perspective, 1606–2018 By

Roger V. Des Forges

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Des Forges, Roger V., author. Title: The mythistorical Chinese scholar-rebel-advisor Li Yan : a global  perspective, 1606-2018 / by Roger V. Des Forges. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2020] | Series: Leiden series in  comparative historiography, 1574-4493 ; vol. 12 | Includes  bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019048160 (print) | LCCN 2019048161 (ebook) |  ISBN 9789004421059 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004421066 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Li, Yan, -1644. | China—History—Ming dynasty, 1368–1644.  | China—History—Li Zicheng Rebellion, 1628–1645. | Li family. |  Scholars—China—Biography. Classification: LCC DS752.6.L5 D47 2020 (print) | LCC DS752.6.L5 (ebook)  | DDC 951/.026092 [B]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019048160 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019048161

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1574-4493 ISBN 978-90-04-42105-9 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-42106-6 (e-book) Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

For Alexa, Maia, and Kai with Much Love

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Contents Preface ix List of Figures and Maps xiii Introduction 1 1 The Textual Origins and Growth of the Story in Jiangnan 12 1.1 A Memoir, a Little History, Little Stories, and a Novel 12 1.2 Private Histories: Manuscripts and Books 42 2 Acceptance of the Story by the Qing State 69 2.1 Early Qing: the Standard History 69 2.2 Doubts about the Story in Henan 79 2.3 High Qing Literature and Late Qing Histories 91 3 Persistence of the Story in the Republic 100 3.1 Novels and Histories 100 3.2 Plays, a History, and Society 125 4 Flourishing of the Story in the Early People’s Republic 159 4.1 Histories 159 4.2 A Full-Length Historical Novel 171 4.3 More Plays 211 4.4 Another Long Historical Novel 226 5 Renewed Doubts about the Story 243 5.1 In the People’s Republic 243 5.2 In the United States 249 5.3 In the People’s Republic, Again 263 5.4 In Japan 279 5.5 Persistence of the Story 280 6 Toward a Solution to the Li Yan Puzzle 290 6.1 The Discovery of a Key Genealogy 290 6.2 A Continuing Debate and a New One 323 6.3 The Likely Oral Origins and Early Written Development of the Li Yan—Hong Niangzi Story 331

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7 Li Yan’s Places in Chinese History 349 7.1 Early: China in China 349 7.2 Middle: China in Asia 367 7.3 Recent: China in the World 381 Postface: Comparisons and Contrasts with Other Scholar Rebel Advisors around the Globe 421 A “Ancient” Mediterranea and India 422 B “Medieval” and Renaissance Europe 432 C “Modern” Western Europe and North America 462 Appendix A: The Principal Periods of Chinese History 507 Appendix B: A Selective Family Tree of the Lis of Tang Village 508 Glossary 511 Sources 523 Index 551

Preface I first became aware of the existence of the scholar-rebel-advisor Li Yan (?–1644), when, in 1964, I prepared a report on the fall of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644).1 The report was for the second meeting of Mary Wright’s (1917– 1970) graduate seminar on what she would have called “modern Chinese history.” At the time, I made a mental note of the role of Li Yan in advising the commoner Li Zicheng (1605–1645) in his effort to overthrow the Ming. I thought that it would be interesting to know more than was then available in English-language sources concerning Li Yan’s rise and fall.2 I ended up writing my doctoral dissertation on a quite different person, Xiliang (1853–1917), who devoted himself to reforms in an unsuccessful effort to save the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) from revolution. After publishing the revised dissertation in 1973, I intended to continue my study of China in the twentieth century. I was still intrigued by the Li Yan matter, however, and was encouraged by my undergraduate mentor, Frederick Mote (1922–2005), to keep Ming history in mind if I wanted to understand China today. After two years of teaching Chinese history from beginning to end in 1971 and 1972, I decided to look into what soon became a puzzle: why was there so little information in English, and even in Chinese, on this putatively important person whose wise advice helped Li Zicheng to overthrow the Ming in 1644 and whose assassination by the rebel leader contributed to the failure of the rebels to establish their own enduring state?3 In the 1960s, I had entertained the idea of working for the United States government to help develop a rational foreign policy toward China. In the 1970s, however, I participated in the movement to oppose the U.S. invasion of Cambodia and decided to pursue a career of teaching and research. I wanted to find out more about how a scholar could function as a public intellectual and could help to promote positive political change. I decided to try to research and write a full-length biography of Li Yan. Writing a biography of Li Yan turned out to be much more interesting and challenging than I had anticipated. Fortunately I was able to conduct research 1  Some Chinese characters essential to understanding or distinguishing Chinese names and terms will be supplied in the text. Some others may be found in the illustrations, maps and sources. Most characters will be found in the Glossary. In general, complex characters will be used but some simplified characters will be used for names and terms in post-1949 China. Dates of dynasties will normally be given upon first usage in the text. All are provided in Appendix A. 2  See the biography of Li Zicheng by Tu Lien-che in Hummel 1943–1944: 491–493. 3  Parsons 1970: 90, 92–93, 134–136,163, 213–216; Zhang 1739: 309. 7956–7957, 7960, 7967–7968.

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in China and Japan in the 1970s. In the course of digging deeper into the history behind the story, I became aware, thanks to Pei-kai Cheng, of the research conducted by Professor Gu Cheng (1934–2003) at Beijing Normal University on precisely the same topic I was pursuing. I was pleased to learn that Gu had arrived at a conclusion very similar to my own: that there were too many problems with the standard Li Yan story to accept it as what we might call “straight history.” I wondered, however, why the story had developed and persisted for so long despite the many problems with documenting it. Drawing on the work of historians Li Wenzhi and Cao Guilin, which I read in the United States, on the writings of the polymath scholar Guo Moruo (1892–1978), which I discovered in Japan, and on my own summer research at the Harvard-Yenching Library, I wrote an initial article arguing that the storied Li Yan was a composite figure whose brief life story was drawn, at least in part, from the lives of other people, both historical and literary and both past and contemporary. After doing more research, I thought that this hypothesis was borne out to some extent by the discovery of a fully historical person with the same name who was a scholarofficial active in the last years of the Ming. That Li Yan was from Shandong province, but he served the Ming in northeastern Henan province, the precise region where the storied Li Yan was said to have lived and worked. In 1984, I published another article in English suggesting that this Li Yan was the historical figure behind the mythical Li Yan. I also shared my findings with Chinese specialists at academic conferences in China and through articles in journals and chapters in books. The standard Li Yan story remained intact, however, and the Li Yan puzzle remained unsolved. It was not until two decades later, in 2004, that new material finally became available that may enable us to solve the Li Yan puzzle and to write a plausible biography of the late Ming scholar rebel advisor. In conducting research on the story and history of Li Yan, I received support from many institutions including: the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Committee on Scholarly Communications with the People’s Republic of China, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Social Science Research Council. At the University at Buffalo, I received funding from the Office of International Education, the Graduate Group on Continuity and Change in Asia and Africa, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Interdisciplinary Research and Creative Activities Fund, and the Asian Studies Program. The History Department at the University at Buffalo provided a supportive climate for teaching, service, and scholarship. The Fairbank Center at Harvard hosted an early conference on rebellion and revolution in China at which I first presented my developing understanding of patterns in Chinese

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history. The staff of the Harvard-Yenching Library have facilitated my research in gazetteers, genealogies, and rare books over decades. I am also indebted to many other individuals and institutions, including: Richard Yung-teh Chu, Silas Hsiu-liang Wu, and Stephen W. Durrant, who all saw merit in my early work on Li Yan; Jonathan Spence (1936–), Timothy Brook (1951–), Lynn Struve, Moss Roberts, and James Lee, who directly or indirectly encouraged my persistent study of this topic; John Dardess and Sarah Schneewind, who wrote trenchant reviews of my 2003 book on cultural centrality and political change in China; Liu Dong and Yang Nianqun (1964–), who invited me to discuss my findings at Qinghua and Renmin Universities, respectively; Shen Dingping and Gu Cheng, who welcomed me to the History Institute of the Academy of Social Sciences and to Beijing Normal University respectively; Hu Cheng and Minlei Ye, for inviting me to speak at Nanjing University; Wei Qianzhi and Niu Jianqiang, who facilitated my affiliation with Henan University, including the Research Center for Yellow River Civilization and Sustainable Development, in Kaifeng; Zhao Shiyu at Beijing University and Wang Xingya at Zhengzhou University, who shared their thoughts on the authenticity of a key source; Luan Xing and Zhang Xinbin, for their hospitality and advice at the Henan Academy of Social Sciences in Zhengzhou; Zhu Weimin and Chang Bogong for recommending related publications; Janet Yi-chun Chen and Liu Xueting for helping to obtain copies of rare sources in Beijing; Qi Shirong, Xie Chengren, and Liang Zhanjun, who shared ideas and hosted my lectures at Capital Normal University in Beijing; and Yang Kuan (1914–2005), Liu Bingshan (1927–2010), Yao Xueyin (1910–1999), and Ma Shaobo (1918–2009), for sharing their understandings of the Li Yan and Hong Niangzi matters. I would also like to thank the many colleagues, students, and lay persons who have attended my talks on this subject over the years, sometimes as captive audiences and sometimes of their own volition. I appreciate the questions they have posed and suggestions they have made that have helped me to refine my thinking and improve my writing on the interaction of history and literature and on the interplay of fact and fiction in this case. I am especially grateful to colleagues Kristin Stapleton, Mark Nathan, Tong Mai, and Xie Yang for reading penultimate drafts of this book; then graduate students (now faculty), Ma Ling, Fang Qiang, and Ding Xiangli for polishing my writing in Chinese, translating one of my related articles into Chinese, and checking some of the translations in this book, respectively. All of the translations are my own unless indicated otherwise. I am grateful to Fang Qiang, Wang Di, and Patrick Fuliang Shan and others for inviting me to participate in a conference on “Imagined

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Communities: Links Between China’s Past, Present, and Future,” held at the University of Macau on 30–31 May 2018. Many thanks also to Terry Kawashima, for enabling me to take full account of a key Japanese source. I would also thank the two anonymous external readers and the editors at Brill Press, Qin Higley, Lauren Bisonnette, Elizabeth You, Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik, Axel Schneider, and Kayla Griffin who made many useful suggestions for strengthening the text. I, of course, take full responsibility for any mistakes that may remain. On a more personal note, I am profoundly grateful to my late beloved wife, Alison Liebhafsky Des Forges (1942–2009), who provided a model for combi­ ning fine historical scholarship with courageous defense of human rights. Her legacy of social responsibility is being carried on by our daughter, Jessie, and son-in-law, Daniel Poremba, who are teaching mathematics in Boston public schools; by our son, Alexander, and daughter-in-law, Terry Kawashima, who are teaching East Asian languages, literature, and film at the University of Massachusetts in Boston; and by our three grandchildren, who are attending two other public schools and to whom this book is lovingly dedicated. I am also very thankful to my dear fiancée, Ellen Anne Dussourd, whose strong support has helped to brighten the difficult last decade and whose careful reading has reduced the number of stylistic infelicities in this book. I hope and trust that this account of the Li Yan-Hong Niangzi story will inspire readers to parse the complex relationships between facts and fictions and between history and literature, and to proffer and accept good advice to and from others in the quest for a more humane, just, and sustainable world. RVD 11 Peakham Road Sudbury, Massachusetts 01776 Summer 2019

Figures and Maps 0.1 1. 1 1.2 1.3 3.1 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 5.1 5.2 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6

Prefectures, departments, and counties in Henan Province and selected towns in adjacent provinces of the central plain in the Ming xiv “Master Li’s Popular Uprising Assembling the Masses” 17 “Dwarf Song Privately Discussing State Affairs” 28 “Dashing Rebel Li Suffering a Great Defeat and Moving West of the Pass” 33 Li Yan, Niu Jinxing, and Liu Zongmin in Record of Jiashen (1644) 146 “Hong Niangzi Rescuing Li Yan” 182 Hong Niangzi 214 Hong Niangzi on stage 218 “Li Yan and Yuan Chengzhi Encountering the Blind Singer” 235 “Li Yan and Hong Niangzi Discussing Matters with Yuan Chengzhi” 236 Author at exhibition of Li Zicheng and Li Yan at Longting Park in Kaifeng 250 Metropolitan graduate Li Yan from Laiyang County in Shandong Province 251 Author, Li Chengxiu, Li Libing, and unidentified Li family member in Tang Village 292 Wang Guiying holding earliest extant copy of the “Li Family Genealogy” in Xi’an, 2004 295 Li Libing and the Author reading sources at Li’s home in Jiaozuo, in June 2018 296 Memoirists and writers in the Ming Province of Nanjing 336 Historians who accepted the Li Yan story in Zhejiang Province 341 Li Yan [a historical person] and Hong Niangzi 347

map 0.1

Prefectures, departments, and counties in Henan Province and selected towns in adjacent provinces of the central plain in the Ming Playfair 1910/1965: vi–vii; Tan 1975: 7. 82–83; Des Forges 2003: 208

Map 0.1 continued

Henan 河南   Guidefu 歸德府   Kaocheng 考成   Luyi 鹿邑   Ningling 寧陵   Shangqiu 商丘   Suizhou 睢州   Xiayi 夏邑   Yongcheng 永成   Zhecheng 柘城   Henanfu 河南府   Dengfeng 登封   Lingbao 靈寶   Luoyang 洛陽   Lushi 盧氏 Mianchi 澠池   Shanzhou 陝州   Songxian 嵩縣   Wenxiang 閿鄉   Xin’an 新安   Yanshi 偃師   Yiyang 宜陽   Yongning 永寧   Huaiqingfu 懷慶府   Henei 河内   Jiyuan 濟源   Mengxian 孟縣   Wuzhi 武陟   Xiuwu 修武   Kaifengfu 開封府   Chenliu 陳留

                                                         

Mi 密 Qi 杞 Tongxu 通許 Weichuan 渭川 Xiangfu 祥符 Xinzheng 新鄭 Yanling 鄢陵 Yifeng 宜豐 Yü 裕 Nanyangfu 南陽府 Biyang 泌陽 Dengfeng 登封 Nanyang 南陽 Nanzhao 南召 Neixiang 內鄉 Tang 唐 Tongbai 桐柏 Xinye 新野 Ye葉 Yü 裕 Ruzhou 汝州 Baofeng 寶豐 Lushan 魯山 Jiaxian 郟縣 Weihuifu 衛輝府 Huojia 獲嘉 Jixian 汲縣 Xinxiang 新鄉 Zhangdefu 彰德府 Lin 林 Neihuang 内黄

   

Shexian 涉縣 Tanyin 湯陰 Wu’an 武安 Huguang 湖廣 Xiangyangfu 襄陽府 Xiangyangxian 襄陽縣 Huanghe 黄河 Jingshi 京師  Damingfu 大名府 Changyuan 長垣 Nanjing 南京 Fengyangfu 鳳陽府 Luzhoufu 廬州府 Suzhou 宿州 Xuzhou 徐州 Yingzhou 潁州 Runingfu 汝寧府 Ruyang 汝陽 Shangcheng 商城 Xincai 新蔡 Xinyangzhou 信陽州 Zhenyang 真陽 Shaanxi 陝西 Xi’anfu 西安府 Shandong 山東 Yanzhoufu 兗州府 Caoxian 曹縣 Shanxi 山西 Pingyangfu 平陽府 Tongguan 潼關

Introduction Many Chinese are familiar with the story of the scholar Li Yan from Qi County, in northeastern Henan Province, who helped the commoner Li Zicheng overthrow the Ming dynasty in 1644.1 According to the story, Li Yan and his younger brother, Li Mou, eventually fell out with their leader and were assassinated by his henchmen. As a result, the rebels failed to establish their own enduring state and were superseded by the Qing, which governed China from 1644 to 1911. The written story probably began in a memoir and grew quickly in informal histories and a historical novel. It came to include a female knight-errant, Hong Niangzi, who rescued Li Han from jail and persuaded him to join Li Zicheng’s rebellion. (Chapter 1) Core elements of the story were accepted by leading private and official historians and incorporated into the biography of Li Zicheng in the official Qing history of the Ming published in 1739. Already in the 1690s, however, a few knowledgeable Henanese observers flatly denied that there was any scholar named Li Yan from Qi County who played an important role in Li Zicheng’s rebellion. As it happened, those critics were not able to keep the story out of the official history; nor were they able to prevent its transmission through the Qing period. It flourished as a metaphor for the rise and fall of Li Zicheng’s uprising and an allegory that helped legitimate the Qing. (Chapter 2) More surprisingly, the story survived even the movement to “doubt antiquity” and write “scientific history” during the Republic (1911–1949). It was incorporated into a novel and into a scholarly essay on Li Zicheng’s rebellion. In 1944 it was celebrated by a leading academic, Guo Moruo, and it was soon endorsed by Mao Zedong (1893–1976), who believed it held valuable lessons for contemporary revolutionaries. Based on Guo’s essay and with Mao’s encouragement, Li Yan and Hong Niangzi were featured in several plays. In 1948, on the eve of the founding of the People’s Republic (1949–), a Hong Niangzi-like figure appeared in a Shanghai strike. (Chapter 3) The story of Li Yan and Hong Niangzi reached its height of importance and influence during the early decades of the People’s Republic. It was largely accepted by highly respected professional historians, greatly developed in two full-length historical novels in the China mainland and in Hong Kong, and further popularized in more plays featuring Hong Niangzi. Li Yan became a model for intellectuals in their relations with the government. Debate focused on to 1  For Henan Province and its environs, see Map 0.1.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004421066_002

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Introduction

what degree he had transcended his class interests and devoted himself to the welfare of the masses. (Chapter 4) After Mao died in 1976 and Guo Moruo died two years later, a handful of scholars in China, Japan, and the United States, including the present writer, raised serious questions about the storied Li Yan’s historicity. Once again, however, skeptics were unsuccessful in debunking the legend that persisted as straight history in the eyes of most historians and the general public, including, for the first time, some local scholars in Henan. (Chapter 5) Only when a manuscript copy of a genealogy, prefaced in 1716, of a different Li family from Henei County, in northwestern Henan Province, was discovered in 2004 did a satisfactory solution to the puzzle of Li Yan finally become possible, or so I shall argue.2 Some questions remain about the date and content of the genealogy, and about the historical Li Yan’s precise roles in the rebellion, but enough is now known to permit the writing of a plausible biography of the scholar rebel advisor and the origins and significance of his partner, Hong Niangzi. Scholars now differ mainly over whether the discovery of the history behind the story makes Li Yan a more or less significant figure in the history of the Ming-Qing transition. (Chapter 6) Li Yan was only one in a long line of Chinese scholar rebel advisors going back to the earliest recorded history of the Shang and Zhou polities and continuing through the Republic and People’s Republic. He was exemplary of a sub-set of those figures who ran afoul of their rulers and lost their lives as a result. He was unusual, though not unique, in the large gap that existed for over three centuries between his prominent role in the rebellion and the paucity of reliable evidence that he even existed. (Chapter 7) The above seven chapters of this book are based largely on my original research in primary sources as well as many secondary works in English, Chinese, French, and Japanese. They are followed by a Postface that seeks to place Li Yan in a global context by comparing and contrasting his thought and actions with those of nine other scholar rebel advisors in other times and places around the world. In the rest of this Introduction, I shall first attempt to explain the general importance of scholars, rebels, and advisors in conventional overviews of Chinese history from early times to the present. I shall then describe briefly five prominent paradigms that have shaped studies of Chinese history. I shall suggest that they are generally Eurocentric and/or teleological and need to be supplemented, if not replaced, by a spiral theory emphasizing continuity and recurrent change. Finally, I shall review the wide variety of sources that have 2  For relevant members of the Li family tree in Henei County, see Appendix B.

Introduction

3

been used in the writing of Chinese biographies. I shall suggest that the usual distinctions made among them have not been very helpful in solving the puzzle of Li Yan’s existence and identity.

Scholars in Chinese History

Chinese scholars (shi 士) appeared early on in the historical records of the Zhou, perhaps first as military officers at the head of ten men, if pop etymology be our guide. Over time, they developed into literate members of an elite that specialized in civil administration. During centuries of political disorder and cultural crises in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, scholars emerged as an elite, ranked above commoners, including farmers, artisans, and merchants. They were also literate servants of rulers who were often less well educated. Their relatively high status depended on their talent, especially in managing subordinates and undertaking public projects. In Qin and Han times, they came to be selected first by personal recommendations and oral interviews, then increasingly by written examinations. As expositors of the three major indigenous ways of thought, Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism, scholars sometimes had to compete with other elites such as aristocrats, eunuchs, monks, and warlords. During the Sui and Tang periods, scholars asserted their leadership over society and their relative autonomy vis-à-vis the state. During the Song, they became the most important and prestigious officials in a bureaucracy that liked to think of itself as a meritocracy. The examination system came to involve three main levels: government students who lived on state stipends and took periodic examinations; provincial graduates eligible to serve in office; and metropolitan graduates, who could hold the highest posts in the administration. After suffering a severe setback in the Yuan period, scholar-officials made a major comeback in the Ming when the civil service examinations expanded to provide political and social mobility in a growing population and economy. During the last century of the Ming, the number of government students increased while the numbers of degrees and posts remained relatively fixed. This led students to become more involved in a variety of social roles including secretaries, teachers, landlords, merchants, lawyers, and rebels. During the late Ming, sub-groups of tributary students and military graduates appeared. They absorbed some of the surplus talented youths but also provided advisors to rebels. During the Qing, scholar officials had to compete with military bannermen for influence in the state. During the Republic, when the examination system was dismantled, scholars became less influential than merchants and

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Introduction

militarists. In the People’s Republic, some of them were ostracized and others appeared along with commoners as cadres in the Chinese Communist Party. Rebels There were many kinds of Chinese rebels denoted by many different terms. They ranged from robbers and bandits in times of peace and order to upright insurgents (qiyizhe 起義者) in times of warfare and chaos. Chinese rebels appeared early along with the concepts of the “mandate of heaven and nature” and “changing the mandate” that were used to legitimate the first fully historical shift in political authority from the Shang to the Zhou in the eleventh-century BCE. According to the mandate theory, lineages that accumulated sufficient wealth and power and demonstrated enough moral virtue and political authority could establish a state or states that could govern the central plain for a time before losing the mandate to competitors from within or without who could stake superior claims to the right to rule. The legitimacy of periodic popular rebellions was indicated by the sayings that “people are the basis of the state” and “officials force the people to rebel.” Farmers were not only the vast majority of the population, but also, ideally, a highly respected social stratum, ranked just below the scholars and above the artisans and merchants. In standard Chinese historiography, the Qin polity lost the mandate because of its excessively centralized and authoritarian rule and the Han polity won the mandate because of its lenient laws and populist policies. Chinese rebellions came in a wide variety of sizes and shapes. Many of them were no more than peasant jacqueries, some of them weakened the existing state without overthrowing it, others overthrew the state without being able to replace it, and only a couple, the Han and Ming (and arguably the People’s Republic) overthrew the existing state and established a new and enduring one in its place. This led one Western observer to remark that the Chinese were the most rebellious and the least revolutionary people in the world.3 That was true in the sense that recurrent uprisings, even ones resulting in the killing of a king who had failed to live up to the ideal (according to Mencius, 372–289), were deemed preferable to stability imposed by repression. The Chinese seem to have anticipated the Western existential idea, articulated by Albert Camus (1913–1960), that rebels tend to be more realistic and humane than revolutionaries.4 In the 3  Meadows 1856. 4  Camus 1956.

Introduction

5

case of the Ming, its plebian founder established his own new polity designed to address the needs and desires of the masses who supported it. The Ming was also characterized over the years by many small uprisings intended to remind it of its original promises. In the late Ming, nobles and officials became increasingly corrupt, landlords and merchants became increasingly wealthy, and the state and local society suffered the consequences. During the Qing, nearly two centuries of stability ended in several major rebellions, including the Taipings, that severely weakened the polity and led eventually to its collapse. In the twentieth century, China experienced successive revolutions including 1911, 1927, 1949, and the Cultural Revolution. One Maoist slogan of that last revolution was “to rebel is justified,” and the movement was a kind of rebellion within a revolution. Advisors Chinese advisors to rulers (mouzhu 謀主) also appeared very early on in the records. Just as many Chinese scholars aspired to become officials, so many Chinese officials hoped to become intimate advisors to rulers. Advisors came from a wide variety of backgrounds, and held a wide variety of offices. During the first two fully historical polities, Yi Yin (early Shang) was said to have started out as a cook and became a regent to a king of the Shang, while Tai Gong Wang (early Zhou) was purportedly a fisherman who became an advisor to the civil founder of the Zhou. Most scholars of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods wanted to become influential advisors to kings whom they hoped to turn into sons of heaven with legitimate authority over the known world. Ironically but significantly, the title usually translated “prime minister” (chengxiang 丞相) seems to have appeared first in the highly authoritarian and centralized Qin polity, as if to balance the claims of an outsized head of state known as the “august lord” (huangdi 皇帝). Derk Bodde even described the first prime minister, not the first august lord, as the founder of the Qin.5 The prime minister persisted in later polities, sometimes even serving as an effective check on the authority of the ruler, as in the common Western liberal ideal. In the Han, several scholars gained fame for advising the commoner founder Gaozu (256–195). In the early Tang (618–907), the scholar Wei Zheng (580–643) was so influential in shaping the policies of the second ruler, Taizong (598–649), that he was lionized in the elite histories and turned 5  Bodde 1938/1967.

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Introduction

into a door god in popular culture. The Ming founder’s decision to go beyond removing his prime minister to abolishing the office is often associated with a supposed intensification of autocracy—even despotism—in Ming and Qing times. Given the origin of the prime minister in the Qin and the appearance of collective prime ministers (consisting of grand secretaries) in the Ming and Qing, we need to look carefully at the details of a full range of advisors and founding rulers to see how they interacted in fact. The Republics might have been expected to transform the office of prime minister into a very different institution, but it may be that, in the Chinese state, continuities and recurrent phenomena were as significant as—if not more significant than— secular or linear changes.

Five Paradigms

Individual Chinese scholars, rebels, and advisors lived and worked within larger structures that exhibited continuity and change over time. These structures have often been understood according to five paradigms, or frameworks that seem to be so obvious and true that they need not be—indeed cannot be—identified, let alone tested. One paradigm holds that Chinese history can be divided into more than two dozen “dynasties” headed by different lineages. These polities rose and fell from earliest recorded times, including the Xia, Shang, and Zhou, to recent times, including the Ming and Qing, and, some might even say, the Republic and People’s Republic. A second paradigm finds the dynastic cycle too superficial. It posits instead three periods in institutional history, beginning with feudal “principalities” during the first couple of millennia, continuing with a single enduring bureaucratic “empire” in the two millennia from the Qin through the Qing, and followed by a century of two kinds of Republics down to the present. A third paradigm, based on European experience but developed and applied to China by Japanese historians, also posits three periods, including “ancient,” “medieval,” and “modern” society. In one influential view, the socalled Kyoto school, China reached modernity as early as the Song, well before Europe. A fourth paradigm, once popular and still influential in China, applies the Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist five stages of economic and social history (communalism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, and socialism/communism) to China. This paradigm was modified by Mao Zedong to include “sprouts of capitalism” by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, “semi-feudalism/ semi-colonialism” in the nineteenth century, and “old and new democracy”

Introduction

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in the twentieth century. Finally, there is the Weberian paradigm, widely embraced in China and the United States today, that divides Chinese history into two long, but very unequal, periods, described as “tradition,” which lasted three or four millennia, and “modernity,” which has characterized the last three or four centuries. There are sometimes serious debates among believers within and among these paradigms, which then become theories that can be articulated and tested. There are also some hybrid interpretations drawing eclectically on elements of several paradigms. But a surprising number of scholars are content to use such terms as “dynastic,” “imperial,” “medieval,” “capitalist,” and “modern” without defining those terms, justifying their use, or questioning their applicability to China. In fact, I think that these paradigms suffer from certain anomalies that make them problematic at best and obfuscatory at worst. The dynastic cycle and imperial paradigms derive from Chinese experience but are largely limited to political and domestic issues, and shortchange social and foreign affairs. They suggest little secular change over the course of four millennia of dynasties, from the Shang through the People’s Republic, or over the course of two millennia of empire from the Qin through the Qing. The Japanese paradigm of three periods and the Marxian paradigm of five stages address secular social and economic change, but they are also Eurocentric and teleological, paying little attention to Chinese cultural perspectives and alternative world views. The Weberian paradigm of two mega-periods of tradition and modernity recognizes major changes between the past and the present and anticipates further radical changes in the future, but it too is usually Eurocentric and teleological. It also conflates four millennia into a single long period of “static” tradition and allocates only four centuries to “dynamic” modernity. In sum, there is a need for a more Sino-centric and open-ended theory of Chinese history that takes better account of China’s various roles in world history. In teaching Chinese, Asian, and world history and in doing research on the origins and development of the Li Yan story, I have tried to understand how the Chinese themselves have regarded the relationships among history, or what happened, histories, or what was recorded, and historiography, or the ways in which the past has been studied and understood over time. In the “West,” the emphasis has arguably long been on religion and science, on exploring the unknown world and seeking transcendent truths. In contrast, in China, the focus has generally been on history and historiography, or on recognizing patterns in human experience as guides to wise behavior in the here and now.

8

Introduction

A Spiral Theory

In previous work, I have drawn on the relatively obscure early Chinese philosopher, Zou Yan (ca. 300 BCE), and the very prominent twentieth-century Chinese journalist, historian, and reformer Liang Qichao, among many others, to posit a spiral pattern in Chinese history and historiography. The pattern includes three major periods characterized as: “early,” or China in China; “middle,” or China in Asia; and “recent,” or China in the world. It also features five different kinds of polities that rose and fell during the early period, constituting a cycle that arguably recurred in the same sequence, at an accelerating pace and in an expanding space, during the middle and recent periods. The five kinds of polities include: royal unification (Shang, Sui, and Zhang Juzheng); elite reform (Zhou, Tang, Qing); cultural crisis and political disorder (Spring and Autumn/ Warring States, Wudai/Song/Liao/Jin, and Republic/Warlordism); authoritarian centralization (Qin, Yuan, and late Republic/early People’s Republic); and populist egalitarianism (Han, Ming, and later People’s Republic).6 The question now is whether Chinese scholar rebel advisors in general and Li Yan and Hong Niangzi in particular fit into that pattern. If so, how do they help to make sense of Chinese history and how does that history help to make sense of them? If not, what alternative theory would take better account of the Li Yan story and history? Drawing on the experience of China with its three periods and five kinds of polities, I have also posited a succession of five different kinds of world order that have succeeded one another, also at an accelerating pace over an expanding space, from earliest recorded times to the present. In this view, the first world order was centered in the world region of East Africa, where, some 100,000 years ago, humans originated, gathered plants and hunted animals, made tools of bone and stone, lived in clans and villages, and populated most of the globe.7 In that period, before the construction of states, scholar rebel advisors may not have existed and may not have been needed. Rather there were various forms of anarchy, with positive as well as negative features, that have continued to appeal and repel up to the present. The second world order was centered in Mesopotamia and Mediterranea, where, over 10,000 years ago, people started cultivating the soil, founding cities, states, and empires, using writing, bronze, iron and other hard technologies, and creating what I have called “power civilizations” based on ever greater populations producing ever increasing amounts of goods and services. The third center of world history 6  Dai 1987; Des Forges 2003: 312–322; Des Forges 2005; Des Forges 2018. 7  For the concept of “world region,” see Lewis and Wigen 1997.

Introduction

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was in South, East, and Southeast Asia, where, during more than 1,000 years, what I have called “culture states” used civil technologies (such as paper, printing, and civil service examinations), and martial tools (such as fire-powder, the compass, and fire-arms), to bring remarkable levels of peace, order, and justice to large numbers of people. The fourth world center was in Western Europe where, for a few centuries, “maritime national empires” used science and technology, fossil fuels and steel, to extend their hegemony over most of the rest of the world. The fifth world center has been in North America where, over the course of a few decades, the United States became the first “global superpower” with the ability to construct a world order of its own choosing or to destroy the world through nuclear war, genocide, and/or ecocide.8 What, then, is the significance of the Li Yan story in this present-day world and what is its value in the quest for a more just and sustainable world order? Sources Given the Chinese emphasis on history and historiography and on human thought and action, it is not surprising that there is in China a long and rich tradition of representing lives and writing biographies. Three of the “five ‘classics’,” the Venerated Documents, the Poetry, and the Spring and Autumn Annals, contained much history. Two of the “four books,” the Confucian Analects and the Mencius, drew lessons from historical experience. The Spring and Autumn Annals held up the ideal of “appropriate concealment” to nurture moral thought, while the Record of Zuo advocated “empirical truth” to enable effective action. The father-and-son team of historians, Sima Tan (165–110) and Sima Qian (135–86) in the Former Han, compiled the first “comprehensive” record of past experience in the known world and emphasized “aligned biographies” of individuals and groups according to their roles in society. The father-sonand-daughter team of Ban Gu (32–92), Ban Chao (32–102), and Ban Zhao (45–116) in the Later Han compiled the first “standard history” that continued to emphasize biographies and institutions but focused on a single polity. During the Wei-Jin and North and South Dynasties, biographies became notably more colorful, popular, and individualistic. During the Sui and Tang, historiography became even more the province of the state while during the Song new forms of historiography appeared. They included accounts of “topics from beginning to end” and “chronological biographies” that recorded the dates of writings and events in people’s lives, thus allowing for more meaningful life stories. Local 8  Dai and Fang 2013; Des Forges 2016.

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“gazetteers” provided building blocks for provincial and state-wide standard histories while “veritable records” documented day-to-day court activities. In the late Ming, “tales of the strange” enlivened biographies and were collected and drawn upon to make “informal histories” and “historical novels.” The Qing drew on all of these kinds of historical sources to compile what has generally been considered to be the finest of some twenty-six standard histories. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, efforts have been made to integrate Chinese history into world history and a few scholars have begun to try to understand world history in terms of Chinese history.9 In this book, I suggest that neither the dominant paradigms of periodization nor the common distinctions among kinds of sources provide firm foundations for understanding the origins of the Li Yan story and its places in Chinese and world history. Instead, I discuss constant and ever-changing interactions among various pasts and presents, among facts and fictions, histories and literatures, and between the historical Li Yan and the storied Li Yan and Hong Niangzi as we are coming to know them. The Li Yan story can no longer be accepted as “straight history,” but it can be valued as “crooked history.” In other words, it is a good example of “mythistory,” or the merging of two forms of knowledge, myth and history, that are conventionally distinguished from each other.10 Ironically, the original paucity of hard evidence of Li Yan’s existence has led us to explore a wide range of possible explanations of his story and to produce a narrative that echoes in the works of many historians and writers and in the lives of many historical and literary actors. Although some questions remain about the precise relationships between the storied and the historical Li Yans and Hong Niangzis, taken together the two lives offer important lessons for our own times and places.

A Note on Translations and Terminology

Translations of Chinese terms in this book are my own unless otherwise indicated. Good translations are essential to effective communication across cultures. At the same time, terminologies often unwittingly reflect and maintain paradigms. In developing new theory, it is sometimes necessary to revise standard translations and use new terminologies. In this book, I use quite a few new—often more literal—translations of Chinese terms in an effort to get

9  Pidhainy, Des Forges, and Fong 2018. 10  McNeill 1986; White 1973.

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closer to Chinese views of the past. Here are a few of the most common and important terms and their old and new translations. Terms Old Translations zhongguo 中國 China zhongyuan 中原 China tianxia 天下 empire tianzi 天子 emperor tianming 天命 mandate of heaven huangdi 皇帝 emperor nongmin 農民 peasants guochao 國朝 dynasty gudai 古代 ancient zhonggu 中古 medieval jindai 近代 modern Da Shun 大順 Great Obedience

New Translations Central State(s) central plain(s) the known world son of heaven mandate of heaven and nature august lord farmers polity early or traditional middle period recent period Great Accord

In this book, I have minimized the use of romanization and Chinese characters, restricting them largely to the Appendices, Glossary, and list of Sources. I have used Chinese characters in the text only when absolutely necessary, mainly to distinguish among homonyms, which are common in Chinese. To indicate when personal names seem to be fictitious, I sometimes translate them literally, e.g. Hong Niangzi (Red Woman).

chapter 1

The Textual Origins and Growth of the Story in Jiangnan The characters “Li Yan” 李岩 (巖) of relevance to the Li Yan story at the end of the Ming seem to have first appeared in a scholarly memoir composed soon after Li Yan’s death in 1644. Almost simultaneously, but probably slightly later, the basic story of Li Yan burst onto the scene in several manuscripts and publications in the lower Yangzi river valley, known as Nanjing in the late Ming and as Jiangnan in the Qing. Over the next few decades, the story was accepted and developed by historians, most of whom hailed from Jiangnan. Only after unpacking all of the written sources now available will we be able to infer more about the story’s likely oral origins and its development in history. 1.1

A Memoir, a Little History, Little Stories, and a Novel

The first written record of a man named Li Yan, who was said to be active in the rebel Shun regime in Beijing in 1644, appeared in a memoir composed by Zhao Shijin, a metropolitan graduate from a scholar-official family in Changshu County in the Ming province of Nanjing (part of which would become the Qing province of Jiangsu). Zhao served in a local post before holding an academic position and an office in the ministry of works in Beijing. When Beijing fell to Li Zicheng’s rebel army in late April 1644, Zhao was among ninety-six Ming officials who were wooed by the rebels to serve in their new Da Shun (lit. Great Accord) regime. According to Zhao, he refused the offer and was confined to a camp supervised by the powerful rebel general, Liu Zongmin (d. 1645). Unlike many Ming officials who were interrogated, expropriated, and even tortured if they refused to provide resources and serve the rebel regime, Zhao recorded that he was protected from rebel wrath by a former Ming military officer from Henan named Yao Qiying. Yao, now working for the rebel Shun state, recounted stories about the rebels’ activities in his native province of Henan. He also kept Zhao Shijin informed about current developments in Beijing.1 After Zhao left Beijing and headed home to Changshu, he drafted a memoir, titled “Record of Events of 1644” in the fifth month of the seventeenth year of 1  Zhao 1644/1959: 1–3.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004421066_003

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the Chongzhen reign (June 1644). Zhao recalled that he had heard that the rebel generals “Liu Zongmin lived in the house of Tian Hongyu, Li Daliang lived in a large house in the western part of the city, Li Yan, and a certain Guo, personal name unknown, lived in the house of Zhou Kui, and the four places divided up the task of collecting the Ming seals of office.”2 Zhao subsequently noted that some Ming officials who surrendered to the rebels were “dispersed to commander Li’s camp(s),” but it was not clear if this commander Li referred to Li Yan and/or to another Li among the many Lis in the rebel ranks.3 Later, when Li Zicheng led troops east to negotiate with the Ming general Wu Sangui (1612–1678), Zhao reported that Liu Zongmin and others all went, leaving behind only Li Yan, stationed in the eastern part of the city, and Niu Jinxing (provincial graduate, 1627), located at the court, to provide defense.4 Zhao’s two or three references to Li Yan were brief but left little doubt that there were at least rumors that Li Yan existed as a person distinct from Li Zicheng and that he played a part in the rebel administration during its occupation of Beijing. Zhao also reported on other men who were said to be playing roles in Li Zicheng’s successful rebellion and fledgling state. Li Daliang, whose residence in the western part of the city was mentioned above, was said to have joined Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin in shouting imprecations at the Beijing city wall before taking the city.5 Once inside the city, Li Daliang kept uncooperative former Ming officials under house arrest at his residence.6 According to Zhao, Li Daliang was less severe than Liu Zongmin in demanding contributions from former Ming aristocrats and officials. But Li’s demands were nonetheless heavy and often arbitrary, with little relation to the targeted persons’ resources and levels of corruption.7 Zhao claimed that Li Daliang had once been a “servant in the household of a government student” before joining Li Zicheng’s rebellion.8 Zhao also related Yao Qiying’s stories about Niu Jinxing, the scholar from Henan. Niu had obtained his provincial degree in 1627 and had joined Li Zicheng after being involved in a family scandal and a conflict with a magistrate that had landed him in prison.9 In Beijing, Niu served as prime minister of the Shun regime and shared with Liu Zongmin the work of

2  Zhao 1644/1959: 10. 3  Zhao 1644/1959: 12. 4  Zhao 1644/1959: 16. 5  Zhao 1644/1959: 8. 6  Zhao 1644/1959: 10. 7  Zhao 1644/1959: 12–13. 15. 8  Zhao 1644/1959: 17. 9  Zhao 1644/1959: 17.

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selecting officials from among former Ming officials who were willing to serve.10 When Liu balked at paying respects to Li Zicheng as part of the process of turning the commoner rebel leader into a new son of heaven, Niu exhorted him to realize that the times had changed and that he should be willing to perform modified court rituals to honor his erstwhile fellow highwayman as the new ruler of the realm.11 Zhao also mentioned a man named Song Xiance, a Henanese diviner who had correctly predicted the date of the fall of Beijing. Song enticed a Henanese scholar-official named Wu Zichang into the Shun state, and, as rebel commander-in-chief, Song intervened to protect a Ming official, Li Xiangcheng, from being executed.12 As we shall see, Zhao was mistaken in describing Li Daliang as a lowly servant and he was wrong in identifying Niu Jinxing as a native of Baoji County in Shaanxi Province. But Zhao’s tacit theme that many members of the Shun state were from Henan was accurate and important, providing a basis for Li Yan to become a symbolic figure. Moreover, Zhao described how he and other Ming scholar-officials, including a certain government student surnamed Wang from Henan and a Confucian Restoration Society member named Zhou Zhong from Jiangnan, survived rebel rule in Beijing without serving the Shun regime.13 Zhao’s claim that these scholars were innocent of any rebel activity was debatable, as we shall see, but it was also highly significant for the origins and development of the Li Yan story. If the Li Yan persona had its textual seeds in Zhao Shijin’s memoir written soon after the rebels relinquished control of Beijing to Qing forces in early June 1644, the Li Zicheng saga, including the Li Yan story, soon appeared in numerous manuscripts and printed texts that offered “fiction on current events” or more literally “little stories about contemporary affairs.”14 This form of literature, which had roots in the Han and Tang, used official reports, literati poems, and popular rumors to convey and comment on contemporary affairs. It became increasingly ubiquitous in an age of cheap wood-block printing and a growing market for news.15 In this case, these texts appeared in almost serial fashion to describe the fall of Li Zicheng, the rise of Wu Sangui, the fall of the Ming, and the rise of the Qing. The first installment reportedly appeared 10  Zhao 1644/1959: 11. 11  Zhao 1644/1959: 12. 12  Zhao 1644/1959: 10, 11, 17. 13  Zhao 1644/1959: 18. For Zhou Zhong, see Dennerline 1981: 263; Chow 2004:200, 208, 215– 216, 229–237, 346n109. 14  Han 2012: 56. 15   Lynn Struve explains the phenomenon as a result of a disruption in the distribution of government reports during the dynastic transition. Struve 1998: 8–12.

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less than two months following the flight of the rebels from Beijing. It apparently circulated under various titles, including the “Little Story [or stories] about the Suppression of Dashing,” the rebel nickname for Li Zicheng.16 This text was soon followed in fall 1644 by another, titled “Little Popular Stories about the Suppression of Dashing” which was printed by the Raise Literature Press in 1645.17 Versions of this text, some hand written and some printed, appeared under many different titles in and after 1645. Among these texts was one titled Newly Composed Popular Little Stories of Suppressing Dashing that was printed in 1645 before the fall of Nanjing to the Qing.18 Finally there was a printed version with the title Newly Composed Little Stories of the Loyal Orphan’s Suppression of Dashing that featured scenes of the rebellion, including three of Master Li, Song Xiance, and Li Zicheng.19 The proliferation of these manuscripts and printed texts under various titles may have compensated for their curtailment after the fall of Nanjing due to their Ming loyalist sentiments uncongenial to the Qing. Various versions seem to have continued to be widely available despite their being banned during the Qianlong reign in the eighteenth century.20 In 1984, Xie Fuchen, in Hangzhou, drew on extant versions of the texts celebrating Li Zicheng and mentioning Li Yan, plus other relevant accounts, to edit and punctuate a coherent version. The following year he published it under the title, the Little History of Dashing Li.21 This title, dropping the words “suppressing” and “story” and replacing the latter with “history,” put the most positive spin on the historicity of Li Yan and on his status in Li Zicheng’s rebellion. The first five fascicles of this book were attributed to an “oral tale told by a Lazy Daoist of Western Wu” to a “ninety-year-old Mr. No Competition (Wujing) at Half Moon Creek in Yunxi in Western Wu.” The orally transmitted tale was then reportedly written down by a “young lad.”22 The identity of the author (or authors) of these first five fascicles remains a puzzle. Wujing (No Competition) was the nickname of a late Ming bird and flower painter, Wang Weilie, who was said to be from Changshu County in Suzhou Prefecture in Jiangsu Province.23 If so, he might have been in touch with the memoirist Zhao Shijin who hailed 16  Yao 1644/1982: 54, cited in Han 2012: 56, 70n1. 17   Ming-Qing xiaoshuo yanjiu zhongxin 1998: 296–297; Han 2012: 60, 73n17. 18  This version is in the Naikaku Bunko in Japan. See Han 2012: 60, 73n18. 19  A copy is available on microfilm in the Rare Book Room of the National Library in Beijing. 20  For more details on the complex relations among these titles and others, see Luan 1986: 224–225; Qi 2000: 209–213; Han 2012: 60–64. 21  Gong 1644/1985: 85–202. 22  Gong 1644/1985: 89, 91. 23  Xu 1677/2002; Qi 2000: 209–210.

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from that same county, but we do not know if the name Li Yan originated with the writer Wujing or the memoirist Zhao Shijin.24 The author of the second set of five fascicles, on the other hand, seems to be more clear. His name was Gong Yunqi, his courtesy name was Zhongchen, and his brush name was the Calabash Daoist of Runzhou. He was apparently from Piling in Changzhou in Nanjing Province.25 He was reported to have been a member of a literati group called the Correct Association, and to have held a minor post in the southern Ming court in Nanjing. He reportedly urged the prominent scholar-official Qian Qianyi (1582–1664), who was from Changshu (the home of Zhao Shijin and possibly of Wang Weilie), to intervene at the Nanjing court to speed up the restoration of the Ming.26 Gong seems to have exercised his editorial authority over the entire ten fascicles of the account. For convenience, I will treat him as the historical person behind the brush names Lazy Daoist and Calabash Daoist and thus as the effective author of the entire book. I will therefore hereafter refer to the book as Gong’s Little History.27 Whatever the precise titles and authors of these works, they all originated in the Yangzi valley and combined fact and fiction—or at least history and literature—to criticize Li Zicheng’s rebel Shun state in the central plain and the Manchu Qing assault in the northeast.28 Within months, Li Yan, who had barely appeared in Zhao Shijin’s memoir, emerged as a major personality with a fairly detailed biography. Gong’s Little History began with a survey of the activities of numerous rebels active in the central plain at the end of the Ming.29 It continued: Moreover, in Qi County in Kaifeng Prefecture, there was a young master who had a provincial degree. His family name was Li and his personal name was Yan. He was upright and generous to others. Year after year there was a drought and grain became ever more expensive. The county magistrate did not know how to succor the poor people and collected the taxes that became heavier every day. Master Li sent a petition to the magistrate asking for tax remission and grain relief.

24  Qi 2000: 210–211. 25  Yang 1985: 2. 26   Ming-Qing xiaoshuo yanjiu zhongxin 1998: 296; Han 2012: 62,63–64. For L. Carrington Goodrich and J.C. Yang’s biography of Qian, see Hummel 1943–44: 148–50. See also Wang 2018. 27  He appears at several points in the text, e.g. Gong 1644/1985: 8. 174; 9.179. 28  See, for example, Gong 1644/1985: 89. 29  See Huludaoren 1645: 1. 12a; 4. 14a; 5. 8b–12a.

The Textual Origins and Growth of the Story in Jiangnan

figure 1.1 “Master Li’s Popular Uprising Assembling the Masses” Xi Wu Landaoren late Ming, juan 1, used with permission from the National Library of China in Beijing

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But the magistrate said: “The superior officials’ demands for supplies are coming down like a blizzard. If we don’t raise taxes, how can we respond to them? Defaulting would be a crime for our county. As for relief, we simply don’t have enough grain, and the taxes cannot be avoided. So there is no other way out. The large families of the district must contribute their own wealth to save the locality with their benevolence.” When Master Li saw that his words had had no effect, he asked his own family to set aside enough grain for themselves and to distribute all of the rest to the common people of their tax district. News of this rolled like thunder across the land. People in other tax districts did not get the benefits. So the common people without means raised a clamor outside the houses of the rich, citing Master Li as an example and demanding that they disburse relief. There were some who wanted to break open the granaries, and some who wanted to set fires. Many of the rich families and official households were adamantly opposed, and few were generous. They became furious with Master Li for creating an incident. They went to the magistrate, asking him to issue an order to put an end to it. The magistrate could only plead with them to provide according to their ability; if each family provided relief to the people of its tax unit, it would be in accord with people’s feelings. Who could know that in his heart the magistrate blamed Master Li for the incidents? He issued strict proclamations for the demonstrators to disperse and for all tax districts to return to order. No one was to arouse the masses against the rich on the pretext of demanding relief. Those who violated the order would be considered rebels and would be arrested and punished. The common people then rose up, destroyed the placards bearing the proclamations, and prepared to beat the clerks. The clerks sought refuge in the magistrate’s office. Then many common people appeared outside the magistrate’s compound, and chorused: “Save us, save us!” Hearing this in his private quarters, the magistrate was greatly alarmed and dared not go out. Instead he demanded that Master Li contribute to the defense, saying accusingly: “At your residence you have a lot of grain. Why don’t you bring it to the government granary and distribute it in place of the granary officials? Would that not be good?” Master Li replied: “If we moved it to the state granary, it would only fatten the corrupt clerks; what real benefit would the little people get? Moreover, how can the grain from one family feed the people of the whole district?”

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The magistrate replied: “If the common people congregate and do not disperse, how can that be permitted?” Master Li replied: “You, as the mother and father official, should immediately proclaim a temporary suspension of taxes to calm the people and then wait for me, your pupil, to go out to console them.” The magistrate followed this advice and wrote out a proclamation. Master Li took it to the gate of the county compound and showed it to the mass of commoners, saying: “Please disperse to your homes and wait for me to write an essay encouraging the provision of relief throughout the entire district. I will require that it be disbursed equitably which should benefit you.” The crowd cried: “Since it is Master Li who is giving the orders, we had best disperse. We will wait to see what arrangements are made over the next three days and will return to discuss things at the temple of the god of the city walls.” They finished their demonstration and went home. When the magistrate had seen the common people making a commotion in front of the county gate he had been very unhappy. Now when he saw Master Li disperse them with a single word, he became angry. He feared that there would be another gathering three days later, so that very evening he prepared a report and sent it to his superiors. He wrote that the provincial graduate Li Yan was unpredictable. He had secretly disbursed his family’s property to buy the hearts and minds of the masses. He had raised up 1,000 people and incited them to plunder the granary and beat the clerks. We cannot permit a suspension in taxes. If the situation was not soon brought under control, it threatened to wreak great harm. The superiors believed his words. They authorized the magistrate to arrest Li Yan and interrogate him. The magistrate should also issue a proclamation to the people so that they would not get excited. When the magistrate received the orders, he secretly arrested Li Yan and put him in jail. The mass of commoners in the county became very angry, saying: “Master Li wanted to provide us with relief grain and so all these bad things happened to him. How can we bear this? We must rescue him from jail, set him up as our leader, and eliminate the criminal officials who bring harm to the people, so as to extend the length of our lives. With one call raising 100, in no time they raised 1,000 men. In the middle of the night, they broke into the magistrate’s compound and chopped the magistrate into several pieces. They opened the jail and freed Li Yan and other prisoners, and they ransacked the granary and treasury. The assistant magistrate and jailer fled to some unknown place.”

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Master Li said: “You acted out of noble zeal, but now this could be a big deal. It is a crime that cannot be pardoned. If government troops come, what shall we do? Now the Dashing prince is getting stronger and has been seen in neighboring prefectures. The best thing is to rally to him and enter his band.” The crowd all said “Good.” They collected their families and belongings, and loaded them onto carts. They set fires throughout the county. The next day the assistant magistrate returned and prepared a detailed report to his superiors. He knew only that Li Yan had conspired to rebel and he discussed sending troops to put him down. But Master Li had long since fled. Master Li joined Li Zicheng, became an advisor, persuaded him to respect worthies and honor scholars, and to prohibit tyranny and succor the people. He explained: “The Ming dynasty for a long time showed mercy and favor to the people. Only recently with successive years of drought, military acquisitions, official corruption, and the treachery of clerks have people’s thoughts turned to revolt. If we want to win over the people’s minds and hearts, we must espouse humaneness and justice. When our troops reach a place, we should spare those who open the gates and surrender. Officials who have been good to the people can be retained; those who have been bad can be dealt with on behalf of the people. If we cut taxes by one-half, we will not have to think about military questions and the people will follow us naturally and happily.” The Dashing bandit listened to everything and acted accordingly. Whenever he sent out troops, he ordered that Li Yan be in the vanguard. Li Yan sent some of his most trusted men dressed up as merchants to spread the word that “Master Li is a humane and just commander who does not kill or plunder.” He composed slogans and taught children to chant them, singing “Not a damn thing to eat, not a damn thing to wear/ Open the gates, welcome Dashing Prince there, When Dashing Prince comes, we’ll have grain to spare.” The benighted people believed that it was true, and wherever officials were oppressive, the people could not wait for Master Li to arrive. People thought that Master Li was the Dashing Prince; they did not know that they were two people.30 Gong’s text went on to describe Li Zicheng’s rebellion in Henan and Zhang Xianzhong’s (1605–1647) rebellion in Huguang. It also recounted the faltering 30  Gong 1644/1985: 1. 95–96.

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efforts of the Ming commanders Yang Sichang (d. 1641) and Zuo Liangyu (1598– 1645) to suppress them.31 The Calabash Daoist, aka Gong Yunqi, was clearly supportive of the Ming and hostile to the “roving bandits,” but he also provided a realistic account of the decline of the state and the hardships of the common people. Indeed, he seemed to sympathize with the local literatus who called, perhaps sincerely, for humaneness and justice, even if the people were gullible in believing in him and the rebel leader was only “pretending” to act in accord with those values. Li Yan’s basic advice on the need to emphasize civil methods over military ones to win popular support was widely accepted by contemporaries.32 The Little History went on to provide further details on other figures that would become key players in Li Zicheng’s rebellion and in the Li Yan story. The bandits had a commander nicknamed Child Song, who was less than three feet tall and had the appearance of a spirit. He was good with words and skilled in divination. He made bogus seals, saying that “the eighteenth child would take the throne.” He made bogus spirit books and seals for the bandits and they had confidence in him.33 The author clearly alluded here to an ancient augury that a man named Li (李), a character that can be broken down into its components, shibazi (十八 子) and read as the eighteenth son or eighteen sons, would take the throne. Li was the most common family name in China, providing an extremely large population of potential rebels and rulers. The name Li was also associated with Laozi and with Daoism from early times on.34 Song was clearly an experienced diviner with ready explanations of the failure of some of his predictions. He also had a track record of military success that purportedly enabled him to become the rebel commander-in-chief despite his small size and a lame left leg. The text depicted Li Yan, accompanied by Niu Jinxing, leading troops over the city walls of Beijing and appearing with Niu and a man named Li Mou among the rebel officials in the capital.35 This account incorporated Zhao Shijin’s report that “the Zhi General in the central battalion, Li Yan, stayed in 31  For a recent detailed account of the rebellion of Zhang Xianzhong, see Swope 2018. 32  Advisors to the Qing leaders were making the same obvious points at this juncture. Struve 1998: 14. 33  Gong 1644/1985: 2. 103–104, 107. 34  Bingham 1941; Seidel 1969–1970; Shen 1982. 35  Gong 1644/1985: 2. 104–105.

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the house of Zhou,” and it claimed that rebel “civil officials, from Niu Jinxing on down, saw to it that all of the bandit officers respected the rites.”36 The Little History recounted Li Yan’s reaching out to meritorious Ming scholars and nobles in an effort to win their acceptance of—and maybe even support for and participation in—the new Da Shun regime. For example, Master Li was said to have offered protection to Liu Lishun (1581–1644), a scholar from Li Yan’s home county of Qi County, who had been ranked first in the metropolitan examinations after decades of study. In Gong’s words, The bandits sent a message to seek out the Companion to the Heir Apparent Liu Lishun, but he closed his gate and did not respond. He drank wine and composed poetry, and his wife, concubine and family all committed suicide. Shortly thereafter, bandit troops took an order to his house, and several dozen men knocked at his gate. They proclaimed that he [Liu] “was a member of the local elite in Qi County in our Henan. When he lived at home he was extremely good; all the people of the place were favored by his virtue. We have been sent by order of Master Li to protect him as recompense for his great virtue. Unfortunately his whole family has already committed suicide.” [The bandits] dismounted, knelt in a circle, wailed pitifully, and left.37 In another case, Li Yan reportedly offered safe passage to another fellow Henanese, the Empress Dowager Yi’an née Zhang. He reportedly proposed to send her to her original home at the estate of the Earl Zhang Guoji, in Taikang County, in Chenzhou Prefecture, Henan Province. In the words of the text, Empress Zhang was from Henan. When she knew that the former ruler was dead, she planned to commit suicide but many bandits had already entered [the city]. The illegitimate general Li Yan was also a Henanese. When he entered the palace, he recognized her as the empress and he warned the crowd not to harm her. Then he sent bandit troops and former servants in the palace to escort her by sedan-chair to her ancestral home. When she arrived, however, she committed suicide.38

36  Gong 1644/1985: 4. 123. The military title “Zhi” was apparently used to indicate second rank among rebel officers. 37  Gong 1644/1985: 3.115. 38  Gong 1644/1985: 5. 135.

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In these two cases, Li Yan presumably hoped to draw on his Henanese identity to win over scholar officials and even royal nobles, thereby attracting others from such elite circles to serve the new state. In both cases he was unsuccessful, but word of his conciliatory approach may have positively influenced others. One such figure may have been Zhou Zhong, a member of the Eastern Forest (Donglin) moral reform society from Jiangnan, who appeared repeatedly in this text, sometimes in conjunction with Niu Jinxing. Zhou clearly played an important—even if largely symbolic—role in the Da Shun regime.39 While Li Yan reportedly showed favor to fellow Henanese members of the elite, he could be strict with fellow provincials who compiled less wholesome records. According to The Little History, In Henan there was a certain government student by grace named Zhou who was married to the daughter of a fellow Henanese and a provincial graduate named Fan. Because Fan had scored in the lower ranks of the examination of 1643, he [Fan] was still in Beijing waiting for a post, living on his traveling expenses until they were exhausted. When the bandits besieged the city, rice and fuel prices skyrocketed and he became ill with grief. When the city fell and the ruler died, Fan heard that his son-inlaw Zhou had bribed low ranking rebel officials and sought a post under them. He [Fan] promptly died of humiliation. His son was so poor that he could not dress the body for burial, so he went to his sister, the wife of Zhou, for help. Zhou scolded his brother-in-law severely and turned his back on his kin. When the bandit Zhi General Li Yan heard about it, he had Zhou confined to his barracks and beaten for three days until he died.40 Li Yan’s fellow provincial graduate, Niu Jinxing, the rebel prime minister, also showed no mercy toward a student from Shangqiu County in Guide Prefecture in Henan who had purchased his status and behaved badly toward his neighbors. Niu observed that he must be rich and demanded that he contribute 3,000 taels of silver to the rebel state. When the student failed to deliver, Niu had him tortured by squeezing until he died.41 Despite such instances of violence, according to The Little History, Li Yan and Li Mou reportedly stood out among the rebel generals in showing genuine concern for the common people: 39  Gong 1644/1985: 4.127; 5.141, 147–148; 7. 163–166. 40  Gong 1644/1985: 5. 138–139. 41  Gong 1644/1985: 5. 138.

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Over twenty bandit generals led their troops into the capital, where they misbehaved and acted cruelly. Only the Zhi general Li Yan and the Hong general Li Mou, two brothers, refrained from amusing themselves with women and music.42 They stationed their 3,000 troops and horses outside the city wall and were accompanied in the city by only thirty to forty personal retainers who made no public disturbances. The common people who suffered at the hands of the other bandit generals heard about their enlightened policies and flocked to them to request the redress of grievances. When the bandit troops heard about the generals named Li, they would restrain themselves. Whenever [Li] Yan went for a private walk he asked about irregularities among the people, and the next day he modified his ideas to pacify them. Each time he would exhort the Dashing bandit to control his military officers and to sympathize with the people’s power so as to win over the people’s hearts and mind. But the Dashing bandit paid no heed.43 Whereas before, Li Zicheng had accepted Li Yan’s advice, now he seemed to be inattentive at best. The Little History went on to depict Li Yan as the leading advisor to Li Zicheng concerning both tactics and strategy. In its words, The Zhi General also submitted a report counseling the bandits on four matters: 1. After the six palaces have been cleaned out, please come back into the palace grounds. The Ministry of Public Works should do the repairs and the Ministry of Rites should select an auspicious day for leading the officials in to audience. Next we should discuss the grand rites for ascending the throne, and we should pick an auspicious day for the ceremony. By that time the Ministry of Rites will have established the proper procedures and instructed the officials in how to conduct themselves. 2. The civil officials should recover the booty. Aside from those who died or surrendered to us, the officials should be divided into three groups. Those who were corrupt should be turned over to the Ministry of Punishments along with all of their property. Those who resist orders and refuse to surrender should have their property confiscated and their crimes determined. Those who are pure and honest should be spared punishment and allowed to make voluntary contributions.

42  The title “Hong” was used by rebel officers of the first rank. 43  Gong 1644/1985: 4.123–124.

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All troops and horses should be ordered to withdraw to outside the city walls to be garrisoned there. They should await orders to go into action. Now the sovereign is about to ascend the throne. He must use the humanity of Yao and Shun to nourish his self-esteem; he must use the virtue of Yao and Shun to cherish the world. When the common people of the capital are content, we will have the governance of a lordly monarch. Neither troops nor civilians should reside in people’s homes so as to avoid losing their respect. 4. Wu Sangui has returned to hostilities, and reports from the frontier are critical. The polity cannot be one day without a ruler. Now an auspicious day has been selected, and the officials and people are looking forward eagerly to your ascending the throne, just as people look for rain clouds during a drought. You therefore should not engage in combat but should send a deputy to win Wu Sangui over. Sangui can be made an earl; he and his son can be enfeoffed. The Ming heir apparent can be given a large estate where he can continue to carry out sacrifices to his ancestors and can live in peace with our dynasty for generations. In this way we may establish a firm foundation for unified rule and put an end to armed disorder. The Dashing bandit [Li Zicheng] saw this and did not like it. He issued a rescript saying “I know this,” but he finally was unable to carry it out.44 Li Yan’s four-point memorial seems to have summarized some of the more reasonable policies that the rebels were already adopting. If Li Yan really made these recommendations, therefore, they were probably neither original nor unique. They nonetheless were of a piece with efforts to settle the differences between the Shun and the Ming though civil administration and diplomatic negotiation, and to put an end to military conflict and political division. If Li Zicheng ultimately failed to act on the advice, it was perhaps in part because he was not in control of events. The military confrontation among multiple parties continued to unfold and led to a different outcome. According to A Little History, as Li Yan’s relations with Li Zicheng soured, his relationship with Song Xiance developed. One day “the rebel commander-inchief dwarf Song and the Zhi general Li Yan were walking privately together outside Chang’an gate when they saw the late ruler’s bier go by accompanied by two Buddhist monks chanting sutras. Meanwhile, former Ming officials, now serving the rebel government, went by wearing embroidered clothing and riding horses.” Song had just had a conversation with Niu Jinxing in which the two men agreed that Buddhist monks would not make good officials because 44  Gong 1644/1985: 5.142.

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they were not committed to worldly projects. But, viewing the scene on the street, Li Yan was not so sure. Yan: Why are these men, who are wearing and changing silk caps, not equal to the monks? Song: These silk-capped folks were originally low class; it’s not that the monks are superior to people like you. Yan: The Ming dynasty selected scholars by provincial, metropolitan, and palace examinations. Those who passed observed government for a while and were then selected for office. We can see that the selection process was strict. Why then, when the polity faced problems, did so few respond effectively? Song: The Ming dynastic government erred in overemphasizing the civil service examinations and appointment by seniority, so, when the state was destroyed and the ruler died, there were few who were loyal and upright. Among the officials who filled the court, who did not enjoy the high privileges and perquisites? When one morning the ruler-father encountered difficulties, they all thought about protecting themselves. Those who just arrived at the top would say: “It was not easy to attain status and fame. It took me twenty years of painful study to obtain a position in which I could wear a silk hat with a button on it. If something goes wrong, why should I die for it?” This shows that the civil service examination did not produce capable and loyal men. Those who had been in office for a long time would say: “My attaining office and rank was also not easy. I had to be cautious for twenty years to attain this position. I am not the only high official; my individual death would have no benefits.” This shows that seniority did not produce good men either. Both groups thought that degrees and offices could be attained by relying on one’s own efforts; so they lacked any appreciation of the favor shown to them by the court. No wonder they abandoned the old and served the new, and they were all like that. We can see that recruiting men that way did not conform to the dynastic ideal of showing favor to scholars. Thus it was stupid to think that they would want to take responsibility for giving back [when the state was in trouble]! Some came from powerful households and got ahead through favoritism. They were contemptuous of others and corrupt to the core. Ignorant of filial piety, how could they have known anything about political loyalty? Others came from wealthy and powerful local lineages that got ahead by bribery and intrigue; they invested their money to get compound interest. They were unfamiliar

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with books; how could they know anything about loyalty and uprightness? These are the great vices in selecting men in recent times. If those in authority had been able to eliminate abuses and reform the government, there would have been no one at court who obtained his position by luck and no worthies in the country who did not serve [the state]. Yan: Just now we saw some monks respecting the rites for the former ruler. Does this suggest that their moral minds are not sullied [by impure thoughts] and the Buddhist faith should be respected? Song: The Buddhists are basically foreigners or frontier tribesmen. Their unorthodox teachings and heterodox sayings have misled people and interfered with humanity and uprightness. Not only are the ignorant common people deceived by their methods, but also erudite scholars respect their teachings and hasten to practice them. In their zeal they wear cassocks, shave their heads, and avoid questions of right and wrong. When a crisis arises, they enter the empty gate and forget about rulers and fathers. The monasteries become sanctuaries for heterodoxy and rebellion. To have rulers we must have officials. To use commoners to resist kings and noblemen and to invoke heterodoxy to muddy orthodoxy, these are the most malignant tendencies of the day! If you say that chanting the sutras is beneficial, why do we not chant them when troops approach the wall and force the enemy to withdraw? If you say that the rite of repentance is effective, when the ruler is dying and the dynasty ending, why do they not perform it to prolong the life of the ruler and the dynasty? The Buddhist teachings are irrational and have no basis in fact. Believers merely waste the wealth of the people. We must use their men and burn their books; we must rid the known world of roving idlers and preserve the world’s resources. Then the state will have enough personnel and the countryside will have no more floating population. Yan thought this was correct and he became a close friend of Song.45 As Li Yan’s relations with Song Xiance flourished, tensions between them and Niu Jinxing and Li Zicheng developed. In the words of the author Gong, The illegitimate general Li Yan and the illegitimate prime minister Niu Jinxing took different positions on issues and became mutually suspicious. Yan was situated below the Dashing bandit and he was often unhappy there. The Dashing bandit saw that general Wu and the caitiff 45  Gong 1644/1985: 4.130–131.

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figure 1.2 “Dwarf Song Privately Discussing State Affairs” From Xi Wu Landaoren late Ming: juan 1. Used with the permission of the National Library of China in Beijing

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troops were victorious in several battles, and he [Li Zicheng] lost several of his generals. Half of his gold, silver, and women also departed. He also saw that the hearts and minds of the masses were becoming distant and were gradually being lost. He became very angry. Every day he urged his men and horses to go to Shanxi to open up a road. General Wu was pursuing them. (Here the story teller interrupted his tale.) The illegitimate commander-in-chief, Dwarf Song, often spoke privately to people, saying: “Our master is a horseback-riding son of heaven with only three years of wealth and status remaining. Unfortunately, he has killed too many people and does not understand how to manage heaven-sent judgments! Moreover, he has not given birth to an heir and I fear that my predictions have not always been fulfilled.” When the city fell, Song was alarmed and delighted by turns, saying: “How did Beijing fall; this must be heaven’s will!”46 Here Song seemed to compare Li Zicheng unfavorably with the commoner founder of the Han dynasty whom an advisor named Lu Jia had warned could take the known world on horseback but should not try to rule it that way. If, according to the author, the rebel leaders were beginning to doubt themselves and the future of their enterprise, the people were beginning to see that the rebels were not living up to their promises. The text continued: Among the bandits, Li Yan had a Ruist [i.e. Confucian] background and he taught the Dashing bandit to use humaneness and justice to win the minds and hearts of the people. All of the illegitimate pronouncements had been written by Li Yan. The common people believed in them and were ambitious to hoist their spears to support them. Now the bandits were acting cruelly in the capital city, which was becoming known to everyone, and the illegitimate proclamations were no longer credible.47 In other words, Li Yan was the most important spokesperson for the rebellion, but he was losing the ear of Li Zicheng. Meanwhile, the other rebel leaders and their followers were no longer fulfilling the masses’ expectations. According to this source, the decline in Li Zicheng’s health, resulting from an arrow wound to one eye, precipitated a struggle for power among the rebel leaders. In its words,

46  Gong 1644/1985: 6.155. 47  Gong 1644/1985: 9.166.

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General Liu Zongmin and prime minister Niu Jinxing were secretly pleased that Dashing was going to die at a young age and they wanted to succeed him. Zongmin considered himself to be the bravest among all the generals and he thought he had contributed the most to founding the [Shun] state. He invited all the generals to a big party. Jinxing suspected that he (Zongmin) was up to something and he (Jinxing) was the only one who did not attend. He said to himself: “I want to be the ruler of the known world but my surname is that of a low comedy actor and has several disadvantages.” He therefore changed his surname to Mou and told his closest fellow officers: “Our founding ancestor was originally surnamed Mou; he rose from Hanbei and assisted Shizu of the Yuan to take the central plain. Chinese and foreigners were united. They attained great merit in the known world. They became hereditary nobility and flourished along with the dynasty. When the great Ming arose in accord with the times and drove Shundi into the desert, my ancestors realized that heaven’s purpose had returned, so they gave up offices and returned to the mountains and made a living from farming and collecting firewood. They feared that people would recognize their family and personal names so they eliminated the top part of the character for their family name Mou (牟) and changed it to Niu (牛), which also meant that they did not forget their family origin. Now I have assisted Mr. Li in pacifying the Three Qin [Shaanxi] and in invading Yan and Ji [Beijing and Shuntian]. My achievements are greater than those of Xiao He of the Han, and my wealth and status overwhelm people. Thus it is now appropriate for me to restore my ancestors’ name.”48 All of the officers congratulated him. Jinxing invited all of the generals to a banquet. When he became inebriated he addressed the crowd: “People say that a big head on the back of an ox [i.e. the character Mou] should become the son of heaven. Now our master’s arrow wound is serious, and military authority has passed to me. If one day I were to add a yellow robe to my wardrobe, how could you not get wealth and status?” The generals all said: “The prime minister follows heaven and responds to the people. The masses are going to follow his orders.” Niu [Mou] was very happy, but he suddenly realized that the Hong general Li Mou’s personal name was the same as his [Niu’s newly chosen] family name. He also knew that Li Yan was popular with the army. He hated them both and thought about how to get rid of them.

48  For the remarkably common practice of changing and restoring family names in the Ming, see Dennis 2018.

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The illegitimate commander-in-chief Song Xiance had very good relations with Li Yan and his younger brother [Li Mou]. He saw that the Dashing bandit’s wound was worsening and he said to Yan: “This is a moment that is hard to get and easy to lose. It is widely heard that ‘an eighteenth child will attain high status.’ Now we see the behavior of the blind person who will certainly not be able to carry out this prophecy. Last night I saw heavenly signs indicating that the royal spirit will flourish in the central province [Henan]. This time will not come again; it offers an opportunity difficult to come by. How can master long tolerate being in a subordinate position?” Yan got his meaning and thanked him, saying: “If someday this transpires, wealth and status will be shared.” He asked that the discussion not leak out to the public. Three days later, the Dashing bandit recovered a little bit, but suddenly there was a report that the [rebel] magistrates of Luyi, Kaocheng, and Zhecheng counties in Guide Prefecture had all been captured by the [Ming] colonel Ding and had been sent to Nanjing for trial so that Ding could get his reward. The common people were restoring the old [dynasty] and those who knew did not dare not to report it. The Dashing bandit heard about it and was greatly alarmed. Li Yan did not know that prime minister Niu was jealous of him. He asked for a detachment of 20,000 men to recover all the counties and prefectures of Henan. Dashing did not reply before Niu Jinxing deceptively said: “If general Li is willing to go, that’s very good.” He transmitted the order for the troops to be called up. That evening Dashing secretly spoke to [Niu]Jinxing and said: “Li Yan has a fierce and brave temperament. Formerly he was weak and so joined us. Now if he takes troops and leaves, I am afraid that he will be difficult to manage. What does the prime minister think about this?” Seeing that [the] Dashing [Prince] suspected Yan, he [Niu] seized the opportunity and replied: “Henan is the doorway to the Three Qins [Shaanxi], the screen for Jin [Shanxi] and Chu [Hubei], the place where, from ancient times, lords and kings have established their capitals. It is also Li Yan’s home province. If we give him a large army, it will be like returning a tiger to the mountains and adding wings to it. Later, if he raises local strongmen of the central province, he will be able to act according to circumstances in the midst of battles. We cannot foresee what role he will play in the struggle for the known world. We cannot permit this.” The Dashing bandit then said: “This morning the commander gave him permission to have troops. What did you mean by that?” Jinxing replied: “Yan has long had the intention to mutiny. I replied so as to give him a false sense of security. Yan and master share the same

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surname. When he [Yan] heard commander Song’s prophecy, he was happy because he thought he could fulfill it himself. Now he has heard that Henan is in revolt and the military is not prepared. He has not waited for orders or recommended someone else to go, but suddenly asks for troops for himself. Clearly, he does not have master’s public interests in mind. Indeed, seeing that you are suffering from your arrow wound, he wants to take troops and leave to fight to become a hegemon and plot to become master. We must take this opportunity to get rid of him. Tomorrow, when they come for the send-off banquet, we will seize them on the mat to prevent a future disaster. What do you think?” The Dashing bandit believed his words, became flushed with anger, and ordered him to act according to this plan. The next day, Jinxing invited Yan and his younger brother to a send-off feast; they were unaware of the plot and happily seated themselves on the mat. They had barely brought the wine cups to their lips when suddenly some toughs came up behind them and cut off their heads. When the Dashing bandit saw that the two Lis were dead, he was much relieved. When commander-in-chief Song heard that the two Lis had been harmed, he became agitated and said to Liu Zongmin: “Does the general know that the two Lis have been killed by the prime minister?” When Liu heard about it, he was very alarmed. Song said: “The Li brothers were hands to your feet and lips to your teeth. Now the prime minister has changed his surname and suddenly assassinated important generals; his intention is rather clear. When the lips are gone, the teeth get cold, the general [you, Liu] must be worried. Now all the stalwarts of the realm are contending; those who are talented and quick will win. Is the general alone in not joining in?” [Liu] Zongmin slapped the table in a rage, saying: “It’s a shame that this guy [Niu] specialized in gnawing on literature and chewing on words. He was unwilling to follow his commander’s orders. He has not an iota of military achievement to his name, but dares to kill two major generals without any authority. If we do not execute this fellow, how can we achieve our great goals? Moreover, I am the seventy-second descendent of Han Gaozu, and in a day I could become an orphan and alone [i.e. the ruler]. Who says it would not be fitting? Now under conditions of the use of force, this guy dares to slaughter without any authority.” His [Liu’s] hatred was without bounds. The next day the Dashing bandit broke camp and departed. From this time on all the rebel generals harbored different ambitions and military officers fell away and thought about mutiny. Someone told general Wu [Sangui] [about the assassinations]. Wu responded happily: “The Dashing bandit was courageous and fierce, but

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figure 1.3 “Dashing Rebel Li Suffering a Great Defeat and Moving West of the Pass” Used with the permission of the National Library of China in Beijing

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he did not practice good strategy; he did not win the hearts and minds of the officers, and he was no more than a debauched grass robber, hardly worth worrying about! Although Li Yan was a civil scholar, he actually had some military strategies, such as slandering our late ruler. Li Yan’s achievement was to inform the known world that there was a Master Li. His death eliminates a major calamity for our Ming.”49 On the spectrum from fact to fiction or the related one from history to myth, I think Gong [Yunqi]’s account fell closer to fact or history than to fiction or myth. I therefore translate the most recent title of his work quite literally as The Little History. The narrative was largely chronological, focusing on the period from Li Yan’s revolt in Qi in 1641 through his death at the hands of Li Zicheng in 1644. It was also clearly located in space extending from northeast Henan to Hubei and on to Shaanxi and Beijing. The detailed conversations among the dramatis personae echoed those in Chinese histories going back to Sima Qian in the Han period, and the chief actors were presumably historical persons, not just literary constructs. The authors used a couple of written sources, such as Feng Menglong’s Record of Jiashen and Wu Bangce’s Record of Changes in the State, but they seem to have drawn mainly on oral accounts to develop the life story of Li Yan.50 Oral sources can be as reliable as written ones, and even fiction can reveal historical realities, including particular mentalities and popular culture often ignored in official written sources. The Little History was written down and even printed before almost all other written accounts appeared, thus having pride of time and place among early records of the Da Shun regime. The second related—but more novelistic—account was titled Strange Hearsay Regarding the Establishment of the Tripods. The author is unknown but, in 1651, an obscure writer, Peng Haozi, working in his Study for Hoeing Weeds, drafted a preface, and the work was soon printed in twenty-two fascicles. Strange Hearsay added some significant details to the portrait of Li Yan in The Little History. For example, it followed up Li Yan’s promise to write a piece encouraging other wealthy families to provide relief. In its words: “On the 4th day of the 7th month of the 8th year of the Chongzhen reign (8/16/1635), Li Yan encouraged the magistrate to suspend taxes. He also wrote a ‘Ballad encouraging relief’ that appealed to each household to provide grain.” Here is the verse, which I have translated liberally in an effort to approximate the original rhyme scheme. 49  Gong 1644/1985: 10.195–196. 50  Gong 1644/1985: 4.133; Luan 1986: 224.

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For years now locusts and drought have us afflicted, Gobbling up shoots, leaving nothing to be harvested, The price of rice has multiplied several times over, Nowhere do the people have enough to recover. Stuffing their stomachs with grass, roots and leaves, Women and children cry softly, too weak to make pleas. Pots and pans gather dust, cooking stoves give forth no smoke, Days pass without porridge and without fires to stoke. The tax collectors pursue the people like tigers, The powerful families demand interest payments like misers. The people are pitiful, gasping for their last breaths, Their souls have gone to the underworld even before their deaths. The dry bones of the dead are piling up like mountains, It is difficult to pass through parched land without fountains. How can the scene not move people to weep, As the tears fall they mix with blood in our sleep. We have urged the wealthy families to provide relief, One kernel from the granary would restore people’s belief, Even dry bones could be brought back to life. The very thought would save heaven and earth from strife, Heaven and earth are impartial in helping people who are good, The virtuous will always obtain good fortune, or they should. There is great merit in helping the poor and saving the weak, It will bring benefits to our descendants whose prospects are now bleak.51 Peng’s work also added details to Li Yan’s revolt and his decision to join Li Zicheng’s rebellion. It recorded that the crowds angry at Li Yan’s incarceration killed the jailer and some soldiers as well as the magistrate. After they freed Li Yan from jail, they were the ones who suggested that he rally to Li Zicheng, who had been active in the area for some time. Li Yan agreed and set out for the Taihang mountains where Li Zicheng was located. Li Yan sent a messenger to the rebel leader saying that he was a provincial graduate at the head of a band of 1,000 men who wanted to join the rebel army. Li Zicheng replied that he respected scholars and wanted to win the hearts and minds of the people. He invited Li Yan to a meeting at the rebel headquarters and Li Yan attended. Although the text is obscure, reference was apparently made to Han Xin, a general whose advice was instrumental in Liu Bang’s success in founding 51  Peng 1651: 5.30a.

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the Han dynasty.52 Following Liu Zongmin’s claim to be descended from the Han founder Gaozu, this was the second suggestion that the late Ming rebels identified themselves with the insurgents who overthrew the Qin polity and established the Han, Strange Hearsay described Li Yan for the first time as the son of a Ming minister. In this regard, it has been suggested that the author had in mind one of the rebels celebrated in the early Ming novel, Life Stories of the Marsh. Like Chai Jin in that historical novel, Li Yan was emerging as the scion of a prominent family who was generous to the people, jailed by a magistrate, and became a chief advisor to a rebel leader.53 This allusion to a storied figure from the Song period was part of a larger move in this text from history to fiction, or, more precisely and literally, from a little history to little stories. The author also depicted the rebel leaders Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong as spirits sent to earth by a new Yama, the ruler of the afterlife, identified as the honest judge Bao Zheng (999–1062) who was active in prosecuting criminals in Kaifeng during the Song period.54 Strange Hearsay was more favorable than The Little History to the reigning Qing state, dropping all references to the Manchus as caitiffs or foreigners. Like the Little History, it was banned during the Qianlong reign, but it was reprinted over the course of the Qing under this and other titles.55 This account thus began the process of describing Li Yan’s family background even as it moved beyond stories of current events and discussions of history in the direction of a full-fledged historical novel.56 Three years later, in 1654, Lu Yingyang, courtesy name Bosheng (1572?–1658), compiled A Popular Elaboration of the Meaning of a Woodcutter’s History in forty-four chapters.57 Lu was from an accomplished literary family in Qingpu County, in Songjiang Prefecture, Jiangsu Province. His father’s writings and his own, including poetry in the Tang style, were well known and were praised by the leading late Ming writer, Wang Shizhen (1526–1590) from nearby Taizang.58 Lu provided a more secular analysis of the rise and fall of Li Zicheng and attributed his fall to his excessive passion for women, which he could neither consummate nor overcome. According to the present-day historian, Han Li, in Lu’s account, Li Zicheng resembled heroes in the historical novel Life Stories 52  Peng 1651: 6[?].32. For Han Xin, see Chaoyang 1979: 100, and chapter 7 below. 53  Han 2012: 66–67. 54  Qi 2000: 211. 55  Luan 1986: 225; Qi 2000: 210–211. 56  For these distinct but related genres, see Han 2012: 71. 57  Lu/Luan 1654/1987: 1–11. 58  For Wang, see Goodrich and Fang 1976: 1399–1405; Hammond 2018.

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in the Marsh who also had to deal with powerful women, but Li Zicheng differed from them in lacking the physical strength and macho-misogynistic will power necessary to overcome them.59 Lu also added many supposedly historical details to the biography of Li Yan. He described Li Yan for the first time as “skilled in the civil as well as martial arts.” He confirmed Li Yan’s father’s identity as a minister or “board president,” and implied that that was why “people called [his son] Li Yan ‘Master Li’.” Lu wrote that “the superior Ming official who strictly demanded more taxes in grain for the military was surnamed Yang,” and the Qi County magistrate who jailed Li Yan was “a man named Song who was extremely pigheaded.” In Lu’s telling, after Li Yan broke out of jail and killed magistrate Song, he called on his “younger brother, Li Mou, a government student, to promise to take the initiative in looking after family affairs.”60 Lu recorded that Li Yan advised Li Zicheng to use humaneness and justice to win the people’s hearts and minds. He then added details to link Li Yan more closely with his comrades and to imbed him more firmly in history. In his words, Li Yan also recommended his classmate Niu Jinxing who was a provincial graduate of 1615 and had some artful schemes. [Li Zicheng] called on him [Niu] to serve as prime minister of the right, and all in the army called him “Prime Minister Niu.” Niu Jinxing then recommended the diviner Song Xiance, from Yongcheng County [in Guide Prefecture, Henan], whose visage was long and narrow, whose body was not three feet tall, and whose right foot was lame. When going out, he used a short staff to support himself and people all called him “Child Song.” Several years earlier he had sold fortunes at the Jinghaidai gate in Beijing and he was able to call up He-Luo numerology. When he saw Li Zicheng, he took some numbers from his sleeve and said: “The eighteenth child will occupy the sacred throne.” Li Zicheng was very happy and named him [Song] commander-in-chief. Others, such as Doctor Yang Chengyu of the Ministry of Astronomy, the selected tributary student Gu Junen, and the mutual acquaintances Li Yan and Liu Zongmin, all rallied in countless numbers.61 In this brief paragraph, we are told that Li Yan was a classmate of Niu Jinxing, that they got their provincial degrees in 1615, that Song Xiance was from Yongcheng County in northeast Henan and had once told fortunes in Beijing, 59  Han 2012. 60  Lu/Luan 1654/1985: 247–250. 61  Lu/Luan 1654/1985: 250.

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that Li Yan and Liu Zongmin were acquainted with each other prior to joining the rebellion, and that this group, which we may playfully dub a “gang of four,” recommended each other to Li Zicheng.62 Lu provided additional details that seemed to support the Li Yan story. He identified the Ming general, Chen Yongfu, who purportedly shot the arrow that wounded Li Zicheng during the first siege of Kaifeng. The arrow was small and penetrated Li’s cheek only three inches. It was enough to cause him to lose sight in his right eye, but not so serious as to impair his general health let alone threaten his life. Lu mentioned the rebel general Li You in the campaign to take and hold Xi’an, though without mentioning any special link between him and Li Yan. He recorded Niu Jinxing, Song Xiance, Liu Zongmin, and Li Yan as being in accord on the decision to establish a Da Shun state in that ancient capital city, now renamed Chang’an after its Han and Tang predecessors. In Beijing, however, some differences arose among the rebel leaders. In Lu’s words, It was said that, when Li Zicheng entered the capital, he considered Prime Minister Niu Jinxing and the Great General Liu Zongmin to be his right and left hands. His nephew Li Guo massacred widely despite Li Yan’s and Li Mou’s entreaties to show sympathy to the common people and to maintain discipline among the troops. On the 20th was issued a broadside to pacify the people, saying “We swear not to kill any innocent people,” and the like. The illegitimate grand secretary Niu announced: “On the 21st, all civil officials and military officers in the capital should convene at Donghua Gate. All those with seals from the previous dynasty who want to hold office will be selected according to their talent; those who do not wish to serve are allowed to go home; those who hide and do not report will be killed along with their families. This edict is to be sent down.” Suddenly, there appeared many more illegitimate notices [addressed to former Ming scholar officials] like Niu’s.63 Lu went on to describe Li Yan’s and other rebel leaders’ handling of Ming officials such as Zhou Zhong, who, we have seen, surrendered and served the 62  The allusion here is to the four leaders Jiang Qing, Wang Hongwen, Yao Wenyuan, and Zhang Chunqiao, who were charged with planning to take power from Mao Zedong and his older chief officials after Mao died. Our late-Ming rebel “gang of four” included Li Yan, Niu Jinxing, Song Xiance, and Liu Zongmin and, variously, Li Mou, Li Daliang, Li You, or Hong Niangzi. They resembled the Cultural Revolution “gang” only in working closely together and, in the cases of Li Yan and Li Mou, in being charged with trying to seize power illegitimately. 63  Lu/Luan 1654/1985: 251, 258, 269.

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Shun. Lu recorded Niu Jinxing’s role in preparing for Li Zicheng to mount the throne, and, for the first time, Li Yan’s role in organizing twelve battalions to resist the forces of Wu Sangui. He concluded by recounting the assassination of Li Yan and Li Mou and the political problems faced by Ming scholar-officials like Zhou Zhong when they left Beijing and reached their homes in Jiangnan.64 The trend toward turning the history and story of Li Zicheng and Li Yan into a full-fledged historical novel reached its peak in this period in The Complete Account of the Iron Helmet Pictures. This fifty-chapter novel was compiled by a Pine Forest Mountain Man, edited by a Dragon Cliff Master, and first printed around 1663.65 We know nothing about the anonymous authors behind these brush names, but they developed the story of Li Yan with scant concern for historical facts and with vigorous exercise of their literary imaginations. The title of this novel referred to three images that the Iron Helmet Daoist named Zhang Zihua had purportedly shown to the Ming founder, Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhang had predicted that the dynasty would last a long time but would eventually come to an end with three events: the appearance of a ten-eight-child (referring to Li Zicheng’s rebellion); the hanging of an adult (referring to ruler Chongzhen’s suicide); and the establishment of 10,000 years (referring to the long-lived Qing polity).66 The novel discussed another Daoist, the Henanese named Song Jiong. whose courtesy name was Xiance, i.e. the diviner already described in the sources discussed above. Song was aware that the Ming was coming to an end and he thought that Li Zicheng, also called Dashing, had the appearance of a potential son of heaven. In a possible reference to the Ming’s destruction of Li Zicheng’s ancestral graves in 1642 in an effort to eliminate his spiritual power, Song said that Li Zicheng could become ruler only after his ancestors’ graves were moved to an auspicious site and his parents were properly buried at the same site. In the first of many farcical incidents in this novel, Li Zicheng could not wait for his parents to die natural deaths. He therefore poisoned them and buried their corpses with those of the ancestors to clear the way for his rise to power. When the shockingly unfilial Li broke the law and brought harm to the people, he was jailed and then rescued from jail by fellow villagers. Li and his men then killed not the magistrate, who was named Yanfa (a possible allusion to the ruler of the afterworld introduced in Strange Hearsay), but his wife. This act revealed Li’s misogyny but also accorded some agency to the woman. The 64  Lu/Luan 1654/1985: 272, 273, 275, 280, 283. 65  I have used the edition punctuated by Zhu Meishu in 1995 and will therefore cite it as Anon./Zhu 1663/1995. 66  Chan 1973: 67, 69–100; Chan 1975: 703–704; Qi 2000: 212.

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rebels also captured the magistrate’s daughter, named Ziying, and a son named Yuqi, and they occupied the magistrate’s office. Li Zicheng’s wife, in turn, was jealous of Ziying who was attracting Li’s attention and so she planned to kill her. Ziying was saved by a tiger and a woodcutter and she joined her father, Yan Fa, who, having lost his post but saved his life, fled south to Lingnan. There Yan Fa met up with the rebel leader Zhang Xianzhong, who took his daughter Ziying captive. Fortunately, Yan Fa’s nephew, the Ming general Zuo Liangyu, a fully historical figure, came to Ziying’s rescue and married her.67 In addition to its greater length and colloquial language, the novel thus created personal family links among several key figures. It brought the personae of Li Zicheng’s rebellion into closer—but increasingly fictive—relationships designed to appeal to a large readership.68 According to this account, the Ming general Zuo Liangyu defeated Li Zicheng at Song Mountain. Li then hid in the home of one Gao Ruyue until Gao’s younger brother turned him in and he was arrested. Song Jiong learned about this. He joined with Li Yan, son of a late board president named Li Ji, and used Menghanyaoma, the narcotic of highwaymen, to rescue Li Zicheng from captivity on the road to the capital. Dashing took control of Jinsuo mountain and his power was ablaze. In the words of the preface to The Complete Account of the Iron Helmet Pictures, In Qi County, Li Yan learned that military supplies were being sent to Huguang for Zuo Liangyu, and he joined Niu Jinxing, Miao Renfeng and others in plans to seize it. The plans came to the attention of the Qi magistrate and Li Yan was jailed. When Dashing heard that news, he took Qi County and saved Yan. Yan then formally rallied to Dashing. From then on, Dashing called himself the Dashing Prince, and he made Song Jiong commander-in-chief and Niu Jinxing prime minister.69 Dashing’s troops besieged Kaifeng, the city fell, and half of Henan became his. Zhang Xianzhong was angry and allied with Luo Rucai to contend with Dashing for territory. Dashing used Song’s and Niu’s strategy of “dividing the dragon association” to demarcate the land to be protected and he targeted Zhang Xianzhong’s beloved general He Yilong to be killed. At the time, Zuo Liangyu deputed Luo Rucai to protect Henan. Song Jiong allied with remnants of He Yilong’s force to kill Luo Rucai. He gained hundreds of thousands of men, 67  Anon./Zhu 1663/1995: 581. 68  Han 2012: 67–68. 69  Anon./Zhu 1663/1995: 582.

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horses, and equipment and Dashing’s power increased. Dashing attacked Xi’an and killed the Fu prince; the Ming general Sun Chuanting (1593–1643) died of illness and Dashing proclaimed the Da Shun state. Li Zicheng’s ancestral graves were violated by the Ming forces. The Ming general Cai Moude committed suicide. Shanxi and Hedong fell to the rebels and Song Jiong secretly negotiated with the Ming eunuch Du Xun. The Ming general Chen Yongfu (whose son Chen De was actually the one who had shot Li Zicheng in the eye) surrendered to Dashing. Chongzhen called up 100,000 troops and put Li Jiantai (d. 1643) in charge of them. Li Jiantai was based in Baoding and refused to advance. Li Yan came from Henan, attacked Baoding, and killed Li Jiantai. Dashing’s forces besieged Beijing, Du Xun surrendered the city, and Chongzhen committed suicide on Coal Hill. Dashing’s troops entered the city and plundered it. “The palace maid Fei pretended to be a princess and was given by Dashing to Li Yan. She then stabbed Yan to death.” At Shanhaiguan, Wu Sangui heard that his favorite concubine, Chen Yuanyuan, had fallen into the hands of Dashing. He therefore decided not to ally with the rebel Da Shun against the Manchu Qing, but to surrender to the Qing and help it put down the rebels. Finally, according to this account, Li Zicheng fled to Shaanxi, Niu Jinxing was killed in battle, and Song Jiong went into hiding.70 In sum, this disjointed account mixed facts with fiction and created links among historical actors that did not exist.71 It smeared the rebels’ reputation even as it brought elements of their stories to a wider readership. Perhaps its greatest contribution to the development and acceptance of the Li Yan story as history was to suggest how much more historical the three previous literary accounts had been than this one! The textual origins of the story of the scholar-rebel Li Yan thus lay in several works that covered the gamut from memoirs, through little stories and accounts of current events, to a historical novel. As it happened, most of these accounts were compiled, written, edited and/or printed by Ming loyalists in the province called Nanjing in the Ming and Jiangsu in the Qing. Soon a variety of historians, most of whom hailed from Zhejiang Province, accepted parts of the story, modified them to make them more interesting and credible, and integrated them into their private, public, and official histories.

70  Anon./Zhu 1663/1995: 582–583. 71  Sato 2010: 109–111 shares this judgment.

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Private Histories: Manuscripts and Books

1.2.1 Tan Qian The first serious historian to accept the bare bones of the story and to elaborate on them in his own way seems to have been Tan Yixun (1594–1658), courtesy name Rumu. Tan was from Haining department in Hangzhou Prefecture, in Zhejiang. He was born into a scholarly family and passed the departmental examination to become a government student, but he failed the provincial examinations and so never became eligible for a regular official post. Around 1621, when he was only twenty-seven years old, he decided that existing histories of the Ming were inadequate, and he began collecting materials to write his own account. He served as a private secretary to high Ming officials and gained access to a wide variety of sources which he used to compile a history of the dynasty in the annalistic style. Since he had turned down even informal posts in the late Ming, he did not feel the need to take extreme measures to express his loyalty to the dynasty after it fell. Instead, he devoted himself to writing his history and modified his name to express his ambitions. Because his family name happened to be the same as the personal name of the Han historian Sima Tan (d. 110 BCE), Tan decided to change his own personal name to Qian, following the personal name of Sima Tan’s son, Sima Qian (ca. 135–93 BCE), the master historian of the Western Han period.72 By this name change, Tan Qian signaled his intention to become a great historian and possibly to maintain his identity as a “Han” person in the face of the rising Manchu Qing state.73 Tan Qian completed the first draft of his magnum opus, which he named Evaluation of a State, as early as 1627, but he continued to work on it through six revisions and was compelled to do so again after the manuscript was stolen in 1647. Tan based his work on a multitude of official and unofficial written sources and supplemented them with oral accounts. The result was a voluminous history in 104 fascicles that provided especially detailed accounts of the last two decades of the Ming. Tan lived most of his life in Zhejiang, but he traveled to Beijing in 1653 and spent three years there. At that time he communicated with other historians, and he recorded his experiences in a book titled Record of a Journey to the North. In 1657, he traveled to Shanxi where, the following year, he died suddenly of botulism. Tan made a kind of peace with the Qing dynasty, referring to himself as simply a left-over scholar from the Ming 72  Goodrich and Fang 1976: 1239–1242. 73  For Tan’s awareness of similarities between the Han and Ming polities, see Tan 1653/1958: 95.5783, 5809–5810; 96.5828, 5832;101.6080.

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and using the new dynastic name Qing without any negative qualifier. But he also continued to refer in his writings to the Manchus as caitiffs and foreigners, making it impossible for his work to be printed during his lifetime and through the entire Qing period. Indeed, the work was finally edited and published only in 1958.74 Like his models, the Simas, Tan compiled a massive work (ten Western-style volumes today) that was comprehensive, based on a wide variety of primary materials. It was also selective, offering highly condensed versions of many narratives. As a good historian, Tan was intent on anchoring personalities and events firmly in time and space. In presenting the Li Yan story, Tan began with the following report. On 2/12/1641, Li Zicheng took Yongning, killed the Wan‘an prince Cai Qing, and reduced forty-eight forts one after the other. Local bandits rose in response. Then they [Li Zicheng’s troops] took Yiyang and their numbers rose to several tens of thousands. The student named Li Yan from Qi served as advisor. He took what they plundered and gave it to the famished. So, wherever they went, people went over to them, and the number of rebel troops increased.75 In this short passage, Tan passed over the story of Li Yan’s rebelling in Qi County and simply described him as an advisor to Li Zicheng when that rebel leader was taking towns in western Henan. Tan must have been aware that there was no record that any Li Yan of Qi obtained a provincial degree in the late Ming, as oral and literary accounts were saying. He therefore reduced Li Yan to a government student, a lower civil service examination status which was not systematically recorded. As a government student himself, Tan would have been quite aware of the large number and considerable importance of such local scholars during the Ming and especially in the late Ming period. As a relative outsider to the Ming and Qing establishments, Tan may also have identified with the local scholar who acted to share the wealth with the famished. Tan often referred to Li Zicheng, Li Yan and other rebels as bandits and robbers, but he sometimes mentioned them without those pejorative monikers, especially when they seemed to behave civilly in pursuit of social justice. The title “advisor” (lit. plan master, mouzhu 謀主), which he applied to Li Yan, dated back to the Warring States period and was used in the Han. It was an informal title that could be adopted by one or more subordinates of various 74  Tan 1653/1958: 1.1–3 tiji. 75  Tan 1653/1958: 97.5884.

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kinds of political leaders. An advisor fulfilled the function of mentor to the powerful, which was the ideal of Confucian scholars. But multiple advisors often had to compete for the leader’s attention and their status could rise and fall precipitously and sometimes disastrously. During the years after 1641, Tan’s detailed record, like Zhao Shijin’s memoir, included more information on Song Xiance and Niu Jinxing than on Li Yan. Between the rebels’ first and second assaults on Kaifeng in early 1642, the diviner Song Xiance was said to recommend that Li Zicheng move south to Nanyang Prefecture in preparation for going west into Shaanxi, but there was no mention of Li Yan.76 At the beginning of 1643, the provincial graduate Niu Jinxing and his son Niu Quan were active in the rebellion in Henan, but there was no mention of any Li Yan or Li Mou.77 After Li Zecheng killed his erstwhile subordinates Luo Rucai and He Yilong, the rebel general Liu Zongmin appeared in Tan’s account as the Quan general, and, without explanation, Li You was recorded as the Weiwu general. Others were described as Zhi (or second ranked) generals, but Li Yan, who was said to hold that position, and his supposed younger brother Li Mou, were absent from the text at this point.78 As the rebels approached Beijing in early 1644, Song Xiance was listed as commander-in-chief, Niu Jinxing as prime minister, and Li Zhensheng as the (reluctant) Shun minister of public works, but there was again no reference to Li Yan or to Li Mou.79 On April 25, Niu Jinxing congratulated Li Zicheng for shooting an arrow into the Chengtian gate in Beijing and for arranging the rites for the rebel leader’s ascension to the throne, but, again there was no mention of Li Yan. Tan did mention the story of the palace woman named Fei but he modified it by having her kill not Li Yan but a man named Luo who had raped her. Tan did repeat Zhao Shijin’s claim that Li Yan lived in the home of Zhou Kui, but his account differed slightly from Zhao’s. In Tan’s words, “Liu Zongmin occupied Tian Hongyu’s house, Li Guo occupied Yuan You’s house, Gu Ying occupied Wan Wei’s house, Li Yan occupied Zhou Kui’s house, and the rest occupied Xun Qi’s house. They seized their wives and daughters.”80 In Tan’s detailed account, Li Yan and Li Mou were far from being the main Henanese advisors to Li Zicheng or the only protectors of ex-Ming officials. Tan confirmed reports that, as of 27 April 1644, the Henanese officials who surrendered to the rebels included: He Ruizheng, Xue Suoyun, Han Siwei, Shi 76  Tan 1653/1958: 97.5909. 77  Tan 1653/1958: 99.5958–5959. 78  Tan 1653/1958: 99.5966. 79  Tan 1653/1958: 100.6012. 80  Tan 1653/1958: 100. 6047–6048.

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Kecheng, and He Yinguang.81 The next day, Tan recorded that Empress Yi’an was to be sent home, but she committed suicide. Tan made no mention of any effort by anyone, let alone by Li Yan, to save her.82 On April 29, Niu Jinxing prepared obsequies for Chongzhen with the assistance of Li You. He also changed the names of government offices and responded to Zhou Zhong’s request for the rebels to respect the remains of the former Ming ruler.83 On May 3, when Li Zicheng asked his nephew Li Guo and others to help make him a good august lord by demonstrating lenience, Li Guo replied that being august lord was Li Zicheng’s responsibility, executing punishments was theirs, and Li Zicheng should not interfere with their work.84 On May 7, “Li Zicheng held a wine party for Niu Jinxing, Song Xiance, Song Qijiao, Liu Zongmin, Li Guo and others,” but no mention was made of Li Yan or Li Mou. On May 8, Niu set up the Shun civil service examinations, and, on May 9, some officials being investigated were freed.85 While Li Guo was said to be hard on ex-Ming officials, Li Zicheng could on occasion be lenient. In Tan’s words, On 17/4/7 (May 12), Li Zicheng went by Liu Zongmin’s place and saw over three hundred men who had been expropriated living in miserable conditions. He ordered that consideration be given to freeing them, but more than a thousand had already been killed. Zongmin collected provisions worth perhaps one million in gold [i.e. actually, silver]. Commanders Li Yan, Li Mou, and Li You levied less than one-half of that, so they raised 200 in gold from each of their subordinates to fill the quota.86 Song Xiance was also described as a protector of an ex-Ming official. On 13 May, a secretary in the Bureau of Honors in the Ministry of Personnel Wu Zichang also shaved his head; he alone was not questioned and was used because he had long-standing good relations with Song Xiance.87 On the same day, when Li Zicheng heard that Wu Sangui had killed his envoy, he called in Li You and others to make plans. They decided to send several tens of thousands of cavalry east. When Wu Sangui heard the rumor that his father had been killed by the rebeks, he returned from Yutian, in Zunhua department in Beizhili, to Shanhaiguan. 81  Tan 1653/1958: 100.6056, 6060. 82  Tan 1653/1958: 100. 6057. 83  Tan 1653/1958: 100. 6058–6059. 84  Tan 1653/1958: 100.6062. 85  Tan 1653/1958: 101.6066–6069. 86  Tan 1653/1958: 101.6070. 87  Tan 1653/1958: 101.6070.

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It was at this time that Li Yan reportedly submitted the four-point memorial which Tan summarized as follows: On 14 May 1644, the illegitimate Zhi general Li Yan memorialized on four issues: One, to clean out the six palaces; two, to divide the surrendered officials into three groups, and those who resist orders should restore stolen booty and be punished; three, order all troops to be stationed outside the walls and to wait for orders, not disturbing people’s dwellings; four, win over Wu Sangui, promise him a large state, establish the Ming heir apparent to receive sacrifices and tribute over generations. Li Zicheng did not listen.88 Tan made no immediate comment on Li Yan’s proposals, but his note that Li Zicheng was not listening did not augur well for the Shun regime. Niu Jinxing was aware that the fledgling Shun state was facing major challenges. In Tan’s words: On the same day, Li Zicheng discussed sending troops east. He was a little alarmed. He awarded each general 100 in silver, each soldier 10 in silver. The clerks were losing hope, so he awarded them forty feet of white cloth and eighty feet of green cloth, all taken from the marketplace. At this time people in the capital were losing hope. Niu Jinxing and Gu Jun’en spoke to Liu Zongmin, saying: ‘Now we fear only that the troops will rebel; we don’t fear the people will rebel. We rely on the troops to attack and capture; with even a slight frustration, they will no longer be ours to use….’ Song Xiance said privately: ‘Our master is the son of heaven on horseback. Sadly, he has killed many. He will have only three years of wealth and status.’ The bandits’ hearts and minds were increasingly shaken.89 In the debates and planning that followed, Li Yan was depicted by Tan as playing a minor, almost invisible, role. On May 18, Li Zicheng led 60,000 troops east while claiming they numbered 100,000, and Liu Zongmin, Li Guo, and others followed. Also following were the commander-in-chief, Song Xiance, the Heir Apparent, the Yong Prince, the Ding Prince, and Wu Xiang…. Niu Jinxing, Li Mou, Li You and others took charge of the defense [of Beijing]. 88  Tan 1653/1958: 101.6070. 89  Tan 1653/1958: 101.6071.

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On May 20, He Ruizheng at the full moon led literary officials to meet Niu Jinxing. Jinxing said: “Rumors arise on all sides. If you gentlemen do not have serious matters, you had better not go out.”90 Here we see Li Mou and Li You active in defending Beijing but no overt mention of Li Yan playing that role. We also see Niu Jinxing checking in with the fellow Henanese scholar-official, He Ruizheng, but there is no mention of Li Yan being involved in the discussion. As morale among the rebels declined, Ming loyalists became bolder, resulting in harsh Shun repression of the opposition. In Tan’s words: On the morning of May 22, there were placards outside the Xuanwu gate saying: ‘the heavenly mandated kalpa era lends a hand to Dashing to warn corrupt clerks and officials who have discarded the Ming dynasty and taken new offices. Now the Great Ming’s fortunes must be restored, the heir apparent is marvelous, the hundred officials big and little should join together to protect him and continue to carry on the business of the Ming….’ The illegitimate commander Li You seized the people living in the vicinity of the placard and killed them. He patrolled the city and investigated this matter. The Buddhist novices in the Guanyin temple said that the old monks had done it and they were imprisoned. Then the bandits fled and the old monks were restored to good health.91 17/4/19 Wu Sangui attacked the bandits inside the pass and defeated them. The bandits advanced along different roads. The sun set. When Niu Jinxing heard the news, he was even more alarmed. He feared conflict within. He collected arms inside the city and closed the gates tightly.92 Here again, it is Li You who is active in enforcing Da Shun authority; there is no mention of Li Yan. In the context of Wu Sangui joining with the Qing prince Dorgon (1612– 1650) to defeat Li Zicheng, Tan Qian described a student named Li Xiaoyu from Xiangfu County in Henan who recounted the events around May 27. Revealing his methodology in dealing with questionable cases, Tan remarked that he included his account of Li Xiaoyu so that it could be evaluated and verified later.93 On May 26, Li Zicheng continued negotiating with Wu Sangui over 90  Tan 1653/1958: 101. 6073. 91  Tan 1653/1958: 101.6074. 92  Tan: 101.6075. 93  Tan 1653/1958: 101.6076.

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the treatment of the heir apparent, but fighting also continued. On May 27, Li Zicheng had Wu Sangui’s father, Wu Xiang, killed.94 On May 31, the Henanese scholar He Ruizheng urged Li Zicheng to take the throne. On June 1, Li had thirty-four other members of Wu’s family executed. “As Wu Sangui approached Beijing, Li ordered Liu Zongmin, Li Guo, Li Yan and others to pull together eighteen battalions to resist and put the surrendered general Tang Tong in the front ranks.” On June 3, Li Zicheng mounted the throne, the Tianyou pavilion grand secretary Niu Jinxing paid respects to heaven on his behalf, and the six ministers were one in inaugurating the Da Shun Yongchang reign year one. “The illegitimate porcelain earl Liu Zongmin assisted with the creation, peacefully standing and not bowing. He said: ‘of old, you and I were equal.’ The surrendered officials all bowed. Zongmin had to bow and then he withdrew.” On June 4, just before daybreak, Li Zicheng exited the Qihua gate and went west. Liu Zongmin, Li You and others followed. “The Royal Academician Xue Suoyun, at the secret order of Song Xiance, went out through the Xuanwu gate.”95 To get a historical perspective on the flagging rebellion, Tan discussed the Red Eyebrows and Yellow Turbans that had risen and fallen at the ends of the Xin and Later Han periods respectively. Once again, Tan seemed to signal his awareness of an affinity between the Han and Ming polities, a hope that the Ming might take on a new life as had the Later Han, but a fear that it might end as had the Later Han. Tan mentioned Liu Zongmin, Li Mou, and Li You in passing, but not Li Yan.96 Tan also mentioned the illegitimate Quan general, Guo Shengzhi, who may have been the Guo who was said to have occupied Zhou Kui’s house with Li Yan. Tan reported that Guo went home to Yanzhou in Shandong.97 On June 8, Wu Sangui and Qing forces killed three rebel generals and inflicted a massive defeat on Li Zicheng’s forces in Zhending, a county and prefectural town in Jingshi (Beizhili).98 On June 9, the Henanese scholarofficial He Ruizheng once again shifted his allegiance. He now joined the Qing prince-regent, Dorgon, in undertaking to compile the history of the just ended Chongzhen reign.99 On June 11, the erstwhile Ming and Shun official Fang Dayou, who had protected Zhao Shijin from the rebels’ wrath, followed Wu Sangui in surrendering to the Qing. The Qing ordered him to take office 94  Tan 1653/1958: 101.6077–6078. 95  Tan 1653/1958: 101.6079. 96  Tan 1653/1958:101.6080. 97  Tan 1653/1958: 101.6081. 98  Tan 1653/1958: 101.6085. The town was sometimes called Zhengding or Dingzhou depending on which names were taboo at the time. 99  Tan 1653/1958: 101.6087.

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in Tongzhou in Shuntian Prefecture, in Jingshi Province. His teacher Yang Shicong, meanwhile, led his family south.100 On June 26, many illegitimate officers, including the Quan general Guo Shengzhi, were reported to be still at large.101 On June 26, “Niu and Li,” presumably referring to Niu Jinxing and Li Yan, were depicted as discussing how former Ming scholar-officials who had surrendered to the rebel Shun regime were being punished in Nanjing according to six categories developed in the Tang period, presumably in the wake of the Huang Chao uprising102 With the rebel Shun state driven from Beijing and suffering a major defeat in Beizhili, Ming loyalist forces were emboldened to take action against the Shun administration in Henan. In Tan’s words On June 30, the Sui-Gui Lieutenant Colonel Ding Qiguang and Guide prefect Sang Kaidi together sent troops to seize the illegitimate officials in Henan, including departmental magistrate Chen Gao, Shangqiu magistrate Jia Shijun, Zhecheng magistrate Guo Jingbang, Luyi magistrate Sun Deng, Dingling magistrate Xu Cheng, Kaocheng magistrate Fan Jiu, and Xiayi magistrate [unnamed]. They confiscated their illegitimate credentials and escorted them to Nanjing.103 On July 14, the Ming loyalist, Ma Shiying, serving as an official in the Fu Prince’s rump Ming regime in Nanjing, reported on the punishment of Zhou Zhong and his family members for having colluded with the rebels in Beijing.104 On July 24, the Jiangbei vice-minister of the court of imperial stud and censorial commissioner Wan Yuanji memorialized that the report that the dashing bandit died is not confirmed. Now he is entering Qin [Shaanxi] and still selecting stalwarts whose lances must be sharp. If they go out through Shang [an independent department in Shaanxi] and [the river] Han, they will go directly to Xiangyang and Chengtian [prefectures in Hubei Province]. If they go out through Yu [Henan] and Song [Shangqiu], they will directly spy on Jiangbei [Anhui and Jiangsu]. I fear that the generals and officers up river will withdraw and run down [south], and those on the north bank will rush 100  Tan 1653/1958: 101.6091. 101  Tan 1653/1958: 101.6103. 102  Tan 1653/1958: 101.6104. 103  Tan 1653/1958: 101.6106. 104  Tan 1653/1958: 101. 6116.

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to cross to the south. Jinling [Nanjing] is an important site, but the military preparations are all weak, so how will it stand up to this? I beg for the issuance of an edict that all officials and clerks in the center or outside should not rush after unsustainable rank and fame and should not risk inescapable criticism. Setting aside our original purposes and collecting the people’s hopes, we must gather the masses resolve to take revenge on our foes. Ma Shiying asks for the speedy awarding to Zhao Guangyuan of open authority and freedom of action. At the time, all of Shaanxi had fallen and Zhao Guangyuan also surrendered [to the rebels.] At the beginning Li Zicheng, went from Jingxing [a county in Jingshi/Beizhili] through Guguan. Wu Sangui was returning east. Li Zicheng was raising troops and going west. He reached Pingyang [a prefecture in southwestern Shanxi]. He divided his troops to guard all the passes into Shanxi. He also sent Hanzhong [county and prefecture in southern Shaanxi] troops west to plunder Hanzhong. Zicheng raised frontier troops. Liu Zongmin et al. were all blacksmiths and butchers. They were not familiar with giving orders to subordinates. After Niu Jinxing forged the declaration of usurpation, masses of robbers surrounded him to listen. Already Li Yan and Li Mou, elder and younger brother, had come running. Yan was a government student. He knew about literary matters and accepted the position of Zhi general. He was rather strict in discipline. People’s hearts and minds were partial [to him]. Niu Jinxing was envious of Yan, who was respected by the bandits. Many of the generals and troops sat in disarray without respect for ranks. There was a vice-president of the Ministry of Revenue named Wu Chi, who had surrendered to the bandits. People called him Tiger Wu. Wu frequently covered his mouth with his hand and laughed [a pun on his name “Wu Hu”]. Li Yan took [L]Zicheng lightly. When the bandits were defeated, many bandit officials died or fled. Their power declined a bit. In Henan and Shandong, many illegitimate officials were killed. Li Yan and others knew in their hearts and minds that it would not succeed. They worried that they would not achieve their goals. Then they heard that Ding Qiguang had killed all the illegitimate officials in Guide. Zicheng was planning a way out. Li Yan asked for 20,000 troops to go back down to Henan. Zicheng hesitated, did not reply, and left. He secretly spoke to [Niu] Jinxing and said: “Li Yan has the fierce temperament of the owl [that reputedly eats its mother, i.e. is disloyal]. When he was in dire straits, he transferred his allegiance to us. If I bestow troops on him so he can realize his goals, he will be hard to manage.” Jinxing replied: “Henan is the gateway to Qin [Shaanxi] and the screen for Jin [Shanxi] and Chu [Hubei]. It is also Li Yan’s home province. If you give

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him many troops, he will raise the braves of the central province and will contend for the known world, and there is no telling what will happen. Also he has the same family name [as you] and he has long thought he could realize the omen of the eighteenth child. Now we hear that Henan is in chaos. He suddenly asks to act and we can know what his intentions are. We must do away with him.” The next day Zicheng sent troops for an official banquet for troops departing on a mission. They killed Yan and the General who Smites the North, Li Mou, as they were sitting on the mat. [Zicheng] led his troops to attack Hanzhong [prefecture in Shaanxi] and they took it. Zhao Guangyuan surrendered.105 In Wan’s report, we can see several developments relevant to the Li Yan story. First, there was a rumor that Li Zicheng had been killed and Wan reported that that was not the case. That may have raised the possibility that another rebel leader named Li [e.g. Li Yan?] had been killed. Second, in Wan’s report we can sense tensions among the rebel leaders and suggestions that Li Yan did not respect Li Zicheng. That may help to explain why Li Zicheng finally turned against his advisor and had him assassinated. Third, the assassination may have occurred in southwestern Shanxi or even in Shaanxi. Fourth, and finally, the death of Li Yan and Li Mou seems not to have resulted in the disabling of the rebel leadership. Li Zicheng was able to lead his remaining troops victoriously into southern Shaanxi. The assassination of Li Yan and Li Mou nonetheless helped to tip the balance of power in Henan from the Shun rebel state in retreat to the Ming rump regime holding Nanjing. Local warlords who had been on the fence now shifted their support from the Shun to Nanjing. “On August 10, [Nanjing] added the surrendered robbers Li Jiyu and Liu Hongqi as brigade generals to defend Henan [from Li Zicheng]. Li Zicheng’s forces were still strong enough to retaliate. “On August 14, bandits came out of the pass. From Luoyang they attacked Li Jiyu’s small fort in Mi County [in Kaifeng Prefecture].”106 The deaths of Li Yan and Li Mou spared them the prospect of being charged in Nanjing with participation in the failed rebellion, but it also made them perfect foils to deflect attention from the significant number of other Henanese scholars who were caught up in the rebellion and/or surrendered to the Qing. According to Tan,

105  Tan: 102: 6122. 106  Tan: 102: 6129.

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On September 8, the president of the Ministry of Punishments in Nanjing, Jie Xuelong, and the Vice-president of the Right He Shishou, memorialized about the crimes of those who followed the traitors. He Ruizheng … Fang Dayou … Gong Dingci … Sun Chengze … Xue Suoyun … Liu Chang … were among those who fell into the hands of the caitiff court. Some did not forget their own state. Their cases can be decided finally in two or three years [when the Ming, presumably, will have recovered the central plain]. Now we shall settle the first rank—those who voluntarily followed the bandits, including … Niu Jinxing…. The second rank … to be executed in the fall includes … Zhou Zhong…. The third rank, including He Yinguang, should be strangled in recompense…. The fourth, including Hou Xun, should be exiled…. The fifth, including Fang Yizhi should be banished…. The sixth should be beaten … and cases further discussed. This makes a total of twenty-eight individuals not counting those who have already died and who are therefore not discussed here. An edict said the bandit commander-in-chief [Song] Xiance in the Ming planned to damage the spirits of grain and soil so among the multitude of companions how can his punishment be relieved? Supervisors and commanders who surrendered to the bandits feel their crimes are very heavy. How can they be assigned to the second rank? Fourth and fifth grade Hanlin scholars followed them and abided by the bandits’ illegitimate orders. Moreover, intendants and other officials surrendered; how can we address that with only one strangulation? Many officials issued illegitimate orders, and officials in the provinces often fled upon hearing about the changes. How can their punishments be restricted to exile? Those who selected from the women and servants [presented to them], how could their crimes be limited to banishment? These issues need to be further discussed.107 During the last three months of 1644, Henan witnessed a struggle among the remnant Shun, the declining Ming, and the rising Qing for the mandate to govern China. Tan recorded that: “On November 19, Li Zicheng sent troops through the Tong pass. Of the total of eight battalions, three went to Guide, three to Yuzhou, and two to Jia County.”108 During November, Li Zicheng sent troops to stop the Qing armies from crossing the Yellow River. When they failed, Li Zicheng sentenced the commander to death. This caused Tan to remark that “Zicheng was given to killing people. He did not involve the judicial officials. Niu Jinxing said it [the case] should go down to the Board of Punishments 107  Tan: 102.6136–37. 108  Tan: 103.6158.

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Vice-President Geng Shiran. In the beginning, the Shun bandits emphasized discussion. For two months there were many memorials. Zicheng shouted: ‘He ought to die.’ Shiran was afraid and he committed suicide with his wife.”109 Li Zicheng’s forces strongly opposed the Qing cavalry under the Yu Prince Duoduo (1614–1649), but they lost control of Tong pass. Tens of thousands of rebels were killed, among them Liu Zongmin.110 Meanwhile, in Nanjing, Jie Xuelong’s draft indictment of former Ming scholar-officials who surrendered to the Shun was suspended because of the accession of the Fu Prince. There were also criticisms of the indictment as being too lenient. In fact, even its light punishments were never carried out because the Nanjing regime was soon eliminated by the Qing.111 Tan Qian was the first historian to include elements of the Li Yan story in what has been widely accepted by historians in recent years as the single most detailed and reliable history of the Ming dynasty now available. It effectively takes the place of the Veritable Records of the Tianqi reign (1624–26), which were destroyed by the Ming-Qing grand secretary Feng Quan (1595–1672), and it substitutes for the veritable records of the Chongzhen reign (1627–1644), which were never compiled because the Ming was replaced by the Qing.112 Indeed, many years ago, when I first raised questions about Li Yan’s historicity, my highly respected mentor and friend Frederick Mote cited the authority of Tan Qian as one good reason to think that Li Yan was an authentic historical personality. Tan’s close attention to time and place, the bread and butter (or rice and oil!) of historians, was only one reason to take his account very seriously. As we have seen, however, Tan often referred to Li Yan and Li Mou in the briefest of terms. He left out many of the details of the story that had appeared in the little histories, little stories, and the novel that circulated widely in the decade following 1644, when Tan was finishing his book. More importantly, as we have also seen, Tan’s magnum opus, completed three years before he died, was too critical of the Qing state to be printed. In fact, it remained in manuscript during the following three centuries and it was finally published only in 1958. As a manuscript, Tan’s “Evaluation of the State” may have circulated among a few members of the elite (including the ones who stole an early version of it!), but it was probably not very widely read and thus did little to authenticate or discredit the Li Yan story in the eyes of contemporaries and later generations. 109  Tan 1653/1958: 103.6159. 110  Tan 1653/1958: 104.6173–74. 111  Tan 1653/1958: 104. 6175, 6179, 6180. 112  Gu 2012a: 118–119; see also the biography of Feng by Tu Lien-che in Hummel 1944: 240–241.

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1.2.2 Gu Yingtai The story of Li Yan gained considerable authority, however, when a very concise—not to say cryptic—version of it appeared in Gu Yingtai’s (1620– 1690) Record of Events from Beginning to End in Ming History. Gu was a native of Fengjun County in Zhili Province who earned his metropolitan degree in 1647 and served in a capital post before becoming educational commissioner of Zhejiang Province from 1656 to 1660. In that post, he was able to work with others to collect materials for compiling his eighty-fascicle work.113 He adopted the form, pioneered by Yuan Shu of the Southern Song period, of treating topics from beginning to end, one topic per fascicle, over the course of time, and he adapted the form to focus on a single dynasty.114 Gu showed remarkable interest in popular uprisings, especially in fascicle seventy-five, titled “the many robbers in the central plain.” Significantly, however, he did not mention Li Yan and Li Mou there, probably because he lacked reliable and detailed source materials on them.115 As a scholar-official loyal to the presently ruling polity (he routinely referred to the dynasty as “our great Qing”), he was able to have the work printed in 1659. This was the first major history of the Ming to be published and it has enjoyed great prestige and influence even to today.116 Gu’s account of Li Yan was nonetheless even more abbreviated than Tan’s. It began the practice of confining references to Li Yan to the biography of Li Zicheng included in fascicle seventy-eight titled “the rebellion of Li Zicheng.”117 Gu followed Tan in having Li Yan join Li Zicheng’s rebel army when it entered western Henan Province and besieged Yongning County, although he mis-dated the attack to 1639. In his words, In the twelfth month of the twelfth year [December 1639 into January 1640], Zicheng besieged Yongning, using ladders and engaging in close combat to scale the walls and take the town. He burned and killed until the town was empty. He killed the Wan’an prince Bianjian and destroyed forty-eight forts. Local bandits, including One Dipper of Grain and other masses of robbers, rose up in response and took Yiyang, their numbers increasing to several tens of thousands. The government student from Qi County Li Yan was the advisor. All that the bandits got through plunder

113  See the biography by Tu Lien-che in Hummel 1943/1944: 426. See also Struve 1989: 31. 114  Chen Zuwu in Wenshi 31. 173. 115  Gu 1658: 75/1–37; 1977: 75/1247–1310. 116  Gu 1658. Introduction 1; IV: 78.1340; 80.1389. 117  Gu 1658: 78.56–76; 1977: 1337–1368.

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they distributed to the famished. Wherever they went, people joined them and their influence flourished.118 But if Li Yan’s joining Li Zicheng’s rebellion resulted in its rapid rise, Gu provided no evidence of it. In fact, the entire thirteenth year of the Chongzhen reign, which was Li Yan’s first year in the rebellion, was completely elided in Gu’s record of Li Zicheng’s rebellion. Gu had Niu Jinxing and Song Xiance rally to Li Zicheng later, in the fourth month of the fourteenth year (May 1641). Gu paid much more attention to them than he had to Li Yan. In his words, the Ming general Zuo Liangyu advanced from Xiangyang and attacked Li Zicheng. When he reached Nanyang, Zicheng went north to camp at Lushi, Yongning, and Baofeng. The provincial graduate Niu Jinxing had committed a crime and had been exiled. He surrendered to the bandits and Li Zicheng took his daughter as his wife. Jinxing recommended the diviner Song Xiance, who was good at the [Yellow] River and Lo[yang] numbers [methods of fortunetelling]. Song was not even three feet tall. When he met Zicheng, he showed him pictures and predictions, saying that a teneight child would take the throne. Zicheng was pleased and named him commander-in-chief of the army.119 Gu Yingtai, like Tan Qian, provided a fairly detailed account of the rise of Li Zicheng’s Shun state, but he did not mention any activities of Li Yan from 1640 through 1643. He paid much more attention to Niu Jinxing in this period. Niu advised Li Zicheng at Xiangyang in Hubei just before Li Zicheng killed the local Henanese rebel Yuan Shizhong in June 1643.120 After July, Gu wrote, Li Zicheng “considered Niu Jinxing to be a planner,” as if to remind readers that Li Yan was not the only one or even the principal one. This was followed by the rebel battle for Baofeng, Niu Jinxing’s home county.121 In November 1643, after the local Henanese rebel and strongman Li Jiyu failed to come to the assistance of the Ming general Sun Chuanting at Tongguan, Gu wrote about a man nicknamed “Tiger who took Wenxiang [in Shaan department, on the border with Shanxi]. Gu identified Tiger as Zicheng’s younger brother Li Guo.” This was a basic mistake (Li Guo was actually Li Zicheng’s nephew), but it indicated 118  Gu 1658: 78.58. 119  Gu 1658: 78.60; 78.1342. 120  Gu 1658: 78.66–67. 121  Gu 1658: 78. 68–69; 1977: 78. 1355.

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that Gu was aware of the activities of other Lis even as he made no mention of Li Yan or Li Mou.122 In November as well, according to Gu, Niu advised Li Zicheng to campaign directly north through Hebei to Beijing (as opposed to going west to Xi’an, as others suggested), but his advice was ignored. Niu also reportedly “counseled against killing,” advice that others usually attributed to Li Yan. In any case, Gu reported that it had little effect. In the eleventh month (December 1643), the rebels installed illegitimate officials in western Henan, including in Huaiqing Prefecture.123 In the first month of the seventeenth year (February 1644), Li Zicheng established his rebel administration in Xi’an. In the second month (March), he bestowed on Niu Jinxing “the title of prime minister.” In the third month (April), he conducted negotiations with Wu Sangui. On May 18, Li Zicheng led 60,000 troops east, and Liu Zongmin, Li Guo, and others followed him. On May 26, Wu Sangui defeated Li Zicheng at Yongping. Li Zicheng then killed Wu Sangui’s father, Wu Xiang.124 Soon thereafter, according to Gu, Liu Zongmin and others were killed by “our great Qing troops.” At this time, Li Guo changed his name to Li Xiu and crossed the lake to enter the mountains. He later changed his personal name again, this time to Chixin (meaning sincere). At this point, Gu wrote, the masses of bandits dispersed. In an extended comment, Gu remarked that “people are the base of the state, and food is the heaven of the people.” He criticized the rebel leaders for their weaknesses and strongly implied they were responsible for their defeat. He wrote: “planners Niu Jinxing and Gu Junen had narrow knowledge,” and the evil party of Liu Zongmin, Bai Wang and others were as fierce as mad dogs.” In contrast to all of these details about Niu Jinxing, Gu made no mention of the activities of any Li Yan or any Li Mou in Beijing or of their assassination on the road through Shanxi to Shaanxi.125 In fascicle 79, titled the “Changes (or risings) in 1644,” Gu went over some of the same ground with a focus on the contest for Beijing. He mentioned that Niu Jinxing, as illegitimate prime minister, followed Li Zicheng on horseback. Once again he did not mention Li Yan or Li Mou. Like Tan, Gu invoked the Red Eyebrows and he added Huang Chao as examples of rebels who failed to overturn their dynasties (the Han and the Tang), which therefore subsequently revived.126 Latent Ming loyalists like Tan Qian may have hoped that the suppression of Li Zicheng’s uprising might similarly lead to the revival of the Ming, 122  Gu 1658: 78.70–71.; 1977: 78. 1358. 123  Gu 1658: 78. 72–73; 1977: 78.1359. 124  Gu 1658: 78.74–75; 78. 1360. 125  Gu 1658 78.76–77; 1977: 78.1361–1367. 126  Gu 1658: 79. 86, 89; 1977:79.1384.

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but Gu was clearly not among them. Elsewhere in his history, Gu also consciously or unconsciously followed Tan in invoking personalities and events from the Han period as relevant to the Ming.127 Chen Zuwu has suggested that these analogies were inappropriate, but they were common at the time and revealed an important aspect of the general historical consciousness of the late Ming period. In the early Qing, Gu Yingtai also evinced interest in the Tang period, for example by co-editing, with Zhang Jinyan, a volume of poems by Du Fu. Zhang was a Henanese scholar-official who served as the last Ming Minister of Troops before surrendering to Li Zicheng, communicating briefly with the rebel regime, and finally surrendering to the Qing.128 In sum, we may infer from Gu Yingtai’s very sketchy account that he had serious doubts about the story of Li Yan as it had developed in literature, and, possibly, even as it was incorporated into Tan Qian’s manuscript. For example, Gu recounted the story that the rebels tried to dissuade Liu Lishun, the first placed metropolitan graduate from Qi County, Henan, from committing suicide, but he mentioned the involvement only of a “general Li,” not of Master Li let alone Li Yan, in that effort.129 He seemed to believe that the provincial graduate Niu Jinxing from Henan was a far more important advisor to Li Zicheng than Li Yan was. Maybe Gu even suspected that Niu Jinxing was the main historical reality behind the storied provincial graduate from Henan who became one of Li Zicheng’s most influential advisors. 1.2.3 Ji Liuqi A third historian who treated Li Yan as a historical figure separate from Li Zicheng was Ji Liuqi (1622–ca. 1687). Like Tan Qian, Ji was a government student, but, unlike Tan, he aspired to become a provincial graduate so that he might, like Gu Yingtai, hold a post in the Qing. In the end, however, Ji was unable to pass the provincial examinations to obtain that status. His frustration in that regard may have influenced his history writing.130 Ji was from Wuxi County in Changzhou Prefecture, Jiangsu Province, in the region where the Li Yan story was first written down, printed, and widely circulated. Ji completed his account of the late Ming rebellions, titled Outline of the End of the Ming in the North, in twenty-four fascicles, and wrote his preface to it in 1671. Because of its political sensitivity, including its obvious sympathy for the late-Ming rebellions and resentment of the Qing, his account was not printed until the 127  Chen Zuwu in Wenshi: 31.179. 128  Chen in Wenshi: 31.174–75; Gu 1658/1977: 79.85–86. 129  Gu 1658/1977: 80. 91: 1977: 80. 1389. 130  Ji 1671/1984: fulu. 729–733.

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nineteenth century.131 Ji acknowledged that he drew on informal histories that were not entirely reliable, but he insisted that they sometimes contained facts unavailable in more formal accounts and should not be completely ignored.132 Ji also conducted extensive interviews with elders who had been witnesses to history in his home town and elsewhere.133 Indeed, Ji accepted at face value not only Gong’s Little History, which first put forth the detailed account of Li Yan of Qi, but also Lu’s Woodcutter’s History, which added important details that made the account appear to be more credible. In Ji’s account, despite Tan’s and Gu’s demurrals, Li Yan was once again described as a provincial graduate (now indicated by the literary term “filial and honest).” It is unclear why Ji followed the literary sources and ignored the histories in bestowing the prestigious provincial degree on Li Yan, but Ji’s own frustrated interest in attaining that elite status may have played a role. Ji corrected Lu’s dating of Niu’s provincial degree to 1615 and indicated that it was actually conferred in 1627, but he continued to state without any evidence that Li Yan obtained his provincial degree and in that same year. Ji explained that Li Yan subsequently recommended his classmate Niu to Li Zicheng because he was good at planning.134 Ji followed Lu in describing Li Yan as having “civil as well as martial talent.” Ji identified Li Yan’s younger brother Li Mou as “a government student.” Ji also accepted Lu’s identification of Li Yan’s father as a metropolitan graduate and president of a board. Ji agreed with Lu that Li Yan’s father’s official status had earned Li Yan the title Master Li, a moniker often bestowed on young scions of prominent figures. Ji also accepted Lu’s findings that the magistrate of Qi who collected taxes during a famine was a “certain Song,” and that the higher official who demanded resources for the military was “surnamed Yang.” Since there was a magistrate of Qi named Song Mei and a high official collecting military surtaxes named Yang Sichang, these additions to the novelistic accounts seemed to lodge Li Yan more securely in the historical conditions of the time. Ji specified for the first time that Li Yan dispersed more than thirteen tons of his family’s grain to the famished people in Qi, thus confirming and quantifying the family’s wealth and generosity. Ji’s account of the magistrate Song’s jailing of Li Yan, the killing of the magistrate (though now by the masses, not by Li Yan), and Li Yan’s decision to join Li Zicheng’s rebellion, all followed Gong’s and Lu’s accounts. Ji also personalized the account of confusion over the identity of Master Li, writing that “When I was young everyone 131  Ji 1671/1984: dianjiao shuoming. 1–2. 132  Ji 1671/1984: 23. 655. 133  Struve 1998: 33. 134  Ji 1671/1984:17.294.

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talked about the Master Li rebellion and did not know there was anyone called Li Zicheng. Even when Li Zicheng entered the capital, people still thought he was Master Li and they did not know that Master Li was actually Li Yan.135 Ji accepted Tan’s and Gu’s claim that Li Yan first emerged as Li Zicheng’s advisor when the rebel leader entered western Henan in early 1641. During the famine that year, the rebels’ distribution of grain to the poor resulted in rapid growth of their army.136 Ji was probably describing this situation when he incorporated an undated passage from the Little History which he titled “Li Yan spoke to Zicheng about acting humanely and justly.” It read: Zicheng installed the illegitimate officials…. Li Yan entered and said: “If we want to plan a big project, we must first respect the worthy and be polite to scholars, eliminating violence and showing sympathy to the people. Now, although the [Ming] court is out of commission, previous generations for a long time showed mercy to the people; but recently our fate has been yearly famines and heavy taxes, officials are corrupt and clerks rapacious, the common people have fallen into a boiling soup, so they are thinking of rebelling. If we want to win the people’s minds and hearts, we must support humaneness and justice, spreading the word that ‘When the great troops arrive, those who open the gates and rally will not be considered miscreants in the fall. Incumbent officials who are good may continue at their posts, while those who have brought harm to the people will be executed by decapitation. Existing taxes will be cut in half.’ Then the common people will happily come over to us.” Zicheng completely followed this advice. Yan secretly sent out his party disguised as merchants, and spread the word: “The Dashing Prince is a humane and just commander who does not kill or plunder.” Yan also compiled slogans for children to chant…. At a time of successive years of famine, when officials repeatedly punished our many desires, upon hearing the children’s ditties, everyone looked for Master Li to come. The benighted people thought Master Li was the Dashing Prince, and they did not know that the Dashing Prince was Zicheng. Li Yan had been selected a provincial graduate, his father was a board president, so people called Yan Master Li.137

135  Ji 1671/1984: 13.225–226. 136  Ji 1671/1984: 16.278. 137  Ji 1671/1984: 23.655–56.

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In one place, Ji mistakenly identified Niu’s home county as Lushi (it was actually Baofeng) and his status as a tributary student (he was actually a provincial graduate). Ji also reiterated without any evidence or rationale the novelistic detail that Niu married his daughter to Li Zicheng and was appointed the right prime minister by Li Zicheng. According to Ji, Niu was already familiar with Liu Zongmin and he recommended Song Xiance to Li Zicheng. Ji wrote that Song was from Yongcheng County in Henan but he noted that some people said he was from Zhejiang.138 In the fourth month (May to June) of 1643, Li Zicheng established a skeletal rebel administration at Xiangyang in Hubei. He appointed an unidentified man named Li You and Li Zicheng’s nephew, Li Guo, as generals, and Niu’s son, Niu Quan, as a prefect. The text made no mention of Li Yan or Li Mou.139 In the first month (February) of 1644, Li Zicheng established his Da Shun state in Xi’an. Ji noted that Song Xiance was listed as commander-in-chief and Niu Jinxing was listed as prime minister, but, again, he did not mention Li Yan and Li Mou.140 In the third month (April 1644), when Li Zicheng entered Beijing, commander-in-chief Song Xiance, grand secretary Niu Jinxing, and the generals Li Mou and Li Yan were all in evidence. Song was busy interpreting signs regarding the destiny of the rebel regime.141 Ji included in his text the story of the Ming palace maid named Wei Fei, which was first recounted by the authors of the novel, The Iron Helmet Pictures, and revised by the historian Tan Qian. In the story, Fei passed herself off as a princess and was presented to Li Zicheng, who handed her off to a subordinate named Luo. Fei was successful in getting Luo drunk and cutting his throat before she committed suicide. While Ji (like Tan) backed away from the novel’s account in which Fei killed Li Yan, he added the information that Li Zicheng provided his chief subordinates with thirty women and that Niu Jinxing and Song Xiance and others each got several of them.142 While such titilating details suggested that the rebel leaders were just as decadent as the Ming nobility, Ji recorded that Song Xiance also warned Li Zicheng that the punishments of Ming officials meted out by Liu Zongmin were too harsh. Ji reiterated that Li Mou’s expropriations of Ming officials amounted to less than half of those exacted by Liu Zongmin.143 In the third month (April), Song Xiance and Niu Jinxing joined those urging Li Zicheng to 138  Ji 1671/1984: 17.294. 139  Ji 1671/1984: 19. 360. 140  Ji 1671/1984: 20.415–16. 141  Ji 1671/1984: 20.455–58. 142  Ji 1671/1984: 20. 459. 143  Ji 1671/1984: 20.478.

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take the throne.144 Niu Jinxing also implemented the rebel civil service examinations. When Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin left Beijing to march east, Niu and Li Mou stayed behind to guard the city.145 Here we again find the unidentified Li You and Li Yan’s younger brother Li Mou playing more visible roles than Li Yan was playing. Ji recorded that a “general Li” had tried in vain to prevent the top metropolitan graduate Liu Lishun from committing suicide, but he did not provide the general’s personal name.146 Ji named the rebels, including Li Mou, who occupied the home of the Ming earl Zhou Kui, but he did not mention Li Yan.147 Ji recorded that Song Xiance had urged Li Zicheng to take Beijing in 1644 or risk delaying for six years before another auspicious time would come. Song also suggested creating a children’s army and Li Zicheng responded literally by calling up 5,000 youth and arming them to attack the city.148 Niu Jinxing and Li Mou accompanied Li Zicheng into Beijing on horseback, and Niu and Liu Zongmin accompanied him into the forbidden city.149 Following Tan Qian, Ji provided a condensed version of Li Yan’s four-point memorial to Li Zicheng. He agreed with Tan that Li Zicheng did not follow Li Yan’s advice.150 Song Xiance memorialized against using priests in the rebel government on the grounds that they could not be resolutely loyal to political authority and their innermost thoughts were difficult to determine. Li Zicheng replied that they would be carefully vetted and not casually appointed to office.151 This was followed by the long dialogue that had appeared in the Little History between Song and Li Yan regarding the relative value of priests and scholars and the deficiencies of the Ming civil service system that had led to the fall of the dynasty. Niu Jinxing reportedly had his own encounter with a priest that left him angry, but the fate of the cleric was unknown.152 In a document titled “The death of Li Zicheng at Luogong shan”, Ji recounted the confrontation between Li Zicheng and the Ming general Wu Sangui, now secretly allied with the Manchu Qing forces in the northeast. On 17/5/5 (6/9/44) Li Zicheng suffered a major defeat by Wu Sangui. According to Ji, “Niu Jinxing saw that the tide was turning and he began to adjust his ambitions accordingly. 144  Ji 1671/1984: 20.481. 145  Ji 1671/1984: 20. 486,487. 146  Ji 1671/1984: 21 shang. 524–25. 147  Ji 1671/1984: 22.593. 148  Ji 1671/1984: 23.668. 149  Ji 1671/1984: 23. 670, 671. 150  Ji 1671/1984: 23. 673. 151  Ji 1671/1984: 23.673. 152  Ji 1671/1984: 23. 674–75.

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He feared that Li Yan and Li Mou had the support of the army and the people and he decided to do away with them.” According to Ji, there was a report that the president of the board of troops Ding Qirui had ordered the Lieutenant Colonel Ding Qiguang to arrest seven rebel officials in Guide and to send them to Nanjing for punishment. Ji’s list was almost the same as that of the historian Tan Qian. Ji recorded that Li Yan asked for troops to restore rebel control in Guide and Li Zicheng approved it. Niu then told Li Zicheng that it would be better to execute the two brothers. Li Zicheng believed Niu and authorized him to host them at a banquet and kill them. As Tan had reported, when Song Xiance told Liu Zongmin what had happened, Liu was angry that a man of little talent had killed the two high-ranking generals and he said Niu should be executed. From this time forward, Li Zicheng’s generals fell out with one another, Song Xiance departed, and Liu Zongmin led his multitude to Henan. Li Zicheng and Li Guo led over 100,000 troops from Henan to Huguang with the intention of allying with Zhang Xianzhong.153 In sum, Ji Liuqi took over the basic facts about Li Yan and Li Mou as recounted by Tan Qian and Gu Yingtai, and added much of the larger Li Yan story found in the popular literary sources. He corrected some errors found in previous accounts, such as the date of Niu Jinxing’s provincial degree, and incorporated some mistakes from those sources, such as describing Li Yan as a provincial graduate. On balance, the importance of his history was its use of popular stories to develop Li Yan into a more articulated and heroic figure. 1.2.4 Wu Weiye By the time Ji completed his study, the more prominent poet, scholar-official, and political activist Wu Weiye (1609–1672), from Taicang department in Nanjing/Jiangsu Province, had further politicized and romanticized the scholar-rebel-advisor Li Yan. Wu was a child prodigy who obtained his metropolitan degree in 1631, and served as a Hanlin scholar and Academy tutor in the late Ming. He was one of the leaders of the literati reform group known as the Restoration Society, which flourished in the late Ming and survived on the margins in the early Qing.154 With the fall of the Ming in 1644, Wu considered suicide but was dissuaded from it by his mother. He served briefly in one of the Southern Ming regimes, but soon withdrew. Like Tan Qian, with whom he had many discussions, Wu decided to express his loyalty to the Ming by writing a history, in this case focusing on the last years of the dynasty. While teaching in Jiaxing 153  Ji 1671/1984: 23. 677. 154  Atwell 1975: 333–68; Dennerline 1975: 86–120.

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Prefecture, in Zhejiang Province, in 1652, Wu began to write. In the resulting book, Wu blamed the fall of the Ming on the rebels and avoided criticism of the Manchus which might have jeopardized publication of his work and his standing in society.155 In 1653 Wu even began to hold positions in the Qing, including in the royal academy, but he resigned four years later on the death of his mother. The manuscript, completed in 1654, was titled variously as “A Record of things heard in the deer wood-cutter studio” and as “An informal history of the deer wood-cutter studio.” In 1672, despite many political and financial obstacles, a refined version was printed under the title Outline record of the pacification of robbers in fifteen fascicles.156 Although Wu died the same year and his text was later banned, it circulated widely in the last quarter of the seventeenth century and the first quarter of the eighteenth. It was a wellcrafted summary of much of the literature on the late Ming rebellions to date and was one of the most influential accounts of Li Yan ever to be written. Wu Weiye not only accepted much of the Li Yan story in the informal histories and literary works, but also added two new twists that further complicated Li Yan’s motivations to rebel. In Wu’s words, The provincial graduate Li Yan of Qi County was originally named Xin. He was the son of the minister of troops Li Jingbai (whose original registration was in Yingzhou garrison). His [Li Yan’s] character was extraordinarily free and easy. He once issued 1,000 tan [thirteen tons] of his family’s grain as relief in a famine. People considered him virtuous and called him Master Li. [But] Master Li’s father belonged to the party associated with the eunuch [Wei Zhongxian. (1568–1627)].157 The local elite were ashamed to associate with him [Li Xin/Li Yan]. He was regularly the target of their hatred. Because of the chaos, he was asked to superintend the prefecture and guard the villages. He temporarily usurped authority over troops and used it to retaliate against people who treated him unfairly. It was said that he was given the title ‘guardian of the countryside.’158 The people of Qi hated him and said that he was in communication with bandits. (At that time in the central province they were suppressing a bandit named 155  The Qing state was happy to blame the rebels for the overthrow of the Ming. Struve 1989: 36. 156  See the biography by Tu Lien-che in Hummel 1943: 882–83; for Wu’s conversations with Tan Qian, see Feng and Ye 2007: 229, 234, 235, 258, 260, 261, 282. For the obstacles, see Struve 1998: 30. 157  See the biography of Wei by George Kennedy, Hummel 1943–1944: 846–47. 158  In an early version of his text, Wu cited this conflict as the sole reason for Li’s revolt. Wu 1652: xia. 201.

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Hong Niangzi (Lit. Red Woman). Hong Niangzi was a rope artist. She seized Xin and forced him to become her mate. Xin had no choice but to follow her, but later he had an opportunity to return. He was seized by the people of Qi. Hong Niangzi then came to save him. The starving people opened the gates and welcomed the bandits.) The magistrate resented his [Li Yan’s] fame in the marketplace which was attracting the masses, so he seized and imprisoned him. The people who considered him [Li Xin] to be virtuous proclaimed: ‘Master Li has kept us alive, now there is a crisis. Let’s kill the magistrate, take the town, and free him.’ When Master Li was in jail, he had thought about Zicheng. Now he was pressed by the crowd. He sighed and said: ‘Today we have decided to rebel.’ He then rallied to Zicheng. Zicheng had heard about him and treated him respectfully. He changed his [Li Xin’s] name to Yan and appointed him an illegitimate Zhi General.159 Wu Weiye transmitted other parts of the received Li Yan story and added a few new details of his own. He accepted the erroneous idea that Niu Jinxing was from Lushi County in Henan but he stated for the first time that it was a medical doctor named Shang Jiong, not Li Yan, who recommended Niu Jinxing to Li Zicheng. Shang Jiong’s name somewhat resembled that of Song Jiong, the supposed original name of Song Xiance in The Iron Helmet Pictures, but they were clearly not the same person. Wu also discussed Song Xiance’s role as a diviner and reported that he prophesied that an “eighteenth son” would take the throne. This was a more precise statement of the constituent elements of the character Li than had been made by previous writers who referred instead to an “eighteenth child.” This may have been an allusion to Song Xiance’s small physique, but it presumably still referred to a man named Li as the likely inheritor of the mandate of heaven. Like previous accounts, Wu’s offered little information, other than the promulgation of slogans and ditties, on Li Yan’s role during the rise of the rebel movement in Henan, Hubei, and Shaanxi from 1641 to 1644.160 After the rebels entered Beijing in 1644, Wu reiterated the common view that Li Yan occupied the house of the Jiading earl, Zhou Kui. He maintained the tradition that Li Yan was more humane than other rebels. He contrasted Li Yan with Liu Zongmin who “killed people every day,” and he praised Li Yan for refraining from violent interrogation of scholar-officials and confiscation of their property. Wu concluded his discussion of Li Yan by citing Wu Sangui to the effect that Li Yan’s advice was essential to the rise of the 159  Wu 1674/1969: 9.5. 160  Wu 1674/1979: 9.6.54–55.

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rebel regime and his assassination was instrumental to its decline. According to Wu Weiye, Wu Sangui said that Li Zicheng rose and fell because “he first used Li Yan and then killed him.”161 1.2.5 Zha Jizuo As Wu Weiye was a prominent Jiangsu scholar who taught in Zhejiang, it is not surprising that the main elements of his version of the Li Yan story became standard in those provinces.162 First, Zha Jizuo (1601–1676), who hailed from Haining county, Zhejiang, the home of Tan Qian, obtained his provincial degree in 1633 but failed several times to win the metropolitan degree.163 As a noted writer, Zha became a secretary to high officials in Zhejiang and Jiangsu and he became wealthy enough to maintain a group of actresses in his house after 1638. After the fall of Hangzhou to the Qing in 1645, he and his wife went into hiding. He served briefly in the Southern Ming court of the Lu Prince Zhu Yihai (1618–1662) and then returned home in 1647 to find most of his property confiscated. In 1649, he was imprisoned, on what some said was a false charge, and then released through the intervention of friends. Three years later, he went to Beijing and then returned to Zhejiang to teach in Hangzhou. In 1657, he went south to Guangdong where he taught for two years and earned enough money to obtain a collection of rare rocks which he brought back to his garden in 1660. The following year he was charged with participating in the compilation of a text, the Record of the Ming, which was critical of the Qing. Zha denied the charges, and, once again, he was saved from prosecution by some powerful friends. In 1663, he went to Beijing to thank his friends for their support and he spent the next six years as a tutor in prominent families. He changed part of his personal name by dropping the human radical from the character zuo (佐, meaning assistant), leaving it as zuo (左, meaning left). He apparently thereby consciously made part of his personal name the surname of Zuo Qiuming, the presumed author of the Records of Zuo, China’s earliest and most highly respected annalistic history.164 Over the course of his life, Zha wrote many works. Among the most significant was a history of the Ming which he titled “A Record of Criminal Reflections,” written in the form of a standard history. Like Tan Qian’s magnum opus, Zuo’s massive work of ninety-seven fascicles remained in manuscript because it included too many disparaging references 161  Wu 1674/1979: 9.42a–43a, 47a. 162  Private histories may have flourished in part because of the end of warfare and the restoration of prosperity in this region. Struve 1998: 29. There was also an expanding market for all kinds of books in China in the 16th and 17th centuries. Chou 2004. 163  For Zha’s relations with Tan, see Tan 1653/1958:1–3. 164  Struve 1998:33. Zha wrote other works in styles associated with the Eastern Zhou.

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to the reigning Qing state to be published. A facsimile of the manuscript was produced in 1936.165 In his manuscript, Zha accepted many elements of the inherited Li Yan story. He also offered his own explanation of Li’s relations with other key advisors to Li Zicheng and of the reasons for Li’s appeal to many contemporaries. Zha followed Gu Yingtai in dating the beginning of the story to the eleventh year of the Chongzhen reign (1638). In Zha’s words: Liu Zongmin was a metal worker of Lantian [a county in Xi’an Prefecture, Shaanxi]. [Li] Zicheng met [Liu] Zongmin and Zhang Nai by chance when walking through his ancestral hall. Zongmin divined regarding the auguries of rebellion. He decided to serve Zicheng and killed his two wives to be free to follow him. Li Yan was a provincial graduate of Qi County; he was originally named Xin and he was the son of the minister of troops Li Jingbai. He frequently issued grain to provide relief to the starving people, and he attracted a crowd. In the town there were some who hated his father Jingbai because [he belonged to] the [eunuch] party of Wei [Zhongxian] and they sought revenge. They asked the Governor-General and Governor [sic] and got an order appointing him guard of the district. Some among his opponents used an issue to have him incarcerated. [Li] Yan’s party killed the magistrate and left. [Li Yan] joined Li Zicheng and was appointed a Zhi-level general. Niu Jinxing was also a provincial graduate, of Lushi County. He met the bandit physician named Shang Jiong and got an audience with Li Zicheng. Zicheng regarded his [Niu’s] arguments as extraordinary and included him in the planning discussions. At the time there was a singing-girl cart and a corner for actresses, and they often waited on Zicheng behind the curtains. The actresses fled and it leaked out that Jinxing was charged with having contacts with bandits. It happened that Jinxing went back to get his wife and son. He was discovered by clansmen and was expelled. The constable drowned. He [Niu] considered suicide but visited Zicheng and was appointed an academician in the illegitimate Institute for the Advancement of Literature. Li Yan instructed Zicheng, used flattery to get mass attention, and illegitimately called for “equalizing land and remitting taxes” to delude and entice people. Niu Jinxing brought in an expert at divination, Song Xiance who was

165  See the biography of Zha by Fang Chao-ying in Hummel 1943–44: 18–19.

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less than three feet tall; he predicted that an “eighteenth child will master the sacred vessel.” Zicheng was very happy.166 Zha was perhaps inspired by the Little History’s brief mention of Li Yan’s promise to share the wealth equally. In any case, he was the first and only writer in the early Qing period to claim that Li Yan advocated a policy of equalizing land as well as reducing taxes.167 As a member of the elite whose property had been confiscated during the Ming-Qing transition, Zha may have been particularly attentive to the de facto land reform carried out by Li Zicheng’s rebels, a process long symbolized by the supposed equal field policy. Zha’s dating of the rally of Li Yan to Li Zicheng to 1638 and his statement that Niu Jinxing was from Lushi County revealed his dependence on the previous flawed accounts by Gu Yingtai and Ji Liuqi. Zha’s personal experiences of having singing girls in his home, hiding his wife when fleeing from danger, and suffering incarceration on false charges, may have influenced his account of Li Zicheng. Zha’s Li Zicheng had an encounter with singing girls (reminiscent of Lu Yingyang’s claim that Li Zicheng could not control his lust for women), Liu Zongmin killed his wives to allow him to focus on the business of rebellion, and Li Yan was arrested and jailed by the magistrate of Qi County. Zha’s loyalty to the Ming and his antipathy to “banditry” probably precluded any overt identification with the late Ming scholar-rebel-advisor Li Yan. But their shared sense of noblesse oblige perhaps influenced the contents of another of Zha’s books, the Record of the Long Life of the State. It included a “general Li” (perhaps Li Yan) sending agents dressed in red to try to persuade the top-ranked metropolitan graduate, Liu Lishun, to refrain from committing suicide.168 Zha was aware that Li Yan asked for troops to return to his home province of Henan. Zha believed that Li Zicheng suspected that Li Yan might misuse the troops to restore Ming authority there and so had him killed. These events may have led the provincial graduate Zha to identify with Li Yan and to describe the scholar rebel advisor as a provincial graduate without any hard evidence that he was one. Finally, Zha’s references to the “Wei party” and the “Yan party” seemed to reject eunuchs and bandits as equally illegitimate partisans whose refusal to compromise may have cost the Ming its mandate to rule.

166  Zha 1670s/1962: 136.223. The posts of governor-general and governor were anachronistic as they came into existence only in the Qing. The original Institute for the Advancement of Literature had existed in the Tang. Hucker 1985: 265 #2911. 167  Wang Shouyi 1962: 2.97–112; Liu Chongri 1962:5.116–130. 168  Zha 1670s/1959: 9–10.

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1.2.6 Dai Li and Wu Shu While Zha Jizuo made no mention in his manuscript of the female rebel Hong Niangzi, two other historians kept that aspect of the inherited Li Yan biography alive in their Annals of the Roving Robbers of Huailing from Beginning to End. Dai Li (1614–1682) began to write this book in the 1660s, and, after he died in 1682, Wu Shu (1611–1695) brought the project to fruition.169 One of Dai’s colleagues was executed for his role in a Ming history case in 1663 so Dai was careful not to include materials or use terms that would offend the Qing authorities. The work was therefore published in the 1690s and it circulated widely even though it was banned in the Qianlong reign. In addition to many elements of the standard Li Yan story, the authors developed a point made by Tan Qian that Li Yan and his younger brother had difficulty working with commoners in the rebel movement such as Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin. According to Dai and Wu, the Li brothers’ thought that the bandit party adopted titles such as duke, marquis, general, and prime minister, but they retained their bandit mentality. When they sat, they pressed against each other. When they walked, they supported each other. When they teased others, they ridiculed them. When they played, they pushed and kicked. They could neither read nor write or manage affairs well. Li Yan and his younger brother despised and ridiculed them more openly and tried to discipline them as time went on but they could not change their behavior.170 These views may have been held more by the Jiangnan historians Dai and Wu than by the Henanese scholar-rebel-advisors Li Yan and Li Mou, but they seem likely to have been shared by many members of the elite who joined the rebellion. The Li brothers’ class prejudice may have been one source of tension between them and their commoner comrades in arms including, Li Zicheng (though probably not Niu Jinxing). As we have seen, when the showdown came it pitted Li Yan and Li Mou against the provincial graduate and fellow Henanese Niu Jinxing not against the more plebian Song Xiance and Liu Zongmin. Niu and Song, after all, ended up on the Li brothers’ side, albeit too late to save the Li brothers’ lives.

169  For the identity of the authors, see Xie 1968: 7.14b–15b; Franke 1968: 69; Struve 1998: 339–340. 170  Dai and Wu, 1690s/1947.

chapter 2

Acceptance of the Story by the Qing State Up through the 1670s, the Li Yan matter appeared only in memoirs, little histories, little stories, a novel, private manuscripts, and private publications. Preparations for writing the Qing state’s official history of the Ming dynasty, however, were already well under way. In the process, questions arose about how to handle the Li Yan matter. The decision to include the basic Li Yan story in the standard history of the Ming involved several steps. The resulting Ming History, which took almost a century to complete, is generally regarded as among the best—if not the best—of China’s twenty-six standard histories. Its treatment of the Li Yan story, therefore, provides us with a case study that reveals some of the strengths and weaknesses of this genre of Chinese historiography. This case is of particular interest because the standard history was challenged not only for its interpretation of the evidence, but for an alleged lack of evidence for its account of Li Yan. The case is also fascinating because it was a private compiler who may have noticed a partial solution to the problem and yet apparently turned away from embracing it, and it was official compilers who included the story in the standard history but did not insist on its being accepted by other historians. Under these conditions, the story was allowed to develop further in a play and in a popular account in ways that provided clues to a solution of the Li Yan puzzle but were ignored by the historians. 2.1

Early Qing: the Standard History

The eminent late-Ming early-Qing scholar Huang Zongxi (1610–1695), from Yuyao County in Zhejiang, took the first step.1 Huang remained loyal to the Ming dynasty to the extent of refusing to serve the Qing directly, but he was active in trying to influence the policies of the new polity in any way he could.2 As one measure, he approved of a text written by one of his many students and recommended it to scholars engaged in the compilation of the official Ming history. The student was Peng Sunyi (1615–1673), from Haiyan County in

1  See the biography by Tu Lien-che in Hummel 1943–1944: 351–354. 2  For Huang’s major intellectual position, see De Bary 1993; Struve 1988.

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Jiaxing Prefecture in Zhejiang, where Wu Weiye, the leading architect of the Li Yan-Hong Niangzi story, had once taught.3 2.1.1 Peng Sunyi Born into a prominent scholar-official family, Peng had become a government student in the late Ming. He lost his father, uncle, and paternal cousins during the resistance to the Manchus, and he decided not to pursue a provincial degree under the Qing. Instead, he devoted himself to writing.4 His works included a supplement to Gu Yingtai’s Record of Events and his own detailed account of the late Ming rebellions, initially titled A Record of the Roving Robbers. To avoid angering the Qing and to ensure publication and distribution of his book, he soon revised it and had it published in 1679 under the title A Record of Pacifying the Roving Robbers.5 Peng repeated what by now was becoming the standard Li Yan story, making only a couple of changes apparently designed to enhance its credibility.6 He dropped the idea that Li Yan was a provincial graduate and restored him to the more plausible status of government student. Like the respected historian Tan Qian and as a government student himself, Peng was keenly aware of the large numbers and great influence of such lower-level scholars in the late Ming. Indeed, Peng may even have identified to some extent with the rebels Li Yan and Li Mou, who opposed Ming misgovernment but ultimately became victims of their leader’s suspicion. Despite Peng’s likely acquaintance with Wu Weiye, he also dropped the quasi-romantic story of Hong Niangzi, perhaps regarding it as unnecessary to explain Li Yan’s shift from reform to rebellion and potentially damaging to the credibility of the Li Yan story. Because he lacked the space in his book and/or confidence in the veracity of previous reports, Peng offered no information on Li Yan’s role in the rebels’ rise to power in Hubei and Shaanxi and during their brief rule in Beijing. His account of Li Yan’s death on the road west was also very brief, and did not even mention the younger brother Li Mou. Peng also seemed to suggest that Li Yan was looking for a way out of a faltering enterprise, and that Li Zicheng was personally involved in the assassination of his advisor.7 On balance, however, these omissions and nuances were less important than Peng’s acceptance of

3  See the biography by Tu Lien-che in Hummel 1943–1944: 615–16. 4  Struve 1998: 288–289. 5  Peng 1679/1983: 1–9. 6  Peng 1679: 4. 70. 7  Peng 1679: 13.203.

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the basic Li Yan story and his recognition of its symbolic significance for the rise and fall of Li Zicheng’s rebellion. 2.1.2 Wan Sitong A second step toward the inclusion of the Li Yan story in the official Ming history was taken by Wan Sitong (1638–1702). Wan’s home was in Yinxian, in Ningbo Prefecture in Zhejiang. Because of familial and political instability, Wan’s formal education did not begin until he reached age ten. Even then he was largely self-educated, reading the dynastic histories and the veritable records of the Ming in monasteries and private homes. Wan was thus a commoner scholar, not even a government student, and he refused to take the special examinations designed for scholars who had remained loyal to the Ming after 1644. In 1659, at age twenty-one, however, Wan met Huang Zongxi, and he eventually became a highly respected member of the prominent eastern Zhejiang school of historiography. His belief in the superiority of private over state-sponsored scholarship caused him to turn down an official appointment to the Ming history bureau in 1670, but he agreed to participate in the project at a distance, living and working in the private homes of scholar-officials.8 Through their erudition and dedication, Wan Sitong and a nephew, Wan Yan (1637–1705), soon became the de facto heads of the Ming history project. They held those key positions for thirteen years, until Wan Sitong’s death in 1702.9 It is difficult to determine the Wans’ precise contributions to the 416-fascicle “Ming History Manuscript”, but they were the chief informal advisors to the project.10 As such, they were largely responsible for most of the contents of the text. The Wans’ version of the Li Yan matter, lacking specific dates, was close to Peng’s, but differed on a number of details. It once again described Li as a provincial graduate and depicted him as distributing relief to “cleanse himself of the shame of his father’s membership in the eunuch party.” It also restored Hong Niangzi to the story and described her as a “rope walking prostitute” who kidnapped Li Xin, forced him to marry her, rescued him from jail, and persuaded him to rally to Li Zicheng’s rebel banner. According to this account, the people were grateful to Li Xin for providing them with grain relief and they therefore called him “Master Li.” Li Zicheng, for his part, changed Li Xin’s name to Li Yan. The Wans followed the informal sources in emphasizing the roles of Niu Jinxing and Song Xiance as well as Li Yan in advising Li Zicheng and 8  For Tu Lien-che’s biography, see Hummel 1943–1944: 801–803. 9  See Tu Lien-che’s biography of Wan Yan, see Hummel 1943–1944: 804. For the Wans’ importance, see Struve 1989: 35. 10  Zhu 2004: 10.

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crafting slogans such as “Welcome the Dashing Prince, Pay no Taxes ever Since”. They also discussed Niu’s involvement with women, Li Yan’s rally to Li Zicheng at about the time of the rebels’ killing of the Ming Fu Prince in Luoyang, and the confusion regarding the identity of “Master Li” (i.e., Li Yan or Li Zicheng).11 This account may by now seem all too familiar and therefore perhaps not worth too much analysis. One might conclude that by this point the Li Yan story had just become a tradition. Indeed “tradition” might be an alternative translation of Chinese terms often translated “antiquity” (gu 古) and “biography” (zhuan 專). Some might say the story had simply become part of “Chinese tradition” in the sense of being a just-so story that was inherited without much thought and transmitted with only slight variations to later generations. A few might argue that the Li Yan matter was a Chinese “insider story” that was originally meaningful—and remained so—only for people brought up in Chinese culture. Consequently, the story could never make as much sense to others who inherited different cultural traditions.12 Another possibility, however, is that each generation, and, indeed, each individual, inherited the Li Yan story and more or less accepted it both thoughtfully and selectively—and usually for very good reasons. We can understand why and how in each particular case only by a close reading of each particular iteration and reiteration of the text, and by careful attention to its changing content and context. Such stories then become meaningful not just for Chinese people but for any and all human beings who confront at least some of the same challenges in their lives. In other words, such stories take on universal significance or meanings, transcending time and space. That, at least, is the approach I take here and elsewhere in this book. Although Wan Sitong was famous as a commoner scholar, innocent of any civil service degree or government office, he was also very much a member of the Jiangnan scholar elite.13 It is therefore not surprising that he shared the tendency of that elite to support the late-Ming scholar reform groups known as the Eastern Forest and Restoration Societies. Members of these groups tried to discredit their opponents by calling them the “eunuch party” even though they themselves also allied with eunuchs to exert influence at court.14 Wan thus made more explicit than ever the link between father Li Jingbai’s participation 11  Wan 1702: 408: 11. I am grateful to Mr. Chi Wang, curator of the Asian collection in the Library of Congress, for sending me a copy of this section of the text at an early point in my research. 12  Cohen and Gillis 2010; see Shin 2018 for a different view. 13  Struve 1998: 35. For the meaning of the term Jiangnan (lit. south of the Yangzi river), see Yang 2010. 14  Zhu 2004: 22.

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in the eunuch party and son Li Yan’s effort to win public esteem by providing relief to his famished neighbors. Wan also shared the proclivity of many members of the Jiangnan elite, whose relatives had been scholars and officials in the Ming, to remain loyal to that dynasty on the model of the Southern Song resistance to the Jurchen Jin. They took that position rather than accept a Qing self-image as a model polity in the style of the Zhou, which merited their acceptance if not their participation.15 Wan was, therefore, highly critical of “bandits” like Li Zicheng and Li Yan, who worked successfully to overthrow the Ming, thus clearing the way for the Qing that could claim to be suppressing banditry and taking revenge on behalf of the Ming. As a Jiangnan man, Wan was probably happy to emphasize the role of northerners—and particularly of Henanese—in Li Zicheng’s rebellion. The focus on northern participation in the rebellion served Wan and his Jiangnan cohorts by drawing attention away from Jiangnan scholar-officials, such as Zhao Shijin, who survived the rebel rule in Beijing, and from members of the Restoration Society, such as Zhou Zhong, who had called on Li Zicheng to take the throne. If Wan Sitong, as a public (as well as private) intellectual, tailored his biography of Li Yan to serve his own political agenda, as a serious historian he may also have found that there was no scholar Li Xin or Li Yan registered in Qi County. In any case, for the first time since Li Yan’s first appearance in Zhao Shijin’s memoir, Li Yan was described in Wan’s account simply as a man from Henan Province, with no mention of any home county, let alone Qi. That was important because it may have reflected Wan’s research and it could have led to a more open search for Li Yan’s origins elsewhere in Henan. Wan Sitong is generally regarded as an erudite private scholar who worked independently of the Qing, in contrast, say, with someone like Ji Liuqi. As we have seen, Ji was not rigorous in evaluating his sources and he included stories that may have lacked historical foundations but conformed to what the Qing authorities wanted to hear. But Wan Sitong also had his limitations. He traveled beyond his home province of Zhejiang, but apparently mainly to and from Beijing, and he seems never to have visited Henan. Unlike Ji, Wan apparently never conducted interviews or gathered oral sources, thus depriving himself of firsthand information from witnesses who might have answered questions that fellow scholars were unable to answer. Wan’s colleague at the history bureau, Mao Qiling (1623–1716), was responsible for drafting the “roving bandits” section of the Ming standard history. Mao visited Henan and he even met with the scholar Tang Bin (1627–1687), whose hometown (Sui department) was adjacent to Qi County. Tang Bin was also 15  Struve 1998: 36.

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actively involved in compiling the Ming History, but there is no evidence that Mao ever consulted with him about the issue of Li Yan’s home county.16 Wan’s biggest mistake or misstatement, of course, was his transmittal of the novelistic account, accepted by Ji Liuqi and Wu Weiye, that Li Yan was a provincial graduate.17 As we have seen, that account had been modified and corrected by other historians, including Tan Qian, Gu Yingtai, and Peng Sunyi. They had described Li Yan as a mere government student, a much less documentable (and less disprovable) status. As a commoner scholar himself, Wan might have followed Tan, Gu, and Peng in describing Li Yan as a government student. But Wan’s interest in identifying with Li Yan, to the extent it existed at all, seems to have been less strong than his desire to treat Li Yan as a symbol of those many scholars with provincial and even metropolitan degrees who participated in Li Zicheng’s rebellion. Making Li Yan once more a provincial graduate was consistent with that goal. Meanwhile, Wan’s acceptance of the Hong Niangzi tale, despite its disappearance from the accounts by Zha Jizuo and Peng Sunyi, may be attributable to his respect for Wu Weiye, who had first included the tale in his biography of Li Yan. Wan may also have been aware that Dai Li and Wu Shu had included Hong Niangzi in their more comprehensive account of Li Yan’s rebellion. Wan’s acceptance of Hong Niangzi, together with his mention of Li Zicheng’s and Niu Jinxing’s various involvements with women, suggested that he was alert to the roles that women could play in rebellions and cognizant of popular interest in those roles.18 His linkage of Li Yan’s revolt with Li Zicheng’s killing of the Fu Prince in Luoyang was part of a serious effort to locate Li Yan’s joining Li Zicheng in at least relative time and space. Wan went on to record Li Zicheng’s appointment of Li Yan as a Zhi general at his headquarters in Xiangyang, Hubei. Although Wan provided no absolute date of Li Yan’s death, he gave it the relative time following Li Zicheng’s defeat by Wu Sangui at Dingzhou. He noted that Li Yan had a “big strategy” and intervened on behalf of the Yi’an empress, thus causing Li Zicheng to envy him. He blamed Niu Jinxing for advising Li Zicheng to kill Li Yan, and he stated that, after Li Yan’s death, “Jinxing and Xiance lost their way.” Wan clearly believed that Li Yan favored negotiations over military force and his death led Li Zicheng to put too much emphasis on military solutions to what were really political problems.19 16  See Tu Lien-che’s biography of Mao in Hummel 1943–44: 563–565; Luan 1986: 134. 17  For Wan’s vigorous, but not always successful, effort to correct other such errors in inherited accounts, see Bai 2008: 1.30–32. 18  For Wan’s general sympathy toward women, see Fang 1996: 152–55. 19  Wan 1702.

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Although cryptic, Wan’s account confirmed that Niu Jinxing’s machinations led to Li Yan’s death. It is unclear whether Wan knew that the villain in the developing story, Niu Jinxing, survived the suppression of the rebellion, and, if so, what effect the focus on Li Yan might have had on that other Henanese scholar rebel advisor’s ultimate fate. But it seems likely that Wan wanted to preserve—and perhaps to add to—the heroic stature of the scholar-rebeladvisor Li Yan, whatever the difficulties he and other historians faced in documenting details of his policies in Beijing and describing his demise on the road west to Shaanxi. Indeed, it has been suggested that Wan Sitong carried the longstanding idea that “the people are the root of the state” to new levels and expressed “sympathy for farmers’ uprisings” during the Ming.20 For instance, during the Zhengde reign (1506–1521) a government student named Zhao Sui reacted against a villainous official named Jiao Fang and joined the commoner rebels Liu Liu and Liu Qi in an effort to overthrow the Ming. In the course of describing that rebellion, Wan made a nice play on the homonyms dao (盜) “robbers” and dao (道) the “Way,” writing that “robbers [can] also have the Way.”21 Even in the case of Li Zicheng, Wan wrote a poem titled “Welcoming the Dashing Prince.” Apparently speaking at times on behalf of the common people, Wan wrote: At the end of the Chongzhen reign, Li Zicheng passed through the central plain. Poor people who were suffering from tax and service levies flocked to him. At the time there was a ditty: “Eat his mates, dress his mates; support Dashing Prince, open the gates; when Dashing Prince comes, there’ll be no rates.” Then, more prosaically, Wan had the people explain: When the Dashing Prince comes, the city gates will open; if the Dashing Prince does not come, who will give us food and clothing? [We are] cold without clothing, hungry without food, still [the officials] collect taxes in money and grain day and night. Worse, there are corrupt officials who cut up our flesh, the living fill the ditches. How pitiful! We want to secure a moment to delay our death. If we don’t await the Dashing Prince, whom should we await? When the Dashing Prince comes, our hearts and minds

20  Fang 2006: 143–146. 21  Fang 2006: 147.

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rejoice; when the Dashing Prince does not come, our hearts and minds are sad. Can’t you see that there are great calls in the streets and markets to eliminate the surtaxes…. People fear heavy taxes, not bandits. If civil officials want to keep their posts, they should take care not to force the people to become bandits.22 Wan Sitong continued to regard rebels against the Ming as “illegitimate” and as “bandits.” For example, he described the female Buddhist rebel Tang Saier (fl. 1420) as a “demon woman” and Li Zicheng as a “large boar and murderous chieftain.”23 But he also accepted the idea that officials often force people to rebel. He pointed to Zhu Yuanzhang’s coming to power in the rebel band headed by Han Liner as evidence that a one-time bandit could turn into a legitimate politician. Wan’s respect for those involved in founding the Ming probably derived mainly from his latent loyalty to the dynasty. It may have been enhanced, as Fang Zuyou suggests, by his identification with Ming Taizu as a Han Chinese who resisted Mongol rule. In addition, we may add, Wan was aware of the parallel between the Han founder Liu Bang taking authority from the Huai Prince of Chu, and the Ming founder Zhu Yuanzhang deriving legitimacy from Han Liner, who claimed links with the Song. Although Wan’s contemporary, Wang Yuan, rejected the parallel between the Han and Ming founders, Wan’s invocation of that comparison was consistent with the practice of many other writers in the late Ming and early Qing.24 Indeed, as a late Ming scholar, Wan may have made his final decision to go to Beijing to work on the Ming History without formally serving the Qing after a friend pointed out a model taken from the Eastern Han period. According to Zhu Duanqiang, Most of the left-over people and old family members with whom Wan had contacts had directly or indirectly participated in the Ming resistance to the Qing. After the founding of the Qing, they resolutely refused to serve, taking heart from their famous moral integrity. These people had great influence on the formation of Wan Sitong’s historical viewpoint of people and of their “moral uprightness.” For example, the famous Ningbo left-over person, Li Yesi, had profound relations with Wan Sitong. In Kangxi seventeen [1678] he was invited to take the special examination for broad studies and grand Confucianism, and he refused to participate. 22  Fang 2006: 148. 23  For Lienche Tu Fang’s biography of Tang Saier, see Goodrich and Fang 1976: 1251–1252. 24  Fang 1996: 149–152.

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The following year, when Wan Sitong went north to compile the history, Yesi was not at all in accord. On the occasion of sending Wan off, Li used the story from the Eastern Han of Zheng Cidu parting ways with Zhi Junzhang to remonstrate with him [Wan]. [The historian] Quan Zuwang [1705–1755] considered that this was one reason for Wan Sitong’s “definitively refusing to take office.”25 By this time, it was highly unlikely that Ming loyalists would be able to restore the Ming as aristocratic rebels had once restored the Han. But Ming loyalists at heart like Wan Sitong could nonetheless express their sentiments by refusing to take office in the Qing and by finding ways to influence it indirectly, such as through historiography. 2.1.3 Wang Hongxu Before Wan Sitong died in 1702, he turned his manuscript of the Ming history over to Wang Hongxu (1645–1723). Wang was from Huating County in Songjiang Prefecture in Jiangsu Province. He earned his metropolitan degree, became a Hanlin compiler in 1673, and served in several high posts before being appointed one of the chief editors of the Ming History in 1682. After retiring to mourn the death of his father and to escape charges of corruption, Wang returned as co-director of the Ming History project in 1694. He served in other high posts and enjoyed the confidence of the ruler Kangxi for several years before being forced into retirement again in 1709 as a result of a factional dispute. In 1714, he submitted 208 fascicles of biographical sketches for the Ming History. In subsequent years, he added other materials drawn from various sources, including, most notably, Wan Sitong’s manuscripts. In 1723, on the eve of his death, he submitted the printed Draft Ming History in 310 fascicles to the throne.26 In compiling that text, Wang Hongxu had to deal with many sensitive political issues that interested Kangxi (1654–1722). One was how to treat the Ming princes who had resisted the Qing after 1644. Wang reportedly persuaded Kangxi to allow him to follow the precedent of the Song History and to append a composite account of the princes to the basic annals of the Chongzhen reign (1628–1644). That, of course, would appeal to Ming loyalists, especially to those who had served one or more of those princes. Another editor, Xu Yuanwen (1634–1661), another student of Huang Zongxi’s, was more attentive to Qing sensibilities. He compared the heroes of the southern Ming with the “stubborn 25  Zhu 2004: 7. 26  Se Tu Lien-che’s biography in Hummel 1943–44: 826.; Struve 1998: 48–51.

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people” of the Shang, “whose difficulty in accepting a new dynasty was looked upon magnanimously by the conquering Zhou.”27 While many former Ming officials blamed eunuchs for causing the decline and fall of the Ming, Kangxi blamed late-Ming officials engaged in factional disputes. While the Draft Ming History reflected Eastern Forest and Restoration Society views, Kangxi’s more neutral view also made its way into the history. There was a general consensus that Chongzhen’s selfless acts in opposing factionalism and committing suicide earned him credit while many scholar-officials’ careerist opportunism made them responsible for the demise of the Ming. While editor Xu Yuanwen criticized the Ming founder Zhu Yuanzhang for unjustly killing so many officials, Kangxi admired Ming Taizu and blamed later “weak, ill-informed, inattentive monarchs” for the Ming’s fall. In this case, Wang Hongxu accepted Kangxi’s position and made no such negative remarks about the Ming founder.28 In this context we can examine Wang Hongxu’s handling of the Li Yan matter. He recorded that Li Zicheng moved into western Henan during a famine in March/April 1640, took the counties of Yiyang, Yongning, and Yanshi, and killed the magistrates. Wang then recounted the story of Li Yan based largely on Wan Sitong’s account. He accepted Wan’s narrative that Li Yan’s original name was Li Xin, that he was the son of a eunuch-party official Li Jingbai, and that he was kidnapped by the female acrobat Hong Niangzi. Wang ignored Wan’s revised view that Li Xin/Yan was only “from Henan Province,” and he returned to the previous practice of identifying Li Yan as being more specifically from Qi County. Wang thereby, wittingly or unwittingly, reduced the chances that more broad research in Henan Province outside of Qi County might be pursued to solve the Li Yan puzzle. Wang also accepted the incorrect information that Niu Jinxing was from Lushi County, revealing his reliance on previous accounts circulating in the early Qing. Wang also made little effort to clarify the date of Li Xin’s joining Li Zicheng’s army. In fact, he muddied the waters by dating that event to both early 1640 and early 1641! Wang also seemed to suggest that Niu Jinxing joined Li Zicheng’s army on two separate occasions and that he served as a major advisor, perhaps rivaling Li Yan in that role. In any case, Wang accepted the view that Li Yan’s joining the rebel army led to its rapid expansion in the central plain.29 Wang followed his predecessors in including little information on Li Yan’s role in the rise of Li Zicheng’s fortunes in 1642 through 1644, including his activities in the rebel Shun regime in Beijing. Instead, he jumped to Li Zicheng’s 27  Struve 1998: 36. For more on the Xu brothers, see Struve 1982. 28  Struve 1998: 37–38. 29  Wang 1723: 183.10.

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defeat by Wu Sangui at Zhending, his return to Beijing, and his decision to retreat westward to Pingyang, in Shanxi. Wang continued: Li Yan was the one who had encouraged Zicheng to refrain from killing people so as to win the people’s hearts and minds. In the capital, he resided in Zhou Kui’s house while Liu Zongming lived in Tian Hongyu’s place. Zongmin killed people every day while Yan refrained from torturing and expropriating the elite. Song Xiance secretly asked Yan if the prophecy of a ten-eight-child was not for him. Yan did not reply and in his heart/mind was pleased with himself. Niu Jinxing greatly disliked him. After the defeat at Dingzhou, many departments and counties in Henan turned over. Zicheng called in his generals for a discussion. Yan said: “Sincerely grant your official [i.e. me] 20,000 select troops to go to the central province and no one there will dare to rebel.” Jinxing secretly told Zicheng: “Yan is strong and has plans; he will not long remain a subordinate. Now he sees our troops newly defeated and he wants to usurp authority and make himself king. Henan is Yan’s old home. If we grant him many troops we will not be able to control him.” Thus he slandered Yan by implying he wanted to rebel. Zicheng ordered Jinxing to hold a farewell banquet for Yan and to kill him along with his younger brother Mou. The bandit masses broke up and Zicheng went on to Xi’an.30 Wang added that “Zicheng from the beginning used Yan and Jinxing to make false proclamations of humaneness and justice.” Wang thereby accorded Li Yan and Niu Jinxing roughly equal importance as advocates of civil methods of gaining authority, but also as schemers against Li Zicheng and each other. 2.2

Doubts about the Story in Henan

Even as the Li Yan story was widely celebrated in popular literature and accepted in the official history, there were good reasons to question its credibility. First, there was no mention of any student or scholar named Li Xin/Yan from Qi County in Kaifeng Prefecture, Henan Province, in most early sources. He was absent, for example, from most memoirs of scholars who survived the rebel tenure in Beijing, including accounts by Xu Yingfen, Chen Jisheng, Xu Ningsheng, Liu Shangyou, and Bian Dashou.31 Li’s absence from a collection of 30  Wang 1723: 183. 21a. 31  All are cited in Gu 1978: 62.

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memoirs edited by Feng Menglong (1574–1646), a scholar-official with a particular interest in popular tales, was striking.32 Li Xin/Yan was missing, too, from two very well informed early accounts by Wen Bing (1609–69) and Qian Xin (fl. 1653) which contained lists of scholar-officials, including many from Henan, who more or less actively participated in—or, at the very least, survived—the rebel Shun regime in the central plain and in Beijing.33 Li Xin/Yan moreover made no appearance in the lists of scholars or accounts of rebellions in any extant editions of the Qi county, Kaifeng prefectural, or Henan provincial gazetteers.34 Admittedly, these quasi-official records did not usually include government students and local bandits, at least not by name, but they would have included all provincial graduates and local rebels strong enough to kill a magistrate. Instead, it was as if the scholar-rebel-advisor Li Yan from Qi County had never existed. 2.2.1 He Yiguang Indeed, local observers had already begun to question Li Yan’s historicity while Wan Sitong was in charge of compiling the “Ming History Manuscript.” In 1693, a tributary student in Qi County, He Yiguang, joined the Qing County magistrate, Li Jilie, in compiling a new edition of the county gazetteer. In fascicle 13 which contained biographies of loyal and ardent individuals, the editor inserted an “addendum” titled “Distinguishing (or identifying) Master Li.” It read as follows: The Woodcutter’s History says that in Qi there was a Master Li, personal name Yan, who was a provincial graduate of 1615 along with Niu Jinxing.35 His father was a metropolitan graduate and board president. Yan distributed grain to provide relief to the famished and the common people killed the magistrate, named Song, and raided the granary. They followed Yan and he joined Li Zicheng as an advisor. His younger brother named Mou also became a bandit general. If there was this person, his biography should appear among those of the bandit officials, but where is there mention of him? Upon inspection, this was not long ago, and there are many old folks around on whom this 32  Feng 1645/46. For Tien-yi Li’s biography of Feng, see Goodrich and Fang 1976: 450–453. 33  Wen 1644?; Qian 1653; for brief biographies see Struve 1998: 194–95, 345. 34  Li and He 1693: 10; Guan and Zhang 1695: 33; Tian, Sun, and Asiha 1735. 35  It is unclear whether the author was referring to informal histories in general or to one informal history in particular, probably Lu/Luan 1654/1987. I tend to think it referred to the latter so I translate it as the title of that work.

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person and this event made no impression. Thus, we must distinguish [fact from fiction]. They say he was a provincial graduate of 1615, but in Qi that year [among provincial graduates] there was only Liu Zhao. They say his father was a metropolitan graduate and board president, but what board and what personal name? An investigation yields no evidence. In fact, at the end of the Ming, there was no board president from Qi. They say he killed the magistrate named Song, but Song Mei was transferred from Yongcheng to Qi in the first year of Chongzhen (1627). In the fourth year (1630), he was given a special transfer and made vice-president of the board of works. He returned home to Laiyang [in Shandong Province] and died in defense of the town. From that time on, there was no county official surnamed Song as can be seen by examining the lists of scholars and officials. We do not know what the Woodcutter’s History relied on to make these categorical claims. In Chongzhen 15 (1642), after [the Qi] magistrate Lü Xiru joined with Bian [Kaifeng], the people of Qi either fled to other places, starved to death, or died on the lances of the bandits.36 Although local robbers swarmed, the rebel leaders were all from neighboring towns. Some say a treasonous official hired someone to write the story, so as to cover huge crimes [of someone else located elsewhere]. Loving gold and silk and not fearing heaven, he created a non-existent person. How can we hold this kind of shameless person responsible? But we can blame Gu Yingtai for carelessly including it in his Record of Events. When one item is false, the whole account becomes doubtful. Do we really want to believe this in the present and transmit it to later generations? Such frivolity can be permitted in novels and romances, but now the Ming History is being compiled. If again there is no investigation and it is included in the public record, it will inflict irrevocable injustice on a loyal and just district. It will harm the people of Qi and bring the history of the dynasty in for ridicule similar to that leveled at Wei Shou [506–572].37 We should inquire of the people of Liang [Kaifeng Prefecture] and Song [Guide Prefecture] regarding this matter and they will find it easy to distinguish [fact from fiction]. Those who take up the brush should be careful to avoid following the 36  “Joined with Bian” referred to the policy of the magistrate and local elite of Qi to count on the prefectural and provincial capital of Kaifeng to protect the county from rebel attack. The policy actually resulted in the rapid fall of Qi County to the rebels and ultimately in the surrender of a local provincial graduate He Yinguang to Li Zicheng. 37  For a biography of Wei Shou, the much-maligned author of the Wei History, see Chaoyang. 1979: 229.

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Tang History’s bad custom of using novels [in writing history.] Only then can they be compared with Dong Hu.38 As for the many false and fabricated items in the woodcutter’s history, they cannot be taken up one by one and discussed in detail here.39 Two years later, this essay reappeared almost intact in the gazetteer of Kaifeng Prefecture. It remained anonymous, suggesting that the Li Yan story had become so widely accepted and authoritative that it was thought risky to challenge it. But it had been approved for publication in Qi County by the local editor He Yiguang, who, in the absence of information to the contrary, we may infer was probably its author. In the prefectural version, there were a few changes in wording, but they were very minor. The only change of some significance was the replacement of the reference to the Tang History by a reference to the Jin History.40 The Wei and Jin periods following the Han were famous for breaking down the barriers—or transcending the distinctions between—literature and history. That phenomenon seemed to many observers to be recurring in their own day following the fall of the Ming. 2.2.2 Zheng Lian Another critic of the received Li Yan story was Zheng Lian (1628–1711). Zheng was born into a family with a modest military tradition and some 500 mu of land in Shangqiu County, Guide Prefecture, Henan Province. As a child in the countryside, he began school at age eight, but he had access to only a few books, including a damaged copy of Sima Qian’s Historical Records. His schooling was interrupted in 1642, when he was captured by the rebel leader Luo Rucai and he spent several months in the rebel camp before returning home. In 1645, under the Qing, he returned to his studies and became a government student. Over the next few decades, he took the provincial examinations thirteen times without success. Encountering insuperable barriers on the path to office, Zheng settled for a life of scholarship and travel.41 Among Zheng’s writings was a history of the late Ming rebellions in Henan titled “An Outline Record of the Changes [or rebellions] in Yu,” a draft of which 38  It is unclear if the author was referring to histories printed in the Tang, which would include Wei Shou’s Wei History, or to the histories of the Tang, including the old and new ones. See Wilkinson 2013: 625–627. Dong Hu, who lived in the state of Jin in the Spring and Autumn period was praised by Confucius as a model historian. See Chaoyang. 1979: 39–40. 39  Li and He 1693: 13.renwu, zhonglie 7b–9a. 40  Guan and Zhang 1695: 40.7. 41  Wang 1982: 3.34–35.

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he completed in 1706. In his introduction, Zheng noted that he wanted to correct many errors that had appeared in other books on the rebellions, written mainly by Jiangnan scholars. For example, With regard to Li Yan of Qi County, there was no such person. My home is only some 100 li [about fifty kilometers] from Qi and there are numerous contacts between the two areas. How come I never saw or heard anything about him? Those of us who were unfortunate enough to fall into the hands of the rebels never heard that there was a bandit general Li from Qi. I do not know what the Hearsay of the Late Ming was based on. Yet the Record of Roving Robbers and other books all contain it, not realizing that he was a non-existent gentleman. In order to clarify this matter, I shall lay out the facts in a note for the reader’s information.42 In this passage, Zheng referred to one work by Peng Sunyi, discussed above, and perhaps to another by Zou Yi that mentioned the rebel generals Li Yan and Li Mou.43 Zheng’s “note” was largely an abridged version of the essay “Distinguishing Master Li” that had appeared in the Qi County and Kaifeng prefectural gazetteers. It focused on the lack of evidence for Li Yan’s identity and Gu Yingtai’s mistake of including the popular story in his history. Zheng’s version of the essay left out the summary of the story and the speculation regarding who might have created it. It also dropped references to the Ming History, the minatory model of Wei Shou, and the positive model of Dong Hu. Zheng appended the abridged essay to his discussion of the unification of the two rebel forces under Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai in August 1641. In the absence of a full explanation of the origins of the essay denying Li Yan—let alone the likely provenance of the story of Li Yan itself—Zheng was perhaps hinting that he thought it was the amalgamation of the rebel forces of Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai—not any wise advice from a scholar-rebel named Li Yan—that accounted for Li Zicheng’s rise to power in the central plain.44 Zheng completed his manuscript in 1706. He may have tried to get it published during the four remaining years of his life, but, if so, he was unsuccessful. Even in 1715, five years after his death, when an acquaintance named Zhao Jiong arranged for the printing of Zheng’s literary works, his history of the 42  Zheng 1743: fanli; Zheng/Luan 1743/2002: 13–14. 43  Zou 1657: 1.35b. For this work, see also Yao 1935 and Struve 1998: 348. Luan Xing, treats the phrase “hearsay of the late Ming” as generic, not as the title of a single work by Zou. See Zheng/Luan 1743/2002: 13. 44  Zheng 1743: 4.86; Zheng/Luan 1743/2002: 140–41.

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rebellions remained in manuscript form, thus largely unknown to the wider world.45 As we have seen, Wang Hongxu, at the head of the Ming History office, took no account of denials of the Li Yan story in his printed Draft History of the Ming, which he submitted to the throne on the eve of his death in 1723. Wang should have been aware of the critiques of the Li Yan story in the printed gazetteers but he may have shared his co-editor Mao Qiling’s lack of confidence in those sources.46 That was important because Mao was in charge of editing the fascicle on roving bandits in the Draft History of the Ming. On the other hand, Wang may not have been aware of Zheng’s manuscript. Even if he was aware of it, as a high Qing official, he probably would not have shared Wan Sitong’s and Zheng Lian’s sympathy for the commoner rebels against the Ming. 2.2.3 Zhang Tingyu In 1723, Zhang Tingyu (1672–1755) took over as director of the Ming History office. Zhang was born into a prominent scholar-official family from Tongcheng County in Anqing Prefecture, in Anhui Province. He earned his metropolitan degree in 1700, entered the Hanlin Academy, and studied Manchu. He became one of the most respected and powerful officials in the Yongzheng reign (1723– 1735). He may have composed many if not most of the edicts of that reign. He was celebrated in the Imperial Ancestral Hall, receiving the highest honor that could be bestowed on an official. For all of these reasons, Zhang might have been expected to take a close look at the story of Li Yan, who was reputed to be the son of a former Ming official from Anhui and who became an important advisor thought to have written many of the edicts of the rebel Shun regime. Zhang, however, was probably too busy serving as Grand Secretary and Grand Councillor, and then as regent, during the early Qianlong reign (1736–1796), to get involved in the details of the final compilation of the Ming History. Work on the Ming History was completed in 1735.47 In 1738, Zhang was awarded the rank of earl of the third-class with hereditary rights; in 1739 he received the title of Grand Guardian. He was probably more preoccupied with enjoying those honors than with the final publication of the Ming History, in 336 fascicles, in 1739. In his last years, Zhang was criticized for favoritism toward family members and for indiscretions vis a vis the throne. This might have caused him to identify with Li Yan, who had suffered a similar fall from favor, but Zhang might easily have overlooked the parallel. Zhang certainly enjoyed a much

45  Luan 1986: 219. 46  Hsiao 1960. 47  Wilkinson 2013: 790–91.

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softer landing than the late Ming scholar-rebel-advisor Li Yan, and he retained his place in the Qing royal ancestral hall even after his death.48 For these reasons, the account of Li Yan in the Ming History was simply a slightly abridged version of the account in the Draft History of the Ming that preceded it.49 2.2.4 Peng Jiaping Qing inclusion of the Li Yan story in the official Ming History discouraged doubts about its authenticity and marginalized alternative explanations of Li Zicheng’s rise and fall. But the Qing state did not ban all criticism of the story or require inclusion of the story in other relevant histories. In 1743, four years after the publication of the Ming History, Peng Jiaping, scion of a prominent scholar-official family from Xiayi County in Guide Prefecture, Henan Province, arranged for the printing of Zheng Lian’s history, including its denial of the Li Yan story. Peng almost certainly knew that his grandfather, Peng Shunling, had been among the many Henanese scholars who had become involved in Li Zicheng’s rebel regime. He may have thought that the Li Yan story provided an effective cover for such scholars or that it was in any case a good metaphor for scholarly involvement in the Da Shun state. Peng Jiaping had won his metropolitan degree in 1721 and had served in several offices beginning with the board of punishments. His family was not only cultured and prominent but also wealthy and powerful, owning a huge estate of 16,000 mu spread over three counties of northeast Henan. In view of all this, Peng may have thought he had the knowledge to collate Zheng’s manuscript, and he had the authority to publish the book without great risk to his family and career.50 In a preface and postface to Zheng’s book, Peng Jiaping explained why he had bothered to collate and publish it. He noted that “the flowing poison of the Dashing Bandit” was particularly fierce in Yu, “the center of the known world,” in the late Ming. It could therefore serve “today, in a time of great peace,” as a “mirror for gentlemen to reform themselves and for commoners to avoid bad behavior.” Because Zheng Lian had been kidnapped by the rebels and had seen and heard much, he had been able to write a “veritable record” that “distinguished what was transmitted from what was fabricated.” He was therefore fit to enlighten posterity. Peng thus contrasted the deplorable past with the admirable present in a way designed to please the authorities of the high Qing. But 48  See the biography by Fang Chao-ying in Hummel 1943–44: 54–56 and the family history in Beattie 1979: 100–08. 49  Zhang 1739: 309.7956–7957, 7960, 7967–7968. 50  For Peng Shunling, see Des Forges 2003: 247–248, 282–284. For Peng Jiaping, see Struve 1998: 59.

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he also contrasted true accounts with false ones, knowing full well that Zheng’s book pointed out errors in Gu Yingtai’s history, which had recently been incorporated into the official Ming History.51 At this time, others could and did express dissent from Qing orthodoxy on the Li Yan case by acts of scholarly commission and omission. In 1746, seven years after the printing of the Ming History, editors of a new edition of the Gazetteer of Qi County reprinted the essay “Distinguishing Master Li” that debunked the Li Yan story.52 It was only after Wu Weiye’s history featuring the Li Yan story was included in the official Collectanea of the Four Treasuries in the 1770s that the editors in Qi got the message and dropped what may have been regarded as He Yiguang’s critique from the 1788 edition of the Qi County gazetteer.53 Even then, the editors did not include any part of the Li Yan story (such as his name, family background, or supposed provincial degree) in the county gazetteer. Similarly, the Provincial Gazetteer of Henan had never included any elements of the Li Yan story in any edition published before the printing of the Ming History, including the highly respected edition of 1735.54 Subsequent editions of the provincial gazetteer published after the appearance of the Ming History, including that of 1767, also lacked any mention, either affirming or denying, any aspect of the Li Yan story.55 2.2.5 Li Zudan Indeed, despite the Ming History’s official acceptance of the story in 1739, including identification of Li Jingbai as the father of Li Xin/Yan, a 1715 metropolitan graduate named Li Zudan, a descendant of Li Jingbai, invoked his Li Family Genealogy to argue that Li Jingbai had no son named Li Xin or Li Yan who became a general in Li Zicheng’s army. In a note attached to the biography of one Li Xu, an actual son of Li Jingbai, in the Qianlong edition of the Gazetteer of Fuyang County, Li Zudan wrote: At the end of the Ming, there was a rumor that a provincial graduate from Qi County in Henan named Li Xin, who followed the Dashing Bandit, later changed his name to Yan, and was called Master Li, was a son of Li Jingbai. 51  Zheng 1743: Peng Jiaping tici, ba; Luan 1986: 217–219; Chen 1990: 43; Guo and Lin 1990: 207–208. 52  Wang and Pan 1746. 53  Zhou and Zhu 1788. 54  Tian, Sun, and Asiha 1735; Luan 1986: 217–219. 55  Asiha and Song 1767.

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Examining the genealogy of the Li family, we find that Jingbai was originally registered in Gu village, in Cao County, in Yanzhou Prefecture, in Shandong Province. At the beginning of the Ming, [the original ancestor named] Li Tian had achieved merit in following Xu Da in fighting against the Yuan dynasty. He was appointed to command a small battalion in the right league of the Yingchuan guard, was promoted to regional commander, and later became a resident of Yingzhou. Members of the Yingchuan guard [including Li Tian’s descendants] took the civil service examinations in Kaifeng, so Jingbai was registered in Kaifeng Prefecture, but he was not from Qi County. Jingbai had two sons. The elder was named Linsun and the younger was named Hesun. When the roving bandits attacked Ying in Chongzhen 8 (1635), Hesun was killed, well before Li Xin followed Dashing in Chongzhen 13 (1640). Linsun changed his name to Xu. He raised local militia to defend his home from 1635 until his death at the hands of the roving bandit Yuan Shizhong in 1642. But Li Xin did not die until the Dashing Bandit took power in Chongzhen 17 (1644), when he was assassinated by Niu Jinxing. Thus, the story of Li Xin does not tally with the lives and deaths of Linsun and Hesun. Li Jingbai had only two sons and one daughter; aside from Linsun and Hesun, there was no other son named Li Xin. Linsun and Hesun entered school in Wanli 48 (1620). Hesun died early. Linsun became a tributary student in Chongzhen 1 (1628); he was never a provincial graduate. Reading the Henan Qi County gazetteer, we see the essay titled “Distinguishing Master Li” which says that Yan was not from Qi. When Master Ouyang [1007–1072] wrote the History of the Five Dynasties, he did not know the identities (or family origins) of Li Renfu and Han Xun. This case is probably similar: rumors about ruffian followers of robbers lost touch with the truth. Townsman Li Zudan’s record.56 In 1752 the Yingzhou Prefectural Gazetteer reprinted Li Zudan’s note denying that Li Yan’s father was Li Jingbai. In addition, the editors supported Li Zudan’s argument. They cited a text titled a Record of Later Reflections for the basic Li Yan story, including Hong Niangzi but not Li Jingbai. They then wrote:

56  This essay first appeared in the Qianlong edition of the Fuyang County Gazetteer which I have not seen. See Luan 1986: 115–117. It also appeared intact in the Qianlong edition of the Yingzhou Prefectural Gazetteer which I have consulted. See Pan and Wang 1752: 8.75b.

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This matter belongs to Henan and has nothing to do with Ying[chuan]. In the Li Family Genealogy from the beginning of the Ming through Li Jingbai, there were no family members living in Henan. Li Jingbai’s son Li Xu protected his hometown and was killed by Yuan Shizhong. The people of Ying can tell you about that to this day. I personally think that, even if Jingbai had another son who became a bandit in Henan, Xu resolutely stayed loyal and upright in Ying[zhou]. Even the Yangshe family that supplied four brothers to the Jin, according to the Annals of Zuo, could not match them [i.e. Jingbai’s sons, in loyalty to the existing state, the Jin or Ming].57 We don’t know what the Record of Later Reflections was based on, but, given the tendency to report good things in detail and bad things in brief, we take Li Zudan’s account as decisive.58 While the high Qing Li family of Yingzhou and local officials of Fuyang County were united in their rejection of the Ming History’s description of Li Yan as the son of Li Jingbai, the editors of the new edition of the Gazetteer of Fuyang County in the Daoguang period (1821–1851) changed their approach slightly to be less critical of Qing orthodoxy. They retained Li Zudan’s strong argument against the inclusion of Li Jingbai in the Li Yan story, but they dropped the above corroborating statement of the previous editors of the gazetteer. In its place they put a slightly different note of their own. It read: If we examine what the Ming History contains, it describes Li Yan’s original mission from beginning to the end, so we can say he was not Xu, even if it had been clear that he [Li Yan] was Jingbai’s son [which he was not]. If we just take the idea of “recording the good in detail and the bad in brief,” relying on a family genealogy as a basis for proving distinctions and putting aside the officially approved reliable history, it is a case of being at peace with an unreasonable solution. So, we annotate the sayings to the right, as evidence of transmitted doubts.59 According to Luan Xing, the import of this rather obscure note was that it would ordinarily not be reasonable to privilege the genealogy of a single family over the standard history of an entire dynasty, but it was acceptable in this

57  The reference is to the Yangshe family that, according to the Annals of Zuo, placed four sons in the Jin state during the reign of Duke Xiang in the Spring and Autumn period. 58  Pan and Wang 1752: 8.75b; Luan 1986:118. 59  Li and Zhou 1826: 12.renwu, 2 zhongjie, 15.

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case. In any event, the editors insisted, Li Jingbai of Anhui was clearly not the father of Li Xin/Yan. The He family of Qi County, Kaifeng Prefecture, Henan Province, and the Li family of Fuyang County, Yingzhou Prefecture, Anhui Province, therefore both challenged fundamental elements of the Li Yan story, including the scholar rebel advisor’s very existence. They did so moreover without incurring any major penalties. The same cannot be said for another family, however, the Pengs of Xiayi County, Guide Prefecture, Henan Province. Peng Jiaping’s publication of Zhen Lian’s unorthodox Outline Record by itself might not have caused him much trouble. Combined with his activities in the wake of a flood of the Yellow River in 1756, however, it ultimately cost him his life. The flood had caused major damage in Henan, Shandong, and Jiangsu, but the governor of Henan, Tulebinga, had failed to report conditions in his province. When relief was authorized by the court in early 1757, therefore, it was sent to Shandong and Jiangsu but not to Henan. Peng Jiaping, who was at home in Xiayi on sick leave at the time, went to Shandong to complain directly to Qianlong, who was on one of his famous royal tours. Peng pointed out that the flood had wreaked havoc in four counties of his home prefecture of Guide. Qianlong was sufficiently impressed by Peng’s presentation to order the governor of Henan to investigate. Governor Tulebinga continued to insist that the damage was not extensive, but the director-general of river conservancy backed up Peng’s claims, noting that the disaster was particularly severe in Xiayi. After Qianlong personally observed the serious effects of the flooding in neighboring Jiangsu, he overruled the governor and ordered him to provide relief to Guide. Peng thus won the first round in this controversy. A few months later, two commoners from Xiayi arrived at Qianlong’s court, which was still on the road. They charged that the magistrate of Xiayi had mishandled the relief. A third commoner from the same county reported that the poor had not received any relief because the clerks had stolen it. Qianlong’s personal agent also reported that conditions were so bad in Xiayi that one could buy children for less than 500 copper cash, and he appended two bills of sale to prove it. That was the last straw. Qianlong angrily dismissed the Henan governor Tulebinga and sentenced him to exile and hard labor. He also dismissed the magistrates of Xiayi and Yongcheng and ordered that they be interrogated. Peng Jiaping thereupon returned to Xiayi, apparently having succeeded in representing the interests of his home region and particularly of its poorest residents. Here, as elsewhere, it is difficult to escape the impression that Peng was acting in line with the ideals celebrated in the Li Yan story even though he had, only a decade and a half earlier, arranged publication of a book that denied the historical authenticity of that very story.

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Whatever Peng’s noble motivation, he seems to have overplayed his hand. His various demarches combined with those of the three commoners from his home county, had provoked Qianlong’s suspicions. Upon investigation, the ruler discovered that two other Xiayi men, a government student and a military student, were behind the commoners’ bold petitions at court. He ordered that they be arrested and brought to Shandong for interrogation. When the government student ignored the Xiayi magistrate’s order to come to his office, the magistrate went to his house. There he discovered a proclamation in the name of Wu Sangui, the ex-Ming general who had surrendered to the Qing in 1644 but then revolted against the Qing in 1673. Qianlong acknowledged that the local officials had been remiss in ignoring the flood and mismanaging the relief. He concluded, however, that some members of the local elite, middle strata, and commoners in northeast Henan were using the incompetence of individual officials as an excuse for launching an assault on the Qing state. Qianlong therefore countermanded his order dismissing the governor and the magistrates and instead ordered them to broaden the investigation. He instructed Peng Jiaping to come to Beijing, where he interrogated him in person. Peng denied that he had ever seen a copy of Wu Sangui’s pronouncement, but he admitted that his library had once contained four informal histories, including the Outline Record. He at first denied, quite falsely (as we have seen), that he had read the books or knew anything about their contents, but Qianlong was rightly unconvinced. Meanwhile, in Xiayi, the governor-general of Zhili, whom Qianlong had put in charge of the case, arrested Peng’s son, Peng Zhuanhu, and interrogated him closely. Zhuanhu, finally admitted that as soon as he had heard about the investigation, he had burned all of the suspect books in his father’s library. The court consequently found Peng Jiaping guilty of having had “slanderous and subversive” books in his house and ordered him to be beheaded. Since the father had acknowledged his guilt and his son had burned the books, Qianlong showed “lenience” by staying the execution until the autumn assizes. When fall came, he showed further lenience by allowing Peng to commit suicide rather than be decapitated. Peng’s family was allowed to keep enough property to sustain itself, but the rest was confiscated and distributed to the poor of Xiayi County.60 It has been pointed out that Qianlong could have found copies of the books in question because a copy of the Outline Record was later found in Peng’s house. He might then have examined their contents and found them to be less offensive than he had thought. Qianlong’s decision to execute Peng has therefore been described as “arbitrary and despotic.” That may be so, but it is not true that the Outline Record was a late Ming work that “had nothing to do with the 60  Guo and Lin 1990: 209–215.

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Qing.”61 The book certainly dealt primarily with the late Ming and it included few taboo words or derogatory references to the Qing. But its narrative of the late Ming rebellions was at considerable odds with Qing orthodoxy enshrined in the Ming History and in the Li Yan story. Qianlong may not have been aware of that at the time. He might not have prosecuted Peng on that basis even if he had been aware of it. But Peng was certainly aware of the thrust of the book as he had indicated in the preface and postface he had written for it. In the end, of course, Peng was punished not so much for having Zheng Lian’s unorthodox book in his house as for leading local scholars and commoners in challenging the Manchu Qing’s handling of flood relief. The impulse behind both actions— to speak truth to power—was laudable, but it was one which, ironically, had led Peng Jiaping into lying about the literature in his house. Peng must have known that such forthrightness in dealing with his ruler followed by denials of any wrongdoing risked getting him into trouble. Perhaps, like his ancestors in the late Ming, he thought he could get away with it because his family’s status, wealth, and power had persisted into the early Qing. The case of Peng Jiaping and the Outline Record of the Changes in Yu was rife with ironies. By the very act of publishing Zheng’s book in the teeth of state orthodoxy, Peng had followed the model of courageous uprightness celebrated in the early versions of the Li Yan story that the book denied. At the same time, Qianlong’s court, by executing Peng for his critical advice, reenacted the paranoid style of rule that had been deplored by the Li Yan story and that the Qing state had accepted and made orthodox. On the other hand, Peng and Qianlong also had much in common in this case. Peng, by calling for effective relief for the common people of northeast Henan, and Qianlong, by providing that relief, shared the value of elite and state responsibility for the people’s welfare that was a central message of the Li Yan story. In a final irony, some of the books that were critical of the Ming History and that contributed to the death of Peng Jiaping actually came from the house of Xu Qianxue (1631–1694), one of the chief compilers of the Ming History.62 2.3

High Qing Literature and Late Qing Histories

2.3.1 Geng Yinggeng The inclusion of the Li Yan story in the Ming History and the inclusion of Wu Weiye’s Record of the Pacification of Robbers in the Collectanea of the Four Treasuries had other impacts on records of the Ming-Qing transition. This can 61  Guo and Lin 1990: 214. 62  Guo and Lin 1990: 215.

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be seen in the case of Niu Jinxing, the 1627 provincial graduate from Baofeng County, in Xu independent department, in central Henan. As we have seen, when Niu’s wife had died, he had got into trouble with his father-in-law and ultimately ended up in jail. When he got out of jail he joined Li Zicheng’s rebellion and became an advisor to the rebel leader. His son, Niu Quan, a government student, also served in the rebel army. As we have seen, Niu Jinxing became the prime minister of the rebel regime and played a role rivaling—perhaps surpassing—that of Li Yan. He was also said to have initiated the plot to kill Li Yan and his younger brother Li Mou. Many of these facts were included in the early sources, and mistakes such as dating Niu’s provincial degree to 1615, were corrected in later sources. Beginning with Ji Liuqi, however, Niu’s home county was changed in some sources to Lushi. As we have seen, Wu Weiye accepted that change and Wan Sitong included it in the Ming History. The early gazetteers of Baofeng County listed Niu Jinxing as a provincial graduate from that county, and the updated editions of the gazetteers in 1743 and 1797 included him as well. In 1837, nearly a century after the publication of the Ming History, however, the Baofeng gazetteer omitted his name from the list of provincial graduates. The editors indicated that it was because of the royally approved Record of the Pacification of Robbers that they had taken that step. While the editors of the Baofeng gazetteer, like the editors of the Fuyang gazetteer, probably felt under pressure to conform to the story in the standard history, they may also have welcomed the opportunity to divest themselves of a “bandit official” and his son. As it happened, however, one of the editors of the Baofeng gazetteer, Geng Yinggeng, was a descendant of a scholar-official from Xiangcheng who had been in touch with Niu Jinxing during the late Ming rebellion. As an 1804 government student, Geng complied with official pressure to remove Niu from the Baofeng provincial graduate list, but he also wrote an accurate account of Niu’s life, including his registration in Baofeng, and he included that account in his collected works.63 Thus the official story of Li Yan persisted, pushing denials to the margins of consciousness and distorting accounts of the fully historical scholar-rebel-advisor Niu Jinxing. Geng’s private account at variance with the official story, however, could still be compiled and even included in Geng’s published collected works. 2.3.2 Dong Rong During the 1750s, a scholar-official named Dong Rong (1711–1760), courtesy name Nianqing, nickname Dingyan, wrote and published a play titled The Strange Record of the Fungus Shrine. This work featured women warriors, 63  Lu and Wu 1797: 24 xia, dashi2; Li and Geng 1837: 6.3a, 6–15a; Luan 1986: 1–10.

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including Qin Liangyu, her daughter-in-law Ma Fengyi, and Shen Yunying (1624–1661). They were all active in the late Ming in defending the dynasty from frontier incursions and domestic uprisings. Qin and Shen both survived the Ming-Qing transition, but Ma died at the hands of rebels in Lin County, in Zhangde Prefecture, in north Henan in 1633.64 Chapter forty-eight of Dong’s work, titled “Fox women,” tried to clarify as well as dramatize the historical and literary contexts of the Hong Niangzi story. It described Li Xin as the son of the eunuch-party minister Li Jingbai from Yingzhou, and it insisted that Li Xin was a provincial graduate registered in Qi. Li Xin was aware that the people of Qi were beset by natural disasters of drought and locusts, and human disasters of tax surcharges, corrupt officials, and roving bandits. He opened his family’s granary to the starving people and they were grateful to the “good master” for his charity.65 Meanwhile, the female acrobat, Hong Niangzi, escaped the fate of prostitution suffered by many beautiful but poor women. She ignored the calls of the starving populace, captured Li Xin, and took him off to a mountain fort, where she hoped to make him into a great prince. Li Xin found an opportunity to return home, but was arrested by the officials for having contacts with bandits. Hong Niangzi and the people then freed Li Xin from jail and they went off to join the rebellion of Li Zicheng. At the same time, Niu Jinxing, from Lushi but registered in Baofeng, was a provincial graduate of the same year, 1627, as Li Xin. Niu also had a problem with women. When his wife got sick and died, his father-in-law, who was a powerful scholar-official, blamed Niu and had him arrested and jailed by the local magistrate. Niu was able to get out of jail due to a good friend’s willingness to serve as a temporary proxy in jail, and he also went off to join Li Zicheng. In Niu’s first meeting with Li Yan, Niu reportedly said: For many years, there has been the disturbance of the Niu and Li parties. Luckily you and I are classmates and fellow townsmen. Because of women problems, we were jailed. When we came out, we met. Like Zhang-sun and Yuan-sui, who together followed the Tang, leading pretty concubines, with the same mind and heart, you and I support Dashing.66

64  See Fang Chao-ying’ biography of Dong in Hummel 1943–44: 168–69. For Qin Liangyu, see Swope 2018:26–27, 33, 53–55, 201, 319, 334n107. 65  Dong 1759: 5.42. 66  Dong 1759: 5.43. The Zhang-sun and Yuan-sui were prominent lineages in the Tang. Twitchett 1979: 707.

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Dong repeated the story that, at a low point in the rebel fortunes, Li Zicheng had asked Liu Zongmin to divine their destiny. If the signs were inauspicious, Li asked Liu to cut off his head. If they were auspicious, they should prepare for victory. The signs were auspicious. Liu had decided to prepare by killing his two wives, presumably so as to devote himself completely to Li Zicheng and to the success of the rebellion. Here Liu seems to be quite misogynistic, placing his political cause ahead of his wives’ lives. By contrast, the Qi County provincial graduate Li Xin and the Lushi County provincial graduate Niu Jinxing together led their wives and daughters to an audience with the great prince. [Li Zicheng said:] “You two are provincial graduates. How did you know to seek audience with me?” [Li Xin replied:] “Li Xin wanted to join the great prince with the same surname. He long recruited bravos and led his wife Hong Niangzi to meet [Li Zicheng] just as Li Jing had rallied to the Tang.”67 The allusion here was to the general Li Jing who, with his lover known as the Woman with the Red Fly Whisk, assisted Li Yuan and Li Shimin in establishing the Tang. Dong actually mentioned Hong Fuji later in his play.68 Dong accepted the story that Niu’s daughter became Li Zicheng’s primary concubine. The diviner Song Xiance, who predicted the rise of an eighteenth son to rule the realm, also brought with him a woman who was ready to serve loyally. Li Xin’s younger brother was named the Supporting Virtue General and his wife had the title Supporting Virtue Wife.69 In contrast to the rebel general Liu Zongmin, who killed his wives to free him to rebel, Li Zicheng, Li Yan, and Li Mou seemed to treat their women as equal players in the rebel enterprise. In the rebel camp, there were many other women, including pretty ones whose functions as “serving girls” were not spelled out. Hong Niangzi was included among them, but her command of several thousand troops and horses must have given her more than average authority in the rebel leadership. In any case, Dong noted that her name reminded him of the energetic servant Hongniang, who was the remarkably active go-between in the romance of Yingying [Oriole] and Zhang Gong in the famous play titled The Story of the Western Wing that was very popular in the Ming and Qing.70 For the first time we have a suggestion of where Wu Weiye found his inspiration for the Hong 67  Dong 1759: 5. 44. 68  Dong 1759: 5. 46a. 69  Dong 1759: 5.44–45a. 70  Dong 1759: 5.46a; Hightower 1973; Wang 1995.

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Niangzi tale, which he had added to the original Li Yan story and which was incorporated into the standard Ming History. Dong ended his play with the words: “The Dashing bandit’s original mission was half real and half empty, but it was both sentimental and reasonable. As for Hong Niangzi’s seizure of Li Xin, it was quite a spectacle.”71 Sato Fumitoshi, in his comprehensive investigation of The Puzzle of Master Li from the End of the Ming to the Present, has pointed out that many of the informal histories of the early Qing period that included the Li Yan story were also deemed to be anti-Manchu and so were banned during the Qianlong reign and particularly in the 1770s. They included works by Gong Yunqi, Peng Haozi, Lu Yingyang, Zou Yi, and Ji Liuqi. The Li Yan story, however, was already included in the official Qing history of the Ming and in Wu Weiye’s private history. Wu’s work was criticized in the 1770s, but finally included in the official Qing Comprehensive Collectanea of the Four Treasuries. The story was celebrated and only mildly criticized in Dong Yong’s popular play, The Record of a Fungus Shrine. It was therefore able to survive the Qianlong censorship and to continue to flourish.72 2.3.3 Anonymous Also in the Qianlong reign, an anonymous and undated work added further details to the Li Yan-Hong Niangzi saga. This popular account was titled A Recent Record of Taowu, which referred to a mythical beast or to the Annals of Chu, as opposed to the more orthodox Spring and Autumn Annals of Lü. It recounted how Hong Niangzi kidnapped Li Xin, saved him from jail, and rallied to Li Zicheng. It then developed the Li Xin story by giving him a wife. In its words: Li Xin’s wife named Tang (湯) tried to dissuade him from rebelling, but he did not listen. She hanged herself in her house. Her face looked alive and it was unknown when she died. When they took her body down and prepared it for burial, she uttered a suicide poem saying: Three thousand in silver, the moon makes the world bright, If you rein in a crane, you can mount to Jade-City height; My husband may turn his back on you if he will, But he will be sorry in the afterlife still. When Xin got the poem, he understood it completely.73

71  Dong 1759: 5.46.b. 72  Sato 2010: 81–98. 73  Anonymous Qianlong, as cited in Guo 1946: 31–32.

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Unfortunately, the anonymous author did not explain the full meaning of the poem, but it appears to have conformed to the conventions of women’s poetry in the Ming even if it was invented by the anonymous author in the high Qing. We may see it as the underside of Li Xin’s already ambiguous affair with Hong Niangzi. The incorporation of the Li Yan/Hong Niangzi story into the standard Ming History, popular histories, and plays during the Qing did not silence all criticism. In 1831, two relatively obscure scholars, Bao Yangsheng and Ren Daobin, together compiled a book titled Small Records of Court Affairs in 1644 that included almost the entire original essay “Distinguishing Master Li” that had appeared in the gazetteer of Qi County in 1693 and in subsequent publications. To be sure, one author seems to have tried to secure some anonymity by using a brush name, but the three changes Bao and Ren made in the text were either understandable oversights, minor mistakes, or useful corrections. Thus, for the word “bian” in the title, the author used the character meaning “debating” or “contesting” (辯), instead of the homonym meaning “distinguishing” or “identifying” (辨). This departure from the original document was understandable as the characters were quite similar and were pronounced identically, in the same fourth tone. Indeed, it might be argued that “debating” was a more precise description of what the authors and transmitters of the text were actually doing. Bao and Ren may have demonstrated some courage in making the change, which involved a more direct confrontation with the official and popular supporters of the Li Yan story. The authors’ substitution of the family name “Li” for the original name “Lü” of the magistrate of Qi may have been a simple mistake. It could also be considered as a curiosity, similar to the substitution of Li for Lü in the case of the highly respected late Ming scholar-official from Henan, Lü Kun (1536–1618).74 Finally, the substitution of the Jin for the Tang in the essay had already been made by other compilers and editors, and it was probably closer to the original author’s intent if it was not just a straightforward correction of the original author’s mistake.75 As it happened, Bao’s and Ren’s reiterated critique of the Li Yan story was no more successful in calling the story into question in the early nineteenth century than its predecessors had been in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. But its publication suggests the limited determination—and/or perhaps ability—of the high Qing state to control historical scholarship and publications regarding the Ming-Qing transition. 74  See the biography of Lü Kun by Chaoying Fang in Goodrich and Fang 1976: 1006–1010; see also Handlin 1983; Zheng 1985; Xie 2011. 75  Bao and Ren 1831/1916: 8: 13.

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In the early nineteenth century, the Qing faced demographic and commercial challenges arising in part from its political and economic success as well as from external attacks. By mid-century, the polity waned under Anglo-French-American military assaults in the Opium Wars and Taiping-Nian-Muslim rebellions that were the largest insurrections in human history. Under these circumstances, if the Li Yan story had been merely a Qing allegory to legitimate and then delegitimate the late Ming rebellion of Li Zicheng, the story could have been expected to fade away along with the Qing polity. In fact, however, the Li Yan story had become part of a larger history of the Ming-Qing transition and it was thought by historians to provide precedents and lessons for later generations confronting similar issues. 2.3.4 Xu Zi A case in point was Xu Zi (1810–1862), scion of a scholar-official family in Liuhe County in Jiangning Prefecture, Jiangsu Province. Xu won his provincial degree in 1835, and became a tutor in wealthy families, which gave him access to many books. He obtained his metropolitan degree in 1840, and, a decade later, was appointed collator in the Qing history bureau where he consulted many state documents. He decided to write a book about the Ming-Qing transition. In 1852, he returned to Liuhe to help defend his home town from the Taiping rebels by raising local militia. After five years of successful resistance, Xu returned to Beijing and was appointed a prefect in Fujian. On his way to his new post in 1858, he learned that Liuhe had fallen to the Taipings. Some of his relatives and manuscripts were lost in the conflict. In Fujian, he organized militia to deal with pirates and the Taipings. In 1861, he completed work on his history, titled Annals of Lesser Prosperity, and died the following year. In his text, Xu engaged in the politically sensitive task of approving of the Ming loyalists in the early Qing and regarding them as models that he hoped would inspire his contemporaries to demonstrate similar loyalty to the Qing. The text, which appeared in two heavily annotated and footnoted volumes, has been described as “authoritative” and “objective.” it has continued to be used by historians of the Ming Qing transition to this day.76 In reviewing various versions of the Li Yan story and trying to establish some absolute dates in a fixed chronology, Xu Zi noticed that Peng Haozi and Ji Liuqi dated the relief crisis to 1635, while Ji Liuqi, Gu Yingtai and Zha Jizuo dated Li Xin’s revolt to 1638, and Ji, Tan Qian and Peng Sunyi’s dated Li Xin’s rally to Li Zicheng to 1641. Xu dated Hong Niangzi’s kidnapping of Li Xin to 1635 76  See the biography of Xu by K.T. Wu in Hummel 1643–1944: 324–326; see also Wakeman 1985; Struve 1998: 74.

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and her rescuing of Li Xin from jail to 1641. He regarded them as the two most important steps in Li’s move from reform within the Ming system to rebellion in collaboration with Li Zicheng.77 Xu found some problems with Wu Weiye’s handling of the Li Xin story, but he accepted and even further stressed the tale of Hong Niangzi.78 Ironically, therefore, one of the most “professional” assessments of the Li Yan story to date ended up authenticating most of it, including one of its later and more fantastic elements: Hong Niangzi. 2.3.5 Oshio Heihachiro Meanwhile, the record of the late Ming rebellion of Li Zicheng, and perhaps the story of his advisor Li Yan, seem to have reached Japan, where they may have helped to inspire a Confucian scholar rebel advisor named Oshio Heihachiro. Oshio was born in 1793, the eldest son of a samurai family of intermediate rank. His father was a police inspector who died young, and Oshio inherited his position. In 1827, Oshio arrested Christians who he thought proselytized too vigorously and Buddhists who he alleged violated their vows too openly. He refused bribes from wealthy merchants, and confiscated the property of venal officials, distributing the booty to the poor. Three years later, he resigned his post and passed it to his son. Oshio studied the idealistic and activistic thought of Wang Yangming (1472–1529), which was banned by the Tokugawa government, and he sought to realize Wang’s ideal of unifying knowledge and action. He founded an academy in Osaka and admitted students from all backgrounds who wished to learn. His wife was of humble origins, but she studied and lectured at the academy on one of the four books, The Great Learning. After 1832, there were several years of a subsistence crisis caused by population growth and poor harvests. When the Tokugawa government in Edo required the merchants of Osaka to continue to ship grain to the capital, Oshio proclaimed that the ensuing famine was not just an act of nature but also an act of government. In essays written in Chinese, he described the conditions of the poor in contrast to those of the rich, and he submitted petitions to the government and to the wealthy to provide relief to the famished. When his petitions were rejected on the grounds that he was no longer an official, he sold his library of 50,000 titles and distributed the proceeds to the poor. He also accumulated weapons, including cannons and rifles as well as swords. In March of 1837 he issued a summons, written in Chinese and with the seal of the Great Iso Shrine, calling on the people of four districts to visit heaven’s justice on insensitive officials and wealthy merchants. According to his biographer, Ivan Morris, 77  Xu 1861: 1–5, 13–14. 78  Xu 1861: 29, 148.

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In the Summons he stressed the moral basis of his revolt, pointing out that he and his followers had no ambition to seize the country and obtain political power but, like the Chinese heroes of the late Ming dynasty, were motivated exclusively by sincerity—sincerity that obliged them to visit Heaven’s punishment on the wicked.79 Oshio apparently did not identify the “Chinese heroes of the late Ming,” but they may have included members of the elite, like Li Yan, who acted on behalf of the people. In any case, Oshio vowed that his rebellion would continue until justice was obtained, presumably through the appointment of virtuous officials. In response, family members, former colleagues, and young and idealistic samurai joined in the first such uprising on behalf of the masses in Japan since the Shimabara revolt in the early seventeenth century. The goal was to mobilize the countryside, to ally with the poor in the cities, and to confront the state and the wealthy elite. When plans for the uprising leaked out, the organizers were forced to proceed ahead of schedule. The result was a one-day uprising that burned down one fourth of the city of Osaka. It was followed by harsh repression during which Oshio committed suicide and twenty other rebels were captured and crucified. Despite—or perhaps because of—the failure of the uprising, Oshio became a hero in the eyes of many different groups. He was rumored to have survived, gone to China, and been transmogrified (ironically) into Hong Xiuquan (1813–1864), the self-proclaimed younger brother of Jesus Christ who became the principal leader of the Taiping rebellion. Oshio was celebrated by Tokugawa playwrights and story tellers, by the conservative samurai rebel Saigo Takamori (1828–1877), by advocates of people’s rights and rice rioters in the Meiji period, by military officers in the Showa restoration of the 1930s, and by the novelist Mishima Yukio (1925–1970) who, like Oshio, committed suicide as a political statement at age forty-five.80 Thus, the Li Yan story was not just a Chinese legend. It was also a saga which was rooted in and preserved in—and which influenced—the larger culture of East Asia, commonly known as Confucian, including the particular late Ming strain associated with Wang Yangming. As we shall see, some Japanese played a part in the oral origins of the Li Yan story and others would contribute to the public understanding of the story in the twentieth century.

79  Morris 1975: 205. 80  For Saigo, see Keene 2002; for Hong, see Spence 1996; for Mishima, see Nathan 1974.

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Persistence of the Story in the Republic Once the Li Yan story was included in the official history of the Ming, it naturally remained intact during the life of the Qing. The story probably benefited from the deeply rooted cultural principle that “literature and history cannot be divided.” More surprisingly, the story also fared well in the Republic when the state had little stake in its survival and when many Chinese became convinced of the need for more scientific approaches to history and more critical evaluations of literature. In any case, the story was accepted by writers and historians both before and after 1944, the three hundredth anniversary of the overthrow of the Ming. While Li Yan was apparently not widely celebrated in popular culture, a Hong Niangzi-like figure surfaced fleetingly in a collective action in 1948, on the eve of the Republic’s demise. 3.1

Novels and Histories

At the turn of the twentieth century, the prominent scholar-reformer-journalist Liang Qichao (1920–1969) strongly criticized China’s standard histories, including the Ming History, as mere records of successive royal lineages. He called for a “new history” that would use Western methods to arrive at a more scientific understanding of the human past.1 In the 1920s, the professional historian Gu Jiegang (1893–1980) advocated “doubting antiquity.” He argued that myths were created, grew over time, and were read back into the ever-more-distant past and treated as history. He and other scholars contributed to a serial collection of studies titled Distinguishing traditional history.2 In such scholars’ rush away from “myth” toward “history” and from “political” to “social” history, they might have considered the story of Li Yan and Hong Niangzi to be an obvious breach in the newly constructed wall between history and literature or between fact and fiction. But neither one of these two prominent historians, nor apparently anyone else at the time, entertained doubts about the Li Yan 1  Liang 1901/2009: 161–171. For Liang’s much more interesting alternative view of Chinese history, see the same work, pp. 72–74. 2  Gu et al. 1926–1941; Wilkinson 2013: 675; Wang 2008. The Chinese term gu (古) is usually translated more literally as “ancient,” but I think it often functions in Chinese discourse as more nearly equivalent to the English word “traditional,” including all of the “past” that is not thought of as “present” or “modern.”

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004421066_005

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story or questioned its value as history.3 Indeed it was as if the standard history as a genre was so flawed that critiques of individual stories included in it were beside the point.4 3.1.1 Novels Whatever the reasons for not challenging the Li Yan story in the Republic, the first accounts of it appeared in historical novels. After 1795, when Qianlong had abdicated the throne and had been succeeded by Jiaqing (1796–1820), Qing censorship had relaxed over time. During the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, informal histories such as Ji Liuqi’s Record and the anonymous novel The Complete Account had been reprinted and had circulated freely. In 1922 Chao Fuzhang published The Extended Meaning of the Painful History of the Late Ming in forty chapters in six fascicles. This book contained the standard story of Li Yan, adding only a few new details such as his incarceration for having failed to bribe the local officials.5 Four years later, Li Baozhong, courtesy name Jianhou, began drafting a historical novel, The Extended Meaning of the Yongchang [Reign], which was completed by 1932. It was revised numerous times and circulated widely in manuscript form. When the author was asked why he was writing about a bandit like Li Zicheng, he replied that the rebel was an unsung local hero from his hometown of Mizhi in Shaanxi who deserved to be better known. Li Baozhong observed that Li Zicheng was a commoner, like Han Gaozu and Ming Taizu, who would have succeeded in founding his own enduring polity if it had not been for the Manchu invasion. The author criticized the Ming History for confusing Li Xin with Li Xu, the actual son of Li Jingbai. He depicted the spirit of Li Xu descending from heaven to earth to complain about that historiographical injustice. The novel innovated by having Li Zicheng bestow an aristocratic title and the post of grand secretary on Li Yan, interpolations that were not followed up by later writers. The novel also depicted Hong Niangzi surviving the death of Li Yan and seeking out and killing Niu Jinxing in revenge.6 3.1.2 Zhao Zongfu The first historian in the Republican period to accept and transmit the Li Yan story was Zhao Zongfu (1915–1966). Zhao was born into a scholarly family whose ancestral home was in Wutai County, in Tai department, in Shanxi 3  See, for examples, Li 1933; Bao 1968. 4  I am grateful to Ihor Pidhainy for suggesting this possibility. 5  Chao 1922, cited in Sato 2010: 111–114. 6  Li 1926/1984, cited in Sato 210: 114–122.

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Province. From 1926 to 1932, he attended the Jinshan middle school in the provincial capital of Taiyuan. There he read Lu Xun (1881–1936)’s ABCs of Communism and made friends with a returned student from Japan. These experiences greatly broadened his world view. In 1932 he tested into Yanjing University, a missionary-supported school in the erstwhile northern capital city of Beijing, now renamed Beiping. Zhao participated in several anti-imperialist and pro-democracy activities and became secretary of the Yanda branch of the Anti-Imperialist Grand Harmony Alliance. In May of 1933 he joined the Communist Youth League and in December of the same year he became a member of the Communist Party. He was appointed to the Headquarters of the General Staff of the Soviet Red Army to collect intelligence on Japan. He used his privileged position to establish contacts with a wide variety of people, including revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries. He monitored the antiSoviet and anti-Communist activities of the Japanese army, the militarist Yan Xishan (1883–1960), and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975). He was active in the northern region of China stretching from Tianjin and Beiping to Suiyuan and Taiyuan. He was described by his superiors in the party as a “brave internationalist fighter,” and he soon became the secretary of the Yanjing University branch of the Communist Party. At Yanda, Zhao not only collected information but also continued his education. He published several articles in the Yanda Weekly which were well received by progressive faculty and students at the university.7 There appears to be no record that Zhao Zongfu graduated from Yanjing University or held an academic post there. He was, in a sense therefore, a commoner scholar in the tradition of Tan Qian and Wan Sitong, the early Qing chroniclers of the Li Yan story. But Zhao published two very substantial articles in the academic journal Annals of Historiography. The first, which appeared in 1936, was titled a “Draft annalistic biography of Wang Meicun.” Wang, whose nickname harked back to the early Qing scholar-official Wu Meicun (aka Weiye), was a late Qing scholar who contributed to the suppression of the Christian-inspired Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Zhao’s second article, published in 1937, was titled “An outline history of the revolt of Li Zicheng.” In both cases, Zhao accepted the nomenclature of the conservative era in which he lived. He referred to the Taipings as “robbers” and to Li Zicheng as “rebels” (lit. sowers of chaos).8 In fact, like many previous recorders of uprisings in Chinese history, Zhao adopted the general

7  Bai et al. 2000: 28–39, 319–320. 8  Bai et al. 2000: 2–3; 39–120.

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stance that oppressive officials and harsh natural conditions forced people to rebel in the late Ming and late Qing periods. Zhao began his account of Li Zicheng’s rebellion with the “farmers’ revolts” that overthrew the Qin and led to the Han about two millennia earlier. He then jumped immediately to the revolts that overthrew the Yuan and resulted in the Ming. He thereby shared the common idea that there was some kind of parallel between the two commoner-led uprisings of Liu Bang and Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhao then recounted both the achievements and the failures of the Ming. The deficits were the concentration of land holding, increase in tax surcharges, and outbreak of natural disasters that led to the uprisings of Zhang Xianzhong (1605–1647) and Li Zicheng in the 1630s and 1640s. Zhao focused on Li Zicheng and regarded Li Yan as the key to the rise of his rebel regime. In Zhao’s words: Beginning in Chongzhen 13 (1640), when Li Zicheng re-entered Henan, he brought together the troops, united military authority, won over the local elite, and delineated a political system. The key to all this was the adherence of Li Yan.9 Zhao then recounted the by now standard story, adding only a few details such as Li Jingbai’s establishing living memorials to the eunuch, Wei Zhongxian. Zhao based his account of Li Yan heavily on Ji Liuqi’s, but he used his own words to make the narrative more readable.10 Zhao recognized that there were some questions about the Lis’ relationships with Qi County, including Li Jingbai’s and Li Yan’s absence from the lists of graduates in the Qi County gazetteer. But he brushed aside the problem with a rhetorical question, writing May we suspect that the people of Qi did not like Jingbai’s treasonous support [of Wei Zhongxian] and Yan’s rebellious support of Zicheng so made both of them taboo and left them out of their histories? Other books all spoke of them accurately. I think this is not like the case of Hong Daquan in the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace whose identity was completely fabricated.11 Thus Zhao cited a clear case of fabrication of another rebel to contrast the case of Li Yan, whose existence seemed to have some basis in the sources. 9  Zhao 1937: 127–38. 10  Zhao 1937: 138–39. 11  Zhao 1937: 139 n. 1; for Hong, see Jen 1973: 84, 86.

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Zhao made no mention of any question regarding the historicity of the female rope artist Hong Niangzi, one of the more recent and fantastic parts of the Li Yan saga. This may have been related to Zhao Zongfu’s general attitudes towards women. According to one biography of Zhao, he was close to his mother and she was reputed to have had sympathy for the poor. Zhao himself openly defended the dignity of commoner women. In 1935 he published an article sharply criticizing the “supreme leader” Chiang Kai-shek for suggesting that Cui Cui, a famous Chinese courtesan, might be selling out the country by providing information to the head of Japanese special services in Suiyuan. Zhao pointed out wryly that Chinese prostitutes were responsible only for selling their sexual services and it was more likely high officials who were selling state secrets. Zhao rejected Chiang’s “absurd view” and compared it to that of early historians who blamed Da Yi (the concubine of the last Shang ruler Zhou Xin) and Bao Si (the concubine of the last Western Zhou ruler King You) for causing the fall of the Shang and Western Zhou states respectively. Zhao’s affinity for commoner women was not just academic. In 1940, after years of rejecting the offers of leading Shanxi families to marry their daughters to Zhao, he finally decided to marry a farm girl named Zhao Xihe.12 Given Zhao’s respect for women, he may well have wanted to believe that a female acrobat could have kidnapped a hapless intellectual, rescued him from prison, and persuaded him to join a popular movement to overthrow a corrupt state. More generally, he seems to have accepted the widespread view that even good Chinese historians would have few qualms about deleting controversial personalities from their records. He may have thought that, by the same token, they might not be averse to adding a colorful figure who could increase the appeal of a particular story that had great allegorical potential. In any case, Zhao went on to transmit many other elements of the standard Li Yan story. They included: the confusion over whether the sobriquet “Master Li” referred to Li Zicheng or to Li Yan; Li Yan’s recommendation of Niu Jinxing to Li Zicheng; Niu Jinxing’s efforts to win over Ming scholars and officials, including members of the Eastern Forest and Restoration societies, and his appointment of them to posts in the rebel regime; and Li Zicheng’s centralization of military authority at the cost of rivals such as the Henanese rebel Yuan Shizhong. Zhao drew on a text titled Hearsay of the wood cutter, often attributed to Wu Weiye, to describe Li Zicheng as a yellow tiger who was

12  Bai 2000: 25–7, 319, 321.

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supported by the masses and advised by Li Yan in his determined campaign to overthrow the Ming.13 Otherwise Zhao offered little on Li Yan’s role in the Da Shun regime in Xiangyang, Xi’an, and Beijing, and he had nothing to say about any younger brother named Li Mou. He accepted the standard account blaming Niu Jinxing for machinations leading to the assassination of Li Yan, and he accepted the idea that the internecine struggle led to the decline of the rebel regime. Zhao concluded with the general view that, in the past, “poor farmer” uprisings like Li Zicheng’s could never succeed because they lacked the kind of organization that, many thought, only the Communist Party could provide. Zhao also made the interesting point that Li Zicheng’s idea of equity (including land equalization) was in line with Confucian ideals. Although the slogan of “equal fields” was not realized by the rebels, it would influence the policies of the early Qing.14 After publication of his article on Li Zicheng and the outbreak of war with Japan in 1937, Zhao Zongfu began in earnest his career as a Communist intelligence agent working underground in the “white” (i.e. non-Communist controlled) areas of north China. As an intellectual committed to a revolutionary cause, Zhao was in some ways pursuing a course similar to that of Li Yan, and his location in Shaanxi and Shanxi Provinces must have made the Li Zicheng-Li Yan story seem all the more relevant to his situation. Zhao may have more than once thought about ways in which the Manchus in the northeast, the Ming loyalists in the southeast, and the Shun regime in the northwest prefigured the Japanese, Nationalists, and Communists as they contended for control of the central plain and ultimately rule over all of China. Zhao’s position as a covert Communist cadre based in Shanxi was somewhat different from Li Yan’s position as an advisor to Li Zicheng, however. Zhao was under the nominal authority of a regional militarist Yan Xishan, who retained the loyalty of Zhao’s father and who played a complicated role vis a vis the Japanese and the Nationalists. Zhao took some pride in helping to keep Yan from making peace with the Japanese, but, to survive under Yan’s watchful eye, he at one point had to deny that he had any links with the Communist party. Since he was working at some distance from the C.C.P. headquarters in Yan’an and was often out of touch with the center, there was some truth to his claims, but that did not keep him from being arrested and spending some time under house arrest in Yan’s domain. At another point, Zhao joined the Nationalist party that was theoretically in a united front with the Communists. He continued 13  Zhao 1937: 140–42. The title “Yellow Tiger” was usually used pejoratively to refer to Zhang Xianzhong. See Swope 2018: 2, 4 n15, 324, 418. 14  Zhao 1937: 143–157.

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to report to the Communist leadership and it seems that some of his reports were read by party leaders including Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai (1898–1976), and Zhu De (1886–1976). By making such compromises in the political mine field of that time and place, Zhao survived both the Sino-Japanese conflict and the civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists that followed. In April 1949, after suffering another arrest, he was among those who celebrated the Communist victory over local reactionary forces in the Shanxi capital city of Taiyuan.15 In September 1949, Zhao Zongfu joined the new, Communist-led provincial government in Shanxi as Vice-Chair of the Education Committee and was named Vice-President of Shanxi University. In 1953 he became head of the newly independent Taiyuan Engineering College where he emphasized moral, intellectual, and physical training for cadres, among others. He served in that post for ten years before becoming caught up in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Although details are lacking, Zhao probably came under attack for operating independently from party leadership during the Sino-Japanese war and for denying his party membership to save his life when arrested by Yan Xishan. In that respect, he was fairly representative of party cadres like Liu Shaoqi (1898–1966), who had worked clandestinely in white areas during the revolution. I have not seen any evidence of Zhao’s response to his predicament, but he may have recalled Li Yan’s fate at the hands of Li Zicheng as he contemplated his own demise at the hands of Maoists, which occurred in June 1966. Unlike Li Zicheng, of course, Mao had successfully established his own new regime in 1949. Mao also survived the end of his Cultural Revolution in which he eliminated many of his critics inside and outside the party. But the parallel between Li Yan and Zhao was stronger. Li Yan was celebrated as a relatively humane rebel in early Qing accounts and Zhao Zongfu was posthumously rehabilitated as a loyal party member after 1978. Between 1979 and 1999, Zhao’s good name was restored, his arrests were overturned, and positive biographies were written. Bronze statues were erected at his Jinshan middle school and Taiyuan Engineering University.16 By heeding Zhao Zongfu’s advice during the Communists’ rise to power and by exonerating him after his death, the party leadership seemed to get, however partially and belatedly, a main point of the Li Yan story: the need to respect scholars to carry out a successful revolution.

15  Bai 2000: 320–325. 16  Bai 2000: 326–29.

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3.1.3 Guo Moruo The next aficionado of the Li Yan story, Guo Moruo, drew the same lesson even more forcefully. Guo was born into a merchant landlord family in a small market town near Jiading Prefecture in Sichuan Province. He was the fifth son and was originally given the personal name Kaizhen. He received training from a private tutor in the classics and studied Japanese and English in middle school. He gained a reputation as a playboy, but he also led student strikes. They protested military interference with student life in 1909 and criticized delays in establishing a constitution in 1910–1911. Guo graduated from middle school in Chengdu in 1913 and went to Japan to join two of his elder brothers and to study medicine. He graduated from a Higher School in Okayama and then from Kyushu Imperial University in 1923, but he never became a physician. In 1917 he had married a Japanese nurse named Sato Tomiko and changed his personal name to Moruo (lit. frothy sea god.) He also became interested in literature. Together with Tian Han (1898–1968), Yü Dafu (1896–1945), and others, he established a journal titled Creation Quarterly with two sequels based in Shanghai. Interested in Marxism from 1919 on, Guo issued a call “for proletarian literature” in 1923. The next year, he translated some essays by Kawakami Hajime (1879–1946), one of the earliest Japanese Marxists, into Chinese. In response to the May 30th incident in Shanghai in 1925, in which workers struck to protest Japanese and British exploitation and repression in industries in the foreign-imposed treaty-ports, Guo developed contacts with members of the Chinese Communist Party and joined the Nationalist Party. He became dean of the faculty of literature at Zhongshan university in Canton. There the Nationalist-Communist coalition government was planning a northern military expedition to defeat the regional militarists and establish control over Beijing. In 1926 Guo held various posts under Chiang Kai-shek in Nanchang County/Prefecture, Jiangxi Province. In April 1927 Chiang and right-wing Nationalists made deals with the militarists and the foreign powers and turned against the Communists and other leftists in Shanghai. Guo joined the leftwing Nationalists in Wuhan in Hubei. When the Communists were expelled from the Wuhan government, they carried out an uprising in Nanchang. Guo joined them there as director of the Political Department. When the uprising was suppressed, Guo accompanied survivors on a march to Canton. It was at this low point in Communist Party fortunes that Guo secretly joined the party and began his career as an underground agent. After further reverses in and around Canton, Guo left for Hong Kong and Shanghai and then went to Japan to rejoin his family.17 17  Roy 1971; Klein and Clark 1971: 458–460.

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Guo spent the decade from 1928 to 1937 in Japan, where he had the time and freedom to write autobiographies, essays, plays, and novels, and to participate in the literary and political activities of a League of Left-wing Writers. With the outbreak of war in July 1937, he returned to Shanghai, and, when Shanghai fell to the Japanese in November, he went to Hong Kong. In 1938 he went to Hankou, temporary capital of the retreating Nationalist government. There he was active in the All-China Resistance Association of Art and Literary Workers, served as chief of the Third (Propaganda) Section of the National Military Council’s Political Training Department, and was readmitted to the Nationalist party. When Hankou fell to the Japanese in 1938, Guo went first to Changsha and then to Chongqing, the wartime capital of the Nationalist government. With the deterioration of relations between the Chinese Communists and the Nationalists in 1940, Guo was removed from his position in the Third Section and was demoted to head the Cultural Work Committee. This gave him more time to return to his scholarship. During the last four years of the war, he produced many more literary works including histories and dramas.18 Among these works was a substantial essay in 1944 commemorating the three hundredth anniversary of the fall of the Ming. This essay had its long-term origins in Guo’s social background and evolving political experience. Although he was born into a landlord family, was married to—and had children by—a Japanese woman and was, again in the 1940s, a member of the Nationalist Party, he had long expressed sympathy for the poor and down trodden masses, was strongly opposed to Japanese imperialism, and professed belief in Marxism while keeping his membership in the Communist Party secret. To be sure, Guo’s principal scholarly interest was in early history, including archaeology and preQin thought, and he had focused his biographical studies in the 1920s and 1930s on the Warring-States-period aristocratic poet Qu Yuan (340–278 BCE).19 But Guo was a polymath and a public intellectual. After his experience in the abortive revolution of 1927, he was actively interested in finding and celebrating farmer rebels like Chen Sheng (d. 208 BCE) and Wu Guang (d. 208 BCE). Their revolt had led to the overthrow of the Qin polity and eventually to the rise of the commoner rebel Liu Bang (256–195 BCE), the defeat of the aristocratic rebel Xiang Yu (232–202 BCE), and the establishment of the Han.20 The more immediate context of Guo’s essay on 1644 was the continuing Communist and Nationalist civil war after 1937—despite the second united front that had been formed to resist Japan. In September 1939, Mao Zedong, and his secretary, Chen Boda (1904–1989), wrote an essay titled “The Chinese 18  Klein and Clark 1971: 460–61. 19  Schneider 1980: 103–06, 112–120. 20  Lin and Huang 1992: 379–384.

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Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party.” It reviewed the history of China’s unparalleled number and size of farmers’ revolts from the Han through the Qing and argued: In China’s feudal society, it was only these farmers’ class struggles, their uprisings and their wars, that provided the real motive force in the development of Chinese history.21 In March 1943, Chiang Kai-shek and his ghost writer Tao Xisheng (1899–1988) offered a quite different and more pointed analysis of the nature and role of the two rebellions that had overthrown the Ming in 1644. In a book titled China’s Destiny, they wrote that the Ming declined through political corruption, intellectual division, bureaucratic partisanship, popular disaffection, and roving robbers. In their words: The three-hundred-year-old Ming house was finally overthrown by the combined attacks from within of the roving robbers Dashing Li and Zhang Xianzhong and from without of the Manchu banner troops.22 By their choice of words, the Nationalists made clear their belief that the legitimate Chinese Ming dynasty had been destroyed by illegitimate domestic and foreign forces. To make the point even more explicitly, Tao Xisheng wrote an article the following month titled “Reading China’s Destiny”, in which he emphasized the similarities between the late Ming roving robbers and the Communists, who were located in the northwest, and between the Manchu armies and the Japanese, who were based in the northeast.23 If these analogies were strictly applied, of course, the Republic, like the Ming before it, would be facing imminent destruction at the hands of its two enemies. It was also possible to think, however, that, as in the case of most historical analogies, this one could be interpreted differently, i.e. in a way conducive to extending the life of the Republic. A few months later, in the summer of 1943, Communist leaders in Yan’an decided to respond to the Nationalist scenario by a broad-based commemoration of the three hundredth anniversary of the overthrow of the Ming.24 In August, Guo wrote an article praising the late Qin plebian rebel, Chen Sheng, 21  Mao 1939: for a biography of Chen, see Klein and Clark 1971: 122–125. 22  Chiang 1943. 23  Lin and Huang 1992: 387. 24  Feng 2008: 179–80.

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for using scholars in his movement, in contrast with the commoner rebel Liu Bang who was hard on intellectuals in general and on Confucians in particular.25 On 16 January 1944, Qiao Guanhua (1913–1983), editor of the New China Daily and The Masses Weekly, wrote to the dissident poet Liu Yazi (1886–1958) to say that Guo Moruo and others had recommended that he (Liu), as an expert on the Southern Ming, keynote the commemoration. Liu pleaded poor health to beg off from the assignment, though he was well enough by April 1944 to write a brief memorial. Liu accepted the basic Li Yan story and asserted that the scholar rebel advisor’s death was “one reason for Li Zicheng’s failure” to found his own new regime.26 Guo Moruo interrupted his research in the history of early China to write a commemoration of the fall of the Ming, with which he was not so familiar. He did so, in part, to take the place of Liu Yazi, but he seems to have worked especially hard on the project. In doing research, he came across a version of the popular informal history that was a principal source of the Li Yan story.27 The result was a 20,000 character account titled “The Three-Hundredth Anniversary of 1644,” which appeared serially over five days from March 19 through 23 in the Nationalist headquarters in Chongqing.28 As a polymath interested in literature as well as history, Guo drew heavily on a variety of sources to focus on Li Zicheng’s rebellion and particularly on the scholar rebel Li Yan and his companion Hong Niangzi. While Guo tried to provide a balanced account of the social and political causes of the rise and fall of the rebellion—a remarkable achievement given the limits of the time and place of his work—he ended up devoting an estimated two thirds of his text to Li Yan’s role. He clearly, if only tacitly, agreed with Tao Xisheng that the fall of the Ming had implications for their own era, or what Guo hoped would be the late Republic. He also thought the history could be interpreted in such a way as to benefit contemporaries, in this case the revolutionary forces seeking to overthrow the Nationalist regime and resist the Japanese invasion. Guo began his account by acknowledging, as Liu Yazi would, that the Ming did not really come to an end in 1644 because southern Ming regimes persisted until 1661 and armed resistance to the Qing continued to 1683. But, he continued:

25  Lin and Huang 1992: 392–93. 26  Liu 1944: 50–55. 27  Guo 1944 jiao: 42–43. 28  Guo March 1944: 1–24.

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The broad-based and long-lasting farmers’ movement [revolution] in that year [1644] brought about the collapse of the Ming’s most authoritarian rule before committing various kinds of mistakes that unfortunately led to the Manchus [Qing] becoming masters and ruling in a narrowly nationalistic fashion and the people’s bloody tears flowing for more than two hundred and sixty years. No matter what anyone says about it, this was an event that is worth remembering.29 Guo cited Li Zicheng’s judgment that, in the case of the last effective Ming sovereign, Chongzhen, “The ruler was not the ruler of a failed state, but the officials were officials of a failed state.” Guo agreed but noted that Chongzhen was unable to correct his predecessors’ many faults, such as relying on eunuchs. Officials, for their part, failed to respond positively to a Jiangnan military student named Li Jin who petitioned for the distribution of grain relief during a famine. Guo cited the Ming History that praised Li Zicheng’s personal qualities. He stated that Li Zicheng attracted popular support comparable to that of Liu Bang and Zhu Yuanzhang, who had succeeded in founding the Han and the Ming respectively.30 Here Guo offered a more positive view than he had before of the Han and Ming polities founded by commoner rebels. Li Zicheng’s fortunes fluctuated for years, but in 1640, after three years of drought and locusts leading to famine, he entered Henan Province and many famished people filled the ranks of his forces. At the same time, Guo wrote, according to many kinds of historical records, people’s behavior changed because of the participation of the Qi County provincial graduate Li Xin. In “Li Zicheng’s biography” [in the Ming History] and in almost all other materials, this person is described with sympathy, and not necessarily only because he was a scholar. There were many other literati who followed Li Zicheng, but none of them received the same kind of sympathy [that Li Yan did].31 In the spirit of Tan Qian’s manuscript, but not citing it, and using Ji Liuqi’s more inclusive record, but not always agreeing with it, Guo attempted to reconcile differences among the sources over the dating of Li Xin’s activities in Qi. He argued that Li drafted his song to encourage relief not in 1635 or even in 1637, but only in early 1640 after the arrival of locusts and the commander 29  Guo 1954: 1; Guo 1972: 1; Guo 2005: 2. 30  Guo 1954: 2–8. 31  Guo 1954: 9.

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Yang Sichang in the region. Li Xin was then jailed by the magistrate. Guo therefore no longer needed Hong Niangzi to explain Li Xin’s revolt in 1640, but he still had her rescue Li from jail and join him in rallying to Li Zicheng by the end of the year. According to Guo, Li Xin cast his lot with Li Zicheng before the rebel leader attacked Yongning and entered Henan Province in early 1641. In this account, Li Yan was the first Henanese scholar to become an advisor to Li Zicheng and he recommended Niu Jinxing, who then recommended Song Xiance.32 Guo’s narrative was not free of contradictions, such as between the dates of the Dashing Prince’s entrance into Henan and Li Xin’s joining the uprising, but he tried his best to settle the dates to make the account as coherent as possible. Guo Moruo, like many in his generation, left behind in his hometown a spouse to whom he had been married by his family. He then married a Japanese woman of his own choice, and had offspring by her, but he spent much time away from her as she brought up the children in Japan and he attended to his work in China. Later he divorced her and married Yu Liqun, with whom he had more children. Perhaps for this reason, among others, Guo evinced interest in gender relationships.33 He commented that “the brief interjection of Hong Niangzi” in the biography of Li Yan that was contained in the biography of Li Zicheng in the Ming History, “was very moving, but unfortunately there are no sources to examine beyond the Ming History.” Perhaps reflecting his own ambivalence toward revolution, Guo remarked that Li Yan’s decision to leave Hong’s camp suggested that he did not want to give up the status conferred on him by his provincial degree. Guo was critical of the Record of the Fungus Shrine, which he thought portrayed Li and Hong as comic figures engaged in a farce. Guo may have been reminded of his own marital experience when Li Yan went off with Hong Niangzi while his wife, née Tang, committed suicide and uttered a verse criticizing her unfaithful husband. Guo commented that “the Hong Niangzi story is extremely good material for a novel”, but he acknowledged that “it was not mentioned in the The Little History.” Guo evinced similar sobriety in analyzing other gendered relationships. He discounted the story that Niu Jinxing married his daughter to Li Zicheng and dismissed it as “completely wild talk.” He also questioned the story that Li Zicheng gave one of his daughters in marriage to Niu, pointing out that Li was only thirty-four years old at the time and was considerably younger than Niu Jinxing. Guo said it was

32  Guo 1954: 10–14. 33  In the 1920s, Guo had celebrated three female “rebels” of sorts: Wang Zhaojun, Zhuo Wenjun, and Cai Wenyi. See Guo 2005: 123.

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more likely that Li gave one of his daughters to Niu Jinxing’s son, Niu Quan.34 Whatever the case, Guo’s attention to women’s roles was similar to that of earlier writers. including Wu Weiye and Wan Sitong. It also accorded with that of contemporaries, such as Zhao Zongfu, and helped to explain Guo’s acceptance of the Hong Niangzi tale. Apparently unaware of any of the criticisms of the Li Yan story dating back to the early Qing, Guo accepted the idea that Li Xin was the son of the Ming minister Li Jingbai. He also agreed that Li Xin may have been ostracized in his home county because of his father’s participation in the eunuch party at court. Guo denied the corollary, however, that Li Xin rallied to Li Zicheng only because he sought an alternative authority that would enable him to recover his social and political standing. Guo acknowledged that Li Yan’s official position in the rebel leadership was not high because he was only a second-ranked general and an advisor, roles that were played by many others in the rebel regime. Li Yan also lacked any substantive post comparable to prime minister, held by Niu Jinxing, commander-in-chief, held by Song Xiance, and field commander, held by Liu Zongmin. Although without much evidence, Guo insisted that Li Yan was a powerful symbol of literati support for the rebellion and served to attract other intellectuals to the movement.35 When the rebels took Beijing, Guo was happy to divide them into positive and negative figures. First, among the heroes, was Li Zicheng, who was praised for his virtues of discipline, honesty, economy, closeness to the people, and even filial piety towards his parents. Li wisely spared the Ming princes who surrendered to the rebel Shun state and he enfeoffed the Ming heir apparent according to the “rituals of Qi and Song”, first implemented in the change of mandate from Shang to Zhou. As we have seen, that ritual involved the enfeoffment of the descendants of the Xia ruling family in Qi and the enfeoffment of the descendants of the Shang ruling family in Song. It became a standard way for a new polity to propitiate the spirits of the previous royal family and to insure a smooth transition of political authority. Li Zicheng also cleverly delayed his claim to be a new son of heaven or august lord. He hoped thereby to facilitate negotiations with the Ming commander Wu Sangui to share the realm and unite in resistance to the Qing. Second, among the meritorious, was Li Yan or Master Li who tried to protect the Empress Yi’an, who was a fellow Henanese and who had opposed the eunuch party. Li Yan also reached out to Liu Lishun, the scholar from Qi County who had placed first in the metropolitan civil service examinations. Li Yan could be strict, however, in expropriating 34  Guo 1954: 15–16. 35  Guo 1954: 17–20.

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Ming scholars and officials when they were rich and inhumane. He was so, for example, in the case of a corrupt and selfish student by grace named Zhou, even though he (Zhou) was from Li Yan’s home province of Henan. In Guo’s judgment, Li Yan’s four points were all positive and would have enabled the Da Shun regime to succeed if they had been fully implemented. The third honorable rebel leader was Song Xiance who combined his divination skills with “knowledge of the right.” He correctly opposed the re-implementation of the examination system and the employment of Buddhists in office, and he intervened to curb the military excesses of Liu Zongmin. The leading negative personality, in Guo’s view, was the general Liu Zongmin, who scuttled the negotiations with Wu Sangui by seizing the Ming commander’s favorite concubine, Chen Yuanyuan. Liu also used torture to extract excessive amounts of property from Ming scholar-officials, and he allowed his troops to plunder the capital after the failure of negotiations with Wu Sangui. Almost equally reprehensible was the prime minister, Niu Jinxing, who worked to reinstitute the examination system. Niu also became jealous of Li Yan’s and Li Mou’s popularity with other rebels and the people, and finally persuaded Li Zicheng to order their assassination. With the death of Li Yan and Li Mou, Guo believed, the rebel movement disintegrated and lost its last chance to replace the Ming with its own new polity.36 Having made Li Yan the center of the story of the rise and fall of the Da Shun state, Guo Moruo naturally mourned his assassination. In his words, No matter what one says, this was a great tragedy. Li Zicheng was of course a major figure in the tragedy, but looking at it from Li Yan’s position, the tragedy had especially deep significance. If, when he first entered Beijing, Zicheng had listened to Li Yan and had caused his officers and troops not to be negligent and to practice military discipline, had early on selected a policy to win over Wu Sangui and others, the Qing forces would not have entered the pass so quickly. Moreover if Li Yan had recovered Henan as discussed, given his strong support from the people, he would have been able to manage by himself. He could have turned the farming people’s struggle for liberation into a war against external invasion. If the rebels had achieved that, the Qing troops would not have dared to attack Tongguan, and, even if they had taken Tongguan, they definitely would not have pushed to the extreme and threatened Zicheng’s survival. If the rebels had avoided these mistakes on the national front, how could they not have avoided falling into two hundred and sixty years of Manchu 36  Guo 1954: 20–29.

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Qing rule? In this way, an individual’s tragedy became a people’s tragedy, and we must say that this had the deepest significance. From Han times on, it has been a rule that any master strategist who founds a state, once his rule is established, will engage in killing meritorious officials. If Zicheng’s Da Shun dynasty had succeeded (and it would have, if there had been no external calamity), the movement representing the interests of the farmers would soon have changed character and would inevitably have turned into the “virtuous governance” of hidden bows and boiled dogs like that of Han Gaozu and Ming Taizu. We can say it would have been decidedly difficult for this movement to have been exceptional. Thus the execution of men like Li Yan would not have been long in coming. If Li Yan was really preparing to revolt and intended to surrender to the Southern Ming or to the Manchu Qing, then killing him would have been no shame, but even Niu Jinxing claimed only that he was not comfortable in a subordinate position. There were no valid grounds for killing him. And Niu arranged to put the responsibility on Li Zicheng whereas it should have been on the friend-selling prime minister Niu Jinxing. It’s been three hundred years, and people’s inherited national [or ethnic] hatred has fortunately dissipated. The merits and crimes of people from three hundred years ago should have been clearly decided by now. From the standpoint of nationality, Chongzhen and Niu Jinxing committed the greatest transgressions and we can say that they were traitors. The tragedy of Li Yan is worth remembering forever.37 Ignoring Guo Moruo’s main point that twentieth-century revolutionaries should learn from the experience of the seventeenth-century rebels, an anonymous writer published an article in the Nationalist Central Daily News on the last day of Guo’s serial essays. The writer took sharp exception to Guo’s supposed implication that the Republic, like the Ming, would succumb to internal and external challenges. In a riposte to Guo titled “Correcting a Kind of Thinking,” the author accused Guo, at the very moment of victory in the seven-year war against Japan, of “proposing a contrary psychology advocating 37  Guo 1954: 29–30. Guo, like others who thought Li Yan could have joined Ming loyalists in opposing the Qing, may have had in mind the role of Li Dingguo (1621–1662), an advisor to the rebel Zhang Xianzhong. Like Li Yan, Li Dingguo offered wise counsel to his leader and was popular with the people, but was undermined by close colleagues and unable to establish a new regime. Unlike Li Yan, Li Dingguo survived the death of his leader and went on to mount a strong, if ultimately unsuccessful, resistance to the Qing. See Swope 2018: 123–124, 186, 228, 232–236, 239, 247–249, 272–275 295–296.

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defeatism and the idea of the fall of the state.” In response, the anonymous author wrote: “We must sigh and call on the Chinese people and all those loyal to China to work together to correct this kind of thinking without the least indulgence or relaxation.” The writer charged Guo with sowing the seeds of pessimism and calling into question the past fifty years of efforts to build the Republic.38 The author acknowledged that over 5,000 years, many states had fallen as a result of the interaction of internal problems and external challenges, but fifty years of the Republic and seven years of a war of resistance had broken the power of that pattern. He argued that there were lessons to be derived from past foundings of states as well as from previous collapses of states. Even in the case of fallen states, “patriotic historians” regularly praised not those who caused trouble inside and outside the state, but rather those who tried to defeat both kinds of adversaries. They included Xie An (320–385) in the fourth century, Yue Fei (1103–1142) in the twelfth century, and Shi Kefa (1601–1645) in the seventeenth century. Such a historian would “definitely not obstinately search out Li Zicheng and his subordinate Li Yan and praise them excessively as models. Loving one’s country and loving one’s people does not allow for the loss of one’s country and the destruction of one’s race. These are the principles and sentiments of humanity.” But Guo Moruo sings the praises of “the roving robber Li Zicheng and his subordinate Li Yan. This is really outside the boundaries of humanity’s principles and sentiments!”39 The writer made his political affinity clear in concluding that the “revolutionary party and revolutionary army based on the Three People’s Principles” would not be overthrown by the nexus of internal trouble and external calamity, but everyone should remain vigilant to make sure of the outcome.40 About three weeks later, on April 12, Mao Zedong, now secure as Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, offered a different analysis of the historical significance of Guo Moruo’s essay. In a document, titled “Study and the Current Situation,” he pointed out: Several times in the history of our party, we have shown excessive pride and have in every case suffered losses. The first time was in the first half of 1927. When the northern expedition reached Wuhan, some comrades became excessively proud and considered themselves to be great, forgetting that the Nationalist Party was preparing to attack us. The result was Chen Duxiu (1879–1942)’s mistaken line and the failure of that revolution. 38  Anon. 3/24/44: 94. 39  Guo 1954: 95. 40  Guo 1954: 96.

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The second time was in 1930. The Red Army took advantage of the war among Chiang [Kaishek], Feng [Yuxiang 1882–1948], and Yan [Xishan], to win some battles. Again, some comrades became arrogant and considered themselves peerless. The result was to follow Li Lisan (1899–1967)’s mistaken line and to cause the revolutionary forces to suffer harm. The third time was in 1931, when the Red Army broke through the third “encirclement campaign,” and, together with the people of the whole country, organized a spectacular movement to resist Japan’s invasion. Again, there were some comrades who experienced hubris and considered themselves great. The result was an even more serious erroneous line, causing the painfully accumulated revolutionary forces to suffer an estimated ninety percent loss in power. The fourth time was in 1938. When the war of resistance started and the united front was established, there were again some comrades who were conceited and thought themselves great, and again they made some mistakes like those of Chen Duxiu. This time revolutionary work encountered great losses in those places where the influence of the mistaken ideas of those comrades was greatest. Comrades of the entire party want to take these cases of overbearing pride and mistakes as warnings. Recently we printed Guo Moruo’s essay on Li Zicheng and we call on comrades to take it as a warning so as not to repeat mistakes flowing from hubris after victories.41 Along with approving Guo Moruo’s scholarly essay as an allegory about the price of arrogance after success, Mao Zedong was active in promoting the idea of farmers’ uprisings as a force for progress in Chinese history. On April 21, Mao wrote to Li Dingming, a committee-man working in the documents section of Mizhi County and serving as vice chairman of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia soviet border region, to comment on Li Baozhong’s manuscript, “The extended meaning of the Yongchang reign” that had come to his attention. Mao wrote: This book praises and prettifies Li Zicheng’s individual character, but depreciates his entire movement. In fact, during the two millennia from the Qin-Han on, in our country the important forces propelling society forward were the farmers’ wars. Of the several tens of farmers’ wars in this period, the one led by the Da Shun lord Li Zicheng was one of the most famous. This movement began in north Shaanxi and was the glory of the people of Shaanxi and the glory of you and the writer Jianhou. If this book can be revised according to the new historical concepts described 41  Mao1991: 3. 947–48.

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above, it will be extremely useful in teaching the people. I wonder if the author would agree to this?42 Apparently, nothing came of this suggestion right away, but the manuscript continued to circulate and was finally published in 1984.43 On April 21, Guo wrote a letter to the American historian of China, John K. Fairbank (1907–1991), in which he revealed his response to the anonymous attack in the Nationalist newspaper: In recent months, while researching history at the end of the Ming dynasty, I read some old books and planned to write a play about the farmers’ movement of which Li Zicheng was a representative; because of this I had to put off responding to your letter for which I ask your pardon. My plan for a play encountered a blow. The reason was that, on March 19, on the 300th anniversary of the destruction of the Ming dynasty, I wrote a commemorative essay for a supplement to the New China Daily that unexpectedly, on March 24, elicited an editorial from a certain newspaper [the Guomindang’s Central Daily], which should treat revolution as its lifeblood, making an irrational and noisy attack. When our [Guomindang] officials recently responded to your country’s public opinion, they said our China is very democratic and the freedom of speech is greater than in any other country. This is very interesting. What I wrote was basically a research essay on historiography, and it underwent and passed inspection, [but it] finally caused serious problems. This kind of freedom of speech and publication really does not exist in the rest of the world. But I am not going to wither, I consider these essayists to be just too pitiful and hysterical. My plan, after a pause, is to use my full strength to realize it [the project of writing a play]. I plan to go soon to the countryside, returning to my home which you visited last year, and to write about it.44 In this curious letter to a foreign historian of China, Guo revealed that his plan to write a play about Li Zicheng was serious enough to cause him to set aside other work. He also suggested that the Guomindang criticism of his essay on 1644 was strong enough to force him to reconsider how he might write a play on the same topic. Guo noted the contradiction between the Guomindang’s 42  Mao cited in Lin and Huang 1992: 386; Sato 2010: 111–114. 43  Oher editions of this work were published in Huhehoute in 1998, Wuhan in 2009, and Shanghai in 2012. See World Cat under Li Baozhong. 44  Guo 1944/4/21: 112–15.

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attack on his essay while claiming to be democratic and receptive to free speech. He acknowledged facetiously that the Guomindang was right that “this kind of freedom of speech and publication does not exist in the rest of the world.” In any case, Guo still seemed bent on writing a play about Li Zicheng and hoped to prepare for it by doing further research in the countryside. Leaders within the Communist Party were paying attention to Guo’s efforts. Less than two months later, on 7 June 1944, the Political Bureau of the Central Propaganda Ministry pointed out the educational significance of Guo’s essay on 1644.45 On 12 November, Zhang Aiping (1910–2003), Commander of the Eighth Brigade of the Third Division of the New Fourth Army, sent members of a Cultural Work Group to invite the prominent playwright A Ying (1900–1977) to write a play based on Guo’s essay. The goal was to prepare the troops for entering the cities so that they would not abuse the residents as Li Zicheng’s troops were said to have done.46 At the same time and under the same influence and guidelines, several other writers responded to the call to put the story of the rise and fall of Li Zicheng on stage.47 As we shall see, these dramas were performed widely in the Communist base areas before and after victory over Japan in 1945. On 21 November 1944, Mao sent a note to Guo Moruo expressing his enthusiastic support. After a few polite phrases, he got to the point: We have used your “Commemorating the Three Hundredth Anniversary of 1644” as reading material in our rectification campaign. Small victories are followed by pride, big victories by greater pride, and time after time it leads to failure. We need to pay close attention to avoid this problem. If we can put our hand to writing a volume on the experience of the Taiping army, that would be very beneficial; but I do not dare to make it a formal proposal for fear of overburdening you. I recently read “Before and After Returning to Rectitude.”48 My experience in Hunan at that time was almost identical [to yours]. Trying to make a revolution with an immature bourgeoisie at that time—the results could not have been avoided. In the war of resistance against Japan, [the bourgeoisie] should have matured. The International conditions are very good, the internal 45  Guo Moruo ji nian guan, deng 2005: 92–93. 46  A Ying 1955: 5579–65. 47  Ma 1944; Li 1949; Wu, Xia, Xi 1950. 48  The title of Guo’s memoir has been translated as Before and After the Revolution of 1911 (Shanghai: Xiandai shuju, 1929). See Roy 1971: 207. Thanks to Kristin Stapleton for this information.

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situation depends on our hard work. Although working cautiously and fearing making mistakes, I do not know from what direction the errors will come. If you see any mistakes or deficiencies, I hope you will inform us in a timely manner. Your historical essays and historical plays are beneficial to the Chinese people; we will only object to their being few, not to their being many. Your energy will not be expended in vain, and we hope that you will continue to work hard. When comrade [Zhou] Enlai arrives, the recent situation around here should be known, and I therefore will not assert any theses here. We all hope to meet with you, and I wonder if there will be an opportunity? Wishing you good health, happiness, and spiritual brilliance! Respectfully, Mao Zedong. 21 November 1944 in Yan’an49 According to a later popular account, sometime in 1945 Mao addressed the general issue of the roles of intellectuals in the founding of Chinese states. He reportedly drew on histories and novels to point out that every polity and every class has its scholars. The Duke of Zhou was a worthy official in slave society; Zhuge Liang was an intellectual in feudal society. Mao then reportedly acknowledged that: During the rectification campaign in the examination of the personal histories of cadres, we suppressed intellectuals a bit and were a little unjust. It seems there’s a balance, here suppress a bit, there heighten a bit. At this meeting, we want to support and rectify, raising intellectuals up a bit.50 Mao (or one of his listeners) continued: at the time of the war between Chu and Han, the leader Liu Bang had the advisor Zhang Liang; in the Three Kingdoms, Liu Bei had Zhuge Liang; in the Song, the rebel leader Song Jiang had Wu Yong; in the late Yuan, the rebel Zhu Yuanzhang had Liu Bowen; in the late Ming, Li Zicheng had Niu Jinxing and Song Xiance. Because this text lacks details on the author, time, place, and occasion of these comments and excludes Li Yan from the list of advisors (!), it is hard to know its significance. The general point, however, that every leader had a scholar advisor or two, was clear. Such advisors, moreover, should have some ideas 49  Mao 1944.11: 27–28. 50  Chen 2008: 263–264.

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of their own. On 31 May 1945, Mao cited the late Qing reformer Gong Zizhen (1792–1841) to the effect that, just as the party should have its own identity, so cadres should have their own individuality and not be turned out as identical lumps of molded clay.51 In this atmosphere, on 12 February 1946, Guo Moruo published a brief essay in Chongqing titled “Regarding Li Yan.” He wrote: The year before last, when I wrote “The Three Hundredth Anniversary of 1644,” I discussed some anecdotes regarding Li Yan and Hong Niangzi, which piqued readers’ interest. Because of a lack of sources, however, the account could not be detailed and exhaustive. Especially regarding Li Yan, I had very great sympathy. He had the status of a provincial graduate yet finally was willing to join up with Li Zicheng. Although we could say he was compelled to do so by corrupt officials and clerks, he was also intellectually prepared to make such a decision. In Zha Jihuang’s Record of Criminal Reflections, there is the extremely important phrase: “Li Yan taught Zicheng to cultivate an empty reputation to conform to myriad hopes, and he falsely talked about equalizing land and suspending taxes to delude people.” (fascicle 31, Li Zicheng’s biography.) The two characters “equal fields” do not exist in other sources. Although they are but two characters, if we wish to make Li Yan’s intellectual stance entirely clear, they are sufficient to prove that Li Yan was really not just an ordinary person. Unfortunately, the movement failed, and more detailed materials regarding his thought are unlikely to be found. The anonymous Recent Record of Taowu also has material on Li Yan, saying that his wife, née Tang, was unable to dissuade him [from revolting] and she committed suicide, uttering her last wishes in the form of a poem. This is very good material for a play or a novel and I append it below. This probably has some basis in fact and is not made up out of whole cloth. Even if it were, it would still be very interesting material. Wu Meicun’s Woodcutter’s Record of Hearsay also mentioned Li Yan and Hong Niangzi, but only cursorily, with little difference from what is in the Ming History, and it may have been what the Ming History was based on. According to the Recent Record of Taowu, Li Yan and Hong Niangzi became husband and wife. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing Hong Niangzi’s later fate. I recently saw the Strike the Oar Poet’s Nine 51  Chen 2008: 265–266.

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Palace Mountain published by Subei Press, which is based on the Three Hundredth Anniversary of 1644. In this account, after Hong Niangzi freed Li Yan from jail, she asked him to marry her, but he refused so she committed suicide by cutting her throat. Although this is one way to handle the matter, it seems to be a bit too pat. I should accept responsibility for this because, when I wrote the Three Hundredth Anniversary of 1644, I had not seen the Recent Record of Taowu. I, too, originally thought about taking the Li Yan Hong-Niangzi story as the basis for a play, [but] it has been brewing for two years, and I still have not picked up my brush. In addressing this issue, I feel some difficulties. If we want to write about the confrontation between Li Yan and Niu Jinxing and about the final slander and assassination, I fear we must write about the entire context.52 In this brief essay of February 1946, Guo revealed several things and raised an important question. He confirmed the impression made by his essay of March 1944 that he was more interested in Li Yan, for whom he now openly expressed “great sympathy,” than in Li Zicheng. Despite his intention, stated in his letter to Fairbank in 1944, to go home and do field research, he seems to have focused instead on finding and reading early written accounts in an effort to provide more details, especially about the relationship between Li Yan and Hong Niangzi. Guo was confident enough of the validity of the written records to cite Zha Jizuo’s unique mention of “equal fields” and to regard it as the key to Li Yan’s ideology. Guo also suggested that the anonymous account of Li Yan’s wife, née Tang, although “novelistic” in tone, probably had some basis in fact. Guo was aware of the play titled Nine Palace Mountain that dealt with 1644, but he used only the literary name of the author, Li Yimang, even though Li was a close friend of Guo’s who had introduced him to the Communist Party in 1927. Guo also disagreed with that dramatist’s handling of Hong Niangzi’s fate as too flippant in the absence of any hard evidence of what happened to her. Most interestingly, despite the existence of this play and others of which Guo was certainly aware, he reiterated his intention to write his own play focused on the Li Yan-Hong Niangzi story. At the same time, however, he voiced concern that any play about Li Yan would have to address his relations with Niu Jinxing. Guo’s comment to this effect was brief and elliptical, and we cannot be sure why he felt that dealing with that issue would be so difficult. One possibility, however, is that in treating Niu Jinxing’s slander and assassination plot, he 52  Guo 1946 in Guo 1954: 31–32; in Guo 1972/73: 33–34; and in Guo Moruo jinian guan 2005: 116–117.

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would have to discuss Li Zicheng’s decision to accept Niu Jinxing’s advice and ignore Li Yan’s. He might even have to deal with Li Zicheng’s authorization of the assassination of Li Yan and Li Mou as he [Li Zicheng] had approved the killing of other potential rivals in the past. Guo was quite aware, of course, that Mao Zedong admired his (Guo’s) original essay written in 1944, but he could not be sure how Mao would react to this essay of 1946 that focused more on the tragedy of Li Yan than on that of Li Zicheng. Nor could Guo anticipate Mao’s response to a play on Li Yan and Hong Niangzi in which Li Zicheng might appear as a villain along with Niu Jinxing. A year and a half later, in July 1947, Guo raised the issue of Li Yan again in a preface to a publication titled Historical Personalities. In his words: I originally wanted to write a play about Li Yan, but I did not succeed. There are already several friends who have used the Three Hundredth Anniversary of 1644 as a basis for writing plays, thus saving me the trouble. But I still have one hope: we should take some focal points with the power to command attention and put them into a tragic play about Li Yan. We should regard this man not only as a master, elder brother, and scholar, but as the embodiment and enactor of the people’s thinking. Although some materials relating to him have fallen into oblivion, he should still have an eminent position in the history of thought.53 During the civil war, Guo was one of many prominent “non-party personalities” who attempted to mediate between the Nationalists and Communists. With the victory of the Communists and the establishment of the People’s Republic in Beijing, he became an important public intellectual. In 1958 he reactivated his Communist Party membership that had lapsed, or at least remained covert, after 1927. He held many high academic and cultural posts, and represented the new state in numerous cultural delegations to friendly countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe. He helped establish the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference which served as a kind of constituent assembly. He chaired the Preparatory Committee of the first Congress of Literary and Art Workers. He served as a delegate to the National People’s Congress and became president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He headed the Federation of Literary and Art Circles and was vice-chair of the Scientific Planning Commission in the State Council. He served as head of the Institute of History and as editor of the leading history journal. Because of his broad interests, stretching from poetry to science, and because of his great academic and literary productivity 53  Feng 2008: 188.

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during his lifetime, two American biographers called him “the closest thing to a Renaissance man that China has produced in this century.”54 Guo Moruo may also have been the closest thing to a Li Yan-like advisor to Mao Zedong. In fact, Guo’s anonymous Nationalist Party critic charged Guo with presuming to be the Li Yan of his day. Guo denied that, perhaps partly because he did not wish to share Li Yan’s fate! Guo claimed instead that he was the embodiment of one of his other heroes, Cai Wenyi, courtesy name of Cai Yan, a woman poet of the late Han who happened to hail from Qi County.55 Guo had met Mao in 1926 and had exchanged poetry with him beginning in 1940.56 Mao’s selection of Guo’s essay on Li Zicheng’s rebellion in 1944 as mandatory reading for all Party members was the beginning of a close, personal, perhaps even unique (on both sides) friendship.57 That friendship enabled Guo to serve as an establishment intellectual who flew so high as to be above several political campaigns against elites during the first thirty years of the People’s Republic. According to one detailed biography, Guo played a mediating role during successive movements, including thought reform and criticism of the liberal intellectual Hu Feng (1903–1985), the Hundred Flowers movement and the Anti-Rightist campaign, and the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. These movements took the lives of many officials and scholars, including some of Guo’s family, friends, and acquaintances.58 Guo Moruo owed his success in part to his flexibility (some would say pragmatism or even opportunism) in navigating often treacherous political waters.59 For example, during the Cultural Revolution, when Li Yan was criticized by some radical historians for showing excessive sympathy for corrupt Ming officials and landlord scholars, Guo tempered his enthusiasm for the late Ming scholar-rebel-advisor Li Yan. In the 1946 and 1954 editions of his essay on Li Yan, he had expressed his “very great sympathy” for him. In the 1972 edition, he toned down his approval and wrote only that he harbored “a certain sympathy” for him.60 Guo probably exercised similar caution in his other writings on various topics during this period when many establishment intellectuals came under attack for revisionism and worse, but his past handling of

54  Klein and Clark 1971: 461–465. 55  Cihai 1985: 610; Gu Zhenyong 2005: 120–143. 56  Gu 2005: ch. 10. 57  Gu 2005: 155. 58  Gu 2005: chs. 5, 6, 7, 12. 59  Guo survived the Cultural Revolution, but not all members of his family were so fortunate. Gu 2005: ch. 13. 60  Guo 1946 in Guo 1954: 31; Guo 1973: 33.

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the Li Yan matter seems to have been of particular concern to him. According to one of his sons, Guo Hanying, during the Cultural Revolution, Guo Moruo saw that in the cultural sphere there were many scholars and old friends, who, one after the other, became targets of criticism, and persons like Lin Biao and the “Gang of Four,” small political actors, rose and fell with great speed. The sympathies in his inner heart and mind were difficult to express in words. He publicly spoke out and privately told us more than once: “I deeply regret that at the beginning I did not write up the Li Yan and Hong Niangzi story as a play.”61 Here, in retrospect, Guo seemed to confirm that his failure to write the envisioned play about the tragedy of Li Yan owed something to his concern that any adequate drama would risk making Li Yan into a hero and Li Zicheng into a villain. Guo could hardly have been more explicit in acknowledging that the main lesson he drew from the Li Yan story was not so much the general one stressed by Mao (to avoid conceit in a time of apparent victory), or the specific one more important to Guo (to avoid killing subordinates whose critical advice may be essential to success). It was, to put it more pointedly and critically, the need for scholar rebel advisors to be circumspect in dealing with rebel leaders if they wanted to live out their lives and die natural deaths. 3.2

Plays, a History, and Society

3.2.1 Li Yimang While Guo Moruo agonized over how to present the Li Yan story on stage, several playwrights took up the task. The first was probably Li Yimang (1903–1990), who was from Sichuan and was the early member of the Communist Party and old friend of Guo Moruo’s mentioned above by Mao Zedong.62 As we have seen, Guo criticized Li’s depiction of Hong Niangzi committing suicide as too pat, but Guo and Li remained friends and later published a collection of plays together. In 1945 Li wrote a historical opera titled Nine Palace Mountain, named after the place where Li Zicheng was supposed to have died in 1645. Like Guo Moruo, Li Yimang drew on a variety of historical texts, including some that did not mention Li Yan, to trace the rise and fall of Li Zicheng’s rebellion. He told the story in twenty-five short acts consisting largely of dialogues. The dialogues 61  Feng 2008: 184, 190. 62  Klein and Clark 1971: 506–509.

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were often punctuated by verses and songs accompanied by music and clappers. Although the opera, like Guo’s essay, ostensibly focused on Li Zicheng, it also featured, as Guo’s essay had, what we are playfully calling our gang of four, in this case Li Yan, Niu Jinxing, Song Xiance, and Liu Zongmin. Li’s playbook conformed fairly closely to the historical record, but it made a few interesting changes. Li Yimang had changed his own name, perhaps in an effort to enhance his security in the revolution, but in his play he dropped Li Yan’s original name, Xin, and began with Li Yan distributing famine relief in Qi County. The playwright also made no mention of Hong Niangzi’s kidnapping of Li Yan, but, for the first time since Wu Weiye added Hong Niangzi to the story, he not only had Hong rescue Li from jail but gave her a voice in the process. Perhaps that was related to the fact that the playwright’s wife was also a cadre and he was used to thinking of women as equal to men. Li Yimang had Li Yan refer to Hong Niangzi familiarly as Little Hong Niang or simply as Hong Niang. Hong introduced herself as a member of a very poor family and as a martial artist skilled in boxing and spear throwing. She had first become aware of Li Yan when he had assisted her in financing the decent burial of her father. Hong first appears on stage expressing her concern that Li Yan has been imprisoned by the county magistrate on grounds that he had distributed his family’s grain to starving people to buy public support for an uprising. Hong considered that charge to be mere slander and she decided to come to Li Yan’s defense to repay him for his generous assistance to her family. In the process, she appealed to many others who had been eating the Li family’s grain and asked them to join her in freeing Li Yan from jail. As it happened, a guard at the prison had had close relations with Hong’s late father. She arranged for the guard to open the gate so that she and her followers could enter the prison and rescue Li Yan. Hong managed to rescue Li Yan without difficulty but, in the process, her supporters killed the county magistrate whom they excoriated as a “dog official.” After Hong got Li Yan out of prison, they had the following exchange: Yan: … Fortunately Little Hong Niang broke into the prison and saved me, (clappers), but this has compounded the original crime! Then (in plain speech) he continued: Little Hong Niang! Ai! Breaking into a prison, killing a dog official, laws of the dynasty are established and there can be no forgiveness. You saved me for sure, but what do we do now? Hong: Merciful duke! (music) We received generous assistance in burying my late father and we are mindful that your great mercy has not yet been recompensed. Magistrate Song lodged a wolfish calumny and we could not simply stand by and await a violent death.

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Yan: (music) You are an adventurer and are used to waves of change, but I have a family and will find it difficult to move. Even if my family were to flee, where would it go to hide? Hong: (music) Merciful duke should not be so pessimistic. Hong Niang is skilled at discussion. Going far away, flying high, or rusticating, I simply want to become your concubine and to enjoy conjugal happiness. Yan: (music) What Hong Niang is saying is not reasonable. Male and female relations are restrained by propriety. In burying your father, how could I have had wild thoughts [about getting you in return]. Moreover, your saving me from jail has already shown me even greater mercy than I showed you. Hong: (clappers) Husband and wife relations are not to be forced (rising volume). Men naturally make their own choices. I will leave the red dust of the world and return to the countryside, I wish that your name will spread widely. (in plain speech) Master, look back, constables are following us. (When Yan turned to look, Hong cut her throat with her sword). Yan: (music) Seeing Hong Niang dying by her own sword, Li Yan could not help weeping in grief. A girl of winds and dust yet a tall mountain to look up to. Ai (crying) … In the second state of existence we will not forget Little Hong Niang. (Plain talk). That’s all!63 Act two ended with Li Yan going off to join Li Zicheng “to hunt deer in the central plain,” i.e. to overturn the existing polity and to establish a new one. By dropping the anecdote of Hong Niangzi kidnapping Li Yan and depicting her as saving him to recompense him for his generosity to her father, Li Yimang turned Hong into a more conventional figure who would be more acceptable to a wider public. At the same time, the author suggested that she was a harlot and martial artist who took the initiative in saving Li Yan and killing the magistrate. This Hong Niangzi also challenged convention more gently by offering herself to Li Yan as a companion. The play depicted Li Yan as weak in his dealings with the magistrate, but as brutal in his rejection of Hong.64 Although the opera’s handling of Li’s relations with Hong was quite elliptical, it seemed to echo the point made by some previous writers that he was proud of his 63  Li 1949: 1–7. 64  Li Yan’s weeping at the death of Hong Niangzi reminds one of Liu Bei, member of the Han ruling lineage, who was famous for shedding tears during public crises in the last years of the Later Han dynasty. See Ruhlmann 1960: 158. It also conforms to the model of “the gentle hero.” Campbell 1917.

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standing as a scholar and reluctant to compromise it by joining a rebellion and marrying a woman of lower social status. Li Yimang’s other modifications of the inherited Li Yan story were more minor but still worth noting. Consistent with the general Chinese historical and literary interest in models, the playwright had Li Zicheng compare Li Yan to Zhang Liang (d. 185 BCE), a major advisor to Liu Bang (247–195 BCE), founder of the Han dynasty.65 This was at a time when Li Zicheng thought of himself as founding his own populist dynasty on the model of the Han. Niu Jinxing, for his part, was said to have compared the diviner Song Xiance with Zhuge Liang (180–234 CE), who had used his knowledge of science and technology to assist Liu Bei (162–223 CE) in maintaining the authority of the Later Han.66 Although Song had no interest in preserving the Ming, he lived in a time when the fall of the Ming was often compared with the fall of the Later Han. Li Yimang’s Li Yan was more active in advising Li Zicheng on military strategy than some earlier sources had depicted him as being. Perhaps in an effort to project a martial image and a social position closer to the masses he hoped to help lead to victory, Li Yan put aside his scholarly robes and “donned the garb of a military student.”67 This was a reminder of the existence of a group of men who were often doubly discounted in the records because of their martial roles and their low academic standing. It also, almost certainly unwittingly, anticipated the status of a relative of the historical Li Yan, who, we shall see, would eventually emerge as the principal personality behind the storied Li Yan. Meanwhile, Li Yimang’s Li Yan persuaded Li Zicheng to go west to Xi’an before going north to Beijing, and he advised Li Zicheng at Ningwu Pass how to prepare for the military assault on Beijing.68 Li Yimang recognized that four high-level Ming officials from Henan had surrendered to Li Zicheng and filled important posts in his Da Shun regime. Although Li did not name those officials, we have seen them in the memoirs of scholars who lived through the rebel administration in Beijing. Those scholar rebels were usually closer to Niu Jinxing than they were to Li Yan. That putative “Henan party” may have contributed to the rising tension between Niu and Li, who were both said to be provincial graduates from Henan competing for the ear of Li Zicheng.69 In any case, Li Yan was close to Song Xiance, the third (ostensibly Henanese) advisor and the one who had predicted that a man named Li would take the throne. 65  Li 1949: 10; for short biographies of Zhang and Liu Bang, see Chaoyang 1979: 89–90, 99. 66  Li 1949: 13; for short biographies of Zhuge and Liu Bei, see Chaoyang 1979: 167, 180. 67  Li 1949: 15. 68  Li 1949: 15–17, 32. 69  Li 1949: 49, 51, 68.

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That prediction, of course, played a role in Niu’s effort to persuade Li Zicheng to do away with Li Yan and his younger brother Li Mou.70 Li Yimang’s opera handled Niu Jinxing’s plot to kill the two brothers in much the same way as previous accounts had, though it may have emphasized the perfidy of the villain and the vulnerability of the hero by having Niu dispatch Li by poisoning his wine.71 3.2.2 A Ying A second playwright who responded positively to Zhang Aiping’s direct request for dramatic celebration of Li Yan was the accomplished historian, writer, and critic, A Ying (1900–1977). A Ying’s original name was Qian Defu and he was from Wuhu County in Anhui Province. He began writing during the May Fourth Movement in 1919 and he joined the Communist Party in 1926. In 1930 he was a member of the League of Left-wing Writers and, in 1933, he made films in the Communist underground. He wrote a critical study of contemporary Chinese literature in 1933, compiled a collection of materials on the history of the movement for a “new Chinese literature” in 1934, and published a history of late Qing novels in 1937. In 1941 he did united-front work in literature and journalism in the New Fourth Army in northern Jiangsu Province.72 In November 1944, after Guo Moruo published his essay on the anniversary of 1644 and Mao selected it for purposes of rectifying thought, A Ying began writing a play on the same topic. After two months of research on a Western-style spoken drama, which he titled Dashing Prince Li, A Ying began writing in January 1945 and completed the work in two months. After the selection of actors and many rehearsals and revisions, the premier performance was held on 6 May 1945 in the town of Yilin in Funing County in Jiangsu Province.73 Dashing Prince Li was first printed by two different presses in 1946; it was reprinted in 1949 and 1955 with changes each time.74 In a brief preface, A Ying introduced Li Zicheng as the leader of a decade-long farmers’ revolutionary movement that overthrew the Ming dynasty. The rebellion developed greatly in 1640–1641 with the outbreak of drought and famine, and with Li Zicheng’s “following the advice of a newly arrived companion, Li Yan.” Calling on the 70  Li 1949: 55. 71  Li 1949: 75–82. Author Li was probably aware that Ming Taizu and his minister Hu Weiyong (d. 1380) were rumored to have used poison to kill the advisor Liu Ji (1311–1375). Chan 1968: 38. 72  A Ying in Wikipedia, accessed on 22 February 2016. 73  A Ying 1962: 557–558. 74  A Ying 1962: 565. As I have not had access to the 1946 and 1949 editions, I am using the 1955 edition to discuss A Ying’s treatment of Li Yan.

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common people to “welcome the Dashing Prince” and facing little opposition, the rebels took Beijing on the nineteenth day of the third month of 1644. Rebel officials such as Niu Jinxing and generals such as Liu Zongmin responded to victory “as if the known world was already in a time of great peace.” In particular, A Ying, wrote, they were beguiled by the silver and women in the capital. The leaders failed to exercise discipline over their subordinates who engaged in plunder and rape. Li Yan firmly opposed them and the Dashing Prince Li issued instructions, but their efforts had no effect. The Ming commander Wu Sangui was going to surrender to the rebels, but when the rebels seized his father and his favorite concubine, Chen Yuanyuan, Wu decided to surrender to the Tartars and allowed them to enter the pass and join in attacking the rebels. The rebels were militarily strong but they “conceitedly took the enemy lightly;” they lost the support of the common people and control over the capital. As the Tartars took Beijing and Ming loyalists were revolting against rebel rule in Henan, Niu Jinxing charged Li Yan with having two minds. Li Zicheng therefore had Li Yan and his younger brother killed in Pingyang. According to A Ying, “Li Yan was a meritorious official of the Dashing Prince Li and was very highly regarded by the people.” In reaction to his death, “his subordinates, such as Song Xiance and Liu Zongmin, became alienated and some ran away with their troops.” The Tartars subsequently sent Wu Sangui all the way to Yunnan and they tracked down Li Zicheng in Hubei and killed him. A Ying concluded his preface with the words: “We must absorb these lessons from the bloody experience of history to consolidate our victory.”75 In short, A Ying accepted the standard story that Li Yan was a hero whose wise advice led to the sudden rise of the rebellion and whose assassination led to its rapid fall. But, in line with Mao Zedong’s interpretation of the lessons to be learned from Guo Moruo’s account, A Ying put even more explicit emphasis on avoiding hubris in the wake of victory. In his playbook, which contained five untitled acts and three miscellaneous studies and ran to 236 pages, he also provided many more details that helped to explain the sequence of events and supported his own reading of the rather extensive historical sources he consulted. In a related note on “technical matters in the writing of Dashing Prince Li”, A Ying acknowledged that, since the play dealt with “real matters of a real person,” it might be called a “biographical drama.” Since most viewers would be interested in the more popular elements in the story, however, he crafted it to be more like a “strange tale drama, or a melodrama.” With the same goal of reaching largely rural audiences, A Ying fashioned his play to be a fusion of Western-style “spoken drama” and “Beiping opera,” including prose, poetry, 75  A Ying 1955: 1–3.

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and songs in classical Chinese. A Ying acknowledged that he was not an expert in local dialects, but he hoped his play would be comprehensible and would appeal to a large popular viewership in central and north China.76 Act one of the play opened in the rebel camp in Ningwu County, Shanxi Province, in March 1644. Li Yan, the Zhi General, explained to his colleague, Gu Junen, that although there were many Ming troops defending Ningwu pass, “the people’s hearts and minds are already coming over to us,” so taking the pass should not be difficult. Taking Beijing, however, would be a different matter. In his words, After we take Beijing, I fear that everyone will be satisfied, content with temporary ease, and will forget that we still have enemies and still have a more difficult road to follow. (Pause) Our generals, officials, and officers, under the banner of our Prince Father, have been fighting many years under bitter circumstances and have not entered any large cities. I am afraid that, once we take Beijing, the flourishing capital city of lords and princes, and we see the splendors of wealth and rank, songs and women, dogs and horses, residences with carved screens and jade steps, meals of marine delicacies and mountain gems, clothing of silk and satin, damask and gauze, women in many colored dresses, we may feel giddy, become crazy, fall into decadence, nourish larger ambitions, and become corrupt. (Pause) If so, our victory could entail our destruction.77 Gu agreed with Li Yan’s analysis. Li then asked him to write a letter to the other major rebel leader of the day, Zhang Xianzhong, located in Sichuan, “urging him to stop killing people and instead to win over their hearts and minds. Gu accepted the task and commented that Li Yan’s good advice had led to Li Zicheng’s rise to power after 1640.78 By means of these exchanges, A Ying showed that Li Yan had admirers among other subordinates of Li Zicheng and that he was trying to give advice not only to the Dashing Prince but to the famously more violent rebel leader Zhang Xianzhong. A Ying also had Li Yan accurately predicting the kind of rebel misbehavior in Beijing that would gainsay the effort to win popular support for a new regime. It was precisely the same mischief that Mao Zedong, three centuries later, would hope that his subordinates could avoid as they moved into the cities.

76  A Ying 2003: 562–66. 77  A Ying 1955: 7, 15–16. 78  A Ying 1955: 17.

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After this heavy discussion, A Ying lightened the story a bit by means of a bantering dialogue between Li Yan and Song Xiance. When Gu Junen asked Song if the rebels would be able to take Ningwu pass, Song replied that it was hard to tell but “maybe” they would. The following exchanges ensued: Li Yan: (teasing) Commander Song, isn’t your fortune telling by numbers very efficacious? Why are you saying only “maybe”? You have divined for our prince-father and found that “the eighteenth son will master the spiritual vessel,” that “the eighteenth child will take the throne,” and that the prince-father will “come from Shaanxi to take the known world.” Certainly you are not now saying that this event will not occur? Song Xiance: (smiling) These are all sayings resulting from prognostication. Whether they happen or not I cannot guarantee. Although the completion of things lies with heaven, for plans we can look to people. Ha, ha, ha. Li Yan and Gu Junen laughed too. Song Xiance: (intent on keeping his distance) Zhi General Li! You really have no sense of gratitude. Hong Niangzi loved you, took you by force to her mountain fort, made you master there, and planned to have a lifetime of relations with you. But you were not happy and ran home. Later you disbursed your family’s wealth and provided relief to the famished. This called down on you the hatred of the corrupt officials who put you in the cowpen. Hong Niangzi again demonstrated her affection and led the starving people to use force to spring you from jail; you then rallied to our prince-father. How is it that she repeatedly showed affection for you, but you, uh … were really a lad who showed no sense of gratitude! Li Yan: You are again speaking nonsense. I did not really act badly toward Hong Niangzi. We are husband and wife, we really love each other. Song Xiance: (smiling) I know that you love each other, but when you were a provincial graduate under the Chongzhen august lord and had not yet been forced to go up Liang mountain [i.e. to rebel], Hong Niangzi was affectionate toward you, but you were not affectionate to her! Ha, ha, ha.79 Here A Ying appeared to want to emphasize the close joking relationship between Li Yan and Song Xiance. He may also have wished to provide a rational critique of the common idea that Song had special spiritual powers as a prognosticator. His take on Hong Niangzi is less clear because of the complications in their relationship, which included kidnapping and possible female 79  A Ying 1955: 19–20.

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rape of a male partner. There was also no evidence provided of Hong Niangzi’s fate after she and Li Yan joined the rebellion. A Ying did seem to be picking up on a point made by Guo Moruo and Li Yimang that Li Yan left Hong Niangzi’s camp in an effort to maintain his social standing as a provincial graduate and that he became comfortable with their relationship only after he rebelled against the Ming and turned to developing a new persona as advisor to a rebel leader. The strangeness of the Hong Niangzi character was only enhanced when Song Xiance met a flower drum singer, all dressed in red. He treated her as if she were Hong Nangzi, and brought her to the rebel camp. Song thought she could sing songs written by Li Yan and soon she did. For example, she sang: Nine out of ten years, no food for the table, Chongzhen is on his throne, but surely not stable. Outside the pass, military disasters year after year, Inside the pass, drought and locusts spread fear.80 Here we may be witnessing the transformation of Hong Niangzi from being a single knight-errant to being a martial woman of whom there would be many incarnations. In addition to playing the familiar cultural role of creating such ditties, Li Yan and his younger brother Li Mou were more active than in any previous account in devising military strategy. As Li Zicheng’s forces closed in on Beijing, one constant refrain from Li Yan was not to underestimate the opposition from the Ming forces inside the wall and the Tartar armies outside the wall. For A Ying, these opponents were good stand-ins for the Communists’ adversaries, the Nationalists and the Japanese during the last two years of the Sino-Japanese war. Perhaps they also stood for the Nationalists and the Americans during the ensuing four years of the Chinese civil war.81 In act two, the scene shifted to the rebel regime established in Beijing. Here even Ming eunuchs are depicted as recognizing Li Yan’s importance as an advisor to the rebels and the existence of broad public support for the rebels in the early weeks of their rule.82 Once again, as in previous accounts, gender issues were prominent. After Chongzhen committed suicide, Li Zicheng was introduced to his daughter, and he decided to spare her life because he thought she was innocent of any crimes.83 When Niu Jinxing suggested that Li Zicheng 80  A Ying 1955: 21–26. 81  A Ying 1955: 27–41. 82  A Ying 1955: 47–48. 83  A Ying 1955: 53, 55.

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should select women from throughout the land for his harem, he declined on the grounds that he had always feared women. For this reason, presumably, Li wanted women as well as eunuchs to be cleared out of the palace before he occupied it.84 If Li Zicheng feared women, some women at his court had reason to fear some men. At this time, a man named Luo Hu (lit. Tiger Luo), was reconstructed based on early literary sources and reappeared in the rebel entourage.85 Tiger Luo described himself as a general, official, and founder of the new regime. He was depicted as trying to win the affection of the woman named Fei Zhen’e (lit. True Beauty Fei). Fei said she was a “small palace woman”, which might have described anyone from a major concubine of the ruler to a modest maiden among the many women residing in the palace. When Fei resisted Luo’s advances, another rebel named Wu Laohai (lit. Old Sea Wu), intervened to defend her. Wu criticized Luo for violating the disciplinary rules established by their Prince Father to prevent plunder and rape. Luo told Wu to mind his own business and then forcefully dragged Fei off to his camp. When Wu railed publicly against this violation of military discipline, he was overheard by Li Yan, who, having missed the incident, asked him to explain. Wu pointed out that some rebels were violating military discipline and one of them, Luo Hu, had just engaged in a lewd dalliance with a palace woman. In disgust at some rebel generals’ decadence, Wu asked to be relieved of his duties so he could go home to till the soil. Li Yan refused to allow Wu to retire and promised that he would investigate the case. Li then met with Song Xiance and told him that he (Li) had already intervened to allow the Ming empress dowager Zhang to return home and avoid punishment. He also reported to Li Zicheng that he had instructed his younger brother Li Mou to protect Wu Sangui’s father Wu Xiang and his favorite concubine Chen Yuanyuan. Li Yan also recommended that Wu Xiang and Wu Sangui be appointed to high offices in the new rebel regime. Li Zicheng then asked Song Xiance to arrange for Wu Xiang to write to Wu Sangui inviting him to come to Beijing to receive appointment or face the prospect of a rebel military campaign against him. Li Yan asked Li Zicheng to enforce military discipline, but, when Li Zicheng asked Niu Jinxing to attend to the matter, Niu replied that the issue was not so important and that Li Yan was excessively anxious about it. Liu Zongmin agreed with Niu that rebel indiscipline was a small matter.

84  A Ying 1955: 60. 85  As the number of invented personalities increases, I will often translate their personal names to suggest they are literary creations.

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Li Yan then brought up the case of Luo Hu and asked for an investigation. He elaborated on the four-point memorial with the following words: I want to ask our Prince Father, in addition to issuing an order, to allow the common people to report on abuses in a timely fashion, to investigate the main offenders engaged in plunder and sexual violations, and to decapitate some miscreants to serve as a warning to others. All troops and horses should be immediately withdrawn to outside the city walls, and all military campaigns should be halted. No troops should be allowed to occupy people’s houses and thus lose the people’s respect.86 When Li Zicheng asked Niu and Liu for their opinions, they said they thought that Li Yan was overreacting. Li Zicheng agreed. Thus were dismissed Li Yan’s concerns about abuses committed by the new power holders in violation of what we today might call human rights. Song Xiance reported that Wu Xiang and Chen Yuanyuan were grateful for being spared and had written to Wu Sangui asking him to surrender. Li Zicheng and Niu Jinxing were delighted at the news. Liu Zongmin commented that he had heard that Chen Yuanyuan was an exceptionally beautiful and talented singer. Niu Jinxing described her background. Li Zicheng smiled and said they all seemed to know a lot about her. At this point, Li Mou arrived and announced breathlessly that, soon after Song had left Chen Yuanyuan, some men had come to seize her and take her away. Li Yan demanded to know why no one had stopped them. Li Mou replied that he had tried to persuade them to desist, but they had paid no attention to him. Li Zicheng asked if he had troops at his disposal. Li Yan replied that he and his brother had troops, but they were almost all stationed outside the city and the few guards at their disposal were insufficient to detain the kidnappers. Li Zicheng ordered that existing troops in the city be sent to recover Chen Yuanyuan, but Li Mou said, with obvious and bitter irony, that there was no need to do so because the kidnappers had all come from Liu Zongmin’s camp!87 The third act took place on 23 May 1644 in the headquarters of Liu Zongmin. Liu was now addressed as “prime minister,” perhaps signifying the power struggle emerging in the rebel leadership. Liu denied the “rumor” that he had any special relationship to Chen Yuanyuan or that he was stupid enough to undermine the effort to get Wu Sangui to surrender. A government student named Feng Kai (lit. Victory Feng) now joined Li Yan and Wu Laohai in openly 86  A Ying 1955: 63–73. 87  A Ying 1955: 75–77.

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criticizing the abuses of the rebels that were costing them popular support. Liu Zongmin expressed his dislike of “book readers” while Li Yan sent out agents “to ascertain conditions among the people.” One thing he discovered was that the palace woman Fei Zhen’e, who was only sixteen years old, had killed the rebel general Luo Hu. Liu Zongmin reported that, when Luo had taken her to his camp, he had raped her. She had then misled him into thinking she wanted to marry him. He celebrated by holding a party at which she plied him with wine until he was drunk. When the guests left, she stabbed him to death and then killed herself. Li Yan confirmed that the same story was circulating among the people, but with the embellishment that the woman Fei had tried to kill Li Zicheng before killing herself. In fact, Li Yan said, Li Zicheng respected Fei, praised her, and had her buried with the proper rituals. As a result, the common people praised Li Zicheng.88 In response, Li Yan asked Liu Zongmin to help with two things. First, the common people who spoke out against rebel abuses in accord with the Prince Father’s instructions were often harmed and the people therefore did not dare to blow the whistle. As “prime minister,” Liu needed to be more energetic in publicizing the policy and protecting those who spoke out. Second, some rebel generals exploited people and extorted their resources and anyone who complained was punished. Recently the student Feng Kai, who had earned the trust of the people, had criticized the prime minister Liu’s methods, and his head was now hanging outside the prime minister’s office. Some common people were in mourning there and one wondered what the prime minister was planning to do about it. Liu Zongmin replied by criticizing Li Yan for constantly finding fault with his actions and those of Niu Jinxing. Li Yan insisted that the differences between them were not insuperable and would have to be overcome if they were to be successful. Liu complained that Li was always talking about the “common people.” Gu Junen defended Li Yan by reminding Liu of the ancient idea that “the people are the basis of the state.” Liu Zongmin reminded everyone that Li Yan had recommended Niu Jinxing to Li Zicheng, had become known as Master Li in place of Li Zicheng, and would not long remain a subordinate to others. Liu warned that even Li Zicheng was losing confidence in Li Yan and was no longer listening to his advice.89 Li Yan heard from Li Mou in Yongping Prefecture, Beizhili that, contrary to the report of the surrendered Ming official Tang Tong, Wu Sangui had not yet decided about surrendering and Chen Yuanyuan’s status might still influence his decision. Niu Jinxing replied that Tang was loyal and probably telling the 88  A Ying 1955: 86–96. 89  A Ying 1955: 97–101.

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truth. He said that Li Mou was simply too anxious and that Li Yan probably just wanted to send Liu Zongmin with troops to Yongping to get him out of the capital. Li Yan replied that “the ancients said that in peace one should not forget danger,” and “we should not think that, having taken Beijing, we are in the position of having taken the known world.” Li Yan favored sending Wu Xiang and Chen Yuanyuan to mitigate Wu Sangui’s anger while Li Mou reported on Wu’s deal with the Qing Prince Regent Dorgon.90 Act four transpired in Shanhaiguan, Yongping, Beijing, Xugou, and Pingyang. The common people commented that the rebels had been well received when they had arrived in Beijing, but they had changed and they were no longer popular.91 Niu Jinxing blamed Li Yan for his critical eye and his lack of a plan that had resulted in failure.92 Li Zicheng blamed Li Yan along the same lines. In his words, Zhi General Li, you should be clear! I am not going to punish you and that is already a good thing. So, do you still have something to say? Since I arrived in Shanhaiguan, you took no responsibility for anything. You were dispirited! managed no affairs! You only coolly observed, deeming our road a failure. You proposed no alternative to my plan! Did you consider me ignorant and confused?93 Li Yan replied: “Your official’s [i.e. my] crimes merit 10,000 deaths! I think in general….” Dashing Li cut him off, saying “I don’t want your thoughts. For my sake, just get out….” Liu Zongmin said that the Zhi General Li was “really too sentimental.”94 Niu Jinxing then took up the cry, expressing dissatisfaction and referring to Li Yan sometimes in the second person and sometimes in the third: (You) were simply not in touch with the ways of the world and people’s feelings! When you spoke, you had no regard for the time or place. You still don’t understand! When we were withdrawing from Beijing, you saw many stupidities. In that crisis, he made a Huzhuang chair and sat in the intersection of the road, personally inspected each soldier as he left the city, and finally left himself. If he had been pursued by Wu Sangui, 90  A Ying 1955: 110–116. 91  A Ying 1955: 125. 92  A Ying 1955: 149. 93  A Ying 1955: 162. 94  A Ying 1955: 162.

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what would he have done? When he was leaving Beijing, he still wanted to ask about the welfare of the common people, and he asked them: have the disturbances to you been very acute, have the troops been hardheartedly allowed to steal your things and burn your houses? Beijing already did not want him, but he still feared the troops would harm the common people, and he himself did as he saw fit toward them. If this is not a stupid term of service, then what is it? (sighing sadly) Ah … that in the world there was this kind of person!95 Liu Zongmin then addressed Li Yan, but Li Yan cut him off and said: Good medicine tastes bitter, and it was not accepted by the Sage Ruler [Li Zicheng], which makes Li Yan [me] want to serve the state but unable to do so. I did not have the heart for us to collapse this way, but now even the opportunities to “exhaust oneself in public service” and to “follow one’s course to one’s death” no longer exist! (shaking his head and sighing sadly), Ai.96 In a subsequent conversation with Li Zicheng, Niu Jinxing said that Li Yan had put all of the blame for the failure of the rebellion on the Sage Ruler. He [Niu] said that Li Yan had blamed him for not sending Liu Zongmin with a substantial military force to Shanhaiguan, for not giving Wu Xiang and Wu Sangui high posts in the new regime, for allowing Liu Zongmin to detain Chen Yuanyuan, and for executing thirty-eight members of Wu Sangui’s family. Li Zicheng said he had not expected Li Yan to be so crazy. Niu went on to say that in, preparation for a big battle in the region between Zhending Prefecture in Zhili and Pingyang Prefecture in Shanxi, Li Yan meted out a torrent of abuse and claimed that the Sage Ruler did not know how to fight. Li Zicheng became angry and said of Li Yan that “he must be eliminated.” Niu then said that Li Yan was propagating the idea that our collapse at this time was completely the result of the Sage Ruler and his generals’ excessive pride, underestimation of the enemy, mutual clashes, lapse of discipline, and corrupt policies. He claimed that, from the Sage Ruler on down, everyone had forgotten the fundamentals of why

95  A Ying 1955: 162–163. 96  A Ying 1955: 163.

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we had raised troops. In view of this, Li Yan simply no longer respected the Sage Ruler.97 In these passages, we see Niu Jinxing cleverly amplifying, if not fabricating, Li Yan’s reservations about Li Zicheng’s leadership in an effort to drive a wedge between the two men. At the same time, A Ying, with equal skill, uses the occasion to celebrate Li Yan’s sharp critique of Li Zicheng’s excessive pride and underestimation of the enemy. While Niu Jinxing was manoeuvring Li Zicheng into a decision to eliminate Li Yan, Song Xiance reported that the rebel military in Henan Province was facing opposition and was asking the court to send a large force to help them to deal with it. When Li Zicheng asked Song whom he would recommend to lead such an expedition, Song suggested that the Zhi General, as a native of that province, would be appropriate because he could count on broad support from the troops and people of the region. Niu Jinxing intervened, however, pointing out that Song was probably fronting for Li Yan, who knew that there were few troops to spare and who would plan to recruit local troops that would enable him to establish his own authority in the province. When Li Zicheng expressed doubt there would be a problem, Niu reminded him of Song’s prophecy that an eighteenth son would take the throne. Niu pointed out that Li Yan would be able to buy the support of people in Henan, who would believe that the prophecy referred to him. To counter any idea that Li Zicheng might share authority with Li Yan, Niu cited the saying that “heaven does not have two suns, and the country does not have two masters.” As Li Zicheng mulled the implications of that aphorism, Niu went on to compare Li Yan with Sima Zhao (211–265 CE), a general from Wen County in Henan Province who first served the Wei state and gradually replaced it, enabling his son Sima Yan to found the Jin dynasty in 265 CE. Struck by this historical analogy, which suggested that Li Yan might overthrow the rebel Shun state, just as Sima Zhao had replaced the Wei, Li Zicheng then and there decided to get rid of Li Yan and his brother. In his words, I understand! Prime Minister Niu, do what you want to do, I will confer authority on you, immediately chop off Li Yan’s head! Cut the grass and dig out the roots, and do not leave behind the Hong General Li Mou! Heaven does not have two suns, the state does not have two masters. My Da Shun august lordship will endure!98 97  A Ying 1955: 164–165. 98  A Ying 1955: 166–168.

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Most previous accounts had depicted Li Yan as the principal initiator of the proposal for him to lead troops to protect his home province from the rebels’ enemies. Some versions had even entertained the idea that Li planned to establish a base of his own there. A Ying, however, ascribed the plan to Song Xiance and described Li Yan as wholly unaware of it until informed of it by Niu Jinxing. When Li Yan professed ignorance of the plan, Niu charged him with taking Li Zicheng for an idiot. When Li Yan accused Niu of spouting malicious words to bring harm to him, Niu said that Li Zicheng was well aware of his plan to revolt, evident in his, Li Yan’s, repeated criticism of Li Zicheng’s policies. Finally realizing the source of the problem, Li Yan replied with a detailed defense of his role in the rebellion. Fine, I said—to you, Prime Minister Niu, I said we cannot destroy everything like this! (pause) I said in military matters we cannot be conceited and take the enemy lightly, underestimating its power. In the battle at Shanhaiguan, if we had not looked down on Wu Sangui, and had done more preparation, when the Tartars suddenly came out of the garrison on the right, we would not necessarily have been defeated, making military officers’ spirits go into free fall. (pause) The battles of Zhending and Pingyang were clearly a case of staking all on a single throw, with no hope of victory, and everyone—especially you Prime Minister Niu—were in love with your own power and so experienced one failure after another. These are all clear and obvious facts. Knowing oneself and knowing the other, one can have a hundred victories in a hundred battles; advancing or retreating when one should, this certainly would not result in damaging one’s power! (pause) Speaking again about the Tartars, they had been brooding for a long time with designs on our central state(s)]. It was not a matter of one morning and one night, Wu Sangui was repeatedly changeable and opportunistic, and this was well known to all. But after we fought our way into Beijing we thought that all under heaven was ours, as firmly as Mount Tai, ignoring that there were still strong adversaries and the need for frontier defense. That Wu Sangui was able to draw the Tartar troops straight in, to invade the pass, was not surprising—and it was not that their strength was really greater than ours. This is what we should have profoundly reflected on in the wake of our defeats. (pause) Right, I was not satisfied with these strategies. I groaned in frustration after our string of defeats following on Shanhaiguan. That was not on behalf of me but on behalf of everyone, on behalf of the 10,000-year imperishable foundations of the Sage Ruler. This was not a matter of “complaining.”

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Prime Minister Niu! I have not forgotten, I said—to you Prime Minister Niu—we cannot bequeath this kind of all-out destruction! (pause) After entering Beijing everyone went crazy, you considered yourself a “founding father,” others professed to be “meritorious officials,” all tried to subvert each other out of envy, no one could agree on anything! Corruption and dissolution, cheating and extortion, you would stop at nothing. Everyone was content and self-satisfied, military discipline, frontier defense, the common people, were all thrown away beyond the highest heaven. Before a month was over, the sounds of complaints filled the roads, and people’s hearts and minds were lost! When our army reached a place, the people no longer gave us assistance by blocking our adversaries, and some even fled, leaving no traces, not even pots for our use. (pause) After Shanhaiguan, the string of defeats clearly was due not only to military reasons; the month-long violent acts in Beijing planted the seeds that bore evil fruit. (pause) What destroyed us was not Wu Sangui or the Tartars, but mainly your “founding fathers” and “meritorious officials,” who considered themselves to be long-suffering and accomplished “Han heroes!” (pause) I did not agree with your activities and I could not stand seeing your creeping and stumbling, so I scolded you, wanted you to undergo painful reform, all for the sake of everyone, for the sake of the Sage Ruler’s long-term project! I did not rebel against the ruler and I did not “complain!” Niu replied: You have said enough! Daring to be so unbridled in the Sage Ruler’s court, is there still a sage ruler in your eyes? Are you still an official/son? Your mat talk today is proof enough warranting the chopping off of your head! Zhi General Li, you should no longer dream. The Sage Ruler has already issued his order, it is time for you to die, can’t you see? Li Yan then responded: Very well! I am Li Yan and I don’t fear death! If I were a death-fearing son of the Han [i.e. such a man] and a provincial graduate under Chongzhen, I would not have asked for an order in favor of the famished which resulted in my being seized and imprisoned. (pause) I am Li Yan and if I were someone who feared death I would not have joined in the Host Ruler’s forces and called up many common people to overthrow the Ming’s rivers

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and mountains. (pause) I am Li Yan and if I were someone who feared death, after entering the capital I would not have opposed your corrupt and illicit activities, your befuddled and intoxicated lives, betraying the common people! As for the sage ruler, I don’t believe that he would cruelly kill a loyal good person! I want to see the sage ruler! Niu told Li to take it easy. Li then asked if Niu really planned to kill him that very day. Niu asked Li if he really thought that his charges were false and that the sage ruler really did not suspect him of treachery in Henan. He wondered further if Li Yan had forgotten the fate of Luo Rucai and He Yilong. Li replied that he had not forgotten their fate and he knew that the sage ruler sometimes loved talent and other times suspected it. But, in this case, Li said, Niu had clearly manufactured crimes to frame him. Li Yan said he could die and he knew he would not be reborn, but he hoped that Niu would reflect deeply on his actions and would be saved so that he could be accorded a proper burial after his death. Li Yan then caught sight of Li Zicheng and called out to him, but Li Zicheng merely said in a loud voice: “ ‘The eighteenth son will take the sacred throne.’ Li Yan! Now it is time for you to return to the sacred vessel of the heavenly master. ha ha ha.”99 A Ying carried the story through to the death of Li Zicheng in 1645 and seemed to speak through three monks in appraising the roles of the four main characters. The monk Fengtianyu suggested that “stupid uncle” Niu Jinxing was like the bad last minister of the Shang who had left the legacy of the “mirror of Yin”, the lesson that repressive states will eventually be overthrown. Fengtianyu noted that Dashing Prince Li arose from among the common people, but ultimately used them to become the august lord of the Da Shun State and so did not really return authority to the common people. The Zhi General Li Yan was right that the stupid elder brother simply used the blood of the people to realize his imperial dream. The monk Su Yin believed that Niu Jinxing and Liu Zongmin managed poorly. If all rebel officials had been like Li Yan and Song Xiance, the rebellion would never have suffered the defeats that it did. Fengtianyu reported that Liu Zongmin and Song Xiance had been captured by the Tartars, had refused to surrender, and had been killed. He said that Niu Jinxing’s fate was unknown, but he expressed the view that that kind of person would have no good end. Li Yan and Li Mou were killed by Niu, but Li Yan’s last words were that the rebellion was defeated not by the Tartars’ fierce troops or Wu Sangui’s opportunism, but by internal strife, conceit, and underestimating the enemy. The monk Yefu proposed to let bygones be bygones, but 99  A Ying 1955: 169–175.

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Feng Tianyu insisted on the need to learn from the past and provide guidance for the future. He “wanted everyone to remember the Zhi General Li Yan forever … including all his words and actions on behalf of the people.”100 Like Guo Moruo, A Ying seemed to want to turn the deceased Li Yan into a model advisor even in the absence of a coherent text by his hand.101 3.2.3 Wu Tianshi, Xia Zhengnong, and Shen Ximeng Sometime during the late 1940s, three fairly obscure writers, Wu Tianshi (1910–1966), Xia Zhengnong (1904–2008), and Shen Ximeng (1919–2006), wrote another play, titled Record of 1644, which was published in 1950. In their brief preface, the authors mentioned the theme of “excessive pride and underestimating the enemy” that Mao Zedong had emphasized as the main explanation of the fall of Li Zicheng.102 Many of the conversations in the five acts of the drama were based on the usual historical and literary sources, though none was named in the printed edition of 1950. The principal dramatis personae were also the same as in previous accounts, but there were more fictive personalities active in the discussions, presumably intended to reflect the views of previously largely voiceless “commoners” and to reveal the images of the principal actors in the eyes of their contemporaries. In Act one, dated to October 1640 and located in Qi County, we meet three commoner prisoners, Zhang Zhengcai, Wang Xianlong, and Xu Wencai, who are singing Li Yan’s “Song to Encourage Relief.” They refer to Master Li as a good man and muse about what the world would be like if all wealthy landowners followed his good example. They agree that it would produce an era of “great peace and equality,” but they do not expect it to come soon. In Xu’s words: “The known world is really not fair, and, not being fair, it cannot have great peace and equality.”103 When Li Yan joins the conversation, he points out that the three men are all innocent when compared with the local officials who have refused to suspend taxes and provide relief to the people during the famine. Li acknowledges that he is receiving better treatment in the prison because he is a “reader of books,” but he says that he may soon be punished if he does not cooperate with the jailers.104 Hong Niangzi is arguably the most important figure in this first act, but she does not appear in person. Her thought and action are conveyed only second 100  A Ying 1955: 198–199. 101  For the importance of texts in establishing the authority of advisors in Chinese history, see Chan 1968: 36, 42, 43, 46, 47, 48. 102  Wu, Xia, and Shen 1950: benshi. 103  Wu, Xia, and Shen 1950: 3. 104  Wu, Xia, and Shen 1950: 7.

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hand by others. Li Yan leads off by remarking that Ming officials say they are suppressing banditry, but in fact they are forcing people like Hong Niangzi to rebel. In other elliptical allusions to Hong’s previous uprising in Qi, in which she presumably kidnapped Li Yan and forced him to marry her, prisoner Zhang wonders out loud if he himself would have joined her if he had not already been confined to jail. Wang boldly questioned Li Yan about why he had not assented to marrying her when she had proposed to him; but Wang received no answer. Xu exclaimed that Hong is a “good woman” and he uttered a long sigh.105 The jailer has heard of Hong Niangzi and Dashing Prince Li from Shaanxi. Other inmates think that Hong has sent someone to the prison. Under these conditions, a county clerk demands that Li Yan disperse a crowd that has formed outside the magistrate’s office. He also requests Li Yan to call Hong Niangzi to the office where she could be captured. In return, the clerk says, the magistrate will have Li Yan rewarded as a “meritorious official.”106 Here we see the quid pro quo that Li Yan had anticipated because of his better treatment in the prison. Li Yan firmly rejected the deal offered by the magistrate’s representative, but was ambivalent toward Hong Niangzi. In his words: … Li Yan’s head can be cut off, but his will cannot be bent. Fortunately, you are the father and mother of the people, and the sons and younger brothers of the wealthy families. Don’t you know that you are the producers of the starving people? … that you have forced Hong Niangzi to rebel?107 Li Yan demanded that the local officials open the yamen gates to the protesters, encourage the wealthy to provide relief, disburse public grain to the starving, and cease calling on the superior official named Yang to come suppress the rebels. Soon all four city gates were breached, Hong Niangzi was reported to have entered the city, and, in the chaos that resulted, Li Yan led Zhang, Wang, and Xu out of the jail. Soon it was reported that Hong had killed the magistrate and the county yamen was burning. At this point, Li Yan’s younger brother Li Mou arrived. He announced that Hong Niangzi had gone to their house looking for Li Yan and that he (Li Mou) had come to get him (Li Yan). Li Yan started to say that “this is going to be hard for her, but….” Li Mou interrupted him and asked him to hurry as she was waiting for him. It is not clear what Li Yan was going to say, but, in response to Li Mou’s entreaties, he said 105  Wu, Xia, and Shen 1950: 8. 106  Wu, Xia, and Shen 1950: 9–14. 107  Wu, Xia, and Shen 1950: 14.

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“okay.” Then, instead of going to his home to see Hong Niangzi, he proclaimed that he would “help Li Zicheng rise up to save the common people of the central plain from deep water and scorching fire.”108 The playwrights seemed to suggest that Li Yan was not comfortable joining forces with the female rebel who had once kidnapped him, but he was enthusiastic in rallying to the male rebel who seemed to have wide support in the central plain. The third act dramatized the rebel assault on Tong Pass leading from Henan to Shaanxi in November 1643. In this version of events, Li Yan played a much more important role in formulating rebel military strategy and tactics than he had in any previous historical or literary account. Once again, the first actors to appear on stage were commoners, probably most—if not all—of whom were invented by the authors. Li Yan congratulated one of them, Zhang Zhengcai, the former fellow inmate in the Qi County prison, for learning to live with the even more plebian famine victims who had joined the rebellion during the previous two years.109 At the same time, intent on gaining wide popular support, Li Yan assured elders of the region that Li Zicheng would consult with them on policies.110 Li Yan’s characteristic concern for public opinion was evident when he inquired of another rebel how people were viewing Li Zicheng. The answer was that some people regarded him as having three heads and six arms (i.e. as very clever and full of schemes), some said he was coarse and eight feet tall (i.e. rough but powerful), and some that he was a reincarnation of the hegemon of Chu (i. e. Xiang Yu, who had helped overthrow the Qin but had lost the civil war to Liu Bang). Some said that Li Zicheng was an incarnation of the Jade Lord (a transcendent deity of the Song period), and some said that he had a green face and long teeth (i.e. was an ogre). Li Yan’s informant said he laughed and told people that Li Zicheng was a human being like any other. Li Yan concluded, however, that most people clearly felt that Li Zicheng was more extraordinary than they had expected.111 Li Yan worked hard to persuade the rebel general Liu Zongmin of the need to establish a rebel base of operations. He urged the rebel prime minister Niu Jinxing not to become over confident, warning him that “worry and concern can give rise to a state; ease and pleasure can allow it to die.”112 Demonstrating his loyalty to Li Zicheng and his quest for moral authority, Li Yan told Niu:

108  Wu, Xia, and Shen 1950: 15–17. 109  Wu, Xia, and Shen 1950: 54–55. 110  Wu, Xia, and Shen 1950: 57, 62. 111  Wu, Xia, and Shen 1950: 57. For a brief biography of Xiang Yu, see Chaoyang 1979: 88. 112  Wu, Xia, and Shen 1950: 79.

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figure 3.1 Li Yan, Niu Jinxing, and Liu Zongmin in the 1950 play Record of Jiashen (1644) From Chen, Zhu, and Li 1998: plates 4–5

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… Dashing Prince Li does not covet women, drink wine, or seek wealth. Living up to what he advocates, Li can inspire others and become a model. He can certainly eliminate obstacles along the road, but he also needs us to accept responsibility for actively assisting him….113 When the rebels took Tong Pass, the road was open to Xi’an in Shaanxi, site of the Han and Tang capitals that would become a temporary base for the rebellion. This success also raised the issues of indulging in hubris and underestimating the enemy that Li Yan would continue to raise among his fellow rebels. Act five depicted the thirty-plus days of Li Zicheng’s Da Shun regime in Beijing, with much of the action taking place in Liu Zongmin’s flower garden. With rebel control of the capital, the breach between Li Yan and Song Xiance on the one hand and Niu Jinxing and Liu Zongmin on the other hand grew wider. Li Zicheng increasingly ignored Li and Song and sided with Niu and Liu. In this account, Li Yan encouraged Li Zicheng to lead a large force east to deal with the Ming commander Wu Sangui, but the rebel leader accepted Liu Zongmin’s argument that “little Wu Sangui” posed no real threat to the rebel regime.114 Li Yan hoped that former Ming officials, including Wu Sangui, could still be accommodated by the new regime. He urged putting an end to the imprisonment of former Ming officials and women, and returning Chen Yuanyuan to Wu Sangui’s father, Wu Xiang. Li argued that even a rumor that Chen had been seized by the rebels would damage the project of winning over Wu Sangui. Li also opposed Niu’s effort to persuade Li Zicheng to mount the throne before the status of Wu Sangui was settled. To safeguard military discipline, Li Yan continued to call for the stationing of all rebel troops outside the city. When Wu Sangui opted for an understanding with the Qing forces to retake Beijing from the rebels, Li Yan joined the Da Shun civil and military retreat from Beijing, but vowed to continue to resist the Qing forces.115 In sum, Wu, Xia, and Shen produced a play that skirted the issue of the ultimate fates of Hong Niangzi and Li Yan. In the case of Hong, there was no reliable record to go on, though that did not keep other playwrights from having her join Li Zicheng’s rebellion or commit suicide. In the case of Li Yan, the play departed radically and uniquely from the general story that the hero was assassinated at the instigation of his fellow provincial-degree-holder, Niu 113  Wu, Xia, and Shen 1950: 80. 114  Wu, Xia, and Shen 1950: 103. Later Li Yan will be depicted as taking the opposite position on this issue, suggesting that it lay more in the field of literature than of history. 115  Wu, Xia, and Shen 1950: 121–132.

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Jinxing, and with the approval of his erstwhile leader, Li Zicheng. In the case of Hong Niangzi, the playwrights may have acted out of caution in the absence of reliable sources. In the case of Li Yan, they may have wished to avoid the issue of the rebel leader’s harsh treatment of scholars, treatment that might have seemed to be problematic when Mao was establishing his authority around 1949. This play was also unusual in providing no sources for its account. As if to compensate for these omissions, the authors wrote and provided scores for several songs in addition to the “Song to Encourage Relief.” They included “Wishes for Great Peace,” “Welcome the Dashing Prince,” “Attacking Tong Pass,” and “Song to Yuanyuan.”116 The scores suggested that the writers may have aspired more to contributing to popular culture than to influencing elite politics. 3.2.4 Ma Shaobo Meanwhile, in October 1944 another playwright, Ma Shaobo, wrote another Beijing opera titled The Dashing Prince Enters the Capital. It was performed the same year in a Communist Resist-Japan base area in the Independent Department of Jiao in Shandong Province. It was first published a year later, in October 1945, also in Jiaozhou. The play focused on the period from the spring of 1642, when Li Yan rallied to Li Zicheng, through 1645, when Li Zicheng died. In a brief introduction of the leading characters, the author attributed Li Zicheng’s rise to his success in winning the “hearts and minds of the people” and his fall to his “lacking a political strategy, distancing himself from the worthy, becoming close to sycophants, alienating the masses, and arbitrarily killing generals.” In the play, Li Xin distributed relief, was slandered by the magistrate, and imprisoned; he was saved from prison by Hong Niangzi and rallied to Li Zicheng. In Beijing, he was among the most clear-minded rebels, but he and his brother Li Mou were framed and brought to harm by Niu Jinxing. Hong Niangzi was identified as a jacquerie leader from Yifeng sub-prefecture, in Henan Province, one of several attempts to locate her in space. She married Li Xin and they joined Li Zicheng. Liu Zongmin was a commoner who was brave and skilled in fighting, but arrogant, short on strategy, and harsh toward Ming officials who surrendered. He took Chen Yuanyuan for himself, ignored the enemies, and led the rebellion to ruin. Niu Jinxing was a provincial graduate with a “sinister personality,” who devoted his energy to preparing Li Zicheng to take the throne, selecting scholar officials, soliciting clients, enhancing his authority, and serving as a peace-time prime minister. He was the most confused of the gang and was ultimately bent on harming Li Yan and Li Mou. After 116  Wu, Xia, and Shen 1950: 133–143.

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withdrawing from Xi’an and arranging the assassinations, he left his post and fled. Ma concluded: “He must accept the most responsibility for Li Zicheng’s failure.” Song Xiance and Gu Jun’en were also advisors. Zhou Guangde (“Broad Virtue Zhou”) was an invented character who now appeared for the first time as a subordinate of Hong Niangzi.117 Ma divided his opera into sixteen acts, almost all of which featured copious dialogues often conducted in verse and sometimes running to a dozen or more lines all ending in the same rhyme scheme. Act One reported on the decisions to join Dashing in the spring of 1642. In the first scene, at the foot of Yifeng mountain, Zhou Guangde informed Niu Jinxing that Hong Niangzi had rescued Li Yan from jail and married him. Zhou explained how that had led them to join Li Zicheng’s army. In scene two, at Hong’s stockade in the mountains, Hong and Li expressed their affection for each other. Hong sang about her “journey from prostitution to the green woods,” and Li Yan spoke about his lowly academic status in efforts to persuade Niu Jinxing to join them in rallying to Li Zicheng. Niu hesitated because he was not sure that Li Zicheng’s big project would succeed, but Hong sang to overcome his inhibitions. Say something becomes a big enterprise, wealth and status will be shared, Say something is not harmonious, the whole family will be scared. In the middle of a rebellion, how can one preserve one’s life at all cost, Raise banners of justice, cut out violence, pacify the lost. Good will, bad luck should not be discussed, Success/failure, sharpness/dullness, depend on people’s trust. Every day hating government you express opinions as you must, But with events you are an arm-chair-strategist gone bust. Li Yan then added his two lines: Every day you and I become more intimate in many ways, If we do not travel together, we will face calamity in days. Finally, Niu Jinxing agreed, providing his own verse: Listening to them it was not because I was afraid that I could not decide, Home-bound we would be seized because our hands were tied. Adapt to circumstance, respond to change, the ancients had clear plans, We must not rot away like trees and shrubs and be buried in wastelands. 117  Ma 1945/1980:11–12.

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Then, in prose, Niu concluded: “If it is like this, then this stupid elder brother must follow and go all out to serve regardless of the consequences.”118 Act Two takes place later that same spring in Li Zicheng’s stockade in a suburb of Xi’an. The gate is adorned by new slogans, such as “pursuing the Way on behalf of Heaven” and “exterminate tyranny, bring peace to the good.” Here Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin, long-time commoner associates, address each other as “great princes” in recognition of their enhanced political status as leaders of a (as yet unnamed) state. Liu introduces Li Yan, Li Mou, Hong Niangzi, and Niu Jinxing to Li Zicheng, emphasizing Li Yan’s title as “master Li” and Niu’s “broad learning.” Li Zicheng acknowledges that he is a man “of the greenwood with no learning.” Both he and Liu generously extend the title “great prince” to all of the new arrivals.119 In Act Three, Li Zicheng hosts a banquet welcoming the new arrivals. He begins by noting that “Master Li [Yan] has not abandoned the green wood and takes his orders from the people, a really rare situation!” He then proposes “changing Li’s personal name from Xin to Yan to represent his steadfastness and asks if that would be okay.” In addition to offering the first explanation of Li Zicheng’s choice of the name Yan, Ma Shaobo provided the first record of Li Yan’s response to receiving a new name. In Li Yan’s words: Great prince! Although this Li comes from a household of scholarofficials, he has already broken with the existing dynasty and from now on will dedicate himself to the business of overthrowing it on behalf of the people and will exhaust his efforts to achieve this! Now he is deeply honored by the great prince’s bestowal of a new name!120 In the ensuing discussion, Liu Zongmin emerged as a hard drinker who could openly disagree with Li Zicheng and could spontaneously sing long arias (in this case one containing thirteen rhymed lines all ending with a single sound “ao”!). This play offered new details on the rebels’ discussion of military strategy. Liu Zongmin proposed going directly north to take Beijing and gain access to its many riches. Niu Jinxing favored going first to Nanjing to cut the grand canal grain transport link, only then attacking Beijing. Li Yan argued for establishing a base in Guanzhong (within the passes), Li Zicheng’s home region, which was long regarded as a highly defensible location. Hong Niangzi pointed out that, 118  Ma 1945/1980: 13–19. 119  Ma 1945/1980: 20–22. 120  Ma 1945/1980: 23–24.

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whatever approach the rebels took, they should concentrate on winning the support of the people. As it happened, her followers were in favor of Li Yan’s proposal and Li Yan agreed with Hong on the importance of popular support, singing an aria that rhymed with hers. Li Yan also cited, for the first time in the Li Yan literature, an ancient saying that “Those who accord with the people flourish, those who oppose the people perish.” This might be understood by the audience as one possible source of the name of the rebel state established in Xi’an, the Da Shun (Great Accord), though this was not mentioned in the playbook.121 In this act, Li Zicheng also appointed Li Yan and Li Mou as field officers and assigned Niu Jinxing to manage office work. At this point, Song Xiance arrived and proposed that an “eighteenth son would take the throne,” implying that that was Li Zicheng’s destiny. Song also reminded Li that there were also more rational bases for his success. In his words: The great prince has a dragon-tiger personality and a nine-five [two highly valued numbers] countenance. If he can follow the people’s hearts and minds, and fulfill the people’s expectations, the prophecy that an eighteenth son will take the throne will be realized by him. Although the numbers are fixed in heaven, events are within humans’ purview, the completion of matters lies with people, and people’s decisions can trump heaven. Is this right, great prince?122 Li Zicheng was a little uneasy, but he replied that the eighteenth son prophecy was a small matter while the people’s hearts and minds would be monitored closely. At this time, Li Zicheng favored Li Yan’s and Hong Niangzi’s rational appeals to pay attention to public support over Liu Zongmin’s inebriated emphasis on military might. In Acts Four and Five, which were set in Shaanxi, Ma Shaobo strongly contrasted Liu Zongmin’s suspicious, disdainful, and arrogant treatment of the residents of Linjin County, who surrendered to his forces, with Li Yan’s warm, respectful, and accommodating attitude toward the population of Puzhou Prefecture, which included Linjin County. The people of Puzhou assured Li Yan that the rebellion enjoyed broad support as evidenced by a rhymed song that

121  In the fifteenth century, there was a prophecy that the Ming would end with the reign name Shun. Tan Qian noted that it could have referred to the rebels’ Da Shun reign or to the Manchus’ Shunzhi reign. Chan 1973: 83 n28. 122  Ma 1945/1980: 25–31. Here we see a view of the roles of heaven and humans in shaping the world that is slightly different from the one we saw in an earlier play.

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was popular there. Li Yan asked the people to sing the song and they obliged him. It went like this: Great Ming dynasty, afflicted by famine, nine out of ten families dead! Officials fierce as tigers, rich families collecting debts like jackals and wolves, demanding to be fed! The people are not willing to die, so they open the gates to welcome the Dashing Prince, ready to be led! Welcome the Dashing Prince, pay no taxes, enough clothing and food to last for ten thousand years ahead!123 In a very short Act Six, Li Zicheng arrives in Beijing in May 1644 and orders all his subordinates “not to harm the common people.” It is clear that he has got the message from Li Yan and Hong Niangzi on how to proceed. In Act Seven, Li Mou emerges as a more major player than in any previous account, announcing Chongzhen’s suicide and the assembling of 135 former Ming officials who are willing to accept the new regime. Li Mou also reports on Tiger Luo’s abuse of the palace woman Fei Zhen’e.124 When Li Yan and Hong Niangzi criticize Liu Zongmin’s behavior, Liu chastises them for interfering in other people’s business. Liu minimizes the threat from what he calls the “little Qing troops.” Niu Jinxing focuses on preparing to enter the palace, implying that the rebels could establish a new dynasty without the participation of Wu Sangui. Liu and Niu draw closer to each other and they agree that Li Yan considers himself superior and will not be content being a subordinate to anyone for much longer. Liu puts pressure on the former Ming officials to confess their crimes and he forces Wu Xiang to reveal the hiding place of Wu Sangui’s concubine, Chen Yuanyuan. Li Mou reports that Fei Zhen’e had managed to kill her assailant Tiger Luo, but Liu Zongmin could see no parallel between that case and his own infatuation with Chen Yuanyuan.125 In Act Eight, Li Zicheng expresses interest in “learning from Han Wudi (156–87 BCE) and Tang Taizong (599–649 CE) how to be an enlightened ruler.” But Liu Zongmin takes pleasure in announcing that “he spent the previous night with an exceedingly beautiful woman.” Song Xiance describes three prerequisites for taking the throne: winning the people’s hearts and minds, suppressing foreign robbers, and dealing with remnants from the Ming court. He reports that the signs are not auspicious. Niu Jinxing meanwhile argues 123  Ma 1945/1980: 32–35. 124  Ma 1945/1980: 32–37. 125  Ma 1945/1980: 40–44.

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that Li Yan’s reported efforts to protect the Henanese scholar Liu Lishun and the pro-Donglin Empress Yi’an “involved private sentiments which Li Zicheng could not ignore” because they “abrogated the public interest.” Hong Niangzi argues that Liu Zongmin’s troops have been abusing people and that he could not be counted on to punish the perpetrators. She urges that such offenders be decapitated to serve as a warning to others. Niu Jinxing criticizes Hong for “finding fault about small matters.” Liu Zongmin repeats the exact same phrase.126 Hong sings another aria criticizing Liu and others for failing to live up to the promises the rebels had made, but her song only calls forth a rhyming aria from Li Zicheng, who is increasingly siding with Liu and Niu against Li, Hong, and Song. Li Yan then responds to Li Zicheng and goes on to describe his four conditions for entering the palace and announcing a new dynasty. He then sings a twelve-line aria criticizing Liu Zongmin’s behavior and ending with an appeal to Li Zicheng to take “my loyal remonstrance” seriously.127 In Act Nine, Wu Sangui decides to surrender to the frontier Qing state so as to use its strength to suppress the rebel Shun regime in the central plain. In a brief aria, he alluded to a precedent from the Warring States period: The Dashing bandit seized my love and interrogated my father, If I do not avenge these wrongs I will not be the man for her. Cutting my hair and changing my clothes to borrow a princely commander, Enlisting Qing authority as Chu used the Qin against its Wu neighbor.128 Of course, the analogy was inexact because the Qin ultimately ruled the entire polity whereas Wu Sangui hoped in vain to use the Qing to suppress the Shun and restore the Ming. But the analogy was also prophetic because the Qing would ultimately unify the realm in its manner as the Qin had done in its own way. In Act Ten, Liu Zongmin begins by exulting in his intoxication with his wine and his woman, Chen Yuanyuan. He sings a fifteen-line aria in an effort to persuade her to accept him as her husband and to sleep with him. Although Chen detests Liu, she seems to be prepared to give in to him, perhaps hoping to reenact the palace woman Fei Xiao’e’s handling of her abuser, Tiger Luo. At 126  This treatment of Niu and Liu reminds one of the bumbling French detectives DuPont and DuPont in the Tintin books. The detectives constantly repeat each other with the second one routinely prefacing his remarks with the incongruous phrase “Je dirais meme plus….” 127  Ma 1945/1980: 45–51. 128  Ma 1945/1980:52–54.

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this point, however, Li Zicheng confronts Liu and informs him that “Wu Sangui had defected to the Qing because of his [Liu’s] treatment of Chen Yuanyuan”. Finally realizing what his devotion to alcohol and sex had cost the rebel movement, Liu expresses his regrets and seeks to redeem himself. In his words: Ten thousand years [Li Zicheng], this official [Liu Zongmin] is ashamed for having made the bandit power so savage; now I want to lead heroic troops to advance on a suppression campaign to atone for my crime against the state!129 In Act Eleven, on the twenty-second day of the fourth month of the Da Shun period, Liu Zongmin led rebel troops to a defeat near Shanhaiguan. In Act Twelve, a week later, the rebels leave Beijing for the west, killing Wu Xiang but leaving Chen Yuanyuan behind in the city.130 In Act Thirteen, which was set in the eleventh month of the first year of the Da Shun reign at Li Zicheng’s stockade in the suburbs of Xi’an, Li Yan tells Li Zicheng the (exaggerated) news that “all of the people in the counties and departments of Henan have revolted against him.” When Li Zicheng asks if it was true, Li Yan replies that it had been reported by reliable spies. He adds boldly: When our army withdrew from the capital, it killed people along the road. The common people could not stand the harassment so how could they not revolt against you! When Li Zicheng sings a short aria to express his concerns, Li Yan counters with an aria of his own, offering a plan to save the day. In his words: Ten Thousand Years (Li Zicheng) should not worry, Li Yan wants to be of service in a hurry. My neighbors in Henan can be cured of their fury, I want to return to Henan and their favor re-curry.131 Li Zicheng responds by asking Li Yan to return to his camp and await orders. Niu Jinxing then arrives to tell Li Zicheng about the news from Henan. Li Zicheng says that he was planning to send Li Yan with troops to recover control 129  Ma 1945/1980: 55–57. 130  Ma 1945/1980: 58–60. 131  Ma 1945/1980: 61–63.

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there. Niu says that, if he does, Li Yan would never return. He explains that Li Yan is ambitious. In Henan he is known as Master Li who will eventually take the throne in accord with the prophecy of the eighteenth son. Niu adds that he agreed with the saying that heaven does not have two suns and a state cannot have two masters. He warns that allowing Li Yan to return to Henan would be tantamount to permitting a tiger to return to the mountains. Li Zicheng asks Niu what he would recommend. Niu says it will be better to execute Li Yan to avoid later regrets. Li Zicheng grants Niu the authority to act accordingly. Li says that, from of old, two heroes have not been able to co-exist. Niu concludes the conversation by saying that it is easy to free a tiger but hard to catch one.132 In Act Fourteen, Qing forces converge on Xi’an.133 In Act Fifteen, still at the fort near Xi’an, Hong Niangzi describes how the night before the “bandit” Niu Jinxing had taken Li Yan and Li Mou to his residence, got them both drunk, and had them executed. Liu Zongmin wants to retaliate by killing Niu Jinxing but Hong Niangzi opposes that, saying there was enough blame for the Li brothers’ death to go around. She wants to take the brothers’ corpses back to her home in Yifeng for burial there, but Liu argues that it would be unsafe for her to try to do so. As it happened, Hong dies at the hands of the Qing forces. Song Xiance goes crazy with grief. He announces that he lacks a “head of brass and a brow of iron,” and he goes off into the mountains.134 In Act Sixteen, Niu Jinxing tries to persuade Liu Zongmin to surrender to the Qing. Liu responds by calling Niu a “son-of-a-bitch,” and tries to kill him. Qing troops intervene and save Niu, who promptly surrenders to them. Liu is surrounded, injured, and falls from his horse. Li Zicheng tries to save him, but is unable to do so, and Liu commits suicide to avoid capture. At this point, Zhou Guangde, the follower of Hong Niangzi, reappears and discusses the fate of the rebellion. He states that Li Zicheng would have succeeded if he had followed Li Yan’s advice. Li Zicheng acknowledges that he had failed to earn the mandate to rule and he asks the forgiveness of heaven. He and Zhou are then captured and killed by the Qing.135 Of the four major dramas about Li Zicheng performed in the late 1940s, Ma Shaobo’s The Dashing Prince Enters the Capital departed the furthest from previous accounts in history and literature. For example, it made the most of Hong Niangzi about whom there was the least evidence, and it had Li Yan die in Shaanxi whereas all previous accounts had located his assassination in Shanxi. 132  Ma 1945/1980: 62–63. 133  Ma 1945/1980: 64. 134  Ma 1945/1980: 65–68. 135  Ma 1945/1980: 69–74.

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The opera introduced some new figures, such as Zhong Guangde, who had never been part of the story before, and it included some events, such as Niu Jinxing’s surrender to the Qing, that had not been recorded in other accounts. It attached additional significance to certain events, such as Li Zicheng’s bestowal of the name Yan on Li Xin. It added new vitality to exchanges among leading characters by putting them in verse. Ma’s play was also widely performed and quite influential. In the October 1945 preface to the published edition of the opera, Ma reported that it had been performed in over sixty venues, including party, state, and military units, the Resist Japan University, and rural villages. Ma expressed the hope that the play had driven home the lessons of the rise and fall of Li Zicheng’s rebellion and that the playbook would make a positive contribution to the reform of Beijing opera.136 Ma Shaobo went on to write numerous other dramas about such literary figures as Hua Mulan, the woman who went to war in place of her venerable father during the North and South dynasties (420–589 CE). He also wrote about such quasi-historical personalities as Guan Yu (160–220 CE), the legendary swordsman who supported Liu Bei in his vain attempt to save the Later Han.137 3.2.5 Li Wenzhi While playwrights had a field day with the Li Yan story in the late-1940s, historians continued to be interested in trying to document and verify it. In 1948 the historian Li Wenzhi published a monograph titled Popular Uprisings of the Late Ming, a carefully documented and fairly comprehensive account of collective actions against the state. Li followed Gu Yingtai in describing Li Yan as the son of the Ming minister Li Jingbai and as a provincial graduate of Qi County. In a “certain year”, he distributed grain among the starving and inspired the people to demand similar benevolence from other wealthy families.138 Li Wenzhi accepted Ji Liuqi’s account of Li Yan’s song to encourage relief, but rejected Ji’s dating of Li Yan’s joining Li Zicheng to 1638.139 Instead Li cited Zheng Lian’s record that “in Chongzhen 11 (1638), a White Lotus sorcerer bandit attacked Qi County.” Li Wenzhi added that “that may have been Hong Niangzi’s rebellion.”140 Li Wenzhi went on to describe the conditions in Henan that gave rise to Li Yan’s call for reducing taxes and equalizing land holding.141 136  Ma 1945/1980: 75–76. 137  For Ma’s corpus, see WorldCat. 138  Li 1948: 103. 139  Li 1948: 104, 145n23. 140  Li 1948: 145n22. 141  Li 1948: 104–105–107.

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Thus, the Li Yan story survived the careful research commonly associated with the movement to doubt antiquity in the early twentieth century, and it developed further in the history and literature of the Republican period. Written versions of the story proliferated in elite culture and were incorporated into plays that were widely performed among the masses in both north and south China. Unlike other historical figures such as Guan Yu (d. 219) in the Three Kingdoms and Yue Fei (1103–1142) in the Song, however, Li Yan was apparently not accepted or celebrated in popular culture, nor did he appear in stories that originated among the masses and percolated up to elite consciousness.142 As we shall see, the reason for that was related to the larger puzzle concerning Li Yan’s very existence and identity. It therefore will not be fully explicable until we solve that puzzle. Near the end of the Republic, however, there was fragmentary evidence that one of the most tenuous parts of the Li Yan story, the tale of Hong Niangzi, was becoming a part of popular culture. According to the only source I have used written by a woman, a Hong Niangzi-like figure appeared fleetingly in January 1948 as a labor leader who transcended time and gender. On the 31st of the month in Shanghai, 5,000 cabaret girls marched on the Guomindang government’s Bureau of Social Affairs to protest a government decision to shut down the city’s twenty-nine dance halls. When the bureau director refused to meet with the demonstrators, they trashed the building. Police suppressed the rioters, leaving more than seventy casualties. The authorities then launched an investigation in hopes of finding evidence of Communist involvement. According to Elizabeth Perry, the police made special efforts to locate a “woman dressed in red” who was described by journalists as having demonstrated an exceptional command of martial arts during the assault on the Bureau. No such woman could be found among the more than 700 who were arrested, however, and the many participants who were brought to trial vehemently denied any radical connections.143 Here we see an example of how the color red, long regarded in China as auspicious and as a sign of rebellion, also served as a symbol of radical politics in the twentieth century. Two days later, the police suppressed a strike by workers, who were largely female, at the Shen Xin Number Nine cotton mill in Shanghai. More than a 142  For brief biographies of Guan and Yue, see Chaoyang 1979: 181, 378–379. For their development in popular culture, see Duara 1988 and Shin 2018. 143  Perry 1993: 124.

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thousand military police forced the strikers out of the factory, injuring more than a hundred and killing three. Once again, the government “launched a determined but fruitless search for a ‘woman in red dress’ who had allegedly directed the workers’ offensive.” In this case the woman wearing red may have actually existed, and her name may have been Qi Huaiqiong. When her coworkers learned that the police were looking for her, they helped her change her clothes so as to escape detection. Some accounts state that the person in red was actually a man.144 Historical or mythical, female or male, the figure of Hong Niangzi seems to have existed in “folk culture” on the eve of the founding of the People’s Republic. It may have arisen independently of written records, or, more likely, as a result of the interplay among written sources, playbooks, and oral accounts. If that was the case for Hong Niangzi, perhaps something similar existed in the case of Li Yan. At least we should be open to that possibility as we continue to do research into the life of Li Yan and his place in history and historiography.

144  Perry 1993: 125. Elizabeth Perry has informed me that we do not know the characters for Qi Huaiqiong’s name.

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Flourishing of the Story in the Early People’s Republic The story of Li Yan and Hong Niangzi not only survived the Republic, but flourished in the early People’s Republic. That was not surprising in an era that celebrated rebellion and revolution, but it was also not inevitable given Communist critiques of feudal society and opposition to whitewashing landlord intellectuals. A highly respected senior historian who specialized in the informal histories of the late Ming and early Qing, led the way toward accepting the likely historicity of Hong Niangzi as well as of Li Yan. The story was then embraced and developed by leading younger historians of the Ming-Qing period. During the Cultural Revolution, historians universally assumed Li Yan’s existence and debated only the historical significance of his thought and action. The story became the core of two long, and not uncritical, historical novels that were published to much acclaim on the mainland and in Hong Kong. Additional plays probed more deeply into Li Yan’s personal and political relations with Hong Niangzi. 4.1 Histories 4.1.1 Xie Guozhen During the first decade of the People’s Republic, there was a lull in historians’ interest in the story. Then, in 1962, the prominent historian and historiographer Xie Guozhen (1901–1982), writing under his courtesy name Gangzhu, published an article in the journal Scholastic Monthly, comparing Hong Niangzi with a later figure, a diviner named Chen Si.1 Xie was from Anyang, in north Henan Province, not far from Li Yan’s supposed home. He was an acknowledged expert on the Ming-Qing period and a prolific writer in the fields of popular histories and historiography.2 Xie recognized that Zheng Lian, Bao Yangsheng, and Ren Daobin denied the existence of any scholar Li Yan from Qi County in Li Zicheng’s rebel army. Xie too doubted that the slogans “practicing humaneness and justice” and the policies “equalizing land and suspending taxes” recorded by Zha Jizuo and Ji Liuqi were drafted and proclaimed only by 1  Xie 1962. 2  Xie 1931/1935/1968/1981; see also Struve 1998: 4, 94–95, 108–109, 120 nn 31, 32. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004421066_006

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Li Yan. He thought that they reflected the demands of the people and could have been invoked by anyone in the rebel movement. But Li Yan’s activities in the central plain were widely recorded by contemporaries in the north and south. This led Xie to argue that “we cannot say there was no such person.” Adopting a colloquial expression, Xie wrote that denying Li Yan would be a case of “using one’s hand to cover the eyes and ears of everyone!”3 In defense of Li Yan’s historicity, Xie mounted a direct assault on the private historian Zheng Lian’s credibility. Xie thought that Zheng had his own suspect reasons for denying the existence of Li Yan. In Xie’s words: First, most of the scholars who participated in the revolution of the farmers’ army changed their names, or adopted nicknames. Zheng Lian perhaps did not know that. Second, from his standpoint as a scholarly member of the ruling class, Zheng feared that it “would cause a loyal county to suffer from an irradicable calumny.” How would Qi County ever live down a shameless youth who married a “rope artist” and “followed bandits?” He [Zheng] moreover disdained the informal histories and novels that recounted street talk and alley gossip. He thought that books such as Hearsay from the end of the Ming and Zou Yi’s Record of the Roving Robbers were all unreliable…. Third … he himself [Zheng] was captured by Luo Rucai and so was afraid to speak about people who “followed the bandits.”4 In fact, it seems quite likely that Zheng Lian was familiar with the practice of rebels’ adopting new names to obscure their identity. It is also unclear why Zheng, having spent time among the rebels, would have been reluctant to acknowledge that other scholars, such as Li Yan, had too. On the contrary, Zheng would probably have been happy to report on the fate of at least some other such people. But Xie rightly insisted that some intellectuals who followed the bandits and later surrendered to the Qing wrote books that obscured their own roles and those of others. Xie thought that Zheng’s book was of this nature. It was true that Zheng’s book was an informal history much like the texts he criticized. Xie acknowledged that Zheng denied Li Yan’s existence. He (Xie)simply argued that he (Xie) and his readers could just as easily affirm it. Xie then turned to the story of Hong Niangzi. Unlike other writers, Xie believed that her story first appeared in Dai Li’s and Wu Shu’s Complete Annals of the Roving Robbers of Huailing, which Xie deemed one of the most reliable accounts of the late Ming rebellions. It was then picked up by Wu Weiye and 3  Xie 1962: 58. 4  Xie 1962: 58.

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Mao Qiling, and incorporated into the Ming History. More recently, the story appeared in the high Qing anonymous Recent Record of Taowu, and, as we have seen, it may have become part of popular culture. In Xie’s words, In general, although the materials regarding the story of Hong Niangzi’s knight errantry were not numerous, the rumors spread very widely and it was said that she participated in an uprising at Wugongshan in Xinyang department in Henan in the Chongzhen reign. There were some who conjectured that, after she liberated Li Yan, she participated in the Great Shun army along with Li Yan and Li Mou (or a certain Li), but those narratives had no basis in fact. We shall use historical materials to analyze this matter.5 Xie cited several different references to “local robbers,” “Hong Niangzi bandits,” and “Hong Niangzi rebels” to suggest that We can see that Hong Niangzi was not just a single person selling her talents, but someone in charge of a large number of people. At the same time, she cannot be regarded as simply a female knight-errant, but must be seen as a glorious hero among patriotic women.6 Unfortunately, Xie did not specify which “historical materials” mentioned Hong Niangzi or why she had to be seen as a “glorious hero among patriotic women.” As for when and where Hong and her followers rose up, Xie believed there were clues. Although Zheng Lian slandered the farmers’ army, he wanted to demonstrate his knowledge by indicating some likely times and places. According to Zheng, on 9 March 1635, “roving bandits attacked Qi County.” Again, in August of 1638, “a White Lotus sorcerer attacked Qi County.” Xie asked rhetorically: “How do we know that Hong Niangzi was not in those revolts? … How do we know that she was not the ‘sorcerer’ (or sorceress) referred to in those reports?”7 Xie wondered if Hong Niangzi may have been among the many women who joined the White Lotus organization and he cited work by the contemporary historian Wang Shouyi on that question. As for Hong Niangzi’s followers, they may have been among the actors, singers, and performers who grew in number to meet the demands of merchants

5  Xie 1962: 59. Unfortunately, Xie gave no sources for those false rumors. 6  Xie 1962: 59. 7  Xie 1962: 60.

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and other social groups in the ever more commercialized society in the Ming-Qing period. Many of those people were talented and energetic, but they continued to be discriminated against by officials and members of the elite. An example of this kind of person was Chen Si, a diviner from Taiyuan, in Shanxi, who was active in the Kangxi reign of the Qing. In the fortieth year of that reign (1701), Chen led over 130 members of his “mobile entertainment group,” including women and children, from Shanxi to Shaanxi and Henan, south to Huguang, Guizhou, and Yunnan, and on to many other parts of China. Such groups were quite common in this period and were generally well received by audiences. Based on reports from nervous local officials, however, Kangxi finally decided that Chen was not just a fortune teller at the head of a group of entertainers, but a leader of “migrants” or even the head of a band of “rebels.” In 1708 Qing officials came across a member of the Ming royal family, Zhu Cihuan, whom Ming loyalists had once claimed to be the third Ming heir apparent, Zhu San Taizi. Although Zhu was living peacefully at home in Zhejiang and had no political ambitions, he was arrested and executed. In that tense political environment, Chen Si was eventually charged with using his circus as a cover for subversive political activities. Finally, Chen was found guilty and executed. His followers were sent into exile in Heilongjiang, where they became slaves of the military. Local officials in areas where Chen and his troupe had been active were dismissed from their posts and charged with dereliction of duty.8 Although Hong Niangzi was active at the end of the Ming and clearly had no direct relations with Chen Si, who appeared some six decades later, Xie thought she would probably have operated somewhat as Chen did and may have suffered from some of the same social discrimination and political suspicions as he did. In any case, in Xie’s words, … the heroic female performer Hong Niangzi distanced herself from the restrictions of the feudal teachings of the rites, and, in the secular world, looked for her own mate—the free flowing and unrestrained ‘distributor of grain relief’ Li Yan. At the same time, she raised the banner of justice, attacked Qi County, and liberated Li Yan. This story has rich historical content and literary color, and moving it to be performed in the theatre would be great.9

8  Xie 1962: 60; Wang 1723: liezhuan 62, 63; Qingshilu 1986–1987: Shengzu, juan 247. See also Peterson 2002: 138, 149. 9  Xie 1962: 61.

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Xie Guozhen therefore stopped short of claiming that Hong Niangzi was as real a historical person (or persons) as Li Yan, but he argued that her story was of some historical significance because it revealed the life (or lives) of an important group of people and described the challenges they faced from— as well as the challenges they posed to—the Ming-Qing establishment. It is not clear why Xie, following Guo Moruo, continued to call for “moving” Hong Niangzi into the theater, when, as we have seen, there were already at least four dramas that had made her an important part of the Li Yan story. 4.1.2 Cao Guilin Two years later, in 1964, Cao Guilin, a senior researcher in the History Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, published a major essay titled “An Account of Li Yan” that appeared in China’s leading history journal, Historical Research. Cao recognized that the editors of the 1693 gazetteer of Qi County and the Shangqiu historian Zheng Lian had denied that there was any provincial graduate named Li Yan from Qi who played an important role in Li Zicheng’s rebellion. But Cao believed that there were so many sources that included him that “it is difficult to deny his existence.”10 Some sources said simply that he was a Henan man but other sources stipulated that he was from Qi. Cao wrote that the gazetteer of Qi might have excluded him because he participated in the “farmers’ army.” Cao thought that Li Yan’s effort to protect Liu Lishun in Beijing was evidence that he (Li) was from Liu’s hometown of Qi.11 Cao was convinced that Li Yan was not the son of Li Jingbai, but he suggested that historians may have “drawn on the career of Li Jingbai’s son, Li Xu, to add militia work to Li Yan’s biography.”12 Cao acknowledged that there were questions about what civil service degree, if any, Li Yan held, but Cao concluded that “he was a feudal intellectual, of that there could be no doubt.”13 Cao differed from Li Wenzhi and Xie Guozhen in arguing that Wu Weiye was the principal source of information about Hong Niangzi and in doubting that the eighteenth-son uprising in Qi in 1638 was connected with Hong’s activities.14 But Cao wrote that the existence of Red Turban rebels in Shandong, Henan, and Hubei in the tenth month of Chongzhen 13 (November 1640) and the appearance of rebels dressed in red at Liu Lishun’s house in Beijing “may help us to understand the relationship between Hong Niangzi and Li Yan.”15 Unfortunately, Cao did not 10  Cao 1964: 154, n 2. 11  Cao 1964: 153, 154, n 6. 12  Cao 1964: 155, n 1. 13  Cao 1964: 154. 14  Cao 1964: 156 n 9. 15  Cao 1964: 156, n 8; Zheng 1957: 302–303.

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venture to describe that relationship, but he clearly believed that there was probably some kind of connection. Cao noted that many of Li Yan’s proposed policies were similar to those of other reform-minded scholar-officials which addressed problems faced by the masses at the end of the Ming period. His slogan of “equalizing land and reducing taxes” corresponded to initiatives advanced by such scholars as Kong Shangyue and Ceng Yinglin.16 The policies appealed to the general population suffering from inequality in landholding and increases in taxes to pay for the war against the Manchus in the northeast and the suppression of the rebels in the central plain.17 In Cao’s words: From the above, we can see that Li Yan’s proposals to equalize land and reduce taxes were not only slogans reflecting the hopes and demands of the farmers at that time, but were the settled and necessary principles of the land and tax policies of the farmers’ army and played an important role in expanding and deepening the farmers’ struggles.18 Cao therefore disagreed with another scholar, Zhou Weimin, who had written in 1960 that the slogan to equalize land and reduce taxes was merely an empty promise designed to cheat the farming people and get their political support.19 Cao believed that Li Yan was behind other policies that resulted in the popular support that enabled Li Zicheng to take Beijing. His call for eliminating oppression and for giving relief to the people resulted in popular attacks on landlord bullies and corrupt officials.20 His concern for military discipline gave rise to rebel slogans such as “we don’t kill commoners, we only kill officials,” and “killing a man is like killing my father; raping a woman is like raping my mother.” Li Yan’s policy of “respecting worthies and treating scholars well” won the support of many upright scholar-officials while sanctioning attacks on corrupt members of the feudal elite.21 Li Yan’s four points proposed in Beijing all had positive as well as negative features. The first point assumed the continuation of a feudal monarchy, but it at least called for the enthronement of a better ruler than the ones who had reigned in the late Ming. The second point, to treat scholar-officials according to their records and attitudes toward the new regime, allowed for “expropriation” of private property, but 16  Cao 1964: 157, n 2, 3. 17  Cao 1964: 157–160. 18  Cao 1964: 161. 19  Zhou 1960. 20  Cao 1964: 162. 21  Cao 1964: 162–164.

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only in a discriminating manner and by means of due process. The third point, of stationing troops outside the city, would make the rebel leaders more vulnerable to internal opposition, but would also spare the general public from having to house and supply the troops as they had in the early days of the occupation. The fourth point, of negotiating with Wu Sangui, establishing him and his son as nobility, and enfeoffing the Ming heir apparent in a sizable state of his own, would not have worked any better than Li Zicheng’s policy of sending light troops to confront Wu Sangui. But, Cao acknowledged, such lenience was consistent with the rebels’ earlier policies toward some Ming nobles and even toward the Ming heir apparent Zhu Cilang (1629–1645), who was established as the prince of Song. Contrary to some other scholars, Cao did not believe that this policy meant that Li Yan favored the restoration of Ming rule.22 With respect to Li Yan’s death at the hands of Niu Jinxing, Cao clearly sided with Li against Niu. Cao argued that Li Yan proposed returning to his home province to restore Da Shun authority there, not to create a separate rebel regime, let alone to betray the rebellion. Cao believed that a state located in the central plain would have been in a stronger position to resist the Ming loyalist forces holding on in Jiangnan and Qing forces advancing south under Wu Sangui and Qing nobles. Niu Jinxing had been jailed and stripped of his provincial degree before joining Li Zicheng’s uprising. Since he had brought little talent to the rebel leadership group, Cao thought, he was naturally jealous of Li Yan, who advocated wise policies and enjoyed the respect of many of the commoner rebels. In Cao’s view, Niu was a careerist who joined the rebellion so he could hold office, and he reacted to the rebels’ defeats by surrendering to the Qing. Li Yan, on the other hand, “was an important revolutionary in Li Zicheng’s farmers’ army and a member of the leadership of the farmers’ army who made a relatively large contribution [to the rebellion].”23 In the debate over social origin versus political ideology as the key to revolutionary credentials, Cao clearly favored the latter. Li Yan was a shining example of a person who transcended his upper-class origins to serve the interests of the majority of people who were commoners. Cao Guilin no sooner published his article basically praising Li Yan in late 1964 than the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” began. The revolution was, among many other things, a debate between Party Chairman Mao Zedong and State Chairman Liu Shaoqi over the relative importance of class struggle and economic development in advancing China along the road to socialism. In this context, in 1965, a debate among historians over how to 22  Cao 1964: 165–167; contrast Hong 1962: 115. 23  Cao 1964: 168–172. Cao’s source for Niu Jinxing’s position in the Qing was Wang 1723: 250.

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evaluate Li Yan appeared in the pages of the highly respected Literary Gazette in Shanghai. The resulting essays were collected and published in book form in Hong Kong shortly thereafter. 4.1.3 Yang Kuan et al. A noted authority on early Chinese history, Yang Kuan, who was at Fudan University in Shanghai, initiated the debate in June 1965. The title of his article was “Li Yan: an intellectual with a landlord class background who participated in the farmers’ uprising of the late Ming.” Yang was more critical of Li Yan than Cao had been. He stated his major thesis as follows: Li Yan’s biggest failing was that he was unable to escape from his original allotment of feudal thought, his standpoint was not firm, his struggle was not decisive, and there was a divergence between his views toward revolutionary strategy and those of the [other] generals in the farmers’ army.24 In Yang’s view, Li Yan’s ambivalence toward revolution was clear from the beginning. It was evident in the Ming military title he supposedly held in Qi County, though there was no evidence that he opposed the local uprisings in 1635 and 1638. It was implicit in his reformist pleas to the wealthy families of Qi to share grain with the starving masses, a policy that had no prospect of success given the differences in class interests. Yang believed that Li Yan joined Li Zicheng’s rebellion mainly because his family was in disrepute with families associated with the Donglin reform party. He was, on the other hand, kidnapped by Hong Niangzi, who was more radical than he, and he was jailed by the Qi County magistrate on charges of having contacts with bandits. Most of his followers were actually recruited by Hong Niangzi, including at least one who was dressed in red.25 After Li Yan rallied to Li Zicheng in the winter of 1640, however, the rebel forces increased greatly in number. Yang thought that Li Yan must have fought in many battles and must have impressed Li Zicheng with his courage and skill to obtain a high military position by the time the rebels were in Xiangyang. Yang suggested that Li Yan was unusual among scholar advisors to rebel leaders in having military skills. Unlike his appeal to the rich to share the wealth, which was in the literary style of a seven-character ballad, Li Yan’s children’s songs were in a popular form which appealed to the masses. Despite Li Yan’s contributions to the rebellion prior to taking Beijing and even afterwards, 24  Yang et al. after 1965: 3. 25  Yang et al. after 1965: 4–6.

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the gap between his thought and that of other generals and commoner rebels became only more pronounced in the capital. In Yang’s words, “Li Yan and his younger brother Li Mou were cultured and knowledgeable, which was well known to Liu Zongmin and others.” According to Dai Li and Wu Shu, however, the bandits in general took noble titles, but were illiterate and ill mannered. Li Yan and Li Mou despised them, were unable to change their behavior, and made matters worse by taking the commoner Li Zicheng lightly as well.26 As for Li Yan’s policy proposals, Yang believed they were a mixed bag. His call to invest only Da Shun judicial officials with the authority to categorize former Ming officials would have put decisions in the hands of a former Ming official. That would have been contrary to Li Yan’s own meting out of strict justice to the Ming nobleman, Zhou Kui, whose house Li Yan reportedly occupied. Contrary to Cao Guilin, Yang Kuan thought this policy reduced the ability of the rebels to punish oppressive and corrupt Ming officials. Li Yan’s light confiscations of Ming official wealth and his supposed protection of the Empress Yi’an and the Qi County optimus (winner of first place in the metropolitan examination) Liu Lishun all revealed his excessively tolerant attitude toward former Ming officials and nobles. Li Yan’s expressed desire to use diplomacy to win over Wu Sangui, instead of sending troops against him, came too late as it was after Wu had rejected the rebels’ offer to treat him leniently and rebel troops were already on the way east. On the other hand, Li Yan’s offer to take 20,000 troops back to his home province of Henan was motivated by a desire to recover rebel control in the province and was not, as Niu Jinxing stated and some historians have charged, an effort to attract his own following to serve his own interests. In sum, Yang Kuan provided a more critical analysis of Li Yan than Cao Guilin had only a year before, but he also considered some of his policies to be sincere efforts to carry out a successful overthrow of the corrupt Ming dynasty.27 In response to Yang Kuan, a younger historian, Fan Shuzhi (1937–), published an article in July titled “Was Li Yan a Farmer Revolutionary?—an exchange with comrade Yang Kuan.” Fan wrote that Yang had raised the question whether a landlord class intellectual could change his standpoint to become a farmer revolutionary. Fan’s answer was clearly “no.” That was because the opposition between the Ming state and a landlord intellectual like Li Yan was political and conditional while the opposition between a landlord intellectual like Li Yan and farmer revolutionaries like Li Zicheng was social and total. Li Yan’s proposal to divide former Ming officials into three groups in effect put an end 26  Yang et al. ca. 1965: 7–10. 27  Yang et al. ca. 1965: 11–14.

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to expropriation. Liu Zongmin’s policy of harsh expropriation, on the other hand, was representative of the interests of the farmers. It was a forceful attack on the authority of the landlord class by the farmer class and it was completely correct. Regarding the question of Li Zicheng’s taking the throne, The landlord class repeatedly ‘encouraged his going in,’ and his becoming an august lord; their real purpose was to get Li Zicheng to give up the revolutionary nature of the leader of the farmers and, in accord with the landlord class’s ideal, to transform himself into a Zhu Yuanzhangstyle founding august lord and making them [the landlord] officials of the son of heaven and recipients of glorious wealth and status.28 Li Yan’s call for “humane government” was designed merely to “rule the country and pacify the known world,” and his promise of “equal fields and suspended taxes” was simply to win support for a new dynasty. Unlike the scholar Li Mi (582–618), who had joined a rebellion against the Sui dynasty in good faith at its inception, and unlike Niu Jinxing, who had joined the rebellion against the Ming as it reached its apogee to pursue his own interests, Li Yan joined Li Zicheng’s rebellion when its fortunes were improving but with the intention of molding it to be consistent with his own standards. Thus, contrary to Yang Kuan, when Li Zicheng became another august lord like Zhu Yuanzhang, Li Yan became another “meritorious founding official like Li Shanchang (1314–1390).”29 Despite his important contributions to founding the Ming, Li Shanchang had faced such severe criticism that he felt impelled to take his own life.30 In Fan’s judgment, such a result was inevitable as long as China remained a society of landlords and small-holding farmers. In August 1965, the historians Liu Jingcheng (1936–) and Zhao Keyao (1939– 2000) took a middle position between Yang and Fan in an article titled: “How Should We Evaluate Li Yan?” Taking their cue from Fan (and ultimately, perhaps unconsciously, from Li Yan!), Liu and Zhao divided scholar-rebels into three kinds: true believers, such as Feng Yunshan (d. 1852) in the Taiping rebellion; landlord reformers, such as Li Yan in Li Zicheng’s rebellion; and scheming opportunists, such as Niu Jinxing, who became prime minister in the Shun but ultimately surrendered to the Qing. Liu and Zhao differed with Yang Kuan, who believed that a person could change his class stand “in one fell swoop.” They also disagreed with Fan Shuzhi who failed to distinguish between whole 28  Yang et al. ca. 1965: 57–61. 29  Yang et al. ca. 1965: 62–65. 30  See Romeyn Taylor’s biography of Li in Goodrich and Fang 1976: 850–854.

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classes, which could not change their standpoints, and exceptional individuals, such as Li Yan, who might alter their views, at least temporarily.31 Li Yan contributed to the farmers’ army’s effort to overthrow the Ming, but, in Liu and Zhao’s estimation, he also “diluted” that effort. For example, the slogan to equalize land and suspend taxes manifested the longing of the “masses” and therefore had a certain usefulness. But Li Yan changed the slogan “we don’t kill common people, we only kill officials” to “we don’t kill or loot anyone.” That was an unwarranted effort to protect “good officials” and “meritorious scholars.” Li Yan’s recommendation against sending a major force to confront Wu Sangui was tantamount to stopping the revolution in the middle. His policy of “respecting the meritorious and being courteous to scholars” opened the way for landlords to enter the farmers’ army, a phenomenon, Liu and Zhao believed, that helps to explain the rapid demise of the rebellion.32 In September, two senior writers, Yuan Dingzhong (1923–1991) and Luo Ming (1909–1987) joined the debate with an article titled “Positive and negative aspects of Li Yan’s role in the farmers’ war at the end of the Ming.” They argued that the rapid rise of Li Zicheng’s rebellion after 1640 resulted from myriad local uprisings in Henan and should not be attributed solely to Li Yan on the false premise that “heroes make the circumstances.” Li Yan’s slogan, “act humanely and justly, and win the people’s hearts and minds” had been used by the scholar Li Shanzhang who advised Zhu Yuanzhang in founding the Ming. But Li Yan and the farmers had different understandings of the phrase “act humanely and justly.” In Yuan and Luo’s words: In Li Yan’s sayings, humaneness and justice were another name for humane governance. Aside from giving in to the people, it meant one could not disturb the basic interests of the landlord class. In the view of the farming masses, however, “acting humanely and justly” had clear cut class content and it did not extend to the landlord class. They killed the officials, clerks, and landlords who normally oppressed them and they considered this rooting out harm to the people.33 In Beijing, Li Yan made no mention of equalizing land holding and he sought to narrow the scope of expropriations. He thereby indicated that he thought the class struggle was coming to an end. Given Li Zicheng’s awareness of Li Yan’s differences with other rebel leaders and the flight of scholar officials from 31  Yang et al. ca. 1965: 29–32. 32  Yang et al. ca. 1965: 33–37. 33  Yang et al. ca. 1965: 45–48.

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the Shun regime after it left Beijing, it is understandable that the rebel leader would accept Niu Jinxing’s interpretation of events and have Li Yan and his brother put to death. The assassination of Li Yan was unfortunate, but it merely accelerated the decline of the Shun and did not cause it.34 In October, Cao Guilin responded to some of his critics in an essay titled “Another discussion of Li Yan.” Cao protested that Fan’s claim that Li Yan did not change his class perspective was not correct. In fact, under pressure from the Ming and with support from the poor people, he shifted from a policy of “reform” to a strategy of “planning a great enterprise” or even “revolution.” From 1640 to 1644, he promulgated slogans that reflected the masses’ demands and led to broad popular support, so his role is difficult to ignore. During the nearly forty days of Shun rule in the spring of 1644, Li Yan’s four proposals were important. He naturally called upon Li Zicheng to become a new august ruler and Li Zicheng accepted that role. But he wanted him to be a “master duke” who would “painfully change long established bad practices.” The farmers were unable to create a wholly new system, but they did effect significant “changes.” In Cao’s words, Da Shun political authority was established according to the “Li Tang system” and the “canon of Shun” on the foundations of a “reformed” old Ming dynasty structure and system.35 As to whether the rebel Da Shun regime was “feudal”, that would depend not only on its form and the title of its ruler, but also on the extent to which feudal thought remained entrenched and the manner in which the state handled relations between the landlords and the farmers. In short, it depended on whose interests and demands the state served. Cao conceded that Li Yan’s advice on how to handle Wu Sangui was wrong, but it was part of a sincere effort to maintain rebel control of Beijing when Wu arrived. In sum, during the four years in which Li Yan participated in the farmers’ revolution, he always followed Li Zicheng, upheld the revolutionary struggle against feudalism, and never betrayed the interests of the farming masses or inflicted damage on the farmers’ revolution. To be sure, Li Yan was not firm enough on confiscations, so calling him a “farmer revolutionary” may have been a bit excessive.36 In stressing Li Yan’s loyalty to Li Zicheng, Cao may have been alluding subtly to the tensions between Mao Zedong and his second in command, Liu Shaoqi, which were soon to burst into open conflict. Parallels between the late Ming and the People’s Republic in the 1960s and 1970s, were much clearer in another article Cao Guilin co-authored with two of his students, Shen Dingping and He 34  Yang et al. ca. 1965: 49–55. 35  Yang et al. ca. 1965: 17–24. 36  Yang et al. ca. 1965: 25–28.

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Lingxiu, a full decade later in 1976. This article was titled “The two-line struggle in Li Zicheng’s rebel army in the late Ming.” Unfortunately, this article focused on Niu Jinxing and not Li Yan so provided no clear picture of how the authors evaluated—or re-evaluated—Li Yan.37 4.2

A Full-Length Historical Novel

4.2.1 Yao Xueyin Meanwhile, the story of Li Yan and Hong Niangzi was becoming central to a long historical novel being composed by the well-known writer Yao Xueyin. Yao was born on 10 October 1910, precisely one year before the republican revolution broke out on 10 October 1911 that soon ended the Qing dynasty. 10 October 1911 was subsequently celebrated by republican revolutionaries as the “double tenth.” In that vein, we might describe Yao’s birthday as the “triple tenth” and wonder if the coincidence influenced him to think positively about revolution even if 1911 turned out to be very disappointing to many people, including Guo Moruo and Mao Zedong. In any case, Yao was born in a village named Yaoyingzhai, located in Deng County, in Nanyang Prefecture south Henan Province. The name of Yao Xueyin’s village translates as “Stockade of the Yao brigade” and it suggests that he may well have belonged to a large clan. We lack evidence on the precise social status of his family, but he almost certainly had relatives who engaged in farming. He was thus familiar with rural society, which included landlords and wealthy farmers as well as small holders and landless cultivators, too often lumped into the single pejorative category of “peasants.” In 1920, Yao attended primary school in his home county; in 1924, he went to middle school in nearby Xinyang Prefecture; and in 1929, he entered the Law School of Henan University in Kaifeng. In that same year, he began his career as a writer by producing his first novel, Two Lonely Graves, under the brush name Xuehen. In 1931, he seems to have engaged in political activities that caused him to be expelled from Henan University, which was under Guomindang control. He went to Beiping and engaged in self-study at the library. Perhaps he was inspired by Marx, who educated himself at the British Library in London or by Mao, who worked in the library of Beijing University. At some point, Yao joined the Communist Party. In 1935, he returned to Henan and worked in the Communist underground in the provincial capital of Kaifeng. In 1937, after the Japanese occupied Beiping, he helped establish a weekly publication called The Storm, which celebrated 37  Cao, Shen, and He 1976.

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the left-wing writer Lu Xun and publicized Japanese atrocities in north China. He went to the front as a journalist and wrote battle reports, including A Symphony in April. In 1938, he joined the Cultural Working Commission of the Communist Party and gave lectures on resist-Japan cultural issues and Marxist philosophy in the Fifth War Zone located in the Dabie mountains, on the southeast border of Henan Province. That same year he published a novel titled Half a Cart of Wheat Straw which was highly appraised by the leading writer Mao Dun (1896–1991). In 1943, Yao went to the Guomindang-controlled temporary capital, Chongqing, in Sichuan Province, where he was elected Director of the All China Literary and Art Circles Association to Resist the Enemy. In 1944 he finished writing another novel, titled In a Time of Spring Warmth and Flowers Blooming. In 1947, Yao took a post at DaXia university in Shanghai which he held until 1950. In 1951, he served as a non-voting delegate in the first People’s Congress of Henan Province.38 During the war of resistance against Japan, Yao wrote another novel titled Long Night. It drew on his personal experience in Henan and described the lives of people generally regarded as local “bandits.” According to his biographers, “Besides Long Night he planned to write two more volumes, titled Dusk to precede it and Dawn to follow it, altogether forming a trilogy offering a panorama of great changes in the lives of people in the countryside.”39 For some unknown reason, Yao never realized that plan. Perhaps it was because he was labeled a “rightist” in 1957. That status severely limited his opportunities for research on what would have been a very sensitive, perhaps even dangerous, topic: the historical significance of the founding of the People’s Republic. Under these conditions, Yao decided to embark on another project he had envisioned during the war: to write a full-length historical novel about Li Zicheng. Perhaps he thought that this topic was safer because it was set back further in history and had already been sanctioned by Mao and the party as a significant narrative with great contemporary relevance. Yao may also have judged that he could do the research in materials readily available in libraries without the need for extensive field research. Whatever his reasoning, he started work on the novel in 1957. The first fascicle of a projected total of five was published by Youth Press in 1963. Yao sent a copy to Mao to express his appreciation for his inspiration to write about common people and rural revolution. The party was already in the first throes of the Cultural Revolution, however, and some cadres were not enthusiastic about the book. The Party

38  Lü, Xu, and Li 1998: 3–26. 39  Lü, Xu, and Li 1998: 27–28.

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reportedly forbade newspapers to review or publicize it.40 It nonetheless sold well and was soon out of print. At this time, Yao was living in Wuhan and receiving support from the city and provincial (Hubei) governments. Some officials, however, still opposed his project and Yao experienced difficulties in writing the second fascicle of the novel. Mao somehow learned about the problem. In mid-August 1966, he reportedly instructed an enlarged meeting of the Standing Committee of the Politbureau: “Tell the Party committee of Wuhan to extend protection to Yao Xueyin. His Li Zicheng [referring to the first volume of the first fascicle] is fine; let him continue to write.”41 With Mao’s protection, Yao was able to continue writing and he basically completed fascicle two, consisting of three volumes, by 1973.42 Yao’s project was still not out of the woods, however. As we have seen, the Shanghai-based Cultural Revolution radicals whose leaders became known as the “gang of four,” included Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, a loyal cadre Zhang Chunqiao, a cultural critic Yao Wenyuan, and a young worker Wang Hongwen. According to Yao Xueyin, the “gang” opposed his representation of the mentalities of the rebels, including Li Zicheng. They could not accept Yao’s suggestion that Li Zicheng and his commoner followers shared the “lordly-king thought” that was accepted by feudal intellectuals at the time. The radicals in the Cultural Revolution did not agree with Yao that Li and his supporters continued to believe in the “the mandate of heaven and nature” and other forms of “feudal superstitious thought.” Unlike Yao, his critics thought that Li Zicheng must have rejected Confucianism because it justified landlordism and other kinds of social inequality. In short, the “gang” interpreted the phrase “using the past to serve the present” as sanctioning the creation of any past that was useful in the present. Yao, on the other hand, wanted to recognize the distinctiveness of the past even as he wished to draw on it to serve present purposes.43 For such reasons, Yao reported that, by the summer and fall of 1975, the gang had made it impossible for him to continue to write. He tried to appease his critics by faithfully upholding the basic ideology of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought and by adding some unspecified passages conforming to leftist views. Even that, however, did not work. On 19 October 1975, therefore, Yao wrote to Mao asking for additional assistance.44

40  Lü, Xu, and Li 1998: 27–28. 41  Guanyu changbian lishi xiaoshuo “Li Zicheng” 1979: 41. 42  Guanyu changbian lishi xiaoshuo “Li Zicheng” 1979: 41–42. 43  Yao 1977: 12–18, 34–37. 44  Yao 1977: 4; Guanyu changbian lishi xiaoshuo “Li Zicheng” 1979: 41–42.

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In his letter, Yao thanked Mao for his previous intervention in 1966, which Yao paraphrased as follows: “Although this book has some problems, we should allow the author to continue so as to complete the writing of the entire book.” Yao noted that, after the Cultural Revolution, his novel had been treated as a “liberated (or liberating) book.” According to Yao, it had had some influence among workers, farmers, and troops as well as among intellectuals.” He said he had received letters saying that the book had inspired and encouraged people with the steadfast revolutionary spirit of Li Zicheng among others. He pointed out that, as the novel progressed toward its goal of five fascicles, the social context became broader, the class struggle more complicated, and the story more compelling. Even if such a novel had never been written by foreigners and the ancients, it was appropriate to produce it in socialist China in the age of Mao Zedong with its 800 million people and thousands of years of cultural history. Yao acknowledged that the first fascicle had had some problems, but he argued that the second fascicle, written in the course of the Cultural Revolution, was “improved” in thought and style. Yao notified Mao that he was already sixty-six years old and that some readers doubted that he would be able to complete the work before he died. But Yao claimed he was active every day from three o’clock in the morning, turning the fruits of his historical research into the novelistic narrative. Given the current pace of his work, he estimated that it would take him about three years to complete each of the remaining three volumes. Given the size of the project, the number of personalities, the complexity of the subplots, and the breadth of historical questions and livelihood issues, it would be necessary to do a complete revision once all of the fascicles were written. Yao exclaimed: “Chairman! If a man of my age is to complete this kind of large writing project, he will need not only his own additional hard work, but also the party’s feasible leadership and practical assistance. I have great hopes that relevant offices and institutes will assume responsibility for my work!”45 Yao informed Mao that responsible cadres at China Youth Press had indicated that they wanted to continue to publish his work, but it was unclear if they would resume publication, and, if so, when. Yao argued that people throughout the country needed to read books and they had called for the early reprinting of fascicle one and the rapid publication of subsequent fascicles. He admitted that he had considered carefully before boldly writing to ask the Chairman to approve the publication of Li Zicheng, including a revised version of fascicle one. He hoped to do so with the assistance of central administration or directly by People’s Literature Press. Yao was probably aware that Mao had once suggested to Guo Moruo the need to write a novel about the 45  Guanyu changbian lishi xiaoshuo “Li Zicheng” 1979: 42–43.

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Taiping rebellion. Yao now tried to enlist Mao’s support for the completion of Li Zicheng by promising that he (Yao) would follow up in 1985 by writing a historical novel about the Taipings. Yao even indicated a prospective title, The Tragedy of the Heavenly Capital, and claimed that he had begun to do research for it. He ended his letter by respectfully wishing Mao good health and long life. To express his feelings, he appended one of his old poems.46 Yao wrote his letter to Mao at a time when Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997) was briefly returning to power as vice-chairman of the Party. At the same time, the Gang of Four’s influence over Mao was attenuated. Yao’s letter was appended to a note to Mao by the prominent party historian and writer Hu Qiaomu (1911– 1992), who was at this time a key member of Deng’s reform braintrust.47 Within three weeks, on 2 November 1975, Mao replied to Hu’s note. In reference to Yao’s letter, Mao wrote: “Print and distribute it to comrades in the Political Bureau. I agree to Yao’s plan for writing fascicle two and three through five of his Li Zicheng.”48 Mao made no promises about publication, but his endorsement of Yao’s plan to complete the writing of the book was almost certainly a sign that it would ultimately be approved for publication. On 31 December 1975, Yao moved from Wuhan to Beijing and celebrated his arrival with a poem. There, conditions for living and writing seem to have improved.49 Fascicle two, consisting of three volumes, was published by the China Youth Press in 1976.50 Then a revised version of the first fascicle was printed in two volumes in 1977.51 In a Preface to the first volume of the first fascicle, which he drafted in February 1976, completed in May 1977, and published in the same year, Yao introduced his general approach to the project and to its leading personalities. He stated that, in such a project, “one must go deeply into history” to attain “historical science,” and then “come out of history” “to conform to the mandate of literature.” In the process, one can use rumors and even non-existent events if they are plausible, consistent with other known phenomena, and in accord with the principles of “revolutionary realism” and “revolutionary romanticism.”52

46  Guanyu changbian lishi xiaoshuo “Li Zicheng” 1979: 43. 47  Klein and Clark 1971: 374–377; Twitchett and Fairbank 1991: 352, 614–615, 811; Vogel 2011: ch. 4, 725–726. 48  Lü, Xu, and Li 1998: 31. 49  Lü, Xu, and Li 1998: 32–33. 50  Yao 1976: 1, 2, 3. 51  Yao 1977: 1, 2. 52  Yao 1977: 1. 7–9.

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Yao believed that particular personalities must be seen in the context of their time. For example: Li Zicheng was an outstanding hero who led a farmers’ uprising in a feudal society, but he was not a transcendent figure. We cannot ignore that all of his thinking and concrete actions were limited by historical conditions, and we cannot take the thought and behavior of people today and read it back into him. He was a tragic hero in history. Insofar as he finally did not establish a firm base and therefore tragically failed, I see in him shades of Huang Chao [active 875–883, a mobile rebel who greatly weakened the Tang dynasty but did not overthrow it let alone establish his own successor state]. To the extent that [Li Zicheng] founded (although very briefly) a feudal-lordly state which still used Confucian and Mencian thought as the ruling ideology and that he came to call himself the Da Shun August Lord, I see in him the image of Zhu Yuanzhang [the commoner rebel who overthrew the Yuan and founded the Ming].53 Here we see Yao recognizing that the past is not to be confused with the present, but also that the past offers various precedents or models that may help us to understand later personalities and events, and shape future ones. Yao also had his own ideas about Liu Zongmin, who, as we have seen, was generally described in previous accounts as a villain. Yao pointed out that Liu, like Li Zicheng, was a genuinely plebian man of the people who had supported Li Zicheng through thick and thin. His confiscation of ill-gotten wealth from Ming court eunuchs, nobles, officials, and landlords was often harsh, but it conformed to the policies of some previous polities and of many farmer rebellions in Chinese history. It was also consistent with what Li Zicheng had done in Henan and authorized in Beijing. As for Liu’s seizure of Wu Sangui’s concubine, Chen Yuanyuan, it may have happened. Nonetheless, there were many other more important reasons for Wu to join with the Qing against the Shun and to help Ming loyalists put down Li Zicheng’s rebellion.54 Like most previous historians and writers describing the Ming-Qing transition, Yao Xueyin devoted much of his account to Li Zicheng. He also paid special attention to the story of Li Yan and Hong Niangzi, which could be expected to appeal to intellectuals, young people, and women, who were increasingly important readers of such texts. In Yao’s words,

53  Yao 1977: 1.20. 54  Yao 1977: 1. 21–23.

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Li Xin comes on stage in the second fascicle of the novel, and I use quite a few chapters to develop this character. There are still many unresolved questions about his origins and social background. It is very possible that he was not a man of Qi and it is possible he was not the son of Li Jingbai. As for Hong Niangzi attacking Qi County and saving him from jail, we can say for sure there was no such event. In fact, the Hong Niangzi who appears in the informal histories may never have existed. In this novel, I have based [Li Yan’s] background and Hong Niangzi rescuing him from jail on unreliable rumors and have placed the question of truth and falsity to one side. My goal is to mold Li Xin and Hong Niangzi into two representative novelistic characters, and the relevant questions are not whether Li Xin was a man of Qi County or whether he was saved from jail by Hong Niangzi, but, rather, there being this man Li Xin in the Da Shun army, how should we finally evaluate this kind of historical personality. Although Hong Niangzi did not necessarily exist, there was an unbroken historical record of women who participated in farmers’ uprisings from Xin Mang times to the Qing period. Some of them became leaders of revolts, giving me a historical foundation on which to develop Hong Niangzi.55 By “Xin Mang,” Yao apparently meant the Xin dynasty founded by Wang Mang in the interval (7–23 CE) between the Former and the Later Han. That period was of particular interest to Ming loyalists who hoped to revive the Ming as their distant ancestors had revived the Han. Yao continued his analysis of Li Xin and Hong Niangzi to demonstrate how he proposed to deal with fact and fiction, and with history and literature in his novel. Literati living during the Ming-Qing transition, based on rumors, knew that Li Xin was the scion of a scholar-official family, passed the provincial examinations, was skilled in both civil and martial arts, encouraged the provision of relief, and earned the enmity of the big households. He was jailed, revolted, rallied to Li Zicheng, and was later killed, thus earning their class sympathy. In their informal histories, writers expressed their feelings. They prettified and exaggerated Li Xin’s utility to Li Zicheng and his importance in the Dashing Prince’s army. They lavished praise on Li 55  Yao 1977: 1. 24. I have used italics to emphasize Yao’s key assumption that Li Yan existed largely as described in history and literature. I have not done the research necessary to identify the women rebels to whom Yao alludes here.

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Xin and depreciated Li Zicheng and his army. We must do a class analysis of this man, Li Xin, and of the standpoint of the authors of the histories praising Li Xin. We must not become captives of the old historical sources and follow them in saying that it was only with his joining that the farmers’ army in the late Ming finally got on the right track. Like other literati who joined the Da Shun army, Li Xin was forced to rebel by—and against—the Zhu Ming political authorities, but he did not rebel against his own class. Scholarly participation in the farmers’ rebel army had its positive aspects, but it also had some negative influence. This is a complicated question which we must place in the context of different phases of the revolution and different questions and make a concrete analysis; we cannot talk about it in general terms.56 Yao pointed out that Li Zicheng and his army were influenced by their social origins and political experiences and gradually matured over time. In this context, When Li Xin entered Li Zicheng’s army, he provided a certain impetus but his role was by no means decisive. It was only the popular masses participating in the farmers’ revolution who made the history of the farmers’ revolutionary war and determined the advance of the historical movement. At the time, the known world was in disorder and masses of braves were rising up. Li Zicheng had just arrived in western Yu [Henan] and Li Xin decided to run from eastern Yu to the western Funiu mountains to join him. This shows that Li Xin considered Li Zicheng to be different from the other rebel leaders. He [Li Zicheng] no sooner arrived in Henan than he began to develop new political and military lines and to win popular support, earning [Li Xin’s] admiration. To disparage Li Zicheng and his army, to consider that it was only after Li Xin arrived that Li Zicheng ceased killing people wantonly, adopted new policies, and changed the face of his army, those were the biased and prejudiced views of the feudal landlords and they turned history upside down. In fact, if we wanted to demonstrate that Li Zicheng and his Old Eighth Army were from the beginning different from other rebel leaders and forces, that Li Xin made no special contribution to the Da Shun army and held no particularly

56  Yao 1977: 24–25.

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high post, historical materials are not lacking and it would only take a little research in them to clarify matters.57 Here Yao uses the character Yü (豫), an early name for the “central province” which became known as Henan in later years, including the Ming. Having explained his understanding of Li Xin’s role in Li Zicheng’s rebellion, Yao turned to Li Xin’s relations with Hong Niangzi. In his words, The informal histories (used by the Ming History) say Hong Niangzi took Li Xin captive and “forced him to serve her,” meaning compelled him to take her as his concubine. In my novel, I have rejected this common way of speaking. If I had written according to it, I would have treated her as a “broken shoe” [i.e. a prostitute] and as a female wanderer amongst rivers and lakes [or a knight errant]. Instead I needed to come at her from a different angle, writing that she came from a poor farm family, received no formal education, but was adept at handling bows and horses, skilled in the martial and civil arts, and, despite her mobile lifestyle, was different from what many people would think of as a professional rope walker from a musical troupe. She was pure, worthy, brave, forthright, healthy, and awe inspiring. I made an effort to mold her into a representative woman who was oppressed and insulted in feudal society but who rose to be a female hero in the farmers’ revolutionary army. If she had been a prostitute, she would not have been able to obtain the authority of a respected leader among the revolutionary masses. Although she was originally a person in an informal history who may not have even existed, I wanted to write about a female rebel in the past so I could avoid repeating the nonsense of the feudal literati. I also wanted to adopt a serious attitude in covering her relations with Li Xin, using her story to write about class relations and class struggle under the feudal system.58 Yao’s determination to avoid the prejudices of his elite male sources is understandable but his assumption that Hong Niangzi’s stint as a prostitute would have made it impossible for her to command a rebel force may have reflected more his own masculine and elitist mentality than that of the seventeenthcentury rebels he is describing.

57  Yao 1977: 25–26. Further research would be necessary to determine if the “Old Eighth Army” existed in the 1640s or was read back by Yao from the 1940s. 58  Yao 1977: 26.

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In any case, we have here the irony that it was a creative writer, not a professional historian, who was the first in the People’s Republic to resurrect and publish severe doubts about Li Yan’s identity and Hong Niangzi’s existence. This may have been easier to do because Mao had died the year before, in 1976, but Guo Moruo was still alive and would not die until a year later, in 1978. In 1977, Yao sent a copy of the just published first fascicle of his novel to Guo with a brief note. He pointed out that his interpretations of Liu Zongmin and Li Yan were quite different from Guo Moruo’s in his foundational essay of 1944. Perhaps reflecting Guo’s diminishing authority in the wake of Mao’s death and Yao’s increasing freedom under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, Yao cited what he called a saying from Western philosophy: “I love my teacher, but I love truth more.”59 Of course, the irony was actually double because, after raising doubts about the historicity of Li Yan and Hong Niangzi, Yao went on to make the two characters central to his narrative of Li Zicheng’s rebellion. Meanwhile, the “truth,” in the case of Li Yan and Hong Niangzi, remained as elusive and malleable as ever. In the third volume of the second fascicle of the novel that had been published in 1976, Yao had already addressed the Li Yan story in earnest. He basically accepted the biography that had come down to him in the histories, novels, and plays, and he added and subtracted details in efforts to enhance its verisimilitude. Like many of his predecessors, he also seemed at times to identify with the heroic scholar rebel who became a close advisor to his leader. Yao described Li Xin’s family as wealthy and powerful, with political links to the eunuch party of Wei Zhongxian. But Yao refrained from naming his presumed father Li Jingbai, whose descendants had denied any connection with the scholar-rebel Li Yan.60 Instead, Yao simply located Li Xin in an abstract Li Family Stockade in Qi County, an unspecified place whose name was reminiscent of Yao’s own home village.61 Yao described Li Xin as a provincial graduate, but he refrained from specifying directly the year in which he got the degree. Yao did indicate that Li was a classmate of Niu Jinxing, who got his degree in 1627, but they clearly enjoyed none of the warm relations that such shared status normally entailed.62 Yao also recognized that Li Xin had a younger brother named Li Mou (牟), the writing of whose personal name he modified by adding the human radical (侔).63 Perhaps Yao wanted to make Li Mou’s personal 59  Guanyu changbian lishi xiaoshuo “Li Zicheng” 1979:45. The phrase has been attributed to Plato regarding Socrates and to Aristotle regarding Plato, among other philosophers. 60  Yao 1976: 943. 61  Yao 1976: 949, 965. 62  Yao 1976: 930, 1168. 63  Yao 1976: 940.

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name consistent with other Lis of his generation, including Li Xin (信) and Li Jun (俊, lit. Li the Strong), a newcomer in the Li Yan story.64 As in the play by Wu, Xia, and Shen, Yao’s story of Li Xin begins with him in jail charged with having links with the “bandit” Hong Niangzi and accused of providing relief to the starving masses to win their support for a rebellion. Because of his elite status and family contacts in the magistrate’s office, Li Xin is granted special privileges such as better conditions in the prison and the postponement of a decision in his case to the autumn assizes.65 Li Xin’s major offense, it transpires, was his sharing of his family’s resources with the starving neighbors.66 It was Li Mou who had met Hong Niangzi in Kaifeng and who joined with her in an attack on Qi County.67 Hong had previously been identified as being from Yifeng County in Kaifeng Prefecture in Henan, but now she is said to be from Changyuan County in Daming Prefecture in Jingshi Province, northeast of Kaifeng.68 Inspired by the early Ming female rebel Tang Saier (fl. 1420), who had revolted in neighboring Shandong Province, and by the White Lotus male rebel Xu Hongru (d. 1622), who had been active two centuries later in the same region, Hong studied the martial arts.69 At some point, she went to Shangqiu County, in Guide Prefecture, in northeast Henan, where she worked as a servant in a wealthy and powerful family. There she was raped by her master.70 In revenge, she killed her master, burned his house to the ground, and gathered supporters to form a rebel band. She led her troops, which included many women, to link up with Li Mou in Kaifeng. They then attacked Qi County and rescued Li Xin from jail. Yao dropped any mention of Hong’s widely discussed kidnapping of Li Xin and her forcing him to marry her. Instead he depicted Li Xin as fond of the woman rebel and unwilling to repudiate her to gain release from jail.71 At the same time, Li Xin was ambivalent about engaging in rebellion against the Ming that had, after all, honored him 64  Yao 1976: 945–49. Li Jun seems to appear here for the first time in Yao’s novel. Was this another unwitting anticipation of another historical Li who, we shall see, would be found to be behind the storied Li Yan? 65  Yao 1976: 921–923. 66  Yao 1976: 963–964. 67  Yao 1976: 940, 951. 68  Yao 1976: 957. 69  Yao 1976: 1145. For the view of Tang as a “religious charlatan,” see Tsai 2001: 108; for a biography of Xu by Yung-deh Richard Chu, see Goodrich and Fang 1976: 587–589. 70  Was Yao thinking here of charges against some leading literati, such as Hou Fangyu from Shangqiu, for abusing their servants? See He and Wang 1992: 6. Standard biographies of Hou do not include these charges and focus instead on Hou’s romance with the courtesan Li Xiangjun. See Tu Lien-che’s biography in Hummel 1944: 291–292. 71  Yao 1976: 932–938.

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figure 4.1 “Hong Niangzi rescuing Li Xin” Yao 1976: 2: between 950 and 951

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with a civil service degree. In particular, he was opposed to killing the magistrate of Qi County, whose name was not mentioned in Yao’s account, probably because there was no such demonstrable person or event. But Hong Niangzi was unaware of Li Xin’s reservations and killed the magistrate, thus raising her confrontation with the Ming state to a new level.72 When Hong Niangzi liberated Li Xin from jail in Qi, Li Zicheng was still a thousand Chinese miles (about 333 English miles) away in western Henan. Li Xin recognized that murdering a magistrate would bring down the full force of the Ming Ministry of Punishments, and he asked Hong how she proposed to deal with it. Hong, of course, was already a rebel who would be punished severely if she were caught. She had therefore already coined the slogan “We only kill officials, we don’t kill the common people”, which underlined her promise to use violence only selectively.73 She then exhorted Li Xin to give up his dream of serving the Ming and urged him instead to lead a popular uprising and rally to Li Zicheng.74 Li Xin had heard that other intellectuals, including the Henanese diviner Song Xiance and the provincial graduate Niu Jinxing— not to speak of Li Xin’s own younger brother Li Mou—had already thrown in their lot with Li Zicheng. He had also heard that Li Zicheng had: “beaten the rich to succor the poor …, refrained from vexing the common people, bought and sold goods equitably, forbade the arbitrary killing of intellectuals …, and enforced strict discipline.”75 Yao mentioned for the first time that Li Xin had heard that Li Zicheng had fully demonstrated his concern for “humaneness and justice” in Nanyang Prefecture in southern Henan. (Was it merely a coincidence that Yao himself happened to be from that prefecture?) Yao’s Li Xin would later reflect that Liu Bang, the founder of the Han, and Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming, initially attracted few scholars to their rebellions but eventually won over many members of the elite by the time they established their new regimes.76 As Li Xin considered joining Hong Niangzi in rallying to Li Zicheng’s standard, his wife, née Tang, naturally mounted a spirited opposition. Subtly demonstrating her command of historical precedents, including one she deemed inapplicable under present conditions, she proclaimed that “Yongqiu is not Daze xiang.” Her point was that Qi County (formerly sometimes called Yongqiu) would not follow the example of Daze xiang, a town in Su County, in 72  Yao 1976: 928–941. 73  Yao 1976: 928.s. 74  Yao 1976: 956. 966. 75  Yao 1976: 925, 958. 76  Yao 1976: 1168.

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Anhui Province, that had produced the rebels Chen She and Wu Guang who had risen against the Qin dynasty and had begun the process that ultimately led to the founding of the Han.77 Woman Tang again expressed her interest in history in bidding Li Xin farewell, using terms drawn from a biography in The History of the Later Han.78 Yao emphasized lady Tang’s aristocratic origins and conservative politics, at least in Ming terms, by tracing her ancestry back to general Tang He (1326–1395), who had assisted Zhu Yuanzhang in founding the Ming and whose descendants had become part of the Ming nobility.79 In her final meeting with Li Xin, Yao Xueyin’s lady Tang modified and elaborated on the poetry that had been attributed to her earlier persona in the eighteenth century. In blank verse she wrote: Three thousand warriors with their swords and spears bright, Golden drums clamor to heaven as they embark on a long expedition. Rein in a crane and follow the jade city by another route, Still officers afterwards will arrange for another life rendition. Ten thousand phrases, one thousand words, I shed bloody tears, Difficult to take treasure, bitterly asking again and again. Souls by night will follow the gentleman’s ascent, Transforming clear wind flags and banners reign.80 Unfortunately, Yao does not explain the meaning of these two verses. He notes only that, upon reading them, Li Xin could only express his emotions in a pitiful wail. Li Xin clearly agonized over how to respond to the competing appeals of Hong Niangzi, whom he was beginning to regard as his sister, and woman Tang, his primary wife. In the process, he probably reflected on his identity as embodied in his personal name. Yao does not tell readers how Li Xin may have understood his given name, but Li Xin could be translated literally as “Li To-Be-Believed”, perhaps a hint that he should be taken seriously even if his precise identity was in doubt. Whatever anyone thought that name to mean, Li, according to Yao, decided to change it to Li Boyan (李伯言, lit. Li of noble words). Then, after a dream, Li modified that new name and wrote it as Li Boyan (李伯巖, lit. Li of the noble cliff), connoting, Yao explained, “the idea 77  Yao 1976: 59. 78  Yao 1976: 977. 79  Yao 1976: 989. For Edward Dryer’s biography of Tang He, see Goodrich and Fang 1976: 1248–1251. 80  Yao 1976: 1009–1010.

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that he might someday withdraw to the mountains.” At this time, Li Xin, now Li Boyan, also adopted a new style, Linquan (林泉, lit. forest stream).81 Once Li joined Li Zicheng’s entourage, Song Xiance and Niu Jinxing expressed doubts about the name Yan (cliff), fearing that it might encourage its bearer to retreat to the mountains and give up active involvement in society. Li Xin (now Li Boyan) disagreed with that interpretation, saying that the name Yan (lit. cliff) merely reflected his indifference to wealth and status. Li Zicheng also downplayed that concern, noting that he himself did not use his original name. Indeed, having multiple names was a common practice, especially among rebels after the Xu Hongru uprising in 1622. Li Zicheng nonetheless suggested that Li drop the character Bo (earl) because of its aristocratic overtones. Finally, it was agreed that Li’s new personal name would be just Yan (cliff). That was the main name by which he was known in the rest of the novel, supplemented only by the title Li Gongzi and the style Linquan.82 Since Niu Jinxing, Song Xiance, and Li Yan all hailed from Henan Province, it is not surprising that they emphasized the importance of holding the central plain in any effort to establish political legitimacy. Since Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin were from Shaanxi, it is equally understandable that they favored establishing a base in their native province of Shaanxi. Yao, however, was the first writer to suggest that the Henanese rebels wanted to establish their capital in Luoyang while the Shaanxi party favored Xi’an instead. Yao was also the first writer to depict the difference between these two positions as important enough to jeopardize the rebel effort to establish a new and enduring polity.83 In fact, as we have seen, Li Yan, Niu Jinxing, and Liu Zongmin were often depicted as recommending different military strategies to Li Zicheng, and the particulars changed over time. This suggests that the historical basis for the supposed espousal of any of these strategies was quite thin. Yao continued the practice of portraying Li Yan as the creator—or at least compiler and popularizer—of slogans designed to win mass support for the rebellion. But Yao was the first to interpret the phrase “eat his mother, wear his mother” (吃他娘，穿他娘) as meaning simply “nothing to eat, nothing to wear” in local (Henanese) dialect. The entire rebel slogan, then, was “Nothing to eat, nothing to wear, open the gates, Dashing Prince is there, when he arrives we’ll have goods to spare.” According to Yao, Li Yan developed that slogan when the rebels took Luoyang. Yao seemed to suggest that it was part of the rebels’ effort to make up for their failure to win over the highly respected Confucian 81  Yao 1976: 1030–1031. 82  Yao 1976: 1063–1065. 83  Yao 1976: 1046–1049, 1148–1154, 1262, 1274–1275, 1356.

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scholar Lü Weiqi (1587–1641) from nearby Xin’an County. Lü had conspicuously shared his wealth with the poor but had proved unwilling to join the rebels against the Ming. In that case, Liu Zongmin favored executing Lü Weiqi while Niu Jinxing supported an amnesty.84 In the event, Liu’s advice was accepted and Niu’s advice was rejected by Li Zicheng. This was one of several instances in Yao’s novel in which Niu proposed humane policies that helped to mitigate his villainy even when they were not approved by Li Zicheng. Given Li Yan’s commitment to social justice, it was perhaps inevitable that he would propose “equal landholding and equal taxation” as the fundamental great plan of the new state.85 Yao agreed with other writers that early Ming redistribution of land holding, late Ming concentration of landholding in a minority of families in Henan, and Li Zicheng’s personal encounters with social inequity, were influences, positive and negative, on rebel adoption of the policy of equalizing land ownership.86 But Yao was the first to make the obvious and important point that the system of equal landholding was first established in the Northern Wei and Tang periods.87 With regard to the Tang, he also wrote that “Niu and Song already regarded Dashing Prince Li as a founding ruler comparable to Tang Taizong.”88 Taizong, of course, was the temple name of Li Shimin, who played an important role in assisting his father, Li Yuan, in founding the Tang. The potential parallel between Li Zicheng and Li Shimin would recur frequently in Yao’s novel. In 1977, Yao Xueyin began work on the third fascicle of his magnum opus, but he faced two problems. The first was continuing, and apparently material, obstacles to his work, including a lack of basic amenities such as suitable housing and regular legal status in Beijing. To deal with these personal issues, Yao once again appealed to the highest possible authority, now Vice-Chairman Deng Xiaoping, who was making his second—and soon-tobe-fully-successful—return to power. Although we lack the precise date and a fully legible copy of Yao’s letter to Deng, his initiative seems to have been successful. Deng reportedly sent several emissaries to meet with Yao. Soon after the consolidation of Deng’s supreme authority in 1979, Yao and his family moved to new and more comfortable quarters in the capital.89 The second 84  Yao 1976: 1245, 1254, 1259, 1268, 1270–71, 1301. For Lü, see Soren Egerod’s biography in Goodrich and Fang 1976: 1014–1017. 85  Yao 1976: 1075. 86  Yao 1976: 1076ff, 1090, 1092–1093. 87  Yao 1976: 1091. The equal field system was, in turn, based on the legendary well field system of the Zhou period. 88  Yao 1976: 1137. 89  Lü, Xu, and Li 1998: 38–39.

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problem was Yao’s increasing age and declining health. Mindful of those issues, he engaged an assistant named Yu Rujie (1943–) to help conduct research in libraries and archives, and to record and transcribe Yao’s oral narrative. The short-term result was the publication of the third fascicle of the novel in three volumes in 1981.90 As in the first volume of the second fascicle, Yao began the first volume of the third fascicle with a brief précis of the contents of the entire fascicle. It included: the three rebel attacks on Kaifeng; Li Zicheng’s relations with other prominent rebels, Zhang Xianzhong, Luo Rucai, and Yuan Shizhong; the Ming court’s relations with the Manchu leader Huang Taiji (1592–1643); and the role of Ming officials such as Hong Chengchou (1593–1665) in joining the Qing.91 In an additional effort to make his sprawling work more accessible and with the likely encouragement of Yu Rujie, Yao divided each of the three volumes of the third fascicle into clearly titled (though not necessarily clearly focused!) sections. Of particular relevance to the Li Yan story were: in the first volume, a “Short record of Madame Gao’s Eastern Expedition” and “A meeting of Three Heroes”; in the second volume “Another attack on Kaifeng”, “Hui Mei gets married”, and “Yuan Shizhong Revolts”; and, in the third volume “Zhu Xianzhen”, “The Flood,” and “Hui Mei’s Death”.92 Such categories became all the more important as the novel went beyond Li Zicheng’s story to a broader account of the Ming-Qing transition from Chongzhen 11 (1638) to Shunzhi 2 (1645) and from the central plain to the southeastern and northeastern regions of the realm. In the third fascicle, Yao used his intimate knowledge of Henan Province and his fertile imagination as a novelist in an attempt to fill in Li Yan’s thought and actions from 1642 to 1644, a period during which there was almost no mention of him in the inherited historical records or even in existing novels and plays. Li Yan, now known as Master Li, emerges as a prescient scholar-advisor to the rebel leader, but one who is often modest and taciturn until called upon by Li Zicheng to give advice.93 In rankings of Li Zicheng’s advisors, Li Yan often appears only third or fourth, after the prime minister Niu Jinxing, the commander-in-chief Song Xiance, and sometimes even after the field commander Liu Zongmin.94 Sometimes Niu, Song, and Liu meet with Li Zicheng 90  Yao 1981. 91  See Fang Chao-ying’s biographies of Huang (aka Abahai) and Hong in Hummel 1943–44: 1–3, 358–360. 92  Yao 1981: 1.muci. 93  Yao 1981: 2, 299, 798, 983, 1198. 94  Yao 1981: 219–220. 338, 629–631, 987.

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without Li Yan being present or even knowing about it.95 Li Zicheng nonetheless values Li Yan’s counsel highly and sometimes meets with him alone and in secret to address delicate issues.96 In addition to enjoying what appears to be Li Zicheng’s full confidence, Li Yan receives support from his relatives who have joined the rebellion. His younger brother Li Mou is sent to persuade a local warlord named Li Jiyu to remain neutral in the rebels’ war against the Ming.97 Because Li Mou had lived in the provincial capital Kaifeng for several years, Li Zicheng relies on him to provide information about conditions in the city.98 Li Mou also organizes troops from his home county of Qi in preparation for taking the provincial capital.99 Li Yan’s poor relative, Li Jun, who had urged him to rebel in Qi County, joins Li Mou in following Li Yan’s orders and plays an important part in the rebel assault on Kaifeng.100 Li You, who may have been a more distant relative of Li Yan, leads forces numbering in the thousands in the campaigns against Kaifeng. He also serves as an emissary and investigator of rumors for Li Yan, participates in diplomatic exchanges with the rebel Luo Rucai, and is authorized to mete out justice to especially corrupt members of the elite.101 Li Yan no longer treats Hong Niangzi as his “sister” and he now takes her as his wife. They love and respect each other and maintain close relations despite being in charge of separate military forces. Just as Li Zicheng’s partner, Gao, has formed her own battalions of women soldiers, so Hong has her own troops consisting of women and children.102 Hong becomes pregnant by Li Yan and experiences morning sickness. But she continues to train her female troops and patronizes another woman warrior, named Hui Mei, who trains her own female detachments.103 Hui Mei’s sister, Hui Xia, who is also skilled in the martial arts, joins Hong Niangzi in attacking Shangqiu, the town where Hong had been raped by her master.104 Li Yan’s relations with other members of Li Zicheng’s “kitchen cabinet” are rather ambivalent. As fellow Henanese provincials and 1627 provincial graduates, Li Yan and Niu Jinxing might have had especially close relations, 95  Yao 1981: 289–298, 832, 873, 945. 978–979. 96  Yao 1981: 1085, 1107. 97  Yao 1981: 227–234. 98  Yao 1981: 556. 99  Yao 1981: 558. 100  Yao 1981: 1082, 1426–1437. 101  Yao 1981: 2, 64–67, 632, 838, 951. 102  Yao 1981: 5, 8–9, 28, 47 (visual), 71, 555. 103  Yao 1981: 776–782, 821. 104  Yao 1981: 937.

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but in fact, as we have seen, they had some differences over policy. After two rebel attempts to take Kaifeng failed, Li Yan opposed mounting a third one. He argued instead for using rebel troops and appointing sympathetic scholarofficials to establish rebel authority in the many counties of Henan they already controlled. Niu, however, favored a third assault on Kaifeng and persuaded Li Zicheng to undertake it.105 When the third siege also failed, Li Yan reiterated his advice to make the central province the center of a rebel regime. Once again, Li Zicheng referred the matter to Niu, who argued successfully for postponing any dispersion of rebel troops throughout the province lest they leave the field open to rival rebels.106 Li Yan’s relations with Song Xiance, the Henanese dwarf diviner who was commander-in-chief of the rebel forces, were warmer, but there were strains over how hard to push Li Zicheng on policies. Song agreed with Li Yan that Li Zicheng should plan to make Henan the center of his new regime, but, when Li Zicheng rejected the idea, Song did not dare to say anything more.107 Song urged Li Zicheng to respect Li Yan’s often contrarian advice, but he also counseled Li Yan to drop his request to mount an attack on Xiangyang in Hubei before taking control of Kaifeng. Song argued that Li Zicheng had already decided he needed to take Kaifeng before sending any troops elsewhere.108 As a scholar, Li Yan might have been expected to look down on the commoner general, Liu Zongmin. As we have seen, there was a tradition emphasizing just that attitude on the part of Li Yan. But, in fact, Yao depicted Li Yan as respecting Liu Zongmin’s knowledge of the people despite his lack of book learning. Indeed, Yao went so far as to have Li Yan paraphrase the leading Confucian thinker Mencius (390?–305 BCE) to the effect that “it would be better not to have any books than to believe everything you read in them.”109 Although Li Yan was typically reticent and usually waited for Li Zicheng to ask for his advice before giving any, he definitely had ideas of his own and articulated them even when they were not welcomed by Li Zicheng or others. Many of his suggestions fell into a category of what we might call political diplomacy. He wrote a letter to the local militarist, Li Jiyu, to try to persuade him not to join with the Ming against Li Zicheng, and he succeeded in keeping Li Jiyu neutral in the crucial years of 1642 through 1644.110 Li Yan was absent from the initial discussion of the plan to combine Li Zicheng’s forces with those of 105  Yao 1981: 987. 106  Yao 1981: 1378–1379. 107  Yao 1981: 814–815. 108  Yao 1981: 1184–1196. 109  Yao 1981: 966. 110  Yao 1981: 225–234.

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the rebel Luo Rucai, a commoner who hailed from the same county in Shaanxi as Li Zicheng did. When Li Zicheng asked Li Yan for his advice on the merger, he replied that he would respect the consensus in favor of the union, but he added presciently that he did not know how long it would last.111 Apparently sensing that Li Zicheng might ally only temporarily with Luo Rucai with a view to eventually eliminating him from the competition for the mandate, Li Yan invoked the example of Cao Cao (155–220) of the Three Kingdoms period, who had captured his rival Liu Bei (161–223) and had resisted advice to put him to death. This story was particularly poignant because Luo Rucai used the nickname Cao Cao, which must have caused Li Zicheng to think carefully about who might lose out to treachery in the developing alliance. Li Zicheng shook Li Yan’s hand and exclaimed, “Linquan, you are really good at reading books! With you discussing the relationship between the past and the present in this way, I can see my future steps down the road more clearly.”112 Li Yan expressed his usual modest demurral, and Yao commented that Li Zicheng’s intentions were actually not in accord with Li Yan’s. Li Yan took a back seat as well in initial discussion of a similar alliance with Yuan Shizhong. Yuan hailed from northeast Henan, where he came to the attention of Hong Niangzi. He compiled a record in local and informal histories of being concerned about winning popular support. Niu Jinxing’s son, Niu Quan, described Yuan Shizhong as a model leader. He noted that he had three literati advisors who could help attract other scholars to the rebel movement. Niu Jinxing, Song Xiance, and Liu Zongmin all expressed support for an alliance with Yuan Shizhong. When Li Zicheng asked Li Yan for his opinion, he said that Yuan had been an upright leader in northeastern Henan and neighboring towns of Anhui, and his participation would strengthen the rebel base in the region. For some reason, Li Zicheng’s companion, Gao, took an interest in Yuan Shizhong and inquired about his personal life. Hearing that Yuan’s wife had died and he had only two concubines to keep him company, Gao enlisted Hong Niangzi in an effort to find him a suitable wife so as to strengthen his commitment to Li Zicheng’s enterprise. Gao and Hong arranged for Hong’s friend, Hui Mei, to demonstrate her skills in the martial arts and Yuan Shizhong was impressed by her beauty and talent. When it came to arranging the marriage, however, Hui Mei already had her eye on another man and announced that she would not marry Yuan. Hong Niangzi sympathized with Hui Mei and stopped trying to persuade her to marry Yuan. With Li Zicheng’s support, however, Gao pressured Hui Mei to marry Yuan to help insure his loyalty to Li Zicheng. Li Yan 111  Yao 1981: 241–312. 112  Yao 1981: 356–357.

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refrained from getting involved in these personal issues on the grounds that he had more important matters to attend to, including preparing for the occupation of Kaifeng city.113 Li Yan’s roles in negotiating the alliances with Luo Rucai and Yuan Shizhong were varied and ambivalent, and the alliances themselves were fraught with complex tensions. Master Li’s policies were said to serve as a template for Yuan Shizhong’s policies in the places he controlled in northeast Henan, but Luo Rucai continued to regard Yuan as a mere “local robber.” Luo’s chief advisor, Ji Gui, was also at odds with one of Yuan’s advisors, Liu Yuchi.114 Li Yan’s younger brother Li Mou also disliked Liu Yuchi, who was proud of his scholarly credentials. Li Yan tried in vain to get his brother to keep his differences private.115 Yuan Shizhong immediately found his wife Hui Mei to be a very difficult person to live with even though she soon became pregnant by him. Yuan responded to criticisms from Li Zicheng’s camp by calling Li Zicheng’s forces the “little dashing battalion,” an allusion to the label “little Yuan battalion” often applied to Yuan’s forces.116 Li Zicheng continued to trust Yuan Shizhong, but Li Yan, Li Mou, Liu Zongmin, Li Guo (Li Zicheng’s nephew), and Ji Xie (Luo Rucai’s advisor) all suspected Yuan of disloyalty to Li Zicheng.117 When Yuan suddenly left rebel controlled Qi County on his own, Niu Jinxing and Song Xiance asked Li Zicheng to send Li Yan to Qi on the pretext of paying respects to his ancestors. Li Yan did not go to Qi, but he responded to an inquiry from Li Zicheng by saying that he thought that Yuan was likely planning to surrender to the Ming. Li Zicheng ordered Niu Jinxing to write to Yuan Shizhong and he instructed Li Yan to write to Hui Mei, who was in Qi with 200 female troops, in efforts to persuade them not to revolt against Li Zicheng.118 Hui Mei scolded Yuan for deserting Li Zicheng, but Yuan tried to mollify her because she was carrying his child. Meanwhile Li Guo, Li Zicheng’s nephew, was sent to bring Yuan back into the fold.119 Liu Zongmin suspected from the beginning that Luo Rucai would not remain loyal to Li Zicheng for long, and Niu Jinxing predicted that he would part ways after the third effort to take Kaifeng.120 Li Zicheng continued to share grain and troops with Luo Rucai, but Li Guo and Song Xiance suspected Luo’s intentions 113  Yao 1981: 778–843. 114  Yao 1981: 884–885, 892, 954, 957. 115  Yao 1981: 965. 116  Yao 1981: 874, 1022–1023; Wei 1993. 117  Yao 1981: 1031, 1033–1034. 118  Yao 1981: 1038, 1045–1046, 1050, 1058–1059. 119  Yao 1981: 1060, 1064. 120  Yao 1981: 1072, 1378–1379.

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were not honorable, and Niu Jinxing called for preemptive action against Luo.121 When Li Zicheng asked Li Yan for his opinion, Li Yan answered ambivalently that he was not sure whether Luo had actually written a letter to the Ming grand coordinator Gao Mingheng that Luo’s critics regarded as proof of his having two minds about the rebellion.122 Li Yan demonstrated a similar ambivalence about Yuan Shizhong’s fate when he failed to respond to a query from Li Zicheng to his collective advisors regarding Yuan’s likely course of action.123 Li Zicheng’s companion, Gao, asked Li Yan to help insure that Yuan Shizhong wife, Hui Mei, would be able to return safely from Qi County to Li Zicheng’s headquarters no matter what Yuan Shizhong decided to do. Yuan worried that Li Zicheng did not understand the nature of his loyalty, and he had long conversations with his wife and advisors over how best to proceed.124 Li Yan also debated with Hong Niangzi whether it was justifiable to mount a preemptive strike against Yuan if that would mean leaving Hui Mei a widow and single parent. Hong, who had just ceded responsibility for leading the female rebel army to Hui Mei’s sisters so that Hui Mei could take care of her six-monthold infant, naturally argued against killing Yuan Shizhong while Li Yan seemed to lean toward disciplinary action against Yuan hoping that it would not lead to his death.125 In a meeting Li Zicheng called with his advisors to discuss how to deal with Luo Rucai’s troops once Luo was no longer in the picture, Li Yan did not say anything, perhaps because he was not yet aware of Li Zicheng’s decision to do away with Luo or perhaps precisely because he was aware that that decision was a fait accompli.126 In sum, Li Yan adopted a very circumspect view of Li Zicheng’s two alliances with Luo and with Yuan, and certainly did not take a strong stance in supporting those rebel leaders against their critics. At the same time, Li Zicheng seemed to be more trusting of the two rebel leaders Luo and Yuan than some of his subordinates were. Li Zicheng also had more confidence in Luo’s and Yuan’s parties than they had in each other. Yao thus counter-intuitively resisted the impulse to make Li Yan a heroic champion of those potential challengers to—and ultimate victims of—Li Zicheng’s authority. Yao also refrained from making Li Zicheng a suspicious and jealous rebel leader categorically unwilling to share power with other rebel leaders. In these ways, Yao eschewed the popular tendency to set an idealized Li Yan against a flawed Li Zicheng and a 121  Yao 1981: 1380–1388. 122  Yao 1981: 1389. 123  Yao 1981: 1396.395. 124  Yao 2008: 357–380. 125  Yao 2008.: 381. 126  Yao 2008: 385–395.

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demonic Niu Jinxing. In the process he highlighted the nuances of complex personalities and situations that novels are perhaps best in describing and that often lead naturally, if not inevitably, to real human tragedies. In crafting his historical novel, Yao Xueyin was interested in placing the rise and fall of Li Zicheng in the larger context of Chinese history. He did that in part by using late Ming and early Qing vocabulary, including expressions in the local Henanese dialect familiar to him. He did it also by having his characters use historical precedents and models to help make the case for their policy proposals. One historical approach was to associate the plebian Li Zicheng with previous commoner rebels, including those who were successful in founding their own new polities. In Yao’s novel, the commoner rebel Luo Rucai told the commoner rebel Zhang Xianzhong that the commoner rebel Li Zicheng had enlisted the provincial graduate Niu and dwarf diviner Song into his movement. Referring to Li Zicheng, Luo said it was “as if he had Chen Ping (d. 178 BCE) and Zhang Liang (d. 189 BCE) by his side.”127 Chen and Zhang were literati generals from Henan and Anhui who assisted the commoner Liu Bang in overthrowing the Qin and founding the Han in 206 BCE.128 The implication was that Li Zicheng had the wise counsel of a literatus and a diviner whose advice might enable him not only to overthrow the Ming but also to establish the Da Shun as a durable new polity. At another juncture, Li Yan invoked the example of Liu Bang (temple name Han Gaozu) who ordered his general Han Xin (d. 196) to disperse his troops widely throughout Yu (Henan) to provide a central base in the civil war against Xiang Yu. Li Yan proposed that Li Zicheng should follow a similar strategy of “dividing up his troops to control territory” to defeat all contenders for the mandate, including the Ming.129 In another discussion, Li Zicheng told Zhu Chengju, one of Yuan Shizhong’s advisors, that he (Li Zicheng) “had long heard that Zhu was a Xiao-Cao-Zhang Liang-kind of person and that his arrival at this time was most gratifying to people.”130 Xiao, Cao, and Zhang were advisors to Liu Bang who helped him overthrow the Qin, defeat a rival rebel (Xiang Yu), and found the Han. Taking the historical analogy seriously, Li Zicheng asked Zhu Chengju what that meant for the future. Zhu replied that he was just a student who was encouraging Yuan 127  Yao 1981: 338. 128  For brief biographies, see Chaoyang 1979: 99. 100. 129  Yao 1981: 1376–1378. 130  Yao 1981: 806. For brief biographies of Xiao He (d. 193 BCE) and Cao Can (d. 190 BCE), also advisors to Liu Bang, see Chaoyang 1979: 98, 99.

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Shizhong to treat the people well while waiting for a master who could save the world. Fortunately, Yuan had been taking such advice and was winning broad support among the people. Zhu added, “If I can help make general Yuan into a Deng Yu and Xu Mougong kind of person, that will satisfy my aspirations.”131 Deng Yu (2–58 CE) was a military man from Nanyang (again, Yao’s hometown!) who served under Liu Xiu (6–57 CE), a member of the royal Han lineage, and who helped Liu put down uprisings and restore the Han dynasty. That polity was later called the Later Han or the Eastern Han because it moved its capital east, from Chang’an in Shaanxi to Luoyang in Henan.132 Zhu Chengju, like Li Zicheng, invoked the Han as a model for his own day, but he shifted the focus from the Former Han to the Later Han, subtly suggesting that the present task was not to found an entirely new plebian dynasty but to restore the existing, increasingly aristocratic, dynasty that was being challenged by uprisings that should ultimately be put down. It seems unlikely that Zhu Chengju was signaling that Yuan Shizhong might ultimately join a Ming loyalist movement and put down rebels like Li Zicheng. It seems more likely that he was reassuring Li Zicheng that Yuan Shizhong was not seeking to establish his own new state but rather to find a leader who would establish a revived Ming state on the model of Liu Xiu’s founding of the Eastern Han. Either way, however, Li Zicheng and his advisors might be forgiven for interpreting Zhu’s analogy as a clear sign of Yuan’s ambitions that might ultimately clash with those of Li Zicheng.133 By virtue of his nickname Cao Cao, Luo Rucai seemed to identify his era with the Three Kingdoms (220–265), which followed the fall of the Han and saw the rise to power of the Cao family in the Wei state that ruled north and central China.134 As we have seen, Li Yan drew on the original Cao Cao’s experience vis a vis the Han royal scion Liu Bei to encourage Li Zicheng to win over Luo Rucai rather than try to crush him militarily or even assassinate him.135 As it happened, neither Cao Cao nor Liu Bei was able to establish a polity that could unify the central states and all-under-heaven, and the same would ultimately prove to be true of Luo Rucai and Li Zicheng as well. While each of these Former Han, Later Han, and Three Kingdoms historical models had some value at the end of the Ming, the most important precedent in the eyes of Li Zicheng and his advisors (as depicted by Yao Xueyin) 131  Yao 1981: 806–807. 132  For a brief biography of Deng, see Chaoyang 1979: 133–134. 133  Liu Yuchi, another advisor to Yuan Shizhong, later cited again the example of Liu Xiu, founder of the Later Han, suggesting the importance of that precedent for Yuan’s entourage. Yao 1981: 1016. 134  Yao 1981: 328–332. 135  Yao 1981: 356–357.

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eventually became the Tang dynasty. Li Zicheng himself was probably barely literate, but he was said to be very interested in oral and written stories from the past. According to Yao’s novel, he frequently asked Niu Jinxing “to narrate and explain the classics and the Comprehensive Mirror.”136 The references were to the Five Classics (Poetry, Documents, Changes, Rites, and Spring and Autumn Annals) and to Sima Guang’s Comprehensive Mirror for Assistance in Government. Although compiled in the Northern Song, the Comprehensive Mirror gave especially high marks to the early Tang polity for its practice of good government. In Yao’s words: After lunch, Li Zicheng listened to Niu Jinxing lecturing on the Comprehensive Mirror. He ordered Gao Yigong, Li Guo, and Shuangxi [Li Zicheng’s adopted son] to come and listen. This day he (Niu) discussed fascicle 193 in which Tang Taizong, Fang Xuanling, and Xiao Yu reviewed a section titled “How Sui Wendi governed.” Li Zicheng respected Li Shimin the most out of all the rulers of previous ages, and he had for some days been asking Niu Jinxing to discuss how Li Shimin used talent and was good at accepting remonstrances. Niu Jinxing therefore selected this section to lecture on.137 The Tang model could also be invoked to justify less exalted policies. Niu Jinxing cited practices in Tang Taizong’s reign as a basis for forcing Hui Mei into the political marriage with Yuan Shizhong and for regulating her role in training women warriors.138 Tang Taizong’s reign could also be cited as a model by those who failed to live up to it in practice. According to Yao’s account, Li Zicheng seems to have presided over a fairly relaxed court where advisors engaged in serious debates and officials spoke fairly openly even when they could not be sure what Li Zicheng was thinking. But, as we have seen, even the relatively powerful commander-in-chief, Song Xiance, had to trim his sails when supporting Li Yan on a policy that was at odds with what Li Zicheng wanted. And Li Zicheng had no qualms about vetoing Li Yan’s proposal to establish a base in Henan Province by political and administrative means instead of dashing from one city to another to claim merely military victories, or even, as in the case of Kaifeng, to suffer military stalemates. In this case, Li Zicheng seems to have had second thoughts about the strategy he adopted, and he went so far as to urge Li Yan to be even more outspoken and resolute in the future in 136  Yao 1981: 214. 137  Yao 1981: 608. 138  Yao 1981: 818–819.

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advocating policies that he (Li Zicheng) did not want to adopt. Explicitly using the model of Tang Taizong’s relations with his most independent advisor, Wei Zheng (580–643 CE), Li Zicheng promised he would become more like Tang Taizong if Li Yan would speak out as Wei Zheng had.139 Later on, Song Xiance invoked Tang Taizong as a model in encouraging Li Zicheng to treat Li Yan as an autonomous official. For instance, Li Zicheng should consider seriously Li Yan’s suggestion to establish a base at Xiangyang, in Hubei, even before completing the struggle for Kaifeng.140 Once again ignoring Li Yan’s counsel, Li Zicheng once again had second thoughts. He soon asked Niu Jinxing to discuss not just the relevant sections of the Comprehensive Mirror but also the monograph titled Important Policies of the Zhenguan Reign which provided more details about the achievements of Tang Taizong. Li Zicheng stated that he had already read the entire work (not likely!), but he admitted that there were still some parts of it that he did not understand.141 Meanwhile, in this time and place, i.e. 1642–1643 in Henan, Li Yan continued in the role of distributing grain that he had initiated in Qi County, now on a larger scale and under even more difficult circumstances. In an era of locusts, famine, plague, drought, and floods, Li Yan managed to collect some 200 tons of grain and distribute it to the rebel troops.142 After the disastrous flooding of Kaifeng as a result of Ming and rebel efforts to use the river to damage their adversaries, and which was exacerbated by unusually heavy rains, Li Yan went to the city to assist in feeding the survivors, including many women and children. He called for the provision of boats to rescue the population and for the assignment of 2,000 workers to reassert control over the river.143 Li Yan thus maintained his basic identity as a scholar dedicated to serving the interests of the least fortunate members of society. After the third fascicle, comprising three sprawling volumes, was published in 1981, publishers began to suggest that Yao prepare an abridged edition. Yao agreed on the need for a more succinct account, but he felt that he had to write it himself and he was unable to find the time to do so. In 1986 at a meeting of the Chinese Writers’ Association in Huanggang, Hubei, Wu Yue, an editor at Precious Literature Bookstore, also encouraged Yao to turn his attention to writing an abridged edition. That bookstore had published abridged editions of China’s classical novels, Biographies of the Marsh, Extended Meaning 139  Yao 1981: 988. 140  Yao 1981: 1189–1192. 141  Yao 1981: 1197. For Wei Zheng, see Wechsler 1974. 142  Yao 1981: 1375. 143  Yao 1981: 1470, 1491, 1493, 1546–1547, 1554.

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of the Three Kingdoms, and Dream of the Red Chamber as well as the work of the twentieth-century writer Mao Dun. Yao, therefore, was very interested. However, Yao was already seventy-six years old, was set on completing the long version, and was beginning to suffer from dementia. He therefore asked Wu Yue to discuss the matter with his assistant Yu Rujie. Yu promised to compile an abridged edition, but he agreed with Yao that it should be done only after the full edition was completed. Yao and Yu therefore continued to work together on the fourth fascicle, with Yao increasingly narrating the story orally and Yu recording Yao’s words and drafting the text. Their goal was clearly not only to reduce the length of the book but also to supplement and improve it. To this end, they eschewed “the method of using a big knife to make bold excisions” used by Mao Dun and others. Instead they vowed to keep the chapters and sections intact and to make many minor cuts in details and wording. In Yu’s words: “While making such cuts, we can solve problems in the original edition such as scar traces of modernization, self-contradictions in plots, repetition in detailed sections, lack of historical materials, mistakes and gaps in poetry, and faults in wording.”144 Inspired by the simplicity and the brevity associated with the Russian author Anton Chekov (1860–1904) and the American writer Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961), they planned to discontinue, whenever possible, some stylistic practices such as introducing speakers and repeating their names in dialogues.145 In theory, Yao was supposed to continue writing the fourth fascicle of the long version while Yu prepared a draft of the fifth fascicle in Yao’s name. In fact, Yao’s health deteriorated and he was unable to make much progress on the fourth fascicle by the time Yu completed his draft of the fifth fascicle in 1985. For the next decade, Yao was unable to write, and, in 1997, he suffered a debilitating stroke. Two years later he died. Yao’s survivors decided to divide Yu’s fifth fascicle into two, making the first half of it fascicle number four. Unfortunately, this left almost a whole year’s gap between “the death of Hui Mei” at the end of fascicle three and “the spring of 1644” at the beginning of fascicle four.146 Yao and Yu made some other sizable cuts along political lines, such as reducing the discussion of the hardships suffered by the youthful Li Zicheng and Hong Niangzi in “feudal society.” But it was the involuntary—and certainly not felicitous—decision to proceed without the projected fourth fascicle that enabled the editors to reduce the manuscript from three to two

144  Yu 2008: 4. 473–474. 145  Yu 2008 4. 475. 146  Yu 2007 preface in Yao 2008: 1.003.

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million characters.147 In view of this abridgement and the natural course of the rise and fall of Li Zicheng’s Da Shun regime, Yu divided the whole novel into four Western-style volumes. In honor of Yao Xueyin’s favorite poet, Du Fu (712–770 CE) of the Tang period, Yu selected four five-character lines from his poems as titles of the four volumes of the abridged work. The book itself continued to be titled simply Li Zicheng.148 Beginning with the death of Hui Mei, both the long version of the novel and the abridged version were largely drafted by Yu Rujie. Gender continued to be an important theme in volumes three and four of the abridged edition of Li Zicheng. Li Zicheng’s companion, Gao, asked Li Yan to help insure that Hui Mei was able to return safely from Yuan Shizhong’s headquarters in Yuzhen, a market town only a mile and a half from Li Yan’s home village in Qi County.149 Although Li Yan was unable to deliver on this request, perhaps because he put the interests of Li Zicheng’s rebellion ahead of the welfare of the woman warrior Hui Mei, we learned the precise location of Li Yan’s home village and are reminded of a possible link between Li Yan and Yuan Shizhong. At about the same time, Li Yan expressed frustration that his recommendations to Li Zicheng were frequently ignored and he confided in Hong Niangzi that he was thinking about withdrawing from the rebellion. Hong Niangzi, however, encouraged him to stay the course despite the death of her friend Hui Mei. This suggests that she too, continued to place the fate of the rebellion above personal relationships.150 At the same time Li Yan had to identify a famous Song-period thinker for Hong who, despite her martial skills, was not literate or familiar with elite academic traditions.151 Meanwhile, Niu Jinxing made Li Zicheng aware of the Five Classics and the Four Books but not of the Four Books for Women. Presumably that helped to explain the rebel leader’s insensitivity to the interests of women such as Hui Mei.152 Despite the rebels’ efforts to reassure the general population of their humane policies, including respect for women in the cities they conquered, and despite their success in taking Taiyuan without firing a shot, some women in that city committed suicide to avoid the abuses that they had come to expect from troops in a time of political instability and military conflict.153 Yao Xueyin accepted the story that Li Yan intervened to try to keep the Empress Dowager Yi’an from killing herself. 147  Yao 2008: 4. 474. 148  Yao 2008: 4. 476. 149  Yao 2008: 3.357. 150  Yao 2008: 3: 382. 151  Yao 2008: 3: 383. 152  Yao 2008: 3.524–525. 153  Yao 2008: 4.18.

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Li Yan may have acted out of his commitment to humane policies, including policies toward women, but Yao seemed to suggest that he was motivated more by natural sympathy for a fellow townsperson. Yi’an’s father, it now seems, was a native of Li Yan’s home county of Qi.154 Li Yan’s view of women was perhaps reflected in his remark that, during times of disorder, male rebel leaders could choose their women from among existing palace maidens.155 His meaning was unclear, but he may have thought that choosing women from among the general population risked losing popular support while taking women from the vanquished Ming court would not. Li Zicheng, on the other hand, turned the beautiful palace woman Fei Zhen’e over to general Luo Hu saying that he, Li Zicheng, preferred farm girls.156 As in previous accounts, Li Zicheng was fortunate because, instead of killing Li Zicheng as she had planned to do, the former palace woman killed her rapist Luo Hu.157 Meanwhile, contradictorily, Li Zicheng had two concubines, one of whom, Dou Meiyi, was said to have read Sima Guang’s Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Governance.158 In general, Li was reputed to treat his concubines well, but he reportedly left Dou behind when he retreated from Beijing.159 Upon hearing reports of her death, he showed remorse for his decision.160 Hong Niangzi, meanwhile, continued to lead her all-female military force and she continued to enjoy Li Zicheng’s favor. During the rebel retreat from Beijing, Li Zicheng ordered Li Yan to assist her in defending Gu Pass from the advancing Qing army.161 In this period, Li Yan continued to be a major spokesperson for Li Zicheng. For example, he issued a proclamation, written in very simple and clear prose “so the common people can understand it,” calling for “suppressing troops and bringing peace to the people.”162 Li Zicheng followed up by claiming to be the author of the phrase in the proclamation promising severe punishment of any rebel troops who abused the people. Li Yan also continued to be responsible for redistributing land confiscated from Ming nobles, officials, landlords, and large land owners who had abandoned their land or been driven from it by various rebel forces. Some of the land was to be turned into military colonies to 154  Yao 2008: 4.99. Li Yan was famous for protecting other Henanese but, according to Yao, Liu Lishun does not seem to have been among them. Yao 2008: 4.325. 155  Yao 2008: 4. 153. 156  Yao 2008: 4.202–204. 157  Yao 2008: 4. 225, 232. 158  Yao 2008: 4.156–157. 159  Yao 2008: 4. 328, 332–33. 160  Yao 2008: 4. 342. 161  Yao 2008: 4.317, 331. 162  Yao 2008: 3.418.

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support the rebel forces.163 After the rebels took Taiyuan in Shanxi, Li Zicheng asked Li Yan to investigate the grain supply. Li Yan reported that the Jin prince in Shanxi had fewer resources than the Fu prince had had in Henan, so there would be little grain available beyond what was needed for the rebel army.164 Later, in Beijing, Li Yan continued his signature practice of providing relief to the poor.165 In Beijing, Li Yan cited the example of Liu Bang, the commoner founder of the Han, who followed the advice of his advisors, Fan Kuai and Zhang Liang, and adopted a simple initial platform for the new regime. In Liu’s case, he had taken the Qin capital of Xianyang and then withdrawn from it, and he had not yet declared himself the next son of heaven. Liu’s “constitution” therefore was very brief. It consisted of three points: those who commit murder will be killed, those who harm others and those who steal will be punished according to the gravity of their crimes. Li Zicheng had no intention of withdrawing from Beijing and he had already declared himself August Lord of the Great Shun. Li Yan therefore agreed that Li Zicheng should of course enter the forbidden palace. But if tens of thousands of our grand army should camp in Beijing and soldiers and civilians should live together, your official thinks that would not be a good plan. As for arresting all of the former high Ming officials and expropriating their ill-gotten wealth, I would ask that we move slowly on that. Our priority should be to establish a broadly humane government in Beijing and to win the hearts and minds of the people of the known world. Later, when the general situation is settled, we can single out the worst among the big officials, those hated by the people. We can punish some of them and allow the rest to surrender to the Shun without any investigations. Acting in this way, we may not only restore order in Beijing but also cause many from all over to follow the wind and surrender to the regime. This will prevent our adversaries from taking advantage of any opportunities created by division.166 Li Yan ended his presentation by playing his most characteristic and enduring role, asking Li Zicheng to decide how he was going to provide relief to the starving people of the capital. 163  Yao 2008: 3.424. 164  Yao 2008: 4.19. 165  Yao 2008: 4. 293. 166  Yao 2008: 4.96.

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Song Xiance agreed with Li Yan’s proposals but feared that his memorial would anger Li Zicheng. He therefore submitted his own report, using his own historical models. In his words: The ruler’s intuitive wisdom exceeds that of all others, his mind and bosom are open and clear, and he has some of the style of Tang Taizong. This evening Linquan [Li Yan] has offered his advice straightforwardly, also in the manner of the ancients, wanting to follow Wei Zheng in getting the bone out of his throat [i.e. speaking his mind]. The ruler and his ministers are united, glorious from beginning to end, and this will be a happy dialogue for a long time to come. After the court entered Beijing, it established a liberal and humane government for officials and the people, won over the people’s minds and hearts, and stationed men and horses outside the walls. That should have been beneficial in getting Wu Sangui to surrender and in demonstrating to the eastern caitiffs that there is no crack in our defense they can profit from so they will not dare to attack. Linquan’s two proposals are both made on behalf of the state, and both issue from a loyal heart and mind. It is just that these two matters were already discussed and decided on by the August Superior and your earls before you set out from Xi’an, and it was the wish of all the officers that it be early on announced to the masses. Now it is not advisable to take back a completed order. When the grand army enters the inner city tomorrow, this will not prevent the August Superior from reissuing a sacred rescript enjoining the three armies to maintain strict discipline without the least infractions, and violators will be decapitated. As for the matter of expropriating ill-gotten gains, and when it should begin and end, it should be strict at first and liberal later, according to administrative circumstances. Li Zicheng nodded his head and said, “Your opinions are very good and I will give them careful consideration.”167 Li Yan, however, continued to hold views that were at odds with those of his follow advisors and/or with those of Li Zicheng. Li Yan and Song Xiance had favored the establishment of a secure base in Henan before advancing on Beijing, but Niu had been eager to attack Beijing as soon as possible. Li Zicheng ultimately sided with Niu.168 Li Yan understood the theory behind yin and yang (e.g. the female and male principles) and the five agents (e.g. the conquest cycle of earth, wood, metal, fire, and water), but he did not take them 167  Yao 2008: 4.96. 168  Yao 2008: 3.528.

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as seriously as Song Xiance did. Li Yan favored a delay in Li Zicheng’s mounting the throne in Beijing, presumably so as to win broad support first. But Niu Jinxing, citing the precedent of the Ming founder, urged Li Zicheng to declare himself son of heaven as soon as possible. Song Xiance admonished Li Yan not to push too hard in opposing a move which Li Zicheng already wanted to make.169 Song Xiance opposed an eastern military expedition against Wu Sangui on the grounds, articulated by Lao Zi, that military force should be used in political struggles only as a last resort. Li Yan opposed it on the more pragmatic grounds that it would force Wu Sangui into the arms of the Manchus, who were the main threat to the Shun regime. As it happened, Li Zicheng ignored both appeals and undertook the expedition. When it had the effect that Li Yan had predicted, Li Zicheng scolded Song and Li Yan, in the manner of Tang Taizong, for not opposing the eastern expedition forcefully enough!170 During this period of 1644, other historical models continued to be invoked for a variety of purposes. The Manchu Prince Regent Dorgon identified with the Duke of Zhou, who served as regent for his young nephew, King Cheng, and was celebrated by Confucius as an ideal ruler and advisor.171 This identification was well known and seems to have influenced how others regarded Dorgon.172 Yao also informed his readers that, when Li Zicheng shot an arrow into the Chengtian Gate in Beijing, he was following the example of Wu Wang, the martial founder of the Zhou.173 Li Yan alluded to the “rites of Qi and Song” in appealing to “the Ming heir apparent and the two princes Yong and Ding” to accept honorary enfeoffment by the Shun state.174 He promised them better treatment at the hands of the Shun than the Xia royal family had received at the hands of the Shang and the Shang descendants had received at the hands of the Zhou.175 Although Yao did not mention it, this reference to the rites of Qi and Song was particularly poignant because it was made by a native of Qi County who had brought fellow townsmen and natives of neighboring Shangqiu County (also known as Song) into the rebel camp. In addition to such “classical” models from the Three Dynasties period, more fully “historical” models were also mentioned. Song Xiance reported that a late Ming man by the name of Chen had adopted the personal name Muping (lit. 169  Yao 2008: 4.49–50, 93–94. 170  Yao 2008: 4. 198, 212–213, 264, 290. 171  Yao 2008: 4.44. 172  Yao 2008: 4.245. It was also said Dorgon might become another Wang Mang, i.e. head of a dynasty that ruled only briefly in the middle of a long-lived dynasty. 173  Yao 2008: 4. 129. 174  Yao 2008: 4.135. 175  Yao 2008: 4: 136.

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imitating Ping) to express his admiration for Chen Ping, one of the advisors to the Han founder Liu Bang.176 In a conversation with fellow advisor Gu Junen, Li Yan invoked the examples of Han Xin, another advisor at the beginning of the Former Han, and Liu Bei, one of the three contenders for the mandate at the end of the Later Han. Li clearly believed they had continuing relevance.177 He pointed to Liu Bang’s willingness to sacrifice his father to win the civil war against Xiang Yu as a basis for skepticism that Wu Sangui would rally to the Shun banner to save his father, Wu Xiang, who was being held hostage by the rebels.178 In scenes reminiscent of Liu Bei’s initial meeting with Zhuge Liang in the Three Kingdoms and of Song Xiance’s and Li Yan’s discussion of Buddhism in early Qing accounts of the Li Yan story, Li Yan and Li Mou attempted to win the support of a scholar named Liu Heguang, who was a friend of Song Xiance’s. Liu was familiar with military books, skilled in divination, knowledgeable about medicine, indifferent to wealth and fame, and averse to officials and members of the elite. He frequented the Jin shrine, about a mile and a half from Taiyuan, but resided most of the time in the mountains and was known as the Jinyang mountain man. When Li Yan and Li Mou visited him and invited him to take a post in the rising Shun state, he refused. He suggested that they contact instead a monk named Bu-kong (lit. not empty), who was from the Buddhist temples in Wutai shan, in Shanxi, but happened to be visiting the Jin shrine. Unlike many Buddhist monks, Bu-kong, originally known as Liu Zizheng, had once been active in the world. Li Yan and Li Jun assembled a thousand men and horses and led them to the Jin shrine to see Bu-kong. When Bu-kong asked Li Yan if he had come to find the dharma (the Buddhist law), Li Yan replied that he had come for enlightenment regarding the future of the Shun regime. Bu-kong said that Chongzhen was not “a ruler of a failed state”, but the Ming was nonetheless certain to fall. The only questions were how the rebels would be regarded by the inhabitants of the capital and how many campaigns would be necessary to stave off the Manchu forces. While Li Yan estimated rebel forces at 500,000 men, Bu-kong said it was more like 300,000 and only 100,000 could be used to take Beijing. Bu-kong warned that Li Zicheng’s rebel forces were many fewer than Qin Shihuangdi’s when he overcame the six other major states, but he acknowledged that the plebian rebel Chen She had nonetheless rallied remnants of the six states in his effort to overthrow the Qin. Niu Jinxing believed the Manchus would attack the Ming forces but not the rebels in Beijing, but 176  Yao 2008: 3. 439. 177  Yao 2008: 3.494–495. 178  Yao 2008: 4.169.

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Bu-kong warned that taking Beijing was not sufficient to win the mandate to rule China. Li Yan thought that the Qing court was so divided that it would not move south anytime soon, but Bu-kong pointed out that the prince regent Dorgon was young and vigorous and was ready to move south. Bu-kong recommended that the rebels tarry in Shanxi and build up a force of 200,000 before attacking Beijing. Li Yan worried that it would be difficult to provision so many troops in Shanxi and that Li Zicheng would not approve such a strategy. He asked Bu-kong to join the rebellion, but Bu-kong said that he had lost his family in the fall of Liaoyang to the Qing and that he had lost for good his interest in the affairs of this world. When Li Yan returned to Shun headquarters, he shared his experience with Song Xiance. Song wondered if Bu-kong was continuing to serve Chongzhen and was perhaps not interested in helping the Shun.179 In sum, Yao seemed to use the Bu-kong incident to illustrate Li Yan’s middle path between commitment to spiritual purity and dedication to political efficacy. Volumes three and four of Li Zicheng were largely silent on any Li Yan role in the fledgling Shun state in Xi’an (now renamed Chang’an). Volume four had surprisingly little even on Li Yan’s activities in Beijing, but it did describe Li Zicheng’s turn against Li Yan and Li Mou in copious, even repetitive, detail. Although Li Zicheng had long regarded Li Yan as his most valuable advisor, he now came to see him in a very different light. The rift began when Li Zicheng insisted on trying to engage the services of Liu Zizheng at Wutai Shan in Shanxi. Li Yan resisted on the grounds that Liu was as hostile to the Shun state as he was to the Qing. Then, in a scenario slightly different from previous ones, Li Zicheng learned of reverses in Shun fortunes in Henan and he called his advisors together to discuss how to respond. Li Yan suggested that he and his brother lead troops to Henan to restore Shun authority in places where it had been lost. Li Zicheng asked how he proposed to do that and Li Yan responded, “Henan is your official’s [i.e. my] place of birth, and I am quite familiar with the people and the region. It will be easy for me to call on the scholars and people to support the Great Shun and resist the foreigners.”180 Li Zicheng noted that the Lucky Prince had established himself as the Ming ruler in Nanjing and asked Li Yan how he would deal with that. Li Yan replied: Nanjing has established a new ruler, and this will really not be easy to address. Please allow your official to return to Henan and to manage this according to circumstances. The best policy will be to harmonize the irreconcilable conflict with Nanjing and join together to resist the 179  Yao 2008: 4. 20–25. 180  Yao 2008: 4. 339.

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foreigners. After we defeat the foreigners, we can contend with Nanjing for control of the central plain.181 Li Zicheng worried that Li Yan’s plan would result in another defeat like the one at Shanhaiguan and he asked if there were alternatives. Li Yan argued for continuing to “accord with the people’s minds and hearts” as Li Zicheng had done when he first entered Henan Province in force. More concretely, he suggested mobilizing local militarists in their mountain fortresses, including buying them off and using them to strengthen the defenses of the Yellow River against the Manchus. Li Yan also recommended depending on “the people’s hearts and minds” to keep the Ming loyalist Shi Kefa (d. 1645) from joining with the Qing against the Shun. When Li Zicheng hesitated, Li Yan exclaimed, “This opportunity cannot be lost! If it is, it cannot be recovered. May the August Superior decide quickly, and your official will rush to Henan by starlight.”182 Under pressure from Li Yan, Li Zicheng turned to Niu Jinxing for advice. Niu realized that the issue was important and that Li Zicheng had strong feelings about it. When there was a local rebellion against the Shun in Shanxi Province, Li Zicheng ordered that it be suppressed so that the Shun could focus on resisting the Qing. At this time, the noted poet Fu Shan (1607–1684) wrote lines that referred to Liu Xiu’s restoration of the Han after the Wang Mang interlude and to the An-Shi rebellion which the Tang put down in a restoration with the assistance of the Uighurs. Li Zicheng interpreted these allusions as suggesting that the Ming might be restored as the Han and Tang had once been. Li Yan commented, “Using many troops to suppress and kill is a critical part of the game, but it would be best to send someone to demonstrate justice, persuading [Ming loyalists] to open the gates and surrender to the Shun. If that does not work, then we can send troops without delay.”183 Li Zicheng shook his head and stated, “This is not a time of rising peace, if we must kill, let’s kill! We cannot be soft!”184 When Li Yan again asked Li Zicheng to let him go to Henan, Niu Jinxing warned him that conditions were worsening and he (Li Yan) should be patient if he was to avoid angering Li Zicheng.185 In a private meeting with Li Yan and Niu, Li Zicheng warned that Dorgon was preparing to invade north Henan, and he asked what to do. Li Yan replied that they should use their army to 181  Yao 2008: 4.339. 182  Yao 2008: 4.340. 183  Yao 2008: 4.341. 184  Yao 2008: 4.341. 185  Yao 2008: 4.342.

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suppress revolts in Lu and Ze Prefectures in Shanxi and in the three prefectures of northern Henan.186 Li Zicheng accepted Li Yan’s advice, but when Li Yan again insisted on leading troops to Henan, Li Zicheng became angry. He thought to himself: “Li Yan has again brought up his request to return to Henan; is it not the case that he is making plans for himself?” Li Zicheng said nothing but used his eyes to convey his thought to Niu Jinxing. Niu replied: Now the conditions in Henan are chaotic, sending Linquan to return to find ways to recover the situation seems to be worth trying. But if Linquan goes, the throne will be short an energetic advisor. This is an important matter and the August Superior should make his own decisions about it.187 Li Zicheng was lost in thought and did not reply immediately. He suddenly thought that he and Li Yan had not been of one mind from the beginning and that Li Yan had prepared for withdrawing from public service to the mountains if he was ever subject to the purge of qualified officials that frequently followed the founding of a new dynasty. He also recalled that, when he had instructed Li Yan to provide relief to the people of Luoyang, they had come to regard him [Li Yan] as humane and just. “The common people all said ‘Master Li saved our lives’ and made no mention of the Dashing Prince Li.”188 Li Zicheng’s jealousy of Li Yan was clear. In a subsequent meeting, Li Zicheng asked if Li Yan planned to take Hong Niangzi with him to Henan. Li Yan replied in the affirmative. In his words, Today battle-hardened military officers are hard to come by, and, if Hong Niangzi accompanies me to Henan, she will be able to exert herself on behalf of the state at a critical time. Moreover, she has good relations with the people of the rivers and lakes in eastern Yu (Henan), and she will be able to liaise with the upright elite among the people and mount a joint resistance to the caitiff troops.189 In his mind and heart, Li Zicheng thought it was beautiful that Li Yan wanted to take his wife with him, but it was evil that he might be aspiring to the status of the 18th child, predicted by Song Xiance to take the throne. When Li Yan

186  Yao 2008: 4.343. 187  Yao 2008: 4.344. 188  Yao 2008: 4.344. 189  Yao 2008: 4.345.

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appealed again to go to Henan, Li Zicheng instructed him to work with Niu Jinxing to draft a formal proposal. After consulting with Li Mou, Hong Niangzi, and Li Jun, Li Yan decided to ask for 20,000 troops, which he considered to be a compromise between the desirable and the possible. Hong asked Li Yan which great general he planned to take with him. Li Yan replied that he would not ask for any. He pointed out that Li Zicheng had few high officers left to defend the Shun headquarters in Beijing. It was best not to take a major general to Henan “to avoid his bringing up matters that might impede us.” Hong expressed concerns that Li Zicheng seemed to have reservations about the plan. Li Yan replied that it was essential to go to Henan to save the Shun state and worth dying to do so.190 Hong agreed that it would be better to die on the battlefield in Henan than as a result of suspicions harbored by rebel leaders at the Shun headquarters. Li Yan commented that women seemed to be more suspicious than men, but Hong replied that mutual suspicion was inevitable in a time of political disorder. She noted the irony that, even though Li Yan and Niu were fellow provincials and classmates, they were more at odds with each other than either of them was with anyone else. Li replied that it looked as if Li Zicheng had decided to permit them to go to Henan and Niu Jinxing was supporting that decision. There was no way they could back out of the project now. Hong agreed that, having lived as Da Shun officials they should be prepared to die as Da Shun spirits. At this point, Li Jun remarked that Li Zicheng had failed to heed good counsel regarding the eastern expedition and other policies and that it just might be that the 18th child prophecy would be realized by his older brother (Li Yan). Hong was frightened and asked Li Jun if he wanted to die. Li Yan reminded Li Jun that, in a time of a falling state, a single word could result in the destruction of an entire lineage.191 Li Zicheng referred to the Ming founder’s harsh punishment of corrupt officials, putting fear in the heart of Niu Jinxing. When a former Ming official who joined the Shun administration acknowledged that members of his family considered him to be a bandit official, Li Zicheng ordered him to be summarily executed.192 In this tense environment, over ten days after Li Yan requested to go to Henan, Li Zicheng asked Niu Jinxing if he should approve it. Niu was afraid to take responsibility and replied only that he had thought a lot about the matter and did not dare to decide. He said Li Zicheng was the sage ruler and should decide for himself. Li Zicheng asked Niu if he had thought about whether Li Yan considered himself eligible to realize the prophecy of the 18th 190  Yao 2008: 4.346. 191  Yao 2008: 4.347. 192  Yao 2008: 4.348.

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child. Niu was afraid to say yes and afraid to say no, so he said only that he did not know what Li Yan thought about the prophecy. Li Zicheng, now appearing quite literate, read out loud Li Yan’s memorial asking to go to Henan. It included the words “After your official and others rush back to Henan, we will proclaim the ruler’s virtuous intent, comfort those forced into exile, restore agriculture and sericulture, strictly forbid factionalism, reorganize the administration, and make a new beginning for the people.”193 After reading these words, Li Zicheng asked Niu Jinxing what he made of them. Niu saw that Li Zicheng was suspicious of Li Yan, and he dared not say more, but he encouraged Li Zicheng to decide on the case one way or the other. Li dismissed Niu, then called him back and asked if he could guarantee that Li Yan and his brother were not of two minds. Niu swore that he had had no private conversations with Li Yan. Li Zicheng then asked Niu the meaning of the two words “new beginning.” Niu replied disingenuously that they meant to recommence, to use a different method of managing the administration. Li Zicheng then reminded Niu that he had once lectured on the Comprehensive Mirror for Assistance in Government, which included the two words as a reign name. Niu was surprised because he did not think that Li Zicheng’s suspicions of Li Yan were that serious, but he acknowledged that it had been the nickname of Liu Xuan (?–25) from Nanyang who had raised troops to punish Wang Mang.194 Once more, we find Yao’s native prefecture of Nanyang reappearing in Yao’s text. When Liu Xuan attacked Chang’an, he was established with the reign name “new beginning.” After he was killed, he was known as the “new beginning lord.” Li Zicheng laughed coldly and asked, “is it too much to think that Li Yan thought he could become another ‘new beginning’ for the people?” Niu broke into a cold sweat and replied that Li Yan was not that bold, but he (Niu) did not know what was in his (Li Yan’s) mind. Li Zicheng said that he had heard a rumor that Song Xiance had shared his prophecy with Li Yan before they joined Li Zicheng in the Funiu mountains. Niu said that he had not heard that rumor and had no opinion about whether Li Yan should be allowed to return to Henan.195 With Niu’s encouragement, Li Zicheng finally made his decision. In his words, “Do not allow Li Yan to go. He has asked repeatedly and I cannot ignore his requests. [But] if we let him go and he turns out to be of two minds, what could we do? I think it is better to get rid of him earlier so as to avoid a

193  Yao 2008: 4.349. 194  For a short biography of Liu Xuan, see Chaoyang 1979: 140–141. 195  Yao 2008: 4.350.

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catastrophe later.”196 Niu was terrified and suggested that the idea should be thought through three times before acting. Li Zicheng reassured Niu that he need not take responsibility for the decision and could leave the court, but he should remain on hand temporarily to help carry out the decision. Li Zicheng then called in Li Yan and Li Mou, and, after pleasantries, asked them again which big general they would take with them. Li Yan explained again that they would take no high commander so as not to deprive Li Zicheng of his services at court. Li Zicheng accepted that explanation and promised that, in addition to 10,000 crack troops at Pingyang in Shanxi, Li Yan would get 5,000 more in Luzhou, Shanxi, and 5,000 more in Huaiqing, in Henan, for the total of 20,000 that Li Yan had requested. Li Zicheng asked again if Li Yan would take Hong Niangzi and his son with him. This time Li Yan said he would like to take them but would be willing to leave them behind if Li Zicheng had some other use for them. Realizing that, in the scenario he now contemplated, he had no need for hostages, Li Zicheng gave permission for Hong and her son to accompany Li Yan to Henan. In an effort to lull Li Yan and Li Mou into a false sense of security, Li Zicheng described the high posts they would receive when they returned from Henan to the court.197 Li Zicheng called in Niu Jinxing and informed him that he, Niu, would represent him (Li), in presiding over a send-off banquet for Li Yan and Li Mou. He instructed Niu, “You need to prepare an ambush of armored soldiers, announce a secret rescript at the wine party, and take the two brothers to the execution ground for beheading without any regrets. You must then come to court to report on your commission.”198 Niu protested that Li Yan and Li Mou had opinions that differed from Li Zicheng’s and Niu’s, but their crimes were not great so why should they be killed? Li Zicheng replied that plotters of rebellion should be killed, and their targets should not wait for them to rebel to act. Niu started to say that people’s minds and hearts were unsettled, but Li cut him off and asked if he would undertake the task or not. Niu asked for a hand written rescript ordering the executions. Li wrote one out on the spot. Niu observed drily that Hong Niangzi would not be in accord with this decision. Li replied that someone could announce that she had committed no crime and was innocent of any involvement in the plot. Li promised that Hong, her son, and Li Yan’s concubines would be given protection at the court.199

196  Yao 2008: 4.351. 197  Yao 2008: 4.352. 198  Yao 2008: 4.352. 199  Yao 2008: 4.352.

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That evening Li Yan and Li Mou rode their horses to the front gate of the banquet hall, left their personal retainers in the first courtyard, and proceeded to the inner sanctum for dinner. Niu welcomed them and conveyed the August Superior’s best wishes for success in their enterprise of recovering the central plain. During the meal, Niu was outwardly gracious but inwardly in turmoil. Finally, pouring the third cup of wine, he suddenly exclaimed: “Li Yan and Li Mou, listen to this rescript!” Niu let his cup fall to the ground and the Li brothers, shivering from head to foot, waited for the rescript. At this point a group of military officers wielding swords appeared behind them. With shaking hands, Niu drew out a yellow paper and read aloud:200 Order to Niu Jinxing: The brothers Li Yan and Li Mou secretly harbored alternative plans and there is clear proof of their crimes. They are condemned to death to avoid the sprouts of chaos and to minimize the chances of imitation. This is an order! Li Yan shouted: “Heaven what …, heaven what …, I am Li Yan, a loyal heart and mind….” Simultaneously Li Mou shouted: “Injustice, injustice!” Niu Jinxing harshly called out: “Bind them now for me, behead them immediately!”201 The brothers’ personal troops, drinking in the outer courtyard, were suddenly all arrested, taken to a neighboring courtyard, and hacked to death. One of Li Jun’s attendants happened to be passing by. He saw the brothers’ horses and heard their cries. He rushed to report the incident to Li Jun, who then broke the news to Hong Niangzi. Li Jun urged her to take her son and flee to Henan so that Li Yan’s progeny might survive. At first Hong was in a state of denial that anything had happened; then she blamed Niu Jinxing for the murders and wanted to see Li Zicheng to ask for retribution. Li Jun finally persuaded her that it would be unsafe to take Li Zicheng’s and Niu Jinxing’s offers of protection at face value. Indeed, Niu Jinxing, fearing that Hong Niangzi’s opposition to the execution of her husband Li Yan might get him in trouble, had already sent 2,000 troops to arrest her. By the time they arrived, however, Hong had mounted her horse and, together with her son and intimate female companions, made good her escape to Henan. Li Jun accompanied her with a substantial force to provide protection on her journey.202 200  Yao 2008: 4.353. 201  Yao 2008: 4.354. 202  Yao 2008: 4.354.

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According to Yao Xueyin, Hong Niangzi’s ultimate fate was unknown, but there were rumors that she was later involved in a White Lotus uprising in Henan and may have committed suicide to avoid capture.203 In Yao’s view, she was a link, however fictive, between the historical female rebel leader Tang Saier in the early mid-Ming and the equally historical White Lotus uprisings in the late mid-Qing.204 Song Xiance survived the transition, and, we may add, ended up in the household of a Qing bannerman.205 Niu Jinxing’s son, Niu Quan, became a Qing magistrate, and Niu Jinxing lived out his life in his son’s home.206 Liu Zongmin seems to have died along with many other rebels under attack from both Ming and Qing forces.207 Li Zicheng was said to have regretted killing the Li brothers, but the spirits of Li Yan and Hong Niangzi that haunted him in the last year of his life insisted that it was Niu Jinxing who was primarily responsible for their deaths.208 Yao’s account would seem to take issue with this standard view and to argue that, in the Li Yan tragedy, there was enough blame to go around, even to Li Yan, who seemed to do little at the end to reassure Li Zicheng of his loyalty to their common enterprise. Li Zicheng was soon tracked down and killed, but his corpse was never found, leading to much debate over where and how he died.209 Thus, the Henanese novelist Yao Xueyin, who raised the most serious questions about Li Yan’s and Hong Niangzi’s historicity, also provided the most detailed account that fixed those figures securely in the public mind in China, The resulting historical novel, while flawed in some ways, including ones that were outside the authors’ control, was a masterpiece of weaving together history and literature, facts and fiction, and using historiography to evoke the past, comment on the present, and help to shape the future. 4.3

More Plays

After the death of Mao in 1976 and the political transition to Deng Xiaoping in 1978, there was a new series of plays about Li Yan and Hong Niangzi. The authors continued to focus on the personal relations between the two heroes while also bringing their own individual judgments to bear on public issues. 203  Yao 2008: 4.387. 204  Yao 2008: 4. 460–462. 205  Yao 2008: 4.393; Tan ca. 1656: jiwen xia. 386; Li Xun 1796: 131, renwuzhi 11.2214. 206  Yao 2008: 4.404–405. 207  Li Xun 1796: 131, renwuzhi 11.2215. 208  Yao 2008: 4. 430–431, 446, 461. 209  Yao 2008: 4. 448; Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan 1998.

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4.3.1 Liu Bingshan In 1978, one year after Yao Xueyin published the revised version of the first volume of the first fascicle of his historical novel Li Zicheng, Liu Bingshan (d. 2010), a professor of English literature at Henan University, redrafted a Beijing-opera-style drama in eight acts which he had written some years before. He titled it simply “Hong Niangzi.” Given Liu’s cosmopolitan erudition (he had translated Shakespeare’s plays into Chinese), it is not surprising he had been labeled a “rightist” during the 1950s and had been ostracized during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. At some unknown point during those two decades, Liu’s play about the female rebel leader had been performed in Beijing before being shut down by some powerful person in the central administration.210 In 1978, Liu was rehabilitated, along with many other scholars with “complicated backgrounds,” as part of Deng Xiaoping’s effort to win intellectuals’ support for his return to power. Perhaps partly in gratitude for his rehabilitation and partly in an effort to get his play published and performed, Liu explicitly acknowledged that he had based his account on Guo Moruo’s famous essay on the 300th anniversary of 1644 and on Yao Xueyin’s long historical novel on Li Zicheng. If that was Liu’s strategy, however, it did not work out before his death in 2010. The play was performed in Henan but not in Beijing and, to my knowledge, the playbook has still not been published as of this writing. Liu’s opera manuscript titled “Hong Niangzi” may have received only limited attention for several reasons. In addition to—sometimes even instead of—the usual suspects, this text featured several new figures who had not appeared in previous versions of the story. For example, there were Hong Niangzi’s paternal uncle, Xing Er, Hong Niangzi’s female comrade Xiao Xia, and Xiao Xia’s father and grandmother. In Liu’s play, Li Xin and his younger brother Li Mou were supported not by Li Jun, as in some previous accounts, but by another newly created kinsman, Li Sheng, who was part of Li Xin’s household. There were also Wang Erfa, who, in better times, had been a peddler of oil and vegetables, and Qian Baiwan (lit. “Million in Cash”), a member of the landed local elite. Even in—or especially in—a time of political and social crisis, Qian was doing very well for himself. There were also other, mostly anonymous, players, including a house manager, a jailer, two hired roughnecks, troops, and servants. Many of these new actors, such as the relatives of Hong Niangzi and Xiao Xia, were explicitly described as “farmers.”211 Of course, giving voice to such folks from 210  Liu 1978. Thanks to Shirley Wood (吳雪莉) for introducing me to Professor Liu in June 1984 and thanks to Liu for providing me with a copy of his manuscript. 211  Liu 1978: 1–2.

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modest social backgrounds was very much in accord with the ethos of the Cultural Revolution that was drawing to an end just as Liu redrafted his opera. But there was also something of a clash between the low social status of some of these new fictive personalities and the many extensive arias that they were depicted as creating, reciting, apprehending, and, presumably, understanding. As had happened so often before, Liu Bingshan’s scholar-rebel Li Xin took on a life of his own and simultaneously became a surrogate for his latest creator, or at least embellisher. Liu’s manuscript about Hong Niangzi included many dialogues, often conducted in verse, among the various players. It focused on the short period from Hong’s arrival in Qi to her killing of the local landlord Qian and the county magistrate Song. The drama offered further details on the principal actors, including their ages, thereby enhancing their verisimilitude. Thus, we learn that Li Xin was thirty sui (Chinese ages calculated from conception), his wife Tang was twenty-eight, Hong Niangzi was twenty-three, and landlord Qian was fifty. Like previous writers, Liu attempted to put Hong Niangzi into various historical contexts. Before the gentryman Qian was killed by Hong, he associated her with “the woman with the red fly whisk” of Tang dynasty fame.212 Before the Qi magistrate Song was killed by Hong, he denounced her as a “White Lotus bandit,” like Xu Hongru of the late Ming.213 Liu himself did not offer any obvious historical analogies to—or precedents for—Hong Niangzi, but he seemed to accept her, despite her resort to violence, as a plausible personality complementary to the more conservative Li Yan with whom Liu seemed to identify himself. 4.3.2 Pan Yaolin Two years later, another writer, Pan Yaolin (1932–?), known as Hua Ershi (lit. “Flowery but Real”), wrote a drama, titled Hong Niangzi: a Large-scale Opera, which was published by the Shanxi People’s Press in Taiyuan. Like Liu’s drama, Hua’s opera ran to eight chapters and filled about eighty pages. It also consisted of extensive arias and poetic exchanges among the characters, several of whom were new to the story. For example, Panma Wanger was a close companion of Hong’s who later became a leader of her “just army.” Other women followers of Hong Niangzi, who later became officers in her army, were also named. Residents of Qi County and Guide Prefecture who became the rank and file of the rebel forces, were unnamed.214 212  Liu 1978: 37. 213  Liu 1978: 40. 214  Hua 1980: renwubiao.

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figure 4.2 Hong Niangzi Frontispiece in Hua 1980

In act one, “Breaking the Siege, Establishing Relations,” Hong Niangzi and Li Xin were already aware of each other’s signature acts of rebelling against corrupt members of the elite and providing grain to the starving people. They now established personal contact for the first time. In act two, “Just Banners are Displayed”, Hong Niangzi was charged by contemporaries, as in Liu’s draft play, with having links to the White Lotus teachings. For the first time, Hong acknowledged the truth of those allegations.215 In act three, “Heartfelt Words”, the Qi magistrate (unnamed) sent troops to raid the Li Family village. Hong 215  Hua 1980: 16, 17.

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Niangzi tried to persuade Li Yan to join her rebel forces, but he refused, saying “Although the Ming appears to be a dying state, Li Xin finds it difficult to play the role of a rebel official.”216 In act four, “A Changing Human World”, when Li Xin was arrested and jailed, Hong Niangzi cooperated with his wife, Tang, and brothers, Li Mou and Li Jun, in planning to rescue him. In act five, “A Commander’s Encounter at Night”, Panma Wanger, the erstwhile itinerant vegetable merchant (like Wang Erfa in Liu’s playbook), joined Hong’s rebellion. Hong openly called for “killing officials and opening prisons to purify the central province.”217 In act six, “Lighting a Fire that Burns Heaven”, Hong pursued and killed Zhang Hao, a military graduate from Qi County. This was a reminder of Hong’s martial radicalism and of the important roles that military graduates could play in the Ming, even though they were often absent from official historical records.218 In act seven, “Life after Disaster,” Hong Niangzi went to the Qi County town to rescue Li Xin from jail. Li Xin, meanwhile, continued to debate with the Qi County magistrate concerning the best way to handle the looming political and social crisis. The magistrate tried to get Li Xin to persuade Hong Niangzi to leave the county by singing the following aria: The Li family fills its gate with several hundred or so, The choice of life or death, existence or extinction, you now know. If you don’t draft a letter to persuade the Red Robber to go, We will first kill Li Xin, then decapitate Li Mou.219 Li Xin responded: We Lis have basically been an official family, Wishing to concern ourselves with state matters only. Then on false charges was I imprisoned summarily, How could I have rebelled against the Great Ming and shamed my ancestors unnecessarily? Although we brothers in our youth were careless occasionally, We became flowering talents, famous for emphasizing clarity. You, sir, should stop trying to blot out my words arbitrarily, Precipitating disasters and causing many to respond warily.220 216  Hua 1980: 31. 217  Hua 1980: 45. 218  Hua 1980: 51. 219  Hua 1980: 58. 220  Hua 1980: 58.

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Finally, in act eight titled “Stones are Broken, Heaven is Shaken”, magistrate Song rejected Li Xin’s protests against collecting taxes during the famine, and Li Xin denied colluding with Hong and having contacts with Dashing. Li Xin insisted that the prophecy of the eighteenth son referred to Li Zicheng and not to him (Li Xin). But he also wrote a verse of nineteen lines to Hong Niangzi and acknowledged her links with the White Lotus organization. He confirmed that his younger brother Li Mou had participated in his (Li Xin’s) rescue from prison. Li Xin warned against killing an official but soon learned that Hong Niangzi had done precisely that. Li Xin’s wife, née Tang, now traced her ancestry back to the early Ming rebel-become-Ming-nobleman, Tang He. She regretted the “bandits’ ” destruction of the prison, but she recognized that “commander Hong is the merciful person who saved our entire family.” The two women, wife Tang and rescuer Hong, paid respects to each other.221 Meanwhile Hong composed a verse of twenty-three lines that mentioned Qu Yuan, the early Chu patriot who sacrificed his life for his state. Li Xin changed his name to Li Yan and joined Li Mou and Hong Niangzi in marching west to join Li Zicheng. They were all warmly welcomed by Li Zicheng’s adopted son, Li Shuangxi. Li Yan praised the Dashing Prince for his “humaneness and justice that would win the peoples’ hearts and minds” and would allow him to “occupy the central province and perform great deeds in the known world.” Hong Niangzi exclaimed that “stones break, heaven is shaken as we rally to the Dashing Prince” and the masses echoed the same message.222 The opera ended without mentioning Li Yan’s and Hong Niangzi’s roles in the later phases of Li Zicheng’s rebellion. 4.3.3 Liu Xiaosheng In the same year, 1980, another writer, Liu Xiaosheng (1916–1993), using the brush name Shi Tian (lit. Stone Heaven), “discovered” a copy of yet another play titled Hong Niangzi that he claimed to have originally drafted in the fall of 1945. According to his postface, Shi had been inspired by Guo Moruo’s essay on Li Yan. Shi’s play had first been performed in Xi’an in 1948. According to the author, it was thereafter performed “several hundred times” in Xi’an, Chengdu, and Chongqing. The playbook was first published in Chongqing in 1951, but, again according to the author, it was thereafter “lost” along with many of his other possessions until he happened on a copy of it in the Ningxia library in 1980. Perhaps in response to Hua Ershi’s play published that year, Shi Tian

221  Hua 1980: 59–67. 222  Hua 1980: 69–79.

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revised the text in January 1981 and it was published under the title Hong Niangzi (Beijing opera) by the Ningxia People’s Press in April 1982.223 We do not know what changes the author made in the original 1951 edition to produce the final 1982 edition, but we may guess that he added some of the more intimate aspects of the relationship between Hong Niangzi and Li Xin as discussed below. In any case, the 1982 edition included some new names and faces not present in the playbooks featuring Hong Niangzi written by Liu and Hua. Notably, Hong Niangzi (lit. Red Girl), hitherto known only by that nickname, was given for the first time the more credible (though equally fictive) family and personal names: Liang Xiuying (lit. Liang the Beautiful Hero). Perhaps borrowing from previous accounts of Li Xin that included, as we have seen, a brother named Li Jun (lit. Li the Strong), Hong’s father was given the name Liang Jun. The corrupt magistrate of Qi, long identified as Song Mei or simply as Song, was for the first time and clearly ironically given the personal name Lian (lit. honest, pure). Other dramatis personae were Wang Zhong (Wang the Loyal), Wang Ren (Wang the Humane), Li Yong (Li the Brave), and Wang Fu (Wang the Lucky). Providing faces as well as names, Shi Tian included in his playbook six photographs of an unnamed actor and an unnamed actress playing Li Xin and Hong Niangzi in performances at unspecified times and places.224 In a prefatory scene, the martial artist Liang Jun and his daughter/pupil, Liang Xiuying, moved to Qi County where they suffered, along with local people, the consequences of drought, locusts, and famine. Li Xin noticed their distress and repeatedly sent an agent named Zhang Xiao (Zhang the Filial) to provide father and daughter with silver.225 In act one, titled “Forcing a Marriage, Taking a Life”, the magistrate Song Lian and his minions wondered why Li Xin showed such favor to the martial artist and his daughter. They suspected that he intended to take the pretty girl as his wife. However, a member of a powerful local family named Tian wanted the talented woman warrior for himself, and magistrate Song called Liang Jun into his office to apprise him of that. When Liang Jun refused to allow his daughter to go to the Tian family as a concubine, the magistrate accused him of having contacts with bandits. Liang denied the charge and criticized Song as a “corrupt dog official”. The enraged magistrate

223  Shi 1982: postface 51–52. A Henanese (Yu) version of the text was said to have been published in 1981 but I have not seen a copy of it. 224  Shi 1982: front matter and list of personnel. 225  Shi 1982: 1–2.

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figure 4.3 Hong Niangzi on stage plate of sixth scene in Shi 1982

Song then had Liang beaten to death. Fearing retribution from Liang’s daughter, magistrate Song issued an order for her arrest.226 In act two, titled “Looking into Requiting a Murder”, Hong Niangzi wanted to wreak immediate vengeance on the magistrate, but Wang Zhong, a clerk in the magistrate’s office, and his brother, Wang Ren, proprietor of a small shop, persuaded her to flee to avoid arrest and to plan to avenge the killing of her father at a later date.227 In act three, “Saving Hong and Resolving the Crisis,” the provincial graduate Li Xin told Hong he could not ignore the injustice. He gave her a horse and some silver to assist her in fleeing the county seat. In act four, “Patrolling the Mountains and a Chance Encounter”, Hong Niangzi’s men, Li Yong and Wang Fu, accompany her to a mountain redoubt headed by Fan Tianbao (lit. Heaven Protected Fan), an erstwhile general in Li Zicheng’s rebel army located in western Henan. They all agreed that Li Xin enjoyed great respect from all of the people of Qi County and should be invited to come to join them at the fort.228 In act five, “Planning a Frame-Up for Buying Grain”, magistrate Song learned that Hong Niangzi and Li Xin have left town and that the Tian family is very 226  Shi 1982: 3–7. 227  Shi 1982: 7–9. 228  Shi 1982: 12–16.

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displeased. One of Song’s subordinates suggest that Li Xin be ordered to purchase grain for relief. Under present conditions of famine he will be unable to do so and can be charged with a crime punishable by death.229 In act six, “Toppling Mountains and Hearing a Report,” the head of the fort (Xu Tianbao) was killed in the battle for Zhuxianzhen, a market town near Kaifeng. At Li Yong’s suggestion, the inhabitants of the fort elected Hong Niangzi as the new head. Hong vowed to “beat the rich to nurture the poor, eliminate corruption and oppression, liberate the common people, and make a new world.” She also vowed to “attack Qi to avenge her father’s death.” Hong wanted to invite Li Xin to come to the fort. In her words, she was prepared to “force him to come up the mountains and then to reason with him.” With the support of everyone, she left Li Yong and Wang Fu in charge of the fort and led the rest of her followers down the mountain, warning them to avoid any unnecessary violence.230 In act seven, “Capturing Xin and Discussing Marriage”, Hong Niangzi crossdressed as a man and led her followers in a raid on Li Xin’s party that was escorting a cart full of grain toward Qi town. She singled out Li Xin who did not recognize her but was impressed by her martial artistry. He drew his own sword to fend her off and they reached a stalemate in one-to-one combat. Hong finally instructed her men, who apparently outnumbered Li’s, to capture him, tie him up, and escort him, his men, and their grain cart up the mountain. When they arrived at the fort, Hong Niangzi, still incognito, ordered that his bindings be loosened and invited him to sit down. Li stamped his foot in frustration and sat down in a daze. Hong then initiated a discussion: Hong: I see the heroic scholar’s martial skills are impressive, far above average; why don’t you stay at the fort and join in planning a just enterprise? Li: The great prince’s words are not right. I come from a family of scholars and officials. If I were to go up the mountain and become a robber, would this not bring dishonor to my relatives? There is no way I would dare to follow that path. Hong: The heroic scholar need not think that way. You can see that the Ming lineage has lost its way, crafty and treacherous people manipulate power for personal ends, taxes and levies are excessive, people cannot live out their lives, everywhere the common folk are rising in rebellion, so

229  Shi 1982: 17–18. 230  Shi 1982: 18–20.

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how can a heroic scholar not rally to a mountain fort and join in planning a great enterprise? Li: This Li is not looking for high office and rich emoluments; he also does not want to sojourn as a robber. He just wants to be a good and loyal common citizen.231 Hong Niangzi realized that Li Xin was just “an upright gentleman hoping to maintain his purity by staying out of trouble”. She therefore consigned the task of winning him over to her aides, Wang Zhong and Wang Ren, whose personal names (“loyal” and “humane” respectively) alone might be expected to appeal to such a literatus. The two Wangs began by noting that Li Xin was famous for his generosity. At Li’s request, they explained that they had come to the fort after escaping over the wall of the Qi County seat because of the arrest warrant issued by the magistrate of Qi for Hong Niangzi. When Li asked for their help in freeing him to return to town, they said he should plan to stay overnight and they would look into it in the morning. Li Xin agreed. He also learned that a banquet was being prepared for him and his men and that the grain they had brought with them to the mountain fort had not been touched by the so-called “robbers.”232 Li Xin was puzzled by the good treatment he was receiving from the leaders of the fort who had kidnapped him, and he asked Wang Ren about the head of the community. Wang told him the head was Hong Niangzi, the woman whom he (Li Xin) had saved in the past. Li Xin was skeptical at first because he thought the head must be a man, but Wang explained that Hong Niangzi had dressed as a man to disguise her identity and save on explanations. Li Xin thought the cross-dressing absurd, but Wang assured him it was all in the name of undertaking an important enterprise. Wang then asked Li about a small matter, i.e. whether it was true that “your wife has recently died and you have not yet remarried”. Li wondered aloud what relevance that had, and Wang explained that the head of the fort was a woman. When Li persisted in not getting the point, Wang said “a woman wants to find a man, does that require an explanation?” Li Xin replied, “We have been scholars for generations and I am a provincial graduate. I have not been concerned with such matters and do not dare to become so.” Wang Ren nonetheless persisted in describing Hong’s background and experience.233 In his words: 231  Shi 1982: 21–22. 232  Shi 1982: 23. 233  Shi 1982: 24–25.

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Although the head of the fort is a woman, her intelligence and determination are outstanding, she is talented in both civil and martial domains, and all of the brothers in the mountain fort respect and love her. If she consummates her predestined relationship with Master, you will make a heavenly blessed and happily married couple. Nothing could be better than that, so we still hope that Master will not forfeit this opportunity.234 When Li Xin vehemently rejected the idea of marrying Hong Niangzi, Wang Run squelched a response from Wang Zhong and told him he had an “excellent plan based on the aphorism ‘riding a tiger it is hard to dismount’ ”. He told Li Xin that Wang Zhong would arrange the banquet and he (Wang Ren) would arrange Li Xin’s sleeping quarters.235 In Act Eight, “Riding a Tiger It is Hard to Dismount,” Hong Niangzi appeared in women’s clothing and sang an aria in praise of Master Li. She asked Wang Ren to report on efforts to persuade Li Xin “to stay at the fort and join in planning the just undertaking.” Wang replied that Li Xin “had responded—and was speechless,” a calculated ambiguity that Hong let pass without further questioning. She also wanted to know Li Xin’s response to “the second matter,” i.e. her so-far-unvoiced hope that Li Xin would become her husband. Wang pretended not to know what that “matter” was, then mimicked Li Xin by first shaking his head (no) and then nodding his head (yes). When Hong Niangzi pressed him to indicate whether the answer was no or yes, Wang said that “this person Master Li has a sensitive disposition and this shake and nod of his head were sufficient to indicate his sentiments”.236 In the next scene, Wang Ren picks up Li Xin from the banquet with Wang Zhong and escorts him to his room. The room is actually Hong Niangzi’s bedroom. Wang Zhong is about to point out the “mistake” when Wang Ren interjects in a loud voice that the room is Li Xin’s temporary quarters for the night. Li Xin is so intent merely on getting the two Wangs to reaffirm that they will liberate him in the morning that he is unaware of what room he is going to occupy. Wang Zhong urges Li Xin to retire early. Wang Ren wishes Li Xin good night, and asks him to close the door. Wang then locks it from the outside. Li Xin tries the door, realizes he is locked in, and gives up any plan to flee during the night. Instead he waits for the second watch to retire for the night. When Li Xin approaches the bed, Hong Niangzi comes out from the interior.237 234  Shi 1982: 26. 235  Shi 1982: 26. 236  Shi 1982: 27–28. 237  Shi 1982: 29.

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Li Xin and Hong Niangzi had heard about each other and had had some indirect contacts for quite some time, but this was only their second meeting in person in which Li Xin was aware that his interlocutor was a woman. Hong began the dialogue by acknowledging that she had given offense down below the mountain, presumably a veiled reference to her capture of Li and his entourage. She expressed the hope that he did not harbor resentment for it. Li then asked if she was the seller of martial arts named Hong Niangzi. She averred that she was. She explained that she had once been saved by Master and now she only wanted his consent to marriage.238 Hong Niangzi saluted Li Xin, but he was surprised and did not know how to respond. He asked, “where did this talk originate?” Hong realized that Li was indeed a bookworm. So she called out “Master” and sang: Master Li practices humanity and justice, seldom seen these days, Rare too his sojourn at a mountain fort, sharing heart-and-mind ways, But we want to achieve the great event of overthrowing the Ming phase, Making our mark as a humane and just couple, and not only in plays. Li Xin then sang: Hong Niangzi speaks these words, clueless and mindless, Who will stay in the mountain fort with her to profess, I am a descendant of officials I must confess, How can I fall in with rebels well known to transgress?239 Hong Niangzi demanded to know why Li Xin was revoking his consent to stay at the fort and marry her. Li Xin replied that he had never agreed to either request. Hong then called for Wang Ren to come and decide the issue. When Wang did not come, Hong tried to open the door of her bedroom and found it was locked from outside. She and Li then suddenly realized, “This is a case of Wang Ren playing tricks on us!” After indignantly blaming Wang for the supposed misunderstandings. Hong then admitted that she should not have tried to force Li to stay at the fort and Li acknowledged that he should not have entered her apartment. Now that they were spending a night together at Wang’s behest, however, they might as well get some sleep. They encouraged each other to sleep, and, after much back and forth, Hong decided to “doze off” in her chair while Li began to “meditate” in his. When Hong woke up and 238  Shi 1982: 30. 239  Shi 1982: 30.

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found Li asleep, she worried that he would catch cold in the night breeze so she covered him with a man’s garment. She then sang a sixteen-line aria describing the situation and fell asleep again. Li then awoke, saw the additional clothing Hong had put over him, and realized that it was a gift he had given to Hong’s late father. Li wondered why Hong had kept the clothing long after the death of her father. He then recited a four-line poem he found in the clothing that commented on Li’s humanity and Hong’s unmarried state. Li Xin sang his own sixteen-line aria expressing his feelings. He then turned to reading a book until the fourth watch when Hong woke up.240 Hong Niangzi commented that the night was only half over and they should continue to sleep. Li Xin said he did not want to sleep and Hong decided to stay awake to keep him company. They then spontaneously and in unison made the following observation: “When a man and a woman spend a night together, they may both be pure, but it is difficult to avoid outsiders gossiping, so how can that be good?” They looked at each other and said “Yes, we must discuss this.”241 Hong and Li each said that the other should develop a plan. Li said that, if Hong would leave the fort and become a good person he would be willing “to realize their good fate (i.e. to marry her)”. Hong countered that, if Li would stay at the fort and help plan the just undertaking, she would “serve him”.242 Neither Li nor Hong was willing to accept the other’s conditions, but they both continued to argue rationally with each other in prose and in poetry. Hong asked Li what he thought of the Ming government. When he described its many ills she asked him why he did not throw his support to a more promising alternative. When Li insisted on continuing his personal practice of administering famine relief, Hong asked him how many people he could save with individual philanthropy and what would happen when his grain reserves ran out. Li cited the example of the Song scholar Wen Tianxiang (1236–1283), who remained loyal to his dynasty despite its defects. Hong criticized the Buddhist ideal of the bodhisattva who assisted all others to attain salvation before accepting nirvana for his or her self. Hong warned that Li’s grain would end up in the hands of Ming commanders like Yang Sichang; Li replied that he would persuade the magistrate of Qi to make sure the grain got to the starving masses. Hong warned that Li’s life would be at risk if he went down the mountain; he replied that he would be safe. When Li finally left the mountain fort in the following morning, Hong blamed Wang Ren for his departure. But she came to terms with it, hoping that he would learn his lesson and would rally to 240  Shi 1982: 31–33. 241  Shi 1982: 34. 242  Shi 1982: 34.

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her rebel force when he realized that the Ming was failing to meet the needs of the people.243 In act nine, “Li Reaches Town and is Warned,” Li Xin’s loyal supporter Zhang Xiao counseled him not to go into town. Zhang even called up other supporters, Li Yong and Wang Fu, to stop him, but Li insisted on going anyway.244 In act ten, “False Allegations and Torture for Li,” the magistrate Song Lian invoked court orders to arrest Li Xin and charge him with rebellion. When Li Xin demanded to see proof, the magistrate said: In the ode to encourage relief you wrote, “Officials like tigers collect taxes, powerful families like wolves and jackals collect rent.” These were clear cases of abusive scolding of officials, slandering of local elite, involvement with bandits, fabrication of children’s songs, confusing and poisoning the people’s minds and hearts. Isn’t this iron proof of your rebellion? Li Xin replied: Every word of the song to encourage relief was true, there was not even one half of an empty word; regarding the fabrication of children’s songs and involvement with bandits, did you personally see anything like that?245 When the magistrate asked a guard if he had seen any evidence of contacts with bandits, the guard replied that he had seen Li Xin “secretly contact a bandit party in the mountains”. When the magistrate asked Li Xin if he had anything more to say, he replied, “That was a just uprising in the style of the Green Woods.”246 Li may have referred here to a rebel group, the Green Woods, that helped to topple Wang Mang’s Xin regime and paved the way for the restoration of the Han dynasty in the first century CE. Li Xin, like some other contemporaries, may have seen parallels between the original Green Woods and later insurrections like Hong Niangzi’s. Or, perhaps more likely in this case, he may have been using “green woods” as a generic term for rural, Robin-Hood-like, robbery of the rich to serve the poor. Whatever Li Xin’s particular understanding of the term “green woods,” his implicit suggestion that a rebellion against the Ming state could be legitimate naturally enraged magistrate Song. Song therefore ordered the prison guards to strip Li of his outer garments and subject him to a beating. Li Xin responded 243  Shi 1982: 35–41. 244  Shi 1982: 42. 245  Shi 1982: 44. 246  Shi 1982: 44–45.

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with a fourteen-line aria in which he openly described Song as a “corrupt dog official.” He ended his speech addressed to Song by expressing “regret that he was unable to eat your flesh and drink your blood.” Li Xin was then locked up by the jailer “to prevent the tiger from returning to the mountains.”247 In act eleven, “Hearing a Report and Sending Troops”, Wang Fu reported to Hong Niangzi that Li Xin had been imprisoned by the magistrate and was scheduled to be beheaded in three days. Hong called on her followers to join together and attack the town. In act twelve, “Allying with the Masses to Save Xin”, Zhang Xiao and Li Yong joined the starving people of the town in planning to kill the magistrate and break open the prison.248 In Act Thirteen, “Taking the Town and Liberating the Prisoner”, Zhang Xiao and Li Yong killed two guards on the town wall and entered the town with Hong Niangzi. They killed one prison guard, put a second to flight, and then liberated Li Xin and other inmates of the jail. When Li Xin saw Hong Niangzi, he at first lowered his head and said nothing. Hong Niangzi then initiated an exchange: Hong Niangzi: Master! You were wronged. Li Xin: I regret that I did not listen to your advice, and I am ashamed. Hong Niangzi: Will you rebel or not? Li Xin: I’ll rebel! I want to kill corrupt officials with my own hands! Crowd: Kill!249 In act fourteen, “Killing Officials and Rallying to Dashing,” the magistrate Song Lian announced that his superiors had approved the execution of rebels. He ordered that Li Xin be brought to the court. One of the surviving guards reported, however, that Li Xin had been freed from prison and the common people were in revolt. Li Xin, Hong Niangzi, and their men then tracked down magistrate Song and his subordinates and killed them. The opera concluded with the following exchange: Hong Niangzi: Thus have events transpired. Master, what are you planning to do? Li Xin: After we have distributed the relief grain, we will all go and join the Dashing Prince! Masses: Let’s go and join the Dashing Prince!250

247  Shi 1982: 45–46. 248  Shi 1982: 47. 249  Shi 1982: 48. 250  Shi 1982: 49–50.

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This sketchy and highly political denouement of Shi Tian’s opera has the air of the 1940s when the Chinese Communist Party was calling for the production of dramas that would encourage intellectuals to rally to Mao Zedong’s revolution. Like Liu Bingshan’s and Hua Ershi’s operas, Shi Tian’s opera focuses on Hong Niangzi’s role in rescuing Li Xin and persuading him to join the rebellion of Li Zicheng. It does not attempt to describe or, more precisely, to imagine Hong Niangzi’s later activities. In this respect, it differs from Yao Xueyin’s novel that carried the story of Li Xin, Hong Niangzi, and Li Zicheng through to their deaths. On the other hand, Shi Tian’s very detailed and highly intimate enactment of Hong Niangzi’s partially successful political and personal seduction of Li Xin was more in accord with the atmosphere of the 1980s. That was when Shi Tian revised his original text, Yao Xueyin completed his romantic novel, and the writer Zhang Jie (1937–) reminded her readers that “love must not be forgotten.”251 4.4

Another Long Historical Novel

4.4.1 Louis Cha Leung-yung/Jin Yong Meanwhile, the prolific Hong Kong writer, Louis Cha Leung-yung (1924–2018, brush name Jin Yong) had written—and rewritten—a martial arts novel which he titled Bixuejian. This title has been translated as Royal Blood, but might be more literally and meaningfully rendered Swords that Shed Blood in a Just Cause.252 Jin first published the book serially in the Hong Kong Commercial Gazette in 1956, or more precisely between January 1 and December 31 of that year.253 On the mainland, 1956 was the year of the Hundred Flowers Movement in which the Communist Party encouraged intellectuals to draw creatively on the past and the outside world, and to produce works that would serve the broad needs and interests of the masses. Jin may or may not have been responding to that atmosphere when he wrote this novel, but he certainly picked up on the literary tradition of the traveling swordsman that went back to the Warring States period. The term knight errant was originally somewhat derogatory, as in the writings of the Legalist, Han Feizi (d. 233 BCE), but it took on a more positive connotation in Sima Qian’s hands in the Han period. Over

251  Zhang 1986. 252  For the first translation, see Hamm 2005: 64. 253  Hamm 2005: 64.

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time it expanded to include swordswomen who were celebrated in popular literature such as “tales of the strange” in the Tang period.254 The principal figure in Swords was Yuan Chengzhi (lit. Yuan who carries on the will), an invented son of the late Ming scholar-official-general Yuan Chonghuan (1584–1630). Yuan Chonghuan had been active in resisting Manchu incursions on the northeastern frontier and was regarded by many as a martial hero. Indeed, the early twentieth-century intellectual Liang Qichao described him as China’s greatest soldier. As a result of a defeat in battle and factional struggles at court, however, Yuan Chonghuan was charged with allowing Manchu penetration into the area of Beijing. In 1630, he was arrested and put to death by the Ming ruler Chongzhen.255 Jin Yong’s fictive son, Yuan Chengzhi, vowed to avenge the death of his father by assassinating Chongzhen. He and a girlfriend named Qing Qing were skilled in the martial arts. In Jin’s novel, they became the principal leaders of the many militia groups that sprouted in the central plain during the last decade of the Ming. On their travels, Yuan and Qing heard people suffering from famine singing songs about rallying to support the Dashing Prince. They learned that the songs had been composed by a subordinate of the Dashing Prince who was known as Master Li. According to Jin’s novel, Li Zicheng had also heard about Yuan Chengzhi’s swordsmanship, and he sent Li Yan to meet him and provide him with travel funds.256 Jin Yong began his description of Li Yan with a comment on his appearance and manner. In his words, “Although Li Yan was a general who commanded troops in the Dashing army, he dressed like a student and he spoke in a cultivated way.” Jin went on to repeat the usual story of Li Yan’s father, his provincial degree, his conflict with the magistrate and powerful families over famine relief, and his incarceration. He then introduced Hong Niangzi. In Jin’s words, “There was a swordswoman who admired him [Li Yan] and who led victims of the famine to attack the prison and liberate him. Since she liked to wear red, her followers called her the Red Woman. Jin stated that Li Yan “married Hong Niangzi” before going off to join the Dashing Prince. Li Yan recommended equalizing land and treating the people well and the Dashing Prince followed his advice. Whereas previously the starving people had plundered indiscriminately, once Li Yan joined the rebellion, Li Zicheng tightened military discipline, forbade indiscriminate killing and rape, and presided over “a great expansion of the power and influence of his army.” The starving people 254  Hamm 2005: 14–15 citing Altenburger 2000. 255  See the brief biography by George A. Kennedy in Hummel 1943–44: 954–955. See a more detailed biography in Jin 1994: 709–827. 256  Jin 1994: 116.

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were attracted by the rebels’ promise of tax relief; some towns surrendered without mounting any defense.257 Jin Yong depicted Li Yan as a mentor—and fashion model!—to the younger Yuan Chengzhi. In the author’s words: Li Yan had long admired Yuan Chenghuan. When he heard that his son had arrived at the rebel headquarters, he treated him with respect, welcomed him to the camp, and asked his own wife, Hong Niangzi, to go out to greet him. Hong Niangzi was hearty and candid, bold and generous; in these respects she was second to no man. At this first meeting, the three of them chatted congenially, interacting as if they were old friends. Aside from martial arts, Yuan Chengzhi’s knowledge of the world was very shallow. Through a general discussion with Li Yan and Hong Niangzi about trends in the known world, Yuan greatly expanded his knowledge of worldly affairs. He stayed in Li Yan’s camp for three days. When Dashing’s army broke camp and headed north, Yuan and his entourage went their separate ways, but the groups were reluctant to take leave of each other. Yuan Chengzhi had originated in a thatched cottage, and covertly wanted to imitate Li Yan’s appearance and conduct. When they passed through Tongguan he bought some clothing designed for a student and dressed like a scholar, so when he came to Jiangnan he could seek out a teacher/father.258 During the prolonged battle for Tongguan, the strategic pass from Henan into Shaanxi, Li Zicheng won a major victory over the powerful Ming commander, Sun Chuanting. Soon thereafter, Li Yan and other rebel generals, including Liu Fangliang, met with Yuan Chengzhi and other swordsmen, including a student identified only as Hou. The author used dialogue to reveal their relations and activities: Hou: Yuan is the master of the alliance in seven provinces and we brothers receive instructions directly from him. Li Yan (happily): Ah, I have been busy in Henan and have been cut off from news from the eastern route. This great event can be enjoyed, congratulations. Yuan Chengzhi: This happened last month, thanks to the respect of good friends…. 257  Jin 1994: 117. 258  Jin 1994: 117.

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Hou: The alliance master is good at martial arts and has wide knowledge, that goes without saying. But his humanity and justice are also extraordinary. Is there anyone in Hangzhou who does not respect him? Li Yan (happily): That’s great!259 In preparation for a second battle with Sun Chuanting, Li Yan was secretly sent north of the Yellow River to win over the many local bravos located there. Li Yan not only welcomed Yuan Chengzhi to participate in the rebel leadership, but engaged him in addressing new issues that had not previously appeared in accounts of the rebellion. Again, the issues arose in the course of a dialogue or, more precisely, a multilogue. Hou: Alliance head, what do you think we should do? Yuan Chengzhi: In the case of the Dashing Prince’s just undertaking, bravos of the known world naturally trim to the wind and they will rise up together. This younger brother will provide prompt reports on the news. We good fellows of seven provinces will work energetically on a grand scale across the field! The six men chatted in happy excitement with dancing eyebrows and radiant faces. Li Yan: The corruption of the official army is already extreme. When our just troops arrive, it’s as easy as crushing dry weeds, smashing rotten wood, and splitting bamboo. However, we are now confronting a difficult problem. Yuan Chengzhi: What is that? Li Yan: We just received an urgent report that ten Red-Foreigners’ cannons from the Western Ocean are being sent to Sun Chuanting at Tongguan. In the wake of Sun’s great defeat, his officers have no will to fight, and they are not up to causing trouble. But the power of the Red-Foreigners’ cannons is no small matter, each cannonade can kill and wound several hundred men, so this is a secret worry. Yuan Chengzhi: Little brother saw these ten cannons on the road and they are really fearsome, their power is extraordinary, but aren’t they being sent to attack the Manchu Qing at Shanhaiguan? 259  Jin 1994: 449–450. The student Hou may have come from the prominent scholar-official family in Shangqiu that had close relations with Li Zicheng. The meaning of the reference to Hangzhou is unclear, but Jin Yong had attended high school there.

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Li Yan: I have heard that these great cannons were sent ten thousand li from afar with the original intention of resisting the Qing troops at Shanhaiguan. But as the Dashing Prince has won successive victories, the court has changed its plans and the ten cannons are now being sent south to Tongguan. Yuan Chengzhi (frowning): The august lord is supposed to protect the common people and should emphasize resistance to the foreign enemy. Elder brother, what do you think we should do? Li Yan: Once the cannons arrive in Tongguan, we shall be forced to use our bodies to resist these dangerous weapons. Even if we are not defeated, we shall lose many men…. Yuan Chengzhi: Therefore we need to cut them off immediately en route. Li Yan (slapping the table in delight): This could cause us brothers a lot of trouble, but it would be a great achievement.260 In this exchange, Jin depicts Li Yan as the “brother” who has access to the latest news, which is the role Yuan Chengzhi has just offered to play in the rebellion. Jin portrays Yuan, on the other hand, as a wise advisor to the rebels who recommends an effective tactic to counter the imminent Ming threat to use the latest military technology to suppress the rebellion. While Jin describes Li Yan in positive terms, he makes clear that Yuan is the principal hero in his historical novel. Yuan is concerned not just with public policies but also with personal relationships. He asks about Li Yan’s wife, and Li Yan replies that “in Henan she often asked about you [Yuan].” One of Yuan’s female friends, Anda niang, broke in, saying: “General Li’s wife is really a hero among women.” Addressing the youthful and so far unattached Yuan Chengzhi, Anda continued: “Hello, child, do you have someone you are in love with?” Yuan thought of Qing Qing and his face turned red; he only managed a small smile and did not reply. When conversation continued in this personal vein, some of Li Yan’s men took their leave.261 Yuan Chengzhi and Li Yan meanwhile deepened their relationship. In Jin’s words: Li Yan and Yuan Chengzhi discussed worldly affairs until the candle gutted out, and the more they spoke the more they hit it off. Yuan Chengzhi’s knowledge of the ups and downs of state matters and the continuities 260  Jin 1994: 450–451. 261  Jin 1994: 451.

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and changes in world affairs was very superficial. Every word of Li Yan’s that he heard made him feel that his views were broadening. When light appeared in the east and the gold pheasant called three times, the two of them were still at it.262 When Li Yan took his leave, Yuan Chengzhi sent him off. They walked hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, and covered some seven or eight li. They finally parted in tears. Li Yan said: “Younger brother, when the Dashing Prince’s great enterprise is completed, you and I will seek out a private retreat in the mountains and forests. We shall drink wine to amuse ourselves and grow old together.” Yuan Chengzhi replied: “That would really satisfy my wish for a peaceful life.”263 After Li Yan left, Yuan turned to the task of intercepting the ten cannons before they could arrive at Tongguan. Li Yan and Yuan Chengzhi next crossed paths when Li Zicheng led the rebel forces into Beijing. Li Yan, wearing a green gown, entered the city on horseback under a banner reading: “The Zhi General Li of the Great Accord.” Yuan Chengzhi saw him and leaped in front of his horse and shouted “Great Elder Brother!” Li Yan dismounted and exclaimed happily, “Brother, your achievements in taking the city were really great!” Yuan Chengzhi replied: “Everywhere the Dashing Prince’s great army went the Ming troops saw the way the wind was blowing and surrendered. What merit did small younger brother [i.e. I] have?” The two men clasped hands and had a joyous reunion. Then a call went out, “The Great Prince has arrived!” Wearing a large straw hat with a conical crown and broad rim, Li Zicheng arrived at the head of a complement of over one hundred horses. Li Yan approached him and whispered a few words. Li Zicheng exclaimed, “Great! Have brother Yuan come over.” Li Yan led Yuan to Li Zicheng, who exclaimed “you have achieved much! Don’t you have a horse?” Before Yuan could reply, Li Zicheng dismounted and turned the reins of his own horse over to him.264 Although Yuan Chengzhi was warmly welcomed by Li Yan and highly praised by Li Zicheng and although he was among the first to learn about and publicize the suicide of Chongzhen, he refused Li Zicheng’s offers of a consort 262  Jin 1994: 451. 263  Jin 1994: 451. 264  Jin 1994: 634.

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and a post in the Shun state. He was also soon disappointed in the conduct of some of the rebel troops who engaged in plunder and rape in the capital. Yuan brought his misgivings regarding rebel abuses to Li Yan’s attention. [Yuan] grasped Li Yan’s hand and demanded: “Big brother, you said that the Dashing Prince would redress the injustices suffered by the people, would give vent to the anger of the common people, is that what this is?” He suddenly sat down on the ground and wept. Li Yan was also sad and indignant. He said: “I will go to see the Great Prince and tell him he must issue orders forbidding this capturing and looting.” He pulled Yuan Chengzi to his feet, returned to the royal palace, and asked a guard for an urgent audience with the Dashing Prince.265 The guard first reported that the Prince was asleep; when he was sent a second time to remind the Prince of Li’s and Yuan’s early political support, he returned with the warning that, if he (the guard) persisted in demanding an audience he would lose his head. Li and Yuan decided to wait until the morning, but in the morning no one came out to invite them in. In the afternoon, Song Xiance came by and asked why Li and Yuan were there. When they described how they had been snubbed by the guard, Song explained that Niu Jinxing’s pages were active in slandering Li and himself (Song) by saying that Li was plotting to use Song’s prophecy—invented by Song to legitimate Li Zicheng’s rebellion in Henan—to justify Li Yan’s quest for leadership of the rebellion and his ambition to take the throne for himself.266 Jin provided the most graphic description yet of Li Yan’s reaction to this news. In Jin’s words: Li Yan’s mind and heart were shaken and he stood up. He knew that selfestablished august lords were most jealous of anyone who coveted their thrones. The outstanding dynastic founders such as the High Ancestor of the Han and the Supreme Ancestor of the Ming, who massacred meritorious officials and killed high ranking generals right and left, did so because they feared they were plotting to usurp the throne. If Li Zicheng believed these charges, it could be terrible. [Li Yan] could not find words to express his sentiments, stammering only “This … this … this….”267

265  Jin 1994: 644. 266  Jin 1994: 644–645. 267  Jin 1994: 645.

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Song Xiance said he doubted that Li Zicheng would believe the calumny spread by Niu and Liu, and he reported that many officials at court had spoken in Li Yan’s defense. More problematic was that others believed that Li Yan’s troops had respected women and property but Niu Jinxing was jealous and argued that Li Yan had acted humanely only to win political support for some nefarious project. Jin explored further the relations among Li Yan, Song Xiance, and Yuan Chengzhi. In his account Yuan seemed to replace Li Yan’s natal younger brother, Li Mou, featured in many previous accounts. Jin’s narrative included the following description of Li Yan’s behavior: Li Yan folded his hands and said: “For the many kindnesses bestowed by commander Song, we brothers are grateful beyond measure.” Song Xiance sighed and said: “Although we have taken Beijing, we have not pacified Jiangnan, Wu Sangui has not surrendered, and the Manchu Tartars glare at us like tigers contemplating their prey. This is a great secret worry. But in today’s meeting, the generals, aside from excluding the Zhi General, discussed only the expropriation of the Ming high officials and wealthy households that had surrendered. They wanted them to fork over their money and other properties. Ai, for people trying to undertake a big project their vision is too limited….” After hearing Song Xiance’s words, Yuan Chengzhi realized that, although he [Song] was less than three feet tall and had the stature of a monkey  … his words were insightful. He [Yuan] said [to Li Yan]: “Big brother, this commander Song is really a talented man.” Li Yan replied: “He knows lots of stratagems; he is really great. It is just that the great prince likes to listen to Niu Jinxing’s words and does not really use commander Song. In fact, however, several of the strategies for taking cities and countryside have issued from commander Song’s plans.” … Li Yan said: “Brothers, the great prince already suspects me. But, as a subordinate, I should remain loyal to him and to my friends. I cannot witness the ruin of the great prince’s great enterprise and remain silent. There is no reason for you to suffer wrongs at court.” Yuan Chengzhi said: “Right. We brothers did not hold office. Big older brother once said, after the great task is accomplished, we should withdraw to live in the mountains and forest, drinking wine and conversing at length for our amusement. Why not take this opportunity to retire from office and avoid becoming a nail in someone else’s eye?” Li Yan replied: “The great prince still has in front of him several big matters he wishes to undertake; in general we must pacify Jiangnan and unify the known

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world, and only then can I retire. The great prince treated me favorably in previous years, it is clear that his road ahead will be difficult. Now is the time for me to exert myself to the fullest and requite him with my life. Small men spreading rumors I do not take to heart.”268 As Li Yan and Yuan Chengzhi were walking along side by side, they encountered a blind professional musician playing a stringed instrument, the erhu, and singing a ballad celebrating meritorious scholar-officials in history who were eventually killed by their erstwhile patrons. Those tragic figures included Wu Zixu (?–484 BCE) in the late Spring and Autumn period and Xu Da (1332– 1385) and Liu Ji (1311–1375), advisors to the Ming founder.269 According to Jin’s novel, When Li Yan heard about this [the conspiracy against him], he had many thoughts and feelings: “The meritorious officials in the Ming founding, Xu Da, Liu Ji, and others, were killed by the Grand Progenitor. This blind singer knows that we are already in a period of dynastic transition; if not, how would he dare to sing such ballads?” Seeing the blind man’s shabby garments, it was clear that he was someone who sang for money, but at this time, when it was difficult for people to defend themselves, who would think to spend money to listen to a singer?270 Li Yan seemed to despair that anyone would be paying attention to (let alone spending money for) the minstrel’s message, virtually assuring that Li Yan and Li Mou would suffer the fate of their predecessors. Li and Yuan passed by the blind singer without paying him and he disappeared down a nearby alley. Perhaps they thought that, even if they were to bankroll the singer to enhance the impact of his songs, it was already too late to save themselves. In preparing to take leave of Li Yan, Yuan could only ask him to take care of himself and to call on him for help. No matter how far away he would be, he would come right away.271

268  Jin 1994: 646. 269  For Wu, see Anon. 1979: 51 and Johnson 1981:255–271; see Edward Farmer’s biography of Xu and Hok-lam Chan’s biography of Liu, in Goodrich and Fang 1976: 602–608, 932–938. For Xu and Liu, see also Anon 1979: 473, 474. 270  Jin 1994: 647. 271  Jin 1994: 649.

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figure 4.4 “Li Yan and Yuan Chengzhi Encountering the Blind Singer” Jin 1994: 631–632

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figure 4.5 “Li Yan and Hong Niangzi Discussing Matters with Yuan Chengzhi” Jin 1994: 673–674

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In a meeting at a tea house with his wife (Hong Niangzi) and Yuan Chengzhi, Li Yan nonetheless remained optimistic, saying: “After all, heaven has not treated me badly.”272 In the absence of Yuan Chengzhi, his subordinates tried to come to the rescue of Li Yan and Hong Niangzi, now personae non grata of both the Ming and the Shun. In one case, Yuan’s man, Feng Nandi came upon a woman wearing red who was being chased by four sword-bearing strong men. When she called for help, Feng recognized her as Hong Niangzi. Her pursuers announced that they had “received an order from the Quan commander under the authority of the Da Shun august lord to arrest the rebel wife of Li Yan. They demanded to know how she thought she could resist arrest.” Another follower of Yuan Chengzhi, He Tishou, knew that Li Yan was her master’s [i.e. Yuan’s] “older brother” and thought that Hong Niangzi was Li Yan’s wife. She asked herself how she could avoid trying to save her. She stiffened her back and went out to help her. Smiling she said: “General Li Yan is a great, outstanding hero; who in the world has not heard about him? No one should hurt this woman!” The man was arrogant and had some authority as Liu Zongmin’s subordinate; he considered He Tishou to be only a little girl and so he did not reply and merely ordered the other three men to tie her [Hong Niangzi] up. He Tishou smiled and said: “Good, you don’t want to live!” She used her superior martial arts skills to dispatch the man, and then the three remaining men asked who she was. She said nothing, but demonstrated some other martial tricks and the men all fled.273 Hong Niangzi then went to Yuan Chengzhi’s camp to ask for his help in “saving her husband’s life”. She explained that Niu Jinxing and Liu Zongmin were “sowing confusion in the Dashing Prince’s mind between right and wrong, and they were slandering General Li for allegedly wanting to establish himself independently. The Dashing Prince now wanted to punish General Li for his supposed crime.” Yuan was moved and wanted to go to rescue Li Yan right away, but, on second thought, he realized that he lacked experience and might not be up to the task.274 After an intense discussion with his colleagues at Hua Shan, Yuan set out with ten others to rush to Xi’an, where Li Zicheng was in retreat from Beijing. En route, Hong Niangzi shared her analysis of the situation with her companions, including four other women officers. She said that military discipline had broken down as soon as the rebels entered Beijing, and

272  Jin 1994: 673–674. 273  Jin 1994: 683–684. 274  Jin 1994: 699–700.

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the rebel leaders’ treatment of Chen Yuanyuan had provided a bad example for the rest of the troops.275 Not long into the trip to Xi’an, Yuan, Hong, and their companions came across an old woman venting her anguish by the side of the road. She had in hand the heads of four corpses, one male, one female, and two children. Blood was still running from their mouths, indicating that they had perished recently. Guessing correctly that Hong’s party consisted of rebels, she addressed them directly, using “Master Li” to refer to all of them. Master Li, you swindler, you say “Open the gates early and pay respects to the Dashing Prince, discipline big and little and all will be happy.” Our family opened the gates and respected the Dashing Prince, but the local bandits and violent robbers under the leadership of the Dashing Prince raped my daughter-in-law and killed my son and grandson! Members of my family are all here, Master, come and see if the big and little are all happy! For sixty years I have paid respects to the bodhisattva Guanyin. Bodhisattva, you have protected this great-grandmother very well! Guanyin bodhisattva, you are not willing to protect people, you are a companion of the bandits and robbers of the Dashing Prince!276 Yuan Chengzhi and others could not bear to hear any more such stories, and they knew that they would see more evidence of such tragedies on the road ahead. So they pressed on. When Hong Niangzi and Yuan Chengzhi arrived in Xi’an, they found Li Yan analyzing the situation coolly. According to Jin Yong: Li Yan stood up and said in a loud voice: “You are all my good brothers and good friends. In recent years we came out of death and entered life, sharing weal and woe, hoping for a future when the great enterprise will be completed and the known world will be at peace. How could we know that [our] ten-thousand-year father [i.e. the ruler Li Zicheng] would hear and believe a treacherous man’s defamatory word?” He argued that the prediction that “an eighteenth child will master the sacred instrument” meant that this Li [I] wanted to become the august lord. Now the ten-thousand-year father has issued a rescript bestowing a death sentence on me, ha ha. I really don’t know when or where this saying originated.

275  Jin 1994: 701–702. 276  Jin 1994: 702–703. For Guanyin, the quasi-historical quasi-legendary male spirit from India who turned into the Goddess of Mercy in China, see Yü 2001.

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Many generals stood up and said one after the other: “This was a case of a treacherous man falsely transmitting a sacred rescript. Ten-thousand-year father usually believes the general [Li Yan] so you should not worry too much about it [the false rescript]. We will go straight to Xi’an. We will see tenthousand-year father and explain to him the distinction between right and wrong. This will make things clear.” Each person expressed just indignation, and some said that general Li established great merit, was loyal and devoted to ten-thousand-year father, so how could there be any reason for him to revolt? Some said his troops maintained strict discipline and loved the people as their children. This incurred the jealousy and envy of other generals. Yet others said that ten-thousand [year]father did not listen to distinctions, and the companions led their separate armies to attain their own goals. Now Dashing’s army is acting wildly against law and public opinion and is thus losing the people’s hearts and minds. There will be no good results for ten-thousand-year father. Li Yan took out a piece of yellow paper. With a small smile he said: “This is in the personal handwriting of the ten-thousand-year father. It says: ‘The Zhi general Li revolted and wanted to establish himself as August. His treason is great and it is against the Way. He is to be put to death, quickly and with no mistake.’ This is not a case of a marginal person forging a sacred rescript; it is a matter of ten-thousand father failing to distinguish between truth and falsehood.” Many generals raised their arms and shouted, “We want to follow the general, we want to fight to the death!” A prominent general said: “ten-thousand-year father has already sent out the left, front, and rear battalions, besieging us from three directions. Their goal is not just to kill one general Li but to kill our whole army.” Many generals called out: “If ten-thousand-years forces us to rebel, that will be a real overturn!”277 Li Yan called out: “Everyone sit down. I have some advice. Ten-thousand-year father has not treated me badly. The two characters ‘make rebel’ should not be advocated. Come, drink some wine!” Many generals knew that he was wise and full of stratagems. Seeing him so composed, they presumed he must have some extraordinary measures up his sleeve. They therefore sat down one by one, whispered to each other, and carried out a discussion in low voices. Li Yan poured out a cup of wine. Smiling he said: “A person’s life lasts only several decades, just like a spring dream [of transitory joy].” He drained his cup and slapped the table with his left hand, and then suddenly broke into song: “Early open the gates to pay respects to the Dashing Prince. Discipline big, little, and all….” This was the song he had written that had spread through 277  Jin 1994: 705.

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the known world and that had attracted many people to the rebellion. He sang it down to the word “all” and suddenly stopped. His body slowly slumped to the table and he made no further move. Hong Niangzi and Yuan Chengzhi were alarmed and quickly went to support him, but they saw that Li Yan was no longer breathing. In his left hand was hidden a dagger that he had plunged into the pit of his stomach. Hong Niangzi smiled and said: “Good, good!” She took out a knife and cut her throat. Yuan Chengzhi was nearby. If he had wanted to stop her. He might have saved her, but he was already grieving for Li Yan and had mixed feelings. At one point, he was thinking of dying, and he finally decided not to try to save her. In a very short time, he thought he could hear the sound of the song that he and Li Yan had witnessed the blind minstrel singing in Beijing: “Today a thread of an outstanding spirit, yesterday a long wall of ten thousand li….” When the generals saw that their commander and his wife had died one after the other, there was immediately chaos in the camp. Instantaneously, several tens of thousands of troops dispersed. Yuan Chengzhi was in pain, his interest in life flagged. On this day, his loyal subordinate Zhang Chaotang (lit. Zhang Facing the Tang) discussed with him the state of Brunei, where the people were simple and honest and there was the calm of the great peace. He [Zhang] said: “The central plain is in disorder and the gentleman’s [Yuan’s] state of mind is not good. Why doesn’t he go to Brunei and drive away these cares?” Yuan Chengzhi thought about sending someone to live under someone else’s roof and he had no interest, but suddenly he thought of the map of the islands supplied by the Western Ocean general. He took it out and asked which island it was. Zhang Chaotang said: “It is the large island and inlets near the state of Brunei and it is now occupied by pirates from the Red Hair state who are harassing visitors to the island.” When Yuan Chengzhi heard this, his spirit traveled to the outer seas, his aspirations immediately rose, he could not help striking the table and emitting a long whistle. He said: “Let’s go and expel the Red Hair pirates and live as a people outside culture (i.e. without government) on the island.” Yuan Chengzhi then led Qing Qing, He Tishou, and others, joined with Zhang Chaotang, Yang Pengyu and others, and traveled to distant lands overseas, hoping to expel the Portuguese and to establish there a new heaven and earth.”278 Jin Yong’s novel focused on the lives and times of the fictional martial artist Yuan Chengzhi and his companion Qing Qing, but it reached its denouement 278  Jin 1994: 705–707.

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with the tragic deaths of the ostensibly historical Li Yan and his wife Hong Niangzi. It followed previous accounts in contrasting the heroic Li Yan with the villainous Niu Jinxing, but, unlike those accounts, it had Li Yan and Hong Niangzi commit suicide, thus seemingly accepting some responsibility for the rebels’ failure to live up to their original aspirations. Jin Yong’s Li Yan was aware of the tragic fate of previous scholar advisors to the commoner dynastic founders Han Gaozu and Ming Taizu. He was aware of the implications for himself as he faced Li Zicheng’s suspicions of his own intentions. Jin Yong, for his part, probably also saw the homology between Ming Taizu’s harsh treatment of his scholar-official subordinates and Mao Zedong’s hostility to elite intellectuals and rival cadres, especially during the Cultural Revolution, especially during the years ca. 1971–1975 when Jin substantially revised his original text.279 In this novel and others, Jin Yong was also clearly aware of the story of the late Sui general Li Jing, his partner Hong Fuji (the Girl with the Red Fly Whisk), and his friend Zhang (the Curly Bearded Guest). In the story, as we have seen, Li Jing and Hong Fuji helped Li Yuan and Li Shimin establish the Tang dynasty while the Curly Bearded Guest went off to found his own utopian kingdom in a distant land.280 Jin Yong, as a resident of Hong Kong, may have seen similarities between Yuan Chengzhi’s reservations about the declining Ming, the rebel Shun, the rising Qing, and the Portuguese interlopers and Jin’s own mixed feelings about the faltering Republic, the rebel Communist Party, the rising People’s Republic, and British and American interlopers in his own day.281 As Christopher Hamm has argued, Jin’s “vision of Chineseness centered on cultural traditions” … “inverts the ‘culturalism to nationalism’ shift that an earlier generation of Western sinologists posited as a central trend in twentiethcentury Chinese thought.”282 Indeed, we may go further to suggest that Jin’s Li Yan and Jin himself were not just defending “the paradigmatic centrality of the Chinese state and Chinese cultural identity” but were suggesting how they theoretically saw themselves fitting in to Chinese and world history. Yuan Chengzhi’s “brother”, Zhang Chaotang, who later became his reincarnation, accepted the legitimacy of the Qing dynasty. By the time of the rise of Deng Xiaoping in the 1970s and 1980s, Jin could have Zhang assert that “For the Chinese people, the Qing dynasty was far better than the Ming”.283 Read in 279  Hamm 2005: 162–163. 280  For the importance of this and other Tang tales in this and other novels by Jin, see Hamm 2005: 15, 18, 65. 281  Hamm 2005: 66. 282  Hamm 2005: 27. 283  Hamm 2005: 190, 192.

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context and perhaps understood to refer to the early Qing versus the late Ming, this might suggest that the pragmatic reforms of Deng Xiaoping were now thought to be more appropriate than the utopian revolution of Mao Zedong. Of course, how martial artists would fit into either one of these regimes remained to be seen. In focusing on them, however, Jin may have unwittingly approached more closely than had any previous author the social identity of the principal historical figure and family, who, we shall see, lay behind the storied Li Yan.

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Renewed Doubts about the Story Even as Li Yan and Hong Niangzi were widely celebrated in histories, plays, and novels, there continued to be doubts about their identities and even about their historicity. Since Mao Zedong and Guo Moruo, along with playwrights and novelists, had accepted and developed the story, those who had doubts about it kept them to themselves or at least were unable to publish them. Few writers continued to believe that Li Yan was the son of Li Jingbai or that he was a provincial graduate, but most accepted the core biography of the scholar from Qi County whose fate seemed closely linked to the rise and fall of Li Zicheng’s Da Shun regime. This situation, however, began to change as historians in the People’s Republic as well as in the United States and Japan challenged the identify of Li Yan and the historicity of Hong Niangzi. They were hard put, however, to explain the origins of the names Li Yan, Li Xin, and Li Mou. As a result, most historians, as well as the public, continued to accept the Li Yan story as basically authentic, faute de mieux. 5.1

In the People’s Republic

Just as the Li Yan/Hong Niangzi story reached its height of elaboration and acceptance in the early People’s Republic, serious doubts about it resurfaced. Since Mao Zedong and Guo Moruo had taken the lead in celebrating the story and using it to their own ends, their deaths in 1976 and in 1978 respectively cleared the way for skeptics to publish their concerns. Ultimately, three Chinese scholars took the lead in questioning the authenticity of the inherited story. 5.1.1 Gu Cheng The first Chinese historian to question the entire Li Yan story in the twentieth century was Gu Cheng, professor of history at Beijing Normal University. In an initial article published in 1978, Gu noted the denials of Li Yan by Henanese contemporaries, such as He Yiguang and Zheng Lian, his absence from the memoirs of scholars who lived through the rebel Da Shun state in Beijing, such as Xu Yingfen and Chen Jisheng, denials in—and/or absences from—the gazetteers of Qi County and Kaifeng Prefecture, and absences from the genealogies of two Li families in northeast Henan and northwest Anhui. In Gu’s words:

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“These circumstances cannot help make one suspect the truth of Li Yan’s very existence.”1 Gu noted that the title “Master Li” in Peng Shiheng’s Record of controlling robbers in the restoration and in Liu Shangyou’s Little records of settling thoughts referred to Li Zicheng and not to Li Yan. Rumors about Li Yan were picked up by “reactionary novels”, such as The Lazy Daoist’s Little history of suppressing Dashing, which appeared before June 1645, and Peng Haozi’s Strange hearsay on settling the tripod, which was published in 1652. The rumors were then transmitted to the “high dynasty hearsay historian”, Ji Liuqi, who turned them into supposed historical documents.2 Gu denied Ji Liuqi’s claim that Peng Haozi’s account was an “informal history”; he argued that it contained too many errors, including ones introduced by Ji, to be worthy of such status.3 In his effort to discredit the inherited Li Yan story, Gu Cheng sometimes oversimplified the records and exaggerated the problems. He pointed out that, once the Li Yan story was included in the “imperially sponsored Ming History” and that standard history spread its “evil influence” far and wide, “no one dared to come out with a denial”, and any refutations that were printed quickly “disappeared without a trace”. In fact, as we have seen, denials continued to be published by the private historians, Bao Yangsheng and Ren Daobin, and key elements of the story were not included in some relevant official sources such as local gazetteers. Gu Cheng also commented correctly that Li Yan’s original name Xin, his supposed father’s name Li Jingbai, and his alleged kidnapping by Hong Niangzi appeared only late in the developing record as part of Wu Weiye’s account. But Gu added that accounts by Tan Qian, Gu Yingtai, Peng Sunyi, Dai Li, Zha Jizuo, and Mao Qiling “had similar contents” to the Ming History and Wu Weiye’s account. Actually, as we have noted, the idea that Li Yan’s father was head of a ministry had been introduced previously by Lu Yingyang, and Li Yan’s original name Xin and his partner Hong were not mentioned in some later accounts such as those by Gu Yingtai and Peng Sunyi.4 Gu Cheng rightly agreed with previous critics in the early Qing and early Peoples Republic that Li Yan was not the son of Li Jingbai, but he went too far in asserting that that proved that he was not “a man of Qi”. Gu correctly recognized that Song Mei had served as magistrate of Qi in 1630 and died in 1643, so he was clearly not killed by Li Yan in 1641. But Gu exaggerated by concluding that Song Mei could not be the magistrate surnamed Song in the Li Yan story. In fact, as we shall see, Song Mei was for good reason pressed into service as part of the Li Yan story. 1  Gu 1978: 62. 2  Gu 1978: 63–64. 3  Gu 1978: 65–66. 4  Gu 1978: 66–67.

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Gu acknowledged that there were attacks on Qi County town in 1635 by a rebel named Saodi Wang against the magistrate Shen Jiayin and again in 1638 by a White Lotus eighteenth-son against the magistrate Su Jing. He also noted correctly that neither revolt was successful and both were inconsistent in some ways with the Li Yan story. But Gu went too far, as we shall see, in asserting that they were completely unrelated to the Li Yan matter. As a careful historian, Gu Cheng agreed with the novelist Yao Xueyin that there was no firm evidence for Hong Niangzi’s existence, but he advanced a non sequitur in concluding that “all of the rumors about Li Yan (or Li Xin) prior to his joining of Li Zicheng’s rebel army were contrary to the facts”.5 Gu was on firmer ground in suggesting that some of Li Yan’s supposed activities after joining Li Zicheng’s rebel army were also suspect. According to the story, Li Yan was the author of songs people could sing welcoming the Dashing Prince because he would provide grain relief and eliminate surtaxes. According to the contemporary scholar-officials Zhang Dai (1597–?1680) and Lu Zhenfei, however, the creators of those ditties were, in Gu’s words, “not genius publicists [like] Li Yan but the broad [masses] of poor farmers”.6 Gu pointed out that Zha Jizuo attributed the slogan “equalize land and suspend taxes” to Li Yan in one place in his writing but to Niu Jinxing in another place in the same work. Gu noted that Li Zicheng as well as his subordinates, such as the putative Li Yan, advocated tax relief.7 Gu observed that Wu Weiye wrote that Li Yan was named a Zhi General, but an early memoir/history by Peng Sunyi did not mention that. There is no evidence that Li Yan ever led any troops into battle or received a noble title as other rebel generals did. In his Record of events in 1644, Zhao Shijin suggested that Li Yan may have occupied the house of Zhou Kui, and Peng Sunyi wrote that Zhou was expropriated and died, but Liu Shangyu recorded that Zhou survived at least to September 1644, well after the rebels were driven from the city. Zhao Shijin recorded that Li Yan was responsible for guarding the capital when Li Zicheng went east to confront Wu Sangui, but other memoirists did not mention Li Yan among those in charge of defending the capital. A report appended to Zhao Shijin’s memoir claimed that a Master Li was active in leading troops in the region around Tianjin, but that title was a reference to Li Zicheng, not to Li Yan.8 With respect to Li Yan’s supposed interventions to protect the Empress Yi’an and the optimus Liu Lishun, Gu continued, “those supposed ‘just acts’ 5  Gu 1978: 68–69. 6  Cited in Gu 1978: 70. For Zhang Dai, see Spence 2007. 7  Gu 1978: 71. 8  Gu 1978: 72–73.

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were obviously fabricated by feudal historians to prettify representative members of the landlord class and had nothing to do with Li Yan.” According to the careful historian, Tan Qian, it was Liu Zongmin, not any Li Yan, who sent the empress home to Henan, where she committed suicide. According to the scrupulous memoirist Yang Shicong, who was a metropolitan graduate from Jining, Shandong, it was Xue Suoyun, the metropolitan graduate from Meng County, in Huaiqing Prefecture in Henan who protected Liu Lishun’s son after his father and one of his father’s concubines (not his whole family including several concubines) committed suicide.9 Gu Cheng, for the first time, compared all of the extant accounts of the supposed assassination of Li Yan and Li Mou, and argued that there was no clear and consistent record of the time and place of that important event. For example, Wu Weiye wrote that it happened after the defeat of the rebels in Dingzhou, in southwest Jingshi Province, and Mao Qiling dated it to before the rebels entered Shanxi, i.e. before the tenth day of the fifth month of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen. But those accounts were inconsistent with the record that it occurred only after the Ming general Ding Qiguang captured the rebel magistrates in Guide, Henan, which happened on the sixteenth day of the fifth month when the rebel army was already in Shanxi. Tan Qian, who paid closest attention to matters of time and place, and Li Tiangen dated the assassination to the twenty-first day of the sixth month when Li Zicheng’s forces had already passed though Pingyang Prefecture in southwest Shanxi and arrived in Shaanxi. In sum, instead of an agreed upon time and place for the deaths of Li Yan and Li Mou, say during the late fifth month in Pingyang, we have several different places and times that are not consistent with each other. This raised in Gu’s mind the question of whether those assassinations actually happened.10 Gu also doubted the claim that the death of Li Yan and Li Mou severely damaged the fortunes of Li Zicheng’s military forces. He pointed out that the rebel general Yuan Zongdi had 100,000 troops at his disposal and used them effectively to put down revolts by local militarists such as Liu Hongqi in Runing Prefecture in Henan. Even if there was a Li Yan, why would he have thought his 20,000 troops would be more effective than the existing rebel forces already in Henan that were five times larger in number? Even if Li Yan existed and made his proposal, why would Li Zicheng have approved it?11 Nor, in Gu’s judgment, did the demise of Li Yan and Li Mou, if it occurred, have the devastating effect on rebel morale and jeopardize resistance to the Qing as tellers of the 9  Gu 1978: 73. 10  Gu 1978: 74. 11  Gu 1978: 74.

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tale suggested it did. In fact, Li Zicheng left the capable general Chen Yongfu and others in charge of Taiyuan and other parts of Shanxi as he withdrew with Niu Jinxing, Song Xiance, and Liu Zongmin and others to Xi’an, in Shaanxi. In the twelfth month of Chongzhen 17 (Shunzhi 1, January 1645), the surviving members of Li Zicheng’s entourage mounted a significant defense of Tong Pass from Qing forces before being driven from Henan to Hubei. Niu Jinxing’s son, Niu Quan, who was serving as the rebel Shun prefect in Xiangyang, Hubei, surrendered to the Qing and retained his office, allowing his father to live out his life quietly in his house. Song Xiance surrendered and served in a Qing banner household while Liu Zongmin died in battle.12 Gu believed that there was no reason to think that Li Yan and Li Mou would have been more successful in saving the Shun (or the Ming) if they had survived the fall of Beijing to the Qing or attempts on their lives by Li Zicheng and Niu Jinxing. In a second article a year later, Gu Cheng responded to criticism from a colleague, Zhang Guoguang, who was also at Beijing Normal University.13 First, Gu pointed out that the identity of Li Yan, unlike that of other rebels, such as Yuan Zongdi and Liu Fangliang, became more puzzling the more it was studied, rather than emerging ever more clearly from newly discovered materials. Second, two of the titles bestowed on Li Mou, Glorious General and General Who Smites the North, originated in novels and were not used by the rebels themselves; this throws Mou’s activities, if not his very existence, into question. Third, a source Zhang Guoguang used in an effort to document Li Yan’s existence, Wang Yongzhang’s Diary of 1644, was not a first-hand record of a court eunuch, as Zhang thought, but rather a second-hand “apocryphal book by a literatus intent on defaming the farmer rebel Li Zicheng and prettifying the Ming ruler Zhu Youjian.” This work had last been used by the Republican historian Xiao Yishan (1902–1978), and it has never been taken seriously by historians in the People’s Republic, much less regarded by them as a newly discovered primary source. In fact, the Diary of 1644 relies heavily on the novelistic works, the Little History of Suppressing Dashing and the Strange Hearsay about the Establishment of the Tripods, which laid the foundations of the storied Li Yan. The “diary” even went beyond those sources to add completely unverifiable new elements to the Li Yan story, such as that he led 50,000 troops to join the battle against the Qing at Shanhaiguan.14 Gu Cheng used his second article as an opportunity to add some supporting evidence for arguments he had made in his first article. He noted that rumors 12  Gu 1978: 75. 13  Zhang 1979. 14  Gu 1979: 70–74.

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about Master Li reached Nagasaki in Japan in September 1644 only three months after Li Zicheng withdrew from Beijing. The rumors all referred to the rebel leader Li Zicheng, not to any distinct advisor named Li Yan. Gu also discussed the various characters used in the sources for Li Yan’s given name and the many references to his changing his name, suggesting great confusion on that matter. Gu acknowledged, however, that there was no evidence yet regarding when and where Li’s given names, Xin and Yan, originated. This remained a key question that would require the discovery of new materials to be answered. Gu noted that Song Xiance no doubt knew about the long-standing White Lotus prophecy that a man named Li would succeed a ruler named Zhu. He must have thought about how that prediction could be used by a member of a Li family to overturn the Ming headed by the Zhu family. Gu Cheng cited the prominent late Ming scholar Zhang Dai’s writings and the many different tunes of the slogans and ballads to clinch the argument, already made in his first article, that they were the product of the “poor farmers of many places” and not the creation of a single “genius publicist Li Yan.”15 Regarding the many generals named Li in Beijing, Gu thought that the two in charge of the eastern and western parts of the city were not Li Mou and Li Yan, but rather Li You, with You written two different ways (友 and 右) and sometimes miswritten Zuo (佐), and Li Guo, Li Zicheng’s nephew. Zhang Guoguang accepted Tan Qian’s conclusion that Li Zicheng and his minions reached Pingyang in southwest Shanxi on the 21st of the sixth month and had Li Yan and Li Mou killed the next day. Gu, however, cited Tan and local gazetteers that recorded passage of Li Zicheng through Pingyang at various times between the 13th of the fifth month and the first of the 6th month, suggesting that Li Yan and Li Mou were actually killed only after Li Zicheng reached Shaanxi. Of course, Gu Cheng probably thought they were not killed at all because they had never lived! To counter Zhang’s suggestion that Gu exaggerated by giving the rebels 100,000 troops in the region, Gu noted the roles of the rebel generals Liu Zhong in Huaiqing Prefecture, in northwest Henan, and Liu Rukui in Daming Prefecture in southern BeiZhili. Finally, Gu argued, we no longer need to use stereotypical novelistic accounts of internal strife in the rebel leadership to explain the failure of the enterprise. Rather we can use the basic concepts of Marxism and seek new material to solve this 300-year-old puzzle.16 Despite Gu’s sometimes categorical rejection of Li Yan’s historicity, he remained open to the possibility of new evidence that might eventually change his mind,

15  Gu 1979: 75–78. 16  Gu 1979: 79–81.

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In 1984, Gu Cheng published a detailed monograph on the farmers’ wars in the late Ming without needing any Li Xin or Li Yan to explain the rise and fall of Li Zicheng.17 In subsequent years, Gu published another monograph on the rise and fall of the Southern Ming which made no mention of Li Yan.18 Over the course of two decades, up to his death in 2003, Gu published numerous articles on many related topics and saw no reason to believe in the historicity of the scholar-rebel-advisor Li Yan.19 5.2

In the United States

5.2.1 Des Forges Meanwhile, in 1973, I had been struck by Li Wenzhi’s note on the contrast between the Ming History’s acceptance of the core of the Li Yan story and Zheng Lian’s flat denial of the existence of a scholar-rebel-advisor named Li Xin (or Yan) from Qi County who played an important role in Li Zicheng’s rebellion. I had also been inspired by Cao Guilin’s suggestion that the Ming Minister Li Jingbai’s son, Li Xu, exercised military responsibilities that may have been grafted onto the persona of Li Yan. In a discussion with Professor Shimada Kenji in Kyoto in 1975, I became aware of Guo Moruo’s essay on 1644 that was not well known in the United States.20 When I first met Cao Guilin in Beijing in 1976, therefore, I was developing a hypothesis that the scholar-rebeladvisor Li Yan from Qi County was a composite figure whose hagiography was drawn from the activities of other contemporary personalities.21 The first step toward testing that hypothesis was to trace the origins and development of the Li Yan story in texts written over nearly three and a half centuries, from 1644 to 1982.22 A second step was to explore the political and social contexts of the origins of the story in northeast Henan, Hubei, Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Beijing during three decades, from the 1620s through the 1640s. While researching the background of the metropolitan graduate Song Mei from Laiyang County in Shandong who served as magistrate of Qi in the 1620s and was supposedly killed by Li Yan 17  Gu 1984. 18  Gu 1997. 19  Gu 2012: 45–219, 311–321; Gu 2012a. 20  For example, neither Parsons 1970 nor Wakeman 1985 mentioned it. 21  At the time, I was intrigued by seeming parallels between the problem of Shakespeare’s identity and the problem of Li Yan’s identity. Ogburn 1984. Decades later, it was proposed that Shakespeare was a composite figure. See Shapiro 2010. 22  Des Forges 1982.

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figure 5.1 Author at an exhibition of Li Zicheng and Li Yan at Longting Park in Kaifeng Author’s photograph, Kaifeng 1984

in the 1640s, I came across a Li Yan who was also from Laiyang. That Li Yan, whose name was written exactly the same way as the storied Li Yan’s, was a metropolitan graduate of 1637 who served as an energetic magistrate in Hua County, in Weihui Prefecture, in northeast Henan, where he tried to suppress the local rebel Yuan Shizhong in 1641. That Li Yan was ruthless in stamping out “robbers” but he also “vigorously equalized the levies” and earned the respectful sobriquet “Master Li Yan” (Li Gong Yan). Then, according to his biography in the Laiyang County gazetteer, in late 1642 or early 1643, He was appointed to the Ministry of Troops and became prefect of Kaifeng. For his good work of planting the flag in Da Liang [Kaifeng], he was promoted to be the grain commissioner of Kai[feng], Gui[de], He[nan], and other places. He was also made the [Henan] provincial judicial commissioner.23 Kaifeng was then under its third siege by the rebels, so this Li Yan was the last prefect to be appointed by the Ming there. Indeed, the situation in Kaifeng was so disastrous that it is quite possible that he never assumed those posts before he returned home to Laiyang to go into mourning for his father, Li Zaibai, who 23  Wang and Liang 1935: 31.26b; cited in Des Forges 1984: 418.

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figure 5.2 Metropolitan graduate Li Yan from Laiyang County in Shandong Province Photograph of a Portrait Kindly Provided to the Author by thaT Li Yan’s Descendants

had died in a Manchu raid on 29 March 1643. That attack also took the life of the erstwhile magistrate of Qi, Song Mei, who had returned home from Beijing after angering Chongzhen and being charged with corruption. There is no evidence that this metropolitan graduate Li Yan had any communication with Li Zicheng, let alone joined his rebellion as an advisor. On the contrary, he fought the local rebel Yuan Shizhong, who had a good reputation

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in northeast Henan and who became an ally of Li Zicheng’s before he fell out with—and was killed by—him. But Li Yan may have enjoyed some approval among the people of northeast Henan who were looking for strong and honest officials in a time of disorder and corruption. Since he left Henan for Shandong at about the same time Li Zicheng left Henan for Hubei, I speculated that he might have been rumored to have gone off with the rebel leader and even to have become one of his advisors. There were other Ming scholar officials and officers, such as Su Jing and Chen Yongfu, who originally opposed various rebels, including Li Zicheng and Yuan Shizhong, but later surrendered to Li Zicheng and served in the Shun regime. Li Zicheng, for his part, reached out to scholar officials, encouraging them to join the rebellion and sometimes treating them as cooperating even when they were not.24 If Li Yan was a good candidate to become a respected scholar rebel advisor, Song Mei was well known as a corrupt and ambitious official. He came from a wealthy and powerful family in Laiyang, served as a county magistrate in Henan along with one of his brothers (which was a violation of the rule of avoidance), ruthlessly suppressed White Lotus rebels, and bribed his way to high and safe offices in the capital. Meanwhile, one of Song’s critics was sent to a low and dangerous post in the countryside where he was killed by bandits.25 But Song Mei finally overreached by lobbying vigorously for an appointment as a grand secretary. He was dismissed from his post in Beijing by Chongzhen and sent home in disgrace. The Song family in Laiyang had contributed 1,000 ounces of silver to prepare defenses against the Manchu raiders, but they used some of the funds to try to buy off the enemy rather than resist them. In the end, the tactic failed, and Song Mei and his relatives were among those who lost their lives at the hands of the Qing raiders. Surviving members of the Song family then pressured their neighbors to reimburse them for the money they had spent on the failed resistance.26 In short, the historical Song Mei was a good candidate for the position of corrupt and oppressive magistrate that he assumed in the Li Yan story even though he actually died at the hands of the Qing and not those of the rebels. If, in the early Qing, the surviving members of the Song family of Laiyang learned of the villainous role that Song Mei was said to have played in the Li Yan story, they might have denied it just as the family of Li Jingbai denied that he had a son named Li Yan who played a prominent role in Li Zicheng’s rebellion. On the other hand, the Songs of Laiyang may have 24  Des Forges 1984: 419. 25  Tan early Qing: 5962; Wang and Liang 1935: 31 shang, renwu, keti; 31 zhong, renwu, xianghuan, 24b; 33 shang, yiwen, zhuanzhi, shang, 15a; Zhang 1739: 155. 6879. 26  Des Forges 1984: 430.

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been more comfortable with Li Yan’s legendary demise at the hands of the now defeated rebels than with his actual death as a result of a raid carried out by the Qing forces that now ruled China. On the basis of information available in 1984, I suggested further that Niu Jinxing, the 1627 provincial graduate from Baofeng County in Ruzhou department, Henan, was a fully historical figure who was a provincial graduate from Henan who became an important advisor to Li Zicheng. Niu issued from a family of teachers with only modest wealth and power, and got into a quarrel with his father-in-law, Wang Shijun, a metropolitan graduate from Xiangfu County in Kaifeng Prefecture. When Niu’s wife died, Wang arranged to have Niu jailed. Niu then had a friend appeal to a scholar named Liang in Lanyang County in Kaifeng Prefecture, Henan, for assistance, but it was not forthcoming. Niu therefore remained in jail until Li Zicheng’s rebel forces took the town. According to available records, Niu was freed from prison and led a revolt in which the county magistrate was killed.27 Niu then joined Li Zicheng as an advisor, and, as we have seen, seems to have had a significant impact on rebel policies. Knowledgeable about military strategy, he planned the three sieges of Kaifeng which resulted, perhaps more than incidentally, in the destruction of his estranged father-in-law’s hometown. Niu also participated in the rebel assault on Shangqiu County in Guide Prefecture and was said to have predicted its fall. When the rebels reached Lanyang County, the home town of the scholar Liang who had refused to rescue Niu from jail, they reportedly rushed to the home of the Liang family and burned it to the ground.28 When the rebels established a skeletal state with a capital at Xiangyang, Hubei, Niu became grand secretary and his son, Niu Quan, was appointed Xiangyang prefect.29 When the rebels reached Shaanxi and proclaimed the Shun state in Xi’an (which they renamed Chang’an), Niu became prime minister. In Beijing, as we have seen, he played a prominent role in deciding who among the former Ming officials should be used, expropriated, sent home, or executed. He tried to restore the examination system, and, after the failure of negotiations with Wu Sangui, he urged Li Zicheng to ascend the throne. He also played an important role in fortifying Beijing prior to the rebels’ flight to the west.30 Eventually, Niu’s son, Quan, surrendered to the Qing and retained his post as prefect in Hubei. Niu Jinxing was able to live sequestered at his son’s home until he died. 27  Zhao 1645: 17; Zheng 1749: 3.20. Unfortunately the gazetteers do not indicate how the last two magistrates of Baofeng were killed. Des Forges 1984: 420. 28  Zheng 1749: 4.20a; 5.22a, 23b–24a. Cited in Des Forges 1984: 420. 29  Qian 1645: 101; Xu 1861: 25–27. Cited in Des Forges 1984: 420. 30  Des Forges 1984: 421.

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Niu was therefore a fully historical Henanese provincial graduate and rebel advisor who loomed large behind the figure of the storied Li Yan. Indeed, Niu was perhaps the person who benefited most from the idea that Li Yan was the most important advisor to Li Zicheng because that belief took some of the spotlight off of himself (Niu) as a close collaborator with Li Zicheng. Of course, the story did not free Niu from the reputation of being a kind of Iago to Li Zicheng’s Othello. On the contrary, it greatly heightened that image even if it did not actually create it. But Niu could apparently live with that—and he did, for five more years until his death by natural causes in 1650. Another personality who became a part of Li Zicheng’s most intimate coterie was the commoner Song Xiance, who served as the rebel commanderin-chief. Unfortunately, we know little about him, including whether he came from Yongcheng County, in Guide Prefecture, in northeast Henan, or possibly, from as far afield as Zhejiang Province. According to the early diarist, Yang Shicong, Song exhorted his fellow rebels, including Liu Zongmin, to treat former Ming nobles and officials fairly. Song apparently was particularly solicitous toward the metropolitan graduate Xue Suoyun, who hailed from northwestern Henan and who, as we have seen, intervened to protect the son of the optimus Liu Lishun. According to the slightly later account by Zhao Shijin, Song came to specialize in divination. The role of protector of Ming scholar-officials was increasingly assumed by the generals Li Daliang and Li Yan.31 Here we may be seeing the function of protector of ex-Ming scholar officials being gradually transferred from one of Li Zicheng’s Henanese advisors, Song Xiance, to others, including Li Yan. There were also several higher-level scholar-officials from Henan who surrendered to Li Zicheng and held office in the Shun state in Beijing. Zhang Jinyan, a metropolitan graduate of 1631, was from Xinxiang County in Weihui Prefecture in north Henan. He held local posts and then rose in the bureaucracy in opposition to Yang Sichang, whom he eventually replaced, thus becoming the last Ming minister of troops. On the day Zhang assumed office, one of his subordinates, Zeng Yinglin, submitted a memorial calling for overcoming the growing gap between rich and poor by implementing a system of equal fields. When the court vetoed Zeng’s proposal, Zhang seems to have presided over the dissolution of Ming authority in Jingshi (Beizhili). His sympathy toward the rebels was so overt that he was publicly chastised by Chongzhen and even by eunuchs loyal to the Ming who charged him with surrendering to the rebels. Zhang was said to have opened the Zhangyi gate of Beijing to Li Zicheng and to have sought a post in the Shun regime. Although he was 31  Des Forges 1984: 421.

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rejected by the rebel leadership as unreliable, he remained in the capital and thus appeared to accept the legitimacy of the Shun state.32 A second prominent scholar-official from Henan who served Li Zicheng was He Ruizheng, a descendent of He Jingming (1483–1521), one of the Seven Early Masters of literary fame.33 The Hes were from Xinyang County in Runing Prefecture in southeast Henan. He Ruizheng earned his metropolitan degree in 1628 and was serving as the Junior Supervisor of Instruction for the Ming heir apparent when the rebels entered Beijing. He surrendered and was recommended by Niu Jinxing to become Vice President of the Shun Office of Rites and Head of the Documents Section of the rebel Hanlin Academy, the body consisting of the top scoring literati who were in charge of the examination system. He, in turn, recommended Fang Yizhi (d. 1671?), a metropolitan graduate from Tongcheng, Anhui, and leader of the Restoration Society. He Ruizheng expressed his confidence in the future of the rebel Shun state by moving his family into his official quarters and by urging Li Zicheng to proclaim himself son of heaven. Fang is reported to have paid a large ransom to avoid service in the rebel regime, but he was later charged in Nanjing with collusion with bandits.34 The important point is that both He and Fang survived the Shun regime. In the Ming loyalist era in Nanjing and in the succeeding early Qing period, they had an interest in accepting the Li Yan story which seemed to explain how scholars could receive protection from moderate rebels like Li Yan and Li Mou and thus were saved from execution by more radical rebels such as Niu Jinxing and Liu Zongmin. A third high-ranking scholar rebel advisor from Henan was Xue Suoyun, from Meng County, in Huaiqing Prefecture, whom we have already mentioned above. Xue was a metropolitan graduate of 1628 and a member of a group of literati who called themselves the Central Plains Literary Club. Xue was Director of Studies at the State University in the late Ming and he kept that post in the rebel Shun administration. It was in that position that he extended protection to Liu Lishun’s son, as we have seen. More generally he was said to have “called in government students and instructed them to write essays that would lead Dashing toward a better appreciation of learning.”35 Like He Ruizheng, Xue Suoyun remained an important academic supporter of the Shun state up to 32  Des Forges 2003: 105–111, 142, 298–300, 302–303, 313; Des Forges 1984: 421–422. 33  For He Jingming, see Goodrich and Fang 1976: 510–513; Bryant 2008. 34  Zhang and Wan 1749: 8.8a–37a; Yang 1645: 17ib–18a, 31b–32a; Tan early Qing: 6056–6060, 6074, 6078; Qian early Qing: 70, 72. For Fang, see J.C. Yang and Tomoo Numata’s biography in Hummel 1943–44: 232–233; Peterson 1979; Des Forges 2003: 303. 35  Feng and Chou 1790: 6 shang, renwu, xia, kegong, 2a; Qian early Qing: 82; Yang 1645: 10b, 17b; Tan early Qing: 6056, 6060.

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the rebels’ departure from the capital. When the rebels were forced to leave, Xue and his family were reportedly given an escort by Song Xiance so that they could leave with them. According to the memoirist Yang Shicong, “Xue’s servants wore red clothing and had silver stuffed into gauze bands around their waists, openly revealing themselves to be nothing other than roving bandits” as they rode horseback out of the Xuanwu gate before dawn. Here we seem to have a glimpse of the rebel “envoys from the central province dressed in red” who were said by Zha Jizuo to have gone to Liu Lishun’s house to dissuade him from committing suicide.36 Clearly, Xue Suoyun figured prominently among those former Ming scholar-officials who were deeply implicated in Li Zicheng’s rebellion. In the aftermath of that failed effort to establish a new state, Xue must have welcomed the Li Yan story that could serve as a lightning rod in the ensuing debate over “who lost Beijing.” The story, after all, pinned much responsibility on the minor literati brothers Li Yan and Li Mou, who were now safely dead and unable to defend themselves or to implicate other ex-Ming scholars in “collaboration with bandits.” In addition to high ranking scholar-officials from the north, southeast, and northwest of Henan, there were also less prominent scholars and officials in northeast Henan who became even more involved in Li Zicheng’s rebellion and who had an interest in keeping the Li Yan story alive despite their protests to the contrary. In Qi County in 1638, there was a man named Li Jing (李靖), who proclaimed himself an eighteenth son who was qualified and destined to found a new and better dispensation.37 The uprising was suppressed by the vigorous magistrate Su Jing, mentioned above. Its demise was celebrated in a verse by a retired scholar-official in Qi, named Meng Shaoyu, who supposedly wanted to warn others not to revolt. Su Jing was later promoted to a higher post in the provincial capital of Kaifeng, which was under siege by Li Zicheng. In 1642 the retired Ming official Meng Shaoyu’s son, Meng Jiongsu, a provincial graduate, joined one of his classmates by the name of He Yinguang in devising “a plan to join with Bian.” According to the plan, the incumbent Ming magistrate of Qi, Lü Xiru, would go to Kaifeng to coordinate the defense with the former Qi magistrate Su Jing who was now located there. If Meng and He advocated the strategy in an effort to preserve Ming authority in the two towns, it backfired. The magistrate Lü no sooner left Qi than residents of the county, including some members of the local elite like the Mengs, fled the county for the Huai valley, undermining Ming authority in northeast Henan. In the chaos which ensued, a former jailer by the name of Li Jing (李經) took 36  Des Forges 1982: 563, n. 26; Des Forges 1984: 422. See also Yang 1645/1985: 37. 37  Shen 1982: 290–306; Des Forges 1984: 422.

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power in Qi County and ruled it for a time under the authority of the roving rebel Li Zicheng and the local rebel Yuan Shizhong.38 As we saw early on in our narrative, the anonymous critic of the Li Yan story, writing in the 1693 edition of the Qi County gazetteer, recorded that “Some say it was a traitorous magistrate who hired someone to write it [the story] in order to cover up crimes against heaven regardless of contradictions. Loving silk and gold and not fearing punishment in hell, he did not even shrink from using the name of some non-existent person.” The magistrate Su Jing had been a staunch opponent of bandits in Qi and rebels in Kaifeng, but he negotiated with the local rebel Yuan Shizhong and later surrendered to Li Zicheng. He even played an important role in establishing Shun authority in north Henan Province. In my 1984 article, therefore, I suggested that Su Jing might have been the “traitorous magistrate” who initiated the Li Yan story. I went on to suggest that the hero Li Yan “was not ‘some non-existent person’ ” but was “the last Ming prefect of K’ai-feng, who was appointed to help defend the city from the rebels at about this time.” I speculated that Su Jing may have “had reason to resent Li Yen’s inability or unwillingness to help mount an effective defense of the city”. He may then have “started the rumor [of the rebel advisor Li Yan] after he himself had joined the rebellion in an effort to attract other scholarofficials to the movement”.39 As we shall see, my proposed solution to the puzzle of the identity of Li Yan and my suggestion of the likely origins of his name were premature and would ultimately prove to be unnecessary. There were other reasons, however, to think that the story may have begun in northeast Henan, may have involved the local politics of Qi County, and may have been compatible with the needs and interests of other scholars and officials of the region. As we have seen, the “plan to ally with Kaifeng,” put forth by the Qi County provincial graduates Meng Jiongsu and He Yinguang, failed, and Qi was taken over by the rebels Li Zicheng and Yuan Shizhong. We do not know what happened to Meng Jiongsu, but sources agree that He Yinguang ultimately surrendered to Li Zicheng and was recorded among Shun personnel in Beijing. Here we seem to have an authentic provincial graduate of Qi County who joined Li Zicheng’s rebel regime. That He Yinguang lay behind the Li Yan story, or at least facilitated its acceptance, is suggested by what appear to be efforts to cover that up in the Qi County gazetteer edited by his elder brother, He Yiguang.40

38  Des Forges 1984: 422–423. 39  Des Forges 1984: 423. 40  Des Forges 1984: 423.

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In the course of denying the historical authenticity of the Li Yan story, the anonymous author of the essay “Distinguishing Master Li” printed in the Qi gazetteer of 1693 made two mistakes or misstatements. The first may have been a simple error taken over from an earlier source, but the second seems to have been an intentional effort to obscure He Yinguang’s role in the rebellion. The first misstatement was that the storied Li Yan received his provincial degree in 1615 whereas the standard story actually said that he received it in 1627. This might have been more than an accident because the author went on to specify that the only man to receive his provincial degree in 1615 was one Liu Zhao. As it happened, Liu Zhao was associated with the so-called “eunuch party” which Wu Weiye had argued included Li Jingbai, the supposed father of Li Yan. The implication of the anonymous author of “Distinguishing Master Li” seems to have been that, if there was a provincial graduate in Qi who joined Li Zicheng’s rebellion, it must have been Liu Zhao, not any Li Yan, Li Xin, or, more importantly, not any He Yinguang! In fact, there is no evidence that Liu Zhao joined the rebellion; his inclusion in the essay “Distinguishing Li Yan” was the result of an error taken over from one of the early little stories about the rebellion. The anonymous author’s second misleading assertion was that there was no minister or board president in, of, or from Qi County during the late Ming. In fact, there was such a person and he was none other than Meng Shaoyu, the father of Meng Jiongsu and a member of the “eunuch party” at court! The 1693 edition of the Qi County gazetteer may have attempted to conceal a connection between the Li Yan story and the activities of Meng Shaoyu and He Yinguang. We may infer this because a later (1788) edition of the same gazetteer not only dropped the “Distinguishing Master Li” essay to conform to Qing policy, but it also described He Yinguang as having received his provincial degree in 1615. That, of course, was the very year the earlier edition of the gazetteer had said Li Yan had received his degree! Although the text refrained from pointing out the link between the Li Yan story and He Yinguang’s activities, it strongly implied that the earlier denial of any link was suspect and that He Yinguang was the main substance of the link.41 If the Li Yan story originated in Kaifeng Prefecture and was allowed to develop because even its most vocal critics feared exposure of the realities behind it, it was also consistent with the behavior and interests of several scholars and officials of neighboring Guide Prefecture. Prominent among them was Hou Xun, a metropolitan graduate of 1616 and scion of a wealthy, powerful, and cultivated lineage of Shangqiu County.42 Hou played an important role in 41  Des Forges 1984: 423–424. 42  Des Forges 1984: 424.

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the Eastern Forest Society in the 1920s and became embroiled in a factional quarrel which landed him in jail on charges of corruption in 1637. In 1641 the balance of power in the bureaucracy shifted and Hou was released from jail. He was appointed Vice-Minister of Troops in hopes that he would exert control over his military protégées Zuo Liangyu (1598–1645) and Chen Yongfu, and would defend Ming authority in his native province of Henan.43 In late 1642, however, Hou submitted an extraordinary memorial in which he proposed temporarily surrendering all of Henan to the rebels, allying with the local rebel Yuan Shizhong against the outside rebel Li Zicheng, and establishing a base in Hubei from which to recover control over Henan. When Hou’s proposal was predictably ignored by the court, he bided his time at home in Shangqiu while the city of Kaifeng starved to death under rebel sieges and then was destroyed by the disastrous flood. Hou did help to rescue the Ming Zhou Prince from the flood, but he quickly withdrew to the relative safety of the estate of another Ming nobleman, the Earl of Taikang, Zhang Guoji, father of the empress Yi’an. In 1643 Hou led troops north into Shandong, but he soon came into conflict with a local scholar-official and general, Liu Zeqing, who already dominated the region. Soon Hou was charged with failing to defend Kaifeng and with plundering Shandong. When the factional balance again shifted at court in summer 1643, Hou was stripped of his office and rank and sent back to jail.44 Having suffered from factional politics and spent years in jail, Hou Xun naturally considered—and was considered for—service in an alternative regime. As early as the spring of 1642, when Li Zicheng and Yuan Shizhong took Guide, an unidentified local resident pointed out Hou Xun as a scholar-official who might be willing to join the rebellion. Hou himself stayed aloof, but one of his sons, Hou Fangzhen, “disappeared” when Shangqiu fell to the rebels. In early 1644, Chen Yongfu and Su Jing assumed positions in Li Zicheng’s regime. When the rebels occupied Beijing, they freed Hou from jail and offered him a post in the Office of Works in the Shun state. Hou reportedly demurred, but the rebels used negative as well as positive incentives to try to convince him to cooperate. A rebel general from Guide named Wei had just beaten a recalcitrant ex-Ming official to death. The rebels sent Wei to threaten Hou with harsh interrogation, reportedly including torture. On the other hand, as we have seen, Liu Zongmin offered to escort the empress Yi’an to the Zhang estate in Henan. And, as we have seen too, Li Zicheng also promised to respect the “rites of Qi and Song” and to enfeoff the Ming heir apparent as the Prince of Song. These policies must have appealed to Hou, who had appreciated the empress’s 43  See Earl Swisher’s biography of Zuo in Hummel 1943–1944: 761–762. 44  Des Forges 1984: 424.

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support for the Donglin party. Hou had recently visited the Zhang estate in Taikang County (adjacent to Qi), and Hou’s native county, Shangqiu was the site of the ancient state of Song.45 Finally, following the advice of Zhou Zhong, the Jiangnan scholar active in the Restoration Society, Li Zicheng arranged for the proper ritual burial of Chongzhen and his empress.46 As the head of a family deeply involved in the Restoration Society, Hou may well have been swayed by these measures. In any case, on the very next day he was listed as the Shun minister of troops.47 Scholar-official families with experiences like those of the Hous attained a prominence in the early Qing that would help keep the Li Yan story alive. Hou Xun, despite having been cajoled and perhaps even coerced into service to the Shun, remained loyal to the Ming insofar as he refused invitations to serve the Qing. He nonetheless continued to wield great influence in his home prefecture of Guide. His eldest son Hou Fangxia took the first Qing civil service examinations and won the metropolitan degree in 1646. A younger son, Hou Fangyu (1618–1655) was an accomplished writer who became known, with Fang Yizhi, Chen Zhenhui (1605–1656), and Mao Xiang (1611–1693) as one of the Four Masters of the late Ming. Hou Fangyu failed the examination of 1639, perhaps on purpose, because he used certain taboo characters in his essays. He returned home to Shangqiu, where he organized in 1640 a Snow Garden Society as a branch of the Restoration Society. In 1642 he took a harder line against Li Zicheng’s rebellion than his father did and, when Henan fell to the rebels, he went south to Nanjing. In 1644 he encountered factional conflict in Nanjing and fled for his life to Yangzhou. With the establishment of the Qing, the Hou family regrouped in Shangqiu. Hou Fangyu took the provincial examinations again in 1651 and failed them again, reportedly on purpose in protest against certain Qing policies. He lived out his last few years in the company of his cultivated concubine, Li Xiangjun, and died at the young age of thirtyseven.48 While the Hou family survived the Ming-Qing transition largely intact, they probably would have welcomed any stories, such as that of Li Yan, that distracted listeners and readers from the Hou patriarch’s involvement in Li Zicheng’s failed effort to establish his own new polity. Also in Shangqiu there was the scholar-official Song family which had many of the same experiences as the Hous. The Songs had long won higher 45  Qian early Qing: 73; Yang 1645: 12b; Zheng 1749: 7.5a–11b, 17b–19a, 30. Cited in Des Forges 1984: 424–425. 46  Tan early Qing: 6058–6059; Xu 1861: 131–132. 47  Tan early Qing: 6060; Qian early Qing: 73; Xu 1861: 146. 48  See Earl Swisher’s biography of Hou Fangyu in Hummel 1943–44: 291–292.

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degrees and held high offices in the Ming, but they also enjoyed good relations with their commoner neighbors. One ancestor had earned such a fine reputation among the people that he was spared by a major plebian rebel who attacked Shangqiu in 1553. His descendant, Song Quan (1598–1652), obtained his metropolitan degree in 1625 and served as a capable magistrate in Yangqu County in Taiyuan Prefecture in Shanxi Province. Later he held the post of secretary in the Ministry of Troops where he became known for his bold criticisms of cronyism and corruption. This conduct won him much admiration but also a reposting to a county-level office in Shanxi. Bored by routine affairs at the bottom of the bureaucracy, Song soon requested retirement so he could look after his aging mother. His request was approved and he returned to Shangqiu, where he taught promising local scholars like Hou Fangyu. In early 1642 tensions arose between the students of Shangqiu and the clerks in the magistrate’s office. The magistrate charged Song Quan with being lax on defense and put him under house arrest. The students then demonstrated even more vociferously and some were injured in a crackdown. As a result, Song was freed from house arrest and put in charge of defending the south gate. In April the newly united rebels Li Zicheng, Luo Rucai, and Yuan Shizhong attacked the town. Ming forces led by one Li Hao arrived, ostensibly to assist in the defense of the town from the rebels. In fact, Li Hao had come to support the rebels. According to local records, a curly bearded soldier dressed in red appeared on the town wall and the town fell to the rebels. The story of Li Jing, Hong Fuji, and Zhang, “the Curly-bearded guest,” seems to have been on people’s minds on both sides of the conflict. In the battle for Shangqiu, many residents died, including some members of the Song clan. But, at the rebels’ discretion, Song Quan and his mother were spared and allowed to cross the Yellow River and make their way north. Subsequently Song Quan was named to a succession of local Ming posts in Daming and Shuntian Prefectures, the latter of which included Beijing. When Li Zicheng took Beijing in April, 1644, Song surrendered and was named the Shun military commissioner of Shuntian. When the rebels were driven out of Beijing, Song quickly made his peace with the Qing. He then played a prominent role in suppressing rebels and consolidating Qing control in the capital region. He later rose to some of the highest posts in the Qing state until his retirement in 1651.49 His son, Song Luo (or Lao) (1634–1713) became an officer in the Qing guard at age fourteen. He subsequently held many important posts including, for fifteen years (1692–1707) governor of Jiangsu Province. He was praised by Kangxi for helping to make 49  Des Forges 1984: 425; see also Des Forges 2003: 84–85, 134, 239–240, 245–246, 293, 305, 311.

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Jiangsu the most prosperous province in the polity.50 In sum, the Song father and son played major cultural roles in the early Qing state. They were well positioned to take sides in the controversy over the Li Yan story but they apparently never did.51 A third prominent lineage of more tangential but still significant relevance was the Kongs. They traced their ancestry back to Kong Fu (Confucius, 551–479 BCE), who lived in Qufu, which became a Ming County in Yanzhou Prefecture in Shandong Province.52 In the late Ming, the sprawling clan included Kong Shangyue, a member of the sixty-fourth generation, who called for a policy of “equal fields” in 1640. In the same generation was Kong Shangda, who appeared at Li Zicheng’s headquarters in 1642.53 While Kong Shangyue embraced a policy that became associated with Li Zicheng’s uprising, Kong Shangda enhanced the legitimacy of the rebel regime by his very presence at the rebel headquarters. In the early Qing, the same generation of the Kong descent group included Kong Shangren (1648–1718), who compiled the Kong lineage genealogy. Kong Shangren also taught descendants of the “sages” (including the Kongs and Mengs) in his home region, lectured Kangxi on the classics during one of that ruler’s tours, and wrote a play, titled the Peach Blossom Fan in 1699 that was well received at the Qing court and by the public.54 The play treated the Shangqiu Restoration Society member, Hou Fangyu, and his mistress, Li Xiangjun, as the hero and heroine, emphasizing their moderate loyalty to the Ming and eliding the brief involvement of Hou Fangyu’s father and brother in Li Zicheng’s Da Shun regime. Writing at a time when such families were preeminent, the Shangqiu government student and local historian Zheng Lian had to handle the Li Yan story with extreme care. To be sure, Zheng frankly acknowledged his own short stint in the rebel camp of Luo Rucai, and he did not shrink from recording the participation of members of the Hou and Kong families in Li Zicheng’s rebellion. Yet Zheng transmitted the slightly misleading anonymous denial of the Li Yan story that appeared in the 1693 edition of the Qi County gazetteer. He also refrained from recording Song Quan’s service to the Shun as regional military commissioner of Shuntian Prefecture. Finally, I have suggested, Zheng ignored the activities of the metropolitan graduate Li Yan, who tried to suppress the rebellion of Yuan Shizhong, was appointed by the Ming court to 50  See Tu Lien-che’s biographies of father and son in Hummel 1943–44: 688–690. 51  Des Forges 1984: 425. See also Des Forges 2003: 80–85, 134, 237–247, 293, 305, 311. 52  For a brief biography, see Chaoyang 1979: 49–50. 53  Kong 1684: 5:10b–11a, 12a, 14a; Zhongyang yanjiu yuan 1930-: jiabian, 972; Chen 1970: 54–56. 54  See the biography by Tu Lien-che in Hummel 1943–44: 434–435; Kong 1976; Chang and Chang 1978.

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defend Kaifeng and to manage taxes in northeast Henan, and retired to his home in Shandong at about the time when Li Zicheng went to Hubei. I therefore inferred that Zheng may have “decided not to destroy the Li Yen [Yan] story because he knew that its disappearance might lead to a fuller investigation of the reality of [extensive] northeast Henanese involvement with the Shun regime that lay behind it.”55 5.3

In the People’s Republic, Again

5.3.1 Luan Xing Wholly independently and at about the same time, Luan Xing (1923–201?), an eminent scholar and senior researcher in history and literature at the Henan Academy of Social Sciences in Zhengzhou, was reaching conclusions about “the Li Yan puzzle” very similar to Gu Cheng’s and my own. Luan drew on old and new materials and conducted field work to draft three manuscripts reevaluating Niu Jinxing. Luan completed his manuscripts in the 1980s and had them published in 1986. He confirmed that Niu was from Baofeng County in Xu independent department in central Henan despite the Ming History’s claim that he was from Lushi in western Henan, a claim that had caused editors of the 1837 edition of the Baofeng gazetteer to drop Niu and his son from the records. Luan also explained in detail how Niu got into trouble with his powerful inlaws, who had him jailed for personal reasons as well as for having edited the examination essays of some students before grading them. Niu therefore was in jail when Li Zicheng arrived in Henan and let him out. Niu came from a long line of teachers and he recruited some of his students and other scholars from Henan into the rebellion. He reportedly urged Li Zicheng to reduce the killing, to provide relief, and to win hearts and minds, policies often attributed to Li Yan. As we have seen, Niu was active as rebel prime minister during the three sieges of Kaifeng, and the establishment of rebel administration in Xiangyang (Xiangjing), Xi’an (Chang’an), and Beijing. Niu restored the civil service examinations, but also reformed them to accommodate more free-form writing. Luan compared Niu in the Da Shun polity to the scholar-rebel-advisors Xiao He and Shu Suntong in the Han and Li Shanchang, Xu Da and Liu Ji in the Ming. Based on the otherwise contrasting accounts of Wu Weiye and Zheng Lian, Luan argued that, over time, Niu lost confidence in Li Zicheng. Niu thus would have been highly unlikely to encourage the rebel leader to assassinate Li Yan and Li Mou (if, indeed, they even existed.) As for Niu’s ultimate fate, he took refuge in 55  Des Forges 1984: 425.

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his son’s office during the first five years of the Shunzhi reign and he managed to survive without surrendering to the new state. Nonetheless, Luan acknowledged that, after Niu died, he was often treated like a “bad last minister” in the tradition of Li Linfu (d. 753) in the Tang, Qin Gui (1090–1155) in the Song, and Yan Song (1480–1567) in the Ming. Cognizant of the “bad press” and wishing to protect the Niu family’s reputation, Niu Jinxing and his son stipulated that they should be buried separately from the rest of the family. Their descendants, however, included their names in the genealogy and their remains in the family cemetery. Luan Xing, for his part, expressed sympathy for Niu, who, he said, had been posthumously subject to so much “needless slander”. Consciously or not, Luan seemed to be echoing—and radically revising—Guo Moruo’s expressions of sympathy for Li Yan forty-two years earlier.56 After rehabilitating Niu Jinxing as an authentic Henanese provincial graduate who was prominent in advising Li Zicheng on how to overthrow the Ming and establish the Shun, Luan Xing turned his attention to debunking the story of Li Yan, who, Luan believed, had largely usurped Niu’s role in both history and literature. Luan began his essay, titled “The Puzzle of Li Yan”, by acknowledging that “the story of Li Yan and Hong Niangzi has tugged at people’s heartstrings” ever since Guo Moruo wrote his essay in 1944 and Yao Xueyin wrote his novel beginning in the 1970s. Luan believed that such popular stories were fine for historical novels, but, he argued, “historical essays are different”. According to Luan, the story of Li Yan and Hong Niangzi began in novels in Jiangnan and had no solid basis in historical facts. In his view, “Li Yan was a target personality, whose only traces are the many arrows others pumped into him.” Luan asserted, “The story of Li Yan is a puzzle, and how it was formed no one has been able to fathom.”57 Luan noted that the essay “Distinguishing Master Li” printed in the gazetteers of Qi County and Kaifeng Prefecture was correct in denying not only that Li Yan was a provincial graduate from Qi, but also that he was a scholar of any kind from that county. Luan agreed with critics of the essay that it was incorrect in attributing the Li Yan story to someone hired by a traitorous magistrate, though it is not clear on what basis Luan and other critics arrived at that conclusion. But Luan argued that one misstatement of fact should not be used to invalidate the entire document.58 In Luan’s view, the Li Yan story 56  Luan 1986: 1–59. For short biographies of the early Han models, see Chaoyang 1979: 98–99, 104 and chapter 7 below. For short biographies of the minatory models, see Chaoyang 1979: 290, 385, 395–396, 490. For fuller accounts, see Franke 1962; Twitchett 1979: 289–470; Ching 1989; Zhang 1992. 57  Luan 1986: 62–64. 58  Luan 1986: 67. For a case in point see Wang 1981.

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began in three successive novels written by the Lazy Daoist, Peng Haozi, and Lu Yingyang respectively. Those texts were all based on rumors and hearsay available in Jiangnan and they did not circulate immediately in Henan. When they did circulate, they were dismissed by the historian Zheng Lian from Shangqiu in the northeast of the province. Zheng was an informal but serious local historian who distinguished between fact and fiction and who based his account on what he had seen (or not seen) as well as on what he had heard (or not heard). Zheng’s decision to include the core of the denial of the Li Yan story in his history manuscript was evidence that it was not just the people of Qi County who feared the impact of the story on the county’s reputation but also people in a neighboring county who had less at stake in the controversy. Luan recognized that some people in Qi sympathized with the rebels while others opposed them, but he wrote that “feelings cannot take the place of history; history is a scientific discipline that must seek the truth about events.”59 Thus the 1746 edition of the Qi County gazetteer retained the essay disputing Master Li’s existence despite the Ming History’s acceptance of the core of the story. The 1788 edition of the Qi County gazetteer dropped the essay, but only out of fear of possible state intervention such as that which had been visited on Peng Jiaping in neighboring Xiayi County thirty years earlier. In Luan’s view, the deletion of the essay did not indicate any change in the minds of the people of Qi; it only demonstrated the “abuse of power under feudalism”.60 Luan noted that ever since the publication of Guo Moruo’s essay in 1944, some people in Qi County have wanted to reverse course on the Li Yan question. Instead of denying Li Yan’s connection with Qi, they have begun looking for evidence that he was indeed a scholar from that county. Foremost among advocates was a middle school teacher named Li Shaobai who tried to identify places where Li Yan’s reputed father, Li Jingbai, had lived. He also made inquiries in villages inhabited by people surnamed Li who might claim descent from Li Yan. Luan commended Li Shaobai for his enthusiasm but condemned his claims as “Qidong wild talk.” To be sure, some of Li’s sources were not fabricated, but, Luan argued, the inferences he drew from them were not warranted. For example, the gazetteer of Xiajin County in Linqing independent department in Shandong, where Li Jingbai had served in office, recorded many elements of the Li Yan story, including that Li Jingbai and Li Yan were father and son from Qi. Luan pointed out that the gazetteer had merely accepted the

59  Luan 1986: 68–71. 60  Luan 1986: 72–73.

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standard Li Yan story and therefore was not independent evidence that could be cited to confirm Li Yan existence or the location of his home.61 In a separate essay titled “Waves of Rumors about Li Yan” written in 1983, Luan had already dealt with many arguments made by amateur historians in Qi, including Chang Yusheng, Cheng Ziliang, Xing Shuen, and Du Baotian, against the validity of the essay “Distinguishing Master Li.”62 Luan noted that Yao Xueyin had lived in Qi County in the 1930s and had never heard of any scholar rebel named Li Yan. The inclusion of the essay denying Li Yan in the Kaifeng prefectural gazetteer was evidence that it was not just the residents of the single county of Qi who doubted the existence of any Li Yan of Qi. The inclusion of the essay in a Qianlong edition of the county gazetteer and in Zheng Lian’s informal history in neighboring Shangqiu showed that it was considered credible in later times and in other places. Luan rejected the idea that the Meng family in Qi and the Hou family in Shangqiu opposed the story of Li Yan in an effort to cover up their own participation in Li Zicheng’s abortive uprising. Luan pointed out that the denial had been edited—if not written— by He Yiguang, who was not related to the Mengs or Hous. Luan noted that the Hou family of Shangqiu declined after the death of Hou Fangyu and so could not have influenced the compilation of the Qi County gazetteer. Teacher Li Shaobai was wrong when he claimed that Li Jingbai had studied in the same school as Meng Shaoyu; in fact, the Yingchuan guard where Li Jingbai was registered had its own school. The mistake of recording that Li Yan earned a provincial degree in 1615 was not the fault of the county gazetteer but that of the novel by Lu Yingyang on which the Li Yan story was largely based. Finally, a local Qi scholar named Jiang Fan was only transmitting a rumor when he said he had seen Li Yan’s name in the Shunzhi edition of the Qi County gazetteer. Although that edition is no longer extant, Luan believed that Jiang’s claim was not accurate because the editor of that edition had been He Yiguang, the same scholar who later edited the Kangxi edition of the gazetteer that included the denial of the Li Yan story.63 Teacher Li Shaobai had also claimed that the so-called Crazy Boy and eighteenth son who led the jacquerie in Qi in 1638, may have been Li Yan. This conjecture was consistent with the speculation of some prominent Henanese scholars, such as Xie Guozhen, that Hong Niangzi may have been involved in that uprising. Luan Xing acknowledged that the uprising occurred and was 61  Luan 1986: 74, 204. The phrase “Qidong wild talk” was used by Mencius to describe unreliable rumors; it was also the title of a collection of notes in the Song period. 62  Xing and Du 1983. 63  Luan 1986: 193–206.

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widely publicized by the metropolitan graduate and one-time Minister of Rites Meng Shaoyu in a “Plain Ritual Verse” that could be set to music. Meng had passed the metropolitan examination in 1613, the same year in which Li Jingbai passed it, and he had been criticized as a member of the eunuch party and suffered imprisonment for three years along with Li Jingbai. The wealthy and powerful Meng family cooperated with Su Jing, the magistrate of Qi, in quickly suppressing the uprising. In his preface to the verse describing the revolt, however, Meng Shaoyu also expressed sympathy for the hungry and ill people who had joined in what appeared to be a White Lotus uprising.64 The eighteenth son, of course, could refer to anyone named Li, including Li Zicheng and Li Yan. Li Zicheng was too far away and had too few troops at this time to figure in this uprising, but, as a local resident, Li Yan was suspected by some to be involved in the event.65 Luan Xing acknowledged that the time was right, but the Crazy Boy eighteenth son figure was very different from the storied Li Yan: the rebel was a commoner while Li Yan was a degree holder; the rebel was a follower of the White Lotus teaching while Li Yan had no White Lotus links; the rebel used sacred texts to attract followers while Li Yan used famine relief to gain support: the rebel projected spirituality while Li Yan had an affair with a female acrobat; and the rebel was suppressed by Su Jing while Li Yan’s Red Commander took the town. Luan concluded, “Most important, Su Jing was real, ‘magistrate Song’ was false.”66 Here we have an example of binary thinking and authorial overreach because the magistrate Song Mei did exist and he was clearly one foundation of the Li Yan story, even though, as we have seen, he was not the magistrate of Qi during the uprising and he did not die at the hand of the rebels. The fate of the Crazy Boy and eighteenth son is not clear, but Luan argued that it seems unlikely that he/they developed into an actual historical scholarrebel named Li Yan. Meng Shaoyu may have sympathized with the rebellion because of his own troubles with the Ming court, but his family actively participated in the suppression of the uprising and Meng Shaoyu apparently remained loyal to the Ming to its end. One of Meng’s sons, Meng Jiongsu, was a different story, as we have noted, but Luan did not bring him into his account. In Luan’s view, the Crazy Boy “was not a White Lotus teacher, but must have been a young child of unknown name dressed up by his teacher as a White Lotus spirit corpse in a fashion common in the villages of the central plain.” The rebel leader, Luan wrote, was a crafty person who did not use his own name 64  Luan 1986: 74–76. 65  Luan 1986: 76–77. One scholar who thought Li Yan was involved was Zhang 1979. 66  Luan 1986: 77.

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and may not even have had the family name Li. He merely took advantage of a prophecy dating to the transition from the Later Liang (907–923) to the Later Tang (923–935). It predicted that the royal Zhu family would be replaced by a rebel Li family.67 Similar prophecies went back to the Han if not before. They were used by the founders of the Tang and Later Tang, and resurfaced during the Ming when a ruling Zhu family was once again subject to being replaced by a rising Li family.68 Luan pointed out that the sources skeptical of the Li Yan story confirmed that there was such an uprising in Qi in 1638, but they did not accept it as evidence that the storied Li Yan actually existed. Luan agreed with the skeptics but hoped to go beyond them to relate the historical events to the story. In his words: To say that the “Crazy boy” was not Li Yan is only to recognize the historical truth. The “Crazy boy” was true, Li Yan was false; truth and falsity are not equal to each other. But that is not to deny that from this event arose an idea: this popular uprising was transformed by people in Jiangnan and expanded into one of the basic events in the Li Yan story. The Li Yan story was unfounded rumor piled on unfounded rumor, gradually developing from simple to complex, so we cannot rule out this possibility [of a perceived connection between the 1638 uprising and the Li Yan story]. After careful scrutiny of the history of Qi County, it seems likely that this popular uprising was erroneously injected into the Li Yan story by distant observers. But from the historical fact of the “Crazy boy eighteenth son” to the complete persona of Li Yan in the writings of Jiangnan people, there is still a great distance. We cannot get there in one fell swoop. We must go through the layers of historical records on 1644 (including novels and plays) regarding the places where the Li Yan story was passed down and added to, hoping that some middle level materials will be discovered that can be used to prove the conception [of a link].69 Although Luan Xing began this statement with a dichotomy, he quickly moved away from the strict distinctions between history and literature and between fact and fiction that characterized much of Gu Cheng’s discussion as well as Luan’s own. Luan instead moved toward an appreciation of the possibility, indeed likelihood, of interactions between rumors and reality, fiction and fact, literature and history. 67  Luan 1986: 78; Yao 1976: 406–407. 68  See Bingham 1941; Seidel 1969–70; Shen 1982. 69  Luan 1986: 79.

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Soon Luan Xing was again categorical, however, in his assertion that “Li Yan had no younger brother Li Mou.” First, neither the essay ‘Distinguishing Master Li’ nor the book Record of the Changes in Yu that denied the Li Yan story mentioned Li Mou. That is understandable, Luan explained, because, in his words, “when the skin is gone the hair has nothing to adhere to,” i.e. when the elder brother no longer exists, there is no basis for imagining a younger brother. Second, even many accounts that discussed Li Yan made no mention of any younger brother named Li Mou. Third, other sources that mention Li Mou do so only in passing and give few details. Fourth, a few sources that offer details place him in Shanxi in 1633 as part of Gao Yingxiang’s army. In Luan’s view, this strongly suggests that he was not a Henan man, let alone the younger brother of Li Yan. Then again, perhaps there were two men named Li Mou involved in Li Zicheng’s rebellion; but, if so, the evidence for the Shaanxi man is much stronger than that for the Henan man. Fifth, Wu Weiye described Li Mou as Li Yan’s younger brother only after the rebels took Xiangyang in Hubei. Sixth, Ji Liuqi mentioned a Li Mou fourteen times, but he dropped the early Li Mou of the 1630s and focused on the later Li Mou of the 1640s. Ji also sometimes substituted the name Li Mou for other generals with the same surname, such as Li Guo, Li Zicheng’s fully historical nephew. Li Mou was mentioned in connection with several fraught issues such as: Who were the chief generals in the rebel army? Who looked after the Ming princes in the capital? Who occupied the house of the Jiading earl Zhou Kui? Who expropriated former Ming nobles and officials more or less leniently? And, finally, who stayed in Beijing to guard the capital when Li Zicheng went east to confront Wu Sangui? The Draft Ming History recorded a Li Mou but the Ming History was more cautious. It included the early Li Mou but dropped the later Li Mou who had figured in the narrative of the assassination of Li Yan.70 Based on all of this, Luan Xing concluded, “In sum, the true nature of the Li Mou who participated in the old rebel army is still subject to research. Even if he existed, the records of his activities are confused and there must be instances of false identities. As for Li Yan’s younger brother Li Mou, there was certainly no such person.”71 Here, like Gu Cheng in Beijing, Luan Xing in Zhengzhou, in his quest for certitude, seemed to go beyond the evidence and to foreclose the possibility that new evidence might someday permit a different conclusion. Luan Xing was equally adamant, of course, in denying the historicity of Hong Niangzi, and he was so with much more reason. Hong’s story, constructed relatively late by Wu Weiye, clearly seemed to be one of those strange 70  Luan 1986: 79–95. 71  Luan 1986: 96.

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tales that were very common in the late Ming. Indeed, many observers, including Guo Moruo and Yao Xueyin, had long since described her as a character fit for novels and plays. We might wonder if, in challenging her existence, Luan was not beating a dead horse. Yet a major Henanese scholar specializing in late Ming history, Xie Guozhen, had, as late as the 1960s, still held out hope that she might prove to be a real person, or perhaps persons. Consequently, as a serious historian, Luan may have felt an obligation to put that possibility to rest. In the process, he added a few details and insights that are worth mentioning. He pointed out that the county of Changyuan, which Yao Xueyin had described as Hong’s hometown, had a tradition of horse circuses which would help to explain Hong Niangzi’s equestrian skills and her mobility in northeast Henan. Wu Weiye, who had first brought Hong Niangzi into the Li Yan story, had not offered any details on how she had taken Qi County by storm. The history by Dai Li and Wu Shu had made the preposterous claim that she attacked Kaifeng and kidnapped Li Yan before Li Zicheng had even moved into western Henan. Luan naturally scoffed at the idea that Hong Niangzi could have built a military force sufficient to take the walled provincial capital or would have rallied to Li Zicheng even before the rebel leader had entered Henan and taken Luoyang. Luan pointed out that the editor of the Qi County gazetteer, who included the essay “Distinguishing Master Li” in his text, did not deny the Hong Niangzi tale only because he was not aware of it. The compiler of the Record of Changes in Yu, meanwhile, may have been aware of the Hong Niangzi figure, but perhaps saw no need to challenge her historicity because he was denying the entire story of Li Yan that included her. As for the farewell poem of Li Yan’s wife, woman Tang, included in The Record of the Decline of the State of Tao, Luan found it to be highly consistent with the writings of elite Ming women. But he also considered it to have been completely fabricated by the anonymous author writing in the high Qing period. Reverting to an absolutist mode of thinking, Luan concluded, “Woman Tang and her suicide poem were completely false.”72 One persisting puzzle was why, if Li Yan joined Li Zicheng’s forces in 1640 or 1641 as an advisor and was named a second ranking general, he seems to have played no important roles in the rebellion during its rise to power in 1642 and 1643. Luan pointed out that the only possible exception was Li Yan’s supposed participation in seizing the strategic Tong Pass from the Ming commander Sun Chuanting in 1643. (Luan did not note that this event had been developed by 72  Luan 1986: 97–111. Luan also engaged in overkill in arguing at length that the late Ming minister Li Jingbai had no son named Li Yan, a point already acknowledged by Cao Guilin and confirmed by other writers. Luan 1986: 111–119.

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Jin Yong in his novel, as we have seen. Perhaps he was unaware of that.) This important military action, if it occurred, would have credited Li Yan with a major victory that opened the road from Henan into Shaanxi, where the rebels established their first functioning state named Da Shun. Unfortunately, Luan argued, this event was added to the Li Yan story for the first time in the book compiled by Bao Yangsheng and Ren Daobin and printed in 1831. Since that book also contained the essay “Distinguishing Master Li” which doubted Li Yan’s very existence at a time when the Qing state was affirming it, readers might have paid special attention to it. Luan noted that the writers Bao and Ren described the rebel victory at Tong Pass with remarkable hyperbole as “the greatest change since the Tang and Song”. After examining the evidence, Luan found the entire account baseless, just another example of an “arrow” having been shot into the “target” of the Li Yan persona. In fact, Luan concluded, the Li who was active in the battle for Tong Pass was not Li Yan but Li Guo.73 Luan added further details that seemed to discredit accounts of Li Yan’s role as protector of the optimus scholar Liu Lishun from Qi County and the Yi’an empress, who originally hailed, he claimed, from Xiangfu County. Luan noted that the early Qing historian Gu Yingtai had initiated the story that Liu had committed suicide along with his wife, son, concubine, and eighteen servants despite the intervention of a rebel general named Li who tried to persuade him to accept the new regime. Other early texts recorded that people from the “central province” were especially moved by Liu’s suicide, but they did not describe any rebel general named Li, let alone Li Yan, as intervening in the case. Luan argued that it was the New Edition of the Novel about Suppressing Dashing that first had “Master Li”, understood to be Li Zicheng, express concern about the case. It was the historian Wu Weiye who interpreted the locution “Master Li” to refer to Li Yan and so depicted Li Yan as intervening in the case. Soon thereafter, Zha Jizuo described “someone wearing red” entreating Liu not to commit suicide. As we have seen, this suggested to Cao Guilin possible involvement of the White Lotus in trying to save the county’s famous optimus scholar in Beijing. But Luan was skeptical that the jacquerie in Qi reflected the actions of any rebel-scholar-advisor Li Yan or that Li Yan was involved in protecting Liu Lishun in Beijing. In his words: This person dressed in red was obviously of modest background, a small gang leader, and could not have been Li Yan; there were quite a few generals in the Da Shun army named Li, and wearing red was certainly not 73  Luan 1986: 120–122.

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limited to Li Yan. But rumors could easily have mistaken the wind for rain and applied the description to Li Yan.74 Luan ended his discussion with the observation that the Ming History made no mention of Li Yan trying to save Liu Lishun, either in its “aligned biography of bandits” or in its aligned biography of Liu Lishun. To that extent, the Ming History was in line with the Marxist historiographical principle of “seeking truth through facts,” the touchstone guide to thought in China in the 1980s, when Luan was writing his essays.75 The New Edition of the Novel Suppressing Dashing also claimed that Li Yan instructed his subordinates not to harm the Yi’an Empress, who had favored the Eastern Forest reform party during her husband’s Tianqi reign. Since her father, Zhang Guoji, was from Xiangfu County in Henan, Donglin partisans seem to have thought that Li Yan would want to protect her from the rebel wrath despite Li Yan’s father’s supposed association with the “eunuch party.” Tan Qian and Wu Weiye followed the first novel, The New Edition, with Tan recording that the rebel general Liu Zongmin provided her with an escort and with Wu claiming that it was Li Yan who tried to protect her. In any case, whoever did what (if anything) to save the empress, she was successful in avoiding abuse and was allowed to take her own life. Other earlier and better informed writers familiar with conditions in Beijing, including Zhao Shijin and Qian Xin, did not include this story in their accounts, suggesting that it was a product of the novelistic mentality in Jiangnan.76 It therefore seems to have been yet another apocryphal tale designed to demonstrate the scholar-rebel-advisor’s efforts to win broad support for the Da Shun state. Luan observed that another such story, this time celebrating Li Yan’s supposed military achievements, had him joining with Liu Zongmin, Li Guo, and Tang Tong at the head of eighteen battalions to resist Wu Sangui’s forces closing in on Beijing at the end of the fourth month. In a modification of the usual pattern, Li Yan’s participation in this event did not appear in what Luan considered to be the first two novels; it emerged only in the third. In another departure from the usual situation, the story was included in the earlier, usually more reliable, accounts by Tan Qian, Gu Yingtai, and Peng Sunyi, but it was not included in later, usually more fulsome and dubious, studies by Wu Weiye and the compilers of the Ming History. In fact, Luan argued, Wu Sangui surrendered to the Qing on the twenty-first day of the fourth month, Li Zicheng 74  Luan 1986: 126–131. 75  Luan 1986: 131. 76  Luan 1986: 131–137.

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executed Wu Xiang in Yongping Prefecture in eastern Jingshi and retreated to Beijing on the twenty-sixth. Li mounted the throne on the twenty-ninth, and left Beijing for Shaanxi on the thirtieth. The Qing Prince Regent Dorgon led Qing forces into Beijing on the second day of the fifth month in the guise of Ming troops restoring Ming authority in the capital. Wu Sangui led his forces south to Zhending Prefecture in southwest Jingshi, where he defeated some of Li Zicheng’s troops. Li Zicheng then moved west through Gu Pass into Shanxi and Wu Sangui returned to Beijing. In sum, in Luan’s view, there was no major battle between Li Zicheng and Wu Sangui in the suburbs of Beijing and thus no participation by Li Yan in such a confrontation. Luan did not question why the original source, the third novel by Lu Yingyang, mentioned only twelve battalions under the rebels’ command while the first printed formal history by Gu Yingtai mentioned eighteen battalions at their disposal. This, again, appears to be a shift in the usual relationship between the novels and the histories.77 Luan next returned to “distinguishing Li Yan’s death”, now seen from the perspective of Li Yan or, more precisely, from the viewpoint of a scholar (Luan) who doubted Li Yan’s very existence. Luan began with a critique of Wu Weiye, whose cultural credentials earned him a commanding role in early Qing historiography on the late Ming. Luan pointed out several basic errors in Wu’s book on the late Ming rebellions due to his lack of familiarity with the topography and towns of the central plain and with the events of the late Ming. For example, Wu described a grand meeting of rebel leaders in Xingyang County in Zheng independent department in central Henan that, Luan argues, never took place. Wu confused one battle for Ru independent department in central Henan with another battle for the same place. He also mistook Xiangcheng County in Henan for Xiangyang County in Hubei. Indeed, the highly respected early Qing bibliographer Zhu Yizun (1629–1709) found so many discrepancies in Wu’s account as well as between it and other sources that he wrote that he did not know how the book could be useful in compiling the Ming History.78 Based on his study of Niu Jinxing’s role in the rebellion, Luan stated that Wu “Meicun’s account of Niu Jinxing’s slander of Li Yan was a complete falsehood.”79 Luan pointed out that the assassination of Li Yan did not appear in early sources on the rebel tenure in Beijing, such as that of Qian Xin, or in local sources in the central plain, such as that of Zheng Lian. It was not included in Gu Yingtai’s early printed history or even in the main body of Ji Liuqi’s otherwise undiscriminating account of the rebellions based heavily 77  Luan 1986: 138–145. 78  Luan 1986: 145. For a biography of Zhu by Fang Chao-ying, see Hummel 1943–44: 182–185. 79  Luan 1986: 146.

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on the novels. The assassination did occur in many other sources, including an addendum to Ji’s work, but it appeared in a nearly uniform version that can be traced back directly or indirectly to the novel by the Lazy Daoist. When Wu Weiye was drafting his account in 1652, the Lazy Daoist’s novel was already circulating widely and Peng Haozi’s novel with a version of the same story had just been published. As we have seen, the original account in the novels was quite verbose. Wu’s goal was simply to depict the conflict within the rebel leadership as the main cause of the rebels’ failure to establish an enduring regime. He therefore deleted the first half of the Lazy Daoist’s long passage on the assassination and focused on the second half. In Luan’s opinion, the only factual part of the passage was Ding Qiguang’s arrest of the Da Shun magistrates in Guide and his sending them to Nanjing for punishment. In his words, “the rest is all the Lazy Daoist’s wild and chaotic fabrication”.80 Luan analyzed the various reports of the time and place of the supposed assassination and tried his best to make sense of them. He noted that Wu Weiye and Mao Qiling followed the novels in dating the assassination to the second day of the fifth month, soon after the defeat of the rebels by Wu Sangui at Dingzhou (also known as Zhending) Prefecture in western Jingshi Province and before Li Zicheng went through Gu pass to Shanxi. But that was more than a month before Ding Qiguang arrested the Shun magistrates in Guide on the seventh day of the sixth month. This, of course, was a major problem for everyone who believed that Ding’s action had led Li Yan to propose to take troops south, the proposal that had led in turn to his assassination. Seeing this blatant contradiction, other historians such as Tan Qian and Peng Sunyi changed the date of Li Yan’s assassination to the twenty-first day of the sixth month and located it in Pingyang Prefecture in southwestern Shanxi. This was a kind of solution to the inconsistencies in Wu’s account, but it seems not to have been based on any new or different information. Tan continued to rely on the novels for his account. According to Luan, moreover, Tan gave away the game by referring to Li Mou as “the general who smites the north”. That title was used by Peng Haozi in his novel, but it was not used by the rebels themselves. Wu Weiye who was more knowledgeable than Tan about the Da Shun bureaucracy, dropped that title. Wu mentioned Li Mou several times in his book, but never gave him an official title, raising questions about Li Mou’s identity and possibly even his existence. The Draft Ming History followed Wu Weiye’s contradictory account in referring to the defeat at Dingzhou, but dated the assassination two months later and located it nearly two provinces away. Luan believed that the compilers of the Ming History discovered that Li Mou had accompanied Gao 80  Luan 1986: 147–149.

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Yingxiang from Shaanxi to Henan and therefore was not likely to have been Li Yan’s younger brother who was supposed to be from Henan. The compilers therefore deleted Li Mou from the account of the assassination, but they retained the supposed ensuing conflict between Niu Jinxing and Liu Zongmin, and described Liu as going to Henan in the wake of Li Yan’s death. Commenting on the report of Liu’s supposed trip to Henan which had originated with the novelist Lu Yingyang and was reiterated by the historian Ji Liuqi, Luan wrote with confidence: “In fact there was no such event.”81 In conclusion, Luan argued that there were only these filiated texts and no other independent sources of information so nothing could be proved one way or the other. But, in Luan’s judgment, conflicting views of the time, place, circumstances, and consequences of Li Yan’s death tended to support the position that Li Yan was, as Zheng Lian had put it, “a non-existent gentleman”. In Luan’s words: The story that Li Yan was killed after the defeat at Dingzhou and before Zicheng entered Shanxi cannot be substantiated. The story that Li Yan was killed on the twenty-second day of the sixth month (the Assessment of the Polity’s recorded “next day”) in Pingyang was clearly a result of forcing historical records to fill holes and also cannot be substantiated. Basically, the man did not exist so how could he die? It was only a case of having people hope in vain for a historical site and event.82 Given all of the many doubts about Li Yan’s origins and early life, his virtual disappearance during the rebels’ rise to power, and his sudden emergence as a key—presumably the key—advisor to Li Zicheng in Beijing, Luan had good reason to question the details—indeed the basic fact—of Li Yan’s demise. Luan turned next to “refuting other Li Yan matters in Ji Liuqi’s Northern Record”, i.e. key “documents” containing the advice he supposedly gave to the rebel leader. Luan focused on four of them. He announced at the start that “they all lacked any factual support and derived from several story books [chap books?] at the beginning of the Qing.83 Luan agreed with Gu Cheng that Ji Liuqi had done no original research but had simply taken passages from the three novels and labeled them as if they were historical—even archival— materials. Thus he took the passage titled “Li Yan rallies to Zicheng” from Lu Yingyang’s Strange Hearsay. He took a second passage, titled “Li Yan tells 81  Luan 1986: 150–152. 82  Luan 1986: 153–156. 83  Luan 1986: 156–157.

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Zicheng to practice humaneness and justice” from the prototype that was included in all three novels.84 As for the ditties, such as “Nothing to eat, nothing to wear; open the gates Dashing Prince will be there; when Dashing Prince comes, there’ll be grain to spare,” they all came from the people suffering from drought, locusts, and famine. Even the scholar Zhang Dai, who did not join the rebels, recognized that fact. There was therefore no need to attribute them to any elite publicist such as Li Yan.85 As for Li Yan’s “Advice to Zicheng on four matters,” it was included in the Lazy Daoist’s and Peng Haozi’s texts but not in Lu Yingyang’s. Both Peng and Ji Liuqi took the passage from the Lazy Daoist who composed it at a time when he thought that Wu Sangui might still be able to save the Ming from the Shun and the Qing. Many other early accounts, such as those by Qian Xin and Yang Shicong did not mention it.86 In Luan’s judgment, the four-point advice was a case of “being clairvoyant from afar” and “intelligent after the fact.” In his words: In the old days in our country, there was no system of remuneration for writing. From Su Wu [140–60 BCE]’s and Li Ling [d. 74 BCE]’s gifts of poetry and including Yue Fei’s “Full River Red,” we don’t know how many poems were written anonymously in others’ names. This draft memorial at first glance seems to be true and the commentary is completely serious, but the discussion is not in accord with the facts.87 Luan appeared to think that prime minister Niu Jinxing acted in accord with the four-point memorial and tried to win broad support from Ming figures such as Wu Sangui and associates of the Eastern Forest and Restoration Societies. The fourth “document” depicting “Song Xiance and Li Yan discussing defects in the Ming system of selecting officials,” was taken from the first and second novels. Luan believed that it reflected the reformist thinking of early Qing scholars such as Gu Yanwu.88 Luan asked: how, then, did the Li Yan in the puzzle get formed? He replied that Li Yan “was formed, as were other ‘storied persons’ in ancient history, popular stories, historical novels, and plays; his persona was built up in layers.”89 But the Li Yan story went further than most previous cases, and “a ‘rumored character’ became a ‘historical personality’ or even a ‘historical source’ … 84  Luan 1986: 158–159. 85  Luan 1986: 161. 86  Luan 1986: 162–163. 87  Luan 1986: 164. 88  Luan 1986: 164–167. For Gu, see Peterson 1966, 1969. 89  Luan 1986: 168–169.

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transforming a fabrication into a truth”.90 To make his case, Luan compared specific passages in Ji Liuqi’s text with those in the novels by the Lazy Daoist and Lu Yingyang. Luan argued that the highly respected Republican historian of the Qing, Meng Sen (1868–1937), had exaggerated the historical authenticity of Lu’s novel.91 Luan then asked: what is the Li Yan puzzle now? He replied to his own question in the following way: In general, … half of the traces of Li Yan in the historical sources of 1644 originated in rumors in the southern states and half in the fabrications of novelists…. the puzzle is basically who was the rumored ‘Master Li.’ … When Li Zicheng entered western Henan at the end of Chongzhen thirteen. It was a turning point in the military and political conditions of the farmers’ army. He then occupied the central plain, rose to Shaanxi, crossed Shanxi, and took the capital. In this period the ‘Master Lis’ seen in the ‘rebellion of Master Li’ all referred to Zicheng. After the Qing entered the pass and the southern capital fell, in the rumors rife in Jiangnan, Zhejiang, and Fujian and in the writings of literati living in those places, it [the title ‘Master Li’] was gradually transferred from Li Zicheng to Li Yan. This should be an important thread to follow in solving the Li Yan puzzle.92 Luan supported his argument that the title Master Li was applied first and foremost to Li Zicheng by referring to two early memoirs by Peng Shiheng and Liu Shangyou, persistent and widespread confusion over the relationships among Li Zicheng, Master Li, and Li Yan, and Luan’s own personal experience of hearing stories of the Master Li Rebellion when he was growing up in Mengjin County in northwest Henan in the Republican era. Luan attributed the decision to bestow the title Master Li on the persona of Li Yan to Wu Weiye and Ji Liuqi.93 Luan next took up the issue of the several ways of writing Li Yan’s personal name including various Yans with various meanings: cliff (岩/巖), flame (炎), a sacred region (兖) associated with the Xia, and delay/engage (延). Luan agreed with Gu Cheng that the Yan associated with the Xia was the most significant name. Whereas Gu thought the name was probably given to Li Yan to associate 90  Luan 1986: 169–170. 91  Luan 1986: 170–175. 92  Luan 1986: 176. 93  Luan 1986: 176–178.

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him with the prophecy that an eighteenth son would take the throne however, Luan thought it was probably the scholar rebel advisor’s original name and that it was eventually replaced by 岩/巖 because it was fairly rare and difficult to write. Because Luan believed that the storied Li Yan was a non-existent person, he thought that “Li Yan (meaning cliff) was a nickname for Li Zicheng” and so were the other three Yans!94 Luan acknowledged that there was no evidence in China for why Li Zicheng was called Master Li, but he pointed to Gu Cheng’s discovery of the Japanese book titled The Transformation from Hua to Yi which contained an essay titled “Hearsay regarding military chaos in the late Ming.” Luan described this source as dating to the eighth month of 1644 and based on testimony from Chinese sailors who shared their views with Japanese in Nagasaki. Luan said the document was “very important”. It described Li Zicheng as the grandson of a minister of troops from Mizhi County in Yan’an Prefecture in Shaanxi. In 1634, Li Zicheng paid the taxes of his less fortunate neighbors during a drought and famine. When conditions continued to be poor the following year, the magistrate demanded that Li again pay people’s taxes. When Li was unable to do so he was jailed. His beneficiaries thereupon stormed the county jail and liberated him. He then went on to organize a rebellion that overthrew the Ming state. In the sixth month of 1645, in another briefing by “Tang people” (a common Japanese name for the Chinese), it was reported that “on the nineteenth day of the third month [of 1644], the chief commander of the military uprising Master Li occupied Beijing….” Luan noted that “there was no doubt that this referred to Zicheng and not Li Yan.”95 Luan concluded that this description of Li Zicheng’s relatively high social status and his experience in helping his neighbors and being arrested was very similar to that of the storied Li Yan in the three novels and subsequent histories, suggesting that it was a primary source of those later accounts or at least the product of similar conditions. In Luan’s words, “This narrative must have been the embryonic form of the Li Yan story that was later continuously developed and it is an important key for opening up the Li Yan conundrum.”96 In conclusion, Luan thought that Li Yan emerged as someone “eager to help those in distress”. He began as an individual, but gradually acquired a family, including a father, younger brother, wife, and lover because that was expected. He faded from the scene during Li Zicheng’s rise to power from 1641 to early 1644, but he “came alive again” in Beijing, where he advocated policies that 94  Luan 1986: 178–183. 95  Luan 1986: 184–185. 96  Luan 1986: 185.

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would have been successful if they had been fully adopted. His death at the hands of his fellow Henanese, Niu Jinxing, sharpened the contrast between the hero and the villain. It also helped to explain the falling out of the rebel leaders, a common trope in the history of failed Chinese rebellions. In Luan’s view, not one of Li Yan’s actions can be verified, but all were possible in the minds of contemporaries searching for a simple explanation of the rise and fall of the Shun state. The love and respect shown the Li Yan persona reflected authors’ and readers’ sympathies for the farmers’ uprising. But, in Luan’s words: The line between literature and history must be clear, historical facts are of the first order of existence; otherwise all judgments, including wellmeaning ones issuing from political needs at a certain time, are difficult to describe as Marxist. Everyone has a utilitarian mind and heart, but to proceed from utility and literarily ornamented historical facts is not a Marxist approach to history.97 Like Gu Cheng, Luan Xing ended his essay by calling for more data that could confirm or disconfirm his analysis. 5.4

In Japan

5.4.1 Sato Fumitoshi In 1985, building on an earlier article about the local rebel Yuan Shizhong, the Japanese historian, Professor Sato Fumitoshi, published a monograph titled Farmers’ uprisings at the end of the Ming.98 In this fairly comprehensive analysis of Chinese and Japanese scholarship on popular movements all over China, Sato devoted one chapter to debates over the nature of the Da Shun regime, the evaluation of Li Yan, and the evolution of the slogan of equal fields. He began his discussion with a nod to Guo Moruo’s seminal article on Li Yan, and he described the contributions of other Chinese scholars, including Li Wenzhi, Cao Guilin, Zhou Weimin, Hong Huanchun, and Sun Zuomin to the study of Li Yan.99 He summarized the debate among Yang Kuan and other scholars over how to appraise Li Yan’s role in the Da Shun regime.100 Sato then turned to Gu Cheng’s debate with Zhang Guoguang over whether Li Yan was a historical 97  Luan 1986: 186–188. 98  Sato 1978. 99  Sato 1985: 294–296. 100  Sato 1985: 296–298.

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as well as literary personality.101 Sato reviewed Wang Xingya’s portrait of Niu Jinxing based on the biography written by Geng Xingzong.102 Finally, Sato traced the importance of the ideal of “equal fields” in the writings of Zha Jizuo, Hou Wailu, Fu Yuzhang, Liu Chongri, and Wang Shouyi.103 In response to Luan Xing’s major study and suggestions for resolution of the Li Yan puzzle published in 1986, Sato conducted a comprehensive review of Chinese, American, and Japanese scholarship on “the Master Li puzzle.” He examined the origins and development of Li Zicheng’s rebellion, the migration of the title Master Li from Li Zicheng to Li Yan, and the debates among historians and novelists who affirmed the Li Yan story and those who denied it during the Qing, the Republic, and the first decades of the People’s Republic. He found that, during the 1970s and 1980s, there were three major schools of thought on the Li Yan matter. First there were historians and writers who basically affirmed the story. They included the great majority of writers, notably Guo Moruo, Xie Guozhen, Cao Guilin, Wang Xingya, Li Xiaobo, Xing Shuen, Du Baotian, Zhang Guoguang, Fan Peiwei, Li Xiaosheng, Zhang Hefeng, and Chen Shengxi. Second, there were a few scholars who discounted the story, including notably Gu Cheng, Luan Xing, and Qin Xinlin. Third, there were some who adopted a middle position, emphasizing the interplay of fact and fiction, history and literature, and looking for additional evidence to solve the puzzle. They included Gu Cheng, Luan Xing, Wang Xingya, Yao Xueyin, and the present writer. Sato provided an even-handed overview of the issues and seemed to find merit in all three positions. By 2010, when he finally published his conclusions, however, the discovery in 2004 of major new evidence had already provided a basis for all interested scholars to reassess the issues. In the meantime, debate continued among members of the three schools of thought.104 5.5

Persistence of the Story

5.5.1 Li Xiaosheng Despite Gu Cheng’s and Luan Xing’s best efforts to disprove Li Yan’s historicity, efforts continued to document the Li Yan story as both history and literature. In 1986, the same year in which Luan Xing published his book on the puzzle of Li Yan, a student at Henan University in Kaifeng named Li Xiaosheng, who was 101  Sato 1985: 298–299. 102  Sato 1985: 300. 103  Sato 1985: 301–306. 104  Sato 2010.

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from Qi County, published an article claiming that he had discovered the historical personality behind the storied Li Yan.105 With the help of local elders and an instructor named Fan Peiwei, Li Xiaosheng had pieced together fragments of a genealogical manuscript to reconstruct a nearly complete document titled The Li Family Genealogy. The family records began with the founder who, like many others, moved from Shanxi to Henan to work lands abandoned during the wars at the end of the Yuan and beginning of the Ming. The first edition of the genealogy was compiled by members of the eighth generation in the middle of the Wanli reign (ca. 1600), and it was most recently updated by members of the fourteenth generation in the early Qianlong reign (1749). According to the genealogy, the first several generations of the family were commoners with few resources, but, beginning with the sixth generation, the family evolved into five branches, with members of the first branch beginning to pass the examinations and to accumulate wealth. The family reached its golden age from the eighth to the twelfth generations when some members held civil and military offices of increasing importance. One served in the Zhou principality in Kaifeng, and several married into other local branches of the Zhu royal line. The genealogy greatly exaggerated in claiming that the family from the sixth to the twelfth centuries produced eleven metropolitan and five provincial graduates, but it seems that it could boast many government and military students as well as numerous literary and artistic talents. According to Li Xiaosheng, the wealth of the Li family is evident in the remnants of its cemetery, which include three stone stelae. The original family property consisted of 540 mu (almost 100 acres) that have recently been designated a cultural site protected by the local administration of Qi County. According to Li, there was a saying that the “Lis constitute half the county”, which he interpreted to mean that members of the lineage were prominent in Qi during the late Ming.106 A man named Li Yan (cliff) appeared in the twelfth generation of the fourth branch. During the tenth through twelfth generations of the Li family, Li Zicheng’s rebel forces were active in the region. According to the Qianlong edition of the Qi County gazetteer, they appeared in the region seven times: in 1635, 1638, 1639, 1640, 1642, and twice in 1644. As a result, many members of the family “were lost, had no progeny, lost their names, fled, or died.” Although there is no historical record regarding if and when Li Yan entered the farmers’ army, Li Xiaosheng argued, “in view of the environment at the time, there

105  Li 1986. A preliminary report had appeared a year earlier. See Fan and Li 1985. An English translation was published the following year. See Li 1987. 106  Li 1986: 53–54; Li 1987: 39–41.

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were no doubt conditions that would have enabled him to do so.”107 During the severe drought in 1640, “the Li family to which Li Yan belonged was the only one wealthy and powerful enough to disburse several thousand catties of relief grain, to encourage the magistrate to provide relief, and to disperse the masses of famished people who converged on the county yamen.” “For this reason,” Li Xiaosheng concluded “the Li Yan described by historians and the Li Yan in the Li Family Genealogy are really one person.”108 In Li Xiaosheng’s view, local histories and informants provide further evidence that the Li Yan in the genealogy may have been the reality behind the Li Yan in the story. According to an essay by a late Ming local scholar-official, Qin Mengxiong, which appeared in the gazetteer of Qi County, when Li Zicheng’s army first attacked Xifeizhai village in 1635, Qin’s son, named Sheng, led his men on horseback to resist them. Later, in 1637 and 1638, Qin Sheng built a wall to defend Xifeizhai from the regional rebel Yuan Shizhong. In 1642, when Li Zicheng’s troops attacked Xifeizhai for a third time, according to the Qin Family Genealogy, Qin Mengxiong was among those killed. Elderly men in the region in the twentieth century recall hearing that Li Zicheng’s rebel forces used a village named Qinglonggang, populated largely by people named Li, as a base from which to attack Xifeizhai, located about five li (a mile and half) to the south.109 According to local informants recorded by Li Xiaosheng: Li Zicheng’s farmers’ army stationed troops at Qinglonggang because they recognized the Lis as their family. In fact, Li Zicheng was a Shaanxi native and had no relations with the Lis of Qinglonggang; the person who recognized them as family must have been Li Yan, who was effectively returning home. There are people in Qinglonggang [today] who say that when Li Zicheng was attacking Xifeizhai there was someone who expressed the opinion that he should stop it. This was when Li Zicheng was attacking Kaifeng for the third time. To take BianLiang, it was absolutely necessary to wipe out the landlord military in the region around Kaifeng. But that person nonetheless advised against it. Who was that person and why did he do that? That person may have been Li Yan. For one thing, Li Yan was local and familiar with the situation in Xifeizhai. Moreover, the Qin and Li families often intermarried and their relations through marriage were

107  Li 1986: 54; Li 1987: 41. 108  Li 1986: 55; Li 1987: 42. 109  Li 1986: 55; Li 1987: 43.

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very dense. But Li Zicheng did not heed his counsel, and continued to attack, finally destroying the landlord military power there. As a result of Li Zicheng’s farmer’s army having garrisoned Qing­ longgang and assaulted Xifeizhai, the Qins and Lis ended their tradition of intermarriage. For the last three hundred years, the Qins and Lis have not intermarried, and few matchmakers who understand anything about this are willing to even try to arrange marriages between members of the two lineages. This phenomenon not only proves the little-known historical fact that the farmers’ army garrisoned Qinglonggang and attacked Xifeizhai; it also attests to the value of the other oral testimony above.110 Li Xiaosheng pointed out that, according to the genealogy, there were over thirty members of the tenth through twelfth generations whose progeny were cut off, who fled, or who were lost. He also noted that Li Zicheng was based in Qinglonggang for more than a month. He therefore thought that some of the thirty family members may have joined the farmers’ army and left the area with Li Zicheng. For example, there was one Li Mu, a cousin of Li Yan’s in the twelfth generation. Perhaps he was the reality behind the story of Li Mou, who was said to be Li Yan’s younger brother. After all, Li Xiaosheng argued, the public used different characters, including Yan (嚴, majestic) and Yan (言, speech), for the storied Li Yan’s personal name. They might have used various characters for Li Mou’s personal name as well. Finally, the Li Yan in the genealogy had a father whose personal name was Dengyun. Li Xiaosheng stated that there was a man named Li Dengyun in Li Zicheng’s movement and he asserted that this coincidence “merits further inquiry and research.”111 Unfortunately, Li did not cite any sources for the storied Li Yan’s alternative names (majestic and speech), and I have not seen those names applied to Li Yan in other sources. Li Xiaosheng also neglected to document Li Yan’s father’s (i.e. Dengyun’s) supposed participation in Li Zicheng’s rebellion. In that same year, 1986, Zhang Hefeng used the same genealogy of the Li family of Qi County, to argue for the storied Li Yan’s location in Qi. Zhang added the testimony of an elder from Likanghe village in nearby Sui department who claimed to be a descendant of Li Yan. He said that, when Li Yan joined Li Zicheng, his relatives were to be punished, but Li Yan’s mother and a relative named Li Kanghou managed to escape and settle in Likanghe village. Zhang also invoked the family instructions of the Lu family of Zhengzhou in which it was said that Li Yan had tried to persuade a family member to join the 110  Li 1986: 55; Li 1987: 43–44. 111  Li 1986: 56; Li 1987: 44.

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rebellion. The Lu family member was said to have refused the invitation, but Li Yan continued to look favorably on the Lu family and accorded it protection when Li Zicheng was campaigning in the region.112 5.5.2 Chen Shengxi Two years later, in 1988, Chen Shengxi published an article titled “A new inquiry into the historical facts about Li Yan in Beijing.” Pace Gu Cheng and Luan Xing, Chen argued that the Little Stories about the Suppression of Dashing contained valuable historical information and should not be dismissed as simply a novel. Pace the present writer, Chen argued that the metropolitan graduate Li Yan from Laiyang, Shandong, who held several posts in northeast Henan before retiring in 1643, had nothing more than his name in common with the storied Li Yan. Chen insisted further that the storied Li Yan’s numerous activities in Beijing constituted strong evidence of his existence. Chen agreed with Wang Xingya, at Zhengzhou University, that at least three scholar-officials had not just heard about—but had actually seen—Li Yan, who was active in the rebel ranks in Xi’an and in Beijing. Chen also argued that the four-point memorial reflected the conditions in the capital when it was written and should not be entirely discounted as fiction. Finally, Chen returned to the issue of Master Li’s reported activities in eastern Jingshi during Li Zicheng’s confrontation with Wu Sangui. Gu Cheng had examined the evidence a decade earlier and had decided that the Master Li mentioned there referred only to Li Zicheng, but Chen continued to contend that it referred to Li Yan.113 5.5.3 Qin Xinlin In response to these defenses of the established—or slightly modified—Li Yan story, Qin Xinlin, a former student of Gu Cheng’s and now a professor emeritus at the Anyang Institute of Politics and History, published three articles on the Li Yan question. In the first, which appeared in 1995, Qin noted that the story of Li Yan and Hong Niangzi was being widely disseminated in film as well as in texts.114 Without citing Luan Xing, Qin agreed with him that “Li Yan was a literary figure created by novelists based on confused rumors.” Qin also thought that the Little Stories of Suppressing Dashing (or what Qin called The Novel of Suppressing Dashing) was “reactionary” insofar as it attributed the creation of songs calling for relief and welcoming rebels to a supposed intellectual rather than to the masses. The novel also depicted Li Zicheng as a killer of 112  Zhang 1986, cited in Sato 2010: 170–172. 113  Wang 1985; Chen 1988. 114  More research would be necessary to locate these films.

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military and civil subordinates, including the “non-existent” Li Yan and Li Mou. Qin pointed once more to the long hiatus between Li Yan’s rallying to Li Zicheng in 1640 and his actions in Beijing followed by his death on the road through Shanxi in 1644. In Qin’s view, this gap of several years was strong evidence of Li Yan’s non-existence as a historical personality.115 In a second article published in 1996, Qin criticized Li Xiaosheng’s and others’ articles defending Li Yan’s historicity. He noted that the late Li Shaobai had linked a Li Xin in a genealogy with the Li Xin in the Li Yan story and had located him in Taiping village southeast of the Qi County seat. That Li Xin, however, turned out to have lived many generations earlier. He also had descendants who were of Jewish descent and who played a role in resisting the rebel attacks on Kaifeng at the end of the Ming. In Qin’s judgment, such a family was unlikely to have produced a scholar-rebel who would become advisor to the commoner-rebel Li Zicheng.116 Although families that resisted rebels might later join them, Qin’s finding about timing seems to be conclusive evidence against Li Shaobai’s candidate for the historical figure behind the storied Li Yan. More recently, Qin noted, Li Xiaosheng suggested that a Li Yan in the twelfth generation of another Li lineage was the historical figure behind the Li Yan story. Qin argued that the facts do not support this thesis. Li Xiaosheng claimed that the Li lineage to which Li Yan belonged was wealthy and powerful, but Qin pointed out that the lineage had reached its apogee already in the eighth and ninth generations, three to four generations before Li Yan. Status, wealth, and power were also concentrated in the senior branch of the family whereas Li Yan was in the fourth branch. In Qin’s view, it seems unlikely that Li Yan was a provincial graduate or even a government student because the genealogy would have mentioned that if it had been the case. As for why Li Zicheng felt as if he were coming home to family when he stationed his rebel forces at Qinglonggang in 1640, that may have been simply because it was customary for people to think of themselves as related to others bearing the same surname even when they were not. In addition, the Lis of Qinglonggang had originated in Shanxi at the beginning of the Ming, so some family link might have been assumed on both sides without the presence of any Li Yan. By the same token, the Lis and Qins of this region in Qi County may have terminated their longlived practice of intermarrying simply because Li Zicheng’s troops, perhaps supported by members of the local Li family, attacked Xifeizhai, which was

115  Qin 1995: 71, 73, 75. 116  Xiaosheng 1989: 6.

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defended by the Qin family, and killed the local scholar-official Qin Mengxiong in 1642.117 As for the thirty members of the tenth through twelfth generations of the Li family who were lost or had no progeny, they need not all have joined Li Zicheng’s army. Some probably died of hunger, disease, or casualties incurred in the almost constant fighting that characterized the region in this period. Many of them belonged to the privileged and wealthy branch of the family, suggesting that they may actually have died at the hands of the rebels, not their suppressors. As for this Qi County Li Yan, there was no indication that he fled or lacked progeny; in fact, he had three sons. Qin noted that another scholar, Zhang Hefeng, had pointed to the uprising of the Crazy Boy and eighteenth son in Qi in 1638 and argued that Li Yan in the genealogy may have been the leader of that revolt. But the Qi County gazetteer relates that those rebels failed to take the county seat and were suppressed by the magistrate Su Jing, who went on to hold other posts and suppress other rebels before surrendering himself to Li Zicheng. The Li family genealogy records that Li Fa in the twelfth generation “fled the chaos at the end of the Ming and was lost.” As Li Yan was also in the twelfth generation, Zhang Hefeng infers that he too may have gone off with Li Zicheng. But this ignores the fact that Li Fa was in the main branch while Li Yan was in the fourth. As often happened in “feudal society,” because families often had many children over long periods of time, family members of the same generation but different branches of the clan could actually live at quite different times. In fact, it appears that Li Yan’s father, Li Dengyun, was no more than ten sui old at the end of the Ming and Li Yan may have been born as late as 1670. If so, he could not have been the storied Li Yan who died in 1644. Another problem is Li Yan’s name. If he was really the Li Yan who joined Li Zicheng according to the story, in Henan he should have had his original personal name (Xin) which was supposedly changed to Yan only by Li Zicheng. On another front, if the Li Yan in the genealogy had joined Li Zicheng and become a “bandit,” one wonders why his name was even included in the genealogy.118 Here Qin assumed that a compiler of a genealogy would be comfortable deleting black sheep from the record, but, as we shall see, that was not always the case. Qin Xinlin adduced other reasons for doubting that the storied Li Yan existed. He noted that Qi County was only about thirty miles from Kaifeng, which was assaulted by the rebels three times, including twice after Li Yan had supposedly rallied to Li Zicheng as an advisor. Yet there is no mention of 117  Qin 1996: 77. 118  Qin 1996: 78–79.

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his (Li Yan’s) playing any role during these important events, such as advising Li Zicheng on how to deal with the disastrous flooding of the Yellow River. According to a memoir of a defender of Kaifeng city from the rebels, there were also some fifty thousand men from Qi who were involved in the defense of Kaifeng city from the rebels, but there is no evidence that Li Yan offered any advice to Li Zicheng on how to overcome them. Li Guangtian, who led militia in defending the city from the rebels made no mention of Li Yan in his Diary of the Defense of Bian. Li Yan’s name was also missing from Ji Liuqi’s list, which included Li You (友 friend) and many others who joined the rebel forces in Henan. As others have argued, Li Yan was named a general in the rebel forces but played no obvious role in the rebel administration in Xiangyang (in Hubei) or in Xi’an (in Shaanxi).119 There were rumors that Li Yan was much more active in the rebel regime in Beijing, but of more than 2,000 civil and military officials in the city, not one, Qin insisted, attested to actually seeing Li Yan. Some of the more than 1,000 gazetteers examined by Gu Cheng referred to rebel officials, but not one mentioned any Li Yan. In Beijing, Li Zicheng was known to several people from Jiangnan as Master Li and he was thought to have changed his personal name to Yan (sacred region) to conform to the prophecy that an eighteenth child would take the throne. But, Qin continued, “The author of the reactionary Novel about suppressing Dashing used the confused rumors about Master Li, Li Yan (flame), and so forth, to fabricate a provincial graduate Master Li Yan from Qi County. This was the first appearance of a relatively complete image and record of Li Yan.”120 According to one contemporary writing in Shanghai, the text appeared in Jiangnan in the fifth to sixth month of the Jiashen year (June to July of 1644), which was earlier than any other source on the rebel takeover of Beijing.121 In Qin’s words, “Because of its great newsworthiness and vivid narrative, the Novel of Suppressing Dashing attracted a diverse readership and spread widely in Jiangnan. During the year from June 1644 to June 1645 alone it was reprinted many times.”122 The author of the first ten fascicles of this book was the Lazy Daoist of Western Wu; the author of the last ten fascicles was the Calabash Daoist. Neither one of the two Ming scholar-officials, Zhao Shijin and Yang Shicong, who wrote memoirs of their experiences in Beijing under rebel rule, claimed to have seen any provincial graduate from Qi County named Li Yan. His story was also not related by the commoner rebel Yao Qiying, who was 119  Qin 1996: 80. 120  Qin 1996: 81. 121  Yao early Qing: 55; cited in Qin 1996: 81. 122  Qin 1996: 81.

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from Henan and who informed the captive Zhao Shijin about conditions in the capital under Shun authority. The story was instead manufactured by the anonymous novelists located in Jiangnan whose self-proclaimed goal was to “use it to stimulate loyalty and warn against rebellion”.123 In a third article, also published in 1996, Qin responded to Chen Shengxi’s claim that Li Yan’s many activities in Beijing constituted strong evidence that he existed. Qin looked closely at the syntax of the sentence in which Zhao Shijin claimed that he had heard that Li Yan lived in the house of the Ming nobleman Zhou Kui. The relevant sentences read: (Third month) 20th day, all the officials went in to register their names for offices [in the Shun government], being driven by brokers, yamen runners, and attendants [looking for jobs]. Liu Zongmin occupied the reception hall of Tian Honguyu, Li Daliang occupied a large estate in the western city, Li Yan, a certain Guo personal name unknown, occupied the estate of Zhou Kui, with four sites registering men for offices.124 Qin pointed out that, contrary to the common reading of these lines, which had Li Yan sharing a site with the man named Guo, the text actually indicates clearly that there were four sites for the registration, one each for Liu Zongmin, Li Daliang, Li Yan and Guo. Qin raised the possibility not only that the second Li had his own (unspecified) living and work site, but also that the second Li was not Li Yan but rather Li You (friend). According to Tan Qian’s account, Li You was originally stationed in the western part of the city and was charged with suppressing serious challenges to Shun authority in the city. Qin suggested that Zhao mistakenly wrote Li Yan for Li You who was a Quan (i.e. first ranked) general, as were Liu Zongmin and Li Guo (Li Zicheng’s nephew). As for the “certain Guo,” Qin suggested that he was one Guo Sheng(zhi), also a Quan general, who spent some time in the capital before being sent south to Shandong, where he was active in the provincial capital of Jining. In Qin’s view, then, the four sites for official registration were manned by Liu Zongming, Li Daliang, Li Guo and Guo Sheng(zhi). In Qin’s analysis, one of the strongest pieces of evidence for Li Yan’s historicity was suddenly suspect. In response to Chen Shengxi’s and Wang Xingya’s defense of Li Yan’s presence in Beijing, Qin argued that all three cases of scholar-officials “seeing” Li Yan there were actually based just on hearsay.125 As for the four-point memorial, 123  Qin 1996: 81–82. 124  Qin 1996a: 29. 125  Qin 1996a: 30.

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it was written not by Li Yan but by someone else, namely the author of the Novel about Suppressing Dashing. On the matter of Liu Lishun, Qin pointed out that Chen first argued that the “general Li” who reportedly tried to protect Liu “was perhaps Li Yan”, and then, with no further evidence, that he “clearly was” Li Yan. Chen had returned to the question of whether Li Yan was active in the area of Tianjin near the end of the rebel regime in Beijing. Without citing his former teacher, Gu Cheng, who had explored this issue with some care, Qin pointed out that Chen’s conclusion “was completely based on his own inferences”.126 As for reports about Li Yan in Shandong and Shanxi, they probably were all drafted after the appearance of the Novel about the Suppression of Dashing and were simply rumors arising from that text.127 Gu Cheng’s, Luan Xing’s, and Qin Xinlin’s painstaking critiques seemed to demolish every argument that the storied Li Yan was an authentic historical personality. They did not, however, provide clear answers to two questions. First, how, precisely, did the scholar-rebel-advisor Li acquire the personal names Xin and Yan? And, second, why was the scholar-rebel-advisor’s life story accepted by so many serious scholars from the last years of the Ming through the early years of the People’s Republic despite the impossibility of documenting it? Without satisfactory answers to these questions, the Li Yan story continued to be widely accepted despite its obvious flaws.128 After publishing my theory that the storied Li Yan was a composite figure made up of fragments drawn from the lives of many fully historical persons, I had turned to other projects and continued to doubt that a fully historical scholar rebel advisor named Li Yan from Qi would ever be found.129 Other non-Chinese historians of the Ming continued to wonder openly whether Li Yan was a “real” or “fictitious” person.130

126  Qin 1996a: 31. 127  Qin 1996a: 32. 128  For examples of acceptance prior to 1980, see Parsons 1970; Taniguchi 1971; Wang 1973; Yan 1974; Wakeman 1979. For continuing acceptance after 1980, see Wang 1984; Wakeman 1985; Xie 1986; Li Dengdi 1986; Zhao 1994; Nie 2008. 129  Dai 1986; Des Forges 2003 (translated 2018); Des Forges 2005 (translated 2009). 130  See, for example, Swope 2014: 159–160, 259 n3. For another seemingly insoluble case of doubtful identity in the high Qing period, see Ropp 2001.

chapter 6

Toward a Solution to the Li Yan Puzzle Around the turn of this century, new materials, long sought for and slow in coming, finally surfaced. Among them was a fragmentary, but seemingly authentic, hand-written genealogy. According to it, there was indeed a “scholar” named Li Xin (courtesy name Yan) who was, in a manner, “from” Qi County, who distributed “relief” to his famished neighbors, who participated in the “killing” of a local Ming official, who “rebelled” against the Ming state, and who served as an “advisor” to the commoner rebel Li Zicheng. Li Xin and a “younger brother,” Li Mou, were apparently “assassinated” by Li Zicheng and Niu Jinxing after the rebels lost control of Beijing. The genealogy seemed to answer the questions about the identity of the historical Li Xin (Yan) and how his story developed despite the difficulty of documenting it. Some questions remain about his precise roles in the rebellion. As we shall see, they may have been less significant than those of other scholar rebel advisors. There appear to have been significant interactions between the historical Li Yan in the genealogy and the storied Li Yan in novels and plays, and the ebbs and flows of influence are yet to be fully worked out and agreed upon. The lessons to be derived from the historical Li Yan’s biography may also be slightly different from those drawn from the literary Li Yan’s life story. A fully historical person at the core of the Li Yan hagiography, however, now seems to be fully demonstrable. Further, we can now infer from the new evidence in the context of the old how the story probably began in oral sources and why it was so widely accepted for so long despite the paucity of available evidence for its authenticity. 6.1

The Discovery of a Key Genealogy

Despite strong skepticism on the part of several historians, including me, Professor Wang Xingya of Zhengzhou University continued his determined quest for evidence that the storied Li Yan was a historical personality. Wang’s strategy of looking for documentary proof of a scholar-rebel-advisor Li Yan in Henan at the end of the Ming finally proved partially successful when a genealogy was discovered that included not only Li Xin (Yan) but also Li Jingbai, Li Mou, Li Daliang, Li You, Li Jun and other relatives who became active in Li Zicheng’s rebellion. We may describe Wang’s efforts as only “partially

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004421066_008

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successful” because, while Li Xin (Yan) turns out to be a fully historical person, his origins and early career were different from those of the storied figure whose hagiography included elements borrowed from other figures. Those other figures were historical as well as literary and lived in the past as well as in Li Yan’s own day. Even Hong Niangzi, who does not appear in the newly discovered genealogy, seems to have had her own historical significance as well as literary value. 6.1.1 Li Libing In 2002 the elders of the Li family of Tang village, in Boai County, in Jiaozuo city in northwest Henan Province, decided to join a current trend by updating their family genealogy. They recommended a member of the family, Li Libing, who was a retired deputy party secretary of a provincial state farm in Boai, to serve as the principal compiler. A decade later (in 2013), Li Libing wrote an essay describing the “discovery and revision” of the “Li Family Genealogy.”1 According to Li, some members of the family were aware that copies of the genealogy had been burned during the Cultural Revolution. Li spent over a month looking for relevant materials without coming up with anything. He therefore formed a committee of activists to encourage households to look for original sources, including old rubbings, stone stelae, contract manuscripts, family trees, funerary inscriptions, and martial arts handbooks. In the house of one Li Shengxian, they found a land sale contract in the name of Li Ziqi, the father of Li Mou, dated to 1662. They also found a land purchase contract in the name of Li Zhong, an older brother of Li Xin, and of Li Chunyu, a clan uncle and adopted father of Li Xin. They discovered a family generational scroll in a memorial tablet that included Li Chunmao (the natal father of Li Xin), Li Zhong (an elder brother of Li Xin), and Li Xin (courtesy Yan) himself. In the home of one Li Lichao, they discovered martial arts handbooks and essays by Li Chunmao and Li Zhong dated 1590 and 1632. Other artifacts included literature going back to Han times and rubbings done before the Cultural Revolution. While these materials were of some historical interest, they were of little value in trying to reconstruct the family genealogy.2 During the annual Qing-Ming festival in early 2003, Li Libing “went home to sweep off the graves of his ancestors”. There, by chance, he met Li Chengxiu, age seventy-six, from Shangwu village. She was the eldest daughter of Li Taicun (1908–?), a member of the sixteenth generation of the Li family. She was also 1  Li 2013: 234–242. 2  Li 2013: 234–235.

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figure 6.1 Author, Li Chengxiu, Li Libing, and an unidentified Li family member in Tang Village Author’s photograph in Tang Village, November 2009

a close relative of Li Libing. Talk turned to the project to compile the genealogy. Li Chengxiu remembered seeing her “paternal grandfather Li Guangqin and granduncle Li Guangxue” periodically take a family genealogy out of its cloth wrapping, place it on a table, and inspect it. After the defeat of Japan, her father, Li Taicun, took the genealogy with him to Xi’an, where she remembered seeing it on visits after liberation in 1949. Li Libing asked her if the genealogy was still extant. Li Chengxiu replied that her father “had gone missing” in 1953, but she still had younger brothers and sisters who were living in Xi’an. She did not know if a copy of the genealogy had survived the Cultural Revolution. If so, she said, it was probably at the home of her younger brother Li Chenghai in Xi’an. At the request of the clan elders, Li Chengxiu wrote to her brother to ask if the genealogy still existed. Her brother replied that it did, but it was damaged and incomplete. Moreover, his mother was suffering from dementia and could not remember where she had put it. The clan elders in Tang village analyzed the situation. Li Chengxiu’s father Li Taicun had once been “handy with firearms.” At the time of liberation, his branch of the family was rich and three members were “suppressed” by the revolutionaries. During the Cultural Revolution, Tang village sent Red Guards to Xi’an to look for him. According to

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Li Libing, the young radicals brought Li Taicun’s family so much trouble that the surviving members have been afraid of contacts with outsiders to this day.3 Because the old genealogy was essential to the task of producing a new one, the elders asked Li Chengxiu to write another letter to Li Chenghai asking him to find the genealogy, photograph it, and send the photographs to Tang village so that the value of the text could be determined. By the middle of November 2003, Li Chenghai had found the genealogy, photographed the preface and family tree (the most intact parts), and sent them to Tang village. There the clan elders perused the manuscripts. According to Li Libing, they (the elders) “were very happy, for they [the manuscripts] were indeed the very materials of the old genealogy they were expecting”. Based on the content of these parts of the genealogy, they sent teams to do research in villages in neighboring counties, including Chenjiagou in Wenxian, Beijincun in Qinyang, Donglicun in Huojiaxian, and Liwa, Haozhuang, Liucun and other villages in Boai County. They also asked the venerable Li Chengxiu to go to Xi’an during the next New Year’s celebration to collect information on the rest of the genealogy and to improve relations with her somewhat estranged kin.4 Li Libing continued to describe his role and those of his close relatives in exploring the value of the old, incomplete genealogy in the process of compiling an up-dated and more nearly complete new one. In his words, On 2 April 2004, the writer [Li Libing] joined with family elders Li Guangxian from Tang village, Li Cunbao and Li Silin from Liwa, and four others; and, on the basis of the newly discovered “Genealogy”, the “Tomb Inscription of the Founder”, the “Stele of the achievements of immigrants from Hongdong lodged at the Millennial Temple”, and related materials, we went to Fenghuang village in Hongdong County to investigate our roots.5 Local historians in Hongdong County in Shanxi, long a key launching pad for Shanxi immigrants moving to Henan, pronounced the old Li genealogy “extremely valuable.” They invited the Lis to attend a national research conference that was meeting the next day on the migrant culture of Hongdong that would bring together scholars from Beijing, Zhengzhou, and Shanxi. Li Libing protested that he would feel out of place among scholarly specialists, but the organizers insisted that he would bring practical knowledge to the 3  Li 2013: 236. 4  Li 2013: 235–237. 5  Li 2013: 237.

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table to complement the insights of scholars. Li Libing agreed to make a presentation which included photographs of the genealogy. He later recorded that the attendees showed great “interest and attention”. At the conference, the historian Wang Xingya observed, “If the genealogy and related materials prove to be authentic, they can solve three historical puzzles: ‘Li Yan’s background’, the ‘origins of Supreme Ultimate Boxing’, and the ‘routes taken by Hongdong migrants into the central plain’ ”.6 On 18 August 2004, Wang Xingya came from Zhengzhou to conduct an inspection tour of Tang village. According to Li Libing, Professor Wang viewed, assessed, and verified the memorial tablet bearing the names of Li Chunmao, Li Zhong, and Li Xin (courtesy Yan) in the family tree scroll (a Qing period artifact); and he inspected the Li family cemetery, Li Yan’s old home, the lineage founder’s grave inscription, scattered Li tomb inscriptions, and other valuable materials. Professor Wang Xingya also further established the old residences of the rebel generals Li Yan, Li Mou, Li Zhong and others. Professor Wang Xingya stated, “These tangible materials are evidence attesting that the Li Xin of Tang village in Boai County was a leader in Li Zicheng’s farmer’s army in the history books—the second ranked general Li Yan.”7 On 16 October 2004, Wang Xingya met with Li Chengxiu and accompanied her to Xi’an to learn more about the genealogy. Li Chengxiu’s mother-in-law, Wang Guiying, was reluctant to cooperate, but her son (Li Chengxiu’s brother, Li Chenghai), persuaded her to show the genealogy to her guests. They agreed to have the entire text photocopied but they refused to allow the “original” to be taken and deposited in the Li family ancestral shrine in Tang village, which had been the visitors’ plan. Li Libing, Li Chengxiu, and Wang Xingya also met with an eighty-five-year-old woman, Chen Liqing, who was from Chenjiagou in neighboring Wen County and who had once taught Supreme Ultimate Boxing in Xi’an.8 This was one of several indications that women could play important roles in practicing and teaching this form of boxing. In his essay, Li Libing provided further details on Li Chenghai’s family. His grandfather, Li Guangqin, had been a prosperous musk merchant in Xi’an. 6  Li 2013: 238. Here I translate Taijiquan as “Supreme Ultimate Boxing” to distinguish it from other forms of the martial arts (such as non-ultimate boxing) and to inform non-Chinese readers of the meaning of the term, better known in the West as Tai Chi Chuan. 7  Li 2013: 239. 8  Li 2013: 240–241.

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figure 6.2 Wang Guiying holding the earliest extant copy of the “Li Family Genealogy” in Xi’an in 2004 Source Niu and Guo 2013: 164

His father, Li Taicun, was skilled in fire-arms, served as vice-commander of a Communist battalion in Boai during the war of resistance, dealt with the Guomindang after the end of the war, and left Boai with his whole family for Xi’an before Qinghua, a famous market town near Huaiqing, was liberated the second time (in 1947). After 1949, Li Guangqin, his elder son Li Chenghua, and

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figure 6.3 Li Libing and the Author reading sources at Li’s home in Jiaozuo, in June 2018 Author’s Photograph, June 2018

(his daughter-in-law) Erxi, “were suppressed” and he lost his extensive lands and business. In 1953 “Boai County” authorities heard that Li Taicun was in Xi’an, and they sent someone to find him. Li Taicun left home with his wife and was not heard from again. During the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards of Boai County went to Xi’an to look for Li Taicun. They did not find him, but they forced his second son to leave his post in the security bureau. During all of these troubles, Li Chenghai held onto the genealogy. Li Libing wrote that he respected Li Chenghai, understood his concerns, and was grateful to him for helping to preserve the family record.9 9  Li 2013: 241–242.

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6.1.2 Zhang Tiyi Over the course of the next few months, more than ten articles appeared, breaking the news of the discovery of the genealogy. We may be reminded here of the outpouring of informal histories containing the story of Li Yan after the fall of the Shun state in 1644–1645, a structural parallel almost as significant as the functional difference between literature and history. Among newspaper accounts was a brief article by one Zhang Tiyi headlined “‘Li Family Genealogy’ provides New Proof that Li Yan at the End of the Ming was from Boai in Henan”. It was published in the first issue of Great River Report on 8 March 2005. Zhang reported that Wang Xingya believed that, although the available copy “was hand-written later [i.e. long after the 1716 date of the preface], the family tree is complete, the preface dated Kangxi 55 is intact, and it should be credible”. The journalist Zhang pointed out that the genealogy described Li Yan as being from Tang village in Henei County (now Boai County) in Huaiqing Prefecture (now Jiaozuo city). His father, Li Chunmao, had four sons in descending order by age: Li Lun, Li Zhong, and Li Jun, as well as Li Xin (courtesy Yan). Li Yan’s clan uncle, Li Chunyu, also known by his nickname Li Jingbai, had inherited a grain and oil shop in Qi County. Because Li Chunyu had no son, he adopted Li Xin (Yan) to conduct sacrifices to his spirits after his death. As a boy, Li Yan followed his father to neighboring Jiyuan County to study the civil arts. He became a government student and later a tributary student. Li Yan also accompanied his older brother, Li Zhong, and a cousin by marriage, Chen Zouting (ca. 1600–1680), in practicing martial arts at the Millennial Temple in Tang village. When Chen failed an archery test in pursuit of a military degree, he cried foul and joined Li Yan and Li Zhong in killing the examiner.10 As a result, Li Yan and Li Zhong were stripped of their scholarly status and faced the prospect of prosecution for murder. To escape arrest and punishment, the Li brothers fled their home in Henei. Li Yan went to live in the house of a paternal aunt located in the county town of Qi and he worked as an accountant in the grain and oil shop owned by his clan uncle and adopted father Li Chunyu (Jingbai). When the shop failed, Li Yan returned to the Millennial Temple in Tang village, where he quietly practiced Supreme Ultimate Boxing. In 1640 a younger cousin (also known as a clan younger brother), Li Mou, persuaded Li Zhong and Li Yan to join Li Zicheng’s rebel army. Four years later Li Zhong returned home safely, but Li Mou and Li Yan were assassinated by the rebel leader Li Zicheng. Li Yan had one son, but he died young in 1640 so Li Yan, like his clan uncle Li Chunyu, had no one to conduct sacrifices to his spirits after his death. For this reason, Li Yan’s elder brother Zhong’s fourth son, Li Yuanshan (1642–ca. 1716?), 10  For background on Ming military examinations that continued to emphasize archery, see Li Guangxi 2008: 38. Chen’s examination has been dated to 1636.

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was designated as Li Yan’s ritual son. As it happened, Li Yuanshan became a tributary student in the early Qing and was given the task of recompiling the Li family genealogy. In those capacities and in accord with the conservative ideology prevailing at the time, Li Yuanshan described relatives who participated in Li Zicheng’s unsuccessful rebellion as “bandits.” As the son of Li Zhong, as the nephew and ritual son of Li Yan, and as the clan nephew of Li Mou, however, Li Yuanshan also called on his relatives to pay due respects to those who had participated in the rebellion. At the same time, the clan elders asked family members not to discuss their relatives’ rebel activities in public. As Li Yuanshan wrote in his preface to the genealogy in 1716: The clan elders issued strict instructions saying, at the end of the Ming in the ninth generation of our clan, Masters Li, taboo Zhong, taboo Xin, taboo Mou, taboo Dong, and taboo You were all lured into becoming generals and advisors to the Dashing Bandit. Their descendants may sincerely sacrifice to their spirits, but their deeds must not be spoken of and the record must not be published abroad.11 Doubling as Li Zhong’s son and as Li Yan’s ritual son, Li Yuanshan naturally was able to provide more details on his branch of the lineage than on other branches. The journalist Zhang Tiyi concluded his article by noting that Wang Xingya valued the genealogy not only for clarifying the facts about Li Yan’s origins and career, but also for beginning to explain how he (Li Yan) could have been easily misrepresented and/or sincerely misunderstood to be a provincial graduate and son of Li Jingbai “from” Qi County.12 6.1.3 Wang Xingya and Li Libing In July 2005 Wang Xingya and Li Libing published a research article in the Academic Journal of the Central Province titled “A New Theory about the Native Place of Li Yan and the Origins and Spread of Supreme Ultimate Boxing of the Chen Family: the Discovery and Value of the ‘Li Family Genealogy’ of Tang Village Prefaced in Kangxi 55”. Wang and Li began by briefly recounting the process of discovering the genealogy discussed above, adding that eighty-five percent of the 1,300 residents of Tang village were surnamed Li. The writers recognized that the genealogy was incomplete, lacking, for example, the poetry and biographies of notables that were listed in the table of contents. They also observed that the genealogy was hand-written on account paper 11  Li 1716/late Republic: 6; Li 2013: 214. 12  Reprinted in Niu and Guo 2013: 157–158.

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inscribed with the logo Demaocheng, which turns out to have been a pharmacy that existed in the Republican era with an as-yet-unknown relationship to the Li family.13 There were also technical problems of missing and incorrect characters, irregular spacing of lines of text, various numbers of characters in the lines, and contradictory evidence regarding the academic status of certain family members.14 Wang and Li nonetheless pointed out that the text contained a great deal of valuable information. In their judgment, the most valuable parts of the manuscript were the Preface and the family tree annotated with biographical information. They drew on both parts to provide a general introduction to the contents of the genealogy. In the fourth year of the Hongwu reign (1371), the progenitor Li Qingjiang led his family from Fenghuang village in Hongdong County, Pingyang Prefecture, in Shanxi, to Tang village in Henei County, Huaiqing Prefecture, in Henan. The first edition of the Li family genealogy was compiled in the fifth generation by Li Mingdao, who lived in Huaiqing, ran a business making feathered arrows, and enjoyed the support of “martial bravoes”. In the sixth generation, Li Congliang was the first member of the recorded lineage to become a tributary student. He taught in neighboring Hui County and was said to be proficient in both civil and military arts. This was a characteristic thereafter ascribed to many members of the lineage, raising questions about its authenticity and accuracy. It may sometimes have been more a literary cliché than a historical fact, and it could also have been a cover for militarism, otherwise known as warlordism. Whatever it was, it seems to have manifested itself in the careers of many brothers and sons in Tang village and probably also in neighboring villages. In the seventh generation, a government student, Li Zhengde, once again brought the genealogy up to date, and his brother, Li Zhengxiu, became the lineage’s first recorded metropolitan graduate. Zhengxiu was also said to be knowledgeable about strategy and administration.15 In the eighth generation, Li Yan’s birth father Li Chunmao was a tributary student who entered the local Millennial Temple. He became a teacher in the Three Sages school honoring Fuxi, the Duke of Zhou, and Confucius. The school was part of the Supreme Ultimate Palace and it advocated the doctrine of the Unity of the Three Teachings (Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism). Li Chunmao was a serious scholar who wrote major essays about the interface 13  J iaozuo wenshi ziliao, 1985: disanji gleaned on 2 January 2010. Thanks to Ding Xiangli for uncovering this information. 14  Wang and Li 2005: 166–167. 15  Xue and Yang 1660: 5. 31; Liu and Qiao 1695: 6.4a; 65b–66a.

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between religion and politics. Both before and after 1644, he reputedly taught the civil and martial arts in several provinces, including Shanxi, Shandong, Huguang, and Zhejiang. As we have seen, in the ninth generation, Li Zhong followed his father Li Chunmao and influenced his younger brother Li Yan by setting out on his own course and ending up in confrontation with the Ming state, first at the local level and eventually in Beijing. In the tenth generation, the young Li Yuanshan followed his father Li Zhong to Zhejiang where he taught civil and martial arts and then returned to Henan, where he continued in the same profession. In the Kangxi reign, Yuanshan passed the examinations to become a tributary student qualified to study at the state academy. He reportedly had “thousands” of students in Henan and Shanxi. Finally, in his seventies, Li Yuanshan completed the third edition of the family genealogy. It is not known if it was ever printed. Many of the short life stories interpolated in the family tree seem to be quite stereotyped, and some achievements may well have been exaggerated. They were all that was left of family records, however, and Wang Xingya and Li Libing think that the accounts are basically reliable. This view seems to be shared by almost everyone who has seen the genealogy, including me. In any case, we may say, the brief life stories in the genealogy constitute very valuable starting points for further research.16 Probably because of Wang Xingya’s long interest in the Li Yan puzzle, he and Li Libing paid particular attention to the life stories of Li Yan and Li Mou. They wrote that: The discovery of the “Li Family Genealogy” of Tang village not only [permits] corrections of errors in historical accounts and a solution to the puzzle of Li Yan and Li Mou, but also, at the same time, provides irrefutable proof that Li Yan and Li Mou existed. It has very high value as historical material on both counts.17 Aware of the centuries of debate over the historicity of Li Yan and Li Mou, Wang was probably more interested in this finding than in the origins of Supreme Ultimate Boxing that may have been more important—at least initially—to Li Libing and his relatives in Boai County. In any case, Wang and Li drew on the genealogy to provide more details in the life stories of Li Yan and Li Mou. In Wang and Li’s words, “Li Yuanshan 16  Wang and Li 2005: 167. One of the late Professor Gu Cheng’s former students, Professor Zhao Shiyu, now at Beijing University, has indicated to me that he thinks the genealogy is essentially authentic. 17  Wang and Li 2005: 168.

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considered Li Yan to be a capable and famous member of the family and he wrote him into the genealogy.” In his preface, Li Yuanshan recorded the words of the clan elders, cited above, authorizing sacrifices to the spirits of Li Yan and other members of the ninth generation who joined Li Zicheng’s rebel army. But, as we have also seen, the elders also warned members of the family not to discuss those aspects of the family history in public. At the same time, under the entry for Li Yan in the descent chart, there was a clear narrative concerning the family’s and his own personal experience that enables us to reduce the confusion in the records concerning his hometown and to announce to the world that Li Yan was from Tang village in Henei County in Huaiqing Prefecture in Henan Province, eighteen li [about six miles] east of the Huaiqing prefectural town (now Qinyang city), now the gully countryside on the border of Boai County. According to the genealogical records, Li Yan belonged to the northern courtyard branch of the family, and his natal father was Li Chunmao, courtesy name Tingbi, nickname Yeqin, who was married to woman Zhao and woman Xin, and was the first born.18 Wang and Li drew on the genealogy to offer more details about Li Xin and his brothers. Li Xin was born in 1606 and died in 1644. He was survived by his three older brothers: Lun (1596–1669), Zhong (1598–1689), and Jun (1600–1680). He had the courtesy name Yan and another name Wei. He married a woman named Chen, who may have been from Chengou village in Wen County, and a woman named Kong, whose provenance was unknown. He followed his father Li Chunmao (1568–1666), and studied and taught civil and martial arts in neighboring Jiyuan County. When he died, his widow entered a Buddhist nunnery at the Millennial Temple. Because Li Yan’s only son, Yuanbin, died in 1640 at age twelve, Li Yan’s nephew Li Yuanshan was made his ritual successor. Li Yan and his brother Zhong were said to have been buried in a separate space in the family cemetery.19 We may note here the parallel to the way in which the rebel prime minister Niu Jinxing and his son Niu Quan were buried, i. e. two together but both apart from the rest of the family. According to the preface and family tree, Li Mou (courtesy name Mu) was a distant cousin in the same generation, or a “clan younger brother,” of Li Yan. Li Mou was born a year or two after Li Yan, i.e. in 1607 or 1608. He was the second son of Li Ziqi, whose land-sale contract was mentioned above as a surviving 18  Wang and Li 2005: 168. 19  Wang and Li 2005: 168–169.

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artifact. Li Mou was a government student who was versed in the civil and martial arts. In 1634 he followed his father to Shanxi and Shaanxi, where he propagated the martial arts. At some time and place, he joined Li Zicheng’s farmers’ army. Probably in part because he joined the rebellion early and was among the first scholars—if not the first scholar—to join the movement, he became a general of the first rank in Li Zicheng’s army. He was said to have attracted his distant cousins Li Zhong, Li Yan, and others to the movement. As in the standard story, in the newly discovered genealogy, Li Mou was killed by Li Zicheng. He was survived by his father, who lived to 1661 at least, by his older brother Yun, who was a coal merchant, and by his younger brother Can, who was said to be proficient in civil and martial arts. Li Mou had one son, who was named Huaigong. After Li Mou died, Huaigong followed his clan uncle Zhong to Zhejiang. There he participated in a literary society managed by Li Jun (Li Yan’s third older brother), and taught boxing in a military school. Later, Huaigong moved to Fujian, where he continued to promote the martial arts. Thus members of Mou’s branch of the Li family enjoyed multi-stranded intimacy with members of Yan’s branch.20 There was another Li active in Li Zicheng’s rebellion who was known as You (友, friend), You (右, right), or You (佑, help). As we have seen, Li You’s personal name was sometimes mistakenly written as Zuo (佐, aid). This Li You’s identity and background have long been even more obscure than those of Li Yan and Li Mou. Now, according to the genealogy, we learn that Li You’s original name was Kai. He was the grandson of Li Zhengqing, the government student in the seventh generation, and the son of Li Keguan. Li You was, therefore, another distant cousin of Li Yan. According to the genealogy, Li You was born in 1602 into the East Court Branch of the Li family of Tang village and became a government student. He was recruited into Li Zicheng’s rebellion by Li Mou. According to other sources, Li You played an important role in the Shun regime in Beijing. According to the genealogy, his fate was unknown although there was a rumor that, after the death of Li Yan and Li Mou, he returned to reside in a village in Jiyuan County. We also learn that Li You had two sons. The elder, named Huaiqi (1622–1683), taught boxing in Hubei and his descendants lived out their lives in Tang village. The younger, Huaiyuan (b. 1626), also practiced martial arts in Hubei. He later followed a family tradition and established a feather arrow business about one mile north of the present town of Boai. Thus, these two scions of the Li family kept alive the mix of civil, martial, and

20  Wang and Li 2005: 169.

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handicraft arts that was one important characteristic of Li Yan’s larger family in the late Ming.21 In their essay, Wang Xingya and Li Libing also introduced the genealogy’s record of the Li family’s promotion of a particular form of martial arts at the Millennial Temple. Their findings were later incorporated by one Wang Guangxi into a general discussion of martial arts in China as a whole.22 The Millennial Temple was said to date to the early Later Han period, when it was known as the Non-Ultimate Temple. That was apparently an allusion to the Daoist idea of the original unseen that precedes all being. In the Eastern Wei (ca. sixth century), the building became known as the Millennial Temple. At the same time, Non-Ultimate boxing turned into Supreme Ultimate boxing. Later, in the Northern Wei, there was a return to Non-Ultimate boxing at the temple. In the Tang and Song, there was also much emphasis on nourishing life. In the late Ming (1590), the tributary student Li Chunmao (Li Yan’s father) wrote an “Essay on non-ultimate nourishing-life boxing”. It took up a common theme of the day, the Unity of the Three Teachings. In 1632 Li Chunmao wrote another influential “Essay on the thirteenth power”, a new phrase of unclear meaning that influenced the development of martial arts through the Qing period. In the next generation, two of Li Chunmao’s sons, Li Zhong and Li Yan, together with Chen Zouting, the cousin from Chenjiagou village in neighboring Wen County, once again replaced Non-ultimate boxing with Supreme Ultimate boxing. They compiled a “Genealogy of the regime of Supreme Ultimate boxing and nourishing life”. Unfortunately, only the title of this work survives. In the third generation, Li Zhong led his five sons to Zhejiang, where they propagated the Thirteenth Power boxing and swordsman arts and made a living from it. Three of the sons, Yuanqin, Yuanao, and Yuanshan were said to have had large followings in Zhejiang and elsewhere. One son, Yuanchen, operated in Anhui and especially in Wuyang County, in Nanyang Prefecture, in Henan Province. The fifth son, Yuanming, established a following in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang. Chen Zouting, who was a military student in the late Ming, became a civil student in the early Qing. The Lis of Tang village and the Chens of nearby Chenjiagou continued to propagate their own forms of martial arts, becoming one of the six major schools in China. The Millennial Temple school was said to be more Daoist and pacific, and less Buddhist and militant than the more famous school at the Shaolin temple located on Song mountain in west central Henan. But the Lis of Tang village and the Chens of Chenjiagou reportedly resisted the Qing advance that followed the fall of the Shun regime. 21  Wang and Li 2005: 169; Wang 2008: 141. 22  Wang 2008.

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As a result, it was said, part of the Millennial Temple was burned. The Lis’ considerable wealth in land and industry, combined with their political discretion regarding their rebel members, nonetheless enabled them to emerge from the violent Ming-Qing transition relatively unscathed. In 1787, a member of the twelfth generation of the Li family of Tang village, Li Helin (1716–1808) became a tributary student. He wrote essays and gave lectures at the temple, thereby maintaining the family’s martial arts tradition. He also transmitted the discipline to members of a Wang family in Henei County, who soon developed their own martial arts tradition.23 Wang Xingya and Li Libing concluded their article by noting that Li Yan and Li Mou were survived by many of their relatives, including fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, and sons and daughters. Li Yuanshan, who was born in 1642, probably got most of his information on the family in the late Ming from members who had lived through the events. The Henei County Gazetteer of 1658 contained almost no information on the Li family and there is no evidence that Li Yuanshan used anything from it to compile his genealogy. We do not know whether he was aware of any of the memoirs, histories, and novels that were simultaneously constructing a Li Yan story that was quite different from the narrative he was documenting in the genealogy. Wang and Li remarked that, like any source, the genealogy may have some parts that prove to be true and some that may turn out to be false. Only careful investigation and rational discrimination will enable us to determine to what degree the text constitutes a believable account.24 6.1.4 Wang Xingya and Ma Huaiyun In the same year and in the same spirit, Wang Xingya joined with Ma Huaiyun, a scholar in the reference department of the Henan Provincial Library, to publish another article on the genealogy. It was titled “The discovery in Boai County of important materials regarding Li Yan and Li Mou: An investigation and explanation of the historical value of the ‘Li Family Genealogy’of Tang Village”. Wang and Ma began by pointing out that the compiler of the genealogy, Li Yuanshan, was the birth son of Li Zhong and the adopted son of his uncle, Li Yan. He therefore had an especially close relationship with the two men who figured prominently among the members of the family who had participated in Li Zicheng’s rebellion. The authors reiterated that there is no way to know if the genealogy was ever printed and they noted mistakes in the text,

23  Wang and Li 2005: 169–170; Wang Guangxi 2008: 6–9. 14–22, 137–146, 151–155, 332–352. 24  Wang and Li 2005: 170.

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especially in the important but brief interlinear biographies in the family tree.25 They reminded readers that, because the rebellion failed to establish its own new regime, its records were all scattered and largely lost. Family members who had participated in the uprising and survived had little interest in having their roles publicized. Those who died during the rebellion, such as Li Yan and Li Mou, were probably largely forgotten by those who survived the transition.26 Wang and Ma noted that Li Chunmao’s four sons sported courtesy names that contained the mountain radical: Li Lun was Mountain, Li Zhong was Peak, Li Jun was Lonely, and Li Yan was Cliff. This indicates that Li Xin had the courtesy name Yan long before joining the rebellion. He was therefore not given that name by Li Zicheng as the standard Li Yan story had suggested. This was also but one of many cases of shared radicals in the names and courtesy names of brothers and cousins in the ten generations of Lis descended from Li Qingjiang and included in the genealogy. Taken together, these cases suggested the existence of a fairly strong clan consciousness among members. Wang and Ma drew on Li Yan’s short biography in the family tree to add that he studied the Five Classics and Four Books with his father and practiced the Thirteenth Power Supreme Ultimate Nourishing Life regime with his elder brother Zhong and his cousin Chen Zouting. During a famine in Qi in 1639–1640, Li Yan also “wrote ballads and advocated relief”.27 The question arises whether this account of ballads and relief originated in the genealogy and was amplified in the standard story, or began in the standard story and was abbreviated in the genealogy. Perhaps they were two versions based on a single historical reality and preserved in an oral tradition. This is a general problem concerning much of the data in the genealogy that is worthy of further attention and research. For now, however, it seems possible that the genealogical record and the standard story originated separately and developed largely independently of each other. If so, they would seem to have corroborated each other. Wang and Ma described Li Mou as a government student who followed his father Li Ziqi (aka Li Zhiqi) to teach and practice boxing in Shanxi and Shaanxi. It was there, apparently, that he joined Li Zicheng’s uprising, perhaps as early as 1634. He was, therefore, not only the “first Li Mou”, identified by Luan Xing as hailing from Shaanxi, but also the “second Li Mou,” the person who joined Li Zicheng’s rebellion in Shaanxi and accompanied him to his (Li Mou’s) home province of Henan. Li Mou was, therefore, not only the first scholar to throw 25  Wang and Ma 2005: 65. This article has been reprinted in Niu and Guo 2013: 37–51. As I used the original article of 2005, I am citing its pagination here. 26  Wang and Ma 2005: 66. 27  Wang and Ma 2005: 67.

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his lot in with Li Zicheng, but also the most active in recruiting other Lis from Tang village into the movement.28 He was killed by Li Zicheng, but he was survived by his father, Li Ziqi, who appeared in the records in 1662 when he sold some land to obtain resources during a famine. Since the contract for the sale has survived, it is one of the important artifacts that supports the accuracy of the Li family genealogy in locating Li Ziqi in Tang village. Wang and Ma also discussed the other cousin, Li Kai, and followed the genealogy in regarding You (help) as his courtesy name and You (right) as his nickname.29 Wang and Ma then turned to the important question of how the Li Yan story was publicized in Jiangnan. They acknowledged that there were no “primary sources on Li Yan” in Jiangnan, certainly not in the three historical novels there that dealt with him, but Wang and Ma insisted that that absence should not be invoked as “supplemental proof that Li Yan was a non-existent gentleman”. After the rebels held Beijing for forty-two days, many former Ming officials made their way to Jiangnan and wrote memoirs that became important sources in the eyes of the Jiangnan literati. In addition, Li Zhong, his brother Jun, and Zhong’s five sons, together with Li Mou’s son, visited Zhejiang and/or migrated there after the failure of the rebellion. For example, in Wang and Ma’s words: … After Li Mou was killed by Li Zicheng, his only son, Huaigong, fled south with Li Zhong and became a master teacher of boxing in Li Jun’s literary society and military school. Later he moved to Fuzhou where he made a living propagating boxing. Li Zhong, his sons, and Li Mou’s son moved to live in Zhejiang, and they took in students to practice boxing. They did not dare to acknowledge their real backgrounds and their relations with Li Yan and Li Mou, but, confronting all kinds of rumors about Li Yan in society, they could not avoid saying something, and that must have been a factor in the spread of the Li Yan story in Jiangnan.30 In the last sentence, the authors seem to be making the very important point that the Lis from Tang village could not deny the standard Li Yan story lest they be required to provide an alternative account that could publicly implicate their members in the unsuccessful rebellion. Indeed, like so many other survivors of the Shun regime, they had good reasons for confirming the standard Li Yan story as an effective cover for their own relatives’ participation in the rebel Shun state during the Ming-Qing transition. 28  Wang and Ma 2005: 68. 29  Wang and Ma 2005: 69. 30  Wang and Ma 2005: 69–70.

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In the following year, 2006, Wang Xingya published another article titled: “The historical value of Li Ziqi’s contract to sell land and Li Zhong’s contract to buy land in Boai in the Qing period”. Wang pointed out that the two contracts he saw at Li Libing’s house not only revealed the price of land and the procedures for buying and selling it in the Kangxi reign, but also provided material evidence of the presence of Li Mou’s father, Li Ziqi, and Li Yan’s elder brother, Li Zhong, in Tang village at that time. Li Ziqi’s contract provided for the sale of land in return for silver and was dated to the first year of the Kangxi reign (1662). According to local lore, because Li Mou’s wife, née Tang, had become a nun in the Millennial Temple after the death of her husband, one of the gobetweens in the land sale was a Daoist priest who was in charge of the temple. And because Li Mou’s son, Huaigong, was in Zhejiang and needed money, Li Ziqi forwarded the proceeds of the sale of the land to him. Huaigong reportedly used the funds to establish his own school for the transmission of boxing techniques in Fujian. Li Zhong’s purchase of land a decade later in the twelfth year of Kangxi (1673), on the other hand, reflected his financial well-being. It was also material evidence that the man named Li Daliang in rebel-held Beijing was not a servant in a scholar’s household, as Zhao Shijin had reported in his memoir, or a relative of Li Zicheng, as later observers have suggested. He was, instead, as the genealogy clearly indicated, Li Yan’s older brother, Li Zhong, who adopted the name Daliang during his service in the rebel Shun regime.31 6.1.5 Cheng Feng The same year, Cheng Feng, a Professor of History at Jiaozuo Normal College and editor of the college journal, published an article titled “The residence of the late Ming farmers’ rebel general Li Yan as viewed from the ‘Li family genealogy’ of Tang village in Boai”. Cheng noted that the genealogy indicated that Li Yan was buried in a new part of the family cemetery, where Li Zhong would also be buried, which suggests that, unlike in the case of Li Mou, Li Yan’s body had been recovered after his death at the hands of Li Zicheng. Unlike some other sources that had put the number of members of the family who had joined the rebels at five or seven, Cheng reported that a member of the fifteenth generation of the family named Li Junqi had put the number of Li rebels at ten. They included: Li Zhong, Li Yan, Li You, Li Dong, and Li Mou in the ninth generation and Li Huaizhen, Li Huairen, Li Huaichen, Li Huaidian, and Li Huailin in the tenth generation. Cheng expressed confidence in the credibility of the genealogy for several reasons. First, it involved “contemporaries reporting on contemporaries so that 31  Li 2006: 61–65.

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persons and events should be accurate”. This argument seems a bit simplistic and naive, but there were of course advantages for chroniclers in being closer to the historical events they described both in time and in space. Second, the compiler Li Yuanshan was extremely well placed to tell his story, and was aware of the need to “avoid confusing success and failure with right and wrong”. The compiler described how Li Zhong’s and Li Yan’s “civil and martial heroism overawed the bandits”. This point deserves close scrutiny, which we shall give it later. Third, the compiler cited years and months of births and deaths with great precision, giving readers cause to believe in them. Fourth, Li Yuanshan reported on Li Zhong’s rebel name, Li Daliang, which was probably unknown to most of his kin but which was revealed exclusively to him (Yuanshan) by his father (Li Zhong). This suggests that there were close relations between the father (Zhong) and the son (Yuanshan). Fifth, the calligraphy in the genealogy “was in the style of Jin and Wei” and was unlikely to have been fabricated by Li Chenghai, who reportedly had little formal education. Here Cheng seems to be saying that the handwriting in the genealogy was distinctive and individualistic, like that of the Wei-Jin period, and thus unlikely to be the product of a marginally educated person of the twentieth century. Sixth, the paper used for the genealogy is of middling quality, called “bamboo paper” in Huaiqing, and it can be dated no later than the late Qing or early Republic.32 This suggests the original copying was done well before the mid-twentieth century, implying the existence of an earlier version and not a forgery fabricated in the 1940s.33 A year later, in 2007, Wang Xingya published yet another relevant article titled “An investigation into Li Mou’s native place, family, and personal experience”. Wang pointed out that most of the existing literature had described Li Mou as Li Yan’s younger brother, but there was disagreement over when and where he joined the rebellion. Some sources said he was from Henan, but others said he was from Shaanxi. Scholars who denied the existence of Li Yan assumed that Li Mou was equally unhistorical. Writers who accepted Li Mou’s existence noticed that his military rank was higher than that of his elder brother, but they did not explain why. They depicted Li Mou as being, like Li Yan, moderate in expropriating ex-Ming officials in Beijing and prominent in defending the capital when Li Zicheng campaigned to the east. Wang argued that the “Li Family Genealogy” provided proof of Li Mou’s existence and of his location in the Li family tree as a younger “clan brother” of Li Yan. He reported on interviews conducted in Tang village in which residents identified 32  Cheng 2006: 94–96. 33  For reflections on forgery in China and in the West, see: Trevor-Roper 1976; Grafton 1990; and McNicholas 2016.

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the house which once belonged to Li Ziqi and therefore to his son Li Mou. Local residents also claimed to know where Li Ziqi’s and Li Mou’s grave sites had been located before they were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Li Mou’s descendants are reportedly once again visiting the sites during the annual Qing-Ming festival to pay their respects to their ancestors. Wang argued that Li Ziqi’s contract for selling land was also hard evidence of this family’s existence and its wealth.34 The genealogy provided other details on Li Mou, in addition to those we have already explored above. It confirmed Wu Weiye’s and the Ming History’s claims that Li Mou joined Li Zicheng’s uprising in 1633 or 1634. That would be consistent with his having become aware of Li Zicheng when the rebel leader was having his first modest successes in Shaanxi. It would also explain why Li Mou was given a higher military post than Li Yan, who may have signed up only six or seven years later. According to Wang Xingya, Li Mou entered western Henan with Li Zicheng in late 1640 in preparation for the attack on Luoyang. In Wang’s words, Li Mou “was instructed to return to his hometown and mobilize people to join the army and fight. Upon his recommendation, Li Yan and other elder and younger brothers from Tang village, altogether totaling nine men, joined Li Zicheng’s forces at that time.”35 The Li family genealogy expressly stated that Li Mou personally recommended four of them. They were: Li Yan; Li Kai (courtesy You, 1601–?), government student, cousin, fate unknown; Li Dong (d. 1644), government student, cousin, died in battle; and Li Huairen (1617–1644), nephew, died in battle. Five other Lis from Tang village joined the rebellion at the same time, most likely, according to Wang, upon the recommendation of Li Mou. They were: Li Zhong and four clan nephews in the tenth generation of Li Mou’s branch of the family, i.e. Li Huaichen (1601–?), fate unknown; Li Huaidian (1599–1644), Li Huaili (1601–1644), and Li Huaizhen (1616–?), all died in battle. On the basis of other sources, Wang Xingya believed that Li Mou played important roles in the rebel attacks on Tong and Juyong passes and in defending Beijing during Li Zicheng’s eastern campaign.36 With respect to the fates of rebel leaders, the genealogy provided information when it was available and said nothing when it was not, thus enhancing its credibility. In Wang’s view, “The original source of [the] record that Li Yan and Li Mou were unjustly killed by Li Zicheng was not rumors in society or the 34  Wang 2007.2: 18–19. This essay was also reprinted in Niu and Guo 2013: 24–36, but I refer here to the pagination in the original article. 35  Wang 2007.2: 20. 36  Wang 2007.2: 20–21.

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words of novelists but the oral testimony of [the compiler’s] father Li Zhong, which was much more credible….”37 The genealogy also recorded that Li Mou’s orphaned son, Li Huaigong, went south with Li Zhong, taught in a society established by Li Jun, and eventually moved to Fujian, where he lived out his life. According to local tradition, Li Mou’s widow, woman Tang, entered the Millennial Temple as a nun. Li Mou’s father and his elder and younger brother remained in Tang village. When Li Ziqi sold some land, he was said to have sent the proceeds to Li Huaigong. In short, the Li family genealogy, fleshed out a bit by local oral accounts, was a much more legitimate original source for the historical Li Yan and Li Mou than the Jiangnan rumors and novels that generated the standard story of the two individuals. Wang Xingya concluded his article with the advice that “when historical records are chaotic, we must excise the false and retain the true”. In the past, scholars have argued that the Li Yan and Li Mou from Qi County were fabricated by the Little History of Suppressing Dashing, but they were unable to explain the authors’ motives. Now the “Li Family Genealogy” tells us that the Li clan brothers actually existed in Henei County and the compiler’s purpose was to make them known to—and respected by—their descendants while keeping their rebel record a family secret. In Wang’s view, the accounts of Li Mou in the genealogy are credible for four reasons. First, the Lis were a largely commoner family with a limited number of known members. Wang seemed to suggest that they were accordingly more likely to know each other and less likely to manipulate the genealogy to benefit some members at the expense of others. The compiler of the genealogy, Li Yuanshan, was a tributary student as were his birth father Li Zhong, his adopted father Li Yan, and his clan uncle Li Mou. This presumably enhanced his natural empathy for his rebel relatives. The compiler recorded the precise birth and death dates of most of his relatives, especially in the eleventh and twelfth generations, which reflected his personal knowledge of his relatives. Second, in the ninth generation, there was one Li Ji, who obtained his provincial degree in 1666 and his metropolitan degree in 1697, only the second Li to do so in the period covered by the genealogy. Li Ji had been included in the biographical section of the genealogy before that section was lost. He also had a biography in the Huaiqing prefectural gazetteer. Under these circumstances, even if Li Yuanshan had had supernatural talent, he would not have dared to elide relatives from the family tree or to interpolate unrelated people into it. Third, Li Mou “followed bandits” and “served as a bandit general” at a time when Li Zicheng was regarded as a major criminal. The compilers’ motives, 37  Wang 2007.2: 22.

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therefore, were surely not to glorify the ancestors let alone to accumulate “political capital”; their concern was “only to recognize the facts.” To be sure, the compilers had the contradictory motives of wanting to acknowledge Li Mou’s and others’ participation in the rebellion, while also deterring members of the family from revealing that history to the public. In this case, however, the pursuit of conflicting goals had actually resulted in recalling the truth. Fourth, Li Ziqi’s contract was supplemental material proof of his family’s location in the village both before and after 1644. As for why the genealogy has appeared only recently, that reflects the increasingly relaxed contemporary political environment in which families feel free to follow the practice of “compiling genealogies in a prosperous age”.38 Later in the same year of 2007, Wang Xingya published another article titled “Further investigation of the question of Li Yan’s native place—and a discussion of the authenticity of the ‘Li Family Genealogy’ of Tang village in Boai”. Wang challenged Luan Xing’s contention that Li Yan was completely fabricated in historical novels, and he rejected Qin Xinlin’s argument that the Little History of Suppressing Dashing was on sale in Shanghai as early as 19 May 1644. Wang pointed out that the rebel magistrates in Guide were arrested only on May 26 and the event was reported only on 4 June 1644. Since the Little History recorded that event, it must have been written only after it occurred and was reported. By that time Zhao Shijin’s memoir, A Record of 1644, was already out in draft form though it may have been printed only in 1645. Moreover, the memoir mentioned Li Yan’s role of defending Beijing when Li Zicheng campaigned east, a detail that was not included in the historical novels. This suggested to Wang that Zhao wrote his memoir independently of the novel. Wang acknowledged that three historical novels ultimately incorporated Li Yan and elaborated on his activities, but Wang argued that that did not mean that Li Yan did not exist. After all, the historical novels Three Kingdoms’ inclusion of Liu Bei and Records of the Marsh’s celebration of Song Jiang hardly proved that those figures did not exist in history.39 Li Yuanshan was born in 1642, two years after Li Yan joined Li Zicheng’s army, so he had no direct contact with Li Yan. There were, however, many kin in his father’s generation and in his own and his sons’ generations who were still alive when Li Yuanshan was compiling the genealogy. From these circumstances Wang Xingya inferred that, in his words,

38  Wang 2007.2: 22. 39  Wang 2007.4: 179–180.

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Li Yuanshan made inquiries of the local elders to discard the false and retain the true in narrating Li Yan’s and Li Mou’s place of birth, family life, and early activities. He broke open various mysteries that had grown up around Li Yan, restored his original countenance, filled in various omissions, and rectified various misrepresentations in the records.40 Although oral history has its own problems, Wang made the reasonable suggestion that the combination of a private written record with contemporary local oral testimony was more likely to produce the truth than was public hearsay incorporated into novels at a distance. In this article Wang gave additional reasons for regarding the “Li Family Genealogy” as authentic. Li Yuanshan took a great political risk and demonstrated admirable moral responsibility by including Li Yan and Li Mou in the family tree. He was probably able to do that because his father, Li Zhong, was very familiar with his younger brother, Li Yan, his cousin, Li Mou, and with the seven other relatives who participated in the rebellion with him as well as with the rest of the family who had survived the rebellion. Li Zhong was probably the major oral source for the brief interlinear biographies in the family tree. As we have seen, the names of Li Zhong, Li Yan, and Li Yuanshan appear on a document used in ancestral ritual that appears to date back to the Qing period. In the course of reconstructing an old house in Tang village in 1997, the names of Li Chunmao and his four sons were found inscribed on a beam, suggesting that it was the home of Li Yan’s father and Li Yan’s brothers. Gravesites of some of the principal figures described in the genealogy have been located in the village. Although there are no remaining tombstones, there are oral accounts that Li Yan’s and Li Mou’s remains were returned to the village in 1644. Self-described descendants continue to visit the sites during Qing-Ming festivals. Further, the Lis of Tang village and the Chens of nearby Chenjiagou had a history of harmonious intermarriage. Li Yan’s father’s sister was the mother of Chen Zouting, making Li Yan and Chen Zouting first maternal cousins. There are also the philosophical essays written by Li Chunmao and the land contracts signed by Li Zhong and Li Ziqi, all of which corroborate the genealogy’s location of the rebel Li Yan’s family in Tang village.41 With regard to more technical matters, the fact that the genealogy was written on light yellow business account paper is not a problem because that kind of paper was commonly used for copying genealogies in the Huaiqing region 40  Wang 2007.4: 181. 41  Wang 2007.4: 181–182. For further efforts to place the new findings in their proper historical context, see Wang 2008.3.

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in the Republic and it has continued to be used for that purpose to this day. Finally, Wang notes that Li Chenghai, who preserved the manuscript in Xi’an, had only a primary school education so would not have been able to alter the text even if he had wanted to (and there was no sign that he wanted to or did). Li Chenghai was also intent on keeping the text out of public view so that few—if any—non-relatives had access to it. Thus it seems likely that the copy Li Chenghai took with him to Xi’an in 1947 remains intact to this day. Qing acceptance of the standard Li Yan story in the Ming History and the state’s insistence that the 1788 edition of the Qi County Gazetteer drop the essay contesting the standard story discouraged any effort to look more widely for the historical figures behind the story. The “Li Family Genealogy” therefore rested quietly in its wrappings, except for occasional family viewings, until it was finally recognized as historically significant and publicized in 2004.42 Also in 2007, Cheng Feng published a second article in which he filled out the names of many members of later generations of the lineage and added a few details to Li Yan’s career. He pointed out that, according to the Jiyuan County and Huaiqing prefectural gazetteers, the youthful Li Yan had followed his father to Jiyuan County, where he read and practiced, took the civil service examinations, became a tributary student, and served as a sub-director of schools.43 This account is problematic because Li Yan was presumably registered in Henei County and thus would normally not have been able to become a tributary student in Jiyuan County. But Cheng notes that Li Yan’s grandfather, Li Zhengde, had managed a coal mine in Jiyuan and his father had studied the Four Books and Five Classics there, possibly enabling Li Yan to take his examinations there. Material in the gazetteers relating to Li Yan’s brothers was also consistent with that in the genealogy, offering further confirmation of the authenticity of the latter.44 Cheng also recorded successive additions of names to the ancestral scroll from the ninth generation of Li Zhong and Li Yan, through the twelfth generation of Li Helin, to the eighteenth generation up to the time of the Cultural Revolution.45 Finally, Cheng pointed out that since Li Yan had taken refuge with his aunt, worked in the grain shop of his clan uncle, and provided famine relief in Qi County, it was accurate to

42  Wang 2007.4: 182. 43  Liu and Qiao 1695: 6.17a. After 1450, the Ming relied heavily on tributary students to teach in state schools. Some of them were old and poorly trained and therefore were not highly regarded by their students. Chow 2004: 95, 159. Li Yan, however, was young and came from a scholarly family. He may therefore have fared better with his students. 44  Cheng 2007: 80; Liu and Qiao 1695: 6.18b. 45  Cheng 2007: 84–85.

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say that he was “from” Qi County, was the “son” of Li Jingbai, and provided “relief” to his starving neighbors.46 6.1.6 Wei Meizhi In the same year, 2007, Wei Meizhi, chairman of the Boai County office of place names, published an article titled “New evidence regarding Li Yan’s place of registration”. Wei added interesting judgments and details to the story such as that Li Chunyu’s “grain shop failed because of its provision of relief to the starving people.”47 He also provided more details on the scholar-official Li Zhengxiu and facts such as that Li Libing is a descendant of Li Yuanshan.48 Most importantly, Cheng recognized from the genealogy that, in his words, Members of the Li lineage greatly valued commerce and business. They emphasized wood, rice, oil, salt and other commodities essential to the lives of the masses of people, and they opened trading companies and shops in several places. For example, [in the fifth generation] Li Mingdao opened a feathered arrow business in Huaiqing Prefecture; in the seventh generation, Li Zhengde developed coal mines in Jiyuan; in the eighth generation, Li Kexi owned a grain and oil shop in Yuanwu; Li Ziyi ran a grain and oil store in Wuzhi; and Li Chunyu, courtesy name Li Jingbai, managed a grain shop in Qi County. In the ninth generation, Li Yan’s third elder brother Li Jun opened a bookstore and a martial arts school in Zhejiang. In the tenth generation, Li Zhong’s son, great grandson, great great grandson, and great great great grandson managed a salt store in Wuyang, etc.49 Wei added: “We can see that the Lis of Tang village were collectively a large literary, martial, official, commercial, and agricultural descent group.”50 Wei Meizhi pointed out that Li Yan belonged to this lineage and became a tributary student at around age twenty. Were it not for the Chen Zouting affair, he might have become a provincial or even a metropolitan graduate like his clan grandfather Zhengxiu. As it was, he was still a “purposeful and far-sighted man” who was said by the genealogy “to have upheld civil and military purposes and to have become famous in both domains.” He joined with brother Li Zhong and cousin Chen Zouting to found “Supreme Ultimate Nurturing 46  Cheng 2007: 88–89. 47  Wei 2007: 99. 48  Wei 2007: 102–105. 49  Wei 2007: 112. 50  They were good examples of the “literati-merchant-businessmen” of the late Ming. Chow 2004.

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Life martial arts” which influenced many young martial artists in several provinces. He studied and practiced in the Millennial Temple, Three Sages School, Supreme Ultimate Palace and advocated the unity of the three teachings. “The Confucian idea of ‘humaneness’, the Buddhist idea of ‘goodness’, and the Daoist idea of ‘justice’ all played relatively important roles in Li Yan’s thought. Wei then proceeded to ascribe to the historical Li Yan much of the advice associated with the literary Li Yan. It included encouraging Li Zicheng to refrain from excessive killing, to uphold humaneness and justice, to limit torture and confiscation of property, to assist empress Zhang, and the like.51 Given this Confucian and official background, why did Li Yan decide to join Li Zicheng’s farmer’s uprising? Wei offered three main reasons. The first was the Chen Zouting affair. According to Wang’s sources in the Chen family in Chenjiagou in Wen County, In the Chongzhen reign (research suggests the ninth year, 1636), Li Yan, Li Zhong, and Chen Zouting went to Henan Prefecture to participate in the provincial military examinations. Because Chen Zouting gave no bribes to the examiner, when Chen Zouting shot three arrows that all landed in the same place leaving only one hole [in the target], the examiner reported that two arrows had missed the target altogether. Chen Zouting was furious and cut down the examiner. Because of this, Li Zhong and Li Yan were both stripped of their academic status, Li Zhong was dismissed from his position as instructor, Li Yan lost his post as sub-director of education, and all were subject to prosecution and liable for execution.52 Wei mentioned no written source for this narrative so it may have been based in part on oral testimony. It provided a more detailed explanation of (or alibi for) Chen’s failure in the examination. It also seemed to specify, rather counterintuitively if based on oral testimony from the Chens, that Chen committed the murder by himself and that the Li brothers were only innocent bystanders and victims of the state’s plan for prosecution. In any case, the report concluded that the Lis’ loss of academic status was a fatal blow to their careers and precipitated their move into direct opposition to the Ming state.53 51  Wei 2007: 112; Li 1716/late Republic: 20; Li 1716/late Republic/2013: 221. 52  Wei 2007: 113. It is not indicated why the examination was held in Henan Prefecture rather than in Huaiqing Prefecture This may be an example of uninformed oral history. 53  The three “brothers”, we might suggest, were rather reminiscent of Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei in the historical novel Three Kingdoms, but I am not aware of anyone drawing that parallel either then or later.

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The second reason for Li Yan’s revolt was his distribution of relief grain to the starving people of Qi County. This event, described in the Ming History, was a classic case of officials’ forcing the people to rebel. Although the Ming History version included mistakes (such as Li’s birthplace, academic status, and his father’s identity), “the record that Li Xin distributed relief to the people of Qi County who were suffering from disasters finds supporting evidence in the ‘Li Family Genealogy’ ”. Taken together, the Ming History and the Li genealogy “prove that Li Yan really provided relief to the starving people of Qi County.” Li Yan was probably the author of the ballad encouraging his wellto-do neighbors to provide relief. The local officials should have welcomed this initiative, but instead they feared it and put Li Yan in jail. It was this event that led directly to Li Yan’s rebelling against Ming authority.54 A third reason for Li Yan’s revolt was the situation in his home county of Henei in 1639 and 1640. According to Zheng Lian’s informal but well-informed history and the Henei gazetteer, the county was already relatively poor and over taxed, and it was hit by severe drought and locust infestations in those two years. Hardships were so widespread that the county magistrate, an effective administrator named Wang Han, publicized them by compiling a memorial that contained sixteen sketches of the victims. The report was titled “Portraits of Harm Caused by a Calamity.” Unfortunately, the images have not survived, but the magistrate’s preface to the report is extant. In it Wang mounted a scathing attack on the late Ming corruption and tax hikes that were driving many people to rebel.55 As for the time and place of Li Yan’s joining Li Zicheng’s farmers’ uprising, Wei Meizhi pointed out that we must first determine when Li Mou threw in his lot with the rebels. We have seen in the genealogy that Li Mou and his father went west to Shanxi and Shaanxi to propagate martial arts in 1634. According to the Ming History, the chief rebel Gao Yingxiang and his subordinate Li Zicheng crossed the Yellow River from Mianchi County in Henan Prefecture and “Zicheng and his men united with Li Mou”. According to another source, Li Zicheng came from Shanxi in 1632 to attack Xiuwu and Qinghua and “the next year again plundered Henei and Jiyuan counties”. In 1634 they moved south from Jiyuan. Wei concluded: From all of these sources, we can see that Li Mou joined Li Zicheng’s farmers’ uprising in Chongzhen seven [1634]. Looking at the arena in which Li Zicheng’s rebel farmers’ army was active in Chongzhen seven, 54  Wei 2007: 113–114. 55  Wei 2007: 114–116. See also Des Forges 2003: 60–63.

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the important activities were in Henei, Jiyuan, Mengxian, and from Matichuang crossing the river to the south to Mianchi. From this we can see that Li Mou must have joined the rebel army in Henan…. In Chongzhen seven, when Li Zicheng was active in Henei, he attracted into his company Li Mou and his martial followers who had been teaching boxing in Shanxi.56 In all, as we have seen, Li Mou attracted Li Yan and eight other kin into the rebellion in 1640. Wei Meizhi drew on the report of the Henei magistrate Wang Han to describe the locusts, drought, and illegal taxes that in 1639–1640 brought hardship to the people of the region. The result was local uprisings including that of Li Jiyu in Songshan and Zhang Simeng in Yuanwu. Wei wondered why Li Yan rallied to Li Zicheng rather than to the home-grown rebels of his home province. He speculated that “Li Yan was talented and ambitious, and he and Li Zicheng held each other in mutual regard.” He noted that Li Zicheng had crisscrossed counties in Huaiqing Prefecture many times from 1632 to 1634, including Jiyuan where Li Yan was an education official, and the town of Qinghua, where Li Yan had once lived. In Wei’s words: “Li Yan’s knowledge of Li Zicheng’s rebel troops and their public standing was direct and deep, not based just on rumors in the streets and stories on the roads.” Li Yan’s relations with his cousin and fellow boxing teacher Li Mou were characterized by “sincere friendship between fellow warriors”. Wei cited the Henanese historian Zheng Lian to date Li Mou’s “luring” of his nine relatives into the rebellion to sometime in the last three months of 1640 and the first month of 1641. Because the Ming History described the rebels’ takeover of Yongning County as a turning point in the fortunes of the rebellion, Wei writes that we can infer that: before the attack on Yongning, Li Zicheng had Li Mou “lure” Li Yan and the others into the company. [Li Zicheng] listened to Li Yan’s advice that “when undertaking a big enterprise it is essential to win the people’s hearts and minds”, to completely respect military discipline, and to adopt a policy of “welcoming the dashing prince and paying no taxes,” so as to get a response from the famished people.57 Thus it was that Li Mou went to his home in Tang village and persuaded kinsmen to join him in the rebellion as “advisors and generals.” Wei argued that Li Yan and others who embraced the ecumenical Buddhist, Daoist, and 56  Wei 2007: 116. 57  Wei 2007: 117–118.

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Confucian ideals of the Millennial Temple became the “ridge poles of human talent” in the rebel army.58 In Wei’s view, they brought much needed civil and military theory and practice to the movement. 6.1.7 Wei Meizhi and Yang Yudong In the following year, 2008, Yang Yudong, Special Researcher at the Central Plain Martial Arts Research Center, joined Wei Meizhi in publishing an article titled “The cultural origins and historical creation of Supreme Ultimate boxing by Chen Wangting, Li Yan, and Li Zhong”. It began by noting that Supreme Ultimate boxing has been attributed to many founding figures, including Xu Xuanping in the Tang, Zhang Sanfeng (張三峰) in the Song, Zhang Sanfeng (張三豐) in the Ming, and Chen Wangting (courtesy Zouting) in the Qing. Until recently there have been many different theories but little hard evidence.59 The account in the Wen County draft gazetteer of the Republican period, for example, was “based solely on oral transmission.” With the discovery of the “Li Family Genealogy” of Tang village, however, we have for the first time a written history of the creation and spread of Supreme Ultimate boxing.60 According to the genealogy, the founders of the Li and Chen lineages came from Hongdong around the time of the founding of the Ming. They settled in two villages, Tang and Chenjiagou, only a few tens of li (one li equals about one-third mile) apart. They began intermarrying in the eighth generation, when Li Zhengde married a woman named Meng and produced a son, Li Chunmao, and two daughters. The elder daughter, Li Chunmao’s sister, married Chen Fumin of Changyang village. They gave birth to four sons, including Chen Wangting. During his youth, Chen Wangting studied martial arts with his uncle Li Chunmao. He joined with his cousins, Li Zhong and Li Yan, in developing the Supreme Ultimate nurturing life form of martial arts.61 Like Wang Xingya and Li Libing before them, Yang and Wei found a description of the three brothers’ joint enterprise in the preface to the “Li Family Genealogy.” The relevant passage was as follows: In the eighth generation, [Li] taboo Chunmao, also known as Mingzhen, passed the tributary [examination], entered the Millennial Temple, joined the Three Sage Branch, occupied the Supreme Ultimate Palace, took a teacher, studied martial arts, practiced boxing, and wielded swords. He 58  Wei 2007: 120. 59  For Zhang and Chen, see Seidel 1970: esp. 504–506. 60  Yang and Wei 2008: 8. 61  Yang and Wei 2008: 8–9.

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observed the stars, read about martial strategy, propagated the union of the three teachings and non-ultimate nurturing of life, thirteenth power boxing, spears and swords, spreading spiritual achievement, teaching boxing in Jin, Lu, Shaan, Zhe, Hu, and Guang, making a living out of it. In the ninth generation, masters taboo Zhong and taboo Xin joined with their cousin from Chenjiagou, master Chen taboo Zouting. The three cousins united in justice around their Supreme Ultimate teacher, cultivated their civil and martial wills, completed their efforts and became famous, created the art of Supreme Ultimate Life Achievement, transmitted the Thirteenth Power of Non-Ultimate effort, the skill of penetrating ramparts, took the examinations and were selected as tributaries, were lured into the Dashing bandit’s camp, were wise in civil and military matters, and overawed the bandit heroes.62 This passage is important because it describes Li Chunmao’s leadership and his three students’ joint efforts to establish their own form of Supreme Ultimate or Non-Ultimate martial arts. It also suggests that Li Zhong and Li Yan, at least, surpassed the other rebel generals in their skills and achievements. The author seems to romanticize the three men’s roles and to suggest comparisons with Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, who pledged allegiance to each other in the Oath of the Peach Garden celebrated in the Ming historical novel Three Kingdoms. For some unknown reason, my copy of the Li Family Genealogy includes the description of Li Chunmao’s leadership but replaces the rest of the passage with the following brief comment: “Worthy sons and grandsons carried on, and the later days of the clan were a time of civil and military integrity, recognizing current realities and the upright way.”63 Perhaps it was thought that the, presumably more original, language was too explicit and boastful, and the editors settled on a more subtle and modest description of their family’s involvement with the Shun, and, later, with the Qing. As we shall see, the enthusiasm about the rebel activities of Li Zhong and Li Yan in at least one edition of the genealogy will raise questions in at least one scholar’s mind about the authenticity of the entire text. The different narratives here also raise the possibility that there are different versions of the genealogy circulating today.64 According to the “Draft gazetteer of Wen County”, the Chen family of Chenjiagou was already famous in the Ming period for its form of martial arts 62  Yang and Wei 2008: 9; Niu and Guo 2013: 213–214. 63  Li 1716/late Republic: 5–6. 64  According to Li Libing and Wei Meizhi, my copy of the genealogy is the best one available. Interview in Tang village in June 2018.

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and Chen Wangting was a military student who perfected his techniques in the early Qing. Based on these newly discovered historical documents, however, it appears that the Li family of Tang village was far more prominent than the Chen family of Chenjiagou village in the late Ming, and it was the Lis who passed their knowledge and experience on to Chen Wangting. According to the genealogy, it was also the clash of the three “brothers” with Ming authority that precipitated the creation of a distinctive form of martial arts. Yang and Wei note that, according to gazetteer records, there was only one student who passed the prefectural civil examination and one who passed the prefectural military examination in 1636. This may have indicated that there was some trouble that year, perhaps reflecting Chen’s challenge to the examiner when he failed the examination. Yang and Wei suggest that it was probably in the following year (1637) that the three “brothers,” now fugitives from the law, combined their efforts to form their own school of boxing.65 Yang and Wei go on to describe a larger historical pattern into which the three brothers fit. They recall Lao Zi’s stay in Wen County before he went west, Confucius’s visiting him there to ask questions, and the Later Han ruler Ming’s introduction of Buddhism in the region. These key events in this region, they suggest, provided the historical foundations for the unity of the three teachings associated with the Millennial Temple. In their view, the fusion of the three teachings reached its first high point in the Wei-Jin period and its second high point in the Sui-Tang period. Li Yan, Li Zhong, and Chen Wangting, then, were part of a third wave of the three teachings that occurred in the late Ming and early Qing. That heritage was then carried on by Li Helin in the Li family and Chen Xin in the Chen family, and it was the two families’ cooperation that explains their achievements.66 In the same year, 2008, Wang Xingya addressed a wider readership by publishing a new biography of Li Zicheng. He embraced the tributary student Li Xin (courtesy Yan) from Tang village in Henei County as the historical scholar rebel advisor behind the legendary provincial graduate of Qi County. He depicted the historical Li Xin/Yan’s younger cousin, Li Mou, as the first member of the family to join Li Zicheng’s rebel army and the one who brought nine of his relatives into the movement. Wang argued that Niu Jinxing from Baofeng had his own reasons for joining Li Zicheng’s enterprise and he was responsible for bringing the dwarf diviner Song Xiance, who was from Yongcheng County, into the rebel army.67 Wang Xingya described Li Yan as a second ranked general 65  Yang and Wei 2008: 9–10. 66  Yang and Wei 2008: 10–12. 67  Wang 2008: 44–49.

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in the rebel regime established in Xiangyang.68 Wang had Li You named Earl of Wuyang in Xi’an, but he made no mention of Li Yan there.69 He described Niu Jinxing’s role as rebel prime minister and Song Xiance’s role as commanderin-chief in Beijing, but limited his discussion of Li Yan to his occupation of Zhou Kui’s house and the four-point memorial.70 Wang stated that Niu Jinxing advised Li Zicheng not to send troops against Wu Sangui and remarked that it was unfortunate that the rebel leader did not heed that counsel.71 Wang described the execution of Li Yan and Li Mou at the hands of Li Zicheng and Niu Jinxing in Pingyang Prefecture, in southwest Shanxi, on the twenty-second day of the sixth month of 1644. He did so in terms consistent with much of the data, but he did not address the question of the inconsistencies in time and place in many of the early accounts.72 Wang recounted Niu Jinxing’s taking refuge in the home of his son Quan, who served the Qing.73 He ended his book with a recognition that the details of Li Zicheng’s demise remain open for discussion. He also reminded readers of the continuing value of Mao Zedong’s warning that revolutionaries should avoid the hubris that led to Li Zicheng’s failure to establish his own enduring regime.74 6.1.8 Sato Fumitoshi As we have seen, two years later, in 2010, Sato Fumitoshi published his own account of “the puzzle of Master Li” in light of the 2004 discovery of the genealogy of the Li family of Tang village. He devoted ten pages to Wang Xingya’s position that the tributary student from Henei County was the principal histo­ rical figure behind the Li Yan story, and he (Sato) appeared to favor that thesis over all others available at the time.75 Sato concluded his book with the thought that the rebel slogan calling for adequate food and clothing may have reflected the theory of the Childlike Mind advocated by the radical late-Ming thinker Li Zhi (1527–1602).76 In that view, Li Zicheng should ease the tax and labor demands on the people so as to earn the title of “a humane and just leader.”77 68  Wang 2008: 94. 69  Wang 2008: 126–129. 70  Wang 2008: 146–165. 71  Wang 2008: 168–170. We have seen that some accounts had Li Yan urging Li Zicheng to send more troops and other sources had him recommending fewer troops than Li Zicheng eventually led east, raising questions about the historicity of any of this advice. 72  Wang 2008: 183–185. 73  Wang 2008: 195. 74  Wang 2008: 197–198. 75  Sato 2010: 179–190, 200–201. 76  de Bary 1970: 188–225; Chan 1980. 77  Sato 2010: 200–201.

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Like Wang Xingya in 2008, Sato also wrote a new and more popular biography of Li Zicheng in 2013. This work appeared to perpetuate the standard Li Yan story and it took surprisingly little account of the most recent research on our rebel “gang of four.” It described Niu as a provincial degree holder from Baofeng who got into a conflict with his father-in-law and ended up in exile in Lushi County. Niu was liberated when Li Zicheng came through Lushi and he was appointed prime minister in the Shun regime. Sato’s biography of Li Zicheng followed Luan Xing in crediting Niu Jinxing with an important role in the rebellion, but it stopped short of Luan’s rehabilitation of Niu’s reputation vis a vis Li Yan. Sato stated merely that “Niu Jinxing was in charge of political policies and military strategies” while “Li Yan was active in soothing the masses and publicizing policies.”78 Even more surprisingly, the book continued to describe Li Yan as a provincial graduate of Qi County despite Gu Cheng’s and others’ convincing arguments against that idea. The book reiterated the conventional description of how the three-foot-tall diviner, Song Xiance, predicted the “arrival of a prince named Li” and became commander-in-chief of the rebel army. Sato shared the view of other writers that Li Yan became a second-ranked general and was otherwise invisible during the three years of Li Zicheng’s rise to power from 1641 through 1643.79 But Sato differed from many other writers in also downplaying Li Yan’s role in Beijing. In fact, he mentioned only Li’s policy of stationing troops outside the city wall to avoid burdening the people in the capital.80 To be sure, Sato’s slim book was pitched to a popular readership and he had little time and space in which to discuss at length anyone other than Li Zicheng.81 But the book paid some attention to other figures such as the Jiangnan Restoration Society scholar Zhou Zhong and the Henanese scholarofficial He Ruizheng who joined the rebellion.82 In Sato Fumitoshi’s case, even more than in Wang Xingya’s, it was as if finding a fully historical person behind the storied Li Yan did not increase—but actually reduced—his importance as a scholar rebel advisor to Li Zicheng. That may have been a reasonable reaction, but it was not the only possible way to understand the scholar-rebel-advisor Li Yan, who was becoming an increasingly real, if still partially composite and enigmatic, historical figure.

78  Sato 2010: 58–59. 79  Sato 2010: 66. 80  Sato 2010: 80. 81  Sato 2010: 82–83, 85–86, 92, 98, 102, 103. 82  Sato 2010: 74, 82.

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In his popular biography of Li Zicheng, Wang Xingya had treated the tributary student Li Yan from Henei as the main historical reality behind the Li Yan story. He apparently saw little need to discuss the standard story of the provincial graduate Li Yan from Qi, thereby strongly implying that it was no longer part of the reliable historical record. In his own popular history of Master Li, on the other hand, Sato Fumitoshi adopted a neutral position that allowed for the co-existence of the storied and the historical Li Yans, whose importance and significance would presumably be determined by Sato’s readership. Apparently Sato thought that the Li Yan from Henei was the primary historical person behind the Li Yan story, but he still believed that the standard Li Yan story continued to be part of the historical record. The story, in other words, helped to explain how many contemporaries and observers in later generations down to the present came to understand the rise and fall of Li Zicheng’s rebellion. 6.2

A Continuing Debate and a New One

6.2.1 Xu Jun Meanwhile, in 2010, Professor Xu Jun, a young historian at Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, continued the debate over Li Yan’s historicity. He followed Gu Cheng, Luan Xing, and Qin Xinlin in arguing that In view of existing materials, the Li Yan story was fabricated by novelists and historians based on popular rumors. Rumors of a Master Li that circulated among the people resulted in many volumes. Among them, A Novel about Suppressing Dashing incorporated one story and became a model for both historians and novelists.83 Xu praised the work of other skeptics and concurred that “Historians used repetition to insist there really was this person, with the aim of discrediting the uprising. Novelists on the basis of their political views made Li Yan change his standpoint several times.”84 Xu insisted that the participant observer Zhao Shijin only heard about Li Yan and never actually saw him in Beijing. Xu believed that it was not clear if Li Yan had actually occupied Zhou Kui’s house. He also noted that Zhao left Beijing before Li Yan supposedly assumed responsibility for garrisoning the eastern part of the city. That supposed role of 83  Xu 2010: 5, 12. 84  Xu 2010: 5.

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Li Yan was therefore doubtful too. In other words, in Xu’s judgment, Zhao’s two crucial mentions of Li Yan in Beijing were based only on hearsay and did not come from an actual witness.85 Xu also agreed with Luan and Qin that the main source of the Li Yan story was A Novel about Suppressing Dashing which appeared first as a manuscript in June 1644 and was subsequently printed and published in 1645. Xu also believed, with Gu, Luan, and Qin, in the importance of the Japanese account titled Hearsay Regarding Military Chaos in the Great Ming that recorded conversations in Japan in September 1644. Xu thought that the sailors may have drawn on The Novel for some of their information. He noted that the Novel and the Hearsay distinguished between Li Zicheng and Li Yan but also referred to a Master Li. Both sources acknowledged that there was confusion in people’s minds over which of the two Lis enjoyed the title Master. In any case, they argued that both of these texts circulated as early as June 1645, four months prior to the death of Li Zicheng in the fall of 1645. Xu suggests that the The Novel was designed to attach the title Master Li to Li Yan and to besmirch the reputation of Li Zicheng. In other words, scholar Li Yan was to be credited with the positive features of the rebellion while commoner Li Zicheng was to be held responsible for its negative aspects.86 Xu took note of the hypothesis, which I first proposed in 1984, that the Ming metropolitan graduate and official named Li Yan from Laiyang, Shandong, might have been rumored to be associated with Li Zicheng. Based on his own research, however, Xu concluded that “There is no record that the official named Li Yan participated in the rebellion, so even if his name and nickname circulated, the particular details of his activities must have come from somewhere else.” Xu suggested that the Lazy Daoist of Western Wu was the one who created Li Yan as the short-lived savior of the people, whose life helped to explain the rise of the rebellion, and whose death precipitated its fall. As we have seen, the Lazy Daoist propagated that view by citing the supposed words of Wu Sangui to the effect that Li Yan, not Li Zicheng, had been the real threat to the Ming and his death meant that “a great disaster has been removed from the bosom of our Ming.”87 Of course, Wu may or may not have uttered these words. For the Lazy Daoist, it was enough that they supported the view that Li Yan was a person, separate from Li Zicheng, whose life story resonated with that of the rebel Shun state.

85  Xu 2010: 5. 86  Xu 2010: 6–8. 87  Xu 2010: 8.

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As for the details of Li Yan’s death, Xu found some of them in the Ming novel, Three Kingdoms, which romanticized the fall of the Han. Song Xiance’s advice to Li Yan not to remain for too long under someone else’s authority was similar to Lü Bu’s boast to Wang Yun that he would not be Dong Zhuo’s underling forever.88 Niu Jinxing’s arranging a banquet at which Li Yan and his brother would be killed followed Jia Yi’s inviting Zhang Ji and Fan Chou to a dinner at which Fan Chou was decapitated.89 Niu Jinxing’s warning to Li Zicheng that giving troops to Li Yan would allow the tiger to go back to the mountains seemed to echo Cao Cao’s advisors’ warning that allowing Liu Bei to go to Xuzhou would let the tiger return to the mountains. The point in both cases was that the opponent, once returned to the mountains, would never be subordinated again.90 Niu Jinxing’s dreaming about becoming an august lord seems to have been modeled on Cao Cao’s poem expressing his ambitions.91 When boasting of his ancestors’ achievements, Niu Jinxing used language similar to that of Sima Yan (236–290) before he obtained the abdication of the Wei state to the Jin.92 Xu observes that “History can repeat itself but the details of life are difficult to replicate. The repetition of dense details like this is certainly not a veritable record of actual lives, and it can only originate in literary modeling.”93 The process of shifting the title of Master Li from Li Zicheng to Li Yan began in the more than ten editions of The Little Stories of Suppressing Dashing and related titles. Some of them are still available today in libraries in Beijing, Taibei, and Tokyo and might repay further detailed study. The process continued in histories and literature for various political reasons. In one view, Wu Weiye identified Li Yan’s father as Li Jingbai simply to carry on his vendetta against opponents of the Eastern Forest and Restoration Societies by associating them with “bandits.”94 Gu Yingtai and Zha Jizuo may have accepted the Li Yan story because it was widely known and they were reluctant to challenge public opinion.95 The Ming History may have included the most colorful elements of the story because they were consistent with the Qing founders’ claims to replace the rebels just as Liu Bang had replaced the rebel Xiang Yu to establish the Han and Zhu Yuanzhang had replaced the rebel Chen Youliang (1320–1363)

88  Luo/Roberts 1991: 9.15. 89  Luo/Roberts 1991: 10.79. 90  Luo/Roberts 1991: 21.167. 91  Luo/Roberts 1991: 48. 367. 92  Luo/Roberts 1991: 119. 923. 93  Xu 2010: 8. 94  Xu 2010: 9. 95  Xu 2010: 10.

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to establish the Ming.96 The Qing rulers thereby seemed to claim their polity was just as legitimate as those earlier, more populist and Han-centric polities had been. If early Qing historians downgraded Li Zicheng and built up Li Yan, more popular writers went on to raise questions about Li Yan’s motivations as well. In 1652 a text titled Great Merits of the New Age depicted Li Yan as pursuing wealth and power and taking risks to achieve success. The Record of the End of the Ming in the North apparently drew on Great Merits and adopted some of the same perspective on Li Yan’s goals. The Woodcutter’s History portrayed Li Yan as having a more honorable agenda but as being unlikely to realize it. Finally, as we have seen, the Iron Cap Pictures portrayed Song Jiong and Li Yan as opportunists who joined the rebellion on its upswing, introduced a landlord-merchant element into the rebel regime, and aimed only to become commanders and officials in a new state, visiting new hardships on the people.97 In November 2014, after reading Xu’s article, I contacted him in Shanghai to discuss his understanding of the genealogy of the Li family of Tang village made public a decade earlier. He told me that he thought there were problems with the text that was being widely cited in the secondary literature, but he added that he had not yet seen a copy of the original. I agreed to send him a copy and said I looked forward to his appraisal of it. Xu sent me a photocopy of his article manuscript in 2015 and a digital copy of the published article in 2016. In his article Xu acknowledged that the publication of the genealogy had had a great impact. “But,” he continued, there are some difficulties in such matters as word usage, ritual systems, and boxing records; and some problems in wording and style in the supplementary tomb inscription for Li Ziqi, making it difficult to establish claims such as that Tang village was Li Yan’s native place and that it was the original home of supreme ultimate boxing.98 Xu wrote that he would not provide an overall appraisal of the genealogy, but would focus on the relationship between the genealogy and Li Ziqi’s epitaph. In fact, Xu made quite a few comments on many aspects of the genealogy manuscript. He considered it to be so suspect that he referred to it as the “Tang genealogy” rather than as the “Li Family Genealogy” of Tang village which is

96  Xu 2010: 11. 97  Xu 2010: 12. 98  Xu 2016: 84.

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the title of the manuscript used by the Li family of Tang village and by all other scholars, including me, who have written about it. Xu began his analysis by observing that “genealogies normally hide the disgraceful and tout the admirable, basically excluding criminals and rebels, but the Tang genealogy is not like this.”99 The practice of “appropriate concealment,” we have observed, goes back to commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Annals.100 As we have also noted, the historian Xie Guozhen invoked it to explain why the descendants of Li Jingbai may have eliminated the rebel Li Xin/Yan from their genealogy. In Xu’s view, this practice was so widespread and respected that, as he put it, “the Tang genealogy’s self-satisfaction in [the family’s] making rebellion raises doubts [about its authenticity].”101 Xu then cited the passage from one version of the genealogy that we have mentioned above. He claimed that the passage indicated a cavalier attitude toward subversive activities.102 Xu put the phrase “cousins united for justice” in an interlinear note followed by a question mark. Perhaps he was wondering if they really were united, or how they defined justice, or both. Although the genealogy referred to the kin who joined the rebellion as “bandits,” Xu seemed to think that the term “heroes” betrayed a degree of sympathy that was suspect in a supposed eighteenth-century document. In my copy of the genealogy, there are references to Chen Wangting in the biographies of the brothers Li Zhong and Li Xin, but not to the brothers’ “civil and military knowledge and strength to overawe the bandit heroes.”103 Perhaps, as Xu appears to suggest, these words were added to the text by descendants of Li Yan who copied the manuscript in the twentieth century. Xu seemed to believe that the inclusion of the Li family’s dirty political laundry was already reason to question the authenticity of the genealogy. He went on to cite more of the text. Formerly there were meritorious ancestors who opened the way, so there must be meritorious sons and grandsons to carry on, it is the civil and martial historical legacy of our clan, knowing current events, serving the upright way. The clan elders strictly instructed: at the end of the Ming in the ninth generation of our clan the Li masters taboo Zhong, taboo Xin, taboo Mou, taboo Dong, taboo You all were drawn into Dashing bandit’s 99  Xu 2016: 84. 100  Chan 2999: 683 n 8. 101  Xu 2016: 84. 102  Xu 2016: 84. 103  Niu and Guo 2013: 213–214; Li 1716/late Republic: 5–6, 19–20.

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army as advisors and generals. Their descendants sincerely respect them, [but] what they did must not be discussed and the genealogy must not publicize it.104 Xu criticized the compiler of the genealogy for sending mixed messages by including the family’s rebel activities in the genealogy and then warning readers not to publicize them. Indeed, Xu thinks that the compilers not only expressed no shame for their relatives’ rebellious behavior or fear of the consequences, but were actually proud of it and encouraged later generations to follow their ancestors’ example. Xu finds it difficult to imagine that people could have thought this way in the early years of the Qing polity.105 Xu noted that Chinese genealogies did not usually become public, but one dealing with the origins of the martial arts might well have attracted state interest. This made inclusion of the biographies of the rebel relatives too risky to undertake. Xu also remarked that hand-written genealogies of the families of Li Zicheng and his nephew Li Guo have also appeared in recent years. According to Xu, the format of those texts is quite similar to the format of Li Yan’s. Xu wanted to know why these texts are appearing only now when enthusiasm for rebellion is no longer fashionable in China.106 Xu strongly implied that at least some parts of the genealogy of the Li family of Tang village were fabricated. He pointed out the use of terms that would not have been acceptable in the early Qing, when it was supposedly compiled. To cite only a few examples, the preface of the genealogy refers to “the Great Ming,” a locution that, when used in the early Qing by Ming loyalists such as Zhuang Tinglong (d. 1660) and Dai Mingshi (1653–1713), cost them their lives.107 The phrase “more than 300 years ago” in the genealogy would not have been used before the Republican period. The characters “wind and water,” and “precious place,” would not have been used together during the Ming-Qing period.108 The Li patriarchs and/or compilers of the Li genealogy also often violated standard taboos of the Ming period against using the characters for heaven and origin. They violated family protocol by adopting personal names already used by their ancestors, including the name Xin!109 Xu also discovered irregularities in the organization of 104  Xu 2016: 84; Li 1716: 6. 105  Xu 2016: 84. In support of this view, Xu cites a phrase “to encourage clan descendants to take their ancestors as models”. I do not find this phrase in my copy of the genealogy. 106  Xu 2016: 85. 107  Xu 2016: 85. See biographies of Zhuang by L.C. Goodrich and of Dai by Fang Chao-ying in Hummel 1943–44: 205–206, 701–02. 108  Xu 2016: 86–87. 109  Xu 2016: 88–89.

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the Lis’ ancestral halls, the layout of the family cemetery, and the handling of birth and death dates of women (including concubines) and children.110 Xu was struck by what he considered to be excessive growth in the size of the Li family in the late Ming despite the farmers’ uprisings. This criticism seems to ignore the finding that even major wars and famines often have little effect on the size of populations in the long run. Xu also suspected the concentration of birth dates in certain months of the year and found many errors in the boxing genealogy. He was surprised at mistakes made in the descriptions of the martial arts, a discipline that was supposed to be the specialty of the Li clan and a significant source of their income.111 Finally, Xu took up the epitaph for Li Ziqi, a government student and father of the rebel Li Mou. The tomb inscription had been excavated and was exhibited by descendants in Tang village as one of the supplementary cultural artifacts that helped authenticate the genealogy. In 2007, Yan Ziyuan published an article saying that the inscription was “fabricated” and demanding that Tang village “provide proof” of its authenticity according to the law.112 According to Xu, the people of “Tang village” had made no effective response and continued to display the inscription so there was a need for further research. In Xu’s view, the epitaph is suspect because it described Li Ziqi as a “government student of the August Ming.” These are words that would have put the entire family at risk if made public when the epitaph was purportedly written in 1690. The epitaph also described Li Ziqi as the martial arts “ancestral teacher,” a term that, according to Xu, came into use in that domain only in the Republican era. The epitaph to Li Ziqi also unaccountably referred to Li Chunmao, who was in the same (eighth) generation as Li Ziqi but from a different burial group in Tang village. Finally, some of Li Ziqi’s descendants were mentioned in the epitaph but not in the genealogy and vice versa. As a tributary student and chief compiler of the genealogy, Li Yuanshan would not have made these mistakes. In Xu’s view, their appearance suggests interpolations by less well-educated members of later generations, including those living in the twentieth century. In Xu’s words, “Thus, if the text of the epitaph is true, the Tang genealogy must be false; if the Tang genealogy is true, then the epitaph must be false; or both of them are false.”113 Xu apparently did not entertain the possibility that both records might have been (at least partly) true.

110  Xu 2016: 90–91. 111  Xu 2016: 92–93. 112  Yan 2007. 12: 20 cited in Xu 2016: 93. 113  Xu 2016: 94–96.

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In sum, Xu Jun strongly implied, even if he did not state, that what he called “the Tang genealogy” was in good part compiled in the twentieth century by not-very-well-educated members of the Li lineage in Tang village. He raised the possibility that the scholar-rebel Li Xin/Yan and his rebel brother, cousins, clan brothers, and clan nephews were interpolated into the genealogy by descendants who regarded them as rebel heroes by twentieth-century Chinese standards. He seems to believe that they may not have existed outside of the standard Li Yan story that has come down to us through history and literature for readily comprehensible—but completely unacceptable—reasons. In the two articles, Xu demonstrated his considerable knowledge of Chinese cultural traditions, his careful research into historical and literary texts, and his admirable courage in questioning what appears to be a newly emerging consensus regarding the solution to the 375-year-old Li Yan puzzle (1644–2019). That consensus, suggested by an anonymous author on the web, might be simply to replace the Qi County provincial graduate and his younger brother who killed the magistrate and joined Hong Niangzi in supporting Li Zicheng with the Henei County tributary student and his older brother who killed the examiner and joined his cousin and seven other relatives in rallying to Li Zicheng.114 Xu’s alternative would seem to be to continue to challenge the standard Li Yan story while also doubting the new biography, thus maintaining our skepticism without moving any closer to a solution to the Li Yan puzzle. Xu does not yet presume, however, to have offered a comprehensive critique of the extant genealogy, or to have argued that the entire text is a fabrication dating only to the twentieth century and serving the needs of a family of martial arts teachers. Meanwhile, in 2010, unaware of Xu Jun’s first article that year criticizing the standard Li Yan story, I revived my theory that Li Yan was a composite figure, but now one with a fully historical personality at its core. In a paper delivered at a conference in Beijing, I unwittingly developed a point already made in passing by Wang Xingya, that the “Li Family Genealogy” of Tang village might enable us not only to see Li Yan’s “true historical face,” but also to understand how his literary image was constructed by many well-intentioned writers based on the limited information then available to them. My paper was published in Chinese in 2012 under the title “Why Did Qing Historians Accept the Li Yan Story?”115 In the course of expanding that paper, which was published as a book chapter, into this monograph, I wrote another paper dealing with the question of how the standard Li Yan story not only survived but flourished during the twentieth century despite the efforts in China to “doubt antiquity” 114  “Li Yan” 2009/2014. 115  Dai 2012. A version of this book chapter, minus the sources, is in Niu and Guo 2013: 52–72.

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and to write “new history”. That second paper was published in English in 2018 as a book chapter under the title “The Chinese Scholar-Rebel-Advisor Li Yan in the History and Literature of the Mid-Twentieth Century.”116 6.3

The Likely Oral Origins and Early Written Development of the Li Yan—Hong Niangzi Story

6.3.1 Li Yuanshan Rather than simply dropping the storied provincial graduate Li Yan from Qi County and replacing him with the historical tributary student Li Yan from Henei County, I would like to review once more the likely oral origins and early written development of the Li Yan—Hong Niangzi story in light of the newly available data in the “Li Family Genealogy” from Tang village. As we have seen, in his 1716 preface to the genealogy and speaking in the name of the elders of the village, compiler Li Yuanshan clearly indicated how the family should handle the sensitive matter of its rebel members. It should include them in the genealogy and acknowledge their misdemeanors, in line with the Commentary of Zuo’s call to record historical facts, while paying respects to their spirits and keeping their banditry a family secret, in accord with the Spring and Autumn’s provision for appropriate concealment to protect the family’s interests and promote public morality.117 These guidelines seem to have been remarkably well observed by members of the Li clan over generations down to 2003 CE, but many members of the family, including Li Yan’s elder brother, Li Zhong, continued to conduct trade and teach martial arts not only in Henan but also in neighboring Shanxi and Hubei and as far south as Zhejiang and Fujian.118 Under these conditions, it seems likely that some of the family secrets leaked out as rumors, and, sooner or later, became part of the oral culture that gave rise to—and fed into—the public Li Yan story or the storied Li Yan. To test this hypothesis and to follow the implied interactions between fact and fiction, oral and written accounts, formal and informal history, history and literature, and history and historiography, we must look once more—I dare not say for a final time!—at the likely origins and development of the Li Yan story in light of the recently discovered genealogy. (For a guide to the relationships among the most relevant members of the family, please see the selective Li family tree in Appendix B). 116  Des Forges 2018. 117  Li 1716/late Republic: preface, 6. 118  Li 1716/late Republic: 16–27.

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We have recognized for some time that the Li Yan story probably began with rumors.119 The first may have circulated in 1642, when Li Zicheng was in the central plain. As we have seen, in September 1644, only three months after the rebels were driven from Beijing, some Chinese sailors and merchants were interviewed by a Japanese and their testimony was included in a Japanese text. According to them, Li Zicheng was the grandson of a certain minister of troops, who one year paid the taxes of his poor neighbors during a famine. When he was unable to do so the following year, he was jailed by a suspicious magistrate.120 Li Zicheng was subsequently freed from prison by the common people, and led a rebellion against the Ming state. Primary and secondary sources agree that in the central plain and in Beijing at that time contemporary references to Master Li all referred to Li Zicheng.121 Even in the twentieth century, when the writer Yao Xueyin and the historian Luan Xing were growing up in Henan, the “Master Li” they heard about referred to Li Zicheng, not to any distinct Li Yan.122 Indeed, even the Lis of Tang village today, some of whom are descended from the historical Li Xin or from his nephew and ritual son Li Yuanshan, remember hearing stories in the evenings around the fire about Li Zicheng, but they do not recall hearing anything about their ancestor, the scholar-rebel-advisor Yan!123 In other words, the Li elders in Tang village were apparently remarkably successful in keeping knowledge of the full record of their scholar-rebel-advisor relatives from their own descendants as well as from the world at large. 6.3.2 Gu Yanwu During the late Ming, there were also rumors about a Li Yan, but writers were not sure how to write his personal name or how to describe his relationship with Li Zicheng. As we have seen, the highly respected Jiangnan scholar Gu Yanwu used different characters for Li Yan’s given name and identified him in different ways. In one place in his “veritable history,” Gu wrote that “The Dashing Bandit’s given name was Zicheng, also Li Yan (炎, flame), and he was from Mizhi” (in Shaanxi). Here, Gu clearly thought Li Yan was another 119  My understanding of how rumors worked in seventeenth-century China was enhanced by participation in two workshops on “News and Opinion” and “Sites of Sociability” held at Yale University in 2010 and 2011. I am grateful to Jonathan Hay, Pieter C. Keulemans, Tina Lu, Toby Myer-Fong, Shang Wei, and other participants for comments on my preliminary findings. 120  Hayashi/Lin 1644; cited in Gu 1979: 7; Xu 2010: 6. 121  Liu 1645: 66; Luan 1986: 176; Struve 1993: 14; Xu 2010: 7; Sato 2010: 27–30. 122  Luan 1986: 177, 193; Yao 1980: 215. 123  Interviews with Li family members in Tang village, fall 2009.

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name for Li Zicheng, and he continued to think so when he referred to “Li Yan (flame) and Zhang Xianzhong” as the two main rebel leaders.124 Gu’s choice of the character yan (meaning flame) may also have been significant. Gu had changed his own personal name to Yanwu (炎武, flame martial) at the beginning of the Qing to express his identification with a Song-period figure, Wang Yanwu (炎午, flame noon), who had resisted Mongol rule.125 As a left-over scholar from the Ming, Gu might have wished to express his solidarity with Li Zicheng/Li Yan as a potential ally against the Manchu Qing. Another contemporary writer reported that he had heard that Li Zicheng had changed his name in Henan to “Li Yan (兖, sacred site) to respond to a children’s ballad” that predicted that an eighteenth son (i.e. a man named Li) would take the throne. This Yan referred to a district under king Yu, founder of the semi-legendary Xia dynasty located largely in what became Henan Province. Those who reported on the death of Li Zicheng in Hubei used yet another character for Yan and applied it to Li Zicheng, referring to him as “Dashing Bandit Li Yan (延, delay).”126 Confusion over how to write Li Yan’s personal name continued. An early Qing novelist used an apparently non-existent character with two mountain radicals (山巖 mountain cliff) to write Yan; and, as we have seen, a respected twentieth-century Chinese historian used yet another character Yan (儼, majestic) for his name.127 Further confusing the issue, in the early Qing, Gu Yanwu wrote that he had “heard that a provincial graduate Li Yan (嚴, strict), also called Li Mou (牟, barley), had whistled up a locality and conspired to rebel.” Here Gu clearly thought that Li Yan referred to a person who was distinct from Li Zicheng and whose ancestral home was in another province (i.e. not Shaanxi). This Li Yan also had an additional personal name (Mou) and shared the title Master Li. Now, using the “Genealogy of the Li family” of Tang village, we can see that this Li Mou was not another name for Li Zicheng or for Li Yan, as Gu thought, nor was he the younger brother of Li Yan, as in the standard Li Yan story, nor was he a non-existent person as some observers deemed Li Yan to have been. Instead, Li Mou was a younger, distant cousin (or clan younger brother) of the historical Li Yan from Henei County in Huaiqing Prefecture in Henan. Indeed, as we have seen, Li Mou was apparently the first in the family to join Li Zicheng’s uprising and the one who persuaded several of his relatives to do the same.128 124  Gu early Qing: 87b. 125  Xu 2009: 1. 126  Gu 1978: 5. 63. 127  Xi Wu Hulu daoren 1645: 1.12a; see Tu Lien-che’s biography of Li Zicheng in Hummel 1943– 44: 492. 128  Gu early Qing: 13, 62a; Li 1716/early Republic: 7, 18, 19, 20, 21; Wang 2007.

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6.3.3 Yang Shicong In the context of such rumors, a Ming metropolitan graduate and advisor to the heir apparent named Yang Shicong (1597–1648), who was from Jining independent department in Shandong, wrote what was probably the earliest and most reliable account of life in Beijing during the rebel Shun regime. Yang announced his goal in the title of his memoir, An account of an inquiry into the truth of 1644. He acknowledged that he had survived the rebel regime because he had been protected by an acquaintance, a rebel general named Wang Dunwu. When the capital subsequently fell to Qing forces, Yang was able to make the transition with the protection of another friend, Fang Dayou, who had already surrendered to the Qing.129 Yang was probably the first writer to mention a “commander Li” (李都督), who was moderate in his demands for booty from Ming nobles, officials, and scholars in the capital. On 4/7/17 (5/12/44) Yang wrote: This day, Liu Zongmin sent in the several tens of thousands in silver he had confiscated. There was a rebel commander in the west named Li who confiscated less than half of that amount. Li feared that he would be punished and knew there were some people who had nothing, so each of the generals in his office sent in 200 in silver so as to make up the other half [of the quota]. Among the bandits, there were not many like this.130 The identity of this commander Li was not clear, but, in light of subsequent records, he may have been Li Daliang, who we now know was the rebel name of Li Zhong, one of the historical Li Yan’s older brothers. About one week later, Yang recorded that, when Li Zicheng led his troops east to deal with Wu Sangui, “Liu Zongmin and others all went, leaving behind only a rebel commander named Li to be stationed in the east[ern part of Beijing] and to defend it along with Niu Jinxing.”131 Again, we cannot be sure who this commander Li was, but he was not described as a bandit and he may have been a scholar, possibly even Li Yan who was said in subsequent sources to have played that role. These two early recollections of one or two commanders named Li are the most solid evidence we have, independent of the “Li Family Genealogy”, that there was a commander or two named Li who played the roles of general in rebel-held Beijing.

129  Yang 1645/1985: 1; Struve 1998: 210–211. 130  Yang 1645/1985: 30, 31. 131  Yang 1645/1985: 33.

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Yang’s acceptance of some hearsay about a commander (or two) named Li did not cause him to believe all of the rumors that were associated with him (or them). For example, Yang reported on the death of Liu Lishun, the metropolitan graduate, optimus, and companion to the heir apparent from Qi County who refused to surrender to the rebels in Beijing. In Yang’s words: Lishun’s family members were mostly in Qi County, there was only one concubine who accompanied him [in Beijing], and his young son was entrusted to Xue Suoyun. Xue later followed the bandits and it is not known if the son survived. Shop prints say that his wife, concubines, and four servants all died and that the bandits gathered to show their respects. False.132 Thus, according to Yang, it was another metropolitan graduate and erstwhile high Ming official Xue Suoyun, from Meng County, in Huaiqing Prefecture, not Li Yan, who tried to protect Liu Lishun’s son, not Liu Lishun himself, and perhaps unsuccessfully.133 Thus it is unlikely that Li Yan was involved in that case but it is quite possible that Xue Suoyun’s role there and elsewhere was later suppressed and transferred to Li Yan in an expanded and more dramatic form. Yang also doubted that the rebel commander Li occupied the home of the Ming nobleman Zhou Kui. In Yang’s words, “[Liu] Zongmin occupied the Tian establishment; on the ninth day of the fourth month he wanted to move to the Zhou establishment but he did not. Shop prints say the rebel commander Li lived there but that was not the case.”134 Here, as elsewhere, Yang did not use Li Yan’s full name, but he may have been referring to Li Yan because we know that another memoirist, Zhao Shijin, would soon follow up and would explicitly put Li Yan in Zhou Kui’s house. This, of course, is not proof that Li Yan lived there (or did not), but it is consistent with there being a rebel general named Li Yan in Beijing at that time. According to Yang and other early observers, in addition to the minor Henanese scholars Song Xiance and Niu Jinxing and partly because of Niu’s recommendations, there were other Henanese, including even metropolitan graduates, who gave advice to Li Zicheng in Beijing.135 As we have seen, 132  Yang 1645/1985: 18. By “shop prints” Yang presumably referred to unspecified commercial publications perhaps leading up to or even including those by the Lazy Daoist of Western Wu and the Calabash Daoist. 133  Yang 1645/1985: 23. 134  Yang 1645/1985: 52. 135  Yang 1645/1985: 20, 23.

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figure 6.4 Memoirists and writers in the Ming province of Nanjing Map based on Tan 1975: 7.43–44

they included Xue Suoyun from Meng County in Huaiqing Prefecture;136 He Ruizheng from Xinyang County in Runing Prefecture;137 Liu Chang from Xiangfu County in Kaifeng Prefecture;138 Hou Xun from Shangqiu County in Guide Prefecture;139 and Zhang Jinyan from Xinxiang County in Weihui Prefecture.140 When the Shun enterprise failed, all of these prominent scholar 136  Qian 1653: 82; Feng and Chou 1790: 6 shang, renwu, xia, kegong, 2a. 137  Yang 1645: 25, 33, 40; Zhang and Wan 1749: 8:8a–37a; Qian 1653: 70, 72. 138  Yang 1645/1985: 23. 139  Yang 1645/1985: 19. 140  Yang 1645/1985: 12, 16, 18.

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official rebel advisors had an interest in finding an explanation for the rise and fall of the rebellion that would minimize their own roles.141 Yang Shicong’s position was a little different. He had survived the rebel regime, to be sure, but he had not taken a position in the Shun state to do so. He therefore had few compunctions about telling the truth about other Ming scholar officials, including the one or two figures known to him only as “commanders Li.” Yet Yang, among others, was soon to be charged in Nanjing with collaboration with the rebels in Beijing, a crime that could have resulted in a very heavy penalty up to and including death. He therefore was writing for his life when he insisted that he had been protected by acquaintances in the Shun and Qing armies and had thus been spared the need to compromise his integrity. Yang thereby seemingly inaugurated the practice of erstwhile Ming scholar-officials, including even some who may have willingly served the Shun state when it held power in Beijing, to explain their survival by creating a category of humane rebels who had saved them. It was a category into which Li Yan would soon fit comfortably and which he probably also enlarged, despite—or perhaps precisely because of—his dramatic death.142 6.3.4 Zhao Shijin At about the same time, as Yang Shicong left Beijing, passed through north China without stopping at his home in Shandong, and arrived in Changzhou department, in Jiangnan, another Ming metropolitan graduate, Zhao Shijin, an erstwhile subordinate of Yang’s whom we have already met, reached his home in nearby Changshu County. Zhao wrote his own memoir of his sojourn in Beijing under rebel rule when it was still fresh in his mind.143 He described how he too had survived the Shun regime with the help of a rebel acquaintance. In this case, the man was named Yao Qiying and he was said to be from Henan. That intervention may have saved Zhao’s life because his reputation was not very savory among students who were politically active in the late Ming and in Li Zicheng’s rebellion.144 As we have seen, Zhao was the first to specify that the “general Li” who was said to have occupied Zhou Kui’s house had the given name Yan (cliff). Now we can accept Zhao’s claim as consistent with the “Genealogy of the Li Family” of Tang Village which specifies further that Yan (cliff) was his courtesy name. Zhao also mentioned a Li Daliang who 141  Des Forges 2003: 302–304. 142  Yang 1645: 33, 52, 57. 143  Yang and Zhao are mentioned together in Xu 1645/2006: 1.23a (p. 12). 144  Zhao’s home had reportedly been destroyed the previous year by government students who charged him with “ruthless behavior.” Chen 2005: 408.

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was active with Li Yan in Beijing though there was no intuition or indication that they might be related to each other.145 From the Li family genealogy, however, we can see that Daliang was a second nickname of Li Zhong, an elder brother of Li Yan who participated with him in Li Zicheng’s rebellion. From the genealogy we also learn that Li Zhong (Daliang) survived the rebellion and later taught martial arts in Zhejiang.146 These links among the Li brothers and cousins, who appeared in the histories as well as in the genealogy, are, to my mind, strong evidence of the authenticity of the genealogy. It seems extremely unlikely that even the most clever fabricators could have entered these folks into a genealogy that originally lacked them. Indeed, if they had done so, that would have been a marvel equal to—or even more remarkable than—the genealogy’s including them in the first place. 6.3.5 Gong Yunqi and the Lazy Daoist of Western Wu As a resident of Changzhou, where Yang Shicong took refuge, and as a neighbor of Changshu, where Zhao Shijin’s home was located, Gong Yunqi, who served as a minor Ming official in Nanjing, was well situated to draw on informed hearsay to expand the Li Yan story in ways consistent with some historical facts contained in the “The Genealogy of the Li Family” of Tang village. To be sure, as we have seen, one version of Gong’s text attributed to the Lazy Daoist of Western Wu may have based several events on those described in the novel Extended Meaning of the Three Kingdoms, which famously romanticized conditions attending the fall of the Han.147 Moreover, as we have seen, Gong or the Lazy Daoist grossly overreached in making Li Yan a provincial graduate of Qi County. We now know from the genealogy, however, that Li Yan was a government student from Henei County and perhaps a tributary student from Huaiqing Prefecture and thus a certified (albeit minor) Henanese “scholar”.148 This historical Li Yan did not kill the magistrate of Qi County as he was said to have done in Gong’s story. He was, however, involved with his elder brother Li Zhong (Daliang) and his cousin, Chen Wangting, in beating to death a military examiner who they thought had unfairly graded Chen’s archery performance. As we have seen, the military examination may have been in 1636. Chen reportedly fled and joined a local rebellion led by the militarist Li Jiyu at Song Mountain, the location of the Shaolin Temple in central-west Henan.149 This 145  Zhao 1645: 8, 10, 12–13, 16, 17. 146  Li 1716/late Republic: 5, 19. 147  Xu 2010: 8. 148  For the status and roles of tributary students in the Ming, see Chen 2005: 189–196. 149  Yang and Wei 2008: 9.

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may have been the history behind the story that Li Yan helped keep Li Jiyu loyal to the rebel cause rather than defecting to the Ming. Li Yan and Li Zhong also fled their hometown of Henei. Li Yan went to Qi County, where he lived with an aunt and worked as an accountant in a grain and oil shop owned by his clan uncle and adopted father Li Chunyu. Working in such a shop, Li Yan was well positioned to distribute a great deal of grain to the populace during the famine in 1639–1640. When the grain ran out, however, Li Yan was forced to leave Qi and return home to Tang village in Henei. Thus, the historical Li Xin/Yan did not have a younger brother named Li Mou, but, as we have seen, he did have a younger distant cousin, or clan brother, by that name. Indeed, according to the genealogy, Li Mou was actually the first to join Li Zicheng’s rebellion and he later “lured” in several others, including Li Yan. There seems to be no independent evidence that Li Yan was named a Zhi general nor is there any explicit indication of what was meant by that title. For relative late comers to the rebellion like Li Yan, however, such lesser rank may have been appropriate. In any case, the Tang village Lis’ strong commitment to practicing and teaching the martial arts prepared them well for holding such positions.150 As we have seen, Li Yan’s natal father, Li Chunmao, played a particularly important role in theorizing and practicing Supreme Ultimate boxing, which was closely associated with the Millennial Temple in Tang village.151 The extant incomplete genealogy unfortunately (if understandably) provides no details on Li Yan’s and Li Mou’s activities in Beijing, but it stresses the Li family’s general interest in the civil as well as martial arts. That family culture may have prepared Li Yan well to make at least some of the policy proposals attributed to him in Beijing. Unfortunately, the genealogy also does not specify the time and place of Li Yan’s and Li Mou’s assassinations, but it provides the names and relationships of no less than eight other relatives, beyond Li Zhong and Li Yan, who joined Li Zicheng’s rebellion. Although several died or simply disappeared, Li Zhong survived and very likely served as an important oral source for his son, Li Yuanshan, who became the compiler of the genealogy. Despite the participation of ten family members in the failed rebellion, the Lis of Tang village survived the Ming-Qing transition quite well and were able to compile the genealogy during the high Qing period. That record adds verisimilitude to Li Yan and Li Mou’s shared—but quite distinctive—fate of assassination at the hands of Li Zicheng and Niu Jinxing. The drama of Li Yan’s 150  For a detailed account of martial arts in Tang village dating back to the Later Han and including the Li family’s important role in the Ming-Qing period, see Wang Guangxi 2008, especially chapter 2. I am grateful to Li Libing for providing me with a copy of this work. 151  Li 1716/late Republic: 17; Wang Guangxi 2008: 139–141.

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and Li Mou’s demise in 1644 may have been exaggerated in the various historical and literary accounts of it, and Niu Jinxing may have been demonized even as Li Yan was lionized. In light of Li Zicheng’s treatment of other subordinates who rivaled his influence and challenged his authority, including rebels such as Luo Rucai and Yuan Shizhong, however, the extreme action against Li Yan and Li Mou seems credible. In the absence of a living heir for Li Yan (his only son, Yuanbin had died young in 1640), the clan elders appointed his nephew Li Yuanshan, the fourth son of Li Zhong (Daliang), to carry out the required ancestral rituals.152 Li Yuanshan’s service as editor of the genealogy helped to insure the inclusion and accuracy of his father’s and his clan uncle’s (cum ritual father’s) life stories. 6.3.6 Peng Haozi and Lu Yingyang Peng Haozi’s written claim in 1651 that Li Yan was the son of a Ming minister probably arose from the early (but demonstrably false) rumor that Li Zicheng’s grandfather was a high Ming official. The rumor, which made its way into the Japanese record mentioned above, receives no support from the Li genealogy. But Peng’s attribution to Li Yan of a “Song to Encourage Relief” in 1635 may reflect the genealogy’s brief mention that Li Yan composed a ballad and advocated relief in 1640.153 Similarly, Lu Yingyang’s claims in his influential historical novel of 1654 that Li Yan opposed tax increases imposed by a minister named Yang, that he killed a magistrate named Song, and that he recommended Niu Jinxing to Li Zicheng are not corroborated by the genealogy. But Lu’s celebration of Li Yan’s civil and military capabilities and Li’s use of commercial networks to spread rebel propaganda seem solidly based on—or at least highly consistent with—the family’s extensive martial and commercial activities that appeared prominently in the genealogy. Lu’s first mention of a rebel named Li You active in Shaanxi and Beijing is confirmed by the genealogy which identifies him as another distant cousin of Li Yan’s who also played an important role in the Shun regime in Beijing.154 6.3.7 Tan Qian and Gu Yingtai When the highly respected professional historian Tan Qian from Haining County in Zhejiang, “demoted” Li Yan from provincial graduate to government 152  Li 1716/late Republic: 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25. 153  Peng 1651: 29b, 30, 32; Li 1716: 20. The date of 1635, however, is probably inaccurate because Chen Wangting failed his examination in 1636 and the famine reached its height only in 1640–1641. 154  Lu 1654: 29.248–51; 30.258; 31.269–73, 275–76; 32.279–80; Li 1716/late Republic: 21.

Toward a Solution to the Li Yan Puzzle

figure 6.5 Historians who accepted the Li Yan story in Zhejiang Province Map based on Tan 1975: 7. 76–77

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student, he (probably unwittingly) brought Li Yan’s status into conformity with that of the historical Li Yan. In addition, according to the genealogy, more than two dozen other members of Li’s family in Tang village achieved that status during the Ming and early Qing.155 Tan’s positive treatment of Yan’s, Mou’s, and You’s activities during their time together in rebel-ruled Beijing may have reflected his intuited sense of the consanguinity attested to them in the genealogy.156 His discussion of tensions between the lower elite Li Yan and Li Mou and the commoners Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin, on the other hand, suggested a less heroic side of the Li scholar rebel advisors from Tang village, an element of family history that was largely elided in the genealogy.157 Because, as we have seen, Tan’s text was too critical of the Manchus to be printed, the Qing scholar-official Gu Yingtai’s account, compiled by scholars in Zhejiang under his supervision, was the first formal, printed, officially approved, and widely circulated history to include the core elements of the Li Yan story. To the extent that Gu accepted or independently replicated Tan’s fixing of Li Yan’s academic status at the reasonable level of government student, his portrait was more consistent with the genealogy than with the informal histories.158 6.3.8 Ji Liuqi and Wu Weiye Ji Liuqi, like Tan Qian, was a southerner who was a government student in the Ming period and wrote a history of the Ming. Unlike Tan, however, Ji aspired to become a provincial graduate in the Qing. He therefore drafted an account that he hoped (in vain) could be published. Ji acknowledged his use of informal histories and justified it by arguing that they sometimes contained the truth. Unfortunately for the truth in this case, however, Ji followed those accounts by “promoting” Li Yan back to provincial graduate, and he sought to strengthen the case by gratuitously making Li Yan a provincial degree classmate of Niu Jinxing. On the other hand, Ji’s calculation that Li Yan distributed “more than 200 piculs” (thirteen tons) of grain to the starving masses and his depiction of Li Yan spreading rebel propaganda through commercial networks were more

155  Li 1716/late Republic: 14–24. Some government students, like Li Yan, became tributary students, but they were still eligible to hold only very low-ranked public offices. 156  Tan early Qing (1658): 101.6058, 6070, 6073, 6074, 6079, 6080. 157  Tan early Qing: 102. 6122. Many of the members of the Li clan included in the genealogy were commoners, but only one, Li Huaiyu, was described as “farming for a living.” Li 1716/ late Republic: 22. 158  Gu 1658: I introduction, 1; IV: 78.1340; 80.1389.

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in accord with the historical commercial-gentry Lis of Henei than with the storied scholar-official Lis of Qi.159 Because Ji’s account was mildly critical of the Manchus, it did not circulate as widely as did the 1674 text by the long-time Ming loyalist and briefly Qing-affiliated scholar-official Wu Weiye, who was from Taicang department, in Jiangsu Province. Clearly interested in documenting, romanticizing, and at the same time defaming the scholar-rebel-advisor Li Yan, Wu, consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, drew on information that seemed to be leaking out from the Li family genealogy of Henei County. He began by giving Li Yan for the first time an original personal name, Xin, which now seems to have been derived not from a playful imagination but from a fact-based rumor.160 Wu next gave Li Xin’s father the name Li Jingbai and identified him as a minister of the “eunuch party.” Wu may have misidentified Li Yan’s father wittingly or unwittingly simply to serve his own political interest in discrediting both the “eunuch party” and the “roving bandits by associating them with each other.” But Wu may also have heard rumors originating in Henei County based on Li Chunyu whose nickname was Jingbai. That Li Jingbai, of course, was not a high Ming official associated with the eunuch party. He was, however, the clan uncle of Li Xin who ran the grain shop in Qi County where Li Xin worked and from which he distributed famine relief. According to the genealogy, Li Chunyu had no heir so the clan elders instructed Li Xin/Yan to become his ritual son. Since Chunyu’s nickname was Jingbai, written precisely the same way as the given name of the Ming minister, there were good reasons to conclude that Li Yan’s father was Li Jingbai.161 Similarly, Wu reported that there was a “rumor” that Li Xin held the local military post of “rural pacification commissioner” before revolting against the magistrate. That was not attested to in the Li genealogy, but it was consistent with the genealogy’s record of the family’s ten generations of martial artists.162 Wu Weiye made other contributions to the Li Yan story that may have originated in his sharp-eyed attention to local events in Qi County (and possibly in Henei County) and in his broad command of Chinese history (and literature). As we have seen, Wu recounted for the first time the activities of the female martial artist named Hong Niangzi, who was said to have kidnapped Li Yan and 159  Ji 1670: 13.225–26; 20.456; 21.524; 23.653–56; 1.dianjiao shuoming 1; 2.fulu.729–733; Li 1716: 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 25. 160  Li 1716/late Republic: 20. 161  Li 1716/late Republic: 17–18, 20. 162  Li 1716/late Republic: passim. Indeed, one may suspect that the genealogy exaggerates the number of Lis skilled in the civil and martial arts, but there may have been many of them in any case.

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forced him to marry her. When Li Yan escaped from her embrace and returned home, he was suspected by the magistrate and neighbors of having “links with bandits,” and he was arrested and jailed. Hong Niangzi then rescued him from prison and persuaded him to join Li Zicheng’s rebellion.163 Wu’s motive here was again to discredit the scholar-rebel-advisor Li Yan by presenting him as both weak (vis a vis Hong Niangzi) and disloyal (vis a vis the Ming). But Wu seems to have drawn on some local contemporary history and rumors, as well as on polity-wide earlier history and literature about strong women, to construct this personality and saga. In celebrating a young woman of low social status, Wu may have been inspired by Yuan Zhen’s Tang-period “Story of Oriole”, which was developed into Wang Shifu’s Ming-period Story of the Western Wing.164 This story, which celebrated the active role of a servant in facilitating an illicit scholar-beauty romance, was extremely popular in the late Ming.165 Wu may also have constructed the Hong Niangzi tale as a metaphor for his own position vis a vis his rulers and his women. Wu was ambivalent about serving the Ming and the Qing, but, under pressure from his mother, he briefly held office in the Qing until she died. The storied Li Yan had reservations about joining Li Zicheng’s rebellion, but he ultimately did so under duress at the hands of his savior, Hong Niangzi. Wu and Li were physiologically male, but they may have been depicted as psychologically gendered female in their relations with the Shun and Qing polities respectively. Indeed, in terms of sexuality and gender widely embraced at that time and place, among others, they may have been portrayed as doubly female, not only serving imperfect states but being cajoled into doing so by their women. Wu was perhaps also aware of the local rebel by the name of Li Jing, who rose up in Qi County in 1638 claiming to be an “eighteenth son” with a mandate to rule.166 If so, Wu would almost certainly have been reminded, as later writers would be also, of the rebel by the same name (Li Jing) who had helped Li Yuan and his son Li Shimin overthrow the Sui dynasty and found the Tang in 618 CE.167 Wu would also have been keenly aware of Du Guangting’s “Tale of the Curly Bearded Guest” in which the female martial artist surnamed Zhang, better known as the Girl with the Red Fly Wisk (Hong Fuji), became Li Jing’s 163  Wu 1674: 9.5b. 164  Yuan Tang, 2001; Wang Ming; Hightower 1973; Wang 1960, 1995. 165  Chen 2005: 445. 166  Zhou and Zhu 1788: 9.7b, 48b–49a; 23. 8b–10a; Zheng 1749: 2.19b–20a; Gu 1658: 75. 16, 18, 23; Yao 1935: 87–88. 167  Chang 1996; Twitchett 1979: 199, 221, 222, 229, 240–241.

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lover and accompanied him in revolt.168 This drama was widely known and admired in the late Ming. Indeed, as we have seen, the appearance of a curlybearded rebel dressed in red may even have facilitated Li Zicheng’s victory in Shangqiu County, in northeast Henan in 1642.169 We have already seen that writers from the mid-Qing on commented on the similarity between the Li Jing/Hong Fuji rebels at the end of the Sui and the Li Yan/Hong Niangzi rebels at the end of the Ming. It is also possible, if much less likely, that Wu got wind of a nephew of the historical Li Yan of Henei, Li Yuanming, whose wife, named Chen, was talented in the martial arts.170 Although that couple was too young to have participated in Li Zicheng’s rebellion, word of them may have reached Jiangnan in the early Qing along with members of the Li family who survived the dynastic transition and traveled south to teach martial arts. It is even less likely, but not impossible, that Wu would have heard that one of Li Yan’s wives was named Chen or that he would have known that she might have been from the Chen clan based in neighboring Wen County that was a center of martial arts activities in the late Ming and early Qing.171 Wu’s acceptance of the story that Li Yan and Li Mou died at the hands of Li Zicheng and Niu Jinxing was shared by Li Yuanshan, who was Li Yan’s nephew, ritual son, and editor of the genealogy. If the scholar-rebel Li Yan’s demise was actually less dramatic than it was said to be in the stories, histories, and genealogy, Wu Weiye and the Lis of Tang village may still have accepted it as credible and justifiable. After all, Li Yan’s fate strongly echoed that of the scholar-rebel Li Mi, whose movement in the central plain had led to his death at the hands of the Tang founders, Li Yuan and Li Shimin, who remained influential models in the early Qing.172 The influence of the Tang model and the role of Tang village in producing the Li Yan story were manifested in other ways. As we have seen, in the 1670s the Zhejiang scholar Zha Jizuo noted for the first time in his manuscript history that “Li Yan taught Li Zicheng to win mass support by falsely offering to ‘equalize landholdings and suspend taxes’ ”. Those policies, of course, were closely associated with the Tang dynasty.173 In the 1690s, Dai Li and Wu Shu emphasized that the scholar-rebels Li Yan and Li Mou continued to look down 168  Du Tang; Zhang Ming; Edwards 1938: 235–44; Swatek 1985: 153–188. 169  Zheng 1749: 5.116. 170  Li 1716/late Republic: 26–27. 171  Li 1716/late Republic: 20. We have seen that a woman named Chen from Wen County was active in teaching martial arts in twentieth century Xi’an. 172  Liu 940: 53.2207–2225; Wei Tang: 70.1624–1633; Twitchett 1979: 154, 155, 158–9, 162, 164, 165, 166; Ouyang Song: 84.3677–3687. 173  Zha 1670s: 223; Twitchett 1979: 24–28, 51, 93–95, 176, 250, 384–86, 419, 485, 552.

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on the commoner rebels Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin.174 These two aspects of the Li Yan story—equal fields and unequal classes—may be seen to have reflected both the reformism and the elitism that were arguably characteristic of the Tang and Qing polities.175 Meanwhile, the Qing historian Peng Sunyi reduced Li Yan’s academic status once more to government student, bringing him, probably unwittingly, into closer conformity with the historical Li Yan of Henei.176 In the 1690s, as we have seen, Wan Sitong from Zhejiang seemingly opened up the possibility that Li Yan was not from Qi County but from somewhere else in Henan. Mao Qiling, who was in charge of drafting the section of the “Ming History” manuscript on roving bandits, visited Henan, where he might have tracked Li Yan down to Henei County.177 But, as it happened, apparently no one in the history office followed up. The busy official Wang Hongxu signed off on the Li Zicheng biography in the Draft Ming History of 1723 that once again identified Li Yan as a provincial graduate of Qi County.178 The popular Li Yan story thus became part of state orthodoxy in the official Ming History printed in 1739.179 Official acceptance did not prevent—and may have facilitated—further development of the story in line with the influence of Tang models and conditions in Tang village. When an anonymous writer in the Qianlong reign drafted a version of Li Yan’s biography in which Li had, for the first time, a wife, née Tang (湯), the author may or may not have known that several members of the eighth through tenth generations of the Li family of Tang (唐) village had married women with that surname. They included Li Yan’s clan uncle and ritual father Li Chunyu (aka Li Jingbai), Li Yan’s distant cousin and clan brother Li Mou, and Li Mou’s son Li Huaigong.180 When in 1759 the playwright, Dong Hengyan, noted the parallel between the Li Yan story and that of Li Jing in the Sui-Tang transition, he confirmed that similar circumstances had led to homologous narratives in the two cases.181 In sum, the story of the scholar-rebel Li Yan who helped the commoner Li Zicheng overthrow the Ming only to die at his hands began in rumors during 174  Dai and Wu 1690s: 18.7a. 175  For the East Asian context, see Des Forges 2005 (translated 2009); for the global context, see Dai and Fang 2013; Des Forges 2016: 206–211. 176  Peng 1679: 70, 203. 177  Wan 1702: 408.11a; Luan 1986: 134. 178  Wang 1723: 183.10, 21a. 179  Zhang 1739: 209. 7956–7957,7960, 7967–7968. 180  Anon., Taowu jinzhi, cited in Guo 1954: 31–32; Li 1716/late Republic: 17, 18, 19, 23. 181  Dong 1759: 5.41a–45b.

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figure 6.6 Li Yan [a historical person] and Hong Niangzi www.hudong.com/wiki, accessed on November 10, 2009

the rebellion and grew in literature and history from 1644 to 2004. The story was based heavily on the life of a government student, and possibly tributary student named Li Xin, courtesy name Yan, and on his activities in the last years of the Ming as documented in a family genealogy compiled in 1716 but made

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public only in 2004. The Li family genealogy of Tang village in Henei County in northwest Henan included brief biographies of Li Xin and his relatives for purposes of ancestral ritual and historical truth, but the family attempted to keep their rebel activities secret so to avoid potentially fatal consequences. The family was successful in preventing the actual identity of Li Xin/Yan from becoming public knowledge until discovery of the genealogy in 2004. But they apparently could not prevent certain details from leaking out into the oral domain and eventually becoming parts of a legendary account that described Li Yan as a provincial graduate of Qi County in northeast Henan. As the legend of Li Yan developed into a powerful allegory for the rise and fall of Li Zicheng’s Da Shun regime, it served the interests of a wide variety of people, including particularly scholars who were politically ambivalent during the political transition from the Ming to the Qing.182 Once the legend was included in the official Qing history of the Ming in 1739, it could not be easily challenged for the duration of the dynasty. Because the legend could be interpreted to hold valuable lessons for later revolutionaries, it persisted through the Republic and into the People’s Republic. Now that we have excavated the history behind the story, we are better able to understand how the legend originated and why it lasted so long despite the difficulty of documenting it. If the resulting biography of the historical Li Yan proves to be valid, it may not so much replace the legend as raise it to new levels of significance for our own time.

182  Many, perhaps most, scholars were ambivalent about the three polities, the late Ming, the Shun, and the early Qing, that contended for the mandate to rule China in the midseventeenth century. See, for other examples, Mao Xiang discussed by Jun Fang and Qian Qianyi discussed by Sixiang Wang in Pidhainy, Des Forges, and Fong, 2018: chs. 4, 10.

chapter 7

Li Yan’s Places in Chinese History In previous chapters, I have tried to distinguish facts from fictions, to recover the real or historical Li Yan behind the fictitious or storied Li Yan. I have also examined the interaction between the two Li Yans to see the ways in which they influenced each other. In this chapter, I am more interested in the significance of the combined facts and fictions, the combined historical and literary figures, over time and space. Now that we know that the scholar-rebeladvisor Li Yan existed in Chinese history as well as in Chinese literature, we can attempt to place that mythistorical figure in the context of Chinese history from early recorded times to the present.1 The Li Yan matter seems to be quite anomalous when viewed from the perspectives of the reigning paradigms of Chinese historiography. It remains to be seen how it relates to the double helical theory of Chinese history which I have proposed in previous publications and in the introduction to this book. 7.1

Early: China in China

According to the late Qing early Republican scholar reformer Liang Qichao, China originated and developed during the first two millennia of recorded history largely within the space that has come to be known as China today. Biographers of Li Yan, and, to some uncertain extent, Li Yan himself, drew on figures who lived and events which occurred in that space to make and record history in their own time and place. To their perspectives we can now add our own views to help explain the interactions between the Li Yan matter and Chinese history. According to an early source, The Little History of Dashing Li, Li Yan urged Li Zicheng to live up to the legendary model ruler Yao. Yao governed wisely, and, in his old age, passed authority peacefully to a meritorious minister named Shun. Shun later passed the throne to his capable minister Yü, who then instituted hereditary succession in the quasi-legendary first polity, called the Xia.2 In these early transfers of authority, chief ministers often became rulers. In the 1  To minimize redundancy, I shall generally cite here only sources not previously cited in this book. 2  Allan 1973: 93.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004421066_009

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case of Li Yan, he was said to have invoked the example of Yao to justify his call for garrisoning rebel troops outside the walls of Beijing so as to avoid alienating the inhabitants of the city. Li Zicheng apparently approved the measure, illustrating Li Yan’s salutary influence in the rebel Shun regime. During the first fully historical polity, the Shang, royal authority was shared between branches of the royal lineage that produced kings and chief ministers. The Shang founding monarch, named Tang (湯), was advised by his chief minister, Yi Yin (ca. 1648–1549 BCE), who assisted him in overthrowing the last ruler of Xia and establishing the Shang. Yi Yin became a model minister who also served as regent and mentor to the succeeding Shang king, who was a minor. Yi Yin’s social origins, public policies, and political fate are unclear, but the grand historian Sima Qian described him as a “gentleman” whose civil and martial skills enabled him to govern well.3 In one telling, Yi Yin voluntarily returned authority to the Shang royal line and left behind an essay titled “Instructions of Yi” that exhorted subsequent Shang kings to live up to the model of the founder. The inclusion of these instructions in the classic Venerated Documents secured Yi Yin’s position as the archetypal prime minister avant la lettre.4 At the end of the Shang dynasty, another scholar rebel advisor appeared to assist Wen Wang (1112–1050 BCE), the civil founder of the Zhou dynasty. Some historians have thought that this man, who was named Taigong Wang (the Grand Duke Expected, fl. 11th century BCE) inter alia, was only legendary, while others have considered him to be fully historical.5 In this respect, he emerges as the earliest and most precise precedent for Li Yan. Because his persona consisted of different elements drawn from several different people flourishing at different times and places, he appears in the records under other names and playing other roles. Since some of his ancestors in the Jiang lineage were enfeoffed in Nanyang, in what would become southern Henan Province, he was also known as Lü Shang. In other accounts he was known as Preceptor Father Shang and was said to have come from a commoner family of butchers, fishermen, boatmen, persuaders, or recluses. He was mentioned in passing in the Classic of Poetry, and elements of history and legend were combined in a biography by Sima Qian in his Historical Records. In Sima’s view, Preceptor Father Shang participated in the Zhou military victory at Meng Ford and in the inauguration of the martial Zhou King, Wu (1046–1043). He was rewarded by the Zhou with a fief in Qi (meaning “even”) in what eventually would become 3  Sima ca. 110 BCE: 3. 94, 4.99; Allan 1981: 92–93, 97–98. 4  Legge 1865/1935: III. 191–198. In fact, there was no single post of “prime minister” in Chinese polities but various contenders for primacy among many advisors to the throne. 5  Granet 1926: 2.406; Creel 1970: 1. 343–344, 361–362; cited in Allan 1973: 58.

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Shandong Province. According to Sima, King Wu provided money and grain to the poor and rehabilitated good officials who had been mistreated by the last Shang king, Zhou Xin. Preceptor Father Shang also “established the Zhou state and made a new beginning for the known world.” In the process, “he provided many plans.”6 Although he may never, in fact, have set foot in Qi, Sima recorded that he “improved the government, conformed to the [local] customs, simplified the rites, extended the work of merchants and artisans throughout the country, and facilitated the making of profit from salt and fish. Thus, the people came to Qi in large numbers and Qi became a great country.”7 More reliably, Preceptor Father Shang was active in northwestern Henan in the region around the confluence of the Wei and Yellow Rivers. Coincidentally, this was the region in which, as we have seen, the historical Li Yan would be active three millennia later. Preceptor Father Shang probably wrote a treatise on the military, titled “Six Strategies (Liutao),” but he may have had no hand in King Wu’s “Great Harangue (Taishi)” which was attributed to him in the Venerated Documents. Several members of the Zhou court married Jiang women, but, contrary to one story, there is no evidence that the Grand Duke married his daughter to the young king Cheng (1055–1021).8 The Preceptor’s “many plans” somewhat prefigured those developed by Li Xin/Yan for the rebel state of Shun. The debate over the supposed marriage rather resembled that over matrimonial links between Niu Jinxing and Li Zicheng. When the Zhou King Wu died, his son, the heir apparent Cheng, was still a child or at least was unable for some reason to assert his authority. King Wu’s brother, the Duke of Zhou (Zhou Gong) 11th century, therefore stepped up as regent on the model of Yi Yin in the Shang. The Duke of Zhou also contributed to the construction of the ideology of the mandate of heaven and nature (tianming). While the Shang kings had legitimated themselves as having direct access to the highest power, known as the Lord Above (shangdi), the Zhou claimed that the Shang had once held the mandate of heaven and nature but had lost it by mistreating its ministers and exploiting its people. The Zhou, on the other hand, had used civil and military force and enlisted popular support to overthrow the Shang and establish a new Son of Heaven with authority over the known world. Although there is some question about King Cheng’s age and suspicion that the Duke actually seized power in a kind of coup d’état, the regent soon returned authority to Cheng and was eventually regarded by Confucius as a—if not the—preeminent sage ruler. The Zhou ruling family 6  Sima ca. 110 BCE: 32. 1479–1480; Allan 1973: 60–61. 7  Rickett 1985: 9n26. 8  Allan 1973: 62–70, 110.

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that had originally been considered by the Shang as foreigners now legitimated themselves as rulers of the central state(s) and the known world. To propitiate the spirits of the dethroned Xia and Shang royal families, the Zhou enfeoffed their descendants in two small states: Qi (willow) for the Xia, and Song (pine) (aka Shangqiu, graves of the Shang) for the Shang. This was the practice of facilitating and civilizing the transmission of political authority that thereafter became known as “observing the rites of Qi and Song”.9 In light of this history, the Manchu prince Dorgon was able to claim that his people were the core of the new Qing polity that took the central plain from the corrupt Ming state and suppressed Li Zicheng’s roving robbers three millennia later. At the same time, Li Yan and others were also calling on Li Zicheng to observe the “rites of Qi and Song.” According to the Henanese novelist Yao Xueyin, Li Yan promised the Ming heir apparent and princes that the Da Shun government would treat them even more justly than the rulers of the Shang had treated the descendants of the Xia and the rulers of Zhou had treated the descendants of Shang. As happens so often in Chinese cultural history, going back to appropriate positive or negative models was deemed essential to going forward to re-approximate or overcome those models. In A Ying’s play, the three Buddhist monks who were asked to evaluate the key dramatis personae in the Li Yan story compared the rebel prime minister Niu Jinxing with an archetypal “bad last minister” of the Shang. More positively, according to Yao Xueyin, Li Zicheng followed the example of King Wu, the martial founder of the Zhou dynasty, in shooting an arrow into the Chengtian gate of the capital city, Beijing. Li thereby made clear his claim to the mandate of heaven and nature in the manner of the archetypal Zhou. With the prolonged decline of the Zhou in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, various schools of thought interpreted Yi Yin and Preceptor Father Shang in different ways. The Mohists, believers in universal love, depicted the Shang founder going to visit Yi Yin despite Yi Yin’s humble circumstances, and they criticized the last Shang ruler, Zhou Xin, for abusing his people. Favoring a strong ruler, the Mohists made no mention of Zhou Xin’s maltreatment of remonstrating ministers. Confucius on the other hand took the side of the ministers. He remarked, “When Tang possessed the known world, he made a selection from among the multitude and raised up Yi Yin, and the inhumane retreated far away.”10 Mencius (380–300) heard heaven speaking through the people. He identified with scholar officials and denied that the founders of the Shang and Zhou had committed regicide because the rulers 9  Ebrey 1993: 6–7; Loewe and Shaughnessy 1999: 310–311. 10  Allan 1981: 130, citing the Analects 12.22, translation slightly modified.

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they killed were no longer true kings. While the tender-minded Confucian, Mencius, portrayed the two transitions, from Xia to Shang and from Shang to Zhou, as largely peaceful, the tough-minded Confucian, Xun Zi (315–230), accepted violence as inevitable in political transitions. The Daoist, Zhuang Zi, admired the ministers Bo Yi and Shu Qi, who supported the civil king Wen but starved themselves to death to avoid serving the martial monarch Wu. The Legalist thinker Han Feizi (280–233) argued that having the people’s hearts and minds was not enough to rule well. In his view, effective rulers needed, in addition, the services of advisors like Yi Yin and Guan Zhong (d. 645 BCE).11 According to the Lazy Daoist, Li Yan advocated the fundamentally Ruist (or Confucian) principles of “humaneness and justice” that first appeared in documents in the Spring and Autumn Period. According to the “Genealogy of the Li Family” of Tang village, the historical Li Yan inherited his father’s philosophical commitment to the unity of the three teachings (Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism) that was in vogue during the Ming. Song Xiance, on the other hand, embraced the values of Daoism, including the prophecy that an Eighteenth Son (or Eighteen Sons) would take the throne and bring peace to the known world. In the late Ming, the Ming general Wu Sangui attempted to use the Qing against the Shun, much as the state of Chu had tried to use the state of Qin against the state of Wu in the Warring States Period. Under the circumstances, according to one version of the story, Li Yan recommended sending only a small force to negotiate with Wu Sangui so as not to drive him into the arms of the Qing. Song Xiance reportedly opposed any military expedition to the east, invoking the Daoist principle that force should be used only as a last resort. As it happened, Wu Sangui was unable to realize his goal of using the Qing to restore the Ming. Instead, the Qing, like the Qin nearly two millennia earlier, took advantage of the situation to exert its authority over the entire realm. During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, there were many scholars who served as advisors to various kings and as envoys among various states. These persuaders made speeches and wrote reports that were recorded in the archives and histories of that period. There was thus a close correlation between scholarship and historiography even in the absence of an effective central state.12 Among them, there were four groups of would-be scholar rebel advisors who ultimately fell short of playing those roles, if only for lack of a fully legitimate state to serve.

11  Allan 1981: 126–140. 12  Schaberg 2013.

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The first coterie included advisors to hegemons. Guan Zhong, mentioned above by Han Feizi, served Duke Huan of Qi and implemented reforms, like those of his predecessor, Taigong Wang, in an effort to turn the duke into an effective hegemon who would use his state’s wealth and power to support the declining Zhou. His policies were celebrated in a text, the Master Guan, that offered guidance to rulers who could exercise more authority than a king but less authority than a son of heaven.13 Four other advisors served four other princes in four other states seriatim before the institution was abandoned and the Zhou state was extinguished by the Qin.14 A second group of aspiring scholar rebel advisors included thinkers who were unable to find secure jobs as officials and who settled for being teachers in public or private schools. The four most prominent were: Confucius (551–479), who was from the state of Lu and who advocated humaneness and justice; Mozi (470–391) who was from Zhou and who preached utility and universal love; Han Feizi who was from Qin and who favored the military and the law; and Lao Zi (6th century) who was from Zhou and who favored naturalness and non-purposive action.15 All of these thinkers thought of themselves as teachers to their princes and they eventually were regarded as heads of schools of thought. They had their own modes of rhetoric that have been described as instructive, confrontational, and authoritarian.16 A third group of would-be scholar rebel advisors consisted of military strategists such as Sun Wu (孫武, 544–496) from Qi (even), who advocated, among other things, strict training of female soldiers. This provision may have lain behind Hong Niangzi’s organization of women warriors or, more precisely, behind Yao Xueyin’s attribution of such a program to her. Sun Wu, or a century later his descendant Sun Bin, wrote The Military Methods of Master Sun. That text advocated knowledge as the key to success in battle and the use of force only as a last resort.17 During the Warring States period, another military strategist, Wu Qi (吳起, 440–381) from Wei, killed his wife to obtain office in Lu. That was a precedent which the rebel general Liu Zongmin followed consciously or unconsciously in murdering his wives to free himself to rebel with Li Zicheng. Wu Qi carried out reforms to strengthen the state of Chu, but, when the king died, Wu Qi was killed and the reforms were repealed. Wu left behind a text in his name, but it was later lost and another text, titled Master Wu (吳子), was 13  Allan 1973: 93; Chaoyang 1979: 35; Rickett 1985: 8–10. 14  Allan 1973: 93; Chaoyang 1979: 33, 35, 36, 40, 53. 15  Confucius/Lau ca. 500 BCE/1988; Mo/Warson ca. 400 BCE/1970; Han/Watson ca. 250/1967. 16  Chang 2013. 17  Sima/Nienhauser, Jr. ca. 110 BCE/1995: 39–41.

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later compiled by others. Over time, because of the superficial similarities in their names and in their careers, Sun Wu and Wu Qi were sometimes confused with each other or conflated into a single personality.18 Here we have a precedent for the confusion of Li Zicheng with Li Yan under the title Master Li. Another couple of military strategists, celebrated in Records of the Warring States, were Zhang Yi from Wei, who served in Qin, and Su Qin from the rump state of Zhou, who became a minister in Qi (even). Zhang was said to have devoted himself to forming a horizontal alliance between the Qin and other states in the central plain while Su was said to have worked to form a vertical alliance of states in the central plain against Qin. Sima Qian acknowledged some discrepancies in the dates of the travels of the two “prime ministers”, but he found stories about them so widely accepted that he included their biographies in his Historical Records. Sima’s accounts became standard and popular, but there was strong antipathy to the strategists’ realpolitik methods. There were also suspicions from Song times on that their exploits were greatly exaggerated if not entirely fabricated.19 Today, scholars tend to agree that there were facts as well as fictions in the accounts, and that they may be used carefully to recreate the political conditions and popular mentalities of the period from 331–209 BCE.20 Perhaps similarities between the late Warring States and today’s world disorder are conducive to this perspective. In any case, Su Qin was said to have consulted a book, titled Secret Talisman or Tallies (陰符), suggesting that he aspired to emulate the scholar-rebel-advisor Taigong Wang to whom the book was commonly attributed.21 The fourth group of would-be scholar rebel advisors featured two aristocratic literati, Wu Zixu (d. 484) and Qü Yuan (340–278). They too, were unsuccessful in finding or fashioning a new son of heaven and nature, but they were fully historical and widely celebrated in popular culture. Wu’s family originated in the state of Wu but had long served in the state of Chu. When Wu’s father was killed in a dispute at the Chu court, Wu fled back to Wu and encouraged the head of state to attack Chu to avenge his father’s death. The king of Wu accepted Wu’s advice and defeated Chu. Wu later advised another Wu king to attack the state of Yue on the model of the Shang, but the king rejected his advice. When Wu repeated his advice, the king of Wu became suspicious and sent him a sword with instructions to commit suicide. Sima Qian apparently 18   Ssu-ma/Nienhauser, Jr. ca. 110 BCE/1995: 42–43; Chaoyang 1979: 64. 19  Crump 1964: 13–14, 29–39, 89–132; Ssu-ma/Nienhauser, Jr. ca. 110 BCE/1995: 96–138. 20  Crump 1964: 29–31; Ssu-ma/Nienhauser, Jr. ca. 110 BCE/1995: xvii, 120–121; Declercq 1998: 26–28. 21  Crump 1964: 33; Ssu-ma/Nienhauser, Jr. ca. 110 BCE/1995: 97.

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regarded the story of Wu Zixu as a warning against making policy based on revenge. The twentieth-century Hong Kong novelist Jin Yong, however, may have been inspired by the story to invent a swordsman who sought to avenge his father’s death by assassinating the last effective ruler of the Ming. Jin also had Li Yan and Hong Niangzi commit suicide to protest Li Zicheng’s rejection of their counsel. The interaction between oral and written sources in the creation of Wu Zixu resembles that which we have seen in the case of Li Yan. Wu Zixu eventually became a god, however, and was celebrated in popular culture. He thus enjoyed much wider recognition than Li Yan has enjoyed, at least up to now.22 Another would-be scholar rebel advisor was Qü Yuan, a royal aristocrat and active official in the state of Chu. When Qü lost out in a partisan conflict at court, he wrote “Encountering Sorrow”, widely regarded as the first Chinese poem attributable to a single author. Qü also disagreed with his king over how to deal with Zhang Yi and the rising Qin state, and he was eventually banished from Chu. Wandering in exile, Qü wrote poems deploring the lack of leaders like Yu, Tang, and Wu, who would be able to reunify the realm on the model of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou. In despair, he finally committed suicide by jumping into the Miluo river. His loyal and ardent spirit has subsequently been widely celebrated at an annual festival on the fifth day of the fifth month. Once again, we have a contrast with Li Yan, whose demise resulted in no such popular veneration. Qü Yuan’s poetry, together with that of others, was later included in an anthology titled the Songs of Chu. These verses were more passionate and individualistic than those in the canonical Book of Poetry. Qü Yuan’s poetry has been analyzed in terms of northern and southern cultures and traditional and modern times.23 It might also be understood as assuming elite forms in the Zhou, Tang, and Qing and manifesting more populist forms in the Han, Ming, and People’s Republic. In 247 BCE, Li Si (280?–208 BCE), a petty legal officer from the Chu town of Shangcai in southeast Henan went west to speak with the newly established Qin king, Ying Zheng (259–210 BCE). Imbued with the Legalist thought of Han Feizi. Li urged the king to use his preeminent economic and military power to abolish the decentralized rule inherited from the Zhou and to establish centralized bureaucratic authority over the entire realm. Li was appointed chief 22  Chaoyang 1979: 51 Sima ca. 110: 66.2179; Ssu-ma/Nienhauser, Jr. ca. 110 BCE/1995: VII. 49–62; Johnson 1980; Johnson 1981. 23  Sima ca. 110: 84. 2481, 2482, 2484, 2485–2489; Ssu-ma/Nienhauser, Jr. ca. 110 BCE/1995: VII. 295, 296, 298, 299–301; Hawkes 1962; Schneider 1980: 62–67, 85, 91, 97, 117, 125, 128–132, 138, 140, 151–156, 159, 201.

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of scribes and sent emissaries to other states to cajole and coerce them into acceptance of Qin rule. In 237, when natives of Qin called for the expulsion of all foreigners from the state, Li Si argued successfully that foreign advisors, like foreign commodities, actually benefited the host country. Li later violated his own advice in arranging for the execution of his own erstwhile teacher, Han Feizi, on the grounds that he remained loyal to his own Hann (韓) state. In 221 BCE king Zheng defeated the last remaining independent state and proclaimed himself the First August Lord of the Qin. In this post he claimed centralized authority over the entire inherited realm and for all time to come. At the same time, Li Si was appointed first among three top ministers and was formally designated Prime Minister (丞相), signaling that he would play a key role in establishing the new state. During the next decade, the Qin razed the walls among the states to create one polity, melted down weapons to help insure peace, and set up a supervisor of erudites to incorporate Confucian scholars into the regime. When one scholar used the classics and previous experience to call for sharing authority with localities, Li Si argued against it. He ordered the destruction of many books and prosecuted many scholars for using the past to criticize the present. The Qin unified scripts, weights, and measures, constructed roads, bridges, and walls, and campaigned against neighboring peoples who resisted central authority.24 In 211 BCE, the First August Lord of Qin died, precipitating a major struggle over the succession. An ambitious eunuch named Zhao Gao forged an edict instructing the capable heir apparent to commit suicide. Zhao then set up the younger brother of the late heir as the ruler and manipulated him into having Li Si imprisoned. Li Si was beaten in prison, forced to acknowledge his achievements as crimes, and was cut in half in the marketplace. Zhao then forced the new heir to commit suicide. Courtiers finally resisted the eunuch’s authority and forced him to relinquish authority to a younger brother of the First August Lord. The new ruler had eunuch Zhao stabbed to death. He governed for three months before he and his wife were captured by rebels and beheaded.25 The Qin succeeded in reunifying the realm after hundreds of years of cultural crisis and political disorder. It was the main source of the name “China” and variants that became common in Indo-European languages, while the name “central state(s)” persisted in East Asia. The Qin not only enhanced the authority of the ruler, whose title August Lord is often translated “emperor,” but also complemented it with the authority of the chief advisor, or prime 24  Sima ca. 110: 87. 2540, 2545, 2546, 2548–2553; Ssu-ma/Nienhauser, Jr. ca. 110 BCE/1995: VII. 336, 337, 340–341, 348–350. 25  Sima ca. 110: 87.2553–2563; Ssu-ma/Nienhauser, Jr. ca. 110 BCE/1995: VII.337–357.

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minister. As we have seen, Derk Bodde even described the minister Li Si, not the monarch Ying Zheng, as the real founder of the Qin polity that provided much of the basic structure of the Chinese state for the next two millennia.26 Historians generally agree, however, that the Qin overreached in attempting to centralize authority over the known world for all time. It also, contradictorily, embraced Zou Yan’s five agents theory of legitimate political succession in which five different kinds of polities succeeded one another. For example, in the conquest form, polities associated with earth, wood, metal, fire, and water succeeded one another in a cycle which, once completed, was replicated under new conditions, In the prevailing view of later generations, the Qin overemphasized wealth and power at the expense of culture and morality. At the same time, some scholars in the late Tang, late Ming, and late Qing pointed out the Qin’s enduring contributions to Chinese statecraft. In the twentieth century, two prominent heads of state, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, attempted to replicate some of its achievements.27 Guo Moruo took his cue from Mao in praising the progressive nature of the “centralized feudal system” even though it failed to contain the reactionary policies of eunuch Zhao.28 It has been argued that Chinese scholar-officials such as Yan Ying (ca. 580–510 BCE) in the Spring and Autumn Period were “confident” in remonstrating directly with the relatively weak and divided rulers of the era. Scholars such as Mengzi and even more Xunzi, in the Warring States period, however, became much more “cautious” in criticizing their rulers. With the advent of the First Qin August Lord in 221 BCE, even powerful scholar officials like Li Si became much more subservient to the “emperor,” now presiding over a reunified and newly centralized state.29 This linear analysis is consistent with the paradigm that distinguishes sharply between “pre-imperial,” “imperial,” and “republican” China, but may not take adequate account of evidence that the Han was a populist-egalitarian polity that departed from the Qin model and left a legacy for later ages including the Ming.30 In 208 BCE, 900 men were drafted by the Qin for military service in Chu. On their way to the garrison, they were caught in a storm and realized that they would be late for work. Because the strict Qin laws stipulated capital 26  Bodde 1938/1967; see also Cotterell 1981; Wills 1994: 33–50; Wood 2007; Lewis 2007. 27  Wang and Li 1975: xviii–xx, 225, 226, 229, 231, 240; Li 1975: xvii–xviii, xx–xlix, l–lxiii. 28  Li 1975: lii; Wang and Li 1975: 225, 240. 29  Pines 2013: 70, 88, 94–98; Olberding 2013a: 137. 30  For the use of riddles, commoners’ complaints, children’s songs, historical models, kinship ties, and historical legacies in limiting rulers’ power and promoting social justice during the Han, see Li 2013; Olberding 2013a: 147, 150 n37, 151–153; Queen 2013: 170–171, 178, 183, 192–195; Vankeerberghen 2013:211; and Nylan 2013: 270.

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punishment for such offenses, two members of the party, Chen She (d. 208 BCE) and Wu Guang (d. 208), decided to rebel. They adopted the contradictory identities of the late respected heir apparent of the Qin and of a popular general from Chu, and announced that “Great Chu will rise again and Chen Sheng will be king.” Wu Guang, who was beloved by his men, killed a Qin commander and asserted that “kings are made not born”. Chen became commander and Wu Guang was his assistant. After taking Daze County, Chen proclaimed himself Magnifier of Chu, Wu Guang became an “acting king”, and they appointed Cai Ci as chief minister. Cai was a force for moderation in dealing with other rebels, but one of Chen’s subordinates charged Wu Guang with arrogance and ignorance, and forged orders from Chen to have him killed. Chen governed for six months and attracted a descendant of Confucius into his entourage. But Chen treated one of his early supporters badly and was finally killed by his carriage driver. Sima Qian remarked that “the known world took its cue from Chen She’s rebellion,” but he concluded that the rebels “failed to manifest humaneness and justice and to recognize the difference between the power to attack and the power to hold.”31 This prefigured a critique of Li Zicheng’s leadership two millennia later. The rebellion of Chen She and Wu Guang was the first recorded popular uprising in Chinese history. It prefigured the rebellion of Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin in overthrowing an existing polity. It also anticipated Li Yan by engaging a chief minister who was moderate in dealing with rivals and by attracting a descendant of Confucius to the rebel standard. The rebellion too, however, suffered from internecine conflict and ultimately failed to establish a stable successor regime. Into the breach strode two other rebels in Chu, the village constable Liu Ji (248–196 BCE) from Pei County and the aristocrat Xiang Yü (232–202 BCE) from Xiaxiang. Xiang Yü, like the Qin First August Lord, relied on a single elite advisor, Fan Zeng (277–204 BCE), but Liu Ji engaged over a half-dozen advisors, several of whom were commoners. That was arguably consistent with the more populist and egalitarian nature of the early Han polity. In 208 BCE Liu Ji led a group of conscripts to join a jailor, Xiao He, and a personnel officer, Cao Can, in a revolt that resulted in the death of the Qin prefect of Pei. The following year, Liu Ji joined Xiang Yü in killing Li Si’s son, who had been active in suppressing rebels. Two years later, Xiang Yü and Liu Ji entered into an agreement sanctioned by the reviving king of Chu. The agreement stipulated that whoever took the Qin capital at Xianyang would become king of the region 31  Sima ca. 110 BCE/1975:47.30a, 48. 1949–1965; Ssu-ma/Watson ca. 110 BCE/1968: 1.19–29, 33; Needham and Wang 1975: 2.7.

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within the passes. A gate-keeper from Gaoyang in Chenliu County named Li Yiqi (d. 203 BCE) visited Liu Ji to offer advice. Liu Ji was having his feet washed and did not stand up to receive his guest. Li Yiqi chastised him, saying that that was no way to win broad support necessary for a successful uprising. Liu apologized and followed Li Yiqi’s advice to seize the grain the Qin had stored in nearby Qi (willow) County. He bestowed titles on Li Yiqi and his younger brother, Li Shang, and joined them in an attack on Kaifeng which failed. Li Yiqi’s family name (酈) was written very differently from Li Yan’s family name (李), but his home near Qi County, his frank remonstrance regarding Liu’s rude behavior, the focus on acquiring grain, and the unsuccessful attack on Kaifeng all seemed to prefigure elements in the Li Yan story, or at least helped to create the cultural conditions for their acceptance.32 Liu Ji moved south, took several towns near Luoyang, and engaged a fourth advisor, Zhang Liang (–185 BCE). Zhang was from a noble lineage in the small state of Hann. He had attempted in vain to assassinate the First August Lord of the Qin when he had taken Hann. Zhang encouraged Liu to consolidate his base in Henan before attempting to go west to take the land within the passes. Liu followed Zhang’s advice, unlike Li Zicheng who, according to Yao Xueyin, ignored Li Yan’s counsel along similar lines. Liu then advanced his troops without allowing them to plunder the population, and he took towns easily. That experience prefigured Li Zicheng’s in which heeding Li Yan’s advice resulted in the rebels taking towns in famine-stricken western Henan with little opposition. In 207 BCE, Liu’s forces were the first to reach Xianyang and he accepted the surrender of the Qin’s First August Lord’s brother without killing him. Liu also followed Zhang’s advice not to allow his troops to seize the wealth of the erstwhile Qin capital. Instead they sealed up the city’s storehouses and left after issuing a three-point edict simplifying the legal code. These measures provided models for later founding rulers, but Li Zicheng would later ignore Li Yan’s best counsel and fail to implement them.33 The aristocratic rebel, Xiang Yü, also violated the agreement with Liu Ji, sent his forces to occupy Xianyang, burned part of the city, and killed the last Qin ruler. Xiang Yü adopted the title of Hegemon-King of Western Chu and tried to buy off Liu Ji by naming him King of Ba and Shu in the Han river valley. At this point Han Xin, a commoner from Huaiyin in the lower Yangzi, transferred his allegiance from the Chu regime of Xiang Yü to the Han regime of Liu Ji. Meanwhile, Liu Ji’s strategy of burning bridges to the east to indicate his lack 32  Chaoyang 1979: 88, 89, 96; Sima ca. 110: 341–394; Ssuma/Nienhauser ca. 110 BCE 2002: 2.21, 28–29, 30, 32. 33  Ssuma/Nienhauser ca. 110 BCE/2002: 2. 33–35, 37, 40, 44–49.

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of interest in challenging Chu authority was not bringing peace. Liu therefore accepted Han Xin’s suggestion to break out of virtual self-exile in the west and to go east to contend for control of the central plain. Liu therefore went east, took over Qin parks, and turned them into land for the people to farm. He welcomed all former adversaries who surrendered and requested only that the Qin altars of grain and soil be replaced by Han ones. When he learned that Xiang Yü had killed the last Chu monarch, he charged him with regicide and announced his plan to mobilize the people of the central plain against Chu. Liu Ji sent Li Yiqi to cajole and Han Xin to coerce feudatories such as Wei to ally with Han against Chu. He established a base at Xingyang in north-central Henan, got supplies from the famous Ao Granary, and engaged in a standoff with Xiang Yü for three years. Liu gave a sixth advisor, Chen Ping, 40,000 catties of silver to drive a wedge between Xiang Yü and his ministers. When the king of Wei became angry at the pressure and Han Xin seemed to have his own agenda, a courtier named Zheng Zhong called on Liu Ji to pause, raise earthworks higher, dig moats deeper, and refrain from open warfare. Liu Ji accepted the advice and shared power while maintaining over-all command. As we shall see, this three-point strategy of assuming a low posture would be reiterated much later in the founding of the Ming and again in the early People’s Republic. In the civil war, Liu Ji used soft power, such as charging Xiang Yü with ten crimes, while Xiang Yü used hard power, such as shooting Liu Ji with his bow and arrow. Liu Ji’s arrow wound was not fatal and prefigured a similar wound inflicted by a Ming commander on Li Zicheng and another suffered by the commander Liu Bocheng, consequently known as the “one-eyed dragon”, in the Communist revolution.34 When tensions persisted between Liu Ji and Han Xin, Zhang Liang recommended that Liu grant Han Xin further authority as long as he exercised it on behalf of the Han state. Liu acted accordingly, providing an example which Li Zicheng would later honor mainly in the breach. In 202, Han forces defeated Xiang Yü near Nanjing and Xiang died in the battle. Liu Ji was then recognized as the Han son of heaven and nature, Han Xin became the king of Chu, and, according to Sima Qian, “the known world was at peace”. In a famous passage, Sima had Liu Ji explain his success as the result of his having used heroic advisors such as Zhang Liang, Xiao He, and Han Xin, whereas Xiang Yu had failed to use his single advisor well.35 As founder of the Han, Liu Ji was given the temple name Gaozu (high ancestor). He later became better known by the name Liu Bang, which we will 34  Klein and Clark 1971: 611–616. 35  Sima ca. 110/1975: 380–381; Ssuma/Nienhauser ca. 110 BCE/2002: 2. 52, 53, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 67–68.

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hereafter use to distinguish him from another Liu Ji, a minister active in the early Ming period. In conformity to the rites of Qi and Song, Liu Bang paid respects to the ancestral spirits of Chen She and the First August Lord, who lacked descendants. He composed children’s songs and expressed concerns about finding “valiant warriors to hold the four directions” after his demise. He instructed that, upon the death of chancellor Xiao He, he should be succeeded by Cao Can; and upon Cao’s death, he should be succeeded by Chen Ping. These instructions were accepted and implemented, thereby mitigating the struggle for power that followed the founder’s death. At the end of his account of the Han founder’s reign, Sima Qian, as a subject of the Han, described its role in Chinese history. In his view, the Xia had been marked by good faith, but it had deteriorated into rusticity; the Shang reformed the system in line with piety, but piety later degenerated into superstition; the Zhou corrected this fault through refinement, but that later devolved into hollow show. Since Sima believed that the way of the three polities is like a cycle that must begin again, there should have been a return to good faith. The Qin, however, failed to execute it, instead imposing its own harsh punishments and laws on the people. “Thus, when the Han rose to power, it addressed the faults of its predecessors and worked to change and reform them, causing men to be unflagging in their efforts and following the order properly ordained by Heaven.”36 In other words, the Qin had never been a fully legitimate polity and its duty of restoring good faith was instead fulfilled by the Han. The Han, therefore, was fully legitimate and should enjoy a long life. According to Sima Qian’s record, Han Gaozu’s advisors recommended many policies which Li Zicheng’s advisors reiterated, modified, or ignored. Xiao He demonstrated his loyalty to the Han by bringing his entire family to live in his office, anticipating He Ruizheng’s similar behavior vis a vis the Shun regime in 1644. Xiao also recommended opening the Qin royal parks to the people for their use, causing Liu Bang to suspect his motives and to imprison him. This episode seemed to prefigure magistrate Song’s early suspicion that Li Yan provided relief to the famished to plot a rebellion and Li Zicheng’s later belief that Li Yan offered to lead troops to Henan with the goal of establishing an independent center of power there. Xiao was able to persuade Gaozu’s successor, Huidi (194–187), of his loyalty whereas Li Yan failed to convince Li Zicheng of his sincerity. Sima Qian concluded that Xiao He satisfied the people by “making a new beginning”, a concept that had appeared at the beginning of the Shang and Zhou. According to one version of the Li Yan story, the idea would 36  Sima ca. 110 BCE/1975: 393–394; Ssu-ma/Watson ca. 110 BCE/1968: 118–119; Ssu-ma/ Nienhauser ca. 110/2002: 2. 380–381.

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reappear at the beginning of the Later Han and again near the end of the rebel Shun state. Although Li Yiqi’s family name was different from Li Yan’s and he was from a family that had fallen on hard times, he was literate and Sima Qian referred to him as Master Li. This suggests that literacy may have been one characteristic that Li Yan shared with Li Yiqi and that it was one that led people to refer to him as “Master Li”. Li Yiqi was over sixty years old and unlikely to be very active, but he had heard that Liu Bang was more promising than other rebels and so arranged a meeting with him. This reminds us of the story that Li Yan heard good things about Li Zicheng and so took the initiative in seeking him out instead of joining more local rebellions. Liu Bang established his reputation as a populist when he reportedly urinated in Li Yiqi’s hat when that intellectual doffed it in what Liu considered to be an excess of decadent deference. But Li warned Liu that such behavior would not win him friends among the literati whose support was important for the success of the rebellion. Liu Bang responded positively to Li’s remonstrance, unlike Li Zicheng who ignored Li Yan’s advice and forfeited the support of many intellectuals. Li Yiqi went to Qi (even) to try to persuade the king to support the Han against Chu. Li was boiled alive by the king who was angered by Han Xin’s simultaneous military attack on Qi. Li Yiqi’s younger brother, Li Shang, nonetheless survived this incident and continued to support Liu Bang and the Han. His experience therefore differed from that of Li Yan’s younger (clan) brother, Li Mou, who died along with Li Yan at the hands of Li Zicheng.37 The scholar Lu Jia from Chu was also accorded the title “master” and afforded a brief biography by Sima Qian. Lu managed relations with the southern state of Yue and often referred to the Book of Odes and the Venerated Documents in discussions with Gaozu. When Gaozu noted that he had won the throne on horseback and wondered why he needed to bother with books, Lu replied with the famous rhetorical query, “Your Majesty may have won it on horseback, but can you rule it on horseback?” Lu invoked the examples of Kings Tang and Wu and argued that “paying attention to both civil and military affairs is the best way for a polity to achieve long life”. Lu wrote down his recommendations in a text titled New Discourse (Xinyu). He also joined with other officials to persuade Empress Gaohou Lüshi (r. 202–180) not to wipe out the Liu lineage. Lu Jia’s life story spoke to the relative civility of the Han, and he died of natural causes in the reign of Han Wendi (202–157).38 37   Ssu-ma/Watson ca. 110 BCE/1968: 269–275; Sima ca. 110 BCE/1975: 2691–2707; Chaoyang 1979: 99. 38  Sima ca. 110 BCE: 2698–2699; Ssu-ma/Watson ca. 110 BCE/1968: 275–278.

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Zhang Liang (d. 185) was from an aristocratic family in Hann who tried to assassinate the First August Lord. He considered joining Chen She’s rebellion and used the Grand Duke’s Martial Methods of the early Zhou to advise Liu Bang on how to establish the Han. In a military crisis, Zhang urged Liu Bang to stick to the centralized administrative system and to reward officials who contributed to its maintenance. Zhang was said to be short, weak, and in poor health, but Gaozu admired him for, in his words, “plotting strategies that assured us victories a thousand miles away”. Zhang helped Gaozu deal with potential rebels by enfeoffing his strongest critics, making them beholden to him. He insisted that the capital be in Xianyang, now renamed Chang’an, because it was more defensible than Luoyang. Zhang persuaded Gaozu not to change the heir apparent so as to avoid the struggle for power that had brought down the Qin. He spent his final years in a kind of Daoist retreat and died of natural causes in his old age. In his physical infirmities, strategic prowess, and retreat into nature, Zhang Liang seemed to prefigure Song Xiance, who was active two millennia later.39 Han Xin (d. 196) was a poor commoner who drew on Sun Zi’s Art of War to take several states for the Han and who asked Liu Bang to grant him special authority in those states. Liu Bang doubted Han Xin’s loyalty, much as Li Zicheng would come to suspect Li Yan’s motives, but Liu Bang ceded responsibility along with authority to Han Xin and thereby kept him under control. Liu Bang was said to have shared some of his meals with Han Xin. In this small way, Liu may have anticipated Mao Zedong, who was said to have shared food from his own plate with at least one of his officers during the Long March.40 Han Xin’s affection for Liu Bang did not extend to his wife, Empress Lü, or to her son, the heir apparent Hui, both of whom Han and a fellow general were said to have conspired to kill. As it happened, Lü out-maneuvered Han and had him beheaded without undermining her authority. In this, she was unlike Li Zicheng, whose reported assassination of Li Yan may have cost him considerable literati support.41 Chen Ping (d. 178) was from a very poor family in Yangwu in northwest Henan who managed to get some education. He first served the revived state of Wei, joined Xiang Yü in overthrowing the Qin, and then joined Liu Bang’s army. He was immediately appointed a lieutenant general, which incurred the ire of 39   Ssu-ma/Watson ca. 110 BCE/1968: 134–151; Sima ca. 110 BCE/1976: 2033–2049; Chan 1975: 46–47; Chaoyang 1979: 99–100; Allan 1981: 144. 40  Williams et al. 1994: Part 2. 41   Ssu-ma/Watson ca. 110/1968; Sima ca. 110 BCE: 2609–2630; Williams 1995; Chaoyang 1979: 100.

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veterans who became his subordinates, but Liu Bang ignored the criticism and appointed him to other high posts. During a confrontation with Xiang Yü at Xingyang in north central Henan, Chen used substantial funds and diplomatic initiatives to drive a wedge between Xiang Yü and his chief advisor. He also sent 2,000 women out of a town gate to distract the enemy while making good the escape of Liu Bang’s forces through another gate. Chen engaged in secret diplomacy to break a siege of Han forces by the neighboring Xiongnu people. He was also said to have developed six ingenious strategies but they were secret and the written record of them did not survive. Chen played an important role in managing the transition from Liu royal authority to Lü authority, and back again to the Lius. He served three years as prime minister in the Han reign of Wen.42 Cao Can (d. 190 BCE) was from Liu Bang’s hometown of Pei, where he had served the Qin as jailer. After joining Liu’s uprising, he fought many battles against the Qin and then against Xiang Yü. He had good relations with Xiao He, with whom he shared the post of prime minister at various times. In later years they had a falling out. On his deathbed in 193 BCE, however, Xiao overcame his personal feelings and recommended that Cao succeed him as prime minister. Thus did their story offer a model of collegial public service, which, it appears, Niu Jinxing and Li Yan would later honor largely in the breach.43 The Han governed much of the known world for a century, but thereafter faced daunting problems such as the growth in the power of the royal consorts’ families and the widening gap between the wealthy and the poor. In the mid-first century BCE, a powerful official named Wang Mang (45 BCE–23 CE) became a regent for a young Liu monarch and based his authority on the models of Yi Yin and the Duke of Zhou. Then, in a quest for even greater authority, he claimed to be descended from the minister and sage-king Shun, who, ironically, had inherited and practiced meritocratic succession. On the bases of heredity and merit, Wang eventually founded his own polity, which he named Xin (lit. new), 6 BCE–57 CE, to address contemporary issues. Wang’s policies to equalize land ownership and abolish slavery alarmed large landowners while his measures to strengthen state authority resulted in uprisings with colorful names, including the Red Eyebrows, Bronze Horses, and Green Forests. Liu Xiu (6 BCE–57 CE), a member of the Han royal lineage, raised an army to put down the rebels and to reestablish the authority of the Han. He appointed Deng Yu (2–58 CE) 42   Ssu-ma/Watson ca. 220 BCE/1968: 152–167; Sima ca. BCE/1975: 2051–2063; Chaoyang 1979: 100. 43   Ssu-ma/Watson ca. 110 BCE/1968: 421–426; Sima ca. 110 BCE/1976: 2021–2032; Chaoyang 1979: 99.

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minister and marquis during the Gengshi and Jianwu reigns (23–56 CE) which bridged the Former and the Later Han (also called the Eastern Han because it moved the capital east to Luoyang). The Eastern Han was, from the beginning, a far more aristocratic polity than the Western Han had been. It nonetheless endured for another two centuries before it succumbed to struggles within the royal line, challenges from the external clan, reaction by court eunuchs, competition among official factions, sectarian uprisings, and regional militarists. This sequence of events was remarkably similar to the one that would bring down the Ming a millennium and a half later. Contributors to the Li Yan persona invoked the Han polity in several different ways. Peng’s Strange Hearsay compared Li Yan’s rallying to Li Zicheng to general Han Xin’s support for Liu Bang. The Lazy Daoist portrayed Niu Jinxing as claiming greater achievements in founding the Shun than Xiao He could claim in founding the Han. Luan Xing sympathized with Niu Jinxing and argued that he, not Li Yan, followed the examples of Xiao He and Shu Suntong, who drew up the spare statutes for Liu Bang. The twentieth-century playwright Li Yimang had Li Zicheng compare Li Yan with Zhang Liang. Yao Xueyin depicted Li Yan invoking the examples of Fan Kuai and Zhang Liang in calling for a simple platform announcing the establishment of the Shun. Yao Xueyin had Li Yan invoke the example of Han Xin in urging Li Zicheng to distribute his troops throughout Yü (Henan) to provide a solid base for a new regime. Indeed, one common Chinese term for advisor (mouzhu 謀主, lit. plan master) had first been widely used in the Han and was used for Li Yan at the end of the Ming. Invocation of the Han model of ruler and advisor was not always so simple and straightforward. Yao Xueyin had Luo Rucai tell Zhang Xianzhong that Niu Jinxing and Song Xiance were serving Li Zicheng as Chen Ping and Zhang Liang had served the Han founder Gaozu. This compliment to Niu and Song may not have been welcomed by Zhang Xianzhong, who, together with Luo Rucai, was currently an ally of Li Zicheng. Zhang may have felt that the analogy raised the possibility that Li Zicheng would go on to found his own new polity and would move against competitors like Zhang and Luo, much as Liu Bang had famously destroyed his main rival Xiang Yü. If so, in viewing the case of Luo Rucai, Zhang Xianzhong would have been quite prescient. Sima Qian’s Historical Records was a rich source for Han history and historiography, but it was not completely above reproach. Luan Xing pointed out that documents were interpolated into Sima Qian’s biographies of Su Wu and Li Ling, victims of Han Wudi’s authoritarian policies. That provided a model, Luan argued, for the interpolation of the celebrated four-point memorial into the biography of Li Zicheng and the attribution of it to Li Yan. Luan saw the memorial as a post-facto account of

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the program proposed by Niu Jinxing, not by Li Yan, if, indeed, it was proposed by anyone other than the anonymous informal historian, the Lazy Daoist. There was, as we have seen, widespread recognition of the parallels between the Han and Ming polities at their inception and as they developed over time. Zhao Zongfu pointed out that the Han and Ming were both founded by commoners, gained the support of scholars, and lasted for centuries. Guo Moruo and Yao Xueyin agreed, but noted that both polities also dealt harshly with intellectuals who did not toe the founder’s stipulated line. Eventually both polities encountered rebellions, led in the late Former Han by aristocrats followed by plebeians, and organized in the Ming by students and commoners. Writers toward the end of the Ming were keenly aware of the parallels between the Han and the Ming. Tan Qian, for example, discussed the Red Eyebrow rebels’ who overturned Wang Mang’s Xin state, and the Yellow Turbans who fatally weakened the Later Han. Tan may have hoped for the restoration of the Ming on the model of the Han and thus favored the Red Eyebrow precedent for Li Zicheng. A scholar named Li Yesi used the example of a scholar who refused to take office in the Later Han to persuade the historian Wan Sitong not to accept a formal appointment in the Qing. After the Ming loyalists’ arrest of the Shun magistrates in Guide Prefecture, Yao Xueyin recorded a poem by Fu Shun that alluded to Liu Xiu’s repression of rebels and his restoration of the Han. This raised Li Zicheng’s suspicions about Li Yan’s motives for requesting troops to recover Shun authority in Henan. When Li Yan memorialized that he wanted to make a “new beginning” in his home province, Li Zicheng remarked that “new beginning” was the reign name of a scion of the Han royal family who had cleared the way for the restoration of Han rule in the wake of Wang Mang’s Xin regime. On this basis, Li Zicheng decided to instruct Niu Jinxing to arrange for the execution of Li Yan and Li Mou. In response, the Lazy Daoist wrote, Liu Zongmin, who was said to have claimed descent from the Han ruling family, became disaffected from Li Zicheng and Niu Jinxing. As a result, some believe, the rebel leadership soon disintegrated, opening the way to a rump Ming regime in Nanjing and then the rising Qing state. 7.2

Middle: China in Asia

When the Eastern Han declined in the late second century CE, it was succeeded by the Three Kingdoms. In the north, the scholar-general Cao Cao (155–220) claimed to be the regent—and considered his son to be the successor—of the young Han ruler he controlled. In the west, Liu Bei (161–223), a scion of the Han royal line, won the services of the scholar-strategist Zhuge Liang (181–234)

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in his Shu-Han state. Unlike the swordsman Zhang Fei (d. 221), who wanted to summon Zhuge Liang to the court, Liu Bei took the initiative to search for Zhuge, so important did he think his skills were to the success of his political enterprise. Meanwhile, in the south there was general Sun Quan (182–252), who hoped to use the superior wealth of his Wu state to win the civil war and re-unite the central states.44 The story of the Three Kingdoms was first told in histories written in subsequent regimes, and it reached its height in the historical novel titled The Expanded Meaning of the Three Kingdoms, which was composed in the Ming. It is difficult to know how much of the novel was based on historical facts and how much of it was fiction. The Qing historian Zhang Xuecheng (1738–1801) described the novel as seventy percent fact and thirty percent fiction. The swordsman Guan Yu (d. 219) may have been largely created by a fertile literary imagination. The strategist Zhuge Liang was probably more historical than Taigong Wang of the Zhou and just as historical as Zhang Liang of the Han, on whom Zhuge was purported to have modeled himself. Zhuge’s Shu-Han joined forces with Wu, defeated Wei several times, and pacified the western and southern frontiers. Irrespective of the balance of history and literature in Zhuge Liang’s biography, he figures prominently in the image of the scholar rebel advisor that has come down to us.45 Such combinations of fact and fiction should be familiar by now and they should be as meaningful to us as they were to past generations of Chinese people.46 The question is not whether such stories make sense; the question is, rather, what sense do they make. Stories from and about the Three Kingdoms may well have shaped stories about—and perhaps even the history of—Li Yan. The late Ming rebel Luo Rucai’s choice of the nickname Cao Cao was but one sign of the contemporary awareness of similarities between the late-Han and late-Ming periods. The late Ming rebel Zhang Xianzhong and his colleague and councilor Li Dingguo also identified with figures from the early Han and the Three Kingdoms.47 The playwright Li Yimang followed that lead by having Niu Jinxing compare the talented diviner Song Xiance with the polymath advisor to the Shu-Han state, Zhuge Liang. The novelist Yao Xueyin had Li Yan raise the example of the original Cao Cao’s lenience toward Liu Bei, scion of the Han royal line, in 44  Chaoyang 1979: 165–168 180–182. 45  Ruhlmann 1960; Chan 1967b: 42; Chan 1968: 50; Allan 1981: 144–145; Luo/Roberts Ming/1991: 114, Afterword. 46  For the idea that “the use of variations upon stereotypes” may produce “a level of meaning not readily accessible to the non-Chinese reader,” see Allan 1981: 145. For expansion of this idea into a theory, see Cohen and Gillis 2010. For a different view see Shin 2018. 47  Swope 2018: 55, 80, 86–87, 100–101, 109, 217, 221–222, 239, 255, 295.

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a vain effort to convince Li Zicheng to refrain from killing Luo Rucai. As the Shun state began to falter, Yao Xueyin had Li Yan and Li Mou seek the advice of a mountain man in an effort reminiscent of Liu Bei’s quest to enlist Zhuge Liang in his remnant Shu-Han regime. The Li brothers’ efforts in this regard failed and only exacerbated their tensions with Li Zicheng. Xu Jun, the critic of both the Li Yan story and the Li family genealogy of Tang village, noted several instances of phraseology taken from Luo Guanzhong’s Ming-period historical novel on the Three Kingdoms, which appeared in the Lazy Daoist’s account of the assassination of Li Yan and Li Mou. In Xu’s view, this coincidence (or outright plagiarism) raises questions about the authenticity of that document describing the Li brothers’ demise. Wang Xingya replied, however, that the appearance of a figure in a novel does not ipso facto make him or her fictitious. The inclusion of Li Yan in “The Little History of Dashing Li” no more makes him false than the inclusion of Liu Bei in the novel about the Three Kingdoms rendered him fictitious. In this spirit, we might add a further twist: that the relations among Li Zhong, Li Yan, and Chen Wangting, or, a little later, among Li Zhong (aka Daliang), Li Yan, and Li Mou in the histories, novels, plays, and genealogy remind one of the relations, sealed in the Peach Garden, among Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei. According to A Ying, Niu Jinxing warned Li Zicheng against the minatory model of Sima Zhao, who first supported the Wei state and then arranged to have his son replace it with the Jin. According to the playwright, by invoking this analogy Niu was able to persuade Li Zicheng to eliminate Li Yan before he could do something similar to the Shun. During the Wei-Jin and North and South Dynasties, or the first centuries of the middle period of Chinese history, there were two major cultural trends that ultimately affected the Li Yan story. There was, first, the influx of Buddhism from India. According to The Little History of Dashing Li, Li Yan reflected this development when he asked Song Xiance why Buddhist monks seemed to be more sincere and loyal than Confucian officials in rebel-governed Beijing. Song replied, in the spirit of Song Confucianism, that, on the contrary, the Buddhists were actually foreigners espousing irrational ideas. Li Yan seemed to accept that judgment. Yao Xueyin, however, depicted Li Yan as fairly open-minded about Buddhism in his conversations with a monk named Bukong (lit. not empty). This was consistent with the Li family genealogy, which emphasized the ecumenical theme of the unity of the three teachings (Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism). It also helped to explain the importance of the Millennial Temple in Tang village in providing a site for literati exchanges, swordsmen’s arts, lawbreakers’ eremitism, and widows’ turn to the religious vocation. The second, arguably related, cultural trend in this period was the writing of strange tales

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and the incorporation of them into novels and histories.48 This practice was roundly condemned by critics of the Master Li story who hoped in vain that the Ming History would avoid these violations of rational humanistic historiography and would follow instead the early historian Dong Hu, praised as a model by Confucius. After two centuries of division, Yang Jian (585–618), an aristocrat from the region between Chang’an and Luoyang, reunited the realm in the late sixth century. Yang aspired to replicate the policies of the Duke of Zhou and to avoid becoming another Wang Mang. One of his advisors was Gao Jiong (d. 607), a devout Buddhist, who presided over military victories and implemented an effective tax system. Gao was compared with the effective Legalist advisors Guan Zhong of Qi and Shang Yang of Qin. Gao got into conflict with Yang’s wife and her son, the heir apparent Yang Guang (569–618). Gao was executed by his ruler, prefiguring Li Yan’s fate. Other advisors included Yang Su (d. 606), a successful military commander, and Su Che and his son, Su Wei (542–623), who drew on the Rites of Zhou to recommend six articles on administration. Finally, Li Delin (d. 591), who was from a learned family and holder of a civil service degree, urged Yang Jian to deal leniently with supporters of the previous regime but favored strong administration under the Sui. He was finally accused of being a bookworm and was excluded from the inner circle of advisors.49 Despite mistreatment of some of its ministers, the Sui used ethnic hybridity, ideological syncretism, and historiographical eclecticism to reunite China along the lines of the Shang. It followed a legendary Shang example too literally, however, and became over extended in a war with Korea. Heavy taxes to pay for the war led to popular uprisings in the central plain and ultimately to the end of the Sui polity. Li Yuan (566–635) and his son Li Shimin (599–649), members of the northwestern aristocracy, organized a rebellion that overthrew the Sui and founded the Tang in 618. Like the Han, the Tang had several important advisors, but, unlike in the Han, in the Tang they all came from aristocratic families in the northwest. This was consistent with the spiral theory’s characterization of the Tang as an elitist order on the model of the Zhou. The most influential advisor was Zhangsun Wuji (ca. 600–659), who was from Luoyang, who was close to Li Shimin, and whose sister became Li Shimin’s principal consort. Zhangsun was an able strategist who helped Li Shimin replace his elder brother as heir apparent. In so doing, Li cited the precedent of the Duke of Zhou, who

48  Mair 1994: 707–751. 49  Wright 1978.

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had made a similar argument for his regency over his nephew.50 Another advisor was Fang Xuanling (578–648), who helped Shimin take power and served as his personal secretary. Together they reformed the administration and reduced the number of crimes punishable by death, measures consistent with the reformist nature of the Tang. Fang urged Taizong to terminate the war against Koguryo and helped arrange a smooth succession.51 A third advisor, Du Ruhui (585–630) exercised such wise judgment that Taizong announced that his “support was necessary for all major government decisions”.52 In contrast with these three practical administrators, a fourth advisor, Wei Zheng (580–630), had a more complicated political background and espoused a more idealistic political philosophy. He belonged to a scholar-official family that had held office in previous regimes, and he served under the rebel Li Mi before they both surrendered to the Tang. Wei also served on the staff of one of Li Shimin’s elder brothers before that brother was killed in the coup d’état that brought Shimin to power. Wei therefore, as the servant of three regimes, was triply suspect in Taizong’s eyes. In a demonstration of extraordinary personal character, however, Wei won his ruler’s trust through his candor and courage. He was appointed counselor and sent to the northeast to attract other former servants of the Sui to the Tang standard. He codified court rituals, compiled official histories, opposed restoration of the Zhou feudal system, and helped arrange a smooth succession after the death of Taizong. Wei’s main claim to fame, however, was his honest and fearless criticism of Taizong which was an important feature of the “good rule of the Zhenguan era” (zhenguan zhizhi). With Wei’s support, Tang Taizong became a model of good governance in East Asia. Wei Zheng was also celebrated in popular culture as a god of the doorway.53 In addition to these four largely civil officials, there were two more specialized military officers active in the early Tang. The first was Li Jing (571–649), whom we have already met. Li had served previous regimes and was the oldest of Li Shimin’s close associates. He pacified commoner rebels in south China and ethnic minorities on the northern frontier. He was appointed chief minister from 630–634 and served Taizong until his death. Li Jing’s purported discussions with Taizong on military strategies were included in a book that was forged in Song times.54 Li Jing became famous for allegedly chastising the powerful Sui minister Yang Su for treating him (Li) disrespectfully. As we have 50  Twitchett 1979: 194–195; Chaoyang 1979: 264–265. 51  Twitchett 1979: 193, 193–197, 203, 206–207, 211, 215, 235, 238. 52  Twitchett 1979: 196. 53  Twitchett 1979: 173, 191, 196–198, 201, 210–211, 213, 215, 222, 226, 237, 298; Chaoyang 1979: 274–275; Wechsler 1974. 54  Twitchett 1979: 199, 221, 222, 229, 240–241.

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seen, Li thereafter joined with a woman in Yang’s employ who was skilled in the martial arts and carried a red fly whisk (Hong Fuji). Together they allied with a male warrior with a curly beard, and helped Li Yuan and Li Shimin overthrow the Sui and found the Tang.55 This story seems to hark back to Li Yiqi’s reprimand of the uncouth rebel Liu Bang in the late Qin and forward to Li Yan’s tryst with Hong Niangzi near the end of the Ming. The second notable military advisor to the Tang founder was Li Shiji (594– 669). This Li was a member of a scholar-official family from Shandong that had served previous states. He was said to be second only to Li Shimin in pacifying the central plain. Taizong regarded Li Shiji as more effective than long walls in defending against Turkish forces on the northern frontier. He became chief minister and preceptor to the heir apparent.56 In the eyes of Li Zicheng, Li Yan, and their followers, the most compelling historical model was probably the Sui-Tang polity that reunified the realm and promoted elite reforms. Li Zicheng and Li Yan, of course, shared the family name of the father and son, Li Yuan and Li Shimin, who established the Tang. Li Zicheng’s and Li Yan’s rebellion originated in Shaanxi Province, home of the Tang royal family. The rebels took control of the central plain and established an initial Shun state in Xi’an, renamed Chang’an after Tang practice. As the historian Cao Guilin put it, the Shun state was based on the Li-Tang model modified in accord with the Shun canon and Ming reforms. As we have seen, during the course of their rise to power, Li Yuan and Li Shimin received support from the general named Li Jing, his partner (the Woman with the Red Fly Whisk), and Zhang (the Curly Bearded Guest.) Another general named Li Mi, whose life was influenced by the same augury that a man named Li would take the throne, lost out in the competition for control of the central plain and was killed. When Li Yuan took power, Li Jing continued to serve as an important general. The Woman with the Red Fly Whisk and the Curly Bearded Guest persisted in folk culture. A millennium later, in the seventeenth century, the historian Wu Weiye added the figure of Hong Niangzi to the Li Yan story. In the eighteenth century, the writer Dong Rong noticed the similarity between the Woman with the Red Fly Whisk, the Tang-period maid named Hong Niang, and Wu Weiye’s swordswoman Hong Niangzi. In the twentieth century, the playwright Liu Bingshan had the wealthy merchant Qian Baiwan refer to the Woman with the Red Fly Wisk before he (Qian) was dispatched by Hong Niangzi. In the 1960s, the historian Fan Shuzhi argued that Li Mi was a good-faith rebel who remained loyal to the goals of the rebellion against the 55  Li Song, cited in Chang 1996: 10–11. 56  Twitchett 1979: 199–200.

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Sui whereas Li Yan was a disloyal rebel who tried to turn Li Zicheng’s rebellion against the Ming into an instrument for his own aggrandizement. The playwright Ma Shaobo explicitly described Li Zicheng as wanting to learn from the example of Li Shimin. According to the novelist Yao Xueyin, Niu Jinxing, as the Shun prime minister, regularly lectured the barely literate Li Zicheng on the classics and histories. The histories included, notably, the Song historian Sima Guang’s Comprehensive Mirror for Assistance in Governance. That voluminous chronological history from pre-Qin times to the Song paid particular attention to the Tang polity and to the reign of Taizong. In his historical novel, Yao Xueyin repeatedly depicted Niu Jinxing and Song Xiance as comparing the Dashing Prince Li Zicheng with Tang Taizong. To be sure, Li Zicheng, like Li Shimin himself, did not always live up to the image of the model ruler whom he professed to revere. For example, the Dashing Prince ignored Li Yan’s advice to focus on using civil officials to administer the many counties in Henan that the rebels controlled rather than mounting increasingly costly and ultimately futile military assaults on the provincial capital of Kaifeng. Even in that case, however, Li Zicheng reportedly regretted his decision and called on Li Yan, just as Tang Taizong had called on Wei Zheng, to express his dissenting opinions more forcefully in the future. Song Xiance, for his part, encouraged Li Zicheng to treat Li Yan as Tang Taizong had treated Wei Zheng, and Li Zicheng reportedly promised that, if Li Yan followed the example of Wei Zheng, he (Li Zicheng) would become more like Tang Taizong. When Li Zicheng still found it difficult to measure up to Li Shimin’s standard, he acknowledged the limits of his education and directed Niu to lecture him on the Important Policies of the Zhenguan Reign (zhenguan zhengyao) which distilled the essence of Tang Taizong’s good governance into an essay that became well known throughout East Asia. After Li Zicheng again rejected Li Yan’s advice to rely on political diplomacy rather than military force to deal with Wu Sangui, he again changed his mind and scolded Li Yan for not remonstrating forcefully enough, thus becoming partly responsible for the unsuccessful outcome. Like the Tang, the Shun manifested elements of elitism combined with reform. Dai Li and Wu Su described the brothers Li Yan and Li Mou as literate members of the scholar elite who were uncomfortable with the disorganization and crudeness of commoner rebels like Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin. Niu Jinxing focused on attracting erstwhile Ming scholar-officials to the Shun state and on reimplementing and reforming the civil service examinations that enfranchised the scholar elite. According to the early Qing historian Zha Jizuo, however, Li Zicheng also promised to equalize landownership, a reform that went back to the ideal well-field system in the Zhou and was implemented extensively in the equal-fields system in the Tang. The Republican-era public

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intellectual Zhao Zongfu commented that the rebels did not implement the equal field system but it remained an ideal which influenced early Qing policies. According to Guo Moruo, the equal field system was the key to Li Yan’s reformist ideology, and Yao Xueyin reminded readers that it had been effectively implemented in the Northern Wei and Tang. The radical historians Yuan Dingzhong and Luo Ming noted that Li Zicheng’s Shun regime made no mention of the equal field system in Beijing, a sign that they were compromising the basic revolutionary—or at least reformist—nature of their movement. The Tang was one of the high points in the development of Chinese poetry, a genre of literature that had first appeared in one of the five classics of the Zhou period. The late Ming-early Qing writer Lu Yingyang, who wrote the Woodcutter’s History that chronicled the rise and fall of Li Zicheng’s rebellion, also published poetry in the Tang style. Zhang Jinyan, the last Ming minister of troops who opened the gates of Beijing to the rebels, later joined the historian Gu Yingtai in editing the poetry of Du Fu. Du had been active when the Tang was reaching its pinnacle of success and beginning its gradual decline. The novelist Yao Xueyin’s favorite poet was Du Fu. In recognition of that, Yao’s assistant and co-author, Yu Rujie, selected four five-character lines from Du Fu’s corpus to title the four volumes of the abridged edition of the novel Li Zicheng. The period from the decline of the Tang through the Five Dynasties, Ten Kingdoms, Song, Liao, and Jin figured much less prominently in the Li Zicheng-Li Yan-centered historical imagination. Tan Qian reported that the rump Ming state in Nanjing indicted alleged rebel collaborators according to six legal categories established during the mid-Tang period. Gu Yingtai discussed Huang Chao’s uprising in the late Tang as a precedent for Li Zicheng’s mobile rebellion that weakened the existing state without being able to replace it with a new regime. Luan Xing reminded readers that the variation on the eighteenth-son prophecy, in which a ruling lineage named Zhu would be replaced by a rebellious lineage named Li, arose in the transition from the Latter Liang to the Latter Tang in the Five Dynasties period. This more specific form of the prophecy may have given added impetus to Li Zicheng’s plan to replace the Zhu family at the end of the Ming. The contemporary historian Han Li has suggested that Peng Haozi’s identification of Li Zicheng’s grandfather as a Ming minister of state may have been inspired by the story of the Song social rebel Chai Jin, whose father was a high official and who was celebrated in the Ming-period novel Life Stories of the Marsh. Peng also had the famous Song judge, Bao Zheng from Kaifeng, become the manager of the other world inhabited by the spirits of the deceased. From there, the upright Bao was said to have sent the rebels Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng to earth to punish miscreants. The Ming-Qing commoner historian

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Wan Sitong was inspired by Southern Song resistance to the Jin to harbor discreet sympathy for the southern Ming resistance to the Qing. The Qing scholar-official historian Wang Hongxu invoked the inclusion of Song loyalist princes in the Song standard history as a precedent for the inclusion of southern Ming princes in the official Qing history of the Ming. In the mid-twentieth century, Guomindang historians argued against lionizing rebels like Li Zicheng and called instead for celebrating patriots like Yue Fei, who insisted on resisting the Jin as well as the bandits and who died in a Southern Song prison as a result. In Shi Tian’s play, when Hong Niangzi asked Li Xin why he remained loyal to the corrupt Ming state, Li replied that he was following the example of the poet Wen Tianxiang who supported the Southern Song, however flawed, as preferable to the competing Mongol Yuan. In contrast with this Song record, three of the principal Mongol rulers who established the Yuan dynasty in the thirteenth century enjoyed the support of scholar rebel advisors who valued unity and peace as well as wealth and power. In 1206 a middle-aged warrior named Temujin, who had united many tribes in Central Asia into a new people called Mongols, was elected to be Chinggis Khan (meaning fierce warrior). Thirteen years later he invited the Chinese Daoist master Qiu Chuji (1148–1227), aka Chang Chun, to visit him in what is today Afghanistan. Qiu admired the Mongols’ simple style of life and encouraged them to continue to be content with it.57 Chinggis’ son and successor Ogodei (1186–1241) was advised by a Khitan aristocrat, Yelüchucai (1190–1244), who was inspired by the Buddhist law (dharma) to accept Mongol rule. He advocated reforms in Mongol policies so as to encourage agricultural production and regular tax collection.58 Ogodei was succeeded by a son and a nephew and then by another nephew, named Khubilai (r. 1260–1294), who was advised by the Daoist, Buddhist, and Confucian scholar Liu Bingzhong (1216–1274). Liu urged Khubilai to follow the examples of the Duke of Zhou and Tang Taizong while he (Liu) transmitted the wisdom of Lu Jia of the Han and Zhuge Liang of the Shu-Han. Khubilai, for his part, promised to learn from Tang Taizong and urged his ministers to follow the example of Wei Zheng. Among many other contributions, Liu was responsible for choosing the name Yuan (lit. origin) for the polity in 1271 and the name Dadu (lit. great capital) for the capital city, previously called Yanjing. During his life, Liu was known by the informal title General Secretary. After his death he was mourned by Khubilai, named Grand Preceptor, and enshrined with Wei Zheng.59 57  Mirsky 1964: 134, 161; Wills 1994: 181–200. 58  De Rachewiltz 1962: 212. 59  Chan 1967a: 114–123; Chaoyang 1979:425–426, 432; Franke and Twitchett 1994: 415.

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Like the Qin in the early period of Chinese history, the Yuan in the middle period claimed the mandate by bringing some unity and relative peace to the known world after centuries of disunion and war. Like the Qin, too, the Yuan lost the mandate by relying too much on economic and military power. Also like the Qin, the Yuan was replaced by a commoner rebel, Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398), who founded a populist egalitarian polity named Ming. Like the Han founder Gaozu, the Ming founder Taizu engaged several scholar rebel advisors of various backgrounds who helped him establish a new and durable polity that addressed many social and political issues.60 The first scholar rebel to advise Zhu was Li Shanchang (1321–1390), who had an obscure background in Dingyuan County, Anhui Province, which was also Zhu’s home town. Li encouraged Zhu to follow the example of Han Gaozu, whose home had also been in the same region. Li said that Gaozu had “provided broad-minded rule, knew how to use men, avoided killing civilians, and in five years had achieved the lordly enterprise”.61 Zhu Yuanzhang followed Li’s advice, and, although details are lacking, Li seems to have played an important role in Zhu’s rise to power in the decade after 1356. After 1368 he served as effective prime minister though without that precise title. He compiled regulations for the rebel army, drafted a legal code to replace the partial one used by the Yuan, presided over the publication of the Yuan History, and managed the civil and military administrations. Li was often lenient in dealing with misdemeanors committed by prominent commoner generals such as Xu Da (1332–1385), which brought him into conflict with other important advisors.62 One of those other advisors was Liu Ji (1311–1375), who was from an established scholar-official family in Qingtian County in Zhejiang Province. Liu was versed in the classics, obtained his metropolitan degree in 1333, served the Yuan fitfully in suppressing bandits and pirates, and published essays exposing Mongol maladministration. Liu had a vision of government “guided by law and administered by men of virtue”. In 1359 Zhu invited Liu and likeminded scholars to the rebel capital and Liu Ji submitted an eighteen-point memorial that was well received. Liu was valued for his knowledge of astronomy and military science, and was credited with military victories over competing rebel forces in 1360 and 1363. Liu took charge of designing the new capital at Nanjing and revitalized the civil service examinations. In 1370 he was ordered to join Li Shanchang in administering Nanjing when Taizu was leading military 60  Wu 1965; Chaoyang 1979: 457; Schneewind 2008. 61  Zhang 1739: 127.3769; Mote 1999: 550. 62  Zhang 1739: 127. 3770; see also the biography by Romeyn Taylor in Goodrich and Fang 1976: 852.

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campaigns elsewhere. Liu and Li differed over the handling of legal cases, with Liu charging Li with nepotism and Li criticizing Liu for harshness. Liu refused the position of prime minister and retired to his home, but he continued his scholarship and provided informal advice to his ruler. Taizu nonetheless finally lost confidence in both men and decided to appoint someone else as prime minister.63 Another scholar rebel advisor to Ming Taizu was Zhu Sheng (1299–1371). Zhu Sheng was a provincial graduate who had taught school in Anhui in the late Yuan and who was summoned to the rebel court in 1357. He seems to have been influenced by the advice the scholar-official Zheng Zhou gave to Liu Bang at a comparable moment in his rise to power in the early Han. The advice was to “halt the military advance, to raise the earthworks higher and dig the moats deeper, and to refrain from battle.” Zhu Sheng reportedly offered similar advice, this time in three lines of verse: “Build walls high, store grain to the sky, proclaim yourself king by and by.” Zhu Yuanzhang was said to have taken this advice seriously in preparing carefully and patiently for victory over other contestants for the throne. In the People’s Republic, Mao Zedong would offer his own variation on the aphorism during the Cultural Revolution, calling on comrades to “dig tunnels deep, store grain everywhere, and never seek hegemony” so as to deal effectively with the Soviet Union and the United States. Liu Bang had also written poetry worrying about who would carry on the revolutionary enterprise after his death. Similar concerns led to Ming Taizu’s prosecution of many of his early supporters and to Chairman Mao’s call for a Cultural Revolution to create a new generation of revolutionaries.64 Here we seem to have additional threads tying the Han, Ming, and People’s Republic together as professedly populist egalitarian polities. Although none of those polities actually lived up to those pretentions for long, their efforts to do so influenced their tenor for better or worse. A fourth scholar rebel advisor to Ming Taizu was Song Lian (1310–1381), scion of a distinguished lineage in Jinhua Prefecture in Zhejiang Province. Together with Liu Ji, Song was a leader in a school of Confucianism that incorporated Daoist, Legalist, and Buddhist ideas. When Zhu Yuanzhang took Jinhua in 1358, he appointed Song head of the prefectural school, and in 1360 he invited him to the rebel capital to serve as tutor to the heir apparent Zhu Biao (1255–1392). 63  See the biography by Hok-lam Chan in Goodrich and Fang 1976L 932–935. 64  Chaoyang 1979:474; see the biography by Hok-lam Chan in Goodrich and Fang 1976: 348–350; Mote and Twitchett 1988: 56; Jiang 2011: 71; Sima ca. 110 BCE/1975: 374; Ssu-ma ca. 110 BCE/Nienhauser 2002: II. 56–57; Andrew and Rapp 2000: 29, 101, notes 3, 4; Klein and Clark 1971: 499–504.

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Song served as associate director of the bureau to compile the Yuan History and as chancellor of the Hanlin Academy. He held other high posts and maintained close relations with Taizu and the heir apparent until his retirement in 1377. From his home, he continued to teach and write and he became well known as an exemplary Chinese scholar in East and Southeast Asia.65 Here again we have evidence of China’s important role in Asia during this middle period of its history. The fifth and final scholar rebel advisor to Ming Taizu was Hu Weiyong (d. 1380), who came from an obscure family in Dingyuan, Anhui, and had the fewest scholarly credentials. He apparently joined Zhu Yuanzhang’s rebellion on his own in 1355 and was recommended by Li Shanchang for a post as magistrate. He was competent and energetic, won Taizu’s favor, and was repeatedly promoted as part of an Anhui faction that included many commoners. Hu was criticized as reckless and unreliable, however, by Liu Ji, who belonged to a Zhejiang faction that included many scholars. Hu responded by having Liu Ji charged with corruption. In 1375, Liu Ji died on the road to Nanjing, where he hoped to clear himself of all charges. The next year, Hu was impeached for arrogance and disloyalty, perhaps for executing a driver who had accidentally killed Hu’s son after he had fallen from his horse. Another official, fearing that he would be charged with guilt by association, accused Hu of planning to assassinate Taizu and usurp the throne. Taizu lost patience and had both Hu and his accuser executed, bringing death to some 15,000 colleagues, relatives, and descendants. In 1381, Song Lian and his surviving family were sent into exile, and Song himself died on the road. In response to Hu’s alleged conspiracy, Taizu abolished the central secretariat that had functioned as a two-man prime ministry. In 1390, Li Shanchang was charged with seeking Mongol assistance in the plot to assassinate Taizu. Li insisted on his innocence, but succumbed to pressure and finally committed suicide. Thus, four out of five of the Ming founder’s scholar rebel advisors died unnatural deaths as a result, direct or indirect, of the founder’s suspicions and the factionalism that afflicted his reign.66 As we have seen, Chinese advisors ideally served sage kings and were theoretically nearly equal to them in detecting and abiding by the mandate of heaven and nature. In the eyes of Chinese whose views have been recorded, 65  See Frederick Mote’s biography of Song in Goodrich and Fang 1976: 638–639; Chaoyang 1979: 477. 66  See Romeyn Taylor’s biography of Wang in Goodrich and Fang 1976: 1389–1392; Hok-lam Chan’s biography of Liu Ji in Goodrich and Fang 1976: 935; Hok-lam Chan’s biography of Hu Weiyong in Goodrich and Fang 1976: 639, 640, 641; Edward Dreyer and Hok-lam Chan’s biography of Lan Yü in Goodrich and Fang 196: 788–791.

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of the five principal advisors to Ming Taizu, Liu Ji came closest to the ideal. Some Chinese observers even thought that Liu Ji was the preeminent scholar rebel advisor of all time. According to a twentieth-century biographer, Liu Ji began the process of fixing his place in history by identifying with many previous figures, including Yi Yin, Lü Shang, Zhang Liang, Zhuge Liang, Fang Xuanling, Wei Zheng, Yelüchucai, and Liu Bingzhong. Liu Ji was said to be particularly inspired by Zhang Liang, and Taizu was said to have referred to Liu Ji as “my Zifang (Zhang Liang’s courtesy name)”. Later, when the Ming ruler Xuande (r. 1426–1435) conferred an honorific title on Liu Ji, he chose Wencheng (accomplished literatus), the title that had been given to Zhang Liang in the Han. Some writers argued that Liu Ji was superior to Zhang Liang because he continued to involve himself in risky state affairs even after retiring. Other Ming writers considered Liu Ji equal to Lü Shang and superior to Fang Xuanling for having produced valuable treatises. Some Ming observers compared Liu Ji with Liu Bingzhong because they were both learned in astronomy. One commentator went so far as to suggest that Liu Bingzhong was Liu Ji’s grandfather! Another mid-Ming writer compared Liu Ji to Yi Yin because they both served two regimes and for good reason. Liu Ji was appraised highly as a Confucian who annotated a text which Zhang Liang had simply obtained from a Daoist. A Ming novelist criticized Ming Taizu for being harder on his officials than Han Gaozu had been on his, but he may have felt that royal mistreatment enhanced the affected officials’ moral uprightness. The nexus between Zhang Liang and Liu Ji extended to gender and dress. Zhang Liang once dressed as a woman to avoid arrest by Qin officials, and that may have led some Ming observers to depict Liu Ji as a woman. One Qing observer commented that Liu Ji was superior to Wei Zheng in his dedication to principles and in his loyalty to his polity (perhaps because he served only two regimes, not three). Liu Ji was also depicted as being more knowledgeable than Zhuge Liang about military tactics even though some of those tactics may have originated in the novel Three Kingdoms which celebrated Zhuge Liang. Liu’s admirers were on firmer ground in noting that he was more successful in reunifying China than Zhuge had been. During the Qing, the Hong (or heaven and earth) Society (Hong, Tiandi hui) took Zhuge and Liu as their avatars, transforming Liu “into a Daoist mystical and prophetic figure in the mind of the average Chinese.”67 In addition to the five fully historical scholar rebel advisors to Ming Taizu, there was a quasi-legendary figure, Zhang Zhong, also known as the Iron-Capped Daoist. Zhang first came to Zhu Yuanzhang’s attention in 1362, when he accurately predicted events in the battle for Boyang Lake. The highly 67  Chen 1960 cited in Chan 1968: 39, 46–55.

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respected scholar Song Lian drew on Zhu Yuanzhang’s notes and his own observations to write a formal biography of Zhang in 1370. Song reported that Zhang had failed the metropolitan examination in the late Yuan and turned to wandering and studying the art of divination. Zhang impressed Taizu with his ability to predict future events, including a conspiracy to kill Taizu and the early deaths of rebel generals. In the Yongle reign (1403–1425), a prominent scholar named Yang Pu (1372–1446) mentioned the existence of a “Song of the Iron-capped Daoist,” but he unfortunately made no comment on its contents. Retrospectively, Zhang was supposed to have predicted the rise and fall of the third Ming ruler, Zhu Di, and the Tumu incident of 1449, in which a Ming ruler fell into the hands of the Mongols. The clairvoyant Zhang also predicted that the Ming would surpass the Tang but not the Han. If Zhang referred to longevity, he was wrong in the first instance because the Tang outlived the Ming, 289 years to 276 years. He was right in the second instance because the Han outlasted the Ming, 400 years to 289.68 Whatever the precise mixture of history and legend in the persona of Zhang Zhong in the Yuan-Ming transition, he was a clearly a potential model for the almost equally enigmatic figure Song Xiance in the Ming-Qing transition. In the late sixteenth century, the Ming state, based on the prevailing Chinese ideal of light government, found itself commanding a declining portion of the society’s rapidly growing resources. Under these conditions, a well-educated and ambitious scholar-official, Zhang Juzheng (1525–1582), rose to be a powerful grand secretary and regent to the minor ruler Zhu Yijun (1563–1620), better known by his reign name Wanli. Managing Wanli for over a decade, Zhang was inspired in part by the model of the strong, centralizing ruler, the First August Lord of the Qin. He used a group of highly competent and energetic officials to address a host of domestic and frontier issues. When Zhang died, however, Wanli reacted against the regent’s strict discipline and authorized official repudiation of many of Zhang’s policies. In his quest for a strong, unified polity, Zhang had identified himself with the primordial chief minister and regent Yi Yin of the Shang dynasty. That identification was consistent with the spiral theory that called for such a strong unified authority at that time, but it did not appeal to many ordinary officials who were content with business as usual. They therefore charged Zhang with usurping royal authority much as Yi Yin had been charged. They won over Wanli and most of the bureaucracy to their point of view and put an end to many of Zhang’s reforms. Thus was frustrated Zhang’s “rebellion” against the Ming status quo. During the rest of the long Wanli reign, the Ming state proved to be unable to deal effectively with the 68  See the biography of Yang Pu by Tilemann Grimm in Goodrich and Fang 1976: 1537–1538.

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many severe domestic and foreign issues that arose one after another.69 On the other hand, it can be argued that Ming China was already sufficiently integrated and had no need for a unified monarchical state like the Shang or the Sui—let alone an authoritarian centralizing regime like the Qin or Yuan.70 7.3

Recent: China in the World

As the Ming declined and the Shun rose and fell, successive generations of the Aisin Gioro clan in the Jianzhou branch of the Jurchen people in northeast China founded an alternative polity to compete for the mandate to govern China. Nurhachi (1559–1626) established himself as Khan of a Latter Jin (後金) state in 1616 and governed the northeast for two decades under the generic reign name “Mandate of Heaven and Nature”. In 1636, his eighth son, Huangtaiji (1592–1643), established six ministries on the Chinese (i.e. Tang) model. He renamed his people Manchus and his polity Qing. He chose the reign name Chongde (1627–1643), prefiguring the last Ming reign of Chongzhen (1628–1644). In 1644, the throne passed to six-year-old Fulin (1638–1661), who at first shared his Shunzhi reign with his uncle and regent, Dorgon (1612–1650). Fulin’s third son Xuanye also came to the throne as a child. In the first years of his Kangxi reign (1662–1722), he was assisted by a regent named Oboi (d. 1669).71 The founding rulers of the Qing all had advisors, including, in two cases, regents (like the Zhou) though their scholar rebel status varied considerably. None could openly claim to be prime minister as that post had never been clearly articulated, had been abolished in the Ming, and was never revived in the Qing. As in the Ming, the grand secretaries functioned as a collective prime ministry. Prominent among them was the scholar rebel advisor Fan Wencheng (1597–1666). Fan was born into a scholar-official family in the northeast. He surrendered to Nurhachi in 1618 and “was shown much favor.” He assisted Huangtaiji in using rumors to discredit the victorious Ming general Yuan Chonghuan, causing him to be executed, as we have seen, by Chongzhen. Fan earned a hereditary title, and, as one of the first four grand secretaries, he participated in the establishment of the Qing in its first capital city of Mukden. When Fan learned that Li Zicheng had taken Beijing, he recommended that 69  For a more positive appraisal of the Wanli reign, see Swope 2014. 70  For a biography of Zhang by Robert Crawford and Carrington Goodrich, see Goodrich and Fang 1976: 53–61; for a biography of Zhu by Charles Hucker, see Goodrich and Fang 1976: 324–336; see also Crawford 1980: 367–414; Mote 1999: 727–735; Huang 1981: 36. 71  See biographies by Fang Chao-ying and George Kennedy, in Hummel 1943–44: 1–3, 215– 219, 327–331, 594–600; see also biographies in Chaoyang 1979: 531–534, 536–538.

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the Qing occupy the central plain with a minimum of bloodshed and harm to the common people. Fan accompanied the prince regent Dorgon to Beijing and urged him to hold extra civil service examinations, reduce taxes, and give Chongzhen a dignified (re)burial. In 1651 he was suspended from office on charges of altering historical records, but he was soon appointed to the council of princes and high officials and received high hereditary rank. After Fan retired in 1654, Shunzhi demonstrated his respect for his minister by having a portrait of him hung in the palace.72 The second major Ming scholar-official to surrender to the Qing was Hong Chengchou (1593–1665), a 1616 metropolitan graduate from Fujian Province. Hong led the Ming effort to suppress rebellions in the northwest and he drove Li Zicheng into the hills in 1638. He was less successful in resisting the Manchus in the northeast and was captured by them in 1642. He accepted his fate and was admitted to the Han bordered yellow banner by Huangtaiji. Hong served as grand secretary under the prince regent Dorgon in 1644. He played an important role in pacifying the southeast and was named grand tutor, grand secretary, and commander-in-chief in the 1650s. In 1659 he chased the last Ming prince from Yunnan, but declined to pursue him in Burma. His eyesight was failing, and, in 1661, he was allowed to retire.73 Most of Hong’s private writings have not survived, but in one compilation titled Strategies of Pacification in the Past and Present he explained that he had ventured out from his background in civil administration and turned to the military classics to respond to the needs of the day. In line with Qing efforts to identify with past Chinese orders, even Han-centric ones, he pointed to the roles of scholar-rebel-advisors Zhang Liang and Han Xin in the founding of the Han as models for his own cooperation in founding the Qing.74 In describing Zhang Zifang’s diminutive size and Han Xin’s physical weakness, Hong held out hope that even a physical weakling like himself would be able to assist the Aisin Gioro in founding a large, enduring, and, above all, legitimate polity. Hong also referred to key battles in the Han and Tang periods and to the existence of military specialists in his own day as signs that the world was returning to order.75 As we have seen, there were two other major scholar rebel advisors in the late Ming early Qing period, Gu Yanwu and Huang Zongxi, who played major 72  See the biography by Fang Chao-ying in Hummel 1943–44: 231–232. 73  See Fang Chao-ying’s biography of Hong in Hummel 1943–44: 358–360. 74  Hong as cited in Wang 1999: 124–125, 253–254 with slight revisions. 75  Wang 1999: 254–255. Might the description of Zhang Liang as less than three feet tall have been one source of the description of Song Xiance in the Li Yan story as of precisely the same size?

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roles during the transition.76 Among other functions, they acted as historians who made direct and indirect contributions to the composition of the Veritable Record of the End of the Ming and the Ming History, and thus to the handling of the Li Yan matter.77 They were “rebels” primarily in the sense of criticizing late Ming abuses and resisting early Qing authority.78 But they were rebels also in their critiques of Song-Ming Confucianism and in their calls for reviving Han learning and constructing a world order based more directly on the Zhou classics. They were informal advisors to the Qing state, and, by means of their writings, tried to assist any future polity to live up to the Zhou model.79 Meanwhile, there were several much less well known scholar rebels who served as advisors to Li Zicheng’s Da Shun state and/or to Fu Lin’s Shunzhi reign. Of particular interest are those who hailed from Henan Province, home of the historical and literary scholar-rebel-advisor Li Yan. As we have seen, Song Quan (1598–1652) from Shangqiu County, Guide Prefecture, was serving the Ming as grand coordinator of Shuntian Prefecture when Li Zicheng took Beijing. Having previously survived the rebels’ occupation of his hometown of Shangqiu, Song once again made peace with the rebels and stayed in his post as the Shun governor of Shuntian. When the Qing prince regent Dorgon took Beijing, Song made another quick political transition and retained his position as governor of Shuntian under Shunzhi. In 1645 Song actively suppressed “banditry” in the capital region and recommended civil officials and military officers to establish Qing authority in his home prefecture of Guide. Song opposed using banner troops to suppress local unrest and supported tax relief for Han farmers forced to cede their productive farmland to Qing bannermen. In 1646 Song was rewarded for his loyalty by being promoted to grand secretary and he was given an important role in compiling the Ming History and the Veritable Records of the late Ming. Song reportedly demurred on the grounds that scholars should not be involved in compiling the records of reigns in which they served. He may nonetheless have played a role because he was later criticized as being too solicitous of Dorgon’s views in preparing the veritable records of the Chongde reign (1636–1644).80

76  See Huang Zongxi’s biography by Tu Lien-che and Gu Yanwu’s biography by Fang Chao-ying in Hummel 1943–44: 351–354 and 421–426. 77  Du 1988: 95–207; Fu and Fu 2005: 92–106. 78  Peterson 1966, 1969; Struve 1988. 79  Chen 1992: 106–128; de Bary 1993; de Bary and Lufrano 2000: 4–17, 35–40; Gong 2005: 302–330. 80  Song Kangxi: Wenkang gong nianpu. 12b–16a; Zhao 1927/1977: 238.9494–95; Wang 1987: 78.6484–6486.

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When grand secretary Fan Wencheng’s proposal to hold an additional set of provincial and metropolitan examinations was approved, Song Quan was selected as one of the chief examiners. Song manifested a combination of reform and elitism that would become characteristic of the Qing. He refused to accept gifts from examination candidates, followed Dorgon’s policy of permitting a range of literary styles in the examinations, and presided over a large increase in the number of successful candidates from newly pacified Jiangnan.81 He married his sons and daughters to wealthy and prominent families, even those who remained quietly loyal to the Ming.82 When his mother died, Song Quan returned home to mourn her passing. He established contacts with the younger scholar Hou Fangyu, a leader of the Snow Garden Society in Shangqiu. Song engaged Hou in writing commemorative steles for the Tang scholar-official Yan Zhenqing (709–785), who had resisted the An Lushan (d. 757) rebellion. Hou also wrote a commemoration of the Song reformer Fan Zhongyan (989–1052), who had negotiated with frontier minority regimes and suffered politically as a result.83 When Song returned to the court, he was named to the prestigious post of grand guardian of the heir apparent. His admirer and patron Dorgon, however, had died, and Song was charged with mishandling an administrative case. In 1651 he retired and returned home. There he patronized the Snow Garden Society that was dedicated to keeping alive the scholarship of the Tang and Song. According to one biographer, Song’s poetry followed the path of Du Fu and Wang Wei of the Tang while his prose was in the style of Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi of the Song. The literary school of Tang and Song had predominated in the late Ming, and Song Quan’s embrace of it might be understood simply as accepting the dominant culture. There are hints, however, that Song saw the potential for an active reaffirmation of a particular discourse under similar historical conditions. When the Qing governor of Henan Province arrested Hou Fangyu for his continuing loyalty to the Ming and his overbearing behavior in his hometown, Song Quan asked him (the governor) if he had ever heard of Li Taibo of the Tang and Su Dongpo of the Song. When the governor asked how he could not have heard of those eminent literati, Song told him: “Student Hou is the Li and Su of today”. The governor reportedly smiled and released Hou from custody.84 When Song Quan died, some officials thought he should not get full honors because he had been impeached and forced to 81  Song Kangxi: Wenkang gong nianpu. 16b, 17b; Kessler 1976: 31, 180–181; Zhou and Zhao 1986: 175–176, 272–275. 82  Song Kangxi: Wenkang gong nianpu. 17; Liu and Ye 1705: 8.259–262; Wang 1987: 78.6591– 6592, 6595–6597. 83  Liu and Ye 1705: 5.103–104; 16.497–501; He and Wang 1992: 605, 608. 84  Liu and Ye 1705: 8.263; He and Wang 1992: 604–607.

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retire. Song’s pupil, the young ruler Fulin (Shizu), however, was gradually taking control and he insisted on properly honoring his erstwhile tutor. Song was therefore canonized as Wenkang. In the high Qing he was assigned to the category of “two timer (erchen)”, the highly ambiguous status of ministers who had served two or more polities. He was nonetheless admired by many, including fellow Henanese, and he appeared at the head of a large collection of biographies of outstanding Henanese during the Qing period.85 Song Quan’s influence as a scholar rebel advisor in the early Qing was greatly extended through the career of his eldest son, Song Luo (1634–1713). Thanks to his father’s position as grand secretary, Song Luo was made an officer in the royal guards when he was only fourteen years old. He impressed the young Shizu with his horsemanship, and, in 1648, won highest honors in a literary examination for young guards. When Song Quan retired, Song Luo returned home with him and deepened his scholarship. In 1664 he was appointed assistant sub-prefect of Huangzhou Prefecture in Hubei. Song Luo greatly admired the Song scholar Su Dongpo so he was delighted when he was appointed to Huangzhou, where Su had once served as prefect. Song may not have known that, only two decades earlier, a higher post in the same location had been occupied by Niu Quan, the son of the rebel prime minister Niu Jinxing whose Shun state Song Luo’s father, Song Quan, had briefly served! If Song knew, he was almost certainly not pleased—so far had the Song family moved from their rebel past, thanks in part to the Li Yan story. Song Luo held some other posts before being named governor of Jiangxi in 1688, and then, four years later, governor of the wealthy province of Jiangsu. Song Luo served there for fourteen years, hosted Kangxi on three of his progresses to the south, and was praised by his ruler for making Jiangsu “the most flourishing province” in the realm. In 1705 he was called to the capital to become president of the board of civil office and he retired three years later. The Song family tradition of scholarofficialdom continued in subsequent generations. One of Song Luo’s younger brothers was a noted poet whose work was compared with that of Wang Wei and Meng Haoran of the Tang period, and four of Song Luo’s sons became scholar officials in the Qing.86 Song Luo had scholarly interests and served in regional posts so he lacked the martial service and intimate relations with his rulers that many previous scholar rebel advisors had had. Like the scholarrebel-advisor Song Lian (no relation) in the early Ming, however, Song Quan 85  Li 1915: 1.4a. 86  See the biography of Song by Tu Lien-che in Hummel 1943–44: 689–690. See also Song Kangxi: Wenkang gong nianpu. 20–21a; Liu and Ye 1705: 9.292, 10.312; Li 1915: 1.4–5a; Wang 1987: 78.6486.

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and Song Luo in the early Qing were strong symbols of literati support for the incumbent state, in this case the Qing. Four months before he retired, Song Quan had married his third daughter to one of the sons of Liu Chang, a metropolitan graduate of 1625, whose home was in Xiangfu County, Kaifeng Prefecture. Like Song, Liu had first resisted Li Zicheng’s “bandits” during the three sieges of Kaifeng, but he then joined Niu Jinxing’s “rebels” when they reached Beijing. Liu served the Shun state as viceminister of the court of royal sacrifices. When Dorgon took Beijing, Liu shifted his allegiance again and became a supervising secretary in the Qing office of revenue. Whereas Song Quan had issued a three-point proclamation, reminiscent of Xiao He’s memorial at the beginning of the Han, Liu Chang submitted a twelve-point memorial similar to Liu Bingzhong’s more detailed recommendations to Khubilai Khan. Liu’s views were noted by the prince regent Dorgon and incorporated into court policies. In 1645 Liu was appointed to the court of the royal stud, where he addressed the sensitive issue of raising horses in Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Shandong. Four years later, he was named grand guardian of the heir apparent and participated in rituals at the Confucian shrine in Qufu, Shandong. In 1653 he was promoted to be president of the ministry of works, but he was soon demoted along with many other Han officials suspected of discriminating against Manchu and Han bannermen in the application of the law. Liu also called for reducing the burden of transport services on the coal miners of Shanxi and for increasing the shipment of grain to famine areas of south Zhili Province. In 1655 Liu’s career peaked when he was named president of the ministry of punishments and grand tutor to the heir apparent. He was subsequently criticized for delays in deciding legal cases. In 1660, on the eve of the death of Shunzhi, he retired on the grounds of old age and illness. Although the Liu Chang father-and-son team could not compare with the Song father-and-son team in their influence with the Qing throne, they all had direct relations with Dorgon and Shunzhi and flourished as influential scholarofficials in the early Qing.87 A third such scholar was Xue Suoyun, the metropolitan graduate from Meng County in Huaiqing Prefecture who had been director of studies at the state university under the Ming and who kept that post under the Shun and again under the Qing. As if to demonstrate his loyalty to the Qing, Xue described the depredations of the “bandits” in Henan and called for the establishment of a special office to restore the agricultural economy. He also proposed policies 87  Shen and Huang 1898: 16.378, 17.20–21a; Li 1915: 1.15–16; Wang 1987: 79.6596–6597; seventy reports by Liu on corruption, punishment, and banditry are available in the First Historical archives in Beijing (Diyi lishi dang’anguan, neige tiben).

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to improve both civil education and military training of young Manchus. For alleged mismanagement of education officials in 1650, he was demoted to the post of aide to the prefect of Shuntian, but he was soon promoted to assistant minister in the court of the royal stud. In 1652 he was transferred to head the household administration of the heir apparent. He reported on the handling of the Thirteen Classics and the Twenty-one Histories in the editorial service of the household of the heir apparent and his recommendations were approved. In 1657 he was described as old by a censor and he asked for and was granted retirement. He died in 1666 and was buried according to the rites.88 Among Xue’s writings was a preface to the (Shunzhi) Huaiqing Prefectural Gazetteer which was printed in 1660.89 That prefectural history naturally included information on its component counties, including Henei, Jiyuan and Xiuwu. Although the list of tributary students in Henei County who became teachers did not include any Li Yan (or Li Xin), the list of tributary students in Jiyuan County who became teachers included “assistant instructor Li Yan.” The list of tributary students in Xiuwu County also included “assistant surveillance commissioner Li Jun,” who was said to have served in Zhejiang.90 The prefectural gazetteer also included, in Henei County, Li Congliang, who we know from the Li family genealogy was a government student and teacher in the sixth generation of the Li family of Henei. The gazetteer also included Congliang’s son Li Zhengxiu, a metropolitan graduate and scholar-official in the seventh generation. These two Lis were the historical Li Yan’s great-grandfather and grand uncle respectively.91 When Xue Suoyun drafted his preface and contributed some of his poetry to the gazetteer, he likely encountered information on his hometown of Meng County which was contiguous to Henei. In any case, he was extremely well placed to look into the local society that, as we now know, was one very important seedbed of the Li Yan story. Xue apparently did not read carefully, however, or at least did not report what he might have learned if he had done so. In any case, whatever the reason, he did not challenge in writing the standard story that placed the scholar-rebel-advisor Li Yan in Qi County, over 150 kilometers to the east of Henei.92 All this suggests that Xue Suoyun, like other fully historical Henanese scholar rebel advisors to Li Zicheng, probably regarded the Li Yan story as an excellent cover for his own

88  Wang 1987: 79.6599–6600. 89  Peng and Xiao 1660: 1–9 (Xue xu); Liu and Geng 1990: 1.419–420. 90  Peng and Xiao 1660: 5. 42b, 43b. 91  Peng and Xiao 1660: 5. 36a, 54a; 7. 14a, 15b–16a. 92  Peng and Xiao 1660: 9. 32–34b.

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participation in Li Zicheng’s failed rebellion. He therefore had no interest in seeing it challenged let alone in challenging it himself. By a similar curious coincidence, several decades later, He Yiguang, the tributary student who had co-edited the Qi County gazetteer that denied the historicity of the provincial graduate Li Yan from Qi, held the post of assistant instructor in Jiyuan County, also adjacent to Henei.93 He had published the denial of the Li Yan story over a decade before, but the denial was having little impact on successive versions of the Ming History. If He Yiguang had been really serious about refuting the Li Yan story, he might well have asked questions of his fellow Henanese, including those living in Jiyuan, where the historical Li Yan had lived and worked (admittedly, quite possibly completely unknown to He). As it happened, He apparently did not take advantage of his (probably brief) tour in Jiyuan to conduct investigations to clear the air about the identity of Li Yan. Once again, He Yiguang, whose brother He Yinguang had served the rebels in Beijing, might well have considered the Li Yan story to be too valuable a surrogate for his brother’s indiscretion to warrant the risks of replacing it with a more accurate account. Another Henanese scholar rebel advisor who served both the Shun and the Qing was Xu Zuomei, a 1640 metropolitan graduate from Xinxiang County in Weihui Prefecture north Henan. Xu had helped the rebels to manage the Ming heir apparent in Beijing and he had fled the capital when Dorgon arrived. In 1645, however, he was called back to the capital and was appointed supervising secretary in the Qing ministry of works. Xu was no doubt aware that the prince regent Dorgon was comparing himself—and was being compared by others—with the Duke of Zhou, one of the earliest and most respected scholar rebel advisors in Chinese history.94 Xu therefore began his appointment by encouraging the young ruler Fulin to follow the example of King Cheng of the Zhou and devote himself to his studies. Perhaps playing on the two homophonic names Cheng, Xu acknowledged the importance of the Confucian scholar Cheng Yi (程頤, 1033–1108) in the Song, but he assured Fulin that “he had already surpassed the Song philosopher and could be compared with Prince Cheng (成王) of the Zhou.”95 The comparison of the venerable Song scholar with the young Zhou and Qing rulers was a bit odd, but perhaps Xu meant that Shunzhi had already surpassed Cheng Yi because he was a philosopher king, not just a philosopher. In any case, Xu’s respect for the Zhou model was evident when he proposed to manage the volatile Yellow River by allowing it to 93  Su and Shen 1761: 8. 10a; 9. 7a. 94  Des Forges 2005: 76–77. 95  Li 1915: 1.17a.

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find its own changing distributaries to the sea, a policy sometimes adopted in Zhou times. The proposal gained the support of his fellow Henanese scholar, the powerful official, Liu Chang, but it was finally turned down by the court as an effort to obscure and excuse mismanagement of the Yellow River. The court deemed criticisms of Xu to be excessive, however, and it punished his critics for making false charges. The plan for the river was defeated, but not without challenging the imaginations of policy makers and insisting on the Zhou as a viable historical model for Qing reform. Tang and Zhou models also emerged clearly during a partisan dispute which Xu Zuomei had with the powerful grand secretary Feng Quan (1595–1772), who was from Zhili Province. The conflict pitted reformers against the “eunuch party”, Ming loyalists against the “bandit party”, and northerners against southerners, but it also hinged on historical models. One of Xu’s colleagues, Li Senxian, who was from Shandong and, who had also served the rebel Shun state, called for open discussions at court like those that had occurred in the early Tang. He charged grand secretary Feng Quan and his eldest son with corruption and nepotism. He described them as being “just like Fei Lian and Elai of the Shang” and asked how those men could ever have attained rank in the Zhou.” The allusion was to the last, reportedly corrupt, prime minister of the Shang and his son, who had not been used by the successor Zhou state whereas the equally corrupt late Ming official Feng and his son held great power in the early Qing.96 In an ensuing court conference, another scholar rebel advisor invoked another historical model in defense of his service to Li Zicheng’s Shun state as well as to Dorgon’s Qing. That scholar was Gong Dingzi (1616–1673), a 1634 metropolitan graduate from Anhui who criticized Feng Quan for working with the powerful late-Ming eunuch, Wei Zhongxian. In his defense, Feng acknowledged that Wei had committed crimes and had been put to death, but he (Feng) had already returned home and was never charged with any wrongdoing. Gong Dingzi, on the other hand, had served the roving bandit Li Zicheng, who had overthrown Chongzhen and stolen the throne. Dorgon thereupon asked Gong if that was true. Gong replied that it was true, but he asked why he alone was being targeted. In his words, “Who did not go over? Wei Zheng also went over to Tang Taizong.” Dorgon thereupon interjected: “Dingzi is comparing himself with Wei Zheng and he is comparing the bandit Li with Tang Taizong. This is really shameful!” Dorgon then absolved all of his ministers of their crimes

96  See the biography of Feng Quan by Tu Lien-che in Hummel 1943–44: 240–241; Liujia yetang 1934: 20.7; Wakeman 1985: 865–870; Zhou and Zhao 1986: 361–363; Wang 1987: 79.6556.

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but warned that he would not be so lenient in the future.” 97 Gong may have referred to Wei Zheng’s service to Li Mi before rallying to Tang Taizong, but Dorgon chose to interpret it as referring to Gong’s service to the Ming before rallying to Li Zicheng. He therefore dismissed some critics who had called for the execution of Feng Quan and he accepted Li Senxian’s resignation, but he also disciplined one of Feng’s subordinates to demonstrate his impartiality. He finally allowed Xu Zuomei to retire and he approved the promotion of Gong Dingzi to be vice-minister of the court of royal sacrifices. The most important point, then, is that the effective head of the early Qing state and at least some of his scholar rebel advisors recognized the similarities between the Zhou, Tang, and Qing orders. As we have seen, these homologies were often observed in the literature and histories of the period and constituted an integral part of the spiral pattern of Chinese history. Here we see them reflected in political discourse at the highest level of the Qing state. Other Henanese scholars moved directly from service to the Ming to service in the Qing without serving the Shun in between. They, therefore, were not rebels, but a couple of them were well positioned to know about the Li Yan puzzle. One such scholar was Liang Yungou (d. 1649), the metropolitan graduate from Lanyang County in Kaifeng Prefecture who had refused to come to Niu Jinxing’s rescue in his dispute with his in-laws. Liang had served as vicepresident of the Ming ministry of troops in Nanjing, but he surrendered to Duoduo (1614–1649), a younger brother of Dorgon, in 1645. The following year, on the recommendation of Hong Chengchou, Liang was appointed assistant commissioner of the office of transmission in Beijing. In 1648 he was promoted to be the chief (Han) minister in the court of judicial review, the most prestigious Qing court. He also served as vice-president of the ministry of revenue.98 These posts offered Liang a good opportunity to call for the punishment of Niu Jinxing for his rebel past, but there is no indication that he ever took advantage of it. Once again, we see the Qing accommodating former Ming officials so long as they accepted the legitimacy of the Qing. Another metropolitan graduate from Kaifeng, Wang Zishou, passed the last provincial examinations held by the Ming in 1643. When Huaiqing Prefecture fell to the Qing in 1644, Wang became an advisor to the first Qing magistrate of Henei County, and he helped to resist a rebel attack on the town. Here again we find a Henanese scholar-official in a good position to learn more about the origins of the Li Yan story, but he apparently did not take advantage of it. In 97  Liujia yetang 1934: 20.8–9a; Zhou and Zhao 1986: 364–365; Li 1915: 1.18a–20a; Wang 1987: 79.6557; Wechsler 1974. Wakeman 1985: 931, 1013–1016. 98  Tu and Wang 1747: 7.3b, 4b–5a; Wang 1987: 79.6547.

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1646 Wang passed the first Qing metropolitan examination and joined the office for the advancement of literature that would soon resume its original name, the Hanlin Academy. In this post he helped compile materials for the veritable records of the first two Qing reigns. Once again, this work might have led him to materials relevant to the Li Yan story, but apparently that was not the case. In 1652, Wang reached the pinnacle of his official career when he was named companion to the heir apparent. He then got caught up in a partisan struggle and retired from office, but he soon returned and served as judicial commissioner of Jiangxi Province until 1676. In retirement he continued to write poetry which was collected, printed, and widely regarded as equal to that of the Tang. One of his sons followed him to Jiangxi and later became a teacher in Xiuwu, yet another county near Henei. There, too, the secrets of Li Yan’s historical identity apparently continued to be well guarded.99 In sum, there were many scholars and quite a few scholar rebels in Henan who proffered advice to the new Qing polity at various levels and regarded the polity as potentially comparable to the Zhou and Tang. A couple of them lived and worked, at least briefly, in Huaiqing Prefecture, which included several counties where the Li Yan story originated. Together these scholars might have formed a network that could have solved the Li Yan puzzle soon after it arose in the early Qing. Instead they can now be seen as a strategic group of scholar—and sometimes rebel—advisors who left the Li Yan story intact. It is difficult not to think that they regarded it as a useful allegory consistent with earlier models of scholar rebel advisors and as a useful cover for themselves and/or their contemporaries who “went over” to the Shun and/or to the Qing. 7.3.1 Scholar Rebel Advisors in the Republic and People’s Republic In the twentieth century, China is conventionally thought to have been transformed from a traditional autocratic—if not despotic—feudal empire to a modern republican—if not democratic—nation state. If so, one would have expected the heads of states and their chief advisors to have behaved in ways rather different from those of their predecessors. In fact, in the cases of the three most prominent Chinese leaders and their chief ministers in the Republic and People’s Republic, there were as many continuities as there were changes. In this period, the Li Yan story reached its fullest development and influenced as well as reflected Chinese political culture. In the early Republic, the scholar-rebel Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) from Guangdong Province was elected president, but he soon yielded the office to 99  Zheng 1749: 6.139–140; Shen and Huang 1898: 15.62–63; Li 1915: 24.4–6; Hummel 1943–44: 95.

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the powerful general Yuan Shikai (1859–1916) from Henan. Sun may have had little choice because Yuan had an army and was recognized by the British as a capable strongman who could keep order and protect foreign interests in a time of political and social change. In transferring authority to a capable minister, however, Sun also followed wittingly or unwittingly the models of the sage rulers Yao and Shun, who were said to have passed the throne to their most talented advisors. Harking back to another early model, Sun Yat-sen claimed to derive his philosophy in part from the Duke of Zhou, who served as an effective regent and embodied the ideal of sageliness.100 In line with Confucian values, Sun probably expected to reap a good deal of moral capital from yielding political authority to a meritorious official dedicated to realizing the public good. As it happened, Yuan Shikai faced daunting domestic and foreign challenges, was unable to meet them using Republican methods, soon fell back on military hegemony, and finally tried to restore the authority of the mandate of heaven and nature and the institution of the august lord. When Yuan died in 1917, power fell into the hands of local militarists who tried to rule as hegemons in the name of the Republic. Sun therefore invoked the Three Principles of nationalism, democracy, and socialism and tried to unite two Soviet-style political parties into a single party-army. As in previous periods of cultural crisis and political disorder during the Spring and Autumn, Warring States, and Five Dynasties, Song, Liao, Jin, there was no single, widely accepted leader and therefore no enduring scholar rebel advisor in the early Republic. When Sun died in 1925, he was followed by generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975), who was originally from Zhejiang. In his early revolutionary career, Chiang, like Sun, admired the Ming founder Taizu, and, to a lesser extent, the Taiping revolutionary leader Hong Xiuquan.101 By the mid-1920s, however, Chiang came to revere instead the scholar-official Zeng Guofan (1811–1872), who had advocated Song-style Confucian values and had assisted the Qing throne in defeating the Taiping rebellion. The resulting Tongzhi restoration (1862–1874) had been based on mid-Zhou and mid-Tang models, inter alia, but it had been unable to save the Qing for long.102 In the Republic, the Nationalists attempted to bring peace and order to China, but were able to achieve only a minor reunification, like that of the Song. In the 1930s, as fascism arose in Europe, some of Chiang Kai-shek’s supporters invoked the model of the Qin founder and tried to reconstruct an authoritarian centralized administration.103 100  Allan 1981: 146. 101  Nedostup 2008: 355–367. 102  Wright 1962: 300–312. 103  Li 1975; Chen 2008: 55–56; Wang 2008: 391–411.

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One of Chiang Kai-shek’s scholar rebel advisors was Tao Xisheng (1899– 1988), whom we have already met. Tao did his primary schooling in Henan, attended college in Wuchang in Hubei, and studied law in Beijing. He became familiar with the writings of Marx and Lenin, and he joined the Communist Party in 1924. In 1927 he taught political science at the Wuhan branch of the Central Military Academy. In the countryside, he helped organize a county government and headed its judicial section. When the Communist leaders were dissatisfied with his work, they recalled him to Wuhan and appointed him secretary of the Military Academy’s political department. When the Left Guomindang government collapsed and Communists were purged in 1927, Tao fled to his hometown and on to Nanchang in Jiangxi. There he served for a month as head of the Party Affairs School of Jiangxi and then went to Shanghai. In February 1928, Tao became director of the political department of the Central Military Academy in Nanjing. He contributed regularly to the journal New Life Monthly (xinsheng yuekan). In December he resigned and went to Shanghai to join the Reorganization Faction of the Guomindang. In 1930 he published three books on Chinese social history in which he argued that feudalism had begun with the Zhou, but had diminished along with that polity in the Warring States period, when China developed mercantile capitalism. Tao’s work provoked a response from Guo Moruo, who argued that Chinese feudalism appeared only in the late Zhou and then lasted for two millennia, impeding the development of capitalism until recent times. In the same year, Tao worked at China’s Commercial Press, which published two more of his books, titled Sophists and Knight-errants and The Economic History of the Western Han. In January 1931, he became a professor at Central University and that summer he moved to Beiping University. In 1933 he launched a new journal titled Food and Life, which further stimulated study of the Chinese economy.104 With the outbreak of the Sino-Jananese war in July 1937, Tao attended a conference called by Chiang Kai-shek in Guling, Guangxi to discuss China’s response to the conflict. Tao went to Nanjing, where he became a member of the National Defense Council headed by Wang Jingwei (1883–1944). Wang criticized Chiang’s autocracy and opposed war with Japan. In 1938, Tao became general secretary of the Society for Research on Chinese Literature in Hankou. The society focused on the production of anti-communist writings. In July Tao became a member of the newly founded People’s Political Council in which capacity he served as an advisor to Wang Jingwei. Wang was pessimistic about China’s ability to wage a sustained war against Japan. In the autumn, Tao moved with the Nationalist government to Chongqing, but in December he left 104  Boorman 1979: 242.

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for Kunming, in Yunnan. He soon made his way to Hanoi and, in 1939, to Hong Kong, where he campaigned on behalf of Wang Jingwei’s peace movement. In August he joined Wang in Shanghai and was named director of the propaganda department of the central party headquarters. In December 1939, Wang made a secret peace agreement with the Japanese and, in January 1940, Tao took copies of it with him to Hong Kong. During the next year, Tao organized an international newsletter. Warned by criminal boss Du Yuesheng (1888–1951) that the Japanese were preparing to take Hong Kong, Tao fled and arrived in Chongqing in February 1942. He joined Chiang Kai-shek’s staff, participated in several writing projects, and supervised the content of the Central Daily News. In autumn 1942, he collected materials for Chiang’s book, titled China’s Destiny, which was published in January 1943. In October Tao was named editor-in-chief of the Central Daily News. As we have seen, it was in this period that Tao and Guo Moruo faced off over how to interpret the Li Yan matter. In 1946 Tao became a member of the National Assembly. During this period, Tao “also served as Chiang Kai-shek’s personal secretary.” In 1948, on the eve of the Communist takeover of Beijing, Tao arranged for the flight of several prominent professors from the city to territory still controlled by the Nationalists. When Chiang Kai-shek “retired” in January 1949, Tao accompanied him to Fenghua County in Zhejiang, and then on to Taibei in Taiwan. In Taiwan, Tao continued to edit the Central Daily News. He joined the Central Reconstruction Council’s Planning Committee and became a member of the Legislative Yuan and of the Guomindang Central Executive Committee.105 As it happened, Chiang Kai-shek’s retreat from the China mainland to the island of Taiwan in 1949 put an effective end to Republican efforts to reunify the realm inherited from the Qing. The task of reunifying China therefore fell to Mao Zedong (1893–1976). Mao was the son of a farmer from Xiangtan County in Changsha Prefecture, in Hunan Province. As a boy he became literate and was versed in the Chinese classics and histories. He therefore bridged the gap between the farming masses and the literate elite and was less plebian by far than Han Gaozu and Ming Taizu. He came of age during the Republican revolution of 1911 and the May 4th movement of 1919, and imbibed ideas from the West, including social Darwinism and Marxism-Leninism. He joined the Communist Party, founded in 1921, and supported its policy of cooperation with the Nationalists to overthrow regional militarists and resist Western imperialism. When the first united front broke down in 1927, he built on his experience in organizing disaffected rural populations in his home province to establish councils (soviets) in Jiangxi 105  Boorman 1979: 243.

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Province in the early 1930s. During the Long March from Jiangxi to Shaanxi in 1934, he was recognized as the primary leader of the Communist party-army. In 1935 the Communists established their capital at Yan’an on the poor frontier of Shaanxi Province. In the following year, Mao agreed to a second united front with the Guomindang to organize broad resistance to Japanese expansion. The result was open warfare between China and Japan in 1937. By carrying out social reforms, wooing non-Communist elites, and organizing military resistance in base-areas behind Japanese lines, the Communists gradually attracted broad popular support. By 1945 they controlled much of the countryside in north China. After the failure of United States’ efforts to encourage the formation of a coalition government in 1946, Mao and his colleagues escalated the conflict from guerrilla to conventional warfare. After four years of civil war, they succeeded in reuniting all of China except Taiwan. During the first two and a half decades of the People’s Republic, Mao led China through successive revolutions including land reform, urbanization, the Hundred Flowers movement, and the Great Leap Forward in the 1950s, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, and the struggle for succession in the 1970s. During the course of Mao’s career, he often cited examples and models from Chinese history and literature to make policy.106 He encouraged his ministers to do the same.107 In 1930 he cited the philosopher Confucius in the late Zhou on methods of research, and in 1958 he cited the historian Liu Zhiji (661–721) in the mid-Tang on techniques of writing history.108 He agreed with Sima Qian in the Han period on the need to record the past to provide guidance for the future, and he followed Sima Guang in the Song period in using history as an aid in governance.109 He radically revised the standard critical appraisals of the last Shang king Zhou Xin, the first Qin August Lord Ying Zheng, and the Three Kingdoms’ general Cao Cao. He claimed that they all used their authority to unify China, which was the most important task they faced. Mao shared the common Chinese view that the unity of a large, multi-ethnic polity was one of the most valuable and distinctive achievements of Chinese civilization.110 He embraced the model of early Tang good governance. In his talks at the Yan’an forum, he pointed out that prime minister Wei Zheng “really understood the 106  In some cases, Mao modeled himself on the First August Lord of the Qin who not only reunified but also centralized China. Li 1975; Chen 2008: 55–56; Wang 2008: 391–411. 107  Chen 2008. Unfortunately, in this popular study, direct quotations, original texts, paraphrasing, and summaries are often not distinguishable, and contexts, including time and place, are frequently not provided. 108  Chen 2008: 45–46, 61–63, 106; for Liu see Lin 1987. 109  Chen 2008: 34. 110  Chen 2008: 73, 77, 103, 280.

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importance of the people’s hearts and minds” as the main basis for the legitimacy of the state.111 Although unity was the greatly preferred norm, periods of disunion could also provide positive as well as minatory models. In 1960 Mao cited the cases of Su Qin and Zhang Yi in the Warring States period in support of the idea that “criticism can be helpful and good for the people”.112 In the Three Kingdoms, Guo Jia (170–207) was right to shift his allegiance from the Han royal descendant Liu Bei to the powerful general Cao Cao and to help him become a more effective ruler.113 At some unspecified date in the early People’s Republic, Mao recommended that one of his ministers check out the way Liu Bei and his party allied with local leaders to take over Sichuan. He suggested that the method should serve as a model for an administrator of the People’s Republic, an outsider, in his dealings with local cadres.114 In 1953 Mao pointed to Zhou Yu (175–210), a young general in the state of Wu who fought effectively against Cao Cao. Mao regarded Zhou as a model for cadres responsible for recruiting youth to the Communist Party.115 In 1957 Mao pointed out to cadres in Shanghai that Liu Bei’s getting advice from Zhuge Liang was like a fish taking to water and that this was true in history as well as in literature. The analogue in the People’s Republic was ideally to be the party seeking and receiving the counsel of the masses.116 Late in life, Mao was even attracted to figures in the long period of division known as the Wei-Jin-Nan-Bei-Chao, figures such as the libertarian scholar Ruan Ji (210–263).117 One of Mao’s favorite periods for useful models was the Han. In April 1939, he asserted that Xiang Yu, the Chu general who lost the civil war to the Han rebel Liu Bang, was more heroic than the contemporary losers in the Nationalist and Communist Parties, Wang Jingwei and Zhang Guotao (1897–1979) respectively. Xiang Yu, however, was a flawed model because he committed suicide rather than fighting to the end.118 In January 1962, Mao accepted the standard story about the Han founding and said he would not make the mistake of Xiang Yu, who did not listen to his chief advisor. Rather he would follow the example of Liu Bang, who heeded the advice of Li Yiqi to take Chenliu and the advice of Zhang Liang to establish Han Xin as the prince of Qi.119 At another, unspecified 111  Chen 2008: 74. 112  Chen 2008: 52–54. 113  Chen 2008: 64–69. 114  Chen 2008: 266–267. 115  Chen 2008: 268–269. 116  Chen 2008: 267. 117  Chen 2008: 319–320. 118  Chen 2008: 275–276. 119  Chen 2008: 55–56.

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time, Mao told an official, Wu Lengxi, that Liu Bang took power because he had good policies and knew how to employ his subordinates just as he claimed he did. Mao said these methods would work not only in managing a state and but also in publishing a newspaper.120 When the prominent cadre Bo Yibo (1907–2007) first met Mao, Mao told him that the mother of Han Wendi was née Bo, and her family played an important role in their home province of Shanxi. Bo was surprised and impressed by Mao’s erudition. He checked Sima Qian’s Historical Records and found Mao’s recollection to be accurate.121 In March 1949, a cadre named Zeng Sheng, who was from Guangdong Province, was advised by Mao to study the case of Zhao Tuo (240–137), a local strongman who tried to establish an autonomous regime in the southeast at the beginning of the Han. Zeng was unfamiliar with the history of his province but he soon found out that he was expected to learn a lesson about how to establish central authority on the southern frontier in the face of local alternatives.122 In 1958 an official named Tao Lujia informed Mao about a “heroic” project to channel water from the Yellow River to the Sanggan and Fen Rivers. Mao questioned whether the project could be called “heroic” when it merely replicated a plan that had been carried out during the reign of Han Wudi (140–185 CE) and was recorded in Ban Gu’s History of the Han.123 Mao also touted another positive example of a Former Han general, Zhao Chongguo, who successfully overcame the strong opposition of fellow officials to persuade Xuandi (73–47 BCE) to establish military colonies.124 During Mao’s career, he formed a few close relationships. We have already discussed the case of Guo Moruo, the scholar rebel advisor who enjoyed such close relations with Mao that he survived all the twists and turns in party politics, although at some cost to his self-respect and public esteem. Another such figure was Li Rui (1917–), a boyhood friend of Mao’s who was trusted to the extent of being commissioned to compile a biography of Mao that was published in 1957. Li thereafter survived political struggles despite being associated with Defense Minister Peng Dehuai (1898–1974), who was removed from office by Mao at the Lushan plenum in 1959. Li actually wrote an account of the plenum that was published in 1989.125 In his later years, Mao became quite

120  Chen 2008: 76. 121  Chen 2008: 70. 122  Chen 2008: 74; for Zhao, see Csete 1995: 23. 123  Chen 2008: 7i5. 124  Chen 2008: 57–58. 125  Li 1977; Li 1989.

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dependent on his physician, Li Zhisui (1919–1995). Li retained Mao’s confidence until Mao’s death, after which he co-authored a detailed critical memoir.126 During the first two decades of the Communist Party, Mao reported to other party leaders, but, by the early 1940s, he became primus inter pares in the party. After 1949, as Chairman of the Party, he became the most powerful leader for whom all others served as advisors or founding ministers. On the mainland, hereditary succession had ended with the Republic although Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, was thought to have tried to take power after his death. In Taiwan, the authority of the ruling Chiang family persisted for one generation under Chiang Kai-shek’s son, Chiang Ching-kuo (1910–1988). In the absence of any constitutional provision for succession, the People’s Republic left it to the leader to select his successor, somewhat along the lines of the legendary transition from Yao to Shun and from Shun to Yü, and the historical Shang system of fungible rulers and chief ministers who could serve seriatim. During the first two decades of the People’s Republic, Mao was the supreme leader who adopted as virtual “heirs apparent” his virtual prime ministers. They included Liu Shaoqi, Lin Biao, Zhou Enlai, and Chen Boda, all of whom agreed on the importance of studying history in the process of founding and maintaining the state.127 After the death of Mao, the transition from Hua Guofeng to Deng Xiaoping resembled the open struggles for power that had characterized the steppe regimes such as the Mongol Yuan. 7.3.2 Cai Hesen Mao’s first close comrade and scholar rebel advisor was Cai Hesen (1890–1931). Cai was from Xiangxiang County, which was adjacent to Mao’s home county in Changsha Prefecture in Hunan. The pattern of the first scholar rebel advisors coming from near the founder’s hometown had been established in the Han and had recurred in the Ming before reappearing in the People’s Republic. Cai was the son of a minor Qing official who had served in Zeng Guofan’s army. His mother was a progressive who attended school in her fifties. Like Zhang Liang and Song Xiance, Cai was not physically strong but became known for his writing. He went to Changsha in 1913 and attended Hunan’s first normal school, where he may have met Mao. In 1915 he transferred to the higher normal school where he and Mao became good friends. During a summer vacation, they walked around Dongting lake to become more familiar with 126  Li 1994. 127  Chen 2008. Chen discusses as well Zhu De, Chen Yun, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao, whom we do not discuss here. Chen gives Jiang Zemin pride of place and mentions Lin Biao only in passing.

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local society. In 1918 they formed a New People’s Study Society to prepare students for study abroad. At the society, Cai met Xiang Jingyu, with whom he recruited other students and with whom he went to Paris in 1919 to study. In 1921, Cai and Xiang got married and formed other organizations that became the basis of the Chinese Communist Party in France. They were soon deported for their political activities. In July 1922, Cai and Xiang were elected to the CCP central committee in Shanghai. They were persuaded by the Comintern agent Maring to join the Guomindang as individuals as part of a united front against warlords and imperialists. Cai edited the party newspaper, the Weekly Guide, and taught at Shanghai University. Together with Communist leaders Li Lisan (1899–1967) and Qü Qiubai (1899–1935), Cai was active in forming the Shanghai General Labor Union that participated in organizing the May 30th Movement in Shanghai in 1925. In reaction to Chiang Kai-shek’s attacks on leftists in Shanghai in 1927, Cai favored the organization of rural armed forces. He participated in unseating Chen Duxiu (1879–1942), co-founder of the Chinese Communist Party, who was held responsible for the disaster of 1927. Despite differences with Qü Qiubai over armed combat, Cai remained in the Politburo, taking the place of Li Dazhao (1889–1927), co-founder of the CCP, who had been killed by a warlord in Beijing. Cai’s wife Xiang Jingyu was also executed in the spring of 1928. For two more years, Cai maintained his position in the party despite tensions with other leaders. In 1931, however, he was sent to Hong Kong. There he was killed, either by the British colonialists or by Chinese antiCommunists in neighboring Guangdong Province. In sum, the biography of Cai Hesen indicates the physical and political distance that could obtain, even between comrades such as Mao and Cai, despite their common provincial origin, personal friendship, and similar strategies. It also indicates the importance of couples in the early Chinese Communist movement, which may have contributed to the popularity of the Li Yan-Hong Niangzi story.128 7.3.3 Liu Shaoqi Another Hunanese acquaintance of Mao’s was Liu Shaoqi (1898–1969), who was from Ningxiang County, also in Changsha Prefecture. Liu’s father was a prosperous farmer and school teacher. He studied at the First Normal School in Hunan, joined a Socialist Youth League in Shanghai, studied in Moscow in 1920, and joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1921. In 1922 he worked as an assistant to Mao in the Secretariat of Chinese Labor Unions in Shanghai. He also joined Mao and Li Lisan in organizing workers at the Anyuan coal mines in Jiangxi. In 1925 he was active in the May 30th movement in Shanghai and 128  Klein and Clark 1971: 851–853.

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in the related Canton-Hong Kong strike. He went to Wuhan on the Northern Expedition and organized laborers in an effort to recover foreign concessions there. After the Guomindang crackdown in April 1927, and the failure of the Nanchang uprising, Liu went to Shanghai and then on to Hebei, where he continued to organize workers. In the next three years at the Central Bureau in Shanghai, Liu remained active underground as resources were shifted to Ruijin, capital of the Soviet Republic, under Mao and Zhu De (1886–1976). Zhu De enjoyed some special charisma during this period because of the surname he shared with Zhu Yuanzhang, founder of the Ming, and due to his own plebian origins and populist policies.129 In autumn 1932, Liu went to Ruijin as chair of the All-China Federation of Labor. He was successful in recruiting Party members in Fujian Province. In October 1934, Liu joined the Long March from Jiangxi to Shaanxi, worked underground in north China, and in 1935 was in Yan’an with Mao and Zhou Enlai. In 1936 he became secretary of the North China Bureau of the Party. He supported the December 9th movement against Japanese imperialism and recruited nationalistic students into the party. In 1938 Liu took charge of a Central Plains Bureau located in southern Henan, but he established no base there and continued to work out of Yan’an. He lectured at the Institute of Marxism and Leninism and wrote an influential essay, “On the cultivation of Communist party cadres”. He invoked the philosophy of the Song scholar-official reformer Fan Zhongyan (989–1052) who exemplified the Song-Confucian value of self-cultivation and the Buddhist ideal of the Bodhisattva, the believer who saves others before seeking nirvana for himself. He cited Fan’s saying that “A scholar should be the first to worry about the world’s troubles and the last to rejoice in its happiness”.130 Liu’s effort to honor Chinese Confucian values along with Asian Buddhist ones, now in the context of world socialism, was very much in tune with Mao’s thinking at the time it was made. Later it would cost Liu support among radical Chinese Communist critics who denounced it as “feudal ideology.” As party chief in the central plain, Liu spent late 1939 and early 1940 with New Fourth Army units in Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu. He warned against relying too much on the Guomindang for support. After the New Fourth Army incident in January 1941, when Communist troops were attacked by Guomindang forces, he was named political commissar and secretary of the Party’s Central China Bureau. In July 1941, Liu gave a lecture at the Central China Party School in Jiangsu titled “On the Intra-Party Struggle.” He stressed the need for conflict to attain purity but also moderation in dealing with unorthodoxy. The text of 129  For Zhu De’s ideas, see Chen 2008: 181–187. 130  Liu 1957: 111; Chen 2008: 178.

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his lecture became required reading in the Party rectification movement in 1942–1943. During the war years, Liu spent about half of his time in Yan’an and half in the field. At the Seventh Party Congress in spring 1945, the returned students from Russia lost out and Liu appeared clearly as the number two leader reporting to Mao. When Mao went to Chongqing for talks with Chiang, Liu served as acting Chair of the Party. Mao and Liu stayed in Yan’an until it fell to Nationalist forces in March 1947. To reduce the risk of a catastrophic elimination of the entire Party leadership, Mao and Liu each led a different group of top Party members and headed in different directions from Yan’an with the plan of eventually regrouping at a common destination. In June 1948, Liu sided with Stalin against Tito, demonstrating his loyalty to Moscow, but he also wanted China to play a major role in the world, especially by promoting national revolutions in Asia and Africa. Liu continued to hold high posts in labor organizations, and attended the meeting of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference that established the People’s Republic on 1 October 1949. He also served as one of six-vice chairs of the Central People’s Government Council under Mao. Given the names of the Central Party School, the Central Plains Party Bureau, and the Central People’s Government Council, the Communist Party’s effort to claim a central role for itself in the “central state(s)” seemed palpable. During the first two decades of the People’s Republic, Liu conscientiously held high posts and was second or third in the power hierarchy. When Mao visited Moscow in late 1949 and early 1950, Liu again took charge in Beijing. One is reminded here of reports that Li Yan was said to have played a similar role in guarding the capital when Li Zicheng went to negotiate with Wu Sangui. Showing his preference for centralization, Liu presided over the purge of Gao Gang (1902–1954) and Rao Shushi (1903–1975), who were accused of forming “independent kingdoms” in the northeast region. From 1954 to 1959, Liu was Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, the highest formal post in the polity. From 1956 to 1966, he was Vice-Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party under Mao and from 1959 to 1968, he was Chairman of the People’s Republic of China. Liu’s position as heir apparent was “reinforced at the Eighth Party Congress in September 1956 when he presented the keynote political report”. Liu called for strong leadership but also a curb on bureaucratic tendencies by sending officials down to lower levels to keep them in touch with social realities. In late 1957 early 1958, Liu joined Mao in conducting the Anti-rightist Campaign and in pushing for rapid social and economic change through a Great Leap Forward. Liu, like Mao, wanted to rely on the initiative of the masses in fostering speedy development. When economic problems arose, Liu initially blamed them on the weather and

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on the Russians’ decision to withdraw technical assistance. In November– December 1958, Mao announced that he would not succeed himself, and in April 1959 Liu was elected to replace Mao as Chair of the People’s Republic of China. In August 1959, however, Liu began to have doubts about the Great Leap Forward. Liu was publicly recognized as the successor to Mao in 1961, but, by 1962, he began to fall from favor. Liu soon became the first high-ranking victim of the Cultural Revolution. In July 1966, he was removed from his position as Vice-Chairman of the Party and replaced by Minister of Defense Lin Biao. In 1967 Liu and his wife Wang Guangmei (1921–2006), who had previously not been involved in politics, were placed under house arrest in Beijing. In October 1968, Liu was expelled from the Party and disappeared from view. He had long suffered from diabetes and was not given good medical care. A year later, on 12 November 1969, he contracted pneumonia in Kaifeng and died. According to one account, Liu Shaoqi was regarded as “the eminence grise— the man who implemented what Mao decreed”. He was also described as “dour, unemotional, and colorless in manner but … intelligent … practical, tough, and assiduous in his work.”131 This epitaph, while balanced, may underestimate the degree to which Liu Shaoqi was able to work relatively harmoniously with Mao as long as he agreed with his ideas and policies. When they differed over how to evaluate the results of the Great Leap Forward, however, the split between them became difficult to avoid. Since there was no clear constitutional provision regarding the time and method of succession to the several top posts, the succession to Mao was likely to develop into a major political struggle and it did.132 Like Mao, Liu Shaoqi invoked history in support of his policies. He agreed with Mao that officials should study Chinese history and learn from it to govern effectively. Having studied abroad, Liu also emphasized learning from foreign experience.133 He cited the case of Tang Taizong and Wei Zheng and agreed with Wei that administering the state was just as difficult as establishing it in the first place.134 Liu argued that a successful leader must be good at uniting the cadres. Some “feudal lords, such as Liu Bang, Liu Bei, Cao Cao, Zhao Kuangyin [927–976], and Zhu Hongwu [sic] were skilled at this. Their policies were also consistent with the demands of the masses”.135 Liu agreed with Mencius that everyone can be a Yao and a Shun. He traced the idea of 131  Klein and Clark 1971: 624, 626. 132  Dittmer 1974. 133  Chen 2008: 119. 134  Chen 2008: 123. 135  Chen 2008: 127.

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work-study back to Zhu Maichen in the Han, Li Mi in the Sui, and Wang Mian in the Yuan. The practice took its twentieth-century form in students who, like Liu, worked and studied in France around the time of the May 4th Movement. It lived on in students who volunteered or were forced to go to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution.136 Liu followed Mao’s example in reading Sima Guang’s Comprehensive Mirror for Assistance in Governance. Liu was said to have shown particular interest in the sections on the economy.137 7.3.4 Lin Biao After Cai and Liu, the third scholar rebel advisor to Mao was Lin Biao (1907–1971), who was also to become heir apparent. Lin was born into an artisan-merchant family in Huanggang County in Huangzhou Prefecture in Hubei Province. He attended middle school in Wuchang, participated in a Social Welfare Society, and joined the Guomindang Party. In 1925, he went to Shanghai, became aware of the mobilization of workers in the May 30th movement and joined the Communist Youth League. He became a student at the Whampoa Military Academy, where Chiang Kai-shek and Zhou Enlai were commandants. Lin claimed he was advised by Chiang to choose between membership in the Guomindang and in the Communist Party. Lin chose the latter.138 Not yet twenty years old, he participated in the Nanchang uprising organized by Zhou Enlai. Lin and Zhou survived the defeat along with Zhu De in the Fourth Red Army. In 1929 Lin won several battles that prepared the way for the foundation of a base in Jiangxi. He helped to defeat the first three Guomindang suppression campaigns and participated in founding the first Soviet Republic at Ruijin in 1931. When the Communists were driven out of Jiangxi in 1935, Lin participated in the Long March to Yan’an. He survived that epic struggle even though he was sick, probably with tuberculosis, and had to be transported by palanquin. After war broke out with Japan in 1937, Lin led his 115th Division, combined with troops of the local militarist, Yan Xishan (1883– 1960), in an important but unsustainable victory over Japanese forces. Lin was wounded in another battle and withdrew from combat to head the Military University to Resist Japan in Yan’an. In 1938 or 1939 Lin went to Moscow for medical care and remained there for three years. Upon his return, he was sent to Chongqing to assist Zhou Enlai in dealing with the Nationalists and reducing conflicts between the two allied armies. Lin tried to get permission to

136  Chen 2008: 149, 155. 137  Chen 2008: 178–181. 138  Klein and Clark 1971: 559.

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expand the number of Communist-led divisions, but Chiang refused to grant it. In spring 1945, Lin was elected to the Communist Party Central Committee for the first time. With the surrender of Japan in August 1945, Lin led 30,000 troops into northeast China, which had been under Japanese control for over a decade. By the fall of 1945, he incorporated forces from local Communist base areas and increased the troops under his command to 100,000. By spring 1946, Lin expanded his forces to 250,000 and armed many of them with weapons surrendered by the Japanese. When Guomindang forces arrived to contest Communist authority in the northeast, Lin gave up the plan to hold cities and resorted to guerrilla warfare combined with land reform to establish bases in the countryside. In 1948 Lin built on his rural bases to mount attacks successfully on some cities. On November 2, Shenyang fell and within weeks all of the northeast was under Communist control. Kalgan fell in December 1948, Tianjin in January 1949, and Beijing by the end of the month. 800,000 troops, some riding in U.S. tanks, entered the long-time capital city without firing a shot. Lin became famous for his many military victories, which he explained by saying he never engaged the enemy unless victory was certain. In April 1949, Chen Yi (1901–1972), Liu Bocheng (1892–1986), and Lin Biao led three large forces totaling some 1,500,000 troops across the Yangzi. They took Wuhan in May, Canton in October, and Guilin in December. Lin was rewarded by being named secretary of the Central China Bureau, commander of the Central China Military Region, and member of the Central People’s Government Council, the People’s Revolutionary Military Council, and the First Executive Board of the Sino-Soviet Friendship Association. Lin was also appointed to other high posts but, because of his health, their functions were performed largely by others.139 During the 1950s, Lin spent several years out of the limelight, presumably because of his illnesses, but he continued to be named to high posts, including membership in the Central Committee and the Politburo in April 1955. The lack of visibility need not have betokened a lack of power, a point to be remembered in the case of Li Yan as well. In September, Lin was listed third (after Zhu De and Peng Dehuai) among the ten marshals, the highest ranked generals of the time. The following year, at the Eighth Party Congress, Lin was reelected to the Central Committee and was renamed to the Politburo. Lin did not speak and others ranked below him in the Committee (such as Peng Dehuai) were more active and visible. Two years later, in May 1958, Lin was elected vice-chair of the Central Committee and a member of the Politburo standing committee, which included the seven most powerful officials in the People’s Republic. 139  Klein and Clark 1971: 564–565; 611–616.

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In mid-1958, Lin continued his rise to prominence by being elected the deputy of the People’s Liberation Army to the Second National People’s Congress. In April 1959, he was reelected vice premier and vice-chair of the National Defense Council. In August 1959, the Eighth Plenum, held in Lushan, Jiangxi, reviewed the Great Leap policies. Lin recognized that there were problems with the Great Leap but he continued to support Mao in spite of them. He reportedly did not agree with Mao’s decision to dismiss Peng Dehuai because of his criticisms of the Great Leap, but he did not speak out in defense of Peng for fear of losing his own position. Here we have shades of the behavior of Song Xiance toward Li Yan according to Yao Xueyin. Lin was apparently also reluctant to take the place of Peng Dehuai, but was finally prevailed upon by Mao to do so. In mid-September 1959, Lin was publicly appointed Minister of Defense and he was secretly appointed head of the Party’s Military Affairs Committee. Lin then published, or had published in his name, an article in the party’s premier theoretical journal, Red Flag, calling for more attention to ideological training in the army. From 1961 through 1966, there were annual conferences devoted to politicizing the military. In 1963 Lin initiated a campaign to “Learn from Lei Feng”, a quasi-legendary selfless soldier in the People’s Liberation Army who died in an accident at age twenty-two in 1962. At the Third National People’s Congress held in December 1964–January 1965, Lin was billed as the senior vice-premier and the ranking vice-chair of the National Defense Council, replacing long-since-removed Peng Dehuai. In September 1965, there appeared under Lin’s name the essay titled “Long Live People’s War”. The essay responded to the escalating Vietnam war by depicting North America and Europe as the cities of the world that would eventually be encircled by Asia, Africa, and Latin America, which were viewed as the rural areas of the world. In 1966 Lin also compiled—or had compiled in his name—the “little red book,” the Quotations from Chairman Mao, which became the gospel of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. That same year, supported by his energetic wife, Ye Qun (1917–1971), Lin emerged clearly as the new heir apparent to Mao, thus replacing Liu Shaoqi as the number two political figure in China.140 Lin Biao was said to have opposed Mao’s decision to charge state Chairman Liu Shaoqi and General Secretary Deng Xiaoping with “revisionism” and “taking the capitalist road”. Lin also reportedly resisted being named vice-chairman of the Party and successor to Mao, apparently citing his poor health as one of the reasons for his reticence. According to Mao’s doctor, Li Zhisui, Lin suffered from neurasthenia or even just hypochondria, more psychological than physiological disorders. Probably aware of this, Mao criticized Lin 140  Klein and Clark 1971: 566–567; Lin 1966.

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as being like the Ming ruler Zhu Houcong, temple name Shizong, who spent much of his Jiajing reign (1522–1567) seeking elixirs of immortality and neglecting his official responsibilities.141 Lin therefore finally accepted his new roles and decided to try to survive the Cultural Revolution by doing whatever Mao asked him to do. Together with his wife, he encouraged Red Guards in Beijing to “smash those persons in power who are traveling the capitalist road” and to “destroy the four olds: culture, ideas, customs, and habits”. In August 1966 he called for turmoil in the army, which resulted in the end of academic classes and the overthrow of dozens of top officers, many of whom died in prison. In May 1967, Mao accepted Zhou Enlai’s advice to rein in the radicals by using the army, and this caused Lin to call for moderation in the military. From 1967 to 1969, however, 80,000 officers were dismissed and over 1,100 of them died from torture, starvation, or execution. Lin’s efforts at moderation took the form of protecting Red Guards from the military and keeping Mao’s wife Jiang Qing from intervening in the military. Lin and Jiang Qing nonetheless agreed on opposing Zhou Enlai’s and Mao’s strategy of looking to the United States to counter the pressure coming from the Soviet Union over ideological and territorial issues. In April 1969 the Central Committee revised the constitution to describe Lin Biao as Mao’s “closest comrade-in-arms and successor.” Lin’s followers, including his wife and an ambitious ideologue, Chen Boda (1904–1989), dominated the Politburo.142 Lin Biao could enjoy his position at the peak of his power for only a year, when, like Peng Dehuai and Liu Shaoqi before him, he began to fall from Mao’s favor. In a Central Committee meeting in Lushan from August-September in 1970, Mao became unhappy with Lin’s growing power, his supporters, and his policy recommendations. Lin had suggested, for example, that, in addition to being Chair of the Communist Party, Mao should occupy the post of Chair of the People’s Republic vacated by Liu Shaoqi. Mao thought Lin’s suggestion was motivated by a desire to increase his own (i.e. Lin’s) power and he rejected it. Mao did not attack Lin directly, but, as was his practice in dealing with powerful colleagues, criticized one of Lin’s subordinates, Chen Boda. Also, like Liu before him, Lin had contributed to creating a cult of personality around Mao. Lin was naturally held responsible when Mao began to realize how the cult was being used by others, including Lin, to their advantage. After 1970, different factions around Zhou Enlai and Jiang Qing began to distance themselves from Lin Biao. To further curb Lin’s authority, Mao approved Zhou Enlai’s 141  Qiu 1999: 78–79. See the biography of Shizong by Lien-che Tu Fang in Goodrich and Fang 1976: 315–322; Li 1994: 257, 259, 315, 453. 142  Ross 1989: 269–270.

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efforts to rehabilitate some civil officials who had been disgraced during the Cultural Revolution. Mao also favored Zhou’s efforts to improve relations with the United States, which Lin opposed. Although Mao had his own problems with Jiang Qing and her policies, he resented some of Lin’s public comments about her. Mao criticized Lin, his wife, and his generals, expecting that they would engage in self-criticism. Lin and some of his generals, however, refused to do so. Ye Qun criticized herself, but did so, Mao thought, insincerely. Zhou attempted to mediate between Mao and Lin, but Lin became more and more reclusive. In July 1971, Mao decided to remove Lin and his supporters from their positions. Zhou continued to try to protect Lin but was unable to do so.143 According to the Chinese government, Lin Biao, his wife Ye Qun, and their son Lin Liguo (1945–1971), a senior Air Force officer, had become aware of Mao’s plans as early as February, 1971. In March Liguo had held a secret meeting in Shanghai to plot a coup which was code-named “571 (wuqiyi 五七一),” a homophone of “military uprising (wuqiyi 武起義).” On 15 August, unaware of the plot, Mao left Beijing by train for the south to discuss how to remove Lin from his posts. On 5 September, Lin Biao learned that Mao was definitely going to dismiss him. Three days later he issued an order to assassinate Mao one way or another. The plan went awry when Mao changed his itinerary on 11 September. Mao’s bodyguards may have foiled several other attempts on his life, before he returned unharmed to Beijing on 12 September. When the Lins’ plot failed, they may have considered going south to Guangdong to raise the banner of revolt with Soviet Russian support. They apparently finally decided instead to flee by plane from the Qinhuangdao-Shanhaiguan airport directly to the Soviet Union. Eight men, including Lin Biao and his son Lin Liguo, and one woman, Ye Qun, were on the plane when it crashed in Mongolia, killing all aboard. Questions remain about the intended destination of the plane and about the causes of the crash. The Chinese government version of the story has been supported by forensic evidence collected by the Mongolians and the Russians.144 Henry Kissinger reportedly asked Zhou Enlai if he thought the Chinese report on the Lin Biao incident was reliable. Zhou replied that in China it was considered to be at least as reliable as the Warren Report on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. As in the cases of Hu Weiyong versus Zhu Yuanzhang and Li Yan versus Li Zicheng, it is difficult to determine who took the initiative to resort to violence to settle the clash between Lin Biao and Mao Zedong. But the important point was the unraveling of trust between the leaders and their advisors in all three cases. 143  Qiu 1999: 134–135. 144  En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin Biao, accessed on 18 May 2017.

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The death of Mao’s heir apparent Lin Biao had many consequences. Within a month, Zhou Enlai, now number two in the government, announced the dismissal of over 1,000 senior Chinese military officials associated with Lin. With Mao’s support and despite Jiang Qing’s opposition, Zhou was able to push ahead with his strategy of rapprochement with the United States. Mao nonetheless became depressed and suffered a stroke in early 1972, yielding more authority to Jiang Qing. In 1973 through 1975, Jiang orchestrated a campaign to “Criticize Lin and Criticize Confucius”. The purpose was to distance her radical faction from Lin Biao’s and to disparage Zhou Enlai, who stood for rehabilitating disgraced officials. Zhou’s position was in line with Confucian values of lenience and compromise dating back to the dynasty that happened to share Zhou Enlai’s family name. Despite Lin’s supposed abject loyalty to Mao, he was quoted as having said that Mao wanted to claim all achievements for himself and to attribute all mistakes to others. That, of course, was in perfect accord with a Legalist precept on how a ruler should treat his officials. 7.3.5 Zhou Enlai The third major scholar rebel advisor to Mao Zedong was Zhou Enlai (1898– 1976). Zhou was born into a family based in Huai’an County in Shaoxing Prefecture in Zhejiang, a region that had a long tradition of providing clerks in the state administration. His father was unable to support his family and one uncle was childless, so Zhou was adopted by that uncle. We are reminded here of the historical Li Yan’s adoption as a son by his childless clan uncle, Li Chunyu, and Li Yan’s posthumous adoption by his nephew Li Yuanshan, who conducted filial rituals in place of Li Yan’s only son who died young. When Zhou Enlai’s uncle died, Zhou Enlai was brought up by his aunt, who was versed in literature. When she died, he was adopted by another uncle, who took him to Shenyang and then to Tianjin. There he enrolled in the highly regarded Nankai Middle School. He read the major Chinese novels and became familiar with the writings of the late Qing-early Republican reformers Kang Youwei (1858–1927), Liang Qichao, Zou Rong (1885–1905), Zhang Binglin (1868–1936), and others. At age fourteen, he expressed the ambition “to become a great man who will take up the heavy responsibilities of the country in the future.”145 Zhou’s aspiration to become a “prime minister” was clear. He was editor of the school newspaper, performed in school plays, and graduated valedictorian of his class. With moral and financial support from his uncles and teachers, he studied in Japan for two years, but was discouraged by the complexity of the language and by the militarism of the society. Returning to China, he was impressed by the 145  Bamonin and Yu 2006: 14.

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Russian revolution of October 1917. He invited Li Dazhao, China’s first Marxist, to address his “Awakening Society” in 1920. He was briefly jailed for protesting police mistreatment of student demonstrators. He met his future wife Deng Yingchao (1903–1992), who became his lifelong companion in revolution. In late 1920 he went to Paris on a work-study program where he met Cai Hesen and Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969). Zhou helped Zhu De enter the Communist Party. In 1924 he returned to China, joined Sun Yat-sen in Canton and served as an aide to Galen, the Comintern advisor to Chiang Kai-shek. In 1925, became co-director with Chiang Kai-shek of the Whampoa Military Academy. In March 1926, Zhou was briefly arrested in connection with the Zhongshan boat incident, but he continued to support the Comintern policy of working with Chiang Kai-shek. During the Northern Expedition, Zhou was active in Shanghai and Wuhan and he was celebrated in André Malraux (1901–1976)’s novel Man’s Fate. He narrowly avoided capture in Chiang’s coup d’état in April 1927, and went to Wuhan, where the Left Guomindang provided temporary protection. In May 1927 Zhou became a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo. He eventually became “the only man to serve continuously on the Politburo from 1927 to the post-1949 period”.146 After the loss of Wuhan to Chiang Kai-shek, Zhou was one of the main planners of the Nanchang uprising in Jiangxi in August 1927, which also failed. He became a “faithful aide” to Li Lisan, the effective head of the Party, but he disagreed with Li’s policy of attacking cities and he did not suffer from Li’s subsequent fall from grace. Zhou supported Peng Dehuai’s revolt in Changsha, Hunan in early 1930, but, when it failed, acknowledged his “errors” and emerged unscathed by the setback. Zhou served as the major liaison between the Party center in Shanghai and Mao and Zhu’s forces in Ruijin, capital of the Jiangxi Soviet Republic. In 1932 Zhou’s policy of linking the Jiangxi Soviet with other Communist base areas was adopted instead of Mao’s policy of luring the enemy deep into the Jiangxi Soviet. In 1933 Zhou succeeded Mao as Political Commissar of the First Front Army. In October 1934, Zhou agreed with Mao on the strategic retreat of the Long March. In January 1935 at Zunyi County in Guizhou Province, Zhou retained his position in the leadership even as he relinquished to Mao the posts of chief political officer of the Red Army and head of the Chinese Communist Party’s Military Affairs Committee. Zhou supported Mao in his intra-party quarrel with Zhang Guotao. Zhou played a major role in persuading the young marshal Zhang Xueliang (1901– 2001) to cease attacks on the Communists and to join them in resisting the Japanese invasion. When Chiang Kai-shek reacted in late 1936 by flying to Xi’an 146  Klein and Clark 1971: 207.

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to put pressure on Zhang to oppose the Communists, Zhou and Mao cooperated with Zhang in kidnapping Chiang. They both favored trying Chiang for his crimes against the people, but finally yielded to Russian pleas and released him with the understanding that he would halt the civil war and join in the war of resistance against Japan. Under these circumstances, Zhou Enlai became the chief liaison between the Communist Party and the Guomindang for the next few years. Zhou was the only Communist leader to hold high posts simultaneously in the Communist and Nationalist Parties. He presided over the distribution of Communist publications, The New China Daily and The Masses in the Guomindang capitals of Wuhan and then Chongqing. That was the political space in which Guo Moruo wrote his essay on the 300th anniversary of 1644 and his subsequent short piece celebrating Li Yan, but we know nothing about Zhou’s views concerning Guo’s essay. Zhou used his strategic position to visit Russia to learn about global developments. He continued to deal with the Guomindang even after the New Fourth Army Incident in January 1941 because he deemed the appearance (at least) of unity to be essential to winning the war against Japan. In 1942–1943 Zhou met repeatedly with Lin Biao in Chongqing to discuss military matters. He “built up a large and talented staff in Chungking, which in the post-1949 period formed the nucleus of the Peoples Republic Foreign Ministry”. “Chou [Zhou] and his contacts were also indefatigable in maintaining contacts with the increasingly vocal non-Communist left in Chungking.” Many of them “went over” in 1949, bringing to the Communist movement “sorely needed talents in administration, education, and commerce.” Zhou also made a “favorable impression on foreign diplomats and journalists”.147 In 1945 and 1946, Zhou devoted himself to negotiations, first between Mao and Chiang with the encouragement of the American general Patrick Hurley (1883–1963) and then between Zhou and Zhang Qun (1889–1990) under the auspices of the American commander George Marshall (1880–1959). Some progress was made toward compromises, such as the creation of a constituent assembly and a cease-fire, but basic issues such as authority over the military remained unresolved. In early 1947 Zhou denounced the American role in diplomacy as a cover for one-sided military assistance to the Guomindang. There was a return to all-out civil war. At first the Communists lost their headquarters in Yan’an to the Nationalists and were on the military defensive, but the political tide finally turned in favor of the consolidated Communist military force now known as the People’s Liberation Army. There is surprisingly little evidence of Zhou Enlai’s activities during the crucial period of 1947–1948. 147  Klein and Clark 1971: 211.

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This may remind us not to attach too much significance to Li Yan’s near disappearance from the records between his rallying to Li Zicheng in 1641 and his prominence in Beijing in 1644. In early 1949, Zhou resurfaced in Shijiazhuang, the strategic railway town south of Beijing. After Chiang Kai-shek retired in January 1949, Zhou negotiated with the acting president of the Republic, Li Zongren (1890–1969), but no compromise was possible. On 1 October 1949, the constituent assembly known as the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference formally established the new government, the People’s Republic of China in Beijing. In the first years of the People’s Republic, Zhou Enlai served as Premier of the Government Administrative Council and as Minister of Foreign Affairs. In the absence of American recognition, his first tasks were to consolidate control over the mainland, to assert authority over Taiwan, and to negotiate a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union. In this process, the outbreak of civil war between two foreign-backed regimes on the Korean peninsula was an unwanted distraction. Zhou became involved in negotiations with the Soviet Union to preserve the existence of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. He was also the overall Commander of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army, thus sharing authority with general Peng Dehuai, and fulfilling his last military assignment before relinquishing his post on the Military Commission. Zhou pursued a domestic policy of winning over non-Communist elites such as Song Qingling (1893–1981), Zhang Zhizhong (1895–1969), Huang Yanpei (1878– 1965), and Fu Zuoyi (1895–1974). His frontier policies included wooing India to accept Chinese authority in Tibet, striving for peace settlements in Korea and Vietnam, and negotiating disputed territories along the Himalayan border. His foreign policies focused on obtaining diplomatic recognition from countries such as the United States, cooperating with post-colonial states of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and, after attaining nuclear capability, reducing the risk of nuclear warfare by eschewing the first use of nuclear weapons and opposing the proliferation of nuclear capability to other nations. Like Liu Shaoqi and Lin Biao, Zhou Enlai had his own views and acted on them when he could. Unlike them, he was notably flexible and willing to compromise when Mao adopted policies at odds with his own. He generally looked out for the interests of non-Communists in a fashion reminiscent of the storied Li Yan, and perhaps to some extent the historical Li Yan, vis-à-vis former Ming officials. Zhou nonetheless went along with Mao’s Three-Anti and Five-Anti-campaigns, the Thought Reform of liberal intellectuals, and the Hundred Flowers and Anti-Rightist movements. He supported the idea of mobilizing the population to achieve rapid economic growth in the Great Leap Forward and the commune movement, but he focused more on technical

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and economic problems than on political and social issues. He tried to protect many Party and non-party individuals during the Cultural Revolution, again in a manner like Li Yan’s and with only partial success. Under pressure from Mao, Zhou acted cautiously to preserve his own status and ended up failing to protect even his own brother and adopted daughter. Despite his loyal service to Mao Zedong over many decades, Zhou Enlai was not well served by his leader in his last years. That was reminiscent of many other scholar rebel advisors, including Li Yan. Zhou was diagnosed with bladder cancer in November 1972, but apparently did not receive medical treatment until it was too late. Mao’s small minded ill-will was evident in his failure to provide a fitting epitaph for his chief scholar rebel advisor or even to console his widow, who was herself a long-time loyal member of the Party.148 Zhou Enlai remained loyal to Mao to the end, but he also maintained his own ideas about history. According to Chen Jin, at some unspecified time and place, Zhou commented that, in reading Mao’s works, one must also study history.149 Perhaps he meant that one had to know history to be able to understand Mao’s use of it to achieve his own goals. Zhou may also have meant that one should study history in order to develop one’s own views of its meaning and implications for policy making. Whatever his point, Zhou developed his own approach to Chinese history. At age eight, he read historical novels such as Journey to the West and The Three Kingdoms. At age twelve, he read The Historical Records and the History of the Han. At age fifteen, he read the Ming loyalist scholars Gu Yanwu and Wang Fuzhi (1619–1692) and Western enlightenment philosophers Montesquieu (1689–1755) and Huxley (1894–1963).150 At some point, Chen Jin reports, Zhou reminded his audience that studying the past did not necessarily mean wanting to return to it. He also recommended that one should read informal histories as well as standard ones.151 This view may have facilitated Zhou’s acceptance of the Li Yan story that was based on both kinds of historical sources. As a Marxist, Zhou Enlai deemed the “feudal system” oppressive, but he acknowledged that the ruling class sometimes included some relatively good people. He believed that there was some cultural development in periods of division, such as the Spring and Autumn and Warring States, as well as in periods of relative unity, such as the Han, Tang, Song, and Qing. In his view, Chinese culture could develop during times of disunion much as European culture 148  Short 1999: 620. 149  Chen 2008: 118. 150  Chen 2008: 172. 151  Chen 2008: 119–120.

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developed during the Renaissance. It is not correct to say, as many Westerners and some Chinese have done, that “China lacked science.” As the (real) “gang of four” charged, Zhou believed that Confucius in the Spring and Autumn period advocated values that played positive roles in Chinese history, but he also encouraged fellow cadres to “study all of the hundred schools of thought”, not just Confucianism.152 In 1941, Zhou encouraged Guo Moruo to write his play about the Warring States scholar, Qu Yuan, whom Zhou regarded as a national hero.153 Zhou also recognized that the Qin First August Lord had played a progressive role in unifying and centralizing China, even though his dynasty foundered in the second generation.154 At some point, probably toward the end of his life, Zhou also expressed admiration for Han Xin, one of the advisors to the Han founder Liu Bang. Zhou reportedly told a colleague that “Han Xin was forbearing when he was ‘disgraced,’ but he was not blind to his interests, and instead used the experience to increase his own strength.”155 Here Zhou seemed to identify himself with the Han founding official who clashed with his patron Liu Bang and survived, only to die later at the hands of his ruler’s widow. With regard to the broader issue of cultural continuity over time and space, Zhou asserted that the Chinese people have a good record of imbibing and incorporating valuable elements of the cultures of other peoples, including Indian religion in the middle period and European science in more recent times.156 Zhou wrote that ethnic and cultural melding resembles a chemical process more than a physical one; it is also an exchange more than a one-way road of influence.157 These views of Chinese history are quite consistent with the spiral theory of the pattern of Chinese history and historiography we have been testing in this chapter. While Mao seemed to favor the Han and Ming over other models, Zhou appeared to admire more the Tang and the Qing. In Zhou’s view, during the early Tang, Li Shimin listened to his advisor Wei Zheng and the result was a flourishing government. If an august lord and scholar official could have such a positive relationship, Zhou thought, leaders and officials in the People’s Republic should be able to get along as well.158 In 1956, Zhou observed that there were 100,000 foreign residents in the capital of Chang’an during the Tang. He added that the influx of a tenth of that number of foreigners into Beijing 152  Chen 2008: 137, 176. 153  Chen 2008: 172–174. 154  Chen 2008: 128. 155  Chen 2008: 176. 156  Chen 2008: 121, 143. 157  Chen 2008: 121. 158  Chen 2008: 127, 143.

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had recently strained the housing resources of the People’s Republic.159 Zhou called for preservation of the monument to Yelü chucai, the Khitan scholar official who served both the Jurchen Jin and the Mongol Yuan. That revealed Zhou’s respect for multi-ethnic polities in which members of minority nationalities sometimes formed the core of the ruling elite. Zhou therefore praised the Manchu Qing that brought together various nationalities in a territory comprising nine million square kilometers. In accord with Confucian principles, the Qing also fixed taxes at a low level, allowing wealth to stay in the hands of the people and enabling the Chinese population to expand to four hundred million. In Zhou’s view, the Qing used the Manchu as well as Han scripts and encouraged a merging of several cultures that resulted in the advancement of the entire civilization.160 Zhou praised the secularism of Confucianism and other Chinese ways of thought, in contrast with the Western emphasis on theistic and sectarian religions that often lead to war. He admired the unification of the Chinese script by the Qin state and he touted the Chinese people’s supposed preference for peace over warfare. These values, he argued, resulted in 1,400 years of unity as opposed to only 700 years of disunion from the Qin through the Qing.161 In the 1940s, Zhou favored the compilation of a comprehensive history of China that would explain the powerful trope of unity.162 In Zhou’s opinion, China’s approach to the world based on this history should be: to bide its time and not impose its ways on others; to avoid initiating conflict and to engage in reciprocity; and, when a conflict arises, to withdraw to a certain extent to give the adversary time and space to reconsider so as to avoid a confrontation. Zhou believed that these principles arose as much from Chinese traditions as from Marxist-Leninist ideology.163 Indeed, we might even see in Zhou’s three points a reflection of the advice on strategy given by Zheng Zhong in the Han and Zhu Sheng in the Ming and reiterated by Mao in the People’s Republic. 7.3.6 Chen Boda The fourth and last major scholar rebel advisor to Mao Zedong was much more of an ideologue than any of his predecessors. Chen Boda was born in 1904 into a poor farm family in Huian County in Quanzhou Prefecture in Fujian Province. He graduated from a school in Amoy, funded by an overseas 159  Chen 2008: 137. 160  Chen 2008: 122. 161  Chen 2008: 177. 162  Chen 2008: 174. 163  Chen 2008: 125.

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supporter of Sun Yat-sen, and he attended Shanghai University from 1923–1925. He participated in political work in a Guomindang army during the northern expedition, joined the Communist Party in 1927, and went to Moscow to study at Sun Yat-sen University. He returned to China in 1930, worked for a Communist newspaper in Fujian, and was imprisoned by the Guomindang in 1931–1932. Upon his release, he taught philosophy and history at China University (Zhongguo daxue) during the December 9th movement in 1935. He began his career as a writer with an “Essay on Tan Sitong” (1865–1898). Tan was a prominent reformer who died at the hands of the Qing in 1898.164 In 1937, Chen went to the Communist headquarters in Yan’an. He taught at the Central Party School, directed the Research Section of the Party’s Propaganda Department, published in the leading newspapers and journals, and served for a time as Mao Zedong’s political secretary. According to one report, after 1937, leading policy statements came more and more from Mao, Zhou Enlai and rising theoreticians Liu Shaoqi, Chen Yun (1905–1995), and Chen Boda. In 1942 Chen Boda went to Chongqing to serve as editor of The New China Daily and the Life Book Company. During the Rectification Campaign, Chen participated actively in the criticism of the prominent Communist writer-translator, Wang Shiwei (1906–1947), who claimed that party cadres were becoming divorced from the people and who called for more autonomy for writers and intellectuals. In 1943 Chen returned to Yan’an and wrote a caustic critique of Chiang Kai-shek’s recently published China’s Destiny, which he characterized as a fascist screed. His essay in Chinese was later published in book form under the title Chiang Kai-shek: Enemy of the People. In 1944, Chen wrote Notes on Mao Zedong’s “Report of an Investigation into the Peasant Movement in Hunan” and Notes on Ten Years of Civil War, 1927–1936. He also wrote a critical biography of Yuan Shikai, A Study of Land Rent in Pre-Liberation China, and a book about China’s Four Big Families. The big families were headed by T.V.  Song/Song Ziwen (1894–1971), H.H. Kong/Kong Xiangxi (1881–1967), Chen Guofu (1892– 1951), and Chen Lifu (1900–2001).165 In 1945 at the Party’s Seventh National Congress in Yan’an, Chen was elected to the Central Committee. In 1949, in Beijing, he organized both “mass” and professional societies. He became Deputy Director of the Party’s Propaganda Department and Vice-President of the Party School, the Marxist-Leninist Institute. In October 1949, he was appointed vice-chair of the Culture and Education Committee under Committee Chair Guo Moruo and under Premier Zhou Enlai’s Government Administration Council. Chen also served as Vice 164  Klein and Clark 1971: 122. 165  Klein and Clark 1971: 123.

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President of the Academy of Sciences, nominally under President Guo Moruo but actually as the ultimate authority in the Academy. Chen went to Moscow in October 1949 and was the only top leader to accompany Mao when he went to Moscow again in December of the same year. Chen had the delicate task of eulogizing Mao’s independent thought and practice while also reconciling them with Stalin’s ideas and Comintern policies. On the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in 1951, Chen published an article titled “Mao Tse-tung’s Thought Is the Synthesis of Marxism-Leninism and the Chinese Revolution” which appeared in the most authoritative organs, The People’s Daily and Study, in the country. After Stalin’s death in 1953, Chen expanded an earlier essay on Stalin into a book titled Stalin and the Chinese Revolution. Chen served under Mao on a special committee to draft the constitution that was adopted at the First National People’s Congress in 1954. He also represented social science organizations at the second and third Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference meetings in the 1950s and he represented the Party at the fourth meeting in the 1960s.166 In 1955, as deputy director of the Party’s Rural Work Department, Chen provided the ideological justification for acceleration in the pace of collectivization. In 1957 he accompanied Mao to Moscow to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, making him the only high cadre to accompany Mao on both of his visits to the Soviet Union. In spring and summer 1958, Chen was appointed editor of Red Flag (Hongqi). In the initial issue in June, Chen opened a campaign against Tito’s revisionist policies in Yugoslavia. In July he supported the trend to form “people’s communes” and to engage in a “great leap forward” to a “new society” and a “new people”. He argued that Marxist theory should be developed “uninterruptedly” so as to account for different conditions around the world. In 1958 Chen was elected as a Shanghai deputy to the Second National People’s Congress and in 1964 he was elected to the Third National People’s Congress. In June 1962, he was made vice-chair of the State Planning Commission.167 During the Cultural Revolution, Chen Boda rose to the top echelons of the political system, ranking number four after Mao, Lin, and Zhou. He was elected to the Standing Committee of the Politburo, the highest policy-making body in the People’s Republic. In May he also became head of the Cultural Revolution group designed to oversee the movement. During the Cultural Revolution, 1966–1969, this group became more powerful than the Standing Committee of 166  Klein and Clark 1971: 124. 167  Klein and Clark 1971: 125.

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the Politburo. When the head of the propaganda department, Lu Dingyi (1906– 1996), lost his post, Chen replaced him and managed propaganda alongside Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing. During the next two years, China experienced widespread disorder within the country and the prospect of armed conflict outside the country. In September 1967, the army was instructed to restore order, Red Flag suspended publication, and the Cultural Revolution Group was blamed for anarchism and ultra-leftism. As the army took control in 1968, the number of casualties mounted, possibly outstripping those previously inflicted by the Cultural Revolution group. At the Ninth Party Congress in the spring of 1969, Lin Biao tried to preserve the Cultural Revolution Group as a counterweight to the revived Communist Party. In December 1969, however, the Group was formally dissolved. Chen Boda nonetheless retained his position as a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo. In August 1970, Lin Biao and Chen Boda proposed the appointment of a state chairman to replace Liu Shaoqi and they called for the canonization of Mao as a genius. Mao reportedly opposed both proposals as designed to enhance Lin Biao’s power as Mao’s chosen—but not yet publicly designated—“successor”. The Central Committee endorsed Mao’s position on both issues. It also approved Mao’s decision to discredit Chen Boda, one of the five members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo. The Central Committee pronounced Chen guilty of “ultra-leftist deviations” of a Trotskyist nature committed during and after the Cultural Revolution. In 1971 Mao removed some political and military leaders thought to be supportive of Chen Boda and Lin Biao. In 1972 Chen and Lin were again described as “ultra-leftists”, but there was concern that continual leveling of the charge might undermine some of the policies that grew out of the Cultural Revolution and were still being implemented. At the Party’s Tenth Congress in 1973, therefore, Chen and Lin were suddenly denounced as “ultra-rightists” and formally expelled from the Party. Chen was described as “a principal member of the Lin Piao anti-Party clique, anti-Communist Kuomintang element, Trotskyite, renegade, enemy agent and revisionist.”168 In 1981 Chen was tried as a collaborator with the Gang of Four. He was convicted and sentenced to eighteen years in prison. He was soon released on grounds of ill health and he died on 20 September 1989. In sum, various kinds of Chinese scholar rebel advisors serving various kinds of polities appeared and reappeared in Chinese history more or less as predicted by the spiral theory. The basic structure was established in the 168  Meisner 1986: 357–358, 365, 400–404, 411.

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early period when Chinese history evolved largely within what became known as the central-state(s) and the lands beyond its borders which we are calling the known world. Yi Yin, the primordial scholar rebel advisor served the first united monarchical state, the Shang. Taigong Wang and the Duke of Zhou assisted the two kings, Wen and Wu, in establishing the first elitist reformist state, the Zhou. A variety of scholar rebel advisors, including hegemons like Guan Zhong, philosophers like Confucius, diplomats like Zhang Yi, and literati like Wu Zixu, tried to bring order to a world in cultural crisis and political disorder during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period. After centuries of warfare, in 221 BCE, the Legalist scholar official Li Si served as the first prime minister to the first August Lord of the Qin. They not only reunified but also centralized the central state(s) and much of the known world. The Qin’s excessive centralization and expansion in pursuit of wealth and power, however, soon led to popular uprisings and the founding of a more populist egalitarian state, the Han. The Han was headed by a commoner who was served by a large number of dedicated and capable scholar rebel advisors such as Xiao He, Cao Can, Lu Jia, Li Yiqi, Zhang Liang, Han Xin, and Chen Ping. The Han lasted for two centuries, overcame internal and external challenges, and endured for another two centuries before collapsing. During the succeeding period of disunion, scholar rebel advisors were less active, or at least less prominent. An important partial exception was Zhuge Liang, who tried brilliantly, but ultimately unsuccessfully, to prolong the life of the Han. During the middle period of Chinese history, when the central states developed in the context of the rest of Asia, scholar rebel advisors consciously or unconsciously drew on past precedents to advise the five generic polities that recurred in the same sequence at an accelerated pace and in an expanded space. Gao Jiong, a Buddhist, and Yang Su, a Legalist, advised the founder of the Sui, who ruled China under a reunified monarchical state. Wei Zheng, a Confucian, and Li Jing, a swordsman, were among several advisors to Li Shimin, who cofounded the elitist-reformist Tang. The Daoist Qiu Chuji, Buddhist Yelüchucai, and syncretist Liu Bingzhong assisted the Mongols in recentralizing much of Asia. Li Shanchang, Liu Ji, Song Lian, Zhu Sheng, and Hu Weiyong were among the most prominent counselors to the commoner founder of the refashioned populist egalitarian Ming polity. During the recent period of Chinese history (i.e. since the seventeenth century), variations on the five basic polities reappeared in the same sequence and at an even more rapid rate in the even larger context of the entire world. First, the late Ming scholar-rebel-advisor and regent, Zhang Juzheng, invoked the model of the Shang in an attempt to strengthen the unity of the state to deal

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more effectively with new domestic and foreign challenges. He was only partially successful, perhaps because China was already sufficiently unified to deal with new challenges in time tested ways. Those ways included elite reforms such as those recommended by the scholar rebel advisors Li Yan, Niu Jinxing, and Song Xiance to the commoner rebel leader, Li Zicheng, in the Da Shun regime. When Li Zicheng was unable to establish a durable state, other scholar rebel advisors, including former Ming officials Fan Wencheng and Hong Chengchou, and former rebel officials Song Quan, Liu Chang, Xue Suoyun, and Xu Zuomei, invoked Zhou and Tang models to persuade early Qing rulers to institute elite reforms. Those reforms resulted in relatively stable and effective government that lasted for over two centuries. Eventually the Qing confronted domestic rebellions inspired by Christianity and Islam, and Euro-American invasions designed to exploit China’s wealth. The Qing state eventually collapsed, resulting in another age of cultural crisis and political disorder. In the early years of the Republic, the scholar-rebel Sun Yat-sen tried in vain to help the military strongman Yuan Shikai to establish a strong central state. During the late Republic, Tao Xisheng drew on Marxism and fascism to advise Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei on how to create a strong party-army and civil administration along the lines of the authoritarian centralization of the Qin and Yuan. In the later years of the Republic and early years of the People’s Republic, Liu Shaoqi, Lin Biao, Zhou Enlai, and Chen Boda combined elements of Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, and Maoism to reinstitute a populist egalitarian polity reminiscent of the Han and the Ming. If this spiral pattern or deep structure of Chinese history helps to make sense of the roles of various kinds of Chinese scholar rebel advisors, including Li Yan, over the last three millennia, it seems likely to continue to help shape Chinese polities in the future. To the extent that the People’s Republic continues to follow the populist egalitarian Han and Ming models, its economic growth and military expansion, although considerable, will probably be limited and its life will be correspondingly long. In the last few decades, however, China under Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao seems to have been moving away from populist egalitarianism and towards elite reform like that which characterized the Zhou, Tang, and Qing. This would seem to indicate a more expansionist but also more cosmopolitan style of political economy. China may also draw on its experience as a multi-state entity and accept the constant competition, periodic conflict, or even perpetual warfare that are characteristic of such a system. It seems more likely, however, that the Chinese will continue to be attracted by the model of cultural and political unity exemplified by the Shang, Sui, and Zhang Juzheng’s reforms. Indeed, in recent years,

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China under Xi Jinping seems to be inspired by the model of authoritarian centralization exemplified by the Qin, Yuan, and late Republic/early Peoples Republic that might be revived in China and extended to the rest of the world. In any case, the Chinese people have a menu of rich historical experiences to choose among. They need not follow a single model but can draw eclectically on several, benefiting from much room for maneuver. In the process, they will also influence and be influenced by the experiences and choices of other peoples, cultures, and polities around the globe.

Postface: Comparisons and Contrasts with Other Scholar Rebel Advisors around the Globe If the story/history of Li Yan makes sense in the context of other Chinese scholar rebel advisors active during the early, middle, and recent periods of Chinese history, how does it compare and contrast with the accounts of other scholar rebel advisors who lived in other parts of the world during comparable times? In this book, I have emphasized the importance and continuity of the ruler-minister relationship in Chinese history and the use of historical models in rationalizing both continuity and change in Chinese modes of governance over three millennia. I have also suggested that Chinese historical agents and historians have generally been comfortable with recurrence and open-endedness and less concerned with novelty and teleology in the unfolding of history and historiography. I began writing this book thinking that Chinese approaches to history and historiography were quite different from others, especially so-called “Western” ones. I continue to think that the Chinese have generally attached more value to history and historiography than to religion and science as sources of wisdom. Chinese scholars may also be more comfortable engaging in rebellions than their counterparts elsewhere. A full examination of these issues would go beyond the boundaries of this book, but I would like to address them in a preliminary way in this Postface. In short, I now think there may be more similarities than differences between Chinese and other narratives of scholar rebel advisors and their relations with their rulers. While this Postface is not brief, as the genre is supposed to be, it is definitely limited in scope, leaving it to others to pursue the issues more broadly, deeply, and comprehensively. Here I offer a bird’s eye view of nine relatively well-known pairs of officials and rulers active during the once “Western”—and now nearly world-wide— periods: “ancient,” “medieval” and “modern”. At the same time, I consider how these advisors and leaders understood their roles in history, and how they related to each other over time and space. I also examine whether or not they fit into a theory of world history in which five world regions came to serve as centers of five successive world orders, which rose and fell at an accelerating pace in an expanding space from earliest recorded times to the present.1 Unlike the seven preceding chapters of this book, which are based largely on original research in primary sources, this Postface depends heavily 1  For an outline of the theory, see Dai 2013, Fang translation; Des Forges 2016.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004421066_010

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on secondary sources. Like the rest of the book, the Postface focuses on male historical agents and historians, and it does not examine in depth the large related literature about women who played comparable roles in history and historiography.2 A

“Ancient” Mediterranea and India

Some years ago, I suggested that world history can be understood in terms of five different kinds of world orders that succeeded one another at an accelerating rate and in an expanding space over time. The first world region to center world history seems to have been East Africa, where we humans originated and developed over a period of some 100,000 years. Although wise men and women certainly existed in that period, archeological artifacts and oral traditions do not usually include the cultural technologies and institutions, such as writing and states, that would have enabled such scholars’ thoughts and activities to be recorded or would have permitted them to be engaged as rebel advisors. In other words, there are no known examples of scholar rebel advisors from that long period. The second world region, including Mesopotamia and Mediterranea, produced a different kind of world order, characterized by what I have called “power civilizations” that flourished from some 10,000 years ago to circa 500 CE. Clans, villages, towns, states, and empires produced records of scholar rebel advisors who played important and visible roles. Here we shall look at three such figures who were active in this region and in neighboring India toward the end of these ten millennia. Aristotle and Alexander Aristotle (385–322 BCE) is famous as the most systematic and rational thinker among early Greek philosophers, and Alexander (355–323) stands out as one of the world’s most ambitious conquerors.3 Aristotle was the son of the personal physician of King Philip of Macedonia (382–336). In 343 Aristotle was asked by Philip to tutor his thirteen-year-old son, Alexander, which he did for four years. Aristotle had previously studied with Plato (428–348) for twenty years. With support from Philip, he now founded his own Lyceum in Athens to teach 2  See, for example, insightful studies of: the warrior Joan of Arc, the villager Bertrande de Rols, and the rebel Madame de Stael, all in France; and Queen Padmini, in India. Pernoud and Clin with Adams 1998, Davis 1983, Herold 1958, and Sreenivasan 2007. 3  Fernandez-Armesto 2007: 177, 203.

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members of the middle class. He taught that the purpose of government is to organize society to achieve the greatest happiness of the greatest number. In his view, the three main forms of government—monarchy, aristocracy, and timocracy (i.e. rule by the honorable)—all had degenerate analogues: despotism, oligarchy, and democracy. Social inequality is natural but should not be extreme; the middle class should be larger than the rich and the poor classes. Aristotle wrote, “Since the highest virtue is intelligence, the pre-eminent duty of the state is not to train the citizens to military excellence, but to educate them for the right use of peace”.4 In 338 Philip used military force to impose unity on the Greeks and he revived the idea of conquering Persia. When he was assassinated two years later (allegedly by means of a Persian-backed conspiracy), his nineteen-yearold son Alexander became king. Alexander may have been driven by a wish to avenge his father’s death at the hands of the Persians and to gain control of the lucrative Indian Ocean trade.5 He may also have been inspired by the semilegendary exploits of Achilles, whose war on Troy had been celebrated in the Iliad, a multi-authored oral epic attributed to the semi-legendary writer Homer (ca. late 8th and early 7th centuries BCE). Alexander was said to have carried a copy of the book with him into battle and to have placed it under his pillow at night beside his dagger, “as if to symbolize the instrument and the goal”.6 Will Durant has suggested that The intellectual career of Aristotle, after he left his royal pupil, paralleled the military career of Alexander; both lives were expressions of conquest and synthesis. Perhaps it was the philosopher who instilled into the mind of the youth that ardor for unity which gave some grandeur to Alexander’s victories….7 Aristotle certainly tried to influence Alexander’s mind, but the student may have assumed imperial responsibilities before he was able to absorb the relevant lessons. Aristotle must have been pleased, however, when Alexander wrote to him saying, “For my part, I had rather surpass others in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and dominion.” In this

4  Durant 1939: 528–537. 5  Fernandez-Armesto 2007: 203. 6  Durant 1939: 208–210, 538. 7  Durant 1939: 538.

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vein, and possibly at Aristotle’s suggestion, Alexander sent a commission to explore the sources of the Nile.8 Alexander nonetheless embarked on military expansion and defeated Persia in three years. When the last Persian king was killed by his own men, Alexander declared himself “Great”. According to Durant, his goal was “the unification of the eastern Mediterranean world into one cultural whole, dominated and elevated by the expanding civilization of Greece”.9 Aristotle, perhaps predictably, encouraged Alexander to consider Greeks as civilized and Macedonians and others as barbarians, but Alexander counter-intuitively was impressed by Persian culture and actively promoted intermarriage between his troops and Persian women. He was said to be not so great a strategist but a very good soldier who bonded with his troops. He won battles through good luck and skillful use of his cavalry and infantry. He “liberated” Egypt from the Persians, took Babylon, and massacred the population of Gaza. He crossed the Indus river and wanted to press on to the Ganges, but his troops were suffering from the heat and they mutinied. Alexander was finally forced to turn back. Aristotle’s grand-nephew, Callisthenes (360–327), recorded Alexander’s campaigns, and boasted that, as a historian, he would ultimately determine Alexander’s reputation. Alexander took offense and jailed Callisthenes, thus ending his close relations with Aristotle. Aristotle, meanwhile, was not popular among Athenian authorities and rival schools of thought. After Alexander died at age thirty-three, reportedly during a drinking binge, Aristotle was charged by his critics with partisanship and impiety. He quietly left Athens, saying that he would not give the city a chance to sin for a second time against philosophy. The allusion was to Socrates (470–399), who had been compelled to commit suicide for allegedly corrupting the youth of Athens, e.g. by teaching them to think critically. The Athenians sentenced Aristotle to death but they had no opportunity to carry out the punishment as Aristotle died of illness at age sixty-three.10 Aristotle lived in a world characterized by nearly constant conflict among what I have called “national empires” which contended to maximize their wealth and power. Athens was as much of a slave holding empire as Sparta and Persia, if not more so. Aristotle accepted that system, which was destined to become normative in what came to be called the “West”. Aristotle nonetheless also assumed a central place in what became Western ethical philosophy,

8  Durant 1939: 539. “Exploration,” of course, often served as a euphemism for “conquest.” 9  Durant 1939: 542. 10  Durant 1939: 553.

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much as Confucius would do in East Asia.11 Aristotle’s emphasis on secular knowledge, on teaching the middle class, and on tutoring the heir to the throne, resonated with Confucianism. His analysis of three types of government, their deformations, and their responsibility to benefit their citizens reminds one of Sima Qian’s description of three kinds of polities, the search for the mean, and the state’s duty to promote the general welfare. Alexander’s intention to excel in knowledge more than in power was consistent with a Chinese ideal even if it was often honored in the breach at both ends of Eurasia. The quest for unity was also common to Alexander and the First August Lord of Qin, but it fell short of being realized in the Mediterranean while it was soon to be more nearly achieved in Qin China. This tolerance of disunity, attributable in part to geography and economics, but also to culture and philosophy, distinguished the Near and Middle East from the Far East, which would eventually develop an alternative form of world order. Kautilya and Chandragupta Ironically, one of the more important results of Alexander’s failed quest for unity and hegemony in Mediterannea and Mesopotamia was the appearance around 300 BCE of a confederation of resisting states headed by Chandragupta (470–399) in the Ganges valley of northeast India.12 The early Indian epic, the Mahabharata, which contains the “Bhagavad Gita”, was already calling for both the acceptance and the transcendence of warfare.13 Although more literary than historical, this text, like Homer’s epics in the Mediterranean, strongly influenced subsequent statecraft. A scholar named Kautilya (371– 283), serving as an advisor to Chandragupta, then compiled a text titled the Arthashastra (the science of politics), which was a little less authoritarian and violent than the Mahabaharata. The Arthashastra nonetheless “explicitly advocates conquest and holds the opinion that the best leader is a ‘conqueror’ who actively seeks to maximize power at all times, and who also constantly prepares for war either actively or passively”.14 Kautilya advocated such tactics as deceit, deception, treachery, and assassination. He put forth a vision of “how to establish and guard a state while neutralizing, subverting, and … conquering its neighbors”.15 In Kautilya’s world, no alliance is permanent and covert intelligence operations are legitimate. To be sure, the goal was to build 11  For surprising similarities between the ethics of Aristotle and those of Confucius, see Yu 2007. 12   Fernandez-Armesto 2007: 211. 13  Gilboy and Heginbotham 2012: 29. 14  Gilboy and Heginbotham 2012: 30. 15  Kautilya 1992: 2.35–37, p. 525, cited in Kissinger 2014: 195, 196, 391.

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a “harmonious universal empire” and to “uphold the dharma” just as it was in early China, where the search was for the Way. To those ends, restraint, indirection, and humanitarian conduct were useful. A king who abused his subjects would forfeit their support; a conqueror who violated people’s customs would encounter resistance. As it happened, King Chandragupta and his successors, including Ashoka (r. ca. 260 BCE), used Kautilya’s methods, among others, to found and develop a powerful unified empire called Maurya, which asserted control over most of today’s South Asia, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and parts of Afghanistan and Iran. Late in life, however, Ashoka converted to the Buddhist faith that espoused peace and mercy. Together with Jainism, which advocated non-violence, Buddhism provided an attractive alternative to—or at least a complement of—Kautilya’s realpolitik vision. It became influential in South Asia and spread to East and Southeast Asia. Maurya therefore arguably evolved into what I have called a “culture state” like those that appeared in China.16 Kautilya’s realpolitik, however important, was no more central to Indian civilization than Han Feizi’s ideas were to Chinese civilization. Nor was Kautilya’s concept of the prince any less “modern” than Machiavelli’s. Kautilya’s assumption that the goal of statecraft was to achieve peace and unity was akin to that of most Chinese scholar rebel advisors. Chandraguipta’s and Ashoka’s success in establishing the Mauryan polity anticipated that of the First August Lord of the Qin and the commoner founder Han Gaozu. Cicero and Caesar After the Greeks failed to unify Mesopotamia and Mediterranea into a single national imperial polity, it was the Romans’ turn to try. Two of the leading figures in the Roman polity on the eve of its peak were Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE) and Caius Julius Caesar (100–44 BCE). They were clearly scholars, with Cicero excelling in oratory and Caesar in prose. They were also rebels, dedicated to preventing the revival of monarchy and to reforming the republic from the top down. They played roughly equal, complementary, and sometimes conflicting roles, but Julius Caesar was finally elected to the highest possible post of dictator and had control of the military. Cicero, who excelled in rhetoric and the civil arts, therefore ended up more as an advisor to Caesar than Caesar was to Cicero. They shared authority and the fungible nature of the Roman ruler and his principal ministers was reminiscent of early Chinese rulers and their main officials. 16  Des Forges 2016: 191–211.

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Cicero had studied public speaking in Greece and admired the orator Demosthenes (384–322), who was a leading critic of Alexander. Cicero is also often thought of as an upright scholar who spoke truth to his leader. Durant nonetheless reminds us that Cicero married a wealthy woman and became a leading member of the Roman establishment. He gave five speeches against corruption in the Roman senate that won him election to the executive branch of government, the consulate, in 63 BCE. Caesar, in contrast, was from the nobility and married into a family that was inclined to radical politics. Cicero was critical of Lucius Sergius Catiline (108–62), who called for debt relief for the poor and other social policies. When Catiline ran for election against Cicero and lost, Cicero claimed that Catiline had conspired to assassinate him. Cicero had Catiline prosecuted, and, when he was found guilty, Cicero argued that he should be executed. Caesar, who had begun his political career as a secret ally of Catiline, believed that he should be jailed but not executed. Caesar, like Catiline, favored radical social policies, including a lower cap on interest rates on loans from state banks and the redistribution of land to address a growing gap between the rich and the poor. Cicero won the debate over how to deal with Catiline, and agents were sent to Gaul to kill him and all of his supporters. Cicero was like Li Yan in criticizing his leader but he was also like Niu Jinxing in conspiring to destroy a fellow official. Cicero compared himself with Romulus (mid to late 8th century BCE) and declared that it was a greater achievement to save Rome than it had been to found it. This was a common theme in Chinese politics from Zhou times on, and, as we have seen, it was explicitly expressed by Wei Zheng in the Tang. Caesar’s concern with social questions, including inequality in the distribution of wealth, resonates with perennial Chinese attention to such issues. It reminds us that the social question has deep roots in human experience and should not be categorized as an exclusively modern or radical consciousness.17 Caesar appeared to be following Alexander’s advocacy when he wrote, “… it is a nobler thing to enlarge the boundaries of human intelligence than to expand those of the Roman empire.” Cicero seemed to share Caesar’s view when he wrote that “All men are brothers and the whole world is to be considered as the common city of gods and men.”18 The words “all men are brothers” could have been taken from the Chinese Ming-period historical novel Lives in the Marsh 17  For the argument that concern for the social question leads to undemocratic politics, see Arendt 1963/2016. For a somewhat different view, see Moyn 2018. I am grateful to Alexander Des Forges for bringing this latter study to my attention and to Ken Roth for pointing out its misunderstanding that the claims of human rights defenders are limited by design. 18  Durant 1944: 140–145, 161–162, 166.

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which idealized social bandits who attacked the wealthy and the corrupt in the prosperous but disunited Song polity. Cicero and Caesar nonetheless continued to disagree on social policies and engaged in a fierce struggle for political power. Caesar formed a Triumvirate with Pompey (106–48) and Crassus (115–53), reputed to be the two richest men in Rome, but he also carried out some social reforms, including land reform. Caesar backed Clodius (ca. 54 BCE), an aristocrat who had followed Catiline in trying to redistribute wealth and who wanted to destroy Cicero. Cicero charged Clodius with womanizing and fraternizing with the populares. Cicero was driven from Rome by Caesar, Crassus, and Clodius, but returned with the help of Pompey, who was put in charge of the distribution of grain. Caesar used his own money to form four extra legions to resist the Germanic invasions of Gaul, and he turned Gaul into a province with the approval of Rome. Caesar then used booty from Gaul to construct buildings, hire the unemployed, finance elections, and recompense himself and his supporters. By these methods Caesar saved his reforms from Cicero’s attacks. Caesar defeated the Germans on the Rhine, crossed the channel to invade Britain twice, and then returned to Gaul. According to one account, Caesar’s administration of Gaul was so generous that it was accepted by the Gauls. That, of course, was a common colonial conceit. Regarding Caesar, Cicero acknowledged, “It is not the ramparts of the Alps, nor the foaming and flooding Rhine, but the arms and generalship of Caesar which I account our true shield and barrier against the invasion of the Gauls and the barbarous tribes of Germany.”19 Similar sentiments, we have seen, would later be expressed by Tang Taizong concerning one of his generals who was more effective than walls in warding off the Turks on the northern frontier. Warfare on the frontiers and factionalism in Rome nonetheless thinned the ranks of the leadership. Crassus led troops to Syria and was killed there. Clodius physically assaulted Cicero on the street in Rome and had his men burn down one of Cicero’s many houses, but Clodius himself was soon killed. Pompey became the only consul. He used his position to fight corruption, rescinded Caesar’s right to stand for election, and was elected dictator by the senate. Caesar gathered his troops and took Spain from Pompey. He then returned to Rome, where the senate named him dictator and one of two consuls. He reformed interest rates but did not try to redistribute land. He then went after Pompey. Cicero at this point joined the Pompeyans even though he was offended by their discussions about sharing the spoils. In the final battle on 9 August 48 BCE, Caesar extended amnesty to all who surrendered, 19  Durant 1944: 169–178.

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including his son Marcus Brutus (85–42). Pompey’s forces were defeated. He fled to Alexandria in Egypt, where he was killed by a eunuch advisor of the young Ptolemy XII (r. 80–58, 55–51), who hoped to ingratiate himself with Caesar. Caesar went to Egypt and installed Cleopatra (r. 51–30) and her brother on the throne. He then marched north into Asia where he issued his famous boast: “I came, I saw, I conquered (Veni, vidi, vici)”.20 During Caesar’s twenty-month absence from Rome, the city fell into civil war and social revolution. Upon his return, he appeased the radicals by cancelling all debts and he reached out to conservatives by assuring them that he would not abet any war against property. In 46 BCE he was elected by the senate dictator for ten years, and, two years later, his term was extended to life. He expanded the senate by fifty percent and reduced its authority to that of an advisory council. In Durant’s words, “Cicero sought to unite the middle classes with the aristocracy; Caesar sought to unite them with the plebs.” We may see a parallel here between Li Yan, who wished to unite with social superiors and Niu Jinxing, who wanted to ally with social inferiors. Caesar controlled interest rates, established a bankruptcy law, reduced vote buying, limited rural slavery, extended citizenship to all Italians, distributed lands to veterans and the poor, promoted public libraries, conducted a census, encouraged fertility, established a new calendar, allowed freedom of religion, based the currency on gold, drained marshes, and built dikes, roads, and canals. In short, in the eyes of an American historian, Will Durant, writing in 1944, Caesar became “one of the ablest, bravest, fairest, and most enlightened men in all the sorry annals of politics.” Cicero, in turn, acclaimed Caesar’s “unbelievable liberality” and admitted that Pompey, had he been victorious, would have been more vengeful. According to Durant, Cicero “solemnly promised Caesar, in the name of all the Senate, that they would watch over his safety and oppose with their own bodies any attack upon him.” Cicero accumulated more mansions, attended more state dinners, and wrote more happy letters than ever before. But Caesar was not deceived. He wrote to a friend, “If anyone is gracious, it is Cicero; but I doubt not that he hates me bitterly.” In any case, the Pompeians resumed their opposition to Caesar and Cicero wrote a eulogy to the leading conservative politician Cato (95–46), who was no friend of Caesar’s. Caesar responded with an essay of his own, but it did not match Cicero’s in eloquence. Caesar was losing the battle for upper-class public opinion. Some people even feared that Caesar would marry Cleopatra, become king, and move the capital to the east. 20  Durant 1944: 178–189.

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He played into their hands by having statues of himself erected with the early kings of Rome, putting his image on coins, and wearing purple.21 As Caesar consolidated his benevolent dictatorship, an obscure man named Gaius Cassius (85–42) first suggested that Marcus Brutus should consider assassination. Cassius had already gained the support of several senators, wealthy men who felt threatened by Caesar’s reforms, and troops who felt they had been inadequately compensated by Caesar. Brutus was widely regarded as a virtuous man who was descended from the Brutus who had expelled the kings from Rome 464 years before. Marcus Brutus’ mother was Servilla, half-sister of the conservative politician Cato, and his wife was Portia, Cato’s daughter. Marcus Brutus may have been Caesar’s illegitimate son because Caesar had been Servilla’s lover when Brutus was born. Plutarch (46–120 CE) reported that Caesar thought Brutus was his son and Brutus may have thought so, too. Indeed, Brutus may have resented being regarded as a bastard son of Caesar rather than as a legitimate descendant of the historical Brutus. Marcus Brutus wrote a treatise on virtue, but also made loans at forty-eight percent interest and asked Cicero to help him collect them. Cicero dedicated several treatises to Brutus during these years. Cassius and others reminded Brutus of his noble ancestry, perhaps causing him to want to prove it by imitation. Finally, it was rumored that, at the next meeting of the senate on 15 March, a senator would move to make Caesar king and his supporters would have the votes to make the change, which would become irrevocable. Caesar’s wife was aware of the prophecy to “beware the ides of March” and tried to persuade him not to go to the meeting, but he insisted on going anyway. When Brutus rushed to stab him, Caesar uttered the query, “You too, my child?” Caesar died quickly, fulfilling the wish he had made the previous evening. With dagger in hand, Brutus proclaimed Cicero the “Father of his Country”. Cicero was uncharacteristically mute, but he soon indicated his position by joining the assassins. Marc Antony (83–30), who considered himself to be Caesar’s heir, convened the Senate, which approved Cicero’s proposal of a general amnesty and named Cassius and Brutus to provincial governorships. Caesar’s will, however, had designated his grandnephew Caius Octavianus (63 BCE–14 CE) as his son and heir. In 44 BCE, at age eighteen, Octavian began to create his own army and Antony charged him with trying to assassinate him. Cicero took advantage of the struggle to persuade Octavian that Antony was a ruffian who must be defeated. Octavian returned to Rome to head the Senate’s legions as well as his own. He compelled the senate to name him consul, to repeal the amnesty to the conspirators, and to sentence them all to death. Discovering that Cicero and 21  Durant 1944: 190–195.

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the senate were now his enemies and were simply using him as a tool against Antony, Octavian joined Antony and Lepidus in forming a Second Triumvirate (43–33). They marched on Rome, took it without resistance, and persuaded the assembly to give them authority for five years. They then unleashed “the bloodiest reign of terror in Roman history.” They listed 300 senators and 2,000 businessmen for execution. Antony placed Cicero high on the list of those to be killed for personal reasons and for his support of the assassins. Octavian protested but not for long, given Cicero’s glorification of Caesar’s assassins and Cicero’s subtle hint that Octavian might eventually have to be killed as well. Cicero fled Rome, but finally chose quick and certain death at the hands of assassins over prolonged pain and possible drowning at sea. To Antony’s delight, Cicero’s head and right hand were hung in the forum, macabre reminders of Cicero’s intelligence and scholarship, as well as the price he paid for them.22 The relationship between Cicero and Caesar may remind us of similar relationships in China. The seeming oxymoron of an “elected dictator”, with roots in Greek thought, has something in common with the legitimacy of “hegemons” in the Spring and Autumn period and of “authoritarian centralizers” in and after the Qin polity. The situation in which Roman advisors and rulers had almost equal authority existed as well in the case of Li Si and the First August Lord of Qin. The Romans’ common concern with control over the distribution of grain and with maintenance of discipline in the military resembles similar concerns in Chinese statecraft. Roman debates over social and economic policies, such as interest rates and land reform, echo similar debates in the roughly contemporaneous Han polity. Rumors, prophecies, and assassinations also appear prominently in the Li Yan history and story. The contrast between the naked struggle for power in the Roman state and the many legal niceties invoked as tools in that struggle is quite striking. Finally, Will Durant’s preference for Caesar’s populist politics and social reforms over Cicero’s patrician plutocracy and personal aggrandizement may reflect his sentiments regarding the New Deal, which had recently been implemented and contested in his native North America. In sum, Aristotle, Kautilya, and Cicero served as effective scholar rebel advisors in the power-oriented polities that centered the world during the period 10,000 BCE to ca. 500 CE. They were unsuccessful in unifying their known world, however, which set them apart from South and East Asian contemporaries and successors who would come to serve what I have called “culture states.” 22  Durant 1944: 196–202.

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“Medieval” and Renaissance Europe

After the fall of Rome, Europe went through a short period of division and religion that became known as the “dark ages”. It was followed by a much longer period that was eventually called “medieval”. This period, once depreciated in European historiography, has long since been rehabilitated.23 It remains true, however, that the scholar-rebel-advisor Einhardus and his ruler Charlemagne were the only fully historical statesmen to come close to unifying or reunifying Europe in this period.24 At the same time, the quest for peace, unity, and good government was evident in the mythistory of the scholar-rebel-advisor Merlin and his ruler, King Arthur (r. 475?–542? CE), who may have governed a small part of Europe for a short time and kept alive the idea of a united Europe. Division, however, remained the European default position, cultural norm, and standard expectation. When Machiavelli wrote his book in what came to be called the Italian Renaissance, he assumed that Italy (not to speak of Europe) would continue to be organized as a multi-state system. It therefore could only be expected to continue to be torn by perennial warfare, hardly a regional—let alone a global—world order. Merlin and King Arthur With the decline of Roman authority over the islands known as Britanniae (Britain) in the fourth century CE, several groups of people contended for power. In the north there were Picts; in the east Norse, Angles, and Saxons; and in the west the Celts of Wales and Scots of Ireland. A British leader named Vortigern called on the Angles and Saxons to help resist the Picts and Scots. The Angles and Saxons gradually became dominant on the islands that consequently came to be known as England. Most Britons accepted the conquest, but some crossed the channel and occupied the region on the continent that became known as Bretagne or Brittany. Among them was a Welshman named Gildas, who wrote a history titled The Partitioning and Conquest of Britain (ca. 540 CE). It referred to one Ambrosius Aurelianus, “a moderate man, who by chance … had survived the shock … and, challenging the conquerors in battle, by God’s favor the victory fell to them”.25 Two and a half centuries later, an Anglo-Saxon named Nennius, in a book titled The History of Britain (Historia Brittonum), ca. 800, described Britons before and during the Anglo-Saxon conquest. In his words, 23  Canter 1991. 24  Einhardus and Sot 2015. 25  Durant 1950: 80–81; Eisenberg et al. 1990: 376; see also Gildas 1978.

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At that time the Saxons grew powerful in great numbers and increased in Britain…. Then Arthur fought against them in those days together with the kings of Britain, but he was himself the leader of battles…. The twelfth was the battle of Mount Badon, in which on one day nine hundred and sixty men fell to the ground during the onset of Arthur; and no one overthrew them save himself alone, and in all the battles he emerged the victor.26 Taken together, these two records suggest the existence of one or two British fighters who were at least temporarily successful in resisting the process of turning Britain into England. Three centuries later, a Welsh cleric named Geoffrey of Monmouth (1100– 1154), wrote A History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regnum Britanniae). He traced the history of the British people to the royal family of Troy which gave them deeper roots than the Romans had. Geoffrey’s book provided “the first fully developed account of Arthur”. In his dedication of the book to Henry I, Robert Earl of Gloucester (r 12th century), Geoffrey discussed its background. He acknowledged that he had found no written records of the kings of Britain before and after Arthur “albeit that their deeds be worthy of praise everlasting and be as pleasantly rehearsed from memory by word of mouth in the traditions of many peoples as though they had been written down. Then Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford [d. 1151], a man learned not only in the art of eloquence but in the histories of foreign lands, offered me a certain most ancient book in the British language that did set forth the doings of them all in due succession and order from Brute [of Troy], the first king of the Britons, onward … all told in stories of exceeding beauty.27 Geoffrey claimed to have translated the book from old British into Latin in 1136, and Robert Wace supposedly translated the Latin version into French in 1155. The book described a man named Uther Pendragon, who restored peace everywhere, administered justice throughout the land, and convened the barons to attend a banquet to celebrate his crowning as king. At the banquet he was smitten by Igerna, the beautiful wife of Gorlois, the Duke of Cornwall. He shared his food with her and made clear his intention to have her for himself. The Duke was angry and left the dinner with his wife. Thereafter, under attack by Uther, the Duke barricaded his wife in a castle at Tintagel. Uther 26  Eisenberg et al. 1990: 377–378. 27  Eisenberg et al. 1990: 378–379.

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asked his subordinates for a plan that would enable him to break into the castle, and one of them recommended that he consult with a prophet named Merlin who would take the matter in hand. Merlin used his magical power to turn King Uther into a replica of the Duke, and he, Merlin, turned himself into one of Gorlois’ men, making it possible for them to enter the castle and for the King to spend the night with his beloved. According to the text, “… upon that same night was the most renowned Arthur conceived, that was not only famous in after years, but was well worthy of all the fame he did achieve by his surpassing prowess”.28 When Uther died, the archbishop and other prelates invested Arthur “with the crown of the realm”. At that time, Arthur was a youth of fifteen years, of a courage and generosity beyond compare, whereupon his inborn goodness did lend such grace as that he was beloved of well-nigh all the peoples in the land. After he had been invested with the ensigns of royalty, he abided by his ancient wont, and was so prodigal of his bounties as that he began to run short of wherewithal to distribute amongst the huge multitude of knights that made repair unto him. But he hath within him a bountiful nature along with prowess, albeit that he be lacking for a time, natheless in no wise shall poverty be his bane for ever. Wherefore did Arthur, for that in him did valour keep company with largesse, make resolve to harry the Saxons, to the end that with their treasure he might make rich the retainers that were of his own household. And herein was he monished of his own lawful right, seeing that of right ought he to hold the sovereignty of the whole island in virtue of his claim hereditary.29 In short, Arthur was not only brave and talented; he was also generous in sharing resources with members of his own household and inhabitants of his home islands. As in the case of Li Yan, Arthur’s generosity reportedly earned him widespread affection among his beneficiaries. If Arthur was “beloved by well-nigh all,” however, he was, by turns, also pragmatic, merciless, uncompromising, and expansionist in his dealings with enemies. In battles against the Saxons, Scots, and Picts, he sacrificed many of his own men when victory seemed possible, but he also followed counsel to withdraw when he was outnumbered. One is reminded of a principle of the Chinese military strategist Sun Zi and of commander Lin Biao’s explanation for 28  Eisenberg et al. 1990: 379–381. 29  Eisenberg et al. 1990: 382.

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his military victories in northeast China. During the battle at Caledon, when the Saxons took shelter in the woods, Arthur had part of the forest felled and attempted to starve any survivors to death. Professedly following Christ, who had laid down his life for his brethren, Arthur wore a crown engraved with a dragon; carried a shield with the image of Mary; wielded Caliburn, the best of swords, forged on the island of Avalon; and single-handedly killed 470 men. Frustrated in dealing with the northwest frontier, “[w]hen he had won the victory, he again gave all his thoughts to doing away utterly the race of the Scots and Picts, and yielded him to treating them with a cruelty beyond compare.” When the priests appealed to him for mercy, he made no response. Arthur thought of himself as a monarch whose writ included more than the British isles. In preparing to celebrate his reign, “[m]essengers were sent forth into the divers kingdoms, and all that owed allegiance throughout the Gauls and the neighboring islands were invited unto the court.” Denmark, Flanders, Normandy, and Gaul were all represented. “Besides all these, not a single Prince of any price on this side of Spain remained at home and came not upon the proclamation. And no marvel, for Arthur’s bounty was of common report throughout the whole wide world, and all men for his sake were fain to come.” And the envoys came not just because of Arthur but also because of the polity he governed. “For at that time was Britain exalted unto so high a pitch of dignity as that it did surpass all other kingdoms in plenty of riches, in luxury of adornment, and in the courteous wit of them that dwelt therein.”30 Thus, by harsh measures, including ecocide and genocide, did the popular king Arthur come to reign over much of the known world. About three centuries later, Thomas Malory (d. 1472) wrote The Death of Arthur (Le Morte d’Arthur), which further developed the story of King Arthur and his knights of the round table. The precise identity of Malory is debated, but he seems to have been a knight from Warwickshire or Yorkshire in Britain who saw action in the siege of Calais in 1436 and in southwestern France, and who spent much of the last twenty years of his life in and out of prison on charges of armed robbery, rape, and attempted murder. Malory is thought to have seen a parallel between the overthrow of King Arthur’s rule and the decline of Lancastrian fortunes in his own day. More generally, he mourned the passing of the age of chivalry associated with what came to be known as “the late Middle Ages.”31 Malory added details to the story of the prophet Merlin and the king Arthur that romanticized it while also turning it into a tragedy. We are reminded here 30  Eisenberg et al. 1990: 382–389. 31  Malory 1987: frontispiece, viii–ix.

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of Wu Weiye’s contributions to the Li Yan story. Merlin not only arranged for the birth of Arthur, but got Uther’s permission to have him raised by Sir Ector and his wife. Merlin also presided over a grand meeting on Christmas of the barons and the Archbishop of Canterbury to celebrate Arthur’s succession to his ailing father Uther. Malory added the test of pulling the sword from a rock as a requirement for becoming a “king born of all England”. Arthur succeeded in pulling it out, not for himself but for a brother so that he might be armed to defend himself. Continuing the tradition of having the people legitimate the monarchy, Malory wrote that both the rich and the poor called on Arthur to become king, saying “We will have Arthur unto our king.” There was some opposition, but, within a few years, “Arthur won all the North, Scotland and all that were under their obeisance, also Wales. A part of it held against Arthur, but he overcame them all as he did the remnant, through the noble prowess of himself and his knights of the Round Table.” King Arthur’s nephew, Mordred, already ruler of England, now manufactured letters reporting that King Arthur and Lancelot had been slain in battle, and he called together the lords to have him (Mordred) crowned as king at Canterbury. Mordred also tried to take Queen Guinevere as his wife, but she fled to London and established herself in the tower. When the Bishop of Canterbury failed to persuade Mordred to desist in his incestuous project, Arthur raised a force to put him down. Arthur regretted his past conflict with Lancelot and the end of the knights of the round table. He died with many women attending him and Guinevere became a nun. Malory concluded: Yet some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another place; and men say that he shall come again, and he shall win the Holy Cross. Yet I will not say that it shall be so, but rather I would say: here in this world he changed his life. And many men say that there is written upon the tomb this: Hic iacet arthurus rex quondam rexque futurus.32 Thus began the idea that, whatever the questions about King Arthur’s past, he might be expected to come again in the future. Questions there were, however, that eventually led some observers to doubt the extent of Arthur’s achievements or even his existence. Among them was Roger Loomis (1887–1966), a professor at Columbia University, who published two essays on how Arthur and Celtic myths spread from Britain to France. In his words, 32  Eisenberg et al. 1990: 392–403.

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… Arthur, who had vanished from this earthly scene in the sixth century, an obscure figure, remembered only by his fellow Britons, has become for their descendants, seven centuries later, not merely a glorious king, but an emperor, and for the French and Anglo-Normans the centre of the most adventurous circle of knights the world had ever seen.33 There were two main agents in the establishment of Arthur’s prestige outside Celtic lands. First, many Bretons left their homes in Wales and Cornwall and made their way across the channel into what became Brittany. Among them were story-tellers (conteurs) who spoke French and transmitted tales back and forth between Britain and France. Their audiences, somewhat bored by a monotonous diet of epics dealing with the quarrels and wars of Charlemagne and his paladins, were fascinated by the new and various tales of love and adventure, and were easily persuaded to accept the Breton image of Arthur as the nonpareil of kings.34 After 1066, William the Norman Conqueror awarded many fiefs all over England to Breton knights who had assisted in the conquest, and Breton entertainers were welcome in their households as well as in the halls of the Anglo-Normans. The second “great intermediary between the Celtic peoples and the non-Celts in spreading the renown of Arthur” was Geoffrey of Monmouth (1095–1155), as we have seen. He may have been born of Breton parents who settled in Monmouth, received an excellent education at Oxford, was ordained a priest and promoted to bishop, and witnessed the signing of the charter at Westminster assuring Henry of Anjou succession to the English throne. His patrons included Henry I, Robert Earl of Gloucester, to whom he dedicated his book. In Loomis’ view, Geoffrey’s History of the Kings of Britain, which he claimed to have translated from an ancient book imported from Brittany, “was one of the world’s most brazen and successful frauds”. At the same time, “the little book in Latin containing alleged prophecies of Merlin” was “another piece of mystification”.35 Loomis acknowledged that there had been a Welsh poet named Myrddin, whose fame as a soothsayer had spread to Anglo-Norman circles, but he had been active centuries earlier and could not have been an advisor to King Arthur, 33  Eisenberg et al. 1990: 408. 34  Eisenberg et al. 1990: 409. 35  Eisenberg et al. 1990: 410.

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if Arthur even existed. Merlin’s supposed prediction about Arthur shows only that Geoffrey had “sketched in his mind a glorious career of conquest for the British hero”. The prophecy read: The Boar of Cornwall shall bring succor [to the Britons] and shall trample the necks [of the Saxons] under their feet. The islands of the ocean shall be subdued to his power, and he shall possess the forests of Gaul. The house of Romulus shall dread his fierceness, and his end shall be doubtful. In the mouths of peoples, he shall be celebrated, and his deeds shall be food to the tellers of tales.36 Loomis admitted that Geoffrey drew some of his material from credible sources such as Caesar and Bede (672–735), but, he charged, “… even when Geoffrey had reliable material he used it with cynical ingenuity to create fiction”. When he came up short on names for Arthur’s second coronation, for example, he selected names at random from ancient Welsh genealogies. “And when he could find no record of the kings who succeeded Arthur he arbitrarily took the names from Gildas’s invective against several kings reigning simultaneously in Britain, and strung them along seriatim. From Ninnius, Geoffrey lifted the meager notion that the first conqueror and colonizer of Albion was a Trojan named Brutus, and he then proceeded to stretch it out into a prose Aeneid with Brutus as the hero. The story of Vertigern’s tower and the clairvoyant boy also came from Nennius. Geoffrey arbitrarily identified the boy with the youthful Merlin. The name of Uther Pendragon is known to genuine Welsh tradition, but it was probably the misinterpretation of a passage in Nennius which led Geoffrey to make him the father of Arthur. The battles with the Saxons derive from the same source, but their number has been reduced from twelve to three, and these have been treated with much imaginary detail and with much attention to the geography of the campaign. For the supreme victory at Badon, arbitrarily equated with Bath, Arthur armed himself with his shield Pridwen, the sword Caliburn, and the spear Ron—names derived more or less directly from Wales.37 Loomis argued that the birth of Arthur was based on a Cornish legend; victory over Roman legions was founded on a Welsh tradition; Modred’s treachery and 36  Eisenberg et al. 1990: 410–411. 37  Eisenberg et al. 1990: 411.

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conquest of Guinevere, and the fatal battle at the River Camel were all first recorded in the Annals of Wales. “However much his Breton friends desired Arthur’s messianic return,” Loomis thought, “his Anglo-Norman patrons would find it embarrassing.” Loomis was more admiring of Geoffrey’s pioneering depiction of sexual love as an “enobling and refining force” and his writing of a “history” that “disarmed skepticism and was welcomed by the learned world.” But Loomis agreed with William of Newburgh who in the twelfth-century accused Geoffrey of disguising fables as history. He concluded by noting the appeal of the Arthurian tales as political ideology. In his words, “[the] kings of England could be grateful to a historian who provided them with a predecessor who had conquered all of western Europe except Spain, and whose ancestors … had seized even Rome.”38 In response to such doubts about Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account of the origins and growth of the King Arthur story, in 1985 Geoffrey Ashe (1923–) built on five of his previous books and published a sixth titled The Discovery of King Arthur. He argued that in the fifth century CE, between the end of Roman authority in Britain and the Anglo-Saxon invasion of the islands, there was a brief revival of British self-rule. “Since the resurgence came to be summed up and symbolized in the figure of Arthur, historians have sometimes called it the Arthurian Fact.”39 Arthur was a regional restitutor who drove back foreigners, recruited men of ability, championed Christianity, was good at war, and achieved peace. Advocates of an exclusively Welsh Arthur attempted to document his role in time and place but without success. Writers who took continental sources seriously, on the other hand, described Arthur’s role in Gaul. Chretian de Troyes, in Arthurian Romances, 1955, had him hold court in Brittany, a German poet of the grail put him in Nantes, and Malory recounted his participation in two wars in Gaul, one against the Romans and the other against his erstwhile knight Lancelot.40 Geoffrey of Monmouth was the only writer to give dates to Arthur’s campaigns in Gaul but he did it three times.41 In 468 Emperor Anthemius asked the head of a Breton force, named Riotimus, for assistance against Euric, king of the Visigoths.42 In Ashe’s words, “He was the King known on the Continent as Riothamus [ca. 470 CE], to whom Sidonis [430–489] wrote a letter.” Like the storied Arthur,

38  Eisenberg et al. 1990: 412–413. 39  Ashe 1985: 59. 40  de Troyes 1955. 41  Ashe 1985: 93. 42  Jordanes 1915.

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Riothamus too led an army of Bretons into Gaul, and was the only British King who did. He too advanced to the neighborhood of Burgundy. He too was betrayed by a deputy ruler who treated with barbarian enemies. He too is last located in Gaul among the pro-Roman Burgundians. He too disappears after a fatal battle, without any recorded death. The line of his retreat, prolonged on a map, shows that he was going in the directions of the real Avalon. As for the date, he was on the Continent not only in Leo’s reign but in those precise years, 469–70, from which Geoffrey, browsing among chronicles, could have got his names for all three dignitaries: his Eastern Emperor, his Western Emperor, and his Pope.43 Ashe continues: “Riothamus is a Latin rendering of a British name, and Arthur … is the Roman name Artorius.” Moreover “[i]n its original form Riothamus would have been Rigotamos,” meaning “supreme king,” a title analogous to Augustus, Genghis Khan, and generalissimo.44 To be sure, “the main enemy was wrong. For Geoffrey’s Arthur the Romans were opponents. For Riothamus they were allies, however unreliable and in the end absent.” But changes of enemy are not unknown in heroic literature when the story demands them. One thinks here of the idea that the focus of Li Yan’s enmity might have shifted from the Ming to the Qing, enabling him to become a Ming-loyalist just as Li Zicheng feared he would. The French epic of the death of Charlemagne’s paladin Roland turns the enemy from Basques, as they certainly were, into Saracens.45 In 1799 Sharon Turner’s History of the Anglo-Saxons argued, “either this Riothamus was Arthur, or it was from his expedition that Geoffrey, or the Breton bards, took the idea of Arthur’s battles in Gaul.” Turner turned away from the solution because he thought that Arthur had to be dated later, but we now know that was not the case. So, according to Ashe, “[m]aybe Riothamus was Arthur, just like that, but maybe the connection is due merely to literary fancy.” Either way, [i]t is no longer a question of trying to prove that a historical Arthur existed. Riothamus, the High King, did exist. Sidonius’s letter would be proof enough by itself. The question now is whether the traditions and legends of Arthur are, at however many removes, about this man.46

43  Ashe 1985: 53, 96. 44  Ashe 1985: 97. 45  Ashe 1985: 98. 46  Ashe 1985: 100.

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We might add that we now face almost the exact same question about Li Yan; he existed as a historical figure, but how much of his hagiography comes from documented records and how much from mere rumors? In 1927, E.K. Chambers in Arthur and Britain cited William’s Legend of St. Goeznovius of 1019 for the idea of Arthur fighting only Saxons in Britain and Gaul between 460 and 470, thus embedding “Arthur in history as no one else convincingly does.”47 Readers may decide whether we have achieved a similar result regarding Li Yan. With Arthur-Riothamus in mind, we can prune the Arthur story and trace its development with more confidence. Arthur was mentioned only in Britain and Riothamus only on the continent, so Arthur-Riothamus could have been a composite figure. Uther was not real and not the father of Arthur. Arthur-Riothamus could have conducted seven battles in four places in Britain in the Welsh tradition before going overseas. He died around 469 so he could not have participated in the battles of Badon and Camlann, though his men might have participated in his name.48 The Arthurian fact is the Britons’ rally which Arthur, by virtue of his character, fame, or fortune, came to symbolize.49 Arthur mediated between pagans and Christians, Saxons and Britons, and that contributed to twelve years of peace.50 Oral story-telling made Arthur primarily a warrior while Nennius hinted at low social status. Real associates included comrade in arms Caiuss, enemy Medrault, warrior Gawain, and wife Gwenhwyvaer. Hagiographies of saints depicted Arthur as domineering and of doubtful legitimacy. Gildas charged Arthur with killing Gildas’ older brother and failing to recover his own wife who was rescued by Lancelot.51 Geoffrey, therefore, was not developing the Welsh Arthur further, but was “recreating an Arthur closer to history with the aid of other materials”.52 After 1066, Normans took over the kingship and Bretons migrated back to their ancestral island to share in the spoils. This may have precipitated rumors of his second coming or at least his rediscovery. Geoffrey of Monmouth may have wanted to give the Welsh and Bretons a glorious past and flatter some of the ruling Normans by making them inheritors of a splendid kingdom with historical claims beyond England. Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122–1204) wife of Henry II (1133–1189) of England, directed Cretien de Troyes (fl. ca. 1160–1191) to write verse romances which introduced Lancelot and the holy grail and provided 47  Ashe 1985: 105. 48  Ashe 1985: 115–122. 49  Ashe 1985: 129. 50  Ashe 1985: 135. 51  Ashe 1985: 136–145. 52  Ashe 1986: 160.

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Henry with a spiritual predecessor of a period earlier than Charlemagne who stood behind the French throne. In 1187 the name Arthur was given to Henry’s grandson, who expected to rule as Arthur II before being prevented from doing so, thereby losing most of Britain’s continental empire. In the twelfth century, Arthur was demoted from history to magic (escalibur), from individual to group (Camelot), and from uncle to father (of Modred). “Arthur is not so much a monarch of noble qualities as a monarch who brings them out in others.” We are reminded here of Han Gaozu’s claim that the second reason for his success was his wisdom in using others. Mao Zedong accepted that claim as valid even if he did not always abide by it. Arthurian romances, such as Guinevere with Lancelot, are upper class, while Robin Hood stories are lower class.53 Guinevere faced Christian censure and ended up in a nunnery, while Lancelot found his way to a hermitage, but his son Galahad finally succeeded in the quest for the holy grail.54 Edward I (1239–1307) read the romances, joined his queen in installing the remains of Arthur and Guinevere in a new tomb, and in 1301 cited Geoffrey’s account of Arthur’s ruling Scotland in a letter to the Pope claiming his own authority there. Edward III (1312– 1377) was probably inspired by Geoffrey’s account to try to conquer France, a project that launched the Hundred Years War and came close to success. In 1469, Malory adapted earlier romances to make a sad contrast between the Arthurian golden age and the reality of England during the civil War of the Roses (1455–1487). In 1485 Henry Tudor defeated Richard III (1452– 1485) and became Henry VII (1457–1509). He was a Welshman who marched under the Red Dragon that originated in Geoffrey’s account of Merlin, and he united the house of Lancaster with that of his wife’s York, thereby ending the War of the Roses. He named his first-born Arthur, and had him baptized at Winchester, where Malory had located Camelot. Edmund Spenser (1553–1599) extolled the reign of Elizabeth I (1533–1603) of England as a reinstatement of Arthur’s rule, and Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892) depicted a spiritually inspired monarchy lost in part through adultery. T.H. White (1906–1964) argued against searching for the facts behind the fiction, but John Steinbeck (1902–1968) pursued both. Clearly, we have followed Steinbeck’s path in our study of Li Zicheng and Li Yan as Ashe did in his study of King Arthur and Merlin. John Arden (1930–2012) portrayed Arthur as an emperor facing tribalism while Marion Bradley (1930–1999) offered a feminine and pagan version of the story. In Ashe’s summary, the theme of “the long-lost glory, or the promise which is not truly lost” inspired sixteenth-century reformers, eighteenth-century revolutionaries, 53  For Robin, see Knight 2003. 54  Ashe 1985: 171–173.

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and twentieth-century activists, and it remains today, “national, yet transcending nationality”. In Ashe’s view, “The undying King is a strangely powerful reminder that there is Something Else.”55 If King Arthur has gone through cycles of belief and disbelief, most recently appearing as a documentable historical person, his supposed chief advisor, named Merlin (450?–536?), remains deep in the shadows of mystery. According to Norma Goodrich in her book Merlin (1987), there may have been two Merlins or more.56 One was a Welsh bard, spelled Myrddin, who was active long before Arthur; a second Merlin was Arthur’s, and he was a couple of decades older than Arthur and predeceased him by several years. As we have seen in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account, Merlin’s first action was to assist Uther in impregnating the wife of one of his courtiers and thus fathering Arthur. According to this account, Merlin also predicted that a man of Cornwall would come to rule Britain and would resist Saxons in the islands and Romans on the continent. He was also destined to suffer an unknown end but to enjoy a celebrated afterlife. According to Goodrich, the prophecy came from the pen of Geoffrey of Monmouth, but it was not composed by him; rather it was probably voiced and perhaps written by Merlin in the manner of the ancient prophets of Israel and Judah, including Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, whose lives and dress Merlin reportedly imitated.57 In making prophecies, Merlin may also have been influenced by Cicero.58 Merlin recognized sagely that “all prophets stood in the past predicting events in the future, which had of course already taken place” when reported.59 Here Merlin revealed his skepticism about his own craft in much the same way as Song Xiance was said in twentieth-century stories to have done regarding his own role. Merlin’s prophecy closely resembled that of the Iron-capped Daoist, Zhang, whose “lives” and predictions extended from the founding of the Ming through the early Qing. According to Goodrich, Merlin served as the consummate civil servant to complement Arthur’s largely military role, a nexus we have encountered in many times and places. He was said to have authored speeches and prophecies, and served as counselor to four British kings: Vortigern, Ambrosius, Uther, and Arthur. He was “the keeper of royal genealogies” and had “foreknow­ ledge of persons, deaths, punishments, rescues, and the state of Britain”. He prepared for Arthur’s inauguration.60 When Arthur was coronated without 55  Ashe 1985: 181–193. 56  Goodrich 1987: 287–288. 57  Goodrich 1987: 5–7, 11–12, 116, 119. 58  Goodrich 1987: 27, 297–299. 59  Goodrich 1987: 115. 60  Goodrich 1987: 36.

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ascertainment of right, six kings repudiated him. Merlin then provided the ascertainment and fought three major battles on behalf of the young Arthur. Merlin did not shrink from burning the tents of hostile kings and using flood waters against enemy combatants.61 Li Zicheng and Niu Jinxing did the same in their assaults on Kaifeng; Li Yan’s role in this case is unclear. Merlin “bested kings, astrologers, magicians, and his own students,” “drew up campaign plans, strategies, and battle plans,” “released slaves, organized the officer corps, searched for and enrolled suitable recruits, brought rain, calmed the seas, raised wind and dust storms, and confounded armies.” We are reminded of the equally prodigious Zhuge Liang in the Three Kingdoms and Liu Ji in the early Ming. Merlin also “provided advice about food and food itself.” Without discussing the sources for all of these activities, Goodrich agreed with Ashe that Geoffrey of Monmouth “invented less than has previously been thought.”62 We have suggested that the same may have been true for Ji Liuqi and Wu Weiye in recounting the life of Li Yan. In Goodrich’s view, Merlin never veered from his given goal, which was “to present war in its unrelieved horror”.63 Yet “Merlin constitutes an elusive and disappearing personage, one who turns up when summoned, only to drop out of sight inexplicably.”64 We have noted Li Yan’s similar absence from military confrontations and his sporadic appearances in the record. Merlin believed that the name Britain came from Brutus of the Trojan royal line. He thought that he and Arthur defended Edinburgh, Stirling, and Northumbria just as Minerva had protected Athens, Sparta, and Troy. Merlin kept his tutor Blaise informed so that he could record the war for posterity, and he sent Blaise and his archive to safety in Camelot.65 Merlin recruited Arthur’s honor guard who pledged to die before the king ever came to blows.66 Merlin chastised three of Gawain’s younger brothers for having turned tail and left him to fight alone.67 The otherwise impeccable knight Lancelot at age twelve beat his tutor for striking his hunting dog.68 Merlin became romantically involved with Morgan Le Fey, queen of Ireland, but their relationship was not consummated. He taught one of his students, Lady Niniane, also called the Lady of the Lake, 61  Goodrich 1987: 163–167. 62  Goodrich 1987: 38. 63  Goodrich 1987: 13, 117. 64  Goodrich 1987: 88. 65  Goodrich 1987: 170. 66  Goodrich 1987: 171. Note the parallel to Caesar’s guards’ promises to protect him to their deaths. 67  Goodrich 1987: 170. 68  Goodrich 1987: 215.

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many tricks. Indeed, under his guidance, she learned how to seduce him, put him to sleep, and render him impotent. According to some accounts, she ultimately killed him. Goodrich, however, doubts those last claims and thinks the Lady of the Lake was consigned by hostile Christians to the category of femme fatale in the fashion of Helene who was blamed for the Trojan wars.69 In Goodrich’s view, Merlin’s models were Homer after the Trojan war and Caesar after the defeat of Pompey; his intellectual descendants would include Hugo (1802–1885) after Waterloo, Tolstoy (1828–1910) after Napoleon, Spengler (1880–1936) after World War I, and Toynbee (1889–1975) after WW II. Goodrich remarks rather sadly that “anyone can describe war, but no one has managed to define peace.”70 Yet Merlin was “one of the world’s greatest teachers, like the mentors of Achilles and Alexander the Great and Plato”.71 As if to balance this indirect praise for the rationalist advisor Aristotle, Goodrich notes on the border between Wales and England “many religious foundations dedicated to the worship of Saint Dubricius, who was, insofar as one can see, the real Merlin and King Arthur’s Merlin”. Although we do not know Dubricius’ birth and death dates, he was, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, “the first among all the prelates of Britain”.72 Known also as Merlinus Ambrosius, he was placed on the forbidden list or Prohibitory Index of the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent in 1580. “His prohibited prophecies, so high did they whip the courage of Europeans, were partially responsible, for the French victory under Joan of Arc (1412–1431) in the Hundred Years War (1337–1453). But Joan, who was raised to sainthood in the 1920s, was burned at the stake for her efforts and probably also for the use of Merlin’s prophecies as another important weapon in another endless war over real property.”73 Yet in this cloud there was a silver lining: Merlin helped maintain the peace for twelve years or so in the golden age of Arthur. The story of King Arthur, his chief advisor Merlin, and the knights of the roundtable reflected the desire of people known variously as Celts, Welsh, Britons, Bretons, and/or British to establish, and potentially re-establish their own polity after the withdrawal of the Romans and before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in the fifth century of the Common Era. They tried to do it by tracing their ancestors to the Trojans, learning from the experiences of the Greeks, Macedonians, and Romans, and fleeing from, resisting, co-existing 69  Goodrich 1987: 185, 187, 209–213, 250, 252. 70  Goodrich 1987: 302, 303. 71  Goodrich 1987: 304. 72  Goodrich 1987: 314. 73  Goodrich 1987: 317. For the largely historical Joan, see Pernoud and Clin 1986.

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with, and/or absorbing their neighbors including Picts, Scots, Anglo-Saxons, Romans, Franks, Normans and others. In the process, facts mixed with fictions, history combined with literature, and prophecies interacted with experiences to produce a vision, and perhaps to some extent, a reality, of a decade or more of relative peace, order, and maybe even some justice. Merlin may have learned from Alexander’s mistake of mistreating his historian and he arranged for Blaise and his archive to be preserved in Camelot. Arthur-Riothamus and Merlin-Ambrosius may have been rather minor historical figures, with only modest achievements, but their hagiographies inspired many later generations of men and women to try to build and rebuild nations, empires, and/or world orders. In all of these respects, the parallels with Li Yan seem clear. Arthur and Merlin were Christian Europeans who lived through a period between Roman and Anglo-Saxon rule in which British authority might be revived. Retrospectively, they and their knights also resonated strongly with Chinese statesmen who had lived a couple of centuries earlier during the Three Kingdoms (220–265 CE). Arthur, like Liu Bei, claimed to be a restitutor who would revive an earlier order, even though, unlike Liu Bei, he could not make any rightful claim of descent from a lineage that had ruled the realm for four centuries. Merlin, like Zhuge Liang, possessed a rare combination of spiritual and scientific powers which enabled him to transcend and manipulate the material world and to devise highly effective military strategies and tactics. Modred, Gawain, Lancelot, and other knights of the round table demonstrated skill with the sword and the bow similar to that of Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, who committed themselves to supporting Liu Bei and fighting to the death to defend him. King Arthur and Merlin also had a base from which to contend with the Saxons in the north and the Franks in the east, much as Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang controlled the Shu-Han state and confronted the state of Wei in the north and Wu in the southeast. Charlemagne established his authority over much of Europe just as Cao Cao attempted to do in China, but Charlemagne’s progeny were unable to reunify Europe the way the Cao family reunified much of the central plain and counted on later generations and other lineages to complete the task. The story of Arthur and Merlin was in other ways analogous to the saga of Li Zicheng, Li Yan, and Song Xiance. Geoffrey of Monmouth was criticized for incorporating folktales into his history much as Ji Liuqi was said to have done. More recently, however, both authors have been defended for combining history and literature in ways that helped readers to understand what happened, what was imagined, and how those two narratives interacted. Arthur-Riothamus, like the historical Li Zicheng (despite the title “Master”), was a commoner in rebellion against the disorder of his time, though Arthur

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lacked the family name and heritage that served Li Zicheng well in his quest for legitimacy. Merlin, like Li Yan, was highly literate, and played an important symbolic role in Arthur’s enterprise even if he, also like Li Yan, seemed to come and go without explanation. If “the Arthurian fact” was the Britons who became Bretons and enjoyed more than a decade of peace, “the Li Yan fact” may be said to have been the erstwhile Ming scholars and officials who rallied to the Da Shun banner in the hiatus between the declining Ming and the rising Qing polities, and lived to tell or, in Li Yan’s and Li Mou’s case did not live and could not tell! the story. Merlin was much like the diviner Song Xiance in going back to earlier prophecies and invoking them in support of his leader’s claims to the throne. Arthur was recognized as King in Britain and Riothamus was recognized as Great King in France, somewhat similarly to the way in which the title Master was associated with Li Zicheng in the central plain before the fall of Beijing to the Shun and with Li Yan in Jiangnan after the fall of Beijing to the Qing.74 To some extent, Arthur and Merlin, like Li Yan and Song Xiance may have been composite figures. Bringing India back into the picture, we may note that King Arthur had a falling out with his wife Guinevere, reminiscent of that of Rama and his wife Sita in the epic Ramayana, in which that hero too, like Lancelot, had won his wife through a test of strength.75 There were other significant parallels between the stories of Arthur and Merlin and those of Li Zicheng and Li Yan. Merlin shared his food with others much as the historical and storied Li Yan distributed his family’s grain to the starving people of Henan. The otherwise admirable Lancelot beat his tutor for striking his hunting dog, much as the otherwise exemplary historical Li Yan participated in the murder of his cousin’s examiner. The writer Malory supposedly had his own record of criminal activities, perhaps not that different from the biographers Zhao Zongfu and Guo Moruo, who engaged in illegal activities in the eyes of the Nationalists. Arthur had problems with his wife Guinevere whose virtue was compromised by one of Arthur’s favorite knights, Lancelot. Though we know nothing about Li Zicheng’s wife, she was apparently childless, and Li Zicheng was said to have had his own problems with his concubines in Beijing. Merlin was thought to have been nearly seduced by his talented student, the Lady of the Lake, in a fashion remarkably similar to Li Yan’s being kidnapped by Hong Niangzi. All of this suggested that even respected royal advisors like Merlin and Li Yan could be influenced—perhaps even controlled—by strong women.

74  For an account of Arthur’s last years in France, see Morpurgo 1994/2007. 75  Narayan 2006: 27, 146–149.

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King Arthur lost confidence in his erstwhile favorite knight, Lancelot, causing him to lose his will to live and leading to the tragic dissolution of the knights of the round table. That denouement was somewhat similar to the malaise which allegedly gripped Li Zicheng after he authorized Niu Jinxing’s assassination of Li Yan and Li Mou. Guinevere delivered Lancelot to Arthur on the back of a white horse just as Hong Niangzi was imagined rescuing Li Yan from jail riding a similarly white steed. Arthur was expected to come again as a messiah, or at least as a Francophone monarch, while anyone in China named Li (or even just claiming to be so named) could potentially fulfill the prophecy of the eighteenth son or be reincarnated to carry on the struggle. Lancelot’s son Galahad was finally successful in securing the holy grail, an event comparable to—if also quite different from—Niu Jinxing’s son Niu Quan’s acceptance of office in the Qing that claimed to possess the mandate of heaven. Subsequent British governments used the King Arthur story to bolster their legitimacy or to discredit that of their political opponents, much as successive Chinese historical and literary actors generated, accepted, and/or transmitted the Li Yan story to heighten their authority and diminish that of their rivals. In sum, the story of Merlin and King Arthur was quite comparable to that of Zhuge Liang and Liu Bei, perhaps in part because they transpired during what some historians would call the “middle ages”, or what we might call periods of disunion in the eastern and western parts of Eurasia, or what a historian of the world might see as the era of the waning of power civilizations that had centered the world for ten millennia. More remarkably, the Merlin/Arthur story also resonates strongly with the Li Yan/Li Zicheng saga, although they were separated by more than a millennium. Both stories featured a leader and an advisor who established a relatively short regime of peace, order, and some semblance of justice that later generations dreamed of reviving. As it happened, in this period, the world region of Western Europe entered a long period of disunion and warfare that kept it marginal to world history while the world region of East Asia experienced about a millennium (ca. 500 to 1500) of relative unity and peace during which successive culture states offered an alternative form of world order. Meanwhile, in Western Europe two other scholar rebel advisors adopted strategies for dealing with perpetual war, or preparation for war, that contrasted sharply with East Asian culture states and with each other. Machiavelli and The Prince The name Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) is well known in the world because it has entered many languages in its adjectival form, “machiavellian”, meaning given to the cynical pursuit of amoral power. Machiavelli was a respected

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scholar who was also a rebel, in the limited sense of a courtier who was not satisfied with contemporary rulers whom he deemed unworthy of his service. He did serve one ruler for a few years, but he got into trouble and ended up in jail. When he got out, he retired and wrote a book titled The Prince. The book proffered advice to contemporary and future rulers and advisors on how to survive and flourish in the world as it existed. In its effort to use reason and experience to restore a Roman-style republic cum empire, the book was clearly a product of what came to be called the Italian Renaissance. Niccolo was born into the family of a Florentine lawyer and minor official of limited means. He was not well placed in a society in which a small number of very wealthy and powerful families contended for control over papal, royal, and republican city states, and tried to unite the peninsula against French, Turkish, and other military interlopers. Machiavelli studied law but did not complete the program; from the beginning, he showed more interest in history. He came of age when Lorenzo de’Medici “The Magnificent” (1448–1492), the wealthiest man in Florence—and perhaps in Italy—ruled the city. At the same time, Rodrigo Borgia (r. 1492–1503) served as pope Alexander VI. To complicate matters, Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498), a Dominican friar, appeared in the priorate of San Marco in Florence in 1489. He preached against the general wealth and corruption of the day, and called for the overthrow of the pope and the return to Christ as the true ruler. Savonarola drew on centuries-old Florentine prophecies to predict that the city would play an important role in the coming reformation of the church. He believed that the Florentines could live only under a republic. He foresaw that the French King Charles VII (1403– 1461) would send troops to Florence, and he promised that when the French came he (Savonarola) would save the city.76 When Lorenzo died in 1492 and was succeeded by his much less competent son, Piero (1450–1522), Savonarola preached to the masses and became the greatest power in Florence. He persuaded Pope Alexander to allow him to establish his own monastery and he developed a hard core of 250 supporters. When the French arrived in 1494, Piero surrendered. Critics in his own (Medici) family deposed him and reestablished the republic that had existed before the Medicis took power. A parlmento was called and the existing executive organ, named the Twenty, appointed new officials including Savonarola. Savonarola joined the local strongman Pietro Soderini in devising a new constitution and establishing a Great Council of 3,000 former officials.77 The republic soon evolved into a kind of theocracy, which promulgated harsh laws 76  Durant 1953: 110–119, 547; Machiavelli 1532/2003: xv–xix. 77  Durant 1953: 143–149.

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against immorality. Savonarola failed to make good on his promise to recover control over Pisa, and Florence lost the opportunity to join with fellow city states in expelling Charles from Italy. Even Machiavelli, who strongly supported the republic, dismissed Savonarola as a prophet without arms.78 By 1496 the Council faced economic and financial problems, and “many Florentines contrasted the factionalism, violence, and severity of the Republic with the peace and order of Lorenzo’s time.” Pope Alexander, meanwhile, resented Savonarola’s continuing alliance with the French and his denunciation of the pope as “an infidel and a heretic”. The conflict escalated and, through the newly available technology of the printing press, news spread across Europe, including Turkey. Savonarola ended by charging the pope with not being Christian and by predicting his own death. Indeed, in May 1498, Savonarola was finally charged with heresy; he was arrested, tortured, and hanged; his corpse was then burned.79 The following month, Machiavelli was appointed by the Great Council as second chancellor of the Republic. The month after that, he was elected secretary to the executive body known as the Ten of War, a post he would hold for the next fourteen years. On November 14, 1498, he was sent on his first diplomatic mission to regain authority among the papal states.80 The following year he participated in another mission, this time to a seasoned countess, Caterina Sforza (1464–1509), who headed an independent papal state. She proved to be too subtle for him and he returned home empty-handed. In 1500 he was sent as an associate envoy on a six-month mission to Louis XII (1464–1515) of France. When the chief envoy fell sick, Machiavelli took over the mission. He learned French, followed the court from one chateau to another, and made an excellent report. A year later, in October, he served as an aide to Pietro Soderini in a mission to Caesar Borgia (1475–1507) at Urbino.81 Caesar Borgia was the eldest illegitimate son of Pope Alexander and was charged with bringing the papal states back under Rome’s control. He was physically strong and skilled in bull-fighting, and he had studied law at the university of Perugia. He was appointed archbishop and cardinal, but only for administrative purposes, and he never became a priest. He wore a ring inscribed with the words: Fays ce que dois, advien que pourra (Do what you must, whatever may happen). His sword was engraved with scenes from the life of Julius Caesar and it bore two mottoes: Alea iacta est (the die is cast), and Aut Caesar, aut nullus (Caesar or no one). Pope Alexander and minister 78  Durant 1953: 150–151. 79  Durant 1953: 152–162. 80  Durant 1953: 161. 81  Durant 1953: 550.

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Machiavelli may have hoped that this new Caesar would unite not just the papal states but all of the states of Italy, but Caesar Borgia expressed no such ambition. Caesar nonetheless enthusiastically took up the task of bringing the papal states into line, beginning with Caterina Sforza. She put up a strong fight but was eventually removed from her state and confined in Rome.82 Caesar followed up with the other papal states using a combination of diplomacy, including treachery, and force, including war machines designed by Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519). Machiavelli praised Caesar for being brave, bold, tireless, fast, and well-liked by his troops.83 When some of Caesar’s conquests were subsequently challenged, he put down the alleged conspirators mercilessly. Aware of criticism, he explained to Machiavelli, “It is proper to snare those who are proving themselves past masters in the art of snaring others.” According to Durant, “Machiavelli fully agreed with him, and considered Caesar, at this time, the bravest and wisest man in Italy.” Durant added, “… Caesar Borgia, at twenty-eight, found himself the governor of a realm equaled in size, in the peninsula, only by the kingdom of Naples. He was now by common consent the most remarkable and powerful man in Italy”.84 It seems likely that the young and ambitious Machiavelli aspired to become an advisor to Caesar Borgia and maybe even to assist him in uniting the states of Italy. If so, he was to be sorely disappointed. In 1503 Alexander and Caesar dined in the open air. They both took sick and were at first thought to have been poisoned, but it turned out that they were suffering from a miasma (probably malaria). Alexander soon died. After working closely with the pope while he was alive, Machiavelli accorded him a negative epitaph upon his death. “Alexander,” he wrote with typical irony and cynicism, did nothing but deceive, and thought of nothing else during the whole of his life; nor did any man vow with stronger oaths to observe promises which he afterwards broke. Nevertheless he succeeded in everything, for he was well acquainted with this part of the world.85 Caesar, meanwhile, recovered from the disease and moved quickly to secure the Vatican treasury in Rome, following in some ways the strategy of the original Caesar fifteen centuries earlier.86 Caesar negotiated with Giuliano della

82  Durant 1953: 417–420. 83  Durant 1953: 421–422. 84  Durant 1953: 424–425. 85  Durant 1953: 434. 86  Durant 1953: 437.

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Rovere (1443–1513), who wanted to become pope, and promised him the support of the Spanish cardinals in return for his (Giuliano’s) commitment to appoint him (Caesar) Duke of the Romagna and commander of the papal troops. Giuliano was duly chosen pope and called himself Julius II, indicating that he too would be a Caesar and an improvement on pope Alexander. Julius’ and Caesar’s entente, however, soon broke down. Julius reneged on his promises, and Caesar fled to Naples. There Caesar raised a small force, overreached, and was imprisoned in Spain. He died in battle in 1507.87 In the Florentine Republic, the executive Signories and gonfaloniers (ensign bearers) had short terms of two months each. That led to instability in administration. In 1502, therefore, the Republic appointed one gonfalonier for life. While still subject to the Signory and Council, he would be on equal terms of tenure with other contemporary, spiritual and secular, rulers in Italy. The first gonfalonier for life was Pietro Soderini. According to Durant, Soderini was a millionaire friendly to the people, an honest patriot whose powers of mind and will were not so eminent as to threaten Florence with dictatorship. He enlisted Machiavelli among his advisers, governed prudently and economically, and used his private fortune to resume that patronage of art that had been interrupted under Savonarola. With his support Machiavelli replaced the mercenary troops of Florence with a citizen militia, which finally (in 1508) forced Pisa to become once again a Florentine ‘protectorate.’88 The victory in the war over Pisa seemed to confirm the wisdom of Machiavelli’s advice to Soderini not to rely on mercenaries or auxiliaries but to form a state militia composed of citizens, preferably including farmers used to hardship, and provided with good equipment and training. In 1505 Machiavelli had been appointed secretary of a new committee called the Nine of the Militia. After Pisa surrendered, “Machiavelli returned to Florence at the height of his arc”.89 Soderini and Machiavelli continued the policy of allying with the French to secure Florence against its Italian rivals. Machiavelli had conducted missions to King Louis XII in 1500 and 1504, and he led additional missions in 1510 and 1511.90 In 1512, the “Holy League” of Venice, Milan, Naples, and Rome was victorious in its efforts to rid Italy of the French invaders. In response, Spanish troops 87  Durant 1953: 438–439. 88  Durant 1953: 161; Machiavelli 1532/2003: xx. 89  Durant 1953: 549. 90  Machiavelli 1532/2003: x.

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invaded Florence. Machiavelli labored strenuously to organize the defense, but the outpost of Prato was taken and sacked. In this case, Machiavelli’s militia turned and fled from the concerted assault by the trained mercenaries of the League. Florence surrendered and, according to Durant, “Soderini resigned to avoid further bloodshed. Giuliano de’Medici, son of Lorenzo, having contributed 10,000 ducats ($25,000) to the League treasury, entered Florence under the protection of Spanish, German, and Italian arms; his brother, Cardinal Giovanni, soon joined him; the Savonarolan constitution was abolished, and the Medicean ascendancy was restored….”91 In November 1512, Machiavelli was dismissed from the Chancery and sentenced to a year’s confinement within Florentine territory. He was said to have made “every effort to appease the victors”, but in February 1513, he was charged with conspiracy to restore the republic. He was tortured with four turns of the rack, and imprisoned briefly before being released. The public in general accepted the change. In Durant’s judgment, “Cardinal Giulio de Medici … now gave Florence an excellent administration; and, after he became Pope Clement VII (1521), he ruled the city from the papal chair.” In 1527, Florence took advantage of Giulio’s misfortunes to expel his representatives from the city. For four years, Florence again “enjoyed the trials of liberty”. “But Clement tempered defeat with diplomacy, and used the troops of Charles V (1500–1558) to avenge his ousted relatives; an army of Spanish and German troops marched on Florence (1529), and repeated the story of 1512; resistance was heroic but in vain, and Alessandro d’Medici began (1531) a regime of repression, brutality, and lechery unprecedented in the annals of the family. Three centuries would pass before Florence would know freedom again.”92 Fearing re-arrest, in 1513 Machiavelli moved with his family to their modest ancestral villa in the countryside a few miles from Florence. There he spent his days with his wife and six children, quietly reading history (e.g. Polybius) and literature (e.g. Dante), chatting with friends and passers-by at a local inn, and writing texts that he hoped would provide guidance to the Medici family now controlling half of Italy.93 He began in 1513 by writing Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy (Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio), a popular chronicle of Roman history. He soon (in 1515) decided to publish a short version, focused on only the first three books, that might reach a wider readership, including high policy makers. Next he drew on his own personal experience and used historical examples to provide advice to rulers of his own day. “He planned to 91  Durant 1953: 162–163. 92  Durant 1953: 163. 93  Machiavelli 1532/2003: xxi.

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dedicate the book, which he titled The Prince (Il principe) to Giuliano de’Medici, then ruling Florence, but Giuliano died in 1516 before Machiavelli could make up his mind to send it to him. He therefore rededicated it to Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, who made no acknowledgement of it. It circulated in manuscript, and was surreptitiously copied; but it was not printed till 1532, five years after the author’s death. Thereafter it was one of the most frequently printed books in any language.”94 Machiavelli had many predecessors, such as Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374), in describing the ideal prince, but he was distinctive, at least among European writers, in emphasizing how rulers actually obtained and maintained power. He was aware of Cicero’s point that a virtuous man “should gain his ends by communication and persuasion rather than by force or treachery—the lion and the fox, respectively”. But Machiavelli argued that, from his experience with the Borgias and Medicis, the prince could not be “constrained by the demands of normal morality if he hoped to do his job properly.” In other words, the prince, in addition to using persuasion, “must sometimes act the powerful, decisive lion, sometimes the wily, elusive fox.”95 Anthony Grafton has pointed out that Machiavelli believed in the republican form of government, which had its roots in Rome, and Machiavelli “despaired of the possibility of finding rulers who could put his political observations into practice”.96 Will Durant has similarly observed that Machiavelli “was in his heart of hearts a flaming patriot, who made the salus populi the suprema lex, and subordinated all morality to the unification and redemption of Italy”.97 If so, Machiavelli may have written ironically or even facetiously about the nature of power and the meaning of success in his day and age. At his worst, Machiavelli drew a grim picture of human nature and political life. He appeared to be an opportunist who idealized the Borgias and the Medicis when they were up and condemned them when they were down. He was misogynistic in never mentioning the wife who bore him six children, and in recounting, in salacious detail, his frequent visits to brothels.98 In The Prince, he described fortune as a woman that needs to be dominated. In his words, … fortune is a woman and if she is to be submissive it is necessary to beat and coerce her. Experience shows that she is more often subdued by men 94  Durant 1953: 550–552. 95  Machiavelli 1532/2003: xxiii. 96  Machiavelli 1532/2003: xxvi. 97  Durant 1953: 552. 98  Durant 1953: 552.

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who do this than by those who act coldly. Always, being a woman, she favours young men, because they are less circumspect and more ardent, and because they command her with greater audacity.99 Here the middle-aged writer seems to be expressing bitterness at the competition he faces in his personal life for women’s favor as well as fortune’s blessing. This seems to suggest that his writings on Florentine politics may have been less honest descriptions of “reality,” or even ironic critiques of misgovernment, and more like sour grapes over his own inability to gain and maintain power during his lifetime. At his best, however, Machiavelli offered wise counsel to contemporary rulers, which has remained valid in many kinds of polities and in many times and places ever since. He of course emphasized law and military power, writing, “The main foundations of every state … are good laws and good arms.” “A prince, therefore, must have no other object or thought, nor acquire skill in anything, except war, its organization, and its discipline.”100 Here Machiavelli could almost have been quoting the Indian Kautilya or the Chinese Legalist, Shang Yang. He also wrote “It is unreasonable to expect an armed man to respect anyone who is not armed.” “So he must never let his thoughts stray from military exercises, which he must pursue more vigorously in peace than in war.”101 But Machiavelli also warned wisely, “… no matter how powerful one’s armies, in order to enter a country one needs the goodwill of the inhabitants,” and “sending troops alone turns everyone into an enemy”.102 It is obviously “not easy to assault a town which has been made into a bastion by a prince who is not hated by the people”.103 “Machiavelli acknowledged that it cannot be called prowess to kill fellow-citizens, to betray friends, to be treacherous, pitiless, and irreligious.” “These ways can win a prince power but not glory.”104 He continued “… it is far better to be feared than loved if you cannot be both.” “The prince must nonetheless make himself feared in such a way that, if he is not loved, he at least escapes being hated. For fear is quite compatible with an absence of hatred; and the prince can always avoid hatred if he abstains from seizing the property of his subjects and their women.” Some fortresses are effective but others incite popular opposition. “So the best fortress that 99  Machiavelli 1534/2003: 81. 100  Machiavelli 1534/2003: 40, 47. 101  Machiavelli 1534/2003: 48. 102  Machiavelli 1534/2003:9, 11. 103  Machiavelli 1534/2003: 36. 104  Machiavelli 1534/2003: 29.

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exists is to avoid being hated by the people. If even so, it proves necessary to execute someone, this is to be done only when there is proper justification and manifest reason for it.”105 Machiavelli thus enshrined raison d’état as a basic principle of political action, but he also entertained notions that would later come to be described as human rights. In this way he somewhat resembled Li Yan. Machiavelli used two examples from history, “one from the ancient world, one from the modern”, to show how two men could use criminal methods to become heads of state, one fairly successfully, the other less so. He suggested the difference was between using cruelty well or badly. In his words: We can say that cruelty is used well (if it is permissible to talk in this way of what is evil) when it is employed once for all, and one’s safety depends on it, and then it is not persisted in but as far as possible turned to the good of one’s subjects. Cruelty badly used is that which, although infrequent to start with, as time goes on, rather than disappearing, grows in intensity. Those who use the first method can, with God and with men, somewhat enhance their position, … the others cannot possibly stay in power.106 Turning to more legitimate princes, Machiavelli made recommendations that could have come straight from the brush of a Chinese advisor: As for intellectual training, the prince must read history, studying the actions of eminent men to see how they conducted themselves during war and to discover the reasons for their victories or their defeats, so that he can avoid the latter and imitate the former. Above all, he must read history so that he can do what eminent men have done before him: taken as their model some historical figure who has been praised and honored; and always kept his deeds and actions before them. In this way, it is said, Alexander the Great imitated Achilles; Caesar imitated Alexander; and Scipio (d. 202 BCE), Cyrus (600–530). And anyone who reads the life of Cyrus, written by Xenophon (430–354) will then see how much of the glory won by Scipio can be attributed to his emulation of Cyrus, and how much, in his chastity, courtesy, humanity, and generosity, Scipio conformed to the picture which Xenophon drew of Cyrus.107 105  Machiavelli 1534/2003: 54–55. 106  Machiavelli 1534/2003: 28–32. 107  Machiavelli 1534/2003: 49.

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Here Machiavelli clearly respected the Persian monarch as much as he did the Greek and Roman rulers. In this respect he followed Alexander in admiring the Persians more than Aristotle had. One lesson from history, Machiavelli remarked, is that a wise prince “must never take things easy in times of peace, but rather use the latter assiduously, in order to be able to reap the profit in times of adversity.”108 These words were close to those of the Duke of Zhou as recorded in the Chinese classic, the Venerated Documents. While valuing history, Machiavelli also called on his readers to deal with present problems and to anticipate future challenges.109 Using the past as a guide, he professed to believe that the times were propitious for “a prudent and capable man to introduce a new order, bringing honour to himself and prosperity to all the Italians”. In Machiavelli’s words, And if, as I said, the Israelites had to be enslaved in Egypt for Moses to emerge as their forceful leader; if the Persians had to be oppressed by the Medes so that the greatness of Cyrus could be recognized; if the Athenians had to be scattered to demonstrate the excellence of Theseus; that, at the present time, in order to discover the worth of the Italian spirit, Italy had to be brought to her present extremity. She had to be more enslaved than the Hebrews, more oppressed than the Persians, more widely scattered than the Athenians; leaderless, lawless, crushed, despoiled, torn, overrun; she had to have endured every kind of desolation.110 If Machiavelli described Italy as a woman, he stated that “there was a man” (Caesar Borgia) who once seemed to be “ordained by God” to redeem the country, but who, “at the very height of his career”, was “rejected by fortune”. So now, “Italy is waiting to see who can be the one to heal her wounds” and “save her from those barbarous cruelties and outrages.” He expressed the hope that “your illustrious House (i.e. the Medicis) would raise the banner,” and he indicated that he was ready to follow it, presumably as an advisor to the new head of state.111 It was probably this aspiration to contribute to a very much precedented political revival, not any presumption to be introducing a wholly new era of “modernity”, that animated Machiavelli in the last fourteen years of his life.112 108  Machiavelli 1534/2003: 49. 109  Machiavelli 1534/2003: 12. 110  Machiavelli 1534/2003: 82. 111  Machiavelli 1534/2003: 82. 112  For the widely embraced idea of The Prince as a declaration of “modernity,” see Grafton’s Introduction in Machiavelli 1534/2003: xxviii.

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More immediately, Machiavelli engaged in other writing projects that allowed him to express his ideas and put food on the table. In 1518 he wrote a ribald play, The Mandrake Root (Mandragola), in which the lecherous protagonist, by means of copious bribes and lies, gains access to a beautiful married woman with a promise to impregnate her so she could produce the progeny her mother-in-law desperately wanted and her husband had been unable to seed.113 Two years later, he wrote The Art of War (Dell’ Arte della Guerra), in which he made a couple of prophetic comments. According to Durant’s summary and quotation: An army requires not gold but men; “gold alone will not procure good soldiers, but good soldiers will always procure gold”; gold will flow to the strong nation, but strength departs from the rich nation for wealth makes for ease and decay. Consequently an army must be kept busy; a little war now and then will keep the martial muscles and apparatus in trim.114 Han Feizi could not have stated it better, and Francis Fukuyama (1952–) would later repeat it. That same year (1520), Machiavelli was commissioned by Cardinal Giulio de’Medici to write a History of Florence (Storie Fiorentine). The work, which took five years to complete, was the first major history written in Italian. It rejected fables about origins and went beyond previous chronicles to discuss causes and effects in a social history of the city. It courageously argued that the popes had kept Italy divided to preserve the independence of the papacy, and that great advances in the peninsula had come under princes like Theodoric, Cosimo, and Lorenzo.115 Pope Clement VII (1478–1534) showed remarkable liberality in accepting the text, though he may have done so largely because it was dedicated to him. Finally, in various discourses, Machiavelli clearly stated his philosophy of history and his approach to some key cultural issues. In his words: Wise men say, not without reason, that whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who have been, and ever will be, animated by the same passions; and thus they must necessarily have the same results…. I believe that the world has always been the same, and has always contained as much good 113  Durant 1953: 553–554. 114  Durant 1953: 552–553. 115  Durant 1953: 554.

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and evil, although variously distributed among the nations according to the times.116 Machiavelli distinguished between ancient and modern times (the concept of medieval was not yet current), but he rightly recognized continuities in history over time and space. At the same time, he could underestimate the changes and variations that also occurred. In another passage he wrote: “The wish to acquire is in truth very natural and common, and men always acquire when they can; and for this they will be praised, not blamed.”117 Given his own decidedly marginal economic circumstances, it seems highly unlikely that he believed the maximization of profits to be the be-all and end-all of life, or at least that it always has been—and always will be—so. Machiavelli revealed his own particular take on contemporary society when he argued in favor of religion in general as an indispensable source of ethics but criticized Christianity in particular for allegedly making believers weak (e.g. he scored the papacy for failing to unite Italy).118 Machiavelli’s emphasis on raison d’ état was clear in his statement “we must adopt whatever course will save the nation’s existence and liberty.”119 He thus emerged as a major theorist and defender of the multi-state system that was already—and would continue to be—the default structure of Western civilization. Thomas More and Henry VIII Another European and contemporary scholar rebel advisor whose career raises issues concerning human rights was Thomas More (1478–1535).120 More’s father was a lawyer and More himself studied law in London, where there was less emphasis on classicism than in Oxford. In his youth he admired the young King Henry VIII (1491–1547) who was well educated, welcomed talented officials at his court, and listened to their advice. In these respects, Henry resembled Tang Taizong whom Li Yan reportedly admired. More participated in the English parliament and opposed one of Henry’s measures, which resulted in his brief imprisonment. After he was released, he wrote a biography of Richard III (1452–1485) which was directly critical of Richard and indirectly critical of Henry. To avoid punishment, More did not have his work printed but instead circulated it in manuscript form. These political strategies of using a 116  Durant 1953: 555. 117  Durant 1953: 556. 118  Durant 1953. 119  Durant 1953: 559. 120  Durant 1957: 125, 277, 523–525, 542–558.

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biography of one person to criticize another and of keeping sensitive materials in manuscript form resemble those common in China, including, as we have seen, Li Yuanshan’s handling of the “Li Family Genealogy”. More served as a sheriff in part of London, where he gained a reputation for wise policies and, in 1515 he became speaker in the House of Commons. In 1516 More wrote a book in Latin that was eventually published under the title Utopia, which means “nowhere” in Greek but has come to mean an ideal imagined community in English. More may have been inspired by a report by a Portuguese mariner who accompanied Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512) on his trip to the new continent (which was subsequently named America after him). The mariner saw and reported on a community of people living peacefully and happily there. Here we seem to have something like the Tang-period story of the Curly Bearded Guest who founded his own ideal community on a distant frontier. As we have seen, that story was also invoked by the twentieth century Hong Kong novelist Jin Yong in his account of Li Yan’s fate. In More’s Utopia there was no private property, money, or accumulated capital. There were laws but they were few and simple. There were no lawyers, and justice was administered by the people. Serious crimes could be punished by the death penalty, but most punishment was by hard labor. Although there were some slaves, in principle all citizens were to be considered equal and everyone was expected to work six hours a day in agriculture and industry. All children should be educated in their own mother tongues and learning should be mainly by experience. Women were expected to serve men, but divorce was legal by mutual consent. The book was published in several languages and became the talk of the European continent by 1520, but it was not translated into English until 1551, fifteen years after More’s death and four years after Henry’s. Henry may never have read the book because it existed only in Latin. The influence of More’s Utopia in Europe was a little like that of Li Yan’s equal field system in China. They were both early seeds of the system that, in later times, would come to be called socialism.121 In 1529, Henry appointed More Lord Chancellor. But Henry wanted to divorce his wife Catherine, who had failed to produce an heir to the throne. More was a good lay Catholic and refused to encourage the Pope to allow the divorce. Two years later, Henry asked parliament to recognize the king of England as the supreme head of the English national church. Parliament approved it, and Henry, in turn, allowed Catholic priests to prosecute heretics and Protestants. More participated in the Counter-Reformation and was responsible for having six Protestants burned to death. This action, so contrary 121  Cihai 1985: 584.

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to More’s general humanism, reminds us of Li Yan’s harsh treatment of the Henanese student who failed to live up to his familial responsibilities. More did not recognize Henry as the head of the English church and he did not recognize Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn (1501–1536). In 1532, therefore, he resigned his post and retired to his home. He tried to avoid punishment by not speaking his mind in public, but, in private, he made clear he did not accept Henry’s claim to preeminent authority. Thomas Cromwell (1485–1540), who was of commercial origins, became Lord Chancellor, emphasized state authority, and upheld Henry’s policies. Someone reported More’s private opinions to the court. There was a rumor that More was colluding with a nun who claimed special spiritual authority and was conspiring against the state. More acknowledged that he knew the nun but he denied any involvement in a conspiracy. Henry did not believe him and ordered that he be executed. More’s head was hung on London Bridge. The charge against More of conspiring with a woman to rebel resembled the experience of Li Yan and Hong Niangzi about a century later. Lord Cromwell’s use of Machiavellian methods to rule England also seemed to anticipate Prime Minister Niu Jinxing’s manner of managing the Da Shun state. There were, of course, differences between Thomas More’s and Li Yan’s life stories. No one ever challenged More’s existence and his life in history was fairly congruent with his life in stories. More belonged to an established system and he resisted the authority of a new one, whereas Li Yan tried to overthrow an old authority and to create a new one. More lived in a world of competing national empires with no peace in sight, whereas Li came of age under one kind of culture state, served briefly in another, and died knowing that some other kind of culture state could very well lie ahead. But the two men’s lives were similar in other ways. They lived in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and were celebrated in histories, novels, and plays in the twentieth century.122 At his death, More reportedly said, “I die his Majesty’s good servant, but God’s first.” Li Yan wanted to make Li Zicheng a son of heaven, but when he was rejected by his ruler he reportedly affirmed his higher loyalty to heaven. One of More’s colleagues said he was a man for all seasons and some observers in the twentieth century agreed. Their meaning was that he had his own principles and he would live according to them under any and all circumstances. Despite the historical Li Yan’s low profile, at least some of his contemporaries had a similar impression of him, and we now know it was based at least partially on facts. Although Li and More were not perfect heroes (if any such exist), they generally spoke truth to power. They were men for all seasons, including today’s. 122  Sir Thomas More in Wikipedia, accessed 9 March 2018.

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During the millennium ca. 500–1500 CE, when Europeans struggled in vain to bring peace and order to their continent, the Chinese recapitulated their mega-cycle of five kinds of culture states to bring unity to much of East Asia. By borrowing Buddhism from India and transmitting it to Korea and Japan, by accepting Islam from Inner Asia and co-existing with it in Southeast Asia, and by tolerating Judaism, Christianity, and Mongol authority, which were all rejected in some other parts of the world, China in Asia arguably served as the most effective center of world history in this period.123 C

“Modern” Western Europe and North America

During the seventeenth century in Europe, there was a major debate between the “ancients” and the “moderns”, a debate that was thereafter generally thought, at least by Europeans, to have been “won” by the “moderns”. The Renaissance and Reformation gave way to the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. Many Europeans came to think that their culture was modern in contrast with previous Western civilizations and other civilizations outside of Europe. In fact, the world region of Western Europe did become the center of world history in the eighteenth century. But leading European scholars such as Voltaire in France who were also rebels in their own way, and enlightened rulers such as Frederick II (1712–1786) in Prussia were aware of the contributions of Asia to the newly emerging world order. In the nineteenth century, other European advisers and rulers, such as Talleyrand and Napoleon (1769–1821), inherited the Enlightenment and presided over secular political, social, and industrial revolutions. Later British prime ministers such as Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) and William E. Gladstone (1809–1898), were less rebellious and less aware of European debts to other cultures and polities. They advised constitutional monarchs to exploit fossil fuels and establish overseas colonies to build what I have called “maritime national empires” to enrich Europe at the expense of much of the rest of the world. In the twentieth century, European national empires and their Asian imitators turned on themselves and precipitated two world wars that destroyed and discredited the European world (dis-)order. By mid-century, the United States was catapulted into the position of the fifth and most recent center of world history. Under Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon (1913–1994), among others, the U.S. used its economic and military power, including nuclear weapons, to dominate the rest of the world. With the decline of the Soviet Union in 123  Des Forges and Major 2005; Gordon 2008.

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the 1990s, the U.S. became the world’s “first global superpower”. As historical change continued to accelerate, the U.S. has over-extended itself in the first two decades of this century, raising questions about which world region or regions are likely to play key roles in the emerging world order (or disorder) in the rest of this century. Voltaire and Frederick II According to the world historian, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, the French philosophe Francois-Marie Arouet (1694–1778), better known by his pen name Voltaire, was “the best-connected man of the eighteenth century”.124 For his criticisms of the Catholic church and the Bourbon monarchy, he was repeatedly imprisoned in—or exiled from—his native country, but he advised the emperor of Prussia, corresponded with the empress of Russia, befriended consorts of the king of France, and “influenced statesmen all over Europe”. Thanks to the Jesuits, Voltaire was aware of China and was attracted to Confucianism as an alternative to organized religion. According to one world historian, “In the Chinese habit of political deference to scholars, he [Voltaire] saw an endorsement of the power of the class of professional intellectuals to which he belonged.”125 According to other world historians, Voltaire was a poet, playwright, historian, philosopher, and novelist who figured prominently among the nearly one hundred leading intellectuals who contributed to the Encyclopedie (1751–1772) that attempted to pool past and present human knowledge of the arts and sciences all over the world. Voltaire became a towering figure in what became known as the Enlightenment, a cultural trend that emphasized reason and humanism, and prepared the ground for the French revolution.126 As a persona non grata for most of his life in his homeland, Voltaire looked for a philosopher-king elsewhere in Europe. In 1736 the prince and heir apparent who would become Frederick II of Prussia (r. 1740–1786) wrote to Voltaire inviting him to become his teacher. In Frederick’s words: Although I have not the satisfaction of knowing you personally, you are not the less known to me through your works. They are treasures of the mind, if I may so express myself; and they reveal to the reader new beauties at every fresh perusal…. If ever the dispute on the comparative merits of the Moderns and the Ancients should be revived, the modern great men will owe it to you, and to you only, that the scale is turned in their 124  For a less Eurocentric judgment, see Elliott 2009. 125   Fernandez-Armesto 2007: 740–741. 126  Tignor et al. 2008: 621–623.

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favor…. The kindness and assistance you afford to all who devote themselves to the arts and sciences make me hope that you will not exclude me from the number of those whom you find worthy of your instructions.127 Voltaire responded enthusiastically to Frederick’s fulsome invitation, writing: My self-love is only too much flattered by it [the invitation]; but my love of mankind, which I have always nourished in my heart, and which, I venture to say, forms the basis of my character, has given me a very much purer pleasure—to see that there is now in the world a Prince who thinks as a man, a Philosopher Prince, who will make men happy…. I should indeed consider it a precious happiness to come to pay my court to your Royal Highness…. I shall wish that you may always be like yourself, and that other kings may be like you.128 Thus began a correspondence that would last for the next forty-two years, until Voltaire died in 1778. At this time, Voltaire was living quite securely in Cirey-sur-Baise, in France, and had no immediate need to go to Berlin, but the two men agreed on the historical significance of their project. Frederick wrote: “Henceforth Cirey shall be my Delphi, and your letters my oracles.” Concurring with the Greek model with slight tweaks toward Rome and rationality, Voltaire responded: “You think like Trajan (53–117) you write like Pliny (23–79), you use French like our best writers…. Under your auspices Berlin will be the Athens of Germany, perhaps of Europe”.129 Here Voltaire expressed his admiration for Greek and Roman culture that was equaled only by his respect for France’s best writers, including of course, himself! In 1739, under Voltaire’s influence, prince Frederick wrote an essay titled “Réfutation du Prince de Machiavel” in which he expressed scorn for kings who preferred “the fatal glory of conquerors to that won by kindness, justice, and clemency”. He continued: Machiavelli has not understood the true nature of the sovereign…. Far from being the absolute master of those who are under his rule, he is only the first of their servants (le premier domestique]) and should be the instrument of their welfare, as they are the instrument of his glory.130 127  Durant and Durant 1965: 443. 128  Durant and Durant 1965: 444–445. 129  Durant and Durant 1965: 446. 130  Durant and Durant 1965: 446.

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Probably again following Voltaire, Frederick observed, somewhat hyperbolically: It seems to me that if a form of government may be held up as a model for our days, it is the English. There Parliament is the supreme judge of both the people and the king, while the king has full power of doing good, but none of doing evil.131 In 1740 Frederick sent the manuscript to Voltaire, who approved of it and asked Frederick’s permission to have it published. Frederick agreed, Voltaire wrote a preface, and he had it published in The Hague under the title L’Anti-Machiavel. The author was anonymous but his identity was soon revealed. In the same year, Frederick I died, and Frederick II ascended the throne as a published philosopher king. He wrote to Voltaire asking him “to see in me nothing but a zealous citizen, a rather skeptical philosopher, and a really faithful friend.”132 Young Frederick (age 28) immediately set out to demonstrate that he was devoted to the country and the public good. On the second day of his reign, aware that exceptionally cold weather threatened to produce a late and sparse harvest, he “ordered that the public granaries be opened and that grain be sold to the poor at reasonable rates.” Building on the fact that torture had become obsolete under his father, he formally banned its use in trials throughout Prussia. In step with Voltaire’s liberal views, he decreed that “all religions must be tolerated, and the government must see that none of them makes unjust encroachments on any other, for in this country every man must get to heaven in his own way.” He announced that “La presse est libre” and he tolerated diatribes printed against him. He wrote that people “are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please,” a real (if only partial) promise of accountability to the people. Frederick did not allow public criticism of his military and tax policies, but he tried to keep his measures in line with the laws. Prussian nobles retained their privileges and Prussian peasants continued to be more exploited than their French peers were, but the French ambassador reported that in Prussia there were “everywhere traits of benevolence, [and] sympathy for his subjects”. Voltaire expressed his admiration of his student’s governance by referring to him, apparently for the first time, as “Frédéric le Grand”.133 After their initial meeting in September 1740, Voltaire described Frederick as “a philosopher without austerity, full of sweetness, complaisance, and obliging ways; not remembering that he is a king when he meets his friends.” Frederick 131  Durant and Durant 1965: 446. 132  Durant and Durant 1965: 447. 133  Durant and Durant 1965: 431, 448.

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returned the compliments, saying that Voltaire “has the eloquence of Cicero, the mildness of Pliny, the wisdom of Agrippa (fl. first century CE); he combines, in short, what is to be collected of the virtues and talents from three of the greatest men of antiquity.”134 Unfortunately, Voltaire and Frederick’s honeymoon was short-lived. Several issues arose that led to conflict between the two men. In 1740, in the tradition of the seventeenth century polymath Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646–1716), Voltaire recommended the appointment of Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (1698–1759) to head the Academy of Sciences in Berlin.135 The Institute soon became known as the best in Europe, but Voltaire and Maupertuis would eventually have a falling out. In the same year, Maria Theresa (1801–1855) became head of the Austro-Hungarian empire. This reopened the status of Silesia, which was claimed by both Prussia and Austro-Hungary. Frederick wrote to Voltaire that the succession in Austria “alters all my pacific ideas … so that I am obliged to cancel the bargain we were about to make.”136 Frederick sent troops into Silesia, initiating the War of the Austrian Succession which would last eight years. Voltaire went to Berlin and tried to persuade Frederick to end the war, but the king replied, intriguingly, that peace was impossible because Europeans did not want it. Half the population of Silesia that was Protestant hailed Frederick as a liberator, and he claimed that “no house was pillaged, no citizen was insulted, and Prussian discipline shone in all its splendor.” But Frederick now adopted Machiavelli’s principle that state interests should override private morality, and he asked, with some reason, “to what tribunal can a sovereign have recourse if another prince violates engagements made to him?” The Durants wrote of Frederick, probably with some hyperbole, that, “accustomed to being obeyed, he became dictatorial, seldom brooking remonstrance, rarely seeking advice, never taking it”.137 Voltaire moved to Berlin in 1750 and served as chamberlain to Frederick for a few years at an annual salary of twenty thousand francs. He was second only to Frederick in seating at suppers and he devoted himself to correcting the king’s French in speech and poetry. He remained positive about his personal relations with Frederick. Upon arrival in Berlin, he wrote: I find a port after thirty years of storms. I find the protection of a king, the conversation of a philosopher, the agreeable qualities of an amicable 134  Durant and Durant 1965: 449. 135  For Leibniz’s views of China, see Rosemont and Cook 1977; Mungello 1978. 136  Durant and Durant 1965: 449. 137  Durant and Durant 1965: 451, 452, 458–460.

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man, all united in one who for sixteen years has wished to console me for my misfortunes, make me secure among my enemies…. Here I am sure of a destiny forever tranquil. If one can be sure of anything it is of the character of the King of Prussia.138 According to the Durants, however, it took Voltaire “only four months to ruin his paradise”. He attempted to profit from an illegal financial deal and had a misunderstanding with an agent so the scandal became public. Frederick charged Voltaire with presuming to influence appointments, engaging in the “most villainous affair in the world with a Jew,” and getting into “quarrels with all the world.” Voltaire won his case in the courts and merely apologized to Frederick. He was pardoned, but continued to annoy the king by altering his poetry. Rumors circulated that Frederick was planning to squeeze Voltaire like a lemon before throwing him away. One is reminded here of Stalin’s supposed tactics in dealing with Chiang Kai-shek. It was said that Maupertuis had told Frederick that Voltaire resented having to wash the king’s dirty laundry, i.e. editing his poems. Voltaire responded by charging Maupertuis with committing plagiarism by representing Leibniz’s ideas as his own. Frederick rejected Voltaire’s essay on the matter as “malicious, cowardly, and infamous”, and described the author as “a shameless imposter,” an “ugly brigand”, and a “concocter of stupid libels”. Voltaire responded by writing an essay ridiculing many of Maupertuis’s scientific ideas and proposed experiments. Frederick had his own problems with Maupertuis and he enjoyed reading Voltaire’s critique, but he asked him not to publish it to avoid embarrassing the Academy of Sciences. Voltaire had already had it published, however, and when copies reached Frederick he was furious. In January 1753, Voltaire turned in his key and asked permission to go abroad to take the waters. Frederick accepted Voltaire’s resignation and allowed him to depart; they would never see each other again. Voltaire sought the assistance of Mme de Pompadour (1721–1764) in attempting to return to France, but Louis XV (1710–1774) refused to permit it. Voltaire eventually sneaked back into France and lived quietly in provincial towns before leaving for Switzerland in 1755.139 During the last years of his life, Voltaire published books and engaging in civil activism. In 1751 in Berlin he had published The Century of Louis XIV (Le Siecle de Louis XIV ) which emphasized the king’s achievements in contrast to those of his successor Louis XV.140 He published a long Essay on General History 138  Durant and Durant 1965: 461. 139  Durant and Durant 1965: 461–471. 140  Durant and Durant 1965: 463.

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(Essai sur l’histoire general) that began as cultural history but developed into a more comprehensive account including politics, society, and economics.141 In 1759 he published the novel Candide which critiqued Leibniz’s optimism in a world fraught with hardships and disasters.142 Angered by the suppression of the Encyclopedia and the persecution of Protestants, Voltaire marshaled support for the Huguenot Jean Calas (1698–1762) and his surviving family members. He published a Treatise on Tolerance (Traité sur la Tolérance) that invoked (and exaggerated) Greek and Roman examples of respect for that value. He scored Christian persecution of heretics and defended the Reformation as a reaction against Catholic bigots like Caesar Borgia. He proposed that “every citizen shall be free to follow his own reason provided he does not disturb the public order.” Echoing Cicero, he concluded, “May all men remember that they are brothers!”143 In some of these cases Voltaire received the support of Frederick the Great, but his plan to allow French philosophes to take refuge in Prussia did not appeal to them or to Frederick.144 Frederick remained less critical than Voltaire was of Christianity, which he continued to regard as “the faith of the people”. Exhibiting the elitism expected in a monarch and the skepticism natural to a philosopher, Frederick stated that “The average man does not deserve to be enlightened” and “superstition has always existed and always will”. But Frederick also joined in the tributes to Voltaire, who had made himself the conscience of Europe. Referring to Voltaire’s victories in court cases involving the persecution of Protestants, Frederick wrote: How splendid it is that a philosopher makes his voice heard from his refuge, and that the human race, whose spokesman he is, forces the judges to revise an unjust sentence. If nothing else spoke in favor of M. de Voltaire, this alone would be enough to earn him a place among the benefactors of mankind.145 Voltaire believed in educating an elite who would tutor such monarchs. In valuing Voltaire’s advice, Frederick II was followed by Catherine II (r. 1762– 1796) of Russia, Joseph II (1741–1790) of Austria, and Gustavus III (r. 1771–1792) of Sweden. At a lower level, admirers of Voltaire rose to power in Milan, Parma, Naples, and Madrid.146 141  Duran and Durant 1965: 464. 142  Durant and Durant 1965: 724–726. 143  Durant and Durant 1965: 727–732. 144  Durant and Durant 1965: 733–735. 145  Durant and Durant 1865: 736. 146  Durant and Durant 1865: 775–776, 785.

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Voltaire had been educated at a prestigious Jesuit secondary school and therefore had a firm grounding in the Greek and Roman classics and some knowledge of the Confucian classics and histories. He was therefore prepared to turn Berlin into the Athens of Germany or even of Europe, and to add Confucius to the pantheon of great philosophers, including Socrates and Plato. Frederick shared these visions, finding his Oracle in Voltaire’s letters. If Frederick thought like Trajan and wrote like Pliny, Voltaire had the eloquence of Cicero, the mildness of Pliny, and the wisdom of Agrippa. From our perspective, Voltaire was like Confucius in searching for a ruler worthy of his allegiance, and Frederick was like a good Chinese ruler, such as Liu Bei of Shu-Han, who prostrated himself to woo the outstanding advisor, Zhuge Liang. As Europe and China became increasingly aware of each other, resonances between them naturally proliferated. Voltaire was a leading scholar, a bold rebel against the church and state, and an energetic advisor to several rulers, manifestly fitting the template of the scholar rebel advisor. Voltaire first followed Leibniz’s interest in global culture by developing the Academy of Sciences in Berlin, but he later criticized Leibniz’s positive view of human nature in his cautionary novel Candide. This transition was paralleled by Frederick’s move from critiquing Machiavelli’s cynicism to accepting his emphasis on raison d’état. Both trajectories resembled the larger, recurrent shifts in Chinese views of human nature from Mencius to Xun Zi in the early period and from Zhu Xi (1130–1200) to Li Zhi (1527–1602) in the middle period. Voltaire’s decision to write a history of the deceased Louis XIV to critique his successor, Louis XV, was very Chinese as was his decision to write a comprehensive history rather than just a cultural monograph. Frederick’s shift from listening to advice in his youth to ignoring remonstrances in his later years was remarkably similar to the path followed by Taizong in the Tang period. As we have seen, Voltaire’s phrase that “all men are brothers” could have been lifted from the Chinese novel Lives of the Marsh which celebrated social bandits in the Song period. Frederick’s policies in the 1740s closely resembled those of good Chinese governments like the high Qing and upright scholars like Li Yan. They included distributing grain to the poor, who were the main victims of cold weather and sparse crops, and banning the use of torture in court cases. The policy of religious tolerance was adopted more naturally, perhaps, in China, where the three ways of thought (Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism) generally coexisted quite harmoniously, and even the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were generally accepted. Frederick’s emphasis on the strict discipline of his troops paralleled that of Chinese rulers and advisors even if it was often honored in the breach at both ends of Eurasia. Freedom of speech and press was sought for and even practiced more commonly than in

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the past in both Europe and China. That was a result of the attainment of some measure of peace and the proliferation of methods of printing even if such freedom remained fragile in the context of religious and political orthodoxies and church and state efforts to uphold them. During the 1750s, Voltaire’s main duty was to edit Frederick’s poetry, but his seat next to Frederick at supper indicated his status as a kind of symbolic prime minister that was also common for advisors in China. Finally, there were the old binaries of time (ancient and modern) and space (country and continent) that persisted into eighteenth-century Europe. Sometimes they took on theoretical significance, as when Frederick credited Voltaire with single-handedly upholding modernity and Voltaire joined Frederick in an effort to make Berlin the Athens of Germany or Europe. Like Machiavelli and Soderini, Voltaire and Frederick were aware that they lived in a multi-state system in which warfare and preparation for warfare constituted an accepted way of life. The states Voltaire and Frederick inhabited and helped to govern, however, were larger than the ones Machiavelli and Soderini had tried to administer. Frederick rightly commented that war was unavoidable because the people of Europe did not support peace and there was no institution to enforce commitments made by nation states and empires. This reflected a gulf that existed between Europe and China and which was clear by the eighteenth century. In the so-called Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, Europe had accepted the idea that nation states were the primordial, normal, and permanent political units of Europe and the world. China on the other hand tended to regard any multi-state system as contingent, extraordinary, and temporary. Such a system, in short, was tantamount to disunion or disorder that was bound, sooner or later, to be transcended by union and even harmony, bringing peace to itself and to its neighbors. Voltaire helped to bridge this gap between a disunited Europe and a united China. Frederick recognized that contribution by calling Voltaire a spokesman for “the human race” and a “benefactor of mankind”. Of course, Voltaire was not flawless, as when he counseled Catherine to expel the Turks from Russia. Frederick was right, however, in his prediction that “The nations will write in their annals that Voltaire was the promoter of this revolution in the human spirit that is taking place in the eighteenth century.” The precise nature of that “revolution”, of course, was yet to be determined, and “promoters” of some form of it could be found not only in Europe but in China and elsewhere in the world. The American war for independence began in 1776, which was two years before Voltaire died, and the French revolution followed a little over a decade after that. Those movements overturned hereditary monarchs and established republics, but they also produced strong leaders and states dedicated

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to maximizing wealth and power. Following the model of the Roman republic, the United States expedited its expansion to the west under the banner of Manifest Destiny and France extended its authority in Europe in the name of liberty, equality and fraternity. As in the case of Rome, both polities that claimed to be nation states as opposed to empires soon evolved into national empires even if and when they were reluctant to acknowledge the fact or even eschewed the status. Under these conditions, scholar rebel advisors continued to play important roles in shaping the policies of the heads of those two states, along with others. Talleyrand and Napoleon Charles Maurice de Talleyrand (1754–1838) was born into a prominent French aristocratic family of modest financial means. He received a Catholic education and was ordained Abbé de Perigord at age twenty-four. In a remarkable coincidence, he received a blessing from Voltaire in one of that eminent philosopher’s last acts.147 Talleyrand served in high posts, most often as foreign minister, in several successive regimes, from the Bourbon court of Louis XVI (1774–1792), through the French Revolution, to Napoleon Bonaparte, and on through two Bourbon restorations. Like Machiavelli, Talleyrand was widely regarded as a pragmatic practitioner of realpolitik, ready to support whoever was in power to advance his own agenda. Talleyrand claimed to be a consistent advocate of constitutional monarchy who never abandoned anyone who had not already abandoned him (or her) self.148 He got rich by accepting gifts even from foreign governments, and he became powerful by conspiring to overthrow his own rulers when he lost confidence in them. He claimed always to be acting in the best interests of France while also seeking peace in Europe.149 As in the case of some other scholar rebel advisors, Talleyrand often wielded more authority than the rulers he was supposed to be serving. In 1780, during the last decade of the reign of Louis XVI, Talleyrand served in the Estates-General as a representative of the Catholic clergy. In 1785, he conducted an inventory of church property throughout the realm and asserted the “inalienable right” of the church to its holdings. With more concern for the public good, he also defended the rights of widows, favored measures to

147  Cooper 1932/1986: 18. 148  Cooper 1932/1986: 305, 316, 349. 149  Cooper 1932/1986: 88, 89, 257.

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discourage gambling, and called for free trade with England.150 In 1789 his family’s influence landed him the position of Bishop of Autun.151 After the fall of the Bastille in July 1789, Talleyrand urged Louis XVI to dissolve the Estates-General, using force if necessary. The king refused on the grounds that it would risk violence. That was not the first case of a king being less hawkish than his minister, nor would it be the last. In the first years of the Republic, Talleyrand cooperated with Honoré de Mirabeau (1749–1791) in the Estates-General with the goal of establishing a constitutional monarchy on the English model. They worked through the Estates-General to nationalize the church, write a Civil Constitution of the Clergy, establish a system of public education, and promulgate a Declaration of the Rights of Man. Talleyrand lacked the oratorical skills of a Cicero needed to influence the assembly, but he had an impressive manner and deep voice, which he used to secure the support of the king’s younger brother, the Count d’Artois, and the king’s wife, Marie Antoinette (1755–1793).152 In January 1791, Talleyrand resigned his bishopric to devote full time to his post in the department of Paris. In April of that year he was excommunicated by the pope for having helped the state to strip the church of its lands. He then joined a small but talented group called the Feuillants, who supported the revolution against the Bourbons but defended the idea of a constitutional monarchy. In 1792 he went to England, ostensibly just to get horses but in fact to secure England’s neutrality and possibly even to make an alliance. He was not successful and returned home to find radical republicans, known as the Girondins and Jacobins, in power. They advocated war with England to undermine the French monarchy, but Talleyrand argued for peace with an emphasis on trade. On the eve of the terror against monarchists introduced by Maximillien Robespierre (1758–1794), the moderate republican leader Georges Danton (1759–1794) arranged a passport that enabled Talleyrand to leave France for England. In 1793 Louis XVI was executed in Paris, and France and England went to war. In 1794, Talleyrand was expelled from England and went to the United States. He failed to get an audience with George Washington (1732–1799) but befriended Aaron Burr (1756–1836) until Burr killed Alexander Hamilton (1755–1804), whom Talleyrand admired more.153 In 1795 the revolutionary National Convention formed a new government, called the Directory, that ruled France for two years. Its goal was to protect those who had benefited from the revolution. In 1796 Talleyrand worked 150  Cooper 1932/1986: 26–27. 151  Talleyrand 2017: 3. 152  Cooper 1932/1986: 36–39; Talleyrand 2017: 3. 153  Cooper 1932/1986: 42–77.

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through friends, including particularly Mme. Germaine de Stael (1766–1817), to get his name taken off the list of monarchist émigrés considered to be enemies of the revolution. He then returned to France, and, because of his experience, in 1797 he became foreign minister of the Directory.154 In step with the times, he used his office to continue to accept gifts even from foreign countries to increase his personal fortune. Meanwhile, royalists were taking control of one-third of the seats in the assembly, the president was in the pay of the Bourbons, and other members of the Directory were reactionary or incompetent. Talleyrand therefore began corresponding with a general, Napoleon Bonaparte, who was distinguishing himself in a military campaign in Italy. Talleyrand admired Napoleon’s political instincts and worked with him behind the scenes to take over the Directory. Talleyrand strongly urged Napoleon not to interfere with the independence of Venice. When Napoleon took the city and used it to secure peace with Austria, however, Talleyrand went along with the decision, beginning a mode of operation that soon became standard for him. The two men met for the first time in Paris and were impressed with each other. They agreed that the time was not right for the emergence of a revolutionary dictator like Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658), who had ridden to power in the 17th century English revolution. Talleyrand accordingly introduced Napoleon simply as “citizen Bonaparte” to the other members of the Directory. In 1798 Talleyrand again overcame his expressed concern about excessive military expansion and approved Napoleon’s plan to send a military expedition to Egypt. Talleyrand even planned to go to Constantinople to meet Napoleon, but the whole plan failed when the British admiral Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) destroyed the French fleet at Aboukir Bay in Egypt.155 In 1799 (the 18th Brumaire according to the revolutionary calendar), Talleyrand and Napoleon’s younger brother Lucien carried out a coup d’état against other members of the Directory and established what they called a Consulate to insure strong leadership in a time of allegedly failing democratic institutions. Napoleon made Talleyrand foreign minister even though he did not agree with him on some policies. At age thirty, Napoleon was eager to learn, and, according to one historian, Talleyrand was considered to be the wisest and the best liked of his tutors.” One contemporary wrote regarding Talleyrand, “I have frequently been present at this great statesman’s conferences with Napoleon, and I can declare that I never saw him flatter his dreams of ambition; but, on the contrary, he always endeavored to make him sensible

154  Cooper 1932/1986: 84–89. 155  Cooper 1932/1986: 90–117.

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of his true interests.”156 Napoleon was in the political middle between two other consuls, one on the right and one on the left. Talleyrand, meanwhile, was one of two ministers. True to his monarchist leanings, Talleyrand indicated that he would report to only one consul, a statement which pleased Napoleon.157 In 1801, Talleyrand negotiated a concordat with the Vatican and was released from excommunication and laicized. The next year he negotiated treaties that incorporated Brussels, Luxembourg, Naples, and German lands along the Rhine into France. In Talleyrand’s eyes, these treaties brought the French polity to its desired territorial extent. Bribes from foreign sources continued to bring additional funds into his personal bank accounts.158 On another even more personal matter, Napoleon instructed Talleyrand to marry his longtime mistress, Catherine Grand (1762–1834). Talleyrand resisted, citing the precedent of the priest Caesar Borgia who had a mistress he never married (!). But the Vatican rejected the analogy and Talleyrand agreed to marry Grand. Also at Napoleon’s request, in 1803, Talleyrand purchased the Chateau de Valencay. Napoleon would later require Talleyrand to turn his chateau into a prison for captured Spanish royalty. Napoleon’s goal was apparently to force Talleyrand to share responsibility for the policy of defeating Spain and incorporating it into the empire.159 As Napoleon continued to expand French frontiers, Talleyrand began his extraordinary practice of tipping off potential targets in an effort to rein in his own ruler. Unfortunately, he was not very successful, and he seems not even to have tried to limit Napoleon’s gradual monopolization of domestic political authority. Despite Talleyrand’s efforts, war continued with the British over Piedmont in Italy. Napoleon’s tenure as first consul was extended to ten years and then for life. The monarchical aura that appealed to both Napoleon and Talleyrand attracted royalist interest in participation in the government, but the Bourbons refused Napoleon’s demand to give up their claims to the throne. Pro-Bourbon conspiracies were perversely invoked by the Consulate to justify the prosecution of Jacobins. Talleyrand and Napoleon made a bad mistake in executing the widely popular Bourbon Duke of Enghien (1772–1804) on trumped-up charges, a move that cost the Consulate much public support.160 In 1804 Napoleon became “Emperor of the French Republic”, apparently confident that Roman practice lessened the chance that the title would be 156  Cooper 1932/1986: 120; Talleyrand 2017: 4. 157  Cooper 1932/1986: 124. 158  Cooper 1932/1986: 125–126; Talleyrand 2017: 4. 159  Cooper 1932/1986: 127, 129; Talleyrand 2017: 4. 160  Cooper 1932/1986: 135–144.

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considered an oxymoron. Talleyrand became Grand Chamberlain of the Imperial Court. Talleyrand knew that there could be no peace in Europe so long as the same head wore the crowns of Italy and France, but Napoleon refused to accept his brother as king of Italy and took the post for himself. When Russia joined Austria and Britain to resist French expansion, Napoleon decided to campaign to the east. Victory over Austria led Talleyrand to see that country as an ally against Russia. He therefore called on Napoleon to be generous in imposing terms. But Napoleon was eager to dictate peace to the Hapsburgs so he pressed on to total military victory. In 1805, therefore, Talleyrand was forced to negotiate the treaty of Pressburg by which Emperor Francis (r. 1804–1835) of Austria lost three million subjects and one sixth of his revenue and paid an indemnity of forty million francs. Talleyrand was rewarded by becoming the Prince of Benevento, a small enclave in the previously papal state of Naples. Talleyrand wanted to make peace with Britain, but Napoleon refused to give up Sicily and negotiations failed. Napoleon launched a blockade of Britain and Talleyrand issued the order without approving of it. Napoleon also insisted on advancing into Prussia and was victorious at Jena. Talleyrand joined him in Berlin but had no influence over him. In 1807, by the Peace of Tilsit, Frederick William III (r. 1797–1840) of Prussia lost half his territory and saw his population reduced to five million. Talleyrand wanted a strong Poland to check Russia, but Napoleon wanted only one estate with himself as master. Talleyrand had accepted money from Poland to work for its independence, but he returned the funds because he was unable to deliver on his promise. Napoleon’s power peaked in 1807 with his control of all of Europe except Britain. From that time, however, in the words of a biographer, “Talleyrand did all in his power to thwart Napoleon’s ambitions and to hasten his downfall.” Talleyrand was relieved of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but he was simultaneously promoted to the office of Vice-Grand Elector. He continued to play an important role in foreign policy, at least nominally. According to Talleyrand’s biographer, “his position was third highest” in the empire. In 1708 Napoleon invaded Spain and partitioned Portugal for not enforcing the blockade against Britain. As usual, Tallleyrand probably did not approve of the campaign, but he nonetheless congratulated Napoleon on his victory. As Cooper put it sagely (and, as seen from today, prophetically), “… in the days of an autocracy every statesman must be a courtier too, just as under a democracy every statesman must be something of a demagogue.”161 Napoleon’s intervention in Spain united the rulers and people of Europe against him. Talleyrand was a European who favored unity of the continent 161  Cooper 1932/1986: 145–170.

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but he did not wish to alter the map radically. He therefore took it upon himself to advise other rulers besides Napoleon. In fall 1808 the Congress of Erfurt brought together an unprecedented number of ruling princes to pay homage to one man (Napoleon). Sub rosa Talleyrand counseled Alexander II (1855– 1881) of Russia: Sire, it is in your power to save Europe, and you will only do so by refusing to give way to Napoleon. The French people are civilized, their sovereign is not. The sovereign of Russia should therefore be the ally of the French people.162 Napoleon responded by drafting a secret treaty and sharing it with Alexander, but Alexander immediately showed it to Talleyrand. Talleyrand let it be known in Paris that he opposed Napoleon’s policies. He even signaled that he was conspiring to overthrow Napoleon by making up with his rival, the Paris police chief Joseph Fouché (1759–1820). Even the prince Klemens von Metternich (1773–1859) of Austria could see the growing split between Napoleon and his military men, on the one hand, and “the great mass of the nation” headed by Talleyrand and Fouché, on the other. At a public meeting with his courtiers, Napoleon told them that they had no right to think for themselves let alone express their opinions. He naturally regarded Talleyrand’s maneuvers as treasonous. In one confrontation with Talleyrand, Napoleon warned that he could “break him like a glass”, but he later added that “it was not worth the trouble”. Instead, Napoleon simply denounced Talleyrand publicly as “shit in a silk stocking.” When Napoleon withdrew from the encounter, Talleyrand commented loftily that it was a “Pity that so great a man should have been so badly brought up!” One is reminded here of Li Yan’s reported criticism of his commoner leader Li Zicheng. Napoleon stripped Talleyrand of his position as Grand Chamberlain but allowed him to continue to hold the post of Vice-Grand Elector.163 During the next five years, Talleyrand was out of favor with Napoleon but continued in his post. Napoleon regarded him as a loser who had been expelled from the church, married a prostitute, engaged in corruption, and could boast only his skill in conversation. Yet Napoleon continued to have some affection for him because he had sometimes offered wise counsel and was still one of the “grand dignitaries” of the empire. Talleyrand continued to oppose Napoleon’s harsh treatment of Austria in 1809 and he described Napoleon’s invasion of 162  Cooper 1932/1986: 171–176. 163  Cooper 1932/1986: 177–189; Talleyrand 2017: 5.

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Russia in 1812 as the beginning of the end. In 1813 Napoleon invited him to come back as minister of foreign affairs but he declined on the grounds that he was unfamiliar with current issues. In fact, he could see that power was slipping from Napoleon’s hands. One day Napoleon charged Talleyrand with being a traitor and threatened to shoot or hang him. Talleyrand responded with his usual sang-froid, telling colleagues “The Emperor is charming this morning.”164 In the winter and spring of 1814, with Prussian, Austrian, and Russian forces marching on Paris and the British navy winning in the south, Napoleon acknowledged there was a crisis. He was reported to have said, “If only Talleyrand were here—he would get me out of it.” In fact, in this crisis Napoleon refused to consider even an armistice, and Talleyrand let it be known he would welcome a return of the Bourbons. On 1 April 1814, as Vice-Grand Elector, Talleyrand served as mediator between the Bonapartists and the Bourbons. The conditions were such that he now occupied the most powerful position of his entire career and was probably the strongest man in France. He asked the rump French Senate to form a provisional government of which he was elected president. The next day the Senate formally deposed Napoleon. On 11 April it adopted a new constitution that stated: “The French people freely call to the throne of France Louis-Stanislas-Xavier of France, brother of the last King— and after him the other members of the House of Bourbon in the old order.” On the 24th, Talleyrand presented King Louis XVIII (r. 1814–1824) to the Senate with the strange words, “The nation and the Senate, full of confidence in the enlightened and magnanimous sentiments of Your Majesty, share your desire that France should be free in order that her King may be powerful.” Talleyrand was then appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs charged with negotiating an armistice and a treaty with the allies.165 At the Congress of Vienna, Talleyrand allied with the smaller powers, including Spain, to get a place at the table that was initially dominated by the victorious “allies,” Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Britain. In January 1815, he even negotiated a secret treaty with Britain and Austria to rein in Russia’s designs on Poland and Prussia’s designs on Saxony. By dividing the other major “powers,” as they were called, Talleyrand was able to maintain sovereignty within France’s hexagonal borders of 1792. When Napoleon left his exile in Elba and tried to make a comeback, he appealed to Talleyrand. As he reflected later: “We were not always of the same opinion, but more than once the advice which he gave me was sound.” But Talleyrand now considered Napoleon to be a potential “usurper” of authority. Together with other rulers and ministers of Europe, he decided to have nothing more 164  Cooper 1932/1986: 190–215; Talleyrand 2017: 5. 165  Cooper 1932/1986: 217–235; Talleyrand 2017: 5.

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to do with him. Napoleon’s subsequent final defeat at Waterloo resulted in another treaty less favorable to France. Talleyrand had his own problems with Louis XVIII, including his insensitivity to republican commitment to the tricolor, his flaunting of British intervention on behalf of the monarchy, and his unwillingness to acknowledge mistakes. In September 1815, Talleyrand resigned the posts of President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs.166 From 1815 to 1830, Talleyrand lived in retirement, spending winters in Paris and summers at Valencay. He was accorded a sinecure post of Grand Chamberlain that provided him with 100,000 francs a year. That income, combined with his substantial wealth accumulated over decades, enabled him to live the life of an elder statesman and local benefactor. After Napoleon died at St. Helena in 1821, Talleyrand feared that the restored monarchy was no longer moving “in accord with the age”. He made his point by evaluating the revolution he had once supported. According to Cooper’s paraphrase, Talleyrand wrote: The Revolution … was in accord with the age when it proclaimed religious liberty, equality before the law, liberty of the individual, trial by jury, and liberty of the press; but it was no longer in accord with the age when it set up a single chamber, when it destroyed royal authority, and when it tortured conscience. Talleyrand remarked that “in our time it is not easy to deceive for long”. Although Talleyrand had spent his whole life at the pinnacle of the social and political hierarchies, in his old age he reflected on the potential of the common person. In his words: There is someone who is cleverer than Voltaire, cleverer than Bonaparte, cleverer than any of the Directors, than any Minister in the past or in the future; and that person is everybody (tout le monde). To engage, or at least to persist, in a struggle in which you may find everybody interested on the other side is a mistake, and nowadays all political mistakes are dangerous.167 While Talleyrand was well known as a gourmand and a womanizer, he tried also to live up to these more generous impulses by providing free medicine to the poor and establishing a school for girls in Valencay. 166  Cooper 1932/1986: 241–283; Talleyrand 2017: 5.–6. 167  Cooper 1932/1986: 304–305.

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With the death in 1824 of Louis XVIII and the accession of his younger brother Charles X (1824–1830), the quality of the court declined. When Charles X fled St. Cloud, the suburb of Paris adjacent to Versailles, Talleyrand remarked, “It is not I who have abandoned the King, it is the King who has abandoned us.” The Duke of Orleans consulted with Talleyrand before joining a movement for change. In July 1830 a scion from a younger branch of the Bourbon lineage, Louis-Phillippe (r. 1830–1848), ascended the throne. Talleyrand met with the new monarch in August and was appointed ambassador to England. Talleyrand had always favored close relations with Britain, and he arrived in London when the master diplomatists Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) and William Gladstone (1809–1898) were coming of age. Talleyrand was more mature than Prime Minister Edward Grey (1862–1933) and Secretary of State Henry John Temple Palmerston (1784–1865). He skillfully arranged for Prince Leopold (1790–1865) to become the first king of Belgium (in retrospect, not one of his wisest decisions!). In these years, Talleyrand effectively directed French foreign policy from London, noting that “The greatest danger in times of crisis comes from the zeal of people who are inexperienced.” That was another insightful pronouncement from the perspective of the U.S.A. in 2019. Talleyrand proposed a partition plan for newly independent Belgium. He thought he was treated better in England than in France, but his relations with British foreign minister Palmerston were poor. His mind remained intact but the rest of his body was weakening. In 1834, at age eighty-two, he resigned and returned to Paris.168 In the remaining three and a half years of his life, Talleyrand lived happily with his wife and daughter. He still had political influence, favoring the Prime Minister Adolphe Thiers (1797–1877) over Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot (1787–1874). The writer Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) was impressed with Talleyrand and incorporated him into his novel Le Pere Goriot. Talleyrand encouraged the revolutionary poet Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) to be another Honoré de Mirabeau, although he acknowledged that Mirabeau lacked the courage to be unpopular. He added: In that respect I am more of a man than he; I abandon my reputation to all the misunderstandings and all the insults of the mob. I am thought immoral and machiavellian. [In fact] I am only calm and disdainful. I have never given evil counsel to a government or to a prince; but I do not share their fall. After ship-wrecks there must be pilots to save the victims. I have presence of mind and I guide them to some sort of port; little matter what port provided that it shelters them…. I have braved the stupidity 168  Cooper 1932/1986: 313–343; Talleyrand 2017: 6.

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of public opinion all my life; I can brave it for forty years in the grave. Remember what I am prophesying to you, when I am dead. You are one of the few men by whom I wish to be understood.169 Lamartine followed Talleyrand’s advice in the revolution of 1848 by proclaiming the pacific intentions of the new government. Talleyrand drafted a declaration for his descendants which claimed that his secularization by the pope had made him independent and that he had served Napoleon only so long as he was completely devoted to France. He also wrote a funeral oration for his successor as minister of foreign affairs in which he argued that study for the priesthood was good preparation for diplomacy. He believed that ministers of foreign affairs should appear to be open while actually being impenetrable, and he opined that “good faith never authorizes deceit but it admits of reserve.” One attendee recorded that the content of the oration was “better than Voltaire”. Press treatment was positive. According to Cooper, Talleyrand’s reputation over time has generally been high when Napoleon’s standing has been low, and vice versa. Cooper noted that Talleyrand was not a Royalist, a Republican, or a Bonapartist, so he was not embraced by partisan historians of those stripes. This judgement has probably been rectified by the half dozen biographies published since Cooper’s. In his last days, Talleyrand came under intense pressure from his family, friends, and clergy to confess so as to save his soul. He finally reluctantly agreed to do so, but he acknowledged only sins, not crimes.170 Like Machiavelli and Voltaire, Talleyrand was educated as a priest and played a role in European society analogous to that of scholar-officials, including Li Yan, in China. Like them, he faced the question of when to serve the existing ruler and when to refuse to serve or to withdraw from office. Talleyrand played an even more important role in establishing Napoleon than Machiavelli had in supporting Soderini and than Voltaire had in serving Frederick II. But when Talleyrand became disillusioned with Napoleon, he also worked much more vigorously to undermine his authority and ultimately to replace him with another ruler. Talleyrand was a scholar who rebelled against the Bourbon Old Regime, but also against the Revolution and against Napoleon. He participated in two coups d’état that resulted in restorations of the Bourbon royal family. Like Machiavelli and Voltaire, Talleyrand had no scruples about serving more than one master, but he served so many different kinds of sovereigns that some questioned his integrity. In this respect, he was like the Chinese scholar-official 169  Cooper 1986: 349. 170  Cooper 1986: 351–375.

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Feng Dao (882–954), who, nearly a millennium earlier, had followed the basic Confucian practice of serving legitimate power-holders seriatim but was later criticized by Song Confucians for immoral opportunism and flagrant disloyalty.171 Talleyrand, of course, rejected such aspersions, arguing that he was consistently loyal to France and Europe, to the ideal of constitutional monarchy, and to the goal of international peace. Talleyrand broke with the Bourbons and then with the Republicans when they violated what were coming to be known as human rights. He turned against Napoleon when Napoleon pursued his vision of a borderless empire under his personal direction. Talleyrand respected legitimate political authority and national boundaries, and sought negotiated solutions to European problems. Simone Weil (1909–1943) accepted Talleyrand’s self-assessment and charitably pointed out that he served not every regime, as was often said, but the “France behind every regime”.172 That said, Talleyrand was clearly exaggerating when he claimed that he placed the interests of France above those of his family. In fact, he consistently used his public office to enhance his private wealth, the basic practice of corruption. Talleyrand did have the courage to be unpopular, as he claimed, and he broke with Napoleon when the general was reaching the height of his success, not what one would expect of an unprincipled opportunist. But Talleyrand, unlike Li Yan, lacked the courage to confront his ruler openly. Instead, he often suppressed his reservations about Napoleon’s foreign policies and acquiesced in his military campaigns as long as they were successful. Talleyrand really moved against Napoleon only after he suffered repeated military defeats at the hands of his adversaries. It was ultimately the resistance of those enemies, not the opposition of Talleyrand, that put an end to the French empire in Europe. Unfortunately, that resistance could not keep France from extending that empire to Asia and Africa under Talleyrand’s successors. Voltaire and Talleyrand both admired Great Britain and its colonies, including some of which became independent as the United States. They praised, sometimes hyperbolically, Britain’s parliamentary form of government and its policy of free trade. They ignored Britain’s use of those institutions and policies to create maritime empire that was coming in the nineteenth century to dominate Europe and much of the rest of the world. Unlike Voltaire, Talleyrand seemed oblivious to China or to any other alternative to the Westphalian system of nation-states and national empires. In his enthusiasm for a balance of power within Europe, Talleyrand was apparently unaware of Europe’s growing 171  Wang 1962. 172  Weil 2002: 110. cited in Talleyrand 2017: 7, 11.

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hegemony in the world. Talleyrand wanted his French compatriots to be content with the territory within the inherited hexagon, but he could not adduce precedents for national self-containment as Ming officials had been able to do five centuries earlier. Indeed, Talleyrand seems to have been much less concerned about historical models of any kind than Machiavelli and Voltaire had been. With the exceptions of not wanting to be considered “machiavellian” (!) and of citing Caesar Borgia as a precedent for priests having mistresses (!), Talleyrand seems to have had little concern with historical models in Europe let alone in the rest of the world. This of course was consistent with the assumption he probably shared with many other Europeans, that the “West” was producing an unprecedented “modernity” based on national empires which were already ubiquitous or slated soon to become so. Like Machiavelli and Voltaire, Talleyrand treated his wife poorly and routinely had affairs with other women. This of course was also common in China. The historical Li Yan had two wives and the storied Li Yan had one wife and a female rescuer who was also depicted as becoming his concubine or second wife. The general point is the plausibility of this scenario in Li Yan’s case given the experience of the European priest rebel advisors under review here. More particularly, Talleyrand had a relationship with Mme. Germaine de Stael, a virtual comrade-in-arms during and after the French Revolution, that was somewhat similar to the storied Li Yan’s relationship with Hong Niangzi although de Stael was more fully historical and successful. These cases may serve to remind us that, just as the old monarchical regimes were not absolute, so patriarchal societies did not preclude the appearance of strong women rebels who could assist—or even lead—their men into rebellion against the status quo. Just as Voltaire was said to have established relations with Louis XV’s mistress Mme. de Pompadour (1721–1764), and Talleyrand was reported to have worked through Louis XVI’s wife Marie Antoinette (1774–1792), so Li Zicheng and the storied Li Yan reportedly attempted, in different but related ways, to use the Ming general Wu Sangui’s cultivated courtesan, Chen Yuanyuan, in an effort (however vain) to bring the Ming court into association with the rebel Shun enterprise.173 Finally, Talleyrand was no great orator like Cicero, persuasive writer like Machiavelli, or cosmopolitan philosopher like Voltaire, but he clearly had a compelling personality that allowed him to win over a wide variety of people. This may have been one of Li Yan’s talents as well though he was ultimately less successful in exercising it. The writer Mirabeau worked closely with Talleyrand on the revolution, the commander Napoleon (no un-critical 173  For de Stael, see Herold 1958; for Chen, see Li 2005: 94–104.

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admirer) acknowledged that Talleyrand was a skilled conversationalist, and the heads of state at Vienna were often manipulated by him. The ex-courtesan Catherine Grand was one of many women who found Talleyrand appealing, despite his philandering, and the prominent novelist Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) described him as an impressive personality. Talleyrand was a man of action more than of words, but a couple of his phrases reverberated in later times. Referring to the age of Enlightenment and skepticism, he wrote “in our time it is not easy to deceive for long.” Here he seems to have anticipated the American President Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), who reportedly said in 1858 “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” Kissinger and Nixon From the founding of the United States in 1789 to the present, there have been many officials who have been in positions to offer advice to presidents. Among them, the most recent, intimate, and influential have been the National Security Advisors, located in the Executive Office Building next to the White House. Their authority has increased along with that of the imperial presidency since World War II. Among them, perhaps the most influential has been Henry Kissinger (1923–). Kissinger served as national security advisor under Richard Nixon and as secretary of state under Nixon and Gerald Ford (1913– 2006). Since then, Kissinger has informally counseled presidential candidates, presidents, and ex-presidents up to the present. Heinz Alfred Kissinger was born the elder son of a school teacher in Bavaria, Germany. At age fifteen, he and his family fled from the Nazis and made their way to New York City. He changed his name to Henry, attended City College, was drafted into the army in 1943, and became a naturalized citizen. Because of his strong academic record and fluency in German, he was assigned to the intelligence section of the 84th Infantry Division. He saw action and volunteered for dangerous work during the Battle of the Bulge. As a mere private, he administered the city of Krefeld. He was promoted to sergeant, served in the Counter Intelligence Corps, hunted down Gestapo officers, and was awarded a Bronze Star. In 1945 he was made commandant with responsibility for the de-Nazification of Hesse. He was reported to have maintained strict discipline among his men vis a vis the civilian population.174 In 1946 he taught at the European Command Intelligence School at Camp King, and he continued to 174  Kissinger 2017: 3, citing Isaacson 1992: 53. The following discussion of Kissinger’s life story, like that of Lin Biao’s above, is based in part on sources cited in Wikipedia and may therefore be challenged by specialists. The idea is to provide a brief review of relevant materials

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work there as a civilian after his discharge from the army. He attended Harvard College, majored in government, and wrote a senior thesis titled “The Meaning of History: Reflections on Spengler, Toynbee and Kant.” In 1950, he graduated summa cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He received his Master’s Degree in 1951 and his Ph.D. in 1954 from Harvard University. His doctoral dissertation was titled “Peace, Legitimacy, and the Equilibrium (A Study of the Statesmanship of Castlereagh and Metternich).”175 In a rare event attesting to Kissinger’s high standing with his mentors, he joined the Harvard faculty directly upon receiving his doctorate. In 1955, obviously interested in more than the usual academic career, he served as a consultant to the U.S. National Security Council’s Operations Coordinating Board. In 1956 he directed studies in nuclear weapons and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City. In 1957 he published his revised doctoral dissertation under the title A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812–22. He also published a monograph titled Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy.176 From 1956 to 1958, he worked for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund as director of its Special Studies Project. Between 1958 and 1971, he directed the Harvard Defense Studies Program and co-founded the Harvard Center for International Affairs. Kissinger served as consultant to several government agencies and think tanks, including the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the Rand Corporation. He was foreign policy advisor to Nelson Rockefeller during his bids for the Republican Party nomination for president in 1960, 1964, and 1968. After Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, he appointed Kissinger National Security Advisor, a post he held until 1975. Meanwhile, in 1973 he was appointed Secretary of State, a post he continued to hold under Gerald Ford until January 1977.177 Between 1969 and 1977, Kissinger played a major role in crafting U.S. foreign policy. With regard to the Soviet Union, he continued the Cold War policy of containment, first articulated in 1947 by foreign service officer George F. Kennan (1904–2005) for President Harry Truman (1884–1972). Unfortunately, unlike Kennan, Kissinger accepted the Eisenhower administration’s interpretation of containment as primarily a military strategy. He was apparently less interested in Eisenhower’s farewell address warning about the influence of the military industrial complex on American foreign policy. He did reject, however, John easily available to a general world-wide readership, not to report on the fruits of original research. 175  Kissinger 2017: 1–3. 176  Kissinger 1957; Kissinger 1957a. 177  Kissinger 2017: 3–4.

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Foster Dulles’ (1888–1959) nuclear strategy of massive retaliation and continued the Kennedy and Johnson administrations’ policies of limited war and counter-insurgency. The U.S. abjured the quest for a first-strike capacity (i.e. the ability to use nuclear weapons without suffering a nuclear response), but it also continued to assert its right to use nuclear weapons first, even against a non-nuclear state, a policy that remains in effect to this writing. Kissinger followed up John F. Kennedy’s (1917–1963) policy of détente and engaged in strategic arms limitation talks with the Soviet Union. On his watch, the number of nuclear weapons declined radically, although sufficient numbers remained to support the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD) as the major deterrent to nuclear war.178 With regard to Vietnam, Nixon was elected in 1968 with a promise to achieve “peace with honor”, and he began the withdrawal of U.S. troops that was completed by 1975. But Nixon and Kissinger also attempted to prop up the South Vietnamese government by openly bombing North Vietnam, secretly bombing Laos, and invading Cambodia, taking the lives of tens of thousands of civilians and contributing to the chaos that soon led to mass killings in Cambodia of genocidal proportions.179 In 1973, Kissinger and the North Vietnamese minister Le Duc Tho (1911–1990) were jointly awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for arranging a ceasefire that facilitated the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. The ceasefire did not hold, however. Le Duc Tho declined the prize while Kissinger donated the proceeds to families of fallen GIs.180 In an effort to counter the Soviet Union and to avoid defeat in Vietnam, Nixon decided to recognize the People’s Republic of China over twenty years after it was founded. Kissinger went to Beijing in 1971 for secret talks with Premier Zhou Enlai to prepare for Nixon’s visit. The result was the Shanghai Communiqué in February 1972 in which the U.S. recognized that the Chinese believe there is only one China and the U.S. does not challenge that view. Thus began a process of “normalization” in which low level diplomatic posts were established in Washington and Beijing, and cultural and commercial relations were restored and developed. Kissinger’s policies under Nixon and Ford prepared the ground for full diplomatic relations that were restored in 1978 by President Jimmy Carter (1924–).181 The U.S. Congress, however, immediately passed the Taiwan Relations Act that permitted continued U.S. arms sales 178  Kissinger 2017: 4. 179  Kissinger 2017: 5–6, citing inter alia Chandler 2000 and Kiernan 2004; see also Shawcross 1981; Hersh 1983; Young 1991. 180  For the case for prosecuting Kissinger for war crimes, see Hitchens 2014. 181  Kissinger 2017: 4–6.

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to Taiwan until such time as tensions diminished in the Taiwan Straits. This policy, driven by the interests of U.S. arms manufacturers more than by any grand strategy toward China, has produced a vicious cycle in which continuing arms sales contribute to tensions that are invoked to justify continuing arms sales. Since the conflict in Vietnam had been a bitter civil war, with deep historical roots which neither the United States nor the People’s Republic. could control, the U.S. opening to China did not prevent the fall of Saigon and the reunification of Vietnam after a century of foreign rule and domestic division. Having learned little from Vietnam, the U.S. has continued its military involvement in the still unresolved civil wars in Korea and China. This involvement imposes an unnecessary and counter-productive burden on the people of the three counties of East Asia (China, Japan, and Korea) and maintains conditions that could easily lead to war. It is also costly to U.S. taxpayers and beneficial mainly to the U.S. military industrial complex. Under Nixon and Kissinger, U.S. policies in South and Southeast Asia served the national interests of our military allies and right-wing friends at the expense of democracy and human rights. When Bengali separatists came to power in elections in 1970, the central government of Pakistan, which was a Southeast Asian Treaty Organization ally of the U.S. and facilitator of the opening to China, rejected the results. When the Bengalis protested in 1971, the Pakistani government sent troops to suppress the protesters, including particularly members of the Hindu minority. Hundreds of thousands of Bengalis were killed and millions became refugees in India. Nixon and Kissinger did nothing to persuade the Pakistani government to respect the results of the elections and to stop the crackdown. The U.S. continued selling arms that were used to suppress resistance and then to fight a war with India which the U.S. considered to be leftist and close to the Soviet Union. When the U.S. Consul General in East Pakistan reported that the government of West Pakistan was committing “selective genocide” and that the U.S. policy was “morally bankrupt”, he was removed from his post and reassigned to a job in Washington.182 In 1975 the popular leftist Fretilin party on the small island of East Timor in the archipelago of Southeast Asia won independence from Portugal after a long struggle. In December, President Muhammad Suharto (1921–2008) of Indonesia, a strongly anti-communist friend of the U.S., informed visiting President Ford and Secretary Kissinger of his intention to annex the nascent state. Ford and Kissinger indicated that they would not oppose the blatant violation of Timor’s sovereignty and would continue to sell arms to Indonesia. 182  Kissinger 2017: 6–7, citing Gary Bass, “Nixon and Kissinger’s Forgotten Shame,” New York Times, September 29, 2013.

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They asked only that Suharto delay his attack on Timor until they had returned to Washington. Suharto complied and invaded the island on December 7. As a result, war ensued from 1975 to 1981 taking the lives of nearly a quarter of the Timorese population.183 In the Middle East, Kissinger followed his predecessors and engaged in crisis management more than long-term planning. Nixon reportedly wanted to exclude all Jewish-Americans from policy-making on Israel, but he clearly did not succeed in doing so. Kissinger favored quiet diplomacy regarding Jewish emigration from Russia to Israel. That allowed an increase from 700 migrants a year in 1969 to nearly 40,000 a year by 1972. Kissinger reportedly delayed informing Nixon of Syria’s and Egypt’s initiation of the Yom Kippur War on 6 October 1973, so that Nixon would not be able to interfere with the Israeli reaction. Kissinger approved of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir’s (1898– 1978) decision not to attack preemptively so as to avoid the appearance of aggression. Nixon gave Kissinger full authority to negotiate. Israel gained new territory from Syria and Egypt, including land east of the Golan Heights and on the West bank of the Suez canal. Kissinger pressured the Israelis to cede some of the newly captured land back to their Arab neighbors, contributing to the first phases of Israeli-Egyptian non-aggression. U.S.-Egyptian relations improved, and, in 1978, President Carter mediated the Camp David Accords by which Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in exchange for Egyptian recognition of the state of Israel.184 Meanwhile, in Africa, Kissinger was opposed to residual European colonialism in some cases, but not in others. In 1976 he joined with Prime Minister John Vorster (1915–1983) of South Africa to encourage Prime Minister Ian Smith (1919–2007) to hasten the transition to black majority rule in Rhodesia. Kissinger originally planned to normalize relations with Fidel Castro’s (1926– 2016) Cuba, but changed his mind in 1975 when Cuba sent its Revolutionary Armed Force to assist Angola and Mozambique in their struggles for independence from Portugal and South Africa. In February 1976, Kissinger was reported by BBC news to have considered launching air strikes against ports and military installations in Cuba and mobilizing marines based at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay. The goal, presumably, was to prevent Cuban forces from deploying to Africa or at least to punish Cuba if it allowed its troops to go.185 In Latin America, the Nixon administration emphasized U.S. “national security” and economic interests at the expense of democracy and human rights. In 183  Kissinger 2017: 11; citing Kiernan 2007. 184  Kissinger 2017: 7–8, citing inter alia Siniver 2008. 185  Kissinger 2017: 9–11.

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Chile the Socialist Party presidential candidate Salvador Allende (1908–1973) was elected by a plurality of 36.2 percent in 1970. Alarmed by the potential challenges to U.S. corporate interests in Chile and to the U.S. policy of trying to isolate Cuba, Nixon and Kissinger authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to encourage a coup that would prevent Allende’s inauguration. The plan failed. When Allende took office and nationalized copper mines partially owned by the U.S. and other businesses, the U.S. claimed that the Chilean government had undervalued those businesses and had inadequately compensated U.S. corporations. The U.S. therefore implemented economic sanctions against Chile, and the CIA funded anti-government strikes in 1972 and 1973. Unable to work through the Chilean congress to arrange for new elections to produce an alternative leader, the CIA supported a coup on 11 September 1973 led by Army Commander-in-chief Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006). The coup led to the death of Allende and the naming of Pinochet as President. In 1976, Orlando Letelier, a Chilean opponent of the Pinochet junta, was assassinated by Pinochet’s order after Kissinger decided not to send Pinochet and other regional leaders a letter warning them not to carry out political assassinations. Kissinger apparently also had authority over a larger covert program of political repression and assassination called Operation Condor that took the lives of a Chilean general René Schneider (1913–1970) and many others.186 Kissinger adopted a similar policy in Argentina, where the military toppled the elected government of Isabel Peron (1931–) in 1976 and conducted a National Reorganization Process involving brutal reprisals and “disappearances” of political opponents. Kissinger personally had no problem with the repression, but counseled the Argentinian foreign minister to “get back to normal procedures” before the U.S. Congress convened and had a chance to consider sanctions. “According to declassified state department files, Kissinger also attempted to thwart the Carter Administration’s efforts to halt the mass killings by the 1976–83 military dictatorship.”187 Soon after Kissinger left office in January 1977, he was offered an endowed chair at Columbia University. Student protests against his performance as advisor to Nixon and Ford, however, led the university to withdraw the appointment. For several years Kissinger taught at Georgetown University’s Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service. In 1982 he obtained a loan from the 186  Kissinger 2017: 9–11, citing inter alia Kornbluh 2003, Dinges 2005, Kinzer 2006, and Grandin 2015. 187  Kissinger 2017: 10, citing Duncan Campbell, “Kissinger Approved Argentinian ‘Dirty War,’ ” The Guardian, December 5, 2003; Uki Goni, “Kissinger hindered US effort to end mass killings in Argentina,” The Guardian, August 9, 2016.

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international banking firm of E.M. Warburg, Pincus and Company to establish a consulting firm, Kissinger Associates. Kissinger served on the boards of a half dozen corporations and advised the president of Indonesia and the United States-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce. In November 2002, he was appointed by President George W. Bush (1946–) to chair the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, but he stepped down in December to avoid having to reveal his business client list.188 This demonstrated Kissinger’s laudable efforts to avoid a conflict of interest, but raised the question of the identity of his secret clients around the world. As a senior statesman like Talleyrand, Kissinger has continued to speak out on foreign policy issues. In line with his early interest in nuclear weapons, he has joined with other ex-officials and senators to call on governments “to embrace the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons”. This appears to be a utopian quest somewhat at odds with Kissinger’s general acceptance of a world of sovereign nations and empires competing endlessly to maximize wealth and power. More consistently, Kissinger criticized U.S. policy for countenancing the deconstruction of Yugoslavia and for recognizing Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, and Kosovo as separate states. He opposed intervention in Balkan conflicts, which, he said, went back hundreds of years. Once the North Atlantic Treaty Organization intervened and started bombing, however, Kissinger, in Talleyrand fashion, supported NATO’s intervention, saying the credibility of the alliance was at stake. Kissinger also supported George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq even though he acknowledged that Bush made too much of Iraq’s supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction. He also thought that Bush, sent too few troops, mistakenly disbanded the Iraqi army, and mishandled relations with U.S. allies. During the war, Kissinger nonetheless met regularly with Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney (1941–). Returning to the long-standing Republican belief that “there is no substitute for victory”, Kissinger reportedly advised Bush and Cheney that, in Iraq, “Victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy”.189 By 2008 both India and Kissinger’s view of India had evolved, and he was quoted as saying that India “has parallel objectives to [sic] the United States”. In 2011 he outlined challenges to “a partnership of ‘genuine strategic trust’ between the U.S. and China,” echoing a surprisingly idealistic and uninformed view of Sino-American relations going back to the Open Door.190 In 2014, on the eve of the referendum in Crimea regarding its association with Ukraine 188  Kissinger 2017: 11–12. 189  Kissinger 2017: 109. 190  Kissinger 2017: 14; see also Kissinger 2011.

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or Russia, Kissinger said it should remain part of Ukraine. He also said that Ukraine should not join NATO but should instead become a mediator between Russia and the West. In December 2016 he advised President-elect Donald Trump (1946–) “to accept ‘Crimea as a part of Russia’ in an attempt to secure a rapprochement between the United States and Russia”.191 These recommendations have solid historical foundations but seem unlikely to be accepted and enacted in the present atmosphere of a new cold war, this time against “terrorism,” “Islamism,” Russia, China, and/or others. Henry Kissinger has been one of the most controversial advisors to presidents of the United States. Some scholars have described him as the most effective U.S. Secretary of State in the last half-century.192 Others have charged him with war crimes, crimes against humanity, and offenses against common, customary, and international law.193 Efforts to bring Kissinger to court have so far failed because judges in the United States have not wanted to prosecute cases involving alleged international crimes. Additionally, the U.S. refuses to recognize the recently established International Criminal Court because it fears it would trigger an avalanche of indictments of U.S. citizens around the world. Thus the U.S. today stands in the way of resolving a problem in the Westphalian international system long ago identified by Frederick II of Prussia, the lack of an effective enforcement mechanism. One British historian and defender of Kissinger has pointed out that prosecuting Kissinger would involve a double standard because “nearly all the secretaries of state … and nearly all presidents” have taken similar actions. It apparently did not occur to the historian that another solution would be to prosecute all offenders of human rights, resulting in a very different U.S. posture in the world and thus a different world.194 One critic of Kissinger on the right, meanwhile, has argued that Nixon and Kissinger got no meaningful concessions from China in return for rapprochement with the U.S. in the 1970s. The critic also claimed that the diplomatic breakthrough had nothing to do with Deng Xiaoping’s return to power and the development of state capitalism in China. Another observer on the right admired the Nixon-Kissinger-Ford’s use of triangular diplomacy to

191  Kissinger 2017: 14–15. 192  Kissinger 2017: 15, citing “The Best International Relations Schools in the World,” Foreign Policy, February 3, 2015. 193  Kissinger 2017: 15. Notable critics include Latin American victims, a British-American journalist, and human rights lawyers. See especially Hitchens 2014. 194  Kissinger 2017: 15, citing Fareed Zakaria’s Interview with Niall Ferguson, CNN, January 10, 2016.

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mitigate the worst effects of the U.S. defeat in Vietnam, which Kissinger has described hyperbolically as the first defeat in U.S. history.195 Like many previous scholar rebel advisors, Henry Kissinger has produced texts explicating his world views. Among the dozen he has published over the last sixty years, one of the most recent is titled simply World Order. In it, the German-Jewish-American student of government examines how “Europe invented the balance of power concept” and established the West­ phalian system of nominally equal nation states with definite borders and regular diplomatic exchanges. This is the system that became normative in the West and remains today the principal framework of the “modern world order” embodied in the United Nations and other international organizations. But this seasoned world traveler and honorary globe-trotter (literally) also broadens his examination to other world “regions whose concepts of order have most shaped the evolution of the modern era”. In particular, pursuant to conversations with Zhou Enlai, Kissinger claims that he wishes to help demystify China. As an American diplomat, he wants to explain how the U.S. became “the indispensable defender of the order Europe designed.” In his view, the U.S. must combine power and principles, order and freedom to maintain its place in the world in the wake of withdrawals from three wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria) in two generations. Kissinger, like many other historians, uses the terms “traditional” and “modern” a dozen times each, without providing any systematic definitions of them. He therefore accepts the Weberian theory of modernity as a paradigm. Kissinger is nonetheless aware of other ways of thinking about periodization, and he makes an essential point that “in the modern [here meaning contemporary] world the need is for a global world order”.196 Since Kissinger is probably the single most influential U.S. participantanalyst of U.S. foreign policy in the world today, his book deserves a close reading. In chapter one, “Europe: the Pluralistic International Order,” he observes that, after the fall of Rome, “Europe thrived on fragmentation.” Charlemagne lacked the authority to unify Europe; Voltaire accurately quipped that the Holy Roman Empire was not holy, Roman, or an empire; Richelieu (1585–1642) used Machiavelli’s methods to strengthen the French monarchy; and the Treaty of Westphalia ended the religious wars and legitimated Frederick II’s quest for national power. France centered the continent during the eighteenth century 195  Kissinger 2017, citing Ray Takeyh, “The Perils of Secret Diplomacy,” The Weekly Standard, June 13, 2016; Kadura 2016. 196  Kissinger 2014: 5–9.

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by keeping eastern Europe divided. In Kissinger’s view, the French Revolution, inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), introduced the “permanent revolution”, and “total victory” that prefigured the “modern totalitarian system” of Joseph Stalin’s purges and Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. Napoleon tamed the revolution, made himself its guarantor, and saw himself as the capstone of the Enlightenment. But in Kissinger’s more conservative view, the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars were total and the scale of bloodshed harked back to the Thirty Years War.197 In the next chapter, “The European Balance of Power and Its End”, Kissinger writes that Talleyrand “represented in his person a metaphor of the era’s seemingly boundless upheavals.” “Only a formidable personality could have projected himself into the center of so many great and conflicting events.” But Kissinger still favors the more conservative Austrian Foreign Minister von Metternich as “perhaps the shrewdest and most experienced statesman at Vienna”. The Congress of Vienna restored a conservative order to Kissinger’s liking, but it was also wise enough to include defeated France in the negotiations. Meanwhile England increased its influence through sea power and by refusing to ally with France or Austria, instead balancing the two. Bismarck (1815–1898) placed Prussia at the center of a united Germany and Europe. “A new concept of legitimacy—a meld of state and empire—had emerged so that none of the powers considered the institutions of the others a basic threat to their [sic] existence.” World War I was not inevitable, but “[in] the end, the military planning ran away with diplomacy.” The settlement at Versailles unwisely excluded Germany from the deliberations and imposed a harsh peace. The Soviet Union was recognized only slowly and reluctantly. Germany, Japan, and Italy soon learned that they could violate the terms of the treaty and/or withdraw from the League of Nations without suffering negative consequences. After World War II, Germany was partitioned but was wisely included in the settlement. The Atlantic alliance nominally consisted of equal states, but it was sustained largely by unilateral American military power expressed through nuclear weaponry. After four decades of Cold War, NATO achieved its goals of a united Germany and the collapse of the Soviet Union so the third major conflict over Europe ended peacefully. The European Union was, in one sense, an effort to transcend the Westphalian system. In another sense, however, the EU was “Europe’s return to the Westphalian international state system” now “spread across the globe”. Kissinger acknowledges that “Today the nature of the emergent world order is itself in dispute, and regions beyond Europe will play a major role in defining its attributes.” He rightly wonders “to which of its 197  Kissinger 2014: 11–46.

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pasts will Europe relate itself?”198 The same question, of course can be asked of China or of any other polity. In “Islamism and the Middle East: a World in Disorder,” Kissinger acknowledges that the European mandate system coming out of World War I was “variously a subterfuge of colonialism or a paternalistic attempt to define [the Middle East] as incipient states in need of tutelage.” The mandating powers, France and England, ruled in part by manipulating tensions, laying the foundations for later wars. By the 1970s, the Middle East looked like the Balkans of the nineteenth century. Many people of the region regarded Islamism as a way “to be modern without having to become Western”. Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970), Anwar Sadat (1918–1981), Saddam Hussain (1937–2006), Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011), and Bashar al-Assad, (1965–) had humble origins. They were populists and nationalists but not democrats. Arab efforts to resist a Jewish homeland in 1949, 1956, 1967, and 1973, all failed. In Kissinger’s oversimplified view, various Muslim groups including the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Boko Haram, Jaghat al-Nusrah, and the Islamic State of Irak and the Levant “override any international order”. There were conflicts between Shia and Sunni and between ruling religious minorities and ruled religious majorities in Iraq and Syria. The U.S. faces conflicts between security and democracy at home and abroad while Israel goes beyond Westphalia in an effort to found a Jewish state. Saudi Arabia is allied with the U.S. but also sponsors madrassas throughout the world. In Libya the overthrow of Gaddafi removed any semblance of national governance. In Kissinger’s view, the Middle East is now “caught in a confrontation akin to—but broader than—Europe’s pre-Westphalian wars of religion”.199 In another chapter, “The United States and Iran: Approaches to Order,” Kissinger rightly argues that “The Persian imperial project, like classical China’s, represented a form of world ordering in which cultural and political achievements and psychological assurance played as great a role as traditional military conquests.” Persia became the center of Shiism as a dissenting tradition and as an alternative to the Sunni Ottoman empire. The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) began as leader of a movement for political democracy and economic redistribution against the Shah, but, upon his return from Europe to Iraq in 1979, he became the supreme leader in an assault on the entire regional order and Westphalian “modernity”. He believed that relations among states should be based on spiritual grounds, not national interest. He called for a return to the good government of Muhammad and his son-in-law 198  Kissinger 2014: 46–95. 199  Kissinger 2014: 96–145.

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in the seventh century, but repression under Khomeini was worse than under the Shah (1919–1980). The goal was the unity of all Muslims in a single nation and ultimately an Islamic world. Kissinger suggests that Iran cannot be expected to follow China’s example because it does not have Soviet divisions on its northern border.200 He thinks that Iran has benefited from what he calls the U.S. removal of the Taliban from Afghanistan and of Hussain from Iraq, and it has deepened its role elsewhere, including in Syria. A balance between Saudi Arabia and Iran would need the U.S. “as a balancer for the foreseeable future”. In that arrangement, the U.S. would need to be closer to each party than they are to each other. Kissinger contrasts the wars conducted from 1967 to 1973 during the first part of his time in office and the ensuing “peace process” made possible by an active U.S. policy thwarting the pursuit of universalistic principles through violence. Leaders with visions of peace, Anwar Sadat (1918– 1981) and Yitzhak Rabin (1922–1995), were assassinated by extremists on either side, but moments will come again when vision will overcome reality.201 Here we see another exception to Kissinger’s general acceptance of the world as it is and his aspiration for a more peaceful world based on a better understanding of history. In “The Multiplicity of Asia,” Kissinger observes that “statehood there is … infused with a set of cultural legacies of a greater diversity and immediacy than perhaps any other region.” Japan resisted the Sinocentric tributary system, used the U.S. occupation to modernize “more fully,” and, after a period of renouncing war, is today returning to being a “normal country” with a usable military. India, defined by “a shared spectrum of cultural traditions”, produced Kautilya whose “Arthashastra was a guide to conquest, not the construction of an international order.” But India also suffered multiple invasions, and, in recent times, has sought neutrality while also asserting dominance in the Indian Ocean. The U.S. has sometimes acted as a balancer in East Asia, as at Portsmouth in 1905, but, with its current withdrawal from Afghanistan, it seems unlikely to do so in South Asia today.202 Instead, Kissinger suggests, Afghanistan is likely to be partitioned north and south as Belgium was in the 19th century. In “Toward an Asian Order: Confrontation or Partnership?,” Kissinger perpetuates some falsehoods and creates others, recognizes some truths and overstates others. He asserts that China’s position at the center was so ingrained that there was no word for it. In fact, the “central state(s)” was the most common name for China in Chinese and other East and Southeast Asian scripts and languages. Kissinger states that China admitted of no equals, incorporated 200  Kissinger’s point seems to be that Iran will not turn to the U.S. to redress Russian pressure. 201  Kissinger 2014: 146–171. 202  Kissinger 2014: 172–211.

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Mongols and Manchus “not by conquest but by osmosis,” and has never been without a powerful threatening neighbor. In fact, Chinese states during periods of disunion were often nominally and sometimes actually equals. Military force was used against Mongols, Manchus, and other neighbors, though not alone and not always successfully. China had few powerful threatening neighbors during the great unities of the Zhou, Han, Tang, Ming, and Qing at their height. In those times, much of the known world was under China’s influence if not control. Kissinger is quite accurate, however, when he writes: The “rise” of China to eminence in the twenty-first century is not new, but reestablishes historical patterns. What is distinctive is that China has returned as both the inheritor of an ancient civilization and as a contemporary great power on the Westphalian model…. Though China was objectively weak by the way the rest of the world measured strength, Mao insisted on its central role via psychological and ideological superiority, to be demonstrated by defying rather than conciliating a world emphasizing superior physical power…. China has not forgotten that it was originally forced to engage with the existing international order in a manner utterly at odds with its historical image of itself or, for that matter, with the avowed principles of the Westphalian system…. But they [the Chinese] expect—and sooner or later will act on this expectation— the international order to evolve in a way that enables China to become centrally involved in further international rule making, even to the point of revising some of the rules that prevail.203 It is only partially true, however, that “China has no precedent for the role it is asked to play in the twenty-first-century order, as one major state among others.” In fact, as we have seen, there were many occasions during China’s periods of division for Chinese states to compete with one another and for some states to be more powerful than others. The difference from Europeans was mainly that the Chinese regarded those periods as temporary and unacceptable, as aberrant and abhorrent. In their view, periods of cultural crisis and political disunion were eventually and inevitably to be terminated in great reunifications of the known world. It is also doubtful that North Korea is “ruled under no accepted principle of legitimacy” and “has no military capability to engage in war with the United States”. In fact, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is just as legitimate as the Republic of Korea, and it has the potential to re-engage in war with the United States, as tragic and suicidal as that would be. 203  Kissinger 2014: 220, 222, 225.

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It is true that no single country is in a position to fill by itself the world leadership role that the U.S. occupied in the immediate post-Cold War period, and it should be clear that the U.S. itself is no exception. It is also accurate that “in East Asia, the United States is not so much a balancer as an integral part of the balance.” Kissinger is right that “[a] purely military approach to the East Asian balance is likely to lead to alignments even more rigid than those that produced World War I.” But his statement that U.S. policy is “to prevent hegemony in Asia” is true only if the United States’ extant hegemony—in all senses of the term—is excluded from consideration.204 In “Acting for All Mankind: The United States and Its Concept of Order,” Kissinger shows that many prominent American leaders have consistently advocated what Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) called “an empire for liberty” and what Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) claimed would “prove the viability of self-governance anywhere”. They did so (and others continue to do so) in part by describing expansion across the continent and into neighboring islands as Manifest Destiny and by using euphemistic labels for the United States empire, such as “great nation”, “great power”, and “superpower”. Indeed, Kissinger accepts and perpetuates this tradition by writing that “as the United States expanded and thrived, so too did democracy.”205 James Monroe (1758–1831) first asserted U.S. hegemony (under the aegis of Britain) in Latin America, and Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) thought the U.S. should “play a global version of the role Britain had performed in Europe in the nineteenth century.” In TR’s view, war is natural, disarmament an illusion, and carrying a big stick (e.g. having naval power) essential. In World Wars I and II and the Cold War, “America preserved the Westphalian state system and the balance of power while blaming the very institutions of that system for the outbreak of hostilities and proclaiming a desire to construct an entirely new world.” Kissinger seems to blame Woodrow Wilson’s (1856–1924) proposed “moral universality,” not seen since the days of the religious wars three centuries earlier, for prolonging WW I. In Kissinger’s view, Wilsonianism “bequeathed to the twentieth century’s decisive power [i.e. the U.S.] an elevated foreign policy doctrine unmoored from a sense of history or geopolitics.” Franklin Roosevelt (1882–1945) relied on his personal relations with Stalin to establish a post-war order. When those relations ended institutions such as the United Nations were too weak to prevent the Cold War. Kissinger thought FDR would have reverted to a more machiavellian approach had he lived longer, but that strategy which was embraced by his

204  Kissinger 2014: 226, 230, 232–233. 205  Kissinger 2014: 237. For more realistic analyses, see Chomsky 1991; Kinzer 2006.

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successors was hardly more successful.206 Once again, Kissinger can conceive of no alternatives to a Westphalian system enforced by a hegemonic U.S. using machiavellian tactics to achieve and maintain world order. In “The United States: Ambivalent Superpower”, Kissinger recognizes that the U.S. was the only major country to emerge relatively undamaged by World War II and that it produced sixty percent of the world’s gross domestic product. He explains that the devastation of Russia in WW II and the U.S. monopoly on nuclear power meant that “the actual balance of power was uniquely favorable to the West at the beginning of the Cold War.”207 But Kissinger ignores that the conflict in Korea was a civil war and he writes that “North Korea” “invaded” “South Korea.” He does not mention General Douglas MacArthur’s (1880–1964) advocacy of “roll back” instead of containment, and he argues misleadingly that President Harry Truman was “courageous in resisting” the North Korean assault. He elides Truman’s acquiescence in MacArthur’s crossing the 38th parallel despite the lack of any United Nations mandate to do so. Kissinger notes MacArthur’s advance to the Yalu despite clear Chinese warnings of the consequences, but he states that Truman fired Mac Arthur for advocating an invasion of China. In fact, Truman kept Mac Arthur as commander so long as he was successful on the battlefield. He relieved MacArthur of his post only after he had suffered a major defeat at the hands of the Chinese and because the U.S. field commander was now authorized to use nuclear weapons at his discretion. Overlooking the unprecedented devastation visited on Korea by the war and the large number of U.S. and P.R.C. military casualties, not to speak of Korean military and civilian casualties, Kissinger claims, oddly, that the biggest loser in the war was the Soviet Union! In fact, the S.U. did little to support the D.P.R.K. and suffered little from the war. Following Republican critiques of the war, Kissinger claims that it “was the first war in which America specifically renounced victory as an objective, and in that was an augur [sic] of things to come.”208 In Kissinger’s premature and dubious judgments, U.S. emphasis on principles led to over-extensions and withdrawals—from Vietnam by congressional action and from Afghanistan and Iraq by presidential decisions. Regarding the Vietnam war, which culminated on his watch, Kissinger predictably made several specious statements. He wrote that the Tet offensive in 1968 was a military victory for South Vietnam, but was treated by the press as a defeat. In fact, it was a major political defeat for the South Vietnamese in the

206  Kissinger 2014: 234, 237, 239, 242, 247,251, 253, 256–257, 269, 273, 275. 207  Kissinger 2014: 286. 208  Kissinger 2014: 294.

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eyes of all objective—or just informed—observers.209 Kissinger contended that containment did not succeed in Southeast Asia because South Vietnam “had never existed as a state in history.” In fact, there had been relatively autonomous polities in southern Vietnam in the past, but “South Vietnam” was a unilateral U.S. construction. The unity of the entire country of Vietnam was the preferred goal of most Vietnamese but it was not at all an uninterrupted historical condition.210 Kissinger writes that “North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam by sending almost its entire army across the international border.” In reality, there was no international border in Vietnam, but only, as in Korea, a temporary truce line devised unilaterally by the U.S. to separate the north from the south. The north Vietnamese presence in south Vietnam was largely a result—not a cause—of U.S. intervention. Kissinger argued that Lyndon Johnson (1908–1973) overestimated military power while Nixon overestimated diplomatic negotiation. In fact, Nixon increased the bombing of Vietnam and expanded the ground war to Cambodia, all the while refusing to negotiate a coalition government in Saigon that might have shortened the war and survived its end. Kissinger simply ignores his and Nixon’s meting out the heaviest bombings in history to that time with enormous civilian casualties and the commission of massive war crimes. Kissinger therefore is hard put to explain the Khmer Rouge’s subsequent “reckoning of almost unimaginable brutality” in Cambodia”.211 Kissinger describes Nixon as the best prepared president on foreign policy since TR. He had a vision of “a strong, healthy United States, Europe, Soviet Union, China, Japan, each balancing the other, not playing one against the other, an even balance”. Presumably we are to understand that this vision was at least partly a result of Kissinger’s advice, but many observers thought that playing China off against Russia to avoid defeat in Vietnam was an important aspect of the Nixon-Kissinger opening to China. It is no secret how weaker and poorer states are faring in a world run by and for a handful of the most wealthy and powerful states.212 In Kissinger’s view, a “permanent concept of world order linking inspirational vision to a workable equilibrium” was cut short by the “foolishly self-inflicted and ruthlessly exploited” Watergate scandal.213 Ford (advised by Kissinger) nonetheless achieved: the first agreement between Israel and an Arab state; active diplomacy to bring about majority rule in 209  Kissinger 2014: 297. 210  Kissinger 2014: 298. 211  Kissinger 2014: 302. 212  Kissinger 2014: 304. 213  Kissinger 2014: 308.

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southern Africa; and the inclusion of human rights in the European Security Conference. Carter may have lost Iran to the Ayatollahs and Afghanistan to the Russians, but he also secured the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, completed normalization of relations with China, and supported Afghan resistance to Russia by means of recognizing the Taliban (supposedly justified even in light of subsequent developments). Kissinger believes that Reagan (1911–2004) used his Strategic Defense Initiative to convince the Russians to abandon the arms race.214 He writes that George H.W. Bush (1924–2018) created an international coalition to attack Iraq over the issue of the control of oil in Kuwait and stayed within the United Nations mandate to do so. Clinton (1946–) moved beyond containment to “enlargement” of democracy, but failed to influence China on the human rights issue because the U.S. priority was actually trade relations.215 After the Al Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan in an effort to close down Taliban support for Al-Qaeda. In 2003, the U.N. Security Council approved a NATO plan to rebuild Afghanistan on the model of Germany and Japan following World War II.216 In the same year, George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq partly to complete the mission of his father who had fought against Saddam Hussein without removing him from power. Bush claimed, falsely, that he was forced to act because of Iraq’s development of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear bombs. Henry Kissinger supported the invasion, as we have seen, though he had doubts about the rationales for it and about the ability to establish democracy by military conquest in a country without any tradition of democratic institutions.217 In fact, Iraq had had civil institutions in the recent past and the U.S. had not shied away from working with the authoritarian ruler Saddam Hussein before he decided to assert control over his country’s oil fields. Kissinger makes no mention of it, but U.S. access to cheap oil has long been more important in U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East than any commitment to promoting democracy. Aware of the history of previous efforts to conquer Afghanistan, President Barack Obama (1961–) focused on killing Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) who was from Saudi Arabia but had a base in Afghanistan.218 Obama authorized a military surge to prevent defeat in Afghanistan, but began the process of withdrawing troops. Given current 214  Kissinger 2014: 311. 215  Kissinger 2014: 315–316. 216  Kissinger 2014: 318–319. 217  Kissinger 2014: 325. 218  Kissinger 2014: 317–318.

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U.S. policy under President Donald Trump (1946–), it seems premature to say that the U.S. has ended its commitment to victory in Afghanistan, whatever that might mean and whatever losses in life and property it may entail. In “Technology, Equilibrium, and Human Consciousness” Kissinger makes several recommendations to the world at large that merit critical attention. Long interested in control over nuclear weapons, he noted that their impact is potentially so devastating that their use was never publicly threatened let alone indulged in during the Cold War. In fact, their use was seriously entertained and publicly discussed during the Korean and Vietnamese civil wars. As a result of the SALT talks, U.S. and S.U. stockpiles have been reduced to ten percent of their original number. Nuclear weapons nonetheless continue to proliferate because few efforts to stop them were disinterested, legitimate, and based on facts. Thus the Soviet Union contemplated taking out China’s infant nuclear capacity during the Cultural Revolution; Israel has opposed efforts by Iraq, Iran, and Syria to develop their nuclear capability while refusing to acknowledge Israel’s own; and the U.S. intervened in Iraq on the false premise that the country was close to having a nuclear weapon.219 Kissinger does not mention the continuing U.S. policy of retaining the option of using nuclear weapons first even against non-nuclear adversaries, an option openly eschewed by China. On another front, the U.S. has asked China for restraint in purloining trade secrets via cyber intrusions, but it is unclear to what extent the U.S. is prepared to disclose its own cyber intelligence efforts, both offensive and defensive. Today we can add the issue of hacking and using other methods to influence the political process in other, supposedly sovereign states. Kissinger warns that it is easier to mount cyberattacks than it is to defend against them, but he does not discuss the legitimacy of either action in an increasingly globalized world. Kissinger points out that, when adult Americans spend half their waking hours in front of a screen, they may be unaware of the value of “knowledge of history and geography”. The likelihood of thinking creatively and critically may be diminished by frequent communication with many friends on Facebook.220 In Kissinger’s view, … a surfeit of information may paradoxically inhibit the acquisition of knowledge and push wisdom even further away than it was before…. in the relations among states—and in many other fields—information, to be truly useful, must be placed within a broader context of history and 219  Kissinger 2014: 334–338. 220  Kissinger 2014: 349.

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experience to emerge as actual knowledge. And a society is fortunate if its leaders can occasionally rise to the level of wisdom.221 According to Kissinger, who claims no expertise on the technical side of the web but professes concern about the human consequences of its excessive use, “the Internet has a tendency to diminish historical memory”. Politically speaking, “if the gap between the qualities required for election and those essential for the conduct of office becomes too wide, the conceptual grasp and sense of history that should be part of foreign policy may be lost.”222 Kissinger reminds those who think that social media will necessarily promote the public good that “the same technology that can be used to convene demonstrations can also be used to suppress them”.223 Given his conservative politics, Kissinger is pleased to quote Edmund Burke (1729–1797) who wrote that “People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.”224 But, as we have seen, one does not need to be a conservative, let alone a reactionary, to use the past to interpret the present and shape the future. Kissinger is right that the technological era “needs to deepen its preoccupation with the immediate through a better understanding of history and geography”. In sum, “On the way to the first truly global world order, the great human achievements of technology must be fused with enhanced powers of humane, transcendent, and moral judgment”.225 In his conclusion, Kissinger reiterates that in the decades following WW II, “the United States, preserved from the ravages of war—indeed, strengthened by the conflict in its economy and national confidence—launched itself on implementing ideals and practices it considered applicable to the entire world”.226 The Westphalian system, however, did not supply a sense of direction. “It dealt with methods of allocating and preserving power; it gave no answer to the problem of how to generate legitimacy.”227 “For the United States, the quest for world order functions on two levels: the celebration of universal principles needs to be paired with a recognition of the reality of other regions’ histories and cultures.”228 Yet Kissinger also thinks “America’s

221  Kissinger 2014: 350. 222  Kissinger 2014: 353. 223  Kissinger 2014: 356. 224  Kissinger 2014: 358. 225  Kissinger 2014: 360. 226  Kissinger 2014: 361. 227  Kissinger 2014: 363. 228  Kissinger 2014: 373.

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exceptional nature must be sustained”, and the country “must retain its sense of direction”. In Kissinger’s words, A purposeful American role will be philosophically and geopolitically imperative for the challenges of our period. Yet world order cannot he achieved by any one country acting alone. To achieve a genuine world order, its components, while maintaining their own values, need to acquire a second culture that is global, structural, and juridical—a concept of order that transcends the perspective and ideals of any one region or nation. At this moment in history, this would be a modernization of the Westphalian system informed by contemporary realities.229 Thus, although Kissinger is quite aware of alternatives, including what he and many others misleadingly and demeaningly call the “Chinese tributary system,” he seems to be confident that the European international system invented in the seventeenth century remains the most important matrix of today’s and presumably even tomorrow’s world order. Henry Kissinger, now 94, has been a scholar who taught at universities and published academic books. He was also a rebel who fled his native Germany to escape from the Nazis who were planning policies of genocide. He was a formal advisor to one governor and two presidents and an informal advisor to at least two other presidents. At the same time, he taught only briefly at two universities and was denied a chair at a third university because of his performance in office. He adopted a conservative world view and sometimes advanced reactionary policies. He secretly counseled an unknown number of domestic and foreign individuals and institutions, raising questions about his ultimate loyalties. Kissinger has been a critic of religious wars, revolutionary ideologies, and universalistic values that he has tended to associate with each other. He has nominally preferred humanistic institutions, reformist programs, and national interests as more reliable bases for world order. He has recognized the affinity as well as the conflict between nationalism and imperialism, but he has not been clear about whether it was the Westphalian system of nominally equal states or the imperial and universal deviations from that system that led to WW I and WW II. He operated largely within the “containment” policy but he also sometimes resorted to the rhetoric of “roll-back.” Unlike some academic historians, he was honest enough to recognize that Britain went to war against China to force it to legalize the opium trade, thus discrediting the very 229  Kissinger 2014: 373.

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international order it was trying to sell to China. Although Jewish, Kissinger also admitted that some Israelis are going beyond the Westphalian guidelines in trying to establish a Jewish state. With regard to time, Kissinger valued modernity and the modern era, which he did not explicitly define but which he associated with maritime exploration, international engagement, and, again, an updated Westphalian system. At the same time, he was aware of instances of recurrence in history, such as the appearance of cynicism with Kautilya in Mauryan India and its reappearance with Machiavelli in Renaissance Florence. Kissinger noted the parallel in the development of maritime power in the early Ming and in today’s People’s Republic. Although it was hardly consistent with his conventional account of the origins of the Korean war (“the north invaded the south”), he also emphasized the similarity between Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s (1537–1598) invasion of Korea in the late sixteenth century and Douglas MacArthur’s invasion of Korea in the mid-twentieth century, both of which encountered vigorous Chinese resistance. On the matter of space, Kissinger implicitly moved away from the commonly accepted units, such as nations, continents, and civilizations, to the idea of regions or what others have usefully called “world regions.” He also tried to treat various world regions, such as Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia equally, though, as a German-American trained first in European history, he is clearly more comfortable drawing on European experience for models than on the experience of other world regions. In the case of Europe, of course, this is most appropriate and productive. The application of European models to Asia, such as in the proposed partitioning of Afghanistan, however, may not be so salutary. Despite Kissinger’s limited and flawed understanding of China and its approach to the world, he clearly and rightly holds China, the Chinese people, and, to some extent, the People’s Republic, in high regard. Indeed, he goes so far as to spend some of his shrinking political capital to explain the rationality behind at least some of the Maoist world view that he clearly dislikes. Kissinger’s respect for—and, in some cases, idealization of—China is not surprising given his general preference for polities that are large, wealthy, and powerful, and that have long histories and rich cultures. All of this, of course, is not really consistent with the Westphalian ideal of equal nation states! But it does weaken the argument of one of Kissinger’s critics on the right, that Nixon’s moves toward normalization of relations with China had nothing to do with Deng Xiaoping’s return to power and the development of state capitalism or the “first phase of socialism” as it is called in China. It is vital that

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we understand the reality of this connection as we consider how to deal with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. A better understanding of the relationship between the Vietnam War and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and the similar link between the U.S. recognition of the P.R.C. and the evolution of post-Mao China would go far toward a better appreciation of how the U.S. should respond to the “rise of China” in this century. As the gap in time and space between Li Yan and our last world scholarrebel-advisor Henry Kissinger has widened, the resonances between them have, perhaps inevitably, diminished. The historical and storied Li Yan emerges as but a minor scholar who spent only his last four years in active rebellion against the existing Ming polity and who had only forty days in Beijing during which to try to help establish a new polity. Henry Kissinger, on the other hand, scaled the heights of U.S. academia, ended his rebellion before he was twenty, and had at least eight years in which to influence the day-to-day working as well as the long-term policies of the U.S. government. Yet one small comparison and one large contrast between the two figures may still be interesting and instructive. Li Yan and the young Henry Kissinger were both reputed to enforce strict discipline among their troops in dealing with civilian populations, an achievement that is characteristic of the successful use of military force in China and around the world. On the other hand, Li Yan, like Aristotle, Merlin, More, and Voltaire, spoke truth to power and was prepared for the consequences, whereas Kissinger, like Kautilya, Machiavelli, and Talleyrand, implemented policies with which he disagreed and so lived to a ripe old age. Li Yan’s ultimate fate, therefore, was analogous not to Kissinger’s, but to that of previous Chinese scholar rebel advisors such as Li Yiqi in the Han and Li Shanchang in the Ming—as well as to that of twentieth-century “Western” statesmen, like Anwar al-Sadat in Egypt and Yitzhak Rabin in Israel, who died for their convictions. We will need more figures and polities like them if we are to establish a more peaceful, just, and sustainable world order. Fortunately, the Chinese were not alone in recognizing the important roles scholar rebel advisors can play in establishing and maintaining various kinds of world order. As in China, scholar rebel advisors elsewhere were aware of various predecessors and often followed their examples. In the second period of world history, after ca. 10,000 BCE and before ca. 500 CE, Aristotle, Kautilya, and Cicero advised Alexander, Chandra Gupta, and Caesar in instituting what can be called “power civilizations”, which greatly increased human influence, for better or worse, over the natural world. In this case Cicero followed Demosthenes and Caesar followed Alexander. After the fall of Rome, from ca. 500 to ca. 1500, Merlin, Machiavelli, and More all tried to assist their respective rulers, Arthur, Soderini, and Henry VIII to pacify and unify Europe on

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Christian principles and/or raison d’état. In this period, however, the center of world history arguably moved to East Asia, where scholar rebel advisors such as Wei Zheng, Liu Bingzhong, and Liu Ji counselled their rulers Tang Taizong, Yuan Shizu, and Ming Taizu on how to construct “culture states” which could more effectively unify and govern the known world. Thereafter, from ca. 1500 to 1945, scholar rebel advisors, such as Voltaire in France, invoked Greek models and Chinese experience to encourage Frederic II in Prussia and other monarchs to revive classical culture and unify Europe. Voltaire was followed by Talleyrand, also from France, who helped Napoleon establish a Europe-wide continental empire on the Roman model with limited success. Meanwhile Britain led the way under a succession of prime ministers to extend its “maritime national empire” around the world in competition and cooperation with other European “powers”. Then, from ca. 1945 to the present, the United States emerged as the world’s only “super-power”. Kissinger followed Metternich’s example of conservatism and aided Nixon in maintaining American hegemony in all of its various forms around the globe. In the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the failure of the U.S. to establish a peaceful, just, and sustainable world order has become clear. As a result, expanded world regions have opportunities to draw on their strengths, overcome their weaknesses, and cooperate in constructing such a world order. Africa and other parts of the world with long histories of stateless societies might offer a radical option of humane forms of anarchism combined with limits on prospective population growth which now threatens the sustainability of the planetary economy.230 Mesopotamia and Mediterranea, with their experience in producing power civilizations and professing theistic religions, may deconstruct their vestigial national empires and sectarian creeds to help achieve higher levels of peace and order in the region and in the world. Asia, with its rich heritage of culture states, could strengthen its more liberal polities and contribute to the construction of a legitimate world government. Europe, with its heritage of the Westphalian system of equal states, could eschew the deformation of maritime national empires and strengthen transnational institutions such as the International Criminal Court. The peoples of the Americas with their ideal of welcoming migrants from other parts of the world can join with a chastened United States to become at last a “City on the Hill”, a model of humaneness and justice for the rest of the world.231 If so, scholar rebel advisors like Li Yan will not have lived and died in vain. 230  See Scott 2009; Scott 2012. 231  The vision was penned by John Winthrop, the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, when he was crossing the Atlantic from England to New England in 1630.

appendix a

The Principal Periods of Chinese History [Based on Wilkinson 2013] Xia 夏, 2070–1600 BCE Shang 商, ca. 1600–1046 Zhou 周, 1046–256, includes Spring and Autumn 春秋, 722–403 and Warring States 戰國, 403–221 Qin 秦, 221–206 Han 漢, Former/Western 前／西, 202 BCE–8 CE, Xin 新, 9–23, Later/Eastern 後／東, 27–220 Wei, Jin, Nanbeichao 魏, 220–265, 晉, 265–420, 南北朝, 220–581 Sui 隋, 581–618 Tang 唐, 618–907, Zhou 周, 690–705 Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms 五代十國, 902–979, 907–960 Liao, Song, Jin 遼, 916–1125, 宋 960–1279, 金, 1115–1234 Yuan 元, 1271–1368 Ming 明, 1368–1644 Qing 清, 1644–1911 Republic 共和國, 1912–1949 People’s Republic 人民共和國, 1949–

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appendix b

A Selective Family Tree of the Lis of Tang Village [Constructed by the Author Based on Data in Li 1716/Late Republic] 1 清 Qingjiang 清江 in Tang Village Qinghe 清河 in Liwa village

2 天 Tianshun 天順

3 地 Diyi 地義

4 廉 Lianjun 廉君 Lianchen 廉臣

5 明 Mingdao 明道 xs Mingde 明德

6 從 Congliang 從諒 Conglian 從廉 Congxun 從訓 Congyu 從语

7 政 Zhengde Zhengshan (Tang shi) Zhengxiu Zhenglian Zhengqing Zhenggong 政德 xs 政善 xs, (湯氏) 政修 js 政廉 xs 政清 xs 政功 xs shop in 杞

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509

appendix b 8 Beiyuan 北院

Nanyuan Xiyuan Dongyuan 南院

西院 東院

Qifang Keguan 其芳 gs 可官 xs

Chunmao Chunyu (Jingbai) (Tangshi) Chunhua Ziqi 春華 gs 自奇 xs

春茂 gs 春玉 xs (精白) (湯氏)

Zirang Kexi 自讓 可喜

Kehuan 可宦

Lan 蘭 xs

9 Lun Zhong Jun Xin (Yan) Ji Feng Jia Zhuo Yun Mou ⓡ Can DongⓡKai (You) 倫 gs 仲 俊 gs 信 xs, gs (岩) 笈 js 風 價 倬 允 牟 xs 參 棟 xs 開 xs Daliangⓡ (大亮) jr xs (湯氏) (右／佑) gsⓡ

10 Yuanqing 元清

Yuanshu

元釵

Yuanzhen Yuansheng

元禎

元生

Huaicong xsⓡ Huaigong (Tang shi) Huaidianⓡ

懷琮

懷功 (湯氏)

懷典

Huaiwen Yuanxiang Yuanbin Huairenⓡ Huaizhenⓡ Huailiⓡ



懷文

元祥

元斌

懷仁

Huaiqi Huaizhi Huaigong    Huaifu

懷啟 懷智 懷貢 懷福 xs

Huaiyuan

懷元

懷禎

懷理

510

appendix b

Shimao Yuanmao, Yuanchen, Yuanshan, Yuanming,

世鰲 xs

元鰲

元臣

元善 sg tx

元明

11 Rusong Rushu Rukui Ruci Ruxiang, Ruqi, Rudayuan, Rutan, Ruchun, Ruquing Ruhai, Rujie 如鬆 如樹 如桂 如辭 如相 如杞 如大圓 如檀 xs 如椿 xs 如清 如海 如傑

12 Helin 鸖林 born in Kangxi 55 (1716) Key Chunyu (Jingbai) 湯氏

xs, gs, sg, tx, jr, js, ⓡ

personal name nickname, alternative name wife née Tang no progeny xiangsheng, gongsheng, suigong, taixue, juren, jinshi rebel

Glossary This is a selective list, organized alphabetically by Chinese romanization (pinyin) or, in a few cases, English. It provides Chinese characters for names of people, places, institutions, and ideas in addition to those already identified by characters in the text, visuals, maps, appendices, and/or sources. 571/wuqiyi 五七一, military uprising/ wuqiyi 武起義 advisor/mouzhu 謀主 Aisin Gioro clan 愛新覺羅氏 Analects/Lunyu 論語 ancestral teacher/zongshi 宗師 ancient/gudai 古代 Anda Niang 安大娘 An Lushan 安祿山 Ba Shu 巴 蜀 Bailian yaozei 白蓮妖賊 Bai Wang 白旺 bandits/zei 賊 Bao Si 褒姒 Bao Zheng 包拯 Biancheng 汴城 Bo Yi 伯夷/Shu Qi 叔齊 Bo Yibo 薄一波 Bronze horses/tongma 銅馬 Bu-kong 不空 Cai Ci 蔡賜 Cai Hesen 蔡和森 Cai Moude 蔡懋德 Cai Wenyi 蔡文姬 Caitiffs/Lu 盧 Cao Cao 曹操 Cao Can 曹參 Ceng Yinglin 曾應遴 Chaban chemaijie 差半車麥秸 Chai Jin 柴進 Chang’an 長安 Chang’an men 長安門

changing the mandate/geming 革命 changpian xiaoshuo 長篇小說 Changping gongzhu 長平公主 Chang Ruozhu 常若柱 Changye 長夜 Chang Yusheng 常育生 Chen Boda 陳伯達 Chen De 陳德 Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀 Chen Gao 陳膏 Chen Guofu 陳國父 Chen Jisheng 陳濟生 Chen Lifu 陳立夫 Chen Liqing 陳立清 Chen Meng 陳孟 Chen Muping 陳慕平 Chen Ping 陳平 Chen Qi 陳奇 Chen Sheng 陳勝/She 涉 Chen Wangting 陳  王廷/Zouting 奏廷 Chen Xin 陳鑫 Chen Yi 陳毅 Chen Yongfu 陳永福 Chen Youliang 陳友諒 Chen Yuanyuan 陳圓圓 Chen Yun 陳雲 Chen Zhenhui 陳真慧 Chen Zouting 陳奏廷 Cheng Pei-kai 鄭培凱 Chengtian men 承天門 Chengtian Gate 乘天門 Cheng wang 成王

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004421066_013

512 chengxiang 丞相 Cheng Ziliang 程子良 Chiang Kai-shek 蔣介石 Childlike Mind/tong xin lun 童心論 Chinggis Khan 成吉思汗 Chongde 崇德 Chongzhen 崇禎 Chu Huai Wang 楚懷王 Chu Yung-teh 朱永德 Chunnuan huakai de shihou 春暖花開 的時候

commander-in-chief/junshi 軍師 Confucius/Kongzi 孔子 Confucianism/rujiao 儒教 contemporary/xiandai 現代 Correct Society/kuangshe 匡社 Creation Quarterly/Chuangzao jikan 創造集刊

Cui Cui 翠翠 cultural revolution/wenhua da geming 文化大革命 Da Shun 大順 Da Xia daxue 大夏大學 Da Yi 妲已 Dai Mingshi 戴名世 dao yi you dao 盜亦有道 Daoism/daojiao 道教

Dashing Prince/chuangwang 闖王 Daze xiang 大澤鄉 Deng Xiaoping 鄧小平 Deng Yingchao 鄧穎超 Deng Yu 鄧禹 government reports/dibao 邸報 Ding Qiguang 丁啟光 Ding Wang 定王 Ding Xiangli 丁祥利 Dodo/Duoduo 多鐸 Dong Hu 董狐 Dong Zhuo 董卓 Donglin 東林

Glossary Donghua men 東華門 Dorgon 多爾袞 Dou Meiyi 竇美億 Du Baotian 杜寶田 Du Fu 杜甫 Du Ruhui 杜如晦 Du Xun 杜勛 Du Yuesheng 杜月笙 Du Zhongguo mingyun 讀〈中國命運〉 Dynasties/wangchao 王朝, guochao 國朝 Empire/diguo 帝國 erchen 貳臣 even/Qi 齊 Fan Chou 樊稠 Fan Jiu 范唯 Fan Kuai 樊噲 Fan Shuzhi 樊樹志 Fan Tianbao 范天保 Fan Wencheng 範文程 Fan Xiaolian 范孝廉 Fan Zeng 範增 “Fanzheng qianhou 反正前後” Fan Zhongyan 范仲淹 Fang Dayou 方大猷 Fang Qiang 方強 Fang Xuanling 房玄齡 Fang Yizhi 方以智 Fei gongren 費  宮人/Fei Zhen’e 費真娥 Fei Lian 飛廉/Elai 惡來 Feng Kai 馮凱 Feng Nandi 馮難敵 Feng Quan 馮銓 Fengyu 風雨 Feng Yunshan 馮雲山 Feng Yuxiang 馮裕翔 Fengtianyu 奉天玉 fiction on current events or little stories about contemporary affairs/shishi xiaoshuo 時事小說 first rank general/Quan jiangjun 權 將軍

Glossary five classics/wujing 五經 foreigners/Yi 夷 Fu Jingxing 傅景星 Fulin 福臨 Funiu shan 伏牛山 Fu Shan 傅善 Fu Shan 傅山 Fu Wang 福王 Fu Yuzhang 傅玉璋 Fushe 復社 gang of four/siren bang 四人幫 Gao Furen dongzheng xiaoji 高夫人東 征小記

Gao Gang 高  崗/Rao Shushi 饒漱石 Gaohou Lüshi 高后呂氏 Gao Jiong 高炯 Gao Mingheng 高名衡 Gao Ruyue 高如岳 Gao Yingxiang 高迎祥 Gaozu 高祖 Ge Lin 葛林 Gengshi 更始 gengshidi 更始帝 Geng Shiran 耿始然 Geng Yinggeng 耿應庚 Gong Dingzi 龔鼎孳 Gongqingtuan 共青團 Gong Yunqi 龔雲起/Zhongchen 仲震/ Hulu daoren 葫蘆道人 Gong Zizhen 龔自珍 Green Forest/Lülin 綠林 Gu cun 古村 Gu guan 固關 Gu Junen 顧君恩 Gu Yanwu 顧炎武 Gu Ying 谷英 Guanzi 管子 gushibian 古史辨 Guanyin 觀音 Guan Yu 關羽

513 “Guanyu Li Yan 關於李岩” Guan Zhong 管仲 Guo Hanying 郭漢英 Guo Jia 郭嘉 Guo Jingbang 郭經邦 Guo mou 郭某 Guo Shengzhi 郭陞之 half moon creek/Banyuequan 半月泉, in Yunxizi 雲溪紫, in Western Wu 西吳 Han Feizi 韓非子 Han Huamei 韓華美 Han Liner 韓林兒 Han Wudi 漢武帝 Han Xin 韓信 Han Xun 韓遜 He Jingming 何景明 He-Luo shu 河洛數 heavenly kingdom of Great Peace/ taiping tianquo 太平天國 He Ruizheng 何瑞徵 He Shishou 賀世壽 He Tishou 何惕守 He Yilong 賀一龍 He Yinguang 何印光 Ho Chi Minh 胡志明 Hong Chengchou 洪承疇 Hong Daquan 洪大全 Hong Fuji 紅拂妓 Hong Huanchun 洪渙春 Hong jiangjun 弘將軍 Hong Niang 紅娘 Hong Niangzi 紅娘子 Hongqi 紅旗 “Hongshui taotao 洪水滔滔” Hong, Tiandi hui 洪，天地會 Hong Tongjiang 洪桐江 hongweibing 紅衛兵 Hong Xiuquan 洪秀全 Hongyi nulang 紅衣女郎 Hou Fangxia 侯方夏

514 Hou Fangyu 侯方域 Hou Fangzhen 侯方鎮 Hou Jian Lu 後監錄 Hou Wailu 候外盧 Hou Xun 侯恂 Hu 胡 Hu ben 狐奔 Hu Cheng 胡成 Hu Feng 胡風 Hu Jintao 胡錦濤 Hu Qiaomu 胡喬木 Hu Weiyong 胡惟庸 Hua Gunu 花鼓女 Hua Mulan 花木蘭 Huaju 話劇 Huang Chao 黃巢 Huangjin 黃巾 Huangtaiji 黃太極 Huang Yanpei 黃炎培 Huang Zongxi 黃宗羲 “Hui Mei chujia 慧梅出嫁” “Hui Mei zhi si 慧梅之死” Huidi 惠帝 “humane and just leader”/renyi zhi shi 仁義之師

insurgents/fanpanzhe 反叛者, qiyizhe 起義者

Jia Shijun 價士儁 Jia Sidao 賈似道 Jia Yi 賈翊 Jianlu 建虜 Jianwu 建武 Jianzhou 建州 Jiang Fan 蔣蕃 Jiang Qing 江清 Jiang Zemin 江澤民 Jiao Fang 焦芳 Jie Xuelong 解學龍 Jin wang fu 晉王府

Glossary Jinci 晉祠 jindai 近代 Jingling 金陵 Jinshan zhongxue 進山中學 Jinsuo shan 金鎖山 Jinyang shanren 晉陽山人 “Jiuzheng yizhong sixiang 糾正一種思想” Juntian mianliang 均田免糧 Kangxi 康熙 Kang Youwei 康有為 Kawakami Hajime 河上肇 Kong Fang 孔方 Kong Shangda 孔尚達 Kong Shangren 孔尚任 Kong Shangyue 孔尚鉞 Kong Xiangxi 孔祥熙 Khubilai 忽必烈 Laobadui 老八隊 Laozi 老子 Latter Jin 後金 Lee Zhongqing 李中清 Left-over people/yimin 遺民 Legalism/fajiao 法教 Li Chenghai 李成海 Li Chenghua 李成化 Li Chengxiu 李成秀 Li Daliang 李大亮 Li Dazhao 李大釗 Li Delin 李德林 Li Dengyun 李登雲 Li Gongzi 李公子 “Li Gongzi bian” 李公子辨（辯） Li Guangqin 李廣欽 Li Guangxian 李廣獻/Li Cunbao 李存保/ Li Silin 李思林 Li Guangxue 李廣學 Li Guo 李過/Li Xiu 李繡/Li Chixin 李赤心 Li Hao 李好

515

Glossary Li Hesun 李鶴孫 Li Jiazhai 李家寨 Li Ji 李際 Li Jiantai 李建太 Li Jin 李璡 Li Jing 李靖 Li Jing 李經 Li Jingbai 李精白 Li Jing guiTang 李靖歸唐 Li Jiyu 李際遇 Li Kanghou 李康侯 Li Lichao 李立朝 Li Linfu 李林甫 Li Linsun 李麟孫 Li Lisan 李立三 Li Mi 李密 Li Mou 李牟 Li Mu 李沐 Li Renfu 李仁福 Li Rui 李銳 Li Senxian 李森先 Li Shanchang 李善長 Li Shang 酈商 Li Shaobai 李少白 Li Sheng 李升 Li Shengxian 李生先 Li Shiji 李世勣 Li Shimin 李世民 Lishi renwu 歷史人物 Li Shuangxi 李雙喜 Li Si 李斯 Li Taibo 李太伯 Li Taicun 李太存 ‘Li Tang zhidu’ he ‘Shun dian’ ‘李唐制度’ 和 ‘舜典’ Li Tian 李天 Li Xiangcheng 李襄城 Li Xiangjun 李香君 Li Xiaoyu 李肖宇

Li Xin 李信 Li Xu 李栩 Li Xiu 李 繡 Li Yesi 李鄴嗣 Li Yiqi 酈食其 Li Yong 李勇 Li Yuan 李淵 Li Zaibai 李再白 Li Zhensheng 李振聲 Li Zhi 李贄 Li Zhisui 李志綏 Li Zongren 李宗仁 Li Zudan 李祖旦, “Lishi jiacheng” 李氏家乘

Liang 梁 Liang Jun 梁俊 Liang Qichao 梁啓超 Liang Song 梁宋 Liang Xiuying 梁秀英 Liang Yuming 梁羽明 Liang Yungou 梁云构 Liang Zhanjun 梁戰軍 Liangge gumen 兩個孤坟 Lin Biao 林彪 Lin Liguo 林立國 Linquan 林泉 Little reports/xiaobao 小報 Liu Bang 劉邦 Liu Bei 劉備 Liu Bingzhong 劉秉忠 Liu Bocheng 劉伯承 Liu Chang 劉昌 Liu Dong 劉東 Liu Fangliang 劉芳亮 Liu Heguang 劉和光 Liu Hongqi 劉洪起 Liu Ji 劉基/Bowen 伯溫 Liu Ji 劉季/Bang 邦 Liu Jingcheng 劉精誠

516 Liu Lishun 劉理順 Liu Liu 劉六/Liu Qi 劉七 Liu Rukui 劉汝魁 Liu Shangyou 劉尚友 Liu Shaoqi 劉少奇 Liu Tao 六韜 Liu Xiu 劉秀 Liu Xuan 劉玄 Liu Xueting 劉學婷 Liu Yazi 柳亞子 Liu Yu 劉豫 Liu Yuchi 劉玉尺 Liu Zeqing 劉澤清 Liu Zhao 劉昭 Liu Zhiji 劉知幾 Liu Zhong 劉忠 Liu Zizheng 劉子政 Liu Zongmin 劉宗敏 Lu Dingyi 陸定一 Lufuji 魯府紀 Lu Jia 陸賈 Lu Jia 盧家 Lu Prince Zhu Yihai 魯王朱以海 Lushan huiyi 廬山會議 Lu Xun 魯迅 Lu Zhenfei 路振飛 Lü Bu 呂布 Lü Ji 呂伋 Lü Kun 呂坤 Lü Shang 呂尚 Lü Weiqi 呂維祺 Lü Xiru 呂翕如 Luo Hu 羅虎 Luo Ming 羅明 Luo Rucai 罗汝才 Ma Fengyi 馬鳳儀 Ma Ling 馬零 Manchu 滿洲 Ma Shiuying 馬士英

Glossary Mandate/tianming 天命 Mao Dun 矛盾 Mao Qiling 毛奇龄 Mao Xiang 冒襄 medieval/zhonggu 中古 Mencius Mengzi 孟子 Menghanyaoma 蒙汗葯麻 Meng Haoran 孟浩然 Meng Jiongsu 孟囧驌 Meng Sen 孟森 Meng Shaoyu 孟紹虞 Miao Renfeng 苗人风 Mishima Yukio 三島由紀夫 Mozi 墨子 Mote, Frederick 牟復禮 Mr. No Competition/Wujing 無兢氏 Nagasaki 長崎 Niu Jianqiang 牛建強 Niu Jinxing 牛金星 Niu Quan 牛佺 Nouyunzhai 耨云斋 Nurhachi 努爾哈赤 Nüsishu 女四書 Nüzhen 女真 Oboi/aobai 鰲拜 officials/chen 臣 officials force the people to rebel/guanbi minfan 官逼民反 old and new democracy/jiu minzhu 舊民主, xin minzhu 新民主 One Dipper of Grain/yidougu 一斗榖 Oshio Heihachiro 大塩平八郎 Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 Panma Wanger 盘马王二 Peng Dehuai 彭德懷 Peng Jiaping 彭家屏 Peng Shiheng 彭時亨 Peng Shunling 彭舜齡 Peng Xialing 彭遐齡

Glossary Peng Zhuanhu 彭傳笏 people are the basis of the state/minwei bangben 民為邦本 Poetry/shijing 詩經 polities/guochao 國朝 prime minister/chengxiang 丞相, xiangxiang 相相 principalities/guo 國 Qihua men 齊化門 Qihuangong 齊桓公 Qi Shirong 齊世荣 Qian Baiwan 錢百萬 Qian Defu 錢德富 Qian Qianyi 錢謙益 Qin Gui 秦檜 Qin Liangyu 秦良玉 Qin Mengxiong 秦夢熊 Qin Sheng 秦升 QingQing 青青 Qingnian chubanshe 青年出版社 Qiu Chuji 丘處機/Chang Chun 長春 Qu Qiubai 瞿秋白 Qu Yuan 屈原 Quan Zuwang 全祖望 Red Eyebrows/Chimei 赤眉 Record of the Ming/Mingshi jilue 明史紀略

Renmin wenxue chubanshe 人民文學 出版社

Republic/minguo 民國, gongheguo 共和國

Restoration Society/Fushe 復社 rites of Qi and Song/Qi Song zhili 杞宋之禮

robbers/dao 盜 rope walker/shengji 繩妓 Ruan Ji 阮籍 Saigo Takamori 西鄉隆盛 Sanggan 桑干, Fen 汾

517 “Sanxiong juhui 三雄聚會” Sang Kaidi 桑開第 Saodi Wang 掃地王 semi-feudalism, semi-colonialism/ banfengjian zhuyi 半封建主義, ban zhimindi 半殖民地 shangdi 上帝 Shang Guojun 尚國俊 Shang Jiong 尚絅 Shen Jiayin 申佳胤 Shen Xin 申新 Shen Yunying 沈雲英 shengyuan 生  員, xiucai 秀才 shiba haier 十八孩兒 shiba haier zhu shenqi 十八孩兒主神器 shibazi 十八子 Shihuo 食活 Shi Kecheng 史可程 Shi Kefa 史可法 Shishangfu 師尚父 Shizu 世祖 Showa 昭和 Shu Suntong 叔孫通 Shundi 順帝 Shunzhi 順治 Siku quanshu 四庫全書 Sima Guang 司馬光 Sima Qian 司馬遷 Sima Tan 司馬談 Sima Yan 司馬炎 Sima Zhao 司馬昭 Siyuejiaoxiangqu 四月交响曲 Song Haier 宋孩兒 Song Jiang 宋江 Song Jiong 宋炯 Song Lian 宋廉 Song Luo/Lao 宋窂 Song Mei 宋玫 Song Qingling 宋慶齡

518 Song Quan 宋權 Song Xiance 宋獻策 Song Ziwen 宋子文 Spring and Autumn Annals/chunqiu 春秋

sprouts of capitalism/ziben zhuyi mengya 資本主義萌芽 Su Che 蘇綽 Su Dongpo 蘇東坡 Su Jing 蘇京 Su Qin 蘇秦 Su Shi 蘇軾 Su Wei 蘇威 Su Wu 蘇  武/Li Ling 李陵 Su Yin 素因 Sun Bin 孫臏 Sun Cheng 孫澄 Sun Chengzi 孫承澤 Sun Chuanting 孫傳庭 Sun Deng 孫澄 Sun Qifeng 孫奇逢 Sun Quan 孫權 Sun Wu 孫武 Sun Yat-sen 孙中三 Sun Zuomin 孫祚民 Supporting Virtue General/fude jiang 輔德將

Supporting Virtue Wife/fude furen 輔德夫人

Taigong Wang 太公望 Taikangbo Zhang Guoji 太康伯張國紀 Taishi 泰誓 Taizong 太宗 Tan Yixun 談  以訓/Rumu 孺木 Tang 湯 Tang Bin 汤斌 Tang He 湯和 Tang ren 唐人 Tang Saier 塘  塞兒/yaofu 妖婦 Tang Taizong 唐太宗

Glossary Tang Tong 唐通 Tao Lujia 陶魯茄 Tao Xisheng 陶希圣 Tartars (dazi) 韃子 Temujin 鐵木黰 Three Qin (Shaanxi) 三秦 Tian 田 Tian Chuan 田川 Tian Han 田漢 Tian Hongyu 田弘遇 Tianjing beiju 天京悲劇 tianzai 天災 Tongjian 通鑑 Tong Pass 潼關 tradition/chuantong 傳統 Tulebinga 圖勒病阿 Tumu 土木 Venerated Documents/Shangshu 尚書 Wan‘an prince Cai Qing (Jian) 萬安王采輕 (鑒) Wanli 萬曆 wanmin 頑民 Wan Wei 萬煒 Wan Yuanji 萬元吉 Wang Dunwu 王敦武 Wang Erfa 王二發 Wang Fu 王福 Wang Fuzhi 王夫之 Wang Guangmei 王光美 Wang Guangxi 王廣西 Wang Guiying 王桂英 Wang Han 王  漢/Zaishangtu 灾傷圖 Wang Hongwen 王洪文 Wang Jingwei 汪精衛 Wang Mang 王莽 Wang Shijun 王士俊 Wang Shizhen 王世真 Wang Shiwei 王實味 Wang Shouyi 王守義 Wang Wei 王維

519

Glossary Wang Weilie 王維烈 Wang Xianlong 王獻隆 Wang Yangming 王陽明 Wang Yanwu 王炎午 Wang Yongzhang 王永章/Jiashen riji 甲申日記

Wang Yuan 王源 Wang Yun 王允 Wang Zhaojun 王昭君 Wang Zhijin 王之晉 Wang Zhong 王忠 Wang Zishou 王紫綬 Wei 魏 Wei Shou 魏收 Weiwu jiang jun 威武將軍 Wei Zheng 魏徵 Wei Zhongxian 魏忠賢 Welcoming the Dashing Prince/ na Chuang Wang 納闖王 Wencheng 文成 Wenhuibao 文匯報 Wenkang 文康 wenshi bufen 文史不分 Wen Tianxiang 文天祥 Wen Wang 文王 willow/Qi 杞 Wu Bangce 吳邦策, Record of Changes in the State 國變錄 Wugong shan 鵡公山 Wu Guang 吳廣 Wu Hu 吳虎 Wu Ji 吳箎 Wu Laohai 吳老海 Wu Lengxi 吳冷西 Wu Qi 吳起 Wu Sangui 吳三桂 Wu, Silas Hsiu-liang 吳秀良 Wu Wang 武王 Wu Xiang 吳襄 wuxing 五行

Wu Yong 吳用 Wu Yue 吳越 Wu Zi 吳子 Wu Zichang 吳孳昌 Wu Zixu 伍子胥 Xiang Jingyu 向警予 Xiang Yu 項羽 Xianyang 咸陽 Xiao He 蕭何 Xiao Chuangying 小闖營 Xiao Xia 小霞 Xiao Yishan 蕭一山 Xiao Yu 蕭瑀 Xie An 謝安 Xie Fuchen 謝伏琛 Xiliang 錫良 Xin 信 Xin 新 Xin Mang 新莽 Xinsheng yuekan 新生月刊 Xinyu 新語 Xing Er 邢二 XinHua Ribao 新華日報 Xing Shuen 邢樹恩 Xinshi 新史 Xu Da 徐達 Xu Hongru 徐鴻儒 Xu Mougong 徐懋功 Xu Ningsheng 徐凝生 Xu Qianxue 徐乾學 Xu Wencai 徐文彩 Xu Xuanping 許宣平 Xu Yuanwen 徐元文 Xu Yingfen 徐應芬 Xuande 宣德 Xuandi 宣帝 Xuanwu men 宣武門 Xuanye 玄曄 Xuehen 雪痕 Xue Suoyun 薛所緼

520 “Xuexi he shiju 學習和時局” Xun Qi 勳戚 Xunzi 荀子 Yama/Yanluo 閻羅 Yan Song 嚴嵩 Yan Xishan 閻錫山 Yan Ying 晏嬰 Yan Zhenqing 顏真卿 Yanda fandi datongmeng 燕大反帝大同盟 Yanda zhoukan 燕大周刊 Yanfa 閻法 Yang Chengyu 楊承裕 Yang Guang 楊廣 Yang Jian 楊堅 Yang Pu 楊溥 Yangshe shi 羊舌氏 Yang Sichang 楊嗣昌 Yang Su 楊素 Yanjing daxue 燕京大學 Yan Ziyuan 顏紫元 Yao and Shun 堯舜 Yao Qiying 姚奇英 Yao Wenyuan 姚文元 Yaoyingzhai 姚營寨 Yefu 野拂 Yelüchucai 耶律楚材 Ye Minlei 葉民磊 Ye Qun 葉群 Yi’an huanghou 懿安皇后, née Zhang 張氏 yigu 疑故 yinfu 陰符 yinyang 陰陽 Yi Yin 伊尹 Yi zhihu 一隻虎 “Ying Chuang Wang 迎闖王” Yingying 鶯鶯 Ying Zheng 應徵

Glossary Yongchang 永昌 Yongle 永樂 Yongqiu 雍丘 Yong wang 永王 You wang 幽王 Yü 豫 Yü Dafu 郁達夫 Yudi 玉帝 Yu Liqun 余立群 Yu Rujie 俞汝捷 Yu Wang Duoduo 豫王多鐸 Yuzhen 圉鎮 Yuan Chengzhi 袁承志 Yuan Chonghuan 袁崇煥 Yuan Dingzhong 袁定中 Yuan Shikai 袁世凱 Yuan Shizhong 袁時中 “Yuan Shizhong panbian” 袁時中叛變 Yuan Shu 袁樞 Yuan Sui 元邃 Yuan You 袁祐 “Yuanyuan qu” 圓圓曲 Yuan Zongdi 袁宗第 Yue Fei 岳飛 Yue Fei (Manjianghong) 岳飛《滿江紅》 Yuqi 玉奇 “Zai gong Kaifeng 再攻開封” Zeng Guofan 曾國藩 Zeng Sheng 曾生 Zeng Yinglin 曾應遴 Zhan Zhonghe 詹仲和 Zhang Aiping 張愛萍 Zhang Binglin 章炳麟 Zhang Chaotang 張朝唐 Zhang Chong 張沖 Zhang Chunqiao 張春橋 Zhang Dai 張岱 Zhang Gong 張 珙 Zhang Guoguang 張國光

521

Glossary Zhang Guoji 張國紀 Zhang Guotao 張國燾 Zhang Hao 張豪 Zhang Huichun 張惠春 Zhang Ji 張濟 Zhang Jie 張潔 Zhang Jinghe 張景和 Zhang Jinyan 張縉彥 Zhang Juzheng 張居正 Zhang Liang 張良 Zhang Nai 張鼐 Zhang Qun 張群 Zhang Sanfeng 張三峰 Zhang Sanfeng 張三豐 Zhang Simeng 張司孟 Zhang Sun 長孫 Zhangsun Wuji 長孫無忌 Zhang Wenguang 張文光 Zhang Xiao 張孝 Zhang Xinbin 張新斌 Zhang Xuecheng 張學承 Zhang Xueliang 張學良 Zhang Yi 張儀 Zhangyimen 彰義門 Zhang Zhengcai 張正才 Zhang Zhizhong 張治中 Zhang Zhong 張中 Zhang Zihua 張子華 Zhao Chongguo 趙充國 Zhao Gao 趙高 Zhao Guangyuan 趙光遠 Zhao Jiong 趙炯 Zhao Keyao 趙克堯 Zhao Kuangyin 趙匡胤 Zhao Shichun 趙士春 Zhao Shiyu 趙世瑜 Zhao Sui 趙燧 Zhao Tuo 趙佗 Zhao Xihe 趙熙赫

Zhao Yi 趙翼 Zhao Yongxian 趙用賢 Zhenguan zhengyao 貞觀政要 Zhenguan zhizhi 貞觀之治 Zheng Cidu 鄭次都 “Zheng Tongguan 征潼關” zhengzai 政災 Zheng Zhong 鄭忠 Zhi jiangjun 制將軍 Zhi Junzhang 郅軍章 Zhongguo daxue 中國大學 Zhongshan Daxue 中山大學 Zhongyuan 中原 Zhongzhou 中州 Zhou Enlai 周恩來 Zhou ensheng 周恩生 Zhou Gong 周公 Zhou Guangde 周廣德 Zhou Kui 周奎 Zhou Pingzhang 周平章 Zhou Wang 周王 Zhou Weimin 周為民 Zhou Xin 紂辛 Zhou Ying 周穎 Zhou Yu 周瑜 Zhou Zhong 周鍾 Zhu Biao 朱標 Zhu Chengju 朱成矩 Zhu Cihuan 朱慈煥 Zhu Cilang 朱  慈烺/Song Wang 宋王 Zhu De 朱德 Zhu Di 朱棣 Zhu Houcong 朱厚瘲/Shizong 世宗/ Jiajing 嘉靖 Zhu Maichen 朱買臣 Zhu San Taizi 朱三太子 Zhu Sheng 朱升, 朱勝 “Zhu Taiping 祝太平” Zhu Weimin 朱惟民

522 Zhu Xianzhen 朱仙鎮 Zhu Yijun 朱翊鈞 Zhu Yizun 朱彝尊 Zhu Youjian 朱由檢 Zhu Yuanzhang 朱元璋 Zhuang Tinglong 庄廷鑨 Zhuangzi 莊子

Glossary Zhuge Liang 諸葛亮 Zhuo Wenjun 卓文君 Ziying 蕊英 Zizhitongjian 資治通鑑 Zou Rong 鄒容 Zuo Liangyu 左良玉 Zuozhuan 左專

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Index ABCs of Communism 102 Academic Journal of the Central Province 298 advisors in Chinese history 3, 5–6, 125, 353, 378 Aisin Gioro clan 381, 382 al-Assad, Bashar 493 Alexander, The Great 422–425, 427 Alexander VI, pope 449–452 Alexander II of Russia 476 aligned biographies 9, 272 Ambrosius, Merlinus 445, 446 American war for independence 470 An account of an inquiry into the truth of 1644 334 “An Account of Li Yan” 163 Analects 9, 352n10 ancestral teacher 329 Anda niang 230 Anhui province 84, 129, 184, 190, 243, 303, 376, 400 Annals, of Historiography 102 Annals of Lesser Prosperity 97 Annals of the Roving Robbers of Huailing from Beginning to End 68, 160 Annals of Wales 4 Annals of Zuo 88 “Another attack on Kaifeng” 187 An-Shi rebellion 205 Anti-Imperialist Grand Harmony Alliance 102 Antoinette, Marie 472, 482 Antony, Marc 430, 431 Arden, John 442 Aristotle 422–425, 425n11, 431, 445, 437 Arouet, Francois-Marie. see Voltaire Arthashastra 425, 494 Arthur, King 432–448 The Art of War of Machiavelli 458 The Art of War of Sun Zi 364 Ashe, Geoffrey 439–444 Assessment of the Polity or Evaluation of a State 42 August Lord 5, 11, 45, 113, 168, 200, 237, 325, 357, 392, 413

August Superior 201 Aurelianus, Ambrosius 432 authoritarian centralization in spiral theory 8; in Qin 4, 5, 356–358, 418, 431; in Han 364; in Yuan 375–376; in Da Shun 104; in late Republic 392–393; in early People’s Republic 395n106, 419; under Xi Jinping 420 autocracy/ despotism 6, 393 A Ying prominent playwright 119, 352, 369; author of Dashing Prince Li 129–143 Balzac, Honoré de 479, 483 Ban Chao 9 Ban Gu 9, 397 Ban Zhao 9 Baofeng county 92, 263 Bao Yangsheng 96, 159, 244, 271 “Before and After Returning to Rectitude” 119 Beijing, Chengtian Gate 44, 202, 352; Li Zicheng attack on 13, 21, 41, 130, 152, 231; Liu Lishun in, 335; Li Yan in 12–14, 75, 78, 133–135, 164, 169, 200, 287, 311 322; Niu Jinxing in 13, 21, 60–61, 137–147, 253, 263, 272; Shun regime in 38, 133–137, 259, 334; Song Xiance predicting the fall of 14, 29, 37; Wu Sangui attack on 48, 273; Li Zicheng retreat from 237; Yang Shicong in, 337; dispute over Li Yan’s role in 287–289, 323–324; establishment of the People’s Republic in 123, 411 Beijing opera 130, 148, 156; opera-style drama 212 Bhagavad Gita 425 bin Laden, Osama 499 Biographies of the Marsh 196 Bismarck 492 Bixuejian 226 Bodde, Derk 5, 358 bodhisattva Guanyin 238 Book of Poetry 356; aka Book of Odes 363 Borgia, Caesar 450, 451, 468 Borgia, Rodrigo 449 Bradley, Marion 442

552 Britanniae 432 Brutus, Marcus 429, 430 Buddhism rebel views of 25, 27, 114, 203, 223; monks role in rebellion 47, 352; in Japan 98; in Millennial Temple 303, 315; introduction of 320, 369, 462; in Yuan 375; in thought of Fan Zhongyan 400; in India 426; unity of the three teachings 299, 315, 319, 353, 369, 377, 469. See also White Lotus Burke, Edmund 501 Burr, Aaron 472 Bush, George H.W. 499 Bush, George W. 489, 499 Caesar, Caius Julius 426–431 Cai Hesen 398–399, 409 Calabash Daoist see Gong Yunqi Calas, Huguenot Jean 468 Callisthenes 424 Camus, Albert 4 Candide 469 Canton-Hong Kong strike 400 Cao Cao 190, 367 Cao Guilin 163–167, 170, 249 Carter, Jimmy 485 Cassius, Gaius 430 Castro, Fidel 487 Catherine II 468 Catiline, Lucius Sergius 427 Central Daily News 115 centralized feudal system 358 see also authoritarian centralization Central Plains Literary Club 255 Chambers, E.K. 441 Chandragupta 425–426 Changshu county 12 Chao Fuzhang 101 Charlemagne 446 Charles V 453 Charles VII 449 Chekov, Anton 197 Chen Boda 108, 406, 414–420 Chen Duxiu 116, 117, 399 Cheney, Dick 489 Cheng, minor king of Zhou 351 Cheng Feng 307–314

Index Chen Guofu 415 Chen Jin 395–398, 402–403, 412–414 Chen Lifu 415 Chen Ping 193, 203, 364–365 Chen She (Chen Sheng) 18, 109, 359, 362 Chen Shengxi 284 Chen Si 159, 162 Chen Yi 404 Chen Yongfu 38, 259 Chen Youliang 325 Chen Yuanyuan 114, 130, 135, 138, 153, 238 Chen Yun 415 Chen Zhenhui 260 Chen Zouting 314, 315 Chen Zuwu 57 Chiang Kai-shek 104, 109, 409, 109, 415 Child Song 21, 37 see also Song Xiance China (central state(s) 11; in time and place: China in China 349–366; China in Asia 367–380; China in the world 381–420 Chinese advisors in general 5–6 Chinese Communist Party 4, 226 Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference 401 Chinese rebels in general 4–5 “The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party” 108–109 Chinese scholars in general 3–4 Chinese Writers’ Association 196 Chinggis Khan 375 Chongqing 172 Chongzhen reign (1628–1644) 48, 53, 77, 381–382; as ruler 41, 45, 132, 133, 141, 203, 204, 227, 251, 252, 254, 260, 381–82; suicide of 39, 41, 133, 152, 231; legacy of 78, 111, 115 chronological biographies 9 Cicero, Marcus Tullius 426–431 Classic of Poetry (Odes) 350 see also Book of Poetry (Odes) class struggle 109, 165, 169, 174, 179 Clement VII 453, 458 Cleopatra 429 Clodius 428 Communist Party Central Committee 404

Index The Complete Account of the Iron Helmet Pictures 39, 40, 101 Comprehensive Collectanea of the Four Treasuries 86, 95 Comprehensive Mirror for Assistance in Governance 195, 196, 199, 208, 373, 403 Confucianism Analects 9; aka Ruism 29; on mentoring the powerful 44; in Qing examination 76; in Japan 98, 99; and land reform 105; rejection of 173; as part of Shun ideology 176; of Li Yan’s family 299; and humaneness 315; and ministers 352–354, 357, 369; of Song and Ming 377, 383; and shrine in Qufu 386; and Sun Yat-sen 392; and Liu Shaoqi 400; criticism of 408; and Zoou Enlai 413, 414; and Aristotle 425; and Voltaire 463, 469, 481; and Talleyrand see also unity of the three teachings Correct Association 16 “Correcting a Kind of Thinking” 115 Crassus 428 Creation Quarterly 107 Cromwell, Oliver 473 Cromwell, Thomas 461 cultural crisis and political disorder in spiral theory 8; in Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods 352–356; in Wudai, Song, Liao, Jin periods 374–375; in early-Republic (warlord period) 391–393 Cultural Revolution, a Maoist slogan in 5; and gang of four 38n62; and Guo Moruo 124–125; and evaluations of Li Yan 165, 172–177; and Liu Bingshan 212, 213; and Jin Yong 241; and Li family genealogy of Tang village 292, 309; and Mao Zedong’s calls 377; and Liu Shaoqi’s fall 402, 403, 405; and rise and fall of Lin Biao 406, 407; and Zhou Enlai 412; and Chen Boda 416; Kissinger’s view of 492, 500 Cultural Working Commission 172 culture states 8–9, 431, 448, 462, 505 “Curly-bearded Guest” 241, 261 see also Hong Fuji, Li Jing Cyrus 456

553 Dai Li and Wu Shu comparison of Li Zicheng with Li Yan and Li Mou 167, 345, 373; depiction of Hong Niangzi 68, 74, 160, 270 Da Liang (aka Kaifeng) 250 Danton, Georges 472 Daoguang period 88 Daoism 3; and Lazy Daoist of Western Wu 15; Calabash Daoist of Runzhou 16, 21; and Non-Ultimate boxing 303; and land sale 307; and justice 315; and Zhuang Zi 353; and Zhang Liang 364, 379; in Jinhua Confucianism 377; See also unity of the three teachings Dashing bandit/prince A Ying 129–142; Chiang Kai-shek/Tao Xisheng 40, 109; The Complete Account of the Iron Helmet Pictures 39–41; Dong Rong 93–95; Gong Yunqi 16–20, 25, 27–34; Guo Moruo 112; Ji Liuqi 59; Jin Yong 227– 239; Liu Xiaoshen 225; Li Zudan 86– 87; Ma Shaobo 148–156; Pan Yaolin 216; Peng Jiaping 85–86; Record of 1644 144–185; Tan Qian 47–51; Wan Sitong 75–76; Yao and Yu 206 Da Shun (Great Accord) 11; in Beijing 47, 48, 128, 147; characteristics of 115, 142, 170, 193, 263, 279; Li Yan’s role in 104–105, 114, 139, 154, 167, 243, 271, 272, 279, 348; Niu Jinxing’s role in 13, 263, 461; officials in  147, 167, 207, 271, 274, 383; recruiting of scholars to 12, 22, 23, 85; slogans of 151; suspicions of Li Yan’s loyalty to 139, 165, 237; treatment of Ming officials by 128, 167, 352; Xi’an capital of 38, 41, 60, 151 da Vinci, Leonardo 451 Da Yi 104 Daze xiang 183 The Death of Arthur 435 de’Medici, Alessandro 453 de’Medici, Giuliano 453, 454 de’Medici, Giulio 458 de’Medici, Lorenzo 449 Demosthenes 427 Deng Xiaoping 175, 180, 211, 212, 241–242, 398, 419; influence of U.S. on 490, 503; reforms of 212, 241–242, 405, 419 Deng Yu and Xumougong 194, 365

554 de Pompadour, Madame 422n2, 467, 482 de Stael, Germaine 473, 482 Diary of 1644 247 Diary of the Defense of Bian 287 Ding Qiguang 49, 50, 62, 246, 274 Ding Qirui 62 Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy  453 The Discovery of King Arthur 439 Disraeli, Benjamin 462, 479 “Distinguishing Master Li” 80–81, 258, 264, 269, 270; revisions and reprints of 83, 86, 87, 96, 271 Distinguishing traditional history 100 see also “doubting antiquity” Donghua Gate 38 Donglin Society see Eastern Forest Society Dong Rong 92–95, 372 Dorgon 47–48, 202–205, 273, 352, 381–390 “doubting antiquity” 1, 100, 157, 330 Dowager Yi’an née Zhang protected by Li Yan 22–23, 113, 134, 153, 167, 198–199; no protection by Li Yan 45; protected by Liu Zongmin 245–246, 271, 272 “Draft annalistic biography of Wang Meicun” 102 “Draft gazetteer of Wen county” 318–319 Draft Ming History 77–79, 84–85, 269, 274, 346 see also Wang Hongxu Dragon Cliff Master 39 Dream of the Red Chamber 197 Du Fu 57, 198, 374, 384 Duke of Enghien 474 Duke of Orleans 479 Duke of Zhou in history 351, 418, 457; as a model leader in slave society 120; for Wang Mang 365; for Yang Jian 370; for Khubilai Khan 375; in Li family Millennial Temple 299; for Dorgon 202, 388 Dulles, John Foster 484–485 Duoduo 53, 390 Durant, Will 423, 424, 426–431, 452, 453, 458, 466, 467 Du Ruhui 371 Dwarf Song see Song Xiance

Index Eastern Forest Society Zhou Zhong’s role in 23; and Wan Sitong 72; and Draft Ming History 78; and Niu Jinxing 104, 276; Dowager Yi’an’s support for 272; hostility to Li Yan of 166, 325; Hou family’s role in 258–260 Edward I 442 Edward III 442 Eleanor of Aquitaine 441 elite reform in spiral theory 8; in Zhou 351–352, 418; in Tang 370, 372, 418; in Shun 352, 373, 419; in Qing 352, 381–391; in Republic 392; in People’s Republic 402, 413–414, 419 Elizabeth I 442 “Encountering Sorrow” 356 Encyclopédie 463 “Essay on Tan Sitong” 415 eunuch party criticism of 72–73, 93, 103; against reformers 389; and storied father of Li Yan 63, 66, 71, 78, 93, 113, 180, 258, 267, 272, 343 see also Li Jingbai The Extended Meaning of the Three Kingdoms 338, 368 The Extended Meaning of the Painful History of the Late Ming 101 The Extended Meaning of the Yongchang Reign 101 Fairbank, John K. 118 “False Allegations and Torture for Li” 224 Fang Yizhi 52, 255, 260 Fang Zuyou 76 Fan Kuai 200, 366 Fan Peiwei 280, 281 Fan Shuzhi 167, 168, 372 Fan Zeng 359 Fan Zhongyan 384, 400 farmers’ revolts at the end of the Qin  103, 108; during the Ming 75, 110–111, 129, 249, 329; at the end of the Ming 279; as a force for progress 109, 117, 178; sympathy for 75, 279; women’s role in 177, 179 Fei Zhen’e 134, 136, 152, 199 Feng Dao 481 Feng Menglong 34, 80 Feng Quan 53, 389, 390

Index Feng Tianyu 142, 143 Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe 463 feudalism 173, 286, 371, 391, 393; characteristics of 6, 170, 358; class struggle and discrimination in 109, 162, 170, 179, 197; Communist critique of 159, 400, 412; intellectuals in 120, 163, 173; Li Yan support of 164, 166; Li Zicheng’s revolution against 170, 176; opposition to 371; revisionist history of 178, 245–246, 265 First August Lord 357, 359, 360, 362, 364, 380, 413, 418, 425, 426, 431 five paradigms 6–7 “The Flood” 187 Florentine politics 455 “Forcing a Marriage, Taking a Life” 217 Ford, Gerald 483, 484, 485, 486, 488, 498 Fouché, Joseph 476 Four Books for Women 198 four-point memorial 25, 46, 61, 135, 153, 164–165, 321, 366; analyses of 114, 167, 170, 276, 284, 288 fox women 93, 290 Francis, Emperor 475 Frederick II 462, 463–471, 480, 490, 491 Frederick William III 475 French Revolution 463, 470, 471, 482, 492 frontier tribesmen 27 Fukuyama, Francis 458 Fu Shan 205 Gaddafi, Muammar 493 “gang of four” of the Cultural Revolution 173, 175, 413, 417 “gang of four” referring to Li Yan, Niu Jinxing, Song Xiance, Liu Zongmin, and/or sometimes others including Li Mou and Hong Niangzi 37–38, 38n62, 125, 126, 148, 322 Gao Gang 401 Gaohou Lüshi 363 Gao Jiong 370, 418 Gao Mingheng 192 Gaozu of Han founder 5; and Liu Zongmin 32; and Li Zicheng 101, 193; and meritorious officials 115, 241; significance of reign of 362–366;

555 compared with Ming Taizu 376, 379; and Mao Zedong 394; anticipated by Maurya 426; compared with King Arthur 442 see also Liu Ji, Liu Bang Gazetteer of Fuyang County 86, 88 Gazetteer of Qi County 86, 96, 163, 282 “Genealogy of the Li Family” of Tang village 33, 290–330, 337, 353 see also Appendix B Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek 102 see also Chiang Kai-shek Geng Shiran 53 Geng Yinggeng 91–92 genuine Welsh tradition 438 Geoffrey of Monmouth 433, 437, 439–446, 468 Girl with the Red Fly Whisk see Hong Fuji Gladstone, William 462, 479 Gong Yunqi Lazy Daoist of Western Wu and the Calabash Daoist of Runzhou brush names of; Little History of Dashing Li written by 15–34; text banned by Qianlong 95; related original Little History of Suppressing Dashing called “reactionary” 244; one of three original authors of the Li Yan story 264–265, 274, 276–277, 287, 324, 335n132, 338–340, 353, 366–367, 369 Gong Zizhen 121 Goodrich, Norma 443–445 Grafton, Anthony 454 Grand, Catherine 474, 483 Grand Duke’s Martial Methods 364 Great Leap Forward 124, 395, 401, 402, 405, 411 The Great Learning 98 Great Merits of the New Age 326 Great Ming dynasty 30, 47, 152, 215, 328 Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 106, 124, 165, 395, 405 see also Cultural Revolution Great River Report 297 Green Woods 224 Grey, Edward 479 Guanyin temple 47 Guan Yu 156, 157, 319, 368, 369, 446 Guan Zhong 353, 354, 370, 418

556 Gu Cheng 243–249, 268, 269, 275, 277–278, 279, 280, 284, 287, 289 Guizot, Francois Pierre Guillaume 479 Gu Jiegang 100 Gu Junen 37, 56, 131, 132, 136, 203 Guomindang 118–119, 157, 171, 172, 295, 375, 393, 394, 395, 399, 400, 403, 404, 409, 410, 415 Guo Moruo 1, 2, 107–125, 171, 180, 397, 413, 415–416, 447; on feudalism 358, 367, 393; on Li Yan 133, 243, 264, 265, 280, 374, 394, 410; and Mao Zedong 129, 130, 174 Guo Shengzhi 48–49, 288 Gustavus III 468 Gu Yanwu 276, 332–333, 382, 412 Gu Yingtai 54–57, 70, 74, 81, 83, 86, 97, 244, 271, 272, 273, 325, 340–342, 374 Haiyan county 69 Half a Cart of Wheat Straw 172 Hamilton, Alexander 472, 496 Han dynasty little stories in 14, 34; and Tan Qian 42, 48; and Gu Yingtai 56; and Wan Sitong 76–77; and Zhao Zongfu 103; and Guo Moruo 108, 111; and Mao Zedong 109, 117; capital of 147; effort to save Later 156; founder of Former 183, 184; rebels in Former 224; fall of Later 325; advisors in 2, 5, 29, 35–36, 43, 120, 193–194, 200, 203, 263, 359–366, 376, 377, 382, 413, 418; compared to other regimes 43, 48, 57, 128, 232, 268, 367, 368, 370, 380; model for later dynasties 128, 177, 194, 205, 358, 367, 376, 382, 396–397; populism in 4, 8, 111, 115, 128, 326, 356, 358, 359, 377, 418, 419 Han ethnic group 386; script 414 Han Feizi 226, 353, 354, 356, 357, 426, 458 Hangzhou 15, 42, 65, 229, 303 Han Li 36, 374, 386 Han Liner 76 Han, Ming, ând People’s Republic see populist egalitarianism Han Wendi 363 Han Wudi 152 Han Xin 35, 193, 203, 360, 361, 364, 382, 396, 413, 418

Index “Hearing a Report and Sending Troops” 225 Hearsay of the Late Ming 83 Hearsay of the Woodcutter 104 Hearsay Regarding Military Chaos in the Great Ming 324 Heilongjiang 162 He Jingming 255 He Lingxiu 170–171 He Ruizheng 44, 47, 48, 52, 255, 322, 336, 362 He Yiguang 80–82, 86, 243, 257, 266 He Yinguang 45, 52, 256, 257, 258, 388 Hemingway, Ernest 197 Henan province (aka “central province”; Yü) Map 0.1 xii, 1, 23, 34, 179, 303, 338, 351, 390; identity of 22, 23, 44, 113, 114, 204, 385; legend of Li Yan in 2, 14, 73, 78, 86, 89, 243, 249, 317, 332, 346, 338, 390 Henry VII 442 Henry VIII 459–462, 504 Hideyoshi, Toyotomi 503 Historical Personalities 123 Historical Records 82, 350, 355, 366, 397, 412 Historical Research 163 The History of Britain 432 History of Florence 458 History of the Anglo-Saxons 440 History of the Five Dynasties 87 History of the Han 397, 412 History of the Kings of Britain 433, 437 The History of the Later Han 184 History of the Ming 69–90 Ho Chi Minh 409 Hoeing Weeds 34 homonyms 11, 75 Hong Fuji 371–372 see also Li Jing Hongniang 94, 344 Hong Niangzi 1, 38n62; origin of written story of 63–64; accepted by historians and writers 71, 74, 78, 93–98, 100, 101, 112–113, 121–122, 123, 125, 126, 127, 132–133, 143–145, 148–149, 150–153, 155, 156, 157, 158–163, 166, 171, 176–211, 212–226, 227, 228, 236–241; not mentioned in some early sources 68, 70, 104, 112; existence doubted 243–245, 263, 264, 266, 269, 270, 284; likely origin of the oral tale 291, 331, 343–345, 348; possible historical

557

Index antecedents of and precedents for 354, 372, 399, 447–448, 461 Hong Xiuquan 99, 392 Hou Fangyu 260, 261, 262, 266, 384 “How Should We Evaluate Li Yan?” 168 Huang Chao uprising of 49, 56, 176, 374 Huang Taiji 187 Huang Zongxi 69, 71, 77, 382 Hu Feng 124 Huidi 362 Hui Mei 188, 190, 191, 192, 195, 198 “Hui Mei gets married” 187 “Hui Mei’s Death” 187, 197 humane government 168, 200, 201 Hundred Years War 442, 445 Hu Qiaomu 175 Hurley, Patrick 410 Hussain, Saddam 493, 494 Huxley 412 Important Policies of the Zhenguan Reign 196, 373 In a Time of Spring Warmth and Flowers Blooming 172 The Iron Helmet Pictures 39, 40, 60, 64, 326 Japan Oshio Heihachiro in 98–99; and Zhao Zongfu 102; and Guo Moruo 107, 108; and a possible source of Li Yan story 278; and scholarship on Li Yan story in 279–280, 321–323, 324; Chinese policies toward expansion of 395, 400, 403–404, 492, 499; transfer of Buddhism to 462; in East Asia 48; attitudes of toward China, 49 Jefferson, Thomas 496 Jiangnan 12–68, maps 6.4 and 6.5. Jiang Qing 173, 398, 406, 407, 408, 417 Jiaqing reign 101 Ji Liuqi basic account of Li Yan by 57–62; influence of 67, 73–74, 92, 97, 101, 103, 111; criticism of 159, 244, 269, 273, 275–277, 287; value of his account 342–348; compared with Geoffrey of Monmouth 444, 446 Jinling (Nanjing) Fig 6.4; story of Li Yan in 12, 41, 255; rump Ming state

in 49, 51, 204, 367, 374; Shun regime in 53 Jin Yong 226–242 Joan of Arc 445 Joseph II 468 Kaifeng Fig 5.1; prefectural home of storied Li Yan 1, 258; prefectural records of lack mention of storied Li Yan 36, 79, 80, 81, 83, 243, 264; Song capital in 36; Ming examinations in 87; metropolitan graduate Li Yan last Ming prefect of 250, 257, 263, 266, 286; Qi county in 286; Hong Niangzi in 181; rebel attacks on 38, 40, 44, 81n36, 187 188, 189–191, 196, 250, 253, 257, 259, 263, 282, 285, 287, 373, 444; failed attack on by Li Yiqi and Li Shang in late Qin 360; hometown of Liu Chang 386 Kangxi reign 77, 78, 162, 297, 300, 307, 381 Kang Youwei 408 Kautilya 425–426, 431, 455, 494, 503, 504 Kawakami Hajime 107 Kennan, George F. 484 Kennedy, John F. 407, 485 key genealogy 290–323, Appendix B Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah 493, 494 King Wu 350, 351, 352 Kissinger, Henry 483–485, 502–504; as advisor 490–491, 504–505; commentary on foreign policy of 489–490; and Ford 486–487; and Nixon 462, 483–505; as Secretary of State 407, 484–488; world view of 491–502 Kong Fu (zi) 262 see also Confucianism. Kong Shangda 262 Kong Shangyue 164, 262 Kong Shangren 262 Kyoto school 6 Lady of the Lake 444, 445, 447 Lamartine, Alphonse de 479, 480 landlordism 164, 168, 169, 170, 173, 178, 326 L’Anti-Machiavel 465 Lazy Daoist of Western Wu see Gong Yunqi Legalism 3 see also Han Feizi. Legend of St. Goeznovius 441 Leninism 173, 394, 400, 416, 419

558 Leopold, Prince 479 Le Pere Goriot 479 Liang Jun father of Liang Xiuying 217 Liang Qichao 8, 100, 100n1, 227, 349, 408 Liang Xiuying (aka Hong Niangzi) 217 Li Boyan aka Li Xin 184, 185 Li Chenghai 292, 293, 294, 296, 308, 313 Li Chunmao 291, 297, 299–301, 303, 305, 312, 318–319, 329, 339, 509 Li Chunyu 291, 297, 314, 339, 343, 346, 408, 509 Li Congliang 299, 387 Li Daliang (aka Li Zhong) 13, 14, 38n62, 254, 288, 290, 307, 308, 334, 337, 509 Li Dazhao 399, 409 Li Delin 370 Li Dengyun 283, 286 Li Dong 307, 309 Li Family Genealogy of Yingchuan 86, 88, 286, 338, 343, 387; of Qi county 281, 282 “Li Family Genealogy” of Tang village 290– 331, 334, 348, 369, 460, Appendix B, (508–510) Life Book Company 415 Life Stories of the Marsh 36, 37 Li Guo nephew of Li Zicheng 38; Quan general 288; suspects Yuan Shizhong’s loyalty 191; in Xiang,Hubei 60; in Beijing 44, 45, 46, 48, 248; on eastern expedition 56, 272; retreat to Huguang with Li Zicheng 62; sometimes mistaken as Li Mou 269; sometimes mistaken as Li Yan 271; genealogy of available 328 Li Helin 304, 313, 320, 510 Li Huaichen 307, 309, 509 Li Huaidian 307, 309, 509 Li Huaili 307, 309, 509 Li Huairen 307, 309, 509 Li Huaizhen 307, 309, 509 Li Ji 40, 310 Li Jiantai 41 Li Jing 94, 241, 256, 261, 344–345, 346, 371–372, 418 see also Hong Fuji, Hong Niangzi Li Jingbai father of storied Li Yan of Qi county 63, 66, 72–73, 78, 93, 101, 103, 113,

Index 156, 180, 327; doubts about or denial of story of; 86–89, 101, 163, 177, 180, 243, 244, 249, 252, 258, 265, 266, 267, 270n72, 325 Li Jingbai nickname of clan uncle of historical Li Yan of Henei county 290, 297, 298, 314, 343, 346 see also Li Chunyu Li Jun poor relative in storied Li Yan of Qi county 181, 188, 203, 207, 210, 212, 215, 217 Li Jun elder brother of historical Li Yan of Henei county 290, 297, 302, 305, 306, 310, 314, 387, 509 Li Kai (aka Li You) 306, 309, 509 Li Kanghou 283 Li Libing figures 6.1, 6.3 291–296, 298–304, 307, 314, 318 Li Linfu 264 Li Ling 276, 366 Li Lisan 117, 399, 409 Li Mi 168, 345, 371, 372, 390, 403 Li Mou younger brother of storied Li Yan of Qi county and Hong general in Li Zicheng’s army 1, 31, 37, 39; assassinated in Tan Qian’s history 50–51; attitude toward women 94; protector in Beijing 134–144; in Yao Xueyin’s novel 180–181 191, 203; in Pan Yaolin’s play 215, 216; in Jin Yong’s novel 234, 243; historicity of doubted 247, 256; assassination of 92, 114, 123, 129, 148, 155, 204, 246, 248, 263, 290, 448; exclusion from the story of Li Yan 44–48, 53, 54, 56, 60, 70, 105, 233, 269, 275, 283, 285; intellectual 50, 58, 68, 167; rebel 21, 23, 38n62, 61–62, 70, 83, 133, 150, 151, 152, 161, 181, 183, 188, 207, 207, 209–210, 216, 247, 255, 274, 294. Li Mou younger clan cousin of historical Li Yan of Henei county 291; born 1607 or 1608 300, 301; active in Shaanxi and Shanxi 316; government student who joined rebellion in 1634 317, 333; persuaded several relatives to join the rebellion 302; assassinated by Li Zicheng but survived by many relatives 304–305; son fled to Zhejiang 306; wife née Tang 307; high rank because joined rebellion early 308, 309; genealogy

Index credible 310–312; assassinated in Pingyang Shanxi in sixth month of 1644l 320, 321; Li family culture consistent with Li brothers’ rebel roles 339–340; tensions with commoner rebels elided in genealogy 342; swordswoman Chen possible basis of Hong Niangzi 345; Li Mou’s fate differed from Li Shang’s of early Han 363, 367, 368; consultation with Buddhist monks modeled on Liu Bei’s appeal to Zhuge Liang 369, 509 Lin Biao 125, 398, 402, 403–408, 410, 411, 417, 419 Li Qingjiang 299, 305 “Li Reaches Town and is Warned” 224 Li Shanchang 168, 263, 376, 378, 418, 504 Li Shaobai 265, 266, 285 Li Shimin 94, 186, 195, 241, 344, 345, 370–373, 413, 418 Li Si 293, 356, 357, 358, 359, 418, 431 Lis of Tang Village 303, 312, 314, 332, 339, 345, Appendix B, 508–510 Literary Gazette 166 Little History of Dashing Li 15–34, 36, 58, 59, 61, 67, 112, 349, 369 Little History of Suppressing Dashing 244, 247, 310, 311 “Little Popular Stories about the Suppression of Dashing” 15 Little records of settling thoughts 244 “Little Stories about the Suppression of Dashing” 15, 284, 325 Liu Bang (Han Gaozu, aka Liu Ji) in history 76, 1, 110, 111, 145, 361, 362, 363, 364, 366, 372; as a model 108, 120, 128, 183, 193, 200, 203, 377, 396, 397, 402, 413 Liu Bei Zhuge Liang advisor to 120, 128, 367; Li Yan tearful like 127n64, 156; life spared by Cao Cao; limited achievement of 19, 203; literary celebration of does not preclude historicity of 311; three brothers Li Zhong, Li Yan, and Chen Zouting reminiscent of with Guan Yu and Zhang Fei 315n53, 319; Li Zicheng compared with as a tiger 325, 368, 369; cited as model by Mao 396; skilled in using officials according to Liu

559 Shaoqi 402; compared with King Arthur 446, 448; compared with Frederick II of Prussia 469 Liu Bingshan 212–213, 226, 372 Liu Bingzhong 375, 379, 386, 418, 505 Liu Bocheng 361, 404 Liu Bowen 120 Liu Chang 52, 336, 386, 389, 419 Liu Ji (aka Liu Bang) in the Han 359, 360, 361, 362 Liu Ji in the Ming 234, 263, 376–377, 378, 379, 444, 505 Liu Jingcheng 168 Liu Lishun optimus in civil service examination 22; Li Yan said to have tried to protect 22, 57, 61, 67, 113; Li Yan’s motive impugned 153; Li Yan’s effort to protect taken as evidence he was from Qi county 163; effort evidence of excessive tolerance 167; effort sign of county solidarity 199n154; effort fabricated by feudal historians 245–246; son of actually protected by Xue Suoyun 254; no evidence of Li Yan effort to protect 271–272, 289, 335 Liu Shangyou 79, 244, 277 Liu Shaoqi career of 106, 165, 170, 398; as heir apparent 399; use of history 402– 403; charged with revisionism 405, 406, 411, 415, 417, 419 Liu Xiaosheng 216–226 Liu Xiu 194, 205, 365, 367 Liu Xuan 208 Liu Yazi 110 Liu Zhao 81, 258 Liu Zhong 248 Liu Zizheng 203, 204 Liu Zongmin rebel general Figure 3.1 (146) 12–13; claimed descent from Han rulers 36–38, 367; killed wives and rebelled 66, 94, 354; became Quan general 44–48; member of “gang of four” 126; resident in Beijing 288, 334–335; sent to protect empress Yi’an 246–247, 272; resisted establishing rebel bases 145; relations with Niu Jinxing and harsh policies 60–62, 64, 79, 334; crude manners of 68, 167;

560 Liu Zongmin (cont.) lacked discipline but named prime minister 134–138; seized Chen Yuanyuan 114, 135, 148; host to meetings in his flower garden 147; commoner lacked strategy 148; drinker and singer 150; class conflict with Li Yan 167, 168, 342; tension with Li brothers 342, 345, 346, 373; favored base in Shaanxi 185; suspected Luo Rucai 191; role of in eastern campaign 56, 334; minimizes Qing threat 152; defeated at Shanhaiguan 154; role in assassination of Li brothers 30, 32, 62; reaction to assassination of Li brothers 130, 155; went to Henan following assassination 275; refused to surrender to Qing 155; died in battle 53, 142, 211, 237; Chen She and Wu Guang precedents for 359; reputation of defended by Yao Xueyin 176, 180 Lives in the Marsh 427, 469 Li Wenzhi 156–158, 163, 249, 279 Li Xiangcheng 14 Li Xiaosheng 280–285 Li Xin said to be original name of storied Li Yan of Qi county 63–64, 71, 73, 78; doubts about historicity 79–80, 86–88; continuing acceptance 93–98, 101, 111–113, 148, 177–184, 212–216, 217–225; renewed doubts 243, 245, 249, 258, 375 Li Xin earlier historical figure in Qi county 285 Li Xin original name of historical Li Yan of Henei county 290–291; in memorial tablet 294, 297; birth and death dates 301; courtesy name Yan 305, 316, 320, 327, 330, 332, 339, 343; identity in genealogy but kept secret 347–348, 387 Li Yan metropolitan graduate of Laiyang county 249–263 “the Li Yan puzzle” evolution of 69, 78, 263, 277, 280, 300, 330, 390, 391 Li Yimang 122, 125–129, 133, 366, 368 Li Yiqi 360, 361, 363, 372, 396, 418, 504 Li Yong 217, 218, 219, 224, 225

Index Li You in story of Li Yan of Qi participated in attack on Kaifemg 188, 287; general in Hubei 60; active in attack on Xi’an of 38; as weiwu general 44; planned eastern expedition 45; stayed to defend capital 46; suppressed Ming loyalists 47, 48, 61; defended Beijing against Qing 248; a quan general 288 Li You in history of Li Yan of Henei 290; born 1602; original name Kai, distant cousin of Li Yan 302; one of ten Li rebels 307; named Earl of Wuyang in Xi’an 321; played important role in Beijing 340 Li Yuan 94, 186, 241, 344, 345, 370, 372 Li Yuanshan born in 1642 311; nephew of Li Yan 408; taught in Zhejiang 300–301; compiler of genealogy 297–298, 308; motives of 310, 311–312, 314, 329; key role in keeping the record 331–333; likely oral sources used 339–340; accepted story of assassination of uncle, Li Yan 345; kept genealogy secret 460 Li Zhensheng 44 Li Zhi 321, 469 Li Zhisui 398, 405 Li Zhong (aka Li Daliang) 290, 294; elder brother of Li Yan 297, 298; born 1598; died 1689 301–302; joined Li Yan and Chen Wangting in beating a military examiner to death and joined rebellion 338; led five sons to Zhejiang 303, 331; source for genealogy 304, 327, 340, 369 Li Zicheng (aka Dashing bandit or prince, Master Li) commoner rebel 1; in Qing 15, 35, 39–40, 67, 76; in Republic 101, 104–105, 111, 125, 133–134, 137, 150, 173, 176, 186, 195, 199; in People’s Republic 278, 287, 310, 328, 332, 340, 361, 366, 374, 382, 447, 448; advised by Niu Jinxing 55, 57, 62, 114, 123, 129, 135, 138, 139, 147, 153, 155, 186, 189, 198, 202, 205, 208, 253–254, 263, 321, 325, 369, 444; advised by Song Xiance 44, 55, 60–61, 139, 152–153, 189; advised by Li Yan 24–25, 46, 59, 128, 131, 187–188, 190, 192, 198, 205–206, 275,

Index 286–287, 315, 345–346, 349, 360, 368, 373; ordered assassination of Li Mou and Li Yan 34, 51, 62, 65, 74, 106, 114, 123, 130, 138, 139, 142, 169–170, 204, 209, 211, 307, 309–310, 321, 339, 345, 367, 369; policies of 14, 20, 29, 36–37, 38, 45, 48, 52, 56, 60, 74, 94, 103, 113, 116, 117–118, 128, 129, 145, 148, 155, 165, 167–168, 183, 192, 193–196, 207, 227–228, 245, 252, 259–260, 321, 322, 340, 352, 359, 372, 373; works about 1, 14, 15, 101, 102, 110–112, 117, 119, 124, 125, 129, 143, 148, 172–175, 198, 204, 212, 244, 247, 249, 284–285, 320, 322, 346, 366, 374 Li Zicheng novel 173–211, 374 Li Ziqi 291, 301, 305, 306, 307, 309, 310, 311, 312, 326, 329 Li Zongren 411 Li Zudan 86–91 Long Night 172 “Looking into Requiting a Murder” 218 Loomis, Roger 436, 437, 438, 439 Louis Cha Leung-yung 226–242 see also Jin Yong Louis-Philippe 479 Louis XII 450, 452 Louis XIV, The Century of 467 Louis XVIII 477, 478, 479 Luan Xing doubting Li Yan’s historicity 88, 263–279, 280; Chen Shengxi disagrees 284; Gu, Luan, and Qin explain all except origins of names Li Xin and Li Yan 289; two Li Mous become one in genealogy 305; Li Yan story not completely fabricated by novelists 311; Wang Xingya’s and Sato Fumitoshi’s updated accounts diminish Li Yan’s role 322, 323; Master Li referred first to Li Zicheng, only later to Li Yan 332; Niu Jinxing more important than Li Yan in advising Li Zicheng 366; prophesy of eighteenth son (Li) replacing Zhu dates from Latter Liang and Latter Tang 374 Lu Jia 29, 363, 375, 418 Lü Kun 96 Luo Hu 134, 135, 136, 199 Luo Ming 169, 374 Luo Rucai (aka Cao Cao) allied with Zhang Xianzhong 40; Zheng Lian captured

561 by 82, 160, 262; allied with Li Zicheng 83, 366; Li Yan exchanges with 187–188, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194; rebel allies attack Shangqiu 261; killed by Li Zicheng 44, 142; Three Kingdoms model 194; murder prefigures that of Li Yan 340, 368 Luoyang 51, 72, 74, 185, 194, 206, 270, 309, 364, 366, 370 Lü Weiqi 186 Lü Xiru 81, 256 Lu Xun 102, 172 Lu Yingyang 36, 67, 95, 244, 265, 266, 273, 275, 276, 277, 340, 374 Lu Zhenfei 245 MacArthur, Douglas 497, 503 Machiavelli, Niccolo 426, 432, 448–459, 461, 470, 471, 480, 482, 491, 496, 503, 504 “The Magnificent” 449 Mahabharata 425 Ma Huaiyun 304–307 Malory, Thomas 435, 436, 439, 442, 447 Malraux, André 409 Manchus/Tartars positions on Li Yan 36; Tan Qian on 43, 342; Wu Weiye on 63; Peng Sunyi on 70; Zhao Zongfu on 10; Wu Sangui surrenders to 130; A Ying compares wirh Japanese 133; Li Yan’s view of 140, 141, 142, 202; taxes to pay for war against 164; accounts of Li Yan 203; Li Yan’s military strategy towards 205, 233, 342; Ji Liuqi’s view of 343; Qing founding by 381, 382, 387; Kissinger’s view of 495 mandate theory 4 The Mandrake Root 458 Man’s Fate 409 Mao Dun 172, 197 Mao Qiling 73, 84, 161, 244, 246, 274, 346 Mao Xiang 260 Mao Zedong 394–398; policies of 5–6, 108–109, 148, 165, 241–242, 358, 364, 377, 442, 495; advisors to 123–125, 400–417; analysis of Li Yan story 116–120, 143, 321; support of writers documenting Li Yan 1–2, 129, 172–175; comparison to

562 Mao Zedong (cont.) Li Zicheng and Da Shun regime 106, 124, 131, 148, 170, 407 maritime national empires in age of European centrality 9, 462, 505 Marshall, George 410 Marxism Leninism Stalinism, Maoism 6; Marxian paradigm 7; of Guo Moruo 107, 108, 171, 172; of Gu Cheng 248; of Luan Xing 272, 279; of Mao Zedong 394; of Liu Shaoqi 400, 409; of Zhou Enlai 412, 414; of Chen Boda 415, 416; the spiral theory 419 Ma Shaobo play on Dashing Prince 148–156 The Masses Weekly (The Masses) 110, 410 May Fourth Movement 129 “A meeting of Three Heroes” 187 Meiji period 99 Mencius ( Mengzi) 4, 189, 266n61, 352–353, 402, 469; Mencius 9 Meng Jiongsu 256, 257, 258, 267 Meng Sen 277 Meng Shaoyu 256, 258, 266, 267 Merlin 432–448, 504 Merlin 443 Metternich, Klemens von 476, 484, 492, 505 The Military Methods of Master Sun 354 Millennial Temple school 293, 297, 299, 301, 303, 304, 307, 310, 315, 318, 320, 339, 369 Ming dynasty (1368–1644) Ming History  69–112, 160–161, 179, 244, 249, 263, 265, 269, 272–274, 309, 313, 316–317, 325, 346, 370, 383, 388; internal issues in 98, 103, 110–111, 170, 207, 276, 380; prophecy of the fall of 39, 151, 268; fall of 6, 14, 61–67, 73, 78, 109, 128–129, 203; treatment of scholars by 3, 43, 183, 313n43, 338n148; uprisings/rebellions against 5, 13, 21, 25, 41, 57, 75, 78, 93, 227, 264, 278, 285, 332, 367; hope for restoration of 16, 48, 56, 77, 153, 183, 205, 276, 353, 367; society 96, 353; comparisons to Han dynasty 48, 56–57, 76, 103, 111, 183, 358, 366–368, 376 see also populist egalitarian polities Ming-Qing transition period 2, 67, 91, 93, 96, 110, 162 328; Lis during 97, 255, 306, 328, 342, 348 Ming Taizu 76, 78, 101, 115, 241, 377, 378, 379, 394, 505 see also Zhu Yuanzhang

Index Ministry of Public Works 24 Ministry of Rites 24 Mirabeau, Honoré de 472, 479, 482 Mishima Yukio 99 Mongols 375, 380, 418, 495 Montesquieu 412 More, Thomas 459–462 Morris, Ivan 98–99 Mozi 354 mutually assured destruction (MAD) 485 Myrddin 437, 443 mythistory 10, 432 Nanjing province 12, 16, 31 Nanyang, Henan, Yao Xueyin’s home in 44, 55, 171, 183, 194, 208, 303, 350 Napoleon 445, 462, 471–483 Nasser, Gamal Abdel 493 National Reorganization Process 488 Nelson, Horatio 473 New China Daily 110, 118, 410, 415 New Edition of the Novel about Suppressing Dashing 271, 272 Newly Composed Little Stories of the Loyal Orphan’s Suppression of Dashing 15 Newly Composed Popular Little Stories of Suppressing Dashing 15 Nine Palace Mountain 121–122, 125 Niu Jinxing background 13–14, 60, 92–93, 253, 263; skilled at planning 37, 55, 58, 66; Da Shun prime minister 23, 25, 38, 45, 47, 61, 263, 276, 322; advisor 40, 46, 56, 133–139, 150, 186, 189, 195–196, 198, 201, 205, 321, 369, 373; suspicious of Li Yan’s loyalty 27–32, 50, 130, 154–155, 207–211, 273, 325; portrayed as scheming villain figure 3.1 61–62, 74–75, 79, 114–115, 128–129, 139–142, 148, 165, 192–193, 233, 237, 241, 254, 279, 340, 352 Nixon, Richard 462, 483–505 North Atlantic Treaty Organization 489, 490, 492, 499 A Note on Translations and Terminology 10–11 Novel about Suppressing Dashing 287, 289, 323, 324 Obama, Barack 499 Octavianus, Caius 430

Index Ogodei 375 “On the Intra-Party Struggle” 400 oral sources 34, 73, 290; story-telling 441 Oshio Heihachiro 98–99 Outline of the End of the Ming in the North  57 Outline Record of the Changes in Yü 82, 83, 91 Outline record of the pacification of robbers  63 Palmerston, Henry John Temple 479 Panma Wanger 213, 215 Pan Yaolin 213–216 paradigms 2, 6–8, 10, 349 parlmento 449 The Partitioning and Conquest of Britain 432 patriotic historians 116 “Patrolling the Mountains and a Chance Encounter” 218 Peach Blossom Fan 262 peasant jacqueries 4 Pendragon, Uther 433, 434, 436, 438, 441, 443 Peng Dehuai 397, 404–406, 409, 411 Peng Haozi 34, 95, 97, 244, 265, 274, 276, 340, 374 Peng Jiaping 85–86, 89, 90, 91, 265 Peng Shiheng 244, 277 Peng Sunyi 69, 70–71, 74, 83, 97, 244, 245, 272, 274, 346 Peron, Isabel 488 Perry, Elizabeth 157 Philip of Macedonia 422, 423 Pine Forest Mountain Man 39 Pingyang 50, 79, 130, 137, 138, 140, 209, 246, 248, 274, 275, 299, 321 Pinochet, Augusto 488 “Planning a Frame-Up for Buying Grain”  218 Plato 422, 445, 469 Pliny 464, 466, 469 Plutarch 430 Poetry 9, 195 Pompey 428, 429, 445 A Popular Elaboration of the Meaning of a Woodcutter’s History 36

563 Popular Uprisings of the Late Ming 156 populist egalitarian polities in spiral theory 8, 356; Han 359–365; Ming 376–380; People’s Republic 394– 398, 419 power civilizations 8, 422, 448, 504, 505 The Prince 448–459 private histories Tan Qian 42–53; Gu Yingtai 54–57; Ji Liuqi 57–62; Wu Weiye 62–65, 95; Zha Jizuo 65–67; Dai Li and Wu Shu 68 private property, rebel expropriation of 164, 168, 169 proletarian literature 107 Provincial Gazetteer of Henan 86 Ptolemy XII 429 “The Puzzle of Li Yan” 264 Puzzle of Master Li from the End of the Ming to the Present 95, 321 Qianlong reign 15, 36, 68, 84, 89–91, 95, 101, 281, 346 Qian Qianyi 16 Qian Xin 80, 272, 273, 276 Qiao Guanhua 110 Qi county home of storied Li Yan 1, 78–80, 83, 103, 143, 180, 258, 265, 281, 283, 310 famine relief provided by Li Yan in 126, 156, 217, 313–314, 316, 339, 343; rebellion in 40, 81n36, 145, 156, 161, 177, 181, 183, 245, 256–257, 286, 344 Qi Huaiqiong 158 Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE) authoritarian centralized polity 4–5, 36, 108, 358, 431; comparison with Yuan 103, 375–376; comparison with Qing 153, 353; centralized authority in 356–362, 380, 413, 414 Qin Family Genealogy in Qi county 282 Qing allegory, Li Yan story more than one 97 Qing dynasty (1644–1911) 1; an elitist reformist polity 3, 105, 241–242, 325–326, 346, 352, 373–374, 381–384, 389–391, 414, 419; acceptance and censorship of Li Yan story in 69–99, 108, 258, 313, 348 Qinglonggang 282, 283, 285 Qing Qing 277, 230, 240

564 Qin Gui 264 Qin Shihuangdi 203 Qin Xinlin 280, 284–289, 311, 323 Qiu Chuji 375, 418 Quan Zuwang 77 Quotations from Chairman Mao 405 Qü Qiubai 399 Qü Yuan 108, 216, 355–356, 413 Rabin, Yitzhak 494, 504 Ramayana 447 Rao Shushi 401 reactionary novels Gu Cheng critical of 244 rebel administration 49, 56, 60, 208, 263 rebellions Chinese history of 4–5, 157, 279, 328, 359, 367, 370, 421; factors leading to Li Zicheng’s rebellion 48, 97–98, 109, 129, 145, 151–152, 181, 219–220, 224, 317; other rebellions against the Ming 21, 57, 63, 70, 82–83, 215, 262, 273, 338; rebellions against Qing 97, 367, 392, 419; scholars’ role in 168, 252, 336–337, 363; womens’ role in 74, 177, 482; in Japan 99 see also farmer revolts, rebels in Chinese history 4–5, 108, 112n33, 160, 163, 168, 183–184, 185, 359, 367, 382–383 Recent Record of Taowu 95, 121, 122, 161 Record of 1644 143, 311 Record of a Fungus Shrine 95 Record of a Journey to the North 42 Record of Changes in Yu 270 Record of Controlling Robbers in the Restoration 244 Record of Criminal Reflections 65, 121 Record of Events 70, 81 Record of Events from Beginning to End in Ming History 54 Record of Events in 1644 245 Record of Events of 1644 12 Record of Later Reflections 87, 88 A Record of Pacifying the Roving Robbers 70 Record of Roving Robbers 83 Record of the Changes in Yü 269 The Record of the Decline of the State of Tao 270 The Record of the End of the Ming in the North 326 Record of the Fungus Shrine 112

Index Record of the Long Life of the State 67 Record of the Ming 65 Record of the Pacification of Robbers 91–92 A Record of the Roving Robbers 70 Records of Zuo 9, 65 Red Flag 405, 416, 417 Red Turban rebels 163 “Regarding Li Yan” 121 Regent Dorgon see Dorgon Ren Daobin 96, 159, 244, 271 Restoration Society 14, 62, 73, 255, 260, 262, 322 see also Eastern Forest Society revisionism 124, 405 revolutionary realism 175 revolutionary romanticism 175 Richard III 442, 459 Richelieu 491 “Riding a Tiger It is Hard to Dismount” 221 Riothamus 439–441, 446, 447 Rites of Zhou 370 Robert Earl of Gloucester 433, 437 Robespierre, Maximillien 472 Roosevelt, Franklin 496 Roosevelt, Theodore 496 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 492 Rovere, Giuliano della 451–452 roving bandits (robbers) 21, 73, 87–88, 93, 161, 256, 343, 346, 389 royal unification in spiral theory 8; Shang 350; Sui 370; Zhang Juzheng 380–381; People’s Republic today 419 Sadat, Anwar 493, 494, 504 Saigo Takamori 99 Sato Fumitoshi 95, 107, 279–280, 321–323 “Saving Hong and Resolving the Crisis” 218 Savonarola, Girolamo 449–453 Schneider, René 488 Scholars in Chinese history 3–4, 70, 279, 358 Scholastic Monthly 159 scientific history 1 Scientific Revolution 462 Scipio 456 Secret Talisman or Tallies 355 selective genocide in King Arthur’s Britain 435; in East Pakistan 486

Index Sforza, Caterina 450 Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia soviet border region 117 Shangqiu county and Li Zicheng’s rebellion 23, 49, 181, 188, 202, 229n259, 253, 336, 345, 383–384; Zheng Lian, historian from 82, 163, 265–266; Song state of the Shang enfeoffed by Zhou 352 Shen Dingping 170 Shen Jiayin 245 Shen Ximeng 143–148 Shi Kefa 116, 205 Shi Tian 217 “Short record of Madame Gao’s Eastern Expedition” 187 Shun regime see Da Shun Shunzhi reign 187, 264, 266, 381, 382, 383, 386, 388 Sichuan Province 107, 125, 131, 172, 396 Sidonis 439 Sima Guang 195, 199, 373, 395, 403 Sima Qian historian 9, 34, 42, 355, 366, 397; historical/political analysis of 226, 350, 355–356, 361–363, 395, 425 Sima Tan 9, 42 Sima Yan 139, 325 Sima Zhao 139, 369 Sino-Japanese conflict 106, 133 Small Records of Court Affairs in 1644 96 Smith, Ian 487 Socrates 424, 469 Soderini, Pietro 449, 450, 452, 453, 470, 480, 504 Song Jiang 120, 311 Song Jiong 39, 40, 41, 64, 326 Song Lian scholar in early Ming 217, 244, 255, 377, 378, 379, 385, 418 Song Lian fictive magistrate of Qi 217 Song Luo 261 Song Mei 58, 81, 217, 244, 249, 251, 252, 267 Song Mountain 40, 303, 338 Song Quan 261, 262, 383–386, 419 Songs of Chu 356 “Song to Encourage Relief” 111, 143, 148, 156, 224, 340 Song Xiance (aka Child Song) figure 1.2, background of 14, 37, 55, 60, 64, 94, 254,

565 320, 353, 364, 382n75; diviner 37, 46, 55, 64, 66, 114, 128, 151–152, 208, 248, 322, 443, 447; and Li Yan 25–27, 31, 68, 79, 128, 130, 132–5, 155, 189, 232–3, 276, 325, 369, 405; commander-in-chief of Da Shun 38, 44–45, 48, 52, 60–62, 113, 126, 142, 187, 211, 247, 321; advisor to Li Zicheng 44, 55, 120, 139–140, 147, 149, 185, 190, 195–196, 201–202, 366, 368, 373, 380 Sources 9–10, 533–560 Southern Ming court 16, 65 Spenser, Edmund 442 spiral theory 8–9; royal unification 350; elite reform 350–352; cultural crisis and political disorder 352–356; authoritarian centralization 356–358; populist egalitarianism 359–367; royal unification 370; elite reform 370–374; cultural crisis and political disorder 374–375; authoritarian centralization 375–376; populist egalitarianism 376–380; royal unification 380–381; elite reform 381– 391; cultural crisis and political disorder 391–392; authoritarian centralization 392–394; populist egalitarianism 394–420 Spring and Autumn Annals 9, 195, 327 Spring and Autumn Annals of Lü 95 Spring and Autumn period 3, 5, 8, 234, 352, 353, 358, 392, 412, 413, 418, 431 Stalin and the Chinese Revolution 416 Stalinism 6, 419 Steinbeck, John 442 The Storm 171 “Story of Oriole” 94 Story of the Western Wing 94, 344 Strange Hearsay about the Establishment of the Tripods 34, 36, 39, 244, 247, 275, 344, 366 Strange Record of the Fungus Shrine 92 “Study and the Current Situation” 116 Suharto, Muhammad 486 Sui-Tang period 3, 9, 320, 346, 372 Sui Wendi 195 Su Jing 245, 252, 256, 257, 259, 267, 286 Sun Chuanting 41, 55, 228, 229, 270 Sun Quan 368 Sun Wu 354, 355

566 Sun Zi 364, 434 “Supreme Ultimate Nurturing Life martial arts” 314–315, 318, 319 Su Wei 370 Su Wu 276, 366 Su Yin 142 A Symphony in April 172 Taigong Wang 5, 350, 354, 355, 368, 418 Taiping rebellion 97, 99, 119, 168, 174–175, 392 Taiwan Relations Act 485 Talleyrand, Charles Maurice de 462, 471–483, 489, 492, 504, 505 Tang Bin 73 Tang dynasty (618–907) polity 3, 5–6, 49, 186, 380; contributions to Chinese culture 9, 14, 36, 57, 82, 227, 303, 320, 344, 356, 374, 384–385, 395; as model for future polities 93–94, 195–196, 381–382, 389–390, 391, 392, 413, 419; in comparison to other governments 176, 205, 241, 268, 344–346, 370–375, 427, 460 Tang He 184 Tang Saier 76, 181, 211 Tang Taizong model ruler in China and East Asia 152, 186, 195, 196, 201, 202, 371, 375, 389, 390, 402, 428, 459, 505 Tang Tong 48, 136, 272 Tan Qian Li Yan in Beijing but more symbolic than substantive 42–53; account the basis of Gu Yingtai’s first published history 55–57; Ji Liuqi’s literary embellishments 60–62; Wu Weiye’s account adding Li Xin and Hong Niangzi 62; Zha Jizuo’s account adding equal fields slogan 65; Dai Li and Wu Shu’s account of tensions between Li brothers and commoners 68; Peng Sunyi’s return to government student status 70; but not Wan Sitong’s attribution of a provincial degree to Li Yan 7; basis of Xu Zi’s dating of Li Yan’s rebellion to 1641 97; of Zhao Zongfu’s scholarship without a degree 102; of Guo Moruo’s dating of Li Yan’s relief to 16, 40, 111; account criticized by Gu Cheng 244; account of Li Zongmin

Index protecting Yi’an accepted by Gu Cheng 246; date of assassination of Li brothers challenged by Gu Cheng 248; Liu protection of Yi’an doubted by Luan Xing 272; Tan’s attribution of title to Li Mou rejected by Luan Xing 274; account that Li You, not Li Yan, was stationed in western Beijing was accepted by Qin Xinlin 288; demotion of Li Yan to government student and intuited link between Li Yan, Li Mou, and Li You consistent with genealogy 340–342; Red Eyebrows and Yellow Turbans potential precursers to Li Zicheng 367; Southern Ming used Tang statutes applied to followers of Huang Chao to prosecute alleged scholar participation in Li Zicheng’s rebellion 374 Tao Xisheng 109, 110, 393, 419 Tennyson, Alfred 442 Theresa, Maria 466 Thiers, Adolphe 479 Thirteenth Power of Non-Ultimate effort 319 Three Hundredth Anniversary of 1644 122, 123 “The Three Hundredth Anniversary of 1644” 121 Tian Han 107 Tianqi reign 53, 272 “Toppling Mountains and Hearing a Report” 219 Tragedy of the Heavenly Capital 175 Trajan 464, 469 The Transformation from Hua to Yi 278 Translations old and new 10–11 Treatise on Tolerance 468 Troyes, Cretien de 439, 441 Truman, Harry 484, 497 Trump, Donald 490, 500 Tudor, Henry 442 Turner, Sharon 440 Two Lonely Graves 171 ultra-leftist deviations of Chen Boda 417 United States and embrace of modernization 7; first global superpower 9; doubts about Li Yan story

Index in 249–263; Mao’s strategy towards 377; efforts to mediate Chinese civil war 395; military intervention in Chinese civil war 404; Mao’s and Zhou’s rapprochement with 406–408; recognition of P.R.C. sought by Zhou Enlai 411; as fifth center of world history 462–463; manifest destiny and Talleyrand’s visit to 471–472; perspective of in 2019 479; admired by Voltaire and Talleyrand 481; as a problematic world center 483–505 unity of the three teachings (Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism) 315, 317–318, 353, 369, 377, 469 Venerated Documents 9, 350, 351, 363, 457 Veritable Records 10, 53, 71, 325, 332, 383, 391 Voltaire 462–471, 480–482, 491, 504, 505 von Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 466 Vorster, John 487 Wace, Robert 433 Wang Fu 217–219, 224–225 Wang Fuzhi 412 Wang Guangmei 402 Wang Hongxu 77–84, 346, 375 Wang Mang 177, 202, 205, 208, 224, 365, 367, 370 Wang Ren 217, 218, 220–223 Wang Shiwei 415 Wang Shizhen 36 Wang Xingya portrait of Niu Jinxinf 280; insisted Li Yan was seen in Beijing 284, 288; quest for genealogy of Li Yan partially successful 290, 294; verified Li genealogy of Tang village 297; and Li Libing 298, 300, 303, 304; and Ma Huaiyun 304–306; on land contracts 307; on Li Mou 308–311; on Luan Xing and Qin Xinlin 311–313; and Cheng Feng 313–314; and Wei Meizhi 314–318; and Yang Yudong 318–320; new biography of Li Zicheng 320–321; and Sato Fumitoshi 321–323; genealogy helps explain story 330; figures in novels need not be wholly fictitious 369

567 Wang Yangming 98–99 Wang Yongzhang 247 Wang Zhong 217, 218, 220, 221 Wanli reign 281, 380 Wan Sitong 71–77, 92 Wan Yan 71 On Wan Yuanji 49 Warring States period cultural crisis and political disorder 3, 5, 8; origin of one term for advisor 43; precedent from cited by Wu Sangui 153; Jin Yong inspired by swordsman tradition of 226; schools of thought in 352–355; shades of in Republic 392–394, 396; Zhou Enlai’ss view on 412–413; efforts to bring order to 418 Washington, George 472 “Was Li Yan a Farmer Revolutionary?—an exchange with comrade Yang Kuan” 167 “Waves of Rumors about Li Yan” 266 Weberian paradigm of modernization 7, 491 Weekly Guide 399 Weil, Simone 481 Wei Meizhi 314–321 Wei Zheng advisor who was deified 5; most outspoken of Tang Taizong’s advisors 196; a model for Li Yan 201; complex political background but clear moral purpose 371; Li Zicheng said to follow Tang Taizong in treating well 373; Khubilai Khan recommended his officials to follow the example of 375; served as model for Liu Ji of Ming 379; Qing official criticized for comparing himself wih 389, 390; Mao respected his emphasis on winning people’s hearts and minds 395; Liu Shaoqi agreed that administering the state is as difficult as founding it 402; Zou Enlai held good advice of led to flourishing government 413, 418; Cicero agreed that administering state as difficult as founding it 427; counselled Taizong in administering an eltist-reformist culture -state when China centered the world 505 Wei Zhongxian 63, 67, 103, 180, 389 Wen Bing 80

568 Wen Wang 350 Westphalia Treaty of 470; system of national empires 481; no effective enforcement mechanism 490; Western system became world system 491, 492; return of wars of religion 493; China a great power 495; United States empire 496; Kissinger sees no alternative 497; need for moral judgment and sense of direction 501; need for order transcending world regions 502; favor modernity but accept recurrent change 503; world regions need to evolve and cooperate to achieve world government 505 Whampoa Military Academy 403, 409 White, T.H. 442 White Lotus sorcerer/eighteenth son attacked Qi county 156, 245; may have been Hong Niangzi 161; Red Turban rebels perhaps related to Hong Niangzi 163; Hong Niangzi perhaps inspired by Xu Hongru 181; Hong Niangzi may have committed suicide 211; Hong Niangzi compared with Woman with a Red Fly Whisk charged with being White Lotus bandit 213; Hong acknowledged links to 214; Li Xin acknowledged Hong Niangzi’s relations with 216; prophecy of eighteenth son 248; rebels in Qi suppressed by magistrate 252; Luan Xing’s interpretation of uprising in Qi 266–268, 271 William of Newburgh 439, 441 Wilson, Woodrow 496 Woman with a Red Fly Whisk 94. see also Hong Fuji. wood-block printing 14 Woodcutter’s History 58, 80, 81, 326, 374 Woodcutter’s Record of Hearsay 121 world order, five kinds of in spiral theory 8–9 World Order by Henry Kissinger 491 A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812–22 484 Wu Guang 108, 184, 359 Wujing (No Competition) 15–16

Index Wu Meicun 102, 121 Wu Qi 354–355 Wu Sangui Li Yan wanted to negotiate with 13, 25, 46, 56, 113–114, 134–141, 165, 167, 169–170, 253, 324, 373; fought against rebel regime 14, 39, 45, 47–48, 64–65, 74, 79, 147, 152, 201–203, 233, 245, 269, 273–274, 276, 284, 321, 334, 401; allied with Qing 41, 47–48, 61, 90, 130, 153–154, 272, 353 Wu Shu 68, 74, 160, 167, 270, 345 Wu Su 373 Wutai Shan 203–204 Wu Tianshi 143–148 Wu Weiye basic account of Li Yan by  62–65, 74, 92, 94–95, 104, 113, 160, 163, 245–246, 258, 263; Luan Xing’ critique of 269–27, 277, 325; in light of Li family genealogy of Tang village 342–348, 372, 444 Wu Xiang 46, 48, 56, 134, 135, 137, 138, 147, 152, 154, 203, 273 Wu Yong 120 Wu Zichang 14, 45 Wu Zixu 234, 355, 356, 418 Xenophon 456 Xi’an 38, 41, 79, 105, 128, 147, 149, 150, 155, 201, 216; in Jin Yong’s novel 237–239, 247, 284, 287, 313, 321, 409; rebel administration established in 56, 60, 151, 154, 185; copy of Ligenealogy in 292– 296; prefecture 66; renamed Chang’an by rebels 204, 253, 263, 372 Xiangyang 49, 55, 60, 74, 105, 166, 189, 196, 247, 253, 263, 269, 273, 287 321 Xiang Yü 108, 145, 193, 203, 325, 359–361, 364–366, 396 Xiao Yishan 247 Xiayi 49, 85, 89, 90, 265 Xia Zhengnong 143–148 Xie An 116 Xie Fuchen 15 Xie Guozhen 159–163, 266, 270, 280, 327 Xi Jinping and authoritarian centralization 420 Xin Mang 177 see Wang Mang

Index Xu Da 87, 234 Xue Suoyun 44, 48, 52, 246; service in Da Shun state 254–25, 335, 336, 386, 387, 419 Xu Hongru 181, 185, 213 Xu Jun 323–331, 369 Xun Zi 353, 469 Xu Yuanwen 77–78 Xu Zi 97–98 Yanda Weekly 102 Yanfa 39 Yang Guang 370 Yang Jian 370 Yang Kuan 166–171, 279 Yang Pu 380 Yang Shicong 49, 246, 254, 256, 276, 287, 334–338 Yang Sichang 21, 58, 112, 223, 254 Yang Su 166, 370–371, 418 Yang Yudong 318–321 Yan party 67 Yan Song 264 Yan Xishan 102, 403 Yan Ziyuan 329 Yao Qiying 12–13, 287, 337 Yao Wenyuan 38, 172–173 Yao Xueyin basic account of Li Yan 171–211, 226, 245, 264, 266, 270, 280, 332, 352, 360; references to Han precedents 366–369, 373–374, 405 Yellow River 52, 89, 205, 229, 261, 287, 316, 388–389, 397 Yelüchucai 375, 379, 418 Yi’an 22, 45, 74, 113, 153, 167, 198–199, 245, 259, 271–272 see also Dowager Yifeng mountain 149 Ying Zheng 356, 358, 395 Yingzhou Prefectural Gazetteer of 87 Yi Yin 5, 350–353, 365, 379, 380, 418 Yom Kippur War 487 Yongle reign 380 Yongzheng reign 84 Yuan Chenghuan 228 Yuan Chengzhi 227–233, 237–238, 240–241 Yuan Chonghuan 227, 381 Yuan Dingzhong 169, 374

569 Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) 3; authoritarian centralization of 8, 87, 103, 120, 176, 375–377, 380–381, 398, 414, 419 Yuan History 376, 377 Yuan Shizhong 55, 87–88, 104, 187; treatment of local rebel by Yao Xueyin 190–195, 198, 250–252, 257, 259, 261–262, 279, 282, 340 “Yuan Shizhong Revolts” 187 Yuan Shu 54 Yuan Zongdi 246–247 Yü Dafu 107 Yue Fei 116, 157, 276, 375 Yu Rujie 187, 197–198, 374 Yuyao county 69 Zha Jizuo basic account of Li Yan 65–67, 74, 97, 121, 159; doubts 244–245, 256, 271, 280, 325, 345, 373 Zhang Aiping 119, 129 Zhang Binglin 408 Zhang Chaotang 240–241 Zhang Chunqiao 172–173 Zhang Dai 245, 248, 276 Zhang Fei 319, 367, 369, 446 Zhang Guoguang 247–248, 279–280 Zhang Guoji 22, 259, 272 Zhang Hefeng 280, 283, 286, 364 Zhang Jie 226 Zhang Jinyan 57, 254, 336, 374 Zhang Juzheng 8, 380, 418–419 Zhang Liang 120, 128, 193, 200; scholarrebel-advisor biography by Sima Qian 360–361, 364, 366, 368, 379, 382, 396, 418 Zhangsun Wuji 370 Zhang Tingyu 84–85 Zhang Tiyi 297–298 Zhang Xianzhong 20, 36, 40, 62, 103, 109, 131, 187, 193, 333, 366, 368, 374 Zhang Xiao 217, 224–225 Zhang Xuecheng 368 Zhang Xueliang 409 Zhang Zhengcai 143, 145 Zhang Zhong 379–380 Zhang Zihua 39 Zhao Gao 357

570 Zhao Guangyuan 50–51 Zhao Jiong 83 Zhao Keyao 168 Zhao Shijin early account of Li Yan by  12–16; 21, 44, 48, 73, 245, 254, 272, 287, 288; account in light of Li Family Genealogy of Tang village 307, 311, 323, 335, 337–338 Zhao Zongfu 101–106, 113, 367, 373, 447 Zheng Cidu 77 Zhengde reign 75 Zheng Lian critique of Li Yan story 82–85, 89–91, 156, 159–161, 163, 243, 249, 262–263, 265–266, 275; context of historical Li Yan’s revolt 316–317 see also Shangqiu Zheng Zhong 361, 414 Zheng Zhou 377 see also Zhu Sheng, Mao Zedong, and Zhou Enlai Zhou Enlai 106, 406–414 Zhou Guangde 149 Zhou Kui 13, 167, 288 Zhou, Tang, and Qing elitist reformist polities 8; see also spiral theory Zhou Weimin 164 Zhou Xin 351 Zhou Zhong 14, 23, 39, 45, 49, 260

Index Zhu Biao 377 Zhu Chengju 193, 194 Zhu Cihuan 162 Zhu Cilang 165 Zhu De 106, 400, 409 Zhu Duanqiang 76 Zhuge Liang 120, 128, 203; Three Kingdoms context for elements of storied and historical Li Yan 367–369, 375, 379, 396, 418, 444, 446, 448, 469 Zhu Houcong 406 Zhu Maichen 403 Zhu Ming political authorities 178 Zhu San Taizi 162 Zhu Sheng 377 see also Zheng Zhou, Mao Zedong, and Zhou Enlai Zhu Xi 469 “Zhu Xianzhen” 187 Zhu Yihai 65 Zhu Yijun 380 Zhu Yizun 273 Zhu Yuanzhang 39, 103, 120, 169, 176, 184, 376–380 see also Ming Taizu Zou Rong 408 Zou Yan 8 Zou Yi 83 Zuo Liangyu 40, 259