Four Ming Writers Were Killed When the Ming Collapsed - One Lived
Five Authors Who Witnessed the Fall of the Ming Dynasty
By Colin Glassey
As I was thinking about the biographies of the major writers of the Ming Dynasty, it occurred to me that four of the writers died as a direct result of the Ming collapse - and one lived through the disaster. I intend to write more about these men in the future but here is the brief version.
In 1643 there were five major writers alive in Ming China: Ling Mengchu, Feng Menglong, Wu Bing, Ruan Dachang, and Li Yu. Four years later, all but Li Yu were dead. Four of the writers died in the fighting (or their death was related to the collapse of the dynasty). Li Yu survived and became a major creator of early Qing Opera.
The first two men were famous writers of prose fiction: Feng Menglong and Ling Mengchu. The other three were writers of operas. Two of the men were Jinshi: Wu Bing and Ruan Dachang. The lone survivor, Li Yu lived 35 years after the Ming and he became famous for managing an opera company which performed scenes of his own operas.
The Writers Who Died
Feng Menglong (1574-1646)
Feng Menglong was one of the great writers in Chinese history. He was said to have written so many books that his books stacked in a pile were taller than his head (that’s an expression, it’s probably not true). His grandfather was a Jinshi and served in the Ming government. Menglong took the Imperial Exam on many occasions but did not pass the provincial level of the exam. He wrote books about the pre-Han Dynasty era and toured important old sites in northern China. In 1620 he began writing fiction under his own name, producing three large collections of stories, all of which have been translated thanks to decades of work by Shiyu Yang and his wife. Feng’s three collections are:
Stories Old and New - I wrote a book explaining these stories titled A Different World - Volume 1.
Stories to Awaken the World
Stories to Caution the World
In 1630 Feng Menglong was awarded a Juren degree by the provincial governor and he became an education supervisor. In 1634, he was appointed a local magistrate in Fujian where he served for four years. He retired in 1637 at the age of 63. As the Ming Dynasty collapsed in 1644 he published a short book proposing significant changes to the government to achieve a national rejuvenation. Two years later (1646), when the Qing army conquered Zhejiang province, Menglong was killed, at the age of 73.
Ling Mengchu (1580-1644)
Ling Mengchu was the son of a Jinshi, and the grandson of a Jinshi. He himself passed the county exam and became a Xuicai at age 18. However, though he studied hard and sat for many later exams, he never passed the provincial level exam and was never a Juren much less a Jinshi. In 1623, in his early 40s, he decided to follow in Feng Menglong’s footsteps and began writing. His two collections of stories, Slapping the Table in Amazement (Volume 1 and Volume 2) are superb works of imagination and story telling.
(I hope to write more about Ling Mengchu’s first book in the future.)
In 1634, Ling Mengchu was awarded the title of Juren by the governor and was finally able to join the Ming government, working as a local magistrate. He continued to work for the Ming government into his 60s. However, as Li Zicheng’s army marched on Beijing in early 1644, Ling Mengchu was in the north, far from home, and died fighting against the rebels.
Ruan Dacheng (1587-1646)
Ruan Dacheng was completely successful in the Imperial Exams and became a Jinshi in 1616 at the age of 29. However, his career was cut short because of a political battle which took place in the 1620s. Ruan Dacheng was working in Beijing in the Ministry of Personnel in 1625 when the immensely powerful eunuch Wei Zhongxian gave orders that certain men he favored should be promoted and others should be removed. Ruan Dacheng went along with the orders. In 1627 the mentally retarded Tianqi Huangdi died and a week later, Wei Zhongxian was executed. A number of officials in Beijing who had supported Zhongxian were later forced to resign, including Dacheng who was ousted in 1629.
Dacheng retired to his estate and wrote a number of operas, including the Swallow Tail Fan. In 1644, when the Ming government in Beijing collapsed, a new government was established in Nanjing (the southern capital). Ruan Dacheng was invited to join the new government by his friend, the powerful but feckess minister, Ma Shiying.
Ruan Dacheng was the vice minister of war in Nanjing and he was one of the top advisors to Hongguan. As a rule, Dacheng’s advice was unwise and harmful. He surrendered to the Manchu in the fall of 1646 and seems to have died of a heart attack a few months later (perhaps early 1647, see Wakeman, pgs. 575 and then 722).
50 years after Ruan Dacheng’s death, Kong Shang-ren wrote a very famous novel-opera titled The Peach Blossem Fan and in it, Ruan Dacheng is portrayed as the chief villain. Modern historians place more blame on Ma Shiying and the Hongguan Huangdi for the many failures which led to the sudden collapse of the Nanjing Ming government, but there is no doubt Ruan Dacheng played a major role.
Wu Bing (1595-1648)
Wu Bing was extremely successful in the Imperial Exam, becoming a Jinshi at the very young age of 24, in 1619. He had a good career, with steady advancement and then he managed to land the plum assignment of working in the Ministry of Rites in Nanjing in the mid-1630s.
Note: Nanjing was the second capital of the Ming Dynasty from 1420 until 1644. The Ming maintained duplicate ministries in both Beijing and Nanjing but the staff in Nanjing were few in number and they seem to have done almost no work. To be appointed to a post in Nanjing was a sinecure position and everyone knew it.
Wu Bing published four large operas in 1643 and then, when Li Zicheng’s army captured Beijing and the Chongzhen Huangdi committed suicide, suddenly Nanjing was - once again - the capital of the Ming Dynasty. Wu Bing was appointed the chief Minister of Rites and concurrently one of two ministers of war under Hongguang, the last official Ming Huangdi.
The reign of Hongguan was short and disastrous. When the city of Yangzhou was captured and the population was slaughtered, fear completely demoralized Hongguan. The new Huangdi fled Nanjing just three weeks later, and Wu Bing went with him. Wu Bing became separated from Hongguan and he died three years later (1648) near Canton in southern China.
The Writer Who Lived
Li Yu (1611-1680)
Li Yu had scholar-official ancestors and he himself passed the county exam by 1635. However, his efforts to pass the provincial exam were unavailing. He began writing poems in the 1630s and then stories and operas. In 1644, during the conquest of Zhijiang by the Manchu, Li Yu fled to an isolated mountain and stayed there for two years. He returned to his family home in 1647 and wrote. In 1652 he moved south to the city of Hangzhou (the former capital of the Southern Song). There he started up his own opera company and took it on tour from city to city, performing scenes he had written as well as other famous opera scenes.
Li Yu moved north to Nanjing, where he was (for a decade) a rich and successful impresario. He toured northern China, bringing his troupe of actresses with him (several of whom he married). He visited Beijing several times and Xian at least twice. He fell on hard times in the mid-1670s and was forced to disband his opera company and sell his houses, though he continued to write. Li Yu wrote multiple books, many essays, poems and ten operas. Li Yu seems to be unique in Chinese history for both writing great operas and running a successful theater company.
There is a good biography of him in Hummel’s Eminent Chinese of the Qing Dynasty and several of his works have been translated into English.