by Ying-shih Yü
).89 I fi nd it diffi
cult to resist the temptation to associate Huang’s
“fearfulness” with “caution and dread. To the best of my judgment, there seems
little doubt that Huang turned to Wang Yangming and Zou Shouyi out of a
genuine pursuit for spiritual enlightenment.
Next, an early seventeenth- century case is also illuminating. According to
an epitaph by Wu Weiye
(1609–1671), Zhuo Yu
from Zhejiang
Province was a scholar- turned- merchant who, before turning twenty, already
grasped the essence of Wang Yangming’s theory of “the unity of knowing and
acting.” He also followed the later development of Wang’s Zhejiang disciples
such as Wang Ji
(1498–1583), which pushed liangzhi closer to the sudden
enlightenment of Chan Buddhism. What is particularly in ter est ing about this
case, however, is the suggestion in the epitaph, based on the testimony of a
family member, that Zhuo Yu’s business success may well have been helped by
his immersion in Confucian learning in general and Wang Yangming’s teach-
ing in par tic u lar. As summarized by Wu Weiye:
From fundamental princi ples to their application, Mr. Zhuo commanded
a wide range of learning. . . . Even in business management, he could
r e or i e n tat ion of c on f uc i a n so c i a l t hou gh t 303
apply himself to achieving the best results. With astuteness, energy, and
shrewd reckoning, he was able to assign his assistants and servants to
carry out works appropriate to their respective abilities. As a result, his
annual earnings amounted to several times his capital, and he became,
eventually, one of the wealthiest people in his hometown.90
There is plenty of evidence that from the sixteenth century on, a general belief
tended to grow among merchants that Confucian learning could, one way or
another, serve them well in their strug gles in the business world.91
In this connection, it seems pertinent to introduce a general observation
made by He Liangjun
(1506–1573). In his Siyou Zhai congshuo
(Collected Talks from Four Friends Studio; preface dated 1569), he gave us a
brief sketch of the rise and development of the popu lar “lecturing” movement
in the Ming Period as follows:
Among Neo- Confucian thinkers of our dynasty, Xue Xuan, Wu Yubi, and
Chen Xianzhang all engaged in lecturing, but only to a few who shared
the same sense of purpose. . . . Did they ever gather so many people? It
was only Master Yangming who attracted the most followers! Yet the teach-
ings of Wang Yangming certainly arouse people. . . . But mediocre Confu-
cians of subsequent generations were ever so ready to follow suit. Alas!
Rarely did they escape becoming a laughingstock of the world! Zhan
Ruoshui, a con temporary of Yangming, also had many disciples when he
was lecturing at the Imperial Acad emy in Nanjing. And later when he was
appointed minister of rites in Nanjing (in 1533), even prominent salt mer-
chants of Yangzhou and Yizhen went to study with him; he called them
“disciples from salt families” ( xingwo zhong mensheng
).92
I must hasten to point out that He was extremely biased against “popu lar lec-
turing,” especially the kind of large gatherings or ga nized by the Taizhou
school. Nevertheless, his historical periodization of Ming Confucianism up to
his own time is well grounded and I am inclined to believe that it lends consid-
erable support to the central thesis in this study. Let me explain what I mean.
First, as already shown in the fi rst section, early Ming Confucians such as Xue
Xuan, Wu Yubi, and Chen Xianzhang still subscribed to the traditional proj ect,
pinning their slender hopes of bringing Dao to the world on the support of the
throne. Blocked by despotism, however, they could only pursue Dao on the per-
sonal level with self- edifi cation as the main focus, thereby confi ning their pri-
vate discussions to small circles of disciples and friends. Second, He Liangjun’s
identifi cation of Wang Yangming as the person who fi rst turned private “dis-
cussions” into public “lectures” with large gatherings corroborates my working
hypothesis about Wang’s revised Confucian proj ect. As shown toward the end
of the second section, late in life, he always emphasized the importance of
304 r e or i e n tat ion of c on f uc i a n so c i a l t hou gh t
“lecturing to the people of simple intelligence” because, in his revised proj ect,
the building of a public order guided by Dao must of necessity require the ac-
tive participation of the masses. Third, by “mediocre Confucians of subsequent
generations” He Liangjun specifi cally referred to the followers of the Taizhou
school, whom he blamed for carry ing the popu lar “lectures” to the non- elite
masses too far. As he rightly observed, these people were following the example
set by Wang Yangming. He was prob ably unaware, however, that these people of
“subsequent generations,” more often than not, lectured to the non- elite masses
in response to the latter’s requests. As we have seen in the above cases of Wang
Gen and Han Zhen, merchants and farmers often came to them in large num-
bers for moral enlightenment. This new development should occasion no real
surprise when viewed in the context of a rapidly changing society in sixteenth-
century China in which social and cultural spaces were vastly expanded by the
rising market.
Fi nally, He Liangjun’s remark on the close relations between Zhan Ruoshui
and salt merchants also merits a brief review. He did not believe that disciples
from wealthy salt merchant families came to Zhan for philosophical instruction.
Instead, he held, they came mainly for Zhan’s considerable po liti cal infl uence,
which could be fruitfully utilized in vari ous ways. Here he defi nitely overstated
his case even though his judgment was not groundless. For example, the above-
discussed Ge Jian from a rich salt merchant family who studied under Zhan by
his mother’s order is reported by the credible scholar Tang Shunzhi as having
become well acquainted with Zhan’s central teaching: “realizing the princi ple
of Heaven everywhere” ( suichu tiren tianli
).93 There can be little
doubt that Ge Jian’s discipleship under Zhan was intellectually motivated. On
the other hand, He Liangjun also underestimated the strong appeal of Zhan’s
philosophical ideas to vari ous groups of people at the time, including merchants.
A careful check of Rec ords of Famous Clans in Xin- an reveals that there were as
many followers of Zhan Ruoshui as those of Wang Yangming in Huizhou and
among them, some can be identifi ed as being from merchant families.94 After
all, it must be remembered that Zhan and Wang each created a major new
school of thought in the middle of the Ming Period. Furthermore, the two schools
competed as well as intermingled with each other in the same breath. As viv-
idly described by Huang Zongxi, “While Zhan’s disciples did not equal Wang’s
in number, many persons fi rst studied under Zhan and fi nished under Wang
or studied fi rst under Wang and the
n went to Zhan, just as did the disciples of
Zhu Xi and Lu Jiuyuan.”95 This description is also substantially borne out in
Huizhou, where several individuals are reported as having studied under both
Wang and Zhan.96
To bring the pres ent section to an end, allow me to venture a speculative
conjecture as to why both Wang’s and Zhan’s new ideas were so attractive to
merchants as well. A pos si ble clue may be traceable to a simplifi ed view of the
two schools that was widely in currency at the time. It goes as follows:
r e or i e n tat ion of c on f uc i a n so c i a l t hou gh t 305
Wang’s main focus was the extension of innate knowledge, while Zhan
taught the realization of the princi ple of Heaven everywhere. Scholars regarded
the two as having each started his own school of thought. Some tried to recon-
cile their teachings, saying that since “the princi ple of Heaven” is nothing but
“innate knowledge” and “realizing” is the same as “extending,” then what can
one say about similarities and diff erences?97
Needless to say, the suggested reconciliation must not be taken seriously
regarding the philosophical diff erences between the two Neo- Confucian sys-
tems.98 Insofar as their social implications are concerned, however, Wang’s
“extending innate knowledge” and Zhan’s “realizing the princi ple of Heaven
everywhere” can indeed be understood, more or less, as conveying a similar
message. As a matter of fact, this simplifi ed view may well have started and
grown among the non- elite masses, including merchants. It was Wang’s un-
wavering faith that “extending innate knowledge” is achievable by every indi-
vidual person irrespective of social status such as scholar, farmer, artisan, or
merchant. He even went so far as to openly declare (as noted above) that as long
as one is guided by “innate knowledge,” “not even engagement in business
transactions all day long will stand in one’s way of becoming a sage.” On the
other hand, Zhan’s famous formulation could be interpreted to serve the spiri-
tual needs of merchants just as well. Since the princi ple of Heaven is to be real-
ized “everywhere,” it is inevitable that the marketplace also be included. Is it
not, then, quite natu ral that merchants were to be found among the followers of
the two most active Confucian schools of thought in sixteenth- century China?
R E O R I E N TAT I O N O F C O N F U C I A N
S O C I A L T H I N K I N G
Fi nally, I shall conclude this study with a brief review of the re orientation of Con-
fucian social thought in the age of Wang Yangming. The social intermingling of
scholars with merchants and the interpenetration of the intellectual world and
the business world in an ever- accelerating pace from the later fi fteenth century
on eventually led to impor tant modifi cations as well as a signifi cant shift of em-
phasis in many Confucian ideas and values. Taken together, it may not be too
much to suggest that Confucianism as a whole underwent a gradual but funda-
mental transformation during the long period stretching from late Ming to early
Qing. Due to space limitations, however, in what follows I can only give a few il-
lustrative examples showing how some of the core Confucian ideas concerning
state versus society as well as individual versus community came to be diff erently
formulated from the sixteenth century onward.
To begin with, I propose to examine the idea of “protection of the rich”
( baofu
) or “security of the rich” ( anfu
). The idea had made an ephem-
eral appearance in Confucian discourse under the Song, but it received new
306 r e or i e n tat ion of c on f uc i a n so c i a l t hou gh t
emphasis and became generally accepted only in Ming and Qing times.99
Toward the end of the fi fteenth century, Qiu Jun (
, 1418–1495) wrote:
Rich and big families are not only what the common people depend on
for livelihood but also where the country keeps its wealth in store among
the people. But small people do not understand this and some even resent
them as the source of their own miseries. The former kings . . . however,
revealed their true feelings when they singled out the rich as the only
category of people to be made secure (i.e., in Zhouli [Rites of Zhou]). It is
thus clear that the rich are indispensable not only to the common people
but to the entire country as well. Those who are narrow- minded often
take pride in their ability to restrain the rich. Do they really understand
the deep meanings of the Rites of Zhou?100
As far as I know, Qiu was the fi rst major Ming scholar and high- ranking offi
cial
who openly emphasized the economic importance of the rich to the imperial
order. A few de cades later, the idea was further developed by Huang Wan
(1480–1554), an early student of Wang Yangming with a critical mind. In his
last book, Mingdao bian
(On Illuminating the Dao), completed in 1550,
he said:
Seeing that common people are increasingly impoverished and the empire
fi nancially exhausted, when scholars discourse on governance nowadays,
instead of inquiring into its fundamental causes, they invariably assume
that it must have resulted from the encroachments of the rich and big fam-
ilies. Therefore, they all advocate that the rich be curbed to benefi t the
poor, the noble be curbed to benefi t the lowly, and the big be curbed to
benefi t the small. They do not seem to know that all subjects of the king
ought to be treated equally as [parts of] the same body. As far as the em-
pire is concerned, what we ought to be worried about is that not too many
people can get rich, noble, and big. How can we deliberately curb them in
the name of “restraining the power ful in favor of the small people”? Such
a policy, even based on a sense of ultimate justice, is nevertheless incon-
sistent with the Kingly Way ( wangdao
).101
In this short passage, Huang made two very bold moves. First, he challenged
the deeply seated bias against the rich in Confucian thinking since the Han
dynasty. This was generally embodied in the proposal that the state must forci-
bly check the encroachments of the rich on the wealth in the world at the
expense of the rest of the population. In theory, this traditional view was
predicated on an implicit notion of distributive justice that most Confucians
would, understandably, embrace with enthusiasm. More often than not in
practice, however, it provided the state with the excuse to abuse the rich, espe-
r e or i e n tat ion of c on f uc i a n so c i a l t hou gh t 307
cially rich merchants, without benefi ting the poor at all. Second, in emphasiz-
ing that the rich as “subjects of the king” were equally entitled to the protection
of the state, Huang was actually defending the “ legal rights” of the rich in his
own Confucian language. It was from this new point of departure that he de-
nounced “restraining the rich to benefi t the poor” on the part of the state as
“inconsistent with the Kingly Way,” which is tantamount to openly questioning
th
e legitimacy of the long- established practice of the state playing Robin Hood.
I may also add that Huang was not only a thinker originally from the Wang
Yangming school but also a trusted offi
cial in the imperial court, rising eventu-
ally to minister of rites. Taking into consideration the unique combination of
his intellectual orientation and po liti cal experience, the unconventional views
about the rich that Huang developed seem to indicate that a signifi cant change
was taking place in Confucian social thought.
From the mid- sixteenth century on, Confucian scholars often spoke of “rich
people” as the “primal vital force” of the empire ( fumin guo zhi yuanqi
);102 when the “primal vital force” becomes wholly exhausted, they believed,
the empire would surely be destined to decline. Therefore, like Qiu Jun and
Huang Wan, they were also very much against excessive taxation of the rich.
There was a general consensus among Confucian scholars during the late
Ming and early Qing periods concerning the positive social function of the
rich, namely, provision of reserves for large- scale relief work in times of emer-
gency such as famine, fl ood, drought, etc. As clearly stated by Qi Biaojia
(1602–1645): “For famine relief, it is impor tant to make the rich secure. Rich
people are the primal vital force of the country. . . . When the rich are com-
pletely wiped out, to whom can the poor turn for assistance?”103 Wang Fuzhi
(1619–1692) was even more appreciative of the contributions of the rich
to society. As he saw it, when natu ral calamities such as fl ood or drought oc-
curred, relief from the state was often slow and ineff ectual, whereas quick help
could always be expected from the rich in and around the disaster area. More-
over, in normal times, it was also the rich who off ered opportunities of employ-
ment to the poor and the needy. “Big merchants and rich people,” in his vivid
meta phor, “are really the deity in charge of the life of a country” ( Dagu fumin
zhe, guo zhi siming ye
). For this reason, therefore, he
was most sharply critical of those corrupt and greedy offi
cials who squeezed
money out of them endlessly under the pretext of “uprooting the power ful.”104
His sympathy for the miseries of the “big merchants and rich people” was