Ming Dynasty middle and late late learning movement (1522—1626)

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Features: This book consists of an introduction, six main chapters, a conclusion, and an appendix, primarily exploring the approximately one hundred-year development of academic lectures in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, from Wang Yangming's teachings to the Donglin School, as well as the relationship between lectures and issues such as politics, academia, and social morality. The lecture movement in the Ming Dynasty was a relatively unique cultural phenomenon, reflecting the prosperity of the economy and the popularization of culture, as well as a demand that emerged during the construction of the Yangming School. During the five reigns of the Jiajing, Longqing, Wanli, Taichang, and Tianqi dynasties, the lecture movement flourished across the Jiangnan region, supported by academies, guild halls, private schools, study pavilions, ancestral halls, imperial examination halls, temples, Taoist shrines, and scenic mountains and rivers, with particular prominence in southern Jiangsu, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang. In his later years, Wang Yangming devoted most of his energy to lecture activities, establishing the earliest lecture groups—the Jishan Academy Lecture Group and the Zhongtian Pavilion Lecture Group—and encouraging the development of regional lecture groups like the Xiyin Association. After Wang Yangming's death, the unfair treatment he received from the court inspired his disciples to promote his teachings through lectures and to establish academies to honor his memory. Regional lecture groups began to flourish, and awareness among fellow disciples strengthened. Scholars not only lectured in their hometowns but also organized joint lectures in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, even those who held official positions continued to lecture. However, the drawbacks of the rapidly developing lecture movement, along with the excesses of the later Yangming School, led to its peak in the late Jiajing era and subsequent suppression by Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng in the early Longqing and Wanli years. Although the suppression of lectures could not be separated from political motives, after the year 1572, some scholars began to reflect on the problems within the lecture movement itself and assigned it the responsibility of upholding or reconstructing social morality. Representative figures include Geng Dingxiang and the Donglin School. While the Donglin School sought to revitalize social morality, it also advocated for learning from the (Cheng-Zhu) school, gradually shifting its lecture activities away from Yangming thought in terms of purpose, thus paving the way for the revival of Zhu Xi's thought in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. During this process, the intertwined issues of politics, academia, and morality made the external environment of lectures increasingly hostile, ultimately leading to the large-scale suppression of academies in the sixth year of the Tianqi reign, with the destruction of the Shoushan Academy marking the end of the Ming lecture movement. Therefore, reviewing the over one hundred-year history of the lecture movement in the middle and late Ming Dynasty reveals a clear trend from openness to introspection. This contrasts with the general characterization of late Ming thought as vibrant and enlightenment-oriented in intellectual history. The author also argues that the lecture movement originated from Wang Yangming and Wang Gen, dividing into two branches: institutional lectures and popular lectures. When the two branches largely overlapped and supported each other during the Jiajing era, the lecture movement was open, active, and radical. However, political setbacks and the orthodox scholars' focus on social morality gradually deteriorated the environment for popular lectures, while institutional lectures became increasingly conservative, leading the two branches to drift apart. With political and economic power, institutional lectures continuously squeezed the space for popular lectures, ultimately driving the thinkers of popular lectures out of the mainstream of the lecture movement. By this point, the introspective and defensive nature of late Ming lectures had largely taken shape, and this trend was inherited by the lecture movement in the early Qing Dynasty.