Doctors’Dilemma in Auspicious Pulse Diagnosis Represented in Ming-Qing Fiction

Auspicious pulse diagnosis/pregnancy diagnosis in traditional Chinese medicine involves such issues as medical skills,narrative skills,family decency,and ethics.It is an excellent case for the exploration of ethical dilemmas in traditional Chinese medical practice.The early classical medical texts such as Su Wen(Basic Questions)and Ling Shu Jing(Spiritual Pivot Canon)provide a principle-based ethical guide for doctor-patient communication,while popular fiction such as Hong Lou Meng(A Dream of Red Mansions),Yu Mu Xing Xin Bian(Stories:Entertain to Enlighten),and Feng Yue Meng(Courtesans and Opium)in the Ming and Qing dynasties present literary examples for solving ethical dilemmas.This article will analyze these texts from three perspectives.First,the doctors in the text were subject to gender order and other delicate etiquette and customs,therefore were unable to make the diagnosis without embarrassing the patients and jeopardizing family decency.Second,the narrator tends to attribute pregnancy misdiagnosis to three reasons:incomplete patient information,doctors’poor narrative competence,and doctors’corrupted medical ethics.Finally,the Ming-Qing fiction proposes three methods to solve this moral dilemma:clear pulse reading,tactful speech,and taboo challenging.This discussion of moral dilemmas in pregnancy diagnosis in traditional Chinese medical practice can be used as a reference for the localization of narrative medicine.

Exploring Lives of China Ming-Qing Female Poets： Collaboration of the “Ming-Qing Women’s Writings Digital Archive and Database” and the “China Biographical Database”

Based on the “Ming-Qing Women’s Writings （MQWW）, a digital archive and database” project and the “China Biographical Database （CBDB）” project, which have been collaborating since 2008, this paper uses different digital methods to analyse the Ming-Qing women poets’ lives, such as the themes of their poems, their geographical distribution, and their social networks. The aim of this paper is to show researchers various prospects for the integration of digital humanities projects.

Quantitative analysis of the impact of droughts and floods on internal wars in China over the last 500 years

Although many large-N quantitative studies have evidenced the adverse effects of climatic extremes on social stability in China during the historical period, most of them rely on temperature and precipitation as major explanatory variables, while the influence of floods and droughts on social crises is rarely measured. Furthermore, a comparison of the climate-society nexus among different geographic regions and at different temporal scales is missing in those studies. To address this knowledge gap,this study examines quantitatively the influence of floods and droughts on internal wars in three agro-ecological(rice, wheat,and pastoral) regions in China in AD1470–1911. Poisson regression and wavelet transform coherence analyses are applied to allow for the non-linear and non-stationary nature of the climate-war nexus. Results show that floods and droughts are significant in driving internal wars in historical China, but are characterized by strong regional variation. In the rice region, floods trigger internal wars at the inter-annual and multi-decadal time scales. In the wheat region, both floods and droughts cause internal wars at the inter-annual and multi-decadal time scales. In the pastoral region, internal wars are associated with floods only at the multi-decadal time scale. In addition, the multi-decadal coherence between hydro-climatic extremes and internal wars in all three of the agro-ecological regions is only significant in periods in which population density is increasing or the upper limit of regional carrying capacity is being reached. The above results imply that the climate-war nexus is mediated by regional geographic factors such as physical environmental setting and population pressure. Hence, we encourage researchers who study the historical human-climate relationship to boil down data according to geographic regions in the course of statistical analysis and to examine each region individually in follow-up studies.

Regional Society and Xiangzu (Rural Lineage) Theories:Socioeconomic History from a Comparative Perspective

Today’s Chinese and Japanese scholars have maintained close dialogues and exchanges in their research on ancient Chinese history.The socioeconomic history of the Jiangnan region during the Ming and Qing dynasties involves two important research areas:regional history and socioeconomic history.Whereas the former embraces a holistic macro-view,the latter lays stress on the economic and social behavior of humankind.Over past years,endeavors to combine the two areas have produced a number of influential general conclusions on the social development of Jiangnan during the Ming and Qing.Professor Mori Masao,a Japanese scholar,has provided an in-depth interpretation of the theory of regional society,while Professor Zheng Zhenman,a Chinese scholar,has responded in terms of xiangzu theory.Long-term dialogues and exchanges in the international academic world that inspire theoretical innovation in studies of earlier societies can serve as a valuable source for the intellectual community.

The Chinese Scholar-Rebel-Advisor Li Yan,1606—2018,a Man for Our Season

From 1644 to 2003,many Chinese historians and novelists debated the existence and the identity of a provincial graduate from Qi county in Henan province who reportedly helped the commoner rebel Li Zicheng overthrow the Ming polity(1368—1644)only to be suspected of disloyalty and killed by the rebel leader,thus clearing the way for the Qing that ruled China from 1644 to 1911.In 2004 there was discovered a genealogical manuscript that goes far towards solving the Li Yan puzzle and allows us to see how rumors were incorporated into histories and literary works that appealed to a wide variety of people over the course of three and a half centuries.In this essay,I compare and contrast the emerging mythistorical figure of Li Yan with other scholar-rebel-advisors in Chinese and world history and suggest that he was most akin to the Lord Chancellor Thomas More in sixteenth-century England who spoke truth to power and was celebrated in twentieth-century history and 1让erature.

Zhao Yingcheng from Fact to Fiction： The Story of ＂The Great Advisor＂

Zhao Yingcheng （1619-1657）, known as ＂The Great Advisor＂, is the only Kaifeng Jew who is mentioned both in the synagogal stele of 1663 and in Chinese gazetteers during his lifetime. Zhao, given the Hebrew name of Moshe ben Avram, was fluent in Hebrew but also achieved success as a Confucian scholar familiar with the Chinese classics. He would have witnessed the destruction of his hometown by a catastrophic flood during the 1642 Siege of Kaifeng. In 1645, at the age of 26, he attained the jinshi rank in the Imperial Exams, in which only one in 10,000 can- didates was successful. A year later, he was appointed Minister of Justice for the newly installed Qing Dynasty and supervised the controversial decree forcing the Manchu tonsure onto the Han population as a mark of submission. In 1647, he was sent as an envoy to quell the unrest in Fujian province. After defeating bands of violent warlords funded by the notorious pirate Koxinga, Zhao set up a system of public schools to provide greater economic opportunity for the poor. After the death of his father, Zhao returned to Kaifeng for the three-year mourning period; during that time, he funded the restoration of the synagogue, which had been destroyed in the deluge, and the rectification of the Torah scrolls damaged in that catastrophe. Though the biographical facts are sparse, when these are juxtaposed with the dra- matic events that unfolded during his short lifetime, the potential for a fascinating historical fictionalization emerges. Moreover, many of those historical events in seventeenth-century China--climate change, elite corruption, populist revolt, xenophobia, terrorism, law and order, etc.--resonate with contemporary tropes. The story of ＂The Great Advisor＂ shows how a Jew in seventeenth-century China rose to national prominence at a time when Jews in Europe faced severe discrimination and persecution.

Behind ＂Burning＂： Women Writers＇ Self-Censorship and Self-Promotion

This article examines the phenomenon of women writers burning their own manuscripts, which took place during the Ming-Qing period. By analyzing women＇s poems and biographies of women, this study explores the reasons and implications behind ＂burning.＂ The self-censorship embodied by ＂burning＂ was geared towards protecting female virtue or enabling women writers to express their intense personal emotions while promoting an ideal public self-image. For example, due to their gender and class-consciousness, upper-class women tended to portray themselves as virtuous ladies, whereas, in contrast, courtesan writers were fascinated with the power of love. However, the act of burning manuscripts could both lead to partial loss of an author＇s works and imbue her writing with the tantalizing aura of an unfulfilled promise, thereby immortalizing the manuscripts that had almost been turned to ashes and publicizing the work of the formerly obscure author. In this sense, the ＂burning＂ is transformed into a literary conceit which promotes women＇s writings instead of destroying them. This article demonstrates the dual functions of manuscript burning by Ming-Qing women： self-censorship and self-promotion.

The Conceptualization of Qing-Era （1644-1911） Chinese Literature in Nineteenth Century Choson （1392-1910） Korea

In a poem composed in 1832, the Chosrn-Korean polymath Chrng Yagyong （1762-1836） declared his fidelity towards Confucian literary principles. Chrng＇s poem was a product of an elite education, and in both form and content, it embodied the ideals of the Chosrn elite： written in classical Chinese rather than Korean, it was an expression of cultural self-confidence. From the point of view of nationalism and its emphasis on vernaculars, it seems strange to define oneself through a cosmopolitan written language. But Chrng was no nationalist. He was a Confucian conservative, and the sense of distinction and difference that animated Chrng＇s poem was Confucian and literary. His articulation of such ideals manifested unease over the erosion of Confucian literary values in China and the prospect of the same occurring in Chos6n under Chinese influence. The source of that influence was books imported from China. What Chrng was reacting against was, at root, the commodification of literature and all that had entailed in Ming （1368-1644） and Qing （1644-1911） China. Although such concerns had grown increasingly urgent a half-century before, they had a long pedigree in Choson, stretching back to debates that had arisen in relation to Ming China and the principal emblem of the commodification of literature： commercial bookstores. This paper examines some of the principal differences between Chinese and Korean literary cultures that were embodied in Chang. It therefore begins with a brief overview of Chang and his poem, before turning to a discussion of some key sociopolitical and intellectual features that distinguished Chosrn＇s literary culture from that of China. Sixteenth-century attitudes towards bookstores are discussed to contextualize subsequent worries over Chinese books, with special attention given to the historical and historiographical dimensions of the question, before concluding with an assessment of the final moments of direct Chinese literary influence in Korea.

景德镇市御窑厂遗址西北角明清官窑遗存考古简报

御窑厂遗址位于景德镇传统镇区的中心地带,核心区保护范围达5万余平方米。2021年,江西省文物考古研究院、景德镇市陶瓷考古研究所等七家单位组成联合考古队在御窑厂西北角进行了考古发掘[图一]。共布10米×10米探方6个,实际发掘面积442平方米[图二]。遗址堆积由北宋晚期延续至民国时期,揭露出各类遗迹单位70余个,出土的瓷器、生产工具、建筑构件等遗物数吨,可复原器物达千余件。鉴于各时代遗物面貌的迥异现象,本次发掘成果的披露将分为宋元窑业遗存、明清官窑遗存、明清民窑遗存三个部分,本简报内容主要为其中明清官窑遗存部分。