Dōnglín lièzhuàn 東林列傳
Sequential Biographies of the Dōng-lín by 陳鼎 (撰)
About the work
A 24-juàn collective biography of more than 180 figures associated with the late-Míng Dōnglín movement, by Chén Dǐng 陳鼎 of Jiāngyīn 江陰 (CBDB id 55379, born 1650; fl. 1650–1700), an early-Qīng historiographer who specialized in late-Míng commemorative literature. The work is preceded by a long imperial Yùzhì tí by the Qiánlóng emperor (dated Qiánlóng wùxū = 1778, mèngxià = early summer), in which Qiánlóng explicitly attacks Chén Dǐng’s preface — “Chén Dǐng’s preface says: ‘The various gentlemen of Liángxī (Wúxī 無錫 = the Dōnglínshūyuàn) lectured on learning at Dōnglín; the world followed them all favouring qìjié (moral fibre) and weighting míngyì (name and righteousness); when the dynasty fell, the emperor and empress died for it — the effect was felt fifty-some years later, and the dynastic loss had brilliance to the credit of the Míng.’ — Alas! This is heretical doctrine that must be rebutted.” Qiánlóng’s preface insists that an emperor’s glory lies in preserving the dynasty, not in his subjects’ faithful death; that the Hàn dǎngrén, the Sòng LuòShǔ schism, and the Míng Dōnglín are all instances of biāobǎng (factional flag-waving) leading to dǎngyù (factional persecution) and ultimately to dynastic ruin; and that to praise such an outcome is to identify oneself with the yāoniè (calamity-portent) that brings dynasties down. Despite Qiánlóng’s polemical preface against the work’s interpretive frame, the work is preserved in the Sìkù because (as Qiánlóng’s preface concedes at its end) “this work alone, in gathering and recording the affair from beginning to end, is comprehensive and useful for those who would discuss the world; we therefore record and preserve it as a thousand-year warning.” The 180+ men include Gù Xiànchéng 顧憲成 and Gāo Pānlóng 高攀龍 (the Wànlì-period revivers of Yáng Shí 楊時’s Sòng-period Dōnglín shūyuàn in Wúxī), the Tiānqǐ-period martyrs (Yáng Lián 楊漣, Zuǒ Guāngdòu 左光斗, Wèi Dàzhōng 魏大中, Yuán Huàzhōng 袁化中, Zhōu Cháoruì 周朝瑞, Gù Dàzhāng 顧大章, Wèi Yuánfú 魏元復 — the Liù jūnzǐ “Six Gentlemen” of 1625 — plus the Qījūnzǐ of 1626), and the Chóngzhēn and post-1644 Dōnglín figures. The list draws principally from the Dōnglín dǎngrén bǎng and from Shěn Cuǐ 沈㴶 and Wēn Tǐrén 溫體仁’s hostile rosters (the Léipíng yíngruì zhūlù = the late-Míng partisan denunciation rosters).
Tiyao
Dōnglín lièzhuàn in 24 juàn, by Chén Dǐng of our dynasty. Dǐng was a man of Jiāngyīn. In Wànlì of the Míng, Gù Xiànchéng of Wúxī and Gāo Pānlóng restored the Sòng Yáng Shí’s Dōnglín shūyuàn and lectured there, wishing to take responsibility for the public conscience; for a moment “wind and air spread thither,” and those flocking to attach themselves were almost worldwide; mutual flag-waving and self-sectarianism made the liúpǐn (constituency) likewise mixed and unverifiable. In Tiānqǐ, Wèi Zhōngxián’s misgovernment, the eunuchs’ partisans, took Dōnglín as the pretext for their proscription, slaughtered the proscribed thoroughly, registered their names and posted them as a notice nationwide. In early Chóngzhēn, the Nìàn (rebellion-case) was settled and a great roundup of the proscribed began — the dead were posthumously honoured, the living promoted; but the WèiCuī faction’s remnants were still in office and constantly seeking to overturn the verdicts; jiānrén attached themselves to Dōnglín by name and inflamed the rhetoric; mutual condemnation became fire and water, repaying each other until the dynasty fell. This compilation records 180+ men, drawing from the Dōnglín dǎngrén bǎng and from Shěn Cuǐ and Wēn Tǐrén’s Léipíng yíngruì zhūlù (their hostile counter-rosters); those famous for jiéyì are placed at the front, the rest distributed in separate biographies; the affairs are detailed. Real shuòshì duānrén (great-and-upright men) are not lacking among them, but those who attached themselves like climbing vines were truly numerous; the constituency is mixed and unverifiable — it cannot be set alongside the Sòng Dàoxué zhūrú, nor [continues — text truncates].
Abstract
The Dōnglín lièzhuàn is the principal early-Qīng documentary compilation on the late-Míng Dōnglín movement and is the single most important work of Chén Dǐng’s career. The catalog meta gives Chén Dǐng’s lifedates as fl. 1650–1700; CBDB id 55379 attests his birth as 1650 and silence on death-date. The composition is best estimated 1675–1700, with the work first cut at some point in the Kāngxī reign. The work was selected for the Sìkù despite the Qiánlóng emperor’s polemical Yùzhì tí against it — a striking example of Sìkù editorial pragmatism, preserving a politically problematic source for its documentary value. The work is one of the principal sources for the Míngshǐ compilers on the Tiānqǐ-period martyrs and for all subsequent late-Míng partisanship historiography (Heinrich Busch’s classic 1949 Monumenta Serica article on the Dōnglín; John Meskill’s Academies in Ming China; Frederic Wakeman’s The Great Enterprise; Mary Backus Rankin’s Elite Activism and Political Transformation).
Translations and research
- Heinrich Busch, “The Tung-lin Academy and Its Political and Philosophical Significance,” Monumenta Serica 14 (1949–55), 1–163 — the foundational English-language treatment, drawing extensively on the work.
- John Meskill, Academies in Ming China: A Historical Essay (University of Arizona Press, 1982).
- Frederic E. Wakeman, The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China (UC Press, 1985).
- The standard catalog notice is in Sì-kù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 史部·傳記類三·總錄之屬.
Other points of interest
The Qiánlóng emperor’s polemical Yùzhì tí against Chén Dǐng’s preface — and the Sìkù editors’ ultimate decision to preserve the work for documentary value despite the imperial polemic — is one of the most striking single instances of late-Qián-lóng Sìkù editorial pragmatism. The Qiánlóng poem develops a sustained anti-biāobǎng historiographical argument across the Hàn dǎnggù, the Sòng LuòShǔ schism, the Sòng Qìngyuán dǎngjìn (KR2g0027), the Míng Dōnglín, and (implicitly) the late-Míng-Qīng transition.
Links
- Wilkinson 2018, Chinese History: A New Manual §49.
- CBDB person id 55379 (Chén Dǐng 陳鼎).