Lü Liuliang (; 1629–3 October 1683) was a
Han Chinese
The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive v ...
poet and author from
Tongxiang
Tongxiang City () is a county-level city, part of Jiaxing, in northern Zhejiang Province, China, bordering Jiangsu province to the north. It had a population of 1,029,754 as of the 2020 census even though its built-up (''or metro'') area is sm ...
,
Zhejiang
Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Ji ...
province. He was born under the
Ming Dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...
but died under the
Manchu
The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) an ...
Qing Dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...
.
Career
In 1647 one of his nephews was executed for anti-Qing activity. Lü took active part in the anti-Manchu military movement that followed the fall of the Ming in 1644. After the failure of the
Ming loyalist movement, he became a hermit and a physician. He refused to serve the new dynasty, despite frequent requests, because he argued that upholding the difference between
Hua and barbarians was more important than respecting the righteous bond between minister and sovereign.
Lü Liuliang wrote a famous
anti-Qing poem
Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meaning ...
. "The light breeze, however delicate, does not blow on me; the bright moon has never stopped casting its light on us." (清風雖細難吹我,明月何嘗不照人?) In this poem, the "light breeze" (''qing feng'' 清風) contains the character for "Qing" (as in the dynasty), and "bright moon" (''ming yue'' 明月) the character for "Ming". He also wrote many
eight-legged essay
The eight-legged essay ()
was a style of essay in imperial examinations during the Ming and Qing dynasties in China. The eight-legged essay was needed for those candidates in these civil service tests to show their merits for government service, ...
s.
Lü is also one of the most prominent cases in Chinese history of
literary inquisition. After Lü's death, an official named
Zeng Jing was inspired by his anti-Qing writing to attempt to overthrow the
Yongzheng Emperor
The Yongzheng Emperor (13 December 1678 – 8 October 1735), also known by his temple name Emperor Shizong of Qing, born Yinzhen, was the fourth Emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the third Qing emperor to rule over China proper. He reigned from ...
. As a result, in 1733, Lü's corpse and that of one of his sons were exhumed and mutilated, another son was executed, his grandsons were exiled and female relatives enslaved, and all of his writings were banned. Two of his followers were treated similarly.
He is a character in
Jin Yong
Louis Cha Leung-yung (; 10 March 1924 – 30 October 2018), better known by his pen name Jin Yong (), pronounced "Gum Yoong" in Cantonese, was a Chinese wuxia ("martial arts and chivalry") novelist and essayist who co-founded the Hong Kong da ...
's ''wuxia'' novel ''
The Deer and the Cauldron
''The Deer and the Cauldron'', also known as ''The Duke of Mount Deer'', is a comic historical novel by Jin Yong (Louis Cha), the longest of his novels and the last to be published but chronologically it is the eighth novel. It was initially pub ...
''.
Notes
References
*
Liu, Lydia (2004)
''The Clash of Empires''': The Invention of China in Modern World Making''. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. , .
Further reading
*''
Treason by the Book
''Treason by the Book'', by Jonathan Spence, is a historical account of the Zeng Jing (曾靜) case which took place during the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor of Qing China around 1730. Zeng Jing, a failed degree candidate heavily influenced by t ...
'', by
Jonathan Spence
Jonathan Dermot Spence (11 August 1936 – 25 December 2021) was an English-born American historian, Sinology, sinologist, and writer who specialized in History of China, Chinese history. He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale Universit ...
.
*''A Translucent Mirror'', by
Pamela Kyle Crossley
Pamela K Crossley (born 18 November 1955) is a historian of modern China, northern Asia, and global history and is the Charles and Elfriede Collis Professor of History, Dartmouth College. She is a founding appointment of the Dartmouth Society ...
.
*
External links
Works by Lü Liuliang at the Chinese Text Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lu, Liuliang
1629 births
1683 deaths
17th-century Chinese philosophers
Chinese Confucianists
Qing dynasty philosophers
Ming dynasty people
Qing dynasty poets
Writers from Jiaxing
Philosophers from Zhejiang
Poets from Zhejiang
People from Tongxiang
17th-century Chinese physicians
Posthumous executions