The Ordination Scroll of Empress Zhang (1493) in the San Diego Museum of Art, a highlight at the Taoism and the Arts of China exhibition in 2000, is an unusual object among surviving visual material from Ming dynasty China (1368 – 1644). At over twenty-seven metres long, the scroll contains meticulously painted images and a detailed inscription that records the Daoist ordination of Empress Zhang (1470 – 1541), consort of the Hongzhi emperor (r. 1488 – 1505) by the Orthodox Unity institution. The event it documents, which elevates the empress into the celestial realm, would be unknown to history if not for the survival of this scroll. This dissertation is an in-depth study of the Ordination Scroll that also considers its implications for understanding the activities of empresses and their representations during the Ming dynasty. The first three chapters of this dissertation closely examine the material, visual and textual aspects of the Ordination Scroll. The remaining two chapters situate the scroll within the broader activities of Ming empresses. A complete translation of the main inscription in the scroll is provided in the appendix.

As the People’s Republic of China begins to accumulate influence on the international stage through strategic usage of soft power, the history and application of soft power throughout the history of China will be important to future scholars of the politics of Beijing. This study will examine Beijing and its government official’s perceptions of its soft power and how there have been historical parallels between the modern People’s Republic of China and the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) in regard to soft power politics and China’s search for its legitimacy as a rising global power. This study will use two examples that have similar parallels: The eunuch admiral Zheng He (1371-1433) and his journey’s through the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Middle East and the Confucius Institute, a teaching and cultural exchange program under the auspices of the Office of Chinese Language International, known colloquially as Hanban, an organization under the direct control of the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership. What connects these two topics is the subject of soft power, a term coined by Joseph S. Nye, relating to the kind of power wielded by countries that does not involve military force and uses a “Charm Strategy” to support favorable treatment amongst its trading partners. Zheng He sailed the oceans to neighboring countries, in an attempt to give legitimacy to Ming China through the imperial tribute trade system. The Confucius Institute continues that legacy today, teaching a view of China that is shaped in Beijing. I will show the parallels between this historical figure and that of the Confucius Institute, showing that the pursuit of soft power is not a recent phenomenon in Chinese politics but a theory and a motivation that has existed in China since medieval times in China’s endless search for legitimacy in the eyes of its neighbors. I will be researching the life and journeys of Zheng He, along with the controversies surrounding the Confucius Institute and how all of these factors relate to China attempting to re-instate a legacy that the nation has was lost over since the nineteenth century’s “Century of Humiliation”. This loss of prestige was a result of European colonial power’s ambitions in the area. I will also use evidence to prove the importance of Confucianism in regard to the development of soft power in China. As China seeks to find its legitimacy, we will see that this has been some centuries in the making and plays a crucial part of Chinese politics today. The re-assertion of China’s place in the world as a rising world power will have geopolitical implications for decades to come.

 Li Kaixian (1502-1568), a scholar-official living in the mid-Ming dynasty, was renowned for his efforts in collecting books, both rare and common, and also for his talents in writing the literary genre called sanqu, a subcategory of the genre qu. While qu consists of drama and sanqu, nonetheless the attention devoted to the latter has been much weaker than the former within the academic circle. In the case of Li Kaixian, his dramas such as The Tale of A Treasured Sword have been reviewed much more frequently than his sanqu compilations. To fill up this gap, this thesis attempts to study in depth Li Kaixian?s sanqu. It is organized into 6 major chapters. The first chapter comes with an introduction reviewing the status of Ming sanqu as a whole and its social-ideological background, including a literature review on the subject. To facilitate a better understanding of Li?s rationales in writing sanqu, the second chapter deals with his life and the themes of his sanqu. The third chapter is an analysis of his thoughts towards the writing of sanqu, The fourth and fifth chapters mainly provide a critical review on Li?s sanqu, both thematically and aesthetically. The sixth chapter, a tentative evaluation of the status of Li?s sanqu, serves as the conclusion. / published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

This thesis approaches two perennial and interrelated problems in the historiography of China - the question of the openness or self-isolation of (Ming) Chinese society, as well as the nature and extent of the Mongol legacy in the (early) Ming - from a new angle. In spite of a growing body of scholarship on political, military, and institutional aspects of the transition from 'foreign' Mongol Yuan (1271-1368) to 'native' Ming (1368-1644) rule, there is one aspect that has received little attention so far: language, or rather languages in the plural, and translation between them. By bringing the various multilingual dimensions of the early Ming to the foreground of analysis and studying them against the backdrop of the Mongol legacy, this thesis covers new ground. While recognising that not all activities with which it is concerned would have been seen as connected by early Ming actors, this thesis argues that they do collectively constitute a realm of action with a common purpose, which we can comprehend as 'language policy.' This perspective is significant, because Yuan continuities on macro levels (administrative, institutional, political) can only be truly grasped through a systematic investigation of micro levels, such as language. To achieve these aims, the thesis blends concepts and methods from history, sinological philology, and Linguistic Landscape Studies (LLS). My argument is threefold. First, the Mongol heritage was not just perceptible in institutions and newly absorbed territory but also on the level of language. Second, the early Ming, far from being 'fiercely anti-Mongol' (as one authority recently put it), consciously attempted to imitate and surpass the Yuan, and multilingualism - for both communicative and emblematic reasons - played an important part in this endeavour. Third, and most importantly, the year 1368 marked neither a 'revolutionary' rupture nor a 'business as usual' continuation of Mongol legacies. Rather, the new dynasty attempted to strike a difficult balance, in which language and translation policies were instrumental in harmonising the needs for both continuity with and a break from the past. The Ming continued Yuan traditions such as the production of multilingual steles and edicts to symbolise and enforce their universal imperial claim, while Chinese was (not de jure, but de facto) reinstituted as the major imperial language, as opposed to one imperial language among many, as in Mongol times. The very notion of universal empire, continued from Yuan to Ming, would beat odds with monolingualism, and consequently, the Ming could not have been monolingual, even if they had so desired. While the distinction between 'multilingual foreign' dynasties (Yuan, Qing) and 'monolingual Chinese' ones (Ming) is not outright wrong, it does need considerable refinement, in order to understand the Ming's place in the larger Yuan-Ming-Qing transition. 'Translation of empire' has a double meaning in this thesis. First, it is meant literally in the sense of language mediation: textual legacies of the Yuan were translated from languages such as Mongolian or Persian into Chinese, while the new empire translated its claim to power into other languages. Second, it is a metaphor alluding to the political concept of translatio imperii, known from Western Eurasian history and comparable to the Chinese 'dynastic cycle' narrative: fundamentally the idea of cultural mobility, with knowledge and power moving from empire to empire. How did the Yuan-Ming transition work as a translatio imperii in both senses of the word and what can we conclude from it regarding the nature of the early Ming?

This study highlights the influence of the Ming-Qing transition on legal justice in China. According to mainstream sinicisation (Hanhua ..) theory, Manchu was assimilated into the Han majority and ruled China using the old Ming government system. This study proves otherwise via an extensive examination of the transition’s effect on legal justice, particularly the abolition of the prefectural judge (tuiguan..) position during the early Qing Dynasty. In the Yuan and Ming eras, judges emerged as unique officials specialising in juridical responsibilities and demonstrating the sophistication of legal justice. However, institutional reform during the Qing Dynasty pushed local administrators (prefects; zhifus..) into taking over prefectural judiciary responsibilities, gradually blurring the functional line between justice and civil executives until prefectural judges were ultimately banished from service. This study investigates the reasons behind the elimination of the prefectural judge position and the decline of legal professionalism in sixteenth and seventeenth century China. The findings demonstrate the great differences between the Ming and Qing legal systems and an alternative perspective for assessing the significance of the Ming-Qing transition is proposed.

中國歷代政府均視地方治安為重要的政治議題，治安議題也就成為治史者瞭解古代中國政治運作的一門路徑。過去有關「明清基層社會與治安」的研究，向為中外學者頗感興趣的課題。本文的重點是討論明清之際基層社會的治安管理情況，為此提出了四個既是獨立但又環環相扣的問題。有別於過往研究，本文將以捕役這類普遍存在於明清基層社會，而又備受現今學者忽略的基層公務員為切入點，首先重新梳理他們在明清之際出現的原因以及演變過程，解釋他們在明中後期才成為專門的治安人員，並釐清包括捕役在內的應捕人專責維持社會秩序。其次, 闡述捕役在基層社會中的職能，指出他們擁有頗大的治安和司法權力。接著討論捕役機制存在待遇差劣以及人手編排不足等制度性問題，因而促使捕役濫用職權，從而達到經濟和治安目的。至於捕役犯罪情節的內容和影響，本文摒棄傳統以小說內容入手的做法，改以多部判牘內有關捕役犯罪的真實個案着手，得出「誣良為盜」和「屈打成招」是他們最常見的犯罪行為的結論，這些罪行對基層社會的治安和司法運作造成重大問題。最後把焦點從治安人員轉移到管理這些群體的地方官員上，透過地方官員對待捕役的態度，反映官員在治安管理上的困難和理解。他們一方面面對統治者的治安要求，另一方面又受制度上及資源上的限制，所以只能以加重懲罰的高壓方法來提高捕役完成治安任務的可能和減低他們犯罪的機會。這種態度表層意義反映他們只視捕役為「治安工具」，更深層意義是揭示地方官員對治安管理的終極理解──完成治安任務。要言之，本文透過捕役以及管理這些治安人員的地方官員，帶出地方治安管理的政策和問題，以另一個角度，瞭解明清之際基層社會的治安情況和特色。study focuses on the social public order and management of the local society during the Ming-Qing transition. Four independent but related questionsare raised for discussions to achieve such aims. First of all, this thesis focuses onthe buyi (捕役, literally local constables). They were a type of grass-root civilservant which permeates the local society of the Ming-Qing period, but long beenignored by the modern historians. In order to understand how they becameindispensable public security staffs and to clarify their responsiblities, their rolesand deeds in the transition period between Ming and Qing, as well as theirtransformation process in the due course are discussed. Secondly, the functions ofbuyi in the local society are explored to point out the great power on security andjudicial aspect they had seized. After that the institutional issues including a lackof manpower and low remuneration level are discussed, as such issues had pushedthe buyi to misuse their power to seek for their own benefits. The third questionrelated to the criminal committed by the buyi. In this chapter the crimes of thebuyi are reconstructed from judicial casebooks rather than the late Ming novels.From such cases the most common crimes of those buyi are fallen into thecatergories of Accused on innocent person and Tortured for confessions . Suchcrimes were serious problem to the local judiciary as well as the social order. Atlast our focus is shifted from those local security staff to those local officials. Inorder to reveal the difficulties and understanding on maintaining local social orderfrom the viewpoint of officials, how they treated those buyi is thoroughlydiscussed. On one hand the officials had to obey the nationwide policies imposedto them by the imperial authority, on the other hand they were restricted by thelocal institutions and resources, therefore the officials could only raise the level ofpenalties so as to lower the possibility of those buyi to commit crimes, and also toimprove their willingness to fulfil their duty. Such difficulties of the officialsmade them to treat the buyi as tools for social order maintenance . Incidentally, itrevealed that the ultimate understanding of Ming-Qing local officials on socialorder maintenance was to accomplish on surface their missions of social orderissued from their seniors, other than establish solutions to uproot sources ofcrimes or to build an effective and uncorrupted force of local constables.To conclude, this thesis asks us to pay attention to the policies and issues onlocal social order of late imperial China by exploring the buyi and the localofficials whom managing them.

Merchants, seafarers, pirates: the maritime societies of Southeast Fujian played a crucial role in maritime activities during the Ming Dynasty. Regarding the traditional discourse, scholars have discussed the elimination of wokou and local petty pirates during the late Ming period. This study proves otherwise via an extensive examination of the governance and management of the maritime societies implemented by the Ming regime and its local officials. This study considers how the local officials formed their judgements on the cases of seafaring population by examining court opinions and other historical materials. This study also reveals the identities and the cultural habits of the maritime societies. The findings show that the identities of the societies mentioned above were not formed in an arbitrary manner. In addition, wokou and local petty pirates still posed a great threat to the Southeast coast of Fujian during the closing decades of the Ming Dynasty and that the severity of pirate issues was mainly related to cultural habits of the maritime societies and the regime's governance.

The vernacular fiction 'novel' is a genre typically associated with the explosion of commercial printing activity that occurred in the late sixteenth century. However, by that time, representative works such as the Shuihu zhuan and Sanguo yanyi had already been in print for several decades. Moreover, those early print editions were printed not by commercial entities but rather the elite of the Jiajing court. In order to better understand the genre as a print phenomenon, this paper explores the publishing output of one of those elites: Guo Xun (1475- 1542), Marquis of Wuding. In addition to vernacular fiction, Guo printed a number of other types of books as well. This paper examines the entirety of his publishing activities in order to better contextualize the vernacular novel at this early stage in its life in print.