Compared with the publishing industry in the Song and Yuan dynasties, where official engraving was the mainstream, the central government in the Ming Dynasty faced unprecedented historical issues in the supervision of the publishing market. The publishing market in the late Ming

In the late Ming Dynasty, the private publishing industry flourished, and private engravings, workshop engravings, and bookstores constituted the main force in activating the publishing market in the Ming Dynasty. Compared with the publishing industry in the Song and Yuan dynasties, where official engraving was the mainstream, the central government in the Ming Dynasty faced unprecedented historical issues in the supervision of the publishing market. Faced with the chaotic publishing market and low quality of publications in the late Ming Dynasty, although the Ming government was aware of the seriousness of the problem, it was unable to take any action because it lacked rules and regulations to base on and did not set up a specialized agency responsible for implementation. Effective publishing management measures, publishing decrees and administrative measures have not had a substantial impact on the publishing market. In the Ming Dynasty, the central bureaucracy’s understanding of publishing management focused more on maintaining ideological unity within the ruling class, viewing it as an opportunity for scholarly and political struggle. The Ming government's failure to supervise the publishing market not only led to the disordered prosperity of the publishing market in the late Ming Dynasty, but also led to the chaos of scholarly conduct and ruling ideology.

The publishing market in the late Ming Dynasty was active. Unlike the Song and Yuan Dynasties, which were dominated by official engravings, the publishing industry in the late Ming Dynasty was dominated by private engravings and private engravings and other private forces. It relied on distribution channels such as bookstores, merchants, and book ships. Books in the late Ming Dynasty In the world of commodities, the central government of the Ming Dynasty faced unprecedented historical changes in the supervision of the publishing market. Against this background, scholars who study the publishing history of the Ming Dynasty often face such a picture of publishing history: the central government issued frequent publishing decrees during the Ming Dynasty, but the publishing market was in chaos. This makes people wonder: Why did the central government frequently issue administrative decrees in the Ming Dynasty? Why does the publishing decree issued continue to be implemented? To what extent did these publishing decrees affect the publishing industry in the late Ming Dynasty? By studying the publishing decrees in " Ming Shi Lu ", we found that those memorials intended to regulate the publishing industry did not form effective legal effects in the end. Even the most severe publishing decrees were really aimed at scholars fighting against each other. Political strife. The Ming Dynasty bureaucracy lacked unified opinions on publishing management, lacked the basis of laws and regulations, and failed to realize the communication attribute of the publishing industry as an ideological production mechanism. The Ming Dynasty neither formulated a systematic publishing policy nor established corresponding responsible agencies. As a result, although the central government issued repeated bans in the Ming Dynasty, the publishing chaos was never fundamentally improved. The Ming government actually failed to supervise the publishing industry, which also resulted in the disorderly prosperity of the publishing market in the late Ming Dynasty.

The Great Fire in Jianyang: Memorials and Publication Decree in "Records of the Ming Dynasty"

In the early Ming Dynasty, it seemed that only private publishing in Fujian was more active. ScholarGu Yanwu once recorded:

At the end of righteousness, the world was the only one at that time. There are stereotypes in Wangfu Lisheng and Jianning Bookstore.

"Prince's Litigation" books are mostly used for rewards and promulgations, and most of them are not in the market. At that time, almost all the books circulating on the market came from Jianyang, and there was a situation where "books were spread throughout the country and published in and in Fujian". In the twelfth year of Hongzhi (1499), there was a fire in Jianyang Bookstore, and all the book boards were lost. Li Ke took the opportunity to comment on the incident, and asked Xu Tianxi to take advantage of this opportunity to intervene in Jianyang's publishing industry. His suggestions were recorded in detail in "Records of the Ming Dynasty":

This year's disaster in the Queli Confucius Temple was heard far and near, but it was not frightened. Recently, a bookstore in Jianyang County, Fujian Province was burned down, turning ancient and modern book boards into ashes. The ancient Confucians often said that Jianyang was the palace of Zhu Wengong ( Zhu Xi). In the current year, there is disaster in Queli, and there is fire in Jianyang. Heaven has given a warning, and it will definitely come out of the Tao and gather with Wensuo. Where is the land? I tried to test it and found out that it was the fire of the pavilion in Zhou Dynasty. The author of the Spring and Autumn Book said: The pavilion is the place where musical instruments are stored. If Heaven's precepts say that it is impossible to carry out correct orders, why should we use rituals and music as instructions? Ritual and music are not enough, so the heavenly fire is hidden as a warning. Isn’t the fire of today’s bookshop any closer than this? Since then, he has neglected his duties as a Confucian scholar and has not cultivated orthodox teachings. What is admired at the top is the flashy and gorgeous body; what is practiced at the bottom is the words of branches and leaves. The vulgar scholars and unscrupulous scholars gather together in vain, cleverly create names, and there are almost hundreds of schools. The founders make profits by selling them easily, and the readers covet the luck and gain knowledge. To waste one's energy on thinking about the merits of the entity and to cancel the discussion meeting between teachers and friends is to harm one's morality and corrupt one's mind, and to corrupt one's writing and practice.Once he has devoted himself to science and technology, and gained wealth and wealth, just saying that he has food and clothing for a lifetime is just his achievements. How can he expect his body to work hard to benefit the world and benefit the people? Fuwang Mingzhao Yousi made great corrections. The books that should be studied, or those that existed in the past but no longer exist, were checked from the Zhongmi Collection and those studied by the scholars who were the masters of the scriptures. They were compiled in advance, deleted and revised, and issued Ask the Chief Secretary to issue it. He still begged the emperor to recommend officials from the Hanlin Academy or civil servants who were well-educated, and ordered them to transfer to other schools to take exams. If they were successful, they would then spread to all directions, and this would become a permanent practice. The remaining texts of the late Song Dynasty, as well as "Jinghua Richao", "Lun Fan", "Lun Cao", "Strategy", "Ce Hai", "Wen Heng", "Wen Zui", "Idea", "Sermon" and so on, were obtained from the remains of the simmering ashes. All of them have been cut off from their roots and are not allowed to be mixed and published as before. We still order the Imperial Academy and other officials in the two capitals and all over the world to revise their academic affairs, strictly supervise their masters and disciples, abide by the doctrines of the Holy Dynasty, and eradicate the bad habits of vulgar Confucianism. If they encounter any irregularities in the writings mentioned in the preceding paragraph, they should be burned. If there is any misconduct, With the document, he will be charged with violating the regulations. I especially hope that your Majesty will summon the Confucian officials every day to discuss the reasons for causing disasters, respect the principles of heaven and earth, and further develop the techniques of good governance, and practice them to return to heaven and end one's life.

The Ministry of Rites replied: There are no traces left in the middle of Jianyang's writing boards, and there may be some that are completely preserved. Please order the inspectors and other officials to inspect them one by one. For example, the "Jinghua Japanese Notes" and other writing boards have been burned. The bookshop is not allowed to reprint the books. The books such as the Classics, the History of Confucius and the Holy Dynasty should be corrected one by one. Those that are intact will be printed as usual. Those that are half or none will be reprinted from old ones to ensure that the text is authentic. Don't learn from mistakes and learn from mistakes. Follow it.

Official Xu Tianxi’s suggestion was to let the central government of the Ming Dynasty take advantage of the Jianyang fire to intervene in the Jianyangfang engraving industry, and take this opportunity to send commissioners to rectify it, so as to correct the proliferation of professional books and the corruption of scholarly ethics caused by private publishing. The phenomenon. For this reason, Xu Tianxi even used the words "God warns", which can be described as stern. He also pointed out that relevant officials should be ordered to strictly monitor the situation in the future, and proposed punishment methods for those who violate the law. However, the Ministry of Rites only adopted the most superficial suggestions of Xu Tianxi. There was no order to send commissioners to supervise and inspect the book industry for a long time in the future. It only issued a symbolic ban on printing and burning the engravings. The time and text are not restricted. Official Xu Tianxi suggested that the government intervene in the Jianyangfang engraving industry, and the order from the Ministry of Rites was at best a remedy for the losses in the Jianyangfang engraving industry and a unified standard for publishing quality. In the early and middle Ming dynasty, the central government did not attach much importance to the control of the private publishing industry. The reason was that the development of the private publishing industry was still in the recovery period and did not have much impact on society. It was only used as reference books for the imperial examination. There were some minor ailments that had nothing to do with governance. The scholars' focus on taking exams was more conducive to restraining their thoughts, and there was no need to go all out to rectify an industry that did not pose a threat.

With the continuous development of the publishing industry in the Ming Dynasty, especially the prosperity of the engraving industry in Jianyang area, the publishing industry gradually had an important impact on Shilin. Errors in the publication of classics not only easily mislead students, but may also cause scholars to have dangerous ideas of doubting the classics, which aroused the vigilance of local officials. Ye Dehui in "Shu Lin Qing Hua" quoted the preface text of the Ming Dynasty Fujian version of the "Five Classics and Four Books": "In Fujian and other places, the punishment is based on the inspection and supervision of books. According to the " Five Classics " " Four Books ", Shi The old edition of Zi Shi Zhi Yao's book is quite rare. Recently, it has been reprinted in pocket-size and other editions. Not only is it wrong for beginners to "falsely write" in ancient times, "It's still like ancient times", but even though the scholars were present, they also made mistakes and were deposed. "It can be seen that the Minzhong Bookstore's engravings are full of errors, which hinders the advancement of scholars. The phenomenon of industry has become very serious. Therefore, the prosecutors in Fujian and other places specially reported the book to Jianning Mansion: "This department can see that the book has been spread all over the country, and the edition is in central Fujian. If it is not carefully revised and published in another publication, the errors in the original book may lead to misunderstandings." "The local officials in Fujian requested the Fujian Procuratorate to select teachers and students to collate the Ming Jing and issue an official model. "It will be forwarded to Jianyang County, and every book engraver will be sent to the official, and each one will be given a copy. "The strict supervisor must reprint the book according to the official style. The county election committee still has teachers and students to agree with each other before it is allowed to be sold." Jianyang Bookstore was ordered to reprint the book according to the official style and not to reprint it.In order to facilitate accountability, the master of the engraving workshop was also ordered to engrave the name of the craftsman at the end of the book for reference. "If there is any violation, it will be a serious crime and the edition will be destroyed." From this strict publication order, we can see the understanding of the logic between publishing supervision and social stability by local officials in Fujian: only by promulgating official engraving models and making the Confucian classics difficult to read, can students only understand the original meaning. Do not involve partiality and neglect, thereby maintaining the stability of Shilin and achieving long-term local peace and order.

The chaos in Jianyang's book industry also aroused the alarm of central officials. In the fifth year of Jiajing (1526), ​​some officials once again requested the government to send commissioners to control the Jianyangfang engraving industry.

Wuchen in June of the fifth year of Jiajing: At that time, book publishing in Jianyang County, Fujian Province was becoming more and more popular, and there were many incorrect words, which was a scholar's disease. So Yang Rui, the censor of the patrol, and Shao Ruishu, the deputy envoy of Titiao School, asked Confucian officials to collate the classics.

The Ministry of Rites responded with an invitation, and the superior followed it, ordering no official title and sending a person to Hanlin Chunfang. Send an attendant to read Wang Dian's imperial edict, return to the capital after school, and do not send him back to the office to replace him.

Fujian local officials Yang Rui and Shao Rui requested the establishment of a special Confucian official to be responsible for collating classics. Behind this suggestion is the shadow of the book censorship system. Even if the parties involved are just for simple collation reasons, if it gradually develops from a special Confucian official , does not rule out the possibility of institutional formation and system establishment. Emperor Jiajing seemed to realize that errors in books would mislead scholars, but he failed to see clearly the huge uncontrollable factors hidden behind the mass communication nature of the publishing industry. He did not adopt the suggestion of setting up a dedicated Confucian official, but simply ordered a Hanlin attendant to be dispatched. Wang Dian, the attendant who accompanied the prince to study, was selected to go to Jianyang to correct the classics. After the correction, he would immediately return to the capital to resume his duties. There was no long-term plan to set up a special agency to oversee the publishing industry. Judging from the follow-up of the incident, even the plan to send Wang Dian to Jianyang as an attendant was not implemented in the end. Wang Dian was unable to go to Jianyang due to turmoil in his official career, and the matter of supervising Jianyang's carvings fell into disrepair. Although Wang Dian later served as the Chief Inspector of Fujian Province due to his transfer of official position, and he also used Jianyang's developed engraving industry to publish some books, he never supervised Jianyang's publishing industry. Before he took office, if the local government wanted to publish a certain classic or official code, it had to rely on the power of Jianyang Square Engraving to do so. This model of local official engraving using the power of ordinary engraving to complete publishing projects was also common in the Jiangnan region where the publishing industry would develop in the future. The situation of cooperative publishing between official and private publications is mainly the responsibility of local academic administration, school inspectors and other officials. These officials also have certain supervision obligations, which to a certain extent played a regulatory role in the publishing industry in the late Ming Dynasty. However, the official The library censorship system has never been established.

With the vigorous development of the publishing industry, in the Wanli years, the publishing industry has shown a tendency to run away. The publishing industry jeopardized the stability of the country's ruling ideology, especially in the late Ming Dynasty, when the thoughts of and the thoughts of Buddhism and Laoism went hand in hand, the style of scholars became increasingly frivolous. The publishing industry played a role in fueling the flames. Some officials were aware of the role of the publishing industry in the dissemination of ideas and eagerly wrote to express their opinions:

Geng Wu . The Ministry of Rites reported to the Nanjing Criminal Division and reported to Xu Huan: The country must use the method to recruit scholars. The inventions of sages and sages should prevail. Recently, scholars have forgotten elegance and committed plagiarism, and passed down bad scriptures in favor of Buddhas and elders. The books of Nanxuzi, by accident, became famous, but they were at a loss and did not know what the meaning of the sages and saints was, and the people with simple knowledge were always confused. He wanted to burn all the official texts and tablets to save the current situation, but he was afraid that it would be difficult to burn the precise texts in one box, so he strictly prohibited them from doing so. All the dangerous, strange and strange things were ordered to be abandoned and destroyed, but the style was correct. It's up to you.

Official Xu Huan was located in Nanjing, an area where the publishing industry was most prosperous in the late Ming Dynasty. The things he reported should be the facts he had personally observed. If the disturbance in the ideological circles had not reached the point where it was beyond the scope of government orders, Xu Huan would not have gone to great lengths to alarm the emperor. Moreover, even Emperor Wanli, who was deep in the palace, seemed to be aware of the proliferation of private publishing industry. He agreed with the Nanjing Criminal Division's suggestions to Xu Huan during the incident, but there are no historical records of the specific solutions. Looking at the publishing industry in the late Ming Dynasty after this incident, it still developed in a laissez-faire state.In his book "Society and State in the Ming Dynasty", Bu Zhengmin believes that the Ming Dynasty lacked the legal basis for managing the publishing industry, effective management methods that could be used for reference, and no corresponding supervisory mechanism. Emperor Wanli was also a famously lazy emperor. Probably after this memorial, he did not take any measures to correct the chaos in the publishing industry.

Book Murder Case: The Political Logic Behind the Late Ming Publishing Decree

Although the government issued many decrees during the late Ming Dynasty, most of which were fruitless, there was also a murder case - Li Zhi committed suicide in prison because of his books . This incident caused an uproar at the time, and it is still a hotly debated public case in the field of intellectual history. Whether at that time or now, the general focus of academic circles is on the struggle between Li Zhi’s thought and authoritarian thought, and Li Zhi’s thought. In terms of essential discussions, little attention has been paid to the books on the causes of Li Zhi's public case.

Li Zhi was a "heretical" thinker in the late Ming Dynasty. He once entered the Ming government's bureaucracy as a judge and served in middle and lower-level official positions such as instructor of the Imperial College, secretary of the Ministry of Rites, and director of the Nanjing Ministry of Punishments. Finally, he served as the prefect of Yao'an in Yunnan. He retired early from his position and became a monk at the Zhifo Monastery on the shores of Longhu Lake in Macheng, Hubei Province, where he lived a lay life. Because he had been involved in officialdom for many years and experienced various hypocritical phenomena in officialdom, Li Zhi was extremely disgusted with hypocritical Taoists. This disgust was reflected in his letters to his friends and some argumentative articles.

In the eighteenth year of Wanli (1590), the letters and articles about his interactions with friends were collected under the title of "burning books" and was published in Macheng. These included many articles that exposed the ugly face of Taoists, which offended Geng Dingxiang, a high official at the time. Geng Dingxiang tried every means to persecute and expel Li Zhi. He first instigated his disciples to publish articles to argue with Li Zhi, then used slanderous methods to damage his reputation, and finally used official power to carry out violent activities to burn down Li Zhi's residence and pagoda. Li Zhi had no choice but to flee to Tongzhou near Beijing and stay with his friend Ma Jinglun's home. But this group of Taoists still refused to give up. Cai Yizhong, a disciple of Geng Dingxiang, contacted Wen Chun, then the censor of Zuodu of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, and together with the Etiquette Department of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, Zhang Wenda was informed of the matter. In the second month of the 30th year of Wanli (1602), Li Zhi was impeached. The memorial lists the discussions about historical figures in Li Zhi's "Collection of Books" published in the 27th year of Wanli's reign (1599). At the same time, he slanders Li Zhi for "unscrupulous behavior", seducing the wives and daughters of scholars, and openly committing adultery. "Records of the Ming Dynasty" records:

Li Zhi became an official in his prime, but cut off his hair in his later years. Recently, he also engraved books such as "Collecting Books", "Burning Books" and "Zhuowu Dade", which became popular throughout the country and confused people's hearts. Taking Lu Buwei and Li Yuan as their ingenuity, taking Li Si as their talents, taking Feng Dao as an official, taking Zhuo Wenjun as a good choice of spouse, taking Sima Guang on Sang Hongyang's bullying of Emperor Wu as ridiculous, and taking Sima Guang on Sang Hongyang's bullying of Emperor Wu as ridiculous. Qin Shihuang was the only emperor throughout the ages, and the right and wrong of Confucius was insufficient evidence. It is difficult to enumerate the wild and violent things. Most of them are absurd and ignorant, and they must be destroyed.

further said:

Recently, the gentlemen and officials of Jin also hold mantras, recite Buddha's name, worship the monks, hold a few beads as precepts, and hang wonderful statues in their rooms as refuge. Those who do not know how to follow Confucius' family law, but indulge in Zen ascetics often go out. That’s it. Recently I heard that Zhi moved to Tongzhou, which is only forty miles away from the capital. If he enters the capital, he will be confused and it will be the continuation of Macheng .

finally came to the conclusion: His person cannot be tolerated in the world of saints, and his books cannot be destroyed. He also asked the emperor:

to ask the Ministry of Rites to appeal to the [prefecture] local officials to send Li Zhi to his place of origin and punish him. He still traveled to the two provinces, published Zhi's books, and searched for the unpublished books in his home, and burned them all, so as not to cause chaos in the future. Fortunately, the world is very lucky.

Emperor Wanli adopted this suggestion and issued an edict:

If Li Zhi dared to promote chaos and confuse the world and falsely accuse the people, he ordered the five factory guards to severely punish the crime. Those whose books had been published or not were ordered to be searched and burned, and no one was allowed to do so. remain. If there is a member of the gang who hides the music privately, officials from the department and each department will visit and participate in the music, and the crime will be punished.

The result of this incident is recorded in only ten words in "Records of the Ming Dynasty":

He has been caught, and he will not die for fear of crime.

Jin Yiwei arrested Li Zhi, who was already ill, from Tongzhou. When faced with the accusation, Li Zhi's answer was "it is beneficial to the Holy Religion without harming it." Li Zhi couldn't bear the humiliation of old age, so he left a desperate poem: "A man with lofty ideals never forgets to be in the ravine, and a brave man never forgets to lose his strength. What will happen to me if I don't die now? I wish I could return to hell as soon as possible." So he went on a hunger strike and committed suicide in prison.

On the surface, Li Zhi's books spread the idea of ​​"confused the world and falsely accused the people" and touched the Confucian ethics believed in by the authoritarian government. Li Zhi was convicted for his books. However, a closer look at Zhang Wenda's chapter in "Records of the Ming Dynasty" shows that after listing Li Zhi's writings as "irregular and unconventional", the target of the attack turned to the Jin gentleman officials who "indulged in Zen Buddhism." Moreover, a few days later, Feng Qi, the Minister of Rites, Feng Qi, and Kang Piyang, the imperial censor, wrote one after another. The target of the attack shifted from Li Zhi to Daguan (Shi Zhenke), another monk who was popular among scholars, saying that he was "in love with Chang'an, and he was in company with the Jin gentry." ", "(Li Zhi) went to stay in the capital and once initiated the merger with this slave. Now that he has been caught and slipped through the net, he is afraid that he will not be able to convince him. Wang Bing will be brought to justice, the thieves will be chased and deported, and the factory guards will be sternly ordered. "Five cities identified the party members and expelled them", and then criticized the scholarly atmosphere of worshiping Buddhism and Taoism. These three letters memorials are related to each other and are in harmony with each other. It is obvious that there is a more complicated dispute between Confucian and Buddhist scholars hidden behind them. It was also due to Li Zhi's case that Emperor Shenzong of the Ming Dynasty suppressed the scholarly atmosphere in the court that was neither Confucianism nor Confucianism. Due to the fact that Taoism was highly valued by the Empress Dowager, the imperial censor Kang Piyang's superiors were left unreported. But Emperor Shenzong adopted the opinion of Feng Qi, the Minister of Rites, and issued an edict: "In recent times, scholars have not only destroyed Song Confucianism, but also gradually slandered Confucius, eradicated right and wrong, abandoned the practice of bamboo slips, and restored peace to those who are loyal, filial, chastity and righteousness." The imperial court used... Immortal Buddhism is originally a foreign art. It should be practiced alone in the mountains and forests. Those who are good at it should be appointed as officials and go on their own. Do not keep pace with Confucianism to confuse people's hearts." This expelled a group of people who believed in Buddhism and Taoism. people. Contemporary Shen Defu raised objections to Li Zhi's death in Qingban. He believed that Zhang Wenda's memorial ostensibly impeached Li Zhi, but insinuated that it pointed at Huang Hui (also known as Shenxuan) and Tao Wangling (also known as Tao Wangling). Shizhu ) and other lay people in Beijing: "When Huang Shenxuan (Hui) was in Beijing as a palace official, he was a good-hearted man, and he became a Jingshe Buddha with Tao Shizhu. At that time, many dignitaries and scholars flocked to him, and more and more people turned their attention to him. , especially in the spring of Renyin, Zhang Chengyu, who was in charge of etiquette, asked Da Zhuan to impeach Li Zhuowu, and the last paragraph said: "Recently, the Jin gentry and officials also chanted mantras, worshiped the monks, and held a few beads as precepts. Those who thought they were converts and did not abide by Confucius' family law and indulged in Zen teaching secretly attacked Huang Shenxuan and Tao Shizhen. "Zhou Zuzhu quoted Tao Wangling's "With Mr. Zhou Haimen" as follows: "There is an old saying here. The academy was led by Zhao Taichang, Huang Gongshu and Zuo Zhushi. Wang Daxing came and was praised by many as a foreigner. The evidence proves that the motive behind a series of accusations against Li Zhi and his publishing of books was the scholarly struggle of "attacking Zen and expelling monks". Li Zhi and his works were just the trigger of the scholarly struggle between Confucianism and Buddhism. In addition, Li Zhi's case also involved a complex political struggle. Rong Zhaozu believed that the motivation behind Li Zhi's impeachment can be traced back to the people he offended in the book, Geng Dingxiang, Cai Yizhong, and that Geng, Cai and others were colluded. , using official connections to suppress dissidents. When discussing the matter, Bu Zhengmin believed that Li Zhi was impeached because he was involved in the political struggle of the imperial court. Li Zhi had close contacts with official Mei Guozhen , and Mei Guozhen had a political conflict with the then chief minister Shen Yiguan. , Shen always instigated Zhang Wenda to impeach Li Zhi, and in the memorial, he made a personal attack on the fact that Li Zhi had helped Mei Guozhen's daughter to be ordained as a nun, hoping to use this to suppress his political opponents. To sum up, it can be seen that the fundamental purpose of this case is the complex political struggle between Confucianism and Buddhism and the elimination of dissidents, and Li Zhi and his works are just victims.

Since the target of the attack was only a false accusation on the publishing industry, the impact of Li Zhi's case on the publishing industry in the late Ming Dynasty was only temporary. Moreover, even though Li Zhi died, his works are still read, collected and published among the people. Not long after this incident, some people in Hangzhou and Nanjing republished Li Zhi's works, and even the Ningbo area even launched an official reprint of Li Zhi's works. Petition movement for writings.Because of this incident, the influence of Li Zhi's works became even more profound, so much so that by the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Gu Yanwu still sighed in "Rizhilu": "Scholar-officials loved his books so much that they often collected them and they have not been extinguished to this day."

Li Zhizhi Although he died because his thoughts deviated from the ruling ideology, the popularity of Li Zhi's thoughts was due to the popularity of his works. Publishing played a decisive role in the dissemination of his works. Without the developed publishing industry in the late Ming Dynasty, Li Zhi's ideas might have only been circulated in a small circle of disciples, and his influence would not have been amplified to the point of attracting the attention of the court. It was precisely the communication nature of publishing that gave the court reliable evidence to launch an arrest operation against Li Zhi. Judging from the political logic behind the case, the understanding of publishing supervision by the central government and the scholar-bureaucracy in the Ming Dynasty was limited to maintaining ideological stability within the ruling class by destroying books, and at the same time, punishing authors to launch political battles against dissidents. The ruling class of the Ming Dynasty failed to realize that books, as carriers of ideas, could be transformed into a huge political resource in a late Ming publishing market that spread out of control. The government of the late Ming Dynasty also failed to realize that it could control and utilize this resource through the supervision of the publishing industry. The lack of awareness of publishing supervision led to the prevalence of heresy in the late Ming Dynasty and the rise of scholars, which in turn led to ideological disorder within the ruling class. The moral collapse of the human group eventually deteriorated into the loss of control of social thought.

Mustard Seed Garden Copyright: The Disorder and Vitality of the Publishing Industry in the Late Ming Dynasty

The lack of awareness of publishing management by the central government in the late Ming Dynasty not only caused the ideological confusion of the scholars, but also directly led to the disordered development of the publishing market in the late Ming Dynasty. There were many engraved books in the late Ming Dynasty, but the quality of the engraved books was often criticized by later generations. A large part of the reason for this was that the publishing market did not have effective supervision. As a result, the engraving of books in the late Ming Dynasty was driven by economic interests. In order to save publishing costs, corners were cut and no correction was added. As far as publishing is concerned, the late Ming Dynasty was also the era when piracy was the most rampant in history. In addition to piracy such as reprinting and reprinting, Ming people even directly cut out the inscriptions or prefaces from other people's plates and replaced them with their own inscriptions and prefaces. For example, the Wanli edition of "The Peony Pavilion's Resurrection of the Soul" was created by Zhu Yuanzhen after deleting the preface of the original engraver by "Shilin Jushi" and inscribing "Shexian Yuting Zhu Yuanzhen School". There are also those who pretend to be celebrities. Lu Rong of the Ming Dynasty once recorded:

Yang Tieya, who was famous in the southeast in the early days of the country, was highly respected by tourists. Looking at his works such as "Zhengtongbian" and "Shiyue", they are all good. If there are two episodes of "Xiang Lian" and "Continued Lian", they all contain obscene words. I first suspected that his work was a work of a young man, or that he was a disciple of his disciples who was indiscriminately writing notes. Later, when I got the printed copy, I saw its preface and attached it to Tao Yuanliang's poem "Xianqing", so I knew what he had paid attention to. According to "Xianqing Fu" it is said: "Youmancao is the gathering, and you recite the remaining songs of " Zhaonan"." It is about love and ends in etiquette and justice. The work of Tie Ya is far away. How brave it is to not be ashamed of it but to live with it! "Xiang Lian" and "Xiang Lian" are only available in Kunshan. Later, there was a postscript written by Yang Dongli, which played with the tone of his words. It was definitely not Dongli's work, and someone who wanted to cover up bad things stole his reputation.

Yang Weizhen was a famous literati in the early Ming Dynasty. Sheli, a bookstore in Kunshan, not only forged the second series of "Xiang Lian" and "Continued Lian", but also forged the preface of Yang Shiqi in order to sell quickly. This outright fake book is not only It harms readers and tarnishes the author's reputation. Booksellers do whatever they can to make a profit. There are also those who delete the number of chapters to make up the book. Yang Shen, a famous scribe in the Ming Dynasty, once discovered that booksellers randomly deleted chapters from poetry collections to save costs: Yu Yu was in southern Yunnan and visited his old family to collect "Chronicles of Tang Poems" There are many manuscripts, but when I saw the Hangzhou edition recently, I found only nine of them. He engraved the "Collection of Tao Yuanming" and left behind the "Ji Zha Zan". The old copy of "The Poems in the Caotang" was released by the bookstore. In order to sell it quickly, more than 90 poems were removed, and many wrong words were included. The remaining copies were copied into one volume of "Collection of Poems and Errors". The former Taishi collected the complete collections of hundreds of poems from the Tang Dynasty. In recent years, one tenth of each volume has been reduced. For example, "Zhang Jiji" originally had twelve volumes, but now it only has three or four volumes. It was also compiled from other people's works. ; Wang Wei's poems were included in Wang Ya's quatrains, and people were surprised and said: This is the complete collection of Wei. Sell ​​quickly with pictures.Lang Ying, a contemporary of

, also pointed out: It is a great blessing that my country has been in peace for a long time and there are many old books. It's a pity that it was damaged by Fujian Bookstore. Gai Min specializes in making profits, but when he encounters good books from various provinces and hears the price is high, he will reprint them. The number of volumes and contents are the same, but many omissions have been subtracted from the chapters. This makes people unaware, so one volume is sold out and half of the volume is sold. The price is high, and people are vying to buy it. As close as Huizhou engraved "The Classic of Mountains and Seas" also imitated the Fujian bookstores, just to save labor.

Hangzhou and Jianyang areas are areas with developed carving markets in the late Ming Dynasty, and are also areas hardest hit by piracy and inferior editions. In a market-oriented late Ming book market, this opportunistic profit-making practice has been imitated by other regions. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, when Ye Dehui summarized the chaos of deletions and omissions in the publishing industry during the Ming Dynasty, he specifically opened up chapters in his book "Shu Lin Qing Hua" such as "The Fallacies of the Ming Dynasty's Engraving Books and Changing the Names" and "The Ming Dynasty People's Engraving Books Added, Changed and Omitted Errors". One of the criticisms said: "Separating the head and tail and changing the head and face can be called burning books, not engraving books." The chaos of piracy and reprinting in the late Ming Dynasty reflected the lack of supervision in the market at that time, and also reflected the various changes in the publishing market in the late Ming Dynasty. The disorder and vitality of clusters, abnormal prosperity. Amidst this disorder and vitality, there is one person whose publishing experience is worth mentioning.

Li Yu was born in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. His publishing deeds were mainly concentrated in the period when he settled in Hangzhou and Jinling. Li Yu's copyright awareness was advanced and vividly reflected the publishing industry that was still full of vitality despite the turmoil in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.

In the late Ming Dynasty, Li Yu was known as a talented man. Although he failed to obtain any honors due to war and other factors, he was already somewhat famous. In the ninth year of Shunzhi (1652), Li Yu moved to Hangzhou from Xiali Village in Lanxi and soon devoted himself to the publishing industry. He published a collection of short stories "Silent Play" in 1656, and later published six legends such as "The Kite Mistakes ", "Lianxiang Companion", " Yi Zhongyuan", "Jade Scratching the Head" and "The Twelfth Floor". Collection of vernacular short stories. Around 1662, Li Yu moved to Jinling and founded his own publishing organization, Mustard Seed Garden. In addition to publishing his own works, such as "Handsome Love Occasionally Sends ", he also published works such as "Water Margin " and "Jin Ping Mei". " and other popular novels, and painting books such as " Mustard Seed Garden Painting Biography ". As Li Yu's fame grew, piracy and imprinting of Li Yu's works began to appear in Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing and other places. Because it infringed on the interests of his own bookshop, Li Yu once said bitterly: "Anyone who reprints the book of Li Weng on the Lake is within Liuhe." , I don’t know how many times. How can I bear the consequences? I vow to fight to the death, and I will take this gathering as a precursor to fight to the death and never give up. For this reason, Li Yu had to travel back and forth between Suzhou and Hangzhou. He recorded the deeds of protecting copyright in "Literature with Zhao Shengbo":

My younger brother moved to Moling, but it was only because of clumsy engraving that there were many copycats. Therefore, it violates the precept of settling down and relocating, and is used as a plan to immigrate and eat. Unexpectedly, as soon as the new engraving came out, the greedy officials of the Wu family started to look down upon it. Fortunately, my younger brother was the first to hear about it, so he tried hard to persuade Sun Gong, Su Songdao, to stop his plan. It was only then that the Wu clan's discussion was over, and a report from home suddenly arrived, saying that the people in Hangzhou had finished the engraving, and that a new book would soon be available for trade.

In order to protect his own rights and interests, Li Yu used his connections in the government. In order to rectify the piracy phenomenon in Suzhou, Li Yu sought help from Su Songdao and Sun Picheng, who issued a notice prohibiting the infringement of Li Yu's works in Suzhou. As soon as the infringement activities in Suzhou were banned, he immediately received news about the piracy situation in Hangzhou. Li Yu had no choice but to send his son-in-law to Hangzhou to seek help from local officials. Li Yu, who was tired of dealing with it, finally had to say, "It's like this." In addition to conquering the south and the north, what year will be the time when Yan Ge and Yan Jia sleep together?" the mournful cry.

Li Yu was running around because of copyright issues and was deeply troubled. However, if you look at the other side of this matter, you will find that after experiencing the violent turbulence of dynasty changes, the publishing industry in the early Qing Dynasty recovered surprisingly quickly. , Li Yu's works can lead to piracy in many places, and the bans continue. Doesn't it reflect the historical scene that the publishing market has regained vitality at that time? This vibrant disorder is also a continuation and manifestation of the prosperity of the publishing industry in the late Ming Dynasty.

Conclusion

The Ming government's mismanagement of the publishing industry resulted in the lack of official regulatory power in the publishing industry in the late Ming Dynasty, which resulted in the disorderly prosperity of the publishing market in the late Ming Dynasty. Through the analysis of publishing policies and specific cases in "Records of the Ming Dynasty", many thought-provoking phenomena and conclusions gradually emerged. Although the lack of supervision of the book industry allows the publishing industry to develop freely, it has resulted in low-quality publications and piracy. Serious market chaos. The late Ming government only understood publishing supervision as an opportunity to eliminate ideological differences within the scholar class and internal struggles within the ruling class. It failed to regard books as controllable and usable political resources, and lost the ability to build a reasonable ideological production mechanism through publishing management. possibility, which led to ideological disorder within the scholar group and paved the way for the changes in the late Ming Dynasty.

Wang Anle is a 2017 doctoral candidate in the School of Liberal Arts of Nankai University. This article was published in "Chinese Publishing History Research" Issue 2, 2022.