Lü Liuliang (; 1629–3 October 1683) was a
Han Chinese
The Han Chinese, alternatively the Han people, are an East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Greater China. With a global population of over 1.4 billion, the Han Chinese are the list of contemporary ethnic groups, world's la ...
poet and author from
Tongxiang,
Zhejiang
)
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, image_caption = View of the Yandang Mountains
, image_map = Zhejiang i ...
province. He was born under the
Ming dynasty
The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...
but died under the
Manchu
The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from wh ...
Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...
.
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 (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...
. "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 essays.
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, personal name Yinzhen, was the fourth List of emperors of the Qing dynasty, emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the third Qing em ...
. 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 (), was a Hong Kong wuxia novelist and co-founder of '' Ming Pao.'' Cha authored 15 novels between 1955 and 1972 and became one of the most pop ...
's ''wuxia'' novel ''
The Deer and the Cauldron''.
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 is the crime of attacking a state (polity), state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to Coup d'état, overthrow its government, spy ...
'', by
Jonathan Spence
Jonathan Dermot Spence (11 August 1936 – 25 December 2021) was a British-American historian, Sinology, sinologist, and author specialised in History of China, Chinese history. He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University from 199 ...
.
*''A Translucent Mirror'', by
Pamela Kyle Crossley.
*
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 poets
Qing dynasty poets
Writers from Jiaxing
Philosophers from Zhejiang
Poets from Zhejiang
People from Tongxiang
17th-century Chinese physicians
Posthumous executions