After the Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang eliminated Chen Youyi, Zhang Shicheng, Fang Guozhen and other southern separatist forces, in 1368, that is, the emperor's throne, he immediately sent a large army to sweep Shandong and Lianghe, directly taking the capital (Beijing), and gradually completed the unification of the whole country. Many people in the ruling clique at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty participated in the Great Peasant Revolt at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, so they understood the reasons for the peasant revolt. Zhu Yuanzhang once said: "If the husband is in a hurry, he is in a hurry, the string is urgent, the people are anxious, and the way to be on the top is to use the width, but the cloud width is the crowd, and the loss of the cloud width is also lost." He also said, "When the world is first determined, the people are in financial difficulty, for example, the first bird must not pluck its feathers, and the newly planted wood must not shake its roots, but must rest in peace." Zhu Yuanzhang, intimidated by the historical lesson of "the people are in a hurry, chaos," weighed the advantages and disadvantages of the ruling system of the previous dynasties, immigrated and reclaimed the land economically, paid attention to the construction of water conservancy, implemented military tuns, reduced taxes, and returned the population who fled the war at the end of the Yuan Dynasty to their homeland; at the same time, he also liberated labor slaves, simplified commercial taxes, and supported industry and commerce, so that agricultural production, handicrafts, and commerce were quickly restored and developed. Politically, we vigorously consolidated the imperial rule, abolished the system of ministers with a history of more than 1,000 years and the system of zhongshu, menxia, and shangshu provinces with a history of more than 700 years, and combined military and political power into one, which is a vicious development of feudal absolutism since the Qin and Han dynasties. In order to consolidate the imperial rule, he also wantonly killed heroes. Hongwu thirteen years, Xinghu Dang prison, plus zuo xiang Hu Weiyong for adultery with Japan and Mongolia, Ling Chi executed. The case lasted for ten years, and "more than 30,000 people were connected and cursed." In the twenty-sixth year of Hongwu's reign, he also raised the Blue Party Prison, accusing the great general Lan Yu of plotting against him and executing Ling Chi, and that "there are innumerable people below the Marquis who sit in the party and destroy them." During the Yongle and Xuande periods, the power of the kings was weakened, and a cabinet system was established, further consolidating and developing centralized rule. In terms of cultural ideology, strict control was achieved, and the feudal literati were subjected to coercion and high pressure. Zhu Yuanzhang personally planned to open a Wenhua Hall to attract talents. Ming Chengzu Zhu Di gathered 3,000 scribes from the heavens to compile a book called the Yongle Canon, which is 22,877 volumes, which is a major event in the cultural history of our country. They also vigorously advocated Cheng Zhu Lixue. Zhu Yuanzhang stipulated that the "Four Books" and "Five Classics" should be the homework of the Guozijian, and explicitly ordered that all the prefectures and counties in the country and in the private schools of Luli should "teach all students with the scriptures prescribed by Confucius, and not use Yi and Qin to destroy their mental skills (Mingshu School Chronicle). Zhu Di also ordered Hu Wen, Yang Rong, and others to revise the Four Books, the Five Classics, and the Encyclopedia of Sexual Theory. While actively advocating the science of science, it also implemented the system of taking the eight strands of literature. Zhu Yuanzhang and Liu Jiding's Eight Strands of Literature Program, which are specifically based on the Propositions of the Four Books and Five Classics, and can only be explained according to Zhu Zhu's notes, so-called "its text slightly imitates the Song Classics, but the tone of the ancients of the Ran Dynasty is it." In terms of form, it is also limited to the eight-strand system, thinking that the number of consecutive words is also strictly regulated, which is obviously more harmful than the Tang and Song dynasties who used poetry to give advice. It not only strengthened the authoritarian rule of thought and culture; it also played a literary role in support of conservative retrofuturism and the bad influence of fostering formalism. In addition to the above-mentioned means of co-optation and use, the rulers also adopted a high-pressure policy towards the literati. During the Hongwu Dynasty, it was stipulated that "huanzhong (domestic) scholars and doctors should not be used by the king, and the crime should be copied and killed." The poet Gao Qi was beheaded for resigning from his official position, and the Suzhou literati Yao Run and Wang Mo were unable to come and were beheaded and raided. In the thirteen years from the seventeenth year of Hongwu to the twenty-ninth year, Zhu Yuanzhang continued to revitalize the literary prison. Professor Lin Yuanliang of Zhejiang Fuxue wrote "Xie Zengfeng Table" for others, with the sentence "To be a ruler and a virtuous person", and Xu Yikui, a professor of Hangzhou Fuxue, who wrote a "under the light of the sky, born a saint, leading for the world" and so on. Zhu Yuanzhang thought that he had deliberately ridiculed him as a Red Turban Army, ridiculed his monk origins, and immediately beheaded them. Under this kind of feudal obscenity, in order to avoid misery, the literati were cautious and cautious, and for a while it became a common practice.
In the more than one hundred years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, society has been relatively stable, and after a period of recovery and development, the economy has begun to appear a relatively prosperous situation. Because of this, the measures implemented by the feudal rulers to control cultural ideology were more likely to bear fruit.
Almost all of the excellent works of early Ming literature were concentrated in the Yuan and Ming dynasties. During the great peasant uprising at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the outstanding writers Shi Nai'an and Luo Guanzhong expanded their horizons and enriched their knowledge of life and experience in struggle, so on the basis of the long-term and widely circulated stories of the Three Kingdoms and the publication of relevant texts and miscellaneous dramas, they wrote two epoch-making works, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin". In the three hundred years of the Ming Dynasty, especially after the middle period, they have won more and more the love of the people, thus attracting the attention of some scholars and literati with different ideological tendencies, adding, deleting, commenting, and constantly expanding their influence, and continuing to produce many operas, rap literature and other works with their stories as the theme. Although Song Lian, Liu Ji, and Gao Qi, poets who entered the Ming Dynasty from the Yuan Dynasty, although they were characters in the stronghold of the feudal ruling class, because they experienced the great turmoil at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, they came into contact with the vast real life, and had a certain understanding of the sharp class contradictions and ethnic contradictions at that time, so they also wrote some works that exposed the darkness of reality and were rich in social content. However, in the more than one hundred years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the literary world has been relatively bleak. During this period, some work was done in the collation of literary works, such as the processing of the novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin", and the continuous development and improvement of the style of Zhanghui novels and legendary plays, which prepared certain conditions for the prosperity of literary creation after the middle of the year. As for literary creation, there are almost no more successful works. At that time, the most influential in poetry were the whitewashed reality represented by Yang Shiqi, Yang Rong, and Yang Pu, the Taige style of singing merit and praise, and the Chaling poetry school represented by Li Dongyang, who called himself patriarch Du Fu and pursued the rhythm of tone. In terms of drama, a group of court miscellaneous dramatists represented by Zhu Youyi appeared, and southern opera gradually formed a countercurrent of "taking Shiwen as the southern song". It's almost a blank in the realm of fiction writing.
In the Middle Period of the Ming Dynasty, during the Hongzhi (Xiaozong) and Zhengde (Wuzong) periods, the social situation underwent significant changes. At that time, the social economy experienced a considerable prosperity after a long period of recuperation. Agricultural production has further developed, and land annexation in the countryside has also been very drastic, from the emperor to the kings, xunqi, bureaucrats, gentry landlords, rich merchants and magnates, all rely on their privileges to annex a large number of land. After Emperor Wuzong ascended the throne, he built a large imperial palace and distributed a large area of land to nobles and eunuchs. Under the ingenuity of the feudal ruling class, the broad masses of peasants lost what little they had and were forced to flee. As a result, the problem of displaced persons became the most serious social problem in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, and large-scale uprisings of displaced people appeared one after another. But at the same time, the large number of displaced people into the city also provides a large number of laborers for the development of urban industry and commerce. At this time, there were new developments in handicraft production such as textiles, iron smelting, salt making, and shipbuilding. During the Jiajing and Wanli years, agriculture was not only stagnant but also gradually declining due to cruel feudal exploitation, while handicrafts and commerce developed very rapidly. At this time, not only the textile, mining, smelting and casting industries have developed greater, but also industries that were not well developed or did not exist before, such as papermaking, printing, sugar production, cotton ginning, etc., have also grown rapidly. Among them, the printing industry is particularly developed. The Jiajing and Wanli dynasties were the heyday of the Ming Dynasty. Nanjing during the Wanli period had become the center of a large number of novels, operas and color overprints. This created favorable conditions for the widespread circulation of novels, operas and other popular literature at that time.
The tools of production and production technology of handicrafts also generally improved and improved during this period, and gradually formed a professional division of labor between regions. The dominant position of official handicrafts has been replaced by the folk handicrafts. At that time, in addition to cottage industries, handicraft workshops also appeared. Some landlords, merchants and craftsmen made their fortunes by handicraft production, and in order to develop commodity production, they accumulated more wealth, and while expanding their production equipment, they tried to hire workers to produce. The Shi Fu of Shi Runze Tan Que Yu Yu In "Awakening to the Everlasting Word" is an example of the gradual rise from a small family craftsman to a workshop owner in more than ten years. In Suzhou, there were more than 10,000 weavers and dyeers who sold their labor to make a living. They must work in the workshop set up by the machine operator in order to receive a salary to survive. According to the "Wanli Shilu", "Wu Minsheng's teeth are the most annoying, there is very little permanent production, the family shaft and the household group, the machine household funds, the mechanic contributes, and the interdependence is long-lasting." "It is clear that the relationship between the mechanic and the machine owner is already the relationship between the wage laborer and the capitalist. What deserves our attention here is that the germination of capitalist relations of production has already appeared in some regions and in some industries, mainly in the textile industry along the southeast coast, which is a brand-new factor in the development of China's feudal economy. In line with the development of handicraft production, commerce became more prosperous and the circulation of commodities expanded. At that time, the production area was more developed, and it was also a distribution center for commodity circulation, such as Su, Song, Hangzhou, Jia and other places in the southeast, with the great development of handicraft industry, especially the textile industry, gradually became a bustling city. Jingdezhen in Jiangxi is both the center of porcelain production and the center of porcelain sales. In these cities where handicrafts and commerce flourished, the number of citizens was not only large, but also the political and economic power was constantly growing.
The ruling class during the Hongzhi and Zhengde periods was already very decayed and reactionary. Emperor Wuzong was a typical absurd emperor. In addition to extravagant sexual pleasures in the palace, he also went on parades, looting property and robbing women, so that "the city was in a state of rage, and the house was closed during the day." During the reign of Emperor Wuzong, the eunuch Liu Jin set up a factory in addition to the original Dongxi Second Factory, dispatched pawns, and stabbed four times, one person had an affair, the whole family was tired, and the neighbors sat down. The contradictions between the king and the central government within the ruling class are also very prominent. In the name of currying favor with Liu Jin, the King of Anhua claimed to "raise a special volunteer army and clear the side of the king", and in the next nine years, the king of Ning raised an army according to Jiangxi and claimed to take Nanjing directly, which was even more powerful. After Jiajing and Wanli, the political crisis continued to develop. At the beginning of Sejong's reign, although he issued some edicts on the so-called reform of Emperor Wuzong's maladministration, he soon "took back his life" under the attack of some magnates, and then the maladministrations re-emerged one after another. Sejong has not been a dynasty for many years and is superstitious about Taoism. At that time, cabinet strife was fierce, and reformers and powerful conservatives were fighting each other, creating a political chaos. In the more than twenty years that Yan Song's father and son have been in power, they have brought deep disasters to the people. Some upright officials were persecuted and killed one after another, and these situations were clearly reflected in several operas that appeared at the time. In the last years of Jiajing, there was already a situation in society in which the military and government were financially bad and financially bankrupt. During the years of Longqing and Wanli, the feudal rulers made a lot of efforts to alleviate social contradictions and save political crises. At that time, the reform faction represented by Zhang Juzheng appeared, and they adopted a series of reform measures, such as: clarifying the rule of officials, equalizing the number of conscripts, stopping mergers, clearing up land, checking the shortcomings of the border army, and consolidating national defense. These measures played a certain role in promoting the development of social production and consolidating feudal rule. But by the middle of the Wanli Dynasty, the reformers were gradually ostracized. At that time, the upper ruling clique headed by Shenzong was already decaying. Shenzong himself was an absurd and cruel emperor. His subordinates said that he was a man of wine and wealth, and that he could cure all four diseases, and that he could not be cured by medicine and stone. In order to satisfy the excessive splurge, he successively sent a large number of eunuchs to various places to serve as envoys for the ore salt tax, plundering everywhere, thus causing the people everywhere to revolt. The anti-tyrant tendencies that appeared in some of the works at this time were a reflection of the reality of the time. The absurd life of the upper ruling clique directly affects the bureaucrats and landlords in general, and also makes the whole social atmosphere tend to degenerate. At this time, a large number of pornographic depictions in some novels and operas were deeply influenced by this social atmosphere. In the late Wanli period, a struggle broke out within the feudal ruling clique between the Donglin Party and the evil party. During the apocalypse years, the evil party turned into an eunuch party, and the leader Wei Zhongxian controlled the government and killed a large number of Donglin party members, which made the struggle between the Donglin party and the eunuch party even more intense. The subsequent Revival Society, like the Donglin Party, was both a political group and a literary group, and it continued to struggle against the castration party until its death, becoming a major event in political life after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, and it had a considerable impact on the literary creation at that time, and many works in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties directly reflected this fierce party affair. During the Apocalypse and Chongzhen years, the landlords' exploitation of the peasants was also more severe, and the supreme ruler passed the "Liao Salary." In the name of "suppressing wages", "training wages", and so on, the people were expropriated and violent, causing the people to ruin their homes and go into exile everywhere. In addition, disasters such as water, drought, famine, and diseases continued to occur, which caused a great peasant uprising in full swing at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty also collapsed in the torrent of peasant revolution.
In the middle of the Hongzhi and Zhengde periods, the famous thinker Wang Shouren, proceeding from his will to save the political crisis of the landlord class, inherited and developed Lu Xiangshan's psychology, and completed the philosophical system of subjective idealism, which had a wide influence in the ideological circles at that time and in the future. Wang Shouren's "conscience" theory is premised on Lu Xiangshan's doctrine that "the heart is reason", which says that "there is nothing outside the heart, nothing outside the heart, no reason outside the heart, no righteousness outside the heart, and no goodness outside the heart" (Wang Wencheng Quanshu Wenlu and Wang Chunfu II). Affirm "the conscience of my heart, there is no one who does not know himself." He also explains: "The so-called mind of right and wrong, is possessed by all, and those who do not need to be learned have it, and those who do not have to worry about it are also obtained" (Wenlu Shu Zhu Shouqian). Therefore, as long as we cancel our desires and seek our hearts, we can attain this conscience and attain the so-called state of All-That-Is. This doctrine is obviously extremely idealistic, and its intentions are clear. If people all practiced this doctrine, they would all become people who would keep to themselves, and the feudal order would be consolidated. Therefore, in its essence, like the objective idealistic Cheng Zhu Lixue, it serves the interests of the feudal ruling class. However, it should also be noted that there is a contradiction between them, and the views of "mind is reason" in Wang Shouren's philosophy and "sex is reason" in Cheng Zhu's philosophy have their opposite sides. Wang Shouren objected to the dogmas of Rigaku that bound human nature, saying, "The study of saints is not such a binding pain, nor is it the appearance of Taoism in makeup" (2000). Because of this, Wang Xue had a certain role in shaking the dogmatic rule of Cheng Zhu Lixue for a long time. During the years of Jiajing and Wanli, with the new economic development and changes, the left wing of Wang Xue, represented by Wang Geng, also appeared in the ideological circles, and they developed the positive factors of anti-Taoism in Wang Shouren's philosophy, full of rebellious spirit. Wang Geng believes that "conscience" is easy and not mysterious. It is also believed that "the way of the saints is no different from the daily use of the people, and all those who are different are called heretics, and the daily use of the people is the rule of the saints" (Huang Zongxi's "Case of Ming Confucianism" and "Quotations of the Heart"). In the thinking of Li Zhen, a late representative of the Wang Xue Left, there was already a materialist element in the thought, and he was called "heretical" by the people of the time. In his important work, Book Burning, he violently attacked feudal etiquette, arguing that dressing and eating was the Tao, which was the most basic natural requirement of life; therefore, the "Tao" did not lie in abstinence, but in satisfying people's needs and pursuing material pleasures. He also boldly attacked Confucianism, proposing that "the right and wrong of man are initially adeterminated; the non-human beings are also inconclusive." If there is no amorphous quality, then this is the other, and the breeding is not harmful; if there is no inconclusive, it is this and not the other, and it is parallel and not contradictory", so "taking Confucius's right and wrong as right and wrong, there is no right and wrong ear" (Li Zhen's "Li Shi's Collection of Books and Ji Chuan's General Present Theory"). Although this understanding of right and wrong is in danger of falling into subjective idealism and relativism, it is mainly aimed at the view that the words of the saints are the supreme of all worlds, and therefore has its great progressiveness. He also despised the Six Classics, the Analects, and Mencius, saying that they were "the supreme theories of all ages," mocking those false Taoism as "two horses with a real name and a profit" and "a woman who can write and not be able to use martial arts," and describing some so-called "saints" and "mountain people" as "merchants" or "wearing pipes" who deceive the world and steal fame. In the evaluation of literature, it also contradicts the traditional views of its predecessors and attaches importance to the literary value of novels and operas. Comparing some excellent opera novels with Qin Hanwen and Six Dynasties poems, they are called ancient and modern Zhiwen, and even call "Water Margin" fans "angry works" and "West Chamber" "chemical literature". This progressive philosophical thought, on the one hand, greatly shocked the feudal rulers and aroused their hatred; at the same time, it had a positive impact on the intellectual and literary circles of the time.
Beginning in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, literary creation began to change, especially after Jiajing and Wanli, with the development and change of political, economic and philosophical trends, a new situation emerged in literary creation. At this time, popular literature such as opera and novels was very closely related to reality, and many of them directly reflected the life of the citizens at that time and their ideological feelings, expressed the advanced ideas of the times, and became the spiritual food for entertainment and self-education of the broad masses of the people, especially the citizens, and thus won the active support of the broad masses and progressive literati. Moreover, the forms of opera and novels were free and lively than those of orthodox poetry, and more suitable for reflecting the rich and complex life of that time, especially the popular and shallow language, which was easily accepted by the broad masses; in addition, the unprecedented development of printing at this time provided favorable conditions for their wide circulation. Therefore, the creation of popular literature such as opera and novels after the middle period has further achieved brilliant achievements on the basis of previous achievements. At that time, in terms of opera, there was an excellent miscellaneous dramatist Xu Wei. Through historical themes, his work "Four Voices of Apes" violently attacked the ugliness and darkness of the society at that time, despised the traditional feudal etiquette and expressed the author's ideas of equality between men and women and women's liberation, representing the achievements of Ming Dynasty miscellaneous drama creation. There are two factions in the legend: the Wujiang faction represented by Shen Jing and the Linchuan faction represented by Tang Xianzu. Shen Jing and his contemporaries, although their achievements in creation are generally not high, but they have made certain contributions to the collation of the music of Kunqu opera, one of the most widely circulated and influential singing voices in the middle of the middle and the middle leaves, and have a great influence on the drama world. Tang Xianzu is the best legendary writer in China, he is deeply influenced by Wang Xue's leftists, and his masterpiece "Peony Pavilion" is an excellent work of romanticism in the history of Chinese opera. It enthusiastically celebrates the demands of opposing feudal etiquette and pursuing love and happiness; at the same time, to a certain extent, it embodies the spirit of the times of individual liberation. In addition, there were some excellent theatrical works in this period, such as "The Book of the Sword", "The Tale of mingfeng", "The Record of Huan Sha", etc., which directly or indirectly reflected the sharp political struggles at that time.
In terms of novels, there have been many long and short novels, among which the earliest and most influential is "Journey to the West", which is a summary of the stories of journey to the West in history, and at the same time is the genius creation of Wu Cheng'en, which is an outstanding romantic mythological novel in China. In its fantasy plot, deeply realistic content is intertwined. The work satirizes and attacks the darkness of reality, expressing the author's resentment of the decadent politics of the time and his own ideals. After "Journey to the West", the first literati original novel with the theme of describing family life appeared, "Jin Ping Mei". Its appearance is related to the degeneration of the social atmosphere after the middle period, and although there are serious shortcomings in the ideological content of the work, at that time, the feudal ruling class, from the highest rulers, princes and nobles, civil and military officials at all levels, down to the landlords, bullies, and city scoundrels, all kinds of evil and decadent and lascivious life were more comprehensively reflected in it. In addition, in terms of novels, there are historical interpretations such as Feng Menglong's "New Chronicles of the Nations", heroic legends such as "Sui Historical Relics", "Biography of Heroic Martyrs", "Biography of northern Song Dynasty", and "Fengshen Yanyi" and other divine and demonic novels. The ideological content of these novels is very complex, and their emergence is inseparable from the social environment after the middle of the period, especially the brutality of the ruling clique and the rule of secret agents, and they have a great influence on the broad masses. In terms of short stories, there are pseudo-scripts such as "Three Words" compiled by Feng Menglong and "Second Beat" by Ling Maochu. The economic, cultural, and ideological complexities of the post-middle period are more comprehensively reflected in these fictional books. Among them, the pseudo-script in the "Three Words" represents the achievements of the short stories of the Ming Dynasty. In terms of folk literature, there has also been a new phenomenon of collecting and sorting out folk songs, and Feng Menglong has compiled folk song collections such as "Mountain Song" and "Hanging Branches". The sanqu that appeared during this period had a new development on the basis of the yuan dynasty sanqu, but the ideological content was relatively negative, and only Chen Duo, Feng Weimin, Xue Yandao and others were realistic writers in the creation of sanqu.
In terms of poetry, the earliest appearance was the Seven Sons Retro Movement. Although these retro schools have certain positive significance in opposing the empty outline, floating panism, and the bad influence of the Eight Strands of Literature in the Taige style, they advocate that "the literature must be Qin and Han, and the poetry must be prosperous and Tang", taking the imitation of the ancients as a capable thing, and the essence is still a formalism. Gui Youguang and other Tang and Song factions first rose up against the retro faction, and the public security faction of the Three Yuans dealt a heavy blow to the retro faction. They put forward the idea of opposing the ancient and the modern, opposing the imitation of the ancients, and that literature should be qualitative, capable of being lyrical, and developing what had not been developed before. These claims were positive at the time. However, their creative achievements are not great. Although the essays of the late Ming Dynasty and some poems expressing patriotic ideas in the late Ming Dynasty deserve our attention, their achievements cannot be regarded as very high.
