During the Wanli dynasty, Li Yan devoted himself to reading and governing, admired Wang Yangming's "heart study", criticized Confucian classics, and was hailed as the pioneer of the Enlightenment movement against feudal absolutism, and some people said that he was "China's first thought criminal", his ideas were regarded as heretics by people at that time, and considered to be deviant, today, we will approach Li Yan and his so-called "heretical" ideas together.
Li Zhen was a native of Jinjiang, Quanzhou (present-day Fujian), known as Zhuo wu, and a Member of the Hui ethnic group. He was born into a merchant family, his original surname was Lin, and he later changed his surname to Li. Li Yan has been stubborn since childhood, and is good at independent thinking, has his own ideas in everything, and will not follow the clouds, so he will not take the set of traditional Confucian concepts as a classic and be bound by it.
When Li Yan was 26 years old, he participated in the township examination and became an official holding the imperial court. In his more than 20 years of eunuch career, he heard and witnessed all kinds of darkness in the official field, as well as the reality of the people's anti-mutiny and the harassment of the coast by the Wokou, and deeply felt that the decay and decline within the Ming Dynasty were also incompatible with those who were devious to Confucianism and false Taoism, so he would not be promoted and reused.
Li Yan's last official position was as the prefect of Yao'an County, Yunnan. At that time, Yao An not only lagged behind the Central Plains economically, but also had a fierce people's customs and chaotic social order. After Li Yan took office, he sorted out the administration of officials, went deep among the people to understand the people's feelings, and carried out drastic reforms. He spent three years in Yao'an, often micro-service visits, and saw that some people had financial difficulties, and he would generously donate money and help each other. When the peasants encounter red and white happy events, they will also ask the prefect for words, and Li Yan will give away the pen and book, so people do not regard him as a master, but respectfully call him "Sir", obviously, Li Yan prefers such a title. As a wise man with a full belly, Li Yan preferred to invite the literati and inkers, talk about the scriptures, and write poems, such as "The Record of the Bright Palace" and "The Saying of Longshan", which he composed during Yao An's tenure. At the same time, Li Zi also recruited disciples and taught them knowledge.
Li Yan was a clean and honest official, and was deeply loved by the local people, and when he left office, "only a few books were in his pocket, the soldiers and people covered the road to send each other, and the carriages and horses could not advance." However, such a good official and Qing official was difficult to tolerate in the official place, and Li Zan's character and learning were jealous of Wang Ning, the governor of Yunnan at the time, which eventually led to direct conflict. He resigned indignantly before his three-year term expired, and has not re-entered the official arena ever since.
Deeply influenced by Wang Shouren and the Taizhou School, Li Yan had a rebellious consciousness of pursuing individual freedom and liberation in his bones, which was contrary to mainstream Confucianism at the time and was not accepted. After resigning from office, Li Yan openly presented himself as a "heretic", opposed etiquette, attacked Taoism, and opposed the use of Confucius's right and wrong as a criterion for judging, becoming the first person in Chinese history to openly raise the anti-Confucius banner. He also put forward the view that there is no difference between heavenly reason and human desire, advocating that "dressing and eating is human ethics and physics", and does not hide the utilitarian essence of morality. He criticized the Daoists' false teachings of "preserving heavenly reason and destroying people's desires" and denounced them as "yang is Taoism, yin is rich, being obeyed as a Confucian, and behaving like a dog", and is a duplicitous and hypocrite who "talks about morality and has high officials in mind, and aspires to great wealth." He said that he was at odds with false Taoism.
Li Yan's birth not only had a great impact on the ideological circles at that time, but also had a major impact even in later generations. His philosophical ideas are an evolution of the psychology of Wang Shouren and Wang Qi, but their originality is very obvious. His main contribution was his skepticism and criticism of certain aspects of feudal orthodoxy. The theoretical basis for this skepticism and criticism is his "Theory of the Child's Heart".
Li Yan's early view of nature had a materialist tendency, believing that all things in heaven and earth were born of yin and yang and two qi, opposing Cheng Zhu Lixue's views that "reason comes before qi" and "reason can be angry", believing that the world is "only yin and yang and two qi" and that "all things under the heavens are born of two, not born of one", and later he also accepted the Zen view, believing that "all laws are in one's own mind", and that the mountains and rivers and the earth are one with the original essence of qingjing. Therefore, Li Zhen's learning persuasion was attached to the "study of the heart", and Wang Shouren's "conscience theory" was developed into the "childlike heart theory".
He said: "The husband and childlike heart, the absolute innocence, the original heart of the first thought." If you lose your childlike heart, you lose your true heart; If you lose your true heart, you lose your real person. Man, not the truth, is no longer the beginning. The virgin, the beginning of the heart also. The so-called "true heart" is what ordinary people call true intentions, which is for false intentions. The object of Criticism li yan was those pseudo-Taoists at that time who "talked about morality but had high officials in mind" and "were served as confucians and elegant, and behaved like dogs." He also criticized the imperial examination system at that time, when the main content of the imperial examination was the eight-strand text, which claimed to be "making a speech on behalf of the saints", but in fact it was a piece of falsehood and empty words. Li Yan went on to extend his criticism to the whole of Taoism, saying that the so-called classics were nothing more than those pedantic disciples, who did not understand or understand, who memorized the teachings of Confucius and Meng, with a head and no tail, and whose names were written randomly into the book as they saw. Later readers, unable to examine the truth, said that they came from the mouths of the saints and regarded them as scriptures that could not be questioned in the slightest. In fact, most of them are not the words of saints; even if they come from the mouths of saints, they are only issued for specific problems, just like medicines issued by doctors at any time due to illness, how can such temporary prescriptions be regarded as the unchangeable truth of the world? But Li Zan's statement was simply a big rebellion at the time.
Li Yan denied the truth of the Confucian classics and proposed to use the "words of the child's heart" as the criterion, that is, a person makes independent judgments based on his initial reaction to things. He believes that the "childlike words" are the most reliable, and such "words" may be inconsistent with Kong Qiu, but that is irrelevant. He said that a person is born with the integrity of a person, and does not need Confucius to be sufficient. If there was no Confucius through the ages, wouldn't man be a man? Wang Yangming only said that "knowing good and knowing evil is conscience", and the conscience he said is limited to the judgment of good and evil, Li Yan's "childlike heart" is not subject to this restriction, and the initiative that mortals are born with is within the scope of "childlike heart". According to what he said, only when a person speaks according to his "childlike heart" is what he says is the truth; according to his "childlike heart", what he does is the real thing; and if he lives according to the "childlike heart", this person is a real person. This is the development of Li Zhen's theory of Wang Shouren's "conscience". Li Zhen's "Theory of The Childlike Heart" had a great influence, and it not only became the theoretical basis for his criticism of Taoism, but also became a new literary insight, that is, the text should flow naturally from the heart.
Li Zhen also attached great importance to the status of novels and operas, calling the "Records of the Western Chamber" and "Water Margin" "Ancient and Modern Zhiwen" and mentioning them together with the Six Classics. He opposed retro imitation and advocated that creation must express what has been seen. In his later years, Li Yan loved historiography, and wrote the "Collection of Books" based on the history of successive dynasties, and also extensively searched for Ming historical materials and wrote the "Continuing Books", all of which were printed and published, breaking some historical views since the Han, Tang, and Song dynasties.
In the feudal era, the emphasis on agriculture and suppression of commerce was the economic policy of the landlord class, and it was also the main tactic of the landlord class and the merchant class struggle. The attitude of the merchant class is the beginning of the decline of the landlord class, and the selfishness or heavy profits are the characteristics of the merchants, so Li Zhen's defense of "private" and "profit" is the sign of the merchant's rise.
At the same time, Li Zhen advocated equality between men and women and opposed discrimination against women. In feudal society, the status of women is very low, women are inferior to men, "women see short" means that women do not have far-sighted insights, and Li Yan completely denied this, but also advocated marriage autonomy, praising Zhuo Wenjun and Sima Xiangru for loving each other as "corresponding to the same voice and seeking the same breath". He even made an exception to recruit female disciples when he was lecturing at Huang An. Li Yan's view of women is also one of the signs that the feudal traditional concept has begun to decline.
Li Yan's criticism of traditional secular views revealed many progressive ideas that contradicted feudal orthodoxy. Therefore, the ming rulers regarded Li Zhen as a "thought prisoner", and his doctrine was regarded as a flood beast of "hereticality" and "non-holy inability" and destroyed it.
In the 30th year of the Wanli Dynasty, zhang Xiangda of the Ministry of Rites adhered to the will of the first assistant Shen Andi shen, saying: "Li Zhen was an official in his old age, cut his hair in his later years, and recently engraved books such as "Collected Books", "Burning Books", and "Zhuo Wu Dade" and other books that were popular in the sea, confusing people's hearts" "Taking Qin Shi Huang as an emperor throughout the ages, taking Confucius's right and wrong as insufficient evidence, crazy and rebellious, not easy to enumerate." Emperor Shenzong arrested Li Yan in Tongzhou on trumped-up charges of "daring to advocate chaos and slandering the people" and burned his writings.
Li Zan committed suicide with a razor in prison, ending his life at the age of 76, while his thoughts were immortal.