Ming Dynasty: Renaissance of Chinese Literature & Governance
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In 1370 CE the Ming reintroduced the traditional civil service examination system, which had been an essential path of social progression in pre-Mongol China and which would continue right into the 20th century CE. The Ming introduced a geographical quota system so that the richer regions did not, as was previously the case, dominate all the positions in the civil service. Meanwhile, the increase in the number of schools meant children with parents who could not afford private tuition could receive the essential education necessary to prepare for the exams. Success in these examinations required the study of Chinese classic literature which saw a revival in Confucianism after the Yuan.
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There were several developments in Chinese literature during the Ming. Thanks to better printing presses, more books were printed than ever before, volumes were illustrated using woodblock prints to make them more attractive, and literature was itself made more accessible by being written in the vernacular language. There were books on how to live a good life, handbooks of etiquette, commentaries on classic texts, military treatises, notes for exam preparation, collections of woodblock prints, anthologies of poems, erotic works, and of course, fiction. Shuihuzhuan (about a group of well-meaning bandits), Xiyouji (about a priest who journeys to India to collect Buddhist scriptures), and Jin Ping Mei (a risqué satire of Ming government examining the life of a wealthy merchant) were all famous novels written in the vernacular during the Ming dynasty. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo yanyi), written in the 14th or 15th century CE and often attributed to Luo Guanzhong, remains to this day one of the most popular of all Chinese novels with its fantastic tales interwoven with historical figures during the fall of the Han dynasty and the beginning of the Three Kingdoms Period.
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Scripts of the plays which travelling troupes performed were another popular source of reading. One of the most popular of all plays was The Peony Pavilion by Tang Xianzu (1550-1616 CE). Written in 1598 CE, it tells the story of a young woman who falls in love with a young man she only meets in dreams. The girl dies of loneliness and buries a portrait of herself in her garden. The young man of the dream then buys the house and finds the portrait, falls in love, and brings the girl back to life through the strength of his affections.
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The Yongle Dadian was created during the reign of Emperor Yongle, a massive encyclopedia of all important Chinese literary works that had survived up to that point. The work, taking up over 22,000 chapters, was too large to be printed and, unfortunately, most of the original was lost in the strife at the end of Ming dynasty and that of a copy in a fire during the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901 CE). Around 800 chapters of the encyclopedia do still exist in various libraries outside of China.
