Yan Guangmin Its Ideological

Since the early years of the Republic of China, researchers have paid close attention to the period of the last years of the Ming Dynasty and the early years of the Qing Dynasty. It is not only an era of the country being in turmoil, the national contradictions becoming increasingly acute and the national consciousness surging up, but also one of dynamic thinkers and accomplished masters; what is more, it is an age of reflection. Having taken Yan Guangmin, the descendant of Yan Hui, as the object of study against this historical background, this thesis tries to reveal the significant influence of the times over the individual by investigating his family background, his personal experiences and his neo-Confucianism thoughts.Being a man of letters with his own thoughts, Yan Guangmin was among the descendants of the ancient sages who held official posts in the Qing Dynasty and accepted the royal favor bestowed on them. However, he was also a descendant of the Ming Dynasty survivors who had intense national consciousness and bore in mind the national enmity and family hatred. Looking up to those courageous and unyielding martyrs who died heroically in the resistance against the Qing troops, he maintained close contact with the Ming survivors and formed profound friendship with some of them. Deeply affected by Confucianism, he had always had great ambitions "to manage state affairs and put the country in order". On the one hand, it was really a hard choice for him to hold official post in the early years of the Qing dynasty, when the national contradictions were so acute; on the other hand, he had to endure both the suppression and distrust against the Han officials from the Qing court, and the dark corruption and mutual deception in the bureaucratical officialdom. Under the circumstances, Yan Guangmin found his dream shattered. He first angrily denounced the society and exposed the reality in its true colors, and then, being mentally depressed, he began to have an idea in his mind that he should retire to his native village and live in seclusion. Yan Guangmin had original view towards the social problems at that time. He was against the dominant view that the scholars then held popularly to pay supreme tribute to Zhu Xi's philosophy while banning all about Wang Fuzhi's thoughts. Being strongly against the blind worship towards the neo-Confucianism set by the Chengs and Zhu Xi, he raised an objection to Zhu Xi's philosophy from the perspective of scholarly research. It is of progressive significance for him to object to adopting the Four Books annotated by Zhu Xi as the assigned books for the imperial civil examinations.This thesis has made full use of the extant writings of Yan Guangmin and some other rare materials to explore a field not dealt with by other researchers as thoroughly as possible. The process of studying his life and thoughts is actually at the same time the one to develop and utilize the valuable historical documents, which is also one of the major intentions when this theme was selected in the beginning.