A biographical outlineFootnote ⁶

Li Yuanyang, courtesy name Renfu 仁甫, was born to a scholarly family native to the Dali 大理 region. Since his family clan had lived for generations at the foot of the Cangshan Mountain 蒼山, which is famous for its eighteen streams, he also gave himself the art name Zhongxi 中溪 (lit. the Middle Stream). It is said that his forefathers were migrants from Qiantang 錢塘, Zhejiang province, and that one of them once took office in the Dali region during the Mongol Yuan dynasty and settled his family down here for his fondness for Dali's beautiful mountains and waters.

Li Yuanyang obtained his jinshi degree in the year 1526, and was then selected to be a shujishi 庶吉士Footnote ⁷ in the Hanlin Academy. Yet, shortly afterwards he offended an imperious official and was therefore dispatched out of the capital. Coincidentally, his mother passed away at this time, so he returned to hometown to undertake the funeral rituals. After the mourning obligation was completed, he was appointed magistrate of Jiangyin 江陰 county, Jiangsu province, and sojourned there for two years. Li Yuanyang was memorialized for his benevolent rule in Jiangyin. For example, he trained navies and reinforced fortresses to eliminate the threats of pirates; he solved legal cases and released the innocent people; he revealed the guilt of crafty men and punished them; and he negotiated with the strict provincial governor attempting to cut taxes for the populace. Consequently, local people constructed a shrine in honor of him and inscribed his good deeds into stele.

Perhaps because of his recognized political ability, Li Yuanyang was called back to the capital. At first, he worked at the Ministry of Revenue, and later he was appointed as an investigating censor. Upright, honest and straightforward as he had always been, he fearlessly criticized the Jiajing 嘉靖 Emperor's (1507–1567, r. 1521–1567) misconducts in dealing with state affairs and recruiting officials. Once again, he was sent away from the court. This time, the destination was Fujian where he was assigned to inspect local politics. Impeaching corrupt officials, supervising the imperial examination and selecting outstanding talents, he proved to be successful in fulfilling his duty.

When the Jiajing Emperor planned to visit Chengtian 承天 (present-day Zhongxiang 鍾祥 county, Hubei province), Li Yuanyang submitted an memorial trying to prevent this. The emperor was enraged, causing anxiety and panic among the advisor officials. However, Li Yuanyang just behaved at ease as if nothing had happened and was therefore praised as a “real censor”. His protest was in vain, and he reluctantly became a member of the retinue escorting the imperial tour. On the way, learning that the grand secretary had recruited palace officials exclusively from the wealthy people of Jiangnan, Li immediately submitted a memorial to impeach him. On arrival in Chengtian, he reported to the emperor once again, but received no responses.

At this juncture, the position of prefect of Jingzhou was vacant. Considering the importance of Jingzhou – which is a port city in middle reaches of the Yangzi River and also located at the center of the Ming's territory, and Li's administrative competence, the central government moved him to that position. It was during his appointment there that he met the young and promising Zhang Juzheng. Li had numerous benevolent conducts in Jingzhou as well. The most notable one was his constructing water facilities. He donated his personal salary to the project of drilling wells and supplying drinking water to local people. He resolutely took up the tough mission of building a dyke on the side of the Yangzi River, which his colleagues had failed to complete several times, and fulfilled it on time, protecting the surrounding prefectures and counties from floods. To express their gratitude, local people named the wells and dyke after “the Revered Mr. Li” (Li Gong 李公). And his colleague even compared his feat to that of the legendry king Yu the Great (Da Yu 大禹), who was said to have controlled catastrophic floods and saved the lives of millions of people.

Taking the opportunity of returning home to manage his father's funeral rituals, Li Yuanyang withdrew from officialdom, probably because he had been fed up with the ups and downs of the official life and wishes to enjoy a quiet retirement – just as numerous Chinese scholars did. Afterwards, he started a reclusive life in the Dali region for the rest of his lifetime, which spanned around forty years. He lived in a peaceful and thrifty way, but was generous in helping those in need and donating to public welfare, such as building roads, bridges, dykes, pagodas, and temples. Also, he had a wide interest in various subjects of history, literature, Confucian classics and Buddhist doctrines, and studied diligently to explore the true meaning of life. He exchanged knowledge with erudite scholars and monks, the most prominent one of whom was Yang Shen 楊慎 (1488－1559), a Confucian scholar-official who was then in his banishment in Yunnan. A genuine, gentle, kind and self-cultivated senior, Li Yuanyang was deeply revered by his fellow villagers and extolled as a great man who had grasped the Dao 道 (the Way). He enjoyed a long life and died peacefully at the age of eighty-four sui.

Li Yuanyang's writings were compiled and printed with the assistance of Liu Wei 劉維, an investigating censor then inspecting local politics in Yunnan, and Hu Xi 胡僖, a Zhejiang-born scholar-official who was taking office in Yunnan. A native of Jingzhou, Liu Wei met Li, the then prefect, in his childhood and was deeply impressed by Li's benevolence. Almost forty years had passed when Liu met with Li again, this time in his monitoring tour in Yunnan. In great admiration for Li, Liu Wei frequently visited his residence and discussed with him on the way of administering the state. Also, Liu proposed compiling and printing Li's works and Li happily accepted the suggestion. Then, Liu, together with several colleagues of his, carried out the task. Finally, Li's works came into print under the title Zhongxi Li Xiansheng Ji 中溪李先生集 (The Collected Works of Mr. Li Zhongxi) or Zhongxi Huigao 中溪彙稿 (The Compiled Manuscripts of Zhongxi), with a preface by Liu Wei and a postscript by Hu Xi. During the early Republican time, this collection was reprinted by the Yunnan native scholars Li Genyuan 李根源 (1879–1965), Shi Ruqin 施汝欽 and Zhao Fan 趙藩 (1851–1927), and was incorporated into a huge cultural project of the Yunnan Congshu 雲南叢書 (Book Series on Yunnan).Footnote ⁸

Yunnan native things and Chinese traditions

Although none of the original sources mentioned above reveals that Li Yuanyang belongs to the Bai 白 ethnic minority and Li himself said nothing on this matter, modern Chinese scholars are inclined to classify him into the Bai writers group.Footnote ⁹ Both the formation of the Bai people and the identification of the Bai nationality are rather complex issues, and it is almost impossible to identify Li's ethnic identity simply based on the limited records of his life. Therefore, it would be safer to say that he is a Yunnan, or Dali to be more specific, native. One conjecture is that his ancestors did really immigrate into Yunnan from Jiangnan, as stated in his biography, and if so, he might be a Han-Chinese descendant. However, it is equally possible that he was actually of Yunnan origin, because many Bai individuals denied their ethnicity and declared that they were descendants of Han military immigrants from Nanjing, in order to prove that they had a Han root and were thus advanced, cultured and distinguished from the neighboring indigens, and this might also be applicable to the statement in Li's biography.

Either case could manifest the mixture of Chinese culture and the indigenousness, which thereby creates a new Yunnanese identity. Previous studies have shown that the influx of immigrants throughout the Ming period dramatically changed the ethnic structure of Yunnan, even making the Han population overwhelming the indigens in urban regions. Alongside the sinicization of indigenous communities, those immigrants were simultaneously indigenized through marrying local women, taking local languages, and following local customs and lifestyle. The interaction of sinicization and indigenization – the two sides of one process – eventually generated a group of people who share the same identity: the Yunnanese, also being a proportion of the Chinese.Footnote ¹⁰ As for the Bai minorities, having been acculturated to the Chinese way of life for a long period of time, many of them were regarded as physically and culturally indistinctive.Footnote ¹¹ They had become the Yunnanese people as well. Li Yuanyang, whether a Han descendent or a native Bai, did possess his Yunnanese identity and Chinese identity. He has been totally assimilated into the Chines literati class, and as we see from his life experiences described above, his behaviors and deeds reveal that he held nearly all the virtues that an exemplary Chinese scholar-official would have.

Certain Bai, or Yunnan native, features are still detectable on the recognized “Baizu writers” of the early Ming time. Yang Fu 楊黼 (ca. 1370–1450), a Dali indigenous poet and recluse, is a representative of them.Footnote ¹² He wrote poems in the Bowen 僰文 script and in the traditional Bai poetic style – the shanhua ti 山花體 (the shanhua style).Footnote ¹³ According to Li Yuanyang's record, he once composed several thousand poems of this category. Yet, the most famous one still surviving today is entitled “Ciji shanhua: Yong Cang Er jing” 詞記山花 詠蒼洱境 (“A lyric in the shanhua style: Chanting the scenery of Cangshan Mountain and Erhai Lake”).Footnote ¹⁴ Besides Yang Fu's poetry, the shanhua style is mostly utilized in folk song composition. In contrast, it is no longer adopted by the Yunnanese literary elites from the mid-Ming onwards, including Li Yuanyang, whose works are all written in the standard classical Chinese language and style.

Still, what can embody Li's Yunnan native identity is perhaps his passion for writing about the local scenery, product and legend. He notices some geographical features of the Cangshan Mountain and Erhai Lake 洱海. The mountain comprises nineteen peaks from where waterfalls drop. The water then flows through valleys between every two adjacent peaks, forming eighteen streams in total. At the turn of summer and autumn, clouds like jade strips surround the mountain's waist, making a marvelous scene. Thus, a poet writes that it is as if God of Heaven presents a jade belt to the mountain deity. On the east bank of the Yeyu 葉榆 River (also named the Xi'er 西洱 River), there is a watershed cliff as if being scratched by a huge axe. Under the cliff water is evidently separated: to the south is the river water and to the north the lake water. Because of the different salinity of water, the river fish would never swim to the lake and the lake fish never to the river, just returning to their respective field at this junction.

As for the local product, Li Yuanyang in particular records that snow accumulates at the top of Cangshan Mountain and does not melt even in the fifth lunar month, thus local people mix it with honey to make a kind of tasty “ice cream”. He also mentions the Dali stone, a type of marble exploited from Cangshan Mountain and named after Dali for its wide availability here. The stone is of white substance with the black grain, and after being sliced and polished, it is usually manufactured into screens, which thereby have the form of mountains, forests and clouds. In addition, several fishes specific to Erhai or Yeyu and treasured for their delicious meat are noted in his writings as well.

When introducing a scenic spot, Li always refers to relevant local legends. For example, he includes at least three myths regarding the Erhai Lake in an essay on this water. The first one, to the northwest of the lake, there is a mountain named Niaodiao shan 鳥弔山 (The Birds-mourning Mountain), on which a variety of birds gather in flocks during the eighth or ninth lunar month of the year, because according to a tale, phoenix once died here and other birds come to mourn for it. The second one, on one of the three islands in the lake, there is a rock inscribed with vermilion characters in ancient seal script. The legend tells that a long time ago, Rakshasha Luocha promised to present Bodhisattva Guanyin with a piece of land the size his jiasha kasaya could cover, and Guanyin let the demon sign a contract as evidence of his word; then Guanyin used divine power to cover all Luocha's land with his jiasha and subdued the demon. Local elders believed that the vermilion script in the rock is exactly the contract between Guanyin and Luocha. The third one, it is said that although the evil dragon was eliminated by Guanyin, its fellows still hid in holes on the east shore of the lake and made storms and huge tides to sink boats. One day a saint monk arrived on the shore and build a temple there in order to suppress the monsters. He frequently chanted sutras in the temple, and one night, there was suddenly a loud sound and afterwards hundreds of boys came up to him, saying, “You, the Master, are destroying our homes when staying here, making us really uneasy. Please move to somewhere else.” The monk righteously replied, “This is the right place to preach Buddhist dharma, so why cannot I stay here?” Then, the boys disappeared. The next day, hundreds of dead pythons were found floating on water under the temple, and thenceforth, the lake is safe for a voyage.

Li Yuanyang did love and take pride in his reclusive life in Dali, remarking that living here surrounded by attracting natural scenes would relieve one's enthusiasm for pursuing fame and wealth. He also particularly notes the pleasant climate of Dali, which cannot be found in other places. It only gets cool but not cold in winter, and it only gets warm but not hot in summer – it is just like in spring all year round.Footnote ¹⁵ He might not be the first, nor the only, literary man who wrote about the localities of Yunnan, but he is surely distinguished by his extensive works, vivid depiction, and wholehearted devotion. It seems that he was acting as a spokesman for his homeland, with his writings creating a sense of belonging to Yunnan.

At the same time, Li never forgets to highlight the Chinese traditions by setting his local description into the Chinese cultural context, making his writings of local things full of Chinese elements. When writing about the Cangshan Mountain, he cites the historical records of Xu Han Shu 續漢書 (A Sequel to the Book of Han) and Jiu Tang Shu 舊唐書 (The Old Book of Tang). Annotations to the former compare Cangshan with Fufeng 扶風 and Taiyi 太乙, both of which are located in Shaanxi province and are prestigious mountains in Chinese culture, while the latter accounts that during the Zhenyuan 貞元 reign (785–805), the Tang Empire and the Nanzhao Kingdom once held a ceremony to form an alliance at the foot of Cangshan. After writing that shrines on the northwest coast of the Yeyu River are dedicated to a water deity who has a bull's head and human body, he quotes from the Shan Hai Jing 山海經 (Classic of Mountains and Seas), a Chinese classic text of legendary geography and creatures, that “in the mountain of the west wilderness there is a god with a beast's face and human body”, and concludes that such depiction in Shan Hai Jing is probably directed at the Yeyu River deity. Li also refers to literary allusions, stories and anecdotes regarding famous Chinese figures and their relationship with Yunnan. In his writing of the Dali stone, he particularly mentions that this type of precious stone was treasured by the Tang poets Bai Juyi 白居易 (772–846) and Li Deyu 李德裕 (787–850) and housed in their villas in Luoyang. He cites the literary masterpiece “Shudu fu” 蜀都賦 (“the Shu capital rhapsody”) by Zuo Si 左思 (ca. 250–305) which states that Zhuge Liang 諸葛亮 (181–234) once led the Shu Han army to fight on the south bank of the Yeyu River during his expedition to Nanzhong 南中 (approximately in present Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces). Also, he tells that the Emperor Wu of Wei (i.e. Cao Cao 曹操, 155–220) listed fish from Yunnan lakes on his menu and was aware that they are especially delicious in winter.Footnote ¹⁶

The description of Yunnan native things within the framework of Chinese traditions can be widely observed in Li Yuanyang's works. In this way, he incorporates his writings of Yunnan into the Chinese literature tradition. By referring to renowned figures and events in Chinese history, he is very likely to imply that Yunnan has had close connection with China proper for a long period of time, and that Yunnan's native culture forms part of the great Chinese civilization. He insists that Yunnan was, is and should be an integral part of the Chinese territory, and therefore he justifies the incorporation and sinicization of Yunnan by the Ming dynasty.

The emphasis of Yunnan's belonging to China

Throughout his lifetime, Yang Fu refused to participate in the imperial examination and never entered the Ming bureaucracy. Therefore, he was classified into the “yinyi” 隱逸 (recluses) category in the official history Ming Shi 明史 (The History of Ming). His denial of cooperating with the Ming authority is ascribed to his loyalty to the previous Duan family, who were in charge of Dali during the Mongol rule. It is said that his father Yang Bao 楊保 and uncle Yang Ming 楊名 were both Duan subjects and died for their state.Footnote ¹⁷ As we know, loyalty is one of the most admirable virtues in Chinese cultural contexts. Yang Fu, equipped with Chinese learnings, did possess such a merit. However, he was loyal to the Duan, rather than the Ming. What's more, he is by no means the sole case. A noticeable number of Bai elites in Dali even strove to safeguard their Bai identity in protest against the Ming invasion. With a strong national awareness, they wrote their own history in their own language – the Bowen script, in order to prove that the Dali area had been highly civilized even before the Ming's “civilizing” project, which only turned out to be an excuse for its invasion.Footnote ¹⁸

By sharp contrast, Li Yuanyang holds opposite political stance as he is happy to be a Chinese Ming subject and generally appreciates the Ming's incorporation and colonization of Yunnan. This is probably because the Ming's efforts for more than a century had greatly impacted the local elites, who also enjoyed benefits from this sinicization process – for example, many of them entered the officialdom, became ruling class, and obtained high social status. Thus, Li must feel embarrassed at Yang's “different loyalty” when composing the latter's biography. As a result, he did not mention Yang's family background and relationship with the Duan at all. Instead, he only concentrated on Yang's erudition in Confucian classics, practice of filial piety, and cultivation of personality.Footnote ¹⁹

The incorporation of Yunnan into China is a long and complex process, which not only forms the history of China, but also influences the international politics of East Asia and Southeast Asia.Footnote ²⁰ However, Li Yuanyang's view on this matter seems to be Sino-centric and is still inherited by some modern Chinese scholars. In the sixth year of the Longqing 隆慶 reign (i.e. the year 1572), the provincial governor of Yunnan Zou Yinglong 鄒應龍 launched the project of compiling a local gazetteer for the province and Li Yuanyang was recommended to be the chief compiler for his erudition and rich experience. The outcome was the Yunnan Tongzhi 雲南通志 (The Provincial Gazetteer of Yunnan) completed in the first year of the Wanli 萬曆 reign (i.e. the year 1573). The compilation work was conducted after a relatively steady rule over Yunnan had been established by the Ming. It conforms to the tradition of compiling a gazetteer for an administrative locality in imperial China. Heavily referencing to precedent classic texts, dynastic histories, geographical accounts, maps and gazetteers, the arrangement of its contents also follows what traditional Chinese gazetteers usually contain. It fulfills the political purpose of declaring and legalizing the Ming's incorporation and governance of Yunnan, which by then has been turned into a Chinese territory.Footnote ²¹

In the preface, Li Yuanyang summarizes Yunnan's history and relationship with China. According to his account, the southwest border of the Han Empire reached Yongchang commandery 永昌郡 (nowadays Baoshan 保山 city, Yunnan province) and during the Yuanhe 元和 era (84–87), schools were widely established across Yunnan and local customs were gradually transformed. Consequently, from the Han dynasty onwards Yunnan has initiated the progression of being civilized and sinicized, with Chinese classics becoming accessible and the sage king's teachings being disseminated here. More importantly, in this region the central government established four prefectures to lead dozens of counties and assigned around thirteen officials to rule.Footnote ²² Such a narration by Li generates an impression that Yunnan was fully assimilated into China with the influence of Chinese culture penetrating into it as early as the Han period. This conclusion is also widely welcomed by today's Chinese statesmen and historians who always righteously claim that “Yunnan is an inseparable part of China from the very ancient time onwards.” Actually, however, those frontier commanderies set up by the Han court only nominally “ruled” the then “barbarian” land of Yunnan with administrative affairs in fact left to indigenous leaders, and even their existence was always unsustained and temporary. Also, the influence of Chinese culture was only limited to several Chinese settlements on the fringes of this vast area, seldom extending to the interior.Footnote ²³

As for Yunnan's detachment from the central Chinese authority during the Tang Song periods, Li Yuanyang feels indignant at this and diminishes the Nanzhao and Dali regimes. He continues to write that after the Tianbao 天寶 era (742–756) in the Tang, it was the misdeeds of frontier officials that incurred the indigenous people's resentment and as a result, they rebelled and established separatist states. And for the Song, although it once prospered and partially unified China, Li criticizes its policy of giving up Yunnan. He regretfully judges this historical period:

Obviously, Li Yuanyang argues once again from the perspective of an orthodox Chinese scholar, disparaging Nanzhao and Dali as uncivilized barbarian states and illegalizing their independence from Tang Song China.Footnote ²⁵ He is by no means the sole Yunnanese scholar who firmly stands on the side of the central Chinese government. Yang Shiyun 楊士雲 (1477–1554), another Yunnan native (commonly identified as a Bai) scholar and poet and also a literary friend of Li Yuanyang, even believes that the name “Dali” disobeys decorum and recommends the Ming authority to abolish this appellation. As he argues, the term “Da” 大, literally meaning “the Great”, is a laudatory title indicating that the Chinese emperor rules all land under heaven and is therefore only applicable to the orthodox Chinese empires such as “Da Han” (the Great Han), “Da Tang” (the Great Tang) and “Da Song” (the Great Song). In contrast, the local Duan family regime did usurp this title and overstep etiquette by naming itself “Da”. And now, Dali is merely a prefecture of the Ming, so it should not use the term “Da” anymore.Footnote ²⁶

Based on Li Yuanyang's version of the pre-Ming history of Yunnan, the Ming's colonization is to be reasonably interpreted as rescuing this region from barbarians and reincorporating it into the superior China. He proudly writes:

Here, Li highly praises the Gao Emperor of Ming (i.e. Zhu Yuanzhang 朱元璋, 1328–1398, r. 1368–1398) for he not only defeated the Mongols and restored China proper, but also took firmer control of Yunnan than any previous Chinese dynasty.

Li's views differ from those of the literati prior to his era, especially regarding the relationship between Yunnan and the central authority. For instance, in the Yunan Zhilue 雲南志略 (A General Account of Yunnan) by Li Jing 李京, who was sent to take office in Yunnan by the Yuan dynasty in the early fourteenth century, Li Jing recognizes the symbolical rather than real administration of the Qin Han empires and the rivalry of Nanzhao and Dali against the Tang and the Song respectively. His account was based on his personal observations, and he particularly paid attention to the indigenous customs, lifestyles, and ideologies, which were totally different from those of China proper and which indicate that the local ethnics were actually more tied to the cultures of Tibet or Southeast Asia.Footnote ²⁸ Even the Yunnan Tujing Zhishu 雲南圖經志書 (A Compilation of Maps and Classics of Yunnan) compiled during the Jingtai period (1450–1457) is inclined to identify the autonomous status of Yunnan before the Yuan. As for the Yuan, its direct governance and teaching was still blocked so that the social atmosphere of Yunnan was not the same as in inner China. By comparison, it is only the Ming that made Yunnan fully obedient to the central state and transformed the barbarians into civilized gentlemen.Footnote ²⁹ Hence, Li Yuanyang's narration of history is somewhat different from that of the preceding scholars in his insistence on Yunnan's being an integral part of China even from the very early times and in his statement that the Nanzhao and Dali reigns were retrogressive ages for Yunnan. His loyalty to China's cultural orthodoxy testifies to the deep and “successful” impact of the Ming's civilizing and colonizing movements, which had been carried out for two centuries, on Yunannese elites.

Justifying and criticizing the Ming's military campaigns

Inevitably, the Ming's occupation and direct control of Yunnan was achieved through a series of continuous military campaigns. During Li Yuanyang's time, there were still several battles launched by the Ming government to suppress local rebellions. Li's attitudes towards these bloody conflicts are somewhat paradoxical. In the first place, he extols the Ming troops' “righteous” actions and victory over the local barbarians. Simultaneously, however, for the inessential wars and some officials' abuse of power, which caused excessive destruction and the loss of numerous lives of innocent victims, he apparently expresses hatred.

He approves of the central government's policy of gaitu guiliu 改土歸流 (replacing native chieftains with officials directly assigned by the central government). The example coming to mind is his comments on the Ming's abolition of native chieftain office in Heqing 鶴慶, which took place in the year 1443, more than half a century before his birth. However, this action by the Ming seems to be a planned strategy aimed at expanding its direct governance.Footnote ³⁰ Not surprisingly, Li intentionally attempted to justify and legalize the Ming's plot by writing that the native chieftain's brutal rule made it almost impossible for the people to survive and that finally the government rightly abolished the chieftainship and installed the imperial official system in this region. Also, he mentions the construction of government office buildings, the division of duties among various government departments, the improvement of administrative efficiency, and the competence of central government assigned officials.Footnote ³¹

Li depicts the non-Han bandits of Tiesuojing 鐵索箐Footnote ³² and Chishiya 赤石崖Footnote ³³, located on the borders of the neighboring prefectures of Binchuan 賓川, Menghua 蒙化, Yao'an 姚安 and Chuxiong 楚雄 as fierce, bellicose, uncivilized and tremendously harmful to all these regions. They frequently looted merchants on trade routes, slaughtered lives and destroyed villages, making the previously fertile lands unable to live on. Additionally, since they hid deeply in mountains, it was very difficult for government troops to capture them. Until Zou Yinglong and Tang Yang 湯仰 took office in 1573, they were eventually eliminated thanks to these two men's firm determination and wise tactics. Thereafter, a series of measures were taken to restore and rebuilt these war-shattered regions. Several hundreds of Han and local soldiers were moved there to set up a garrison, with Chen Huapeng 陳化鵬, the commander of Dali garrison and also a Dali native, serving as the military governor. It is noteworthy that despite his Yunnan native origin, Chen was recruited into the Ming's bureaucracy as a central government assigned official who would act according to the imperial will, instead of serving the local chieftains. He took the pioneer action of bringing his family with him to the garrison, in order to encourage the fellow soldiers to wholeheartedly settle down. After this military campaign, the Ming government took direct control over the peripheral rural areas on borders of adjacent prefectures, signifying its presence penetrating more and more deeply into Yunnan hinterlands. Apart from eulogizing the martial feats that expanded the Ming's rule, Li emphasizes the state's benevolence and tolerance by citing Zou Yinglong's admonitory talk to the imperial armies, which recognizes the indigens equally as humans and teaches the soldiers not to harm the innocents. In a word, the Ming's campaign in this case is portrayed as saving and civilizing the local people and is thus fully justified. According to Li's account, hundreds of indigenous households submitted to the government, abandoning their former savage customs, and those wild lands were transformed into fertile farming fields.Footnote ³⁴

However, Li Yuanyang would never blindly approve of whatever the Ming authority had done in Yunnan. On the contrary, he always argues for the sake of local people, exposing some officials' evil and selfish intentions and censuring unnecessary wars. On the rebellion of Wuding 武定, which was instigated by internal conflicts of the local chieftain family and then taken advantage of by the central government to replace the chieftainship with its direct control, he expresses contradictory views.Footnote ³⁵ On the one hand, he eulogizes Lü Guangxun 呂光洵, the governor of Yunnan who suppressed the rebellion, for his determination, wisdom, foresight and martial strategy, and even compares him to Zhuge Liang of the Shu Han dynasty and Fangshu 方叔 of the Zhou dynasty for his achievement of making the south of the Ming Empire free of trouble.Footnote ³⁶ Besides, he also praises a junior official surnamed Yang 楊 who was a literatus (wenren 文人) for he applied what he had learnt from Confucian classics, i.e. the way of wen 文 (literary capacity) to the martial field and triumphed.Footnote ³⁷ On the other hand, Li reveals an abnormal phenomenon widely existing in the bureaucracy of the southwest regions. That is,

In addition, he composed a long poem entitled “Wen Wuding shi” 聞武定事 (“On hearing the event of Wuding”) to describe the misery of the commoners in wartime and assail the selfish behaviors of some officials. It reads,

父母生兒時

When parents give birth to their sons,

貧富同護防

They nurture their children very carefully, no matter they are rich or poor.

日夜期長成

Day and night, they expect their children to grow up,

撫摩有百方

stroking them with love for hundreds of times.

中丞一念動

When the governor is prompted by a sudden idea,

驅向兵刃場

he drives these young men to battlefields.

市兒千萬命

He trades on the lives of thousands of boys,

無異豚與羊

differing in no way from selling pigs and goats.

豚羊將殺時

While pigs and goats are to be butchered,

主人勤較量

their owner always consider whether they will be sold at a good price.

奈何視生民

How could the governor see the people

不如一毫芒

as no more valuable than a hair.

……

……

功名在戰伐

His honor and fame are to be achieved through war,

辭命須張皇

therefore, he overstates the fact when reporting to the emperor.

君門深九重

The royal palace is so far away from here,

操持歸廟廊

and the power to manage state affairs is held by the emperor.

廟廊日萬機

Hence, the emperor is occupied with a myriad of state affairs every day,

奚暇商短長

and how could His Majesty have time to discuss all the matters, whether important or trivial.

戰海濤翻血

Waves of blood roar in the sea of war,

但憑書一行

which is just incurred by a line of words in the report.

豈知喜功人

Don't you know that the one who craves for overambitious feats,

背上生剜瘡

will get sores on his back.Footnote ³⁹

This poem strikingly depicts that the parents' beloved boys were unmercifully driven to war as cannon fodder by the wicked governor, who did so totally for his own pursuit of high rank and wealth. It also illustrates that Wuding was not an exception when the whole southwest was suffering unnecessary wars.

It is worthy to note that Lü Guangxun's action of releasing and reinstating Zheng Hong 鄭竤, the deadly foe of Feng Jizu 鳳繼祖 who was the heir of the chieftain clan and a key figure in the rebellion, is certainly to blame since it immediately infuriated Jizu and triggered the subsequent uprising.Footnote ⁴⁰ We still wonder whether Lü did this only out of imprudence, or on purpose so that the situation would be inflamed and thus there would be a right excuse for the government's further intervention. It is also difficult to know whether Li Yuanyang is condemning Lü in this poem. If so, this would seemingly contradict the author's admiration for Lü. Perhaps, in the above-discussed essay (“Yunnan ping zhu Yi bei”), which serves as the inscription on a monument in honor of the Ming's suppression of barbarian rebellions, Li is permitted only to praise Lü's good deeds; by contrast, in this poem which expresses his personal sentiments, he is able to criticize Lü's wrongdoing in a relatively free way, but still withholding Lü's name. Yet, it is also possible that Li's censure is actually directed at another official rather than Lü himself. Anyway, the poet firmly holds the conscience of an upright literary man, sympathizing with the common people and cursing those immoral governors who bully the masses while deceiving the emperor.

Whereas Li Yuanyang extols the Ming's overall victory over indigens, he also records the failure of several battles and analyzes the causes in depth. The battle of Yuanjiang 元江, in which the vice-governor Xu Yue 徐樾 was killed because of his carelessness and arbitrariness when he was accepting the rebel's surrender, is an example.Footnote ⁴¹ In a letter to Zhao Bingran 趙炳然, an imperial censor then inspecting the provincial affairs of Yunnan, Li insightfully reveals the reasons for the loss in Yuanjiang and the death of Xu Yue. Whether encouraged by Li's letter or not, Zhao impeached the chief-general Mu Chaobi and the governor Shi Jian who were in charge of the union of imperial and local troops for their negligence of duty.Footnote ⁴² First, as Li points out, in dealing with the main rebel Na Jian, who was initially a subordinate of the chieftain and who killed his nephew Na Xian – the then prefect of Yuanjiang before taking away the official seal, the Ming rashly sent troops against him without properly convicting him of a crime ahead, so that there lacked a righteous excuse to declare a war and thus the soldiers' morale could not be highly roused. As for the accusation of murders among clan members, or mutual attacks among indigenous tribes, it is virtually applicable to any chieftain family in Yunnan. If it is considered equal to the crime of rebellion and leads to the death penalty, then almost all the indigenous officials will fall into panic. Moreover, Li continues to argue, the criteria for and the amount of award were not definitely announced, so it was difficult to inspire the soldiers to fight with all their strength. As a result, despite their large quantities they could not excel in quality and achieve high accomplishments. Also, Li criticizes the poor provision of foodstuffs, stressing that some soldiers actually died of starvation rather than fighting, and that while the storage of food was wholly consumed for military purpose, the supplies for civilian use became exhausted, accordingly causing chaos in the city market. What is the most noteworthy is that Li uncovers some details of this event which demonstrate that Xu Yue's death was wholly self-inflicted. Therefore, he objectively criticizes Xu's imprudent actions. By contrast, these details are not included in the official history, which is probably attempting to forgive, or even embellish Xu for his “sacrifice” for the state.Footnote ⁴³ Li writes,

This narration vividly exposes Xu Yue's arrogance, brutality and lack of tactics. What's more, when Xu was eager to accept the surrender, his real intention was to grab honor and award, which reminds us of Li's reprimand on the selfish officials in the case of Wuding. Li once again shows compassion for the local populace, insisting that the ordinary indigenous people should not be blamed, not to mention punished, for Xu's death. In the end, emphasizing that the military activity is an inauspicious omen, so the sage king takes it only when there is not any other alternative, he suggests Zhao Bingran carefully reflect whether it is necessary or not to launch the war in Yuanjiang.Footnote ⁴⁴

Records of the Ming's constructing and reconstructing projects

The Ming government undertook a series of constructing and reconstructing projects in the newly incorporated land of Yunnan, including the establishment and construction of government offices, Confucian educational institutions, temples and shrines, and various infrastructures and public facilities. Li Yuanyang speaks very highly of these activities, believing that they are essential in making Yunnan a part of the Chinese empire, for they not only strengthened the Ming's presence, but also advanced the local region both physically and culturally. Furthermore, in most cases the projects were led and supervised by officials assigned by the central state. Li also praises these competent and upright men who in his eyes would bring benefit and benevolence to the indigenes.

After the aboriginal bandits, once active on the borderland between the prefectures of Yao'an and Chuxiong, were crashed, an “official residence suppressing robbery” (zhidao gongguan 職盜公館) was established at what is today Dayao 大姚 county in the year 1559.Footnote ⁴⁵ Similarly, at the suggestion of Li Tengxiao 李騰宵, the commander of Lancang 瀾滄 garrison who was then stationed in Yangbi 漾濞, a borderland with Yongchang to the west, Menghua to the south and Dali to the east, a used shabby official residence there was refurbished as a new “garrison commander's office” (shoubei shu 守備署) in 1574. Li Yuanyang highlights the necessity of a stable dwelling, pointing out that without it the commander would have to travel constantly from one prefecture to another, and in such a hurry, he was unable to settle down with enough time to investigate hidden crimes and handle civil and military affairs.Footnote ⁴⁶ The significance of building these governmental offices can be analyzed from two perspectives. First, for the interest of the central state, it filled the administration vacuum usually existing in the intermediate zone, making the Ming's governance penetrate more and more deeply into the indigenous lands. Second, for the interest of local regions, a constant office would make it easier for officials to devote themselves to local matters, thereby completing the administrative system in these faraway lands.

Throughout the Ming dynasty, Confucian schools were established across the southwest provinces as an important part of its sinicizing and civilizing scheme. In early times, Han-Chinese military immigrants (comprising a large percentage of all the Han-Chinese immigrants) and their descendants were not easily permitted to enter official schools (guanxue 官學)Footnote ⁴⁷, probably because the limited admission quotas were preferentially allocated to the indigenous students so that the mission of transforming barbarians could be fulfilled as soon as possible. Furthermore, in order to fix these military immigrants in the garrisons, the “military-household registration system” (junhu zhidu 軍戶制度) demanded that all sons from military immigrant families must inherit their fathers' careers (i.e. continue to farm on and guard the garrison).Footnote ⁴⁸ Even though these children might be admitted to schools, they were not provided with any financial support by the government. Also, any immigrant who wanted to participate in the imperial examination must travel back to his place of origin to sit for the exam. This situation was gradually being reversed from the 1450s onwards, when more and more imperial officials strongly appealed against restrictions on the education of Han descendants and even suggested that the smarter Han students and the indigenes be educated on different tracks. In fact, what concerned these officials most was the Han students' education and opportunity of entering officialdom, rather than the urgent transformation of the indigenes. Their efforts spurred the prosperity of the education of Han descendants. Numerous schools were established in areas populated by Han immigrants and were attended mainly by Han students. Moreover, more than fifty percent of the jinshi degree holders, according to the statistics in a Yunnan gazetteer of the late Ming time, were descendants of Han military immigrants. Of course, many Han-Chinese immigrated to Yunnan (sometimes forced to do so) for other purposes than establishing military garrisons and they were administered by the civil system. Their descendants should make up a large percentage of those who passed the imperial examination too. Then, the rest (only a small proportion) might include the highly sinicized indigenes and the offspring of ethnic intermarriages.Footnote ⁴⁹

Here, it is worthy to note that the emperor and the officials seemingly held different blueprints for the educational scheme in the southwest district. The emperor expected that the Confucian education would quickly transform the indigenes into his subjects; by contrast, the officials were more concerned with whether the Han students would succeed in the examination. As for Li Yuanyang, he appreciates the spread of Confucian education in the frontier, highlights the practice of Dao and in the meanwhile, severely censures some scholars' ignoring the true meaning of learning.

After the Jianchuan 劍川 prefecture school and temple were reconstructed in 1564, Li Yuanyang composed an essay recording this event at the request of the Jianchuan scholars, in which he summarizes the respective functions of the temple and the school regarding the Dao:

In another essay Li wrote to commemorate the rebuilding of the semicircular pool (panchi 泮池) in front of the Dali prefecture school, he believes that the renovation not only meets the demands of the etiquette, according to which a Confucian school should have all its constituent units complete, but will also create an atmosphere of advocating learning in society, encouraging more students to study hard and cultivate themselves. Then, he traces the history of the school, stating that it was firstly set up by the Han, destroyed in the Song, reestablished by the Yuan, taken over by the early Ming, and renovated and expanded by the vice-prefect of Dali, Gao Yong 高鏞, in 1560.Footnote ⁵¹ This statement echoes his account of Yunnan's subordination to or detachment from the central Chinese state in dynastic history, eulogizing the Ming's contribution to recovering Confucian education in Yunnan. A Confucian school is usually allocated a certain amount of arable land – namely the “school fields” (xuetian 學田), which is rented out to local peasants with the rental used to subsidize the school. Li records that under the leadership of the educational inspector of Yunnan, more than one hundred and fifty mu of submerged land in Dengchuan 鄧川 prefecture was converted into school fields in 1545. As for the Dali Confucian school, he notes that whereas the school was opened by the Han and the temple was built by the Yuan, the fields were set aside and maintained only by the Ming. He praises the “school fields” policy for being able to support more students' careers without putting extra burden on the government finances.Footnote ⁵²

Li Yuanyang cares not only about the students' performance in the imperial examination, but far more about their self-cultivation and practice of the Confucian values. He criticizes some people for being too much obsessed with passing the exam and obtaining official ranks, but neglecting the fundamental Dao, writing:

Li's worries reveal a widespread phenomenon of the Ming society, in which the scholars were only enthusiastic about producing the eight-legged essay (bagu wen 八股文) so as to enter officialdom, but lacked the actual capability to administer the country and paid no attention to the cultivation of personality, reminding us of the brilliant irony in the novel Rulin Waishi 儒林外史 (Unofficial History of the Scholars). Such a purely utilitarian interest in passing exams might also be held by some Yunnanese scholars, as these words were written by Li Yuanyang to admonish students from Jianchuan. If so, we should once again feel the influence of the Ming's cultural encroachment: even a bad social phenomenon is now spreading among the elites of Yunnan.

Also, Li elaborates on the right purpose of the school teaching, while expressing his righteous indignation at the corruption of the school. He believes that the school is to guide students to explore human nature and the truth of things, so that they will succeed in their careers by understanding and following the principles of the world. Yet, to his disappointment, at present the school teaches nothing but the skills for passing the exam and is therefore taken as a springboard to higher social status.Footnote ⁵⁴ In such a situation, he pins his hopes of maintaining the Dao and educating the students to be real Confucians to the shuyuan 書院 academies. Unlike official schools, shuyuan academies are usually privately run, self-sufficient and without specific admission quotas. What's more, they are not simply devoted to preparing for the imperial examinations but can provide a relatively free environment in which scholars can explore the true meaning of the Dao and undertake non-utilitarian research. After the Jinhua Shuyuan 金華書院 of Jianchuan was refurbished in 1570, a dozen of local students came to Cangshan requesting Li to write an essay for this event. Li gladly accepted the task, and in his response, he admonished the students to learn how to practice ren 仁 (benevolence), one of the Confucian ideals.Footnote ⁵⁵ In Dali, the vice-prefect Jiang Ying'ang 江應昂 not only renovated the old Cangshan Shuyuan 蒼山書院, but also built a new academy named the Yuanquan Shuyuan 源泉書院. Li particularly mentions that Jiang once studied at the prominent Yuelu Shuyuan 岳麓書院 in his youth, and believes that this experience must have greatly helped him in growing into a righteous and competent official as he is now.Footnote ⁵⁶

Apart from the Confucian education, some Chinese folk beliefs and customs were imported and became popular alongside the Ming's invasion into Yunnan. Accordingly, temples devoted to performing the relevant rituals emerged. For instance, the laji 臘祭 (to offer sacrifices to the gods in charge of the harvest in the twelfth lunar month) has been a traditional Chinese festival since very ancient times. Since there are totally eight gods worshiped, the laji is also called the bala 八臘 (lit. eight kinds of sacrifices). The bala temple, a specific site where the worship ceremonies are performed, could be found in many Chinese provinces, but except the Nanzhong district. It was only in 1563, the third year since Jiang Ying'ang took office in Dali, that a bala temple was established under his supervision in the north of the town.Footnote ⁵⁷ Previous research has examined the connection between agrarian expansion and population growth in the southwest.Footnote ⁵⁸ Here, in this case, the domination of agrarian economy is embodied by the emergence of a bala temple. Also, the concept of prioritizing agriculture, which has been very popular and far-reaching in traditional China, takes root in this new colony.

Quite a number of Chinese officials, both before and during Ming times, are remembered for their contribution to Yunnan's sinicization and incorporation into China. Consequently, shrines to these celebrated officials, called minghuan ci 名宦祠, were built across the province. In 1559 the vice-prefect of Dali, Gao Yong, established such a shrine next to the Confucian temple. It is worthy to note that this shrine was in honor of celebrated officials not only of the Ming dynasty, but the spirit tablets of more than twenty statesmen of previous dynasties from the Han to the Yuan were also added to worship after Gao and his fellows consulted historical records to find those with meritorious deeds. It also acted as a symbol of China's governance of the local district, since all the worshiped men were officials appointed by the central state. There might be at least two points Li intends to show. First, various Chinese dynasties declared their control over this land, proving Yunnan has been an integral part of China. Second, the number of officials of the present dynasty is definitely the largest, which is evidence that the Ming makes the greatest political achievement in Yunnan. The shrine is also of remarkable importance to an official newly assigned here. It embodies the Confucian political thought of “benevolent heart” (renxin 仁心) and “benevolent politics” (renzheng 仁政). As Li argues, an official should possess the merits of “sincerity and compassion” (zhicheng cada 至誠惻怛) and morally influence the people. Only in this way, could he be addressed as a celebrated official and commemorated in the shrine. Therefore, it would admonish the present officials to be good. A visit to it was almost the first activity Gao Yong took on his arrival. Perhaps he needed to promise that he would proceed with the careers of his predecessors and further the country's cause of advancing and civilizing this region.Footnote ⁵⁹

In addition to the above-mentioned government offices, educational institutions, temples and shrines, which are mainly aimed at strengthening the government's control, educating the literary elites and spiritually leading the populace, there were also numerous public facilities and infrastructures built or rebuilt for the benefit of the ordinary people. For instance, in 1564 town walls were eventually constructed in Baiyadian 白崖甸, a piece of land affiliated to Dali prefecture and located between Menghua and Jingdong 景東 prefectures, after the local people had consecutively pleaded with the authority for protecting walls for over forty years.Footnote ⁶⁰ Public granaries (shecang 社倉), which stabilize the market and provide basic social welfare for the commoners by storing up grains in normal circumstances and selling them at a low price during famines, were set up by the government with their daily management undertaken by local communities.Footnote ⁶¹ Since irrigation is of particular significance to the agricultural economy, water facilities were always constructed as soon as the Ming took a region under its control. Shortly after the pacification of western Yunnan, numerous ponds, dams, dykes, ditches, canals, sluice gates, and bridges were built or rebuilt over the Erhai area in the autumn of 1560.Footnote ⁶² Similarly, after the indigenous bandits of Tiesuojing and Chishiya were eliminated, a reservoir around eight hundred meters in circumference was constructed twenty li-miles west of Binchuan prefecture by making use of the remains of a deserted dyke. This project took almost the whole year of 1574. It supplied water to the irrigation system in Binchuan and facilitated the reclamation of more fields. Besides, following local beliefs, a pagoda was also erected near the reservoir to suppress the evil dragon that might threaten the water facilities.Footnote ⁶³ Even earlier than the construction of the reservoir, a bridge was built under the supervision of the prefect, Zhu Guan 朱官, outside the southern gate of Binchuan town in 1544.Footnote ⁶⁴ It should be noted that this bridge, which has become a historical and cultural relic today, was, and still is, named the “Nanxun bridge”. In Chinese literary tradition, “Nanxun” 南薰, meaning the “mild southern breeze”, is an image symbolizing the benevolence and moral influence of a ruler, which is just like the mild southern breeze nurturing the people. Therefore, such a name not only eulogizes the governance of Ming officials, but also reflects the impact of Chinese culture on the indigenous region.