Opposition to the Donglin Faction in the Late Ming Dynasty: The Case of Tang Binyin

Studies of late Ming dynasty political factions have usually been focused on the Donglin Faction or Restoration Society groups, and have tended to take their assertions of moral superiority at face value. As a result, our understanding of these righteous partisans and (especially) their opponents is essentially a caricature invented by the former: it was the moral world-savers versus the amoral time-servers.² While most historians do occasionally point out that the moral posturing of Ming China's righteous factions was at least partly a political device,³ few have taken the time to reinterpret the supposed amorality of the opposition. Although the literary remains of late Ming opposition politicians are very scarce, some sources on the anti-Donglin leader Tang Binyin do survive, and these might help to breathe a little life into the dead caricature of the opposition. To the extent that Tang may be taken to represent his even more obscure comrades (an unavoidable interpolation, given the paucity of anti-Donglin sources), what emerges is an opposition with articulate positions on assorted topics, but one which was extremely skeptical about the moral pretensions of the Donglin and simply could not join the Donglin crusade. Since modern historians are themselves beginning to see through the Donglin's moral façade, perhaps we can give a little credit to Tang Binyin and his associates for doing the same. This paper will provide a brief background sketch of Tang Binyin, explore the question of why his literary remains are extant, exceptional, and obscure, and examine Tang's political position. Reference will be made to Tang's own rare writings, secondary works, and corroborating evidence from other late-Ming politicians.

Tang Binyin has no biography in the official Ming History (Ming shi), nor are many of his tomb inscriptions still extant. The Japanese Sinologist Kin Bunkyō has constructed the following chronology of Tang's life from various commemorative prefaces found in Tang's and other collected works. Tang was born in 1569 in Xuancheng County, Ningguo Prefecture, Nanjing Province, to an old military family. His immediate ancestors were strictly farmers, but his grandfather seems to have been a small-scale merchant. His father, Tang Yigui, was the first in the family to become literate, and this distinction excused him at least partly from manual labor and enabled him to earn a living with his writing skill. Tang Binyin was sent to the prefectural school (his brothers remaining laborers), and there he began to attract the attention of his teachers and other significant people. One of the latter was Shen Maoxue (zhuangyuan of 1577), who arranged for Tang to marry his niece. Tang completed his entry into the elite by passing the provincial exam in 1594 (after one failure) and then earning his jinshi in 1595. Tang placed second (bangyan) in the palace examination and returned to Xuancheng with tremendous prestige.⁴

Embarking on his official career, Tang became, successively, a junior compiler (bianxiu), an advisor (yude), and a reader in waiting (shidu) in the Hanlin Academy, during the latter appointment doubling as junior mentor of the heir apparent (you shuzi). In 1610, he shifted to Nanjing, where he was made chancellor of the National University (guozijian jijiu). Tang seemed destined for even higher metropolitan postings, but at this point factional strife flared up, and his official career was terminated. Tang was accused of favoring a protégé named Han Jing while supervising the metropolitan exam of 1610, and he was dismissed from office the next year.⁵

This case of alleged exam irregularity was a symptom of the polarization of the bureaucracy at that time. The overriding issue was whether director general of grain transport Li Sancai (d. 1623) should be promoted into the Grand Secretariat (nei ge) or impeached for corruption. Li's defenders included Gu Xiancheng (1550–1612) and his associates at the Donglin Academy (Donglin shuyuan), and thus they were branded the Donglin Faction (Donglin dang).⁶ Li's accusers, expanding their attacks to the Donglin in general, were marshaled from behind...