Literary Inquisitions and Cultural Control

To preserve autocratic rule, the Qing rulers paid great attention to tightly controlling intellectuals' thought. Under the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors, rulers often picked out odd phrases from scholars' essays and poems, twisted their meaning and built charges, producing many unjust cases, known as "literary inquisitions". Their scale and number far exceeded earlier ages, with over a hundred in the Qianlong reign alone. In the early Kangxi "Ming History case", the wealthy Zhuang Tinglong of Zhejiang privately compiled a History of the Ming that used Southern Ming era names, and over seventy people involved in writing, printing or selling it were executed, with over two hundred more implicated. In the late Kangxi "Nanshan Collection case", Dai Mingshi was executed because his book used Southern Ming era names. Under Qianlong, the official Hu Zhongzao had a line in a poem, "a heart that discusses the clear and the muddy", and the emperor asked what he meant by putting the character "muddy" before "Qing" (the dynastic name, also meaning "clear"); Hu was beheaded. The Qing rulers also used the compilation of the Siku Quanshu (Complete Library of the Four Treasuries) to inspect books nationwide, listing those thought harmful to Qing rule as banned and confiscating, destroying or altering them; the Qianlong-era book bans lasted nearly twenty years and destroyed over three thousand titles. The inquisitions spread terror and ruined many talented people; intellectuals dared not discuss politics or reveal their thoughts, were careful even with wording, and many scholars turned to textual criticism, so that scholarship became detached from reality.