HIEA 2112: Late Imperial China Midterm II Study Guide

Vocabulary flashcards covering the key people, institutions, concepts, and primary texts for the HIEA 2112 Midterm II exam on Late Imperial China.

Red Turbans

A broad collection of rebel groups active against the Yuan from 1351, named for their red headwear, whose uprisings were sparked in part by Yellow River labor recruitment and created the environment from which Zhu Yuanzhang emerged.

White Lotus

A millenarian Buddhist movement centered on the belief in an approaching transformation of the world and the arrival of Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future, which helped mobilize late-Yuan rebels such as Han Shantong and Han Lin'er.

Zhang Shicheng

A salt smuggler (1321–1367) who rebelled in 1353, established the rival Zhou regime in the wealthy Lower Yangzi region, claimed the title Prince of Wu, and was ultimately defeated by Zhu Yuanzhang.

Toghan-Temür

The last Yuan emperor to rule from China proper (r. 1320–1370) and the dynasty's longest-ruling monarch there, who displaced Bayan in 1340, backed civil reforms, and fled the capital in 1368 amid rebellions and crises.

Toqto'a

A classically trained Mongol statesman (1314–1356) and influential Yuan chief minister who directed the compilation of the Song, Liao, and Jin histories, but was dismissed during his 1354–1355 campaign against Zhang Shicheng due to court factionalism.

Zhu Yuanzhang

The Hongwu emperor (1328–1398) and founder of the Ming dynasty, who rose from poverty and Red Turban armies to capture Nanjing in 1356, establish the dynasty in 1368, and abolish the prime ministership in 1380.

Community Tithings (lijia)

A rural administrative system instituted in 1381 grouping 110 households under designated community heads and ten-household tithings to report taxes, coordinate corvée labor, maintain surveillance, and arbitrate local disputes.

The Tributary System

A diplomatic framework in which foreign rulers symbolically acknowledged imperial Chinese superiority by dispatching envoys, performing rituals like kowtowing, and offering gifts in exchange for titles, reciprocal imperial gifts, and licensed trade.

Koryŏ

The Korean kingdom (918–1392) that maintained marriage alliances with the Yuan court from 1260, continued ties with the Northern Yuan until 1388, and was addressed by Zhu Yuanzhang in diplomatic letters announcing the Ming's receipt of Heaven's mandate.

Zhu Di

Zhu Yuanzhang's fourth son and Prince of Yan (1360–1424) who rebelled in 1399 against his nephew Zhu Yunwen, seized the throne in 1402 as the Yongle emperor, relocated the capital to Beijing, and launched steppe campaigns and maritime voyages.

Fang Xiaoru

A prominent classicist (1357–1402) and loyal adviser to the Jianwen emperor who was executed following Zhu Di's usurpation in 1402, and author of an assigned biographical account defending the integrity of his father, Fang Keqin.

Zheng He

A Ming eunuch envoy from Yunnan (1371–1433) who commanded seven major maritime expeditions between 1405 and 1433 to project imperial authority, collect tribute, suppress piracy, and patronize religious sites such as the temple of the Heavenly Princess.

Zhu Qizhen

The Ming emperor Yingzong (1427–1464) who personally led an expedition against the Oirat Mongols under the influence of eunuch Wang Zhen and was captured during the 1449 Tumu Crisis.

Salt Certificates (yanyin)

State-issued monopoly licenses authorizing merchants to transport and sell salt, initially awarded in return for grain deliveries to military frontier granaries and later obtained with silver payments.

Macau

A southern coastal enclave that the Portuguese secured permission to rent in 1557, which evolved into a key commercial hub for Japan-China trade and global maritime silver flows into the Ming economy.

Woodblock Printing

A reproduction method using carved wooden blocks that supported the circulation of Buddhist texts, classics, official decrees, and a booming commercial book market for examination candidates and elite women writers.

Six Ministries

The core administrative organs of central Ming governance—Personnel, Revenue, Rites, War, Punishments, and Works—which operated under direct imperial command following the 1380 abolition of the prime ministership.

The Grand Secretariat

A technically informal advisory body established under Zhu Di in the early fifteenth century that assumed administrative duties of the abolished prime ministership and developed into the de facto governing cabinet by the 1430s.

Licentiate (shengyuan)

A government student who passed the preliminary qualifying examinations, gaining admission into the literati class and eligibility for the provincial civil service exam, but whose status required periodic recertification.

"Advanced Scholar" (jinshi)

The highest civil service degree, awarded to candidates who passed the triennial metropolitan and palace examinations, which served by the mid-Ming as a virtual prerequisite for elite bureaucratic office.

Concubinage

A legal domestic institution allowing a man with one principal wife to purchase secondary women through the labor market for reproduction and child-rearing, whose offspring were legally considered children of the principal wife.

Filial Piety (xiao)

The ethical obligation of juniors to respect, support, obey, and mourn parents and ancestors, promoted by the imperial state as an essential moral foundation for social order and obedience to rulers.

The Cult of Female Fidelity

A state-endorsed social movement honoring chaste widows who refused remarriage after a husband's death, celebrated by Ming-Qing authorities through commemorative monuments and household corvée exemptions.

Levirate Marriage

A steppe custom requiring a widow to marry her deceased husband's brother, legalized for all Yuan subjects by Qubilai in 1271 but strictly outlawed by the early Ming dynasty.

Ordination Permits (dudie)

Government certificates granted to Buddhist and Daoist monastics officially acknowledging their departure from secular household registries and exempting them from standard state tax and corvée burdens.

The Ordos

A transitional steppe-agricultural territory located within the great northern bend of the Yellow River, abandoned by Ming forward garrisons during the mid-fifteenth century as defensive strategy shifted to wall construction in the 1470s.

Nurhaci

A Jianzhou Jurchen chieftain (1559–1626) who unified rival Jurchen tribes, established the Later Jin state in 1616, issued the Seven Grievances against the Ming, captured Fushun in 1618, and laid the foundations for the Qing dynasty.

Tumu Crisis

The 1449 military catastrophe in which the Oirat Mongols routed the Ming army and captured Emperor Zhu Qizhen, discrediting martial imperial activism and turning Ming frontier strategy toward defensive fortification.

Bride Price

Wealth, money, or goods transferred directly from the groom's family to the bride's family as an agreed part of formal betrothal and marital negotiation.

Dowry

Property, cash, land, textiles, or personal goods transferred from the bride's natal family to the new conjugal household to provide financial resources and social status for the married woman.

Three Religions (Three Teachings)

The complementary, non-exclusive traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism that structured Chinese intellectual, ethical, and religious life through shared practices, merit accounting, and state regulation.

"August Ming Ancestral Instruction"

A dynastic regulatory text finalized in 1397 by Zhu Yuanzhang providing binding rules for his descendants, including permanent prohibitions against restoring the prime ministership or embarking on reckless foreign wars.

"Placard of People's Instructions"

A late-Hongwu imperial proclamation empowering rural elders and community tithing leaders to adjudicate minor disputes and manage local morality while threatening penalties for corrupt bureaucratic interference.

Fang Keqin

The father of Fang Xiaoru (1326–1376) and an upright Ming official who lowered corvée obligations and protected farmers, but was ultimately prosecuted and destroyed by malicious accusations within the early Ming administrative system.

Qiu Jun

A Ming official and statecraft scholar (1421–1495) who submitted the "Supplement to Explications of the Great Learning" in 1487, advocating practical institutional reforms, famine preparedness, and balanced state-market relations.

Zhu Jiefu

A sixteenth-century scholar who entered the salt trade to resolve family debts, exemplifying how merchant commercial success, salt monopoly expertise, and classical Confucian virtue could merge.

Cheng Weiqing

A sixteenth-century merchant (1531–1588) who studied the Classic of Changes and applied wealth accrued from trade and moneylending to clan relief and charitable civic projects.

Ai Nanying

A late-Ming literatus (1583–1646) and author of "Life in the Examination Hell," which documented the intense psychological pressure, physical suffering, and institutional hurdles of the civil service exam system.

Gu Ruopu

An educated widow and matriarch (1592–c. 1681) who wrote "Letter to My Sons" in 1632, using maternal authority to divide family estate property into separate households to prevent domestic strife and protect ancestral continuity.

Tan Yunxian

An elite female doctor (1461–1556) who recorded her specialized clinical practice treating female patients in the 1510 medical text "Miscellaneous Record of a Female Doctor," published via woodblock printing.

Yuan Huang (Liaofan)

A Ming official (1533–1606) and author of "Determining Your Fate" who popularized ledgers of merit and demerit, arguing that systematic ethical deeds could alter preordained astrological destiny.

Altan Khan

A prominent leader of the Tümed Mongols (1507–1582) who concluded a 1571 diplomatic settlement with the Ming, receiving the title Prince of Shunyi and rights to official frontier border markets in exchange for peace.