Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Zhao Yingcheng from Fact to Fiction: The Story of “The Great Advisor”

Zhao Yingcheng from Fact to Fiction: The Story of “The Great Advisor” Zhao Yingcheng (1619–1657), known as “The Great Advisor”, is the only Kaifeng Jew who is mentioned both in the synagogal stele of 1663 and in Chinese gazetteers during his lifetime. Zhao, given the Hebrew name of Moshe ben Avram, was fluent in Hebrew but also achieved success as a Confucian scholar familiar with the Chinese classics. He would have witnessed the destruction of his hometown by a catastrophic flood during the 1642 Siege of Kaifeng. In 1645, at the age of 26, he attained the jinshi rank in the Imperial Exams, in which only one in 10,000 candidates was successful. A year later, he was appointed Minister of Justice for the newly installed Qing Dynasty and supervised the controversial decree forcing the Manchu tonsure onto the Han population as a mark of submission. In 1647, he was sent as an envoy to quell the unrest in Fujian province. After defeating bands of violent warlords funded by the notorious pirate Koxinga, Zhao set up a system of public schools to provide greater economic opportunity for the poor. After the death of his father, Zhao returned to Kaifeng for the three-year mourning period; during that time, he funded the restoration of the synagogue, which had been destroyed in the deluge, and the rectification of the Torah scrolls damaged in that catastrophe. Though the biographical facts are sparse, when these are juxtaposed with the dramatic events that unfolded during his short lifetime, the potential for a fascinating historical fictionalization emerges. Moreover, many of those historical events in seventeenth-century China—climate change, elite corruption, populist revolt, xenophobia, terrorism, law and order, etc.—resonate with contemporary tropes. The story of “The Great Advisor” shows how a Jew in seventeenth-century China rose to national prominence at a time when Jews in Europe faced severe discrimination and persecution. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences Springer Journals

Zhao Yingcheng from Fact to Fiction: The Story of “The Great Advisor”

Download PDF
28 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/springer-journals/zhao-yingcheng-from-fact-to-fiction-the-story-of-the-great-advisor-XNNdOwFObW
Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by Fudan University
Subject
Social Sciences; Social Sciences, general; Economics, general; Philosophy, general
ISSN
1674-0750
eISSN
2198-2600
DOI
10.1007/s40647-017-0207-6
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Zhao Yingcheng (1619–1657), known as “The Great Advisor”, is the only Kaifeng Jew who is mentioned both in the synagogal stele of 1663 and in Chinese gazetteers during his lifetime. Zhao, given the Hebrew name of Moshe ben Avram, was fluent in Hebrew but also achieved success as a Confucian scholar familiar with the Chinese classics. He would have witnessed the destruction of his hometown by a catastrophic flood during the 1642 Siege of Kaifeng. In 1645, at the age of 26, he attained the jinshi rank in the Imperial Exams, in which only one in 10,000 candidates was successful. A year later, he was appointed Minister of Justice for the newly installed Qing Dynasty and supervised the controversial decree forcing the Manchu tonsure onto the Han population as a mark of submission. In 1647, he was sent as an envoy to quell the unrest in Fujian province. After defeating bands of violent warlords funded by the notorious pirate Koxinga, Zhao set up a system of public schools to provide greater economic opportunity for the poor. After the death of his father, Zhao returned to Kaifeng for the three-year mourning period; during that time, he funded the restoration of the synagogue, which had been destroyed in the deluge, and the rectification of the Torah scrolls damaged in that catastrophe. Though the biographical facts are sparse, when these are juxtaposed with the dramatic events that unfolded during his short lifetime, the potential for a fascinating historical fictionalization emerges. Moreover, many of those historical events in seventeenth-century China—climate change, elite corruption, populist revolt, xenophobia, terrorism, law and order, etc.—resonate with contemporary tropes. The story of “The Great Advisor” shows how a Jew in seventeenth-century China rose to national prominence at a time when Jews in Europe faced severe discrimination and persecution.

Journal

Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences – Springer Journals

Published: Dec 19, 2017

References

  • A theology from the past; a paradigm for the future
    Bernstein, Moshe Y
  • Three Thousand Years of Urban Growth
    Chandler, Tertius; Fox, Gerald
  • Hair: Its Power and Meaning in Asian Cultures
    Cheng, Weikun
  • Coxinga and the Fall of the Ming Dynasty
    Clements, Jonathan
  • Blood and History in China: The Donglin Faction and Its Repression, 1620–1627
    Dardess, John
  • Berkshire Encyclopedia of China
    Elman, Benjamin A
  • China: A New History
    Fairbank, John King; Goldman, Merle
  • Studies of the Chinese Jews: Selections from Journals East and West
    Leslie, Donald D
  • The Survival of the Chinese-Jews: The Jewish Community of Kaifeng
    Leslie, Donald D
  • The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts
    Shahar, Meir
  • The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China
    Wakeman, Frederic