Mainland New Confucian scholars continually highlight Kang Youwei's F(sic)(sic)(1858-1927) political ideas, portraying them as more important than his teachings on self-cultivation. These discourses on Kang's thought emphasize what has traditionally been framed as `outer kingliness' (waiwang (sic)es) over `inner sageliness' (neisheng j (sic)). His own position on the relationship of the political and the moral-spiritual, however, has largely been ignored. The published preface to Kang's lost Daxue zhu (sic)(sic)(sic) (Commentary on the Daxue) could offer insight into his own views on the dichotomy but remains mostly unstudied to date. This article delineates where the Daxue (sic)(sic)(Great Learning) fits into Kang's web of early Confucian scholarly lineages and what role Zhuangzi (sic)f plays in this before providing a close reading of select passages from the preface. Thereby, it demonstrates that Kang himself did not prioritize politics over the moral-spiritual but understood them as inextricably connected.
Shortly after the conquest of Beijing in 1644, the Qing rulers commissioned the construction of a linear barrier system, made of an earthen embankment with willows planted on it, called the Willow Palisade, that enclosed southern Manchuria (approximately corresponding to modem Liaoning Province). This structure physically demarcated the region from Mongol territories to the west and from northern Manchuria (Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces) to the northeast. While functioning secondarily as a Manchu-Mongol boundary, its primary purpose was to partition Manchuria into distinct zones subject to different policies regarding Han Chinese migration. This study first provides a concise examination of the barrier's physical characteristics, geographical extent, and historical evolution. It then analyses the structure's dual function as both a territorial border and an immigration control mechanism, demonstrating how it principally served to separate Manchuria's selectively open southern districts from the strictly prohibited northern territories that the Qing leadership sought to preserve to themselves and to their Manchu subjects.
During the late i8th and early i9th century, evidential scholars not only studied pre-imperial texts, but also the biographies of their supposed authors. While the biographical information they presented was based on historical records, they were often influenced by the scholars' attitude towards the text connected with these author-figures. Based on close readings of scholarly essays, I show that the biographies function as paratexts that prescribe a certain interpretation. At the same time, I analyse the strategies with which scholars attempted to carve out a space for non-canonical learning at a time when Confucius was the only source of accepted learning.
