The Chinese History which is Missing from their Theater
The political and military history of China after 1276 is not found
This essay is part of a set of essays on the topic of Chinese Theater. Other essays are:
One might think that the major historical events in Chinese history would be well represented in Chinese theater, but this is not true. There are very large gaps in Chinese theater - major events which are simply not dramatized.
Here are the big ones which the Sonoma Sage noticed.
The Yuan Dynasty’s invasions of neighboring countries such as Vietnam (invaded three times), Japan (invaded twice), Burma, and Java. If the Chinese are going to argue the Yuan Dynasty was a Chinese dynasty, then these invasions were attacks on neighboring nations in which millions of people died. I’d say it’s worth dramatizing why the invasions were ordered and why they failed. Instead, there is no mention of these attacks in any plays. By contrast, these events are core stories for the Vietnamese and the Japanese. Everyone in Japan knows about the kamikaze who saved Japan twice by sinking the enemy fleet. Most Vietnamese remember how Tran Hung Dao led the heroic Vietnamese army to victory over the Mongol invaders.
— In my opinion, the Chinese don’t talk about these invasions because they were ordered by the evil Mongol Khans for no reason other than the insane Mongol belief that they were given a divine mandate by their God to conquer the entire world. As should be clear to everyone alive today, the Mongols had no divine mandate to rule the world and their empire was in tatters by 1400. The Chinese are embarrassed by the Mongol attacks on their neighbors but they can’t shake the idea that the Mongols gained the Mandate of Heaven - otherwise, how could they have conquered China? A bit of a problem, no?
The rise of the Ming Dynasty is not found in any major plays. The Sage is biased but by any reasonable standard, the story of the Ming’s founding is incredibly dramatic. Starting with a rag-tag group of peasants in 1350, just 18 years later those peasants had won hundreds of victories, thrown the Yuan Dynasty out of all of China and founded the Ming Empire - the direct ancestor of modern China. The story of the Ming is just as dramatic as the history of Three Kingdoms and there are so many interesting events that one could write 50 plays about it. Yet… there is nothing. The Hongwu Emperor is simply not a character nor are any of his generals or advisors.
— The reason for this, in my opinion, is that the Chinese scholars think the Hongwu Emperor was a very bad man and yet, he did very good things. Instead of trying to explore how and why a bad man can do great good - something that Confucian ideology finds contradictory and logically impossible - they prefer to simply not talk about it. Very few Chinese today know the story of the Ming because it is effectively hidden from the stories they tell.
The Ming rescue of Korea from the Japanese is not the subject of any major plays. The war between Japan and Korea + China lasted for six years and about one quarter of the entire Korean population died as a result of the fighting. The Ming poured huge amounts of money, ships, and soldiers into Korea, and they saved the country from the Japanese invaders. By any analysis, this was a heroic and selfless effort by the Ming to help a friendly nation in need. There are many good stories here, most of which show the Chinese in a very good light.
— Why no stories? The Sage believes a number of factors conspired to hide this war. First, the ruler of the Ming at this time, the Wanli Emperor, has a bad reputation for the Chinese. Of all the Ming Huangdi (Emperors) his was - and remains - the only tomb to be opened up (and desecrated) by the PRC in the 1950s. The Korean war was a good thing, yet it was done by a bad ruler, thus no Chinese scholars want to talk about it. Secondly, when the Manchu took over 50 years after the war, they didn’t want artists saying nice things about the recent Ming rulers. The entire justification for the Manchu taking over China in 1645 was that the Ming had lost the Mandate of Heaven. Glorifying the Ming army and their selfless behavior towards Korea in 1592-1598 rather undercuts the Manchu claims that the Ming had become weak, stupid, and immoral rulers.
The Conquest of China by the Manchu is generally not described in the major dramas (Peach Blossom Fan is the one partial exception). The years from 1620 to 1645 are filled with twists and turns, many good stories can be told from this period, many unexpected defeats and missed opportunities. In a real sense, the Manchu were extremely lucky to take over China in 1645, but they put themselves in a position to take advantage of a string of disastrous mistakes made by the last three Ming Huangdi. However, it is also the case that the Manchu behaved immorally. First, they raided the Ming at least four times over this 20 year period. Each time the Manchu raiders abducted thousands of Chinese and brought them back to Manchuria as slaves. The Manchu raiders also stole large amounts of grain and money from Ming depots. The slaughter of everyone in the city of Yangzhou is yet another black mark on the Manchu. While the Ming collapse is largely due to their own failures, it is a fact that the Manchus worked hard to bring about the Ming’s collapse, even if that was not their direct intention.
— Why not describe this in drama? The easy explanation is that the Qing government would censor any portrayal of their leaders. Almost anything which was written during the Qing could be construed as a criticsm of their near-mythic founders: Nurhaci and Hong Taiji. The Manchu ruler who took control of northern China in 1645-1650 was Prince Dorgon [see my short essay about Dorgon here], who - after his assassination - was officially a villain until he was partially rehabilitated in 1750. Even after 1750, describing the dramatic events of 1644-1649 could end up getting you killed because the Manchu remained extremely sensitive about their takeover of China. After the fall of the Qing in 1911, Chinese theater was nearly dead as an art form.
The result is: the fall of the Yuan Dynasty and the rise of the Ming are not described in dramas. So to, the fall of the Ming and the rise of the Qing are also not described. In a real sense, the actual political and military history of China after the year 1276 has been off limits to dramatists for different reasons.
The Sage argues that the Chinese are much more knowledgable about events in China 1800 years ago than they are about events since the collapse of the Northern Song in 1126 CE.
This historical understanding poses quite a contrast with Europeans who generally know more about the events of the recent past than the distant past. Thus Europeans know a great deal about the Napoleonic age, somewhat less about the age of Louis XIV, a bit less about the 30 Years War, and even less about the period 1300-1500. For all but the most dedicated fans of history, the period after the Emperor Trajan (120 AD) till Charlemagne (770 AD) is pretty much a blank. For the Chinese, it’s almost the exact opposite.