CHU SHUN-SHUI, CHU TA Y CHU YÜ-CHIEN (1647)

I.- CHU SHUN-SHUI

Noted Chinese patriot who fled China after the destruction of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).
Arriving in Japan he became one of the primary compilers of the Dai Nihon shi or History of Great Japan, a comprehensive rewriting of Japanese history, which served to reawaken nationalistic feelings as well as to develop a sense of loyalty to the emperor.

In the 19th century, Chu´s study helped foster the movement that eventually overthrew the shogun and restored political power to the emperor, who had been virtually powerless under the shogun´s rule.

Chu was originally an official of the Ming dynasty, which was overthrown by the alien Manchu tribes of Manchuria (Northeast Provinces) who established the Ch´ing dynasty (1644-1911). Chu not only refused to serve the new rulers, he also attempted to raise an army against them. His efforts to enlist Japanese support for his cause were fruitless and in 1659 he decided to settle in Nagasaki. There Tokugawa Mitsukuni, a member of the shogun´s family and a great feudal lord in his own right, invited Chu to aid him in the historical project he had begun. Chu agreed in 1665, resettling in Mitsukuni´s Mito fief, where he helped structure the Dai Nihon shi along the lines of the great historical rewriting project of the 12th-century Neo-Confucian philosopher Chu Hsi, who wrote the famous T´ung-chien kang-mu or Outline and Digest of the General Mirror. 

Although the Mito project was not actually completed until two centuries after Chu´s death, Chu´s influence was decisive in establishing the general outlines of the Dai Nihon shi as well as in making its paramount theme that of patriotism and loyalty to the throne.

Chu´s unswerving loyalty to the Ming dynasty provided a model for Chinese students in Japan who late in the 19th century returned home to lead the struggle that overthrew the Ch´ing dynasty in 1911.


II.- CHU TA

With Shih-t´ao a Buddhist monk and an Individualist painter of the early Ch´ing period, in contrast to painters of the ortodox school (e.g. Wang Hui).

Details of Chu Ta´s life are scanty but he is known to have been a descendant of the Ming Imperial line, to have had a classical education and to have become a Buddhist monk inn 1648, after the collapse of the Ming dynasty. Possibly the fall of that dynasty and the death of his father at about the same time caused him some psychic disturbance, and he may have hovered between real insanity and impassioned creativity.

He eventually left the Buddhist cloister and exhibited wildly erratic behaviour -such as writing the character for "dumb" (ya) and attaching it to his door, after which he never spoke but only laughed and drank.

In his paintings usually in ink monochrome, such creatures as birds and fishes are given personality with an abbreviated, wet style filled with tensions.

Unlike most Chinese painters, Chu Ta does not easily fit into any traditional category; in character and personality he is the complete eccentric and individualist.


III.- CHU YÜ-CHIEN

Also known as Prince of T´Ang,
reign title LUNG-WU.

Ruler of Fukien Province in southern China after the Manchu tribes of Manchuria captured the Ming capital at Peking and established the Ch´ing dynasty (1644-1911).

He was also a claimant to the Ming throne. A Ming prince, Chu was a direct descendant of the first Ming dynasty emperor, Hung-wu (reigned 1368-98). Upon the fall of Peking, the capital of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), Chu obtained the support of the pirate leader and freebooter Cheng Chih-lung and in August 1645 proclaimed himself Ming emperor with the reign title of Lung-wu.

He reigned for about 13 months. When the Ch´ing armies began to advance into southern China, Cheng Chih-lung withdrew his protection of Chu, who was then captured and executed.