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Zuo Guangdou
Late Ming Donglin censor from Tongcheng who brought rice farming to the capital region and died under torture after opposing the eunuch Wei Zhongxian
Mural of the event “Purge of the Donglin Faction”, which this person took part in.
Under the Tianqi Emperor (1624–1627) the eunuch Wei Zhongxian and Madam Ke dominated the court; Donglin officials such as Yang Lian and Zuo Guangdou died in the imperial prison, and Zhou Shunchang's arrest in Suzhou set off a townspeople's revolt. After the Chongzhen Emperor's accession Wei hanged himself, and in 1629 the court proclaimed the Traitors' Case.
Also known as Zi Yizhi · Hao Fuqiu
Zuo Guangdou, courtesy name Yizhi, came from Tongcheng and passed the metropolitan examination in 1607. As a censor in the capital he uncovered more than seventy forged seals and over a hundred bogus officials. Put in charge of military farms, he drew up a programme of water works, and the History of Ming (Mingshi) says northerners learned to grow rice as a result. When the Taichang emperor died in 1620 and Consort Li occupied the Qianqing Palace, he and Yang Lian forced her out. Made a vice censor-in-chief in 1624, he joined Yang Lian's impeachment of the eunuch Wei Zhongxian and drafted charges of thirty-two capital crimes, but was dismissed before submitting them. The following year he was falsely accused of taking bribes from Yang Hao and Xiong Tingbi, jailed and tortured to death on the same day as Yang Lian, in his fifty-first year. After Wei's fall he was rehabilitated, and Fang Bao's sketch of him recounts his student Shi Kefa slipping into the prison to see him.
Life and times
- 1575 CEBorn
Ming - 1624Purge of the Donglin Faction
Took partage 49Under the Tianqi Emperor the eunuch Wei Zhongxian and Madam Ke dominated the court; after Yang Lian's memorial of twenty-four crimes, Donglin officials were dismissed and died in prison until the Chongzhen Emperor's accession brought Wei's fall and suicide.- Yang Lian Impeaches Wei ZhongxianIn 1624 the vice censor-in-chief Yang Lian impeached Wei Zhongxian for twenty-four great crimes, but the Tianqi Emperor kept Wei and rebuked Yang.
- Six Gentlemen Die in Imperial Prison1625age 50In 1625 Yang Lian, Zuo Guangdou and four other Donglin officials were framed by Wei Zhongxian's faction and died under torture in the imperial prison.
- Yang Lian Impeaches Wei Zhongxian
- 1625 CEDied
Connections
Shared events10Zhu Youjian (Chongzhen Emperor), Wei Zhongxian, Yang Lian …
- Teachers and students1
