Huang Zongxi

Also known as Tai Chong · Nan Lei · Li Zhou

Huang Zongxi, courtesy name Taichong, styled Lizhou, of Yuyao, was the eldest son of the Donglin official Huang Zunsu, who died in the eunuch Wei Zhongxian's prison. When the Chongzhen Emperor came to the throne Huang went to the capital, stabbed the torturer Xu Xianchun with an awl hidden in his sleeve and hunted down the jailers who had killed his father. He then studied under Liu Zongzhou. After Nanjing fell he raised several hundred men to fight for the Prince of Lu; when resistance failed he took his mother home and turned to writing and teaching. He declined the special examination of 1678 and would not join the Ming History office, though his son Huang Baijia worked there and the historians consulted him. His works include Waiting for the Dawn (Mingyi daifang lu) and the Case Studies of Ming Confucians (Mingru xue'an), and he died in 1695 aged eighty-six. Gu Yanwu, reading Waiting for the Dawn, remarked that the order of the Three Dynasties could be restored.