The Case of Wang Xihou's "Ziguan"

Wang Xihou, a Jiangxi scholar, compiled the dictionary "Ziguan" in which the prefaces or explanatory notes allegedly wrote the personal names of the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong emperors without proper avoidance or omission, violating strict naming taboos. His personal enemy reported him to the local authorities in 1777. The governor, Hai Cheng, initially judged the offense as minor and merely petitioned to strip Wang's degree. Emperor Qianlong, upon reviewing the case, deemed it a grave act of lèse-majesté and sedition, furious that imperial names were directly listed and annotated. Wang was transferred to Beijing for interrogation, and the emperor personally directed the prosecution, interpreting the dictionary as a deliberate insult to the imperial lineage.

Wang Xihou was sentenced to immediate beheading (lingchi or decapitation, later commuted to summary execution). His sons were sentenced to death by strangulation after the autumn assizes; his grandsons were exiled as slaves to Heilongjiang; his wives and daughters-in-law were enslaved and distributed to meritorious officials. The "Ziguan" and Wang's other works were ordered to be destroyed nationwide. Governor Hai Cheng was dismissed and condemned to beheading with a delay, later spared but exiled. Other officials involved were punished.

Whether Wang Xihou's failure to omit or modify the emperors' personal names in the dictionary constituted deliberate sedition and lèse-majesté, and whether the initial lenient handling by Governor Hai Cheng amounted to protecting a criminal.

The case intensified the atmosphere of terror surrounding the Qianlong literary inquisition. It demonstrated that even unintentional breaches of name taboos could be construed as capital sedition, causing scholars and officials to practice extreme self-censorship. The crackdown accelerated the destruction of vast numbers of texts and stifled intellectual expression, reinforcing absolute imperial despotism and further entrenching the culture of fear in late imperial China.