The Case of Not Writing the Qing Reign Title in the Early Qing

In 1660, censor Xiao Zhen impeached former Minister of Works Zhang Jinyan for writing a preface to Grand Secretary Liu Zhengzong’s poetry collection in which Zhang used only the sexagenary cycle "Guihai" without the reigning Shunzhi era name. The memorial also accused Zhang of employing the phrase "a talent ready to illuminate the Ming," interpreted as covert allegiance to the fallen Ming dynasty. Emperor Shunzhi treated the omission of the reign title as a grave act of disrespect, signifying rejection of Qing legitimacy. The case swiftly escalated into a political trial targeting high-ranking Han officials suspected of lingering Ming loyalties. It exemplified the early Qing court’s sensitivity over symbolic gestures and became one of the seminal literary inquisitions that defined the dynasty’s approach to ideological control.

Zhang Jinyan was stripped of all ranks, sentenced to banishment, and exiled to Ningguta in the remote northeast frontier. Liu Zhengzong was initially sentenced to death by strangulation but was later granted a reprieve; he was dismissed from office and his property was confiscated. Both fell into political disgrace.

Whether the act of omitting the reigning emperor’s era name in a published text, combined with ambiguous classical allusions, constituted deliberate sedition and proof of persistent Ming loyalism warranting severe criminal punishment.

The verdict sent a chilling warning throughout the Han literati class, demonstrating that the Qing state would punish even symbolic deviations as disloyalty. It inaugurated a pattern of stringent literary censorship that culminated in later, larger-scale persecutions such as the Zhuang Tinglong Ming History Case. Scholarly discourse retreated further into philology and self-censorship, deepening the climate of intellectual conformity under Manchu rule.