Donglin movement

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The Donglin movement was an ideological and philosophical movement of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties of China.

The movement was established in 1604, during the Wanli era, when Gu Xiancheng (顧憲成 Gù Xiànchéng, (1550-1612), a Ming Grand Secretary, and Gao Panlong (高攀龍 Gāo Pānlóng, 1562-1626), a scholar, restored the Donglin Academy in Wuxi with the financial backing of local gentry and officials.

The motivation for restoring the Academy was concern about the state of the bureaucracy and its inability to bring about improvement. The movement represented a resort to moral Confucian traditions as a means of arriving at fresh moral evaluations. Thereafter the Academy became a centre of dissent for public affairs in the late Ming and early Qing periods. Many supporters of Donglin were found in the bureaucracy and it become deeply involved in factional politics.

During the reign of the Emperor Tianqi, Donglin opposition to the eunuch Wei Zhongxian resulted in the closure of the Academy in 1622 and the torture and execution of its head, Yang Lian, and five other members in 1624. The accession of the Chongzhen Emperor restored the fortunes of the Donglin faction. Later during Chongzhen's reign, Donglin partisans found themselves opposed to the Grand Secretary Wen Tiren, eventually arranging his dismissal in 1637.