Li Zhi's Thought: Dissemination and Publication

Timeline

1. 1590Jinling · Southern ZhiliLi Zhi first printed the six-volume Fen shu in Jinling, using a sharp pen to criticize Neo-Confucian dogma and advocate the 'childlike mind' and individual liberation, shaking the scholarly world of Jiangnan.
2. 1591–1595Jiangnan · JiangnanThe Fen shu was reprinted and circulated in Suzhou, Hangzhou, Quanzhou, and elsewhere; Li Zhi debated with Geng Dingxiang and socialized with Yuan Hongdao and others, as heterodox ideas continued to spread among the gentry and merchant classes.
3. 1596Beijing · Northern ZhiliLi Zhi's thought provoked memorials of impeachment from conservatives, and the court ordered the Fen shu and other works banned; but the prohibition instead stimulated private printing and reprinting, and his intellectual influence continued to spread through the interplay of bans and reprints.