Chinese culture in the Yuan Dynasty, there is a fault, so the culture of the Ming and Qing Dynasties and before the Yuan Dynasty compared to what is different?

Since the Western Han Dynasty, when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty "dismissed the hundred schools of thought and honored only the Confucians", Confucianism has become the mainstream culture of our country, and it can be said that it is the mainstream of Han Chinese culture. The mainstream culture of our country basically has not broken the stream, only in different historical periods, according to the specific historical circumstances, there are changes, but the core has always been the thinking of Confucius and Mencius.

Although the Yuan Dynasty was ruled by ethnic minorities, the Mongolian aristocracy was also absorbing the feudal culture of the Han Chinese. Although the Mongolian aristocracy entered the Central Plains, it brought with it backward systems and customs, which were seriously damaging to social production, and at one time there was a regression in production relations, thus affecting cultural development. But the feudalization of vast areas also characterized this period.

During the Song Dynasty, there was a new development in Confucianism, and a philosophical trend centered on the discussion of rationality and mindfulness, i.e., "Rigaku", and there were many famous Rigaku scholars and many valuable works on Rigaku. At the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, Rigaku was once hit, but it soon spread to the north, and a group of great scholars of Rigaku appeared in the Yuan Dynasty. Rigaku again became the ruling ideology of the Yuan.

The Ming and Qing dynasties were the end of China's traditional society. Driven by the prosperous farming economy, traditional culture continued to develop; but at the same time, the commodity economy was also developing, and new social and cultural factors were being nurtured. In the collision of old and new cultures, the strong suppression of the old culture made the anti-traditional ideas stronger and stronger. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the introduction of foreign cultures was also a strong medicine. Under such a special historical environment, the Ming and Qing cultures showed different characteristics from the previous traditional cultures.

First, the evolution within the science. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the development of the commodity economy, the intensification of social conflicts and the complexity of the national problem gave birth to the "Yangming School of Mind". Yangming Xinxue emphasized the individual's historical responsibility and moral self-consciousness, and denied the use of external norms to regulate the "heart", which was fundamentally different from the Cheng-Zhu School of Reasoning's "keep the reason in heaven and destroy human desires", and reversed the direction of the development of social thought in the Ming Dynasty.

Secondly, the emergence of anti-rationalist thought. The emergence of simple materialist thought was not unrelated to the development of science and technology in the Ming Dynasty and the influence of foreign missionaries. More radical is the emergence of "heresy" thought. Like Wang Geng, Li Zhi, directly questioned Confucius, the science is even more heavily attacked. This actually reflects the rising industrialists and businessmen and the public demand for personal liberation and general awakening of the need.

Thirdly, the Qing Dynasty saw the emergence of early enlightenment. Huang Zongxi, Gu Yanwu and Wang Fuzhi in the early Qing Dynasty were typical representatives. In addition to criticizing the ideas of rationalism, they even began to criticize feudal autocracy and had new thoughts about imperial power, human rights and society.

Fourth, the wave of learning from the West in the late Qing Dynasty. From the beginning of Lin Zexu's "open your eyes to the world" and Wei Yuan's "learn from the barbarians to control the barbarians" to the subsequent foreign affairs movement, the Hundred Days' Reform, and the New Deal at the end of the Qing Dynasty, China's traditional thinking was greatly impacted, and the learning of Western culture was gradually deepened. This is a new feature that has never been seen in previous generations.