Richard Wang's book on the princely patronage of Daoism during the Ming dynasty is a work of outstanding erudition, the result of prolonged research in a variety of archives. That the Ming court policy promoted Daoism, especially during the Jiajing reign (1522–66), has been well known, but this masterful book is the first to show how this policy was implemented throughout the empire. By demonstrating, with ample evidence, that royal patronage by the principalities supported the activities of local Daoist institutions, Richard Wang has given us a new understanding not only of Ming Daoism, but also of the broader role of religion during the late imperial period. Although I have conducted research on Ming-dynasty Daoism myself, the prominent, complex involvement of Ming princes in the patronage of this religion came as a surprise even to me.

The notoriously large population of Ming princes may not have reached a million, as some scholars asserted during the late Ming and Qing, but “a conservative estimate” puts their number at around 200,000 at the end of the dynasty, making it still “the largest imperial clan population in Chinese history” (p. 15). By their number and by their wealth, this aristocracy occupied extensive physical space in local society and displayed unrivaled largesse in the patronage of local religion. In large cities, such as Xi'an and Nanyang (Henan), the princely city occupied a full fourth of the city. Each principality, moreover, appears to have maintained nearly three hundred Daoist ritual performers (yuewusheng) and twenty-seven outcaste “music households” (yuehu). “If we assume an average of five persons per household, the total yuehu population in each princedom can be estimated as 135” (p. 14), and “a princedom had at a minimum nearly three hundred Daoist ritual professionals under service” (p. 38). Religious practice also afforded Ming princes a measure of spiritual consolation in a life that was often boring and beset by a sense of worthlessness and social isolation that caused some princes to commit suicide.

In spite of all the convincing evidence Wang has collected, he threatens to overstate his case in the conclusion. In the final pages of the book, he argues that previous scholarship has overlooked not only that “the prosperity of Daoism in the Ming was inherently related to the princely institution” (p. 184), but also that the Ming period saw “a new development of Daoism in Chinese history, and indeed marked a time of its prosperity” (p. 183). In his eagerness to advance his argument, however, Wang proposes that princely patronage was the central fact of Ming Daoism, rather than just one aspect of it, and he subsumes the imperial patronage by the Yongle and Jiajing emperors under this princely patronage because “both emperors' beliefs and patronage of Daoism began when they were princes” (p. 183).

This overstatement of the evidence diminishes rather than increases the reader's conviction. It also draws attention to three less conspicuous but important weaknesses in the argument of the earlier chapters. First, Wang's frequent reliance on hypotheses suggests that his argument may not be as strong as it first appears. This is especially evident in passages that address the Daoist ordination of Ming princes: Zhu Xianjie (1525–82?), prince of Liao, “was very likely to have received ordination” (p. 46) and “was probably an ordained Daoist” (p. 52); Zhu Changchun (1557–fl. 1632) “must have gone through ritual practice along with the ordination conferred to him, but the details are lost” (p. 47); and a certain member of the Yi principality, who had the daohao Xiaoxian, “presumably received Daoist ordination” (p. 50). Second, Wang in the end is not able to explain why Daoism held such appeal for Ming princes, or why Daoism attained particular prosperity during the Ming. For example, Wang identifies the cult of Zhenwu at Wudang shan as the “most obvious case” of a Daoist national institution (p. 96), but he does not offer an explanation of the prominence of this cult other than that “apparently, the Zhenwu cult in Ming-era Lanzhou functioned as a form of military protection, and was worshipped by military men for blessings” (p. 175), and that Ming princes financed and organized temple fairs “as a chance to maintain their influence and show off their power” (p. 178). Third, the Daoism described in this book seems to me too “aristocratic” to explain the popularity of Daoist practices among commoners, whether during the Ming or after. Wang is certainly right when he writes that “the Ming princes and military aristocrats on the frontiers occupied an important place in propagating Daoism as an element in cultural and religious identity” (p. 181), but since “the Ming princes did not have access to a wider social network” (p. 115) this importance cannot have been extensive in its scope.

Richard Wang's Ming Princes and Daoism will probably become required reading for future research on Chinese religion in general and on Ming Daoism in particular, not so much because he provides definitive answers, but because he raises new questions about where and why Daoism flourished, and who supported it, at different times in the Chinese past.