Yang Jisheng was an official and man of letters of the Ming dynasty, known for his uprightness and willingness to speak out; he was later persecuted after impeaching the powerful minister Yan Song, and accounts of his life are found mainly in historical biographies. His extant writings are represented by The Collected Works of Yang Zhongmin, of which one title is held in this collection and commonly classified under Eastern philosophy. Public information is limited, making it difficult to detail his birth and death years, native place, and official career. Nevertheless, the surviving texts show that his writing was largely concerned with political commentary, letters, and poetry and prose, in a plain and stern style with genuine feeling, reflecting a clear moral stance and sense of responsibility. Such writings have often been regarded by later generations as an expression of scholarly integrity and are of value for understanding the spiritual character and political ethics of Ming literati, and have thus continued to circulate in traditional literature and attracted the attention of scholars of intellectual and literary history.
