This book explains the general intellectual climate of the early Ch'ing period, and the political and cultural characteristics of the Ch'ing regime at the time. Professor Huang brings to life the book’s central characters, Li Fu and the three great emperors he served: K'ang-hsi, Yung-cheng, and Chien-lung. Although the author’s main concern is to explain the contributions of Li Fu to the Lu-Wang school of Confucianism, he also gives a clear, succinct account of the Lu-Wang and Ch'eng-Chu schools from the twelfth century to the eighteenth.