Wang Yangming

Wang Shouren (1472–1529), known as Wang Yangming, was a Ming statesman, general and Neo-Confucian philosopher born in Yuyao, Zhejiang. After banishment in 1506 for offending the eunuch Liu Jin, he later became governor of Jiangxi.

In 1517–1518 he suppressed peasant revolts in Jiangxi, Fujian and Guangdong, and in 1519 crushed Zhu Chenhao, Prince of Ning, capturing him before he could take Nanjing.

As a thinker he rejected Zhu Xi's dualism and taught innate knowing and the unity of knowledge and action, and is regarded as a founder of the School of the Mind. In 1584, after his death, he was enshrined in the Confucian Temple.