"This book explores processes of cultural change in a Chinese city in the aftermath of the Manchu conquest of China in 1644. The city of Yangzhou, located at the intersection of the Grand Canal and the Yangzi River, is best known as the site of a devastating human and physical destruction during the conquest and as a vibrant commercial center during the eighteenth century."

"The book focuses on the previously overlooked period between the conquest and the city's commercial florescence - a moment in which Yangzhou functioned as an important center of literary culture that was consciously conceived as transregional and transdynastic. With rich detail and extensive use of literary sources, the author documents the complex social and cultural interactions through which the community reconstituted itself."--Jacket.