Visitors admire a scroll handwritten by Wang Yangming (1472-1529) at Yuyao Museum on Nov 1. [Photo/IC]

Yuyao Museum, located in Yuyao, a county-level city administered by Ningbo in Zhejiang province, recently hosted a high-profile exhibition featuring rare books and handwritten scrolls by three prominent Yuyao-born scholars.

The three figures are Wang Yangming (1472-1529), Huang Zongxi (1610-1695) and Zhu Shunshui (1600-1682). All of them left their mark on Chinese history. 

Wang Yangming was a Chinese statesman, general and Neo-Confucian philosopher during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Wang was one of the leading critics of the orthodox Neo-Confucianism of Zhu Xi (1130-1200).

Huang Zongxi was a political theorist and philosopher during the late Ming Dynasty and the early Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). In ancient China, Huang was among the few who advocated the belief that ministers should be openly critical of their emperor.

Zhu Shunshui was an accomplished scholar of Confucianism in the late Ming Dynasty who later became a political refugee in Japan following the dynasty's fall. Highly respected by Japanese rulers of the time, Zhu came into contact with many Japanese scholars and was also invited to deliver public lectures to large audiences, making remarkable contributions to Japanese education and intellectual history.