Career
Li was a native of Anxi County, Fujian Province. Li"s career prospects were improved when his plan for the pacification of Fujian and the defeat of Wu Sangui was adopted by the Emperor. Later in life, he was responsible for planning Shi Language"s conquest of Taiwan.
During the course of his life, Li held many important court positions, including Chancellor of the Hanlin Academy, Govenor of Zhili and Grand Secretary, as well as holding high-ranking positions on the Board of War, Board of Civil Service and the Board of Public Works.
Li felt that human nature (which he believed to be inherently good) was the ultimate subject of his study, and that nature was the guiding principle on which to base human morality. He had an interest in the sciences, and was interested by Western scientific innovations.
Li wrote or edited a number of important philosophiocal texts, including the Complete Works of Master Zhu (Zhuzi daquan), the Essential Ideas of Nature and Principle (Xingli jingli) and the Interpretation of the Meaning of the Four Books (Si shu Jieyi). An expert on the I Ching, he also wrote two books on the subject, the Penetrating Discourse (Zhouyi tonglun) and the Balanced Annotations (Zhouyi zhezhong).
The latter took the (at the time) unusual editorial step of segregating the original text of the I Ching from its subsequent commentaries.
A complete collection of Li"s works (around thirty books) was published around a hundred years after his death, entitled the Complete Works of Rongcun (Rongcun quanji).
