ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by describing the historical context of the Ming period that gradually transformed the profession of serving at the Astronomical Bureau from a mandatory career into an inheritable family interest. It then investigates the political concerns of China’s new Manchu rulers that led Regent Prince Dorgon (1612–1650) to promptly adopt the new calendar that the Jesuit missionary Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1592–1666) calculated according to Tychonic mathematical astronomy but to refuse Schall’s request to dismiss the Astronomical Bureau officials who resisted giving up the Great Concordance system of calendar making. This chapter ends by showing that, although some old astronomer families were suppressed and some withdrew from the Astronomical Bureau, family networks remained an important channel through which Schall could recruit new members for the Bureau and find suitable individuals to learn his New Western Method.
