During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty (the emperor was obsessed with monasticism, Yan Song and his son were in power, the party struggle in the court was fierce, and border troubles were intertwined with people's livelihood issues) Shen Jingyan was a Jinshi from a poor family in Shaoxing, Zhejiang. He was influenced by Wang Yangming's "Xinxue" since childhood, and advocated "the unity of knowledge and action". He had an upright personality but was not pedantic. With the ambition to serve the country, but also knowing how to assess the situation, he tried to keep his true intentions in the turbid officialdom. In the power whirlpool of the Jiajing Dynasty, an idealistic scholar went from passionate admonition to officials to feudal officials. He struggled and made choices between "clean flow" and "pragmatism", "persistence" and "compromise"
