I understand that it has something to do with a rise in wealth at the time, as well as status symbols, but I can't come to concrete idea of what it is. I understand there's a book of the same name related to the topic, which has made it rather hard to google, but despite describing how the early rural Ming eventually evolved into a commercial centre, I'd really like to understand what he meant by "confusions of pleasure." Any help would be greatly appreciated.
If anyone cares, I just popped hella vyvanse and did it myself. The Hongwu Emperor grew up a poor and focused on developing the agricultural industry when he came into power, such as giving away non-transferrable land to young farmers when they came of age. This led to a prosperous time for farmers.
Then between 1405 and 1433, the Yongle Emperor sent the seven treasure voyages around the world on diplomatic and trade missions. This grew relations with other countries, as well as introduced people like the Spanish, Japanese, Indians etc. to Chinese goods and vice versa. This set the table for prosperous trade.
However, private trade was initially banned, and leading to a long period of illegal trading between numerous countries in Southeast Asia. After Christopher Columbus's cousin and his fleet of Portugeuese ships lost a naval battle to Ming Dynasty, a deal was cut which allowed Macau to open as a free trade port. Eventually, all free trade was established, which led to an equally prosperous time for private merchants.
As a result, this led to a blurring of social classes and the rise of "new rich" people that were concerned with status. This led to a boom in culture. Printing became more popular than before, and instead of simply reprinting traditional books like classics and textbooks, books on interesting subjects came up, like astrology literature. Interestingly, romance novels were also on the come up, the culture had become more open minded, allowing women more freedoms. However, this open mindedness also came with a lot of debauchery, as rich people do. Conspicuous spending on luxury goods boomed, both male and female brothels could be found in every city, and public bathing became more accepted, as well as pederasty with young boys, which was in fact seen as a sign of elite status.