Localizing Learning: The Literati Enterprise in Wuzhou, 1100–1600 0674267931, 9780674267930

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lfI JJ:.tn W W-1.w±. Im... };:.,1.w±JU.liiJ0-J.w~ffel!JiJ:fLTi'iJJ.wpJif ,~,.i:. li.... Cited in Chen Baoliang, Mingdai ruxue

shengyuan, 478. This passage is excised from the Qing edition ofLii's works; my thanks to Tung Yung-chang for pointing this out. After the fact I saw this discussed in Ong, Li Mengyang, 284; I have largely followed Ong's translation.

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it would not justify translating shi as "literati." The term was neverlegally defined, but over time there were institutional arrangements that in effect identified the shi as a broader group than the 15 to 30 thousand civil officials. In Tang the great shi clans ±;l referred to families with histories of government service for whom governing had been the family occupation across the dynasties. The court ranked the great clans according to a combination of family status and service to Tang, and it even had an office for checking the genealogical claims of applicants for appointment to office. These families typically clustered in the capital corridor, with one duster in Chang'an in the west and another in Luoyang in the east; they intermarried; and they dominated the process for selecting officials. In addition to family tradition and government service, they claimed ownership of civil culture: the literary heritage, the Classics and histories, and knowledge of government. Han Yu, himself from a great clan, argued that such learning, rather than birth, ought to qualify a man for office, but in fact, as Tang weakened, the greatdans' hold on office strengthened. Nicolas Tackett has shown how that medieval oligarchy maintained itself but also has documented its failure to survive the Huang Chao rebellion (877-84). 13 By the end of the tenth century, the Song had expanded the use of written examinations to recruit its civil officials. One kind of exam tested the memorization of various Classics or other texts; the other, the more prestigious jinshi or "shi presented [to the court]," tested the ability to compose poetry and prose. Although the Song continued to allow high officials to use the "protection" privilege (yin) to make kin eligible for office, several institutional changes in the examination system-shifting final authority over degrees from the chief councilor (and his faction) to the emperor, guaranteeing an appointment on earning a degree, and instituting elaborate procedures to ensure the anonymity of the candidates-led to massive increases in the numbers of men seeking the appropriate education. As a consequence, the examination system undermined the dominance of families with histories of service at the Song court who, like their Tang predecessors, had congregated around the capital. By the 1070s the government was confronted with a choice: to restrict access to the examinations and thus better balance supply, or to continue to encourage the well-to-do to educate their sons for examinations and allow the pool of candidates to continue expanding. In the court debate over the examination system in 1069, there was little support for restricting access, although there were calls to drop the test of poetic composition in favor of essays on the meaning of the Classics (as was done together with abolishing degrees for memorization), to certify the ethical behavior of a candidate, and to develop a stronger national school system. 14 Over the next fifty years the court supported an expansion of the

13. This paragraph and the following one adumbrate the account of the transformation of the shi in Tang and Song in Bo!, "The Transformation of the Shih," chap. 2 in "This Culture of Ours,"revised and supplemented by the explanation of how the great clans maintained their position and how they met their demise in Tackett, Destructionof the Medieval ChineseAristocracy. 14- The edict calling for the court debate is in Xu Song, Song huiyao, i!* 3.4ra-42a. Many of the submissions are found in the collected writings of the participants, including Sima Guang (favoring restricting access), Su Shi (favoring continuing the poetry requirement), Lii Gongzhu (favoring local schools and

12

Introduction

school system, at one point hosting over 200,000 students in county and prefectural schools. Still, all sides assumed that the education system was meant to prepare men for office and that governance and social order depended on the centralized bureaucratic system. The court briefly doubled the size of the civil bureaucracy to about 40,000, but that was clearly inadequate to meet demand, and the proposal that shi serve in clerical positions, which would have solved the employment problem for a time, did not attract support. To translate the term shi as "literati" is simply to recognize that an education that trained men in reading texts and writing wenzhang now defined membership in the national elite of potential office holders. Throughout the Northern Song period the greatest growth in the numbers of shi had been in the southeast: Liangzhe East (modern Zhejiang) and West (modern southern Jiangsu) circuits, Fujian, and Jiangxi. When the North China plain fell to the Jurchens' Jin dynasty in u27, these areas, now closer to the new capital at Hangzhou, became the major source of revenue and officials. This, then, was the situation in which literati found themselves in the decades after the loss of the north: their numbers were increasing, but career opportunities in government were not. Participation in the examination system continued to grow, reaching about 400,000 by the mid-thirteenth century, but paradoxically the percentage of officials recruited through examinations rather than family connections had declined by almost half between the .mid-eleventh century and the early thirteenth. 15 State funding for education had decreased, but private funding had increased, thanks to a proliferation of "private academies" and literati who made teaching their career. The paradox of increasing demand and diminishing opportunity disappears, I think, once we see that participation in the examination system alone (not success) was enough to demonstrate shi status and all that followed from that: access to local officials, freedom from labor service for registered students, and connections to other families of similar status. 16 From the perspective of participants, the role of the examinations went beyond bureaucratic recruitment to be a low-risk investment in certifying shi status and thus membership in a national elite. Given the importance of an education in texts and literary composition to shi identity, it makes sense to translate the term as "literati" from the Song on. And this was not unique to the south; in the n6os the Jurchen Jin dynasty expanded its examination system and was even more generous in grantingjinshi degrees.17 There was never a perfect fit between institutional categories and the shi. In Northern Song some proposed controlling socialstatus: Sima Guang argued for limiting examination candidates to those who had recommendations from court officials; another scholar proposed

assessing moral behavior), and so forth. The majority favored dropping the poetry requirement in favor of essays on the Classics. r5. This is the paradox explored in the definitive social history of Song examinations: Chaffee, ?horny Gates,95-rr8. r6. For this resolution to Chaffee's paradox, see Bo!, "Sung Examination System." 17. Bo!, "Seeking Common Ground," 473-76.

LocalizingLiterati Learning 13 creating an official "shi registry."18 But restrictions ran up against the desire of elites to perpetuate their status and bend government policy to their interests. During the Yuan and Ming dynasties there was a tax category of "Confucian household" 1f fr that in Yuan required keeping a son registered in a government school, but it did not define all those thought to be shi. The schools were open to families classed as "military households" and commoner households as well.19 0 Kum-son has argued that the Ming examination system made the literati part of the bureaucratic system, in a way that the Song and Yuan had not, by aligning the examinations with the school system (county, prefectural, and capital), by granting lifetime privileges at all levels (e.g., unique dress as defined by sumptuary regulations, freedom from labor service, and immunity from regular prosecution), and by extending eligibility for an official appointment to lower levels (to successful provincial candidates and to those admitted to the Directorate ofEduc-ation at the capital). In effect authority over what made one a literatus was now held by the government, which created a ranked set of status groups through schools and examinations. This system supposed a dearly defined hierarchy and restricted access, yet by the mid-fifteenth century the number of men who thought of themselves as literati and wanted recognition and privileges far exc.eeded the limited number of places the system made available. The solution was to recognize, but not stipend, an unlimited number of "affiliated students" Fff¥1.so that the number of those who gained privileges doubled from 30 to 60 thousand and continued to grow thereafter, reaching half a million by the end of the dynasty. 20 Thus, although at first it seemed that the court defined what it meant to be a shi, it looks like the shi succeeded in making the government's system serve their own interests. Participation in the examinations could serve as an institutional definition of what it meant to be a shi in Southern Song and as such was dearly desirable. There were also informal ways of gaining recognition as a shi. Since the examinations tested learning, being known as a person engaged in learning (or teaching) counted, even if one refused to participate in the exams. Social historians might argue that marrying the daughter of shi counted as well. The institutional situation changed radically with the Mongol conquest of the north in 1234arid the south in the late 1270s.The examinations were only reinstituted in 1315,after disputes between northern proponents.of the literary examinations of the Jin and southern advocates of Daoxue. 21 Yet during the Yuan the number of literati who received degrees, divided between northerners and southerners, was never allowed to exceed the •small number of Mongols and Central Asians who passed. The literati became simply one element of the Han subject population and, although privileged, were not seen by the Mongols as naturally having the right to dominate politics. There were routes into office through

18. Sima Guang,

Sima Wenzheng,40.517; Wu Zhengqiang, Keju lixuehua,190, citing Lii Dalin (8f;:Jit

jdU,l?\ ·~). 19. On the advent of this system in Yuan, see Xiao Qiqing, "Yuandai de ruhu." 20.

0 Kum-son, Mindai shakaikeizaishikenkyu,part r.

21.

Yao Dali, "Yuanchao keju zhidu."

14

Introduction

personal connections, service as a clerk, or as a teacher, but for southerners these rarely led to positions of importance. 22 Thus, for much of the Mongol period, literati status had to be maintained by the literati themselves, according to their own lights rather than a state curriculum. To be sure, Han literati sought state support and found allies among those Mongols and Central Asians who ·valued their traditions. 23 But northern and southern literati differed in their views of the relationship between learning, literati, and government, with northern literati tending to see official service as the point, whereas southern literati saw themselves as pursuing both. local roles and connections outside of government and official careers.24 There was, however, a tendency in. both regions to equate being a shi with being a Ru, a Confucian scholar. This had its origins in efforts in the north to defend the privileges ofliterati through the creation of Ru households, which required registration with a school,25 and later in the south through the adoption of the Neo-Confucian Four Books in the examinations. But all shared the assumption that learning rather than birth was the essence of being a shi. An alternative approach to thinking about the shi is to identify the values and practices that those who called themselves shi shared, recognizing that, just as institutional mechanisms changed over time, so did values and practices. Whether it was through poetry or through essays on the Classics, Song literati prepared for written examinations; they had to read broadly, and they had to learn to write in various literary forms. This kind of test, as critics pointed out, was not clearly connected to a local official's role as judge, tax collector, ritual leader, or office manager. Still, examinations were defended: to the discerning eye, poetry and literary writing revealed something of a person's character and intelligence, whereas writing that drew out larger principles from the Classics spoke to the aims statecraft was meant to serve. The problem, raised by yet other critics, was that one could learn to say the right thing without meaning it. In other words, one could be a good writer without having shown through his conduct that he was.a moral person; conversely one could be a man of scrupulous integrity, a devoted son to his parents, a good brother to his siblings, and reliable as a friend-just the sort of person who should be in government, some said-but neither write well nor understand the Classics. Culture and morality could be in tension: an early-twelfth-century program to allow students to enter the National University on the basis of demonstrated ethical behavior alone was soon canceled because the students lacked learning. To be a filial son at home and act with integrity abroad, to be well read and a good writer, and to serve in government and achieve merit: for literati throughout ·the period, these were both common expectations and ways·of making a reputation. The point of refer. ence was the excellence of Confucius's ten leading disciples categorized in terms of ethical behavior q~,1t, speech if~ (generally ignored from Song on), government affairs j]'lc:f.,and 22. Wang Mingsun, Yuandai de shiren, 153-63. 23. Xiao Qiqing, ]iuzhou sihai fengya tong. 24- This argument is developed in Wenyi Chen, "Networks, Communities, and Identities." 25. Xiao Qiqing, "Yuandai de ruhu."

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textual learning wen xue X*. 26 Much the same triad appears in the Zuo Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals, where it is said that one could be remembered for moral deeds, for political achievements, or for what one said, with the last coming to be understood as literary writing. 27 Personal morality could be evidenced through mourning for parents and through withdrawing from the court in protest. The acquisition of culture could be demonstrated through composing poetry, writing books, and exhibiting broad knowledge. Formal participation in governing was limited to the few who became ranked officials, but by the twelfth century some argued that being socially responsible in local society through voluntary efforts was also a form of political achievement. These categories figure as shared expectations, irrespective of whether the claim to be a shi was based on pedigree, as common in Tang, or on talent, as typical in Song. But what good writing meant, what the responsibilities of government should be, and what the basis for morality was were matters very much open to debate. To an extent Daoxue redrew the lines between the three, so that learning could mean the cultivation of moral awareness rather than texts, but it could also be said that Wang Anshi and Sima Guang saw behavior and learning through the lens of government, and Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi saw behavior and governing from the perspective of cultural accomplishment. A sociocultural history ofHterati learning is a study of how a literati identity was constructed and maintained through a combination of institutions, values, and practices under different political regimes. But it is also a study of how literati used learning to persuade others to act in certain ways and value some things above others. Sometimes persuasion.was an intellectual affair, as with disputes over the value of wenzhang, and sometimes it was aimed at constraining the behavior of the literati themselves. Writing at the end of the Yuan dynasty, Wang Wei ofYiwu in Wuzhou admonished literati: "Do not kill yourself through cleverness; do not kill others through government; do not kill your descendants through property; and do not kill the world through learning." 28

Localizing the Literati Why explore literati learning from the perspective of one place, given a central government that created national institutions, intellectual movements that spread regionally and nationally, and thinkers who claimed universality? One answer is methodological: irrespective 26. Analectsn.3. 27. Zuo zhuan, Xiang 24. ;kJ:.1JJ'L~.*?X.ffJI::/J. *{X.fJJI~ . .ij.j,_;f,f, Jlti:ffl.:ft1. 28. Quan Yuan wen, 55.703,Wang Wei .:E.#,/@;~#;t. ilf l!,(111-#f&~. ilfl!,(i,/c-#f&A. ilf l!,(~-#f&.fii. ilfl!,(,IJ-#f&Ji:T. Wang may hav.e been citing an earlier condemnation of literati. Wu Zeng in Southern Song quotes a Daoist recluse's condemnation: "The literati officials murder themselves with desire, murder their descendants with wealth, murder others with government, and murder the future with scholarship." }cft_I!/, tlf%t.&~.Wlt1u&.:tii. l!,(i,lc:f&A.l!,(f,-#f&Ji:T~ilt-. See Wu Zeng, Nenggaizhaimanlu,18.503.

±

16

Introduction

of how literati thought of themselves or how universalistic they were in their intellectual commitments, very few lived as members of an itinerant class of state officials or traveling merchants; they lived somewhere. As an arena for social action, a place forms and molds actors; it is one of the contexts in which individual actions have meaning, and from a literati perspective the reputation of a place had much to do with their accomplishments. To understand what they thought it should mean to be a shi, what they thought learning meant and how they engaged in it, and what they aspired to, we need to look at their interaction with each other in local and translocal contexts. 29 The other answer is historiographical. Robert Hymes's classic study ofFuzhou in Jiangxi, the first detailed study of a Southern Song local elite, put forward the proposition that the rise of local elites went together with a relative withdrawal of the state. 30 The view that "the state" was retreating-and that there was a rising local elite at odds with the 31 state-has prompted strong reactions. Hymes argued that elite family strategies changed from Northern to Southern Song: from marrying families of similar status from elsewhere in order to defend one's bureaucratic position to local marriage alliances to secure local dominance. Families that could not perpetuate themselves in the national bureaucratic elite-a situation that came about through competitive examinations-became "local elites." What did it mean to be of the local elite? Hymes's approach in his Fuzhou study was to identify seven criteria: office holding, passing the prefectural examination, contributing to Buddhist or Daoist temples, leading private investment in education and infrastructure, leading local defense, being the affinal kin of those who met the preceding criteria, and membership in schools or literary societies. 32 Although he granted that by these criteria local elites largely overlapped with those thought of as shi, Hymes made clear that his was not a study of what it meant to be a shi. Later, in his masterful overview of Song social history, Hymes did address the question of who the shi were: They initially defined themselves as a group early in Northern Sung through their relation to the state, particularly in the pursuit of examinations and office; and by middle Southern Sung they were ensconced in the counties and prefectures of south China as a locally rooted and largely self-ratifying elite, defining itself on the one hand not through degrees or office but through education and examination participation, and on the other hand through new horizontal social networks, ranging within and across localities and ultimately national in scope, that made gentlemanly status more a matter of mutual recognition than of state grant. In their

29. Goran Thernborn, "Why and How Place Matters." Thernborn is arguing for the relevance of place in the context of globalization-as opposed to universalistic thought-which he sees as favoring inquiries into how places are connected to each other. 30. Hymes, Statesmen and Gentlemen. 31. See, for example, Bao Weimin, "Jingyingmen difanghuale ma?" 32. Hymes, Statesmen and Gentlemen, 8-9.

LocalizingLiterati Learning 17 most self-conscious manifestations they came to claim a cultural and quasi-political authority independent of the authority distributed through the pyramidal networks of the state, 33

The social history of Wuzhou literati in Southern Song fits this view. But was this a retreat of the state? Sukhee Lee's study of Mingzhou (modern Ningbo) in Zhejiang in Southern Song and Yuan shows how local government worked together with leading local families to further local welfare and state interests. 34 In Mingzhou local government came to play a leading role in such activities as funding schools, community wine-drinking ceremonies, ameliorating the financial risks of managing local service obligations, and creating charitable estates to support impoverished literati that in some other places were dominated by leading literati families. 35 In his valuable review of major works on social history, Song Chen goes further to argue that in fact in Southern Song the state was becoming more deeply embedded in local society, the opposite of the trajectory Hymes saw, in no small part because the shi as the state-recognized elite were coming to play an ever larger role in local society.36 It is certainly true that the shi identified with the nation and the national government, even when they celebrated men who had opposed those in power at court. lchiki Tsuyuhiko has argued that Neo-Confucianism, rather than taking advantage of any gap between local society and the state, brought about a greater degree of integration between the two. 37 It is possible to inquire into literati learning in terms of elites, sodal stratification, and patterns of dominance. 38 After all, the examination system that tested learning was both a path to political power and a means to social status. I am more interested in the role of learning in establishing shared values and political opinions. Southern Song literati in some places did see the locality as the terrain in which they could do things for the common good-not as officials, but as local residents. The idea that literati could play local roles that traditionally belonged to the bureaucratic apparatus was exceptional in Northern Song, but Northern Song haa not resurrected Tang policies to control land redistribution and markets. Generally speaking, Southern Song Hterati families were dependent on private wealth, not government grants. The Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhang Zai had proposed a return to an ancient enfeoffment system in which leading local families would be responsible for a locality, an idea he had hoped to put into practice himself. It did not happen, but in Southern Song there was both more widespread appreciation for the localism of the classical

33. Hymes, "Sung Society and Social Change," 621-22. My thanks to Song Chen, who has contributed to my thinking about these issues. 34. Sukhee Lee, Negotiated Power. 35. Sukhee Lee, "Cooperation and Tension." 36. Song Chen, "State, the Gentry, and Local Institutions." 37. The strongest argu~ent for state-society integration is made by Wu Zhengqiang, Keju lixuehua. I think Ichiki also sees Neo-Confucianism as an ideology in support of the state. Ichiki, Shu Kimonjin shudan. 38. See the approaches to the study of Chinese elites in Esherick and Rankin, Chinese Local Elites.

18

Introduction

enfeoffment system and greater literati local activism.39 Literati whose power and prestige were strictly local could see acting locally as doing something of national significance, an insight I owe to Beverly Bossler,who has written on Southern Song Wuzhou. 40 However, the "state" was not the same in Southern Song as in late Northern Song: it had lost 40 percent of its tax-paying population; it had given up investing in expanding education; its military/foreign policy had shifted from aggressive to defensive; its. ruler sought to accommodate political divisions rather than exercise a godlike will· over the cosmos in the style of Huizong; it had ceased supplying rural credit; and so on. At the same time, in the southeast the number of households with some connection to literati status continued to increase. Whether we see them as limiting the reach and roles of the state or as occupying space left open by local government, local literati were·more active in local affairs, invested more in education, and intermarried locally to a far greater degree.41 Literati here were not "antistate" in any sense, but few advocated an activist state that used laws and institutions to remold society. They could see the role·of learning in cultivating people capable of providing social leadership and political service, and thus they could see themselves as the social element that was vital to local well-being. Individual horizons might be narrower or broader-not all could claim to be "literati for all under heaven" ~T.Z:±; some were merely the "literati for a locality" -fa~~.z:±, to use one of the terms of the time. The local cannot, if the subject is learning, be detached from the translocal and the national. For one thing, learning as a literati enterprise included (but was not limited to) the curriculum that prepared the literati for the national civil service examinations, and that continued to be the case even when the examinations were abolished or irrelevant. However, participation in the examinations did not mean counties and prefectures were equal. The population in Song, Yuan, and Ming was not proportionally represented in either the government or the world of learning; some places, such as Wuzhou, invested more in education and sustained literati communities better than others. Similarly, the intensification ofinterest in local networks and local action had a strong regional character, beginning in the southeast, where climate, transportation, commerce, distance from war zones, and the quality of governance could support larger numbers ofliterati families than in the northern provinces. This is evident in the historical consciousness oflocality-local gazetteers and local records were common in the southeast and rare in the north until the fifteenth century-and in the spread and predominance of genealogy-based lineages. Asking how learning emerged as a common enterprise in one place, and how it was sustained and how it changed from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, involves studies of individuals and families, teachers and schools, relations to political power and state institutions, and the production and dissemination of knowledge. Lu Minzhen argues in her review of approaches to local social history that it is not the particularity of the place that 39. Jaeyoon Song, "Redefining Good Government." 40. Bossler, Powerful Relations. 41. Hymes, Statesmen and Gentlemen; Bol, "Neo-Confucianism and Local Society."

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19

holds interest but the generalizability of the questions that are being asked. 42 A shift from narratives oflocal history to the questions that motivate research on local history is salutary, but we still need to identify and account for the difference in answers across space. As literati learning was locally instantiated across the country, it, rather than the culture of the court and capital as the political center, constituted what was national about Chinese culture. But it did not spread evenly: some places barely participated, and others were actively involved. Wuzhou was of the latter sort, a place of "many literati" '% ±.43 I cannot say how many literati there were in Wuzhou. By the middle of the twelfth century, its prefectural examination was one of the most competitive in the country with a pass:fail ratio of 1:200. 44 By the end of the twelfth century, Wuzhou men were taking about rn jinshi degrees in every examination cycle; there were at least 2,800 taking every prefectural examination in the late twelfth century. 45 During the Yuan, when examinations were oflittle importance, Wuzhou literati created an identity for themselves based on their local history of learning, and this identity would be revived in the Ming. The history of Wuzhou offers insights into how a culture of learning could become embedded in local society. The pursuit of a unique local identity shows that it was possible to see the "national" as local.

Wuzhou Wuzhou is not the only well-studied place in the southeast; there is important work on Huizhou in Anhui 46 as well as Jizhou (Ji'an fu) 47 and Fuzhou in Jiangxi, 48 and Mingzhou 49 and Wenzhou in Zhejiang. 50 I chose Wuzhou initially because in the mid-twelfth century it became one of the early centers of the Learning of the Way, and it was home to critics 42. Lu Minzhen, "Quyu shi yanjiu." 43. A phrase from the Book of Odes: ~~$±, jc.:EP,J,:f, 44. Chaffee identifies Wu, Wen iJLand Tai fcj as the three prefectures assigned 1:200 pass ratios; see Chaffee, 1horny Gates, 125. 45. When the number of degrees exceeded the quota for prefectural graduates (e.g.; seventeenjinshi degrees in n90, when the quota for prefectural graduates was fourteen), we can conclude that some Wuzhou men qualified through provincial avoidance examinations for relatives of officials. Wang Maode, ]inhua fuzhi (1578),18.12a-15b,46b, and 52b. According to Zhu Xi, Wuzhou was also one of four Eastern Liangzhe prefectures that relied greatly on the National University examination in addition to special exams for sons of officials; see Chaffee, 1horny Gates, 155. 46. Zurndorfer, Change and Continuity; Zhu Kaiyu, Keju shehui. 47. Dardess, Ming Society; Gerritsen, ]i'an Literati and the Local. 48. Hymes, Statesmen and Gentlemen. 49. Sukhee Lee, Negotiated Power; Huang Kuanchong, "Siming fengsao." 50. Ihara, "Chugoku chishikijin"; Chu Ping-tzu, "Tradition Building and Cultural Competition"; Wang Yu, Yong jia xuepai.

20

Introduction

of that movement. More Wuzhou literary collections have survived from the Yuan period than for any other place. Some Wuzhou literati achieved high office in Southern Song; some became advisers to the founder of the Ming dynasty. In all periods there were some locals who achieved national (and even international) reputations for their learning. In addition to survival of so much material from those who lived lives of learning, the Ming local gazetteers are continuous with their Song predecessors.s1 An interest in local history began to blossom in the 1980s in Jinhua/Wuzhou and elsewhere. The compilation of new local gazetteers in the mid-198os went together with the gathering of extensive local information, augmented by the ongoing publication of literary and historical sources and collections of articles by local scholars on local culture and history.s2 The tradition of literary and biographical anthologies that began in the fourteenth century and of cultural geography that began in the thirteenth century have been revived.s3 The law on cultural relics has created multiple levels of historical value: there are national, provincial, municipal, and county level cultural protection units,s 4 although official recognition creates sometimes-unwelcome requirements for historical preservation. Tourism~and family pride-has led to the restoration of ancestral halls (sometimes as "memorial halls").5s Books devoted to the study oflocal families have been appearing. 56 Genealogies are being recompiled and published locally.57 Despite official resistance some descent groups are publishing their genealogies as gazetteers of the villages the descent groups dominate.ss Some descent groups still maintain (or are restoring) naming systems to keep track of the generations. Similar phenomena are taking place elsewhere 51. Most of the surviving works by Wuzhou literati were collected in the ]inhua congshu UHCS) and Xu ]inhua congshu (XJHCS). The recent Chongxiu ]inhua congshu is probably exhaustive; see Huang Linggeng and Tao Chenghua, Chongxiu ]inhua congshu tiyao. 52. Examples of "treatises" published in preparation for the local gazetteer are ]inhua fengsu congshu and Zhejiang sheng, Yongkang xian diming. An early example of the collection of local research is the ]inhua wenshi ziliao collection. 53. Example of anthologies include Chen Kunzhong, ]inhua lishi mingren; and Yiwu mingren congshu bianzuan, Yiwu mingren zhuan. Examples of cultural geography include Lishi wenhua mingcheng; and Wu Guisheng, ]inhua fengjing. 54- Maags and Svensson, Chinese Heritage in the Making. 55.An example is the Wu family's memorial hall for its great Ming ancestor Wu Baipeng -g:f ;jjl.Jlin the town of Dayuan }cjc in Yiwu. For a systematic accou,nt of local historical preservation, see Guo Zuotang, Dongyangshi wenshi ziliao. 56. For example, He Ruming, Lanxi xingshi. 57. Chengfangjing pu. This Yongkang branch of the Cheng family is descended from Cheng Zhengyi of late Ming. The Jin family has a genealogy extending back to the first ancestor to settle in Wuyi in the fourteenth century and revised fifteen times up to 1927; see Tongqin cunzhi bianzuan, TongqinJinshi zongpu. 58. Examples include the Lu family, which had maintained a continuous genealogy back to the fourteenth century; see Lu Mengkai and LuJiangzhong, Cai-Lu cun zhi. The Shi ;/Ji£ family ofTangxian in Yongkang traced its history to the twelfth century but no longer had access to past genealogies when it compiled the two-volume Tangxian zhi. In the latter case some minority surnames accepted the invitation to have their kin groups registered in the book.

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Localizing Literati Learning

21

in China. 59 As the preface to one contemporary genealogy explains: now that the Cultural Revolution and its attack on tradition and family are over and prosperity is returning, we turn again to writing local gazetteers and genealogies.60 None of these types of works are unique to Jinhua. Well before the local history revival, critical scholarship had begun to explore Jinhua's intellectual history. Sun Kekuan and John D. Langlois, Jr., focused on the Yuan.61 John Dardess and Danjo Hiroshi have found Wuzhou a source for studying elite behavior under the Mongols.62 Wen-hsin Yeh has written on early-twentieth-century Jinhua literati who became communist revolutionaries,63 and Beverly Bossler has used two Wuzhou descent groups in Southern Song to reconsider the family strategies of local elites.64 Many others .will be cited later. Historically Zhejiang divided culturally and economically into a more commercial northern half and a more agricultural south, as Zhu Haibin has shown.65 Wuzhou was on the northern edge of the south. Map 0.1 shows its location in Zhejiang province. A flood plain about eighteen kilometers across runs from Yiwu through Jinhua to Lanxi and then Quzhou. The rivers in this area flow into the Zhe River at Lanxi and thence to Hangzhou. Mountain ranges define the prefectural boundaries, except with Quzhou in the west, and divide the prefecture internally. Geographically Pujiang, separated from the prefectural seat in Jinhua by the North Mountain, is continuous with Shaoxing prefecture. Lesser mountain ranges separate ~uyi and Yongkang in the ·south. The economy was predominantly agricultural, with limited commerce. Jinhua was, however, a nexus in the communication corridors connecting north and south as well as east and west. The main postal route from Song through Ming ran from Hangzhou up the Zhe River to Lanxi and thence to Jinhua and south to Wenzhou. A land route ran from Hangzhou through Shaoxing to Yiwu and Jinhua. The Yuan had a postal station in Yiwu, suggesting that this was in fact a route with official transport. 66 It was also where the first rail line was set. Wuzhou's population grew steadily. In thousands of households, that populatio~ was 135in ea. 1012, 154in n45, 216in 1290, and 256 in 1373.67 The population was concentrated in the plains between the mountains. Map 0.2 models the population according to no2 • 59. This literature is reviewed in Qin Zhaoxiong, Chugoku kohoku. 60. Tongqin cunzhi bianzuan, Tongqin finshi zongpu, preface. 61. Langlois, "Chin-hua Confucianism"; Sun Kelman, Yuandaifinhua xueshu. Langlois studied with Sun at Donghai University. 62. Dardess, "Cheng Communal Family"; Danjo, "Gimon Teishi to Genmatsu no shakai." 63. Yeh, Provincial Passages. • 64. Bossler, Powerful Relations. 65. He argues that culturally (both popular and elite) Zhejiang divides into two parts: Hangzhou, Jiaxing, Huzhou, Ningbo, and Shaoxing versusJinhua, Quzhou, Yanzhou, Taizhou, Wenzhou, and Chuzhou; •see Zhu Haibin, finshi Zhejiang. 66. Yongle dadian, 19433. 67. Population figures from Wang Maode, finhua fuzhi (1578),5.9a-13b. For the Ming, I follow Cao Shuji, Zhongguo renkou_shi, 3, 140, citing a provincial report from 1441.

22

Introduction

o.r. Jinhua geography. Jinhua prefecture after the establishment ofTangxi county in 1471. County seats and county and prefequral boundaries from CHGIS v. 6. Dotted lines, created by Ruoran Cheng for CHG IS, show the Ming postal routes. Guoping Huang created the background digital elevation model and simulated streams layer. TI1erail lines (before the building of high-speed lines) roughly track the traditional land routes from Hangzhou to Jinhua and beyond; they are from ChinaMap (WorldMap.harvard. edu), edited by Merrick Lex Berman. Map created by Peter Bo!. MAP

population figures. The model is based on the assumptions that population clusters on arable land rather than on slopes and that arable land proximate to administrative seats has a greater proportion of the population. In contrast to a choropleth map, which plots population density by total area, this model recognizes that population is not evenly distributed across the terrain. Its importance lies in showing that at this point Wuzhou had areas with population as dense as the richer northern prefectures. Population density correlates with the velocity of trade and communication. This helps explain Wuzhou's competitiveness in Southern Song. A final map, the distribution of jinshi degrees during the Song period, shows that Wuzhou fits the pattern for the southeast (map 0.3).

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0.2. Population density model. Modeling population distribution based on standard assumptions about the relationship between topology and population density shows that Wuzhou had centers of population as dense as those in the economically more advanced northern tier of modern Zhejiang province. The model uses prefectural household registration figures from no2, the location of administrative seats, and topography. Green dots represent county seats. Densities are classed from low (yellow) to high (red). Density model created by Guoping Huang. MAP

24

Introduction

Songjinshi degrees. Distribution ofjimhi degrees during the Southern Song period. Except for the Northern Song capital ofKaifeng, Luoyang, and the Chengdu plain in Sichuan, degrees were clustered in. the so·ng circuits ofLiangzhe East and West (modern Zhejiang, southern Jiangsu), Jiangnan East and West (modern southern Anhui and Jiangxi), and Fujian. This map locates the degree holders who received notice for their accomplishments in the historical record and not merely in local gazetteer degree lists. Degree data and addresses from China Biographical Database; prefectural and circuit boundaries as of 1200 from CHGIS v. 6. • MAP 0.3.

Localizing Literati Learning

25

The Arc of the Book This study begins in the twelfth century with Lii Zuqian introducing Daoxue to Wuzhou and creating a literati community that would share his vision oflearning. Lii was a Daoxue advocate-he collaborated with Zhu Xi for twenty years-but he believed that he could. make it compatible with the interests of literati as a social elite who wanted to learn how to succeed in examinations and enter government. Lii taught locally, but he was not in any sense a localist. He taught literati how to participate in something national, a culture that had its origins in antiquity, as well as how to cultivate moral awareness and behave ethically. He was attempting to lift them out of their provincial backwardness, Yet at the same time he applauded those, some of whom were close friends, who used their resources for local welfare and to improve the situation of local literati. In the configuration of learning he exemplified, Daoxue philosophy would have pride of place, traditional literary learning would be a vehicle for it, literati would maintain rigorous standards of ethical behavior, and as officials they would value pragmatic statecraft. As the second chapter notes, most of the movement's advocates saw Daoxue as the antithesis of examination learning, mere literary training for getting ahead. It is easy for humanists today to share the view that the goal oflearning ought to be to develop oneself, not simply to meet the standards others set for one, but some might not so readily accept the Neo-Confucian view that what was to be developed was a self that embodied a universal morality. This chapter explores "examination education" in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, giving particular attention to popular prose anthologies from local publishing houses. Lii Zuqian had argued that he could appreciate the writing of Su Shi without being influenced by the ideas that underlay Su's writing. Perhaps so, but Su and his circle were a major source for locally published anthologies, which suggests he remained an intellectual force. Examination education required Classical, historical, and literary knowledge. In Wuzhou it was supported by a body of scholarship quite different from Daoxue. Literati across the intellectual spectrum valued writing and publishing· monographs as well as collecting their occasional writings. Erudition, "broad learning" ... , had already been problematized in the Analectswhat, after all, was the point of knowing a lot?-and, although it had remained a way of gaining a learned reputation, it was once again under attack. By their nature, literary and historical learning did involve knowing a lot, and as a result broad learning was inherent in examination preparation, but Ancient Style writers had seen erudition as a means to the personal goal of achieving a coherent understanding of the Way of Sages and the political goal of creating an integrated social order. Daoxue thinkers had denigrated amassing knowledge of the phenomenal world, "knowledge from hearing and seeing" )llifj.:tJ11,compared to investigating the coherence of things as the source of "moral knowledge" 1i~Hi..z:.~. Chapter 3 examines how early-thirteenth-century scholars created massive compendia"category books" ,J:f that cut and pasted material from other books-to devise

26

Introduction

comprehensive systems exhibiting their understanding of the relations between language and idea, culture and place, and history and statecraft. Although their works were published and republished, from the mid-thirteenth century on, what was drawing local attention was a new version of Daoxue. The "Four Masters ofJinhua," the subject of the fourth chapter, spanned a century from Song into Yuan. In contrast to earlier generations who had carried on debates that began in Northern Song, the Jinhua Masters equated learning with Master Zhu' s Learning, treating it as the one true method of knowing. And, their followers claimed, they were unique in the world as ·those who had continued the true transmission of Daoxue. But what did it mean to continue that transmission? This was an issue that·would resurface in Ming. For two of the four, Master Zhu had said all that needed to be said, and the task was merely to understand his teaching correctly and practice what he had preached. But the other two saw themselves • as sharing a way of learning and continuing where Zhu Xi had left off, emending and adding to his works with their own extensive writings. The Mongol conquest of Song in the 1270simmediately undermined the literati as the national cultural and political elite. Emperor Xiaozong could read Su Shi for pleasure; the new rulers could not read Chinese. Buddhist and Daoist orders gained access to greater patronage. Clerks were given greater authority in local government. Military interests were paramount. The examination system ceased. The fifth chapter considers how Wuzhou literati struggled to gain influence and authority without being able to depend on an examination system that had served to define them as the national political, social, and cultural elite in Song. The solution they came up with, addressed in the sixth chapter, was to propose a shared identity for local literati, a Wuzhou identity based on the history of local literati achievements in politics, morality, and culture. This turned out to be a popular solution, one that allowed Wuzhou literati to act as a group tightly connected locally but also connected through individual effort to like-minded literati beyond the locality. What had been a national rhetoric noVI:became a concern with local uniqueness and local relations. The inherent tension between literary learning and Daoxue remained, but the most influential local scholars in mid- and la~e-YuanWuzhou, such as Song Lian, all of whom gained fame through literary work, found a way to accommodate Daoxue in the interest of a common Wuzhou identity. The sociologist Peter Bearman discussed a shift in English local elite behavior from the sixteenth to seventeenth century as involving change from local relations to national rhetorics.68 It is tempting to see the Song-Yuan transition as being one from the national rhetorics of Northern Song to local relations in Southern Song, except that in fact allWuzhou scholars through the Four Masters saw their learning in national rather than local terms. It is only in Yuan that the idea of a unique local tradition was established. The sixth chapter draws on a comparative quantitative analysis of Wuzhou kinship and social 68. Bearman, Relations into Rhetorics.

LocalizingLiterati Learning

27

associations based on data in the China Biographical Database to show substantial changes in literati behavior. In contrast to Southern Song, marriage networks in Yuan Wuzhou became almost entirely local, and the most central figures in scholarly networks were now overwhelmingly local as well. At the same time the cross-county marriage networks that had tied leading literati families together disappeared, in their place cross-county associations based on learning intensified. When local literati found a common identity that transcended their intellectual di,fferences,they used this local identity to give them a unique· reputation in regional and national life. Creating and maintaining written genealogies, seen as the necessary basis for multigenerational descent groups, was a parallel means of creating common literati identities. The prefaces to literati genealogiesheld that the unity of the lineage was a means to maintain ethical norms, cultural standards, and political responsibility, just as Hterati learning claimed to combine morality, culture, and politics. The well-organized descent group was the best means to realize social ideals at a time when local government was not seen as serving the common good: The literary scholars who made their reputations as Wuzhou literati in late Yuan gained a privileged place at court in the Ming founding. The seventh chapter argues that early Ming social policy was congruent with their views of a good society. Although literati had a path to political leadership under the Ming, the connections Wuzhou (now Jinhua prefecture) literati had to the Ming founder soon wore thin, and, with the Yongle usurpation of 1402, they disappeared from prominence until the late fifteenth century. It was then . that an economic revival in Jinhua supported a restoration oflocal academies, republishing works of earlier scholars and celebrating local history. Once again there was a single figure who played an outsize role, Zhang Mao. Zhang summoned Jinhua literati to live up to Wuzhou's achievements in Daoxue, literature, and government service. Zhang himself was acquainted with the most influential Daoxue scholars of the day and the debates among them, but he refused to create a philosophy of his own, defending both the adequacy of Zhu Xi learning and the nearly antithetical commitment to self-cultivation of Chen Xianzhang. Some Jinhua literati saw a better model in Wang Yangming from nearby Yuyao to the north, creating a new division between the local defenders of Zhu Xi learning and Wang's followers that was at times expressed through differing interpretations of the Four Masters. The split was not resolved. The final chapter is a conclusion in two senses. It offers a concluding summary, and it argues that the late sixteenth century concluded an era that had begun in the twelfth and had successfully weathered Yuan and Ming conquests. The case for the end of an era is made with Hu Yinglin, the most prominent of late-sixteenth-century Jinhua scholars, and his use of a reinterpretation ofWuzhou tradition and study of new kinds of texts to firmly reject the idea that the mission of learning was to hold together Neo-Confucian .cultivation and literary accomplishment. He marks the beginning of the end of an era. I now turn to Wuzhou in the mid-twelfth century. It was a time of relative prosperity in the southeast, when those seeking literati learning were increasing, yet prospects for

28

Introduction

official careers were decreasing, and when national defense was occupying the court's attention. Many of the literati families wp.o might have hoped to make government service their occupation had learned to live as local elites-and local elites were now being encouraged to transform themselves into literati. I begin in Wuzhou with Lii Zuqian, scion of an emigre family with weak local ties but an illustrious history, as he set out to show Wuzhou elites how to be literati.

CHAPTER

I

Lu Zuqian in Song

I

n the spring of 1998, I followed Professors Fang Rujin and Gong Jianfeng east up the Dongyang River, turning south as it passed through the mountains. We were going to see the Stone Ravine Academy, founded by Guo Qinzhi 850 years ago. Across the narrow plain was the town of Guozhai f~~, "Residence of the Guos," today still inhabited by his descent group. 1 The academy itself had been restored three years before, the fifth recorded restoration in its history. Now it is a museum piece; there are occasional efforts to keep the place up, bring in tourists, and offer tutoring to local students. I begin with the academy in a chapter on creating literati communities through teaching and learning because of the statues of three twelfth-century literati in the front hall: Zhu Xi from Fujian, flanked by two Wuzhou literati, Lii Zuqian from Jinhua and Chen Liang from Yongkang. It is claimed-it is an article oflocal faith-that Zhu Xi taught at Stone Ravine, based on four large characters, said to be his, that are carved into the cliff face opposite. 2 What is certain is that Zhu, Lii, and Chen, among others, knew about the Stone Ravine Academy and corresponded with members of the wealthy, powerful, and ambitious Guo family. Although none of them were from Dongyang, they did have Dongyang students (Lii had II known students, Zhu 4, Chen 2). When we broaden our scope to all ofWuzhou prefecture, we find that the three were the leading teachers: Lii with 68 students, Zhu with r6, and Chen Liang with 12. 3 When we ask who most tied together different groups ofWuzhou literati, we get the same results: Lii, Zhu, and Chen. The statue builders did not have to count to get it right. Lii, Zhu, and Chen corresponded with each other at length, engaged the intellectual issues of the day, and wrote extensively.All three rejected the state activism and intervention

r. The academy is located at the coordinates 29.23071, 120.38772. Sukhee Lee has shown how the Guos' claim to Zhu was constructed over time, despite the lack of evidence that Zhu did teach at Stone Ravine. See "Zhu Xi Was Here." 3. These data are drawn from the China Biographical Database 20170424 edition, available for download at https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/cbdb. The website also introduces the history and purpose of the database. The numbers are of named students in historical sources; they indicate the relative popularity of the three teachers. 2.

30

ChapterI

in society and culture of Wang Anshi's New Policies and opposed a peace treaty with the Jurchens' Jin dynasty that recognized the loss of the north. All devoted many years to teaching outside the state school system. Yet they had quite distinct views of education and learning. Zhu was a tireless advocate for the Learning of the Way (Daoxue) and the practice of "discoursing on learning"•¥-: students and teachers discussing the meaning of texts and concepts that were integral to "learning to be a sage." His theory of learning explained how individuals could transform their thinking in such a way that they would be able to find in themselves the moral response to whatever they encountered. Like a number of other southeastern statecraft writers, Chen Liang at first identified with Daoxue. Eventually he broke with Zhu Xi in a famous exchange over whether the achievements of the Han and Tang empires provided worthy models and whether in politics the ends could justify the means. The utilitarian Chen could not accept Zhu Xi's view that there was an absolute distinction between the Three Dynasties of antiquity, founded by sages, and bureaucratic empires oflater times or that morality was always a matter of how one behaved, a "morality of the means," and could not be subordinated to political ends. Hoyt Tillman's study goes into far greater depth than I can here.4 Lii Zuqian, the central figure in this chapter, collabo1;ated with Zhu Xi in promoting the Learning of the Way for twenty years but was also a mentor to Chen. In addition he saw value in history and literature. Over time Zhu became ever more critical ofLii's learning and his influence on Wuzhou literati. 5 When Lii, Zhu, and Chen were gaining reputations as teachers, education in Wuzhou and the southeast generally was entering a remarkable new era. In early Song there were no state schools in Wuzhou; getting a broad literary education was challenging. Fan Zhongyan wrote of Hu Ze of Yongkang, the first Wuzhou man to earn a jinshi degree: In his youth he was of outstanding character. The Qian family had ruled [the kingdom of Wu-Yue] for a century. For employing literati they relied on hereditary privilege; they did not establish examinations, and in Wu-Yue the Confucian tenor had practically disappeared. [Hu] was able to purchase copies of the Classics and histories and compose literary works. Once [that kingdom] came back to Our Dynasty, he gained the jinshi degree from the emperor in 989.6 After he became an official, Hu left Yongkang for good; he was buried in Hangzhou, and his direct descendants did not return. Hu's grave did come hack: after the Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution desecrated his grave, his lateral descendants brought his remains 4. Tillman, Utilitarian Confucianism, 153-68.See also See also Tillman, "Ch'en Liang," chap. 6, and "Chu Hsi and Ch'en Liang," chap. 7, in Confucian Discourse. 5. Zhu Xi, Zhuzi yulei 121.2939, cf.Juan 122. 6. Quan Song wen, 19.39 *~ff~~~1HJJ¾JU,t~. ¾YW1%,J1IJ((-m,~o ~~~ii'f'9'-'. ±flHJt/iio:f iJUVJo ffititf&rai 11JiJUI o¾ t~Jl#JttJI tl\ Alt £-tt Jl//H# -=-d¥-;/iEf!RU %:l!±~ ~~ o

x

Lu Zuqian in Song 31 back to the village of Huku im,llf,where they are buried today. But in one sense he never left, for his kinsmen continued to venerate him, local tax relief was attributed to his intervention (but wrongly and after the fact), and, by the end of the Song, he was well on the way to becoming the regional deity he is today.7 In the mid-eleventh century prefectures were encouraged to establish county schools-in Wuzhou this happened in the 1040s and 1050s. The New Policies regimes not only required county schools; they also instituted a system of graded county and prefectural schools, with student stipends, that fed into the National University-once again increasing demand. The new system aimed eventually to shift from triennial examinations open to any qualified applicant to a system in which all candidates would go through state schools, and the National University would grant degrees. Before its abandonment in n21, it supported over 200,000 students. Although few of these students would gain office, the new system did ensure that literati would study the New Policies curriculum. 8 This changed in the decades following the loss of the north. Giving up the requirement that students study at state schools before taking the examinations opened the way for independent teachers, some of whom sided with opponents of Wang Anshi and the New Policies. Later private academies began to appear. When Lu, Zhu, and Chen began to gather students, they were scholarly figures with reputations of their own, not mere family tutors or rural masters. Moreover, all three were critical of the state school system on intellectual grounds. They did not criticize increased opportunity for education but the nature of education at state schools. For Zhu Xi the distinction was between an education focused on cultivating one's moral character, "learning for the sake of oneself," and examination education in the state schools, mere "learning for the sake of others," which was motivated by a desire to get ahead in society.9 Chen Liang shared his objection for different reasons. This dynasty's school rules are particularly detailed. But I have some serious doubts. We select the best of all the literati in the world and nurture them in the National University, and the prefectures and counties also have their own schools. But they are solely concerned with compositions for a single day's test. How can their minds grow strong and their talent develop if a whole year of learning is aimed at a single day? The schools of the Three Dynasties are beyond us, but at the height of Han and Tang-even if they were reciting the explanations

7. Today the celebration and worship of Hu Zeis the major communal activity ofHuku. On Hu Ze and "Lord Hu," see Hu Guojun, "Hugong dadi"; Lu Minzhen, Hu Ze zhuan; Zhu Haibin, "Kinsei Sekko.'' 8. In uo7: 110,000 students; 1109:167,000; 1n6: over 200,000; see Yongguang Hu, "Reassessment of the National Three Hall System," 160-61. 9. To be_fair, Zhu Xi also drew up a proposal for an educational program broader than discoursing on learning that included the Classics, philosophers and histories, and diverse Song commentaries, although he did not formally submit it. See Zhu Xi ji, 69.3632¥,;/?zjt*.fL1ll.

32

ChapterI

of their particular school-they would still discuss the principles of the Classics and delve into the histories and literature; they would seek out [the reasons for] political order and disorder. It was not like today, when one hunts for a couple of flowery phrases or clever sayings to compose a text as a means of fooling the examiners. Some hold that, if testing language is something that we have been unable to give up since the Three Dynasties, then truly compositions for examinations are inevitable. How could establishing schools for all and teaching like this accord with Heaven's intent arid stimulate the character of the populace? Schools were not originally aimed at testing, and if one day we should abruptly change, where will we find the model?10

Chen objects that state schools ultimately test composition and thus pervert the worthwhile goals of education represented hy Han and Tang: discussing the Classics, histories, and literature and understanding political history. Moral cultivation is not his issue. Lii Zuqian took a different tack, arguing that there was no ancient precedent for a government school system in the first place. His tactic, based on a lengthy review of institutional developments since antiquity, was to argue that in the Three Eras, teaching ~ existed but that schooling was not seen as part of government, which in his view was limited to bureaucratic management. Music officials were involved in teaching, for music and dance could "deeply enter the heart-mind" $;;.AA.10/A.. From Qin and Han on, during the era of a centralized bureaucratic system, education was bureaucratized and subordinated to government, and the promotion of education became mere window dressing. Contra Chen Liang, there were .no models here. But Lii did see promise in the Northern and Southern dynasties, the period of the weakest centralization and of foreign invasion, when education was meant to transform people (from tribal to civilized, for example), although, owing to a lack of great Confucian scholars, the possibility was not fully realized. 11 All three agreed that education was fundamentally important, to both proper government and literati status. The question was what kind of education this should be. Lii Zuqian gave his answer through teaching in Wuzhou.

10.

ChenLiangji, 157 FJJ¥,~i:.$¼. tiiJ.;js:.~i:_¥,$¼~;/t~. -1f]')f--tf~,tf-.•3cTi:.±. :J¥;J,J,:;ft,tf-W-sii:.

**·W~>l5ZJI**·JJ~iUJ~-

s ~~i:.X. }ciY.M-~i:.¥f. n. This text, found in Ma Duanlin, Wenxiantongkao,400C-461B, appears to be the missing conclusion to the chapter on schools in Lii Zuqian, Lidai zhidu xiangshuo,2.22, based on the structure and language of the latter.

Lu Zuqian in Song

33

Examinations, Academies, and Teachers in Wuzhou When Lii set himself up as an independent teacher in n67, at the age of thirty-one, he immediately attracted students in large numbers.12The moment was right. Wuzhou literati already had seen that education opened the way to officialdom. In the first 120 years after Wuzhou became part of Song, about 26 local literati had passed the jinshi examination. In the sixty years between the examinations of no3 and n66, the year before Lii began teaching locally, about 73 had passed, and in the following thirty years 76 more would. 13 By the end of the twelfth century, Wuzhou was one of the most competitive places in Song, with a pass:fail ratio at the prefectural level of 1:200. There was a sizable clientele for schools and teachers. 14 But I have not found influential teachers before Lii. Two examples oflocal teachers, one an official on sinecure, the other an examination failure from a family of officials, help us see what made Lu different. Pan Lianggui began as a brilliant youth. In his fourteenth year he tested into the prefectural school and five years later, in III2, was promoted to the National University, where he passed out of the Upper Hall, gainingjinshi-equivalent status in n15. He was a great talent, but his remonstrances at the end of the Northern Song and his opposition to Qin Gui's peace policy in Southern Song resulted in his repeatedly being forced out of real office and placed on sinecures. He actively served for less than three years in all. 15 He did have some local students. One, the statesman Wang Shiyu, studied literary composition with Pan and Cheng Yi's philosophy with Yang Shi.16 Another student, the wealthy Pan Haogu, had failed the exams 12. For Lii's career and the dating of his writings, I follow Du Haijun, Lu Zuqian nianpu. This work elaborates on the detailed chronology, compiled shortly after his death by either his brother Lii Zujian or nephew Lii Qiaonian, appended to Lii Zuqian, Donglai Lu taishi wenji. Lii claimed to have soon acquired "three hundred" students in a letter to Liu Qingzhi in Donglai Lu taishi bieji, 9.453. 13. The jinshi totals are based on the prefectural gazetteer of 1480 in Zhou Zongzhi, Chongxiu ]inhua fuzhi, juan 3. The 1578gazetteer has higher numbers but relied on local lineages to submit names missing from the earlier list. Because the 1480 gazetteer is missing data from Lanxi, I have included names in Wang Zhuo and Zhang Mao, Lanxi xianzhi, 3.136-166; however, the editors warn that they may still have missed some figures (3.166). 14. Wuzhou was allowed to send fourteen to the metropolitan examination after u25. See Wang Maode, ]inhuafuzhi (1578),18.52b,466. Chaffee identifies Wu, Wen, and Tai as the three prefectures assigned 1:200 pass-fail ratios (Ihorny Gates, 125).According to Zhu Xi, Wuzhou was also one of four Eastern Zhejiang prefectures that relied greatly on the National University examination in addition to the normal avoidance exams; see Ihorny Gates, 125and 55;ZhuXiji, 69.3634 f:istJt*;fl.s~. 15. Pan Lianggui, Pan Mocheng, nianpu. Only four of the fifteen Juan of his literary collection have survived. In n86 Zhu Xi wrote a preface to his literary collection, depicting him as a model of political integrity; see Zhu Xi ji, 76.398416. Zhu Xi wrote a spirit path stele to commemorate Wang; see ZhuXiji, 90 9'~*1':_1[)'#t:fl'41J:.i~# :i!-li$-~. Wang was not interested in compiling his writings; some memorials survive in Quan Song wen, 220.308-39.

34

Chapter I

before migrating to Jinhua. He knew Pan Lianggui already from a stay in the capital. Pan Haogu eventually gained rank in return for his contributions to famine relief; Lii Zuqian described him as a model of social responsibility.17 Fan Jun set himself up as a teacher but had no rank. His grandfather had been the first jinshi from Lanxi, his father had rank (and may have passed the examination), and his brother Fan Rong gained rank by hereditary privilege from their grandfather and served in local government. One of his nephews, Fan Duanchen, passed the jinshi examination in 1154and served at court. The Fans were, by Fan Jun's own account, one of the greatest families in Lanxi. Fan Jun himself did not have an official career-he spent his days in Lanxi as a teacher and writer in impoverished circumstances 18-but he wanted one. He certainly aspired to a national reputation-witness his begging letters to high court officials and the set of twenty-two treatises he prepared for the rare decree examination of n37.19 In n61 Fan Duanchen printed FanJun's writings in twenty-two chapters (juan) and secured a preface from a high-ranking official from neighboring Jinhua, Chen Yanxiao, who had once visited Fan Jun. The preface celebrated his uncle's devotion to realizing the Way; it also increased recognition of Fan Duanchen's ow~ literary talent. 20 Publishing a literary collection did not guarantee its survival-most Song texts are lost-unless future generations reprinted it. And this indeed happened. Later men adduced two reasons: he was a local writer, and Zhu Xi had included his "Mind Exhortation" l\..i'~ in Zhu's collected commentaries on the Mencius. 21 Zhu's inclusion was remarkable. "From whom did Fan learn?" asked one of his students. "He never followed anyone," Zhu replied, "but he saw it for himself and talked about it so very well. In the past Lii Zuqian very much looked down on him and asked me, 'Why do you have to include this?' I said, 'I simply saw how well he talked about it and so included it.' He said, 'This kind of talk is something lots of people say.' [I said,] 'It is because one rarely sees someone able to say it like this, although the idea probably has been there.'" 22 Fan's collection includes a short biographical note by Zhu that does not appear in Zhu's works; nor does Lii Zuqian mention him. The result of Zhu's including this one piece in the Mencius commentary ensured that "everyone in the world has heard of his name," as Wu Shidao wrote in 1332,when he patched together a collection of Fan's works, a view that Zhang Mao echoed in 1479 in his postface to a reprint of the collection. Zhang's claim was 17. Pan Lianggui gave Pan Haogu his courtesy name; see Quan Song wen, 185.420-21. Haogu's biography is in Lii Zuqian, Donglai Lu taishi bieji, 10.151-54.. 18. Chen Yanxiao preface in Fan Jun and Fan Guoliang, Fan Jun ji, 283. 19. Fan Jun, Fan Duanchen, and Fan Duangao, Fan Xiangxi xiansheng, juan n-15- This was the exam for the "Wise and Correct, Foursquare and Correct": Xianliang fangzheng Jf-Jlljf JE. 20. Chen Yanxiao's preface makes these points. The jinshi Gao Zhan ?il)~, former student and relative, compiled the collection. 21. Zhu Xi, Si shu zhangju, 11.335. 22. Zhu Xi, Zhuzi yulei, 59.1416. r,it ~yi)'jf ~~~l\.,'~o :fJP~ '*~*o s :f i'litAo1fl.1-t!i. ggJl O

1HU01Jt1Ul144iJfjiiJfl:lf £2£2.)C)C""TTToday moral conduct is ignored as duties of ruler and minister are abandoned, lineages are in disorder, the tribal people are attacking. He is being responsible; he is working to save the world by solving its fundamental problem of immorality. 48 Wang was teaching at a moment when private academies were so popular that he claimed the state's county and prefectural schools were modeling themselves on the academies. ''Alike they take Confucius and Mencius as teachers: Alike they honor Zhou [Dunyi] and Cheng [Yi].Alike they are the places where the state cultivates talent." 49 Although he also wrote to officials about local government and national concerns, 50 by the early 1260s he was arguing, as others had, that it was the Learning of the Way and the state's recognition of it that defined the historical achievement of the Song. We think that [the reason] the state has far surpassed Han and Tang is also due to Master Zhou Dunyi's opening up the transmission of Daoxue for a myriad generations. And, with the Cheng brothers, moral principles becoming greatly illuminated and completely negating the past. The virtues of the current sage ruler ai'e hard to describe adequately, but, as for the most important things he has done relevant to the way for society, nothing compares to his giving accessory sacrifices to the Five Masters, honoring Daoxue, making known the Four Books, and cutting off accessory sacrifices to Wang Anshi and his son.51

Given this, he argued, the writing of the dynastic history should not relegate the NeoConfucian masters to a group biography (as would ultimately happen); rather, there ought to be a new chapter in the treatise section of the history, a "Treatise on the Learning of the Way" ±t*;t, recognizing the school as one of the key matters of state. The Daotong,the transmission of true learning though individual scholars, made them the equivalent of the sages of antiquity and made their work the human equivalent of the processes by which life itself was possible: Yin and yang establish the way of heaven; the firm and the yielding establish the way of earth. The four seasons proceed through this; the myriad things come into being through this. Is this not the Daotongof heaven-and-earth? f • The sage uses humaneness and·rightness to institute teaching. He establishes a mind for heaven-and-earth; he establishes the Way for the populace. This is how he continues the learning that was lost and opens the way to great peace. This, then, is the Daotongof the sage.

48. Wang Bo, Luzhai Wang Wenxian, 4-15a-b *ir.*,,\.:iji:}f 49. Wang Bo, Luzhaiji, 9.171_l-:f~-~~/:iii-:i'Lj:, ~t-%J;f!, ~J¼i~*WA;fi:±!1!,, 50. These are discussed in Sukhee Lee, "Making Sense of the Master." 51.Wang Bo, Luzhai Wang Wenxian, 17.10b-12a4tJ!)J(.**· #=till ~i:.P.Jr ~:lt:1(~,Jffl';:/f, 11' ~%) f--W-1

•-tl!:-:il,f,i:'f'f.1f%#5t~~JJ.;k\1JJ. iUUN,. 4 J:.~~~:lt. *J\JW~.;lt-'[M:bH!t:i!l:i::il;k;:/f, ~feP #.lif-1tl#1!UE.Jfla:i!):,f,, *•11!1:t.JF~.:f.~;p-;S(f-i:1Erlki.

r

Daoxue 133

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The term Daotong did not appear in antiquity; rather it arose in recent times. Therefore, when Master Zhu did the preface for the Doctrine of the Mean, he was above all concerned that the Daotongwould not be transmitted. His concern for society's future was profound. 52

For Wang the Cheng-Zhu school ofDaoxue offered a method oflearning. He teaches this in his one lecture that survives, a guest lecture at the Shangcai Academy in Taizhou, named after Ch~ng Yi's follower Xie Liangzuo. It develops in detail the idea that learning proceeds through combining mental attentiveness internally and extending knowledge externally: the former being a mental-physical exercise of maintaining composure and keeping the mind focused, and the latter being the process of fathoming coherence through reading books, discussing and judgin$ historical figures, and leatning to respond to events on that basis. But, he points out, as Zhu Xi had already explained, this was a process of realizing what one already had: one was realizing the mind's "original substance" ;.zjs:.ft,not indoctrinating onesel£53

The Fox Who Wanted to Be a Hedgehog He Ji fits neatly into Isaiah Berlin's division of thinkers into the hedgehogs who know one big thing and the foxes who know many things; he wanted to understand Zhu Xi's teachings correctly. Wang Bo, who began as a literary man with historical interests and a desire to be a hero like Zhuge Liang, asserted that he had converted to the Learning of the Waya fox who had become a hedgehog. Yet his bibliography includes at least eighty-eight titles of writings on the Five Classics and Four Books, historical subjects, philosophical writings (mainly his own and Zhu Xi's), and literature (see appendix 4.1). It seems Wang could not become another He Ji after all. To illustrate the difference between He Ji's desire to understand correctly what Zhu Xi meant and Wang Bo's approach to Zhu Xi, consider He's view of the Book of Changein his explication of Zhu's Introductionto the Learningof the Change.For He Ji the Ch~ngeis a coherent work from the -start, and its several layers of accreted text are coherent with each other. Zhu Xi had clarified this: he "completely washed out the wrong theories of various Ru and alone apprehended the original mind of the four sages [who created the original layers]."54 In his preface to He Ji's work, written after his death, Wang acknowledges He's achievement and that "he did not dare add a single character himself" 7F~~jJ11-~ to Zhu's work. But Wang's point is not the unity of the Changebut the gradual process of its composition, in which no' one person was capable of getting it all.

52. Wang Bo, Luzhaiji, 5.77~:i~J;i1f.i,t. Jt3(:ii1Arlli~~,Jt:!f!i.:it,tf-~ij~~, l1Ylltfr~,W~:1:.~,Jltzjj:. 3(±ii!..:t:it~f-. ~,A_P,,(1::tUlt~, J.!,3(:!f!i.Jt,0, J.!,:1:.~Jt:it, JJrP,,Z~~1'§-Z?Jr!, 5Z.1J)\j'0:il[J:;f,ifii'iJ}c:l{:flmJi.,•1±:f-ft,

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81. Jin Liixiang, Lian LuoJeng ya. For a study of the text, see Hao Weiqian, "Jin Liixiang Lian Luo fengya yanjiu"; Gao Yunping, Song Yuan Beishan, 146-61. Wang Kun points out the connection to Wang Bo's earlier work; see Wang Kun, "Beishan si xiansheng." 82. Wang Kun, "Beishan si xiansheng." 83. That it was is amply evidenced by Fuller; see in particular the discussion of Yang Wanli in Drifting among Rivers.

146

Chapter 4

Poetry was the test of the Daoxue claim that nothing of value was found outside of a correct understanding of the Way. Aside from Jin's approach-to establish a set of models for others to follow-there were two other approaches to bringing literary writing into the Daoxue fold. One was to demand that the content of a literary work be ideologically correct, adopting the slogan "Literature is to transmit the Way" X P,J, ~:lit from Zhou Dunyi. As Wang Bo pointed out, this was quite different from the idea-associated with Han Yu-that the Way was made coherent through writing, "Wen is to thread the Way" jc_P,J,--Jr:lt, for the latter gave writing primacy and made the understanding of the Way a cultural construct rather than something that could be known of itself 84 Another solution was to argue that a properly cultivated person would spontaneously produce poetry that was authentic and correct. Zhu Xi's twenty-poem cycle "Stirred When Residing in My Studio" jf)§-~~ could be used to support both views. He Ji had written a commentary on the twenty poems meant to show how all of them fit with Zhu's work on specific Neo-Confucian texts and concepts. 85 Wang Bo thought it was possible to have it both ways. "In literary writing qi is the most important thing; antiquity had that saying. In literary writing coherence is the most important thing; Ru of recent times often say this." The key was to produce writing with "correct qi" .IE~, which was possible for those who understood the Way; but the Way, being above form, was invisible-it was necessary to give it body in form. Since what is "in form" was by definition qi, and qi was also the Way (since there could be no qi without li), one had to have recourse to writing, but correcting one's qi came first. 86 He Ji, Wang, and Jin all illustrate different ways of claiming roles in the Daoxue movement. He Ji began as a scholar with a large library that would have lent itself to broad learning, but he made the study of the "learning of Master Zhu" his mission to the exclusion of practically all else. He met Huang Gan before the court began to recognize Daoxue and, according to his biographers, stayed on the path Huang Gan set him on with a religious devotion. This cannot be said for Wang Bo, who began with literary and historical interests and only turned to Daoxue after the court began to honor Zhu Xi. Wang in fact kept up his broad learning and literary interests throughout his life, and at the same time he presented himself as a convert to the Learning of the Way, studying Zhu Xi thoroughly and continuing what he saw as Zhu's scholarly trajectory in Classical exegesis. That so little of his enormous body of writing survived may be attributable to its loss during the turmoil of the conquest in 1276. It seems to me that Wang's turn to Daoxue was an addition to his

84. See the discussion of these doctrines in Bo!, "This Culture of Ours," 135-36, 254-55. For Wang Bo's discussion see Wang Bo, Luzhai Wang Wenxian, 12.8a-b J/![~ff.wAJ=/1}-;'c;l1$L discussed in Wang Kun, "Beishan si xiansheng." 85. Wang Kun, "Beishan si xiansheng." 86. Wang Bo, Luzhai Wang Wenxian, 12.8a-b Jl![~ff.wA.:f.¾X;l1$t. jcJ2),~~-·=L ~1f¾1f--ll:1,o X

J2),Jl~.:L :r!i-W:-114\'-#'if :t.oAnd *:lt4ro%WJ:.4r--\l:1,o ~4ro%rrrff4f--\l:1,o %WJ:.4r::f PfJL i01f%tml' 4\'-~:t.ft~owJc~#:lt--\l:1,o ~ti¾:t.jc,:M1fIE~o

Daoxue

147

oeuvre rather than an attempt to integrate all his scholarly fields into a Daoxue framework. Perhaps his work was lost when readers did not see the connection to Daoxue in many of his writings. Jin Liixiang represents another and, given how much survived, a more durable approach: a devotion to Zhu Xi's ideas about learning combined with the subordination of broad learning about many subjects to a well-articulated Daoxue agenda, clearly apparent in his handling of ancient history and poetry. Xu Qian, Jin's successor, also lived through the Mongol conquest, but Xu alone lived to see the restoration of the civil service examinations in 1315and the establishment of the Four Books with Zhu's commentaries as required texts. Xu had just the kind of expertise literati now needed.

Xu Qian,

1270-1337

Xu spent his life as a teacher by choice, and, except for a brief trial, he did not serve. He declined the offer of a clerkship, a recommendation for a decree examination, repeated recommendations for appointment as an "overlooked recluse," and various other recommendations to the court. 87 That he gained so many recommendations, at a time when recommendations were the key to appointments, indicates that Xu kept up his connections to officials, evident too from his letters and congratulatory notes to local officials on their promotions and appointments. Long after their deaths, at the behest of descendants, he agreed to write records of conduct, to be submitted to the court, for generals who had participated in the Yuan conquest of Song. 88 He was not opposed to serving in government at all, he wrote; it was just that learning had to precede serving, 89 and he allowed that a clerical career was an acceptable option for scholars who wanted a career in government. 90 When Xu began his teaching career, he did not agitate for a restoration of the Song (or Jin) examination system because, he said, ending the exams had also ended the bad practice of selecting literati based on literary accomplishment. 91 He wrote to a northern scholar, a man who had spent a decade in the south and had secured a government teaching appointment in the area, that his interest in literary education was at odds with seeking the Way through the Classics. 92 To another newly appointed teacher he wrote warning against the pursuit of broad knowledge; for breadth and subtlety only the Six Classics and

87. Discussed in his funerary biography Quan Yuan wen, 30.333-34. Also see Xu's letters to Song and Liu Quan Yuan wen, 25.6 and 1488. Quan Yuan wen, 25.64-68. 89. Quan Yuan wen, 25.14 J:.*~£&:f and 25-16J:.c:$)itt~:f. 90. Quan Yuan wen, 25.32*'ti:pJJl{f:. 91. Quan Yuan wen, 25.32~it'f)ilff. 92. Quan Yuan wen, 25.32-35 *At,t,~lj)Jfl1ij1U'Htff: and *]ff}tl/J}l1~~$cff.

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Chapter4

Four Books were necessary.93 His 1305essay "On Schools" can be read as a rejoinder to those who were calling for the restoration of the examinations. "Schools are the source of order. The sage is the teacher for all time. Not to take antiquity as one's teacher but simply to say, 'I am good at creating order [through government],' and not to base this in schools, and not to take the Three Eras as a model-I don't see how this is possible." From Qin and Han on, he continues, no dynasty has in fact been willing to truly base recruitment on schools and model it on the Three Eras. Literati preferred the learning of the present to that of antiquity. They valued the Han style of studying the Classics merely as texts or, after Han, competing for literary merit. 94 In teaching, Xu was trying to show that schools could produce literati who were devoted to the way of the sages and were thus prepared to help bring about order through government. But in 1313it was decided to restore the examinations, beginning in 1315,with their traditional three-part structure. A compromise between proponents of schools and advocates of a literary examination changed the first session to essays on the meaning of passages from the Four Books based on Zhu Xi's commentaries and a passage from a Classic of choice. Literary competence was still expected (the second session required composing in the rhyme-prose and documentary forms, and the third session, short essays on questions about government policy, history, and the Classics), but the first session determined who would pass,95 and for that applicants had to know their Daoxue. Xu Qian, as the successor to local teachers devoted to understanding Zhu Xi correctly, was eminently qualified to guide them. Students in the hundreds flocked to his home, and officials took notice. 96 Xu is said to have refused to teach literary composition (although his extant work is in good literary form), but he also had to contend with those who thought they could grasp the Classics without Daoxue commentaries; after all, the Way did not depend on texts. He writes to one such student: The Way is of course present everywhere. The sages refined it to make teachings. Therefore, those afterward who want to hear about the Way must seek it in the Classics. The Classics are not the Way, but the Way is preserved through the Classics. The commentaries are not Classics, but the Classics are made clear through the commentaries. Go through the commentaries to seek the Classics. Go through the Classics to know the Way. To accumulate it and engage 93. Quan Yuan wen, 25.33**'f)ll)l 94- Quan Yuan wen, 25.42-44 *i3t-tiilr. tk*i3e.4fo~5{t.:t)W:{t,:i'AW-Jf.:t$iji,.:f$iJi"t.

mJ:/tS. ~ :fit~.::.{~. ¾*JLlt1if~. 95. The definitive study of the debates over restoring the examinations is Yao Dali, "Yuanchao keju zhidu." 96. The biography in the History of Yuan says that in 1314 or 1315he went to Bahua Mountain and students came. This site later became the Bahua Academy /\*f:1% (the Qing revival is at the top of a mountain in Dongyang). His epitaph says only that he retreated there for two years and then returned home, at which point students flocked to him; see Quan Yuan wen, 30.333.Xu did sometimes venture beyond Wuzhou, for example, traveling to Nanjing to lecture in 1313;see Quan Yuan wen, 25.24-25 ~~1a-ff.t',dated ~~5&. W:f*ii*{)(·

1315.

r

Daoxue 149

.

in moral conduct, to express it in writing and work; when all these match the sages, that is called "practicing the Way." Commentaries cannot exhaust the meaning of the sages' Classics, but apprehending it for oneself comes only after reading them thoroughly and pondering them carefully. Today everyone regards glosses and commentaries as stale talk. If we ignore those from before the Song, then the books of the Chengs, Zhang Zai, and Master Zhu are all futile saying~.97

Paying attention to the earlier commentaries shows students how different the Song philosophers were. Xu wrote on the /11-#ff.J;z!'c.• g),Jl:'..t~.Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1993. Zhongguo Pujiang Zheng yimen ]iangnan diyi jia: Zhongguo gudai jiazu wenhua de huihuang yichan 9'1liI111IJ~~F~1Im~-~:o/l-#1t~*X1ta/;J!i'f.;kiit).[. Pujiang: Xuanlushan fengjing mingshengqu guanweihui, 1997. Zhou Chunjian ftiJ.f.~. "Jin Liixiang yu Lun Mengjizhu kaozheng' ½)!Ulf~ ((-Jt-j:;lyi~i.iE)). Zhongguo dianji yu wenhua 9'100~-~x1t, no. l (2009): 61-66. ---. "Xu Qian yu Du Sishu congshuo" it*~ ((-~IZl/iS/li}t,)).Zhongguo dianji yu wenhua o/ oo~•~x1t, no. 4 (2007): 50-55. Zhou Mengjiang ftiJWJI. Ye Shi yu Yongjia xuepai Pfit~A