The Yangming school of Neo-Confucianism rose and grew increasingly prominent in the Ming dynasty (1368—1644). Thanks to its solid Confucian tradition and geographic advantage, Quzhou became one of the centers of Yangming thought. When Wang Yangming 王阳明 (1472—1528) left his hometown Yuyao of Shaoxing for his travels to Jiangxi, Fujian, Guizhou, Guangdong, and Guangxi, Quzhou was an important stop on his way. Wang’s social activities in Quzhou and the poems he penned there exerted inf l uence on local culture.2 Zhou Jihuan and Zhou Xinyi 周心逸, “Wang Yangming in Quzhou, a Holy Land of the Southern Branch of Confucius’s Lineage” [王阳明在“南宗圣地”衢州行迹考], in Sino-Humanitas [人文中国学报], ed. Zhang Hongsheng 张宏生 (Shanghai: Shanghai Classics Publishing House, 2019). Many Quzhou Confucian scholars went to Nanjing and Shaoxing to attend the lectures given there by Wang Yangming and his disciples, and returned to disseminate Wang’s theory of intuitive knowledge. The Chronicle of Wang Yangming [阳明年谱] has four concentrated descriptions of a dozen students from Quzhou.
It is a pity that the famous A Case-by-Case Biography of Ming Confucian Scholars [明儒学案] penned by Huang Zongxi 黄宗羲 (1610—1695) failed to record the Quzhou disciples of Wang Yangming. Several present-day scholars have paid more attention to them, but have only focused on those who were mentioned in the Chronicle of Wang Yangming.It should be noted that the Quzhou Yangming community, as an indispensable part of the Zhejiang Yangming school, played a significant role in the dissemination of Wang’s teachings. In this paper, they include the first, second, and third generation disciples of Wang Yangming, as well as admirers of his teachings who had not taken lessons directly from the master himself. This community was large in number; all aspired to put into practice Wang’s well-known theory of extending intuitive knowledge and maintained active personal contact and academic exchanges with each other. They have common traits in their intellectual and behavioral activities, along with some local characteristics.
听课是初中数学青年教师“汲取营养”的一种重要途径.笔者，在刚参加工作时，每次上课之前都会先去听同备课组其他教师的课，然后根据听课体会和自己的备课过程(当然独立备课要在听课之前，否则基本没有任何效果)进行再次备课，最后才有信心走进课堂，相信大多初中数学青年教师执教初期也都是如此.
First, as an intellectual community, they achieved wide coverage in Quzhou. Disciples and admirers of Wang Yangming could be found in each town, with a total number of over forty. Among them, twenty-seven were from Jiangshan. It shows how influential Wang Yangming and his teachings were in this area. According to the existing literature, there were fourteen of Wang’s direct disciples such as Zhou Ren 周任 (1469—1526), Zhou Ji 周积(1483—1564), Zheng Liu 郑骝 (1488—1543), and Xu Pei 徐霈 (1500—1586). This number ranked in the top three of Zhejiang, just smaller than that of Ningbo and equivalent to that of Shaoxing.3 Zou Jianfeng 邹建峰, “Wang Yangming’s Direct Disciples and the Inheritance and Publication of Wang’s Literature before 1567” [论阳明夫子亲传弟子与隆庆前阳明夫子文献的传承与出版], in no. 6 of Study in Yangmingism [王学研究] (Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2017), 461—462. There were twenty-seven recorded second generations of Wang’s disciples in Quzhou, and the actual number might far exceed this. These disciples and admirers contributed greatly to the dissemination of Wang Yangming’s teachings in the Jiangnan area.
柳州的工业化始于中国近代的军阀混战，作为当时桂系军阀建设模范省份的窗口城市，柳州在20世纪30年代大放异彩。资金和人力的大量投入，造就了广西第一路鱼峰路，广西第一个会展中心，甚至还造出了广西历史上的第一架战斗机。超强的工业实力也塑造了柳州的铁路公路系统，并与柳江的航运形成多式联运，在建国后相当长的一段时间，柳州都是外省进入广西腹地的唯一通道。
Second, the Quzhou community was based on Wang Yangming’s thought and was renowned for its abundant intellectual history. They took Wang’s doctrines as their academic criteria and at the same time tried to diversify their scholarship. In doing so, they broke the conventional school differentiation as laid down by Huang Zongxi, and therein achieved a commendable scholarly hybridity. Amidst the Quzhou Yangming community,some had exposed themselves to other schools before joining the Yangming school; whilst others continued their studies in other places thereafter. These factors all contributed to the intellectual diversity of the Quzhou Yangming community. Take some well-known scholars for example. Luan Hui 栾惠 (d. 1539) had studied under Wang Yangming before he took Zhan Ganquan 湛甘泉 (1466—1560) as his teacher. Luan finally grasped the essence of both Wang and Zhan’s theories of the mind. Zheng Liu was another of Wang’s disciples and received instruction from other scholars of the Jiangxi Yangming school—Zou Dongkuo 邹东廓 (1491—1562), Xue Zhongli 薛中离 (d. 1545), and Nie Shuangjiang聂双江 (1487—1563) for instance. Those second generation disciples usually followed Wang Yangming’s notable pupils such as Wang Ji 王畿 (1498—1583) and Qian Dehong 钱德洪(1496—1574) as their masters, who were from different schools of Yangming. Zhu Xia 朱夏(f l . 1567) was tutored by Xu Pei and at the same time he was much praised by Wang Longxi王龙溪 (1498—1583) of the Zhejiang school and Li Jianluo 李见罗 (f l . 1562) of the Jiangxi Zhixiu school. Such study across related schools was very conducive to the exchange and dissemination of the ideas of the Quzhou Yangming community.
Third, the Quzhou community set up open platforms to further academic exchanges and the popularity of the school. Among them the most active and inf l uential scholars were Wang Ji 王玑 (1490—1563) from Xi’an, Xu Pei from Jiangshan, and Xu Tianmin 徐天民 (f l . 1574)from Longyou. They established their own schools or forums, named Quli, Dongxi, and Shuinanhui respectively, attracting many students to enroll and scholars from other parts of the country to give lectures. Such sound and active academic interactions were a great impetus to the dissemination of the ideas of Wang Yangming.
Fourth, the community tried its best to practice the theory of intuitive knowledge and devoted themselves to the improvement of rural governance. Many Quzhou scholars advocated Wang Yangming’s teachings and observed the unity of knowledge and action on their own initiatives. Take Zhou Ji for example. As an official, Zhou followed the ancient way of governance, which placed emphasis on moral education, supplemented by penalties.During his tenure as a judge in the government of the Nan’an prefecture, Zhou was very apt at trying cases and settled some old, highly contentious cases in a very short time. For this reason, the local people fully accepted him after merely one month at the post. When appointed to head the Yuan subprefecture, Zhou continued his means of governing in Nan’an. At the same time, he spent his spare time lecturing on Wang Yangming’s teachings.When Zhou retired, he lived a peaceful life in his hometown and founded the Jinglian Academy. Throughout his life, Zhou practiced earnestly what he advocated. Generally,the Quzhou Yangming community, regardless of their social status—taking office, living in retirement, teaching at official academies, or working as the heads of local government,always devoted themselves to putting the theory of intuitive knowledge into practice.Furthermore, like Wang Yangming, they all laid particular stress on education and rites and applied themselves to the improvement of rural governance. The Quzhou people thought highly of these Yangming scholars and regarded them as local worthies deserving to have sacrifices offered to them.
Keywords: Wang Yangming, Quzhou, disciples, characteristics
Detailed Abstract: In 1129, Kong Duanyou 孔端友 (1078—1132), forty-eighth generation descendant of Confucius, accompanied Emperor Gaozong of the Southern Song dynasty to Jiangnan (the lower reaches of the Yangtze River) with the wood carvings of Confucius and his wife. Kong was given a residence in Quzhou, Zhejiang. Quzhou thus became a kind of holy land for the southern branch of Confucius’s lineage. In the area of Quzhou in Jiangnan, cultural pride was derived from being “near the Sage” (jinsheng), deriving from the geographical proximity to the abode of Confucius’s descendants. This cultural pride was subconscious and cohesive, and the Jiangnan people gradually developed a cultural aspiration to believe in and practice Confucianism.1 Zhou Jihuan 周纪焕 and Lei Xiaoqing 雷小青, “The Mechanism of Psychological Changes in Relation to the Jinsheng Culture in Jiangnan” [江南地区近圣文化心理嬗变及其内在机制研究], Academic Journal of Zhongzhou [中州学刊], no. 4 (2016), 87—94. Some renowned Confucian scholars, such as Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130—1200), Lü Zuqian 吕祖谦 (1137—1181), and Zhang Shi 张栻 (1133—1180), visited Quzhou and contributed to the dissemination and growth of Confucianism in this region.
❋ The present paper is a preliminary result of two projects, namely, A Psychological Study into the Jinsheng Culture in Jiangnan: Based on the Investigation of the Southern Branch of Confucius’s Lineage [江南地区近圣文化心理研究：基于孔氏南宗考察], sponsored by the Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of the Chinese Ministry of Education (Project No. 13YJAZH142), and The Southern Branch of Confucius’s Lineage and a Psychological Study of Jinsheng Culture [孔氏南宗与近圣文化心理影响研究], supported by Zhejiang Provincial Philosophy and Social Sciences Program (Project No. 11FC03YB).
❋❋ Zhou Jihuan is professor of the School of Teacher Education at Quzhou College. E-mail: qzxyzjh@126.com
❋❋❋ Zhou Xinyi is a doctoral student in the School of Humanities at Zhejiang University. E-mail: qzzxyi@126.com
❋ Chi Zhen is associate researcher of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
Translated by Chi Zhen❋
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