A Study Of The 'Four Gentlemen Of Yongshang (Ningbo)' In The Southern Song Dynasty

The 'Four gentlemen of Yongshang', also known as the 'Four Gentlemen of Siming' were four Ningbo scholars who lived in the Southern Song period of China. They were Shu Lin, Shen Huan, Yang Jian and Yuan Xie. They were fellow countrymen as well as schoolmates. After having been studying from Lu Jiuyuan, a famous philosopher, they became the leading characters of the Mentalism and had significant status in the academia of the Southern Song Dynasty. There had been many splendid scholars in Ningbo and the academic activities were very prosperous at that time. The four scholars had been born in old and well-known families. By communicating and discussing with many scholars such as Zhu Xi, Lv Zuqian and so on, they improved Lu Jiuyuan's Mentalism and formed their characteristics. In additional, all of them had their special opinions about reality. Their theories about ethic, politics, education and their urbanity, the achievements in politics had been highly praising by later scholars.