The Changes In The Academic Thought And Literature Of Suzhou Zhengyi Academy In The Qing Dynasty

Since the Song Dynasty,academies have played a significant role in the prosperity and evolution of ideology and culture,with Suzhou Zhengyi Academy,founded in the tenth year of the Jiaqing reign of the Qing Dynasty,being a typical example.The reigns of Jiaqing and Daoguang was an era of diverse academic theories,and the Zhengyi Academy gathered scholars and officials with diverse ideological backgrounds.Zhu Jian,the headmaster who has been in charge of the Academy for ten years,is a master of Han academic thoughts.He upheld the academic philosophy of "seeking truth from facts" and wrote articles with profound knowledge and meticulous logic.Although only occasionally involved in political discourse,it is evident that his insight is profound.Tao Shu and Lin Zexu are famous officials who advocate the study of practical application,and their political ideas are mostly reflected in official communications to the emperor.These articles are not rich in language,but they are good at reasoning and we can see the dedication of the old ministers between the lines.As their student,Feng Guifen embraced the ideological and literary advantages of his teachers.He reconciled the tradition of Han academic thoughts and the study of practical application,using Han academic thoughts as resource of practical application pioneered by the Ming Dynasty’s Confucian scholars,and became a unprecedented thinker advocating the reform.He wrote the famous "Jiaobinlu Protest" which shocked the people of the time.The forty pieces of "Protest" have a wide range of content,absorbing the clear characteristic of official communications to the emperor,using profound knowledge of Han academic thoughts as resource to express political views.It also reflect the return of literary talent,manifesting the development of official communications in literariness.When he taught at Zhengyi in his later years,Feng Guifen also incorporated the content of Western academic into the teaching of Zhengyi Academy with the foresight of a thinker,promoting the modernization of academy education.This article is divided into four chapters:The first chapter discusses the past and present lives of Suzhou Zhengyi Academy,divided into three sections.The first section provides an overview of the development history of academies before the Qing Dynasty,the political pressure they encountered in the early Qing Dynasty,and the subsequent reconciliation between the Qing government and academies,which gradually transformed from suppression to strong support,highlighting the important role of officials of the Qing Dynasty in the academies;The second section describes the development of academies under the academic and cultural changes in the early and middle stages of the Qing Dynasty,and how Han academic thoughts replaced Song studies as the mainstream of academic research in academies during the Qing Dynasty;The third section focuses on the establishment and development of Zhengyi Academy,discussing the impact of Han academic thoughts and study of practical application in the academy,as well as Feng Guifen’s teaching reform in Zhengyi Academy.Chapter 2,Chapter 3,and Chapter 4 respectively conduct case studies on Zhu Jian,Tao Shu,Lin Zexu,and Feng Guifen.Due to the fact that Tao Shu and Lin Zexu were both officials and had similar ideas,they were merged into one chapter for discussion.The second chapter focuses on explaining that under the new trend of study of practical application,even traditional master of Han academic thoughts like Zhu Jian have begun to pay attention to practical issues,divided into two sections.The first section provides an overview of Zhu Jian’s life,highlighting his academic philosophy centered on seeking truth from facts,and then provides a specific analysis of Zhu Jian’s research articles,reflecting his characteristic of seeking truth from literature;The second section provides an overview of Zhu Jian’s communication with colleagues and friends who advocate the study of practical application,which led him to pay attention to practical issues.After that,it analyses Zhu Jian’s political discourse in detail,reflecting his political attitude,profound knowledge,and insightful conclusions based on meticulous logical inference.The third chapter takes Tao Shu and Lin Zexu as examples to discuss the exemplary and leading role of officials who came to Zhengyi Academy for examination in both ideological and literary aspects.It is divided into two sections.The first section focuses on the ideological aspect,respectively describing Tao Shu’s advocacy of using classics and history as a means of political reform,as well as Lin Zexu’s attitude towards governing the world,which is daring to handle affairs and choosing the right ones;The second section analyses the writing of article of official communications to the emperor by Tao Shu and Lin Zexu.Firstly,it provides an overview of the development and changes in the history of article of official communications to the emperor.Then,it analyzes the plain and clear nature of Tao Shu’s article of official communications to the emperor and the passionate and indignant aspects that can be seen in Lin Zexu’s article of official communications to the emperor.The fourth chapter discusses Feng Guifen’s new development in ideology and literature during the fierce changes of the times,which is divided into two sections.The first section provides an overview of Feng Guifen’s life experience and academic achievements in various fields;The second section takes "Jiaobinlu Protest" as an example to discuss Feng Guifen’s thoughts and literary achievements,emphasizing the comprehensiveness and innovation of his thoughts,as well as how he was influenced by the writing of article of official communications to the emperor in his writing of "Jiaobinlu Protest",how he used his own accumulation of Han academic thoughts to develop history as a political discourse,and how he broke the limitations of article of official communications to the emperor and promoted the development of political essays.