Yangzhou School Study

Yangzhou School (YS) was a very important academic constitution in the academic history of Qing Dynasty, with great achievements in many academic fields to which the study of Chinese Classics was the key. This thesis investigated YS study of Chinese Classics in three aspects: The development, the major achievements and its influences.The reason why YS formed and why it was based on the study of Chinese Classics is quite complicated. The cultural polity in Qian Long Period took on a characteristic of changing from Song Dynasty learning to Han Dynasty Learning. The rulers pushed the process with the help of the civil service examination system. Therefore, a lot of Han Dynasty learners went into power. While the literary persecution and the amendation of "Si Ku Quan Shu" restrictial the relationship between Han Dynasty learning and politics. This was the most immediately influentine political background and cultural environment where YS came into being. Another reason for its continuous development is the special location: first, its location provided the convenient transportation for everything. As a result, Yangzhou became the center of business and academic exchange. Second, it had been greatly influenced by "Yangzhou Literature'' whose keys were "Selected Study" and "Xu Study". Third, It got the foundation with the accumulation of many famous scholars in this area, like Zhu, Wang, and Liu from Baoying; Wang from Gaoyou; Ruan and Liu from Yizheng; Jiao from Jiangdu, Huang , Jiang and so on. four, the complicated marriage, teachers and students strengthened the academic relationship between different areas and it helped to form the academic scholar groups in different times. Five, a lot of books owned by the government and private made it possible for the scholars in Yangzhou to study all these. Last, scholars in Yangzhou were always eager to learn and never gave up. With all these reasons, YS came into being.This thesis analysed the main representatives in different periods of YS.In the beginning, Wang Zhong who learned from Gu Yanwu and Dai Zhen, founded a lot on consucianism. He also made "Practical for the people" a principle. He not only drew conclusions from the general examples, but also put Confucian thoughts in the whole Zhou Dynasty Cultural context when he studied them. Therefore he became the first scholar of YS. Wang Niansong learned from Dai Zhen, studied Classics by means of philology and had great achievements in correcting and phonology. He specially invented many methods to "find meanings through pronunciation" in studying the Classics. Liu Taigong studied "Three Ethical education" very carefully by correcting the mistakes and giving further explanations. He mainly studied HanDynasty learning and Song Dynasty learning as well and therefore became the leading academic scholar in Baoying. Ren Dachun's study focused a lot on "examples". He not only made the Etthical Education works easier to understand, but also formed a characteristic of " study by sorts" when studying Classics. He also invented a new method to explain the Classics by seeking the origins. The "Ethical Education" of Zhu Bin mainly analyzed the former works, but it was a bit different in changing the academic tendency of studying too much Han Dynasty learning.Later, Jiao Xun wrote a book "On Yi" by means of etymology and mathematics. This book highlighted "learn from good and correct mistakes". He also gave further explanations to his idea in "Correct explanation to Mencius " in order to emphasize his idea of "changing in declining times". Ruan Yuan was both an official and scholar, although most of his works were to explain, he wrote them by seeking the truth and made "practice" as his principle. In this way, the Chinese Classics principles of YS after Wang Zhong became concrete and clear. "Explanations of examples in Ethical Education Classics" by Ling Tingkan, was in the order of examples, took a lot from many works, had " ethics" as the principle and focused on practice. Jiang Fan explained some classical wo...