Study Of Si-hong In Southern Song Dynasty

"Si-hong" in Poyang county, Jiangxi province refers to the four academic talents —Hong Hao and his sons Hong Kuo, Hong Zun and Hong Mai who lived between the Northern Song Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty from 1088 when Hong Hao was born in the reign of Zhe Zong to 1202 when Hong Hao's son Hong Mai died in the reign of Ning Zong, which runs over a period of one hundred and fourteen years. Hong Hao and his sons experienced both the Northern Song and the Southern Song Dynasties that covered the reigns of Zhe, Hui, Qin, Gao, Xiao, Guang and Ning emperors. This period witnessed the decline of the Northern Song Dynasty and its destruction by Jin Dynasty and then the Southern Song Dynasty submitted itself in humiliation under Jin and moved to the south of Changjiang River, which was a time when the country was plagued by both internal and external misfortunes and overwhelmed with incessant disasters. It was in such a hard time that Hong Hao and his sons contributed themselves to the society and the country in a positive and righteous way and left a glorious fortune to us about their lives and families.This article falls into the introduction and two parts that consist in ten chapters. The first part concerns about the lives and thoughts of Hong Hao and his sons and studies systematically the origins of the Hong families and their political tendencies. The second part focuses on the studies of Si-hong literary works such as poetry, prose and other important writings to present their thoughts, artistic styles and academic contributions.In the introduction, it roughly concerns about Si-hong's lives and contributions, academic attainments and their influence, the current situation of the studies of Si-hong and presents the main thread leading to the writing of this article and brings forward the criteria of evaluating the characters and reveals why Si-hong is under-evaluated and even denigrated especially from the aspects of their academic and political divergences.The first chapter is entitled "Birth of Buddha and the revival of Su Wu (1088-1143)", which consists in four sections and illustrates the life of Hong Hao from his birth in 1088 in the reign of Zhe Zong until 1143 in the reign of Gao Zong when Hong Hao returned from Jin after he finished his diplomatic mission there. The first section "Origin of Hong Family" elaborates the forefathers of Hong families moved from Xi County in Huizhou to live at Leping , Poyang and started their living by farming and academic pursuits. The Hong family became prosperous and then paidgreat attention to the education of their children. The second section is entitled " One life for ten thousand lives", which illustrated Hong Hao's contributions to the society. Hong Hao secured an official position and thought that the official should care about the benefits of the ordinary people rather than attach oneself to the superiors. Hong Hao once risked his life to withhold a transient tribute food supply to save about ten thousand starved people. Thus, Hong Hao was regarded as "Buddha Hong" by the local people for his benevolence. The third section is entitled "Even Su Wu was unable to sustain the harsh circumstance that Hong Hao underwent", which narrates the story that Hong Hao was sent on a diplomatic mission to Jin and was detained by them for about fifteen years. Hong Hao refused to serve Jin and went through all kinds of hardships to return to Song in 1143. The fourth section is entitled "The single mother brought up and taught the children into elites of great achievements — a gift from the Heaven for their father's integrity and loyalty to the country", which tells the story how Ms. Shen, Hong Hao's wife managed to bring up the children by herself while Hong Hao was detained by Jin and taught the children to work for the country and how the three children followed their mother's will and their father's honor to excel themselves in the imperial examinations.The second chapter "Hard times when Hong Hao was demoted with his sons involved (1143-1157)", focuses on the experiences from Hong Hao was demoted to Rao Zhao in September 1193 to his sons finished his bereavement in 1157. The second chapter consists in three sections. The first section "turmoil of the national affairs", describes the story that Hong Hao was demoted by Gao Zong and Qin Hui to RaoZhou because his opposition to the plan for the government to move the capital to the South in order to avoid the threats from Jin just when Hong Hao returned to Song for no more than one month and was going to be promoted by Gao Zong. Hong Hao's three sons were involved to the demotion too. The second section "Exile to the wasteland in the South", relates to the tough livings that Hong Hao experienced when he was persecuted to an even worse situation and exiled to YingZhou and finally deceased in the South and the miseries his sons underwent with their father. Third section "Hong Hao and his son's literary creations and psychological conditions under political persecution", studies on their psychology of worries and fears towards the misfortunes under high- pressure political torments and its impact on their literary creations.The third chapter "Great promotions and intermittent seclusions (1158-1169)", recalls the story that the Hong brothers were appointed by the government in the same time till they were secluded to the countryside, which is divided into three chapters. Thefirst section "Success in the right time", describes that Hong Hao was redressed and his sons were appointed by the government again and they began to show their talents after Qin Hui was dead and the authority implemented the policies of "reformation" and "Reappointment". The second section "Wars and battles", narrates the story that the Chief of Jin—WanYan Liang breached the covenant and invaded the South in 1161 till in 1164 when Song and Jin resigned the peaceful covenant, during this time the Hong brothers conducted great contributions to the nation in the war. The third section "The promotion and seclusion after the war", relates to the experiences that the Hong brothers were promoted and secluded from the peaceful covenant to 1169.Hong kuo was promoted to Prime Minister, though only lasted for three months and then was appointed as the magistrate of ShaoXing and ended his political profession one year later on the pretext of poor health. Hong Zun was dismissed from office as deputy director of Privy Council in 1164 and came to his hometown to live for six years there. Hong Mai was also rejected from office and returned to hometown and was recalled by the authority in 1166 and appointed as teacher-in-waiting for the Academy but was dismissed in 1168. After that three brothers lived in the countryside together for about two years. Hong kuo worked very hard for the authority to benefit the society and eliminated the harms and was greatly credited by his peers. Later Hong Mai worked for the compilation of the state history and initiated to conduct reformation and made a great number of contributions.The fourth chapter "Aftereffects of the official profession (1170-1202)", narrates the historical events occurred between Hong Zun and Hong Mai was reappointed by the government in 1170 to Hong Mai deceased in 1202, which falls into three sections. The first section "Hong Zun's devotion to his work till his death", tells about the story that Hong Zun was appointed after he secluded for six years by Xiao Zong for the preparation of northern expedition. Hong Zun overworked and got exhausted and finally deceased at the post. The second section "Final endeavor", this section describes the experience that Hong Mai was appointed as the magistrate and conducted a series of policies to benefit the people and helped to compile the state history, making greatest contributions to the country among his peers. But Hong Mai was dismissed from the post due to political conflicts and returned to his hometown. The third section "After the seclusion", focuses on the lives of Hong kuo and Hong Mai at home. Hong kuo lived at home for about sixteen years, during which he still concerned about the state affairs and the people's living, though he was no longer in the post. While Hong Mai engaged himself in writing Records ofYiJian and Essays of Rong Zhai for about twelve yearsuntil he died.The fifth chapter is entitled "Si-hong's thoughts of working for the society and experiencing the society". The most essential and typical thoughts of Si-hong are their dedication to the country and the people, which also represent their thoughts of working for the society and experiencing the society. This chapter focuses on the study of these two aspects of Si-hong's thoughts. The first section is about their thought of righteousness and loyalty, which emphasizes its difference from the "ignorant loyalty" advocated by Neo-Confucianism and illustrates its development from the reasonable parts from the thought of righteousness and loyalty inherited from the Confucian studies in Xian Qin. The second section is about their thoughts for the people, which insist and develop the human-centered thoughts of Confucian studies in Xian Qin and protect the roles that "human" play in the history and for the country and put forward even higher expectation for the idea of "loving people", meanwhile stressing their differences from the idea of "Ruler-centered" advocated by Neo-Confucianism0The sixth chapter is "Brief studies of Si-hong's works", which falls into four section and studies the writings and works of Hong Hao, Hong kuo, Hong Zun and Hong Mai respectively.The seventh chapter is about "Si-hong's literary ideas", which consists in four sections — "On literary nature", "On creations", "On styles", "On appreciation literary works". The focus is placed on Essays ofRong Zhai, discussing its ideas about literary value, function, creation, style and appreciation and so on and disclosing its particular importance in literature.The eighth chapter is about "Poetry and Ci creations of Si-hong". The first section is about their creation of poetry and studies their poetic thoughts and artistic features in terms of their dedication to the country, their concern for the people, their family love and their seclusion living and discloses their care and worries for the future of the state and expresses their emotions for the state. The second section "Creation of Ci" analyzes the meaning and characteristics of their creations of Ci in various themes and reveals their life experiences rooted in the creation and the nature of different styles.The ninth chapter "Si-hong's prose writing", is divided into three sections, which analyzes their thoughts about prose writing and their artistic features according to the styles of argumentation, narration, and emotional writings and disclose their significant attainments in the style of note writing and preface writing etc.The tenth chapter is about "Si-hong's important academic writings and contributions". Si-hong excelled not only in poetry, Ci, prose, but also in note, novel,history studies, epigraphy, numismatics and even achieved a lot in medicine and sciences. This chapter evaluates Si-hong's major academic writings. The first section "Hong Hao's Records about SongMo", conducts analysis on the writing and content of this book and carries out the argumentation that this book is both a valuable historical book and an outstanding work to communicate the northern and southern cultures. The second section "Hong kuo's Li Shi and LiXu", starts from his motive for the writing of the books and discloses Hong kuo's concern and sense of responsibility arisen from the invasion of foreign nations and the ruin of the national culture, which exerted profound influences on his writings in terms of his attitudes towards learning, styles of writing, ideas, and cultural meanings. The third section "Hong Zun's QuanZhi and Collection of Hong Prescriptions, this section discusses about the historical role of QuanZhi and the medical value of Collection of Hong prescriptions. The fourth section is about Hong Mai's Records of Yi Jian and Essays of Rong Zhai, which conducts studies of the two masterpieces from new angles. The article focuses on the background, motives and process of the writing of Records of Yi Jian to study this book and to disclose that this book is such an inspiring and caring one that it is of great reality and deep thoughts for the society and creates a new era for the writing of novels and brings about significant influences on the society. As for Essays of Rong Zhai, it is usually studied by the means of accumulated knowledge and detailed argumentations but the tenor of the book is often ignored. So this article starts from the analysis of the tenor of the book and emphasizes on disclosing the patriotism and concern for the people and the well-employed dialectical methods and realistic attitude for learning. Moreover, it summarizes the ample evidences and achievements for the explanations of ancient words.