Study On Shao Yong's Social Activities

At the early stage of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) , the governors had implemented the policies of "Culture-advocating and force-despising", as well as "taking the Confucianism to manage the state affairs"; in other words, to respect for the knowledge and the intellectuals, being good and polite to the Confucian scholars, therefore the political positions and the economic situation for the scholar-bureaucrats has improved compared to the previous dynasties. Since the superiority complex over the political aspects and the advantageous offer from the economic sides were provided to the scholar-bureaucrats during the Northern Song Dynasty, these scholars has become more dignified compared with the ones in the previous Dynasties. And then they all hold a propitious aspect for the future. On the one hand, the scholar-bureaucrats were being the officials and engaging in scholarship; on the other hand, they were using all kinds of the social relationships to form the social activities that are in the different levels and have the individual feature. Thus, the proverb of "Jushizhongjiaoyou" (the social activities were highly encouraged and addressed by people) is the true reflection for the spectacular event that occurs among the scholar-bureaucrats' social activities. This thesis has chosen the "Shao Yong's social activities' to investigate further, as it is a typical case study that is among the scholar-bureaucrats' social activities within the Northern Song period. Because Shao Yong is one of the founders of the Taoism , he has been named as the "Beisongwuzi" (the five famous philosophers in the Northern Song Dynasty) along with the other four persons "Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi, Zhang Zai, and Zhou Dunyi. However, the differences with the other four could be concluded into two aspects. Firstly, he has refused the official positions that were offered to him again and again in his whole lifetime. So he has not involved into the official careers at all. Therefore, Shao has always been out of the Northern Song bureaucratic system. Secondly, though Shao is a common man and his ambition is being a farmer, he still could socialize with the purple and concern for the whole China (the Northern Song Dynasty at that time); in addition, he has even been well known by the court. How a commoner could receive this great attention in his life time, this thesis is just going to use "the studies of Shao Yong's social activities" under the micro-perspectives, in order to further discuss ways and purposes of social activities and understand many meanings that politics, economics and culture of the Northern Song Dynasty have obtained.This thesis is using a large quantity of historical documents as the groundwork, and then to apply both the researching and demonstration mechanisocial activities under the multiple points of views; in order to draw Shao's profile as vivid as life. The studies for this topic involves several fields, such as many verifications of the time that people has made acquainted with each other, the alterations of the living places after people has become the officials, to ascertain the books that are completed in the chronological sequence, as well as the turnaround for the relevant characters in terms of the political standpoint, the academic theories, and the values orientation etc. The verification work may seem trivial and lacking in importance; but in fact, it plays a vital part in deeply investigating the subtle meanings that hides behind Shao's social activities. When people talk about the social activities, it is usually to think of the relevant conversational subjects for them to communicate. This dissertation is going to apply the cross-subjects methodologies, as well as the theories of broadcasting, to illustrate the conversational subjects that were talked about within the circle of Shao's acquaintances, and the ways of the topics that are being delivered. Therefore, it may provide a clear and overall view for the importance and influence that Shao's circle had contributed to the social politics, social values and culture and the like.There are six chapters in total, excluding the "introduction", "conclusion" and the "appendix". The six chapters are: "A general overview of Shao Yong (Chapter I.)"; "Studies of Shao Yong's social activities with the upper bureaucratic group (Chapter II.)"; "Studies of Shao Yong's making friends with philosophers (Chapter III.)"; "Studies of Shao Yong's social activities with the middle bureaucratic group (Chapter IV.)"; "Studies of Shao Yong to keep accompany with his students (Chapter V.)"; "The main conversational subjects among Shao's circle of acquaintances and the ways of the subjects being shared and delivered (Chapter VI.)" The first chapter has provided a general overview for Shao Yong's life. In particular, it is focusing on Shao's life experience, the mind-set changes, the ways that he behaved in his daily life, and the academic achievements etc; in order to fully present a distinguished Shao's character. The second chapter demonstrates the social activities that Shao Yong has separately undertaken with Si Maguang, Fu Bi, Lv Gongzhu, Han Jiang, and Lv Hui. There are relatively more historical documents about the social activities Shao Yong has taken with the above six persons; meanwhile, they are all being the high-level officials. These all could evidence a commoner Shao's great values. Chapter III explicitly illustrate Shao's socialize around with Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi and Zhang Zai. Including Shao, the four people plus Zhou Dunyi are named by Zhu Xi as "Beisongwuzi". The social and interrelate activities among these four persons are full of meaningful. The relationships between these philosophers about Tian and Humanity have been represented in this chapter, and indeed an enjoyable thing. Chapter IV is the Studies of Shao Yong's social activities with the middle bureaucratic group. Here it selects people that are closer and more often communicating with Shao. They are Wang Shanggong, Fan Zuyv, Wang Yirou, Song Minxiu, Zu Wuze, and Yao Shi and the like. Moreover, they either chanted poems, or provided financial support for Shao, or evaluating Shao from the official position, so their overviews about Shao have contributed a lot to the posterity and so on. Chapter V has applied a systematic study of the social activities that took place between Shao and his students. Most of the self-passing on students include Wang Yu, Zhang Min, Zhang Xun, Brothers from the Lv Family (Lv Gongzhu's sons), Zhou Changru and his son, "Luozhongsanxian"-the three intellectuals in the middle of LuoYang" (Zhang Yunqing, Tian Shugu and Yin Cai), Hou Shaozeng, Zhang Zhongbin, Jiang Yu, Yang Xianbao etc, the self-passing on tutees exclude Zhang Min and Lv Xizhe, who have the great influence over the posterity, the others' academic achievements were not significant due to the early death or some other reasons. It is gratifying to know that, Shao Yong's admirers have become accomplished, such as Chao Shuozhi, Chen Guan, Qin Jie , Niu Shide, Zhang Xingcheng have played a vital role on behalf of inheriting Shaoism. Both Xing Shu and Zhang Dun are the eminent persons at the political circle during the Northern Song Dynasty; though Shao Yong has refused their applications to be his teachers, both of them still show special preferences to Shaoism. Chapter VI is going to explore the main conversational subjects shared by Shao's circle of acquaintances and the ways that the topics were delivered. According to the points that have gathered from the above chapters, it allocates the conversational topics at Shao's circle of acquaintances into five terms:"Xining political reform", "resignation in seclusion", "Relaxing and well-being", "inherent to Zhouyi", and "Shao Yong's anecdote", hereby it simply elaborate these five topics above. At the same time, it combined with the modern mass media theories, to further divide the ways that the above topics are delivered into "Educational communication", "Literary communication", "Interpersonal and verbal communication", "Ethic group communication", and "Nonverbal systematic communication"; in addition, there are diagrams provided for better explanations.Furthermore, there is something new about this thesis: first of all, Shao Yong as one of the "Beisongwuzi", is the main theme for this research. It starts from Shao's making aquatinted with people, and then it put Shao into the corresponding historical background to illustrate purposely and systematically. Moreover, according to different standards, it categorize the characters who have made acquainted with Shao. So Shao has become a bond to construct his social-networks. And then, Shao's characters, mindset, thoughts, and value orientation could be able to see under the social perspective. At last, it could reveal some specialties that society, economics and culture fields at the Northern Song Dynasty. These researches are absent in the contemporary academic world. Secondly, the ways that the scholar-bureaucrats behave, are so closely interrelated with the political environment, financial treatment, educational background, and individual leisure feeling. Thus, to specify the living conditions that all the scholar-bureaucrats face, is very important to understand Shao Yong's thought and his behaviors. This thesis is going to illustrate the political environment, the cultural climate, and the financial treatment in great details. By this way, it attempts to find out the internal and external factors that Shao Yong's characteristics formed. This finding is very important to further understand Shao Yong's social activities. Thirdly, it has verified Shao's major social activities in a great detail. The life-history could influence the mind-set into a certain extent; the social activities at different stages normally differentiated in response to various people involve in. The social activities also diversified in response to the differences that each individual obtain. This thesis have paid attention to combine the life experience and mindset changes that Shao Yong with the person he made acquainted with, in order to represent the social activities and also in a more realistic way. Fourthly, apart from the fully investigations over Shao's social activities, this thesis concludes the main conversational subjects shared by Shao and his circle of acquaintances as well as the ways the topics being delivered. Meanwhile, it has provided a thoughtfully interpretation for these above under the perspectives from the modern mass media. Fifthly, it draws up the table of Shao Yong's social acidities in the chronological sequence", Since Shao has experienced four dynasties, to make each dynasty as one stage, to try to summarize the social activities Shao has undertaken each year, in order to more directly present the overview of Shao's social around.The conclusions of this thesis as below:Firstly, Shao Yong is one of the scholars who have the advantage of the social activities in the early era of the Northern Song Dynasty. This profits from his theories which contain Confucianism and Taoism, and his personal charm of free and optimism. Furthermore, it profits from his walk fashion which he is out of bureaucracy system but also in this system. He has not involved into the official careers at all and always been out of the Northern Song bureaucratic system. This to him is not the rational explain, but has rooted from the natural personality. However, his self-conscious in this system is one kind of support by his true heart to the peaceful politics, and to civilise and reason of politics in early era of Song Dynasty.Secondly, Shao's social activities with different estates and different colonies is the epitome and example of "Jushizhongjiaoyou" (the social activities were highly encouraged and addressed by people) in the Northern Song Dynasty, and also embody the bright age character, such as: knowledge eaqul attention to poem, Confucianism and Taoism eaqul attention to Buddhism, argumentation important than analysis of ancient writings, moral quality important than exploits and so on.Thirdly, Shao's most active era is in the time of Wang Anshi's political reform. "Xi Ning Reform" is the first topic in Shao's circle. Shao and Sima Guang have become the "Two Wisdom"(spiritual leaders) in the external officials' heart in Xi Ning era, and Shao has actually become the spiritual leader of the external political group. As a result, Shao's social activities is the domain which must pay attention to in Xi Ning era.Fourthly, civilization and reasonableness of Song Dynasty's politics, the relief of knowledge environment, have protected the scholar estate's free opinion in a great degree. This is the "environment guarantee"of Shao's social activities. And their activities' content, fashion, principle etc, have also greatly intensified this "environment guarantee". This kind of benign interrelate activities in a whole, needs to attach importance when we study the Chinese traditional politics and even modern politics.