The Research On The Early Qing Court Neo-Confucianism

The early Qing court Neo-Confucianism is a struggling and unifying product between Confucianism and royalty in early Qing Dynasty. Between them, royalty plays a leading role and Confucianism holds the principal position. It is a part of Confucianism taking part in the national ideology in early Qing Dynasty. It reflects and demonstrates the economic form, the political system and legitimacy of the social order at that time.What’s more, it affects the object that it explains to some extent.The early Qing court Neo-Confucianism generated in the conflict between the Manchurian nomadic civilization and the Central Plains farming civilization. With Qing Dynasty newly established, the royalty declined and the split power ran wild. Meanwhile.the population sharped cutoff and economy collapsed. Social ideology also confused. The Age called for concentration of monarchy and reconstruction of cultural order. As a result, the early court Qing Neo-Confucianism was raised to national ideology being marked with Confucian temple worship of Zhu Xi during the period of Shun Zhi and Kang Xi.The early Qing court Neo-Confucianism is based on the ideas of Emperor Kang Xi and Wei Yi-jie, Xiong Ci-Lv, Li Guang-Di, Tang Bin, Zhang Bo-xing, etc. Among them, Kang Xi plays a decisive role for its constrution and style. Li Guang-di, as one of the most representative Neo-Confucianism officials, also plays an important role for it. Under the incitation of Emperor Kang Xi, Li Guang-di and other Neo-Confucianism officials compiled the representatives of the Royal compile classics such as "ZhuZiQuanShu"(《朱子全书》) and "XinLiJingYi"(《性理精义》),etc.The early Qing court Neo-Confucianism,which uses Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism as the main line, is composed by the orthodoxy, political system and school system. Orthodoxy is the oretical basis combining Confucianism and royalty. With the related works of Orthodoxy and Royal compile classics demonstrating the legitimacy of Qing Danasty, Li Guang-di and the other court Scholars established an Orthodoxy system of only respecting Cheng-zhu and compromising various theories. Under the deterrence of the monarchy, original Orthodoxy by the Confucian turned to the court and finally concentrated in the hands of the emperor, resulting in the unity of Orthodoxy and political system. Political system is the realistic foundation which the early Qing court Neo-Confucianism affects the royalty. The court Neo-Confucianism proposed "SanDai"(三代)blueprint and political idead of governing philosophy of Benevolence and virtue. By "JingyanRijiang"(经筵日讲)and the imperial examination system, it both poured Neo-Confucianism to the emperor and trained a large number of Confucian bureaucracy. The court Neo-Confucianism also promoted the distribution between previous central and local power, established the political operating principle of rewarding incorruptness and storing wealth with the people, maintained the traditional rural autonomy of grass-roots. By bringing the College into the official system, it improved the customs by the law and forbide "XiaoshuoYinci’’(小说淫辞),too.As a result, The court Neo-Confucianism promoted national ideology spreading in the society.School system is the theoretical basis of the early Qing court Neo-Confucianism. The court Scholars such as Li Guang-di, Xing Ci-lv made a new explanation suited to the state ideology for Neo-Confucianism.Respecting Chengzhu Neo-Confucianism as the main body and assimilating some of Yangming Theory, it established a new theoretical system of establishing moral source first,and then attribututing to practice and ultimately reaching the identification with the order of heavenly principles,whose premise of affirming goodness of human nature and base of integrating nature and man.After the establishment of the early Qing court Neo-Confucianism, it built the empire culture order with its corresponding folk society ideology. The early Qing court Neo-Confucianism took different measures such as severe punishment, prohibit and deterrence to the dissident force and alien theory in the folk Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism towards to folk, textual criticism which was becoming the mainstream academic. Ultimately, they established a social culture mode in the core values for the court Neo-Confuciansm and commonly developmenting. Among them, Sun Qi-feng represented for midland confucian scholar group had a significant effect on the court Neo-Confucianism.As a new type of Confucianism for the combination of confucianism and royalty, the early Qing court Neo-Confucianism has its own theoretical characteristics. Mainly for "mandatory" in unity of Orthodoxy and the political system,"open-endedness" of "Yi Xia hujin"(夷夏互进),"Manchu featrues" for the Heaven Concept and political system,"Compromise" demonstrated in the theoretical and Orthodoxy. The four characteristics ftom the lay of political, nationality, age and academic constitute a whole body organically.In short, although the early Qing court Neo-Confucianism does not fully realize the social and political ideas of the Neo-Confucians, it promotes the reconstruction of social order in early Qing and growth of China’s population, hence leading the famous "Kangqian Grand Era" in history; many nationalities with Manchu and Han as the main body contact, mix and identify with each other, thus forming the idea pf Chinese ethnic gradually; On the academic side, not only Textual Criticism is flourished, but also Chinese classical culture has been once summarized most extensively and deeply.