A Study Of The Family Culture Of Mengyin In Ming Dynasty

Mengyin’s Gong family is an important literary and aristocratic family in Chinese history.Itshistory can be traced to Zhou Dynasty.This family comes from Ji family and its ancestor isGongdan Zhou. One of his later generations is titled from their dukedom. Gong family comesinto being from then on. In Han Dynasty,Gong Jian,one of his descendants,is a governmentalofficial.To the Wei Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties period，the northern nobles migrate into thesouthern region of Changjiang River. One part of Gong family moves to the southern regionsuch as Zhejiang．But there are still a large number of Gong＇s descendants in Lu region．To theSong Dynasty (1119), they have moved from Linyi to Mengyin，who are then known as theMengyin’s Gong family.It has been an old and well-known family in the end of Yuan Dynasty．After entering the Ming Dynasty,Mengyin’s Gong family comes into a period of prosperityand development through the efforts of several generations.And it gradually becomes a rareliterary and aristocratic family in the north of Changjiang River.During this period, in the MingDynasty,there have been many historic celebrities from Mengyin’s Gong family,like GongHai,Gong Shen,Gong Ping,and Gong Zhong,who are all famous for their filial piety andfraternal duty.Gong family has entered into a period of relatively fixed family education andfamily traits. Subsequently,Gong Mianren,Gong Jiqui,Gong Yiyang,Gong Jiachen and GongNai,that from five consecutive generations,have all become Jinshi and then governmentofficials,Gong Mianren once served as the Imperial Supervisor.Gong Yiyang has worked in theMinistry of Works and once served as the Governor of Yuzhou. Gong Jiachen works as aneditor in the Imperial Academy.Gong Nai has also worked in the Imperial Academy,then theImperial College,and finally the Ministry of Rites.Other descendants of Mengyin’s Gong familyhave also achieved their own political success.Of course,its main performance is the appearanceof five Jinshi,and they also have many literary works spreading in the world.After the MingDynasty,Gong family is not so prominent as before in literature and politics,but there are stillmany celebrities seen in history books. Gong family leaves much precious spiritual wealth in the heyday of the MingDynasty,especially in the family scholarship and family tradition. Its family tradition is basedon Neo-Confucianism,and learning literature,history,medicine,agriculture,Taoism,calligraphyand so on..Gong Pan and Gong Nai are the best in the academic inheritance ofNeo-Confucianism.While its family scholarship regards these excellent qualities such asfealty,integrity,kindness,good-neighborly friendship and so on as the main content..Gongfamily also has a conspicuous achievement in literature,especially in writing poetry.Manyworks have diverse genres of literature and focus on landscapes and patriotism,etc.The family culture of Mengyin’s Gong family in the Ming Dynasty, including filialpiety,integrity,kindness and respect for teachers and education,has an influence on itsfamily.For example,in terms of filial piety,Gong family did not pay much attention to it fromthe beginning.It was after the advocating of “become famous for our filial piety”by GongShoujing and Gong Nai that filial piety has become part of the family traits.The aspects ofintegrity,kindness,and respect for teachers and education went through the sameprocess.Integrity has been passed on by Gong Mianren;as for kindness, it became part of thefamily tradition because of Gong Shen＇s son Gong Ping,who believes in “be generous with ourwealth;be kind to our family and advocate kindness”;the cultural inheritance of respect forteachers and education is significant to its development，which was initiated by Gong Mianren’sfather Gong Shu,then followed by Gong Jiqui’s foundation of the Zhongshan College atZhongshan Temple after he retired and went back to his hometown.Aside from the familyculture， the descendants of Mengyin＇s Gong family have impacts on each other regardingpoetry writing.For instance,after Gong Shu’s “using poetry and literature to set a new course forthe future” and Gong Mianren’s “become famous for our literature”,almost all of Mengyin’sGong family in the Ming Dynasty has done some work in literature.In terms of propositions ofpoetry，Gong Nai advocates “Qi characteristics” in the early and middle Wanli era, while hisbrother Gong Zi continues the advocating in the late Wanli era, which has a great influence onthe later generations．To some extent, the cultural contribution of Mengyin Gong’s family is one part of Chinesetraditional culture. And they have a lot in common. These excellent qualities, such as fealty,integrity, kindness, good-neighborly friendship, play an important role in the development of Chinese traditional culture.Meanwhile, its accomplishments in poetry have a lasting influenceto China culture and overseas.