Gong Zizhen Academic Thought

Gong Zizhen was a prominent enlightened thinker and an encyclopedic scholar of modern China. The article focuses on Gong's academic thought through study of Confucian classics and history. Gong's academic thought has profound background, including deep social crisis, emancipation of thought during the period of Jiaqing and Daoguang. Gong succeeded the ancestors' thoughtful heritage and developed it. His academic thoughts originated from family learning, study of Confucian classics in Changzhou, and Buddhist philosophy.Learning Gong$>angchunqiu from Liu Fenglu was the milestone of his academy in 1819. Gongyang School, which has the characteristics of academy connecting with politics and emphasizing on change, helped to break academic staleness, so it lightened him. Succeeding Gongyang's theory and connecting with his times, Gong developed Gongyang School. His works emphasized on social reality and got rid of the prejudices from the different schools. In historical theory, he put forward the famous theory "Respecting History", which concentrated on history before the law. He still made great progress in studying the history of coast defense, geohistory of northwest border area and Mongolia.As a transformational figure, his academic thought was an important part of his enlightened thought and it influenced the successors deeply.