Study Of Lu Shen Clan In Pudong District

During the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty,Lu Deheng married into and lived with wife’s family with the surname Zhang in Pudong District.He also became the first ancestor of Lu Shen clan in Pudong.Lu Deheng is the great-grandfather of Lu Shen.Grandfather Lu Xuan and father Lu Ping started in business.The family adhered to the strategy of cultivating Confucianism through business and equal emphasis on business and Confucianism.Brother Lu Mian abandoned Confucianism for business,and Lu Shen devoted himself to imperial examination.In the eighteenth year of Hongzhi period in the Ming Dynasty(1505),Lu Shen became a Advanced Scholar,also the first person in the family to admitted the imperial examination.Since then,Lu Shen had gradually promoted the family,in order to complete the transformation from a business family to a cultural family.Lu Shen established a good family atmosphere and taught his son Lu Ji to take the imperial examination seriously,managed the family business,stabilized the economic foundation,and maintained the clan through activities such as building an ancestral hall and compiling family trees.Lu Shen himself was highly accomplished in the field of culture.He was famous for his liberal arts.He liked to collect books,and his writings were extensive.It was under the influence of Lu Shen that a wave of large-scale series and quasi-book compilation appeared in Shanghai during the Ming Dynasty.Influenced by the retro thought trend of the Ming Dynasty,Lu Shen paid attention to academic research on the basis of erudition,and since then,the academic spirit of distinguishing falsehoods and seeking truth had become popular.With Lu Shen as the pilot,the academic thought from “Bogu” to “Dinggu” gradually took shape,and developed the concept of practical application.Lu Shen had a strong sense of historical urgency and a spirit of practical concern,and advocated the ideological concept of practical application.Deeply influenced by his father,Lu Ji was practical,focused on current affairs,and benefited from Lu Shen’s interpersonal network and was able to integrate the ideas of scholars from all over the world,on this basis,put forward the view of luxury makes life easy and equality between Chinese and foreigners.The concern for current affairs is of great practical significance,and Lu Ji’s view of Chinese and Foreign also explained the reason why Xu Guangqi and others accepted Western learning in the future.In the late Ming Dynasty,Shanghai intellectuals set off a trend of practical learning,and scholars advocated the study of practical application.Hence,Lu Ji played a linking role in this process.The descendants of the Lu Shen compiled and published the manuscripts of their ancestors,which enabled the continuation of the academic thoughts of Lu Shen and Lu Ji.Under the cultivation of the family’s atmosphere,the descendants of the Lu family had not stopped writing and inheriting family atmosphere.In the Ming and Qing dynasties,the local gentry acted as the link between the government and grassroots in the local society.Lu Shen and the family he represented were one example.Lu Shen hearted of local society,interacted with local officials,paid attention to local atmosphere and catastrophes,and attached importance to people’s livelihood issues and the social atmosphere.Family members also actively participated in local governance to benefit local people.It is worth mentioning that the Shanghai fortification is of great significance to the analysis of the interaction between the Lu Shen family and the local society.In the change of Ming and Qing Dynasty,the name of the direct descendants of Lu Shen is not obvious,the eighth-generation grandson Lu Yongjian had settled in Baoshan area to support his family through trade.Lu Shen’s uncle Lu Yin’s family gradually rose suddenly in the Qing Dynasty.Lu Xiong,the seventh-generation grandson of Lu Shen,participated in the codify of the <The Si Ku Quan Shu>(Complete Library of Four Branches of Books)during the Qianlong period.Because Lu Shen established the family’s status and influence in the local society,occupied an important position in the history of Shanghai’s cultural development,all the members of the Lu family later regarded themselves as descendants of Lu Shen.To sum up the above,the Lushen family in Pudong completed the successful transformation of the family through the imperial examinations,actively participated in local governance,regarded themselves as a cultural family,and continued to exert influence in the local area,and gradually abandoned business.Because of failed in the imperial examinations,Lu family went into decline,and then had to seek other means such as business to revive the family.It can be used as a typical case for history of Shanghai family in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.This paper sorts out the changes of the Shanghai academic atmosphere in the Ming Dynasty,reasonably explains the rise of the Shanghai academic atmosphere in the late Ming Dynasty,and provides a reasonable idea for explaining the acceptance of Western learning by Xu Guangqi and others.