Li Yuanyang

Li Yuanyang

Li Yuanyang (1497-1580), a Bai nationality, was born in Dali, Yunnan Province. He is a famous litterateur and Neo Confucianist in Yunnan in Ming Dynasty. In the five years of Jiajing, he was a Jinshi.

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Li Yuanyang (1497-1580), a Bai nationality, was born in Taihe County of Dali Prefecture in Ming Dynasty. Li Yuanyang was quiet since he was young, but he was brilliant. He read poetry and books frequently, especially literature and history. Renwu (1522), the first year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty, took the second place in the Yunnan Guizhou provincial examination; on bingxu (1526), the fifth year of Jiajing, zhongjinshi, a scholar of Imperial Academy, was demoted to Fenyi County in Jiangxi Province because he participated in the so-called "Dali discussion" about the title of Jiajing emperor's biological father. Later, he was granted the title of county magistrate of Jiangyin, Jiangsu Province. During his term of office, he promoted the interests and eliminated the evils, sympathized with the people's sufferings, and was famous for his honesty. The local people once built monuments and ancestral temples for him, carrying all kinds of good deeds. Not long after Jin Jing became the head of the Ministry of household affairs, he was appointed the censor of supervision, responsible for impeachment of officials and the rectification of government discipline. He was just and upright. He once said frankly to Emperor Jiajing: "Your Majesty ascended the throne at the beginning, and he won a gentleman with his knighthood and salary. In recent years, he has become a villain with his knighthood and salary." He was called "true censor" by his colleagues. It is this kind of outspokenness that makes him repeatedly run into a wall in officialdom. In the 15th year of Jiajing, bingshen visited Fujian as a censor. In 1539, the emperor of Jiajing was demoted to Jingzhou as a magistrate because Shangshu asked him not to go to Chengtian. During his tenure in Jingzhou Prefecture, there were no wells between Jingxiang and Baili. He took the lead in donating salaries to drill dozens of wells, and set a time limit for the counties to repair the riverbanks and ponds, so that yanjiangzhou county would not be affected by floods. The local people named them "ligongjing" and "ligongdi" in memory. Li Yuanyang was honest and upright, extremely dissatisfied with the reality of political darkness and officialdom corruption, and could not solve practical problems. In 1541, Xin Chou, who was born in the 20th year of Jiajing, abandoned his father and returned to his hometown. Since then, he lived in seclusion in Dali for 40 years and never became an official again. He was not only in harmony with Yang Shiyun, Yang Shen, Zhang Han, Li Zhi and other cultural celebrities, but also diligent in writing. His anthologies include yanxuetai poetry and Zhongxi mangao. His works of Neo Confucianism include Xin Xing Tu Shuo. In his later years, he compiled Jiajing's Dali Fu Zhi and Wanli's Yunnan Tongzhi. Because of his outstanding achievements in philosophy, history, literature, calligraphy and education, he is known as "the first scholar of Bai nationality in history" and occupies an important position in the cultural history of Yunnan. Wanli eight years (1580) died at home, at the age of 84.

Personal achievement

Li Yuanyang has profound attainments in exploring Neo Confucianism, and is known as the "Neo Confucianism giant" in Central Yunnan by later generations. He has a wide range of contacts. He once communicated with Wang Yangming's branch schools, such as Zhezhong school, Jiangyou school, Taizhou School, nanzhong school, Wang Ji, Luo Hongxian, Luo rufang, Tang Shunzhi, and so on. He also studied Confucian classics carefully, absorbed the theories of sages, and formed his own theory on this basis. Li Yuanyang puts forward four propositions of nature, heart, mind and emotion, and puts "nature" in the highest position. He thinks that both saints and mortals have nature, but saints can "recover", while mortals have heart, mind and emotion because of external things, and lose their nature. Li Yuanyang put forward his own views on the harmony, knowledge and knowledge of things, as well as the inheritance of Confucianism and orthodoxy. For example, he believes that "Zhong" is the origin of the world, "Zhong Li has no joy or anger, so it is the great foundation of all things in the world" and "the body of Tao". "Zhong" is everyone's "conscience", and "Xing" is "destiny" and "conscience", which is innate. Therefore, he advocated in politics to "love the people first", and to govern the people, he should "economize on love, do his own work, and deal with the people with loss". We should "govern the country with the heart of governing the family and love the people with the way of loving the body", so that there will be "no difficult things and no difficult people" in the world.

Li Yuanyang's studies run through Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. He introduced the ideas and practical methods of Buddhism and Taoism into Confucianism in order to find a new way for the development of Confucianism. Learning from Taoism to Nourish Qi, meditation is the internal skill; learning from Buddhism to help the poor is the external skill. He thinks that Buddhism and Confucianism have something in common, and the methods of Buddhism and Taoism can also be applied to social practice and personal cultivation. In his preface to the world map of heaven and earth, Li Yuanyang explained the world structure in detail with the help of a large number of Buddhist and Taoist theories.

It is worth mentioning that Li Yuanyang is intoxicated with the scenery of canger, but has a special preference for Jizu mountain. He had a close relationship with the eminent monk Dade of Jizushan in discussing Buddhism and singing poems. He also contributed to the construction, reconstruction or expansion of Jizushan temple. He wrote dozens of poems and articles and erected more than ten steles to introduce Jizushan. It can be said that the prosperity of Jizu mountain in Ming and Qing Dynasties and its becoming a famous Buddhist mountain are closely related to Li Yuanyang. "Ji Zu Shan Zhi" wrote: "temples in the mountains, who are decadent, all repair, and write articles. The prosperity of Jishan is due to the leader of the public. " Such an assessment is appropriate.

Character evaluation

Local Chronicles is a unique form of traditional culture in China, known as "local classics" and "Zhiyong classics". As a famous local scholar, Li Yuanyang, with his knowledge and prestige, strongly advocated and personally compiled local chronicles, which was also the most important academic activity after he lived in seclusion. Li Yuanyang wrote local chronicles three times. The first time was in 1542. Soon after he returned home, he cooperated with Yang Shiyun to compile the local chronicles of Dali, which was published and published. Later, the book was lost, and the specific situation can not be verified. The second time was from 1562 to 1563, he independently compiled ten volumes of the local chronicles of Dali in Jiajing. The third time was in 1576, he compiled the general chronicles of Yunnan in Wanli.

Because of the war, there are only contents and volumes 1 and 2 of the main body of the book. Because most of the local chronicles of Yunnan in Ming Dynasty were not published, and the printed ones were lost, only a few of them have been handed down and preserved. Therefore, although Volume I and Volume II only exist in this chronicle, the materials about the mountains, rivers, situation, products, major events and evolution of Dali area in Ming Dynasty are precious and highly praised by later generations.

Wanli's Yunnan general annals is the first provincial annals compiled by local scholars of Yunnan ethnic minorities. It is the third complete Yunnan Provincial annals in chronological order. Wanli's Yunnan general annals consists of 17 volumes, which are divided into 12 annals, including geography, construction, taxes and servitudes, military food, schools, officials and teachers, figures, ancestral temples, temples, arts and culture, Jimi, magazines, etc., and the next one is divided into 58 items. It absorbs the advantages of the local chronicles of the past dynasties, and attracts the attention of later generations with its unique arrangement, clear entries, widely cited materials and unique opinions. Among them, Fu Yi, Bing Shi, Ji MI and Xue Xue were created by Li Yuanyang and inherited by later generations of Yunnan Provincial chronicles.

Li Yuanyang has been an official for more than ten years. He has been a local official of county magistrate, prefect, etc. He has a strong thought of "managing the world" and rich experience in social practice. Therefore, he attaches great importance to the function of "managing the world and applying it to practical use" of local chronicles. He emphasizes that local chronicles should not only "collect all the facts and collect all the personnel", but also "administer the government" so that "those who are good at doing the government can accomplish their duties". He was well aware of the importance of economy and military to social development and stability, so Wanli's Yunnan general annals made extensive use of archives and interview materials to record in detail matters closely related to people's production and life, and preserved many precious historical materials. For example, the records of exotic crops such as "corn" and "sweet potato" (now commonly known as sweet potato) in the "products" of this chronicle provide important basis and evidence for today's study of the time, place and route of the introduction of exotic crops into China. When he Bingdi, a famous historian in the United States, studied the introduction of corn and sweet potato into China, he "basically searched 3000 local chronicles collected by famous American Libraries", and concluded that "the most important historical materials are Li Yuanyang's 1563 edition of Dali Prefecture chronicles and 1574 edition of Yunnan general Chronicles". This fully shows that Wanli's Yunnan general annals is an excellent work not only in Southwest China, but also in the whole country in recording economic contents, especially in terms of products. It can be said that Wan Li's Yunnan general records is a milestone in the history of Yunnan Local Records compilation, which has a great influence on the later Local Records compilation.

Travel notes landscape

Li Yuanyang is the most famous landscape poet and travel writer in ancient Yunnan. In 1542, Li Yuanyang, who was fond of traveling around the mountains and rivers, was "unable to leave his post because of his father's death." Over the next 30 years, he first transformed his residence into a garden, so as to enjoy the scenery under the forest. At the back of his house, he wrote a "silent garden", while outside Guo, he wrote two pavilions of Yingjiang and Yanxue, and two floors of Jianhu and LVYE. Its reading Pavilion is near Zhongxi River, with a couplet: "the crane in Huajian is sent by Xiandu; the spring comes from Xuejian." A friend presented a couplet saying: "one person cooks Xianming under the forest; one person listens to Xiangquan in wanjuan hall." Then he went on a journey around Yunnan.

Kunming, the provincial capital, is the focus of Li Yuanyang's visit to ancient China. When he went boating in Dianchi Lake from high, he was intoxicated by the surrounding lakes and mountains, and wrote affectionately: "it's been less than 30 years since Kunming came back today. The poems are half full of wine, and people grow lotus on the water. Mountain lake can not be drunk? The fragrance of lotus is ten miles away. Bijiyan bank can be inscribed, so that the Dian song can be engraved LuoHANYAN (the place where Longmen is located) in Taihua mountain (West Mountain of Kunming) is very dangerous. It is recorded in yitongzhi: "on the right side of Taihua, Zhuoli coast, south of which there are thousands of cliffs, often circling white clouds, and north of which there is a secluded and mysterious place. It is said that it is the summer palace of King Liang." After boating in Dianchi Lake, Li Yuanyang climbed the mountain and roamed LuoHANYAN. He was attracted by the danger of LuoHANYAN and wrote an ancient poem LuoHANYAN, which is more than 200 words long: "flying rock in the lake and mountain"

Chinese PinYin : Li Yuan Yang