Wu Cheng

Wu Cheng

Wu Cheng (February 3, 1249 to August 5, 1333) was born in Chongren County, Linchuan county (now Xiankou village, Aoxi Town, Le'an County, Jiangxi Province) in the late Qing Dynasty. Yuan Dynasty great Confucian, outstanding Neo Confucianism, Confucian classics, educationist.

He is intelligent and diligent since childhood. At the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, the local examination was conducted. After the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty, he lived in seclusion in his hometown and devoted himself to writing. In the first year of emperor Wuzong's reign (1308), he became the Prime Minister of the Imperial Academy. In the first year of Zhiding (1321), he was a scholar of Hanlin; in the first year of TAIDING (1324), as a lecturer of Jingyan, he compiled Yingzong Shilu, participated in the verification of Laozi, Zhuangzi, daxuanjing, Yuelu, Bazhen Tu, etc., and studied Yi, Chunqiu, Liji and kuopu's funeral books. In the first year of Yuantong (1333), he died of illness at the age of 85. He was granted the title of Duke of Linchuan County, and his posthumous title was "Wenzheng".

Wu Cheng is as famous as Xu Heng, and is also known as "North Xu and South Wu". With his whole life energy, he made an important contribution to the spread and development of Confucianism in Yuan Dynasty.

Life of the characters

Early life

Wu Cheng came from an ordinary intellectual family. According to Wei Su's chronicle of Wu Wenzheng Gong and Yu Ji's biography of Wu Gong, his grandfather Wu was generous and disdained for detailed work. He was good at writing poems and verses, and was proficient in astronomy and astrology. His father, Wu Shu, is warm and pure, honest and modest, and has nothing to do with the world. He is always kind and helpful. One year, the plague was prevalent in his hometown, and doctors were afraid to treat the patients for fear of infection. As a result, the disease became more and more serious, making some families bedridden. Seeing this, Wu Shu was very anxious. He searched for folk secret recipes, went up the mountain to collect herbs, fried them into decoction, and gave them to patients door-to-door, which relieved many families from suffering and restored many patients to health. When some poor people in the village died and had no money for funerals, Wu Shu gave generously and tried his best to help them. It's not difficult for a person to do a few good things. What's difficult is to do good things all his life. What is valuable is that Wu Shu always cared and sympathized with the poor families. He was very respected and loved by the people in the countryside. This family with certain culture and good moral tradition undoubtedly had a good and far-reaching impact on Wu Cheng's life.

Wu Cheng was born on the 19th of the first month of the ninth year of Chunyou (1249). Since he was 3 years old, he has been very different from other children. At that time, his grandfather liked him very much and often taught him to read some ancient poems, which he could recite almost casually. Grandfather saw that he was very savvy and loved him even more. Day by day, Wu Cheng could recite hundreds of ancient poems. His family were all happy for this and believed that he would make great achievements in the future. His mother, Mrs. you, once took him to play in a neighboring village. When an old woman saw that Wu Cheng was very cute, she gave him some coins and fruits. Wu Cheng respectfully said thanks to the grandmother, and then accepted these gifts. After a while, he thought that his grandmother was old and frail and had a hard life. He really shouldn't accept the gift from the old man. So, full of guilt, he quietly put the money and fruit back to grandma's home, and then followed his mother to leave the neighboring village silently.

In the first year of Baoyou (1253), Wu Chenggang turned five. The family hired a teacher from other places to teach Wu Cheng. Under the guidance of the teacher, Wu Cheng is more and more sensitive. Even if she reads more than 1000 words, she can remember it as long as she reads it two or three times. From then on, he devoted himself to study all day, worked hard, and read all night. His mother, Mrs. you, worried that her son would learn too much to hurt his body and cause illness, so she rationed Wu Cheng's lamp oil for reading. She only allowed him to read until midnight. Wu Cheng's thirst for knowledge is very strong. He is addicted to books. He can't bear the constraint of his mother. So he secretly went to the market to buy some lamp oil to meet his needs of staying up late to study. Every night, he turns off the light according to his mother's schedule. After his mother goes to bed, he quietly lights the light and studies hard. He carefully covers the light to avoid his mother's detection.

In this way, over time, Wu Cheng read a lot of books. At the age of 7, he could recite the Analects of Confucius, Mencius and the Five Classics (poems, books, changes, rites, spring and Autumn), and he also learned to write poems and Jinshi Fu. When he was 9 years old, he took the Linyi class examination several times, and all of them were among the best.

In the sixth year of Baoyou (1258), Wu Chenggang was 10 years old, and he began to understand the essence of scholarship. He made great efforts to study the four books, such as the great learning and the doctrine of the mean, compiled by Zhu Xi, a great Confucianist. He recited the great learning ten or twenty times a day. He persisted for three years and made great progress in his studies. Later, Wu Cheng told the scholars about his experience. He said: "I learned poetry and Fu when I was young, but I didn't see all the books of Zhu Zi. I don't know how to do it. When I was ten years old, I was very glad to read the chapters and sentences of the great learning and the doctrine of the mean in my old book. It has been more than a thousand days since I had to recite the great learning in the morning, and then read the doctrine of the mean and other classics. If a scholar knows the great learning, the doctrine of the mean is not difficult to read. "

In 1261, Wu Cheng was 13 years old. In order to broaden his field of knowledge, he began to read hundreds of books. Wu Cheng, who had no money to buy, tried every means to borrow books from the bookseller and returned them on time one month later. The bookseller once asked him, "have you read all the books you borrowed one by one?" Wu Cheng replied, "please test me on any chapter in the book." After listening to the book seller, he randomly selected a certain paragraph on a certain page of the book. Wu Cheng could recite it like a stream without any mistakes. The bookseller was very surprised and deeply moved by this young man's spirit of hard study. He gave Wu Cheng a set of ancient prose collection with both hands, encouraging him to continue to study hard and aspire to be outstanding in the future. A year later, 14-year-old Wu Cheng went to Fuzhou county to take a supplementary examination, holding two little horns on his head. When the local scholars saw that his writing was extraordinary, they admired him.

In 1263, Wu Chengshi was 15 years old. He knew that the imperial examination was not enough to devote himself to, so he devoted himself to the study of sages and sages. One day, he read Zhu Xi's "Xun Zi tie" and saw that there were two words "Qin" and "Jin". If he was convinced by his life, he believed that this was "the important task of maintaining and learning". Then Wu Cheng wrote down the two maxims of "diligence" and "sincerity", and wrote the two inscriptions of "respect" and "harmony". "Jingming" says: "grasp in the middle, mental skill; check out, skeletal muscle." He Ming spoke highly of Zhou Dunyi, Cheng Hao and other scholars to encourage themselves. He often said: "when I read Jingming, people's mind will be restrained, and all kinds of mistakes will disappear. For example, when I am in a temple, I will stand beside a strict teacher, and I will be as sad as autumn, but I don't realize the importance of feet and the courtesy of hands. When I read he Ming, people's mind will be relaxed, and all kinds of scenes will be integrated, with moon chanting, flowers following willows, and spring like, but I don't know the dance of hands and feet." After that, Wu Cheng also wrote self-cultivation inscription, self-renewal inscription, elimination of desire inscription, changtianli inscription, self-restraint inscription, repentance inscription, correctional inscription, warning indolence inscription and so on. It can be seen that he is self-motivated everywhere and self-motivated all the time, and his diligence is really deep! The reason why Wu Cheng became a master of Confucianism in Yuan Dynasty is inseparable from his early self-cultivation and hard training.

A teacher and a teacher

Since Wu Cheng was 15 years old and determined to devote himself to the study of sages and sages, he successively worshipped Cheng ruoyong and Cheng shaokai as his teachers, lived in the countryside for a long time, devoted himself to Neo Confucianism, and finally formed his own theory.

In the autumn of 1264, Wu Cheng accompanied his grandfather to Fuzhou (now Linchuan, Jiangxi Province) for the local examination. At that time, the governor of Fuzhou invited Mr. Cheng Ruofu, a famous Confucian, to come to your academy to give lectures, which was a grand event in the Confucian circle of Fuzhou. Cheng ruoyong, Yu Fengyuan, was born in Xiuning, Anhui Province. He learned from Rao Lu (scholars call Mr. Shuangfeng, the "elder brother" of Zhu Xi's disciples) and got the biography of Zhu Xi. Later, he successively served as the mountain chief of Anding, Linru and Wuyi academies, and was also called Mr. Wuzhai or Mr. Weian. He has written many books, such as the lecture notes of xinglizixun and taijihong scope theory. During the JINGDING period, when it was established at the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, most of the scholars took the imperial examination as their business. However, Cheng Ruo Fu devoted himself to Neo Confucianism at that time and only taught Zhu Zi's learning to all students. Wu Cheng was originally a scholar of Zhu, but now he admires the name of Cheng ruoyong, so he went to Linru academy to pay a visit to Mr. Cheng. When he was waiting for Mr. Cheng to come out to meet him in the outer Hall of the Academy, he found that the walls were covered with posters, which were all about Cheng ruoyong's teachings and scholars, fully reflecting Cheng's unique views on Neo Confucianism. Wu Cheng took a close look with great interest and remembered the words between the walls. He realized that some of Cheng's statements did not completely conform to Zhu Xi's theory, which aroused his doubts and thoughts. After a while, Mr. Cheng came out of the inner hall of the Academy. Wu Cheng immediately went to meet him. After paying homage, he asked for his advice. Among them, he asked: "for example, in the book written by Mr. Bi Jian, the university is a good and righteous school, but is primary school a humble and humble school?" In this way, several questions have been questioned. Cheng ruoyong could not help but exclaim: "I have been here for a long time. I have never been like a son who can ask. I have a son who says, "Zifu, like Zinian, can be friends with his classmates." From then on, Wu Cheng held a disciple's ceremony to Cheng ruoyong and often went back and forth to Cheng's door. Mr. Cheng knew that this disciple would succeed in Confucianism and believed that his future was limitless. However, many of his fellow students did not really understand Wu Cheng.

Song Du Zongxian

Chinese PinYin : Wu Cheng