Xu Qianxue

Xu Qianxue

Xu Qianxue (1631-1694) was a minister, scholar and book collector in Qing Dynasty. Kunshan people in Jiangsu Province, the nephew of Gu Yanwu, a great scholar in the early Qing Dynasty, and his younger brothers Xu Yuanwen and Xu Bingyi are both official and noble names, known as "three Xu in Kunshan".

In 1670, he was the third Jinshi (Tanhua) in the ninth year of Kangxi. He was the editor of the book. He successively served as the daily announcer of the Japanese lecture, the president of the Ming history, the assistant lecturer, and the cabinet scholar. In 1687, he was promoted to the imperial censor of zuodu and the Minister of the Ministry of punishment. He once presided over the compilation of the history of Ming Dynasty, the unified annals of Qing Dynasty, the general examination of reading rites and other books, and wrote 36 volumes of the collected works of juanyuan. It is a famous library in the history of Chinese book collection.

Xu Qianxue's portrait is taken from the first volume of biography of scholars in Qing Dynasty, the collection and copy of Ye Yanlan in Qing Dynasty, and the painting of Huang Xiaoquan.

Life of the characters

Early years

Xu Qianxue was born on November 2 (November 24) in the fourth year of Chongzhen (1631) of the Ming Dynasty. He was smart since childhood and was able to write at the age of 8. In 1650, he and Wu Weiye, you dong and Zhu YIZUN organized ten prefectures in Jiaxing.

In 1654, Xu Qianxue entered Taixue. In the ninth year of Kangxi (1670), Xu Qianxue took part in the palace examination. He was awarded the first and third Jinshi and the Imperial Academy editor. Xu Qianxue was the eldest brother of Xu Yuanwen, the number one scholar in the 16th year of Shunzhi (1659), and Xu Bingyi, the visiting scholar in the 12th year of Kangxi (1673). People call Xu's three brothers "Kunshan three Xu". Gu Yanwu, a scholar in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty, was their uncle. All the three brothers had been donated by Gu Yanwu.

The study of official works

In 1672, Xu Qianxue, as a deputy examiner, took the shuntianfu examination together with CAI Qijuan. He picked out Han Peng from the papers he had given up. It can be said that he had a good eye for talent, and finally Han Peng won the first place and became the number one scholar. As a result of his action, the style has changed to be simple, fresh and elegant. Later, Yang Yongjian impeached Xu Qianxue and CAI Qichen, two examiners, because of the omission of Han Army papers in the Deputy list.

In the fourteenth year of Kangxi (1675), Xu Qianxue donated money to the restoration official. Later, he was promoted to Zuo Chunfang, Zuo zanshan, and served as an official of daily life. Soon after, his parents passed away and Ding you went back to his hometown.

In 1676, with the help of others, Xu Qianxue began to compile an important work on funeral rites, the general examination of reading rites, which consists of 120 volumes. Later, it was revised many times and published by his son two years after his death. It should be pointed out that some of the materials used to compile this book were plagiarized from Wan Sitong.

In the 19th year of Kangxi (1680), he collected for Nalanxingde the classics of Tang, song, yuan and Ming scholars, and compiled 1795 volumes of nine classics of tongzhitang.

In 1682, Xu Qianxue was appointed as the president of Ming history.

Kangxi 22 years (1683), for the Imperial Academy. Later, Xu Qianxue was promoted to a Bachelor of science.

In 1684, Xu Qianxue's son Xu Shuping and nephew Xu Shusheng were all examined in the Shuntian rural examination. Emperor Kangxi saw that most of the candidates were from Zhejiang Province in the south of the Yangtze River. Among the candidates from the south, there were some paradoxes in literature and science, and those with incorrect style were also cited. Emperor Kangxi ordered that the examination papers be investigated again. As a result, the officials of the former imperial examination were dismissed and severely punished, and two children of the Xu family were also defeated. At the end of the year, Xu Qian Xueqian was appointed as Zhan Shi in Zhan Shi Mansion.

In the 24th year of Kangxi (1685), Xu Qianxue, Han Peng, sun Yuexuan and GUI Yunsu were awarded by the emperor. Then Xu Qianxue was promoted to cabinet bachelor and was on duty in the South study. Xu Qianxue served as the vice president of the Qing Dynasty Huidian and yitongzhi. He taught shujishi and compiled a treaty of jiaoxitang for shujishi, which was later included in Xuehai Lei Bian. In the same year, he presided over the interpretation of "guwenyuanjian", which was written by Emperor Kangxi, and the whole book was 64 volumes. In this year, Seleng Ershu, a doctor of the Ministry of household affairs, asked to ban the old money of Ming Dynasty, and Ke Kun and Yu Guozhu, the secretaries of the Ministry of household affairs, echoed. Xu Qian learned that new and old money should be used at the same time. It points out that if the old prohibition rules are set up, I am afraid it will cause trouble and harassment for no reason. Finally, Emperor Kangxi adopted his opinion.

In the 25th year of Kangxi (1686), Xu Qianxue was appointed as the Minister of rites and served as a lecturer of Jingyan. The next year, he was promoted to censor zuodou and concurrently served as the president of the compilation Bureau of yitongzhi. He had a grudge with the Pearl's confidants, Florence and Yu Guozhu. Later, Xu Qianxue colluded with suoetu and Xiong Ziliu to fight back against Mingzhu. Xu Qianxue used his student Guo Xiu to impeach Mingzhu, and Mingzhu and Yu Guozhu gave up. Li Guangdi said that Xu Qianxue was "treacherous and treacherous". At that time, the ballad said: "nine days for Fu to the East China Sea (Xu Qianxue), the world's Golden Pearl Xiandan people (Gao Shiqi)"

In the same year, he was promoted to minister of the Ministry of punishment. During his term of office, he eliminated Taigang and impeached the two generals of Gansu and Shandong. In 1688, Xu Qianxue was appointed as the chief examiner,

Qigui was impeached

In 1688, Zhang Wei, the governor of Huguang, broke out a corruption case. When Zhang Wei was arrested and questioned, he confessed that he had bribed Xu Qianxue and involved Gao Shiqi and Chen Tingjing. Later, he was sheltered by Kangxi, so the matter was not settled. Later, he was impeached by Xu Sanli for "no good career, no good article, so he should be expelled from the historical museum to show his far away treachery". Xu Qianxue sparingly asked him to return to the field. In May, Kangxi allowed Xu Qianxue to dismiss his official post, and took the book company as his home. Yan ruoxian, Gu Zuyu, Hu Wei and Huang Yuji accompanied him. They devoted themselves to compiling the unified annals of the Qing Dynasty, and imitated the style of Sima Guang's Zizhi Tongjian, with Wan Sitong and Yan ruoxian Hu Wei and other scholars compiled a hundred eighty-four volumes of Zizhi Tongjian houbian, referring to the official history and other books.

In 1691, Xu Qianxue wrote to Qian Yu, the former governor of Shandong Province, to cover up Zhu Dunhou. After the incident, both Xu Qianxue and Qian Yu were dismissed. His son, Xu Shumin, was also cited for collecting money in private. In 1691, Fu lata, the governor of Jiangnan Jiangxi Province, impeached Xu Qianxue and his younger brother Xu Yuanwen for their illegal activities. There were 15 kinds of "swaggering, accepting bribes and competing for the interests of the people". On July 27, Xu Yuanwen died of "vomiting blood and fear". From the 29th year of Kangxi (1690) to the 31st year of Kangxi (1692), Xu Qianxue and his family were charged with more than 20 cases of malpractice.

In the 33rd year of Kangxi's reign (1694), Kangxi instructed the university to recommend excellent scholars. Wang Xi and Zhang Yushu recommended Xu Qianxue, Wang Hongxu and Gao Shiqi. Emperor Kangxi ordered them to come to Beijing to study. Xu Qianxue had passed away before, and Yishu introduced his book "Yi Tong Zhi" to Emperor Kangxi, who issued an edict to restore his previous official position.

Main impact

Document compilation

Xu Qianxue is a writer. Nine times out of ten, the official letters appointed by Emperor Kangxi were written by the president under his supervision and were valued by the world. He wrote Yitong Zhi after his death. When Xu Qianxue returned to the south to compile the unified annals of the Qing Dynasty, he invited some of the most famous scholars at that time to participate in the compilation of Dongting Lake Villa in Taihu Lake, southwest of Suzhou. Among these scholars are Yan ruoxian, Gu Zuyu, Hu Wei and Huang Yuji. Xu Qianxue and these scholars painstakingly compiled the unified annals of the Qing Dynasty. The materials are mainly from Xu Qianxue's famous library "Zhuan Shi Lou".

Achievements in book collection

Xu Qianxue is a great book collector. His private collection of books was in zhuanshilou, with seven couplets in the library. The first one was in the Kangxi Dynasty. Many scholars who studied ancient classics, such as Yan ruoxian, collected their books. He first acquired most of the excellent books in Ji Zhenyi's Jingsi hall, and then Li Zhonglu's collection was under his command. There are more than 10 books printed in the collection, mainly including "Yufeng Xu family collection", "Guanshan hall", "golden man Gu is not as good as Yijing", "Kunshan Xu Qian Xue Jian an collection", "Donghai", "gayuan", "Jian an Kao collection", "Kunshan Xu family collection", etc. The four volumes of zhuanshilou bibliography in this building's library catalogue are numbered with a thousand characters and are not classified into four parts. One word for one cabinet, where 56 cabinets; more than 3900 kinds of books. Record the number of volumes on each book and the number of volumes on the bottom. In addition, there is a book named Zhuan is the original bibliography of Song Dynasty. It was first printed in 1915 with Xu Bingyi's catalogue peilintang bibliography.

The second son Xu Jiong, whose name was Zhang Zhong, was named Ziqiang. He was an official of Guizhou Department of criminal justice, wailang, and Zhili. He inherited his father's collection of books, including "Xu zhongzi", "Xu Zhangzhong's book", "Xu Jiong's Secret collection", "Pengcheng zhongzi's examination and approval" and so on. The fifth son, Xu Jun, also inherited the book collection from the library, which is called "qingjingshan building".

Historical evaluation

Anecdotes and allusions

It's the name of the building

The books of the collectors in the north and the South belong to their families. They are known as "the most famous books in the world". According to Jiang Dun Weng's biography of the building, Mr. Xu called his descendants upstairs and said to them, "what can I pass on to you. Those who used to lament that they are elders often want to pass on their offspring's land and wealth, but their offspring may not be rich all the time; they want to pass it on to Jin Yuzhen to play with treasures, but their offspring may not be able to keep these treasures; they want to pass it on to their offspring's gardens, terraces, singing and dancing chariots and horses, but their offspring may not be able to enjoy entertainment all the time; in view of the above, what can I pass on to you? " Xu Qianxue pointed to these books and said with a happy smile: "the only thing that has been passed on is right!" The library was immediately named "Zhuan Shi Lou".

Qu Yi Ying Feng

At that time, Xu Qianxue was deeply loved by Emperor Kangxi. He specially awarded scholars and found talents for himself

Chinese PinYin : Xu Qian Xue