1 Introduction
Confucian academies were cultural and educational institutions, run by scholars, that within their framework carried out various activities such as book collection, study, teaching, discussions, examination preparation, writing, and publishing. In the more than thousand-year-long history of the academies, their development during the Ming dynasty certainly stands out. While still inheriting models and concepts from the past, the academies underwent enormous transformations. One of the most important aspects of their development during this period was their extensive interactions with the state. Because the Ming government generally feared the intellectual autonomy of the academies, it sought to suppress their rise through different strategies. In the early years of the Ming, many academies were co-opted or transformed into state schools, ensuring their loyalty by integrating them into the educational system with the civil service examinations at its core. The state further refrained from providing financial support for more independent academies, making it challenging to sustain an institution outside the official system, which led to the decline of many academies. However, the financial burden of a comprehensive educational system proved too heavy for the state and the academies made a remarkable comeback as government-sponsored education gradually weakened. This, together with the rise of new intellectual trends promoted through the academies, brought about an unprecedented bloom of Confucian academies in middle and late Ming period.305 As feared by the government the academies at this point began to provide space for dissenting voices and the struggle between state and academies led to a total of twelve crackdowns on the academies under three Ming emperors.306
All fifteen provinces of Ming China hosted academies, which amounted to a total of over two thousand and by far exceeded the number of academies during the Tang und Song dynasties. The academy system saw its extraordinary growth during the Ming dynasty due to popularity of Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472–1529) and Zhan Ruoshui 湛若水 (1466–1560), whose followers established many academies in the roughly one hundred years of the Zhengde 正德 (r. 1505–1521), Jiajing 嘉靖 (r. 1521–1567), Longqing 隆慶 (r. 1567–1572), and Wanli 萬曆 (r. 1572–1620) emperors’ reigns. 1,108 academies were revived or newly founded in this period, accounting for 56 percent of all known academies established during the whole of the Ming dynasty. In the fifty years of the Jiajing and Longqing reigns alone, 663 academies were built or revitalized, which shows the sudden as well as expansive momentum of the academy rise in a short period of time. A look at the annual average of new academies further underscores the prosperity of the academy system during this period; the Zhengde reign averages around nine, the Jiajing reign around thirteen, the Longqing reign around eleven, and the Wanli reign around six new academies a year.307
Many of these academies not only became involved in local culture by seeking to instill specific Confucian values and norms of behavior among the local population, but reversely also accommodated to local customs, which imbued the academies with individual characteristics. Moreover, they continued to serve as places to advance one’s own erudition, to evaluate future talents, and to criticize and remonstrate against the court, instilling the academies with a social and political role. These characteristics and the popularity of the academies, as we will see, are all related to their lecture gatherings (jianghui 講會).
Illustration of the lecture by Hui’an (Zhu Xi) and Nanxuan (Zhang Shi) at Yuelu. Source: Deng Hongbo [comp.], Yuelu shuyuan zhi, 48
Jianghui has a long tradition of being connected to academy education,308 but with the rise of the Yangming School in China and its advocacy by its disciples in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, lectures seemed to move beyond the academies.309 The settings of gatherings changed so that people began to come together anywhere to study among the like-minded, family, or friends. Jianghui sessions were organized everywhere and for every purpose and occasion. However, we should not assume that academies and jianghui became parallel but unrelated institutions or that they were actually mutually exclusive affairs. By looking at lecture gatherings with no designated space and no designated aim—here summarized under the phrase found in the literature, “to organize gatherings everywhere (suidi juhui 隨地舉會)”—and the later tendency of returning to the academies to lecture, we can reconstruct the circumstances of the jianghui and the relationship with the academies, and understand the academies’ role in the Ming dynasty educational scene.
However, before this stands a necessary discussion of terms connected with the lecture gatherings, as these bear some problems of ambiguity and inconsistency.310 While jianghui is the more common term in the Ming dynasty, we sometimes also encounter the term huijiang 會講 (gatherings for lectures) that historically had been used to describe academic discussion between scholars and in front of an audience, e.g. the famous meeting between Zhang Shi 張栻 (1133–1180) and Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) at Yuelu Academy 嶽麓書院 in 1167.311 By the time of the Ming dynasty the term was used to refer more generally to teaching activities in the academies, including daily discussions between teachers and students, as the study regulations of the Hongdao Academy 弘道書院 show:
Every other day in the afternoon assemble at the hall for huijiang, and depending on status engage in reading. At first discuss the passage among yourselves, and if there are any difficult parts, further discuss among the students in the huijiang and visit the teacher to inquire about it. While searching to attain the meaning of the words by the former sages and worthies, do not fool yourself into understanding it.312
Yet, the use of huijiang is more ambiguous and often also appears in connection with lecture gatherings outside of the academies. There have been different explanations as how to understand the difference and usage of jianghui and huijiang. Li Caidong, an expert on the history of Confucian academies, considers both terms to stem from Southern Song tradition and to be connected to Zhu Xi, but with different meanings. He views huijiang as describing the activity of an academic gathering or discussion, while jianghui designates the organization, group, or institution behind the lectures, which in his opinion are not to be confused.313 A similar position was advocated by Chen Lai, professor of the history of philosophy.314 However, this position has been challenged, doubting the theory that jianghui marks the organization behind the lectures. Wu Xuande maintains that there is no clear divide between the usage of jianghui and huijiang, and that meaning of jianghui as the activity of lecturing and gathering originated among Buddhist traditions of the Northern and Southern Dynasties period (420–589).315 Having extensively studied the Yangming scholar community, Lü Miaofen generally considers that the term jianghui during the Ming period was used to describe a flurry of activities related to gatherings for discussion, such as daily lectures in the academies, friends making informal visits to discuss matters of scholarship, gatherings to educate the local population, public lectures related to community compacts, as well as formal lecture activities organized by local scholars. She considers a clear demarcation of the contents included as difficult, but also as unnecessary as she defines jianghui as “composed of scholars, gentry, and their kin that are connected to a locality and regularly organize for lecture activities, showing a modest level of institutionalization, but not necessarily being connected to an academy or other institution.”316 In Wu Zhen’s opinion, stemming from his research of the disciples of Wang Yangming, jianghui cannot be considered to describe an academic organization in the strict sense, because it does not exhibit regulations limiting the number of participants or discriminating among them based on status.317 Chen Shilong frames jianghui as lectures, but emphasizes their connection to the Yangming School and considers the spread of its ideas and the association with friends as the core of the jianghui idea. He states that “even though jianghui appeared in the Song and Yuan and the lecture movement continued in the early Qing, as a general trend we have to consider jianghui as a Ming dynasty phenomenon.”318
With these studies in mind and with further historical data it is possible to put forward some thoughts on this topic.319 First, huijiang as lecturing activities of Confucian scholars began in the Tang dynasty and after the introduction of official schools and academies in the Song became a normal teaching activity in the successive dynasties. Not only as a teaching or lecture activity, but sometimes also as the matter of organizing the lectures, as a term moving between the noun “lecture” and its gerund “lecturing,” not just having one meaning. Second, jianghui often appears as the verb to huijiang, meaning “to lecture”; however, both words overlap and can designate activities. Jianghui sometimes also appears as a general term, clearly identifiable as a noun, referring to the organization or institution behind the lectures, i.e. a lecture society or an academy. Therefore the idea of jianghui as an institution also has some ground. Further, jianghui being designed to spread ideas among friends and between teachers and students are not limited to the Ming dynasty or the Yangming School, but can also be observed among Zhu Xi’s followers during the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing periods. Conclusively, huijiang and jianghui overlap in their meaning, which lies between an activity and its organization. In the following, this paper will therefore, if not specifically marked as otherwise, use the term jianghui as referring to both usages, the academic organization/institution and the activity of lecturing itself.
The paper will further propose that the jianghui sessions in the academies during the Ming dynasty can be generally divided into three types, which are categorized by the level of their academic depth and their target audience, namely: academic gatherings geared towards scholars (xueshu jianghui 學術講會), teaching gatherings for students (jiaoxue jianghui 敎學講會), and gatherings to transform through education (jiaohua jianghui 敎化講會) that were directed more towards the general population. These three types also reflect the functions of Confucian academies during the Ming dynasty, in creating, spreading, and popularizing Confucian culture. Although the academic and transformation type of the gatherings have not always been summarized under these terms, their contents, achievements, and contributions have been widely recognized by academics now and in the past. The teaching type of the gatherings usually received the scorn of “serious” Confucian scholars, as it ostensibly promoted useless rote-memorization in preparation for the civil service examinations for the sake of personal advancement. However, as a matter of fact, studying for the examinations and sagely learning were not two completely different matters and neither could be considered as easy. From the libraries and the books listed in the reading curriculums of academies we can actually see that the knowledge system applied in learning for the civil service examinations in reality also covered most of the content considered as the traditional study canon at the time. Success in the official examinations therefore must be also understood as an important guarantee for the continuous transmission of traditional Confucian culture.
According to my own research, there were at least eighty jianghui communities based in Confucian academies in different parts of the country during the Ming dynasty.320 Due to their facing different surroundings, conditions, and problems, and employing different policies, as well as due to the effects of differences in original customs, academic atmospheres, styles of administering the lectures by the hosts, audience, and academic level, all these lecture gatherings over time naturally developed quite dissimilar characteristics and took on more local identities. It needs to be also pointed out that, through rotations of the gatherings between different places, the assembly of large gatherings, or the organization of gatherings in remote places, etc., the actual characteristics of the gatherings were under constant change. One main development during the Ming period was understood as following the process of “gather for lectures, establish academies, so both can be seen everywhere” (lian jianghui, li shuyuan, xiang wang yu yuanjin 聯講會, 立書院, 相望於遠近),321 which implied the continuous enlargement of the lecturing circle, from township to county, from county to prefecture, and from the prefecture to the province, sometimes even forming inter-provincial gatherings. Although sizes varied, we can see a constant expansion of the circle of the gatherings and with it the network of the associated academy. This process, under the influence of local culture, entered into a conversion, necessarily again leading to more cultural homogeneity in the organization of the lecture gatherings.
Yet this organizational homogeneity of gathering for lectures, establishing academies, and guiding students still possessed multiple cultural directions in its content and did not produce ideological uniformity. In combination with academic developments, it not only initiated the bloom of the Wang Yangming teachings and jianghui promoting Wang’s ideas, but later also created the impetus for the late Ming dynasty dissent of the Donglin movement criticizing and rejecting the teachings of Wang’s followers. It seems therefore safe to say that mutual relations and the search for the like-minded through lectures and associations is one of the main reasons for the flourishing of the gatherings.322 Therefore, the concept of association academies (shetuan shuyuan 社團書院) must be put forward. The famous Donglin Academy 東林書院 was formed around a jianghui and became an association that also had the bearings of an early political organization. Lectures and discussing politics were the most prominent features of association academies, which often put them at odds with the authoritarian state and ultimately led to instances of violent suppression of academies by the court during the Ming dynasty.323 In this sense, the relationship between lecture gatherings and academies from an organizational point of view has to be seen as parallel and independent. However, in reality, academies and jianghui often coexisted in the same body. The combination of lectures and academies was a sensible choice by Wang Yangming, Zhan Ruoshui, and their followers in seeking to establish places of academic freedom to discuss their ideas outside of state-enforced orthodoxy. It also imbued the academies and their lecture gatherings with a political spirit.
In the following this article will discuss the aforementioned three types of lecture gatherings connected to Confucian academies. However, a preliminary inquiry about the extent lecture gatherings attained in this period should help to understand the importance of the phenomenon of jianghui in the Ming dynasty as well as its connection to Confucian academies.
2 “Organize Gatherings Everywhere”
Among the disciples of Wang Yangming, there were some who found no pleasure in advancing their official careers and rather chose to spend their whole lives lecturing to students through jianghui sessions, like Qian Dehong 錢德洪 (1496–1574), who is said to have spent “thirty years in the fields [outside the cities], not one day without lecturing. In Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Xuan[cheng], She[xian] [both modern Anhui province], Chu [modern Hubei and Hunan provinces], and Guangdong, from famous districts to impassable places, in all having a place to lecture.”324 Or Wang Ji 王畿 (1498–1583) who, in a quite similar statement, is said to have spent “more than forty years under trees, not one day without lecturing, from the two capitals [Beijing and Nanjing] to Wu [modern Jiangsu], Chu, Min [modern Fujian], Yue [modern Hangzhou, Shaoxing], Jiangxi, and Zhejiang, in all having a place to lecture.”325 It was their efforts that built the foundation for the spread of the Yangming School in various communities. However, there were also disciples of Wang Yangming that held official posts up to high-ranking ministers, even assuming office in the Grand Secretariat (Zaixiang 宰相) and lectured toward the court, like Xu Jie 徐階 (1512–1578), who in the ruling courts of the Jiajing and Longqing emperors “was simply called disciple of Yaojiang [Wang Yangming], taking extreme delight in the teachings of innate knowledge.”326 He built academies in all parts of the country, forming jianghui communities, “his reputation being known everywhere, he was admired by the court and the people.”327 This in turn gave the Yangming School and its academies a high social reputation. It was these efforts by Wang Yangming disciples to promote his teachings in every stratum of society that led to the boom of the academy movement during the Ming dynasty, ultimately casting off the stagnation the academies had experienced in the preceding one hundred years.
The teachings of Wang Yangming and Zhan Ruoshui put an emphasis on the initiative of the individual, believing that everyone, whether official, gentry, or farmer, with the right stimulus could become a sage like Yao or Shun. So as the streets were full of sages, then altars were to be everywhere, and through their great academic enthusiasm people were to establish lectures, gathering in groups of friends learning together, and subsequently forming jianghui associations. Not choosing a fixed place, people were to organize the lectures everywhere: in the family, in the clan, in the villages, in the towns, in the counties, among multiple counties, in the provinces, in the old capitals, in the current capital, there was to be no place without lectures; every ten days, every month, every season, every year, there was to be no time without a lecture.
The quotation “organize gatherings everywhere” itself can be found in the biography of Ming scholar Chen Qi’en 陳其蒽 (?–?) in the Records of Wufeng Academy (Wufeng shuyuan zhi 五峰書院志):
The Master’s personal name was Qi’en, his courtesy name was Shengnan (生南) and his style was Pingzhai (蘋齋). He was from Anwen in Dongyang. Among the students of his hometown he was known to be bold and chivalrous, and to enjoy drinking his fill. […] When he came to pay a visit to his master Chunzhao, the master delightedly exclaimed: Shengnan is here, a man of our Way! [Qi’en] then changed and returned to measure, deeply contemplating and fully applying himself, attaining great courage, reaching the place of knowledge and practicing it in his acts without fail. […] His places for lecture were Wufeng in Yongkang, Wenshan in Dongyang, and the western hermitage, organizing gatherings everywhere, guiding younger scholars, being sincere and meticulous. Where words weren’t sufficient he would break into song. Among the stupid and wise, there was no one who was not moved. After Chunzhao disappeared, he [Qi’en] transmitted his teachings widely, but could not replace the master’s strength.328
The abovementioned Chunzhao 春洲 is the style name of Chen Shifang 陳時芳 (1567–1642) from Dongyang, whose teacher was fellow countyman Du Weixi 杜惟熙 (1521–1601), himself a student of Wang Yangming’s disciple Lu Kejiu 盧可久 (1503–1579) from Yongkang, making Cheng Qi’en a fourth-generation disciple of Wang Yangming. Cheng Qi’en’s name cannot be found in the Records of Ming Scholars (Ming ruxue an 明儒學案). And while the biographies of Lu and Du are to be found in the attachment to this work, they are not included among the followers of Wang Yangming in Zhejiang, showing that Wufeng Academy 五峰書院, in Yongkang, was not considered as an important base of Yangming learning.329 However, as this short biography states, Chen’s lectures did not focus on one Confucian academy or a Buddhist hermitage, but were organized everywhere. It also provides us with a glimpse into the lectures, with Chen Qi’en employing song to convey his message to everyone, showing how the later students of the Yangming School embraced jianghui sessions as technique to promote their ideas.
A similar statement can be found in the epitaph inscription made by Lü Ben 呂本 (1504–1587) for Qian Dehong:
[Qian Dehong] traveled all over Xuan[cheng], Jiangxi, and Guangdong, everywhere gathering for lectures. His reputation called out, even deep in the mountains and in remote valleys, his whole life there were those wishing to see and hear Xu’s [Qian Dehong] words. When he was in Shao[zhou] [modern Guangdong), Chen Baogu 陳豹谷 invited him to head Mingjing Academy 明經書院, when in Linying the official Yu Yang 玉陽 sought to make him head of Jiayi Academy 嘉義書院, when in Wanling Liu Chuquan 劉初泉 employed him as head for Shuixi jingshe 水西精舍 at Lion rock, when he was in Qizhou Shen Gulin 沈古林 asked him to head Chongzheng Academy 崇正書院, when he was in Jiangxi provincial education commissioner Wang Jingsuo [Wang Zongmu 王宗沐] opened a lecture hall at Huaiyu mountain. Scholars of eight towns invited the master as director of their academies, like Chongxuan 沖玄, Doushan 斗山, Qingyuan 青原, Junshan 君山, Futian 福田, Qulu 衢麓 Fuzhen 復真 and Fugu 復古 Academies. For twenty years he traveled back and forth and all academies had regulations and lecture protocols, altogether becoming many volumes placed in the master’s complete writings. When he was 70 years old he wrote a memorial of retiring (yixianshu 頤閒疏) and sent out that he couldn’t travel far anymore. Every spring and autumn, he still stopped for lectures at Tianzhen Academy 天真書院, because the travel up the lake was only ten days.330
The popularity of the lectures at this time is also reflected in a statement by Li Maoming 李懋明 (?–?) found in the Records of Bailuzhou Academy (Bailuzhou shuyuan zhi 白鷺洲書院志): “In my village, lectures were as common as tea and rice at home, there was no place without them, no age not participating. At [Bai]Luzhou Academy, [re]built in the Wanli years, from the jiawu year (1594) to the jiazi year (1624) for more than thirty years the lectures did not stop.”331
As can be seen in the above quotes, the gatherings had pervaded deep into distant villages and remote valleys and the high frequency of the lectures was considered normal. It also seems that they had achieved their desired effect of transforming the people and becoming customary, as Qian Dehong writes about the Xiyin gathering society (Xiyinhui 惜陰會): “In the wushen year (1548) Longxi [Wang Ji] came to Qingyuan and the Fugu lecture society. Now after nine years he has arrived again. In the farthest villages and remote valleys, all the people know of the lectures and everyone respects and follows the teachings.”332 The growth of the lectures during this time also becomes more apparent from the audience numbers. Wang Ji himself recounts on how a new jianghui requested him to lecture and mentions its growth:
When I arrived for the lecture in Shuixi, Du Zizhi 杜子質 together with about twenty other students came to the gathering place. They requested: “Zhi has heard the master’s teaching before, he then returned to his village and established a gathering for several villages in Jiulong. First, there were only students preparing for the examinations. Then, hearing that everyone could study to become a sage, the farmers, workers, merchants, and shopkeepers all came to the lectures. Now that the master [Wang Ji] arrived here, we’ve come to ask him to teach us and strengthen our understanding.” The disciples Gong Xuanlüe, Zhou Shunzhi, Wu Chongben, Wang Ruzhou from Lanshan came through Baofeng to Jiulong. The number of participants was more than three hundred. The village elders all respectfully came together and were elated. The scholars and monks said they had earlier seen an omen and prognosticated the lecture. The gathering went on for three days.333
Generally speaking, as the lectures could be organized everywhere, there could be up to several hundred people in attendance, which is a considerable number for a 16th-century small peasantry society. Several hundred people attending a lecture held for a few days, sometimes even for ten days or up to half a month, moreover moving from place to place often without break, even today in the 21st century, is not a common occurrence. The literature also presents us with several records mentioning numbers of close to a thousand, several thousand, or nearly ten thousand people attending lectures. Examples can be found in the writings of Zou Shouyi 鄒守益 (1491–1562) about the lecture gatherings at Qingyuan, recording that “the ones from far away gather once a year, those from closer by come once a month, small lectures have a hundred people, big lectures have a thousand.”334 And the Xinyin lecture society in Xiyuan headed by Wang Shihuai 王時槐 (1522–1605) also have been said to be attended by “hundreds of scholars coming from everywhere.”335 There are quite a few other sources mentioning high audience numbers, which sometimes surely were meant to underscore the popularity of certain gatherings rather than to give an accurate count. The head of Yongxin county, Yu Maoheng 余懋衡 (jinshi of 1592), for example, describes the audience of a lecture by Wang Shihuai, Zou Yuanbiao 鄒元標 (1551–1624), and Zou Deyong 鄒德泳 (?–?) as reaching up to ten thousand people.336
Of course, the main force behind the popularity of the lectures was the scholars, most of them associated with the Yangming School. They lectured at home, met in their hometowns, held, organized, and attended lectures, and traveled around the country in order to debate with fellow scholars. One of these scholars, well-known for his skills in the art of lecturing, was Luo Rufang 羅汝芳 (1515–1588), whose style name was Jinxi 近溪 (Nearby creek) and who was, together with Wang Ji whose style name was Longxi 龍溪 (Dragon creek), known as the “Two creeks (erxi 二溪).” The Records of Ming Scholars states about both that “while Longxi’s tongue is surpassed by his writing, Jinxi’s writing is surpassed by his tongue.”337 Throughout his life Luo enthusiastically held lectures and even while he was preparing for the court examinations in Beijing, he organized lecture gatherings in nearby Lingji Temple (Lingji gong 靈濟宮). While serving as prefect of Ningguo prefecture he continued his lecture activities and founded Zhixue Academy 志學書院 as place for this, attracting over a hundred scholars. After the death of his parents he returned to his hometown for mourning, but students from everywhere followed and came to visit and hear him lecture. Later he was appointed in Yunnan, where he organized lectures, for example in Wuhua Academy 五華書院 in Kunming. In 1577 he quit government service in order to completely concentrate on lecturing, especially in southeastern China. After his death several hundred of his disciples decided to hold monthly gatherings reading his collected writings.338
We have seen how the wide appeal of lectures came about through popular scholars,339 the high frequency, wide availability, and accessibility of the lecture gatherings. However, the uncomplicated organization of lecture gatherings and their informal nature, being conducted anywhere at any time, also made the threshold of what actually was considered a lecture relatively low and the contents sometimes arbitrary. This in turn became an obstacle for the development of the lectures as in the long run the absence of fixed places for the gatherings made them volatile and often unsustainable for a committed community around them. Looking at lecture gatherings in various parts of the Ming Empire an interesting phenomenon comes to light. Lecture gatherings without a stable institution to support them seldom existed for more than a short time and often are mentioned just once in historical records, while lectures that were institutionalized around an academy or another association building endured and remained in the historical annals. The Xiyin gathering society off the western banks of the Yangzi River, the Shuixi gathering society (Shuixihui 水西會) off the eastern banks of the Yangzi, as well as the Donglin gathering society (Donglinhui 東林會) and Feng Congwu’s 馮從吾 (1556–1627) Guanzhong gathering society (Guanzhonghui 關中會), etc., all relied on an academy to persevere for several centuries. Therefore, we can speak of a tendency of the lecture gatherings to return to the academies.
An academy could become a place of lecture gatherings in two ways. First, an existing academy formed the practice of holding lecture gatherings on its grounds or supported them administrative and financially. An example of this was Bailuzhou Academy in Ji’an, which at the time was as famous as the White Deer Grotto Academy (Bailudong shuyuan 白鹿洞書院) or Ehu Academy 鵝湖書院, and since the Song and Yuan dynasties had been an educational and academic center. During Ming times it set up house regulations (guanli 館例) for holding lectures concerned either with examination preparation or with the teachings of the School of Principle (lixue 理學). While other lectures were not this fixed, they usually drew in a larger audience. During the Jiajing reign provincial education intendant Wang Zongmu 王宗沐 (1524–1592) invited Zou Shouyi for a lecture on the Daxue and Zhongyong, which drew in thousands of listeners. During the Wanli and Tianqi 天啟 (r. 1621–1627) years lecture gatherings under the title “orthodox learning gatherings” (zhengxue hui 正學會) were organized inside the academy. Later, in the final years of the Ming dynasty, government officials and students of the academy again organized lecture gatherings, this time named “following humanness gatherings” (yiren hui 依仁會). Thus the academy became home to the lecture gatherings, which were held on academy grounds, and all related administrative matters were also permanently fixed within the various academy regulations. The records of the reconstruction of Xuegu Academy 學古書院 summarize the developments as follows: “The academy indeed was a place where the Confucian scholars lectured to make the relationships of the people clear, and so transformed the people, corrected their customs, and produced talent.”340
Another way was for new academies to be established out of already existing premises, originally created to facilitate the lecture gatherings. With the rising popularity of a lecture community its members and attendants naturally increased and with no designated space the organization of the gatherings became more difficult, which raised the need for a steady location that also could serve as an administrative fixture, i.e. for the collection of membership fees. A thriving lecturing community hence gave the impetus for the revival of an abandoned academy or the establishment of a new academy. One example among many is the establishment of Yide Academy 一德書院 by Liu Yuanqing 劉元卿 (1544–1609), who in this case complains about the multitude of lecture gatherings in one community. “Recently, how can one control the number of gatherings? They are called Lize gathering, Zhiren gathering, Chen family gathering, or Yang family gathering. Therefore, now the Wang, the Yan, the Zhang and the Xie family have banded together to form the Yide gathering [at Yide academy], this is how the number of lectures is controlled!”341 Liu Yuanqing, a native of modern day Lianhua county, in his writings also recounts the circumstances that led to the construction of Fuli Academy 復禮書院 in his hometown.
West from the town [Ji’an], about sixty miles from the city walls, the road is dangerous and long, blocking the message from being taught, and the people quibble and gossip about who’s rich, as their customs are low. Therefore Wang Ziying 王子應, He Zongkong 賀宗孔, and Zhao Shikong 趙師孔 got the sons and elders of the village together for a gathering…. Every season there is one gathering, which always guides the youngsters in teaching […] and changes could gradually be observed in the customs. So, they came together and planned: “The seasonal lecture is over after five days and sometimes it’s very hot or cold, for which one cannot plan. Why not collect resources to build an academy?”342
Looking at Liu Yuanqing’s explanations, another factor for the foundation of the academy becomes visible too:
How can we now here in Anfu be more backward than Chaling? […] We held the first gathering in Kuiqiu, and several scholars of the area have assembled in order to build Fuli Academy.343
In this case an academy was built in place of an existing lecture gathering in order to “save face” and to compete with the surrounding areas, but also to change the customs of the common folk. Whether it was due to inside needs or outside stimuli, jianghui associations increasingly relied on academies to maintain their activities.
Feng Congwu, who “first lectured at home and later at Baoqing temple”344 and ultimately in Guanzhong Academy 關中書院 and Shoushan Academy 首善書院, institutionalized his lectures with the help of several officials as the Records of Guanzhong Academy (Guanzhong shuyuan ji 關中書院記) tell us:
I, quite unworthy, together with some like-minded held lectures at the old Baoding temple for some years. In the thirty seventh year of the Wanli reign (1609), on the first day of the tenth month, Vice Minister Master Wang [Keshou 汪可受 (1559–1620)], Censor Master Li [Tianlin 李天麟], Vice Commissioner Master Chen [Ning 陳寧], and educational commissioner Master Duan [Youxian 段猷顯] came to a lecture. With about a thousand in attendance, we talked on the nature of the mind, being so joyful we only started to part at dusk. Getting ready to leave the masters told me: Lecturing in the temple can only be temporary and in the long run will only result in trouble, so there should be other plans for this. The next day, it was commanded, that the two counties would build Guanzhong Academy in the garden a little east of the temple, inviting me and Zhou Shuyuan 周淑遠 to lecture there for the younger scholars. Master Wang repeatedly set aside public fields for the academy, and invited Grand Coordinator Xu to attend and praise the lectures, using his salary to increase [the fields]. The lecture hall is six pillars wide, and its hanging board says: “Sincerely hold fast” (yunzhi 允執)345 referring to the name of the academy.346
Not only is the large scale of the lectures at Baoding temple remarkable, but so is Feng Congwen’s rise from lecturing at home to lecturing in an abandoned temple to lecturing in an academy.
The most famous academy of the late Ming dynasty, the Donglin Academy, also emerged out of a lecture gathering as can be seen in the funeral praise for Gao Panlong 高攀龍 (1562–1626), who had revived the academy during the Ming:
At first [Gao Panlong] lectured in Jiangsu. A few friends always got together above Erquan; together with Master Guan Dongming they discussed the meaning of “no distinction between good and evil” (wu shan wu e 無善無惡).347 The audience arrived toe to heel, there was no more space to fill. Therefore Master Jingyang [Gu Xiancheng 顧憲成 (1550–1612)348] suggested: “The mechanics have their shops to dwell in,349 but we don’t have a place to lecture?” Therefore several like-minded came together, collected money, and chose Master Yang Guishan’s [Yang Shi 楊時 (1053–1135)] old lecturing place and continued to call it Donglin, providing a space for friends to rest. Every month the gentlemen from Wu and Yue gathered for three-day-long lectures and several hundred people came from near and far.350
As seen above, while jianghui could be maintained in family settings, in villages, shrines, or temples, many scholars consciously sought to institutionalize their gatherings in an academy in order to ensure longevity. However, it also needs to be emphasized that not all lecture gatherings ultimately became set in academies. Not only were there other ways to successfully institutionalize the gatherings, but some communities deliberately remained without a fixed place and chose to implement different forms for organizing their lecture gatherings like rotating lectures.351
3 Three Types of Lecture Gatherings
After understanding the extent of popularity lecture gatherings enjoyed in the Ming dynasty and their relation to Confucian academies, it is time to focus on the actual proceedings and aims of lecture gatherings in the academies. Because of the diverse nature of the many of these gatherings, it is difficult to dissect jianghui traditions along straight lines as they show several overlapping features and ambiguities in the usage of terms. Therefore the proposed distinction considers the main aim and target audience of a lecture and intends to give a framework for classification of the various forms of lectures.
3.1 Academic Lectures (Xueshu Jianghui 學術講會)
As mentioned above, the term jianghui had its origin in the Buddhist activities of discussing sutras and spreading Buddhist teachings.352 During the Northern Song the term was already used by Confucian scholars to refer to gatherings discussing their ideas. Shao Baowen 邵伯溫 (1057–1134), son of Shao Yong 邵雍 (1011–1077), recounts a story about a certain Jiang Yu 姜愚 (?–?), a boshi 博士 (erudite) at the national college, who out of friendship raised money for his friend’s marriage by holding lectures on the Lunyu.353 This story relates how Confucian scholars at this time used the lectures not only to expound the meaning of certain texts, but also to draw in an audience willing to pay for attending. By the Southern Song the lectures had become a standard feature of education in the palace, government schools, and the academies.354 In the Yuan dynasty the lecture system of the Song was mostly continued and academies constructed specific buildings for their lecture gatherings, such as Chengjiang Academy 澄江書院 in Jiangyin county.355
As discussed before, we can generally assume that these types of lectures were actual talks given by famous or well-spoken scholars and orators expounding a chapter or a phrase from the classics in front of students or other scholars, while also leaving some space for questions and debate. The most famous example of such a lecture can already be found during the Southern Song, when Zhu Xi invited Lu Jiuyuan 陸九淵 (1139–1193) to speak on Righteousness and Profit.356 During the Ming dynasty it was not necessarily the master of a certain school who gave lectures to the students of associated academies, but sometimes his disciples would also spread out to relay and propagate the teachings of their specific school. Looking at the historical documents we can find 18 mentions of jianghui in the History of the Ming (Mingshi 明史) and the Records of Ming Scholars.357 This seems like a rather small number; however, most of these mentions describe jianghui organization that sometimes organized lectures for more than forty years. Many academies became part of larger lecturing circles that moved their gatherings between different academies, of which some like the Xiyin gathering society or the Shuixi gatherings were already mentioned. Through individual biographies of Ming scholars and academy records produced during this period, we can have a brief glimpse into some of the lectures that were not part of these large lecturing circles.
In 1571 Luo Rufang while staying at a friends of his in the Hengxiang region also visited the famous Yuelu Academy in Changsha for a lecture. Some quotations of his lecture are preserved to us in the Words of Yuelu Academy Gatherings (Yuelu shuyuan huiyu 岳麓書院會語) written down by a member of the academy named Zeng Fengyi 曾鳳儀 (?–?):
In life one has to value the establishment of one’s will. Do not apply it to simple and slight matters. Observe the sages and worthies of the past: their achievements stand for several thousand years. In life one has to value the pleasure of learning. First study filial piety and deferentiality. If after a long time when one is on the level of the virtues and accomplishments of the ancestors, then one can begin to teach others. In life on has to value teachers and friends. Between Confucius and [his disciple] Zeng Shen there was no special teaching. As for mastering the teachings of the master, daily examine yourself on the three points.358 In life one has to value studying. The time spend studying is time well spent. Giving body and mind to family and country, his a heavy burden to carry.359
Luo also played an active part in the establishment of lectures in Wuhua Academy in Kunming. The academy was originally founded in 1524 and in 1574 already had to be rebuilt, but by then had become the biggest academy in Yunnan province. The recordings of a lecture gathering in the winter of 1574 contained in the Words of Wuhua Gatherings (Wuhua huiyu 五華會語) let us know of the program of this gathering: “At the gathering at Wuhua Academy three scholars were lecturing. The first spoke on [the quote from Analects 19.13] ‘The officer, having discharged all his duties, should devote his leisure to learning,’ the second spoke about the disciples [of Confucius] Yan Yuan 顏淵 and Jie Lu 季路, and the third spoke on the place of desire for wealth and nobility among men.”360
Academic lectures often were very meticulously structured and organized around a quite strict schedule that included ritualistic performances before and after the lectures. The huijiang of Gongxue Academy 共學書院 in Fuzhou are an interesting example. Gongxue Academy was built in 1594 by Grand Coordinator (xunfu 巡撫) Xu Fuyuan 許孚遠 (1535–1604), an official who transformed the local school into an academy, intending to bring together the people of the area to study together, hence the name Gongxue 共學 (study together). Starting from 1618 Yue Hesheng 岳和聲 (?–?) served in the academy and organized the lectures, two large lectures every spring and autumn and two small lectures every month. It was also Yue Hesheng who left us with a text recording the concrete practice of a lecture, guided by the commands of the ritual officer, in his records of the academy:
Ritual Officer: Stand according to one’s status (visitors in east of the hall, masters in the west), bow (to the front), second bow; stand up, divide into lines, bow again; stand up, sit down in lines looking to the front. Ritual Officer: The bell for chanting. The bell players strike the bell three times. Ritual Officer: Start chanting. A poem and some verse. Chant in harmony with each other, to mark verses use bells or lithophones. Pause chanting. Ritual Officer: Chant again (mark verse and ending as before). Stop chanting. Sit down quietly. Ritual Officer: Drum sounds for the lecture. The drummer strikes the drum three times. Ritual Officer: Furnish writing desk. Fix writing desk, then the director will chant such and such’s name, the lecturer gets out of his line, arriving at the writing desk he bows once before it and then the starts the lecture. The students stand and listen. After the lecture is over, the lecturer bows once more and returns to his line. The student in charge of reading the lecture recordings gets to the front. After the [re]reading of the lecture, cup hands and ask questions, again sit down quietly. Ritual Officer: Start chanting (again mark verse and ending like before). Stop chanting. Bring in tea and crackers. Ritual Officer: Move the writing desk. All rise. Ritual Officer: Stand according to status, bow, bow again; stand up, divide into lines, bow towards each other, bow again, stand up. When the ritual is over, according to status dignified see each other off.361
The collective chanting of poetry was common feature of many academies during the Ming dynasty and was incorporated into the gatherings to arouse the mind of the participants and built a bond between them.362 The lectures in Gongxue Academies varied between large lectures and smaller ones. During large lectures an outside lecturer, most commonly a famous scholar would visit the academy to speak on a topic to the students. In smaller lectures that were more frequent a student, as seen above, or the director of the academy would speak on a phrase out of the classics, which would then be discussed. The former activity seems to be closer to pure lecture activity, while the latter tended to include more discussion.
3.2 Educational Lectures (Jiaoxue Jianghui 敎學講會)
Academies were academic organizations, but in the Ming even more so they were educational institutions. Wang Yangming understood the role of academies as “assisting to redress the shortcomings of the schools.”363 Zhan Ruoshui advocated the combination of sagely learning and the civil service examinations. Reflecting their role in the early years of the dynasty, it was a commonly held view among scholars that academies served as an extension of the state school system and therefore also served to prepare students for the examinations. In a time when lecture gatherings were popular, the academies not only served as places for lectures, but also often provided a concrete curriculum to advance study by offering a diverse range of educational gatherings.
Most of the gatherings in the academies that had an educational background were concerned quite concretely with examination practice or preparation. These were called huiwen 會文 (gathering for writing) or wenhui 文會 (writing gathering), sometimes also huikao 會考 (gathering for examinations) and a few other names.364 They were composition classes and a regular teaching activity in the academies. The Yushan Academy Articles for Gatherings (Yushan shuyuan huiyue 虞山書院會約) state:
On third day of every month the students are to assemble for the gathering for writing in the jingshe 精舍 and the classics room as the teacher supervises. The student on duty prepares the test papers, and upon hearing the directors’ command, it is used. All students write their names on the small note on the cover of the paper. When the gathering is over, after the student on duty has collected all [papers], the notes are taken off and the name is written in the corner of the back of the paper, which is then folded and sealed. On the same day, the teacher then enters the building with three juren [graduates of the provincial examinations], locks the door, and they check [the papers]. After they are finished, the magistrate of the county reads them again, then announces the top three papers and meets with the top student. […] On the sixth day of every month the juren scholars are to assemble for huiwen in the Xiange building, the magistrate of the county personally inspects them. […] For people coming from far away, everybody is provided with three pecks of rice and vegetables a month, and one silver coin is given each month, for individual use.365
Writing gatherings for students and for graduates of the provincial examinations were held on different days, at different venues, and were differently assessed. However, the amount of money and food provided was the same for everybody. Many academies constructed special halls for these gatherings for writing (wenhui tang 文會堂) as places to hold examination gatherings, e.g. the White Deer Grotto Academy,366 Zhengxue Academy 正學書院 in Yancheng,367 Fengshan Academy 鳳山書院 in Puqi county (modern Hubei),368 Dongshan Academy 東山書院 and Huangu Academy 環谷書院, both in Qimen county369, or Ziyang Academy 紫陽書院 in Huizhou in where “flocks of scholars day in day out were grinding away the whetstone.”370 Because it was so common to find these “writing halls” in the academies, it is reasonable to assume that they were used for daily educational activities. The gatherings for examinations (huikao 會考) of Bailuzhou Academy display another feature of these educational activities. Held on the first and fifteenth day of each month, not only did the students take a test, but to attract participants, free meals were offered to students from in- and outside of the academy.371 By maintaining contact with all aspiring students preparing for the civil service examinations the academy built a prefecture-wide network to rely on.
To view the writing gatherings only as preparation for the examinations would obscure the fact that these classes were also used to assess the general quality of the students and their progression in the curriculum. Looking at the organization of these gatherings in some academies we see their regular nature and high frequency, which were also implemented to ensure discipline and diligence among the members of the academy.
In most cases, examination-focused gatherings were held at least once a month, often three or more times, sometimes as many as eight or nine times in one month. It is quite well known that examination preparation was the main function of academies during the Ming dynasty. To this end, various academies designed different teaching curricula. Looking at the curriculum of Hongdao Academy the contents and the aim of these “classes” becomes clear. The academy was founded by Wang Chengyu 王承裕 (1465–1538). From its beginning it served as an institution focused on examination preparation and produced quite a few successful officials. Its study regulations (xuegui 學規) were set up by Wang in 1496.372
Selected academies and their educational gatherings
| Academy name | Place | Name of the gatherings | Date and contents | Period (ca.)a |
| Chongwen Academy 崇文書院 | Hangzhou (Zhejiang) | Boat classes 舫課b | Every year spring and autumn on special days | 1572– till after 1644 |
| Zhengren Academy 證人書院 | Guiji (Zhejiang) | Gathering for classes 會課 | Every month after the 15th day | 1627– till after 1644 |
| Yingshan Academy 贏山書院 | Chunan (Zhejiang) | Gathering for writing 會文 | Every month three times: one gathering on the Four Books,one on the Five Classics,one on poems, memorials, documents, and questions | 1620–? |
| Renwen Academy 仁文書院 | Shaoxing (Zhejiang) | Gathering for classes 會課 | Every month three times, rotating in the prefecture | 1572–1620 |
| Yushan Academy 虞山書院 | Changshu (Jiangsu) | Gathering for writing 會文 | Normal students on the 3rd day of the month, Juren degree holders on the 6th day | 1572–1620 |
| Gongxue Academy 共學書院 | Fuzhou (Fujian) | Gathering for classes 會課 | Every month three times, rotating in the prefecture | 1572–1620 |
| White Deer Grotto Academy 白鹿洞書院 | Xingzi (Jiangxi) | Large gathering 大會 | Every 2nd and 16th day of the month | 1572–? |
| Small gathering 小會 | Four times a month | |||
| Bailuzhou Academy 白鷺洲書院 | Ji’an(Jiangxi) | Gatherings for writing 會文Gatherings for examinations 會考 | Every month six times,Every month 1st and 15th day | 1572–1620 |
| Hunan Academy 湖南書院 | Jinan (Shandong) | Composition 作文 | Every month three times on the meaning of one of the Four Books or Five Classics,Every month 6th day on prose,Every 16th day on exam. questionsEvery 26th day on memorials | 1521–1567 |
| Examinations 考試 | Every month three times oral exams, | |||
| Seasonal examinations 季考 | Every end of the season | |||
| Baiquan Academy 百泉書院 | Huixian (Henan) | Gathering for writing 會文 | Every month three times | 1572–1620 |
| Lianxi Academy 鐮溪書院 | De’an (Hubei) | Composition 作文 | Every month one or two times | 1572–1620 |
| Wenjin Academy問津書院 | Huanggang (Hubei) | Monthly gathering 月會 | Every month 16th day | 1572–1620 |
| Yuyang Academy 玉陽書院 | Wenchang (Hainan) | Gathering for writing 會文 | Every month 16th day | 1572–1620 |
| Shangyou Academy尚友書院 | Ding’an (Guangdong) | Gathering for writing 會文 | 2nd month of every season, 13th day | 1572–1620 |
| Dake Academy大科書院 | Xiqiao (Guangdong) | Examination preparation考業 | Every month six times | 1505–1521 |
| Hongdao Academy 弘道書院 | Sanyuan (Shaanxi) | Composition of old texts作古文 | Every month 1st day publication of exam topic, end of month submission of drafts(poems, rhapsodies, petitions, memorials) | 1487–1567 |
| Composition of contemp. texts作時文 | Every other day (Classics, Four Books, prose, questions, documents) | |||
| Examinations考試 | Every month 2nd and 16th day |
a We often have concrete evidence when study regulations and a curriculum were set up, but information on how it fell into disuse or was discarded is difficult to obtain. Sometimes it is possible to trace how the academy itself was abandoned. Therefore the periods here are just mentioned to give a general timeframe of when these gatherings took place, but cannot be precise. b The boat classes of Chongwen Academy in Hangzhou were special occasions during which the students of the academy would embark on boats on the West Lake and answer examination questions. This gathering became quite popular and attracted many visitors. See Deng Hongbo, Mingdai shuyuan jianghui yanjiu, 80–82.
Curriculum and course material of Hongdao Academy
| Category of course | Name of course | Teaching materials |
| Compulsory Courses | Classics 經書 | Yijing 易經 (Book of Changes) Shijing 詩經 (Book of Poetry) Shujing 書經 (Book of History) Chunqiu 春秋 (Spring and Autumn Annals) Liji 禮記 (Book of Rites) |
| Four Books 四書 | Lunyu 論語 (Analects) Daxue 大學 (Great Learning) Zhongyong 中庸 (Doctrine of the Mean) Mengzi 孟子 (Mencius) | |
| Histories 史書 | Tongjian gangmu 通鑒綱目 (Outlines and Details of the Comprehensive Mirror) | |
| <table frame="none"><tgroup cols="1"><colspec colname="c1" colwidth="274.6852496418334pt"></colspec><tbody><row><entry colsep="0" rowsep="0" align="left" valign="top"> Xu tongjian gangmu 續通鑒綱目 (Continuation of Outlines and Details of the Comprehensive Mirror) Tongjian jieyao 通鑑節要 (Essential Excerpts of the Comprehensive Mirror) Xu tongjian jieyao 續通鑑節要 (Continuation of Essential Excerpts of the Comprehensive Mirror)Shilüe 史略 (Concise histories)Shiduan 史斷 (Short histories)</entry></row></tbody></tgroup></table> | ||
| Elective Courses | Investigation [of the Learning of] Principle 察理 | Xingli Daquan 性理大全 (Great Compendia of Nature and Principle) Jinsilu 近思錄 (Reflections on Things on Hand) |
| Ritual 學禮 | Zhuzi jiali 朱子家禮 (Zhu Xis Family Rituals) Yili 儀禮 (Etiquette and Rites) Zhouli 周禮 (Rites of the Zhou) | |
| Old texts 古文 | Wenzhang guifan 文章軌範 (Model Compositions) Tangyin 唐音 (Tang poems) | |
| Extensive studies 博觀 | Zhenguan zhengyao 貞觀政要 (Essentials of Politics in the Zhenguan Reign) Tangjian 唐鑑 (Mirror of the Tang) Daxue yanyi 大學衍義 (Abundant Meanings of the Great Learning) | |
| Governance 明治 | Wujing qishu 武經七書 (Seven Military Classics) Wujing zonglei 武經總類 (Military Classics arranged topically) Daming lü 大明律 (Penal Law of the Great Ming) Xingtongfu 刑统賦 (Rhymed Essays of Punishments) Jiuhuang huomin 救荒活民 (Disaster Relief and Saving the People) Huangzheng beikao 荒政備考 (Reference Book for Disaster Relief Policy) Hefang Tongyi 河防通議 (Comprehensive Discussions of River Management) Jingqu Tushuo 徑渠圖說 (Maps and Explanations of the Jing Canal) Wuzhong shuili 吳中水利 (Book on Water Conservancy in Wu) | |
| Calligraphy 作字 | Works of Ouyang Xun 歐陽詢Works of Yu Shinan 虞世南Works of Yan Zhenqing 顏真卿Works of Liu Gongquan 柳公權 |
The compulsory courses mentioned here were designed for attending the civil service examinations, and all students had to participate in them. The teaching materials for these courses were the basic books of the Confucian tradition and reflect the core content of the traditional knowledge system. The study regulations of the academy stipulate that these materials were to be read and recited every day, interspersed with lectures and questioning by the teacher. Every other day there were writing exercises on the meaning of the classics and the four books, as well as on contemporary text forms, such as prose writing, memorials, etc. The goal of these exercises was to strengthen the students’ understanding of the text and make it possible for them to use the sages’ words to attain success in the examinations. As for the elective courses, only the course on rituals had no direct connection to the examinations. Topics and question in the examinations would often be selected out of the Xingli daquan 性理大全 (Great Compendia of Nature and Principle), the Jinsilu 近思錄 (Reflections on Things at Hand) or required knowledge of the penal systems of earlier dynasties. Even calligraphy can be understood as standing in relation to the examinations as the examinee had to be able to read different scripts. In a sense, the elective courses have to be viewed as being complementary to the compulsory courses, as all their contents could provide help during the examinations. We can also see, that in order to function as an institution preparing for the examinations an academy had to provide around thirty different books for its students.
3.3 Gatherings to Transform through Education (Jiaohua Jianghui 敎化講會)
Lecture gatherings were not always aimed at students, other scholars, or trained officials, but also sought to educate people of lower classes. Such jianghui are in some points related to the two forms discussed above and in some points quite different. All academies sought to expand their audience, which would serve as basis of lectures and support all operations of the academy. The origins of lectures seeking to transform the customs of the people in the Ming dynasty can be ascribed to Wang Yangming founding five academies in the Ganzhou region (Jiangxi), which were mostly family or village academies.373 Sometimes academies in prefectural cities would also open their grounds for lectures to the common folk. The aims of such lectures were to spread morality, promote good behavior, and to generally change the customs of the people. As mentioned before, disciples of the Yangming School believed that everybody could attain the status of a sage and therefore sought to popularize the concept of Confucian academies by opening their doors to villagers, townsfolk, and even Buddhist monks to listen to lectures. This is something seen rather rarely in the preceding dynasties.
Renwen Academy 仁文書院 in the prefectural seat Jiashao (Zhejiang province) was founded in 1603 by Zheng Zhenxian 鄭振先 (1572–1628) on the urging of official Che Daren 車大任 (?–?). A lecture hall and a shrine, offering rites to Xuan Xue 薛暄 (1389–1464), Chen Baisha 陳白沙 (1428–1500), Hu Juren 胡居仁 (1434–1484), and Wang Yangming, were constructed. A year later the Vice Commissioner of Education (tixue fushi 提學副使), Yue Yuansheng 岳元聲 (1557–1628), began to hold lectures there. Lecture regulations (jianggui 講規) that prescribed the lecture dates, but also regulated the income of the academy from its fields in order to guarantee the smooth operation of jianghui activities were set up. According to the regulations the lectures were to be conducted following a specific pattern:
It is agreed upon that every visitor coming to pay respects, must first clean his hands and then can enter to gather in the Renwu hall. Every gathering starts at nine in the morning when the bell is sounded five times. Two student assistants of the academy guide the visitors inside [the shrine] with the appropriate demeanor and a clear mind. Arriving in front of the spirit tablets of the four gentleman, all chant, form lines, bow in lines, and stand up. After four bows, the ritual is complete. When first joining the gathering, the visitor must do the four bows by himself. Then all return to Renwu hall, standing on the eastern and western side, upon three drum strikes sit down solemnly at their place. After sitting silently for some time, the director first holds up Master Huiwengs Academy Regulations [White Deer Grotto regulations], Master Xiangshan’s [Lu Jiuyuan] lecture Expounding the Chapter on Righteousness and Profit (Yu yi li zhang 喻義利章), reciting some parts and discussing some points, while the participants listen attentively. Again after a while, the participants discuss the meaning, using the six classics to discuss and raise question amongst each other. After three in the afternoon, upon seven strikes of the drum, the servants bring in tea and biscuits. After the gathering is over everyone bows once and departs.374
For the people seeking to attend such lectures, Renwen Academy adopted a broad and open attitude, inviting everyone who was seeking to study and listen to the lectures. The study regulations go on:
Scholars who earnestly practiced self-cultivation often came out of a low status, like Wu Pingjun [Wu Yubi 吳與弼 (1391–1496)]375 or Wang Xinzhai [Wang Gen 王艮 (1483–1541)],376 and therefore could not attend the government schools. When choosing students in this way, it may be that in the deep forests and lush wilderness there is talent lost, and how can one encourage the common people to take the cultivation of the self as fundamental? Therefore, on the day of the gathering, if some common people from the countryside, who are diligent and enjoy cultivating themselves, just want to listen to the lecture, do not obstruct them and let them enter. Those who harbor secret thoughts concerned with only themselves and rely on their name seeking to enter—those are all to be rejected, as they cannot attain anything.377
The aforementioned Yushan Academy 虞山書院 included the opening of the academy to the common people in its regulations as well. Visitors were divided according to their status. Higher classes, such as filial sons, people of high moral character, and hermits, could sit with the members of the academy and sign their names in the visitors’ book. Lower class common people had to sit on the ground and would only sign their names in a register of the lecture. In the front of lecture register an introduction for the visitors was given and the reason of the lecture was explained:
The Yushan lecture gatherings refuse nobody. Everyone can become a sage like Yao or Shun; how could we discuss what class they belonged to! All common people, whether of old age or young, know the principle of righteousness, no matter if a member of the community compact, an official, a grain tax collector or community head, a merchant in the market, a farmer, no matter if a monk, a Daoist, or a traveler, no matter if from this or a different area, only those with the will to attend the lecture are allowed to sign, on the previous day or in the morning of the lecture day, their name in the lecture register. Host and guests wait together and the assistants should guide them in, look carefully at the regulations and make the ritual bows. If there is someone with something profound on their mind they are allowed to ascend the hall and lecture on it. Formerly, Wang Xinzhai spend time as a salt farmer, Han Shan 寒山378 and Shide 拾得379 were beggars together, Zhang Pingshu [Zhang Boduan 張伯端 (987–1082)]380 worked as a beadle in a yamen. How could our county dare to scrape away the talents-in-waiting? Only those are not allowed who use their name as an opportunity to meddle their way inside, do not abide by the rules, raise disorder with their words and cause the rites to be missed—these our county cannot let in.381
Such openness of lectures inside the academies was surely one reason for the wide popularization of the academies during the latter half of the Ming dynasty. Moreover, while academies in the towns were opening up to the common people, simultaneously family and village academies in the countryside also began to transform. Originally teaching mostly younger children, they extended their reach and included all male members of the families; their focus was not only on the teaching of writing any more, but also the study of ritual and lectures on the correct customs became daily lessons.
The last example concerns Anfu county in Ji’an prefecture, which was a hotbed of the Yangming School in the Ming dynasty and already many academies of the area have been mentioned. This region produced a row of scholars who studied with Wang Yangming himself, like Zou Shouyi, Liu Xiao 劉曉 (?–?), Liu Bangcai 劉邦採 (?–?), Liu Wenmin 劉文敏 (?–?), Liu Yangdeng 劉陽等 (?–?) and many more.382 In 1526 Liu Bangcai and Liu Xiao 劉曉 (?–?) proposed the Xiyin lectures, a gathering held bi-monthly at last day of the month, in which scholars from four districts learned from each other and discussed the theories of their teachers. In 1536 Zou Shouyi and Cheng Wende 程文德 (1497–1559) founded the Fugu Academy 復古書院 in the county seat as a place for their lectures.383 In 1553 Lianshan Academy 連山書院 (also called Lianshan Study [Lianshan shuwu 連山書屋]) was founded in the region, and in 1558 Fuzhen Academy 復真書院, in 1572 Fuli Academy 復禮書院, in 1591 Shiren Academy 識仁書院, and in 1593 Daodong Academy 道東書院 followed. Among this cluster of academies Fugu Academy served as the center, while academies in all directions could be used for gatherings. Zou Shouyi described this development: “At this time the spirit has gathered, everyone is diligent in their thoughts, convincing to be good and correcting the wrongs. Was it not shameful before?”384 Besides the above mentioned six academies there were several lecture halls, studies, mountain lodges, and also more academies scattered in the four districts.385
Fuzhen Academy was a small lecture academy in the village of Nanli, not comparable to large academies like the White Deer Grotto Academy or the Ehu Academy. However, during the Jiajing and Wanli periods many famous scholars converged there to study and its name became known beyond the area.386 We can view Fuzhen Academy as illustrative of the academies in the area, founded to open remote regions for the spread of Confucian teachings and representing the ideal of the Confucian scholar pursuing academic life far off the power and distractions of the capital. The scholars who lectured in such village academies also sought to convey Confucian ideas and morals to the local population and instill into them their customs through their lectures.
One example for this is Wang Shihuai, who himself was from Anfu county. He left for Shaanxi to serve as an official in 1571, but returned when he was fifty years old to lecture at Fuzhen Academy and died there at the age of eighty-three. In his Words of Fuzhen Gatherings (Fuzhen huiyu 復真會語) we can find that he lectured on such topics as the relationship between sagehood and nature. His biography in the records of the academy illustrates the audience of his lectures as encompassing a large range of people from different backgrounds.
Our county [because of Wang Shihuai’s efforts] has places for Confucian scholars to gather, the village has a shrine, a hall for lectures, and the people ascending it must defer to the master [Wang Shihuai]. Xiyuan, Fugu, are his rivers Zhu and Si,387 Qingyuan is like the shrine in Luo.388 Each time the master donned his robe and sat high to lecture, he spread righteousness. The worthy scholars understood, the wanting scholars smiled, the vulgar ones opened their narrow hearts, the stubborn ones fused it with what they had learned before, the village elders did not understand and just nodded, the children had no way to understand and played outside amongst themselves. He not only used words to move, but also managed this without speaking. The censor Lord Wu first honored his teachings, and provincial officers Lord Wang and other lords expounded it. His places were in Fuzhen, Fuli, Daodong 道東, Longhua 龍華, Xuantan 玄潭, Cuihe 翠和, Yunxing 雲興, Mingxin 明新 and Mingxue 明學 Academy.389
In short, we have evidence of Ming dynasty Confucian scholars employing public lectures as a tool to educate the general population and relying on the academies as fixtures for such efforts. Whether this was accomplished by opening up the academies in larger settlements for wider audiences, or by founding academies in remote villages, effectively creating community centers, depended on local circumstances. This shows the wide range of different institutional bearings an academy could take on according to scholarly and social needs, which reflected onto practice of the lecture gatherings. Yet it needs to be pointed out here that most lecture gatherings and organizations remained matters of the literati elites and participation or membership relied on extensive knowledge of the Confucian corpus of literature.
4 Conclusion
Looking at the history of Confucian academies, the Ming dynasty can be viewed as a somewhat transitionary phase. Academies, during the preceding dynasties, had been mostly associated with Zhu Xi and his teachings. As these were gradually embraced by the state and disseminated through the official educational system, including government schools and the civil service examinations, the academy system somewhat lost its purpose and declined. However, academies again proved their value as spaces of critical thinking with the advent of Wang Yangming, Zhan Ruoshui, and their followers. Many academies were rejuvenated and experienced an unprecedented growth, by far surpassing their numbers during the Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties. Concurrent with the decline of the state education system, academies started to take over the role of official schools offering classes for examination preparation and also serving as local educational institutions. Academies were still inheriting their roles and functions from earlier dynasties, while gradually becoming much more integrated in the official educational system—a characteristic academies would increasingly take on during the later Qing dynasty by mainly developing into institutions for examination preparation.
The history of lecture gatherings is closely connected to the history of the academies, but the two institutions were not necessarily dependent on each other. Jianghui and academies mutually influenced each other, which lead to the transformation of both concepts. Especially scholars of Yangming School, with their great enthusiasm for education, adapted the format of the lecture gatherings to local circumstances and strove to widen their audience. While they discovered that there were many spaces to lecture, they also realized that organization and upkeep of such activities became increasingly challenging, not to mention problems of housing and sheltering the participants in case of extreme weather conditions. The academies always had been places of scholarship and, equipped with lecturing halls, dormitories, school fields, and libraries, could guarantee the long-term existence of a lecture gathering. Therefore, during the Ming dynasty we can witness the trend of jianghui returning to the academies.
Lectures in the academies also diversified. Developing out of Buddhist tradition, lectures transformed from famous scholars discussing or giving talks in front of an audience to regular classes scheduled within a systematized curriculum. These classes not only served to prepare the members of the academy for the civil service examinations, but also still actively transferred the Confucian knowledge system to a new generation and therefore still carried on the original functions of jianghui. Furthermore, some scholars also attempted to use the lectures to reach a wide audience, including the common population, to spread their ideas. Confucian academies, by being able to unify the local community around a steady institution, proved to be the perfect tool. So, while jianghui activities and Confucian academies certainly have to be viewed as two separate and not subordinate concepts, during the Ming dynasty both were employed to create, spread, and popularize Confucian culture and therefore naturally overlapped and appeared together.
References
For an overview of the development of Confucian academies in the Ming dynasty see Bai Xinliang, Ming qing shuyuan yanjiu (Study of Academies in the Ming and Qing Dynasties) (Baoding: Gugong chubanshe, 2012); for English sources see John Meskill, Academies in Ming China (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1982); and Thomas H.C. Lee, Education in Traditional China. A History (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 99–104. On the history of local state schools in the Ming dynasty see Sarah Schneewind, Community Schools and the State in Ming China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006).
See Deng Hongbo, Zhongguo shuyuan shi (History of Chinese Academies) (Wuhan: Wuhan University Press, 2015), 396–420.
For the complete numbers of the Ming dynasty see Deng Hongbo, Zhongguo shuyuan shi, 282.
For a short overview of the history of lecturing in the academies see Thomas H.C. Lee, “Chu Hsi, Academies and the Tradition of Private Chiang-hsüeh,” Hanxue yanjiu 2, no. 1 (1984): 301–329.
See Lu Miaw-fen (Lü Miaofen), “Practice as Knowledge: Yang-ming Learning and Chiang-hui in Sixteenth-Century China” (Ph.D. diss., University of California. Los Angeles, 1997); also her Yangmingxue shiren shequn—lishi, sixiang yu shijian (The Literati Fellowship of the Wang Yangming School—History, Thought and Practice) (Taipei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo, 2003).
This further also entails to the problem of choosing an appropriate English translation for the term. The aforementioned “lecture gatherings” is used by Thomas Lee and will be used in this article as it stands closest to the meaning of the original two characters. However, the wide range of activities and organization subsumed under the term makes many other translations plausible as well. In her English dissertation Lü Miaofen employs the quite similar translation of “lecture meetings,” but mostly relies on the transcription of the Chinese term, surely to underscore the diversity of the concept. In his chapter in this volume Hoyt Tillman uses the term “discussion gatherings,” which certainly includes the sometimes open, participatory aspects of the gatherings that are somewhat lost with the term “lecturing.” John Meskill and Martin Huang both focus more on the term jiangxue 講學, which Meskill translates as “philosophical discussions” and Huang as “philosophical debates,” thus specifying the contents the gatherings were concerned with. Martin Huang includes a short discussion of the terms and also mentions the translation in The Cambridge History of China of jiangxue as “discourse on learning.” See also Wm. Theodore de Bary’s discussion on the right translation of the term in his, The Message of the Mind in Neo-Confucianism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 218–225.
See Zhu Hanmin and Deng Hongbo, Yuelu Shuyuan shi (History of the Yuelu Academy) (Changsha: Hunan jiaoyu chubanshe, 2013), 118–134.
ZGLDSYZ 6: 489.
Li Caidong, Zhongguo shuyuan yanjiu (Research on Chinese Academies) (Nanchang: Jiangxi gaoxiao chubanshe, 2005), 111–120; see also his Jiangxi gudai shuyuan yanjiu (Research on Ancient Academies in Jiangxi) (Nanchang: Jiangxi jiaoyu chubanshe, 1993), 318–320.
Chen Lai, Zhongguo jinshi sixiangshi yanjiu (Research on the History of Modern Thought in China) (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 2003), 339.
Wu Xuande, Jiangyou wangxue yu ming zhonghouqi Jiangxi jiaoyu fazhan (The Jiangxi Wang School and Educational Developments in Jiangxi in the Middle to Late Ming Period) (Nanchang: Jiangxi jiaoyu chubanshe, 1996), 302.
Lü Miaofen, “Yangming xue jianghui (Discussion Gatherings of the Yangming School),” Xin shixue 9, no. 2 (1998); see also her Yangmingxue shiren shequn, 73–74.
Wu Zhen, Mingdai zhishijie jiangxue huodong xinian (The System of Lecture Activities in Intellectual Circles in the Ming Dynasty) (Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe, 2003), 37.
Chen Shilong, Mingdai zhongwanqi jiangxue yundong qiaoyi (The Lecture Movement during the Middle to Late Ming Dynasty) (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 2007), 2–16.
A more detailed look at studies concerned with jianghui can be found in Deng Hongbo, “Mingdai shuyuan jianghui yanjiu de lishi yu xianzhuang (History and Present Situation of Ming Dynasty Jianghui Studies),” Zhongguo wenhua yanjiu, Spring 2009: 102–112.
See Deng Hongbo, “Mingdai shuyuan jianghui yanjiu (Academy lecturing [Jianghui] in the Ming Dynasty)” (Ph.D. diss., Hunan University, 2007), Chapter 6, 103–132.
Zhang Tingyu, Mingshi (History of the Ming), Volume 231 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1974), 6053.
See Lu Miaw-fen, “Practice as Knowledge,” Chapter 4, 222–266; and Martin W. Huang, “Male Friendship and Jiangxue (Philosophical Debates) in Sixteenth-Century China,” in Male Friendship in Ming China, ed. Martin W. Huang (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 146–178.
For the history of suppression of the Donglin Faction and its academy see John W. Dardess, Blood and History in China: The Donglin Faction and its Repression 1620–1627 (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2002).
See Huang Zongxi, Mingru xuean (The Records of Ming Scholars), Volume 11, “Zhe zhong Wangmen xuean yi (Scholarly Annals of the Wang School in Zhejiang)” (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985), 225.
See Huang Zongxi, Mingru xuean, Volume 12, 238.
See Shen Defu, Wanli yehuo bian (Unofficial Matters of the Wanli Reign), Volume 8, “Jichan 嫉諂 (Envy and Flattery)” (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959), 215.
Ibid.
ZGLDSYZ 9: 177–178.
For information on Wufeng Academy and its scholar community, see Lan Jun, “Disputes between Confucian Academies and Buddhist Monasteries from a Sociocultural View: The Case of the Wufeng Academy Litigation,” in this volume, 359–393.
Qian Ming, Xu Ao, Qian Dehong, Dong Jian ji (Collected Works of Xu Ao, Qian Dehong, Dong Jian) (Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe, 2007), 418.
ZGLDSYZ 2: 678.
Qian Ming, Xu Ao, Qian Dehong, Dong Jian ji, 177.
Wang Ji, Wang Ji ji (Collected Writings of Wang Ji), Volume 7, “Shu taiping jiulong huiji (Writing the Records of the Taiping Jiulong lectures)” (Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe, 2007), 172.
Shen Jia, Mingru yanxing lü (Records of Words and Deeds of Ming Confucians), “Zou Shouyi (Zou Shouyi),” in SKQS.
“Xiyuan xiyin huixu (Order of the Xiyuan Lecture Gatherings),” in Ji’an fuzhi (Prefectural Gazetteer of Ji’an), Volume 19, Guangxu, in Zhongguo fangzhi congshu huazhong difang (Series of Chinese Local Records, Central China) (Taipei: Chengwen chubanshe, 1985).
See Ono Kazuko, Mingji dangshe kao (Study of Political Factions in the Ming Dynasty) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2006), 159.
Huang Zongxi, Mingru xuean, Volume 34, 762.
Fang Zuyou, Liang Yiqun, Li Qinglong, Luo Rufang ji (Collected Writings of Luo Rufang), Appendix, “Luo Jinxi shi xingshi (Brief Biography of Teacher Luo Jinxi)” (Nanjing; Fenghuang chubanshe, 2007), 833–851.
For more on this see Lü Miaofen, Yangming xue jianghui, 50.
Wang Shu, “Xuegu shuyuan ji (Records of Xuegu Academy),” in Sanyuan xian xin zhi (New Gazetteer of Sanyuan County) Volume 4, Guangxu. In Zhongguo fangzhi congshu huabei difang (Collection of Chinese Local Records, North China) (Taipei: Chengwen chubanshe, 1976), 168.
Liu Yuanqing, Liu Pinjun quanji (Complete Writings of Liu Pinjun), Volume 9, in SKQS.
Liu Yuanqing, Liu Pinjun quanji, Volume 7; also in Ji’an fuzhi, Volume 19.
Liu Yuanqing, Liu Pinjun quanji, Volume 6.
Feng Congwu, Shaoxu ji (Collected Writings of Shaoxu), Volume 15, “Guanzhong shuyuan ke di ti ming ji (Record of Examination Results in Guanzhong Academy),” in SKQS.
“Sincerely hold fast the due Mean (yun zhi qi zhong 允執其中)” appears in Lunyu 20.1 and as 允執厥中 (yun zhi jue zhong) in the Shangshu 尙書 (Book of Documents), both implying moderation in one’s actions.
Feng Congwu, Shaoxu ji (Collected Writings of Shaoxu), Volume 15, “Guanzhong shuyuan ji (Records of Guanzhong Academy).”
This refers to Wang Yangming’s Four Sentence Teaching (Sijujiao 四句教): “In the substance of the heart/mind, there is no distinction between good and evil. When thoughts are activated, there is distinction between good and evil. The truly good knowledge is that which knows good and knows evil. Gewu involves doing good and removing evil.” Translation by Shun Kwong-Loi, “Wang Yang-ming on Self-Cultivation in the Daxue,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 38 (December 2011): 105. Also Tu Wei-ming, “An Inquiry into Wang Yang-ming’s Four-Sentence Teaching,” The Eastern Buddhist, New Series 7, no. 2 (October 1974), 32–48.
Gu Xiancheng was the founder of the Donglin movement.
Quote from Lunyu 19.7; Translation by James Legge.
Xu Xiandeng, Donglin shuyuan zhi (Records of Donglin Academy),” Volume 7 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2004), 231.
See Deng Hongbo, “Mingdai shuyuan jianghui zuzhi xingshi de xin tese (New Characteristics of Academy Lecture Organization Forms in the Ming Dynasty),” Jiangxi jiaoyu xueyuan xuebao 30, no. 1 (2009): 108–114.
The term jianghui is for example used in the Biography of Niu Sengru 牛僧孺 (780–849) in the Old Book of the Tang (Jiu Tangshu 舊唐書) describing the monk official opening a lecture to praise the words of Buddha. See Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of the Tang), Volume 72, “Niu Sengru zhuan (Biography of Niu Sengru)” (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975).
Shao Bowen, Wen jian lü (Records of Things Heard and Seen), Volume 18, in SKQS.
Zhu Xi himself lectured at White Deer Grotto academy and left a poem called “Bailu jianghui cibo zhangyun 白鹿講會次卜丈韻 (Poem in verse about the Bailu Lecture Gatherings)”; he also mentions lectures in letters to his friends more than once. See Zhu Xi, Huian ji (Collected Writings of Huian), Volume 42, “Da Hu Guangzhong (Answering Hu Guangzhong),” or ibid., Volume 53, “Da Liu Jizhang (Answering Liu Jizhang).”
Tong Shu, Ji’an ji (Collected Writings of Ji’an), Volume 6, “Mao Zhang guan muzhi ming (Funeral Inscription for Official Mao Zhang),” in SKQS.
See Hoyt Tillman, “Some Reflections on Confucian Academies in China,” in this volume, 21–44, for translated parts of the lecture. See also John W. Chaffee, “Chu Hsi and the Revival of the White Deer Grotto Academy. 1179–1181 ad,” T’oung Pao 71 (1985): 44, 58.
Deng Hongbo, Mingdai shuyuan jianghui yanjiu, 63.
Reference to Lunyu 1.4.
Luo Rufang, “Luo Mingde gong shumu (Catalogue of Master Luo Mingde),” in Luo Rufang ji (Collected Works of Luo Rufang), ed. Fang Zutai, Liang Yiqun, Li Qinglong (Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe, 2007), 8. The first two topics are from the Analects, the third is from the Mencius.
Luo Rufang, Luo Rufang ji, 147.
ZGLDSYZ 10: 177.
See Lu Miaw-fen, “Practice as Knowledge,” 140–146.
Wang Shouren, “Wansong shuyuan ji (Records of Wansong Academy),” in Wang Yangming quanji (Complete Writings of Wang Yangming), Volume 7 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1992), 252–253.
See Table 6.1.
ZGLDSYZ 8: 70, 72.
See He Qiaoxin, “Zhongjian shuyuan ji (Records of the Reconstruction of the Academy),” in Bailudong shuyuan guzhi wu zhong (Five Old Records of White Deer Grotto Academy), edited by Li Maoyang et al., Volume 2 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1995), 1248.
See Jiangnan tongzhi (Local gazetteer of Jiangnan), Yongzheng ed., in SKQS.
See Wang Yan, “Fengshan shuyuan ji (Records of Fengshan Academy),” in Puqi xian zhi yi, er, san (Puqi County Gazetteer 1–3), Volume 3, Daoguang ed., edited by Lao Guangtai (Taipei: Chengwen chubanshe, 1975), 249–259.
See Li Fan, “Dongshan shuyuan jilüe (Brief Records of Dongshan Academy),” in Qimen xian zhi (Qimen County Gazetteer) 1–4, Volume 18, ed. Wang Yunshan (Taipei: Chengwen chubanshe, 1975), 718, also Lü Nan, “Zhongxiu huangu shuyuan jilüe (Brief Records of the Restoration of Huangu Academy),” in Qimen xian zhi (Qimen County Gazetteer) 1–4, Volume 18, ed. Wang Yunshan (Taipei: Chengwen chubanshe, 1975), 720.
He Qixian, “Ziyang shuyuan ji (Records of Ziyang Academy),” in Zhongguo difangzhi wencheng, Anhui fuxian zhiji 48, Daoguang Huizhou fuzhi 1, ed. Ma Buchan (Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1998), 216.
ZGLDSYZ 2: 585.
ZGLDSYZ 6: 489–490; A full translation of the study regulations of Hongdao Academy can be found in Meskill, Academies in Ming China, 58–61.
See Deng, Zhongguo shuyuan shi, 306. For Wang Yangming’s general view of the academies see Deng, Zhongguo shuyuan shi, 309–315; a short discussion in English can be found in George L. Israel, Doing Good and Ridding Evil in Ming China: The Political Career of Wang Yangming (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 33.
ZGLDSYZ 10: 112–113.
Wu Yubi came from an important family, but decided to give up on an official career and lived as a teacher. See Theresa Kelleher (trans.), The Journal of Wu Yubi: The Path to Sagehood (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2013).
Wang Gen was a salt farmer’s son, See Elizabeth J. Perry, Challenging the Mandate of Heaven: Social Protest and State Power in China (Armonk, M.E. Sharpe, 2002), 78–79; also Steven Miles, “Wang Gen,” in Encyclopedia of Confucianism, ed. Xinzhong Yao (New York: Routledge, 2003), 633–634.
ZGLDSYZ 10: 113.
A legendary poet of the Tang dynasty.
A legendary Buddhist monk of the Tang dynasty, said to be good friends with Han Shan.
A famous Daoist and alchemist of the Northern Song period.
ZGLDSYZ 8: 91.
On this and the situation of Academies in Anfu county, including a map, see Meskill, Academies in Ming China, 87–92, 117–122. See also Anne Gerritsen’s look at Ji’an in the successive dynasties of Song, Yuan and Ming: Anne Gerritsen, Ji’an Literati and the Local in Song-Yuan-Ming China (Leiden: Brill, 2007).
See Nie Bao, “Fugu shuyuan ji (Records of Fugu academy),” in Nie Bao ji (Collected Works of Nie Bao), Volume 5, ed. Wu Kewei (Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe, 2007), 134.
Zou Shouyi, “Zou Dongkuo xiansheng chuangjian shuyuan xu (Preface of Master Zou Dongkuo to the Construction of the Academy),” in Bailuzhou shuyuan zhi (Records of Bailuzhou Academy), ed. Gao Liren (Nanchang: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2008), 229–230.
See Li Caidong, Jiangxi gudai shuyuan yanjiu (Research on Ancient Academies in Jiangxi) (Nanchang; Jiangxi jiaoyu chubanshe, 1993), 294–297, 342–343.
Meskill, Academies in Ming China, 89.
The rivers Zhu and Si flow to the north and south Qufu, the hometown of Confucius.
The shrine of the two brothers Cheng in Luoyang.
Wang Ji et al., “Wang Tangnan xiansheng liezhuan (Biography of Master Wang Tangnan),” in Fuzhen zhi (Records of Fuzhen), Kangxi ed., stored in Guojia tushuguan, Beijing, Volume 3, 17.