Chapter 21 3. Overview of major works in the Song and Yuan Dynasties

Beginning in the Northern Song Dynasty, the comprehensive use of engraving and printing technology led to a sudden increase in the types and quantities of books, and the circulation of books was more popular than before, which greatly promoted the prosperity and development of culture and learning in this era.It also brought a large number of books to come out. The birth of Confucianism in the Song Dynasty was a new inheritance and development of Confucianism since the Han and Tang Dynasties.There were many Neo-Confucians in the Song Dynasty, and they upheld the Confucian teachings advocated by the Confucians of all dynasties since Mencius, which had a profound influence on later generations.Its representatives include Zhou Dunyi, Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi, Zhu Xi and so on.

Zhou Dunyi (1017-1073) was the earliest of the Song Dynasties.The main components of his theory are about Wuji, Taiji, and the operation and change of yin and yang and five elements. His works include "Taiji Tushuo" and "Tongshu". Brothers Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi, who were later than Zhou Dunyi, jointly established a relatively complete and systematic philosophical system of objective idealism.Their works were jointly compiled by later generations as "Ercheng Quanshu". Zhu Xi (1130-1200) was a Dali scholar in the Southern Song Dynasty.He inherited and developed the achievements of the Neo-Confucians in the Northern Song Dynasty, and made annotations and elaborations on the Confucian classics, "Mencius", "University", and "The Doctrine of the Mean" (later compiled as "Four Books Collection Notes") to promote His own theories and viewpoints, "Four Books Collected Notes" and his "Tai Chi Tu Explanation", "Tong Shu Jie", etc., are the embodiment of his philosophical views.His usual conversations were recorded by students and compiled into "Zhu Zi Yu Lei", which is another important work of Zhu Xi's Confucianism.

Wang Anshi, Lu Jiuyuan, Chen Liang, etc. differed from their views. Wang Anshi (1021-1086), as China's "eleventh-century reformer", in order to promote reform, he did not superstitiously believe in Confucian classics, and boldly denounced the emptiness and uselessness of Confucianism of Confucius and Mencius.When Prime Minister Ren promoted the new law, he reinterpreted "Poetry", "Zhou Li" and so on based on the reform practice, personally presided over the compilation of "Three Classics and New Meanings" and issued them to schools across the country, and put forward the famous "heavenly changes are not to be feared". , the ancestors are not enough to follow the law, and the people's words are not enough to be compassionate" reform proposition.After the failure of Wang Anshi's political reform, his works were repeatedly destroyed and banned, and many of them were lost. Only the editions of "Zhou Guan Xin Yi", "Lao Tzu's Notes" and "Mr. Linchuan's Collected Works" remain today.

Lu Jiuyuan (1139-1193) was the founder of "Xin Xue" in the Southern Song Dynasty.The famous Ehu meeting in history was a philosophical dispute between him and Zhu Xi.The Goose Lake Conference was a philosophical discussion meeting held by the Southern Song Dynasty historian Lu Zuqian and others at the Goose Lake Temple in Xinzhou (now Shangrao, Jiangxi) where Zhu Xi and Lu Jiuyuan brothers were invited. , In the end they broke up unhappy.In essence, there is no essential difference between the philosophies of Zhu and Lu, only slightly different in the ways of understanding transcendental principles.One of them is an objective idealist (Zhu Xi), and the other is a subjective idealist.Lu Jiuyuan's quotations, miscellaneous works, and letters were compiled into "The Complete Works of Mr. Xiangshan" by later generations.

The Zhedong School, represented by Chen Liang (1143-1194), a progressive thinker in the Southern Song Dynasty, advocated "practical meritorious deeds", and believed that only "the right to the ambition of the time and the deeds of eliminating chaos, although their actions are not completely reasonable, they are also natural." May as well be a hero for a lifetime."He criticized Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianists, who only shouted "righteousness" and "life" when faced with the pressure of Jin soldiers.Chen Liang's works include "Chen Liang Collection".

The literature of the Song and Yuan Dynasties was very developed.In terms of prose, Ouyang Xiu became the leader of the Song Dynasty after the ancient prose movement in the Tang Dynasty, trying to change the flamboyant and weird style of writing; Wang Anshi, Zeng Gong, Su Xun, Su Shi, Su Zhe and so on followed.Together with Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan in the Tang Dynasty, they are known as the Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties in the history of Chinese literature.They have many excellent works, each of which has its own anthology.The most outstanding poet in the Song Dynasty was Lu You, and many famous poems were handed down from generation to generation.

Ci is also a representative literary variety of the Song Dynasty.Famous writers of the Song Dynasty, Fan Zhongyan, Yan Shu, Ouyang Xiu, etc. all wrote lyrics.Liu Yong was the most influential person in the Ci circle in the Northern Song Dynasty.Li Qingzhao, the most outstanding female poetess in the Song Dynasty, her words are graceful and fresh, and she can use some common and commonly used language at her fingertips, and her rhythm is perfect.Xin Qiji was a patriotic poet in the middle of the Southern Song Dynasty. His literary talent and military strategy, and his boldness and generosity made his lyrics express the agitated feelings of heroes in national distress.

In the Song Dynasty, folk storytelling scripts appeared, and those that have been handed down to the present include "The Poems of the Tripitaka of the Tang Dynasty" and "The History of the Five Dynasties".The appearance of story books is a major event in the history of Chinese literature, which opened up the way for Zhanghui novels after the Ming Dynasty. Zaju in the Yuan Dynasty was the mainstream of literature at that time, and it was a kind of song and dance drama developed on the basis of folk rap since the Song and Jin Dynasties.A group of excellent playwrights and scripts emerged in the Yuan Dynasty.Guan Hanqing was the most outstanding playwright in the Yuan Dynasty. He wrote more than 60 kinds of dramas in his life, of which 18 are extant.In the Yuan Dynasty, there were also Ma Zhiyuan and his, Wang Shifu and his, Ji Junxiang and his "Orphan of the Zhao Family" and so on.In Zhong Sicheng's "Record of Ghost Book", there are 458 kinds of Yuan Zaju, and there are 79 playwrights; in Ming Dynasty Zhu Quan's "Taihe Zhengyinpu" there are 535 kinds.The prosperity of Yuan Zaju marks the maturity of Chinese drama art.

The inheritance tradition of historiography in the Song Dynasty was also quite developed.Among them the most famous. It is a chronicle written by Sima Guang (1019-1086) of the Northern Song Dynasty.It took nineteen years to write.With the emperor as the center, all historical events are recorded in the years of the emperor's reign, and recorded year by year and month by month, showing the process of the rise and fall of chaos.It is a great work that records the historical events from the Warring States Period to the Five Dynasties, including 1362 years.Its main purpose is to serve as a reference for rulers.The book spends a lot of space describing the "traces of the success or failure of monarchs and ministers governing chaos and safety" in the past dynasties, and also collects the laws and regulations of the past dynasties, astronomy, geography, and materials related to social and economic development.Not only because of its rich material, it was highly praised by later historians; the chronicle style it created also became a model for later chronicle history books.

Zheng Qiao (1104-1162)'s "Tongzhi" in the early Southern Song Dynasty and Ma Duanlin's "Wenwen Tongkao" in the early Yuan Dynasty are general histories about the evolution of laws and regulations, and they are two of the "Ten Tongs". "Tong Zhi" includes "twenty strategies" such as astronomy, geography, cities, officials, elections, criminal law, food and goods; It narrates the evolution of the system in the past dynasties, and its narration until the end of the Southern Song Dynasty is an important document for investigating the system of laws and regulations before the Yuan Dynasty.

The local chronicles that record the history and customs of a state and a county have matured in the Song Dynasty, and the style of local chronicles has gradually been perfected and tended to be finalized.According to the statistics of "Ancient Chinese Local Chronicles", there are more than 700 local chronicles in the Song Dynasty, and only 30 or so remain.Among them, the famous ones are "Wu Junzhi" by Fan Chengda, "Xin'an Zhi" edited by Luo Yuan, and "Kuiji Zhi" edited by Shi Su.There are five general annals of Song Dynasty records in the whole country, including "Taiping Huanyu Ji" by Yue Shi and "Yudi Jisheng" by Wang Xiangzhi. Epigraphy is a new field of historiography in the Song Dynasty. Ouyang Xiu's "Jigulu" has ten volumes. It is a monograph covering the three dynasties from the first to the early Song Dynasty. The precedent of the corruption of historical books has greatly enriched the content of historical documents.In addition, Zhao Mingcheng's "Jinshilu", Lu Dalin's "Bogutu", Wang Fu's "Xuanhe Bogutu", etc., have texts and pictures, which are excellent materials for the research and establishment of the laws and regulations and historical records of the Shang and Zhou dynasties. During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, some important works also appeared in the field of science and technology.The famous "Mengxi Bi Tan" was written by Shen Kuo (1031-1095), a great scientist in my country's Song Dynasty.The book is divided into seventeen categories, including dialectics, rhythm, image and number, personnel, government affairs, and wit, with 609 articles, covering astronomy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, geography, meteorology, medicine, engineering technology, Literature, historical events, music and art, etc., among which the natural science part is an outstanding history of science and technology. It summarizes the contributions of ancient my country, especially the Northern Song Dynasty, in technology, such as Bi Sheng's movable type printing.In addition, there are "Zaofashi" and so on that describe the rules of architecture. The famous agricultural science works in the Yuan Dynasty include Wang Zhen's "Nong Shu", which summarizes the achievements of the Chinese people in agricultural production since "Qi Min Yao Shu".In terms of medicine, there is "Zheng He Jing Shi Zheng Lei Materia Medica" compiled in the late Northern Song Dynasty."Kaibao Materia Medica" in the early Song Dynasty, "Jiayou Supplementary Materia Medica" compiled by Renzong, etc. After the Song Dynasty unified China, academic activities in the Song Dynasty were also very active. In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, the government compiled three large reference books of 1,000 volumes each, "Taiping Yulan", "Cefu Yuangui", and "Wenyuan Yinghua".Another five hundred volumes of "Taiping Guangji" were compiled.They are the "four major categories of books" compiled by the government in the early Song Dynasty to promote academic activities. In addition to publishing a large number of Buddhist collections by the government and temples in the Song Dynasty, Daoyuan also compiled a history of Zen Buddhism during the reign of Zhenzong——"Jingde Chuan Denglu", which had a great influence on the later Neo Confucianism.It and other "Lamp Records" were later compiled into Puji's "Five Lanterns Huiyuan" and became an important document for the study of Zen Buddhism.There are also many Taoist classics. During the Zhenzong period, Taoist priests Zhu Yiqian and Feng Dezhi edited the Secret Pavilion Taoist scriptures, and Zhang Junfang presided over the compilation of "Da Song Tiangong Treasure", which was published during the Song Huizong period. It is the ancestor of Taoism.Later Jin and Yuan printed "Tao Jing" based on this.