Chapter 52 Section Fourteen

During the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty, Hu Zongxu, the Secretary of the Imperial Academy, lost his father at the age of 10. He was raised and educated by his mother who worked hard to become an outstanding scholar.Not only Hu Zongxu will never forget his mother's kindness and virtue throughout his life, but all parents in the world admire Hu's mother sincerely. Hu's mother was originally the daughter of the Pan family, and her parents betrothed her to Hu Michan, a scholar in Tongcheng.Hu Michan died prematurely without achieving his fame, leaving behind his three sons and a few huts with nothing.At that time, the eldest son Hu Zongxu was just 10 years old, and the two younger brothers were younger. The family of four cried bitterly in front of the coffin, very sad.Especially the eldest son Hu Zongxu, because of his poor family and precocious maturity, cried until his father died, wailing over and over again: "Father, why did you go like this, what should mother do with us! Father, son's book reading I can't do it, I want to study!" Crying loudly, each word of tears pierced the mother's heart like a knife.The mother hugged her son's head tightly and swore to her son, "My son, there is a mother!"

Mother Hu wiped away her tears and buried her dead husband.The next day, dragging her sick body, she led Hu Zongxu to a private school far away from home, and begged the kind teacher to take him in. From then on, Hu's mother worked hard during the day, doing farm work for men, and sewing, sewing, spinning and weaving at night.I worked hard day and night, all for my son to be able to go to school.Every morning, as soon as the rooster crows three times, she gets up to light a fire to cook porridge for her son, and the light is not turned on until the son finishes eating and leaves home.The kind mother was always worried that her son would be afraid, so she sent her son across the hills outside the village with tears in her eyes, and did not return home until she could no longer see her son.In the evening, no matter how busy she was, she had to go outside the village to welcome her son back home.After dinner, she asked Zong Xu to sit by her side to continue studying, and warned her son to cherish this rare opportunity to study, study hard, and not waste good time.

Under the light, the mother spun the thread while listening to the sound of her son reading.In this way, day after day, month after month, it has been more than three years in a blink of an eye.Zong Xu studied very hard and made rapid progress. Mother Hu was very happy.However, the careful mother knows that her son has a strong interest in reading and reads all kinds of books. She has no choice and is afraid that he will go astray.So she often asked Zong Xu to read the books to her, and then helped her son choose the learning content based on her social experience and experience.One day, Mother Hu listened to her son read Cheng Zhu's book, which talked about how to be a human being. She couldn't help standing up and asked her son not only to read more books like this, but also to deeply understand the righteousness taught by Cheng Zhu, and to practice it personally. Only then can she become the person she wants and become the pillar of the country.Another time, when Mother Hu heard Zong Xu read Sima Xiangru's "Ode to Beauty", she couldn't help being furious, and immediately ordered her son to stop reading such articles in the future.

Hu's mother is very strict in the education of several children, and pays great attention to enlightening and teaching the children to develop upright character from the trivial things in daily life.When her son was about to go out, she always told him to follow the right path.After her son came home, if he found that his clothes were wet with dew on the grass, she would pick up a bamboo board and reprimand him: "Why don't you follow the right path? You didn't learn it well when you were young, and you didn't follow the right path when you grew up. Dare to do what you want. You have to know that crooked ways are a mud pit that harms people, and only by doing right can you be an upright gentleman!" Make the best use of the situation, extend it according to the situation, and tell the sons the truth of life.

The family was so poor that they couldn't get rid of the pot. Hu's mother only ate some melons and wild vegetables every day to satisfy her hunger, and cooked porridge with wheat for the children.Even if the children have a mouthful of porridge left, she is reluctant to eat it, and always saves it for her son who is in school to eat at night when he is studying.Later, Hu's mother became ill from overwork, and her family life was really helpless, so the sensible Hu Zongxu had to drop out of school.In order to prevent her son from dropping out of school due to temporary difficulties, Hu's mother asked Zong Xu to study in front of her bed at night after a day's work, and endured the pain to tutor her son in his studies.

Under the careful upbringing and teaching of his mother, Hu Zongxu not only made great progress in his studies, but also gradually developed an honest and upright character.In the eighth year of Yongzheng (AD 1730), Hu Zongxu lived up to his mother's years of education and expectations, and was admitted to Jinshi in one fell swoop. Later, he became an official in the Imperial Academy and became a highly respected Confucian master in the Qing Dynasty.Hu's mother's parenting method is also respected by the world.