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A single biographical study may bring into focus the critical problems and the atmosphere of an age, and thus help bridge a wide gap in our understanding of the history of (an era).1 Arthur F. Wright This study explores the life and work of Ruan Yuan (1764–1849), a scholarofficial of significance in mid-Qing China prior to the Opium War, before traditional institutions and values became altered by incursions from the West. His distinction as a scholar and patron of learning has been recognized by both his contemporaries and modern scholars. His name is mentioned in almost all the works on Qing history or Chinese classics because of the wide range of his research and publications. More than eighty titles of his publications are extant, and a number of these are still being reprinted at the start of the twenty-first century. He was also exulted as an honest official and an exemplary man of the ‘Confucian persuasion’.2 Details of his personal life and his work as an official, however, are less known. His life as a private individual can be gleaned from contemporary writings, including his own poems as well as those by his wife. A certain amount of information on him can be culled from official sources and his own publications. Stored in the Qing archives are a few hundred documents pertaining to Ruan Yuan, enough for a researcher to reconstruct a fuller record of his government service. In addition to chronological biographies (liezhuan 列傳) compiled shortly after his death, there are several brief biographies compiled in the twentieth Introduction 1. Arthur F. Wright, ‘Values, Roles, and Personalities’, in Confucian Personalities, edited by Arthur F. Wright and Denis Twitchett (1962), p. 11. 2. This term, defined as ‘a matched set of attitudes, beliefs, projected actions: a half-formulated moral perspective involving emotional commitment’, is adapted from Marvin Myers, The Jacksonian Persuasion (1957), as cited by Wright in ‘Introduction’, Confucian Personalities (1962), p. 3. 2 Ruan Yuan, 1764–1849 century,3 but there is yet no full-length study of him in English, or in any language that makes use of extant archival documents. Since this is the first full-length biographical study of Ruan Yuan in English, and since it is also aimed at presenting ‘the atmosphere of an age’ and ‘the critical problems and the atmosphere’ of the era immediately before the Opium War as well, as exhorted by Professor Wright, I have included background information such as the private life as a son, husband, and father, and function of Chinese institutions, the training of an official, the route taken by an official from childhood to officialdom, influences other than his ability that led him to key appointments, the background of early nineteenth-century China — including restiveness of the populace, patronage of scholarship, imperial power and gentry official relations, internal control and foreign relations — all in the context of a biographical study of one scholar-official, Ruan Yuan. The Qing period has attracted the attention of historians writing in English since the middle of the twentieth century. These studies have comprised political, economic, intellectual, cultural, and social history, including gender issues. The two emperors with long reigns have been represented: Kangxi (seventeenth century) by Jonathan Spence and Silas Wu and Qianlong (eighteenth century) by Harold Hahn, although strictly speaking, these publications are not biographies. There are several biographies of individuals of the mid-Qing era, notably those of Yuan Mei (袁枚 1716–98) by Arthur Waley, Zhang Xuecheng (章學誠 1739–1801) by David S. Nivison, and Chen Hongmou (陳宏謀 1696– 1771) by William T. Rowe. The men portrayed were active during the eighteenth century. Nineteenth-century China of the Jiaqing and Daoguang years to which Ruan Yuan belonged was different. Kangxi and Yongzhen were consolidating the Qing rule, its territory and institutions, firmly establishing the revenue bases, for instance, while Qianlong was able to enjoy the fruits of their labours. Perhaps he ruled too long and overextended the available resources, his successors had to struggle without a sense of positive accomplishments. This post-Qianlong era is already under scholarly scrutiny. The study on Ruan Yuan is my attempt to be a part of this effort that seeks to redress the need for a biographical study of a man whose life and work can help to enhance our understanding of China of the nineteenth century before the Opium War. 3. Paul Vissière, ‘Le Biographe de Jouàn Yuan’, T’oung Pao II: 5 (1904), pp. 561–96 [in...

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