The Relevance of Sung Learning in the Late Ch'ing: Wei Yuan and the Huang-ch'ao ching-shih wen-pien

Vol. 9, No. 2 Late Imperial ChinaDecember 1988 THE RELEVANCE OF SUNG LEARNING IN THE LATE CH'ING: WEI YUAN AND THE HUANG-CH'AO CHING-SHIH WEN-PIEN1 Benjamin A. Elman In the early nineteenth century, advocates of Sung Learning [Sunghsueh ], champions of Han Learning [Han-hsueh], and proponents of New Text studies [chin-wen-hsueh] were all united in their recognition that construction of a statecraft ideology was necessary within late imperial political culture. Although specific statecraft proposals represented highly situational and pragmatic responses to contemporary problems in flood control , salt monopolies, official corruption, and grain tribute, Confucian reformers comprehended that piece-meal solutions were insufficient. They realized that a broader version of Confucian discourse was required, one that would encompass a moral reformation derived from Sung Learning and institutional studies associated with Han Learning. Even for statecraft enthusiasts the centrality of classical studies for political discourse meant that within the "constitutional" raison d'être of the Ch'ing empire the Confucian Classics remained the ideological guide in political matters. Any reformist initiative had to find its historical precedent in the Classics. Reformers accordingly sought legitimation for their efforts by building key linkages between the historicist scholarly agenda of Han Learning and the moral eternalism of Sung Learning. In the process, pragmatic Confucians shifted classical debate from focus on the past as the source for universal models and solutions to discussion of the complexity of present problems and the need to come up with unprecedented answers. Compilation of the Huang-ch'ao ching-shih wen-pien (Collected writings on statecraft from the Ch'ing dynasty) in the 1820s by Wei Yuan (17941856 ), for example, represented an important stage in the reformist movement of the early nineteenth century. Wei Yuan's work on this project in the 1820s represented an interesting preliminary stage in Chinese efforts to 1 An earlier version was presented at the annual meeting of the Western Conference for the Association for Asian Studies, Tucson, Arizona, October 30-31, 1987. Thanks are due the anonymous referees for Late Imperial China and Charlotte Fürth all of whom suggested many useful changes. Research for this article was supported by the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange (Fulbright Foundation) in Taiwan. 56 The Relevance ofSung Learning in the Late Ch'ing57 claim classical legitimacy for statecraft reforms. Moreover, before and after his conversion to New Text Confucianism Wei Yuan remained remarkably committed to conservative moral teachings associated with Sung Learning. The Huang-ch 'ao ching-shih wen-pien, for instance, incorporated a heavy dose of Sung Confucian morality into its historicist statecraft agenda.2 Wei Yuan and Statecraft Studies In the 1813 provincial examinations in his native Hunan, Wei Yuan first attracted the attention of the education director there for his talents in composing poetry. Coming from Hunan, where Han Learning had been less influential than in the Yangtze delta, Wei Yuan's early education emphasized instruction in Sung Learning because the latter was the chief subject matter of the civil service examinations. In addition, Wei Yuan's dislike of what he considered petty textual studies drawing on k'ao-cheng [evidential research, lit., "search for evidence"] research and his dissatisfaction with the standard distinction between Sung and Han Learning initially attracted him to efforts to synthesize the two. Wei Yuan was not yet aware of the relevance of New Text studies for statecraft reform. In fact, only after his first trip to Peking at age twenty did Wei begin to show interest in historical geography and classical philology . After returning to Peking a second time in 1821 for an extended stay in the capital, Wei helped compile and edit what would become the highly respected compendium of statecraft essays entitled Collected Writings on Statecraft from the Ch'ing Dynasty. Indirectly involved with gentry factions since the closing years of the Chia-ch'ing Emperor's reign (1796-1820), Wei Yuan eventually combined statecraft expertise and New Text learning in an extraordinary career on the staffs of several prominent high officials imperially charged with solving the logistical breakdowns in water works, salt administration, and in the grain tribute system along the Grand Canal between Peking and the Yangtze delta. In...