Scholarship and Politics: Chuang Ts'un-yü and the Rise of the Ch'ang-chou New Text School in Late Imperial China

Vol. 7, No. 1 Late Imperial ChinaJune 1986 SCHOLARSHIP AND POLITICS: CHUANG TS'UN-YU AND THE RISE OF THE CH'ANG-CHOU NEW TEXT SCHOOL IN LATE IMPERIAL CHINA Benjamin A. Elman* Introduction During the Ch'ien-lung emperor's reign (1736-1795), Han Learning (Han-hsueh), was the most heralded and at the same time most opposed school of Confucian learning. Confucian literati routinely associated Han Learning with the ascendency of evidential research (k'ao-cheng) throughout the Ch'ing dynasty (1644-1911). Eighteenth-century literati made the link between evidential studies and Han Learning a part of their definition of schools of learning. They frequently saw Han Learning and k'ao-cheng as two sides of the same coin. For the Ch'ing scholar, Han dynasty sources became his window on classical antiquity. In raising the slogan of "Han Learning" to prominence , Hui Tung (1697-1758) and his large Su-chou following actively opposed Sung Learning (Sung-hsueh), the official orthodoxy of the Confucian examination system. Instead, they turned to a study of Han dynasty classical interpretations. The latter, they thought, were closer in time to the composition of the classics and thus more likely to reveal the authentic meaning they conveyed. * Research for this article was carried out from 1982 to 1984 with the financial support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Academy of Sciences (Committee for Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China), Pacific Cultural Foundation (Taiwan), and the Fulbright Foundation. Special thanks are due Yang Xiangkui of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Tang Zhijun of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences for their help and support. Preparation of this manuscript took place while I was a Research Fellow of the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan during the 1984-85 academic year. Members of the advanced research seminar on China there made substantial contributions to this version, which I am presently revising for inclusion in a book-length study of New Text Confucianism during the Ch'ing dynasty. I would like to thank Robert Dernberger, Albert Feuerwerker, Shigeru Ishikawa, Noriko Kamachi, Don Munro, Michel Oksenberg, Ernest Young, Marty Whyte, and R. Bin Wong for their criticisms and suggestions. 63 64Benjamin A. Elman Similarly, scholars in Yang-chou were also deeply involved in the Han Learning movement. However, in Yan-chou, Tai Chen's (1724-1777) inpact on academic currents may have been greater than Hui Tung's. In particular, Tai Chen's influence has been documented for the scholarship of Juan Yuan (1764-1849) and Chiao HsUn (1763-1820). Juan Yuan became one of the great national-level patrons of Han Learning in the early nineteenth century, extending the influence of Hui Tung and Tai Chen to Hang-chou and Kuang-chou. Although Han Learning became dominant in Lower Yangtze cultural centers such as Su-chou and Yang-chou, its unanimity was short-lived. In earlier writings, I have linked the rise of the Ch'ang-chou New Text school of Confucianism to what can be considered the triumph of Han Learning over Sung Learning during the eighteenth century. In the following pages, I would like to focus on the many differences between the eighteenth-century Ch'ang-chou academic environment and that of nearby Su-chou and Yang-chou. We need to ask ourselves why the Ch'ing dynasty New Text school emerged in Ch'ang-chou, and not Suchou , Yang-chou, or elsewhere. In the process we will learn that the special nature of Ch'ang-chou traditions of scholarship played a key role in determining the precise directions Confucian literati there would take in coming to grips with Han Learning. The Chuang Lineage in Ch 'ang-chou Ch'ang-chou's location on the Grand Canal between Yang-chou and Su-chou, north of Lake T'ai, meant that Ch'ing scholars there could not remain immune to scholarly currents from nearby. In fact, Han Learning trends spilled over into Ch'ang-chou. Leading scholars there, such as Sun Hsing-yen (1753-1818), Hung Liang-chi (1746-1809), and Li Chao-lo (1769-1841) were active participants in the turn toward Han...