At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Wu had the Huxiang Army and the Wen had the Tongcheng Faction.
The largest prose school of the "Tongcheng School", also known as the "Tongcheng Ancient School", is commonly known as the "Tongcheng School". Dai Mingshi, Fang Bao, Liu Daxun, and Yao Nai were revered as the "Four Ancestors" of the Tongcheng Sect.
The formation of the Tongcheng school is very early, and it is currently recognized that it originated from the guiyouguang in the late Ming Dynasty. After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Tongcheng scholarship arose, "those who can vibrate their pens for ancient texts, and there are generations of people". By the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Fang Yizhi, Qian Chengzhi and others were committed to the revitalization of ancient Literature. During the Kangxi period of Shunzhi, with the rise of a number of people who entered the imperial examination, such as Zhang Ying, Zhang Tingyu's father and son, etc., they expanded their influence through the imperial examination and officialdom.
During the real period of rise, during the Qianlong period, representative figures were Dai Mingshi and Fang Bao. Dai Mingshi's "Nanshan Collection" had a great influence on the Qing court, because in addition to literature, it also recorded too many things in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, although it is a fact, but there are objective facts that have been unfavorable to the image of the Qing court, and some praises for the hidden and anti-Qing affairs in the early Qing Dynasty, even if they want to express patriotic feelings, have actually touched the nerves of the rulers. In October of the 50th year of the Kangxi Dynasty, Zhao Shenqiao, the capital of zuodu, impeached Dai Mingshi and his "Nanshan Collection" on the charge of "arrogance and impoliteness", which dealt a huge blow to the rise of the entire Tongcheng faction.
Fang Bao was the luckiest of several Tongcheng school writers. In the thirty-eighth year of kangxi, he won the first place in the Zhongjiangnan Township Examination. Kangxi forty-five years of examination to enter the soldier, due to the illness of his mother returned home, did not give up. Kangxi was also implicated in the Nanshan Ji case for fifty years and went to prison. However, he was soon pardoned by the Kangxi Emperor, not only pardoned but also carried into the Eight Banners Han Army, into the South Study, and served as the president of the Wuying Temple. By the Yongzheng and Qianlong periods, although there were ups and downs, they eventually lived a long life and died a good death.
Liu Daxun, relative to Fang Bao, is quite unfortunate, although he did not go to prison, but it provoked the blow of his fellow villager and contemporary university scholar Zhang Tingyu. In his early years, he had the ambition of "applying the Ming Classics to the Practical Use", but he failed to succeed in many attempts, and later changed to the "ancient method", and in the fourth year of Yongzheng, he moved the Beijing Master. In the sixth year of Qianlong, Fang Baoju recommended him to participate in the erudite Hongzi Examination, but was suppressed by Zhang Tingyu and failed. In the fifteenth year of Qianlong, Zhang Tingyu specially invited him to participate in the examination for scripture in order to compensate, but he was not admitted. In the end, Qianlong was thirty-two years old, and he completely faded out of the imperial examination.
Yao Nai, almost no real power bureaucrat experience. He took the Jiangnan Township Examination in the fifteenth year of Qianlong, the twenty-eighth year of Qianlong entered the priesthood, was awarded the title of Jishi, and three years later he was the chief of the scattered halls, and he served as the deputy chief examiner of Shandong and Hunan, and he would take the same examination, and the final official was such an examiner and compilation idle post all his life, and he himself also saw through it, and he resigned from the official early and returned to his hometown to teach, teach, and bring out a group of disciples, laying a good foundation for the prosperity of the Tongcheng sect.
During the prosperous period of the Tongcheng school, it naturally originated from Yao Nai. Yao Nai was a master of the Tongcheng sect, who himself inherited Liu Daxun and Yao Fan, and also had his own style. He had a number of disciples Mei Zengliang, Guan Tong, Fang Dongshu, Yao Ying, Liu Kai, etc., among whom Mei Zengliang, Guan Tong, Yao Ying, and Fang Dongshu were known as the "Four Masters of Yaomen". These people are also people who zeng guofan admires, with the rise of the Xiang army, Zeng Guofan's influence has gradually increased, and the "Tongcheng faction" that was once respected is also shouted out. At its peak, the Tongcheng School was not only literature, but also poetry, paintings, and so on.
The "Tongcheng School" in the prosperous period was mainly based on Tongcheng and Anhui nationalities, and the connection between these people was very complicated, mainly including three kinds: teacher-affair relationship, private relationship, and in-law relationship. Among them, there is a family relationship between the in-laws that are the closest, and as of now there are records that several large families in Tongcheng are related by marriage, take the Zhang Tingyu family: Zhang Tingyu's grandmother Wu Shi, who is the daughter of Wu Desheng, and later Wu Rulun is a family; Zhang Tingyu's mother is Yao Shi, the daughter of Yao SunSen; his wife Yao Shi, is Yao SunSen's granddaughter; the eldest daughter-in-law Yao Shi, Zhang Ruoyi's wife, etc.; and Yao Fan and Yao Nai are also a family.
By the time of Zeng Guofan, he already belonged to the last stream of the "Tongcheng Sect", which included Zeng Guofan and the "Four Great Disciples of Zengmen" Zhang Yuzhao, Li Shuchang, Xue Fucheng, wu Rulun, and also their students. By the end of the year, there have been many environmental changes, China has gradually declined, Western practical science is impacting the influence of classical Chinese literature, and through continuous invasion of foreigners, etc., these confucians who emphasize the "ancient law" of the article have been vividly educated. At this time, there were gradual differences within the last stream, Zeng Guofan had begun to combine "practical use through the ages" and many people were still sticking to the old rules, at this time they gradually looked down on each other and began to oppose each other.
Then to the "May Fourth Movement" period, there has been a serious confrontation with the new cultural movement, Tongcheng classical literature, has gradually faded out of people's vision.
In summary, the entire "Tongcheng School" literature ran through the Qing Dynasty, from the end of the Ming Dynasty to the period of the New Culture Movement, when the influence on Qing Dynasty literature occupied an almost absolute position, and it can be said with certainty that it played a role in promoting the development of Han culture.