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The past of Tongchuan Caotang Academy
Tongzheng Bridge
In the modern history of Santai County, Sichuan Province, "Caotang Academy" is a resounding name. For more than two hundred years, the name has been reverberating over the 2,700 square kilometers of land of Santai. The people of Santai are proud to have Caotang Academy in their homeland. For Caotang Academy, people are both so familiar and a little strange. It is said that it is familiar because Caotang Academy has a high reputation, and many people in Santai know that it is part of the cultural history of Santai; it is said that it is strange because many people do not know the past of Caotang Academy.
I am a native of Santai, and I was both familiar and unfamiliar with Caotang Academy. My student years were spent in santai middle school in the 1950s. Most of the campus here is the former site of Caotang College, where I have searched for traces of the college. I have enjoyed the edification of the ancient architecture of the academy, but due to the limitations of knowledge, I could not trace its traces at that time, and I still did not know why Caotang Academy was still unknown.
In recent years, I have had the privilege of discovering some accounts of Caotang Academy from the "Chronicle of Tongchuan Province" during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty and the "Chronicle of Santai County" during the Jiaqing period, so let me sort it out for you to share.
Du Fu Caotang, Santai County (Source: Santai County Rong Media Center)
The establishment of Caotang Academy and a long-standing lawsuit
The "Academy" was originally a preparatory school for the imperial examination. Historically, Santai County was the second largest city in Sichuan Province, and in the Ming and Qing dynasties it was the seat of government of Tongchuan Prefecture (Fu), but until the middle of the Qing Dynasty, there were still no academies here, and readers basically relied on private schools or county schools and provincial schools (addressed in the Temple of Literature) to study.
When it comes to the establishment of Tongchuan Caotang Academy, we must remember the merits of Fei Yuanlong.
More than 260 years ago, Fei Yuanlong served as Zhi county in Chengdu and Zhizhou in Mianzhou, Sichuan. He attached great importance to the construction of the academy, and when he was in Mianzhou, he founded the "Fujiang Academy". In the nineteenth year of Qianlong (1754), Fei Yuanlong was transferred from Mianzhou to the prefect of Tongchuan. At the beginning of his term of office, he sighed: "Tongchuan Suwu Academy, along the way to borrow Fan Yu a rafter as a schoolhouse, extend the teacher's business, only its name." "Whoever does not build a college in the state of Yi thinks that it is a place of storage talent." As a result, he immediately began to prepare for the construction of a college for Tongchuan.
He summoned his subordinates and gentlemen to the prefectural court to expound on the general principle of creating the academy, and the staff of the prefectural court read out the plan. The participants heard about the huge budget in the plan and looked at each other at a loss.
At this time, an old man pointed out the mystery for everyone (this person had served as a general judge in the government, engaged in agricultural affairs, justice, civil affairs, etc., so he knew about the old affairs of Tongchuan): In the southern suburbs of Santai City, 120 miles, "next to longtai temple, there are more than 2,000 ancient trees, which can be used as materials." According to the monks of the monastery on the mountain, the ancient wood is owned by the monastery; the nearby villagers insist on planting it by the ancestors of the ancestors. "Monks and villagers have been arguing for a long time." The two sides were at odds, and Wang Ruzhi, the governor of Tongchuan at the time, ordered all the ancient trees to be confiscated. In the sixteenth year of Qianlong (1751), the county built the "Kuixing Pavilion" and used a small amount of wood, and the remaining ancient wood was piled up in the foothills. Later, because Wang Ruzhi was transferred away, no one paid attention to this matter, and "the monks stole it by the gap" and were "cut down and sold out by the scoundrels" again.
When the prefect fei heard this, he was furious and immediately sent someone to clean it up, "chasing it worth seven hundred taels", taking the lead in donating money himself, and collecting funds from the society, "jointly losing and helping each other and collecting hundreds of gold".
After having the funds, he purchased a piece of land in the east gate of the county town, located near the east of the "Caotang Temple", and then donated part of the adjacent land by the "Caotang Temple", which is the prototype of the Caotang Academy area. Travel through time and space: this is the part of the area that is now east of Santai Middle School.
The Fei prefect also selected enthusiastic and capable people from the local gentlemen to preside over the construction of the academy. After preparing materials, designing, constructing, and building the wall, it took 7 months to finally be completed. A total of 43 houses were built, and the courtyard was also greened. In the courtyard, "Xuan Lang is neat, the door is full of mystery, the look is renewed, the flowers are planted with bamboo, the windows are bright, and the play is both a garden victory." He also carved a plaque on the song Dynasty Confucian scholar Hu Anding's last rule "Jing Yi Zhi Shi" and hung it on the door of the "lecture hall" (in the early 1950s, when we were in middle school, this lecture hall was still there).
"If you buy a few more lands at your discretion, you can get more than 100 gold in interest." As a result, the College was able to purchase additional facilities and pay teachers' salaries.
Because the academy and the Wenfeng Pagoda on the east hill on the other side of the Fu river are far away, it was named "Wenfeng Academy". This is the original name of Caotang Academy.
After a year of study, in the spring of the twenty-first year of Qianlong (1756), 4 students were admitted to the three universities (equivalent to the current undergraduate degree, which can receive living subsidies) and 17 disciples (equivalent to the current high school education). At that time, it caused a sensation throughout the county.
This is a great thing that Fei Yuanlong has done for the three people.
Repair, renaming and landmark building of Wenfeng College "Li Du Ancestral Hall"
So when did "Wenfeng Academy" change its name to "Caotang Academy"? Here's another story.
According to the Qianlong Fifty-first Year (1786) edition of the Tongchuan Fu Zhi and the Jiaqing Nineteenth Year (1814) edition of the Santai County Chronicle, Shen Qingren, who was then the prefect of Tongchuan, was erudite, full of economy, and good at calligraphy and painting. In the forty-first year of Qianlong (1776), he organized manpower to repair the Wenfeng Academy, so that "the hall is deep, the corridor is folded, the shade of the trees is thick, the flowers and trees are forested, and the scale is also Xuan factory."
And because of the poem "Mr. Shaoling entered Shu to avoid the chaos that Xu knew, Bu lived in Tong, and now the academy is also its former site", in order to commemorate Mr. Du Fu, the academy was renamed "Caotang Academy". On the lintel hangs a gold plaque with the words "Humanistic Biaowei", and the portrait of Du Fu is hung behind the lecture hall. He also "increased the land property, strictly established rules and regulations, and ordered the Bayi Public to donate to the incorruptibility to help the anointing fire." In other words, with the joint funding of the eight counties belonging to Tongchuan Province, Caotang Academy has a more solid foothold.
The "Caotang Academy" later underwent several major repairs.
In the forty-eighth year of Qianlong (1783), Zhang Songsun was promoted to the prefect of Tongchuan. When he was repairing the academy in the forty-ninth year of Qianlong (1784), "the courtyard opened a pond stacked on the mountain, and planted flowers and trees", "The pond was in front of the lecture hall, driving on a small bridge, and the inscription 'Mao Xiu'" "The left side of the ring pond, the stacked soil is the gangman, the image of the chonglong, showing the meaning of the mountain". This is what became the "Rice Mountain". Iiyama has existed since the early 1950s. I remember that when we were in junior high school, we planted plum blossoms all over the rice mountain, and we used to watch the plum blossoms on the edge of the rice mountain.
Zhang Songsun is also an avid "fan" of Li Bai Dufu. He believes that "Li Du has been a confidant for thousands of years, and it is appropriate to be polite and respectful." Therefore, "after the lecture hall", "after the gap, the three trees of the church were built", "Yi Qian's drawing was a wooden statue", "the statue of the two gentlemen was sculpted by the craftsman, and the statue was combined".
A later major repair occurred during the Jiaqing period. In the autumn of the twelfth year of Jiaqing (1807), Shen Zhaoxing came to Santai to serve as a ZhiXian County, and he went to the Caotang Academy to inspect the work, "seeing the desolation, thinking of the new". Zhang Shilian, the prefect, was asked to donate to the eight counties, and Shen Zhaoxing presided over the reconstruction. Construction began in August of the fifteenth year of Jiaqing (1810) and was completed in February of the following year (1811). "The scale is still the same, but the construction is new."
At this time, the "three children who went to the academy to study were eight or nine." County officials take the exam on a monthly basis and donate bonuses to show encouragement."
At the same time, in view of the fact that although the Caotang Academy is a place of cultural prosperity, the original back hall dedicated to Li Du, the low humidity and narrow size of the house, are not enough to show the sincerity of Li Du, so the back hall dedicated to Li Du was updated to make it a landmark building of the academy. At this time, this building was officially upgraded to "Li Du Ancestral Hall".
In the next hundred years, repairs may have been carried out, but the information is not described.
In the thirty-first year of Guangxu (1905), Zhong Run, the prefect of Tongchuan, was ordered to abolish the imperial examination and build a school, so the Caotang Academy was converted into a modern school "TongchuanFu Middle School". This is the predecessor of Santai Middle School. Caotang Academy, which lasted for 151 years, ended its historical mission.
The internal layout of Caotang Academy
Comparing the "Shuyuan Map" contained in the Fifty-first Year (1786) edition of the "Chronicle of Tongchuan Province" in Qianlong and the Jiaqing Nineteenth Year (1814) Edition of the "Records of Santai County", the author found that the two maps were exactly the same. This shows that although Caotang College has been repaired many times, the general pattern of the college has not changed. This pattern even lasted until the 1940s.
The Qianlong edition of the Tongchuan Fuzhi Shuyuan Zhi records the layout of the academy built by Fei Yuanlong in the nineteenth year of Qianlong as follows:
"The peripheral area door two, the priest room (janitor room) two." The left and right squares of the gate, the two stele pavilions, and the five main halls in the first place are lecture halls. The trees are shady and the atmosphere is bright. ...... From the west to the south, the promenade is adjacent to the jingsha, a total of ten rooms, known as the 'reading music place'. Behind the promenade, there are five rooms facing the south and three rooms facing the west, with flowers and green skies, known as 'Jing Yi Zhi Shi Zhai'. ”
The academy is surrounded by an earthen wall, bordering East Street to the south, residential houses to the east, the city wall to the north, and Caotang Temple outside the west wall. After students enter through the gate of the College through East Street, they are greeted by two monumental pavilions created by the College and encouraging students to forge ahead. To the west, it enters the second gate (until the 1940s, when the students of Santai Middle School entered and exited through the second gate), and after entering the second gate, the north side is the "Iigosan Mountain"; "Masui Pond" (later renamed "Wash Heart Pond") in the courtyard. There are a total of 43 houses in the college, and the lecture hall is located on the north side of the college. On the south side of the lecture hall, there is a long corridor that stretches west to south, and there are ten ashrams adjoining. The houses behind the promenade have 5 rooms on the south side and 3 rooms on the west side. "There are 3 outhouses in the West Wall, and 3 outhouses in the East Wall, then the place where the students can save their salaries and cook rice."
Learning and management of students at Caotang College
In ancient China, young people mainly relied on home schools or private schools, and later there were county schools and prefectural schools (equivalent to primary and secondary schools) that integrated temple learning. After the emergence of the academy, the academy has three major functions: book collection (similar to a library), offering sacrifices, and lecturing and discussing. As for the source of the "Caotang Academy" collection, Fang Zhi also recorded: "The old books of the present academy are empty, and the scholars of this house will temporarily borrow and send the books stored in the Xuegong (confucius temple in fu county) to the courtyard for viewing and studying." There is a surplus to gradually buy and store to become a Wenyuan Weiguan". Through the above three ways, the collection of books in the college gradually increased.
It can be seen from the establishment process of Caotang Academy that it is officially presided over and provides students with living expenses, relies on private financing to build and maintain, and uses the income of the school as the operation support of the college.
After the completion of Caotang College, readers flocked to apply for the examination enthusiastically. However, the threshold for admission to the college is very high, and there are not many students admitted through written examinations and interviews, and only 20 or 30 students are admitted every year in the eight counties to which Tongchuan belongs. Caotang College basically recruits "internal students", that is, boarding students. The college is under closed management.
Because the college is a preparatory school for the examination of the examination, it has undertaken the important educational responsibility from talent to talent. Therefore, the content of the study is quasi-imperial examination. When Caotang Academy was founded, the plaque hanging on the gate of the "Lecture Hall" was the four words "Jingyi Zhishi", which was the content of study stipulated by the College. "Jingyi" is the Familiar Confucian classic, "Four Books and Five Classics", Zhaoming Wenxuan, Lisao, Zhuangzi, Tao Dushi, Han Suwen, Yuzhi Tongjian, Zhu Zi Gangmu, History of the Five Dynasties, Liang QiShu, Twenty-two Histories, Guwen Yuanjian and so on. The main contents of "governing affairs" include governing the people, water conservancy, arithmetic, and stressing martial arts.
Caotang College has formulated a series of management regulations, including court rules and discipline, study system, and living rules.
The "Follow the Specifications" (i.e., the Rules of the Academy) formulated by the "Caotang Academy" contains provisions such as "appropriate conduct", "appropriate style", "appropriate choice for reading", "appropriate limit for course lessons", and "respect for writing paper". At the same time, the academy requires that "all beings should also love themselves and clean their cultivation, clean a few bright windows, and do not have miscellaneous dust, so as to become the elegance of the art garden."
On the first and fifteenth day of each month, the college holds "sacrifice activities", and the teacher leads the students to pay homage to the ancestors and saints, and requires "the class to be clean, the clothes are neat, and the quality is clear", and the moral education is disciplined.
Students' learning styles include reading, explaining, learning words, and composing essays. "All beings live in a house, each at work." The academy stipulates that "there must be a fixed limit for the daily curriculum, and each person measures his own strength, such as reading a number of chapters, reading a number of texts, studying a number of lines, composing a number of poems, step by step, not wanting to be fast, not afraid of difficulties, accumulating their own effects for a long time" "After listening to the lectures, all beings must return to lectures or make them speak another chapter and section."
Students' homework, lectures, self-study, accommodation, leave, mutual discussions between classmates and teachers' answers to questions, etc., will be recorded in all aspects of daily learning and life. "Those who are good at guiding and not repenting, to the Ming Prison Court to be deposed" "Those who do not give a leave, wander outside and do not return, find out the first application, punish again, and dethrone three times" "If gambling and drinking and blowing the flute, self-proclaimed wind, there is a violation of the rules, and gradually can not be long, when the prohibition is not realized." ”
Of course, there are also incentive measures, "the anointing fire (that is, the living allowance) is paid once a month, according to the current regulations, according to the internal and external industry, it is given three times, and the literary excellence is gradually promoted three times." After graduating with excellent grades, their names will be included in the "Honor Roll" and "those who have worked in the hospital over the years will be listed as a monument in Xulai County".
This is what I know about the past of Tongchuan Caotang Academy.
Source: Sichuan Provincial Local History Work Office
Author: Tong Zhengqiao
Pictured: Fang Zhi Sichuan
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