Chu Shi
Stepping on the winter sun, I once again went to the depths of the west mountain shade of Liling to see the Weijiang Academy, which has been separated for more than 20 years. The thousand-year-old camphor in front of the door is still that kind of vigorous posture. Across the pan pond is the main entrance of the Shujiang Academy, and the front and door of the academy were written by Li Duo, a famous calligrapher from Liling. Remember that the gate association was originally "Encheng Beique; Dao jie Dong Lai", and now it was replaced by "Dao Chongdong Lu; Xiu Yu Xi Shan".
Moving forward, up the stairs is the lecture hall, in the middle of the hall is the statue of Confucius, with a plaque of "Master of All Ages". From the inner hall to the left door, a small examination shed is well preserved. In the courtyard in front of the examination shed, there are bronze statues of Zhu Xi and Zhang Yu, which makes people feel as if they have seen the scene of Zhu Zhang's gathering nearly a thousand years ago.
In August of the third year of the Southern Song Dynasty (1167), Zhu Xi, at the invitation of Zhang Yu, who was then in charge of Yuelu Academy, set off from Chong'an, Fujian Province, and walked for nearly a month to reach the Liling Xuegong, the predecessor of The Lujiang Academy. Zhang Yu made a special trip from Changsha to Liling to meet Zhu Xi. The academic ideas of the two cultural giants collided here, and the Shujiang Academy ushered in its first violent heartbeat. The famous "Zhu Zhanghui Lecture" in the history of Chinese thought and culture began from the Shujiang Academy, where Huxiang students experienced the most quintessential academic thought. This year, Zhu Xi was 37 years old and Zhang Yu was 34 years old, both of which were spirited years. Soon the two moved north, and Yu Yuelu Academy continued to "speak."
"Zhu Zhanghui Lecture" was a great shock in the literary circles at that time, and Lu Zuqian, who was far away in Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, also heard the wind. The founder of the Zhejiang Eastern School of Wuxue, who was only 30 years old at the time, was similar to Zhu Zhang's age, and the three of them were collectively known as the "Three Sages of southeast China". When Lü Zuqian hurried to the Shujiang Academy, Zhu Zhang's lectures had already moved to Yuelu Academy. At this time, the Liling Weijiang Academy set off a boom in science, and Lü Zuqian, who was flesh and blood, wanted to use the Zhejiang Eastern School to influence the science of science, so he set up the Donglai Academy at the site of Jian Jiachong, which was 30 miles away from Liling, and Lü Zuqian was also honored as "Mr. Donglai". Lü Zuqian was in Liling narrating the Zhejiang Eastern Doctrine in Jinhua dialect, which was difficult to understand. At that time, the highest academic ideas in China were in opposition, and they all wanted to use their own academic ideas to derive each other.
The academics of The River Academy are free. Just when there was a shortage of staff at the Shujiang Academy, Lü Zuqian was hired to give a lecture, and during this period Lü Zuqianmeng came up with an idea, he invited Zhu Xi, the head of jixue, and Lu Jiuyuan, the founder of Xinxue, to come to the Goose Lake Temple in Shangrao, Jiangxi, with the intention of reconciling the academic disputes between the two schools, which is the famous "Goose Lake Meeting".
As the years passed, one day in 1194 AD, Zhu Xi, who was already a pacification envoy on Hunan Road in Tanzhou, accompanied by two Liling students Wu Hunter and Li Guichen, once again stepped into the Shujiang Academy, and after a full 27 years, Zhu Xi, who had two sideburns, remembered the late Zhang Yu, and he could not help but feel a little sad when he lost his acquaintance.
In 1507, a master came to the Shujiang Academy, who had just finished an official struggle, and was sent to the military department by the eunuch Liu Jin and demoted to Guizhou Longchang as a postmaster. He was Wang Yangming, the inheritor of Lu Jiuyuan's Mind Science. Wang Yangming was very warmly invited to give a lecture, Wang Yangming of course would speak, he used his heart to judge the science of science, and the academic ideas of the two schools collided again in the Shujiang Academy after 340 years. The Shujiang Academy became one of the academic focal points during the Song and Ming dynasties.
Shujiang Academy is lucky.
In the Qing Dynasty, Zuo Zongtang, who was born with a son, came here to serve as the chief of the mountain in 1837, when Zuo Zongtang was 25 years old, a full 670 years after Zhu Zhanghui spoke. Zuo Zongtang was erudite and talented, and the Shujiang Academy was vigorously governed by him. In this year, Tao Shu, the governor of Liangjiang, returned to Anhua Province and passed through Liling. On the gate of the building, Tao Shu saw a couplet:
The Spring Temple language is calm, and the twenty-year-old mountain seal heart stone is in,
The river flows day and night, and the children of the eight states are eager to return.
This couplet was written by Zuo Zongtang at the request of Zhixian, and it was written that Emperor Guang summoned Tao Shu several times and wrote "Yinxin Stone House". Xialian wrote an allusion to Tao Kan's military supervision of the eight states in the Jin Dynasty. The eight states here refer to Hunan. Tao Shu praised the UN General Assembly for this and offered to see Zuo Zongtang. It was night, and the two talked until late at night at the Shujiang Academy, and booked a family with their children. Since then, Zuo Zongtang has had Tao Shu's appreciation for his career, and later became an official to the minister of military aircraft and the governor of Liangjiang.
In modern times, the Shujiang Academy has cultivated many figures for Liling, such as Huxiang academic giant, Fu Xiongxiang, founder of Nanshe Xiang, patriotic general Cheng Qian, deputy chief of general staff of the Eighth Route Army Zuo Quan, and so on.
Stepping out of the Shujiang Academy, the thick history and the academic ideas that express their own opinions still make people's hearts stir.
Originally published in Hunan Daily (12th edition, January 14, 2022)