Ma Rong and Zhang Zai
Text/Liu Shengping
My hometown of Fufeng County, is only separated by the Wei River from Hengqu Town in Mei County. On the north bank of the Wei River, there are two roads to Hengqu Town on the other side: one is to take the Weihe Bridge of the Fatang Expressway, and then go east about two miles to the road; the other road is to cross the Weihe Bridge in Luojia Village, and then go south to about two miles, through the ancient city village. I have traveled both roads, and the mileage is about the same.
Our Liujia Village is just west of the Tangfa Expressway, less than two miles away from the north exit of the Weihe River Bridge. I have heard about Hengqu Town since I was a child, but it has only been a matter of nearly ten years since I actually went to Hengqu. Over the years, I have read a lot of books, like Chinese Confucian culture, and pay special attention to the history and culture of our Fufeng. At first, I focused on the Eastern Han Dynasty Grand Ru Ma Rong, who was a Fufeng man who had set up tents and lectures in our hometown, and our town was named after it. Later, I came into contact with Zhang Zai, a hengqu man and guanxue master in Mei County of the Northern Song Dynasty, and I did not expect that he was also related to our Fufeng County. According to legend, Zhang Zai set out from Hengqu Town to cross the Weihe Beach in Luojia Village, searched for and hung the ruins of Ma Rong's Tent Terrace in the area of Fufeng Dai tent, and then hiked to the Xianshan Temple in Fufeng Wujing Town, where he lived in seclusion for many years, during which he studied, wrote, and lectured, and conducted the "Well Field" experiment there with his disciples. Qing Jiaqing's "Fufeng County Chronicle" has many records about Mr. Zhang Zai's historical sites: "Twenty miles to the county, the path is strange, the peaks are beautiful, the view of the south Weishui is picturesque, and it is said that the former sages hid here, and the Zhang Hengqu was also covered." Kensan-ji Temple is in Yan. "Zhang Hengqu Ancestral Hall, in the county Nanxian Mountain Temple, Hengqu Reading Office also." "YiGongsheng Wang Yingke Youxian Mountain Temple, west of Xicheng Mountain, north of Noonjing, are all famous because Zhang Zi studied this mountain when he learned to Ida."
The two counties of Fumei are adjacent to each other, and in the ancient Northern Song Dynasty, they were all under the jurisdiction of Fengxiang Province. Both Confucian disciples, Ma Rong first, Zhang Zaiju, the two are not far from each other, the era is more than 800 years apart. I think that Zhang Zai, as a descendant, must have been more or less influenced by Ma Rong's teachings and academic ideas, or that the two should have some inheritance and development relationship in academic thought.
Ma Rong (79~166), zi ji chang, right Fufeng Maoling of the Eastern Han Dynasty, was a famous Eastern Han Dynasty general Ma Yuancongsun, Eastern Han Confucian scholar, famous scribe, and literary scholar, who served successively as a school secretary Langzhong, Hejian Wangfu Changshi, Langzhong, Xu Changling, Yilang, Wudu Taishou, and Nanjun Taishou. When he was young, he was gifted and intelligent, sensitive and studious, and studied Confucianism under Jingzhao Confucian Shengzhi and Ban Zhao; in his youth, he studied hard in the Xianyou Temple not far from Chang'an; in middle age, he entered the Eastern Temple, and devoted himself to the Qunjing, including the Analects, the Book of Poetry, the Book of Filial Piety, the Zhou Yi, the Three Rites, the Book of Shangshu, LaoZi, the Departure from Sorrow, huainanzi, and the biography of the daughters; in addition, he also wrote 21 articles, such as endowments, hymns, tablets, recitations, books, notes, tables, seven words, piano songs, countermeasures, and testaments. Because of his abundant writings, he established his status as a "general Confucian". Ma Rong was unsuccessful several times, and was eventually dismissed from office with illness. Later, he built a high platform in my hometown, held a crimson tent, taught disciples before, and then led female music, with more than 400 students, more than 50 people who entered the hall, Zheng Xuan and Lu Zhi were the best of them, and the disciples Liu Bei, Cui Yan, and Gongsun Zhan were also well-known historical superstars. Because Ma Rong was sitting in the tent to teach apprentices, posterity used the word "tent" as the honorific title for the master or lecture. It is rumored that a certain student violated the system, Ma Rong held the straw and beat it angrily, the blood stained the straw, threw it on the ground, the straw was resurrected, blossomed and bore fruit, everyone thought it was strange, so they called this grass "salary grass", so the allusion of "passing on the salary of the tent" is still widely spread today. Liu Hanfang of Fufengzhi County in the Qing Dynasty once wrote a poem about the account, singing about this matter: "The wind and the wind pass on the scriptures at night, sitting on the red makeup overnight screen." The song blows the rhyme of the present, and the yellow oriole cries and wakes up. Ma Rong's salary has made great contributions to the inheritance and development of Confucian culture, thus leaving behind a legend and a thousand-year-old story.
In the history of Fufeng, there were four famous families of "Ban Ma Geng Dou", of which the Ma family was the most prosperous, the Eastern Han Dynasty Fubo general Ma Yuan and the Tongru Ma Rong, the two can be described as outstanding representatives of the Fufeng Ma family. Since then, the descendants of the Ma clan have spread their branches throughout the country, and there has been no shortage of outstanding people throughout the ages. Even Ma Ying-jeou, who served as the leader of Taiwan, has repeatedly publicly claimed that his ancestral home is Fufeng and is a descendant of Ma Yuan. Ma Yuan's fame is very great, and his life and deeds have been recorded in various historical documents, and his famous saying "when the eldest husband died in battle, Ma Ge wrapped his body and returned" is even more popular and well-known to the whole world. Ma Rong's fame in history is also not small, and the story of him setting up a platform to hang accounts and collect disciples to give lectures is also passed down from generation to generation, but unfortunately, after nearly two thousand years of natural disasters and man-made disasters, most of his magnificent works are scattered, only dozens of articles on the "Zhongjing" and poetry articles have been handed down, and the earthen circular pulpit with a diameter of three or four meters that set up accounts to give lectures can no trace now be found. Therefore, posterity cannot know the full picture of Ma Rong's academic thought. With the passage of time, Ma Rong, as a generation of great Confucians, was gradually obscured by the wind and dust of history.
Although Ma Rong is our Fufeng person, because the age in which he lives has been more than 1800 years ago, there are no historical relics anymore. According to the Qing Dynasty's "Fufeng County Chronicle" and "Fufeng Rural History", in the past, there were Ma Rong Ancestral Halls on Feifeng Mountain and In The Town of Diaoying in Fufeng, but unfortunately they were all demolished later. When I was a child, I heard many elderly people in our local area say that not far from the southeast direction outside the south gate of the town, there was a tent that was rebuilt during the Republic of China, which was probably destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.
Mr. Zhang Zai of Mei County is different. Zhang Zai (1020~1077), with a thick character, whose name and characters are taken from the Zhou Yi Kun Gua: "Hou De Carrier." His ancestral home was Daliang (present-day Kaifeng, Henan), and his great-grandfather was born at the end of the Tang Dynasty, and after five generations of non-Shi, he gave gifts to the Ministry of Servants with his son. His grandfather, Zhang Fu, served as a scholar in shizhong and Jixian Academy during the reign of Emperor Zhenzong of Song, and later gave him the title of Sikong. His father Zhang Di served as a palace attendant during the reign of Emperor Renzong of Song, and in the first year of Tiansheng (1023), he was appointed as the governor of Fuzhou (涪州, in present-day Fuling, Chongqing), and was given the title of Shang Shu Du Guan Langzhong. Zhang Di died of illness while serving in Fuzhou, and the family agreed to be buried in Kaifeng. In the same year, Zhang Zai was sixteen years old, and his younger brother Zhang Jian was only six years old, both were still young, and his mother Lu Shi escorted his father's coffin over the Bashan Mountain, ben Hanzhong out of the valley, to Mei County Hengqu, due to insufficient road fees and a mutiny ahead, unable to return to Kaifeng hometown, so Zhang Dian was buried in Hengqu Town, South Dazhen Valley, Under the Fox Ridge, the whole family lived in Hengqu Town (present-day Mei County, Shaanxi), so the "Guan Xue Compilation" called him "Huan Ren". He later lectured in Hengqu Town for a long time, so scholars called him "Mr. Hengqu". He is the founder of Song Ming Theory and the founder of Guan Xue.
Zhang Zai was brilliant since childhood, lost his father at a young age, became a middle-aged soldier, served as an official in the imperial court, also served in the local government, his career was not smooth, after resigning from the government due to illness, he returned to his hometown of Hengqu Town Chongshouyuan to read and write, accept apprentices and give lectures, and implemented the "well field" system in Hengqu, Fufeng, Chang'an County, and other places, but unfortunately died early due to illness. Zhang Zai's life can be described as a fateful fate, but he has always had great ambitions, likes to read, think, is good at writing, and is knowledgeable, and eventually became a generation of "Guan Xue Grandmasters". Zhang Zai's writings are fruitful, mainly including "Zhengmeng", "Hengqu Yishu", "Dongming", "Ximing", "Jingxue Li Grotto", "Hengqu Zhongyong Solution", "Li Le Shu", "Analects of Discourse", "Sacrifice Ceremony", "Mencius Saying" and other books, as well as "Zhang Zi Quotations" recorded by his disciples. These works were later compiled into the Zhang Zi Quanshu. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, Zhang Zai's works have always been regarded by the rulers as a classic of science, as a must-read for scholars of the kaike, and have been successively incorporated into the Imperial Dictionary of Sexual Theory and the Essence of Sexual Theory. Among them, the book "Jingxue Li Cave" is said to have been written by him during his seclusion at Fufeng Noonjing Kensan Temple. His works "Dong Ming", "Xi Ming", "Four For", "Six Haves", and "Ten Precepts" have been regarded as classics by literati and scholars of all generations, especially his "establishing a heart for heaven and earth, establishing a destiny for the people, continuing to learn for the saints, and opening up peace for all the worlds." "It is also the common ideal and pursuit of the world's readers.
In his lifetime, Zhang Zai was summoned to jin twice, and he wrote books and said that he was poor all his life, and he was poor after his death. After his death, Emperor Shenzong of Song issued an edict to grant "half" of the funeral expenses according to the position of the third hall of chongwen temple. In March of the first year of Yuan Feng (1078), Zhang Zai's body was buried in Hengda Zhengu. The private saying is "sincerity". In the thirteenth year of Jiading in the Southern Song Dynasty (1220), Emperor Ningzong of Song gave him the title of "Duke of Ming". In the first year of ChunYou (1241), Emperor Lizong of Song gave the title of "Guo Bo", from the Temple of Confucius, to the Xianxian, and the 38th place of the Western Temple of the Confucius Temple. In the ninth year of Emperor Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty (1530), he was renamed "First Confucian Zhangzi". In Chinese history, Zhang Zai, together with Zhou Dunyi, Shao Yong, Cheng Yi, and Cheng Hao, was collectively known as the "Five Sons of the Northern Song Dynasty", and the "Guan Xue" he created was called the four major schools of science of "Lian Xue" with Zhou Dunyi's "Lian Xue", Ercheng's "Luo Xue", and Zhu Xi's "Min Xue". Zhang Zaixue Gu Lixing, Du Zhi Haoli, his "Qi Ben Theory" and "People's Compatriots and Things" and other academic ideas are called classics, and his people are also regarded as the Grandmaster of Guan Sergeant Ren. In the early Qing Dynasty, Wang Fuzhi said in the "Preface to Zhang Zizheng's Commentary on Meng": "Zhang Zi's learning, inheriting the aspirations of Kong Meng, and saving the loss of Laizi, such as the bright sun and the beautiful sky, there is no candle, the saints have revived, and there is no one who can change it." Looking at the history of Chinese philosophy, looking at Zhang Zai's coordinate position and its far-reaching influence, Wang Fuzhi's evaluation is not an exaggeration. To this day, the spirit of Guan Xue still has practical significance and valuable value...
Although I am from Fufeng County, because my hometown is closer to Hengqu Town in Mei County, I have to go to Hengqu Ancestral Hall and Hengqu Academy in Hengqu Town more often. It is also the site of the Meixian Zhang Zai Ancestral Relics Management Office, the Meixian Zhangzai Memorial Hall, and the Meixian Zhangzai Thought Research Association, and people go to pay homage, visit and study all year round.
Zhang ZaiCi and Hengqu Academy are integrated, the seat is north to south, the main buildings are arranged sequentially on the central axis, and the auxiliary buildings are symmetrically arranged in the center of the axis. According to the "Genealogy of the Zhang Clan" preserved by the Zhang clan in JingmenNan, Hubei Province, the ancestral hall was formerly known as "Chongshouyuan", where Mr. Zhang Zai studied when he was young, and after his later years, he set up a museum to teach here; after his death, people renamed the "Chongshouyuan" to "Hengqu Academy" in honor of him. In the first year of the Yuan Dynasty (1295), Zhang Zai Ancestral Hall was built on the site of Hengqu Academy. In the third year of the Yuan Dynasty (1326), the Hengqu Academy was restored in the Zhang Zai Ancestral Hall, forming a "former academy and rear ancestral hall" style pattern. The nineteenth year of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty and the tenth year of Guangxu were rebuilt. Since its inception, Zhang Zaici has a history of at least 900 years. The existing buildings were mainly built during the Light Years of the Qing Dynasty, and there were minor repairs during the Guangxu Period. At present, there are more than 50 inscriptions left by literati and inkers of past generations. Since 1990, the Shaanxi Provincial Bureau of Cultural Relics has allocated more than 500,000 yuan to rebuild the main hall and the school. The ancillary cultural relics include the plaque given by the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty on the side of "Xueda Nature Heaven", the stele stone eight links of the temple that was rebuilt by the Ming Wanli and Qianlong dynasties, and the original version of the woodcut "Hengqu Zhi Vol. 6" "The 18th Generation of Mourning Ancestral Shrines", which have been passed down as the Ming and Qing dynasties. Zhang Zai Ancestral Hall is the main building of this courtyard, which was built by posterity to commemorate Mr. Zhang Zai. Entering the main hall of the ancestral hall, there is a shrine in the middle, which enshrines a tall statue of Mr. Zhang Zai, and on each side stands a man and a woman and two small waiters. There is a black lacquer pillar on each side of the shrine, on which is engraved a couplet: "A generation of word of mouth left in Shu Dao, thousands of autumn blood food in Qinzhong." "There are a series of heavy-colored murals on the walls of the hall, which show the life story of Mr. Zhang Zai, such as: studying and enlightening, serving his mother and teaching his brothers, practicing martial arts... Resign from the government and return to Li, etc. According to the falling text in the corner of the wall, this group of murals was made by folk artists in Fufeng County, with bright colors, delicate and smooth lines, and vivid images.
Zhang Zai's historical sites in Fufeng County are mainly in the area of Xianshan Temple in Nanguan Village, Wujing Town, 15 miles south of the county. There was once the Zhang Zai Ancestral Hall and the remains of the "Ida". Qing Jiaqing's "Chronicle of Fufeng County" records that Xianshan Temple was built in the fifth year of the Northern Song Dynasty (994), and Zhang Zai once hid here to read and lecture, so it was named Xianshan. Here the road is strange, the peaks are winding and beautiful, overlooking the end of the south Weishui, the distant mountains are hidden, the near water is like a belt, whenever the sun sets in the west, the light reflects the ancient temple, the lush ancient trees, the temple pavilion, the screening of the brilliance, the twists and turns, the dark cave is bright. "Xianshan Evening Illumination" was once one of the eight scenic spots of Fufeng, and since the Ming and Qing dynasties, literati and scholars have often traveled to Xianshan Mountain, and there are many inscriptions. The temple's ancient buildings, such as the Brick Pagoda of the Yuan Dynasty, the Ming and Qing Dynasty Buildings, the ZhangFuzi Hall, the Great Buddha Hall, the Mountain Gate, and the Monk's House, were demolished in 1958. Since 1984, Buddhists have rebuilt five Buddhist halls and two monks' stove houses on their own, and the ancient temple of Xianshan has only been initially restored...
In 2020, coinciding with the 1,000th anniversary of Mr. Zhang Zai's birth, the newly built Zhang Zai Cultural Park covering an area of more than 100 acres was opened to the outside world, and many experts and scholars and news media in Shaanxi and even the whole country gathered in Meixian County, where a high-end academic forum on Guanxue was held.
Ma Rong and Zhang Zai, both of them are historical and cultural celebrities in our Baoji area, as Confucian sages, educators, and thinkers, although their fates are not the same, their life stories have touched and inspired future generations, especially they have received disciples to teach and educate the people of the four directions and many disciples, and their academic ideas have also influenced generations of future generations. To this day, these two old masters are worthy of our study, admiration and commemoration.
On December 25, 2020, he was half-awake in Xi'an
About the Author Liu Shengping, born in 1979, Fufeng, Shaanxi, now living in Xi'an, senior planner and young writer. He is a member of the Chinese Essayists Association, the Shaanxi Writers Association, the Director of the Shaanxi Literary Creation Research Association, the Shaanxi Prose Literature Society, the Shaanxi Workers Writers Association, and the Shaanxi Folk Writers Association. He has published more than 1 million words of literary works in xi'an daily, Baoji daily, Xianyang daily, Kunshan daily, Yulin evening news, minzu daily, Huashang daily, Chinese literature, Yellow River literature, Huaxia prose, Chinese hundred flowers, juvenile monthly magazine, migrant literature, Shaanxi workers' daily, culture and art newspaper, northwest information newspaper and other publications. His works have been selected into anthologies such as "The Essence of Chinese Prose", "Selected Contemporary Literary Works", "Selected Essays of Shaanxi Youth", "Sixty Years of Baoji Literature" and so on. He has co-edited "Selected Essays of Xifu" and "Selected Essays of Contemporary Fufeng Writers", published the collection of essays "Dream Back to Hometown Pass", the collection of travel essays "West Road Xingyin", the collection of essays "Dream Yin Guanzhong", and the collection of novels "The Train Driving to Spring".