Cheng Xiao, whose name is Ji Ming, is a native of Dong'a, Dongjun, and the grandson of Cheng Yu, a strategist of Cao Wei during the Three Kingdoms period. Cheng Xiao has been smart and studious since childhood, diligent and hardworking, inheriting the intelligence of his grandfather Cheng Yu, with extensive knowledge and rich knowledge. In the early Huang Dynasty, Cheng Xiao was canonized as a liehou by the imperial court because of his father's outstanding achievements, which was both a tribute to his family.
Cheng Xiao is well versed in the Confucian classics and adheres to Confucian teachings, that is, Confucian education on etiquette, morality, and behavioral norms. In Cheng Xiao's view, the foundation of maintaining order and harmony in the world lies in adhering to the education of the Three Principles and the Five Constants. The three principles are the monarch as the minister, the father as the son, the husband as the wife, and the five constants as benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom, and faith, which are the core principles of personal morality and social ethics in Confucianism.
Cheng Xiao not only pays attention to the ethical construction of the country at the large level, but also attaches more importance to the ethical relationship within the family. He believes that the family is the cell of the country, and the harmony of ethics in the family is directly related to the stability and rise and fall of the country. In his book "Women's Classics", Cheng Xiao elaborated on the education of women's morality, women's words, women's labor, and women's appearance. He emphasized that these four aspects of women are not only related to the behavior of husbands and the harmony of the family, but also the key to the rise and fall of the country.
In the "Women's Dictionary", Cheng Xiao advocated feudal women's education, advocating that women should follow traditional moral norms and should not pursue excessive external beauty and gorgeous rhetoric. He warned that women who only focus on appearance and rhetoric, like the appearance of an orchid but with a thorny heart, are dangerous for the country and can lead to the decay and demise of the family.
Cheng Xiao's views reflect the expectations and limitations of women's roles at the time, as well as his emphasis on maintaining traditional ethics and social order. His ideas had a wide influence in the social context of the time, and also had a profound impact on the concept of family ethics in later generations.
During the Jiaping period, Cheng Xiao served as the squire of the Yellow Gate. During this period, the power of the school officials swelled, and they often acted recklessly beyond the law, bringing unrest and chaos to the city. Cheng Xiao was deeply concerned about this, believing that the actions of the school officials not only violated the law, but also undermined the stability of the city and the authority of the imperial court.
Therefore, Cheng Xiao resolutely went to the "Please Strike the School Officials", in which he listed in detail the various illegal acts of the school officials, and strongly recommended that the imperial court abolish this position. His recital was taken seriously by the Imperial Court, which eventually adopted his suggestion and removed him from the position of school clerk, thus putting an end to the abuse of power and wrongdoing in this position.
After solving the problem of the school officer, he was appointed as the Taishou of Runan, responsible for the administration of Runan County. Later, Cheng Xiao died in his forties. Later, the most famous of his family descendants was Tang Dynasty Cheng Biting Jin!