Wei Xi (魏禧), Zi NingShu (字宁叔), Shuzi (号叔子), Zhi Zhai (欲斋), a native of Ningdu, Jiangxi, was one of the three great masters of ancient Chinese in the early Qing Dynasty. At the same time, he was also one of the "Three Weis of Ningdu" and the "Nine Sons of YiTang". Wei Xi, Hou and Wang were both remnants of the late Ming Dynasty, but unlike them, the other two participated in the imperial examination and embarked on a career path, which was used by the Qing court. Only Wei Xi never participated in the Imperial Examination, and has always been active in the literary circles of the time as a relic of the late Ming Dynasty. It is precisely because of this identity that Wei Xi's articles and ideological theories always bear a strong political and national color. In order to realize the great ambition of opposing the Qing Dynasty and restoring the Ming Dynasty, he traveled from the secluded mountains and forests to the secular world, traveling for nearly twenty years, "making friends with extraordinary people in the world." Looking at Wei Xi's life, why not be the epitome of the lives of the remnants of the late Qing Dynasty?
Wei Xi at the end of the Ming Dynasty was still a hot-blooded young man with great ambitions, who actively participated in scientific expeditions, made friends with powerful people and celebrities, and talked freely about the methods of war, hoping that one day he would be able to realize his lofty ideal of governing the country and ensuring national security. However, all these great wishes began to disappear after the death of the Ming Chongzhen Emperor. Wei Xi, who had experienced the pain of his homeland, wrote many generous articles praising those martyrs in an attempt to awaken the love and blood of others. When the Ming general Yang Yanlin threw himself into the water and died, Wei Xi went to the burial place of the general many times to worship the heroic spirit.
These national enemies not only did not destroy Wei Xi's fighting spirit, but made him hate Qing Bing even more. The Qing court repeatedly co-opted these late Ming literati, some people chose to commit suicide Ming Zhi, some people chose to surrender and seek peace, Wei Xi did not have such a choice, he decided to completely abandon the Confucian crown. This decision was a heroic and sad choice for the literati, and abandoning Confucianism meant that he did not recognize the existence of the new regime and did not participate in the political court, and at the same time made a fierce attack on the old imperial court, and used his articles to publicly criticize the shortcomings of the Ming court. Such a person hovers between the edges of the old and new dynasties, and is easily abandoned by both dynasties. When Wei Xi wrote those inspiring articles, he never considered whether he would be abandoned by the times, he just wanted to express his anger and sorrow for the destruction of his home country.
In the third year of Shunzhi, Wei Xi, together with his brothers Wei Xiang and Wei Li, and his friend Qiu Weiping, lived in seclusion in the Ningdu Cuiwei Feng Yi Hall and concentrated on literature, which was also a unique style of the remnants of the late Ming Dynasty. Although they live in seclusion in the mountains, this does not mean that they have completely forgotten their homeland and forgotten the previous war years. Wei Xi had never forgotten the restoration of his homeland. He wrote in the article "Reply to Chen Xiaoyuan": "On the day of the life of a gentleman, if he wants to use his whole body, he will not be able to leave the world independent"; he also said in the "Collection of Zheng Libu": "Although he is lying in the cave, he will still be responsible for the world."
Such sentences with clear aspirations are often seen in his articles, which is enough to see that he has not made up his mind to live in seclusion in the mountains and forests for a lifetime, but only to maintain his own integrity and express his hatred for the new regime and the anger in his heart is only to be used or persecuted by the Qing court. During these years of seclusion, Wei Xi's travel footprints were limited to Jiangxi, and basically most of the time he only had contact with the sons of Yi Tang, and the exchanges between them were only limited to pure exchanges of ideas, culture, and scholarship. During Wei Xi's nearly twenty years of seclusion, his identity was simple, just a hermit who hated the Qing Dynasty.
Wei Xi's seclusion career was broken in the first year of the Kangxi Dynasty, and the reason why he was willing to go out of the mountains was because Wei Xi gradually realized that if he stayed in this square inch, he was bound to become self-contained, narrow-minded and ignorant, so that there was really no hope of restoring the country. After understanding this, Wei Xi ended his secluded career and began another stage of his life by traveling around Zhejiang and making friends with the remnants of the Ming Dynasty. During his travels in Zhejiang, he became acquainted with many well-known Jiangnan remnants, and for a time Wei Xi himself gradually became famous in Jiangnan, and the remnants of Jiangsu and Zhejiang rushed to get acquainted with him, so that at that time, there was a saying circulating, "Scholars are ignorant and ignorant, and everyone knows that there is Uncle Wei of Ningdu."
After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, many remnants expressed their ambitions by not entering the army. However, Wei Xi was unusual among many remnants, wandering in the cities around Jiangsu and Zhejiang, in fact, what kind of intentions he had was obvious in his behavior. When Wei Xi first arrived in Jiangnan, he first visited the tomb of the famous Ming Dynasty scholar Zhongjie Shi Kefa, and even went to jinling Yuhuatai to remember his homeland and directly state that he did not forget the heart of the former dynasty. He made friends with the literati and celebrities among the remnants of Jiangnan, not to publicize his articles that had been used in the world, but to praise them for not forgetting the integrity of the previous dynasty and not being ashamed of the Qing court. Of course, in the course of this trip, he not only encouraged everyone to continue to maintain integrity, but also advised those remnants who had contacts with Qing officials to pay attention to their identity and integrity, and never forget the pain of the fall of the country.
Wei Xi retired to the mountains this time because he also carried on his shoulders a major figure of Yi Tang's nine sons: befriending heroic heroes and heroes, in an attempt to restore the Ming Dynasty. He once wrote in the narrative of "Gifting The King's Filial Piety" that when there is a change in the world, "there will be a very good and righteous person who is good and light." In order to find these chaotic haojie, he repeatedly wandered in the poor and remote places of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and he believed that only in these places could he find the real chaotic haojie. In fact, Wei Xi's running around and looking for supporters of Haojie Zhishi was actually the common gesture of most of the remnants of the late Ming Dynasty at the time of the change of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Because in addition to Wei Xi, Gu Yanwu, Yan Yuan, and others had all traveled far away, just to make friends and find people who could serve as anti-Qing and restore the Ming Dynasty.
Heroes and heroes are an indispensable force in the anti-Qing team, and young talents are actually equally important. Therefore, when Wei Xi traveled to Jiangnan, he also undertook the important task of finding, co-opting and absorbing young talents. Because in Wei Xi's concept, the difficulties in the world and the variables in the world, "the non-youthful flesh and blood are not competent enough." With this goal in mind, he traveled to Jiangsu and Zhejiang for more than ten years and met many young talents, including Gan Jing, Xiong Yi and others. This Xiong Yi also lived in seclusion in the mountains and forests like Wei Xi in the early years, and after getting acquainted with Wei Xi, Wei Xi hoped that the teenager could follow him and show his original intention of going out of the mountain like him, after which Xiong Yi also walked out of the mountain forest and worshiped Wei Xi as a teacher to learn the application of the scriptures.
Although Wei Xi once ran around for the great ideal of opposing the Qing Dynasty and restoring the Ming Dynasty, he also encountered many difficulties and obstacles when visiting the remnants of the late Ming Dynasty and making friends with heroic heroes and young talents. However, his heroic and fearless spirit could only collapse in front of reality in the end. In the course of a long period of travel, Wei Xi gradually felt the difficulty and hopelessness of retro. Even though those remnants can continue to uphold their integrity, they are more often in a situation where they are in a difficult situation. Some of them were old and sick, some were persecuted by the imperial court, some died of old age, some were young and fearless but could not empathize with the hatred of the country and the family, and with the increasing stability of the rule of the Qing court, it was even more consuming the will of most people to resist.
In the end, only a few remnants of the late Ming Dynasty, such as Wei Xi, were left to fight alone here, and there was no successor, and what a sad thing. After more than ten years of travel, Wei Xi's heroic ambition to relieve the world is gradually being worn away, and he even expressed his desire to escape from the world and live in seclusion once again in "Sending Bao Sheng North to Shexian County". In the twelfth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, Wei Xi had traveled around Jiangnan for twelve years, and in this year he received the news of the death of his friend, and coupled with the recurrence of his own illness, Wei Xi once again returned to the mountains to live in seclusion.
After three years, after some deep consideration, Wei Xi decided to go out of the mountain again, and Wei Xi, who came out of the mountain again, was no longer the teenager who had the dream of restoring the country before, and he planned to take the final stage of his life as the destination through apprenticeship and writing. In his later years, Wei Xi did indeed cultivate many talented people. For example, Wang Yuan, Liang Fen and others were influenced by the ideological theories in his articles. In addition to his apprentices, he also wrote commentaries on the articles of Li Qing, Mei Wending, Gu Zuyu and others, which were used by later generations and also laid the foundation for Wei Xi's important identity as the "Three Greats of the Early Qing Dynasty".
Wei Xi also had a major change in his later years, when he began to associate with Qing officials. In his middle age, Wei Xiqing and middle-aged people scoffed at making friends with powerful celebrities, and he even called himself in his own article: "I am not happy to be close to nobles, and I am ashamed to be a famous person in the world." However, in his later years, he no longer paid so much attention to personal reputation, and even gave up his previous political ethics and began to have contacts with Qing officials, and Wei Xi actually did this because he saw in these officials his former lofty ambitions for the people's livelihood and social welfare. He pinned the people's livelihood of the world on these Qing officials who interacted with him. In fact, this is not a rebellion against the previous dynasty, but shows Wei Xi's open-mindedness as a remnant of the late Qing Dynasty. When there was no hope of restoring the country, he changed his thinking and achieved his former ideals through another method, and those who could be so mastered were no longer in the majority.
Throughout Wei Xi's life, he once lived in seclusion twice, entered the world twice, and although he did not recover in the end, in his later years, he did not have a hostile or contemptuous attitude in the current society because of the Ming and Qing dynasties, but in the final stage of his life, he accepted the Qing court with a tolerant attitude, and even cultivated many talented people for the current society, leaving many masterpieces for future generations. Wei Xi was the true sage of this era.
Resources:
"Examination of WeixiJiang-Zhejiang Travel Activities"
"On Wei Xi's Travels in the Early Qing Dynasty and the Life of His Immigrants"
"The Representative of the Ming Relics of Folk Literature: On the Spirit of the Times of Wei Xi"