Xu Yuanwen was a native of Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, during the Qing Dynasty. His family was the Kunshan Wang, his great-grandfather was a jinshi during the Wanli Dynasty, and the official was a shaoqing of the Taibu Temple; both his grandfather and father were gongsheng of the Ming Dynasty. Xu Yuanwen's mother was also from the Gu family of Kunshan, and his uncle was the famous Gu Yanwu. Xu Yuanwen and his brothers Xu Qianxue and Xu Bingyi were all jinshi, and were once known as "Kunshan Three Xu". Xu Yuanwen studied hard and studied hard since he was a child. He specialized in studying the Six Classics, not only exploring the origin of the meaning in the book, but also hoping to guide the principles in the book to practice. He wrote articles demanding elegance and aversion to using flowery rhetoric. Similarly, his calligraphy is neat and decent, not scribbled arbitrarily. At that time, there was a wave of literary associations in Kunshan, and literati formed associations one after another.
Xu Yuanwen, together with his brothers Xu Qianxue and Xu Bingyi, also established the Literary Society, named "Shenwen", and returned to the purpose of the establishment of Confucian science to oppose the more popular erotic words at that time. All these reflect Xu Yuanwen's upright and rigorous style of doing things for learning. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, in order to enrich the national treasury and increase taxes, the imperial court conducted an inventory of hidden land and acres, and rewarded local officials who implemented this policy. In this way, some local officials have fabricated acres of land out of thin air in order to promote their ranks and get rich, increasing the unwarranted burden on the peasants, causing the local peasants to lose their homes and sell their fields. When he was in Kunshan, Xu Yuanwen was also implicated in the inventory policy and was listed in the arrears, but in fact these taxes were added out of thin air. Xu Yuanwen decided to report this situation to the emperor in order to severely punish corrupt officials and stop harming the common people.
Xu Yuanwen soon found a series of evidence that local officials had forged acres of land and asked the emperor to severely punish them. The Kangxi Emperor attached great importance to it and instructed the officials to discuss and deal with it, which deterred the local officials, and from then on, the practice of falsely reporting the land and acres and harming the peasants was gradually corrected. Xu Yuanwen was modest and cautious in his career, loyal and peaceful, but when things happened, he was just and honest, and dared to speak out. Once, Jiuqing would push jiangxi to be the candidate for the post of envoy, and someone would elect the Daoist zhang Zhongju to serve as the emissary, but the imperial history of Tang Dynasty Yi opposed it, so someone drafted a song to impeach Tang Mang. The vice-chancellor Li Xiangen and Li Zongkong were reluctant to sign the impeachment chapter and were also impeached. The Kangxi Emperor approved the song, the Tang Dynasty was dismissed from his post, and Erli was demoted and called.
When Xu Yuanwen learned of this, he immediately went to the stage: the selection of officials is to be carried out in an atmosphere of consultation and discussion, and everyone must express their opinions. Once there is disagreement, they will be impeached, and who will dare to easily refute it in the future? Who would dare to speak up? If there are powerful officials who manipulate the court and manipulate the appointment and selection of officials, the crowd will only echo the rumors, and the consequences will be unimaginable. The Kangxi Emperor thought xu Yuanwen was right, so he exempted everyone from punishment. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, in addition to the policy of donating funds and receiving vegetables in the Guozi Prison, the same policy of donating funds and awarding officials was also implemented, stipulating that those who donated funds to obtain official positions would be promoted after three years, and those who were incompetent would be dismissed. However, in the specific implementation, the strike is useless. Because later it was stipulated that those who had completed three years of service would be promoted as long as they donated again, thus causing a large backlog of officials and corruption.
Xu Yuanwen saw such a situation and believed that the harm of this policy was even worse than the harm of donating funds and prisons. When he was serving as the imperial history of Zuo Du, he happened to encounter a major event: there were more than 3,000 pen-and-posted requests from various departments of the imperial court to be promoted according to the example of donation and to become officials in prefectures and counties. Xu Yuanwen was determined to stop this momentum and refused to handle it. Many people advised him that the future of many people was at stake, and that these strokes could not be underestimated, although the official position was low, but in fact some of the pens were directly assigned by the emperor to monitor the officials of the department, and if they offended them, it would be tantamount to causing trouble. Xu Yuanwen already knew about these situations, but he considered the country's long-term officials and resolutely did not budge, and told his colleagues that I alone was responsible for this matter, and the consequences were also borne by me alone.
He directly advised the emperor on these situations, and the Kangxi Emperor agreed with Xu Yuanwen's view, and his opinion focused on streamlining officials and clarifying the rule of officials, in fact, the ultimate purpose was for the stability of the country, so the Kangxi Emperor eventually adopted Xu Yuanwen's opinion. Xu Yuanwen is a man of external and internal gang, outspoken and unscrupulous, he obeys the law and obeys the law for the government, and is not afraid of the powerful. Actively handling affairs in office, reforming unreasonable policies, once the responsibility is determined, it is indispensable to shoulder the responsibility and the courage to bear the consequences. From the perspective of the national economy and the people's livelihood, Xu Yuanwen repeatedly told the emperor bluntly, and received good results. In his career of nearly forty years, Xu Yuanwen has made important contributions to the country, and his official prestige has always been admired.
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