Tang Bin (1627 – 1687 CE), also spelled Kong Bo, Jing Dan (荆岘), and Late Qian'an (潜庵). In the early Qing Dynasty, He was a native of Sui Prefecture (睢州, in modern Shangqiu Sui County, Henan). Born from the old clan, Chongzhen took the boy exam in the fourteenth year, and read books such as "Zuo Zhuan" and "Warring States Policy" before the age of fifteen. Throughout his life, he was honest and honest, sympathetic to the hardships of the people everywhere he went, cleaned up the evils, and achieved remarkable political achievements.
Tang Bin entered the priesthood in the ninth year of Shunzhi in 1652, accompanied Shunzhi to read books, gave lectures to Kangxi, and taught Kangxi's crown prince, but was unsuccessful, and the prince was deposed. He died in fear of death in the 25th year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty (October 11, 1687 AD) at the age of sixty-one.
Tang Bin was born in the old clan and had a strict tutor. Ming Chongzhen fourteen years (1641) 14 years old to take the boy exam, before the age of fifteen to read the "Zuo Zhuan", "Warring States Policy", "Ram", "History", "Book of Han", etc., the entire basic education was completed in the Ming Dynasty, after entering the Qing Dynasty as a Han intellectual, the first to enter the Qing Dynasty and vigorously promote the Qing government advocated the policy of suppressing Han culture. But life is simple, as the people of the time called it. During Tang Bin's tenure, fish and meat were not included in the Government Bureau, and he only bought three pieces of tofu as a dish every day, known as "tofu soup". In his life, he was obedient to the Manchu Qing Dynasty, sympathetic to the hardships of the people everywhere he went, the evils were clean, and the political achievements were remarkable, in order to encourage the Han people to imitate Tang Bin and be obedient to the dynasty, Tang Bin was respected by the Qing Dynasty as a "famous minister of science".
Tang Bin's main achievements were in the Kangxi Dynasty, and he was an official to a cabinet scholar, an inspector of Jiangning, and a rebbe Shangshu. Throughout his life as an official, tang Bin devoted more than a year's energy to the management of river affairs and water transportation, and paid attention to reducing the burdens of the people, relieving disasters and relieving disasters, and rejuvenating the interests and eliminating harms; thus he always devoted himself to practicing the Confucian "people-oriented" thinking of "self-cultivation, family unity, governance of the country, and peace in the world," and made certain contributions to changing "full of hazelnuts and desolation, and sparse number of people" to "breeding people in the prosperous world and never adding endowments."
Tang Bin was the official to the Ministry of Works Shangshu, but the crowd was alone. Throughout his life, he was obedient, benevolent and loving to the people, and achieved remarkable political achievements. However, without the integrity and masculinity of the intellectuals from ancient times, he succumbed to the Manchu power and did not dare to tell the truth, and the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty also said that he was "inconsistent in words and deeds", and finally died of depression and fear in contradictions. It was not until forty-five years later, when the Manchus in the tenth year of Yongzheng set off a climax of the "literal prison" against the Han people, and set up Tang Bin as a positive example of a Han official for the Han people to learn from and emulate, and issued an edict to use Tang Bin to enter the ancestral hall of the Xianliang Temple. In the first year of Qianlong (1735), 48 years after his death, Tang Bin was posthumously given the title of "Wenzheng", and Daoguang was three years from the Confucius Temple.
Tang Bin went through the Shunzhi and Kangxi dynasties, and successively served as the deputy envoy of the Shaanxi Cloth Envoy Department, the Jiangxi Cloth Envoy Department, the Hanlin Academy Attendant, the President of the History of Ming, the Vice President of the Great Qing Huidian, the Ceremonial Attendant, the Inspector of Jiangsu, the Libu Shangshu in charge of Zhan Shifu, and the Shangshu of the Ministry of Works. He was morally pure and his writings were elegant, and he was involved in philosophy, historiography, and literature. The Qing Dynasty's "literal prison" was fierce, "the Qing Dynasty killed the elite of the Confucians, and killed almost all those who were the most outstanding, the wisest, the most Taoist lineage, and the most backbone to fight." The rest is not enough. Then he co-opted the mediocre and the weak and the confused, and the model of the tree slave, and falsely called this the Shifan Teacher Fan Shifan. ”
Tang Bin's deference to the Manchu Qing met the need to suppress the Han chinese politically. Fang Bao of the Qing Dynasty was once imprisoned for the "prison of words", and Tang Bin once said good things about him and rescued him. Fang Bao praised him: "The famous courtiers of the national dynasty will be the first to push the Duke of Suizhou Tang." "Tang Bin was a famous minister of the Qing Dynasty, a famous Confucian of the Central Plains, a famous writer and historian.
In his later years, he tutored the prince with the title of Shangshu of the Ministry of Rites, but the counseling of the prince was not successful, and eventually even the identity of the prince was abolished.
In the twenty-sixth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1687), he was reappointed as shangshu of the Ministry of Works, impeached, and died in fear in October. He is the author of "Tangzi Testament".
Tang Bin served as an official in Shaanxi, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, and Beijing for twelve years, including more than five years of military affairs.
Tang Bin considered his father's old age and requested to resign from the government on the grounds of illness, and after his father died, he guarded the funeral for his father. At the end of the mourning period, he heard that Sun Qifeng, a native of Rongcheng, was lecturing at Xia Feng, so he carried a book box and went to study with him. In the seventeenth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the emperor issued an edict to open the erudite Hong Confucian branch to take the scholars, and among the Han people, Shangshu Wei Xiangshu and the deputy capital Yushi Jin, who had entered the Qing Dynasty earlier, recommended Tang Bin, because there were few Han applicants, Tang Bin passed the first class, gave the Hanlin Academy to speak, and participated in the study of the "History of Ming", while the famous theorist Lü Liuliang saw through the Qing Dynasty's trick of trying to win over the Famous Han scholars at that time, and sternly refused the first recommendation of the Zhejiang parties and maintained his own national temperament. In the 20th year of the Kangxi Dynasty, Tang Bin served as a Commentator for the Japanese Lecture and The Examiner of the Zhejiang Township Examination, and was later promoted to the Attendant of the Hanlin Academy. In the twenty-first year, he was appointed as the chief official of the History of Ming and promoted to Zuo Shuzi of the Tang Dynasty.
Twenty-three years later, he was promoted to Cabinet Bachelor. Inspector Jiang Ning was short of personnel, and the imperial court ministers had already nominated candidates, and the emperor said: "Now they are called Daoist scholars, and some of them are inconsistent in words and deeds. I heard that Tang Bin studied with Sun Qifeng, and his conduct was very good, and he could supplement Inspector Jiang Ning. When Tang Bin was about to leave, the emperor said to him: "To be an official, you should give priority to correct customs." Jiangsu customs advocate luxury, and efforts should be made to educate and guide, which is not something that can be done overnight, and must be carried out slowly so that they can change their original concepts. He also gave a kurama, ten pieces of clothing, and five hundred taels of silver, and three handwritten notes, saying, "Now it is time to leave the capital, and open it as if you were seeing me." In October, the emperor toured the south, went to Suzhou, and said to Tang Bin: "I have always heard that Suzhou Valve is the most prosperous area, and today I look at the customs and customs there, advocating vanity, content with enjoyment, more people engaged in business, fewer people cultivating the land." You should make them get rid of the habit of luxury and return to simplicity, and pursue its roots in everything, and perhaps save the decadent atmosphere by putting agriculture first. ”
Tang Bin said: "Public is clear, and honest is mighty." A year before Tang Bin became the inspector of Jiangsu, there was a flood in the Yangzhou area of Jiangnan, and Yu Guozhu, the former inspector of Jiangsu, once went to the imperial court and said: "The water has receded, the field can be cultivated, and next year it will be a levy." However, after Tang Bin arrived at his post to investigate, he saw that many fields were still flooded, and although the water in some fields had retreated, they had not had time to cultivate and could not pay taxes the next year. Therefore, he sent a letter to the imperial court and exempted him from taxes in the Yangzhou area of Jiangnan.
In the second year of Tang Bin's tenure as governor of Jiangsu, there was a drought in Yangzhou, and hundreds of thousands of people were displaced. Tang Bin ordered the counties to open official warehouses for disaster relief, and then mobilized the province's civil and military officials to donate enthusiastically, but they still paid a cup of water. Therefore, Tang Bin ordered Jiangsu envoys to allocate 50,000 taels of silver from the state treasury and send people to the Huguang area, which is rich in rice, to purchase rice. At that time, some officials advised Tang Bin: "You can't use the silver of the national treasury privately, if you want to use it, you should write to the emperor, if you use it privately, the emperor will blame it, and you can't bear it." Tang Bin said, "If we had played the chapter now, and waited for the emperor's approval, the victims would have starved to death long ago." Use it now, our Emperor is very merciful, he will not blame us. He wanted to blame me, and the guilt would be borne by me alone, that is, I would be relieved of my duties, but it would be worth saving the victims of the whole of Yangzhou. Tang Bin knew that the fifty thousand taels of silver could not fundamentally solve the problem, so he asked the officials who went to buy rice to spread news along the way, saying that the price of rice in Yangzhou had risen to one or two silver and one bucket. As a result, grain merchants in various places saw that it was profitable and transported rice to Yangzhou one after another, and finally there was more rice, and the price of rice fell. In this way, Tang Bin finally reduced the price of a bucket of rice to a hundred copper coins, and the famine caused by the drought was quickly alleviated.
Tang Bin's life was hard, his former residence was a bamboo hedge, extremely simple, and when he died, there were only eight or two pieces of silver left in the family, and he did not even have the money to buy a coffin. Many years after Tang Bin's death, his grandson Tang Zhixu became a high-ranking official again, and the imperial court gave Tang Bin the title of "Wenzheng". This is the highest title in feudal society, the entire Qing Dynasty, only eight people got this title, of which these eight people generally deserve the title of "Wenzheng", especially Zeng Wenzheng Duke (Guofan) is even more deserved.
After Tang Bin's death, he was buried in the south of Jiwucheng Village, Huanggang Township, Ningling County, and there are still graves that still exist, which are slightly desolate. In this family cemetery, Tang Bin and his four sons and a nephew are buried. The Tang Bin Ancestral Hall (actually the ancestral hall built by Tang Bin for his mother) located in the western section of Jiefang Road in Sui County ,because Tang Bin's reputation was even greater, and posterity was happy to misrepresent it. The ancestral hall is grand, and from this point of view, it seems that Tang Bin is not so poor that he "doesn't even have the money to buy a coffin"), but is a provincial-level cultural relics protection unit, a famous cultural relics tourist attraction in Sui County.