Wei Xiao (魏校, 1483–1543) was a Ming-dynasty official and thinker. His courtesy name was Zicai (子才), also written Zicai (子材); he styled himself Zhuangqu (莊渠), and his original family surname was Li (李).
His native place is variously given as Yuanhe and Kunshan; he is also described as a native of Kunshan in Suzhou Prefecture and of Kunshan County in Zhili, corresponding to present-day Kunshan City, Jiangsu. He lived at Zhuangqu near Fengmen in Suzhou and adopted Zhuangqu as his sobriquet.
Life
His family was listed with great-grandfather Wei Lin and grandfather Wei Zhong; his father appears as Wei Mou or Wei Kui, his mother as Zhang, his elder brother and younger brother as Wei Mou, and his wife as Wang.
His schooling record places him as a shengyuan, ranked second. In 1504, the seventeenth year of the Hongzhi era, he placed second in the Yingtian Prefecture provincial examination and became a juren; the juren ranking is also given as seventh. In 1505, he passed the metropolitan examination in seventh place and the palace examination in the second class, ninth place.
Early in the Zhengde era, he was appointed director in the Nanjing Ministry of Justice, then promoted through yuanwailang to langzhong. While serving there, he administered affairs according to his own judgment and would not submit to Liu Lang, the supervising eunuch. To avoid Liu Jin’s persecution, he transferred to a Zhifang lang in the Ministry of War, a post also rendered as Ministry of War langzhong; he soon returned home, with the reason variously given as illness or mourning.
At the beginning of the Jiajing era, he was appointed Guangdong educational vice commissioner and returned home for mourning his father; after completing the mourning period, he was appointed Jiangxi military-defense vice commissioner, transferred to supervise Henan education, and three months later became vice minister of the Court of Judicial Review. The following year he became director of the Imperial Academy and served as a daily lecturer in the Classics Banquet. He was subsequently appointed an additional vice minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices; in Jiajing’s eighth year he became its minister and supervisor of the Siyi Institute, retiring the next year to return home.
He died in the twenty-second year of Jiajing, 1543, was posthumously made Right Vice Minister of Rites, and received the posthumous name Gongjian (恭簡).
Scholarship and associations
Wei Xiao privately followed Hu Juren’s learning of reverence, argued that principle and qi were unified, and sought to connect the teachings of the various Confucian traditions, distinguishing among them with particular precision. His pupils and disciples included Xu Guan, Tang Shunzhi, Gui Youguang, Wang Jingchen, and Wang Yingdian; Gui Youguang is identified as his pupil, while Tang Shunzhi is identified both as a pupil and a disciple.
Zhou Guang was his friend, and he exchanged poetic responses with Xu Shen. Cui Xian wrote a preface for one of his works; Wei Xiao wrote an epitaph for Li Cang, while the tomb inscription for Xu Zhongxing and the biography of Lu Ao were also written by him. He received letters from Zhang Bangqi, Fang Feng, Fang Peng, Fang Liangyong, Wang Shenzhong, Zhou Yong, and Yang Lian.
Works
His writings include Daxue Zhigui (《大學指歸》), two juan with one appended juan of textual variants; Zhouli Yange Zhuan (《周禮沿革傳》), four juan; Chunqiu Jingshi (《春秋經世》), one juan; and Liushu Jingyun (《六書精蘊》). The titles Zhuangqu Yishu (《莊渠遺書》) and the sixteen-juan Zhuangqu xiansheng yishu (《莊渠先生遺書》) are also associated with him.
Legacy
Wei Xiao was grouped with Hu Shining, Li Chengxun, and Yu Youshan as the Nandu Four Gentlemen (南都四君子).
References
- CBDB Wei Jiao (30595)
- 搜韵 魏校 (50817)
- Wikidata Wei Xiao (Q16077659)