Wang Fuzhi

Life

In 1642, the fifteenth year of the Chongzhen reign, Wang Fuzhi became a juren. During the Southern Ming Yongli period he served as a xingren in the Office of Travelers. In the final years of the Ming and the early Qing, he raised a volunteer force at Hengshan to resist the Qing; after its defeat he fled to Zhaoqing, joined the Yongli emperor, and served in Qu Shisi’s command.

When Zhang Xianzhong captured Hengzhou, he established puppet offices and sought to recruit Fuzhi, who escaped to Nanyue. After Fuzhi’s father was seized as a hostage, Fuzhi cut his own limbs with a knife and presented himself in exchange; the captors saw his wounds and released him, and father and son returned safely. After the Yongli regime fell and the hope of restoring the Ming had faded, Fuzhi hid for a time in Yao-inhabited mountain areas, then built an earthen chamber at Shichuanshan, called it Guanshengju, and shut himself away to write.

When Wu Sangui’s anti-Qing rising began, Fuzhi again fled into the mountains and never shaved his head. After Wu’s forces were defeated, a provincial governor sent grain and silk and invited him to an audience; Fuzhi declined the silk but accepted the grain, and died soon afterward. He was a friend of Qian Chengzhi, while Zhou Shiyi, Tang Duanhu, and Zhang Youmo were recorded as his students.

Fuzhi went to Wuchang four times for the provincial examinations. At the Renwu examination of the fifteenth Chongzhen year, he met Wang Yuanceng, Xiong Shi, and more than a hundred others at the Yellow Crane Tower to compose poems by rhyme; he wrote “A Great Gathering at the Yellow Crane, Using Xiong Weigong’s Rhyme,” and his poem “Guang’ai shi” contains the lines “The Yellow Crane rises above the tower in autumn; I pour wine and invite the river moon.”

Intellectual thought

Fuzhi’s scholarship ranged across the classics, history, the various philosophical schools, astronomy, calendrical studies, and literature. He also produced work associated with classical learning, history, Neo-Confucianism, philosophy, poetry, ci poetry, drama, and intellectual thought. Deeply aligned with Zhang Zai’s reading of the Zhengmeng, he developed it in the Inner and Outer Chapters of the Simen lu.

In his learning on the Changes, he rejected the teachings of Chen Tuan and the methods of Jing Fang, forcefully opposed the so-called Xiantian diagrams and miscellaneous claims in apocryphal writings, and refused empty talk of metaphysical mystery or forced attachment to Laozi and Zhuangzi; instead, he required arguments to be grounded in evidence and principles to be closely reasoned. His interpretation of the Shangshu often advanced new but well-grounded meanings. In discussing the Shijing, he corrected the identification of names and things and the interpretation of words, supplemented omissions in earlier commentaries, and treated rhyme as a subject of analysis rather than conjecture.

In poetics, he held that poetry expresses the will and conveys the emotions and dispositions, and treated fu as a form of poetry. He stated that he had studied poetry for nearly forty years.

Works and reception

His works in classical and Neo-Confucian learning include 《周易稗疏》, 《張子正蒙注》, 《尚書引義》, 《書經稗疏》, 《春秋稗疏》, 《春秋家說》, and 《詩經稗疏》. Other works in the classical tradition include 《周易內傳》, 《周易外傳》, 《周易考異》, 《四書稗疏》, 《四書考異》, 《四書訓義》, 《詩廣傳》, and 《詩經葉韻辨》.

His philosophical, historical, and intellectual writings include 《老子衍》, 《莊子解》, 《莊子通》, 《黃書》, 《噩夢》, and 《讀通鑑論》. His literary works include 《夕堂永日緒論》, 《詩繹》, 《薑齋文集》, and 《薑齋詩集》; his ci collections include 《鼓棹初集》, 《鼓棹二集》, and 《瀟湘怨詞》, collectively known as 《薑齋詞》.

The Chuanshan yishu was first engraved during the Daoguang period, a complete edition appeared during the Tongzhi period, and later additions brought it to 358 juan. His writings in various genres are also described as numbering nearly one hundred works. Later generations grouped him with Gu Yanwu and Huang Zongxi as the “Three Great Confucians of the Early Qing.” He was later enshrined in the Confucian temple.