Tang Shunzhi

Life

His grandfather Tang Gui held the office of 戶科給事中, and his father Tang Bao was prefect of Yongzhou; his great-grandfather Tang Yan, mother Ren, brother Tang Zhengzhi, wife née Zhuang, and son Tang Hezheng are also identified in his family relationships. His collateral kinsman Tang Yin (1498–1552) and maternal grandson Sun Shenxing (1565–1636) are named in the family relationships; his friends included Weng Wanda, Hu Song, Zhou Yi, and Ren Han.

He showed unusual talent in youth and had mastered a wide range of books by early adulthood. In 1528 he passed the Yingtian provincial examination, whose ranking is variously given as sixth and first; in 1529 he placed first in the metropolitan examination, took first in the second class at the palace examination, received the Presented Scholar degree, and was selected as a Shujishi.

After declining to remain in the Hanlin Academy, he was appointed a Ministry of War secretary and then transferred to the Ministry of Personnel. In 1533 he became a Hanlin compiler and helped collate the veritable records of earlier reigns. After he sought leave on grounds of illness, Zhang Cong withheld his memorial and had him dismissed with a permanent ban on reappointment. Recalled in 1539 as a palace official and concurrently appointed an assistant remonstrator in the Eastern Palace, he joined Luo Hongxian and Zhao Shichun in petitioning for the crown prince’s audience ceremony; the petition again led to his removal from office, after which he built a retreat in the Yangxian hills and studied there for more than a decade.

After Japanese raids disturbed the southeast, Zhao Wenhua recommended him for recall as a Nanjing Ministry of War secretary. His father’s mourning prevented him from taking up the appointment at once; after mourning he was summoned as a Directorate of Military Affairs vice director and promoted to director. He inspected the military registers of Jizhen, reported more than thirty thousand vacant posts and the poor combat fitness of the troops present, and submitted nine practical proposals. He was then sent to inspect the armies of the southern capital region and Zhejiang, worked with Hu Zongxian against the raiders, and argued that the best defense was to intercept them at sea before they could land. He personally sailed from Jiangyin to the open sea beyond Jiaomen, covering six or seven hundred li in a day and a night. When the raiders anchored at Chongming’s Sansha, he led the fleet to meet them offshore, taking 120 heads and sinking thirteen vessels; he was promoted to Grand Master of the Court of the Imperial Stud and then to Right Vice Commissioner of the Transmission Office. When Jiangbei was threatened, he ordered Lu Tang to hold Sansha, rode to the relief with Vice Commander Liu Xian, and with Fengyang governor Li Sui defeated the raiders at Yaojiadang. After the enemy withdrew to Miaowan and Sansha again called for aid, he led another attack, personally formed the line with drawn sword and advanced to within a hundred paces of the enemy camp; two months in the hot season aboard ship brought on the illness that forced his return to Taicang.

After Li Sui was transferred to Nanjing, Tang Shunzhi was promoted to Vice Censor-in-Chief and succeeded him as governor of Fengyang. Though gravely ill, he accepted because military affairs were urgent; by the time he crossed the river, Li Sui’s forces had already destroyed the raiders, while Huaiyang was suffering a severe famine, prompting him to submit nine measures for coastal defense and postwar recovery. In spring 1560, during the flood season, he sailed despite illness, passed Jiaoshan, and died at Tongzhou at the age of fifty-four; the court granted funeral sacrifices, and there was also a report that his service earned him an imperial burial grant. The date of his posthumous title Xiangwen is given variously as the Tianqi and Chongzhen eras.

Scholarship and Literature

His studies ranged across astronomy, musical tuning, geography, military science, archery, geometry, and the arts of divination; he was also skilled in martial arts, versed in military methods, and knowledgeable in wushu. After hearing Wang Ji expound the doctrine of innate knowing, he once sat in seclusion for a month with little regard for sleep. He cultivated austere habits, even using a door panel as a bed and dispensing with bedding, while scholars from across the country acclaimed him as a teacher and called him Master Jingchuan.

He promoted prose in the styles of the Tang and Song and, for his expansive and winding classical prose, was associated with the Tang–Song school together with Wang Shenzhong, Mao Kun, and Gui Youguang. He was also counted among the Jiajing Eight Talents and, with Gui Youguang and Wang Shenzhong, among the Jiajing Three Great Masters. His poetry initially followed High Tang models and was praised for the strictness of its regulated verse; later writing turned toward the strange and precipitous, producing both praise and censure.

Works

His collected writings include 《荊川集》, 《荊川先生集》 in twelve juan, 《荊川全集》, 《荊川文集》, and editions of 《荊川先生文集》 in seventeen juan with a three-juan supplement. The bibliography also lists 《荊川稗編》 and 《荊州稗編》, each in 120 juan. His large compilations are described in one account as six series—左、右、文、武、儒、稗—and in another as five.

Other listed works in classical studies, historiography, military learning, mathematics, and literary compilation include 《兩漢解疑》, 《兩晉解疑》, 《五經總論》 in one juan, 《儒編》 in sixty juan, 《兵垣四編》 in five juan, 《南北奉使集》 in two juan, 《句股等六論》 in one juan, 《史纂左編》 in 124 juan, 《右編》 in forty juan, 《四部稿》, 《左氏始末》 in twelve juan, 《廣右戰功錄》 in one juan, 《文編》 in sixty-four juan, 《明文選》 in twenty juan, 《春秋論》 in one juan, 《策海正傳》 in twelve juan, 《諸儒語要》 in twenty juan, and 《雜編》. The list further includes 《陰符經》 and 《陰符經考》, each in one juan.