Xu Qiao

Life

In his youth, he studied under Ye Gui, a disciple of Lü Zuqian, and later entered Zhu Xi’s circle; Zhu Xi praised him as lucid and forthright and named his studio “Yi.” In the fourteenth year of the Chunxi era (1187), he passed the jinshi examination and was appointed registrar of Shangrao in Xinzhou.

After passing the examination, he served as Judicial Adjutant of Nankang Army, Judicial Reviewer at Yanzhou, supervisor of archival texts for the Ministries of Works and Justice, registrar of the Imperial College, and Corrector and Collator in the Palace Library. His career also included concurrent service as instructor to the princes of Wu and Yi, prefect of Hezhou and Anqing, and surveillance commissioner and judicial inspector of the Jiangnan East Circuit. Other offices included Palace Provisioner of the Palace Service, compiler in the Historiography Institute, textual editor in the Institute for the Veritable Records, Academician of Jiying Hall, libationer of the Imperial College, lecturer and reader in attendance, supervisor of Daoist temples, and the ranks of Upper Cavalier Commandant and Upper Light Chariot Commandant.

Dated appointments include the beginning of his service as Judicial Reviewer at Yanzhou in 1211 and as supervisor of archival texts for the Ministries of Works and Justice in 1214; he held the Palace Provisioner post in Jiading years 8–9 (1215–1216), received the rank of Upper Light Chariot Commandant in 1216, served as prefect of Shuzhou in 1217–1218, and became surveillance commissioner of the Jiangnan East Circuit in 1218.

While serving as a palace academician and judicial inspector of Jiangdong, he was impeached and dismissed for offending Shi Miyuan; during the Shaoding era, he retired. Recalled at the beginning of the Duanping era, he was promoted to Junior Supervisor of the Palace Library and Junior Metropolitan of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices; in the second year of Duanping (1235), he served as Director of the Privy Council and as a lecturer in attendance. At an imperial audience, he submitted a memorial of several thousand words, addressing the ruler’s shortcomings above and extending his criticism to the ministers below without concealing anything, and was promoted to Vice Minister of Works; illness then led him to request retirement, and he withdrew under the title of Academician-in-waiting of the Baomo Library.

His family connections included Lü Shaoyi, his father-in-law; Xu Renjie, described both as a paternal uncle and as an adoptive father; and his paternal cousins Xu Kan and Xu Zhuo. He had three sons: the eldest, 徐銶; the second, 徐鈞; and the third, 徐鏄.

Learning and associations

In his scholarly and teaching relationships, Xu Qiao first studied with Ye Gui and later followed Zhu Xi; his students included Ye Yougeng, Gong Yingzhi, and Zhu Zhong, and he taught Wang Shijie and Wang Yanze. In 1210, Yu Rong recommended Xu Qiao.

Xu Qiao received replies from Zhu Xi and Chen Wenwei; Wang Bo and Wu Shidao wrote postscripts for his books, Liu Zai composed a eulogy for his portrait, and Wu Shidao also composed the deliberation on his posthumous name.

Writings and posthumous legacy

His writings included 《尚書括旨》 and 《雜說》, as well as 《讀易記》, 《讀詩記》, and 《毅齋詩集》. A collection in ten juan is called 《毅齋文集》 in one account and 《詠文集》 in another; a one-juan 《毅齋詩集別錄》 is also preserved.

The ten-juan 《毅齋文集》 was destroyed by fire during the Hongzhi era. In the sixth year of the Zhengde era, his descendant Xu Xing carved a one-juan 《毅齋詩集別錄》. For Xu Qiao’s poetry, the 《宛委別藏》 text serves as the base text; the Ming Zhengde edition, although an ancestral edition, is badly worn and incomplete and is therefore used for collation, with newly collected poems outside the collection appended at the end. Xu Qiao died in the first year of the Jiaxi era (1237), aged seventy-eight, and received the posthumous name Wenqing.