The Relevance of Sung Learning in the Late Ch'ing: Wei Yuan and the Huang-ch'ao ching-shih wen-pien

Abstract

��� In the early nineteenth century, advocates of Sung Learning [Sunghsueh], champions of Han Learning [Han-hsueh], and proponents of New Text studies [chin-wen-hsueh] were all united in their recognition that construction of a statecraft ideology was necessary within late imperial political culture. Although specific statecraft proposals represented highly situational and pragmatic responses to contemporary problems in flood control, salt monopolies, official corruption, and grain tribute, Confucian reformers comprehended that piece-meal solutions were insufficient. They realized that a broader version of Confucian discourse was required, one that would encompass a moral reformation derived from Sung Learning and institutional studies associated with Han Learning. Even for statecraft enthusiasts the centrality of classical studies for political discourse meant that within the constitutional raison d'etre of the Ch'ing empire the Confucian Classics remained the ideological guide in political matters. Any reformist initiative had to find its historical precedent in the Classics. Reformers accordingly sought legitimation for their efforts by building key linkages between the historicist scholarly agenda of Han Learning and the moral eternalism of Sung Learning. In the process, pragmatic Confucians shifted classical debate from focus on the past as the source for universal models and solutions to discussion of the complexity of present problems and the need to come up with unprecedented answers. Compilation of the Huang-ch'ao ching-shih wen-pien (Collected writings on statecraft from the Ch'ing dynasty) in the 1820s by Wei Yuan (17941856), for example, represented an important stage in the reformist movement of the early nineteenth century. Wei Yuan's work on this project in the 1820s represented an interesting preliminary stage in Chinese efforts to 1 An earlier version was presented at the annual meeting of the Western Conference for the Association for Asian Studies, Tucson, Arizona, October 30-31, 1987. Thanks are due the anonymous referees for Late Imperial China and Charlotte Furth all of whom suggested many useful changes. Research for this article was supported by the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange (Fulbright Foundation) in Taiwan.