• "Zhejiang Cultural Imprints" is a series of introductory articles introducing some of the most influential cultural heritages and cultural imprints in Zhejiang province. Today, we'd like to introduce you to the Eastern Zhejiang School, which famous for its propositions on the pursuit of individual interests and wealth, equality, and pragmatism. 

Scholars of Zhejiang established themselves as a national phenomenon after the Southern Song (1127-1279) put its roots down in Hangzhou, the present-day capital city of Zhejiang Province. In a sense, these scholars were not conventional ones. They advocated the pursuit of successful solutions to practical needs at the national level as well as at the grassroots level. Zhu Xi, a famed scholar of the Southern Song, contemptuously dismissed the scholars of Zhejiang for being bogged down in such an ugly quest. In the following centuries, eminent scholars continued to emerge in Zhejiang and they are known as regional schools such as Western Zhejiang School, Eastern Zhejiang School, Jinhua School, Yongjia School, etc.

In a strict sense, the Eastern Zhejiang School includes scholars of the early Qing (1644-1911) such as Huang Zongxi, Wan Sida, Wan Sitong, Shao Tingcai, Quan Zuwang, Zheng Xuecheng, and Shao Jinhan. And all of them looked upon Liu Zongzhou (1578-1645) as their mentor, a native of eastern Zhejiang.

The most outstanding of the scholars is Huang Zongxi. Huang became a devoted disciple of Liu Zongzhou in 1626 and proponent of the Wang Yangming School.

Present-day Ningbo and Shaoxing, a region southeast of the Qiantang River, is traditionally called eastern Zhejiang and boasts an academic tradition that dates back to times much earlier. In the Song Dynasty (960-1279), the Siming School flourished; in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Wang Yangming and fellow scholars led the country in philosophy and academic studies. The values and focuses they started with were carried on and enriched in the following centuries by scholars of eastern Zhejiang. For example, Wang Yangming, a native of present-day Yuyao which is a county-level municipality in Ningbo, insisted that scholars should be pragmatic and serve the country well. Huang Zongxi inherited the idea and promoted that the purpose of academic study was to apply study results to the governance of the country and benefit people.

Huang Zongxi was a scholar ahead of his time. His ideas appeared astoundingly revolutionary in his time, though these ideas sound commonplace today. He remarked that emperors were just guests whereas the nation was the host, that people’s concerns and happiness determined the rise or the fall of a dynasty, and that the fate of an imperial house did not matter. Huang’s ideas can be traced back to Confucius, but he was brave enough to make such bold statements.

Huang was a man of courage and action in his youth years. He revenged his father who had died in prison. He fought the Qing Dynasty after the Ming Dynasty went to pieces. And then he retired to a life of academic pursuit. During his history study under the guidance of Liu Zongzhou, he had noticed the issue of taxation in the past dynasties. In history, new dynasties tended to reform the taxation system left over from the past in order to reduce the burden on people and improve national revenue. Such reforms reduced taxes only briefly. Shortly afterward, new taxes were introduced and yet the national revenue did not have a chance to improve. Heavy taxes eventually toppled a dynasty. Such vicious cycles, first noticed by Wang, caught the attention of scholars in China in the 1990s. Contemporary scholars have summarized Huang’s idea into something called the Law of Huang Zongxi. Some even go so far as to consider Huang a pioneer of ideological enlightenment in the history of China.

Huang and other scholars of the Eastern Zhejiang School said a lot about the pursuit of individual interests and wealth, equality, and pragmatism. They argued against empty talk and orthodox theories which set the pursuit of Confucian principles against the pursuit of what was right and what was good for the public and dismissed thereof. They emphasized the integration of the two quests. They considered industry and commerce as vital components of the societal foundation in sharp contrast with the traditional idea that only agriculture was the foundation of society.

Their arguments have long been part of the regional culture of Zhejiang. The province spawned generations of merchants and craftsmen and traders and scholars in the feudal past and became a bold pioneer in the reform and opening up to the outside world since the late 1970s.

It would be difficult to say for sure whether Zhejiang, a land of abundance and enterprising people since very ancient times, spawned the tradition of pragmatism, commerce, craftsmanship, and entrepreneurship long before such a tradition gave birth to scholars who theorized, verbalized and advocated such ideas and practices, or whether scholars like Wang Yangming and Huang Zongxi spawned the tradition and stood up for the tradition.

Yinzhou and Yuyao, two important cities in Ningbo, are home to some relics of historical and cultural interests that highlight and commemorate the scholars of the Eastern Zhejiang School. The Longquan Hill in the center of Yuyao hosts four statues that glorify Yang Ziliang, Wang Yangming, Zhu Shunshui, and Huang Zongxi. On the southern slope stands a building first constructed in the Five Dynasties (907-960) where Wang Yangming once gave lectures. Now the building is a library named after Huang Zongxi.