Dai Zhen was born in poverty and traveled all his life, giving lectures and writing. At the age of 50, he entered the Siku Quanshu Library to sort out ancient books. He is good at textual research and exegesis, and has high academic attainments in astronomy, mathematics, physics, geography, textual research and analysis, and has made contributions to the collation of ancient documents in China.
What is particularly commendable is that Dai Zhen's scholarship is "aiming at learning Tao", and his governance is based on enriching the people. He has made unremitting efforts to explore the source of chaos in ancient and modern times. With the fearless courage of a thinker, he severely examined the rigid official neo-Confucianism of the ruled, sharply criticized "post-Confucianism kills people by reason", put forward Dai Zhen's philosophical works such as "expressing people's feelings and satisfying people's desires", advocated "forgiving benevolence" and "giving up one's name", explained the significance of Mencius, introduced the analytical methods of modern western science, made full use of the achievements of natural science, and put forward a new theory of "reason"
Dai Zhen's hometown, Long Fu Village, Xiuning, Anhui Province (now belonging to Tunxi District, Huangshan City), is close to Tunxi, an important town of Huizhou merchants, at the intersection of Hengjiang River and green water in the upper reaches of Xin 'an River, with Huangshan and Yun Qi as Feng Ping. Because of its flat terrain and convenient land and water transportation, it has always been a gathering place for wealthy businessmen. It is said that in those days, commercial sailboats often docked at the dock of this village by the Hengjiang River, and the name of "Jigang" was gradually called the name of "Long Fu" village. Long Fu Village, like many places in Huizhou, had many businessmen who went out to do business in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. From the ruins of Huizhou ancient houses such as Caojia Garden, Baohetang and Qitang in the village, we can also vaguely feel the prosperity of Huizhou merchants after they became rich.
Long Fu is a thousand-year-old village in Huizhou. There are 67000-year-old camphor trees at the head of the village, which are lush and cover the sky. This used to be the ancestral temple of the Dai family-Jingdun Temple, which was built very concealed. There is a stone workshop of "Zhong Ling" in front of the temple, a delicate and majestic Yun Qi Pavilion on the forest slope of Shuikou, a stone workshop of "Ritual Gate" at the entrance of the village, and several street gates in the village for guarding against theft. It is said that there are more than a dozen stone archways on the stone road from Long Fu to Tunxi.
Long Fu is also an ancient country with a flourishing style of writing. It is a fine tradition that Huizhou surnames such as Dai, Cao Shi and Wang thrive in the village. All previous dynasties have produced high-ranking officials and great scholars. Dai Benxiao, a famous painter in Qing Dynasty, was a Chinese, so was Dai Chuanxian, an early Kuomintang veteran. In 1990s, the education of provincial girls' middle schools here was famous all over the country, praised by famous educators such as Huang Yanpei, and Long Fu's literacy cultural activities were strongly advocated by Tao Xingzhi. Mr Tao Xingzhi specially presented the purchased Great Wall Brick to Long Fu Middle School.
Dai Zhen's ancestors were Shexian people in the Tang Dynasty, who lived in Longfu and produced some official figures. Dai Zhen gradually declined after several generations. Dai Zhen's former residence is in the West Sanmen Village of Longfu Village. In his works, Dai Zhen called it "the amusement school of South-to-North Water Diversion Project", and Huang Yanpei inscribed it as "Mr. Dai Dong's original reading room". The house of the former residence was destroyed by fire during the Daoguang period. Now, as a primary school in Long Fu, there are only Shimen in the former residence and the stone tablet in Guhuanyuan. 1924 On the occasion of commemorating the 200th anniversary of Dai Zhen's birth, Dai's descendants bought the Yaobi Building in the village and established the "Longfu Dongyuan Private Library", which collected and preserved a large number of Dai Zhen's works and materials. At present, Dai Zhen's descendants are mostly distributed in Beijing, Nanjing, Liaoning, Shanghai, Guangdong, Hong Kong and Taiwan, the United States, Japan, Canada, Europe and other countries. Most of them are engaged in agriculture and engineering, and they are very concerned about the academic upgrading of Dongyuan and the cultural undertakings of Dongyuan's hometown. Sun, Dai and other descendants have strongly funded the publication of the Complete Works of Dai Zhen and the maintenance of the Dai Zhen Memorial Hall in their hometown. They are deeply attached to their motherland.