Zheng Qiao, whose real name is Yu Zhong, is called Mr. Jia Kui. He is a great historian and scientific thinker in the Song Dynasty in China, and also a cultural celebrity with world influence.
Zheng Qiao was born in Huizong for three years in the Northern Song Dynasty (A.D. 1 104). He was born in a scholarly family and was well influenced and educated by his family since childhood. His ancestors were originally aristocratic families who moved south from the Central Plains in the Jin Dynasty. His great-grandfather Zheng Chong, his great-grandfather Zheng Zitang, his grandfather Zheng Zai (a scholar in Xining for three years) and his father Benjamin Cheung (a college student in Zhenghe) were all famous families. Zheng Qiao is a descendant of Zheng Zhuang, the handsome man with five senses in the Tang Dynasty. At that time, Zheng Zhuang went to Pupu to study with his elder brother Lu Zheng and younger brother Zheng Shutong, who was the hero of developing Putian culture. Although Zheng Qiao's hometown is located in the mountainous area of Guangyeli, Putian, he made up his mind to read all the ancient and modern books and master the academic ambition of the Six Classics. His father died when he was 16 years old. Since then, Zheng Qiao has been living in poverty. In order to overcome the poverty and lack of books to read, he and his younger brother Zheng Houkai began to carry the burden and borrow books from librarians in all directions.
When studying, Zheng Qiao not only learned the knowledge in books, but also learned all kinds of animals and plants in nature. He often went deep into Shan Ye to learn from farmers, thus gaining a lot of practical knowledge. He believes that as an intellectual, he should not only learn the knowledge in books, but also learn all kinds of scientific knowledge between heaven and earth, and bravely issued a call to the society that learning natural science knowledge is as important as learning Confucian classics.
When he was young, Zheng Qiao, while pursuing knowledge tirelessly, also loved his country very much. In the first year of Jingkang (1 126), when Zheng Qiao saw that the Song Dynasty was in an unprecedented crisis because of the invasion of nomadic people from the north, he immediately signed a letter with Zheng Hou to the court authorities, stating his brothers' ambition to resist gold and their ability to serve the country, and he was confident that once used by the court, he could reverse the decline of the country. However, due to various reasons, his wishes were not taken seriously by the court. However, Zheng Qiao's patriotic thought of resisting gold ran through the last moment of his life.
In the first year of Shaoxing in the Southern Song Dynasty (1 13 1), half of the Southern Song Dynasty was still in turmoil because of Song Gaozong's fear of the enemy. At this time, while being pessimistic and disappointed, Zheng Hou went down the mountain to take part in the imperial examination and embarked on a bumpy career. Zheng Qiao, on the other hand, thought that such a dim and unknown career would bury his ambition to study, so he didn't want to go down the mountain to catch the exam. Zheng Qiao decided to write a general history for the Southern Song Dynasty court in Jiajin Mountains as a scholar in cloth, because the northern nomads stole the three treasuries and four treasuries of the Song Dynasty court when they attacked Kyoto in the Northern Song Dynasty. At this time, Zheng Qiao was still a young man in his late twenties.
Because the imperial court didn't allow private study of history at that time, there were three difficulties in Zheng Qiao's writing "General Records": First, he couldn't study history privately without the consent of the imperial court, otherwise he would be attacked by the imperial court; Second, if you don't get enough reference historical materials and enough paper and ink provided by the court, this book will be difficult to succeed; Third, if there is no more profound knowledge than Sima Qian, it will be difficult to write this historical masterpiece well. In order to acquire the knowledge needed for general history, Zheng Qiao once again shouldered the heavy burden and went to the southeast to borrow books alone. After three years of hard work, when Zheng Qiao was in his early thirties, he read books all over the southeast. At that time, someone praised him and said, "Only Puyang Zheng Jia Kui has finished reading eight books in the world."
When Zheng Qiao acquired the knowledge needed for general history, he moved his study to Xianglin Temple in Jiakuangshan and began a long career of compiling history and writing books. In order to win the support of the court, he wrote one new book after another and sent them to the court. In the eighth year of Shaoxing (1 138), Zheng Qiao made it clear to the court that he wanted to write a general history in the Book of Rites. At this time, Zheng Qiao's profound knowledge and lofty aspirations were valued by Zhao Ding and Zhang Jun, the prime ministers of the anti-gold faction. But at this time, due to Song Gaozong's reuse of capitulator leader Qin Gui as prime minister, Zhao Ding and others were quickly pushed out of the court by Qin Gui and severely persecuted. Qin Gui served as prime minister in Shaoxing for nine years (1 139) and in Shaoxing for twenty-five years (1 155). In this long period of 16 years, Qin Gui not only did not support Zheng Qiao's general history, but banned private history writing for three times in a row, and offenders were punished as "making good use of national history". In this cruel political environment, you can imagine the danger of Zheng Qiao.
In the eighteenth year of Shaoxing (1 148), 44-year-old Zheng Qiao was hit by bad luck one after another. First, his younger brother died prematurely, followed by the deaths of his young child Zheng Ti and his wife Chen. When Zheng Qiao was immersed in a great mental shock, Qin Gui banned private writing of history. This ban finally angered Zheng Qiao, so in the winter of this year, he resolutely picked up another new book with a volume of 140 and went to Kyoto and Hangzhou in the Southern Song Dynasty. He wanted to dedicate the new book directly to the emperor and asked the emperor to allow him to continue writing. However, due to Qin Gui's obstruction, although Zheng Qiao waited in Hangzhou for a year, he still couldn't see the emperor and couldn't get the official document that the court allowed him to continue. When Zheng Qiao saw that his road to writing Tongzhi was blocked by the court authorities, he was very angry, but he was helpless. In order to pass on the knowledge he has studied all his life to future generations, Zheng Qiao moved his study to the virtual valley on the side of the main peak of Jiakuang Mountain, which is far from the population, and began to write a historical masterpiece "Tongzhi" in Jiakuang Caotang, which is 300 years away from the national history of the Song Dynasty. He wants to pour all his grievances on his comrades.
After several years of hard work, 54-year-old Zheng Qiao finally wrote the first draft of this 200-volume historical masterpiece with more than 6 million words. Just as he was worried about having no money to buy Four Treasures of the Study's Tongzhi, thanks to the recommendation of Wang Lun, He Yunzhong, Wang and others, Zheng Qiao was able to enter Beijing and was called. When called, Zheng Qiao saw that the emperor also appreciated his knowledge, so he asked the emperor to allow him to return to the mountains to write Tongzhi on the spot, so as to dedicate Tongzhi to the court as soon as possible. Because the emperor could not understand Zheng Qiao's painstaking efforts, he just left him in the court to be a small official in charge of documents and archives.
At this time, because of Zheng Qiao's academic criticism and scientific spirit, many bachelors and doctors in North Korea were offended, so they didn't want to see Zheng Qiao, who was born in poverty and a Confucian scholar, working in North Korea. As a result, Yushiye immediately came forward and impeached on trumped-up charges, and fatuous people unanimously approved Ye's impeachment, and asked the temple officials of Nanyue Temple in Tanzhou to copy Tongzhi.
Zheng Qiao hates his innocent pain. However, for Tongzhi, he endured great humiliation in the world and still wrote in the ravine with one hand. In the thirty-first year of Shaoxing (11), 58-year-old Zheng Qiao finally finished this epoch-making historical masterpiece "Tongzhi". This summer, when Zheng Qiao sent this masterpiece dedicated to his life to Hangzhou, Song Gaozong was too busy to receive Tongzhi in the temple because of the war, so he asked Zheng Qiao to be the editor of the Privy Council in the court. Zheng Qiao, who didn't want to be an official in the imperial court all his life, saw that this official position could facilitate him to read many books that he hadn't read so far in the DPRK, so he readily accepted the official seal of the emperor, and then plunged into the sea of learning regardless of his old age. However, the tragedy that Zheng Qiao never imagined happened again. Because the scholar-officials in the middle school were jealous of their talents and were afraid that the chronicles would spread to the world, they copied the despicable means of Ye's framing and jointly impeached them. This time, the emperor didn't go to Zheng Qiao's official position, but he soon terminated the convenience of Zheng Qiao borrowing books from Sanguan, and didn't want to distinguish right from wrong for Zheng Qiao. Zheng Qiao saw that he was innocent all his life, but he still suffered such injustice. However, he immediately fell ill in bed and died. In the thirty-second year of Shaoxing (1 162), he was only 59 years old.
Although Zheng Qiao's life was short, he made great contributions to the cultural undertakings in China. There are 95 kinds of works (including single articles) in his life, of which 50 kinds, 548 volumes and 454 articles are marked with the number of articles and volumes. In addition, there are 35 books whose volumes are not indicated, and there are thousands of kinds except some repeated works. It is well documented that Zheng Qiao said that he has written more than 1000 books in the past 30 years. At the same time, as a poor Confucian in the mountains, he created six firsts in the history of China:
The first one wants to establish science;
The first one became a great historian, with a reputation of poor Confucianism in the mountains;
The first advocates that intellectuals should learn from working people;
The first one issued a call to break superstition and emancipate the mind that "poetry books are credible, but you don't have to believe every word";
The first emphasizes that learning natural science knowledge is as important as learning Confucian classics;
The first initiative is to establish translatology, absorb advanced foreign cultures and spread Chinese civilization.
Zheng Qiao is a great historian with world influence in the history of China. However, the Biography of Zheng Qiao in The Song Scholars is only a few words, which is not only superficial, but also unfair. Song and Yuan Dynasties are even less, plus his subordinate brother Zheng Hou, there are only thirty-one characters. The biographies of Zheng Qiao in Putian County Annals compiled in the forty-fourth year of Qing Emperor Kangxi and Fujian Province Annals compiled in the second year of Qianlong are still only five or six hundred words. Therefore, it is not easy for people to understand the life in Zheng Qiao. What is particularly distressing is that in the sinister political environment, Zheng Qiao's tragic journey from a poor Confucian scholar in a deep mountain to a famous historian is even unknown. It is for this reason that Zheng Qiao's precious spirit of pioneering and pursuing science has not been carried forward in the past thousand years. However, looking at Zheng Qiao's life, as the famous historian Gu Jiegang said, "The society treated Zheng Qiao with a cold face, but in a very difficult realm, we developed our genius as much as possible. When we look at him now, we only feel that he is full of energy and his spirit is immortal! "