Abstract
The imperial civil service examination originally named the Five Classics (Wujing五經) as the core of the curriculum that is to be examined, but in actual practice every student needed to master only one of the Five Classics to pass the examination. The chosen classic, also the one on which he would be tested, became the student’s “basic classic” (benjing本經). In Anfu (安福), a county in Ji’an Prefecture, Jiangxi Province, most students favored Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu春秋) over the other four classics and performed outstandingly in provincial and national examinations. The established tradition in the studies of the Spring and Autumn Annals in Anfu since the Song and Yuan dynasty and local scholar Bao Cong’s teaching of this classic in the beginning of the Ming dynasty together accounted for the initial rise of the learning on the Spring and Autumn Annals in Anfu. Many of Bao’s disciples, namely Liu Qiu (劉球) and Wu Jie (吳節), succeeded in subsequent examinations and began to instruct students in Imperial Academy (Han-lin yuan翰林院) and National University (Guo-zi Jian國子監), which further built up the nationwide reputation of Anfu’s Spring and Autumn Annals classic learning. Fellow scholars from Anfu, namely Peng Shi (彭時), Peng Hua (彭華), Zou Shouyi (鄒守益) and Zou Depu (鄒德溥), and their success in the examinations at different time continued to promote the learning on this particular classic in Anfu throughout many generations. Consequently, many families, namely the Wu’s (伍), Liu’s (劉), Peng’s (彭), Zou’s (鄒), tended to inherit a family tradition of encouraging their members to choose the Spring and Autumn Annals as their basic classic, which yet again contributed to the popularization of the learning on Spring and Autumn Annals in Anfu County. These clans formulated a complexly intertwined but not completely closed network due to master-disciple relations and inter-marriages, and their teaching on Spring and Autumn Annals often spread as members of the clans immigrated, began teaching at other private schools or published annotations and explanations on Spring and Autumn Annals. The learning on Spring and Autumn Annals in Anfu continued to flourish for nearly 200 years between the 15th and 16th centuries before it began to face fierce challenge coming from both traditional rival the Macheng (麻城) county and new competitor the Jinjiang (晉江) county, which began approximately during the Jiajing (嘉靖) period. Starting from the 17th century, Anfu scholars benefited less from their expertise in the Spring and Autumn Annals and performed comparatively less astonishingly in the imperial civil examinations; however, influenced by the long-term tradition, many Anfu students until the end of the 18th century kept choosing Spring and Autumn Annals as their basic classic and obtained junior degrees. During the Qianlong (乾隆) period in the Qing dynasty, the imperial examination policy changed greatly, with the test on the classics shifted from the first exam to the second and now consisted of five questions corresponding to all Five Classics. This not only reduced the importance of the test on the classics in the examination, but also made it unnecessary for the students to choose a basic classic, marking an end to the regional focus on the Classics in the imperial examination.
Keywords
basic classic, Anfu County, Spring and Autumn Annals, imperial examination, regional focus on the Classics
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