Zhou Bida’s History World

Zhou Bida(1126-1204) was a famous scholar-bureaucrat in Southern Song. He served as an official under the reign of Emperor Gao, Xiao, Guang and Ning, and in the time of Emperor Xiao, he entered the circle of cabinet ministers, and then mounted the position of prime minister. The extent of Zhou Bida’s social activities was very wide which extended many areas, such as state politics, local government, military management, diplomatic affairs, academic enterprises and literature composition. The existed document concerning Zhou reflects this situation vividly. In the period of the times of above four emperors, under the epoch problems as confrontation between Song and Jin and new trend of Neo-Confucianism, this dissertation would study literati relationship in different social areas in which Zhou Bida was the key person.The main part of this dissertation consists of five chapters:The first chapter takes Zhou Bida’s term before entering the circle of cabinet ministers as the period for discussing. Under the background of the translation of political situations, this chapter would probe literati relationship from the time of Emperor Gao to Xiao. In1161when Emperor Gao was in power, the war between Song and Jin broke out, and in the time of Emperor Xiao, this political situation continued. Ministers in court divided two political parts in which Zhang Jun and Tang Situi were leaders respectively, debating and struggling for the problem of war or peace. As an old partisan of Qin Kui, Tang Situi carried out Qin’s proposition on negotiates peace obstinately. Retrospecting Zhou Bida’s background, we know that Zhou had connection to Qin Kui’s party, and he was implicated in collapse of Qin’s party. Zhou had close relationship with Tang Situi, and his political idea was same to the part maintaining peace. After making peace in the time of Long Xing, the relationship between Song and Jin tended to ease and Song’s political situation changed to anti-courtier movement. Neo-Confucians became the main power in the movement. Originally, Zhou Bida supported the affairs of anti-courtier. But he later revolted severeness of Neo-Confucianism. He debated with Zhang Shi, and from then on, the relationship of he and Neo-Confucians was estranged day by day.The second chapter discusses about literati relationship with the background of confrontation between Song and Jin during Zhou Bida serving as a cabinet minister. In this time, facing to an event of Jin Emperor’s tour, Song carried out frontier defense actions in large scale, and in foreign affairs, Song and Jin also had political competition secretly. Zhou Bida was a consultant in military and diplomacy and to Jin, he carried out soberminded plan of defense. Zhou dealt with various affairs concerning Jin, and mediated discord in different political powers.At that time, the military institution of Song had long term drawbacks technologically. Zhou could not remove these drawbacks and they eventually turned into many malignant accidents in Kai Xi War.The third chapter probes political relationship of literati with the background of new trend of Neo-Confucianism during Zhou Bida’s cabinet minister career and the later time. Connecting the study concerning the relationship of Zhou Bida and Neo-Confucianism before, this chapter would inspect the discord and estrangement between Zhou and Neo-Confucians in a series of political events, continuing to the breakout of Qing Yuan Ban. Yu Yingshi in his Zhu Xi s history world emphasized the fact of Zhou Bida and Neo-Confucians’cooperation in politics. To his attitude, the study of this chapter would serve as one kind of revise and supplement.The composition of fourth chapter corresponds to the third one that studies academic relationship between Zhou Bida and Neo-Confucians. Being a typical court official, Zhou drafted rescripts, edited literature writing for court. Embellishing the achievement of royalty and advocating knowledge of rhetoric and textual criticism were the cultural character of court official. As for Neo-Confucians, on the one hand they were scholars putting importance on philosophy but excluding rhetoric; on the other hand, as local schools of thought, they also undertook the job of editing literature that challenged textual criticism in court. It can be seen that court official had different academic interest from Neo-Confucians. Through the events of Lv Zuqian editing Huang Chao Wen Jian and Zhou Bida and Zhu Xi debating on Ou Yang Wen Zhong Gong Ji, this chapter would discuss Zhou’s position as a court official and his academic divergence to Neo-Confucians.The writing of fifth chapter corresponds to the discord in literati relationship discussed in the four former chapters. It studies Zhou Bida’s association to Hu Quan who was an advocator for starting wars to Jin and to Yang Wanli who was a Neo-Confucians in their hometown:Ji Zhou in Jiang Xi. This study selects hometownthe social occasion full of private friendship, and then places divergent attitudes among literati about confrontation between Song and Jin and new trend of Neo-Confucianism in it for inspection. We can see that, in some conditions, literati in the same hometown who perhaps had different attitudes to epoch problems from each other would circumvent their divergences to keep friendship.Obviously, comparing to state political situation where divergences were prominent, society in hometown was a living place for easing discord.Based on relationship of persons, this dissertation studies the history of South Song, from collapse of Qin Kui’s party and war in1161to Qing Yuan Ban and Kai Xi War. With the study, this dissertation would explain that the change of relationship of literati is one kind of power in the development of history, and literati relationship is the important clue which historians should probe carefully.