A Study On Song Qi And His Thoughts

Song Qi, a scintillating genius in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, was erudite and capable of writing good articles, and made a lot of achivements in such aspects as politics, history and literature, thus special study on him is worthy now. His Jing Wen Ji, the Notes of Song Jingwen, Brief Notes of Native Products in Yibu, which are important sources and bases to studying Song Qi thought, were all collected in Siku Quanshu. In this dissertation, the author systematically exames Song Qi’s lifetime, family lineage, and even his woks,etc, the author also has an all-sided combing and analysis of his thought in philosophy, politics, history and literature. And the author retraces to Song Qi’s time in order to find out the humanities and social conditions from which Song Qi thought arised.Therefore, on the one hand,the author tries to find out the relevant information from Song Qi’s contemporary historical figures such as Ouyang Xiu and others in the literature, to supplement the materials in studying Song Qi thought, on the other hand, the author tries to systemize Song Qi thought by clarifying its internal logic, from which to see Song Qi’s broad and rich thought. This article is a wided into six chapters:Chapter one:The verification of Song Qi’s lifetime.In this part,the author mainly traces the Song Qi’s family lineage and his experiences in Anzhou, and give a research on his official carees in many place. Song Qi’s family history records unknown. The textual research on Song Qi’s family lineage has been made in this part on the base of Jiajing Yingshan County annals and his personal biography. Since Song Qi’s father took his official position in different places for a long period, so he migrated passively following his father from one place to the other in his child age, which led to the long-term controversy on his native place. Song Qi formed his thoughts in Anzhou, Hubei(now Anlu, Hubei province),where he spent his most valuable youth time. An Zhou has long been a place with the birth of heroes or glories by great men. For example, Li Bai lived there for 14 years, scholars and poets there enjoyed themselves so much that they were reluctant to leave. Futhermore Anzhou was famous for its native scholars such as Zhang Junfang, Zheng Xie and Wang Decheng, etc. All those people’s cultural activities in Anzhou over hundreds of years promoted the formation of civil customs of being benevolent and enterprising. After his father took his official position in Yingshan County(now Guangshui, Hubei province),Anzhou, young Song Qi followed his father and lived in Yingshan. Like many other people such as Ouyang Xiu who lived in Suizhou, Song Qi and his elder brother Song Xiang took the famous mountain villager Lian Shunbin as their master and got better education. Song Qi made friends with many people, such as Lianshu, lianxiang, Ouyang Xiu, Xiasong, etc., who had great influence on the formation and development of his thought.From the beginning of his official career, Song Qi traveled many places, originally as president of the court in Fuzhou (now Tianmen, Hubei province), and later went into the royal court being an officer under the recommendation of Sun Shi. In May, the first year of Qingli period(AD1041), Song Qi was implicated in the incompatibility between Song Xiang, the assistant administrator and Lv Yijian, the prime minister, and was demoted to Huainan. After three years’stay in Huainan, he began a short time in Imperial Academy, then he was sent to Chengde Army and Zhending tormenting himself for five years. In August, the first year of Jiayou period(AD1056), he was appointed as magistrate in Yizhou. Three years went by before he returned from Yizhou. There was once a time when he could compete for The Head of Three Department,a lucrative post, since he was impeached by Bao Zheng and other officials, saying that his life was too luxurious, in the end of March, the fourth year of Jiayou period(AD 1059),he was appointed as Bachelor of a Lung Tu Cabinet to govern Zhengzhou. During that period, his health condition began to get worse and worse. In February, AD 1061, the last year of his life, he returned to Royal Court as Qun Mu Shi. Song Qi suffered many a setback during his life, all of which would undoubtedly complicate his thought.Chapter two:A brief certification of Song Qi’s works. Song Qi created many works during his lifetime, but most of them were scattered and lost. The author certifies and examines his three master works:Jing Wen Ji, The Notes of Song Jingwen, Brief Notes of Native Products in Yibu. Jing wen Ji, edited by later people, is not an original set. It has always been controversial, as to exactly how many volumes contained in the set. Siku Quanshu only included 62 volumes. The Notes of Song Jingwen is representative among all the notes of Song Dynasty, it comprises such contents as phonology, exegesis, archaeology, and explanation of customs,etc, reflecting Song Qi’s erudition and wide interest. Brief Notes of Native Products in Yibu is a book on the native products near Chengdu. Song Qi gave an expansion and processing of the manuscript by other people. That book contributes much to the later research on the transformation of Chengdu native products.Chapter three:Song Qi’s philosophical thought. Although Song Qi did not have special philosophical works circulating in the world, his works were full of philosophical thought. In this part, the author mainly explores the major spirits of his theory of fate and theory of Taoism. Song Qi’s thinking on natural laws and humanity not only had the time feature, but also had his own feature. The etiquette ideology accounted for a fairly large part of his philosophical thought. He was one of the important persons to construct the Northern Song’s etiquette system,too. And also in this part, the author has an overall introduction of his constructive ideas on etiquette building, for example, his study on fete, obtaining system and Ming Tang,etc.,comprised both the rites practice and ritual theory, showing his profound accomplishments on etiquette. So it can be said that he was one of the several famous etiquette experts in early Song Dynasty.Chapter four:Song Qi’s political thoughts. Song Qi’s political position was flexible. He was an initial participant and witness of the whole political reform process in Qingli period. Although at the beginning, he was compassionate and for the reformer, with the conservatives got an upper hand later, and with the changes of his opinions on innovation, he chose to secede from the team of innovationists finally. His political views was reflected in the Supremacy of Imperial Power, Error in Regime Leading to Punishment by God, and Civilians Being the Bases of Power, etc., he favored the warring party on military affairs, and dedicated to the Court seven papers On Yu Rong, explaining his strategic thought, such as selecting good generals, strengthening military transportation, stopping the noble’s supervising the army, stressing the horse administration,etc. He had his own unique opinions on the society governance and relieving social contradictions&confrontations, some measures, like the eradication of three over-abundances, persuading people’s rice storage, and strict distinction between prize and penalty, did have some social effects.Chapter five:Song Qi’s thought on historiography. In a sense, Song Qi had more contribution to historiography. As a main compiler, he edited 50 volumes of New Book of Tang, representing the highest level of all his creation, embodying concentratedly his orthodox Confucian historiography viewpoint. With the interweaving of national crisis and the internal class contradiction, the imperial court tried to find from the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty out a better way to get rid of the risk, such was the background under which New book of Tang was emerged. Song Qi maintained more strict standard than Old Book of Tang, in the choice of New Book of Tang biography materials. Firstly, the materials of biographies in New Book of Tang were much more abundant than that of Old Book of Tang, and secondly, New Book of Tang included more persons featured. Insisting on the historian’s Chunqiu spirit, Song Qi adhered to the viewpoint of orthodoxy and Zunwang (that emperors should be respected), castigated treacherous ministers and rebels & traitors, and eulogized pious& loyal minisers, in order to promote social justice. Yet New book of Tang rejected Buddhism, and did not give a biography of eminent monks, such as Monk Tang, apparently ignoring the fact that Tang Dynasty’s Buddhism reached its peak indeed.Chapter six:Song Qi’s literary thought. In this part, the author probes into his literary thought mainly from three aspects including poetry, prose and ode. Song Qi’s poetry as "Xikun yuxu", reflecting the the historical development rule of Xikun, has always attained much attention and got many research results, and yet his prose has seldomly got attention. In fact, his prose reflected the prose creation’s general direction of the theme and style being diversified at that time. His ode accounted for a relatively large part in Song dynasty literati poetry, although mainly eulogizing, occasionally some masterpieces. In a word, although Song Qi’s early works had somewhat suspicions of emulating celebrities, after entering his official career, along with the maturation of his writing practice, especially while editing New Book of Tang in his fifty years, he came to the realization that the article should be of some unique characteristics, as a rule, his later proses and historical works obviously embodied this standpoint. His early proses differ greatly from his later ones, in that the style and content of the early ones were relatively leisurely, while the latter were dignified and mainly of historical events.In the conclusion part, Song Qi’s thought has been made qualitatively and categorized to the Confucian, a summary on his achievements in politics, history, literature and other aspects, a critical reflection on his limitation, and a prospect of the research on Song Qi’s thought have been made last.