The Life And Academia Of Cheng Dachang

Cheng Dachang,whose courtesy name is Taizhi,was born in Xiuning,Huizhou and moved to Huzhou,Zhejiang in his later life.He is a famous scholar during the Southern Song Dynasty and a representative figure of Hui School.He has broad academic perspectives and achieves great attainments in the field of literature,historiography,philosophy,Confucism,linguistics,geography,etc.However,there is almost no research about Cheng's background;life experience and poem study nowadays,which is not commensurate with his achievement.Based on this,this paper is divided into two parts.The first part is mainly about the research about Cheng,focused on new aspects.Starting from Cheng's whole life experience,thoughts,works and combining with the discovery of Chronicle,social situations,others' comments,this paper presents a cubic profile of Cheng Dachang.Wealthy family,efficient family policy and the local customs laid important influences on his political career and in return,he benefited his family.Righteous and suave,he could deal with the complicated affairs in his political life.He thought the Confucism was the main philosophy,rejecting the Buddhism,but he could also absorbed the ideas from Daoism.During the former part of his life,he managed to work hard on his political career.While after that,he could also focused on the academic research.The second part is the Chronicle,the main body of this paper.The Chronicle mainly focused on his life experience,works,friends making.By the means of organizing his books,referring to the bibliography since Song Dynasty,try to scrutinize the exact time of his works.Besides,consulting the academic notes of Song Dynasty,letters,collections of his friends,local chronicles,family genealogy and nowadays research,we can make sure to find out the accurate life of Cheng.Apart from the Chronicle,the Pre-chronicle and Post-chronicle are here to study Cheng's family.Cheng Dachang is an outstanding figure of Cheng family in Xin'an and the Hui School.It is significant to find out his life experience and social intercourse.We can know the development of Xin'an Cheng family and the Hui School,and see the social life of scholars in Southern Song Dynasty.It helps to understand the effect that the political situation has on their career,thoughts,academy,furthermore,the whole situation of Southern Song Dynasty.