Wang Zhongxiao Gong Ji

Author: Wang Zhongxiao (Qing Dynasty)
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2000-11-01
Features: Wang Zhongxiao, styled Changru, and styled Kuiliang. He was a native of Huian, Fujian. According to the Wang Family Genealogy, he was born in the twenty-first year of the Wanli era of the Ming Dynasty (1593) and died in the twentieth year of the Yongli era of the Ming Dynasty, which is the fifth year of the Kangxi era of the Qing Dynasty (1666 [1]). He lived to the age of seventy-four. According to Wang Zhongxiao's Last Will and Testament (1), his self-statement, as well as records in the Wang Family Genealogy by Wang Kongren, Biography of Wang Zhongxiao by Hong Xu, and other sources, Wang Zhongxiao wrote works such as The Four Residences, Commentary on the Classic of Filial Piety, A Brief Explanation of the I Ching, Record of the Book of Songs, Record of the Four Books, and several volumes of memorials and essays, all of which were never published. Currently, only twelve volumes of his literary and poetic manuscripts remain, originally titled The Complete Works of Wang Zhongxiao of Huian. The author has examined two collections of these manuscripts held in the Library of Xiamen University and the Library of Fujian Normal University (hereinafter referred to as the "Xiamen University manuscript" and the "Fujian Normal University manuscript," respectively").
The "Xiamen University manuscript" was written on square-grided draft paper in pencil, while the "Fujian Normal University manuscript" was written on handmade paper in brush calligraphy. In the "Fujian Normal University manuscript," volumes 1, 2, 6, 7, 9 to 12 were written in the same calligraphy, while volumes 3 to 5 and 8 were in a different calligraphy. The entire manuscript had the same line spacing, with twelve lines per page and twenty-eight characters per line. When Mr. Xu Zhongkai mentioned the origin of the "Fujian Normal University manuscript," he said: "In 1959, I visited Luoyang to search for books and only obtained three volumes of the old manuscript, volumes 9 to 11. This collection was copied from the manuscript held in the History Department of Xiamen University [5]." The so-called "manuscript held in the History Department of Xiamen University" refers to the manuscript now held in the Library of Xiamen University? Its current existence or loss is unknown.
By comparing the "Xiamen University manuscript" and the "Fujian Normal University manuscript," the author found that the "Fujian Normal University manuscript" had been punctuated during the copying process and later revised by Professor Zhu Weikhan in a simple manner, while the "Xiamen University manuscript" only used spaces between sentences. The quality of the "Fujian Normal University manuscript" was also clearly better than that of the "Xiamen University manuscript." Therefore, we included this manuscript in the third series of Fujian Classics and chose the "Fujian Normal University manuscript" as the basis for facsimile printing.