The Wu family of Xianju is a prestigious family in eastern Zhejiang. Virtuousness and emphasis on education is the foundation of Xianju Wu family, which enables the Wu family to last for thousands of years and to produce outstanding talents in every generation. Family education is mainly manifested in aspects, such as paying attention to the inheritance of family traditions, learning classical Confucian texts, and family education.
The beginning of the Wu family
In the middle of the Tang Dynasty, the founder of the family, Duke Quan Zhi, moved from Suichang to Xianju and lived in Xiaoli. Mr. Quan Zhi attained Jinshi degree and served Grand Master of the Palace with silver seal and blue ribbon, Chancellor of the National Academy and censor-in-chief. According to the Genealogy of the Wu Family in Xianju, the following five generations of the Duke Quanzhi were passed down singly. Wu Chen, the son of Duke Quanzhi, was an official to deputy commander. Unfortunately, he was killed in battle and his deeds are unknown. Although the Wu family of Xianju started with the background of the imperial examination from Duke Quanzhi, perhaps because of the death of Wu Chen, there are few descendants in the following generations, who were not able to continue the ancestral tradition of studying for the imperial examination, and mainly worked as a farmer.
Since Xianju is surrounded by mountains and has a closed environment, it has been in a state of unexplored culture since the Han and Jin dynasties. In the Northern Song Dynasty, Chen Xiang, a Neo-Confucianist, became the magistrate of Xianju, and he persuaded the people to learn and advocate the custom, taught them to change so that the folk custom gradually became better and better. Among them, the Wu family was the most famous for goodness, and was the leader of the ethos of Xianju. The Wu family's virtuous and kind-hearted family tradition started from the fourth ancestor, Wu Fu, while to set up a private school and employ teachers for the imperial examination started from the sixth ancestor, Wu Xing and Wu Yunzhao.
Wu Fu (945-1025), the fourth ancestor, was honest, sincere, industrious and thrifty, and had the refined manners of an ancient gentleman. He was known for his faithfulness and righteousness in his hometown. He started the family tradition of kindness. Once a merchant from Min (Fujian) deposited several thousand taels of silver in his house and didn’t come to demand them back for a long time. So he lent the capital to make profit and also lent to poor villagers to relieve the hardship of the them. When the merchant came to take it, he returned it together with the principal and interest.
Wu Yunzhao (1061-1121), the seventh ancestor of the Xianju Wu family, was honest and tolerant by nature, good in virtue and kindness, and attached importance to family education. He set up a private school and invited teachers for the study of classics. Since then, descendants of the clan have achieved successive successes in imperial examinations for a long time.
Family tradition inheritance
The family tradition of tilling and reading, and being kind and charitable, is the foundation of family governance laid by the Wu family in Xianju since the Song Dynasty, and has been passed down and followed from generation to generation since then.
Wu Fu was virtuous and kind-hearted, and his son, Wu Feng, was quite like his father. In the year of drought, when the villagers were starving, he would donate his money to help the people and save them from the crisis. “A virtuous family can enjoy long prosperity for generations.” Wu Feng had four sons, and his family personnel began to prosper.
The Wu's virtues and kindness were developed from the inner heart. Among them, the most prominent are Madame Ye, the wife of the ninth ancestor Wu Qin, and her son Wu Wei. Ye (1156-1214) was talented since childhood, and his mother arranged the marriage partner for him, marrying into the Wu family at the age of 30. When Wu Qin's career did not go well, he switched to farming in order to revitalize the family business. The couple worked hard to manage, but before it was completed, her husband died when their son was only one year old. She got married late and became a widow in two years. Her mother took pity on her and repeatedly persuade her to remarry. However, she sold her dowry to for production, and handled it properly. Although she did not go out of the house, but she was able to handle everything both inside and outside the house for 37 years without complaint, and the family business became more and more prosperous. One day, she admonished Wu Wei, “The reason why I have worked so hard day and night, accumulating every inch, without any expense, is that it is all for your sake! Now that you have grown up and the family is well provided for, you should do good deeds to protect the family.” In her later years, Madame Wu compassionately supported the poor, built statues of Buddha, built bridges, and donated coffins for those needed, without stinting. Wu Wei was so kind to his mother that he built a high house to look as far as ten li. Especially on snowy days, when she saw no smoke arising from a house, she would ask people to send rice and firewood. He donated money to build a brick road from Kucang to Haiya to facilitate the pedestrians. The villagers were very grateful. A poem praising him reads, “Who has left corn in a snowy night? People can walk on the road in moonlit night.” His uncle, Wu Fu, who had been appointed to the post of Zhixueshi of Longtuge, treated his clan members with great authority, but he was the only one who praised Wu Wei's mother and Wu Wei with poems and essays. After his engaging in politics, Wu Fu was also very generous to his clan and so were his children and grandchildren.
Since the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties and even the Republic of China, the Wu family has continued the traditional family style of virtue, education， and diligence in the words and teachings of their predecessors. For example, according to the Guangxu “Records of Xianju”, the Wu family members in the Qing Dynasty Wu Yongzuo abided by the family style for kindness, taking the seventh generation grandmother Madame Ye as the model to help the villagers. The villagers praised him as “the only one of the township who is pure, benevolent, and outstanding in the country”
The Book of Later Han records that Emperor Ming of the Eastern Han Dynasty once asked his compatriot brother Liu Cang, the King of Dongping, “What is the most joyful thing in a family?” King Dongping replied, “It is to do good deeds.” The inscription “Kindness is the most joyful” still remains in the existing Wu's residence in Gaoqian. The indecipherable handwriting speaks silently of the family's long-standing family tradition of virtue and charity. “A virtuous family can enjoy long prosperity for generations.” The Wu family of Xianju has been flourishing for more than a thousand years, proving the Chinese family tradition of family governance.
Confucian Education
In the history of Xianju, Buddhism and Taoism have flourished, and folk beliefs are rich and varied, among which the belief in Hu Gong Da Di is the most prevalent. In the diverse spiritual world of the region, Confucianism and the Confucian way of life undoubtedly occupy the primary and main position. Confucian intellectual education consisted of two main parts: the private education completed by the family, and the official education system of public schools and officially sponsored academies. Since the sixth generation of the Wu family, Wu Xing and Wu Yunzhao started to set up a school and invited teachers, the children of the family were diligent in their studies and entered the civil service, especially in the Song and Ming dynasties, establishing and consolidating the social status of the Wu family.
The traditional Confucian education of the Wu family is demonstrated as follows: Elders taught personally. Family learning has established the foundation of learning and education for scholars. From the family history, the Wu family elders are very good at education, including the female elders of the clan. The twenty-third ancestor Wu Shilai (1527-1590), courtesy name Weixiu, self-titled Wuzhai, gifted with natural talent, could recite at a glance. In the thirty-second year of Jiajing reign he attained Jinshi degree, and later was official to the left imperial official. His parents gave him the best family education. History records that his mother was very good at teaching him, while his father, Wu Bingtai, stopped taking the examination after failing in the imperial examinations and taught him elaborately. Wu Shilai had backbone as an official in the imperial court, served the country with loyalty, helped the people with grace and held himself righteous. This is closely related to the family education.
To Set up a school and invite teachers. From the seventh ancestor Wu Xing and Wu Yunzhao, setting up a school to read books, and inviting teachers to teach, especially famous teachers to teach the children of the clan and even the village, is the norm that Wu family attached importance to family education. Wu Chun, the 15th ancestor of the Wu family, was not willing to be an official, but happy to help students. He together the clan members founded a voluntary school, and invited Zhang Qianbi, a famous teacher in Linhai, to teach the children of the village, hence studying was prevalent. There are many special records in the family history of the Wu family about the establishment of the school and inviting teachers. For example, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, in Cheng 497, Wu Bengao disciplined the students with diligence, treated people with respect, and invited teachers to teach the children; in Qing 133, Wu Xiru set up a school and invited teachers to teach the children of the clan, with the style of his ancestors; in Ji 6, Wu Ruxing was good at reading, and set up a school to teach children; in Ji 191，Wu Hong set up a school and invited teachers to teach children. He self-treated strictly. The list goes on.
Learning from famous scholars. After the Song Dynasty, the Xianju area was increasingly influenced by Neo-Confucianism. Especially after the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhu Zi had good relations with the Wu family and wrote a long inscription for Wu Fu, praising him. The scholars of the Wu family admired Zhu Zi's doctrine. According to the county records, Wu Meiqing and Wu Liang were disciples of Zhu Zi and his students (whether this Wu is the descendent of Duke Quanzhi is to be verified).
The 13th ancestor, Wu Jian (1206-1279, the left prime minister of the Southern Song Dynasty), studied at the Yuelu Academy in Changsha during the period of Jiading reign (1223-1224). At this time, his father, Wu Huan (1177-1227), was a lieutenant of Changsha, and he lived in Changsha with his father, during which time he studied with the latter disciples of Zhu Zi, such as Zhen Dexiu and Li Fan. The Yuelu Academy is one of the four great academies of the Song Dynasty. He took advantage of various opportunities to visit famous scholars in academic learning, so that the Wu family's Confucian heritage gained an extremely high starting point.
In traditional Chinese society, although poetry and books are closely related to academic merits in imperial examinations, they have a relatively independent value. To achieve the ambition of preserving peace and order through the imperial examinations is the ideal of life taught by Confucian poetry and books. The Wu family has had important historical figures in history, including Wu Fu in the Song Dynasty and Wu Shilai in the Ming Dynasty, and the Wu family has a typical traditional family of scholar-official spirituality. However, due to the moral education of Confucianism and the inherent requirements of “self-cultivating” and “family-regulating”, it also makes the real Confucian cultivate a philosophical realm of advancing and retreating freely in life. In general, for more than a thousand years, the Wu family has had an unbroken stream of scholars, and there are many Confucian scholars who have been engaged in agriculture and commerce, even though they have not served at government.
Prosperity of Literature and Education
There are scholars in the Wu family of Xianju who have written books and set up profound ideas for many generations. For example, in the Southern Song Dynasty, Wu Fu wrote “Hushan Collections” and Wu Shilai “Hengcha Collections”. However, the most important thing for the Wu family to teach by writing is the compilation of family genealogy.
Lv Donglai of the Song Dynasty said, “The ritual and music outline is the way of the country; the clan genealogy is the way of the family.” Family genealogy is equivalent to national history. Not only can genealogy play the role of gathering the clan and making friends with the clan, it is also an important carrier of the family's culture and education. As the Preface to the Renewing of the Genealogy of the Wu family says: “If the population is flourishing, there are more documents. If the literature is prosperous, the teaching prevails. The genealogy is also the history.” Wu's genealogy contains family motto and other rich documents of family history such as ancestral epitaph, biography, records and articles about their virtues, especially the epitaph and articles, often written by scholars with a reputation for learning. These set a good model of learning and behavior for Wu's descendants. The Wu family genealogy has been compiled 17 times since the Song Dynasty. The work of compilation is often undertaken by important scholars in the family. For example, the 22nd ancestor, Wu Bingshu attained Jinshi degree of Jiajing reign and served as the director of the Ministry of Public Works. Due to the dictatorship of Yan Song, he resigned and returned to his hometown to take charge of the genealogy. This ensures the quality of genealogy compilation, which is an important medium for the Wu's flourishing in literature and education.