Zeng Gong
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Zeng Gong (曾鞏; style name: Zigu 子固; 1019-1083) was a scholar and historian of the Song Dynasty in China. He was one of the supporters of the New Classical Prose Movement 新古文運動 and is regarded as founder of one of the eight great schools of thought of the Tang and Song dynasties (唐宋八大家).
Zeng Gong was born in Nanfeng 南豐, Jianchang 建昌 (modern Nanfeng, Jiangxi province). He is said to have wrote Liu lun 六論 when he was only twelve. After the work was praised by Ouyang Xiu, one of the intellectual leaders of the era, Zeng Gong became widely known among literary circles.
At the age of eighteen, (in 1037) he moved to Yushan county 玉山縣 (in modern Jiangxi) to accompany his father Zeng Yizhan 曾易占, who had been appointed magistrate there. Whilst in Yushan, he travelled extensively in its hinterlands and wrote You Xinzhou Yushan xiaoyan ji (遊信州玉山小岩記). The work was divided into five sections. The first describes the geography of Yushan, followed by sections on the caves, rocks etc. Zeng's youthful descriptions show his vivid imagination and literary talent. In his twenties, Zeng Gong travelled widely throughout China, befriending the would be reformer Wang Anshi and later recommending him to Ouyang Xiu.
In 1057, Zeng Gong achieved the degree of jinshi (中進) and was appointed to a military post in the provinces. The next year, he was recalled to the capital and served within the department of history - collecting and drafting documents. From 1069, he was appointed successively as the head of Qizhou 齊州, Xiangzhou 襄州, Hongzhou 洪州, Fuzhou 福州, Mingzhou 明州 and Haozhou 毫州. In 1080, on route to a fresh appointment in Cangzhou (滄州), Zeng was granted an audience with Emperor Shenzong. The emperor was suitably impressed and allowed Zeng to stay at the capital to work on a history of the Five Dynasties period. Zeng Gong was promoted to become Aide to the Master of Writings (中書舍人) in 1082. He died the next year in Jiangning 江寧. The new monarch Emperor Lizong granted him the posthumous appellation of "Wending" (文定).
Zeng Gong produced some four hundred poems in his lifetime and a number of essays. His style of prose writing is mostly discursive rather than argumentative. In terms of political philosophy, Zeng was a firm follower of Ouyang Xiu. For this reason his reputation as leader of the one of the eight great schools of philosophy has largely been overshadowed by that of his mentor. Among Zeng Gong's collected works are fifty chapters of Yuanfeng lei gao (元豐類稿), forty chapters of the Xu yuanfeng lei gao (續元豐類稿) and thirty chapters of the Longping ji (隆平集).
