Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 2.pdf/172

 of his day. He insists that yielding to an aggressor is not necessarily a virtue, because it whets the appetite of the aggressor and then there comes a time when the person imposed upon can yield no further. These minor works of Ts'ui Shu, as well as his letters and more solid treatises, are enlivened throughout by a direct and simple prose style, by apt citation of proverbs and appeal to homely matters, and by astute observations on local customs and the superstitions of his day. This spirit is shown anew in a manuscript collection of his letters, verse, and antithetical couplets, entitled 荍田賸筆 Chiao-t'ien shêng-pi, of which considerable fragments were discovered at Ta-ming in 1933.

In 1791 Ts'ui Shu completed the first draft of his 洙泗考信錄 Chu-ssŭ k'ao-hsin lu, namely, that section of his magnum opus which deals with the life of Confucius and his disciples. The final draft, however, was not completed until 1810. It is the most exacting life of Confucius ever written up to that time, and takes into account all available sources in the light of the historical and cultural background. This is one of several works which Ts'ui took with him to Peking in 1792 when he determined, in the interest of the family economy, to seek an official post. While residing there in an inn he showed the work to Ch'ên Li-ho 陳履和, a native of Shih-ping, Yunnan, a chü-jên of 1780, and a fellow-townsman of the afore-mentioned Chu Ying who had befriended Ts'ui and his brother in Ta-ming. So impressed was Ch'ên by both the man and his writings that he begged to be regarded as his pupil. The teacher and pupil were together only two months when Ts'ui returned home; and though Ts'ui went again to Peking in 1794, his pupil had gone. Neither saw the other again. But there developed between them a friendship, unique in the history of literature, and far-reaching in its consequences to Chinese scholarship. Ch'ên spent the remainder of his life, until his death in 1825, in printing his masters works, and sacrificed, in the process, all of his personal means and all prospects for a high official career. It is safe to say that except for Ch'ên's unflagging devotion few, if any, of Ts'ui Shu's writings would have survived.

In the first moon of 1796 Ts'ui Shu was appointed district magistrate of Lo-yüan, Fukien. In the fourth moon of that year he and his wife started south, attended by his concubine, Chou Li-ê 周麗娥 (1770–1800), whom he had taken in 1785 at the request of his wife who feared they would have no heir and no one to care for them in their old age. On August 15 Ts'ui took up his duties at Lo-yüan, a district notoriously difficult to govern and one from which several previous officials had been dismissed. Seven days prior to his arrival certain sentries employed by salt merchants of an adjoining district were wounded by smugglers when the latter resisted arrest—one of the sentries being drowned. The villages involved attempted by misrepresentation to have the case adjudicated in Lo-yüan, in the hope that a new and inexperienced magistrate would deal leniently with them. But the subterfuge was so patent, and the evidence so incriminating, that Ts'ui felt it necessary to bring to light all the facts—a task for which he had qualified himself by years of historical criticism. He thus incurred the enmity of many unscrupulous persons, including minor officials who profited by these local disorders, but in the end the higher officials of the province sustained him. Other cases, equally vexatious, involved merchants or travellers who were blackmailed and who, if they did not bribe subordinate officials, were falsely accused of smuggling, were detained and robbed, or were subjected to other indignities. For liberating persons thus falsely accused, Ts'ui was denounced before higher officials. The governor-general, Kuei-lun 魁倫, annoyed by the relevancy and directness of Tsui's findings, sought his dismissal, but the governor of the province, Wang Chih-i 汪志伊 , stood firmly by him.

In the fourth moon of 1799 Ts'ui was transferred to Shang-hang, also in Fukien. Like Lo-yüan it, too, was a district much given to litigation. Though it might have proved a lucrative post for Ts'ui, he devoted its surplus revenues to the apprehension of pirates; and refused, as before, to overlook blackmail or to curry the favor of possible trouble-makers by expensive entertainments. After a brief but successful year-and-a-half at Shang-hang, he was re-instated (tenth moon, 1800) in his old post at Lo-yüan. The populace welcomed him with great jubilation, but in carrying out his duties he showed no hint of slackness. Granaries wm supplied with fresh grain, public buildings were repaired, and social abuses—such as female infanticide, costly weddings, and vulgar chaffings of brides—were discountenanced. In addition to his official duties he lectured on the classics, on 774