[
    {
        "id": 212516,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1991",
        "page_number": 70,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "50\n\nby combing through all of Ruan Yuan's publications, more than 30 published chronological biographies (lie zhuan) of Ruan Yuan of various lengths in Chinese; one essay each about him written in English, French, German and Japanese; numerous annotated catalogues of Qing writings; literally hundreds of biographies or biographical notes of Ruan Yuan's contemporaries who might have had an affiliation with Ruan Yuan; and as many informal writings by these scholars as I could locate and tolerate. I did not include anyone, no matter how well-known, whose association with Ruan Yuan appeared to be only incidental. For instance, I did not include Commissioner Lin Zexu (1785-1859) who paid a courtesy call on Ruan Yuan in Yangzhou after he was dismissed from office in 1840 or 1841.\n\nI have found information on these 200 individuals, some more complete and others only sketchy. The main reason for their association with Ruan Yuan was a common interest in scholarly pursuits, encompassing calligraphy, textual criticism, ancient inscriptions, phonetics, etymology, historiography, poetry, and, in a less expected area for 18th and 19th century China, a concern for the environment, but Ruan Yuan also had among his associates people with lesser scholarly achievements, perhaps, but with greater claim to his largess, for instance, relatives, townsmen, and other scholars he had to accommodate.\n\nThrough Zhu Gui, Shao Jinhan (1743-1796) and Wang Niansun (1744-1832), had exposed the young Ruan Yuan to the new vistas of the School of Han Learning as well as the application of the empirical method devised by Dai Zhen (1727-1777) to investigate the Classics. Ruan Yuan was to become a powerful exponent of Han Learning. Bi Yuan had introduced to Ruan Yuan the excitement of studying ancient inscriptions on stone. Zhang Xuecheng had written to Ruan Yuan “about collecting antiquities in Zhejiang, an activity Ruan Yuan might be interested in in his leisure time.” Zhang also decried that \"there were many libraries and a strong historical tradition (in Zhejiang in the past); many of the scholars who worked on the Yuan and Ming histories came from this area, and there were better historical collections here than elsewhere, But all is scattered and lost!\" In time, Ruan Yuan was to cajole private collectors to preserve and catalogue their libraries, and looked for titles which had not been included in the Si ku chuan shu.\n\nA number of senior scholars received largess from Ruan Yuan. Two",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212530,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1991",
        "page_number": 84,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "64\n\n28\n\n19\n\n3:0\n\nDavid Nivison, The Life and Thought of Chang Hsueh-ch'eng, (Stanford, 1866), 251\n\nIbid\n\nSee Si ku wei shou shu mu u yao, 5 juan, 1807 Ruan Yuan's bibliographical annotations on important books omitted from the Si Ku chuan shu. He had found these books in Zhejiang. The original memorials that accompanied these books and his annotations are in the Qing Archival Collection at the National Palace Museum (Taipei)\n\n31 Yi zheng Liu Meng zhan nian pu (Chronological account of the life of Liu Wen chi), 114-115.\n\n32 Arthur Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, (Washington DC, 1943), 91\n\n33\n\n34 Yang Wensheng X, Si shi cao ji (1801), Preface\n\nLetter to Liu Taigong (1790-1855), dated 1802 Liu's daughter was married to Ruan Yuan's adopted son, Ruan Changsheng,\n\n34 Letter to Wang Niansun.\n\n36 Ruan Yuan blamed the errors on the fact that he had not had a chance to do the final proof reading before the book was printed.\n\n37 Ruan Yuan's letters written in old age, Ruan Wen da gong zhi shi hou jia shu, consisting of several dozen memos written to his family after 1838 when he retired from government service, serve to prove that Ruan Heng, always referred to as \"my younger brother\" but actually a distant cousin who had been adopted as heir to a half brother of Ruan Yuan's father, had taken care of Ruan Yuan's business and financial interests with the aid of a couple of clerks. These letters are in the Rare Book Collection of Beijing Library. I am grateful to Professor Wang Junyi and his staff of the Qing History Institute at the People's University who made it possible for me to have access to the collection in March 1991\n\n38\n\nI am not happy with the English translation \"tent friend\" or \"guest\"\n\nDing xian ting bi tan, 1:11a.\n\n40\n\n41 See, for instance, Ding xiang ting bi tan 3.52b-53a\n\nHai ning zhou zhi gao 4:3 shan, 11b-12b.\n\n42 Xie Guozheng, Jin dai shu yuan xue xiao zhi du bian quan kao (An inquiry into recent changes in the academies and schools of China), (Hong Kong, 1972), 2-18.\n\n43 Zhang Ying in Wen lan xue bao 2:1\n\nLin Bo tong, Xue hai tang zhi",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j",
        "rank": 0
    }
]