Wang Huizu

Wang Huizu was born on 21 January 1731 in Xiaoshan county, Shaoxing circuit, Zhejiang (present-day Xiaoshan, Hangzhou). Situated in the lower Yangtze valley, this region was marked by the presence of Jiangnan, a city which was the center of Chinese literacy and an intellectually flourishing area. Wang Huizu's father, Wang Kai (), was the warden of a prison in Henan. Wang's mother was Kai's concubine. Therefore, it could be said that Wang Huizu belonged to the local literati elite. However, Wang Kai died in Canton in 1741, putting Wang Huizu and his mother in a precarious situation. As a result, the young Wang was forced to struggle in poverty. == Life and career as an official ==

In 1747, at the age of sixteen, Wang Huizu passed the local-level examination and therefore gained the status of shengyuan (; "student member"). Afterwards, he remained for a moment in Changsha but finally retired in his home district in 1793 where he focused on his work as a scholar. Wang Huizu became paralyzed in 1795 and died on the first of May 1807. == Scholarship ==

As jurist Wang Huizu wrote two guides of public administration which had become paramount for Chinese officials until the end of the Qing empire. The first one, Zuozhi yaoyan () was printed in 1785 by Wang's friend Bao Tingbo (). The second, Xuezhi yishuo (; "Views on Learning Governance"), was published in 1793. In this second piece, Wang focused on county government and compared county magistrates to medicine men, wooden puppets or fragile glass screens: all these evocative comparisons reflect the officials' inability to manage an economically and demographically expanding society. Wang Huizu even stated in the preface of his book that he would make a critical study on the routine of Chinese local administrators. He also underlined the importance of the hearing of people's plaints as one of the key for a good governance, notably because this activity creates a direct link between the magistrate and the civilians under his jurisdiction. This shows that, in a majority of cases, arbitrage was used to ensure civil justice— a convenient means to maintain social peace. Although many literati produced works of belles-lettres and especially poetry, this was not the case for Wang Huizu. However, he was in contact with other Chinese scholars such as the historian Zhang Xuecheng and Zhu Yun – who originated the Siku Quanshu under the Qianlong Emperor – Shao Jinhan (), Lu Jiugao (), and the bibliophile Bao Tingbo. As moralist Wang Huizu was also a moralist, notably producing a handbook for the management of family life called Shuangjietang yongxun (; "Simple Precepts from the Hall of Chaste Widows"). Wang wrote that the two women who inspired his model of the virtuous, chaste wife were his mother and his father's second wife. The book was dedicated to educating his sons as future patriarchs. He underlines that the equilibrium of a family, especially the virtue of its women, depends on the zunzhang yueshu (; "family elder's discipline"). ==References==