Abstract

This study aims to explore the restoration of Ch'eng-Chu Neo-Confucianism in the mid-19th century China through the examination of the thoughts of three major Neo-Confucianists who contributed to it: T'ang Chien, Wo-jen, and Tseng Kuo-fan. Through the analysis of the thoughts of these three minds, this study will display the development, character, and their socio-political implications of Ch'eng-Chu Neo-Confucianism in late imperial China. There are two foci in this study: the Ch'eng-Chu circle as an intellectual school and Ch'eng-Chu doctrine as a political ideology. To cope with this dual foci, this study will discuss how this Ch'eng-Chu school was successfully achieving intellectual hegemony over the three other competitive schools like ching-shih, T'ung-ch'eng, and chin-wen in the first half of 19th century. It will also analyze the characteristics of inner structure of this ideology, which was marked by a strong socio-moral concern, seen as a response to the growing tides of foreign imperialism in the post-Opium-War period and its close relationship with the T'ung-chih Restoration Movement.