Lishui Confucian School

History

juan 3 of the Kangxi edition of the Lishui County Gazetteer, under "Schools", records:

学校，考旧址，在唐武德元年建于旧县治东，即今之城隍庙西也。至宋熙宁间，知县关起移建于大东门里，今之香山观地也。历元，历明，修者再，而址无改。至嘉靖十七年废于水患，知县陈光华迁于京兆馆东，旧香山观地，知县谢廷绩成之。而其地勿广，至三十九年复迁今大西门里，旧朝元观地，知县曾震、教谕叶露新创，继以知县周之屏、署县推官程学颜共成之。崇祯间，知县游应龙谋迁于县东潭子村后之东，以鼎革故未果。国朝顺治十三年，知县闵派鲁同教谕吴鼎玫、训导纪甲第仍旧贯而鼎新焉。

Translated: The school, on examining its old site, was built in the first year of the Wude era (618) in the Tang, east of the old county office, that is, west of today's City God Temple. In the Xining period of the Song the magistrate Guan Qi moved it inside the great east gate, on the site of today's Xiangshan Temple. Through the Yuan and the Ming it was repaired twice and its site unchanged. In the seventeenth year of the Jiajing era it was ruined by flood, and the magistrate Chen Guanghua moved it east of the Jingzhao Hostel, to the old Xiangshan Temple site, where the magistrate Xie Tingji completed it. The ground being cramped, in the thirty-ninth year it was moved once more inside the great west gate, to the old Chaoyuan Temple site, newly founded by the magistrate Zeng Zhen and the instructor Ye Lu and completed by the magistrates Zhou Zhiping and the acting prefectural judge Cheng Xueyan. In the Chongzhen period the magistrate You Yinglong planned to move it east, behind Tanzi village east of the county, but the change of dynasty prevented it. In the thirteenth year of Shunzhi (1656) the magistrate Min Pailu, with the instructor Wu Dingmei and the assistant instructor Ji Jia, renewed it on the old foundations.

On this account the school was founded in the Wude period of the Tang, east of the old county office; moved inside the great east gate in the Xining period of the Song; moved to the Jingzhao Hostel in 1538 because of flooding and again inside the great west gate in 1560; was planned to move again in the Chongzhen period; and was renewed in 1656.

juan 7 of the Lishui County Gazetteer, in the section on the Confucian school, quotes an earlier gazetteer:

旧志：唐武德七年建，在旧县治东三十步

Translated: An earlier gazetteer: built in the seventh year of the Wude era (624), thirty paces east of the old county office.

juan 9 of the same gazetteer, in Pan Ye's "Record of Repairing the Confucian School and its Roads" of 1489, gives instead "the school was built in the early Wude period, thirty paces east of the old office". The founding year thus appears in three forms (618 / 624 / "the early Wude period"), and the distance of thirty paces in two; all are set out, without a choice. The juan 7 passage is a quotation from an earlier gazetteer, and the marking word "earlier gazetteer" is kept.

The temple and the school

juan 3 of the Kangxi edition records the temple's layout: the temple faces east, its hall of the sage has five bays with side galleries; in front are the temple gate, the Lingxing gate and the Pan Palace arch; the Pan pool was spanned by three stone bridges, repaired in 1577 by the registrar Deng Zhan, of which two survive; beside the temple to the left is the Qisheng shrine, behind which is the Zunjing library; in front again is the Jingyi pavilion, which holds the Jiajing emperor's admonition and the four admonitions of Cheng Yi, six stelae in all; flanking the temple are the shrines of local worthies and of notable officials. The school proper lies to the temple's right, with the Minglun hall of five bays, the two studios of "Advancing in Virtue" and "Cultivating Achievement" of five bays each, and in front the ceremonial gate of five bays and the school gate with its "source of the Zhu and Si" arch.

juan 9 of the same gazetteer, in Huang Zongzai's "Record of Rebuilding the Great Hall" (1441), gives the hall's dimensions: "the Great Hall is four zhang eight chi high, six zhang deep and rather more than seven zhang wide", with three bays of the halberd gate, three Lingxing gates, three bays of the Minglun hall, and three bays each of the two studios.

Academy and school lands

juan 3 records that in 1599 the then magistrate Xu Bida "built an academy on the spare ground to the right of the school with the surplus from repairing the school", its hall called "Haoran", with a "Spring-Trying" porch to the south, a pool behind it with the "Phoenix Pool Lodge", a "Jade Lotus Pavilion" to the east and an "Angling the Turtle" terrace in front; all are now ruined, only the sites remaining.

The same juan lists six parcels of school land, the first of 108.2 mu, with others added by the magistrates He Yigui, Fu Yingzhen, Wu Shiquan and Xu Bida in the Longqing and Wanli periods; the rents were "given to scholars of good conduct who were poor".

Present state

According to Li Li and Xia Hui, "Discovery and Analysis of a Historical Photograph of the Lishui Confucian Temple" (Dang'an Tiandi, 2025, no. 12), the Lishui Confucian temple and school were founded in the Tang and destroyed during the War of Resistance, with no surface remains surviving; in 2019 the Nanjing City Wall Museum acquired a photograph taken in August 1936 by Zhu Xie and marked on the back "Lishui Confucian temple".

Points of doubt

• The founding year appears in three forms (618 / 624 / "the early Wude period"); the juan 7 passage is a quotation from an earlier gazetteer, and the scanned edition is attributed to Ding Weicheng, who matches the compiler of the Guangxu edition, so the edition is uncertain and is not called an edition of any particular reign.
• The gazetteers give several sites for the school (east of the old county office, inside the great east gate, inside the great west gate); the present site could not be ascertained and is not supplied.
• "Confucian school", "Confucian temple" and "school" are treated separately in the gazetteers, with different emphasis; this entry sets them out in separate sections rather than merging them.
• The destruction during the War of Resistance appears only in the Dang'an Tiandi article; no protection grade or listing for the site was found in the heritage lists, so no protection level is given.