On Wen Shou-hua’s Honest Affairs In Official Career
Abstract
Wen Shouhua, the 21st descent of national hero Wen Tianxiang, was an honest official in both Jia Qin and Dao Guang of Qing dynasty. He was also respected by people for his talents on poetry. When he first held office as county leader of Wenshui county of Shanxi, he aimed for “clear, careful and diligent” and his honesty began to emerge, he got a good reputation “wenwenshui”. During his second office-holding in Jiexiu county, he finished all the cumulative cases, strictly prohibited gambling, ridded up the dead hand of opium, and once more a time showed his clean governance. When he finished his term of office, people there even crowned the road to ask him to stay on. In the term of his office serving in Yangqu county, he caught grasshoppers and regulated the wasteland, donated his salary to save the poor, and finally up-graded to Cishi of Huozhou and then Taishou of Zezhou for his great political achievement. His clean governance mainly lies at three aspects. First, took the ancestors’ “wenshan spirit”, edified by Yulin wenshi culture, to be honest and cultivated his morality. They all had a kinte. Second, he received Guangxi’ Confucianism education at an early age and learned the “puxue” style in his heart. Third, a kind of natural environment cultivate a kind of people. Yulin’ regional culture is good for clean and thus lead to the result. Fourth, he moved with local honest elites like Su Zhongjing and Zhong Zhangyuan, learned from each other and improved and finally got “three outstanding persons of Yulin”, famous through out Lingnan. In a word, if to be an clean officer, poor is nothing important. Qing nynasty’s “wenwenshui” is a logical development of Song dynasty’s “wenwenshan”, and it also provides valuable resource for the modern local clean governance culture construction of Yulin.
