Chen Chun, Huang Gan, and Zhen Dexiu

This chapter examines the practical efforts of three prominent Southern Song Neo-Confucian scholars—Chen Chun, Huang Gan, and Zhen Dexiu—to apply moral ideals to social governance and institutional reform in Fujian. Drawing primarily on Chen Chun’s Complete Works of Beixi, Huang Gan’s Collected Works of Gentleman Huang from the Diligence Study, and Zhen Dexiu’s Collected Works of Gentleman Zhen of the West Mountain, the analysis challenges the stereotype of Song Neo-Confucians as detached metaphysicians. Instead, it reveals their deep engagement with pressing societal issues, including litigiousness, lawlessness, cattle slaughter, monastic land accumulation, fiscal abuses (huizi currency devaluation, forced salt purchases, and arbitrary levies), judicial corruption, kinship transformations, educational welfare systems, popular religion, and coastal defense. Chen Chun’s systemic critiques and reform proposals, Huang Gan’s judicial rulings against powerful magnates, and Zhen Dexiu’s governance through filial piety and anti-piracy campaigns collectively demonstrate a pragmatic Confucian commitment to “cultivating the self, regulating the family, governing the state, and bringing peace to the world.” Their efforts, though often thwarted by entrenched corruption and institutional fragility, left lasting legacies that shaped local society from the Southern Song through the Ming and Qing dynasties, while also revealing enduring tensions between elite orthodoxy and grassroots spiritual needs.