Ｍｙ Ａｎｃｅｓｔｏｒ Ｊｉａｎｇ Ｗａｎｌｉ

When it comes to the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty， many people think of Wen Tianxiang who fought the invading Mongolians and was executed after he was captured， but little is known about his tutor， Jiang Wanli， an ancestor of our Jiang family.

Jiang Wanli (1198-1275) was born in Duchang， Jiangxi Province. The village is not far away from the picturesque Boyang Lake and the Lushan Mountain. When I was little， I learned that the temple in the center of the village was where Jiang Wanli received an imperial edict from the emperor and where the edict was later stored. In 1222， he met the crown prince after he passed an imperial examination and became a scholar. In 1226， he became a metropolitan graduate. The essay he wrote in the test was a discussion on Guo Ziyi’s brave and solitary meeting with a rebellious general. Guo was the man who saved the Tang Dynasty by crushing the rebellion. In the essay， Jiang Wanli expressed his admiration for Guo and his courage and wisdom.

The Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) was the continuation of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127)， which toppled when the invading nomads from the north seized its capital. The court politics of the Southern Song Dynasty was in a large part characterized by the ceaseless blows between those who wanted to retrieve the lost land through military campaigns and those who wanted to bribe invaders with territory and tributes and maintain peace at any cost. Jiang Wanli was one of the hawks at the court. When Jiang was a court official， he submitted requests to remove those who wanted to surrender and supported hawks. After impeached on the excuse that he was not at the bedside when his mother was dying， he was idle for eight years before he was appointed again at 1261 when he was already 63.

When the Mongolian army marched southward and seized strategic cities in the north， the emperor worried and thought to appoint Jiang Wanli again. But Jiang was soon removed from power again.

After learning the fall of two strategic cities in the north and understanding that the last defense of the Southern Song Dynasty was gone， Jiang Wanli， retired at that time， had a deep pond dug at the backyard of his residence in Raozhou， Jiangxi Province. When the Mongolian troopers seized Raozhou and came all the way to his house， he said goodbye to a disciple that he would die with the dynasty even though he was no longer an official. He committed suicide in the pond with other family members. Raozhou city was later recaptured by the army of the Southern Song Dynasty and Jiang’s death was reported to the court.

I remember taking part in the annual memorial ceremony in the village when I was a kid. The ceremony was held on the eve of the Spring Festival. We would bring offerings on plates to the temple where the clan leader would beat a musical stone to start the ceremony in memory of the loyal ancestor and honest court official.

The History of the Song Dynasty describes Jiang Wanli as a learned scholar widely admired for his wisdom and literary pizzazz. Unfortunately， most of his poetry and essays have not been passed down to us today. That is probably why he is little known. But the few poems that have survived history do reveal his honesty and patriotism.

In his lifetime， Jiang Wanli founded three academies of classic learning. The Egret Islet Academy， situated at Luling， Jiangxi Province， nurtured many scholars who later fought for the dying Southern Song Dynasty and these fighters are now remembered as patriotic heroes.#8194;□