Famous for his distrust of the learned, in particular because of his humble origins and the fate of his rival Zhang Shicheng 張士誠 at the hands of the learned,[1] Zhu Yuanzhang developed his own, and very strong views of the world of letters, as well as the exemplars extolled by the literati of his day.
Below the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty, who ruled under the reign title Hongwu 洪武, remarks that having heard so much about the abiding influence of the Tang writer Han Yu (‘儒者多祖韓文’), he decided to read his ‘Eulogy of Bo Yi’. He finds himself deeply unimpressed and says so in no uncertain terms.
Like others who find an incipient threat in the refusal of Bo Yi and Shu Qi to collaborate with new political regimes, Zhu disparages these ancient paragons of rectitude. For his part, Mao Zedong, himself somewhat in the thrall of Zhu Yuanzhang, would make a similar case some six hundred years later when he disparagingly referred to Han Yu’s essay on Bo Yi and dismissed the brothers as ‘democratic individualists’ who were not worthy of emulation.
古今作文者文雄句壯字奧且有音節者甚不寡。文全不誣妄理道者鮮矣。吁難哉。朕聞儒者多祖韓文。試取觀之。及至檢間忽見頌伯夷之文。乃悉觀之。中有疵焉。疵者何。曰過天地小日月是也。且伯夷之忠義止可明並乎日月久同乎天地旌褒之尚無過於此。何乃雲日月不足為明天地不足為容也。是何言哉。嘗聞上下四方曰宇。往古來今曰宙。二儀立極虛其中人物居焉。曰宇如殿庭是也。以天地初分為垠。來今無已曰宙。如江流是也。大矣哉。天地明矣哉。日月韓曰過於天地日月於文則句壯字奧。誦之則有音節。若能文者莫出於韓。若言道理伯夷過天地小日月。吾不知其何物。此果誣耶妄耶。韓文名世不朽已千載矣。今為我論識者莫不以我為強歟。設若不以我為強則韓文乃至精之撰。猶有其疵豈不鮮矣哉。
Source
《駁韓愈頌伯夷文》，《明太祖集》卷一三。See also《辨韓愈訟風伯文》同卷。
Notes
[1] A popular story claims that Zhang Shicheng, who was also of a modest background and relatively uneducated, asked his advisers to give him a more elegant name. They suggested something taken from a hallowed classical source: ‘Shicheng’ 士誠, seemingly with the meaning of ‘a man 士 of integrity 誠’. Well pleased with this lofty sobriquet Zhang only later learned (and Zhu Yuanzhang was told) that the name was concocted from a line in Mencius, the record of the secondary Confucian sage Mengzi:「士，誠小人也。」(孟子：公孫丑下). ‘This fellow really is a small man’, that is he is unlearned and inferior.