Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period/Hsiung Tz'ŭ-li
HSIUNG Tz'ŭ-li 熊賜履 (T. 青岳, 敬修, H. 澴川), Dec. 13, 1635–1709, official and philosopher, was a native of Hsiao-kan, Hupeh. In 1657 he became a chü-jên and in the following year a chin-shih. By 1663 he was promoted from the post of corrector to an assistant readership in the Hung-wên yüan 宏文院. In 1667, at a time when Oboi [q. v.] was powerful at Court, he memorialized the throne on corruption in official life, pleading especially that Chinese officials should not accommodate themselves too readily to the views of their Manchu colleagues—a pronouncement that brought him to notice as a daring and outspoken official. He was made a sub-chancellor of the Kuo-shih yüan 國史院 in 1670, but when early in the winter of that year the "Three Inner Yüan" (內三院) were reorganized into the Nei-ko 內閣 or Grand Secretariat he was appointed chancellor of the Hanlin Academy. In 1675 he became Grand Secretary of the Wu-ying tien 武英殿 and concurrently president of the Board of Punishments, and at the same time was charged with the compilation of the imperial edicts of T'ai-tsung (太宗聖訓 T'ai-tsung shêng-hsün), with the re-editing of the official chronicles of T'ai-tsung (太宗實錄 T'ai-tsung shih-lu), and with the production of a work on the Classic of Filial Piety, entitled Hsiao-ching yen-i (see under Fu-lin and Yeh Fang-ai). In the following year he committed an error in drafting an imperial rescript to a memorial that had been sent from the provinces. Realizing his mistake, he attempted by altering a label to shift the responsibility to a colleague, Tu Li-tê [q. v.]. When the truth became known, he was dismissed, and thereafter made his home in Nanking for twelve years. Nevertheless, Emperor Shêng-tsu was grateful to Hsiung for having helped him in his early education, and when the Emperor made tours through Nanking (1684, 1689) he received him gracefully.
In 1688 Hsiung was recalled to the post of president of the Board of Ceremonies. In the winter of that year his mother died. After the completion of the prescribed period of mourning he was appointed in 1692 president of the Board of Civil Office. In 1699 he was again made Grand Secretary and concurrently a director for the compilation of the P'ing-ting shuo-mo fang lüeh, an official account of the campaigns against the Eleuths (see under Chang Yü-shu), and of the History of the Ming Dynasty (Ming-shih). In Court politics he sided with Hsü Ch'ien-hsüeh and Songgotu [qq. v.] against Mingju, Li Kuang-ti [qq. v.] and others. Allowed in 1703 to retire on grounds of old age, he nevertheless was ordered to remain in the capital for occasional advice. Two years later he returned to Nanking where he died in 1709 at the age of seventy-five (sui). The posthumous name Wên-tuan 文端 was conferred on him in that same year, and the honor of being included in the Temple of Eminent Statesmen, in the Yung-chêng period. Five times he was examiner in the Metropolitan Examinations, once as an assistant in 1673, and four times (in 1694, 1697, 1700 and 1703) as Examiner in Chief. Moreover, in 1691 he had charge of the military examinations.
As a philosopher Hsiung Tz'ŭ-li was a strict follower of the Ch'êng-Chu (Ch'êng Hao and Chu Hsi) Neo-Confucian school and made strenuous efforts to prove the doctrines of the Lu-Wang (Lu Chiu-yüan and Wang Yang-ming) school unorthodox. In his sketches of the lives of famous philosophers from Confucius down, entitled 學統 Hsüeh-t'ung or "Schools of Learning," he placed the latter in the class of Tsa-hsüeh 雜學, or promiscuous thinkers. This work, comprising 56 chüan, was first printed in 1685. The literary works of Hsiung Tz'ŭ-li appear in two collections: 經義齋集 Ching-i chai chi in 18 chüan, first printed in 1690; and 澡修堂集 Tsao-hsiu t'ang chi in 16 chüan comprising his writings from the year 1691 to 1703. Both titles refer to his two studios which were so named by Emperor Shêng-tsu. The Imperial Catalogue (see under Chi Yün) gives notice to five of his works, although none were copied into the Ssŭ-k'u Manuscript Library. After his retirement he continued to labor on a Draft History of the Ming Dynasty which was later presented to the throne, but was never made public by the government, being perhaps regarded as unsatisfactory. Comments on it by a contemporary, Wang Ching-ch'i [q. v.], are very unfavorable.
Hsiung Tz'ŭ-li had three sons: Hsiung Chih-i 熊志伊 (b. 1676), a son-in-law of Yü Kuo-chu (see under Kuo Hsiu), who suffered from spells of insanity; Hsiung Chih-ch'i 熊志契 (b. 1708) who was made a junior archivist in the Hanlin Academy in 1739; and Hsiung Chih-k'uei 熊志䕫 who was born in the year his father died
[11/268/3a; 3/7/19a; Hsiao-kan-hsien chih (1883) 14/16b; Ssŭ-k'u 63/5a, 97/5b, 6a, 182/6a, b; 文獻叢編 Wên-hsien ts'ung-pien nos. 9 and 11; Wang Ching-ch'i [q. v.] Hsi-chêng sui-pi; Li Kuang-ti [q. v.], Jung-ts'un yü-lu, hsü-chi 14/7b.]