Xu Heng

Xu Heng () (1209–1281) was a Confucianist and educator of the

Yuan Dynasty The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fift ...

in China. Xu Heng was born in present-day

Xinyang Xinyang (; postal: Sinyang) is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Henan province, People's Republic of China, the southernmost administrative division in the province. Its total population was 6,234,401 according to the 2020 census. As of t ...

Henan Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is al ...

Province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

, which was then governed by the Jin dynasty. At the age of 16, he studied Confucian Classics and became enamoured of it. In early 1230s, when the Jin dynasty was annihilated by the Mongols, he was captured, but soon freed. He then became a famous educator in Confucianism. After Kublai Khan's enthronement in 1260, Xu Heng, along with many other Confucianists such as Liu Bingzhong and Wang Xun, was invited by Kublai Khan to the court. He resigned next year, but was invited again later by Kublai Khan, and became an official of the Central Secretariat (Zhongshu Sheng). In 1271, Kublai Khan founded the

, and established the National

Academy An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosop ...

() of the dynasty, with Xu Heng being its first leader (). Xu Heng was then devoted to education, and actively supported the spread of

Neo-Confucianism Neo-Confucianism (, often shortened to ''lǐxué'' 理學, literally "School of Principle") is a moral, ethical, and metaphysical Chinese philosophy influenced by Confucianism, and originated with Han Yu (768–824) and Li Ao (772–841) in t ...

. Later, he helped Guo Shoujing to formulate a new Chinese calendar known as Shoushili (). In 1280 he resigned and returned home, and died in the next year. {{DEFAULTSORT:Xu, Heng 1209 births 1281 deaths Chinese Confucianists Yuan dynasty people People from Xinyang 13th-century Chinese philosophers Neo-Confucian scholars Yuan dynasty politicians