On Xu Heng’s Historical Thinking

Starting with the basic concepts of Neo-Confucianism, Xu Heng had thought over the reason of social history’s prosperity and downfall, and found their inevitability and the special relationship between prosperity and downfall that was opposite as well as being dialectic. So Xu Heng emphasized the importance of unselfish and kind virtues to not only the emperor but also all the ministers, and advocated a series of thoughts on that. Also his view of history had versatility, which led to his suggestion of the inevitability and the way to follow Han to the governors of Yuan dynasty, combining reality with historical experience. In a word, Xu Heng’s historical thinking not only promoted the construction of the multiracial Yuan dynasty, but also had a positive impact on the multiracial culture’s synthesis.