Regional Investigation on the Weakness of Shexue in the Middle of Ming Dynasty: Taking the Jiangyin County of the South Zhili as the Center

During the Jiajing years in the Ming Dynasty, the Jiangyin county records showed that the development of Shexue,an official grassroots educational institution,was very weak, and therefore doubted the weakness of the local culture and education.In fact, during the Imperial Examination Society of the Ming Dynasty, the Shexue with teaching as the main function could not become the mainstream of Shexue,therefore the good Children Education system formed in the Jiangyin area in the Song and Yuan Dynasties was limited.The change of the economic situation in Jiangnan in the middle of the Ming Dynasty led to the destruction of the foundation system of Shexue storage and the increasing loss of social students as the main body of the grassroots people,which accelerated the decline of Jiangyin's Shexue.Jiangyin Shexue could only be revived in the short term with the support from knowledgeable officials.The rise and fall of Jiangyin Shexue is a microcosm of the development of Shexue in Jiangnan in the Ming Dynasty,from which we can see the development trend of "short prosperous long descending" presented by the Shexue of Jiangnan.