(505-435) Wu (now Pingyi and Jiaxiang in Shandong) was born. At the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, he was a thinker, a master of Confucianism, one of Confucius' disciples in his later years, an important representative of Confucianism, and a descendant of Yu Xia. His father, Ceng Dian, named Xi, was one of the seventy-two sages, and his son had studied under Confucius. It is still of great social significance and practical value to advocate Confucianism with filial piety as the core, the political view of "self-cultivation, family harmony and world peace", the self-cultivation view of "introspection and independence" and the filial piety view of "filial piety-oriented". Ceng Zi participated in the compilation of The Analects of Confucius, the writing of Daxue, The Book of Filial Piety, Ten Articles of Ceng Zi and other works. In the sixth year of King Gaozhou (435 BC), he died at the age of 7 1 year. Ceng Zi occupies an important position in the development history of Confucianism. Later generations honored him as "Zongsheng" and became one of the four well-deserved partners of Confucius Temple, second only to Yan Yuan, who was "restored to sainthood".

Ceng Zi's book "University" puts forward three principles (being virtuous, being close to the people and being perfect) and eight goals (being considerate, knowledgeable, honest, sincere, self-cultivation, keeping the family in order, governing the country and leveling the world). "If the ancient desire is obviously superior to the world, govern the country first; If you want to govern your country, you should first get your family together; If you want to reunite with your family, you should first repair your body; If you want to cultivate yourself, you should be upright first; If you want to be correct, be sincere first; If you want to be sincere, let him know first. Knowledge exists in things. Knowing things and then knowing, knowing and then being sincere; Honesty and then the heart is right, the heart is right and then the body is repaired, the body is repaired and then the family is neat, the family is neat and then the country is ruled, and the country is flat. " It constitutes a complete system of feudal ethics and political philosophy.