Mencius’s name was Ke. He was born in April of the fourth year of King Lie of Zhou Dynasty (372 BC). His father’s name was Ji, and his mother’s name was Qiu. She was the descendant of Meng Sun of the Benlu clan, and later moved to Zoudi (today’s Zouxian County, Shandong Province), so "Historical Records·Biography of Meng Xun" says that he was from Zouxian.

Mencius was smart and good at imitating people since he was a child. Because his home was near a cemetery, he learned how to bury people in graves. Meng's mother thought this was not conducive to his growth, so she moved to live next to the market. After living next to the market for a period of time, Mencius imitated the business of merchants. His mother took him to live next to the academy. Mencius was immersed in the learning atmosphere of the academy, so he set up a bean to help him advance and retreat. Meng's mother thought this was a good place for her son to live, so she settled there.

Mencius refused to study hard when he was young, so Mencius' mother stopped teaching him. Mencius became angry and diligent in studying, and became a famous Confucian in the world.

Mencius lived in an era where "the strong bullied the weak, the masses oppressed the few, the wise were deceitful and foolish, the brave and bitter were timid". He adhered to the way of the ancient kings and refused to be accommodating to the world and call him Yao and Shun. His words of admiring Confucius and advocating for justice, peace, kingship and the people were regarded by the princes as "far-fetched and broad-minded" and were not used. He traveled around the world for more than 30 years, but could not find an opportunity to realize his ideals and propositions, so he returned to China and lectured and wrote books with his disciples Wan Zhang, Gongsun Chou and others.

Mencius inherited and developed Confucius' thoughts and put forward a complete ideological system, which had a great influence on later generations and was revered as the "lesser sage" second only to Confucius. His main activities before the age of 40 were to imitate Confucius, recruit disciples, run private schools, and promote his thoughts and doctrines. Mencius attached great importance to the cultivation of talents and paid attention to teaching students in accordance with their aptitude. He regarded recruiting apprentices, giving lectures and imparting knowledge as one of the joys of life. This is what his famous saying "to acquire the world's talents and educate them" meant. In terms of teaching methods, he advocated the use of heuristic teaching, and used his own experience in reading "Shangshu" to warn others: "It is better to have no books at all than to believe in books." Tell people not to be superstitious about books, but to study actively and take the usable parts. What he said is that "the heart is the official's thinking" is to educate students to use their brains and think about problems. He emphasized the need to concentrate and persevere, and compared it with the image of a story: two people play chess at the same time. One person is concentrating and not taking his eyes away, while the other person is thoughtful and looking left and right. Although the two people have the same basics, their results are very different.

Confucius is regarded by people as a "sage teacher" and a kind and benevolent person, while Mencius is vigorous, high-spirited, sometimes even angry, and his words are sharp, showing full uprightness. He has the personality of a great thinker who is upright and magnificent, and has the personality and spiritual bearing of a king. Although in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period when etiquette collapsed and music collapsed, the princes all adopted utilitarian offensive techniques in order to strive for hegemony in the world. They believed that Mencius's "benevolent government" strategy of governing the country was "far-reaching and broader than the matter", that is, it was too slow to produce results. He refused to adopt it, but under the powerful ideological offensive of Mencius' righteous words, he had to be convinced for a while. But Mencius did not condescend to be a subordinate in order to get the king to accept his political views. He had no intention of flattering and pleasing the emperor and working in an official position. Not only did he not have the slightest bit of servility, but he often went straight to the king's pain point, putting these stupid guys in an embarrassing situation, and had to "the king looked at him from left to right".

Mencius set an upright and heroic example for future generations of literati. "Mencius" records that once, Mencius was going to see the King of Qi. The King of Qi happened to send someone to say to Mencius: "I was supposed to visit you, but unfortunately I caught a cold and was afraid of the wind. If you can come to the court, I can See you." When Mencius heard this, he didn't want to go, so he replied, "I happened to be sick and couldn't go to court to see the king." The next day, Mencius went to the Dongguo doctor's house to mourn. Gongsun Chou said: "Yesterday you excused yourself as sick, but today you go to mourn. Isn't that not good?" Mencius said confidently: "Yesterday you were sick, but today you are fine, why can't you go to mourn?" It is impossible for kings to compete without integrity, integrity, and courage. Mencius once quoted a warrior as saying: "He is my husband; I am my husband; why should I fear him?" "In today's world, who else but me?" The heroic spirit is beyond words.

Mencius did not foolishly accept all the rules of etiquette formulated by Confucius: "The king, the king, the minister, the father, the son, the son." He is independent, arrogant and inviolable, and does not take some mediocre kings seriously. On the one hand, Mencius strictly distinguished the class status of the rulers and the ruled, believing that "those who work hard govern others, and those who work hard govern others", and imitated the Zhou system to formulate a set of hierarchical systems from the emperor to the common people; on the other hand, Mencius , and compared the relationship between rulers and the ruled to the relationship between parents and children, advocating that rulers should care about the people's sufferings like parents, and people should get close to and serve the rulers like their parents.

Mencius adhered to the way of the ancestors and did not want to be tolerated by the world. He once said: "If you are poor, you can be good for yourself; if you are rich, you can help the world." This kind of painstaking teaching has always made future generations of literati advance and retreat. according to. No matter you are in Wei Que or far away in the world, you should not lose the fundamentals of being a human being and cultivate great righteousness. Mencius's angular and individual philosopher style, handsome demeanor, and manly qualities have become an inexhaustible source of culture.

Mencius is one of the most important representatives of Confucianism. He died in the first month of the 26th year of King Nan of Zhou (289 BC) at the age of 84. But Mencius's status was not very high before the Song Dynasty.

Since Han Yu in the mid-Tang Dynasty wrote "Yuan Dao", which listed Mencius as the only person among the Confucian scholars in the pre-Qin Dynasty who inherited Confucius' "Taoism", there was an "upgrade movement" of Mencius, and the status of Mencius and his books gradually increased. In the fourth year of Xining (1071), the reign of Emperor Shen of the Northern Song Dynasty, the book "Mencius" was included in the imperial examination subjects for the first time; in the sixth year of Yuanfeng (1083), Mencius was officially posthumously named "Zou Guogong" for the first time, and was approved for the title the following year. Temple of Confucius. Later, "Mencius" was upgraded to a Confucian classic. Zhu Xi of the Southern Song Dynasty combined "Mencius" with "The Analects of Confucius", "Great Learning", and "The Doctrine of the Mean" into the "Four Books". Its actual status is even higher than the "Five Classics" and is respected as the "Four Books". "The Lesser Sage", whose status is second only to Confucius. Mencius' thoughts and theories had a great influence on later generations, especially Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties. After the Song Dynasty, Mencius' thoughts and Confucius' thoughts were often referred to as the "Tao of Confucius and Mencius".