Kong Anguo was a Han dynasty scholar who provided commentary on the Analects. In the story, Su Shi supplements his father’s test by citing Kong Anguo’s annotation of the passage about benevolence: “To first endure hardship and then achieve success, this is what benevolence is.” This shows the depth of classical scholarship expected of Song examinees. Kong Anguo’s role is to represent the exegetical tradition that helped define Confucian orthodoxy, and his name marks the cumulative learning process that shaped the intellectual environment of the period.
