It was the lack of hope for political reform that turned a neo-Confucianist school led by chu hsi to develop comprehensive metaphysical principles and integrated social actions as the only true way to put the confucian value system into practice. An ill-Advised persecution led to the contrary result: a heightened prestige. Facing the mongol threat, The state in an effort to strengthen itself belatedly adopted this school as the state orthodoxy, More for prestige than for reality. When the mongols occupied (...) all china, It was to this neo-Confucianism that the chinese society turned for its cultural identity. This was the socio-Political process by which a re-Defined confucian value system came to pervade china, Even among the illiterate. (shrink)