In Confucianism, which had emerged before the Sui and Tang Dynasties and continued through the Northern Song Dynasty, an ideological group called Dogaku gradually rose to the fore after the middle of the Southern Sung period, when it was founded by Zhu Xi, and came to dominate ideological circles in the Jiang Nan area.
隋唐を承け、北宋を経過した儒学は、南宋中頃以後に徐々に道学と呼ばれる思想集団が頭を擡げ、南宋中頃に朱熹が道学を集大成して、遂に江南思想界を席巻するに及んだ。