Page:A Chinese Biographical Dictionary.djvu/862

Rh survivor. About a year afterwards the priest suddenly appeared before him and said, '^I have lately died. The joys and sorrows of the next world are realities. Hasten, to repent, that you may pass into the ranks of the blest." With these words the priest vanished, and ere long Wang had followed him to the grave. Canonised as j^.

Wang Tao ^ ^ (T. ^% and pif f| ). Died A.D. 330. 2232 A native of Lin-i in Shantung. He was a precocious youth, and it was said of him at fourteen years of age that he was .the stuff of which leaders are made. He attached himself to the fortunes ^f the Prince of Lang-yeh, and materially aided in placing his friend and master on the throne as the Emperor Yilan Ti of the E. Chin dynasty. The latter made him his chief Minister, and even invited him, in the presence of all the Court, to share the Imperial dais, an offer which Wang Tao modestly and wisely declined. When the empire was at peace he turned his energies towards education of the people, and found in the Emperor a willing coadjutor. But Liu Wei was gradually supplanting him in the confidence of his master; and when his cousin, Wang Tun, broke into rebellion, Liu proposed that all the Wang family should be put to death. Old friendship however prevailed, and the Emperor actually dispatched Wang Tao to aid in chastising his refractory relative. He was one of the guardians of the young Emperor Ming Ti, who succeeded to the throne in A.D. 317 and who always treated him with the utmost deference. His personality was one to inspire confidence, and he was popularly known as i^ ^ "Our father's younger brother." In the early days of Yilan Ti's reign, before his power was consolidated, H^ ^ Huan I, the father of Huan W6n, is reported to have said, *'I have just seen Euan I-wu (meaning Wang Tao), and I have no further anxiety." Hence he is sometimes spoken of as fX. 2E ^ ^ ^^^