Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 1.pdf/177

Rh Chu 韓住 whose studio was named Kuan-hua t'ang 貫華堂. His edition of the Hsi-hsiang chi was printed in 1656. Other works by Chin, published about this time, were the 唐才子書 T'ang ts'ai-tzŭ shu, (chia-chi 甲集 first series), 8 chüan, an anthology of T'ang writers; and the 制義才子書 Chih-i ts'ai tzŭ shu, printed about 1654, a collection of pa-ku wên 八股文 or essays in the style required in the examination halls. Aside from writing, Chin sometimes gave lectures to students. Both his lectures and his writings impressed most of the contemporary conventional writers as strange and eccentric. Some of his views strikingly anticipate those of our time. His last years he devoted to the elucidation of Tu Fu's poems, but he did not finish this task before he lost his life in a famous episode known as k'u-miao 哭廟 ("Laments in the Temple"), related below.

Early in 1661 the newly-appointed magistrate of Wu-hsien [Chin's district], named Jên Wei-ch'u 任維初, having determined on a speedy collection of delinquent taxes, set out to use strong measures. These included the actual flogging of many farmers and even the confiscation of grain from the public stores which the magistrate sold to local merchants in lieu of taxes. The injustice and cruelty of these measures angered many of the scholars of the district who had an opportunity to display their feelings as they gathered from the first to the third of March that year in the local Temple of Confucius to mourn the death (February 5, 1661) of Emperor Shih-tsu. The governor of Kiangsu, Chu Kuo-chih (see under ) and many other prominent officials were also present. On the fourth of March more than a hundred students gathered at the Temple and, with loud lamentations, presented to the governor a document attacking the magistrate and pleading for his dismissal. Eleven leaders among the students were placed in confinement to await trial. At the preliminary hearing the accused magistrate explained that he was forced to resort to the measures complained of in order to satisfy the illicit demands of the governor. To pacify the magistrate, and to nullify his charges, the governor connived with others to make the measures the magistrate had used seem reasonable. This he did by issuing an order stating that owing to military exigencies all taxes must be speedily collected, and predated the order many days to give to the measures used the appearance of legality. Thereupon he reported to Peking that the students had staged a riot against the assessment of taxes, had threatened physical harm to the magistrate, and by their conduct had "disturbed the spirit of the lately deceased emperor". When the memorial reached Peking the regents (see under ) were already contemplating some intimidation of the people of Kiangsu by punishments sufficiently drastic. At this time more than a hundred men lay imprisoned at Chinkiang, Chin-t'an (both in Kiangsu), and elsewhere, most of them charged with having surrendered to when the latter invaded Kiangsu in 1659. The regents, therefore, dispatched several officials to try all these offenders. The trial began at Nanking early in May, and within that month eleven more natives of Soochow were arrested for their part in the k'u-miao incident—among them Chin Jên-jui. Finally Chin and six of those most recently seized, and the eleven originally arrested, were sentenced to be beheaded for treasonous conduct. The execution took place on August 7. The property of Chin and of seven others was confiscated and their families were banished to Manchuria. It seems that his son Chin Yung 金雍, was later pardoned and was allowed to return to Soochow. The execution of these scholars of Soochow was bitterly resented by the people of the province (Kiangsu); and biographers of Chin Jên-jui and narrators of the k'u-miao incident evidently took pleasure in recording that the magistrate, Jên Wei-ch'u, and the governor, Chu Kuo-chih, each died an unnatural death. Jên lost his post late in 1661 and in the following year was executed at Nanking. Chu became governor of Yunnan (1671–73), but was killed late in 1673 by when the latter began his rebellion.

Soon after his death the works of Chin Jên-jui were collected and edited by his cousin, Chin Ch'ang 金昌. Sixteen items, some of them comprising only a few pages, were printed under the title, 唱經堂才子書彙稿 Ch'ang-ching t'ang ts'ai-tzŭ shu hui-kao. They were reprinted in 1744—one of them being the Tu-shih chieh (解), in 4 chüan. Chin Ch'ang also made a list of all of Chin Jên-jui's writings, dividing them into wai-shu 外書 (comments on the works of others) and nei-shu 內書 (his own compositions). Five of these items are listed as having been printed, including Chin Jên-jui's editions of the Shui-hu and the Hsi-hsiang chi. The comments of Chin Jên-jui on these two works were so well received that 165