Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 1.pdf/195

Rh . When Kung was appointed financial commissioner at Nanking Chu went with him and stayed there for a year (1677–78). His secretarial employment seems to have been profitable, for by 1669 he had accumulated sufficient means to buy a home in his native district. He gave it the name Chu-ch'a 竹垞 ("Bamboo Knoll") which he also took as his hao.

In 1678 an imperial decree ordered the officials of the empire to recommend men of letters for the special examination, known as po-hsüeh hung-tz'ŭ (see under and ). On the recommendation of several officials, Chu I-tsun was summoned to Peking. He succeeded in passing the examination in the following year and was appointed a corrector in the Hanlin Academy and concurrently an editor of the official history of the Ming Dynasty. In this capacity he addressed seven letters to the director-generals of the project on the necessity of adhering to fixed rules, on the importance of assembling source materials, and on the advantage of utilizing contemporary accounts of private individuals and Manchu documents. For the history of the Ming dynasty, which was later revised, he edited the records of the Yung-lo reign period (1403–1425), and wrote biographies of several statesmen and literati. At this time he had already published several works, including: a collection of his prose and verse, entitled Chu-ch'a wên-lei (文類) 25 (26) chüan, first printed about 1672 and reprinted in 1682; and a number of poems about a scenic lake of his native place, entitled 鴛鴦湖櫂歌 Yüan-yang hu chao-ko, printed about 1674 together with poems on the same subject by his cousin, T'an Chi-ts'ung 譚吉璁.

Among those who passed the special examination of 1679 were several commoners who rose rapidly to distinction and then were looked upon with jealousy by others. Among them were Chu I-tsun and P'an Lei. Chu was especially singled out for criticism, probably because of favors shown him by the emperor who appointed him to serve in the Imperial Study (1683, see under ), allowed him to live in a house inside the gate, Ti-an mên 地安門, and sent him to direct the provincial examination of Kiangnan at Nanking (1681). In 1684 P'an Lei and Chu were degraded, the former for "petulance", the latter on the charge of having brought copyists into the Academy to make transcripts of official records for private use. Chu I-tsun was then compiling a history of the Hanlin Academy, entitled 瀛洲道古錄 Ying-chou tao-ku lu, and so made use of documents in the Academy. When ordered to move out of the Forbidden City he established his home near Liu-li-ch'ang 琉璃廠 in the South City, in a house made famous by a studio known as Ku-t'êng Shu-wu 古藤書屋 where in 1686 he printed his second collection of prose and verse, entitled 騰笑集 T'êng-hsiao chi. In the same year (1686) he began his well-known history of Peking and its environs, the 日下舊聞 Jih-hsia chiu-wên. This work, completed in 1687, and supplemented by his son, Chu K'un-t'ien 朱昆田, was printed in 1688 in 42 chüan. The titles of some 1,600 works utilized in the compilation are listed at the beginning. It was revised and supplemented by order of Emperor Kao-tsung in 1774 and printed in 160 chüan eight or nine years later under the slightly altered title, Jih-hsia chiu-wên k'ao (考). The post which Chu I-tsun lost was restored to him in 1690, but two years later he was discharged and made a journey to Kwangtung. In 1693 he returned to Kashing where three years later he built for himself a pavilion named P'u-shu-t'ing 曝書亭. In 1698 he and his cousin,, made a journey to Fukien where they travelled for half a year.

In 1701 Chu completed his 經義考 Ching-i k'ao ("General Bibliography of the Classics")—a massive descriptive catalogue of lost and extant works in this field, compiled from works in his own extensive collection and in those of his contemporaries. He intended to make it a work of 300 chüan but only 297 chüan were actually completed. At first it was printed only through chüan 167, the remaining 130 chüan being printed by in 1755. In 1792 brought together 12 chüan of notes and corrections which were printed in the Yüeh-ya-t'ang ts'ung-shu (see under ) under the title Ching-i k'ao pu-chêng (補正). A supplement, entitled 小學考 Hsiao-hsüeh k'ao ("Bibliography of Philology"), was prepared by Hsieh Ch'i-k'un (see under ) and printed in 1802. A table of contents was compiled by Lo Chên-yü (see under ), under the title, Ching-i k'ao mu-lu (目錄), printed in 1933, together with a volume of collation notes, Ching-i k'ao chiao-chi (校記).

In 1705 Chu I-tsun completed an anthology of Ming poets, 明詩綜 Ming-shih tsung, in 100 183