Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 2.pdf/135

 shih chi chu, 74 chüan, comprising the text of the New History of the Five Dynasties (see under ) as annotated by P'êng Yüan-jui (see under ). This work was later revised by Liu Fêng-kao and was printed by him in 1828. In 1810 Tsang went again to Peking and though he competed unsuccessfully in the Shun-t'ien provincial examination, he stayed there until the spring of the following year. He then returned to Kiangsu where he died in September 1811.

Tsang Yung not only assisted the above-mentioned scholars as critic, exegete and philologist, but also wrote or edited about thirty short works, comprising some 60 chüan, which were published under his name. Among his works on the Classics may be mentioned: the 周易鄭注敍錄 Chou-i Chêng-chu hsü-lu, 1 chüan (1819), on the Changes; the 毛詩馬王微 Mao-shih Ma Wang wei, 4 chüan (1806), on the Odes; and the 三禮目錄 San-li mu-lu, 1 chüan (1801), on the Three Rituals. His memoranda and notes concerning his studies were printed in 1819 in 12 chüan under the title, 拜經日記 Pai-ching jih-chi. A collection of his prose, entitled Pai-ching t'ang wên-chi (堂文集), was in part printed before the appearance of a definitive edition in 5 chüan in 1930. Several of his works were printed in the Huang-Ch'ing ching-chieh (see under ), in the 問經堂叢書 Wên-ching t'ang ts'ung-shu (1797–1802) and in other collectanea. The above-mentioned Pai-ching jih-chi and eight works which Tsang edited and collated, together with a collection of notes on the Classics by his great-great-grandfather, Tsang Lin (entitled 經義雜記 Ching-i tsa-chi, 30 chüan), were brought together under the collective title, Pai-ching t'ang ts'ung-shu (1801). This collectanea was reproduced in 1935 by the Kyoto Institute of the Academy of Oriental Culture (Tōhō-bunka-gakuin Kyōto Kenkyūsho 東方文化學院京都研究所), Japan. The following year a chronological biography and bibliography of Tsang Yung, entitled 臧在東先生年譜 Tsang Tsai-tung hsien-shêng nien-p'u, written in Chinese by Yoshikawa Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎, was printed in the 東方學報 Tōhō gakuhō (Kyoto, No. 6), the Journal of the Academy.

[1/487/11b; 2/68/63a; 3/416/41a; 7/33/16a; Nien-p'u (see above).]

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TS'AO Chan 曹霑, d. Feb. 12, 1763, novelist, was a member of the Bond Servant Division (under the Imperial Household) of the Manchu Plain White Banner. He was a grandson of and was probably the son of Ts'ao Fu (see under ). By favor of Emperor Shêng-tsu, four members of the Ts'ao family in three generations held, off and on for fifty-eight years, the superintendency of the Imperial Textile Factory at Nanking. Ts'ao Fu, the last incumbent, began his service in 1715. Ts'ao Chan was probably born about this time. Until 1728 he lived with the family at Nanking and was accustomed to all the comforts and luxuries of his father's position. But the household lived beyond its means and its vaunted prosperity came to a sudden end when in 1728 Emperor Shih-tsung ordered the confiscation of all the property. The ostensible reason was a debt of some 31,000 taels which Ts'ao Fu owed to the government, but actually this debt was only a fraction of the sums his grandfather, Ts'ao Yin, once owed. It is possible that the Emperor was motivated by economy or by a desire to rid the government of corrupt practices. On the other hand, he may have doubted the loyalty of the Ts'ao family on learning that it possessed two gold-plated figures of lions which had once belonged to, the Emperor's arch-enemy. At any rate the family was uprooted from Nanking and some thirteen residences, 1,967 mou of land, and other property were confiscated. The household, comprising some 114 persons, including servants, was removed to small quarters in Peking which the family had owned but which were now graciously re-allotted to it by the Emperor. Needless to say, the family was now poverty-stricken.

Ts'ao Chan, a person of delicate sensibilities—and then perhaps in his adolescence—must have felt the blow very keenly. Though highly educated and widely informed, he was unprepared to make a living for himself, and at times those dependent on him lacked food. He lived as a villager near the Western Hills of Peking, and only a few friends were interested in his lot—one being the poet and Imperial Clansman, Tun-ch'êng (see under ). In his later years he must have pondered often the memory of his early affluence and gaiety—meditations which finally took a literary form. He conceived a novel portraying life in a well-to-do family which, by mismanagement and the loose habits of its members, drifted into decay and finally 737