Volume 476 Biographies 263: Exemplary Officials 1: Bai Dengming with: Tang Jiaxiang, Ren Chendan, Yu Zongyao, Song Bida with: Lu Zaixin, Zhang Mu with: Zhang Xun, Chen Ruxian, Mou Sui with: Chen Shilin, Yao Wenxie with: Huang Zhenlin, Luo Zhonglin with: Cui Zongtai, Zu Jinchao, Zhao Jishi, Zhang Jin, Jiang Gao with: Zhang Keyi, Jia Pu, Shao Siyao with: Wei Liding, Gao Yinjue, Jin Rang, Cui Hua with: Zhou Zhonghong, Liu Qi, Tao Yuanchun, Liao Jiheng, Tong Guo Long, Lu Shi with: Gong Jian

清初以武功定天下，日不暇給。世祖親政，始課吏治，詔嚴舉劾，樹之風聲。聖祖平定三籓之後，與民休息，拔擢廉吏，如于成龍、彭鵬、陳璸、郭琇、趙申喬、陳鵬年等，皆由縣令洊厯部院封疆，治理蒸蒸，於斯為盛。世宗綜覈名實，人知奉法。乾隆初政，循而勿失。國家豐亨豫大之休，蓋數十年吏治修明之效也。及後權相用事，政以賄成，蠹國病民，亂萌以作。仁宗矯之，冀滌瑕穢。道、咸以來，軍事興而吏治疏。同治中興，疆吏賢者猶能激揚清濁，以彌縫其間。然保舉冒濫，捐例大開，猥雜不易爬梳。末造財政紊亂，新令繁興，簿書期會，救過之不遑。又遷調不時，雖有潔己愛民者，亦不易自舉其職。論者謂有清一代，治民寬而治吏嚴，其敝也奉行故事，實政不修，吏道媮而民生益蹙。迨紀綱漸隳，康、雍澄清之治，邈焉不可見。觀此，誠得失之林也。明史所載，以官至監司為限，今從之。尤以親民為重，其非由守令起家者不與焉。

In the early Qing the dynasty won the empire by force of arms, and the court scarcely had a moment to breathe. Once the Shunzhi Emperor assumed personal rule, he began to hold officials accountable, ordered strict impeachment and reward, and set a tone across the bureaucracy. After the Kangxi Emperor put down the Three Feudatories, he let the people recover and elevated honest officials—Yu Chenglong, Peng Peng, Chen Bin, Guo Xiu, Zhao Shenqiao, Chen Pengnian, and others—who had all risen from county magistracies through the ministries and provincial governments; administration thrived as never before. The Yongzheng Emperor scrutinized performance against claims, and officials learned to heed the law. At the start of the Qianlong reign the court carried on the same path without deviation. The dynasty prosperity and security owed much to decades of sound administration. Later a dominant chief minister took power, office was bought, the treasury and populace suffered, and unrest began to stir. The Jiaqing Emperor tried to correct it, hoping to cleanse corruption. From the Daoguang and Xianfeng eras on, war multiplied while bureaucratic standards slackened. During the Tongzhi revival, capable provincial governors could still rouse the honest and restrain the corrupt to hold things together. Yet patronage was abused, sale of offices flourished, and the ranks became an intractable tangle. In the dynasty closing years revenue was in disorder, regulations multiplied, and clerks raced deadlines with no time to fix what had already gone wrong. Frequent reshuffling meant that even upright, caring magistrates could scarcely do their jobs properly. Observers hold that the Qing governed the populace lightly but officials harshly; the flaw was ritual adherence without real reform—officialdom slackened while commoners bore ever heavier burdens. As standards eroded, the clear governance of the Kangxi and Yongzheng eras vanished from view. Seen in this light, the chapter is a thicket of lessons in success and failure. The Ming History includes officials only up to the rank of surveillance commissioner; this volume does the same. Proximity to the people counts most; those who did not begin as prefects or magistrates are omitted.

白登明，字林九，奉天蓋平人，隸漢軍鑲白旗。順治二年拔貢，五年，授河南柘城知縣。時大兵之後，所在萑苻嘯聚。登明治尚嚴肅，擒諸盜魁按以法，境內晏然。憫遺黎荒殘，多方招撫，停止增派河夫，設條以勸耕讀。十年，考最，擢江南太倉知州。釐賦稅，除耗羨，雪諸冤獄，訪察利弊，所摘發輒中。鄰境有冤抑，赴愬上官，輒原下州為理。海濱居民因亂盪析，登明召民開墾，復成聚落。是年九月，海寇犯劉河堡，登明盡力守禦，寇不得逞，遂退。十六年，海寇破鎮江，由江寧敗走，急攻崇明。巡撫蔣國柱治兵策應，欲遣告師期，莫敢前。登明獨駕一艘夜半往，絙城入，眾知援至，守益力，寇乃遁。

Bai Dengming, courtesy name Linjiu, came from Gaiping in Fengtian and belonged to the Han Bordered White Banner. Selected as a tribute scholar in Shunzhi 2, he was appointed magistrate of Zhecheng, Henan, in Shunzhi 5. In the wake of the wars, brigands were rallying throughout the region. Dengming governed with strict discipline, arrested the bandit leaders and punished them by law, and the district grew calm. Pitying the war-ravaged populace, he worked to bring them back, halted additional corvée for river work, and issued rules to promote agriculture and schooling. In year ten he topped the performance review and was promoted to prefect of Taicang in Jiangnan. He reformed taxation, abolished illegal surcharges, righted wrongful convictions, and investigated local abuses—his findings invariably proved correct. Wronged parties from neighboring jurisdictions appealed to higher authorities, who routinely referred their cases to him for adjudication. Coastal communities shattered by war were brought back as he called people to reclaim farmland and villages reformed. That September pirates struck Liuhe Fort; Dengming mounted a full defense, the enemy failed to break through, and retreated. In year sixteen the pirates seized Zhenjiang, were beaten back from Jiangning, and turned to storm Chongming. Governor Jiang Guozhu mobilized troops and needed a messenger to report the army schedule, yet no one would go. Dengming sailed alone at midnight, was pulled over the wall by rope; once the defenders knew help had arrived they fought harder and the pirates withdrew.

劉河北支有硃涇者，宋范仲淹新塘遺跡也，久淤塞。登明請於上官，疏鑿五十里。巡按李森先知其能，復令大開劉河六十里，於是震澤在北諸水悉導入海，旱潦有備，為一郡利。先是寇急時，需餉無出，以雲南協餉應之，卒為大吏所劾落職。州民列治狀請留，弗得，坐廢二十餘年。

A northern tributary of the Liu River, Zhujing, was a Song-era work associated with Fan Zhongyan and had long been choked with silt. He petitioned his superiors and had fifty li of the channel dredged open. Censor Li Senxian, knowing his capacity, ordered another sixty li of the Liu River cleared; waters north of Lake Tai were channeled to the sea, drought and flood were both managed, and the whole prefecture benefited. During the crisis he had no funds for supplies and drew on Yunnan cooperative pay; he was eventually impeached by a senior official and removed from office. Prefectural residents petitioned with accounts of his good rule asking him to remain, but failed; he remained out of office for more than twenty years.

康熙十八年，會台灣用兵，福建總督姚啟聖、巡撫吳興祚素知登明，代為入貲，疏薦，起授高郵知州。值歲旱蝗，繼而大水，湖漲。決清水潭，築堤御之。嚴禁胥吏克減，役者踴躍從事。次年復災，再請蠲賑，勸富民分食，全活無算。時三籓初平，軍檄猶繁。登明與民約，凡供億驛夫，聞吹笳而至，免奪民時。上官有所徵調，不輕給，然皆諒其清廉，亦無相督過者。以積勞卒官，貧無餘貲，州人醵金以殮。入祀名宦祠，鄉民多肖像立祠私祀焉。

In Kangxi 18, during the Taiwan campaign, Governor-General Yao Qisheng and Governor Wu Xingzuo, who knew him well, paid his required contribution and recommended him; he was recalled as prefect of Gaoyou. That year brought drought and locusts, then severe flooding as the lake swelled. He opened Qing Shui Pond and built dikes to contain the flood. He forbade clerks from skimming funds, and corvée laborers worked with enthusiasm. Disaster returned the following year; he again sought tax relief and famine aid, urged the wealthy to share food, and saved innumerable lives. The Three Feudatories had only just been subdued, and military requisitions were still heavy. Dengming agreed with the people that whenever relay service was needed, they would come at the sound of the horn so farming time would not be wasted. He did not readily meet every demand from above, but superiors knew his honesty and did not press him. He died in office from overwork, leaving no wealth; the prefectural people pooled funds for his funeral. He was enshrined in the hall of distinguished officials, and many villagers erected portrait temples to honor him privately.

時江南以良吏稱者，湯家相、任辰旦、于宗堯，皆與登明相先後云。

In Jiangnan at the time Tang Jiaxiang, Ren Chendan, and Yu Zongyao were also praised as model magistrates, serving in the same era as Dengming.

家相，字泰瞻，山西趙城人。順治六年進士。八年，授常熟知縣。潔己愛民，釐剔耗蠹，撫卹凋殘，善政具舉。前令被劾逮問，家相左右之，力白其誣，以是忤巡按御史。時江南逋賦數百萬，嚴旨奪各官職，家相坐免。士民爭先輸納，不逾宿而額足，且以治狀訴大吏，請留，勿獲。既而給事中周之桂疏上其事，十三年，起授湖北南漳縣。縣居萬山中，寇盜窟穴，時出肆掠，戕官，人咸危之。家相下車，即令堅壁清野。寇大至，家相謂同城守備曰：「寇眾我寡，當效羅士信破盧明月法，可勝。」密授方略，寇果墮伏中，遂擒其魁黨馬成、孫信輩，斬首數百級。寇大創，遠遁。於是招流亡，修學校，教養兼施，墾田六百餘頃。築永泉、八觀諸堰，民賴其力，邑以大治。疆吏交章薦之，以病乞歸。

Tang Jiaxiang, courtesy name Taizhan, was from Zhaocheng in Shanxi. He passed the jinshi examination in Shunzhi 6. In year eight he was appointed magistrate of Changshu. He lived frugally and cared for the people, rooted out waste and graft, aided the war-shattered, and put every good measure into practice. When his predecessor was impeached and arrested, Jiaxiang supported him and vigorously proved his innocence, which offended the touring censor. Jiangnan owed millions in back taxes; an imperial order stripped officials of rank, and Jiaxiang was removed with the rest. Gentry and commoners rushed to pay taxes; the quota was met overnight, and they petitioned senior officials with accounts of his rule asking him to remain—but in vain. Later Censor Zhou Zhigui memorialized on his behalf; in year thirteen he was recalled as magistrate of Nanzhang in Hubei. The county sat deep in the mountains where bandits nested, raided at will, and had killed officials; everyone considered the post dangerous. On taking office Jiaxiang immediately ordered walls strengthened and the countryside cleared. When a large bandit force arrived, Jiaxiang told the local garrison commander: "They outnumber us; we should use the tactic Luo Shixin used against Lu Mingyue—and we can win." He laid out the plan in secret; the bandits fell into the ambush, and his men captured leaders Ma Cheng, Sun Xin, and their followers, taking several hundred heads. The bandits suffered a crushing blow and fled deep into the hills. He then recalled exiles, restored schools, combined education with relief, and reclaimed more than six hundred qing of farmland. He built the Yongquan, Baguan, and other irrigation works; the people benefited, and the county flourished. Provincial officials repeatedly recommended him; he retired citing illness.

辰旦，字千之，浙江蕭山人。順治十三年進士。康熙初，授上海知縣。清苦自勵，敏於聽斷，數決疑獄，豪猾斂跡。催科以時，不大用鞭樸，百姓感其仁，輸納恐後。瀕海防軍將撤，密請行期，故邀軍主歡飲，宣言期須少緩，次日令下，促急行。乃厚其牛酒，道上勞軍，軍無敢遷延他顧，居民帖然。黃龍浦為吳淞江入海要口，建閘屢圮。故事，修閘必築壩，費不貲。辰旦仿浙人為梁法，度基廣狹，約丈尺伐石，識其甲乙，下之水，使善泅者厝之，悉中程。复廣左右護堤，約水就道，十閱月而工成。不病役，不糜帑，邑人頌之。縣田沒水者六千畝，賦額未除，輸者率破家。前令屢勘虛實貿亂，至是巡撫慕天顏疏請復勘。辰旦喜曰：「是吾志也。」日往來泥沙中，按舊冊履丈，釐其荒者，閱二月，費皆自辦，俸不足，出銀釧棉布償之。籍上，得減除額徵有差。十八年，舉博學鴻儒，放還故官。復以良吏薦，入為給事中，論事切直，改大理寺丞。母憂歸。旋以前廷推事詿誤落職，卒於家。

Ren Chendan, courtesy name Qianzhi, was from Xiaoshan in Zhejiang. He earned his jinshi degree in Shunzhi 13. Early in the Kangxi reign he was appointed magistrate of Shanghai. He lived plainly and pushed himself hard, judged cases swiftly, resolved knotty lawsuits, and local bullies fell silent. He collected taxes on time, rarely used the lash, and the people, grateful for his kindness, paid early for fear of being late. Coastal garrisons were to be withdrawn; he secretly learned the departure date, then entertained the commander and announced a slight delay—whereupon the next day orders came to march at once. He lavishly supplied provisions and entertained the troops along the route so they would not linger or plunder; the populace remained undisturbed. Huanglong Ford, where the Wusong River meets the sea, was a critical point; sluices built there repeatedly failed. By custom, repairing the sluice meant building a cofferdam, at enormous cost. Chendan adopted the Zhejiang beam method, measured the foundation, cut stones to size, marked each piece, lowered them into the water, and had expert swimmers set them in place—all fitting precisely. He widened the flanking dikes, channeled the water properly, and finished the project in ten months. Labor was not overtaxed, public funds were not squandered, and the county sang his praises. Six thousand mu of county land lay underwater, yet the tax quota stood unchanged, and families were ruined paying it. Earlier magistrates surveys had muddled fact and fiction; Governor Mu Tianyan now memorialized for a fresh inspection. Chendan said gladly: "This is what I have long wished for." He waded daily through mud and silt, measured fields against old registers, and sorted out wasteland; within two months he paid all costs himself, selling his silver bracelets and cotton cloth when his salary fell short. His report led to a proportional reduction in the tax quota. In year eighteen he was nominated for the special Broad Learning examination and returned to his former post. Recommended again as an exemplary magistrate, he became a supervising secretary, spoke bluntly on policy, and was transferred to vice minister of the Court of Judicial Review. He retired to observe mourning for his mother. He was soon dismissed over a prior court nomination error and died at home.

宗堯，字二巍，漢軍正白旗人，廣西總督時曜子。以廕入監讀書。康熙七年，授常熟知縣，年甫十九。興利除弊，勇於為治，老於吏事者勿逮也。時漕政積弊，糧皆民運，往往破家。宗堯議定官收官兌之法，重困得甦。其徵糧則戒期令各自輸，胥吏莫由上下其手，民便之。興文教，戢豪強，救荒療疫，皆以誠懇肫摯出之，四年如一日。以勞致疾，卒於官，年二十有三耳。民為罷市，醵金發喪，遂葬之虞山南麓，題其阡曰「萬民留葬」。

Yu Zongyao, courtesy name Erwei, belonged to the Han Plain White Banner and was the son of Guangxi Governor-General Shi Yao. He entered the Imperial Academy by hereditary privilege. In Kangxi 7 he was appointed magistrate of Changshu at the age of nineteen. He promoted public good and cut abuses, governed boldly, and outshone officials with decades of experience. Grain transport was riddled with abuses; civilians bore the hauling and families were often bankrupted. Zongyao instituted official collection and government exchange of grain, easing the crushing burden. For tax collection he set deadlines for direct payment so clerks could not skim, to the people's relief. He fostered learning, curbed local bullies, and fought famine and plague with wholehearted sincerity, unwavering through four years. Overwork brought on illness; he died in office at twenty-three. The people shut the markets in mourning, pooled funds for his funeral, and buried him at the southern foot of Mount Yu with the epitaph "Buried Where the People Begged Him to Remain."

宋必達，字其在，湖北黃州人。順治八年進士，授江西寧都知縣。土瘠民貧，清泰、懷德二鄉久罹寇，民多遷徙，地不治。請盡蠲逋賦以徠之，二歲田盡闢。縣治瀕河，夏雨暴漲，城且沒。禱於神，水落，按故道疏治之，自是無水患。

Song Bida, courtesy name Qizai, was from Huangzhou in Hubei. A jinshi of Shunzhi 8, he was appointed magistrate of Ningdu in Jiangxi. The land was barren and the people poor; Qingtai and Huaide had long been ravaged by bandits, many had fled, and fields lay fallow. He sought full remission of back taxes to bring people home; within two years every field was under cultivation again. The county seat lay on the river; summer floods surged and the city was nearly swallowed. He prayed to the gods; the waters receded, and he dredged the old channel—after which the county knew no more floods.

康熙十三年，耿精忠叛，自福建出攻掠旁近地，江西大震，群賊響應。寧都故有南、北二城，南民北兵。必達曰：「古有保甲、義勇、弓弩社，民皆可兵也。王守仁破宸濠嘗用之矣。」如其法訓練，得義勇二千。及賊前鋒薄城下，營將邀必達議事，曰：「眾寡食乏，奈何？」必達曰：「人臣之義，有死無二。賊本烏合，掩其始至，可一鼓破也。」營將遂率所部進，賊少卻，必達以義勇橫擊之，賊奔。已而復率眾來攻，巨砲隳雉堞，輒壘補其缺，隨方備禦益堅。會援至，賊解去。或言於巡撫，縣堡砦多從賊，巡撫將發兵，必達刺血上書爭之，乃止。官軍有自汀州還者，婦女在軍中悲號聲相屬，自傾橐計口贖之，詢其姓氏里居，護之歸。

In 1674, Geng Jingzhong rose in rebellion and marched out of Fujian to raid the surrounding country. Jiangxi was thrown into alarm, and brigands answered his call on every side. Ningdu had long been divided into a southern city and a northern city — civilians in the south, garrison troops in the north. Bidá said, "In old times there were baojia systems, volunteer militias, and crossbow clubs — every man among the people could be made a fighter. Wang Shouren had employed just such a measure when he crushed the rebellion of Zhu Chenhao." He drilled the men by that method and raised two thousand volunteers. When the rebel vanguard reached the foot of the walls, the garrison commander summoned Bidá for counsel. "We are outnumbered and short of provisions," he said. "What now?" Bidá replied, "A loyal minister's duty admits only one choice: to stand and die. These rebels are nothing but a mob. Catch them at first arrival and one charge will scatter them." The garrison commander led his men out; the rebels gave ground. Bidá hit them on the flank with his volunteers, and they broke and ran. Soon they returned in force. Heavy guns shattered the battlements; each breach he patched with earthen ramparts, and the city's defenses grew tighter with every assault. Relief finally came, and the rebels drew off. Word reached the governor that many local forts had gone over to the rebels. As troops were about to be sent against them, Bidá submitted a memorial written in his own blood, and the punitive expedition was called off. When government troops returned from Tingzhou with captive women whose cries filled the camp, he emptied his own purse to redeem them, learned each woman's name and home village, and saw every one safely back.

縣初食淮鹽，自明王守仁治贛，改食粵鹽，其後苦銷引之累，必達請以粵額增淮額，商民皆便。卒以粵引不中額，被論罷職，寧都人哭而送之，餞貽皆不受，間道赴南昌，中途為賊所得，脅降不屈，系旬有七日。忽夜半有數十人持兵踰垣入，曰：「宋爺安在？吾等皆寧都民。」擁而出，乃得脫。

The county had once drawn its salt from the Huai region; under Wang Shouren's governorship of Ganzhou in the Ming it was switched to Guangdong salt, and later merchants groaned under the quotas they could not sell. Bidá petitioned to merge Guangdong allotments with the Huai quota, to the great relief of traders and townspeople alike. He was eventually dismissed for failing to meet the Guangdong salt quota. The people of Ningdu wept at his departure; he refused every parting gift. Taking back roads toward Nanchang, he was captured by rebels and held for more than ten days; they demanded his surrender, and he would not bend. One night, dozens of armed men scaled the wall and burst in. "Where is Master Song? We are all men of Ningdu." They hustled him out, and he escaped.

既歸里，江西總督董衛國移鎮湖廣，見之，歎曰：「是死守孤城者耶？吾為若諮部還故職，且以軍功敘。」必達遜謝之。既而語人曰：「故吏如棄婦，忍自媒乎？」褐衣蔬食，老於田間，寧都人歲時祀之。越數年，滇寇韓大任由吉安竄入寧都境，後令萬蹶生踵必達鄉勇之制御之，卒保其城云。

Back home, he was met by Dong Weiguo, lately transferred from Jiangxi to Huguang, who exclaimed, "Can this be the man who defended a besieged city unto death? I shall petition the ministry to restore your post and see you rewarded for your service in arms." Bidá demurred with thanks. Later he told others, "A disgraced official is like a discarded wife — would anyone stoop to hawking herself anew?" He lived out his days in coarse dress and plain fare, working the fields; the people of Ningdu honored him with offerings year after year. Years later, the Yunnan rebel Han Daren broke from Ji'an into Ningdu. Magistrate Wan Juesheng revived Bidá's militia system and held the walls — so the account runs.

陸在新，字文蔚，江南長洲人。康熙五年，以策論取士，在新夙講經濟，遂得舉，除松江府學教授，教諸生以質行為先，其以金贄者卻之，用不足，知府魯某分俸助之。巡撫湯斌察其廉勤，以卓異薦。是歲江南七府一州諸長吏被薦者獨在新一人，時以此服斌之知人。二十五年，擢江西廬陵知縣，嚴重有威，境內貼然。誓不以一錢自污，錢穀耗羨，革除都盡。傍水設五倉，便民輸納。建問苦亭於衙西，訪求民隱。時裹糧歷山谷間，勞苦百姓，軫其災患而導之於善。召諸生，考德論藝，如為校官時。設四門義學，刻孝經、小學頒行之。二十六年，江溢，民多溺。在新急出錢募民船往救，躬自倡率，出入洪濤中，全活無算。以受前官虧帑盈萬無所抵，憂卒。初赴官時，子孔奐在京師，蹙然曰：「吾父此行，必殉是官矣。」亟從之。卒之日，鬻書數篋以斂。廬陵人為罷市三日，請祀名宦祠，長洲人亦以鄉賢祀之。

Lu Zaixin, styled Wenwei, came from Changzhou in Jiangnan. In 1666, Zaixin passed the examination in policy essays. Long versed in statecraft, he was appointed professor at the Songjiang prefectural academy, where he put moral seriousness before book learning, turned away every gift of gold, and, when funds ran short, was subsidized from Prefect Lu's own salary. Governor Tang Bin noted his probity and tireless service and nominated him for exceptional merit. That year he alone among senior officials across Jiangnan's seven prefectures and one autonomous department received such nomination — and men said Tang Bin truly knew talent. In 1686 he was elevated to magistrate of Luling in Jiangxi. Grave in bearing and firm in authority, he kept the district utterly quiet. He swore never to accept a copper coin in bribes and abolished every fee and surcharge on tax and grain payments. He set up five riverside granaries so people could pay their taxes with ease. West of the yamen he built a pavilion for hearing grievances, where hidden troubles of the people could be brought to light. Often he shouldered his own rations and walked the hill country, laboring alongside the common people, mourning their hardships and leading them toward better ways. He summoned the scholars to sessions on virtue and letters, just as he had done when teaching at the academy. He opened charity schools at all four gates, had the Classic of Filial Piety and the Elementary Learning printed and distributed among the people. In 1687 the river burst its banks and countless people were drowned. Zaixin spent his own money to hire boats and led the rescue himself, plunging again and again into the flood until untold numbers were saved. He inherited a treasury shortfall of more than ten thousand taels from his predecessor with no way to cover it, and died of despair. When he first set out for his post, his son Kong Huan, in the capital, said bleakly, "My father is going to die for that magistracy." The son raced to join him. At his death, a few chests of books were sold to pay for his funeral. Luling shut its markets for three days in mourning. He was enshrined among distinguished officials, and his home county of Changzhou added him to the roll of local worthies.

張沐，字仲誠，河南上蔡人。順治十五年進士。康熙元年，授直隸內黃知縣。縣苦賦役不均，沐令田主自首，不丈而清。嚴行十家牌法，姦宄斂跡。大旱，自八月不雨至明年九月，民飢甚。沐力籌賑，捐貲為倡，勸富民貸粟，官為書其數，俟秋穫取償，人爭應之，民免轉徙。沐為政務德化，令民各書「為善最樂」四字於門以自警。著六諭敷言，俾人各誦習，反覆譬喻，雖婦孺聞之，莫不欣欣鄉善。五年，坐事免。十八年，以左都御史魏象樞薦，起授四川資陽縣，途出內黃，民遮道慰問，日行僅數里。既抵任，值吳三桂據瀘州，相去數百里，羽檄如織。城中人戶不滿二百，沐入山招撫，量為調發，供夫驛不缺。滇事平，以老乞休。

Zhang Mu, styled Zhongcheng, was from Shangcai in Henan. He took his jinshi degree in 1658. In 1662 he was appointed magistrate of Neihuang in Zhili. The county groaned under unfair levies. Mu had landowners declare their holdings openly; without a single survey, the tax rolls were set right. He rigorously enforced the ten-household mutual-responsibility system, and wrongdoers vanished from the streets. A severe drought ran from the eighth month through the following September without rain, and the people faced famine. Mu organized famine relief, pledging his own money and urging rich households to lend grain on the government's ledger for repayment at harvest. The response was eager, and the people were spared from wandering away in search of food. Mu governed through moral persuasion and had every household post the motto "There is no joy greater than doing good" above its door as a daily reminder. He wrote commentaries on the Six Edicts for the people to memorize; his explanations were so plain that even women and children listened with delight and took pleasure in virtue. In the fifth year of his tenure he was dismissed on a charge. In 1679, recommended by Censor-in-Chief Wei Xiangju, he was called back to serve as magistrate of Ziyang in Sichuan. Passing through Neihuang, crowds blocked his path to welcome him, and he made only a few li per day. No sooner had he taken up his post than Wu Sangui seized Luzhou, only a few hundred li away, and orders flew in without cease. The town held fewer than two hundred households. Mu went into the hills to recruit and reassure the people, rationed their labor fairly, and never once failed to meet the army's demands for men and post-horses. After the Yunnan rebellion was put down, he asked to retire on grounds of age.

沐自幼勵志為聖賢，初官內黃，講學明倫堂，請業恆數百人。湯斌過境，與語大悅，遺書孫奇逢，稱其任道甚勇，求道甚切。沐因以禮幣迎奇逢至內黃講學，俾多士有所宗仰。及在資陽，供億軍興之暇，猶進諸生誨導不倦。退休後，主講汴中，兩河之士翕然歸之，多所成就。年八十三，卒。沐之自內黃罷歸也，值登封令張塤興書院，偕耿介同講學，為文紀其事，一時稱盛。

From boyhood Mu set his heart on becoming a sage. As magistrate of Neihuang he lectured in the Hall of Illuminating Principle before audiences that routinely numbered in the hundreds. When Tang Bin passed through, he spoke with Mu and was deeply impressed; he wrote Sun Qifeng calling Mu fearless in his devotion to the Way and urgent in his pursuit of it. Mu accordingly invited Sun Qifeng to Neihuang with proper ceremony, giving the local scholars a master worthy of devotion. Even while provisioning the army in Ziyang, he never ceased teaching and guiding his students. In retirement he headed the academy at Bianliang; scholars from across the Yellow River and Huai River regions flocked to him, and he shaped many of the finest minds of his day. He died at eighty-three. When Mu left Neihuang in disgrace, Magistrate Zhang Kun was reviving an academy at Dengfeng. Mu joined Geng Jie there in teaching and wrote an account of the gathering, which was celebrated as a high point of the age.

塤字牖如，江蘇長洲人。以官學教習議敘知縣。康熙十七年，授登封縣，單騎之任。途中與登封吏同宿逆旅，吏不知也。至縣三日，拜岳，誓不取一錢，不枉一人。衙前樹巨石鐫曰「永除私派」。設櫃，民自封投，無羨折。招集流亡，督之耕種，相其土宜，課植木棉及諸果實。大修學宮，复嵩陽書院，宋四大書院之一也，延耿介為之師。導諸生以程、硃之學。自縣治達郊鄙，立學舍二十一所。課童子，以時巡閱，正句讀，導之以揖讓進退之禮。間策蹇驢歷諸郊問所苦，有小爭訟，輒於阡陌間決之。西境有呂店者，俗好訟。塤察里長張文約賢，舉為鄉約，俾行化導，澆風一變。里長申爾瑞負課且受杖，路拾人輸稅金，返之，寧受責，不利人財，塤義之，旌其門。鄉民高鵬舉死，妻孟年少，舅欲強嫁之，孟哭夫墓將自縊，塤適微行，問其故，給以銀米勸還家而免其徭，歲時存問，俾終其節。縣故多胥役，時獄訟日尟，姦偽無所容，諸胥多自引去。其更番執事者，退則操耒耜為農，以在官無所得錢也。開萼嶺二百里，復古轘轅路。建古賢令祠，修鄢公墓，崇禎末為令守城抗賊死者也。在官五年，民知向方，生聚日盛，大書「官清民樂」於門。耿介嘗歎曰：「年來嵩、洛間，別一世界矣！」二十二年，以卓異薦，擢廣西南寧通判。去之日，民遮道哭，立祠於四鄉，肖像祀焉，榜曰「天下清官第一」。至南寧，未幾，乞歸。母喪，服除，赴京師，卒。

Zhang Kun, styled Youru, came from Changzhou in Jiangsu. His service as an instructor at the Imperial Academy earned him qualification as a county magistrate. In 1678 he was appointed magistrate of Dengfeng and rode to his post unaccompanied. On the road he shared an inn with a clerk from Dengfeng who never guessed his identity. Three days after arriving he paid homage at Mount Song and swore he would take not a single coin in bribes nor wrong a single soul. Before the yamen he set up a boulder carved with the words "Unauthorized exactions abolished forever." He installed drop-boxes so people could seal and submit their payments themselves, with no surcharges or skimming. He recalled refugees, set them to farming, matched crops to local conditions, and promoted cotton orchards and fruit trees. He rebuilt the county school and restored the Songyang Academy, one of the Song dynasty's four great academies, appointing Geng Jie as its master. He directed the scholars in the Neo-Confucian teachings of the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi. From the county seat to the remotest hamlets he founded twenty-one village schools. He tested village boys on schedule, corrected their recitation, and drilled them in the ceremonies of bowing, yielding, advancing, and retreating. Now and then he rode a donkey through the countryside asking after the people's troubles, settling petty disputes right there among the fields. In the west of the district lay Lüdian, a place notorious for quarrelsome litigation. Recognizing the village head Zhang Wenyue as a man of worth, Kun appointed him covenant elder to lead moral reform — and the district's corrosive habits changed overnight. Village head Shen Errui, beaten for tax arrears, found a lost payment on the road and returned it though he would rather face punishment than keep another's money. Kun honored him with a commendation at his gate. When villager Gao Pengju died, his young widow Meng was pressed by her brother-in-law to remarry. She wept at her husband's grave and was about to hang herself when Kun, passing incognito, learned her story, gave her silver and grain, sent her home exempt from labor, and visited her each season so she might keep her widowhood to the end. The county had swarmed with grasping clerks and runners, but as lawsuits dwindled and fraud had no room to hide, most of them quit of their own accord. Those who still served rotated in and out of duty and went back to the fields afterward, for office brought them no illicit gain. He cut a two-hundred-li road through E Ridge and reopened the ancient Xuanyuan Pass route. He built a shrine to worthy magistrates of old and restored the tomb of Magistrate Yan, who had died defending the walls against rebels in the last days of Chongzhen. After five years in office the people knew virtue from vice, prosperity and population flourished, and someone inscribed "Clean Officials, Happy People" above the city gate in great characters. Geng Jie once exclaimed, "These past years, between Song and Luo — it is another world entirely!" In 1683 he was nominated for exceptional merit and promoted to assistant prefect of Nanning in Guangxi. When he left, people blocked the roads in tears, erected shrines in four townships with his portrait for worship, and posted the title "The Foremost Honest Official Under Heaven." He reached Nanning but soon asked to retire. After mourning his mother he journeyed to the capital and died there.

陳汝咸，字華學，浙江鄞縣人。少隨父錫嘏講學證人社，黃宗羲曰：「此程門之楊迪，硃門之蔡沈也。」康熙三十年，會試第一，成進士，選庶吉士，散館授福建漳浦知縣。民好訟，嚴懲訟師，無敢欺者。縣中賦役故責戶長主辦，版籍混淆，吏緣為奸。汝咸躬自編審人丁，各歸現籍。糧戶自封投納，用滾單法輪催，以三百戶為一保，第其人口多寡供役。五年一編丁，而役法平。吏胥以不便撓之，大吏搖惑，汝咸毅然不回，奸人無所施技。民樂輸將，賦無逋負。

Chen Ruxian, styled Huaxue, was from Yin County in Zhejiang. As a youth he studied with his father Xichang at the Society for Proving the Way. Huang Zongxi said of him, "He is to the Cheng school what Yang Di was — to Zhu's school what Cai Shen was." In 1691 he came first in the metropolitan examination, entered the Hanlin Academy, and upon completion of his training was sent as magistrate of Zhangpu in Fujian. The people were litigious; he cracked down harshly on professional lawsuit brokers, and none dared ply that trade under his watch. Tax and corvée had long been dumped on household heads; confused registers gave clerks endless openings for graft. Ruxian personally revised the household registers and assigned every man to his current domicile. Taxpayers sealed their own payments; he rotated collection duties via the "rolling roster" method; every three hundred households formed a bao, and labor assignments were scaled to population. A census of adult males every five years left the corvée system fair and balanced. Clerks raised objections on grounds of inconvenience and even senior officials wavered, but Ruxian held firm, and the schemers had no lever left to pull. The people paid willingly, and not a farthing of tax went unpaid.

俗輕生，多因細故服斷腸草死，挾以圖財，力懲其弊，令當刑者掘草根贖罪。禁舁神療病，曉示方證，自製藥以濟貧者。毀學宮伽藍祠，葺故儒陳真晟、周瑛、高登諸人所著書表章之。歸誠書院，乃黃道周講學地，為僧據，逐而新之。無為教者，男女群聚茹蔬禮佛，籍其居為育嬰堂。西洋天主教要大吏將於漳浦開堂，卻止之。修文廟，造祭器，時會邑中士紳於明倫堂講經史性理諸書。設義學，延諸生有學行者為之師。修硃子祠。教養兼施，風俗為之一變。會大水驟漲，幾及城堞，輿錢登城，多為木筏，渡一人與錢三十，人皆以錢助拯，活者數千。多方撫卹，雖災不害。

Local custom treated life lightly: over petty quarrels people swallowed gut-severing grass to feign suicide and shake down their opponents for money. Ruxian cracked down hard on the racket and ordered offenders sentenced to corporal punishment to dig up the plant by the roots as part of their penance. He outlawed the practice of parading spirit-images through the streets to cure sickness, taught people proper prescriptions instead, and compounded medicines with his own hands for the poor. He tore down the Buddhist chapel within the county school, restored the works of earlier local scholars such as Chen Zhensheng, Zhou Ying, and Gao Deng, and had them publicly celebrated. Guicheng Academy, where Huang Daozhou had once taught, had been taken over by monks; Ruxian drove them out and rebuilt the hall. The Wuwei sect drew men and women together for vegetarian worship; he seized their meeting house and turned it into a foundling asylum. Western Catholics had petitioned provincial authorities to establish a church in Zhangpu, and he put a stop to it. He restored the Confucian temple, commissioned ritual vessels, and regularly assembled the county gentry in the Minglun Hall for readings in the classics, histories, and moral philosophy. He founded a charity school and engaged licentiates of proven scholarship and character to teach there. He restored the shrine to Zhu Xi. Education and relief went hand in hand, and the county's customs were transformed. When a sudden flood nearly topped the city walls, he brought silver up onto the ramparts, had rafts built in large numbers, and paid thirty cash for every person ferried to safety; people poured their rewards back into the rescue, and thousands were saved. Relief came from every direction he could muster, so that even amid disaster the harm was contained.

土寇伏七里洞，將入海，發兵擊之，走山中。密招賊黨，誘擒其渠曾睦等，餘黨悉散。又擒海盜徐容，盡得賊中委曲，赦其罪，責以招撫。諸盜歸誠，海氛遂清。汝咸任漳浦凡十有八年，大吏因南靖多盜，調使治之，縣民請留不得，扌冓生祠曰月湖書院，歲時祀之。汝咸至南靖，諸盜自首就撫，開示威信，頌聲大作。

Local bandits lay hidden at Qili Cave, poised to slip out to sea; he sent troops against them and drove them into the hills. Through secret contacts among the bandits he lured out their chief, Zeng Mu, and others; the remaining gangs broke up completely. He next captured the pirate Xu Rong, learned the whole inner workings of the gangs, pardoned him, and set him to win the rest over by persuasion. The pirates surrendered in earnest, and the coast was cleared at last. Ruxian had governed Zhangpu for eighteen years when higher officials, troubled by banditry in Nanjing County, transferred him there. The people petitioned in vain to keep him and instead built a living shrine, Yuehu Academy, where they worshipped him at the proper seasons. Once Ruxian arrived in Nanjing, bandits came forward of their own accord to accept amnesty. He combined firmness with good faith, and praise for his rule spread far and wide.

四十八年，內遷刑部主事，擢御史。疏言：「商船出海，掛號無益，徒以滋累。」又言：「海賊入內地，必返其家。下海劫掠，責之巡哨官；未下海之踪跡，責之本籍縣令；當力行各澳保甲。」會海盜陳尚義乞降，汝咸自請往撫。聖祖命郎中雅奇偕汝咸所薦阮蔡生往，尚義率其黨百餘人果就撫，擢通政使參議。五十二年，奉使祭炎帝神農、帝舜陵，並頒賚駐防兵。遍歷苗疆，審度形勢撫馭之策。歷鴻臚寺少卿、大理寺少卿。五十三年，命赴甘肅賑荒，徒步窮鄉，感疫，卒於固原。漳浦士民聞之，奔哭於月湖書院，醵金置田，歲祀不絕。著有兼山堂遺稿、漳浦政略諸書。

In the forty-eighth year of Kangxi he was recalled to the capital as a principal clerk in the Ministry of Justice and then promoted to censor. In a memorial he argued that registering merchant ships before they sailed served no purpose and only piled on red tape. He added that sea pirates who slipped inland always returned home afterward. Raids at sea should be laid at the door of the coastal patrol officers; their movements on land before they took to the water should be the responsibility of the magistrate in their home county; and the baojia household registers at every harbor ought to be enforced with real vigor. Just then the pirate Chen Shangyi offered to surrender, and Ruxian asked to go and accept his submission in person. The Emperor ordered Director Ya Qi to accompany Ruan Caisheng, whom Ruxian had recommended. Shangyi brought more than a hundred followers and submitted as promised, and Ruxian was promoted to vice commissioner in the Office of Transmission. In the fifty-second year he was dispatched to offer sacrifice at the tombs of the Flame Emperor Shennong and Emperor Shun, and to distribute imperial rewards to frontier garrisons. He traveled the Miao frontier from end to end, studying the terrain and shaping policies for pacification and control. He served in turn as vice minister of the Court of Imperial Entertainments and vice minister of the Court of Judicial Review. In the fifty-third year he was sent to Gansu to relieve famine, tramped on foot through the poorest villages, contracted an epidemic illness, and died at Guyuan. When the people of Zhangpu heard the news, they rushed weeping to Yuehu Academy, pooled funds to endow sacrificial fields, and kept his rites alive year after year. He left writings including Posthumous Drafts from the Jianshan Hall and An Administrative Account of Zhangpu, among others.

繆燧，字雯曜，江蘇江陰人。貢生，入貲為知縣。康熙十七年，授山東沂水縣。時山左飢，朝使發賑，將購米濟南。燧以路遠往返需日，且運費多，不便。請以銀給民自買，當事以違旨勿聽。燧力爭以因地制宜之義，代草疏奏請，得允。既而帑金不足，傾囊以濟之。洊飢之後，民多流亡，出私錢為償逋欠，購牛種，招徠復業。因捕劇盜已獲复逸，被議歸。尋复官。

Miao Sui, styled Wenyao, came from Jiangyin in Jiangsu. A tribute student, he bought his way into office and was appointed a county magistrate. In the seventeenth year of Kangxi he was assigned to Yishui County in Shandong. Shandong was then in famine, and the court dispatched relief officials who planned to buy grain in Jinan for distribution. Sui argued that the distance made each round trip consume days and that transport costs would be ruinous—the scheme was impractical. He asked instead that silver be given directly to the people to buy grain locally, but the commissioners rejected the idea as contrary to orders. Sui pressed the case on grounds of adapting policy to local conditions, drafted a memorial for them, and won approval. When the allotted funds soon ran short, he emptied his own purse to cover the gap. After successive famines many people had fled; he spent his own money to settle their debts, bought oxen and seed, and coaxed them home to farm again. When a notorious bandit he had captured broke jail, he was impeached and sent home. Before long he was restored to office.

三十四年，授浙江定海縣，故舟山也，設治未久，百度草創。海水不宜穀，築塘岸以御咸蓄淡，修復塘碶百餘所，田日增闢。繕城濬濠，葺學宮，建祠廟，役繁而不擾。地瘠民貧，完賦不能以時，逾限者先為墊解，秋後輸還。舊有塗稅，出自漁戶網捕之地，後漁塗被佔，苦賠累，為請罷之。地故產鹽，無灶戶，鹽運使屢檄設廠砌盤，官為收賣。燧持不可，請仿江南崇明縣計丁銷引，歲完鹽稅銀四十二兩有奇，著為例。學額多為外籍竄冒，援宣平縣例，半為土著，半令他縣人認墾入籍以充賦。又以土著不能副額，擴建義學，增廩額以鼓舞之，文教興焉。民間日用所需，多航海市諸郡城，關胥苛索，請永禁，立石海關。海嶼為盜藪，隨監司歷勘，凡羊巷、下八、盡山、花腦、玉環、半邊、牛韭諸島，權度要害措置之，盜風頓戢。同歸域者，海上死事諸人瘞骨處，捐貲修葺，建成仁祠，以勸忠義。

In the thirty-fourth year he was posted to Dinghai County in Zhejiang—the old Zhoushan—where civil administration was newly established and every institution still had to be built from scratch. Seawater made grain-growing difficult, so he built dykes to keep out salt and hold fresh water, restored more than a hundred sluices and seawalls, and opened new fields day by day. He repaired the city walls and dredged the moat, restored the county school, and built shrines and temples—heavy work, yet the people were not unduly burdened. The soil was thin and the people poor; they could not meet tax deadlines, so he advanced payment for those who fell behind and let them repay after the autumn harvest. An old tax on tidal flats had been tied to fishing grounds, but once those grounds were seized the fishermen were still forced to pay; he petitioned successfully to abolish the levy. The county naturally yielded salt but had no registered saltern households, and the salt commissioner repeatedly ordered official pans and government purchase and resale. Sui objected that this would not work and proposed following the Jiangnan model of Chongming County: assess households and cancel salt certificates, paying a fixed annual salt tax of just over forty-two taels of silver. The arrangement became permanent law. Examination quotas were often seized by outsiders falsely claiming local status; citing the precedent of Xuanping County, he reserved half the places for natives and half for settlers from other counties who reclaimed land, entered the register, and fulfilled tax obligations. Because local candidates still could not fill the quota, he enlarged the charity school and added stipends to encourage study, and learning flourished. Daily goods came mostly by sea from mainland ports, where customs runners extorted bribes; he petitioned for a permanent ban and had the prohibition carved in stone at the harbor customs house. The outlying islands were pirate haunts; he toured them with the surveillance commissioner and, at Yangxiang, Xiaba, Jinshan, Huanao, Yuhuan, Banbian, Niujiu, and other isles, placed guards at every strategic point. Piracy collapsed almost overnight. Tonggui Yu, the burial ground for those lost at sea, he restored at his own expense and built the Chengreng Shrine there to honor loyalty and public service.

歷權慈谿、鎮海、鄞縣及寧波府事，皆有惠政。擢杭州府同知，未任。五十六年，卒於定海。士民援唐王漁、宋趙師旦故事，留葬衣冠，奉祀於義學，名之曰蓉浦書院，蓉浦，燧自號也。遺愛久而不湮，光緒中復請祀名宦祠。燧任定海前後二十二年，賜四品頂戴，賜御書。後雖擢官，迄未離任。時朝廷重守令，循良多久於其職。陳汝咸治漳浦十有八年，陳時臨治汝陽亦二十年。一邑利病，無所不知，視如家事，故吏治蒸蒸日上云。

He also served in acting posts at Cixi, Zhenhai, Yin County, and the Ningbo prefectural seat, leaving benevolent rule wherever he went. He was promoted to vice prefect of Hangzhou but never left Dinghai to take up the appointment. In the fifty-sixth year he died at Dinghai. Following the examples of Tang Wangyu and Song Zhao Shidan, the gentry and common people kept his hat and robes for burial and worshipped him at the charity school, renaming it Rongpu Academy—Rongpu being Sui's own style. Memory of his kindness endured; in the Guangxu reign his admirers petitioned again to enshrine him among celebrated officials. Sui governed Dinghai for twenty-two years in all and was granted a fourth-rank hat ornament and an imperial inscription in the Emperor's own hand. Though promoted later on, he never actually left the county. In those days the court prized local magistrates, and upright officials were often kept in post for many years. Chen Ruxian ruled Zhangpu for eighteen years, and Chen Shilin ruled Ruyang for twenty. They knew every strength and sore point of their counties as if they were family matters, and for that reason local governance kept improving.

時臨，字二咸，浙江鄞縣人。少從陳錫嘏學，得聞證人書院之教。家貧，遊京師。三籓之變，從軍敘功，授湖南城步知縣。父憂歸，廬墓三年。康熙三十年，起授河南汝陽縣，兵亂之後，風俗大壞，民不知喪禮。時臨為斟酌古今所可通行者，衰絰聚飲之風以息。楊埠有支河，久淤，濬復其舊，民獲灌溉之利。河南諸縣多食蘆鹽，獨汝寧一郡食淮鹽，蘆商欲並之，時臨謂：「蘆鹽計口而授，不問其所需之多寡，以成額給之，是厲民也。吾不能為河南盡革其害，反徇商人意以害境內乎？」力爭得止。巡撫徐潮亟稱之，於是前後諸大吏皆以為循吏當令久任，數報最，數留之。時臨亦與民相安於無事。後擢兵部主事，宦橐蕭寥，臨行，百姓扶老載弱相送數十里。逾年，以病乞歸，卒。

Chen Shilin, styled Erxian, came from Yin County in Zhejiang. As a youth he studied under Chen Xigu and absorbed the teachings of the Zhengren Academy. His family was poor, so he went to the capital to seek his fortune. During the Rebellion of the Three Feudatories he joined the army, earned merit, and was appointed magistrate of Chengbu in Hunan. When his father died he returned home and mourned at the grave for three years. In the thirtieth year of Kangxi he was recalled to serve as magistrate of Ruyang in Henan, where war had shattered custom and people no longer knew proper mourning. Shilin weighed ancient and modern practice and settled on what could actually be enforced, and the custom of carousing in mourning dress died away. At Yangbu a branch channel had long been choked with silt; he dredged it back to its old course and the farmers gained irrigation. Most counties in Henan consumed reed salt, but Runing alone used Huai salt, and reed-salt merchants wanted to absorb the market. Shilin said, "Reed salt is rationed by head count without regard to actual need—a fixed quota for everyone. That only oppresses the people. Am I to fail to remove every harm I can for Henan, and instead do the merchants' bidding to the injury of my own county? He fought the proposal hard and stopped it. Governor Xu Chao praised him warmly, and thereafter one superior after another treated him as the sort of upright magistrate who should be kept in place: his record was repeatedly rated highest, and he was repeatedly retained. Shilin, for his part, lived with the people in quiet harmony. Later he was promoted to a principal clerkship in the Ministry of War. His official purse was nearly empty; when he left, the people—old men supported on canes, children carried on backs—escorted him for miles. A year later he petitioned to retire on grounds of illness and died.

姚文燮，字經三，安徽桐城人。順治十六年進士，授福建建寧府推官。建寧俗號獷悍，以睚眥仇殺者案山積，文燮片言立剖，未數月囹圄為空。有方秘者，殺方飛熊，前令已讞定大辟。文燮鞫得飛熊初為盜，嘗殺秘一家，既就撫，秘乃乘間復仇，不可與殺平人等，秘得活。大吏謂文燮明允，凡疑獄輒委決之。有武弁被殺，株連眾，文燮僅坐數人罪。大吏駭曰：「此叛案，何遽輕率？」文燮曰：「某所據初報文及盜供也。」蓋鄉民逐盜，弁適遇之，從騎未至，為盜所殺而盜逸，營中執為民叛殺弁。文燮檢得初報文，而盜亦獲，自供殺弁，故得其情。

Yao Wenxie, styled Jingsan, came from Tongcheng in Anhui. A jinshi of the sixteenth year of Shunzhi, he was appointed reviewing officer for Jianning Prefecture in Fujian. Jianning had a reputation for violent tempers, and murder cases born of petty grudges piled up like hills. Wenxie cut through them with a few words, and within months the jails stood empty. One Fang Mi had killed Fang Feixiong, and the previous magistrate had already fixed the sentence at death. At trial Wenxie learned that Feixiong had once been a bandit who slaughtered Mi's entire family; after Feixiong accepted amnesty, Mi seized his chance for revenge—a case unlike ordinary murder—and Mi was spared. Superior officials judged Wenxie clear-minded and fair, and every doubtful case was sent to him for decision. When a military officer was murdered and a wide net of suspects was cast, Wenxie convicted only a handful. A superior official was alarmed: "This is a case of rebellion—why treat it so lightly? Wenxie replied, "I relied on the first report and the bandits' own confession. Villagers had been chasing bandits when the officer happened upon the scene; his escort had not yet arrived, the bandits killed him and fled, and the garrison treated it as a peasant revolt against an officer. Wenxie recovered the first report, the bandits were captured and confessed to killing the officer, and the truth came out.

時耿氏建籓，其下多怙勢虐民，貸民錢而奪其妻女。文燮悉使訐發，為捐募代償，贖歸百數。奉檄主丈田事，建寧環郡皆山，民依山鑿田，每陡峻不能施弓繩，文燮授吏勾股法，計田廣狹，增減為畝，區畫悉當。值邊海修戰船，或擬按戶口出錢，文燮上陳疾苦，籌款以代，民乃安。秩滿，報最。康熙六年，詔裁各府推官，去職。

While the Geng princely house held its fief, its retainers often abused their power, lending money to commoners and seizing their wives and daughters when debts fell due. Wenxie had every case brought forward, raised funds to pay off the debts, and ransomed back more than a hundred women. Commissioned to supervise land surveys, he found Jianning hemmed in by mountains where farmers terraced steep slopes too sheer for the standard bow-and-rope method. He taught his clerks the gougu right-triangle method to calculate each plot's width and convert it to acres, and every boundary was drawn correctly. When coastal war junks were due for repair and some proposed a head tax on every household, Wenxie memorialized the hardship and found other funds to cover the cost, and the people were spared. When his term ended, his record was rated highest. In the sixth year of Kangxi an edict abolished prefectural reviewing officers, and he left his post.

八年，改直隸雄縣知縣。渾河泛溢，浸城，文燮修城築堤，造橋利涉者。邑貢狐皮為民累，條上其弊，獲免。地近京畿，膏腴多圈佔為旗產，文燮為民爭之。旗人請於戶部，遣司官至，牽繩量地，繩所及，民不得有。文燮拔刀斷繩，司官見其剛直，詞稍遜。未幾，有旨退地還民。團練屯丁，以資守望，盜賊屏跡。報墾地，蠲耗羨，減鹽引，卹驛政，拊循瘡痏，民慶更生。

In the eighth year he was transferred to serve as magistrate of Xiong County in Zhili. When the Hun River burst its banks and flooded the city, Wenxie repaired the walls, raised dykes, and built bridges to ease passage. The county's tribute quota of fox pelts had become a crushing burden; he memorialized the abuse and won an exemption. The district lay near the capital, and much of its best land had been fenced off and claimed as banner estates. Wenxie fought to reclaim it for the people. Bannermen petitioned the Board of Revenue, which dispatched an official who measured land with ropes; whatever ground the rope covered was declared off limits to common holders. Wenxie drew his sword and severed the measuring rope. Seeing his unyielding integrity, the official moderated his tone. Before long, an imperial edict ordered the land returned to the people. He organized militia and garrison laborers for patrol and watch, and bandits disappeared from the area. He registered reclaimed fields, remitted surplus levies, cut salt quotas, reformed the courier stations, and nursed the people's wounds until they celebrated a new lease on life.

擢雲南開化府同知，攝曲靖府阿迷州事。吳三桂叛，文燮陷賊中。密與建義將軍林興珠有約，為賊所覺，被系，乘隙遁，謁安親王岳樂軍中。王以聞，召至京，賜對，詢軍事甚悉。滇寇平，乃乞養歸。

He was promoted to vice-prefect of Kaifu in Yunnan and placed in charge of Ami subprefecture under Qujing. When Wu Sangui rebelled, Wenxie was caught behind rebel lines. He secretly made contact with the Jianyi General Lin Xingzhu, but the rebels discovered the plot, seized and imprisoned him; he slipped away at the first chance and made his way to Prince An Yuele's camp. The prince reported the matter to the throne; Wenxie was summoned to the capital for an audience and questioned exhaustively on military affairs. After the Yunnan rebellion was put down, he asked leave to retire home and care for his parents.

黃貞麟，字振侯，山東即墨人。順治十二年進士。十八年，授安徽鳳陽推官，嚴懲訟師，閤郡懍然。大旱，禱雨未應，貞麟曰：「得無有沈冤未雪，上乾天和乎？」於禱雨壇下，立判諸大獄，三日果雨。江南逋賦案興，蒙城、懷遠、天長、盱眙各逮紳民百餘人繫獄候勘。獄不能容，人皆立，貞麟曰：「彼逋賦皆未驗實，忍令僵死於獄乎？」悉還其家。及訊，則或舞文吏妄為註名，或誤報，或續完，悉原而釋之，保全者五百家。

Huang Zhenlin, styled Zhenhou, was a native of Jimo in Shandong. He passed the jinshi examination in the twelfth year of Shunzhi (1655). In the eighteenth year of Shunzhi (1661), he was appointed reviewing officer in Fengyang, Anhui. He cracked down hard on professional litigators, and the whole prefecture fell into awe-struck order. During a severe drought, prayers for rain went unanswered. Zhenlin said, "Could it be that some grave injustice remains unredressed, disturbing Heaven's harmony? At the rain-prayer altar he promptly adjudicated the most serious pending cases, and within three days rain fell. When a case over tax arrears in Jiangnan flared up, Mengcheng, Huaiyuan, Tianchang, and Xuyi each held more than a hundred gentry and commoners in prison awaiting investigation. The prisons could not hold them all and inmates stood shoulder to shoulder. Zhenlin said, "None of those tax debts has been verified. How can we allow people to die standing in jail? He sent them all home. Upon investigation some cases proved to be false names inserted by scheming clerks, mistaken reports, or debts already paid off. He pardoned and released them all, saving five hundred households.

河南優人硃虎山，遊食太和，髮長數寸，土猾範之諫與昝姓有隙，誣以藏匿故明宗室謀不軌。事發，江寧推官不敢問，以委貞麟，貞麟力白其誣。逮至京師复勘，刑鞫無異，乃釋昝姓而治之諫罪。潁州民吳月以邪教惑眾，株連千餘人，貞麟勘多愚民無知，止坐月及為首者。捕人索財於水姓，不得，指為月黨，追至新蔡殺之。鄉人來救，並誣為月黨。撫鎮發兵圍之，係其眾至鳳陽。貞麟廉得實，懲捕而盡釋新蔡鄉人。其理枉活人類如此。旋以他事解官，得白。

Zhu Hushan, an actor from Henan who wandered Taihe for his living with hair cropped to a few inches, became entangled when a local rogue named Fan Zhijian, who bore a grudge against the Zan clan, falsely accused them of sheltering a Ming imperial clansman and plotting rebellion. When the case broke, the reviewing officer in Jiangning dared not touch it and handed it to Zhenlin, who vigorously proved the accusation false. The case was sent to the capital for a second investigation; judicial interrogation yielded the same conclusion, and the Zans were released while Zhijian was punished. Wu Yue of Yingzhou led people astray with heterodox teachings, implicating more than a thousand. Zhenlin found most were ignorant commoners and punished only Yue and the ringleaders. Constables tried to extort the Shui clan, failed, declared them members of Yue's sect, chased them to Xincai, and killed them. When villagers came to their aid, they too were branded as Yue's followers. The provincial governor and garrison commander sent troops to surround them and marched the prisoners in bonds to Fengyang. Zhenlin investigated and learned the truth, punished the constables, and released every villager from Xincai. This was typical of how he righted injustice and saved lives. He was soon dismissed over another matter but was ultimately exonerated.

康熙九年，改授直隸鹽山知縣，地瘠而多盜，立法牌甲互相救護。有警，一村中半守半援，盜日以息。清裡役，逃亡者悉與豁除，不期年，流民復業數百家。十二年，旱，謂父老曰：「大吏使勘災者至，供給惟官是責，不費民一錢。」及秋徵，吏仍以舊額進。貞麟曰：「下輸上易，上反下難。待準蠲而還之，反覆間民必受損。」立令除之。又永革雜派陋例，民皆感惠。內擢戶部山西司主事，山西聞喜丁徭重，力請減之。監督京左、右翼倉，因失察侵盜罷職，卒於家。

In the ninth year of Kangxi (1670), he was reassigned as magistrate of Yanshan in Zhili. The district was poor and plagued by bandits, so he instituted a paijia system for mutual protection. When alarm sounded, half a village would stand guard while the other half came to help, and banditry steadily declined. He cleaned up corvée rolls, exempted all who had fled, and within a year several hundred refugee households returned to work. In the twelfth year (1673), during a drought, he told the village elders, "When the superior's disaster-inspection envoy arrives, I alone am responsible for their provisioning—not one coin shall come from you. When autumn tax collection arrived, the clerks still reported the full old quota. Zhenlin said, "Collecting from the people and paying upward is easy; returning funds downward is hard. If we wait for official approval of a remission before refunding them, the delays will only hurt the people. He ordered the reduction at once. He also abolished for good the miscellaneous surcharges and abusive local fees, and the people were deeply grateful. He was promoted to secretary in the Shanxi Bureau of the Board of Revenue and vigorously petitioned to reduce the heavy corvée burden in Wenxi, Shanxi. While supervising the capital's left and right wing granaries he was dismissed for failing to detect embezzlement, and died at home.

駱鍾麟，字挺生，浙江臨安人。順治四年進士副榜，授安吉學正。十六年，遷陝西盩厔知縣。為政先教化，春秋大會明倫堂，進諸生迪以仁義忠信之道。增刪呂氏士約，頒學舍。朔望詣里社講演，訪耆年有德、孝弟著聞者，見與鈞禮，歲時勞以粟肉。立學社，擇民間子弟授以小學、孝經。飭保伍，修社倉。蒞獄明決，所案治即勢豪居間莫能奪，人畏而愛之。縣城去渭不十里，鍾麟行河畔，知水勢將南浸，議自覽家寨迤東開復故道，眾難之。康熙元年夏，大雨，渭南溢，且及城，齋沐臨禱，自跪水中，幸雨止，水頓減，徙而北流者數里。兼攝興平、鄠兩縣，興平豪右分為部黨，前令不能治，廉得其狀，收案以法。奏最，內遷北城兵馬司指揮，復出為西安府同知。

Luo Zhonglin, styled Tingsheng, was a native of Lin'an in Zhejiang. He placed on the supplemental jinshi list in the fourth year of Shunzhi (1647) and was appointed district instructor of Anji. In the sixteenth year of Shunzhi (1659), he was transferred to magistrate of Zhouzhi in Shaanxi. He put moral instruction first in government. Each spring and autumn he gathered students in the Minglun Hall to teach them benevolence, righteousness, loyalty, and good faith. He edited Master Lu's Scholars' Covenant and distributed it in the schoolhouses. On the first and fifteenth of each month he lectured at village altars, sought out elders famed for virtue and filial piety, treated them as equals, and rewarded them with grain and meat at year's end. He founded study societies and selected village boys to instruct in the Elementary Learning and the Classic of Filial Piety. He tightened the mutual-responsibility system and repaired community granaries. He presided over cases with clarity and firmness; not even powerful families could sway his judgments, and the people feared and loved him in equal measure. The county seat lay less than ten li from the Wei River. Walking the bank, Zhonglin saw that the water would soon flood southward and proposed reopening the old channel east of Lanjiatun, but the people objected. In the summer of Kangxi 1 (1662), heavy rains made the Wei overflow southward almost to the city walls. He bathed, prayed, and knelt in the floodwaters. Rain stopped, the waters fell sharply, and the current shifted north for several li. While also acting for Xingping and Hu counties, he found Xingping's gentry split into rival factions that previous magistrates had failed to break up. He investigated thoroughly and prosecuted them by law. After a top evaluation he was promoted to commander of the North City Horse-and-Firearms Office, then returned to the field as vice-prefect of Xi'an.

八年，擢江南常州知府。常州、縣賦重，科條繁多，吏緣為奸。鍾麟立法鉤稽清逋，吏受成事而已。屬邑歲例餽漕羨三千金，鍾麟曰：「利若金，如吾民何？」峻卻之。諸漕卒咸斂手奉法。

In the eighth year of Kangxi (1669), he was promoted to prefect of Changzhou in Jiangnan. Changzhou and its counties bore heavy taxes under a tangle of regulations that clerks exploited for profit. Zhonglin created audit rules to clear tax arrears, leaving clerks with nothing to manipulate. Subordinate counties annually offered three thousand taels in grain-transport surplus. Zhonglin said, "If we treat profit as gold, what becomes of my people? He refused them flatly. The grain-transport workers all kept their hands clean and obeyed the law.

初，鍾麟在盩厔以師禮數造李顒廬，至是創延陵書院，迎顒講學，率僚屬及薦紳學士北面聽。問為學之要，顒曰：「天下之治亂在人心，人心之邪正在學術。人心正，風俗移，治道畢矣。」鍾麟書其言，終身誦之。已而江陰、靖江、無錫諸有司爭禮致顒，顒為發明性善之旨，格物致知之說，士林蒸蒸向風，吏治亦和。

While magistrate of Zhouzhi he had often visited Li Yong's cottage as a disciple. Now he founded Yanling Academy, invited Yong to lecture, and led his staff and local scholars to sit as pupils facing north. When asked the heart of learning, Yong said, "The rise and fall of the realm depends on the human heart, and whether the heart turns good or evil depends on learning. When hearts are set right, customs follow, and good government is achieved. Zhonglin copied down these words and recited them for the rest of his life. Soon officials in Jiangyin, Jingjiang, Wuxi, and elsewhere vied to host Yong. He expounded the doctrine of innate moral goodness and investigation of things to extend knowledge. Scholars flocked to his teaching and local governance grew more harmonious.

九年，大水，發倉廩，勸富人出粟賑，民無荒亡。十年夏，大旱，葛衣草履，步禱不應，責躬籥天，言知府不德累民，涕泣並下。尋丁母憂，士民乞留，不可。既歸，連遭父喪，以毀卒。郡人論賢有司知治體必首推鍾麟。先鍾麟守常州者，祖重光、崔宗泰，皆有名。其後有祖進朝，政聲尤著。重光官至天津巡撫。

In the ninth year (1670), after great floods he opened the granaries, urged the wealthy to contribute grain, and no one died of famine. In the tenth summer (1671), during severe drought he prayed in hemp and straw sandals. When rain did not come he fastened the city gates, blamed himself before Heaven for failing the people as prefect, and wept openly. He soon entered mourning for his mother; gentry and commoners begged him to stay, but he could not. After returning home he suffered his father's death in quick succession and died from overwhelming grief. When the people of the prefecture speak of worthy officials who truly grasp governance, Zhonglin is always named first. Before Zhonglin governed Changzhou, Zu Chongguang and Cui Zongtai had each earned renown there. Later came Zu Jinchao, whose reputation for governance was especially outstanding. Chongguang rose to governor of Tianjin.

宗泰，奉天人。順治初，授松江府同知，以敏幹稱。擢常州知府，政尚嚴厲，善鉤距，吏民驚為神明。十三年，大兵徵閩，過郡久駐，人情恇擾，宗泰先期儲偫，纖悉備具。有遊騎入村落，逐婦女溺水死，宗泰夜叩營門，白將軍縛置之法。時時單騎巡行，遇小有剽奪，隸傳呼「崔太守來」，皆引避去，民得安堵。令甲，府漕以推官監兌，推官懦而衛弁橫。宗泰自請於漕督，檄之監兌，盛騶從，帶刀鞬建臨倉，弁卒悚懼，竟事無譁。尋以事左遷福建延平府同知。後乞免歸。

Zongtai was a native of Fengtian. In early Shunzhi he was appointed vice-prefect of Songjiang and was known for his sharp efficiency. Promoted to prefect of Changzhou, he governed with stern discipline, excelled at investigative methods, and officials and people alike regarded him with awe. In the thirteenth year of Shunzhi (1656), as the army marched on Fujian and lingered in the prefecture, Zongtai foresaw the panic and stored provisions in meticulous advance. When straggling cavalry entered a village, chased a woman into the river, and drowned her, Zongtai went to the camp gate at night, reported to the general, and had the man bound and executed. He often patrolled alone on horseback; at the slightest robbery his runners would shout "Prefect Cui is coming!" and the culprits would scatter, so the people lived in peace. By regulation the reviewing officer supervised grain transport for the prefecture, but the officer was timid while military ensigns threw their weight around. Zongtai volunteered to the grain-transport superintendent to take over supervision himself. He arrived at the granary with a large escort, sword and bow at his belt; the soldiers were terrified and the exchange passed without incident. He was soon demoted to vice-prefect of Yanping in Fujian over another matter. Later he asked to be relieved and returned home.

進朝，亦奉天人。以廕監起家。康熙二十三年，由部郎擢授常州知府，有惠政，以失察鐫級去，士民呼籥於巡撫湯斌，請留進朝。斌上疏言：「進朝履任未一載，操守廉、治事勤，臣私心重之。頃緣失察法寶事降調，常州五縣士民輒號泣罷市，赴臣請留，日不下數千人。臣諭以保留例已久停，士民謂常州四十年未有愛民如進朝者，其減繇輕耗，興學正俗，戢姦除暴，息訟安民，窮鄉僻壤，盡沾惠澤。朝廷軫念東南，如江寧府知府於成龍，特恩超擢，吏治丕變。進朝操守才幹可與成龍頡頏，而獨以一眚被謫，士民攀留，言之泣下，臣不知進朝何以感人之深如此。臣受事四日始獲法寶，是受事之日，已為失察之日，且當候處分，何敢代人凟奏？惟臣蒙恩簡畀封疆大任，屬吏之敗檢者得糾劾之，廉能者不能為之一言，非公也。民情皇皇如是，而不為之解慰安輯，非仁也。畏罪緘默而使輿情不上聞，非忠也。敢據情陳奏。」章下部議，格不行。聖祖諭曰：「設官原以養民，湯斌保奏祖進朝清廉，百姓同聲懇留，可從所請，以勸廉吏。」進朝復任。未幾，以老疾乞免，民恆思之不置云。

Jinchao was also a native of Fengtian. He entered office through hereditary yin privilege as an Imperial Academy student. In Kangxi 23 (1684) he was promoted from a ministry post to prefect of Changzhou, where he won the people's trust. Reduced in rank for a supervisory failure, gentry and commoners clamored before Governor Tang Bin to keep him. Bin memorialized: "Jinchao has served less than a year. His conduct is upright and his work diligent, and I hold him in high regard. He was recently demoted for failing to detect the Fabao affair. Gentry and commoners in all five Changzhou counties wept, shut their shops, and came to me by the thousands each day to beg that he stay. I told them the precedent for retaining an official had long been suspended. They replied that in forty years Changzhou had never seen an official who loved the people as Jinchao did—cutting corvée, easing surcharges, promoting schools, correcting customs, suppressing criminals, settling lawsuits, bringing peace to the people—and that even the remotest villages had felt his kindness. The court has shown special concern for the southeast, as when Yu Chenglong, prefect of Jiangning, was exceptionally promoted and local governance was transformed. Jinchao's integrity and ability can stand beside Chenglong's, yet for one fault he was demoted. The people plead to keep him with tears streaming down. I cannot fathom how he has touched them so deeply. I had held office only four days when Fabao was captured, so my very first day in office was already a day of failure to detect. I await my own disposition—how dare I plead another's case? Yet having been entrusted with a great provincial charge, if I can impeach officials who breach conduct but cannot speak one word for the upright and able, I would not be serving the public good. The people are so anxious; if I do not soothe and reassure them, I would fail in benevolence. If I stay silent for fear of punishment and keep public sentiment from reaching the throne, I would fail in loyalty. I therefore dare report the facts as I have found them. The memorial was referred to the ministry for deliberation and was blocked. The Emperor decreed: "Offices exist to nourish the people. Tang Bin vouches for Zu Jinchao's integrity, and the people united in pleading to keep him. Grant their request to encourage upright officials. Jinchao resumed his post. Before long he asked to retire on account of age and illness; the people never ceased to miss him.

趙吉士，字天羽，安徽休寧人，寄籍杭州。順治八年舉人。康熙七年，授山西交城知縣。縣居萬山中，地產馬，饒灌木，時禁民間牧馬，停南堡村木廠，民困，往往去為盜。武弁路時運貪而擾民，民殺時運作亂，與大同叛將薑瓖合，連破諸邑。及瓖誅，餘盜匿山中。吉士到官，定先撫後剿之策，有投撫者，給示令招其黨。诇知群盜陰事，選鄉兵，得技優者百人。令紳戶家出一丁，與民均役。分夕巡城，行保甲法，匿賊者連坐，鄰盜相戒不入境。

Zhao Jishi, styled Tianyu, came from Xiuning in Anhui but was registered as a resident of Hangzhou. He passed the provincial examination in the eighth year of the Shunzhi reign. In the seventh year of Kangxi he was appointed magistrate of Jiaocheng in Shanxi. The county sat deep in the mountains, where horses were raised and scrubland was plentiful. The government had banned common grazing and closed the timber mill at Nanbao Village; driven to hardship, many people turned to banditry. The army officer Lu Shiyun was greedy and oppressive; the people killed him and rose in rebellion, joining forces with the Datong rebel general Jiang Rang to overrun one district after another. After Jiang Rang was put to death, the surviving bandits took refuge in the mountains. On taking office, Jishi adopted a policy of offering amnesty before resorting to force. Those who surrendered received written orders to bring in their fellow bandits. Through reconnaissance he learned the bandits' secret movements, then recruited a hundred of the most capable local militiamen. He required every gentry household to supply one man, so that the elite shared corvée duties with the common people. He organized night patrols around the city, enforced the baojia system of mutual accountability, and made those who hid bandits liable together with them; neighboring bandits warned one another to stay out of the county.

時交城多抗賦，河北都者賦倍他都。吉士往諭朝廷德意，勗以力耕勿為盜，眾悚息。日暮寢陶穴中聽訟，左右多賊黨，吉士陽若勿知，詰朝深入，察其形勢。最險者曰三坐崖，東西兩葫蘆川繞其下。塞葫蘆口，則官軍不得登。吉士默識之而還。交山賊楊芳林、芳清等時出肆掠，九年春，吉士入山勸農，撫姜瓖舊卒惠崇德，詢得二楊所在，命二卒立擒至，杖系之。賊渠任國鉉、鍾斗等糾眾尾之不敢發。會有陝西叛弁黃某入葫蘆川與國鉉合，吉士謀間之，遣山民持書付國鉉等，偽誤投黃所，黃得書疑國鉉等，率眾去。國鉉等既失黃弁，無所恃，有投誠意。靜樂盜李宗盛踞周洪山，遣其黨趙應龍劫清源，吉士遣惠崇德入山說國鉉等，令獻趙應龍可免罪。國鉉與宗盛紿應龍縛付崇德，應龍恨為所賣，盡發諸盜陰謀。吉士會兵剿宗盛，復遣崇德往說國鉉等使無動，遂擒宗盛，賊黨益渙。

Many in Jiaocheng resisted paying taxes at the time, and the Hebei district's assessment was twice that of every other district. Jishi went in person to explain the court's benevolent intentions and urged the people to farm diligently rather than turn to banditry; they were awed into submission. At dusk he took lodgings in a pottery cave to hear lawsuits, surrounded by many bandit sympathizers; Jishi pretended not to notice. The next morning he pressed deep into the hills and studied the terrain. The most formidable position was Sansuoya Cliff, with the eastern and western Hulugou valleys winding beneath it. Block the mouths of the Hulugou valleys and government troops could not climb up at all. Jishi filed the layout away in memory and returned. The Jiaoshan bandits Yang Fanglin, Yang Fangqing, and others frequently raided the countryside. In the spring of the ninth year Jishi entered the hills to promote farming, won over Hui Chongde, a former soldier of Jiang Rang, learned where the two Yangs were hiding, and had the two men seize them at once, flog them, and bind them. The bandit leaders Ren Guoxuan, Zhong Dou, and their followers trailed behind but did not dare strike. A Shaanxi rebel officer surnamed Huang had meanwhile entered Hulugou and joined Ren Guoxuan. Jishi set out to divide them: he sent a hill villager with a letter meant for Ren Guoxuan and his men, but had it deliberately misdelivered to Huang. Huang read the letter, grew suspicious of Ren's group, and marched away with his followers. Deprived of Officer Huang's support, Ren Guoxuan and his men had no one to rely on and began to show a willingness to surrender. The Jingyue bandit Li Zongsheng held Zhouhong Mountain and sent his henchman Zhao Yinglong to raid Qingyuan. Jishi dispatched Hui Chongde into the hills to persuade Ren Guoxuan and his men that surrendering Zhao Yinglong would win them pardon. Ren Guoxuan and Li Zongsheng tricked Zhao Yinglong, bound him, and turned him over to Chongde. Enraged at being betrayed, Zhao Yinglong revealed every secret plot of the bandits. Jishi assembled troops to hunt down Li Zongsheng, sent Chongde again to hold Ren Guoxuan's group in check, and captured Zongsheng; the bandit factions grew ever more fragmented.

十年，廷旨下總督治群盜，期盡剿絕。吉士曰：「交山劇賊不過十餘人，其它率烏合，一聞盡剿，恐山中向化之民畏罪自疑，反為賊用。今靖安堡初复，請協兵三百以駐防為名，剋期入山，可一戰擒也。」靖安堡者，近葫蘆口三十里，昔以屯兵，吉士就廢壘新築之。守備姚順率兵至縣，吉士約期進屯。先期七日置酒大享客，夜半，席未散，吉士上馬會師，疾驅四十里至水泉灘。分三隊，一襲東葫蘆，一襲西葫蘆，自偕姚順進駐東坡底，為兩葫蘆要道。東西賊援並絕，國鉉等為內應，呼曰：「官兵入山矣！」兩葫蘆賊皆走上三坐崖。吉士遣人至崖下語之曰：「汝等良民，毋為賊脅，官且按戶稽丁，不在即以賊論。」眾乃稍稍去，僅存二百餘人。分兵要賊去路，賊四竄，被獲頗眾。分搜巢穴，縱降賊，質其妻子，俾捕他賊以自贖。入山旬有六日，盜悉平。乃召山中民始終不附賊者三十七家，賚以羊酒，立為約正；其素不與徭役者千四百三十家，編其籍入都圖。自後交山無賊患。吉士初患山路險阻，命每都具一圖，鱗比為大圖，召父老詢徑途曲折注之，以次及永寧、靜樂鄰縣諸山。每獲賊，善遇之，因得諸賊踪跡。上官知其能，不拘以文法，用卒成功。

In the tenth year the court ordered the governor-general to suppress the bandit gangs and wipe them out completely by a set deadline. Jishi said: "The hard-core bandits of Jiaoshan number barely a dozen; the rest are mere rabble. If word spreads of a policy of total extermination, the hill people who have begun to settle down may fear punishment, lose heart, and end up serving the bandits instead. Jing'an Fort has only just been rebuilt. Request three hundred auxiliary troops under the pretext of garrison duty, and on the appointed day we can enter the hills and take them in a single strike. Jing'an Fort stood thirty li from Hulukou. Once a military garrison, it had been rebuilt by Jishi on its ruined foundations. Garrison commandant Yao Shun marched his troops to the county, and Jishi set a date for them to move in and encamp. Seven days before the scheduled date he threw a grand banquet for his guests. At midnight, while the feast was still in full swing, Jishi mounted his horse, joined his forces, and raced forty li to Shuiquan Beach. He split his force into three columns: one to strike the eastern Hulugou, one the western, while he and Yao Shun took up position at Dongpodi, the choke point between the two valleys. Reinforcements from east and west were cut off. Ren Guoxuan and his men acted as insiders, shouting: "The government troops are in the mountains! The bandits in both Hulugou valleys fled up toward Sansuoya Cliff. Jishi sent men to the foot of the cliff to call out: "You are honest folk—do not let the bandits drag you down. The magistrate will soon check each household and register every able-bodied man; anyone absent will be counted a bandit. The crowd thinned out until barely two hundred people remained. He posted troops to cut off the bandits' escape routes; they scattered in every direction, and a great many were captured. He sent detachments to scour the hideouts, released surrendered bandits, held their families hostage, and made them hunt down other bandits to earn their freedom. Sixteen days after entering the mountains, banditry was completely suppressed. He then summoned thirty-seven mountain families that had never sided with the bandits, rewarded them with sheep and wine, and appointed them as local pact leaders; and registered the fourteen hundred and thirty households that had long evaded corvée duties on the district rolls. After that Jiaoshan knew no further bandit trouble. Jishi had worried from the start about the treacherous mountain roads. He ordered each district to produce a map, assembled them into one large chart, and summoned village elders to trace every winding path onto it, eventually extending the survey to the hills of the neighboring counties of Yongning and Jingyue. Whenever he captured a bandit he treated him well, and so learned the whereabouts of the rest. His superiors recognized his ability and did not hamper him with bureaucratic rules, allowing him to succeed in the end.

治交城五年，百廢俱舉，內遷戶部主事，監揚州鈔關，擢戶科給事中。忌者劾其父子異籍被黜，尋補國子監學正。四十五年，卒，祀交城名宦祠。

After five years governing Jiaocheng, during which he restored every neglected project, he was transferred to the Ministry of Revenue as a secretary, put in charge of the Yangzhou customs station, and promoted to supervising censor in the Revenue Section. Rivals impeached him for having a different registered residence from his father, and he was dismissed; he was soon appointed an instructor at the Imperial Academy. He died in the forty-fifth year and was enshrined in Jiaocheng's hall of celebrated officials.

張瑾，字去瑕，江南江都人。康熙二年舉人。十九年，授雲南昆明知縣。時吳三桂初平，故軍衛田隸籓府者，徵租量豐歉收之，事平沿為額，民不能供。又軍興後官司府署器用皆裡下供應，而取給於縣，故昆明之徭，尤重於賦。瑾請於大吏，奏減其賦，不可；乃疆畫荒地，招流亡，給牛種，薄其徵以濟軍衛之賦。一年墾田千三百餘畝，三年得萬餘畝。又均其徭，裡蠹無科派，奸民無包收，諸侵漁弊皆絕。民舊供縣公費日十金，瑾曰：「吾食祿於君，不食傭於民。」革之。總督曰：「陳仲子之廉，能理劇乎？」又問：「今家幾何人？」對曰：「子一，客與僕各二。」瞷之，信，皆驚異。自公費除而上之取給者亦減。

Zhang Jin, styled Quxia, came from Jiangdu in Jiangnan. He passed the provincial examination in the second year of the Kangxi reign. In the nineteenth year he was appointed magistrate of Kunming in Yunnan. Wu Sangui had only recently been suppressed. Farmland that had belonged to military garrisons under the princely establishment had been taxed according to the harvest, but after the rebellion this provisional rate was fixed as a permanent quota the people could not meet. After the campaigns, moreover, every utensil needed by government offices was supplied by local communities and charged to the county; corvée in Kunming weighed even more heavily on the people than the land tax. Zhang Jin petitioned the provincial authorities to memorialize for a tax reduction, but the request was denied. He then surveyed wasteland, summoned back refugees, supplied oxen and seed, and set a lighter levy to help the people pay the military-guard tax. In one year more than thirteen hundred mu were brought under cultivation; within three years the total exceeded ten thousand mu. He also equalized corvée obligations; village parasites could no longer levy unauthorized charges, corrupt middlemen could no longer collect fees, and every form of extortion was stamped out. The people had long paid ten taels of silver a day for county operating expenses. Zhang Jin said: "I draw my salary from the throne—I will not live off the people's labor. He abolished the practice. The governor-general remarked: "A man as upright as Chen Zhongzi—can he manage so demanding a post? He then asked: "How many people do you have at home now? Zhang Jin replied: "One son, two boarders, and two servants. The governor sent someone to look in on the household, found the account true, and was astonished along with everyone else. Once the daily public expense was abolished, the demands on the people from higher offices also fell.

昆明池受四山之水，夏秋暴漲，怒流入閘河。沙石壅塞，水乃溢。浸瀕池田，歲勞民力濬之。晉寧州境毗於昆明，受東南諸箐之水，舊蹟有河道入江，上官議鑿之以通閘河。瑾按地勢為圖白之曰：「閘河獨受昆明之水，已不能吐納，沙石旁溢為害，豈可更受晉寧水乎？且其地高若建瓴，沙石犖確尤甚，殆不可治。」台司持之堅，則指圖爭曰：「高下在目，何忍陷民於死！」總督范承勳曰：「令言是也。」議遂寢。

Kunming Lake collected the runoff from four surrounding mountains; in summer and autumn it swelled violently and sent floodwater rushing into the Zhahe River. Sand and gravel clogged the channel until the water spilled over. It flooded the lakeside fields, and every year the people were worn out dredging the channel. Jinning Prefecture adjoined Kunming and collected water from the southeastern ravines. Ancient traces showed a river channel that once reached the Yangzi, and the provincial authorities proposed digging it anew to link it with the Zhahe. Zhang Jin surveyed the terrain, drew a map, and submitted his report: "The Zhahe already receives Kunming Lake's water and can barely handle the flow; sand and gravel spill over the banks. How can it take on Jinning's water as well? And the ground there slopes steeply like water tipping from a rooftop; the rock and gravel are especially hard—likely impossible to dredge. The provincial commissioner held firm, so Zhang Jin pointed to his map and protested: "The elevations are plain to see—how can you condemn the people to die! Governor-General Fan Chengxun said: "The magistrate is right. The proposal was abandoned.

縣有止善、春登、利城諸裡田，坳垤錯出，不旱則潦。瑾廉得旁近有白沙、馬裊、清水三河，可資蓄洩，年久湮塞，率民濬治。三月河复，田以常稔。大小東門外舊皆市，兵後為墟，盜賊窟其中。為創造室廬，以居流亡，移城中騾、馬、羊諸市實之。貨廛牧場相比，盜遂絕跡。安阜園者，故籓囿也，請耕之以食孤貧廢疾而無告者。

In the li of Zhishan, Chundeng, Licheng, and elsewhere the fields lay in a patchwork of hollows and rises, suffering flood whenever there was no drought. Zhang Jin discovered that the Baisha, Maniao, and Qingshui rivers nearby could be used for irrigation and drainage but had silted up over the years; he led the people in dredging them. Within three months the rivers flowed again, and the fields yielded steady harvests. The areas outside the Great and Small East Gates had once been market districts; after the wars they lay in ruins and became bandits' hideouts. He built new houses for refugees and moved the city's mule, horse, and sheep markets into them to fill the streets with life. Shops and livestock pens stood side by side, and the bandits disappeared altogether. Anfu Garden had been the prince's hunting park; he petitioned to farm it to feed the orphaned, the impoverished, the disabled, and others with no one to turn to.

是時上官多賢者，每倚信瑾。兵備道欲以流民所墾田牧馬，求之期年，不與，久亦稱其直。將軍僕殺人，按察使置酒為請，陽諾之，退而正其罪。巡撫僕子謀奪士人聘妻，即縣庭令士人行合卺禮，判曰：「法不得娶有夫之婦，婦乘我輿，壻乘我馬，役送之歸，有奪者治其罪。」時人作歌詩以傳之。初至，滯獄以百數，斷訖皆當。後一省疑獄輒付瑾治，屢有平反。居三年，病卒。士民圖其像藏之，請祀名宦祠。

Many of his superiors at the time were capable men, and all came to rely on Zhang Jin. The military preparedness intendant wanted to graze horses on land reclaimed by refugees and pressed for a full year; Zhang Jin refused, and in time even he praised his uprightness. When a general's servant murdered someone, the provincial surveillance commissioner held a banquet to plead on his behalf; Zhang Jin agreed in public, then returned and passed sentence according to the law. When the governor's servant tried to seize a scholar's betrothed bride, Zhang Jin had the scholar perform the wedding ceremony right in the county hall and ruled: "The law forbids marrying a woman already betrothed. The bride shall ride in my carriage, the groom on my horse; my servants will escort her home, and anyone who interferes will be punished. People of the day wrote songs and poems to spread word of the deed. When he first arrived, hundreds of cases lay pending; every judgment he handed down was fair. Later the whole province sent its hardest cases to Zhang Jin, and he repeatedly overturned wrongful convictions. After three years in office he died of illness. The gentry and common people painted his portrait for safekeeping and petitioned to enshrine him in the hall of celebrated officials.

江皋，字在湄，安徽桐城人。順治十八年進士，觀政刑部。父病，乞養歸。喪除，授江西瑞昌知縣。故事，歲一巡鄉堡、校戶籍，斂輿馬費，皋罷之。縣城近河，壖岸善崩，屢決改道，環城無隍，民病汲。皋出俸金，率先效力，築堅堤，濬壅塞。水復其故，形勢益壯，民居遂蕃。三籓叛，縣界連湖南，土寇乘間起。皋曰：「吾民緣飢寒出此，迫之則走藉寇」。飭鄉、保長開諭撫安，而密督丁壯巡查，屢擒其魁，盜遂息。居七歲，考最，遷九江府同知，尋擢甘肅鞏昌知府。大軍入蜀，治辦軍需。值歲除，檄徵騾馬千匹，茭芻器具，取具倉猝。皋策畫便宜，供應無缺。士卒驕悍，所過漁奪百姓，皋遇，輒縛送軍主，斬以徇，繇是肅然。

Jiang Gao, styled Zaimai, came from Tongcheng in Anhui. He passed the metropolitan examination in the eighteenth year of Shunzhi and was assigned to observe proceedings at the Ministry of Justice. When his father fell ill, he petitioned to return home to care for him. When his mourning period ended, he was appointed magistrate of Ruichang in Jiangxi. By custom the magistrate made an annual tour of village forts to verify household registers and collected carriage and horse fees for the journey; Gao abolished the practice. The county seat stood beside a river whose banks were prone to collapse; repeated breaches had shifted the channel, leaving the city without a moat and the people struggling to draw water. Gao paid out of his own salary, took the lead in the work, built sturdy dikes, and dredged the clogged channels. The river returned to its old course, the city's defenses grew stronger, and the population began to thrive. When the Three Feudatories rebelled, the county bordered Hunan, and local bandits seized the opportunity to rise. Gao said: "Our people turn to this from hunger and cold; drive them too hard and they will flee to the bandits for refuge." He ordered village and baojia heads to counsel and reassure the people, while secretly directing able-bodied men on patrol; they captured several ringleaders, and banditry subsided. After seven years he received the highest evaluation, was promoted to vice prefect of Jiujiang Prefecture, and soon after to prefect of Gongchang in Gansu. When the imperial army marched into Sichuan, he organized its provisions and materiel. It was New Year's Eve when an urgent requisition arrived for a thousand mules and horses, along with fodder and equipment, all to be assembled at once. Gao devised workable expedients, and nothing fell short. The soldiers were arrogant and violent, plundering civilians wherever they marched. Whenever Gao caught them, he had them bound and sent to their commander for execution as a public warning, and from then on discipline held.

越四歲，調廣西柳州。時新收嶺西，兵猶留鎮。軍中多掠婦女，皋白大吏，檄營帥，籍所掠送郡資遣，凡數百人。軍餉不繼，士譁噪將變，皋馳諭緩期，趣台司發餉，應期至，軍乃戢。郡民王纘緒，故官家子，經亂，產為四奴所據，隻身寄食僧舍。皋詰得之，悉逮捕諸奴。奴懼，納二千金乞免，佯受之。訊伏罪，乃出金授纘緒，命奴從歸，盡還其產，柳人歌誦之。太和殿大工興，使者採木，民大恐。長老言故明採木於此，僵僕谿谷，橫藉不可數。皋曰：「上命也，何敢匿諱！」使者至，令民前導，自控騎偕使者往視。巨木森挺絕巘，下臨深谷。下騎，掖使者攀援以登，崖益峻，無側足所。使者咋舌曰：「是不可取。」還奏免役。民讙呼，戴上恩德。

Four years later he was transferred to Liuzhou in Guangxi. The region west of the Ling Mountains had only just been brought under control, and troops were still stationed there. Many women had been seized within the army. Gao reported the matter to his superiors and ordered the camp commanders to register every abducted woman and send her to the prefectural seat with funds for the journey home—several hundred in all. When army rations ran out, the soldiers grew restive and were near mutiny. Gao rode out to announce a reprieve and pressed the provincial offices to release the pay. The funds arrived on time, and the troops quieted down. A local man named Wang Xuanxu came from an official family. After years of disorder, four slaves had seized his estate, and he was left alone, living on charity at a Buddhist monastery. Gao investigated the case, uncovered the truth, and had all four slaves arrested. Terrified, the slaves offered two thousand taels of silver to buy their freedom. Gao pretended to accept. Once they confessed under questioning, he turned the silver over to Wang Xuanxu, sent the slaves home with him, and restored the entire estate. The people of Liuzhou sang songs to spread word of the deed. When work began on the Hall of Supreme Harmony, timber commissioners arrived, and the people were terrified. The elders said that when the Ming had gathered timber here, men had dropped dead in the ravines until the slopes were strewn with bodies beyond number. Gao said: "This is an imperial order—how could I dare to hide it!" When the envoy arrived, he had local men guide the way, mounted his own horse, and rode out with the commissioner to inspect the timber. Immense trees rose in dense stands on sheer cliff tops, with deep gorges yawning below. He dismounted and helped the envoy climb hand over hand. The cliff grew steeper still until there was scarcely room to stand. The envoy clicked his tongue and said: "Timber like this cannot be taken." He went back and reported that the levy should be canceled. The people erupted in cheers and credited the emperor's benevolence.

尋被薦提學四川，以母喪解官。服闋，補陝西平慶道副使，遷福建興泉道參政。以事左遷，旋以恩復職，卒於家。皋於廣西聲績最著。其後稱張克嶷、賈樸。

He was soon recommended to serve as educational commissioner of Sichuan, but resigned when his mother died. After his mourning period he was appointed vice commissioner of the Pingqing Circuit in Shaanxi, then promoted to administrative commissioner of the Xingquan Circuit in Fujian. He was demoted over an incident, then restored by imperial favor, and died at home. Gao's reputation and record of achievement were greatest in Guangxi. After him the chapter turns to Zhang Keyi and Jia Pu.

克嶷，字偉公，山西聞喜人。康熙十八年進士，選庶吉士，改刑部主事，累遷郎中。有獄連執政族人，諸司莫敢任，克嶷請獨任之。內務府以其人出使為辭，克嶷鉤提益急。牒問奉使何地、歸何期，力請部長入告。事雖格，聞者肅然。出為廣西平樂知府，瑤、僮雜居，盜不可詰。克嶷至浹月，以信義服苗酋。獲巨盜二人，斃其一，宥其一，責以偵緝，終其任盜不敢窺。調廣東潮州，屬縣賊蜂起，或稱明裔，聚眾千餘人。克嶷疾馳至其地，命吏士速據白葉祁山，設疑兵，賊不敢逼。會夜半，大風起，簡健卒二百斫其營，呼曰：「大兵至矣！」城中鼓譟出兵以助之，賊奔祁山，要擊之，斬其渠魁三人，眾散乞降。巡撫將上其功，克嶷曰：「此盜耳，而稱明裔，興大獄，株連多，恐轉生變。」乃以盜案結。郡有大豪戕親迎者於路而奪其妻，克嶷微行跡而得之。獄成，當大辟。監司以督撫命為之請，曰：「稍遼緩之，當有以報。」克嶷曰：「吾官可罷，獄不可鬻也。」卒寘諸法。或假親王命以開礦，縛執之。其人出龍牌，克嶷命系之獄，以牌申大府。情既得，立杖殺之。丁父憂歸，遂不出。年七十六，卒。

Zhang Keyi, styled Weigong, came from Wenxi in Shanxi. He passed the metropolitan examination in the eighteenth year of Kangxi, entered the Hanlin Academy as a bachelor, was transferred to the Ministry of Justice as a clerk, and rose through the ranks to department director. When a case implicated a senior official's kinsman, no department dared touch it. Keyi volunteered to take sole responsibility. The Imperial Household Department claimed the man was abroad on a diplomatic mission, but Keyi pressed his summons all the harder. He issued a formal inquiry asking where the envoy had gone and when he would return, and pressed the department head to report the matter to the emperor. The case was ultimately blocked, but everyone who heard of it was impressed. He was appointed prefect of Pingle in Guangxi, where Yao and Zhuang peoples lived side by side and banditry was beyond control. Within a month of his arrival, Keyi had won the Miao chiefs over through integrity and fair dealing. He captured two notorious bandits, executed one, spared the other, and put him to work tracking down his fellows. For the rest of Keyi's term, bandits did not dare show their faces. Transferred to Chaozhou in Guangdong, he found bandits rising across the subordinate counties. Some claimed to be descendants of the Ming and had assembled more than a thousand followers. Keyi galloped to the scene and ordered his officers and soldiers to seize Baiye and Qishan at once. He deployed decoy forces, and the bandits dared not advance. At midnight a fierce wind sprang up. He picked two hundred picked troops to strike the bandit camp and shouted: "The main army is here!" Drums thundered in the city and troops rushed out to join the attack. The bandits fled toward Qishan, where they were intercepted; three ringleaders were beheaded, and the rest scattered and surrendered. The governor was about to memorialize his victory, but Keyi said: "These are nothing but bandits. If we treat them as Ming loyalists and open a treason case, the net will drag in too many people and may provoke fresh unrest." He closed the matter as an ordinary bandit case. A local magnate had murdered a bridegroom on the wedding procession road and seized his bride. Keyi tracked him down through undercover investigation. Once the case was tried, the sentence was death. On orders from the governor-general, the circuit intendant interceded for the man, saying: "Hold off a while—we will find a way to repay the favor." Keyi replied: "You may strip me of my post, but you cannot buy off a case." In the end he carried out the sentence. When someone forged a prince's order to open a mine, Keyi had him seized and bound. The man produced an imperial dragon tablet. Keyi had him thrown in prison and forwarded the tablet to the provincial authorities. Once the facts were confirmed, he had the man beaten to death on the spot. He went home for his father's mourning and never took office again. He died at the age of seventy-six.

樸，字素庵，直隸故城人。貢生。康熙二十三年，授廣西柳州同知，有政聲。思明土屬負固抗官，大吏知其能，調任思明治之。夜遣健卒潛入山，焚賊寨，遂出降。署思明知府，土田州岑氏母子相爭，土目陸師等構之以為利，殺人千餘。樸至切諭，母子俱感泣。師等聚眾謀不軌，先懾以兵，單騎往，曉以禍福，乃聽命。建明倫堂，設義學，代完寒士逋糧。民立生祠奉之。擢貴州平越知府，罣誤去官。樸在廣西，嘗條上邊事，巡撫彭鵬奇其才。四十年，詔舉廉吏，鵬特疏薦，授江南蘇州知府。與吏民相見以誠，屏絕請託，政聲大起。四十六年，聖祖南巡，幸蘇州，嘉其清廉為吳中最，擢江常鎮道，吳民數千人遮道請留賢守，御書「宜民」匾額賜之。調蘇松常鎮太糧儲道、布政使參政，仍兼管蘇州府事，從民原也。革四府徵糧例規，積弊一清。忤總督噶禮，摭事劾之，四十九年，去官。留吳門三年，歸里卒。

Jia Pu, styled Su'an, came from Gucheng in Zhili. He entered through the tribute-student route. In the twenty-third year of Kangxi he was appointed vice prefect of Liuzhou in Guangxi, where he quickly earned a name for effective administration. The native chiefs of Siming were entrenched and defied the authorities. Knowing his ability, his superiors transferred him to govern the district. By night he sent picked troops into the hills, burned the bandit camps, and the rebels came down to surrender. As acting prefect of Siming, he found the Cen clan of Tianzhou torn by a feud between mother and son. Native officers such as Lu Shi had fanned the conflict for profit, and more than a thousand people had died. When Pu arrived he spoke to them earnestly, and mother and son both wept and submitted. When Lu Shi and his followers gathered a mob and plotted rebellion, Pu first overawed them with troops, then rode alone into their camp and explained what fortune and ruin would bring. They submitted. He built the Hall of Bright Morality, founded a charity school, and paid off the grain-tax arrears of poor scholars. The people built a living shrine in his honor. Promoted to prefect of Pingyue in Guizhou, he was later dismissed over a mishap. While serving in Guangxi, Pu once submitted a detailed memorial on frontier affairs, and Governor Peng Peng was struck by his ability. In the fortieth year the throne ordered the nomination of honest officials. Peng submitted a special recommendation, and Pu was appointed prefect of Suzhou in Jiangnan. He dealt with officials and commoners alike in good faith, refused every favor-seeker, and his reputation soared. In the forty-sixth year the Kangxi Emperor toured the south and visited Suzhou, praising Pu as the most incorruptible official in the Wu region and promoting him to the Jiang-Chang-Zhen Circuit. Thousands of local people blocked the road, begging that their worthy magistrate be kept. The emperor wrote the plaque "Benefit the People" and bestowed it on him. He was transferred to the Su-Song-Chang-Zhen grain-storage circuit and made administrative commissioner, while still overseeing Suzhou Prefecture in deference to popular demand. He abolished the customary surcharges on grain collection across four prefectures and swept away years of accumulated abuse. He crossed Governor-General Gali, who seized on pretexts to impeach him. In the forty-ninth year he was dismissed. He stayed in Suzhou for three years, then returned home and died.

邵嗣堯，字子昆，山西猗氏人。康熙九年進士，授山東臨淄知縣。有惠政，以憂去。十九年，服闋，補直隸柏鄉。興水利，減火耗，禁差擾，民安之。縣人大學士魏裔介為嗣堯會試座主，家人犯法，嚴治之，不少貸。又有旗丁毒毆子錢家，入縣庭，勢洶洶。嗣堯不稍屈，系之獄，移文都統訊主者，主者不敢承，具論如法。值歲饑，或言勒積粟家出粟，嗣堯曰：「人惟不積粟，故歲饑則束手，吾方蘄令積粟家獲厚利，何勒為？」已而蠲粟者眾，歲不為災。有言開滏陽河通舟楫者，巡撫於成龍使嗣堯往相度，嗣堯力持不可，謂：「此河旱潦不常，未可通舟楫。即或能通，恐舟楫之利歸商賈，挑濬之害歸窮民矣。」事遂寢。

Shao Siyao, styled Zikun, came from Yishi in Shanxi. He passed the metropolitan examination in the ninth year of Kangxi and was appointed magistrate of Linzi in Shandong. He governed with kindness, then left office to mourn a parent. In the nineteenth year, when his mourning ended, he was appointed magistrate of Baixiang in Zhili. He improved irrigation, cut melt-loss surcharges, and forbade runner harassment, and the people lived at ease. Grand Secretary Wei Yijie of the county had been Siyao's chief examiner at the metropolitan examination. When Wei's household broke the law, Siyao punished them without mercy. A banner soldier also savagely beat a moneylender's family, then stormed into the county hall in a threatening rage. Siyao did not budge. He had the man imprisoned and wrote to the banner commander demanding that the soldier's master be questioned. The master disavowed him, and Siyao tried the case to the full letter of the law. During a famine year, some urged him to compel grain hoarders to sell their stores. Siyao said: "People hoard grain precisely because they fear famine. If we force them to release it, they will stop storing it altogether, and then when famine comes everyone will be helpless. I want hoarders to profit—why coerce them?" Before long many hoarders released their grain voluntarily, and the year passed without catastrophe. When some proposed dredging the Fuyang River for shipping, Governor Yu Chenglong sent Siyao to survey the project. Siyao firmly opposed it, saying: "This river's flow is erratic in flood and drought—it is not fit for navigation. Even if it could be opened, the profits of shipping would go to merchants while the cost of dredging would fall on the poor." The project was abandoned.

盜殺人於縣界，立捕至，置之法。或毀於上官，以酷刑奪職。尚書魏象樞奉命巡視畿輔，民為申訴，事得白。於成龍复薦之，補清苑。嗣堯益感奮自勵，屢斷疑獄，人以包孝肅比之。二十九年，尚書王騭薦嗣堯清廉慈惠，行取，擢御史。三十年，出為直隸守道，持躬清介，苞苴杜絕。遇事霆發機激，勢要憚之。所屬州縣，肅然奉法。

When a bandit murdered someone on the county border, Siyao had him captured at once and executed. Enemies slandered him to his superiors, and he was dismissed on a charge of excessive punishment. Minister Wei Xiangshu was sent to inspect the capital region. The people petitioned on Siyao's behalf, and the truth came out. Yu Chenglong recommended him again, and he was appointed magistrate of Qingyuan. Siyao redoubled his efforts, repeatedly untangled difficult cases, and people compared him to Judge Bao. In the twenty-ninth year Minister Wang Zhi recommended Siyao as incorruptible and compassionate. He was selected for service at court and promoted to censor. In the thirtieth year he was appointed defense commissioner of Zhili. Personally upright and austere, he refused every bribe. He acted with lightning speed and fierce resolve, and the powerful feared him. The prefectures and counties under his jurisdiction enforced the law with new discipline.

三十三年，江南學政缺，聖祖諭曰：「學政關係人材，朕觀陸隴其、邵嗣堯操守學問俱優，若以補授，必能秉公校士，革除積弊。」時隴其已卒，遂命嗣堯以參議督學江南。既蒞事，虛衷衡校，論文宗尚簡質，著四書講義，傳示學者。甫試三郡，以積勞遘疾卒。身無長物，同官斂貲致賻乃得歸葬。士民思之，為立祠肖像以祀焉。

In the thirty-third year the post of Jiangnan education commissioner fell vacant. The Kangxi Emperor said: "The education commissioner shapes the quality of talent. I consider Lu Longqi and Shao Siyao outstanding in both integrity and scholarship. Either would examine candidates fairly and root out long-standing abuses." By then Longqi had already died, so the emperor appointed Siyao administrative commissioner to supervise education in Jiangnan. Once in office he graded examinations with an open mind, favored plain and substantial writing, composed a commentary on the Four Books, and circulated it among students. He had examined candidates in only three prefectures when overwork brought on illness and he died. He died leaving nothing behind. His colleagues pooled money for his funeral before his body could be sent home for burial. Scholars and common people missed him and built a shrine with his portrait so he could be honored.

聖祖澄清吏治，拔擢廉明，近畿尤多賢吏，如彭鵬、陸隴其及嗣堯，當時皆循名上達，聞於天下。鵬及隴其自有傳。又有衛立鼎、高廕爵、靳讓，治績亦足媲美。

The Kangxi Emperor cleaned up the bureaucracy and elevated men of integrity. Around the capital in particular there were many worthy officials—Peng Peng, Lu Longqi, and Shao Siyao among them—all of whom rose on merit and were known throughout the empire. Peng Peng and Lu Longqi have biographies of their own. Also worth mention are Wei Liding, Gao Yinjue, and Jin Rang, whose records of governance stand comparison.

立鼎，字慎之，山西陽城人。康熙二年舉人，授直隸盧龍知縣。地當兩京孔道，驛使旁午，供張糗崿，悉自營辦，不以擾民。先是縣中徵糧，勺杪以下，皆用升合量。納草以銀代，仍抑價買諸民間。立鼎令輸戶含納奇零，統歸斛斗，徵草則以本色輸，民甚便之。興行教化，獎拔士類，丕變其俗，尤以清廉著稱。尚書魏象樞及侍郎科爾坤奉命巡畿內，至盧龍，已治具，不肯食，僅啜一甌。曰：「令飲盧龍一杯水耳，吾亦飲令一杯水。」諸大獄悉以諮之，立鼎引經準律，象樞大稱善。於成龍之巡撫直隸也，嘗迎駕於霸州，奏舉循吏，以立鼎、陸隴其並稱。嗣巡撫格爾古德以事至盧龍，謂立鼎曰：「令之苦，無異秀才時。秀才徒自苦，今令苦而百姓樂，非苦中之樂乎？」疏薦立鼎治行第一，靈壽令陸隴其次之。內遷戶部郎中，秩滿授福建福州知府，以年老致仕歸。教授鄉里，以倡論道學為事。年七十有六，卒。

Liding, styled Shenzhi, was from Yangcheng in Shanxi. He passed the provincial examination in the second year of Kangxi and was appointed magistrate of Lulong in Zhili. The county lay on the main road between the two capitals, where courier riders passed in an unending stream. He supplied their lodging and rations entirely from his own resources and never burdened the populace. Previously the county had collected grain tax in sheng and ge for every fraction below a full scoop. Fodder dues were commuted to silver, but officials still forced purchases from the people at depressed prices. Liding had each tax household roll odd fractions into whole hu and dou measures, and required fodder to be paid in kind. The people found this a great relief. He promoted moral instruction, encouraged scholars, and greatly changed local custom. He was especially famed for his integrity. Minister Wei Xiangshu and Vice Minister Ke'erkun were sent to inspect the capital region. When they reached Lulong, a feast had been prepared, but Liding refused to eat and took only a single bowl of broth. He said, "The magistrate lives on nothing but a cup of Lulong water. I shall drink only a cup of water with him." All major cases were referred to him for advice. Liding cited the classics and applied the law, and Xiangshu praised him highly. When Yu Chenglong was governor-general of Zhili, he once received the emperor at Bazhou and recommended exemplary officials, naming Liding and Lu Longqi together. Later Governor Ge'ergude came to Lulong on business and told Liding, "Your hardship is no different from when you were a licentiate. A licentiate suffers only for himself. Now you suffer while the people prosper—is that not joy found within hardship?" In a memorial he ranked Liding first in administrative merit, with Lu Longqi of Lingshou second. He was transferred to the Ministry of Revenue as a director. When his term ended he was appointed prefect of Fuzhou in Fujian, then retired on account of age. Back home he taught locally and devoted himself to promoting Neo-Confucian learning. He died at the age of seventy-six.

廕爵，字子和，奉天鐵嶺人，隸漢軍。康熙初，謁選，授直隸蠡縣知縣。縣多旗屯，居民田之半，佃者倚勳貴為奸利，持吏長短。河數決孟嘗村，歲比不登，民大饑。廕爵至，曰：「吾未暇理他政，且活民。」倉有粟二萬石，請發以賑。牘再上，不許；請解官，乃許之五千石。廕爵曰：「若今歲又惡，民不能償，二萬石、五千石等死耳，吾且活吾民。」乃盡發之。更出帑五百金貸民種麥。夏旱，蝗起，捕蝗盡。秋又大霖雨，河暴溢，率吏民冒風雨捍禦，堤完而歲大熟，民乃安。某甲以財雄諸佃，多為不法，誣諸生為奴，而籍其田。按治得實，置之法。豪猾忄習服，莫敢犯令。於是設義倉，置鄉學，尊禮賢士，民大和悅。調三河，一以簡易為治。或問之，曰：「前令已治矣，何紛更為？」前令，彭鵬也。聖祖校獵至三河，問父老：「高令與彭令孰賢？」對曰：「彭廉而毅，高廉而和。」上稱善，擢順天府南路同知。於成龍問以捕盜方略，條上三事，略言：「盜以旗屯為逋逃藪，請嚴保甲首實之令，使無所匿，而平日能使之衣食粗足，則可不至為盜。」成龍韙之。會丁父艱歸。成龍總督南河，築界首堤，以屬廕爵。堤成，上南巡閱工，召見，賜克食。起復補湖北德安府同知，累擢四川松茂道、直隸口北道，皆有惠政，卒於官。子其倬，官至大學士，自有傳。

Yinjue, styled Zihe, was from Tieling in Fengtian and belonged to the Han Banner. In the early Kangxi reign he presented himself for appointment and was made magistrate of Li County in Zhili. Much of the county was banner land, and banner holdings accounted for half the farmland. Tenants leaned on noble patrons for illicit gain and used that leverage to intimidate officials. The river repeatedly burst its banks at Mengchang Village. Harvests failed year after year, and the people were in famine. When Yinjue arrived he said, "I have no time yet for other business. First I must keep the people alive." The granary held twenty thousand shi of grain, and he petitioned to release it for relief. He submitted the petition twice more, but permission was denied. He offered to resign, and only then was he granted five thousand shi. Yinjue said, "If this year fails again the people cannot repay the grain. Whether it is twenty thousand shi or five thousand shi makes no difference to the starving. I will save my people." He released the entire store. He also lent the people five hundred taels from the treasury for wheat seed. Summer brought drought and a locust plague, which he had exterminated. Autumn brought torrential rains and a river surge. He led officials and commoners through wind and rain to hold the dikes. The dikes held, the harvest was abundant, and the people were secure. A wealthy tenant lord dominated the others and broke the law repeatedly. He falsely declared a licentiate a bondservant and seized his land. An investigation proved the case, and Yinjue punished him by law. The bold and cunning submitted to his rule, and none dared defy his orders. He then established a charity granary and village schools, honored worthy men, and the people were deeply content. Transferred to Sanhe, he governed with simplicity throughout. When asked about this he said, "The previous magistrate had already governed well. Why make needless changes?" The previous magistrate was Peng Peng. The Kangxi Emperor came to Sanhe on a hunting tour and asked the elders, "Which magistrate is worthier, Gao or Peng?" They answered, "Peng is honest and firm; Gao is honest and gentle." The emperor approved and promoted him to sub-prefect of the southern route in Shuntian Prefecture. Yu Chenglong asked him about suppressing banditry. He submitted three proposals, saying in essence, "Bandits use banner colonies as hideouts. Enforce the baojia reporting system so fugitives have nowhere to hide, and in ordinary times see that people have enough food and clothing, and they will not turn to banditry." Chenglong approved the plan. He then entered mourning for his father and returned home. Chenglong became governor-general of the Southern Rivers and built the Jieshou dike, putting Yinjue in charge. When the dike was finished the emperor came south to inspect it, received him in audience, and granted him an imperial meal. Recalled from mourning, he was appointed sub-prefect of De'an in Hubei. He rose through the intendant posts of Songmao in Sichuan and Koubei in Zhili, governing well in each, and died in office. His son Qizhuo rose to Grand Secretary and has a biography of his own.

讓，字益庵，河南尉氏人。康熙十八年進士，授浙江宣平知縣。旱災，請蠲甚力，巡撫張鵬翮以為賢。父憂去，服闋，授山西汾西。會親征漠北，供張杜絕擾累，民力不足，請以正賦辦治。行取，擢御史，數上疏言察吏安民，實行教養。聖祖諭曰：「朕御極四十年，惟冀天下黎庶盡獲安全，邊疆無事。如靳讓所言，必令家給人足，無一人凍餒，此非朕所可必者，恐其不過徒為大言。曩者錢鎯、衛既齊亦曾為此言，及後用為大吏，皆不能自踐其語。靳讓曾為縣令，其所為能如是乎？通州驛馬事繁，著調為通州知州，果能如所言，朕即超用。」上意欲試之也，許其便宜啟奏。讓布衣羸馬之官，皇莊、旗莊恣肆病民，繩以法，不少貸。私錢、私鑄悉禁止。時禁河捕魚，誣累平民，讓分別治之。奸商藉權貴勢，謀專賣麥豆及設姜肆牟利，並拒絕。上聞，皆韙之。會學政更替，命九卿舉所知。上曰：「朕亦舉一人。」命以僉事督學廣西。逾年，調浙江，除弊務盡，教士先德行而後文藝。值南巡，召對，褒獎曰：「汝不負朕舉，朕將用汝為巡撫。」讓以母老乞終養，賜御書「天庥堂」額以榮其母。尋母喪，以毀卒。

Rang, styled Yi'an, was from Weishi in Henan. He passed the metropolitan examination in the eighteenth year of Kangxi and was appointed magistrate of Xuanping in Zhejiang. During a drought he petitioned forcefully for tax relief, and Governor Zhang Penghe judged him an able official. He left office to mourn his father. When mourning ended he was appointed magistrate of Fenxi in Shanxi. When the emperor marched north in person, he kept provisioning from burdening the people. Local resources were insufficient, so he asked to cover the costs from regular tax revenue. Selected for service at court, he was promoted to censor and repeatedly memorialized on inspecting officials, securing the people, and earnestly carrying out moral instruction. The Kangxi Emperor said, "I have reigned forty years and only hope that the people may live in security and the frontiers remain at peace. What Jin Rang proposes would require every household to be provided for and no one to go cold or hungry. That is not something I can guarantee, and I fear it is only grand talk. Qian Miao and Wei Jiji once spoke the same way, yet when they were later appointed to high office none of them lived up to their words. Jin Rang was once a county magistrate. Can his record match such claims? Tongzhou's relay horses make for heavy duties. Transfer him there as prefect. If he truly performs as he claims, I will promote him at once." The emperor meant to test him and allowed him to report directly as he saw fit. Rang took office in plain clothes on a lean horse. Imperial and banner estates had run wild at the people's expense, and he restrained them by law without mercy. Private coinage was banned entirely. Fishing in the forbidden river had led to false charges against commoners. Rang sorted the cases and judged them fairly. Merchants backed by powerful patrons tried to monopolize wheat and beans and set up ginger shops for profit. He refused them all. When the emperor heard of these actions he approved them all. When the education commissioner's post fell vacant, the emperor ordered the Nine Ministers to recommend men they knew. The emperor said, "I too will recommend one man." He appointed him administrative commissioner to supervise education in Guangxi. A year later he was transferred to Zhejiang. He rooted out abuses thoroughly and taught scholars to value character before literary skill. During a southern tour he was summoned to audience. The emperor praised him, saying, "You have justified my recommendation. I mean to appoint you governor." Rang asked to retire and care for his aged mother. The emperor granted an imperial plaque reading "Hall of Heaven's Blessings" to honor her. Soon afterward his mother died, and he died from grief.

崔華，字蓮生，直隸平山人。順治十六年進士。康熙六年，授浙江開化知縣。政務寬平，建塾校藝，士爭鄉學。縣舊有里總，主賦稅，橫派滋擾，除之。又以虛糧為累，請豁於上官，未竟其事。十三年，耿籓亂作，縣南墾戶多閩人，豎旗以應，城守千總吳正通賊，陷城，露刃相逼。華從間道出，檄召十六都義勇鄭大來、夏祚等，涕泣開諭，立聚萬人，躬冒矢石，閱五日，城遂復。總督李之芳上其事，詔嘉之。

Cui Hua, styled Liansheng, was from Pingshan in Zhili. He passed the metropolitan examination in the sixteenth year of Shunzhi. In the sixth year of Kangxi he was appointed magistrate of Kaihua in Zhejiang. His administration was lenient and fair. He founded schools to cultivate talent, and scholars flocked to village learning. The county had district tax heads whose arbitrary levies harassed the people. He abolished the office. He also petitioned his superiors to remit phantom grain quotas that burdened the county, but did not live to finish the matter. In the thirteenth year the Prince of Jing rebelled. Many reclaimed settlers south of the county were Fujianese who raised rebel banners. Garrison commander Wu Zheng joined the rebels, the city fell, and blades were drawn against Hua. Hua slipped out by a hidden route and summoned the militia of sixteen districts—Zheng Dalai, Xia Zuo, and others. Weeping, he rallied them, and ten thousand men gathered at once. He personally braved arrows and stones, and after five days the city was retaken. Governor-General Li Zhifang reported the feat, and the court issued an edict of praise.

時閩寇方熾，分三路犯浙。衢州當中路之衝，縣城再陷，慘掠尤甚，民無叛志。華率兵退保遂安，圖恢復，時出有所擒斬。大兵扼衢州，久與賊持。十五年春，始遣將由遂安復開化，至秋，大破賊軍。浙境漸清，流亡初集，積逋尤多。華圖上遺黎困苦狀，乞為請命，盡蠲十三年至十六年額賦。贖民之流徙者，俾得完聚。疫癘盛行，廣施藥餌，全活無算。

Fujian rebels were then at their height and invaded Zhejiang in three columns. Quzhou lay in the path of the central column. The county seat fell twice and suffered especially brutal looting, yet the people never wavered. Hua withdrew with his troops to Su'an and planned the recovery, sallying out from time to time to capture and kill enemy fighters. Imperial forces held Quzhou and remained locked in stalemate with the rebels for a long time. In the spring of the fifteenth year imperial generals marched from Su'an to retake Kaihua. By autumn the rebel army was routed. Zhejiang gradually quieted. Refugees were just returning, and tax arrears had piled up. Hua documented the plight of the survivors and petitioned on their behalf for full remission of assessed taxes from the thirteenth through the sixteenth years. He ransomed displaced people so families could reunite. Epidemic disease was rampant. He distributed medicine widely and saved countless lives.

先後論功，十九年，擢江南揚州知府。值湖、河並漲，屬縣被災者眾，華加意撫卹。二十三年，命九卿舉中外清廉之吏，廷推七人，外吏居其三，華為首焉。擢署兩淮鹽運使，軍興商困，乃權宜變通，令先行鹽、後納課，務與休息，商力甦而賦亦無缺。先是湖南諸府因兵蠲引三十九萬有奇，至是有請補行蠲引者。華以兩淮浮課重，又帶加斤，若補蠲引，必致額售者滯銷誤課，力言不便，事得寢。三十一年，遷甘肅莊涼道，未行，卒。淮商祠祀之。

For his repeated service he was promoted in the nineteenth year to prefect of Yangzhou in Jiangnan. When lakes and rivers flooded together, many subordinate counties were stricken. Hua gave special attention to relief. In the twenty-third year the emperor ordered the Nine Ministers to recommend incorrupt officials throughout the empire. The court nominated seven men, three of them provincial officials, with Hua first. He was promoted to acting salt transport commissioner of the Two Huai. War had strained the merchants, so he adopted a flexible policy: salt could be delivered first and tax paid later. The trade recovered and revenue did not fall short. Previously Hunan's prefectures had been granted exemption of more than 390,000 salt certificates because of the war. Now there was a proposal to make up those exempted certificates. Hua argued that the Two Huai already faced heavy surcharges and extra weight levies. Making up the exempted certificates would force quota holders to oversell and miss tax targets. He protested forcefully, and the proposal was dropped. In the thirty-first year he was transferred to the Zhuangliang circuit in Gansu, but died before he could take up the post. Huai salt merchants built a shrine in his honor.

周中鋐，字子振，浙江山陰人。康熙中為江南崇明縣丞。崇明故重鎮，兵籍千人，欲預取軍食於官，不獲，彀刃譁噪。官吏咸避匿，中鋐獨挺身前，宣布順逆利害，感切聳動，眾皆投械散。擢華亭知縣，民有被誣殺人久繫獄，中鋐立出之，而坐其實殺人者。提標兵庇盜，前令莫敢問，中鋐捕治置諸法，境內乂安。四十三年秋，大霪雨以風，海水驟溢，漂數縣。乃具衣糗棺槥救卹之，又為請賑蠲租，活民甚眾。雍正四年，以催科不及格罷，縣民萬數遮言，上官聞於朝，得復職。

Zhou Zhonghong, styled Zizhen, was from Shanyin in Zhejiang. During the Kangxi reign he served as assistant magistrate of Chongming in Jiangnan. Chongming was an important garrison with a thousand men on the rolls. They demanded rations in advance from the government, were refused, and drew blades in a riot. While other officials fled and hid, Zhonghong alone stepped forward, explaining the consequences of loyalty and rebellion with such force that the soldiers were deeply moved and laid down their weapons. Promoted to magistrate of Huating, he immediately freed a man who had long been jailed on a false murder charge and punished the real killer. Provincial troops had been shielding bandits, and previous magistrates dared not intervene. Zhonghong arrested and punished them by law, and the district was restored to order. In the autumn of the forty-third year (1704), violent wind and rain drove the sea over its banks and flooded several counties. He supplied clothing, food, coffins, and burial goods for the victims, petitioned for relief and tax remissions, and saved a great many lives. In the fourth year of Yongzheng (1726) he was dismissed for failing to meet tax collection quotas. Tens of thousands of residents blocked his departure to plead his case, and after superiors reported to the throne he was reinstated.

時左都御史硃軾被命修海塘，知中鋐賢，悉以事付之。塘成，丁母憂，民復籥留，中鋐先已擢松江知府，至是予假治喪，還視府事。五年，議濬淞、婁諸水，以中鋐署太倉知州，董其役。六年二月，築壩於陳家渡，一再潰，與千總陸某晝夜冒險指揮，倉卒覆其舟，既歿而築合。事聞，贈太僕寺少卿。

When Left Censor-in-Chief Zhu Shi was ordered to repair the sea dikes, he recognized Zhonghong's ability and entrusted the entire project to him. After the dike was finished he went into mourning for his mother. The people again barred the gates to keep him from leaving. Already promoted to prefect of Songjiang, he was granted leave to bury his mother and then resumed his prefectural duties. In the fifth year (1727) plans were made to dredge the Song, Lou, and other rivers. Zhonghong was appointed acting prefect of Taicang to direct the work. In the second month of the sixth year (1728), while building a dam at Chenjiadu, the works collapsed twice. He and Thousand-Commander Lu directed operations day and night at personal risk until his boat suddenly capsized. He drowned, but the dam was completed. When the court learned of his death, he was posthumously granted the rank of Vice Minister of the Court of the Imperial Stud.

當中鋐令華亭時，奉賢猶隸境內，後析為縣，中鋐適為知府，至是民懷其澤，奉以為奉賢城隍之神，歲時祈報，著靈異，長洲王芑孫為廟碑紀其事。道光七年，巡撫陶澍复濬吳淞江，疏請立廟江乾。

When Zhonghong was magistrate of Huating, Fengxian was still part of his jurisdiction. Later it became a separate county while he was prefect. Grateful for his benevolence, the people enshrined him as Fengxian's city god, and miracles were reported at the shrine. Wang Qisun of Changzhou wrote a stele commemorating the affair. In the seventh year of Daoguang (1827), Governor Tao Shu dredged the Wusong River again and petitioned to erect a shrine on its bank.

劉棨，字弢子，山東諸城人。康熙二十四年進士。三十四年，授湖南長沙知縣，以廉明稱。時訛言裁兵，撫標千人環轅門大噪，棨為開陳大義，預給三月餉，示無裁意，眾乃定。總督吳琠以循良薦之。三十七年，擢陝西寧羌知州。關中大饑，漢南尤甚。州無宿儲，介萬山中，艱於輓運。棨請貸鄰邑倉粟，約民能負一斗至者予三升，不十日輓三千石。大吏下其法賑他邑，咸稱便。又奉檄賑洋縣，移粟沿漢而下。棨先遍歷審勘，剋期給發，數日而畢。謂洋令曰：「此粟貸之官，倘民不能償，吾兩人當代任。」比秋大熟，洋縣民相勉還粟，不煩催督。

Liu Qi, styled Taozi, came from Zhucheng in Shandong. He passed the metropolitan examination in the twenty-fourth year of Kangxi (1685). In the thirty-fourth year (1695) he was appointed magistrate of Changsha in Hunan and became known for his integrity. When rumors spread that troops would be cut, a thousand provincial soldiers surrounded the yamen gate in uproar. Qi explained the situation, paid three months' rations in advance to show there would be no reductions, and the men were calmed. Governor-General Wu Kan recommended him as a model local official. In the thirty-seventh year (1698) he was promoted to prefect of Ningqiang in Shaanxi. A great famine struck Guanzhong, and the region south of the Han suffered most severely. The prefecture had no grain reserves and lay deep in the mountains, making transport extremely difficult. Qi borrowed grain from neighboring counties' granaries and promised three sheng of grain to anyone who carried one dou over the mountains. Within ten days three thousand shi were delivered. Superior officials adopted his method for famine relief elsewhere, and it was widely praised as effective. He was also ordered to relieve Yang County, shipping grain down the Han River. Qi first surveyed the entire area, set a fixed date for distribution, and completed the relief within days. He told the Yang County magistrate, "This grain is a loan from the government. If the people cannot repay it, you and I shall answer for it ourselves." When autumn brought a bumper harvest, the people of Yang County repaid the grain willingly without any need for coercion.

始寧羌地苦凋瘵，棨為均田額，完逋賦，補棧道，修旅舍。安輯招徠，期年而廬舍萃集。山多槲葉，民未知蠶，遣人旋鄉里，齎蠶種，募善蠶者教之，人習其利，名所織曰「劉公綢」。士苦無書，為召賈列肆，分購經籍，建義塾，親為講解。

Ningqiang had been deeply impoverished. Qi equalized land tax quotas, cleared tax arrears, repaired plank roads, and built roadside inns. Through resettlement and encouragement, within a year houses clustered together again. The mountains abounded in oak leaves suitable for silkworms, but the people knew nothing of sericulture. He sent men home to fetch silkworm eggs and skilled teachers. Once they learned the trade, the cloth they wove was called "Prefect Liu's silk." Scholars lacked books, so he invited merchants to open shops and buy classics for them. He founded charity schools and lectured there himself.

四十一年，擢甘肅寧夏中路同知，未赴，母憂去。以代民完賦，負累不能行，囑弟代售遺產，不足，弟並以己產易金償負。民聞之，爭輸金為助，卻不受。服闋，補長沙府同知。入覲，奉溫旨，試文藝於乾清門，即日擢山西平陽知府。裁汰陋例，蠲除煩苛，訟牘皆立剖決之。四十八年，九卿應詔舉廉能吏，以知府被舉者，惟棨與陳鵬年二人。

In the forty-first year (1702) he was promoted to sub-prefect of the Middle Circuit of Ningxia in Gansu, but went home in mourning for his mother before taking up the post. Having paid taxes on behalf of the people, he was so burdened with debt that he could not travel. He asked his brother to sell their inherited property; when that was not enough, his brother sold his own holdings as well to pay the debt. When the people heard of this, they offered money to help, but he refused. After mourning he returned to service as sub-prefect of Changsha Prefecture. At his audience with the emperor he received a gracious edict, was tested on his literary skill at the Gate of Heavenly Purity, and was promoted that same day to prefect of Pingyang in Shanxi. He abolished corrupt customary fees, removed burdensome exactions, and decided every case brought before him without delay. In the forty-eighth year (1709), when the Nine Ministers were ordered to nominate incorrupt and capable officials, only Qi and Chen Pengnian were recommended among prefects.

四十九年，擢直隸天津道副使，迎駕淀津，詔許從官恭瞻親灑宸翰。棨因奏兄果昔官河間知縣，奉「清廉愛民」之褒，乞賜御書「清愛堂」額，上允之。歷江西按察使、四川布政使。五十五年，上詢九卿，本朝清介大臣數人，求可與倫比者。九卿舉四人，棨與焉。駕幸湯泉，又以棨治狀語諸從臣，會廷推巡撫，共薦棨，上嘉納之。以四川用兵，未輕調。五十七年，卒於官。

In the forty-ninth year (1710) he was promoted to vice commissioner of Tianjin Circuit in Zhili. When he met the emperor at Dianjin, the court allowed attending officials to view the emperor's own calligraphy. Qi memorialized that his elder brother Guo, former magistrate of Hejian, had been praised as "incorruptible and loving the people," and asked for an imperial plaque reading "Hall of Pure Love." The emperor granted his request. He served as judicial commissioner of Jiangxi and then as financial commissioner of Sichuan. In the fifty-fifth year (1716) the emperor asked the Nine Ministers which officials of the dynasty could be ranked with the most incorruptible ministers of the past. The Nine Ministers named four men, Qi among them. At the hot springs the emperor spoke to his attendants of Qi's record of governance. When governors were being nominated at court, all recommended Qi, and the emperor approved. Because Sichuan was at war, he was not transferred lightly. In the fifty-seventh year (1718) he died in office.

兄果，官山西太原府推官，有聲。改河間知縣，康熙八年，駕幸河間，問民疾苦，父老陳果治狀，召見褒之。卒，祀名宦。棨子統勳、孫墉、曾孫鐶之，並為時名臣，自有傳。

His elder brother Guo served as reviewing officer of Taiyuan Prefecture in Shanxi and won a fine reputation. Transferred to magistrate of Hejian, he was summoned when the Kangxi Emperor visited the county in the eighth year (1669). After elders reported on his governance, the emperor received and praised him. After his death he was enshrined in the hall of distinguished officials. Qi's son Tongxun, grandson Yong, and great-grandson Huanzhi all became eminent officials and have biographies of their own.

陶元淳，字子師，江蘇常熟人。康熙中舉博學鴻詞，以疾不與試。二十七年，成進士，廷對，論西北賦輕而役重，東南役均而賦重，原減浮額之糧，罷無益之費。閱者以其言戇，置二甲。三十三年，授廣東昌化知縣，到官，首定賦役，均糧於米，均役於糧。裁革雜徵，自坊裡供帳始，相率以力耕為業。縣隸瓊州，與黎為界，舊設土舍，制其出入，吏得因緣為奸，元淳立撤去。一權量，定法度，黎人便之。城中居人，舊不滿百家，至此戶口漸蕃。元淳時步行閭里間，週諮疾苦，煦嫗如家人。

Tao Yuanchun, styled Zishi, came from Changshu in Jiangsu. During the Kangxi reign he was nominated for the special examination in erudite learning, but illness kept him from taking part. In the twenty-seventh year (1688) he passed the metropolitan examination. In the palace debate he argued that the northwest bore light taxes but heavy corvée, while the southeast had even corvée but heavy taxes, and urged reducing inflated grain quotas and abolishing wasteful spending. The examiners judged his remarks too blunt and ranked him in the second class. In the thirty-third year (1694) he was appointed magistrate of Changhua in Guangdong. On taking office he first reformed taxes and corvée, equalizing grain quotas in rice and corvée obligations in grain. He abolished miscellaneous levies, starting with neighborhood supply fees, and the people turned wholeheartedly to farming. The county belonged to Qiongzhou and bordered Li territory. Former headmen had controlled Li movement at the border, giving officials opportunities for abuse. Yuanchun abolished the posts at once. He standardized weights and measures and fixed regulations, to the great convenience of the Li people. The town had once held fewer than a hundred households; under his rule the population steadily grew. Yuanchun often walked the lanes on foot, asking everywhere about people's hardships and comforting them like family.

瓊郡處海外，軍將多驕橫，崖州尤甚。元淳嘗署州事，守備黃鎮中以非刑殺人，游擊餘虎縱不問；且貪，索黎人獻納。元淳廉得其狀，列款以上，虎私以金賄之不得，造蜚語揭之。總督石琳下瓊州總兵會訊，元淳申牘曰：「私揭不應發審，鎮臣不應侵官，必挫執法之氣，灰任事之心。元淳當棄官以全政體，不能蒲伏武臣，貽州縣羞也。」初鞫是獄，鎮中令甲士百人佩刀入署，元淳據案怒叱曰：「吾奉命治事，守備敢令甲士劫持，是藐國法也。」鎮中氣懾，疾揮去，卒定讞，論罪如律。崖人為語曰：「雖有餘虎，不敵陶公一怒。」而總督卒因元淳倔彊，坐不檢驗失實，會赦免。复欲於計典黜之，巡撫蕭永藻初授事，曰：「吾初下車，便劾廉吏，何以率屬？」為言於總督，乃已。

Qiong Prefecture lay overseas, and its garrison officers were notoriously arrogant—none more so than at Yazhou. When Yuanchun once served as acting prefect, Garrison Commander Huang Zhenzhong tortured a man to death, and Battalion Commander Yu Hu let the matter pass; He was also corrupt and extorted tribute from the Li people. Yuanchun investigated thoroughly and submitted a detailed indictment. When Yu Hu tried to bribe him and failed, Hu posted slanderous handbills against him. Governor-General Shi Lin ordered the regional commander to join the inquiry. Yuanchun protested in writing: "Anonymous accusations should not trigger a trial, and a military commander should not encroach on civil authority. This would destroy the will to enforce the law. I would rather resign than preserve official dignity by groveling before a military officer and shaming every magistrate in the land." At the first hearing Huang ordered a hundred armed soldiers into the yamen. Yuanchun slammed the desk and shouted, "I serve by imperial commission. How dare a garrison commander send armed men to intimidate me? This is contempt for the law of the realm." Huang was cowed and hurried the soldiers away. Yuanchun finally secured a verdict and punishment according to law. The people of Yazhou said, "For all Yu Hu's power, he was no match for one burst of Prefect Tao's anger." Yet the governor-general, resenting Yuanchun's stubbornness, convicted him of failing to verify the facts properly. He was spared when an amnesty was declared. The governor-general then tried to demote him at the merit review. The newly appointed Governor Xiao Yongzao objected: "If I impeach an upright official the moment I take office, how can I lead my subordinates?" He spoke to the governor-general on Yuanchun's behalf, and the matter was dropped.

元淳自奉儉約，在官惟日供韭一束。喜接諸生，講論至夜分不倦。屢乞病未果，竟以勞卒於官。昌化額田四百餘頃，半淪於海，賦不及二千，浮糧居三之一，民重困。元淳為浮糧考，屢請於上官，乞豁除，無應者。乾隆三年，元淳子正靖官御史，疏以入告，竟獲俞旨免焉。

Yuanchun lived frugally; in office his daily fare was a single bundle of chives. He enjoyed receiving scholars and would lecture with them until midnight without tiring. Repeated requests for sick leave were denied, and he eventually died in office from overwork. Changhua had more than four hundred qing of registered fields, half lost to the sea. Tax revenue fell below two thousand, with phantom grain quotas making up a third of the burden. The people were sorely afflicted. Yuanchun compiled a study of phantom grain quotas and repeatedly petitioned for their remission, but received no answer. In the third year of Qianlong (1738), Yuanchun's son Zhengjing, then a censor, memorialized the throne, and the phantom quotas were at last remitted by imperial decree.

廖冀亨，字瀛海，福建永定人。康熙二十九年舉人，四十七年，授江蘇吳縣知縣。值歲旱，留漕賑饑，不足，自貸金易米以濟。士人感其誠，相率捐助，賑以無乏。吳中賦額甲天下，縣尤重，冀亨減火耗，用滾單，民皆稱便。知收漕弊多，拘不法者重治之，凡留難、勒索、蹋斛、淋尖、高颺、重篩諸害，埽除一清。太湖中有蘆洲，或墾成田，或種蓮養魚，官吏輒假清丈增糧名以自利。冀亨曰：「湖蕩偶爾成田，未可久持，今增其賦，朝廷所得幾何，而民累無盡期。」一無所問。初，冀亨蒞任時，有吳人語之曰：「吳俗健訟，然其人兩粥一飯，肢體薄弱，凡訟宜少準、速決，更加二字曰'從寬'。」冀亨悚然受之。收詞不立定期，民隱悉達。嘗自謂訟貴聽，聽之明，乃能速決而無冤抑。在吳三年，非奸盜巨猾，行杖無過二十，蓋守此六字箴也。

Liao Jiheng, styled Yinghai, came from Yongding in Fujian. He passed the provincial examination in the twenty-ninth year of Kangxi (1690) and was appointed magistrate of Wu County in Jiangsu in the forty-seventh year (1708). During a drought he diverted transport grain for famine relief. When that proved insufficient, he borrowed money himself to buy rice for the hungry. Moved by his sincerity, local scholars donated in turn, and relief supplies never ran short. Tax quotas in the Wu region were the heaviest in the empire, and Wu County bore an especially large share. Jiheng reduced melt-loss surcharges and introduced rolling tax registers, which the people found greatly convenient. Knowing the many abuses in grain collection, he severely punished offenders and swept away every malpractice—from detention and extortion to treading measures, heaping grain above the rim, fraudulent winnowing, and repeated sifting. Reed islets in Lake Tai were sometimes reclaimed as fields or used for lotus and fish farming. Officials habitually used land surveys as a pretext to increase grain quotas for their own profit. Jiheng said, "Marshland that happens to become fields cannot be maintained forever. Increasing its tax yields the court little, while the people's burden knows no end." He ignored the matter entirely. When Jiheng first took office, a local man told him, "Suzhou people love to sue, but they eat sparingly and are physically frail. Hear cases sparingly, decide them quickly, and add two words: 'with leniency.'" Jiheng took the advice to heart. He accepted petitions without fixed office hours, so every hidden grievance reached him. He often said that the key to litigation was listening carefully—only clear hearing could bring swift and just decisions. In three years at Wu County he never ordered more than twenty strokes of the bastinado except for major criminals—a rule he kept by that six-word maxim.

有庠生授徒鹽商家，自刎死，勘得實。或有謗其受賄者，冀亨無所避，卒釋鹽商勿罪。東山巡檢報鄉人弒父屠嫂，未遂，自盡。冀亨方秉二燭閱其詞，燭無風齊滅，知有冤。克日渡湖往驗，大風，舟幾覆，從者色變。冀亨曰：「縣官伸冤理枉而來，神必佑之，何懼！」須臾抵岸。訊得父故殺狀，巡檢得賄誣報，俱論如律。

A licentiate who taught in a salt merchant's household cut his own throat. Investigation confirmed suicide. Some accused him of taking bribes, but Jiheng did not shrink from the case and ultimately released the merchant without charge. The Dongshan sub-prefect reported that a villager had tried to murder his father and sister-in-law, failed, and then killed himself. Jiheng was reading the report by candlelight when both candles went out simultaneously though there was no wind. He knew an injustice was involved. On the appointed day he crossed the lake to investigate in person. A gale nearly capsized the boat, and his attendants turned pale. Jiheng said, "I come as magistrate to right a wrong—the spirits will protect me. Why fear?" Moments later they reached the shore. Questioning established that the father had killed himself and that the sub-prefect had taken bribes to frame the case. All were punished according to law.

冀亨既有聲於吳，他縣疑獄，往往令推治。會有宜興知縣誣揭典史故勘平民為盜，刑夾致死，冀亨奉檄按驗。知縣者總督噶禮之私人也，或告宜少假借，冀亨不為動。檢踝骨無傷，原揭皆誣。獄上，噶禮屢駁詰。再三審，卒如冀亨議，以是忤總督。時巡撫張伯行以清廉著，深契冀亨，布政使陳鵬年尤重之；而噶禮不懌於伯行，尤惡鵬年。四十九年，鵬年被劾，並及冀亨，以虧帑奪職。逾年，噶禮敗，冀亨始復原官，以病不赴選。及卒，吳人祀之百花書院。

Already renowned in Wu, Jiheng was often assigned to investigate doubtful cases in other counties. When the Yixing magistrate falsely accused a clerk of torturing an innocent man to death on a robbery charge, Jiheng was ordered to investigate. The magistrate was a protégé of Governor-General Gali, and some advised Jiheng to show leniency, but he would not be swayed. Examination of the ankle bones showed no injury, proving the original accusation entirely false. When the case went up, Gali repeatedly rejected and challenged the findings. After repeated review the verdict finally matched Jiheng's findings, and he thereby offended the governor-general. Governor Zhang Boxing, renowned for integrity, was deeply allied with Jiheng, and Financial Commissioner Chen Pengnian especially valued him; but Gali disliked Zhang Boxing and especially hated Chen Pengnian. In the forty-ninth year Chen Pengnian was impeached, and Jiheng was implicated and dismissed on charges of treasury deficit. A year later, after Gali's downfall, Jiheng was restored to office but did not return to service because of illness. After his death the people of Wu enshrined him at the Baihua Academy.

冀亨歿後，家留於吳，入籍嘉定。曾孫文錦，嘉慶十六年進士，由翰林出為河南衛輝知府，有惠政，祀名宦。文錦子惟勳，道光十三年進士，亦由翰林為貴州鎮遠知府，撫苗有法，終貴陽府。

After Jiheng's death his family remained in Wu and took household registration in Jiading. His great-grandson Wenjin passed the metropolitan examination in the sixteenth year of Jiaqing, served as prefect of Weihui in Henan after leaving the Hanlin Academy, governed benevolently, and was enshrined among distinguished officials. Wenjin's son Weixun passed the metropolitan examination in the thirteenth year of Daoguang, served as prefect of Zhenyuan in Guizhou after leaving the Hanlin Academy, governed the Miao effectively, and later served as prefect of Guiyang.

佟國瓏，字信侯，奉天人，隸漢軍籍。康熙三十年，由筆帖式授山東文登知縣。縣俗愚悍，有勸治宜嚴峻者。國瓏曰：「為政在誠心愛民，興利除害，化導之而已，嚴峻非民之福也。」副將某以暱妓蝕餉，軍大噪，夜半斬關出屯東郊。國瓏聞變，單騎往諭曰：「吾與軍民同疾苦，有冤當訴我，何妄動為？」眾猶洶洶，國瓏當砲立，曰：「吾不忍見爾曹族誅，請先試若砲。」眾動色，曰：「公廉明，軍何敢犯，然事已至此，奈何？」國瓏力任保全。究其故，得實。縛妓扌失之，眾泣拜而散，副將尋被劾去。

Tong Guolong, styled Xinhou, came from Fengtian and was registered in a Han Banner. In the thirtieth year of Kangxi he rose from clerk-translator to magistrate of Wendeng in Shandong. The county people were rough and stubborn, and some advised that he govern with severity. Guolong replied, "To govern is to love the people sincerely, promote their welfare, remove harm, and guide them by moral example. Severity is no blessing to the people." A deputy general had embezzled rations to favor a prostitute, and the troops mutinied, breaking out at midnight to encamp in the eastern suburbs. Hearing of the mutiny, Guolong rode out alone and said, "I share your hardships. If you have grievances, bring them to me. Why rebel?" The men were still unruly. Guolong stood before their cannon and said, "I cannot bear to see you all executed. Try your cannon on me first." Their faces changed. They said, "Your Honor is upright and just—we would never harm you. But things have gone this far. What can we do?" Guolong pledged personally to protect them. An investigation confirmed the facts. He bound and flogged the prostitute. The soldiers wept, bowed, and dispersed, and the deputy general was soon impeached and removed.

歲饑，奸民騷動，國瓏歷村墟，給賑撫諭，捕治兇渠，民賴以安。邑豪宋某以鄰婦貸錢不償息殺之。吏役得賂，皆為豪掩，又以千金賄國瓏。國瓏怒，覆驗婦有重傷，鞫得其情，置豪於法。邑故瀕海，副將林某縛商舶之泊島嶼者數千人，指為寇，國瓏訊釋之，別捕誅真盜四十餘人。

During a famine year unruly elements stirred trouble. Guolong toured the villages distributing relief, capturing ringleaders, and restoring order. A local bully named Song killed a neighbor because she could not repay a loan with interest. Clerks took bribes to cover for the bully and offered Guolong a thousand taels in bribes. Guolong was enraged. Re-examination revealed severe injuries on the woman's body, investigation proved the truth, and he punished the bully by law. The county bordered the sea. Deputy General Lin had bound thousands of merchants anchored off the islands as pirates. Guolong released them after investigation and separately captured and executed more than forty actual robbers.

五十年，擢山西澤州知州。歲祲，發常平倉以貸民，剋期輸還無爽。又減耗羨，革陋規，省徭役，平物價，民情大悅。國瓏嘗以論事忤太原知府某，某嗾人誣揭之，坐罷任。州民鳴鐘鼓罷市，欲詣闕。既而得白，留原任。時平陽民變，巡撫檄國瓏以兵往，國瓏曰：「是速之亂也。」單騎馳赴，民皆額手曰：「佟公至，吾屬無慮矣！」乃安堵受撫。五十九年，以疾乞免。後以所屬高平令虧帑被逮，責償萬金，民感其惠，捐金投州庫代償其半云。

In the fiftieth year of Kangxi he was promoted to prefect of Zezhou in Shanxi. In a bad harvest year he lent grain from the Ever-Normal Granary, and the people repaid on schedule without fail. He reduced melt-loss surcharges, abolished corrupt practices, eased corvée burdens, stabilized prices, and won the people's deep approval. Guolong once offended the Taiyuan prefect in a policy dispute. The prefect instigated a false accusation and had him dismissed. The people rang bells and drums, closed the markets, and prepared to petition the throne. He was soon cleared and restored to his post. When the people of Pingyang rose in unrest, the governor ordered Guolong to go with troops. Guolong said, "That would only make the disorder worse." He rode out alone. The people clasped their hands and said, "Prefect Tong is here—we need fear nothing!" They then settled peacefully and accepted his reassurance. In the fifty-ninth year he requested retirement due to illness. Later, when the Gaoping magistrate under his jurisdiction was arrested for a treasury deficit, Guolong was ordered to repay ten thousand taels. Grateful for his benevolence, the people donated half the sum to the prefectural treasury on his behalf.

陸師，字麟度，浙江歸安人。少負文名。康熙四十年進士，授河南新安知縣。修學校，集諸生治經，童子能應試者免其徭，民興於學。響馬賊季國玉為患久，捕誅之。巡鹽使者下縣，取鹽犯四十人。師曰：「律以人鹽並獲始為犯，今勘犯止二人，何濫為？」父憂歸，在途，有六七騎挾弓矢，驅牛車，載婦女三十餘人，言歸德饑民，某將軍買以歸者也。師叱止之，令官還婦女於其家，白將軍收其騎卒。或謂已去官胡忤將軍，師曰：「知縣一日未出境，忍以饑民婦女媚將軍耶？」

Lu Shi, styled Lindu, came from Gui'an in Zhejiang. He won a literary reputation in youth. He passed the metropolitan examination in the fortieth year of Kangxi and was appointed magistrate of Xin'an in Henan. He repaired schools, gathered scholars to study the classics, exempted boys who could sit examinations from corvée, and the people turned enthusiastically to learning. He captured and executed the mounted bandit Ji Guoyu, who had long terrorized the region. The salt-inspection commissioner came to the county and demanded forty salt offenders. Shi said, "The law requires both offender and contraband salt to be seized together. Investigation finds only two offenders. Why expand the case arbitrarily?" On his way home for his father's mourning he encountered six or seven horsemen with bows driving an ox cart loaded with more than thirty women, said to be famine refugees from Guide whom a general had bought. Shi ordered them halted, had the women returned to their families, and reported to the general to take custody of his men. Some asked why he offended a general after leaving office. Shi replied, "Until a magistrate has crossed the border, how can he endure handing famine refugees' women to a general as a gift?" End of quoted passage.

服闋，補江蘇儀徵。有盜引良民為黨，師親馳往捕，見壞器滿地，言有暴客食此不償值，因而鬥毀。詰其人，狀與盜肖，事得白。春徵，勸富戶先輸，秋則減其耗，令自封投櫃。故事，驛夫臨時取給鋪戶，倉猝滋擾。一切禁革，但令戶日賦一錢歸驛，商賈以安。揚州五縣飢，大吏令縣各以五千金糴穀備賑，具舟車往，則虛而歸。師察知府意欲縣官借補所虧也，力爭，於是五縣皆得穀以賑。

After mourning he was assigned to Yizheng in Jiangsu. When robbers implicated innocent men as accomplices, Shi rode out personally to investigate. He found broken vessels everywhere and learned that unruly guests had eaten without paying and started a brawl. Questioning the accused, their account matched the robbers' story, and the innocent were cleared. For spring tax collection he urged wealthy households to pay first, then reduced their melt-loss surcharge in autumn and let them seal and deposit payments themselves. By custom relay runners requisitioned supplies on the spot from shopkeepers, causing sudden harassment. He abolished the practice entirely and required only a daily cash payment per household to the relay station, to the great relief of merchants. When five counties around Yangzhou faced famine, superior officials ordered each county to spend five thousand taels buying relief grain. Counties sent boats and carts but returned empty-handed. Shi saw that the prefect intended county officials to cover shortfalls from their own funds and fought the order. All five counties then obtained grain for relief.

卻鹽商例餽，固請，乃籍其入以修學宮，具祭器樂舞，浚泮池，植桃李其上。修宋文天祥祠，又以其餘建倉廒，潔治囹圄。質庫書票，故有月無日，勿論久近，皆取一月息。師辭其歲餽，令視他縣月讓五日。舊有豬稅，下令蠲除之。

He refused the salt merchants' customary gifts, but when they insisted he recorded the money for repairing the Confucian temple, furnishing sacrificial vessels and musical instruments, dredging the ceremonial pool, and planting peach and plum trees around it. He restored the shrine to Song loyalist Wen Tianxiang, and used the remainder to build granaries and improve the jail. Pawnshop receipts recorded the month but not the day, so one month's interest was charged regardless of how long the loan had run. Shi refused their annual gifts and ordered pawnshops in his county to grant five extra days of grace each month compared with other counties. He abolished the old pig tax.

課最，行取擢吏部主事，升員外郎。掌選，有要人求官，力持不可。督山東礦務，條上開採無益，罷其役。還，擢御史，巡河、讞獄皆稱職。康熙六十一年，河督陳鵬年疏請以師為山東兗沂曹道，未到官，卒。祀名宦祠。

Rated highest in evaluation, he was selected for promotion to secretary in the Ministry of Personnel and then vice director. While managing appointments he firmly refused when an influential man sought an office. Supervising Shandong mining, he memorialized that mining brought no benefit and had the work stopped. On his return he was promoted to censor and distinguished himself inspecting rivers and reviewing cases. In the sixty-first year of Kangxi River Commissioner Chen Pengnian recommended Shi for commissioner of the Yan-Yi-Cao Circuit in Shandong, but Shi died before taking up the post. He was honored with enshrinement in the hall of distinguished officials.

龔鑑，字明水，浙江錢塘人。早與同郡杭世駿齊名。雍正初，以拔貢就選籍，授江蘇甘泉知縣。縣新以江都析置，故脂膏之地，鑑恥為俗吏，一以子惠黎元、振興文教為己任。故某侍郎子與有舊，入謁，有所囑，拒之。有同城官為大吏所暱，令伺察屬吏者，有挾而請，又拒之；巨室延飲，又拒之。於是大江南北盛傳甘泉令不近人情，鑑益自刻苦，無一長物。

Gong Jian, styled Mingshui, came from Qiantang in Zhejiang. Early on he was as renowned in his prefecture as Hang Shijun. In the early Yongzheng reign, as a selected tribute graduate he was appointed magistrate of Ganquan in Jiangsu. The county had just been carved out of Jiangdu and was a wealthy district. Jian scorned being a conventional official and devoted himself to caring for the people and reviving culture and education. The son of a former vice minister, an old acquaintance, came to call with requests, but Jian turned him away. A fellow official favored by a high official, assigned to spy on subordinates, came with leverage seeking favors, and Jian refused again; great families invited him to banquets, and he refused again. Word spread across the Yangzi region that the magistrate of Ganquan was unapproachable. Jian lived even more frugally, without a single luxury.

縣境邵伯埭受高、寶諸湖之水，地卑下。鑑謂當於農隙運土築高埂沿堤為防，以徐議溝洫。堤上即植桑，興蠶事。其西境地高，浹旬不雨即龜坼，宜每一里為水塘以蓄之。如是則高下之田俱無患。大吏韙之，然不能行。邵伯埭下有芒稻河，設閘洩水尤要。值大水氾溢，鑑冒雨至，呼閘官洩之。閘官以鹽漕為言，不可。會總河嵇曾筠視河至，鑑直陳，厲聲訶閘官，曾筠即令啟閘。又用鑑言，定鹽漕船過湖需水不過六尺，過即啟閘，無得藉口蓄水，為民田患。每歲晏，江都之鰥寡孤獨多入甘泉部中。

The Shaobo Dam in his county received water from the Gaoyou and Baoying lakes, and the land there was low-lying. Jian proposed building high embankments along the dikes with earth moved during the agricultural off-season, as a first step toward drainage works. Mulberry trees would be planted on the dikes to promote sericulture. The western part of the county was higher; ten days without rain cracked the ground. He proposed a storage pond every li. In this way both low-lying and upland fields would be protected. Superior officials approved the plan, but it was never carried out. Below the Shaobo Dam lay the Mangdao River, where sluice gates for releasing water were especially critical. When floods overflowed, Jian came through the rain and ordered the sluice official to release water. The sluice official refused, citing salt and tribute transport. Grand Canal Director Ji Zengyun arrived on inspection. Jian stated the case directly and sharply rebuked the sluice official. Zengyun immediately ordered the sluice opened. He also adopted Jian's proposal that salt and tribute boats needed no more than six chi of water to cross the lake, and that the sluice must be opened once that depth was exceeded, so water could not be hoarded to the harm of farmland. Every year at year's end many widows, orphans, and elderly without support from Jiangdu fell under Ganquan's jurisdiction.

西湖聖因寺僧明慧者，恃前在內廷法會恩寵，幹求遍於江、浙。一日以書幣關白，鑑杖其使而遣之。事流傳，上聞。世宗召明慧還京，錮不許出。當是時，甘泉令聲聞天下。在任六年，以父憂去官，貧，至無以葬。河南巡撫尹會一故為揚州守，雅與鑑善，招之，欲使主大樑書院，以修脯助葬。遂卒於河南。

The monk Minghui of West Lake's Sheng'in Temple, relying on favor won at imperial Buddhist assemblies in the inner court, solicited favors across Jiangsu and Zhejiang. One day he sent letters and gifts seeking favors. Jian had his messenger beaten with rods and sent away. Word spread, and the emperor heard of it. The Yongzheng Emperor summoned Minghui back to the capital and confined him, forbidding him to leave. At that time the magistrate of Ganquan was famed throughout the empire. After six years in office he left for his father's mourning so poor that he could not afford a funeral. Henan Governor Yin Huiyi, formerly prefect of Yangzhou and an old friend of Jian, invited him to head the Daliang Academy so that his salary could help pay for the funeral. He died in Henan.

鑑湛深經術，能摘先儒之誤，顧書多未成。所成者毛詩疏說，闡明李光地之說為多。

Jian was deeply learned in the classics and could identify errors in earlier Confucian scholarship, though many of his writings remained unfinished. What he did finish was a commentary on the Mao recension of the Book of Songs, largely developing the views of Li Guangdi.

Cite this Chapter