Volume 479 Biographies 266: Exemplary Officials 4: Xu Taiying, Niu Shumei, He Yueyu, Wu Yinglian, Liu Binglin with: Chen Chongdi, Xia Ziling, Xiao Shiben, Li Bingtao with: Yu Shu, Zhu Genren, Zou Zhongjun, Wang Maoxun, Kuai Demo, Lin Daquan, Fang Dashi, Chen Hao, Yang Rongxu, Lin Qi, Wang Renfu, Zhu Guangdi, Leng Dingheng, Sun Baotian, Ke Shaojing, Tu Guan Jun, Chen Wenfu, Li Su, Zhang Kai, Wang Renkan

=徐台英=徐台英，字佩章，廣東南海人。道光二十一年進士，授湖南華容知縣。俗好訟，台英謂訟獄糾纏，由於上下不通。與民約，傳到即審結，胥役需索者痛懲之。一日，閱呈詞，不類訟師胥吏筆，鞫之，果諸生也。拘至，試以詩、文，文工而詩劣。諭曰：「詩本性情，汝性情卑鄙，宜其劣。念初犯，姑宥，其改行！」其人感泣去。規复沱江書院，月自課之。曰：「陸清獻作令，日與諸生講學。吾不曉講學，若教人作文，因而誘之讀書立品，是吾志也。」縣田有圻田、埦田、山田之分。瀕湖地，旱少潦多，埦、圻例有蠲緩，田無底冊，影射多。書役墊徵，官給空票。花戶糧數，任其自註。役指為欠者，拘而索之，官不知所徵之數。保戶包納漕米，相沿以為便，挾制浮收，無過問者。積欠數万，官民交病。台英知其弊，乃清田冊，注花戶糧數、姓名、住址，立碑埦上，使冊不能改。應緩、應徵者可親勘，而影射之弊絕。申糧隨業轉之例，即時過割，而飛灑之弊絕。收漕分設四局，俾升合小戶，就近輸納，免保戶之加收，而包納之弊絕。埦田舊有堤修費，出田主。有挪埦田作圻田，冀免堤費者；有賣田留稅，派費賠累者；有賣稅留田，派費不至者：堤費不充。一埦堤潰，他埦同希豁免。凡借帑修堤者，久無償，相率亡匿。台英丈田均費，低窪者許減派，不許匿畝。其人戶俱絕，歸宗祠管業承費。巨族有抗者罪之。行之期年，堤工皆固，逋賦盡輸。

Xu Taiying, whose style was Peizhang, came from Nanhai in Guangdong. He received his jinshi degree in 1841 and was appointed magistrate of Huarong in Hunan. The locals were fond of lawsuits. Taiying held that litigation became entangled because there was no open communication between officials and the people. He agreed with the people that every petition would be heard and decided as soon as it arrived, and he severely punished any clerk or runner who extorted them. One day he was reviewing a petition whose style did not match that of a pettifogger or clerk. He questioned the author and found that he was indeed a licentiate. The man was brought in and tested in poetry and prose. His prose was accomplished but his poetry poor. Taiying told him, "Poetry expresses one's character. Your character is base, so it is only right that your poetry is poor. As this is your first offense, I will spare you for now—but mend your ways!" The man left in tears, deeply moved. He set out to restore the Tuojiang Academy and personally examined the students there each month. He said, "When Lu Qingxian served as magistrate, he lectured to his students every day. I do not know how to lecture as he did, but if I can teach students to write essays and thereby draw them toward reading and upright character, that will satisfy my purpose." The county's lands were classified as qi fields, wan fields, and mountain fields. Lands along the lake suffered more from flood than drought. Wan and qi fields were customarily granted tax relief, but with no master land register, many owners shifted their holdings onto other categories to evade tax. Clerks advanced tax payments on their own and the magistrate issued them blank receipts. Households were allowed to record their own tax quotas. Runners would name debtors, seize them, and demand payment, while the magistrate had no idea how much was actually being collected. Guarantor households had long handled consolidated grain tribute payments as a convenience, but they used their position to extort inflated collections, and no one held them accountable. Arrears mounted to tens of thousands of taels, to the mutual distress of officials and commoners. Recognizing these abuses, Taiying compiled a clear land register listing each household's quota, name, and address, and had it inscribed on a stone tablet at the wan embankment so the record could not be tampered with. He could personally verify who qualified for relief and who owed tax, which put an end to fraudulent reassignment of land categories. He enforced the rule that tax liability follows the transfer of land, requiring prompt registration of every sale, which ended the practice of leaving tax obligations on the previous owner. He divided grain collection among four offices so that even small households could pay nearby, removing the guarantors' surcharges and ending consolidated collection abuses. Owners of wan fields had traditionally paid embankment repair fees. Some reclassified wan fields as qi fields to avoid embankment fees; others sold their land but left the tax registered in their name, leaving them liable for fees; and still others sold the tax obligation but kept the land, so fees never reached the fund: embankment revenues ran short. When one wan embankment failed, owners of neighboring wan fields all hoped for the same exemption. Those who had borrowed government funds for repairs had long failed to repay and fled in numbers. Taiying surveyed the fields and apportioned fees evenly, allowing reductions for low-lying plots while forbidding concealed acreage. Where a household had died out, the ancestral hall took over the land and assumed the fees. Powerful families who resisted were punished. Within a year the embankments were secure and all arrears were paid.

調耒陽。耒陽徵糧，由櫃書裡差收解，取入倍於官。刁健之戶輕。良善之戶重，民積忿。有楊大鵬者，以除害為名，欲揭竿為亂。事平，台英遂盡革裡差。時上官欲命舉甲長以代裡差，仍主包收包解。台英以甲長之害，與里差同。因集鄉紳問之曰：「巡撫命汝等舉甲長，何如？」曰：「無人原充。」台英曰：「甲長所慮在不知花戶住址，汝等所慮在甲長包收。吾今併戶於村，分村立冊。以各村糧數合一鄉，以四鄉糧數合一縣。各村納糧，就近投櫃，糧入串出，胥吏不得預。甲長祗任催科，無昔日包收之害。此可行否？」眾皆拜曰；「諾。」台英曰；「隱匿何由核？」眾曰：「取清冊磨對，有漏，補入可耳。」曰：「虛糧何由墊？」曰：「虛糧無幾，有則按畝勻攤可耳。」數月而清冊成，糧法大定。大鵬之亂，誘脅者多。台英禁告訐，一縣獲安。以憂去官。同治元年，詔起用，發浙江，署台州知府，未任，卒。

He was transferred to Leiyang. In Leiyang, tax collection was handled by clerks and village agents who forwarded grain, pocketing twice what they delivered to the government. Aggressive households were under-assessed. Honest households bore the heaviest burdens, and popular resentment mounted. A man named Yang Dapeng, claiming he would remove these abuses, sought to raise rebellion. After the disturbance was suppressed, Taiying abolished the village agents entirely. His superiors then proposed appointing ward heads to replace the agents, still handling consolidated collection and delivery. Taiying argued that ward heads would cause the same harm as the agents had. He gathered the local gentry and asked, "The governor has ordered you to nominate ward heads. What do you think? They replied, "No one is willing to serve." Taiying said, "Ward heads worry about not knowing where taxpayers live; you worry about ward heads collecting taxes for themselves. I will group households by village and compile a register for each village. Each village's totals will roll up to the township, and four townships will roll up to the county. Each village will pay at the nearest office; when grain is received, receipts are issued immediately, without clerk interference. Ward heads will only urge payment, without the old abuses of consolidated collection. Will this work?" All bowed and said, "We agree." Taiying asked, "How will hidden households be found?" They answered, "Compare against the master register; any omissions can simply be added." He asked, "Who will cover phantom quotas?" They replied, "There are few; any shortfall can be spread evenly by acreage." Within a few months the register was complete and the tax system was firmly established. Many had been coerced into joining Dapeng's rebellion. Taiying forbade malicious informers, and the whole county returned to peace. He left office to observe mourning. In 1862 he was recalled by imperial edict, assigned to Zhejiang as acting prefect of Taizhou, but died before he could take office.

=牛樹梅=牛樹梅，字雪橋，甘肅通渭人。道光二十一年進士，授四川彰明知縣，以不擾為治。決獄明慎，民隱無不達，咸愛戴之。鄰縣江油匪徒何遠富糾眾劫中壩場，地與彰明之太平場相近。樹梅率民團御之，匪言我不踐彰明一草一木也。迨官軍擊散匪眾，遠富匿下莊白鶴洞，恃險負隅。遙呼曰：「須牛青天來，吾即出。」樹梅至，果自縛出。擢茂州直隸州知州，尋署寧遠知府。地大震，全城陷沒，死傷甚眾。樹梅壓於土，獲生。蜀人謂天留牛青天以勸善。樹梅自咎德薄，不能庇民，益修省。所以賑恤災黎甚厚，民愈戴之。父憂去官。

Niu Shumei, whose style was Xueqiao, came from Tongwei in Gansu. A jinshi of 1841, he was appointed magistrate of Zhangming in Sichuan, governing on the principle of leaving the people unmolested. He judged cases with clarity and care, and no popular grievance failed to reach his ears; the people all loved him. In neighboring Jiangyou, the bandit He Yuanfu gathered followers to raid Zhongba market, near Zhangming's Taiping market. Shumei led local militia against them. The bandits declared they would not touch a single blade of grass in Zhangming. After government troops routed the band, Yuanfu hid in Baihe Cave at Xiazhuang, holding a defensible position. He shouted from a distance, "Send Niu the Just Magistrate, and I will surrender." When Shumei arrived, Yuanfu bound himself and came out as promised. He was promoted to magistrate of Maozhou and soon served as acting prefect of Ningyuan. A great earthquake struck, swallowing the whole city and killing countless people. Shumei was buried in the rubble but survived. The people of Sichuan said Heaven had spared Niu the Just Magistrate to encourage virtue. Shumei blamed himself for insufficient virtue that had failed to protect his people, and devoted himself still more to moral discipline. He gave generously in relief to the afflicted, and the people revered him all the more. He left office upon his father's death.

咸豐三年，尚書徐澤醇薦其樸誠廉幹，詔參陝甘總督舒興阿軍事。八年，湖廣總督官文薦循良第一，發湖北，病未往。同治元年，四川總督駱秉章复薦之，擢授四川按察使，百姓喜相告曰：「牛青天再至矣！」三年，內召，以老病不出，主成都錦江書院。

In 1853 Minister Xu Zechun recommended him for his honesty and capability, and he was ordered to serve on Governor-General Shu Xing'a's staff in the northwest. In 1858 Governor-General Guan Wen of Huguang ranked him first among exemplary officials and assigned him to Hubei, but illness kept him from going. In 1862 Governor-General Luo Bingzhang of Sichuan recommended him again, and he was appointed provincial surveillance commissioner. The people rejoiced, saying, "Niu the Just Magistrate is coming back! In 1864 he was summoned to the capital but declined on account of age and illness, and became head of the Jinjiang Academy in Chengdu.

時甘肅回匪尚熾，樹梅眷念鄉里，遺書當事，論剿回宜用土勇。略云：「軍興以來，劇寇皆南勇所掃蕩。今金積堡既平，河州水土猶惡。若參用本省黑頭勇，其利有六：飽粗糲，耐冰霜，一也；有父母兄弟妻子之仇，有田園廬墓之戀，二也；給南勇半餉，即樂為用，三也；無歸之民，收之，不致散為賊，四也；久戰狄、河一帶，不費操練，五也；地勢熟習，設伏用奇，無意外虞，六也。」後總督左宗棠採其說，主用甘軍，卒收其效。光緒初，歸里，卒，年八十四。

Hui rebels were still active in Gansu, and Shumei, mindful of his homeland, wrote to the authorities urging that local militia be used against them. He wrote in part, "Since the wars began, the fiercest rebels have been defeated by southern militia. Now that Jinjibao has fallen, the terrain around Hezhou remains harsh. If local militia from the province were also employed, there would be six advantages: first, they are accustomed to coarse food and harsh winters; second, they fight with personal vengeance for kin and attachment to home and ancestral graves; third, they would serve gladly for half southern militia pay; fourth, recruiting the displaced would keep them from turning bandit; fifth, they already know the Di and He region from long conflict and need little training; sixth, they know the terrain and can set ambushes without surprise. Governor-General Zuo Zongtang later adopted this advice and relied chiefly on Gansu forces, with eventual success. In the early Guangxu era he returned home and died at eighty-four.

=何曰愈=何曰愈，字云亹，廣東香山人。父文明，河南洧川知縣，有惠政。曰愈少隨父宦，讀書勵志，有幹材。道光初，授四川會理州吏目。土司某桀驁，所部夷人殺漢民，知州檄曰愈往驗，以賄乞免，卻之。乃率眾來劫，不為動，卒成驗而還。獄上，大吏廉得直，曰愈由是知名。捐升知縣，以習邊事，辦西藏糧台，三載，還補岳池縣。不畏強禦，豪右斂戢。練鄉團，繕城郭，庀器械。逾數年，滇匪犯岳池，後令賴所遺械以拒賊，時比張孟談之治晉陽雲。調署平山，以母憂去。

He Yueyu, whose style was Yunwei, came from Xiangshan in Guangdong. His father Wenming had served as magistrate of Weichuan in Henan, where his benevolent governance won esteem. As a youth Yueyu accompanied his father in office, studied diligently, and showed administrative talent. In the early Daoguang era he was appointed clerk of Huili Prefecture in Sichuan. A rebellious native chieftain's tribesmen killed Han civilians. The prefect dispatched Yueyu to investigate; when they offered bribes to avoid prosecution, he refused. They then led a mob against him, but he stood firm and completed his investigation before returning. When the case was reported upward, senior officials confirmed that he had been right, and Yueyu won renown. He purchased promotion to magistrate, then spent three years managing the Tibet grain depot for his expertise in frontier affairs, and afterward was appointed to Yuechi County. He stood up to the powerful, and local magnates restrained themselves. He drilled the local militia, repaired the fortifications, and stockpiled arms and equipment. Several years later, when Yunnan bandits attacked Yuechi, the magistrate who followed him used the arms Yueyu had stockpiled to hold off the enemy—a feat likened at the time to Zhang Mengtan's defense of Jinyang. He was transferred to act as magistrate of Pingshan, then resigned to observe mourning for his mother.

咸豐六年，服闋，寧遠府野夷出巢焚掠，大吏檄曰愈參建昌鎮軍事。川西倮夷凡數十支，自雷波、瓘邊，滇南二十四塞，頻年肆擾。值西昌縣告變，曰愈馳至，眾大譁，曰：「夷傷吾人。」曰愈曰：「若等平日欺夷如鹿豕，使無所控告，故釀禍。今且少息，吾為若治之。」乃集兵練出不意搗夷巢，夷皆匍匐聽約束。漢民屋毀粟罄，夷請以山木供屋材，並貸穀為食。曰愈諭民曰：「此見夷人具有天良，若等毋再生釁。」漢、夷遂相安。曰愈既益悉夷、番之情偽，山川之險隘，擬綏邊十二策，格不得上。

In 1856, when his mourning ended, tribal peoples in Ningyuan Prefecture came out of the hills to burn and loot. Senior officials ordered Yueyu to assist in military affairs at the Jianchang garrison. Dozens of Luo tribal bands in western Sichuan, from Leibo and Guanbian to the twenty-four passes on the southern Yunnan frontier, had been raiding the region for years. When Xichang County raised the alarm, Yueyu hurried there. The crowd was in an uproar: "The tribes have hurt our people." Yueyu replied, "You ordinarily treat the tribes like deer and pigs, denying them any way to seek redress—that is how this trouble came about. For the moment, calm down—I will handle this for you." He then gathered soldiers and militia and, taking them by surprise, attacked their camps. The tribes submitted on their knees and accepted his terms. Han households had lost their homes and run out of grain. The tribes offered timber from the hills for rebuilding and lent grain to feed them. Yueyu told the people, "You can see these tribes still have a conscience. Do not pick another fight." Han Chinese and tribal communities thereafter lived in peace. Having learned the ins and outs of tribal and Tibetan affairs and the mountain passes, Yueyu drafted twelve proposals for pacifying the border, but they were blocked and never reached the throne.

未幾，滇匪韓登鸞糾眾入會理州境，聲言與回民尋仇。回民疑漢民召匪，因焚民居。曰愈率一旅往，聞流言奸細伏城內，乃下令毋閉城。三日後，按戶搜查，容奸細者從軍法。越三日，城內外賊黨悉遁。曰愈曰：「吾不閉門、不遽搜者，正開其逃路耳。」眾皆服。遣人持榜文諭登鸞，遵示釋怨退去。复持諭回民，回民曰：「昔日被水災，田廬盡沒。何公一騎渡水賑我，又為我濬河，至今無水患。戴德未忘，今敢不遵諭！違者誅之。」自是回民亦不擾州境。事定，鎮府上其功，會有攘之者，遂不敘。比粵匪犯蜀，曰愈數陳機宜，當事不能用。退居灌縣，後歸，卒於家。子璟，官至閩浙總督。

Soon afterward, the Yunnan rebel Han Dengluan led a force into Huili Prefecture, claiming he had come to settle a score with the Hui community. The Hui, suspecting that Han Chinese had brought the bandits in, burned Han homes in retaliation. Yueyu marched in with a detachment. Hearing rumors that enemy agents were hiding in the city, he ordered the gates left open. Three days later he searched house by house and declared that anyone who harbored spies would be punished under military law. Within three more days, every bandit accomplice inside and outside the city had fled. Yueyu explained, "I left the gates open and delayed the search so they would have a way to escape." The crowd accepted his reasoning. He sent a proclamation to Dengluan, who obeyed, abandoned his feud, and withdrew. He also delivered the proclamation to the Hui, who replied, "Years ago we were hit by a flood and lost our fields and homes. Master He came alone on horseback through the water to bring us relief, then dredged the river for us—we have had no floods since. We have never forgotten his kindness. How could we refuse his word now? Anyone who defied it would be executed." After that the Hui ceased to molest the prefecture. When order was restored, the garrison submitted a report of his merits, but a rival claimed the credit and no reward was recorded. When Taiping rebels invaded Sichuan, Yueyu repeatedly offered strategic advice that the authorities ignored. He retired to Guan County, eventually went home, and died there. His son Jing rose to become Governor-General of Fujian and Zhejiang.

=吳應連=吳應連，江西南城人。道光元年舉人，以知縣揀發四川。歷署天全、涪州、永川、安岳、蒲江、新津、綿竹、仁壽諸州縣。補石泉，調彭縣。宦蜀先後二十年，所至修塘堰，濬河渠，平治水陸道塗，捕盜賊、土豪，撫災民，皆有實政。咸豐初，蜀匪漸熾，應連在彭縣，編團儲械，以備不虞。四年，卒於官。未幾，悍匪迭來犯，賴鄉勇保全危城，民思遺績，留殯於城內三忠祠旁，歲時祀之。涪州、安岳、永川、石泉、仁壽先後請祀名宦祠。

Wu Yinglian came from Nancheng in Jiangxi. He passed the provincial examination in 1821 and was assigned to Sichuan as a magistrate. He served in acting posts at Tianquan, Fuzhou, Yongchuan, Anyue, Pujiang, Xinjin, Mianzhu, Renshou, and other Sichuan prefectures and counties. He received a regular appointment at Shiquan and was later transferred to Peng County. Over two decades in Sichuan he built ponds and dikes, dredged waterways, repaired roads, captured bandits and local bullies, and relieved disaster victims wherever he served—concrete achievements every time. In the early Xianfeng era, as banditry spread in Sichuan, Yinglian organized militia and stockpiled arms against the threat while serving in Peng County. In 1854 he died in office. Soon fierce bandits attacked repeatedly; the militia he had organized saved the city. Grateful townspeople kept his coffin beside the Three Loyalty Shrine inside the walls and honored him with seasonal sacrifices. Fuzhou, Anyue, Yongchuan, Shiquan, and Renshou each petitioned to enshrine him in their local shrine of distinguished officials.

=劉秉琳=劉秉琳，字昆圃，湖北黃安人。咸豐二年進士，授順天寶坻知縣。持躬清苦，恤孤寡，懲豪猾，悉去雜派及榷酤贏餘者。索倫兵伐民墓樹，縱馬躪田禾，反誣村民縶其馬，秉琳力爭得直。蝗起，督民自捕，集貲購之，被蝗者得錢以代賑，且免踐田苗。遷宛平京縣。十年，英法聯軍犯京師，秉琳奉檄赴營議犒，納刀鞾中，慮以非禮相加，義不受辱。抗論無少屈，犒具皆如議。尋引疾歸。

Liu Binglin, whose style was Kunpu, came from Huang'an in Hubei. He received his jinshi degree in 1852 and was appointed magistrate of Baodi in Shuntian. He lived plainly, cared for orphans and widows, punished local bullies, and abolished every miscellaneous levy and monopoly surcharge. Solon soldiers cut down trees in village graveyards and let their horses trample crops, then falsely accused the villagers of seizing their horses. Binglin fought the case and won justice for them. When locusts swarmed, he organized villagers to catch them and paid cash bounties so afflicted households could eat without trampling crops for relief grain. He was transferred to Wanping, one of the capital counties. In 1860, when Anglo-French forces reached Beijing, Binglin was ordered to the enemy camp to negotiate tribute gifts. He hid a knife in his boot, ready to die rather than accept humiliation. He stood his ground without yielding, and every item of tribute was supplied as agreed. He soon resigned on grounds of illness and went home.

穆宗登極，有密薦者，復至直隸，署任丘。民以驛車為累，籌貲招僱，永除其害。擢深州直隸州知州。七年，捻匪張總愚竄畿輔，且至。人勸其眷屬可避，秉琳曰：「吾家人皆食祿者，義不可去。」授兵登陴，鄉民及鄰境聞之，咸挈入保，至十餘萬人。嬰城四十餘日，賊圍之，不破。秉琳上書統帥，言賊入滹沱，河套勢益蹙，宜兜圍急擊，緩將偷渡東竄。卒如其言。寇平，優敘。州地多斥鹵，民以鹽為恆產，課與常賦埒，水旱不得報災，非漉鹽無以應正供。秉琳議官銷法，以杜私販，民悅服。

After the Tongzhi Emperor came to the throne, a secret recommendation brought him back to Zhili as acting magistrate of Renqiu. Courier wagons had become a burden on the people; he raised funds to hire permanent carriers and ended the abuse for good. He was promoted to magistrate of Shenzhou Prefecture in Zhili. In 1868 the Nian rebel Zhang Zongyu fled into the capital region and was nearing the city. When others urged his family to flee, Binglin said, "We all live on the state's salary—we cannot abandon our post." He armed the defenders and took to the walls. Villagers and people from neighboring districts heard and streamed inside for protection—more than a hundred thousand in all. The city held for more than forty days under siege without falling. Binglin wrote the commander warning that once the rebels crossed the Hutuo the river bend would trap them; he urged an immediate encirclement, warning that delay would let them slip east across the river. Events unfolded exactly as he had predicted. After the rebels were crushed, he received an exceptional merit citation. Much of the prefecture was saline wasteland where people relied on salt-making; the salt levy matched regular taxes, and without panning salt they could not pay their dues—even in flood or drought they could not claim disaster relief. Binglin introduced government sales of salt to stop illegal trade, and the people accepted it willingly.

九年，擢正定知府。滹沱溢，發所儲兵米以賑。築曹馬口、回水、斜角三堤，水不齧城，民用安集。郡與山西接壤，固關守弁，苛稅煤鐵，商販委物於路，聚眾上訴。秉琳往解散，除其重徵。鎮將獲盜三，已誣服，秉琳鞫之，乃兵挾負博嫌，栽贓刑逼，以成其獄，釋三人者而重懲其兵。

In 1870 he was promoted to prefect of Zhengding. When the Hutuo flooded, he opened military grain stores for relief. He built dikes at Caomakou, Huishui, and Xiejiao so floodwaters no longer threatened the city and the people could settle in safety. The prefecture bordered Shanxi; the officer at Guguan Pass levied exorbitant taxes on coal and iron until merchants abandoned goods on the road and marched en masse to protest. Binglin went out, dispersed the crowd, and abolished the oppressive taxes. The garrison commander had seized three men who had already confessed under torture. Binglin retried the case, found soldiers had framed them over gambling debts, released the three, and severely punished the soldiers.

光緒元年，擢天津河間道，兼轄南運河工。請復歲修銀額，河兵口食足，乃無偷減工料之弊。築中亭河北堤，涸出腴田千餘頃。時方旱，流民集天津，設粥廠，躬親其事，所活甚眾。嘗太息曰：「哺飢衣寒，救荒末策也。本計當於河渠書、農桑譜中求之。」四年，乞病歸，數年卒。同治初年，軍事漸定，始課吏治。大學士曾國籓為直隸總督，下車即舉賢員，如李文敏、任道鎔、李秉衡，後並至巡撫。

In 1875 he was promoted to the Tianjin-Hejian circuit and put in charge of South Grand Canal projects. He restored the annual repair budget so canal workers were fully fed, eliminating the old practice of skimming materials and labor. He built the north bank dike on the Zhongting River, reclaiming more than a thousand qing of fertile land. During a drought, refugees flooded Tianjin; he opened soup kitchens and personally oversaw relief, saving countless lives. He once sighed, "Feeding the hungry is only the last resort in a famine. The real answer lies in books on waterworks and manuals of farming and sericulture." In 1878 he retired on grounds of illness; he died a few years later. In the early Tongzhi era, as fighting subsided, the court began to hold officials accountable for good governance. As Governor-General of Zhili, Grand Secretary Zeng Guofan immediately recommended able men such as Li Wenmin, Ren Daorong, and Li Bingheng—all of whom later became provincial governors.

秉琳及陳崇砥、夏子齡、蕭世本諸人，治行皆卓著，當時風氣為之一振雲。

Binglin, Chen Chongdi, Xia Ziling, Xiao Shiben, and others all achieved outstanding records in office, and official morale across the region sharply improved.

崇砥，字亦香，福建侯官人。道光二十五年舉人，咸豐三年，大挑知縣，發直隸，授獻縣。盜賊充斥，嚴緝捕，渠魁多就擒。治鄉團十六區，合千五百人，分班輪值，邑以有備。捻匪張錫珠擾畿輔，崇砥開城納逃亡，誓眾效死。縣境臧家橋為通衢，河間守欲毀橋阻賊，崇砥謂：「方宜安集難民，遙為聲援，豈可夷險示弱？且委東鄉於賊，非計也。」竟不毀橋，賊旋引去。大學士祁俊藻疏薦之，擢保定府同知，筦水利。崇砥以府河港汊紛歧，苦易淤。設水志，增夫役、器具，以時汰淤。商船打壩阻水，為設壩船，給板椿，過淺構橋咸稱便。

Chen Chongdi, whose style was Yixiang, came from Houguan in Fujian. He passed the provincial exam in 1845. In 1853 he was selected as a magistrate, assigned to Zhili, and appointed to Xian County. Bandits were rampant; he cracked down hard and captured most of the ringleaders. He organized sixteen militia districts with fifteen hundred men on rotating shifts, leaving the county well defended. When the Nian rebel Zhang Xizhu ravaged the capital region, Chongdi opened the gates to refugees and pledged the city to fight to the last. Zangjia Bridge was a vital crossing in the county. The Hejian prefect wanted to destroy it to block the rebels. Chongdi objected, "We should be sheltering refugees and standing as a rear guard—how can we tear down our defenses and show weakness? And abandoning the eastern countryside to the enemy is no strategy at all." He kept the bridge intact, and the rebels soon moved on. Grand Secretary Qi Junzao recommended him for promotion to sub-prefect of Baoding Prefecture in charge of water control. Chongdi found Baoding's rivers and tributaries branched in every direction and silted up easily. He kept water registers, added labor and equipment, and dredged on a fixed schedule. Merchant boats that blocked the channel with dams were given dam boats, planks, and piles; where waters ran shallow he built temporary bridges—all to universal approval.

同治八年，署大名知府，兵亂時，民多築寨堡自衛，後事定，浸至藏奸抗官。崇砥親履勘，收繳軍械，易正紳司之，澆風漸息。畿南久苦旱，賑難普及，崇砥議有田十畝以上者不賑；極貧，大口錢千，小口半之，壯者不給。先編保甲，造細冊，不曰賑而曰貸。事畢，奏請蠲貸，民安之。南樂縣民抗徭聚眾，令告變。崇砥輕騎往，平其輕重，眾歡然輸納。副將駐兵獻縣，兵不戢，鄉團疑其匪也，戕副將。既而知誤，畏罪，眾聚不散。檄崇砥往治，令縛首禍者，脅從皆免之。

In 1869 he served as acting prefect of Daming. During the wars people had built fortresses for self-defense; after peace returned, those strongholds increasingly sheltered criminals and defied officials. Chongdi inspected every site in person, confiscated weapons, and put respectable gentry in charge—the lawlessness slowly subsided. Southern Zhili had endured a long drought and relief could not reach everyone. Chongdi ruled that anyone holding more than ten mu of land would be ineligible; the desperately poor would receive a thousand cash per adult and half that for children; able-bodied men received nothing. He registered households through the baojia system and recorded aid as loans rather than charity. When the crisis passed he petitioned to forgive the loans, to the people's relief. In Nanle County the people resisted corvée duty and massed in protest; the local magistrate raised the alarm. Chongdi rode out alone, adjusted the burdens fairly, and the crowd paid up willingly. A vice commander and his troops were stationed in Xian County; when his undisciplined soldiers were mistaken for bandits, the local militia killed the officer. Once they realized their mistake, fear of punishment kept the crowd from dispersing. Chongdi was ordered to the scene; he had the ringleaders bound and pardoned everyone who had followed under duress.

調署順德府，尋擢河間知府。河間素多訟，崇砥剋期審結，數決疑獄，期年而清。滹沱下游為災，崇砥請築古洋河堤，自獻縣至肅寧六十里。於蔡家橋作堤防支流，開溝六千丈，以資宣洩。自馮家村至高旦口，造橋建徬，防子牙河暴漲。於是古洋通流，近地皆大稔。光緒元年，卒於官，祀名宦。

He was transferred to act as prefect of Shunde and soon promoted to prefect of Hejian. Hejian had long been awash in litigation, but Chongdi imposed firm deadlines on every case, cleared a string of doubtful convictions, and within a year the courts were clean. When flooding ravaged the lower Hutuo, Chongdi petitioned to build dikes along the Gu Yang River for sixty li from Xian County to Suning. At Caijia Bridge he erected dikes against side streams and dug six thousand zhang of channels to carry floodwater off. From Fengjia Village to Gaodankou he built bridges and levees to hold back sudden surges of the Ziya River. The Gu Yang soon ran freely again, and the surrounding countryside saw bumper harvests. He died in office in the first year of the Guangxu reign and was honored in the shrine of eminent officials.

夏子齡，字百初，江蘇江陰人。道光十六年，會試第一，成進士。初官禮部主事，任事果決，尚氣節。庫丁賄當事，請準捐考，力持駁議，時稱之。改授河南汲縣知縣，勤聽訟，嚴治盜，遇事持大體。咸豐初，詔求人才，巡撫潘鐸特薦之，會母憂去官。

Xia Ziling, whose style was Baichu, came from Jiangyin in Jiangsu. In the sixteenth year of the Daoguang reign he topped the metropolitan examination and received his jinshi degree. He began as a secretary in the Ministry of Rites, handling business with brisk decision and a strong sense of principle. When treasury clerks bribed officials to permit purchased examination slots, he held firm in opposing the scheme, and contemporaries praised him for it. Reassigned as magistrate of Jixian in Henan, he heard cases diligently, cracked down on bandits, and always kept sight of the larger public interest. Early in the Xianfeng reign the throne called for capable men and Governor Pan Duo singled him out for recommendation, but he left office to mourn his mother.

服闋，授直隸深澤，調饒陽。比歲旱蝗，盜劫肆擾，選健役百人，教以技擊，更番直。有事，雖午夜立率以出，捕劇盜幾盡。分境內團練為八區，輪期會操，久之皆可用。十年，英法聯軍入京師，畿南土匪蜂起，冀州王洛悅，河間劉四、賈漋等，各麕集千人，連擾郡邑。子齡率團勇迎擊境上，斬獲數百。劉四受創遁，王洛悅聞風驚潰。劉四等尋於他縣被擒伏法，王洛悅亦就撫。事平，優敘。

After mourning he was posted to Shenze in Zhili and later moved to Raoyang. Years of drought and locusts had unleashed rampant banditry; he picked a hundred strong runners, trained them in hand-to-hand combat, and kept them on rotating watch. At the first sign of trouble he would lead them out himself, even at midnight, and nearly wiped out the worst gangs. He split the county militia into eight districts with rotating drill sessions, and before long they were fit for real service. In the tenth year Anglo-French forces entered Beijing and brigands flared across southern Zhili; Wang Luoyue of Jizhou and Liu Si and Jia Zhang of Hejian each massed a thousand men and raided one county seat after another. Ziling took the militia to the border and routed them, killing or capturing several hundred. Liu Si was wounded and escaped; at the news Wang Luoyue's band panicked and broke apart. Liu Si and the others were soon seized in another county and executed; Wang Luoyue also accepted government terms and surrendered. When order was restored he was rewarded for his service.

縣舊為滹沱所經，北徙已久。十一年，上游決溢，水驟至，近郊為澤國。訪尋故道，濬老澗溝，上接安平境，下入獻縣之廉頗窪，以資宣洩。次年，水復至，暢流不為患。城西官道沖刷成河，建長橋五十丈，民便之。遷宛平京縣。

The Hutuo had once run through the county, but it had shifted northward long ago. In the eleventh year a breach upstream sent floodwater racing down, turning the suburbs into a vast shallow lake. He traced the old riverbed, dredged the Old Stream Gully from Anping down to Lianpo Hollow in Xian County, and opened a path for the flood to drain away. The next year when the waters rose again, they passed through freely and did no damage. Flood erosion had cut the west road into a channel; he built a fifty-zhang bridge there, to the people's great relief. He was transferred to Wanping, the metropolitan county.

擢易州直隸州知州。西陵在州境，故事，護陵俸餉及祭品、牛羊、芻豆，州領帑給之。陵員與州吏因緣為侵蝕，數煩朝使察治。子齡與守陵大臣議訂章程，弊去泰甚，始相安焉。歲旱，奸民聚眾擾大戶，立杖斃煽眾者。勸捐賑恤，災不為害。

He was promoted to prefect of Yizhou in Zhili. The Western Tombs lay within his jurisdiction; by custom the prefecture drew treasury funds to pay the tomb guards and supply the ritual offerings, livestock, fodder, and grain. Tomb staff and prefectural clerks had long skimmed the funds, and imperial investigators had been sent repeatedly to clean up the abuses. Ziling worked out new regulations with the tomb minister, cut the worst abuses, and at last brought the arrangement under control. During a drought year agitators rallied mobs against wealthy families; he had the ringleaders beaten to death on the spot. He organized relief donations, and the drought never became a catastrophe.

同治六年，河北馬賊起，擾及鄰境，募勇治團如饒陽時，匪懾其名不敢犯。次年，捻匪竄擾畿輔，守要隘，清內匪，防軍久駐，有淫掠者，立斬以徇，闔境肅然。論功，晉秩知府。美利堅教會私購民居為耶蘇堂，執條約與爭。以其無遊歷執照，購屋未先告，州境附近陵寢，有關風水，皆與約背，竟退價撤契，且杜其後至。尋請離任，以知府候補。未幾，卒。易州、饒陽並祀名宦祠。子詒鈺，官永年知縣，亦以廉平稱，有治績。

In the sixth year of Tongzhi, mounted bandits spread from northern Hebei into neighboring counties; he raised militia as he had at Raoyang, and the outlaws feared his name too much to raid his territory. The next year Nian raiders swept the capital approaches; he held the key passes and rooted out local bandits, and when garrison troops turned to looting he had offenders beheaded at once—the whole prefecture fell quiet. Rewarded for his service, he was promoted to the rank of prefect. When an American mission bought a private house for a chapel, he contested the sale on treaty grounds. They had no travel permit, had not notified the authorities before buying, and the site lay too close to the imperial tombs for geomantic reasons—in each case a treaty violation—so he forced them to return the price, cancel the deed, and blocked any repeat attempt. He soon asked to leave office and waited for a prefectural appointment. He died not long after. He was honored in the shrines of eminent officials in both Yizhou and Raoyang. His son Yiyu served as magistrate of Yongnian and likewise earned a reputation for honest, fair government.

世本，字廉甫，四川富順人。同治二年進士，選庶吉士，散館授刑部主事，改直隸知縣。先在籍治團練有聲，曾國籓蒞直隸，闢為幕僚。九年，天津民、教相閧，斃法國領事，幾肇大釁。遂以世本署天津縣，尋實授。天津民悍好鬥，鍋夥匪動為地方害，世本嚴懲之。地為通商大埠，訟獄殷繁，世本手批口鞫，斷決如神。逾年，父憂去。服闋，仍補天津。歲旱，災

Shiben, whose style was Lianfu, came from Fushun in Sichuan. After taking his jinshi in the second year of Tongzhi and serving as a Hanlin bachelor, he became a secretary in the Ministry of Punishments and then a magistrate in Zhili. He had already made a name organizing home-district militia; when Zeng Guofan took charge of Zhili he brought Shiben onto his staff. In the ninth year rioters in Tianjin killed the French consul in a clash between townspeople and Christians, nearly sparking a major diplomatic crisis. Shiben was named acting magistrate of Tianjin and soon received the permanent post. Tianjin folk were fierce and quick to fight; the "pot gangs" were a chronic scourge, and Shiben cracked down on them hard. As a major treaty port Tianjin was buried in litigation; Shiben wrote his own judgments, questioned suspects himself, and resolved cases with uncanny speed. A little over a year later he left office to mourn his father. After mourning he returned to Tianjin. During a drought year, disaster struck

黎就食萬數，給粥、施醫無失所。調清苑，擢遵化直隸州知州，復以母憂去。服闋，以知府候補，筦天津守望局。捕誅大盜王洛八、謝昆，海道肅清。倡修運河堤，以免水患。疏瀦龍河故道，開范家堤及石碑河、宣惠河、金沙嶺下水道四十餘裡。皆藉賑興工，民利賴之。署天津、正定兩府。十三年，卒。附祀曾國籓祠。

Tens of thousands of refugees came for relief; he fed them porridge and provided medical care so that none went unserved. He was moved to Qingyuan, promoted to prefect of Zunhua in Zhili, and again left office to mourn his mother. After mourning he waited for a prefectural posting and ran Tianjin's night-watch bureau. He captured and executed the bandit leaders Wang Luoba and Xie Kun, and the coastal routes were cleared. He pushed to rebuild the Grand Canal embankments against flooding. He cleared the old Zhulong Riverbed and opened the Fan Family Dike plus more than forty li of channels along the Shibei, Xuanhui, and Jinshaling downstream routes. He funded the work out of relief budgets, and the people gained lasting benefit from it. He acted as prefect of both Tianjin and Zhengding. He died in the thirteenth year. He was honored with a place in Zeng Guofan's memorial shrine.

=李炳濤=李炳濤，字秋槎，河南河內人。咸豐中，就職州判，謁曾國籓於軍中，尋佐皖軍營務。能調和將士，積功晉同知，留安徽。同治四年，國籓北征捻匪，炳濤上書言四事：「一，專責防堵，以嚴分竄；一，聯絡民團，以孤賊勢；一，設局開荒，以資解散；一，多備火器，以奪賊長。」國籓頗採其言。檄查亳州圩，炳濤微服出入，盡得諸匪徒姓名及蠹役胡採林通匪虐民狀，誘採林誅之，竿其首，一州驚歡。自是訟獄者咸取決於炳濤。按圩查閱，立條教，別良莠，戮悍賊二百，予自新者三千。期年而俗變，無盜竊者。五年，捻匪竄州境，曉諸圩以大義，雖與寇有親故者，無敢出應，捻匪引去。

Li Bingtao, whose style was Qiucha, came from Henei in Henan. In the Xianfeng era he entered service as a subprefect, sought out Zeng Guofan in the field, and soon took charge of camp administration for the Anhui forces. Skilled at keeping officers and men working together, he earned steady promotions to sub-prefect and stayed on in Anhui. In the fourth year of Tongzhi, as Guofan marched north against the Nian, Bingtao submitted a memorial with four proposals: "First, concentrate responsibility for blocking escape routes so raiders cannot slip through in small bands; Second, coordinate with local militia to cut the bandits off from support; Third, set up land-reclamation offices to give surrendered men a livelihood; Fourth, stock more firearms to neutralize the bandits' reach." Guofan largely adopted his advice. Sent to inspect the Bozhou stockades, Bingtao moved among them in disguise until he had every bandit's name and proof that the corrupt runner Hu Cailin was shielding outlaws and preying on the people; he lured Cailin out and executed him, put his head on display, and the whole prefecture erupted in relief. From then on litigants looked to Bingtao to settle their cases. He toured the stockades, issued new rules, sorted the trustworthy from the criminal, executed two hundred hardened bandits, and gave three thousand men a chance to reform. Within a year local habits had changed and theft disappeared. In the fifth year Nian raiders entered the prefecture; he appealed to every stockade on grounds of public duty, and even men with relatives among the bandits dared not join them—the Nian withdrew.

六年，署蒙城縣。蒙、亳接壤，瘠苦尤甚。炳濤耡強梗，撫良懦，振興書院，弦誦聲作。捻匪餘黨解散及各軍凱撤還鄉者數千人，彈壓安輯，民用晏然。巡撫英翰疏陳炳濤治行為安徽第一，被詔嘉獎。十年，調署亳州。

In the sixth year he served as acting magistrate of Mengcheng. Mengcheng bordered Bozhou, and the land there was especially poor and hard-pressed. Bingtao rooted out the violent, protected the meek, revived the county academy, and the sound of students reciting their lessons filled the town again. Several thousand demobilized Nian fighters and victorious troops returning home all had to be kept in order; under his firm hand daily life settled down. Governor Ying Han reported that Bingtao's record ranked first in Anhui, and the throne issued a commendation. In the tenth year he was transferred to act as magistrate of Bozhou.

尋擢廬州知府。廬州故劇郡，中興以來，元勳宿將相望，豪猾藉倚聲勢為不法，官吏莫敢誰何，炳濤嚴治之，稍戢。無為州江堤，官督民修，炳濤禁胥吏索規費，工必覈實。府東施河口為衝途，冬涸，商船以數牛牽挽始行。時值旱災，以工代賑，濬河深通，運賑者皆至，商民便之。西洋人欲於城內立教堂，成有日矣。炳濤諭地主曰：「爾不聞寧國之變耶？他日民、教有爭端，爾家首禍。」其人懼，事得寢。光緒二年，大江南北訛言有妖術剪人發者，民情洶洶，奸民藉以倡團立卡，多苦行旅。炳濤遍示城邑無妄動，誅一真匪，其疑似者悉不問，人心旋定。三年，母憂去官。皖南興辦保甲墾荒，大吏奏調炳濤主其事。五年，卒於寧國。

He was soon promoted to prefect of Luzhou. Luzhou was a notoriously tough prefecture; since the restoration a succession of war heroes had left local bullies who traded on powerful connections and defied the law with impunity—until Bingtao cracked down and they finally quieted down. When the Yangtze dikes at Wuwei were rebuilt under official supervision, Bingtao barred clerks from collecting kickbacks and insisted that every measure of work be verified. Shihekou east of the prefecture was a major route; when it dried up in winter, merchant boats needed teams of oxen to haul them through. During a drought he put people to work on relief wages, dredged the river deep enough for full passage, brought in every grain shipment, and made life easier for merchants and townspeople alike. Westerners were about to finish building a chapel inside the city walls. Bingtao told the landowner: "Have you not heard what happened at Ningguo? If townspeople and Christians clash one day, your family will be blamed first." The landowner was frightened, and the project was abandoned. In the second year of Guangxu rumors swept the Yangtze valley that sorcerers were clipping people's hair; panic spread, agitators set up militia checkpoints, and travelers were harassed everywhere. Bingtao posted notices in every town warning against panic, executed one real outlaw, and released everyone else on mere suspicion—and calm returned quickly. In the third year he left office to mourn his mother. When southern Anhui launched baojia registration and land reclamation, senior officials had Bingtao transferred to lead the work. He died at Ningguo in the fifth year.

炳濤機警，善斷獄。在蒙城，營馬為賊所劫。乃傳諭，詰旦城但啟一門。見有馬奔出，有鞍而無轡，命羈之。俄一人手持一封，將出城，回顧者再，縛之。發其封，則轡與劫物皆在，其人伏罪。在亳州，田父報子夜投井死，驗無傷，井旁有汲水器。炳濤念夜非取水時，既原死，何暇持器。詢其婦，無戚容。偵其平日與鄰婦往來，拘鄰婦鞫之，果得狀。蓋鄰婦弟與婦通，欲害其夫。適其夫以事忤父，鄰婦邀醉以酒而投之井。置汲器者，欲人信其取水投井也，於是皆伏法。

Bingtao was quick-witted and had a gift for judging cases. While serving at Mengcheng, he learned that bandits had stolen horses from the garrison. He ordered that at dawn only one city gate would be opened. When a saddled horse with no bridle bolted through the gate, he had it seized. Soon a man carrying a sealed letter tried to leave the city, looked back twice, and was seized and bound. Breaking the seal, he found the bridle and stolen goods inside, and the man confessed. At Bozhou a farmer reported that his son had drowned himself in a well at night; the body showed no injury, but a water bucket lay beside the well. Bingtao reasoned that no one draws water at night—and if the man had truly meant to die, why would he bother bringing a bucket? He questioned the wife, who showed no sign of grief. Tracing her daily contact with a neighbor woman, he detained the neighbor and interrogated her until the full truth came out. The neighbor's brother had been having an affair with the wife and wanted her husband dead. The husband had just quarreled with his father over some matter; the neighbor got him drunk and threw him into the well. They had placed the bucket to make it look as if he had gone to draw water and fallen in—and all were duly punished.

時皖北被兵久，撫輯遺黎，多賴良吏，炳濤為最。又有俞澍、硃根仁、鄒鍾俊、王懋勳，並為時所稱。

Northern Anhui had been at war for years; rebuilding order among the survivors depended largely on good officials, and Bingtao stood above the rest. Also notable were Yu Shu, Zhu Genren, Zou Zhongjun, and Wang Maoxun, all widely praised at the time.

澍，直隸天津人。以縣丞發安徽，襄壽春鎮軍事。咸豐六年，署蒙城知縣。時縣城初复，人煙寥落，招集流亡，以大義激紳民，築城籌守禦，趨工者踴躍，不費公家一錢。捻渠苗沛霖，反側叵測，窺縣城十餘次，不能破城。有內應賊者，捕斬三人而賊退。七年，攻賊於酆墟，擒其酋徒成德等。八年，攻克龍元賊壘。捻酋孫葵心來犯，出奇計擊走之。附近捻墟，懾於聲威，往往反正受約束。九年，實授。先後敘功，晉同知直隸州。在官數年，潔己愛民。及歿，民皆痛哭，送其柩二千里歸葬。詔贈道銜，建專祠。

Yu Shu came from Tianjin in Zhili. He went to Anhui as assistant magistrate and helped manage garrison affairs at Shouchun. In 1856 he was appointed acting magistrate of Mengcheng. The county seat had just been retaken and was nearly empty; he rallied refugees, moved gentry and commoners with appeals to duty, rebuilt the walls and organized the defense—and workers volunteered so eagerly that not one penny of public funds was spent. The Nian chieftain Miao Peilin was notoriously double-dealing; he probed the county seat more than ten times but never breached its walls. When he uncovered three collaborators inside the walls, he executed them and the raiders withdrew. In 1857 he attacked bandits at Fengxu and captured chieftain Tu Chengde and his men. In 1858 he took the Longyuan bandit stronghold. When the Nian chieftain Sun Kuixin attacked, he devised an unexpected stratagem and routed him. Nearby Nian strongholds, intimidated by his reputation, often surrendered and submitted to authority. In 1859 he received formal appointment. His accumulated service was rewarded with promotion to sub-prefect of Zhili Prefecture. Throughout his years in office he kept himself honest and treated the people with genuine care. When he died the people wept openly and escorted his coffin two thousand li home for burial. The throne posthumously granted him Circuit Intendant rank and ordered a memorial shrine built in his honor.

根仁，字禮齋，江蘇常熟人。以州判從軍，晉秩知縣，留安徽。同治三年，署定遠。兵燹初定，徵調尚繁。前令試辦開徵，根仁以民不堪命，請緩之。籌備供億，民無所擾。捕巨猾雍秀春未獲，得黨羽名冊，根仁曰：「我何忍興大獄以博能名？喪亂未平，民氣未固，激之生變，可勝誅乎？」遂火其冊，聞者為之改行。跕雞岡周姓聚族居，有從逆者已死，里人利其田廬，致周族人於獄，根仁一訊釋之。後再署定遠，捻匪擾境，根仁修城濬隍，聚糧固守。暇輒輕騎巡鄉，勸民修復陂堰，十家治一井，田二頃闢一塘，旱不為災。歷署阜陽、懷寧，捕阜陽積匪程黑，置之法。補全椒，興水利，有實政。光緒四年，卒。

Zhu Genren, whose style was Lizhai, came from Changshu in Jiangsu. Starting as a prefectural judge in military service, he rose to magistrate and remained in Anhui. In 1864 he was appointed acting magistrate of Dingyuan. War had only just ended and requisitions were still unrelenting. The previous magistrate had tried to resume tax collection; Genren, finding the people at breaking point, pleaded for a delay. He organized supplies for the troops without harassing the populace. He failed to capture the notorious outlaw Yong Xiuchun but obtained a register of his accomplices; Genren said: "How could I launch a sweeping prosecution just to burnish my reputation? The country is still unsettled and the people's loyalty is still fragile—provoke them into rebellion, and who could we possibly punish for it all?" So he burned the register, and those who heard of it took it as a warning and mended their ways. At Tiaojigang the Zhou clan lived as an extended family; a member who had joined the rebels was already dead, but neighbors coveted their land and had Zhou clansmen thrown in jail—Genren heard them out once and set them free. Later, serving again at Dingyuan when Nian bandits raided the borders, he repaired the walls, dredged the moats, stockpiled grain, and held the city. Whenever he had a free moment he toured the countryside on horseback, urging villagers to rebuild dykes and dams—one well for every ten households, one pond for every two qing of farmland—so that drought no longer brought disaster. He later served at Fuyang and Huaining, captured the notorious Fuyang bandit Cheng Hei, and had him executed. At Quanjiao he undertook water conservancy projects that delivered tangible results. He died in 1878.

鍾俊，字雋之，江蘇吳縣人。同治中，以州判官安徽，積勞晉秩知縣，補太平。平反冤獄，慈祥而人不欺。墾荒勸農，蒿萊盡闢，不追呼而賦辦。邑行淮鹽，與浙引接界，屢以緝私釀大獄，乃請以官牒領鹽，試辦分銷，民始安。修復水利，興書院，儲書七萬卷。輯儒先格言，曰人生必讀書。訓士敦本行，旌節孝，修祠祀，舉行賓興鄉飲酒禮。在任五年，以興養立教為務。調太和，歷署懷寧、六安、阜陽、蕪湖、渦陽，所至有聲。光緒中，乞休，卒於家。清貧如故。子嘉來，官至外務部尚書，守其家法焉。

Zou Zhongjun, whose style was Junzhi, came from Wu County in Jiangsu. During the Tongzhi era he served in Anhui as prefectural judge, rose through merit to magistrate, and took permanent appointment at Taiping. He overturned wrongful convictions; he was gentle by nature, yet no one took advantage of him. He encouraged reclamation until every patch of wasteland was brought under the plow, and taxes were fully collected without coercion. The county sold Huai salt along a border with Zhejiang monopolies; repeated anti-smuggling drives had spawned major prosecutions, so he petitioned for government-licensed distribution—and the people finally had relief. He restored irrigation works, founded an academy, and amassed a library of seventy thousand volumes. He compiled a collection of Confucian aphorisms titled "Books Every Life Must Read." He urged students to live upright lives, honored the chaste and filial, restored temples and shrines, and revived the binxing examinations and communal drinking rites. For five years he made welfare and education the center of his work. Transferred to Taihe and later acting at Huaining, Lu'an, Fuyang, Wuhu, and Guoyang, he earned a reputation wherever he served. In the Guangxu era he retired and died at home. He died as poor and upright as he had lived. His son Jialai became Minister of Foreign Affairs and upheld the family's standards of integrity.

懋勳，字弼丞，湖北松滋人。咸豐中，以議敘縣丞，發安徽，從軍有功，晉知縣。歷署潁上、合肥、亳州、泗州。補六安直隸州知州，因事去職。尋因籌賑捐，獎以知府候補。懋勳先後官安徽近五十年，任亳州、泗州皆三次。初至亳，捻匪苗沛霖初平，清查戶口，收繳軍械，平毀寨堡數百，民始復業。懲械鬥，清積案，釐學產，復書院，士民戴之。以父憂去，會巡撫過境，州人萬眾乞留懋勳，巡撫許以俟服闋重任，後如其言，夾道歡迎。光緒初，洊飢，煮粥以賑。河南、山西、陝西饑民流轉入境，留養資遣，全活無算。泗州瀕洪澤湖，為匪藪，捕誅劇盜數十，閭閻得安。治獄無株連，禁差保擾民。勸農事，勵風化，親歷鄉曲，民隱悉達。最後至泗，距前已二十餘年，盜賊聞風遠竄，姦胥皆避歸田野。宣統元年，卒。

Wang Maoxun, whose style was Bicheng, came from Songzi in Hubei. During the Xianfeng era he entered Anhui as assistant magistrate, distinguished himself in military service, and rose to magistrate. He served successively at Yingshang, Hefei, Bozhou, and Sizhou. He received formal appointment as prefect of Lu'an but left office over a dispute. Soon afterward his work organizing famine relief earned him candidacy for prefect. Maoxun served in Anhui for nearly fifty years altogether, and held both Bozhou and Sizhou three times each. On his first arrival at Bozhou, with Miao Peilin's Nian just subdued, he took a census, confiscated weapons, razed hundreds of stockades, and people finally returned to their fields. He cracked down on clan feuds, cleared a backlog of lawsuits, put school endowments in order, and restored the academy—and gentry and commoners alike adored him. When he left for his father's mourning, the provincial governor passed through and ten thousand townspeople pleaded to keep Maoxun—the governor promised reappointment after mourning, and when he returned they lined the roads to welcome him. In the early Guangxu years, when famine struck repeatedly, he set up gruel kitchens for relief. Starving refugees from Henan, Shanxi, and Shaanxi poured in; he fed them, gave them passage home, and saved untold numbers of lives. Sizhou lay on Hongze Lake and teemed with outlaws; he captured and executed dozens of hardened bandits, and peace returned to the neighborhoods. He avoided guilt by association in criminal cases and barred petty officials from harassing the people. He urged farmers back to their fields, promoted moral reform, traveled the countryside himself, and knew every grievance of the people. On his third arrival at Sizhou, more than twenty years after his first, bandits fled at the sound of his name and corrupt clerks went into hiding in the fields. He died in 1909.

=蒯德模=蒯德模，字子範，安徽合肥人。咸豐末，以諸生治團練，積功洊保知縣，留江蘇。同治三年，署長洲。時蘇州新復，盜日數發，德模偵之輒獲。有匿鎮將營者，親往擒以歸，置之法。車渡民聚眾抗租，或欲懾以兵。德模曰：「是激之變也。」扁舟往，治首惡，散脅從，事立平。治有天主堂，雍正間鄂爾泰撫蘇，改祠孔子，泰西人伊宗伊以故址請。德模曰：「某官可罷，此祠非若有也。」卒不行。奸人誘買良家女，倚勢豪為庇，德模挈女親屬往出之，豪亦屈服，其不畏強禦類此。常周行鄉陌，田夫走卒相酬答，周知民隱。馭下嚴而卹其私，胥役奉法，不敢為蠹。附郭訟獄故繁，日坐堂皇判決，間用俳語鉤距發摘，豪猾屏息。然執法平，不為覈刻。上官遇疑獄，輒移鞫治，多所平反。治長洲四年，判八百餘牘，盡愜民意，或播歌謠焉。

Kuai Demo, whose style was Zifan, came from Hefei in Anhui. As a licentiate at the end of the Xianfeng era he organized local militia, earned repeated recommendations for magistrate through accumulated service, and remained in Jiangsu. In 1864 he was appointed acting magistrate of Changzhou. Suzhou had just been retaken and robberies were daily occurrences—but whenever Demo investigated, arrests followed. When some fugitives hid inside a brigade general's camp, he went in person to seize them and had them executed. At Chedu villagers assembled to resist tax collection, and some officials wanted to intimidate them with soldiers. Demo said: "That would only provoke a riot." He went alone in a small boat, punished the ringleaders, released the followers, and the affair was settled at once. The district had once held a Catholic church that Governor Ortai had converted to a Confucian shrine during Yongzheng; a Western missionary named Yizongyi now petitioned for the old site. Demo replied: "Dismiss me if you will, but this shrine is not yours to reclaim." In the end he refused. When swindlers trafficked in respectable girls under the protection of local bullies, Demo took the girl's kin to retrieve her and even the bully backed down—he was always this fearless before the powerful. He regularly walked the village lanes, chatting freely with farmers and laborers, and kept his finger on the pulse of every hidden grievance. He was stern with subordinates yet attentive to their personal needs; clerks and runners obeyed the law and dared not abuse their power. Suburban lawsuits were legion; he sat in court every day to decide them, sometimes using plain speech and probing questions to trap liars—and local bullies fell silent. Yet he enforced the law fairly and never persecuted offenders. When superiors faced difficult cases they often referred them to him—and many wrongful convictions he overturned. In four years at Changzhou he decided more than eight hundred cases to general satisfaction—songs about him even spread among the people.

江北大水，災民麕集，德模請於大吏，分各縣留養，三萬餘人無失所。民有為飢寒偷竊者，設化莠室，給衣食，使習藝，藝成遣歸。為滸墅關營籌芻秣費，永免比閭供役。修望亭塘，為橋二十八，以利行旅。兵祲之後，百廢待舉，壇廟、倉庾、書院、善堂、祠宇及先賢祠墓，率先修復；不足，則斥俸助之。徵漕，舊有淋尖、踢斛、花邊、樣米、捉豬諸色目，又有截串、差追諸弊，一皆革除，不追呼而賦辦。惟大小戶均一，便於民而不便於紳，御史硃鎮以浮收劾奏，事下按治，總督曾國籓、巡撫郭柏廕奏雪之。詔以「是非倒置」切責原奏官。旋署太倉直隸州知州、蘇州知府。

When floods devastated the north bank of the Yangtze, refugees poured in; Demo petitioned his superiors to distribute them among the counties for shelter—and more than thirty thousand people were kept from destitution. For people driven to theft by hunger and cold he set up a reform house, fed and clothed them, taught them trades, and sent them home when they were ready. For the Fushuguan customs station he secured fodder funds and permanently freed neighboring wards from corvée duty. He restored Wangting Pond and built twenty-eight bridges for the convenience of travelers. After the war left everything in ruins, he took the lead in restoring altars, temples, granaries, academies, charity halls, shrines, and the tombs of former worthies; when funds ran short he contributed from his own salary. He abolished every exaction and abuse associated with grain tribute—from drip surcharges and kickbacks to sample rice and runner harassment—and taxes were fully collected without coercion. He treated large and small households equally—convenient for commoners but not for gentry; Censor Zhu Zhen charged him with over-collection, but Governor-General Zeng Guofan and Governor Guo Boyin cleared his name. The throne sharply rebuked the accuser with an edict declaring that "right and wrong had been turned upside down." He was soon appointed acting prefect of Taicang and Suzhou prefect.

九年，調署鎮江，時天津民擊斃法蘭西領事豐大業，沿江戒嚴。德模至，則葺外城，浚甘露港，召還居民之聞警遠徙者，人心始定。

In Tongzhi 9 (1870) he was transferred to Zhenjiang; the French consul Fontanier had just been killed in Tianjin and cities along the Yangtze were on high alert. When Demo arrived he repaired the outer walls, dredged Ganlu Harbor, called back residents who had fled in panic—and confidence slowly returned.

調署江寧，未幾，擢四川夔州知府。府城濱江，屢圮於水，修築輒不就。德模自出方略，築保坎十三道，甃以方丈大石，層累而上。捐萬金以倡其役，不二年遂成。附郭有臭鹽磧，盛漲則沒水，水落，貧民相聚煎鹽。嗣為雲陽灶戶所持，請封禁，然冬令私煎如故，聚眾抗捕無如何。德模請弛禁，官買其鹽，運銷宜昌。不奪奉節貧民之業，不侵雲陽銷引之岸，遂著為令。勸民種桑，奉節一縣二十二萬株，他邑稱是。在夔四年，卒於官。長洲、太倉、夔州皆祠祀之。

He was transferred to Jiangning; soon afterward he was promoted to prefect of Kuizhou in Sichuan. The prefectural seat lay on the riverbank and repeatedly washed away; every attempt at repair failed. Demo drew up the plan himself: thirteen protective revetments faced with massive square boulders, stacked tier upon tier. He contributed ten thousand taels to kick off the project, and in under two years the work stood complete. Outside the city lay a foul salt marsh—submerged at flood, but when the waters receded the poor gathered there to boil salt. Later Yunyang salt producers petitioned for a ban; yet every winter the poor still boiled salt in secret, and when officials tried to arrest them mobs resisted—nothing could be done. Demo petitioned to lift the ban, have the government purchase the salt, and transport it for sale at Yichang. It kept the poor of Fengjie in their trade without encroaching on Yunyang's salt market, and the policy was written into law. He encouraged mulberry planting: Fengjie alone put in two hundred twenty thousand saplings, and other counties matched the effort. Four years into his term at Kuizhou, he died in office. Shrines to him were erected at Changzhou, Taicang, and Kuizhou.

=林達泉=林達泉，字海岩，廣東大埔人。咸豐十一年舉人，江蘇巡撫丁日昌闢佐幕府。留心經濟，每論古今輿圖、武備及海外各國形勢，歷歷如指掌，日昌雅重之。同治三年，粵匪餘孽竄廣東，達泉歸里練鄉勇，籌防禦，大埔得無患。敘績，以知縣選用。七年，隨剿山東捻匪有功，晉直隸州知州，發江蘇。八年，署崇明知縣。亂後彫敝，達泉革陋規，清積獄，修城垣，濬河渠，建橋樑，置義塚，增書院膏火，設同仁育嬰堂。利民之政，知無不為。及去任，父老遮道攀留。其後兵部侍郎彭玉麟巡閱過境，見老者飢踣於道，與之食，曰：「若林公久任於此，吾邑豈有飢人哉？」

Lin Daquan, whose style was Haiyan, came from Dapu in Guangdong. A juren of 1861, he was invited by Jiangsu Governor Ding Richang to join his secretariat. Devoted to practical statecraft, he could discuss maps, military readiness, and foreign nations with such precision it was as though he held them in the palm of his hand—and Ding Richang valued him deeply. In 1864, when rebel remnants fled into Guangdong, Daquan returned home to train militia and organize the defense—and Dapu was spared. His service was recognized with selection for magistrate appointment. In 1868, distinguished in the campaign against Shandong Nian bandits, he rose to sub-prefect of Zhili Prefecture and went to Jiangsu. In 1869 he was appointed acting magistrate of Chongming. The district was devastated by war; Daquan abolished corrupt fees, cleared a backlog of cases, rebuilt walls, dredged canals, raised bridges, opened public graveyards, increased academy stipends, and founded the Tongren Foundling Hospital. Every policy that could help the people, he pursued without fail. When he left office, elders blocked the road and begged him to stay. Later, when Vice Minister Peng Yulin passed through on inspection, he saw an old man collapse from hunger by the road and fed him, saying: "If Magistrate Lin had stayed here longer, would our county still have starving people?"

十一年，署江陰。城河通江潮，又縣境東橫河關，農田十餘萬畝，灌溉之利，亂後皆淤塞，大濬之。建義倉，勸捐積穀。所定章程，歷久遵守。光緒元年，授海州。達泉先奉檄勘海、沭鹽河，請以工代賑，下車次第舉辦。浚甲子河及玉帶河，復橋路，增堤防，民咸稱便。州地瘠民貧，素為盜藪。達泉時出巡，擒巨憝，置之法。土宜棉，設局教民紡績，廣植桐柏雜樹於郭外錦屏山，所規畫多及久遠。

In Tongzhi 11 (1872) he was appointed acting magistrate of Jiangyin. The city moat linked to Yangtze tides; the Donghengguan sluice irrigated more than one hundred thousand mu of farmland—all choked with silt after the wars, and he dredged them on a grand scale. He established charity granaries and urged donations to build grain reserves. The regulations he drew up were followed for years. In 1875 he was appointed to Haizhou. Already ordered to survey the Hai and Shu salt rivers, he petitioned for work-relief programs and, upon taking office, carried them out step by step. He dredged the Jiazi and Yudai rivers, restored bridges and roads, and strengthened the dikes—and people everywhere praised the improvements. The prefecture was barren and its people poor—a longtime haven for bandits. Daquan toured the countryside regularly, seized hardened ringleaders, and had them executed. Cotton thrived there; he set up workshops to teach spinning and planted tung, cypress, and mixed trees on Jinping Mountain outside the walls—nearly everything he planned was built to last.

時方經營台灣，船政大臣沈葆楨疏薦達泉器識宏遠，潔己愛民，請調署新設之台北府。格於部議，特詔從之。達泉至，陳治台諸策。議建置，減徵收，整飭防軍，招民墾荒，皆因地制宜，事事草創，積勞致疾。四年，丁父憂，以毀卒。

As Taiwan was being developed, Maritime Affairs Minister Shen Baozhen recommended Daquan for his far-reaching vision and integrity and petitioned for his transfer to the new Taipei Prefecture. The ministry raised objections, but the throne issued a special edict overruling them. On arrival he laid out his policies for governing Taiwan. He designed institutions, cut taxes, reorganized the garrison, and recruited settlers to open land—everything tailored locally and built from nothing, until exhaustion brought on illness. In 1878 he entered mourning for his father and died of grief.

=方大湜=方大湜，字菊人，湖南巴陵人。咸豐五年，以諸生從巡撫胡林翼軍中，洊保知縣，授廣濟縣。清保甲，治團練，盜賊屏息。築盤塘石堤，下游數縣皆免水患。十年，土匪何致祥等謀結皖賊，襲攻官軍，大湜偕員外郎閻敬銘馳往擒之。十一年，皖賊竄湖北，黃州、德安諸屬縣先後陷，廣濟亦被擾。大湜被吏議，革職留任。調署襄陽，飛蝗遍野，大湜躡屩持竿，躬率農民撲捕，三日而盡。濬城南襄水故道，渠成，涸复田數万畝。同治初，巡撫嚴樹森疏陳大湜政績優異，復原職。

Fang Dashi, whose style was Juren, came from Baling in Hunan. In 1855, as a licentiate in Governor Hu Linyi's camp, he earned repeated recommendations for magistrate and received Guangji county. He straightened out the baojia system, organized local militia, and bandits vanished. He built the Pantang stone dike, sparing several downstream counties from flooding. In 1860, when local bandits under He Zhixiang plotted with Anhui rebels to attack government troops, Dashi raced out with Vice Director Yan Jingming and captured them. In 1861 Anhui rebels poured into Hubei; Huangzhou, Dean, and their dependencies fell one after another, and Guangji was raided as well. Censured by the bureaucracy, Dashi was demoted in rank but kept on in office. Posted to Xiangyang as locusts blanketed the fields, Dashi wore straw sandals, took up a catching pole, and personally led farmers to wipe them out in three days. He dredged the old Xiang River channel south of the city; when the canal opened, tens of thousands of mu of dried-out land returned to cultivation. Early in Tongzhi, Governor Yan Shusen memorialized that Dashi's achievements were outstanding and his original rank was restored.

八年，擢宜昌知府。九年，大水，難民避高阜，絕食兩日。大湜捐貲煮粥糜，又為餺飥數万賑之。諭米商招民負米，日致數十石，計口散給，災戶無失所。攝荊宜施道。十年，調武昌。樊口有港蜿蜒九十餘裡，外通江，內則重湖環列，週五百里。江水盛漲，由港倒灌，近湖居者苦之。僉請築壩樊口，以御江水。大湜謂閉樊口則湖水無所洩，環湖數縣受其害，上下江堤亦危，力持不可。光緒五年，再署荊宜施道，尋擢安襄鄖荊道，歷直隸按察使、山西布政使。八年，開缺，另候簡用，遂乞病。為言者所劾，鐫級歸。

In 1869 he was promoted to prefect of Yichang. In 1870 catastrophic floods struck; refugees crowding high ground had gone without food for two days. Dashi donated his own funds to cook porridge and gruel, and made tens of thousands of boiled dumplings for relief. He urged rice merchants to hire carriers and bring in dozens of shi daily, distributing rations by head count so no disaster household was left destitute. He served as acting Jing-Yi-Shi circuit intendant. In 1871 he was transferred to Wuchang. Fankou had a channel winding more than ninety li—opening to the Yangtze on one side, ringed within by a chain of lakes spanning five hundred li in circuit. When the Yangtze swelled, water backed through the channel, and lakeside residents bore the brunt. Everyone petitioned to dam Fankou and block the Yangtze floodwaters. Dashi insisted that damming Fankou would trap the lake waters, ruin counties around the lakes, and endanger dikes up and down the river—and he firmly blocked the plan. In 1879 he again served as Jing-Yi-Shi intendant, soon rose to An-Xiang-Yun-Jing intendant, and later served as judicial commissioner of Zhili and financial commissioner of Shanxi. In 1882, when his post fell vacant for reassignment, he pleaded illness and retired. Attacked by critics in memorials, he was stripped of rank and sent home.

大湜生平政績，多在為守令時。所至興學校，課蠶桑，事必親理，胥吏無所容姦，民親而信之。時周歷民間，一吏一擔夫自隨，即田隴間判訟。守武昌時，勘堤過屬縣，暮宿民家，已去而縣官猶不知。嚴義利之辨，嘗曰：「以利誘者，初皆在可取不可取之間。偶一為之，自謂無損，久則顧忌漸忘。自愛者當視為冘毒，飢渴至死，不可入口。」又曰：「居官廉，如婦人貞節，不過婦道一端。若恃貞節，而不孝、不敬、不勤、不慎，豈得謂賢乎？」公暇輒讀書，所著平平言及蠶桑、捕蝗、修堤、區田諸書，皆自道所得。歸田後，謂所親曰：「官至兩司，不如守令之與民親，措置自如也。」遂不出，卒於家。

Most of Dashi's life's achievements came during his years as a magistrate or prefect. Wherever he served he founded schools and promoted sericulture; he handled everything himself, leaving no opening for clerks to cheat—and the people trusted him deeply. He often toured the countryside with only one clerk and one porter, settling cases right there in the furrows. Inspecting dikes through subordinate counties from Wuchang, he would lodge at a farmer's home at dusk and be gone before the county magistrate knew he had come. A rigorous judge of profit and principle, he once said: "Those seduced by profit always start in that gray zone between what may be taken and what may not. Do it once and you tell yourself no harm is done—until, in time, every scruple fades. The self-respecting official should treat it as poison—better starve and thirst to death than let a single tainted morsel pass your lips." He also said: "Official integrity is like a woman's chastity—only one facet of womanly conduct. Cling to chastity yet fail in filial piety, respect, diligence, and prudence—can you still be called virtuous?" In spare hours he read ceaselessly; his Plain Words and his treatises on sericulture, locust control, dike repair, and contour farming all distilled what he had learned firsthand. After retiring he told close friends: "Reaching treasurer or judge is nothing compared with being a magistrate or prefect—close to the people, free to act." He never went out again and died at home.

=陳豪=陳豪，字藍洲，浙江仁和人。同治九年優貢，以知縣發湖北，光緒三年，署房縣。勤於聽訟，每履鄉，恆提榼張幕，憩息荒祠，與隸卒同甘苦。會匪柯三江謀亂，立擒置之法。置匭縣門，諭脅從自首，杖而釋之。徵米斗斛必平，不留難，不挑剔，民大悅，刁紳感而戢訟。禁種鶯粟，募崇陽人教之植茶，咸賴其利。歷署應城、蘄水。

Chen Hao, whose style was Lanzhou, came from Renhe in Zhejiang. An eminent tribute student of 1870, he went to Hubei as magistrate; in 1877 he was appointed acting magistrate of Fang county. Tireless in hearing cases, on every rural tour he carried provisions, pitched a tent in some abandoned shrine, and shared every hardship with his runners. When secret-society ringleader Ke Sanjiang plotted rebellion, Hao seized him at once and had him executed. He placed a complaint box at the county gate and promised that coerced followers who turned themselves in would be lightly flogged and released. Grain collection was measured fair and full—no delays, no nitpicking—and the people rejoiced; even quarrelsome gentry settled down and stopped suing. He banned opium poppies, brought in tea growers from Chongyang to teach cultivation, and the people thrived on the trade. He later served at Yingcheng and Qishui.

授漢川，頻年襄河溢，修築香花垸、彭公垸、天興垸諸堤，疏濬茶壺溝、縣河口，以工代賑。新溝者，毗漢陽，冬涸舟澀。江口奸民輒恃眾索詐，捕治，諭禁之。因病乞休沐，將去任，有淹訟久未決，慮貽後累，舁胡床至廳事判定，兩造感泣聽命。值年飢，發賑，大吏知豪得民心，強起，力疾往，民夾道歡呼。賑未半，復以疾去。

Assigned to Hanchuan as the Xiang flooded year after year, he built dikes at Xianghua, Penggong, and Tianxing polders, dredged Chahu Gully and the county river mouth, and put flood victims to work for relief. Xingou bordered Hanyang—in winter when the channel dried up, boats stuck fast. Ruffians at the river mouth routinely extorted passing boats with strength of numbers; he captured and punished them and posted notices forbidding it. On sick leave and about to depart, a case had languished for years; fearing it would burden his successor, he had a chair carried into court and decided it on the spot—both sides wept and submitted. Famine struck and he opened relief; knowing Hao had the people's loyalty, senior officials forced him back into service—he went despite illness, and crowds lined the roads to cheer him. Relief was barely half finished when illness forced him out again.

尋署隨州，素多盜，豪如治房縣時，置匭令自首。選賢紳，行保甲，盜風頓戢。俗多自戕圖詐，豪遇訟，實究虛坐，不稍徇，澆風革焉。立輔文社，選才雋者親教之，多所成就。治隨二年，瀕行，聞代者好殺，竭數晝夜之力，凡獄情可原者，悉與判決免死。後因養母，乞免，歸。浙中大吏輒諮要政，多所匡益。家居十餘年，卒。豪在隨州，重修季梁祠。及卒，隨人思其德，於西偏為建遺愛祠祀之。

Posted to bandit-plagued Suizhou, he did as at Fang county—set out a complaint box and urged surrender. He picked capable gentry, enforced baojia, and banditry collapsed overnight. Locals often mutilated themselves to fake injuries in lawsuits; Hao sifted truth from fraud and punished liars without mercy—and the corrupt custom died away. He founded the Fuwén Society, personally teaching gifted youths—and many went on to distinction. After two years at Suizhou, about to leave, he learned his successor was trigger-happy; he worked day and night to decide every case where mercy was possible and commute death sentences. Later he asked leave to care for his mother and went home. Zhejiang's senior officials often sought his counsel on major policies, and he offered much sound advice. He lived at home for more than a decade and died. At Suizhou he restored the shrine to Jiliang. After his death the people of Suizhou, remembering his kindness, built a Legacy Shrine on the west side to honor him.

=楊榮緒=楊榮緒，字黼香，廣東番禺人。咸豐三年進士，選庶吉士，授編修，擢御史。英法聯軍犯京師，駕幸熱河，榮緒與同官抗疏請回鑾，又劾參贊國瑞★法營私，風裁頗著。

Yang Rongxu, whose style was Fuxiang, came from Panyu in Guangdong. A jinshi of 1853, he entered the Hanlin, was appointed editor, and rose to censor. When the Anglo-French allies attacked Beijing and the emperor fled to Rehe, Rongxu and fellow officials submitted a joint memorial demanding the court's return; he also impeached Counselor Guo Rui for private dealings with the French—and his moral courage was widely noted.

同治二年，出為浙江湖州知府。粵匪據湖州四年，時甫克復，荒墟白骨，闃無人煙。榮緒置善後局，規畫庶政，安集流亡，閭閻漸復。屬縣糧冊無存，榮緒招來墾闢，試辦開徵，歲有起色。湖蠶利甲天下，經亂，桑盡伐，課民復種，貧者給以桑苗，絲業復興。

In 1863 he left the capital to become prefect of Huzhou in Zhejiang. Cantonese rebels had held Huzhou for four years. When the city was finally retaken, it was a wasteland of bleached bones—deserted and lifeless. Rongxu set up a relief office, reorganized civil affairs, and resettled refugees until the neighborhoods slowly came back to life. Grain registers for the subordinate counties had vanished; Rongxu encouraged reclamation and cultivation, resumed tax collection on trial, and conditions improved year by year. Huzhou's silkworms ranked first in all the realm—yet the war had stripped every mulberry tree. Rongxu pressed the people to replant, gave saplings to the poor, and the silk trade rose again.

郡稱澤國，匯天目諸山之水入太湖，烏程、長興境內舊有漊港，各三十六，以為宣洩，亂後多淤塞。五年，榮緒奉檄開濬，至八年粗畢，烏程漊港尤易淤，賴設閘以御湖水之倒灌。九年，重修諸閘，因經費不充，頻年經營，猶未盡也。十年，內閣侍讀學士鍾佩賢疏陳其事，朝命大加濬治，時榮緒舉卓異入覲，宗源瀚代攝郡，源瀚亦能事，規畫舉工。及榮緒回任，集絲捐，得鉅款，以資興作。屏去傔從，輕舟巡驗，常駐湖濱，逾年工始竣。以漊港旋開旋淤，議定分年疏濬之法及鏟蘆、撈淺、閘版啟閉章程，數十年遵守不輟。又開碧浪湖，疏北塘河及城河。葺學校，建考舍，修書院，建倉庫，造橋樑，复育嬰堂，百廢具舉。

The prefecture was known as a land of lakes and marshes, where waters from the Tianmu range drained into Lake Tai. Wucheng and Changxing each once had thirty-six drainage channels to carry off floodwater—and after the rebellion most were choked with silt. In 1866 Rongxu received orders to dredge them; by 1869 the work was largely done. Wucheng's channels silted up fastest, so he installed sluice gates to hold back the lake's backflow. In 1870 he rebuilt the gates, but funds ran short and he labored at it year after year—the work still unfinished. In 1871 Hanlin Reader Zhong Peixian memorialized on the project and the court ordered a major dredging campaign. Rongxu was recommended for exceptional merit and summoned to court; Zong Yuanhan served as acting prefect and, himself a capable man, drew up plans to launch the work. When Rongxu returned to office he levied a silk tax and raised a large sum to bankroll construction. He left attendants behind, toured in a light skiff, and often camped on the lakeshore—more than a year passed before the work was finished. Since the channels silted as fast as they were cleared, he set rules for dredging in annual rotation—cutting reeds, scooping shallows, opening and closing sluice gates—rules kept faithfully for decades. He also opened Biolang Lake and dredged the Beitang River and the city moat. He repaired schools, built examination halls, restored academies, put up granaries, built bridges, and revived foundling homes—every long-neglected project got done.

鞫獄詳審，吏胥立侍相更代，終日無倦容。親受訟牒，指其虛謬，曰：「勿為胥吏所用也。」手書牒尾，輒數百言，剖析曲直，人咸服之。訟以日稀，刑具朽敝。隸役坐府門，賣瓜果自活。客坐無供張，儉素如布衣時，遠近頌為賢守。在任十年，嗣為人所譖，遂求去。捐昇道員，離任。尋卒。郡人思之，請祀名宦祠。

He heard cases with painstaking care; clerks stood by in relays, and he never showed fatigue all day. He took petitions in person, pointed out fabrications, and said, "Do not let the clerks use you." At the foot of each petition he would write hundreds of words himself, weighing right and wrong—and all parties accepted his rulings. Lawsuits dwindled daily, and the torture instruments rotted unused. Runners sat at the prefectural gate selling fruit to make a living. He offered guests no lavish hospitality and lived as plainly as when he was a commoner—men far and near hailed him as a model prefect. Ten years into his term he was slandered and asked to leave office. He purchased promotion to circuit intendant and departed. He died soon after. The people missed him and petitioned to enshrine him in the hall of distinguished officials.

=林啟=林啟，字迪臣，福建侯官人。光緒二年進士，選庶吉士，授編修。督陝西學政，馭士嚴正。任滿，遷御史，直言敢諫，稽察祿米倉，不受陋規，為時所稱。十九年，出為浙江衢州知府，多惠政。二十二年，調杭州，除衙蠹，通民隱，禁無名苛稅。餘杭巨猾楊乃武，因姦通民婦葛畢氏，興大獄。刑部訊治，倖免重罪。歸則益橫，攬訟事，挾制官吏，莫敢誰何。啟捕治之，乃武控京師，不為動，卒論如法。尤以興學為急務，時各行省學堂猶未普立，杭郡甫建求是書院，啟复養正書塾，並課新學。舊有東城講舍，益振興之。兼經義、治事，陰主程、硃之說，而變其面目。誘諸生研尋義理，以成有用，一時優秀之士皆歸之。又以浙中蠶業甲天下，設蠶學館於西湖，講求新法，成效頗著。遇國外交涉事，持正無遷就，遠人亦心服。治杭四年，剛直不阿，喜接布衣，士民翕然頌之。卒官，葬於孤山林處士墓側，杭人歲設祭焉，號曰林社，久而勿輟。啟之治杭，得友高鳳岐為之助，後官廣西梧州知府，亦有聲。歿而杭人附祀於林社雲。

Lin Qi, whose style was Dichen, came from Houguan in Fujian. A jinshi of 1876, he entered the Hanlin, and was appointed editor. As Shaanxi education commissioner he managed candidates with stern fairness. At term's end he rose to censor, spoke frankly in remonstrance, audited the salary-grain granary, took no illicit gifts—and won wide praise. In 1893 he became prefect of Quzhou in Zhejiang and governed with many kindnesses. In 1896 he was moved to Hangzhou, uprooted yamen parasites, gave voice to popular grievances, and banned nameless exactions. Yang Naiwu, a notorious Yuhang thug, had an affair with a commoner's wife, Mrs. Ge Bi—and a great scandal erupted. Tried by the Ministry of Punishments, he narrowly escaped a heavy sentence. Back home he grew bolder still, seized control of lawsuits, and bullied officials—none dared stand up to him. Qi had him arrested; Naiwu petitioned Beijing, but Qi held firm and had him sentenced as the law required. He made education his top priority. New-style provincial schools were still rare; Hangzhou had only just opened the Qiushi Academy. Qi also revived the Yangzheng school and taught modern subjects alongside the classics. He also revived the old Eastern City Lecture Hall. He taught both classical philosophy and practical governance—privately upholding the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi, but in a transformed guise. He drew students to pursue moral principle and practical skill—and for a time all the finest young men flocked to him. Zhejiang's sericulture ranked first in the realm, so he founded a Sericulture Academy on West Lake to teach modern methods—with notable success. On matters of foreign relations he stood firm without compromise—even foreigners came to respect him. Four years at Hangzhou: upright and unbending, he welcomed commoners freely—and scholars and townsfolk praised him as one. He died in office and was buried beside the Hermit of Gushan's tomb. Hangzhou people held annual rites there, calling it the Lin Society—a tradition that endured. Governing Hangzhou, Qi had the help of his friend Gao Fengqi; Gao later became prefect of Wuzhou in Guangxi and won renown of his own. After Gao's death Hangzhou people added him to the rites at the Lin Society.

=王仁福=王仁福，字竹林，江蘇吳縣人。少誠愨，勇於任事。祖宦河南，歿後，仁福扶柩歸葬。道經徐州，遇捻匪，徒步率廝役出入烽火，肩行四十里，竟免。尋入貲為東河同知。粵匪犯開封，城壕沙淤如平地，仁福奉檄督工濬治，剋期蕆事而賊至，城守賴之。同治五年，署祥河廳同知。黃河自北徙，中原多故，工帑大減。頻年軍事亟，發帑復不以時。歲修不敷，堤埽殘缺，料無宿儲。祥河汛地當衝，險工迭出，人皆視為畏途。仁福盡力修守，不避艱危。六年秋，汛水驟漲，掣埽去如削木★H9。仁福奔走風雨泥淖中，搶護曆七晝夜。款料俱竭，堤岌岌將破。居民蟻附堤上，仁福對之流涕，曰：「我為河官，擠汝等於死，我之罪也，當身先之！」躍立埽巔。風浪捲埽，走入大溜沉沒。河聲如吼，堤前水陡落。風止浪定，大溜改趨，殘堤得保。眾咸驚為精誠所格，令善泅者覓其屍，不得，乃以衣冠斂。事聞，詔依陣亡例賜卹，附祀河神祠。

Wang Renfu, whose style was Zhulin, came from Wu county in Jiangsu. From youth he was honest and resolute, bold to take on hard tasks. His grandfather had served in Henan; after his death Renfu escorted the coffin home for burial. Passing Xuzhou he ran into Nian bandits; on foot he led servants through the fighting, bearing the coffin on their shoulders for forty li—and at last got away. Soon he purchased appointment as sub-prefect on the Eastern River conservancy. When Cantonese rebels attacked Kaifeng, the moat had silted flat as dry land. Renfu was ordered to dredge it, finished on schedule just as the rebels arrived—and the city held thanks to his work. In 1866 he served as acting sub-prefect of the Xianghe office. The Yellow River had shifted north, the Central Plains were in turmoil, and conservancy funds plummeted. War after war drained the treasury, and funds no longer arrived on time. Annual repairs fell short; dikes and revetments crumbled; there were no materials in store. Xianghe's flood zone stood in the line of danger, one perilous breach after another—everyone treated it as a death trap. Renfu threw himself into repair and defense without flinching from danger. That autumn floodwaters surged; revetments were torn away as if planed from wood. Renfu worked through wind, rain, and mud for seven days and nights straight. Funds and materials gave out; the dike teetered on the verge of collapse. Villagers clung to the dike like ants. Renfu wept and said, "As a river official I have brought you to the edge of death—that is my guilt. I must go first!" He leapt onto the crest of the revetment. Wind and waves tore away the revetment; he was swept into the main channel and drowned. The river roared; the water in front of the dike dropped sharply. When wind and waves died, the main current shifted course—and the battered dike held. All marveled that his devotion had moved Heaven. Skilled swimmers searched for his body in vain; they buried his clothing in his stead. When word reached the court, an edict granted battle-death compensation and enshrinement in the River God Shrine.

=硃光第=硃光第，字杏簪，浙江歸安人。少孤貧，幕游江南，奉汪輝祖佐治藥言為圭臬。咸豐末，捻匪方熾，佐蕭縣令籌防禦，屢破賊。都統伊興額上其功，累晉秩知州，分發河南，佐讞局，治獄平。光緒中，補鄧州。在任三年，大祲之後，壹意休養。善治盜，民戴之。王樹汶者，鄧人，為鎮平盜魁胡體安執爨。鎮平令捕體安急，乃賄役以樹汶偽冒，致之獄。既定讞，臨刑呼冤。重鞫，則檄光第逮其父季福為驗。開歸陳許道任愷先守南陽，嘗讞是獄，馳書阻毋逮季福。且誘怵之。光第曰：「吾安能惜此官以陷無辜？」竟以季福上，則樹汶果其子。巡撫李鶴年袒愷，持初讞益堅。河南官科道者，交章論其事。命東河總督梅啟照覆訊，樹汶猶不得直，眾論大譁。刑部提鞫，乃得實。釋樹汶，自鶴年、啟照以次譴黜有差，而光第已先為鶴年摭他事劾去官，貧不能歸，卒於河南。後鄧州士民請祀名宦，以子祖謀官禮部侍郎，格於例，不行。

Zhu Guangdi, whose style was Xingzan, came from Gui'an in Zhejiang. Orphaned and poor, he clerked across the south, taking Wang Huizu's Yaoyan as his guide to magisterial practice. At the end of the Xianfeng reign, as Nian bandits raged, he helped the magistrate of Xiao county plan defenses and broke the rebels again and again. Banner General Yi Xinge reported his service; he rose by stages to prefect, was assigned to Henan, served in the judicial bureau, and judged cases fairly. Under Guangxu he was posted to Dengzhou. Three years in office after a great famine, he devoted himself entirely to recovery. Skilled at suppressing bandits, he won the people's devotion. Wang Shuwen of Dengzhou had cooked for Hu Ti'an, a bandit chief of Zhenping. The Zhenping magistrate urgently hunted Ti'an; he bribed runners to substitute Shuwen and throw him in jail. The verdict stood—at execution he cried that he was wronged. On retrial, Guangdi was ordered to arrest the man's father, Jifu, for identification. Ren Kai, intendant of the Kaigui-Chenxu circuit and former prefect of Nanyang, who had tried the case, wrote urgently to forbid arresting Jifu. He also tried to bribe and intimidate Guangdi. Guangdi replied, "How can I keep this office by framing an innocent man?" He brought Jifu forward anyway—and Shuwen proved to be his son. Governor Li Henian sided with Ren Kai and clung all the more to the original verdict. Censors and examiners across Henan submitted memorial after memorial on the case. Governor-General Mei Qizhao of the Eastern River was ordered to rehear the case—yet Shuwen still could not get justice, and outrage spread. The Ministry of Punishments took up the case and established the truth. Shuwen was freed; Henian, Qizhao, and others were punished in turn—but Guangdi had already been impeached on other grounds by Henian, stripped of office, too poor to go home, and died in Henan. Later the people of Dengzhou petitioned to enshrine him—but his son Zu Mou was vice minister of rites, precedent barred it, and the request was denied.

=冷鼎亨=冷鼎亨，字鎮雄，山東招遠人。同治四年進士，即用知縣，發江西，署瑞昌。地瘠而健訟，鄉愚輒因之破家。捕訟師及猾吏數人，繩以法。因事詣鄉，使胥役盡隨輿後，返則令居前而己殿之，未嘗以杯勺累民。調署德化，懲防軍之陵民者，境內肅然。修瀕江堤塘，費省工速。德化、瑞昌、黃梅三邑民爭蘆洲，累歲相鬥殺。鼎亨諭解之，建台於鬥所，官吏誓不私，民皆悅服。白鶴鄉人叔與侄爭田，即樹下諭解，遂悔悟如初。旱，蝗起，徒步烈日中，掩捕經月，露宿禱神，得雨，蝗皆死。歷署新昌、彭澤，皆有實政。

Leng Dingheng, whose style was Zhenxiong, came from Zhaoyuan in Shandong. A jinshi of 1865, he was immediately appointed magistrate, assigned to Jiangxi, and served at Ruichang. The county was poor and litigious; simple country folk often lost everything in lawsuits. He arrested litigation brokers and corrupt clerks and punished them according to law. On country visits he made runners walk behind his sedan; on the return he had them go ahead while he brought up the rear—never imposing even a cup of tea on the villagers. Posted to Dehua, he punished garrison soldiers who preyed on civilians—and the district grew calm. He repaired river dikes and embankments at low cost and with speed. People of Dehua, Ruichang, and Huangmei fought over reed flats, killing one another year after year. Leng admonished and settled them, built a platform at the contested site, and had officials swear impartiality—the people submitted gladly. In Baihe township an uncle and nephew disputed fields; he settled them under a tree, and they made peace as before. During drought locusts appeared; he walked in the blazing sun catching them by hand for a month, slept outdoors praying for rain—and when rain came the locusts died. Stints at Xinchang and Pengze alike produced solid results.

上官以為賢，調補新建。附省首邑，官斯者多昕夕伺上官，不遑治民事。鼎亨先與上官約，屏酬應，親聽斷，民歌頌之。尋調鄱陽，值大水，發賑親勘給印票，盡除侵蝕舊習。次年，复災，跣足立沮洳中，濕疾遍體，十閱月。常小舟行駭浪中，屢瀕於危，深夜返署理訟牘。侍郎彭玉麟巡江過境，寄書巡撫曰：「某所至三江五湖數千里，未見堅剛耐苦如冷知縣者也。」

His superiors judged him worthy and transferred him to Xinjian. Xinjian was the premier county beside the provincial seat; magistrates there spent their days courting superiors, with no time left for the people's business. First Leng struck a bargain with his superiors: no more currying favor—he would judge cases himself. The people sang his praises. Soon he was transferred to Poyang just as a great flood struck. He opened relief himself, inspected distribution in person, and issued stamped ration tickets—rooting out the old customs of graft. The next year disaster came again. Barefoot he stood in the mire; damp sickness spread over his body and lingered ten months. He often crossed terrifying waves in a small boat, repeatedly near death—and returned to the yamen at midnight to handle the docket. Vice Minister Peng Yulin passed through on a river inspection and wrote the governor: "In all my thousands of li across rivers and lakes, I have never met a magistrate as tough and tireless as Magistrate Leng."

歷官十年，食無兼味，妻子衣履皆自製。以廉率下，胥吏幾無以為生。俸入輒捐為地方興利，訓士以氣節為先。鄱陽俗好鬥，鼎亨曰：「化民有本，未教而殺之，非義也。」以孝經證聖祖聖諭廣訓為淺說，婦孺聞之皆感動。治教案必持平，屢遇民、教齟《齒吾》事，桀黠者欲藉以鼓眾毀教堂，慮遺禍好官而止，蓋有以感之。光緒十年，擢南昌府同知，巡撫潘霨疏薦入覲，遂乞歸，卒於家。

Ten years in office, his meals never had a second dish; his wife and children wore clothes and shoes they made themselves. He led by example in frugality, and his clerks and runners could barely scrape by. He gave his salary to local public works and taught scholars that moral backbone came first. Poyang was a brawling county. Leng said: "Reforming the people must begin at the root—putting them to death before teaching them is not just." He lectured from the Classic of Filial Piety and the Sacred Edict in plain language—and women and children who heard him were moved to tears. In mission disputes he always held the balance. When friction arose between locals and Christians, the cunning tried to stir mobs to burn churches—but fearing to harm so good a magistrate, they held back, moved by his integrity. In 1884 he was promoted to sub-prefect of Nanchang. Governor Pan Yi recommended him for audience at court; he asked to retire instead and died at home.

=孫葆田=孫葆田，字佩南，山東榮成人。同治十三年進士，授刑部主事，改知縣，銓授安徽宿松。勤政愛民，日坐堂皇，妻紡績，室中蕭然如寒士。調合肥，大學士李鴻章弟子之傔人橫於鄉，以逼債毆人死。葆田檢驗屍傷，觀者數万人，恐縣令為豪強迫脅驗不實。葆田命仵作曰：「敢欺罔者論如律。」得致命狀，人皆歡噪，謂包龍圖復出，讞遂定。有御史劾葆田誤入人死罪，詔巡撫陳彝按之，卒直原讞。葆田遂自免歸，名聞天下。逾數年，安徽將清丈民田，巡撫福潤疏調葆田主其事，辭不赴。貽書當事，言清丈病民，陳：「清賦之要，熟地報荒者，當寬其既往，限年墾复。平歲報災者，當警其將來，分年帶徵。弊自可除，無事紛擾。」時以為名言。

Sun Baotian, whose style was Peinan, came from Rongcheng in Shandong. A jinshi of 1874, he was appointed a secretary in the Ministry of Punishments, then transferred to the magistracy and posted to Susong in Anhui. Diligent and devoted to the people, he sat in court every day while his wife spun thread; their home was as bare as a poor scholar's. Transferred to Hefei, he confronted an attendant of one of Grand Secretary Li Hongzhang's disciples who had been terrorizing the countryside and beat a man to death over a debt. Baotian examined the corpse before tens of thousands of onlookers who feared the magistrate would be bullied into a false report. Baotian told the coroner: "Anyone who falsifies the report will be punished by law." The fatal wounds were confirmed. The crowd erupted in cheers, declaring that Judge Bao had returned—and the verdict stood. A censor accused Baotian of wrongly imposing the death sentence. The throne ordered Governor Chen Yi to investigate—and upheld the original verdict. Baotian resigned and went home, and his name spread across the empire. Years later, when Anhui planned a land survey, Governor Fu Run asked Baotian to lead it. He refused. He wrote the authorities that land surveys hurt the people and argued: "The key to fair taxation is this: where cultivated land was reported as wasteland, forgive the past and set a deadline for reclamation. Where disaster was reported in normal years, warn them for the future and collect arrears in installments. Abuses can be removed without needless upheaval." At the time it was hailed as sage counsel.

葆田故從武昌張裕釗受古文法，治經，實事求是，不薄宋儒。歷主山東、河南書院，學者奉為大師。巡撫張曜疏陳其學行，賜五品卿銜。中外大臣迭薦之，詔徵，不出。宣統元年，卒，年七十。

Baotian had studied classical prose under Zhang Yujian of Wuchang, devoted himself to the classics, sought truth from facts, and did not dismiss the Song Neo-Confucians. He headed academies in Shandong and Henan in turn, and scholars hailed him as a master. Governor Zhang Yao memorialized on his scholarship and character, and he was granted fifth-rank honorary court rank. Ministers at court and in the provinces recommended him again and again; the throne summoned him, but he would not leave home. He died in 1909, aged seventy.

=柯劭憼=柯劭憼，字敬儒，山東膠州人。光緒十五年進士，即用知縣。亦官安徽，署貴池，補太湖。貴池自粵匪亂後，地丁冊為吏所匿，託言已毀。徵賦由吏包納，十不及四五，而浮收日甚，民苦之。劭憼知其弊，令花戶自封投櫃，吏百計撓之，不為動。民輸將恐後，增收銀二萬餘兩，民所節省數且倍。巡撫鄧華熙初聽浮言將奏劾，總督劉坤一曰：「柯令，皖中循吏，奈何登於彈章？」華熙悟，遂疏薦送覲，晉秩直隸州。劭憼為治清簡，斷獄明決，所至民愛戴。亦績學，善為古今體詩。時與葆田並稱儒吏。

Ke Shaojing, whose style was Jingru, came from Jiaozhou in Shandong. A jinshi of 1889, he was immediately appointed magistrate. He served in Anhui as well, first acting at Guichi, then posted to Taihu. Since the Taiping rebellion, Guichi's land-tax registers had been hidden by clerks who claimed they were destroyed. Clerks collected taxes in lump sums and remitted barely forty or fifty percent—while illegal surcharges grew daily. The people suffered. Shaojing saw the abuse and ordered tax households to seal their own payments and drop them in the collection chest. Clerks tried every trick to stop him; he would not budge. Taxpayers rushed to pay ahead of deadline. Revenue rose by more than twenty thousand taels—while the people saved nearly twice as much. Governor Deng Huaxi, swayed by rumor, nearly impeached him. Governor-General Liu Kunyi said: "Magistrate Ke is Anhui's model official—how can he be named in an impeachment?" Huaxi saw his error, recommended Ke for audience at court, and promoted him to direct-controlled prefect. Shaojing governed with clarity and simplicity and judged cases decisively; wherever he served, the people loved him. He was also a scholar and a fine poet in both classical and modern styles. At the time he and Sun Baotian were known together as scholar-magistrates.

=塗官俊=塗官俊，字劭卿，江西東鄉人。光緒二年進士，截取知縣，發陝西，署富平、涇陽、長安諸縣。補宜君，山邑地瘠民樸，官此者多不事事。官俊勸農桑，興水利，成稻田數百畝。躬巡阡陌，與民絮語如家人。調涇陽，歷官皆有聲。凡兩任涇陽，政績尤著。初至，值回亂後，清積訟千餘，庶政以次規复，期年而改觀。龍洞渠，故白渠也，官俊倡言開濬，眾議以工鉅為難，獨毅然為之。由梯子關而下，水量增三分之一，复於清冶河畔修復廢渠二，水所不至者，勸民鑿井以濟之。先後增井五百有餘，無旱憂。

Tu Guanjun, whose style was Shaoqing, came from Dongxiang in Jiangxi. A jinshi of 1876, he was selected as magistrate and sent to Shaanxi, serving at Fuping, Jingyang, Chang'an, and other counties. Posted to Yijun, a poor mountain county of plain folk, he found that magistrates there usually did little. Guanjun promoted farming and sericulture, built irrigation works, and opened several hundred mu of rice paddies. He walked the fields himself and chatted with villagers like family. Transferred to Jingyang, he earned a reputation at every post. He served Jingyang twice, and his achievements there were especially notable. When he first arrived after the Muslim rebellion, he cleared more than a thousand backlogged cases and restored civil administration step by step. Within a year the county was transformed. Longdong Canal was the ancient Bai Canal. Guanjun proposed dredging it; others said the work was too costly, but he went ahead alone. From Tiziguan downstream the flow increased by a third. He restored two abandoned canals on the Qingye River and urged villagers beyond the water's reach to dig wells. More than five hundred wells were dug in all, and drought ceased to be a worry.

涇民多逐末，不重蓋藏，義倉無實儲。官俊謂積穀備荒，莫善於年出年收。躬詣各鄉勸諭捐穀，嚴定收放之法，民感其誠，輸納恐後，倉皆充實。十九年，旱荒，全活凡數万人。編保甲，捕盜賊，地方靖謐。官俊故績學，立賓興堂，置性理、經濟有用之書，日與諸生講習。增義塾，定課程，親考校之。凡有利於民者，為之無不力。二十年，卒。疾篤時，猶強起治事，捐俸千金以恤孤貧。民為祠，歲時祀之。

Jingyang people favored trade over thrift, and the charity granaries stood empty. Guanjun held that the best way to store grain against famine was to lend it out and collect it back each year. He went to every township to urge grain donations and set strict rules for lending and return. Moved by his sincerity, people rushed to contribute until every granary was full. In 1893 drought and famine struck, and he saved tens of thousands of lives. He organized the baojia system, captured bandits, and the district grew calm. A scholar himself, Guanjun founded a Binxing Hall, stocked it with books on moral philosophy and practical statecraft, and lectured students daily. He added charity schools, set curricula, and examined students himself. Whatever benefited the people, he pursued with all his strength. He died in 1894. Even on his deathbed he forced himself up to work and donated a thousand taels of salary to orphans and the poor. The people built him a shrine and worshipped him at the seasons.

=陳文黻=陳文黻，湖南長沙人。以諸生入貲為通判。同治間，從軍，積功晉同知，留陝西。光緒七年，署鄠縣知縣，以教化為先，政平訟理。九年，授留壩廳同知。廳獄舊有棗茨，經費歲徵之民，文黻革之。境內無質庫，貧民稱貸，盤剝者要重息。文黻設裕民公所，貸民錢，息以十一，取其贏以備公用，民便之。廳境山多於田，無物產以資生。乃週曆山谷，辨其土宜，作種橡說及山蠶四要，遍諭鄉民。頒給樹秧蠶種，募工導之。絲成，制機教織，設局收買，重其值以招之。又購紫陽茶種，課之樹藝，於是地無棄利。俗素樸陋，歲科試附鳳縣額，每試或不得一人。建書院、義塾，置書籍，延高才者為之師。數年之後，橫舍彬彬，遂請奏設廳學，建官置額。

Chen Wenfu came from Changsha in Hunan. A licentiate, he purchased appointment as sub-prefect. During the Tongzhi era he joined the army, earned promotion to sub-prefect through merit, and remained in Shaanxi. In 1881 he served as acting magistrate of Hu County, putting moral instruction first; government was peaceful and lawsuits were settled. In 1883 he was appointed sub-prefect of Liuba Circuit. The circuit prison had long levied an annual fee on the people for bedding supplies; Wenfu abolished it. There were no pawnshops in the district; the poor borrowed on word, and usurers charged crushing interest. Wenfu opened a public loan office, lent money at ten percent interest, and used the surplus for public needs. The people welcomed it. Mountains outnumbered fields in the circuit, and there was little to live on. He toured the valleys, tested what each soil would bear, wrote essays on oak planting and wild silkworm raising, and spread the word through every township. He distributed saplings and silkworm eggs and hired instructors to guide the people. When silk came in, he set up looms to teach weaving, opened a purchasing bureau, and paid premium prices to draw producers. He also bought Ziyang tea seeds and ordered them planted—until no scrap of land went unused. The people were plain and backward; their examination quota was attached to Feng County, and some years not one candidate qualified. He built an academy and charity schools, stocked them with books, and hired talented teachers. Within a few years the halls brimmed with scholars. He petitioned to establish a circuit school with its own quota.

谿河多壅閼，橫溢為患。陳開河策，未果行，值水猝發，已逾報災例限，便宜開倉賑之。跋涉沮洳，勞疾不輟。煮粥賑近郊，多所全活。久之，流民坌集，復申開河議，以工代賑，不得請。則因其眾治道路，濬溝渠，出私錢給值，負累至數千緡，民感其德。廳介萬山中，林谷深阻，奸民狙伏行劫，或掠婦孺賣境外。文黻密圖其處示捕役，時復微服蹟之，多就擒治。實行保甲，於民戶職業、田產、丁口、年歲、婚嫁，載冊不厭煩瑣。及賑饑，稽之冊，如家至戶覿，訴訟亦莫敢欺，事益簡焉。民有殺子婦匿其尸者，母家以無左驗，不得直。文黻偶行山徑，群鴉噪於前，索而得之，一訊具服，人以為神。十八年，調署潼關廳，未任，卒。

Streams and rivers were often choked with silt and flooded the land. He had proposed dredging the rivers but the plan had not gone forward. When flood struck suddenly, past the deadline for disaster reports, he opened the granary on his own authority. He waded through mud and marsh, working through illness without rest. He set up porridge kitchens in the suburbs and saved many lives. As refugees poured in, he again petitioned to dredge the rivers and offer work-for-relief—but permission was denied. He put the crowd to work on roads and ditches instead, paying wages from his own purse until he was thousands of strings in debt. The people were deeply grateful. The circuit lay deep in the mountains; villains lurked in the forests to rob travelers or kidnap women and children to sell across the border. Wenfu secretly mapped their haunts for his constables and sometimes tracked them in disguise—many were captured. He fully implemented the baojia system, recording every household's occupation, land, population, ages, and marriages in painstaking detail. At famine relief he checked the registers as if visiting every home; in lawsuits too no one dared deceive him—and affairs grew simpler. A man killed his daughter-in-law and hid the body; her family could not obtain justice for lack of evidence. Wenfu happened along a mountain path where crows were clamoring; he searched and found the body. One interrogation brought a full confession, and people called it miraculous. In 1892 he was transferred to Tongguan Circuit but died before taking office.

=李素=李素，字少白，雲南保山人。同治六年舉人。光緒初，授陝西商州直隸州知州。值州境歉收，饑民聚掠。時山西大祲，商州為轉運要衝。素招民運賑糧，使飢者得食。集貲數万緡，購籽糧散給。設粥廠十餘所，災後倉儲一空，捐穀萬石。六年，大水，加意撫卹，災不為害。州城濱丹河，遇盛漲則負郭田廬漂沒，城中亦半為澤國。素創築石堤二百餘丈，城門月堤十餘丈，遂無水患。開州東隸花河山路三十餘裡、州西麻蒦嶺山路二十餘裡，行旅便之。擴充商山書院，延碩儒課士，設義塾三十餘區，弦誦聞於比戶。陋規病民者悉除之。每歲寒冬，出私錢給孤寡。緝捕籌經常之費。綠營餉薄，歲資助之。凡賑饑、積穀、築堤、修城、興學，莫不以鉅貲倡。一署同州知府。先後在官十八年，兩舉卓異。以病免歸，卒。士民感之，多私祠祀焉。

Li Su, whose style was Shaobai, came from Baoshan in Yunnan. A provincial graduate of 1867. In the early Guangxu era he was appointed prefect of Shangzhou in Shaanxi. Just as the prefecture suffered a poor harvest, hungry mobs began to loot. Shanxi was in the grip of famine, and Shangzhou lay on the vital route for relief grain. Su enlisted the people to haul relief grain so the hungry could eat. He raised tens of thousands of strings of cash, bought seed grain, and distributed it widely. He opened more than ten porridge kitchens. When the granaries stood empty after the disaster, he donated ten thousand shi of grain. In the sixth year a great flood struck; his painstaking relief kept the disaster from becoming ruin. The city stood on the Dan River. When the river swelled, fields and homes beyond the walls were swept away and half the city turned into a lake. Su built a stone dike more than two hundred zhang long and crescent-shaped dikes at the city gates, and thereafter floods ceased to plague the city. He opened a mountain road along the Huahua River east of the prefecture—more than thirty li—and another over Mahe Ridge to the west—more than twenty li—greatly easing travel. He expanded Shangshan Academy, invited eminent scholars to teach, and founded more than thirty charity schools until the sound of reading filled every household. He abolished every abusive customary fee that oppressed the people. Every winter he paid the orphaned and widowed from his own purse. He set aside regular funds for policing and arrests. Green Standard Army pay was meager, and each year he subsidized the troops. Whether famine relief, granaries, dikes, city walls, or schools—he invariably led each effort with a large contribution of his own. He once served as acting prefect of Tongzhou. Eighteen years in office in all; twice cited for outstanding merit. Illness forced his retirement; he died at home. Scholars and common people revered him, and many built private shrines in his honor.

=張楷=張楷，字仲模，湖北蘄水人。同治十年進士，選庶吉士，授編修，累遷至侍講。光緒初，疏論伊犁事，又請撤銷總兵周全有卹典，為時所稱。八年，出為浙江金華知府。永康山中七堡、八堡，地險僻，盜藪也。楷設方略，捕誅匪首蔣元地，移縣丞駐山麓，獷俗一變。父憂去，服闋，補山西汾州。汾陽、平遙兩縣瀕河，鄉民冬令攔河築堰，引水灌田，水不得暢流。夏秋漲溢，各築護堤。以鄰為壑，輒械鬥蔓訟。楷禁築攔河堰，濬引渠以洩水，患紓而訟息。以南方戽水法導民，使開稻田，植桑課蠶。有山曰黑煙，與交山葫蘆峪相連，匪徒窟穴其間，偵其姓名，掩捕盡獲之。治汾州七年，考績為山西最。調太原，未任，母憂去。服闋，補河南府。鞏、洛之間素多盜，捕治巨魁，椎埋斂跡。治獄多平反。調開封。二十五年，畿輔拳匪亂起，大河南北，群情洶洶，大吏持重不敢決。楷力陳邪教不可信，外釁不可開。揭示：「義和團既號義民，謂能避槍砲。令詣城外空營候試，以槍擊果不入，編伍充兵。」奸民不得逞。聯軍入都，潰兵南下，楷創議守河。自汜水迄蘭儀，嚴稽渡口，凡持械之士，悉阻之不令入城，屬境安堵。論者謂微楷之堅定，中原禍未艾也。事定，開缺，以道員候補。三十年，卒。

Zhang Kai, whose style was Zhongmo, came from Qishui in Hubei. A metropolitan graduate of 1871, he entered the Hanlin Academy as a bachelor, became a compiler, and rose to lecturer-in-waiting. In the early Guangxu era he memorialized on the Ili affair and petitioned to revoke posthumous honors for Brigade-General Zhou Quanyou—acts widely praised by his contemporaries. In 1882 he was appointed prefect of Jinhua in Zhejiang. Qibao and Babao in the Yongkang mountains were remote and defensible—a bandits' nest. Kai devised a strategy, captured and executed the bandit chief Jiang Yuandi, and posted the county assistant at the mountain foot—the wild country was transformed. He left office for his father's mourning; when the mourning period ended, he was assigned to Fenzhou in Shanxi. Fenyang and Pingyao lay on the river. Each winter villagers dammed it to irrigate their fields, choking the natural flow. When summer and autumn floods came, each side built protective dikes. Each treated the other's land as a spillway; armed clashes and endless lawsuits followed. Kai banned river dams, dredged diversion canals to release floodwater, and both disasters and lawsuits subsided. He taught southern irrigation methods, had the people open rice paddies, planted mulberry, and organized sericulture. Black Smoke Mountain connected with Jiaoshan and Huluyu Valley, where bandits had dug in. Kai learned their names and raided their lairs, capturing them all. After seven years governing Fenzhou, his performance review ranked first in Shanxi. He was transferred to Taiyuan but left for his mother's mourning before taking office. When mourning ended, he was assigned to Henan Prefecture. The region between Gong and Luo had long been bandit country. He captured the chief ringleaders, and grave robbers and smugglers went to ground. He reversed many wrongful convictions. He was transferred to Kaifeng. In 1899 the Boxer uprising erupted in the capital region. North and south of the Yellow River the public mood turned volatile, and senior officials hesitated, afraid to act. Kai forcefully argued that heterodox cults could not be trusted and foreign war must not be invited. He posted a proclamation: "Since the Boxers call themselves righteous militia and claim they can ward off bullets and cannon— send them to the empty camp outside the city for a test. If gunfire truly fails to pierce them, enlist them as soldiers." With that, troublemakers lost their opening. When the allied armies entered Beijing, routed soldiers poured south. Kai was the first to propose defending the Yellow River. From Sishui to Lanyi he tightened ferry crossings, turned back every armed man at the river, and kept his jurisdiction calm. Commentators held that without Kai's steadfastness, the Central Plain would still have been in flames. When affairs settled his post was vacated, and he awaited reassignment as a circuit intendant. He died in 1904.

=王仁堪=王仁堪，字可莊，福建閩縣人，尚書慶雲之孫。光緒三年一甲一名進士，授修撰。督山西學政，歷典貴州、江南、廣東鄉試，入直上書房。時俄羅斯索伊犁，使臣崇厚擅定條約，仁堪與修撰曹鴻勛等合疏劾之。太和門災，復與鴻勛應詔陳言，極論時政。其請罷頤和園工程，謂：「工費指明不動正款，夫出之筦庫，何非小民膏血？計臣可執未動正款之說以告朝廷，朝廷何能執未動正款之說以謝天下？」言尤切直。

Wang Renkan, whose style was Kezhuang, came from Min County in Fujian—grandson of Minister Wang Qingyun. In 1877 he placed first in the metropolitan examination and was appointed a Hanlin compiler. He served as Shanxi education commissioner, presided over provincial examinations in Guizhou, Jiangnan, and Guangdong, and entered the South Study. When Russia demanded Ili and envoy Chonghou signed a treaty on his own authority, Renkan joined Compiler Cao Hongxun and others in impeaching him. After fire destroyed the Taihe Gate, he joined Hongxun again in answering the imperial call to counsel, speaking bluntly on affairs of state. In petitioning to halt the Summer Palace project he wrote: "The budget says no regular funds will be touched—but what leaves the treasury if not the people's lifeblood? The finance minister may tell the court the regular funds remain untouched—but how can the court tell the empire the same?" His words were especially blunt and forthright.

十七年，出為江蘇鎮江知府。甫下車，丹陽教案起，由於教堂發見孩屍。仁堪親驗孩屍七十餘具，陳於總督劉坤一曰：「名為天主教堂，不應有死孩骨。即兼育嬰局，不應無活嬰兒。傳教約本無準外國人育嬰之條，教士於約外兼辦育嬰，不遵奏行章程，使地方官得司稽察，禍由自召。請曲貸愚民之罪，以安眾心；別給撫卹之費，以贍彼族。」坤一迂之，卒定犯罪軍流有差。時外使屢責保護教堂，仁堪請奏定專律，謂：「條約無若何懲辦明文，每出一事，任意要挾。宜明定焚毀教堂，作何賠償；殺傷教士，作何論抵；以及口角斗毆等事，有定律可遵。人心既平，訛言自息。」英人梅生為匪首李鴻購軍火，事覺，領事坐梅生罪僅監禁，仁堪上書總理各國事務衙門論之。又洋人忻愛珩遍謁守令，募捐義學，無遊歷護照。仁堪請關道送領事查辦，复議無照私入內地，應按中國律法科罪。雖皆未果行，時論韙之。

In 1891 he was appointed prefect of Zhenjiang in Jiangsu. He had barely taken office when the Danyang missionary case erupted after child corpses were found at a church. Renkan personally examined more than seventy child corpses and told Governor Liu Kunyi: "It is called a Catholic church. It ought not hold dead children's bones. Even as an orphanage, it should not have no living infants. The treaties never authorized foreigners to raise infants. Missionaries who ran orphanages beyond treaty bounds, ignoring regulations that left inspection to local officials, had brought disaster on themselves. I ask clemency for the ignorant populace to calm public anger; and separate consolation payments to satisfy their community." Kunyi hedged. In the end the guilty were sentenced to exile and penal servitude in varying degrees. Foreign envoys kept demanding church protection. Renkan petitioned for dedicated laws, arguing: "The treaties spell out no punishments—so envoys coerce us at will with every incident. Burning a church should carry a fixed indemnity; killing or wounding a missionary a fixed penalty; and brawls and disputes of every sort should have fixed laws to follow. Once hearts are settled, rumor will die of itself." When the Englishman Mason was caught buying arms for the bandit chief Li Hong, the consul sentenced Mason only to prison. Renkan wrote the Foreign Office to protest. When the foreigner Xin Aiping toured prefects and magistrates fundraising for charity schools without a travel passport, Renkan asked customs to deliver him to his consul—and argued that entering the interior without a passport should be punished under Chinese law. Though none of these proposals prevailed, contemporaries praised him for them.

郡地多岡壟，旱易成災，仁堪以設渠塘為急務，不欲擾民，捐廉為倡。馳書乞諸親舊，商富感而輸助，得錢三萬緡，開塘二千三百有奇，溝渠閘壩以百計。

The prefecture was hilly and drought-prone. Renkan made canals and ponds an urgent priority, donated his salary to lead the effort, and refused to burden the people. He wrote kin and friends begging help. Moved merchants and gentry contributed thirty thousand strings of cash; more than twenty-three hundred ponds were dug and canals, sluices, and dams numbered in the hundreds.

十八年秋，丹陽大祲，恩賑之外，勸紳商捐貲，全活甚眾。又假官錢於民，使勿賣牛，名曰牛賑。濬太平港、沙腰河、練湖、越瀆、蕭河、香草、簡瀆之屬，凡二十餘所，支溝別渠二百三十有奇。又鑿塘四千六百，以蓄高原之水。皆以工代賑，東西百餘里間，水利畢舉。次年春，賑畢，餘四萬金，生息備積穀。牛賑餘錢，仿社倉法創社錢，按區分儲，為修溝洫、廣義塾之用。郡西鄉僻陋不知學，立榛思文社以教之。出私錢於府治前建南畾學舍。在任兩年，於教養諸端，盡力為之。

In the autumn of 1892 Danyang suffered severe famine. Beyond imperial relief he persuaded gentry and merchants to donate, saving a great many lives. He also lent public funds so farmers would not sell their oxen—a program called "ox relief." He dredged Taiping Harbor, Shayao River, Lian Lake, Yuedu, Xiao River, Xiangcao, Jiandu, and more than twenty other waterways, with more than two hundred thirty branch ditches and canals besides. He dug four thousand six hundred ponds to store highland runoff. All was work-for-relief; within a hundred li east and west, every water project was completed. The next spring, when relief ended, forty thousand taels remained; he invested the surplus to build up granaries. With surplus ox-relief funds he followed the communal granary model to create district communal treasuries for dredging and charity schools. The western townships were remote and unlearned. He founded the Zhensiawen Society to teach them. He built the Nanlei academy before the prefectural yamen at his own expense. In two years in office he gave his full strength to education, relief, and every public duty.

調蘇州，已積勞致疾，日坐讞局清積案，風采動一時。甫三閱月，猝病卒，時論惜之。鎮江士民列政績，籥請大吏上聞，謂其「視民事如家事，一以扶植善類、培養元氣為任，卓然有古循吏風」。詔允宣付史館立傳，以表循良。自光緒初定制，官吏歿後三十年，始得請祀名宦。於是疆臣率徇眾意，輒請宣付立傳表章，曠典日致猥濫，仁堪為不愧雲。

Transferred to Suzhou, already worn ill by overwork, he daily sat in the review bureau clearing backlogged cases—and his authority stirred the province. After barely three months he died suddenly. Contemporaries mourned the loss. Zhenjiang scholars and people petitioned the authorities to report his record, praising him for "treating the people's affairs as his own household business, devoted to nurturing the good and restoring the community's strength—a true exemplar in the ancient mold." An edict ordered his record sent to the Historiography Institute for a biographical entry, honoring his exemplary service. Since regulations established in the early Guangxu era, an official could not be enshrined in the hall of eminent officials until thirty years after his death. Thereafter border governors routinely bowed to popular demand and petitioned for biographical honors—once rare tribute growing ever cheaper. Renkan was one who truly deserved it.

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