Chen Xue

Life

His father was Chen Kongshuo and his younger brother was Chen Chang. Chen He was his son, and Lin Leilong his granduncle. He and Chen Chang studied with Ye Shi.

He passed the jinshi examination in the first year of the Kaixi era under Emperor Ningzong (1205). In the sixth year of Jiading (1213), he became deputy commandant of Hukou; in the fourteenth year, he answered the summons of Jia She, the Huai-dong Military Commissioner, and served as a staff official for Jingdong and Hebei; in the fifteenth year, presenting a strategy earned him promotion to an administrative post in the Commissioner's Office.

While serving as a staff official in Jingdong and Hebei during Jiading, he devised the strategy that repelled the Jin forces attacking Anfeng. During the Shaoding and Duanping periods, he served successively as prefect of Nan Jian, prefect of Longxing, prefect of Ganzhou, military commissioner of Fujian Circuit, and pacification commissioner of Jiangxi. He also suppressed the uprisings led by Yan Biao and Chen Sanqiang.

During the Duanping and Jiaxi periods he rose through the offices of pacification commissioner of Jiangdong and Hunan. In the fourth year of Chunyou (1244), he was appointed canzhi zhengshi, concurrently serving as tongzhi Shumiyuan shi. He also held the offices of Minister of Works, Minister of Justice, Minister of War, Minister of Rites, Vice Commissioner of the Bureau of Military Affairs, and Commissioner of the Bureau of Military Affairs.

He also held the posts of Grand Pacification Commissioner for Hunan and Jiangxi and served as prefect of Fuzhou concurrently with a pacification commissionership. He retired after serving as superintendent of the Youshen Temple. He died in the second year of the Jingding era (1261), aged 82, and was posthumously titled Zhongsu.

Poetry

Four poems by him are recorded.