Chen Yuan

Life

Early in life he studied under the Cheng brothers and later became a student of Yang Shi, eventually serving as the senior disciple of the Yang school; Yang Shi married his daughter to him.

His grandfather was Chen Sirang, and Chen Guan is variously described as his collateral great-uncle, as a congsun relation, or as a zhisun relation; Chen Lin was a younger collateral cousin.

During Huizong's reign he was a student at the Imperial University, repeatedly failed the jinshi examination, and later entered office through the special nomination route. In 1124, the sixth year of Xuanhe, he was appointed county registrar of Yongfeng in Ji Prefecture by imperial grace; during the Jianyan era he served as acting magistrate of Yongxin.

In 1132 he served as a planning official in the Privy Council but soon left the post. One account dates his appointment as editor in the Privy Council to the fifth year of Shaoxing, on the recommendation of Liao Gang, Hu Yin, and others; another says that Hu Anguo recommended him during the Shaoxing era and associates his Privy Council service with 1132.

Later he was sent to supervise Nanyue Temple at Tanzhou; accounts differ, giving the seventh year of Shaoxing or the year after his appointment as Privy Council editor. Li Gang recruited him as a military-secretariat adviser in the Jiangnan West Route Military Commission.

In 1138 he was summoned for an audience, granted jinshi status, and appointed Secretary Assistant (秘書丞). Accounts date his appointments as Investigating Censor (監察御史) and Right Remonstrance Official (右正言) either to 1138 or to 1139, the latter giving the sequence of appointment as Censor followed soon by promotion to Right Remonstrance Official; he later served as provisional Secretary Supervisor (秘書少監) concurrently with a lecturer at Chongzheng Palace, and was transferred to Junior Minister of the Court of Imperial Clan (宗正少卿).

He also held the rank of Fengzhilang.

While serving as a remonstrance official, he argued at court that honors and favors were being granted too freely. He accused Zheng Yinian, a partisan of Qin Hui, of having followed the rebels and requested that Zheng's official title be withheld; this brought him into conflict with Qin Hui. In the tenth year of Shaoxing (1140), he was impeached by remonstrance officials, dismissed, and appointed supervisor of the Chongdao Abbey at Taizhou. He died in 1145, the fifteenth year of Shaoxing.

Works

His works included Motang ji (默堂集), whose posthumous texts were edited and printed by his son-in-law Shen Du. The title also appears as Motang wenji (默堂文集), and its length is given variously as 22 or 30 juan; other works attributed to him include Xiaoyan, one juan, and Chayu jiuhou lu, one juan.

Poems in Motang ji were edited from a facsimile of a Song manuscript reproduced in the third series of Sibu congkan, collated with the Siku quanshu edition and the Motang ji in volume 208 of Liang Song mingxian xiaoji; newly collected poems outside the main collection were appended at the end.