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ese pronounced exactly like Wang) after becoming a hermit at Mt. Luofu. Thus the foundation for a subsequent merger of the two "Yerens” was created. According to Soymie, "Le Lo-feouchan", pp. 110-111, another immortal of the mountain, Wang Tijing, was also occasionally referred to as Huang Yeren. Today, however, he seems to be totally disconnected from the "Yeren" figure,

21 Su Dongpo Ji [collected works of Su Dongpo], Shanghai, Shangwu Yinshu Guan (Commercial Press), 1933, Vol. 2, p. 58. In this volume there are numerous references (poems as well as letters and essays) to Luofu. Su Dongpo was exiled to Huizhou from the Song capital, and went to Luofu Mountain soon after (in 1094) arriving in Huizhou (this probably indicates the fame of Luofu among men of letters and politicians). What attracted him, no doubt, was the name of Ge Hong. Su is said to have spent about two years (of his four years in Huizhou) in Luofu. (Source: Luofushan Fengwuzhi, p. 105).

22 Guangdong Xinyu, Hong Kong, Zhonghua Shuju (Chung Hwa Book Company), 1975 (reprint), pp. 729-730.

23

The reference is in Tan Cui's work Chuting Baizhu Lu (Records of precious pearls from Chuting [old name of Guangzhou], reprinted in October 1982 by Guangdong Renmin Chubanshe). This work contains a rather detailed account of Luofu Mountain and most (possibly all) of the temples which existed in the mountain in the 18th century.

24 According to the Luofushan Fengwuzhi, the original temple at Luofu was built in 405 A.D., and was called Ge Hong Ci. Later in the early Tang, a large one called Ge Xian Ci was built. Another source (Lingnan Gu Jin Lu or Records of old and present Lingnan [Guangdong], edited by Xu Xu, well-known Guangzhou-based scholar, Hong Kong, Shanghai Book Company, 1984) states that a small temple was built at Luofu in 742 A.D., called Ge Xian Ci. During the Song dynasty, a Taoist temple was built, called the Duxu Guan, later renamed the Chongxu Guan. The deities worshipped in the central shrine of the temple (they have superseded Ge Hong, perhaps from as early as the Southern Han dynasty) are the three gods residing in the 35th (San Qing Tian) of the 36 heavens (Tianbao Jun, Taishang Daojun and Taishang Laojun). They are the mightiest among the "shenxians" (the fairies and saints [immortals]). They are normally understood by worshippers to be the Jade Emperor and his two closest officials.

25 We learned this from the interviews at Luofu, especially from an interview with Mr. Zhang Zongquan, the presiding Taoist at a smaller temple, the Jiutian Guan (devoted to Beidi, the "northern emperor"), on the plain near the mountain several kilometres from the main temple. Mr. Zhang had been an officer in the anti-Japanese forces of the area in the 1930's. The provincial Fengwuzhi (Guangdong Fengwuzhi, Guangzhou, Huacheng Chubanshe, 1985, p. 151) also mentions worship of Ge Hong together with worship of Huang Yeren and the mute tiger often mentioned in folk-tales. This account refers to the situation prior to the restoration.

26 See the picture of the Red Pine Fairy in Zhongguo Shenhua Chuanshuo Cidian (Dictionary of Chinese myths and legends), Shanghai, Cishu Chubanshe (Lexiographical publishing company), 1985, p. 185.

21 One Taoist whom we interviewed (see note 25) dismissed the importance of the differences in the biographies of the two Huangs with the remark that the spirit of Huang Chuping entered (or could enter) into the person of the later Huang Yeren. He was the only one we met who explicitly used this strategy to rationalize the merger of the two Huangs into one figure at the Chongxu Guan. It is possible that
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correspondence with Ruan Yuan, if such items are extant.

This paper is not a prosopographic study of a generation of mid-Qing scholars, but I need to involve all of them in order to come to certain conclusions about one of them.

Patronage of scholarship and learning during the mid-Qing

Providing scholars who did not have government offices or private income with a means of livelihood while pursuing their research and writing was not a practice unique to China, nor was it a new phenomenon of the mid-Qing era. Often, the individuals offering this support had been motivated by political considerations. Lynn Struve of Indiana University and Kent Guy of the University of Washington have recorded in English the result of their studies on early Qing patronage of scholarship and learning. Struve has found that the Kangxi Emperor commissioned major literary projects from roughly the 1680s through the 1710s, including the Ming Shi (Ming History), to legitimize the Qing rule by making use of scholars who were not officials. This tradition was followed by the Qianlong Emperor in such monumental compilation tasks as the Si ku chuan shu (Complete Library in Four Branches of Literature).

5

Literary works were produced under the patronage of individual scholar-officials as well. The Xu Brothers of the Kangxi era, who had several as chief editors of several imperially commissioned compilations, maintained a retinue of scholars. The most celebrated mid-Qing officials who were patrons of scholars were the Zhu Brothers. They gave scholars jobs on their personal staff, or in academic institutions, or an allowance while working on literary projects they sponsored. Zhu Yun (1729-1781), who was remembered for having suggested to the Qianlong Emperor the idea of the Si Ku Chuan Shu, and his younger brother, Zhu Gui (1731-1807), personal tutor to the Jiaqing Emperor, for instance, had on their staff at one time or another such scholars as Zhang Xuecheng (1738-1801), Shao Jinhan (1743-1809), Hong Liangji (1746-1809) and Ruan Yuan. Guy observed that

Although Chu's was the first group of this type of scholarly patronage to coalesce, such circles became a fairly common feature of the era's intellectual life. Among the most important successors of Chu's circle in this regard were the
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by combing through all of Ruan Yuan's publications, more than 30 published chronological biographies (lie zhuan) of Ruan Yuan of various lengths in Chinese; one essay each about him written in English, French, German and Japanese; numerous annotated catalogues of Qing writings; literally hundreds of biographies or biographical notes of Ruan Yuan's contemporaries who might have had an affiliation with Ruan Yuan; and as many informal writings by these scholars as I could locate and tolerate. I did not include anyone, no matter how well-known, whose association with Ruan Yuan appeared to be only incidental. For instance, I did not include Commissioner Lin Zexu (1785-1859) who paid a courtesy call on Ruan Yuan in Yangzhou after he was dismissed from office in 1840 or 1841.

I have found information on these 200 individuals, some more complete and others only sketchy. The main reason for their association with Ruan Yuan was a common interest in scholarly pursuits, encompassing calligraphy, textual criticism, ancient inscriptions, phonetics, etymology, historiography, poetry, and, in a less expected area for 18th and 19th century China, a concern for the environment, but Ruan Yuan also had among his associates people with lesser scholarly achievements, perhaps, but with greater claim to his largess, for instance, relatives, townsmen, and other scholars he had to accommodate.

Through Zhu Gui, Shao Jinhan (1743-1796) and Wang Niansun (1744-1832), had exposed the young Ruan Yuan to the new vistas of the School of Han Learning as well as the application of the empirical method devised by Dai Zhen (1727-1777) to investigate the Classics. Ruan Yuan was to become a powerful exponent of Han Learning. Bi Yuan had introduced to Ruan Yuan the excitement of studying ancient inscriptions on stone. Zhang Xuecheng had written to Ruan Yuan “about collecting antiquities in Zhejiang, an activity Ruan Yuan might be interested in in his leisure time.” Zhang also decried that "there were many libraries and a strong historical tradition (in Zhejiang in the past); many of the scholars who worked on the Yuan and Ming histories came from this area, and there were better historical collections here than elsewhere, But all is scattered and lost!" In time, Ruan Yuan was to cajole private collectors to preserve and catalogue their libraries, and looked for titles which had not been included in the Si ku chuan shu.

A number of senior scholars received largess from Ruan Yuan. Two
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