Fan Chengda

Also known as Zi Zhineng · Hao Shi Hu Ju Shi · Shi Hu · Shi Wenmu

Fan Chengda, courtesy name Zhineng, sobriquet Shihu Jushi, came from Wu county in Pingjiang and passed the jinshi examination in 1154. On an embassy to the Jin in 1170 he asked for the return of the Northern Song imperial tombs and, on his own initiative, presented a request to change the protocol for receiving Jin edicts; the Jin court nearly detained him, but he came home with his mission's honour intact. He went on to govern Guilin and Chengdu as commander in Sichuan and in 1178 served two months as assistant chief councillor. Retiring to Stone Lake near Suzhou, he wrote in 1186 his sixty *Seasonal Pleasures of Fields and Gardens* (*Sishi tianyuan zaxing*) on the farming year. He died in 1193 at sixty-eight and was named Wenmu. He is grouped with Lu You, Yang Wanli and You Mao as the four great poets of the Southern Song revival.