Huang Jin

Also known as Zi Jinqing

Huang Jin, courtesy name Jinqing, came from Yiwu in Wuzhou, in present-day Zhejiang, and became a jinshi in 1315, starting as assistant magistrate of Ninghai. There he went about in disguise to uncover how a stepmother and a monk had poisoned her husband and blamed his son, and he saved more than ten young men from execution on a robbery charge that had no evidence behind it. He went on to posts in the salt administration and at Zhuji, then entered the capital as a Hanlin drafter and erudite of the Directorate of Education; at sixty-six he asked to retire early to care for his parent, but was later recalled as Hanlin expositor and co-editor of the national history. He died at home in 1357 at eighty, with the posthumous name Wenxian. With Liu Guan and Wu Lai of Pujiang he was among the best-known prose writers of Wuzhou, and both Song Lian and Wang Wei studied under him.