Writers › Writer / Poet
Li Mengyang
Ming writer from Qingyang who led the Former Seven Masters in the call to write prose like the Qin and Han and verse like the High Tang, and was jailed more than once for attacking the powerful
In a study at night, a desk holds a brush pot, a porcelain vase with a plum branch, a lit red lantern, a folded fan and an unrolled blank scroll, with no one seated there, while through a round window the moon rises over a lake with a sailboat.
Also known as Zi Xianji · Haokong Tongzi
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Li Mengyang, courtesy name Xianji, styled Kongtongzi, came from Qingyang in present-day Gansu; he topped the Shaanxi provincial examination in 1493 and became a jinshi the next year, serving in the Ministry of Revenue. In 1505 he denounced Zhang Heling, the empress's brother, for harbouring thugs, and was briefly jailed; meeting the marquis in the street later, he struck him with his whip and knocked out two of his teeth. Early in the Zhengde reign he drafted the minister Han Wen's impeachment of the eunuch Liu Jin, who had him jailed and nearly killed until Kang Hai interceded. After Liu's fall he became education intendant of Jiangxi, lost the post in quarrels with local officials, and was later tried as an associate of the rebel Prince of Ning; he lived at home until his death in 1529. His slogan that prose should follow the Qin and Han and verse the High Tang made him the leader of the group later called the Former Seven Masters.
Life and times
Dates 1473 CE–1529 CE