Yan Ne

Also known as Zi Minqing · Hao Yangzhai

Yan Na, courtesy name Minqing, came from Changshu and gained his jinshi in 1541, entering the Hanlin Academy. When pirates and famine struck the Suzhou region, his memorial won the people tax relief. Serving with Li Chunfang in the Western Park as a writer of Daoist prayer texts, he was promoted rapidly and succeeded Guo Pu first as minister of rites and then as minister of personnel. After Yan Song's fall he ran appointments strictly, requiring officials to raise business at the court offices rather than call at private homes and promoting magistrates of proven merit regardless of their degrees. In 1565, when Yuan Wei left office, he entered the Grand Secretariat while still heading the personnel ministry, but overwork made him ill and he asked to retire in the eleventh month of that year. He never returned to office, dying at home twenty years later at seventy-four, with the posthumous name Wenjing.