Writers › Writer / Poet
Chen Lin
Late Han writer from Guangling, one of the Seven Masters of the Jian'an era, who drafted Yuan Shao's denunciation of Cao Cao and later wrote dispatches for Cao himself
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 Kongzhang
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Chen Lin, courtesy name Kongzhang, came from Sheyang in Guangling and served as recorder to the general-in-chief He Jin, whom he warned in vain against summoning provincial troops to destroy the eunuchs. After He Jin's fall he took refuge with Yuan Shao and, before the battle of Guandu, wrote the proclamation against Cao Cao that listed the crimes of Cao, his father and his grandfather. When the Yuan house collapsed he went over to Cao Cao, who asked why he had attacked his forebears; Chen apologised, and Cao, valuing his talent, made him a secretary, so that many military and state dispatches came from his brush and Ruan Yu's. He died in the epidemic of 217, and Cao Pi's Letter to Wu Zhi mourns him with Xu Gan, Ying Yang and Liu Zhen, all lost that year. Cao Pi's Discourse on Literature (Dianlun lunwen) names him among the seven masters and singles out his memorials and letters as the best of the day.
Life and times
Dates Birth unknown–217 CE