Writers › Writer / Poet
He Ning
Five Dynasties scholar-official who served five regimes, became chief minister of the Later Jin in 940, and was nicknamed the Song-Lyric Minister
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 Chengji
He Ning, courtesy name Chengji, came from Xuchang in Yunzhou and passed the jinshi examination in 916 at nineteen. He joined the staff of Tianping governor He Gui, and when He Gui's army was routed he covered his retreat with a bow, after which He Gui gave him a daughter in marriage. Under the Later Tang he served as censor, secretariat drafter and Hanlin academician and supervised the examinations, and in 940 the Later Jin made him chief minister; the Later Han named him grand tutor to the heir and Duke of Lu, and he died of a back abscess in 955 under the Later Zhou. According to the Northern Dreams notebook (Beimeng suoyan), his youthful song lyrics reached even the Khitan, who called him the Song-Lyric Minister, and in high office he had copies gathered up and burned. He wrote a hundred Palace Poems and, with his son He Meng, compiled the Collection of Doubtful Cases (Yiyu ji), a casebook of difficult trials.
Life and times
Dates 898 CE–955 CE