Writers › Writer / Poet
Kong Rong
Twentieth-generation descendant of Confucius, chancellor of Beihai and one of the Seven Scholars of Jian'an, executed in 208
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 Kong Wenju · Kong Beihai · Prefect Kong · Jian'an Qizi Zhi Shou
Kong Rong, courtesy name Wenju, from Qufu in Lu, was a twentieth-generation descendant of Confucius, or the twenty-fourth by another account, and a writer of the late Eastern Han. He served as chancellor of Beihai, hence the name Kong Beihai, and later as minister of the privy treasury and grand palace counsellor. He kept open house for guests and recommended Mi Heng. Cao Pi's Discourse on Literature names him first among the Seven Scholars of Jian'an. Having repeatedly offended Cao Cao, he was executed in 208 on charges of sedition and impious talk, and his wife and children were killed with him. The source is his biography in the Book of the Later Han.
Life and times
Dates 153 - 208