Ministers › Remonstrators
Zhang Jian
Eastern Han partisan who impeached the eunuch Hou Lan and, hunted in the Proscription of Factions, fled from door to door seeking shelter.
At dawn in a palace courtyard, a large drum hangs in a small roofed frame beside a red pillar, with a bound bundle of scrolls on a low stand in front; a stone balustrade leads toward a large hall in the mist, and a row of tiny people stands far away.
Also known as Zi Yuanjie · Zhang Yuanjie
- Roles
- Remonstrators
Zhang Jian, courtesy name Yuanjie, came from Gaoping in Shanyang. As a district inspector he impeached the palace eunuch Hou Lan and his mother for abusing the people and asked for Hou's execution, earning his lasting enmity. When the Proscription of Factions began he was accused of conspiracy and fled, seeking refuge at any door he saw; many households that sheltered him were ruined, and Kong Bao was put to death for it. After the ban was lifted he returned home, and early in the Jian'an era he was made commandant of the guards, dying a year later aged eighty-three. Tan Sitong's prison poem opens by recalling his flight.
Life and times
Dates 115–198 CE