Eastern Jin man of letters and brother-in-law of Huan Xuan who served the usurper and was later executed under Liu Yu.
Mural guide
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.
Yin Zhongwen of Changping in Chen commandery, younger brother of Yin Ji, was gifted and handsome and married a daughter of Huan Wen. When Huan Xuan seized Jiankang he abandoned his post at Xin'an to join him, drafting the Nine Bestowments and abdication documents and rising to palace attendant. After Huan's fall he returned to the Jin court but, frustrated at being posted as governor of Dongyang, sank into gloom; the Book of Jin records him sighing before an old locust tree that it had no life left in it. He was executed for alleged treason in 407. Yu Xin's Rhapsody on the Withered Tree opens with this scene.
Yin Zhongwen was recommended by his cousin Yin Zhongkan to the Prince of Kuaiji, Sima Daozi, and made an aide on his Agile Cavalry staff, later an advisory aide. When Huan Xuan was about to rebel he made him Palace Attendant and commander of the Left Guard. After joining the righteous army he was chief clerk to the Garrison General, then Imperial Secretary, then suddenly Grand Administrator of Dongyang.
Jin