Writers › Writer / Poet
Yin Zhongwen
Eastern Jin man of letters and brother-in-law of Huan Xuan who served the usurper and was later executed under Liu Yu.
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 Yin Zhongwen, Governor of Dongyang
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.
Life and times
Dates Birth unknown; died 407 CE