Writers › Writer / Poet
Zeng Ji
Early Southern Song poet, Layman of Tea Mountain, who rose to Academician of the Fuwen Pavilion and fell out with Qin Gui; Lu You studied poetry under him.
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 Courtesy name Jifu · Layman of Tea Mountain
Zeng Ji, courtesy name Jifu and sobriquet Layman of Tea Mountain, came from Ganzhou, Jiangxi, and wrote across the Northern-Southern Song transition. He entered office through hereditary privilege and was granted the jinshi rank; at the end of the Northern Song he supervised the salt and tea monopoly in eastern Huai, and early in the Southern Song served as fiscal commissioner of Guangxi, judicial commissioner of Jiangxi and western Zhejiang, and prefect of Taizhou. Out of favour with Qin Gui he was dismissed, then recalled. In old age he held the rank of Academician Awaiting Orders of the Fuwen Pavilion and retired as Grand Master for Court Deliberation. His Chashan Ji in eight scrolls was reassembled by Qing editors from the Yongle Encyclopedia. Lu You was his student.
Life and times
Dates 1084 CE–1166 CE