Qiu Jun

Life

He lost his father while young, and his mother, Li, taught him to read. His family was too poor to own books, so he once travelled several hundred li to borrow them; as an adult he mastered a wide range of books and was especially familiar with state institutions and precedents. His father was Qiu Chuan, his mother Li, his grandfather Qiu Pu, and his great-grandfather Qiu Junlu; he had a brother, Qiu Yuan, married Jin and then Wu, and had sons named Qiu Dun, Qiu Jing, Qiu Kun, and Qiu Lun.

In 1444 he placed first in the Guangdong provincial examination and became the jieyuan; in 1447 he entered the Imperial Academy. He passed the metropolitan examination in 1454: his placement is given as first in the second class or, alternatively, as chuanlu, while another listing gives him the thirty-fourth place among provincial recommended candidates.

Selected as a shujishi, Qiu Jun was appointed a Hanlin compiler and took part in compiling the Comprehensive Gazetteer of the Empire (《寰宇通志》). He later served as a Hanlin lecturer, lecturer-attendant, reader-attendant, Hanlin academician, classic-banquet lecturer, and palace-examination reader. From 1477 to 1480 he was libationer of the Imperial Academy; he then served as vice minister of rites, became minister of rites in 1487, and was deputy chief compiler of the Veritable Records of the Chenghua Emperor and superintendent of the Office of the Heir Apparent. In 1491, after 《大學衍義補》 was completed, he was granted the rank of Taizi Shaobao (elsewhere Taizi Taibao), concurrently appointed Grand Academician of the Wenyuan Pavilion, and admitted to participation in state affairs, an appointment described as the beginning of a minister of state entering the inner cabinet; he later received the rank of Shaobao and concurrently served as Minister of Revenue and Grand Academician of the Wuying Hall.

In 1493 illness of the eyes excused him from court attendance, and although an investigating censor impeached him on another matter, the Hongzhi emperor did not pursue the case. Qiu Jun died in office in 1495 at the stated age of seventy-six; he was posthumously made Grand Tutor and given the posthumous name Wenzhuang.

Scholarship and statecraft

Qiu Jun grounded learning in statecraft, holding that writing should be rooted in the Classics, learning should issue in practical use, and antiquity should be tested against the present. He mastered a wide range of books and knew the precedents of government especially well. He helped revise the Veritable Records of the Yingzong Emperor, in which he gave Yu Qian full credit; he also took part in compiling the Comprehensive Gazetteer of the Empire, the Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror in Outline, and the Veritable Records of the Xianzong Emperor, serving as the last work’s deputy chief compiler. He had a teacher–student relationship with Wang Zuo and once praised Chen Xuan as an ancient gentleman.

Literary work

Qiu Jun was also a poet. His poems included a piece on Five-Finger Mountain and poems written for Zhang Zhongshu’s mission to Korea, Chen Xiuzhuan’s mission to Goryeo, and Ling Shangbao’s mission to Jiaozhi; Korean visitors, struck by one of his allusions, exclaimed that poets of old had never used it. He was known as a distinguished academician in the Hanlin and a celebrated libationer at the Imperial Academy, with a reputation throughout the realm; criticism described his poetry as embracing both the elegant and the colloquial, accommodating different modes, and maintaining strict prosody.

Works

His chuanqi plays comprise Four Works: 《五倫全備忠孝記》, 《投筆記》, 《舉鼎記》, and 《羅囊記》, the last of which is now lost. His poetry and prose collections include 《瓊臺集》 and 《瓊臺會稿》, the latter also existing in a twenty-four-juan recension. His 160-juan 《大學衍義補》 expanded Zhen Dexiu’s 《大學衍義》 by drawing on a wide range of books; 《朱子學的》 is listed as a compilation by him.

Other listed works include 《鹽法考略》, 《錢法纂要》, 《洛陽貴尚錄》, 《上臺類稿》, the thirty-two-juan 《世史正綱》, 《丘文莊公文集》, the eight-juan 《家禮儀節》, the one-juan 《平定交南錄》, 《瓊臺吟稿》, the fifty-two-juan 《瓊臺類稿》, 《重編瓊臺會稿》, and the twenty-four-juan 《瓊臺詩文會稿重編》.