Dai Liang

Life

Dai Liang's father was Dai Xuan (戴暄, 1284–1350), and his mother was Liu Jin (劉錦, 1280–1338). His elder brother was recorded as Dai Shiyao (戴士垚, 1307–1349), also written 戴士堯, and his elder sister was Dai Ruyu (戴如玉, 1303–1370). His father-in-law was Zhao Bijun (趙必俊); his concubine was Li (李氏, 1347–1366). He had a daughter, Dai Feng (戴鳳, 1341–1379), two sons-in-law, Zhang Qi and Ni Zuo, and two sons, Dai Li and Dai Le.

As a young man, he began the examination curriculum but soon abandoned it. He studied classical prose with Huang Jin (黃溍), Liu Guan (柳貫), and Wu Lai (吳萊), and poetry with Yu Que (余闕), receiving instruction from all of them. He first served as head of the Yuequan Academy and also held the post of 書院直學 in Haiyan Prefecture.

In 1358, after Zhu Yuanzhang took Jinhua, he summoned Dai Liang to lecture on the Classics, history, and the principles of government, appointed him xuezheng (學正), and soon afterward Dai Liang left the post. In 1361, in the Xinchou year of the Zhizheng era, he was recommended for and appointed to the post of Confucian Education Supervisor for the Huainan–Jiangbei area of the Regional Secretariat (淮南江北等處行中書省儒學提舉).

As political conditions deteriorated and he saw no way to carry out his aims, he withdrew to Wu and took refuge with Zhang Shicheng. When Zhang's defeat seemed imminent, Dai Liang took his family by sea to Deng and Lai; he intended to join Kuo Kuo's forces, but blocked routes left him living in Changle (昌樂). After the Yuan fell, he returned south, changed his name, and lived in seclusion in the Siming Mountains. There he joined local scholar-elders who had taken refuge in the region for banquets and poetry; when wine flowed, they beat time and sang, and listeners found the gatherings both sorrowful and stirring.

In 1382, the Hongwu Emperor summoned him to the capital, tested him with several prose compositions, lodged him at the Huìtóng Hall (會同館), and had senior officials provide him with food, intending to appoint him. Dai Liang firmly declined on grounds of age and illness; he was held to account for offending the emperor, with another account saying that he was imprisoned. In April of the following year (1383), he died at his lodging at the age of sixty-seven; another account says that he killed himself a year later.

Learning and works

Dai Liang was learned in the Classics, histories, and the hundred schools, and also studied medicine, divination, Buddhism, and Daoism. His poetry was praised for its elevated and vigorous character. After the fall of the Yuan, his poems often expressed remembrance of the former state and its former ruler, with a forthright, frustrated tone; Wang Hui described his verse as substantial yet expansive, concise yet dense, leisurely without strain, and tranquil without constraint, tracing it to the surviving Han and Wei manner while forming a style of its own.

His works include the Jiuling Shanfang ji (《九靈山房集》), also found under the title Jiuling Shanren ji (《九靈山人集》); its length is given variously as thirty or twenty juan. Other recorded titles include 《九靈山房遺稿》, 《治平類要》, 《制平類要》, 《春秋三傳纂玄》, 《春秋經傳考》, and 《和陶詩》。