Ge Shengzhong

Life

His father was Ge Shusi. His family relations also included his elder brother 葛次仲, wife 張濩, father-in-law 張磐, maternal uncle 侍其瑋, brother-in-law 施大倫, and maternal cousin 侍其鈜. His sons were 葛立方, 葛立中, and 葛立章; his sons-in-law included 許暘, 劉封, and 章倧, and his granddaughters' husbands included 章湜, 沈洵, and 張本.

He passed the jinshi examination in 1097 and later came first in the hongci examination. He then served as assistant judicial officer in Hangzhou, professor at the Yanzhou prefectural school, and senior at the Imperial University; in 1107 he became an examiner in the Institute for Calendar Deliberations while concurrently serving as a director of the Imperial Clan.

In 1108 he was promoted to an office in the Ministry of Rites, but was demoted to administer Xiuning County after the debate over the imperial ancestral temple; recalled in 1113, he became an administrator of the Imperial University the following year and its director in 1116, before being removed from office for remonstrating and assigned to the Jiangzhou Peace-Viewing Palace. His central career also included posts at the Court of Imperial Sacrifices and the Imperial Treasury, service as Director of the Imperial University and Right Instructor to the Heir Apparent, and the title of Academician-in-waiting at the Xianmo Pavilion.

In 1119 he became governor of Ruzhou; after refusing the eunuch Li Yan's land survey, he was transferred to Huzhou. In 1124 he was transferred to Dengzhou, then stripped of office and placed on a temple-stipend after his earlier opposition to Zhu Mian in Huzhou. Restored as governor of Huzhou in 1130, he faced a severe famine and distributed government grain to the people. He requested retirement with a temple stipend and returned home in 1131, and died in 1144 at the age of seventy-three, receiving the posthumous name Wenkang.

Scholarship and works

His scholarship was associated with Chunqiu learning; as an instructor to the heir apparent, he selected examples from the history of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods onward illustrating the virtues and faults, successes and failures of successive heirs apparent, and presented several cases each day.

Danyang ji originally comprised 80 juan, with a separate outer collection of 20 juan, and both were later lost; Qing editors reconstructed 24 juan from the Yongle dadian, including seven juan of poetry, and appended newly collected poems from outside the collection.

His ritual writings also included Zhenghe xu yinge li (300 juan, with a three-juan catalogue) and Taichang cishi yizhi gemu (48 juan, with a two-juan register); a continuation of Taichang yinge li is also listed among his works.