Han Yi

Life and career

He passed the jinshi examination in the fifth year of Emperor Zhenzong’s Xianping era (1002) and became magistrate of Yongcheng in Bozhou. In 1005 he served as assistant prefect of Chen, Yun, and Xu; in 1010 he was appointed prefect of Yangzhou (洋州), later served as prefect of Xiangzhou, entered the central government as Shiyushi (侍御史), and became Transport Commissioner of Hebei.

Early in Emperor Renzong’s reign, he was appointed to the Zhishi Bureau and made prefect of Qingzhou, while concurrently holding the post of Sifeng yuanwailang with the duties of Shiyushi zhizashi. He enforced the law without sparing eminent figures. Accounts differ over the order of his Tiansheng-era appointments: one sequence places him as prefect of Qingzhou in 1024, judge of the Dali Temple in 1025, and Privy Council Academician in 1026; another has him as Longtuge daizhi in 1026, and in 1030 as Privy Council Academician and prefect of Yizhou, followed by appointment as Censor-in-chief.

In the second year of Jingyou, he served as Associate Commissioner of the Privy Council with the concurrent title Vice Minister of Works. In the fourth year of Jingyou (1037), he was appointed Minister of Revenue and Vice Councillor of State. The sequence of his dismissal and subsequent external appointments is disputed: one account says that he was dismissed over an incident in the first year of Baoyuan and sent out as prefect of Yingtian and commander of Chengde; another says that after dismissal he became prefect of Yingtian, was soon made Academician of the Zizheng Hall, and was sent out as prefect of Fuzhou, ending his career as Left Vice Director of the Shangshu Province. In the second year of Qingli (1042) he retired as Junior Guardian of the Crown Prince; he died in the eighth month of the fourth year of Qingli at the age of seventy-three.

Administration and policy

Because he was the son-in-law of Chancellor Wang Dan, Han Yi took several external appointments during Zhenzong’s reign to avoid suspicion and earned a reputation for good administration. When he served as Associate Commissioner of the Privy Council, he observed that peace had lasted so long that military preparedness had been neglected, and urged the selection and training of commanders and the compilation of military manuals for them; earlier, as Sifeng yuanwailang concurrently serving as Shiyushi zhizashi, he enforced the law without sparing eminent figures.

Family and associations

His great-grandfather was Han Weizhong, his grandfather Han Chujun, his father Han Baoshu, and his mother Madam Zhou. He first married a woman of the Pu clan and later a woman of the Wang clan, who died in 1027. His sons were 韓綱, 韓綜, 韓絳, 韓繹, 韓維, 韓縝, 韓緯, and 韓緬; his sons-in-law included Li Shu (李淑) and Su Shunbin (蘇舜賓).

Among the texts associated with his commemoration, Zhang Fangping wrote his epitaph and spirit-way stele, Su Shunqin wrote his biography and elegiac poems and lyrics, and Fan Zhongyan wrote a sacrificial text.

Works

Han Yi had a ten-volume collected works, now lost; three of his poems are recorded.