Feng Qi (馮琦; 1548–1603; another account gives 1558–1603) was a Ming official. His courtesy name was Yongyun (用韞), also written Zhuoan (琢菴); another account gives Zhuo’an (琢庵) as his hao, while Beihai (北海) and Zhuowu (琢吾) are also recorded as sobriquets. He was ranked second in his family and received the posthumous name Wenmin (文敏). He was a native of Linqu in Shandong, although Guangning Left Guard is also given as his ancestral place; another account dates his birth to 23 November 1558, the twenty-third day of the eleventh month in the Jia-jing wuwu year.
Family and examinations
Feng Qi belonged to the Feng lineage of Linqu and was a great-grandson of Feng Yu. His grandfather was Feng Weizhong, his father Feng Zilü, and his mother was of the Song family. His elder brother was Feng Zhang; his younger brothers were Feng Xun, Feng Yuan, Feng Xuan, Feng Ji, Feng Cong, Feng Sui, Feng Wan, and Feng Ke. His wife was Jiang.
Regarded as exceptionally bright in childhood, he could memorize a thousand words a day after beginning instruction. He was successively a student of the prefectural and provincial schools, a shengyuan, and a provincial recommended candidate ranked 117. In 1577, the fifth year of the Wanli era, he passed the examination in the second class, twenty-second place, on Shen Maoxue’s list.
Official career and policy
Feng Qi entered the Hanlin through the shujishi and was appointed bianxiu. He helped compile the Da Ming Huidian; when the work was completed, he was promoted to reader and assigned to the lecture court. His offices included Shao Zhanshi (詹事府少詹事), Right Vice Minister of Rites, Right Vice Minister of Personnel, and Reader in the Hanlin; the office of Vice Minister of Personnel is also recorded without the qualifier “Right.” He presided over the metropolitan examination, became Left Vice Minister, and was then promoted to Minister of Rites concurrently with a Hanlin academician. After Yu Jideng died in the twenty-eighth year of the Wanli era, Feng succeeded him as Minister of Rites.
As a Rites official, he submitted a memorial asking that the mining taxes be suspended and the tax supervisors recalled from the various regions, but the proposals failed. He also forcefully argued against the abuses of students’ devotion to Buddhism and requested that it be restricted. In the fifth month of Wanli 30, as Vice Minister of Rites, he submitted another memorial on the harm caused by the mining taxes, citing unrest, fires, the seizure of official buildings and revenue, and executions and confiscations in Yunnan, Guangdong, Shaanxi, the Huai regions, and Liaodong; he warned that the situation was disintegrating and disorder was imminent, but received no follow-up.
Feng Qi was deeply hostile to what he regarded as heterodox teachings in the intellectual world. He directed his criticism at Li Zhi, accusing him of abandoning Confucius and Mencius and denigrating Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi.
Associations and writings
Xu Xueju wrote a preface to one of his books, while Yu Shenxing and Li Weizhen wrote prefaces to his books; Yuan Hongdao was his pupil. Feng Qi also discussed learning with Matteo Ricci and exchanged letters with Feng Mengzhen, Wang Shizhen, Lü Kun, and Yu Jideng. His writing activities included composing epitaphs, biographies, sacrificial texts, lamentations, and tomb inscriptions for others, as well as prefaces, gifted poems and prose, and farewell writings.
His recorded works include Danranxuan ji (《淡然軒集》), Beihai ji (《北海集》) in forty-six juan, Jingji leibian (《經濟類編》) in one hundred juan, and Zongbo ji (《宗伯集》) in eighty-one juan. Jingji leibian is identified as a compilation, while Zongbo ji is identified as an authored work; he also took part in compiling the Da Ming Huidian.
Death and posthumous honors
In the thirty-first year of the Wanli era (1603), Feng Qi collapsed while attending a banquet held by Prince Fu. He returned home and soon became gravely ill; he was posthumously granted the rank of Grand Protector of the Heir Apparent and the name Wenmin.
References
- CBDB Feng Qi (123637)
- 搜韵 馮琦 (42656)