Mao Kun

Life

His educational career included status as a shengyuan (生員) and qualification as a xianggong juren (鄉貢舉人); the associated rankings vary, giving 11 for the student rank and 13 for the provincial-degree rank, while another account calls him the eleventh candidate in Zhejiang. In 1538, the seventeenth year of the Jiajing reign, he passed the wuxu jinshi examination, ranking 171st in the third class.

His first appointment was as magistrate of Qingyang. After only two months, he returned home in mourning for his father, and his mother died soon afterward; when the mourning period ended, he was reappointed magistrate of Dantu. Next he served as secretary in the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Personnel, as assistant prefect at Guangping, and in the Ministry of War at Nanjing before returning to the Ministry of Rites. He also served as military commissioner in Guangxi and vice commissioner for military affairs at Daming; credited with suppressing a Yao uprising in Guangxi, he received the latter promotion and soon retired.

In 1557 he served on Hu Zongxian’s staff and, after retiring, lived at home for more than fifty years. His literary and official associations included Tang Shunzhi: he followed Tang, wrote a preface for one of Tang’s works, and exchanged letters with him; he also wrote a preface for a work by Shen Lian and sent Shen a letter.

His father was 茅遷 and his mother 李氏; his grandfather and great-grandfather were 茅珪 and 茅剛. His elder brother was 茅乾, and his younger brothers were 茅艮, 茅益, 茅應龍, 茅大有, and 茅應虎; his wife was 姚氏, and his grandson was 茅元儀 (1594–1644).

Literary thought and works

Kun was skilled in classical prose, followed Tang Shunzhi, admired the prose traditions of Han, Liu, Ou, and Zeng and the Su father-and-son writers, and also took an interest in military affairs. The anthology he compiled and selected appears under the titles 《唐宋八大家文鈔》 and 《唐宋八大家鈔》; completed in the second month of 1579, it had a major influence on the later history of literature.

His works include 《白華樓藏稿》, 《白華樓續稿》, 《白華樓吟稿》, 《玉芝山房集》, and 《史記鈔》, together with the titles 《白華樓》, 《玉芝山房》, and 《耄年》; a thirty-six-volume collection is titled 《茅鹿門先生文集》.

Later life

He died on 22 December 1601, corresponding to the twenty-eighth day of the eleventh month of the twenty-ninth year of the Wanli reign, aged ninety, and was buried at Jilong Mountain in Wukang, now Wukang Town in Deqing County.