Ming Shi 24/286/7349-50
Ho Ching-ming (He Jingming), whose informal name was Chung-mo (Zhongmo), was a native of Hsin-yang (Xinyang). In his eighth year, he could write poems and old-style essays. In the eleventh year of the Hung-chih (Hongzhi) reign [1498] he passed the provincial examination while only in his fifteenth year. The nobility and elite contended in chasing after him for a look, until the crowds of onlookers were like a dam. In the fifteenth year [1502] he placed in the chin-shih (jinshi) and was appointed a Secretariat Drafter. He joined with Li Meng-yang and others in promoting poetry and ancient prose. Meng-yang was the most bold and outstanding; Ching-ming emerged a little later and was his match.
With the inception of the Cheng-te (Zhengde) reign, Liu Chin (Liu Jin) seized power. [Ching-ming] sent a letter to Hsü Chin (Xu Jin), the Minister of Personnel, urging him in the strongest terms to maintain his control on policy without giving way, and consequently excused himself on grounds of illness and went home. After a year had passed, [Liu] Chin cashiered all those officials who had denounced him, and Ching-ming was dismissed. After Chin was executed, [Ching-ming] was restored to office on the recommendation of Li Tung-yang (Li Dongyang) and assigned to the Secretariat Proclamation Office.
When Li Meng-yang was jailed, no one dared to speak out, but Ching-ming submitted a letter to Yang Yi-ch’ing (Yang Yiqing), the Minister of Personnel, and came to Li’s defense. In the ninth year [of Cheng-te, 1514], on the occasion of the fire at the Ch’ien-ch’ing (Qianqing) Palace, his memorial spoke of adopted sons who should not be supported, frontier commanders who should not be kept on, foreign monks who should not be favoured, and eunuchs who should not be employed, but it was retained in the palace. After some time had passed, he was promoted to Vice-Director in the Ministry of Personnel, while still attached to the Proclamation Office. Ch’ien Ning (Qian Ning) wished to make friends with him and sought an inscription for an old painting, but Ching-ming said, “This is a famous work, not to be sullied by human hands.” He kept it for one year before rejecting and returning it.
He was soon after selected as Education Intendant for Shensi (Shaanxi). Liao P’eng’s younger brother, the eunuch [Liao] Luan, was in charge of Kuan-chung. He was very powerful, and his agents did not dismount when they encountered officials of the Three Commissions. Ching-ming seized and whipped them. In teaching students, he limited his scope to Classics as a basis for governance. He selected the best students for the Cheng-hsüeh (Zhengxu) Academy where he lectured on the Classics himself. He did not rely on the glosses and annotations of the various commentaries, so that the scholars understood for the first time what the study of the Classics really meant. At the beginning of the Chia-ching (Jiajing) era [1521] he went home, citing illness, and died soon after in his thirty-ninth year.
Ching-ming set the highest standards for himself, honouring self-control and the sense of right and despising wealth and advantage; like Li Meng-yang, he had the stature of a national figure. As writers, the two of them got on extremely well at first, but after their reputations were established, they began to attack one another. Meng-yang emphasised imitation while Ching-ming emphasised creation. Each planted his barricades and would not back down, and as a result their friends also took sides. His partisans said that Ching-ming’s talents were actually inferior to those of Meng-yang, but that his poems were outstanding and accomplished, so that in comparison to Meng-yang he was actually the better. All the same, everyone who discusses poetry and prose mentions them together as Ho and Li. They are also linked with Pien Kung (Bian Gong) and Hsü Chen-ch’ing (Xu Zhenqing) as the Four Talents. According to his poetics, poetry became weak with T’ao (Tao), and Hsieh (Xie) energetically animated it, so the norms [fa] of ancient poetry disappeared with Hsieh; prose became weak in the Sui, and Han energetically animated it, so the norms of ancient prose disappeared with Han. In compiling his Poems of Successive Reigns (Lieh-ch’ao Shih-chi) [Liechao shi ji], Ch’ien Ch’ien-yi (Qian Qianyi) forcefully denounced this.