Riding the wind of rebirth

In the Li Diaoyuan Anecdotes Exhibition Hall of the memorial hall, everyone learned about Li Diaoyuan's deeds and realized his greatness.

Li Diaoyuan, courtesy name Meitang, sobriquet Yucun, was intelligent and quick-witted from a young age. Influenced by his family's scholarly tradition, he entered a village school at the age of five, studying the Four Books and the *Erya*, memorizing them after a single reading. At nineteen, he displayed exceptional talent, excelling in writing and particularly skilled in calligraphy and painting. He studied at the Fujiang Academy, achieving first place in both the prefectural and provincial examinations. His elegant writing style led him to travel to the capital, where he exchanged poems with prominent officials and dignitaries, and his works became widely popular.

In the provincial examination of the twenty-fourth year of the Qianlong reign, the provincial education commissioner was "amazed by his writing...and ranked him first," and sent him to study at Jinjiang Academy, where he became famous for his writing.

In the twenty-fifth year of the Qianlong Emperor's reign, Li Diaoyuan failed the imperial examination. He then traveled to the capital with his father and was appointed to the Secretariat through the special imperial examination. He exchanged poems and essays with many famous scholars. He also studied painting under Lu Zhouchong. Because of his strong comprehension, he quickly mastered the techniques and spirit of painting and became proficient in ink and wash painting. He was nicknamed "Little General Li".

In the imperial examination of the 28th year of the Qianlong reign, the poetry topic was "Following the good is like climbing a mountain." Li Diaoyuan's poem contained the line "Looking up at Mount Tai with admirable conduct, laughing at Handan with imitative steps," which impressed the vice president, and he was once again ranked first. President Qin Huitian said, "This paper is full of talent and is the best, not just a piece by Yuan." He then changed it to second place.

He ranked eleventh in the second class of the imperial examination and entered the Hanlin Academy as a probationary official, which was a very high starting point for his official career.

Because of his upright character and fearlessness of authority, when he served as an assistant director in the Department of Performance Evaluation in the forty-second year of the Qianlong Emperor's reign, Li Diaoyuan refused to sign the official document issued by the governor of Hunan due to its inappropriate wording, earning him the nickname "Iron Assistant Director".

The Ministers of Personnel, Aguitang and Shuhede, were furious and, during their evaluation of officials in the capital, categorized Li Diaoyuan as "frivolous".

When Emperor Qianlong saw that the nineteen people listed in the register were all old and sick, except for Li Diaoyuan who was young and vigorous, he asked the Minister of Personnel, "Why is Li Diaoyuan so impetuous?" The Minister of Personnel replied, "He is too boastful." Emperor Qianlong smiled and dismissed the matter, and issued an edict ordering Li Diaoyuan to remain an Assistant Minister of Personnel.

In August of that year, Li Diaoyuan was promoted to the position of Provincial Education Commissioner of Guangdong. Before his departure, he was summoned by Emperor Qianlong, and his answers were pertinent, earning the emperor's repeated encouragement. In the forty-sixth year of Qianlong's reign, upon completing his term and returning to Beijing to report for duty, Emperor Qianlong again summoned him to the Hall of Diligent Governance, inquiring about the affairs of officials below the Governor-General and Governor of Guangdong. Li Diaoyuan answered truthfully, and Emperor Qianlong was very satisfied. The next day, he was appointed as the Military Commissioner of Tongyong in Zhili.

However, he offended Heshen again. The following year, when Li Diaoyuan was ordered to escort a copy of the Siku Quanshu (Complete Library of the Four Treasuries) to Shengjing, he encountered rain on the way, which soaked the yellow box. Heshen seized the opportunity to frame him and he was exiled to Yili, Xinjiang, to serve in the government.

Five years later, he was rescued from exile and recalled to his hometown, where he was dismissed from his post and reduced to a commoner.

Li Diaoyuan deeply felt the hardships and unpredictable nature of his official career, and thus gave up all ambition for advancement. When someone advised him to find a way to reinstate himself, he replied with a poem by Su Shi: "Even if I retire from the Luoyang Academy, I will still have twenty years of leisure." In his poem "Viewing Lotus Flowers at Little West Lake," he wrote: "Who opens the jade mirror to pour out the light of heaven, monopolizing the coolness of June in the human world? I long envy the mandarin ducks, pure to the end, enjoying the fragrance of lotus blossoms throughout their lives." He completely broke with officialdom, maintained his integrity, and devoted himself to writing until his death.

From then on, the world lost a vulgar bureaucrat, but gained a poet, drama critic, writer, calligrapher, and painter who loved nature, leaving behind countless interesting anecdotes.

He left behind more than 150 works, and later generations commented that "the richness of writings in Sichuan is unmatched after Fei Mi."

Sichuan is known for its many extraordinary talents, and Li Diaoyuan was one of them. His father, Li Huanan, was also a Jinshi (a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations) and served as a prefectural magistrate. He devoted his life to doing good deeds and was highly regarded for his political achievements. He authored books such as "Manuscripts of Ten Thousand Virtues," "Shiting Poetry Collection," and "Xingyuan Records." Because he lamented the scarcity of books in Sichuan, Li Huanan was particularly fond of collecting them. He spared no expense in acquiring rare and valuable editions from previous dynasties. While serving as magistrate and prefect in Zhejiang and Hebei, he extensively purchased precious books from both ancient and modern times.

Influenced by his father, Li Diaoyuan was also a book lover from a young age. His reading was extremely broad, encompassing all schools of thought, classics, history, literature, poetry, astronomy, and geography. When returning to Sichuan from a visit to his family in Zhejiang, he loaded books purchased by his father onto a ship and sailed thousands of miles back to his hometown to be stored in the library. After adulthood, purchasing rare and valuable books became his greatest passion; during his official career, "all his salary was used to buy books."

Because he had more opportunities to serve in the Hanlin Academy and the Ministry of Personnel than his father, Li Diaoyuan, in addition to his "book-buying addiction," also had an "obsession with copying books." He would borrow books from others' collections and copy them if his own family didn't have them.

During his tenure in the Ministry of Personnel and the Hanlin Academy, Li Diaoyuan took the opportunity to read extensively from the imperial classics and secret books in the imperial archives. He diligently read and copied them, and "as a result, almost every household had a copy of the secret books in the imperial archives."

During his imperial tours, although he could not bury himself in books, he still kept them in his hands whenever he had free time.

After Li Diaoyuan was dismissed from his official post, he lived in Xingyuan Garden, built by his father, Li Huanan. There, he constructed a building called "Wanjuanlou" (Ten Thousand Volumes Pavilion). He housed his lifelong collection, totaling one hundred thousand volumes, divided into forty cabinets of books: classics, history, philosophy, and literature, many of which were Song dynasty printed editions, with an abundance of manuscripts. Li Diaoyuan would climb the pavilion daily to proofread and collate books, never putting them down. His contemporaries called him "the foremost book collector in Western Sichuan."

The Wan Juan Lou collection of precious books was a major milestone in the cultural history of Sichuan at that time. The catalogue alone, "The Book Collection of the Li Family of Xichuan," contains a full ten volumes.

Li Diaoyuan also proudly recited a poem: "My family has a building to the east and north of the mountain, with ten thousand scrolls as majestic as the mountain."

With such a foundation, as well as his family's scholarly tradition, innate talent and unremitting efforts, he spent more than 20 years in seclusion at home writing and collecting books for his own enjoyment. He was determined to collect local documents from Sichuan and Chongqing, and finally, in the fifth year of the Jiaqing reign, he published his magnificent work, "Han Hai".

The Hanhai series contains 152 books, most of which are works by scholars from Sichuan. It is divided into 30 volumes. Volumes 1 to 10 contain books not seen by scholars from the Jin to Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties; Volumes 11 to 16 are dedicated to books written by Yang Shen of the Ming dynasty; Volumes 17 to 30 contain his own works and books that have been published by other scholars but have not been widely circulated.

In addition, there are "Tongshan Anthology", "Tongshan Poetry Collection", "Yucun Poetry Talks", "Chunweng Lyrics", etc., as well as the compilation of "Complete Poems of the Five Dynasties" and the folk song collection "Yue Feng". There are also "Collection of Books by Various Families" and "Collection of Paintings by Various Families", each in ten volumes.

If classified by category, apart from a small number of his works that are compilations of previous writings, including collation, editing and printing, most of his works are the result of Li Diaoyuan's many years of painstaking research.

In terms of content, it encompasses research findings from specialized fields such as archaeology, historical theory, geography, poetry and prose, phonetics, drama, opera, poetry and prose, epigraphy, calligraphy and painting, agronomy, onomastics, and folklore.

Despite his broad range of interests and complex research topics, he always approached his work with meticulous care and diligent study. Among his most valuable works are those on phonology, folk songs, proverbs, and the writings of ancient Sichuan scholars.

The works related to Zhouzhi University's majors alone include: *Yinbian* (音辨) in two volumes, *Shuyu* (蜀语) in one volume, *Zhuanzhu Guyin Lue* (转注古音略) in five volumes, *Guyin Houyu* (古音后语) and *Guyin Congmu* (古音丛目) in five volumes, *Guyin Lieyao* (古音猎要) in five volumes, *Guyin Fubu* (古音附附) in one volume, *Guyin Yu* (古音余) in five volumes, *Qizi Yun* (奇字韵) in five volumes, *Guyin Pianzi* (古音骈字) in five volumes, *Guyin Fuzi* (古音复字) in five volumes, *Xixing Lu* (稀姓录) in five volumes, *Guwen Yunyu* (古文韵语) in one volume, *Gujin Fengyao* (古今风谣) in one volume, *Gujin Yan* (古今言) in one volume, and *Shuowen Zhuanyunpu* (说文篆韵谱) in five volumes.

Based solely on Li Diaoyuan's works on the study of ancient Chinese characters and phonetics, Zhouzhi would have to respectfully bow and pay homage before his portrait, addressing him as "Senior and Master." (End of Chapter)