Fan Chengda: The Diplomat Who Defied an Emperor to His Face

Fan Chengda (1126 – 1193 AD) had one of the most accomplished careers of his era.

On his famous 1170 diplomatic mission to the Jin dynasty, his defiance caused the crown prince to demand his immediate execution.

But he was spared and even earned respect of the Jin emperor and his own Southern Song emperor.

He remains a giant figure in poetry, travel writing, and Song dynasty calligraphy.

Contents

Biography

Family background

Fàn Chéngdà (范成大), courtesy name Zhineng, was born in 1126 (June 26^th by the modern Western calendar) in Pingjiang (today a part Suzhou, Jiangsu Province).

His family were not particularly wealthy landed gentry, in a prosperous part of China.

His father, Fan Yu, passed the imperial examination the year before Fan was born, the first close family member to hold an official position. He found work in the relatively lowly position of assistant in the palace library.

(Despite this, the family claimed to have descended from the great Northern Song statesman, Fan Zhongyan (989 – 1052).)

And his mother was a descendent of the official Cai Xiang (1012 – 1067), one of the four great calligraphers of the Northern Song dynasty period.

The year after Fan Chengda was born, the northern half of the Song empire was annexed by the Jurchen (a non-Han Chinese ethnic group) Jin dynasty (1115 – 1234).

The Song dynasty capital then moved to Lin’an (today’s Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province), about 87 miles (140 km) south of Suzhou.

These events would define Fan’s times and career.

1126 – 1143: Childhood and youth

Fan’s home area was deeply affected by the warfare between the Song (retrospectively referred to as the Southern Song) and Jin dynasties.

Nevertheless, like many children of his class, he began formal education aged four years old to prepare for the imperial examinations.

This was one of the main paths to a career in the civil service, the most distinguished type of career in imperial Chinese society.

Fan got off to a promising start. He was said to be a precocious student who could compose good classical poetry by the age of 13. 

And when he was 17 years old, he married the daughter of a high official impressed with Fan’s literary talents.

Unfortunately, Fan’s parents passed shortly after his marriage. He had to abandon his studies to enter mourning and manage the household.

1144 – 1154: Mourning and isolation

It was custom for the scholar-official class to spend three years mourning for a parent in imperial Chinese history. This typically meant withdrawing from working in or seeking public office.

For Fan, this period extended to a decade. During this time, he oversaw his two younger brothers’ education and his two younger sisters’ marriages.

He also studied. Some of this took place at the Jianyan Monastery in Kunshan (in today’s Jiangsu Province), about 25 miles (40km) away from his hometown. 

He came into contact with many Buddhist monks and ideas here. He also read widely, including a lot of Tang poetry. 

And towards the end of this period, he studied for the imperial examination under the tutelage of the official Wang Bao (1098 – 1167).

Wang reminded Fan that his father, Fan Yu, had wished for his son to enter the civil service.

Fan passed the examinations in 1154, when he was 28 years old. (The average age to pass during the Song dynasty was 36.)

1155 – 1169: Early official career

Fan’s first appointment was as a Judicial Adjutant (司法参军事) of Huizhou (today’s Huangshan City, Anhui Province) in 1156.

He seems to have found the following few years difficult. A line from one of his poems during this time reads, ‘A government office anywhere is citadel of sorrow.’

Fortunately, he also met and was mentored by official Hong Gua (1117 – 1184) during this time. 

Hong, then the prefect of Huizhou, was also a noted literary figure. He was known for putting effort into developing and advancing subordinate officials’ careers.

Hong – and his brother, Hong Zun- helped Fan’s career progress.

In 1162, he was appointed to a post in the Revenue Section in the Southern Song capital, Lin’an (today’s Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province).

(In Hangzhou, he met another of the Hong brothers, Hong Mai. The same year, Hong Mai was sent on a diplomatic mission to the Jin dynasty. This was the non-Chinese-ruled dynasty that had taken the north of China from the Song dynasty a few decades earlier.)

Throughout this decade, Fan steadily rose through the official ranks from.

By 1167, he was appointed the prefect of Chuzhou (today’s Lishui, Zhejiang Province) about 270 miles (434 km) south of Lin’an.

His success here was so great that the emperor Xiaozong (r. 1162 – 1189) ordered them to be implemented across the empire. 

And the prime minister, Chen Junqing (1113 – 1186) promoted Fan to three simultaneous roles: 

• Imperial diarist
• Expositor-in-waiting
• Junior Compiler of the Histography Institute.

1170: Diplomatic mission to the Jin

Mission goals

Fan’s lead role in the 1170 diplomatic mission to the Jin was the defining success of his career.

The mission came five years after the historic peace treaty between the Southern Song and Jin dynasties. 

Fan’s main two objectives were to agree to:

• Return the land where the Song imperial tombs were. The tombs, in Gongxian (today’s Gongyi, Henan Province), had been desecrated by the Jin – a big taboo to the Song’s Confucian culture. For this, Fan had an official memorial to present.
• Remove the ritual of the Song emperor standing to receive communications from the Jin emperor. This was seen as humiliating to Song emperor. He planned to make the request in person with a private memorial – something against Jin law. 

Southern Song officials were divided about the treaty’s terms and the treaty itself. Debate was heated. After all, the consequences of mistakes could be enormous.

The emperor, aware of the tense situation, requested an audience with Fan. They discussed the controversy around the mission. 

Fan is reported to have said: 

Sending me as an ambassador for no specific purpose [such as conveying birthday or New Year’s greetings to the Jin emperor] may appear a provocation of warfare, and if I am not killed, I may be taken prisoner, but I have already designated an heir and put my family affairs in order in case I cannot return, and my mind is at peace.

– Quoted in Stone Lake: The Poetry of Fan Chengda, 1126 – 1193 by J. D. Schmidt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 12

Xianzong was moved. This statement signalled Fan’s bravery and loyalty to the emperor. The latter was (and is) a key principle in the Confucian Song state.

In the Jin palace

Fan travelled approximately 800 miles (or 1,300 km) from Lin’an to the Jin capital of Zhongdu (today’s Beijing).

At the Jin palace, Fan – as planned – submitted the official memorial (according to protocol) and then his private memorial (against protocol).

His response to be reprimanded for the latter was to say that as he would die if he didn’t do it when he returned to Lin’an, he might as well die in Zhongdu.

He also stayed on one knee rather than bowing. When his hosts angrily questioned him on this, he stated that he would bow 100 times if his private memorial was accepted.

The Jin emperor’s brother, the Crown Prince, wanted to Fan to be executed there and then. But the emperor himself, impressed with Fan’s bravery, did not allow this.

Fan failed to achieve the admittedly difficult task set for him. But when he returned home, he had won the admiration of both the Jin and Southern Song emperors.

He wrote an account of his mission, Record of Holding the Reigns (揽辔录), and was promoted to the position of drafter in the Secretariat (中书舍人).

1171: Leaving the capital

Fan didn’t get to bask in the success of his mission for long. 

The upright and forthright manner than had served him so well on his mission to the Jin was less welcome back in the Southern Song court.

He was the only official to directly oppose the appointment of one of the emperor’s in-laws (Zhang Yue) to notary of military affairs. 

Fan objected by refusing to draft (as his position required) the documents required to formalise this. He wrote to the emperor explaining why Zhang was not suitable for the role.

Although this action prevented Zhang from gaining the position, it made Fan’s own situation tenuous. 

Before long, he wisely requested to be moved away from the capital. This was granted.

1172: Building Stone Lake

Before Fan travelled to his next post, he stopped off near his home in Suzhou.

Here, he built his famous Stone Lake (石湖) residence and its surrounding gardens. 

He would return to this property later in life, and it would eventually come to be strongly associated with Fan and some of his greatest poetry.

China had long had a tradition of garden building. Many scholar-officials (and others) enjoyed retreating to their gardens and hosting social gatherings there, too. 

Famous Tang dynasty poets, like Wang Wei (ca. 701 – 762 AD) and Bai Juyi (772 – 846 AD), famously wrote about the beauty of and their attachment to their personal gardens.

During this year of residing at Stone Lake, Fan was visited by the poet Zhou Bida (1126 – 1204).

1173 – 1174: Guilin

Fan was appointed the strategic inspector (经略安抚使) for Guanxi. 

This role was based in Guilin, just over 800 miles (1,300 km) away the capital, on the south-west fringe of the empire.

Travelling there was an arduous undertaking. Landscapes and weather along the route changed dramatically. It inspired Fan to write another travelogue, Record of Mounting a Phoenix (骖鸾录).

And shortly afterwards, in 1175, he would write up an account of his time in Guilin, Treatise of the Supervisor and Guardian of the Cinnamon Sea (桂海虞衡志).

始余自紫薇垣出帅广右，姻亲故人张饮松江，皆以炎荒风土为戚。余取唐人诗考桂林之地，少陵谓之“宜人”，乐天谓之“无瘴”，退之至，以湘南江山胜于骖鸾仙去。则宦游之适，宁有逾于此者乎？既以解亲友而遂行。
When I left the Residence of the Celestial Emperor, before heading to Guangyou, in-laws and close friends held a drinking party in a tent by the Pine River. They were all concerned about the heat and bleak conditions [of Guilin]. I consulted Tang on Guilin’s geography.
Shaoling [Du Fu (712 – 770 AD)] said it was “suitable for people”.
Letian [Bai Juyi (772 – 846 AD)] referred to it as “not unhealthy”.
Tuizhi [Han Yu (768 – 824 AD)] even said the rivers and mountains south of the Xiang River are superior to mounting a mythical horse to ride off to the land of immortals.
What better place could an official hope to travel to?
After parting with my relatives and friends, I set out on my journey. 

– Fan Chengda, from the preface of ‘Record of Mounting a Phoenix’ (骖鸾录)

The Jiangnan region Fan was from (which included Suzhou and the capital) had (and has) flat terrain and many networks of manmade canals.

Guilin was (and still is) full of dramatic and dreamlike valleys and mountains.

Fan’s work here was very different what he had recently done in the capital and on his diplomatic mission.

His main concern early on, for example, was repairing a broken dyke.

1174 – 1177 : Sichuan 

In late 1174, Fan received his highest appointment to date as the military commissioner (制置使) of Sichuan. 

His attempt to turn down the role was refused. It meant another long and difficult journey, this time of around 620 miles (1,000 km) northwest from Guilin to Chengdu in Sichuan.

His official work here was considered a success. He reduced taxes on rice and wine, fortified fortresses and oversaw military action against border raids by nearby tribes.

This period is also famous for Fan’s friendship with the great poet (and calligrapher) Lu You (1125 – 1210).

The two had met twice briefly before, in Lin’an and Zhenjiang (Jiangsu Province). But it was in Sichuan that they spent more time together and exchanged artistic and political views as well as poems.

Whilst they had a lot of views in common, their temperaments were vastly different. 

Fan was calm and drawn to a quiet, contemplative life (during his stay in Sichuan he became more interested in Buddhism). Lu You was outspoken and drawn to action – he longed to be involved in a military re-conquering of northern China.

1177 – 1180 : Home and Lin’an

Although he was only about 51 years old, Fan’s health began to deteriorate in 1177. He requested retirement from his position in Chengdu and it was granted.

He headed back towards his home in Stone Lake, about 1,200 miles (2,000 km) away. Along the way he wrote another excellent travelogue, Record From a Boat in Wu (吴船录).

Within a year his health recovered and he ended his retirement. He worked for less than a year as the provincial minister of the Ministry of Rites (礼部尚书) back in the capital, Lin’an. 

However, he didn’t last long. Unlike what Lu You’s above poem stated, he found that he had many enemies in court. One of these was the emperor’s in-law, Zhang Yue, who Fan had previously advised the emperor against promoting.

Less than a year after leaving retirement, Fan retired again, returning to Stone Lake.

1181 – 1183: Mingzhou and Jiankang

Fan worked briefly in the coastal city of Mingzhou (today’s Ningbo, Zhejiang Province) in 1181, before being appointed military commissioner of Jiangnan East Circuit (江南东路安抚使) in Jiankang (today’s Nanjing, Jiangsu Province).

Once he took up this latter post, the Emperor Xiaozong gifted him with imperial calligraphy on silk that read ‘Stone Lake’. Fan would later have this calligraphy inscribed on a rock at Stone Lake.

These were difficult years for the city and its surrounding region. Famine broke out, followed by violent banditry. Fan worked hard at relieving these issues before his health worsened.

It took him five requests for retirement for the emperor to accept. He could finally return to Stone Lake.

1183 – 1193: Final years in Stone Lake

Due to his poor health, Fan’s final years were spent almost exclusively at home in Stone Lake. 

He continued to write poetry, practice calligraphy, and receive visits from friends. One of these was the great poet and calligrapher Jiang Kui (ca. 1155 – ca. 1221).

A couple of brief breaks in this rest came. One was a short-lived appointment as prefect of Fuzhou in 1189, which he was too unwell with abdominal pains to undertake.

(Xiaozong had abdicated in the same year, in favour of his third son, Guangzong (r. 1189 – 1194), who had appointed Fan).

And in 1192, he was appointed prefect of Taipingzhou (today part of Zhenjing, Jiangsu Province). 

Sadly, one of his daughters died the same year and, distraught with grief, he retired for the final time. 

Throughout this period, he still received imperial favour. In 1189, he was a granted the title of First Marquis of Wu County (吴郡开国侯). And in 1192, he was given the title grand academician of the Hall for Aid in Governance (资政殿大学士).

And, after Fan died, aged 68, on October 1^st, 1193, further posthumous titles were granted.

He was buried in his native area, beside Chi Mountain near the town of Zhide (today’s Jurong, Jiangsu).

Fan’s calligraphy

Fan is considered one of the greatest calligraphers of the Southern Song period.

However, his only surviving works are:

• Colophon to Fishing Village at Mount Xi Sai (see below)
• Colophon to Scholars of Northern Qi Collecting Texts
• Colophon to Huang Tingjian’s Handscroll of Small Regular Script (regular-running script [行楷])
• Several cursive script letters, including Thanks for the Fish and Other Gifts (see below).

Fan’s calligraphy was largely modelled on:

• The Northern Song calligraphers Mi Fu (1051 – 1107 AD) and Huang Tingjian (1045 – 1105 AD)
• The Tang dynasty calligrapher Yan Zhenqing (709 – 785 AD).

The art historian Shen Fu (1936 – 2024) wrote of Fan’s style:

Fan’s brushwork exhibits the variations and of pace and pressure characteristic of Mi Fu. However, Fan’s brush plays flatly outward, in the diagonals, hooks and verticals; he shows little concern for the individual balance of characters or the perfections of stroke forms, preferring clear columns and spacious margins. In contrast, Mi’s brushwork is rounder and more complex in its refinement. Fan has grasped his predecessor’s forms, but has chosen to develop art in a more personal way.

– Shen Fu, Traces of the Brush: Studies in Chinese Calligraphy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), p. 129

Fan’s contemporary and friend, Jiang Kui, once noted that although Huang Tingjian’s influence had lived in into the Southern Song period, there was nothing worth looking at since.

A consensus along these lines lasted until the modern period. However, many have found charm in the informal, free-flowing work of Fan and many of his contemporaries, too.

The modern art historian Cao Baolin remarked:

It seems that even in the leisure of his retirement years, he [Fan Chengda] did not consider it [calligraphy] a serious subject for study. Fan Chengda was the kind of person who did calligraphy by relying on his natural gift, and whose aim was simply to cater to popular taste.

– Cao Baolin, in Chinese Calligraphy (edited by Ouyang Zhongshi and Wen C. Fong) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 274

Thanks for the Fish and Other Gifts (1181)

Cao Baolin called this piece “the loveliest” of Fan’s calligraphic works.

Colophon to Fishing Village at Mount Xisai (1185)

Fan’s colophon to the painting Fisherman’s Lodge at Mount Xisai is the largest piece of his surviving calligraphy.

The painting (西塞渔社图) it is attached to was previously attributed to Wang Shen (ca. 1048 – ca. 1103 AD), but is now attributed to Li Jie (ca. 1124 – after 1191 AD).

Li painted it around the year 1170. It depicts an imaged projection of where he planned to retire to. (Unfortunately for Li, it would not be until 1194 that he was able to retire).

This scene was greatly inspired by a tradition often traced back to the Tang dynasty poet and painter Wang Wei’s (ca. 701 – 761 AD) painting of his retreat, Wangchuan Villa.

Li collected several colophons from friends for his painting, including:

• Hong Mai (1123 – 1202): Special envoy to the Jin dynasty in 1162 and sub-chancellor of the Halin Academy
• Zhou Bida (1126 – 1204): Song dynasty prime minister in 1187
• Wang Lin (1128 – 92): Song dynasty prime minister in 1190
• Zhao Xiong (1129 – 1193): Envoy to the Jin and Song prime minister in 1178.

And others.

Fan’s colophon is placed first (i.e., on the left, closest to the end of the painting), which makes it the most prominent.

In it, Fan recalls meeting Li in the 1150s (over 35 years ago at this point) and their shared longing for retirement back then.

It then anticipates his own health returning, a point that reminds us (whether Fan meant it to or not) of how remarkable this piece is, given his poor health.

It’s difficult to read the poem without thinking of the poet Tao Yuanming’s (365 – 427 AD) influence. Tao’s work, popular with the literati since the Tang times, was famous for its emphasis on pleasures of rustic reclusion.

Fan’s brushwork here also reflects the simple, straightforward manner of rural life. Plain, uneven strokes amble across the scroll in uniform columns.

As the piece nears its end, the script matches the excitement and anticipation of the content by becoming more cursive and larger.

The text reads:

始余筮仕歙掾，宦情便薄，日思故林；次山时主薄休宁，盖屡闻此语。後十年，自尚书郎归故郡，遂卜筑石湖；次山适为昆山宰，极相健羡，且云：亦将经营苕霅间。又二十年，始以《渔社图》来。噫！余虽蚤得石湖，而违己交病，奔走四方，心剿形瘵，其获往来湖上，通不过四、五年。今退闲休老，可以放浪丘壑，从容风露矣。属抱衰疾，还乡岁馀，犹未能一迹三径间，令长鬚捡校松菊而已。次山虽晚得渔社，而强健奉亲，时从板舆，徜徉胜地，称寿献觞，子孙满前，人生至乐，何以过此？余复不胜健羡，较次山畴昔羡余时，何止相千万哉！尚冀拙恙良已，候桃花水生，扁舟西塞，烦主人买鱼沽酒，倚棹讴之，调赋沿溪，词使渔童樵青辈，歌而和之。清飚一席，兴尽而返。松陵具区，水碧浮天，蓬窗雨鸣，醉眠正佳，得了此缘，亦一段奇事。姑识卷末，以为兹游张本。淳熙乙巳上元，石湖居士书。

When I first served as a subordinate official for the prefect of Shexian, my desire for official was waning and I was daily thinking about my hometown. Back then, I often spoke of this with Cishan [Li Jie], who was then a subordinate official in Xiuning. 
   10 years later, I resigned from my position as assistant minister and returned home, where I built my Stone Lake home. Cishan [Li Jie], envied my position and stated that he would his own retreat between the Shao and Zha streams.
20 years later, he showed me this Fishing Villa painting. Oh! Although I had already built my Stone Lake, I continued to busily rush about [for work], tired and unwell. I only got to stay at Stone Lake for no more than four of five years. 
   Now that I am retired and elderly, I am free to be in the valleys and mountains, to enjoy the breeze and the dew. 
   However, I am infirm and unwell. I have been home for a year but I still can’t walk along the paths of my garden. I need my servant to take care of the pines and chrysanthemums. 
   Although this fishing lodge was built late, [Li has] good health and filially supports his parents. 
   He sometimes travels in his mother’s carriage around scenic spots. In front of his children and grandchildren, he toasts to his mother with wine, wishing her a long and happy life. How happy can someone’s life be?! I am more envious [of Li] than vice versa!

I hope my health recovers, so that when peach blossoms bloom and streams flow, I can take a boat to Xisai and trouble [Li] to buy fish and wine. We’ll write and sing poems set to fisherman’s tunes, about sailing the streams. And we’ll invite fisherman and woodcutters to sing these poems with us. We’ll enjoy the crips breeze and and then return. Whilst sailing Songling on Lake Tai, emerald waters will descend to the skies. And as the sound of rain beats on [our boat’s] thatched windows, we can get drunkenly doze off. 
   How wonderful it will be if all of this happens! I am writing this down on the end of a handscroll, as I anticipate the real journey. 
   Written by Shihu-zhushi [Fan Chengda] on the 15^th day of the first month of the Yisi year in the Chunxi reign [1185].

– Fan Chengda, ‘Colophon to Fisherman’s Lodge at Mount Xisai‘