Ye Fang'ai (, 20 May 1629 – 3 June 1682) was a

Han Chinese The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive va ...

official during the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

Biography

Ye came from a scholarly family in

Kunshan Kunshan is a county-level city in southeastern Jiangsu province with Shanghai bordering its eastern border and Suzhou on its western boundary. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Suzhou. Name There is a strong pos ...

Jiangsu Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, Postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an Eastern China, eastern coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is o ...

. His father, Ye Chonghua, was a ''

jinshi ''Jinshi'' () was the highest and final degree in the imperial examination in Imperial China. The examination was usually taken in the imperial capital in the palace, and was also called the Metropolitan Exam. Recipients are sometimes referre ...

'' of 1628 who served as an official in

Shandong Shandong ( , ; ; alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilizati ...

and

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

during the waning years of the

Ming Dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

. Ye took the

imperial examination The imperial examination (; lit. "subject recommendation") refers to a civil-service examination system in Imperial China, administered for the purpose of selecting candidates for the state bureaucracy. The concept of choosing bureaucrats by ...

in 1659 and was awarded a ''jinshi'' degree. He also had the distinction of being the ''tanhua'' of his year, the ''jinshi'' who ranked third overall in the final stage of exams. Ye was subsequently appointed as a second-class compiler. In 1661, Ye was temporarily dismissed from office after being implicated in the “Taxation Case of Jiangnan” (江南奏銷案‎) along with 13,800 people from Jiangsu. Ye was dismissed on a technicality since he only owed one li of silver. He was later pardoned and returned to office. Ye continued climbing the ranks of the civil service, becoming an expositor and then a reader in the

Hanlin Academy The Hanlin Academy was an academic and administrative institution of higher learning founded in the 8th century Tang China by Emperor Xuanzong in Chang'an. Membership in the academy was confined to an elite group of scholars, who performed sec ...

in 1676. The following year, Ye began supervising the compilation of ''Xiaojing yani'' (孝經衍義), which was a work that expanded on the

Classic of Filial Piety The ''Classic of Filial Piety'', also known by its Chinese name as the ''Xiaojing'', is a Confucian classic treatise giving advice on filial piety: that is, how to behave towards a senior such as a father, an elder brother, or a ruler. The tex ...

. In 1678, he then became a director-general in charge of the compilation of the ''Huangyu biao'' (皇輿表‎), a work concerning the official geography of the

Qing Empire The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

. Alongside

Chen Tingjing Chen Tingjing (, 31 December 1638 – 23 May 1712) was a Han Chinese politician and scholar who served as tutor to the Kangxi Emperor and was chief editor of the Kangxi Dictionary. Biography Chen Jing was born in Zezhou in Shanxi province. H ...

, Ye was summoned to serve in the Imperial Study in the summer of 1678 before becoming chancellor of the Hanlin Academy and vice-president of the

Board of Rites The Ministry or Board of Rites was one of the Six Ministries of government in late imperial China. It was part of the imperial Chinese government from the Tang (7th century) until the 1911 Xinhai Revolution. Along with religious rituals and cour ...

concurrently. In 1679, Ye was among the four scholars chosen to take a set of special examinations called the ''boxue hongci''. He then became a director-general, supervising the compilation of the

History of Ming The ''History of Ming'' or the ''Ming History'' (''Míng Shǐ'') is one of the official Chinese historical works known as the ''Twenty-Four Histories''. It consists of 332 volumes and covers the history of the Ming dynasty from 1368 to 1644. It ...

. Ye was appointed junior vice-president at the

Ministry of Justice A Ministry of Justice is a common type of government department that serves as a justice ministry. Lists of current ministries of justice Named "Ministry" * Ministry of Justice (Abkhazia) * Ministry of Justice (Afghanistan) * Ministry of Just ...

in 1681 before dying the following year. He was honoured with the posthumous name ''Wenmin'' (文敏), an exceptional honour given that Ye never reached the presidency of a Board.

References

{{China-politician-stub Qing dynasty government officials