Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period/Ai Nan-ying
AI Nan-ying 艾南英 (T. 千子, H. 天傭子), Dec. 30, 1583–1646, Sept. 19?, scholar, was a native of Tung-hsiang, Kiangsi, and a chü-jên of 1624. Because of statements in his examination papers which were taken as ridiculing the eunuch, Wei Chung-hsien [q. v.], he was debarred for three successive periods (nine years) from competing in the Metropolitan examinations. Three years later (1627), when the eunuch was deprived of power, Ai was permitted to participate, but without success. In 1645, when Nanking fell and Kiangsi was over-run by the Manchus, he raised a small army to block the invaders. Failing in this, he fled to Fukien and joined the court of the Prince of T'ang (see under Chu Yü-chien) at Yen-p'ing where he died the following year. His collected works, in ten chüan, 天傭子集, T'ien-yung-tzǔ chi, were published in 1699 by his grandson, Ai Wei-kuang (艾爲珖, b. 1632). A geographical work by Ai Nan-ying, entitled 禹貢圖注, Yü-kung-t'u chu, is given notice in the Imperial Catalogue. Both works were placed in the category of prohibited books, but both are extant—the latter appearing in the Hsüeh-hai lei-pien (see under Ts'ao Jung). Ai Nan-ying is said to have written many other works which were lost in the turmoil of the time. He achieved a reputation in his day as a master of the prevailing examination essay known as pa-ku 八股.
[M. 1/288/16b; M. 41/13/6a; M. 59/55/1a; Tung-hsiang hsien chih' (1805) 11/26a, 21/31a; T'ien-yung-tzǔ chi, with portrait and nien-p'u; Ssǔ-k'u (see under Chi Yün), 14/2b, 49/8b; Goodrich, L. C., Literary Inquisition of Ch'ien-lung p. 219.]
L. Carrington Goodrich