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A Chinese Biographical Dictionary

did not invent, as is often stated, but improved and ultimately perfected the Eight Dispositions, a series of military tactics. He was generally regarded as a mechanical and mathematical genius, and one who could not only foretell the course of natural phenomena but even control them. His collected writings have been published in two thin volumes. He was ennobled as Marquis in A.D. 223, and canonised as 忠武; and in 1724 his tablet was placed in the Confucian Temple.


460 Chu Kuang-ch'ing 朱光卿. 14th cent. A.D. A rebel chief, who set up his standard of revolt towards the close of the Mongol dynasty, styling himself Emperor of the 大金國 Great Chin nation.


461 Chu Kuei 朱珪 (T. 石君. H. 南厓). A.D. 1781-1807. A native of Ta-hsing in Chihli, who was the youngest of four brothers, another of whom, Chu Yun, also became celebrated as a scholar and official. He graduated as chin shih in 1748; and in 1775, when Treasurer of Shansi, he was denounced for studying all day and recalled to be tutor to the young prince who subsequently reigned under the style of Chia Ch'ing. In 1790 he became Governor of Anhui; and five years later, while acting as Viceroy at Canton, he is said to have "turned back an English tribute-mission." What he appears really to have done was to return the gifts which the English mission had given to the former Viceroy and Hoppo, his action in which matter was approved by the venerable Emperor Ch'ien Lung only five days before his abdication. On the death of the Emperor Ch'ien Lung he became one of Chia Ch'ing's chief advisers, and in 1805 was made Grand Secretary. He was exemplary in all his family duties, and a stranger to corruption in every form. For the last forty years of his life, subsequent to the death of his wife, he lived alone, not even taking a concubine. Author of the 知不