Jump to content

Page:A Chinese Biographical Dictionary.djvu/668

From Wikisource
This page needs to be proofread.
A Chinese Biographical Dictionary
649


Sabsequently he and Fan Yiin were the chief supporters of the founder of the Liang dynasty , by whom he was ennobled and appointed Lord High Chamberlain. He retired in ill-health , loaded with honours. Personally, he was remarkable for having two pupils to his left eye. He was a strict teetotaller, and lived most austerely. He had a library of twenty thousand Yolnmes. He was the author of the histories of the Chin, Liu Sung, and Gh4 dynasties. He is said to have been the first to classify the four tones. In his autobiography he writes, *^The poets of old, during the past thousand years, never hit upon this plan. I alone discovered its advantages.** The Emperor Wu Ti one day said to him, ^^Come, tell me, what are these famous four tones?" "They are ^ -^ ^ ^ whatever your Majesty pleases to make them,'* replied Shin Yo, skilfully selecting for his answer four characters which illustrated, and in the usual order, the. four tones in question (see Cftou Yung), Canonised as Sheng Hsiian-haai ^^^{T^^^l Bom A.D. 1848. A 1703 licentiate of Eiangsu , who came into notice as a Director of the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company and of the Imperial Chinese Telegraphs. In 1886 he Was appointed Taot'ai at Chefoo, and in June 1802, having previously obtained the button of the first rank for his large contributions to famine relief, he became Customs' Taot^ai at Tientsin. In June 1894, on the outbreak of war with Japan, he was nominated Director General of Army Transport and Commissioner in Korea; and in 1805 he was again Customs* Taot'ai at Tientsin. In 1896 he became sub-Director of the Court of Sacrificial Worship, and of late his name has been frequently mentioned in connection with railways and a national bank.

Sheng Tsimg. See Yeh-lti Lung-hsti.

Shih Chao ^ ^ (T. -^ EI^ ). 11th cent. A.D. A native of ji |lj "04 Itfei-shan in Sstlch^uan, whose father had been tutor to Su Shih and liis brother. He was a man of great learning, and author of the