Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period/Chiao Hung
CHIAO Hung 焦竑 (T. 弱侯, H. 澹園 and 漪園), 1541–1620, Ming scholar and bibliophile was a native of Chiang-ning (Nanking). His father migrated to Nanking as a military officer of low rank from Jih-chao, Shantung. In his youth Chiao Hung studied under Kêng Ting-hsiang 耿定向 (T. 在倫, 1524–1596, chin-shih of 1556) and acquired a reputation for wide learning which began in his student days. Passing as chuang-yüan or optimus in the palace examination of 1589, he was made a Hanlin compiler of the first class. When the Grand Secretary, Ch'ên Yü-pi 陳于陛 (T. 元忠, d. 1596), proposed in 1594 to compile a history of the Ming dynasty, Chiao Hung was given the post of director of the enterprise, but the death of the sponsor about two years later brought the project to an end. In the meantime Chiao Hung had completed the bibliographical section, entitled 國史經籍志 Kuo-shih ching-chi chih in 6 chüan (+ 1 chüan of corrections), which was printed privately in Nanking in 1590 and is reproduced in the Yüeh-ya t'ang ts'ung-shu (see under Wu Ch'ung-yüeh) of 1853. He compiled, most likely also for this project, 120 chüan of biographies of eminent men who lived in the period from the beginning of the dynasty (1368) to the Chia-ching reign-period (1522). This work has survived under the title, 獻徵錄 Hsien-chêng-lu and was submitted to the printer by Ku Ch'i-yüan 顧起元 (1565–1628) in 1616 at the request of Mao Yüan-i 茅元儀 (T. 止生, H. 石民, d. ca. 1629). Parts of it (along with four of his other works) were banned in the eighteenth century, but original editions are preserved in the Library of Congress and elsewhere. For a time Chiao Hung was lecturer to the eldest son of the emperor. While thus engaged he compiled the 養正圖解 Yang-chêng t'u-chieh, an illustrated thesaurus of golden sayings and noble deeds drawn from history. In 1597 he was chief examiner for the metropolitan area of Shun-t'ien but, disliked by the Court for his frankness, and denounced for seditious words which were said to have appeared in the examination papers, he was degraded to the post of assistant magistrate in Fu-ning-chou, Fukien. There he remained for more than a year, after which he resigned to devote himself exclusively to writing. The lane in Nanking in which his home was located is still called Chiao Chuang-yüan Hsiang 焦狀元巷 after him.
The Imperial Catalogue gives notice to 16 of his works, of which not all are reviewed favorably. Three, however, were copied into the Ssŭ-k'u Manuscript Library (see under Chi Yün for both). The 金陵叢書 Chin-ling ts'ung-shu, a collection of works by Nanking authors published in 1916, reprints four of his works as follows: 老子翼 Lao-tzŭ i, in 8 chüan, being combined notes on Lao-tzŭ compiled from the writings of 65 scholars including himself; 莊子翼 Chuang-tzŭ i, in 10 chüan, notes on Chuang-tzŭ by 49 scholars including himself; 焦氏筆乘 Chiao-shih pi-ch'êng, his own miscellaneous notes in 6 chüan with supplement in 8 chüan; and his collected works, 澹園集 Tan-yüan chi, in 49 chüan, with a supplement of 27 chüan. A work of his entitled 俗書刊誤 Su-shu k'an-wu, in 12 chüan, on common errors in the printed forms of Chinese characters, was recently reprinted from the Ssŭ-k'u Manuscript Library. Another work of his, 玉堂叢語 Yü-t'ang ts'ung-yü, 8 chüan, a compilation of historical notes on members of the Hanlin Academy, was printed in the late Ming period with a preface by Chiao Hung himself, dated 1618. This work, of which the Library of Congress possesses a copy, was given notice in the Ssŭ-ku Catalogue.
A contemporary noted that Chiao Hung had a library which filled five rooms, every volume of which was carefully annotated in his own hand. According to the Ch'ien-ch'ing t'ang shu-mu (see under Huang Yü-chi), he compiled two catalogues: 焦氏藏書目 Chiao-shih ts'ang-shu mu, in 2 chüan, and 欣賞齋書目 Hsin-shang chai shu-mu, in 6 chüan. To the latter was appended a catalogue of inscriptions on bronzes and stone tablets, in 2 chüan.
[M.1/288/7b; M.32/13/28b; M.64/庚16/1a; M.83/35/8b; M.84/丁下/46a; 上江兩縣志 Shang-Chiang liang-hsien chih (1874) 22/19a; Yeh Ch'ang-ch'ih, (see under P'an Tsu-yin), Ts'ang-shu chi-shih shih (1910) 3/44b; Ssŭ-k'u, passim.]