against the Manchu government in 1673 Yang was strongly commended by several officials for his former daring exposure of the rebel and was appointed to the staff of Ts'ai Yü-jung [q. v.] in Hupeh with the rank of intendant of a circuit. But being in mourning for the death of his father, he did not accept the office until 1675. In 1678 he was appointed intendant of the lower Chingnan circuit of Hupeh, and four years later was promoted to the post of director of education of Shansi, which he held until 1685. After several promotions he was, in 1687, appointed governor of Anhwei, and in the following year governor of Hupeh province—which post he held until his death in 1689. His collected prose and verse, 見山樓集, Chien-shan lou chi, and his memorials to the throne, 西臺奏議 Hsi-t'ai tsou-i, were given notice in the Imperial Catalogue (see under Chi Yün).
[1/276/2b; 2/9/6a; 3/154/36a; 4/65/26a; 7/5/11a; 9/4/15b; 12/7/48a; 18/4/21a; Ssŭ-k'u 56/10a, 182/1b; Haenisch, E., T'oung Pao (1913) p. 110.]
YANG T'ing-yün 楊廷筠 (T. 仲堅, H. 淇園, 鄭圃居士, 泌園居士), 1557–1627, official and scholar, was a native of Jên-ho (Hangchow). His grandfather, Yang Chou 楊周, obtained the chin-shih degree in 1541. His father, Yang Chao-fang 楊兆坊 (T. 思說), who lived to be eighty-four sui, collected and published, under the title 楊氏塾訓 Yang-shih shu-hsün, 6 chüan, a selection of sayings from the classics and histories. That collection was given notice in the Ssŭ-k'u Catalogue (see under Chi Yün). Yang Ting-yün received the chin-shih degree in 1592, followed immediately by appointment as magistrate of An-fu, Kiangsi. In the ninth year of his service in this post he was summoned to Peking (1600) and was made a censor. During the eight or nine years in which he filled the post he was several times sent out to the provinces to supervise grain transport on the Grand Canal (1603), or the governmental administration of the Soochow area (1605). While serving in the Soochow region he was concurrently in charge of educational affairs. About the year 1609 he retired to his home in Hangchow where the governor of Chekiang engaged him to give lectures in a hall at a beautiful site on West Lake. There he organized a philosophical society known as the Chên-shih shê 真實社 (Truth Society). At this time he took a great interest in Buddhism, making large contributions to monasteries and associating with priests of the Ch'an (Zen) sect.
In 1611, when Li Chih-tsao [q. v.] returned to Hangchow to mourn the death of his father, Yang T'ing-yün met at Li's home the missionaries, Lazare Cattaneo (see under Li) and Nicolas Trigault (see under Wang Chêng). Under their influence he became a Christian. The motives and circumstances which induced him to accept Christianity are told in an essay entitled 楊淇園先生超性事蹟 Yang Ch'i-yüan hsien-shêng ch'ao-hsing shih-chi, put into Chinese by Ting Chih-lin T from dictation by Jules Aleni (see Ch'ü Shih-ssŭ). Although some years earlier Yang had met Matteo Ricci (see under Hsü Kuang-ch'i) in Peking, he then showed no interest in Christianity; now, however, he became an ardent and wholly-convinced convert and was baptized in 1612 under the name Michael (彌格). He persuaded his parents and many members of his family to be baptized, and together with his relatives and friends organized what he termed a Holy Water Society (Shêng-shui hui 聖水會), for mutual improvement in Christian doctrine. A book of questions and answers regarding the tenets of Christianity he published under the title Shêng-shui chi-yen (紀言), 1 chüan. It has a preface by Li Chih-tsao.
Impelled by an ardent desire to make known to his countrymen the contributions which the West had to make to China, he assembled in 1615 sixty-seven miscellaneous items relating to Western science, geography, philosophy and Christianity, which had appeared in Chinese in the preceding thirty years (including two prefaces by himself), under the collective title 絕徼同文紀 Chieh-chiao t'ung-wên chi, 2 chüan. In his preface to this work he made some pointed observations on the differences between an ideographic and an alphabetic language, and on the essential oneness of the human race despite minor differences attributable to historical and environmental factors.
Yang T'ing-yün wrote a number of articles to demonstrate, if possible, the superiority of Christianity to Buddhism. One such article, originally entitled 徵信編 Chêng-hsin pien, he published in 1621 under the title 代疑篇 Tai-i p'ien; a supplement, entitled Tai-i hsü (續) p'ien, being printed in 1635. Two other works, 天釋明辨 T'ien-shih ming-pien (A Clear Differentiation Between Christianity and Buddhism) and 鴞鸞不並鳴說 Hsiao-luan pu-ping-ming shuo (The Owl and the Pheasant Cannot
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