Yao Yung-p'u (1862- 16 July 1939), scholar who was one of the last outstanding literary figures of the T'ung-ch'eng school.

T'ungch'eng, Anhwei, was the birthplace of Yao Yung-p'u. He came from a noted scholarofficial family. His grandfather, Yao Ying (ECCP, I, 239), was a chin-shih of 1808 who later became judicial commissioner of Kwangsi province. His father, Yao Chün-ch'ang (18331 899 ; T. Meng-ch'eng) , served in the secretariat of Tseng Kuo-fan (ECCP, H, 751-56) and later was magistrate of various counties in Kiangsi and Hupeh. He also achieved some note as a poet. Yao Yung-p'u's elder brother, Yao Yung-k'ai (T. Hsien-po), died young, but not before showing considerable literary ability. His younger brother, Yao Yung-kai ( 1 866- 1923; T. Shu-chieh), became an accomplished poet and essayist. And Yao Yung-p'u's brothers-inlaw. Ma Ch'i-ch'ang (ECCP, I, 235) and Fan Tang-shih {see ECCP, H, 871), were noted representatives of the T'ung-ch'eng school of writing. Thus, Yao Yung-p'u grew up in a predominantly T'ung-ch'eng literary atmosphere which was rich in scholarly tradition. The T'ung-ch'eng school, named for the native district of its prominent men, played an influential role in Ch'ing and early republican literary life. The school began with Fang Pao (ECCP, I, 235-37) in the early eighteenth century, and it gained recognition as a coherent movement under the leadership of Yao Nai (ECCP, H, 800-1) in the 1760's. Tseng Kuofan revitalized the school in the nineteenth century, and it was brought to north China by Wu Ju-lun (ECCP, H, 870-72) and Chang Yü-chao (ECCP, I, 65), both of whom taught at the Lien-ch'ih shu-yuan at Paoting. In 1892-93 Yao Yung-p'u served as a secretary in Tientsin and Port Arthur. While in north China, he studied under Wu Ju-lun, then the leading teacher of the T'ung-ch'eng school. Wu's advocacy of new ideas in education had an important influence on the curricula of various institutions in China. Yao Yung-p'u passed the examinations for the chü-jen degree in 1894. He then accompanied his father to various posts in Kiangsi and Anhwei. After his father died in 1899, he decided to devote himself to education.

Because many of Yao Yung-p'u's works were written primarily as textbooks, their introductory notes often provide clues to his whereabouts at various stages of his career. In 1901, while he was teaching in Kwangtung, his work on the Shu-ching, the Shang-shu i-lueh, was published. In 1903 he left a teaching post in Shantung for another at a newly opened college in his native Anhwei. In 1903—4 he completed Hsiao-hsueh kuang, a textbook on ethics, and the Chu-tzu k'ao-lueh, a work on the ancient Chinese philosophers. Yao later revised the Chu-tzu k'ao-likh and published it as the Chün-ju k'aolüeh. In the 1903-8 period Yao Yung-p'u also compiled a biographical dictionary of the Yao family, the T'ung-ch'eng Yao-shih pei-chuan In, which was published with financial aid from an uncle.

About 1909 Yao Yung-p'u was appointed a consulting expert at the Board of Education and a professor at Peking University. After the republic was established, he taught at Chunghua College, established by Wang I-t'ang (q.v.). When Hsü Shu-cheng (q.v.) established the Cheng-chih Middle School at Peking in 1915, such leading literary men of the T'ung-ch'eng group as Yao Yung-p'u, Lin Shu (q.v.), and Yao Yung-kai joined its teaching staff. From 1914 to 1919 Yao Yung-p'u also served as an editor at the Ch'ing-shih kuan [see Chao Erhsun), helping to compile the Ch'ing-shih kao [provisional history of the Ch'ing]. In his collected literary works, the T'ui-ssu hsuan-chi, published in 1921, there is a letter to the Ch'ing-shih kuan expressing his views on the scope and methods of compiling such a history. Yao Yung-p'u returned to Anhwei in 1919 and became a teacher at the Hung-i hsüeh-she, established by the Chou family (see Chou Hsueh-hsi). In 1925-35 he was a professor at Anhwei University. Japanese advances following the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in 1937 forced Yao to move to Kiangsi, then to Hunan, and finally to Kwangsi. He died at Kweilin on 16 July 1939. He was survived by a grandson, Yao Yung. Yao Yung-p'u's wife, nee Ma, had died about 1915; their sons, Yao Huan and Yao Ang, had died in 1914. A daughter, who also died early, married Fang Yen-ch'en.