Chang Ping-lin 章炳麟 Orig. Chang Hsueh-ch'eng 章學乘 Chang Chiang 章絳 T. Mei-shu 枚叔 H. T'ai-yen 太炎 Tao-han 菿漢 Chang Ping-lin (25 December 1868-14 June 1936), scholar and anti-Manchu revolutionary, was an editor of the noted newspaper Su-pao and of the T'ung-meng-hui's Min-pao [people's journal] and a leader of the Kuang-fu-hui [restoration society]. A prominent classical scholar, he was known for his studies in philology and textual criticism.

Although there are many biographical accounts of Chang Ping-lin, there is a singular lack of information about his ancestry and his parents. He was a native of Yühang, Chekiang, and as a child he apparently was educated by members of his family, particularly by his maternal grandfather, who tutored him in the Chinese classics and history. At about the age of 12, while studying the Tung-hua-lu [notes from the Manchu archives] with his grandfather, he learned of the anti-Manchu activities of Lü Liu-liang (1629-1683; ECCP, I, 551-52) and Tseng Ching (1679-1736; ECCP, II, 747-49), and first became aware of the Manchus as an alien race of rulers. Thereafter he read the works of anti-Manchu scholars of the seventeenth century such as Wang Fu-chih (1619-92; ECCP, II, 817-19), and studied the historical writings of Ch'üan Tsu-wang (1705-55; ECCP, I, 203-5), which described the resistance to the Manchus by Ming loyalists in Chang's native province of Chekiang. At the age of 19, Chang's antipathy toward the Manchus was further aroused by reading the Ming-chi pai-shih hui-pien [collection of notes on Ming history], a collection of works by pro-Ming authors dealing with the years immediately preceding the Manchu conquest. According to Chang himself, it was from these works that he derived his strong anti- Manchu convictions.

Chang Ping-lin's boyhood interests were not confined to political history. Although he had but little inclination to attempt the civil service examinations, he developed what was to become a life-long interest in philology and textual criticism. When still in his mid-teens he began to read such ancient Chinese lexicons as the Shuo-wen chieh-tzu [interpreting the language and refining the characters] and the Erh-ya [the elegant], as well as collections of textual commentaries on the Thirteen Classics. In 1892, when he had reached the age of 25 sui, Chang decided to leave his native Yühang and to continue his studies in Hangchow at the famous Ku-ching ching-she, then headed by the eminent classical scholar Yü Yueh (1821-1907; ECCP, II, 944-45). Chang spent the next four years studying philology, history, and the classics, devoting special attention to the Ch'un-ch'iu Tso-chuan [Tso's commentary on the spring and autumn annals].

During the disastrous war of 1894-95 with Japan, Chang was among the many Chinese who became convinced that China must undertake far-reaching reforms to survive as an independent nation. When K'ang Yu-wei (q.v.) and others organized the Ch'iang-hsueh-hui in 1895, Chang sent a contribution and a request that his name be included in the membership of this reform society. In this way Chang's name came to the attention of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao (q.v.), at whose invitation Chang left the Ku-ching ching-she in 1896 to join the staff of the Shih-wu pao [current affairs journal] the reform magazine which Liang and Wang K'ang-nien had started in Shanghai. In 1898, after two years with the Shih-wu pao, Chang accepted an invitation to join the staff of Chang Chih-tung (ECCP, I, 27-32), the governor general of Hupeh and Hunan. At Wuchang, however, he soon clashed with Chang Chih-tung over the latter's recently published book, Ch'uan-hsueh p'ien [exhortation to study]. In particular, Chang Ping-lin criticized this work for its emphasis upon loyalty to the reigning dynasty of Manchus. Shortly after Chang left his post with Chang Chih-tung, the empress dowager's coup in Peking against the reform party took place, and orders were sent out for the arrest of several persons associated with the reform movement. Because of his former connection with the Shih-wu pao, Chang was included on the list of those to be apprehended, and to avoid arrest he went to Taiwan, which was then under Japanese control. While Chang Ping-lin was in Taiwan he established contact with Liang Ch'i-ch'ao in Yokohama and, at Liang's invitation, left for Japan in 1899. At that time Liang and other followers of K'ang Yu-wei were considering the possibility of cooperation with the revolutionary party of Sun Yat-sen. Through Liang's introduction, Chang became acquainted with Sun in Yokohama. However, when K'ang Yu-wei organized the Pao-huang hui, a society dedicated to the rescue of the imprisoned Kuang-hsu emperor from the hands of the conservative empress dowager and to his restoration at the head of a reform government, Chang Ping-lin parted ways with Liang Ch'i-ch'ao. Liang, as a follower of K'ang Yu-wei, supported the view that China could be reformed only under the emperor's leadership, but Chang maintained that all Manchus, including the emperor, were enemies of the Chinese and had to be expelled from China before any reform movement could succeed. Chang then left Japan and returned to Shanghai.

In June 1900, at the height of the Boxer Uprising in north China, Chang Ping-lin attended a meeting of several hundred reform sympathizers in Shanghai. The meeting was organized by T'ang Ts'ai-ch'ang in an attempt to unite the monarchist and the revolutionary factions in support of an armed revolt against the imperial authorities in Hupeh and Hunan. To secure the financial backing of the monarchist group, T'ang and other leaders drew up a covenant expressing loyalty to the Kuang-hsu emperor. Chang protested vigorously and, as a gesture of his final break with the Manchu dynasty, cut off his queue in front of the entire assemblage. Three months later, following the suppression of T'ang Ts'ai-ch'ang's revolt in Hankow, orders went out for the arrest of Chang Ping-lin and other prominent members of the Shanghai meeting. Chang took refuge in Soochow, where he taught at Anglo-Chinese College (Tung-hsi shu-yuan, in 1901 renamed Soochow University, or Tung-wu ta-hsueh), a school operated by American missionary groups. While teaching in Soochow, he assigned to his students essay topics in Ming and Ch'ing history which were regarded as being politically provocative by the Manchu authorities. Therefore, late in 1901, En-ming (1846-1907), the Manchu governor of Kiangsu, pressed the school authorities for information of Chang's whereabouts. Chang, then on winter vacation in Hangchow, was secretly notified of the inquiries, and, early in 1902, he made his escape to Shanghai and thence to Japan.

In Tokyo, Chang Ping-lin renewed his acquaintance with Sun Yat-sen and came in contact with a number of young revolutionists, including Chang Chi, Feng Tzu-yu, and Ch'in Li-shan, with whom he discussed ways of overthrowing the Manchu dynasty. Chang maintained that to achieve this end it was necessary to arouse the patriotism of the young Chinese, and that the best way to do this was to stimulate a sense of the history of China in them. He proposed that a mass meeting of Chinese students and political refugees be held on 6 May 1902 to mark the anniversary of China's fall to the Manchu conquerors. An announcement of the meeting was prepared by Chang and circulated among the Chinese in Japan. Although the Japanese authorities prohibited the meeting at the request of the Chinese minister in Tokyo, Chang's idea of a patriotic anti-Manchu association became very popular among the Chinese students and quickly led to the formation of several Chinese revolutionary organizations, such as the Ch'ing-nien hui (1902) and the Chun kuo-min chiao-yü hui (1902) in Japan and the Kuang-fu hui (1903) in China. In 1902 Chang returned from Tokyo to Shanghai, where he joined Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei, Wu Chih-hui, and others in organizing the Chung-kuo chiao-yü hui [China education society] to promote modern education in China. Since many of its members were young Chinese imbued with radically nationalistic ideas, the society soon became a center for clandestine revolutionary activities. In November, at the urgent request of many young students who had recently returned from Japan, the leaders of the society set up a new school in Shanghai, the Ai-kuo hsueh-she [patriotic society], with Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei as principal and Chang Ping-lin, Wu Chih-hui, Huang Yen-p'ei, and Chiang Wei-ch'iao as teachers. Early in 1903, the Ai-kuo hsueh-she added to its enrollment many students who had withdrawn from the Nan-yang kungshe [Nanyang academy] in Shanghai, including a radical youth by the name of Chang Shih-chao (q.v.). While teaching sinological studies at the Ai-kuo hsueh-she, Chang Ping-lin became a close friend of Chang Shih-chao and of Tsou Jung (1885-1905; ECCP, II, 769), a young student who had recently returned from Japan. It was through his association with these two young friends that Chang Ping-lin became involved in the well-known Su-pao case in June 1903.

Late in May, Chang Shih-chao became editor in chief of the Su-pao, a newspaper closely connected with the Ai-kuo hsueh-she in Shanghai. Under Chang Shih-chao, the Su-pao became increasingly radical in tone and published several articles by Chang Ping-lin, Wu Chih-hui, and others in the Ai-kuo hsueh-she which reflected strong anti-Manchu sentiment. Among these was Chang Ping-lin's laudatory preface to Tsou Jung's Ko-ming chün [the revolutionary army], the pamphlet in which Tsou had set down his ideas of armed revolt against the Manchus. The Su-pao also carried Chang's "Refutation of K'ang Yu-wei's Political Views," in which Chang denounced K'ang's arguments for a constitutional monarchy and ridiculed the Kuang-hsu emperor as being a "young clown who couldn't tell beans from barley." Incensed at such open attacks, the Manchu court ordered the suppression of the Su-pao and the arrest of Chang Ping-lin, Tsou Jung, and others connected with it. Chang was arrested on 29 June 1903, and two days later Tsou surrendered. They were tried by a mixed court in Shanghai, which sentenced Chang to three years imprisonment, and Tsou to two years. Refusing the Manchu government's extradition requests, the foreign consular authorities in Shanghai assigned Chang and Tsou to a prison in the International Settlement. Tsou Jung died there in 1905 shortly before the end of his term.

On 29 June 1906, at the end of his three-year term, Chang was released from prison and immediately escorted to Japan by members of the newly organized T'ung-meng-hui. In Tokyo he was given a hero's welcome by members of the revolutionary party and was made editor in chief of the T'ung-meng-hui's magazine, the Min-pao [people's journal] of which he edited fifteen issues during the next two years. As chief editor and a major contributor, Chang Ping-lin lent to the Min-pao both his prominence as a revolutionary and his training as a classical scholar. He helped to combat the influence of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's popular monarchist journal, Hsin-min ts'ung-pao [new people's miscellany] and to draw an increasing number of Chinese intellectuals into the revolutionary movement. However, an article advocating political assassination as a revolutionary means, which appeared in the Min-pao issue of 10 October 1908, prompted the Japanese authorities to confiscate the magazine. Chang Ping-lin vigorously protested this action and, with Sung Chiao-jen (q.v.), took the case to the Japanese courts, but was unsuccessful.

In the meantime, the repeated failures of revolutionary attempts in Kwangtung in 1907 had led to growing discontent with Sun Yat-sen's leadership among some members of the T'ungmeng-hui in Japan. One of Sun's harshest critics was Chang Ping-lin, who not only held Sun responsible for the failure of the party's military ventures but also accused him of misappropriating party funds for his personal use. Within the T'ung-meng-hui headquarters in Tokyo, a movement to oust Sun as party chairman was begun by Chang and T'ao Ch'eng-chang (1878-1912; T. Huan-ch'ing), one of Chang's colleagues on the Min-pao staff and chief editor of the magazine from April to July 1908. T'ao Ch'eng-chang had become a member of the Kuang-fu-hui [restoration society] in Shanghai soon after its formation in 1903, and, with several other members of this revolutionary society, he had joined the T'ung-meng-hui in 1906. Dissatisfied with the T'ung-meng-hui leadership, T'ao left Tokyo for Singapore in 1908 and began to reorganize the Kuang-fu-hui. Thereafter, frequently at the expense of the T'ung-meng-hui, the Kuang-fu-hui rapidly gained adherents among the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and the Netherlands East Indies and in Chekiang, Kiangsu, Fukien and other provinces of east China. Although Chang Ping-lin remained in Japan, he was highly respected by the Kuang-fu-hui members in China and Southeast Asia and was recognized by them as the leader of T'ao's organization. In 1910, when the Kuang-fu-hui was revived in Tokyo, Chang was elected head of the party, with T'ao second in command. Subsequently, rivalry between the Kuang-fu-hui and the T'ung-meng-hui became increasingly bitter, and in January 1912, shortly after the capture of Shanghai by the revolutionary forces, T'ao Ch'eng-chang was assassinated, reportedly at the instigation of the T'ung-meng-hui leaders in Shanghai.

Despite his connections with the Kuang-fu-hui, Chang Ping-lin remained a member of the T'ung-meng-hui until the 1911 revolution. Chang believed that the main purpose of the T'ung-meng-hui was to overthrow the Manchu dynasty and that once this objective had been attained, there would be no reason for its continued existence. After the revolution late in 1911, Chang was among the first of many members to sever ties with the T'ung-meng-hui. Returning from Japan to Shanghai at the end of 1911, he organized the Chung-hua min-kuo lien-ho hui [united association of the Chinese republic], established on 3 January 1912. This political group opposed the T'ung-meng-hui on several important issues ; in spite of his differences with the T'ung-meng-hui, Chang accepted the invitation of Sun Yat-sen, then president of the provisional government at Nanking, to act as his confidential adviser. In February 1912, Yuan Shih-k'ai invited Chang to serve as his adviser in Peking. Before leaving for Peking in April, Chang merged his association with a group led by Chang Chien (q.v.) to form a political party named the T'ung-i-tang [unification party]. Chang Ping-lin became one of its four directors, with Chang Chien, Hsiung Hsi-ling, and Ch'eng Te-ch'uan. In Peking, Chang Ping-lin set up headquarters for the party, which in May joined with the Min-she [people's society], headed by Li Yuan-hung (q.v.) and other Hupeh leaders to form a new political party, the Kung-ho-tang [republican party], again with Chang as one of the directors. The membership of that group included many people who had formerly served as officials under the Manchus and who in the National Assembly generally supported Yuan Shih-k'ai against the T'ung-meng-hui and, later, against the Kuomintang. Dissatisfied with its political conservatism and its subservience to Yuan Shih-k'ai, Chang soon withdrew from the Kung-ho-tang and attempted to reorganize the T'ung-i-tang as a separate political group. In Peking, Chang Ping-lin was appointed by Yuan Shih-k'ai to the post of frontier defense commissioner of the Three Eastern Provinces. Chang went to Manchuria to take up his duties. After a brief period in Mukden, however, he found to his chagrin that the position amounted to little more than a title. His indignation with Yuan turned to overt hostility in the spring of 1913 when he heard that his long-time comrade Sung Chiao-jen had been assassinated in Shanghai, apparently by Yuan's agents. Resigning his position, Chang hastened to Shanghai where he joined his former T'ung-meng-hui associates in publicly denouncing Yuan Shih-k'ai. After the so-called second revolution of July- August 1913, Chang revisited Peking for the purpose of reorganizing the Kung-ho-tang. Yuan, fearful lest Chang should attempt to stir up opposition to his regime, placed him under hous
arrest, and only a few of Chang's closest followers were permitted to visit him. Not until Yuan's death in June 1916 was Chang released from his enforced seclusion in Peking. After returning to Shanghai, he left almost immediately on an extensive tour of Malaya and the Netherlands East Indies, where he lectured to groups of overseas Chinese on the political situation in China. In the autumn he returned again to Shanghai, where he set up his permanent residence and began to discuss national affairs with many of his old acquaintances and former revolutionary comrades.

In July 1917, Chang Ping-lin sailed from Shanghai to Canton with Sun Yat-sen, T'ang Shao-yi (q.v.), and others to organize support for a so-called constitution protection movement against the Peking government, then controlled by Tuan Ch'i-jui. On 3 September 1917 the extraordinary parliament at Canton elected Sun Yat-sen head of a new military government. A few days later Sun appointed Chang secretary general of his military headquarters. Since Chang found his duties to be irksome and frequently quarrelled with Hu Han-min in conferences, Sun agreed to his suggestion that he go on a personal mission to enlist the support of the powerful militarists in Yunnan and Szechwan. Traveling by way of Annam, Chang went to Kunming, where he interviewed T'ang Chi-yao (q.v.). He then spent several months in Chungking. However, after much inconclusive negotiation for military cooperation against the Peking government, Chang finally left Szechwan in disgust and returned to Canton in the spring of 1918, only to find that Sun had resigned his position in the military government and had left for Shanghai. With the failure of this venture, Chang Ping-lin retired to his residence in Shanghai and withdrew almost completely from political activity. Occasionally, however, crises in national politics aroused him to action. In 1922 he wrote a letter to Li Yuan-hung (q.v.) urging him to refuse the presidency of China, offered to him by Ts'ao K'un and Wu P'ei-fu (qq.v.) in Peking; in 1924 he issued a call for a meeting of former T'ung-meng-hui members to discuss ways of halting Communist activities within the reorganized Kuomintang; and in 1932 he paid a visit to Chang Hsueh-liang (q.v.) in Peiping, urging him to harass the Japanese in the north in order to reduce Japanese military pressure on the Chinese army then fighting in Shanghai.

Following his retirement from political life in 1918, Chang Ping-lin devoted the greater part of his energies to teaching and to classical scholarship. During the mid-1920's, he also served as editor in chief of the Hua-kuo [the flower country], a monthly magazine begun in September 1923 and suspended in July 1926, in which he published many of his scholarly studies. After residing in Shanghai for some 15 years, he moved to Soochow in April 1934. The following year he set up a private school, the Chang-shih kuo-hsueh chiang-yen-so, in connection with which he began to publish a semi-monthly magazine entitled Chih-yen. Through writings published in this periodical and lectures at his school, Chang Ping-lin sought to preserve the traditions of Chinese classical learning in the face of an increasingly Westernized system of national education. It was while thus engaged that he died on 14 June 1936. After his death, the school he had founded, renamed T'ai-yen wen-hsueh-yuan in his honor, was moved to Shanghai, where it continued to operate until September 1940.

Although Chang Ping-lin was known and respected for his role in the Chinese revolutionary movement, he was most prominent in the field of classical scholarship. Even during his early years as a reformer and revolutionary, he was profoundly interested in questions of classical learning. Following in the footsteps of his famous teacher, Yü Yueh, he continued his studies of philology and textual criticism as applied to both the Confucian classics and the works of the ancient Chinese philosophers. To these studies he added strong personal sentiments of anti-Manchu nationalism. His early essays on Chinese philosophy and history, filled with hostile allusions to the Manchu dynasty, reflected his early intellectual interests. Chang published a collection of these in 1901 as the Ch'iu-shu, a work which in 1914 he revised, enlarged, and published with the title Chien-lun [revised views]. In his years as an exile in Japan, apart from his duties as editor of the Min-pao, Chang devoted his attention to teaching and research on sinological studies. From 1906 to 1911 a number of his most important writings on the Chinese classics and the ancient philosophers were published in the Kuo-ts'ui hsueh-pao [classical studies academic journal], a scholarly journal with a nationalistic point of view published in Shanghai by Liu Shih-p'ei (q.v.) and Teng Shih (T. Ch'iu-mei). Another subject in which Chang had considerable scholarly interest was Buddhism. That interest was apparent in several of his contributions to both the Min-pao and the Kuo-ts'ui hsueh-pao. Chang gave particular attention to the Chü-she wei-lun {Abbidharma-kosa-sastra), and in such writings as his Chuang-tzu chieh-ku [interpretation of Chuangtzu] and his Ch'i-wu-lun shih [interpretation of Ch'i-wu-lun] he compared with much originality the teachings of this Buddhist work with the Taoist philosophy of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu. Since his days as a student under Yü Yueh, Chang Ping-lin had been especially fond of studying the' Tso-chuan [Tso's commentary on the spring and autumn annals]. In several of his writings, such as his Ch'un-ch'iu Tso-chuan tu hsü-lu [notes on the spring and autumn annals and on Tso's commentary] and his Liu Tzu-cheng Tso-shih shuo [Liu Tzu-cheng's views on the Tso-chuan], he maintained the superiority of the Tso-chuan over the two other commentaries on the Ch'un-ch'iu, the Kung-yang chuan [teachings of Kung-yang] and the Ku-liang chuan [teachings of Ku-liang]. Chang was an exponent of the ku-wen [old text] school of classical learning (in opposition to the scholarship of such contemporaries as K'ang Yu-wei, who based their theories on the Kung-yang commentary and the writings of the chin-wen [new text] school of classical interpretation). In the field of classical learning, Chang's greatest accomplishments were probably his studies of philology and linguistics. Among his major achievements in these subjects were his Wen-shih [literature and history], on the origins of Chinese script; his Hsin fang-yen [new dialects], a geographical survey of modern Chinese dialects modeled on the Fang-yen [dialects] of the Han-dynasty scholar Yang Hsiung; the Hsiao-hsueh ta-wen [answers to questions on philology] ; and the Shuo-wen pu-shou yün-yü [a study of the radicals in the Shuo-wen]. But Chang's best-known work in this field, which dealt with philology in relation to literature and philosophy, was his Kuo-ku lun-heng [discussions of Chinese classics], a brilliant example of how ancient Chinese texts can best be understood by mastery of linguistic knowledge. Despite his erudition in philology, however, Chang belittled the study of the chia-ku-wen, or oracle-bone inscriptions, and refused to recognize the contributions of contemporary scholars in this field to the knowledge of the ancient history of China.

As a proponent of the preservation of China's moral and cultural heritage, Chang Ping-lin was interested in the legal and ethical codes of antiquity, which he held to have been the foundations of China's traditional culture. Among his writings on this subject was a brief study of the legal codes throughout China's history which first appeared in the Min-pao as " Wu-ch'ao fa-lü so-yin" [study of the laws of the five dynasties]. In his later years he devoted much time to a compilation of the ceremonial regulations to be observed during the period of mourning. Although Chang wrote but little in the field of history, he planned at one time to compile a general history of China. A table of contents for this projected history appeared in the original edition of his Ch'iu-shu, but was deleted when this work was subsequently published as Chien-lun. In prose writing, Chang Ping-lin was recognized as being one of the most authentic representatives and accomplished stylists of the traditional ku-wen literature, and his poetry, mostly written in the condensed five-character line form, has been found to bear a striking resemblance to the poetry of the Wei-Chin period. After the 1911 revolution, Chang exerted considerable influence as a scholar and literary stylist at National Peking University, where several of his disciples and friends (known as the Kiang-Che group) replaced Lin Shu (q.v.) and other representatives of the T'ung-ch'eng school as professors in the faculty of literature. As a staunch defender of China's literary traditions, Chang was among the most powerful and effective opponents of the vernacular literature movement led by Hu Shih and Ch'en Tu-hsiu (qq.v.). With the increasing popularity of pai-hua [vernacular] literature among Chinese university students, however, Chang's influence at Peking University and other centers of learning rapidly declined, and by the final years of his life his writings in the ku-wen style had come to be regarded as curious literary antiques.

A number of Chang Ping-lin's early essays, including several articles he had written for the Min-pao and the Kuo-ts'ui hsueh-pao were collected and printed in 1914 as the Chang T'ai-yen wen-ch'ao [selected works of Chang T'ai-yen] by the Chung-hua Bookstore in Shanghai. In 1919, fourteen of Chang's sinological writings were gathered into a collection by the Chekiang Provincial Library and printed under the title Chang-shih ts'ung-shu [Chang's works] ; and in 1924 this collection was reprinted by the Ku-shu liu-t'ung-ch'u in Shanghai. A supplementary collection was printed at Peiping in 1933 as the Chang-shih ts'ung-shu hsu-pien [second series of Chang's works] by his disciples Ch'ien Hsuant'ung, Chu Hsi-tsu (qq.v.), and Ma Yu-tsao (1880-; T. Yu-yü) and a third collection, the Chang-shih ts'ung-shu san-pien [third series of Chang's works], was published in 1939 by his own establishment, the Chang-shih kuo-hsueh chiang-hsi-hui. An extensive catalog of Chang's writings, T'ai-yen hsien-sheng chu-shu mu-lu ch'u-kao [catalogue of writings of Tai-yen], was prepared by some of his pupils and published in September 1939 as part of a special number of the Chih-yen magazine, issued in commemoration of his death. Among Chang's numerous unpublished writings is the Tzu-ting nien-p'u [autobiographical chronology]. Chang Ping-lin had four children — two sons, Chang Tao and Chang Ch'i, and two daughters, Chang Li and Chang Chan. Chang Li (T. Yün-lai) was married to Kung Pao-ch'üan ( 1883?-1922 ; T. Wei-sheng), who had founded the Kuang-fu-hui in 1903. While Chang Ping-lin was under house arrest in Peking, Chang Li went to visit him and on 7 September 1915 mysteriously hanged herself in the house where her father was detained. Chang Ping-lin's first wife died at an early date, and in June 1913 he married a second time. T'ang Kuo-li, his second wife, was regarded as a learned woman of unusual ability. Chang himself was by temperament direct and outspoken, highly individualistic, and frequently impulsive in his actions, for which he gained the reputation of being a feng-tzu [eccentric]. As a young man he was noted for his strict moral views, and for his criticism of others to their faces for any flaws he found in their character or behavior. Later in life, however, Chang became more restrained in his criticism, the result, it was said, of the beneficial influence of his second wife. As one of modern China's foremost classical scholars, Chang Ping-lin taught several students who later became distinguished scholars in their own right, including Ch'ien Hsuan-t'ung, Chu Hsi-tsu, and Wu Ch'eng-shih (1885-1939; T. Chien-chai and Yen-chai) a chü-jen of 1902. The two pupils of whom Chang Ping-lin spoke most highly were Huang K'an (q.v.) and Wang Tung ( 1 890-). Their names were often referred to in combination as Huang-Wang.