Fang Bao, courtesy namesFengjiu, Linggao, and Wangxi, was a Chinese nobleman, courtier, orator, philosopher, poet, scholar, author and government official in the service of the Qing dynasty. He is best known as an icon of the Tongcheng school of literary prose which was influential during the mid-Qing dynasty.
At the time of Fang Bao's birth, the Kangxi Emperor had not yet fully assumed power and the real dominance over the throne was in the hands of two of the Four Regents, Ebilun and Oboi. In 1669, as the Kangxi Emperor consolidated power, Oboi was also brought up on imperial charges and put to death. Fang Bao studied literature at a school which followed the teachings of Gui Youguang. He would go on to invent the concept of Yi Fa where Yi refers to the ideas or concept of an article and Fa to the structure and literary form. This concept is considered one of the basic theories of the Tongcheng School form of writing, which gained its name due to Tongcheng being Fang Bao's hometown. From 1692 to 1695, Fang served in Beijing as a senior licentiate together with his friend Zhang Boxing who shared his philosophical allegiance surrounding the teachings of the brothers Cheng Xi and Zhu Xi. Fang obtained his jinshi degree or advanced scholar degree following the imperial examination system in 1706 under the reign of the Kangxi Emperor and was given a posting at the Hall of Military Glory as its Director-General of Compilation. He was promoted within the hall to the position of Instructor-Bachelor and then to Vice-Minister of Rights. In either 1711 or 1713, whilst still at the Hall of Military Glory, Fang was involved in the Nanshan Incident. The incident surrounded the contents of a work written by Dai Mingshi, Fang's relation via his wife, titled Nanshan Ji for which Fang had written a preface. The book was essentially a nostalgic history of one of the author's ancestors who had fought with Wu Sangui against the Qing Empire. As a result of a political realignment, the work had been judged seditious by the court of the Kangxi Emperor, who previously promoted scholarly officials. The political change on the part of the Qing court was due in large part to the emperor's awareness and perception of threat from political factions that were forming for the purpose of influencing the imperial succession. Fang was arrested by the Governor of Suzhou, his friend Zhang Boxing. Dai was executed by imperial order, but Fang was spared death and punished instead with dismissal from his post and exile to Gansu Province or with the imprisonment of his entire family. Zhang would also later be accused of aiding Fang Bao before the court but he was unpunished. In 1728, the death of an Eleuth leader provided an excuse for the new Yongzheng Emperor to continue his father's wars in Gansu Province. Fang Bao had written a bold critique of the Governor of Gansu Province, Xu Rong and the Yongzheng Emperor's strategy with regards to the effects of the war onthe people of the region. Despite this writing, by the end of the Yongzheng era, Fang was back in the imperial court's favor and he was promoted to Vice-Director of the Board of Rights. Fang Bao's critical work of the Yongzheng Emperor proved influential in around 1735 when the incoming Qianlong Emperor used it to indict Xu Rong as a part of his larger purge of government officials to cement his hold on power. Accordingly, Fang was made the Vice-Director of the Bureau for the compilation of the Three Ritual Classics. In this role, he gained imperial support to pursue one of his most famous works, the "Imperial Anthology of Essays on the Four Books" which transformed the entire imperial writing system.
