Zhang Jun

Biography

Zhang Jun was a native of Mianzhu in Hanzhou (present-day Mianzhu, Sichuan). In 1127 (2nd year of the Jingkang era) Zhang Bangchang set up the puppet Chu under Jin patronage and Zhang Jun took refuge in the Imperial Academy. After Zhao Gou came to the throne he went to Yingtianfu to join him and gradually became a military and political official on whom Emperor Gaozong relied. In 1129 (3rd year of the Jianyan era) Miao Fu and Liu Zhengyan mutinied, and Zhang Jun remained south of the Yangtze and took part in organising forces to rescue the emperor; after the mutiny was put down and Gaozong restored, Zhang Jun was promoted within the Bureau of Military Affairs. The encyclopedic accounts differ over the exact division of duties between him and Han Shizhong in suppressing the revolt, so the text keeps only the level on which both accounts agree, that the two jointly supported Zhang Jun's part in the suppression.

Administering Sichuan and Shaanxi and the Battle of Fuping

In 1130 (4th year of the Jianyan era) Zhang Jun was appointed commissioner for the pacification of Sichuan and Shaanxi, intending to hold the Jin in check through the Guanzhong-Shaanxi region and to protect Sichuan and the southeast. On taking up the post he reorganised local military administration, allocated military grain, employed Zhao Kai to handle transport and promoted Wu Jie to command troops. He then concentrated the forces of five routes to fight the Jin at Fuping in order to draw off their attacks on the southeast. The Song armies were defeated and withdrew because the generals failed to coordinate, and Zhang Jun withdrew to Xingzhou and dealt with Zhao Zhe, who had retreated in the face of the enemy; he then ordered Wu Jie to hold such strong points as Heshangyuan and Dasanguan. Afterwards the defence of the Shu passes by Wu Jie and Wu Lin made it difficult for the Jin to cross the Qinling into Sichuan, and the Sichuan-Shaanxi theatre and the defence of the southeast came to hold each other in check.

In 1131 (1st year of the Shaoxing era) the Jin attacked Heshangyuan, and Wu Jie's troops held the strong points and counter-attacked successfully. Zhang Jun continued to reorganise military affairs in Sichuan and Shaanxi but remained at odds with generals such as Qu Duan over a long period; Qu Duan was later put to death, and Zhang Jun's responsibility in the case and the way he reached his decision have always been criticised. The full encyclopedic accounts available treat the Qu Duan case in evaluative terms, so only the event and the controversy are stated here, and unverified motives are not written up as conclusions. Around 1133 (3rd year of the Shaoxing era) Zhang Jun left his military and political post in Sichuan and Shaanxi and later returned to court for a time in the Bureau of Military Affairs and among the chief councillors.

Chief Councillor, Demotion and Return

Around 1135 (5th year of the Shaoxing era) Zhang Jun again entered the central government and took part in military dispositions. In 1136 (6th year of the Shaoxing era) he pushed for military action in the Huai west, and in the battle of Outang the Song defeated one Jin force; but the defection of Li Qiong with the Huai west troops to the puppet Qi the following year showed serious problems in the reorganisation of the armies, the appointment of generals and the coordination of command. Zhang Jun was therefore dismissed as chief councillor. His relations with Qin Hui's regime later deteriorated, and in 1146 (16th year of the Shaoxing era) his honours were stripped and he was banished to Lianzhou, later moving to the Yongzhou area. After Qin Hui's death in 1155 (25th year of the Shaoxing era) Zhang Jun was employed again, though this did not end his political vicissitudes.

In 1161 (31st year of the Shaoxing era) the Jin invaded and Zhang Jun was employed once more, taking part in the defence of the Yangtze and the Huai west. In 1162 (32nd year of the Shaoxing era) Emperor Gaozong passed the throne to Zhao Shen, and Zhang Jun continued to be relied on by the new reign. In 1163 (1st year of the Longxing era) Emperor Xiaozong appointed him to direct the northern expedition. The Song armies took Lingbi, Hongxian and Suzhou in turn, but the commanders Li Xianzhong and Shao Hongyuan were at odds and coordination failed, so that after the Jin counter-attacked the Song withdrew in defeat at Fuliji. Zhang Jun then resigned his main military and political posts. In 1164 (2nd year of the Longxing era) he died of illness on the way to Yugan. The court first granted him the title of grand guardian and later the title of grand preceptor with the posthumous name Zhongxian.

His Family and Early Career

Zhang Jun, courtesy name Deyuan, was a man of Mianzhu in Hanzhou and a descendant of Zhang Jiugao, brother of the Tang chancellor Zhang Jiuling. His father Zhang Xian passed both the presented scholar and the excellent-and-upright examinations. It is recorded that Zhang Xian, unsuccessful in office, grew the more zealous in doing good and laying up blessings for his descendants; and one day as he slept at noon he dreamed that a divine man came down from heaven and told him that Heaven would have him name a son with the character for virtue, and that the son should be chancellor, at which Zhang Xian started awake, and not long after Zhang Jun was born. His elder brother having already been named Zhang Huang by his father, who was unwilling to change it, Zhang Xian named the younger Zhang Jun and gave him the courtesy name Deyuan. Zhang Jun lost his father at four, and under the care of his mother, the lady Ji, he bore himself uprightly from childhood and never spoke a false word, so that men judged he would be a great vessel one day. He entered the imperial college and passed as a presented scholar. When Zhang Bangchang usurped the throne he fled into the college; and hearing that Emperor Gaozong had taken the throne he hurried to Nanjing, was made reviser of the bureau of military affairs, then gentleman of the ministry of works and then palace censor. When the court went southeast, the rear army commander Han Shizhong's troops drove a remonstrating official into the water to his death, and Zhang Jun memorialised to deprive Han Shizhong of his post as observer, whereby high and low learned for the first time that the realm had law, and he was promoted to attendant censor. In the sixth month of the second year of Jianyan Zhang Jun memorialised that the central plains were the root of the realm and asked that the decrees be issued to repair Dongjing, Guanshan and Xiangdeng to await the imperial progress; and for this he came to differ from the conciliatory Huang Qianshan and was pushed aside. Gaozong summoned him and said that he spoke all he knew without reserve, and that the emperor was about to act as one who would leap to the sky but had no wings, and asked him to stay and assist him. In the tenth month of that year Zhang Jun was made military adviser of the office of the imperial camp and from then took part in the war against the Jin. Zhang Jun judged that the Jin would certainly come to attack while the court sat at ease and made no preparations at all, and he urged it strongly on the chancellors, at which Huang Qianshan and Wang Boyan both laughed at his alarmism. In the third year of Jianyan Zhang Jun was made joint commander of the troops and held Pingjiang against the Jin; and presently Zhu Shengyu being summoned to the imperial presence at Hangzhou, Zhang Jun was left to hold Pingjiang. At that time there were several tens of thousands of broken troops plundering wherever they came, and Zhang Jun succeeded in bringing them to submission.

His Management of Sichuan and Shaanxi and the Breach with Qu Duan

Zhang Jun held that if the Jin first entered Shaanxi and took Shu, the southeast could not be preserved, and so proposed to manage Sichuan and Shaanxi. On his own recommendation Gaozong appointed him imperial commissioner for the pacification and disposition of Sichuan and Shaanxi in the fifth month of the third year of Jianyan. In the seventh month of that year he set out for his post and in the latter half of the tenth month reached Xingyuanfu, where he set up his office and afterwards adjusted the military commanders of the several routes of the northwest. Zhang Jun tried to use Qu Duan's martial renown to raise the banner of resistance in the northwest; but when in the first month of the fourth year of Jianyan Zhang Jun ordered Qu Duan to lead troops to the relief of Shanzhou, Qu Duan refused to send troops, so that Shanzhou was at last taken by the Jin. In the second month of that year Zhang Jun, learning that the Jin had long since crossed the river southward, at once gave the business of the office to Liu Ziyu and led several tens of thousands of foot and horse east from Qinzhou to the relief; and coming to Fangzhou in the third month he learned that the Jin commander was still in eastern Huai and that the general who had crossed south, Wanyan Zongbi, was lingering north of the river, and judging that the Jin meant to cross again in late autumn he considered attacking them to divide the force they were pushing south. And in the first month of that year the Jin had attacked Huanqing and Qu Duan sent Wu Jie and others to resist at Pengyuan; and Wu Jie complained that Qu Duan did not come to his support, while Qu Duan argued that Wu Jie's van had already been beaten and that he had had no choice but to fall back on strong ground to keep the enemy from bursting through, and accused Wu Jie of disobeying his command. When Zhang Jun proposed to attack and divide the Jin's force, Qu Duan went so far as to say that on the open plain the enemy could gallop at will while their own troops had never practised fighting on water, and that the Jin came on so fiercely that they could not be met in the field, but that they should sharpen their weapons and feed their horses, guard the frontier and wait ten years before striking back. Zhang Jun trusted him no more, and Qu Duan was deprived of his command for having stood by at Pengyuan.

The Battle of Fuping and the Preservation of Shu

The Jin made Wanyan Zongfu commander and sent him to Shaanxi, and ordered Wanyan Zongbi to take twenty thousand picked troops to Luoyang first, meaning to go to Shaanxi in the eighth month and contend with Zhang Jun for Shaanxi. The Song recovered Yongxingjun, and the commissioner of Huanqing, Zhao Zhe, recovered the commanderies of Fuyan. Zhang Jun then gathered the commissioner of Xihe Liu Xi, the commissioner of Qinfeng Sun Wo, the commissioner of Jingyuan Liu Qi, the commissioner of Yongxingjun Wu Jie and the commissioner of Huanqing Zhao Zhe, each with his troops, to advance east; and Wanyan Zongfu at once moved Wanyan Zongbi's twenty thousand men from Jingxi into the passes. In the latter half of the ninth month Zhang Jun gathered the five routes of the Song army, sixty thousand horse and a hundred and twenty thousand foot, calling it four hundred thousand, with Liu Xi as commander-in-chief, and advanced to Fuping, where Wanyan Zongfu with Wanyan Zongbi and Wanyan Loushi in two wings joined battle. In the fighting Liu Qi of Jingyuan led his officers and men against the enemy array, fighting from the hour of dawn to the hour of the goat and killing many, and the Jin's left wing commander Wanyan Zongbi was once surrounded, the Jin general Han Chang, his eye struck by a stray arrow, fighting hard to bring him out. Wanyan Loushi with the right wing fought on from noon to dusk in six encounters. At the decisive moment Zhao Zhe left his troops and fled first, so that all the Song's work was lost and the army fell back in succession, and the Jin, though victorious, had suffered heavily and did not pursue. This was a great battle of armies between Song and Jin, and though the Song were beaten they had achieved what Gaozong required, that Zhang Jun should draw the Jin's main force away from the Huai and the Jiang; and so when Zhang Jun beheaded Zhao Zhe, degraded Liu Xi and memorialised to await punishment, Gaozong held that Zhang Jun had done no wrong and could not be dismissed. And Wanyan Zongbi and his picked troops, who had crossed south, remained for years afterward on the Sichuan-Shaanxi front, so that the pressure on the Song in the Huai and Jiang region was in fact lightened. Zhang Jun fell back on Xingzhou and sent Liu Ziyu to Qinzhou, where he gathered the scattered Song troops to a hundred thousand; and afterwards, under Jin attack, he withdrew from place to place and raised Wu Jie to be a great general. Liu Ziyu was open-handed and skilful in finance and Wu Jie won every battle, so that the remnant people of the northwest came to him daily in greater numbers, which was of good effect for the safety of all Shu and for the peace of the Huai and Jiang region; but Zhang Jun also did a series of ill-judged things, driving his officers to revolt and putting Qu Duan to death unjustly. In the first year of Shaoxing he commanded Wu Jie and Wu Lin to beat the Jin heavily at Heshangyuan. In the second year of Shaoxing he was promoted for his services to be deputy commissioner for pacification and disposition.

Concealing the Decree to Hold Shu, His Dismissal and Recall

Zhang Jun was deprived of the office of commissioner for pacification and disposition but retained that of assistant commissioner of the bureau of military affairs. The order of dismissal reached his headquarters at Langzhou in the second month of the third year of Shaoxing, when the armies were just broken and the Jin had taken Xingyuan and pressed close, so that the situation was most critical; and Zhang Jun, to resist the Jin, kept back the decree of dismissal for the time and went on directing the affairs of Sichuan and Shaanxi, and only when the Song had recovered the lost ground of the Shu passes in the latter half of the fifth month and things had eased did he formally receive the decree and return to court. At the same time Zhang Jun was much displeased at the appointment of Wang Si and Lu Fayuan, men of little repute, and memorialised against it no fewer than three times, asking the court to reconsider the senior appointments in Sichuan and Shaanxi and requesting that Liu Ziyu and Wu Jie, who had done great service in managing those parts, be made judges of the pacification office; but this violent resistance brought him the displeasure of Gaozong and of the chancellor Lü Yihao. After his return Zhang Jun was degraded in the third month of the fourth year of Shaoxing. After Zhang Jun left Sichuan and Shaanxi it was only in the sixth month of the fourth year of Shaoxing that Wanyan Zongbi came back from those parts to Yanshanfu. In the ninth month the puppet regime the Jin had set up sent troops south, and Zhang Jun was employed to take charge of the frontier, holding the military authority from Long and Shu in the west to the Huai and the Jiang in the north, and bearing the whole burden of resistance to the Jin, though chiefly directing the fighting on the Huai and Jiang front. In the fifth year of Shaoxing he led troops to put down the rising of Yang Yao.

The Northern Campaign and the Huai West Mutiny

Having put down Yang Yao's rising, Zhang Jun thought the internal work done and that he might turn outward. In the first month of the sixth year of Shaoxing he reviewed the troops in Jing and Xiang, and being presently recalled to court he at once disposed the armies of the several routes for a northern campaign against the puppet Qi: he ordered Han Shizhong from Cheng and Chu against Huaiyang, Liu Guangshi to advance on Hefei, Zhang Jun on Xuyi with Yang Yizhong as the rear of his army, and Yue Fei on Xiangyang to prepare to march on the central plains, putting on a posture of attacking the Jin, at which the army's spirit rose. In the second month Han Shizhong first advanced from Chuzhou to invest the place, and the Jin and Qi joined to relieve it, so that the Song had to fall back; Zhang Jun advanced on Xuyi in the fifth month, and Zhang Jun, the general, crossed the river to review the troops in Huainan in the sixth month; Liu Guangshi recovered Shouchunfu in the seventh month, and Yue Fei took the places he attacked in the eighth month and pressed close to the western capital Luoyang, at which court and country were much heartened. Gaozong, on Zhang Jun's urgent request, set out for Jiankang in the early ninth month to raise the men's spirit, and Zhang Jun hurried to Zhenjiang to direct the troops. In the tenth month of the sixth year of Shaoxing the puppet Qi sent three hundred thousand men in three columns against the Huai west, and Zhao Ding urged both a return to Lin'an and an imperial autograph letter telling Zhang Jun to give up the Huai west and fall back to hold the Yangtze. Zhang Jun, learning that the Qi troops had no Jin support, held firmly that they could not lightly turn back, lest the men's minds be shaken, and Gaozong at last changed his mind. And when Liu Guangshi fled south in panic, Zhang Jun rode to Caishi and sternly ordered him back to the front, declaring that any who disobeyed would be dealt with by military law, and so stopped his flight. In the end Liu Guangshi's army broke the Qi's centre near Luzhou, and Yang Yizhong, reinforcing the Huai west, with Zhang Zongyan and other officers of Zhang Jun's army broke the Qi's eastern column at Dingyuan, so that the Qi's western column fled at the news and Yue Fei's army too came to the relief, and the Qi troops fell back north of the Huai. In the third month of the seventh year of Shaoxing Liu Guangshi was deprived of his command for arrogance, sloth and cowardice, and Gaozong had already promised to give his troops to Yue Fei to enlarge his force for the recovery of the central plains; but this was first opposed, and Zhang Jun also would not agree to merge Liu Guangshi's troops with Yue Fei's, taking them instead under the general headquarters he himself held, with Liu Guangshi's officer Wang De in command, at which Li Qiong, unwilling that Wang De should be above him and his complaints unheeded, in the eighth month killed Lü Zhi and others and carried forty thousand men over to the puppet Qi. The Huai west mutiny turned all Zhang Jun's work to nothing, and worse, the Huai west, regarded by the Song court as a shield, was for a time left without troops or defence, and only because the Jin had then resolved to abolish Liu Yu's puppet regime and had no mind to come south did the Southern Song escape a disaster. In the ninth month Zhang Jun was removed from the chancellorship for his mishandling and given a temple sinecure.

His Exile, Recall and Burial

In the seventh month of the sixteenth year of Shaoxing Zhang Jun memorialised for preparations against the Jin, at which Qin Hui was enraged and stripped him of the ranks of assistant guardian, military commissioner and duke of a commandery, keeping only the civil rank of special advance and the temple sinecure and banishing him. Shortly before this Zhang Jun had been in mourning for his mother and brought her coffin home to Sichuan for burial, and reaching Jiangling he memorialised again for preparations against the Jin, which displeased the new chancellor and Qin Hui's follower; and Gaozong too, holding that Zhang Jun was now again talking of war and making trouble, was much averse to him, so that in the tenth month of the twenty-sixth year of Shaoxing Zhang Jun was banished again to live at Yongzhou. On that exile he carried with him only a few cases of old things, and Qin Hui's party falsely accused him of keeping in them letters plotting rebellion with his old officers in Shu; and Gaozong sent men to seize them and opened them in the court, where nothing was found but books, and among the letters none but words of grief for the state and love of the sovereign, besides worn clothes; and Gaozong, much taken aback, was so moved that he said he had not thought Zhang Jun could be so poor, and sent messengers after him with three hundred taels of gold. Qin Hui's party then spread word abroad that the messengers were sent to give Zhang Jun death, hoping for a wrong response; and the news reaching Zhang Jun his attendants wept, and Zhang Jun said that his guilt indeed deserved death, and that if it were as rumoured he would die to atone to the state, so why weep, and asking who the messenger was, and being told it was the son of the commander of the palace guards, Yang Cunzhong, he said he need not die, for Yang Cunzhong was an old subordinate of his, and if the court meant to give him death it would surely send another. Presently the messenger arrived, read out Gaozong's decree and gave Zhang Jun three hundred taels of gold. In the first month of the thirty-first year of Shaoxing, when a Jin invasion was imminent and Gaozong, forced to prepare resistance, relaxed the restrictions on Zhang Jun's place of residence; and in the tenth month of that year, the new war between Song and Jin having begun, he was employed again as administrator of Jiankangfu and keeper of the travelling palace, commanding the troops along the river, and beat the Jin at Haizhou. Only in the fifth month of the thirty-second year of Shaoxing was he made solely responsible for the affairs of the two Huai and the troops of the two Huai and the river, with full charge of them. On Xiaozong's accession the war party prevailed, and Zhang Jun was made recruiting commissioner of Huainan, the metropolitan region, Jingdong and Hebei, with Li Xianzhong as deputy, to prepare for the recovery of the central plains; but presently the Song army was attacked by the Jin at Fulì, Shao Hongyuan stood by and would not fight and his son fled first, and Li Xianzhong had to fall back and the army was routed. The peace party at once raised its head, Tang Situl being made right chancellor and assistant commissioner of military affairs in the seventh month while negotiations went on; and in the twelfth month Tang Situl was raised to left chancellor, and Zhang Jun to right chancellor, still holding the two Huai. In the third month of the second year of Longxing Zhang Jun, by decree, reviewed the troops on the Huai, going through both Huai and building and repairing the city walls, actively disposing measures against the Jin; in the fourth month he was recalled and the general headquarters of the Huai and Jiang was abolished. Gaozong interfering, Tang Situl pressed on with the begging of peace, and Zhang Jun, seeing no hope of resisting the Jin, eight times memorialised asking to retire; and on the twenty-second day of that month Xiaozong removed him from the chancellorship and gave him a nominal rank. Coming to Yugan, Zhang Jun fell ill and wrote with his own hand to his two sons, saying that he had been chancellor and could not recover the central plains nor wipe away the shame of his ancestors, and that when he died he should not be buried to the left of his forefathers' graves, but at the foot of Mount Heng would be enough. When his death was known Xiaozong was shaken and mourned, suspended the court, gave him posthumously the rank of grand guardian and later grand preceptor, and the posthumous name Zhongxian.

Major Activities

Political and institutional context

The cached record places Zhang Jun within the institutions and conflicts of Tang.

Source-based record

The Putting Down of the Miao-Liu Rising and the Execution of Fan Qiong

In the third year of Jianyan Miao Fu and Liu Zhengyan rose in rebellion, and Zhang Jun with Lü Yihao and others within and without put it down. He had been made joint commander of the troops holding Pingjiang, and within he led Han Shizhong and Zhang Jun to be his instruments and without he made league with Lü Yihao and Liu Guangshi as his helpers, so that the merit of the restoration was won before a day was out. Miao Fu and Liu Zhengyan once hired a man to assassinate Zhang Jun: when Zhang Jun was at Xiuzhou with his guard very strict, a stranger came forward one night, took a paper from his breast and said that this was the reward posted by Miao Fu and Liu Zhengyan for his head; and Zhang Jun asked what he meant to do, and the man said he was of Hebei and had read a little and knew the right and wrong of things, and would not sell himself to rebels, but had only seen that the guard was lax and feared others would come after. And Zhang Jun took the hand of this honourable assassin and asked his name, but he would not tell it and went away. Earlier the great general Fan Qiong had come to the imperial presence with his troops, overbearing and insolent and without the courtesy of a subject, demanding and asking indulgence for the partisans of Miao and Liu; and Zhang Jun took counsel with his close friend Liu Ziyu and others and had food prepared for them, and when they had eaten and drunk they found nothing to say, and Liu Ziyu, sitting in the corridor and fearing Fan Qiong would notice something amiss, at once took a sheet of paper, pretended it was a decree and stepping forward waved it at Fan Qiong and said that he should kneel, for the emperor had an order and the general might plead his case in the court of judicial review. Fan Qiong, astounded, did not know what to do, and Liu Ziyu signed to those about him to put Fan Qiong into a sedan chair and escorted him with Zhang Jun's troops to prison, while Liu Guangshi went out to soothe his men, saying that only Fan Qiong was to be put to death and that they were the troops the Son of Heaven himself commanded. The soldiers threw down their arms and said they would obey, and were enrolled in other armies, and the trouble was presently put down and Fan Qiong executed. From then the law of the realm was set right and the bonds of order drawn tight, and powerful ministers and insolent generals learned for the first time that the court was honoured.

The Defence of Shu and the Victory of Heshangyuan

In managing Sichuan and Shaanxi Zhang Jun made the defences solid, so that the enemy was beaten whenever he came. When the great Jin chief Wanyan Zonghan lay gravely ill he summoned his generals and said that since he had entered China none had dared stand against his edge but the commissioner Zhang, and that while he lived the Song had not dared take Shu, and that they should put that thought out of their minds and think only of holding what they had. And when Wanyan Zongbi came raiding, Zhang Jun had Wu Jie and Wu Lin break him heavily, taking more than ten thousand, so that Wanyan Zongbi barely escaped with his life. In the first year of Shaoxing the Song heavily beat the Jin at Heshangyuan, and thereafter the Jin did not dare to spy on Shu. When Zhang Jun left Shu and returned he recommended Wu Jie and eight others as men fit to be commanders, and all were afterwards employed, so that the court had no more anxiety in the west. Beyond his defence Zhang Jun also had stratagems: when the Jin came south in force and took every town they passed quickly, and it being deep winter with snow, the ponds in the towns froze and the Jin used the ice as steps to climb the walls, entering without effort, Zhang Jun, hearing how they took the towns, lifted the old prohibition on the people fishing in the ponds, so that they vied in breaking the ice and netting fish and the ice never closed, and the Jin coming to the walls looked long and went away sighing. And after Li Qiong had gone over to the puppet Qi, Zhang Jun's guests were much taken aback, but Zhang Jun's face was unchanged and he feasted as usual, and only at deep night wrote a letter, sealed it with wax and had it sent to Li Qiong, saying that if there were a chance to kill Liu Yu he should seize it, and if not he should withdraw as soon as he could; and Liu Yu, intercepting the letter, ordered the arrest of Li Qiong and his men, and the frontier was quieted.

His Relation to the Luo Learning and His Shrine and Tomb

Zhang Jun, on the one hand, helped to bring about the situation in which the Luo learning flourished and aided its revival; on the other he held that the Yuanyou party was not necessarily wholly right nor the Xining wholly wrong, occasionally promoted the doctrine of filial brotherhood and suppressed the Luo learning, so that its development was checked. After his dismissal and exile he wrote books, carried on and spread the Luo learning and guided his son Zhang Shi, whose courtesy names were Jingfu and Qinfu, styled Nanxuan and known to scholars as Master Nanxuan, who rose to be expositor of the right of the hall of culture and supervisor of the Chongyou temple on Mount Wuyi and was posthumously given the name Xuan, being an important Neo-Confucian of the Southern Song. Zhang Jun's collected writings of the Ziyan hall and other works survive; his former dwelling stands at Yongzhou, built when he was banished there in the seventh year of Shaoxing, afterwards repaired by his clansman Zhang Mian and renamed the Mian garden, and the Ziyan immortal well he dug himself is still drawn on by the neighbours, the house being a site under municipal protection. His tomb lies at the foot of Mount Heng with a mound in the shape of the character for convex, and a bluish stone tablet at its head reading the tomb of the Duke Zhang Deyuan, grand auxiliary of Song, enfeoffed as duke of Wei; about fifty metres from the tomb at the foot of the hill is a shrine built in the eighth year of Tongzhi. Later the court honoured him with a shrine, the Nanxuan academy, an imperial autograph tablet and the naming of his burial ground as the official hill; tomb and shrine were destroyed in the Cultural Revolution and restored in April 1982. On the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 2016 the city of Mianzhu in Sichuan held a scholarly exchange marking the nine hundred and twentieth anniversary of Zhang Jun's birth and the seven hundredth of the founding of the Ziyan academy by imperial decree.

Personal Relations

• Relationships are recorded from the cached source text and should be read together with the related entries listed below.

Representative Works

• By the Veritable Record of the Jianyan and Shaoxing Periods and the History of Song, juan 361, Zhang Jun was the author of the Collected Meanings and the Miscellaneous Discourses in ten juan, and wrote commentaries on the Documents, the Odes, the Rites and the Spring and Autumn Annals; his memorials and collected writings were mostly lost in the disorders. The catalogue of the imperial library in four divisions records his Biographies of Ziyan, and later men compiled the Collected Works of the Duke of Wei.

Historical Assessment

The historical assessment remains source-sensitive because the available accounts differ in detail and emphasis.