Zhang Chao

Zhang Chao was a Chinese literatus, publisher, and fiction writer from Anhui Province, China. He was born in 1650 during the Qing dynasty. Zhang had extensive knowledge in the field of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. He liked chess, calligraphy and painting and was good at various kinds of poetry. He was also interested in flowers, birds, fishes and insects. His works are rich in imagination and associated with the features of the Qing dynasty. Shadows of Sweet Dreams and New Tales of Yu Chu are his representative works. He also wrote Huaying ci 花影詞 (Poems of Flower Shadows), Xinang cunjin 奚囊寸錦, and Yin zhong baxian ling 飲中八仙令. Life Zhang Chao was born in 1650 in She County, Anhui. One year before he was born, his father Zhang Xikong became a jinshi and went to work in Shandong as an educational inspector. After only a few months, Zhang Xikong's mother died and he resigned his position to go home as a merchant. Zhang Chao grew up in a wealthy family and his education was very strict. Under his father's influence, Zhang Chao studied diligently from his childhood. He devoted himself to the imperial examination for some time and he started to write eight-legged essays when he was 13 years old. Between the ages of 12 and 26, he failed the imperial examinations four times, in 1663, 1666, 1669 and 1672 during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor. He worked as a bureaucrat in the early Kangxi era, but his rank was low and he became disillusioned. Disappointed with his career, he traveled to many places and lived in Rugao and Yangzhou for long periods. He made a lot of friends who were famous scholars or litterateurs at that time, such as , Kong Shangren, , and Shitao. When he finished Shadows of Sweet Dreams, almost a hundred of his friends made comments about his book. In 1699, he fell victim to a conspiracy and he was sent to prison.