Mid-Yuán 元 senior Hànlín official, foundational figure of the post-1314 Yuán imperial-examination Confucian establishment, and principal Yuán non-Hàn literary figure. Zì Bóyōng 伯庸; hào (collection-name) Shítián 石田 (from his Shítián shānfáng residence); posthumous shì Wénzhēn 文貞. 1279–1338 (CBDB 24523).
Ethnic-political background. Yōnggǔ 雍古 (Önggüt) tribesman by descent — a Nestorian-Christian Inner-Mongolian tribe; the family settled at Jìngzhōu 靖州 (Tiānshān region, modern Inner Mongolia).
Family.
- High-grandfather Xīlǐjìsū 錫里濟蘇 (Sìkù-corrected; originally Xīlǐjísī) — end-Jīn Fèngxiáng bīngmǎ pànguān. Descendants adopted the surname Mǎ from this ancestral office.
- Great-grandfather Yǎhā 雅哈 (Sìkù-corrected; originally Yuèhé) accompanied Khubilai south, settled at Biàn (Kāifēng); later relocated to Guāngzhōu 光州.
Career milestone. Yányòu 1 (1314): at the restoration of the imperial jìnshì examination — placed first in both the provincial (xiānggòng) and metropolitan (huìshì) examinations; second at the imperial court (tíngshì) examination. Singular non-Hàn examinee to perform at this level in the restored Yányòu examinations — establishing the precedent for non-Hàn literary-meritocratic participation in Yuán imperial Confucian governance.
Career sequence.
- Yìngfèng Hànlín wénzì 應奉翰林文字
- Yánchá yùshǐ 鹽察御史 (Salt-Inspection Censor) — successfully impeached the Grand Councillor Tèméndéěr 特們德爾 (Sìkù-corrected; originally Tiěběndiéér; = Temüder); demoted to Kāipíngxiàn yǐn after Tèméndéěr returned to power
- After Tèméndéěr’s death: Hànlín dàizhì 翰林待制 → Lǐbù shàngshū 禮部尚書 → Cānyì Zhōngshūshěng shì 參議中書省事
- Yuántǒng 1 (1333): Yùshǐ zhōngchéng 御史中丞
- Shūmì fùshǐ 樞密副使
- Requested return; died Zhìzhèng 4 (1338).
Literary placement. Sū Tiānjué’s Yuán wénlèi canonized Mǎ with the largest single corpus of any author (20 poems + 20 prose pieces) — explicitly framing him as one who jiē wǔ SuíTáng, shàng zhuī HànWèi (takes-up SuíTáng lineage, ascending to track HànWèi); his “literary art was, by him, one-transformation”. With Yuán Juè 袁桷 (of Kuàijī), Yú Jí 虞集 (of Shǔjùn), and Wáng Gòu 王搆 (of Dōngpíng), Mǎ Zǔcháng formed the Dàdé / Yányòu mid-Yuán literary culmination quartet.
Within the Kanripo corpus. KR4d0491 Shítián wénjí 石田文集 (撰).
Reference. Yuánshǐ j. 143.