Gěng Nánzhòng 耿南仲
Style name Xīdào 希道. Native of Kāifēng 開封 (modern Hénán). Active ca. 1115–1126 (late-Northern-Sòng); precise lifedates not in CBDB or in the Sòngshǐ. The Sòngshǐ (juan 352) gives him a sharply critical biography in the Jiān chén zhuàn (“Treacherous Officials”).
Held court office under Huīzōng and Qīnzōng. Most consequential earlier appointment: Tàizǐ zhānshì 太子詹事 (“Director of the Crown Prince’s Household”) to Zhào Huán 趙桓 (the future Qīnzōng) during the latter’s tenure as Crown Prince (1115–1125). Continued in office under Qīnzōng’s brief reign as Zīzhèng diàn dàxuéshì 資政殿大學士 (“Imperial Adviser of the Zīzhèng Hall”) and concurrent Shūmì yuàn 樞密院 (“Bureau of Military Affairs”) deliberation officer.
Together with Wú Jiǎn 吳幵, Gěng was the principal advocate of the cession-and-appeasement policy in the early Jìngkāng 靖康 (1126) crisis — proposing the cession of Tàiyuán 太原, Zhōngshān 中山, and Héjiān 河間 to the Jin under the San zhèn 三鎮 (“Three Commanderies”) cession treaty of early 1126. The treaty failed to prevent the Jin’s renewed advance later in 1126, and the Sòng-historiographic verdict on Gěng’s policy is unanimously hostile: the Sòngshǐ counts the cession-and-appeasement policy among the proximate causes of the catastrophic Jin capture of Kāifēng and the deportation of the captive emperors Huīzōng and Qīnzōng. After the southern crossing in 1127 Gěng was demoted and ended his life in exile.
His sole surviving work:
- [[KR1a0020|Zhōuyì xīn jiǎngyì]] 周易新講義 in six juan (also titled Jìn Zhōuyì jiě yì 進周易解義 in some early recensions) — a Yì commentary apparently first presented to Qīnzōng during his tenure as Crown Prince, with the doctrinal core that the Yì teaches the management of human conduct so as to attain wú jiù 无咎 (“no fault”) / wú dà guò 無大過 (“no great fault”). The Sìkù tiyao delivers a sharp adjudication that this very wú jiù hermeneutic corresponds to Gěng’s own appeasement-conduct in the 1126 crisis — “the case where biased classical-learning extends harm to national affairs.”