Yè Mèngdé 葉夢得
Style name Shǎoyùn 少蘊; sobriquet Shílín 石林 (“the Stone Forest”) and Shílín jūshì 石林居士. Native of Wúxiàn 吳縣 (modern Sūzhōu). Northern–Southern-Sòng transition polymath: classicist, statesman, military strategist, prolific essayist, poet, and cí 詞 lyricist. Lifedates 1077–1148, given by the Sòng shǐ wényuàn zhuàn (juan 445). CBDB id 2054.
Jìnshì of Shàoshèng 4 (1097). Held a sequence of senior central and provincial posts under Sòng Huīzōng 徽宗, Qīnzōng 欽宗, and Gāozōng 高宗, including Hànlín xuéshì 翰林學士 (Hanlin Academician), Cānzhī zhèngshì 參知政事 (Vice Grand Councillor, 1131), and military prefectures on the Húběi and Húnán fronts during the Jīn invasions. After 1145 retired to his Shílín villa near Húzhōu 湖州 and died there in 1148.
His Chūnqiū programme was the most ambitious of the early Southern Sòng — a tetrad of works structured by interpretive function:
- Yèshì Chūnqiū zhuàn 葉氏春秋傳 in 20 juan (KR1e0032) — running commentary.
- Chūnqiū kǎo 春秋考 in 16 juan (KR1e0033, originally 30) — verification monograph.
- Chūnqiū Zuǒzhuàn yàn 春秋左傳讞 plus Gōngyáng yàn and Gǔliáng yàn, totalling 22 juan (KR1e0034, originally 30) — polemical critique of the three commentaries.
- Chūnqiū zhǐyào zǒnglì 春秋指要總例 in 2 juan — regulatory items, lost.
- Shílín Chūnqiū 石林春秋 in 8 juan — lost.
Methodologically Yè takes a balanced eclectic position — taking the three commentaries as mutually illuminating evidentiary witnesses, with anchor in the canonical Zhōu legal-and-ritual code. He explicitly identifies Liú Chǎng 劉敞 as his only sound Sòng-period predecessor.
Beyond the Chūnqiū, his major works include the celebrated bǐjì 筆記 collection Shílín yàn yǔ 石林燕語 (KR3j0105); the related bǐjì Bì shǔ lù huà 避暑錄話 (KR3j0106) and Yán xià fàng yán 巖下放言 (KR3j0107); the Shílín shī huà 石林詩話 (one of the principal Northern-Sòng poetic-criticism works); and a major Shàngshū commentary, Shū zhuàn 書傳 in 20 juan (lost). His Shílín cí 石林詞 places him among the major Northern-Sòng cí lyricists.
He was the close ally of Qín Guì 秦檜 (1090–1155) in the early Southern-Sòng court — a political alignment that complicates his later reception, particularly given the contrast with figures like Hú Quán 蕭楚’s pupil who attacked Qín. Buried at Wúxiàn; epitaph by Zhāng Jùn 張浚.