Zhào Qí 趙岐 (ca. 108–201)
Originally named Zhào Jiā 趙嘉, zì Táiqīng 臺卿; later renamed Qí 岐, zì Bīnqīng 邠卿, after the BīnQí country (Yōngzhōu 雍州 region, hence his self-styled “Bīnqīng”). Native of Chánglíng 長陵 in Jīngzhào 京兆 (present-day Xiányáng 咸陽 area, Shǎnxī).
Career as preserved in the HòuHàn shū 後漢書 (juan 64) and recapitulated in the Sìkù tíyào of the Mèngzǐ zhùshū KR1h0003: appointed in the 2nd year of the Yǒngxīng 永興 era (154 CE) to the Sīkōngyuàn 司空掾, then to the magistracy of Píshì 皮氏. In Yánxī 1 (158) the Chángshì 中常侍 Táng Héng 唐衡 — elder brother of Zhào Qí’s enemy Táng Xuán 唐玹, then jīngzhàoyǐn 京兆尹 — drove Zhào Qí into hiding. He fled “into the four directions” (táobì sìfāng 逃避四方), assumed the new name Qí, and lived in concealment in Běihǎi 北海, sheltered by Sūn Bīn 孫賓; it was during this period — confined behind a hidden wall in Sūn’s house — that he is said to have composed the Mèngzǐ zhāngjù 孟子章句, the surviving Hàn commentary on the Mèngzǐ (KR1h0002).
After amnesty he was made cìshǐ of Bìngzhōu 并州刺史; was again caught in the dǎnggù 黨錮 proscription for over ten years; in Zhōngpíng 1 (184) recalled as yíláng 議郎; later Dūnhuáng tàishǒu 燉煌太守, tàipú 太僕, and finally tàicháng 太常, dying in office in 201.
The Mèngzǐ tící 孟子題辭 (preserved at the head of KR1h0002) is also Zhào Qí’s: it gives the conventional Hàn account of Mencius’s life, family origins (descent from the Lǔ Mèngsūn 孟孫 cadet line), tutelage under disciples of Zǐsī 子思, and the seven-piān structure of the book. The Sìkù editors note that Zhào Qí’s commentary “is unlike most Hàn glosses on the Classics (which concentrate on xùngǔ 訓詁 and míngwù 名物); it rather paraphrases and explicates the sense, in the manner of later kǒuyì 口義 oral lectures” — a style they trace back to the (pseudo-)Kǒng Ānguó / Mǎ Róng / Zhèng Xuán Lúnyǔ commentaries collected in Hé Yàn’s Lúnyǔ jíjiě 論語集解 (KR1h0005, KR1h0006, KR1h0007).