Wen Yanbo Chronicle

Wen Yanbo was a renowned official of his time, who served four administrations: Reign of Ren, Ying, Shen and Zhe. He held the post of prime minister for two times in reign of Ren and the privy councilor for nine years in reign of Ying and Shen. He anticipated and assisted to deal with vital events in reign of Emperor Zhe. He worked as generals and ministers for nearly 56 years. Furthermore, he attained great achievements on politics, military affairs, civil affairs, culture and calligraphy.Wen Yanbo was conservative on politics. He held different views with Wang Anshi when he was a privy councilor. Wang Anshi proclaimed on radical performs, while Wen Yanbo opposed to change the systems and laws passed down. From his viewpoints, it was unnecessary to change the systems and laws which might lose the belief from the people. Wang Anshi favored to expand the frontier regions; however, Wen Yanbo maintained that this country should be refrained form confrontations. Wen Yanbo was skillful on dealing with political affairs, who concerned himself for the welfare of the common people. He was on friendly terms with many renowned officials such as Du Yan, Fu Bi, Sima Guang, Bao Zheng and so on.The essays of Wen Yanbo were concise, direct and smooth; the lines of his poems were fresh and graceful. He wrote The Essays of Lu Gong with 40 volumes. He was also good at handwriting and drawing which were elegant and ease.The studies on Wen Yanbo are on the early stage and are not in a system. This chronicle is complied according to documents about his political life, daily life, associations, his poems and essays. The paper bases on text analysis; it focuses on literary collection and textual research and examination, which would offer a platform for further study.In this paper, I collected scattered documents and examined them. As a result, six poems which are lost in The Essays of Lu Gong and Poems of Song Dynasty were found. Also, I completed and corrected The Essays of Lun Gong according to Complete Compile, Memorials From Renowned Officials of Song Dynasty and annals of a locality.