Yan Guang, Emperor Guangwu’s old classmate, hid as a fisherman after the emperor took power. He treated the emperor and ministers casually, rejecting the official post of remonstrator. He farmed and fished at Fuchun Mountain and declined later summons till his death at eighty.
Principled Wang Ba quit officialdom under Wang Mang. Summoned in Eastern Han, he refused to address the emperor as his lord. A slander halted Hou Ba’s plan to yield his post to him. Wang retreated to a humble cottage and declined all later imperial summons.
Upright scholar Min Gong valued dignity above all. He quit Hou Ba’s service for being ignored on state affairs and rejected later imperial summons. Declining local officials’ meat supply to avoid burdening townsfolk, he spent his final years in Pei County.
Daoist recluse Xiang Chang mastered Dao De Jing and I Ching, rejecting Wang Mang’s official summons. After marrying off his children, he cut off family chores and roamed the Five Sacred Peaks with his friend Qin Qing, vanishing without a trace.
Li Hong’s moral conduct harmonized his neighborhood. Summoned as magistrate, he delayed departure for a month then fled to avoid office. Scholar Yang Xiong admired his balanced stance, neither extreme reclusiveness like Boyi nor over-accommodation like Liuxia Hui.
Zheng Pu, a virtuous Western Han hermit, declined official offers from powerful General Wang Feng. Farming under Yan Stones, he won wide fame and high praise from scholar Yang Xiong. Locals erected a stone stele and shrine to honor him for generations.
Scholar Han Shun declined official summons and hid in Zhongnan Mountains amid late Wang Mang turmoil. Warlord Wei Xiao sent lavish gifts to invite him as tutor, yet Han insisted Wei visit him in mountains. While Wei’s faction perished, Han lived purely in seclusion till death.
The unnamed Daoist Old Man of Pengcheng lived secluded over ninety years. He mourned Gong Sheng, who starved himself rather than serve Wang Mang, lamenting fame brought the scholar’s premature death, seeing such martyrdom contradict Daoist self-preservation.