There was a man surnamed Zhang in Henan Province whose ancestors were from Shandong. During the latter part of the Ming Dynasty, when Shandong was in wide-spread turmoil, his wife was captured and taken away by Manchu soldiers. After that, as Zhang often used to travel to Henan, he decided to settle down there.
There was a monk in Shandong Province’s Changqing County who was well-versed in Buddhist teachings and conscientiously maintained his purity of spirit. At the ripe old age of over eighty, hewas still in very good health.
In “The Examination for the Post of City God” from Strange Tales from Liaozhai Studio, why would Song Tao go to Changshan to inquire about Scholar Zhang?
My brother-in-law’s grandfather Master Song Tao, a local recipient of a government stipend for bachelors of letters, was lying sick in bed one day when an officer bearing a summons and leading a white-blazed horse came to him and said, ”You are requested to be present at the examination.”