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.
Daoist hermit Yan Zun earned a living by divination in Chengdu and declined official offers. He argued true wealth lies in inner peace rather than material gains, rejecting a rich man’s aid and claiming fortune and fame harm one’s spirit.
Kan Ze (courtesy name De Run) was born in Shanyin, Kuaiji Commandery – modern-day Shaoxing, Zhejiang – into a family of modest means. Unlike many elite officials of his time, he had no inherited privilege. To pursue learning, he copied borrowed books by hand, demonstrating extraordinary diligence. This early discipline laid the foundation for…
In Chapter 43 of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, as Zhuge Liang arrives in Chaisang to persuade Sun Quan to form an alliance against Cao Cao, he is confronted not by soldiers, but by scholars.