Fànxiàn

Fan County in western Shandong was an early posting of the scholar, painter and calligrapher Zheng Xie, better known as Zheng Banqiao. He arrived as magistrate in the spring of 1742, after gaining the jinshi degree in 1736. His responsibilities brought a celebrated literary figure into the daily business of a small county administration. He remained there until his transfer to Wei County in 1746.

The Palace Museum preserves a calligraphic scroll written in 1742, the year of his arrival at Fan. Later local recollections also connect his posting with poems about the county and its residents. After leaving, he addressed a former clerk in verse, remembering the people and wishing them peace and good harvests. His connection with Fan thus survives through writing as well as official chronology. The four-year posting belongs to the intersection of Qing county government and the literary world of an artist whose bamboo paintings and calligraphy became widely admired.