士珸 Shìwú

Shiwu

Shiwu, courtesy name Gongmei, was a great-grandson of Prince Anyi of Pu. He was quick and alert by nature and as a child was as grave as a grown man. By the age of twenty he was General-in-Chief of the Right Gate Guard and Militia Commissioner of Guizhou. He was carried north with the Retired Emperor, and when they halted east of Ming Prefecture he plotted with the other clansmen to escape, go back and hold the city. Before the plan could be carried out the Jin closed their ring around them and they all scattered and fled. Shiwu fled west on a donkey; at midnight robbers took the donkey from him, and he hurried on foot until at dawn he reached a wine shop in Wu'an, where he told people, "I am the emperor's uncle." The county officials heard of it and came to see him, and supplied him with clothes, a cap, a saddle and a horse. He then recruited more than a hundred able-bodied young men, went with them to Ci Prefecture, and gathered volunteer troops to lift the siege of Ming Prefecture. Within ten days he had five thousand fighting men, and tens of thousands came over to him. Edit

At that time Wang Lin, the official holding Ming Prefecture, meant to turn traitor and surrender to the enemy; the soldiers and people in their anger killed him and chose the Commander Han Yi as their leader. Shiwu came up under the walls at midnight, fought hard and broke the siege. The next day he entered the city and assigned the defences. The enemy dug trenches and set up chevaux-de-frise to show that they meant to stay. Shiwu urged his officers and men to hold to the death; his fire catapults smashed the enemy's siege engines, and by a stratagem he captured their leader alive, after which the enemy lifted the siege and left. For his merit he was promoted to acting Prefect of Ming Prefecture, still holding the post of Defence Commissioner. Edit

In the second year of Jianyan, the Jin attacked Ming again. The grain ran out, relief was cut off and the men could not hold, so they bore Shiwu out of the city with them, and by way of Baijiatan he reached Daming Prefecture. An edict summoned him to the emperor's temporary residence. Edit

In the fifth year of Shaoxing he was promoted to Surveillance Commissioner of Quan Prefecture, and promoted again to Commissioner of Proclamation of the Pinghai Army and Administrator of the Southern Outer Office of Imperial Clan Affairs. At that time the clan residence at Quan had only just been built and few there were inclined to learning. Shiwu memorialized that the clansman Shanzhen was outstanding in letters and held in high esteem by all, and asked that he be excused from the prefectural qualifying examination; from this people knew there was encouragement to be had. He was promoted to Military Commissioner but died before he could take up the post, at forty-six. He was posthumously made Junior Preceptor and posthumously enfeoffed as Prince of Heyi Commandery. In the Chunxi years he was given the posthumous name Zhongjing. His son Buliu served in turn as commander at Lin'an and Shaoxing, and was known for his government. Edit