Ge Hong - Early Official Career

Early Official Career

Around 302, Zheng Yin, perhaps catching wind of the growing political turmoil, moved to Mount Huo in modern Fujian province to live in seclusion with a few select disciples. Ge did not accompany him, and reported that Zheng Yin’s exact whereabouts were unknown. In the following year, at the age of twenty, Ge began his official career with the military service, swept up in a tide of rebellion and warfare. He was appointed to the position of Defender Commandant, and ordered to raise a militia of several hundred to fight Shi Bing, an ally of the rebel, Zhang Chang, who sought to overthrow the Western Jin. Hong, who served under the command of Gu Mi, is not mentioned in official accounts of this conflict. In his autobiographical postface, for a literati he is unusually forthcoming about his battlefield heroics and abilities as a commander. Although he only admitted to killing two men and a horse by arrow, such accounts of Ge’s bravery is made all the more startling by his insistence that in his youth, he was so weak that he could not even draw a bow. Such self-deprecating physical descriptions are probably best seen in the same light as his claims of early poverty. Based on his service record, it is more likely that Ge received military training in his youth, and was skilled in both the use of arms and strategy.

After Shi Bing’s force was destroyed, he was discharged and recognized for his service with the honorary title of "General Who Makes the Waves Submit". According to Ge’s account, soon after he left for the Jin capital of Luoyang to search for "unusual books". In reality, Ge’s journey may have been inspired by the more mundane desire to parlay his military honors into an official position at the capital. During this time, the so-called "War of the Eight Princes" consumed the area around Luoyang, a civil conflict that would eventually result in almost sixteen years of political chaos, prior to the collapse of the Western Jin in 317. To the southeast of Luoyang, the rebel, Chen Min, occupied a large swath of territory east of the Yangzi River, and declared himself the Duke of Chu. Owing to such a staggering degree of social upheaval, Ge found the way north impassable, and wandered in the south.

Around 306, Ge entered into the service of Ji Han (c. 262-306), a relative of the poet and essayist, Ji Kang. At the time, Ji Han was fighting several rebel groups in the south, and had just been appointed Regional Inspector of Guangzhou. Ge states that he saw employment with Ji Han as a means to move south, and escape political and social chaos. It may also be that Ge and Ji Han shared a bond of friendship, based on mutual interests and literary aspirations. Like Ge, Ji Han was a military official who also excelled in literature and dabbled in esoteric studies. Ji Han wrote the "Rhapsody on Cold Victual Powder", which lauds the effectiveness of a drug, popular with the literati during the Six Dynasties era, as well as a tract, entitled "Description of Herbs and Plants of the Southern Region" that is no longer extant. The period of Hong’s employment with Ji Han was extremely brief, for Ji Han was killed while en route to assuming his new position in Guangzhou. Ge, who had traveled ahead of his new employer, was left in the south with neither job nor political patron. Thus Ge’s early official career came to an abrupt and unexpected end.