"Shu Gong" Chen Si and Ming Jiajing-Era Fu'an Governance: A Bean-Sized Meal
Here’s the story. During the Jiajing era of the Ming Dynasty, the magistrate of Fu’an County in Fujian ate only one bean-sized piece of sweet potato at every meal. The locals gave him a nickname, “Shu Gong” (the Sweet Potato Elder). When I first opened Volume 8 of the “Wanli Funing Zhou Zhi” and saw the name “Chen Si” in the “Officials” section, I expected a routine Ming-era biography of a model bureaucrat. ...