Jiao Hong

Jiao Hong (1540 to 1620) was a Chinese philosopher and historian of the late Ming dynasty and a native of Nanjing. He passed the provincial examination at the age of twenty five, but it took him another twenty five years, until 1589, to pass the imperial examination, which he did with the first rank, and he was then appointed to the Hanlin Academy. He held that human beings are the most important factor in history, and he compiled many volumes of biographies of Ming period figures in the Guochao xianzheng lu, which is regarded as an important supplement to the official History of Ming. His other writings include the collected works Danyuan ji and Danyuan xuji, the miscellany Jiaoshi bicheng, the commentaries Laozi yi and Zhuangzi yi, and the correction of popular written forms in Sushu kanwu.