Biography
Family Background and Early Years
Shen Kuo came from a bureaucratic family of the Wuyue region, though he described himself as being of humble family background. His family descended from the prominent Shen lineage of Wukang County in Huzhou. From the generation of Shen Kuo's great-great-grandfather, one branch of the family moved to Qiantang County in Hangzhou, and its ancestral graves were also located at Xixi in Qiantang, in the area of present-day Liuxia Subdistrict, Hangzhou. Shen Kuo's great-grandfather Shen Zengqing had served in the Wuyue kingdom as an Agricultural Colony Commissioner in charge of state farming. After Wuyue submitted its territory to the Song, Shen Zengqing became a military secretariat official of Chongxin Army, in present-day Suizhou, Hubei, and later served as Assistant Director of the Court of Judicial Review with a detached appointment at the Western Capital, present-day Luoyang. Shen Kuo's grandfather Shen Ying died young and never held office in his lifetime, but through his descendants he later received the posthumous rank of Minister of War. Shen Kuo's father Shen Zhou, courtesy name Wangzhi, was raised together with his elder brother Shen Tong. Shen Tong passed the imperial examination in 1000, the third year of Xianping, and Shen Zhou did so in 1015, the eighth year of Dazhong Xiangfu. Shen Tong had two sons, Shen Zhen and Shen Fu; Shen Fu's sons, Shen Gou and Shen Liao, were Shen Kuo's nephews and both became well-known literati of the period. After passing the examination, Shen Zhou held local offices in Pingquan, Suzhou, Runzhou, Mingzhou, and elsewhere.
Shen Kuo's mother, Lady Xu, came from Wu County in Suzhou. Her family, like the Shens, was an official family with roots in the Wuyue period. Her father Xu Zhongrong reached the office of Attendant in the Crown Prince's household and raised at least four children. The Xu family later also produced the Neo-Confucian scholar Xu Qian. Lady Xu had an elder brother, Xu Dong, who had also passed the imperial examination, twice served on missions to pacify displaced people in the north, and wrote the military treatise *Tiger Seal Classic*. Under his influence, Lady Xu herself learned to read and write. One of her full sisters married Xie Tao; Xie Tao's daughters in turn married Mei Yaochen, Huang Tingjian, and Wang Anli, the younger brother of Wang Anshi, making Shen Kuo a maternal cousin of the Mei, Huang, and Wang families. Shen Kuo's parents had two sons and two daughters. One of Shen Kuo's elder sisters married Yang Wenqing, grandson of Yang Yan, a Grand Councilor of the Wuyue kingdom, while his elder brother Shen Pi later served in local offices including Magistrate of Ningguo County.
Shen Kuo was the younger son. He was born around 1031, the ninth year of Tiansheng under Emperor Renzong of Song, when his father Shen Zhou was fifty-four and his mother Lady Xu was forty-seven. Because he was born late in his parents' lives and was frequently ill as a child, they cared for him closely. At that time Shen Zhou had been transferred from Guangnan East Circuit to Fengzhou and was later transferred again to Suzhou. Shen Kuo may therefore have been born in one of the places where Shen Zhou served, such as Pingquan in present-day Jianyang, Sichuan; Fengzhou in present-day Fengkai, Guangdong; or Wu County in Suzhou, his mother's native place. Shen Kuo later registered his household in Wu County, present-day Suzhou, Jiangsu. Much of his childhood was spent traveling with his father between official posts. Few records survive, though *Dream Pool Essays*, written late in his life, preserves a small number of recollections.
Soon after Shen Kuo's birth, Shen Zhou entered the central government as Assistant Director of the Court of Judicial Review. Around 1039, the second year of Baoyuan, he offended powerful figures and was demoted, succeeding Fan Zhongyan as Prefect of Runzhou; Shen Kuo accompanied him to Runzhou, present-day Zhenjiang, Jiangsu. In 1040, the first year of Kangding, Shen Zhou became Prefect of Quanzhou and Shen Kuo went with him to Fujian. Shen later wrote in *Dream Pool Essays* of a giant crocodile captured by Wang Juzhi in Chaozhou and described methods he learned from local people for catching crocodiles. In Quanzhou he also became acquainted with Chen Wenlian, a descendant of the Five Dynasties southern Fujian warlord Chen Hongjin. Chen Wenlian had earlier participated in the capture in Guangzhou of Li Shun, a leader of a rebellion in Sichuan, allowing Shen Kuo to inspect records from that uprising kept by the Chen family. In Fujian Shen observed that many people used gelsemium as a poison even though the *Divine Farmer's Classic of Materia Medica* treated it as a medicine, while medical texts also said that gelsemium was another name for wild kudzu. He therefore investigated the issue and concluded that the “wild kudzu” described in the *Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang* was not the same plant as what people in southern Fujian called gelsemium, and he described the differences in detail.
In 1043, the third year of Qingli, Shen Zhou was promoted to an office in the Kaifeng prefectural administration, and Shen Kuo traveled with him from Fujian to Bianliang. Passing through Nan'an in Fujian, Shen saw authentic calligraphy containing poems by Han Wo and greatly admired it. While in Bianliang he studied the patterns formed in ice during a visit to Jixi Temple. In 1048, the eighth year of Qingli, Shen Zhou was transferred as Fiscal Commissioner of Jiangnan East Circuit, and Shen Kuo followed him to Jiangning Prefecture, present-day Nanjing. While there Shen noticed writing carved on a stone used by a cook for pressing meat. After washing it he found that it was the epitaph of the Prince of Hailing of Southern Qi and kept it for many years. He also learned the prescription for “Shenbao Pills” from the physician Wang Qi and used it to cure chronic neck pain. The prescription was later included in *Good Prescriptions of Su and Shen*.
In 1050, the second year of Huangyou, Shen Zhou resigned as Fiscal Commissioner of Jiangnan East Circuit because he “did not enjoy serving those who sought profit and power” and was demoted to govern Mingzhou, present-day Ningbo. Shen Kuo meanwhile returned to Suzhou and stayed with his maternal uncle's family to study. His maternal uncle Xu Dong was by then already deceased, but he had been a noted military theorist. Shen's mother, Lady Xu, who had grown up under Xu Dong's influence, transmitted some of his military learning to Shen Kuo and his brother. Shen Kuo developed an eye disorder after persistently practicing calligraphy in dim light. Wang Qi again came to treat him. Although the condition improved after a year, Shen later said the lingering pain continued for thirty years. Prolonged illness led him to learn medicine. According to *Good Prescriptions of Su and Shen*, during this period Shen read widely, practiced breathing techniques, and studied medical learning.
In the year he recovered, his father resigned office and returned to Qiantang, dying shortly afterward in the eleventh month. Shen Kuo and his elder brother Shen Pi returned to Qiantang to observe mourning. Using a note entrusted to them by their father, they asked Wang Anshi, then serving as Assistant Prefect in Shuzhou, present-day Huaining, Anhui, to write Shen Zhou's epitaph. In the tenth month of 1052, the fourth year of Huangyou, they buried their father at Longjuli in Qiantang, near present-day Longjuwu in Liuxia Subdistrict of Hangzhou's Xihu District. During the mourning period Shen Kuo recorded Bi Sheng's movable type printing technique and Yu Hao's *Timberwork Manual*. Bi Sheng had already died and movable type had not yet spread widely. Shen personally improved the technique, and “Shen-family movable type” and the “Shen Cunzhong method” soon became known in Hangzhou.
Early Official Career
Shen Kuo's father had been an incorrupt official and accumulated little wealth, while Shen's mother was already elderly. The family's finances therefore worsened, and after completing mourning Shen Kuo quickly sought a livelihood. In 1054, the first year of Zhihe, he entered office through hereditary privilege as Registrar of Shuyang County in Haizhou. A registrar was a low-ranking county staff officer responsible for miscellaneous administrative work. The post was demanding and poorly ranked. The previous magistrate of Shuyang had failed in river-control work, provoking rebellion among conscripted laborers. Shen investigated conditions on the ground and concluded that the unrest had arisen partly because repeated policy changes had shaken public confidence and partly because supervising officials treated laborers harshly and arbitrarily prolonged their service. He dismissed the officials who supervised the workers and agreed with the population to reduce the term of labor service from forty days to thirty. This not only ended the disturbance but also allowed the Shu River to be dredged successfully and some 7,000 mu of good farmland to be reclaimed. Shen later recalled that he had entered office in order to earn money to support his family and described the registrarship as “the humblest and most laborious of offices.” He had previously been able to devote much time to the study of many fields, but now could only discipline himself, do his utmost, and carry out his official duties well. In 1055, the second year of Zhihe, he temporarily administered neighboring Donghai County while still holding the registrarship.
In 1061, the sixth year of Jiayou, Shen traveled to Ningguo County, where his elder brother Shen Pi was serving, in preparation for the imperial examinations. Shen Pi was then directing the reconstruction of Wanchun Polder at Wuhu. Four years after the work was completed, however, a flood destroyed its embankment and opponents of the project renewed their criticism. Shen Kuo consequently wrote the *Illustrated Record of Wanchun Polder*, setting out the affair in detail and recording methods of polder construction in the hope that they could be adopted more widely. Large-scale use of polder fields in Jiangnan did not become common until the Southern Song.
After many years as registrar, Shen not only failed to receive promotion but faced dismissal on three occasions. Because the Song state gave promotion advantages to officials with the jinshi degree, he hoped to alter his career prospects through the examination system, as his nephew Shen Gou had done. Ouyang Xiu was then renowned for promoting younger talent. In 1061 Shen presented Ouyang with his own *Treatise on Music*, in which he criticized the contemporary musical world's habit of mechanically imitating antiquity without understanding its meaning, emphasized music's role in moral education, and hoped to attract Ouyang's attention. In 1062, the sixth year of Jiayou as given in the source, Shen sat the local examination in Suzhou under his Wu County registration and ranked first. In the second month of the following year he went to the capital for the departmental examination administered by the Ministry of Rites. Fan Zhen served as chief examiner, while Sima Guang and Wang Anshi were two of the examiners. Shen passed the jinshi examination and, as the top candidate from Suzhou, was granted an audience with Emperor Renzong.
In 1064, the first year of Zhiping, Shen received the post of Judicial Administrator of Yangzhou, taking charge of criminal cases for the prefecture. Pingshan Hall in Yangzhou had once been a meeting place where Ouyang Xiu gathered leading scholars from throughout the realm but had fallen into disrepair after Ouyang's departure. Diao Yue, Prefect of Yangzhou, therefore assigned the newly arrived Shen Kuo to renovate it. In 1065, the second year of Zhiping, Shen's superior Zhang Chu, Fiscal Commissioner of Huainan Circuit, recommended him to the court. Shen later married Zhang Chu's third daughter as his second wife and also treated Zhang as a teacher. Through Zhang's recommendation, Shen was transferred to the capital in the ninth month of that year to collate books in the Zhaowen Library. Under Song regulations, an official serving in the Zhaowen Library for two years could advance into the palace scholarly institutions, whose officials were not bound by ordinary promotion rules and from which many grand councilors and senior ministers were drawn. In 1068, the first year of Xining, Shen accordingly became a Collator in the Palace Library. There he gained access to many privately held imperial books on astronomy and calendrical science, participated in work on the armillary sphere, and compared astronomical observations in order to calculate errors in the existing calendar. In the eighth month his mother Lady Xu died. Shen left office for mourning, escorted her coffin back to his home district with his brother, buried her together with their father, and asked Zeng Gong to write her epitaph.
Participation in the Reforms
In 1067, the fourth year of Zhiping, Emperor Yingzong of Song died. The new ruler, Emperor Shenzong, soon appointed Wang Anshi as Hanlin Academician. In the second year of Xining, Shenzong formally appointed Wang as Assistant Grand Councilor, and the large-scale reform movement began. In 1071, the fourth year of Xining, Shen Kuo completed mourning and returned to the capital, where he was promoted to Reviewing Official of the Judicial Office of the Secretariat. The five offices of the Secretariat were newly established under the Xining reforms to supervise and administer affairs while bypassing the Secretariat-Chancellery, where conservatives were concentrated. Reformers placed relatively new officials such as Shen in these posts in order to reduce conservative influence over the departments and improve implementation of the reforms. By taking this office Shen became a subordinate official of the grand councilors, indicating that he had gained the confidence of Wang Anshi and Emperor Shenzong.
In the fifth year of Xining, Shen was entrusted with the important task of dredging the Bian River. The waterway was vital to the livelihood of the capital's population of around one million, and because the Northern Song also stationed large forces near Bianliang, it was central to the transport of grain and military supplies. By established practice the emperor went every three years to the Round Altar to sacrifice to Heaven and Earth, and clerks often used preparations for the ritual as an opportunity to build ornamental grounds and seek private profit. Shen therefore investigated the historical development of the southern-suburb great sacrifice and compiled the *Regulations for the Southern Suburban Sacrifice*. He was then appointed to administer suburban sacrificial affairs. By following the new ritual regulations he saved expenses measured in the tens of thousands, greatly satisfying Emperor Shenzong.
In the eighth month, when famine struck Huainan, Shen was ordered to inspect the area. He distributed grain and funds from the Ever-Normal Granaries, cleared waterways, and restored abandoned fields, achieving visible results. He was promoted to Collator of the Academy of Scholarly Worthies and assigned to inspect agricultural waterworks in Liangzhe. Because the water-control works there were on a very large scale, Shen proposed paying famine victims to carry out the construction, a plan approved by the emperor.
In the ninth month Shen was promoted to Attendant to the Heir Apparent and placed in charge of the Directorate of Astronomy. At the time many of the astronomical officials were ineffective and had little knowledge of astronomy. Shen reformed the institution, improved its instruments, invited Wei Pu to construct a new calendar, and called for astronomical-observation books to be collected from across the empire. In the eleventh month, the court ordered private vehicles to be registered, while the Market Exchange Office planned to seal privately operated salt wells in Sichuan to prevent illicit salt trading. Both measures caused widespread discussion. Shen argued that most civilian vehicles were peaceful-use carts unsuitable for mobile warfare, and that the many small salt wells would require expensive new enforcement if sealed. Emperor Shenzong agreed and ordered both measures halted the next day. Shen was promoted to Drafter of Proclamations and concurrently put in charge of the Submission and Silver Terrace Office; only three months had elapsed since his appointment as Attendant to the Heir Apparent.
In the eighth month of 1074, the seventh year of Xining, Shen was appointed Investigating Commissioner of Hebei West Circuit and placed in charge of its militia and baojia affairs. The circuit lay on the northern frontier. Shen concentrated on military-administrative reform and border defense. After returning to the capital in the second month of 1075, the eighth year of Xining, he submitted thirty-one proposals for administrative correction, most of which Emperor Shenzong approved and adopted. In the ninth month Shen concurrently took charge of the Armaments Directorate, responsible for the manufacture and storage of weapons. He had studied bows in depth, formulated the concept of the “six excellences of a bow,” and proposed mass production of divine-arm crossbows. By the following fifth month, when the Armaments Directorate reported to the court, weapons output had increased more than tenfold.
In the second month of 1075 Shen was also ordered to revise the “Nine-Army Battle Method.” He divided the nine armies into nine camps, each forming its own formation, mutually supporting one another back to back and facing outward in all directions, so that the system could be used flexibly. He called it the “border-prefecture formation method.” In the ninth month he compiled construction standards for fortified walls, military camps, and related structures.
Mission to Liao and Service as State Finance Commissioner
In the third month of 1075, the eighth year of Xining, a Song–Liao border dispute arose. Liao demanded that Mount Huangwei be taken as the boundary, while the Song court refused. The Liao envoy Xiao Xi came to Bianjing, accused the Song court of insincerity and delay in negotiations, and refused to leave his lodging. Shen Kuo went to the Bureau of Military Affairs to inspect earlier archival documents and discovered that the previous Song–Liao agreement had set the ancient Great Wall as the boundary, while Mount Huangwei lay thirty li south of the wall. He memorialized this finding to the court. Emperor Shenzong awarded him one thousand taels of silver and sent him to Liao as a return-thanks envoy.
Before leaving Bianjing in mid-fourth month, Shen located several dozen relevant letters and archival documents and required his staff and clerks to memorize them. Whenever the Khitan grand councilor Yang Yijie raised an issue, Shen had his subordinates cite the relevant archival clause in reply. Six rounds of negotiations were held. Unable to answer the documentary evidence, Yang threatened that sacrificing the friendship of the two states over a few li of land would be harmful to peace. Shen responded by invoking the state's principles and the basic interests of its people, insisting that not an inch of territory could be yielded. Through the efforts of Shen and his mission, the Liao court eventually made concessions, temporarily easing tension in Song–Liao relations. In the seventh month Shen began the journey home. Drawing on the geography, terrain, customs, and local life observed along the way, he prepared the *Illustrated Notes on the Mission to the Khitan* and presented it to the court.
For his success on the mission, Shen was promoted to an inspection and pacification assignment for disaster-stricken prefectures and military prefectures in Huainan and Liangzhe. In the tenth month he became acting State Finance Commissioner, and in the tenth month of the following year he was appointed Hanlin Academician while retaining the finance commissionership in acting capacity. In the tenth month of 1076, the ninth year of Xining, Wang Anshi left the grand councilorship and Wu Chong succeeded him as Joint Manager of Affairs with the Secretariat-Chancellery. When Shen went to the grand councilor's residence to report on government affairs, Wu asked him about the Service Exemption Law. Shen suggested reducing service payments required from poor households. Wu agreed and memorialized the proposal to Emperor Shenzong. In the eleventh month Shen again submitted a memorial asking that service-exemption payments for poorer households be reduced and proposing that the former labor-service system be combined with the current exemption system in a mixed arrangement of compulsory assignment and hired service. Because Shen expressed this view only after Wang Anshi had left office, it appeared to mark a subtle change from his earlier attitude toward the Service Exemption Law and provided ammunition to his opponents.
Dismissal and Later Years
In 1077, the tenth year of Xining, Attendant Censor Cai Que impeached Shen on the grounds that he was attaching himself to a senior minister, Wu Chong, speaking outside his proper jurisdiction because the Service Exemption Law was under the Court of Agricultural Supervision, and taking inconsistent positions. In the seventh month Shen was removed as State Finance Commissioner and Hanlin Academician, demoted to Diarist and Academician of the Academy of Scholarly Worthies, and sent out to govern Xuanzhou.
In 1080, the third year of Yuanfeng, Emperor Shenzong transferred Shen to the Song–Western Xia front. He was appointed Prefect of Yanzhou and Concurrent Pacification Commissioner of Fuyan Circuit, and after military achievements received the additional title Academician of the Dragon Diagram Pavilion. In 1082, the fifth year of Yuanfeng, after Xu Xi lost Yongle City, Shen was implicated and demoted to Deputy Military Commissioner of Junzhou, assigned to residence in Suizhou, and placed under confinement. He regained freedom only after Emperor Shenzong's death and spent his final years at Dream Brook Garden in Runzhou. In 1088, the third year of Yuanyou, Shen settled there permanently and devoted himself to writing, completing *Dream Pool Essays*. In 1095, the second year of Shaosheng, he died at Runzhou at age sixty-five and was buried in Qiantang.
His Last Years in Office and After
In 1080 Shen Kuo took command of the military affairs of the Fuyan circuit and was stationed at Yanzhou. The court, to secure the western front, sent guard troops and gave repeated rewards, but rewarded none of the local army; Shen Kuo held that unequal reward would breed disorder on the frontier, and so, acting on the court's authority without warrant, rewarded the local troops and reported what he had done, at which Shenzong was well pleased and issued an edict allowing him to act at his discretion in such emergencies. Arriving at his post he used money granted him to buy wine and had the sons of good families of the market towns compete in riding and shooting, rising himself to pour wine for those of outstanding skill, so that the frontier people were stirred and feared only that they might not be chosen; after a year he had more than a thousand who could pierce armour and vault into the saddle, all enrolled in the central army, and Yanzhou's reputation overawed the other prefectures. When heavy snow cut the grain supply and Liu Guiren, a palace attendant, fled south with thirty thousand men into the Yanzhou frontier, frightening the people, some urged shutting the gates and attacking them; Shen Kuo held that these were seasoned veterans turned fugitives only by cold and hunger, and that to attack them would be to slaughter their own men and shake the army's confidence, and had camps built east of Yanzhou where the fleeing soldiers were fed and comforted; in ten days all thirty thousand were recovered, and Liu Guiren was beheaded before the army.
In the tenth month of 1081 several tens of thousands of Tibetan tribesmen attacked the frontier strongpoint of Shunning fort, and Shen Kuo sent Jing Siyi and Qu Li with three thousand men against them and then Li Da with a thousand, carrying grain for a hundred thousand, proclaiming that the commander of Fuyan would come in person to direct the fighting; the Tibetan troops, not knowing the truth, lost heart, and the Song took Moyai fort, with ten thousand men, women and children and thirty thousand head of cattle and sheep. In the eleventh month, when the twelve commanders of the Hedong army were returning east through Fuyan, Shen Kuo seized the moment to display force at Suide and proclaim that the court had given him command of all twelve, and would march west within days; the Western Xia garrison, sending men to look, saw a great host gathered and believed it, and fled by night, so that Shen Kuo took Futu, Wubao and Yihe without losing an arrow. When Zhong E's western campaign won the three prefectures of Yin, Xia and You but could not hold them, Shen Kuo, as prefect of Yanzhou, asked to wall the old Wuyan city to enclose the Hengshan and overlook Pingxia so that the enemy could not slip away through the desert; the court sent Xu Xi and the eunuch Li Shunju to deliberate, and Xu Xi proposed walling Yongle first, which was done in fourteen days. Shen Kuo wrote in his own account that "Yongle is what the enemy must contest; the road is dangerous and long, victory cannot support it and defeat cannot relieve it, and it is no advantage in war or defence," urging that the work begin at Shibao and proceed step by step to the east, "not to be accomplished in a few years' time"; but "after three months of debate the generals were all pleased at the speed of success," and Xu Xi's proposal carried. On the ninth day of the ninth month of 1082 the Western Xia sent three hundred thousand men against Yongle; Xu Xi went to its relief with twenty-five thousand, leaving Shen Kuo to hold Mizhi, and Shen Kuo, marching with ten thousand, was blocked at the river, while eighty thousand Tibetan troops attacked Suide, so that he weighed the two and chose to keep Suide and let Yongle go. On the twentieth the city fell, and by the report of Shen Kuo and Zhong E "two hundred and thirty Chinese and Tibetan officers and more than twelve thousand three hundred soldiers perished," and Shenzong wept and grieved and would not eat. On the seventeenth of the tenth month the court, on the ground that Shen Kuo "in the matter of walling Yongle answered and acted ill when the enemy came," degraded him to assistant commander of Junzhou; later writers hold that as commander of a whole circuit he knew the place to be "dangerous and far, ill-suited to mutual support and relief," and yet did not insist on his own view but went along with Xu Xi, and so bears an inescapable responsibility for the disaster.
At Suizhou Shen Kuo lodged in the Fayun temple, without kin or friends and under heavy restriction; those three years were the saddest and darkest of his life, and he began to look again at his political career and even to feel something like regret for having entered office, the poem of that time reading, "Wild grass clings to the sky, the rain will not stop; the stranger's heart is cold of itself, and not because of autumn. West of the fort is where the gibbons cry — full of grief, I regret mounting the tower." Early in Yuanyou he was moved to Xiuzhou, in the south near his native Hangzhou, and his spirits recovered from their dejection, so that he gave himself to learning and began to put in order the Maps of the Prefectures and Counties of the Empire, which he had been ordered to compile in 1076; in 1088, for presenting it, he was given a hundred bolts of silk and leave to reside where he pleased. According to Zhu Mu's Famous Sites of the Realm, Shen Kuo had once dreamed of a low hill with flowers spread like brocade under tall trees, and delighted in it in his sleep; afterwards, serving at Xuancheng, he heard a Daoist speak of the beauties of Jingkou, and a man of the place offering land for sale, bought it for three hundred thousand cash, and in the early Yuanyou years, passing through Jingkou and climbing the land he had bought, found it to be the place of his dream, and built a house there and named it Mengxi, "Dream Brook," after which his late work is named. He lived eight years in the Dream Brook garden and was buried at Hangzhou after his death, the garden falling into neglect; its site is in Mengxiyuan Lane in Zhenjiang, where the record gives it some ten mu with halls and pavilions, and in 1985 the city restored it near the original site on two mu, displaying the record of magnetic declination four centuries earlier than western Europe and objects and pictures of his scientific work. His tomb is in Yuhang, brick-built, with Northern Song celadon bowls and coins of the Xining, Yuanfeng and Yuanyou eras, restored in the first phase in 2001; and in May 2021 the International Astronomical Union approved the Chinese proposal to name eight lunar features near the Chang'e-5 landing site, one of them after Shen Kuo.