Tsai Pen-Chung

While Tsai Pen-Chung is only 37 years of age, he has already accumulated much honor and wealth for his family. At a youthful 24, he earned his chin-shih degree by passing both the local forwarding exam in his own prefecture and the departmental exam in the capital on his first try. His answer to a question on how to handle a subprefecture where tax revenues had declined was especially noteworthy, and he was ranked as A third palace graduate among those who passed the exam that year, meaning that he was third overall of all the men taking the test. The Tsai family, an important land-owning family in the prefecture of Hsin-Chou, gained much honor from this notable achievement, adding to the honor already achieved in the Civil Service by Tsai Pen-Chung’s cousin, Tsai Wan-li.

Tsai Pen-Chung was immediately made an administrative staff supervisor. Since then, he has been head of a subprefecture, financial inspector at the prefecture level, and vice-administrator of the prefecture of T’ai-p’ing chou. He finally became administrator of the prefecture when the previous administrator was promoted to an administrative position in the capital. During his years of service, Tsai Pen-Chung has helped improve the economic prosperity of his prefecture, and thus increased its population. Tsai is honored everywhere for his upstanding morals and lack of corruption.

Tsai Pen-Chung
Chang Wei

Hung K’o