He Zhu lived from 1052 to 1125 during the Northern Song dynasty. His courtesy name was Fanghui, and he was widely known by his art name Qinghu Yilao, the Retired Scholar of Lake Qinghu. A native of Gongcheng in Weizhou (present-day Huixian, Henan province), He Zhu possessed an illustrious lineage as a maternal descendant of Empress Xiaohui, wife of Emperor Taizu of Song. Entering official service, he held the military title of Right Class Palace Guard (Youban Dianzhi). During the Yuanfu era, he served as Assistant Prefect (Tongpan) in Sizhou and later in Taipingzhou. In his later years, he settled down in the picturesque Wu region south of the Yangtze River. Despite his noble heritage and administrative appointments, his career was characterized by a certain displacement and frustration regarding high statecraft, leading him to immerse himself entirely in erudition and lyrical composition.
He Zhu was renowned for his formidable erudition, vast memory, and revolutionary approach to writing lyric poetry (Ci). He excelled at masterfully adapting phrases from earlier poets, subtly refining and restructuring them to create fresh, startling imagery. He famously boasted that under his brush, the poetic spirits of Li Shangyin and Wen Tingyun were driven like messengers, constantly racing to fulfill his commands. Furthermore, he pioneered the technique of writing new lyrics to old musical scores while modifying their traditional titles, a practice he termed yusheng or borrowed voices. His lyrical compositions spanned a breathtaking emotional and aesthetic spectrum, encompassing sumptuous ornateness, alluring melancholy, desolate refinement, and heroic tragic grandeur. His masterworks are deeply imbued with emotional intensity and linguistic precision, most notably his famous lyric to the tune Qingyu an, which features the celebrated lines: A river of mist-shrouded grass, the city filled with flying willow catkins, the time of yellow plums and fine rain. This evocative masterpiece earned him the affectionate moniker He the Plum Blossom (He Meizi).
The inner existential tension driving He Zhu's literary voice stems from the classic scholarly friction between Confucian ambition for state service and the melancholic disillusionment of unfulfilled official recognition. Gifted with extraordinary intellect and a proud lineage, he chafed against bureaucratic stagnation. To cope with political alienation, he turned to the expansive realms of wine, landscape reclusion, and unrestrained emotional expression. His persona combined the proud bearing of a sidelined imperial scion with the sensitive soul of a romantic poet. He felt deeply for the sorrows of parting, inner chambers yearning, and the relentless passage of time, channeling these universal human griefs into musical meters that bridged the gap between elite classical learning and poignant vernacular resonance.
He Zhu's literary legacy occupies a towering position within the corpus of Song lyric poetry, preserved through collections such as the Qinghu Yilao Ji and the Dongshan Ci. Throughout imperial literary criticism, traditional scholars praised his technical virtuosity and his ability to command diverse tonal registers with equal mastery. Ming and Qing dynasty critics frequently lauded his formidable command of poetic diction and his role as a crucial transitional figure who expanded the formal and emotional boundaries of the Ci genre. In modern international Sinology, He Zhu is studied as a pivotal virtuoso whose sophisticated melodic adaptations and psychological depth prefigure the supreme lyrical achievements of the later Southern Song period.