10 Facts About Zhang Peilun

Zhang Peilun was a Chinese government official of the late Qing dynasty, who served as a naval commander during the Sino-French War.

Zhang Peilun was born in Hangzhou on November 24,1848.

Zhang Peilun's father, Zhang Yintang, was a mid-level government official who died in office as Supervision Commissioner of Anhui when Zhang Peilun was 6, which left the family in genteel poverty.

Zhang Peilun was one of the foremost members of the so-called Purist Party led by Zhang Peilun Zhidong, an extremist group which urged resistance to French encroachment in north Vietnam in the early 1880s, even at the cost of war with France, in opposition to the more moderate stance advocated by Li Hongzhang and his supporters.

Zhang Peilun was demoted by the Empress Dowager Cixi on 19 September 1884 and replaced by the veteran general Zuo Zongtang.

Zhang Peilun was then exiled to serve as a soldier in Zhangjiakou, a rural town in Northeast China.

Nonetheless, Li Hongzhang still refused to help Zhang Peilun enter public life again and Zhang Peilun devoted himself to his literary ambitions instead.

In 1903, Zhang Peilun died in Nanjing at the age of 56 due to an unspecified liver disease.

Zhang Peilun's wife died nine years later and they were buried together.

Zhang Peilun married a total of three times and had three sons and a daughter.