Chao Yingcheng (Zhao Yingcheng) was the most successful Kaifeng Jew, at least in terms of climbing the ladder of Confucian-Bureaucratic-Scholarly achievement. He attained the coveted jinshi (chih-shih) degree in 1646. It is difficult to find a is not a single clear timeline of his life which includes major events in the Kaifeng Jewish community. I will attempt one here.
1619: born, in Kaifeng, and mentioned in at least three colophons that appear to be dedicated to him by his father. They were written at the time of his birth around 1619-1620.
1642: is the year of the flood of the Yellow River, which destroyed the synagogue and set up the great building and copying project of the middle to late seventeenth century. He survived this disaster, it was probably at this time that he assisted the chief rabbi and manla in organizing and collating synagogue writings, especially the collating a usable Torah scroll:
Li Chen, the head of the religion, and Manla Li Cheng-hsien, were invited to collate and examine them. Chao Yingcheng… a chin shih graduate classified and arranged them in order. The collection when completed included one roll of the Scriptures…
The 1663 stone inscription is looking back on events twenty years ago. If Chao Yingcheng helped with classifying and arranging water damaged books and scrolls, he did this before his chin-shih degree in 1646. If he helped collate after his chin shih degree, the community would have gone four years without a scroll. That is possible, but the stone implies the Scroll of Moses was compiled immediately after the flood. He helped the two chief synagogue officials collate books at the tender age of 23. All this activity did not imped Chao Yingcheng's education, for...
1645: he passed the chu-jen (or juren) degree, which was "...awarded to those who passed the provincial-level exams, placing them among an elite group eligible for government office and higher, national-level exams..."
1646: he passed the coveted chin-shih degree, and received a post of Department Director in the Ministry of Justice.
1650: he was sent to Fukien, a province in southeast China, to the "salt circuit" and four months later he became general or military Intendant, with the rank of Assistant Surveillance Commissioner, or possibly Surveillance Vice Commissioner the Shang-hang district, in T'ing-chou fu, which is in southeastern China. He suppressed bandits, and built a lecture hall.
1653: he returned to Kaifeng for the mandatory three years of mourning for a parent and became involved in reestablishing Judaism in Kaifeng on a firmer, post-flood footing.
1653 - 1656: Chao Yingcheng was part of the communal discussion to rebuild the synagogue. In 1653 discussions began in the community to rebuilt the synagogue. Chao Yingcheng contributed funds to rebuild the synagogue and its compound and "built at this soul expense the three sections of the Rear Hall." He also restored, or copied, a complete Torah scroll. Finally he wrote a book, "A Record of the Vicissitudes of the Holy Scriptures" which may have recorded the efforts of the community to copy their books.
1656: he completed the three years of mourning, and took up a post as General or Military Intendant with the rank of Assistant Surveillance Commissioner in the lower Chiang-fang circuit in Hupei in central China.
1656-57: he died in office a the age of 38 or 39.
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