Industrialist-poet Zheng Guanying and the Hundred Days' Reform

The mansion numbered 10 at Travessa de António da Silva of S. Lourenço district was the former residence of poet Zheng Guanying (1842－1922). It was the place where reformist Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao sojourned in Macao and is nowadays known as the Mandarin’s House.

Born in Yongmo Village of Xiangshan County in Guangdong, Zheng Guanying engaged in industry and commerce in Shanghai for over a decade after 17 years old. In 1886, he returned to Macao and lived in the mansion that he had helped his father, Zheng Qihua, to build. In the following five years, he had written many poems and several treatises, with “Words of warning in Times of Prosperity” as his most notable work, being read by epochal figures like Emperor Guangxu of late Qing dynasty, Dr. Sun Yat-sen and Mao Zedong. He left the city after then and back again in 1906 for permanent stay.

Of Zheng’s poems, most of them are associated with his business relations and social intercourse involved. Hence, he was known as the “industrialist-poet”. When the mansion was completed, he had written two eight-lined poems with seven Chinese characters to a line titled “New Residence in Macao”. Besides poetry, Zheng had written many couplets which are still found in the restored Mandarin’s House.