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Chang Puliang.

A CERTAIN trader who was travelling in the province of Chihli, being overtaken by a storm of rain and hail, took shelter among some standing crops by the wayside. There he heard a voice from heaven, saying, “These are Chang Puliang’s fields; do not injure his crops.” The trader began to wonder who this Chang Puliang could be, and how, if he was pu liang (not virtuous), he came to be under divine protection; so when the storm was over and he had reached the neighbouring village, he made enquiries on the subject, and told the people there what he had heard. The villagers then informed him that Chang Puliang was a very wealthy farmer, who was accustomed every spring to make loans of grain to the poor of the district, and who was not too particular about getting back the exact amount he had lent,—taking, in fact, whatever they brought him without discussion; hence the sobriquet of pu liang “no measure” (i.e., the man who doesn’t measure the repayments of his loans). After that, they all proceeded in a body to the fields, where it was discovered that vast damage had been done to the crops generally, with the exception of Chang Puliang’s, which had escaped uninjured.

張不量

賈人某,至直隸界,忽大雨雹,伏禾中。聞空中云:「此張不量田,勿傷其稼。」賈私意張氏既云「不良」,何反祐護。雹止,入村,訪問其人,且問取名之義。蓋張素封,積粟甚富。每春間貧民就貸,償時多寡不校,悉內之,未嘗執概取盈,故名「不量」,非不良也。眾趨田中,見稞穗摧折如麻,獨張氏諸田無恙。

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