Zan Zen

Zan Zen (: 張誠; ᅎᅡᇆᅎᅥᇇ; Zān Zén), courtesy name Zan Zrsan (: 張子山; ᅎᅡᇆᅎᅳᆯᄼᅡᇆ; Zān Zr̀sān), ODMS, MS & 2 Bars, FGS (2 October 1910 – 19 April 1967) was a Jiugong-Sansiaonese military officer, mountaineer, politician, and musician who fought in the Great Eulhae War. Partially blind, he became famous for his many exploits and eccentric style.

= Early life =

Zan was born in the Loch Dremny district of the Meisaani dependency of Jiugong to father Zan Renmou (張仁谋), a Sansiaonese expatriate originally of Wȕlín prefecture, and mother Xie Younyin (謝柔寧), a Jiugonger of mixed Sansiaonese-Kinshunese descent. His father was a music teacher at the Jiugong Academy of Classical Arts. Zan was the youngest of four children.

Zan was born congenitally blind in his left eye. He is known to have worn an eyepatch from at least age 10. However, he did not let this condition handicap him; one of his teachers remarked that he was “already ungovernably boisterous with just one eye… I fear what he would be like with the full use of two”.

Having studied the since the age of four under the tutelage of his father, Zan’s first career was as a virtuoso guzheng player. His father, Zan Renmou, bragged that he was able to distinguish beyond the standard. To prove this claim, Zan frequently performed pieces of his own composition on idiosyncratically-tuned guzhengs. Before the age of thirteen, he had already travelled to Sansiao several times to perform with the Second Xiayan Ensemble, one of the most prestigious classical music groups in the Sansiaonese world.

At thirteen, Zan entered university in Quejin at the Grand Regional School of Quejin (now National Quejin University). The youngest student in his year, he nonetheless excelled academically and athletically. Beginning with the study of and, he supposedly learned twelve different languages by the time he graduated. He also continued to perform the guzheng on a regular touring schedule throughout Meisaan. In 1928, tired of the routine of university life, Zan decided to spend six months trekking the Daidei Mountains alone. This experience introduced him to and, which later became two of his primary interests. In February 1929, while continuing his studies in Quejin, he participated in the E Jiu Movement in that city. He was reportedly detained briefly by the Meisaani police for disorderly conduct and inciting violence during the events.

= Military service =

Central Yeongju (1936–1941)
= Post-military career =

Mountaineering and death
= Legacy =