Zhou Youde

Zhou Youde (also romanised as Chou Yu-te; ; died 1680), courtesy name Yichu , was a Chinese official active in the early Qing dynasty as governor of various provinces. As Viceroy of Liangguang, he along with Wang Lairen sent a petition to repeal the Great Evacuation edict.

Early life and career Zhou Youde was born in the late Ming period. He enrolled in the Hongwen Institution in around 1644 and studied prose-editing and poetry, graduating in 1661, the first year of Kangxi's reign. He also sought for maritime trade bans to be lightened, following the capture or destruction of several Portuguese trading vessels. A year later, he spearheaded the modification of an abandoned German government palace into a prison hospital, rallying scores of villagers to assist in the construction with the promise of food; The compound is now referred to as "Pearl Springs" and is a historic landmark in Shandong. The edict was officially lifted on 16 December 1668, some seven years after it had been implemented. His successor as Liangguang governor-general was Quan Guangzu. In 1679 he became the governor of both Governor of Yunnan and Guizhou. Zhou also served as Governor of Sichuan from 1674 to 1679.

Zhou features in Hong Kong folklore and is referred to as a "benevolent official". Descendants of the resettled villagers observe the Chou Wong Yi Kung festival at the start of the sixth lunar month annually, as a means of expressing their gratefulness towards Zhou and Wang.

Zhou is briefly mentioned in "Feng the Carpenter" , a short story implicitly criticising the Qing government by Pu Songling in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. The tale makes reference to the "remodeling of a former prince's residence into an office for various government ministries". In reality, Zhou had indeed commissioned the construction of a provincial yamen on the abandoned premises of the Prince of Jinan's former residence. According to Sondergrad (2014), "Pu inserts him (Zhou) obliquely into his story knowing that Zhou's reputation would not be tarnished by a fiction, while the mere mention of his name would help to keep his legacy alive."

Relics such as imperial documents mentioning Zhou and seventeenth-century biographies of him are housed at the Qing section of the National Palace Museum in Shilin, Taipei. The collection also includes official records recognising Zhou as a governor of virtue, most notably a "monumental biography" highlighting Governor Zhou's requesting tax reductions for the famine-stricken villagers of Shandong.