Pingyao first studied China ancient books in a private school, and then studied English in a foreign language school. He graduated from the University of Tokyo with a bachelor's degree in literature, devoted himself to English literature and translated the works of Walter Scott and others. Received a Bachelor of Arts degree from 1883, and worked as a lecturer in Tokyo Special School (later Waseda University).
The novel "The Essence of God" was published in 1885, which denied the story of telling good and punishing evil in the Edo era, and advocated that the novel should describe human feelings, focus on writing human feelings, focus on psychological observation, and take an objective attitude. It is an important theoretical work in modern Japanese literature. In order to practice his ideas, he created the novel Temperament of Contemporary Scholars, which described the life of modern students with realism and became a pioneer of realistic literature in Meiji era. Later, he published novels, translated English literary works and devoted himself to literary criticism. He had a debate with Mori Yoshiro about idealistic literature and realistic literature, which became the first great debate in Meiji literary world.