Yang Han was very smart. He learned to recite "Dai Ji" from his teacher at the age of 4 and could recite one volume every day. He was fond of landscapes and liked to engrave monuments. He often visited monuments in Sichuan and wrote inscriptions that were widely circulated.
Yang Han was selected as a scholar at the age of 20 and passed the examination at the age of 30. Soon after, he passed the Jinshi examination and entered the Hanlin Academy to work as an editor. During his eight years in Beijing, he enjoyed calligraphy, painting and calligraphy. There were many calligraphy and paintings by Zhong Yi in the factories and shops in the capital, as well as spring utensils and inscriptions. He often went in and out to study with his friends. He was well-informed and occasionally wrote inscriptions and postscripts. Yang Ouke, an epigrapher, always copied them by hand whenever he saw them. The great calligrapher Liu Shi'an once called it the three unique qualities of calligraphy: "inscriptions, poems, and calligraphy." At this time, his message was engraved and shocked the whole country.
In the third year of Xianfeng (1852), Yang Han, a minister of the Qing Dynasty, Sheng Kezhaimu, compiled his notes. The next year, he was awarded the prefect of Yongzhou but did not take up the post. In the sixth year of Xianfeng (1856), he moved to Changde and Yuanzhou the following year. In the eighth year (1858), he went to Yongzhou. Yang Han served as the magistrate of Yongzhou for seven years. In his spare time from official duties, he often went to the mountains and rivers to search for inscriptions, calligraphy and paintings. Between Lingling and Qiyang, there are the old ruins of Yuan Jie, Liu Zongyuan, Huai Su and other literati and famous officials of the Tang and Song Dynasties, such as Danyan, Manlangzhai, Chaoyangyan, Lvtian'an, Yuxi, and Liuhou Temple. , Yuanyan Temple, etc., he raised funds to renovate them.
In the third year of Tongzhi (1864), Yang Han served as a Taoist priest in Chenyuan; in the eighth year of Tongzhi (1869), he returned to Beijing to pursue his old dream of gold and stone; later due to his mother's illness, he returned to Hunan and served as a Taoist priest again. . Soon, he was impeached for his "Xishan writing" because he only liked landscapes and cultural relics and ignored the sentiments of the people. In the tenth year of Tongzhi (1871), he was dismissed from office, so he took his family to Wuxi, Qiyang, settled in Manlang's house, and wrote until his death.
Yang Han was an honest official all his life. During his seven years as the magistrate of Yongzhou, he went to visit the people, walked on foot, did not sit in a sedan chair, and did not ask the county government to hold wine and banquets. After he was demoted from his post to the people, he was penniless. , a family of young and old, relying on him to sell calligraphy and paintings in Guilin, Guangzhou and other places to make a living.
After moving to Wuxi, he successively wrote "Collected Poems", "Zhilin", "Miscellaneous Works", "Painting Talk", "Poem Talk", "Xike Miscellaneous Works", and "Xike White Notes" , "Gui Shixuan Painting Talk", "Jiujiu Xiaohan Collection", etc. In the fourth year of Guangxu's reign (1878), Yang Han's mother passed away. In the fifth year of Guangxu's reign (1879), he died of illness in poverty at the age of sixty-seven. He was buried in Wuxi, and his descendants settled in Wuxi.