He was the second son in a family of the Qing nobility with landed interests at Jiangning, Liuhe County and at Tongcheng, an area in the southern vicinity of Nanjing.
[5] At the time of Fang Bao's birth, the Kangxi Emperor had not yet fully assumed power and the real dominance over the throne was in the hands of two of the Four Regents, Ebilun and Oboi.
[4] From 1692 to 1695, Fang served in Beijing as a senior licentiate together with his friend Zhang Boxing, who shared his philosophical allegiance surrounding the teachings of Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi.
Dai was executed by imperial order, but Fang was spared death and punished instead with dismissal from his post and exile to Gansu Province[6]: 255–257 or (likely both) with the imprisonment of his entire family.
Fang Bao had written a bold critique of the Governor of Gansu Province, Xu Rong and the Yongzheng Emperor's strategy with regards to the effects of the war on the people of the region.
[6]: 129 Despite this writing, by the end of the Yongzheng era, Fang was back in the imperial court's favor and he was promoted to Vice-Director of the Board of Rights.
This influence drastically changed the imperial examination system which imposed standards and made the guwen essays the foundational part of scholarly writing across the Qing Empire.