A Ming loyalist, he was offered a position at the rump court of the Hongguang Emperor, but declined the post, and never held anything more than minor political office.

He owned and operated an academic publishing house called the Ten Bamboo Studio, in which he practised various multi-colour printing and embossing techniques, and he employed several members of his family in this enterprise.

[1] Both his father and elder brother Zhengxin (正心, art name Wusuo, 無所) were physicians, and after he turned 30 he travelled with them while they practised medicine in the areas around Lu'an and Huoshan.

[3] Their home on Jilongshan (雞籠山, now also known as Beiji Ge), a hill located just within the northern city wall,[1] served as a meeting-house for like-minded artists.

Following the fall of the capital Beijing in 1644, remnants of the imperial family and a few ministers set up a Ming loyalist regime in Nanjing with Zhu Yousong on the throne as the Hongguang Emperor.

[1] According to Wen Ruilin's Lost History of the South (Nanjiang Yishi, 南疆繹史), prior to the Qing invasion of Nanjing Hu studied at the National University there, and whilst a student was employed by the Ministry of Rites to record official proclamations; he produced the Imperial Promotion of Minor Learning (Qin Ban Xiaoxue, 御頒小學) and the Record of Displayed Loyalty (Biaozhong Ji, 表忠記) as part of this work.

Zhou Lianggong, a poet who lived in Nanjing around the same time as Hu and was a noted art connoisseur, stated in his Biography of Seal-Carvers (Yinren Zhuan, 印人傳) that Hu "creates miniature stone carvings with ancient seal inscriptions for travellers to fight over and treasure",[8] implying that his carvings were popular with visitors and travellers passing through Nanjing.

Hu was concerned that his essay would be overlooked because he had not written it in the form of rhyming, equally-footed couplets (pianti, 駢體) used in the Imperial examinations, but his submission and the seal itself were nevertheless both accepted by the Southern Ming court.

His publishing house, the Ten Bamboo Studio, produced reference works on calligraphy, poetry and art; medical textbooks; books on etymology and phonetics; and copies of, as well as commentaries on, the Confucian Classics.

[10] This bias towards academia was likely a consequence of the studio's location: the mountain on which Hu took up residence was just to the north of the Nanjing Guozijian (National Academy), which provided a captive market for academic texts.

[12] The studio's earliest publications were medical textbooks, the first of which, Tested Prescriptions for Myriad Illnesses (Wanbing Yanfang, 萬病驗方) was published in 1631 and proved popular enough to be reissued ten years later.

[19] It was a lengthy, painstaking process, requiring thirty to fifty engraved printing blocks and up to seventy inkings and impressions to create a single image.

[27] Said Charles Aylmer, Head of the Cambridge University Chinese Department, "The binding is so fragile, and the manual so delicate, that until it was digitized, we have never been able to let anyone look through it or study it – despite its undoubted importance to scholars.

[24] The book was bound in the "wrapped back" (baobei zhuang, 包背裝) style, in which the folio pages are folded, stacked, and sewn along the open edges.

A similar approach was taken with the Essentials of the Thousand Character Classic in Six Scripts (Qianwen Liushu Tongyao, 千文六書統要) (1663), which Hu compiled with the aid of his calligraphy teacher, Li Deng.

[1] Among the studio's more obscure publications was a text on Chinese dominoes entitled Paitong Fuyu (牌統浮玉), written under a pseudonym but with a preface by Hu Zhengyan.