[4] As Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, a role he held from January 1668 to February 1670,[7] taking over Qu Jinmei,[8] Zhou and fellow official Wang Lairen (王來任) jointly wrote a petition to the Kangxi Emperor, urging him to abolish the Great Clearance, a "forceful relocation of coastal communities inland to cut off the supply lines of Ming loyalists.

[14][2] Zhou's career was plagued with controversy – in one instance he was accused of not providing supplies to the Qing military during the Revolt of the Three Feudatories while in another he was criticised for being unfilial by calling for the construction of a "grand residence when he was in a mourning period.

As Ng (2015) writes, "(the) requests made by Zhou Youde and Wang Lairen for the wellbeing of a large number of people in the coastal areas won them high respect.

[18] Zhou is likewise treated like a deity by Chaoshan residents, who seek advice and divine help from him; this phenomenon is dismissed as "dross superstition" by a Chaoxue[b] scholar.

[20] 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.

[21] Zhou is briefly mentioned in "Feng the Carpenter" (冯木匠),[22] a short story implicitly criticising the Qing government by Pu Songling in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio.

"[23] 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.