Divided by a Common Language: Factional Conflict in Late Northern Song China

Divided by a Common Language

Divided by a Common Language Factional Conflict in Late Northern Song China

Ari Daniel Levine

University of Hawai‘i Press  •  Honolulu

© 2008 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 13  12  11  10  09  08

6  5  4  3  2  1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Levine, Ari Daniel.    Divided by a common language : factional conflict in late Northern Song China / Ari Daniel Levine.      p. cm.    Includes bibliographical references and index.    ISBN 978-0-8248-3266-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)    1.  China—Politics and governement—960-1279.2     2.  Chinese language—Political aspects—History— To 1500.  I.  Title.  II.  Title: Factional conflict in late Northern Song China.    DS751.3.L48  2009    951'.024—dc22                    2008018672

University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Designed by University of Hawai‘i Press Production Staff Printed by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group

For my parents

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

A Note on Conventions

xiii

Chronologies

xv

Chapter 1 The Rhetoric of Politics and the Politics of Rhetoric

1

Chapter 2  Frames of Reference: Classical Hermeneutics and Historical Analogism

24

Chapter 3 Categorical Propositions: Faction Theory and the Political Imagination of the Northern Song

42

Chapter 4 Unified Theories of Division: Factional Rhetoric in the Reform Era, 1069–1085

72

Chapter 5 The Closed Circle: Factional Rhetoric in the Antireform Era, 1085–1093

99

Chapter 6 Retributive Justice: Factional Rhetoric in the Post-Reform Era, 1094–1104

126

Chapter 7 Discourses of Authority and the Authority of Discourse

161

Notes

181

Glossary

235

References

247

Index

263

vii

Acknowledgments

“Is it a book yet?” My friends, family, and students now know that an academic monograph can take a really long time to research, write, and revise. I began this project ten years ago, as a graduate student at Columbia, when I realized that factionalism had intellectual and social repercussions far beyond Song court politics. Originally I planned to reconstruct the social networks that underlay court factions, but when I dug deeper into the sources for social history, I discovered some alarming anomalies in their survival patterns. In local histories, collected works, and funeral inscriptions, members of the reform faction became virtual non-persons, while evidence of their opponents’ lives was far more likely to have been preserved. And after I scrutinized the relevant narratives in the standard histories, I came to realize that the documentary record of Northern Song political history had been manipulated to accord with the antireform agenda of its compilers. For my doctoral dissertation, I interrogated the primary sources for the factional conflict on both the historiographic and historical levels, demonstrating how Northern Song court chronicles and political language distinguished heroes from villains. I must thank my graduate advisor, Robert Hymes, for giving me the freedom to embark on this ambitious research program, which he patiently supported. A Fulbright-IIE Dissertation Research Grant generously funded a year in Taibei, where the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, provided much-needed institutional support. The staffs of the Fu Sinian Library, the National Central Library, and the National Palace Museum Library went above the call of duty in enduring my rare book requests. During my graduate coursework in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Michael Tsin challenged me with swift kicks of theoretical insight when I most needed them. My committee, which included Peter Bol, Paul Smith, Conrad Schirokauer, and Wei Shang, provided me with copious and constructive criticism, which was invaluable in revising this study for publication. Gina Cogan, my across-the-hall neighbor, was (and still is) the best reader ix



Acknowledgments

and listener anyone could have. Peter Flueckiger was always amenable to crossing 110th Street. At Columbia University’s C. V. Starr East Asian Library, Ken Harlin, Rongxiang Zhang, and Alex Brown provided first-class research assistance, as did the staffs of the Harvard-Yenching Library and the Gest East Asian Library of Princeton University. The staff of the Interlibrary Loan Department of the University of Georgia Main Library have been highly dependable Chinese book foragers. Additional research for this project was supported by a Research Fellowship at the Center for Chinese Studies of the National Central Library in Taibei, as well as an International Research Grant from the University of Georgia Research Foundation. I would like to thank Keng Li-chun, Vera Yu-chen Ma, and Lily Wu for making the summer of 2004 in Taibei so productive. Thanks to Margherita Zanasi for all those great dinners on Yongkang jie, and all those virtual coffee talks ever since. This study is an expansion and revision of the second half of my dissertation, which analyzed the political theory and rhetoric of the late Northern Song factional conflict. I am appropriating the quip “England and America are two nations divided by a common language,” usually attributed to George Bernard Shaw, as the title of this study, which analyzes the divisive functions of political rhetoric. I will explain how political and ideological adversaries could share a common language of factionalism, and how this language divided the political community between loyal “superior men” and factious “petty men.” Furthermore, I will explain how divisive rhetoric could be exploited to justify the undermining of institutional checks and balances, the emergence of arbitrary executive power, the pursuit of disastrous ideological policies, and the silencing of critical opposition, all of which could recur in other times and places. The late Denis Twitchett took a gamble on an unproven graduate student when he recruited me to write political narratives of the Zhezong and Huizong reigns for Volume 5, Part 1 of The Cambridge History of China. I can only hope that the final results will justify his faith in me. In Chapters 5 and 6 of this book, I analyze a broader sample of a shared corpus of primary sources, which inevitably overlap with this earlier study. Focused on cultural and intellectual history rather than court politics and state policy, the present study, which went into press before the Cambridge History volume, represents the final product of this ten-year research project. I have received permission to reprint brief excerpts from Chapter 6, “Che-tsung’s reign (1085–1100) and the Age of Faction,” and Chapter 7, “The reigns of Hui-tsung (1100–1126) and Ch’in-tsung (1126–1127) and the fall of the Northern Sung,” by Ari Daniel Levine, in The Cambridge History of China,



Acknowledgments

xi

Vol. 5, The Sung Dynasty and Its Precursors, 907–1279, edited by Denis Twitchett and Paul Jakov Smith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming. An earlier version of Chapter 3 appeared as “Faction Theory and the Political Imagination of the Northern Song,” in Asia Major (Third Series) 18, Part 2 (2005): 155–200. The second half of Chapter 6 is a revised version of “Terms of Estrangement: Factional Discourse during the Early Huizong Reign,” in Emperor Huizong and Late Northern Song China: The Politics of Culture and the Culture of Politics, edited by Patricia Ebrey and Maggie Bickford. Patricia Crosby has been an ideal editor, shepherding this project from my hard drive onto the printed page. Dean Hugh Ruppersburg of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Georgia generously provided a First-Book Subvention grant for this publication project. I would also like to thank Hilde De Weerdt, Patricia Ebrey, Benjamin Elman, Peter Flueckiger, Howard Goodman, Charles Hartman, Harry Miller, and Paul Smith for reading earlier versions of chapters, and Paul Rouzer, David Schaberg, and Stephen West for providing sterling sinological advice. An anonymous reader for Harvard University Asia Center helped me to reframe this book’s argument. The comments of two anonymous readers for University of Hawai‘i Press were instrumental in preparing this manuscript for publication, as was the expert copyediting of Margaret Black. Of course, all mistakes, misreadings, and misinterpretations are my own responsibility. Richard Davis deserves massive praise for supporting this project when no one else would, and for almost two decades of mentoring, hospitality, and friendship, which I can never adequately repay. My colleague and copilot Reinaldo Román provided literally hundreds of hours of quality conversation somewhere between Atlanta and Athens. Thanks to Mark Ravina, for understanding my various predicaments during many Wednesday afternoons at the Brick Store Pub, for many of them are also his. I want to express my endless gratitude to the Levine, Sholinsky, and Tsang families, past and present. My parents and their Dianne S. and Gary M. Levine Charitable Foundation for Starving Sinologists have supported the choices I have made with astounding generosity. My brother David, my oldest friend, knows exactly what I am talking about here. Finally, I cannot even begin to thank my wife ReLiang Tsang, who graced my life at the start of this project, for sharing this adventure with me, from Taibei to Berkeley to Philadelphia to Georgia to Beijing, and back again. Decatur, Georgia March 2008

A Note on Conventions

Romanization I will consistently employ the pinyin romanization of Chinese terms throughout the text. For consistency’s sake, I have converted direct quotations from English-language secondary sources whose authors employed the Wade-Giles system of romanization into the pinyin system. Chinese and Japanese personal names follow their native form, with family names preceding given names, except in the case of Chinese or Japanese authors of Western-language works, whose names are given in the published form.

Official Titles and Imperial Names Translations of Chinese official titles will generally follow Charles O. Hucker’s A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China. Where this work is incomplete, I will provide original translations. I will refer to Song emperors and empresses dowager by their posthumous temple names (that is, Zhezong, Xuanren) during their reigns, when their personal names were tabooed.

Chronology My Song dynastic chronology is based on Hargett 1987. Dates given will follow the Chinese calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar. The years of the Song court calendar will be converted into the corresponding Western year, but readers should be aware that these dates do not match up exactly. To spare future scholars the trouble of converting dates back and forth, I will not convert months and days in the Chinese year into the Gregorian calendar. For example, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month of the fourth year of the Xining era will xiii

xiv

Note on Conventions

read: 12.13.1071. Intercalary months will be preceded by the uppercase letter I. For example, the sixth day of the fourth month of the first year of the Shaosheng era will read: I4.6.1094.

Reign Dates and Age Reckoning Since emperors were enthroned upon the death or abdication of their predecessors, almost always mid-year, I will provide proper Gregorian dates for emperors’ reigns, as well as their births and deaths. For everyone else, I will provide birth and death dates according to the Chinese calendar, converted into the corresponding Western year, but readers should be aware that these dates do not match up exactly. To avoid any unnecessary confusion between Chinese and Western ways of reckoning age, I will use the Western method.

Bibliography and Citations I will generally translate the titles of major primary sources into English. For example, I refer to the Xu zizhi tongjian changbian as the Long Draft of the Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Governance, and in abbreviated form as the Long Draft. In my notes I will consistently employ acronymic abbreviations for the titles of primary sources. For example, I refer to the Xu zizhi tongjian changbian in abbreviated form as XCB. In my bibliography, these abbreviations are listed in alphabetical order.

Chronologies

Imperial Dynasties Qin 秦 (221–206 BCE) Han 漢 (206 BCE–220 CE) Sui 隨 (581–618) Tang 唐 (618–907) Five Dynasties 五代 (907–960) Northern Song 北宋 (960–1127) Southern Song 南宋 (1127–1279) Liao 遼 (907–1125) Jin 金 (1113–1234) Yuan 元 (1271–1368) Ming 明 (1368–1644) Qing 清 (1644–1912)

Northern Song Emperors and Selected Reign Eras (based on Hargett 1987) Zhao Kuangyin 趙匡胤, Emperor Taizu 太祖 (r. 960–976) Zhao Kuangyi 趙匡義, Emperor Taizong 太宗 (r. 976–997) Zhao Heng 趙恆, Emperor Zhenzong 真宗 (r. 997–1022) Zhao Zhen 趙禎, Emperor Renzong 仁宗 (r. 1022–1063) Qingli 慶曆 1041–1048 Huangyou 皇祐 1049–1054 Zhihe 至和 1054–1056 Jiayou 嘉祐 1056–1063 Zhao Shu 趙曙, Emperor Yingzong 英宗 (r. 1063–1067) Zhiping 治平 1064–1067 xv

xvi

Chronologies

Zhao Xu 趙頊, Emperor Shenzong 神宗 (r. 1067–1085) Xining 熙寧 1068–1077 Yuanfeng 元豐 1078–1085 Zhao Xu 趙煦, Emperor Zhezong 哲宗 (r. 1085–1100) Yuanyou 元祐 1086–1094 Shaosheng 紹聖 1094–1098 Yuanfu 元符 1098–1100 Zhao Ji 趙佶, Emperor Huizong 徽宗 (r. 1100–1126) Jianzhong Jingguo 建中靖國 1101 Chongning 崇寧 1102–1106 Daguan 大觀 1107–1110 Zhenghe 政和 1111–1118 Chonghe 重和 1118–1119 Xuanhe 宣和 1119–1125 Zhao Huan 趙桓, Emperor Qinzong 欽宗 (r. 1126–1127) Jingkang 靖康 1126–1127

Selected Southern Song Emperors (based on Hargett 1987) Zhao Gou 趙構, Emperor Gaozong 高宗 (r. 1127–1162) Zhao Shen 趙昚, Emperor Xiaozong 孝宗 (r. 1162–1189) Zhao Dun 趙惇, Emperor Guangzong 光宗 (r. 1189–1194) Zhao Kuo 趙擴, Emperor Ningzong 寧宗 (r. 1194–1224) Zhao Yun 趙昀, Emperor Lizong 理宗 (r. 1224–1264)

C hapter O ne

The Rhetoric of Politics and the Politics of Rhetoric

Thus moral degeneration of every type took hold throughout Hellas due to factional strife, and simplicity of character—with which a concern for honor is intimately connected—became an object of mockery and disappeared. People were ranged against one another in opposite ideological camps, with the result that distrust and suspicion became rampant. For there was no means that could hope to bring an end to the strife—no speech that could be trusted as reliable, no oath that evoked any dread should it be broken.    —Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War

D

uring the late Northern Song dynasty, factional infighting divided the empire’s sociopolitical elite into ministerial coalitions that battled for executive authority over the central government bureaucracy. At the imperial court in Kaifeng, officials formed factional affiliations (dang or pengdang) in order to implement their policy agendas across the empire and to promote their own members to positions of power.1 Because Song monarchs generally delegated considerable executive authority to their state councilors but reserved final approval over policy and personnel choices, only they could mediate intrabureaucratic disputes. Before the outbreak of conflict in the late 1060s, emperors had usually endeavored to impose monarchical authority over the bureaucracy and attempted to ensure that their ministers were broadly representative of elite interests, while remaining relatively aloof from bureaucratic debates over politics and policy. Earlier Northern Song monarchs had generally pursued an overarching monarchical interest of preserving the dynastic polity and ensuring the loyalty of the empire’s elite by preserving an elaborate system of “checks and balances” among their ministers and by appeasing the losing side in policy debates.2 But in the latter decades of the dynasty, political inclusiveness no longer prevailed at court, once monarchs and regents began to identify themselves 1



Divided by a Common Language

personally with the ideological and policy agendas of their chosen ministers.3 State councilors formed vertical alliances with their monarchical patrons, seeking and frequently gaining imperial approval to silence opposition and dissent, thereby associating dynastic interests with those of a narrow segment of the sociopolitical elite. In this ideologically polarized atmosphere, frequent monarchical transitions exacerbated political instability, destabilized policy debates, and intensified partisan conflict. Between 1068 and 1104, a period I will refer to as the late Northern Song, three emperors and two regents presided over the imperial bureaucracy, each of them promoting a new coalition of state councilors who overturned the preceding ministerial regime and its policies.4 Spanning the Shenzong (r. 1067–1085) and Zhezong (r. 1085–1100) reigns and running into the first five years of the Huizong (r. 1100–1126) reign, the factional conflict of this period can be conceptualized as a bounded historical process and shaped into a coherent narrative arc. Starting with Wang Anshi’s (1021–1086) rise to power at the beginning of Shenzong’s reign, a series of influential grand councilors gained monarchical approval to pack the bureaucracy with like-minded subordinates who would implement their shared policy agenda and to marginalize the bureaucratic opposition who obstructed it. Consequently, factionalists appealed directly to the throne to promote their allies and to purge their adversaries, employing rhetoric that imagined the court as the ultimate source of ethical and political authority and empowered the monarch as the ultimate arbiter of personnel and policy decisions.5 Despite being embroiled in a protracted ideological and political conflict, Northern Song bureaucrats shared a common rhetoric of factionalism and a common repertoire of political practices, which they employed to promote their comrades and purge their adversaries.6 Divided by a common language, factionalists used the same polarizing rhetoric to vilify their opposition, who rejected their exclusive claims to ethico-political authority as well as their ideological program, as a treacherous and disloyal faction. Faction theorists and factional rhetoricians assumed that their monarchical audience shared, or should share, their own intellectual and linguistic assumptions about the inherent unity of ethics and politics and their belief that political institutions and their administrators existed to loyally serve the dynastic polity, which in turn ordered society from the top down and the center outwards.7 In late Northern Song factional rhetoric, the imperial bureaucracy was imagined to be divided between ethical exemplars who acted independently and a malign faction who were organized in opposition against them. It was generally assumed that monarchs who employed loyal ministers (“superior men” or junzi) would stabilize governing institutions and uplift civic mores, but if rulers mistakenly delegated authority to nefarious ministers (“petty men” or xiaoren), they would



Rhetoric of Politics and Politics of Rhetoric

3

be held responsible for dynastic ruin and socio-moral disorder. Faction theorists and factional rhetoricians assumed, but rarely acknowledged, that they and their colleagues were superior men, who affiliated on the basis of ethical dispositions and ideological visions that united them in the service of the dynastic polity. Throughout the factional conflict, political theorists and rhetoricians persuaded and empowered rulers to assume their primary responsibility as arbiters of faction, urging them to distinguish superior men, who were assumed to be acting alone in service of the “public good” (gong), from petty men, who formed factions to advance their own “private” or “selfish” (si) interests.8 Ministers pressured emperors and regents to identify the malign factions that were spreading at court, and expel them from the metropolitan bureaucracy before these subversive cells undermined the dynastic polity. In the polarized view of factional ideologues, political divisions at court were invariably destructive, and ministers with opposing ideological visions and moral endowments could not possibly coexist. Only a narrow segment of the sociopolitical elite, described as loyal superior men, deserved to serve the dynastic polity, and monarchs could no longer accommodate a diversity of political opinion amongst officialdom. The intellectual assumptions of this court-centered discourse of authority generally prevented ministers from publicly acknowledging or justifying the existence of ministerial factions, and no late Northern Song monarch ever did so. In an era of political and ideological divisiveness, ministers persuaded monarchs to implement their factions’ ideological agendas as state policy, while using accusations of factionalism to expel the opposition. In this study I will demonstrate how and why members of the sociopolitical elite of the late Northern Song, in their public role as imperial bureaucrats, employed a shared discourse of authority that imagined political authority from the imperial court’s perspective and almost unequivocally condemned ministerial factions as disloyal and treacherous.

Social Networks and Bureaucratic Competition Accumulating, monopolizing, and fusing political, social, and intellectual capital, members of the Northern Song elite shared a bureaucratic and centralist outlook, defining themselves through their political and administrative service to the imperial state. Referring to themselves as “gentlemen” (shi), members of the Northern Song elite attained and preserved their economic dominance and cultural hegemony over the lower orders of society by seeking and holding office in the imperial bureaucracy.9 Economically dependent upon bureaucratic salaries to supplement their land-based and commerce-derived wealth, members



Divided by a Common Language

of the gentlemanly elite who served the dynasty as officials (shidafu) also derived social status and cultural capital from governmental service.10 By educating their members for the empire-wide civil service examinations that qualified successful candidates for bureaucratic careers, elite families aspired to maintain and upgrade not only their economic support systems, but also their social and political influence on the national stage. Once a bureaucrat had achieved high office, his descendants were entitled to such privileges and advantages as facilitated examinations and direct entry into officialdom.11 Hence, the attainment of high political office for its members allowed an elite lineage to reaffirm its social status and to solidify its economic base for another generation.12 In its officeholding persona, the shi elite was the creation of the Song dynastic founders, who sought to centralize their executive authority over central government administration and to establish civil and civilian dominance within it. Early Song monarchs were reacting to the political instability of the eighth and ninth centuries, when aristocratic lineages had rivaled the prestige of the Tang imperial house, and autonomous militarists had dispersed the authority of the Tang central government. The Song dynasty reunified the realm after a period of rebellion and fragmentation that destroyed the Tang and later destabilized the subsequent Five Dynasties that ruled North China in the first half of the tenth century. In order to recentralize imperial authority, Emperors Taizu (r. 960–976), Taizong (r. 976–997), and Zhenzong (r. 997–1022) endeavored to staff their bureaucracy with a subordinate and dependent elite that lacked an independent military or economic power base.13 They expanded the civil service examination system as the predominant mechanism for bureaucratic recruitment, so that degree-holding civil officials comprised the majority of government administrators by the middle of the eleventh century.14 Rightly or wrongly, historians have long blamed the Song court’s weak military position against the Khitan Liao (907–1125) and Jurchen Jin (1115–1234) empires, powerful border states that increasingly dominated North China in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, on the overcentralization of military authority in the hands of civil officials.15 Gathering force by the dynasty’s latter half, the intensification of elite competition for degree-holding and officeholding contributed to the formation of factions within the imperial bureaucracy. Prospective bureaucrats focused their energies on examination preparation in the hope of attaining official postings and, subsequently, promotions upward through the ranks.16 But as the number of examination degree-holders rapidly outstripped the relatively stable supply of official positions, elite demand for official appointments intensified.17 Consequently, members of the sociopolitical elite formed marriage and patronage networks in order to maximize their chances of achieving bureaucratic postings.18



Rhetoric of Politics and Politics of Rhetoric 

Overlapping with and inseparable from these affinal, agnatic, and patronage ties, factional affiliations provided further competitive resources for prospective officials.19 When ministerial coalitions contended for a greater share of bureaucratic positions, they attempted to distribute the spoils of office to their protégés and kinsmen, building factional patronage networks in the process. Hence, the intensification of the factional conflict within the late Northern Song bureaucracy was a direct effect of heightened competition for examination degrees and official connections, as ambitious officials staked their careers on the political fortunes of their chosen faction and its leaders.

Ideological Schisms and Institutional Breaches But the late Northern Song factional conflict was not simply the cascading consequence of thousands of elite individuals pursuing social status and cultural capital by political and institutional means. Entrusted with formulating, implementing, and interpreting state policy, the central government bureaucracy was the institutional arena in which members of the Song sociopolitical elite articulated ideological positions on statecraft and governance. Grand councilors formed bureaucratic coalitions and appealed for monarchical patronage in order to tighten their control over the state administrative apparatus, but always in the service of specific political and ideological aims. Late Northern Song statecraft experts, regardless of ideology, generally attempted to persuade monarchs to restructure the empire’s fiscal system in order to enhance its efficacy, to strengthen its military establishment in order to roll back external threats, and to recruit capable administrators in order to administer the government bureaucracy. The policy debates and factional conflicts of the Northern Song generally revolved around the ideological means of achieving these ends through central government institutions. In both theory and practice, the emperor (huangdi) was the Song empire’s ultimate and unitary legislative, executive, and judicial authority; he presided over the imperial bureaucracy that formulated, implemented, and monitored state policy.20 Even though they delegated a substantial measure of policy-making influence to their state councilors and entrusted routine operations to an extensive metropolitan and regional bureaucracy, monarchs and regents reserved the final right to review and approve the policy and personnel decisions their ministers had proposed.21 While Song emperors possessed the authority to create new governing institutions or modify old ones as they saw fit, they usually chose to function within established bureaucratic structures and information flows.22 They sat at the apex of the governmental pyramid, receiving reports and



Divided by a Common Language

recommendations from their officials in the form of memorials (zouyi), and then conveying their directives back down to their bureaucratic servitors as edicts (zhao).23 In order to prevent ministers from monopolizing executive authority and to solicit a range of opinions from a broad cross-section of elite interests, the dynastic founders had built checks and balances into the structure of the Song bureaucracy.24 Two grand councilors (generally referred to as zaixiang), the highest advisory officials at the imperial court, could override each other’s decisions with monarchical approval, and several junior state councilors and civilian defense ministers were intended to balance their superiors’ authority on the Council of State, the central executive organ.25 Ministerial powers over the deliberation, investigation, and implementation of state policy were further compartmentalized into the Three Departments (Sansheng)—the Secretariat (Zhongshu sheng), the Chancellery (Menxia sheng), and the Department of State Affairs (Shangshu sheng)—whose directors generally served on the Council of State.26 Providing another check on the power of state councilors and executive-level officials, two separate investigation and surveillance agencies, the Censorate (Yushitai) and the Remonstrance Bureau (Jianyuan), were endowed with the authority to critique state policy, supervise governmental operations, and impeach incompetent or corrupt officials.27 Using the examples of Emperors Renzong and Yingzong, Xiao-bin Ji has hypothesized that earlier Northern Song monarchs generally tolerated policy and ideological debate among their ministers and has concluded that transcending their ministers’ policy and personality conflicts further strengthened imperial authority, so that rulers could “take advantage of the service of officials of all policy positions without becoming fully dependent on any individual or faction.”28 When factional conflict broke out during the late Northern Song, these institutional restraints and consensual arrangements no longer limited state councilors’ executive authority. Under a series of factional ministerial regimes, state councilors promoted their exclusivist ideological visions with monarchical patronage and approval. Starting with Wang Anshi’s rise to the councilorship in 1069, powerful ministers attempted to pack the bureaucracy with like-minded allies and subordinates in order to push through an ideological agenda over the objections from the disunited opposition. Court politics became ideologically polarized when a series of grand councilors monopolized power over state policy-making, with the consent of the monarchs and regents they served, severely restricting the ambit of the Censorate and the Remonstrance Bureau.29 In his role as the emperor’s grand councilor, a factional leader could dominate and manipulate the imperial bureaucracy from above, forming a vertical alliance with the throne in order to implement his coalition’s ideological and political goals. Grand councilors appealed to rulers to take their side in policy and personnel



Rhetoric of Politics and Politics of Rhetoric 

disputes by exclusively employing their loyal allies while purging their disloyal opposition, thereby ensuring that the bureaucratic arena no longer accommodated ideological diversity or a broad range of elite sociopolitical interests. From Shenzong to Huizong, late Northern Song emperors and regents were complicit in the factional conflict, for they personally associated themselves with their councilors’ policy programs, allowed their councilors to monopolize executive authority, and assented to their remonstrators’ expulsion of the ministerial opposition on charges of disloyalty and factionalism. The intellectual production of Northern Song elites revolved around the ideological question of how to employ political institutions to properly govern the empire and its subjects, and whether existing or restructured institutions would best accomplish these goals.30 Peter Bol has theorized that the Northern Song sociopolitical elite shared a common sense of cultural values and intellectual identity and a common commitment to government service.31 The era’s most prominent intellectuals and literati served in the metropolitan bureaucracy, where they formed loosely bounded ministerial coalitions that struggled for authority over state policy. For the moment, let us assume that these ideological divisions can be reduced to a binary opposition between “reformist” and “antireformist” factions, which articulated distinctive visions of statecraft and political action.32 Their leaders devised ideological programs that employed institutional mechanisms to enhance governmental efficacy, increase state revenue, and strengthen border defenses.33 Inspired by Wang Anshi and his New Policies (Xinfa), reformist ideology (Xinxue) intended to maximize state revenue by collapsing distinctions between state and society and using centralized institutions to unify and uplift moral values for the betterment of the whole of society.34 Antireformism, as represented by its conservative standard-bearer, Sima Guang (1019–1086), was bluntly opposed to Wang’s expansion of the activist state, advocating the moral renewal of pre-existing bureaucratic institutions and the restoration of proper hierarchies within them, instead of inventing new ones.35 Bol has demonstrated that both Wang’s reformist and Sima’s antireformist ideologies were to some degree centralizing; they aimed to employ state institutions for the ethical revival of society in order to revive the perfect ethical and political order of antiquity.36 But their developers, followers, and successors sharply disagreed about how these ends could be accomplished politically and institutionally and formed bureaucratic factions to implement these conflicting ideological objectives over their adversaries’ objections. In political practice, however, this binary distinction between reformists and antireformists was frequently subject to blurring and fissuring and elides the complexity and contingency of actual political practice during the late Northern Song factional conflict. Within both of these large, unstable political blocs, ministers frequently debated policy deci-



Divided by a Common Language

sions, disagreed over personnel choices, and engaged in personal disputes, seeking to ally their splinter groups with the throne against the others. Moreover, despite their state of political and ideological conflict, both reformists and antireformists empowered the emperor as the ultimate source of authority and argued that members of the elite should loyally serve the dynastic polity in order to unify and uplift civic culture. Thus members of the Song sociopolitical elite also shared a higher level of cultural uniformity: the common political language with which they articulated claims to authority in their role as government bureaucrats, and with which they denied authority to their political and ideological adversaries. As their conflict escalated, late Northern Song factionalists used the same court-centered discourse of authority with equal divisiveness, urging the monarch or regent to implement their coalition’s ideological vision as state policy and persuading him or her to eliminate their opposition from court. After each abrupt monarchical and ministerial transition, deposed grand councilors and their followers were expelled from court and demoted to regional administration, thereby ensuring ideological uniformity within the metropolitan bureaucracy. Undertaken with monarchical complicity, the brutalization of political practice was a gradual process, involving the increasingly frequent and widespread application of such punishments as movement restrictions (anzhi), exile to the far south, and partisan proscription to uproot the ideological opposition from the bureaucracy. By the final factional blacklists (dangji) that effectively ended the conflict in 1104, nearly the entire antireform coalition, and many prominent reformists, had been proscribed. Until almost the very end of Emperor Huizong’s reign, the long-serving councilor Cai Jing (1046–1126) built an enduring factional patronage network that pushed its opposition outside the imperial bureaucracy altogether. The Cai Jing ministry achieved two decades of political stability and ideological consensus, until the Jurchen invasions of 1126–1127 resulted in the fall of Kaifeng and the re-establishment of the Song dynasty in the south.

Early Northern Song Factional Conflicts Conceiving of the rise and fall of dynasties as a recurring natural pattern, Northern Song political theorists and rhetoricians recognized that factional conflicts had caused the collapse of previous imperial regimes. They attributed the decline and fall of the Han and Tang dynasties to malevolent factions of petty men, and they also recognized that factionalism had been a recurring phenomenon since the inception of their own dynasty. In the dynasty’s early de-



Rhetoric of Politics and Politics of Rhetoric 

cades, war and peace factions contended for influence at the courts of Emperors Taizong and Zhenzong, debating the continuation of hostilities with the Khitan Liao empire.37 The Khitans had exploited the political weakness of the Five Dynasties to wrest away the Sixteen Prefectures of the Yan-Yun region, which had served as the Tang empire’s northern defensive perimeter and protected the North China plain from invasion. In his ignominious invasion campaigns of 979 and 986, Emperor Taizong twice failed to retake these disputed territories, before his death in 997 deferred the choice of whether to attack or appease the Khitans to Zhenzong and his ministers. In an era when civil and civilian domination of the imperial bureaucracy was still being consolidated, these factional conflicts between irredentists and appeasers involved both military and civil officials.38 After several years of debate, the war faction led by Kou Zhun (961–1023) convinced Zhenzong to mobilize imperial forces for an offensive strike upon Liao border positions, a strategy that ultimately pulled a diplomatic triumph out of the jaws of military defeat, after the Khitans mounted a preemptive assault on Kaifeng.39 Zhenzong’s conclusion of the Song-Liao Treaty of Chanyuan in 1005, which established an indemnified peace with the Khitans and equal diplomatic relations between the two empires, effectively concluded the earliest factional conflict at the Northern Song court.40 While state councilors continued to debate geopolitical strategy throughout the eleventh century, their disputes generally revolved around domestic policy initiatives, which their advocates insisted would eventually strengthen the empire’s fiscal and military position. By the middle of the eleventh century, factional conflicts at the Song court were almost exclusively limited to coalitions of civil officials, which had come to dominate the central government bureaucracy. The discourses and practices of late Northern Song factionalism emerged from the political and intellectual milieu of the Qingli era (1041–1049), when a coalition of reforming ministers, led by Fan Zhongyan (989–1052), first came to prominence at the court of Emperor Renzong (r. 1022–1063).41 Renzong’s court faced a deteriorating budgetary situation, caused by the rising costs of funding a costly military establishment to passively defend the empire’s borders and exacerbated by a shortage of capable officials.42 In order to resolve these crises all at once, Fan Zhongyan overrode criticism at court from conservative elements to implement the Qingli Reforms (Qingli xinzheng) of 1043–1044. An advocate of a re-energized activist government, Fan intended his reforms of fiscal policy and personnel administration to improve the moral character of officialdom and to transform the civic culture of the empire.43 Fan and his ally Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072) pursued an ideological vision that incrementally reformed state institutions, and they urged like-minded officials to join them in implementing this shared vision, even if it

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excluded and antagonized other interest groups and coalitions within the imperial bureaucracy. Hostile court conservatives persuaded Renzong that Fan had formed a treacherous faction that had monopolized executive authority and infringed upon monarchical prerogatives. After Fan admitted to having formed a benign faction, Ouyang proposed in his “Discourse on Factions” (Pengdang lun) that true factions were affiliations of superior men who served the public good.44 These self-incriminating polemics sealed the reformers’ fate, providing their adversaries with a sufficient pretext to purge Fan and his allies from court and abolish his reform policies in 1044. The factional conflict between advocates and opponents of the Qingli Reforms was short-lived, and the former were marginalized from court politics for more than a decade, while a bloc of conservative officials regained Renzong’s patronage. But it foreshadowed the ideologically driven factional politics of the late Northern Song, when a series of grand councilors pursued policy agendas that both antagonized and marginalized opposition within the metropolitan bureaucracy. Fan Zhongyan’s institutional reform movement had once been the banner of a much broader ministerial coalition, influencing future reformists like Wang Anshi, but also many of his eventual antireformist opponents.45

Politics and Ideology in the 1050s and 1060s When they returned to court after a decade in regional administration, the younger members of Fan’s reforming cohort became the dominant political force at court. In the late 1050s, Renzong rehabilitated Ouyang Xiu and other former Qingli reformers to serve on his Council of State, where they focused their efforts on shoring up the empire’s sagging fiscal, military, and administrative positions. In the intervening years, their ideologically confrontational political style had mellowed. Learning from the failure of the Qingli Reforms, the ministerial regime of Han Qi (1008–1075) and Fu Bi (1004–1083) advocated the evolutionary adaptation of political institutions instead of sweeping reform programs.46 Controlling the Council of State throughout the early and mid-1060s, these advocates of bureaucratic hierarchy and efficacy bridged two generations of scholar-officials: the reforming generation of the 1040s and a rising generation of officials who had come of age during the Qingli Reforms. More immediately, court debates over imperial ritual during the brief reign of the hapless Emperor Yingzong (r. 1063–1067) in some ways prefigured the factional conflicts of the early Shenzong reign.47 The biological son of Renzong’s uncle Zhao Yunrang (995–1059) and the imperial prince of Pu (Pu wang), the future Emperor Yingzong had been formally adopted as Renzong’s son and in-



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vested as his heir apparent. For over a year after his enthronement at age thirtyone, Yingzong’s state councilors debated the issue of how their monarch should formally recognize his natural father.48 Ultimately, the grand councilors Han Qi and Ouyang Xiu persuaded the emperor that he should refer to his natural father as his “parent” rather than as an “imperial uncle” in his ritual observances. Resisting what they believed to be a violation of dynastic ritual protocol, Sima Guang and several censors were dismissed for their opposition to the move. In Bol’s interpretation, Han and Ouyang promoted institutional innovations in the mold of Fan Zhongyan, whereas Sima and his allies sought to preserve existing ethical and political institutions in a failed bid for political power.49 Even though it did not escalate into a full-blown factional conflict, the rites controversy was a hinge issue that highlighted the growing political and ideological divisions within the imperial bureaucracy between advocates and opponents of comprehensive institutional reforms. These schisms deepened with the death of Yingzong and the accession of his son, the reform-minded Emperor Shenzong, in 1067. Wang Anshi and Sima Guang, the political luminaries who led the reform and antireform factions of the late Northern Song, shared the institutional focus and centralizing impulse of the Qingli reformers. In the 1060s, Wang and Sima became the standard-bearers of two opposing schools (but not, as we will see, the only two) of statecraft, developing and promoting political programs that diverged over both bureaucratic means and ideological ends, and emerged as the leaders of contending ministerial coalitions during the early years of Shenzong’s reign.50 In 1069, the idealistic young monarch appointed Wang as his state councilor and implemented Wang’s New Policies, a comprehensive package of institutional reforms, over the objections of Sima and the antireformist majority at court. Then, after more than a decade in exile, Sima Guang finally attained the Council of State in 1086, after Shenzong’s death, and his faction abolished Wang’s reforms and initiated eight years of antireformist dominance. Both Wang and Sima articulated comprehensive ideological visions that won them monarchical patronage and attracted a coalition of bureaucratic allies to serve them, while simultaneously antagonizing and marginalizing opposition elements. Hence, in the very broadest of strokes, the factional divisions between reformists and antireformists emerged from the intellectual and political conflict between Wang Anshi and Sima Guang and among their colleagues, followers, and successors. Common threads in the political theory and factional rhetoric of the late Northern Song can be traced back to the grand coalition of the 1060s and even further back to the reforming cohort of the 1040s. Yet, as I will demonstrate below, the political history of the late Northern Song was far more complex and contradictory than a simple bipartite conflict between reformists and antireformists.

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The Polarizing Rhetoric of Factional Politics Court Factions in Political Practice Northern Song factionalists, as well as later historians who interpreted their conflict, used the terms dang and pengdang to denote a concept of political association that has been conventionally translated into English as “faction.”51 But since these words were deployed in different contexts, court factions in political practice must be distinguished from their representations in both political and historiographic discourse. The factions of the late Northern Song were limited partnerships and unstable affiliations, loosely bounded ministerial coalitions rather than monolithic political blocs.52 Northern Song factions were limited to the highest echelons of the metropolitan bureaucracy, usually comprising those who served within the Council of State, executive-level posts, the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau, and the imperial academies. When one of these topheavy political networks held power with imperial approval, its membership was generally coextensive with the current ministerial coalition.53 Because elite social networks centered on the imperial capital, and elite advancement strategies centered on bureaucratic officeholding, political affiliations were likewise limited to the metropolitan bureaucracy in Kaifeng. Since transregional patronage, marriage, and kinship ties provided the building blocks for political affiliations, the personalized nature of these bureaucratic networks limited their long-term survival and continuity, and ministerial squabbles led to factional fractioning. Hence, the “reform” and “antireform” factions should be conceptualized as loosely organized court coalitions, subject to fragmentation over a wide range of personality and policy issues. To be sure, the ministerial associations of the late Northern Song did not resemble early modern North Atlantic or modern East Asian political parties, with policy manifestos, polity-wide organizations, and centralized discipline.54 If the political organizations of the late Northern Song penetrated down to the regional or local level, little evidence exists to corroborate this possibility. Drawn from official histories that stress court politics at the expense of regional and local developments, the standard chronicles of Northern Song history rarely illuminate societal occurrences below the highest ruling circles. Moreover, based on available sources, it cannot be persuasively confirmed that the membership of factional affiliations was defined from within these organizations. When ministers accused their adversaries of factionalism, and ministries blacklisted their opposition, there is no reason to conflate these condemnatory claims with actual factional membership. In Chapter 7, I will demonstrate that the political organizations of the late Ming dynasty, which reached down from the imperial court to local academies throughout the empire, were more broadly based than



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Northern Song factions, which comprised a small circle of ministers attached to one or several state councilors. Moreover, the survival of these factional ministries was contingent upon continued monarchical support and patronage. When monarchs accepted arguments for their grand councilors’ impeachment, factional affiliations could still maintain a degree of coherence under new leaders. But when emperors or regents died, often prematurely, their chosen ministries did not long survive them, especially when their successors personally associated themselves with a single faction’s policy program. Over three decades of factional conflict, institutional contingencies within monarchical-ministerial regimes threatened the survival and undermined the coherence of political affiliations at the Northern Song court. Court Factions in Factional Rhetoric In political practice, factional affiliations were fissiparous and factional divisions were blurry, but the opposite prevailed in political rhetoric, where a faction was treated as an easily describable, identifiable, and knowable unit. Factional rhetoric was a set of vocabularies, definitions, and usages that political practitioners employed to define and interpret political discourse and practice.55 Eschewing ambiguity and uncertainty, faction theorists and factional rhetoricians represented factions as sharply bounded and easily identifiable organizations, which they defined in all-or-nothing ethical terms. Thus, the polarizing rhetoric of the late Northern Song factional conflict reduced the complexity, chaos, and contingency of political practice to a binary opposition between factious petty men and factionless superior men. With the rare exceptions of Fan Zhongyan and Ouyang Xiu in 1044, no minister ever admitted to having formed a faction in publicly circulating forms of rhetoric such as court memorials or policy essays. Exemplary ministers were deemed incapable of forming factional affiliations, because their vertical loyalty (zhong) to the dynastic polity was imagined to override all other horizontal ties of obligation. Recently, Naomi Standen has argued that eleventh-century historians like Ouyang Xiu and Sima Guang reconceived of the concept as demanding “unwavering loyalty to a single master,” as a hierarchical ruler-minister relationship rather than a reciprocal and equal one.56 My study of political theory and rhetoric will build upon Standen’s hypothesis and demonstrate that ministerial proclamations of loyalty, and accusations of disloyalty, were central elements of late Northern Song discourses of authority. I will explain how reformist and antireformist factional affiliations, as well as their splinter and successor groups, shared a common language of faction that belied their state of political enmity and ideological conflict.57 Councilors and remonstrators from all sides of the conflict produced a discourse of authority that operated according to similar rules, employed similar vocabularies, and

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invoked similar classical and historical authorities. After the failure of Ouyang Xiu’s “Discourse on Factions,” the polarizing rhetoric of faction was resistant to redefinition and reinterpretation. From 1068 to 1104, both reformist and antireformist rhetoricians, as well as members of their respective splinter groups, urged the ruler to eliminate their factious opposition, while maintaining that they were loyal ministers acting alone in service to the dynastic polity. Factional rhetoricians assumed that they and their allies shared a common ideological vision and a sense of individual loyalty to the throne that justified the marginalization of their bureaucratic opposition as a “faction” of petty men. So prevalent was this court-centered discourse of authority that when both the broad reform and antireform factions splintered over personal and ideological disagreements in the 1070s and 1080s, they used the same polarizing rhetoric against their former colleagues. Throughout the late Northern Song factional conflict, a time when ministers actively engaged in ideological battles and monarchs personally identified themselves with policy programs, political actors could not publicly acknowledge the existence of their own factional affiliations or publicly advocate concerted ministerial action that could serve the common good of the polity. Court Factions in Historiographic Discourse and Practice Official historians of the late Northern Song factional conflict recycled a similar court-centered discourse of authority as factionalists themselves once had; both imagined factions as malevolent associations that undermined the public good and threatened the dynastic polity’s survival. And as the conflict escalated, its official history became a bone of contention after every monarchical and ministerial transition. Since court historians were entrusted with compiling the history of the previous monarch’s reign, political pressures interfered with the compilation of the official histories of the Shenzong, Zhezong, and Huizong reigns. By selecting which foundation texts to include into or exclude from the authoritative court chronicles—the detailed Veritable Records (Shilu) and the compressed State History (Guoshi)—court historians attempted to influence posterity’s judgment of past ministerial coalitions.58 Reformist and antireformist ministers condemned the revisionist historiography of their adversaries as both ethically flawed and factually incorrect, while claiming that their own side presented veracious and verifiable narratives of the recent past. After nearly every monarchical transition, the official history of the factional conflict’s first chapter—the Veritable Records of Emperor Shenzong (Shenzong shilu)—was repeatedly revised and recompiled in order to accord with the current state policy consensus.59 First, the antireform ministry of the Xuanren Regency rewrote the official history of the reform era to condemn the New Policies and the reformists. Next, under the reformist ministry of Zhezong’s personal rule,



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court historians revised the Shenzong shilu in order to denounce the antireformist opposition as a nefarious faction, and Huizong’s reformist ministers extended this condemnatory narrative when they compiled the Veritable Records of Emperor Zhezong (Zhezong shilu).60 After Kaifeng fell to the Jurchen invasion of 1127, official historians of the Southern Song court blamed Cai Jing and his fellow reformists for the collapse of the Northern Song, rather than holding Emperor Huizong, the direct ancestor of the current imperial line, directly responsible for the dynastic calamity.61 When they assembled and reassembled the Veritable Records of the Shenzong, Zhezong, and Huizong reigns, the court historians of the Gaozong (r. 1127–1162) and Xiaozong (r. 1162–1189) reigns condemned the reformist ministerial coalitions of the late Northern Song as treacherous factions. Fashioning a teleological narrative of the factional conflict, Southern Song court historians read the collapse of the dynasty back into the political history of the Shenzong and Zhezong reigns, presenting the reformists’ domestic and border policies as the root causes of the Jurchen invasion. This antireformist interpretation eventually won the acceptance of Xiaozong’s court and was enshrined in the State History of the Four Reigns (Sichao guoshi), which was intended to serve as the final version of the conflict’s official history.62 The Southern Song court historians who compiled these texts rigidly divided late Northern Song officialdom into two rival camps: reformist petty men, who destroyed the dynastic polity, and the antireformist superior men, who loyally but unsuccessfully opposed their traitorous designs. In the early fourteenth century, when Yuan court historians compiled the official history of the Song dynasty, the Song History (Song shi), they intensified these ethical and political contrasts.63 The bulk of the Song History text pertaining to the late Northern Song factional conflict was replicated and condensed from works of official historiography compiled during the early Southern Song. The Song History compilers physically removed the biographies of the reformist grand councilors of the late Northern Song (with the exception of Wang Anshi himself) from the main body of the biographical (liezhuan) section, categorizing them instead as “treacherous ministers” (jianchen).64 With the completion of the Song History in 1345, the revisionist historiography of the late Northern Song factional conflict was complete, imprinting a polemically antireformist interpretation upon the authoritative documentary record.65 Chinese historians of the late imperial period generally replicated the moralistic biases of Southern Song and Yuan official history, demonizing the reformists as felons, while honoring the antireformists as martyrs.66 Because historians vilified Wang Anshi and his reformist heirs as the embodiment of corrupt and malevolent governance, postSong politicians were justifiably wary of committing themselves to activist governance in emulation of the New Policies.

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While some Chinese-language historians have approached their sources with admirable skepticism, most modern scholars have generally replicated the moralistic biases of traditional historiography, reading these as accurate representations of political discourse and practice, even as these same scholars have performed the praiseworthy and indispensable task of painstakingly examining and comparing every shred of historical evidence for the period.67 Yet some contemporary Chinese historians still employ the moralistic discourse of late Northern Song factional rhetoric, reproducing the dichotomy between superior men and petty men as they retroactively assign praise and blame, thereby replicating the moralistic biases of the Southern Song and Yuan official historians who refashioned the narrative of the factional conflict.68 In his pioneering English-language study of Wang Anshi, James T. C. Liu transposed these moralistic dichotomies into Western social science typologies, distinguishing among “idealistic scholarofficials” and “career-minded bureaucrats,” and “abusive bureaucrats.”69 When analyzing primary sources, I will attempt to reconstruct native categories and terminologies from within and will avoid replicating the polarizing language of my historical subjects and the historians who have judged them.

Methodological Approaches and Theoretical Departures The persistence and virulence of the Northern Song factional conflict has long been acknowledged by the historical community, so this study will employ a different road map to explore this well-traveled territory. Twentieth-century East Asian historians generally have explained the political and ideological schism between reformists and antireformists as reflections of socioeconomic and intellectual divisions within the Song elite. In their exhaustive examinations of the sources of late Northern Song social and political history, mainland Chinese scholars have been forced by political pressures to conceptualize the factional conflict as a superstructural one, reflecting socioeconomic contradictions within “feudal” society and the persistence of “feudal” autocracy.70 Japanese and North American historians have also proposed that the factional conflict was the result of socioeconomic changes—bureaucratization and commercialization—that transformed the outlook of the Song elite. Along these lines, scholars have claimed that the antireform faction drew its membership largely from the established landowning class of the north, while their reformist adversaries represented the upwardly mobile classes of the commercializing south.71 In the past thirty years, North American Song specialists have conceptualized factionalism as one primary cause of the shift in elite orientations and strategies from national bureaucratic officeholding to local political involvement, from Northern



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to Southern Song. Both Robert Hartwell and Robert Hymes have identified the escalating factional conflict as one of several disincentives that made officeholding appear less attractive and more risky to prospective bureaucrats.72 A final resolution of these issues of Song social history is beyond the scope of this study. Instead, I will examine faction theory and factional rhetoric as court-centered discourses of authority, as cultural phenomena with a primacy and logic of their own.73 In so doing, I am certainly not disconnecting this discourse of authority from the social, political, and institutional contexts of factionalism, to which I will reconnect political theory and rhetoric throughout this study.74 In the ideological vision of Northern Song factionalists, authority was seen to emanate vertically downward from the imperial court, and ministers portrayed themselves as loyal servants of the throne, who worked for the public good of state and society rather than for the private interest. My goal is to reconstruct the linguistic rules and intellectual assumptions that shaped faction theory and factional rhetoric in the late Northern Song and that prevented ministers from publicly acknowledging the existence of their own factional affiliations, while they simultaneously accused their adversaries of factionalism. In choosing to focus this study on the politics of factional theory and rhetoric, I hope to elucidate the linkages between Northern Song political and intellectual history, by explaining how conflicting factionalists could share a common language of faction. I will analyze the political writings of such intellectual and literary luminaries as Ouyang Xiu, Wang Anshi, Sima Guang, Su Shi, Cheng Yi, and many others, rather than their philosophical or literary writings, in an effort to reconstruct the intellectual contexts within which ministers produced faction theory and factional rhetoric. Since the distribution and survival of the corpus of collected works (wenji) of late Northern Song authors has been skewed by political and ideological factors, very few editions of reformist-authored collected works are now extant, while those of antireformists now number in the dozens.75 Consequently, any attempt to reconstruct the rhetoric of politics must consist of a reading of other textual genres, augmenting theoretical discourses (lun) with court memorials and transcripts of court audiences (dui) in order to illustrate how Northern Song political actors publicly articulated the concepts of factions and factionalism. Aside from the “Discourses on Factions” (Pengdang lun) discussed in Chapter 3, which have been preserved in their authors’ collected works, almost all of the pieces of Northern Song factional rhetoric to be analyzed in subsequent chapters have been drawn from court chronicles and collections of memorials that were assembled during the Southern Song from surviving court records.76 While the late Northern Song Veritable Records are

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no longer extant, a large fraction of these texts have survived, having been copied into privately compiled works of historiography in the late twelfth century. The major chronicle of Northern Song court politics is the Long Draft of the Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Governance (Xu zizhi tongjian changbian) of 1183, which Li Tao (1115–1184) distilled from the Veritable Records and Court History of the period and from a wide variety of unofficial sources.77 But several lacunae in the Long Draft, which is missing chronicles of the early Shenzong reign, parts of the Zhezong reign, and all but one year of the Huizong reign, limit its usefulness as a source of late Northern Song factional rhetoric.78 I have filled these temporal gaps with memorials collected in Yang Zhongliang’s (n.d.) Topical Narratives of the Long Draft of the Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Governance (Xu zizhi tongjian changbian jishi benmo) of 1253, a thematic compilation of and companion to the Long Draft that preserves many of its now-lost entries.79 Other Northern Song memorials have been preserved in Zhao Ruyu’s (1140–1196) topically organized collection Memorials of Various Song Dynasty Ministers (Songchao zhuchen zouyi).80 When combined in a mutually reinforcing fashion, these three texts provide a much broader and deeper crosssection of factional rhetoric from the late Northern Song than do the collected works of leading literati, and the first two include a large number of memorials by reformists whose collected works no longer survive. By explicating the linguistic rules according to which court politics and factional rhetoric operated, I hope to capture their contingencies, contradictions, and complexities. Throughout the factional conflict of the late Northern Song, ministers from both camps shared a common intellectual inventory and linguistic vocabulary that shaped the way they articulated and defined political action and affiliation, despite their fundamental disagreements over political ideology. Hence, factional rhetoric revolved around the making of contending claims to ethico-political authority and the elaboration of condemnatory or admonitory arguments against factions and factionalism.81 However, I am not arguing that political practices are essentially reducible to discourse, for factional rhetoric was certainly not the only dimension of political practice. Nor am I advancing an arch-relativist interpretation that these discursive representations of political authority were arbitrary and slippery figments of language. Northern Song factionalists were working within a shared intellectual framework of classical hermeneutics and historical analogism and chose their words and concepts according to pre-existing rules for maximum political and rhetorical effect. Nor can my argument be mischaracterized as linguistic determinism, because I am not claiming that factional discourses limited what could be conceived, but rather only what could be publicly articulated. I will consistently demonstrate that the prevailing discourses of authority did not prevent ministers from forming



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bureaucratic coalitions, even if they did restrain them from publicly advancing a neutral or positive vision of ministerial affiliations. Nor did the shared languages of factionalism prevent ministers from defending different policy programs or from clashing over ideological positions. The formation and manipulation of factional rhetoric was an inherently significant and signifying practice, by and through which political practitioners engaged in the construction of political and ideological meaning. Factionalists of the late Northern Song used this court-centered discourse of authority to persuade monarchs to purge the factious opposition while retaining loyal and factionless ministers like themselves. Factional rhetoric represented the continuation and extension of the factional conflict by other means, even as this political discourse became increasingly decoupled from political practice and became increasingly resistant to redefinition.

The Thorny Path Ahead In Chapter 2, “Frames of Reference,” I will establish the broad parameters that bounded the political imaginations of the Northern Song by demonstrating how factionalists defined and interpreted factionalism in public and private rhetorical settings. By rereading and reinterpreting a shared corpus of classical and historical texts, faction theorists and factional rhetoricians manipulated these textual authorities to demarcate the boundaries of the political community between factions of petty men and factionless superior men. First, they interpolated fragments of classical texts as authoritative injunctions against factionalism, frequently decontextualizing them and reading them anachronistically, in order to claim that factionalism was a deviation from ancient ideals of rulership and ministerial loyalty. Second, faction theorists and factional rhetoricians compared the present to past factional conflicts, which they blamed for undermining and destroying the Han and Tang imperial polities, and warned that factions of petty men would do the same to the Song dynasty. Reformist and antireformist ministers, along with their monarchical audience, shared these classical and historical frames of reference, which bounded their conceptions of political action and organization by locating the imperial court as the central source of authority, and by empowering the monarch as the ultimate arbiter of faction. Each of the following chapters begins with what I think of as a moment of persuasion, a brief narrative about a rhetorical exchange between ministers and their monarchical audiences. In order to introduce readers to the historical background of each stage of the factional conflict, I will explain the political stakes and policy choices behind each exchange as well as the intellectual

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contexts that were shared by its participants. These narratives will demonstrate how ministers persuaded their ruler to expel their opposition and retain their allies and, furthermore, how skeptical or amenable rulers responded to these polemical and divisive claims. In each case, ministers admonished the emperors and regents they served to identify the factions in their midst and urged them to exercise ultimate authority over personnel and policy decisions. In Chapter 3, “Categorical Propositions,” I undertake a broad diachronic study of Northern Song “Discourses on Factions,” explaining how five representative faction theorists imagined the hierarchical relationship between monarchical and ministerial authority. The chapter opens with a court dialogue of 1044, in which Grand Councilor Fan Zhongyan admitted to Emperor Renzong that his Qingli reforming coalition was indeed a faction. In his exceptional “Discourse on Factions” (Pengdang lun) that followed, Ouyang Xiu used classical hermeneutics and historical analogies in a game-changing attempt to normalize and justify the existence of factional affiliations in the service of shared ideological aims. He theorized that true factions of superior men served the public good of the dynasty, as opposed to the false factions of petty men. But after Renzong dismissed Fan’s reforming bloc from court, theorists unequivocally condemned factions as malevolent and destructive. In their “Discourses on Factions,” written subsequently, Sima Guang, Su Shi, and Qin Guan all warned of the danger that bureaucratic factions presented to dynastic survival, taking the perspective of past, current, and future rulers. While each of these theorists defined and interpreted faction in different ways, they employed similar classical authorities and historical analogies in a court-centered discourse of authority, in which they urged monarchs to employ factionless superior men and expel factious petty men to ensure dynastic survival. In the next three chapters, I broaden my focus to analyze an extensive sample of memorials, edicts, and court debates from the three phases of the factional conflict. Chapter 4, “Unified Theories of Division,” surveys rhetoric during the reform phase of the factional conflict, which originated in 1069 when Emperor Shenzong formed a vertical alliance with Wang Anshi and personally associated himself with the New Policies. Wang implemented his ideological vision of state activist institutions with substantial backing from junior associates, and over the vociferous objections of the opposition; he exacerbated pre-existing intellectual schisms within the political elite and sharply polarized the imperial bureaucracy between reformists and their somewhat united opposition.82 Wang Anshi used polemical rhetoric to persuade the amenable Shenzong to silence dissenting voices by expelling this “faction of conventionalists,” while claiming that ethically and ideologically unified superior men could not possibly be factious. The antireformists similarly maligned Wang’s bureaucratic coalition as a self-serving



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faction, but Shenzong pressed forward with the New Policies, and most of the opposition resigned from their posts. When Wang was forced to resign in 1074, his reform coalition splintered over personal and policy conflicts, and his successor Lü Huiqing (1032–1111) used polarizing rhetoric to purge his reformist rivals from power, as did a vengeful Wang Anshi upon his return to the councilorship in 1075. Throughout the reform era, both reformist and antireformist rhetoricians identified themselves as factionless and loyal ministers, while they attempted to persuade the emperor to purge their adversaries as alleged factions of petty men. But with Shenzong’s personally identifying himself with the reformist ideology and agenda, the imperial court no longer accommodated a diverse range of elite opinion. In Chapter 5, “The Closed Circle,” I explain how the antireform coalition returned to power after Shenzong’s death in 1085 and used a similar court-centered discourse of authority to justify their political agenda and similar polarizing rhetoric to eliminate their adversaries. Empress Dowager Xuanren (1032–1093), Yingzong’s widowed consort, was appointed regent to her grandson, the eightyear-old Emperor Zhezong, and identified herself with the antireform ideological vision of “reversion” (genghua). Sima Guang returned from exile to become grand councilor, leading a bureaucratic coalition that expeditiously abolished the New Policies within a year. Pressuring the regent to dismiss the reformists as a faction of petty men, the antireform coalition expelled the reformist leaders Cai Que (1037–1093) and Zhang Dun (1035–1105) from court.83 But after Sima Guang’s death in 1086, his bureaucratic coalition foundered over personal animosities and policy disagreements, and three regional fractions of ministers contended for power at court, each accusing the others of factional treachery. This internal conflict sputtered out by 1089, when the antireformist ministry instigated a literary inquisition against Cai Que, the exiled leader of the reform faction, charging him with slandering the empress dowager. Antireformist remonstrators persuaded a willing Xuanren to order Cai’s banishment to the malarial wastes of Lingnan, in the empire’s far south. The pronouncement of this virtual death sentence upon a leader of the opposition was the first step in the brutalization of the factional conflict. Under the vertical alliance of Xuanren and her chosen councilors, ideological intolerance drove antireform rhetoricians to accuse opposition elements both inside and outside their coalition of factionalism, using the same divisive language that the reformists had used against them. The reformists fought their way back from exile to dominate the post-reform phase, a period of sudden political reversals whose rhetoric I analyze in Chapter 6, “Retributive Justice.” When Xuanren died in 1093, Zhezong inaugurated his personal rule and committed himself to an ideological program of “res-

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toration” (shaoshu), rehabilitating the reformists and reviving the New Policies. Seeking revenge for Cai Que’s death, Zhang Dun formed a vertical alliance with the emperor and persuaded him to systematically purge the antireformists from court, by first demoting them to prefectural administration. The surviving antireformists were later blacklisted, and their leaders were indicted on trumped-up charges of treason and factionalism in the Korean Relations Institute (Tongwen guan) inquisition; they were ultimately deported to Lingnan. When Zhezong died without an heir in 1100, Shenzong’s consort Empress Dowager Qinsheng (1045–1101) assumed the regency for his younger brother Emperor Huizong and began to rehabilitate a new generation of antireformists.84 Inaugurating a short-lived period of factional reconciliation, the antireformist Han Zhongyan (1038–1109) and the moderate reformist Zeng Bu (1036–1107) presided over a fragile, short-lived bifactional unity ministry that was besieged from both sides. Then, when Qinsheng died in 1101, Huizong began his personal rule, resolving to revive and expand reformist governance under the influence of his councilor, Cai Jing. Prosecuting the most brutal and comprehensive political purge in the history of the dynasty, Huizong promulgated three separate factional blacklists (dangji) between 1102 and 1104, banning more than 300 antireformists and their descendants from officeholding as a “faction.” In these proscriptions, which represented the endgame of the factional conflict, most of the antireform opposition—as well as Cai’s major reformist rivals—were exiled en masse to fringe prefectures, where they were subject to movement restrictions, and an unknown number died. The silencing of political and ideological dissent enabled the Cai Jing ministry to revive and extend the New Policies and to build a patronage machine that monopolized power for twenty-five years, with minimal interruptions, almost until the fall of the Northern Song. In Chapter 7, “Discourses of Authority and the Authority of Discourse,” I embed the findings of this study about Northern Song factionalism within a broader historical context. I will explain how and why the factional rhetoric and political associations in late imperial Chinese history can illuminate the boundaries of Northern Song discourses of authority. First, I will compare the language of the Northern Song factional conflict with the political rhetoric of the True Way Learning (Daoxue) fellowship of the Southern Song. Zhu Xi (1130–1200), this intellectual and political movement’s self-proclaimed leader, frequently described his emerging movement as “our faction” (wudang), employing a shi-oriented discourse of authority that enabled horizontal affiliations of gentlemen to operate autonomously from the imperial court.85 Second, I compare the political organizations of the Northern and Southern Song with those of the Yuan and Ming dynasties, which were dramatically different in both kind and scale. When Yuan ministerial associations engaged in policy conflicts, self-consciously repli-



Rhetoric of Politics and Politics of Rhetoric

23

cating Song reformist and antireformist political rhetoric, these court coalitions were limited to members of the Mongol aristocracy. The ministerial associations of the late Ming were more horizontally and vertically integrated than those of previous dynasties, and their members employed a court-centered discourse of authority that described their movement as a faction working for the public good. In the early seventeenth century both the Donglin Academy (Donglin shuyuan) and the Restoration Society (Fu she) organized a cellular association of local academies into a disciplined opposition faction that was active at the imperial court. In the middle and late imperial periods of Chinese history, intellectual and linguistic constraints illegitimated horizontal ministerial affiliations and reinforced the vertical loyalties between monarchs and ministers. I will also briefly explain how the term dang re-entered modern Chinese as a neutralized descriptor of political “parties” in the early twentieth century, how the Nationalist and Communist leaders envisioned the party as the central organizational element of a modern Chinese nation-state, and how the one-party states they built could not tolerate the existence of autonomous political associations. However, the political discourse of the modern Chinese nation-state was a different language from the factional rhetoric of the late imperial period, when the persistence of a court-centered discourse of authority restrained members of horizontal political affiliations from articulating interests that were independent from, or in opposition to, the dynastic polity.

C hapter two

Frames of Reference Classical Hermeneutics and Historical Analogism

Just men are more intelligent and more truly effective in action, and unjust men are incapable of any joint action at all.    —Plato, The Republic

P

olitical theorists and rhetoricians of the Northern Song were not free to define and redefine faction and factionalism as they saw fit, for they chose their terms according to pre-existing linguistic rules and built their claims upon established intellectual foundations. Trained as classical and historical scholars, the political elite of the Northern Song shared a common intellectual framework of textual authorities. Faction theorists and factional rhetoricians defined the word “faction” and political affiliations within two overlapping frames of reference: classical hermeneutics and historical analogism.1 A corpus of classical texts, each with its own accreted layers of commentary, provided vocabularies and interpretations of political association, and earlier dynastic histories offered lessons in the causes and outcomes of past factional conflicts. Within both of these intellectual inventories, factions were conceptualized as ethically and politically illegitimate affiliations of petty men who served the private interest rather than the public good. Rhetoricians and theorists manipulated these closed systems of classical allusions and historical analogies to define faction and factionalism, thereby determining the boundaries of legitimate political action and association and what could and could not be publicly articulated in a court-centered discourse of authority. These retrofitted assemblages of authoritative texts contained enough internal contradictions and ambiguities to allow faction theorists and factional rhetoricians a degree of interpretive leeway, while their shared intellectual assumptions constrained the limits of variant definitions of factionalism. Even though many of these textual fragments could be read as acknowledgments that superior men could form overt political affiliations, even ones explicitly called factions, Northern Song political actors gen24



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erally suppressed these variant interpretations and read them as unambiguous affirmations that only petty men could be factionalists.

Defining Factions and Anachronistic Misreadings The key term in this language of factionalism was the word “faction” itself, the compound noun pengdang. Yet its constituent elements, peng and dang, were not necessarily pejorative terms when used independently. In classical texts, the word dang occurs independently more frequently than does the compound noun pengdang, which generally appears in late classical philosophy and post-classical commentaries rather than in early classical texts themselves. The Eastern Han etymological text Shuowen jiezi (An Exposition of Words and Explication of Characters), the oldest lexicon of classical Chinese compiled in the early second century CE, simply defines the character dang as “unsavory” (bu xian).2 But in general classical usage, the word dang could be neutrally employed to describe a community, association, or fellowship: a neighborhood, a kinship circle, or a group of comrades in arms. In Analects (Lunyu) 6.5, Kongzi ostensibly poses the following rhetorical question to his disciples about receiving a generous official salary: “Could you not use it to aid the households of your neighborhood (linli xiangdang)?”3 When it appears in the Eastern Zhou chronicle The Narratives of Zuo (Zuo zhuan), the character dang usually denotes a “fellowship” or “comradeship.”4 In classical usage, peng could simply denote a friend, associate, or comrade and could be broadened to define an association or comradeship of equals. In the Zhou divination text the Book of Changes (Yijing), the word is used in an expansive sense in a line commentary to Hexagram 39, Jian (Adversity): “To one in great adversity friends will come” (da jian peng lai).5 A similar usage occurs in Analects 1.1, where Kongzi poses the rhetorical question: “To have friends to come from afar—is this not a joy (you peng zi yuanfang lai, bu yi le hu)?”6 But the term peng could also take on pejorative connotations in the Book of Documents (Shangshu), a collection of ancient royal orations purported to date from the Shang and Zhou dynasties. In the Great Declaration (Tai shi), the founding King Wu of Zhou is portrayed as denouncing the treacherous ministers of the last Shang king in order to justify the impending change in dynasties. In this case, peng connoted a malign affiliation: “They band their families together and set up enmities, (peng jia zuo qiu) and take advantage of [royal] power to destroy each other.”7 Even in condemnatory contexts, however, the definition of the term peng as a horizontal association of equals could not stretch far enough to be syn-

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onymous with “faction” in the Song sense of the word. In Chapter 3, I will demonstrate that Northern Song faction theorists frequently read this character as an abbreviated form of pengdang, following the interpolations of Tang classical commentators. For example, in his official standardized commentary to the Book of Documents, Kong Yingda (574–648) glossed the single character peng in the passage quoted above as semantically equivalent to the compound noun pengdang: “faction.”8 I will demonstrate below that this was not the only instance in which Kong imposed the anachronistic reading of peng as pengdang upon the Shangshu text. When they interpreted these canonical fragments in the Han dynasty and later, the standard commentators of these classical texts might read these instances of peng and dang as abbreviated forms of the compound noun pengdang, but these readings are generally post-classical interpolations. The compound noun pengdang could be used much more specifically and pejoratively in late Warring States philosophical texts, such as the Xunzi and the Han Feizi, both dating from the third century BCE, in which the word pengdang unambiguously describes a “factional affiliation.” For example, in his essay on “The Way of Ministers” (Chen dao), Xunzi warns monarchs against employing “presumptuous ministers” (cuanchen) who lack “the Way of the public good” and form “factions and cliques (pengdang bizhou) that take surrounding the ruler and selfish plotting as their duty.”9 Sounding a similar message with nearly identical terminology, chap. 11 of the Han Feizi admonishes rulers that “ministers’ gain lies in factionalism and employing selfishness” (chen li zai pengdang yong si) and further that “factions and cliques obstruct the ruler” (pengdang bizhou yi bi wang).10 In both of these pre-Qin philosophical texts, the word “faction” was closely linked with the private interest, and defined a ministerial clique that undermined the public good of the polity by usurping monarchical authority. By the end of the Han dynasty, the character dang had come to symbolize a malign faction at court, an aberration within the ethical and political order of the imperium. In Ban Gu’s (32–92) History of the Former Han (Han shu), the character dang is employed as both noun and verb, as “faction” and “to form a faction,” usages that also recur frequently in Fan Ye’s (398–445) History of the Latter Han (Hou Han shu), to which I will return below.11 In the scholarly and political discourse of the Tang and Song dynasties, the character’s neutral connotations and denotations were generally abandoned, and when it was employed in political theory and rhetoric, the word dang invariably meant a “faction,” with opprobrious connotations.12 In Northern Song usage, dang and pengdang were often practically synonymous, and unambiguously meant a factional affiliation, a horizontal association of ministers that undermined the



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dynastic polity and overrode the vertical ties of loyalty between a monarch and his ministers. In classical texts, writers could identify themselves as members of a social group by prefixing the term dang with the first-person pronoun wu, to mean “our association.” The self-identifying term appears in the Narratives of Zuo, where it refers to “the servitors of our fellowship (wudang zhi shi).”13 In passages from the Analects and the Mengzi, the compound noun wudang denotes “our community.” For example, in Analects 5.22, Kongzi proclaims that “our young men at home (wudang zhi xiaozi) are wildly ambitious,” a passage that was embedded and commented upon in Mengzi 7.B.37.14 In these classical texts, wudang generally connotes a sense of belonging to a social affiliation, and it would be anachronistic to read it as “our faction,” which it came to signify in Song-era usage. In Northern Song usage, wudang could take on political shadings and described one’s own membership in “our faction,” or more neutrally, “our affiliation.” But Northern Song political actors almost never used this word in publicly circulating prose genres; rather, they reserved it for private correspondence, but even there the word occurs only rarely. The collected works of Wang Anshi, Su Shi, and Qin Guan each contain at least one piece of correspondence in which the author employs the phrase wudang in the first person. For example, in a letter to his affiliate Sun Mou (1019–1084), Wang Anshi uses the phrase to describe the “interrelationships of our faction” (wudang zhi xiangyu).15 In a letter to his literary protégé Huang Tingjian (1045–1105), Su Shi recommends another young scholar for his literary skills and affirms that “he is one who can be received by our faction (keshou wei wudang ye).”16 Even in privately circulating texts, explicit acknowledgment of the existence of one’s own political association was extremely rare during the late Northern Song. In his personal reminiscences of the reform era, Cheng Hao (1032–1085) expresses his regret that “our faction was greatly excessive in struggling against (wudang zheng zhi you taiguo)” the New Policies.17 Beyond these rare instances, the word wudang appears rarely in privately circulated texts, but is almost nonexistent in publicly circulating texts like essays and memorials, which I will discuss in the next four chapters. Aside from the public admissions of Fan Zhongyan and Ouyang Xiu that they comprised a faction of superior men in 1044, no other political figure of the late Northern Song publicly identified himself as a member of his own faction. In Chapter 7, I will explain how and why the leaders of the True Way Learning movement of the Southern Song frequently described themselves as “our faction” in internal correspondence and whether these instances obeyed or contravened the rules of Northern Song political rhetoric.

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Classical Hermeneutics Northern Song faction theorists and factional rhetoricians generally alluded to a small circle of canonical texts from such disparate genres as divination, history, and thought: the Book of Documents, the Narratives of Zuo, the Book of Changes, and the Analects of Kongzi. When retrofitted into faction theory and rewoven into factional rhetoric, these canonical fragments provided the basis of a vocabulary for discussing factionalism and a conceptual framework for interpreting and defining factional affiliations. Classical allusions offered one means of defining factions as the exclusive preserve of petty men, who were constituted by their destructive relationship with a legitimate political authority, and of maintaining that factionless superior men could not, would not, and did not form factions and were constituted by their support of legitimate political authority.18 The Book of Documents An anthology of royal orations attributed to the sage-kings of antiquity, the monarchs of the fallen Shang dynasty and the founders of the rising Zhou dynasty, the Book of Documents supplied Northern Song political theorists with the rudiments of a shared classical vocabulary for defining factionalism. Dated to the fourth century BCE, the “Great Plan” (Hong fan) was the locus classicus for late imperial faction theorists from the Song dynasty onwards who affirmed the authority of monarchs and defined the limits of ministerial action.19 Purportedly transmitted to King Wu of Zhou by a fallen Shang noble who had inherited the Way of kingship from the sage-king Yu, the text was purported to be a summation of the divine model of rulership, upholding the prime monarchical virtue of the “public good” or “public-mindedness” (gong). According to Michael Nylan’s reading of the text, Section Five of the “Great Plan” lays the foundations for the classical theory of kingship, called “supremacy maximized” (huangji), in which the ruler’s “suasive example” of impartiality compels his subjects to serve him with equal impartiality.20 By forsaking partisanship, an ideal monarch encourages his subjects to abandon their private agendas for the public good of the dynastic polity; his ministers should channel their loyalty upwards to the throne rather than extending it horizontally to their peers. When the monarch achieves this ideal state of impartiality, the “Hong fan” prognosticates: “Among the multitudes of the common people, there will be no licentious associations (wuyou yin peng), and among men in office, there will be no propensity for forming cliques (wuyou bi de); it is the monarch alone who sets up a supreme standard of conduct.”21 Whether at court or in the country, horizontal affiliations of monarchical subjects were considered to be potentially seditious deviations from the Way of kingship and associated with selfishness and disloyalty.



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With great frequency, Northern Song political theorists and rhetoricians returned to the following poem from the “Great Plan,” which extols the virtue and necessity of monarchical impartiality in a series of couplets:

Without deflection or unevenness, Pursue kingly righteousness. Without selfish likings, Pursue the kingly Way Without selfish dislikings, Pursue the kingly road. Without deviation or partiality (wu pian wu dang), The kingly Way is vast and far-reaching. Without deviation or partiality, The kingly Way is level and balanced. Without contrariness or one-sidedness, The kingly Way is right and straight.22

Where it appears in the poem’s seventh and ninth lines, the character dang denotes “partiality,” an abstract sense of “deviation” from the ethical path of ideal kingship.23 Reading dang as “faction” would have been anachronistic in the intellectual context of the early classical era, and Kong Yingda’s official standardized Tang commentary on the Book of Documents glosses the character dang as an abstract noun, best translated as “factiousness.”24 Thereafter, a considerable number of Northern Song faction theorists and political rhetoricians read the oration as a definitive statement that the “kingly Way” of antiquity was “without deviation and without faction,” as I will demonstrate in subsequent chapters.25 Another fragment from the Book of Documents transmitted a contradictory message about political affiliations, which potentially conflicted with the “Hong fan” argument that horizontal ministerial associations were a deviation from the prime monarchical principle of public-mindedness. In the “Luo Announcement” (Luo gao), the regent Duke of Zhou encourages his young ward King Cheng of Zhou to make the right sorts of bonds with officials and associates, but with self-control and a sense of limits: “The young son should make associations (ruzi qi peng). You should go forth [to them], but do not be like a fire that flames up and blazes until it cannot be extinguished.”26 In his Shangshu zhengyi commentary, Kong Yingda reinterprets this passage as a warning from the Duke of Zhou to King Cheng about the perils of ministerial factionalism, glossing peng as pengdang.27 In Kong’s divergent interpretation of the text, the message of the “Luo Announcement” shifts from positive encouragement to negative admonition: “My young son, be cautious of factions (shen qi pengdang).”28 When Song

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political theorists and rhetoricians read the characters peng and dang to denote “faction” in the concrete sense, generally following Kong Yingda’s later interpretations, they were recontextualizing and misreading these classical sermons against monarchical partiality and encouragements of political affiliations, reading them anachronistically as explicit entreaties against the dangers of ministerial factionalism.29 Consequently, members of the Northern Song sociopolitical elite alluded to the Book of Documents to publicly claim that classical ideals of governance did not justify the existence of horizontal political affiliations, which undermined the vertical loyalty that ministers owed to their monarch. If rulers were incapable of following the kingly Way and pursuing the “public good” without partiality, their negligence would hasten the spread of nefarious factions, whose reckless pursuit of the private interest would subvert the dynastic polity. The Narratives of Zuo The Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu), a chronicle of political events in the minor northeastern state of Lu from 722 to 481 BCE, was traditionally attributed to Kongzi, a Lu native who was assumed to have used the text to retroactively assign praise and blame to past rulers and ministers. From the Han dynasty onward, the Chunqiu became an “infallible guide to proper authority” for scholars who sought to learn from the success and failures of the pre-imperial polities of the Eastern Zhou.30 As the dominant pre-Qin commentary to the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Narratives of Zuo fleshed out and expanded upon its telegraphic narrative in order to chronicle the gradual collapse of classical ideals of kingship. In the political imagination of the Northern Song, these accounts of the distant past were read as illustrative examples that political affiliations were not necessarily factious, or even unethical, if their members loyally served the public good of the polity instead of private interests. Two political associations of ethical exemplars, both descendants of ancient emperors, had existed during the reigns of the ancient sage-kings Yao and Shun, whose monarchical authority they had loyally and selflessly supported: In antiquity, Gao Yang Shi had eight talented descendants . . . they were centered, sagely, broad-minded, profound, enlightened, truthful, magnanimous, and sincere. The people of All Under Heaven called them the Eight Paragons (Bakai). Gao Xin Shi had eight talented descendants . . . they were loyal, wise, restrained, pure, receptive, benevolent, gentle, and harmonious. The people of the empire called them the Eight Primes (Bayuan). As for these sixteen, subsequent generations have praised their excellence and have not allowed their names to fall. When Shun served as minister to Yao, he



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promoted the Eight Paragons, appointing them as regional administrators to regulate the myriad affairs, all of which were arranged in the proper season. Earth was pacified and Heaven was established. [Shun] promoted the Eight Primes, deputizing them to disseminate the five teachings to the four quadrants. . . . The interior was pacified and the exterior was perfected.31

Later interpreters of political practice invoked the Eight Paragons and the Eight Primes as models of ministerial conduct, who extended their ethical and political virtues in support of monarchy and polity. Their example justified Ouyang Xiu’s 1044 argument that officials could loyally unite for the good of the state as a benign faction, to be discussed in Chapter 3. A corresponding passage in the Narratives of Zuo provides examples of a malevolent factional affiliation that subverted monarchical authority and undermined the public good. Descendants of ancient rulers, these Four Fiends (Sixiong) are a rogues’ gallery of ministerial perfidy, symbolizing factiousness, slander, ignorance, and avarice: In antiquity, Di Hong Shi had a descendant without talent who concealed righteousness and embraced villainy, who delightedly abominated virtue, and who was among the wicked things. Unruly, recalcitrant, and uncompanionable, he affiliated with his own kind. The common people of All Under Heaven called him “Chaos” (Hundun). Shao Hao had a descendant without talent who injured the sincere and forsook the loyal and ornamented his evil word, . . . slandering those of abundant virtue. The common people of All Under Heaven called him “Monster” (Qiongqi). Zhuan Xu had a descendant without talent who could not be educated or instructed, and did not understand good words. . . . The common people of All Under Heaven called him “Blockhead” (Chouwu). As for these three men, their contemporaries abetted their fiendishness and enhanced their reputation for evil, until the time of Yao, who could not expel them. Jin Yun had a descendant without talent who had an insatiable appetite for food and drink, and coveted goods and wealth. . . . The common people of All Under Heaven grouped him with the Three Fiends and called him “Glutton” (Taotie).32

When he assumed the throne from Yu, the loyal and capable minister Shun was finally able to identify and expel this affiliation of nefarious courtiers, replacing them with exemplary ministers who served the public good: When Shun served as minister to Yao, he expelled them from the Four Gates and released the lineages of the Four Fiends. Chaos, Monster, Blockhead,

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and Glutton were cast out into the wildernesses of the four directions. . . . When Yao passed away, All Under Heaven was as one, and their hearts were united for Shun’s accession to the throne and considered him to be the Son of Heaven, for he raised the Sixteen [that is, the Eight Paragons and Eight Primes] as his ministers and expelled the Four Fiends.33

In the late Northern Song, the mythic narratives of the Sixteen and the Four provided a set of binary standards against which present-day ministers could be judged. Political theorists and rhetoricians appealed to the Zuo zhuan to validate their assumption that a latter-day sage-ruler would be able to distinguish malevolent factionalists from loyal ministers. But given the presumed existence of the Eight Paragons and Eight Primes in distant antiquity, it was debatable whether loyal ministers were still capable of forming horizontal political affiliations that served the public good, or if these benign affiliations could be labeled “factions.” The Book of Changes A divination text whose earliest layers date back to the Western Zhou, the Book of Changes attracted the interest of many Northern Song classical exegetes, who sought to explicate its enigmatic and epigrammatic statements on cosmology, politics, and ethics.34 Tze-ki Hon has affirmed that Song classical exegetes saw in the Changes a method for grasping and responding to change and contingency in their own lives and in the wider world.35 The text of the Changes is composed of sixty-four named hexagrams that represent distinct phases of change in a transformative universal process, in which all the interdependent phenomena of Heaven and Earth are in constant state of transformation, generated by the continual succession of primal yang and yin forces.36 Hexagrams are formed from vertical stacks of six lines, either solid (yang —) lines or broken (yin - -) lines. Appended statements and layers of commentary explain the general significance of each hexagram in the cosmic cycle of change as well as the meaning of each individual line and its contribution to the whole.37 Northern Song factionalists read two of these hexagrams as indicators of the health of the body politic, which was governed by the composition of the political community.38 Generally speaking, yin lines symbolized the negative influence of petty men in governance, while yang lines represented the positive force of superior men. Hexagrams 11 and 12, Tai (Peace) and Pi (Obstruction), symbolized the tipping balance of superior and petty men within the political community and the shifting fortunes of the dynastic polity. With three yin lines stacked atop three yang lines (see Figure 1, left), Tai signified an auspicious alignment of cosmic forces inside and outside the realm: “Tai is such that the petty



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depart and the great arrive, so that good fortune will prevail. Heaven and Earth interact perfectly, and the myriad things go smoothly . . . the Way of the superior man is increasing, and the Way of the petty man is deteriorating.”39 Pi was the mirror image of Tai, with three yang lines stacked above three yin lines (see Figure 2, right) and symbolized the decline of the state and the rise of nefarious ministers: “the evil men associated with Pi make it an unfit time for superior men to practice constancy. Thus the great depart, and the petty arrive. . . . The Way of the petty man is increasing, and the Way of the superior man is deteriorating.”40 The mutual succession of Tai and Pi could indicate the shift in cosmic forces from yang to yin, the rise and fall of polities, and the balance between superior men and petty men. Figure 1. Tai (Peace) Hexagram 11 (left) and Pi (Obstruction) Hexagram 12 (right)

Tze-ki Hon has examined the linkages between factional politics and classical commentary in the late Northern Song, explaining how Cheng Yi interpreted the hexagrams of the Book of Changes as a guide to understanding the conflict between ministerial coalitions of petty and superior men.41 Hon claims that Cheng read the hexagram Tai as an encouragement to superior men to form political affiliations to protect themselves from the subterfuges of their factionalizing enemies.42 In his Yijing commentary, Cheng Yi certainly acknowledged that superior men could affiliate in service to the polity when Tai was in the ascendant but that factions of petty men would destroy the polity when Pi was influential: Since antiquity, when superior men have attained positions [of power], the worthies of the empire will gather together at court, sharing their strength to achieve common ambitions, thereby perfecting Tai in the empire. When petty men are in positions [of power], then the unworthy will be promoted together; thereafter, their faction will triumph, and the empire will be [in a state of ] Pi. Thus, each follows his own kind.43

Hon has claimed that Cheng believed that in order to “protect their interests,” both superior and petty men “were entitled to form their own factions,” but the above passage, and others like it, do not confirm that Cheng Yi explicitly urged his fellow superior men to openly form factions as a protective measure against petty-man subterfuge.44 To the contrary, I would argue that Cheng Yi advocated that only superior men, certainly not their petty-man opposition, were entitled to form political affiliations. Moreover, it is doubtful whether Cheng would have

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given these benevolent associations the name “faction,” for he used this term to attack his adversaries as well as his former colleagues in his political rhetoric, as I will demonstrate in Chapter 5. Of several other Northern Song faction theorists and factional rhetoricians who employed the Book of Changes as a classical authority, I have yet to find one who publicly acknowledged having formed a faction, or who publicly encouraged his affiliates to engage in factious activity. Throughout the late Northern Song factional conflict, these political actors used allusions to the Changes to admonish monarchs about the dangers of factions, which they imagined as destructive affiliations of petty men. In Chapters 3 and 4, I will demonstrate that scholar-officials as diverse as Wang Anshi, Fu Bi, and Qin Guan used similar allusions to the Changes to accuse their adversaries of factionalism, while at the same time proclaiming their own innocence. In their essays and memorials, late Northern Song factionalists implored their monarchs to properly distinguish factious petty men from factionless superior men. For when the ethical balance of the realm shifted from Tai to Pi, the survival of the state was threatened, so they claimed, unless rulers could purge the factious and employ the publicminded. The Analects of Kongzi More than any other canonical text, the Analects of Kongzi (ca. 551–479 BCE), a collection of statements and conversations attributed to the classical thinker and his disciples, formed the armature of Northern Song interpretations and definitions of political affiliation. Potentially, fragments from the text could be reassembled to support the claim that exemplary ministers were indeed capable of forming social or political associations. In Analects 2.14, Kongzi claims that superior men can possibly form benevolent affiliations, but never petty men, whose associations are inherently malevolent: “The superior man enters into associations but not cliques (junzi zhou er bu bi); the petty man enters into cliques but not associations (xiaoren bi er bu zhou).”45 While this passage does not explicitly employ the character dang, Kongzi’s usage of the term “clique” (bi) was generally assumed to be synonymous with the term “faction” (dang) in the postHan commentarial tradition; in other words, petty men could form factions, but not superior men.46 In a more explicit sermon against unethical associations, found in Analects 15.22, Kongzi declares that the associations of superior men are positive ones and can not be factious: “Superior men are proud without being competitive and are sociable without being partisan (junzi jin er buzheng, qun er budang).”47 Both of these epigrammatic statements allude to the possibility that superior men can form benevolent affiliations to serve the public good, without being factious or disloyal. But these positive associations of superior men



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are not necessarily ministerial coalitions who selflessly serve the ruler, such as the Eight Primes or Paragons were. In Analects 12.24, Kongzi’s disciple Zengzi claims that “a superior man acquires friends based on cultural refinement, then relies upon his friends for support in becoming benevolent (junzi yi wen hui you, yi you fu ren),” implying that these affiliations are social and ethical alliances and not ministerial coalitions engaging in concerted political action.48 It is perfectly possible that these three textual fragments could be read as justification for the claim that superior men would naturally form horizontal affiliations, and that these benevolent factions loyally served the public good. Yet, almost every Northern Song faction theorist and factional rhetorician assumed that these associations of superior men were not factions in the proper sense of the word, for only petty men could be factious. In Analects 4.16, Kongzi uses a binary ethical standard to distinguish individuals: “the superior man understands what is righteous; the petty man understands what is advantageous (junzi yu yu yi, xiaoren yu yu li).”49 Even though Kongzi is discussing abstract ethical inclinations here, and not specifically mentioning affiliations of superior and petty men, Northern Song faction theorists employed these binary distinctions to build a chain of dichotomous associations. Forcibly harmonizing these four fragments from the Analects, every faction theorist, with the significant exception of Ouyang Xiu, maintained that advantage-seeking petty men form factious cliques, whereas the righteous affiliations of superior men can not possibly be factious. When Northern Song rhetoricians defined the limits of ministerial action, they invoked these slippery passages to justify authoritative claims about the illegitimacy of factions, which they assumed to be unethical affiliations of petty men. Even when the Analects was riddled with loopholes and ambiguities, Northern Song political actors selectively pieced its fragments into a polarizing rhetoric of faction that left out every shade of grey. Recombinant Misreadings When read independently, these passages from the Book of Documents, the Narratives of Zuo, the Book of Changes, and the Analects were disparate in genre and mode, too flimsy to serve as a coherent explanatory framework for discussing and defining the authority of ministerial associations. But when Northern Song political theorists juxtaposed and recombined them, these textual fragments comprised the classical frame of reference for faction theory. Faction theorists’ interpretations of the Book of Documents were especially anachronistic. The Duke of Zhou’s admonitions against royal partiality from the “Great Plan” offered the monarchical ideal that factional biases were a deviation from the true Way of kingship. Furthermore, when the Song faction theorist Sima Guang selectively misread the “Luo Announcement,” he invoked the Duke’s encouragement of

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associations as a warning against factionalism. When lifted from the Narratives of Zuo, the mythic tale of the Eight Paragons and the Four Fiends served as a historical testament to the destructiveness of ministerial factions and the loyalty of virtuous courtiers, even if neither was explicitly defined as a “faction.” The Book of Changes provided a phenomenological guide to cosmic and political changes and a warning against factions of petty men who sought to imperil the fate of the polity. The keystone of this intellectual edifice was a highly selective misreading of the Analects, fully grounded in the Han and Tang commentarial tradition, in which Kongzi was imagined to assert that factions were the exclusive domain of petty men, and that superior men could not be factious. In essays, memorials, and utterances, Northern Song political actors recombined this common set of classical allusions in order to admonish monarchs of the danger of ministerial factions. Intriguingly, some of these classical fragments were open to the possible interpretation that superior men could serve the public good of the polity by forming ministerial affiliations that channeled their loyalty upward to the throne. While alternative readings of these texts could condone, or even justify, the existence of factions, all but one Northern Song faction theorist rejected this interpretation to advance the contrary claim that only petty men could form factions. They smoothed over or simply eliminated the ambiguities and contradictions of classical texts and anachronistically read them as authoritative admonitions against ministerial affiliations. Based on their interpretation of these classical fragments, Northern Song faction theorists and factional rhetoricians shared a consensus definition of factions as horizontal affiliations of xiaoren, whose very existence compromised the Way of rulership and undermined the ethical foundations of the polity.

Historical Analogism Reinforcing and overlapping the concepts and vocabularies of classical hermeneutics, post-classical historiography provided a second set of textual precedents for defining and interpreting political action and association. The factional conflict of the late Northern Song was certainly not a unique occurrence in imperial history, and it was common knowledge among the Song political elite that factionalism had been a contributing factor in the collapse of both the Han and Tang dynasties. During the waning years of the Eastern Han, the court of Emperor Ling (r. 167–189) had been divided into battling coalitions of eunuchs and bureaucrats. The conflict culminated in the infamous “Great Proscription” (Danggu), in which a eunuch clique jailed and executed hundreds of members of the ministerial opposition, charging them with the crime of factionalism.50 In the



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final century of the Tang dynasty, the court of Emperor Wenzong (r. 827–840) was undermined by a lengthy power struggle between the bureaucratic coalitions of the Grand Councilors Niu Sengru (778–847) and Li Deyu (787–850).51 These historical episodes of factional infighting served as negative examples for late Northern Song political theorists and rhetoricians, who fatalistically recognized that factionalism was a destructive force that had undermined past polities and warned their monarchical audience that factions would destroy the current dynasty if their spread went unchecked. Han Factional Conflicts and Fan Ye’s Faction Theory In the official historiography of the Han dynasty, the character dang shed its more neutral classical meanings and acquired a generally negative connotation, signifying a court faction. The authors of the Han dynastic histories reused the abstract terminology of classical hermeneutics in their moralistic commentaries on political developments in the declining years of both the Western and Eastern Han. In the History of the Former Han (Hanshu), compiled in the first century CE, Ban Gu narrated an account of a dialogue in the court of Emperor Yuan (r. 48–33 BCE). Warning his monarch of the political danger posed by the rising influence of eunuchs and the empress’s clan, the councilor Liu Xiang (77 BCE–6 BCE) used the language of the Analects to posit a binary ethical distinction between legitimate and illegitimate political affiliations: In antiquity, Kongzi and [his disciples] Yan Yuan and Zi Gong acclaimed one another, but they did not form a faction (pengdang). [The mythical sages] Yu, [Hou] Ji and Gao Tao promoted and recommended one another, but they did not form cliquish associations (bizhou). Why was this? Because they were loyal for the sake of the state, and their hearts were without wickedness.52

Even as he focused more on individual intentions than associative principles, Liu Xiang unequivocally equated the term “faction” with disloyalty and wickedness and contrasted factionalism with the noble political affiliations of ethical and political exemplars from the classical past. By extension, while it was the nature of petty men to be factious, superior men like Kongzi’s disciples and the sage-kings’ ministers were by definition incapable of forming factions. The vocabulary employed in Liu Xiang’s oration follows that of the Analects and foreshadows the political language of the Song, providing the binary coordinates by which factions were defined. During the waning days of the Eastern Han, eunuchs achieved power at the court of Emperor Huan (r. 147–167) and proscribed the ministerial opposition led by Li Ying (110–168) as a slanderous faction.53 In an incident that later

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historians referred to as the Great Proscription, approximately 200 scholar-officials and students were banned from officeholding and jailed for life.54 When Emperor Ling rehabilitated and re-employed Li Ying and his comrades, they hatched a revenge plot to execute their eunuch persecutors. When their scheme was foiled, Li and several hundred officials were either executed or imprisoned in a case of systematic political persecution. When Northern Song political practitioners employed a historical frame of reference to discuss factions and factionalism, they invariably referred to the Great Proscription as an illustrative example of how factionalism could endanger dynastic survival, when nefarious forces entrapped noble affiliations of superior men. Fan Ye (398–445), the compiler of the History of Latter Han (Hou Hanshu), composed the first known essay entirely devoted to the subject of factions and factionalism, his “Preface to the Biographies of the Great Proscription” (Danggu liezhuan xu).55 Echoing Kongzi’s dictum in Analects 17.2 that “by nature people are similar; they diverge as the result of practice” (xin xiang jin ye, xi xiang yuan ye), Fan asserts that as they contend for political influence, political actors follow their own moral natures.56 The patterns of dynastic history are variations on a single theme: the waxing and waning political fortunes of superior and petty men. Interpreting the course of political history from the Spring and Autumn period to the Latter Han, Fan Ye describes the recurrence of malicious factions and their role in dynastic collapse. After the disintegration of the hegemon (ba) system of diplomatic alliances, opportunistic and treacherous ministers seized upon the political chaos of the Warring States period to serve their own private interests rather than the kings who employed them. Even the Former Han founder, Emperor Gaozu (r. 202–195 BCE), was not immune to the threats and blandishments of factious “men who harbored a heart to usurp the ruler.”57 Wang Mang’s (45 BCE–23 CE) usurpation of the Han throne was only the most egregious example of the treacherous ministers who had monopolized power and expelled their loyal opposition from court. In Fan’s judgment, the spread of court factions was a harbinger of the impending collapse of the Eastern Han: “The decline of a dynasty is a time of degeneracy and deceit, when the kingly Way is decadent and deficient.”58 In more concrete terms, when the Han Emperors Huan and Ling had departed from the proper path of public-minded rulership, they permitted hostile factions to arise at court: “rulers were neglectful and governance was erroneous. The mandate of the polity was entrusted to eunuchs, and officials associated with one another.”59 For Fan Ye, the history of the Han demonstrated that imperial polities were constantly at risk of being subverted by factionalism, just as the Great Proscription had been a harbinger of the impending demise of the Latter Han dynasty. While Fan Ye believed them to have been men of noble character, the victims of the Great Proscription had



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instigated their own destruction by banding together as an anti-eunuch faction. Even though Fan had been ambivalent about the morality of the words and deeds of Eastern Han factions, Song political theorists and rhetoricians extolled these fallen ministers as exemplars of political loyalty who had sacrificed their lives in defense of the public good. Tang Factional Conflicts and Li Deyu’s Faction Theory The waning decades of the Tang dynasty witnessed a partisan struggle between two hostile bureaucratic coalitions that closely resembled the ministerial factions of the late Northern Song.60 From the early 820s into the late 840s, the “Niu-Li factional conflict” (Niu-Li dangzheng) involved the coalitions of two rival grand councilors, Niu Sengru and Li Deyu, who alternated in their control of the imperial bureaucracy and filled the political void opened by a series of weak monarchs.61 In Michael Dalby’s judgment, these loosely bounded ministerial affiliations overlapped with a complex network of social and scholarly connections, but lacked centralized organizational frameworks and stable policy programs that could have ensured their long-term survivability.62 While ministers on both sides repeatedly accused one another of the crime of factionalism and engaged in factious political practices, they were loath to publicly acknowledge themselves as a faction. After more than a decade of vicious infighting, Li Deyu ultimately succeeded in discrediting Niu Sengru and attaining the councilorship unchallenged in the 840s.63 Bemoaning the Niu-Li conflict that divided his court, the beleaguered Emperor Wenzong lamented that “eliminating rebels from Hebei is easy, but eliminating these court factions is difficult (qu Hebei zei yi, qu chaoting pengdang nan)!”64 Two centuries later, Northern Song faction theorists frequently invoked Wenzong’s famous last words to warn monarchs of the dire consequences of retaining factious ministers. In order to defend himself from accusations of factionalism, Li Deyu wrote an influential “Discourse on Factions” (Pengdang lun), the first of this subgenre of political theory.65 Li deflected his adversaries’ accusations of historical factionalism with a series of analogies. He explained the concept of faction in relative terms, suggesting that factionalism was in fact a perspectival phenomenon, subject to the abuses of court politics. Reinterpreting the history of the Eastern Han, Li suggested that ministerial coalitions were not inherently disloyal to the dynastic polity or to monarchical interests. Lamenting the fate of the victims of the Great Proscription, Li identified with their heroism: “Even though they contradicted the great Way, they still did not forsake rectitude.”66 Yet Li Deyu stopped short of calling this coalition of noble martyrs a “faction,” a term he reserved for his adversaries at court. Li accused the petty men who opposed him of being the true faction, a

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subversive affiliation whose members were “employing perverse ways to embark upon wicked paths.”67 As in the Eastern Han, pernicious factions exploited false accusations of factionalism to frame innocent and virtuous men like himself. Yet the political judgments of the present could always be overturned in the future, when the virtue of superior men will finally be recognized: “the [victims of the] Eastern Han Great Proscription were criminals by the standards of their age, and the so-called ‘wicked factions’ of the present are also like [them].”68 By discriminating associations of superior men from those of petty men, Li tarred his adversaries with the brush of factionalism and proclaimed his own innocence. Li Deyu’s “Discourse on Factions” influenced Northern Song faction theorists and factional rhetoricians, who used a similar polarizing rhetoric to assert that their enemies were the ones who were truly factious. According to Li’s definition, petty-man factionalists could manipulate accusations of factionalism for malign purposes and could delude monarchs into purging the exemplary ministers whose loyal devotion could have prevented dynastic ruin. Historical Allusions in Factional Rhetoric When Northern Song political actors addressed their rhetoric to a monarchical audience, they frequently diagnosed factionalism as a root cause of Han and Tang dynastic collapse. The Great Proscription of the Latter Han and the Niu-Li factional conflict of the late Tang served as historical analogies for Song faction theorists and factional rhetoricians who attempted to persuade their monarchical audience to employ their allies and purge their adversaries. When they looked back over the past millennium, Northern Song political actors were certain that factionalism was both a cause and an effect of dynastic collapse, which was inevitable unless monarchs selected superior men to loyally serve the monarchy, dynasty, and polity. Throughout the factional conflict, they warned their rulers that the spread of factionalism would doom the present dynasty, unless they could distinguish petty from superior men. In the process, these rhetoricians denied all involvement in the ongoing factional conflict except as victims, while condemning their opposition as factious malefactors and placing the ultimate responsibility for the survival of the dynastic polity in the hands of monarchs. Chapter 3 will demonstrate how five Northern Song political theorists worked within a shared intellectual inventory of classical texts and historical allusions. Although they reassembled these pieces in different ways, they used a common polarizing rhetoric to define factionalism and to divide the political community between superior and petty men. With one prominent exception, faction theorists defined factional affiliations as the exclusive preserve of petty men and denied that superior men could ever form factions, even though his-



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torical experience and classical authorities indicated otherwise. In 1044, Ouyang Xiu attempted to retrofit classical fragments and historical analogies into a revisionist faction theory that contended that the only true factions were affiliations of superior men who loyally served the public good. As the first moment of persuasion will demonstrate, Ouyang’s monarchical and ministerial audience was less than receptive.

C hapter three

Categorical Propositions Faction Theory and the Political Imagination of the Northern Song

But howsoe’er, no simple man that sees This jarring discord of nobility, This shouldering of each other in the court, This factious bandying of their favourites, But that it doth presage some ill event.    —Shakespeare, 1 Henry VI

I

n 4.1044, the state councilor Fan Zhongyan (989–1052) stood accused of factionalism, confronting the unreceptive Emperor Renzong (r. 1022–1063), who had a proclivity toward issuing admonitory edicts to his officials about the dangers of factionalism and toward purging ministers whom he personally deemed factious.1 Fan Zhongyan’s reforming coalition and its conservative political opponents had exchanged charges of factionalism ever since the mid-1030s.2 Yet in political practice, defining a faction was a highly subjective exercise, since opportunistic rhetoric could sway a monarch’s judgment. Accusations of factionalism had shadowed Fan as early as 4.1036, when the Grand Councilor Lü Yijian (979–1044) excluded his rival from the metropolitan bureaucracy on the pretext that he had “recommended and promoted a faction,” and demoted him to prefectural administration on Censorial charges that “his faction was slandering the court.”3 Unless Fan Zhongyan could convince Renzong otherwise, his councilorship would end, and his reform policy agenda would evaporate.4 Renzong demanded to know if Fan’s ministerial coalition was a treacherous faction. “Since antiquity,” he intoned, “petty men have often formed factions, but indeed, have factions of superior men ever existed?”5 The usual answer to such a loaded question would have been a blanket denial, followed by a reversal of the charges. But Fan Zhongyan staked his political future and his coalition’s survival on a bold move. He answered Renzong’s question in the affirmative, overturning established definitions of factional rhetoric by claiming that politi42



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cal affiliations of superior men could be called factions and implying that he and his comrades comprised a faction of superior men. Fan made an anecdotal argument that factionalism was a recurring natural phenomenon, but not necessarily a destructive one: When Your servant was serving on the border, [I] observed that those who delighted in war formed a faction (pengdang) on their own and that those who feared war also formed a faction on their own. When [they] are at court, the factions of the wicked and the righteous (xiezheng zhi dang) are also like this. This is something that Your sagacious mind can scrutinize. If [officials] affiliate (peng) beneficially, then how can they possibly harm the state?6

Fan flattered Renzong by proclaiming him a modern-day sage-king who could discern superior from petty men, even as he claimed that both could form factions. Soon thereafter, Fan’s ally Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072), then serving as a remonstrance official (jianguan), elaborated his comrade’s assertions into a formal “Discourse on Factions” (Pengdang lun). The most accomplished literatus of his time, Ouyang intended to persuade the emperor and the bureaucratic opposition that Fan Zhongyan’s admission of factionalism was neither impolitic nor suspicious. In this revolutionary treatise of political theory, Ouyang reimagined factions as inherently ethical affiliations of superior men who selflessly served the public good, whereas cliques of petty men were just self-serving: Generally speaking, when superior men affiliate with superior men, their affiliations (peng) are based on a common Way (tongdao). When petty men affiliate with petty men, their affiliations are based on common gain (tongli). This is a natural pattern.7

Ministers who were not bound by a shared sense of loyalty and ideology were inherently selfish, expediently maneuvering for power at the expense of the dynastic polity. Indeed, these cliques of petty men were not even worthy of the name “faction,” because self-serving ministers would invariably squabble over the spoils of office. Only superior men could form a true faction, a horizontal association of loyal ministers whose shared ethical dispositions enabled them to act in concert in support of the public good.8 Squabbling and dissent were signs of disloyalty, whereas ideological conformity served monarchical interests, which would be poorly served by accommodating a diverse range of ministerial opinion. While Northern Song ministers refrained from explicitly identifying themselves as superior men, Ouyang was attempting to persuade Renzong to

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ignore the baseless accusations made by Fan’s petty-man adversaries and entrust this true faction with authority. In spite of, or perhaps because of, their radical revision of faction theory, Fan and Ouyang had left themselves defenseless against allegations of factionalism. Ultimately, Renzong removed Fan Zhongyan from the Council of State and demoted him to prefectural-level administration, along with most of his allies. By attempting to justify the existence of their own faction, Fan and Ouyang had instead painted themselves into an inescapable corner. For the remainder of the Northern Song, a faction remained an affiliation of self-serving petty men in publicly circulating forms of rhetoric, and no political figure would ever again publicly admit to having formed a faction (although private admissions continued to be made on a few documented occasions).9 Why, in 1044, did Fan Zhongyan and Ouyang Xiu fail to change the rules of the game of political theory and rhetoric? Why did their audience of monarchs and ministers refuse to publicly acknowledge that factions could loyally serve the public good? Why were established conceptions of political associations and the discursive enterprise of political rhetoric so resistant to redefinition? Why did ministers refrain from publicly admitting that they had formed factions, while accusing their adversaries of factionalism? To answer these questions, we must reconstruct how Northern Song political theorists articulated their conceptions of factions and factionalism within a court-centered discourse of authority, which maligned and delegitimized horizontal affiliations. The authors of the various “Discourses on Factions” worked within a closed system of classical and historical allusions that constrained what positions they could publicly articulate and defend. In this chapter I will explain how Fan Zhongyan and Ouyang Xiu overstepped these boundaries, and why subsequent faction theorists could bend these lines, but not break them.

Northern Song “Discourses on Factions” Through a close reading of the surviving corpus of “Discourses on Factions” (Pengdang lun), it is possible to reconstruct the “language” of the late Northern Song factional conflict: a set of vocabularies that defined political association and ministerial authority.10 Representative examples of Northern Song Pengdang lun have survived in the collected works of five literati and statesmen of the eleventh century: Wang Yucheng, Ouyang Xiu, Sima Guang, Su Shi, and Qin Guan. While each of these faction theorists was operating in a different political environment over a span of eighty years, all wrote their essays for the same immediate purpose: to plead their innocence against accusations of factionalism.11



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Veiling contemporary political debates beneath abstract political theory, these texts simultaneously served as immediate political tools and as contributions to a larger intellectual tradition. Interrogating the history of faction theory necessitates not only a reconstruction of authorial intentions, but also the contexts in which its audience of monarchs and ministers interpreted these texts.12 In this chapter I will reconstruct the intellectual and linguistic frameworks that made concepts of ministerial affiliation articulable, while simultaneously limiting what faction theorists could publicly articulate. As discussed in Chapter 2, the earliest “Discourse on Factions” dates back to the late Tang, when Li Deyu wrote the prototype to defend himself from accusations of factionalism. His text and those that followed were specific examples of a larger, much older genre of theoretical essays (lun) on historical, political, and administrative subjects. From the early eleventh century onwards, the “Discourse on Factions” became a subgenre in its own right, as later theorists directly responded to earlier efforts, especially Ouyang Xiu’s. Faction theorists built divergent interpretations and definitions of factionalism by retrofitting fragments from a shared corpus of classical and historical texts into their essays. They stitched together quotations from the Analects, the Book of Documents, and the Narratives of Zuo (and, to a lesser extent, the Book of Changes) to offer authoritative definitions of factionalism. Faction theorists provided analogical interpretations of earlier factional conflicts of the Han, Tang, and the early Northern Song. Every faction theorist worked within these classical and historical frames of reference to divide the political community between affiliations of petty men and of superior men, while simultaneously locating the imperial court as the sole source of legitimate political authority. Nevertheless, sharing a common intellectual inventory did not ensure consistent definitions of the term “faction,” since every theorist had his own personal interpretation of the classics and history and approached them with varying degrees of idiosyncrasy. Some defined the term dang objectively, as ministerial associations that existed empirically, while others defined the term subjectively, as ministerial associations that existed only in the perspective of their opponents; some used the word exclusively to describe petty men in association, others exclusively to describe superior men, and still others applied the term to both. But no matter how they construed factions and factionalism, all Northern Song faction theorists used polarizing rhetoric and worked within a court-centered discourse of authority. When political theorists proclaimed themselves to be factionless before an audience of their monarch and fellow ministers, the theory of politics became disconnected from the practice of politics. During a time of escalating factional conflict, only one’s political adversaries could be publicly acknowledged as a factional affiliation.

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Wang Yucheng: Factions of Superior Men? Late in the tenth century, the literatus and statesman Wang Yucheng (954– 1001) wrote the first Northern Song “Discourse on Factions.” A predecessor of the Ancient Prose (Guwen) movement and a bridging figure in faction theory between the late Tang and the late Northern Song, Wang adopted Li Deyu’s polarizing rhetoric but expanded his definition of factionalism, thereby influencing Ouyang Xiu.13 Wang’s essay cannot be conclusively dated, but it was most likely written during the late 980s, when Emperor Taizong’s court was divided by policy debates that were as much generational as factional.14 The old guard of early Song ministers squared off against a recently promoted class of examination candidates to debate a second offensive against the Liao to reclaim the Sixteen Prefectures, the disputed territories that Taizong and his generals had failed to recapture a decade earlier.15 A literary prodigy, Wang Yucheng earned his jinshi degree in 983 and was fast-tracked into academic and historiographic posts in the capital. According to his Song History biography, Wang participated in court debates over border policy in the late 980s, urging the emperor to adopt a more aggressive policy to deter further Liao encroachment.16 For the rest of Taizong’s reign, Wang bounced between remonstrance posts at court and administrative posts in the provinces, but the exact political circumstances that informed his “Discourse on Factions” cannot be reconstructed. Still, Wang’s essay can be read as a guarded defense against accusations of factionalism, even if the identity of his accusers and the nature of the charges against him are uncertain. For our purposes Wang’s essay is more important for how it influenced Ouyang Xiu and subsequent Northern Song faction theorists.17 In his “Discourse on Factions,” Wang Yucheng read the recurrence of factionalism during Song Taizong’s reign as a portent of premature dynastic collapse. When Wang analyzed history from the distant antiquity up to the late Tang, he concluded that every factional conflict, at least in post-classical history, inevitably led to the decline of superior men and the victory of petty men. Wang intimated that the Niu-Li factional conflict had precipitated the collapse of the Tang and, warning of dire consequences for the Song court, repeated Emperor Wenzong’s famous last words that “eliminating rebels from Hebei is extremely easy, but eliminating these factions from court is extremely difficult.”18 Aside from this single analogy to recent imperial history, Wang Yucheng’s time frame was almost exclusively classical, and he maintained that “the origin of factions lay in distant antiquity.” Reinterpreting the passage from the Narratives of Zuo discussed in Chapter 2, Wang developed a teleological reading of ancient history: The origin of factions lies in the distant past, in the time of Yao and Shun. The Eight Primes and the Eight Paragons were factions of superior men. The



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lineage of the Four Fiends was a faction of petty men. Only Yao possessed sufficient virtue to transform them so they would not harm governance. Hence, he retained both. Only Shun could manifest good and enlighten evil, and balanced their disorder and patterning. Thus, he distinguished both.

In this passage Wang stretched the label of faction to cover superior men like the Eight Primes and Paragons as well as petty men like the Four Fiends. Wang Yucheng’s concession that superior men could form factions would influence Ouyang Xiu when he wrote his “Discourse on Factions” a half-century later.19 For Wang Yucheng, the term “faction” was not necessarily loaded with negative connotations. But since factions of petty men were far more prevalent and powerful than those of superior men, they would inevitably destroy the dynastic polity; on balance, therefore, factionalism was—and is—a destructive phenomenon. Since no monarch since the time of Yao and Shun has fully embodied the Way of impartial rulership, which allowed both sides to peacefully coexist, all dynastic polities will self-destruct when factions of “petty men” deceive monarchs who fail to exercise vigilance in personnel decisions. Consequently, since the time of Yao and Shun, superior men have never emerged victorious over petty men. This is the reason why order (li) is rare and disorder (luan) is frequent. Where a superior man remains upright, a petty man engages in flattery. Whereas flattery submits to the ruler’s will, uprightness displeases the ruler’s ears. The ruler of men despises what is unpleasant and delights in what is submissive. Thus the Way of petty men waxes as the Way of superior men wanes.20

Throughout history, Wang insisted, post-classical rulers had forsaken their duty to distinguish the factions of petty men from those of superior men. The decline of the ancient Way of rulership explains the fragility of dynastic polities, for once malign factions of petty men deceive and delude their rulers, superior men can not forestall the imminent collapse of the dynastic polity they have loyally served. Ouyang Xiu: Factions of Superior Men, Factions as Figments Wang Yucheng’s concession that superior men could form factions influenced Ouyang Xiu’s “Discourse on Factions” of 1044. Making new connections among elements from the classics and history, Ouyang decoupled the term “faction” from its negative association with petty men and reimagined factions as inherently ethical affiliations of superior men. During the late 1030s and early 1040s, Ouyang joined an affiliation of reform-minded officials led

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by Fan Zhongyan, which gained prominence at Renzong’s court.21 Antagonizing more conservative bureaucrats, Fan harshly and opportunistically criticized Renzong’s long-serving Grand Councilor Lü Yijian. In 5.1036, while serving as prefect of Kaifeng, Fan Zhongyan accused Lü of monopolizing power and packing the bureaucracy with loyal subordinates. Arranging for Fan’s dismissal, Lü Yijian “accused Zhongyan of increasingly staffing remonstrance posts” with his subordinates, “of recommending and promoting a faction, and of sowing discord between the ruler and his officials.”22 Within a month, most of Fan’s court cohort—including Ouyang Xiu, Han Qi, Fu Bi, Yin Zhu (1001–1047), and Yu Jing (1000–1064)—were demoted to regional administration after being accused of factionalism.23 A poem by their ally Cai Xiang (1012–1067) celebrated Fan, Ouyang, Yin, and Yu as “four worthies” (sixian) who had defended the public good against careerist hacks.24 Cai’s poem had precisely the opposite effect, and in the intervening years, Renzong vigilantly prosecuted ministers he deemed factious, issuing an admonitory edict against factionalism in 1038.25 In the early 1040s, ministers who were linked to Fan Zhongyan or who opposed Lü Yijian continued to be demoted from the metropolitan bureaucracy on similar charges.26 In the meantime, Fan’s opposition bloc stayed politically active, and Renzong rehabilitated Fan to the Council of State in 1043, after his meritorious defense of the frontier against Tangut invaders.27 Lü Yijian finally resigned from the councilorship after suffering a stroke, thus opening the way for Ouyang Xiu and many of Fan’s other supporters to enter the upper echelons of the bureaucracy, where they formed a dominant (but short-lived) reforming coalition at court.28 Intent on shoring up the empire’s administration, military, and finances at a critical juncture, Fan proposed a package of ten reform policies in 9.1043.29 Among other things, Fan Zhongyan sought to improve the accountability of personnel administration by eliminating favoritism and incompetence and to reconfigure the criteria for bureaucratic recruitment to stress statecraft skills. But when Renzong decided to reach an indemnified settlement with the Xi Xia, Fan’s command-level involvement in the last border war became a political liability.30 With the frontier situation stabilized, the Qingli Reforms were placed on the back burner. While Fan Zhongyan’s policies had alienated the old guard of officialdom and Emperor Renzong, they fired the imaginations of the next generation of Northern Song officialdom, as we will see in Chapter 4.31 Let us return to the court audience of 4.1044, when Emperor Renzong questioned his councilors as to whether factions of superior men had ever existed. Fan Zhongyan answered that political affiliations of ethical exemplars were indeed factions, just like those of petty men: “If [officials] affiliate beneficially (peng er wei shan), then how can they possibly harm the state?”32 Fan was insinu-



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ating that it was perfectly natural for him and his colleagues to have formed a benign faction of superior men. Neither cynical nor maladroit, his “superior men form factions” theory was consistent with the polarizing rhetoric and binary thinking of his earlier positions. In a piece of private correspondence from the early 1030s, Fan maintained that two factions had been locked in conflict throughout imperial history: one of “lofty words and conduct” that ensured political stability, the other of “yielding words and conduct” that were harbingers of dynastic disorder.33 While Fan Zhongyan did not explicitly identify these two conflicting factions as those of petty and superior men, he was nonetheless conceding that factions could be benign as well as destructive, in a departure from Wang Yucheng, who obliquely conceded that superior men could form factions.34 But Fan rejected Wang’s fatalistic view that petty men will always win every factional conflict, asserting instead that enlightened rulers can easily distinguish benign and malign factions. Fan’s faction theory also coincided with the message of an influential 1035 essay, in which he urged emperors to exercise vigilance in personnel decisions, because their negligence will result in their court’s domination by “a powerful official’s faction” that infringed upon monarchical authority.35 What Fan left unsaid here was that a court comprised exclusively of horizontal affiliations of superior-man ministers would actually enhance monarchical authority, since these benign factions would channel their loyalty upwards to the throne. To support Fan’s theory of benign factions, Ouyang Xiu’s “Discourse on Factions” redefined factionalism by inverting the concept of faction within the established classical and historical frames of reference. First, Ouyang employed the binary vocabulary of the Analects to make the usual oppositions between superior men and petty men and their corresponding values of righteousness (yi) and gain (li). In the commentarial tradition of the Analects, discussed in Chapter 2, factions had generally been defined as the exclusive preserve of petty men. It followed, then, that superior men were not factious by nature. Ouyang creatively rewove this network of associations—which linked superior men to righteousness and petty men to gain—to build an argument that reversed the original meaning of the Analects. Ouyang maintained that affiliations of superior men “were based on a common Way,” while those of xiaoren were “based on common gain.”36 Adopting the polarizing vocabulary of the Analects, Ouyang denied the label “faction” to associations of petty men: Thus, Your servant claims that petty men are without factions and that only superior men have them. Why is this so? Official salaries and gain are what petty men enjoy; wealth and goods are what petty men covet. When they seek mutual gain, they will temporarily form an affiliation (dang), but it is

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erroneous to consider them to be a faction (pengdang). When they glimpse gain and contend to be first [to take it], or when the gains have been exhausted, and they squabble over what remains, then they will cruelly injure each other. Even if they are brothers or kinsmen, they will not be able to protect each other.37

Selfish gain can unite petty men, but only temporarily, which led Ouyang to conclude that these nefarious cliques are not factions in the true sense of the word. Disputatiousness is the mark of a petty man, and an imperial court that accommodated dissenting opinions will become a hotbed of factionalism. Of course, this represented a departure from standard dynastic practice, as Renzong and his predecessors had attempted to include a variety of opinions and elite interests at court, rather than ensuring ideological unanimity. But no matter, for while factions of petty men could not unite into true factions, this is not so for superior men. The Way and righteousness are what they defend; loyalty and sincerity are what they practice; and reputation and integrity are what they value. Since they have cultivated themselves, their common Way (tongdao) is of mutual benefit. Since they serve the polity, their common hearts help each other, and they are always as one. Such are the affiliations of superior men.38

Implicit here is the assertion that while Fan Zhongyan and his cohort may have formed a faction, this horizontal affiliation is founded upon a shared ethical vision that allows it to channel its loyalty vertically upwards to serve the interests of the dynastic polity as a whole, rather than the narrow interests of a segment of the empire’s sociopolitical elite. In practice, this meant that Fan’s ideological and political adversaries were a false faction, more interested in perpetuating their own power than serving the throne. As Ouyang implored his monarch: “to be a ruler of men, one has only to expel the false affiliations (weipeng) of petty men and to employ the true affiliations (zhenpeng) of superior men.” Ouyang Xiu had no need to identify Fan Zhongyan or their bureaucratic allies by name, nor did he need to issue an open call to his fellow bureaucrats to implement his shared vision of reforming governance. More important, he was asserting that Renzong would better serve the dynastic interest by ensuring ideological unanimity at court and creating a vertical alignment with a chosen set of ministers, rather than by encouraging officialdom to include a diverse range of elite opinion. In breaking with dynastic precedent as well as established notions of political theory, Ouyang Xiu was reconfiguring the classical vocabulary of fac-



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tionalism and revising the post-classical history of faction. He reinterpreted the mythic narrative of the Eight Primes and the Four Fiends, glimpsed earlier in Wang Yucheng’s essay, as a confirmation that both superior and petty men could mutually affiliate as a peng, without describing either as a dang: During the time of Yao, four petty men, such as Gong Gong and Huan Dou [two of the Four Fiends], formed an affiliation (peng). Sixteen superior men, the Eight Primes and the Eight Paragons, also formed an affiliation. Shun assisted Yao in expelling the Four Fiends’ affiliation of petty men and in employing the Eight Primes’ and the Eight Paragons’ affiliations of superior men. The empire of Yao was greatly ordered.39

Ouyang interpreted the political history of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, gleaned from the Book of Documents, with fiendish ingenuity. He contrasted Zhou, the depraved last ruler of the Shang dynasty, with the sagely King Wu of the ascendant Zhou dynasty. King Zhou of Shang employed a “myriad men, each of whom had his own different heart. One might claim that they did not form an affiliation, and thus, Zhou’s state was conquered.” In and of itself, factionalism had not doomed the Shang dynasty; rather it was the tyrant Zhou’s failure to expel a faction of petty men from court that brought on the Zhou conquest. On the other hand, the ministers of King Wu of Zhou “formed one great affiliation . . . and when [the state of] Zhou employed them, it flourished.” Thus Ouyang credited the presence of a horizontal alliance of superior men for the inauguration and perpetuation of the Zhou ethical and political order, which set the benchmark for all subsequent dynastic polities. Fast-forwarding into the imperial era, Ouyang revised the political history of the Eastern Han and the late Tang. Ouyang accepted Wang Yucheng’s assertion that petty men could slanderously apply the label of faction to purge superior men from governance, which happened during the Great Proscription of the Eastern Han. In the waning years of the Tang, the mass execution of “all of the famed gentlemen at court” had triggered another dynastic collapse during the reign of the penultimate Emperor Zhaozong (r. 889–904), a captive of eunuch misrule. In Ouyang’s historical analogy, when rulers ignorantly purge factions (here he explicitly refers to Han and Tang ministerial affiliations as pengdang rather than just peng) of superior men, the dynastic enterprise is invariably doomed to “chaos and collapse.” Consequently, Ouyang was forced to reclassify some of the so-called factions of the Han and Tang as legitimate. Present-day rulers, however, can still learn from the historical lessons of “the rise and fall, order and chaos, of a state,” if they properly discriminate factions. Ouyang even hints that the Song can be exempted from the dynastic cycle, if only Renzong

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was sufficiently enlightened to retain the factions of superior men and to purge the pseudo-factions of petty men. Ouyang Xiu’s position in his “Discourse on Factions” is consistent with his “Discourse on Fundamentals, Part One” (Ben lun shang), a classically and historically informed argument that he wrote at approximately the same time.40 In his comprehensive prescription to rescue the Song empire from military enfeeblement, fiscal insufficiency, and bureaucratic inefficiency, Ouyang urged monarchs to focus their attentions on buttressing political institutions and recruiting learned gentlemen to staff them: Of all the means for sparing revenue and employing soldiers, none comes before institutions. . . . Of all the means for sharing in the preservation of [institutions], none comes before delegating to [the right] men. Thus one equalizes revenues and controls troops, sets up laws to regulate them, delegates the preservation of the laws to the worthy, and honors fame in order to give the worthy incentive [to accept employment].41

Here, Ouyang was challenging the monarch to align himself vertically with loyal ministers of vision and ability and to entrust the management of the empire to them, so that together they would transform society and polity from the political center downwards and outwards. Moreover, he was issuing a call to members of the sociopolitical elite, exhorting them to share his activist vision for reforming institutions. Dovetailing with his “Discourse on Factions,” Ouyang’s “Discourse on Fundamentals” justifies the shared moral commitment and political loyalty of his own ministerial affiliation—though not explicitly identified here as a faction of superior men—who will implement a program of institutional reforms that systematically addresses the root causes of these interconnected dynastic crises. Unconvinced by Ouyang’s claims that the only real factions were affiliations of superior men, the emperor was receptive to Fan’s chorus of critics. Fan’s self-incriminating admission was all the excuse Lan Yuanzhen (n.d.) required to accuse Fan Zhongyan and his Four Worthies of leading a faction of fifty or sixty officials that would soon “fill all the vital routes, deceiving the court and deluding the state.”42 Having defensively described their own court coalition as a faction, Fan and Ouyang were left vulnerable to allegations of factionalism from Lü Yijian’s conservative followers in the metropolitan bureaucracy, whom they had accused of serving narrow partisan interests rather than the public good of the dynastic polity. In an imperial edict of 11.1044, Renzong announced: “We have apprehended that in an era of utmost order, the [Eight] Paragons and Primes were together at court and did not form a faction.”43 Two months after his con-



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tretemps with Renzong, Fan was dispatched to the northwestern frontier on a temporary assignment and was finally demoted to a prefectural intendancy in 2.1045. Ouyang Xiu had already been dismissed from the Council of State and demoted to regional administration in 7.1044. Many of Fan’s supporters were likewise expelled from the capital by spring of 1045, when Renzong made the final decision to rescind the Qingli Reforms. Thereafter, Northern Song political practitioners continued to publicly define a faction as an affiliation of selfserving petty men. Once Emperor Renzong had judged against Fan Zhongyan and Ouyang Xiu, it was generally understood that making a similar argument with similar logic and rhetoric would be politically disadvantageous and tactically imprudent. The leading Qingli reformers had failed to redefine factions as supporters of the public good and as integral components of a unitary ethical and political order. As we will see in this and subsequent chapters, later Northern Song political theorists and rhetoricians rejected, at least publicly, Ouyang’s radical redefinition of faction. Ouyang Xiu provided both a counterpart and counterpoint to his “Discourse on Factions” in his New History of the Five Dynasties (Xin wudai shi). In a commentary to this masterwork of private historiography, written to correct interpretive flaws he found in the Old History of the Five Dynasties (Jiu wudai shi) of 974, he presented a variant interpretation of the causes and outcomes of factionalism in post-classical history.44 In his “Biographies of Six Courtiers of the Tang” (Tang liuchen zhuan), Ouyang rewrote the narratives of disloyal ministers who had forsaken the collapsed Tang dynasty to serve the usurping Later Liang (907–923), the first of the Five Dynasties that subsequently ruled North China before the Song reunification. In his personal commentary to these ministerial biographies, Ouyang reinterpreted the political history of the Eastern Han and late Tang in a way that was remarkably consistent with his “Discourse on Factions.” The question of ministerial disloyalty was a major ethical concern for Ouyang Xiu, whose New History of the Five Dynasties covers a half-century of political instability and ethical ambiguity. To cite an extreme and much-cited example, he condemned Feng Dao (882–954), who served four out of the Five Dynasties, as “a man utterly devoid of integrity or shame,” who had forsaken the Way of loyalty.45 Here, Ouyang overturned the approving judgment of the Old History of the Five Dynasties by using the contrasting example of a chaste widow to condemn what he saw as Feng Dao’s situational morality. The presence of cynical ministers like Feng could (and frequently did) doom a dynasty: “Without integrity everything is acceptable, without shame anything is done . . . when high officials will accept or do anything, how can chaos in the empire and the collapse of the state be eluded?”46 Naomi Standen has recently argued that Ouyang’s new

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conception of ministerial loyalty enjoined ministers to serve a single legitimate sovereign and regarded the switching of allegiances as an abrogation of the master-servant relationship.47 In his epilogue to “Biographies of Six Courtiers of the Tang,” Ouyang Xiu expanded his condemnation of ministerial perfidy to establish causal connections between court factionalism and dynastic instability. He condemned the six as a faction of petty men who had framed an affiliation of superior men on false charges of factionalism. Of course, in describing these “petty men” as a “faction,” Ouyang directly contradicted his stated position in his “Discourse on Factions,” perhaps indicating how expedient his arguments of 1044 were (or would be). In his “Discourse on Factions,” Ouyang claimed that the superior-man victims of the Eastern Han Great Proscriptions had been slandered with false charges of factionalism. In his New History of the Five Dynasties, Ouyang turned this specific event into a broader historical principle: petty men can frame their superior-man opposition with false accusations of factionalism. While granting that superior men can enter into benign affiliations in his New History epilogue, he refrained from defining these horizontal allegiances as dang. Instead, he embraced a subjectivist definition of the term “faction” that depends upon the ethical character of the ministers who apply the label of “faction” to their adversaries. In the New History epilogue, as in his “Discourse on Factions,” Ouyang Xiu attributed the fall of the Eastern Han and the Tang to the persistence of pettyman factions: At the end of both the Han and Tang, only petty men remained at court. Where were its superior men? As the Han faced imminent collapse, accusations of factionalism were first employed to proscribe the wise and superior men of the empire. Those who remained at court were all petty men; the Han subsequently perished. As the Tang faced imminent collapse, “factionalism” similarly was employed first [as a pretext] to entirely execute the court’s cohort of gentlemen. Those who remained were all unworthy mediocrities who induced peril; the Tang subsequently perished.48

Here, Ouyang mentions affiliations of superior men as “deriving from their common character (leitong)” as moral exemplars, but he never explicitly refers to these coalitions as factions, as he had in 1044.49 Moreover, he refrains from applying the appellation dang to cliques of petty men as well, which suggests that factions lacked objective historical existence. Perhaps Ouyang was moving toward treating the term “faction” as a label that had been used for various purposes historically, in order to urge his readers to suspect those who used it in their own time.



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In his New History commentary, Ouyang Xiu went a step further, insisting that “faction” is a false label that petty men can exploit to slander superior men: Those intent on emptying the people’s polity and purging its superior men will invariably present accusations of factionalism; those intent on isolating the powers of the people’s ruler and masking his eyes and ears will invariably present accusations of factionalism; those intent on usurping the polity for surrender to another will invariably present accusations of factionalism.50

When petty men purge vulnerable superior men from court on such trumpedup charges, no ruler can prevent dynastic collapse. Any ties whatsoever between superior men can serve as potential ammunition for slanderous petty men to use against them: one’s relatives and old associates could be called one’s faction; one’s companions and friends could be called one’s faction; fellow officeholders and classmates could be called one’s faction; even student disciples and former clerks could be called one’s faction.51

In his New History, Ouyang was asserting that the term “faction” had no objective referent outside of political discourse and distinguished the word “faction” from the real-world political associations that this term can maliciously be used to describe.52 In a further departure from his “Discourse on Factions,” Ouyang was asserting in his New History epilogue that the monarch’s primary duty is to properly discern signifier from signified: the word dang from those who were labeled as factions. Even though he invoked similar classical and historical authorities in “Discourse on Factions” and “Biographies of Six Courtiers of the Tang,” these two texts present contradictory definitions of factions and factionalism, suggesting that Ouyang’s faction theory evolved over a lifetime in literature and politics.53 Dating this chapter is an inconclusive task, for Ouyang began working on the New History between 1036 and 1039 during a period of exile from Renzong’s court. Thereafter he revised the text sporadically during lulls in his bureaucratic career in the 1050s, and the finished work was not published until 1077, five years after his death.54 If his New History epilogue predated his “Discourse on Factions,” a hypothesis that is less plausible than the alternative, then Ouyang Xiu may have abandoned his relativist definition of factionalism to accept an absolute definition of a faction as an affiliation of superior men. Such a sequence would cast serious doubts upon Ouyang’s true motives in rhetorically linking the

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term “faction” with the concepts of “superior men” and “righteousness” in 1044. If Ouyang’s “Discourse on Factions” represented merely a calculated attempt to save Fan Zhongyan from a slip of the tongue, as James T. C. Liu once argued, this could explain why later political theorists and rhetoricians refrained from claiming that superior men formed factions.55 But if the epilogue to the “Biographies of Six Courtiers of the Tang” postdated the “Pengdang lun,” which seems more likely given the lengthy gestation period of the New History, then Ouyang Xiu probably revised his absolutist definition of what constituted a faction later in life. Considering the length of Ouyang Xiu’s literary career, the New History preface probably represents a more mature and authoritative example of his thinking on factionalism. In the introduction to his translation of the New History of the Five Dynasties, Richard Davis has taken exception to Liu’s interpretation, arguing that Ouyang’s “Discourse on Factions” was not simply a rhetorical ploy to defend Fan Zhongyan. Even so, Davis maintains that Ouyang’s approach to factions underwent “considerable evolution since 1044 . . . with Ouyang Xiu warning against false labels even as he defends the right of moral men to associate.”56 Having been slanderously labeled a member of a malign faction during Renzong’s reign, Ouyang may have abandoned his absolutist definition of faction to reach the battle-tested understanding that factions possessed no objective existence outside of political discourse, while defending the right of loyal ministers to affiliate in service to the dynastic polity. The ambiguities and contradictions inherent in Ouyang Xiu’s two theories of faction illustrate just how slippery the conceptual enterprises of faction theory and factional rhetoric could be, and how even a writer of such prodigious output could arrive at opposing definitions of faction at two different points in his political and intellectual career. In both texts Ouyang subtly manipulated both the classics and history to posit different sets of relations between the descriptor dang and the political affiliations it described. Yet in both texts Ouyang used the same polarizing rhetoric and the same court-centered discourse of authority, urging rulers to properly distinguish affiliations of superior men from those of petty men and to discern truthful from deceptive political rhetoric. But Ouyang offered few specific criteria with which rulers could discern superior and petty men in political practice, and only the most enlightened rulers could tell the difference between the word “faction” and the thing itself. For Ouyang Xiu, the dynastic polity was a fragile enterprise that could not long survive without the continued presence and alignment of exemplary monarchs and loyal ministers. Sima Guang: Superheroes vs. Supervillains Ouyang Xiu’s “Discourse on Factions” stimulated a burst of interest in faction theory among the next generation of officials, who were active at court from



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the 1050s into the 1080s. Their essays were replies and rebuttals to one—or sometimes both—of Ouyang’s two written statements on factionalism. Even before the implementation of Wang Anshi’s New Policies in 1069–1070, the outbreak of the late Northern Song factional conflict, some of the leading literati of the empire arrived at alternative definitions of factionalism while working within the same classical and historical frames of reference and sharing the same court-centered discourse of authority.57 Learning from the failure of Fan Zhongyan’s Qingli Reforms, with which they were largely sympathetic, later theorists never publicly acknowledged the possibility that superior men could form factions. In retrospect possibly the most influential thinker of his generation, Sima Guang (1019–1086) was a leading political figure at court and an eminent historian in exile. A member of the examination class of 1038, Sima began his political career in the 1040s, in the wake of the failed Qingli Reforms.58 During the mid-1050s, when members of Fan Zhongyan’s reform coalition such as Ouyang Xiu and Fu Bi were rehabilitated to positions of power, he circulated his writings to enable his rise to a high-ranking position in the Censorate, and he made a name for himself as a potential candidate for the Council of State. In a series of influential essays and memorials written in the late 1050s and early 1060s, Sima Guang formulated a conservative vision of governance. Peter Bol has argued that the central thrust of Sima’s program for dynastic survival was to rectify the bureaucracy according to its existing personnel procedures and traditional hierarchical structures and to ensure that political institutions served the public good rather than private interests.59 In Sima’s ideological vision, a dynastic polity’s rise was a function of the ethical integrity of its bureaucrats, who would employ time-tested institutions to rule the empire as servants of the emperor, who remained the ultimate political authority.60 Conclusively dated to 5.23.1058, the message and medium of Sima Guang’s “Discourse on Factions” are entirely consistent with his essays and policy proposals of the late 1050s and early 1060s.61 Sima used classical and historical allusions to define the responsibilities and burdens of rulership as discriminative: to distinguish superior from petty men. He and Ouyang Xiu shared a conception of the polity as a fragile enterprise, whose integrity and survival depends upon superior men directing their loyalty upwards to the throne.62 In his analysis of this period in Sima’s intellectual development, Bol has concluded that his conception of political theory rigorously distinguished between “the public good” (gong) and the “private interest” (si), enjoining officials to serve the state and disregard their own personal agendas.63 Sima defined superior and petty men according to a different set of binaries than Ouyang

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Xiu: “virtue” (de) versus “talent” (cai): “those whose virtue outstrips their talent are called ‘superior men’; those whose talent outstrips their virtue are called ‘petty men.’”64 In his “Discourse on Factions,” Sima Guang used a second set of binary distinctions, equating superior men with the “public good” and petty men with the “private interest.” Since he defined a faction exclusively as an affiliation of petty men, all factions usurped monarchical authority, and any ruler who indulged them was personally responsible for the dynastic polity’s destruction. While Sima unquestioningly accepted the Analects’ linkage between superior men and righteousness, petty men and gain, he insisted that the former could affiliate without being factious: When superior men cultivate themselves and regulate their hearts, their Way is one of collaboration with others. . . .When their Way flourishes and their merit is made manifest, their reputation comes from their collaboration with others. This is not so for petty men.65

For Sima Guang, “factions” possess objective historical reality, but in an extremely limited and concrete sense: as destructive affiliations of petty men. Seeking to derive first principles from historical experience, Sima Guang began his essay with a discussion of how the Niu-Li factional conflict contributed to the fall of the Tang dynasty.66 The noxious spread of local bandits and court eunuchs were external and internal symptoms of the deeper malignancy of factionalism: “When councilors establish selfish factions and purge and pressure one another, they cannot be rectified.” Ultimate blame for the dynasty’s collapse rested with Emperor Wenzong, the monarch who famously complained: “Eliminating rebels from Hebei is easy, but eliminating factions from court is difficult.”67 Without an enlightened ruler-arbiter who can wield ultimate authority over his ministers, Sima Guang warned that imperial bureaucracies will be engulfed by factional strife and that institutions can easily be subverted by petty-man malefactors. According to Anthony Sariti’s interpretation of Sima’s political thought, “by making the emperor the final arbiter, disputes between rival court factions could be settled,” thereby preventing factious ministers from monopolizing power.68 But I take exception to Sariti’s claim that it was actually bureaucrats rather than monarchs “who held great moral authority and power” within the Song political system.69 In his recent biography of Sima Guang, Xiao-bin Ji has rightly criticized Sariti’s “bureaucratic absolutism” hypothesis as an exaggeration of Sima’s position, arguing that as a political actor and theorist, “Sima consistently upheld the ultimate power of the ruler over the officials” and that in Northern Song



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politics, “when the emperor played the grand arbiter between disputing officials, this role actually strengthened the emperor’s control over the Imperial Court.”70 According to Ji, Sima made a sharp distinction between monarchical and ministerial interests: “[T]he most efficient way to control the government was to control those who governed,” most notably through “a system of checks and balances among the officials,” designed to prevent any one minister from arrogating too much authority.71 As I read it, Sima Guang’s “Discourse on Factions” supports Ji’s interpretation rather than Sariti’s; unless rulers could successfully mediate intra-ministerial conflicts between superior and petty men, factional infighting would not only undermine imperial authority but would also sabotage the hierarchical workings of the imperial bureaucracy. Ji’s study of Sima Guang’s role in court politics from the 1050s into the 1080s indicates that Song monarchs like Renzong and Yingzong—and even Shenzong to a lesser extent—endeavored to impose ultimate monarchical authority over the bureaucracy, attempting to ensure that their ministers were broadly representative of elite interests and that their ultimate loyalties lay with the dynastic monarchy, while they rose above ministerial conflicts over politics and policy.72 Invoking classical authority, Sima Guang used allegorical arguments to illustrate his theory of improving bureaucratic efficacy and to implore rulers to become enlightened arbiters of faction. Embracing a fatalistic view of factionalism, Sima flatly asserted that “in ages of order and chaos, there have always been factions.”73 Beginning his historical examination in distant antiquity, Sima praised Yao and Shun for expelling the wicked faction of two out of the Four Fiends from court; when they “were able to clearly distinguish the good from the evil, their virtuous enterprise was glorious and enlightened.”74 In a parallel argument, he attributed the success of the Zhou conquest to factionalism at the Shang court, whose kings were “unable to distinguish right and wrong (shifei), and their dynastic polity collapsed.”75 Sima Guang spent the rest of his essay admonishing rulers about the destructive potential of factionalism, warning that “the rise and fall [of dynasties] does not lie in factions, but rather in the obscurity and enlightenment of rulers.”76 In the process he anachronistically misread textual fragments from the Book of Documents. First, he reinterpreted the character dang as “faction” rather than “partiality,” turning the words “without deviation or partiality” (wu pian wu dang) from the “Great Plan” (Hong fan), discussed in Chapter 2, into a diatribe against factionalism: “Without deviation or faction, the kingly path is vast and far-reaching.”77 He reread the Duke of Zhou’s encouragement “The young son should make associations” (ruzi qi peng) in the “Luo Announcement” (Luo gao) as an admonition against factions: “Young son, can you indulge factions?”78 By reading these passages against the grain, even Sima Guang made creative

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use of classical hermeneutics, turning highly ambiguous and contradictory passages into unequivocal messages of monarchical vigilance against factious ministers. Throughout his political career, Sima Guang’s black-and-white position on factionalism was untinged by shades of grey. Resigning from court in 1070 in protest over Emperor Shenzong’s continued implementation of the New Policies, Sima accused the reformist Grand Councilor Wang Anshi of having formed a treacherous faction, as we will see in Chapter 4. For the next fifteen years, he lived in exile in Luoyang as the de facto leader of an antireformist scholarly circle, devoting his later years to compiling his Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Governance (Zizhi tongjian), an annalistic history covering the period from 403 BCE to 959 CE.79 Following Ouyang Xiu, the other master historian of the Northern Song, Sima Guang drew parallels between the late Tang and Northern Song court politics. In his commentary to chap. 245 of the Comprehensive Mirror, a narrative of the Tang Emperor Wenzong’s reign, which he wrote at least a decade after his “Discourse on Factions,” Sima returns to the problematic of faction from a purely historical angle. According to Benjamin Elman’s reading of this text, Sima “thought factions were tinged with private interests, but he blamed their existence on the political climate produced by the ruler.”80 Due to variations in ethical character among ministers, Sima Guang insisted, court politics is inherently conflict-prone: Superior men and petty men cannot tolerate one another, just as ice and coal cannot share the same vessel. Hence, when superior men achieve positions, they expel petty men, and when petty men attain influence, they purge superior men. This is a natural pattern.81

Sima employed two parallel strings of binaries to describe these conflicting political affiliations, linking “superior men” with the “public good” and “truthfulness” and associating “petty men” with the “private interest”: Thus, when superior men promote the worthy and dismiss the unworthy, their hearts abide in the public good; their judgment of affairs is veracious. But when petty men praise what they enjoy and defame what they despise, their hearts abide in selfishness; their judgment of affairs is erroneous. Those who are public-minded and also truthful are called the upright; those who are selfish and also erroneous are called a faction (pengdang). This is why the ruler must distinguish between them.82



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For Sima Guang, it was unthinkable that superior men, endowed with the political virtue of public-mindedness, could ever form factions, which were the exclusive domain of petty men. He insinuated that the final responsibility for allowing Wang Anshi to retain the councilorship rested with Emperor Shenzong, whom Sima possibly equated with Tang Wenzong, who had succumbed to the dirty tricks of petty men: When Wenzong was calamitized by ministerial factionalism, how could he not investigate those who praised and slandered him for truthfulness and erroneousness? How could he investigate those whom he promoted and dismissed as worthy and unworthy, those whose hearts were public-minded and selfish, and who were the superior men and petty men?83

Thus Sima Guang’s faction theory thinly veiled contemporary politics with historical analogism: the antireform opposition was an upright affiliation of superior men, while Wang Anshi’s coalition was a pernicious faction of petty men. Accepting the timeworn axiom that superior men did not form factions, Sima claimed that only affiliations of superior men who epitomize the value of public-mindedness rightfully deserve to serve the dynastic polity. He used the words dang and pengdang to objectively and exclusively describe affiliations of slanderous and selfish petty men. For Sima’s conservative vision of restoring traditional institutions to prevail, monarchs had to be the final arbiters of ethical and political values, and ministers had to loyally serve their rulers. Teaching history by examples, he admonished emperors to impose rigid boundaries between petty and superior men and to arbitrate the claims of factional discourse and of those making them according to an objective and uncompromising ethical standard. Su Shi: Fatalistic Resignation and Damage Control Su Shi (1037–1101), who rivaled Ouyang Xiu as the most gifted literatus of the Northern Song, wrote a “Discourse on Factions” that was as original and anomalous as he was.84 As the title of Su’s “A Continuation of Master Ouyang’s Discourse on Factions” (Xu Ouyangzi pengdang lun) makes obvious, Su wrote this essay as a riposte to Ouyang Xiu. In stark contrast to his predecessors, Su Shi generally (but not entirely consistently, as we will see) used the term dang to describe affiliations of petty men, but implied that superior men can also form factions. Even if only superior men rightfully deserved ministerial authority, Su argued that affiliations of petty men will inevitably subvert the polity if rulers categorically proscribe them en masse, and he suggested strategies for reducing their impact.

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For Su Shi, eliminating entire malign factions from court was but a temporary solution that could forestall but never entirely prevent the vengeful comeback of petty men. But he argued that if the leaders of malicious factions are purged from court, their followers can be contained and appeased as individuals, and their potentially destructive grievances can be defused. Su built classical allusions into a historical framework to argue that petty men can be employed at court, but only under vigilant monarchical supervision. Rulers can not afford to make categorical distinctions between illegitimate and legitimate political affiliations. While petty and superior men can and should be distinguished in theory, to do so in practice is ill-advised, since the polity can not survive if rulers categorically exclude petty men. Su Shi began his “Discourse on Factions” by quoting a fragment from Ouyang Xiu’s “Biographies of Six Courtiers of the Tang,” if only to declare his complete disagreement with it. He rebutted Ouyang’s claim that “those intent on emptying the people’s polity [and expelling its superior men] will invariably present accusations of factionalism” and argued the converse: that factions truly possess objective, not subjective, existence.85 Su Shi acknowledged that when illegitimate factions of petty men could unjustly accuse superior men of factionalism, “Alas! Is this not a sign that the polity is on the verge of collapse?”86 Malefactors lurk in every court, using subterfuge to attain and monopolize power, so that they will almost always defeat superior men: For the ruler, nothing is more perilous than the existence of factions in the polity. When factions exist, they will certainly conflict. And when they conflict, petty men will certainly triumph, and all power will revert to them. How can superior men not be imperiled?87

Here, he implied that these conflicting factions would necessarily include some superior men on one side or another. Still, superior men (whether factionalized or not) are defenseless against the trickery of petty men, who exploit the ruler’s trust to silence the righteous discourse of ministers who offer them loyal but painful words of counsel. Su Shi defined petty men by their naked pursuit of power and superior men by their loyal support of the dynastical polity. Once forsaken by the ruler and bruised by the vicissitudes of court politics, a superior man will forsake official service with a sense of resignation: “When the superior man’s ambitions are unfulfilled, he respects himself and withdraws. Delighting in the Way, he will not serve as an official.”88 Petty men, on the other hand, never even think of voluntarily removing themselves from the spoils of office. Su Shi employed a horticultural analogy to contrast the natures of superior and petty men: “The



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superior man is like a rice seedling, difficult to plant, and easy to uproot. The petty man is like a noxious weed, growing without cultivation, and reviving soon after being eradicated.”89 No ruler of the past or present has ever succeeded in completely eliminating factions of petty men from court, which would in any case leave them with unappeasable grievances, impelling them to seek vengeance at the expense of defenseless superior men: For if one of them is expelled, then those who [come to] rescue him will be numerous. When their kind is completely [expelled], a legion of them will end up harboring profound grievances. When the minor ones among them are re-employed, then they will engage in reckless intimidation. When the major ones among them fulfill their ambitions, they will usurp the polity. Benevolent men will be swept away by them, and the rulers of the world will all hold their breath.90

To eliminate these malign factions from court, whether a handful of scapegoats or an entire coalition, Su argued, will just deal them a temporary setback. As soon as they are purged, factions begin to climb back into power and relentlessly pursue usurpation. While Su claimed that malign factions of petty men are nearly impossible to eliminate from court (just like Tang Wenzong’s rebels in Hebei), he argued the converse proposition that “factions of superior men are easy to expel.”91 Su Shi employed the term “faction” inconsistently, using it to describe superior men as well as petty men. According to Su, superior men will continue to associate with one another, even in the face of opposition from petty men; but his theory is ambiguous as to whether these loyal affiliations truly constitute a faction or are simply labeled as factions in the slanderous accusations of their petty foes. Su Shi’s fatalistic view of the eventual triumph of malign factions still allows for superior men to seize the advantage, but if and only if the ruler is able to find a way to contain and minimize the threat posed by petty men. Unique among Northern Song faction theorists, Su Shi did not harangue rulers to pursue an eliminationist policy against malign factions, because to do so would result in the inevitable triumph of petty men. Su insisted that the only way to preserve the dynastic polity was first to eliminate the leaders of a faction of petty men, but the leaders only, and then to co-opt their followers into the current ministerial regime. Individuals only resort to evil means when they are denied their objects of desire, so if petty men are co-opted into the bureaucracy rather than being fired, jailed, or executed, Su claimed “this will destroy their faction.”92 Directly contradicting previous faction theorists, Su insisted that the exercise of discriminating petty men from superior men can not be the ruler’s

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primary responsibility, for the survival of the polity requires the conciliation of both camps. Still, rulers need to distinguish their ministers according to their ethical inclinations, in order to know how to properly respond to both sides. Petty men are a natural component of the political community and are more useful to keep around than to expel; rulers who comprehend this fact have begun to understand the Way of governance. In other words: “If treachery certainly does not increase, then it cannot but be tolerated. If treachery is not tolerated, then how can the superior man secure the Way for long?”93 For Su Shi, it was possible both in theory and actuality to distinguish superior from petty men, but it was inadvisable in practice. Su’s position on co-opting lesser ministerial malefactors was roughly consistent with a memorial of 1080, in which he used historical and practical examples to compare local criminal elements who “were fond of rebellion and delighted in transgression” to “gentlemen who forsook the public good and formed factions to the death” at court.94 In order to drain the leadership pool for potential rebels, he urged rulers to grant official positions to commoners who suppress banditry, thereby binding these “men of outstanding talent” (haojie) as loyal servants of the throne. By recognizing the existence of individuals whose morality was expedient and selfish, whether in the court or the countryside, and incorporating them into existing power structures, rulers can suppress both internal and external threats to the dynastic polity’s survival. However intriguing the implications of Su Shi’s “Discourse on Factions” were, its provenance is unknown. Since the essay lacks any internal references to a contemporary political context, one can only speculate about the political circumstances that influenced its composition. One possibility suggests itself, however: Su may have written the essay after the premature end of his bureaucratic career, during a prolonged period of political exile in Lingnan, from 1094 to his death in 1101. Repeatedly during his lengthy official career, Su had been dismissed from the metropolitan bureaucracy on charges of factionalism. In 1080 Su was exiled to Huangzhou, Huainan West circuit, to stifle his dissent against the New Policies of Wang Anshi.95 During the Xuanren Regency of 1085–1093, Su was twice dismissed from court on trumped-up charges by his enemies within the antireform coalition. And in 1094, when Emperor Zhezong began his personal rule, Su Shi fell prey to factional purges at the hands of Zhang Dun’s restored reformist ministry and was exiled to Lingnan for life.96 Perhaps these recurring experiences of political victimization influenced the composition of his “Discourse on Factions.” During his bitter years in the far south, Su assumed a fatalistic stance of resignation from the vicissitudes of court politics, portraying himself in poetry and prose as a Daoist-style recluse.97 As a repeated victim of factional purges and subsequent rehabilitation by reformist ministers, Su may well have concluded that appeasing and conciliating petty men was the only



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way to defuse their grievances and forestall their political comeback. Perhaps his personal experiences with eremitism influenced his acceptance of petty-man treachery as a necessary part of the political order. Still, this is only a speculative explanation of why an iconoclastic thinker like Su wrote a discourse of factionalism that differed so markedly from those of his contemporaries. Su Shi deployed the classical and historical elements of faction theory with prodigious originality, rejecting the conventional wisdom as myopic and dogmatic. For Su, making an enlightened distinction between benign and malign factions, and then attempting to retain the former and expel the latter, was a misguided exercise of rulership. Alluding to the factional conflict of his own time, Su Shi urged rulers to practice a flexible strategy of governance that could accommodate both superior and petty men. Qin Guan: Universal Cycles of Factional Conflict Written after the antireform landslide of the Xuanren Regency, Qin Guan’s (1049–1100) two-part “Discourse on Factions” represented another effort to rethink the distinctions between superior and petty men. Qin orbited in circles around Su Shi, as his literary disciple and bureaucratic colleague.98 He gained an academic position at court in 1085, after Sima Guang and his cohort staged their takeover of the central government bureaucracy and began the “Yuanyou reversion.” As was now typical, Qin Guan used classical hermeneutics and historical analogism to fashion a “Discourse on Factions” that was almost as fatalistic and ambivalent as Su Shi’s. Employing the word dang to refer to factions of both superior and petty men, Qin still maintained that an objective ethical and political distinction existed between them. Whether benign or malign, factions could not be completely eradicated, since expelling all factions from court would simultaneously eliminate superior men alongside petty men. Addressing Emperor Zhezong and his regent, Empress Dowager Xuanren, Qin Guan urged them to rigorously differentiate between superior and petty men and retain the antireform coalition while delaying the reformists’ inevitable comeback. Qin used his faction theory to depict his fellow antireform ministers as superior men who serve the broader interests of the dynastic polity. Directly responding to Ouyang Xiu’s “Discourse on Factions,” Qin Guan began the first half of his essay by acknowledging that court factionalism is an unavoidable historical phenomenon. Unlike Ouyang, Qin did not employ the term “faction” in an exclusive sense, but he did call affiliations of superior men “factions” as well, acknowledging that “factions of superior men and petty men are those that cannot be avoided.”99 For Qin Guan, the recurrence of factionalism was (and still is) beyond the control of even enlightened rulers. Since eliminating factions is misguided and impossible, all that rulers can do to ensure the

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survival of the dynastic polity is to learn to identify superior and petty men as individuals, not as members of affiliations: If the righteous and the wicked are not distinguished when it is factions that one despises, then one will invariably end up expelling both superior men and petty men or retaining both superior men and petty men. Whether both superior men and petty men are expelled or retained, in the end petty men will succeed in their ambitions, and superior men will ultimately meet with calamity.100

In Qin’s argument, these discriminative judgments can be exercised only case by case, since rulers can not eliminate malign factions without uprooting benign ones, which will only expedite the ultimate triumph of petty men. Unique among Northern Song faction theorists, Qin Guan deployed the Book of Changes to the near-exclusion of other classical texts. Drawing upon its commentarial tradition, he claims that the waxing and waning of factions of petty and superior men is a natural pattern, much like the hexagram patterns themselves. Petty and superior men are respectively symbolized by broken yin (-) and solid yang (—) lines. In Qin’s conceptual scheme, the microcosmic ethical and political order resonates with the waxing and waning of yin and yang forces in the macrocosm, with yang lines representing superior men, while yin lines represent petty men. Building hexagrams with increasing numbers of solid yang lines from one to five, Qin claimed that the waxing of the Way of superior men at the expense of the Way of petty men is the crest of a natural phase-shift in the ethical and political order: “When five yang lines are at their extremity, this forms the hexagram Guai (Resolution) [Figure 2, left]. . . . From this the Way of superior men can be observed; certainly, when they attain [others of] their kind, they will henceforth be able to triumph over petty men.”101 The waxing of the Way of petty men at the expense of the Way of superior men is an equally inevitable phenomenon: “When five yin lines are at their extremity, this forms the hexagram Bo (Peeling) [Figure 2, right]. . . . From this the Way of petty men can be observed; certainly, when they attain [others of] their kind, they will henceforth be able to triumph over superior men.”102 Hence, macrocosmic processes affected the mutual succession of factions of superior and petty men at the imperial court, creating a wave-like pattern:

Figure 2. Guai (Resolution) Hexagram 43 (left) and Bo (Peeling) Hexagram 23 (right)



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The interdependent waxing and waning of yin and yang becomes folding and unfolding, birth and killing. The triumphs and defeats that superior men and petty men inflict upon each other become rise and fall, order and chaos. Thus, each [associates] with his own kind. Thus, I state that factions are something that superior men and petty men cannot avoid.103

Even though natural cycles dictated that factions will always reemerge at court, it is still possible to bring objective ethical distinctions to bear. When superior men were in the ascendant, the ruler could use this pattern to his advantage by employing them alongside petty men, even if neither faction could be eliminated. After an extended digression into the Book of Changes, Qin Guan’s “Discourse on Factions” rejoined the mainstream of the subgenre, if only for a short while. He turned to the Narratives of Zuo, identifying the Eight Primes and Paragons as a “faction of superior men” and the Four Fiends as a “faction of petty men.”104 When retaining the former and expelling the latter from Yao’s court, Shun “did not permit the factions to be expelled together, nor did he permit them to be retained together.”105 Rather than distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate factions, Yao and Shun clearly ascertained the moral character of their ministers as individuals, not as blocs, before purging the Four Fiends and retaining the Eight Primes. Turning from the classics to imperial history, Qin Guan’s reading of the political events of the Han and Tang was equally creative. In his interpretation, the last emperors of both dynasties doomed their empires to collapse when they mistakenly banned factions en masse. Qin believed that factionalism itself was insufficient to destroy a polity; only when the spread of factions went unchecked did partisan divisions precipitate the collapse of both the Han and Tang. Qin blamed the Eastern Han Great Proscription for creating a state of political and ethical confusion, which allowed eunuchs to ban superior men as a faction: “When cliques and factions were proscribed, all within the seas was greatly ravaged for twenty years. . . . Rulers could never again ascertain the righteous and the wicked.”106 A similar situation prevailed during the declining years of the Tang; the Li and Niu “factions battled one another for more than forty years, and the calamity of officialdom could not be resolved” because negligent rulers failed to ethically distinguish their ministers.107 During ages of decadence and confusion, when emperors like Tang Wenzong neglected their responsibilities, the task of “eliminating rebels from Hebei” would be easier than expelling malefactors from court. What destroyed the Han and Tang was not factionalism per se. If the last emperors of the Han and Tang had looked past the simplistic label of “faction” to distinguish superior men from petty men, then their empires

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would not have collapsed on their watch. When Qin Guan admonished rulers to discriminate among political criminals as individuals, not as categories, this was roughly consistent with his position in Part Three of his “Discourses on Rebels and Felons,” where he concurs with his mentor Su Shi on the issue. “As for methods of dispelling and suppressing great rebellions,” he argued, “none is greater than including and selecting men of outstanding talent (haojun) in the empire” into the military and civil bureaucracy through informal channels.108 Suppressing banditry in general or dismissing factions en masse was a clumsy strategy of rulership, which only exacerbated the damage that malefactors can inflict upon the dynastic monarchy, from both inside and outside court. By the 1080s the historical frame of reference of faction theorists had expanded to include the present dynasty. In the second half of his “Discourse on Factions,” Qin Guan shaped the history of the Qingli Reforms, with which he sympathized, to accord with his own theory. Qin praised Emperor Renzong for his enlightened judgment in employing such superior men as Fan Zhongyan, Fu Bi, Han Qi, and Ouyang Xiu during the Qingli Reforms. But Renzong’s judgment ultimately failed him, for he neglected to eliminate petty men from court, and they “could not get over their resentment and consequently framed them [the superior men] on charges of factionalism.”109 With willful myopia, Renzong could not look past the word dang to assess the moral character of Fan Zhongyan and his cohort when they were unjustly accused of factionalism. In other words, while Renzong “despised factions in name only (ming), but did not seek [to distinguish] the righteous from the wicked in fact (shi).”110 Ultimately, at the end his reign, Renzong attained “enlightened sagacity” and chose to rehabilitate the Qingli reformers to serve him. Here, Qin Guan was implicitly positing a genealogical link between the antireform coalition of the Xuanren Regency and the short-lived reformers of the Qingli era, whom he used a courtcentered discourse of authority to praise as “eminent statesmen and great classical scholars (ru), ministers [in support] of the state and dynastic altars.”111 While factions possess objective historical existence, petty men can always use the word “faction” to smear superior men such as Fan Zhongyan and his cohort; these slanders caused Renzong to confuse names and things, eliminating factions from court but failing to distinguish petty men from superior men. Qin Guan’s faction theory also offered prescriptions for the present. In the transitional years of the Xuanren Regency, Emperor Zhezong and Empress Dowager Xuanren succeeded where Renzong had failed, by purging reformist petty men and retaining the antireform coalition of superior men. As Ouyang Xiu and Sima Guang had, Qin Guan obliquely described his own faction as a legitimate association of superior men. For Qin, the Xuanren Regency had finally restored ethical governance after decades of reformist misrule. But current



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events were adhering to the natural pattern of the Book of Changes and post-classical history: the resurgence and ascendance of superior men would meet with an equal and opposite reaction. The present court employed superior men as a bloc, and when “a gathering of worthies has dusted off their caps” to associate at court, this would be “profoundly disadvantageous to petty men.”112 Naturally, these loyal ministers, whether a true faction or not, would become a target for accusations of factionalism. Threatened by the expanding presence of superior men at court, sinister affiliations of petty men were becoming “fearful day and night, hatching plots that are improper and baseless, delusive and slanderous, and accusations of factionalism have been incited.”113 Qin implored the emperor and empress dowager to draw contemporary lessons from the Book of Changes and the Narratives of Zuo and to recognize the root causes of the collapse of the Han and Tang if the Song dynasty was to survive this renewed assault. He begged his monarchical audience to recognize that the antireform coalition was not a faction in the true sense of the word. But who were the members of this sinister faction of petty men at Zhezong’s court, and who were the unnamed superior men who were being slanderously accused of factionalism? Both Qin and his intended audience must have known, since he mentioned no names. In hindsight, there are two possible readings of the contemporary implications of Qin’s essay. One is that Qin was referring to the recently deposed reformist ministerial regime of Cai Que as a faction of petty men, while describing his own antireform coalition, which had recently returned to favor in the early years of the Xuanren Regency, as an unjustly maligned affiliation of superior men. But since the reformists had already been purged from court more than a year before Qin authored his “Discourse on Factions,” the most probable political context for Qin’s essay is the “Luo-Shu factional conflict,” in which Cheng Yi and Su Shi’s Luo and Shu fractions contended for power after Sima Guang’s death. In 1086 and 1087, remonstrators loyal to Cheng Yi accused Su Shi and his comrades of slandering both Emperors Shenzong and Zhezong and of the even more heinous crime of factionalism. It is tempting to conclude that Qin Guan wrote his “Discourse on Factions” in defense of his mentor Su Shi to counter the accusations hurled by Cheng Yi’s Luo pressure group. Hence, Qin praised his own fraction as a benign affiliation of superior men and categorized Cheng Yi’s disciples as an illegitimate faction of slanderous petty men. As Chapter 5 will demonstrate, the Luo-Shu conflict became so acrimonious that its participants began accusing one another of factionalism, accusations their coalition had previously reserved for reformists. At any rate, Qin’s essay ultimately failed to sway the mind of Empress Dowager Xuanren, who in 1087 dismissed both Cheng and Su, along with their most prominent followers, from court. While it is unknown if she ever read Qin

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Guan’s “Discourse on Factions,” the regent exercised her powers of discrimination, somewhat indiscriminately, to purge both the Luo and the Shu wings of the antireform coalition. In her judgment, as we will see in Chapter 5, all factions were comprised of petty men.

From Faction Theory to Factional Rhetoric These five “Discourses on Factions” illustrate the varying ways in which Northern Song political theorists addressed a contemporary political scene dominated and divided by factionalism. These texts were not just abstract political theory but also demonstrably opportunistic rhetorical constructions that addressed specific current political situations; if the historical circumstances under which these essays were written were less ambiguous, their political (as opposed to theoretical and rhetorical) functions would presumably be even clearer. Working within and occasionally reconfiguring the conceptual frameworks of classical hermeneutics and historical analogism, the authors of these Northern Song “Discourses on Factions” attempted to demarcate the boundaries of the political community and to define forms of political action and association, using court-centered discourses of authority that empowered monarchs as the final arbiters of factionalism. While all of these faction theorists posited a sharp ethical distinction between superior men and petty men and adopted the perspective of the imperial throne, they built alternative interpretive frameworks to explain the recurrence of factionalism throughout history. Regardless of their definitions of faction, however, every author of a “Discourse on Factions” urged the ruler to assume the role of ultimate arbiter of factionalism by upholding the distinction between superior and petty men. But even as they operated within classical and historical contexts that were more or less shared, they made different sets of connections between the word “faction” and the past and present political affiliations this term described. For Ouyang Xiu, the term “faction” exclusively and objectively denoted benign factions of superior men to be employed as loyal and trusted ministers; in Sima Guang’s view, a “faction” was a malign group of petty men who should be purged. Su Shi and Qin Guan offered definitions of factionalism and strategies of rulership that were more fatalistic and pragmatic. While Su Shi concurred with Sima Guang’s objective definition of factionalism, he argued that a monarch should accommodate both superior and petty men to defuse the grievances of the latter and to protect the former. Su’s disciple Qin Guan shared his fatalism, but asserted that “factionalism” depended on one’s perspective. Despite their differences, all of these five faction theorists employed similar polarizing vocabularies to posit the court as the locus of political authority.



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In the political and historical imagination of these members of the Song political elite, even the most fallible monarch alone possessed the authority to make the personnel decisions that could preserve the polity from petty-man subterfuge. Persuading their monarch to retain their own allies and to purge their adversaries, faction theorists offered to extend their loyalty vertically upward to the throne rather than horizontally among their like-minded colleagues, thereby serving the broader interests of the dynastic polity rather than narrow partisanship. But given their monarchical and ministerial audience, faction theorists’ claims to political authority and ethical legitimacy could not be articulated outside the context of the dynastic polity and imperial court, as horizontal associations of members of the sociopolitical elite. The next three chapters will illustrate how factional rhetoricians of the reform, antireform, and post-reform eras employed a court-oriented discourse of authority similar to that of the faction theorists who rejected Ouyang Xiu’s revisionism to divide officialdom between factionless superior men and factious petty men. In Chapter 4, I will demonstrate how Wang Anshi opened a factional rift within the bureaucracy by accusing his ideological opponents of factional treachery while describing his court coalition as loyal ministers who served the public good of the dynastic polity as individuals.

C hapter four

Unified Theories of Division Factional Rhetoric in the Reform Era, 1069–1085

. . . if a commonwealth be constituted with a view to its maintaining the status quo, but not with a view to expansion, and by necessity it be led to expand, its basic principles will be subverted and it will soon be faced with ruin. So, too, should heaven, on the other hand, be so kind to it that it has no need to go to war, it will then come about that idleness will either render it effeminate or give rise to factions; and these two things, either in conjunction or separately, will bring about its downfall.    —Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy

W

ell into the third year of his councilorship in 9.1072, Wang Anshi securely controlled the reins of government, with the earned trust of Emperor Shenzong and a coalition of loyal subordinates. When he debated the connections between border tensions and court factions with Wen Yanbo (1006–1097), the long-serving director of the Bureau of Military Affairs and one of the few hobbled antireformists left on the Council of State, Wang was addressing an already persuaded monarchical audience. To his councilors, Shenzong expressed his regret that the dynastic founders had not retaken the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun and confessed his fears of Khitan military superiority and his anxiety at playing a subordinate diplomatic and ritual role with the Liao court: “How can We not fear them?”1 Ever since the Treaty of Chanyuan of 1005, the Song court had bought peace from the Khitans with annual tributes of silver and silk, which stabilized the northern frontier while deferring the dynastic founders’ dream of completely reunifying All Under Heaven. For most of the eleventh century, debates on geopolitical strategy between appeasers and irredentists had overlapped with factional disputes over domestic policies. Where Wen insisted that Shenzong must first heal factional divisions at court before the Khitans would ever submit to Song sovereignty, Wang countered that the imperial court had already achieved moral rearmament, since the emperor’s 72



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current slate of ministers was unified and loyal, but not a faction.2 Disputing Fan Zhongyan and Ouyang Xiu’s revisionist faction theory, which had been politically and practically discredited since 1044, Wang advanced the contrary proposition: “If petty men form factions, then why must superior men form factions?”3 Although Wang Anshi’s court debate with Wen Yanbo reached foregone conclusions, it explains as much about reformist conceptions of faction and factionalism, and the limits of the political imagination, as any “Discourse on Factions.” Wen began by urging Shenzong to unify his own court and government before reopening border rifts, that “one must first govern one’s own.” Quoting Mengzi’s axiom that “there has never been one who possessed a thousand li who was frightened of others,” Wang Anshi argued that the Song court already ruled a vast territory with unchallengeable authority and legitimacy.4 With Shenzong publicly expressing his fears of Liao capabilities, both ministers competed to assuage their monarch’s perceptions of Song geopolitical inferiority and military insecurity. Wen Yanbo assured the emperor that imperial forces had indeed achieved merit against the Khitan menace during the Taizong and Zhenzong reigns, thereby absolving him of personal responsibility for his predecessors’ appeasing policies. Wang sought to spur Shenzong to adopt a more activist approach to this lingering problem by implementing the ancient Way of rulership, which would morally reunify the Song polity, thereby forcing the Liao court to finally submit to Song sovereignty.5 Wen cautioned Shenzong away from military adventurism and forced his attentions closer to home, asserting: “If you want to subdue the Khitans, then first practice governing Your own and ensure that ministers do not form factions.”6 But Wang disagreed: if Shenzong possessed the Mandate of Heaven and his ministers were superior men, then factionalism was a non-issue. When Wen Yanbo maligned Wang for his arrogance and questioned his knowledge of ethical statecraft, Wang parried by clarifying the distinctions between superior and petty men: “Superior men are those who are loyal and sincere in their possession of righteousness and principle.” It followed, then, that the superior men at Shenzong’s court, or of any other past reign, were simply incapable of forming a faction. By invoking classical allegories, Wang Anshi persuaded Shenzong that a factionless court was both a cause and an effect of possessing the Mandate of Heaven. Wang directly quoted the Shang royal annals from the Book of Documents, in which the meritorious King Wu Ding of Shang admonished the minister Fu Yue and his comrades to serve the throne with a “common heart (tongxin)” and without partisanship.7 Centuries later, the Zhou founders seized the Mandate from the declining Shang dynasty, which had become riven by factionalism:

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That which strengthens men is that they employ a common heart. Zhou [the final Shang king] possessed [the hearts of] a myriad barbarians and men, but they were of divided hearts and divided virtue. This is the reason why King Wu [of Zhou] triumphed over them. King Wu had three thousand orderly ministers (luanchen), and they were of one heart. When they were able to triumph over [King] Zhou, all three thousand men were of one heart and did not form a faction.8

When he explained the forces that had governed the rise and fall of these ancient dynastic polities, Wang imposed a rigorous definition of a faction as an affiliation of petty men: “those who are of a common heart and do not do what is righteous.” In response, Wen Yanbo expressed his doubt that ministers could ever completely share a common ideology. A true believer in unifying ethical and political values, Wang Anshi delivered the coup de grace to Wen’s caveat: “All Under Heaven, how could righteousness and principle be two?” Since moral values were universal and unifying, superior men could never disagree. And since Wang Anshi’s ministry shared a “common heart,” they were incapable of factionalism when they pushed their shared political and ideological vision to unify the empire against its external foes. At debate’s end, it was no surprise that Shenzong ultimately agreed with Wang’s conceptions and definitions of faction, because both the monarch and his chosen minister not only shared a court-centered discourse of authority, in which factions of superior men could not be acknowledged to exist, but also a common political ideology and policy program. Wang continued to dominate the Council of State for another three years, and his monarchical patron retained his faith in the New Policies, while the Song court built up its offensive capabilities and preserved its indemnified peace with the Khitans and Tanguts for the time being.9 Why did Wang Anshi succeed in 1072 where Fan Zhongyan failed in 1044, and how did Wang Anshi and his bureaucratic allies publicly articulate the concepts of factions and factionalism? How did his reform coalition, in power from 1069 until 1085, use factional rhetoric to silence and expel their adversaries? And why did the label of faction rarely, if ever, stick to Wang Anshi, his followers, and his successors? Answering these questions requires us to go beyond the “Discourses on Factions” discussed in Chapter 3 to explore a wider corpus of political writings, including memorials, edicts, and the transcripts of court audiences. Since no reformist “Discourse on Factions” remains extant in Northern Song collected works, this documentary lacuna raises the question of how Wang and the reformists defined factionalism, and whether their factional rhetoric diverged from that of their opposition.



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In this chapter I will undertake a broad diachronic survey of the key words in the language of the reform coalition and the antireform opposition, by analyzing two broad samples of political rhetoric. First, during the debates over the implementation of the New Policies in 1069–1071, reformist and antireformist rhetoricians shared a common court-centered discourse of authority, governed by similar linguistic rules and intellectual assumptions, when they accused their enemies of being factions of petty men, while maintaining their own innocence. But Shenzong’s vertical alliance with Wang threw the advantage to the reformists, whose factional polemics convinced the emperor to order the expulsion of antireform officials as a malign faction. Wang Anshi and Emperor Shenzong shared an ideological vision of politics, in which superior men loyally served their monarch by implementing the New Policies and justifiably silenced their opposition as disloyal petty men. Second, when Wang resigned from the councilorship in 1074, infighting fractured the reformist coalition, and fractional leaders used the same polarized rhetoric against each other as they sought Shenzong’s support. In both cases, reformist and antireformist rhetoricians identified themselves as superior men without faction, while they attempted to persuade Shenzong to purge their adversaries as factions of petty men.

The Vertical Alliance of Shenzong and Wang Anshi, 1069–1071 The Rise of Wang Anshi The implementation of Wang Anshi’s New Policies marked the outbreak of the late Northern Song factional conflict.10 For the next three decades, the highest echelons of the imperial bureaucracy were divided between the ideological advocates and adversaries of institutional reform, who coalesced into loosely bounded and mutually intolerant coalitions. When Wang Anshi ascended to the Council of State in 2.1069, he persuaded Emperor Shenzong to enact a comprehensive reform program to solve the dynasty’s fiscal, military, and administrative quandaries all at once. Among other things the New Policies were intended to enhance court revenue through penetration into local economies, to solidify imperial defenses by enrolling commoners into mutual security units, and to enhance bureaucratic performance through an expanded state educational system.11 Wang and his supporters united behind an ideological program that obliterated barriers between public and private sectors and collapsed distinctions between state and society.12 By implementing the New Policies and promoting a uniform, coherent political ideology, Wang and his reform coalition antagonized powerful and long-serving ministers, which they labeled as a faction of petty men to be circumvented and silenced. Furthermore, I corroborate Peter Bol’s judgment

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that the exclusivist ideology behind the New Policies “made no allowances for any legitimate opposition or disagreement.”13 As befits such a highly controversial and pivotal figure, Wang Anshi has long been the subject of admiring as well as disapproving studies by Chinese and Western scholars.14 A promising scholar from an upwardly mobile Jiangxi lineage, Wang Anshi earned his civil service examination degree in 1042.15 For almost two decades he served in a series of regional administrative posts in the southeast, until his “Myriad Word Memorial” (Wanyan shu) brought him to the court’s attention in 1058.16 In this ambitious manifesto Wang entreated Emperor Renzong to revive his commitment to comprehensive institutional reforms, which had flagged ever since he abolished the Qingli Reforms in 1044. He offered a sweeping diagnosis of the Song empire’s chronic underperformance and claimed that its military weakness, fiscal insufficiency, bureaucratic torpor, and moral decay stemmed from a single root cause: “the laws of the present are not in accord with the governance of the ancient kings.”17 Searching for institutional precedents for his New Policies, Wang extolled the Zhou kings for having built a comprehensive system for selecting and molding human capital into capable officials who brought ethical order to the dynastic polity. Before the perfect political order of the ancients could be revived, the dynasty had to dedicate itself to educating and recruiting administrators who could pragmatically apply the original intent of the ancient Way to resolve contemporary political crises. Bol has described Wang Anshi’s governmental ideal as a “self-contained and selfperpetuating system,” in which “talented individuals are circulated back into the system that molds them.”18 Drawn through this feedback loop of recruiting and governing institutions, the empire’s officials would share a common ethical and political vision, a reforming ideology animated by the spirit, but not the letter, of the classical canon as Wang interpreted it. Although the “Myriad Word Memorial” failed to move Renzong, it won Wang the patronage of several high officials, who recommended him to a series of posts in the metropolitan bureaucracy in the early 1060s. But Wang’s upward career momentum flagged during the short-lived Yingzong reign, most of which he spent on mourning leave, until his return to bureaucratic service roughly coincided with the accession of Zhao Xu (1048–1085), known to history as Emperor Shenzong, in 1.1067.19 An ambitious, idealistic, and impressionable eighteen-year-old who was intent upon rebuilding dynastic institutions in a time of crisis, Shenzong began his reign by fielding advice on policy and personnel recommendations from his predecessor’s ministerial inner circle, especially his senior Grand Councilor Fu Bi, a veteran of the Qingli Reforms, who occupied the highest place in Shenzong’s esteem. Two other trusted elder statesmen, the long-serving Grand Councilor Zeng Gongliang (999–1078) and the emperor’s



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tutor Han Wei (1017–1098) both praised Wang’s scholarly merit and ministerial potential.20 Still seeking to include a diverse array of political opinion at his court, Shenzong appointed both Wang Anshi and Sima Guang to scholarly posts in the Hanlin Academy (Hanlin yuan) in 9.1067, intending to test the mettle of these ideological opponents and political rivals before fast-tracking one of them, or possibly both, to the councilorship.21 While Sima promoted a conservative vision of preserving bureaucratic institutions that derived from his intensive study of history, Wang Anshi began laying the conceptual groundwork for institutional reform, which he believed would revive the utopian political order depicted within the classical text the Rites of Zhou (Zhouli).22 In his first audience with Shenzong, held in 4.1068, Wang began by affirming that the emperor’s first order of business should be to reform the means of official recruitment.23 Declaring grand ambitions, he strongly advocated that Shenzong abandon his comparatively modest aim of emulating the near-perfect governance and institutions of Emperor Tang Taizong (r. 626–649), a goal Wang believed had been advanced by mediocre and conservative historicists, whom Wang insisted were incapable of understanding the Way of the classical sage-kings. Wang avowed that Shenzong could achieve something far more ambitious than his predecessor Renzong had: he could revive the ideal Way of the ancient sage-kings Yao and Shun by “ordering the world and establishing institutions” (jingshi lifa).24 Elaborating these exhortations into a memorial, Wang conceded that “the past hundred years have passed without incident,” thanks to good fortune and the virtuous rule of Shenzong’s forebears.25 But behind this façade of normalcy, the empire’s military might, fiscal health, and civic mores had long been in decline. After abolishing the Qingli Reforms, Renzong and his ministers had allowed systemic crises to fester, and Yingzong had never had the time to fully address them. Nevertheless, Wang insisted that a latter-day sage-king, a ruler who shared Wang’s ideological vision, could not just prevent the impending calamity but could inaugurate a new golden age if he consulted “learned gentlemen,” a bloc of ideologically unified ministers who could enable him in reviving the laws of the ancient kings.26 In his own communications with Shenzong, Sima Guang warned the monarch to resist Wang Anshi’s demands to restructure dynastic institutions; he stressed the binary distinctions between the righteous and the wicked, recycling the language of the Analects: “that towards which superior men incline is righteousness; that which petty men follow is gain.”27 In a later court debate with Wang, Sima warned Shenzong against “men who are good at managing wealth” and insisted that the profit-seeking of bureaucratic entrepreneurs would impoverish the common people rather than benefit the state.28 Wang argued to the contrary, that proper management of human and material capital would demonstrably

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enhance the overall prosperity of the empire, expanding effective governance and building a stronger military. Impressed by Wang Anshi’s comprehensive ideological and institutional visions, Shenzong appointed him to the Council of State in 2.1069, disregarding Sima Guang’s pleas for caution.29 Xiao-bin Ji has demonstrated that Shenzong attempted to accommodate a representative cross-section of elite opinion at his court early in his reign, following the precedents of Renzong and Yingzong, but “Wang’s special relationship with Shenzong” ultimately prevented the opposition, even those who outranked Wang himself, from obstructing the implementation of the New Policies.30 In his first audience as vice state councilor (canzhi zhengshi), Wang acknowledged that his policy program would certainly encounter serious and concerted opposition from conservative elements at court, who were petty-man obstructionists who did not share his ideological vision. As he warned Shenzong: “civic mores (fengsu) and regulatory institutions (fadu) are decaying and ruined, but good men and superior men are scarce at court,” while petty men and mediocrities had sabotaged the machinery of governance.31 It must be emphasized that the opposition to Wang was not as politically or ideologically unified as he claimed; Frederick Mote has affirmed that “many groupings, that is, ‘factions,’ of conservatives came forth from a spectrum of viewpoints to oppose Wang’s New Policies.”32 Wang faced opposition from his senior colleagues on the Council, Fu Bi and Zeng Gongliang, who forcefully resisted his efforts. But in promoting his reform program, Wang Anshi enjoyed the solid monarchical support that Fan Zhongyan had lacked during the Qingli Reforms. No previous Song monarch had identified himself so closely with a domestic policy program as Shenzong did with the New Policies, and Wang’s rhetoric assumed that Shenzong shared his own political goals and ethical ideals.33 Echoing the faction theorists discussed in Chapter 3, Wang Anshi insisted that a monarch’s chief duty was to exercise his powers of judgment to distinguish superior from petty men. To achieve his utopian ambitions of a perfectly ordered state and society, Wang Anshi urged Emperor Shenzong to make pressing personnel decisions, using the terminology of the Book of Changes: “At present, the transformation of civic mores and the establishment of regulatory institutions are urgent matters. All intentions of perfecting civic mores consist of enhancing superior men and dispelling petty men.”34 What Wang left unsaid was that the only ministers suited to achieve these ethical objectives were himself and his loyal comrades. Working within the same conceptual scheme as the faction theorist and antireform literatus Qin Guan, Wang Anshi used the Book of Changes to make sense of political changes in the present. In Wang’s exegesis, the opposing hexagrams Tai and Pi resonated with the shifting balance between the forces of good and evil at court and between the forces of order and chaos in the empire:



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When the hexagram Tai penetrates, then order results; when the hexagram Pi is restrained, then disorder results. That which obstructs and creates disorder is the enhancement of the Way of petty men; that which penetrates and creates order is the dispelling of the Way of petty men.35

By purging petty men from court and enlisting only superior men to serve him, Shenzong could inaugurate an era of ordered governance; if he did not, the malign influence of petty men would soon pervade the court, spreading social decadence and hastening dynastic crisis. Wang continued to define the ideological conformity he sought to promote as ethical uniformity, a shared vision that he affirmed would unite his latter-day sage-ruler and his loyal superior-man servants, suffusing the court and empire with legitimate authority. When Wang Anshi created the Finance Planning Commission (Zhizhi sansi tiaolisi) to implement his New Policies in 2.1069, he provoked outrage from the officials whom he had earlier maligned as a faction of mediocrities and obstructionists.36 Fu Bi, Shenzong’s dominant grand councilor, warned the monarch of the dangers of factionalism when petty-man cliques occupied the court. While Fu invoked the same classical authorities as Wang, each was appealing to Shenzong to purge the other. Analyzing the same hexagrams as Wang Anshi and Qin Guan had, Fu Bi articulated a similarly fatalistic vision: when superior and petty men served together at court, disharmony and disaster were the only possible outcomes for the dynastic polity. At present, Fu warned, the influence of the hexagram Pi was on the rise, so that the Way of petty men was in the ascendant and the Way of superior men was diminishing. His polarizing rhetoric virtually indistinguishable from that of Wang Anshi, Fu Bi asserted that the two sides could never peacefully coexist, and petty men would always emerge victorious “because superior men are always solitary, and petty men are always numerous; petty men invariably triumph, while superior men do not.”37 If superior men were purged from court, they would simply exit the political stage, but petty men would always claw their way back into power, benefiting from strength in numbers, “stealthily joining together and forming affiliations and cliques (pengbi).”38 These inherently factious petty men would use deceit to become the ruler’s puppeteers, usurping legitimate monarchical authority.39 Fu had no need to identify these criminal elements by name, for if Shenzong did not recognize Wang Anshi for what he was, then the dynasty would collapse on his watch. But Wang had the advantage of Shenzong’s patronage. This exchange of memorials was the first time, but by no means the last, that the factional rhetoric of the reformists and their opponents was virtually indistinguishable in both form and content, as the subsequent history of the reform and antireform eras will demonstrate.

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Neutralizing the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau Despite mounting but uncoordinated opposition, Wang Anshi persuaded Shenzong to commit himself to implementing the New Policies and establishing the regulatory institutions necessary to enact them. Early in the Shenzong reign, the Finance Planning Commission served as a parallel chancellery with unchallenged authority over fiscal policy-making and institutions. By creating this extra-bureaucratic conduit, Wang was able to circumvent Shenzong’s longserving state councilors Fu Bi, Wen Yanbo, and Zeng Gongliang, all of whom unconditionally opposed Wang’s state activist program.40 But the most vociferous opposition to the New Policies erupted from the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau, which still served as institutional checks on councilors’ authority, exercising powers of surveillance and investigation. In 5.1069, Vice Censor-in-Chief (yushi zhongcheng) Lü Hui (1014–1071) submitted a memorial to impeach Wang Anshi on ten counts, accusing him of nepotism, malfeasance, slander, and deception. He began by warning Shenzong that “great treachery can resemble loyalty, and great deceitfulness can resemble sincerity,” and that while Wang outwardly appeared to be “simple and rustic, his interior conceals craftiness and deceit.”41 Charge number six against Wang was “flaunting his authority and fortune” to dispense favors and promotions to a growing network of protégés, who “betrayed the public good and formed a faction to the death (sidang).”42 Lü’s ninth charge against Wang was “factious treachery”: Wang’s basic nature was so duplicitous and perverse that “wickedness and righteousness will never again be distinguished.”43 When Wang responded to this barrage of criticism by threatening to resign from the Council of State, as he would several times thereafter, Shenzong sided with his councilor and issued an edict demoting Lü Hui to prefectural administration the next month.44 In 8.1069, three more censors were cashiered and demoted to regional administration for their joint impeachment of Wang Anshi for altering dynastic policies and institutions.45 Fan Chunren (1027–1101), the director of the Remonstrance Bureau (zhi Jianyuan) and the son of Fan Zhongyan, protested Wang’s impending takeover of the Censorate in two memorials to Shenzong. Perhaps Fan’s most extreme maneuver was to label Wang Anshi a closet Legalist, who “had forsaken Mengzi by speaking of gain and wealth”: Fan compared Wang to Shang Yang (d. 338 BCE), the architect of the predynastic Qin kingdom’s autocratic and intrusive regulatory institutions.46 Fan accused Wang of inverting moral absolutes in his campaign to silence his opposition, deceive the monarch, and monopolize ministerial authority: “He has scorned elder statesmen (laocheng) as routine-minded conservatives (yinxun), and has abandoned publicminded discourse as the talk of conventionalists (liusu). Those who disagree with



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him he accuses of being unworthy; those who agree with him he calls worthy and capable.”47 These ad hominem attacks did not deter Wang’s campaign to silence critical remonstrance, which was undertaken with Shenzong’s support and simply resulted in Fan’s dismissal from the Remonstrance Bureau. But Fan’s arguments were indicative of the opposition to Wang’s political vision, a vision that could not accommodate the ideological dissent that it provoked among officialdom. With his critics thrown onto the defensive, Wang Anshi began implementing his New Policies across the empire. Supervised by Wang’s lieutenant and protégé Lü Huiqing (1032–1111), the Finance Planning Commission supervised the implementation of the Green Sprouts policy (Qingmiao fa) throughout the empire in 9.1069.48 Providing state-financed low-interest loans to farmers was a controversial act of state penetration into the rural economy and local society. Wang intended the program as a social welfare measure that would undercut the loan-sharking activities of wealthy “engrossers” (jianbing) who exploited the rural poor.49 But critics like Lü Gongzhu (1018–1089), the vice censor-in-chief, attempted to abolish the Finance Planning Commission, asserting that profitseeking bureaucrats who were not held accountable would turn the rural credit policy into state-sponsored usury that would harass the farmers the program was intended to help. He warned against intrusive state activism: “Once men’s hearts are agitated, it will never be easy to regain them; even though there might later be benevolent governance, it will be difficult to implement.”50 Green Sprouts provoked widespread resistance from conservative elements within the metropolitan bureaucracy, as well as from local officials who were charged with executing the policy. From the Censorate, which Wang Anshi had only partially muzzled, antireform remonstrators urged the policy’s abolition and the dismissal of Wang’s reformist ministry. Early in 1070, Probationary Investigating Censor (jiancha yushi lixing) Zhang Jian (1030–1076) accused Wang and his loyal subordinates of forming a “faction to the death” that had packed the Finance Planning Commission and the Censorate to monopolize ministerial authority, and singled out Lü Huiqing for his treachery.51 Returning fire, Wang had Zhang dismissed for his allegedly slanderous and deceptive remonstrance and accused remonstrators who had obstructed the Green Sprouts policy of being the actual faction. In a memorial of 4.1070, he invoked the story of the Four Fiends to describe contemporary political developments: “Yao . . . banished Gong Gong and dispelled Huan Dou. Gong Gong ceased his obsequiousness and factiousness (a dang), and Huan Dou ceased ‘his smooth speech and perverse actions; his appearance is respectful, but he swells up to Heaven (jingyan yongwei, xiang gong tao tian).’”52 By anachronistically reading “The Canon of Yao” (Yao dian), another

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exhortation from the Book of Documents, as an authoritative admonition against faction, Wang was challenging the emperor to attain the classical ideal of rulership by identifying petty-man villains and expelling them. He proceeded to malign Lü Gongzhu, the chief instigator of Censorial remonstrance against the Green Sprouts policy, as a latter-day Huan Dou. But removing Lü from the Censorate would still leave behind his “monopolizing faction” (zhuan dang) of petty-man accomplices, including Chen Xiang (1017–1080) and Cheng Hao (1032–1085).53 Chen had recently admonished Shenzong to dismiss Wang and his fellow conspirators on the Finance Planning Commission for “scheming to promote gain” and plotting to delude the throne.54 Proclaiming his innocence, Chen Xiang asserted that although he and his fellow opponents of the New Policies had embodied “the utmost in loyalty, they could not avoid being accused of forming a faction.”55 Wang Anshi insisted that this censorial cabal represented only the most vocal minority of petty men who obstructed the New Policies: At present, in the empire, affairs that are not in accord with principle are extremely numerous, and ministers who practice treachery and deceit are also extremely numerous. How has any utterance of [Chen] Xiang and [Cheng] Hao not been like this? Since they concentrated on helping out Lü Gongzhu by remonstrating [against] the Green Sprouts policy, they are followers of Huan Dou.56

Wang asserted that by uniting in opposition to the rural credit policy, these disloyal remonstrators had sought to undermine the public good of the empire, like the Four Fiends of far antiquity. Assenting to Wang’s factional polemics, Shenzong dismissed Lü Gongzhu, Chen Xiang, and Cheng Hao from the Censorate the same month.57 However, Feng Jing (1021–1094), who replaced Lü Gongzhu as vice censor-in-chief, was also a vocal opponent of the New Policies, so in 7.1070, Shenzong transferred Feng from the Censorate to the post of vice Military Affairs commissioner (Shumi fushi), a move that Wang Anshi tried but failed to overturn. Through the early 1070s, Feng continued to obstruct Wang’s designs from within the Council of State, although without much success. In addition to Wen Yanbo, the director of the Bureau of Military Affairs, Shenzong continued to include a smattering of antireformists amongst his state councilors, but he generally deprived them of authority over state policy and refrained from rehabilitating their leaders.58 Subsequently, Wang Anshi moved to curtail the independence of remonstrators by making the Censorate and the Remonstrance Bureau subordinate to the Council of State, thereby neutering the surveillance and investigation



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functions they had exercised during the Renzong and Yingzong reigns.59 Hu Zongyu (1029–1094), the director of the Remonstrance Bureau (zhi Jianyuan), had opposed the transfer of control over personnel administration to the Secretariat, which led even the emperor to concede that Hu was an obstructionist in an imperial audience of 6.1070.60 Addressing Shenzong, Wang Anshi launched into outright character assassination of Hu: Since he has led remonstrance officials, his intentions have never supported the court’s Way of governance. Within each of the arguments he has presented on affairs, he has certainly hidden his treacherous intentions; within his acts and feelings, there lies wicked discourse. Acting selfishly under the pretext of the public good (yi si tuo gong), he has concentrated upon destroying righteousness and principle, and upon harming the benevolent and the good.61

Refraining from directly accusing Hu Zongyu of factional collusion, Wang described him as a petty man operating independently, which was sufficient grounds for Shenzong to demote him to regional administration.62 Henceforth, Wang Anshi succeeded in persuading Shenzong to fill vacant remonstrance posts with loyal reformists. In 7.1070, remonstrators criticized the appointment of Wang’s protégé Li Ding (1028–1087) to the Remonstrance Bureau, arguing that Li had been remiss in his mourning obligations.63 When Wang Anshi rose to his defense, he claimed that Li Ding was a superior man caught up in a factional frame-up. In Wang’s partisan interpretation, “no remonstrator is more worthy than Li Ding,” who had dared to oppose the malefactors who still dominated the court and “was unwilling to flatter their faction.”64 If he mistakenly heeded Li’s critics, Shenzong would reinvigorate the petty men at court and demoralize the “gentlemen of righteous discourse” who devotedly served him.65 In the end Shenzong overruled the objections of Li Ding’s critics, allowing Li to strengthen the reformist presence in the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau. By the end of 1070, the political balance within both institutions had been tipped decisively in the direction of the reformists, who effectively monopolized authority over the surveillance and impeachment of officialdom. During his first four years as grand councilor, Wang persuaded Shenzong to order the dismissals of at least seventeen censors and remonstrance officials who opposed the New Policies, supplanting them with loyal placemen and protégés.66 Wang effectively blocked the “roads of remonstrance” (yanlu) with Shenzong’s full involvement, turning these surveillance and investigation organs into appendages of the grand councilorship and willing accomplices of the reform agenda.

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Monopolizing the Council of State As Shenzong’s junior state councilor, Wang Anshi was steamrolling down parallel institutional tracks, emptying out the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau while he pushed his higher-ranking rivals out of the Council of State. In his memorials and imperial audiences, Wang Anshi continued to promote an ideologically polarized vision, portraying himself as a righteous and noble minister who was threatened by an obstructionist faction. Wang persuaded Shenzong that Fu Bi was unworthy of his reputation, for he had obstructed the reform program by allying himself with the “conventionalists,” and the emperor approved the long-serving councilor’s retirement in 10.1069 at the age of 65.67 Scoring another victory in 7.1070, Wang blocked Shenzong from promoting Sima Guang as his co-councilor, arguing that his “dissenting opinions” (yilun) would overturn the Green Sprouts measures and unsettle civic mores before the New Policies had even been given a chance to succeed.68 From the Hanlin Academy, Sima Guang had opposed the rural credit measure on principle and critiqued its hasty and expedient implementation. As the emperor’s chief scholarly advisor, Sima lectured Shenzong on the dangers of forcing political and ideological conformity from above. In 4.1070, Sima impugned Wang Anshi’s character and impeached his lieutenant Lü Huiqing for engaging in sinister political practices, using polarizing rhetoric similar to the polemical language Wang had used against his opposition: Wang Anshi is sincere and a worthy, but his character is inexperienced and obstinate, and this is his weakness. In addition, it is not appropriate to trustingly employ Lü Huiqing, for he is treacherous and wicked. The plans are mastered by Wang Anshi, and Anshi employs [Huiqing] to vigorously implement them. Therefore, all the empire accuses Anshi of treachery and wickedness.69

Sima Guang pulled his punches against Wang Anshi, reserving the full force of his broadside for Lü Huiqing, whom he deemed a partisan hack who embodied the worst impulses of the reformists: selfishness and gain-seeking. Sima judged that Wang and his supporters had committed an act of extreme partisanship that deviated from the true Way of governance by establishing the Finance Planning Commission to circumvent opposition and by packing remonstrance posts with their ideological allies. As Sima addressed Shenzong in an imperial audience, the emperor could not afford to indulge these petty men: “All the empire comprehends that these matters are wrong, but only Anshi’s faction considers them to be right.”70 In a historical lecture to Shenzong, drawn from his work-in-progress on the Comprehensive Mirror, Sima invoked the authority of the Analects to argue



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that Wang Anshi’s expedient rhetoric and situational ethics had already deluded the monarch himself: Kongzi related: “I hate that the clever of tongue have undermined both polities and noble families (e likou zhi fu bangjia zhe).” How can the clever of tongue overthrow polities and noble families? Men can consider right to be wrong, and wrong to be right; they can consider worthies to be unworthy, and the unworthy to be worthy. If the ruler of men considers right to be wrong, and wrong to be right, or considers the worthy to be unworthy, and the unworthy to be worthy, then undermining both polities and noble families will truly not be difficult [to accomplish].71

By allowing the reformist leaders to muddle political language and ethical values, Sima insisted, Shenzong was hastening the dynastic polity’s dissolution before the end of its natural lifespan. But Sima was not alone in pressuring the emperor to differentiate superior from petty men, thereby forestalling calamity. In an audience of 7.1070, Wang Anshi admonished Shenzong to accelerate his purge of the antireform opposition, arguing that the dynastic polity was a fragile and complex system that could not survive without constant monarchical vigilance. Shenzong’s inaction only emboldened malign factionalists: “If superior men and petty men are ultimately thrown together, then the superior men will simply be destroyed.”72 To defend the polity’s foundations, Shenzong would first have to learn the difference between the two. Like several faction theorists discussed in Chapter 3, Wang used the historical analogy of the Han-dynasty Great Proscription to warn Shenzong that factions of petty men would distract and confuse him with their dissenting opinions, making it impossible for him to “unify ethical values to transform civic mores” (yi daode yi bian fengsu).73 All the while Wang continued to outmaneuver his fellow state councilors who sought to promote dissenting voices. In a court debate of 7.1070, Zeng Gongliang appealed to Shenzong to appoint Sima Guang as his vice grand councilor. Zeng argued that preceding Song monarchs had been able to counterbalance ministers with opposing views and praised Emperor Zhenzong for having employed councilors with “dissenting opinions to agitate each other” (yilun xiangjiao) during the debates on border policy.74 Xiao-bin Ji has hypothesized that Northern Song monarchs before Shenzong had generally accommodated the expression of a wider range of diverse opinions and elite interests within the bureaucratic arena and permitted ideological and policy conflicts among their ministers, without excluding ministers on the losing side in a debate and without allowing the winners to monopolize authority.75 But Wang Anshi contradicted Zeng’s appeal to precedent by maintaining that disputatious ministers could not

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even unify the imperial court, let alone the realm. Moreover, only ministers who shared a common vision deserved to loyally serve their monarch for the public good of the empire, and those with opposing opinions should be purged: If everyone at court agitated each another with their dissenting opinions, how could the Way of ordered governance be realized? Your servant foolishly considers that if the ministers who are employed at court are not of common hearts and common virtue, and they do not collaborate towards unanimity, then in the affairs of the empire, there is nothing that can be accomplished.76

Here Wang’s language is reminiscent of Ouyang Xiu’s “Discourse on Factions,” which had argued that only loyal ministers with a “common heart” could loyally serve the monarch, but Wang refused to publicly acknowledge that they constituted a faction. Wang unequivocally articulated his intolerance for political dissent, presenting Shenzong with a stark choice between uplifting civic mores and condoning ideological discord.77 Incapable of achieving unity, petty men were inherently discordant and destructive, distracting Shenzong from unifying and uplifting social values. Wang Anshi insisted to the emperor that he could no longer indulge opposition leaders, who continued to “promote factions, concealing and obstructing the ruler of men, purging and restraining talented gentlemen.”78 Mediocrities and worse, these so-called “conventionalists” were impeding the further implementation of the New Policies and obstructing the ethical revitalization of the empire.79 In an audience of 8.1070, Wang urged Shenzong that his own ambivalence was inviting disaster, and that if he could not commit himself to the cause of reform, “the faction of the conventionalists will strengthen by the day, while Your Majesty’s authority will wither away by the day.” 80 Thinking in the same concentric circles as Sima Guang, Wang maintained that petty men at court deluded the monarch, divided the court, subverted the bureaucracy, and corrupted society. Wang gave Shenzong only one way out of this downward spiral: purging every single treacherous factionalist from court and replacing them with “loyal, good, wise, and capable gentlemen.”81 Unlike Sima Guang, who rigorously distinguished talent (cai) and virtue (de) as antithetical qualities, Wang Anshi’s definition of a superior man was a minister whose statecraft skills selflessly served the public good. Only superior men, who were not factious by definition, could stabilize and restore the political community in the narrowest and broadest sense. By imposing ideological and ethical uniformity upon his ministers, Shenzong would be responsible for tipping the political balance from chaos to order and from discord to unanimity.



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However repetitious, Wang Anshi’s admonitions ultimately convinced Emperor Shenzong to override the opposition and commit the imperial court to the New Policies.82 Wang completely dominated the Council of State, which enabled him to head off challengers at the highest levels of policy-making, all of whom had lost the emperor’s confidence. Zeng Gongliang finally resigned from court in 9.1070 on grounds of illness, fatalistically complaining that opposition was futile when “the emperor and Anshi are like one person; this is Heaven’s will.”83 Zeng’s departure cleared the way for Wang Anshi to ascend to the post of senior grand councilor in 12.1070. Having consolidated a vertical alliance with Shenzong, Wang accelerated the implementation of their joint policy program. In the last month of 1070, Wang and his allies succeeded in enacting the Mutual Security policy (Baojia fa), which organized rural households into mutual surveillance units and conscripted farmers into local militias.84 First rolled out on a limited and experimental basis in 12.1069 and gradually extended throughout the empire over the following year and a half, the Hired Service policy (Mianyi fa) elicited renewed resistance from the remnants of the opposition. The measure was designed to replace farming households’ labor service obligations with service exemption fees, which provided funds to hire replacement workers for public works projects.85 In the last gasp of concerted antireform remonstrance against the New Policies, Vice Censor-in-Chief Yang Hui (1027–1088) and Probationary Investigating Censor Liu Zhi (1030–1097) continued to accuse Wang’s coalition of being a faction of profit-seeking petty men.86 To cite an illustrative example, in a memorial in 6.1071, Liu distinguished “righteousness and gain” as the defining characteristics of superior and petty men and invoked Kongzi’s definition of a petty man from Analects 4.16 to defame the reformists as “those who understand gain” (yuyizhe).87 For good measure, Liu invoked both the classics and history to underscore his claims, using the hexagrams Tai and Pi to illustrate the cosmic battle between superior and petty men, and referred to the Great Proscription of the Eastern Han and Tang factional conflicts as possible outcomes of the parlous state of affairs at the Song court. In their policy memorials to Shenzong, Yang and Liu protested the Hired Service fees as yet another inequitable revenue-generating measure to shake down the peasantry. Yang Hui urged Shenzong to discern the superior men who opposed the Hired Service policy from the petty men who administered it: “righteous men serve the ruler with one heart,” whereas “wicked men certainly form factions in order to cover up for each other and deceive one another.”88 Yang portrayed his antireform colleagues as loyal superior men with a common vision, while denouncing the words and actions of Zeng Bu (1036–1107), the policy’s chief administrator, as “wicked, erroneous, deceitful, and slanderous.”89 Liu Zhi also drew sharp distinctions between the Hired Service measure’s gain-

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seeking supporters, who served the private interest, and its righteous detractors, who served the public good.90 In a subsequent audience with Shenzong, Wang Anshi persuaded the emperor to dismiss Yang and Liu and ignore their baseless accusations: “Employing a policy of righteousness simply consists of promoting and expelling [officials]. The enhancement and dispelling of petty men is not something Your servant dares to comprehend.”91 With Yang Hui and Liu Zhi forced out of office, Wang Anshi succeeded in reducing the Censorate to an empty shell, staffed by a skeleton crew of loyal reformists. By the middle of 1071, Wang had ensured political and ideological uniformity at court, and the locus of the antireform opposition was now located outside the metropolitan bureaucracy. Wang’s Three Halls policy (Sanshe fa) expanded the Imperial University (Taixue) and divided its student body into three grades in order to recruit and mold human talent for bureaucratic service.92 In practice, of course, like-minded reformist officials would be drawn through these institutional feedback loops and channeled into positions from which they would loyally implement the New Policies. The older generation of conservative statesmen who had served Renzong and Yingzong had reached the end of their bureaucratic careers through forced retirement and principled resignations, and the younger antireform generation was voluntarily withdrawing from government service. Wang Anshi had achieved his goal of creating an ideologically unified factional ministry free of dissent and of removing factious “conventionalists” from contention for ministerial authority; Shenzong’s bureaucracy was no longer representative of a broad cross-section of elite interests and statecraft ideologies. Retreating westward into self-imposed exile to the secondary capital of Luoyang while still in his fifties, Sima Guang dispatched a memorial to Shenzong in 2.1071, accusing Wang Anshi of purging antireform critics from remonstrance posts and “promoting and reinforcing his personal faction (qindang).”93 Perhaps courting a new patron within the imperial clan, Sima approvingly mentioned the opposition of Empress Dowager Xuanren, Yingzong’s widowed consort, to Wang Anshi. With nothing left to lose, Sima openly accused Shenzong of moral delusion: Now, Your Majesty alone [considers Wang] Anshi’s words to be right and sincere; those whom Anshi considers worthies are worthies, those whom Anshi considers fools are fools, what he considers right is right, what he considers wrong is wrong. Those who flatter and adhere to Anshi are called the loyal and the good, and those who attack and reprove Anshi are called slanderous and iniquitous.94



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But Shenzong maintained his trust in Wang, heeding his equally divisive rhetoric instead, and redoubled his support for the New Policies and the reformist bloc. Throughout the 1070s and early 1080s, Sima Guang and Lü Gongzhu formed the nucleus of a network of ideological and political opposition figures in Luoyang, where they waited to return to power for a decade and a half.95 Wang succeeded in persuading the emperor that the useful and the good were not mutually exclusive binaries, as antireformists like Sima Guang and Liu Zhi had repeatedly insisted: “Gain is to be in harmony with righteousness; righteousness surely is to do what is advantageous.”96 For Wang Anshi, the ethical aims and institutional goals of the New Policies were inseparable elements of a totalizing ethical and political vision. With the empire-wide implementation of the Hired Service policy in 10.1071, the core regulatory systems of the New Policies were complete. The central government bureaucracy intervened in the empire’s economy and society on an unprecedented scale, with Emperor Shenzong’s unconditional support.

Fractures within the Reform Coalition, 1074–1076 Wang Anshi’s unchallenged authority over state policy was severely compromised in 1074, when a prolonged drought and severe famine led Shenzong to have second thoughts about the New Policies agenda, and internal debates fractured the reformist leadership.97 Surrounded by hostile remonstrance and rebellious colleagues and protégés, Wang Anshi was forced to resign from the councilorship, which set off a power struggle within the reform coalition.98 Wang’s chief lieutenant, Lü Huiqing, replaced him as state councilor and launched a two-pronged offensive against both the scattered antireform opposition and his rivals for the reformist leadership. After less than a year, Lü’s adversaries within the reform camp antagonized Shenzong into rehabilitating Wang Anshi. Yet Wang’s somewhat less-than-triumphant return to court and reappointment as grand councilor in 1075 could not heal the divisions within the reform bloc, and his purge of Lü Huiqing further widened these partisan rifts. Wang again resigned from the councilorship in 1076, bringing the first phase of the reform era to an uncertain end, as he had lost the emperor’s trust for the last time. Since Wang had neutered the remonstrance organs, reports of widespread drought and famine had to reach the throne through side channels, and the news forced Shenzong to promulgate an edict seeking upright counsel in 3.1074. By doing so, Shenzong was publicly voicing grave doubts about his grand councilor

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and the outcome of his fiscal reforms and positing a linkage between court politics and cosmic imbalances: Defects within governance have interfered with the harmony of yin and yang. From the winter through the present, the drought has been exhausting. All within the four seas has suffered disasters that are widespread. . . . How have loyal arguments and outspoken words been held back from the ruler’s attentions, and how have flatterers and sycophants created obstructions?99

Indirectly accusing Wang Anshi and his reformist comrades of deceiving the throne, the emperor actively solicited criticism of the New Policies and their chief advocate. From exile in Luoyang, Sima Guang submitted a vitriolic critique of the New Policies, which he insisted had brought calamity upon the empire, even if this bad news had never reached the throne. Yet again Sima alleged that a clique of petty men had been colluding for years to delude the ruler and confuse his judgment: The officials of the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau are the eyes and ears of the Son of Heaven. This is the reason why they admonish the court for faults and shortcomings in governance, and censure high officials for their arbitrariness and willfulness. . . . How else could Your Majesty manage to hear or see the errors in governmental affairs, or the treachery and deceit of ministerial affiliations, or the pain and suffering of the common people below, or the grievances of distant quarters?100

The reformists had insulated Shenzong from the oppression and misery their fiscal reforms had visited upon the countryside because they had monopolized the bureaucracy and disrupted information flows from the provinces to the throne. Nothing less than the immediate abolition of the New Policies and the sacking of Wang Anshi, Sima argued, would suffice to restore ethical and political balance and economic prosperity to the empire. But Sima’s most recent reiteration of antireform rhetoric had less impact upon the throne than one single well-placed memorial by a low-level prefectural administrator. Zheng Xia (1041–1119), a former protégé of Wang Anshi, memorialized the throne in 4.1074 as an eyewitness to the damage the New Policies had done to the rural economy.101 Wang and his underlings had created a manmade disaster, which they had concealed from the emperor: At Your Majesty’s court, censors and remonstrance officials occupy their positions in silence and dare not remonstrate on affairs. . . . All of the hundreds



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who control affairs are covetous and cruel, holding gain close, causing all of those gentlemen who harbor the Way and embrace knowledge to refrain from remonstrating with them.102

But Shenzong could still restore the empire’s fortunes by dismissing these malefactors and employing the “loyal and the worthy of the empire.” In a 6.1074 memorial, Zheng made his case bluntly: “The Heavenly drought was caused by Wang Anshi; if Anshi is dismissed, the Heavens will certainly rain.” In another memorial, Zheng causally linked the malicious ministers at court with the malign forces sweeping the empire: Wang Anshi fashioned the New Policies that have harmed the common people. Lü Huiqing’s faction has been treacherous and wicked, obstructing Your enlightenment. Feng Jing alone disagreed and dared to correct Anshi. Your servant requests that Huiqing be banished, and Jing be employed as councilor.103

By accusing Lü and not Wang of factionalism, Zheng was implying that Wang’s poor judgment in selecting his followers had allowed Lü’s faction to run rampant at court. If Shenzong could entrust truly loyal ministers like the long-serving Feng Jing to serve the public good, Zheng Xia still held out the hope that the empire and its people could be saved from disaster. At least in rhetoric intended for imperial consumption, even the direst of calamities could always be averted by superior men. Zheng Xia’s reports exacerbated conflicts within the reform coalition, which had been divided over the State Trade policy (Shiyi fa). First implemented inside the capital in 3.1072, the policy involved state agents in purchasing and selling wholesale commodities and advancing loans to merchants.104 Zeng Bu had already initiated an investigation of Lü Jiawen (n.d.), the chief administrator of State Trade, for encouraging bureaucratic abuses and extracting revenue through extortionate loans to merchants.105 Fearing that a full disclosure of the extent of his protégé’s maladministration would jeopardize the New Policies’ survival, Wang Anshi ordered Lü Huiqing to quash Zeng’s investigation. But after Zheng Xia’s memorial brought this pattern of official corruption to the emperor’s attention, Lü Huiqing could not conceal it. An irate Shenzong temporarily suspended the New Policies and dismissed Wang Anshi from the Council of State, demoting him to prefectural administration in 4.1074.106 Lü Huiqing filled the vacuum created by his mentor’s departure and moved to protect the New Policies from further criticism. Appointed vice state councilor at Wang Anshi’s request, Lü lashed out at those who had contributed to his

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mentor’s downfall, arranging Zheng Xia’s transfer to Fujian in 6.1074.107 In the first days of 1075, Lü Huiqing used Zheng’s outspoken memorials as evidence of a factional plot within the Council of State, and convinced Shenzong to purge the token antireformist opposition from court, including the state councilor Feng Jing. In a dialogue with Shenzong, Attendant Censor (shiyushi) Zhang Hu (n.d.) insisted that Zheng Xia had formed a malign affiliation with Feng Jing, doing his evil bidding: “Xia’s words have been mastered by Jing. . . . How can it be permissible for them to harbor their duplicity and to stealthily join with petty men?”108 Persuaded by these extreme charges, the emperor acquiesced to Zheng’s administrative banishment and Feng Jing’s demotion to prefectural administration. Lü Huiqing subsequently silenced Wang Anshi’s younger brother Wang Anguo (1028–1074), another prominent opponent of the reforms, accusing him of instigating Zheng Xia to write his antireform memorials. Just as Wang Anshi had done at the start of his councilorship, Lü dismissed his adversaries from court on trumped-up charges of factionalism. Next, Lü Huiqing shored up his position by moving against his reformist rivals, dismissing Zeng Bu from court for his opposition to the State Trade policy in 8.1074.109 Exploiting his authority as vice state councilor, Lü promoted his own personal clique, which included his younger brother Lü Shengqing (jinshi 1070) and the ambitious Zhang Dun (1035–1105), to positions of authority managing the New Policies.110 But when Lü Huiqing began enacting a series of exemptions to the Hired Service measure, he let loose a deluge of policy criticism at court. Persuaded by his senior state councilor Han Jiang (1012–1088), Shenzong replaced the embattled Lü Huiqing with Wang Anshi, who returned to the Council of State in 2.1075 and exacted his revenge upon his betrayer’s clique, with the emperor’s full complicity.111 In an audience with Wang Anshi in 8.1075, Shenzong admitted that “petty men had gradually established themselves” in his absence from court; “numerous and disorderly, they all depended upon Lü Huiqing’s leadership” to damage the New Policies.112 Of course, Wang never explained why he had ever trusted Lü with the councilorship in the first place. A few months later, Shenzong remorsefully denounced Lü Huiqing as “jealous of the capable, fond of winning, and not public-minded.”113 Loyal to Wang Anshi, the Censor Cai Chengxi (1035–1084) repeatedly accused Lü and his brothers of placing their own private gain ahead of the public good.114 In a memorial of 10.1075, Cai Chengxi portrayed Lü Huiqing as a treacherous minister who had made a mockery of the councilorship. Dramatizing his own ministerial incorruptibility while assassinating Lü’s character, Cai portrayed himself as an honest voice of painful counsel and urged Shenzong to take responsibility for his own poor personnel choices:



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Your servant has repeatedly memorialized that Vice State Councilor Lü Huiqing is treacherous, wicked, and unlawful. Your servant’s duties consist of discriminating the righteous and the wicked, and investigating the worthy and the unworthy. When treacherous ministers are at court, how can Your servant spend his days and nights at ease, and not remonstrate for the sake of the empire?115

Cai Chengxi proceeded to indict Lü for a lengthy list of offenses, including malfeasance, deceit, favoritism, and factionalism: In Huiqing’s conduct, there lurks an evil that is so heinous as to assail Heaven and a heart that is not restrained by fear. Whenever he opens his mouth, he deceives the ruler; whenever he wields his brush, he toys with policies. Adhering to what is in his heart, he has established a faction and formed a clique; with every step he takes, he recklessly engages in treachery and fabricates falsehoods.116

Invoking the same passage from the Book of Documents as Wang Anshi had in 1070, Cai Chengxi cited “The Canon of Yao” to extol the ancient sage-kings for banishing the Four Fiends, who had plagued the court with their “respectful appearance and smooth speech,” and “their perverse actions swelling up to Heaven.”117 Persuaded by Cai, the emperor granted Lü Huiqing’s resignation from the Council of State and approved his transfer to prefectural administration in 10.1075.118 Lü spent the rest of his bureaucratic career posted to the peripheries of the empire, having become persona non grata to the leaders of both coalitions.119 Wang Anshi continued to purge disloyal members of the reform bloc by pressuring loyal censors to investigate those who had taken Lü Huiqing’s side. In a memorial of 10.1075, Vice Censor-in-Chief Deng Wan (1028–1086) impeached Zhang Dun for his involvement with Lü’s breakaway faction: “Your servant claims that when Huiqing controlled governance for over a year, the faction that he established was disunified. Of those with whom he united in evil and engaged in mutually assistance, none compares to Zhang Dun.”120 Unanimity had been Wang Anshi’s prime political and ideological value, but Lü Huiqing’s detractors alleged that he had been unable to unify his subordinates in selfless service to the polity, a sign of their unworthiness to serve Shenzong. Complying with Deng’s and Wang’s intentions, the emperor dismissed Zhang Dun from the Council and demoted him to prefectural administration for the time being. As we will see in Chapter 5, however, Zhang worked his way back into Shenzong’s Council of State, from which antireformist remonstra-

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tors would use similar character assassinations to purge him yet again ten years later. During his abbreviated second term as grand councilor, Wang Anshi’s authority was compromised and diminished, and he could no longer silence criticism either inside or outside court. With the New Policies running into difficulties, and drought still plaguing the countryside, Wang had lost Shenzong’s unconditional trust. In 10.1075, the emperor interpreted the sighting of a comet as a portent of disaster and promulgated another edict welcoming upright remonstrance, despite protest from Wang himself.121 When Wang Anshi attempted to persuade Shenzong to muzzle the opponents of his reform program, Shenzong refused, asserting that “the common people are indeed suffering considerably from the New Policies” and that dissenting voices demanded to be heard.122 With Shenzong asserting his independence and backing out of their vertical alliance, Wang could not divert information flows away from the throne, nor could he impose his will as state policy. Responding to the emperor’s call for criticism, several prominent remonstrators memorialized the throne to impugn the New Policies and the reform coalition. For example, the exiled Lü Gongzhu followed his comrades in beseeching Shenzong to abolish the New Policies and to purge his petty-man councilors, who had subverted the foundations of the state by packing remonstrance organs and obstructing forthright remonstrance: Your Majesty possesses a heart that desires ordered governance, but in reality, this has not been realized. Why? The ministers to whom affairs were delegated have turned against Your lofty ambitions. Why do I say this? The wickedness and righteousness, and the worthiness and unworthiness of gentlemen should be simply established. But at present, this is not the case. Those who were promoted in the past were considered to be the greatest worthies in the empire; those who will be expelled in the future will be considered to be the greatest malefactors of the empire.123

He castigated the emperor that his failure to distinguish the righteous from the wicked had contaminated the political community while undermining his own authority. While Shenzong was not unmoved by Lü Gongzhu’s indictment of the reform coalition and their policies, he continued to employ Wang Anshi as his councilor, but strictly circumscribed his authority and began subsuming executive functions himself. Internal dissension rather than external pressures finally impelled Shenzong to dismiss Wang from the councilorship for the second and last time. Lü Huiqing, who had been exiled to prefectural administration as the investigation of



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his offenses proceeded, struck back in 6.1076. He alleged that Deng Wan and his allies in the Censorate had coordinated their fabricated charges against him and labeled his accusers as the truly “treacherous and felonious ministers.”124 Refusing to accept their false judgments, Lü accused Wang of being the real villain: He has obstructed the worthy and engaged in factious treachery; he has stirred up rage and practiced cruelty; he has violated edicts and falsified directives; he has deceived and coerced the ruler. All of these many evil acts that were vigorously promoted in these years, none was not perfected and completed [by him]. Of those in antiquity who were perverse in conduct and behaved rebelliously, none have ever compared to him.125

In a desperate and calculated attempt to bring Wang down with him, Lü’s allegations that Wang had deceived the ruler and monopolized authority contributed to the grand councilor’s downfall. In a heated dialogue, Wang’s son Wang Pang (1044–1076) admitted that the Censorate had indeed fabricated charges against Lü Huiqing.126 Humiliated by this disclosure, Wang Pang soon “died of rage,” and Deng Wan was summarily dismissed from court, apparently on Wang Anshi’s orders. Grief-stricken and remorseful, Wang Anshi resigned from the councilorship in 10.1076. Retiring to Jiangning fu (modern-day Nanjing), he spent the rest of his life there, never returning to court until his death in 1086.127 The first phase of the reform era was over, but the New Policies themselves came under new management. Emperor Shenzong himself assumed control of the reform apparatus for almost a decade, and he continued the New Policies while generally containing the opposition outside court.128 Rising to power in 1079, a successor reformist ministry dominated by Cai Que (1037–1093) preserved the New Policies and systematically excluded its adversaries from power through prosecution and intimidation.129 While Shenzong partially rehabilitated Sima Guang and Lü Gongzhu, he never allowed these opposition leaders to occupy influential positions in the Council of State or the Censorate, even though antireformists still served in the Bureau of Military Affairs (Shumi yuan).130 Through the second half of his reign, Shenzong directly patronized the reformists who dominated the imperial court, and the locus of the antireform opposition was removed to Luoyang.131 The Cai Que ministry also persuaded Shenzong to pursue Wang Anshi’s irredentist designs against the border states that had diminished the Song court’s claim to legitimacy with humiliating indemnified settlements. Between 1081 and 1085, the emperor committed imperial forces to expand Song territory into the northwest, leading to a fruitless war with the Tangut Xi Xia, which ended in 1082 with the massive defeat at Yongle, which ruined Shenzong’s psychological

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and physical health.132 While he lived, Shenzong and his reform ministry suppressed, but never eliminated, the opposition to the New Policies and border expansion. Only a monarchical transition could tip the balance of power in the antireform opposition’s favor, and as I will demonstrate in Chapter 5, their years of political marginalization made them ideologically intolerant of the reformists and the New Policies when they finally returned to court.

Visions of Unanimity, Languages of Division The inception and implementation of the New Policies polarized the Song court ideologically and politically, dividing the upper echelons of the imperial bureaucracy into broad reform and antireform coalitions. In their battle for the commanding heights of governance, both sides used nearly indistinguishable factional rhetoric, grounded in the same court-centered discourse of authority, to appeal to Emperor Shenzong as the final arbiter of policy and personnel decisions. Once he ascended to the councilorship, Wang Anshi admonished Shenzong to entrust the government to an ideologically uniform bloc of reformist ministers and to cleanse the court of dissenting opinion. He did this by accusing the antireform opposition of being a faction of petty men intent on sabotaging the dynastic polity and corrupting social mores. Fighting a rearguard action against the New Policies, the antireform opposition at court launched similar charges at Wang and his comrades, accusing them of being malign factionalists who recklessly destroyed established institutions, silenced intra-ministerial debate, and debased moral standards. But Shenzong chose to personally identify himself with the New Policies and vertically ally himself with Wang Anshi, who overrode established checks and balances on ministerial authority and actively marginalized dissent, so that the imperial court no longer accommodated a wide range of elite political opinion. But while their political ideologies were diametrically opposed, Wang and his opponents shared certain basic assumptions: that the monarch was the ultimate locus of authority and that ministerial factions were disloyal and illegitimate. Wang Anshi precipitated a conflict between ministerial factions whose members could not publicly acknowledge their own existence. Both reformist and antireformist rhetoricians assured Shenzong that an ethically and ideologically unified bloc of superior men could not be factious, while admonishing him to expel the factious petty men who opposed them. When factional conflict broke out in 1069, Wang’s absolutist definition of factionalism was almost indistinguishable from that of his chief ideological adversary, Sima Guang. Both Wang and Sima rhetorically empowered Shenzong, pressuring him to identify their opposition



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as a treacherous faction and purge them from court, insisting that his enlightened judgment could save the dynastic polity from destruction. In his publicly circulating rhetoric, Wang unequivocally and categorically defined a faction as an affiliation of petty men, just as Sima had in his “Discourse on Factions.” He portrayed his coalition as an affiliation of superior men, a chorus of soloists, who operated independently to achieve common ethical and political goals that were inherently uniform. This polarizing rhetoric of faction was so pervasive that infighting reformists used it against each other after Wang’s first dismissal from the Council of State in 1074 raised Lü Huiqing to the councilorship. But even when Shenzong had lost faith in Wang Anshi’s abilities as his councilor, he retained his personal commitment to the New Policies. During Lü Huiqing’s short tenure in the councilorship, both antireformists and dissenting reformists were purged on charges of factionalism. Upon Wang Anshi’s return to court in 1075, remonstrators loyal to him turned on Lü Huiqing and his sympathizers, using character assassinations to cleanse their own ranks of dissent. The exiled opposition responded to Shenzong’s calls for open remonstrance with systematic critiques of the New Policies and moralistic diatribes against the faction of petty men whom they alleged had arbitrarily and corruptly implemented them. Yet while the factional rhetoric of both sides was highly polemical, predicated upon a set of polarities between superior and petty men, a certain modicum of civility prevailed in political practice during the Shenzong reign. Compared with later transitions in ministerial regimes, Wang Anshi’s reformist takeover was accomplished with minimal social, economic, and physical harm to his opponents. When he forcibly pushed his ideological program through the metropolitan bureaucracy, Wang either short-circuited his opposition through institutional restructuring or had loyal Censors and Remonstrance officials arrange his adversaries’ removal from court and their demotion to regional administration. The older generation of opponents to the New Policies, such as Yingzong’s former councilor Fu Bi, permanently retired from government service. Younger members of the opposition, Sima Guang and Lü Gongzhu among them, simply resigned from the metropolitan bureaucracy in principled indignation. The purged retained their official ranks and salaries, and many antireform dissenters received imperial temple sinecures after their dismissal from court. Wang’s efforts to ideologically unify the imperial bureaucracy behind the New Policies only succeeded in dividing it. After the outbreak of the conflict in 1069, subsequent factional ministerial regimes, both reformist and antireformists, struggled to impose ideological uniformity on the officialdom and to silence dissent. The monarchs and regents who succeeded Shenzong continued to enter

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the fray of factional politics, forming vertical alliances with their chosen councilors and identifying themselves as either supporters or opponents of the New Policies. While officials competed to prove their loyalty to the throne and relentlessly accused each other of factional perfidy, their polemics were addressed upward to the monarch, who remained the final arbiter of factionalism within an ideologically divided bureaucracy.

C hapter five

The Closed Circle Factional Rhetoric in the Antireform Era, 1085–1093

. . . for lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance.    —Francis Bacon, “Of Vain-Glory” “No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.” “Stuff and nonsense!” said Alice loudly. “The idea of having the sentence first!”    —Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

I

n the fifth month of 1089, former Grand Councilor Cai Que (1037–1093) confronted a predetermined verdict as the target of a poetic inquisition.1 Ever since his fall from power during the antireformist takeover of 1085–1086, Cai had been relegated to prefectural administration. In the fifth year of the regency of Empress Dowager Xuanren, who wielded executive functions in the name of the young Emperor Zhezong, the reform coalition was scattered and broken, powerless to obstruct the antireformists’ policy agenda. Certain minor reformists still occupied some mid-level posts, but these were leaderless functionaries. Nevertheless, alarmist remonstrators like Exhorter of the Right (you zhengyan) Liu Anshi (1048–1125) cautioned the empress dowager that “the greater part of Que’s faction remains at court,” and threatened to “usurp authority and disorder governance.”2 The next month Liu Zhi, now the powerful vice director of the Secretariat (Zhongshu shilang), admonished the regent to destroy this reformist sleeper cell, before its members seized the opportunity to overthrow the current ministry and overturn its policy agenda.3 Unsubstantiated and unverifiable rumors circulated that Cai Que had attempted to overturn Zhezong’s enthronement.4 These fears of a reformist resurgence materialized into a fullblown scapegoating campaign in 4.1089, when accusations reached the court that Cai Que had committed an act of literary sedition. The prefectural administrator Wu Chuhou (jinshi 1055) reported that Cai had composed a cycle of 99

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ten poems during his travels to the Carriage Canopy Pavilion (Chegaiting) in Anzhou, Jinghu North circuit, where he had served a stint as prefect in 1087 and 1088.5 Evidence indicates that Wu was seeking revenge against Cai for professional and personal insults.6 Wu alleged that the “hidden meanings” (weiyi) of one of Cai’s seemingly innocuous poetic travelogues “slandered the court” by veiling his disloyal opposition in allusions to Tang history.7 In what Wu claimed was the cycle’s most objectionable quatrain, Cai Que celebrated the memory and bemoaned the fate of the upright minister Hao Chujun, whose now-vanished fishing platform was located by the Anzhou waterside.8 With what Cai celebrated as “noble words and just conduct,” Hao had urged the ailing Emperor Gaozong (r. 649–683) not to abdicate the throne in favor of Empress Wu Zetian (r. 690–705), whom historians later reviled as a female usurper.9 Reading blasphemous intentions into this poem, Wu Chuhou alleged that Cai Que was impugning the legitimacy of Empress Dowager Xuanren’s regency by glorifying Hao Chujun’s opposition to Empress Wu. Furthermore, Wu asserted that investing empresses dowager as regents for their sons and grandsons—who were considered too young to rule in their own right—was a legitimate dynastic practice, which bore no resemblance to the “negligence and disorder” of Empress Wu’s reign. What Wu Chuhou left unexplained, of course, was how these privately circulating travel poems, an example of a highly conventional literary genre, ever could have rallied a covert court faction to depose the regent, let alone offend an unintended monarchical audience. Initially, the empress dowager saw nothing objectionable in these poems, and awaited a Censorial investigation—and a full explanation from Cai Que—before making any further judgments. Meanwhile, remonstrators censured Cai Que for his alleged lèse-majesté, exploiting Xuanren’s personal animus against him. Liang Tao (1034–1097), the director of the Bureau of Military Affairs (zhi Shumi yuan shi), was the first to inform the empress dowager that these poems confirmed what she and he already knew about Cai Que’s sinister character: “he conceals his transgressive heart and unites with his faction to cheat and deceive; he intends to divide the Regent and Emperor above and to destroy the loyal and the righteous below.”10 More concretely, by honoring Hao Chujun, Cai had delegitimized the empress dowager’s tenure as her grandson Zhezong’s regent. Liang praised the informer Wu Chuhou as a loyal and righteous official who “did not fear great treachery” and whom Xuanren could not allow to be entrapped by “men of faction.”11 In a joint memorial, Liang urged the regent to punish her slanderer through banishment in order to admonish Cai’s factious sympathizers who lurked at court and to “distinguish the wicked from the righteous so that they will not destroy state affairs.”12 But when the empress dowager simply demoted Cai’s official rank



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and transferred him to Luoyang, this failed to satisfy the majority of censors and remonstrance officials. Imperial Diarist (qiju sheren) Wang Yansou (1043– 1093) urged Xuanren against amnestying Cai: “In the disputations of ministers, nothing is more important than loving the ruler; in the [offenses] of the empire [that merit] execution, nothing comes before slandering the ruler.”13 Liang Tao importuned her that “Cai Que’s crimes and evils are so evident that a myriad deaths would still be too light” and urged her to ignore pleas for clemency: “those who claim that Que can be executed are the public-minded disputers of the empire; those who claim that Que is pardonable are the selfish remonstrators of a treacherous faction.”14 The empress dowager became increasingly receptive to her remonstrators’ incessant demands to exile Cai Que to the malarial frontier of Lingnan, a virtual death sentence that had rarely been applied since the inauguration of the dynasty. Emperor Taizu had first issued an injunction against the legal execution and corporal punishment of high officials, and the Northern Song court had refrained from directly ordering their execution.15 But this tradition of restraint could be circumvented by transporting ministerial offenders off to the far south of the empire, where it was hoped they would soon die. Still, no high court official had been exiled to Lingnan since 1022, when Zhenzong’s former councilors Kou Zhun (961–1023) and Ding Wei (966–1037) were banished on the orders of Empress Dowager Liu (969–1033), who had served as regent during the first eleven years of her son Renzong’s reign.16 But this did not dissuade Liang Tao and Liu Anshi, who asserted that Cai Que’s crimes were sufficiently heinous to merit deportation to Lingnan, thereby overturning the accepted norms and unspoken agreements that had governed political practice for over sixty years.17 Cai Que memorialized the throne to proclaim his absolute innocence and asserted that his accusers were truly “slanderous and deceptive,” denying that his verse had been either overtly political or covertly slanderous.18 His travels to Anzhou had inspired him to admire Hao’s integrity and outspokenness, but he swore that he never intended to conflate Empress Dowager Xuanren with Empress Wu, and his self-appointed critics were seeing seditious intentions that were not there: When I was dismissed from public service, I rested upon [the pavilion], and what I saw and heard happened to become several minor poems. But neither a single verse nor a single character touched upon current affairs. . . . Officials have offered several commentaries that are extraneous to these poems, and they arbitrarily see them as slanderous, ascribing hidden meanings to them. If this is so, when everyone opens his mouth or sets down his brush, even though these are unrelated to a certain matter, all could be incrimi-

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nated for a such-and-such a matter [by those who] claim that it has hidden meanings.19

He reminded Xuanren that he had supported her investiture as regent in 1085, when he was the dying Shenzong’s grand councilor, so it was absurd to assume that he would brand her a usurper. The empress dowager announced to her councilors that she would have none of Cai’s “self-serving ploys,” denying that he had served with merit during Zhezong’s accession, and maintained that his banishment would protect the imperial court from further slanders.20 Even if they reasonably doubted his innocence, a vocal minority of officials opposed the severity of Cai Que’s sentence. Himself the target of a reformistinstigated literary inquisition in 1079, Su Shi warned Xuanren that banishing Cai to Lingnan was an excessive punishment that would have chilling effect on dissent: “If he is severely punished, then some disputers will certainly claim that if the Empress Dowager and Your Majesty are so greatly sagacious and munificent . . . how can they be incapable of tolerating the resentful and slanderous utterances of a single petty man?”21 Grand Councilor of the Left (zuopuye) Fan Chunren, the son of Fan Zhongyan, was Cai Que’s most forthright defender at court. He rejected the regent’s allegations that “Que’s faction is numerous at court,” and steadfastly insisted that “Que is without faction (wudang).”22 The empress dowager’s other state councilors, including Liu Zhi and Lü Dafang (1027–1097), immediately overruled Fan’s objections to pronounce Cai Que guilty, but Fan still urged her to lighten his sentence.23 He argued that this excessive punishment for trumped-up crimes would lead to further recriminations against factions, whether real or imagined. If a reformist former minister could be entrapped in a literary inquisition, then the members of the current regime could be indicted on similarly flimsy charges and sentenced to similar punishments after their own ministry fell from power. Factions, he explained to Xuanren, occurred naturally, and petty men would always raise false charges of factionalism to frame and purge superior men: I attribute the emergence of factions to divergent and mutual inclinations (quxiang yitong). Those who agree with me I will call “righteous men” (zhengren) and those who disagree with me I will hold suspect as a “wicked faction” (xiedang). But if I despise those who disagree with me, then words that insult my ears will be hard to hear. And if I am fond of those who agree with me, then those who accord with flattery will increasingly become my favorites. This will get to the point where none will know truth (zhen) from falsehood (wei), and worthies and fools will switch places. How can calamity to the polity not result from this?24



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By admitting that factionalism could be a subjective phenomenon, Fan Chunren was agreeing with his father’s old associate Ouyang Xiu, who urged readers of his New History of the Five Dynasties to be suspicious of false charges of factionalism that degraded political language.25 Not only was Fan adopting Qin Guan’s position that petty men could exploit the word “faction” to purge superior men, but he was further acknowledging the possibility that superior men could also use this label against petty men. In effect, Fan Chunren was arguing that the imperial court should necessarily include a diversity of ideological positions and that dissent was not tantamount to disloyalty. But the empress dowager adamantly decreed that Cai Que would be banished for life to Xinzhou, in the far south of the empire.26 Even her councilors Lü Dafang and Liu Zhi warned against transporting Cai to Lingnan, but she refused to reconsider her decision. “Mountains,” she intoned, “can be moved, but this prefecture cannot.” Undaunted, Fan Chunren continued to warn her against exiling Cai Que to such a “lethal place.” When the regent and her councilors refused to hear his appeals, Fan offered ominous words of protest: “This road has been overgrown with thorns for seventy years. Why should it be opened now? I fear that we will not avoid walking it ourselves.”27 Fan Chunren’s defense of Cai Que impelled Liang Tao to accuse him of being a closet reformist, who had “privately formed a faction with Que” and “secretly joined with treacherous men to assist them in wickedness.”28 Similar guilt-by-association charges by the remonstrators Liu Anshi and Wu Anshi convinced the empress dowager to dismiss Fan from the Council of State in 6.1089.29 Just as he predicted, those who disagreed with Fan’s judgments held him in suspicion as a member of a treacherous faction. The banishment of Cai Que represented the beginning of a more brutal and dangerous phase of the factional conflict. To be sure, the empress dowager refused to directly sanction Cai’s execution, but according to one account, she left the choice “of whether to live or die” up to him by banishing him to Lingnan.30 Surviving in Xinzhou for four years, Cai Que died there in 1.1093, after the empress dowager repeatedly rejected appeals to transfer him elsewhere. Had Cai survived another year in Lingnan, it is possible that he could have been amnestied after Zhezong began his personal rule and rehabilitated the reformists. Ostracizing former state councilors to the hinterland, however, had now become a standard procedure as the factional conflict escalated in the post-reform era, as we will see in Chapter 6. After their bureaucratic takeover in 1085–1086, why did the antireformists not only purge the reformist opposition from power, but also take the unprecedented step of prosecuting their leaders for slander and lèse-majesté? Why did Empress Dowager Xuanren refuse to heed Fan Chunren’s cautionary

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pleas that factions were subjective phenomena, and why did most antireformist rhetoricians publicly express their belief in the objective existence of petty-man factions? Most importantly, during the Xuanren Regency, why did the antireformists adopt and apply the same polarizing rhetoric of factionalism that the reformists had used to marginalize the antireformists during Shenzong’s reign? This chapter explores the further polarization of political rhetoric, which was used to justify the brutalization of the factional conflict, by examining two broad samples of memorials, edicts, and court audiences from the Xuanren Regency. Spanning the years between Shenzong’s death and Zhezong’s personal rule, this regency represented the last extended period of antireformist domination of the Northern Song court and bureaucracy, as Sima Guang and his successors pushed through their own conservative ideological agenda with Xuanren’s unwavering support. After her installation as regent in 9.1085, the empress dowager had personally identified herself with a state policy of “reversion” (genghua), a stance motivated by an uncompromising desire to abolishing Wang Anshi’s and Shenzong’s New Policies.31 During their hostile takeover of the imperial bureaucracy in 1085–1086, led by the rehabilitated Sima Guang, antireformist rhetoricians and remonstrators convinced the amenable empress dowager that they were factionless superior men and that the now toothless reformist opposition was a “treacherous faction.” Second, after Sima’s death in 9.1086 the antireform coalition splintered into competing fractions. Driven by personality conflicts and ideological disputes, three regional blocs of ministers became involved in the “Luo-Shu-Shuo factional conflict” (Luo Shu Shuo dangzheng) from 1087 to 1090, in which they exchanged accusations of factionalism among themselves. Here again the rhetoricians continued to use a court-centered discourse of authority to indict their adversaries as a treacherous faction, while maintaining their personal loyalty to the dynastic polity and allying themselves with Empress Dowager Xuanren to implement their ideological agendas as state policy.

The Vertical Alliance of Xuanren and Sima Guang, 1085–1086 Sima Guang’s Return from Exile Emperor Shenzong’s death in 3.1085 at the untimely age of thirty-seven ended the reform era and set a political landslide into motion.32 His sixth son and hastily anointed heir apparent, the eight-year-old Zhao Xu (1076–1100), ascended the throne and would be known to history as Emperor Zhezong (r. 1085–1100).33 Since he was too young to rule without adult supervision, Empress Dowager Xuanren, Yingzong’s widowed consort and Shenzong’s mother,



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presided over the imperial bureaucracy from behind her regent’s screen for the next eight years. While officials formally addressed their memorials to Zhezong and edicts were promulgated in his name, it was Xuanren who sat at the top of the information chain and wielded executive authority in his name. The great-granddaughter of two militarists who were present at the dynastic founding, and the niece of Renzong’s Empress Cao, the empress dowager, née Gao, represented the established political interests of the imperial clan and its allied consort families.34 A longtime opponent of Shenzong’s New Policies, Xuanren became the dominant force at court during Zhezong’s minority and extended her monarchical patronage to the antireform opposition and its conservative policy program.35 For almost a decade after dismissing Wang Anshi from the councilorship, Shenzong had personally directed the reform agenda, sustaining the New Policies while distancing the antireform opposition. Day-to-day management of state policy was in the hands of his Grand Councilor of the Right Cai Que, who had wrested control over the imperial bureaucracy from the bland and obsequious Grand Councilor of the Left Wang Gui (1019–1085).36 Before his death, Shenzong had made tentative efforts to rehabilitate such prominent antireformists as Sima Guang and Lü Gongzhu, but he kept them in Luoyang.37 Infirm at sixty-six, Sima was a spent force both politically and intellectually when he returned to Kaifeng to attend Shenzong’s funeral rites in 3.1085, but he was still perceived as a viable contender for the councilorship.38 A few days later Sima submitted his first memorial in several years, which began with an exegesis of the hexagrams Tai and Pi, which argued that the recent monarchical transition was “the forking road between order and chaos, the dividing point between peace and peril.”39 He accused the reformist-dominated Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau of concealing the “decline of civic mores” and the fact that “rural villagers have been sorrowful and miserable, with pained hearts and aching heads.” Sima’s memorial culminated with a plea to the empress dowager “to open wide the roads of remonstrance” and solicit open criticism of “the court’s shortcomings and the common people’s suffering” under the New Policies. When state councilors silenced dissent, only a monarch or regent could rebalance political opinion in the other direction by removing obstructions to bureaucratic information flows. Assured of the regent’s support, Sima Guang launched his campaign against Cai Que, whose supporters still controlled the Council of State, and both remonstrance organs. The following month, as hundreds of critical memorials began to arrive at court, the empress dowager promulgated an edict that praised Shenzong’s rectitude but blamed nameless ministers for exceeding their authority by undermining the former emperor’s intentions.40

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Later in 4.1085, Sima composed a lengthy memorial to Xuanren urging “the abolition of the New Policies, which have ravaged the common people and ravaged the state.”41 In what became a common practice for antireformist remonstrance, Sima found Shenzong blameless, but held Wang Anshi personally responsible for the disastrous consequences of the New Policies. He began his character assassination by condemning Wang for being “self-satisfied and self-righteous,” so blinded by arrogance and ideology that “he claimed to be unparalleled by figures past and present. But he did not know how to select from among the best of the laws and institutions of the imperial progenitors. . . . Many times, he used his own intentions to recklessly reform the old statutes, calling them the ‘New Policies.’”42 Sima insisted that Wang had led Shenzong astray, silencing the loyal opposition and packing the bureaucracy with cronies: “he selected and promoted those who agreed with him, raising them to the blue skies, while he banished those who disagreed with him, casting them into the ditch.”43 Throwing off institutional restraints, Wang Anshi had pushed through fiscal reforms that had brought untold misery to the common people and had pursued an aggressive border policy that had squandered the empire’s soldiers and treasure at Yongle. If they wished to save the empire and its subjects, the only course left for the new monarch and his regent was to immediately abolish the New Policies in their entirety, a reactionary policy agenda that Sima spent the last year of his life pursuing.44 Recapturing the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau In 5.1085, Cai Que’s ministry still controlled the Council of State and the information channels that connected the bureaucracy to the throne. This enabled them to neutralize Xuanren’s recent calls for upright remonstrance by promulgating an edict that imposed a host of restrictions to curtail the outspokenness of critics of the New Policies.45 These preemptive moves spurred Sima Guang to inveigh against the lack of transparency and accountability that had prevailed under the councilorship of Wang Anshi, who had “deeply detested remonstrators, as much as his enemies; he severely prohibited slanderers, as much as rebels and felons, so that the men of the empire considered speaking out to be taboo.”46 Two weeks later, Wang Gui’s death brought about a reshuffle of the Council of State that demonstrated just how far the antireformists actually were from gaining control of the metropolitan bureaucracy. Cai Que was promoted to the post of grand councilor of the left, but his chief lieutenant Zhang Dun was denied a post as junior councilor and was instead appointed director of the Bureau of Military Affairs.47 In an early sign of political shifts to come, Sima Guang gained a beachhead at court with his appointment as the vice director of the



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Chancellery (Menxia shilang). From his new executive post, Sima recommended a long list of his political allies now serving in regional administration—among them Lü Gongzhu, Wen Yanbo, Su Shi, Su Che, Fan Chunren, Liu Zhi, and Wang Yansou—for ministerial and censorial positions. In 7.1085, Sima’s longtime ally Lü Gongzhu joined the Council of State as the assistant director of the left in the Department of State Affairs (Shangshu zuocheng), which gave the antireformists greater involvement in the policy-making process.48 The same day, Xuanren issued an edict to abolish the Mutual Security policy within the capital and three surrounding circuits, where rural commoners had been drafted to train for militia service.49 After their first small step together with Xuanren, antireform ministers continued to carve away at the New Policies over the next year. Nevertheless, Sima Guang and Lü Gongzhu had little room to maneuver, since reformists still monopolized the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau, which had lost their independence during Shenzong’s reign. Lü Gongzhu petitioned the empress dowager to restore the full staffing and autonomy of both organs, so that antireformists could exploit them to bring down Cai Que’s ministry: Let there be an edict that both censors and remonstrance officials should remonstrate forthrightly without taboos, advise the ruler on his trespasses and shortcomings, propose the current flaws of the court, point out the treacherous faction among officialdom, and manifest the suffering of the common people below.50

It was abundantly clear to Lü and his audience that the reformists were the only faction worthy of the name. Provoked by Lü Gongzhu’s memorial, the regent petitioned him for detailed instructions about which of the New Policies should be abolished first. But before the Green Sprouts and Hired Service measures could be eliminated, Lü insisted that the next order of business was promoting “gentlemen of loyalty and righteousness” to remonstrance positions, where they would loyally serve the throne “with a common heart.”51 Even though his vocabulary was reminiscent of Ouyang Xiu’s “Discourse on Factions,” Lü Gongzhu took it as a given that superior men could not be factious. Control of the Censorate began shifting with Wang Yansou’s appointment as investigating censor in 6.1085. Liu Zhi was appointed attendant censor three months later, after which he memorialized the regent to fully unleash the institution’s powers of investigation and impeachment.52 A few days later Wang Yansou railed against the reformists as a malign faction that continued to frustrate her legitimate authority:

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From the seventh month until now, the courageous and the resolute have yet to be heard, and the hopes of the empire are still pent up. Why? Because the loyal and the worthy are scarce, while the treacherous and wicked are legion. They surreptitiously form factions, creating obstructions and divisions among themselves.53

Claiming to speak for all commoners oppressed by the New Policies, Wang beseeched the regent to rescue her subjects by purging the reform faction without a second thought. He insisted that the empire’s fate hinged upon her enlightened judgment in personnel decisions. For this he alluded to the Book of Changes: “order and chaos, peace and peril, lie in the purging and retention of the loyal and the wicked.” In 10.1085, Xuanren responded to Liu Zhi and Wang Yansou’s demands by restoring the independence of the Remonstrance Bureau, according to Tang institutional precedent.54 But the antireformists still had to fight for every remonstrance appointment. When Sima and Lü Gongzhu recommended five of their allies to the Remonstrance Bureau, Zhang Dun succeeded in shooting down two candidates on a technicality in a heated debate before the empress dowager’s screen.55 But three antireformists, including Zhu Guangting (1037–1094) and Su Shi’s younger brother Su Che (1039–1112), still squeaked through into a revitalized Remonstrance Bureau; with their factional allies in the Censorate, they launched a coordinated assault upon Cai Que and Zhang Dun. Liu Zhi accused Zhang and his colleagues of meddling in remonstrance appointments and “acting upon their selfish intentions to harm governmental affairs.”56 For his part, Wang Yansou urged the regent to use her enlightened judgment to “promote the worthy and dismiss the unworthy,” for now that “the upright and the good have arrived at court, it can be observed that Dun’s heart is disloyal.”57 In 11.1085, Sima Guang memorialized the regent in more abstract terms, urging her to impose ideological uniformity upon the Council of State, where “the wicked and the righteous, the loyal and the obsequious” served alongside each other, thereby frustrating monarchical authority.58 Liu Zhi and Wang Yansou followed Sima’s lead by persuading the empress dowager to dismiss Zhang Dun for ritual impropriety and his selfish character, begging her to “rectify Dun’s offenses as an admonishment to officialdom.”59 The antireformist barrage of memorials of impeachment did not stop for several months, until the empress dowager relented and purged Cai and Zhang from the Council of State and formed a vertical alliance with her antireform councilors. As might be expected, the abrupt political reversals of the early Xuanren Regency did not result in any concomitant breaks within factional rhetoric. Using a court-centered discourse of authority, these rhetoricians assumed that the



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regent shared their own linguistic assumptions and ideological program, just as reformists had once preached to an already converted Shenzong. When antireform remonstrators memorialized the throne, they urged the regent to discern reformist petty men like Cai Que from loyal ministers like themselves. They variously accused Cai Que of “treachery and wickedness” (jian xie), “disloyalty” (bu zhong), “selfishness” (si), negative qualities that were diametrically opposed to the “loyalty” (zhong), “worthiness” (xian), “rectitude” (zheng), and “publicmindedness” (gong) that the antireformists assumed for themselves by default.60 A staple of reformist political rhetoric, this series of ethical and political binaries recurred in memorials throughout the antireform era and into the post-reform era. In another continuity with preexisting discourses of faction, these remonstrators asserted that Cai Que was devoid of merit as a statesman and administrator: his “talent was insufficient for him to be employed” (cai buzu yong) or they simply claimed that he was “untalented” (bu cai).61 Wang Anshi had presumed a similar equivalence between moral rigor and administrative acumen, arguing that only superior men possessed the right to serve in the imperial bureaucracy. Sima Guang assumed “talent” (cai) as a defining quality of petty men, which unambiguously distinguished them from the “virtue” (de) of superior men. During the early Xuanren Regency, despite the deepening ideological schism between reformists and antireformists, ministers on both sides of the conflict shared a common rhetoric of factionalism and a court-centered discourse of authority. When factionalists used the word “faction” only as a term of reproach for their political opponents, the gap between political rhetoric and political practice widened further. Reclaiming the Council of State When the first year of the Yuanyou era (1086–1093) began, the reformist leadership’s grip on power was already tenuous.62 Sima Guang and his allies had succeeded in abolishing the State Trade policy (Shiyi fa) in 12.1085, after several months of cutbacks to the program’s scope.63 But despite months of concerted opposition from antireformist state councilors, censors, and remonstrance officials, both Cai Que and Zhang Dun were entrenched within the Council of State and still obstructed the elimination of the remaining New Policies, especially the core Hired Service and Green Sprouts programs. In the second month of 1086, antireformist remonstrators finally succeeded in pulling down their reformist ministry. During the antireformist takeover of the Council of State, the bulk of censorial indictments justified name-calling with concrete accusations of political perfidy. For example, in a memorial of 2.1086, Liu Zhi accused Cai and Zhang of leading a faction of usurpers:

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In all things they have been disloyal to the Former [Emperor’s] court and irreverent towards Your Majesty. Their wicked clique has collaborated to establish a faction; they have concealed their duplicitous hearts. . . . All of these trespasses are crimes that public-minded discourse (gonglun) cannot tolerate.64

Liu importuned the regent to assume her proper role as the final arbiter of ministerial appointments and ethical distinctions: “Your servant has repeatedly urged Your Majesty to discriminate between wickedness and rectitude in making promotions and demotions; if Your Majesty were to dismiss these two men, then the righteous and the wicked of the empire would be distinguished.” But two state councilors alone did not a faction make; they required loyal rank-and-file supporters. Liu proceeded to accuse Cai and Zhang of polarizing the court between a faction of petty men and a dwindling number of superior men, whom they had alienated from their proper role of serving the public good: “At present, all of those within the empire who harbor selfishness and act upon gain have relied upon these two men as their leaders. All of those within the empire who harbor loyalty and preserve righteousness dread these two men, and dare not devote themselves.” By accusing the reformists of factional treachery, Liu Zhi was simultaneously declaring his own political allies’ eligibility for the councilorship. Fifteen years earlier Wang Anshi had implored Shenzong to serve as the final arbiter of factionalism by decisively purging the petty-man opposition from court. Antireformist remonstrators presented the empress dowager with a stark choice: expel the reformists and save the dynastic polity, or retain them and destroy it. Repeating the utopian promises that Wang Anshi made to Shenzong, Liu Zhi assured Xuanren that once these petty men were safely expelled from court, superior men would save the dynastic polity from the ravages of the New Policies. And if the empress dowager failed to heed his counsel and refused to dismiss her treacherous ministers, Liu insinuated that she, too, would be complicit in their offenses: Now, Que and Dun’s clique are wickedly harming governance, and their fiendishness blazes more intensely by the day. But Your Majesty accommodates them and covers them up, intending to preserve a discourse of stabilization and pacification. But if You do not examine this situation of emergency, this will cause their treacherous plot to deepen by the day. Thereafter, they will be impossible to dislodge, and the empire will be greatly harmed, as if jackals and wolves were not driven away.65



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Liu Zhi pressured the regent that she had one means of escape: to expel these treacherous factionalists from court before the dynastic polity collapsed on her watch. While Liu Zhi’s polemics were typical of the mass of antireformist remonstrance, not every memorial consisted of fear-mongering and button-pushing. For instance, Zhu Guangting wove an altogether subtler argument out of classical allegories. If the exemplary monarchs of antiquity had exclusively employed factionless superior men as their ministers, so could the empress dowager, whom Zhu likened to the sage-kings Yao and Shun and the Zhou kings Wen and Wu, whose “sagely wisdom” had attracted worthy ministers to their service.66 In his “Discourse on Factions,” Ouyang Xiu had rewoven the same classical narratives to refer to these exemplary ministers as benign factions. Yet, like Wang Anshi in his memorials to Shenzong, Zhu Guangting was asserting that superior men acted alone in loyal service to the court, and the reformists were the only true faction. He admonished the regent that she had fallen short of the ancient Way of rulership, for her indecision had enabled petty men to remain at court: As for powerful ministers, the loyal and the wicked are mixed up and blurred together. Those who harbor selfish intentions, those who are reckless with wicked discourse, those who presume upon favor and glory, and those who seek temporary ease and grasp official salaries, are dissimilar. . . . I have discoursed upon the loyal worthies of the empire, desiring Your Majesty to exclusively trust and employ them, up to now [You] have not yet done so.67

Surrounded by natural predators, superior men were too vulnerable to survive in the wild unless the monarch could nurture them, for “being difficult to promote and easy to dismiss is the substance of being a high official.” Loyal ministers could not defend themselves from such malefactors as Cai Que and Zhang Dun, whom Zhu alleged had attained the Council of State through illegitimate, expedient, and deceitful means. With the names blanked out, Zhu Guangting’s memorial to Empress Dowager Xuanren could easily be mistaken for one of Wang Anshi’s classically informed polemics to Emperor Shenzong, for both flattered their respective monarchical audiences by empowering them as the ultimate arbiters of personnel decisions and the final authorities on factionalism. In the political imagination of the antireformists, it was assumed that a court dominated by superior men, who upheld established governing institutions, would inevitably uplift civic mores in the empire at large. The factional rhetoric of both reformist and antireformist remonstrance confirms Bol’s conclusion “that Wang Anshi and Sima Guang shared the belief that a moral order in the world depended upon perfecting the institutions of government.”68 With supe-

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rior men in control of governance, state and society would be transformed from the top down and from the center outwards. The antireformists of the Xuanren Regency shared the centralizing impulses of the reformists, for they were just as intent on employing the state to ameliorate civic mores, but through historically tested political institutions instead of regulatory innovations.69 In a memorial of 2.1086, Remonstrance Official Su Che, Su Shi’s younger brother, persuaded the empress dowager that the moral rectification of court politics would spread outwards to uplift society at large.70 Su Che linked the ethical balance of court officials with the health of the body politic, declaiming that Shenzong’s reformist councilors had pursued policies that had subverted the integrity of the state and corrupted civic mores: Your servant has apprehended that the ordered governance of emperors and kings invariably started with the rectification of civic mores. Once civic mores are rectified, everyone from commoners on down will exert themselves towards becoming benevolent. Once civic mores slightly decline, everyone from commoners on up will abandon themselves to become evil. When common men exert themselves towards benevolence, then the ruler of men’s ears and eyes will be numerous, and it will be easy to create ordered governance. When common men abandon themselves to evil, then ministerial factions will flourish and propagate, and it will be easy to produce wrongfulness. The sources of wickedness and righteousness, of [dynastic] decline and fall, have always started this way.71

While their programs and goals radically diverged, the political rhetoric of Wang Anshi and Su Che assumed that the central government institutions and their administrators had transformative powers and that the monarchs had a paternalistic obligation to benefit their subjects by promoting loyal ministers and expelling petty-man factions. While endlessly repetitious, the arguments of Liu Zhi and his fellow remonstrators finally succeeded in persuading Empress Dowager Xuanren to purge Cai Que from the Council of State. In I2.1086, she granted his resignation request, and he was demoted to the first of a series of prefectural-level posts far away from the capital, with a fateful stopover in Anzhou. During the Xuanren Regency, it was still permissible for former state councilors—even those who had been accused of being petty men and wicked factionalists—to be demoted to regional administration, where they presumably would have visited similar evils upon local commoners. Cai Que’s expulsion enabled Sima Guang to finally be appointed grand councilor of the left, affirming his leadership of the antireform coalition and the imperial bureaucracy.72 After their takeover of the



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Council of State, Sima and Xuanren could now control state policy as a vertical alliance, implementing their shared ideological vision free from opposition or obstruction. In his last days on the Council of State, the pugnacious Zhang Dun opposed the undue haste with which Sima Guang intended to abolish the Hired Service policy in a protracted point-by-point debate before the regent’s screen.73 Offending the empress dowager by disrespecting her chosen grand councilor, Zhang was dismissed from the Council of State and joined Cai Que in prefectural administration later the same month.74 Since Sima Guang was still on extended sick leave, the empress dowager appointed two of his longtime comrades to serve alongside him as co-councilors. In 4.1086, the long-serving Han Zhen (1019–1097) was dismissed as grand councilor of the right and replaced by Lü Gongzhu, Sima Guang’s longtime ally and Wang Anshi’s old foe.75 On the first day of the next month, the elderly antireformist Wen Yanbo was promoted to the heights of the Council of State, with his advisory appointment as Zhezong’s grand preceptor (taishi) and manager of important national security matters (pingzhang junguo zhongshu).76 For the next eight years, the Council of State rested firmly in antireformist hands, and Xuanren became personally identified with the conservative policy agenda. Celebrating the antireformist conquest of the highest echelons of the bureaucracy, Exhorter of the Left (zuo zhengyan) Wang Yansou proclaimed that final victory was at hand. In a memorial of I2.1086, submitted on the day of Zhang Dun’s dismissal, Wang complimented the empress dowager for her discernment: Cai Que and Zhang Dun employed exhaustively treacherous schemes, seeking to consolidate their position. If Your Majesty had not exerted the utmost in resoluteness and enlightenment, would they ever have been expelled? Of the hearts of men across the empire, none does not shout for joy and leap in delight. If the hearts of men are delighted, then Heaven’s intentions can be apprehended.77

But Wang dissuaded her from complacency, since many reformists remained entrenched in positions of power below the Council of State. These petty men would be easier to expel than Cai Que or Zhang Dun; Wang proclaimed that since the remnants of the disloyal opposition were “lacking in great treachery, yielding and obsequious,” they could be easily co-opted.78 The reformists lost their original leader in 4.1086, when an embittered Wang Anshi died in retirement at the age of sixty-five, not long after hearing of the repeal of the New Policies.79 With only token opposition in the way, the antireform

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coalition was now free to push through the “Yuanyou reversion” across the empire. Purging the Remaining Reformists But within the echo chamber of factional rhetoric, these declarations of victory proved premature, as antireformists in the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau continued to launch indictments against minor members of the reformist opposition. Nullifying Wang Yansou’s assertion that the remaining reformists could be easily eliminated, Liu Zhi and his fellow censors continued to submit alarmist memorials to the throne. In a memorial of 4.1086, Liu conceded that the empress dowager still needed to exercise vigilance against the treacherous factionalists who were obstructing the court’s ideological agenda: The benevolent and the evil of the empire have already been distinguished, and right and wrong have already been rectified. What a success this has been! But during this time, Your servant wonders why some of the harmonious vital energies of Heaven and Earth have still not yet responded and why some of the discourse of the empire’s loyal ministers and righteous gentlemen has not yet been quelled. How can this be? I have investigated this. Of the empire’s foremost malefactors, there are those who still must be investigated and eliminated. But of the empire’s most treacherous, still there are those who have evaded punishment.80

After the dismissal of Cai Que and Zhang Dun, the apostate reformist Lü Huiqing was the next prominent target of censorial wrath. Dismissed from Shenzong’s court for breaking ranks with Wang Anshi in 1075, this former state councilor had spent the last ten years in civil and military posts, mostly in the northwest. In 6.1086, Liu Zhi and two other remonstrators launched an indictment against Lü Huiqing, identifying him as the absolute nadir of ministerial conduct: Huiqing’s Heavenly endowment is fiendish and wicked; his brave doings were not righteous. He presumed upon his influence to propagate his own wealth and formulated policies to harm the common people. He promoted and established the wicked and obsequious and was inclined towards harming the good and benevolent.81

With only slightly more nuanced language, Remonstrator of the Right (you sijian) Su Che indicted Lü Huiqing for committing a litany of crimes against the state during Shenzong’s reign:



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Wang Anshi was a man of the wilderness, who was imperious and arrogant. . . . Lü Huiqing directed and guided him, in order to assist him in evil; the arguments for Green Sprouts and Hired Service policies issued from his hand. . . . He went so far as to attack and purge the loyal and the good and to promote and employ a wicked faction: eighty or ninety percent of this was due to Huiqing’s efforts.82

Swayed by the case against him, the empress dowager demoted Lü Huiqing to regional administration for the rest of her regency. In the midst of this monotonous campaign of character assassination, some antireformist remonstrators used classical exegesis to persuade the empress dowager to expel the remaining reformists from court. For example, in a memorial of 9.1086, Investigating Censor (jiancha yushi) Sun Sheng (jinshi 1065) paralleled Wang Anshi’s argument that the hexagrams Tai and Pi resonated with the composition of the political community and the fate of the dynastic polity: “Your servant has read the Book of Changes through to the divinations of the two hexagrams Pi and Tai. Thereafter, I have apprehended that the advance and retreat, the deterioration and increase, of superior men and petty men is linked with the order and chaos, the peace and peril, of the empire.”83 Sun’s memorial coincided with Qin Guan’s faction theory, accepting the propositions that cosmic cycles influenced the composition of the political community. When the hexagram Pi was on the rise, petty men formed malign affiliations that led the empire to the brink of chaos; when the hexagram Tai prevailed, superior men ensured perfect order: “The power of one petty man is not yet sufficient to cause chaos in the empire. That which causes chaos in the empire is a host of the petty (qun xiao). The merit of one superior man is insufficient to bring order to the empire. That which brings order to the empire is a gathering of worthies.”84 Reinforcing established notions, Sun Sheng defined factions as exclusively disloyal associations of petty men and indirectly described loyal ministers as potentially numerous but never factious. With the absolute authority to eliminate and promote ministers, classical rulers had ensured the survival of the polity by “eliminating wickedness without a doubt” before petty men could gather critical mass around them. Turning from the Changes to the Songs, Sun offered a forced political interpretation of “The Cypress Boat” (Bozhou): “‘My sad heart is consumed / I am harassed by a host of the petty (you xin qiao qiao, wen yu qun xiao).’ It was understood that when superior men arrive, then their kind will certainly assemble, bringing order to the empire. Thus, they employed worthies without a second thought.”85 Sun read the above couplet, traditionally interpreted as the lovelorn plaint of a young woman forced to marry an undesirable suitor, as the plaint of an ancient ruler whose authority had been under-

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mined by factionalism.86 Sun assured the empress dowager that she had avoided this ignoble fate by reviving the classical ideal of a factionless court. But unless she fully apprehended their potential for treachery, a small number of petty men could quickly multiply into a faction: “Treacherous and sinister men are difficult to expel but easy to promote. If they recommend their own kind and move forward, and Your Majesty hesitates and does not dismiss them, they will gradually end up forming associations with one another. This is the reason why superior men have been so anxious.”87 Deploying a shared classical frame of reference, the factional rhetoric of antireformist remonstrators like Sun Sheng was nearly identical to that of Wang Anshi. Ending the New Policies and the Death of Sima Guang With the reformist opposition out of the way, the antireform leaders revived the fiscal and military policies of the Renzong and Yingzong reigns. But internal debates over the Hired Service policy, which had replaced the conscripted laborers of the old Drafted Service policy (Chaiyi fa) with professional laborers paid with service exemption fees assessed upon rural households, foreshadowed the impending disintegration of the governing coalition into regionally based fractions.88 Resistance to the New Policies had united this coalition since the early 1070s, but disagreements over the details of abolishing them led to open debate at Xuanren’s court between ideologues and pragmatists. During his lengthy debate with Sima Guang that immediately preceded his dismissal, Zhang Dun had argued that the empire’s corvée policy could not be abolished before a detailed plan for the transition was devised.89 In two memorials of 2.1086, Sima Guang was so single-minded about abolishing the measure that he questioned the loyalties of the members of his own coalition, such as Lü Gongzhu and Su Che, who had urged patience and caution.90 Ultimately, service exemption fees were abolished in 3.1086, while a commission devised a blueprint for the empire-wide reimplementation of Drafted Service. The governing coalition pursued the abolition of the Green Sprouts policy with greater unanimity and only muted internal opposition. Sima Guang had long opposed the program, which had advanced high-interest loans to farmers, as a system of state-promoted usury and sought to make the loans purely voluntary. Sima’s coalition fell into line behind him, and Secretariat Drafter (Zhongshu sheren) Su Shi persuaded the empress dowager to abolish the measure in its entirety in 8.1086.91 Of Xuanren’s Council of State, only Fan Chunren, the associate director of the Department of Military Affairs (tong zhi Shumi yuan), objected to the loss of potential revenue from Green Sprouts loans, and he barely averted dismissal for opposing Sima Guang on this issue.92 During the regency, Fan was frequently the major dissenting voice within the antireform



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coalition, on both personnel and policy issues, until his defense of Cai Que resulted in his dismissal from court. The reversal of reformist initiatives extended to foreign policy, as Sima’s ministry pursued détente with the Tanguts. While some on the Council opposed the cession of a string of border fortifications to the Xi Xia, truce negotiations went forward, and negotiated appeasement again became the official court policy during the Xuanren Regency.93 Sima Guang did not live to see the conclusion of a peace treaty with the Tanguts or even the final rollback of the New Policies, because the demands of the councilorship overtaxed his poor health. Aged sixty-seven, he died on the first day of 9.1086, leaving the antireform coalition bereft of its paramount leader and guiding theorist and the empress dowager without her most trusted advisor.94 In their eulogies his political allies recognized that Sima’s loss was irreparable; for example, Wang Yansou extolled his leader for sacrificing his life for the good of the empire and for possessing “a sincere heart that sympathizes with the state and cherishes the common people.”95 Alluding to the Book of Changes, Wang lamented that the moral reformation of governance was an unaccomplished task: Guang has passed away, but treacherous men cannot be permitted to remain for long. This is what Your servant has memorialized that Your Majesty surely must purge the treacherous. . . . Now, when the empire beholds Your Majesty’s employment of men, and divines either the hexagram Pi or the hexagram Tai, this is the reason why Your servant has memorialized that Your Majesty must investigate the promotion of worthies.96

Wang hoped that the antireform coalition would retain its political momentum without Sima Guang, but the surviving leaders lost their focus once the New Policies had been successfully abolished. From the Censorate, Liu Zhi urged the empress dowager to continue Sima’s political legacy by rooting out the “factions of the treacherous and the wicked” and the petty men who still obstructed the abolition of the New Policies.97 But as the first year of the regency came to a close, the reformists had been marginalized into insignificance, and instead policy disputes and personal animosities began to fracture the antireform ministry led by Sima Guang’s successors.

Fractures within the Antireform Coalition, 1087–1090 For the remaining eight years of the Xuanren Regency, a broad antireform coalition dominated the Council of State, but it lacked a leader to unite them ideo-

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logically and an organized opposition to unify them politically. Divided by policy debates and personality conflicts, the antireform coalition fractured into three regionally based splinter groups, each led by a major intellectual figure. In the “Luo-Shu-Shuo factional conflict,” these blocs of ministers used their council and remonstrance posts to consolidate their positions and diminish their opposition.98 Members of each splinter group claimed to possess a common ideological vision and declared their loyalty to the throne, claiming that their political adversaries were selfish and power-hungry. Linked by regional and patronage ties, these so-called factions had shallow roots and did not extend down through the metropolitan bureaucracy. Representing the main bloc of Sima Guang’s coalition, the Hebei-centered Shuo faction, led by Liu Zhi, dominated the Council of State throughout the Xuanren Regency.99 Occupying the antireform political mainstream and pursuing Sima’s ideology of conservative historicism, the men of Shuo won the trust of the empress dowager and extended their patronage to a new generation of officials. The Shuo-dominated ministry overcame its rivals by expelling extremists and consolidated its authority by incorporating more compromising figures from rival blocs into its ranks. Before the Shuo leader Liu Zhi’s fall from power in 1091, his most vocal critic accused him of dominating a “faction” of more than thirty councilors and remonstrators, whose membership blurred the lines between the Luo and Shuo blocs.100 The Luoyang-based Luo fraction, led by Cheng Yi (1033–1107), was briefly in the ascendant in the early years of the regency. Radical classical ideologues, the men of Luo endeavored to revive the Way of antiquity through archaized ritual and textual exegesis. In the Southern Song, members of the Luo faction came to be considered the intellectual progenitors of the True Way Learning (Daoxue) movement, but in their own time these men were generally considered fringe elements.101 Spearheaded by the iconoclastic literatus Su Shi and his younger brother Su Che, members of the Sichuanese Shu fraction were the Luo bloc’s chief antagonists.102 The Su brothers and their followers opposed the imposition of ideological conformity and assumed a more pragmatic approach towards state policy than their rivals, which made them vulnerable to accusations of being reformist sympathizers. After Su Shi was forced out into regional administration, the remaining members of the Shu bloc, including his younger brother Su Che, gradually merged into the Shuo-dominated ministry of Liu Zhi. This three-way conflict sputtered out by 1089, after the most extreme elements of the Shu and Luo blocs had been expelled from court, and the Cai Que poetic inquisition reunited the governing coalition. Under the less steady leadership of Lü Gongzhu, members of the Luo and Shu blocs struggled to aggrandize their own power at the other’s expense soon after Sima Guang’s death. In 12.1086, Zhu Guangting, the Luo-affiliated ex-



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horter of the left, started the argument when he accused Su Shi of writing an examination question that had blasphemed Shenzong’s memory.103 Joining the calls for Su Shi’s dismissal in a memorial of 12.1086, Wang Yansou implored the empress dowager to expel him from the Hanlin Academy; in this effort he used the same polarizing rhetoric he had recently used to purge Cai Que and Zhang Dun from the Council of State: Your servant humbly submits that he considers Your Majesty’s original heart to embody the utmost in public-mindedness and enlightenment, and is certainly without delusions. But [You must] respond to treacherous utterances and wicked discourse that have inverted right and wrong and have disordered black and white in order to distract Your Majesty’s intentions. Since antiquity the hearts of treacherous men have found advantage in diverting remonstrance from the ruler and to obstruct the mouths of loyal ministers. They intend to act upon their selfishness, lacking the will to be loyal to the state and dynastic altars. This pattern is easy to illuminate: how can it ultimately deceive Your Majesty?104

Such polemical charges were usually reserved for factional adversaries, but the rhetoric of the Luo-Shu-Shuo conflict resembled the internal squabbling that had divided the reformist leadership after Wang Anshi’s departure from court in 1074, in which former comrades turned into enemies. Su Shi’s detractors accused him of forming a petty-man faction that was plotting to purge superior men and usurp authority and defined ministerial loyalty as selfless service to the dynastic polity. In an audience with a skeptical empress dowager, held in 1.1087, Wang Yansou proclaimed his own bloc’s innocence while shifting the blame upon the Shu faction: If Your Majesty’s heart doubts the existence of factions, then You will certainly neglect the factuality of matters. If You neglect the factuality of matters, then right and wrong will be hard to distinguish. Ever since antiquity there have been petty men who intended to, and were inclined to, harm superior men. Even though superior men are without transgression, and especially lack the wherewithal to handle [these situations], they are still accused of factionalism even for this.105

Here, Wang was advancing a similar proposition as Ouyang Xiu had in his New History of the Five Dynasties, discussed in Chapter 3, that true factions of petty men confused rulers by blurring moral absolutes and further befuddled them by falsely accusing superior men of factionalism. Thus little distinguished the re-

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monstrance of 1087 from that of a year before, when antireformists had utilized the same key words to impeach their reformist adversaries.106 Denying these allegations of factional perfidy, Lü Tao (1031–1107), a Sichuanese palace censor (dianzhong shiyushi), accused Luo and Shuo remonstrators of framing him: The duty of censors and remonstrance officials is to serve as the ears and eyes of the Son of Heaven. Their vital function lies in preserving policies and institutions and in distinguishing the righteous from the wicked. All [of their] attacks and indictments must comply with the utmost in public-mindedness and cannot be exploited to achieve power or to avenge selfish grievances. If they go so far as to do this, then this may be called deluding the ruler.107

Echoing Wang Yansou’s language, Lü Tao accused his enemies of factiousness and of inverting the absolute distinction between right and wrong, the public good and selfish gain. To defend himself from charges of factionalism, Su insisted that his Luo-affiliated accusers had slanderously misinterpreted and misrepresented his words, but they were the ones who had confused right and wrong, not himself: “The pattern of the writing is extremely clear, as plain as black and white—how could there even be the smallest thing that merits suspicion in appearing to discuss the former court?”108 Su also explained his disagreement with Sima Guang over the abolition of Hired Service and defended the value of ideological dissent at court against hostile remonstrators who equated it with disloyalty. Convinced by Su’s arguments in his defense, the empress dowager proclaimed Su’s innocence on all charges in an edict guided by Lü Gongzhu’s hand and seconded by Fan Chunren.109 The next month Zhu Guangting, the chief instigator of the charges against Su Shi, was dismissed from the Remonstrance Bureau and demoted to regional administration.110 As Lü Tao’s defense of censorial autonomy indicates, the Luo-Shu rivalry coincided with a larger institutional conflict between state councilors and remonstrators. During their takeover of the imperial bureaucracy in 1085–1086, Sima Guang had urged the empress dowager to open the roads of remonstrance to impeach the reformists, but once the antireform coalition was ensconced at court, grand councilors clamped down on the autonomy of the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau, continuing organizational trends established under Wang Anshi’s ministry.111 In 4.1087, Lü Gongzhu and Wen Yanbo ordered the dismissal of Investigating Censor Zhang Shunmin (jinshi 1065) after he critiqued Wen’s diplomatic dealings with the Tanguts.112 Refusing to be silenced, Vice Censor-in-Chief Fu Yaoyu (1024–1091) and his deputy Wang Yansou, both men of Shuo, memorialized the throne to defend Zhang and their institutional pre-



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rogatives, portraying themselves as noble and loyal servants of the throne and using a court-centered discourse of authority: Censors serve as Your Majesty’s eyes and ears. If there are some who harbor treachery and embrace wickedness or form cliques attached to high officials, then it is appropriate to speak out about their crimes and expel them. How can something that does not deceive the ruler, but on the contrary criticizes high officials, be considered an offense?113

Censorial opposition to ministerial interference spanned factional fault lines, for members of all three splinter groups, such as Liang Tao of Shuo, Zhu Guangting of Luo, and Lü Tao of Shu, memorialized in support of Zhang Shunmin. Nevertheless, even a unified Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau could oppose state councilors’ efforts to silence criticism. Liu Zhi, the Shuo faction’s leading representative on the Council of State, was prepared to sacrifice his affiliate Liang Tao to assert the Council’s (and his own) executive authority: “If there are remonstrators who are playing favorites, who are implicated in entrapments, who are close to factions, they cannot but be severely censured and soundly punished.”114 For defending Zhang Shunmin’s Censorial prerogatives against interference, Fu Yaoyu and Wang Yansou followed him into regional administration in 6.1087.115 The Luo fraction exploited the Zhang Shunmin affair to pursue partisan advantage against the men of Shu, striking out against Lü Tao after his patron Su Shi had dodged a literary inquisition. In 7.1087, Lü was sacked from the Censorate and demoted to a circuit-level post at least partially for his opposition to Zhang Shunmin’s dismissal. Before his departure Lü represented himself as an innocent victim of factional collusion in a memorial that doubled as an informal discourse on factions, in which he used the term “faction” to exclusively describe malign affiliations of petty men and assumed that superior men could not be factious. Lü Tao used well-worn historical analogies from the Han and Tang to admonish the empress dowager to properly distinguish affiliations of superior and petty men, just as sagely emperors had done in times of dynastic success. Since they “were able to open up the roads to the ranks of the righteous and to block the gates to the ranks of the perverse,” they had succeeded in “simply putting an end to the peril of factions” in their own time.116 But of course it was never easy for monarchs to tell the difference between true and false factions, since petty men clouded the issue by “slandering the loyal and the just,” so that all the emperor’s men would eventually “become disloyal and unjust, and jointly deceive their ruler,” destroying the public good and unleashing the private interest. For Lü Tao, the Niu-Li factional conflict of the late Tang, when innocent

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and noble ministers had been slandered as factious ministers, demonstrated the dangers of the uncontrolled spread of factionalism. Empress Dowager Xuanren now faced the same pivotal choice as earlier monarchs, and Lü Tao admonished her that the integrity of the dynastic polity hinged on the proper discrimination of true factions from false. Casting himself as a loyal and upright minister, Lü Tao insisted that his own defense of Zhang Shunmin was just a flimsy pretext for his dismissal from the Remonstrance Bureau. He then reversed the charges back upon his adversary Cheng Yi, and Cheng’s lieutenant Jia Yi (n.d.), the exhorter of the right, whom he accused of exploiting his remonstrance post to pursue a private vendetta, to “form a faction to the death,” a fact known to “every gentleman of the empire.”117 By the end of the year the conflict between the Luo and Shu fractions sputtered out, after the Shuo-dominated ministry moved to eliminate its leaders from the metropolitan bureaucracy. In 8.1087, Jia Yi was dismissed from the Remonstrance Bureau and demoted to the provinces for launching accusations of factionalism against a state councilor that linked the Shu and Shuo groups: “Lü Tao’s faction is helping out the Su brothers, and Wen Yanbo in fact leads them.”118 Just as Zhang Shunmin’s measured indictment of Wen Yanbo had done, Jia Yi’s smears against the elder statesman Wen Yanbo provoked the Shuo-dominated ruling coalition to silence another independent remonstrator. The same day Cheng Yi was dismissed from his post as imperial tutor to Zhezong and demoted to an educational post in Luoyang. Kong Wenzhong (1037–1087), the grand master of remonstrance of the left (zuo jianyi dafu), accused Cheng of being “base and foul in personal character, crafty and clever in Heavenly endowment” and of teaching heterodox classical interpretations in his regularly scheduled lectures to the young and impressionable emperor. As he exhorted the emperor and the empress dowager to “examine and ascertain truth (zhen) and falsehood (wei) . . . from up close, how can You be willing to countenance someone like Yi, who has perverted order, muddling black and white?”119 Needing no convincing, the empress dowager ordered Cheng’s expulsion from court. In a memorial of 10.1087, Liu Zhi singled out Jia Yi as a factional provocateur and alluded to the same line from the Book of Songs as Sun Sheng had: “At present, the sagacious and the enlightened reign above and are renewing benevolent governance, but a host of the petty (qun xiao) are displeased, struggling for advancement below. They array themselves into factions, fabricating slanderous discourse, seeking to entrap the good and the benevolent.”120 Unchallenged as leader of the Shuo bloc, Liu now indicted the factionalists lurking within the antireform coalition, using almost exactly the same rhetorical tools he had used to purge Cai Que and Zhang Dun. The Luo fraction’s fall from power impelled



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Cheng Yi to distrust political solutions to moral and social problems and influenced his self-selected disciples in the twelfth-century True Way Learning movement to assume an oppositionist stance towards the activist governance of the post-reform period, as we will see in Chapter 7.121 Thereafter, Luo-affiliated remonstrators set their sights upon Su Shi, by now the last man of Shu left standing. In 7.1087, Su Shi and Lü Tao had instigated a successful plot to force the dismissal of Han Wei, who had earlier denounced Su Shi and Lü Tao as a “Sichuanese faction,” as vice director of the Chancellery.122 For more than a year thereafter, Su endured frequent hostile memorials from remonstrators who sought payback for his opposition to the current Shuo-dominated ministry. At the end of 1088, Su Shi’s longtime adversary, the Censor Zhao Tingzhi (1040–1107), dredged up his “blasphemous” examination question of 1086. Under investigation, Su admitted that his policy disagreements with Sima Guang had impelled obsequious remonstrators to form a faction that silenced dissent within the antireform camp. To defend himself from a second series of charges of factionalism, Su again proclaimed his absolute innocence: “Remonstrance Official Lü Tao also memorialized that Han Wei had monopolized authority. . . . Your servant is originally a man of Shu, and my acquaintance with these two men is longstanding. Mr. Han’s faction has regularly plagued Your servant, accusing him of forming a Sichuanese faction (Chuandang).”123 Su insisted that Zhao Tingzhi was seeking revenge for past professional and personal insults, which rendered his accusations baseless. During the factional infighting that fractured the antireform ministry in the late 1080s, no rhetorician ever used the term “faction” to describe his own splinter group, for to do so was blatantly self-incriminating. As we have seen in Chapter 2, Su Shi once privately described his literary and political circle as a faction. But in his public pronouncements, Su Shi refrained from acknowledging that he and his fellow Sichuanese were acting in concert or were serving anything but the public good. In his blanket denials, Su Shi accused his adversaries of being truly factious, but these protestations ultimately went unheeded. Left with few defenders on the Council of State and lacking Xuanren’s support, Su was finally permitted a transfer to prefectural administration in 3.1089.124 But with the exile of nearly its entire dramatis personae to the regional administration, the Luo-Shu factional conflict ended quietly. After a few years in exile from the metropolitan bureaucracy, the major figures of both splinter groups, with the exception of Cheng Yi, were rehabilitated between 1089 and 1091. The backbiting between Luo and Shu continued until the end of the Xuanren Regency, but its rhetoric was far more modulated. Fragile and fissile, the post-Sima Guang antireform coalition was destabilized and paralyzed by infighting within the Council of State, which was itself the target of indictments from a restive Censorate and

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Remonstrance Bureau, until Empress Dowager Xuanren’s death in 1093. Like the reform coalition of Wang Anshi and his successors, the antireform coalition was less monolithic than its opponents claimed it to be in their polarizing rhetoric, which could not represent the actual contingencies of political practice.

Playing by the Same Rules In 1085 and 1086 the abrupt transition between reformist and antireformist ministerial regimes did not result in a corresponding disjuncture in factional rhetoric, which was still predicated on a court-centered discourse of authority that empowered the monarch as the ultimate arbiter of policy and personnel choices. Sima Guang formed a vertical alliance with Empress Dowager Xuanren to push through a conservative ideological agenda as state policy and to expel the reformists from court. The factional rhetoric of the councilors and remonstrators who served Xuanren was a natural outgrowth of Sima Guang’s “Discourse on Factions” and shared its intellectual assumptions and vocabulary. While reformist and antireformist officials used divergent languages for discussing state policy, and while their statecraft theories were predicated upon differing conceptions of the role of the state in society, their public pronouncements about factionalism all resembled each other. Both created binary oppositions between the governing coalition and its adversaries and assumed the existence of a unified ministry of superior men who loyally served the public good of the dynastic polity. Accusing their rivals of treachery and disloyalty, antireform remonstrators proclaimed that they could undo the damage that Shenzong’s petty men had inflicted upon the court, the state, and society with their New Policies and factiousness. The most sophisticated forms of antireformist rhetoric, exemplified by the memorials of Su Che and Sun Sheng, formulated faction theories that coincided with those of Sima Guang and Wang Anshi. Their remonstrance drew upon the same kinds of classical authorities and historical analogies as Wang Anshi once had: the Book of Changes, the Book of Songs, and the factional conflicts of the Han and Tang dynasties. Working through a similar process of textual retrofitting, these remonstrators defined ministerial affiliations as inherently malign: factions destabilized the dynastic polity. By committing herself to identifying and purging factions of petty men from court, Empress Dowager Xuanren could promote superior men to serve her, thereby associating herself with the “Yuanyou reversion” of state policy. Seeking political and ideological unanimity at court, just as Wang Anshi had, the antireformists under Sima Guang continued the factional conflict in their takeover of the Council of State, Censorate, and Remonstrance



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Bureau. In the factional rhetoric of Sima Guang and his allies, superior men were imagined to operate independently, even as their ostensibly uncoordinated efforts were imagined to be ethically and politically uniform. Just as Wang Anshi’s departure from the councilorship in 1074 had precipitated infighting within the reform bloc, Sima Guang’s death in 1086 left behind a power vacuum in which former allies engaged in fratricidal and factional struggles. During the Luo-Shu conflict, councilors and remonstrators used the same accusations of factional perfidy to indict one another as they had to impeach the reformists a year before. Ultimately, the antireformist Council of State moved to restrain the autonomy of the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau by silencing the most extreme elements of both the Luo and Shu fractions. Yet whether they were affiliated with Luo or Shuo or Shu, antireform rhetoricians still used a court-centered discourse of authority and empowered the empress dowager, who had personally identified herself with the “Yuanyou reversion,” as the ultimate arbiter of faction. Despite the abrupt shift in state policy that accompanied their abolition of the New Policies, the antireform ministries of the Xuanren Regency employed a common factional rhetoric in order to persuade a willing monarchical audience to eliminate their political opposition and implement their ideological agenda. Divided by a common language, Wang Anshi, Sima Guang, and their respective followers and successors followed similar rhetorical rules and wrote in a common language, dividing the imperial court between superior and petty men.

C hapter six

Retributive Justice Factional Rhetoric in the Post-Reform Era, 1094–1104

Political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.    —George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”

R

epeating the poetic inquisition against Cai Que measure for measure, the Korean Relations Institute (Tongwen guan) investigation of 1097 was designed to entrap the banished leaders of the antireform opposition.1 As in 1089, a Censorial cabal trumped up charges against former state councilors and then persuaded their monarchical audience to punish these so-called factionalists for treason and disloyalty. In a finger-pointing memorial of 8.1097, the minor official Cai Wei (n.d.), Cai Que’s eldest son, alleged that a “greatly evil and unethical plot by treacherous ministers” had been in the works to depose Zhezong during the first months of the Xuanren Regency.2 Luo Jiaxiang has speculated that Cai Wei was trying to avenge his father’s death in Lingnan, and also to banish the rumors that his father had once obstructed Zhezong’s enthronement, by accusing his father’s prosecutors of the same offense.3 By revealing a plot that cast doubt upon the circumstances of Zhezong’s accession, Cai’s report was intended to strike a raw nerve. Zhezong subsequently ordered two loyal officials, Hanlin Academician Recipient of Edicts (Hanlin xueshi chengzhi) Cai Jing and Associate Acting Vice Minister of Personnel (tong quan Libu shilang) An Dun (1042–1104), to investigate the charges and interrogate informants at the Korean Relations Institute, a palace suboffice for ritual diplomacy with inner vassals.4 As conspiracy theories took on the substance of fact, the surviving antireformist leaders were caught in a web of hearsay deriving from secondhand accounts of a former councilor’s deathbed confessions. The opportunistic Xing Shu (n.d.), a former disciple of Sima Guang and Lü Gongzhu and an early opponent of the New Policies, had joined Cai Que’s inner circle during the late Shenzong reign. Xing Shu’s Song History biography accuses this “treacherous minis126



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ter” and Cai Que of hatching a failed plot in 1085 to depose the future Emperor Zhezong as heir apparent and to install one of Shenzong’s younger brothers in his place.5 Now serving as Zhang Dun’s vice censor-in-chief, Xing Shu alleged that he had received a letter from Wen Jifu (n.d.) that on his deathbed, his father Wen Yanbo, the elder statesman who served both Shenzong and Xuanren, had informed him of the existence of an abortive palace coup in the early Yuanyou era. Xing alleged that the empress dowager and her councilors had actually plotted to dethrone Zhezong and to enthrone his uncle (and Xuanren’s own son) Zhao Hao (fl. 1060–1086), the prince of Yong.6 In Wen’s cryptic words: “The [usurping] heart of Sima Zhao is apparent to everyone on the street, and that [someone] went further to try and save the situation with Powderface (fen) and Elder Brother (kun), whose cliquish kind are confusing the enthronement, hoping [to send] myself (miaogong) off to a pleasant and happy place.” When the investigators decoded this message, they claimed that Wen’s reference to Sima Zhao (211–265), a treacherous minister who usurped the throne of the Wei dynasty (220–265), pointed to Liu Zhi as Zhezong’s putative deposer, while “Powderface” and “Elder Brother” denoted Wang Yansou and Liang Tao as Liu’s co-conspirators.7 It was probably no coincidence that these three former ministers had led the campaign to deport Cai Que to Lingnan in 1089. At other points in the investigation, Empress Dowager Xuanren herself was accused of discussing the possibility of dethroning Zhezong with Sima Guang.8 It strained credulity that Wen Yanbo would have implicated his factional ally Liu Zhi in such heinous crimes or that his son Wen Jifu could have been connected with Xing Shu, but his interrogator Cai Jing claimed that Wen Yanbo resented Liu for dismissing him from the Council of State and that Liu had also frustrated Wen Jifu’s own career ambitions.9 The Korean Relations Institute investigation could not have proceeded without the active involvement of Emperor Zhezong, who personally identified himself with the restoration of the New Policies and the campaign to eradicate the defeated antireformist opposition. By stoking Zhezong’s resentment of the antireformists who had dominated his minority, the reformists received imperial approval to inflict retributive justice upon their factional adversaries. When Cai Wei’s revelations came to light, Zhezong issued an edict bestowing posthumous honors upon Cai Que, whom he declared “innocent, but died in banishment.”10 Subsequently, the emperor ordered the deportation of Liu Zhi, Liang Tao, and Liu Anshi to similarly lethal places. Exiled to Lingnan, Liu Zhi and Liang Tao died late in the eleventh and twelfth months of 1097.11 Without any alleged co-conspirators left to punish, Cai Jing memorialized Zhezong to demand that Liu Zhi and Liang Tao’s sons and grandsons be punished in their stead:

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Because Liu Zhi and his fellow criminals had the heart of Sima Zhao, this was expressed to their contemporaries . . . if [You] let them off with thousand deaths, [You] would be extremely lenient in [Your] magnanimity. . . . To punish their crimes is within Your Majesty’s authority. Now, of those who have committed greatly evil and unethical crimes and have evaded [punishment] up to the present day, Your servant ignorantly considers that this is not something that should be manifested to the empire.12

Zhezong granted Cai Jing’s request, promulgating an edict that restricted the movements of Liu Zhi and Liang Tao’s descendants and revoked their eligibility for official appointment.13 Few of the remaining leaders of the proscribed “Yuanyou faction” (Yuanyou dang) escaped punishment. A ministerial communication of 2.1097 recommended reducing the posthumous honors of Sima Guang and Lü Gongzhu, for “leading a treacherous plot, slandering the Former Emperor, altering policies and institutions; their crimes and evil are extremely profound.”14 Sentenced to Lingnan for “presuming upon his evil and wicked authority to form a faction to the death,” Liu Anshi survived his term of banishment.15 Lü Dafang (1027– 1097), who had been grand councilor during the last years of the Xuanren Regency and the chief object of reformist resentment, died of illness en route to his place of mandated exile.16 Such prominent antireformists as Su Che, Su Shi, Zhu Guangting, Fan Zuyu, and Cheng Yi were all sentenced to extended stays in the south, a fate that befell even Fan Chunren, one of Cai Que’s sole defenders.17 Fan Chunren’s prophecy had been realized: the ministers of the Yuanyou era were forced to walk the thorny path they and the Empress Dowager had reopened in 1089. At the end of the investigation, the surviving antireformist leaders were banished, which would help prevent their coalition from reconstituting itself after a future monarchical transition. How and why did the reformists, after their rehabilitation in 1094, succeed in making Zhezong complicit in factional frame-ups like the Korean Relations Institute investigation? How did reformist councilors and remonstrators persuade Emperor Zhezong to exile the former ministers who had banished Cai Que, and how did they later convince Emperor Huizong to blacklist the entire antireform coalition? Why were Shenzong’s sons and successors so willing to believe that the word “faction” described only the antireformists, while condoning the reformist coalitions that dominated their court and bureaucracy? Finally, how did the revived reform faction use polarizing rhetoric to justify the brutalization of political practices to Zhezong and Huizong, who personally associated themselves with their chosen ministers’ ideological program of restoring and expanding the New Policies?



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In this chapter I will analyze the final phase of the factional conflict of the late Northern Song, from the beginning of Zhezong’s personal rule to the fifth year of Huizong’s reign, by investigating three samples of factional rhetoric. The first comes from the period of Zhezong’s “restoration” of the mid-1090s, when the reformist ministry of Zhang Dun swept back into power, and remonstrators purged the “Yuanyou faction” of antireformist ministers from court in order to resuscitate the New Policies in an opposition-free environment.18 Once they were in firm control of the imperial bureaucracy, the reformists sought payback for Cai Que’s death in Lingnan by banishing the most prominent members of the antireform coalition. The second sample of factional rhetoric covers the year after Zhezong’s death in 1100, when Shenzong’s consort Empress Dowager Qinsheng stepped in as regent, enthroning Zhezong’s younger brother Zhao Ji as Emperor Huizong. During her short-lived regency, surviving antireformists and a second generation of sympathizers entered or re-entered the imperial bureaucracy, where they served in a bipartisan unity government that was intended to defuse factional tensions by including a wider range of elite opinion at court. In 1100, the apostate reformist Zeng Bu became the regent’s chosen grand councilor and attempted to impose factional conciliation by fiat, but he was impeached by antireformist remonstrators and undermined by an unreconstructed reformist challenger. The third sample of memorials comes from Huizong’s personal rule, which began in 1101, when Cai Jing began shoving aside his ministerial rivals to become the emperor’s trusted grand councilor for the next twenty-five years. From 1102 to 1104, Cai persuaded Huizong to unleash a series of proscription edicts that blacklisted Cai’s political and personal enemies and established reformist dominance of the imperial bureaucracy until the last year of the Northern Song. Throughout the post-reform period, a time of spiraling partisan proscriptions and failed factional conciliation, the reformists (and to a lesser extent, their antireformist adversaries) used the same rhetorical strategies and polarizing language to justify increasingly brutal forms of political practice against their “factious” enemies.19 All the while they maintained that the monarch’s chosen ministers were loyally serving the public good, using a court-centered discourse of authority that could not be reconfigured, in an ideological conflict that could no longer be mediated.

The Vertical Alliance of Zhezong and Zhang Dun, 1093–1094 The Antireformists’ Last Stand In the political stasis of the final years of the Xuanren Regency, Liu Zhi controlled an entrenched ministerial regime that incorporated men of Luo

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into the governing Shuo coalition. Intending to accommodate ideological diversity at court in a return to the political norms before the Shenzong reign, Liu launched a campaign of factional “conciliation” (tiaoting) in 1090, in which he brought several minor reformists back into the central government bureaucracy.20 But recalcitrant remonstrators prevented his ministry from amnestying the exiled Cai Que or from rehabilitating such reformist leaders as Zhang Dun, Lü Huiqing, and Zeng Bu.21 In a memorial of 6.1090, Vice Censor-inChief Su Che instructed the empress dowager that “superior and petty men cannot jointly hold positions at court,” and he implored her to employ the former while repelling the latter, so that the hexagram Tai would prevail in the empire. Denouncing Liu’s policy of mediation, Su issued an apocalyptic warning against re-employing the reform faction: “Disputers have deluded [You] with glib words, intending to invite and include [them] in order to jointly administer affairs with them, desiring to conciliate their faction. Your servant claims that if these men return . . . then they will certainly harm and ruin righteous men.”22 As a consequence, only such accommodating reformists as Deng Wenbo (1027–1094), Li Qingchen (1032–1102), and Yang Wei (1044–1112) were permitted to join Liu Zhi’s ministry, where their numbers and authority were insufficient to give them an entering wedge into governance or the power to revive the New Policies.23 Vice Censor-in-Chief Zheng Yong (1031–1098) indicted Liu Zhi for having built a factional patronage machine of more than thirty officials that monopolized control over the bureaucratic appointment process for private gain, and Liu fell from the councilorship in 1091 after a year of fending off calls for impeachment.24 Drawing fire from more inflexible elements within his ruling coalition, Liu Zhi’s campaign to include reformists at court, which had been intended to mitigate the destructiveness of a future reformist takeover, was fruitless. His failed policy of conciliation demonstrated the impracticability of Su Shi’s “Discourse on Factions,” which urged monarchs to accommodate lesser petty men in order to defuse their grievances and protect superior men from accusations of factionalism. When Empress Dowager Xuanren died in 9.1093 at age sixty-one, the direction of court politics shifted yet again under Zhezong’s personal rule (qinzheng).25 Now almost seventeen, the emperor was eager to assert his independence after nine years of his grandmother’s regency and to throw off the interference and tutelage of her councilors, who had meddled in the selection and investiture of his consort in 1092.26 Moving to revive the New Policies of his revered father Shenzong, he embarked upon a self-conscious “restoration” (shaoshu) of the policies and personalities of the reform era.27 In the first year of the Shaosheng era (1094–1097), Zhezong rehabilitated the reformists from almost a decade in



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exile and appointed Zhang Dun as his grand councilor. Such an abrupt ministerial transition, not to mention the push to revive and expand the New Policies, could not have proceeded without the exclusion of the antireformist opposition and the new monarch’s support for both initiatives. Soon after taking back the Council of State and Censorate, the reformists retaliated against the surviving ministers of the Yuanyou era, thereby realizing Fan Chunren’s ominous predictions.28 But throughout Zhezong’s reformist restoration, the rhetoric of factional politics remained a variation on earlier themes from the reform and antireform eras. By labeling the antireformists as the “Yuanyou faction,” reformist remonstrators denied the authority of their adversaries while asserting their own loyalty to the throne and ensuring monarchical approval for their own ideological program. Their factional polemics were nearly indistinguishable from those of 1070 or 1086, a straight recycling of the courtcentered discourse of authority that empowered Zhezong as the ultimate arbiter of faction. Desperately admonishing Zhezong against rehabilitating the reformists, antireformists addressed the throne in a last-ditch effort to forestall the collapse of their ministry, which still controlled the Council of State and both remonstrance organs. In a memorial of 9.1093, the Hanlin Scholar (Hanlin xueshi) Fan Zuyu (1041–1098) used polarizing rhetoric to distinguish Shenzong’s reformists and Xuanren’s antireformists. A protégé and historiographic assistant of Sima Guang, Fan admonished Zhezong that distinguishing petty from superior men was the dynastic polity’s only hope for survival and that this was “the pivot between the order and chaos of the empire.”29 Accepting the premises of Sima Guang’s “Discourse on Factions,” Fan pressured Zhezong to recognize that the reformists were a deceitful faction of petty men. The rhetoric of Fan Zuyu’s memorial recycled, sometimes verbatim, an admonition he had submitted in 1089, when he urged Zhezong and Xuanren to rectify their own hearts and then to distinguish the “wickedness and righteousness of their group of ministers.”30 True to form, Fan admonished the emperor to close his mind to the reformists’ campaign of historical revisionism: Now there certainly will be petty men who will advance to remonstrate: ‘The empress dowager should not have altered the governance of the Former Emperor and should not have expelled the Former Emperor’s ministers.’ These rift-making words cannot but be investigated. When Your Majesty first ascended the throne and in the days when the empress dowager took control of governance, the officials and commoners who memorialized the throne numbered in the tens of thousands, and they all said that governmental directives had disadvantageous aspects. Because the hearts of the men of the

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empire intended to alter them, the empress dowager and Your Majesty together altered them and did not do so with her own selfish intentions.31

The next month, Secretariat Drafter Lü Tao pleaded with the emperor not to forsake the antireform legacy of the Xuanren Regency: Ever since the empress dowager began her regency, the ferocious and the wicked have been banished. . . . Of the hearts of petty men, none does not bear grievances and resentments. Invariably there will be those who remonstrate treacherously and wickedly, and without righteousness, it is only to confound the ruler’s sagely perceptions. They claim that the empress dowager expelled [Shenzong’s] old ministers and reformed the affairs of [His] governance. At present, Your Majesty personally attends to myriad points: that such-and-such a person should be re-employed, that such-and-such a matter should be re-implemented. This is the point between order and chaos, the pivot between peace and peril, and an omen of the enhancement and dispelling of superior and petty men, all of which depend upon Your Majesty’s investigation or lack thereof. . . . The matters that the empress dowager altered were all beneficial to the common people. All of the ministers whom she expelled were the malefactors of the empire. How could anyone ever doubt this?32

If Zhezong rehabilitated the reform faction, Lü insisted, the dynastic polity faced imminent collapse. He implored Zhezong to follow the example of Renzong, who did not repudiate the governance of his regent, Empress Dowager Liu, when he attained majority and began his personal rule. But Zhezong had already committed himself to reviving the New Policies by allying himself vertically with his chosen councilors. With Zhezong’s active intervention assured, the reformist takeover of the metropolitan bureaucracy was accomplished in record time. In the second month of 1094, the emperor appointed the moderate reformists Li Qingchen and Deng Wenbo to his Council of State.33 The imperial court’s policy consensus underwent an abrupt shift the following month, when a palace examination question, possibly written by Li in Zhezong’s voice, apotheosized Shenzong’s reign as a golden age of reform: The virtue of Emperor Shenzong was numinous and enlightened, and he possessed the learning of Shun and Yu. . . . For the nineteen years of his rule, rites and music, policies and institutions, were all benevolently bequeathed to the empire with the utmost perfection. We consider his methods and in-



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tentions to have been sincere and diligent. Day and night, We dare not forget this.34

Moving quickly to impose ideological uniformity within the metropolitan bureaucracy, the reformists employed the examination system to promote their own and to weed out their opponents, by urging prospective officials to denounce the “Yuanyou reversion”: Although official selection by poetic examination has been revived, gentlemen have not increased in ability. Although the Ever-Normal [Granary, aka Green Sprouts] officials have been abolished, farmers have not increased in wealth. Although there have been a variety of arguments on whom to hire and whom to draft, corvée policy is still faulty. . . . Although territory has been ceded to mollify those from afar, the Qiang barbarians’ [aka Tangut] incursions have not yet ceased. Although [government] profit-making has been rescinded in order to be advantageous to the common people, merchants’ routes do not connect. Why have matters come to this, when clerical personnel are rampant and numerous, when military preparations have been cut back and deficient, when hunger and famine is so acute that grass is eaten, when rebels and felons still increase?

Whether this represented Zhezong’s personal critique of antireformist governance, or was simply his ministers’ policy manifesto, the revival of the New Policies was a fait accompli. Now the vice director of the Chancellery, Su Che defied the impending reformist takeover, contrasting the loyal ministers of the Yuanyou era with their factious adversaries: “It is said that for petty men, cherishing the ruler depends upon expediency, and that for loyal ministers, cherishing the ruler is for the sake of the security of the dynastic and state altars.”35 In this court-centered discourse of authority, Su Che was asserting that his own ministerial cohort, with monarchical support of course, was the unifying force that held the dynastic polity together. After Su denounced the New Policies as an unmitigated disaster in a point-by-point rebuttal to the recent examination question, Zhezong dismissed him to prefectural administration. With Xuanren’s grand councilors Lü Dafang and Fan Chunren dismissed from office, Zhang Dun ascended to the post of grand councilor of the left in 4.1094.36 Until the end of Zhezong’s reign, this former lieutenant of Cai Que led the reform faction; vertically allied with the emperor, he controlled state policy unchecked by a grand councilor of the right, an office that was left permanently unfilled. Throughout his councilorship, Zhang’s lieutenant Cai Bian (1058–1117) handled the details

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behind the implementation of the New Policies and the purging of the antireform opposition.37 The Reformist Restoration With the Council of State securely in reformist hands, imperial symbols and rituals also foreshadowed and reflected the abrupt policy reversals at court. In 4.1094 the current reign device was retroactively changed, and the ninth year of the Yuanyou era was decreed to be the first year of the Shaosheng era.38 Meaning “Continuing Sagacity,” the name of the new era evoked the legacy of Shenzong, now honored as a sage-ruler whose policies and councilors the present government intended to resuscitate. With the clock symbolically turned back a decade, the Zhang Dun ministry packed remonstrance posts with loyal men, thereby ensuring political and ideological uniformity at court. Five reformists were appointed to the Censorate and the Remonstrance Bureau on the same day.39 They mounted a coordinated offensive to indict and expel antireformists from the metropolitan bureaucracy. The remonstrators of the early Shaosheng era accused the “Yuanyou factionalists” (Yuanyou dangren) of high treason, for selfishly and recklessly abandoning the reform legacy of Shenzong and his ministers, who were rehabilitated as exemplars of public-minded governance. In his first memorial as exhorter of the right, Zhang Shangying (1043–1121) confirmed Zhezong’s judgment that the treacherous ministers of the Xuanren Regency had tarnished the memory of the Shenzong reign: Shenzong expressed his intention to clarify virtue and the Way, in order to create and mold human talent and to unify civic mores (tongyi fengsu). But [His] great intentions have not yet been brought together, and his numinous spirit resides in Heaven. Empress Dowager Xuanren protected and aided Your Majesty and relied upon and entrusted her ministers, consigning supervision of the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau [to them]. Under their influence, she was beset by a swarm of sycophants and opportunists. . . . Thereupon, empty talk gave rise to slander. They joined with and instigated the dissenting factions (yidang) of Luo and [Si]chuan.40

By banishing the antireformists to the provinces for their crimes against the dynastic polity, a course to which he was already committed, Zhezong could begin to restore balance to the court and the empire at large. Zhang Shangying invoked the classical authority of the Book of Changes to establish a causal linkage between the reform of the polity and the ethical resurgence of the masses, citing the commentary to Hexagram 53, Jian (Gradual Advance): “The superior man



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finds a place for his worthiness and virtue to dwell and so manages to improve civic mores.”41 Zhang shared Wang Anshi’s convictions that ethical and ideological unanimity at court, which bound superior-man ministers in loyal service to the dynastic polity, would radiate outwards into the empire to unify and uplift society. The emperor granted Zhang Shangying’s request, expelling the leaders of the Yuanyou ministry to the provinces, regardless of their political inclinations and policy positions. Recalcitrant antireformists such as Fan Zuyu and Su Che were purged from court alongside more moderate figures, since the reformists’ political rhetoric established absolute distinctions between superior and petty men and could not acknowledge that the opposition to the New Policies had never been monolithic to begin with. His pleas for clemency on behalf of Cai Que did not protect Fan Chunren, whom the current state councilors censured for “joining a clique led by Sima Guang . . . which slandered the Former Emperor and disordered policies and institutions.”42 While Zhezong had affirmed Fan Chunren’s innocence, declaring him an exemplar of the public good who was “without faction,” Zhang Dun persuaded the emperor to expel him from court anyway. In I4.1094, the Investigating Censor Liu Zheng (n.d.) set his sights upon Su Shi and his protégé Qin Guan: Su Shi dared to express his selfish grudges (sifen) in edicts and promulgations that were extremely and noxiously slanderous towards the Former Emperor. . . . Qin Guan is a dissolute petty man, who shadowed and attached himself to Shi. Your servant requests to rectify Shi’s crimes and to dismiss Guan, in order to manifest this to the future generations of the empire.43

After Liu submitted his memorial, Zhezong demoted both men to prefectural administration. As we have seen in Chapter 3, Su Shi’s repeated experiences with poetic inquisitions and political purges informed his accommodationist faction theory, and Qin Guan’s involvement in the factional squabbling of the 1080s shaped his “Discourse on Factions,” which urged monarchs to look past labels and charges of factionalism and ascertain superior and petty men. Ultimately, it was the grand councilors of the late Yuanyou era who bore the brunt of the censorial assault. Given their involvement in Cai Que’s banishment and their longtime dominance of the empress dowager’s court, the Shuo ministers Lü Dafang, Liu Zhi, Liang Tao, and Su Che were pronounced guilty of various forms of factional treachery. In a memorial of I4.1094, Exhorter of the Left Shangguan Jun (jinshi 1070) assassinated the character of Lü Dafang and Su Che, using polemical rhetoric reminiscent of the antireformist indictments of Cai Que and Zhang Dun:

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Your servant observes that the former councilor Lü Dafang’s Heavenly endowment is overbearing and ruthless, and he harbored wickedness with which he deluded the polity. Together with Vice Censor-in-Chief Su Che, he secretly formed a factional attachment (dangfu). Uniting in wickedness, they helped one another out. Your servant implores Your Majesty to investigate the roots and branches [of this matter], applying Your enlightened judgment and especially applying [himself to] enacting it in order to illuminate good and evil at court, and ruling to distinguish the righteous from the wicked, so that institutions will be rectified.44

Blurring the boundaries between superior and petty men, these antireformist ministers had portrayed themselves as blameless—Shangguan alleged—while mercilessly purging loyal reformist ministers from court on false charges, thereby distorting right and wrong. He left it unsaid that Zhezong’s chosen ministers were polarizing political discourse to the other extreme. By 5.1094 the antireformist leaders had been sent down to prefectural-level administrative posts, allowing the reformists and their imperial patron to consolidate their control of the central government bureaucracy and to implement their policy agenda. From its first month in power, Zhang Dun’s ministry began reviving the New Policies with little internal debate and no external opposition.45 In 4.1094 Zhezong assented to his state councilors’ unanimous request to reimpose the Hired Service policy throughout the empire.46 During his debate with Sima Guang in 1086, Zhang had raised pragmatic criticisms of the corvée policy’s excesses, and his ministry pursued a more moderate course than either Wang Anshi or Cai Que once had, imposing caps on extracting revenue from rural households through extra-normal exactions and exempting the poorest households entirely. In what would become his standard role in the Shaosheng restoration, Cai Jing directed the policy’s top-down implementation, stemming a mere trickle of criticism.47 The Green Sprouts farm loans policy was next to be resuscitated in a similarly pragmatic fashion, by an imperial edict of 9.1095 that strictly limited interest rates to avoid out-engrossing the so-called “engrossers.”48 Zhang Dun’s ministry gradually implemented State Trade, the final piece in the puzzle, between 1094 and 1097, ultimately capping interest rates so that local bureaucratic entrepreneurs’ profits would be returned to the imperial treasury.49 While documentation on the policy program of the Shaosheng restoration is spotty, the available evidence indicates that the state activist policies were reconfigured to balance Wang Anshi’s compatible aims of revenue collection and wealth generation. With the opposition eliminated, the Zhang Dun ministry optimized the New Policies, deepening what they imagined Shenzong’s reforming intentions to have been. The vertical alliance between Emperor Zhezong



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and the restoration made the reformists’ policy agenda and political dominance unassailable until the reign’s end. Exiling the “Yuanyou Faction” Once the leaders of the antireform opposition had been expelled from court, reformist remonstrators pressured Zhezong to punish them further.50 Memorializing the throne in 6.1094, Exhorter of the Left Zhai Si (jinshi 1070) persuaded Zhezong to broaden his investigation of their past remonstrance: Ever since the Yuanyou era, treacherous men inside and outside [court] have attached themselves to high officials and have slandered the former court in hopes of securing a promotion. I beg that the remonstrance that they disseminated be classified and arranged [according to their] rightness and wrongness (shifei) and illuminated and announced inside and outside [court] in order to cleanse away the slandering of the former court.51

For Zhai Si, false accusations of factionalism against such loyal state councilors as Lü Huiqing and Cai Que had been a façade that concealed the genuine factional perfidy of the Yuanyou antireformists. By punishing Lü Dafang and his fellow malefactors, Zhezong could re-establish the proper correspondence between language and reality and the proper distinction between loyalty and treachery. In this court-centered discourse of authority, it was the monarch alone who possessed the authority to fix the definitions of these ethical and epistemic absolutes. Reformist remonstrators continued to accuse their petty-man adversaries of using subterfuge to purge all superior men from Xuanren’s court, thereby ensuring that all officialdom would join their nefarious faction. In a memorial of 6.1094, Investigating Censor Zhou Zhi (jinshi 1076) argued that Lü Dafang had purged all dissent in his pursuit of absolute power: Previously, when Lü Dafang served as grand councilor of the left, he occupied the post for a long time and abandoned himself to treachery and evil. He secretly formed factional attachments with censors and remonstrance officials. As for high officials of the same rank, if they were not in accord with him, then [Lü et al.] attacked and banished them. Their fiendish frame-ups grew more intense by the day, until no man dared to do what was appropriate. Thereupon, they monopolized positions for themselves. They did not comply with the preservation of policies [that is, the New Policies], and [engaged in] great treachery and unlawfulness. The spirits of men became unified in their resentment, and the empire could not countenance them. They

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have not yet been rectified by punishment according to the statutes and have violently harmed the vital energies of harmoniousness.52

For Zhou Zhi, ideological dissent meant the principled opposition of superior men to the malfeasance of petty men only, not the reverse. In its revived phase, reformist factional rhetoric rested on similar centralizing assumptions as that of Wang Anshi and his antireform opposition: that the ethical composition of the monarch’s ministers positively or negatively affected the moral health of society. Likewise, the Shaosheng reformists insisted that the treacherous “Yuanyou faction” had corrupted civic mores instead of employing the bureaucracy to ensure ethical uniformity at court and in the empire at large. In 1094 Zhou Zhi presented Zhezong with the same false dichotomy Wang Anshi had cloven for Shenzong in 1069 and Sima Guang had placed before Xuanren in 1085: the choice between ideological uniformity and dynastic disaster. While no visible discontinuities had developed within factional rhetoric during Zhezong’s personal rule, political practices had undergone a progressive brutalization in the mid-1090s, when Zhang Dun’s reformist ministry sought retribution for Cai Que’s death in Lingnan. Remonstrators begged Zhezong “to correct the extreme slanders” that had been inflicted upon their deceased leader by restoring Cai Que’s official rank and titles.53 Vice Censor-in-Chief Huang Lü (jinshi 1057) memorialized the throne to persecute Cai Que’s persecutors: [Liang] Tao first instigated and initiated wicked remonstrance, Wu Chuhou followed by laying out a poetic commentary, and consequently Liu Anshi and others together attacked [him]. Once state councilors took control of them, they cast Cai Que out beyond the mountain ranges. . . . Ever since Your Majesty began to personally attend to Your duties, You have penetrated and illuminated their treachery and slanders and restored Que’s official rank, [thereby] adorning the world of the dead. . . . But those who vigorously purged and entrapped [Que] have yet to be rectified by punishment according to the statutes. It is fitting to apply this manifest judgment, assenting to public-minded opinion (gongyi).54

With Zhezong’s consent, surviving members of the Yuanyou ministry were exiled to distant prefectures, and their deceased colleagues were posthumously stripped of ranks and honors. In 7.1094 Zhou Zhi memorialized that the empress dowager’s former ministers—including Sima Guang, Lü Gongzhu, Wen Yanbo, Lü Dafang, Liu Zhi, and the Su brothers—had not been sufficiently punished.55 Sima Guang and Lü Gongzhu were posthumously punished and demoted by Zhezong’s edict, while Lü Dafang, Liu Zhi, and Su Che were dispatched to



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southern hinterland prefectures and stripped of their prestige titles.56 Su Shi’s punishment was commensurate with that of Cai Que: deportation to Lingnan. Ironically, Su had opposed the severity of Cai’s sentence in 1089.57 Zhang Shangying argued that these punishments would dissuade those who sought to follow the negative example of those ministers: “[Your servant] desires to again beg [You] to punish Lü Dafang for his crimes and evil by casting him out to scattered territories. . . . Everywhere inside and outside the court and palace, and the [Three] Departments, everyone will be fearful, and will no longer dare to harbor wickedness, or to ornament falsehoods into matters [of state].”58 Moreover, Emperor Zhezong himself was actively involved in retroactively punishing the deceased ministers of the Yuanyou era, thus breaking with past precedent in which such extreme measures had generally been considered off limits. For example, Wang Anshi had died of natural causes with his official honors and rank intact in 1086 in the midst of the Yuanyou reversion. In an edict of 9.1094, Zhezong assented to rescinding the posthumous honors that had been granted to Sima Guang and Lü Gongzhu, and scapegoated them for the failings of the Xuanren Regency: When We initially succeeded to the throne, we venerated Empress Dowager Xuanren as Our grandmother. Wielding power jointly, [she] apprehended and oversaw [governance] with a benevolent heart and sincere intentions, concentrating upon protecting and aiding Our person. During her regency, her oversight could not encompass [all matters]; hence, she went out of order in her employment of high officials and extended her heart in entrusting government affairs [to them]. . . . Sima Guang and Lü Gongzhu forsook the longtime great munificence of the court, harbored grudges as a matter of course . . . and indulged in the wickedness and treachery of factionalism.59

Since the empress dowager had been acting in Zhezong’s name throughout her regency, she had been partially responsible for her failure to recognize the nefariousness of her factious councilors, but it was they who bore the brunt of the blame for undermining the dynastic polity, rescinding the New Policies, and committing lèse majesté against Shenzong. Intending to admonish future factionalists, Zhezong posthumously ejected the antireform leaders from officialdom by imperial edict in 8.1095, which maintained that there was an absolute distinction between superior and petty men.60 Even if it was disproportionate to what Cai Que alone had endured for five years in Lingnan, the systematic elimination of an entire ministerial association from the bureaucratic ranks represented yet another break with past political practice. Its advocates promised ideological and political uniformity while (ostensibly) preventing the fu-

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ture amnestying of the opposition. In court debates before a reluctant emperor, Zeng Bu argued against extending clemency to Lü Dafang and his “Yuanyou faction,” arguing that neither Cai Que nor Lü Huiqing had been treated with comparable leniency during the Xuanren Regency.61 His voice of caution again unheeded, Fan Chunren, now serving in prefectural administration, protested that those who had imposed this ban were “deluding the state and harming the public good” and pleaded for imperial clemency. But after a subsequent imperial edict accused him of “establishing heterodoxy and striving for fame by damaging and obstructing the court,” Fan was himself stripped of his honorary rank and transferred out to a peripheral prefecture.62 Yet again, Fan Chunren’s example demonstrates that those who attempted to defuse the factional conflict were eventually silenced and marginalized by those who perpetuated its rhetoric and practices. During Zhezong’s personal rule, as during the councilorships of Wang Anshi and Sima Guang, ethical uniformity and ideological conformity were treated as mutually entailing. The Zhang Dun ministry imposed strict controls upon the Censorate and the Remonstrance Bureau, continuing the institutional trends of the Shenzong reign and the Xuanren Regency. For example, in 9.1095, the Investigating Censor Chang Anmin (jinshi 1073) memorialized the throne to protest that Zhang Dun and his followers were exploiting Shenzong’s legacy as a smokescreen for factional treachery: At present, of the high officials who have advanced the discourse of restoration, this is really only an excuse and a pretext for avenging his selfish grudges, and those of his onetime clique who follow and harmonize with him, so that [the situation] has already become extreme. . . . In these various matters, how can they be said to have public-minded hearts? Thus, all of those who have pressured Your Majesty for a restoration of the Former Emperor[’s governance] only desire to exploit the Former Emperor as a pretext for implementing their treacherous schemes.63

Chang was immediately sacked from office on Zhang Dun’s orders, and an imperial edict of dismissal accused him of having “a wicked heart and a base character.” Future dissenters against the restored reformist ministry were similarly marginalized and labeled as petty men. Moreover, the Council of State continued to restrain the autonomy of the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau, especially when their remonstrance directly threatened high executive officials. Dominated by loyal reformists, both organs were consistently understaffed during Zhezong’s personal rule, rendering them impotent to investigate or prosecute ministerial malfeasance.64



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Proscribing the “Yuanyou Faction” Early in the Shaosheng era, the purge of the antireformists had been conducted on a case-by-case basis, with Zhezong’s approval. By the winter of 1095–1096, the emperor’s chief ministers had devised institutional mechanisms to prosecute these men for disloyalty and sedition. In an audience with Zhezong in 12.1095, Zhang Dun and Zeng Bu persuaded the emperor to approve the comprehensive investigation and classification (bianlei) of all memorials submitted during the Xuanren Regency, which implicated nearly every member of the “Yuanyou faction” who had served in the Council of State from 1085 to 1094.65 After the ad hoc investigation of antireformist remonstrance had run its course, the Zhang Dun ministry further fragmented the opposition by targeting the antireformists who had heretofore escaped punishment. In 6.1098 Attendant Censor An Dun memorialized the throne to investigate the Yuanyou-era antireformists for their previous investigation of reformist remonstrance. Back in the Xuanren Regency, in early 1086, the Investigation and Prosecution Bureau (Suli suo) had been established to vet the political content of memorials from Shenzong’s reign.66 In An’s judgment, the “Yuanyou faction” had exploited the Bureau’s investigations to purge loyal reformists on false charges of factionalism: Your servant humbly considers Emperor Shenzong to have made the state prosper with proper governance and to have adjudicated all criminal cases with enlightenment. Everyone in the empire knows this. But in the early Yuanyou era, when Your Majesty had not yet begun to personally [oversee] governmental affairs, treacherous ministers took advantage of the times and proposed to establish the Investigation and Prosecution Bureau. All those who had committed offenses during the Yuanfeng era were entirely eliminated for avenging their grievances towards the Former Court. . . . Now that these treacherous intentions have been revealed, they cannot but be corrected. [Your servant] desires to beseech the court to designate officials to investigate the public cases of the Investigation and Prosecution Bureau of the Yuanyou era.67

In a dialogue with Zhezong, Zeng Bu extravagantly claimed that the Yuanyouera Bureau had investigated the remonstrance of 897 individual reformist officials, but the actual total was probably closer to one hundred.68 Later, in 3.1099, An Dun memorialized the throne to implore Zhezong to punish the entire Yuanyou-era staff of the Investigation and Prosecution Bureau, all the way down to minor functionaries who had outlived Liu Zhi, the project’s ostensible mastermind.69 Along with the Korean Relations Institute investigation, the reinvestiga-

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tion of the Investigation and Prosecution Bureau affair illustrates the extent to which systematic factional prosecutions had become an end in themselves. The antireformist coalition of the Xuanren Regency was not just decimated but decapitated, rendered incapable of threatening reformist dominance until at least the next monarchical transition. Issued in 2.1097, a Three Departments report extended the partisan proscriptions to encompass kinsmen and associates of the deceased leaders of the opposition: Sima Guang and Lü Gongzhu initiated treacherous schemes; they slandered and flattered the Former Emperor, modified policies and institutions, and their crimes and evil were extremely profound. At the time, they and their fiendish faction were united in assisting each other from head to tail. The men who were attached to them have been fated to die by now and consequently could not be rectified by being punished according to statute. But even after their deaths, abundant favors have been extended to their surviving sons, grandsons, kinsmen, and associates, who have yet to be punished, regardless of the severity [of their crimes].70

An appended imperial edict stripped Sima and Lü of all remaining prestige titles and banned their descendants from officeholding in perpetuity. Another rescript singled out Wang Yansou, one of Cai Que’s most vocal prosecutors, decreeing that he be exiled to Lingnan, as an appropriate punishment for his “fiendishness, wickedness, and forming a faction to the death.”71 Surviving leaders of the antireform coalition were officially blacklisted in 2.1097, when thirty-seven of them were deprived of their honorary ranks and titles, and their descendants were barred from bureaucratic service.72 His chosen ministers persuaded Zhezong that this sweeping ban on officeholding would prevent the descendants of this nefarious faction from ever clawing their way back to power, because the survival of the dynastic polity depended upon the emperor’s ability to recognize and eliminate the “Yuanyou faction.” By enforcing these proscriptions, Zhezong would bring an end to factionalism, preserving ethical unanimity and ideological conformity within the imperial bureaucracy. Ends, not means, distinguished the political discourse and practices of the Shaosheng restoration from those of the reform or antireform eras. The Zhang Dun ministry employed similar polarizing rhetoric as earlier factional ministerial regimes, but used it to justify the brutalization of political practice to their complicit imperial audience. Zhang’s ministry not only avenged the death of Cai Que, but then proceeded to banish the Yuanyou antireformists en masse, while barring their descendants from officeholding. All the while, however, the terms of factional rhetoric remained relatively unchanged, as the rehabilitated



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reformists deployed the same vocabulary to deny legitimate authority to their adversaries. Zhang Dun and the second generation of reformists recirculated the same court-centered discourse of authority as Wang Anshi and his followers once had, preaching to an already converted monarchical audience, who personally identified himself with the Shaosheng restoration. Both the first and second reformist coalitions formed a vertical alliance with the monarch, endeavoring to unify the sociopolitical elite behind an ideological program to unify and uplift civic culture through bureaucratic institutions, and justified the elimination of the opposition as disloyal factionalists.

Factional Conciliation under the Qinsheng Regency, 1100–1101 Huizong’s Enthronement and the Fall of Zhang Dun When Emperor Zhezong died without an heir in 1.1100, not long after his twenty-third birthday, the controversy over the imperial enthronement brought an end to his reformist restoration.73 Empress Dowager Qinsheng (née Xiang, 1045–1101), Shenzong’s widowed consort, was invested as regent to preside over the court during the interregnum.74 Her longtime opposition to the reformist ministries of the past two reigns, an antipathy she shared with Empress Dowager Xuanren, spelled the downfall of Zhang Dun’s ministry and the rehabilitation of the antireformists. Qinsheng advocated the enthronement of Zhezong’s younger brother and Shenzong’s eleventh son Zhao Ji (1082–1135), then seventeen, who would be known to history as Emperor Huizong (r. 1100–1126). But Zhang declared him unfit to rule and favored a rival candidate for the throne, a choice which offended both the empress dowager and the rest of the Council of State, led by Zeng Bu.75 Breaking ranks with his reformist colleagues in the last years of the Zhezong reign, Zeng eventually opposed the factional proscriptions and investigations that Zhang Dun had orchestrated, despite his early involvement in widening the purge of the “Yuanyou faction.” Zeng had tried and failed to convince Zhezong that the excesses of factionalism had jeopardized any hope of achieving political stability at court. As early as 1097, Zeng had attempted to persuade Zhezong to dismiss Zhang Dun and Cai Bian as his state councilors for continuing to clamp down on dissent from the diminished opposition, even when the New Policies had been locked in and the “Yuanyou faction” had been purged.76 In an imperial audience of 1099, Zeng accused his rivals for the councilorship of political treachery: “When Zhang Dun and Cai Bian implemented [the persecution of] the Yuanyou faction, all of their arguments were excessive . . . it was mostly to avenge their selfish grievances.”77 During Zhezong’s last year on the

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throne, Zeng accused Zhang Dun of monopolizing power and tried to amnesty Liu Zhi and Lü Dafang from their exile in an “abominable place.”78 Less tainted than his reformist ministerial colleagues in the proscription of the “Yuanyou faction,” the centrist Zeng Bu offered himself to the regent as a candidate for the councilorship. The empress dowager inaugurated the political transition by reversing the blacklist of the antireform opposition. In court debates with Zeng Bu, Zhang Dun tried and failed to convince the empress dowager to preserve the reforming legacy of Shenzong and Zhezong.79 Meanwhile, Fan Chunren and Han Zhongyan (1038–1109), both prominent antireformists, were rehabilitated and summoned back to court in 1.1100.80 The son of Han Qi, Yingzong’s grand councilor and a longtime opponent of the New Policies, Han Zhongyan became grand councilor of the right in 4.1100, but he lacked the political experience and policy skills to coordinate the rollback of the New Policies.81 Other survivors of the Shaosheng proscriptions made their way back to Kaifeng, forming the nucleus of the first organized opposition at court since 1094. Early in 1100, Liu Anshi, Cheng Yi, Su Shi, and Lü Tao were all released from Lingnan exile and restored to the ranks of officialdom.82 But since most prominent members of the antireform coalition of the 1080s were no longer alive or willing to serve, younger associates took their places and packed the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau. An edict of 3.1100 reopened the roads of remonstrance and expanded the range of acceptable political opinion by affirming that the new monarchical regime would welcome public-minded criticism from inside court and the empire at large: As for all matters concerning Our personal failings, the loyalty or wickedness of those around Us, the success or failure of government directives, the perfection or evil of civic mores, and the virtue and generosity of the court, if We have not investigated the sufferings of commoners below or have not heard and fully listened to forthright criticism above, then conceal nothing before Us. We hereby open the road of outspoken rectification and dispel the spirit of obstruction.83

Now that Qinsheng had forcibly opened the “roads of remonstrance,” just as Xuanren had in 1085, antireformist remonstrators were welcome to call for Zhang Dun’s dismissal. Although their memorials succeeded in bringing down Zhang Dun’s ministry, their words would later be used against them, when their collective remonstrance was investigated for factious content under Huizong’s personal rule. Intending to avoid the partisan extremism of the past thirty years, the em-



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press dowager tried to steer a middle course by rehabilitating exiled antireformists to serve alongside reformists in her Council of State, thereby embracing a diversity of elite voices at court and establishing checks and balances amongst ministers. More than any period since Wang Anshi rose to power, officials joined in a freewheeling discussion of state policy—along with the partisan purges that had made them possible—during the reform and antireform phases of the factional conflict. Yet factional grievances could not be conciliated by imperial order, and many major and minor figures continued to employ polarizing rhetoric to impeach their adversaries and eliminate them from court as disloyal factionalists. Reformist and antireformist officials sought to break through this political deadlock to control the metropolitan bureaucracy outright and marginalize their opposition, thereby frustrating the regent and her councilors’ efforts at conciliation. Antireformists in the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau clamored for Zhang Dun’s dismissal. In a memorial of 4.1100, Exhorter of the Left Chen Guan (1057–1122) urged the empress dowager to recognize that Zhang had placed his own selfish and factional interests far ahead of the dynastic polity: “Your servant submits that Grand Councilor of the Left Zhang Dun has monopolized power as grand councilor for eight years running. He has confused the state and misled the court, and his crimes cannot be concealed. All of the resentment and anger in the empire is focused upon him.”84 Meanwhile, even though Zhang Dun still clung to the councilorship, his subordinates on the Council of State were cut out from under him. Largely responsible for the management of the New Policies and the limited purge of the “Yuanyou faction” during Zhezong’s personal rule, Cai Bian was the first to be impeached. In 5.1100, Palace Censor Gong Guai (n.d.) accused him of moral failings and political treachery: [Your servant] humbly observes that Left Assistant of the Department of State Affairs Cai Bian’s heart is profoundly venomous, and his nature is endowed with treachery and wickedness. Originally, he curried favor with powerful officials and thus was promoted to the two [top] posts. . . . If he was not loyal to the Former Emperors [that is, Shenzong and Zhezong], then how can he possibly be loyal to Your Majesty?85

Gong asserted that the survival odds of the dynastic polity could be drastically improved if Zhang Dun’s chief ally were immediately expelled from court. By 6.1100, three months after the antireformists’ return, the reformist majority on the Council of State had evaporated, with the subsequent dismissals of Xing Shu and Cai Bian’s older brother Cai Jing.86 After another three months, Qinsheng and Huizong finally heeded the calls of these remonstrators and accepted Zhang

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Dun’s request for retirement in 9.1100. Banished to Lingnan in 2.1101, Zhang Dun suffered a similar fate as his victims, ultimately dying in exile in 1105 as a prominent member of a blacklist that included Cai Jing’s major reformist rivals for the councilorship.87 As I will demonstrate below, those blacklisted as the “Yuanyou faction” in 1102–1104, like those who had been dismissed in the mid1090s, were more inclusive and less monolithic than the polarizing language of their indictments would suggest. The Failure of Factional Conciliation With Zhang Dun out of the way, Zeng Bu ascended to the councilorship in 10.1100 and pushed the court further towards the political and ideological center. While formally subordinate to Han Zhongyan as grand councilor of the right, Zeng actually wielded the reins of power.88 He influenced Huizong to enact a policy of bipartisan “conciliation” (tiaoting), which Liu Zhi had failed to establish a decade earlier, when antireformists refused to serve alongside their reformist adversaries. But while Liu Zhi’s scheme had barely moved forward with Xuanren’s halfhearted approval, Zeng persuaded Huizong to promulgate an imperial edict of 10.1100, which officially inaugurated an age of factional compromise and political moderation. Here the emperor was declaring the court’s intention to resume pre-Shenzong patterns of accommodating ideological diversity at court because officials themselves could not be trusted to tolerate dissent and opposition: Emperor Shenzong was the exemplar of a new era, which he bequeathed to his descendants. As for the strategy of separating officials, when the intentions of officials in office go too far, We will not follow their advice. As for policy and personnel decisions, We will not follow the strategy of separating one group from another. . . . From now on, those managing the government who use distorted scholarship to be biased and who make unreasonable changes will be publicly rejected.89

After Empress Dowager Qinsheng formally relinquished the reins of power, Huizong began his personal rule in 6.1100, and for a while he continued to transcend partisanship, declining to personally identify himself with either reformist or antireformist governance. Zeng Bu convinced Huizong that the survival of the dynastic polity and the restoration of political stability required him to put an end to thirty years of factional infighting, before another purge deported another batch of officials to Lingnan and only one coalition survived to dominate the bureaucracy for another generation. A bifactional unity government, presided over by Zeng Bu and Han Zhong-



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yan, attempted to placate both reformists and antireformists by co-opting more moderate elements from both coalitions into council-level and remonstrance posts. Signaling the beginning of a new era of centrist governance, Huizong decreed that in 1101 the reign title would be changed to Jianzhong Jingguo (“Establishing Centrality and Stabilizing the Polity”).90 However, after thirty years, factional rivalries could not be settled by imperial fiat; political practices had been so brutalized that civility could no longer be restored. Moreover, the polarizing rhetoric of political language, with its binary divisions between superior and petty men, could not easily accommodate conceptions of centering and moderation, especially after thirty years of coalitional conflict and monarchical complicity.91 Zeng Bu had supported the appointment of antireformists to remonstrance posts, but to them his involvement in the policies and purges of the Shaosheng era made him unacceptable as the leader of a bifactional unity government. In a memorial of 11.1100, the rhetoric of Attendant Censor Chen Cisheng (1044– 1119) was interchangeable with the charges his colleagues had leveled at Zhang Dun a few months earlier: “Grand Councilor of the Right Zeng Bu’s character is treacherous and wicked; his heart harbors fiendishness and venom. . . . Since he was recently elevated to the councilorship, he has monopolized state power and slighted his bureaucratic colleagues.”92 Antireformist remonstrators continued to frustrate the grand councilor’s efforts to promote bipartisan conciliation, by situating him beyond the pale of legitimate ministerial authority. Defending himself from hostile remonstrance in an audience of 7.1101, Zeng Bu urged Huizong to continue with their noble experiment in defactionalization by refusing to vertically align himself with either side in this rancorous factional dispute: Your Majesty desires to uphold impartiality and employ centering to break through the discourse of factionalism, and to conciliate and unify the empire. Who would dare consider [this policy] to be incorrect? Of men with biased views and dissenting opinions, each privately favors his own faction. Moreover, there are those who intend to avenge their grudges, running around helter-skelter, causing Your sagely intentions to be resented. They are indeed culpable. Thus, both the Yuanyou and Shaosheng factions cannot be onesidedly employed. . . . Thus, if such men remain at court, one will certainly not be able to avoid their harboring selfish grievances and attacking one another in enmity, making the gentlemen of the empire ill at ease. . . . I wish Your Majesty would deeply consider this, and not allow either of these factions to succeed. Thereafter, harmony and tranquility will prevail, and the empire will be without incident.93

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By associating himself with the “gentlemen of the empire” and the public good, Zeng was proclaiming himself above faction and asserting his own innocence as a loyal minister unjustly accused of treachery, while at the same time accusing his opposition on both sides of factionalism. According to Zeng’s analysis, the chronic state of factional conflict at court required Huizong’s active intervention to prevent disloyal ministers from destroying the dynastic polity. With every abrupt ministerial transition, members of the opposition could never avoid being persecuted for their factional allegiances: From the establishment of the court in the Xining era all the way to the present day, the times and affairs have undergone repeated transformations. Only those who were not similar to the men of the Xining and Yuanfeng eras were able to avoid the calamity of the Yuanyou era. Only those who did not attach themselves to the men of the Yuanyou era were able to avoid harm in the Shaosheng era.94

If Huizong could stop this cycle of vengeance and re-establish a centering course, the polity would find stability under a condominium of reformists and antireformists, both of whom would channel their loyalty upwards to the throne rather than laterally to their own factional comrades. If ministers could not be made to serve the public good of the dynastic polity, then the next factional purge would be even more damaging than the last two proscriptions, which had been instigated by “the factions of Yuanyou and [Zhang] Dun and [Cai] Bian.” At the same time Zeng Bu was attempting to build consensus at court, he was moving to silence the antireformist remonstrators who presented a united resistance to his councilorship. In Chen Guan’s view, Zeng’s involvement in the Shaosheng restoration proved that he was little different from Zhang Dun. For the time being, Huizong took Zeng Bu’s side, ordering Chen’s dismissal from the Remonstrance Bureau and demoting him to regional administration in 8.1101.95 By purging the most outspoken antireform remonstrator, Zeng managed to shore up his sagging position, but he soon met with even more threatening opposition from his other flank. Whether they were stalwart antireformists or apostate reformists, the factional rhetoricians of the Qinsheng Regency employed the familiar forms of polarizing language. Incorporating elements of both factions into his ministry could not silence the antireformist remonstrators who accused Zeng Bu of ministerial treachery, nor could he shield himself from reformist challengers. Zeng’s ministry was in many ways a throwback to the days of Wang Anshi and Sima Guang, when ministers engineered the dismissal of their adversaries by



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launching accusations of factional perfidy, even if Zeng launched them at both extremes. At the same time, Zeng Bu attempted to silence the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau, employing the same language as the antireformists who opposed him, even though he held both sides responsible for the brutal excesses of the past thirty years. While his discourse of conciliation attempted to bring about an end to factionalism by establishing a vertical alliance with the throne, it was still just as court-centered as that of his reformist and antireformist adversaries, both of whom he maligned as factionalists. Even with monarchical support, however, Zeng Bu could not de-escalate the ideological and factional conflict within the bureaucratic elite, and Huizong began to emulate Shenzong and Zhezong by personally associating himself with reformist ideology.

The Vertical Alliance of Huizong and Cai Jing, 1102–1104 The Rise of Cai Jing By the time he consolidated his personal rule late in 1100 and had grown into his imperial role, Huizong had come to distrust Zeng Bu and his policy of factional conciliation.96 He assented to another change in the reign title from Jianzhong Jingguo to Chongning (“Revering the [Xi]ning [Era]”), honoring his father Shenzong’s legacy and signaling his embrace of the New Policies agenda.97 Cai Jing broke through the bipartisan gridlock between Zeng and Han, swaying Huizong to appoint Cai to the councilorship and to commit himself to a new reformist restoration. This distant cousin of Cai Que could not be contained or controlled by those who opposed his rapid ascent to office.98 Appointed to the Council of State as assistant director of the right in the Department of State Affairs (Shangshu youcheng) in 5.1102, Cai Jing eliminated his rivals for the councilorship by prosecuting them for a long list of political offenses.99 Huizong had already dismissed the ineffectual Han Zhongyan from bureaucratic service in 1.1102, months before Cai’s official rehabilitation, so when Zeng Bu left the Council of State, he brought his bifactional ministry down with him. In I6.1102, Palace Censor Qian Yu (1050–1121), Cai Jing’s loyal subordinate, impeached Zeng for having engaged in immoral and illegal activities as grand councilor, betraying the reformist cause and abetting the antireform opposition: Grand Councilor of the Right Zeng Bu vigorously assisted the treacherous faction of the Yuanyou era and let them hold important posts. He stealthily purged the loyal worthies of the Shaosheng era and cast them out to distant and scattered territories. . . . How can solar eclipses, earthquakes, comets,

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and drought be the ordinary failings of a prosperous age? They are caused by high officials not being public-minded. Men and spirits rage in unison, and Heaven and Earth cannot tolerate it. [Your servant] implores that [his crimes] should be rectified immediately according to the statutes, to assuage the hopes of those inside and outside court.100

With apocalyptic rhetoric that linked the health of the body politic to inauspicious cosmic responses, Qian pressured Huizong to purge this “disloyal minister” from the councilorship as the first action towards emanating unity from the court outwards and downwards into the empire. Soon thereafter, Zeng Bu was dismissed as grand councilor, demoted to the provinces, and officially banished to the south in the first factional blacklist of 9.1102.101 With Zeng eliminated, Huizong promoted Cai Jing to be his grand councilor of the right in 7.1102. During Cai’s seventeen years as Huizong’s grand councilor, his reformist ministerial regime ensured political stability and ideological unanimity at court, with the emperor’s complicity and patronage. In the first month of his councilorship, he created a reform apparatus, the Advisory Office (Jiangyi si), modeled after Wang Anshi’s Finance Planning Commission, to centralize authority over the formulation, implementation, and expansion of the New Policies.102 After consolidating full authority over state policy, Cai swiftly moved to silence and marginalize the antireform opposition before it could obstruct his activist designs. The factional proscriptions of 1102–1104 extended and systematized the bans and blacklists of the 1090s, prohibiting the political opposition from officeholding and exiling them to the fringes of the empire. Breaking with past political practice, Cai ensured that all potential contenders for power were systematically and permanently excluded from the political community as the “Yuanyou faction.” Once Cai’s opponents had been decreed to be a petty-man faction in political rhetoric, their elimination could be readily accomplished in political practice, with the monarch and his chosen ministers vertically aligned against them. Persecuting the “Yuanyou Faction” The emperor and his newly appointed grand councilor openly discussed imposing a new series of partisan proscriptions. After Cai Jing’s first audience with Huizong in 5.1102, an unnamed official (who was probably Cai himself) urged the ruler to identify and expel antireformist “petty men” from court: Your servant maintains that if the crimes of the empire are not properly labeled, then there will be no way for the benevolent of the empire to make



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themselves manifest. Shenzong reigned for nineteen years, and the policies and institutions he established were all based on those of the ancient kings. When the ministers of the Yuanyou era controlled governance, they created chaos and confusion, and they formed a treacherous clique that deluded the emperor. . . . They were all men who had committed crimes against Shenzong. During the Shaosheng era [the policies of Shenzong] were revived, and although [the Yuanyou faction] had been banished, upon Your Majesty’s ascension to the throne, You cherished them with benevolent virtue and allowed them to be reinstated. . . . Inside and outside court, they responded to one another. Growing and spreading like weeds, the harm they incurred was extreme.103

If Huizong aspired to emulate the ancient sage-kings by promoting unanimity at court and uplifting civic culture, he first had to assume his responsibilities to distinguish superior men from the petty men, by denouncing those who had gained a foothold at court during the Qinsheng Regency, when they had slandered the reformists and rejected Shenzong’s reforming legacy. A second memorial beseeched the emperor to order a full investigation of the antireformists so that they could be punished for their factious crimes: At present, the names of the treacherous faction are all available and the relevant documents are extremely clear. Of those who debated policy and those who executed policy, those who spoke for them and those who concurred with them, their crimes range from petty to grave, and their feelings from shallow to profound. Let the authorities investigate and categorize them, enacting their banishment in a manner appropriate to their individual crimes. . . . Of the loyal ministers and good gentlemen of the empire, each will devote all their hearts to the ruler and not worry that others will harm them again. In this way we can illuminate the flourishing virtue and great enterprise of Shenzong and will bring to fruition Your Majesty’s filial desire to continue his policies. Then the empire can be ordered through non-deliberate action (wuwei).104

Prosecuting the antireformists as enemies of the state would enable Huizong to simultaneously accomplish three goals: he would rectify the boundaries of the ethical and political order, ensure the ethical uniformity of the political elite, and complete Shenzong’s reforming political legacy. My analysis of the Chongning proscriptions confirms John Chaffee’s interpretation that they “were an integral part of the reform process” and were directed against “villains who had sabotaged the reforms.”105 After Huizong expelled this treacherous

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faction of petty men, his court would be packed with superior men, and the factional conflict would be ended once and for all, ensuring the permanence of the dynastic polity. The same month an unnamed official singled out the remonstrators of the Qinsheng Regency for punishment. The first year of the Huizong reign, or so the author claimed, had witnessed the rehabilitation of a faction of petty men, who sabotaged the dynastic polity just as they had during the Xuanren Regency. Another memorial equated the two regencies, describing them as dark ages in which factious ministers had usurped monarchical authority and undermined the public good: [Your servant] observes that the former court expelled and banished Sima Guang et al. for their dissenting opinions and for harming governance. The high officials [of the time] discussed and promulgated these actions both inside and outside court, and all the empire knew [of this]. When Your Majesty first ascended the throne but before You assumed full supervision over a myriad matters, those officials who controlled the state were unable to [contribute their] public-minded hearts and just intentions.106

This memorial’s author asserted that had not Huizong begun his personal rule, this cabal of antireformist officials, loyal to the memory of Sima Guang and his cohort, would have fatally undermined the dynastic polity. Accusing the opposition of blurring the boundaries between right and wrong, another (or perhaps the same) unnamed remonstrator pronounced that those who had recently submitted antireformist remonstrance were a malignant faction worthy of expulsion: [Your servant] observes that at the end of the Yuanfu era [c. 1100], in the days when the regent jointly controlled governance, the high officials of the Yuanyou era took advantage of the opportunity to administer affairs. Of the men who had been charged and prosecuted during the Shaosheng era, either they were restored to their old official status or they undeservingly received official appointments. . . . They did their utmost to unify their faction behind their dissenting ideas. We depended upon Your Majesty to investigate their malfeasance.107

Whereas previous factional rhetoric had acknowledged that factionalism had been a recurrent problem throughout ancient and recent history, the rhetoricians behind the Chongning purges promised a permanent solution. Moreover, they identified all antireformists past or present as members of a single



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unified “Yuanyou faction.” In the utopian schemes of reformist remonstrators, an everlasting age of ideal governance awaited Huizong if he only committed himself to exercising his powers as factional arbiter.108 Huizong responded to these memorials by promulgating an edict that expelled all these enemies of the state, whether dead or alive, from the political community. More than fifty leading members of the antireform faction—among them the former grand councilors Sima Guang, Lü Gongzhu, Lü Dafang, Liu Zhi, and Fan Chunren—were stripped of the honors and prestige titles they had posthumously received, so that posterity would remember them as treacherous factionalists.109 In the coming proscriptions, the surviving members of the antireform coalitions of both regencies were incriminated alongside their deceased colleagues. An imperial edict revoked posthumous honors for the ministers of the Yuanyou era (granted a year before by the Qinsheng Regency) and singled out those who had urged the empress dowager to bestow these honors. Such antireformist remonstrators as Chen Cisheng, who had heeded the call for upright remonstrance a year earlier, were sacked. Another edict condemned the most outspoken remonstrators of the Qinsheng Regency, including Chen Guan and Gong Guai, for trying to revive antireformist governance and for disseminating seditious discourse: They relied on their clique to entrap and flatter, yet maintained that they themselves were upright and sincere, and they did not consult the opinion of other gentlemen. They harbored grievances, pursued success, insisted on falsehoods, and neglected their duty to serve their ruler. When their crimes are investigated, how is death a sufficient punishment?110

The emperor pronounced that the new generation of antireform remonstrators had inverted the moral absolutes of political rhetoric, by framing innocent reformists on charges of factionalism. To both the monarch and his ministers, as they planned and justified the impending purges, opposition to reformist ideology, whether tepid or rabid, was tantamount to treason. Cai Jing’s ministry developed and implemented institutional mechanisms to prosecute the antireformist remonstrators of the Qinsheng Regency for what were now deemed slanders. Only a year after 1101, when these censors and remonstrance officials had denounced the reformists and the New Policies, emboldened by an edict inviting them to proceed without fear or caution, these documents were used against their authors. In 9.1102 the Cai Jing ministry criminalized political dissenters of the recent past and excluded every opposition figure from the imperial bureaucracy. In an imperial edict, all of the officials who

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had responded to the court’s call for upright remonstrance during the Qinsheng Regency were classified into seven ethical categories: three grades of “righteousness” (zheng) and four grades of descending “wickedness” (xie).111 Of 583 men who had submitted remonstrance, only 41 were certified as politically acceptable to the current ministerial regime; the remaining 542 were accused of various grades of sedition and slander. As might be expected, these several hundred remonstrators included both major and minor figures who had served in the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau during the Qinsheng Regency, along with hundreds of mid-level functionaries and regional administrators.112 By identifying those who had publicly declared their opposition towards the New Policies and the reformists as a single factional bloc, this remonstrance investigation had the overt purpose of ensuring ideological conformity, articulated and justified as ethical uniformity, at court. Classifying and investigating opposition memorials was certainly nothing unexpected in the factional conflict of the late Northern Song, for the antireformist ministerial regime of the Xuanren Regency had established the Investigation and Prosecution Bureau to prosecute their adversaries for slanderous remonstrance. This time around, however, unprecedented punishments awaited those accused of slander; in 11.1102 those classified into the two most extreme grades of “wickedness,” seventy-nine officials in all, were exiled to prefectures on the fringes of the empire: At the end of the Yuanfu era, an edict was promulgated seeking upright remonstrance, intending to broaden Our hearing and sight, and to benefit governance. The remonstrance they submitted has been compared and entrusted to officials to examine the wickedness and righteousness of their words. . . . We have selected thirty-eight men whose slanderous and blasphemous words were the most extreme. We have observed them with flowing tears and have exerted Ourselves by enduring a second look, but they have committed crimes against the state and dynastic altars, which We do not dare pardon. They may be punished with expulsion to distant places. As for the next forty-one on the list, their words were indeed slanderous, and each of them shall be dismissed from office and punished by short confinement in distant places in order to admonish the disloyalty of those who serve as officials.113

The edict’s author made Huizong complicit in the mass expulsion of opposition remonstrators through his role as the final arbiter of factionalism. Moreover, the investigation and classification of past remonstrance, and the banishments that accompanied it, simply foreshadowed the factional blacklists which banned and



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exiled the entire “Yuanyou faction,” whose guilt was proclaimed by a series of imperial edicts over the next three years. The Chongning Factional Blacklists At the same time Cai Jing’s ministry was investigating and expelling the antireformist remonstrators of the Qinsheng Regency, his regime began to proscribe the earlier generation of antireformists. In 9.1102 the first factional blacklist (dangji) was promulgated by Huizong’s edict, which officially proscribed 117 men.114 Nearly every state councilor of the Yuanyou era appeared on the list, as did nearly every prominent censor, remonstrance official, and imperial academic. The names of the guilty were inscribed into a stele erected outside the Gate of Rectified Ritual (Zhengli men) of the imperial palace and were written personally by Huizong in his calligraphy.115 The blacklisted were dismissed from bureaucratic service, forbidden from entering the capital, and many were placed under heavy surveillance and virtual house arrest in their native places.116 In 10.1102 an unnamed official urged Huizong to prosecute antireform partisans of the Qinsheng Regency along with their predecessors from the Xuanren Regency: As for the men who did such things as forming factions and altering and destroying policies and institutions during the early Yuanyou era, they have recently been prosecuted by the court. As for the men who did such things as forming factions, altering and destroying policies and institutions, and reviving the Yuanyou faction during the late Yuanfu era, we humbly submit the request that you investigate and prosecute them.117

Both factions were considered to be organizationally and genealogically equivalent, and their mere existence justified their expulsion from Huizong’s court and bureaucracy. By the middle of 1103, the antireformist opposition had been effectively marginalized, and the majority of its surviving leaders had been blacklisted and deported to the far south. Declaring that the first blacklist had been insufficient to disperse the antireform coalition, the emperor promulgated a second edition in 9.1103.118 Ninetyeight men, nearly half of them deceased, were named as members of the “Yuanyou faction,” including all of Cai Jing’s major adversaries. In the words of the memorial that prompted this edict, the erection of a blacklist stele within the palace precincts had been insufficient to admonish posterity. Henceforth, steles were to be erected in every circuit and prefecture of the empire to identify this “treacherous faction,” distinguishing its members from the rest of the bureaucratic elite indefinitely:

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Whether this dissenting faction of treacherous ministers is living or dead, their enumerated crimes and evil deeds have been graded and personally splashed by the imperial brush and carved into stone as an admonition to the disloyal ministers of the empire. . . . [Your servant] implores Your Majesty to promulgate an enlightened pronouncement, arraying all the names of the treacherous faction that have been inscribed with imperial calligraphy upon the Gate of Rectified Ritual and to disseminate it to the offices of the highest officials in outer circuits and prefectures, who should set up steles with an inscribed record, to manifest [their names] for a myriad generations.119

A third partisan blacklist was issued in 6.1104 to serve as the last roundup of the opposition. Carved into stone in steles erected across the empire and upon the west wall of the palace compound, the list permanently condemned 309 former officials as “wicked and treacherous.”120 These included the usual suspects from the first two blacklists—the old ministers of the Xuanren Regency and the antireformist remonstrators of the Qinsheng Regency—along with 200 more bureaucratic supernumeraries.121 A brief imperial edict prefaced the list, condemning these men as members of a single treacherous faction, again equating those officials who served both regencies. And while the first and second blacklists had been limited to known antireformists, the third edition of those included in the “treacherous faction of Yuanyou” closely overlapped with Cai Jing’s personal enemies list.122 Significantly, they included prominent members of the reform coalition who had either challenged Cai for the councilorship or had refused to join his ministry; for instance, the edict singled out Cai’s former colleagues Zeng Bu and Zhang Dun for their “ministerial disloyalty.” With his onetime reformist colleagues of doubtful loyalty relocated to Lingnan alongside the monolithic “Yuanyou faction,” comprised of hundreds of antireformists, Cai had succeeded in eliminating all who could mount a viable challenge. Vertically aligning monarchical and ministerial authority, Huizong and his grand councilor equated ideological dissent with political disloyalty. A series of imperial edicts permanently banned the descendants and kin of the “Yuanyou faction” from service in the metropolitan bureaucracy and prohibited them from entering the capital’s gates.123 An edict of 3.1103 condemned the sons and grandsons of the blacklisted antireformists for their genealogical connections with factionalists.124 In a related effort to prevent the contamination of imperial bloodlines, a subsequent edict prohibited imperial clansmen from marrying the children or grandchildren of blacklisted members of the “Yuanyou faction.”125 The full effect of these dictates against officeholding and marriage cannot be gauged with any certainty, and it is possible that the extreme rhetoric that justified the Chongning proscriptions in terms of a permanent solution



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to the problem of factionalism may well have exceeded the actual outcomes of the purges. Historians should heed Chaffee’s warning against an anachronistic overinterpretation of the purges: “[A]s awful as these penalties were, we do not find the use of gross violence, of executions not simply of individuals but also of their families, as was to be the case of the political struggles of the Ming.”126 As I will explain below, the blacklists were abolished in 1106, before the survival and integrity of the antireformist lineages were jeopardized any further. The ideological and biological descendants of the “Yuanyou faction” persisted into the Southern Song, and Chapter 7 will demonstrate how the historiography of the True Way Learning (Daoxue) associated the Chongning proscriptions with the “false learning” (weixue) proscriptions of 1196–1197. More immediately, the “Lesser Yuanyou” (xiao Yuanyou) ministry of Zhao Ding (1085–1147) dominated the court of Emperor Gaozong (r. 1127–1162) in the mid–1130s, pursuing policies that were validated by Sima Guang’s antireform agenda.127 The End of Factionalism? The Chongning proscriptions were intended to be the ultimate exercise of the emperor’s authority as a factional arbiter. But no matter how permanently they had been intended to stand as a warning to petty men throughout the empire, the factional blacklist steles were demolished less than two years after the third series of proscriptions was promulgated. The political purges had been intended to bring everlasting order and unity to the realm, but dire cosmological portents invalidated, or at least postponed, such utopian visions. When a comet was sighted in 1.1106, a terrified Huizong read this as a sign of heavenly disapproval and began to dissociate himself from his ministers, their policies, and their partisan proscriptions. According to the Song History, the emperor ordered the destruction of the Yuanyou blacklist steles and lifted the proscription against the “Yuanyou faction” as part of an empire-wide amnesty. Furthermore, he announced that the banished would be restored to the ranks of officialdom and that the roads of remonstrance would be reopened.128 The emperor mandated the abolition of several of the revived New Policies and sacked Cai Jing in 2.1106.129 But the emperor’s hasty rollback of the Chongning proscriptions and the reformist policy program did not initiate a factional turnover in ministries as the coming of the Qinsheng Regency once had, nor did it usher in a renewed period of factional conflict between reformists and antireformists. As far as the documentary record shows, the year of the comet did not spur Huizong to reappoint antireformists to the Council of State or to promote another phase of partisan reconciliation. The Cai Jing ministry’s proscriptions of 1102–1104 had succeeded in excising the antireformists from the imperial bureaucracy, but their

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relaxation did not lead to rehabilitation or reemployment.130 In 1106–1107 these sudden shifts in policy and personnel came too late to dislodge Cai Jing’s patronage network from the metropolitan bureaucracy, and the reformists continued to monopolize authority in his absence. To make a long story short, Cai Jing’s loyal subordinates arranged for his reinstatement in 1.1107, and he retained the councilorship (with brief interruptions) until 1120, when he was elderly and nearly blind. Cai succeeded in forging a mutually dependent relationship with the emperor and maintaining a long-lived ministry that endured almost until the end of the Northern Song. In Chaffee’s judgment, much of the political stability of the Huizong reign was a function of Cai Jing’s ability to build a long-term factional patronage machine, so that during his councilorship “the politics of court and capital were no longer dominated by ideological disputes” over the reform agenda.131 Now that the antireformists had been eliminated from contention for power, and reformist governance was locked in, Cai Jing’s ministry used state educational institutions to recruit a new generation of loyal officials into the bureaucracy.132 Originally created by Wang Anshi, the Three Halls policy (Sanshe fa) was first expanded in 1102 in order to create a network of state-financed schools from the Imperial University down to the prefectural and county levels.133 These institutions were designed to mold and channel human talent directly into the imperial bureaucracy, and they guided prospective civil servants through a feedback loop that replaced the examination system entirely. As with Wang Anshi’s schemes to produce a new generation of reformist bureaucrats through a feedback loop of regulatory institutions, Cai Jing ministry equated moral virtue with ideological conformity. In 1107 Cai’s ministry created a new program to fast-track students with “eight [kinds of virtuous] conduct” (baxing) into official posts, after they had been investigated for heterodox views, while forcing dissenters to recant in “self-criticism rooms” and expelling students for immoral acts of ideological dissidence deemed worthy of “eight punishments” (baxing).134 By inculcating prospective bureaucrats with reformist ideology, the Cai Jing ministry molded an ideologically uniform bureaucratic elite that loyally implemented and expanded the New Policies. Compared with the tumultuous years between 1068 and 1104, the remainder of the Huizong reign represented an era of relative political stability and ideological uniformity at court. Despite occasional flare-ups, the factional conflict between reformists and antireformists was effectively over, and the opposition to the reformists and their policies was no longer based at the imperial court or within the metropolitan bureaucracy. Those who would later be canonized as progenitors of the True Way Learning movement, some of them Luoaligned bureaucrats from the antireform coalition, returned to their localities as



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private citizens and scholars or were employed as teachers in the expanded state educational system. During the 1110s and 1120s the institutional locus of opposition to the Cai Jing ministry was the expanded Imperial University (Taixue), which became a hotbed of dissent in the final years of the Northern Song.135 Huizong’s imperial court was not refactionalized until the circumstances of the Song-Jin wars divided the imperial court between hawks and doves.136 The authors of chapters in a recent collection have demonstrated that the 1110s and 1120s witnessed transformations in political and court culture that diverged dramatically from the first five years of Huizong’s reign.137 In the absence of major intra-bureaucratic conflict, the emperor personally committed himself to expanding the New Policies, which were intended to inaugurate and indefinitely sustain an age of perfect ethical and political order.138 After the antireformists had been eliminated from his court, the emperor and his courtiers focused on magnifying and manifesting the powers of the throne and the legitimacy of the dynasty through educational institutions, Daoist patronage, archaizing ritual, artistic production, and architectural commissions.139 The utopian and autocratic political atmosphere of these decades suffused a different world from that of the late Northern Song factional conflict, which was effectively over after the final blacklist of 1104. Huizong’s longevity guaranteed political stability, and brought an end to the abrupt reversals of the reform, antireform, and postreform periods. The Cai Jing ministry’s decision to ally the Song court with the Jurchen Jin dynasty in order to reclaim the Sixteen Prefectures from the Liao, and its ultimate failure to fulfill its part of the bargain, triggered the Jurchen invasion of 1126.140 In the confusion that paralyzed the court, Huizong abdicated the throne in favor of his son, Zhao Huan (1100–1161), known to history as Emperor Qinzong (r. 1126–1127), who ultimately surrendered Kaifeng to the Jurchen in 1127.141 After the invaders pillaged the city and the imperial palace, the two emperors were captured and imprisoned; they spent the rest of their lives in captivity behind enemy lines in the far northeast, deep inside Jin territory. From the early years of the Southern Song, Huizong’s ministers were condemned for the loss of the north, and earlier reform ministries and the New Policies were also discredited by association. In the historical imagination of the Southern Song, factionalism—more specifically, the pernicious political practices of the reform faction—had caused the fall of the Northern Song. While Emperors Shenzong, Zhezong, and Huizong had all personally associated themselves with the New Policies, and had established vertical alliances with their chosen ministers to implement them, historians condemned their ministers as nefarious factionalists and regarded activist governance as ideologically and ethically illegitimate.142

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The Persistence of Factional Rhetoric The partisan proscriptions of the early Huizong reign represented not only the most brutal phase of the late Northern Song factional conflict but also its endgame. Even so, we can only surmise whether these proscriptions and prohibitions were ever rigorously or widely enforced. While many major figures of the antireform coalition (not to mention two reformist councilors) died in Lingnan, many other antireformists and their descendants survived into the Southern Song. But the abrupt monarchical transitions, from Zhezong’s personal rule to the Qinsheng Regency to Huizong’s personal rule, and the progressive brutalization of political practice during the post-reform era did not alter factional rhetoric, even though rhetoricians clashed dramatically over the interpretation of political ideology and recent history. Horizontal ministerial associations were imagined as inherently destructive to the dynastic polity; saving the state from impending destruction required expelling such factionalists from court, which would bring about ethical unanimity and a moral revitalization of the empire from the top down and the center outwards. The keywords and premises of the edicts and memorials that justified Zhezong’s restoration and the Chongning proscriptions—even Zeng Bu’s campaign of factional conciliation—were virtually indistinguishable from each other or from those of the reform or antireform eras. From the Shenzong reign to the Huizong reign, through the councilorships of Wang Anshi, Sima Guang, and Cai Jing, rhetoricians waged a factional conflict with similar linguistic tools and rhetorical strategies despite their acute ideological disagreements. In their publicly circulating writings and pronouncements, remonstrators, ministers, and monarchs imagined the political community and political practices in terms of binary moral oppositions, and they employed a court-centered discourse of authority that condemned concerted political action as inherently unethical and disloyal. From 1070 to 1104 the rhetoric of faction restrained ministers from publicly acknowledging the existence of their own factions or advancing a defense of factions as alliances of loyal ministers who served the public good. When rhetoricians used a shared political language to justify the brutalization of political practice, appealing to the court as the locus of political authority, a disjuncture opened up between political discourse and practice. While their rhetoric divided the actual political community between superior men and petty men, no such divisions separated their language. Over the decades from the onset of the late Northern Song factional conflict to its conclusion, the rules of engagement changed, but the terms of estrangement did not.

C hapter seven

Discourses of Authority and the Authority of Discourse

A Country party must be authorized by the voice of the country. It must be formed on principles of common interest. . . . A party, thus constituted, is improperly called party. It is the nation, speaking and acting in the discourse and conduct of particular men.    —Bolingbroke, A Dissertation on Parties, Letter IV By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.    —James Madison, The Federalist No. 10

T

his study has reconstructed a missing chapter from Song political and intellectual history by illuminating the linguistic rules that governed the writings of faction theorists and factional rhetoricians and by explaining the ideological and institutional causes and effects of the late Northern Song factional conflict. Rancorous coalitional struggles dominated the political history of the late Northern Song, when monarchs and regents from Shenzong to Huizong personally identified themselves with their chosen ministers’ ideological programs. A series of powerful grand councilors, from Wang Anshi to Sima Guang to Cai Jing, sought monarchical support to pack the bureaucracy with their loyal supporters, to purge their “factious” opposition, and to override checks and balances on ministerial authority. Through a close reading of a broad crosssection of essays, memorials, edicts, and court debates from the late Northern Song, I have explained how faction theorists and factional rhetoricians declared their loyalty to the dynastic polity as individuals while dismissing organized opposition as treacherous and disloyal, and why the concept and vocabulary of faction were resistant to reinterpretation and redefinition in publicly circulat161

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ing genres of rhetoric. Both reformist and antireformist officials, despite their acute and chronic ideological differences, shared a court-centered discourse of authority that described political actors, affiliations, and practices according to polarized moral categories. Factionless superior men were imagined to loyally serve the public good of dynastic polity as individuals, while affiliations of petty men were labeled as factions that served the private interest to destructive ends. Consequently, factionalists presented their monarchical audience with a polarized representation of the political community that could neither acknowledge nor accommodate the possibility that horizontal ministerial coalitions could loyally serve the dynastic polity or monarchical interests. Except for Fan Zhongyan and Ouyang Xiu in 1044, a small number of ministerial exponents of “conciliation” like Liu Zhi and Zeng Bu, and those who took a subjective view of the existence of factions like Qin Guan and Fan Chunren, late Northern Song theorists and rhetoricians generally condemned ministerial factions in their public pronouncements and writings. In the process, monarchs and their chosen councilors became vertically aligned against officials who opposed the current state policy consensus. As the factional conflict escalated, the rhetoric of politics became progressively disengaged from the practice of politics; monarchs personally identified themselves with their ministers’ ideologies and supported the silencing and elimination of political dissent rather than accommodating or containing it. While late Northern Song political theorists and practitioners rejected Fan Zhongyan and Ouyang Xiu’s revisionist theory, which argued that only true factions of superior men could loyally serve the public good, they retained the same polarizing vocabularies and worked within the same classical and historical frames of reference. Throughout the factional conflict that began with Wang Anshi’s promulgation of the New Policies in 1069, deepened with the Yuanyou “reversion” of 1085–1086 and the Shaosheng “restoration” of 1094, and culminated in the Chongning factional proscriptions of 1102–1104, officials who affiliated on the basis of a shared ideology continued to condemn ministerial factions for treachery and disloyalty. Sharing a common language that drew authority from the classics and history, both reformist and antireformist rhetoricians presented contending representations of authority that polarized the political community between petty-man factions and factionless superior men. Yet political practice was more complex, contingent, and chaotic than faction theory or factional rhetoric could represent. Throughout the late Northern Song factional conflict, political rhetoric became disconnected from political practice, as the word “faction” (dang) represented an illegiti-



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mate affiliation that was far more coherent and stable than the bureaucratic coalitions the word was intended to describe. As a result, the conflict could not be publicly represented or acknowledged as a dispute between two rival court coalitions, the emperor’s chosen councilors and the loyal opposition, since ideological unanimity justified a vertical alliance between monarchs and councilors, and ideological dissent was tantamount to factiousness and disloyalty. In the political imagination of late Northern Song officialdom, the dynastic polity was conceptualized as an inherently fragile enterprise, continually besieged by malign factions who sought to undermine and subvert it. The rise, decline, and fall of polities hinged upon the monarch’s ability to distinguish true factions from false ones, and a loyal minister from a factious traitor. While enlightened monarchs could temporarily revive dynastic fortunes by purging factionalists from court and forming alliances with loyal ministers who shared a common ideological vision, they and their successors could never prevent petty-man associations from destroying the polity from within. An exception to this fatalism can be found in the utopian rhetoric of the early Huizong reign, which promised the Chongning blacklists as a permanent end to factionalism that would inaugurate an age of perfect order. Thinking in concentric circles, factionalists considered the ethical integrity of the polity and the moral health of society to be a function of the composition of the imperial bureaucracy. The survival of any monarchical regime, but not its authority, hinged upon the ethical dispositions of its ministers, who shared a “common Way” that enabled them to loyally serve the public good and uplift civic culture, without succumbing to the temptations of partisanship. But to articulate a conception of monarchical fallibility and to predict the inevitable destruction of the dynastic polity at the hands of factionalists was not to deny the authority, legitimacy, or efficacy of central government institutions themselves or the deferential loyalty ministers owed to the throne. If individual members of the Northern Song bureaucratic elite were making claims to jointly rule the empire, “with the emperor rather than for him,” as Tze-Ki Hon has proposed, these were narrow and exclusive claims that did not apply to all members of the sociopolitical elite.1 Factionalists asserted that they and their allies loyally served the dynasty as individual actors, not as organized affiliations, and that members of the bureaucratic opposition and ideological dissenters were, by definition, men of faction. Despite their political and ideological conflicts, however, the leaders and members of the reform and antireform coalitions shared a unitary ethical and political vision and a court-centered discourse of authority through which they articulated a nearly universal hostility to faction and factionalism.

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Southern Song Court Factions and True Way Learning When Northern Song faction theorists and factional rhetoricians claimed to loyally serve the throne and accused their bureaucratic opposition of factionalism, their rhetoric empowered the imperial court as the exclusive locus of ethical and political authority. My conclusions substantiate Robert Hymes’ hypothesis that members of the Song elite employed two parallel and overlapping discourses to articulate claims to political authority and social status: one was “court-oriented” and the other “shi-oriented.”2 Hymes asserts that members of the sociopolitical elite used the first discourse of authority “when they sought or served in high office or appeared before the emperor at court” and the second “when they saw cultural or even political authority as generated within and communicated through the shi stratum itself.” Those who invoked the “court-oriented” discourse imagined that authority and status emanated vertically and hierarchically downward from the imperial court to individual gentlemen in their political role as officials, while those who used the “shi-oriented” framework made claims to authority and status through flat social networks that linked gentlemen horizontally. During the late Northern Song, faction theorists and factional rhetoricians generally imagined authority from the perspective of the court, so they assumed that the existence of horizontal political affiliations invalidated the vertical political loyalties between monarchs and ministers. Why was it then so difficult to reconcile, or even to acknowledge, the existence of factional affiliations within this court-centered discourse of authority? The political failure of the Qingli reformers after Ouyang Xiu’s “Discourse on Factions” of 1044 provides one persuasive answer. Ouyang represented his bureaucratic coalition as a true and benevolent faction whose “common Way” had impelled them to form a horizontal affiliation that proclaimed and extended its vertical loyalty to the dynastic polity. Ouyang was implying that the dynastic polity’s legitimacy depended upon the continued presence of associations of superior men and was urging Emperor Renzong to trust his loyal ministers’ judgments of what constituted the public good.3 Ouyang was implicitly claiming that horizontal networks of gentlemen could possess authority in and of themselves, and could operate autonomously from, but always in loyal service to, the imperial court. But no monarch, and no minister who claimed to be loyal to the dynastic polity, could publicly articulate the proposition that horizontal networks of gentlemen could autonomously assert their own claims to authority without first identifying the imperial court as the central locus of authority, even if these factional affiliations nevertheless claimed to be constituted by their loyalty to the public good.4 When ministers attempted to assert contrary positions, like Fan Chunren’s argument in 1089 that the distinction between superior and



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petty men was a relative one, or attempted to conciliate factional grievances, such as Zeng Bu’s attempt to build a bipartisan unity government in 1100, those who recirculated the dominant theory and rhetoric of faction exploited the opportunity to attack and silence them on charges of factionalism. After Ouyang Xiu failed to merge a horizontal shi-oriented discourse of authority inside the vertical court-oriented discourse of authority, faction theorists and factional rhetoricians, not to mention their respective monarchical audiences, almost unanimously accepted the basic propositions of the court-oriented discourse of authority.5 In their public pronouncements, Northern Song factionalists assumed that only certain individual members of the scholar-official elite could possess political authority and ethical legitimacy by virtue of their demonstrated loyalty to the throne, which invalidated the possibility of concerted ministerial action. By persuading their monarch to retain factionless superior men and to purge factious petty men, political theorists and rhetoricians claimed authority for themselves, denied it to their adversaries, and extended it upwards to the imperial court. But since faction theory and factional rhetoric located ultimate authority in emperors and regents, it was the monarch’s decision whether to employ loyal ministers or nefarious factionalists, and the fate of the dynasty depended on the monarch’s making the correct choices. When they addressed an audience of monarchs and ministers, faction theorists and factional rhetoricians could neither openly accept nor defend the proposition that horizontal affiliations of gentlemen could be united by vertical loyalty to the dynastic polity. Unlike the late Northern Song factionalists, the leaders of the True Way Learning (Daoxue) movement of the Southern Song increasingly employed a shi-oriented discourse of authority that empowered them to make autonomous ethical and political judgments independently of the central government.6 In the late twelfth century, Zhu Xi (1130–1200), the movement’s ideological synthesizer and self-proclaimed leader, claimed that the movement’s gentleman-scholars could generate social status, ideological legitimacy, and political authority on their own, without validation from the dynastic polity.7 In the late Northern Song, reformist and antireformist political theorists and practitioners had earnestly sought political solutions to initiate an ethical transformation of civic mores, which would start from the central government and radiate outwards and downwards into society. It was the failure of these centralist institutional solutions, such as the reformists’ New Policies or the antireformists’ “Yuanyou reversion,” to ensure the empire’s social stability, economic prosperity, and territorial integrity that made the True Way Learning ideology, with its emphasis on the grassroots development of voluntary elite-sponsored local institutions, a conceivable and viable alternative to state action. After it was banned by the Southern Song imperial court as a faction of “false learning” (weixue) in 1196–1197, the True

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Way Learning movement presented itself as a horizontal network of gentlemansponsored voluntary organizations that operated below and outside of central government authority. By employing a discourse of authority that rejected the basic assumptions of court-centered political rhetoric, members of the True Way Learning movement were able to decouple their own sense of ethical and political authority from that of the imperial court. Conrad Schirokauer and Hoyt Tillman have demonstrated that the term “faction” (dang) simply had different connotations for the True Way Learning scholars than it did for Northern Song factionalists. Unlike eleventh-century councilors and remonstrators, who treated “faction” as a term of condemnation, the members of this oppositionist intellectual-political movement of the Southern Song, including Zhu Xi and Lü Zuqian (1137–1181), frequently referred to their affiliation as a “faction” or “our faction” (wudang).8 Zhu used the phrase more than a dozen times in his collected correspondence, far more often than any Northern Song political figure discussed in Chapter 2.9 Tillman has claimed that Zhu Xi’s use of this term “suggests awareness of the fellowship’s evolution toward a cohesive and distinctive association.”10 Hymes has argued that Ouyang Xiu’s 1044 conception of faction survived, in different form and wording, in the True Way Learning movement’s self-conception as a “mutually ratifying horizontal network of gentlemen, not all of them officials or degreeholders,” which “was precisely not a court faction, but perhaps something closer to a country party.”11 Zhu was describing his scholarly movement as a horizontal affiliation that operated outside of the court’s vertical hierarchies of authority and status while loyally serving the public good. Zhu Xi explicitly described the True Way Learning movement as a faction in a letter he wrote in 4.1191 to Grand Councilor Liu Zheng (1129–1206), who had been sympathetic to his cause and later recommended him for an academic position at court. In this piece of correspondence, Zhu Xi recycled the conventional wisdom that petty men had fatally undermined the Han and Tang dynasties by launching accusations of factionalism to entrap superior men and suggested that the reformists had done the same with their partisan purges of the 1090s. But what made Zhu Xi’s faction theory different from every Northern Song faction theorist and factional rhetorician except for Ouyang Xiu was his insistence that “factions of superior men” (junzi zhi dang) could exist, but this made them vulnerable to accusations of faction leveled by petty men.12 He insisted that the rulers bore the responsibility of distinguishing superior from petty men, and cautioned that purging noble affiliations alongside malign factions would have destructive consequences in the present.13 Coinciding with the position of Ouyang Xiu’s “Discourse on Factions,” Zhu acknowledged that superior men should not hesitate to form factions in defense of the public good. If



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loyal and public-minded ministers like Liu Zheng could not succeed in building a superior-man faction, Zhu invoked the Book of Changes to warn that “the Way of petty men will increase by the day, and the Way of superior men will deteriorate by the day.”14 He encouraged his political patron to engage in overtly factious activities, for it was the only way to save the Song dynasty from the inevitable triumph of petty men: “[N]ot only do not be angry with superior men for forming a faction, but do not fear placing yourself as a faction. Not only do not fear to place yourself in a faction, but also lead superior men in forming a faction, and do not be afraid.”15 When Zhu Xi repeatedly described his own affiliation as a faction, even in privately circulating correspondence, he was following Ouyang Xiu and Fan Zhongyan into political marginalization.16 In the court-centered discourse of authority that prevailed into the Southern Song, the term “faction” still possessed highly negative connotations from the perspective of the monarch and his chosen ministers, who frequently purged their adversaries on trumped-up charges of factionalism. The Grand Councilors Liu Zheng and Zhao Ruyu (1140–1196) recommended Zhu Xi to an academic position at Emperor Ningzong’s (r. 1194– 1224) court, where he served for less than two months in 1194.17 Not long thereafter, Grand Councilor Han Tuozhou (1152–1207) came to power and pushed aside his political rivals by convincing Ningzong that Liu Zheng and Zhao Ruyu were the leaders of a pernicious faction, which included Zhu Xi and some other prominent members of the True Way Learning movement.18 In 1196 the Southern Song court officially banned the movement as “a faction of false learning” (weixue zhi dang) and proscribed its adherents from the examination system, in which candidates were required to publicly renounce their affiliation with True Way Learning.19 In 12.1197 the imperial court blacklisted fifty-nine men, only some of whom belonged to Zhu Xi’s True Way Learning fellowship, as the “rebellious faction of false learning (weixue zhi nidang).”20 After Zhu Xi’s death in 1200, the imperial court began to waver in its support of the proscriptions and rescinded them early in 1202, when Han Tuozhou persuaded Ningzong to rehabilitate the living and deceased gentlemen on the “false learning” factional blacklist.21 The short-lived proscriptions of True Way Learning adherents gave official sanction to the movement’s oppositionist stance towards the imperial court, and its proponents re-emerged from the blacklist with a sense of political victimization. In 5.1198, at the height of the “false learning” proscriptions, a supporter of Han Tuozhou claimed that this “faction to the death” had falsely and undeservingly compared itself to the blacklisted exemplars of the Northern Song “Yuanyou faction.”22 This homology between the Chongning (1102–1104) and Qingyuan (1195–1200) blacklists became a major narrative element in the inter-

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nal history of the True Way Learning movement, which traced its intellectual genealogy back to Cheng Yi, a victim of the factional proscriptions of 1102– 1104.23 John Chaffee has noted that in the 1230s, when Li Xinchuan (1167–1244) composed his Record of the Way and Its Fate (Daoming lu), an internal history of True Way Learning built from documentary fragments, he portrayed the movement as a factional political affiliation rather than as a strictly scholarly fellowship.24 Charles Hartman’s textual archeology of the Record has confirmed that Li portrayed the movement’s history as a narrative in three acts, “each marked by systematic persecution at the hands of an autocratic administration” of nefarious ministers.25 The first wave of persecutions was the Chongning factional blacklists against Cheng Yi and his comrades, and the third wave culminated in the Qingyuan “false learning” proscriptions against Zhu Xi and his True Way Learning affiliates. Of course, this narrative of martyrdom retroactively intensified the historical importance of the progenitors of Cheng-Zhu learning and tightened the master-disciple connections between them by placing these two thinkers at the center of these two parallel partisan proscriptions. During the early Huizong reign, Cheng Yi had been only one of more than three hundred officials who were listed as members of the banned “Yuanyou faction,” some of whom were prominent reformists or his Sichuanese factional antagonists; furthermore, the “false learning” blacklist of 1196–1202 included men of various non­-Daoxue intellectual inclinations.26 Li Xinchuan and fellow historians of True Way Learning portrayed the movement’s progenitors as superior men whose opposition to ministerial autocracy had resulted in their purge on charges of factionalism, which this movement now embraced as a component of their group identity. By categorically distinguishing themselves from a delegitimized imperial court led astray by their petty-man persecutors, and articulating their claims in a shi­-oriented rather than court-centered discourse of authority, the emergent True Way Learning movement legitimized itself as a collective of loyal servants of the public good, operating as a horizontal affiliation of gentlemen in society rather than a ministerial coalition at court. Thus, in both political rhetoric and historiographic practice, the emergent True Way Learning movement and its affiliates wore the label “faction” proudly, asserting that they were indeed a faction of superior men working in opposition to a delegitimized imperial court and its illegitimate ministries, from Cai Jing to Han Tuozhou. Peter Bol and Thomas Wilson have theorized that the Cheng-Zhu scholarly lineage claimed to have inherited the “orthodox transmission of the Way” (Daotong), an intellectual genealogy running from Mengzi to Cheng Yi to Zhu Xi that had been decoupled from the Mandate of Heaven (Tianming) of dynastic regimes since antiquity.27 In 1241 the Southern Song court under Emperor Lizong (r. 1224–1264) recognized the movement’s exclusivist claims to ethical and politi-



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cal authority by officially canonizing its “genealogy of the Way”—which traced its way back from Zhu Xi to the Cheng brothers—who were enshrined as the intellectual successors of Kongzi, Mengzi, and the Zhou kings.28 As the imperial court of the late Southern Song was promoting True Way Learning from the top down, the movement was slowly spreading horizontally throughout the empire; its members retreated from bureaucratic service as a strategy of perpetuating their high social status and increasingly participated in elite-sponsored sociopolitical organizations on the local level.29 Robert Hymes and Conrad Schirokauer have proposed that Zhu Xi founded three sociopolitical institutions, each of which was a local, voluntary adaptation of one of Wang Anshi’s centralist New Policies and served as a grassroots means of ethical and political action for True Way Learning affiliates who worked for the betterment of civic culture.30 Hymes has recently claimed that these three voluntary institutions demonstrated the “influence and ghostly reach of the Northern Song state precisely in a Southern Song reaction against it.”31 Community granaries (shecang) copied the Green Sprouts program by supplying low-interest loans to local farmers, community compacts (xiangyue) supplanted the Mutual Security policy by organizing local families into self-defense and -surveillance groups, and local academies (shuyuan) replaced the Three Halls system by funding private educational institutions for sons of elite lineages.32 Linda Walton has demonstrated that a network of privately financed local academies provided a cellular organizational structure for the True Way Learning’s spread across the Southern Song empire and a network for the diffusion of Zhu Xi veneration.33 In the thirteenth century these private academies served as links in a horizontal chain of gentleman-scholars who engaged in local political action, working autonomously outside of central government authority, in contrast to the vertical allegiances that were imagined to bind ministers in loyal service to the dynastic polity. Why did Zhu Xi describe his True Way Learning movement as “our faction” of “superior men,” when political theorists and practitioners throughout the late Northern Song factional conflict (with the continuing exception of Fan Zhongyan and Ouyang Xiu in 1044) reserved the label “faction” to denounce their petty-man adversaries? This apparent contradiction can be explained in two ways: by paying closer attention to the rhetorical genres that served as the media for articulating authoritative claims about sociopolitical affiliations and by reconstructing the intellectual contexts through which these claims were articulated and received. First, generic differences distinguished the private correspondence of Zhu Xi from the publicly circulating memorials of Northern Song factionalists, a small number of whom also employed the term “our faction” (wudang) to describe their own affiliations in private correspondence, as discussed in Chapter 2. In this sense, when Zhu Xi portrayed the True Way

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Learning movement as his own faction, this was in itself nothing extraordinary, since Wang Anshi and Su Shi had privately identified their social circles and political affiliations as “our faction” a century earlier. But a difference in scale, not kind, should not escape mention: the compound “our faction” appears at least a dozen times in the collected correspondence of Zhu Xi, as opposed to extremely rare appearances in Northern Song collected works. As Northern Song factional rhetoricians once had, Zhu Xi himself employed a court-centered discourse of authority to denounce factions and factionalism more generally in his own publicly circulating writings. For example, in a petition to the throne he submitted in 1189, several years before the “false learning” proscriptions, Zhu admonished Emperor Guangzong (r. 1189–1194) to assume his role as the ultimate arbiter of faction: Superior men and petty men are like ice and coal; they cannot tolerate each other. . . . When petty men are promoted, then superior men will certainly retreat; if superior men are held close, then petty men will certainly keep their distance. There has never been a case that they did not harm one another when gathered together.34

Here Zhu was using the same polarizing rhetoric as Northern Song theorists and rhetoricians to urge the monarch to properly adjudicate the claims of superior and petty men. Discussing the late Northern Song factional conflict, he referred to the antireformists who had been purged in the 1090s as “the high officials of the Yuanyou era,” but not as a faction, and praised Cheng Yi’s theory of “holding worthy gentlemen close.”35 Urging the emperor to uphold the “greater public good” (dagong), which all subjects loyally served, Zhu warned him against favoring “biased factions” (piandang), for these “selfish” affiliations would undermine the dynastic polity.36 Therefore, generic differences between privately and publicly circulating forms of rhetoric can explain why the leaders of Northern Song court factions as well as Southern Song localist movements, Zhu Xi as well as Wang Anshi or Su Shi, could publicly denounce factionalism when they memorialized the throne while they privately acknowledged the existence of “our faction” in personal correspondence to their political or literary associates. Second, the word “faction” simply meant something very different for local affiliates of True Way Learning in the late Southern Song than it did for highranking officials of the late Northern Song. By the late twelfth century and into the thirteenth, the court-centered discourse of authority was increasingly giving way to a shi­-oriented cultural framework, as the locus of political authority was imagined to shift away from the central government towards local society.



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Hymes has hypothesized that the escalation of factional conflicts and the intensification of bureaucratic competition impelled members of the Southern Song elite to shift their strategies and orientations away from bureaucratic officeholding and towards local voluntary institutions.37 Within such a dramatically inverted sociopolitical context, articulating a self-consciously oppositionist stance towards the dynastic polity had become a possibility. By describing themselves as “our faction,” even privately, the proponents of True Way Learning had less to lose and less at stake than members of the late Northern Song bureaucratic elite, who were largely dependent upon officeholding to perpetuate their social status. Practicing a localist strategy to consolidate their position in society and spreading through a horizontal network of local voluntary institutions, affiliates of the True Way Learning movement could afford to portray themselves as a faction of superior men if, as they did increasingly, they chose to reject a bureaucratic career path. In the shi-oriented discourse of the late twelfth century, the word “faction” connoted a locally based and horizontally organized network that operated autonomously rather than the malign affiliation the term connoted in eleventh-century court-centered discourse. While Northern Song scholar-officials located the dynastic polity as the central locus of authority, True Way Learning scholars of the Southern Song could imagine themselves as creators and possessors of authority, building horizontal scholarly and social networks beyond the shadow of the state.

Factional Rhetoric in Late Imperial China Northern Song theorists and rhetoricians accurately predicted that factionalism would contribute to the collapse of future dynastic polities. During the declining years of both the Yuan and Ming dynasties, political associations emerged at both imperial courts to contest ministerial, and sometimes even monarchical, authority. Both factional conflicts occurred when organizations of sociopolitical elites claimed authority for themselves, filling a political and ideological vacuum at court. The political language and practices of Yuan and Ming factional politics replicated and recirculated those of the late Northern Song, but ministerial affiliations of the Yuan and Ming were dramatically different in both kind and scale. During the late Yuan, factional conflicts divided political associations within the Mongol ruling class, while late Ming bureaucratic factions were broad-based local elite affiliations that operated both centrally and locally, and were both horizontally and vertically integrated. In his study of politics in the late Yuan dynasty, John Dardess explained how a series of alternating ministerial regimes employed statecraft rhetoric that re-

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played the factional controversies of the late Northern Song. Between 1340 and 1355 political infighting divided the Mongol ruling class, which Dardess claims “had come to express itself in terms of the conservative and reformist tendencies of Neo-Confucian ideology.”38 In Dardess’ terminology, “reformist” ministers cast themselves as the ideological successors of Wang Anshi’s centralist activism to justify massive public works projects, while their opposition claimed the statecraft legacy of Sima Guang’s bureaucratic conservatism to oppose them. Why were these court cliques of Mongol noblemen recycling the political language of the late Northern Song factional conflict? The reformist and antireformist political languages of Wang Anshi and Sima Guang were not simply media that justified policy messages, they were also discourses of authority that vertically aligned monarchs with their chosen slate of ministers. Dardess has claimed that late Yuan courtiers borrowed the political theories of Wang Anshi and Sima Guang to stake a claim to ideological descent from these leading Northern Song factionalists. In Chapters 4 and 5, I have demonstrated that while Wang and Sima were in conflict over the New Policies and political ideology more generally, they shared a common rhetoric of faction and factionalism and worked within the same court-centered discourse of authority. Both Wang and Sima shared the assumption that central government service was the necessary focus of elite political activities as well as the principal determinant of elite status. Perhaps the court cliques of the late Yuan were reviving Song-era ideological programs and factional rhetoric in order to stake similar claims to political and ideological authority for themselves. By the Yuan dynasty, the native Chinese elite (in the south, at least) had ceased to conceptualize bureaucratic service as either of these things, further withdrawing from state-level politics towards local sociopolitical involvement. Yuan court politics was largely a Mongol-dominated affair, and since these foreign occupiers had no local roots in the Chinese polity, they had no choice but to focus their strategies on central state institutions, which came to mean building top-heavy ministerial cliques at the Yuan court. Hence, the “reformist” and “antireformist” wings of the Mongol nobility availed themselves of the same court-centered discourse of authority as members of the Northern Song bureaucratic elite once had. Active at both the imperial court and in local society, the larger-scale and broader-based political organizations of the late Ming dynasty offer closer parallels to the ministerial affiliations of the late Northern Song. Instead of contending for imperial patronage and policy influence like Song court factions had, early seventeenth-century political affiliations challenged eunuch dictatorship and bureaucratic corruption at the Ming imperial court.39 Articulating a polarizing rhetoric of politics reminiscent of the eleventh century, the members of two successive political affiliations sought the ethical resurgence of political institu-



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tions from the top down and center outward. These organizations were formed in a different social context, as the elite stratum of Ming society more generally resembled that of the Southern, not the Northern Song: a gentry elite pursuing localist strategies of advancement through voluntary and autonomous institutions such as local academies and charitable trusts.40 Compared with Northern Song gentlemen, members of the late Ming elite were not as dependent upon bureaucratic officeholding to enhance their social status and economic dominance in their localities. Even so, the political and socioeconomic autonomy of the Ming gentry did not translate into an overt, or even a covert, challenge to imperial authority or the dynastic polity. Like Northern Song factionalists, members of the political organizations of the early seventeenth century did not deny or contest the legitimacy of monarchical rule, even when the quality of Ming rulership went into chronic decline. Nor did they explicitly assert the political interests of elite society in opposition to the central government, as the True Way Learning movement of the Southern Song had. Late Ming factionalists were not contesting imperial authority per se. Rather, they were extending their loyal service upwards to the throne in order to rescue the dynastic polity from what they condemned as eunuch domination and bureaucratic underperformance. Founded in 1604 in Wuxi by Gu Xiancheng (1550–1612) and Gao Panlong (1562–1626), the Donglin Academy (Donglin shuyuan) was a scholarly and literary association whose leaders articulated a coherent policy agenda and formed an opposition party against the eunuch domination and bureaucratic underperformance of the Ming court.41 Unlike the capital-centered coalitions of the late Northern Song, this political movement of the late Ming was firmly grounded in local elite society before it emerged at court. Emerging from a local academy, the Donglin Academy was a locally based “literary society” (wenshe), which its leaders expanded into an empire-wide institutional venue for scholarly activities and political opposition.42 The Donglin leaders leveraged a horizontal cellular network of private academies into a vertically integrated political movement that extended from the capital into the provinces. Frederick Mote claimed that the Donglin movement “came as close to functioning as a true party as any such movement in later imperial history.”43 Pushing the intriguing comparisons between factions and parties even further, Benjamin Elman has speculated about “what sort of political forces would have been released into Confucian political culture” if the Ming gentry had “been able to transmit their local influence to the provincial and national levels through legitimized factional organizations such as the Donglin Academy.”44 If Ouyang Xiu’s revisionist faction theory had persuaded Emperor Renzong to retain the Qingli reformers’ “true faction” of “superior men” in 1044, perhaps the court factions of later dynasties would

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have been normalized, and their negative associations in the political imagination would have been neutralized. In a recent article on the opposition to the Donglin movement, Harry Miller has argued that in contrast to early modern Western Europe, where “the power of public opinion” appeared to eventually transform absolute monarchies into popular republics, “in China, the rise of public opinion led only to faction, leaving the principles and mechanics of government unchanged.”45 Counterfactuals and comparisons aside, the Donglin party exhibited a much higher degree of organizational sophistication and ideological uniformity than the top-heavy court factions of the late Northern Song or Yuan court. The Donglin Academy had membership lists numbering in the hundreds, maintained discipline within its ranks, and shared a relatively coherent political ideology. More than simply bequeathing a horizontal organizational framework of local academies to the Donglin Academy, Southern Song True Way Learning also provided the political language and intellectual context for the movement’s development. Claiming to be orthodox transmitters of Cheng-Zhu learning and disdaining the idealist intuitionalism of the Wang Yangming (1472–1529) school, the members of this party approached statecraft and governance with moral and ideological unanimity.46 Like the Song disciples of True Way Learning, which was a locally organized movement with aspirations to seize control of the imperial bureaucracy from the bottom up, the Donglin partisans focused their energies upon the ethical restoration of political institutions. In this sense we can see the Donglin movement, even if it carried the organizing much further, as an extension or replication of the True Way Learning movement’s project and rooted in the same locally based elite consciousness. During the final decade of the reign of the negligent Wanli Emperor (r. 1573–1620), the Donglin Academy snowballed into a cohesive oppositionist movement within the highest echelons of the imperial bureaucracy where it promoted its members to positions of power and positioned itself against corruption and maladministration. Resembling the factions of the late Northern Song, members of the Donglin Academy portrayed themselves as superior men acting in defense of the state, not as elite affiliations acting autonomously from, or in opposition to, the central government. Inverting the polarities of factional discourse much as Ouyang Xiu once had, the Donglin partisans portrayed themselves as a “public-minded faction” (gongdang) rather than as a “selfish faction” (sidang).47 Benjamin Elman has argued that the Donglin partisans amplified Ouyang’s revisionist faction theory to imply “that their position was based on a uniformity of moral views, and not on private interests.”48 Dardess has analyzed the faction theory of the Donglin cofounder Gao Panlong, who acknowledged that factions “were natural sociomoral formations,” and defended



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his own movement as an affiliation of like-minded superior men, as opposed to the “biased factions” (piandang) of petty men.49 Gao urged the Wanli Emperor to assume his proper role as factional arbiter by employing the true faction of the Donglin Academy, which was united in loyal service to the polity, and purging the false factions of malefactors who slandered them.50 Dardess has demonstrated that other members of the movement expounded upon Gao Panlong’s—and, by extension, Ouyang Xiu’s—claim that only superior men formed factions that served the public good.51 Like bureaucratic factions of earlier dynasties, the overt political associations in the late Ming granted their adversaries ample ammunition to use against them. Given their organizational sophistication and their own selfidentification as a faction, the members of the Donglin Academy were accused of factionalism by their entrenched opponents in the outer and inner courts. During the infighting over the uncertain monarchical transitions of the mid1620s, the eunuch Wei Zhongxian (1568–1627) rose to dominate the court of the Tianqi Emperor (r. 1621–1628), controlling his Grand Secretariat. In a variation on the Great Proscription of the late Eastern Han, Wei brutally persecuted the Donglin Academy, executing or imprisoning hundreds of its members and banning affiliated private academies in the provinces.52 By 1627 this once-potent opposition movement had been decapitated, leaving scattered remnants of local scholars without leadership or organization and leaving the Ming court adrift at a time of fiscal and military crisis. In scale and brutality, the purge of the Donglin Academy far exceeded any of the factional proscriptions of the Northern Song, including the Chongning blacklists of the early Huizong reign. In the dying years of the Ming, a new generation of reforming scholar-officials created the Restoration Society (Fu she) as a successor movement to the Donglin Academy. Founded in Suzhou in 1629, the Restoration Society was an empire-wide federation of local literary societies that William Atwell has deemed “probably the largest and most sophisticated political organization in the history of traditional China.”53 Equipped with a sophisticated organizational structure and communications network, the members of the Restoration Society maintained ideological and political discipline among its several thousand members, published collections of writings, and administered oaths to newcomers. As opposed to the Cheng-Zhu idealists of the Donglin Academy, members of the Restoration Society were more pragmatic in their intellectual orientations, resembling Northern Song antireformists like Sima Guang with their focus on formulating historically minded solutions to statecraft problems.54 In the 1630s its members experienced great success in the civil service examinations, expanding their influence within the imperial bureaucracy and ultimately joining the

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ministerial cabinet of the Chongzhen Emperor (r. 1628–1644). Infighting tore apart the Ming court in its final years, and a series of powerful grand secretaries accused the Restoration Society of being a malign faction. Like the collapse of the reform coalition after the Jurchen invasion in 1126–1127, the Qing conquest of 1644 brought an end to the Fu she as a viable movement. Many of its more prominent members were executed as Ming loyalists, and the Restoration Society’s surviving leaders retreated from political affairs, refusing to serve their Manchu overlords. Learning from the mistakes of the self-destructing late Ming court, monarchs of the early Qing dynasty actively worked to prevent a recurrence of factional conflict. Justifying their conquest of China as a moral restoration of imperial institutions, the Manchu rulers presented themselves as the ultimate authority figures to whom scholar-officials owed their fealty in selfless service to the public good.55 According to Elman, “Qing emperors viewed horizontally aligned groups of gentry-officials as factional threats to the sanctity of vertical loyalties that culminated in the person of the emperor himself.”56 In 7.1724 the Yongzheng Emperor (r. 1723–1735) promulgated the only “Discourse on Factions” written by a sitting monarch, in which he invalidated Ouyang Xiu’s revisionist faction theory and proscribed ministerial affiliations at his court.57 He sought to join monarchs and ministers in vertical ties of loyalty that enjoined individual ministers to serve the public good: Heaven is superior and Earth is inferior: such shall be the distinction between ruler and minister. As for he who becomes a minister, his righteousness must comprehend that of the ruler. If it comprehends the ruler, then their sentiments will be bound together and cannot be dissolved. If he can share the ruler’s likes and dislikes, then it can be said that the superior and inferior are of one virtue and one heart.58

Yongzheng grounded his faction theory in the “Great Plan” (Hong fan) chapter of the Book of Documents, discussed in Chapter 2; he admonished ministers to “submit to the kingly way that is level and balanced, right and straight.” Irreverent and insubordinate ministers who “dared to indulge in a selfish heart and cultivated factions” were, by definition, guilty of disloyalty to their sovereign. If monarchs were incapable of upholding the proper hierarchical distinctions between the superior and inferior, between truth and falsehood, then ministers would make their own judgments as they saw fit, thereby subverting the moral order of the polity. By promulgating his own “Discourse on Factions,” the Yongzheng Emperor was categorically denying the authority of ministerial affiliations and asserting himself as the ultimate arbiter of factionalism. In



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Yongzheng’s court-centered discourse of authority, a common Way could not unite superior men in selfless service to the polity, for only petty men formed factions. Throughout most of his six-decade reign, the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736–1796) inherited and deepened his father’s campaign to exalt monarchical authority and his militancy against ministerial factions.59 He categorically rejected the tacit assumptions of Song-era factional rhetoric that sagely rulers should entrust governance to loyal councilors, and instead vested all political authority and ethical legitimacy within the imperial throne.60 Defining factions as horizontal affiliations of equals pursuing selfish interests, the Qing court continued to proscribe bureaucratic factions until the internal and external crises of the nineteenth century opened up new spaces for elite sociopolitical action. From the Northern Song through the high Qing, members of the sociopolitical elite, in their political role as bureaucrats and ministers, and in their publicly circulating rhetoric, remained within the penumbra of the dynastic polity they served. In their factional rhetoric, elite political affiliations asserted and contested claims to authority and legitimacy within the institutional arena of the imperial bureaucracy. Political associations of the late Northern Song and late Ming did not publicly articulate elite interests in overt opposition to the dynastic polity, or to the monarchical interest, since open partisanship and partisan opposition were considered to be disloyal and traitorous practices for loyal officials. Ministerial coalitions, as long as they coincided with monarchical designs, were never publicly conflated with factions, at least while the throne delegated authority to them. Even when the True Way Learning movement of the Southern Song had challenged the authority of central political institutions, they sought to expand the influence of elite society over local affairs in order to circumvent imperial authority rather than contesting or destabilizing it. In the Northern Song, members of the centralist scholar-official elite formed factions that presented themselves as the defenders of the dynastic polity. Pursuing localist strategies of advancement, Southern Song elites retreated from bureaucratic officeholding, and their prevailing ideology discredited the authority of central political institutions to claim legitimacy for themselves. In the late Ming, locally based but centrally oriented factional associations like the Donglin Academy and the Restoration Society presented themselves as loyal defenders of the throne. Timothy Brook has speculated that the Donglin Academy could not have developed into a true political party that could “assert the interests of an elite public against the state . . . they saw power primarily from the state’s perspective and were never genuinely critical of the structure and goals of Ming government.”61 But perhaps Brook is setting the bar too high and eliding

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the distinctions between factional rhetoric and political action, for the political affiliations of the late Northern Song and late Ming both employed a courtcentered discourse of authority that could not accommodate the existence of autonomous ministerial associations. In the political rhetoric of the middle and late imperial periods, when members of ministerial coalitions claimed authority for themselves and extended it upwards to the state, the linguistic repertoire and intellectual contexts of political discourse endangered the long-term survival of factional affiliations at the political center that publicly articulated elite interests independent from, and in opposition to, the central government. The bureaucratic factions of the Song and Ming envisioned political authority and ethical legitimacy as emanating outwards and downwards from the imperial court in concentric circles.

Political Parties in Twentieth-Century China It was not until the early twentieth century, after the Qing court’s prohibition against factions and parties was lifted, that the term dang re-entered the Chinese language as a neutralized descriptor of political “parties” in the modern Western sense. In her study of “translated modernity” in early twentieth-century China, Lydia Liu has listed the word “political party” (C: zhengdang, J: seitò) as one example of a Euro-Japanese loan word that translated a European-language term, which “was then imported back into Chinese with a radical change in meaning.”62 In modern Chinese, a dang was no longer a “faction” in Song, Ming, or Qing classical usage, but rather a modern “political party” in the North Atlantic sense. After the 1911 Revolution replaced the Qing monarchy with a fragile constitutional republic, political parties proliferated and in 1912 competed for seats in the first and only parliamentary elections in Chinese history. Winning a majority of votes for the new legislature, the Chinese Nationalist Party (Guomindang) began to fashion itself into the dominant political organization in the National Assembly. In 1913 President Yuan Shikai (1859–1916), a militarist who was hostile to constitutional government, banned the party and assassinated some of its leaders, ending this experiment in parliamentary politics before democratic institutions had a chance to take hold, sending the early Republic down a slippery slope towards military dictatorship and warlordism.63 In the 1920s each of the two major political parties envisioned itself as the integral organizational element of a modern Chinese nation-state. After the Comintern reorganized the Nationalist Party along Leninist “democratic centralist” lines, its leaders Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) and Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) collapsed the distinction between party and nation-state, imagin-



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ing their tightly disciplined party as the only nationwide political institution that represented and subsumed the common good.64 From its founding in 1921, the Chinese Communist Party (Gongchandang) was a highly centralized and disciplined vanguard party that eventually organized the working masses for socialist revolution.65 After the “White Terror” of 1927 ended the first United Front, neither the Nationalist nor the Communist Party envisioned itself as one of several competing political affiliations, but each saw itself as a single pyramidal network that controlled the state machinery from within and claimed to mobilize all horizontal associations within society to loyally serve the emerging nation-state.66 In short, the party was the political force that animated the nation-state. Like Song court factions, modern Chinese political parties were vertical hierarchies that claimed to represent the common good and conjoined political actors in loyal service to the nation-state. But both the Nationalist and Communist parties also broke with late imperial conceptions of political affiliation by placing the party organization above the state machinery and employing a statist discourse of authority that could neither accommodate nor tolerate the existence of horizontal affiliations formed by autonomous or independent political actors.  Twentieth-century Chinese political discourse worked according to different rules than the factional rhetoric of the late imperial period, when linguistic and intellectual constraints limited what ministers could publicly articulate. When Ouyang Xiu or the Donglin partisans sought to neutralize and normalize the existence of factional affiliations, not only did they confront hostile monarchical and ministerial audiences, but also the normative patterns of political language. In attempting to justify their own factional affiliations while making those of their adversaries illegitimate, Song and Ming factionalists engaged in a common discursive enterprise that posited the imperial court as the central locus of authority. Monarchs themselves, like Emperor Renzong of the Northern Song or the Yongzheng Emperor of the Qing, similarly availed themselves of this discourse of authority to explicitly admonish their ministers against factionalism. Late imperial Chinese conceptions of absolute and unitary monarchy could not openly accommodate the existence of a loyal ministerial opposition, and the court-centered discourse of authority could not publicly articulate this possibility. Because a ministerial government, but not its organized opposition, was considered to be a vertical extension of monarchical authority, horizontal political affiliations could not publicly acknowledge or justify the existence of elite interests that were independent from, or in opposition to, the dynastic polity. Alternate discourses of political association were certainly possible, and privately circulating forms of rhetoric like correspondence could accommodate and even validate the existence of horizontal sociopolitical affiliations that possessed

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authority autonomously from the dynastic polity. But in the public context of ministerial rhetoric that was addressed to a monarchical audience, the dominant court-centered discourse of authority was polarized between factionless superior men who served the public good and factious petty men who pursued partisan gain. During the Northern Song and later imperial regimes, theorists and rhetoricians of faction articulated claims to political authority from the perspective of the dynastic polity, envisioning the role of ministers from the other end of the telescope, as loyal servants of the throne.

Notes

Chapter 1: The Rhetoric of Politics and the Politics of Rhetoric Epigraph: Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 3.83, translated by John Porter. 1.  In his article on factional conflict at the early Tang court, Howard Wechsler offered a clear working definition of a faction in the premodern Chinese political system: “a subgroup in a decision-making body working for the advancement of certain policies or people; its members have common interests that bring them together initially and common objectives that serve to keep them together afterward. Although a faction lacks the permanence of a political party, it is nevertheless organized around long-term interests rather than around a single, specific issue—such as a policy decision—and thus forms an alignment of significant duration within a decision-making body.” See Wechsler 1973, 87. 2.  Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 183–184. 3.  Robert Hartwell asserted that “factional power struggles were conducted— often on the basis of competing claims to ideological orthodoxy—in order to secure total control of the government by one or another contending clique.” See Hartwell 1982, 420–422. Yu Yingshi has argued that Northern Song monarchs and regents, starting with Shenzong, articulated a “state policy consensus” (guoshi), personally identifying themselves with specific policy programs such as the New Policies or with their immediate abolition. See Yu Yingshi 2003, I.340–361. In his biography of Sima Guang, Xiao-bin Ji presents further evidence that supports Yu’s hypothesis, and provides an English translation for guoshi. See Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 17–18. For two classic studies of the factional policy disputes of the late Northern Song, which reify the binary distinction between the reformists and antireformists, see Lei 1965; and Liu Boji 1977. 4.  During the Song, it was a standard dynastic practice for widowed imperial consorts to serve as regents for their sons or grandsons, until they were deemed to have achieved majority. Presiding over court audiences from behind a screen, regents were vested with full executive authority over policy and personnel decisions and could decide imperial enthronement controversies. 181

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5.  In his article on the emperor-grand councilor relationship in the Northern Song, Tomota Kòmei concludes that while councilors exercised authority over state policy-making, emperors reserved the ultimate authority to make policy and personnel decisions. See Tomota 2002. 6.  According to the interpretation of Robert Hymes and Conrad Schirokauer, members of the Northern Song political elite “would work to reform the state and the world by repairing, restoring, or remaking the institutions and practices he found there.” See Hymes and Schirokauer 1993, 14. Recently, Hymes has proposed that members of the Song sociopolitical elite shared a “court-centered discourse of authority,” which imagined authority radiating downward from the imperial throne, and used this discourse in public political settings, “when they sought or served in high office or appeared before the emperor at court.” See Hymes forthcoming. I will discuss Hymes’ hypothesis about Song discourses of authority in greater depth in Chapter 7. 7.  In this study I will make a generic distinction between faction theorists and factional rhetoricians. I will use the term “factional rhetoricians” to describe officials who wrote court memorials and participated in court audiences, in which they discussed and debated the existence, activities, and membership of factions in the central government bureaucracy. I will use the term “faction theorists” to describe the authors of “Discourses on Faction” (Pengdang lun), a subgenre of political theory that I will discuss in depth in Chapter 3. 8.  I first discussed these definitions of faction, and sketched out the conceptual contours of faction theory, in Levine 2005. I will translate gong as “the public good” when it is used as an abstract noun, and as “public-minded” when it is used as an adjective. As Donald Munro explains the gong/si polarity in classical Chinese discourse: “Selflessness has something to do with having all the people in mind, and is to be preferred to any pursuits that concern only the single individual ‘self.’ Selfishness refers to an emotional and cognitive failure to perceive the self in terms of a more comprehensive entity than the one to which a person has ties, in a futile attempt to isolate the self from that entity.” See Munro 1980, 180. For a linguistic analysis of the parallels between the Chinese word gong and the English word “public,” as they were deployed in premodern and modern intellectual contexts and political language, see Rowe 1990, 315–318. 9.  Hartwell first proposed that a “professional elite” was the dominant social stratum of the Northern Song, which perpetuated its status by dominating the imperial bureaucracy and engaging in transregional marriage networks. See Hartwell 1982, 405–416. Hymes expanded upon this hypothesis, arguing that Northern Song elites pursued a “national strategy” of self-perpetuation, which centered upon attaining bureaucratic office and building transregional social networks that converged on the capital. See Hymes 1986, 210–218. In her critique of the Hartwell-Hymes



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hypothesis, Beverly Bossler has proposed that the dominance of this “capital elite” of the Northern Song was both a historical phenomenon and a historiographic one. She has proposed that historiographic anomalies have magnified the importance of high-ranking official families who resided in Kaifeng and intermarried, but cautions that “capital families represented only a small segment of the Northern Song bureaucratic elite as a whole,” and “a far greater number of families were producing officials who served the government in mid- or low-ranked offices and then retired to their homes in the countryside.” See Bossler 1998, 203–210. 10.  To preserve the semantic distinction between the Song gentlemanly elite and its superstratum’s political function as bureaucratic officials, I will make every effort to consistently translate shi as “gentlemen” and shidafu as “officials.” See Hartman 2006b, 126. Bossler has asserted that “although the political elite was in some ways socially set above the rest of Song society, for many reasons (the practice of patronage among them) it was never a separate social class.” See Bossler 1998, 59–60. 11.  The yin or “protection” privilege allowed high-ranking officials to confer official rank upon their kinsmen. Sons of high-ranking officials were also eligible for facilitated examinations. For two succinct explanations of these privileges that were granted to the capital elite and allowed lineages to perpetuate their high social status, see Chaffee 1995, 23–24; Bossler 1998, 53–55. 12.  Bossler explains: “Patronage networks provided those struggling to join the political elite with a crucial point of entry, even as privileged access to those networks ensured that the sons of high officials would always have special advantages.” See Bossler 1998, 59–60. 13.  Peter Bol has concluded: “When the first Song emperors patronized the shi, I suggest, they did so because the shi were willing subordinates, without independent power, who depended on a superior authority for their political position, and who brought to their duties a commitment to civil culture invaluable to the institutionalization of central authority. Using the shi to govern was an example, I suggest, of the imperial desire to use men with ability but without a power base.” See Bol 1992, 52–53. For earlier scholarship on the dependent position of the Song bureaucratic elite, see James Liu 1962, 139–140; Lo 1987, 58. 14.  For an analysis of the social composition of the Song imperial bureaucracy and the increasing role of the examination system in bureaucratic recruitment over the eleventh century, see Chaffee 1995, 49–65. 15.  For a discussion of the Northern Song’s military predicament and diplomatic weakness and its “policy to curb the role of the military and coexist with aggressive neighbors,” see Mote 1999, 112–118; Lorge 2005, 30–35, 39–44. 16.  See Hymes 1986, 210–218. 17.  See Chaffee 1995, 24–30, 35–41.

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18.  See Hartwell 1982, 416–420; Hymes 1986, 82–91; Bossler 1998, 55–60, 78–94. 19.  In his article on faction formation in the Song dynasty, Hirata Shigeki has untangled the familial, native place, and scholarly networks that factionalists exploited to achieve examination success and official promotions and has retraced the connections between monarchs and ministers that enabled councilors to implement their political programs. See Hirata 1998. 20.  The title of huangdi literally translates as “august theocrat,” indicating the emperor’s ritual and temporal sovereignty, rather than the military command denoted by the word’s English translation as “emperor.” See Mote 1999, 98; 983 n7. In James Liu’s assessment, Northern Song monarchs effectively centralized authority over civil official appointments and policy decisions: “Throughout the bureaucracy, centralizing measures kept the controlling power at the court under the immediate purview of the emperor.” See James Liu 1962, 139–141. 21.  For a more recent assessment of the ideological and practical limits on ministerial and monarchical power, and the complex and contingent negotiations between emperors and councilors, see Cheng Minsheng 1999 and Zhang Bangwei 1994. 22.  See Mote 1999, 99. 23.  For a discussion of how memorials flowed through the “information order” of the Song bureaucracy, see De Weerdt 2006, 147–148. 24.  For a discussion of these built-in checks on ministerial authority, see Xiaobin Ji 2005, 182–183. 25.  The term zaixiang was generally employed to describe those who held the highest executive post within the imperial bureaucracy, that is, they held the official rank of 1a. At any given time, between one and three grand councilors served the throne, but as a general rule there were two. The titles of state councilors underwent several changes throughout the late Northern Song. Before 1082, the senior grand councilor (zaixiang) was generally referred to as “jointly manager of affairs with the Secretariat-Chancellery” (tong Zhongshu Menxia pingzhang shi), and the junior grand councilor bore the title “participant in determining governmental matters” (canzhi zhengshi). After the Yuanfeng administrative reforms of 1082, the chain of command within the Three Departments was restructured. Thereafter, the grand councilor of the left (zuopuye) was usually the concurrent vice director of the Chancellery (jian Menxia shilang) and the grand councilor of the right (youpuye) was usually the concurrent vice director of the Secretariat (jian Zhongshu shilang). In keeping with the conventions of the field, and in order to cut through a morass of changing official titles, I will employ the term “grand councilor” consistently throughout this study to describe the men who held them. See SS 161.3773–3775; Wang Ruilai 1985, 106–109; Hucker 1985, 41–42, 394–395; Lo 1987, 70–73;



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James Liu 1988, 83; Bossler 1998, 239 n7; Paul Smith forthcoming, “Gaining Power.” 26.  For a structural diagram of the Song imperial bureaucracy, see Hucker 1985, 39–41. 27.  According to James T. C. Liu, “opinion officials” like censors “were supposed to act as a check on the abuses that could result from the excessive concentration of power in the bureaucracy or throne.” See James Liu 1988, 83. For a detailed institutional analysis of the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau, see Diao 1999a, 173–193. For concise treatments of the interactions among censorial, monarchical, and ministerial authority in the Northern Song, see Ji Shengqing 1992 and Yu Yunguo 1995. 28.  See Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 3–4. 29.  Yu Yingshi has asserted that Wang Anshi enhanced the powers of the councilorship by asserting control over the Censorate. See Yu Yingshi 2003, I.331–333. For more document-driven studies of Wang Anshi and Cai Que’s largely successful attempts to impose institutional constraints upon remonstrance organs in the 1070s and 1080s, see Wang Ruilai 1985, 114–115; Shen Songqin 1998b; Diao 1999b; Diao 2000; Paul Smith forthcoming, “Gaining Power.” 30.  In Northern Song parlance, the practice of statecraft was generally referred to as “ordering the world” (jingshi). For an explanation of the term’s wider implications for Song elite conceptions of state and society, see Hymes and Schirokauer 1993, 2. 31.  Bol has argued that “government—whether it was working either simply to maintain the dynasty or, as guwen thinkers proposed, to transform society into an integrated order that secured the welfare of all—was the focus for Ouyang Xiu, Wang Anshi, Sima Guang, and (to a lesser extent) Su Shi, and how men learned mattered because it had bearing on what they would try to accomplish in government.” See Bol 1992, 332–333. 32.  This binary division between “reformists” and “antireformists” follows conventional usage in English-language scholarship to classify court coalitions based on their main policy goals. For an early usage of this terminology, see James Liu 1959, 9. In Chinese secondary scholarship, these coalitions have generally been referred to as the “new faction” (xindang) and the “old faction” (jiudang). The new faction was considered to be “new” (xin) in the same sense as the New Policies (Xinfa) or the New Learning (Xinxue) of Wang Anshi. Since this homology is strained in English, the terms “reformists” and “antireformists” will have to suffice. 33.  Bol 1993, 151–167; Paul Smith 1993, 82–87. 34.  For an analysis of the political and ethical thought of Wang Anshi, see Bol 1992, 216–218, 225–233. For an analysis of Wang Anshi and the New Policies, see Paul Smith forthcoming, “The First Phase of the New Policies.”

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35.  In his authoritative English-language political biography of Sima Guang, Xiao-bin Ji finds parallels between Sima Guang’s historicist belief in time-tested institutions and the modern North Atlantic political ideology of conservatism. See Ji 2005, 2–3. For an analysis of the political and ethical thought of Sima Guang, see Bol 1992, 219–222, 233–246. Also see Sariti 1972. 36.  See Bol 1993, 138–140. 37.  For a brief study of the emergence of factionalism at the early Northern Song court, see Luo 1990. For an analysis of faction formation during the Zhenzong reign, with an emphasis upon examination cohorts, see He Guanhuan 1994. For a summation of the military history of the early Northern Song and the factional debates at court over concluding a truce with the Liao, see Chen Fangming 1977; Mote 1999, 113–116. 38.  F. W. Mote has argued that these factions were loosely organized ministerial coalitions who advocated military and diplomatic policies. See Mote 1999, 114. 39.  Mote 1999, 115–116. 40.  Peter Lorge has affirmed that the conclusion of the treaty brought an end to Song expansionist designs and “led to an unprecedented takeover of the government apparatus by civil service exam graduates.” See Lorge 2005, 35. 41.  My narrative and interpretations of the Qingli Reforms have been informed by the studies of James T. C. Liu. See James Liu 1957; James Liu 1967, 40–51. To avoid confusion between and conflation of the political conflicts of the 1040s and the 1070s, I will refer to the supporters and advocates of the Qingli Reforms as “reformers” and “conservatives,” not as “reformists” and “antireformists.” This distinction is not simply a semantic one, since the court factions of the 1040s were neither as numerous nor as well organized as those of the 1070s and 1080s. 42.  Mote 1999, 123–124. In historiographic parlance, the Song court faced “three excesses” (sanrong): an excessive military establishment (rongbing), an excess of underperforming officials (rongguan), and excessive state expenditures (rongfei). See Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 10; Shen Songqin 1998a, 2–3. For extensive discussions of the administrative, military, and fiscal problems the Song court faced in the mid-eleventh century, see Paul Smith 1993, 81; Paul Smith forthcoming, “Shen-tsung’s Ascension and the Crisis of the Mid-Eleventh Century.” 43.  For the most extensive English-language biography of Fan Zhongyan, see James Liu 1957. For an analysis of factional politics during the Renzong reign, see James Liu 1967, 40–64. For an analysis of the intellectual foundations of Fan Zhongyan’s reforms, see Bol 1992, 166–175. 44.  See James Liu 1967, 53–55; Egan 1984, 70–71. 45.  For a study of the concept of reform in Northern Song thought, see Gu 1989. 46.  See Mote 1999, 138.



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47.  James Liu claimed that after the reforms of Fan Zhongyan, “even when there was no particular controversy over policy, the bureaucrats tended to draw factional battle lines.” The only evidence Liu provided for this broad generalization is the “rites controversy” of the Yingzong reign. See James Liu 1959, 65–66. 48.  For two extended treatments of the “rites controversy” that divided Yingzong’s ministers, see Fisher 1987 and Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 94–109. Also see Chaffee 1999, 65–66. 49.  See Bol 1992, 422 n6; Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 100–101. 50.  As I will demonstrate below and in Chapter 5, Wang’s “New Learning” (Xinxue) and Sima Guang’s historicist conservatism were not the only schools of statecraft thought in this period, and the antireform opposition fractured into three regional and ideological blocs in the late 1080s. For an early analysis of the division between four discrete schools of Northern Song statecraft thought: New Learning, along with the Shuo, Luo, and Shu schools (xue), see James Liu 1959, 27–29. 51.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “faction” denotes “a party in the state or in any community or association; always in the opprobrious sense, conveying the imputation of selfish or mischievous ends or turbulent or unscrupulous methods.” For an early discussion of the parallels between the Chinese word dang and the English word “faction,” which “implies the subordination of public good to private gain,” see James Liu 1957, 125–126. 52.  Bossler has noted that “the compositions of factions was highly fluid and varied from issue to issue, with individuals moving from one side of a factional dispute to another.” See Bossler 1998, 62. 53.  A reconstruction of the factional networks in opposition is beyond the scope of this study. For a comprehensive study of the antireformist intellectual and political circle in Luoyang, see Freeman 1973. For a discussion of the divergences between Kaifeng as political center and Luoyang as a scholarly center in the late Northern Song, see Ge 2000. 54.  For a brief discussion of the emergence of modern Chinese political parties (zhengdang), and the redefinition of dang as “party,” see Chapter 7. 55.  Throughout the factional conflict, both reformist and antireformist ministers held dramatically different political positions and employed different sets of discourses in order to justify these positions and to persuade monarchs to assent to their policy agendas. A reconstruction of these broader languages of policy and politics is beyond the scope of this study. For reasons of semantic and conceptual clarity, I will refer to the language of factional politics as “factional rhetoric,” not as “political discourse,” a term that has broader connotations. By factional rhetoric, I mean the persuasive means by and through which officials defined, described, and interpreted forms of political affiliation and organization. 56.  See Standen 2007, 32, 61.

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57.  According to Frederic Wakeman, Jr., late imperial factionalists “defined themselves mainly in terms of their opponents.” See Wakeman 1972, 42. 58.  For an overview of the compilation of court archives, see De Weerdt 2006, 150–153. For a document-driven chronology of the recompilation of these three Veritable Records, see Cai 1993, 82–105. 59.  For two studies of the continual revision of the Shenzong shilu, see Peng 1985; Cai 1993, 82–83. Also see De Weerdt 2006, 161. 60.  See Cai 1993, 98–100. 61.  For a discussion of the early Southern Song court’s denunciation of Wang Anshi and Cai Jing for precipitating the fall of the Northern Song, see James Liu 1988, 63–64. 62.  The text covered the Shenzong, Zhezong, Huizong, and Qinzong reigns and presented authoritative reign chronicles and biographies of the late Northern Song as a guide for court historians of the subsequent dynasty who would compile the official Song History. For a thorough textual history of the Sichao guoshi, see Cai 1993, 126–138. Also see De Weerdt 2006, 162. 63.  For the most thorough English-language treatment of the compilation of the Song History at the Yuan court, see Chan 1981. 64.  For a discussion of the “treacherous ministers” rubric and the fashioning of Cai Jing’s Song History biography from Southern Song foundation texts, see Hartman 2006a, 517–521, 528–530. For a comprehensive study of the compilation of biographies in the State History and their relationship to their counterparts in the Song History, see Sudò 1969b. 65.  For example, Charles Hartman has demonstrated how the Song History’s “treacherous minister” biography of Cai Jing “is marked by the increasing identification of Cai as a nefarious minister, a pure stereotype against whom to compare later Song autocratic councilors” such as Qin Gui (1090–1155) and Han Tuozhou (1152–1207). See Hartman 2006a, 551–552. 66.  For example, in his Song lun, Wang Fuzhi (1619–1692) consistently referred to Wang Anshi and his reformists as “petty men,” while honoring his antireform adversaries as “superior men.” See SL 6.116–118. However, the issue of late imperial interpretations of the factional conflict is beyond the scope of this study. For a book-length study of the historical reception of Wang Anshi’s New Policies from the Southern Song to the twentieth century, see Li Huarui 2004. 67.  In particular, Luo Jiaxiang and Shen Songqin’s articles and monographs on the factional conflict have served as indispensable guides to primary sources and have provided extensive political and intellectual background without which this study could not have been written. While many of the primary sources that I will analyze in this study were also cited in their work, these translations and interpretations are my own.



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68.  To provide two examples of a pervasive trend in Chinese-language scholarship, the Taiwanese scholar Fang Hao’s one-volume history of the Song employs the term “petty men” (xiaoren) to describe the reformists, blaming them for the collapse of the Northern Song. See Fang 1988, 165. The mainland scholar Song Hong’s intellectual history of the factional conflict likewise divides the combatants into petty men and superior men. See Song 1991, 33. 69.  See James Liu 1959, 72. In his final monograph, Liu continued making these moral judgments between “high-minded idealists” and “second-rate followers.” See James Liu 1988, 119. Charles Hartman has critiqued Liu and other Chinese historians who translated the junzi/xiaoren binary into barely disguised Western social science terminology. See Hartman 2006b, 121–122. 70.  For example, in the introduction to his study of the factional conflict, the PRC-based historian Luo Jiaxiang has asserted: “In Chinese feudal society, in which the concentration of autocratic centralized power was intensified, internal factional conflicts within the ruling clique became a chronic disease.” See Luo 1993, 20. To cite another example, Shen Songqin frames his study in similar conceptual terms: “Factional conflict was the product of Chinese feudal autocracy or the product of power struggles within the feudal government, and were present throughout history.” See Shen 1998a, 1. In all fairness, both scholars have produced remarkably nuanced, document-driven studies of the factional conflict that are generally free of ideological or political interference of the contemporary kind, and their collective work has been indispensable to the research and writing of this study. 71.  According to James T. C. Liu, the commercialization of the Song economy and demographic shifts precipitated the “rise of new bureaucrats from the south, who were replacing bureaucrats of large-size landowning background in the north.” See James Liu 1959, 19. Hartwell has also noted this trend, demonstrating that by the Zhezong reign, southerners reached parity with northerners in the imperial bureaucracy. Unlike Liu, he attributes the factional conflict to the rise of contending social networks, whose membership included men from multiple regions who were joined by marriage or patronage ties. See Hartwell 1982, 414–425. 72.  See Hartwell 1982, 420–425; Hymes 1986, 121–123. 73.  For an elaboration of the concept of “discourses of authority,” see Hymes forthcoming, as well as Chapter 7. 74.  J. G. A. Pocock has asserted that “language takes shape from its social context, but we do know by now that it is not a mirror . . . . if one wants to know how language indicates society, one must look at the language and see how it works—what it told those who used it about their society and what it did not. . . . the languageoriented historian . . . for whom the relation between language and illocution comes first, will want to discuss the language as a historical phenomenon that operated autonomously enough to provide the primary (not the only) set of conditions within

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which the illocution was performed. The history of political thought becomes primarily, though not finally, a history of language games and their outcomes.” See Pocock 1987, 25–26. 75.  While the collected works of seven reformists have been extant in one form or another since the Ming, only Wang Anshi’s has been preserved entirely intact. The remaining six examples are extremely fragmentary, some consisting of only a single fascicle (juan) of what were originally much more substantial editions. Moreover, the collected works of every reformist minister whose Song History biographies was classified under the rubric of “treacherous ministers” (jianchen)—such as Cai Que, Xing Shu, Lü Huiqing, Zhang Dun, Zeng Bu, An Dun, Cai Jing, and Cai Bian—are no longer extant. When compared with the distribution and survival of antireformist collected works, the disappearance of reformist collected works appears even more suspicious and anomalous. Forty-two collected works authored by antireformists have survived into the present in one form or another, out of a total of sixty discrete examples mentioned in Song and Ming bibliographic catalogues. For a broader explanation of these source anomalies and the lack of inscriptional sources on these “treacherous ministers,” see Bossler 1998, 27. 76.  For a discussion of the circulation of Northern Song court records, such as Veritable Records and State Histories, among Southern Song private historians, see Hartman 2006a, 527–530; De Weerdt 2006, 159–165. 77.  This title will henceforth be abbreviated in the text as the Long Draft and appear in citations as XCB. Before he began his compilation of the Long Draft under semiofficial auspices, Li served as state historiographer to Emperor Xiaozong. For the authoritative textual history of the Long Draft, Sudò 1969a; for a detailed biography of Li Tao, see Wang Deyi 1965. 78.  These three lacunae cover the period from 4.1067 to 3.1070, from 5.1093 to 3.1097, and from 2.1100 until the end of the Northern Song. In the late Qing dynasty, Huang Yizhou (1828–1899) reconstructed chronological entries for these periods from the Topical Narratives and other sources, producing the Supplement to the Topical Narratives of Long Draft of the Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Governance (Xu zizhi tongjian changbian shibu). This title will appear in citations as CBSB. 79.  This title will henceforth be abbreviated in the text as Topical Narratives and in citations as CBBM. For a rigorous textual analysis of the relationship between the Topical Narratives and the Long Draft, see Hartman 1998b. 80.  This title will appear in citations as ZCZY. John Chaffee has noted that Zhao Ruyu celebrated the Qingli reformers and Yuanyou antireformists for their frank remonstrance, while excluding the memorials of Wang Anshi from the collection and harshly critiquing his abuses of ministerial power and “the corrosive effects that the New Policies had upon Song political culture.” See Chaffee 1990, 43–45.



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This document collection contains a preponderance of antireformist remonstrance and only a small sample of reformist-authored memorials. 81.  In Inventing the French Revolution, Keith Baker defined politics “as about making claims; as the activity through which individuals and groups in any society articulate, negotiate, and implement, and enforce the competing claims they make upon the other and the whole. Politics is, in this sense, the set of discourses or symbolic practices by which these claims are made. It comprises the definitions of relative subject-positions from which individuals and groups may (or may not) legitimately make claims upon one another, and therefore of the identity and boundaries of the community to which they belong.” See Baker 1990, 4–5. 82.  For a detailed analysis of the New Policies under Wang Anshi, see Paul Smith forthcoming, “The First Phase of the New Policies.” For the most influential Chinese monographs on Wang Anshi and the New Policies, see Qi 1980; Deng 2000. 83.  For the political history of the early Xuanren Regency, see Paul Smith forthcoming, “Shen-tsung’s Death and the Ouster of the Reformers”; Levine forthcoming, “Retrogression.” Also see Luo 2002a, 212–225. 84.  For an analysis of politics during the Qinsheng Regency, see Luo 2002a, 220–231. For my earlier analysis of factional rhetoric during this period, and the early Huizong reign, see Levine 2006. 85.  For a comparative analysis of “court-centered” and “shi-oriented” discourses of authority in Song China, which draws upon the findings of the doctoral dissertation upon which this study was based, see Hymes forthcoming.

Chapter 2: Frames of Reference Epigraph: Plato, The Republic, Book I 352b–c, in Plato 1987, 98. 1.  For an earlier and heavily compressed version of this chapter, see Levine 2005, 157–168. For the term and concept of “historical analogism,” I am indebted to Robert Hartwell’s formulation that “from the eighth through thirteenth centuries, emperors, statesmen, and historians avowed that history provides the means to understand the success and failure of different forms of governmental organization, the rise and fall of dynasties, the evolution and transformation of laws and institutions,” among other ethical and political concerns. See Hartwell 1971, 694–695. 2.  SWJZ 10 shang.26a. Many thanks to Moss Roberts (personal communication, May 2002) for providing this translation of bu xian. 3.  See LYJS 11.374. My translation follows that of Slingerland 2003, 54. 4.  In the Narratives of Zuo, the character dang usually connotes a fellowship of comrades. To cite just one example: “They subsequently killed Pi Zheng, Qi Ju and

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seven charioteers . . . they were all the comrades of Li Ke and Pi Zheng.” See CQZZ, Xi gong year 10, 13.17b. 5.  I will discuss Song faction theorists’ use of the Book of Changes in greater depth below. In a further explication of the character peng, Kong Yingda’s standard commentary to this line reads: “Those of common discipleship are called affiliations; those of common will are called comrades (tongmen yue peng, tongzhi yue you).” See ZYZY, 4.23a. My translation follows that of Lynn 1994, 378. 6.  See LYJS 1.5. My translation follows that of Slingerland 2003, 1. 7.  See SSZY 11.8a–8b. According to David Schaberg (personal communication, March 2008), “it is generally thought that the ‘Tai shi’ as we have it is not one of the pre-Qin Shangshu texts but a later addition, perhaps from the Han or even later.” Consequently, the negative usage of peng in this passage, as a malign affiliation of families, is not necessarily representative of a larger pattern of such usages in preQin classical texts. Nor can we assume the provenance of this passage to be pre-Qin. In any case, Song theorists would have taken the “Tai shi” as an integral component of the Book of Documents, and their negative reading of peng as pengdang would have been consistent with their reading of other instances of this character in the Book of Documents, as I will demonstrate below. 8.  SSZY 11.8b. 9.  XZJJ 9.247. For an alternative translation of this passage, see Knoblock 1990, II.198. 10.  HFZJJ 11.81, 84. 11.  HS 36.1945, 43.2118. 12.  According to Donald Munro, “In classical Confucian thought, the only positively approved sets of people are those that bear a hierarchical relation to each other (ruler-minister(s); father-son(s)). People of equal or near equal status who band together are collectively called parties or factions.” See Munro 1980, 182. 13.  A villager warns a rebellious officer: “[You] are no servitor of our fellowship! (fei wudang zhi shi hu)” CQZZ, Zhao gong, year 12, 45.33b–34a. 14.  The full text of Analects 5.22 reads: “When the Master was in Chen, he said: ‘Let us go home! Let us go home! Our young men at home are wildly ambitious and have great accomplishments for all to see, but they do not know how to prune themselves.’” See LYJS 10.343. My translation is adapted from Lau 1970, 79. Edward Slingerland offers the alternative translation of “our young followers.” See Slingerland 2003, 48–49. Mengzi 7.B.37 refers back to this passage: “Wan Zhang asked: ‘When Kongzi was in Chen, he said: “Let us go home! Our young men at home are wildly ambitious, rushing forward without forgetting their origins.”’” See MZZY 29.1025; Lau 1970, 202. 15.  Wang Anshi, “Da Sun Shaoshu shu,” LCJ 77.8b. Similarly, in a 1042 preface that defines a superior man as true to himself and devoted to his ruler, Wang An-



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shi uses the phrase to describe his close friendship with Sun Mou. See Wang Anshi, “Song Sun Zhengzhi xu,” in LCJ 84.9b–10a. 16.  The man in question was named Wang Xiang (n.d.). He was a native of Rongzhou who was the son-in-law of an unnamed affiliate of Su Shi’s. See “Da Huang Luzhi 5,” in SSWJ 52.1534. In a letter to Su Shi, his protégé Qin Guan also uses the term wudang to describe their literary and political association, in which he includes Huang Tingjian. See “Yu Su xiansheng jian 4,” in HHJ 30.992. 17.  Cheng Hao, Henan Cheng shi yishu 2 shang, in ECJ 28. A roughly similar formulation appears in Li Tao’s Long Draft entry for Cheng Hao’s death in XCB 357.8537. 18.  In his seminal analysis of the Analects of Confucius, Benjamin Schwartz translated junzi as “noble men,” ethical exemplars who internalized the primary virtue of human-heartedness (ren). He explains that the term junzi, “like our own terms ‘noble man’ and ‘gentlemen’ was of course, initially social rather than ethical in meaning. Like ‘gens’ or ‘nobilis,’ it referred to high birth and social rank.” See Schwartz 1985, 76. Working along similar lines, Frederic Wakeman, Jr., has defined “Confucius’ paradigmatic” junzi as “the superior man whose ultimate value to a ruler was his moral independence and critical courage.” See Wakeman 1972, 39. 19.  In her analysis of the “Hong fan” chapter of the Book of Documents, Michael Nylan has argued that its central meaning is the articulation of royal power. See Nylan 1992, 23–32. For an analysis of the Book of Documents as a textual source of political authority in the classical period, see Lewis 1999, 101–109. 20.  The translation of huangji as “supremacy maximized” is Nylan’s. According to her reading of the chapter: “Only by acting according to a publicly recognized standard of the common good can the ruler hope to maximize his power and authority, thereby securing his personal goals.” See Nylan 2001, 140–142. Also see Nylan 1992, 29–32. 21.  SSZY 12.11a. This translation was suggested by David Schaberg (private communication, March 2008). According to Bernhard Karlgren’s translation: “Among all the people, (the fact that) there will be no licentious factions, and nobody will take conspiratorial action, is because the august one . . . creates correctness”; see Karlgren 1950, 30. 22.  SSZY 12.14a. My translation is adapted from Nylan 1992, 27–28. Karlgren glosses the passage as “have nothing onesided, nothing partial, the king’s way is smooth and easy”; see Karlgren 1950, 32. 23.  Wakeman was the first English-language scholar to point out this conflation of “partiality” and “factionalism” in the “Hong fan.” See Wakeman 1972, 41. 24.  “The ancient kings’ road was without deviation or selfishness, and without flattery or factiousness.” See SSZY 12.14a–b.

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25.  For parallel readings of the “Hong fan,” which corroborate Nylan’s analysis, see Munro 1980, 182–183; Elman 1989, 390. 26.  SSZY 15.17b. I would like to thank David Schaberg (personal communication, March 2008) for correcting my erroneous translation, which presented this sentence as a negative injunction, in Levine 2005, 160. According to Schaberg, “the positive reading of peng here as something the addressee is enjoined to do seems inescapable to me.” Karlgren translates the passage as: “The young man should find associates. He should frequent them; but he should not be like a fire (i.e. too fervent in his friendship); it first flames up, and where it blazes by and by it cannot be extinguished”; see Karlgren 1950, 52. 27.  SSZY 15.17b. 28.  SSZY 15.17b. 29.  For a study of four Northern Song commentaries on the “Hong fan,” by Hu Yuan (993–1059), Wang Anshi, Su Shi, and Zeng Gong (1019–1083), see Nylan 1992, chap. 3. Nylan proposes that Song commentators used the text to advance shi elite claims to co-rule the empire, to “argue that their own group is that most likely in All-under-Heaven to achieve the status of junzi, which fosters cultural cohesion and promotes the Dao. In short, they would have the gentry play a uniquely prominent role in the propagation of virtue, thus displacing the emperor from his former central position.” See Nylan 1992, 72–73. 30.  See Nylan 2001, 254. 31.  CQZZ, Wen gong year 18, 20.14b–17a. Gao Yang Shi was another name for Zhuan Xu, one of the Five Emperors (wudi) of distant antiquity, who was the grandson of the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi). Gao Xin Shi was another name for Di Ku, the great-grandson of the Yellow Emperor and the father of the sage-king Yao. 32.  CQZZ, Wen gong year 18, 20.17a–19b. Di Hong Shi was another name for the Yellow Emperor. 33.  CQZZ, Wen gong year 18, 20.19b–20a. 34.  More than sixty Northern Song commentaries on the Yijing are still extant. See Hon 2005, 3. 35.  See Hon 2005, 6. 36.  See Hon 2005, 3–4; Kidder Smith et al. 1990, 229. 37.  For an explanation of a hexagram and its line readings and nested interpretations, see Nylan 2001, 210–213. 38.  According to Tze-ki Hon, “in the early Northern Song, the civil officials frequently invoked ‘Tai’ and ‘Pi’ to discuss their ruling of the empire with the emperor.” See Hon 2005, 126–127. 39.  ZYZY 2.20b. My translation is adapted from Lynn 1994, 205. 40.  ZYZY 2.23b–24a. My translation follows Lynn 1994, 211–212. 41.  Hon maintains that Cheng Yi imagined that the sixty-four hexagrams



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“symbolized not only the continuous process of generation and regeneration of the universe, but also the continuous tug-of-war between two groups of officials at the imperial court,” namely, junzi and xiaoren, whose “struggle . . . would continue forever as part of the human quest for a perfect government.” See Hon 2005, 124. 42.  For his interpretation of Cheng’s Yijing-influenced faction theory, see Hon 2005, 130–133. 43.  Cheng Yi, Zhouyi Cheng shi zhuan, in ECJ 755. 44.  Hon 2005, 130–133. 45.  LYJS 3.100–101. In his recent translation of the Analects, Slingerland follows post-Tang commentaries to translate zhou and bi as abstract adjectives: “The gentleman is broad and not partial; the petty person is partial and not broad.” See Slingerland 2003, 12. 46.  According to the Lunyu jijie of He Yan (ca. 190–249), the meaning of this passage is: “The loyal and the sincere form associations, the obsequious and the factious form cliques (zhongxin wei zhou, adang wei bi).” In his Lunyu yishu, Huang Kan (488–545) generally concurs with He Yan’s interpretation. See LYJS 3.101–102. 47.  LYJS 32.1104. My translation is adapted from Slingerland 2003, 183. 48.  LYJS 25.878. My translation is adapted from Slingerland 2003, 137. For the seminal analysis of this passage, which reads it against the “Hong fan” chapter from the Book of Documents, see Wakeman 1972, 41. 49.  LYJS 7.267. 50.  For a narrative account of the Great Proscription, see Beck 1986, 328–330. Also see Chen Qiyun 1984, 128–132; Goodman 1998, passim. 51.  For an analysis of early Tang factional politics, and intra-ministerial tensions before the Niu-Li conflict, see Wechsler 1973. For a narrative treatment of late Tang factional politics, see Dalby 1979, 639–669. 52.  HS 36.1945. Also see Luo 1993, 3. 53.  For a narrative treatment of factionalism in the latter years of the Eastern Han, see Beck 1986, 328–330. 54.  For the standard English translation of danggu as “Great Proscription,” see Loewe 1994, 266. 55.  For a recent study of Fan Ye’s theory of history, which focuses on his theory of dynastic legitimacy and examines his praise-and-blame judgments of historical figures, see Pang 2001. Also see Luo 1993, 3. 56.  LYJS 34.1177; HHS 67.2183. My translation follows Slingerland 2003, 200. For a discussion of Fan Ye’s influence on Song political thought, see Luo 1993, 3. 57.  HHS 67.2184. 58.  HHS 67.2183. 59.  HHS 67.2184.

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60.  Wechsler argues that factionalism was generally not an issue in early Tang government, since regional blocs of officials and sociopolitical networks frequently fractured over policy debates. He concludes that “friction between officials, when it did occur during the early T’ang, was typically the result of personality conflicts and petty jealousies, not factional politics.” See Wechsler 1973, 119. 61.  It must also be mentioned that both scholar-official “factions” also contended with eunuchs and distaff families for political power at court rather than focusing their broadsides on each other. For an extended analysis of the Niu-Li factional conflict, see Dalby 1979, 639–669. 62.  Dalby has argued against conceiving of late Tang factions as “closely knit, well-defined, and well-disciplined pressure groups with a basis in common economic, political, or ideological interest.” Due to limitations in the primary sources for Tang social history, Dalby has cautioned against using ideological or social differences to explain the Niu-Li factional conflict. Instead, he has identified “a few leaders on both sides” who were “in pursuit of political power, and they attracted supporters who hoped to share in the spoils.” See Dalby 1979, 639–640. 63.  For a treatment of Li Deyu’s garden poetry and political fortunes, which also explains interpretations of his life and works by Northern Song literati, see Yang 2004. 64.  For the original source of this quotation from Emperor Wenzong, see ZZTJ 245.7899. Ouyang Xiu’s variant account of this episode in the New History of the Tang (Xin Tang shu) reads: “eliminating these factions is difficult (qu ci pengdang nan),” see XTS 174.5236. 65.  According to Michael Dalby’s reading of the “Pengdang lun” of Li Deyu and other late Tang factionalists, most of these theorists fatalistically viewed the factional conflict as a sign of impending dynastic collapse. “But nowhere,” he argues, “is there any link established between philosophy and the alignments of politics, or any concrete indication of what views and attitudes divided Li partisan from Niu partisan.” See Dalby 1979, 651. 66.  Li Deyu, “Pengdang lun,” in QTW 709.17b–18a. 67.  Li Deyu, “Pengdang lun,” in QTW 709.18a. 68.  Li Deyu, “Pengdang lun,” in QTW 709.18a.

Chapter 3: Categorical Propositions 1.  For an earlier version of this chapter, see Levine 2005. Renzong issued admonitory edicts against factionalism in 1029 and 1038 and would again in 11.1044, several months after Fan Zhongyan’s fall from the councilorship. See XCB 107.2504, 122.2881, 153.3718; SS 291.9740.



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2.  According to Li Tao’s assessment of political rhetoric in the Renzong reign: “For obstructing Lü Yijian, Fan Zhongyan was expelled for several years. The officials supporting both men were crooked and straight, and exchanged accusations of factionalism.” See XCB 150.3637. 3.  XCB 118.2784. This is Li Tao’s summary of accusations against Fan that were leveled by Lü Yijian, and his subordinate, Attendant Censor Han Du (d. 1043), not a direct quotation. 4.  James T. C. Liu claims that Fan Zhongyan and his cohort “unconsciously assumed themselves to be the ‘superior men’ (junzi) and their enemies to be the ‘mean men’ (xiaoren).” As my analysis of their factional rhetoric will indicate, these were more than just unconscious assumptions. See James Liu 1957, 126. 5.  XCB 148.3580. For a brief discussion of this episode and its contribution to Fan’s political downfall, also see Chen Rongzhao 1987, 161–163. 6.  XCB 148.3580. For an alternative translation, see Munro 1980, 183. 7.  Ouyang Xiu, “Pengdang lun,” in OYXQJ 17.267–268; XCB 148.3580–3582. My translation substantially departs from that of William Theodore de Bary, in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed. (New York, Columbia University Press, 1999), 596. 8.  In Munro’s words, “the people in true parties are identified by shared principles and duties . . . the members of Confucian factions were likely to describe their reasons for being together as furthering the congenial relationship between men of honor, mutual improvement, and betterment of the state by virtue of the presence in it of upright persons with a common Confucian vision.” I concur with Munro’s analysis, except for the conceptual linkage that he establishes between “Confucianism” and “factionalism.” See Munro 1980, 184. 9.  For a study of the Northern Song antipathy towards faction, which discusses all the major “Discourses on Factions” that I have analyzed in this chapter, see Song 1991. Addressing the problematic of factions in late imperial China after 1044, Wakeman concluded that Ouyang’s “Pengdang lun” “disposed later politically involved intellectuals to rigidly judge a group” as either superior or petty men, “which instantly tainted an entire faction with the misdeeds of any of its leading members.” See Wakeman 1972, 42. 10.  My definition of a language of politics rests upon that of J. G. A. Pocock, who maintains: “The language of politics . . . is rhetoric, the language in which men speak for all the purposes and in all the ways which men may be found articulating and communicating as part of the activity and the culture of politics.” See Pocock 1989, 17. For the first application of Pocock’s concept to Song intellectual history, see Hymes and Schirokauer 1993, 5–9. 11.  A sixth example, Liu Anshi’s “Discourse on the Harm of Factions” (Lun pengdang zhi bi), covered similar ground as the “Pengdang lun” of his intellectual

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and political mentor Sima Guang. Liu warned monarchs that their inability to discern superior and petty men had been the root cause of the collapse of the Han and Tang dynasties: “[T]here were true factions that could not be expelled, and false factions that could not be distinguished. This is truly the pivot between order and chaos, rise and fall.” During the Great Proscription of the Eastern Han, “treacherous men” falsely accused “the worthies of the empire” of factionalism, and the last monarchs of the dynasty could not tell the difference. In the Niu-Li conflict of the late Tang, “true factions” of petty men struggled for control of the bureaucracy, until no superior men remained to stabilize the court. See Liu Anshi, “Lun pengdang zhi bi,” in JYJ 12.17a–17b. 12.  Since “Discourses on Factions” circulated in printed editions of the authors’ printed works, they certainly had a wider audience than just emperors and officials. However, a broader study of the reception of these works is beyond the scope of this study. 13.  For a discussion of Wang Yucheng’s role in the development of Northern Song faction theory, see Luo 1993, 4–5; Song 1998, 49. 14.  Wang’s modern-day biographer Xu Gui suggests that Wang wrote his “Discourse on Factions” in 988, but he affirms that it could not have been completed after 991. See Xu 1982, 61–62. Also see Shen 1998a, 49–50; Luo 1989, 70; Luo 1993, 11–12. 15.  For a more detailed study of factional conflict at the early Northern Song court, see He Guanhuan 1994, 24–40. 16.  For a memorial from this period on border affairs and domestic reforms, in which Wang drew an analogy between the Song-Khitan relationship and the Han dynasty’s involvement with the Xiongnu, and in which he urged Taizong to centralize the empire’s border commands while pursuing moral and institutional rearmament at court, see “Shang Taizong da zhao lun bianshi,” in ZCZY 129.1426–1428, parts of which were excerpted in SS 293.9793–9794. 17.  The polarizing vocabulary and concepts in Wang’s “Discourse on Factions” were consistent with a memorial he submitted to Emperor Zhenzong after his enthronement in 997, in which he urged the monarch to “hold his high officials close and keep petty men at a distance, so that loyal, good, frank, and outspoken gentlemen will know they will be promoted without a doubt, and that treacherous, wicked, and clever followers will know they will be dismissed with dread.” See Wang Yucheng, “Shang Zhenzong lun junguo dashi wushi,” ZCZY 145.1651; XCB 42.899. 18.  Wang Yucheng, “Pengdang lun,” XCJ 15.8a. 19.  See Luo 1989, 67; Shen 1998a, 49. 20.  Wang Yucheng, “Pengdang lun,” XCJ 15.8b. 21.  For a reassessment of Fan Zhongyan’s political networks and reform policies, see Qi 1992.



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22.  XCB 118.2784. This is not a verbatim transcript of Lü Yijian’s arguments before the throne, only a brief précis. 23.  XCB 118.2785–2787. In James T. C. Liu’s explanation, Fan Zhongyan’s demotion “created an opposition faction within the bureaucracy, for the scholarofficials who sympathized with Fan now rallied to the cause of maintaining their ideological autonomy and to continue criticizing the policies followed by the administration of Lü Yijian.” See James Liu 1967, 31. 24.  XCB 118.2787. The text of the poem “Four Worthies and One Unworthy” (Sixian yibuxiao) can be found in CXJ 1.8. The Four Worthies (sixian) were Fan Zhongyan, Ouyang Xiu, Yin Zhu, and Yu Jing. The One Unworthy (yibuxiao) was Gao Ruona (997–1055), a lieutenant of Lü Yijian, whose negligence as a remonstrance official had been savagely lambasted by Ouyang Xiu. 25.  In issuing the edict, Renzong was prompted by Vice State Councilor Li Ruogu (n.d.), who memorialized the throne: “In recent years, civic mores have deteriorated into wickedness, and factions are exclusively employed to slander the benevolent and good. Of petty and superior men, each have their own kind, and now once factions see them, I fear that righteous ministers will not be able to support themselves.” See XCB 122.2881–2882. A slightly different formulation appears in SS 291.9740. 26.  In 5.1041, Ye Qingchen (1000–1049), Wu Zunlu (d. 1043), Song Xiang (996–1066), and Zheng Jian (992–1053) were demoted to regional administration after Lü Yijian accused them of forming a faction. See XCB 132.3127–3128. 27.  James Liu 1957, 108; James Liu 1967, 35–36. For an analysis of the first Song-Tangut war, see Lorge 2005, 45–47. 28.  James Liu 1967, 41–43. 29.  XCB 143.3431–3444. For the classic English-language study of the Qingli Reforms, see James Liu 1957, 112–122. 30.  James Liu 1967, 47. 31.  James T. C. Liu argued that “Ouyang’s defense of factions inspired the next generation, throughout Wang Anshi’s reform, the subsequent antireform, and the post-reform period.” See James Liu 1967, 56. 32.  XCB 148.3580. 33.  Fan Zhongyan, “Shang zizheng yanshilang shu.” FZYQJ 10.235–236, quoted in Shen 1998a, 55. 34.  Bol’s analysis of this letter similarly distinguishes between idealistic and careerist officials. See Bol 1992, 168. 35.  Fan Zhongyan, “Tuiwei chenxia lun,” in FZYQJ 7.156. For an in-depth explication of this essay, see James Liu 1959, 123–124. 36.  XCB 148.3580–3582; OYXQJ 17.297–298. 37.  XCB 148.3580; OYXQJ 17.297.

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Notes to Pages 50–54

38.  XCB 148.3581; OYXQJ 17.297. 39.  XCB 148.3581; OYXQJ 17.297. 40.  Parts Two and Three of Ouyang Xiu’s “Discourse on Fundamentals” (“Ben lun zhong” and “Ben lun xia”) are a rallying cry to rulers and scholars to combat the spread of Buddhist doctrines through moral rearmament and ritual practice according to his fundamentalist interpretation of the Confucian Way. In Part Three, Ouyang attributed social decadence to the deluding influence of Buddhism, likening its proponents to political malefactors. The prevalence of these false doctrines led to “gentlemen of treachery and wickedness being seen as trustworthy by men. Even though they were petty men, there was indeed some larger point in [their arguments] that can be accepted as trustworthy. This is why the rulers of antiquity were deluded by it, and [their states] ended up in disorder and collapse, without their realizing it.” See Ouyang Xiu, “Ben lun xia,” in OYXQJ 17.293. 41.  Ouyang Xiu, “Ben lun shang,” in OYXQJ 60.861. For Robert Hymes’ translation of this essay, see de Bary 1999, 590–593. For an incisive analysis of this essay, which embeds it in the Northern Song tradition of institutionally centered statecraft, see Hymes and Schirokauer 1993, 14–16. 42.  XCB 148.3582. 43.  XCB 153.3718. 44.  According to Tze-ki Hon, Ouyang exhaustively revised Xue Juzheng’s (912–981) original text to accord with his mid-eleventh-century sensibilities. Among other things, Ouyang denied the Mandate of Heaven to the Five Dynasties, condemned Khitan perfidy, and moralized about the ethical and political obligations of classical scholars. See Hon 1999, 89–95. Naomi Standen concurs that “Ouyang Xiu was critical of the Jiu Wudai shi for its lack of interpretation and moral judgment, and his own work was a conscious attempt to rectify this.” See Standen 2007, 37. 45.  XWDS 54.611. My translation follows Davis 2004, 438. Standen has concluded that “the type of zhong [loyalty] he prefers here is that idealistic principle which should keep virtuous Confucian officials in reclusion during times of disorder, protesting the immorality of their age through their refusal to serve.” Standen 2007, 59–62. For recent scholarly treatments of the Feng Dao problem in Song historiography, see Davis 2004, lxxi–lxxii; Hon 1999, 97–99; Hon 2005, 22–25; Shen 1998a, 54. 46.  XWDS 54.611. My translation follows Davis 2004, 438. 47.  Standen argues that Ouyang assumed that one’s “original lord must be the sole legitimate emperor, and must continue to be so. Hence lack of integrity readily leads to disloyal behavior because it allows for changing of master . . . the opposite of loyalty to a particular master was no longer justifiable loyalty to a different master, but treachery demonstrating moral turpitude.” See Standen 2007, 60–61. 48.  XWDS 35.381–383. My translation is adapted from Davis 2004, 293–294.



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49.  XWDS 35.382. 50.  XWDS 35.382. My translation is adapted from Davis 2004, 294. 51.  XWDS 35.382. My translation is adapted from Davis 2004, 294. 52.  James T. C. Liu has alluded to this possibility, interpreting Ouyang’s New History epilogue as an ex post facto concession “that factionalism did not exist in most cases.” See James Liu 1967, 54–55. 53.  For another attempt to square the seemingly contradictory messages in these two texts, see Shen 2005, 273–276. 54.  James Liu 1967, 106–107; Davis 2004, xlvii. 55.  James T. C. Liu concluded that Ouyang Xiu’s “Discourse on Factions” was a cynical attempt to preserve the Qingli Reforms and Fan Zhongyan’s career: “[H]e had to argue like a lawyer, turning the admission of his client into an impressive defense.” See James Liu 1967, 56. 56.  Davis 2004, xlix–l. 57.  For a recent study of the intellectual linkages between the Qingli Reforms and Wang Anshi’s New Policies (and the antireform opposition), see Li Cunshan 2004. 58.  For a detailed biography of Sima Guang’s early bureaucratic career, see Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 21–33. 59.  See Bol 1992, 218–222. 60.  Xiao-bin Ji has argued: “In his political thought and action, Sima Guang always defended the hierarchical order in which the ruler held the ultimate power.” See Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 2. 61.  For the precise dating of the text, see Sima Guang, “Pengdang lun,” CJJ 64.10b. For a brief reading of Sima’s “Discourse on Factions,” which I will critique below, see Sariti 1972, 62–63. 62.  Ji corroborates my analysis, asserting that in his Comprehensive Mirror, Sima Guang “made it clear that the ruler’s proper management of personnel played a pivotal role in the fate of the empire.” See Xiao-bin Ji 2004, 12–13. Standen, analyzing the narrative of Feng Dao in the Comprehensive Mirror, argues that Sima Guang advanced a conception of ministerial loyalty that involved unconditional devotion to a single ruler, and that this had much in common with Ouyang Xiu’s equally moralistic narrative of Feng Dao in his New History of the Five Dynasties. See Standen 2007, 60–61. For a complete translation of Sima’s commentary on Feng Dao, see Davis 2004, 611 n131. 63.  Bol 1992, 219. 64.  ZZTJ 1.14–15. My translation is adapted from Xiao-bin Ji 2004, 14. For a similar analysis of this passage, also see Luo 1989, 69–70. 65.  Sima Guang, “Yuezhou Zhang tuiguan zixu,” SMGWJ 64.7b. In a letter to Wang Anshi, Sima directly quoted Analects 4.16: “The superior man understands

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what is righteous; the petty man understands what is advantageous” (junzi yu yu yi, xiaoren yu yu li). See Sima Guang, “Yu Wang Jiefu shu,” SMGWJ 60.5a. 66.  Sima Guang, “Pengdang lun,” SMGWJ 71.8a. 67.  Sima Guang, “Pengdang lun,” SMGWJ 71.8b–9a. This formulation also appears in Sima Guang’s Comprehensive Mirror account of the late Tang factional conflicts; see ZZTJ 245.7899. 68.  See Sariti 1972, 63. 69.  See Sariti 1972, 75. 70.  See Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 14. 71.  See Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 182–183. 72.  See Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 184–185. 73.  Sima Guang, “Pengdang lun,” SMGWJ 71.8b. 74.  Sima Guang, “Pengdang lun,” SMGWJ 71.8b. 75.  Sima Guang, “Pengdang lun,” SMGWJ 71.8b. 76.  Sima Guang, “Pengdang lun,” SMGWJ 71.8b. 77.  Sima Guang, “Pengdang lun,” SMGWJ 71.8b; for the relevant passage in the “Hong fan,” see SSZY 12.14a. 78.  Sima Guang, “Pengdang lun,” SMGWJ 71.8b; for the relevant passage in the “Luo gao,” see SSZY 15.17b. 79.  Xiao-bin Ji 2004, 1–2. 80.  Elman 1990, 27. 81.  ZZTJ 245.7899. 82.  ZZTJ 245.7899. 83.  ZZTJ 245.7900. 84.  For two comprehensive literary biographies of Su Shi, see Fuller 1990 and Egan 1994. 85.  Su Shi, “Xu Ouyangzi pengdang lun,” in SSWJ 4.128–130. 86.  Su Shi, “Xu Ouyangzi pengdang lun,” 4.128. 87.  Su Shi, “Xu Ouyangzi pengdang lun,” 4.128. 88.  Su Shi, “Xu Ouyangzi pengdang lun,” 4.128. 89.  Su Shi, “Xu Ouyangzi pengdang lun,” 4.128. 90.  Su Shi, “Xu Ouyangzi pengdang lun,” 4.128–129. 91.  Su Shi, “Xu Ouyangzi pengdang lun,” 4.129. 92.  Su Shi, “Xu Ouyangzi pengdang lun,” 4.129. 93.  Su Shi, “Xu Ouyangzi pengdang lun,” 4.129. 94.  Su Shi, “Dai Li Cong lun Jingdong daozei zhuang,” in SSWJ 37.1058– 1060. Many thanks to Paul Jakov Smith for pointing out these parallels (personal communication, September 2006). For a discussion of Ming-era interpretations of Su’s memorial on bandit management, see Robinson 2001, 85–86. 95.  Huangzhou corresponds to modern-day Huangpo, Hubei. For extended



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analyses of Su Shi’s trial for lèse-majesté, imprisonment at Raven Terrace, and exile to Huangzhou in 1079, see Hartman 1990; Fuller 1990, 251–286; Egan 1994, 46–53, 208–213. Also see Hartman 1993. 96.  For a fuller explanation of Su Shi’s victimization by the factional purges and blacklists of the post-reform period, see Chapter 6. Su ultimately was amnestied in 1100 and released from exile, but he died of chronic illnesses he had contracted in Lingnan. Ronald Egan has concluded that “[i]t was essentially the exile that killed him, which is precisely what his enemies intended it to do.” See Egan 1994, 213. 97.  For an extended analysis of Su Shi’s literature of exile, see Egan 1994, 207– 260. 98.  For a treatment of Qin Guan’s place among Su Shi’s literary protégés, the “six superior men” (liu junzi), see Shen 1998a, 207–209. 99.  Qin Guan, “Pengdang shang,” in HHJ 13.539. 100.  Qin Guan, “Pengdang shang,” in HHJ 13.539–540. 101.  Qin Guan, “Pengdang shang,” in HHJ 13.540. According to the Zhouyi zhengyi of Kong Yingda, the hexagram represents “the hard and strong taking decisive action against the soft and weak.” See ZYZY 5.1a–b. My translation follows Lynn 1994, 404. 102.  Qin Guan, “Pengdang shang,” in HHJ 13.540. According to the Zhouyi zhengyi, the hexagram signals that “the soft and weak are making the hard and strong change . . . the petty man is in the ascendant.” See ZYZY 3.16b. My translation is adapted from Lynn 1994, 280. 103.  Qin Guan, “Pengdang shang,” in HHJ 13.540. 104.  Qin Guan, “Pengdang shang,” in HHJ 13.540. 105.  Qin Guan, “Pengdang shang,” in HHJ 13.540. 106.  Qin Guan, “Pengdang shang,” in HHJ 13.540. 107.  Qin Guan, “Pengdang shang,” in HHJ 13.541. 108.  Qin Guan, “Daozei xia,” in HHJ 17.648–650. For a discussion of Mingera interpretations of Qin’s arguments, see Robinson 2001, 85–86. 109.  Qin Guan, “Pengdang xia,” in HHJ 13.546. 110.  Qin Guan, “Pengdang xia,” in HHJ 13.547. 111.  Qin Guan, “Pengdang xia,” in HHJ 13.547. 112.  Qin Guan, “Pengdang xia,” in HHJ 13.546. 113.  Qin Guan, “Pengdang xia,” in HHJ 13.546.

Chapter 4: Unified Theories of Division Epigraph: Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy I.6, in Machiavelli 2003, 123. 1.  XCB 238.5791–5792.

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2.  For an expanded treatment of Wang Anshi’s border policies and irredentist visions, see Deng 2000, 146–153. Bol has ventured a conceptual linkage between Shenzong and his successors’ domestic and foreign policies. The New Policies gave the Song court, surrounded as it was by Khitan and Tangut states who had adopted Chinese forms of political culture and organization, a way “of demonstrating to itself and other states that it was better at the civilizing, state-building project than any one else. . . . It alone had succeeded in what Han and Tang also aspired to: Song had matched the empire of the sage-kings.” See Bol 2001, 113. 3.  XCB 238.5792. 4.  In Mengzi 1.B.11, the eponymous thinker claims: “I have heard of one who gained ascendancy over the empire with seventy square li. Tang was one of these. I have never heard of anyone ruling over a thousand li who was frightened of others.” See MZZY 5.152. My translation is adapted from Lau 1970, 69. 5.  For a discussion of Wang’s geopolitical designs to expand the borders of the Song empire through the reconquest of the Sixteen Prefectures, see Deng 2000, 147–153. 6.  XCB 238.5792. 7.  XCB 238.5792. For the corresponding passage, see SSZY 10.3a–b. 8.  XCB 238.5792. Here, Wang consistently referred to King Wu of Zhou as Gaozong. 9.  For an in-depth examination of Shenzong’s military and diplomatic strategy on the northwest frontier, see Paul Smith 2006, 85–94. 10.  In this chapter I base my narrative and interpretations of Wang Anshi and the New Policies on Paul Jakov Smith’s draft chapter, “Shen-tsung and the New Policies,” for Volume 5, Part 1 of The Cambridge History of China, which will be the leading study of the period for many years. While he and I have translated examples from a similar body of primary sources, these translations—and their analysis—represent my own work. 11.  See Paul Smith forthcoming, “The First Phase of the New Policies.” 12.  For a discussion of the ideological vision behind Wang’s activist fiscal policies, see Paul Smith 1993, 84–88. 13.  See Bol 2006, 203. 14.  For the pioneering English-language work on Wang Anshi, see Williamson 1935–1937. The leading English-language study of Wang was James Liu 1959, but it has been surpassed by Paul Smith forthcoming. For the authoritative Chineselanguage studies of Wang Anshi and the New Policies, see Qi 1980, Wang 1980, and Deng 2000. For a recent study of the historiography of Wang Anshi and the New Policies, which covers the period from the Southern Song to the present, see Li Huarui 2004. 15.  Robert Hymes has embedded Wang Anshi and his lineage into the social



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history of his native Fuzhou, as examples of a “national strategy” of elite social action. See Hymes 1986, 82–83. For a biographical study of Wang’s official career before his rise to the Council of State, see Deng 2000, 17–88. Also see Paul Smith forthcoming, “Shen-tsung’s Ascension and the Crisis of the Mid-Eleventh Century.” 16.  For analyses of this document, see Bol 1992, 216–218; Paul Smith forthcoming, “Shen-tsung’s Ascension and the Crisis of the Mid-Eleventh Century”; Deng 2000, 45–56. 17.  Wang Anshi, “Shang Renzong huangdi yanshi shu,” LCJ 39.1a–1b. 18.  See Bol 1992, 217. 19.  For a biographical sketch of Shenzong, and his activist attitude towards rulership, see Paul Smith forthcoming, “Shen-tsung’s Ascension and the Crisis of the Mid-Eleventh Century.” 20.  Fu held the full title of “joint manager of affairs with the Secretariat-Chancellery” (tong Zhongshu Menxia pingzhang shi). 21.  See Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 137–139. 22.  For an early discussion of the classicist and historicist foundations of Wang’s and Sima’s worldviews, see James Liu 1959, 30–33. 23.  CBBM 59.5b–7b; CBSB 3 shang.92–95; SS 327.10543. This dialogue was also cited in Paul Smith forthcoming, “Shen-tsung’s Ascension and the Crisis of the Mid-Eleventh Century.” For analyses of Wang’s early audiences with Shenzong, see Deng 2000, 89–93; Luo 2002a, 17–20. 24.  CBBM 59.5b; CBSB 3 shang.93. 25.  CBBM 59.6a; CBSB 3 shang.93; Wang Anshi, “Shang Shenzong lun benchao bainian wushi,” ZCZY 109.1178. 26.  CBBM 59.6b; CBSB 3 shang.94; ZCZY 109.1179. Also see Paul Smith forthcoming, “Shen-tsung’s Ascension and the Crisis of the Mid-Eleventh Century.” 27.  CBSB 3 xia.125; SMGZY 24.266–267; CJJ 42.5a–7a. For a discussion of the righteousness/gain (yi/li) polarity in Sima Guang’s political thought, see Luo 2002a, 33–37. 28.  CBSB 3.xia 126–127; CBBM 57.12b–15a. 29.  SZF 7.382–383. 30.  Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 141. For another discussion of the monarchical strategy of using “dissenting opinions to agitate each other,” see Deng 2000, 292–294. 31.  CBBM 59.8b–9a; CBSB 4.153. 32.  See Mote 1999, 142. As I will demonstrate in Chapter 5, political infighting fractured the antireform coalition after it was rehabilitated in the 1080s. 33.  Yu Yingshi claims that Shenzong was the first Northern Song monarch to closely identify himself with specific state policy positions and a specific set of ministers to implement them. Yu argues that the imposition and enforcement of this “state policy consensus” produced the factional conflicts, partisan blacklists, and

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ideological proscriptions of the Northern and Southern Song. See Yu Yingshi 2003, 340–348, 430–441. 34.  CBBM 59.8b–9a; CBSB 4.153–154. This text was also cited and summarized in Paul Smith forthcoming, “Shen-tsung’s Ascension and the Crisis of the MidEleventh Century.” Also see Deng Guangming 2000, 92–93. 35.  CBBM 59.9a; CBSB 4.154. The standardized Tang-era commentary on the Book of Changes, Kong Yingda’s Zhouyi zhengyi, alluded to the direct political implications of the hexagram Tai: “Superior men are inside, and petty men are outside; the Way of superior men is extended, and the Way of petty men is dispelled.” See ZYZY 2.20b. 36.  James T. C. Liu created the standard translation of this office. See James Liu 1959, 4. Xiao-bin Ji has offered the lengthier but more accurate translation “Commission for Designing the Procedures and Regulations of the Finance Commission.” See Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 140. For a study of the early resistance to Wang’s New Policies, see Gu 1986. Also see Paul Smith forthcoming, “Gaining Power.” 37.  Fu Bi, “Shang Shenzong lun neiwai xiaoda chen buhe you junzi xiaoren bing chu,” ZCZY 15.136. Cited in Luo 2002a, 24. 38.  Fu Bi, “Shang Shenzong lun neiwai xiaoda chen buhe you junzi xiaoren bing chu,” ZCZY 15.136. 39.  Fu Bi quoted the Commentary on the Appended Phrases (Xici) of the Book of Changes to justify his claim that xiaoren were not bound by the same ethical standards as junzi: “Petty men are not ashamed of not being benevolent, and they are not afraid of not being righteous (xiaoren buchi buren, buwei buyi).” For the original phrasing from the Book of Changes, see ZYZY 8.11b. My translation is adapted from Lynn 1994, 93. For a discussion of the cosmic linkages that were posited in the Xici, see Nylan 2001, 231–233. 40.  See Paul Smith 1993, 85; Paul Smith forthcoming, “Gaining Power.” 41.  CBSB 4.178; Lü Hui, “Shang Shenzong lun Wang Anshi jian zha shishi,” ZCZY 109.1180. Cited in Luo 2002a, 26; Paul Smith forthcoming, “Gaining Power.” 42.  This formulation does not appear in the CBBM 58.13a–14a or CBSB 4.178–180 versions of the memorial, but it does appear in Lü Hui, “Shang Shenzong lun Wang Anshi jian zha shishi,” ZCZY 109.1181. 43.  CBSB 4.179; Lü Hui, “Shang Shenzong lun Wang Anshi jian zha shishi,” ZCZY 109.1181. 44.  CBBM 58.13a; CBSB 4.195. 45.  CBBM 63.2a–2b; CBSB 5.218. 46.  CBSB 5.222; Fan Chunren, “Shang Shenzong lun Liu Qi deng zejiang,” ZCZY 109.1190. 47.  CBSB 5.222; Fan Chunren, “Shang Shenzong lun Liu Qi deng zejiang,” ZCZY 109.1190.



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48.  See Paul Smith 1993, 96–97. For a concise study of the master-disciple relationship between Wang Anshi and Lü Huiqing and the political conflict that estranged them, see Gao 1997. 49.  For a detailed analysis of the Green Sprouts policy and the opposition to it, see Deng 2000, 173–183. For an explanation of how the Green Sprouts policy resulted in bureaucratic entrepreneurs out-engrossing the “engrossers,” see Paul Smith 1993, 82–88; and Paul Smith forthcoming, “The First Phase of the New Policies.” 50.  XCB 210.5095–5096. 51.  XCB 210.5107. Also cited in Paul Smith forthcoming, “Gaining Power.” 52.  XCB 210.5111–5112. Huan Dou was another name for “Chaos” (Hundun), and Gong Gong was another name for “Monster” (Qiongqi), two of the Four Fiends. My translation is adapted from Karlgren 1950, 3. For the corresponding passage in the Book of Documents, see SSZY 2.19b. For an analysis of Wang Anshi’s commentaries on the Book of Documents, see Nylan 1992, 86–97. 53.  XCB 210.5111. 54.  Chen Xiang, “Shang Shenzong lun dachen jie yi li jin,” ZCZY 46.497– 498. 55.  XCB 210.5110. 56.  XCB 210.5111–5112. 57.  In his edict of demotion for Lü Gongzhu, Shenzong employed similar polarizing rhetoric as his grand councilor, accusing Lü’s Censorial clique of slander and deception. See XCB 210.5095. Also see Paul Smith forthcoming, “Gaining Power.” 58.  For an explanation of how Shenzong contained the influence of the few antireformists who served him, see Paul Smith forthcoming, “Gaining Power.” 59.  Shen Songqin has affirmed that Shenzong and Wang Anshi colluded to rein in the “eyes and ears” surveillance function of the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau by purging hostile remonstrators and replacing them with loyal reformists. See Shen 1998b, 32–35. Diao Zhongmin maintains that Wang Anshi and his reformist successors hollowed out the Censorate by leaving crucial offices vacant and accelerating official turnover. See Diao 2000, 120–121. Also see Paul Smith forthcoming, “Gaining Power.” 60.  XCB 212.5159. This memorial is also cited in Paul Smith forthcoming, “Gaining Power.” 61.  XCB 212.5159–5160. 62.  XCB 212.5159. 63.  For the Censorial indictments of Li Ding and Shenzong’s stubborn response, see XCB 213.5173. 64.  XCB 213.5173. 65.  XCB 213.5174.

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66.  SS 327.10546. For a detailed list of every appointment to—and dismissal from—the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau during Shenzong’s reign, see Liang Tianxi 1977, 300–304. Also see Shen 1998b, 33. 67.  SZF 7.402–404. 68.  XCB 213.5168. 69.  XCB 210.5113. 70.  XCB 214.5201. 71.  XCB 210.5115. For the corresponding passage from Analects 17.18, see LYJS 35.1225. My translation is adapted from Slingerland 2003, 183. According to Xiao-bin Ji, “Sima often used his lectures on parts of the Zizhi tongjian to express his political opinions” to Shenzong. See Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 151. The subject of Sima Guang’s historical lecture was Zhang Shizhi, a forthright minister to Emperor Han Wendi who spoke out against dishonest counsel. For the appropriate passage from the Comprehensive Mirror, see ZZTJ 14.458–459. 72.  XCB 213.5169. Other portions of this memorial were cited in Paul Smith forthcoming, “Gaining Power.” 73.  XCB 215.5232. 74.  XCB 213.5169, cited in Paul Smith forthcoming, “Gaining Power.” For a discussion of the Northern Song monarchical practice of using “dissenting opinions to agitate each other,” see Luo 1993, 25–31. 75.  Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 3–4. 76.  XCB 213.5169. 77.  For a discussion of Wang Anshi’s efforts to establish a “state policy consensus” and silence dissenting opinions, see Yu Yingshi 2003, I.346–347. 78.  XCB 215.5232. This memorial is also cited in Paul Smith forthcoming, “Gaining Power.” 79.  XCB 215.5246–5247. 80.  XCB 214.5206–5207. This utterance is also cited in Paul Smith forthcoming, “Gaining Power.” 81.  XCB 215.5234–5235. This memorial is also cited in Paul Smith forthcoming, “Gaining Power.” 82.  See Paul Smith 1993, 82–83. 83.  XCB 215.5238–5239. 84.  See Paul Smith forthcoming; also see Deng 2000, 217–237. 85.  For a detailed analysis of the Hired Service program, see Deng 2000, 184– 204. For an explanation of the extortionate abuses to which the policy was prone, see Paul Smith forthcoming, “The First Phase of the New Policies.” 86.  See Shen 1998b, 35. 87.  XCB 224.5443. Other portions of this text were cited in Paul Smith forthcoming, “The First Phase of the New Policies.”



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88.  XCB 225.5481. 89.  XCB 225.5480. 90.  XCB 225.5482. Other portions of this text were cited in Paul Smith forthcoming, “The First Phase of the New Policies.” 91.  XCB 225.5488. 92.  See Chaffee 1995, 76–77. During Huizong’s reign, Cai Jing’s ministry expanded the policy to create a national network of government schools. See Chapter 6 for details. 93.  XCB 220.5339. A propos of Sima Guang’s memorial, James T. C. Liu judged that “Wang’s personnel policy was based upon partisanship rather than personal favoritism, although his opponents saw no distinction between the two.” See James Liu 1959, 65. 94.  XCB 220.5340. 95.  For two studies of the antireformists’ exile in Luoyang and the formative stages of their intellectual movement, see Freeman 1973 and Ge 2000. 96.  XCB 219.5321. 97.  My narrative and interpretation of the political history between 1074 and 1076 follow that of Paul Smith’s draft chapter for Volume 5, Part 1, of The Cambridge History of China. See Paul Smith forthcoming, “The New Policies under Shentsung.” While he and I have translated examples from a similar body of primary sources, both their translations and their interpretations are my own. 98.  For two more detailed narratives of Wang’s dismissal from the councilorship, see Deng 2000, 272–277; Paul Smith forthcoming, “The New Policies under Shen-tsung.” 99.  XCB 251.6137–6138. 100.  XCB 252.6161–6162. This memorial is also cited in Paul Smith forthcoming, “The New Policies under Shen-tsung.” 101.  For a brief account of this episode, see James Liu 1959, 8. For an extended analysis of how Zheng Xia’s report derailed Wang Anshi’s councilorship, see Paul Smith forthcoming, “The New Policies under Shen-tsung.” 102.  XCB 252.6153–6154. This memorial is also cited in Paul Smith forthcoming, “The New Policies under Shen-tsung.” 103.  XCB 254.6207. This memorial is also cited in Paul Smith forthcoming, “The New Policies under Shen-tsung.” 104.  See Paul Smith forthcoming, “The First Phase of the New Policies.” The authoritative Chinese-language study of the policy is Liang Gengyao 1984. 105.  XCB 251.6133–6134. Also see Zeng Bu’s biography in DDSL 95.4a. For a discussion of the cracks within the reform movement in 1074 and the tensions between Zeng Bu and Lü Jiawen, see Luo 2002a, 59–61. James T. C. Liu claimed that infighting amongst Wang’s lieutenants was “largely responsible for the disap-

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pearance of the reform zeal soon after Wang’s fall from power and especially during the postreform” period. See James Liu 1959, 63. 106.  Wang was permitted to retain his official rank, but was demoted to the post of prefect of Jiangning fu, Jiangnan East circuit (present-day Nanjing, Jiangsu). XCB 252.6168–6169. 107.  According to Li Tao’s commentary in the Long Draft, the imperial court had made a mockery of Zheng’s “portrait of the refugees” (liumin tu). See XCB 254.6207–6208. 108.  XCB 259.6310. 109.  XCB 255.6237. For a discussion of the conflict between Lü Huiqing and Zeng Bu, see James Liu 1959, 63. 110.  See Paul Smith forthcoming, “The New Policies under Shen-tsung.” 111.  XCB 260.6336–6337. 112.  XCB 261.6365. Also see Gao 1997, 42; Luo 2002a, 71. 113.  XCB 264.6480. 114.  XCB 264.6480–6481; 266.6532–6534. 115.  XCB 269.6584–6585. Portions of this memorial are also cited in Paul Smith forthcoming, “The New Policies under Shen-tsung.” 116.  XCB 269.6589. 117.  XCB 269.6590. 118.  Lü was appointed prefect of Chenzhou. For his resignation memorial, see XCB 269.6591. 119.  For the rest of his biography, see SS 471.13707–13709. 120.  XCB 269.6598. 121.  XCB 269.6596–6598. This court debate is cited and summarized in Paul Smith forthcoming, “The New Policies under Shen-tsung.” 122.  XCB 270.6628. Other portions of this exchange are also cited in Paul Smith forthcoming, “The New Policies under Shen-tsung.” 123.  XCB 269.6615. 124.  XCB 276.6743. For a more detailed narrative of this incident, see Paul Smith forthcoming, “The New Policies under Shen-tsung.” 125.  XCB 276.6743. 126.  XCB 276.6744. 127.  XCB 278.6803–6804. 128.  For an extended narrative of Shenzong’s personal involvement with the New Policies after Wang Anshi’s final departure from court, see Paul Smith forthcoming, “The New Policies under Shen-tsung.” 129.  For a genealogical study of Cai Que’s upwardly mobile Fujianese lineage, which also produced the Grand Councilor Cai Jing, see Clark 2001, 83–87. For the



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standard “treacherous minister” biography of Cai Que, which is highly condemnatory of his ethical lapses as grand councilor, see SS 471.13698–13701. 130.  Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 162. 131.  In Luoyang, Sima joined Wen Yanbo and Fu Bi in an informal social and intellectual club of retired ministers of state. See Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 161. Also see Ge 2000 for an analysis of the Luoyang’s emergence as an alternative center of intellectual production. 132.  For two narratives of the Song-Tangut wars of the 1080s, see Forage 1991; Lorge 2005, 48–50. For a postmortem on Shenzong’s physical and psychological health after the defeat of Yongle, see Paul Smith forthcoming, “Shen-tsung’s Death and the Ouster of the Reformers.” For an analysis of border expansion during the reign of Shenzong and his sons, see Smith 2006.

Chapter 5: The Closed Circle Epigraphs: Francis Bacon, “Of Vain-Glory,” in Bacon 2002, 44; Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, in Carroll 1960, 161. 1.  For an extended narrative of the case, see Levine forthcoming, “Political Chaos.” Brief studies of the poetic inquisition against Cai Que include Xiao 1995; Shen 1998a, 137–145; and Cheng Zhaoqi 2002, 159–161. The most exhaustively documented study of the incident remains Jin 1975. 2.  XCB 422.10222–10223. Other portions of this document were cited in Levine forthcoming, “Political Chaos.” 3.  XCB 423.10241–10242, also cited in Levine forthcoming, “Political Chaos.” 4.  Luo Jiaxiang speculates that Cai Que had been intimately linked with the enthronement debates that followed Shenzong’s death in 1085 and had argued against the choice of Zhao Xu as the next emperor. See Luo 2002a, 188–189. 5.  Anzhou corresponds to modern-day Anlu, Hubei. 6.  According to Li Tao’s account in the Long Draft, Wu Chuhou resented Cai Que for refusing to grant him a recommendation, then blocking his promotion to court, and finally arranging his demotion to regional administration in the early days of the Xuanren Regency. See XCB 427.10317. Wu’s Song History biography substantiates this explanation and relates that after his fall from the councilorship and demotion to prefect of Anzhou, Cai Que refused to transfer needed troops to nearby Hanyang (modern-day Wuhan, Hubei), where Wu Chuhou was serving as prefect. See SS 471.13702. 7.  XCB 425.10270–10272. Other portions of this document were cited in Levine forthcoming, “Political Chaos.”

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8.  XCB 425.10271. For the text of “Ten Quatrains on Ascending the Carriage Canopy Pavilion on a Summer’s Day” (Xiari deng Chegaiting shijue), see QSS 783.9077. In the most offensive quatrain of the series: “Peerless was the famed minister Hao Chujun; / His words were loyal and his conduct just during the Shangyuan era (674–676). / His fishing pier is overgrown with weeds, and none know its whereabouts; / Sighing in contemplation of his lordship, I look down at the jade bay.” A loyal minister and native of Anzhou who served Emperor Tang Gaozong in the 670s, Hao had taken a principled stance against the usurpation of Empress Wu. For Wu Chuhou’s politically motivated exegesis of this poem, see XCB 425.10270– 10273. For Hao Chujun’s dynastic history biography, see XTS 115.4215–4218. Also see Shen 1998a, 137–145. For an earlier translation of this poem, see Levine forthcoming, “Political Chaos.” 9.  For the authoritative English-language chronicle of Empress Wu’s reign, see Guisso 1979. 10.  XCB 425.10273. 11.  XCB 425.10274. 12.  The other two remonstrators were Remonstrator of the Right (you sijian) Wu Anshi (n.d.) and Exhorter of the Right Liu Anshi. See XCB 425.10282–10283. 13.  XCB 427.10315–10316. 14.  XCB 427.10321–10322. 15.  James Liu 1962, 139; James Liu 1988, 90–91. 16.  As Zhenzong’s grand councilor, Kou Zhun had urged the emperor to personally lead the expeditionary force to counter the Khitan invasion of 1004. See Lorge 2005, 40. Ding Wei had been a protégé of Kou Zhun, but they became personal and political rivals. When Zhenzong was gravely ill, Empress Liu began amassing executive power, and Kou urged Zhenzong to begin preparing his heir apparent (the future Renzong) for imperial duties. Convinced by accusations that Kou Zhun was attempting to dethrone Zhenzong and herself, Empress Dowager Liu exiled him to Leizhou, Guangnan West circuit (modern-day Leizhou peninsula, Guangdong), where he died in 1023. Renzong ultimately exonerated Kou, and his body was reinterned in Luoyang. Despised by Empress Dowager Liu and sentenced for deceiving the throne, Kou’s protégé Ding Wei survived his three years of exile in Yaizhou, Guangnan West circuit (in the south of modern-day Hainan province). See SS 9.176, 281.9533–9534, 283.9570. 17.  XCB 426.10306–10307. 18.  XCB 426.10301. Other portions of this document were cited in Levine forthcoming, “Political Chaos.” In a reassessment of the Carriage Canopy Pavilion poetry case, Xiao Qingwei sides with Cai Que, arguing that he composed these poems to record his travels and had no intention of slandering the empress dowager. See Xiao 1995, 54.



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19.  XCB 426.10301–10305. 20.  XCB 427.10328. 21.  XCB 425.10277; Su Shi, “Qi xingqian Cai Que zhazi,” SSWJ 29.837. Also cited in Levine forthcoming, “Political Chaos.” Su had recently been appointed prefect of Hangzhou. For a narrative of this phase of Su Shi’s career, see chap. 5 of Egan 1994. 22.  XCB 426.10298. 23.  XCB 427.10323. 24.  XCB 427.10325; Fan Chunren, “Shang Zhezong lun buyi fenbian dangren yousheng renhua,” ZCZY 76.829–830. This document is summarized in Levine forthcoming, “Political Chaos.” 25.  In an essay submitted to Zhezong in 1086, Fan Chunren explicated Ouyang Xiu’s faction theory and explicitly reiterated Ouyang’s argument: “Those intent on emptying the people’s polity and purging its superior men will invariably present accusations of factionalism; those intent on isolating the powers of the people’s ruler and masking his eyes and ears will invariably present accusations of factionalism; those intent on usurping the polity for surrender to another will invariably present accusations of factionalism.” See Fan Chunren, “Shang Zhezong jin Ouyang Xiu pengdang lun,” ZCZY 76.827–828. 26.  XCB 427.10326. Xinzhou, Guangnan East circuit, corresponds to modernday Xinxing, Guangdong. 27.  XCB 427.10326. This document is also cited and translated in Levine forthcoming, “Political Chaos.” 28.  XCB 428.10349–10350. 29.  XCB 428.10348–10354, 429.10357; SS 314.10288. 30.  The Long Draft appended this account from the Shuishou zalu, written by the memoirist Wang Gong (n.d.). See XCB 427.10327. 31.  For a discussion of the “state policy consensus” of “restoring the policies and institutions of the dynastic progenitors” (fu zuzong fadu) during the early Xuanren Regency, see Yu Yingshi 2003, I.350–352. 32.  For an extended account of Shenzong’s premature death and its aftermath, see Paul Smith forthcoming, “Shen-tsung’s Death and the Ouster of the Reformers”; Levine forthcoming, “Retrogression.” 33.  XCB 353.8456. 34.  Empress Dowager Xuanren’s father, Gao Zunfu (n.d.), was the grandson of Gao Qiong (935–1006), a prominent general who assisted Emperor Taizu in reunifying the realm. Xuanren’s mother was the granddaughter of Cao Peng (931–999), who had also served with distinction in the Song conquest and with somewhat less success in Emperor Taizong’s failed pre-emptive strike against the Khitans. In 1034 Cao Peng’s granddaughter was invested as Renzong’s consort, Empress Cao (1017–

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1079), and she later served as regent after Yingzong ascended the throne. Empress Dowager Xuanren’s mother was the daughter of Empress Dowager Cao’s older sister. For the standard biographies of Gao Qiong, Cao Peng, Empress Cao, and Empress Dowager Xuanren, see SS 289.9691–9694, 258.8977–8983, 242.8620–8622, 242.8625–8627. 35.  In a private dialogue with Shenzong in 4.1074, Empress Dowager Xuanren had expressed her misgivings about the Green Sprouts and Hired Service policies and urged her son to dismiss Wang Anshi and abolish the New Policies. See XCB 252.6169–6170. For the memoirist Shao Bowen’s extended narrative of their discussion, see WJL 3.25. 36.  According to Cai Que’s “treacherous minister” biography in the Song History: “In name only, [Cai] Que was the second councilor, but in reality he supervised the great affairs of governance. While [Wang] Gui was grand councilor of the left, he submitted to [Cai].” See SS 471.13699–13700, cited in Levine forthcoming, “Retrogression.” For an analysis of Wang Gui’s highly deferential political style, see Xiaobin Ji 2005, 148–149. 37.  In 1082, Shenzong had made moves to appoint Sima Guang and Lü Gongzhu as tutors to the heir apparent, the future Emperor Zhezong. See XCB 350.8930. In his biography of Sima Guang, Xiao-bin Ji corroborates Ye Tan’s theory that after the military defeat at Yongle in 1082, Shenzong was beset with doubts about the New Policies and the reform coalition. Still, Ji astutely observes that “[i]f Shenzong had really disapproved of the New Policies . . . it would be difficult to explain why he had not made a concerted effort to abolish them himself.” See Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 163, 224 n44. 38.  Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 167. For the account of Sima’s enthusiastic reception in Kaifeng, see XCB 353.8465; Levine forthcoming, “Retrogression.” 39.  XCB 353.8465–8466. Other portions of this document are translated in Levine forthcoming, “Retrogression.” 40.  XCB 354.8473–8474. 41.  XCB 355.8489–8497; Sima Guang, “Qi qu xinfa zhi bingmin shangguo zhe shu,” in SMGZY 46.588–591. Other portions of this document are translated in Levine forthcoming, “Retrogression.” For an alternative translation, see de Bary 1999, 625–626. 42.  XCB 355.8490. 43.  XCB 355.8490. 44.  For a document-driven account of the last eighteen months of Sima Guang’s life, see Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 165–180. Also see Levine forthcoming, “Retrogression.” 45.  XCB 356.8508; also see Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 168. 46.  XCB 356.8509. 47.  XCB 356.8520–8521.



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48.  XCB 358.8561. 49.  XCB 358.8562. 50.  XCB 357.8546–8547; Lü Gongzhu, “Shang Zhezong qi xuanzhi taijian ba yushi cha an,” ZCZY 53.584–585. An earlier translation of this document appeared in Levine forthcoming, “Retrogression.” 51.  XCB 357.8551. 52.  XCB 359.8597. 53.  XCB 359.8600–8601. 54.  XCB 360.8606. For a thorough play-by-play account of the restructuring of the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau during Zhezong’s reign, see Diao 1999b. 55.  The appointments of Fan Chunren as grand master of remonstrance of the left (zuo jianyi dafu) and Fan Zuyu as exhorter of the right were overturned because their recommenders were of insufficient rank. Zhang argued that allowing these appointments would set a dangerous precedent if “treacherous ministers” controlled the Council of State in the future. See XCB 360.8606–8607. 56.  XCB 360.8628. 57.  XCB 360.8628–8629. Also cited in Levine forthcoming, “Retrogression.” 58.  XCB 361.8648–8649. 59.  XCB 361.8650–8651. Also cited in Levine forthcoming, “Retrogression.” 60.  XCB 365.8746, 366.8784. 61.  XCB 368.8849. This memorial is also cited in Paul Smith forthcoming, “Shen-tsung’s Death and the Ouster of the Reformers.” 62.  Meaning “Prime Safekeeping,” the reign title Yuanyou suggested that the reforms of the Yuanfeng era (1078–1085) of Shenzong’s reign would be balanced by the conservatism of the Jiayou era (1058–1063) of Renzong’s reign. For the standard English translations of this and subsequent reign titles, I will generally follow Hargett 1987, 32–33. For Lü Tao’s explanation of the ideological and policy compromises signaled by this reign title, see XCB 364.8697. Despite the compromise signaled by its reign title, state policy and political ideology rapidly veered off in an exclusively antireform direction during the Yuanyou era. 63.  For a more detailed narrative of the abolition of the State Trade policy, see Levine forthcoming, “Retrogression.” 64.  XCB 366.8783–8784. 65.  XCB 365.8762. 66.  XCB 365.8772. 67.  XCB 365.8772. 68.  See Bol 1992, 214. 69.  Building upon Bol’s interpretation, Xiao-bin Ji has succinctly described Sima Guang’s conservatism as “the preservation of the existing good.” See Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 13.

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70.  For a brief study of Su Che’s political thought, see Fan 1990. 71.  XCB 366.8781–8782; Su Che, “Lun Taijian fengshi liuzhong buxing zhuang,” SCJ 36.623–624. 72.  According to Xiao-bin Ji’s biography, Sima Guang was already “seriously ill” by 1.1086, two months before his appointment as grand councilor of the right. Ji speculates that the empress dowager dismissed Cai Que and Zhang Dun in order to persuade Sima Guang not to retire from the bureaucracy on grounds of illness. See Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 171–173. Zhang Dun was dismissed and appointed prefect of nearby Chenzhou (Jingxi North circuit, present-day Huaiyang, Henan), but retained his honorary rank and titles. For details, see XCB 368.8854. Also see Paul Smith forthcoming, “Shen-tsung’s Death and the Ouster of the Reformers”; Levine forthcoming, “Retrogression.” 73.  For a transcript of the Sima Guang–Zhang Dun Hired Service debate, see XCB 367.8821–8830. For expanded assessments of the debate, see Deng 2000, 299– 303, and Levine forthcoming, “Retrogression.” 74.  Zhang was demoted to the post of prefect of Ruzhou (Jingxi North circuit, present-day Ruzhou, Henan). For the relevant edict, see XCB 370.8934. 75.  XCB 374.9053. 76.  XCB 377.9147–9148. Also see Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 173–174. 77.  XCB 370.8935–8936. Portions of this memorial are also cited and translated in Paul Smith forthcoming, “Shen-tsung’s Death and the Ouster of the Reformers” and Levine forthcoming, “Retrogression.” 78.  XCB 370.8936. 79.  SS 327.10550; XCB 374.9069. According to James Liu’s interpretation, at his death, Wang was “greatly saddened by the sudden turn of the political tide which demolished his reform system.” See James Liu 1959, 9. 80.  XCB 375.9105–9106. 81.  XCB 380.9239. The other two joint remonstrators were Palace Censor Lin Dan (jinshi 1057) and Investigating Censor Han Chuan (n.d). 82.  XCB 378.9180; “Qi zhu cuan Lü Huiqing zhuang,” in SCJ 38.674–677. This memorial appears in abridged form in Lü Huiqing’s Song History biography. See SS 471.13708. This memorial is also cited in Paul Smith forthcoming, “Shentsung’s Death and the Ouster of the Reformers.” 83.  XCB 388.9434. 84.  XCB 388.9434. 85.  XCB 388.9434. 86.  In Arthur Waley’s translation of the relevant stanza: “My sad heart is consumed, I am harassed / By a host of small men. / I have borne vexations very many, / Received insults not few. / In the still of the night I brood upon it; / In the waking hours I rend my breast.” See SJZX, “Bei feng,” 60–64; Waley 1996, 23–24.



Notes to Pages 116–118

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87.  XCB 388.9434. 88.  For Sima’s 1085 memorial against the Hired Service policy, see XCB 355.8497–8499; “Qi ba mianyi zhuang,” in SMGZY 32.345–346. 89.  For an extended analysis of this detailed policy debate, see Levine forthcoming, “Retrogression.” 90.  XCB 366.8795–8798, 367.8837–8840. According to Sima Guang’s official obituary (xingzhuang), written by Su Shi, he lamented that “the four perils have not yet been eliminated, and I will die discontented.” See Su Shi, “Sima Wen gong xingzhuang,” in SSWJ 16.490. Xiao-bin Ji attributes Sima Guang’s stubbornness and urgency to his awareness that he did not have much longer to live. See Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 177. Su Shi went even further, hammering out a compromise between the Hired Service and Drafted Service policies that preserved the strengths of both systems. See XCB 374.9071–9075. For a discussion of these internal policy debates, see Levine forthcoming, “Retrogression.” 91.  XCB 384.9359–9361; SS 176.4288–4289. Also see Xiao-bin Ji 2005, 178. 92.  XCB 384.9366–9367. 93.  For more information on the Song-Xi Xia truce negotiations, see Li Huarui 1998; Levine forthcoming, “Retrogression.” 94.  XCB 387.9415. 95.  XCB 387.9416. 96.  XCB 387.9416–9417. Other portions of this memorial are translated in Levine forthcoming, “Retrogression.” 97.  XCB 387.9422. 98.  For an extended analysis of political infighting in the Xuanren Regency, see Levine forthcoming, “Political Chaos.” The most detailed Chinese secondary sources for this period are Luo 1993, 179–208; He Manzi 1984; Wang Zengyu 1996; and Zhuge 1996. For an explanation of the splintering of Sima Guang’s antireform coalition, see Hirata 1998, 14–18. 99.  For another reading of the intellectual divisions between Shuo, Luo, and Shu, which groups them as schools of thought rather than political affiliations and lumps them together with Wang Anshi’s “New School,” see James Liu 1959, 27– 29. 100.  For Vice Censor-in-Chief Zheng Yong’s indictment of Liu Zhi’s factious practices, see XCB 467.11151–11152. For a translation of this memorial, see Levine forthcoming, “Political Chaos.” 101.  James T. C. Liu cautioned: “While this school turned out to be the forerunner of the Neo-Confucian orthodoxy of the Southern Song period, it did not in its own day hold supremacy over the other schools.” See James Liu 1959, 28. 102.  According to Li Tao’s explanation, appended to the 1092 entry to the Long Draft, “the Ways of the two factions were dissimilar (erdang dao butong).”

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See XCB 471.11240. For an excellent literary biography of Su Shi, which devotes a chapter to his political entanglements during the Xuanren Regency, see Egan 1994, 86–107. Projecting twelfth-century intellectual categories back into the late eleventh century, He Manzi has attributed Su Shi’s antipathy to the Luo faction as “anti–Daoxue.” See He Manzi 1984 for an ahistorical analysis of the intellectual rivalry between the Shu and Luo factions. In his recent monograph, Luo Jiaxiang has persuasively argued that the root causes of the rivalry between Su Shi and Cheng Yi were more personal and political than intellectual in nature. See Luo 2002a, 148–153. 103.  XCB 393.9564–9565; Su Shi, “Shi guan zhi cewen san shou,” SSWJ 7.210. Su Shi’s examination question read: “We wish to model [Ourselves] after the loyalty and magnanimity of Emperor Renzong, but are concerned that officials would not perform their duties, and that this would result in laxity. On the other hand, We wish [to make] policies with the dedication and determination of Emperor Shenzong, yet fear that the supervisory and prefectural officials would not understand their intent and that this would result in harshness.” This translation is adapted from Egan 1994, 98. Zhu Guangting alleged that the words “laxity” and “harshness” were slanders against Renzong and Shenzong. For an extended narrative of Su Shi’s personal, political, and ideological disputes with Cheng Yi, see Egan 1994, 93–99. Egan doubts the traditional narrative that this inquisition against Su was the immediate outcome of personal animosity between Su and Cheng, or the Shu and Luo factions, but rather emerged from Su’s policy disagreements with Sima Guang over Hired Service. 104.  XCB 393.9567–9568. 105.  XCB 394.9600. 106.  Luo Jiaxiang has also pointed to the similarities between reformist and antireformist factional rhetoric and the continuities between the rhetoric used to purge reformists in 1086 and the rhetoric used to purge Luo and Shu factionalists in 1087. See Luo 2002a, 164. 107.  XCB 393.9568. Also cited in Levine forthcoming, “Political Chaos.” 108.  XCB 394.9594; Su Shi, “Bian shiguan zhi cewen zhazi ershou,” SSWJ 27.7893. Portions of this memorial are also translated and analyzed in Egan 1994, 99; Levine forthcoming, “Political Chaos.” 109.  XCB 394.9607. 110.  In a move that was not entirely unrelated to his indictment of Su Shi, Zhu was dispatched to Hebei circuit to supervise disaster relief. For details, see XCB 395.9626–9627. 111.  For a more detailed institutional history of the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau during this period, see Shen 1998b, 32–36. 112.  XCB 399.9722–9723.



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113.  XCB 399.9724. Liu Zhi wrote this memorial to defend his dismissal of Liang Tao from the Remonstrance Bureau. Part of this memorial is translated in Levine forthcoming, “Political Chaos.” 114.  XCB 401.9764. 115.  XCB 401.9780. 116.  XCB 403.9814. 117.  XCB 403.9815. 118.  XCB 404.9828. 119.  XCB 404.9829–9830. 120.  XCB 406.9888. 121.  According to Bol, the True Way Learning movement of the twelfth century, which traced its intellectual lineage back to Cheng Yi, “directed attention away from government and ideas for transforming society that could be effected through government.” See Bol 1992, 333. 122.  XCB 403.9807–9811. 123.  XCB 415.10077–10080; Su Shi, “Qi jun zhazi,” SSWJ 29.829–830. Portions of this memorial are also cited and translated in Egan 1994, 101, and Levine forthcoming, “Political Chaos.” 124.  XCB 424.10251–10253. Also see Egan 1994, 98–100.

Chapter 6: Retributive Justice Epigraph: George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” in Orwell 2002, 967. 1.  For an earlier narrative of the Korean Relations Institute investigation, see Levine forthcoming, “Resurrection.” 2.  XCB 490.11628. To make the tale even more tangled, Cai Wei was also known as Cai Mao and was also the son-in-law of Cai Jing. Zhezong would appoint Cai as the lead investigator in the Korean Relations Institute investigation, and Huizong would appoint him as his long-serving grand councilor in 1102. 3.  See Luo 2002a, 188–189. 4.  XCB 490.11628. 5.  According to the Song History, Cai Que and Xing Shu sought to invest the prince of Yong, Zhao Hao, as the heir apparent and to disinvest Zhao Yong, the future Emperor Zhezong, who at that time was the prince of Yan’an. Zhao Hao was Emperor Shenzong’s younger brother and the son of Emperor Yingzong and Empress Dowager Xuanren. Cai Que and Xing Shu claimed that the prince of Yong and his younger brother, Zhao Jun (1056–1088), the prince of Cao, both had greater rulership potential than their eight-year-old nephew, the future Emperor Zhezong.

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When Xuanren’s nephews Gao Gonghui(n.d.) and Gao Gongji(n.d.) refused to participate in the plot, Cai Que and Xing Shu enlisted Cai Jing, then prefect of Kaifeng, to arrange for an assassin to ensure the Grand Councilor Wang Gui’s compliance. Wang Gui acquiesced in their scheme to install the future Zhezong as Shenzong’s heir apparent and then disingenuously claimed to have meritoriously ensured Zhezong’s succession. As he lay dying, Shenzong assented to his councilors’ plan, passing the imperial succession to Zhezong, whose personal name was then changed from Zhao Yong to Zhao Xu. Of course, this condemnatory biography of a “treacherous minister” needs to be read with a highly skeptical eye. See SS 471.13703–13704 for details on the plot, and SS 17.317–318 for the official account of Zhezong’s selection and enthronement. 6.  According to John Chaffee’s study of the Song imperial clan, Shenzong’s younger brother Zhao Hao died prematurely in 1086. See Chaffee 1999, 79. 7.  According to one account of Wen Jifu’s confession, Powderface (fen) referred to the ashen-complexioned Wang Yansou, while Elder Brother (kun) referred to Liang Tao, whose style Kuangzhi could be punningly read as “elder brother” (xiong). But according to another account by Cai Que’s brother Cai Shi (jinshi 1065), fenkun, this time read as “Elder Brother with the powderface,” referred only to Han Zhongyan. The word miaogong could refer either to Wen Jifu himself or to Emperor Zhezong. The letter’s translation according to the first interpretation would read: “The heart of Sima Zhao (Liu Zhi) is apparent to everyone in the street, and [someone] went further to try and save the situation with the elder brother (Han Zhongyan) of the Powderface hoping to make a pleasant and satisfying place for me myself/the emperor.” According to the second interpretation, it would read: “The heart of Sima Zhao (Liu Zhi) is apparent to everyone in the street, and [someone] went further to try and save the situation with Powderface (Wang Yansou) and the Elder Brother (Liang Tao) to send me to a pleasant and happy place [put me in a real bind].” See XCB 490.11628. Another textual variant can be found in XZZTJ 85.444c. Many thanks to Stephen West (personal communication, May 2007) for his invaluable assistance in translating this highly ambiguous passage. 8.  Sima Guang was never likened to Sima Zhao, despite their common surname. This account only appears in Xing Shu’s Song History biography and not in the Long Draft entries on the Korean Relations Institute investigation. See SS 471.13704. 9.  XCB 490.11628. Shen Songqin has cast similar doubts upon Wen Yanbo and/or Wen Jifu’s possible motives in implicating Liu Zhi in a seditious plot. See Shen 1998a, 161–162. 10.  XCB 490.11627. 11.  Liang Tao died en route to Huazhou, Guangnan West circuit (present-day Huazhou, Guangdong), where he was subject to movement restrictions. Liu Zhi died in Xinzhou, where Cai Que had died in 1093. When the court received news of Liu’s



Notes to Pages 128–130

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death, Zhezong forbade the return of his body to his native place and even forced his mourning kin to reside not far from where he died. XCB 493.11705, 11709; CBBM 102.12a. 12.  XCB 498.11842. Li Tao’s appended commentary on this Long Draft entry quotes the denials of Cai Jing’s son Cai Tao that his father was involved in the revenge campaign against Cai Que’s persecutors and then exhumes a variety of texts to document Cai Jing’s complicity in the Korean Relations Institute investigation. Before word reached Kaifeng that Liu Zhi and Liang Tao had died, Cai Jing dispatched the circuit-level officials Lü Shengqing (jinshi 1070) and Dong Bi (n.d.) as agents to Lingnan to further investigate the matter, “plotting to entirely kill the Yuanyou faction.” See XCB 494.11754. 13.  XCB 498.11841. 14.  CBBM 102.1b–2b; CBSB 14.549. 15.  CBBM 102.1b–2b; CBSB 14.549. Liu Anshi was sentenced to Leizhou, Guangnan West circuit, where the disgraced councilor Kou Zhun had been sentenced in 1022. He survived the Chongning blacklists of 1102–1104 and died at the age of seventy-seven in 1125. See SS 345.10953–10954. 16.  SS 340.10844. 17.  Fan survived his three-year banishment to Yongzhou, Jinghu South circuit (modern-day Lingling, Hunan) and was rehabilitated after Huizong’s enthronement. See SS 314.10291–10292. 18.  For a discussion of Zhezong’s “state policy consensus” (guoshi) of “restoration” (shaoshu), see Yu Yingshi 2003, I.353–356. 19.  For a concise study of the persecution of the “Yuanyou faction” during the post-reform period, see Ren 1992. 20.  For an account of politics in the late Xuanren Regency, see Levine forthcoming, “Political Chaos.” According to Li Tao’s Long Draft interpretation of these events: “Grand Councilor Lü Dafang and Vice Director of the Secretariat Liu Zhi . . . intended to promote and employ the men of the Yuanfeng faction to pacify old grievances, calling it ‘conciliation.’ The empress dowager was a bit deluded by this.” See XCB 443.10669. 21.  The empress dowager personally overrode the rehabilitation of Cai Que: “Cai Que [was punished] not because of his slanderous poems, but only because he was not beneficial to the state and dynastic altars. If the state and dynastic altars are to flourish, then Que must die.” See XCB 464.11088–11089. 22.  XCB 443.10669–11672; “Zai lun fenbie xiezheng zhazi,” SCJ 43.760– 762. This document is also cited and translated in Levine forthcoming, “Political Chaos.” 23.  Deng Wenbo was also known as Deng Runfu. Yang Wei was appointed palace censor in 4.1091, on the recommendation of Liu Zhi, and remained in the

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Censorate for the duration of the regency. After being repeatedly denied a transfer from the provinces to the capital in 1091–1092, Li Qingchen was appointed minister of personnel in 4.1094 and transferred back to the provinces the following month. See XCB 457.10948, 483.11493. 24.  In 1091.10 Zheng Yong, the current vice censor-in-chief, memorialized: “Liu Zhi has long occupied vital routes, moving freely throughout the Three Departments. He began by memorializing on promotions and demotions, [and now] he and those who agree with him control the promotion and demotion of men. . . . Since Zhi has wielded governmental authority, his subordinates have been promoted to crucial positions, either to the Secretariat and Chancellery or to the roads of remonstrance.” Zheng proceeded to list thirty men as members of Liu Zhi’s faction, which seemed to include almost every major or minor figure at court, with the exceptions of Lü Dafang and Su Che. Zheng Yong not only included stalwart members of the Shuo-dominated ruling coalition like Liang Tao and Wang Yansou, but also such men of Luo as Jia Yi and Zhu Guangting. More problematic was Cheng’s inclusion of Liu Anshi, an overt opponent of factional reconciliation. For the full text of Zheng’s memorial, see XCB 467.11151–11152. 25.  CBSB 8.358; SS 242.8627. For an extended account of court politics during Zhezong’s personal rule, see Levine forthcoming, “Resurrection.” 26.  The future Empress Meng was ultimately chosen as Zhezong’s consort, on the orders of Empresses Dowager Xuanren and Qinsheng, while Zhezong’s favorite had been a subsidiary consort surnamed Liu. During Zhang Dun’s councilorship, the latter was formally invested as Zhezong’s empress and consort, supplanting Empress Meng. See SS 243.8632–8634. 27.  Literally, shaoshu denoted the continuation (shao) of Shenzong’s reformist governing methods (shu). 28.  James T. C. Liu concluded: “Political revenge escalated when the court for no compelling reason banished the opposing conservatives to remote places.” See James Liu 1988, 82. Below, I will argue to the contrary that both the Zhang Dun and Cai Jing ministries had compelling political reasons for the purge of the “Yuanyou faction.” Not only were the reformists seeking revenge for the banishment of Cai Que, but they were also seeking an opposition-free environment in which to execute the New Policies and were working inside a factionalized political culture that could not accommodate ideological dissent. 29.  CBBM 91.11b–12a; CBSB 8.361. For an analysis of Fan Zuyu’s historical and political ideals, see Wang Deyi 1966. 30.  Fan informed the emperor and the empress dowager that “the order and chaos of the empire emerges from the ruler’s heart; once the ruler’s heart has been rectified, all of the myriad things will be rectified.” See Fan Zuyu, “Shang Xuanren huanghou qi xianzheng junxin,” ZCZY 3.32. Also see Luo 2002a, 175.



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31.  CBBM 91.11b–12a; CBSB 8.363. This and other portions of this memorial are translated in Levine forthcoming, “Resurrection.” 32.  CBBM 101.1a–2a; CBSB 8.366–367. Portions of this memorial are translated in Levine forthcoming, “Resurrection.” 33.  Li was appointed vice director of the Secretariat-Chancellery, and Deng was appointed vice director of the Bureau of State Affairs. See CBBM 100.1a; CBSB 9.385. 34.  See CBBM 100.1b–2a; CBSB 9.392–393. This edict is translated in Levine forthcoming, “Resurrection.” According to Yang Zhongliang, the compiler of the Topical Narratives, Li Qingchen purportedly wrote this examination question. 35.  CBBM 100.2a–2; CBSB 9.394–395. 36.  Lü Dafang was demoted to the post of prefect of Yongxing jun in 3.1094. The ailing Fan Chunren was granted his resignation request and demoted to the post of prefect of Yingchang fu (Jingxi North circuit) in 4.1094. See CBBM 99.14b, 101.6a; CBSB 9.392, 404. 37.  As Wang Anshi’s son-in-law, Cai Bian boasted impeccable reformist credentials. During Zhezong’s personal rule, he served as both assistant director of the right and assistant director of the left in the Department of State Affairs. For his “treacherous minister” biography, see SS 472.13728–13729. 38.  CBBM 100.6b; SS 18.340. For an earlier discussion of these symbolic changes, see Levine forthcoming, “Resurrection.” 39.  Zhai Si (jinshi 1070) was appointed grand master of remonstrance of the left, Shangguan Jun (jinshi 1070) was appointed exhorter of the left, Zhou Zhi (jinshi 1076) and Liu Zheng (n.d.) were appointed investigating censors, and Zhang Shangying (1043–1121) was appointed exhorter of the right. See CBBM 101.4b; CBSB 9.399. 40.  CBBM 101.4b–5a; CBSB 9.399–400. A shorter portion of this memorial is cited and translated in Levine forthcoming, “Resurrection.” 41.  CBSB 9.400; ZYZY 5.29b; my translation is adapted from Lynn 1994, 473. 42.  Han Wei was also named in this document. CBBM 101.10b–11a; CBSB 10.432. 43.  CBBM 101.6a–6b; CBSB 10.413. 44.  CBBM 101.6b; CBSB 10.414. 45.  For a more detailed analysis of the policy aspects of Zhezong’s “restoration,” based largely on documents from the Song huiyao, see Luo 2002a, 200–211. Also see Levine forthcoming. 46.  Surplus emergency fees, the most extractive aspect of the Yuanfeng-era Hired Service system, were capped at a maximum of 10 percent, and exemptions were granted to the poorest grade of rural households. See SHY shihuo 65.63b; SS 178.4327–4328.

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47.  SHY shihuo 65, 69a–70b; SS 178.4330. 48.  SHY shihuo 5.15b–16a; SS 176.4289. 49.  SHY shihuo 37.33b; XCB 493.11720. 50.  For an earlier narrative of the persecution and proscription of the antireform faction during Zhezong’s personal rule, see Levine forthcoming, “Resurrection.” 51.  CBBM 101.7b–8a; CBSB 10.421. 52.  CBBM 101.8b; CBSB 10.422–423. 53.  CBBM 101.7a–7b; CBSB 10.420. 54.  CBBM 101.7a–7b; CBSB 10.420–421. 55.  CBBM 101.11a–12b; CBSB 10.432–434. 56.  According to the Topical Narratives account, Zhang Dun actually implored Zhezong to order the defiling of Sima Guang and Lü Gongzhu’s graves, but the emperor refused; their names were merely removed from steles that lined the spirit path to Shenzong’s tomb. Lü Dafang was under movement restriction in Yingzhou, Jingxi South circuit (present-day Zhongxiang, Hubei); Liu Zhi was under movement restriction in Qizhou, Huainan West circuit (present-day Qichun, Hubei); Su Che was under movement restriction in Yunzhou, Jiangnan West circuit (present-day Gaoan, Jiangxi). See CBBM 101.12a–12b; CBSB 10.434. 57.  Su Shi was placed under movement restrictions in Huizhou, Guangnan East circuit (present-day Huizhou, Guangdong). See CBBM 101.9a; CBSB 10.424. For two literary biographies of Su’s Lingnan exile, which permanently destroyed his health and led to his death in 1101, see Egan 1994, 213–221; Hargett 2000. 58.  CBBM 101.13a; CBSB 10.435. 59.  CBBM 101.13b–14b; CBSB 10.436. This edict is cited in Levine forthcoming, “Resurrection.” 60.  CBBM 101.15b; CBSB 12.476–477. 61.  CBBM 101.15b; CBSB 12.476–477. 62.  CBBM 101.16b; CBSB 12.478–479. Originally prefect of Chenzhou (Jingxi North circuit, present-day Huaiyang, Hunan), Fan Chunren was transferred to the post of prefect of Suizhou (Jingxi South circuit, present-day Suizhou, Hubei). 63.  CBBM 106.2a–2b; CBSB 12.480–481. Portions of this memorial are translated in Levine forthcoming, “Resurrection.” 64.  For more detailed analyses of institutional trends in the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau during Zhezong’s personal rule, see Diao 1999b; Shen 1998a, 110–114. In a memorial of 5.1099, Exhorter of the Right Zou Hao (1060–1111), an antireformist sympathizer, complained that of a total of eight subordinate posts in the Censorate, only three were currently occupied; a similar hollowing-out process had occurred in the Remonstrance Bureau, where he insisted only one subordinate post in six was currently filled. See XCB 510.12152. 65.  CBBM 101.17a, 17b, 18b–19a; CBSB 12.492, 13.498, 13.504.



Notes to Pages 141–144

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66.  SHY zhiguan 3.75. For an unpacking of the institutional history of the Suli suo, see Luo 2002a, 186–187. Also see Levine forthcoming, “Resurrection.” 67.  SHY zhiguan 3.76. 68.  XCB 499.11886–11887. 69.  XCB 507.12079. 70.  CBBM 102.1b–2a; CBSB 14.549. This document is cited and translated in Levine forthcoming, “Resurrection.” 71.  CBBM 102.1b–2a; CBSB 14.549. 72.  CBBM 102.2b–5b; CBSB 14.551–554. 73.  For an earlier version of this section, see Levine 2006, 135–137, 141–149. 74.  Empress Dowager Qinsheng was neither the mother of Zhezong or Huizong, who were sons of two of Shenzong’s secondary consorts. For their biographies, see SS 242.8630–8631. For a critical analysis of the reasons for Huizong’s enthronement, and his sources of support within the palace from Empress Dowager Qinsheng and powerful eunuchs, see Zhang 2002a. 75.  For an earlier narrative of this monarchical transition, see Levine forthcoming, “Court Politics during the Ch’in-sheng Regency.” Zhang Dun favored enthroning Huizong’s younger brother (and Shenzong’s thirteenth son) Zhao Si (d. 1127), the prince of Jian, but Zeng Bu and the empress dowager overruled him to enthrone Zhao Ji, the prince of Duan. See XCB 520.12356–12358; SS 246.8723–8724. Zhao Si died early in his captivity in the north, after the Jurchen invasion. See Chaffee 1999, 117. 76.  In Zeng Bu’s words: “The former court intended to alter and renovate governmental affairs by creating and establishing policies and institutions. But of the officials at court, many considered this to be impermissible; in the present time, they would be accused of being men with dissenting opinions. At the present time, Your Majesty has renewed and revived the policies and institutions of the Xining era and has banished and expelled the offending men of the Yuanyou era. Among officials, who would dare consider this to have been impermissible? But those men whose opinions and discourse are dissimilar from those of Zhang Dun and Cai Bian are also accused of having dissenting opinions.” See XCB 492.11686; cited in Levine forthcoming, “Resurrection.” For a short political biography of Zeng Bu, see Luo 2003a. 77.  XCB 506.12062. For an earlier translation, see Levine forthcoming, “Resurrection.” 78.  XCB 491.11654, 492.11686. 79.  See memorials by Zhang Dun and Cai Bian, both presented days after Huizong’s enthronement, in XCB 520.12368–12369, 12371. 80.  In 1.1100 a messenger was sent to Yongzhou, Jinghu South circuit, to summon Fan Chunren back to the capital. See TPTL 24.30a.

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Notes to Pages 144–149

81.  TPTL 24.30b. 82.  TPTL 24.30a–30b. 83.  CBBM 123.1b–2a; CBSB 15.581. 84.  CBBM 120.9b; CBSB 15.588–589. This document is also cited and translated in Levine forthcoming, “Court Politics during the Ch’in-sheng Regency.” Actually Zhang had served as grand councilor only for six years, since his appointment in 4.1094. 85.  CBBM 120.10a; CBSB 15.592. Portions of this memorial are cited in Levine forthcoming, “Court Politics during the Ch’in-sheng Regency.” 86.  CBSB 16.600. 87.  Below I will explain how several leading reformists ended up on the Chongning blacklists as members of the “Yuanyou faction.” This historical irony was certainly not lost on Zhang Dun’s Song History biographers, who highlighted the retributive justice of his final sentence. See SS 471.13713. 88.  According to Zeng Bu’s biography in the Song History: “Although Zhongyan held the higher post, he was weak and soft, and the majority of decisions were Bu’s, but Bu still could not tolerate this.” Since Zeng’s Song History biography is overwhelmingly condemnatory, this editorial statement cannot be taken at face value. See SS 471.13716. For an earlier account of Zeng Bu’s councilorship, see Levine forthcoming, “Court Politics during the Ch’in-sheng Regency.” 89.  TPTL 24.33b. 90.  TPTL 24.33b–34a. For a brief study of the short-lived period of factional reconciliation during the Jianzhong Jingguo era, and a positive assessment of Huizong’s rulership skills at the start of his personal rule, see Zhang 2002b. 91.  The Song History biography of the antireform remonstrator Ren Boyu (n.d.) cites his memorial against factional conciliation, submitted around 1101, the first and only year of the Jianzhong Jingguo era. Ren reprises similar themes from Northern Song faction theory: “Human talent certainly should not divide into factions and cliques. Thus, ever since antiquity, there has never been a situation when superior and petty men advanced and mixed together in order to govern. For superior men are easy to dismiss, but petty men are difficult to dismiss. When the two are employed together, in the end the superior men will be entirely expelled until only petty men remain.” See SS 345.10965. For an expanded analysis of this argument, see Luo 2003b, 155. 92.  CBBM 130.10a; CBSB 16.619–620. 93.  CBBM 130.12a; CBSB 17.639. Portions of this memorial are cited in Levine forthcoming, “Court Politics during the Ch’in-sheng Regency.” 94.  CBBM 130.13a; CBSB 17.640–641. 95.  CBBM 129.4a–5a; CBSB 18.647–648. 96.  For an earlier version of this section, see Levine 2006, 149–165.



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97.  SS 19.363. Literally, Chongning meant “Revering Tranquility,” but its reuse of the character ning was an obvious echo of the Xining era of Shenzong’s reign, which covered the first decade of the New Policies, from 1068 to 1077. 98.  For the earliest major Western-language study of Cai Jing and his historical categorization as a “treacherous minister,” see Trauzettel 1964. For a genealogical study of the Cai lineage and the kinship connection between Cai Jing and Cai Que, see Clark 2001, 87–91. For an amply documented, albeit condemnatory, analysis of the rise of Cai Jing, see Luo 1993, 276–286. For a rigorous detangling of the complex textual history of Cai Jing’s “treacherous minister” biography in the Song History, see Hartman 2006a. For a study of the special relationship between Cai Jing and Huizong, see Ebrey 2006a. For an earlier account of Cai Jing’s rise to the councilorship, see Levine forthcoming, “Court Politics and State Policy during Hui-tsung’s Reign.” 99.  CBSB 19.683. 100.  CBBM 130.20a; CBSB 19.686–687, cited in Levine forthcoming, “Court Politics and State Policy during Hui-tsung’s Reign.” 101.  CBBM 130.21a; CBSB 20.717. Zeng Bu was placed under movement restrictions in Hengzhou (Jinghu South circuit, present-day Hengyang, Hunan). 102.  For an extensive analysis of Cai Jing’s policy program, see Chaffee 2006. For an earlier study of Cai Jing’s reform apparatus, see Lin 1971. 103.  CBBM 121.1a; CBSB 19.677. A short portion of this document is cited in Levine forthcoming, “Court Politics and State Policy during Hui-tsung’s Reign.” 104.  CBBM 121.1b; CBSB 19.677. 105.  See Chaffee 2006, 43–44. 106.  CBBM 121.2a; CBSB 19.678. 107.  CBBM 121.2b; CBSB 19.678–679. 108.  For a discussion of the utopian and autocratic aspects of Huizong’s strategy of emperorship, see Bol 2006, 200–205. 109.  CBBM 121.2b–4b; CBSB 19.679–681. This edict is also cited in Levine forthcoming, “Court Politics and State Policy during Hui-tsung’s Reign.” 110.  CBBM 121.4b; CBSB 19.681. 111.  In order of appearance, these seven categories were: “superior in righteousness” (zheng shang), “middling in righteousness” (zheng zhong), “inferior in righteousness” (zheng xia), “extremely superior in wickedness” (xie shang youshen), “superior in wickedness” (xie shang), “middling in wickedness” (xie zhong), and “inferior in wickedness” (xie xia). See CBBM 123.3a–8b; CBSB 20.708–713. Chaffee offers the alternative translation of “orthodoxy” for zheng and “heterodoxy” for xie. See Chaffee 2006, 43. 112.  For a closer analysis of the names on this list of classified remonstrance and an exposition of the anomalies therein, see Luo 2003b, 154.

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Notes to Pages 154–157

113.  CBBM 123.8b–9a; CBSB 20.721–722. 114.  CBBM 121.8a–9b; CBSB 20.714–716. Also see Levine forthcoming, “Court Politics and State Policy during Hui-tsung’s Reign.” 115.  For an investigation of the political functions of Huizong’s imperial brush inscriptions, see Ebrey 2006b. The actual extent of Huizong’s involvement in the factional proscriptions is unknown, given the extensive revision of the historical record to portray him as a benevolent monarch led dangerously astray by treacherous ministers. It remains debatable whether the emperor was actively involved in the blacklist or simply manipulated by Cai Jing. No concrete evidence supports either theory. 116.  CBBM 121.12a; CBSB 20.725, cited in Levine forthcoming, “Court Politics and State Policy during Hui-tsung’s Reign.” 117.  CBBM 121.9b; CBSB 20.718–719. 118.  CBBM 121.15b–17a; CBSB 22.773–774. 119.  CBBM 121.15b; CBSB 22.773. Portions of this edict are cited and translated in Levine forthcoming, “Court Politics and State Policy during Hui-tsung’s Reign.” 120.  CBBM 122.9b–13a; CBSB 24.810–814, cited in Levine forthcoming, “Court Politics and State Policy during Hui-tsung’s Reign.” 121.  Biographical information on hundreds of these men is slight at best. Two Southern Song commentators have claimed that a majority of those blacklisted in 1102–1104 did not rightfully belong there. In his Huizhu lu, Wang Mingqing (1127– ca. 1215) doubted whether all the men named to the Chongning blacklists deserved to be labeled as members of the “Yuanyou faction,” arguing that many of these 300plus men included “those who had vigorously argued against Yuanyou governance in the past.” See HZL houlu 1.64–65. According to the late twelfth-century memoirist Fei Gun, only 78 (or 98) out of the 309 men on the Chongning blacklists were truly members of the “Yuanyou faction” and that the list included the “wicked” alongside the “righteous.” See LXMZ 3.5b–6a. 122.  See Luo 1993, 301–305; Levine forthcoming, “Court Politics and State Policy during Hui-tsung’s Reign.” The only other Western-language analysis of the 1104 blacklist is Vittinghoff 1975. 123.  CBBM 121.7b–8a, 12a–12b, 15a–15b, cited in Levine forthcoming, “Court Politics and State Policy during Hui-tsung’s Reign.” 124.  CBBM 121.12a–12b. 125.  CBBM 122.14a–14b. 126.  Chaffee 2006, 43–44. Bossler concurs that during the Northern Song, “the effects of factional struggles usually were temporary. When hounded from office, disgraced officials were generally able to retreat to the countryside and await a more favorable political environment.” In her judgment, the Jurchen invasion was



Notes to Pages 157–159

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more disruptive to the fortunes of bureaucrats and their kinsmen than the vicissitudes of factional conflict. See Bossler 1998, 62–63. For a short discussion of the political violence of the late Ming, during the persecution of the Donglin Academy and Restoration Society, see Chapter 7. 127.  For a short narrative of Zhao Ding’s political career and conservative intellectual leanings, see James Liu 1988, 107–122. For a detailed political narrative of the Gaozong reign, see Teraji 1988. 128.  For a telegraphic account of the astronomical events, see SS 20.375; CBSB 26.868. The most detailed source is Zhao Tingzhi’s (1040–1107) draft biography (xingzhuang), portions of which were copied into CBBM 131.11a–12a. This source has been analyzed in depth in Chaffee 2006 and is also cited in Levine forthcoming, “Court Politics and State Policy during Hui-tsung’s Reign.” 129.  For a thorough account of the policy changes of the Huizong reign and the recurring dismissals and rehabilitations of Cai Jing, see Chaffee 2006. For an account of court politics during Cai’s long tenure as Huizong’s grand councilor, and the fall of the dynasty at the end of Huizong’s reign, see Levine forthcoming, “Court Politics and State Policy during Hui-tsung’s Reign” and “Popular Uprisings, Border Conflicts, and the Fall of the Northern Sung.” 130.  Chaffee concurs: “[I]n the short run at least, the purges succeeded, and the Yuanyou voices were effectively absent from Kaifeng for the remainder of Huizong’s reign.” See Chaffee 2006, 44. 131.  See Chaffee 2006, 57. 132.  For a discussion of the influx of “new” men into the imperial bureaucracy during Huizong’s reign, and “the willingness of an increasingly desperate court to rely on relatively untried talent,” see Bossler 1998, 38–39. 133.  For a more extensive explanation of the expanded Three Halls policy under Cai Jing’s councilorship, see Chaffee 1995, 77–78; Chaffee 2006, 42. For a comprehensive study of educational and examination policy during Huizong’s reign, see Kondò 1994. 134.  Chaffee 1995, 78–79; Chaffee 2006, 47; CBBM 126.1a–4a, cited in Levine forthcoming, “Court Politics and State Policy during Hui-tsung’s Reign.” 135.  For a discussion of political dissent and protest at the Imperial University in the 1120s, led by the student Chen Dong (1086–1127), who memorialized the throne to demand the resignation of Cai Jing’s ministry during the diplomatic and military crisis of the Jurchen invasion, see Davis 1998, 126–127; Levine forthcoming, “Popular Uprisings, Border Conflicts, and the Fall of the Northern Sung.” 136.  See Luo 2002b. For a brief analysis of politics and policy during the waning years of the Huizong reign, also see Wang 1994. For an extended narrative, see Levine forthcoming. 137.  See Ebrey and Bickford 2006.

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Notes to Pages 159–166

138.  See Bol 2006, 202–203; Chaffee 2006, 41. 139.  For studies of political culture in the middle and late Huizong reign, see Bickford 2006, Chao 2006, Ebrey 2006b, Egan 2006, and Lam 2006. 140.  For more detailed geopolitical narratives of the Song-Jin wars, see Lorge 2005, 50–54; Levine forthcoming. 141.  For an exploration of the causal links between factionalism and the fall of the Northern Song, see Toyama 1964. Also see Luo 2002b. 142.  Richard von Glahn has concluded that “Southern Song political thought was marked by a loss of faith in state activism” and that “[v]irtually all major political theorists of the Southern Song explicitly rejected Wang’s program of comprehensive reform.” See von Glahn 1993, 221.

Chapter 7: Discourses of Authority and the Authority of Discourse Epigraph: Bolingbroke, A Dissertation upon Parties, in Bolingbroke 1997, 36–37; James Madison, The Federalist No. 10, in Hamilton et al. 2000, 54. 1.  See Hon 2005, 22. 2.  See Hymes forthcoming. 3.  See Hymes forthcoming. 4.  See Hymes forthcoming. 5.  As Hymes explains, Ouyang Xiu and his bureaucratic allies “had tried to import the model of a horizontal network of mutually ratifying gentlemen into a court context and gain full legitimacy for it there.” See Hymes forthcoming. 6.  I am employing the term “True Way Learning” in its strictest sense, to describe the Cheng-Zhu school of the Southern Song. For the translation “True Way Learning” that captures the doctrinal exclusivity of the Daoxue movement, see Linda Walton 1999, 5. 7.  Bol conceives of Daoxue as “a counterculture that thought of itself as transmitting true values” and that “[w]ith Daoxue Song intellectuals claimed authority to a degree unusual before.” See Bol 1992, 339–340. In Bol’s judgment: “The Daoxue Neo-Confucians argued that authority over values and culture belonged to those with knowledge of the Way, not the court merely because it was the center of the political system.” See Bol 2001, 106. 8.  Tillman suggests the alternative translation of “fellowship” for dang. See Tillman 1992, 3–4, 130–131. Hymes concurs with this translation, arguing that the Daoxue movement “was a very different social creature from the reformist court faction Ouyang had defended” in 1044 and that its members used the word dang as “the self-label for an entirely new form of elite social and political organization based in the provinces.” See Hymes forthcoming.



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9.  For a sample of three letters from Zhu to Lü, all of which include the word wudang, see Zhu Xi, “Yu Lü Bogong shu,” ZWGJ 25.16b; “Da Lü Bogong,” ZWGJ 34.3a–3b; “Da Lü Bogong,” ZWGJ 34.7b–8a. 10.  Tillman 1992, 131–133. 11.  See Hymes forthcoming. 12.  Zhu Xi, “Yu Liu chengxiang shu,” ZWGJ 28.21b. 13.  Zhu Xi, “Yu Liu chengxiang shu,” ZWGJ 28.21a–21b. 14.  Zhu Xi, “Yu Liu chengxiang shu,” ZWGJ 28.21b. 15.  Zhu Xi, “Yu Liu chengxiang shu,” ZWGJ 28.21a–22a, translated in Schirokauer 1962, 181. 16.  Hoyt Tillman has argued that “[e]ver since Confucius’ warning about factions (in Analects 15/22), the term carried extremely negative political and ethical connotations. Northern Sung statesmen generally took a more favorable view; however, even Ouyang Xiu’s famous memorial from the 1040s in defense of forming a faction of superior men had not erased the negative legacy of the term.” See Tillman 1992, 131. 17.  For a document-driven account of Zhu Xi’s forty-odd days at Ningzong’s court, see Yu Yingshi 2003, II.216–220. For a detailed analysis of the political infighting between Han Tuozhou and Zhao Ruyu that culminated in the proscriptions, see Schirokauer 1975, 177–180. Also see Tillman 1992, 140–141. 18.  James Liu 1988, 144–145. 19.  XZZTJ 154.853b. Also see Yu Yingshi 2003, 310–328; Schirokauer 1975, 180. James T. C. Liu claims that “the school was made to appear much like a subversive religious sect.” See James Liu 1988, 145. 20.  XZZTJ 155.855c–856a; SYXA 97.1805–1808. Conrad Schirokauer has noted “the presence on the list of scholars of very different intellectual persuasion.” Likewise, Tillman has warned against conflating the “Qingyuan faction” (Qingyuan dang) with the True Way Learning movement. He has cautioned that the men on this blacklist “had diverse intellectual orientations” and that they included several prominent utilitarian thinkers of the Zhedong school like Ye Shi (1150–1213) and Chen Fuliang (1137–1203), who “eclipsed Zhu Xi as the largest single target,” while omitting Zhu Xi’s chief disciple Huang Gan (1159–1221). See Tillman 1992, 258. Ultimately, however, Tillman has concluded that in the movement’s own internal history, the “intellectual lineages” of the blacklisted could be traced back to the Cheng brothers’ wing of the “Yuanyou faction” of the late Northern Song. James T. C. Liu cautions that “there was no evidence that this school ever took political action beyond individuals’ occasional criticism of those in power” and that the “ban on False Learning, based as it was on feeble, fabricated grounds, did not last.” See James Liu 1988, 145; Schirokauer 1975, 184–190; Tillman 1992, 141–142. For an analysis of Zhao Ruyu’s involvement in the affair, see Chaffee 1990, 37–38.

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21.  Schirokauer 1975, 191–192. 22.  XZZTJ 155.856c–857a; also see Tillman 1992, 143. 23.  The Qingyuan era (1195–1200) combined the first characters of the Qingli and Yuanyou eras of the Northern Song, thereby associating the Southern Song court with both the Qingli reforms and the Yuanyou “reversion.” See Schirokauer 1975, 178. For another examination of the Qingyuan/Yuanyou homology, see Tillman 1992, 5–6, 141–142. 24.  Chaffee 1993, 317–322; Hymes and Schirokauer 1993, 45. 25.  Hartman 2001, 337, 356. For a rigorous textual archeology of the Daoming lu, which reveals how the received version of the text “represents a drastic Yuan dynasty reworking and expansion of Li’s original version,” see Hartman 2000, 2. 26.  Tillman has urged a broader, more inclusive conception of both the “Yuanyou factionalists” and the “Qingyuan factionalists,” asserting that “the intellectual origins of the blacklisted Confucians are traceable back not only to the Cheng brothers . . . but also to such associates within the Yuanyou conservative party as Sima Guang, Hu Anguo, and the Lü family.” See Tillman 1992, 258. 27.  Bol has argued that Zhu Xi’s conception of an “orthodox transmission of the Way” (Daotong) “surely came from the term zhengtong, used for a line of legitimate dynastic succession, but that it denied the paramount importance of political institutions.” See Bol 1992, 28. Thomas Wilson maintains that as “early as the thirteenth century, Zhu’s disciples deployed doctrinal genealogies to articulate exclusionary lineages that legitimated their own doctrines and simultaneously silenced conflicting versions of the Dao.” See Wilson 1995, 9. Similarly, for Tillman, the ultimate hegemony of Zhu Xi within the Daoxue camp—and of Daoxue within the history of the Song Confucian revival—owed much to the ex post facto efforts of his disciples, who rewrote the movement’s internal history, privileging their master’s claim to doctrinal orthodoxy while denying legitimacy to contending claimants to the Neo-Confucian throne. See Tillman 1992, 258–261. 28.  See Wilson 1995, 40–47; James Liu 1988, 146–147; Hartman 2001, 326. 29.  For a detailed local history of the True Way Learning movement’s spread into and through Jinhua prefecture, Zhejiang, in the Song and Ming dynasties, see Bol 2003. 30.  See Hymes and Schirokauer 1993, 21–23; Hymes forthcoming. 31.  See Hymes forthcoming. Also see Bol 1992, 339. 32.  See Hymes and Schirokauer 1993, 21–23. Also see von Glahn 1993, 222. 33.  See Walton 1999, 41–53, 84–86. 34.  Zhu Xi, “Jiyou ni shang fengshi,” ZWGJ 12.3b, cited in Elman 1990, 27–28. The newly enthroned Emperor Guangzong was the most likely recipient of this edict, which was submitted in the jiyou year (1189), since Emperor Xiaozong (r. 1162–1189) abdicated in favor of his son and heir apparent Guangzong in 2.1189.



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35.  Zhu Xi, “Jiyou ni shang fengshi,” ZWGJ 12.4b. 36.  Zhu Xi, “Jiyou ni shang fengshi,” ZWGJ 12.4b–5a. Also see Elman 1989, 391. 37.  According to Hymes, the shi elite “by middle Southern Sung had settled into the counties and prefectures of south China as a locally rooted and largely selfratifying elite, which defined its own status on the one hand not through exam-based office but through education and exam participation, and on the other hand through new horizontal social networks, ranging across localities and ultimately national in scope, that made gentlemanly status more a matter of mutual recognition than of state grant, and that in their most self-conscious manifestations came to claim a cultural and quasi-political authority independent of the authority distributed through the pyramidal networks of the state.” See Hymes forthcoming. 38.  See Dardess 1973, 93. I prefer a more narrow definition of “neo-Confucianism,” which includes Cheng-Zhu learning but not the “new learning” of Wang Anshi or the conservative statecraft of Sima Guang. 39.  Before the emergence of the Donglin Academy as an empire-wide political organization, Ming factional conflicts in some ways resembled those of the late Northern Song. At the court of the Wanli Emperor (r. 1573–1620), after the death of the longtime councilor Zhang Juzheng (1525–1582), a factional conflict pitted the emperor’s grand secretaries against an opposition based in the Ministry of Personnel. These internal conflicts between bureaucratic institutions paralleled the struggle between grand councilors and their opposition, based in the Censorate and Remonstrance Bureau, during the late Northern Song. For a fuller explanation, see Zhao 2002. 40.  Responding to Hymes’ hypothesis that the Southern Song elite engaged in local political action through voluntary elite-sponsored and –funded institutions, Timothy Brook has argued that “[t]he Southern Song local elite thus appear to be socially and institutionally continuous with the Ming-Qing gentry to follow.” See Brook 1993, 322–323. 41.  See Hucker 1957, 141–142. Also see Wakeman 1998, 171. 42.  See Elman 1989, 389. 43.  See Mote 1999, 737. 44.  See Elman 1989, 389. 45.  See Miller 2006, 59. 46.  See Hucker 1957, 143–147. 47.  See Wakeman 1972, 51; Elman 1990, 28–29. 48.  See Elman 1989, 394, 406. 49.  See Dardess 2002, 161–164. This usage echoed that of Zhu Xi’s 1189 petition to the throne, discussed above. 50.  According to Wakeman, “[s]peaking in the name of Confucian righteous-

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ness, Donglin academicians forsook philosophical aloofness in order to pose an engaged ‘loyalist’ alternative to the increasingly vicious palace factionalism that prevailed in Beijing.” See Wakeman 1998, 171. 51.  Wakeman theorized that the Donglin partisans did not seek the “legally independent rights” of sociopolitical association, or even organizational autonomy, because they articulated their political program within a common discourse of ethical ideals like ministerial loyalty and the public good, and used existing bureaucratic mechanisms of personnel administration to implement their policy goals. See Wakeman 1972, 54–55. 52.  See Hucker 1957, 152–157; Elman 1989, 395; Dardess 2002, 72–105. 53.  See Atwell 1975, 358. 54.  See Atwell 1975, 346–349. 55.  See Nivison 1959, 223–224. 56.  See Elman 1989, 405. 57.  See Munro 1980, 185–186. 58.  YZSL 22.14a–15a. 59.  See Nivison 1959, 230–232; Elman 1989, 406–407. 60.  The Qianlong Emperor explicitly denounced Cheng Yi’s collaborative ideal of governance, in which superior-man ministers could align themselves with monarchs, thereby morally transforming them and bringing order to the empire, as “tantamount to lèse majesté.” See Elman 1990, 281–282. 61.  See Brook 1993, 319. 62.  See Lydia Liu 1996, 33, 293. 63.  For a discussion of parliamentary politics in the early Republic and the slippery slope from constitutional democracy into military dictatorship, see Liu Zehua and Liu 1997, 46–51. 64.  See Fitzgerald 1996, 32, 185–190. 65.  See Fitzgerald 1996, 175–177. 66.  Michael Tsin has argued that the concept of “society” (shehui) is itself another Euro-Japanese loan word that entered Chinese to translate the English term “society.” In the early twentieth century, political elites envisioned this discursive construct as “a potentially ordered society of citizens that could be rationally arranged and organized as a discrete collective through governmental means.” See Tsin 1999, 8, 145.

Glossary

a dang 阿黨 (obsequiousness and factiousness, obsequious faction) An Dun 安惇 (1042–1104) Anlu 安陸 anzhi 安置 (movement restriction) Anzhou 安州 ba 霸 (hegemon) Bakai 八愷 (Eight Paragons) Ban Gu 班固 (32–92) Baojia fa 保甲法 (Mutual Security policy) baxing 八行 (eight [kinds of virtuous] conduct) baxing 八刑 (eight punishments) Bayuan 八元 (Eight Primes) “Ben lun” 本論 (Discourse on Fundamentals) bi 比 (clique) bianlei 辨類 (investigation and classification) bizhou 比周 Bo 剝 (Peeling, Hexagram 23) “Bozhou” 柏舟 (“The Cypress Boat”) bu cai 不才 (untalented) bu xian 不鮮 (unsavory) bu zhong 不忠 (disloyalty, disloyal) cai 才 (talent) Cai Bian 蔡卞 (1058–1117) cai buzu yong 才不足用 Cai Chengxi 蔡承禧 (1035–1084)

Cai Jing 蔡京 (1046–1126) Cai Que 蔡確 (1037–1093) Cai Shi 蔡碩 (jinshi 1065) Cai Wei 蔡渭 (n.d.) aka Cai Mao 蔡懋 Cai Xiang 蔡襄 (1012–1067) canzhi zhengshi 參知政事 (participant in determining governmental matters) Cao 曹太后, empress (1017–1079) Cao Peng 曹彬 (931–999) Chaiyi fa 差役法 (Drafted Service policy) Chang Anmin 常安民 (jinshi 1073) Chanyuan 澶淵 Chegaiting 車蓋亭 (Carriage Canopy Pavilion) Chen Cisheng 陳次升 (1044–1119) “Chen dao” 臣道 (The Way of Ministers) Chen Dong 陳東 (1086–1127) Chen Fuliang 陳傅良 (1137–1203) Cheng, king of Zhou 周成王 Cheng Hao 程顥 (1032–1085) Chen Guan 陳瓘 (1057–1122) Cheng Yi 程頤 (1033–1107) Cheng–Zhu 程朱 chen li zai pengdang yong si 臣利在朋黨 用私 Chen Xiang 陳襄 (1017–1086) Chenzhou 陳州 235

236

Glossary

Chiang Kai-shek [Jiang Jieshi] 蔣介石 (1887–1975) Chonghe 重和 era (1118–1119) Chongning 崇寧 era (1102–1106) Chongzhen 崇禎, emperor (r. 1628–1644) Chouwu 檮杌 (Blockhead) Chuandang 川黨 (Sichuanese faction) Chunqiu 春秋 (Spring and Autumn Annals) cuanchen 篡臣 (presumptuous ministers) dagong 大公 (greater public good) Daguan 大觀 era (1107–1110) da jian peng lai 大蹇朋來 dang 黨 (faction, fellowship) dangfu 黨附 (factional attachment) Danggu 黨錮 (Great Proscription) “Danggu liezhuan xu” 黨錮列傳序 (Preface to the Biographies of the Great Proscription) dangji 黨籍 (factional blacklist) Daoming lu 道命錄 (Record of the Way and Its Fate) Daotong 道統 (orthodox transmission of the Way) Daoxue 道學 (True Way Learning) “Daozei xia” 盜賊下 ([Discourses on] Rebels and Felons, Part Three) de 德 (virtue) Deng Wan 鄧綰 (1028–1086) Deng Wenbo 鄧溫伯 (1027–1094), aka Deng Runfu 鄧潤甫 dianzhong shiyushi 殿中侍御史 (palace censor) Di Hong Shi 帝鴻氏 Di Ku 帝嚳 Ding Wei 丁謂 (966–1037) Dong Bi 董必 (n.d.) Donglin shuyuan 東林書院 (Donglin Academy) dui 對 (court audience)

e likou zhi fu bangjia zhe 惡利口之覆邦 家者 erdang dao butong 二黨道不同 fadu 法度 (regulatory institutions) Fan Chunren 范純仁 (1027–1101) Fan Ye 范曄 (398–445) Fan Zhongyan 范仲淹 (989–1052) Fan Zuyu 范祖禹 (1041–1098) Fei Gun 費袞 (n.d.) fei wudang zhi shi hu 非吾黨之士乎 fen 粉 (Powderface) Feng Dao 馮道 (882–954) Feng Jing 馮京 (1021–1094) fengsu 風俗 (civic mores) fenkun 粉昆 (elder brother with the powderface) Fu Bi 富弼 (1004–1083) Fujian 福建 Fu she 復社 (Restoration Society) Fu Yaoyu 傅堯俞 (1024–1091) Fu Yue 傅說 Fuzhou 撫州 fu zuzong fadu 復祖宗法度 (restoring the policies and institutions of the dynastic progenitors) Gaoan 高安 Gao Gonghui 高公繪 (n.d.) Gao Gongji 高公紀 (n.d.) Gao Panlong 高攀龍 (1562–1626) Gao Qiong 高瓊 (935–1006) Gao Ruona 高若訥 (997–1055) Gao Tao 皋陶 Gao Xin Shi 高辛氏 Gao Yang Shi 高陽氏 Gaozong 高宗, emperor of Song (r. 1127–1162) Gaozong 高宗, emperor of Tang (r. 649–683) Gaozu 高祖, emperor of Han (r. 202– 195 BCE)



Glossary

Gao Zunfu 高尊甫 (n.d.) genghua 更化 (reversion) gong 公 (public good, public-minded) Gongchandang 共產黨 (Communist Party) gongdang 公黨 (public-minded faction) Gong Gong 共工 Gong Guai 龔夬 (n.d.) gonglun 公論 (public-minded discourse) gongyi 公議 (public-minded opinion) Guai 夬 (Resolution, Hexagram 43) Guangdong 廣東 Guangnan 廣南 (circuit) Guomindang 國民黨 (Chinese Nation alist Party) Guoshi 國史 (State History) guoshi 國是 (state policy consensus) Guwen 古文 (Ancient Prose) Gu Xiancheng 顧憲成 (1550–1612) Hainan 海南 Han Chuan 韓川 (n.d.) Han Du 韓瀆 (d. 1043) Han Feizi 韓非子 (ca. 280–233 BCE) Han Jiang 韓絳 (1012–1088) Hanlin xueshi 翰林學士 (Hanlin scholar) Hanlin xueshi chengzhi 翰林學士承旨 (Hanlin academician recipient of edicts) Hanlin yuan 翰林院 (Hanlin Academy) Han Qi 韓琦 (1008–1075) Han shu 漢書 (History of the Former Han) Han Tuozhou 韓侂冑 (1152–1207) Han Wei 韓維 (1017–1098) Hanyang 漢陽 Han Zhen 韓縝 (1019–1097) Han Zhongyan 韓忠彥 (1038–1109) Hao Chujun 郝處俊 (n.d.) haojie 豪傑 (men of outstanding talent)

237

haojun 豪俊 (men of outstanding talent) Hebei 河北 (circuit) Henan 河南 Hengyang 衡陽 Hengzhou 衡州 He Yan 何晏 (ca. 190–249) “Hong fan” 洪範 (Great Plan) Hou Han shu 後漢書 (History of the Latter Han) Huainan 淮南 Huaiyang 淮陽 Huan 桓帝, emperor of Han (r. 147– 167) Huan Dou 驩兜 huangdi 皇帝 (emperor, lit. “august theocrat”) Huangdi 黃帝 (Yellow Emperor) Huang Gan 黃幹 (1159–1221) huangji 皇極 (supremacy maximized) Huang Kan 黃侃 (488–545) Huang Lü 黃履 (jinshi 1057) Huangpo 黃陂 Huang Tingjian 黃庭堅 (1045–1105) Hu Anguo 胡安國 (1074–1138) Huang Yizhou 黃以周 (1828–1899) Huangzhou 黃州 Huazhou 化州 Hubei 湖北 Huizhou 惠州 Huizong 徽宗, emperor (r. 1100–1126) Hunan 湖南 Hundun 渾敦 (Chaos) Hu Yuan 胡瑗 (993–1059) Hu Zongyu 胡宗愈 (1029–1094) Jian 蹇 (Adversity, Hexagram 39) Jian 漸 (Gradual Advance, Hexagram 53) jianbing 兼併 (engrossers) jiancha yushi 監察御史 (investigating censor)

238

Glossary

jiancha yushi lixing 監察御使里行 (probationary investigating censor) jianchen 姦臣 (treacherous ministers) Jiangnan 江南 (circuit) Jiangning fu 江寧府 Jiangsu 江蘇 jianguan 諫官 (remonstrance official) Jiangxi 江西 Jiangyi si 講議司 (Advisory Office) jian Menxia shilang 兼門下侍朗 (concurrent vice director of the Chancellery) jian xie 姦邪 (treachery and wickedness) Jianyuan 諫院 (Remonstrance Bureau) Jianzhong Jingguo 建中靖國 era (1101) jian Zhongshu shilang 兼中書侍朗 (concurrent vice director of the Secretariat) Jia Yi 賈易 (n.d.) Jin 金 Jinghu 荊湖 (circuit) Jingkang 靖康 era (1126–1127) jingshi 經世 (ordering the world) jingshi lifa 經世立法 (ordering the world and establishing institutions) Jingxi 京西 (circuit) jingyan yongwei, xiang gong tao tian 靜言 庸違, 象恭滔天 Jinhua 金華 (prefecture) jinshi 進士 (“presented scholar” exami nation degree) Jin Yun 縉雲 jiudang 舊黨 (antireform faction, lit. “old faction”) Jiu wudai shi 舊五代史 (Old History of the Five Dynasties) jiyou 己酉 juan 卷 (fascicle) junzi 君子 (superior man)

junzi jin er buzheng, qun er budang 君子 矜而不爭, 群而不黨 junzi yi wen hui you, yi you fu ren 君子以 文會友, 以友輔仁 junzi yu yu yi, xiaoren yu yu li 君子喻於 義, 小人喻於利 junzi zhi dang 君子之黨 (factions of superior men) junzi zhou er bu bi 君子周而不比 Kaifeng 開封 keshou wei wudang ye 可收為吾黨也 Kong Wenzhong 孔文仲 (1037–1087) Kong Yingda 孔穎達 (574–648) Kongzi 孔子 (ca. 551–479 BCE) Kou Zhun 寇準 (961–1023) Kuangzhi 況之 kun 昆 (elder brother) Lan Yuanzhen 籃元震 (n.d.) laocheng 老成 (elder statesman) Later Liang 後梁 dynasty (907–923) leitong 類同 (common character) Leizhou 雷州 li 里 (distance measure) li 理 (pattern, order) li 利 (profit, gain) Liang Tao 梁燾 (1035–1097) Liao 遼 Li Deyu 李德裕 (787–850) Li Ding 李定 (1028–1087) liezhuan 列傳 (biography) Lin Dan 林旦 (jinshi 1057) Ling 靈帝, emperor of Han (r. 167–189) Lingling 零陵 Lingnan 嶺南 linli xiangdang 鄰里鄉黨 Li Qingchen 李清臣 (1032–1102) Li Ruogu 李若谷 (n.d.) Li Tao 李燾 (1115–1184) Liu 劉太后, empress dowager (969– 1033)



Glossary

Liu Anshi 劉安世 (1048–1125) liumin tu 流民圖 (portrait of the refugees) liusu 流俗 (conventionalists) Liu Xiang 劉向 (77 BCE–6 BCE) Liu Zheng 劉拯 (n.d.) Liu Zheng 留正 (1129–1206) Liu Zhi 劉摯 (1030–1097) Li Xinchuan 李心傳 (1166–1243) Li Ying 李膺 (110–168) Lizong 理宗, emperor (r. 1224–1265) Lu 魯, state of luan 亂 (disorder) luanchen 亂臣 (orderly ministers) Lü Dafang 呂大防 (1027–1097) Lü Gongzhu 呂公著 (1018–1089) Lü Hui 呂誨 (1014–1071) Lü Huiqing 呂惠卿 (1032–1111) Lü Jiawen 呂嘉問 (n.d.) lun 論 “Lun pengdang zhi bi” 論朋黨之弊 Lunyu 論語 (Analects) Lunyu jijie 論語集解 Lunyu yishu 論語義疏 Luo 洛 “Luo gao” 洛告 (Announcement at Luo) Luo Shu Shuo dangzheng 洛蜀朔黨爭 (Luo-Shu-Shuo factional conflict) Luoyang 洛陽 Lü Shengqing 呂升卿 (jinshi 1070) Lü Tao 呂陶 (1031–1107) Lü Yijian 呂夷簡 (979–1044) Lü Zuqian 呂祖謙 (1137–1181) Meng 孟皇后, empress Mengzi 孟子 (ca. 372–289 BCE) Menxia sheng 門下省 Menxia shilang 門下侍朗 (vice director of the Chancellery) Mianyi fa 免役法 (Hired Service policy)

239

miaogong 眇躬 (myself) ming 名 (name, nominally) Ningzong 寧宗, emperor (r. 1194–1224) Niu-Li dangzheng 牛李黨爭 (Niu-Li factional conflict) Niu Sengru 牛僧孺 (778–847) Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 (1007–1072) peng 朋 pengbi 朋比 pengdang 朋黨 (faction) pengdang bizhou 朋黨比周 (factions and cliques) pengdang bizhou yi bi wang 朋黨比周以 弊主 “Pengdang lun” 朋黨論 (Discourse on Factions) peng er wei shan 朋而為善 peng jia zuo qiu 朋家作仇 Pi 否 (Obstruction, Hexagram 12) piandang 偏黨 (biased faction) pingzhang junguo zhongshu 平章軍國 重事 (manager of important national security matters) Pi Zheng 丕鄭 Qiang 羌 Qianlong 乾隆, emperor (r. 1736–1796) Qian Yu 錢遹 (1050–1121) Qichun 蘄春 qiju sheren 起居舍人 (imperial diarist) qindang 親黨 (personal faction) Qingli 慶曆 era (1041–1049) Qingli xinzheng 慶曆新政 (Qingli Reforms) Qingmiao fa 青苗法 (Green Sprouts policy) Qin Guan 秦觀 (1049–1100) Qin Gui 秦檜 (1090–1155) Qingyuan 慶元 era (1195–1200) Qingyuan dang 慶元黨 (“Qingyuan faction”)

240

Glossary

Qinsheng 欽聖太后, empress dowager (1045–1101), née Xiang 向 qinzheng 親政 (personal rule) Qinzong 欽宗, emperor (r. 1126–1127) Qiongqi 窮奇 (Monster) Qizhou 蘄州 qu ci pengdang nan 去此朋黨難 qu Hebei zei yi, qu chaoting pengdang nan 去河北賊易, 去朝廷朋黨難 qun xiao 羣小 (a host of the petty) quxiang yitong 趨向異同 (divergent and mutual inclinations) ren 仁 (human-heartedness) Ren Boyu 任伯雨 (n.d.) Renzong 仁宗, emperor (r. 1022–1063) rongbing 冗兵 (excess of troops) rongfei 冗費 (excessive expenditures) rongguan 冗官 (excess of officials) Rongzhou 榮州 ru 儒 (classical scholar) Ruzhou 汝州 ruzi qi peng 孺子其朋 sanrong 三冗 (three excesses) Sanshe fa 三舍法 (Three Halls policy) Sansheng 三省 (Three Departments) Shangguan Jun 上官均 (jinshi 1070) Shangshu 尚書 (Book of Documents) Shangshu sheng 尚書省 (Department of State Affairs) Shangshu youcheng 尚書右丞 (assistant director of the right in the Depart ment of State Affairs) Shangshu zhengyi 尚書正義 Shangshu zuocheng 尚書左丞 (assistant director of the left in the Depart ment of State Affairs) Shang Yang 商鞅 (d. 338 BCE) Shangyuan era 上元 (674–676) Shao Hao 少皞 Shaosheng 紹聖 era (1094–1098)

shaoshu 紹述 (“restoration,” lit. “con tinuing [Shenzong’s] methods”) shecang 社倉 (community granaries) shehui 社會 (society) shen qi pengdang 慎其朋黨 (“be cautious of factions”) Shenzong 神宗, emperor (r. 1067– 1085) Shenzong shilu 神宗實錄 (Veritable Records of Emperor Shenzong) shi 實 (fact, factual, veracious) shi 士 (gentlemen) shidafu 士大夫 (officials) shifei 是非 (right and wrong) Shilu 實錄 (Veritable Records) Shiyi fa 市易法 (State Trade policy) shiyushi 侍御史 (attendant censor) shu 述 (methods) Shu 蜀 (Sichuan) Shuishou zalu 隨手雜錄 Shumi fushi 樞密副使 (vice Military Affairs commissioner) Shumi yuan 樞密院 (Bureau of Military Affairs) Shun 舜, sage-king Shuo 朔 Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 (An Exposition of Words and Explication of Characters) shuyuan 書院 (local academies) si 私 (private interest, selfish) Sichao guoshi 四朝國史 (State History of the Four Reigns) sidang 死黨 (a faction to the death) sidang 私黨 (selfish faction) sifen 私忿 (selfish grudges) Sima Guang 司馬光 (1019–1086) Sima Zhao 司馬昭 (211–265) sixian 四賢 (four worthies) “Sixian yu buxiao” 四賢一不肖 (Four Worthies and One Unworthy)



Glossary

Sixiong 四凶 (Four Fiends) Songchao zhuchen zouyi 宋朝諸臣奏議 (Memorials of Various Song Dynasty Ministers) Song shi 宋史 (Song History) Song Xiang 宋庠 (996–1066) Su Che 蘇轍 (1039–1112) Suizhou 隨州 Suli suo 訴理所 (Investigation and Prosecution Bureau) Sun Mou 孫侔 (1019–1084) Sun Sheng 孫升 (jinshi 1065) Sun Yat-sen [Sun Zhongshan] 孫中山 (1866–1925) Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101) Tai 泰 (Peace, Hexagram 11) Tai shi 泰誓 (Great Declaration) taishi 太師 (grand preceptor) Taixue 太學 (Imperial University) Taizong 太宗, emperor of Song (r. 976–997) Taizong 太宗, emperor of Tang (r. 626–649) Taizu 太祖, emperor (r. 960–976) Tang 唐 dynasty “Tang liuchen zhuan” 唐六臣傳 (Biog raphies of Six Courtiers of the Tang) Taotie 饕餮 (Glutton) Tianming 天命 (Mandate of Heaven) Tianqi 天啓, emperor (r. 1621–1628) tiaoting 調停 (conciliation) tongdao 同道 (common Way) tongli 同利 (common gain) tongmen yue peng, tongzhi yue you 同門曰 朋, 同志曰友 tong quan Libu shilang 同權力吏部侍朗 (associate acting vice minister of personnel) Tongwen guan 同文館 (Korean Relations Institute)

241

tongxin 同心 (common heart) tongyi fengsu 同一風俗 (unify civic mores) tong zhi Shumi yuan 同知樞密院 (associate director of the Depart ment of Military Affairs) tong Zhongshu Menxia pingzhang shi 同中書門下平章使 (joint manager of affairs with the Secretariat Chancellery) Wang Anguo 王安國 (1028–1074) Wang Anshi 王安石 (1021–1086) Wang Fuzhi 王夫之 (1619–1692) Wang Gong 王鞏 (n.d.) Wang Gui 王桂 (1019–1085) Wang Mang 王莽 (45 BCE–23 CE) Wang Mingqing 王明清 (1127–ca. 1215) Wang Pang 王雱 (1044–1076) Wang Xiang 王庠 (n.d.) Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472–1529) Wang Yansou 王嚴叟 (1043–1093) Wang Yucheng 王禹稱 (954–1001) Wanli 萬曆, emperor (r. 1573–1620) “Wanyan shu” 萬言書 (Myriad Word Memorial) Wei 魏 dynasty (220–265) wei 偽 (falsehood) weipeng 僞朋 (false affiliations) weixue 偽學 (false learning) weixue zhi dang 偽學之黨 (faction of false learning) weixue zhi nidang 偽學之逆黨 (rebellious faction of false learning) weiyi 微意 (hidden meanings) Wei Zhongxian 魏忠賢 (1568–1627) wenji 文集 (collected works) Wen Jifu 文及甫 (n.d.) wenshe 文社 (literary society)

242

Glossary

Wen Yanbo 文彥博 (1006–1097) Wenzong 文宗, emperor of Tang (r. 827–840) wu 吾 Wu, king of Zhou 周武王 Wu Anshi 吳安詩 (n.d.) Wu Chuhou 吳處厚 (jinshi 1055) wudang 吾黨 (our faction, originally “our community” or “our association”) wudang 無黨 (without faction) wudang zheng zhi you taiguo 吾黨争之 有太過 wudang zhi shi 吾黨之士 wudang zhi xiangyu 吾黨之相與 wudang zhi xiaozi 吾黨之小子 wudi 五帝 (Five Emperors) Wu Ding 武丁, king of Shang Wuhan 武漢 wu pian wu dang 無偏無黨 (without deviation or partiality) wuwei 無為 (nondeliberate action) Wuxi 無錫 wuyou bi de 無有比德 wuyou yin peng 無有淫朋 Wu Zetian 武則天, empress (r. 690–705) Wu Zunlu 吳遵路 (d. 1043) xian 賢 (worthy) xiangyue 鄉約 (community compacts) xiaoren 小人 (petty man) xiaoren bi er bu zhou 小人比而不周 xiaoren buchi buren, buwei buyi 小人不恥 不仁, 不畏不義 xiao Yuanyou 小元祐 (Lesser Yuanyou) Xiaozong 孝宗, emperor (r. 1162–1189) “Xiari deng Chegaiting shijue” 夏日登 車蓋亭十絕 (Ten Quatrains on Ascending the Carriage Canopy Pavilion on a Summer’s Day)

Xici 繫辭 (Commentary on the Appended Phrases) xie 邪 (wicked, wickedness) xiedang 邪黨 (wicked faction) xie shang 邪上 (superior in wickedness) xie shang youshen 邪上有甚 (extremely superior in wickedness) xie xia 邪下 (inferior in wickedness) xiezheng zhi dang 邪正之黨 (the factions of the wicked and the righteous) xie zhong 邪中 (middling in wickedness) xindang 新黨 (reform faction, lit. “new faction”) Xinfa 新法 (New Policies) Xing Shu 形恕 (n.d.) xingzhuang 行狀 (official obituary) Xining 熙寧 era (1068–1077) Xin Tang shu 新唐書 (New History of the Tang) Xin wudai shi 新五代史 (New History of the Five Dynasties) xin xiang jin ye, xi xiang yuan ye 性相近 也, 習相遠也 Xinxing 新興 Xinxue 新學 (New Learning) Xinzhou 新州 xiong 兄 (elder brother) Xiongnu 匈奴 Xi Xia 西夏 Xuanhe 宣和 era (1119–1125) Xuanren 宣仁太后, empress dowager (1032–1093), née Gao 高 xue 學 (school, learning) Xue Juzheng 薛居正 (912–981) Xunzi 荀子 (ca. 313–238 BCE) “Xu Ouyangzi pengdang lun” 續歐陽 子朋黨論 (A Continuation of Master Ouyang’s Discourse on Factions) Xu zizhi tongjian changbian 續資治通



Glossary

鑑長編 (Long Draft of the Continu ation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Governance) Xu zizhi tongjian changbian jishi benmo 續 資治通鑑長編紀事本末 (Topical Narratives of the Long Draft of the Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Governance) Xu zizhi tongjian changbian shibu 續資治 通鑑長編拾補 (Supplement to the Topical Narratives of Long Draft of the Continuation of the Comprehen sive Mirror for Aid in Governance) Yaizhou 崖州 yang 陽 Yang Hui 楊繪 (1027–1088) Yang Wei 楊畏 (1044–1112) Yang Zhongliang 楊仲良 (n.d.) yanlu 言路 (roads of remonstrance) Yan Yuan 顏淵 Yan-Yun 燕雲 Yao 堯, sage-king “Yao dian” 堯典 (Canon of Yao) Ye Qingchen 葉清臣 (1000–1049) Ye Shi 葉適 (1150–1213) Ye Tan 葉坦 yi 義 (righteousness) yibuxiao 一不肖 (one unworthy) yidang 異黨 (dissenting factions) yi daode yi bian fengsu 一道德以變風俗 (unify ethical values to transform civic mores) Yijing 易經 (Book of Changes) yilun 異論 (dissenting opinions) yilun xiangjiao 異論相攪 ([using] dissenting opinions to agitate each other) yin 陰 yin 引 (“protection” privilege) Yingchang fu 穎昌府

243

Yingzhou 郢州 Yingzong 英宗, emperor (r. 1063–1067) yinxun 因循 (routine-minded conservatives) Yin Zhu 尹洙 (1001–1047) yi si tuo gong 以私託公 Yongle 永樂 Yongxing jun 永興軍 Yongzheng 雍正, emperor (r. 1723– 1735) Yongzhou 永州 you peng zi yuanfang lai, bu yi le hu 有朋 自遠方來, 不亦樂乎 youpuye 右僕射 (grand councilor of the right) you sijian 右司諫 (remonstrator of the right) you xin qiao qiao, wen yu qun xiao 優心悄 悄, 慍于羣小 you zhengyan 右正言 (exhorter of the right) Yu 禹, sage-king Yuan 元帝, emperor of Han (r. 48–33 BCE) Yuanfeng 元豐 era (1078–1085) Yuanfu 元符 era (1098–1100) Yuan Shikai 袁世凱 (1859–1916) Yuanyou 元祐 era (1086–1094) Yuanyou dang 元祐黨 (“Yuanyou faction”) Yuanyou dangren 元祐黨人 (Yuanyou factionalists) Yu Jing 余靖 (1000–1064) Yunzhou 荺州 yushi 御史 (censor) Yushitai 御史臺 (Censorate) yushi zhongcheng 御史中丞 (vice censor in-chief) yuyizhe 喻義者 (those who understand gain)

244

Glossary

zaixiang 宰相 (grand councilor) Zeng Bu 曾布 (1036–1107) Zeng Gong 曾鞏 (1019–1083) Zeng Gongliang 曾公亮 (999–1078) Zengzi 曾子 Zhai Si 翟思 (jinshi 1070) Zhang Dun 章惇 (1035–1105) Zhang Hu 張琥 (n.d.) Zhang Jian 張戩 (1030–1076) Zhang Juzheng 張居正 (1525–1582) Zhang Shangying 張商英 (1043–1121) Zhang Shizhi 張釋之 (n.d.) Zhang Shunmin 張舜民 (jinshi 1065) zhao 詔 (edict) Zhao Ding 趙鼎 (1085–1147) Zhao Hao 趙顥 (fl. 1060–1086), prince of Yong 雍王 Zhao Huan 趙桓, Emperor Qinzong (r. 1126–1127) Zhao Ji 趙佶, prince of Duan 端王 (1082–1135), later Emperor Huizong Zhao Jun 趙頵 (1056–1088), prince of Cao 曹王 Zhao Ruyu 趙汝愚 (1140–1196) Zhao Shu 趙曙, Emperor Yingzong (r. 1063–1067) Zhao Si 趙似 (d. 1127), prince of Jian 簡王 Zhao Tingzhi 趙挺之 (1040–1107) Zhao Xu 趙頊, Emperor Shenzong (r. 1067–1085) Zhao Yong 趙傭, later Zhao Xu 趙煦 (1076–1100), prince of Yan’an 延安王, later Emperor Zhezong Zhao Yunrang 趙允讓 (995–1059), prince of Pu 濮王 Zhaozong 昭宗, emperor of Tang (r. 889–904) Zhedong 浙東

Zhejiang 浙江 zhen 真 (truth) zheng 正 (rectitude, righteous) zhengdang (J: seitò) 政黨 (political party) Zhenghe 政和 era (1111–1118) Zheng Jian 鄭戬 (992–1053) Zhengli men 正禮門 (Gate of Rectified Ritual) zhengren 正人 (righteous men) zheng shang 正上 (superior in righteous ness) zhengtong 正統 (legitimate dynastic succession) Zheng Xia 鄭俠 (1041–1119) zheng xia 正下 (inferior in righteous ness) Zheng Yong 鄭雍 (1031–1098) zheng zhong 正中 (middling in righ teousness) zhenpeng 真朋 (true affiliations) Zhenzong 真宗, emperor (r. 997–1022) Zhezong 哲宗, emperor (r. 1085–1100) Zhezong shilu 哲宗實錄 (Veritable Records of Emperor Zhezong) zhi Jianyuan 知諫院 (director of the Remonstrance Bureau) zhi Shumi yuan shi 知樞密院事 (direc tor of the Bureau of Military Affairs) Zhizhi sansi tiaolisi 制置三司條理司 (Finance Planning Commission) zhong 忠 (loyal, loyalty) Zhongshu sheng 中書省 Zhongshu sheren 中書舍人 (Secretariat drafter) Zhongshu shilang 中書侍朗 (vice director of the Secretariat) Zhongxiang 鍾祥 zhongxin wei zhou, adang wei bi 忠信為 周, 阿黨為比



Glossary

zhou 州 (prefecture) Zhou, duke of 周公 Zhou 紂, last king of Shang Zhouli 周禮 (Rites of Zhou) Zhouyi zhengyi 周易正義 Zhou Zhi 周秩 (jinshi 1076) zhuan dang 專黨 (monopolizing faction) Zhuan Xu 顓頊 Zhu Guangting 朱光庭 (1037–1094) Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) Zi Gong 子貢

245

Zizhi tongjian 資治通鑑 (Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Governance) Zou Hao 鄒浩 (1060–1111) zouyi 奏議 (memorial) zuo jianyi dafu 左諫議大夫 (grand master of remonstrance of the left) zuopuye 左僕射 (grand councilor of the left) zuo zhengyan 左正言 (exhorter of the left) Zuo zhuan 左傳 (The Narratives of Zuo)

References

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———. 1994. “BeiSong wanqi zhengzhi jianlun 北宋晚期政治簡論.” Zhongguoshi yanjiu 中國史研究 1994, no. 4:82–87. ———. 1996. “Luo Shu Shuo dangzheng bian 洛蜀朔黨爭辨.” In Jinxin ji: jinian Zhang Zhenglang xianzheng bashi qingshou wenji 盡心集: 張政烺先生八十慶 壽文集, edited by Wu Rongzeng 吴榮曾, 351–369. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe. Wechsler, Howard J. 1973. “Factionalism in Early T’ang Government.” In Perspec tives on the T’ang, edited by Denis Twitchett and Arthur F. Wright, 87–120. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Williamson, H. R. 1935–1937. Wang An-shih: Chinese Statesman and Educationalist of the Sung Dynasty. 2 vols. London: Arthur Probsthain. Wilson, Thomas A. 1995. Genealogy of the Way: The Construction and Uses of the Confu cian Tradition in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Xiao Qingwei 蕭慶偉. 1995. “Chegaiting shian pingyi 車蓋亭詩案平議.” Hebei daxue xuebao (zhexue shehui kexue ban) 河北大學學報 (哲學社会科學版) 1995, no. 1:50–56. Xu Gui 徐規. 1982. Wang Yucheng shiji zhuzuo biannian 王禹偁事迹著作编年. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe. Yang, Xiaoshan. 2004. “Li Deyu’s Pingquan Villa: Forming an Emblem from the Tang to the Song.” Asia Major (Third Series) 17, no. 2:45–88. Yu Yingshi 余英時. 2003. Zhu Xi de lishi shijie: Songdai shidafu zhengzhi wenhua de yanjiu 朱熹的歷史世界: 宋代士大夫政治文化的研究. 2 vols. Taibei: Yunchen wenhua shiye gufen youxian gongsi. Yu Yunguo 虞雲國. 1995. “Songdai taijian xitong de pohuai yu junquan xiangquan zhi guanxi 宋代臺諫系統的破壞與君權相權之關係.” Xueshu yuekan 學術月刊 1995, no. 11:56–63. Zhang Bangwei 張邦煒. 1994. “Lun Songdai de huangquan he xiangquan 論宋代的 皇權和相權.” Sichuan shifan daxue xuebao (shehui kexue ban) 四川師範大學學報 (社會科學版) 21, no. 2 (April 1994):60–68. ———. 2002a. “Song Huizong jiaose cuowei de laiyou 宋徽宗角色錯位的來由.” Sichuan shifan daxue xuebao (shehui kexue ban) 四川師範大學學報 (社會科學版) 29, no. 1 (January 2002):90–96. ———. 2002b. “Guanyu Jianzhong zhi zheng 關於建中之政.” Sichuan shifan daxue xuebao (shehui kexue ban) 四川師範大學學報 (社會科學版) 29, no. 6:99–108. Zhao, Jie. 2002. “A Decade of Considerable Significance: Late-Ming Factionalism in the Making, 1583–1593.” T’oung Pao 88:112–150. Zhuge Yibing 諸葛忆兵. 1996. “Luo Shu dangzheng bianxi 洛蜀黨爭辨析.” Nan jing shifan daxue xuebao (shehui kexue ban) 南京師範大學學報 (社會科學版) 1996, no. 4:100–105.

Index

Page numbers in bold refer to figures. Advisory Office (Jiangyi si), 150 Analects (Lunyu): as classical authority for faction theory, 34–36, 45; definitions of superior and petty men, 34, 193n18, 231n16; inter preted by Fan Ye, 38; interpreted by Liu Zhi, 87; interpreted by Ouyang Xiu, 49–50; interpreted by Sima Guang, 58, 77, 84–85, 201n65; usages of dang and peng, 25, 27 Ancient Prose (Guwen) movement, 46, 185n31 An Dun, 126, 141, 190n75 antireform coalition, 7–8, 11, 20–22; abolishes New Policies, 107, 109, 113, 116; blacklisted by Cai Jing’s ministry, 155–157; deported to Lingnan, 128, 138–139, 142, 156, 160; dominates Xuanren Regency, 104, 117–118; in historiography, 15, 167–168; as institutional centralists, 111–112; kinsmen and descendants punished, 142, 156; Luo-Shu-Shuo factional conflict within, 117–124; opposes New Policies, 77–82, 84–85, 87–88, 90–91, 94, 96; opposes Shaosheng “restoration,” 131–133; proscribed by Cai Jing’s ministry, 150–155; proscribed by Zhang Dun’s ministry, 139–140, 142–143; purged by Zhang Dun’s ministry, 135–136; purges reformists, 107– 117 passim; remonstrance inves-

tigated, 141–142, 151–154. See also “Yuanyou faction” Atwell, William, 175 authority, ministerial: as conceived by Ouyang Xiu, 50, 52; as conceived by Sima Guang, 58–59, 61; as conceived by Wang Anshi, 77–78; expansion of, 2, 6–8, 11, 20–22, 80, 87–88, 95–96, 116–117, 136– 137, 150, 157–158, 161; limits upon, 1–2, 6, 58–59, 85–86, 96, 133, 161 authority, monarchical: centralization of, 3–6; as conceived by Ouyang Xiu, 51–52; as conceived by Sima Guang, 58–59, 61; as conceived by Wang Anshi, 77; enhanced by fac tional rhetoric, 13–14, 20–23, 96– 98, 124–125, 160, 162–164; fallibil ity of, 71, 163; role as arbiter of factionalism, 1–2, 70–71, 75, 98, 163 Baker, Keith Michael, 191n81 Bol, Peter, 7, 57, 75–76, 111, 168, 183n13, 185n31, 204n2, 219n121, 230n7 Book of Changes (Yijing), 32–34, 36   —hexagrams: Guai and Bo, 66; Jian (Adversity, Hexagram 39), 25; Jian (Gradual Advance, Hexagram 53), 134–135; Tai and Pi, 33, 32–34, 78–79, 87, 105, 115, 117, 130   —interpretations of: Cheng Yi, 33–34; Fu Bi, 79; Liu Zhi, 87; Qin Guan, 66–67, 69; Sima Guang, 105; Su Che, 130; Sun Sheng, 115–116;

263

264

Index

Wang Anshi, 78–79; Wang Yansou, 108, 117; Zhang Shangying, 134– 135; Zhu Xi, 167 Book of Documents (Shangshu), 28–30, 35–36; conceptions of monarchi cal authority in, 28; “Great Plan” (Hong fan), 28–29, 35; interpreted by Ouyang Xiu, 51; interpreted by Sima Guang, 59–60; interpreted by Wang Anshi, 73, 81–82; inter preted by Yongzheng Emperor, 176; “Luo Announcement” (Luo gao), 29–30, 35–36 Book of Songs (Shijing), 115, 122, 124 Bossler, Beverly, 182n9, 183nn10, 12, 187n52, 228n126, 229n132 Brook, Timothy, 177, 233n40 bureaucracy, imperial: ideological polar ization of, 2–3, 5–8, 75–76, 96–98, 104, 125, 139–140, 158, 162–163; information flows within, 6; as political arena for shi elite, 1–2, 5–8, 9–13, 20–22. See also office holding, bureaucratic Bureau of Military Affairs (Shumi yuan), 72, 82, 95, 100, 106 Cai Bian, 133–134, 143, 190n75 Cai Jing, 8, 22; blacklists reformist rivals, 146, 150, 156; blamed for fall of Northern Song, 15, 159; and Chongning factional proscriptions, 150–157; dismissed and reappoint ed by Huizong, 157–158; dismissed by Qinsheng, 145; expands New Policies, 150, 158; and Korean Relations Institute case, 126–128; patronage regime of, 8, 158; super vises Hired Service policy, 136; vertical alliance with Huizong, 8, 149–150, 156, 158, 161 Cai Que, 21–22; accused in Carriage Canopy Pavilion inquisition, 99– 102; accused of factionalism, 108– 111, 113; accused of plotting to depose Zhezong, 127; death in Lingnan avenged, 126, 129, 135,

138–140, 142; deported to Ling nan, 102–103; dismissed by Xuan ren, 112; obstructs abolition of New Policies, 109; posthumously honored, 127, 138; as Shenzong’s councilor, 95, 105 Cai Xiang, 48 Cao, Empress, 105 Carriage Canopy Pavilion (Chegaiting) inquisition, 100–103, 118, 126, 138 Censorate (Yushitai), 6, 12; antireform ists neutralize, 120–121, 125; Cai Jing recaptures, 149–150; Cai Que neutralizes, 105, 107; as focus of opposition to New Policies, 80–82, 87; Qinsheng rebalances, 144–145; remonstrance investigated, 154; Sima Guang unleashes, 107–108, 114, 117; Wang Anshi neutralizes, 82–83, 88, 90; Zeng Bu fails to silence, 149; Zhang Dun neutral izes, 134, 140. Chaffee, John, 151, 157, 158, 168, 190n80, 220n6, 225n75, 229n130 Chanyuan, Treaty of, 9, 72 Cheng Hao, 27, 82 Chen Guan, 145, 148, 153 Cheng Yi, 17; commentary on Book of Changes, 33–34; deported to Ling nan, 128; in Luo-Shu-Shuo factional conflict, 69, 118, 122– 123; as progenitor of True Way Learning, 123, 168, 170; released from Lingnan, 144 Chongning factional proscriptions, 22, 146, 150, 155–157; compared to “false learning” proscriptions, 167– 168. See also factional blacklists classical hermeneutics, 19, 24; as frame of reference for faction theory, 28, 35–36, 45. See also Analects; Book of Changes; Book of Documents; Narratives of Zuo Communist Party, Chinese, 179 Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Govern ment (Zizhi tongjian), 60–61, 84–85



Index

“conciliation” (tiaoting), 129–130, 144–148 Council of State, 6; monopolized by Cai Jing, 150; monopolized by Sima Guang, 112–113; monopolized by Wang Anshi, 87; monopolized by Zhang Dun, 133. See also author ity, ministerial Dalby, Michael, 39, 196nn62, 65 dang (“fellowship”): classical definitions of, 25; Song definitions of, 26–27 Daoxue. See True Way Learning (Daoxue) movement Dardess, John, 171–172, 174–175 Davis, Richard, 56, 200n45, 229n135 Diao Zhongmin, 207n59 discourse of authority, court-centered, 3, 8, 14, 164, 180, 182n6; of anti reformists, 21, 104, 108–109, 124– 125, 133; in historiography, 14–15; in Ming dynasty, 23, 172–173, 177– 178, 179–180; of Ouyang Xiu, 56, 164; in Qing dynasty, 176–177, 179–180; of reformists, 74–75, 96, 129, 137, 155–157, 160; shared by factional rhetoricians, 17, 19, 160, 162–164, 172; shared by faction theorists, 20, 24, 44–45, 57, 70; in Southern Song, 167; in Yuan dynasty, 171–172; of Zhu Xi, 170 discourse of authority, modern statist, 178–179 discourse of authority, shi-oriented, 22, 164; of Ouyang Xiu, 165; of Zhu Xi, 165–168, 169–171 “Discourses on Factions” (Pengdang lun), 17, 20, 44–45, 70–71. See also Li Deyu, “Discourses on Factions”; Ouyang Xiu, “Discourses on Factions”; Qin Guan, “Discourses on Factions”; Sima Guang, “Dis courses on Factions”; Su Shi, “Discourses on Factions”; Wang Yucheng, “Discourses on Factions” Donglin Academy (Donglin shuyuan), 23, 173–175

265

Egan, Ronald, 203n96, 218n103 Elman, Benjamin, 60, 173, 174, 176, 234n60 emperors, Northern Song: administrative and political role of, 5–6; bureaucratic elite as creation of, 4–5; complicity in factional con flict, 1–3, 8, 163; personal identi fication with ministers’ policy agendas, 1–2, 7, 13, 161–162, 181n3. See also authority, monar chical; regents “faction” (dang, pengdang), 1, 12, 181n1; in classical hermeneutics, 25–27; in factional rhetoric, 13–14, 162– 163; in historical analogism, 36–39   —defined by: Cai Jing’s ministry, 150–153; Donglin Academy, 174; Fan Chunren, 102–103; Lü Tao, 121–122; Ouyang Xiu, 49–50, 55–56; Sima Guang, 58; Su Shi, 61; Wang Anshi, 74; Wang Yucheng, 47; Yongzheng Emperor, 176–177; Zhu Xi, 166–167 factional blacklists (dangji), 8, 22; under Cai Jing’s ministry, 150, 155–157; under Han Tuozhou’s ministry, 167; under Zhang Dun’s ministry, 141–142. See also Chongning factional proscriptions; “false learning” (weixue) proscriptions factional conflict, Northern Song: bru talization of, 8, 103, 139–140, 150, 153–157, 160; difficulty of concili ating, 129–130, 147–149; early Northern Song precursors of, 9–10; ideological causes of, 7–8; ideologi cal polarization of, 2–3, 5–8, 96–98, 104, 125, 139–140, 162–163; social causes of, 3–5; Song and Yuan historiography of, 14–15; twentieth century historiography of, 16–17 factional rhetoric, 2, 187n55; discon nected from political practice, 7, 12–13, 19, 45, 109, 160, 162–163; limits of, 14, 17, 27, 160; resistance

266

Index

to redefinition, 147–148, 160, 161– 163; shared by reformists and antireformists, 8, 13–14, 96–98, 109, 124–125, 131, 142–143, 148– 149, 160–163; of Southern Song, 22–23, 165–171; of Yuan and Ming dynasties, 23–24, 171–176 factional rhetoric, antireformist: of anti reform era, 99–103, 105–117, 124– 125; of Luo-Shu-Shuo factional conflict, 118–124; of post-reform era, 129–132, 144–146; of reform era, 80–81, 84–85, 87–88, 96–98 factional rhetoric, reformist: of factional infighting, 89–95, 97; of post-reform era, 126–129, 132–144, 149–157, 160; of reform era, 72–74, 77–79, 81–83, 85–86, 96–98; utopianism of, 77–78, 152–153, 156–157 factions, Ming dynasty, 12–13, 23, 172–178 factions, Northern Song dynasty: com pared to modern political parties, 12, 23, 178–179; difficulty of pub licly acknowledging, 14, 17, 27, 160, 161–163; limited longevity of, 13; limited membership of, 12–13; negative representations of, 13–14, 24–25, 40–41, 96–98, 124–125, 160, 162–163; private acknowledgments of, 22, 27, 166, 169 factions, Qing dynasty, 176–177 factions, Southern Song dynasty, 165–171 factions, Yuan dynasty, 171–172 faction theory, 17, 44–45, 70, 182n7; of Fan Chunren, 102–103; of Fan Zhongyan, 43, 49; of Fu Bi, 79; of Li Deyu, 39–40; of Lü Tao, 121– 122; of Ouyang Xiu, 43–44, 49–56, 70; of Sima Guang, 56–60, 70, 96– 97; of Su Shi, 61–65, 70; of Wang Anshi, 73–74, 78–79, 85–87, 96–97; of Wang Yucheng, 46–47, 70 “false learning” (weixue) proscriptions, 165, 167–168 Fan Chunren: opposes deportation of Cai Que, 102–103; opposes New

Policies, 80–81; pleads clemency for “Yuanyou faction,” 140; post humously punished, 153; purged from Zhezong’s court, 133, 135; rehabilitated by Qinsheng, 144; subjective view of factionalism, 102–103; “thorny path” predictions of, 103, 128, 131 Fan Zhongyan, 9–10, 20; dismissed by Renzong, 44, 52–53; faction theory of, 43, 49; implements Qingli Re forms, 48; influences Sima Guang, 11, 57; influences Wang Anshi, 10, 11, 57, 76; as institutional central ist, 9–11, 48; public acknowledg ment of factionalism, 13, 27, 42–43, 48–49, 162 Fan Zuyu, 131–132, 135 Feng Jing, 82, 91–92 Finance Planning Commission (Zhizhi sansi tiaolisi), 79–81, 84, 150 Five Dynasties, 4, 9; historiography of, 53–56 foreign policy, Northern Song: war and peace with Jin, 4, 15, 159, 176; war and peace with Liao, 4, 9, 72; war and peace with Xi Xia, 72–73, 117 Fu Bi, 10; faction theory of, 79; opposes New Policies, 78–80; and Qingli Reforms, 48, 68; as Renzong’s councilor, 57; as Shenzong’s coun cilor, 76, 84 Gaozong, Emperor of Song, 15, 157 gong. See “public good” Gong Guai, 145, 153 grand councilors (zaixiang), 6–7. See also authority, ministerial Great Proscription (Danggu), 36–38, 40, 175; interpreted by Liu Zhi, 87; interpreted by Ouyang Xiu, 51, 54; interpreted by Qin Guan, 67; interpreted by Wang Anshi, 85 Green Sprouts policy (Qingmiao fa): Sima Guang abolishes, 116; Wang Anshi implements, 81–82, 84; Zhang



Index

Dun revives, 136; Zhu Xi adapts into community granaries, 169 Guangzong, Emperor, 170 Han Feizi, 26 Han Qi, 10–11, 48, 68, 144 Han Wei, 77, 123 Han Zhongyan, 22, 144, 146–147, 149 Hartman, Charles, 168, 183n10, 188n65, 189n69 Hartwell, Robert, 17, 181n3, 182n9, 189n71, 191n1 Hirata Shigeki, 184n19 Hired Service policy (Mianyi fa): Lü Huiqing alters, 92; Sima Guang abolishes, 113, 116; Wang Anshi implements, 87, 89; Zeng Bu man ages, 87; Zhang Dun revives, 136 historical analogism, 18, 20, 24; defined, 191n1; as frame of reference for faction theory, 36–40, 45 History of the Former Han (Han shu), 26, 37–38 History of the Latter Han (Hou Han shu), 26, 38–39 Hon, Tze-ki, 32, 33, 163, 194nn38, 41, 200n44 Huizong, Emperor, 2, 22; begins per sonal rule, 146; captivity and death, 159; complicit in factional pro scriptions, 154–155; enthroned, 143; official historiography of reign, 15; political stability under, 8, 158; supports factional concilia tion, 147–148; transforms political culture, 159; vertical alliance with Cai Jing, 8, 149–150, 156 Hymes, Robert, 17, 164, 166, 169, 171, 182nn6, 9, 204n15, 230n8, 233n37 ideological unanimity: as basis for fac tions, 2–3, 5–8, 10–11, 14, 162–163; of Cai Jing’s reformists, 150, 153– 154, 156, 158; of Luo, Shu, and Shuo factions, 118; as Ouyang Xiu’s ideal, 43, 50; of Sima Guang’s antireformists, 108–109, 112–113,

267

124–125; of Wang Anshi’s reform ists, 75–76, 77–79, 84–86, 88, 93, 96–97; of Zhang Dun’s reformists, 133–135, 140, 142–143; of Zhu Xi’s True Way Learning move ment, 166–169 Imperial University (Taixue), 88, 158– 159, 229n135 institutions, central government, 5–7; as focus of Northern Song state craft ideology, 7–8, 52, 57, 75, 111–112, 143, 158–159, 172 institutions, local voluntary, 165–166, 169, 171 Investigation and Prosecution Bureau (Suli suo), 141–142 Ji, Xiao-bin, 6, 58–59, 78, 85, 181n3, 186n35, 201nn60, 62, 208n71, 214n37, 215n69, 216n72, 217n90 junzi. See “superior men” Jurchen Jin Empire, 4; invasion of North China, 8, 15, 159, 176 Kaifeng, as political center of Northern Song Empire, 1, 8, 182n9; fall of, 8, 15, 159 Khitan Liao Empire, 4; seizure of Six teen Prefectures, 9; treaty of Chan yuan with, 9, 72; Wang Anshi and Wen Yanbo debate policy towards, 72–74 Kong Yingda, 26, 29, 30 Korean Relations Institute (Tongwen guan) inquisition, 22, 126–128 Kou Zhun, 9, 101 “Lesser Yuanyou” (xiao Yuanyou) ministry, 157 Liang Tao: accused in Korean Relations Institute case, 127; accused of fac tionalism, 135, 138; advocates deportation of Cai Que, 100–103; in Luo-Shu-Shuo conflict, 121 Li Deyu, “Discourse on Factions,” 39–40 Lingnan, deportation of officials to, 21–

268

Index

22, 64, 101–103, 126–128, 138–139, 154–157 Li Qingchen, 130, 132 Li Tao, 18, 197n2, 210n107, 211n6, 217n102, 221nn12, 20 Liu Anshi, 99, 101, 103, 127, 128, 138, 144, 197n11 Liu, James T. C., 16, 56, 184n20, 185n27, 189n71, 197n4, 199nn23, 31, 217n101, 222n28 Liu, Lydia, 178 Liu Zheng (1129–1206), 166–167 Liu Zhi: accused in Korean Relations Institute case, 127–128; accused of factionalism, 130; accuses reform ists of factionalism, 99, 107–108, 109–111, 114, 117; advocates deportation of Cai Que, 101–103; leads Shuo faction, 118, 121–122; opposes New Policies, 87–89; post humously punished, 153; purged by reformists, 135; supports fac tional conciliation, 130, 146, 162; as Xuanren’s councilor, 118, 129–130 Lizong, Emperor, 168–169 local academies (shuyuan), 12, 23, 169 Loewe, Michael, 195n54 Long Draft of the Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Governance (Xu zizhi tongjian changbian), 18, 190n77 Lorge, Peter, 186n40 “loyalty” (zhong), 13–14, 27–28, 98, 109, 161–163, 164–170 passim; as defined by Ouyang Xiu, 50, 53–54 Lü Dafang: accused of factionalism, 135–140 passim; advocates deporta tion of Cai Que, 102–103; deport ed to Lingnan, 128; dismissed by Zhezong, 133; posthumously punished, 153 Lü Gongzhu: accused in Korean Rela tions Institute inquisition, 128; attacked by Wang Anshi, 82; in Luoyang exile, 89; opposes New

Policies, 81, 94; partially rehabili tated by Shenzong, 95, 105; post humously punished, 128, 138–139, 142, 153; as Xuanren’s councilor, 107, 113, 118, 120 Lü Huiqing, 21; accused of factional ism, 114–115; dismissed by Shen zong, 93; impeached by Sima Guang, 84; manages New Policies, 81; replaces Wang Anshi as Shen zong’s councilor, 89, 91–92; strikes back at accusers, 95 Luo faction, 118–123 passim, 125; as precursors of True Way Learning, 118, 158–159 Luo Jiaxiang, 126, 189n70, 211n4, 217n102 Luo-Shu-Shuo factional conflict (Luo Shu-Shuo dangzheng), 21, 69, 104, 117–124 Luoyang: as base of Luo faction, 118; as center of antireform opposition, 60, 89, 95, 105, 187n53, 211n131 Lü Tao: faction theory of, 121–122; in Luo-Shu-Shuo factional conflict, 120–122 passim; opposes Shao sheng “restoration,” 132; released from Lingnan, 144 Lü Yijian, 42, 48 Lü Zuqian, 166 Memorials of Various Song Dynasty Minis ters (Songchao zhuchen zouyi), 18 Mengzi, 27, 73, 80, 168–169, 192n14 Miller, Harry, 174 Mote, Frederick, 78, 173, 184n20, 186n38 Munro, Donald, 182n8, 192n12, 197n8 Mutual Security policy (Baojia fa): Sima Guang abolishes, 107; Wang Anshi implements, 87; Zhu Xi adapts into community compacts, 169 Narratives of Zuo (Zuo zhuan): inter preted by Ouyang Xiu, 51; inter preted by Qin Guan, 67, 69; interpreted by Wang Anshi, 81;



Index

interpreted by Wang Yucheng, 46–47; narrative of Eight Paragons and Eight Primes, 30–31, 36; narrative of Four Fiends, 31–32, 36 Nationalist Party, Chinese (Guomin dang), 178–179 Networks, elite sociopolitical, 4–5 New History of the Five Dynasties, 53–56, 103, 119 New Policies (Xinfa), 7, 11; Cai Jing expands, 150, 158; Fu Bi opposes, 79; Lü Gongzhu opposes, 81, 94; Lü Huiqing manages, 81, 92; Shen zong invites criticism of, 89–90; Sima Guang abolishes, 107, 109, 113, 116; Sima Guang opposes, 60, 77–78, 84–85, 88, 90, 105–106; Southern Song and Yuan denuncia tions of, 15, 159; Wang Anshi im plements, 20–21, 75, 78–81 passim, 87–89; Zhang Dun revives, 136; Zhu Xi adapts into local voluntary institutions, 169. See also Green Sprouts policy; Hired Service policy; Mutual Security policy; State Trade policy; Three Halls policy Ningzong, Emperor, 167 Niu-Li factional conflict (Niu–Li dang zheng), 37, 39–40; interpreted by Lü Tao, 121–122; interpreted by Qin Guan, 67; interpreted by Sima Guang, 58; interpreted by Wang Yucheng, 46 Nylan, Michael, 28, 193nn19, 20, 194n29 officeholding, bureaucratic: as elite strategy of self-perpetuation, 3–4; increased competition for, 4–5 “orthodox transmission of the Way” (Daotong), 168–169 “our faction.” See wudang Ouyang Xiu, 9–10; dismissed by Ren zong, 53; publicly acknowledges existence of own faction, 13, 20, 27, 162; and Qingli Reforms, 47–48; as

269

Renzong’s state councilor, 10, 57; and rites controversy, 11 Ouyang Xiu, “Discourse on Factions” (Pengdang lun), 10, 14, 20, 41, 43–44, 49–56, 70; compared to “Discourse on Fundamentals,” 52; compared to New History of the Five Dynasties, 53–56; discourses of authority in, 164–165; influence on Donglin Academy, 173–175, 179; influence on Fan Chunren, 213n25; reinter prets Analects, 49; reinterprets his tory, 51; Renzong rejects premises of, 44, 52–53, 164–165; true factions of superior men, 50; Wang Anshi disputes, 73 parties, modern Chinese political, 23, 178–179 peng (affiliation), 25 pengdang. See “faction” “petty men” (xiaoren): defined, 2–3; defined by Cai Jing’s ministry, 150–151; defined by Liu Zhi, 87; defined by Ouyang Xiu, 49–50; defined by Sima Guang, 57–58, 109; defined by Su Shi, 62; defined by Wang Anshi, 86; as inherently factious, 13–14, 24–25, 36, 40–41, 162, 180 Pocock, J. G. A., 189n74, 197n10 political rhetoric. See factional rhetoric political theory. See faction theory “private interest” (si): defined by Donglin Academy, 174; defined by Ouyang Xiu, 50; defined by Sima Guang, 57; defined by Zhu Xi, 170; as defining quality of petty men 3, 24, 26, 162 “public good” (gong): as classical virtue, 28, 30–32, 34–36; defined by Dong lin Academy, 174; defined by Ouyang Xiu, 50; defined by Sima Guang, 57; defined by Wang Anshi, 86; defined by Zhu Xi, 166–167, 170; as defining quality of superior men, 3, 17, 163

270

Index

Qingli Reforms (Qingli xinzheng), 9–10; Fan Zhongyan implements, 48; influences New Policies, 10, 11, 57, 76; influences Sima Guang, 11, 57; interpreted by Qin Guan, 68; Ren zong abolishes, 44, 53 Qin Guan, 65, 135 Qin Guan, “Discourse on Factions,” 20, 65–70; factions of superior and petty men, 65; historical analogism in, 67–68; impossibility of eliminat ing factions en masse, 65–66, 68; parallels between factions and rebels, 68; possible political con texts of, 69–70, 135; subjective view of factionalism, 68, 162 Qinsheng, Empress Dowager, 22; com pared to Xuanren, 152; regency of, 129, 143–149; rehabilitates antire formists, 144–145; supports factional conciliation, 144–145 Qinzong, Emperor, 159 reform coalition, 7–8, 11, 20–22; frac tured by infighting, 89–95; Huizong supports Cai Jing’s ministry, 149–150, 158–159; Shenzong supports Wang Anshi’s ministry, 75–76, 87–89; in Southern Song historiography, 15, 159; Xuanren purges Cai Que’s ministry, 107–116 passim; Zhezong rehabilitates Zhang Dun’s ministry, 130–131, 134–137 regents, 1–3, 5–8, 13, 97–98, 100–101, 105, 132, 181n4. See also Cao, Em press; Qinsheng, Empress Dowager; Xuanren, Empress Dowager Remonstrance Bureau (Jianyuan), 6, 12: antireformists neutralize, 120–121, 125; Cai Jing recaptures, 149–150; Cai Que neutralizes, 105, 107; as focus of opposition to New Policies, 80–83, 87; Qinsheng rebalances, 144–145; remonstrance investigated, 154; Sima Guang unleashes, 107– 108, 114; Wang Anshi neutralizes, 82–83, 88, 90; Zeng Bu fails to

silence, 149; Zhang Dun neutral izes, 134, 140. See also Censorate Renzong, Emperor, 6, 9–10, 20; abol ishes Qingli Reforms, 44, 53; as audience of Ouyang Xiu’s “Dis course on Factions,” 49–50, 52, 164, 173, 179; and Fan Zhongyan, 42– 43, 48–49; implements Qingli Reforms, 48; vigilance about factionalism, 42, 52 Restoration Society (Fu She), 23, 175–177 rites controversy, 10-11 Sariti, Anthony, 58–59 Schaberg, David, 192n7 Schirokauer, Conrad, 166, 169, 231n20 Schwartz, Benjamin, 193n18 Shaosheng “restoration” (shaoshu), 21–22, 130–134, 162 Shen Songqin, 189n70, 207n59 Shenzong, Emperor, 2, 7; controls reform apparatus, 95–96, 105; enthroned, 76; glorified by Cai Jing’s ministry, 151; glorified by Zhang Dun’s ministry, 132–133; ill health and death of, 95–96, 104; and Lü Huiqing, 89, 91; official historiography of reign, 14–15; personally identifies with New Poli cies, 11, 20–21, 78–80, 88–89, 96– 97; vertical alliance with Wang Anshi, 20, 75, 78, 83, 87, 89, 161; war against Xi Xia, 95–96 shi (“gentlemen”) elite: in Northern Song, 3–4, 7–8, 171; in Southern Song, 170–171 Shu faction, 118–123 passim, 125 Shuo faction, 118–123 passim, 125, 130 si. See “private interest” Sima Guang, 7, 21; abolishes New Poli cies, 107, 109, 113, 116; conserva tive ideology of, 7, 57, 61; early career of, 57; exile in Luoyang, 60, 88–89, 90; ill health and death of, 117; influences Restoration Society, 175; influences Yuan factional



Index

rhetoric, 172; opposes New Policies, 11, 77–78, 84–85, 88–89, 90, 105– 106; partially rehabilitated, 95, 105; posthumously denounced, 152; posthumously implicated in Korean Relations Institute inquisition, 127– 128; posthumously punished, 138– 139, 142, 153; and rites controversy, 11; and Shenzong, 77, 84–85; verti cal alliance with Xuanren, 21, 104– 106, 112–114, 116–117, 124, 161 Sima Guang, “Discourse on Factions,” 20, 56–61, 70, 96–97; classical hermeneutics in, 35–36, 59–60; compared to Comprehensive Mirror, 60–61; factions as cause of dynastic collapse, 58, 60–61; factions of petty men, 58; political context of, 61; similarities with Wang Anshi’s fac tion theory, 96–97; vulnerability of superior men, 58 Sixteen Prefectures, 9, 46, 72, 159 Smith, Paul, 204n10, 207n49, 209n97 Song History (Song shi), 15, 157; bio graphy of Wang Yucheng, 46; “Treacherous Minister” biogra phies, 15, 126–127, 188nn64, 65, 190n75, 214n36, 226n88 Standen, Naomi, 13, 53–54, 200n44, 201n62 State History of the Four Reigns (Sichao guoshi), 15 “state policy consensus” (guoshi), 1–2, 161–162, 181n3, 205n33, 213n31, 221n18 State Trade policy (Shiyi fa): Sima Guang abolishes, 109; Wang Anshi implements, 91; Zeng Bu opposes, 92; Zhang Dun revives, 136 Su Che, 107, 108; accuses reformists of factionalism, 112, 114–115, 124, 130; deported, 138–139; member of Shu faction, 118; opposes Shao sheng “restoration,” 133; purged by Zhang Dun, 135–136 “superior men” (junzi): as classical ideal, 32–36; defined, 2–3; defined

271

by Donglin Academy, 174–175; defined by Fan Zhongyan, 42–43, 48–49; defined by Ouyang Xiu, 10, 20, 43, 49–50, 55–56; defined by Sima Guang, 57–58, 109; defined by Su Shi, 62; defined by Wang Anshi, 86, 109; defined by Wang Yucheng, 46–47; defined by Zhu Xi, 166–167, 170; as inherently faction less, 13, 19, 24–25, 28, 40, 96, 162, 180 Su Shi: deported to Lingnan, 64, 128, 139; exiled to Huangzhou, 64; in Luo-Shu-Shuo factional conflict, 69, 118–121 passim, 123; opposes deportation of Cai Que, 102; opposes New Policies, 64; purged by Zhang Dun, 135; released from Lingnan, 144 Su Shi, “Discourse on Factions,” 20, 44, 61–65, 70; factions of petty and superior men, 61; influence of Ouyang Xiu on, 61–62; parallels between factions and rebels, 64; possible political contexts of, 64–65, 135; urges ruler to purge individual petty men, 62-64; vulnerability of superior men, 62 Taizong, Emperor of Song, 4, 9, 46, 73 Taizu, Emperor, 4, 101 Tangut Xi Xia dynasty, 48, 74, 95, 117, 120, 133 Three Halls policy (Sanshe fa): Cai Jing expands, 158; Wang Anshi imple ments, 88; Zhu Xi adapts into local academies, 169 Tillman, Hoyt, 166, 230n8, 231nn16, 20, 232nn26, 27 Topical Narratives of the Long Draft of the Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Governance (Xu zizhi tongjian changbian jishi benmo), 18, 190n78 True Way Learning (Daoxue) move ment, 22; and Chongning factional proscriptions, 157–159 passim, 167–

272

Index

168; influence on Donglin Academy, 174; internal history of, 167–168; and Luo faction, 118, 122–123; promotion of local voluntary insti tutions, 165–166, 169, 171; pro scribed as “false learning,” 165, 167; self-described as “our faction,” 22, 27, 166, 171; shi-oriented discourse of authority of, 165–171 passim Tsin, Michael, 234n66 Veritable Records (Shilu), 14–15, 17–18 vertical alliances between monarchs and ministers, 1–2, 6–7, 20–22, 97–98, 124, 162–163 von Glahn, Richard, 230n142 Wakeman, Frederic Jr., 188n57, 193nn18, 23, 197n9, 233n50, 234n51 Walton, Linda, 169, 230n6 Wang Anshi, 2, 20–21; appointed councilor, 87; death of, 113, 139; dismissed by Shenzong, 91, 94–95; early career, 76; faction theory, 73– 74, 78–79, 85–87; in historiography, 15; implements New Policies, 75, 78–81 passim, 87–89; influenced by Qingli Reforms, 10, 11, 57, 76–77; influences Yuan factional rhetoric, 172; instigates factional conflict, 6, 11, 20–21, 57, 71, 75, 79, 88–89; intolerance of dissent, 75–76, 78, 82–86, 88; monopolizes Council of State, 84–89 passim; “Myriad Word Memorial,” 76; purges antireform ists, 80–83; purges Lü Huiqing, 92–93; reappointed councilor, 92; reformist ideology of, 7, 11, 77–78, 81, 85; retires, 95; vertical alliance with Shenzong, 20, 75, 78, 83, 87, 89, 161 Wang Yansou: accused in Korean Rela tions Institute case, 127; accuses reformists of factionalism, 107–108, 113; advocates deportation of Cai

Que, 101; deported to Lingnan, 142; eulogizes Sima Guang, 117; in Luo– Shu–Shuo factional conflict, 119–121 passim Wang Yucheng, “Discourse on Factions,” 46–47 Wanli Emperor, 174–175, 233n39 Wechsler, Howard, 181n1, 196n60 Wen Yanbo: debates border policy with Wang Anshi, 72–74; opposes New Policies, 80, 82; posthumously de nounced, 138; posthumously impli cated in Korean Relations Institute inquisition, 127; as Xuanren’s councilor, 113, 120, 122 Wenzong, Emperor of Tang, 37, 39, 46, 58, 60–61, 63, 67 Wilson, Thomas, 168 Wu Chuhou, 99–100, 138 wudang (“our affiliation,” “our faction”): usage in Analects, 27; used by Cheng Hao, 27; used by Su Shi, 27; used by Wang Anshi, 27; used by Zhu Xi, 166, 169–171 Xiao Qingwei, 212n18 xiaoren. See “petty men” Xiaozong, Emperor, 15 Xing Shu, 126–127, 145, 190n75 Xuanren, Empress Dowager, 21; approves deportation of Cai Que, 100–104; death of, 130; invested as regent, 99, 104–105; opposes New Policies, 88, 104; personally identi fies with Yuanyou “reversion,” 105, 113, 125; as possible audience of Qin Guan’s “Discourse on Factions,” 65, 68–70; posthumously denounced, 139, 151, 152; as representative of imperial clan and consort family interests, 105; vertical alliance with Sima Guang, 21, 104–106, 112–114, 124, 161 Xunzi, 26 Yingzong, Emperor, 6, 10–11, 59, 76–78 passim, 83, 88, 116



Index

Yongle, battle of, 95, 106 Yongzheng Emperor, 176–177, 179 “Yuanyou faction” (Yuanyou dang), 129, 131; blacklisted, 142, 155–157; deported to Lingnan, 128, 138–139, 142, 156, 160; includes Zhang Dun and Zeng Bu, 146, 150; kinsmen and descendants punished, 142, 156; posthumously punished, 138–139; proscribed, 139–140, 142–143, 150– 155; purged, 135–136; rehabilitated, 144; remonstrance investigated, 141, 151–154. See also antireform coalition Yuanyou “reversion” (genghua), 21, 104, 114, 124–125, 133, 162, 165 Yu Yingshi, 181n3, 185n29, 205n33, 213n31, 221n18 Zeng Bu, 22; advocates factional conci liation, 146–149, 160, 162, 165; advocates Huizong’s enthronement, 143; blacklisted, 150, 156; dismissed by Huizong, 149–150; as Huizong’s councilor, 146–147; investigates abuses of State Trade policy, 91; investigates antireformist remon strance, 141; manages Hired Service policy, 87; opposed by antireformist remonstrators, 147–148; opposes clemency for “Yuanyou faction,” 140 Zeng Gongliang, 76, 78, 80, 85, 87 Zhang Dun, 21–22; accused of faction alism, 108–111, 113, 148; black-

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listed, 146, 156; death in Lingnan, 146; dismissed by Qinsheng, 145– 146; dismissed by Xuanren, 113; manages New Policies, 92; obstructs abolition of New Policies, 108–109, 113, 116; opposes Huizong’s en thronement, 143; proscribes “Yuan you faction,” 139–140, 142–143; rehabilitated by Zhezong, 131, 133– 134; revives New Policies, 136–137; vertical alliance with Zhezong, 22, 133, 136–137 Zhang Shangying, 134–135, 139 Zhao, Jie, 233n39 Zhao Ruyu, 18, 167 Zheng Xia, 90–92 Zhenzong, Emperor, 4, 9, 73, 85, 101 Zhezong, Emperor, 2, 21–22; alleged plot to depose, 126–127; begins personal rule, 130; complicit in proscription of antireformists, 128, 138–139, 142; death of, 143; enthronement and minority of, 104–105; official historiography of reign, 15; personally identifies with Shaosheng “restoration,” 130–132, 136; vertical alliance with Zhang Dun, 22, 133, 136–137 Zhu Guangting, 108, 111, 118–121, 128 Zhu Xi, 22, 165; factions of superior men, 166–167; promotes local vol untary institutions, 169; proscribed by Han Tuozhou, 167; publicly acknowledges “our faction,” 166–171

About the Author

Ari Daniel Levine received his Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University in 2002. He has published articles on Song political culture and theory and has contributed two chapters to The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 5. He is currently assistant professor of history at the University of Georgia.

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