Rituals Of Recruitment In Tang China: Reading An Annual Programme In The Collected Statements By Wang Dingbao (870-940) (Sinica Leidensia)

RITUALS OF RECRUITMENT IN TANG CHINA

SINICA LEIDENSIA EDITED BY

W.L. IDEMA IN COOPERATION WITH

P.K. BOL • B.J. TER HAAR • D.R. KNECHTGES E.S. RAWSKI • E. ZÜRCHER • H.T. ZURNDORFER

VOLUME LXV

RITUALS OF RECRUITMENT IN TANG CHINA Reading an Annual Programme in the Collected Statements by Wang Dingbao (870–940) BY

OLIVER J. MOORE

BRILL LEIDEN • BOSTON 2004

The cover shows a rubbing taken from the back of a bronze mirror decorated with dragon and clouds, excavated from an eighth-century tomb near Yanshi, Henan province. After Xu Diankui and Archaeology Institute, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, eds, Yanshi Xingyuan Tang mu (Beijing, 2001): 141. This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Moore, Oliver J. Rituals of recruitment in Tang China : reading an annual programme in the Collected Statements by Wang Dingbao (870-940) / by Oliver J. Moore. p. cm. — (Sinica Leidensia ; v. 65) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 90-04-13937-0 1. China—Officials and employees—Recruiting—History. 2. Civil service—China—Examinations—History. 3. China—History—Tang dynasty, 618-907. I. Wang. Dingbao, 870-ca. 954. Tang zhi yan. English. Selections. II. Title. III. Series. JQ1512.M66 2004 352.6’5’095109021—dc21 2004047551

ISSN 0169-9563 ISBN 90 04 13937 0 © Copyright 2004 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS Acknowledgements ...................................................................... Note to the reader ....................................................................

vii ix

1. The annual programme of examination recruitment ........ The origins and development of the examination system ................ Degree titles .......................................................................... Syllabi in the annual examinations .......................................... The birth of an examination society ............................................ Ritual performances ....................................................................

1 10 13 16 18 21

2. Wang Dingbao and the compilation of Collected Statements .................................................................... The life of the compiler .............................................................. The compilation of the text .................................................... Documentary sources in Collected Statements ............................ Conclusion ................................................................................

26 27 44 50 65

3. Selections in the prefectures ................................................ 67 The rising status of Tang tribute scholars .................................... 69 Early and late Tang engagements with prefectural examinations ...................................................................... 77 The status of “degree-worthy” ................................................ 81 Reforms of prefectural selections at the capital .............................. 93 Conclusion ................................................................................ 100 4. Ceremonies of induction ...................................................... Recruitment as enactments of state ritual ...................................... The community wine-drinking ceremony .................................... The court assembly ................................................................ The visit to the former teachers .................................................. Conclusion ................................................................................

103 104 107 122 127 135

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5. Experiences of the examination ground .............................. Visits to examination patrons ...................................................... Examination sessions .................................................................. Lyrical views of the examination ground .................................. Announcing the results ............................................................ Conclusion ................................................................................

139 141 152 165 170 179

6. Ceremonies of gratitude ........................................................ Hopeful gatherings ...................................................................... The ceremony of gratitude .......................................................... The ceremony of gratitude and factionalism .............................. The procession through the Hall .............................................. Conclusion ................................................................................

181 182 186 202 218 226

7. Celebrations of success .......................................................... The formation of a jinshi association and its agenda .................... The development of the Qujiang resort ........................................ The organization of Qujiang banquets .......................................... Examinations and the Chang’an seasonal calendar .................... Examination celebrations as records of Chang’an social life .......... Conclusion ................................................................................

230 231 233 238 254 275 278

8. Conclusion .............................................................................. 281 Appendix: Contents and Sources of the Collected Statements .... Cited works ................................................................................ Chinese character list ................................................................ Index ..........................................................................................

285 355 381 401

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For comments on earlier drafts of this study I am extremely grateful to Barend ter Haar, Kenneth Hammond, David McMullen and the anonymous reader solicited by Brill Academic Publishers. I thank also Cambridge University Press for permission to use my essay in Joseph McDermott’s State and court ritual in China. I gained extra time and encouragement to finish this book thanks to Cai An, Cai Qin, Maghiel van Crevel, Tomiya Itaru and the generous welcome that I enjoyed during a visiting fellowship at Kyoto University in 2000.

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NOTE TO READER This book includes several translations from Wang Dingbao’s Collected Statements (Zhiyan). Whenever Wang Dingbao’s text features annotation in the traditional Chinese form of double columns, the translation presents it in parentheses. Numbers in bold type refer throughout to the Appendix, which locates citations of Collected Statements in the Chinese text used for the translations.

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CHAPTER ONE

THE ANNUAL PROGRAMME OF EXAMINATION RECRUITMENT This study is a reading of one man’s hindsight on the social life of civil service recruitment during the Tang dynasty (618–907). It translates and uses documents that Wang Dingbao (870–940), a late Tang scholar, preserved after the dynasty’s collapse. A few of these documents, like the following sample, reveal a sense of the compiler’s painstaking search for reliable evidence beside his acceptance of much less trustworthy anecdote: If we were to list degree titles then we would find that the Eminent Scholar [ junshi ] and the Brilliant Talent [xiucai ] flourished during the Han and the Wei. The Presented Scholar [ jinshi ], however, was founded in the Daye reign period [605–618] of the Sui. That Hou Junsu and Sun Fuqie, for example, were both Sui jinshi is sufficient proof. But, the degree gained its distinction in the Wude reign period [618–27], and became the premier degree during Zhenguan [627–50]. This was because emperor Wen [Taizong, r. 627–49] cultivated civil values and put aside military arms. Heaven approved and bestowed its genius [on this emperor] (4a). [Taizong] once visited the central gateway unofficially; from this position he watched new jinshi graduands emerge in formed ranks, and he remarked in delight: “The most outstanding men in the world have now entered within my range.” Similarly, [Tang] glory included all the peoples of the earth, and its fortune lasted for three hundred years. What if anything else could have been the reason for this Way? (4b)

Statements like these are typical of the bold style in which Wang Dingbao delivered views of the Tang past. Three hundred years of history was by no means enough to daunt his aim to validate the entire period and its political achievements by reference to a single degree title. Nor did the historiographical complexities that must arise over a remove of three centuries dissuade him from reading so confidently from so few facts and such slender accounts of hearsay concerning Tang examinations’ earliest history. Deep historical origins for the institution of degree titles formed part of the argument for isolating the importance of the examination

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system. So too did practices sanctioned by the precedents of earlier dynasties. Wang Dingbao emphasizes, however, that only the Tang title jinshi expressed the civil (wen) ideal of political rule authentically enough to manifest a new dynasty’s true legitimacy. This exaggerates somewhat. Nevertheless, it is fully on target as a sample of historical rhetoric reproducing its author’s deep faith in the jinshi degree as Tang elite society’s leading symbol of cultural supremacy as well as the supreme dignification of jinshi degree-holders’ political ascendancy. Through his imagination of Taizong’s view from a palace gateway, Wang Dingbao summons his favourite view of Tang examinations. He recalls scholars “in formed ranks”, that is performing in unison a ritual enactment of their group identity; he watches vicariously as they move through spatial zones and across temporal markers within their longer engagement with annual examinations. In this and many other instances analyzed in this study, Wang Dingbao shows the practical processes of examinations not as sequestered feats of intellectual performance but as visible acts of social display. His devotion to what this study will term “examination ritual” is not paralleled in any other source of the Tang and Five Dynasties. It demonstrates not only acute shifts in experiences of political recruitment throughout Tang history, it shows how the annual operation of examination recruitment assumed growing cultural relevance throughout the three centuries of Tang rule. The passages above, each referenced to a synopsis of the Collected Statements’ contents in the Appendix, are two quite different kinds of document. Their nature and their historical reliability are also themes of this study. Firstly, the declaration of the examinations’ antiquity is based on dependable documentary evidence. This included biographical accounts such as Hou Junsu’s official biographies in major Tang histories, namely History of the Sui and History of the Northern Dynasties. The second document is a recorded anecdote, which has no documentary history prior to the moment that Wang Dingbao related it here at the beginning and once more near the end of his text (401). Side by side, the diverse nature of these sources defines broadly the heterogeneity of Wang Dingbao’s Collected Statements. Many more inclusions in his text are quite literally transcriptions of Tang documents without a single intervention by the compiler; others are firsthand records of stories told or reported to him by word of mouth. They still belong to a category of hearsay even when he may have read them in collections whose compilers’ specialty was to

     

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collect this kind of record. To translate yan in the title of Wang Dingbao’s text as “statement” is admittedly a compromise, but one at least that does equal justice to history as it was both documented and talked. The heterogeneity of sources in Collected Statements is one of its distinctive features. It demands consideration of how reliably Wang Dingbao used these sources for the historical views that he presents. Taizong is the early Tang monarch whose rule Wang Dingbao magnifies as a founding cultural moment in the recruitment of the Tang bureaucracy. Wang Dingbao’s story of Taizong’s ecstatic view of a procession of recent degree-winners (4b) is frequently cited in modern scholarship as evidence of an early Tang recognition of the central role that the jinshi degree played in the dynasty’s elite politics and social life. This study will later question that Taizong ever saw exactly what Wang Dingbao recorded in this instance, and it will suggest that it was almost certainly fanciful. However, it will not assume that what is historically questionable need imply that it is an invalid source of cultural insights. Indeed this study will observe more than once that an early post-Tang discourse on recruitment frequently confused the elaborate conditions of late Tang examinations with the relatively simple structures of the system’s early Tang existence. If the conclusions of this study entertain no strong conviction that, for example, Taizong ever saw the smart jinshi parade that Wang Dingbao describes, still they seek to explain why Wang Dingbao ever claimed that Taizong beheld such a sight. They will argue that, following the Tang collapse in 907, the acculturation of examinations to Chinese official life was so profound that it defied even a well-informed tenth-century observer to conceptualize how this institution had once attracted little or no notice during the lengthy phase of its initial development. Tang scholars’ most lasting invention was examination culture. The system whereby officialdom in the Tang dynasty recruited a select number of its members each year by conferring degree titles had existed for barely three decades when the Tang assumed power, but it developed apace and eventually proved to be one of the most durable institutions of the following centuries of Chinese imperial history. A focus on Tang culture restricted to the sphere of recruitment examinations is admittedly narrow. Examinations imply literacy, and literate certainly does not describe the entire Tang community; moreover, recruitment implies inclusion, but examinations excluded

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both socially and intellectually many more people than they admitted. But, those involved in Tang examinations sustained a discourse on their activities that is among the most consistent phenomena of all Tang historical records. The aims of this study are to explore what Tang examinations represented to Wang Dingbao and to show how much his records of examinations add to previous knowledge of this major Tang institution. Wang Dingbao’s deepest familiarity with examinations during the latest phase of their Tang development is most advantageous. It offers opportunities to compare his records of late Tang knowledge with experiences of examination recruitment first documented decades or even centuries earlier. His priorities and achievements as an editor—no less than his mis-readings of the past—offer a unique tenthcentury snapshot of Chinese examination culture immediately following its full Tang evolution and only decades before its re-integration under Song rule. Senior departments of the Tang bureaucracy ran literary examinations for degree titles in almost every year of the dynasty’s existence. Ultimately, key moments of these annual operations became the most familiar means of telling the seasons. Tang officialdom gradually accepted the office of chief examiner as one of the highest embodiments of success that linked social life, political career patterns and intellectual authority; and, with increasingly regularity, the most acclaimed careers in government service featured the triumph of winning a degree title. In short, Tang recruitment by examination mediated social experience and political outlooks more regularly than any other institution during a long and pivotal period of Chinese history. By looking at the annual programme of this institution, this study examines how the Tang authorities conferred its most highly prized symbols of selection on a few fortunate winners. It shows how practical changes in the administration of examinations gave rise to quite different cultural contexts for competitive recruitment in the early and late phases of Tang history. It follows the interests of Wang Dingbao to demonstrate that the symbolic acts that examination entrants and examiners performed during the annual examinations underwent successive processes of renewal, affecting even the most basic forms and expressions of allegiance in Tang elite political society. Historians who approach the sources of the seventh to tenth centuries will find that Tang examination candidates seldom said much beyond anecdote concerning the hours spent writing their scripts

     

5

within the closed perimeter of their “examination ground” ( juchang). Instead, they will notice richer accounts of ceremonies performed both before and after examinations. Some examination candidates recalled, for instance, the moment when they took up stage-directed positions beside a display of annual tribute goods assembled for their ruler and his court. Participating in perhaps their first induction to officialdom in the capital, these witnesses beheld some of the most lavish court ceremonies ever performed in ancient China. Others remembered the more discreet assemblies of degree-winners during their formal expression of gratitude to the examiner and his family, gatherings that permitted deeply emotional pronouncements of obligation and loyalty. Still others recollected the heady days of parading, drinking and gaming during celebratory banquets staged in the major cultural venues of Chang’an and its surrounding landscape. This study surveys all these social engagements. Wang Dingbao’s text is saturated with his interest in gatherings at which the hosts, guests and interlopers represent almost the widest range of social classes that is possible to know. Although the opening sample of the Collected Statements’ content features a gathering of examination scholars set beneath the imperial gaze, royalty was by no means Wang Dingbao’s exclusive interest. He had eyes and ears for engagements at almost every level of a Tang candidate’s progress from his home village to the palace precincts. And, despite the literary gloss of records intended for literary readers, the real atmosphere at these gatherings is sometimes still apparent. One especially lively account, for example, treats readers to a rare perception of the colloquial Chinese with which two degree-holders traded insults during a notoriously un-controlled drinking party (326). Participants’ and onlookers’ reminiscences of examination recruitment reveal how members of the Tang political elite defined themselves as individuals, members of a group and as servants of the state. They further document medieval Chinese society at a moment when some of its most articulate members first drew on personal experiences of examination ceremonies in order to affirm commonly held career values and aspirations of friendship. Equally interesting are the critiques by some observers who protested, for instance, that examination candidates’ rightful position at tribute displays was in front of the goods rather than behind. The authors of even more trenchant critiques refuted that expressions of gratitude for a degree title had any sanction in tradition, and they objected that the celebration of degree conferrals

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should have been so extravagant. Thus, controversies arising from observations of examination ritual offer further views of its performances’ meanings to Tang officialdom. Wang Dingbao did not complete his Collected Statements probably until 916, but his interest in the past was almost exclusively taken up with the Tang period. His is the pathological nostalgia of the loyal survivor of political collapse, and his knowledge is that of the insider who boasts familiarity with the workings of a fallen regime, especially the manipulation of some of its most exclusive status symbols. His remote engagement with Tang culture after the dynasty’s collapse in 907 led him more than once to make claims that other historical sources do not substantiate, but his admiration for the Tang past nevertheless provided cohesion for his own diverse collection of documents. Collected Statements expresses the outlook of an individual compiler who advanced his views through the collective voice of others’ writings and reports. This is hardly straightforward. Wang Dingbao’s evaluation of the Tang examination system is not to be read so much in his direct statements but rather to be inferred from the topics addressed in the writings that he collected and preserved. One interpretative strategy in this study, therefore, is to gauge what Wang Dingbao recorded differently from other chroniclers of the Tang period and to characterize the uniqueness of his editorial stance. Three substantial topics that he alone documented with particular care include: the growth of examination competition and its formal controls at the prefectural level of government; the lonely and frequently traumatic experience of doing written examinations; the content and dimensions of examination ritual. The fact that no other Tang observer and no Song historian of the Tang past ever devoted as much attention as Wang Dingbao to these topics is a measure of what his text is worth. It is also the prime justification for a detailed scrutiny of his editorial achievements. Often cited in Tang research, Wang Dingbao’s text has never yet stimulated the book-length study that it deserves. Many aspects of Tang recruitment merit historical attention, but ritual provides one of the richest contexts for tracing the development of examinations as a social production throughout the dynasty’s entire existence. What this study will term “examination ritual”, however, is a modern coinage not borrowed from any Tang usage. It represents first of all the growing number of recorded experiences that show how ritual acts in the examinations changed fundamen-

     

7

tally over the entire course of the dynasty. Some of this writing displays the tensions that the elaboration of examination ritual often provoked. Central officialdom struggled within its own ranks to define the acceptable circumstances under which patrons and clients of career success should engage in ceremonies to celebrate patterns of social and political alignment. In a broader context, examination ceremonies involved quite disparate groups of society in supporting a candidate’s entrance, participating in his success and offering alternative strategies to bolster his status in case he failed at the final and most difficult stage—which generally he did. The present chapter will turn shortly to the question of Tang examinations and their historical roots. Wang Dingbao sometimes recorded moments in the annual examination programme of rituals that were highly self-referential or else direct reports of his closest associates’ experiences. Chapter 2 therefore analyzes the image that Wang Dingbao projected of his own status, and it isolates records of his own experiences in order to identify the crucial areas in his vision of Tang examination history. That chapter also evaluates his text as an heterogeneous yet worthy historical document by identifying its correspondences with the most celebrated Tang traditions of historiography as well as some of the period’s more neglected branches of historical record. The topics in chapters 3–7 assume the sequence of operations and ceremonies with which Wang Dingbao defined annual recruitment examinations. These chapters’ discussion of formal engagements and ritual acts describe them collectively as the annual examination programme. Although the notion of a “programme” is also not based on Tang terminology, the chronological order of Wang Dingbao’s records of examination ceremonies justifies this modern description as not utterly foreign to Tang conditions. The complexity of the annual programme grew throughout the dynasty at staggered intervals, a question that chapters 3–7 will address in successive analyses of the programme’s content. Chapter 3 considers Wang Dingbao’s documents of preliminary examinations administered predominantly in the prefectural administrations of Chang’an and nearby prefectures. Any picture of prefectural selection procedures during a period as remote as the Tang is bound to be extremely spotty. Nevertheless, Wang Dingbao’s records reveal that officialdom and its would-be recruits deepened formalized processes of induction at even the lowest level of the Tang

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recruitment structure. His text reveals how candidates, during the ninth century in particular, flocked enthusiastically towards prefectural tests and abandoned hitherto well-travelled avenues to career success in the government education system. As pressure built up in this preliminary level of the examination process, candidates and prefectural administrators also colluded in the creation of elaborate— and non-legal—pass lists. Wang Dingbao’s records of lists in the prefectures reveals a new function for these symbols of examination success normally associated with the end of the examinations and the state’s announcements of the results. Chapter 4 discusses Wang Dingbao’s records of major state rituals of induction, including the ancient community wine-drinking ceremony (xiang yinjiu) and early eighth-century ritual implementations, such as the visit to former teachers ( ye xianshi ) and the court audience (chaojian). These performances linked the progress of candidates from prefectural levels of government to their supervision by state authorities at the capital. Wang Dingbao’s knowledge of these ceremonies mixed his grasp of performances of the drinking ceremony during his lifetime with his understanding of court ceremonies dating to as long ago as the reign of Xuanzong (712–755). Wang Dingbao was above all familiar with the operation of prefectural administrations, and his experiences of government service belong mostly to the period of disunion following the final collapse of Tang central government in 907. Thus, it is not surprising that, from the perspective of life in the provinces, only the drinking ceremony caught his attention as a ritual with any genuine relevance to contemporary participation in the examination programme. Chapter 5 considers the examination sessions, the pivotal commitment of the programme that Wang Dingbao and his contemporaries knew best on the basis of shared experiences. This chapter analyzes the evidence of candidates entering and leaving the examination ground and witnessing the promulgation of their results. Wang Dingbao gathered accounts concerning a stage of the programme that was less ceremonially prescribed than any other. What he reveals of the examinations’ security procedures is usually only implicit, but he does document that these procedures gave rise to remarkable bouts of eccentric behaviour. Such accounts are welcome disruptions in the silence that otherwise obscures the antagonism that Tang examination conditions clearly provoked among candidates. Discussed in the same chapter are Wang Dingbao’s records of the attention lavished on ceremo-

     

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nial promulgations of the pass list and the list’s visual appearance. He documents too that, once released, the pass list often set off violent reactions from candidates aggrieved by their rejection. Chapters 6–7 deal with Wang Dingbao’s records of ceremonies that took place after the examination sessions. Chapter 6 discusses how, with the number of participants now reduced to successful jinshi graduands, the programme resumed with hopeful gatherings (qiji), the ceremony of gratitude (xie’en), and the procession through the Hall (guotang). Wang Dingbao shows that hopeful gatherings confirmed graduands’ membership in a corps before they engaged with the final ceremonies of the annual programme. He reveals that during most of the ninth century these men’s supreme commitment was the ceremony of gratitude. This was an expression of obligation to the graduands’ examiner. Formally, the procession through the Hall was a similar engagement, but Wang Dingbao’s directives for its performance differentiate it by showing how graduands assembled to voice their gratitude to the most senior members of the government, including on some occasions the emperor. Wang Dingbao’s documentation of the ceremony of gratitude illustrates to an unprecedented degree the tensions that arose in Tang approaches to examination ritual. Most representative is his record of a thorough critique of a ceremony that borrowed overtly Buddhist symbols to express undying ties of political alignment. Chapter 7 surveys the prescriptive accounts and the reminiscences that Wang Dingbao collected in the context of the examination programme’s final celebrations. In contrast to the programme’s previous events, ceremonies organized in and near the Qujiang resort permitted a much broader participation by other members of Chang’an society. Under the generic rubric of Qujiang banquets, Wang Dingbao listed feasts and ceremonies structured around hit-ball matches, hunts for tree peonies, cherry banquets and visits to view Buddha relics. He also prescribed how to assemble a congregation of graduands to sign their names (timing) together at the famous Ci’en Monastery. This chapter also shows that a special characteristic of graduands’ feasting was the almost rapacious degree to which they integrated seasonal festivals from the fuller calendar of Chang’an observances within the sequence of their own celebrations. Wang Dingbao was yet one more Tang graduand who exemplified the common habit of repackaging familiar Chang’an festive observances as the final stages of the annual examination programme. This sort of redefinition is most

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interesting. It shows that late Tang examination culture was not simply a separable sphere of its own ritual performances, special symbols and closed training systems. Instead, the end of the examination programme merged the bureaucracy’s recruitment priorities with the varied commitments of the annual cycle of Tang metropolitan life. As a series of ceremonies and festivities that fitted into a ritual cycle of bureaucratic operations, the system of recruitment that Wang Dingbao surveyed had grown spectacularly in the Tang period. Even though he did not document each stage of the cycle equally consistently, its main features were entirely familiar to the earliest readership of Collected Statements. Therefore, it is useful to lay out, in chronological order of their developments, the main features of this system, so much knowledge of which Wang Dingbao assumes. T        The Tang period was crucial in the longer historical development of civil service recruitment examinations. Examining men for degrees was a minor arm of recruitment during the Sui dynasty and the early Tang years. By the middle of the Tang dynasty, however, this bureaucratic operation had matured into an agency capable of returning huge political dividends to the minority who received and dispensed degree titles. The jinshi degree, in particular, rose from its low status in the Sui to become the late Tang period’s most competitive and prestigious avenue to a career in government service. Its syllabus underwent growing sophistication during the seventh century, until the priority for belles lettres reflected almost exclusively the composition skills and the dominant literary taste of the social elite who engaged with examinations. Simultaneously, the government’s dependence on schools in its own education directorate for an annual intake of candidates gradually weakened. The Tang elite became increasingly self-reliant in its efforts to provide its sons with educational resources and political connections. Examinations had existed centuries before the Tang dynasty rose to power. The Han government encouraged officials to recommend candidates to serve in central posts at the capital, and occasionally it tested these candidates’ aptitude. Some of the recommendations in this process were categorized with the same names used for later degree titles, such as Brilliant Talent (xiucai ) and Canonical Expert (mingjing),

     

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for example. However, Han recommendations to posts differed profoundly from the new system of recommendations to examinations instituted in the late sixth century. Since recommended men in the Han period were often officials already in post, the Han process was largely a means of transferring talented and proven officials from bureaucratic backwaters to prestigious posts closer to the emperor. Moreover, Han recommendations followed imperial decrees at irregular intervals; thus they were not annually recurrent operations of the bureaucracy.1 The men honoured by the recommendation systems of the Han and later governments during the period of division maintained individual rather than group identities, a factor which did not foster the characteristic cohesion of social and political interests among annual cohorts of Tang examination candidates.2 The institution of annual degree examinations first emerged under Sui rule. In 587 the government decreed all prefectures to send three men every year to the capital.3 Two decades later Sui China comprised 190 prefectures,4 so, notionally at least, the Sui system catered for 570 entrants each year. Several scholars identify the decree of 587 as the decisive moment in creating a new examination system that awarded degree titles annually.5 Nothing is known of the candidates that year, or precisely how they were examined. The degree titles included the mingjing and xiucai. Possibly the year 587 also witnessed the first institution of the jinshi degree under its initial title Guest Tribute (bingong). This degree was renamed the jinshi in 607.6 To what extent written testing featured in the selection processes for

1 Although in AD 36 Guangwudi did stipulate recommending xiucai candidates annually, it is unclear how effectively this measure endured (Hou Hanshu: 24.3559). 2 For remarks on Han practice as a forerunner to the later examination system, see Bielenstein (1980): 132–42. On more general forms of recruitment during the period of division before the Sui unification, see Holzman (1957). 3 Suishu: 1.25; TD: 14.342; CFYG: 639.3b. 4 A statistic dating to 609 (Zizhi tongjian: 181.5645). 5 Miyazaki (1974): 520–1. Miyazaki’s and others’ arguments are adopted in Gao (1984). 6 For an attractive hypothesis that a degree named the “guest tribute” (bingong), initially instituted in 587, was re-named jinshi and co-founded with the “eminent scholar” ( junshi ) degree in 607, see Gao (1984): 14–30 esp. pp. 25–7. Significantly, as Gao shows, the titles jinshi and junshi were both borrowed from an identical section in the Liji, and, although the standard biographies for Fang Xuanling (578–648), finalized some three and four centuries after his death, claim that he gained the jinshi in 595, his funeral stele documents his degree title as bingong ( JTS: 66.2459; XTS: 96.3853; for stele text, see Jinshi cuibian: 50.1b).

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these degrees is unknown. The earliest record of any written examination (for the xiucai degree) dates no earlier than 595.7 Nevertheless, the unprecedented arrangements of 587 represented a decisive break with the past. In particular, the fact that every prefecture, irrespective of its size, had to send three candidates to the capital heralded a new and more prominent role for the state in official recruitment. If, as many scholars assume, the candidates were examined and then selected for degree titles, this process altered fundamentally the balance of power between court and province. The governments of the Northern Wei (386–534), Northern Qi (550–77) and Northern Zhou (557–81) dynasties had overseen a recommendation system operating predominantly in the more sizeable prefectures that these regimes controlled. Moreover, recommendations throughout that period had lain unquestionably in the hands of local families. Powerful hereditary governors too had long dictated exactly the categories in which to recommend natives of their region. Nevertheless, already by the Northern Qi period individuals no longer consistently heeded this sort of local guidance.8 And, in principle at least, recruitment after 587 advanced the powers of the central authorities to receive a greater number of candidates on a regular basis and to judge which of them was fit for what degree title. The same system also offered extra manoeuvrability for the individual candidate, especially as it emerged under the Tang, since he could seek instruction and patronage to compete for his own choice of degree. The Sui government founded degrees with particular syllabi, and it controlled their administration entirely at the capital. The Tang dynasty inherited these new academic goals, and it continued to develop the centralised administration of annual degree examinations. In stark contrast to earlier practices of recommendation, success in the Tang examinations conferred only official status. That is, a degree title underwrote the candidate’s eligibility to hold office, but it did not lead automatically to a post. Placements in office were subject to separate tests and promotion criteria during the “selections for office” (xuan).9 These factors of Sui and Tang recruitment contributed Yuhai: 115.9b–10a; Suishu: 76.1747; cf. Wright (1979): 86. The Confucian scholar Ma Jingde (d. ca. 570) refused an offer of recommendation in the Filial and Uprigth (xiaolian) category from the governor-prince of Hejian and sought instead to be recommended as a xiucai by the prefectural authorities at Yingzhou (Bei Qishu: 44.590). 9 On this system, see Herbert (1988). 7 8

     

13

a new outlook on official careers, and distinguished what scholars today acknowledge as the opening phase in China’s long history of civil service examinations. D  Although the Sui dynasty established annual examinations for new degrees titled xiucai and mingjing, both titles had long signified categories of recommendation to office during the Han and subsequent periods.10 But the use of the same terminology is deceptive, since the recruitment conditions of the Han differed so profoundly from those of the Tang. The jinshi title, by contrast, seems not to have existed in earlier official structures. Nevertheless, it possessed venerable canonical sanction as a definition of court scholarship in the Record of Rites (Liji ). The title may even have enjoyed some currency in pre-Sui society. A most unusual instance of its usage occurs before the name of a low-ranking Northern Wei provincial official in a tomb inscription of c. 465, but at present nothing clarifies further what promotion or honour this usage signified.11 When the Tang government adopted the Sui system, it soon rejected parts of it and added new elements. The xiucai degree was abolished after 650, but the jinshi and mingjing degrees continued as mainstays of the annual examination system throughout the Tang.12 Another leading Sui degree had been the Eminent Scholar ( junshi ), but it too was abolished probably after 650. The Tang period created degrees for specialised branches of expertise, such as law (mingfa), orthography (mingshu or mingzi ) and mathematics (mingsuan).13 Another 10 For an account of how recommendations worked on the basis of scholarly learning in the mingjing category during the Han dynasty, see Nishikawa (1996). 11 Excavated in 1965 near Chaoyang, Liaoning province, the Northern Wei epitaph for a certain Liu Xian (d. between 452–65) includes a reference to his son as a jinshi (reproduced and transcribed in Cao [1984]). 12 For abolition of the xiucai, see Tang liudian: 2.51b, and 4.4a; XTS: 44.1163. The degree was re-instituted for a few years after 736 (TD: 15.354; CFYG: 639.18b). See also Rotours (1932): 163–4. 13 The creation of these degrees probably accompanied the foundation of three new training schools in these subjects, which were successively affiliated to the Education Directorate ( guozi jian) during 629–32. The schools for law and orthography were established in 628 (THY: 66.1163); that for mathematics in 632 ( JTS: 3.42). On staffing and syllabi, see Tang liudian: 21.14a–17a. For texts prescribed in the syllabi for legal expertise, orthography and mathematics, see TD: 14.343.

14

 

Tang institution in 741 was a degree for expertise in Daoist scripture (daoju or chongxuan ju). Whether it endured beyond a recommendation for its abolition in 763 is not clear.14 In 702 the government began to administer military examinations, which, despite a suspension during the period 798–808, endured for the rest of the dynasty.15 Wang Dingbao recorded very little concerning mingjing degrees and he paid no attention to the specialist Daoist and military degrees. Ultimately pre-eminent among Tang degrees was the jinshi. Although its foundation may have dated as early as 587, Tang views ascribed the degree’s origins to the late years of Sui rule. Recognition of the jinshi degree’s existence in the Sui depends entirely on Tang hindsight. Wang Dingbao was the last of several Tang observers who were absorbed by the degree’s history during the Sui. What is most remarkable is that, despite the jinshi title’s canonical origin in the Records of Ritual (Liji ), the degree lacked any singular prestige during its Sui and early Tang existence. Wang Dingbao cited Dugu Ji’s epitaph of Zhang Congshi in order to emphasize this document’s claim that Zhang Congshi’s grandfather had gained a Sui jinshi degree (6e). The inclusion of this genre of historical record in Collected Statements is a striking gauge of Wang Dingbao’s eye for rare detail. It also demonstrates that any notion of jinshi history matured only long after the degree’s institution under Sui rule and the initial phase of its Tang existence. In fact, Wang Dingbao claimed once more that the jinshi degree originated in the late Sui (6a), but he does not identify a source. However, authoritative documents, which might have inspired his claim, all demonstrate the same delayed consciousness of the jinshi degree’s importance in Tang political life. In 692, Xue Deng (647–719) documented what has become the earliest Tang claim that the jinshi degree was instituted in the Daye reign period (605–618) of the Sui.16 Yang Wan (d. 777), the radical reformer of examination procedures, saw the degree’s history in the same light.17 Also Du

On Daoist recruitment examinations, see Fujiyoshi (1968) and Benn (1981). For the institution of these examinations, see TD: 15.354; CFYG: 639.20b; XTS: 44.1170; ZZTJ: 207.6558. For suspension and restoration, see JTS: 13.389, and 14.425; CFYG: 640.15a and 16a. Cf. Rotours (1932): 209–10. 16 See Xue Deng’s memorial on recruitment at THY: 76.1391; JTS: 101. 3138; XTS: 112.4170. 17 See Yang Wan’s famous memorial requesting the jinshi degree’s abolition in 763 ( JTS: 119.3430; CFYG: 640.5a; XTS: 44.1166. Cf. Rotours [1932]: 187). 14 15

     

15

You (734–812), the late Tang’s most expert institutional historian, accepted the origins of the examination system in the Sui period.18 Something else that obscures the jinshi degree’s early history is that xiucai and mingjing degrees still engaged official society’s attention much more closely than any other degrees during the Sui and the early Tang. The richer records of late Tang examination history present nearly all engagements with examinations as exclusive attempts to gain the jinshi degree. Wang Dingbao’s records are no exception. Still, his citation of an eighth-century letter, whose author gives equal weight to the jinshi and mingjing degrees, shows that the latter degree title commanded high respect as late as the 720’s (140). In addition to annual degrees, examinations by decree (zhike or zhiju) took place within the palace in the presence of the emperor. Degree-holders and new entrants alike were eligible to compete for these titles. Another type of degree open to degree-holders comprised both the Selection of the Pre-eminent (bacui ) and the Erudite Learning and Grand Composition (boxue hongci ), founded respectively in 701 and 731, but, since their function was to test qualified officials— including many degree-holders—for fast-track promotions, properly speaking they were not central to the process of recruitment by examinations.19 Indeed, one of Wang Dingbao’s accounts of life in the 880’s demonstrates that these promotion degrees were controlled by the board of personnel, the administrative centre for distributing and assessing official posts (297). The mechanism for these examinations owed its existence to the precedent of many centuries whereby an emperor issued a decree to summon men and examine their fitness for office. Tang rulers oversaw decree examinations at increasingly regular intervals, and an impressive number of titles—by no means all—survive.20 Only in exceptional cases, however, did official society regard the conferral

TD: 15.353. Regular degree holders still awaiting a posting and officials of the sixth rank and below were eligible to sit these examinations. Whereas successful candidates in the annual examinations might have to wait several years before gaining a post through the normal selection procedures, success in these two degrees offered a fasttrack alternative. On these degrees’ foundation, see CFYG: 645.13b and 15b, TYL: 8.713 (no. 1027); Rotours (1932): 221. 20 THY: 76.1387; for Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties’ decree examination titles, see CFYG: 645.9b–23a. For a history of the system, see Herbert (1992–93). 18 19

16

 

of a palace examination title as more prestigious than the jinshi. A few individuals rose high in the bureaucracy after gaining a decree examination, but most degrees in this part of the system appear to have functioned as an adjunct system of honouring each year’s outstanding winners of jinshi and mingjing degrees. The syllabus of the decree examinations demanded little extra effort from men who had honed their skills in the more demanding tests of the regular annual examinations. In comparison with records of the jinshi degree’s annual ritual programme, the institution, syllabi and ceremonial activities associated with decree examinations attracted little notice. S     Gradual changes in the jinshi syllabus during the Tang were responsible for both the degree’s rising reputation and much of its adverse criticism. For most of the seventh century, the administration required jinshi and mingjing candidates to write dissertations on respectively topics of contemporary affairs and interpretative issues in the Confucian canon. For as long as it lasted, the xiucai examination featured similar dissertations set on topics of administration and planning. Wang Dingbao is among those who recorded that in 681, following Liu Sili’s complaint that candidates were entering the examinations with ready-made answers, the government overhauled the whole system of testing (13d). Liu Sili had demanded that the jinshi examination further include a memorisation test of scriptural knowledge (tiejing) and the composition of literary pieces.21 The decree of 681, however, suggests that the government responded to Liu’s proposal with extra modifications. It stated that under the new arrangements mingjing candidates would undergo memorisation tests and jinshi candidates would be tested in two literary genres (zawen). Liu’s aim was clearly to reform the jinshi examination so that it could be a series of three tests based on textual memorisation, literary composition and dissertations. Wang Dingbao’s statement on this episode is ambiguous, but it suggests that the government delayed implementing the new arrangement until after the Empress Wu’s abdication.22 Whatever the exact date 21 THY: 76.1379; TD: 15.354; Feng shi wenjian ji jiaozhu: 3.14 (also at TYL: 8.714 [no. 1028]). 22 No version of the 681 decree clarifies the procedures exactly according to Liu’s

     

17

of its establishment, the tripartite form of the jinshi examination remained standard until the end of the dynasty. The literary genres would prove to be the degree’s most distinctive modification. These tests demanded compositions in styles as varied as memorials, biographies, funeral laments and lyrical genres, such as rhapsodies ( fu) and regulated verse (lüshi ), but the overwhelming preference was to test candidates with lyrical genres. Following the syllabus modification of 681, the jinshi degree’s literary emphasis satisfied officialdom’s pervasive fascination with poetry. More than any other degree, examination verse deepened the jinshi degree’s association with political careers for which literary composition was a central skill. At the same time, however, this bias towards belles lettres also attracted relentless criticism of jinshi graduands’ facility with literary stylism as a symptom of weak canonical knowledge and even their inept skills in administration.23 Wang Dingbao also documented Yang Wan’s (d. 777) structured proposal to abolish the jinshi, mingjing and Daoist degrees in 763 (10b). Motivated to a large extent by the jinshi syllabus’s excessive emphasis on literary genres, Yang Wan (d. 777) advocated a recruitment system modelled on the lines of Western Han and later practices of recommending Filial and Upright (xiaolian) nominees from the provinces to the capital. Their examination, still to be conducted by the central authorities, would comprise a far more rigorous assessment of the candidates’ knowledge of Confucian scripture.24 Yang’s impractical yet clearly attractive proposal met with a compromise solution, resulting in running a system of xiaolian recommendations and their antique style of tests parallel to the existing degree examinations. In 780, however, this administrative complexity was abandoned.25 Even though subsequent attempts to reform the jinshi degree’s lyrical emphasis proved ephemeral, controversy over this aspect of the syllabus simmered on throughout the rest of the dynasty. In 781 proposal (TD: 15.354; THY: 75.1375–6; CFYG: 639.19a–20a; XTS: 44.1163; Tang dazhao lingji: 106.549. Cf. Rotours [1932]: 167. See also Liu’s biographies at JTS: 190B.5016; XTS: 202.5753). Following the empress’ abdication in 705, states Wang Dingbao, is when the jinshi examination’s three rounds of testing (san chang shi ) “were first implemented” (13d). For this standard sequence of three rounds, see also Tang liudian: 2.52b–53a, 4.5a–b, and 21.7b. 23 See McMullen (1988): 206–49. 24 THY: 76.1395–6; JTS: 119.3430–2; CFYG: 640.4b–6b; XTS: 44.1166–7. Cf. Rotours (1932): 187–9. 25 CFYG: 640.10b; THY: 76.1396; XTS: 44.1168.

18

 

the poem (shi ) and rhapsody ( fu) topics were replaced by two genres of discursive analysis, but this reform lasted only until 787 at the latest.26 Exactly the same measure was enacted again in 833, but rescinded in the following year.27 These controversies over the content of degree syllabi are not central to the following chapters’ analysis. However, many of Wang Dingbao’s accounts show that the jinshi degree’s emphasis on composition skills was invariably the most binding factor in political patrons’ searches for those possessing the literary versatility appropriate to winning a degree title. The political elite’s faith in literary style as a qualification to serve in high positions of government was seldom in question. It meant that many examiners were content to rearrange the eliminatory sequence of examinations so as to favour promising writers ahead of canonical scholars. Equally, special allowances operating in the canonical tests allowed skilled writers to concentrate their efforts on composition and to neglect canonical learning. The administrative laxity of examinations in this respect was also a contributory factor in many controversies over Tang recruitment. Documents collected by Wang Dingbao and discussed later in this study will show that when Tang detractors of examination ritual denounced undesirable political alliances they also attacked the jinshi degree’s literary basis. T      This study of the Tang examination programme follows the still indispensable research of Xu Song (1781–1848) and the valuable contributions of scholars in the twentieth century.28 It owes a further debt to the most recent Chinese and Japanese scholarship, which has attempted to analayze the real conditions of Tang recruitment examinations.29 Significantly, none of that work was feasible without frequent recourse to Wang Dingbao’s Collected Statements. Other recent publications on Chinese civil service recruitment have devoted increasTHY: 76.1380; CFYG: 640.11a. Cf. Rotours (1932): 195–7. JTS: 17B.551; THY: 76.1381; CFYG: 90.23a; ZZTJ: 244.7886; Tang dazhao lingji: 29.106. For rescission, see THY: 76.1381; CFYG: 641.4a; ZZTJ: 245.7898. 28 Dengke jikao by Xu Song; see also Rotours (1932), Kracke (1947 and 1953), Miyazaki (1963 and 1974), Deng (1967); Twitchett (1976). 29 Fu (1984c and 1986); Ogawa (1980); Òno (1990); Seo (1986). 26

27

     

19

ing attention to examinations in the wider spectra of their social and cultural relevance during nearly all of the later imperial period. John Chaffee’s study of Song examinations discusses a “public examination culture” that was visibly far more widespread than its Tang forerunner.30 More recently, Benjamin Elman has studied the later history of examinations as a foremost contribution to the millennial integrity of Han Chinese values following the Mongol occupation.31 The present study attempts also to explain Tang examinations as a social production, but it deals with an institution whose existence during the Tang was small-scale. Compared to later systems, Tang examinations contributed much less either symbolically or intellectually to the larger community of Tang government. Nor was the Tang system the only regenerative means by which leading families could maximize successive generations’ chances of being recruited into official service. Various forms of hereditary privilege still counted for a great deal in the recruitment of Tang officialdom. That said, even if the Tang system appears insubstantial in a longer historical view, Wang Dingbao is important precisely because he was one of the very few compilers who identified an early examination culture and devoted his energies to documenting it. His is the only text to show that by the end of the dynasty the Tang degree system had acquired a cultural significance quite disproportionate to the minor functional relevance of examinations in the lives of the elite. During the three centuries of their presence on the Tang political stage, holders of what was to become the most prestigious degree title, the jinshi, comprised a fraction of a much larger number of all degree-holders, which itself made up perhaps as little as 6% of the entire bureaucracy.32 Considerably more members of the government started their careers after benefiting from their hereditary ( yin) privileges. That is, the level of their fathers’ and grandfathers’ highest official positions permitted entry into officialdom at a specified rank. A conservative estimate of the proportion of entrants into the bureaucracy by this method and by direct summons is 25%.33 Nevertheless, with the passage of just over three centuries, the prestige of Sui and

Chaffee (1985): 157–81. Elman (2000). 32 Sun (1959): 246. For a higher estimate in the region of 15%, see Twitchett (1976). 33 Mao Hanguang, Tangdai tongzhi zhiji shehui biantong (Ph.D. dissertation, Zhengzhi University, Taibei, n.d.), cited at Zhang (1982): 212. 30 31

20

 

Tang examinations matured to a level that far outweighed the numbers that they recruited. Gaining a degree became the only respectable entry into the bureaucracy during the late Tang, and even men who could have availed themselves of their family’s yin privileges sometimes chose this more difficult route. What Wang Dingbao’s compilation also reveals of the Tang examination system is not large numbers of participants, but rather the huge importance that a small section of society attached to participating at any cost whatsoever. Over the course of the dynasty, the social background of examination candidates aiming for the most demanding and most prestigious literary degrees did not change significantly. The examination candidates of the early seventh and the late ninth centuries were divided by ten and more generations. Yet, by the end of the ninth century, the aristocratic clans of the medieval period had held on to their privileged status tenaciously. Deep social changes in the composition of the ruling class were nascent during late Tang times but far from widespread.34 For the elite who still thrived in these conditions, therefore, Tang examinations offered one means by which members of the most influential segment of society could secure low yet prestigious posts in government service with good prospects for swift advance. Given the increasing efforts that this level of society undertook to gain degrees, any significant deviation from the Tang examinations’ established social intake was most unlikely. However, entrance to the Tang examination system as either a member of one of the education directorate schools or as a tribute scholar recommended from the provinces denoted two kinds of candidate whose status was rarely if ever equal. Over the course of the dynasty, examination entrants made changing claims to be one kind of candidate or the other. Most commonly, they enrolled directly in the directorate schools, since this offered practical advantages at the beginning of the annual programme. Especially in the late Tang, however, the prejudices of many examination entrants denigrated membership of an official education system that had been largely discredited after the An Lushan rebellion. Late Tang degree winners who had been students in government schools kept quiet about the fact in later recollections of their recruitment. The period also

34

Twitchett (1968); Johnson (1977a, 1997b); Ebrey (1978); Chiu-Duke (1990).

     

21

witnessed a radical shift towards the ideals of individual teaching relationships fostered outside government structures. These trends in the joint spheres of education and political patronage are useful for analysing many of the individual experiences that Wang Dingbao collected in his text. Differing claims of candidate status reveal deep changes in the social construction of degree success. Wang Dingbao’s late Tang knowledge of these nuances is crucial. The picture dressed by Ouyang Xiu (1007–72) in the New Tang History, completed in 1060, shows the Tang examinations’ intake as a smooth confluence between students promoted by the government schools and candidates recommended by prefectural authorities. By contrast, even though Wang Dingbao provides valuable insights into the history of educational colleges in Chang’an and Luoyang (7a–i 8 9 11), his records show how often Tang government education failed to cater comprehensively for the syllabus of the jinshi degree. Ultimately, late Tang ambitions to win a degree title overrode the altruistic commitment to academic training that had once characterized official education more broadly. Highly representative is Wang Dingbao’s story of a university promotion for a lecturer who won his upgrade only after his son’s success in the examinations (197). What altered fundamentally were the strategies that members of Tang examination society adopted in order to secure degree titles. Wang Dingbao was not a compiler who theorized shifts in social ambition at all explicitly, but he does record in unparalleled detail some of the new institutions and social practices that featured in the unremitting Tang drive towards degree success. In particular, he recorded prescriptive accounts of examination ceremonies that reward close reading with a sense of how the outlook of Tang examination society differed considerably in each half of the dynasty. R  Wang Dingbao recorded his interest in examination ritual at the close of a period when the most ambitious examination candidates placed little faith in the official school system and instead sought the support of private teachers and political patrons. This characterization of late Tang recruitment in some sense mirrored the most traditional form of social interaction in high-level political recruitment. After all, the community wine-drinking ceremony, once a Han ceremony,

22

 

was, according to regular guidelines, an event that involved those outside not within the official education system. Late Tang knowledge of this ceremony provided more than one personal framework for celebrating the kind of literary and political discipleship that dominated the period’s intellectual life. But, the drinking ceremony is only one among several rituals that deserve exploration in any account of how the jinshi degree became one of the dynasty’s leading objects of political and social ambition. Because a Tang degree granted a symbolic reward and no immediate prospect of a post, examination ritual expressed primarily the change in a degree-winner’s new status, especially by means of making political and family relationships explicit. Much less is recorded in Tang sources of ceremonial enactments to celebrate say the achievement of particular career goals, structural promotions and so on. Besides, a different system operated to assess individuals for current and new posts as well as transfers up- and downwards. Most significantly, however, government service was not necessarily the highest goal of examination elites, since Tang civil service examinations comprised a system that offered the prize of status not office. Consequently, this study concentrates only on the acquisition of official status and its most cherished symbols. The division between entry into a status group and government service appears quite frequently in anthropological studies of bureaucracy. The rituals of the Tang examination programme is thus one more rewarding field in which to investigate the symbolic roots of bureaucratic elite formation that have appeared in recruitment cultures as diverse as the Japanese Heian court, Italian renaissance city-states and the more recent incorporation of Manchester traffic wardens.35 Research into other cultures’ professional structures has also noted the division between the symbolic power of status awards and the rewards that accrue from scaling a career ladder. Civil service structures in Europe, for instance, even suggest that a totally bureaucratic ambition to serve in government was unusual. Fifteenth-century Italian society commonly saw papal secretaries as a group of men remarkable primarily for their scholarly and literary achievements. This generic image was not that dissimilar to views of degree-holding bureaucrats in Tang China. Furthermore, in Rome, servants of papal government

35

Litchfield (1986); Partner (1990); Richman (1983); Smits (2000).

     

23

fulfilled better than most examples the Weberian notion of bureaucrats, since their rites of entry included an oath of loyalty to the pope. But, even more significantly, their admission to office still placed more emphasis on entry into a “privileged corporation” rather than entry into government service.36 Durkheim essentialized medieval French corporations of university instruction as secret societies into which the entry conditions functioned like revelations of the society’s mysteries.37 In Tang China too, examination degrees promoted their holders’ corporate identity and catered often only secondarily to what degrees titles were meant to express in terms of allying state interests and individual aims—to turn a man into a “vessel of the state” ( guoqi ) as the common Tang metaphor had it. But distinctions must also qualify these comparisons. Even though bureaucratic communities are seldom unwilling to consider their members’ family status, the pressures that these considerations exerted in Tang political life were unusually high. Wang Dingbao shows that Tang examination ceremonies included forthright declarations of individuals’ social background. Less explicit but also significant is his evidence of Tang candidates’ attempts to gauge the status of their marriage contracts with their chances of winning a degree title. Wang Dingbao himself took pains to project a complex image of his own prestigious family background, which will be explored in chapter 2. In character with many Tang degree-winners, he was unperturbed by the contradiction of using his family name to claim inherited high status in conjunction with a degree title that signified in principle a meritocratic reward. This irony is one of the most salient features of Tang examination culture. Despite Weber’s apt diagnosis of a system to prevent the formation of a closed estate,38 participants in the Tang examination system worked overtime to make this bureaucratic operation favour the dominance of old aristocratic clans. Wang Dingbao’s records of Tang examination rituals show repeatedly the theatrical lengths to which candidates and examiners went to make their high social status explicit. Wang Dingbao’s collection enables historians to measure the rise of a small yet disproportionately influential section of the political elite in terms of its recruitment’s growing ritualization. One of the 36 37 38

Partner (1990): 93. Durkheim (1938): 146–59. Weber (1951): 116.

24

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major developments that interested Wang Dingbao was the re-assignment of the examinations to a new authority after 736 (16). In that year, the task of examiner, hitherto conducted by a secretary in the Bureau of Merits, a bureau of the Ministry of Personnel, was taken over by the Vice Minister of Rites (libu shilang).39 The ostensible reason for this transfer was that during the examination a discontented candidate had attempted to blackmail the examiner by broadcasting a treasonous interpretation of his verse. The government reacted sharply to the implication that recruitment was the target of any kind of devious ridicule.40 However, Wang Dingbao was also aware that reshuffling the Tang bureaucracy’s responsibility for examinations reflected profounder changes in thinking about the nature of recruitment. The administration’s new upgrade marked a heightened recognition of examinations within the government’s entire ritual administration, a change that Wang Dingbao regarded as still cardinal two centuries later. Zhang Chu’s letter of the late 740’s, the longest document in Wang Dingbao’s entire text, defines the Vice Minister of Rites’s role as “to gather and judge talent and reputation; to plan the scale of ritual observances” (313). Even the Board of Rites’ request in 736 to commission a special seal for the operation of its new responsibility for examinations is preserved elsewhere among surviving Tang documents.41 For the first time in their history, examinations joined other activities of the bureaucracy that were granted this material expression of status so central to chancellery art and function.42 Wang Dingbao took it for granted that his readers recognized the 730’s in the same light that he did. This had been perhaps the most rewarding phase of Tang government’s perpetual attempts to harness the political disparities of an age and to create lasting symbols of harmony. The ritual arm of government was crucial to definitions of Tang power. To delegate examination recruitment to the vice minister of rites reflected the elevation of examinations into that influential section of the bureaucracy responsible for state ritual perSee decree at THY: 59.1024–25; JTS: 8.203; CFYG: 639.24a; Tang dazhao lingji: 106.549; ZZTJ: 214.6814. 40 Guoshi bu: 3.56; XTS: 44.1164. Cf. Rotours (1932): 172. 41 THY: 76.1384. 42 On the highly ritualized actions for using seals in the Duty Hall (zhiting) of the Department of State Affairs (shangshu sheng) until the adoption of simplified storage procedures after 824, see Yinhua lu: 5.101. 39

     

25

formances at every level throughout the whole annual cycle. This development followed closely the celebrated promulgation of the Kaiyuan ritual code (Kaiyuan li ) two years earlier, and it occurred in a period of the most intense debate about state ritual observances. Although the ways in which examination society formed and enacted ceremonies before and after the An Lushan rebellion differed considerably, the centrality of ritual in examination recruitment was never in question. Wang Dingbao witnesssed the Tang world in its final stage of decay, but still he could not unthink the selective stages of gaining a degree title as anything but a ritual sequence. Tang society was the first to experience fully the rhythm and vicissitudes of an examination life whose annual ritual programme grew steadily more sophisticated in its multiple activities. If ritual underlay most surviving efforts to document the Tang examination experience for posterity, then the words, gestures and surroundings of examinations in that period merit particular attention. The public and private theatres of examination ritual offer leading insights into how Tang examination culture emerged, not least since the material evidence of its precincts and monuments disappeared swiftly after the fall of the dynasty. Moreover, the little that Tang sources have to say about the location of examinations is a telling revelation that the physical surroundings of examinations gained little if any notice on the part of their visitors. In any discussion of Tang examination culture, then, evidence concerning ritual performance is paramount. Wang Dingbao documents ritual acts and words, and thus his text uncovers highly varied forms of symbolic power that Tang examination society possessed before the rise of an even more dominant expression of cultural orthodoxy in the dynasties that followed.

CHAPTER TWO

WANG DINGBAO AND THE COMPILATION OF COLLECTED STATEMENTS Near the crossing of Wenming lu and Zhongshan lu in Guangzhou today is the site where strong gates once guarded the entrance to the Tang prefectural government, later the gateway to the Southern Han court of the Five Dynasties. Further south, below where the tenth-century Yuzao gateway fronted the entire city, were the landing stages for traffic operating either downstream and seawards or upstream into the interior of southwest China. These vanished gateways were sites that Wang Dingbao traversed on his several passages to and from Guangzhou, and the city gateway figured eventually as the most precise referent to his historical presence. Modern Guangzhou may not evince Tang associations as securely as Xi’an and Luoyang, but even a modern conceit of Tang displacement in the metropolis of China’s tropical south may be somewhat akin to Wang Dingbao’s feelings throughout his long residence there. He completed work on Collected Statements in Guangzhou, and he gained high rank amid the eminent ex-Tang officialdom that served the Southern Han. It is often useful to imagine Guangzhou one millennium ago as variously geographical, political and social context for circulating Wang Dingbao’s records of a Tang past situated predominantly in Chang’an. He compiled his text in refuge from the north, and what he disclosed about northern culture for a readership including many other refugees was to some extent a subtle portrait of a man now forced to live in the south. Wang Dingbao did not identify a single motive for his lengthy documentation of Tang examination society; he was confident that his readership would accept the importance of recruitment examinations as self-evident. Even so, revelations of his background and experience provide clues as to how he expected his text to authenticate his authority as an interpreter of the past. Some of the documents that he selected played a similar role in this process. Of course, the presence of some material in Wang Dingbao’s text may have followed the simple expedient that only a few documents were available to choose from. However, on the occasions that he did

     

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

27

identify a source, he signalled clearly what he considered to be the rarity and value of its contents. In this way, not only did he recount what earlier literature on examinations was available to a tenthcentury readership, he outlined areas of editorial interest that remain fundamental to perceiving the constituents of Tang examination culture. This chapter addresses these issues through discussion of Wang Dingbao’s life and the compilation of his text. T     Probably the first readers of Wang Dingbao’s personal account of his life were residents of the port city of Xingwang fu, capital of the Southern Han and formerly Tang Guangzhou: Dingbao was born in the gengyin year [AD 870] of the Xiantong reign period, a time when the Man tribes of the South were on a war footing1 and all the regions had levied troops. From then on, in relentless swoops,2 bandits spread chaos throughout the central lands. Although his [family’s] old residence was in the Taiping ward, his own career path never took him to the capital. Thus, when it came to the greatest acts of political achievement, he was barely able to stay broadly attuned.3 But, he was happy to listen to praise of the degree examinations, and he constantly sought information among those who had succeeded earlier than him. They included, for instance, Grand Councillor [Lu] Yi, duke of the Wu commandery; vice president of the Hanlin Academy, [Wu] Rong, duke of Puyang; his own gateway to benefits, Li Wo, royal attendant from the department of the right; supervisory secretary Yan Rao; his uncle grand minister Wang Pu; his uncle Wang Huan, recorder at Nanhai. Next in importance were [Wang Dingbao’s] fellow graduands: Lu Yanrang, the thirteenth; Yang Zantu, the fiftyfirst; Cui Jiruo, the twenty-seventh; all together nearly ten men. Throughout this period, whenever he was privy to talk concerning the capital’s traditions there was nothing that he did not remember by heart, and when all had retired, he entered it into his records. (45a) 1 saodong: this phrase calls to mind the economic hardship of waging war set out in the Sun Zi: “when the centre and the regions are on a war footing, human exhaustion lines the roadways”, from “Using intelligence” ( yong jian) at Shiyi jia zhu Sunzi: C.223–4). 2 lianpian: describes the movement of a hooked fish in the rhapsody “On literature” (Wen fu) by Lu Ji (262–303) at Wenxuan: 17.763. For Du Fu’s use of the same expression in the context of recapturing the Tang capitals after the An Lushan rebellion, see the third of his “Eight Laments” (Ba ai ) at Du shi xiangzhu: 16.1386. 3 bowen qiangshi: “broadly attuned and strong in knowledge”, the virtues with which Sima Qian describes Qu Yuan, and continues: “He understood what government and chaos were.” (Shiji: 84.2481).

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Wang Dingbao wrote this account perhaps as late as ten years after the Tang dynasty had collapsed. Other evidence in Collected Statements shows that he was still at work on his text in 916, the year that he documented the Liang government’s re-appointment of Zhao Guangfeng as a minister (421). His references to the Lius—first commanders and then emperors—in Guangzhou suggest that he had finished work on the text before the founding proclamation of the Southern Han state in August 917.4 Although ten years after the fall of the Tang dynasty, then, Wang Dingbao recounted only details of his career under Tang rule. He says nothing directly concerning his service in the tropical region of Lingnan, corresponding to today’s Guangdong and the Guangxi Autonomous Region. Ouyang Xiu’s (1007–72) revised official record of the period, New History of the Five Dynasties (Xin Wudai shi ), names Wang Dingbao as one of the officials commanding the eastern zone of this territory, and indeed this may have been the remote setting in which he devoted the most time to the completion of his text.5 No formal statement of the text’s composition heads Collected Statements. This account is entitled “detached preface” (sanxu), and it appears in the third juan of the work. Whether this is the preface’s original position is questionable, but certainly not an issue to deter reading it as a fluent and credible account of the author’s background and the composition of his only transmitted work. Every reference in Wang Dingbao’s preface is to an aspect of Tang life. The reader of 917 and later is confronted with a string of palace offices that are defunct, and he must try to recall the obsolete Tang numbering system that members of the old empire’s elite clans used to identify themselves. Wang Dingbao’s is the voice of a man seeking constantly to recover familiar and secure conditions that have vanished. This emotional attachment to a past age and its northern seat of power rather than to the present in a southern garrison is what impelled the composition of his text. This chapter therefore explores the experience of a man who documented his life entirely through his reflections on a vanished era.

4 The evidence that Wang Dingbao did not avoid Liu Yan’s personal name (201 260a–b 261 314 348) and those of his father Liu Qian (75 230) and brother or cousin Liu Yin (26 215 218a 248 252 287 339) precludes further work on the text after Liu Yan ascended the Southern Han throne. 5 Xin wudai shi: 65.810.

     

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

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In contrast to Wang Dingbao’s nostalgic claims to have interacted with the last representatives of Tang power are brief accounts of his life and career preserved in Song sources. Documenting subjects that his preface ignores, they suggest how he fared in the divided world of the Five Dynasties, especially as an official under the Southern Han regime. This chapter analyses all this material to consider the relevance of Wang Dingbao’s life to Collected Statements, and it considers how his own experience illustrates the most significant social developments in late Tang examination life. The identity of Wang Dingbao Aside from basic certainties, such as his birth in 870 and his jinshi award in 900, Wang Dingbao’s preface also provides indications of his home territory, and it offers the first of several openings into the highly complex issue of his family background. In the following discussion, despite his and others’ conflicting claims, the dominant issue will be what Wang Dingbao himself chose to disseminate concerning his family standing. His claims are not uniformly reliable. Not improbable is his early background in southern China. Considerably more contradictory, however, are his claimed relationships with past figures of the most famous Wang descent groups. His membership of the Wang community residing in the Taiping ward of Chang’an is plausible, but it is not documented anywhere else. Finally, reflecting the contemporary conditions that best defined the standing of scholarbureaucrats of this period, Wang Dingbao listed his examiner and those fellow graduands through whose association he was vouchsafed a place in the final years of Tang examination history. Wang Dingbao characterizes the political breakdown that progressed throughout his early life as the collapse of southern China followed by rebel invasions of the north. He identifies all the culprits of this disorder as the Man tribes, the generic description applied in the south to any social group who defied Tang rule—although any implication of an ethnic otherness in this name is almost certainly minimal.6 This is a thoroughly loyal account. In naming agents of the Tang collapse—albeit vaguely—he sidesteps the nasty issue of 6 A contemporary situation in which an ethnic reading of the same term may well be relevant is the Tang wars with Nanzhao in 869 and 874 (THY: 99.1765–6. See also Backus (1981): 148–53).

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the late Tang government’s failure to cohere in the face of military crises, one of the most chronic symptoms of Tang political drift during the last decades of the dynasty’s existence. From a predominantly northern standpoint, then, he stresses that the causes of the empire’s final decay were uncontrollable interruptions of disobedience and violence. In other words, when the Tang government collapsed, the fault was not the government’s. Wang Dingbao’s words also sum up objectively the mass disaffection which spread throughout southeast China in the 860’s and threatened more and more of the Tang interior until the rebel-leader Huang Chao’s (d. 884) destructive occupation of Chang’an during 881–883. The Tang dynasty survived the onslaught led by this remarkable general—perhaps a failed examination candidate7—but his capture of the capital marked the beginning of the dynasty’s terminal decline.8 Elsewhere Wang Dingbao suggests that quite early on Huang Chao’s campaigns caused deep disquiet in examination circles. In 878 candidates had begun to deride the political content of their syllabus in the face of the dynasty’s imminent defeat by the huge armies from the South (381b). Wang Dingbao confesses neither his place of birth nor the setting of his early upbringing. His regional perspective on the political decadence of these years, however, suggests a life lived mostly in the south. His preface is a restrained expression of how, between boyhood and middle age, he successfully picked a safe route through first the southern regions and then all of late Tang China’s last violent uprisings. He also stresses that he spent little time in Chang’an as an official, even though he is not shy of claiming an association with Wangs who lived in one of western Chang’an’s smarter residential wards. In his brief record of Wang Dingbao’s death, Sima Guang, an authority well worth heeding, called him “Wang Dingbao from Nanchang”.9 A family background in Nanchang —officially known as Hongzhou—would be entirely consistent with the compiler’s recurrent interest in the political goings-on of this administrative hub below the confluence of the lower Yangzi’s major

ZZTJ: 252.8180. On the progress of the campaigns that Wang Xianzhi (d. 878) and Huang Chao led throughout China, see Huang Chao’s biographies ( JTS: 200B.5391–8; XTS: 225B.6451–64) and the translation of the Xin Tangshu biography in Levy (1955). 9 ZZTJ: 282.9219. 7 8

     

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southeastern tributaries (32 36 41 203 309). Wang Dingbao was eight years’ old when the rebel general Wang Xianzhi (d. 878) began his siege of Hongzhou in April 878.10 Only in his recollections of another man’s life does he remark laconically that by the mid-880’s Hongzhou was in a state of complete anarchy (260b). Also significant is the order of Wang Dingbao’s opening statements. He summarizes the events that put paid to the dynasty’s survival before turning to other claims concerning his family identity and his own achievements before 907. His membership of the Tang polity comes first. Only subsequently does he claim that his family once resided in Chang’an, and that he won one of the defunct dynasty’s degrees. The language that he adopts is revealing too: an allusion once used by Du Fu to describe the An Lushan wars describes the disintegration of north China; a reference to Sima Qian’s biography of Qu Yuan sums up his distanced yet loyal relationship to the Tang court. Despite the identification with such prestigious exiles, he still cautions his readers to believe that he was party to the Tang’s last political acts. As far as he is willing to reveal, his personal involvement with Tang government began and ended with a Tang degree. After 907, even if his affection for a deposed regime seems unquestionable, he confesses it to a readership whose political alignments are new and varied. Wang Dingbao was particularly conscious of social status, and he was keen to impart the names of some of his most successful relatives to his readership in south China. The following sections discuss his ancestry according to two considerations: the first is based on genealogical studies of Wang Dingbao, and it seeks to resolve the conflicts in his and others’ claims concerning his decent; the second section discusses the cultural insights that his various claims of ancestry provide for assessing Wang Dingbao’s own image of himself and its relevance to his text’s reception. Genealogical conflicts in Wang Dingbao’s descent claims Wang Dingbao’s preface, cited above, is an intriguing document of his ancestral relationships. His claims of family ties to Wang Pu (d. 905) 10 Accounts of the campaign at Hongzhou in 878 vary. The city certainly endured a siege ( JTS: 19B.701; XTS: 225B.6453); however, some accounts say that it was subsequently captured ( JTS: 200B.5391; XTS: 9.267; ZZTJ: 253.8202–3).

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and Wang Huan (859–901, jinshi 891) and his other claims elsewhere in his text raise questions concerning his identification as a member in one of the two most illustrious Wang descent groups of the medieval period, namely the Langye and Taiyuan Wangs. Membership in the Langye group was almost always seen as more prestigious.11 No other aspect of Wang Dingbao’s identity has aroused as much discussion as these conflicting indications of his descent. My argument will propose that Wang Dingbao was a member of the Taiyuan Wangs. Accurate reconstruction of Wang Dingbao’s ancestry is probably no longer possible. Yet the problem is significant because Wang Dingbao wished to project through his claims of ancestry a history of participation both in the examinations of the Tang and in the government of Tang Guangzhou. These projections are interesting, in that they suggest a basis upon which Wang Dingbao believed he could make his text appear more authentic to contemporary readers. Much of the genealogical debate has theorized that two men named Wang Dingbao lived during the late Tang, and it has stressed that transmitted editions of Collected Statements are ascribed to Wang Dingbao of Langye. The first juan of the text is headed by an ascription: Compiled by Wang Dingbao of Langye, a jinshi graduand of the Guanghua reign period of the Tang.

Bibliographers, such as Qian Daxin (1802–1844), Liu Yusong (1818– 1867) and Yu Jiaxi (1884–1955) accepted that this passage stated the true identity of the compiler of Collected Statements.12 Accordingly, Wang Dingbao of Langye should not be confused with a man of the same name and known also by his cognomen Yisheng (“Assisting the Sage”). He is recorded as a Taiyuan Wang in the New Tang History’s genealogical tables.13 However, several factors stand in the way of a definite ascription of Collected Statements to a Langye Wang. This identification conflicts directly with other statements by Wang Dingbao claiming that he belonged to the Taiyuan Wangs. Perhaps the text’s opening ascription was the addition of a later unknown editor or a book trader. If so, whoever wrote it might have extracted the details in good faith from evidence contained in Collected Statements. Indeed, Wang Dingbao claims: For a discussion of the early history of the Langye Wangs, see Mao (1967). Shijia zhai yangxin lu: 12.279; Tongyi tang wenji: 12.1a–31a; Yu (1985): 17.1040–52. See also Wang (1985). 13 XTS: 72B.2649. 11 12

     

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In the fifth year of Xianheng [674] my uncle’s ancestor of the seventh generation, the hereditary duke of Shiquan,14 a member of both the Simurgh Terrace15 and the Phoenix Pavilion,16 held office as Supernumerary Secretary for Merit Assessments. (10a)

The duke of Shiquan was Wang Fangqing,17 a scion of the late seventhcentury Langye Wangs and an examiner whose cultural significance will be discussed later in this chapter. But, as if to negate entirely the plausibility of any connection with Wang Fangqing, Wang Dingbao also claims in his preface to be related to Wang Pu and Wang Huan. Other sources identify both men in the Taiyuan group.18 Nor do the contradictions stop here. Wang Dingbao provided further clues to identify closer relations. In two instances, using commentary style insertions within his main text, he signalled his observance of ancestral taboos. One no longer helps in identifying the relation in question,19 but the other is revealing. In an account of Fang Gan’s (d. c. 886) association with a certain Wang, then commissioner of Zhedong, Wang Dingbao notes: His name was the same as one of Dingbao’s family taboo avoidances (293)

During the period 867–874, two Wangs, Wang Feng and Wang Gui (d. 874), served successively as Zhedong commissioners based in Yuezhou (Shaoxing), but the likelier relation is Wang Gui.20 If so, then this oblique identification of his forebear verifies the compiler’s identity as a Taiyuan Wang in the genealogical records of the New Amending the character long (“dragon”) to read xi (“hereditary”), and aggregating the three characters shi bai shui to read Shiquan. For arguments to amend this text thus, see Yu (1985): 17.1043, Cen (1947a): 256. 15 Luantai: the name for the chancellery (menxia sheng) during Empress Wu’s reign (684–705) (TLD: 8.6b; TD: 21.544–5; THY: 54.925; JTS: 43.1842; XTS: 47.1206; Rotours [1947–1948]: 138). 16 Fengge: the name for the secretariat (zhongshu sheng) during Empress Wu’s reign (684–705) (TLD: 9.6b; TD: 21.560; THY: 54.925; XTS: 47.1211; Rotours [1947–1948]: 179). 17 Biographies at JTS: 89.2896–2901; XTS: 116.4223–6. 18 See Wang Pu’s entries in the genealogical tables at XTS: 72B.2635 and 2655; and, Wang Huan’s entry at XTS: 72B.2641. Wang Huan’s Taiyuan descent is also evidenced in his epitaph and discussed further in Cen (1957). 19 In the passage recounting the career of his older contemporary Lu Xuanhui, Wang Dingbao states: The first character of Lu’s name is the same as a taboo avoidance in my family; the second character is Hui. (94) 20 For a review of the evidence to eliminate Wang Feng, see Cen (1947a): 263–4. 14

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Tang History. There, Wang Dingbao (cognomen Yisheng) is shown as the grandson of Wang Gui. Furthermore, in excluding the possibility of Wang Dingbao’s Taiyuan descent, previous debate has ignored another interesting reference to Wang Gui.21 In the context of another man’s experience of the ceremony of processing through the Hall (guotang), which is discussed in chapter 6, Wang Dingbao writes: Midway through the Xiantong reign period, jinshi candidates who had gained their degrees and processed through the Hall then adopted the utmost luxuries for their mules, escorts, carriages and dress. Any slight deviance from proper style meant that their fines were double the usual amount. Jiang Yong had gained his degree at a young age because he was the son of a former minister. At that time our family lord held office as president of the court of sacrifices. He said to Yong: “Your gate is lonely and low, so it is not suitable for you to follow the ways of hereditary officials. Pay the fine early. On no account use mules and escorts.” (61)

Wang Gui was president of the court of sacrifices for a certain period beginning in 871.22 In his status as “family lord” he could have been Wang Dingbao’s father, grandfather or uncle. Grandfather, of course, corresponds with the genealogy in the New Tang History, but, whoever he was, Wang Dingbao clearly believed him to be his close relative. If Wang Gui and Wang Dingbao were indeed related, then they shared an ancestral link with Wang Qi (760–847), the celebrated official who administered the examinations in four years. Collected Statements is the leading source for Wang Qi’s examination administration and his well-documented associations with his graduands (45b 66 67 188 395). Another significant aspect of Wang Dingbao’s account of Jiang Yong’s circumstances was the opportunity it provided the compiler to record a scrupulous family attitude towards lavish spending during the examination programme. The story provides the only instance when Wang Dingbao expresses anything close to a personal view of graduands’ behaviour. It reveals also a deep consciousness of family background in validating the content of his records. Two other records suggest Wang Dingbao’s overriding loyalty to Except for Yang (1969): 46–8. According to his biographies, Wang Gui’s appointment followed Wang Tuo’s promotion to minister, which occurred in 871 ( JTS: 164.4281–2; XTS: 167.5119). Xu Song listed Jiang Yong’s degree under 866, but the imprecise date in Collected Statements is the only documentation for his choice of this year (Dengke jikao: 23.851). 21 22

     

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the Taiyuan Wangs. One concerns a contemporary who fled to southern China—most likely to Guangzhou—in the late 890’s: Wang Yanchang was a man of Taiyuan. His ancestors had pinned on official headdresses for generations; they were acclaimed among the leading clans. (226)

For Wang Dingbao to have upheld the pre-eminence of the Taiyuan Wangs in this instance seems only credible if he himself belonged to the same descent group. Secondly, Wang Dingbao included an account of Wang Yuanzhong suffering an injury during a football game played at his residence in the Taiping ward (412). Wang Yuanzhong was one of Wang Fangqing’s descendants, but Wang Dingbao does not identify him as a family relative. Given that elsewhere he chose so often to name his relatives, his silence regarding a putative relationship to Wang Yuanzhong (d. 838) may indicate that he was not a member of the Langye descent group.23 Precisely what Wang Dingbao claims on behalf of his ancestral lineage produces a perplexing conflict. Could he be related to both a number of Taiyuan Wangs and to a Langye Wang as prominent as Wang Fangqing? Of course, the answer is no. To accept claims that identify the compiler as a Taiyuan Wang—indeed Wang Dingbao (Yisheng)—is to accept also that Wang Dingbao was least likely to misconstrue family ties to near ancestors and contemporary relatives. Thus, if Wang Dingbao was a Taiyuan Wang, his conflicting claim on behalf of the most remote figure of all, Wang Fangqing, was either misguided or fabricated. Recent scholarship also shows that spurious claims to belong in a more illustrious descent group of the same name were common in the late Tang. In particular, Taiyuan Wangs wrangled incessantly for recognition as members of the more famous Langye descent group.24 Further challenging evidence, not available in earlier debates of Wang Dingbao’s identity, is the text of Wang Huan’s epitaph unearthed in 1954. An archaeological find of this calibre so far south of the usual Xi’an-Luoyang-Yangzhou circuit of Tang material recoveries is a rare gift to modern research.25 It records unambiguously that Wang Yuanzhong’s descent from Wang Fangqing is shown at XTS: 72B.2615. See introduction to Cen (1948); On false choronyms, see also Johnson (1977a): 6; and, Appendix 1 “Two Methodological Problems” in Johnson (1977b). 25 The stone is now set with other epigraphs in a gallery beside the Guangzhou Museum; the cover is displayed inside the museum. 23

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Wang Huan was a Taiyuan Wang. This reliable documentation of his ancestral descent also provides good reason for supposing that Wang Pu, the second relative mentioned in the preface, was another Taiyuan Wang. If correct, this deduction can rectify attempts by earlier scholars to identify Wang Pu as a Langye Wang.26 To propose that Wang Dingbao was a Taiyuan Wang rather than a Langye Wang makes a crucial difference to his account of how and why he compiled Collected Statements. Scholarship that once refuted his claims to be related to members of the Taiyuan group blocked interesting avenues of enquiry into the experiences of Wang Dingbao’s ancestors, and it also muffled their voices as informants of his text. What they have to say, then, merits further attention. Cultural associations of Wang Dingbao’s descent claims All Wang Dingbao’s ancestral claims are at least consistent in providing him with rich associations to both Tang examination history and Tang appointments to the governorship of Guangzhou. Although their ancestral relationship appears the most questionable, Wang Dingbao is the sole recorder of Wang Fangqing’s service as state examiner in 674. Still some decades before the reassignment of examinations to the Board of Rites in 736, examiners in this period still exercised their duties through the larger administration of Merit Assessments (kaogong) under the Board of Personnel. Wang Dingbao’s unique record of this stage in Wang Fangqing’s career reflects the high prestige that the late Tang bureaucracy associated with the post of examiner. No evidence shows that Wang Fangqing’s contemporaries distinguished his service for the examinations from other routine bureaucratic promotions. Even official historians of the dynasty ignored his term as state examiner in their accounts of his aristocratic stature, his scholarly achievements and his unparalleled collection of writings and artworks. What is known of Wang Fangqing’s compilations displays an impressive breadth of interests.27 If Wang Dingbao sought recogni26 Convinced that the compiler was a Langye Wang, Qian Daxin and later scholars proposed that the name Wang Pu included in the detached preface was an erroneous transcription for Wang Tuan, a contemporary of Wang Pu’s and likewise a late Tang minister. Indeed, the characters for Pu and Tuan in manuscript copy vary only marginally, and amending the text with the new alternative can repair—infelicitously—Wang Dingbao’s claims in favour of the Langye Wangs. 27 Wang Fangqing’s works listed in the XTS literary monographs cover subjects

     

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

37

tion of his descent—pretended or otherwise—from a representative of the Tang’s deepest scholarly engagement, none other than Wang Fangqing’s reputation could better serve to bolster his claim. Not only a symbol of Tang national achievement, Wang Fangqing’s status also towered high in Guangzhou. He had governed the city for at least one year until 695, during which time he re-introduced some order into the government’s fractious trade administration and led the compilation of the earliest known pharmacopoeia based on products of the Lingnan region. The theme of service in the far south recurs in the biographies of two other Wangs whom Wang Dingbao claims as his relatives in the preface. The first was Wang Huan whose recently discovered epitaph relates that he served briefly as a secretary in the Qinghai military administration, based at Guangzhou, until his death in 901. Not long afterwards, Liu Yin assumed command of the city in his first step towards consolidating the state of Yue, later renamed Han, the regime under which Wang Dingbao would later serve. A Guangzhou appointment for Wang Pu, the other relative mentioned in the preface, was perhaps only nominal. In 896, Wang Pu was prepared to follow Cui Yin to a new appointment at either Guangzhou or Wuanzhou (east of modern Hanoi), but, halfway though their journey, Cui Yin was recalled north. Wang Pu then probably never assumed real duties in the south, but he may have retained for a while his title as a circuit judge in the Lingnan region. He fared badly in his association with Cui Yin, who demoted him in 903. Worse followed with his murder in 905 and his addition to the growing ranks of the Tang dynasty’s last loyal martyrs.28 Aside from links to men surnamed Wang, Wang Dingbao also made Chang’an figure large in his reflections on his past. He drew attention to his somewhat tenuous origins in the capital by naming the long fashionable Taiping ward where the Wangs resided. Of course, leading Tang families were often recognizable through the residential wards that were associated with their high social standing in the capital. Thus, the account of Wang Yuanzhong and his

as diverse as institutional history, ritual, calligraphy (a subject that privileged in particular his descent from Wang Xizhi), biography, training daughters, genealogy, geography, Daoism, horticulture, minor persuasions (xiaoshuo) and medicine. 28 JTS: 20A.775, 177.4586, 20B.796; HTS: 10.300, 182.5377. In 924, the Latter Tang government rehabilitated him with a posthumous promotion ( Jiu Wudai shi: 32.438).

38

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relatives’ football game, cited earlier, is presented as all the more credible amid the the biographical context of Wang Yuanzhong’s residence in the Taiping ward. Early Tang records show that Taiyuan Wangs maintained property in the Taiping ward as well.29 This location, then, figured in the ancestral history of two groups of Wangs. Clearly, Wang Dingbao entertained no doubts that the Taiping ward was part of his background. He also claimed that an influential patron of examination success was Wang Chong of Taiping (157), about whom Tang sources record nothing else. Since Wang Dingbao identified him in such an unconventional manner, his primary intention may have been to stress Wang Chong’s standing in the capital. It seems characteristic of Wang Dingbao that he should cite Wang Chong, for instance, as a figure from the Taiping ward, but provide no more information about him. He was, it seems, willing to cite or perhaps even invent any figures that strengthened his inclusion within a community of prestigious Wangs in Chang’an. Yet invention is no less a significant means of reference to the identity that he chose to project with all its Tang associations. However questionable they now appear, all associations with past state examiners, governors of Guangzhou and life in the Tang capital of Chang’an were biographical means of validating his authority as an ex-Tang informant in the remote and precarious conditions of Southern Han elite society. Without exception, the cultural references in the various strands of Wang Dingbao’s identity are to the Tang past. Proving links with the northern heartland of the vanished Tang government was a fashionable pursuit among Southern Han courtiers. Even their emperor Gaozu (Liu Yan) apparently loved to impress merchants on visits from the north with his collection of treasures and his boasts of an ancestry in the historic lands of Qin.30 Perhaps because Wang Dingbao’s readership was so familiar with conditions following the fall of the Tang dynasty he said nothing concerning the present and never commented on his career during

One of the most opulent mansions of the eighth century was the residence of Wang Hong (d. 752), a Taiyuan Wang; an inventory of the confiscated property and contents in 752 required several days’ work (Feng shi wenjian ji: 5.40; TYL: 5.498–9 (no. 729); XTS: 134.4566; see also Xiang (1933): 39–40). A later Taiping resident was the state physician Wang Yanbo, but his background is unknown (Gan sun zi at TPGJ: 242.1867). 30 Xin Wudai shi: 65.812. 29

     

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

39

the Five Dynasties. However, other records of his career provide dimensions to understand how his life both before and after the Tang collapse may have affected his interests in Tang recruitment culture. Wang Dingbao’s career Wang Dingbao’s preface dates his degree success to 900. Elsewhere in Collected Statements, he relates that he commenced his efforts to win a degree during a stay on Lushan, where he was probably a lay resident in one of the holy mountain’s many religious establishments (182). He was also aware of predecessors who had pursued preparatory studies as lay members at Lushan (37 263) and at other religious communities in Chang’an (151 189), Yangzhou (147) and the Zhongtiao mountains (150). Collected Statements also reflects his interest in clerics who even more radically renounced their holy vows in order to enter the competition for state degrees (261 262 296 297). At Lushan he dreamed that he would gain his degree at the fourth attempt, and his vision turned out to be a reliable portent. Officials who edited collections of documents, were sometimes unwilling to confess to experiences that had foretold the future; some of these editors even publicised their antipathy to documenting this rich element of Tang life.31 Wang Dingbao, however, in common with most of his contemporaries, was fascinated by the divinatory magic that empowered bureaucratic and military careers (71a 71b 93 148 178a 178b 179 180 181 183 184 420). Wang Dingbao spent some of the four years prior to his degree success in 900 almost certainly in Huazhou, located not far north of Chang’an. His time there may have generated his remarkably deep interest in prefectural examinations, for no other Tang observer recorded as much as he did. The reason for Wang Dingbao’s interest may have stemmed from the extra attention that Huazhou prefectural selections received from officialdom in 897 and 898. During those years the court had to retreat from Chang’an, and the government ran the state examinations in the uncustomary setting of a prefecture outside the capital. Wang Dingbao probably entered these degree examinations and failed for two years running. If so, he had 31 For the sceptical position of an editor from whose work Wang Dingbao cited material, see Li Zhao’s preface to Guoshi bu. See also sceptical views in the preface to Zhuoyi ji, attributed to Chen Ao.

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ample opportunity to collect some of the texts and hearsay that acquainted him with Tang prefectural procedures at Huazhou, Chang’an and elsewhere. (18–44 68 70 72b 77 113b 133 139 142 192 193 246 260b 302 309 331). Most of this rich material is discussed again in chapter 3. Wang Dingbao recounts nothing of a direct nature concerning his experience of winning a degree in 900, except to record that a scandalous dispute took place between two candidates whom he clearly believed deserved to fail (307). Although he mentions his examiner in the preface, he tells his readers nothing more concerning Li Wo, a silence that suggests he was an outsider in that official’s ring of acquaintances. Nor does he ever clarify precisely how fully he actually participated in the annual examination programme that he documented so richly. Still, there is little reason to doubt that he had direct experience of the programme’s events in some form or other. He relates that as late as 899, despite the pressure of mounting financial costs, new graduands remained determined to enact the rites of passage with which their predecessors had awed onlookers at even more extravagant performances in recent decades (62). A Song source confirms that in 900—when Wang Dingbao gained the jinshi degree—that year’s graduands organized a feast at the Qujiang in close collaboration with the throne.32 Not Wang Dingbao, however, but other compilers documented the disappointments that soon greeted him after 900. Their accounts show all too clearly the nature of late Tang and Five Dynasties politics when “disloyalty was a fact of life.”33 Certainly, Wang Dingbao’s own gradual retreat to southern China was nothing out of the ordinary as a series of broken contracts and rapid re-alignments. In his preface, Wang Dingbao cites his obligations to his chief patron Wu Rong (d. 904) among a group of Collected Statements’ leading informants, but he does not reveal that soon after his degree success he married Wu Rong’s daughter. According to the late tenth-century collection Refined talk in the Commandery Offices ( Junge yatan), he lost contact with his wife or perhaps even abandoned her after his escape from Chang’an in or before 906. His next known landfall was Changsha, capital of the Chu principality, where his wife caught up 32 Shilin bishu luhua: 3.13a. This short account of a Tang palace recipe for cakes distributed during the Qujiang banquets focuses on Lu Yanrang, one of Wang Dingbao’s fellow graduands in 900. 33 Graff (1995): 14.

     

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

41

with him. She confronted him here, but the meeting did not resolve their estrangement; she adopted monastic life and Wang Dingbao vowed never to remarry. These events occasioned the only known address to Wang Dingbao by a certain Shen Bin whose poem laments Wang’s celibacy in contrast to his triumph in the examinations.34 Apparently, his behaviour attracted censure from no less a figure than the new Chu ruler. The Northern Song bibliophile Chen Zhensun was equally outraged when he wrote a brief yet harsh critique of Wang Dingbao’s actions in his catalogue entry for Collected Statements.35 Clearly, whatever other issues may have also roused so much disdain, Wang Dingbao’s future position in Changsha was untenable. Having parted with his wife, the Junge yatan account concludes that Wang Dingbao decamped south again and sought refuge with the Lius in Guangzhou. In Lingnan he entered a distinguished group of ex-Tang officials, many of whom had fled there during the Tang dynasty’s last two decades or else grown up as the offspring of exiled Tang officials. In his revision of Five Dynasties’ history, completed around 1053, Ouyang Xiu (1007–72) listed Wang Dingbao at the head of this Tang coterie. Considering that Collected Statements was a source available to Northern Song historians, Ouyang Xiu’s silence concerning Wang Dingbao’s forebears is intriguing, all the more so since he identifies some of Wang Dingbao’s contemporaries precisely by their descent from the most politically active families of the ninth century.36 Ouyang Xiu says nothing of corresponding significance concerning Wang Dingbao. Perhaps Wang Dingbao’s ancestral claim already lacked conviction in the eyes of Song historians. Instead, Ouyang Xiu identifies Wang Dingbao as a circuit judge at Rongzhou, the base of the Ningyuan military command after 897, which governed the eastern end of modern Guangxi.37 It is particularly difficult to trace government careers during the period 890–910, but Ouyang Xiu’s mention of Rongzhou in an account of several men’s ex-Tang status is a strong hint that Wang Dingbao’s position in this command had been a Tang appointment.38 In this light too, This account from Junge yatan is preserved at Shihua zonggui, vol. 1: 26.275–6. Zhizhai shulu jieti: 11.323. 36 These figures included a son of Liu Chongwang and a grandson of Li Deyu. 37 For Rongzhou’s upgrade to a regional command in 897, see ZZTJ: 261.8508; XTS: 69.1953. 38 Xin Wudai shi: 65.810. 34

35

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considering his preface’s remark that “his own path never took him to the capital”, Rongzhou may have been his first and only Tang appointment after gaining a degree. His life here almost certainly fed his knowledge of political events in the Lingnan region. For instance, his accounts of careers featuring a posting or sojourn in Rongzhou include the record of a governor who requested Daoist ordination (205) and the story of a Rongzhou candidate who, following years of failure, won a degree under Liang rule (228). He included also accounts of candidates who entered the examinations as tribute scholars from Xunzhou (modern Huizhou in eastern Guangdong) and Guangzhou (218a–b). The documents concerning the examiner Xiao Fang, who was dismissed after the all too familiar charge of favouritism in 863, include his letter refuting that a candidate whom he favoured from Guangzhou was not the son of a powerful family of traders (398). If Wang Dingbao was still at Rongzhou in 910, then he was once more in an interesting if awkward location. In that year, Pang Juzhao (c. 843–c. 918), the Ningyuan military governor, intent not to serve the Lius at Guangzhou, negotiated a safe return to Chu and deserted his command.39 Wang Dingbao might have chosen the only available option in choosing to stay behind. Some thirty years later, it appears, he returned to the same garrison in the supreme capacity of Ningyuan regional commander, the appointment that Sima Guang claims Wang Dingbao held a few months before his death in 940.40 Sima Guang also states that Wang Dingbao died soon after receiving his recall to a central post at Guangzhou. Unless he was already too ill to leave Rongzhou, then, he may have spent his final days in the Southern Han capital. Although Wang Dingbao first entered the circles of Lingnan government with a junior provincial appointment, his influence in the region’s politics was soon considerable. Ouyang Xiu’s account relates that he voiced authoritative opinions among the ex-Tang officials to whom Liu Yan, the second ruler of the Lingnan area turned for advice in his efforts to found the Southern Han.41 According to the official account, Liu Yan was a thug; recent scholarship has also suggested that he and his forbears were members of one of southern 39 40 41

ZZTJ: 267.8733–4. ZZTJ: 282.9219. On recorded political events of the Southern Han, see Schafer (1954).

     

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

43

China’s non-Han ethnic groups.42 By the time Liu Yan was ready to adopt his imperial title in 917, he was so concerned to avoid unfavourable comments from a fastidious ex-Tang degree-holder that he posted Wang Dingbao on an embassy to Jiangling, the Yangzi capital of the Jingnan regime. Ouyang Xiu provides a view of Wang Dingbao upon his return acting much in character with his editorial interest in ritual forms and political symbols. He steps ashore at the newly designated capital and is shocked to discover that no one has seen to redressing the main gateway with a new name: To establish a state, you must have laws and customs. When I entered the southern gate, the plaque “Qinghai military command” was still there. Won’t all the regions around us find this a joke?”

Liu Yan, not yet expert in regal appearances, agrees that he deserves this chiding, but his reign eventually witnesses the completion of a new palace and a reconstructed government city. In honour of the rebuilding projects, Wang Dingbao composes his “Rhapsody on the seven marvels of the Southern Palace” (Nangong qi qi fu).43 The work does not survive, but its composition marks one of the only literary commemorations of Guangzhou as a capital since the remote glory of the Nan Yue kingdom one millennium earlier. Annual examinations in the Southern Han began in 920. According to the editors of the New History of the Five Dynasties, the government that year issued jinshi and mingjing degrees, and it did so in the manner of Tang traditions.44 Nothing more is known concerning Southern Han recruitment. Also, whether Wang Dingbao exerted any influence over the performance of examination ceremony in Guangzhou can be only a matter of speculation. By 920, however, his lengthy collection of Tang precedents was almost certainly complete and in circulation. It is not too implausible that Collected Statements may have served a generation of scholars as a practical guide to behaviour and performance during Southern Han efforts to maintain the Tang system of winning and receiving degree titles. In remote provincial conditions like Guangzhou, the notion of seeking information on Tang institutions and the rituals of political life in the dynasty’s most authoritative sources would have to await 42 43 44

Liu (1989). Xin Wudai shi: 65.811–2. Ibid., 65.812.

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the Song reorganization of imperial government. In particular, Song efforts to affirm the legitimacy of Song rule witnessed impressive efforts to print and distribute the standard texts of Tang government to all the major cities and towns of late tenth-century China.45 If Wang Dingbao’s text served a practical function in informing its readers about their participation in official recruitment, it did so before the ascent of more modern distribution technology. And, in an age when nearly all texts still circulated via the transmission of manuscripts, Wang Dingbao’s highly personal and complex biographical claims provided a cardinal reference point for his text’s authority and validity. T     Transmission of collected statements Wang Dingbao probably titled his work Zhiyan not Tang zhiyan. Zhiyan is the title given after citations of the text in the Taiping Guangji, the lengthy classified compendium of historical and anecdotal sources completed in 978 and printed in 981. Zhiyan is also listed in three Song bibliographies, which attribute the text to Wang Dingbao.46 Those early bibliographical records record the text’s division into 15 juan, which corresponds with the same division in transmitted editions today. The text’s fifteen juan contain a total of 480 documents, certainly a substantial amount of material compared to other collections of this period.47 Slightly more than one quarter of this total appears in the Taiping guangji. The documents in Collected Statements are further subdivided into 105 category headings, but the nature of these headings is extremely heterogeneous. In fact, early bibliographical records of Collected Statements suggest that at any time between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries later editors added a number of the headings now present in all complete editions transmitted since the late

On producing Tang texts for a Song readership, see Bol (1992): 150–5. See Chongwen zongmu (Wenyuan Ge edn): 5.20a; Zhao De xiansheng jun zhai dushu zhi (Yuanzhou edition): 3B.5b; Ibid. (Quzhou edition): 13.10a; Zhi zhai shulu jieti: 11.323. 47 Modern texts of the Collected Statements include 437 separate items, a total that this study redivides into 480 documents and lists in the Appendix. 45 46

     

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

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Ming period.48 It appears too that some material has been lost or else misplaced in the text’s original sequence. For example, the heading “general account of escorting dispatches” contains one document (30), but it must have once contained more, particularly since this was a subject in which Wang Dingbao displayed inordinate interest. In one instance, the compiler’s own annotation reveals how the original categorization has changed. He cites a category “Banquet gatherings” (429), which—despite the inclusion of a wealth of relevant material—figures nowhere as a heading in his text. The earliest record of printing Collected Statements dates to the Southern Song. Zheng Fang, whose hometown was Keshan near Shaoxing, arranged for his edition of Collected Statements to be printed at Yichun (modern Yichun, Jiangxi province), and he added a postscript dated 17 June, 1211. Recognizing that Collected Statements deserved a wider readership than hitherto, Zheng Fang emphasized the text’s contribution to the history of the jinshi degree—the only prestigious recruitment degree of his day. Moreover, even after a century when book collectors had done their utmost to repair the disastrous losses incurred after the sacking of Kaifeng’s libraries in 1127, Zheng Fang recorded his high evaluation of Collected Statements as a unique source of Tang insights.49 Copies of Zheng Fang’s printed edition were apparently the texts that other collectors used to check subsequent editions. Zhu Yizun (1629–1709) recorded his discovery of a copy of Zheng Fang’s edition in the Ciren Monastery book market in Beijing.50 Wang Shizhen (1634 –1711) borrowed this text to amend his copy of Collected Statements,51 and Lu Jianzeng (1690–1768), who inherited Wang Shizhen’s text, published it in the Yayu tang congshu in 1756. Recently, Huang Yongnian has suggested that the notion of an early printed

48 Editions of the Collected Statements transmitted from the Ming period onwards contain 105 categories. For notice of the work manifesting 83 categories, see Zhao De xiansheng jun zhai dushu zhi (Yuanzhou edition): 3B.5a; and, Yuhai: 58.27b. It is probably a printing error, but another notice records the Collected Statements’s subdivision into 63 categories, see Zhao De xiansheng jun zhai dushu zhi (Quzhou edition): 13.10a. 49 Zheng Fang’s postscript, which appears on several Qing manuscript editions, is reproduced at Wang (1983): 159. 50 Pushu ting ji: 52.13b–14a. 51 Chongji Yuyang shuba: 31–2.

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edition by Zheng Fang is spurious.52 If so, Zhu Yizun and later collectors all succumbed to the wiles of the early Qing book trade. These doubts, however, do not raise major questions over the authenticity of the text itself. Lu Jianzeng’s edition provided the basic text that twentieth-century editors used to publish the first punctuated edition in 1957.53 All translations of Wang Dingbao’s text in this study use this edition. Informative variants from the Taiping guangji are also noted, since, despite the fact that no edition of that compendium dates earlier than the Ming, its citations of Collected Statements also preserve valuable evidence of the text’s earlier editions. Documents and anecdotes Collected Statements is a mixture of cited documents and reported anecdotes. The inclusion of anecdotes was almost certainly one reason why bibliographers listed Collected Statements under the category of “minor persuasions” (xiaoshuo). But, this categorization obscures the nature of much of what Collected Statements contains. The survey of the text’s documentary sources below will address in more detail the Tang conception of anecdotal and historical materials under the discussion of minor historical works. Here it will suffice to say that the post-Tang period witnessed a radical shift in the definition of historical sources. Most notably, compilations that medieval scholarship had long accepted as historical were now deemed unreliable. The two major catalogues of the eleventh century, the Chongwen zongmu (1042) and the literary monograph of the Xin Tangshu (1060), clarified the new priorities. Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072) assisted Wang Yaochen (1001–56) to compile the first of these catalogues before he took charge of the second.54 52 Huang (1999). Although the author’s argument is quite plausible in the case of Lu Jianzeng’s copy of the Collected Statements, especially after comparing it with another copy of the Kangxi period once owned by Wang Shizhen, he does not comment on the crucial issue of whether Zhu Yizun accepted his copy of a Zheng Fang imprint as authentic or not. 53 The 1957 edition (and subsequent reprints) is also based on Zhang Haipeng’s re-edition of Lu Jianzeng’s edition in 1805. Furthermore, the editors published the textual variants that Jiang Guangxu (1813–60) collected from his comparisons with other early Qing editions. 54 Ouyang Xiu, extraordinarily enough, did not list the Collected Statements in the Xin Tangshu monograph, even though it appears in the xiaoshuo section of the Chongwen zongmu and it almost certainly featured among Ouyang Xiu’s sources for his monograph on examinations in the Xin Tangshu.

     

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The Chongwen zongmu has survived only as a skeletal book-finding list, first published in 1144, but it still shows the bibliograpical categorizations from one century earlier. The arrangement of titles in both catalogues reflected a purification of various categories of historiography, and the de-selected works usually reappeared in the same and other Song catalogues’ lists of xiaoshuo.55 Many more texts listed among the xiaoshuo of Song catalogues were sources that Wang Dingbao cited. But the Song categorization of these texts is no argument for minimizing their worth as historical sources. Nor should it be any premise for suggesting that the compilers of xiaoshuo collected only anecdotes, gossip and unsubstantiated rumour. A survey of Collected Statements shows that more than half of its documents are either factual records or statements expressed in verifiable historical circumstances. They embody a good argument for treating Wang Dingbao’s text as a work of Tang history. Nevertheless, in Wang Dingbao’s own summary, talk not document is what informed his text. Wang Dingbao’s preface stresses that he acquired information through conversing with his peers and seniors. In the only lengthy presentation of his text to his readership, he declared the authenticity of his work to depend on his own circulation in society rather than to be drawn from the period’s literary archives. In countless cases he does not specify whether the source of his information is a text or a reminiscence gleaned in conversation with one of his peers. Besides, even though he collected stories concerning Lu Yi (186), Yan Rao (286 341, the senior scholars and informants named in his preface, nothing shows whether these two figures ever delivered more substantial contributions to Tang examination history. His silence concerning his examiner Li Wo has already been mentioned. Aside from two stories (139 327) featuring his fellow graduand Lu Yanrang (b. ca. 855), his text reveals no more concerning Yang Zantu and Cui Jiruo, two other fellow graduands in the social circle outlined in his preface. After 907—perhaps earlier—he saw few if any of these colleagues again. Lu Yanrang, for example, another Wu Rong protégé, fled to Chengdu where his status as an honoured Tang exile in Shu court circles was probably not dissimilar to Wang Dingbao’s position in Guangzhou.56 55 For Ouyang Xiu’s attitude to historiography in the context of defining xiaoshuo, see Wu (1995): 341. 56 Shilin bishu luhua: 3.13a.

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The influence of Wu Rong, chief patron of Wang Dingbao’s success in the examination of 900, stands out much clearer. He surfaces more frequently than any other figure in recollections and information that he imparted directly to his protégé and son-in-law. Hopeful degree candidates often submitted their writings to him (123 125 139 256), notwithstanding that he was a haughty judge of literary style (128); he was also famed for his swift transcription of official documents (357). Wang Dingbao cited his writings at length (277 286).57 Wang Dingbao’s association with Wu Rong was significant, because this senior statesman clearly played an important role in transmitting the knowledge and lore of late Tang officialdom to willing listeners of a younger generation. This is suggested by Qian Yi (fl. 998–1023), a Hanlin scholar of the early Song period and the later compiler of another important collection of Tang recollections. The careers of Qian Yi and two of Wu Rong’s great nephews led them to Kaifeng in the same period, and Qian Yi said enough concerning Wu Rong and his descendants to show that they shared a common background in their respective hometowns of Hangzhou and Yuezhou.58 Qian Yi’s text provides several close yet slightly variant versions of accounts that Wang Dingbao had already collected. Of course, Qian Yi may have read Collected Statements, but the slight textual differences may also prove that his material derives from a common source and varies simply in a new and later telling. If so, Wu Rong role was as a major informant of two texts that transmitted late Tang rituals and elite literary life to a Song readership. Finally, even though his preface stresses social contact rather than documentary evidence, some of the lost Tang texts compiled by Wang Dingbao’s relatives and contemporaries may have provided him with information that he eventually recorded in his own work. The composer of Wang Huan’s epitaph, for instance, records that his subject compiled a work entitled Notes penned when accompanying my friends (Congzhi bigao), which included material collected during his term as a junior official seconded to serve in the Daming Palace. No edition of this work survives, so it is impossible to know whether Wang Dingbao used it to document Chang’an palace life and the examination ceremonies linked to it. Nevertheless, its production was symptomatic 57 Wu Rong’s collection of fu did not appear in imperial library lists until the Song period (Songshi: 208.5337). 58 Nanbu xinshu: 7.100.

     

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

49

of Tang society’s interest in the Chang’an court, and its compiler was a relative who could have imparted his knowledge to Wang Dingbao either by word of mouth or else by sharing his notes with him. Even if Wang Dingbao liked to claim that editing was a process of polite discourse followed by vigorous note-taking “when all had retired”, his text is preponderantly a collection of documents. The rarity of some of them is beyond question. Writing about examination factions, he states that the sources he had assembled were already fragmentary (235 and heading before 236–239). These are the admissions of a historian already resigned to the futility of seeking extra informants to complete his data and yet practical enough to set on record what he has already acquired. Wang Dingbao compiled Collected Statements over several years. The incremental acquisition of material is obvious in several passages of the text. Most significant are the fourteen instances of duplicated accounts (1/400 4b/401 31/133 71a–b/429 103a/163 131/283 132/171 138/158 190/381a 201/303 217/272 237/329 264/356 342/424). These are unlikely to have been editorial errors, especially since he cross-referenced the second location of material in three instances (71a–b/429 217/272 237/329). Viewed more closely, small variants between separate accounts of the same material also presuppose that he cited two different texts for essentially the same content. Not only do duplications suggest the extent to which he re-used material according to successive shifts in his interests, they demonstrate too the strong moralistic side to his editing. Material that supported one message could be re-used again to supply another. The urge to moralize surfaces in the comments that Wang Dingbao inserted at intervals throughout his text, and in one instance it led him even to draw conclusions from patently conflicting facts. Two stories recount the fate of Zheng Yin, a candidate from Lingnan. In the first story, Zheng Yin successfully curries favour with the examiner after their meeting in Xunzhou and wins a degree in Chang’an before ending up friendless and unemployed. In the second story, which is one of the darkest in Collected Statements, Zheng Yin irritates so many people during the prefectural selections in Guangzhou that one of his enemies manages to poison him before he leaves for the capital. Wang Dingbao sets these two accounts side by side (218a–b), and shortly afterwards he comments (lun) briefly on Zheng Yin as an instructive warning against the vacuous pursuit of fame (221). Wang Dingbao’s intervention is a valuable illustration of his determination

50

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to define the meaning of events even when he ignored the discrepancies in varying accounts. Wang Dingbao’s editing is most coherent in those sections where he undertook to document the rise of the Tang examination programme. Significantly too, these parts of the text, which cover the work’s first three juan, seem to have been edited as a progressive and consistent whole. Their growth presents the tightest construction in Collected Statements, especially because they focus on respectively the cultural ascent of the jinshi degree, the growing attention for prefectural selections and the multiplying opportunities for ritual performances in the annual examination programme. Remarkably, Zeng Zao’s discerning selection of 124 citations of Wang Dingbao’s text in his Leishuo, completed in 1136, demonstrates his high evaluation of the topics contained in Collected Statements’s opening three juan. It is tempting to speculate that Wang Dingbao completed these most cohesive sections of his text during and shortly after his experience of the examination system in 900 when he still enjoyed closer access to senior informants and to historical and literary resources in Huazhou and Chang’an. Wang Dingbao’s arrangement throughout the rest of the text does not maintain the same topical focus, and he seldom resists a simple ad hominem approach to issues. Although the following chapters in this study use material from various locations in Collected Statements, each one engages with topics raised in the first three juan before discussing their significance in context with other documents distributed throughout the rest of the work and collected in other Tang sources. The total number of documents in his text far exceeds those few for which he identified the sources. To grasp his response to every kind of document that he recovered is therefore impossible. However, a few declarations of sources scattered throughout his text do reveal some sense of his editorial priorities, and they show the basis on which he pursued his interest in Tang examination culture. D   COLLECTED STATEMENTS Because Collected Statements’ compilation dates to the years immediately following the Tang collapse, its content provides rare insights into a Tang-Five Dynasties’ compiler’s use of written sources covering the entire Tang period. Comprising some sixty percent of the

     

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

51

480 documents that make up the whole text, 294 documents are attributable to individual authors and compilers as well as to government drafting agencies. Fragments of decrees represent lost government documents whose date is more readily apparent than their authorship; on the other hand, citations from memorials and other submissions to the government are the proposals and critiques of individuals who signed their names and usually preserved their writings in personal literary collections. This portion of the text’s documents also includes Wang Dingbao’s twenty one moral commentaries written in the form of discussions (lun) and eulogies (zan). One notable group of documents belonged to sources first generated by the Tang court, and it included decrees, memorials and “veritable records” (shilu). Other documents cited from institutional monographs, degree registers and ceremonial directives circulated widely in government society, but their inclusion with the dynasty’s official record could not be taken for granted. Their compilers created them more often than not according to individual initiative, even though ultimately their completed texts might be stored in government archives. Another distinct group of documents includes ostensibly private communications, such as epitaphs, biographical writings and various forms of correspondence and written exchange. Prominent among them are 41 letters and 106 accounts citing one or more poems or couplets. A great deal of this material would have been available in private literary collections, and indeed most of the documents in these categories are attributed to their authors. Finally, an important group comprises 54 documents, which the compiler borrowed—yet seldom cited—from minor historical works of the Tang period. Most of the remaining 185 documents, which are impossible to retrace in contemporary and earlier sources, feature the kinds of stories and hearsay that may well have circulated in similar historical accounts that are now lost. Confronted with this wide range of sources, Wang Dingbao seems to have given priority to ceremonial directives. Their number in Collected Statements is small (46–50), but the compiler’s willingness to preserve them as whole accounts contrasts sharply with the briefer passages that he extracted from other more prestigious texts. These directives are translated in the following chapters and analyzed as Wang Dingbao’s primary evidence of cultural change in Tang examination recruitment. Other texts that offered Wang Dingbao further valuable insights into early and late Tang society are surveyed in the rest of this chapter.

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Decrees, memorials and “veritable records” (shilu) Wang Dingbao preserved examples of bureaucratic writing from the highest levels of the Tang administrative structure. His work’s first three juan feature citations of seven memorials detailing their authors’ proposals for reforming the annual examination programme (8 10b 13c 14a 20 21 54b). Cited elsewhere in the text, another eight memorials are concerned with more personal issues, such as requests for promotion and pleas for exoneration following charges of factionalism (141 250 277 294 301 341 396 397). The first juan alone, however, contains thirteen fragments of decrees (1 2 7d 7e 7g 7h 7i 9 11 12 13b 14b 15). This category of document appears nowhere else in the text. Located also in the first juan are other less easily identifiable administrative documents, which include the prefectural quota regulations of 845 (3) and two pronouncements of policy concerning education and examinations (7f 13d). The preponderance of official views in this section of his work suggests that Wang Dingbao may have started his compilation with plans to delve consistently into documents of the dynasty’s official archive. The qualitative difference in documentation between the first three juan and the following is certainly marked; it invites speculation that his troubled career and frequent moves after 900, impacted directly on what may have been his ambitions to compile a text reflecting much more of Tang official discourse. Even so, Wang Dingbao’s text also demonstrates that by the late ninth century a good many court documents had filtered out far beyond the capital. Clearly, such documents of the Tang still exerted an enormous attraction to Wang Dingbao, and their status sometimes outweighed their value as objective records of examination history. Pre-eminent among such documents were the “veritable records” (shilu) compiled every reign as a “major and deliberate political act”, and edited by the greatest literary figures of the dynasty. The Tang government succeeded in completing these records as far as the end of Wuzong’s reign in 846, but it seems to have been unable to carry the task farther.59 To Wang Dingbao, apparently, the authority of the “veritable records” that he cited was irrefutable. Consider, for example, his use of a fragment to demonstrate that, despite current preferences for earlier dates, the rise of the Qujiang resort’s fame dated to the 740’s: 59

Twitchett (1992): 119–59.

     

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

53

Qujiang tourism, although said to date from the Shenlong reign period [705–7], really flourished in the late Kaiyuan reign period [742]. How do I know this? On the evidence of the veritable record. (55)

What follows is an account of Xiao Song’s obligation to move his ancestral shrine away from the Qujiang, which will be discussed again in chapter 7. The passage is cited most probably from the veritable record of Dezong’s reign (779–805). Wang Dingbao’s citation shows how an independent critic in the late Tang or Five Dynasties’ used an official Tang source to dispute a more fashionable interpretation of the past. And, in accepting the word of the shilu in this case, he was almost certainly nearest the mark in a discussion of historical dating. In two further instances he cited the veritable records of Gaozong’s and Jingzong’s reigns (7a 113c). Veritable records provided the basic material that was edited into the dynasty’s national history (guoshi ). It is therefore possible that Wang Dingbao drew from the veritable records several more documents that correspond closely to present texts of the annals of the Old Tang History ( Jiu Tangshu) (7d 303 304) and the Collected Essentials of the Tang (Tang huiyao) (7h–i 8 9 10b 11 12 13c 14a–b 15), a major collection of state documents first assembled under Tang rule. Particularly interesting too is the brief insight that Wang Dingbao gives into the circulation of veritable records in the Tang provinces. At Hongzhou in the early 900’s, he recounts how Chen Yue, long frustrated in his attempts to win a degree, devoted his later years to editing the canonical texts, early dynastic histories, including the Shiji and Hanshu, and the recent shilu (280). The significance of Chen Yue’s lonely academic commitment is twofold. It pinpoints a moment ahead of the Tang’s final collapse when the government’s official texts were already leaking out of the capital and into the hands of scholarly editors in the provinces. Secondly, it reveals a context in southern China where Wang Dingbao could have discovered library resources that allowed him to cite from some of the most prestigious documents of the recent past. Du You’s Tongdian Wang Dingbao’s interest in several key examination reforms suggests the influence of Du You (735–812), incontestably the most influential late Tang institutional historian. Du You’s Tongdian (801) was a diachronic history of institutions, which comprised monographs on financial administration, recruitment, official posts, ritual, music, the

54

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army, provincial administration and foreign cultures. Du You’s incorporation of recruitment—including Sui and Tang examinations— within his essentialized scheme of government knowledge represented a new expansion in historical enquiry. Five documents corresponding closely with material in the Tongdian appear in Collected Statements’s first juan (2 6a 7d 7f 13c). Although the Tongdian, once submitted to the throne, became a standard source of Tang history—and a valuable source of pre-Tang history—Du You completed it as a private compilation amid his various commitments to government service.60 Superficially, then, as historical genre the Tongdian and Collected Statements have something in common, an issue worth examining once more with the discussion of minor historical accounts below. Not the least intriguing aspect of Wang Dingbao’s editing is that, despite his consciousness of historical changes in the examinations, he seems to have made little further use of Du You’s path-breaking monograph in the Tongdian. Nor does he show any awareness of another work of the same genre and period, namely the Examinations monograph (Xuanju zhi ) attributed to Shen Jiji (late 8th c.), a work that survived until the end of the Song.61 Du You’s rigorous organization of documents outlining the chronological and structural development of examinations is not a diagnostic feature of Wang Dingbao’s text in anything like the same degree. Of course, whatever Wang Dingbao read in the Tongdian dated to a century earlier, and since then the centrality of examinations in official life had magnified even further. An ordered view of the last one hundred years—to compare with the review that Du You offered readers in 801—was apparently not available in any similar form of institutional compendium to orient observers looking back at the century ending in 907. Wang Dingbao included information from the Tongdian that corresponded less with Du You’s interest in institutions and far more with Wang Dingbao’s own fascination with individual careers. He accepted Han dynasty examples of rapid official advancement, which Du You cited, as circumstances that matched closely Tang examination experience. One of his documents rehearses Du You’s usage of the Han epithet “white robes” (baiyi ), which had long connoted See Wang Wenjin’s introduction to Tongdian; and, Twitchett (1992): 104–7. Listed as a work of 10 juan at XTS: 57.1434; for notices of a three-juan work, see Songshi: 203.510; Yuhai: 117.12a. See also Twitchett (1992): 90–1. 60

61

     

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

55

rapid political advance.62 Other Tang examination candidates also adopted this metaphor to express their jinshi status as “courtier-ministers in white robes” (baiyi qingxiang) (6a 94). Theirs was an image visualizing boldly the high expectations of office that aspirants for degree titles entertained despite their status as men with neither official rank nor the appropriate costume that denoted it. The occurrence of this metaphor in Wang Dingbao’s Collected Statements and perhaps earlier in Li Zhao’s Guoshi bu demonstrates its intertextual value in sources as diverse as theirs and Du You’s Tongdian. It elucidates a vision of official careers as major acts of individual achievement, a vision that three important observers validated at different moments of the ninth century. All of the following chapters will show, however, that Wang Dingbao emphasized the link between career achievement and degree success most explicitly. Degree registers Documents exclusively concerned with examination history were the numerous editions of degree registers (dengke ji ), which circulated widely in late Tang official society. Most of these texts remained available long into the Northern Song period, but the textual history of some ten registers, which appeared from as early as the 650’s, is extremely muddled.63 Wang Dingbao’s observations on degree registers reveal that this kind of record once chronicled a complete range of Tang degree titles: Before the Yonghui reign period [650–55] the two degrees of junshi and xiucai were listed side by side with the jinshi. After the Xianheng reign period [671–74] all those who were recommended to the examiner for [their ability in] literature competed to be grouped among the jinshi. This is why Zhao Shen and others deleted the jun[shi ] and xiu[cai ], and they thus produced the title Jinshi degree register [ Jinshi dengke ji ]. (4a)

When the jinshi degree became the central focus of Tang degree culture, ongoing records of degree selection not only focussed exclusively on jinshi passes, they excised older records of any other degree 62 Du You expressed his interest in this image through citing its usage in the biographies of Gongsun Hong (200–121 BC) and Xun Shuang (128–190) (TD: 20.506 and 517). 63 On registers and their compilers, see Fu (1984a); Twitchett (1992): 90. On the circulation of Tang registers in the Song period, see Kracke (1947): 105–7.

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titles. It is hardly surprising that modern historians can glean so little concerning the examination life and culture of mingjing degreeholders, for instance. Zhao Shen, an acclaimed expert in examination history, discarded all records of the names of successful xiucai and junshi graduands in 801. His new text, which radically altered the face of Tang examination history, remained an authority for all later compilations of degree registers. Nevertheless, Zhao Shen perhaps did no more than follow current fashion, for his contemporary Feng Yan refers to a jinshi dengke ji that began its records in 705.64 The prestige of examination registers in that period was already high. Recognizing not for the first time the appeal of Buddhist institutions in Tang official life, Wang Dingbao cited the famous analogy of a degree register as a holy text to be compared with the Sutra of the names of the thousand Buddhas (Qianfo mingjing) (245). First proclaimed in the eighth century by a failed jinshi candidate, who raised a degree register aloft as he spoke, the cultural import of this comparison remained just as relevant to Wang Dingbao and his contemporaries some two centuries later. Zhao Shen no doubt accelerated a documentary destruction that was already inevitable, but his intervention confirms that the Tang history of Tang examinations—including the greatest surviving contribution by Wang Dingbao—is a record approved above all by those who experienced examinations from the late eighth century onwards. The last known Tang re-editing of previous registers was the Record of all persons’ degree titles (Zhujia kemu ji ), completed by Zhao Lin (803– after 868) and presented to the throne by Zheng Hao in 856. This presentation effectively marked the upgrade of degree registers to a genre of official state record.65 The desire to list the pre-eminent among their peers inspired also the meticulous documentation of prefectural selections. Wang Dingbao preserved a few fragments of the Record of the degree-worthy in Shenzhou (Shenzhou dengdi lu), the only extant example of this kind of compilation that provides a brief glimpse of the lowest level of the whole Tang examination structure (19 22–27). This register, which will be discussed again in chapter 3, documented men who had passed preliminary examinations administered by the Chang’an metropolitan Feng shi wenjian ji jiaozhu: 3.15. THY: 76.1386; CFYG: 641.8a; Dongguan zouji: A.94–5 (no. 26); also at TYL: 4.371 (no. 542). 64 65

     

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

57

prefectures from 806 onwards. Later in the ninth century, Zhao Shen’s nephew, Zhao Lin (803—after 868), related that another relative, Zhao Lu, compiled the District records (Xiangji ).66 This text, which does not survive, recounted in no doubt triumphant terms a familyoriented and regional synopsis of academic and political achievements among the northeastern Zhaos. Evidently, its focus was not solely degree awards, but, given that Zhao Lu compiled it during his own engagement with the examinations, it is safe to assume that he did not ignore the jinshi degree in his own family background. It is impossible to discern more growth in these genres of local examination record, but they clearly assumed mounting importance for observers such as Wang Dingbao. He uses a degree register to contradict one claim of Wei Zhuang’s famous memorial requesting posthumous degree honours on behalf of past failed candidates (288). Moreover, in at least one instance, he may have preferred a regional record to Zhao Shen’s and later editors’ national degree registers. He dates Xue Lingzhi’s jinshi degree to 706, a date to match that given in Huang Pu’s Biographies of famous gentlemen from Min (Minzhong mingshi zhuan)67 (425). A Song editor, by contrast, dated Xue Lingzhi’s degree one year earlier, citing the famous Zhujia kemu ji of 856.68 Although Wang Dingbao’s steady gravitation towards the Lingnan region may explain the match between his records and a text compiled by a resident of neighbouring Fujian, the correspondence is also a possible indication of his editorial interest in private records of scholarly achievement maintained in provincial rather than metropolitan conditions. Minor historical accounts One sizable group of Tang private compilations that Wang Dingbao cited comprises a large body of minor historical accounts. Often catalogued under the traditional category “minor persuasions” (xiaoshuo) during the Song period, these writings recorded invariably a broad range of interests in contemporary and past human experience, natural phenomena and magic. The following table shows all the minor historical accounts from which there is evidence that Wang Dingbao cited material: 66 67 68

Yinhua lu: 3.83 (also at TYL: 4.364 [no. 530]). Also transmitted as Biographies, etc. . . . from the Min river (Minchuan mingshi zhuan). Nenggai zhai manlu: 4.89.

58

  Table 1: Sources of textual citations and correspondences in Collected Statements

Source(s)

Date

Guoshi bu

820’s

Beili zhi Yunqi youyi

884 875–889

Fengshi wenjian ji Benshi shi Zashuo Dongguan zouji Yinhua lu Minzhong mingshi zhuan Queshi Youxian guchui Duyang zabian Yishi Youyang zazu Minghuang zalu Ganding lu Nan Chu xinwen Zhitian lu Unattributed69 Chaoye qianzai Zhenguan zhengyao Sui Tang jiahua

c. 800 886 830’s c. 891 c. 874 c. 891 884 860–880 873 or later 860’s 863 or earlier 855 c. 850 c. 800 9th c. 9th c. c. 730 c. 720 7th c.

Instances

Total

5a 5b 6a 7c 45b 115 168 219 244 305 354 414 59 69 75 76 80 287 33 146 153 296 348 361 7c 13c 245 324 170 337 354 244 404b 434 21 410 389 419 425 178a 169 149 187 208 56 148 416 93 60 189 237 373 386 387 427 7f 115

12 6 6 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 6 1 1 1

Not every instance in this table represents a definite citation from the source in question. Some correspondences of textual material may only indicate that Collected Statements and a second text (column one) shared a third source in common. That said, any such instances do not invalidate attempts to identify where Wang Dingbao’s interests converged with those of other editors during the previous two centuries. Almost all sources instanced in this table date to the ninth century. Only three documents (in the last three rows) may have originated in texts that circulated before the mid-eighth century. These and other texts of that early period said too little about the social life of examinations to interest a tenth-century observer. Also, this

69 Six instances in this row are documents whose content the compilers of Taiping guangji did not attribute to known sources.

     

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

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heavy distribution of late texts reflects the large quantity of now untraceable ninth-century sources from which Wang Dingbao selected an even larger number of Tang accounts of personal experience and social dealings. Part of Wang Dingbao’s approach was to use recent documents that recorded groups of men who had undergone some sort of common experience and then to expand these records with extra biographical material. A list of names, for instance, must have featured in the memorial that Wei Zhuang presented during the last years of the dynasty in order to request late or posthumous degree awards for some nineteen men (294). Wang Dingbao used this list to guide him in the selection of extra recollections to compose short biographical accounts for all these figures (282–293). Thus, what might appear initially as no more than random interest in other peoples’ careers was often informed by some degree of organization, thanks especially to earlier collecting and editing by senior contemporaries. The pattern is evident again in a large group of biographical stories categorized as a “General account of blighted careers” (244a–281). Several of the figures in this group feature in a list of failed jinshi candidates that Kang Pian included in his Jutan lu, completed in 895.70 Another important group of individuals consists of the names of those who underwent prefectural examinations at Chang’an during the ninth century (23–28). Wang Dingbao was clearly unable—or uninterested— to supply extra biographical details concerning nearly all of these individuals, but he did at least preserve or modify the categorical arrangement of their names to form a meaningful display of various patterns of success and failure. Wang Dingbao cited explicitly only two texts: Li Zhao’s Guoshi bu and the Beili zhi, which he attributed not to Sun Qi but to Zhao Guangyuan. Wang Dingbao’s citations even of documents that no longer appear in transmitted editions of the Guoshi bu provide new insights into that work’s original size and content.71 Wang Dingbao entertained a high respect for this important collection of reminiscences See the text at TYL: 6.569 (no. 852). The biographical accounts Wang Dingbao may have composed on the basis of Kang Pian’s list are: 255 265 266 270 271 273 275. 71 For Collected Statements’ documents not manifest in the Guoshi bu but attributed to this source by the editors of the Taiping guangji, see 5b 6a and 244b; For one document cited by Wang Dingbao from the Guoshi bu, but not evident in transmitted editions, see 45b. 70

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of Chang’an official life and customs. Li Zhao’s work in fact contains material on other regions of China, but, like other sources of Collected Statements, such as Fengshi wenjian ji and Yinhua lu, it reflects entirely the subjects and reports that governed public and private debates in the capital. Other texts, such as Beili zhi and Zashuo, which have survived in varying degrees of completeness, also focus purely on social aspects of metropolitan life. These few texts compose a discernible group from which Wang Dingbao borrowed evidently the most material. The Beili zhi was a collection of reminiscences of male interactions with courtesans in late ninth-century Chang’an. The presence of documents which feature as extra stories appended to transmitted editions of the Beili zhi, compiled ostensibly by Sun Qi, presents yet more difficult questions of textual identification. Robert des Rotours suggested quite rightly that an editor other than Sun Qi must have added these to Sun Qi’s text after its first appearance in 881. Their source was quite probably Collected Statements where they all appear. But, with every good reason, Rotours refused to dismiss entirely Wang Dingbao’s claim that a different editor, namely Zhao Guangyuan, compiled the Beili zhi (287).72 That two texts might have circulated under the common title Beili zhi could resolve the contradictory records, and a large number of extra stories concerning figures in a pleasure quarter as fabled as the Pingkang ward is by no means implausible. Whatever his editorial activities may have been, Zhao Guangyuan is the only other Tang recorder of Chang’an social life whom Wang Dingbao cited in his text. Also characteristic of the texts listed above was their unique historical contents. However, all but the most perspicacious historians following the Tang period tended to undervalue works not compiled by official historians of high standing and not devoted exclusively to affairs at court. Although it is considerably more focused than many, Collected Statements itself is in many respects a prime example of this kind of literature from the end of a rich Tang tradition. It too, however, was categorized in Song bibliography as an example of xiaoshuo. Only a few of the texts that Wang Dingbao cited and borrowed

72 Robert des Rotours’s principal objection to attributing Beili zhi to Zhao Guangyuan is the text’s inclusion of a story that is anything but complimentary about Zhao’s examination career (Rotours [1968]: 19–20).

     

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from were ever categorized by Song historians as historical writings. They included: Guoshi bu, Fengshi wenjian ji, Dongguan zouji, Minghuang zalu, Zhenguan zhengyao and Chaoye qianzai. All are listed in one or other of the historical categories of “miscellaneous histories” (zashi ) or “miscellaneous biographies” (za zhuanji ) in Ouyang Xiu’s catalogue in the Xin Tangshu. The remaining texts appear in the xiaoshuo category of the Xin Tangshu list and other catalogue lists compiled during the Song period.73 That Song historians distinguished historical writings from so much else that they labelled xiaoshuo in library catalogues should not imply that the Tang literary world adopted the same priorities. Discussion of Du You’s influence on Wang Dingbao suggested that Collected Statements and the Tongdian had some commonality. That is not to say that Wang Dingbao and Du You achieved the same results, but they certainly shared historical interests to an extent that makes outright exclusion of Collected Statements from Tang historical literature anomalous. In addition, by the late Tang, the distinction between official historiography and the kind of compilation that Wang both created and cited from was often quite blurred. An important source that Wang Dingbao probably used at least twice is Pei Tingyu’s Dongguan zouji (21 410). After the system of completing veritable records broke after the 840’s, court historians became more willing to recognize the value of private compilations and to admit them into the fold of official historical sources. In 891 Pei Tingyu’s text underwent exactly this kind of upgrade when it was accepted as a valid court record.74 It was not long after this noticeable re-evaluation of individual historical initiative that Wang Dingbao set to work on Collected Statements. Critical revisions of the last century also demonstrate renewed awareness of many medieval compilations’ original significance as works of historical writing. Their value in this respect is what early modern critics in China tended to minimize by validating the same texts as exercises in literary craft that Song and Yuan writers used as source material for the masterpieces of popular fiction and drama of a later period. Some views of Collected Statements still qualify the 73 Except for Benshi shi (“general literary collections” [zong wenji ]). For convenient reference to the categories of other texts, see the indexed survey by Cheng (1981). This includes Ganding lu under what is probably the variant title of Qianding lu. 74 THY: 63.1098.

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text according to this logic.75 In searching for the original sources of fiction and drama in the Song and later periods, this is not entirely fallacious, save to say that terms such as “novel” and “fiction”, both translations of the modern word xiaoshuo, risk becoming anachronistic definitions of what texts like Collected Statements and its earlier sources meant to Tang and Five Dynasties’ readers. No less a Tang theorist than Liu Zhiji (661–721) provided the most comprehensive account of “minor persuasions and free talk” (xiaoshuo zhiyan)76 as categories of historiography that professional historians might employ as valid data.77 Wang Dingbao did not collect the documents and stories of Collected Statements in conscious pursuit of these historiographical claims first promulgated in 710, but it is worth taking account of the most cogent theoretical justifications for the compilation that he undertook. Furthermore, his acknowledgement of a debt if only to Li Zhao’s Guoshi bu suggests the high value that he placed on an eminent example of private historical source that contributed so much to his fascination with Tang examination culture. Nor was his high estimation of such a compilation at all unusual. During the last decade of Wang Dingbao’s life, the government of the Latter Tang, keen to establish its legitimacy as inheritor to its recent predecessor, promulgated its keen interest in collecting the private historical collections and reminiscences of Tang officials. In 932, its History Office in Dongdu (Luoyang) recommended the government to sponsor bibliographical searches throughout the south as far as Guangzhou. Staff at the History Office believed that these remote areas harboured ex-officials of the Tang, wealthy bibliophiles and compilers of unofficial histories. In particular, the staff urged that these texts were worth collecting.78

75 For a categorization of the Tang zhiyan as a valuable source of legendary tales (chuanqi ), see Hou (1997): 266–9. 76 Shitong: 10.2a, adopting the amended reading proposed by Zhao Lüfu in his commentary at Shitong xin jiaozhu: 587, n. 27. 77 Shitong: 10.1a–3a. For this passage’s significance in the analysis of Tang and earlier historical collections, see Cheng (1987). See also Glen Dudbridge’s discussion of the late Tang text Guangyi ji (Dudbridge [1995]: 17), and Cheng Yizhong’s recent development of his earlier ideas for a new discussion of professional storytelling and drama in the Song and later (Cheng [2000]: 1–35). 78 Wudai huiyao: 18.303; see also a briefer text, dated 931, at Jiu Wudai shi: 43.595–6.

     

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Poems and letters The letters and poems that Wang Dingbao preserved reflect his consuming interest in the most personal documentation of a recent age. Few of these documents were actually confidential—indeed most of them circulated widely soon after their recipients had received them. Poems and letters occupy the most space in Wang Dingbao’s text. This large presence is a reminder once more that, however many categories of record define Collected Statements, Wang Dingbao’s largest editorial resource comprised the documented experiences of individuals. Wang Dingbao gathered complete letters and brief citations to others that together total forty documents. Their extremely varied contents make this the most difficult category of document to characterize as a group.79 Wang Dingbao may have collected some letters because the acclaimed epistolary style of authors such as Han Yu (109 113a 122b), Li Ao (39 126 144 160), Li Guan (127 430), and Huangfu Shi (129 130), engrossed his interest far deeper than the direct relevance of their claims to examination history. Like the poems in Collected Statements, the letters that Wang Dingbao selected represent best the late rather than the early period of the dynasty. Even so, the relevance of many of these letters to Wang Dingbao’s interest in the annual examination programme is often tangential at best. Similarly, the connection between the examinations and some of Wang Dingbao’s selected epitaphs and other biographical pieces is often tenuous.80 Wang Dingbao’s focus on late Tang examinations, however, developed a considerably more sustained commentary with his editorial interest in poetry. His willingness to collect as many poems as he did is not surprising. He lived at the end of an age unsurpassed for it achievements in lyrical expression, and he noted social phenomena in which poetry was one of the most acceptable media of comment. The large number of poems and lyrical phrases in Collected

79 The following documents in the Collected Statements are letters and citations from letters: 30 39 42 43 105 109 111a–b 113a 122a–b 126 127 129 130 140 142–144 160 223 225 236 309 313–319 335 336 339 347 350 380 398 416 430. Other documents in which Wang Dingbao refers to letters are: 174 249 254 279 407. 80 Epitaphs and biographical pieces in the Collected Statements are: 6e 52 103b 106 150 162 164 286 332 375 405 426.

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Statements has often qualified it in critics’ eyes as a source primarily useful for this important branch of Tang literary history. Indeed, his text is an obvious forerunner of the Tangshi jishi compiled by Ji Yougong ( jinshi 1131) who disregarded hardly any of the material that Wang Dingbao preserved. Wang Dingbao’s willingness to collect poetry was dominated by several factors of the late Tang and the early Five Dynasties. He was aware that during his lifetime the entire oeuvre of some writers had been lost in the fire and confusion of war (253). Such threats to the huge literary output that Tang examinations had stimulated must have been a powerful incentive to preserve whatever remained. However, although efforts in literary preservation could only enhance the documentary value of his own text, Wang Dingbao clearly did not feel compelled to save everything. In at least one instance he states his preference not to cite a ballad in full (257). This frankness suggests his confidence that the poetry—and any other documents— that he cited were available in other texts. Perhaps he was even sure that his was an age—in the early dawn of China’s history of printed books—when the survival outlook for texts was good. The privately compiled historical works that Wang Dingbao cited, notably Beili zhi, Yunqi youyi and Benshi shi, show earlier and contemporary editors’ keenness not only to collect lyrics but to record the historical conditions of their composition. Stimulating their efforts was the growing sense of literary competition in the examinations and its effect on the rising circulation of poetry collections. Wang Dingbao recorded some of the best evidence available to show that poetry composition and its presentation became carefully defined cultural practices during the exchanges between graduands and the highest levels of the Tang government. Wang Dingbao’s collection of the poems of twenty-two graduands addressed to their examiner Wang Qi in 843 is an unique documentation of this select branch of textual transmission (67). In addition, Collected Statements’ documentation of degree ceremonies includes a brief prescription for producing a de luxe edition of an annual cohort’s writings as a presentation to the throne (48). At the same time, the gradual spread of late Tang examination culture into provincial government quarters engendered growing demand for the private literary collections of both recent degree-holders and potential winners. Wang Dingbao refers to five collections. These works were products of their authors’ efforts

     

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to establish their literary reputations and to gain political patronage through the prefectural channels of examination entrance.81 The circulation of poetry and its availability for late Tang editors were conditions that emerged during the steady intensification of links between examinations and lyrical practice. Generating literary paradigms in response to both the examination syllabus and the social life of examinations endured throughout the following centuries in China, and it even influenced the cultivation of Chinese literary values amid recruitment politics in Heian Japan.82 Wang Dingbao’s response to the poetry that circulated in his own day was less systematic than the editing of later periods, but it amounted to the largest literary category in Collected Statements. Even though the usefulness of each poem’s insights into Tang examination life varies considerably, their dominant presence among all the sources of Collected Statements is testimony once more to Wang Dingbao’s fascination with individual reactions and interpretations. C Wang Dingbao’s personal experiences and his selection of others’ recollections contributed more than any other text of the period to define a recruitment culture that lost its administrative and symbolic centre after 907. Already in his late thirties, Wang Dingbao responded to the Tang collapse by documenting what would otherwise surely have sunk from view. The documents that he gathered ranged from occasional poems and anecdotes to formal statements of government policy. Their variety is indeed what makes Collected Statements a difficult text to classify beside other writings of the same period. One characteristic that certainly deserves new emphasis is the text’s value as a historical source. Not only is this evident in topics that the following chapters will explore, but a theoretical justification for evaluating this genre of compilation as a primary historical source had already emerged with Liu Zhiji’s survey of historical craft in the eighth century. The historical worth of Wang Dingbao’s text is also reflected 81 Yao Yanjie, Xiangqizi (260b); Luo Qiu, Bi Hong shi (268); Huangfu Song, Zuixiang riyue (284); Lu Guimeng, Songling ji (286); Xue Neng’s collection (333). 82 See Smits (2000).

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in his use of the material that also featured in some of the Tang period’s most important genres of historiography. Wang Dingbao’s review of the Tang past went beyond personal reminiscence and random anecdote. In particular, the growing presence of examinations in the empire’s most advanced prefectures and the deep changes in examinations’ ritual practices seem to have absorbed Wang Dingbao’s attention more than any other Tang observer. Not long even into the period of the Five Dynasties, the editors of similar historical collections did little more than transcribe sections of Collected Statements into the latest collections of reminiscences on Tang life. This cannot mean that nothing else remained for documenting Tang examination society; however, it does suggest that few others possessed Wang Dingbao’s flair for documenting examinations in such a wide scope of social practices. As a result, what he collected has long afforded later readers a fine view of the Tang past. The following chapters’ analysis of the Tang examination programme will frequently demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of Collected Statements in comparison with other documents of Tang history. But what these chapters tell of the programme’s gradual ascendancy in Tang literary and political life is essentially Wang Dingbao’s account. He told it without hiding his nostalgia for Tang rule and without remaining dispassionate in his recall of the most expressive symbols of Tang examination culture. Any attempt to outline this culture once more demands not just historical imagination but a willingness to follow Wang Dingbao’s editorial decisions as closely as possible. To that end, not only his responses to documentary sources and others’ recollections, but his social relations, political alignments and emotional attachments offer valid interpretative levels with which to observe his recovery of a meaningful past.

CHAPTER THREE

SELECTIONS IN THE PREFECTURES Tang control of examination recruitment was highly centralized. Since the Tang government at Chang’an and Luoyang administered nearly all aspects of degree examinations, rituals and symbols that made up the examination programme were barely visible outside the immediate limits of the two capitals. Not until the Song dynasty did examinations begin to operate on a large scale in the empire’s provincial centres, acting as the pivots of a recruitment culture spread far beyond the central points of Kaifeng and Lin’an. Only in the Song did examinations affect far greater numbers of people; and, only then did the symbols of Chinese examination life emerge as true commonplaces in all cities and large towns. Wang Dingbao’s text does not subvert this basic chronology, but it provides the first strong evidence of the growing acculturation of prefectural examinations to the annual examination programme in Chang’an prefecture and a small number of other prefectural administrations. Wang Dingbao’s accounts of gaining a recommendation to the Tang degree examinations from the lowest echelons of the system demands more attention than it has gained hitherto. Once the An Lushan rebellion and its consequent warfare had irreparably weakened the centre of political life, “provincial tribute” (xianggong) candidates recommended for the examinations by prefectural administrations comprised a much more significant group than hitherto. Admittedly, their numbers remained fractional and the opportunities for success were still much greater for candidates in—rather than outside the capital. Nevertheless, Wang Dingbao’s evidence of the new attention that these candidates gained in the capital shows how they profitted more than ever from local recruitment structures. As if to underline that only scholars with this status were leading operators in late Tang examination culture, Wang Dingbao included a long exposé of xianggong status in his text’s first juan (10a). Here too, significantly, he bundled other documents that contribute to the basic scene-setting of a work devoted to records of Tang examination life.

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Wang Dingbao collected the remaining documents of prefectural examinations in his work’s second juan. Although most of his records are others’ biographical experiences, he introduces his readers first to a document that clearly fascinated him, the pass register of Chang’an’s prefectural examinations. He shows how this prefectural pass register emerged as a symbolic text almost on a par with national degree registers (18 19). Not surprising, then, is the forceful tone of arguments that Wang Dingbao also documented in reforms and counter-reforms to the Chang’an prefecture’s contentious selection procedures (20 21 22). Aside from several categorized illustrations of success and failure in prefectural examinations at Chang’an (23–27 39), Wang Dingbao also includes material concerning prefectural examinations at Huazhou and Tongzhou (31 70 133 246 421), two prefectures that bordered Chang’an, and at the remoter administrations of Jingzhou (30 139) Hongzhou (32 36) Hangzhou (33), Guangzhou (34 217b) and Jiangzhou (37). He also recounts and cites complaints about the conduct of examinations at Chang’an, Hongzhou and Songzhou (40–43). One of Wang’s own interventions—a characteristic discussion (lun)—is a personal comment on the issue of complaints (44). An even more interesting discussion, translated below, focuses on the deleterious effects of examination factions amid prefectural selections (28). This chapter first examines the process of prefectural examinations, paying particular attention to Wang Dingbao’s comments on the rising influence of tribute scholars in the ninth century. It then uses many of the documents summarized above to demonstrate what practical procedures the authorities used to select men in prefectural competitions at the capital. Finally, it discusses two attempts to reform prefectural examinations during the ninth century. These reforms were sporadic efforts to re-centralize the government’s administration of examination recruitment during a century that too often witnessed the overt brokerage of private interests in the selection and rejection of candidates. Whether any reform was effective or not, ninth-century examination history encapsulated a basic irony: however much prefectural candidates attempted to stress their origins as provincial tribute scholars, they invariably did so in the capital and its close environs. Wang Dingbao was aware that opportunities to win a degree following promotion from a prefectural competition hundreds of miles away from the capital did exist, but he recognized them as quite exceptional—precisely why he preserved rare

   

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historical instances. One of the most apparent paradoxes of the examination system was that late Tang candidates’ engaged with its remotest regional tiers in order that they might multiply their chances of success at the centre. They pursued political patronage in the provincial context of prefectural examinations in order to guarantee their success in winning one of the state’s most coveted symbols of inclusion. Thus, the polarity between centre and province dominated many candidates’ strategies to win a degree title, and it fitted late Tang patterns of political and intellectual discipleship often developed far away from Chang’an. T    T   Wang Dingbao recorded that the late Tang witnessed an inexorable decline in the demand to graduate from government schools (7a–i 8 9). Steadily fewer government students ( jiansheng) made loud claims for their association with official education—indeed not a few of them tried to disguise it. By contrast, throughout the ninth century, the prestige of provincial tribute scholars (xianggong) rose to unprecedented heights. Wang Dingbao’s interest in the rise of prefectural selections particularly as a cultural phenomenon contrasts considerably with the picture of examinations given in standard Tang sources of institutional history. Du You, the dynasty’s most representative historian of its institutions in any period, stressed that examination candidates emerged from government schools and via prefectural recommendations.1 But, beyond this ideal formulation of seventh- and eighth-century administration, neither his text nor the dynasty’s statutes (Liudian) says anything concerning the real conditions under which prefectural authorities sent candidates to the centre. From a vantage point not available to previous editors, of course, Wang Dingbao recognized that prefectural recommendations had become during the ninth century a highly acclaimed avenue to examination success. High social status was chief among the qualifications that a candidate needed when a prefectural authority recommended him to the central examinations’ administration. Before the critical processes of selection and elimination in the degree examinations had created a more

1

TD: 15.353–4.

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manageable corps of some thirty degree-holders, the central administration predictably viewed candidates as so many incoming files of personnel information or else as a total of bodies to manipulate at large court ceremonies of induction. Candidates, of course, were seldom compliant actors within the norms of this bureaucratic vision. Indeed they deliberately engaged in practices that raised their status as high as possible. In the particular context of prefectural examinations, Wang Dingbao recorded forms of aptitude ranking that examiners and candidates in the Chang’an prefectural administration borrowed directly from the more advanced levels of degree examinations. In operating two routes of access—graduation from government schools and recommendation as a tribute scholar from the prefectures—the Tang government depended on an intake of scholars from prefectural authorities at the two capitals and the major regional command centres established after the An Lushan rebellion.2 All prefectures used a process commonly described as “dispatch” ( jie) to refer to the whole process of selecting candidates and escorting or sending them to the central examination authorities across distances varying between a few neighbouring wards of the city and several hundred miles of country.3 One of the primary duties of a prefect was to select candidates for the examinations. Indeed, strictly speaking, a provincial official’s failure to solicit and recommend eligible candidates was a legal offence.4 His organization of local tests and his selection and dispatch of candidates became one of the most prestigious duties among a prefect’s various functions. Few remarks concerning local recruitment survive from the first half of the dynasty, but they appear in increasing number after the rebellion period. Wang Dingbao’s records make clear that late Tang candidates preferred to enter the examinations as prefectural candidates. Candidates’ ambitions, once rechannelled in this way, represented pronounced shifts both in academe and the political culture of examinations at the capital. At the centre of the system, the Ministry of Revenue (hubu), which administered an annual tribute yield of material wealth from the

TD: 15.153; CFYG: 639.18a; XTS: 44.1161. Cf. Rotours (1932): 143. The process was no doubt rigorously documented, but nothing survives. For defining these procedures with the translation of jie as an “eligibility form”, see Lo (1987): 237–8. 4 Tang lü shuyi: 9.183 (no. 92); TD: 15.353–4. 2

3

   

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empire’s prefectures, also handled the tribute scholars’ arrival in Chang’an before transferring them to the examination authorities. Antiquity offered a parallel by which to define the procedures for presenting “provincial tribute”, and Wang Dingbao borrowed it wholesale in the following historical account of prefectural dispatches: Consider how the tribute of districts and the selections of villages flourished in middle antiquity! What we recognize by this today shares essentially the same origins, but it has a different outcome. Nowadays, dispatch and escort are the ancients’ submission of accounts.

The conditions of this opening reference are those under which provincial governors in the Western Han had been obliged to submit annual “accounts” of population and tax return to the capital (shangji ). The demand for these reports at the end of each year followed the Han government’s central timetable, and, if a prefecture had candidates to recommend for office, the submission of accounts provided the obvious opportunity to escort them to the capital. Du You described both operations in his Tongdian, a text that was doubtless an influential authority for recounting the Tang system of dispatching examination candidates with Han analogies.5 More of Wang Dingbao’s account reveals the familiar axiom that writing Tang history often meant writing Han history: Wudi of the Han instituted the Erudits of the Five Canons. (The Erudit Chamberlains [of the Qin] were versed in ancient and contemporary affairs; their official complement was ten. The Han instituted only the [Erudits of the] Five Canons.)6

This last commentary-style insertion concerning the pre-Han existence of the Erudit Chamberlains is fussy yet also highly evocative. Wang Dingbao is keen to stress that influential Han teaching posts such as the Erudits of the Five Canons (wujing boshi )—a obvious parallel to Tang teaching institutions—owed their existence to structures once current under the Qin and perhaps even the late Zhou. More significantly, this pedantic insertion reveals his compulsion to argue that the antiquity of these institutions is verifiable. Since antiquity moulds authenticity, Wang Dingbao pursues yet more Han conditions and their ultimate derivation from Zhou ritual for his account of Tang practice: 5 6

TD: 33.904. See the record of their institution at Hanshu: 19A.726.

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  The Court of Ceremonial selected people aged eighteen and above, those who were devoted to learning, in order to fill its ranks of students. If the commanderies had devotees of learning who were also exemplars of respect and obedience in the local community, then they let them accompany the accounts and be sent for their training at the Court of Sacrifices just like the students [already enrolled there]. Once a year they were tested in their knowledge of scriptural interpretation. Those reaching the top of the list became gentlemen-attendants; if there were any with outstanding grades, then the Court of Ceremonial informed the throne of their names. When they were low-quality personnel not committed to learning, they dismissed them. People who made the grade, even though they had been recommended from the local community, could still find their place in the college. The system of the two Han periods was largely based on that in the Rites of Zhou.

Given the lack of any precise statement in the Zhouli concerning these structures, Wang Dingbao’s faith in its canonical authority was slightly misplaced. Still, his formulation of how Zhou institutions worked strongly implies his preferences for how examination recruitment and education should function. His division between provincial scholars and a prestigious college of students in the capital speaks to Tang realities rather than to notions of recruitment at the close of the Bronze Age. Equally revealing are putative Han conditions that reflect Tang attitudes towards the influx of provincial candidates into the capital. The concession that the Han college welcomed new members “even though they had been recommended from the local community” suggests Tang reservations about the aptness of provincial tribute scholars mixing with their counterparts in the education directorate. Finally, Wang Dingbao turns to Tang conditions without cladding them in respectable Han precedents: Before the Zhenyuan reign period [785–804] of the Tang, apart from the two education directorates, great emphasis was placed on students of the prefectural colleges. In the same way, then, they were promoted by the districts and villages in order to fill directly the ranks of the directorate’s students. Later, however, all the most eminent clans regarded colleges and schools as a contemptible career. If they were provincial tribute scholars, they did no more than borrow the name [of the education directorate] in order to join the tribute. Before the Jingyun reign period [710–711], provincial tribute scholars numbered two- to three-thousand every year. Generally, they functioned as the provincial tribute of ancient times. (10a)

This passage continues with a brief sample of the extremely low ratios of degree-winners in early Tang groups of provincial tribute scholars.

   

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These groups, which include the one examined by Wang Fangqing in 674, demonstrate ratios of jinshi success even lower than one in fifty candidates. Almost one century later, by the 780’s, the Tang elite abandoned whatever enthusiasm it still maintained for official education. Wang Dingbao emphasized this shift by suggesting that seventh-century scholarship functioned according to long tradition primarily as a resource to fill places in the official education establishment. On the one hand, he recalled analogous Han conditions to provide historical precedent for the capital-province duality of early Tang institutions. But, on the other, he used Han terms of reference to describe new Tang priorities, most especially for the status of provincial tribute scholars. The Tang expression “to submit accounts” was extremely common, especially in verse and other records addressed to departing candidates. Clearly, a willingness to identify contemporary social practices with ancient institutions signified more than simply the historical duration of similar bureaucratic operations. Wang Dingbao singled out dispatch procedures in a Han guise that appealed to the last Tang generations’ imagination of recommending the political mobility of sons of aristocratic families in provincial settings. Or, in more realistic terms, despite the advantage that late Tang candidates in and near the capitals enjoyed, they preferred still to adopt the status of prefectural tribute scholars rather than enrol in government schools. Wang Dingbao also documents that jinshi degree-holders of the seventh- and early eighth-centuries had once regarded promotion through Chang’an’s official schools as the only honourable examination career (7b). He identifies the 740’s as the period when candidates redirected their efforts from enrolling at the directorate schools to gaining a prefectural tribute recommendation. (7d). Following the rebellion, however, the formal system for presenting provincial tribute scholars broke down until the government restored it on a reduced scale in 780 (14b). Soon afterwards, by 794, Wang Dingbao declares that the system of supplying degree candidates from the two capitals’ directorates of education was “almost extinguished.” Only the prestige of the Guangwen Academy, he claims, survived until the mid-ninth century after which society denigrated jinshi degrees held by its students as “tail-end degrees” (modi ) (11). Numbers also confirmed Wang Dingbao’s view of tribute scholars’ growing strength. His text is the first source to record the numbers of tribute scholars that arrived in Chang’an in 622, the only year

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for which a precise figure survives. In that first year of the Tang examination system’s operation, the empire’s annual tribute delivered 218 candidates: 143 mingjing, six xiucai, thirty-nine junshi and thirty jinshi (400). Thenceforth, entrance numbers rose. Wang Dingbao also documents a claim that in the 650’s the number of tribute scholars competing for the jinshi degree was as high as eight or nine hundred (6a). The figures near the end of his exposé of provincial tribute scholars’ status indicate that some fifty years later candidates for all degrees could number as many as three thousand (10a). Wang Dingbao included figures found also in the Tang statutes, which recounted early eighth-century quotas for tribute scholars. The quotas stipulated maximums of three, two and one persons respectively for the three Tang grades of prefectural administration (2). Wang Dingbao does not extrapolate entrance figures from these quotas, but they meant that in 740, the empire’s 327 prefectures could have delivered a total of 574 tribute scholars to the capital. Earlier Tang observers had claimed that during the eighth century the jinshi degree alone attracted one thousand candidates annually.7 This discrepancy is not surprising, because quota rules stipulated that prefectural authorities were permitted to exceed their quotas if good candidates appeared in force. (Alternatively, a prefecture was not obliged to fulfil its quota if no suitable candidates were available.)8 The other figures that Wang Dingbao collected for tribute scholars in the 650’s and the early eighth century suggest that the number of prefectural candidates often exceeded government demand. However, none of these claims clarifies exactly how many candidates were permitted to sit the examinations, especially if they were tribute scholars. The laconic formulation of a judicial issue discussed at some point prior to 736 suggests that in at least one year the authorities refused entry to a number of tribute scholars.9 Moreover, the lengthy account of tribute scholars’ status, translated above, concludes with a handful of ratios, which suggest that during the sev7 Feng shi wenjian ji jiaozhu: 3.14; TYL: 8.714 (no. 1028). For what is perhaps a more rhetorical use of the figure of 1,000 provincial jinshi candidates in the early ninth century, see Han Yu’s “Preface to send off Meng xiucai ” (Zhu Wengong jiao Changli xiansheng wenji: 20.7b–8a). 8 For the allowance to exceed quotas after the inception of the tribute system in 621, see TD: 15.353; CFYG: 639.18b. 9 “Judgement concerning tribute scholars for the jinshi ” (WYYH: 514.6b). The texts collected here date to before the examinations’ transfer to the Ministry of Rites in 736.

   

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enth century the number of the successful among this group was tiny—perhaps less than two per cent (10a).10 Ostensibly, this proportion rose during the eighth century and later, but it soon became impossible to quantify precisely, since pass lists ceased to distinguish tribute scholars from other candidates after 710. Wang Dingbao records the short-lived and highly singular attempt to promote official schooling in 753 to 754 when the government abolished the tribute system for those two years (7d). This brief abolition is also noted in the Old Tang history’s monograph on ritual observances (liyi zhi ), testifying to the tribute scholars’ centrality in the operations of government ritual before the end of the Tianbao reign period. Wang Dingbao also reveals the overwhelming extent to which both the central and prefectural levels of government in Chang’an dominated examination entrance in the following century. He documents the measures of 845, which abandoned the old prefectural quotas in favour of a new regional power-sharing that covered larger units of territory (3). Provinces and regional commands operated under this system with ranked quotas of 7, 10 and 15 jinshi candidates and 10, 15 and 20 mingjing candidates. At first glance, these low quota numbers seem to deny any chance for the candidates of most prefectures to compete with government students at the capital: a combined annual quota of 80 jinshi candidates from the capitals’ directorate schools and the college maintained at the Court of the Imperial Family (zongzheng si ). However, in national proportions, that central share of eighty jinshi candidates had to contend with an annual quota potentially as high as 630 for all provincial tribute scholars entering for the jinshi degree. The ratio of mingjing entrance represented a stark contrast: 450 candidates from the capitals’ directorate schools versus 905 provincial tribute scholars. Equivalent to 2:1, this considerably more balanced ratio reveals far less competition for places between mingjing from the imperial centre and its provincial theatres of power. Only the ratios of entrance for the jinshi degree seem to represent a discrimination favouring the total of all provincial candidates throughout the empire. Actually, however, these last recorded Tang quota figures were weighted heavily in favour of candidates living in the two capitals and their surroundings. The quotas specified maximums of 30 jinshi candidates not only from each of the two education 10 The proportions are: 1 tribute scholar/11 candidates (674); 1/51 (682); 1/55 (683); 1/16 (684); 1/41 (704).

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directorates at Chang’an and Luoyang but also from the metropolitan prefectures at Luoyang, Tongzhou and Huazhou.11 Although theoretically limited to 90 candidates, the real numbers of provincial tribute scholars recommended by these prefectural authorities were probably higher still. In addition, as Wang Dingbao has already revealed, many candidates from the capitals’ education directorates’ would have claimed anyway to be tribute scholars. Wang Dingbao consistently demonstrates the rise of tribute scholars’ status. His contribution confirms a phenomenon that is elsewhere perceptible only though scattered epigraphical references that await fuller exploration. Clearly, not only in metropolitan society did tribute scholars receive increasing dues of respect. The residual presence of unsuccessful tribute scholars in the late Tang emerges with increasing frequency in the formal gatherings and cultural pursuits of local communities.12 These men were entitled to refer to themselves by the quasi-official title of “provincial tribute jinshi” (xianggong jinshi ). Furthermore, following its conferral by prefectural or regional authorities, the status of xianggong could be highly beneficial to the holder’s immediate relations. The epitaph for Miao Sun (835–67), a descendant of the minister Miao Jinqing, states that due to his brother’s participation—not his success—in the jinshi examinations, Miao Sun was granted a form of hereditary privilege ( yin) that allowed him to take up an official post in the Hezhong regional command, close to the Miaos’ home territory.13 On the other side of the empire, the late Tang’s expanding congregation of frustrated jinshi candidates in southeast China was fundamental to the growth of a regional cultural identity and to the rise of intellectual values in the lower Yangzi region.14

11 For a discussion of the quotas of 845 and their significance in illustrating the late Tang ascendancy of regional power, see Otagi (1973). 12 On the growing presence of residual jinshi candidates at provincial centres of governments, see Otagi (1971): 21–125; for reference to the participation of tribute scholars in a northeastern local community during the foundation of a temple dedicated in 937, see Otagi (1997): 305–13. 13 See Miao Sun’s epitaph at Tangdai muzhi huibian: 2424–5 (Xiantong 059). 14 Meyer (in press).

   

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E   T     Wang Dingbao’s documents, in common with other Tang records, reveal that selections took place in early autumn. Test standards must have varied enormously, and it is most unlikely that every prefecture was equipped and staffed to run written tests each year. Besides, behaviour, appearance and family background counted as much as any guarantee of literary ability. Some of the documents that Wang Dingbao preserved show the radically different attitudes towards prefectural selections in the periods before and after the An Lushan rebellion. Wang Dingbao collected a long letter that gives exceptional insight into early Tang attitudes to prefectural selections. This letter by Wang Lengran (ca. 698–742) berates his onetime patron Gao Changyu (n.d.) for his slack efforts on behalf of his former client’s career and marriage prospects. It provides also a valuable recollection of the writer’s experiences in several prefectural competitions. Wang Lengran, who was ostensibly no ancestor of Wang Dingbao, descended from Taiyuan Wangs who over the previous two generations had held middle-ranking posts in eastern central China. Gao Changyu is an obscure figure, but his career in the Censorate was clearly on the rise when Wang Lengran renewed contact in 717. The brazen tone in the following excerpt, which foreshadows the similar epistolary style of Li Bai,15 is characteristic of the whole text: My grudge against you is quite long-standing. Have you forgotten the past when you held office as the county lieutenant at Songcheng? I had some slight talent for literary writings. Whenever I enjoyed your encouragement, I was conscientious about recognizing my faults. That this farmer of Qi was favoured with receiving your affectionate care is engraved upon my heart and lodged in my bones (43).

The scene of Wang Lengran’s recollection is Songcheng, also the prefectural seat of Songzhou, the canal garrison located midway between the Huai and Yellow Rivers. From here, some years earlier, Gao Changyu had recommended him for the jinshi degree, but the outcome had been disappointing. So little documentation of provincial conditions like this survives that it is impossible to quantify how often 15

Mair (1984).

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prefectural candidates forged close relationships with central political figures during this period. However, in their setting at least, early Tang prefectural selections were strikingly different from the later procedures that Wang Dingbao documented for Chang’an and nearby prefectures. The distant prefecture where, according to Wang Lengran’s forthright reminder, he and Gao Changyu shared a common background, remained the home territory of many of the most influential aristocratic families of this period. His own family background in this area was definitely one through which he could activate powerful local networks. He hints as much by confirming in the same letter that he has just gained the jinshi degree in 717, during the examination administered by Pei Yaoqing, who was a scion of the northeastern Peis. Another good indication of the differences between early and late Tang experiences of prefectural selections is Wang Lengran’s descriptions of his several attempts to pass under more than one administration. A later section of his letter to Gao Changyu states: Since the year when you were in charge of the [prefectural] examinations I hoped for the selection of my name. During that time I had to halt my advance16 and accept my fate, returning on all fours17 after one year spent at Chang’an, followed by another at Luoyang, and yet another at my family property. In the tenth month of last year I managed to be escorted [to the capital], and in the spring of this year, in the third month, I gained a degree. In the past, although I suffered not being forwarded by your Excellency, today I have still found the wherewithal to reach the dark clouds.18 The world’s jinshi are numbered, but from north of the River I am alone.

Exactly which prefectures forwarded Wang Lengran to Chang’an is unclear, save to say that it was north of the Yellow river and it was probably the home prefecture of the “farmer of Qi” and his family in today’s Shandong. Bozhou is not unlikely.19 Clearly, in Wang Lengran’s case, the repetitive attempts at the capital—so much a feature of late Tang efforts to pass the jinshi examinations—were not a familiar pressure. And, his eventual fortune at a prefectural selec16 qunxun: this military term (Shiji: 6.279) also occurs in the account of the Confucian disciple Yuan Xian’s career (Zhuangzi: 78.28.47). 17 The classic instances of this image of humiliation are at Mengzi: 5A.11a, 6B.7b. 18 qingyun: a metaphor for career success also used at Shiji: 75.2414. 19 For his father’s position as the registrar of Qingping county in Bozhou, see Wang Lengran’s epitaph at Tangdai muzhi huibian: 1532 (Tianbao 002); cf. Qian Tang zhi zhai cangzhi: no. 797.

   

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tion in northeast China is in sharp contrast to circumstances in the late Tang when it was scarcely thinkable for a candidate to abandon the capital and continue his efforts at a prefecture as far away as say Bozhou. The decentralized world of late Tang politics rendered what had once been fluent links between centre and province almost impossible to rely on. Remoter prefectures offered less competitive conditions, but they were unlikely to provide as many advantages in the way of effective political contact between the capital and the regions. Describing the situation one century after Wang Lengran’s engagement with the examinations, the spiteful remarks of the “Miscellany” (Zazuan), usually attributed to Li Shangyin (813–58), mock the embarrassment of failing prefectural tests by comparison with such ignominious conditions as adultery, financial destitution, unchaste clergy and so on.20 But, the arrogant assumptions in this text ignore that levels of competition were far from standard across different prefectures. The largest numbers of Tang candidates concentrated anyway on passing a prefectural test in or near the capital. Candidates who had enjoyed the exceptional fortune of a recommendation from farther afield usually celebrated the fact by preserving the writings they had composed for their tests. Wang Dingbao collected evidence of this in several stories (22 31 33 37 38 123 131 132 133 135). Of course, in his somewhat apocryphal accounts of the writers’ careers, the circumstances surrounding their compositions are questionable. In general, Tang society paid no attention to literary activity at this level of the examinations unless it served some focus of biographical interest. Even the most famous Tang cases of preserving prefectural examination compositions are problematic: Zhang Ji (765–ca. 830, jinshi 799), for example, legendarily forwarded to the degree examinations by Han Yu, preserved a poem that he might have composed in either Bianzhou or Xuzhou. It is impossible to say which.21 The locations of other prefectural tests that gave rise to the small number of surviving poems preserved 20 Yishan zazuan: 0.7. For attribution of Zazuan to Li Shangyin, see Zhizhai shulu jieti: 11.320; Songshi, 206.5220. For a sceptical view of this attribution, see Zhou (1948). 21 Zhang Ji shiji: 3.42. The title of this poem indicates that it was composed in Xuzhou. Xu Song accepted Xuzhou as the scene of Zhang Ji’s prefectural examination, but modern critics prefer the possibility of Bianzhou (Dengke jikao, 14.525–6; Hartman [1986]: 36–7).

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elsewhere are not specified, albeit perhaps because of casual editorial treatment by Song compilers.22 Despite the difficulties of reading these poems as historical documents, their quantity still outnumbers more prosaic statements of who was forwarded from what prefecture. Poems—and a few other examination genres—were the primary documents of their authors’ participation in prefectural competitions. Only exceptional conditions merited extra comment. Wang Dingbao’s account of Liu Tui’s recommendation from the central Yangzi region celebrated an entrée into the examination system at such a long remove that his eventual success seemed almost miraculous: The forwarding competition from Jingzhou was named the “world’s wasteland”.23 In the fourth year of Dazhong [850] the imperial drafter Liu Tui was forwarded from this prefecture before he passed his examination. At that time Cui [Xuan], Duke of Wei, was the prefect.24 Because [Liu Tui] had opened up the “world’s wasteland” he provided seven hundred thousand cash. [Liu] Tui wrote in gratitude saying: “For fifty years I thought myself discarded by men. But, one thousand li away in the exterior, can this be called the “world’s wasteland”? (30)

Following his success under Pei Du’s administration of the examinations,25 Liu Tui made adverse circumstances account well for his personal reputation. Clearly, his triumph was a welcome disruption to the norm, for the passage of most examination traffic in this period tended directly towards the capital or one of its nearby prefectural administrations. Wang Dingbao claims that dispatch from Huazhou or Tongzhou offered the “best market returns” (zui tui lishi ) (31). Wang Lengran’s letter and the story of Liu Tui’s success say nothing concerning their examination arrangements in a prefectural context, supposing that they encountered any formalized arrangement 22 In all except the first juan of the section of examination poems collected in Wenyuan yinghua ( juan 180–189), the editors do not distinguish between compositions for degree examinations and prefectural tests. 23 tianhuang: This image, which occurs in Wang Chong’s polemical defense of Han government, is part of his description of time and space beyond Chinese political control, referring in particular to Han relations with the Xiongnu who: “did not observe the starting days of months in areas of the world’s wasteland” (Lunheng jiaoshi: 19.825). 24 Cui Xuan (d. c. 868), a prominent minister and institutional historian, is otherwise recorded as the provincial governor at Jingzhou some fifteen years later during 865–8 ( JTS: 163.4262–3; XTS: 160.4974–5). 25 Liu Tui’s letter to Pei Du (WYYH: 671.6a–7a).

   

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at all. However consistently the prefectures arranged tests, only a few details of their content have survived, and they concern mostly the composition of verse (shi ) and rhapsodies ( fu). Records of the drinking ceremony, discussed in the following chapter, do mention the candidates’ production of literary pieces but only in vague terms. Significantly, Wang Dingbao’s most dependable record of preliminary composition tests focuses exclusively on conditions at Chang’an where requirements were, he says, as demanding as the degree examinations themselves. In a note appended to one of his discussions (lun), Wang Dingbao states: Tests to decide the metropolitan prefecture’s dispatch were the same as the three rounds of tests at the Board of Rites. Following [Huang] Chao’s invasion, both became simply one round. (29)

In 881, when Wang Dingbao was ten years old, Huang Chao’s armies occupied Chang’an and inflicted lasting damage. The tripartite series of tests—whose ultimate reduction to one dates to a key year in the dynasty’s disintegration—must have offered an enormous advantage to candidates residing in the capital and entering the competition through the metropolitan prefecture’s selection procedures. What seems to have been quite rigorous testing at the capital and at nearby prefectures was clearly the regular pattern in most years of the ninth century. Certainly, from early on in the ninth century, the content of prefectural examinations in and near the capital stressed the importance of literary composition. In 818 Linghu Chu ran the prefectural tests at Huazhou in five rounds, comprising tests in verse (shi ); song ( ge); prose (wen); rhapsody ( fu) and scriptural knowledge (tiejing) (31). Noteworthy is the lowest priority accorded to canonical texts in the fifth and last round. Like the content of degree examinations, the syllabus for examinations in prefectures near the capital epitomized the Tang elite’s disenchantment with subjects taught in the government schools as well as its fascination with technical mastery of lyrical genres of writing. T   “-” Wang Dingbao shows that metropolitan governors ran the prefectural examinations in Chang’an where procedures were evidently more complex than in most prefectures. He focused on grading practices

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in the Chang’an prefectural examinations (18) as well as on the views of two governors who ran examinations in 837 and 853 (20 21). Aside from the involvement of the metropolitan governors, whose function was that of prefects in provincial commands, the capitals’ government schools had long run their own tests to qualify students for entering degree examinations. Wang Dingbao relates, for instance, that Wen Tingyun (812–70) once ran the “autumn examinations” at the Grand Academy (taixue) in Chang’an (266). This is a rare record of official school procedures compared to more plentiful data of testing by prefectural authorities. Yet, in whichever context they performed their tasks at the capital, examiners of any preliminary tests passed a graded list of selected candidates to the degree examiners. This was an unofficial yet widely known practice, but its grading of candidates in order of merit unleashed bitter controversies. Nothing was better suited to upset whatever balance there was in prefectural candidate-selection than a special level of qualification called “degree-worthy” (dengdi ). Documented more fully by Wang Dingbao than any other late Tang observer, “degree-worthy” qualifications emerged only in the Chang’an metropolitan prefecture, and they seem to have functioned no earlier than the late eighth century. Their purpose was to guarantee places on the degree list for the top ten candidates in the Chang’an prefectural selections. Wang Dingbao also cited a process called “freeing the dispatch” (bajie), which allowed a candidate staying in the capital to enter the examinations as the tribute scholar of a certain prefecture without obliging him to return to that prefecture to repeat the formalities of selection and presentation. In the last century of Tang rule, if not for longer, these two streams of candidates comprised almost the entire entrance to the jinshi degree. Wang Dingbao cited the following succinct summary from Li Zhao’s Guoshi bu and added an interesting commentary: If someone rose through the metropolitan prefecture’s tests, they called him “worthy of a degree”; if anyone was presented as tribute from a provincial prefecture without being examined, they described him “freeing the dispatch”. (But freeing the dispatch still required seeking guarantee from someone by writing verse, and it did not signify a promotion for nothing.) (5a)

To evade both of these procedures before gaining a jinshi degree appears to have been rare. Linghu Hao ( jinshi 860) managed to do so, but it earned him the derogatory epithet “un-dispatched jinshi ”

   

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(wujie jinshi ), once his enemies had failed to invoke the authority of the Censorate to fail him on the grounds that he possessed no formal dispatch documents.26 All sorts of charges of political favouritism and even accusations concerning cash bribes were levelled at Linghu Hao and his father Linghu Tao (c. 799–c. 766), but the appeal to deny him a degree on grounds of flouting the dispatch procedures was unprecedented. As the competition for degree titles intensified in the last century of Tang rule, so too did the pressure to conform to the earliest manifestation of a hierarchical structure of examination entrance at the prefectural and metropolitan levels. The Tang government never put this progressive form of entrance on an unambiguous legal footing, but official circles acknowledged its existence, and, like Linghu Hao, often flouted its procedures. Wang Dingbao’s annotation to Li Zhao’s text may not reflect simply ninth-century society’s intolerance for undercutting established procedures. His insertion that freeing the dispatch was not an exemption from other forms of guarantee is a style of commentary perhaps better read as a confession of his own experience.27 Moreover, if indeed his tone is defensive here, that may be because during his lifetime differences on the question of local testing and selection came to a head. In 907, in tandem with other legislation to restrict local candidates’ access to the capital, the Liang government abolished the common late Tang recourse to “free the dispatch”. After that date, in principle, the more anonymous bureaucratic agencies of annual recruitment in both provincial and central contexts took over operations once left more or less entirely to the candidates and their backers in the capital. The significance of this reform ahead of the more complex examination bureaucracy erected after 960 hardly needs stressing. It must have exerted a huge psychological blow to the formation of close political relationships at both lower and upper levels of the examination system. A similar passage from intimacy to isolation is detectable in the history of examination rituals considered in later chapters of this study. Wang Dingbao never commented directly on political issues of the Five Dynasties’ period, but the Tang institutions that he recorded 26 JTS: 172.4467–9; XTS: 166.5103. See also Beimeng suoyan: 1.4–5; also at TPGJ: 261.2040–1. 27 For another example of such confessional commentary, see Zhao Lin’s admission that he participated in the metropolitan prefectural examination in 832 at Yinhua lu: 3.90, translated later in this chapter.

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in Collected Statements are sometimes those that featured prominently in government debates after 907. “Degree-worthy” qualifications are a case in point. The use of this highly contested privilege persisted throughout the Five Dynasties and into the Song. After the disastrous administration of the 973 examination, the candidates who were permitted to enter the re-examination included “jinshi candidates worthy of a degree” (dengdi jinshi ).28 In official accounts of the Song system, “degree worthy” also connoted a Song practice of marking and listing eligible candidates before finally granting their degrees.29 Long before that period, however, “degree-worthy” status signified a preliminary qualification that gauged unerringly the rising factional pressures of degree ambitions in the capital. In the text translated below, Wang Dingbao dates the pernicious rise of degree-worthy status to the fragile conditions that followed the An Lushan rebellion. The dates mentioned in this text reveal that it was composed during Wang Dingbao’s lifetime: The forwarding of candidates from dispatch rounds at the metropolitan prefecture In the dispatches escorted from Shenzhou30 after the Kaiyuan and Tianbao reign periods [713–56], the top ten men were termed “worthy of a degree”.31 A compulsory requirement was that circumstances matched in both name and reality, in order to replenish the font of civilizing influences. The Assistant Elder32 would rely on this to form his selection, for it sometimes transpired that he would ‘convert’ the whole batch.33 If not, however, he would accept seventy or eighty per cent. If circumstances differed radically from this, he would always notify the Examination Court34 and request guidance on [allowances and]35 refusals. By the Xiantong and Qianfu reign periods [860–79] the situation had become virtually all-enveloping. When an edict [to announce the examinations] was imminent, just as if they were degreeholders, those who had been successful [so far] paid each other excessive compliments, and used carriages and costumes of unbridled luxury, Wenchang zalu: 4.48. For instances of its usage in the Song monograph on examinations, see Nakajima (1991/1995): vol. 1, sections 49–8, 139–10 and 155. 30 Archaic name for the capital (Wenxuan: 21.990) 31 dengdi: see this term used also in Yinhua lu: 3.90. 32 xiao zongbo: another use of archaic Zhou terminology to refer to the Vice Minister of the Board of Rites (Zhouli: 17.3a, 19.1a, and TD: 23.639) 33 Cf. Taiping guangji: “it could transpire that all of them gained degrees” (TPGJ: 178.1323). 34 gongyuan: the administrative centre of examinations in Chang’an, discussed in chapter 5. 35 Following text at TPGJ: 178.1323. 28 29

   

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without feeling this to be in the least presumptuous. Worthy gentlemen of substance were no longer ranked at social events, such as the hopeful gatherings. As to what conditioned such inconclusive abolitions and restitutions, the main causes were the aforesaid.36 Their beginnings and outcomes are recorded below. (18)

The next four documents (19 20 21 22), which are discussed below, demonstrate the undeniable influence that prefectural candidates possessed during the ninth century. This opening account of the capital’s prefectural examinations seems to be in Wang Dingbao’s own voice. Most noticeable is the rhetorical flourish of the conclusion, which smacks of a classical style borrowed directly from Liu Zhiji, one of the most authoritative Tang theorists of historical writing. Such borrowing of archaic language is overtly self-referential, but the new linguistic register also defines sharply what Wang Dingbao saw as a critical aspect of Tang examination history. This opening account also reveals its author’s concern that, if uncontrolled, degree-worthy candidates did violence to the performance of “hopeful gatherings” (qiji ), one of the cardinal social fixtures in later stages of the examination programme to be discussed in chapters 6–7. Significantly, the emergence of these gatherings was concurrent with the rise of new grading practices in the metropolitan prefecture during the ninth century. Wang Dingbao also advances his polemic with notions of indulgent display, claiming that the actors in carriage-drawn processions felt little compunction in offending sumptuary laws that should have restricted their behaviour. Although “hopeful gatherings” were a later stage of the examination programme that Wang Dingbao documented more fully elsewhere, this initial reference to their performance in the context of prefectural selections signifies the depth to which celebrating degree-worthy status violated enactments of political loyalty between true degree-holders and examiners. Wang Dingbao’s remarks about dispatching candidates from the metropolitan prefecture illustrate also the degree to which the central administration had to accept a passive role as the recipient of frequently incontrovertible opinion from junior administrative levels. The same confidence is evident in the following text, which was probably composed before Wang Dingbao’s lifetime. It is the preface 36 Compare Liu Zhiji: “When history is complex and disordered, the main causes are the aforesaid” (“Essentializing” ( jian yao) at Shitong: 6.12b).

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that Wang Dingbao preserved from a lost work entitled Record of the degree-worthy in Shenzhou (Shenzhou dengdi lu). His is the only record of this text that disappeared soon after the end of the Tang.37 Its author clearly conceives of degree-worthy grading as an institution that dated to the decades before the An Lushan rebellion. The historical origin of degree-worthy listing remains obscure, but this and other records concerning this practice describe exclusively conditions in the second half of the dynasty: List orders of degree-worthy candidates at the capital, [beginning in] the degree register under the first year of Yuanhe [806] The glory of the heavenly storehouse comprised the heroes of Shenzhou. To select talent meant counting names by the hundred, and ranking them by grade with ten men at the top. This began in the Kaiyuan and Tianbao eras [713–56], and, by the Dali and Jianzhong years [767–83], the successful won the right to prance along a road through the clouds;38 their stairway39 led to the Orchid Department.40 They were nothing less than the Jian River which surges skywards in the sixth month.41 Those whom we know about now begin from the greater xu year of Yuanhe [806], and then continue in a sequence of names. The title is Record of the degree-worthy in Shenzhou (19)

Once again, antiquity validates the function of current institutions. Even the toponymy of the Chang’an prefecture is re-dressed in the antiquity of Shenzhou, a name that no longer had any official validity under the Tang. However, despite reference to key Han institutions and phrases from pre-Tang historical biography, the text suggests a cultural context that was probably barely perceptible before the 780’s. While the identity of the compiler of Record of the degree-worthy in Shenzhou remains obscure, the text’s powerful metaphors suggest the enthusiasm with which scholarly and political constituencies responded

37 See also Wang Dingbao’s record of the Shenzhou dengdi lu collected with notices of other examination literature at Yuhai: 58.27b. 38 yunqu: see the historian Fang Xuanling’s use of this term in his comments following the biographies of Xi Shen et al. ( Jinshu: 52.1455). 39 jieti: a common metaphor for social advance. Compare Han Yu: “Intent on reporting our errors, they serve to make a stairway for themselves”, from his poem “On return from a congratulatory audience in the Southern Palace and presented to fellow officials”, Zhu Wengong jiao Changli xiansheng wenji: 7.6a–b. 40 lansheng: a reference to the imperial library by its name under the Han and the Wei (TLD: 10.4b–5b). The name became official again during 662–71 (TLD: 10.6b; TD: 26.732–3; THY: 65.1123; JTS: 43.1854–5; XTS: 47.1214). See also Rotours (1932): 205. 41 An allusion to the famous tidal bore that surges up the Qiantang estuary near Hangzhou.

   

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to local selection procedures. This text is the only known example that celebrated the prefectural level of recruitment in a manner reflecting so exactly the official registers of degree awards. As such, its content is also worth considering in the longer perspective of examination history. It provides an early indication of how elite society employed a major graphical expression of the predominantly metropolitan examination culture to enhance the prestige of recruitment in a lower level of the political hierarchy. This downward expansion, of course, does not prove that late Tang examination culture started to appear in Tang towns and villages, but it does intimate Chinese society’s increased saturation in the examination life of later periods. Not only did prefectural candidates vex participants at hopeful gatherings and distort the annual examination timetable, their noise spread even further into the capital at large. Wang Dingbao’s reference to a practice called “summer trials” (5a), cited from the list of expressions collected by Li Zhao in the Guoshi bu, connoted the annual efforts of examination candidates to ready their writings before each examination season and to renew political contacts with figures of influence. Wang Dingbao says nothing else about these activities, but the following Five Dynasties’ text, which is probably a citation from Li Nao’s Records of the seasons in Qin (Qin zhong suishi ji ), gives a fluent account: After the sixth month, Chang’an candidates who had failed the examinations did not leave the capital. This they called “staying the summer” [ guoxia]. Many of them rented lodgings in the monasteries of quiet wards or else in unoccupied residences, and they wrote new literary compositions, which they called “summer trials” [xiake]. Sometimes, if between five and ten men pooled their resources towards food and wine and then requested a theme from some distinguished member of the court who knew them, they called this a “private examination” [sishi ]. From the seventh month onwards they presented their latest trial work and freed their dispatches from the various prefectures. People were inspired to remark: “once the sophora trees’42 flowers have yellowed, the candidates go into action.”43

42 huai—Sophora japonica: this tree is common throughout East Asia, and it is planted beside many roadways in China. For its cultivation along the streets of the Tang government city, see an annotation by Hong Xingzu (1090–1155) to Han Yu’s poem “On return from a congratulatory audience in the Southern Palace and presented to fellow officials”, citing a work entitled Traces of the central court (Zhongchao shiji ) and claiming that these streets were popularly known as “sophora streets” (Zhu Wengong jiao Changli xiansheng wenji: 7.6a–b). 43 Nanbu xinshu: 2.21–22. Qian Yi’s account, translated here, is the most complete

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What Li Nao recounts here sheds further light on Wang Dingbao’s more laconic version of the candidates’ timetable, which he drew from Li Zhao’s Guoshi bu. In particular, Li Nao states that candidates organized themselves into groups of five or ten members. Theirs was a voluntary association, which seems to have differed qualitatively from the five-member guarantee pacts that candidates were forced to constitute from 836 onwards.44 The successful recommendation for that legal requirement acknowledged that forms of mutual guarantee had already long existed, but it insisted for the first time that the procedures should be written into the Board of Rites’ examiner’s regulations. In a significant parallel of Li Nao’s account, Wang Dingbao, again citing the list of terms first recorded by Li Zhao, includes “associative guarantee” (hebao) as the condition of a private examination (5a). Li Zhao’s observation of this form of guarantee predated the new guarantee measures of 836, and it was therefore akin to what Li Nao described as an association left more or less to the whim of candidates. If this is a correct reading of these terms, it confirms a historical pattern in which the relatively informal arrangements of Tang examinations gradually hardened into legal requirements. It suggests too how candidates and their patrons in high court circles led the government in creating some of the structures of examination recruitment rather than the other way round. Li Nao’s account also borrows a conventional image of blossom for the sixth month as the beginning of the season when prefectural candidates started to parade along the tree-lined streets of the capital.45 This early activity varies considerably with what the Tang statutes and other official sources identify as the formal examination year beginning in the tenth month. That later timetable is the only one that Ouyang Xiu and his staff accepted in their account of Tang examinations in the New Tang history. Li Nao’s and Wang Dingbao’s records of the summertime of preparation restore a fuller sense of the annual cycle of commitments in the examination programme. text available. See also the briefer text of Qin zhong suishi ji at Shuofu (100–juan version): 74.1b; cf. Qin zhong suishi ji: 0.1b at Shuofu (120–juan version): juan 69. 44 THY: 76.1382. This measure is dated elsewhere less plausibly to 844 (CFYG: 641.6b–7a). 45 For an earlier Tang record of this seasonal blossom, see Cen Shen’s (715–769) poem addressed to Wang Changling in which he writes: “In the sixth month sophora blossoms fly” (Cen Jiazhou shi jiaozhu: 1.43–5).

   

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By the close of the ninth century, anyway, the seasonal appearance of jinshi candidates engaged in the business of securing their prospects had already become a suitable topic for verse.46 Wang Dingbao’s insights into the top ten candidates’ privileges correspond with several other important accounts of prefectural selections in the ninth century. Whether a “private examination” or else the mechanism to “free the dispatch” was the means by which the capital prefecture’s top ten candidates secured their status, they and their more senior backers exerted enormous pressure on both prefectural and national examiners. In one of seven short prefaces that he addressed to failed jinshi candidates, Liu Zongyuan (773–819) told one scholar on his way back to Changsha in or shortly before 801 that the notion of local promotions was irreparably defunct, and he blamed this development entirely on the influence of metropolitan prefects. Furthermore, he pointed out, most jinshi degree-winners now emerged out of the metropolitan administration, even though the talents of some of them were quite dubious.47 Three decades later, Zhao Lin gave a dramatic account of his own prefectural examiner’s attempt to resist the metropolitan prefect’s heavy-handed imposition of ten degree-worthy candidates. Zhao Lin’s motive to recount his own achievement in this examination is not too subtly disguised, but there is no reason to doubt that by the ninth century a junior examining official’s resistance to senior political pressure was most uncommon: In the sixth year of the Taihe reign period [832], President Tang Chi48 was a lieutenant at Weinan and charged with examining jinshi candidates for the metropolitan prefecture. Du Zong, the minister, was at that time metropolitan prefect, and he would have liked to request space among the degree-worthy for his friends and relatives. (The ten most highly regarded individuals of any period were placed on the “inside” as degree-worthies.) [Du] invited the duke [Tang Chi] over for a social occasion and ordered in tea and wine. As soon as he mentioned the examination candidates, [ Tang] hurried down the steps, bowed face-down and did not respond. Not daring to say anything,

46 See Han Wo’s poem “Emotions on completing my summer trials”, Yushan qiaoren ji: 0.15a. 47 “Essentials of a preface to send off scholar Xin following his degree failure”, Liu Zongyuan ji: 23.629–30. 48 Given in Zhao Lin’s text as Tang Te.

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  Duke Du had to give up. That year those presented as worthy included as many as thirty or more people. Within a few years all had gained degrees. That none of them was ignored was and is un-paralleled. (I happened to be selected for the degree-worthy at that time.)49

Metropolitan administrators were seldom directly challenged from so low down in the system as this. Nevertheless, the resistance that Tang Chi expressed so dramatically was not quite as isolated as Zhao Lin’s story suggests. Wang Dingbao recorded several critical attitudes, not the least of which was his own presented as one of the compiler’s intervening discussions (lun): Discussion: in the words of Mencius, to find employment or not is fate.50 Alternatively, if you have innate ability, then fate will open a way for you. Whether we follow the first proposition or agree with the second, is it not the case that fate follows your nature? Supposing that the greatest are ranked with degrees and the lesser are listed with [prefectural] grades, then, as they lock horns51 across the literary arena52 and journey to the dispatch examinations by the light of the stars,53 they will seek estimations of rank through secret worship54 of the Ten Philosophers [shi zhe] until the Spring Apartment55 publishes its decision with a single announcement. How else might the source of all selections and rejections not come to this pass? In some cases the first of the prefectural dispatches was rejected for ever; in others the most degree-worthy was constantly discarded. Due to his profound writings Huang Po wasted thirteen years; because Liu Qi was an unconventional apprentice, he sank for twenty-one years. Wen Qi was left to hide among the plain-clothed; Luo Yin endured a wrong from the red osmanthus. If you base your argument on these cases, you could claim that, if fate let you pass, you had innate ability. How could you say that the innately able were those whom fate let pass?56 (28)

49 Yinhua lu: 3.90. Cf. text at TYL: 3.205 (no. 311). This story also appears in Tang Chi’s official biography at XTS: 89.3761. 50 According to Mencius, no one else’s machinations are powerful enough to prevent a subject serving his ruler (Mengzi: 2B.14a). 51 jiaozhu: Zhanguo ce: 20.716, and glossed by Bao Biao as “to fight”. 52 wenchang: a common allusion to the examination life, particularly in verse. 53 “On a lame mount riding with the stars so as to travel twice as much of the road” (Baopu Zi: 36.2a). 54 fang: glossed as “to meet the pneuma from four directions at the suburban [altars]” at Shijing: 14/1.6a. 55 chunwei: a name for the examination administration adapted from the ancient Zhou’s designation of Rites as the office of spring (chunguan). 56 Following this text is Wang Dingbao’s comment on the three rounds of tests used in prefectural examinations (29), translated above.

   

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Some of the expressions in Wang Lengran’s letter, discussed above, especially his allusion to Mencius and perhaps even his use of Sima Qian’s “dark clouds” may have influenced directly Wang Dingbao’s own language in this debate on success and fate. Through these references, Wang Dingbao’s personal prejudices emerge quite clearly: scholars who could serve the state should not end up stranded for years on prefectural lists, but the honour of many such people is impugned precisely by being blocked in such unjust circumstances. Ideas about fate and injustice feature also in the long complaint by Wang Lengran, who, nearly two centuries earlier invoked them with the unforgettable Mencian image of a supplicant crawling on all fours. Like many other documents in the Collected Statements, the characteristic and opinionated focus of this discussion is a lower level of the examinations system, equivalent also to the initial stages of the annual examination programme. Such a focus reflects, of course, what the compiler and others experienced ubiquitously during the years and even decades of their efforts to win degrees. Injustice in prefectural examinations was rife. Wang Dingbao refines his argument by reference to some extreme cases, including that of LuoYin (d. 909), who became virtually apotheosized as the most celebrated examination failure of his generation. Of considerably more interest than individual failures, however, is Wang Dingbao’s reference to the factional group named the Ten Philosophers. Elsewhere, Wang Dingbao lists twelve members of the Ten Philosophers who made a concerted effort to win places on the list of degree-worthy candidates in the 870’s (275). This was only one of several factional groups of the period. Another interesting group using a similar name was the Ten Philosophers of the Fragrant Grove (Fanglin shi zhe) (232–234). In an imaginative evocation of the actual spaces of interaction between the palace and the city, the group borrowed its name apparently from the Fanglin gate, which linked the capital with the western zone of the Taiji Palace grounds (235). Another formidable association was the Four Terrors (si xiong) (236–238)—whose political momentum from the 870’s onwards contested any other section of the bureaucracy in deciding individual examination fortunes. Wang Dingbao lists the names of eight members of the group, all of whom are now obscure figures, except for Shen Yunxiang who achieved telling if ignominious renown as a servant of Huang Chao’s short-lived regime.57 57

JTS: 19B.709.

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The history of examination factions had already interested earlier Tang observers beginning with Feng Yan during his days at the Chang’an government schools in the early eighth century.58 Nor was Wang Dingbao the only collector of information concerning the Ten Philosophers of the Fragrant Grove.59 More details of their activities figure in another Tang text attributed—none too securely—to Lu Yan’s (fl. 857) Various Tales (Zashuo), a collection completed not long before 850.60 Wang Dingbao evidently shared with the author of this account the same ironic view of fate (ming) as the invisible distributor of success. That author too had declared that acquaintance with the faction leaders of his day would guarantee “fate to open a way.” Also revealing in Wang Dingbao’s discussion of the first ten prefectural candidates are the metaphors that he used. They offer tantalizing insights into what was after all the seamier side of Tang examination life. Prefectural candidates carrying out “secret worship” is a sample of political rhetoric, but it is also a powerful suggestion of the examinations’ religious conditions, upon which not a single Tang witness ever pronounced. That this suggestion appears in an argument concerning prefectural selections is also significant, since this most populous juncture of the entire system must have conditioned the most frequent acts of worship to guarantee examination success. And, the negative implications that secrecy imposes on cultic actions in favour of an infamous examination faction reveals Wang Dingbao’s disdain for this form of religious practice among factional alliances. His distrust for a kind of behaviour that is otherwise imperceptible in Tang sources contrasts significantly with what later discussion will demonstrate to be his open attitude towards ritual performances and political alliances closer to the heart of the examinations’ bureau58 For examination factions that operated in the government schools during the early eighth century and others that sprang up outside the schools later in the same century, see Feng shi wenjian ji jiaozhu: 3.13 (also at TYL: 8.713–5 (no. 1028), and trans. Mair (1978): 36; Guoshi bu: C.56 (also at TYL: 2.185 [no. 279]). For Wang Dingbao’s citation of this last text, see 7c. 59 For a text naming other members of the “Ten Philosopher s of the Fragrant Grove” and the membership of other ninth-century factions, see Zashuo at TPGJ: 181.1353 and TYL: 4.378 (no. 553). 60 The inclusion of remarks concerning the “Ten philosophers” in preserved sections of Lu Yan’s text (see previous note) is probably later editorial work. It is questionable that the faction existed in Lu Yan’s day. Most significantly, the “Ten philosophers” follow information about earlier factions and then precede remarks about the 820’s, suggesting a naive textual insertion into Lu Yan’s original sequence. On the text of Zashuo, see Zhou (1996): 119–28.

   

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cracy. Significantly too, his biases provide some guidance to understanding his sympathy for past efforts to reform prefectural selections. R       Wang Dingbao was frank about previous generations’ irregular manipulations of the system, but he also documented past hopes for reform. Two attempts, which faced the abuses of degree-worthy lists headon, date to 837 and 856. This separation of twenty years is very long, and, in the absence of other documentation for the intervening years, it probably means that reform attempts were fraught with difficulty and therefore unusual. Wang Dingbao’s account of the 837 episode states: In the second year of Kaicheng, the metropolitan governor, Cui Gong wrote a judgement, which said: “For selecting literary talent and seeking officials there has always been a controlling official. When prefectural authorities forward names is it appropriate to differentiate them on the list? This year let us neither define a descending order nor shackle the examining official. Once we have thwarted suspicion and jealousy, we may soon find relief from superficiality and competition.” He then sent Lu Zonghui 61 from the Service of Merits62 to take charge of the examinations. Except in cases where their writings did not deserve to be forwarded, Lu arranged them from first to last according to the arrival of their dossiers. After the examination for literary genres, Cui Gong then sent the registrar63 Hou Yunzhang64 to act as examining official, and, as a result, no one made a list of those worthy of a degree. One year later, Cui Gong was sent out to govern the Xu region,65 and others restored [listing] the degree-worthy. (20) Lu Zonghui gained the jinshi degree in the Yuanhe reign period (806–820) (Tangshi jishi: 48.1311). 62 The first and most prestigious of six services in the prefectural administrations of the three Tang capitals Chang’an, Luoyang and Taiyuan. According to Du You, its responsibilities included merit assessments, schools and local examinations (TD: 33.912–3; see also Tang liudian: 30.4a–b; JTS: 44.1916 and 1919; XTS: 49B.1312; cf. Rotours (1947): 691). For evidence that the same service operated in other provincial commands, for instance Yangzhou, see Li Hua’s preface to the collection of Xiao Yingshi (WYYH: 701.5b–7a). 63 silu: for Silu canjun, an adjutant registrar. For this official’s command of the prefecture’s six services (previous note), see Tang liudian: 30.3b–4a; TD: 33.912; JTS: 44.1916; XTS: 49B.1312; cf. Rotours (1947): 689–91. 64 Hou Yunzhang gained a decree examination title in 825 (THY: 76.1390). 65 This is an error. For Cui Gong’s appointment to Xuzhou in 833, see JTS: 17B.548; and, his biographies at JTS: 177.4587–9; XTS: 182.5362–3. 61

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This account is unique in providing both a historical instance and an administrative blueprint for staffing the annual operation of prefectural examinations and distributing the tasks among different officers. Cui Gong’s reform was short-lived, but not because he set off with an official posting to eastern China soon afterwards. By 836, at least one year before he began his service as metropolitan governor in Chang’an, he had already completed a four-year tour of duty in the mutinous Xuzhou region. Although Wang Dingbao let this serious confusion stand, he was right in suggesting that Cui Gong lost his political influence quite abruptly and therefore forfeited any chance to reform the prefectural examinations for a longer term. In fact, his plight was far worse than a posting to Xuzhou. During the morning of 3 February 838 the chief minister Li Shi (ca. 783–ca. 845) had to fight off hired killers attempting to murder him first on the street and then in his own home.66 Although this crime was quite transparently a palace-hatched plot, Cui Gong underwent the public humiliation of having his salary docked for failing to catch the perpetrators.67 More seriously, his political standing fell hostage to his enemies at court. Even if Cui Gong’s attempt to change the pattern of prefectural recruitment was short-lived, it was not an isolated effort. It also merits a reading in context with other political developments whose principal author was Li Deyu (787–850), the major polemicist in contested issues of examination ceremony discussed in chapter 6. Throughout much of his career, Cui Gong was a close associate of Li Deyu, and, once he had recovered from the Li Shi affair, the height of his career in 840–43 coincided with Li Deyu’s leadership of Chang’an politics under the reign of Wuzong.68 That both men shared a similar outlook on recruitment is evident in the earlier progress of Li Deyu’s career. In 833 Li Deyu had pushed through two major reforms. Firstly, he had suppressed the poetry question, which had become the emblematic sine qua non of the jinshi syllabus. Secondly, he had abolished the common practice of showing the jinshi pass list to the chief ministers ahead of its official promulgation. These ambitious modifications did not outlast the examination of 834, after

JTS: 17B.572; ZZTJ: 246.7931. See biographies at JTS: 177.4589; XTS: 182.5363. 68 For their friendship, see Cui Gong’s biography at JTS: 177.4589. But, for a claim that Li Deyu drove Cui Gong out of the capital in 844, see Dongguan zouji: 1.90 (no. 13). 66 67

   

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which Li Deyu’s enemies secured his banishment from the capital. They also undid his reforms.69 At a lower level of the system, Cui Gong’s reform, like Li Deyu’s, aimed ostensibly to minimize ministerial influence in deciding pass lists. Although Cui Gong introduced his reform three years after the brief yet major overhaul of the degree examinations, he chose the moment carefully. On 10 June, 837, some months before Cui Gong publicized his new measures, the government announced Li Deyu’s appointment as governor of Runzhou, the base of one of the highest commands of the lower Yangzi region. This appointment did not yet confirm his return to court, but it may have been a positive enough sign for an ally in control of the Chang’an administration to broach an examination issue over which he could exert direct control. Ultimately, the anti-reformers soon regained the upper hand and Cui Gong’s interference proved as evanescent as Li Deyu’s four years earlier. Even though neither politician’s efforts boded well for examination factions, the pressure to join these groups remained intense throughout the ninth century. In the 860’s none other than Cui Gong’s son and one of his nephews both sought admission to a faction called the “Great Dragons” (dalong).70 Wei Ao ( jinshi 832, d. after 865), proponent of a second attempt to change the conduct of prefectural examinations in 856, was the son of Wei Guanzhi (760–821), whose resistance to external manipulations of bureaucratic decision-making was legendary.71 Wei Ao’s own words in this account of his administration testify that he had absolute confidence in the office of metropolitan governor as the agency capable of cleansing the Chang’an prefectural examinations of unwarranted political interference. He was an exceptionally strongminded reformer who seems to have exercised his powers in the capital with unusual conscientiousness. His despatch of judiciary work was so rapid that, according to the report recorded in a Song source, “the prisons were virtually empty.”72 Wei Ao’s cousin, Wei Wen, had been a close protégé of Li Deyu until the latter’s exile in 834.73 CFYG: 641.4a–b. XTS: 182.5364. 71 For his brusque treatment of an interfering abbot in 814, see Guoshi bu: B.41 (also at TYL: 3.234 [no. 348]). See also his biographies at JTS: 158.4175–8; XTS: 169.5155–7. 72 Zhiguan fenji: 38.12b. 73 JTS: 168.4377–80; XTS: 169.5157–60. For Wei Wen’s later association with Li Deyu’s enemy, Niu Sengru, see his epitaph by Du Mu (Fanchuan wenji: 8.127–30). 69 70

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It is unsurprising, therefore, to find that Wei Ao was another reformer whose ideas appear closely in line with Li Deyu’s efforts to remould examination recruitment twenty years earlier. Wang Dingbao’s source for Wei Ao’s reforms was probably the Dongguan zouji, a collection of Pei Tingyu’s recollections of court events first presented to the throne in 891. If so, Wang Dingbao’s citation of the passage concerning Wei Ao made short work of the opening remarks. These are well worth restoring: Previously, when the metropolitan prefecture forwarded jinshi and mingjng candidates, it established three grades of “special”, “second” and “ordinary” in order to distinguish a real sense of their performance. In recent years, public values have declined ever more rapidly; things are restricted to frantic competition. When it comes to the day of forwarding the dispatches, those with position defeat their opponents just as they do on the streets of the market.74

Pei Tingyu’s record provides information that Wang Dingbao overlooked. It reveals that preliminary selections during the capital prefecture tests were run also on behalf of mingjing candidates. It also shows that a not too rigorous three-level system of grading had once existed in order to categorize prefectural candidates’ ability levels. Abandoning this old system in favour of ranked pass lists was clearly a radical change in the prefectural management of examinations and a form of progress that Wei Ao was intent to reverse. Wang Dingbao’s lengthy citation of Wei Ao’s views begins: In the seventh year of Dazhong [853],75 when Wei Ao was governor of the capital, his pass list said: “when the court was about to put the teachings of civilization into practice, it established a broad panoply of academic degrees, and it was only in the Kaiyuan and Tianbao reign periods [713–56] that mingjing and jinshi candidates achieved a monopoly. By the Zhenyuan and Yuanhe reign periods [785–820] the mutual respect that worked through recommendations and dispatches increased yet more. At that time, the sole concern was to grind one’s studies to perfection,76 and not to scatter among the armour of factionalism. So, having cut the road to special indulgences and requests, the tradition was to promote the wise and yield to the able. The graded order and its list of names resembled merely a degree list, and, once the procedures were fully developed, they certainly worked for the good of all. Dongguan zouji: 2.108. This date is wrong; it should probably read “tenth year”, i.e. 856. The Tang “Annals” date Wei Ao’s appointment to 854 ( JTS: 18B.632). For Wei Ao’s more likely appointment in 856, see ZZTJ: 249.8059. 76 Shijing: 3/2.11a. 74 75

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Thus, according to Wei Ao, degree-worthy lists had once functioned in an honourable fashion. More likely, however, especially given what he says next, his description of egalitarian consensus was primarily a paradigm with which to contrast current decadence: But, in recent times, the old rules have suddenly changed. The weak and the strong vie among each other, absorbed for the most part in a horseback chase. The emergence of a list issued to fix the highest and lowest places has swiftly put paid to the days of standing shoulder to shoulder. There have been occasions when men disregarded all checks and tallies and relied entirely on strategies of power.77 Profound scholarship and brilliant literature have all been cast to the virtuous and humble. The more senior and those with greater bearing select exhaustively from their own faction to make themselves stronger than the majority. Even those who gain selection might never have merited any mention, but, as they struggle for fame, they profit their cause even more.

The factionalism that Wei Ao targeted here was the issue that occupied so much of Wang Dingbao’s attention in the history of prefectural examinations. In Wei Ao’s view the prefectural list and its internal rankings were the chief symptoms of factional struggle in this early stage of the examination programme. His remedy was a typically conservative provision for reform that made heavy reference to the ideals of administrative probity in an archaic era: I, [Wei] Ao, am unduly honoured with office in the capital administration, but it is my duty to present any outstanding talent. I deny that I lack the mind needed to decide appointments, but I fear charges of favouritism. Consider for a moment that Li Ying78 was removed from his post for not seeking the filial and modest,79 and that Hu Guang80 was expelled from the bureaucracy for his careless encouragement of burgeoning talent.81 How much more do I, then, with my limited faculties, find it truly difficult to apply judgement?

Wei Ao set his preference for an un-prioritized listing of prefectural candidates within an attachment to Han promotion structures that surfaced several times in late Tang attempts to reform examination 77 jingying: an that expression summarizes Su Qin’s heroic and ultimately futile aim to overthrow the state of Qi (Zhanguo ce: 14.509). 78 Li Ying (110–169) was indeed demoted, but, according to his biography, not ostensibly for the reasons given by Wei Ao (Hou Hanshu: 67.2191–7). 79 xiaolian: also the name of an examination first instituted under the Han but defunct by Sui times. In 763 it became the subject of a reform proposal—see discussion following this translation. 80 See Hu Guang’s (91–172) demise at Hou Hanshu: 44.1509. 81 maocai: an alternative designation of the Han period’s xiucai title.

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recruitment. These structural recommendations, which accepted the need for a personal knowledge of the candidate, appealed naturally to reform-minded officials who ultimately never overcame their mistrust of impartial and therefore impersonal selection procedures. In that sense, Wei Ao’s thinking followed closely that of Li Deyu, who in turn borrowed some of his ideas from the utterly radical proposition of Yang Wan (d. 777). In 763 Yang Wan had demanded the abolition of the jinshi degree and its replacement with the same Han institutions of recommendation to which Wei Ao refers.82 Yang Wan’s proposal had remained a beacon for reformist efforts during the following century. Wang Dingbao himself mentioned it briefly as a futile past policy at the end of his account of provincial tribute scholar status (10b). Wei Ao’s clinching argument, however, appeals to restore order in favour of the central administration of his own day: And, I believe no less that, since the text of the Ministry of Rites’ regulations has never contained anything concerning the ‘degree-worthy’, prefectural dispatches should not create rankings. Those who may be suitably dispatched this year as candidates for the Central Department’s jinshi, mingjing and other degrees will all be defined by the sequence in which their dissertation tests are received, and they will not be limited by extra divisions such as ‘degree-worthy’. (21)

This reference to the Board of Rites’ regulations is a highly significant admission that Tang prefectural examiners had no legal sanction to submit ranked lists. Wei Ao’s determination to make the system work more fluently on behalf of central authority was also an attack on the emergence of formal procedures outside the highest arena of the examination administration. No other document reveals the same attempt to bring the prefectural system into line with the central bureaucracy’s preferences. This silence suggests that it was difficult or else undesirable to effect reform; equally, it hints that reform was only an option if backed by extraordinarily strong political will. Wei Ao’s attempt to assert the metropolitan prefect’s more effective control over Chang’an prefectural selections coincided with a dramatic rise in the prestige of Chang’an’s prefectural administration. The 82 For Yang Wan’s memorial, see THY: 76.1395–6; JTS: 119.3430–32; CFYG: 640.4b-6b; XTS: 44.1166–7; trans. Rotours (1932): 187–9. For Sima Guang’s intellectual history linking Yang Wan with Li Deyu, see ZZTJ: 222.7143–4.

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prefecture’s large offices, which were located in the southeast section of Guangde ward, were first erected during the Sui dynasty before undergoing major renovations during the early eighth- and the mid-ninth century.83 The prefecture also maintained a teaching college in the adjacent Taiping ward—the residential ward of Wang Dingbao’s forebears—as well as an archive across the city at Yongning ward.84 Upon his appointment in 856, Wei Ao received a government grant of 20,000 strings of cash to redevelop the site of the prefectural government.85 Following Wei Ao’s rebuilding, the prefectural prison alone could hold more than three hundred persons.86 No previous metropolitan governor had ever lived in the compound where he held office, and the unprecedented location of a residence there, which Wei Ao first occupied, resulted in a much-celebrated addition to the capital’s architecture. It must have visibly redefined the prefect’s role as a permanent resident in an upgraded theatre of power. Wei Ao’s reformed system may have endured as long as twenty years. Wang Dingbao states in his last and very brief document of this topic that in 877 Cui Yu, then governor of Chang’an, restored the graded prefectural lists (22). For Wang Dingbao and his generation of officials, whatever realities the prefectural tests in Chang’an dictated between 877 and 907, Cui Yu’s restitution probably struck the conclusive note in the protracted ninth-century tussle between creating and denying opportunities at this preliminary stage of examination careers. Wang Dingbao was himself an unusual product of a state degree competition conducted in a prefectural setting in 900—at Huazhou when the capital was on a tense war footing and the court had made a tactical withdrawal. His experience probably challenged him more than most degree-winners to analyze the late Tang’s increasingly obvious tiers of selection on the slow passage towards a degree title. Whatever grandeur Tang metropolitan prefects adopted in their administrative duties, their office remained an “impure” post, and their annual tasks on behalf of the examination system fell within the vast remit of tasks that the central authorities delegated beyond Chang’an zhi: 10.3a. Chang’an zhi: 9.8b. 85 Chang’an zhi: 2.9b. 86 After the death of the Tongchang princess in 870, Yizong commanded this number of her chief physician’s relations to be imprisoned here ( JTS: 19A.675). 83 84

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the circle of its central “pure posts”. Not until 988 did a new unified government in Kaifeng upgrade responsibility for the capital’s prefectural selections into the hands of a central court official.87 C Wang Dingbao provided a nostalgic review of Tang examination culture, so his documents’ relevance to the reconstitution of a unified Chinese bureaucracy after 960 should not be exaggerated. Even so, before his death in 940, Wang Dingbao might have had an inkling that the overwhelming majority of his readers in the future would be men whose experience never encompassed more than preliminary examinations run by prefectural authorities. It is certainly significant that he included one account of failing the preliminary examination (275) under “ill luck” (buyu), the category which otherwise gathers examples of candidates failing to win the jinshi degree. Already in the Tang period, prefectural candidates in and near Chang’an had to accept a stark rise in competition in the earliest stage of examination entrance. It is not generally perceived in other Tang and Five Dynasties sources how much competitive pressures strained the bureaucracy’s operation at this level of government. This is a most useful insight, especially when considered with the rise of examination factionalism in other contexts of the examination programme to be discussed in the following chapters. It is clear that factionalism conditioned all levels of examination life in the capital during most months of the year, but it is particularly noteworthy that factional alliances also appeared prominently in prefectural contexts. Critics decried factionalism at all levels of the system, but only in prefectural examinations do the names of so many factions and their members appear in Wang Dingbao’s records. Wang Dingbao shows also how groups of prefectural candidates adopted symbols such as pass registers in order to sway opinion in their favour before they undertook the even more difficult task of passing the examinations. His records reveal how, for the first time in Chinese examination history, tasks of practical administration and the cultural expressions that they engendered spread inexorably from central institutions into a level below that which for they were first 87

Xu zizhi tongjian changbian: 29.654. See also Araki (1969): 153.

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conceived. And, the instigators of this process were clearly not the central organs of government but candidates and their patrons working assiduously for their own interests. Even if the central government sponsored the final outcomes of degree examinations, examination candidates and their chief political backers were largely responsible for widening the system’s meagre opportunities on behalf of a broadening desire to win degree titles. Finally, one enduring characteristic of the provincial tribute system that Wang Dingbao experienced drew a clear line between the Tang and the period that followed. No Tang requirement ever insisted that degree candidates had to be natives of the prefectures forwarding them to the capital. Nor did they have to be residents of the capital to enter the prefectural selections there. The difficulties that Five Dynasties and early Song legislators faced in trying to force candidates to stay away from the capital are partly attributable to deeply established norms of Tang practice. The regional governments that emerged after the Tang dynasty’s collapse adopted policies reflecting radically new aims of control. At Luoyang in 907 the new Liang state attempted to curtail candidates’ freedom of movement by legislating that they should not be permitted to enter state examinations in the capital without passing prefectural preliminary examinations.88 The same desire to force the regions to exercise more control emerged during the short-lived reign of the Han at Kaifeng. In 949 this government approved a proposal to create obligatory identity checks for candidates entering the system at any prefectural level.89 In practice, of course, a candidate could still satisfy this condition by passing a prefectural examination conducted at the capital, but a Zhou stipulation in 953 that candidates prove their dispatch from their place of origin shows again how the central bureaucracy at Kaifeng was keen to make prefectural selection procedures revolve around the native candidates of a particular region.90 This was among the most important preludes to the evolution of the examination system after 960, including not least the Song government’s attempt to make residency a legal requirement for prefectural candidates.91 Once residency

Jiu Wudai shi: 148.1977. Jiu Wudai shi: 148.1961. 90 CFYG: 642.14b–16b. 91 For legislation attempted from 972 onwards, see Chaffee (1985): 53. See also a Southern Song dispute over a candidate’s origins translated in McKnight (1999): 138–40. 88 89

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became the accepted norm—if not a constant observance—the graded prefectural registers became an obvious and not unjust expedient. The question of whose names deserved to appear there remained as fraught as ever, but this perennial tension now exercised numerous prefectural administrations distributed throughout as many regional centres in the new empire. Gone was the old Tang collision between social interests in a metropolitan prefectural setting and officials’ attempts to arbitrate a state system of symbolic rewards at the capital. Wang Lengran’s letter was already something of a historical curio to Wang Dingbao and his contemporaries, but it made sense still within the examination culture that they recognized in their day. Within a few generations and following the advent of an examination system embedded in clearly demarcated levels of administration, the same letter belonged to a different world.

CHAPTER FOUR

CEREMONIES OF INDUCTION Wang Dingbao lived two hundred years after the early eighth-century authorities first developed state ceremonies of induction for the degree examinations. Consequently, at the end of the ninth century, although some institutions of early Tang ritual were still familiar constituents of examination life, others provided at best only remote models of a bygone style of government. However the practical relevance of these rituals varied, they remained nonetheless potent symbols of Tang recruitment. Wang Dingbao documented three major forms of ritual induction that occurred ahead of the state examinations: the community wine-drinking ceremony, the court assembly and the visit to the former teachers, which featured the ceremony to Confucius. In contrast to the stipulations aiming to control candidates’ behaviour during prefectural tests, these three forms of induction were implementations of state ritual, and each of them was dignified with a prescriptive account in the state ritual code. This chapter is therefore the only one in this study that analyses any part of the examination programme as a direct expression of codified state ritual. Significantly too, the examinations’ three major induction ceremonies possessed histories that predated by far the rise of the Tang dynasty. This historical difference is also evident in Wang Dingbao’s less secure familiarity with a formative yet comparatively remote period in the earliest development of the examination programme. State ritual was the cardinal medium through which provincial tribute scholars were presented to the central bureaucracy and the court. Especially important in prefectural contexts was the community winedrinking ceremony, which affirmed a spoken contract of mutual confidence between a candidate and his guarantor—most likely the prefect. Then, following varied intervals for travel between their prefectural sponsors and the capital, all arriving candidates engaged in the court assembly and the visit to the former teachers. These events signified two crucial stages of the candidates’ induction to respectively the court and the education directorate, the central venue of the state’s cult to Confucian learning. The historical development of these rituals was uneven, to say the least. The community wine-drinking

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ceremony had precedents for its performance going back to the Han dynasty.1 Not until 717, however, did the government issue a decision to perform the ceremony to Confucius on behalf of provincial tribute scholars each year. Only then in the early eighth century did it become the norm for candidates to participate in the entire sequence of the drinking ceremony, court assembly and the ceremony to Confucius. Wang Dingbao’s references to these three induction ceremonies during the first half of the dynasty confirm that it was official policy to perform them, but no more than that. His records of actual performances date to the late Tang, an imbalance that probably reflects both metropolitan and provincial officialdom’s rising awareness of examination ceremony during the second half of the dynasty. This dichotomy in the sources of Tang examination ritual does not reappear in the history of later stages of the annual examination programme, since their rapid development only occurred in the second half of the dynasty. R      Wang Dingbao took wholly for granted that his readers recognized what comprised Tang state ritual, enactments of which numbered among the dynasty’s greatest achievements, so some explanation of the Tang tradition of ritual performances and its prescriptive sources is in order. In undertaking symbolic acts of political, academic, military and family significance, the Tang elite attempted repeatedly to script the correct performance of rituals throughout the first half of the dynasty. What was to become the final and most authoritative text in ideal and practical terms was the Kaiyuan ritual code, completed in 732 and named after the reign period when it was promulgated. The aim of this compilation was to provide a panopsis of orthodox performances in ceremonies ranging from royal rites of passage to occasions of private celebration and mourning.2 The prestige of the Kaiyuan code was enormous during the rest of the Tang dynasty as well as in subsequent periods. That is not to say that Tang state ritual practice was immutable after the illustrious Kaiyuan era, but it was certainly not re-codified. At the beginning 1 2

Yang (1963). For discussion of this text’s history and significance, see McMullen (1987a).

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of the ninth century, the governing elite did not waver in its common conviction that state ritual performances were the first priority of central government concerns.3 Du You (734–812) condensed the text of the Kaiyuan code in his Tongdian, the most comprehensive and innovative work on government to appear in the Tang dynasty. Yet even though Du You’s arrangement of topics in the Tongdian went some way towards redrawing the priorities of Tang political engagement by inserting “ritual” after “economics”, “recruitment” and “official posts”, the section itself still occupied exactly half of a two-hundred juan work.4 Throughout three centuries of Tang rule, central government officials tasked with ritual administration outnumbered their counterparts in any other administrative activity. In 786, the examination authorities accepted the Kaiyuan code as the set text for one of the mingjing degrees,5 and it still constituted a syllabus in the wake of the Tang collapse.6 Seven men passed degrees on this Tang canon in 973,7 in the same year that the name of the degree was changed to “Comprehensive expertise in ritual codes” (tongli ) in order to accommodate the recent promulgation of the Kaibao comprehensive ritual code (Kaibao tongli ).8 In terms of content, however, the Tang code remained the central text of ritual syllabi even after the fall of the dynasty. Admittedly, the significance of the Kaiyuan code is not one of Wang Dingbao’s direct concerns. The last chapter has already remarked on his evident fascination with recruitment rites recorded in the Zhouli. This chapter will observe likewise. That, however, does not gainsay the importance of the last Tang code as the dynasty’s highest canonical symbol of its commitment to ritual performances. And, since the code was a guide to when and where the state exerted a governing role in ritual performances, it still emphasized strongly which ceremonies were worthier of historical attention than others. Suppose that the code’s symbolism had diminished by the late ninth century—which it had not—it is doubtful whether Wang Dingbao See also Moore (1999): 199–200. For this and other remarks on ritual in Tang historiography, see Wechsler (1985): 9. 5 TD: 15.358–9; THY: 76.1396–7; Rotours (1932): 148–9. See also McMullen (1987a): 231; McMullen (1988): 152–3. 6 The bare heading “Kaiyuan ritual” without any accompanying data within the Examinations section of Wudai huiyao attests to the strong motivation to preserve this degree (Wudai huiyao: 23.370). 7 Songshi: 155.3604; Bol (1992): 154. 8 Songshi: 98.2421. 3 4

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would have paid as much notice as he did to the three examination rituals discussed in this chapter. Wang Dingbao may well have been aware that the Kaiyuan ritual code was significant in examination history in another way. Its completion may have accelerated the examination system’s development as a more centralized operation of state ritual, a shift that Wang Dingbao chronicled at some length. In 736, four year after the code’s completion, when the government transferred the examination administration from the Board of Personnel to the Board of Rites, the duty of state examiner was re-assigned to the vice-minister of rites. Since this official had oversight of the state ritual programme, his new charge of the examinations epitomized a most revealing combination of functions. His administration forthwith synchronized both seasonal observance and annual recruitment as operations within the government’s highest agency of ritual suasion. Publicly, Tang officialdom regarded the code as the most comprehensive authority of ritual performances, and it recognized its promulgation as a major cultural achievement in its own right. Even so, many ceremonial observances in Tang life were not codified. The selection of the code’s contents aroused intense debate in government circles. Among material known to have been contentious was a prescription for celebrating the Cold Food festival (hanshi ), finally excluded only in the last four months of the code’s editing.9 Significantly, this annual festival caught the attention of degree-winners during the last stages of the annual examination programme, and it suggests the degree to which candidates created ceremonial engagements outside the canonical sanction of the dynasty’s greatest ritual text. The code, after all, dictated what rites to perform and how to perform them, but its potential to affect actual practice during observances was often limited. Wang Dingbao shows that the prescriptive demands of state ritual made less impact in Tang examination life than examiners and candidates’ own formulations of speech and gesture. The next chaptes will address this question again, but it will suffice to say here that Wang Dingbao’s concern with codified rituals reflects an interest in its symbolic value rather than its relevance to current ceremonial practice. He provided no prescriptive details

9 See a decision to include a prescription for the celebration of this festival at JTS: 8.198. The prescription is not evident in the code.

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for performing induction ceremonies to match the directives that he collected for later stages of the programme. Nor, however, did any other Tang compiler. Since prescriptions of these ceremonies were available in canonical sources such as the code and the Tongdian, any private initiative to re-inscribe them in new sources lacked any sensible point. Also, the shortage of state financial resources and the lack of practical experience may have especially hampered later Tang generations ability to enact these sacred performances. In sharp contrast to later stages of the annual examination programme, only his account of the community wine-drinking ceremony suggests that Wang Dingbao bore actual witness to what he reports. T  -  Any prefecture that recommended candidates for the examinations administered a performance of the community wine-drinking ceremony before sending the candidates to the capital. The ceremony was scheduled to begin at first light; its performers were the prefect and the prefectural candidates. Other members of the community assumed various roles of honour or else acted as spectators. The ceremony consisted of the responses between a host and his guests, and it lasted from the moment of the candidates’ arrival at the home and office of the prefect until the final declarations of farewell. The intervening action included mutual exhortations to drink wine, the performance of music and odes from the Shijing, the prefect’s commendatory speech to his guests and the banquet that host, guests and other invitees then shared. To Wang Dingbao the drinking ceremony proved the precedent of examinations in the remote past, and it even established a link between an institution that connected Zhou antiquity and the government of his own day. He did not comment on the regularity of Tang performances, ignoring that the ceremony’s existence in its provincial context had been far from continuous throughout the Tang, let alone since the beginning of imperial history. In fact, performances of the ceremony in provincial centres of government were a Tang restoration of practices recorded under the Han and only assumed to have been current under late Zhou rulers. Nevertheless, it is through imagining the behaviour of Zhou officialdom that Wang Dingbao begins his account of Tang examinations:

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  According to the Rites of Zhou, great personages in the villages used what the community wine-drinking ceremony teaches in order to examine moral conduct and to judge the arts of refinement. Every three years they promoted wise men as tribute to the king’s court. (1)

Wang Dingbao then recounts that Han rulers adopted Zhou practice to develop the same hierarchy of local recommendations from village to capital. He says nothing about the long period of division after the fall of the Han, and he states only that the Tang “followed the Sui and adopted the model of the Han.” This equivocal summary of both continuity and change is valuable confirmation that early Tang political society witnessed a major turnaround when the ceremony was restored to provincial administrators. Despite what the ceremony’s name implied, post-Han governments until as late as the Sui had administered it in their capitals, so that it became integrated within a metropolitan calendar of observances. Its disappearance from this calendar after the Sui overthrow signalled a radical re-alignment of medieval China’s education and recruitment policies. The Kaiyuan ritual code, of course, contains a prescription for the ceremony’s performance in its section on provincial observances.10 The Han government too had restricted performances of the ceremony to centres of government outside its capitals. In 56 and again in 59, for instance, the two prestigious ceremonies at which Mingdi (r. 57–75) presided in the Luoyang university were the “shooting feast” (xiangshe) and “nourishing the three elders” ( yang sanlao), not the drinking ceremony.11 But, later at Luoyang, under the Western Jin, the drinking ceremony emerged as a metropolitan university ritual. Wudi (r. 265–90) presided over the performance in 271.12 Practices of the Northern Wei, Northern Qi and Northern Zhou are not recorded, but Sui performances of the drinking ceremony were annual observances at both the imperial academy in Daxingcheng and in provincial schools.13 Tang historians, notably Du You, whose ideas Wang Dingbao observed closely, were fully aware that when the Tang government demoted the ceremony’s performance to its regional centres, it revitalized practices to correspond with the ritual structure of the Han period and perhaps Da Tang Kaiyuan li: 127.1a–6a. Hou Hanshu: 79A.2545, and the same work’s monograph on ritual performances, Liyi zhi: 3108. See also Bodde (1975): 361, 364–6. 12 Jinshi: 3.60; see also the stele inscription “Jin State Academy stele” ( Jin Biyong bei ) excavated in 1931 and discussed in Yu (1963). 13 Suishu: 9.181–2 10 11

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earlier.14 Aside from the Tang restoration of imperial government and the vast geography of its new control, the historical perception of ritual performance was a major factor in the Tang fascination to measure the dynasty’s achievements according to Han precedents. Wang Dingbao’s account of the ceremony in the early Tang relies on two decrees separated by more than a century. They document firstly the ceremony’s institution in 621 (1b and 400) and secondly the highpoint of government efforts to promote its performance in 737 (2). The decree of 621 stipulated that candidates take part in the drinking ceremony at the prefectures recommending them to the examinations ahead of their arrival in the capital by the tenth month. Wang Dingbao ignores the difficulties that the government had in implementing the ceremony’s performance, but it seems that few provincial authorities could regulate the ceremony’s performance at all competently. A decree of 632 authorized the compilation of performance directives, a work consisting of one juan, which the government planned to release to all prefectures. Even if it did distribute these instructions, how positive an effect they ever worked is unknown. A decree in 718 once more announced the release of performance directives “for the first time”. By the middle of Xuanzong’s reign, the government was still making determined efforts to implement the ceremony at major centres throughout the country. In 730, Pei Yaoqing, Wang Lengran’s examiner in 717, submitted a scheme to send musicians to the capital for training in the ceremony’s music.15 Not long afterwards, in 737, the Tang government’s last documented instructions for the ceremony stated that prefectures of all three ranks should administer performances of the ceremony on behalf of their respective tributes of one, two or three candidates. These instructions also stipulate the use of the “lesser offering” (shaolao), a pig or sheep, thereby duplicating the instructions located in canonical ritual sources as well as in the Kaiyuan code. Wang Dingbao also collected this last decree. But, whether deliberate or otherwise, his ignorance of other documented conditions permitted him to suggest that the ceremony existed as a regular operation throughout the entire dynasty. He shows awareness of neither the administrative

TD: 73.2007. For these indications of the ceremony’s history, see TD: 73.2007–8; THY: 26.498–9; Tang dazhao lingji: 105.537–8. See also McMullen (1988): 148. 14

15

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shortcomings of this period nor the variations in cultural development between different regions of Tang China. Instead, following his strong instinct as a biographer, Wang Dingbao responded to the community wine-drinking ceremony’s significance in his own and other people’s lives. His text contains a number of citations from unofficial documents that feature sometimes only the most tangential references to performances of the drinking ceremony. His earliest witness is Du Fu who did indeed register passing interest in the historical depth of a state ritual only recently codified during his lifetime. Wang Dingbao cites the following claim: [Du] Fu, in the past, during the days of his youth, had already fulfilled his role as a guest admiring the state. (322)

In this autobiographical poem, written not long after 748 and addressed to his patron Wei Ji, an influential Daoist scholar of the Tianbao reign period, Du Fu’s expression “admiring the state” ( guan guo) may signal his resentment at never having won a degree title. If so, it is an ironical—perhaps even cynical—allusion to the canonical terms of the Kaiyuan code’s prescription. There, the same expression occurs in the host’s opening address to his guests “to admire the glory of the state” (guan guo zhi guang), taken ultimately from the Book of Changes (Yijing).16 Both Luo Binwang and Meng Haoran, two other unsuccessful candidates of the pre-rebellion period, used this expression.17 Luo Binwang’s usage was uniquely self-referential, since the sense of bin wang in his own name recalls more of the Yijing text: “to be employed usefully as the guest of a king.” The lexical item common to Du Fu’s and other examples of prerebellion verse constituted a literary trope that had little to do with actual experiences of the drinking ceremony. Typically, Wang Dingbao was attracted to a biographical remark in verse. Perhaps, however, he isolated Du Fu’s highly extenuated reference to the drinking ceremony because it offered the only available link to pre-rebellion conditions. Quite plausibly, self-referential allusions to the ceremony became a topic of interest during the years that Wang Dingbao spent

Yijing: 3.10a. See Luo Binwang’s poems “Presented to Song (the fifth) Zhiwen when south of the River”, and “In prison writing out my feelings and sending them in a letter to my friends” (Luo Linhai ji jianzhu: 1.26–31, and 4.154–7); Meng Haoran’s poem “Seeing off Yuan Taizhu to his lieutenancy at Yuzhang” (Meng Haoran ji: 4.3a). 16 17

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preparing for his own degree success in 900. Elsewhere in his text, he collected another poem, which featured the same use of the drinking ceremony’s formal exchanges. In 897 Xue Zhaowei addressed a poem to the successful jinshi graduands following the examinations held north of the capital at Huazhou, then the residence of the court during Li Maozhen’s ominous advance towards Chang’an. Xue’s usage served his poem’s self-deprecating conclusion: I pretend that your admiration of glory covers my own past; in all honesty, won’t I just embarrass this crowd of students? (70)

With the emperor and his government forced to undertake a strategic abandonment of the capital, Xue Zhaowei’s reference to a state examination ceremony (guan guang) possessed a welcome patriotic ring. Wang Dingbao’s other records concerning the drinking ceremony concentrate on recollections of historical performances. Two biographical documents are Han Yu’s account of Ouyang Zhan’s early career and Wang Dingbao’s witness to the ceremonies administered by Zhong Chuan at Hongzhou during the end of the ninth century. In both cases, the community wine-drinking ceremony provided fundamental subject matter for the biographies of the performers. At the same time, the ceremony also emerged as a leading symbol of two distant prefectures’ rising acculturation to Confucian training and examination entrance. Han Yu’s eulogy for Ouyang Zhan (d. 801) was a famous biographical homage from one degree-winner to another, for both men enjoyed an everlasting association in the famous “tigers and dragons” jinshi list of 792. Wang Dingbao’s citation of Han Yu’s eulogy for his fellow graduand states: When Dezong had just ascended the throne [780], minister Chang Gun, then commissioner of Fujian, governed [Ouyang’s] territory. [Chang] Gun promoted men on the basis of their lyrical writings. If even among the humble people of districts and counties there were any who could read scriptures or compose literary genres, then he presided at the ritual of host and guest in their honour. Whenever he attended banquets or went on excursions he would summon them to accompany him. It did not take long to form a common purpose among them all. At that time [Ouyang] Zhan stood apart for his excellence. [Chang] Gun admired him especially, and all other students conceded his pre-eminence. The jinshi recommended from Min and Yue commence with Zhan. Zhan died in his post as assistant lecturer at the College of the Four Gates in the University. Li Ao of Longxi wrote his biography. Han Yu wrote his eulogy. (425)

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According to the full text of Han Yu’s lament, preserved in Han Yu’s collection, Ouyang Zhan’s family had lived for several generations in the southeast. His forbears had served as magistrates and assistants at Quanzhou without taking or winning degrees, so Ouyang Zhan grew up familiar with the goings-on of prefectural government. Only after the appointment of Chang Gun (729–83) as provincial commissioner and prefect of Fuzhou in 780, however, was an experienced administrator on hand to implement the procedures for local selection and advance to the capital examinations. Li Ao’s biography of Ouyang Zhan is lost. Han Yu’s lament numbers among three more of Wang Dingbao’s citations of his biographical writings, namely his lament for a broken inkstone and the epitaphs for Wang Kuo and Li Guan (107 332 375). The inclusion of the lament and Han Yu’s other writings reflects an avid reception of his literary achievements. All of these compositions had become famous texts by Wang Dingbao’s day, and they would long remain so. Han Yu’s lament for Ouyang Zhan, for instance, provided Song Qi with new material for Ouyang Zhan’s biography in the New Tang History.18 Even in Wang Dingbao’s day, however, Ouyang Zhan’s participation in the drinking ceremony represented the defining moment of his transformation into national scholar and statesman. The inclusion of Han Yu’s lament for Ouyang Zhan fitted Wang Dingbao’s admiration for the best-documented and most famous group of intellectual careers in the early ninth century. In addition, Han Yu was a past figure who demonstrated an intense interest in the community wine-drinking ceremony. In a document that Wang Dingbao did not collect, Han Yu wrote about the drinking ceremony partly in commemoration of his own career in 810 after he had moved—or been demoted—to the county magistracy in Luoyang, more commonly named the Henan prefecture (Henan fu).19 During his service there he assumed responsibility for the drinking ceremony on behalf of a number of provincial tribute scholars recruited from the eastern capital’s twenty-one counties. Preparing and offering food are socially significant acts, and Han Yu’s poem concerning the drinking ceremony evokes more than any 18 XTS: 203.5786–7. Aside from Li Ao’s biography, another source was probably Li Yisun’s (d. ca. 850) biographical preface to Ouyang Zhan’s collected works, Ouyang Xingzhou wenji. 19 On this stage of Han Yu’s career, see Hartman (1986): 74–5.

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other Tang document the colours and sensations of feasting during a prestigious performance of this ritual: Since I sought only the writing of literary pieces, None dared to envy or compete; I returned to my family and instructed my wife and children To prepare this feast with frying, roasting and steaming. Persimmons red, grapes purple, Cooked food and fruits I carried out and offered you. The scented tea came from a Shu supplier; The best wines were viscous and clear.

Typically, Han Yu invested his administration of the Henan ceremony with the literary ideals that he exemplified so famously as a teacher. In the final section of his poem, he also triumphs the great literary patron Quan Deyu’s (759–818) recent ministerial appointment: When literary men20 obtain their posts, the way of literature proceeds with magnitude.21

Eight years earlier, Han Yu had recommended ten outstanding candidates to Quan Deyu during his term as chief examiner in 802, an event that also attracted notice by Wang Dingbao (113a, 173, 174) and earlier compilers.22 The drinking ceremony at Luoyang had clearly become an attractive theatre for idealizing political careers in 792 or soon afterwards when the Henan prefectural authorities adopted the ceremony as the topic of the poetry test.23 Han Yu was one of the late Tang’s most eloquent interpreters of the community wine-drinking ceremony. To a large extent, then, it is through Han Yu’s literary priorities that Ouyang Zhan’s participation in a historical performance of the ceremony makes sense. Quite distinct, however, was the manner in which Ouyang Zhan integrated the ceremony within his status as an examination candidate. In particular he showed deep disdain for his membership of a government college in the capital. Paradoxically, Wang Dingbao ignored Ouyang Zhan’s reservations about his academic past, but elsewhere in his text he documented exactly the same negative views of official education.

Some texts give: “great men” daren. “Feasting the brilliant talents (xiucai ) of Henan prefecture”, Zhu Wengong jiao Changli xiansheng wenji: 4.16a–b. 22 Guoshi bu: 3.57. 23 See poem by Lü Wen ( jinshi 798), WYYH: 189.9a. 20

21

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Wang Dingbao observed that Ouyang Zhan and his fellow graduand Li Guan (766–794) had enrolled at the Guangwen Academy in Chang’an prior to winning their degrees. In Wang Dingbao’s judgement, their common academic background and their momentous success in the 792 examination initiated the most impressive years in the academy’s history (11). Li Zhao had claimed too that the 792 examination was such an inspiring result that several cohorts of hitherto un-motivated candidates in Luoyang applied forthwith for admission to the Guangwen Academy in Chang’an.24 The facts that Wang Dingbao assembled of Ouyang Zhan’s passage through the early ninth-century recruitment system suggest an ideal career path. That is, Ouyang Zhan, having played his part in a state ceremony of recruitment in the Southeast, then joined a prestigious college in the capital. But, Ouyang Zhan’s view of his recruitment emphasized only his experience in the provinces. In a letter written after his jinshi success 792 and addressed to a certain Wang Shi, Ouyang Zhan recalls his early ambitions in familiar terms of “admiring the state” (guan guo). He recounts also his association with Chang Gun as well as Xue Bo (d. 787), the prefect of Quanzhou and one of Chang Gun’s more senior protégés. Ouyang Zhan claims further that he and a number of associates belonged to a Daoist scholarly community at Mount Luofu (near Guangzhou), before his two new patrons persuaded him to aim for a degree. Ouyang Zhan also recounts that he and his new patrons celebrated their confidence in his political future with a feast and a boat tour on Fuzhou’s West Lake, later commemorated as the “ceremony of West Lake.” This recollection parallels remarkably the accounts of banquets and boat trips organized by jinshi graduands at the Qujiang in Chang’an. It provides too at least a fleeting glimpse of how society in a distant southern prefecture staged the earliest examination celebrations of the annual cycle. Finally, his letter relates that in 782 Ouyang took part in the community wine drinking ceremony held in Fuzhou’s eastern suburb. High officials of the Fuzhou administration and his parents attended this event before he left for the capital.25 Ouyang Zhan’s letter to Wang Shi and other documents26 proGuoshi bu: C.56. Ouyang Xingzhou wenji: 8.77a–80b; also at WYYH: 693.7a–9a. 26 In particular, his preface to addressed to Xi Xiang, prefect of Quanzhou during 791–793: “Preface to Duke Xi, prefect of Quanzhou, who feasted the prefectural xiucai at the East Lake Pavilion before they set off for the examinations” (Ouyang Xingzhou wenji: 9.86a–87b). 24 25

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vide valuable insights into the centrality of the Southeast in the social construction of his past. His preference to be associated first and foremost with his regional background may account for his silence concerning membership of the Guangwen Academy. None of his other statements concerning this period of his life mention the academy that generally evinced so little esteem among Tang scholars.27 In fact, in another letter Ouyang Zhan refers to himself as a “former jinshi of the provincial tribute” (qian xianggong jinshi ). Nothing in his own hand suggests that he wished to be associated with the official education system in the capital.28 What Ouyang Zhan had to say about his past in the examinations squares only partly, therefore, with what Wang Dingbao claimed for him as an exponent of metropolitan career values. Ouyang Zhan’s denigration of his academic status in the capital accords entirely with the trend that Wang Dingbao identifies in the cultural rise of tribute scholars during the late Tang. Wang Dingbao was well aware that public and private views of the Guangwen Academy had been deeply at odds ever since its inception.29 No one in the Tang dynasty spoke of his association with the Guangwen in terms of either pride or fondness, and it would be completely consistent with this institution’s low reputation that Ouyang Zhan enrolled there as an absentee student and kept silent about the fact. Wang Dingbao was equally aware that Ouyang Zhan’s choice to frame his past within views of the grandest provincial ceremony of recruitment was a common attitude. Proving an ironic reversal of the normal capital-province hierarchy, Wang Dingbao even claimed that tribute scholars in the capital imagined their role in the community wine-drinking ceremony as a metaphor of their status high above their peers in the city’s college quarters: People say: provincial tribute scholars are the guests; university students are the hosts. Hosts should be lower than guests, therefore they are placed last. (11)

In a curious paradox, then, Wang Dingbao provides a wholly credible view of the Guangwen Academy’s poor standing quite different from 27 See, for instance, the preface to two poems entitled “Such are my regrets”, Ouyang Xingzhou wenji: 6.58b–59b; text also at Tang wencui: 11.16a–b. 28 See his letter to President Zhang at Ouyang Xingzhou wenji: 8.80b–82a. 29 On appointment as its first director in 750 or soon after, Zheng Qian had responded sourly that he did not know where the academy was (TYL: 2.120 [no. 187]; HTS: 202.5766).

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what his record of Ouyang Zhan’s—and Li Guan’s—membership suggests. Wang Dingbao also scrutinized Ouyang Zhan’s achievement in the context of his southeastern origins. What Han Yu once claimed on behalf of Ouyang Zhan’s position in this regional context conflicts with other information in the Collected Statements. Wang Dingbao did not entirely accept Han Yu’s claim that Ouyang Zhan was the first scholar to rise to national prominence from Tang China’s hitherto torpid southeast. The citation from Han Yu’s lament is the second of two documents that Wang Dingbao collected under the heading “Jinshi from Min”. The first is a brief account of Xue Lingzhi, another south-easterner, whose career in Chang’an followed his jinshi award there in 706 (425). Previously, however, he had been recommended from Changxi (modern Xiapu between Fuzhou and Wenzhou) the area to which he later retired with a generous pension provided by the local inhabitants on imperial orders. The unsolved contradiction between these two accounts of early jinshi-holders suggests just how largely ritual undertakings figured in Wang Dingbao’s—and Han Yu’s—historical validation of the past. Wang Dingbao clearly preferred not to challenge Han Yu’s vision of history in the southeast, but his record of Xue Lingzhi’s achievement provides cause to moderate the most influential late Tang views of the southeast’s intellectual history. Han Yu, Ouyang Zhan and others understood the gradual acculturation of remote provincial centres to Confucian values as the result of a programmatic renewal of the official school system and its state rituals in a southeastern setting. The leading figures of that process had been Dugu Ji (725–777) and Li Qi (d. 774) in Fuzhou as well as Xue Bo—later another of Ouyang Zhan’s patrons—in Quanzhou.30 The efforts that these officials made to build prefectural schools and enact Confucian rituals, including the community wine-drinking ceremony at Quanzhou, were 30 Some two decades before Ouyang Zhan and Han Yu gained the jinshi degree, in 773, during his government of Fuzhou, Li Qi built a prefectural school and conducted performances of both the drinking ceremony and the ceremony to Confucius (shidian). The school’s foundation stele, written by Dugu Ji commemorated the state rituals enacted on the school premises as integral to Fuzhou’s new acculturation to pragmatic ideals of teaching and recruitment (Piling ji: 9.4a–7b; also at WYYH: 847.3a–5b). Even farther south at Quanzhou, Xue Bo had laboured to make the drinking ceremony an effective conduit of political talent to the capital. For several years he “set out mutton and wine” in attempts to gain the involvement of Qin Xi, another Daoist hermit living and studying at Mount Jiuri (XTS: 196.5608).

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influential enough to convince the following generation that examination history in this part of China had no beginnings prior to the 780’s. A summary by an unknown writer of the Tang period provides a typical view of some of the chief figures of these years interacting in the revitalized educational centre of Fuzhou: In the region of Min, before the Zhenyuan reign period [785–804], there were no jinshi candidates. The commissioner Li Qi first built a school and he requested Dugu Ji of Changzhou to write the Record of the New College. It said: “coarse and plain belts31 will be transformed into dark collars.”32 Lin Zao33 and his younger brother Yun,34 together with Ouyang Zhan, sighed when they read this. They swore a pact between themselves, and, one after another, they gained degrees.35

Even in this account, however, Ouyang Zhan is not singled out as the first candidate to gain the jinshi degree. Besides, at least two more southeastern degree-winners are documented in the early eighth century,36 weakening even further Han Yu’s claim that Ouyang Zhan was the first jinshi degree-holder from Min. How then did Wang Dingbao accept that Xue Lingzhi and Ouyang Zhan were both the first southeastern degree-winners respectively in 706 and 792? One obvious solution might propose that Wang Dingbao did not pay serious attention to the materials that he edited. But, this seems unlikely. After all, he grouped the data concerning Xue Lingzhi and Ouyang Zhan in chronological order as well as under a common categorical heading. A more nuanced answer, however, might take account of diverse biographical constructions and consider two quite different biographical sources. Quite plausibly, Wang Dingbao read of Xue Lingzhi’s success in Huang Pu’s Biographies of famous gentlemen from Min (Minzhong mingshi zhuan), from which the editors of the Taiping guangji and others cited the same information. This 31 manhu: “coarse belts without decoration”, according to the gloss by Sima Biao at Zhuangzi: 28.23a. This and the following image of “dark collars” occur in Dugu’s inscription; they appear also in Liu Yuxi’s inscription for the Temple to Confucius at Xuzhou (modern Xuchang) (Liu Yuxi ji jianzheng: 3.77–9; WYYH: 846.5b–7a). 32 qingjin: “dark collars”: see Mao commentary as well as sub-commentary by Kong Yingda concerning school dress at Shijing: 4/4.6a. 33 For Lin Zao’s jinshi degree in 791, see Min chuan mingshi zhuan, cited at TPGJ: 180.1340. 34 According to one of his descendanats in the late Ming, Lin Yun gained the mingjing degree in 788 (DKJK: 12.446). His official biography says nothing about a degree (XTS: 200.5719–20). 35 TYL: 4.383 (no. 562). 36 For Fujian jinshi degree-winners in 731, 748 and 791, see Nienhauser (1990): 7.

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text circulated in Wang Dingbao’s day, and his heavy reliance on the Record of the degree-worthy in Shenzhou (Shenzhou dengdi lu), discussed in chapter 3, confirms that he welcomed historical claims concerning prefectural examinations. However, Wang Dingbao’s acceptance of Huang Pu’s history of degree-awards to his fellow southeasterners need not have subverted Han Yu’s claims. Han Yu’s writings comprised another authoritative source of quite a different calibre, especially considering what they revealed of scholarly achievements on a national level. Wang Dingbao cited Han Yu’s writings frequently (107 109 113a 122 174 332 375), and he included material to enhance this major thinker’s reputation (113c 126 131 138 167 173 273 283). Thus, even though Han Yu’s claims contradicted the facts of Xue Lingzhi’s career, Wang Dingbao was reluctant to treat those claims lightly. In addition, Wang Dingbao may have been aware that Han Yu was not deeply exercised to discover who first emerged with the jinshi degree in southeast China. He sought rather to substantiate a sequence of intellectual inheritance in which Ouyang Zhan represented the most recent embodiment. His lament for Ouyang Zhan addressed this view of the past through a vision of Ouyang Zhan and Chang Gun’s joint engagement in the community wine-drinking ceremony. In as far as he followed Chang Gun and other leading officials’ contributions to a Confucian regeneration of the empire’s southeast, Ouyang Zhan was the first degree-holder in his native region to perform in a community wine-drinking ceremony under the supervision of a senior court official. Nothing suggests that Xue Lingzhi ever took part in a community wine-drinking ceremony equally worthy of later generations’ attention. Indeed, earlier analysis in this chapter would suggest that only a handful of Tang prefectures were capable of implementing this leading annual observance. Han Yu wrote his lament, therefore, for a junior scholar acting in the daunting process of bringing state ritual to an extremely remote forum of imperial government. Just what a deep attraction such notions held for Wang Dingbao is evident in the other documents that he collected. One figure who attached enormous importance to ritual training was Liu Tui. Wang Dingbao’s record of his achievement in winning promotion from Jingzhou, the “world’s wasteland”, discussed in chapter 3, says nothing concerning participation in a community winedrinking ceremony (30). However, it can be no coincidence that, like Ouyang Zhan, Liu Tui was another figure whose reputation rested

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not only on winning promotion from a remote government centre but also on his close personal engagement with re-invigorating and performing the community wine-drinking ceremony. Liu Tui’s letter on the drinking ceremony in southeast China could date later than 850, the year that he achieved his celebrated breakthrough as a tribute scholar from Jingzhou, but the context that it describes is probably the southeastern city of Runzhou. This polemic seeking to renew an abandoned ritual programme is excelled only by the hilarious vision that it imparts of leaking ritual vessels and nonchalant performers turning their backs on each other.37 Although not contemporaries, then, Ouyang Zhan and Liu Tui, the two individuals whose promotion from remote prefectures caught Wang Dingbao’s attention, both turned their attention to the community wine-drinking ceremony in successful efforts to associate it permanently with their earliest attempts to win their entrance to the examinations from southern China. Wang Dingbao’s last clear view of the drinking ceremony is similarly set in a prefecture far from the capital, namely at Hongzhou under the governorship of Zhong Chuan (d. 906). Since Hongzhou was quite probably Wang Dingbao’s native city, the account he included of the community wine-drinking ceremony there may reflect his best knowledge of real performance conditions: In performances of the community wine drinking ceremony [Zhong Chuan]38 always led the guests and assistants and those who watched, and he demonstrated joy in his loyal expression.39 Afterwards, he would hold a great banquet to send [the selected men] on their way. Apart from [the costs of ] kuang and fei offering dishes,40 he would invariably provide funds for ‘jade and cassia’:41 three hundred thousand for the first in the prefectural test; two hundred thousand for the second; one hundred thousand for the third. For thirty years his enthusiasm never slackened. Even a renowned candidate with connections to the dukes and ministers at court did not regard one thousand li as too far to travel and to request first place in his recommendations. Every year there were several such men. (36) 37 Liu Tui, “Letter recounting a Southern discussion of the community wine drinking ceremony”, WYYH: 690.8b–9a. 38 On Zhong Chuan’s service in Jiangxi, see his biography at XWDS: 41.446–7. Cf. biogs at XTS: 190.5486–7; JWDS: 17.231. 39 Liji: 52.5a. 40 kuang fei: Close yet not exactly corresponding terms appear for these items of basketwork in the state ritual code’s prescription of the community wine drinking ceremony at Da Tang kaiyuan li: 127.1a–6a; TD: 130. 3341–46; XTS: 19.435–9. 41 guiyu: a metaphor for personal expenses at Zhanguo ce: 16.538.

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Although Wang Dingbao may have overrated Zhong Chuan’s influence as a quasi-royal figure towards whom earnest candidates (sages) travelled the proverbial ‘one thousand li’, this document reflects quite credibly the virtually independent nature of his influential governorship. Wang Dingbao was Zhong Chuan’s most prolific biographer (278, 279, 280), and his account of Zhong Chuan’s attention to the ritual arm of government shows better than any other Tang text how the community wine-drinking ceremony was integrated with the other administrative tasks of testing the candidates and providing their subsistence funds. Tang revelations concerning the costs of entering the examination programme are seldom explained in amounts as specific as the 600,000 cash that Hongzhou paid its three recommended candidates. The context of this payment invites speculation on similar conditions that are not fully explained in Wang Dingbao’s account of Liu Tui’s promotion. Jingzhou’s single candidate, Liu Tui accepted the even larger amount of 700,000 cash—perhaps all the money reserved for him and two more candidates had they been available. Two more of Wang Dingbao’s accounts of feasts provided by prefectures in south China may be evidence of performing the community drinking ceremony. Reminiscent of Ouyang Zhan’s earlier involvement with his prefectural patrons, they give an extra sense of the huge importance that the ceremony’s performers attached to their social roles. One story shows that wherever rules of precedence operated, certain individuals were clearly not regarded as desirable “guests” in the context of formal leave-taking. After selecting the candidates at Yuanzhou, Lu Zhao was not invited to take part in a departure banquet in the company of his peer Huang Po, with whom he subsequently travelled to the capital and passed the same examination (77).42 The suggestion that Lu Zhao may have been excluded from the community drinking ceremony is not implausible. Certainly, the two men’s antagonism only grew with the passing years. Elsewhere, Wang Dingbao relates that Huang Po even desecrated Lu Zhao’s stele inscription for Han Yu (113c). Lu Zhao features again in an even clearer case of excluding undesirable elements from a prefectural ceremony. During his term as prefect of Shezhou, Lu Zhao was pressured to invite the region’s most renowned sage, Yao Yanjie, to take part in a feast provided by the Lu Zhao declared enormous pride in his Yuanzhou origins (330), but he also once tried to be selected at Hongzhou (41). 42

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prefecture. During the subsequent gathering for drinks and poetrycomposition in a pavilion beside the Zhe River, Yao first leaned over the railings to vomit and then offered a couplet to describe his eased condition (260b). Wang Dingbao configured this story among several others exemplifying unsuccessful examination careers (244–281). Interestingly too, Wang Dingbao’s story is not an isolated example of how hard drinking disrupted prefectural recruitment and ceremony. One story in the Yunqi youyi, where the action is once more set in Fujian, relates how the “superintendent of guests” (sike) at Zhangzhou barred a certain Li Guan from taking part in the community drinking ceremony, because he cultivated the reputation of a madman and drank abusively.43 The community wine-drinking ceremony defined in the Zhouli was the evocation of antiquity with which Wang Dingbao opened his Collected Statements. But, among the other documents that he collected, only Zhong Chuan’s administration in Hongzhou offered a ninthcentury experience in any manner close to an imagination of recruitment ritual in antiquity. Aside from the fervour of the participants, Wang Dingbao’s description of the offering dishes may or may not be a literal reflection of the stage setting, but it is an unequivocal expression of support for Zhong Chuan’s achievement in executing the dynasty’s ritual programme. Such dishes and other ritual implements were concrete images that invariably figured as the most visible metonyms of ritual administration in Tang prose and verse accounts. Furthermore, since canonical texts commanded huge authority in prescriptions of ceremonial performances, the implements that they prescribed, even if no more than lexical items, still offered powerful rhetorical tools for essentializing the ritual in which they functioned. Wang Dingbao’s interest in Zhong Chuan’s administration account focused on events, which, unlike others documented in Collected Statements, happened in his own lifetime. For Wang Dingbao, at least, the recurrent ceremonies at Hongzhou completed a circle between imagining the rituals of antiquity and experiencing their enactment albeit in the twilight of Tang imperial fortunes.

43

Yunqi youyi: 3.77–8.

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Provided the Tang government could sustain the costs of its larger court ceremonies, provincial candidates took part in the court assembly soon after they had arrived in the capital. There they were assigned the junior role of “men presented in tribute for the examinations” (gongju ren). Whether Wang Dingbao ever witnessed candidates performing their roles during the court assembly on even a modest scale is highly questionable. According to the statutes, only civil and military officials of the fifth grade upwards serving in the capital attended audiences daily. The rank of lower officials determined whether they join audiences every third or fifth day. A less intense but still regular attendance was expected of the capital’s students at the Hongwen and Chongwen colleges and the Directorate of Education ( guozi jian). Unless wet weather, periods of mourning and military emergencies forced the authorities to cancel performances, these scholars appeared at the four ceremonies conducted to mark the beginning of the annual seasons.44 The assemblies stipulated different degrees of dress and they coordinated the participants’ advance and retreat along various routes in and out of the palace precincts.45 The synchronisation required for this was on a level that Song officials confessed to be within the grasp of their government only on rare occasions.46 New year audiences—especially the most lavish performances dating to the pre-rebellion years—had counted among the most spectacular performances of the annual calendar. They gave rise to the lyrical topos of the “first day” ( yuanri ) with which several writers during the dynasty attempted to visualize the ceremony of empire writ large. During an event that also symbolized the passage of imperial time, hundreds of officials gathered on the palace grounds, and, holding lighted tapers, quite literally stood in vigil before the dawn of a new year. Since foreign kings and dignitaries were also invited to attend them, new year audiences expressed a formal dimension of Tang international diplomacy. This remained true even in the dynasty’s later years when clearly fewer visitors from abroad attended.47 TD: 75.2047 THY: 25.484, XTS: 48.1236; see also Niida (1933): 473–7. The regular monthly performance of this ceremony is prescribed at Da Tang kaiyuan li: 109.2a–3b. 46 Wenchang zalu: 4.56. 47 See Wang Jian, “Dawn court at New Year”, Wang Jian shiji: 3.23–4; Xu Hun, “New Year”, Quan Tangshi: 535.6104. 44 45

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Wang Dingbao collected a document that seized the central issue in these ceremonies’ performance during the examination programme. Its writer demanded that the court rectify the asymmetry of an event that merged the presentation of material goods with the induction of potential servants of the state. In front of a political elite whose consumption of luxuries and exotica was palpably competitive, new year court audiences were formal displays of tribute goods featuring the produce and local industries of the regions that the Tang government controlled. But excessive attention to tribute goods dismayed those participants and onlookers who ambitioned to stage the presentation of examination candidates. Wang Dingbao preserved a brief version of the seventh-century memorial that ever since its first circulation had become the most famous Tang precedent for discussing the polarized aims of the annual calendar’s most sumptuous presentation ceremony: According to the old rules of the dynasty all the tribute scholars of the empire attended the court audience on the first day of the eleventh month. In the second year of Changshou [693], Reminder Liu Chengqing presented a memorial: “I request that on the first day of the year, when the candidates appear at the court assembly, they should be placed in front of the goods.” This was adopted. Having presented their dossiers, the Censorate received [the candidates] and displayed them. A palace eunuch transmitted [the emperor’s] words to ask after their welfare. (14a)

Wang Dingbao’s version of Liu Chengqing’s memorial is shorter and considerably more restrained than the texts preserved in contemporary and later sources. These texts reveal even more graphically how the candidates had stood outside the audience hall, while the bearers of material goods processed into the building ahead of them. The same texts also contain the more explicit criticism that candidates’ exclusion from the imperial audience was an immoderation that threatened “to value things but to demean men”.48 Although what Wang Dingbao preserves of the 693 memorial is brief, his suggestion that only in this year did Liu Chengqing demand and gain a new place for tribute scholars in the annual timetable of ritual observances is the reiteration of a claim that Du You had advanced one century earlier. Du You stated that 694 marked the first occasion when tribute scholars appeared at the court audience.49

48 49

See references to other texts under 14a (Appendix). TD: 15.354.

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Prior to that, then, new year court audiences seem to have happened without any presentation of tribute scholars. Later historians confirmed this, among them Sima Guang whose timetable for new year court audiences in the 630’s describes only the presentation of goods.50 Wang Dingbao’s record of Liu Chengqing’s proposals and the government’s response also show that the latter decided to upgrade provincial candidates’ court attendance from a monthly audience to the more prestigious performance of the grand audience held only at new year. Thenceforth, provincial tribute scholars probably attended both the eleventh month audience as well as the annual ceremony one month later.51 This history of tribute scholars’ participation at court audiences means that throughout almost all of the seventh century they appeared only at court for a separate and inferior occasion to those stipulated for certain bodies of college students. With the redirection of tribute scholars to the new year ceremony from 694 onwards, both groups of candidates emerged as participants in the same court ritual at the same venue. This change represented a significant step in the subsequent ascendancy of tribute scholars’ prestige. Nor could participants at the ceremony have overlooked that, following the ceremony’s revision in 693, the ruler addressed only the tribute scholars—albeit through an intermediary—who stood directly in front of him. Another Five Dynasties text even preserves the gist of a solicitous homily, which assumes that the candidates are academically well prepared, weary after a long journey and yet eager to confront the impartial conditions of their impending examination.52 Liu Chengqing’s memorial thus broke new ground in persuading the government to permit tribute scholars one step closer to the restricted sanctum of court ritual. Although, as Wang Dingbao was aware, Xuanzong’s government did not transfer the examinations to the Board of Rites until some forty years later, the new style of court audience adopted in 693 was an important prologue to deploying the state’s full ritual administration to oversee examination recruitment. Wang Dingbao, perhaps following the model of Du You’s Tongdian for the order of his material, illustrated the expanding significance of 50 51 52

ZZTJ: 193.6086. For this sequence, see also Gao (1990): 19. Nanbu xinshu: 3.34.

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these ritual reforms quite clearly.53 His arrangement shows an incremental progress from re-arranging the court audience in 693 to instituting the visit to the Temple to Confucius in 717 (15) and transferring the examination administration to the Board of Rites in 737 (16). Other Tang sources say little about the presence of tribute scholars at the court audiences. The state ritual code provides a prescription for receiving assembled officials’ new year congratulations in front of the Taiji Hall in the imperial city, but it says nothing concerning the presence of tribute scholars.54 Indeed, it is unlikely that they assembled in these precincts during audiences held after the mid-eighth century. Wang Dingbao recorded that, in the wake of the An Lushan rebellion, court audiences and formal presentations of tribute scholars were defunct until in 780 the government finally managed to resurrect them (14b). In that year one hundred and seventy three candidates appeared in the eleventh month audience held before the Xuanzheng Hall in the Daming Palace. The following new year, the first full tribute reception of the late Tang was conducted in the even larger precincts of the Daming Palace’s Hanyuan hall, which remained the normal venue for the ceremony’s performance for the rest of the dynasty.55 The interval between 781 and the moment that Wang Dingbao looked back on Tang history was more than a century, but the issue of court assemblies had attracted intermittent interest until Wang Dingbao’s lifetime. In 859 the administration selected the subject of the new year audience for the poem set in that year’s examination. Candidates were expected to turn in a regulated verse that developed the theme: “On new Year watching the imperial wand-screens open and close before the Hanyuan Hall”.56 The only surviving answer by Zhang Ju gives an evocative impression of the ruler and his bearers emerging from the distant recesses of the Hanyuan Hall.57 If this is an accurate depiction of ceremonies in the 850’s, evidently

Tongdian: 15.354. Da Tang Kaiyuan li; 97.1a–9a. 55 THY: 24.457. 56 WYYH: 180.3a. 57 Xu Song lists Zhang Ju—whose poem is the only one to survive—under the examination of 774, (Dengke jikao: 10.385). Cen Zhongmian provides indications to date his examination to 859 (Cen [1984]: 7 and 12). This later date is preferable since it follows the renewal of court assemblies in 780. 53 54

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the candidates had been told to keep well out of the way of presenting tribute goods. Indeed, not much later, Pi Rixiu (ca. 834–ca. 883, jinshi 867) wrote a poem entitled “Debasing the tribute scholars”, in which he lamented that tribute goods obscured any sight of presented scholars and turned the occasion into a predominantly fiscal display.58 He owed the content of his message almost certainly to the famous memorial by Liu Chengqing. Later governments’ willingness to retain a central role for tribute scholars at court audiences during the late Tang and Five Dynasties varied. No doubt, the inconstant policies towards this ritual motivated Wang Dingbao and others in the Five Dynasties period to return so frequently to the recommendations first voiced by Liu Chengqing. His early agitation for reformulating court ceremonies fed debates on examination ritual still current during Wang Dingbao’s lifetime. Measures first established under the Tang show that Five Dynasties governments modified their examination programmes with conscious reference to Tang precedent. At Bianzhou, in 932, under the Latter Tang, the Board of Rites requested that candidates attending court audiences should be allowed to enter the Luoyang palace with other members of the court rather than be relegated to an attendance outside the Yingtian gate. To sanction their proposals, these administrators cited the Tang huiyao for Liu Chengqing’s argument of nearly two and a half centuries earlier. Clearly, since then, the position of tribute scholars at court had slipped drastically. Physical space and human numbers partly accounted for this, despite the fact that the surface areas of many cities started to increase during the late Tang.59 Neither Five Dynasties’ governments nor the Song ever disposed of large enough precincts to run ceremonies on the scale that the Tang so regularly undertook. After their final expansion in the late eleventh century the total length of Kaifeng’s city walls measured 28,880 metres, which even then failed to match 36,000 metres around Chang’an not including its palace compounds.60 The memorial of 932 even suggests that, when the number of tribute scholars became unmanageable, only the top-ranked candidates of prefectural selections

Pi Zi wenzou: 10.109–10. Otagi (1996). 60 On Kaifeng’s walls, see Zhou (1993): 269; on Chang’an, see Shi (1996): 84; and, Seo (2001): 110–13. For many dimensions to compare Kaifeng and Chang’an, see Kida (1978). 58 59

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should be permitted to enter the palace and take part in the audience inside.61 This solution signalled a growing trend of practical restrictions. With the rise in tribute scholars’ numbers during the Song dynasty, the authorities were reduced to forcing them into roped enclosures during court audiences in order to safeguard the smooth running of the proceedings.62 Nevertheless, in 959, during the increasingly coherent administration of the Latter Zhou, emperor Shizong granted a new year audience to three hundred tribute scholars at the Wanchun Hall, having abolished former rules that minimized their presence to appearing outside the Wanchun gateway.63 This restitution of tribute scholars’ status followed the order to compile a new ritual code only two months earlier.64 It also occurred only three weeks ahead of other promulgations that reconstituted the examination programme directly under imperial auspices.65 It was a return to ceremonial procedures that Wang Dingbao never lived to see, but it represented a vindication of his generation’s hopes for this ceremony’s survival that looked hardly feasible in the closing years of the Tang. T      The last ritual in which candidates participated before their examination was a formal visit to the Temple to Confucius, usually known as the “ceremony to Confucius” (shidian). The ceremony comprised an assembly in the temple dedicated to Confucius and other ancient teachers, during which a service of sacrificial offerings preceded formal questionand-answer sessions for the explication of Confucian texts and sometimes those of Buddhist and Daoist canons. Wang Dingbao documented the ritual’s first insertion into the examination programme in the early eighth century, and he recorded a surprisingly late instance of the ritual’s performance in 876.

Wudai huiyao: 23.368–9. Mengqi bitan jiaozheng: 9.374–5. 63 CFYG: 642.21b. 64 JWDS: 118.1576; XWDS: 12.123; ZZTJ: 294.9588. Diplomatic considerations also carried weight in the new arrangement. The government planned the ceremony on the sixth day of the year, the same day that it received a Korean tribute embassy. ( JWDS: 119.1579; XWDS: 12.123). 65 JWDS: 119.1579. 61 62

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The involvement of examination candidates in this ceremony was first instituted in 717 by imperial decree, although the dating of this document varies in several sources.66 Wang Dingbao’s collection of documents is the only one to record what is apparently the decree’s full text. In the voice of emperor Xuanzong, this document argues for a new observance in the examination programme and then orders practical arrangements: In the ninth month of the fifth year of Kaiyuan [717] an edict stated: “Antiquity had a ceremony of presenting guests. There were submissions to the Heavenly treasury;67 there were announcements in the kings’ courts.68 [People] valued schools and respected teachers;69 they raised the worthy70 and presented scholars. When ability refined social customs it formed the civilized teachings. All this is the legacy of earlier kings. I, with the little virtue that I possess, will emulate71 past government, since I long with my officials to excel once more in the principles. Therefore, in the past when I sought the way I often forgot about eating; I would read texts from the second watch and stay awake until the middle of the night. I understood how to concentrate on the meanings of the scriptures, and I applied myself diligently to the literary styles of the histories. I cherish this eternally and believe passionately72 in what is worth upholding. If we do not show reverence [for the sages and their virtue],73 who can say that we mean to encourage it?

66 Wang Dingbao assigned this decree to 717. So too did other editors at THY: 76.1384 and CFYG: 50.6a–b, Tang dazhao lingji: 105.538, and XTS: 44.1164. See also Rotours (1932): 169–70. A short decree at CFYG: 50.7a also records that in 720 delegates to the court audience were still ordered to watch the ceremony. Thus, similar texts of this decree at THY: 35.642 and JTS: 24.919, which date the ceremony’s institution to 738, appear to be unreliably dated. 67 deng yu tianfu: for presenting tribute to the Zhou court, see Zhouli: 35.5b. 68 yang yu wangting: in the context of such announcements Kong Yingda and other commentators uphold the ideal of political decision-making without resort to military action (Yijing: 5.1a). 69 Cf. Zheng Xuan’s rationalization of the shidian ritual: “in respecting teachers they esteem the way” (Liji: 36.14a). Other texts of this edict give “Confucian scholar” instead of “teacher”. 70 xingxian jinshi: compare: “they raised the worthy and examined the able”, a summary of the triennial promotion of scholars in antiquity (xingxian kaoneng). Other texts of this edict give “formed scholars” (zaoshi ) instead of presented scholars. 71 qinruo: from the canonical account of the legendary king Yao’s government (Shangshu: 2.9a). 72 tansi: the phrase recalls the canonical scholar and commentator Zheng Xuan’s personal challenge to complete his life’s work (Hou Hanshu: 35.1210). 73 For this contracted definition of the purpose of the Biyong, the moated enclosure that was an archaic forerunner of metropolitan colleges, see the opening in Fu Liang’s (374–426) “Instruction to repair the tomb of king Yuan of Chu on behalf of duke Song” (Wenxuan: 36.1642).

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Mingjing and jinshi tribute scholars from all the prefectures, once the audience is complete, are ordered to be led into the Directorate of the Sons of the State so as to visit former teachers.74 The university officials will present lectures to them as well as question them on their interpretations [of the scriptures]. And, it is ordered that the authorities provide a special welcome in preparing a banquet. Students of the two [Hongwen and Chongwen] colleges and any students eligible to enter the examinations from the Directorate will also be allowed to attend. On this day officials of pure fifth-rank posts and higher as well as delegates to the court audience will go to watch the ceremony, which will follow the recurrent form. The Book of Changes says: “To study is to amass something; to question is to evaluate it”.75 The Odes say: “like chiselling, like smoothing, like filing, like polishing”.76 These are my hopes for the training of talent. (15)

What Xuanzong termed the “visit to the former teachers” ( ye xianshi ), was the leading ritual of the medieval education system. Although it is a convenient description, the exclusive association with Confucius is potentially misleading, since the ceremony’s focus was not solely Confucius. His pre-eminent position was not constant in the history of a cult that included also the Duke of Zhou, Confucius’ disciples and other moral exemplars. Like many practices that owed their nominal origins to institutions current during China’s late Bronze Age, the ceremony to Confucius is the classic instance of a ritual first evolved to suit conditions of controlled violence and then reworked in a totally distinct environment. According to the Liji, the ceremony originated in an observance of the same name “to offer a sacrifice” (shidian), which was performed on the victorious return of punitive expeditions. The army would present a sacrifice of the severed ears of its enemies before the altar of the royal school. This gory declaration was then followed by discussions on what policy to adopt in restoring order.77 By Han times the ceremony had acquired new meaning with the substitution of texts and their explication, but its performance still took place inside the state’s most prestigious teaching establishments. Enactments of 74 No canonical sanction exists for describing the shidian ceremony in this way, but the verb ye traces a long usage in the context of appearing before royalty. This fits the conditions of the Confucian cult in the early eighth century when the government authorized Confucius’s status as a king. For commentaries by Zheng Xuan and Jia Gongyan on ye, see Yili: 19.12a, 26B.17b and 27.4a. 75 Yijing: 1.19a. 76 “Qi Ao”, Shijing: 3/2.11a. 77 Liji: 12.4a.

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the ceremony often featured in the education of heirs-apparent and sometimes young emperors. In 241, for example, the Wei ruler Cao Fang (r. 239–54) led a performance of the ceremony after he had proved his mastery of the Analects (Lunyu) at the age of nine.78 The earliest Tang evidence for the ceremony’s performance dates to 619 when, following Sui practice, a decree commanded that it should be performed every season. However, determined to spread the influence of education rituals farther than ever before, the same decree ordered for the first time that county administrations perform the ceremony to Confucius.79 How consistently any Tang counties ever managed to respond to this instruction is unknown, but the initiative marked an important new step in government thinking about the Confucian regulation of society. In the capital, at least, the Tang established temples for the Duke of Zhou and for Confucius within the grounds of the education directorate. Initially, the Duke of Zhou occupied the senior position in this joint veneration, but his replacement by Confucius as the past sage (xiansheng) in 628 signified the restoration of the cult’s hierarchy observed under Sui rule and earlier.80 The Sui government was the first to integrate what had been previously uncoordinated metropolitan colleges to become an education directorate with its own administrative structure.81 The first two Tang reigns witnessed repeated efforts to raise performance standards and to implement the ceremony even in provincial centres that lacked Confucian schools.82 Although Wang Dingbao treated Xuanzong’s pronouncement as evidence of the annual examination programme, the decree of 717 expressed primarily early eighth-century concern for the Confucian cult. In 705, Confucius’ status had risen dramatically when his designation was changed to king Wenxuan, and his seated figure in the temple was re-arranged to face south. Many other highly significant developments also occurred after Xuanzong’s accession and during

Sanguo zhi: 4.119. THY: 35.635; TD: 53.1474; JTS: 1.9; DTZLJ: 105.537; CFYG: 50.1a–b. 80 THY: 35.635–6; XTS: 15.373. 81 On this major change in the institutional integrity of imperial education, which endured for the rest of Chinese imperial history, see Gao (1984). 82 Gaozu watched performances of the shidian in 623 ( JTS: 189A.4944) and 624 (THY: 35.640, TD: 53.1474, CFYG: 50.1b–3a); in 646—in the first of several instances— a Tang prince performed in the ceremony (THY: 35.640); on the performances of the shidian at different levels of the education system, see Gao (1980). 78 79

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his reign.83 The tribute scholars’ ceremonial visit to Confucius, first performed in 718, was clearly only one of several functions for which the government maintained the Confucian cult. For instance, in 719, only days ahead of the tribute scholars’ new-year visit, the heir apparent acted in a performance of the ceremony to Confucius conducted in conjunction with the ranking ceremony (chizhou). This was a distinct ceremony that defined the order of precedence for the sons of leading families in their relationships with the heir apparent.84 The significance of the ceremony to Confucius was patently multiple, as the convergence between the annual cycles of education and examinations in Xuanzong’s instructions of 717 already shows. In fact, aside from public announcements and official responses, the cult to Confucius seems barely to have impinged on examination candidates’ consciousness. Wang Dingbao’s revelations of a widening gulf between official education and the confident representatives of an increasingly devolved examination culture have already been mentioned in the context of the drinking ceremony. Tribute scholars’ disinterest in the official education system grew into thinly disguised disdain after the An Lushan rebellion. In an editing pattern already familiar from his selection of documents for the community drinking ceremony, Wang Dingbao ignores historical developments that fell between his earliest and latest documentation of the ceremony to Confucius. A current knowledge of the cult to Confucius was no small asset in late eighth-century candidates’ view of the issues that might win them favourable attention in their degree attempts. “Visiting Confucius’ temple” was one of ten pieces that Li Guan selected from the writings that he circulated during 791 and submitted to his examiner Lu Zhi (754–805).85 A major performance of the ceremony to Confucius had taken place in 786, and performances in Chang’an during the 790’s in particular continued to attract attention at least from high officialdom.86 In 803, the ceremony performed for tribute scholars provided the topic for the poetry question of that year’s examination: “The tribute scholars visit the former teacher”.87 One of the surviving responses by Lü Jiong evokes

83 84 85 86 87

McMullen (1988): 43–7. THY: 35.642; JTS: 24.919. Li Yuanbin wenji: 6.7b–9a. THY: 35.643. Poems by Wang Qi and Lü Jiong survive (WYYH: 184.2a–b).

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the aural sensations of taking part in a state ceremony. Not surprisingly, the writer develops the axiom that musical performance directed by government authorities was a central notion of transformatory thinking.88 Such ideas exemplified a generic lyrical response to the ceremony to Confucius, which writers had to supply in response to the examinations’ growing demand for compositions on ritualrelated topics. Two more poems entitled “On the day of the ceremony to Confucius seeing the rituals and hearing the refined music in the state academy”, testify that the ceremony featured once more in the examination of an unknown year—perhaps in the context of a Chang’an prefectural test.89 None of this literature is without interest for the history of both the Confucian cult and examinations. But, the poems especially were conventional responses to state demands. They are a far cry from the personal symbolism that writers developed in their recollections of the community drinking ceremony and other ceremonies that occurred later in the annual programme. Significantly, Wang Dingbao collected predominantly the latter kind of document. Wang Dingbao’s selection of Xuanzong’s decree fits his interests in the examination programme, and some of the literature cited above attests to how the ceremony already attracted official interest in the late eighth century. In the following century, the ceremony underwent a drastic reduction in both scale and complexity. Already, in 814, in response to a memorial from the Board of Rites, the government decreed that, contrary to what earlier rules had allowed, future visits to the past teacher would comprise nothing more complex than conducting examination candidates to the Temple to Confucius. That is to say, participation at the ceremony by both high court officials and court audience delegates was excluded, and the famed lectures were abolished. The editors of the Tang huiyao, who documented this development, claimed that every year from 814 onwards the Board of Rites sought in vain to reinstate elements of the ritual that Xuanzong had defined one century earlier.90 Although the Tang government had once been deeply committed to grand expressions of state ritual on behalf of examinations, that commitment had weakened considerably a century after Xuanzong expressed his ambitions as a formal pronouncement in 717. 88 89 90

On music’s transformatory power, see Sterckx (2000): esp. 3–8. WYYH: 184.2a. THY: 35.643.

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Thanks to Wang Dingbao’s records, it is possible to suggest that a final glimpse of the ceremony to Confucius may have marked a moment of resurgent interest in 876: During the Jianfu reign period, [Liu Zizhen] held office as an erudit. Once the third year’s [876] ceremony to Confucius was complete, officials of the college, who had been ordered to do so, lectured on the scriptures. From the ministers downwards, all were permitted to listen to them. On that occasion Zizhen lectured on the Liji [Records of Ritual ], and Lu Luan lectured on the Zhouyi [Book of Changes]. (236b)

The formulation of this instance as “the third year’s ceremony” suggests an annual performance, and it may have been therefore a ceremony performed for the visit of that year’s tribute scholars. If so, it was a rare event following the abandonment of full performances of the ceremony in 814. Wang Dingbao’s account of the sacrifice and lectures in 876 gives some sense of the real performance. In contrast to Sui practice, the Tang staged the performance of sacrificial offerings before the lectures.91 The lower priority for rhetorical expression that this formal order implied was perhaps an encouragement to the lecturers to select their texts with the kind of catholicity so characteristic of Tang intellectual life. Significant too is the fact that Tang examination candidates often borrowed the educational resources of the Daoist and Buddhist traditions. Some of the candidates attempted to win degrees in Daoist learning. Essentially, the Tang ceremony to Confucius reflected a wider basis of learning prior to the intensification of Confucian orthodoxy that arose in later degree culture.92 A few other accounts in official biographies and commemorative pieces record what scriptures speakers selected for the lectures that followed the sacrificial proceedings. Known choices included most frequently the Filial Piety (Xiaojing), but they did not exclude leading Buddhist and Daoist scriptures.93 In 774 Liang Su and Dugu Ji heard a lecture on the Lunyu during a ceremony held at Changzhou,94 and in 786, during the only known selection of the late eighth century, See the reverse order at Suishu: 9.180. On this rise, see Elman (2000): 66–124 et passim. 93 Spring and autumn annals in 623 ( JTS: 189A.4944; XTS: 198.5639); Filial piety, prajna sutra and Laozi in 624 ( JTS: 189.4945; XTS: 198.5640; THY: 35.640); Filial piety in 640 ( JTS: 24.916 and 73.2602; XTS: 198.5644); Filial piety in 646 or 650 ( JTS: 188.4922; XTS: 106.4043; THY: 35.640); Filial piety and Records of Ritual in 712 and again in 719 ( JTS: 102.3167; XTS: 200.5688–9; THY: 35.642). 94 See Liang Su’s preface, WYYH: 737.8a–b. 91 92

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the lecturers at a metropolitan performance undertook an ambitious series of talks on the five scriptures (wu jing).95 Finally, Wang Dingbao records Liu Zizhen’s lectures on the Liji and the Yijing in 876. Lecturers professed their interpretation of canonical writings in an age when access to texts outside private, government and monastic library collections was restricted and when the medium of printing words and images was brand new. Speaking was still the primary medium of hermeneutical expertise. Lectures on selected texts were often pinnacle moments in the lecturers’ careers, and Wang Dingbao’s documentation of a ninth-century expert is no less a record of a rhetorically gifted individual at the height of his powers as a public performer. Little else is know about Liu Zizhen, except what Wang Dingbao also records concerning his earlier renown as a degree candidate who circulated absurdly large quantities of practice writings to his examiner (237a 329).96 He shared with one of his associates in the Four Terrors examination faction an arrogance in expression and bearing that seems to have been a common qualification for Tang public speaking. Accounts of court-sponsored debates on diverse doctrines reveal rhetorical contests that were unambiguously warlike. The Buddhist champion would aim to smash his Confucian opponent and so on, just as Chen Pansou, Liu Zizhen’s ally in the “Four Terrors” faction, once argued the Daoist cause in a bid to “reverse the chariots against the Buddha” (zhe chong Futu) (236). There is no reason to suppose that, once the sacrifices to the recipients of the Confucian cult had been completed, the ensuing lectures and debates did not exclude the kind of aggressive style that teaching officials such as Liu Zizhen made their stock-in-trade. Wang Dingbao recorded nothing more concerning the ceremony to Confucius after Liu Zizhen’s performance. The early Song historian Qian Yi claimed that Liu Yunzhang, the examiner and unwilling recipient of Liu Zizhen’s voluminous writings in 868, requested that successful jinshi candidates should undertake “a visit to the former teachers out of gratitude”.97 No evidence shows whether this was practiced before the end of the Tang—unless perhaps it was the basis of the 876 performance at which Liu Zizhen shone in the role that his former examiner had effectively created especially on his 95 96 97

THY: 35.643. See translation of 329 and comments by Mair (1978): 54. Nanbu xinshu: 2.20.

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behalf. After 933, however, the Latter Tang at Luoyang instituted a programme in which successful candidates performed a ceremony of gratitude before the emperor and then undertook the same ritual in front of the former teacher.98 The new preference for this sequence was almost certainly the result of the enthusiasm with which late Tang society greeted ceremonies performed after the conduct of the examinations, especially the ceremony of gratitude, discussed in chapter 6. What is noteworthy here, however, is that Liu Yunzhang’s suggestion implied re-inventing Xuanzong’s ritual institution on behalf of solely successful degree winners. The significance of this ceremony as it had been conceived in the early eighth century was entirely lost by the 870’s. C Any analysis of Wang Dingbao’s understanding of Tang state examination ceremonies shows that he did not manage to collect all the documentation of his subject. The major figures of Tang examination history who interested him included Han Yu and Liu Tui, but he did not document fully their significance as influential interpreters of the community drinking ceremony. More prominent are Wang Dingbao’s own interpretations. He was a witness who quite consistently gathered material that revealed ritual activities’ relevance within a biographical framework suitable for his own and others’ lives. He, of course, like others whom he documented, was a degree-winner. Perhaps that simple biographical fact was the primary condition for deciding what to select from the history of Tang examination ritual. Supposing that he was even aware of other documents, Han Yu’s lyrical report of conditions in Henan said less to Wang Dingbao than his tribute to Ouyang Zhan’s competence as a performer in Fuzhou. Similarly, Liu Tui’s triumph in Jingzhou evoked greater admiration than his subsequent polemic on the decadence of ritual performances in the southeast. In fact, Liu Tui’s remarkable letter also thrusts hard against what its author saw as the pernicious influence of Buddhist and Daoist proselytizers. That represented a radically different construction of the ceremony’s significance from what attracted Wang Dingbao.

98

WDHY: 23.239.

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Wang Dingbao may have recorded Ouyang Zhan’s and Liu Tui’s experiences because they corresponded to some extent with his own. All three men witnessed performances of the community drinking ceremony in a southern prefecture far away from the capital. But a correspondence between these men’s careers does not necessarily imply that it was commonplace. On the contrary, the rarity of Ouyang Zhan’s and Liu Tui’s achievement was fundamental to the sense of triumph that the community drinking ceremony symbolized. That triumph was further enhanced by the fact that the overwhelming majority of candidates entered the competition for degrees in or near the capital. Ultimately, this pattern would change, but only gradually. New patterns emerging during the Five Dynasties characterized examination ritual in line with the larger and less intimate style of Song practices, but organizers of the later examination programme still contended with social pressures remarkably similar to those already seen in Tang times. Naturally, the families of both periods who grouped respectively around Chang’an and then Kaifeng invariably entered strong hands in their attempts to control recruitment ceremonies specifically in favour of their children. At Bianzhou (Kaifeng) in 959, when the last ruler of the Zhou laid the first foundations of Song examination ritual, he sanctioned performative expressions of social success for yet again a tiny elite within the potential ranks of government service. But, one third of this group’s number between 959–63 emanated from families residing in the immediate environs of Kaifeng.99 The situation differed only marginally from the intense social competition in Chang’an during the previous century when Ouyang Zhan and Liu Tui’s eloquent claims to have participated in ceremonies far away from the capital were highly exceptional. The community drinking ceremony was the only state ritual that offered a truly unbroken historical span between Wang Dingbao’s own experience and the beginning of the Tang dynasty and even remoter periods. By contrast, his documents of the court assembly and the ceremony to Confucius revealed an historical awareness of quite a different order. Certain aspects of the examination programme that had flourished before 755 underwent little if any further development in the second half of the dynasty. Wang Dingbao’s lack of personal

99

Kracke (1975): 53.

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affinity for these major state ceremonies is in stark contrast to how he apprehended the community wine-drinking ceremony as one of the most important experiences of contemporary careers. Indeed, his view of the early Tang ritual inheritance was not significantly superior to the admiration expressed by later generations during the Song. Even so, sufficient documentation survived for Wang Dingbao to show how much effort early Tang government devoted to statecraft as a thespian art. It was little wonder that tribute scholars jostled for front-row positions at ceremonies such as the court audience. Nor was it strange that they should complain when costly shows of tribute products relegated them to satellite positions in the grand arrangements conducted around their ruler. The greatest Tang achievements in staging state ceremonies were so momentous that Song witnesses to performances of later formulations of these ceremonies often saw them as re-enactments of Tang state ceremony rather than as acts of a new state programme. Wang Pizhi (1031–ca. 1100), for instance, identifies the tribute scholars’ annual visit to Confucius as a Tang practice that Song government re-established soon after China’s political re-unification.100 Reactions to the drinking ceremony documented in Wang Dingbao’s text reflected his recognition of what their authors and he too internalized of the ceremony’s symbolism in their biographical identities. Whatever these Tang individuals voiced in support of the drinking ceremony was also inseparable from nostalgic conceptions of institutions that brought antiquity and their own times into parallel focus. Most important in the longevity of the community drinking ceremony was the structure it provided for private evaluations of moral action and ambition within state concerns of recruitment. Later ceremonies in the annual programme, most notably the ceremony of gratitude, emphasized far less—if at all—the role of the state. Furthermore, although ninth-century statements testify that the community wine-drinking ceremony continued to be performed in the late Tang, the following chapters will also show that later Tang candidates professed even stronger emotional attachment to the programme’s later stages of performance. The gradual demise of the visit to former teachers already makes this clear. So too does perennial neglect of the court audience. It was difficult if not impossible to rekindle the energy of an era dominated by ritual codifiers who 100

Shengshui yantan lu: 6.67.

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had overseen so much of the early examination programme’s sophistication. Instead, the remaining stages of the annual programme would evolve in a direction that veered radically away from the orthodoxy of codified state ritual. They would develop ultimately into performative expressions that borrowed as much from ritual acts and speech both outside the familiarity of court ceremony and loosened from the sanction of antiquity.

CHAPTER FIVE

EXPERIENCES OF THE EXAMINATION GROUND Wang Dingbao recounted no direct personal experience of the examination ground. This is not too remarkable, since he only rarely identified any recollection in his text as his own. Still, since he claimed to have gained a degree, writing his examination script and delivering it to his invigilators comprised the one stage of the annual programme in which he must have participated. Likewise, whatever experience he acquired of the examination programme, the examination ground was the one site that he must have passed through. Wang Dingbao and hundreds of other Tang degree-winners documented nothing about the most formative test of their careers, being far more absorbed in a degree title and its political and social implications for the future. The practical issue of examinations broke the surface of their discourse on recruitment only rarely. A few men expressed nostalgic tributes to the physical scene of their triumph, but they wrote them habitually as wall inscriptions most of which have long since disappeared. In sum, the Tang elite historicized the examination ground more discreetly than almost any other symbolic site. This chapter therefore explores a location and a stage in the examination programme that Tang degree candidates preferred to ignore and to forget. Wang Dingbao shows that the Tang examination season witnessed a process of elimination occurring in two successive stages: firstly, candidates sought the support of their examiner or other influential patrons by showing them samples of their literary work; secondly, they entered the examination ground and wrote their scripts. Success in the first task required the elaborate preparations of a visit. This was not strictly an official stage in the recruitment process, but it was a perennial habit that rarely if ever met with condemnation during the Tang. Notably, several of Wang Dingbao’s documents urge the correct social behaviour that formed the paramount concern of even the most academically brilliant candidates both before and during their examinations. Nobody issued or received any formal guarantee of success at this stage, but powerful statesmen promised degree titles

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to clients whose widely circulated writings virtually reified political support for their imminent success. Indeed, long before the examiner had assembled all the candidates and announced the examination topics, numerous interests were hard at work in contesting who should gain what place on the pass list (bang). In the second and relatively simpler stage of elimination, candidates entered the examination ground on a set day and wrote their scripts within the stipulated time limits of a test. What little is known of Tang examinations, however, shows that the limits of examining conditions varied enormously. Then, once the examiner and his staff had judged the scripts and decided the order of passes, the public announcement of the pass list marked the formal conclusion of the examination. Wang Dingbao reveals also a few details of the physical location and legal policing of examinations. Finally, consistent with other Tang witnesses, his accounts of behaviour during examinations suggests that confinement under examination conditions was the least welcome experience of the whole examination programme. Wang Dingbao dictated the annual programme’s priorities in his arrangement of documents. He does not place any information concerning examinations within the sequence that he adopted to outline the annual examination programme. This arrangement is another sign that the procedures of selection during examination tests gained far less profile than ritual performance during the annual programme. In the Collected Statements and other late Tang sources, the occurrence of a Tang examination emerges as a somewhat vexing distraction beside the route of urgent seasonal engagements. Even issuing the pass list—effectively the moment of resuming the annual programme of ceremonies—appears in other sections of Wang Dingbao’s text and well out of the way of ceremonies that he may have regarded as more symbolic manifestations of degree success. The announcement of the pass list was, nevertheless, a sublime reward for the indignity and outright panic that examination conditions had already exacted from those fortunate enough to be listed; for too many others, of course, it signalled the postponement of their hopes for another year. Before this last transition, however, seeking literary support and sitting the examinations were the twinned stages in which both the select few and the residual majority progressed for the last time in each other’s company.

    

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V    Candidates campaigned to attract patrons who would support them as individuals or even as groups during the months prior to the examinations. Their most common strategies included circulating writings (xingjuan) to any number of potential patrons and submitting the same writings directly to the examiner (najuan). Recent scholarship has devoted much attention to these customs, showing that they provided an important means of candidate selection.1 It has shown also that this dimension of the annual examinations received only scant attention from institutional historians in the Tang and later periods. Wang Dingbao and a few Tang authors of letters and poems provided the only sources to reveal their writers’ highly personal modes of political operation. Previous scholarship also has stressed the role of examination candidates in selecting what writings to present to potential patrons. Wang Dingbao’s records, by contrast, afford insight into how patrons sometimes ruled strictly on what genres and topics they expected their clients to deliver. Wang Dingbao cited the submission of “summer trial writings” (xiake) from Li Zhao’s list of the defining pursuits of jinshi culture in Guoshi bu (5a). The discussion in chapter 3 has already shown that this process was integral to prefectural selections, particularly at Chang’an during the autumn. Indeed, candidates’ writings were known ubiquitously as “autumn scrolls” (qiujuan) in reference to the season when their authors first emerged with them after a productive summer in retreat. If candidates did not seek seclusion in their family properties, they might well find amenable accommodation in Buddhist and Daoist communities.2 Wang Dingbao was himself a resident in a religious establishment before his eventual degree success, and he gathered stories of other candidates whose experiences in other monastic residences perhaps struck him as similar to his own (147 150 189). Candidates submitted mixed styles of writing or else large quantities of a single genre. Typical collections comprised entirely poetry. Some of the literary collections that Wang Dingbao recorded among biographical stories were doubtless central to their authors’ attempts to win early political patronage during the second half of the dynasty 1 2

Mair (1978); Cheng (1980). See the discussion of this topic by Yan (1959).

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(258 260b 268 284 286 333). Other Tang records reveal a few famous and precocious candidates who submitted complete literary collections: Yuan Jie ( js 754),3 Cheng Xifan ( js 818), a protégé of Han Yu,4 Pi Rixiu ( js 867)5 and Zheng Gu ( js 887).6 Seldom regarded as credible today are Song claims that Tang examination candidates circulated collections of political satire ahead of their examinations.7 Wang Dingbao took note of substantial submissions of verse in the late Tang. Wang Zhenbai’s poem of 895 boasted to have submitted 500 poems to his examiner (334). Such an imposition on the reader’s energy (and enthusiasm) was daunting but not unusual. Nor did it exceed by much the volume of text that some writers had put into circulation one century earlier. Bai Juyi (772–846) wrote to one of his patrons, Chen Jing (d. 805), with a smaller presentation of one hundred items of verse. But, he added to it “twenty samples of zawen,”8 any one of which might have comprised a substantial piece of writing. Biographical compositions, for instance, also satisfied the literary taste of examination patrons during the first decades of the ninth century.9 The sole record of a complete literary bundle is Li Guan’s submission of ten samples of writing to his examiner Lu Zhi before the examination of 792. Wang Dingbao twice cited Li Guan’s letter to his cousin from this bundle (127 430). Aside from the covering letter to his examiner, Li’s bundle included nine items: the letter encouraging his cousin to gain the mingjing degree; a letter concerning border control; a eulogy (zan); a record ( ji ) of a military feast; an essay on visiting the Temple to Confucius; two stele inscriptions; a letter proposing to renew the university system; finally, his letter addressed to another examiner one year earlier.10 In Li Guan’s opinion, the outstanding work in this selection was the same letter that Wang Dingbao cited. From all the issues on offer, an exhortation to strive for the highest goal of individual reward in the form of a mingjing degree title outshone concerns for Confucius, the university and the public 3 See preface to his collection Wenbian at WYYH: 701.9b–10a. See also Li Shangyin’s sub-preface at Tang wencui: 93.9b–10b. 4 Yinhua lu: 3.82–3; TYL: 3.278–9 (no. 414). 5 See preface to Pi Zi wensou. 6 See preface to Zheng Shouyu wenji, in which Zheng refers to his collection as the Yuntai bian. 7 Mair (1978): 39–41; Yu (1987). 8 Bai Juyi ji: 44.949–50; WYYH: 692.2b–3b. 9 A flurry of such writing is noted at Nanbu xinshu: 5.67. 10 Li Yuanbin wenji: 6.7b–9a.

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values to be read from stele inscriptions. Also, to those such as Wang Dingbao, who looked back at the history of the Tang examination system, a literary bundle like Li Guan’s justified his relationship to Lu Zhi not simply as a degree-earner but as his intellectual disciple.11 Chapter 6 will discuss how master-disciple ties received huge attention in the ceremony of gratitude. However, long before the opportunity for performing that ritual had materialized, a literary bundle such as Li Guan’s fostered the first ties of lifelong political relationships. In addition, Li Guan’s preservation of this bundle and Wang Dingbao’s citation of one its letters one century later indicate the far more profound significance of literary presentations beside the operation of formal examination sessions. Wang Dingbao’s records illustrate a functional aspect of literary production during the late Tang, but circulating writings dated even farther back. In the late seventh century, foreknowledge of candidates’ literary skills underwrote even the shrewdest efforts to select the most deserving degree list. A memorial by Xue Deng (647–719) in 692 set out his reservations concerning primarily the quality of “petty writings” (xiaowen) then in circulation.12 Remarkably, however, he never condemned the practice of circulating literature outright.13 The early date of his views also reflects the ubiquity of circulating writings even in the period when the competitive pressures in examination recruitment were still relatively low. Fifty years later, in 742, Wei Zhi won lasting acclaim for his tenure as state examiner by allowing his candidates openly to submit lyrical writings several weeks ahead of their formal examination.14 Quite plausibly, Wei Zhi oversaw the first administration to regularize the submission of writings (najuan) to the examiner.15 Anyway, nothing suggests that such methods were criticized. Chang’an in the Tianbao reign period witnessed an inclusive confidence in the examinations’ promotion of literary standards, which rarely if ever appeared after the An Lushan rebellion. Examiners in the 740’s no doubt also enjoyed a new claim to authority following the celebrated transfer of the examinations’ administration to the Ministry of Rites in 736.

11 12 13 14 15

McMullen (1988): 62. TD: 17.409–11; JTS: 101.3136–41; also abbreviated text at THY: 76.1391–2. For a translation of this memorial and comments, see Mair (1978): 48–9. JTS: 92.2958–9; XTS: 122.4351. Cheng (1980): 8–9.

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The process of circulating writings illustrates how Tang examination recruitment comprised a literary arena with temporal and spatial boundaries set far outside the prescribed limits and the precise dates of each year’s formal examination sessions. In 681, of course, the acceptance of “literary writings” (zawen) as an integral element in the jinshi syllabus was a critical boost to the production of belles lettres as a strategic element in career-planning. From then on efforts to circulate writings intensified. Recounting events of the next century, one of Wang Dingbao’s stories of a failed candidate recounts how his patron persuaded the examiner to revise his decision by showing him a sample of the candidate’s circulated writings (195c). Clearly, if circulated writings guaranteed redemption in the event of an unfavourable outcome in the real tests, literary craft’s most far-reaching social significance was its relevance to political networks rather than its confinement to one of the three examination rounds instituted in 681. Wang Dingbao also shows that, contrary to what the few examples above may suggest, choosing the writings to submit to a potential patron was not always a candidate’s own privilege. Some patrons stipulated exactly what topics their visiting clients should write on, and they introduced an unmistakable air of competition into the bargain. One of Wang Dingbao’s recollections concerning Wu Rong — often known as Wu Zihua—his own examiner and father-in-law, is an unique illustration of this process: Yang Shaosu’s summer trial writings included his “Rhapsody on ‘to paint dogs and horses is a challenge to success’ ”, the substance of which was taken from the proposition “painting dogs and horses is harder than painting ghosts and spirits”,16 and he submitted it to his older cousin Wu Zihua. Zihua read it and remarked to Shaosu: “My boy, this rhapsody is not good enough. The rhapsody title does not mention ghosts and spirits, but the rhapsody’s content does talk about ghosts and spirits. Why don’t you make it “rhapsody on ‘painting dogs and horses is harder than painting ghosts and spirits’ ”. Shaosu did not have time to make the changes before Zihua that same evening had tucked his version into a roll tube. Another jinshi candidate called Wei Tuan, a man of Jiuhua in Chizhou, had just called on Zihua in order to submit his writings. Zihua made enquiries about him and felt

16 For this proposition of Zhang Yanyuan’s adapted from ideas concerning representation earlier set out by Gu Kaizhi (c. 345–c. 406) and Han Fei (d. 233 BC), see Lidai minghua ji: 1.24 and 5.102. See also Acker (1954): 151; Acker (1974): 58.

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extremely pleased. Tuan stayed for several days and then presented a composition to Zihua. Its theme exposition stated: “there are two exponents of the red and the green: one basks in his abilities for dogs and horses; the other vaunts his skill in ghosts and spirits.” Zihua was so utterly amazed by him that he burned his own composition, and Shaosu, even despite who he was, could not hold the other man down. That year, Zihua secured first place in the prefectural tests for Tuan. (123)

Wu Rong guaranteed Wei Tuan his success in the Huazhou prefectural examination of 896. The following year Wei Tuan passed under Xue Zhaowei who took charge of the examinations during the court’s exile in Huazhou and chose a considerably more martial rhapsody topic from the Hanshu.17 What makes Wang Dingbao’s account such a rarity is the notion that Wei Tuan undertook to write on the same topic in the same literary form that another client had also submitted. What might be construed as normal practice under formal examination conditions—certainly recognizable as such today—was taking place in the private sphere far beyond the control of the official examination administration. Late Tang patrons of literary composition had taken the examination system into their homes where they ran the processes of competitive elimination normally controlled by the state. Their reception halls functioned as examination grounds; the candidates were guests of the house. In such conditions, after an interval of some weeks, the official system may have done little more than formalize these domestic dealings. Equally fascinating is Wu Rong’s preference for a subject of painting history. Aside from the fact that Wu Rong was clearly a recognized connoisseur of the visual arts (277), painting history had become an increasingly popular subject of discourse in the ninth century, especially after 847 when Zhang Yanyuan first released his Records of famous paintings throughout the ages (Lidai minghua ji ) into elite circulation. Towards the close of the Tang dynasty, then, officialdom sometimes selected its successors by recourse to their own common intellectual interests and confirmed their suitability with hermeneutical exercises quite different from the canonical subjects tested in government examination sessions. This divergence also suggests a polarization between state-approved canons of learning and scholars’ own preferences for personal cultivation, a phenomenon that “Finding clothes before sunrise” (wei ming qiu yi ), recorded at Tangshi jishi jiaojian: 67.1813. See also Hanshu: 51.2341. 17

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characterized much of late Tang and Song intellectual life.18 Significantly, another of Wang Dingbao’s records shows again that painting connoisseurship may have been an effective instrument in stimulating a new enthusiasm for extra-curricular topics of both visual and lyrical interest. His comparison of two careers in the 860’s reveals that He Juan’s “Rhapsody on the Xiao and Xiang rivers” (Xiao Xiang fu) earned him more lasting acclaim than his fellow student ever won through his eventual success in the examinations (271). This is a social judgement of some interest considering that the long history of describing in words and images the acme of a southern “exile” landscape gained extra impetus in the late Tang period.19 Wang Dingbao entertained no illusions that all aspirants to a degree title put in the same amount of literary effort as Wu Rong’s clients. Any late Tang candidate was aware that circulated writings were often traded from one user to the next. Disputes concerning authorship had long been an endemic feature of writing for the examinations.20 Wang Dingbao wrote up one recent dispute as a caution to aspiring writers never to lower their guard in the face of literary requests. When a certain Zhang Xian unwisely handed over his best writings to a cousin, this shameless opportunist used them to win the favour of the late Tang minister Yan Rao,21 Zhang Xian’s own father-in-law and an important literary patron at the beginning of the tenth century (210). Wang Dingbao also claims that Wen Tingyun sold compositions to the highest bidder (300). Candidates could even buy compositions from dealers in texts in Chang’an.22 One contemporary critic dismissed the authorship of almost all circulated writings as spurious.23

Bol (1992): 108–47. For the evidence that writing on the Xiao Xiang region dated to even earlier, see Murck (2000). However, late Tang writers on this subject were destined to become landmark figures in the Song tradition of Xiao Xiang art and literature. 20 For two students at the university in Chang’an disputing authorship of the same poem in the seventh century, see Chaoye qianzai: 2.48. 21 For Yan Rao’s promotion to minister in 900 and his subsequent dominance in the History Office (Shiguan), see JTS: 20A.768, and 179.4669. 22 For accounts of plagiarists inadvertently showing what they claimed as their own work to its true authors, see the story concerning Lu Jun, cited from Zhitian lu at TYL: 7.650 (no. 939); and, similar events concerning Li Bo, whose works a plagiarist admitted to have bought in a shop, cited from Da Tang xinyu at TPGJ: 261.2036–7. See also translations at Mair (1978): 55. 23 Yuquan zi: 0.9. 18 19

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The quality of trial writings was often a casualty of quantity. When the size of submissions exceeded any sensible limit, the recipients could only dismiss what was offered them as heaps of literary junk. Heaps were quite literally what they had to contend with. One of Wang Dingbao’s most famous vignettes tells how gatekeepers at several famous Chang’an residences during the 830’s controlled the presentation frenzy by selling the scrolls for their own profit (328).24 The ninth-century compiler Feng Zhi claimed that visitors countered the hazards of delivery via household channels with valuable gifts to persuade servants to work again on their behalf.25 Yet even if circulated writings did arrive in the hands of their intended recipients, the sheer quantity of unsolicited scrolls usually precluded reading them.26 Another of Wang Dingbao’s good reflections of the ignoble fate of so much of this literary industry relates how Zheng Guangye and his relatives—highly sought-after examination patrons in the late 870’s—tossed whatever they received into a large case dubbed the “sea of sorrows” (338b).27 The Zheng brothers’ insouciance was not entirely a cynical neglect of duty. It may have bespoken a high-minded disinterest in the face of naked factional politicking. Wang Dingbao also records how manipulative operators turned the dead weight of excessive literary presentations into formidable weapons of factional warfare. His example is Liu Zizhen, who, shortly before the examination of 868, defied a publicized limitation to three rolls of presented writings and delivered forty (237). His action won more than passing notoriety for the Four Terrors faction which he then led. To advertise a literary collection around Chang’an and its environs was often exhausting and humiliating. Wang Dingbao collected several confessions of the futility of engaging with benefactors through literary effort alone. For instance, Ping Zeng vented his frustration in Huazhou in 834 when he lamented that “tossing a satchel” of writings towards potential patrons each year had no worthwhile effect on his prospects (246). The pithy immediacy of his recollection has endured every since as the proverbial description of displaying literary

See also Mair (1978): 53. The story is that in 805 Liu Yuxi, then already a degree-holder, offered pearls to secure the delivery of his correspondence. (Yunxian zaji: 5.9a.) 26 See Liu Zongyuan’s comments translated at Mair (1978): 49. 27 See Mair (1978): 54. 24 25

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wares. Liu Lufeng, who styled himself the “ten-thousand-scroll-scholar” (wanjuan shusheng), described his name cards becoming so fuzzed that they were no longer decent enough to be presented (247). Other sources reveal only more cynicism. Xu Tang ( js 871), not the greatest lyricist of his generation, recalled the almost interminable futility of touting his poems about the capital. The wearisome rounds on horseback left his limbs aching until finally his degree awarded him physical rejuvenation, better health and truer horsemanship.28 By contrast, written before success had assuaged his bitterness, Pei Yue confessed that, since no one read the one juan of writings that he circulated every year, he felt in no way compelled to revise it each season.29 Whatever quality they represented, writings were the presents that facilitated social visits. Yet decisions about whom to call on first as well as the mechanics of performing visits presented daunting challenges. Wang Dingbao’s response to such worries at the end of the Tang dynasty hardly differs from sensible modern career advice: Look earnest; have an amiable manner; show your face seldom; get your name mentioned often.

Although he may have delivered these injunctions in part humorously, he continued with a set of serious instructions: The ancients have a saying, the gist of which is: frequent appearances will turn you ugly. When junior men pass through the doors of the pre-eminent, they sometimes obsess themselves with pressing home their enquiries. The moment they commit a faux pas, despite even the glitter of their writings, they will bear forever the brunt of their coarseness. Therefore, once you have delivered your writings, you need only to pay visits and to present congratulations in good time. There is no need to pester for an interview. If you are an intimate friend who has sworn a pact against the cold of winter, or if you are a friend who shares the same teacher, then it is not the same. [432]

Wang Dingbao’s advice on how best to perform a series of visits reveals once again a crucial aspect of the Tang examination timetable. The juncture at which a candidate was accepted or rejected for a degree was seldom the examinations. Instead, success depended on the intricacies of social intercourse planned weeks or months ahead of a formal academic test. To steer a middle course between Wang Jinhua zi: B.58 and at TYL: 7.677 (no. 987). Nanbu xinshu: 7.103. See the same account in a Song encyclopaedia, translated at Mair (1978): 45–6. 28 29

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Dingbao’s propositions of amiable and earnest was by no means frivolous advice. As if to complicate matters even further, Wang Dingbao urged a candidate to become fully cognizant of his patrons’ and his examiner’s family affairs. The examiner’s family posed more than an incidental presence during the examination season. Following publication of the examination results, the series of celebratory banquets even timetabled feasts at which the examiner’s parents were present. Clearly, then, decisions of patronage in favour of this or that candidate were matters of family concern. No one could be more keenly aware of this than Wang Dingbao who married the daughter of his most supportive patron. Implied in Wang Dingbao’s instructions for conducting visits is the ineffable alienation that overtook the competition for recognition. Did all the visitors whom his text addresses truly appear that coarse; and, did they forget their manners so often that their requests for an interview added up to nothing more than pestering? The significant revelation in Wang Dingbao’s instructions is his final admission that his advice need not apply to the privileged few whose deeper acquaintance with potential patrons allowed the most ready access to them. To the majority of visitors—candidates attempting to generate completely new contacts—the prospect of being received inside a house must have appeared quite futile. But, that hardly dispels the manner of Wang Dingbao’s instructions, which suggests that every kind of guest tried to gain admission. Wang Dingbao’s advice suggests also that candidates undertook two kinds of visit. Either they called on patrons with whom their genuine acquaintance could perhaps ultimately deliver a degree title (and a spouse); or, they complied in the ignominious role of asserting their presence in the homes of those whom they knew by repute only. When they did not know their hosts, Tang candidates operated amid a disconcerting world of polite estrangement. Zhang Ji described his predicament to Jia Dao (779–843) in the late eighth century: My clumsy donkey has grazed its fill and I am mounted for the off; my autumn scrolls are packed and ready—to whom do I deliver them?30

One century later, Han Wo (844–c. 923) registered his confusion as the panic of eternal celibacy: I exist in the world but have no matchmaker.31 30 31

“Presented to Jia Dao”, Zhang Ji shiji: 4.50. “Emotions on completing my summer trials”, Yushan qiaoren ji: 0.15a.

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Other records to be considered presently will show that the alienation of candidates on the night of their examinations was even worse. Wang Dingbao’s fascination for the kind of social behaviour that he advocated is also evident in the details of Ouyang Xie’s (d. 881) examination career. Pre-empting exactly what Wang Dingbao set down in his instructions to aspiring candidates, this grandson of Ouyang Zhan kept in touch scrupulously with his patron’s family affairs. He presented the customary letters of congratulation and condolence at appropriate moments, and he nurtured his relationship with Wei Zhaodu for ten years even though the latter never once condescended to meet him in person. But Ouyang’s discretion eventually paid off, for Wei Zhaodu had him in mind when he was appointed examiner during the court’s exile to Chengdu in 881. He requested the Xiangzhou authorities to send Ouyang westwards as a tribute scholar, only somewhat too late, as Ouyang Xie died just before he could begin the journey (254).32 Wang Dingbao also learned of meetings at which the ideal forms of behaviour went seriously awry. The instrument of many disasters was the unwitting use of personal names. Given the agency of so many letters and circulated writings in the Tang examination programme, it was almost inevitable that a writer might cause offence by using the proscribed characters of his reader’s family names. A writer had to take lengthy precautions each time he submitted his writings to a potential patron. Every submission necessitated re-copying all the documents and employing the taboo avoidances that a new addressee’s name and ancestral names demanded. Taboo avoidance was also an essential requirement in composing examination answers, and manuals, such as Lu Guangqi’s (d. 903) The Scholar on His First Presentation (Chu ju zi ) existed to aid candidates not to offend the examiner and other senior personnel.33 Wang Dingbao shared his knowledge of two stories of disastrous taboo offences respectively with Wu Rong and his acquaintances at Hongzhou (308 309). The second story relates a visitor’s mistake of submitting his writings to the wrong recipient:

Part of this account (254) is translated at Mair (1978): 57. For a surviving passage of this work, which contains advice on taboo avoidance, see Rongzhai suibi: pt 2, 13.370. 32 33

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In the middle of the Wende reign period [888] Liu Zizhang went out to govern Western Zhe.34 He broke his journey [at Hongzhou] in Jiangxi. At that time Palace Secretary Lu Wei was still a district official but he resided here anyway.35 When the jinshi candidate, Chu Dai, sealed up two rolls and called to submit them he inadvertently took the scroll for Zizhang and presented it personally to Wei. Wei read it. Numerous characters violated Wei’s family taboos one after the other, so that Wei, looking utterly shocked, saluted and retired.36 Dai was in a panic to confess what had been a huge error, and he subsequently delivered a long note of apology, which ran briefly: “Even though Cao Xing’s images were exquisitely painted, yet still he was shamed by wrong strokes;37 Yin Hao’s caution went too far, so that he finally sent back an empty envelope.”38 (309)

Chu Dai finally gained his degree in 898.39 He emerged from this early episode at least as the author of a celebrated letter of apology, which provides another interesting glimpse of painting discourse in the late Tang examinations. Major past figures of eastern China, such as the painter Cao Buxing and the writer and service official Yin Hao, no doubt also served Chu Dai as apt allusions to apologize for his errors in the same region of China.

34 Elsewhere Liu Zizhang is not recorded taking up this post. For the two Runzhou prefects whose service covers this entire year and beyond, see ZZTJ: 257.8373 and 8387. Perhaps Liu was appointed to an assistant role like his friend Lu Wei in Hongzhou. 35 Lu Wei’s secretaryship was in the Board of War (XTS: 73B. 2967). 36 jueran: “shocked”. This expression recalls the meeting in Ban Gu’s “Rhapsody on the Eastern capital” (Wenxuan: 1.39). Wang Dingbao’s usage has reversed the roles of host and guest: “the host had still not finished his speech when the western capital guest looked utterly shocked and drained of expression”—the guest then salutes and attempts to depart. 37 Cao Xing refers to Cao Buxing (3rd c.). For Xie He’s (d. 535) record of Cao as a painter of the first rank in Ranked record of ancient paintings (Guhua pinlu), China’s first text devoted exclusively to painting criticism, see Jiankang shilu: 8.182; and, Lidai minghua ji: 5.99; cf. Acker (1974): 44. Cao Buxing was famed in particular for the occasion on which he painted a screen for the ruler of the Wu kingdom, and turned a blot into an exquisitely lifelike fly (Records of Wu [Wulu] cited at Sanguo zhi: 63.1425–6; and, Lidai minghua ji: 4.89–90; Acker (1974): 19–20). 38 Yin Hao (d. 356), one of a coterie of the fourth century’s most celebrated writers and artists, commanded Yangzhou and later its adjoining regions under the Eastern Jin. In 353, having led an unsuccessful northern campaign to repress a rebellion, he was stripped of all his posts. This ignominy unhinged him, and, when offered a second chance to serve the government in high office, he answered by sending back an empty envelope ( Jinshu: 77.2043–8; Jiankang shilu: 8.165, 167 and 173–4). 39 Tang caizi zhuan: 10.176.

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Chu Dai’s misfortune was a common risk for Tang examination candidates who travelled much more frequently than their counterparts of later periods. Tang candidates had to control numerous chance meetings with potential patrons to whom a written overture was the only legitimate form of address. A resourceful candidate needed his wits about him constantly, and failure to sidestep the dangers of taboo offences led to ignominy. By contrast, the combination of literary skill and social awareness that enabled the art of instant and agile taboo avoidances had long been read as a sign of precocious talent and the portent of a brilliant career. Su Ting was four—if we care to believe that—when he demonstrated his versatility in avoiding taboos while reciting a fu in front of distinguished guests. His performance convinced his listeners that “one day he would take charge of literary compositions”.40 The story of Chu Dai is also a valuable illustration of the complexity of winning political patronage through multiple literary engagements. Although unsuccessful, his attempt fulfilled the dual function of Wang Dingbao’s instructions for visiting both intimate acquaintances and unknown hosts. Chu Dai’s eventual predicament was a freak disaster, but it arose from behaviour that was in no way abnormal. Wang Dingbao’s practical instructions show that Chu Dai acted in full accordance with current norms in attempting to submit his writings simultaneously to two political figures of the day. Tang careers in literature and politics did not demand unique ties of loyalty, so it was feasible to present writings to two potential patrons. As a result, of course, the process of performing visits to win political favour was often alienating and baffling, but it precluded at least the loneliness of totally sequestered isolation. That horror lurked in the defamialiarization of the examination night. E  Wang Dingbao recorded glimpses of the more quirky happenings in late Tang examinations. These provide a rich sense of both the confidence and fear that enlivened the examination ground. He said much less concerning procedures and rules of conduct, but he did

40

TPGJ: 169.1239, which cites Guang renwu zhi; also at Chaoye qianzai: 4.96–7.

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define the order of examination sessions. Following the decision to add “literary writings” (zawen) in 680, the jinshi examination consisted of three sessions devoted to scriptural knowledge (tiejing), literary writings (zawen) and dissertations (ce) (13c). Wang Dingbao extracted these components from the famous memorial of Liu Sili, which several earlier Tang sources had preserved, but he was the first to claim that only in 706 was the new three-part syllabus translated into a systematic performance of examinations in three rounds (13d). All Wang Dingbao’s accounts of examinations, which are jinshi examinations, are set at night-time. (211, 212, 338c, 422). Other Tang sources reveal that examinations commenced at dawn.41 The standard duration was twelve hours,42 but many examiners permitted the sessions to run on until the following dawn. Reminiscences of examinations describe night-time conditions, and they often invoke the dark and stillness to better emphasize the notions of secrecy and mystery. The night was measured customarily by the duration of “three candles” (san zhu).43 This became a standard image of an examination session, and it featured typically in the lyrical reminiscences to which Wang Dingbao was invariably attracted. He included part of a letter by Qin Taoyu, for instance, a member of the Ten Philosophers faction, whose polite compliments masked an abusive intervention by his eunuch protectors to award him a degree in 882. Addressing his fellow graduands in Chengdu that year, Qin Taoyu exclaimed: Beneath three candles, although I was barred from the literary enclosure, I lasted for several occasions beside its walls, until I was blessed to join you in this merciful land. (225)

Night-time was the atmosphere that Tang examination veterans recalled most often, but in Wang Dingbao’s lifetime the practice of running an examination from one dawn to the next was not stable. This was evident especially during the Five Dynasties. In 931, the

41 See Bai Juyi’s poem which describes escorting candidates through the early morning traffic before sunrise: “At dawn escorting candidates into the examinations” (Bai Juyi ji: 5.93). 42 A judgement by Zhang Zhuo (657–730) tried to overturn a candidate’s failure by arguing that his examination started too late, and, following an ordinance that survives, it defined the starting and finishing hours exactly twelve hours apart (Longjin fengsui pan: 2.13b–14a). See also the same time limit in an ordinance collected in Niida (1933): 356. 43 On candles, including those featuring in Tang tomb art, see Sun (1982).

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Latter Tang government stipulated running examinations in Luoyang by day, but in 935 it again approved “three candle” extensions.44 Daytime examinations lasted longer at Kaifeng, for it was not until 945 that Dou Zhengu (892–969), then chief examiner under the Latter Jin, instigated abandoning the day-time rules proposed in the Latter Tang measures of 931.45 His reforms were not modified by the new powers that took over in 960. These few data suggest that officialdom’s most precise stipulations for Tang and Five Dynasties examinations concerned their duration not their location. Indeed, imperial government in this early phase of examination history authorized examinations primarily through its control of time rather than place. The examination ground Where exactly Qin Taoyu sat his examinations in Chengdu in 882 can only be guessed. More information helps to locate the Tang examination ground on a map of Chang’an, but the task remains fraught by contradictory statements and vague directions. Wang Dingbao claims that jinshi pass lists were headed “Board of Rites Examination Court” (libu gongyuan), but he adds that candidates “under the old rules were examined in the Main Department (dusheng)” (402). This name referred to the Department of State Affairs (shangshu sheng), and Wang Dingbao’s reference is one more indication among others that examinations took place in its Great Hall (dutang).46 The “old rules” refer presumably to life under the Tang. Tang references to the location of examinations indicate almost certainly two places and distinct activities in each. One site was for the clerical administration of examinations; the other accommodated candidates during the examination sessions. The Tang government was ready to devote space to the administration of examinations only after the whole operation had gained substantially more definition. In 736, according to Li Zhao, the examination court was founded after transferring the examinations to the Board of Rites that year.47 WDHY: 22.360. At CFYG: 642.9b, the texts of these two measures are mutilated and appear as a single edict of 931 permitting night-time extensions. 45 See memorial at JWDS: 148.1980–1; CFYG: 642.13a–b; also briefly resumed in his biography at Songshi: 262.9058. On Dou Zhengu’s reforms, see also Araki (1969): 340–2. 46 See also TD: 22.590. 47 Guoshi bu: 3.56. 44

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Even if at this moment the administration gained a discernible location, the Examination Court may have comprised only an administrative sub-centre for bureaucratic communications. Its quarters signified eventually, however, a site of enormous prestige. The topic of the poem set for the jinshi examination in 807 invited reflection on the renewed appearance of the examinations’ administrative centre: “Young pines recently planted north of the Examination Court”.48 But, that this site ever comprised a ground for seating and controlling candidates during examination sessions seems unlikely. In fact, the existence of a single space for the exclusive use of annual examinations in the Tang period is highly questionable. Tang society certainly never witnessed any building to rival in scale the examination halls erected during the Song dynasty. In the two accounts of examinations translated below, Wang Dingbao mentions “cells” ( pu), but these may connote only collapsible tents of posts and fabric that the builders could erect quickly in any chosen venue. Song claims that Tang candidates sat in cells cannot be taken to indicate rows of shelters inside the solid compounds that first appeared in Song cities. Wang Dingbao’s statement that the examination ground was the Department of State Affairs is certainly more emphatic than other Tang observers. The Department’s environment was often subject to government attention, and, like the Examination Court, it emerged in late Tang consciousness as one of the bureaucracy’s leading cultural sites. In 808, the government permitted large expenditure to repair the buildings.49 The title of the poem set either for a state examination or a prefectural test before 815 was: “Celebrating spring snow on the day of examining the tribute scholars in the Great Hall”.50 The Department of State Affairs featured auspiciously in another examination poem of unknown date: “Moss on the Hall of State Affairs.”51 Evidently, changes in the examination venue’s appearance underwent repeated interpretations that acculturated it to the rest of the palatial and ecclesiastical fabric of Chang’an. 48 Four poems at WYYH: 187.5b–6a, one of these also at Tangshi jishi jiaojian: 43.1185. 49 THY: 57.988; JTS: 14.425. 50 Three poems at WYYH: 182.6a–b. Li Jing, one of the three authors had clearly gained his degree by 815 when he signed his autograph “former jinshi Li Jing” at the Ci’en pagoda—see Song rubbings of this and other inscriptions reproduced in Luo (1961). 51 One poem at WYYH: 187.6a.

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In his more common references to the annual examinations as a central administrative entity, Wang Dingbao used the same habitual terms that ninth-century lyricists used. These included the “arena of promotions” ( juchang), the “literary arena” (wenchang) and the “arena of literary phrases” (cichang). He cited Li Zhao’s authoritative gloss of juchang in the Guoshi bu (5a) or simply exchanged the same source’s usage of wenchang for cichang (244). After 907 these terms became lexical relics for post-Tang antiquarianism, but even before the end of the dynasty they denoted nothing more specific than lyrical descriptions of a symbolic place. They featured invariably in the most celebrated accounts of Tang examination experience, not least in some of the poetry that Wang Dingbao cited. For instance, Wang Qi’s response to a poem celebrating his third appointment as chief examiner in 843 begins: My departure from the examination court was twenty frosts ago; Who could know that I should again dishonour command of the literary arena?

Wang Qi’s poem elicited responses from twenty-two of his selected jinshi graduands whose compositions Wang Dingbao preserved as an integral anthology (67). The poems featured nearly all the ninthcentury lyrical metaphors of success in administering and undergoing examinations. Their content also provided source material for dramatic plots and visual representations in the lavish fictions and drama to which later examination culture gave rise.52 Through his validation of this subject matter, Wang Dingbao contributed the earliest editorial rigour to any consideration of the examination ground as a lyrical topos. This notional site deserved the same attention as Chang’an’s grandest palaces, parks, temples and mausolea. A more realistic sense of the Tang examination ground’s appearance remains elusive. Later historians were frequently intrigued by the appearance of Tang examinations, especially since the physical remains of Tang Chang’an were almost entirely dismantled in the tenth century.53 The term “ground rooms” (changwu) occurs in stories concerning late Tang figures (84 94 300), and Hu Sanxing, discussing events of 846, claims that the same term connoted the Tang 52 For considerations of much of this material still manifest in the late Ming period, see Elman (2000): 173–238. 53 See Schafer (1963).

    

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forerunner of the Song “examination court” of the Southern Song.54 In institutional terms, at least, a correspondence existed, but the architectural scope of examination buildings at Lin’an was altogether far more imposing.55 Significantly, many examinations at Kaifeng were still conducted in Buddhist monasteries and state shrines,56 and it is not to be discounted that Tang examinations may have taken place also in the larger religious buildings of Chang’an. Restrictions and controls Several of Wang Dingbao’s stories suggest the loosely controlled atmosphere of examinations. Despite the extent to which candidates were physically segregated from the world outside, they seem to have enjoyed quite free access to each other during the hours of their confinement. However, lax discipline in this respect did not mean that certain other norms in the Department of State Affairs were not observed during the performance of examinations. Talking—not usually associated with the conditions of written examination—is a case in point. Wang Dingbao’s story of a man who had completely misunderstood the social conditions of his predicament illustrates an exchange that clearly defied acceptable norms. Wang Dingbao’s account of his incompetence possesses the added interest of displaying the regional prejudices of the day: Zheng Guangye often talked about the year in which he passed his examination. It was on the night of the dissertations that another candidate burst into his examination cell. Speaking the language of Wu, he said to Guangye: “Imminent elder! Imminent elder! Could you make some room for me? Guangye ceded half the space in his cell to him. The man then went on: “Imminent elder! Imminent elder! I wonder if I might depend on you to fetch me a scoop of water?” Guangye went to fetch it for him. The man then said: “Suppose I troubled you to heat a bowl of tea, could you manage that?” Guangye was quite happy to cook for him. The next day Guangye passed top of the list. The other man was the first to present a letter to him explaining in detail what had transpired the previous night. In brief it said: “Even

ZZTJ: 248.8027. Chaffee (1985): 164–6. 56 Araki (1969): 226–30. On crowded conditions and the need to use more than one venue, see Wenchang zalu: 4.44–5. 54 55

158

  after you had fetched the water and then cooked tea, I did not recognize your eminence at all because of my mortal eyes; now that I am one who follows after you, I have completely understood your features.” (338c)

The visitor’s tactlessness is of course central to a humorous story of his confident progress towards disaster. However, beyond its drama, the story suggests much of great interest about talking. That is, the man from Wu cannot converse properly in the language of the capital. To suggest that Zheng and his importunate guest illustrate the notion of a “national language” versus a dialect would probably overstress such conditions in the Tang period. But, the antithesis between the urbane Zheng, who succeeds almost effortlessly to be recruited into the imperial bureaucracy, and the man from Wu, who cannot speak the Chinese of polite metropolitan circles, is highly relevant to recent anthropological discussions of the bureaucratic fetishism of language.57 Today, precisely monitored national languages—say Chinese (Mandarin) and French—comprise dialects that have outstripped alternative possibilities for national status in adapting successfully to print media.58 The commercial imprint in China did not truly emerge until the century after Zheng Guangye sat his examinations; moreover, printing only appeared as a clear medium of control in examinations in 1012.59 Nevertheless, the aural dimensions of speech on the night of Zheng Guangye’s examinations provide the earliest sense of how examinations strongly privileged the capital bureaucracy’s language. The story of Zheng Guangye and his guest illustrates that late Tang examination candidates recognized at least how not to talk. Ironically, the guest emanated from a region that would become one of the most successful in the examination history of later ages. Even in the Tang, however, entry into elite circles of government demanded the firm mastery of an elite governing class’s Chinese speech forms quite aside from command of the grammar and lexicon of written style. Zheng Guangye and his guest provide a tantalizing view of how language may have worked as an instrument of social policy, which, like other forms of behaviour in the examinations, could be engaged to exclude unsuitable elements.60 Herzfeld (1992): 100. Anderson (1983): 69. 59 This is the first recorded instance when the examiners, who then included emperor Zhenzong (998–1023), distributed questions on printed sheets (Shiwu jiyuan: 3.167; see also Song huiyao jigao, “Examination recruitment” (xuanju): 7.11b–12a). 60 On language and curricula in Ming and Qing examinations, see Elman (2000): 372–80. 57 58

    

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The levity with which Wang Dingbao portrayed Zheng Guangye’s endurance of an examination session was certainly not the tone that every candidate adopted in the face of examination conditions. Other Tang accounts give a far more negative impression of candidates’ submission to thoroughly undignified procedures. Just to get into the examination ground carrying some of the homely utensils that Zheng Guangye manipulated so patiently was a rigorous trial. Regulation body searches during admission were a flashpoint that set off sharp reactions. The most celebrated denunciation of what candidates had to endure is a letter by Shu Yuanyu. Not only a rare insight into real conditions, his brief account is the only Tang document of a critical reaction signed by its author: On the day of the examinations I saw eight hundred men all carrying in their hands grease lamps, water, fuel, soup and bowls for their morning and evening meals. Some had slung these things from their shoulders; others carried them in mats. Any candidate whose name was indolently shouted out by the officials would dart into the thorn enclosure and, mass upon mass, sit down at intervals along the walkways. Winter lingered and the snow flew with just a single mat on the ground. Alas! When Tang and Yu opened the [four] doors61 tribute scholars of the Three Ages were not this slighted.62

Bearing no obvious addressee, this missive reads like a memorial. The realistic conditions that it recounts were familiar in most years, and they match many details preserved in Wang Dingbao’s accounts. Food and cooking utensils especially reinforce the notion that the entrants were challenged to survive an ordeal of sequestration. The candidates’ families and not the state would succour them.63 Shu Yuanyu objected vociferously to the humiliation of carrying pots and pans past security officials, while others protested in muted yet even more defiant terms. Du Mu (803–52) recounted in an epitaph that a certain Li Kan was so appalled at the brutish entrance procedures that, having declared his indignation to the officials in charge, he refused to cooperate and decamped back to Suzhou.64 Once inside the examination ground, the task of completing an examination script entailed all sorts of controlling standards. One Shangshu: 3.19b. Tang wencui: 26A.12a. Shu’s letter is also resumed in his official biography at XTS: 179.5321. 63 See the story of a candidate and his relatives making preparations on the eve of an examination at Yinhua lu: 6.117. 64 Fanchuan wenji: 9.136–8; WYYH: 958.3a–5a. 61 62

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standard that demanded the strictest observation was writing. Wang Dingbao relates nothing directly germane to the procedures for completing and handing in scripts, but another of his disaster stories set in the examination ground suggests the high expectations that candidates had to meet: Fang Xu, a man of Henan, was a grandson of the Grand Marshal.65 In the fourth year of Xiantong [AD 863] he was about to succeed when he met disaster. The list of names had been decided beforehand. But, with no warning, having recopied [his examination answers], his awning collapsed and knocked over the ink slab, which spattered over his examination paper. Because Xu had cousins in important places, and since they had recommended him alone, the examiner had been obliged already to accept him. Xu was facing the dawn as he begged the asistant examiner [for extra time], but the examiner would not consent. Consequently, he failed (211).

The pathos of Fang Xu’s predicament was not that he had failed to complete his examination—he had composed his answers hours earlier—but that he had lost all the time necessary to recopy his drafts. The attention that an examination candidate had to devote to the graphic presentation of his work belongs to an age when candidates had to adhere minutely to a formal standard selected from many orthographical variants still current throughout the Tang period. By the time Fang Xu sat his examination, Yan Yuansun’s Lexicon for Seeking a Salary (Ganlu zishu) had long exhorted aspirant degree-holders to use standard forms of orthography in the examinations scripts. The purpose of such a text was to exert control over orthographic standards even in locations far away from the capital. In the early 770’s Yan Zhenqing (709–784) had undertaken the transcription of his uncle’s lexicon onto a stone monument erected in a town as far away as Huzhou.66 During the examination sessions candidates were also permitted to use as renowned a calligraphy guide as the Models of Calligraphy (Shufa) to raise the quality of their scripts.67 65 taiwei: Fang Guan (697–763) selected this title himself in 756 before leading a loyal yet tactically disastrous attempt to recapture the capitals from rebel control (THY: 78.1423). In 779 he was posthumously honoured as a meritorious subject of the first order (THY: 45.804). See also biographies at JTS: 111.3320–4; XTS: 139.4625–8. 66 For discussion of Yan Yuansun’s text, see McNair (1995): 263–4. 67 The hazards of this allowance are illustrated in the story of a weary candidate who handed in his treasured edition of this text instead of his script (Shangshu gushi: 0.14).

    

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Aside from performing the common task of completing their scripts, control in the examination ground was exercised through the welltested expedient of mutual responsibility. Another of Wang Dingbao’s stories shows that candidates sat in pairs, and it reveals the harsh consequences of misconduct by one or other member of the partnership: On the night of Li Tingbi’s examination in the middle of the Qianfu reign period, he found unexpectedly a pair of short-sleeved jackets inside his cell. Tingbi arose and took one to wear. His cell companion complimented him and said: “This is nothing less than a gift from the spirits!” Moments passed and then another man seized them, shouting loudly: “I’ve caught thieves stealing clothes!” (212)

The jackets that Li Tingbi pilfered signified more than the legal evidence of larceny, since they were items in a scale of dress privileges granted only to those with sufficient rank. Although Wang Dingbao’s account is not specific, whoever apprehended Li Tingbi was quite plausibly another candidate. Patrols to police the examination grounds do not seem to have been called into action before 1008, and it was only after this date that their members assumed any identifiable profile within the Chinese bureaucracy.68 Tang examination authorities, however, delegated much of their disciplinary control to the candidates themselves by demanding their organization into groups of mutual surveillance. It may have been according to this system that when Li Tingbi was caught stealing, the man next to him was implicated too. The surveillance system was enforced principally through pacts of “mutual guarantee” (xiangbao). Discussion in chapter 3 drew attention to forms of guarantee that operated very early on in the examination programme. In 836 the government promulgated precise instructions for mutual guarantees and had them transcribed into the examination regulations.69 Security clearly posed mounting problems throughout the ninth century. According to guarantee requirements, candidates were grouped into five members, and misconduct by one individual could entail a group penalty ranging from three-year to lifelong disbarments. The authorities were concerned in particular to prevent unfilial behaviour and the formation of examination factions. 68 In 1024, the first recorded incumbent of a formal office responsible for patrolling Song examination grounds was extraordinarily enough a man with the family name Kong (Shiwu jiyuan: 3.168; Song huiyao jigao, “Examination recruitment” [xuanju]: 3.14b; cf. Araki [1969]: 214–6). 69 THY: 76.1382; CFYG: 641.6b–7a (dated 844).

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In 953, apparently in the wake of serious demonstrations to protest the examination results, a shaken administration in Kaifeng announced similar rules,70 and Song regulations became more elaborate than ever.71 To deceive the examiner seems to have been almost a matter of course, and, borrowing once more the text of Li Zhao, Wang Dingbao accepted it as a normal element of ninth-century examination culture: If anyone tucked away secrets and entered the examinations, they called it their “correspondence.” (5a)

Wang Dingbao also included a story of Wen Tingyun—Wen Feiqing— that suggests that providing illegal aid during examinations was one of literary life’s truly heroic pursuits: In the year [855] that Vice Minister Shen [Xun] of Shanbei took charge of the examinations, he issued a special summons for Wen Feiqing to sit his examination in front of the [examiner’s] curtain, reasoning that Feiqing loved to help others. When it came to the second day Feiqing grew restless and, late in the afternoon, he requested that the doors be opened so that he could be let out early. He still handed in more than a thousand characters, while some say that unobserved he had helped eight men (363).

Wen Tingyun scored a double triumph, of course, in deceiving both the examiner and the security arrangements. Another account of the 855 examinations claims that Wen Tingyun provided a rhapsody for one of the boxue hongci candidates. In what is probably a more accurate reflection of the underhand dealings that year, this degree caused a loud scandal when it transpired that the titles of the set compositions were leaked before the examination.72 Wang Dingbao’s stories of candidates who were willing to help others reveal the earliest appearance of values—indeed anti-values— associated with candidates’ efforts to somehow preserve their moral integrity during their experience of the examination ground. The examination sessions were the juncture of the annual programme when candidates had to fend for themselves entirely, and a few of them chose to stand up to the system and make it work in favour of those whom they believed most worthy of a degree title. Wang Dingbao relates that when Wen Tingyun was finaly expelled from 70 71 72

CFYG: 642.14b–16b. See Chaffee (1985): 53–61, and 96. Dongguan zouji: C.125–6 (no. 60); THY: 76.1394–5 (wrongly dated); JTS: 18B.633.

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the capital for various offenses against the examination administration— including perhaps selling his compositions to other candidates—the affair caused an uproar. His misfortune was compared to the southern exile of literary giants such as Qu Yuan and Jia Yi (300). This kind of heroism proved to be a highly durable aspect of Chinese examination culture. No less a figure than Ouyang Xiu appears in an apocryphal Song account of his generosity towards a candidate lamentably unable to control his predicament in the Kaifeng examination ground.73 Wang Dingbao said much less concerning tools of deliberate deceit and permitted reference aids. This was, however, a major examination ground issue that often arose in fractious disputes over the integrity of an examiner’s administration. Wang Dingbao noted briefly, for instance, the famous occasion in 821 when Qian Hui’s (755–829)74 selection of candidates was so heavily challenged that the government tasked Bai Juyi to rerun the whole examination (394). Bai Juyi’s own statements on this affair show that on such occasions the issue of what literary aids to allow inside the examination ground could become highly politicized. In contrast with standard practice, Bai Juyi banned the usage of reference works in the re-examination of 821. Since Qian Hui was one of his early political patrons, Bai Juyi may well have stressed the issue of reference aids in order to deflect attention away from more embarrassing venal aspects of Qian Hui’s disgrace—he had accepted artworks from the fathers of several candidates. At least, however, the notion of extraordinarily demanding test standards for once became a reality.75 Describing less fraught circumstances, Wen Tingyun acknowledged a man whom he witnessed entering an examination without any texts at all as a candidate of quite exceptional callibre.76 Tang examiners had never been consistently lenient in what they permitted as reference. In 759, for instance, the examiner Li Kui gave all the candidates free access to the “five canons” (wujing), the histories and the Qieyun, the famous dictionary of rhymes first compiled during Ouyang Xiu supplies half of the man’s answers and helps him to pass (Moji: 2.21). See also THY: 76.1380; JTS: 16.648; CFYG: 640.16b–17a; ZZTJ: 241.7790–1; cf. Rotours (1932): 181–2. Qian Hui’s biographers relate how the fathers of the aspiring candidates tried to buy Qian Hui’s favour ( JTS: 168.4382–6; XTS: 177.5271–3). 75 “Memorial discussing the causes for re-examining the jinshi” (Bai Juyi ji: 60.1265–6). See also Waley (1949): 134–5. 76 Gansun zi, cited at TPGJ: 261.2044. 73

74

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the Sui dynasty, which Feng Yan regarded as “the regulator of literary writing.”77 The market for these dictionaries rose dramatically during the Tang.78 So too did the demand for works that essentialized the use of literary style in examination compositions.79 Clearly, the traffic of certain texts in and out of the Tang examination ground was regulated quite laxly. Only in 1005 did the Song examination authorities announce formally that candidates had long resorted to smuggling texts, and in 1011 they issued further instructions banning the use of all texts in the examination grounds except for the Qieyun and later standard rhyming aids.80 That legislation, however, followed an age when candidates and their supervisors’ attitude towards cheating was extraordinarily phlegmatic. Indeed, in 836, the misdemeanors listed in the recommendation to enforce mutual guarantee pacts did not include any mention of cheating inside the examination ground. Wang Dingbao’s attitude to ruses in the examination ground therefore was not unusually laisser-faire. So many other criteria proved who was eligible for a degree in the Tang examination programme that cheating in the examination ground provided only negligible aid to maximize a candidate’s chances of success. However, attitudes on the part of the controlling authorities hardened in the Five Dynasties. In 929 the Latter Tang government promulgated anti-cheating measures that demanded candidates hand in paper for their examination compositions five days before the examination date. Furthermore, the Chancellery (zhongshu sheng) was to stamp its seal on these papers before they were redistributed in the examination ground. Of course, this attempt to perfect the task of authentication produced an intol-

77 JTS: 126.3559–61; XTS: 150.4807–09. Two works existed with the same title Qieyun, compiled respectively by Lu Fayan ( JTS: 46.1985; XTS: 57.1448) and Li Zhou (XTS: 57.1451; Songshi: 202.5075). For Feng Yan’s evaluation of a work of this title, see Feng shi wenjian ji jiaozhu: 2.12. 78 An anecdote circulating in the late Northern Song related how a fainéant Tang candidate in ninth-century south China depended for years on his mistress—an immortal disguised as a songstress—to sell editions of the Tangyun, which she handcopied for busy retail (Xuanhe shupu: 5.4a–5a). 79 One of the lost works of this category was Lu Zhi’s “Literary phrases for use in examinations” (Beiju wenyan), 20 juan, listed at XTS: 59.1563, Zhao De xiansheng junzhai dushu zhi (Quzhou edition), 14.19a. 80 Yanyi yimou lu: 2.11; Song huiyao jigao, “Examination recruitment” (xuanju): 3.9b; cf. Araki (1969): 340–1.

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erable workload, and before long the Chancellery refused to do it. In 935, then, a modification to the previous measures delegated the same task to the Examination Court.81 These changes signified lasting moves away from Tang patterns of patronage in the highest levels of the bureaucracy. Tenth-century government bureaucratized the conduct of examinations with increasing intensity. In 1011, according to the same measures that restricted the use of textual aids, candidates even had to hand in their writing stands for placement numbering.82 Other measures, such as safeguards for anonymity, surveillance patrols, recopying of the papers and so on became legendary practices in the later empires. But, the innovation of 929 and its reform in 935 stand as milestones in the longer transition. Before that, of course, Wang Dingbao documented examination conditions that would have evoked sheer puzzlement from generations of examination candidates after 960. Even more significantly, the manner of implementing the Latter Tang’s security devices illustrated a new acknowledgement that the highest levels of government were no longer keen to assume a direct role in running the examinations. Senior Tang statesmen had frequently immersed themselves fully in practical issues of the examinations’ administration. In Wang Dingbao’s story, for instance, Shen Xun even thought he knew how to control the uncontrollable Wen Tingyun. But, the Five Dynasties witnessed the erosion of senior statesmen’s willingness to engage with practical problems of examination recruitment. Additionally, as the administrative task of examinations became larger, the number of personnel grew accordingly. Senior officials could delegate more. Thus, as administrative bonds between senior levels of officialdom and examination candidates weakened, the Tang structures of communication between examiners and their charges became correspondingly looser. L      Wang Dingbao collected several personal recollections of the examination night. Even if candidates felt that an examination session 81 82

WDHY: 23.369, also at Shiwu jiyuan: 3.166–7. Shiwu jiyuan: 3.167; Song huiyao jigao, “Examination recruitment” (xuanju): 3.9b.

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impugned their honour, several of them wrote poems that immortalized the experience in the most ideal terms. Since poets also inscribed these tributes on the fabric of the site itself, the actual location of the Tang examination system was in some measure also the text of its history. The system operated amid forms of literary commemoration whose content is only rarely preserved. The amount of Tang verse inscribed on buildings, rock-faces and other free surfaces could once have filled a volume as thick as the eighteenth-century Complete Tang poems (Quan Tangshi ). Whether writers left their compositions as un-guarded inscriptions exposed to the dangers of time and decay or else preserved them apart in their own literary collections dictated obvious priorities for the survival of their literary output. The examination ground is an intriguing site amid these editorial choices, since it features in no verse other than that transmitted by others directly from the surfaces of the architecture itself. Clearly, it was a site worth commemorating predominantly in—not outside—its strictly defined limits. Wang Dingbao’s record of an inscription made in 867 is a rare sample of this kind of commemoration composed and left at the site that inspired it: During the Xianguang83 reign period Wei Chengyi84 sat his dissertation examination, and that night he secretly inscribed a poem in long lines on the southwest corner of the Great Hall: My wide robe and loose belt is covered in dirt;85 Alone I have mounted to the Great Hall and returned from handing in my test. In the brushwood lanes when will I hear talk of auspices? To these thorn hedges will I ever manage to avoid returning?

83 A corruption of Xiantong. That Wei Chengyi passed the jinshi with Pi Rixiu in 867 is documented in the latter’s poem “Poem sent to my fellow graduand Collator Wei”, Pi Zi wensou: Appendix I, p. 175. 84 Nothing else is known of Wei Chengyi’s life. For several generations the Weis had reached senior positions in provincial military commands (XTS: 74A.3077). Pi Rixiu’s poem (previous note) reveals that, following their examination success, Wei Chengyi was appointed a collator in the imperial library. 85 baoyi bodai: described the dress of feudal lords when attending the Zhou royal court (Liji: 40.13a–b, and 14b. See also its signification for Confucian dress at Hanshu: 71.3035. The locus classicus for chen’ai “dirt” is at Zhuangzi: 1.1.4. All of these expressions recall Qu Yuan’s lament during his exchange with a fisherman: “How can I in unblemished white be covered in mundane dirt?” (“The Fisherman”, Chu ci jinzhu: 199).

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When the third candle is out the bell swings;86 After nine transformations the ingot forms but the cauldon is not opened.87 The last of the moon sinks gradually and men become perturbed;88 No one knows who has the talent of a banished immortal.89

This is the first of two poems that Wang Dingbao recorded one after another and then annotated (see below). In this first poem, which conflates most of the standard images of the examination night, particularly those of Daoist appeal, Wei Chengyi opens and closes with self-referential images of Qu Yuan in exile. He condensed the great poet’s loyal and ultimately futile engagement with political life into a theme of dirtiness that other writers used to denigrate examinations. Li Pin’s urgent solicitation to a friend to forget his most recent examination failure is typical: “if you hang up your mat, you will abandon this dirt”.90 Wei Chengyi’s allusion to Qu Yuan’s political disgrace was not dangerous, yet it was still an emphatic means of contesting state views of examinations and stressing candidates’ widespread dismay at examination conditions. He even wrote this down on state property. Immediately following Wei Chengyi’s four couplets is a short verse: White lotus a thousand blooms illuminate the walkways brightly; A level of harmony rises in the sound of elegant rhymes. As soon as they announce that the third candle is out The scenery of the Southern Palace becomes hard to paint successfully.

Since candidates were obliged to wear the white of commoner status, Wei Chengyi alluded to the idea of a thousand white lotus blooms in the analogous setting of a Buddhist congregation. It is one

86 For a reference to tolling a bell to announce the results, see Wei Zhuang’s poem “Written on the day of posting the list”, Huanhua ji: 1.7b. 87 For the classic account of alchemy using these terms, see Baopu zi: neipian 4, “Jindan”. See also Yunji qiqian: 76.10a–b. 88 rao rao: in the Liezi this expression satirizes the Confucian outlook in its description of a man who, awakened from a state of oblivion, must endure the extremes of life and death, gain and loss, joy and grief (Lie Zi jishi: 3.68). See another use in Guoyu: 12.413. 89 zhe xian: i.e. banished from another world to live among mortals. For a famous self-referential association of the “banished immortal” and literary talent, see Li Bai’s preface to a poem in remembrance of He Zhizhang (Li Bai ji jiaozhu: 23.1362). 90 “Seeing off my friend who failed the examinations and returned to Wanling”, Liyue shiji: 0.14a.

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of several instances when candidates equated their status with the Buddhist clergy, an imaginative act that was also cardinal in formulations of the ceremony of gratitude to be discussed in the following chapter. Wang Dingbao also annotated Wei Chengyi’s poems: By the beginning of the Guanghua reign period [898] these [texts] had been obliterated here and there by the wall painters. Yang Dong noticed this and took action, so that they might remain as they were (422).

The archaeology of Tang examinations had begun. Before the end of the dynasty, then, Wei Chengyi’s reference to paintings featuring the Southern Palace may connote objects that fulfilled demand for generic views of this site. Whether their artists aimed to visualize its architecture as the venue of examinations or even to include any of the examinations’ personnel and the candidates is unknown. Considering that many aspects of examination life had emerged as Tang literary tropes, it would not be surprising if they attracted corresponding attention in elite painting, just as they certainly did by early Ming times. Composition and calligraphy, however, were by far the most transposable media, so that writing on buildings emerged as a leading cultural pursuit during the examination sessions as well as in many ceremonies that followed. Another famous inscription from two decades earlier was Wei Fu’s ( js 830) seven-character verse, which he inscribed in the examination ground soon after he was appointed to run the examinations of 847. His poem gained an unhappy notoriety after an unknown visitor deleted parts of it to create a five-character verse satirizing the original author’s fitness to act as examiner.91 The walls of the examination ground displayed inscriptions to an avid readership who responded whenever opportunities allowed them to generate new messages on top of old. Wang Dingbao’s citation of Wei Chengyi’s poem provides a profoundly different sense of the examination ground when compared with his stories of disaster. Just as accounts of candidates’ experiences in the examination ground were ambivalent, so too were their commonest self-images. One of the leading expressions of candidate status was the description of a commoner wearing white. The image of white—equally translatable as “plain”—was central to Wei Chengyi’s poem in which he alluded to the white dress of lay Buddhist disci-

91

Tangshi jishi jiaojian: 51.1379.

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pleship.92 This was a common enough conceit in the ninth century, but acquaintances close to Wang Dingbao made him notice whiteness’ other allusions. His protégé, a certain Lu, mentioned already in Chapter 2, styled himself the “white-robed minister” (baiyi qingxiang) (94). This and the similar expression “white gowns of the first rank” ( yipin baishan) (6a) were two high evaluations of jinshi status that dwelled on the obligatory white uniform of candidates during their confinement in the examinations. The notion of “white robes” had also long connoted a scholar without official rank. For instance, Wei Yingwu (b. 737) recalled his youth as a “man in white robes.”93 Similarly, Li Guan referred to his low rank in the boastful opening to one of his letters seeking political patronage: “Guan is a king’s minister in white robes.”94 White also stood for the stainless conduct of past sages, and it attracted the attention of factional alliances. Cui Zao (737–87) and three other scholars in south China named themselves the white-robed Kuis, alluding to the two ministers Kui who served Yao and Shun.95 Some writers equated the obligatory white uniform of examinations with hemp, even visualizing candidates as a multitude of “hemp robes like snow”.96 More ominously, white did not indulge solely auspicious associations. Often it symbolized political exile.97 For the residual majority of examination candidates, the white uniform of examination life was a humiliation. Onlookers often stigmatized candidates’ appearance in white, especially if it was as recurrent as the unfortunate Song Ji. Wang Dingbao records how this man achieved the irksome notoriety of an annual institution after countless years of his appearance in a white examination gown (244a–b). Wang Dingbao also cited a lyrical summation of an examination career

92 For Bai Juyi’s references to a “white-robed layman”, see a poem addressed to four monks at Bai Juyi ji: 30.687; and, a poem and the preface to a poem at Bai Juyi ji: 31.701, 36.824. 93 Wei Suzhou ji: 6.5a–b. 94 Li Yuanbin wenji: 4.7a–9a. 95 Liu Binke jiahua lu: 0.77–8; also at TPGJ: 151.1087–8. See also Cui Zao’s biographies at JTS: 130.3625–7, XTS: 150.4813–4. Another member of the groups is identified as leader at Guoshi bu: C.58; also at TYL: Addenda, p. 755 (no. 1092). On the Four Kuis, see also Guoshi bu: C.54; also at TYL: 4.358–9 (no. 520). 96 Niu Xiji, “Discussion on promoting scholars”, WYYH: 760.12a–15a. 97 Shen Quanqi, “Rejoicing over an amnesty”, Quan Tangshi: 96.1040; Zhang Ji, “Presented to Regulator Li”, Zhang Ji shiji: 6.71.

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featuring hemp dress as a depressing image of political stagnation in the 860’s: Liu Xubai had once shared his ink slab and mat with Duke Pei of Taiping.98 By the time the duke became examiner, Xubai was still a candidate. When he sat the examination in literary compositions he presented a quatrain before the examiner’s curtain: Twenty years ago on this night, The same candles, the same customs. I do not know how much longer it could be that I must still wear hemp robes and await an impartial judgement. (97)

This and a few other poems in Wang Dingbao’s collection reveal the emotional atmosphere of the Tang examination night. He provided other insights into the examinations’ surroundings with stories concerning uncommon individual experiences. Both poems and stories were doubtless read in part for the didactic guidance they provided on laudable and reprehensible conduct in the examinations. But, what Wang Dingbao’s collection significantly lacks is a prescriptive account of how to conduct—and how to perform in—examinations that matches at any level his careful prescriptions of examination ceremonies. Only with the graphic and performative dimensions of posting the results does he return to this priority. A   The first public announcement of graduands’ new status was the annual pass list (bang), which was written down and hung up to view. The priorities for its contents changed over time. Wang Dingbao relates that only until 707 did pass lists declare each candidate’s status as a provincial tribute scholar or a graduate of one of the government schools (10a). From then onwards, it was probably exceptional if later pass lists recorded distinctions in degree-holders’ backgrounds. Only the ninth-century compiler Fan Shu noted that in 807, when Wu Wuling gained his jinshi degree, he was listed at the bottom of the list because he had not attended a government school.99 But the authorities’ unusual reaction to this student’s status occurred during

98 99

For Pei Tan’s appointment as examiner in late 859, see JTS: 19A.650. Yunqi youyi: 3.56; also at TYL: 6.580–1 (no. 836).

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an extremely brief effort in 806–808 to raise the prestige of government education (8, 9). The examination authorities compiled pass lists for each degree as well as for prefectural examinations and the concurrent autumn examinations run in government schools. Wang Dingbao mentions lists promulgated at Huazhou (70), and he records that Wen Tingyun, who served as an erudite at the Grand Academy (taixue), posted a pass list for the autumn examinations in the Great Hall (dutang) (266), the usual site of the examinations and often the venue for examination ceremonies performed later in the annual programme. According to Wang Dingbao, the contents of early lists changed in tandem with modifications to the examination syllabus. Once the government had regularized examinations in three rounds of testing in 705, pass lists began to feature the titles of each year’s poems and rhapsodies (13d). Here, however, Wang Dingbao’s prescription for the appearance of pass lists so early on in the dynasty may be anachronistic. Although the reform of the jinshi syllabus was recommended and granted in 681, the earliest known title of a rhapsody dates to 713; that of a poem to 723.100 During the first three decades of the eighth century, examiners sometimes selected other genres, such as eulogies (song) and remonstrances (zhen) for the zawen tests.101 Thus, the habitual selection of lyrical genres in examinations must have affected appearances more gradually than Wang Dingbao suggested. His view was obviously coloured by late Tang conditions, for, in the long run, the inclusion of poetry titles on pass lists reflected broadening recognition of the correspondence between lyrical composition skills and the jinshi degree. This was later manifest in the appearance of actual lists. When Wen Tingyun gained permission for the unusual act of posting a pass list following a preliminary examination of students from the education directorate, the list included his selected candidates’ best lyrical writings (266). The pass list was the central physical presence in the ceremonial announcement that authorized new degree awards. Wang Dingbao reports a prescription for the visual appearance of this document:

100 See a fu and a shi given these respective dates at WYYH: 70.1a–4a; Tangshi jishi jiaojian: 20.503. 101 See instances collected at Dengke jikao: 7.238, 243 and 250.

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  At the head of the jinshi list they paste four sheets of yellow paper upright.102 Then, with a stiff brush and thin ink, they write four rolling and turning characters that announce: Board of Rites Examination Court [libu gongyuan]. Some claim that emperor Wen [Taizong, r. 627–49] wrote this swiftly in “flying white”.103 To others it seems to have been drafted in another world and granted on earth. Jinshi, according to the old rules, were examined in the Main Department.104 (402)

Wang Dingbao’s comments are cautiously sceptical. He was well aware that Taizong’s rule finished nearly a century before the Board of Rites assumed responsibility for examinations. Would it have been too blunt to question this inconsistency more directly? The answer is probably yes. The conditions that Wang Dingbao reported provide a sense of strong popular belief in Taizong’s authority. The use of the emperor’s canonization Wenhuang correctly honours his memory, and it identifies him not simply as an historical figure but as the subject of his ongoing official cult. Symbolically at least, the giant presence of this emperor still presided over examination recruitment. In addition, through selecting one of his favourite calligraphy styles, the creators of pass lists used Taizong’s famed artistry both to express his authority and to write the incontrovertible sign of his presence. The same notions operated in the large characters that titled the foundation stele erected in Chang’an’s Temple to Confucius. These too were written in Taizong’s hand, and their significance as tools of legitimacy is amply demonstrated in the fact that, following Empress Wu’s interference during the Zhou interregnum, Tang restorationists remade the inscription in its original form.105 If examinations and the Confucian cult prioritized their links with the Taizong era through the same visual expressions, both activities also demonstrate that the visual productions that they gave rise to were only tenuously linked to original historical artefacts. For instance, Wang Dingbao’s account of pass lists draws attention to the yellow writing surface of imperial announcements.

102 In 676 the Department of State Affairs adopted new measures to use yellow paper for all notifications to provincial and county commands (THY: 57.985). 103 Several Tang rulers set standards for this rapid writing with a semi-dry brush. The only material evidence of the style, however, is stone engravings, most notably the cover of Yuchi Jingde’s (585–658) epitaph, now located in the Zhaoling Museum, Liquan county, Shaanxi province. For the classic account of the invention of “flying white” during the Eastern Han, see Fashu yaolu: 7.111. 104 dusheng: the informal name of the Department of State Affairs (Shangshu sheng). 105 Nanbu xinshu: 7.101.

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This was another anachronism, for the implementation of this standard medium for distribution to prefectures and counties dated to the late seventh century and long after Taizong’s lifetime. But such inconsistencies were of no consequence when matched with the powerful symbolism that any link through writing style offered to the most glorious early reign of the dynasty. Remarkably, this was still true for pass lists written until late in the Song dynasty.106 If Wang Dingbao held also a more objective view of Taizong’s imperial autograph, he was cautious enough to state his reservations unobtrusively. He offered an alternative explanation from the world of magic. Quite willing to accept supernatural control in the secret and published outcomes of examinations, he reports a widespread belief that pass lists had been “drafted in another world.” His belief in this respect fitted his acceptance of dreams and portentous omens as premonitions and even agents of success. He recorded an account not only of his own dream (182) but those of three other men (179 180 181). His account of Wang Bo’s residence in a Yangzhou monastery features a verse in which Wang Bo alluded explicitly to a widespread belief in the pre-ordination of minsterial promotions (147).107 Wang Dingbao also preserved the recollections of candidates who sought prognostications from a Buddhist monk (148), a Daoist expert (178b), and a professional oracle (311). In the story of the Daoist expert’s assistance, Lu Qiu’s future success is first revealed through the agency of an oracular list and then confirmed in the same list once the examiner has issued it.108 The story is categorized under the heading “Drafted in another world and granted on earth”, and its structure successfully reflects supernatural lore to correspond with the same prescriptive appearance defined for pass lists. Lists remained central in any imaginary conjurations of access to the bureaucracy’s most secret deliberations. The second of two more accounts of omens (183, 184) also relates an oracle’s content to a specific position on the pass list. The efficacy of pass lists as the graphical media for transferring predictions and results between the See a citation of Wang Dingbao’s text as the authority for calligraphic presentations of Song pass lists at Shiwu jiyuan: 3.169. 107 Confronting a wall inscription written in his youth, Wang Bo referred to gauze curtains hanging in front of his face. He alluded to the notion that, in imaginary gallery of statues, ministers-to-be had their heads veiled as a sign of their auspicious prospects. For an analysis of Wang Bo’s allusion, see Zhao (1986). 108 For a lengthy consideration of this story, see Barrett (1992): 44. 106

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human and spiritual worlds had already absorbed much attention during the ninth century and earlier.109 In addition, prescribed forms for the pass list’s appearance dominated examinations for centuries to come. Their “flying white” calligraphy endured late into the Song examinations where Cheng Dachang (1123–95) noted this style as an inheritance of Tang practice.110 Belief in omens and the authority of oracles also grew apace among the generations who entered an examination system of growing complexity and size. Wang Dingbao was also fascinated by the role that the pass list played in official ceremonial performance. His assertion that ceremonial parades of lists happened in the dynasty’s earliest years again indulges the notion that Taizong had played a formative role three centuries earlier in prescribing rituals of promulgating examination success: At the beginning of the Zhenguan reign, on a day when the list was posted, the emperor went unofficially to the central gateway. He watched the jinshi beneath their list form a procession and leave. Excitedly, he exclaimed to his attendants: the world’s most outstanding men have entered within my range! (401)

That Taizong ever lavished such exclusive attention on the new jinshi degree-holders seems dubious. So early in Tang history examination rituals had not achieved the pre-eminence that they were later destined to do. What Wang Dingbao presents as a procession of jinshi scholars is almost certainly an account of performance during a later period. Its ahistorical conflation with Taizong’s presence most likely reflects tenth-century exaggeration of the antiquity of pass list ceremonies. Substitute a late Tang ruler for the implausible presence of Taizong and the scene might be a credible recollection of historical conditions in the late Tang and Five Dynasties. Consider, for instance, a poem by Wei Zhuang, in which the list on a banner is chief among the symbols of a procession: At the sound of the celestial drum they open the gates, Thirty immortal talents have been placed on the emerald banner.111

Lyrical visions such as this also match Wang Dingbao’s apparent assumption that only a written release of successful candidates’ names 109 For another famous example of the supernatural agency of lists, see the story of Li Jun during the examination of 784 in Xu xuanguai lu: 2.166–8; TPGJ: 341.2702–3. 110 Yonglu: 8.3b. 111 Huanhua ji: 1.7b.

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could authenticate their new status. The bureaucratic faith in writing, which had not always run so deep in the examinations, is yet again an interesting reflection of late Tang practice. Much earlier, during the Kaiyuan era, the list of names was sung out in front of members of the government during a ceremony known as “calling out the degrees” (changdi ), held in the Department of State Affairs.112 It attracted close attention in the highest circles, but, like so many other elements of early Tang culture, it was perhaps a casualty of the An Lushan wars, since it does not resurface in subsequent Tang records. In Wang Dingbao’s day the most familiar form of announcing the successful candidates’ was the promulgation of an approved list of names. His prescription for this annual event reveals the ceremonial manipulation of a formal document at a predetermined moment in a precise location of the government city: In the Southern Court they posted the list. (The Southern Court was where the Board of Rites ran the administration and accepted documents. All prescribed forms together with the stipulations for each [degree] category were usually publicized here.) The wall for hanging the list was by the eastern wall of the Southern Court. In a separate building a screen was erected which stood over ten feet tall, and it was surrounded with a fence. Before dawn they took the list from the Northern Court113 to the Southern Court where it was hung for display. In the sixth year of Yuanhe [AD 811] a student at the University, Guo Dongli, broke through the thorn hedge. (The thorn hedge was below the fence. There was another outside the main gate of the Southern Court.) He then ripped up the ornamented list [wenbang]. It was because of this that afterwards they often came out of the gateway of the Department [of State Affairs] with a mock list. The real list was displayed a little later. (403)

Wang Dingbao’s account of posting the pass list provides the only view of the Board of Rites’ Southern Court (nanyuan) as a functional site. It became now the display stage for the semi-mystical listing of names, which Wang Dingbao prescribed in such detail. Other reasons led visitors to this court. Wang Dingbao’s account reveals that its noticeboards dispensed vital information that candidates for all degrees needed in order to steer their way through each year’s regulations.

112 Da Tang chuanzai: 0.10; this practice is also mentioned at TD: 15.356; THY: 75.1377; CFYG: 639.24a–25a. 113 This location is not documented in other sources.

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But, that business, like the confined conduct of examinations, did not figure prominently in the annual examinations’ rhythm of major ceremonial gatherings. The court assembly of prospective candidates had been the last occasion to present these men in full view of the court before they disappeared in the rough handling and obscurity of an examination ground. Subsequently, only the posting of the pass-list manifested the names of a select few for the inspection of officialdom. Posting the list was scheduled before dawn during the hour that officialdom reserved for all its most significant ritual engagements. One of Kang Pian’s stories is an evocative account of candidates keeping a nightlong vigil before messengers bring the earliest news of the results.114 That reflected almost certainly the most common experience of attending the list’s first announcement. Zhao Lin first recorded an afternoon posting in 816, but a century later Wang Dingbao still regarded that event as exceptional (389). Pass lists for mingjing—and presumably other annual degrees—also appeared in the Southern Court.115 Only the announcement of decree examination results demanded a different ceremony due to their status as a direct imperial declaration, itself materialized as a text that descended in a model phoenix from atop one of the palace gates.116 Wang Dingbao’s prescriptive account of posting the list raises once more the question of location during this stage of the examination programme. His account suggests that the Board of Rites’ Southern Court was part of the formal headquarters of the examination administration. Like the Examination Court ( gongyuan), mentioned earlier, it was not likely to have been the venue for seating hundreds of men in examination sessions. An authoritative Song view of Chang’an toponymy would later claim almost certainly without error that the Southern Court and the Examination Court were synonyms for the same site.117 The buildings and open precincts were located directly south of the Great Hall.118 The name “Southern Court”, however, is open to confusion with other areas of the bureaucracy. The name also denoted the Board Jutan lu: B.50. See Huang Tao’s poem to a mingjing graduand at Huang yushi gong ji: 3.13b. 116 See a poem imagining the regular form of announcing decree examination results at Liu Yuxi ji jianzheng: 28.912. See also pre-Tang prescriptive accounts for decree announcements at Yiwen leiju: 99.1707, Chuxue ji: 30.725. 117 However, Cheng Dachang cited no Tang sources for this claim (Yonglu: 8.3b–4a) 118 Shi (1996): maps at 80–81 and 82–83. See also Seo (2001): 123. 114 115

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of Personnel’s lower precinct, which adjoined directly on the western side. According to Li Zhao, the Board of Personnel’s Southern Court gained its formal designation in 734 barely two years before the Board relinquished control of recruitment examinations. It used its court to post lists of official appointments in a manner reminiscent of hanging up public lists of appointments during the Han and later periods.119 During the early Tang, the name “Southern Court” remained synonymous with the Board of Personnel and its functions. The records kept here carried enough authority to settle even the worst disputes in service assessment and promotion.120 Li Zhao’s record is also the first to state that in 736 the Board of Rites established its Examination Court (gongyuan).121 From then on, the courts of Rites and Personnel existed side by side with distinct functions. How the distinction was expressed during the rest of the Tang is unclear, but first Bai Juyi and then Wang Dingbao identified specifically the Board of Rites’ precinct as the Southern Court.122 Two courts sharing the same name suggests that the Board of Rites eventually re-deployed an old toponymy from the Board of Personnel along with its rich symbolic associations. This has interesting implications. It means that ceremonies of the annual examination programme gradually gained familiar surroundings in a process that occluded the erstwhile relevance of the Board of Personnel. This shift is almost imperceptible because the homological description “Southern Court” obscures clearer distinctions. However, posting official appointment boasted a history many centuries older than the relatively novel procedures for promulgating degree results. And, the newer procedures almost certainly borrowed the timing, spatial arrangements and visual forms of the old. Posting examination pass lists soon diverted attention away from ritual expressions once devoted to the nomination of official ranks. Nobody wrote about ceremonies of promotion in the Board of Personnel after 755. Such an exchange of

119 Such lists are mentioned in the context of corrupt office-seeking at Jinshu, 26.781. 120 See the story of a man who, having failed a selection for office (xuan), forces the authorities to rectify his unfair treatment by retrieving his file from the Board of Personnel’s Southern court (Chaoye qianzai: 5.112). 121 Guoshi bu: 3.50 and 56. 122 For the forlorn appearance of the Southern Court when it remained locked in the spring of 827 following the suspension of examinations that year, see the poem “Southern Court” at Bai Juyi ji: 25.558.

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priorities matches the longer medieval period’s shift of attention away from conferring status with official posts towards selection with degree titles. Wang Dingbao’s account of the Southern Court proceedings also recounts the use of examination ceremony to control potential outbreaks of violence. Guo Dongli’s bitter frenzy was the sole act that secured his name for posterity, but his outrage had one lasting and extraordinary effect. Haunted by its loss of control during the listposting in 811, the Board of Rites resorted to disposable replicas and artful feints in order to shield its ceremonial engagements from antagonists determined to disrupt the proceedings. Whether it employed genuine or false artefacts, and regardless of whether it ran the performance twice, the actions of this ceremony did not vary. The examinations’ theatricality was not just another ritual enactment of bureaucratic government. It policed unruliness. Had the ritual announcement of results not absorbed the enthusiasm of the Board of Rites to the extent that it clearly did, then the alternative solutions of presenting the list in a securer location or else re-designing the whole performance might have outweighed the simple expedient of trial performance as a means of deception. Rioting in the wake of examination results is otherwise not documented in the late Tang. Only in the tenth century does some sense of the problem re-emerge. In 933, the examiner He Ning won popular acclaim by doing away with thorn barricades and throwing open the doors of the examinations’ central office in Luoyang.123 Full-scale rioting had broken out at least once a few years earlier. What He Ning did was most unusual, and it is questionable whether he would have acted so confidently if the Latter Tang government had not already insisted since 928 that prefectures under its control operate selection and despatch procedures more stringently.124 The pressures at the centre of the examination system were controllable only if provincial authorities farther afield opened alternative safety valves. No Song examiner is recorded to have been able to repeat He Ning’s gestures denoting open trust between administrators, successful graduands and the vexatious constituency of residual failures.

123 CFYG: 651.4a; Shengshui yantan: 6.69. See also He Ning’s biographies at JWDS: 127.1671–3; XWDS: 55.639–40. 124 WDHY: 23.366.

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C No other inhabitant of the Tang dynasty recounted as much as Wang Dingbao concerning the examination sessions. His collected reminiscences of enduring the examination night suggest that these long confinements represented an unwelcome detour from the main route of the annual examination programme. Reactions to this hidden and sometimes humiliating engagement suggest all too strongly the participants’ sense of bewilderment and frustration. Wang Dingbao recorded nothing of a prescriptive nature to reveal how the examination sessions were more firmly integrated within the rest of the annual programme that he presented in such strong detail. He certifies that examinations were held in the Department of State Affairs, but clearly he did not accept that the sessions formed a programmatic element of the season on a par with court examination ceremonies and the complex dealings required for finding a literary patron. He offered considered advice to the political novice entering the residence of a potential patron; but he had no professional tips for the white-gowned candidate on his way into the examination ground. Perhaps his unwillingness to recognize examination sessions as a ritual stage in the programme was the result of his own experience of examinations session held outside the capital. Whatever norms had obtained previously in Chang’an, they must have been drastically simplified once the government staff had squeezed into its cramped quarters in Huazhou during the temporary evacuation from the capital in 897–8. But, even back in the capital, Tang examination sessions seem not to have fired officialdom’s imagination in the same way that they later did during the Song. Consider, lastly, Shen Gua’s (1033–97) nostalgic view of Tang procedures: When the Examination Court of the Board of Rites tested the jinshi candidates, it set out incense stands below the steps. The examiner and the candidates bowed to each other. This was an old custom of the Tang era.125

Were these just the smoke and smell of Shen Gua’s fancy? Or did he record a dimension of the proceedings that his Tang ancestors forgot to mention? Given how Wang Dingbao was sometimes liable

125

Mengqi bitan jiaozheng: 1.78 (no. 25).

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to exaggerate the significance of past ritual by confusing it with its appearance in the present, perhaps Shen Gua was similarly misguided. His view of a Tang examination session certainly varies considerably with the vexation that Tang candidates expressed concerning the indignity of entering examinations. Only when the candidates re-appeared at the conclusion of their ordeal did Wang Dingbao’s interest in the annual examination programme re-engage with the progressive momentum of prescribed acts and words, beginning with the posting of the list. Nothing contrasted more sharply in Tang experiences of examinations than the seclusion of sitting examinations at dead of night and the deep fulfilment of inclusion on an announcement of successful names. The unsociable timing and the secure enclosures around examinations hid candidates from the Tang capital’s seasonal rhythm and its public life. Announcing the pass list was the signal for new graduands to re-emerge and to participate in the rest of the annual programme of examination ritual. Pass lists represented not only moments of transition. They were material symbols that ranked among the earliest and most effective of imperial China’s instruments to promote examinations in the public sphere of government culture. Perhaps their power was even borrowed from the operation of magic. Certainly, unlike examination sessions, they were the agents of a blissful continuum between the early stages of the annual examination programme and the exclusive rituals that now followed.

CHAPTER SIX

CEREMONIES OF GRATITUDE The second half of the annual examination programme involved only successful graduands. They might participate in any or all of three events: “hopeful gatherings” (qiji ), the “ceremony of gratitude” (xie’en), and the “procession through the Hall” (guotang). Neither the hopeful gathering nor the two ceremonies that followed were subjects of codified ritual. True, they borrowed features of state ritual as well as elements of current Buddhist and Daoist ritual performance, but their designs and aims were essentially innovations, which examiners and candidates developed from the late eighth century onwards. Wang Dingbao’s Collected Statements is the richest source available for understanding how ceremonial performances enabled new graduands to project themselves into the forefront of the political culture of their day. His text includes an account of the hopeful gatherings, featuring the preparations and rehearsal that graduands undertook for the subsequent events. He gives an unparalleled set of directives for graduands’ meeting with their examiner during the ceremony of gratitude when they thanked him for awarding them degrees. He also provides similarly detailed directives for the procession through the Hall when the examiner presented the new degree-winners to senior members of the government and—less regularly—the emperor. In addition, Wang Dingbao collected the text of a famous memorial by Li Deyu, whose protest against the validity of the ceremony of gratitude documents the most vehement attack on the annual examination programme to have survived. To read documents concerning the ceremony of gratitude is to consider a quite different atmosphere of ritual observance, one that was frequently stigmatized as the decadent breeding ground of factional alliances. Certainly, this ceremony raised more controversy than any other in the Tang. Wang Dingbao’s records reveal a ritual performance in which the examiner still played the central role in graduands’ perceptions of their obligations for their recent success. They reveal also precisely what words and gestures were expected at a ceremony that Tang examiners still controlled before Song emperors assumed much of the examiner’s role for themselves.

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Although the position of the examiner in the ceremony of gratitude remained powerful during the Tang, this chapter considers also the gradual eclipse of his centrality beside the rise of a newer ceremony, namely the procession through the Hall. The analysis of this second ceremony will suggest that its performance enacted solutions to the political tensions that consistently marred the ceremony of gratitude. Most clearly, this late Tang recurrent event resolved the hitherto controversial role of the examiner by locating him in a new position as intermediary between his political promovendi and the government that he served. Perhaps Wang Dingbao recognized the significance of the procession through the Hall for promoting a more public expression of recruitment ideals. Nevertheless, he was definitely more concerned by the criticism that the ceremony of gratitude gained from its detractors. His understanding of Li Deyu’s aims to restrict performances of the ceremony of gratitude was misguided to the extent that he believed this complex personality to be an absolute opponent of the examination system and all its ceremonial expressions. Although his own prejudices may have overstressed the damage for which Li Deyu was responsible, he nevertheless elucidated a common ninth-century resentment of any attempt to reform ceremonial expressions of intimate and private political alliances. H  New graduands convened hopeful gatherings as soon as, or even before, the pass list had been issued. The venue could be a specially hired residence or a hall in one of the capital’s sizeable monasteries. In 814 the graduands held a hopeful gathering in the imposing Jianfu Monastery,1 signalling at this early date the significance of a monastic setting for their later activities during the ceremony of gratitude. Aside from affirming a cohesive group identity, the hopeful gatherings were occasions when the graduands and other participants at these meetings raised funds to defray the costs of ostentatious displays soon to be mounted at the Qujiang. Wang Dingbao’s account begins:

1

Shuijing, cited at TPGJ: 399.3201.

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183

After the ceremony of gratitude [the graduands] proceed to the hall of the hopeful gathering. In most cases, before the edict has descended, they assemble every day. They make two visits to the residence of the chief examiner, but, after the third day, the chief examiner issues no more firm invitations and so they stop.

The timetable for these visits often overlapped with performances of the ceremony of gratitude, but, as these opening remarks also clarify, hopeful gatherings were convened early on in the examination season. The edict to which this passage refers is probably the announcement of the examination results. Wang Dingbao’s next remarks focus on the individuals and groups who took part in hopeful gathering after the announcement of new degrees: When fellow graduands [tongnian] first arrive at the place of assembly, the association controller [tuansi ] and those under his instruction, having conferred with the first-placed, then present themselves to the gentlemen. After the bowing an official appears in the middle of the courtyard and he announces: “All the gentlemen should take their places: uneven numbers to the East; even numbers to the West!”

Graduands controlled their manoeuvres with the symmetry that dividing a pass list into uneven and even numbers made readily apparent. This performative dimension of degree awards may have ruled why examiners so regularly released an even number of passes. Later analysis will also show that the division into two groups was an important aspect of performing the ceremony of gratitude. Hopeful gatherings facilitated the graduands’ first meeting with the association controller and his staff. No records survive to identify any Tang individual performing the role of controller. Although the identity of these actors in examination ritual was hardly worth naming beside degree-holders, their functions as guardians of discipline and suppliers of luxury commodities were immensely important in the later arrangement of banquets at the Qujiang. Another important role that emerges during the hopeful gatherings comprises the responsibilities of the list’s first-placed graduand. The zhuangyuan, often translated as “optimus”, was clearly not in Tang times the figure of social distinction that he became in the later empires. The term features only rarely in Wang Dingbao’s documents and in the Tang biographies and verse of other sources. It probably gained wide currency only late in the ninth century. The expression “first-placed of the future” ( jianglai zhuangyuan) is the most complimentary usage that Wang Dingbao collected, and it features in a story of the 890’s

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(311).2 However, on ceremonial occasions during the Tang examination programme, the first-placed occupied a crucial role as interlocutor between his fellow graduands and other agencies who governed the various events of the season. His authority during these closing days of the examination season set the style and frequency of his colleagues’ group engagements. This prescriptive account of a hopeful gathering also reveals how the first-placed was the key figure on whom the timing, directions and acts of a ceremonial performance depended. For instance, when candidates in the uneven sequence took their places to the east, they followed the first-placed, and their counterparts in the even sequence moved accordingly. The conclusion of Wang Dingbao’s account of hopeful gatherings turns to the issue of rules and stakes for gambling: On this day the contributions and penalties are not few. Moreover, each man must produce ten thousand cash as the funds for “picking the name paper”. They gather the name papers when they meet the first-placed. At any given moment he may suddenly draw from three to five sheets and then release this money to pay for the festivities.3 On each draw, any individual, including the first-placed, [can expect] thirty thousand cash. (47)

Since a cohort of new graduands regularly consisted of thirty men, ten draws redistributed their combined stakes of three hundred thousand cash. By entering the game with a stake of ten thousand, each graduand contributed to the costs of the season; and, through drawing lots, two thirds of the annual cohort were presumably resigned to writing off this amount in favour of those who won the draw. Winning a degree entailed high costs. The customary fund-raising at hopeful gatherings proceeded with an aristocratic insouciance for big amounts, and the collection and division of playing stakes manifested the fullest possible abandon to pure chance that all forms of drawing lots provide. Even when a candidate’s efforts did not

The term “dispatch optimus” ( jieyuan), which indicated the first position on prefectural pass lists, was equally rare. For its currency in the Southern Song period as a common form of polite address among aspirant candidates in Lin’an, see stories of two Song candidates in Song Yuan xiaoshuojia huaben ji: 548 and 747–9. 3 pudi: this expression in the Song period referred to the costs of celebrating a jinshi graduand’s wedding at the end of the annual examination programme ( Jilei bian: B.71). 2

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reward him with a degree, just to participate in an examination season was expensive. Jia Dao lamented that he was quite broke in his poem “Failing the examination”.4 What graduands spent their winnings on is the subject of chapter 7, but even before the Qujiang banquets had started, hopeful gatherings facilitated the obligations of each year’s graduands to finance the examination season. Outrageous spending was a normal expectation among their privileged membership, as well as a defining characteristic that the Song government would modify radically. It retained only the Tang name of this institution and supplied its participants with government grants of fixed cash amounts.5 Wang Dingbao’s account of hopeful gatherings is prescriptive, and it thus sets a scene in which confident participants were fully versed in the rules of play. Not a few graduands, however, were learning unfamiliar modes of conduct. Stories satirizing inept behaviour at hopeful gatherings and concurrent feasts with the examiner often reveal the awkward reactions of men thrust suddenly into new and intimidating situations. Wang Dingbao recorded an occasion in 866 when the organizers lost control and a drunken graduand insulted the son of a powerful family (349). In another text, Wen Tingyun recounted how a panicked latecomer developed fever on his way to a hopeful gathering and had to stop and request a consultation with the state physician Wang Yanbo.6 Some of these participants had probably seldom if ever experienced the kind of extra-familial group relationships that their new status imposed on them. Others might have found familiar correspondences with collegiate life in one of the government schools, even though such experiences among jinshi graduands in the late Tang were increasingly rare. But, further discussion will suggest that participants in the hopeful gatherings—and at the ceremony of gratitude—compared their experiences most easily to life in a Buddhist monastery.

Changjiang ji xinjiao: 3.23. For documents concerning the Song institution of hopeful gatherings, see Araki (1969): 243–5. 6 Gansun zi at TPGJ: 242.1867. 4 5

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  T   

Wang Dingbao shows that the ceremony of gratitude boasted little of the grandeur associated with some other examination ceremonies. Its setting was private, virtually domestic, and its actions were observed solely by its participants and only occasionally by invited high-ranking officials. A rite of passage allowed to a privileged few, it held forth to a graduand at the start of his political career the prospect of forging a close tie with a major political figure. It is no surprise that this highly personalized ceremonial gathering fostered an emotional attachment far more intense than the grand public ceremonies earlier in the programme. Men literally dreamed of participating in the ceremony of gratitude. When the day of the ceremony arrived for Shen Guang, he recognized the fulfilment of his youthful hopes in the vision of a vast merchant ship already familiar from countless premonitions (180). If this ceremony was an educated man’s placement within the ranks of the political elite, it was also the end of whatever political innocence he may have retained. Henceforth he was a favoured client of a leading political figure. “To acknowledge mercy” (xie’en) was the term for a ceremony of gratitude from as early as the Han dynasty. Then it was the concluding stage in the ceremony of “nourishing the three elders” ( yang sanlao), performed when the senior representatives of a local community presented themselves before the royal residence to thank the ruler for his solicitude.7 Although this archaic ceremony had only tenuous links with Tang examination ceremonies, it shows that long before the Tang the terms xie and en had existed to express gratitude for gifts and for bureaucratic promotions. The notion of en continued as the essential expression of thanks for a wide range of royal bestowals and solicitations in formal Tang responses. Among the several accounts that Wang Dingbao collected under the category “Blighted careers” is one concerning the career of Li Ninggu, who, having won high acclaim for his literary achievements in the service of the field general Shi Pu during the 880’s, omitted to thank him for the rewards he had received (281). Significant here is not only the fact that Li Ninggu’s career progressed no further but also Wang Dingbao’s use of this story to

7

Hou Hanshu: A.3109. See also Bodde (1975): 361–70.

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argue that failure to acknowledge past rewards could put an individual’s entire future prospects in jeopardy. But, for Wang Dingbao and other late Tang graduands, en also denoted particular values of obligation in their careers. It was a common term used by students to acknowledge a patron whose recommendation had made them eligible for the examinations. Such expressions of gratitude continued the practice of recognizing patronclient relationships current during the Period of Division (220–589) when men had been recruited almost solely on the basis of recommendation.8 Throughout the Tang, both sponsors for students’ admission to the examinations and guarantors of applicants’ pursuing other routes to government office often gained attention as bestowers of en.9 In the late Tang, however, the term circulated most widely in specific reference to the examiner who was sometimes known as the “gate of mercy” (enmen). Thus did Wang Dingbao describe his own examiner in his preface (45a), discussed in chapter 2. Otherwise, the same usage occurs in unofficial writings, such as verse and letters, where it expresses succinctly how candidates viewed their examiner’s functions at a time when patron-client relations were becoming more public both in- and outside government. Cao Ye ( jinshi 850), for instance, addressed a certain patron as the “one who knows me” (zhiji ), referring to the latter’s help in recommending Cao Ye’s entrance to the examinations; but, the official who administered his examinations he did indeed honour as his gate of mercy.10 The importance of this kind of tie with the examiner is evident in a typically sardonic remark from the Zazuan, which lists among political hazards the danger of “bearing a grudge against your gate of mercy”.11 Wang Dingbao’s performance directives for the ceremony of gratitude show that names and terms are less indicative of the centrality of a particular form of patron-client relationship than this ceremony’s prescribed actions. From this perspective, Wang Dingbao’s account is especially valuable, since it provides so much insight into the one 8 For early sentiments of political gratitude, see documents that Ouyang Xun (557–641) collected under “repaying favour” (baoen) at Yiwen leiju: 33.581–4. On various kinds of obligation to patrons in the Eastern Han, see Ebrey (1983). 9 See Wei Yingwu’s (737-after 790) poem addressed to a mingjing graduand at Wei Suzhou ji: 4.8b. 10 “Sent to my patron (zhiji) after failing my examination”, and “Presented to my gate of mercy after achieving fame” (Quan Tangshi: 592.6868–9). 11 Yishan zazuan: 0.33.

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ceremony that graduands cherished perhaps more than any other in the annual examination programme. Once the graduands had processed through the main gate of their examiner’s residence, the ceremony of gratitude proceeded in three key stages: When they have entered the gate, they stand in order below the steps in a line, each facing eastwards. [The examiner] is on the east side facing west. The master of ceremonies performs a greeting to the firstplaced graduand and then to the others; next, he exchanges bows with the examiner. After the bowing, the first-placed graduand steps out of the line to present a speech and then moves back to rejoin the line. Each man bows to the examiner who returns his bows.

These opening moves were the generic acts and responses of hostguest rituals that appeared in countless social situations during the Tang period and earlier. The fact that they took place in the examiner’s residence cannot be overemphasized, especially since so many contentions declared that the ceremony was the cause of reprehensible personal alliances. How the actors at these ceremonies responded to the spatial setting of their interaction took full account of the private sphere of the examiner’s home. Some preparations were extreme. For instance, no one set more personal limits on space than the examiner Hegan Ji who decided in 838 to act the host at the ceremony of gratitude in the former residence of Cui Qun (772–832). Hegan Ji had stood as a grateful degree-winner before Cui Qun in 815, and this was a vital enough consideration to persuade him twenty-three years later to rent his examiner’s residence from its subsequent owners.12 Examiners’ use of their own and others’ residences was a basic norm in staging their supreme roles in the private space of the ceremony of gratitude. Wang Dingbao, like others before him, noted the ceremony performed on behalf of Li Fengji in 816 took place in the Central Secretariat—also unusually during the afternoon—because it was an exceptional departure from normal practice that especially honoured this examiner’s promotion to minister midway though the examination programme (389). The next set of actions in Wang Dingbao’s prescription reveals the ceremony’s function to reveal graduands’ social backgrounds:

12 Yinhua lu: 3.84. Zhao Lin ( jinshi 834) took part in this ceremony in 838, which was conducted following the decree examination that Hegan Ji administered.

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189

The master of ceremonies announces: “Would all the gentlemen please describe their connections of family and marriage.”13 The first-placed graduand and then the other graduands each give a summary of this. The first-placed then performs a ritual of gratitude for the favour bestowed on him, and the others perform the same ritual.

This request by the master of ceremonies, intended to elicit a wellrehearsed and elegant response, summed up the performance’s primary aim to declare how exactly the latest round of degree-winning reflected the political ambitions of official society. The ceremony’s final acts expressed this aim on an even more personal level in honour of the examiner: The master of ceremonies announces: “Would the first-placed graduand please perform an indirect14 gratitude on behalf of the listed names. Would the man of such and such a rank number perform a ritual of gratitude for his robe and bowl.” (The robe and bowl signifies that a man has gained the examiner’s rank number. If it is the case that this man holds the same rank number as his examiner’s father, then he performs a ritual of gratitude for his robe and bowl. It is like taking up a hereditary degree, and it means that you should weep in gratitude.) When this gratitude is concluded, [the graduands] ascend the steps, and the first-placed sits opposite the examiner.

The robe and bowl comprised both a singular award and a representative symbol of transmission. Its special significance will be discussed further below. When the graduands finally joined the examiner on the raised steps of the courtyard, they must have felt that they had undergone a rite of passage into officialdom. The three stages outlined so far completed what Wang Dingbao accepted as a regular performance of the ceremony. However, he concludes this prescriptive account with extra details of performance concerning the occasional arrival of senior members of the government: At this moment, the dukes and ministers would come to observe. They formed a line to the south, seated in order of precedence; the company drank several toasts of wine before [the graduands] set off for the hall of their hopeful gatherings. (Some have remarked that this

13 zhong wai: congnatic and agnatic. The record of the ceremony of gratitude preserved in the Tang yulin, translated below, says more concerning this stage of the proceedings. 14 qu: “indirect” here indicates an acknowledgement to those—unlike the examiner—who had been secondarily responsible in recommending and guaranteeing each graduand’s success. See also the concluding statements of this document.

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Although this account states that the entire ceremony could be relocated to the main government offices, the only indication of an actual performance there is the exceptional conditions of Li Fengji’s promotion in 816. Finally, Wang Dingbao adds that, three days after the performance of the ceremony of gratitude, the graduands and the examiner reassembled for another performance of “indirect gratitude”: Three days later they perform again their indirect gratitude. On this day the examiner at last talks in detail about the places from which they were recommended, so that each may thank [those concerned] for the strength of their support. (46)

The interval of three days followed by this repeat performance of a particular stage in the ceremony of gratitude reveals the deeply political nature of the entire ceremony. The examiner, having already heard three days earlier an account of every graduand’s recommendation and thus grasped the identity of each man’s political backer, now takes the opportunity to respond. It hardly needs stressing, however, that in the non-confidential atmosphere of Tang examinations the examiner would have learned most if not all of the graduands’ backgrounds weeks earlier. The ceremony of gratitude’s Buddhist overtones Wang Dingbao reveals a Buddhist influence in the ceremony of gratitude that is perhaps its most surprising feature, at least to those who have read most about the Confucian import of the civil service examination system. Yet, the ceremony relied heavily on Buddhist vocabulary, gestures and objects, in particular on the monk’s robe and begging bowl. Recent studies of the period’s major intellectual figures have shown that Buddhism fascinated virtually all strata of society in the early ninth century, including especially the Tang political elite.16 Wang

15 16

dusheng: i.e. Department of State Affairs (Shangshu sheng). Barrett (1992): 75–87; Chen (1992): 159–62.

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Dingbao was aware that many examination candidates had resided in monasteries. Aside from his own experience of monastic life— most likely as a lay member of a religious community at Lushan— he knew of monks who, once attracted back to secular life by the lure of official examinations and government careers, had renounced their religious vows and quitted their communities (261 262 296 297). More commonly, other ambitious men joined monasteries as lay members or monks to enjoy access to well-endowed libraries.17 Sometimes lacking the advantages of those born into rich and scholarly families, these men benefited from the monasteries’ often highly disciplined conditions of study. The life of Duan Wei, for instance, exemplified for Wang Dingbao’s generation the common notion that a man seeking instruction in any branch of letters turned first to one of the monastic communities hidden in the mountains outside China’s main centres of government (264). Some members of these communities took ordination examinations set on the Buddhist canon, which the government conducted intermittently on the model of civil service examinations in order to regulate these centres of learning and their teaching.18 But many others returned to secular life before ordination to take the jinshi or special degree examinations. When the quality of education at the government schools declined during the crisis of the mid-eighth century, a Buddhist education proved even more attractive. The leading monasteries in Chang’an and the main provincial centres drew in many of the best students. As well as libraries they offered conscientious teaching, affordable accommodation and at times worldly monks who used their political connections to promote the prospects of their lay disciples within secular careers. Wen Tingyun, whose behaviour in the examination ground became such a talking point in the late Tang, was a lay disciple of the Chan patriarch Zongmi (780–841). Political ambitions feature as much as questions of doctrine in the documents of their relationship.19 By the ninth century the prestige of the Buddhist

On monastic education during the Tang, see Yan (1959); Zürcher (1989). For useful insights into Buddhist library usage, see Drège (1991): 208–24. 18 On regulation attempted in 705 and 773, see Weinstein (1987): 49, 188 (n. 20). See also Michihata (1957): 34; Zürcher (1989): 32–5. 19 Xu (1987). For other scholarship on Zongmi’s major significance as an interpreter of religious practices in both the Confucian and Buddhist spheres of Tang life, see Ebrey and Gregory’s introductory chapter in Ebrey (1993): 14, 21 and 34. 17

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establishment was so great that some leading families sought to have one son join the Buddhist clergy and the other take the civil service examinations.20 Even so, the use of the Buddhist ordination ceremony as the model for the ceremony of gratitude demands further explanation. The answer lies in part in the examiners’ and the graduands’ wish to replicate the deeply personal relationship between master and disciple in the Buddhist method of teaching. An anti-Buddhist polemicist as renowned as Han Yu still agreed with several other Confucian scholars of his day that the master-disciple relationship, at least as observed in the context of training musicians and artisans, was an effective means of teaching the Confucian scriptures.21 But in the following generation, Pi Rixiu and Shen Yazhi ( jinshi 816) identified specifically the Buddhist master-disciple relationship for the same purpose.22 Without a teacher, the processes of memorizing Confucian texts and practising composition skills comprised a solitary and dull commitment. Worse still, critics saw it as stagnant. Liu Zongyuan, for instance, claimed that little development in the Confucian teaching tradition had occurred between the end of the Han in AD 220 and the beginning of the Tang.23 Whatever liveliness existed in Tang official education was most likely Buddhist-inspired. Exponents of Confucian doctrine used lectures in their duties at the directorate schools, during performances of the ceremony to Confucius and at court-sponsored debates among representatives of the three teachings of Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism. But it is highly probable that they learned a great deal about lecturing from their Buddhist rivals, whose practices had exerted a deep influence from perhaps as early as the Northern Qi period (550–577).24

20 For Wang Fangche’s final exhortation to his two sons from his deathbed in ca. 841, see epitaph no. 08705 in the Academia Sinica holdings, cited at Mao (1990): 103. 21 Zhu Wengong jiao Changli xiansheng wenji: 12.1b–2b. See also a letter by Lin Jianyan ( jinshi 830) to Han Yu (Tang wencui: 86.7a), and the views of Wei Biaowei (c. 770–c. 829) summarized at XTS: 177.5275. Wei Biaowei also compiled a “genealogy” of teachers of the Confucian canon, now lost ( JTS: 189B.4979; XTS: 57.1446). On the rise of independent teaching traditions, see McMullen (1988): 61–6. 22 Pi Zi wensou: 9.96–7; Shen Xiaxian wenji: 9.96b. 23 Liu Zongyuan ji: 34.867–70. 24 For the suggestion that the lecture component at the ceremony to Confucius was adapted from Northern Qi Buddhist practice, see Gao (1980): 29–30.

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Wang Dingbao revealed the ideal of intimacy in Tang teacherstudent relationships in his claim that graduands wept at the ceremony of gratitude. In the late Tang weeping was, with little exaggeration, tantamount to an art form.25 It was, for instance, a political reaction becoming to the conduct of sages.26 During the late Tang examination programme, weeping was also a common performance. Unlike words that reported the facts of participants’ presence and their links to each other, weeping possessed an “illocutionary” force that sought even more profoundly to consummate ties of obligation.27 Wang Dingbao recorded how Meng Qi ( jinshi 875 or 876) and his examiner both wept at the ceremony of gratitude after Meng Qi confessed that, during his long years of failing the examinations, he had once acted as his examiner’s teacher (98). This confrontation with their common past was unusual, but Meng Qi’s reaction was a typical form of expression at the ceremony of gratitude during most of the ninth century. Meng Jiao (751–814), who began a Buddhist career and became later a protégé of Han Yu, wrote in a poem to his examiner Lü Wei (735–800): In former years when I took leave of those most dear to me I shed tears. Now because I am attached to you by your kindness [en] I weep.28

Bai Juyi, who was ill and therefore absent from the ceremony of gratitude led by his examiner Gao Ying (740–811) in 800, expressed his lifelong regret in poems written in 815 and 817.29 In the first of these recollections, he expressed his frustration with the telling lament that “even though my tears were many I had nowhere to weep.” Another graduand taking part in a ceremony of gratitude after a decree examination in 830 wept before his examiner Cui Qun, and

25 In the literary encyclopaedia Yiwen leiju, “weeping” (qi ) is one among the fiftyeight subdivisions of the category of “human affairs” (Yiwen leiju: 35.623–5). Han Yu and Tang Qu (early 9th c.) both achieved renown as flawless performers in the art of weeping (Guoshi bu: B.38). Tang Qu’s virtuosity is also recorded in his and Bai Juyi’s biographies ( JTS: 160.4205, 166.4348). 26 On HanYu’s performance of weeping, see Hartman (1986): 49–50. 27 On illocutionary expresions in ritual, see Bloch (1974). 28 “About to return east after winning my degree, I wrote out my feelings to present to my Abbot Lü Wei” (Meng Dongye shiji: 6.107). 29 “Minister Gao’s residence”, the second poem in the cycle “Seven short verses ( jueju) on my arrival back in the city” (Bai Juyi ji: 15.301); and, the fourth poem in the cycle “Re-inscribed” (Bai Juyi ji: 16.342–3).

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he described graphically how only his own utter physical destruction could wipe out the debt he owed.30 Later, Wu Renbi, who gained his degree in 890 or 891, wrote likewise of grinding his own flesh and bones to dust in a poem addressed to his examiner (“abbot”) to celebrate the day of posting the pass list.31 Du Mu wept on receiving the news of a friend’s promotion,32 as did Zhao Gu ( jinshi 844) when he departed from his patron Niu Wei (d. ca. 880).33 One of Du Xunhe’s (846–907) poems describes his gratitude to his examiner Pei Zhi (d. ca. 907) and laments their recent separation.34 Wang Dingbao recorded one of the last Tang examples of these emotional performances, which he either witnessed or else learned of firsthand from the participants. In 898, during their first meeting, Lu Yanrang broke down in tears in front of Wu Rong, the patron of both his and Wang Dingbao’s success in the examination of 900 (139). The meeting in this case was not a ceremony of gratitude, but Lu Yanrang and his patron’s private behaviour conformed to a show of emotion that the ceremony had doubtless made conventional by the end of the ninth century. Wang Dingbao shows that weeping dominated the ceremony of gratitude as the cued response by the graduand to whom the examiner was ready to transmit his robe and bowl. Weeping—whether the literal act or a rhetorical figure in prose and verse—represented a deep emotional pledge between giver and receiver, and it bound the loyalty of both far into the future. The act was powerfully symbolic for even the most tangential contacts. In a letter addressing the examiner who had failed him in 876, a certain jinshi manqué named Chen felt on intimate enough terms to admit to weeping at the news of his rejection, even though he confided this only through the intermediary who composed the letter. In telling of the excruciation that failure under such an enlightened man had caused him, he hinted that their tear-stained union might allow him to hope for more solid support in future examinations.35 Xu dingming lu, at TPGJ: 156.1119–20. See the last of Wu Renbi’s ten poems recently noted in an early Korean edition of Tang poetry (Zha [2003]: 158). 32 “Following a promotion I break my journey at Zhaoying where I confide my feelings on hearing of my friend’s appointment to a field post” (Fanchuan wenji: 4.69). 33 “Taking leave at Secretary Niu’s guest quarters” (Quan Tangshi: 550.6378). 34 “Taking leave of the secretary ‘my abbot’” (WYYH: 288.13b). 35 Huang yushi gongji: 7.23b–4a. 30 31

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Wang Dingbao’s account of the ceremony of gratitude is crucial to understanding a culture so deeply imbued with Buddhist beliefs that both graduands and examiner found in Buddhism the strongest parallels to their own circumstances. Once again, the parallels are suggested most forcefully by the frequent use of Buddhist expressions for this ceremony. The most obvious case is the name of the ceremony itself, as the word en was a traditional Buddhist term for compassion and mercy, and it invoked apt notions of intellectual transmission and discipleship. For instance, in 774, Amoghavajra (Bukong, 705–774) implored his disciples: “Let not the lamp of the Dharma go out and thus repay me for my compassion [en]”.36 Then there are also the numerous references to the examiner as “abbot” (zuozhu) and to the graduand as “disciple” (mensheng). The term “abbot” features in the list of key expressions of degree culture that Wang Dingbao cited from Li Zhao: “when someone takes charge they call him the ‘abbot’” (5a). Wang Dingbao records the term also in Zhang Chu’s letter written in the late 740’s, and this could be the earliest recorded instance of its usage (313). The expression became so ingrained in the discourse of examinations that later even clerical commentators sometimes failed to realize that it had originally defined a monastic office.37 Buddhist appointees to the position of zuozhu were pre-eminently qualified for their role by their ability to preach on the monastic rules embodied in the large corpus of Vinaya (lü), the second among the three divisions of the Buddhist canon. Their function was one that they sometimes shared with specialist Vinaya teachers in the larger and more fully staffed monasteries. This occupation linked them closely to the supervision of novices, and it paralleled neatly the intellectual and administrative relationship between the examiner and his graduands. The regular term of an examiner’s appointment also resembled the annual cycle of monastery life: the Japanese monk Ennin (794–864), recounting his stay in a Korean

36 Daizong chao zeng Sikong Dabian Zheng Guangzhi Sanzang Heshang biao zhiji: 3.844b. For a critical translation of this unique testament by a Buddhist cleric, see Orlando (1981): 106–130. 37 The definition of zuozhu, cited in Collected Statements, was further cited in an early eleventh-century encyclopaedia of Buddhist essentials. Its compiler, Dao Cheng (fl. 1019), defined the role as the mentor of Buddhist neophytes, yet remarkably he qualified the origin of the term in the Tang examination system (Shishi yaolan: A.261a).

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cloister on the Shandong peninsula, remarked on the annual rotation of this community’s administrative offices.38 Late Tang graduands used these Buddhist expressions constantly to affirm their “discipleship” to their examiners. Bai Juyi shows a typical fascination for the pattern of past examiners and disciples. A poem’s lengthy title runs: With various fellow graduands, in order to congratulate our Abbot, the Vice Minister [Gao Ying], on his late appointment to President of the Court of Sacrifices, together we feasted in the pavilion of Grand Secretary Xiao [Xin], (Our Abbot passed his examination under Grand Secretary Xiao).39

Bai Juyi passed in 800 under Gao Ying who had passed in 763 under Xiao Xin (702–91). Concern for the complicated patterns of examination “discipleship” became increasingly intense in the private correspondence and verse of the late Tang. Zhang Ji addressed a poem to Bai Juyi celebrating the past that each of them shared, for they had passed, in 799 and 800 respectively, under the same “abbot” Gao Ying.40 Liu Zongyuan wrote in a letter that to be a disciple and not to acknowledge benefits was inhuman.41 Even Emperor Dezong (r. 779–805) sanctioned the examiner’s custom of calling his graduands “disciples”. He was fond of making identical claims when acting in his role of invigilator at decree examinations: “These are all my disciples.”42 But, Wang Dingbao’s account of the ceremony of gratitude indicates that Buddhist influence in this ceremony went farther than merely words. It permeated the very heart of its signification, for this discreet induction rite was in effect a Buddhist ordination rite performed on behalf of future officials. The graduands’ public expression of gratitude to the examiner was accompanied by the transferral of a robe and bowl ( yi bo, Sanskrit: kasaya; patra). These two objects were among the few worldly goods owned by Buddhist monks and had long been emblematic of the Buddhist way of life. Robes and bowls were also metaphors for a teacher’s transmission of the

Ru Tang qiufa xunli xingji jiaozhu: 2.199; Cf. Reischauer (1955): 161. Bai Juyi ji: 13.248. 40 “Address to the lord commissioner Bai the twenty-second of Suzhou” (Zhang Ji shiji: 4.56). 41 See letter most probably addressed to Gu Shaolian (Liu Zongyuan ji: 30.804). 42 Duyang zabian: 1.15a–b; TPGJ: 198.1486–7; TYL: 3.277 (no. 411). 38 39

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dharma, and numbered among the religious objects a leading teacher or patriarch might bequeath to his disciples and lay followers.43 The robe was particularly symbolic of the Buddhist code which stipulated that monks should dress in “rags”—often in effect lavish textile assemblages liable to be sold for huge sums—to recall the poor cloth worn by the Buddha during his ascetic period. More to the point, the alms bowl and the sangha robe, along with a staff, were used in the ordination of a lay devotee—a worshipper with upàsàka status. The ritual text for lay ordinations most familiar to examinations graduands and others during the Tang was the Canon of precepts for upâsâka status (Youposai jie jing, translated in the early fifth century), which states that the would-be novice had to vow to guard his staff, sangha robe and alms bowl.44 So basic was this vow to the ordination ceremony that it escaped the scissors of even the most severe anti-ritualist within the Buddhist faith. Wuzhu (714–74), a Chan exponent of the Baotang school in Chengdu, rejected nearly all Buddhist ritual. Yet, when it came to paring down the ordination rites, the two parts that he retained were the shaving of the head and the conferral of clerical robes.45 Since Wang Dingbao’s rich sources concerning the ceremony of gratitude are predominantly prescriptive, evidence that graduands actually received a robe and a bowl at the ceremony is largely circumstantial. But the great number of surviving alms bowls from the Tang, made with gold, silver, bronze, lacquer and stoneware, attests to the flourishing manufacture of these objects, which included gold specimens made on imperial orders for the Famen monastery crypt. Legends that recounted the history and whereabouts of the Buddha’s bowl had long fascinated Chinese travellers to northwest India and subsequently continued to excite the readers of these travellers’ accounts.46 At home, many pious lay Buddhist believers—including officials—possessed bowls and regarded them as richly evocative

43 For instance, the legendary account of the transmission of the robe of Bodhidarma to Wuzhu (714–74) was widely current by the eighth century (Yanagida [1983]: 22). Also, Amoghavajra had by 766 already sold his robe and bowl in order to contribute to the costs of building a monastery in the Wutai mountains. Even so, he mentions later the disposal of his robe in its due place within the arrangements of his testament (Orlando [1981]: 124). 44 Youposai jiejing: 3.1050a. 45 Yanagida (1983): 33. 46 Kuwayama (1990).

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symbols of their faith.47 Li Bai (701–62) reportedly received an honorific bestowal of a robe and bowl from Buddhist friends at the Ci’en Monastery in Chang’an.48 A similar story is told of Li Shen (772–846).49 To what extent real objects featured in the ceremony of gratitude is unknown, but their symbolism was as potent as ever in the early tenth century. An eleventh-century text of administrative offices and procedures recalls the significance of the “robe and bowl” ritual in Latter Tang dynasty (923–35) when Fan Zhi (911–64) passed the examination administered by He Ning (898–955). He Ning had ranked thirteenth at his graduation in 925, and in 933 he awarded the same rank to Fan Zhi: In the examination precincts this was referred to as ‘handing on the robe and bowl’. It was like referring to a Chan master who transmitted [his teaching] to his successors.50

This is, of course, a valuable indication of the robe and bowl’s enduring power in north China some decades after Wang Dingbao had already departed for his new life in the south. Robes and bowls may be considered tangible things, items of a symbolic presence and highpoints of ceremonial rhetoric, but invariably they forged links between examiner and graduands that remained lifelong. Exactly this permanence made the ceremony of gratitude so controversial and liable to the rather loose charges of factionalism. Another aspect of the ceremony that made it liable to attack was its heavy concentration on defining its particpants’ identities. Identifications of family background Wang Dingbao’s performance directives for the ceremony of gratitude reveal a critical moment when each graduand was obliged to declare his identity by means of a lengthy account of his ancestry and his family connections. The opening gestures of each graduand were the standard actions in paying social visits, and they closely See Cui Hao’s (c. 704–54) poem to a Buddhist associate (Quan Tangshi: 130.1322). Yunxian zaji: 2.4b–5a. 49 Yunqi youyi: 1.11. 50 Zhiguan fenji: 10.10a. For other Song accounts of this event, see Shao shi wenjian lu: 7.62; Shilin yanyu: 8.114. See also Fan Zhi’s official biography at Songshi: 249.8795. 47

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resembled the beginning of the drinking ceremony. That ceremony, as prescribed in the Kaiyuan ritual code, emphasized the moral relationship between men without making a conscious display of their social origins. (That its performance might have excluded social constituencies to whom the organizers refused to grant admission was quite a different matter). By contrast, the ceremony of gratitude obliged all the graduands to declare their family descent and to identify any kinsmen prominent in government circles. The emphasis on a graduand’s formal identification of his family background would seem to reverse a generally observable trend in the social composition of the Tang political elite. Whereas in the early Tang prestigious hereditary social standing had been a legal requirement for entry to the examinations, by the early ninth century applicants from a much wider variety of social backgrounds were admitted to the examinations.51 But this social shift, particularly when accompanied by a noticeable decline in private and government concern with genealogical studies, paradoxically made it even more important for politically ambitious examiners to learn details about prospective officials.52 Late Tang examiners could not be expected to know the social origins of the vast complex of kinship ties among the old capital and provincial elites, as well as among the multitude of socially more diverse candidates now taking the examinations. Wang Dingbao collected two accounts of a famous performance of the ceremony of gratitude when the examiner wrongly believed that a certainYan Biao was a descendant of the loyalist martyr Yan Zhenqing (190 381a). This may have been an unusual deception, but it stood as a perfectly credible warning to treat grand genealogical claims with due care. In addition to providing information otherwise hard to discover, a candidate’s formal declaration of his social origins allowed an examiner to know a future official’s web of family connections and so assess the probable direction of his political commitments. Wang Dingbao’s prescription does not state exactly how a graduand disclosed

51 On this social change, see Twitchett (1968). For an important area study of the relaxation of social strictures during the ninth century in virtually independent northeast China, see Mao (1990). 52 On the decline of genealogical scholarship, see Johnson (1977a) and Johnson (1977b).

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his family background, but another ninth-century prescriptive text by an unknown writer gives a detailed account: On this day, the first-placed and other graduands visit the examiner’s residence. The examiner stands in the main hall. One by one the graduands enter and say: “My relations by marriage are such-and-such a family.” Or, they say: “I am so-and-so’s nephew”

The passage continues with several variations of this formula for declaring family ties, extending if necessary, to even the most remote degrees of kinship. It then shows that the graduands sometimes employed their family origins in a most eccentric manner: If there is a man from the same descent group as the examiner, then he ought to call himself his nephew. On the contrary, however, he calls himself his uncle. When they have finished these declarations, a ceremony of bowing is extended to each of them.53

This startling reversal of the hierarchies in kinship and official seniority emphasized the power and privileges of these graduands destined for high office. The sport of swapping status between senior and junior participants at the ceremony of gratitude exerted a strong appeal to more than just government officials. Wang Dingbao recorded that in the early 850’s the emperor Xuanzong (r. 846–59) condoned the practice with an analogous compliment to the examiner: In the middle of the Dazhong reign period [847–59], when president Zheng, the Grand Controller,54 posted the list, the emperor used a red slip for his name paper which stated: “the provincial tribute scholar and jinshi Li”—followed by the emperor’s personal name. This he presented to [ Zheng] Hao. (404a)

Although Zheng Hao was Xuanzong’s son-in-law, a Chinese emperor— “father and mother of his people”—did not write down his personal name. Yet this emperor was truly besotted with the trappings of examination culture, even to the extent of dressing up as a jinshi and enjoying sojourns in the pleasure quarters of Chang’an’s famous

TYL: 8.718–19 (no. 1030). In 850 Zheng Hao ( jinshi 842, d. ca. 860), who was examiner twice ( JTS: 159.4181–2), married the Wanshou princess, on whose behalf he backed out of a previous betrothal to a daughter of the Lu clan (THY: 6.66; JTS: 18B.626; and, XTS: 83.3672, 119.4306). Because of this marriage he was promoted to the honorific rank of Grand Controller (duwei ). 53 54

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Pingkang ward.55 And, in his quasi-participation at the ceremony of gratitude performed in honour of Zheng Hao, he conformed to the ceremony’s noticeable use of role reversal. Swapping roles is typical of initiation rites that bring the individual across a defined border. But, the inversion of status in the ceremony of gratitude is a rare instance of its appearance in elite Tang gatherings. Long into the Five Dynasties too, the ceremony of gratitude endured as the only ceremonial gathering in which overt inversions of status are known to have been such a major feature. Pei Hao (856–940), the most celebrated examiner of the Latter Tang, congratulated his former graduand Ma Yisun (d. 953), the examiner in 936, with a verse concluding: Three times I took charge of the Spring Apartment,56 and I am now eighty; Thus, within my disciple’s gateway, I am granted an audience with his disciples

The self-deprecatory tone of this verse was intended as an affectionate tribute to Ma Yisun’s career, if not also as a gentle reminder of who was owed what by whom. But, an allegedly casual remark by Pei Hao concerning another of his graduands reveals a more steely side to the examiner-graduand relationship. In this instance, Pei Hao was asked why he did not perform the elaborate formalities of greeting and farewell on behalf of a guest as important as the Latter Jin minister Sang Weihan (899–947), and he replied: If I am granted an audience by his excellency Sang in the secretariat, I am but a common functionary; today, when he was granted an audience with me in my own apartments, he was my disciple.57

It is an obvious echo of the ceremony’s conditions that this remark stresses so exactly the distinct locations of two kinds of social intercourse, emphasizing the extraordinary privileges that an examiner believed to be his when standing on home ground. Nevertheless, that Pei Hao had to give these reasons for his conduct at the Latter Jin capital in Bianzhou in the 930’s is significant. See preface to Beli zhi; cf. Rotours (1968): 51. chunwei: the “spring apartment” is a common archaistic reference to the Ministry of Rites, since the canonical Rites of Zhou designates the “official of spring” (chunguan) as the officer in charge of ritual (Zhouli: 17.3a, 19.1a; see also TD: 23.638–9). 57 Jiu Wudai shi: 92.1219; Xin Wudai shi: 57.661. 55 56

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His attitude must have betrayed the old-fashioned outlook of Tang exiles that increasingly few of his contemporaries understood, and it suggests all too strongly that the examiner’s standing had declined. It is hard to imagine a Tang onlooker questioning Pei Hao’s hauteur towards a former graduand, a man four decades his junior and a visitor to his residence. The surviving fragments of the The Scholar on His First Presentation (Chu ju zi ), which was a basic instruction manual for progress through the examination programme, included a passage that revealed more behaviour to do with status. The compiler of this work, Lu Guangqi,58 who could have been one of Wang Dingbao’s indirect informants, states also that the graduands were divided into two groups according to their odd and even rank numbers. Wang Dingbao’s’ directives, of course, reveal the same division. But, according to Lu Guangqi, the odd numbers, seated on the east side and headed by the first-placed, did not cede their places to visiting officials; only the opposite group on the west side were obliged to do so. The intentions of this etiquette are not divulged, but it is highly significant that half of the new graduands could assume a superior status in front of attending officials. It must also have been a heated subject of contention in officialdom’s varying views of the ceremony’s performance, especially within that body of opinion that blamed the ceremony for the rise of factionalism. T      Wang Dingbao also documented the severe criticism that the ceremony of gratitude attracted. The most influential critic was Li Deyu, probably the most formidable politician of the ninth century and certainly one of the most powerful ministers of the Chinese imperial past.59 In Tang examination history Li Deyu is famous for his

58 Lu Guangqi was appointed an ad hoc minister in 901, demoted the following year and killed in 903 (XTS: 10.298–300, and 182.5377–8). He held office with Lu Yi (847–905) and Wang Pu (fl. 900), both of whom Wang Dingbao acknowledged for their contributions to his work (45a—see chapter 2). Hong Mai (1123–1202) preserved the only surviving fragment of the Chu ju zi from a text, which his father acquired in the renowned Longtu Library in Kaifeng (Rongzhai suibi—xubi: 13.370). 59 Biographies at JTS: 174.4509–31; XTS: 180.5327–44.

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controversial views on the ceremony of gratitude, but this certainly does not mean that he ever misapprehended the notion of gratitude. Li Deyu’s writings, for instance, contain a large group of documents recording his numerous acknowledgements to the throne for various gifts and promotions.60 What concerned him in his perception of the ceremony of gratitude was the political climate that it fostered. Wang Dingbao seized on Li Deyu’s objections as the antipathy of a politician who possessed no degree title. This is a reductionist view of Li Deyu’s thinking, and it ignores that the ceremony of gratitude elicited many other trenchant critiques. For instance, an unidentified official of the early ninth century, perhaps believing that the government was abusing the ceremony for diplomatic purposes, opposed the inclusion of foreigners and unknown commoners from Lingnan: The situation has reached an extreme whereby men from east of the seas and others from the Ling pass [in the South] all describe their family relations beside the Chinese clans; they even bow to each other, as if that was sufficient.61

Certainly, the writer of this passage had grounds for claiming that foreigners normally showed some deference towards Chinese recruitment procedures. The early Tang government had treated leading achievements in the examinations as remarkable cultural expressions worthy of interpretation for outsiders during diplomatic engagements.62 The unknown voice of the complaint against foreigners and southerners also reveals the writer’s conviction that examination ceremonial was the prerogative of northern aristocracy. The substance of the charge, however, seems grossly trumped up. Although many scholars from neighbouring states longed to secure a Tang degree, they seldom did. The writers of some late Tang occasional poems of farewell addressed graduands returning to the kingdoms of the

Li Wenrao wenji: 19.1b–9b. TYL: 8.718–19 (no. 1030). The source of this text is unknown. 62 Liu Su (fl. 806–820) states that the great scholar-minister Zhang Yue’s examination-style dissertations were often shown to visiting foreign dignitaries in the late seventh century (Da Tang xinyu: 8.127). See the discussion in Cao (1985) for evidence of how closely examinations and diplomacy were still linked spheres in the Song, most notably the 988 embassy to Korea led by Lü Duan, then a senior member of the examination administration. 60

61

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Korean peninsula, but they are exceptional.63 The criticism cast at these few men may simply have derived from the uncomfortable realization that the Tang’s pre-eminence in East Asia was less secure, especially in the face of intermittent aggression from Central Asia and along the Tang empire’s southwestern frontiers. Wang Dingbao was aware of a common critique of any forms of closeness between examiner and examination candidates that undermined the examination system’s goal of impartial ( gong) selections. Most calls in the Tang for examination reform appealed to this ideal of treating candidates impartially—far less was said of opening the door to candidates from a greater range of social backgrounds. The views of Li Deyu, which Wang Dingbao cited at length, are no exception. Wang Dingbao not only recognized that Li Deyu’s tactics had focused on the ceremony of gratitude, he maintained that this unusual approach had soon earned him an infamous reputation in examination circles. However, his suggestion that Li Deyu sought to restrict the ceremony of gratitude due to his jealousy of degreeholders is not borne out by his strong desire to implement impartial examinations and to increase the number of annual examination entrants.64 Nor does it fit logically with his ability to attract several aspiring examination candidates’ pleas for political patronage.65 Two quite different reasons for opposing the ceremony of gratitude—the assertion of Buddhist political influence and its use by court factions—are not surprising, since this ceremony drew so much from the Buddhist ordination rites and it fostered far closer ties among officials than the throne usually desired. Li Deyu’s critique is a famous memorial that he wrote in early 844 at the height of his power during the reign of emperor Wuzong (r. 840–6). Earlier, however, in his first term as a minister in 833–4, 63 See seven poems listed at Ogawa (1980): 133. The best-known Korean degreeholder was Ch’oe Ch’i-won (Chinese: Cui Zhiyuan), who gained the jinshi degree in 874. He named his literary collection Pencilled Furrows in the Osmanthus Enclosure (Guiyuan bigeng ji ), in allusion to osmanthus as a metaphor of degree success. 64 In 843 the restrictive annual quota of twenty-five passes for the jinshi degree, enforced during the previous few years, was abolished (THY: 76.1382; CFYG: 641.5b–6a). For a close survey of Li Deyu’s attitudes to examination recruitment, see Tang (1973): 372–420. For other discussions of Li Deyu’s progressive position in a ninth-century programme of reform, see Takahashi (1993); Zhou (1999): esp. 306–8. 65 For a long appeal in verse addressed to Li Deyu by Wen Tingyun, see Wen Feiqing shiji jianzhu: 6.119–29.

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Li Deyu had attempted to reform the literary bias of the examination syllabus as well as to abolish the common ministerial interference with the pass list.66 At the same time he had sacked several notorious faction leaders who, by means of their access to ministerial circles, blatantly recruited their hangers-on via the examination system’s selection of graduands. During this period, Li Deyu maintained, at least a third of the court belonged to one faction or another.67 His wish to reform the examination system was anathema to factionalist exploiters of the system’s major weaknesses: within days of his fall from power in late 834, his opponents had reversed his reforms.68 Now, ten years later, the ceremony of gratitude, particularly its Buddhist ties, became a central point of his reform agenda. Wang Dingbao preserved what appears to be the most complete text of Li Deyu’s memorial. It opens with a brief summary of the issues to which he objected, before it rehearses age-old arguments for impartial selection and warns of the perils of factionalism. Finally, it addresses a programme for reducing the scale of performance in the ceremony of gratitude and other celebratory ceremonies. To that end, it recommends quite tolerantly not to enforce an outright ban. Wang Dingbao states that Li Deyu’s memorial was the second that he addressed on these questions, but no text of any earlier document is extant. The later text opens: It is not the emperor’s wish that successful graduands call the official in charge their “abbot”, nor that they hasten to wait at his door. And, regarding the signing of names, parties and other items, this memorial addresses recent developments.

Li Deyu referred here to several key instances of clerical influence on the examination ceremonies. The graduands’ practice of signing their names in large groups in the monasteries of Chang’an was a further sign of Buddhist influence over examination celebrations. Li Deyu does not name any monastery directly, but his later remarks

66 On abusive emendations to the pass list, see memorials of 834 and 843 (THY: 76.1381; CFYG: 641.3b, 6a; and, Li wenrao wenji: buyi, 2b–3a). In 833 Li Deyu had attempted a controversial reform of the jinshi syllabus by removing the tests on lyrical genres (THY: 76.1381; JTS: 17B.551; CFYG: 90.22a–25b, and 641.3a; ZZTJ: 244.7886. See also Rotours [1932]: 196–7). 67 ZZTJ: 244.7883. Another account gives: “one half of the inner court” (XTS: 174.5235). 68 CFYG: 641.4a–b; ZZTJ: 245.7898.

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in this memorial draw attention to name-signing in the same context as the final celebration feasts at the Qujiang resort. Name-signing parties at that late stage of the examination programme invariably used the Ci’en Monastery, which stood beside the famous water feature and its surrounding parkland. The Ci’en Monastery enjoyed a towering scholarly reputation in the Buddhist world, and its pagoda was a favourite venue for late Tang graduands’ name-signing (timing) parties. Chapter 7 will consider more evidence to show that the communities at other monasteries as well as Daoist temples accommodated the commemorations of new degree-holders equally eagerly. Li Deyu identifies only the timetable associated with the Ci’en Monastery, since this most popular venue fitted best with an antiBuddhist thrust in his attack on examination ceremonial. The anti-Buddhist tone of Li Deyu’s objection should be read in context. Unlike opponents of religious adherence during the later ascent of neo-Confucianism, Li Deyu did not entirely oppose Buddhism. He maintained close personal ties with Buddhist monks: witness his poem to an abbot composed in 818 during his service in Hedong. It was inscribed on a wall of the Chongfu Monastery in Taiyuan, where it was guarded with the respect due to a religious treasure.69 In a less public context, Daoist interests were fundamental to his most reflective writings and to the activities of some of those closest to him.70 His celebrated skills as a plantsman and landscapist no doubt also expanded with a Daoist curiosity in nature, but they did not prevent him from also siting a “Buddha seat” ( fota) in his garden.71 And, as recently unearthed epigraphs reveal, he bore the enormous cost of burying two groups of relics and building a pagoda for the Ganlu Monastery at Runzhou (modern Zhenjiang) in 825 and 829.72 On the earlier occasion he even explained his motive for these donations—the commemoration of the emperor Muzong (r. 820–4) who had died the previous year—in highly familiar terms: “I shall always recall his past mercies ( jiu en), and to my dying day it will be hard to repay him.” Li Wenrao wenji: 3.4a–b. His epitaph for one of his concubines, Xu Pan (d. 829), reveals that she was granted the status of a Daoist nun at Huazhou in the Henan circuit (rubbing M2949 in Beijing tushuguan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian, vol. 30). 71 Li Wenrao wenji: 9.3a. The unusual term fota probably indicates a “meditation seat” (chanta). 72 Zhenjiang Shi Bowuguan (1961). 69 70

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What prompted Li Deyu’s attack on the use of Buddhist liturgy in the ceremony of gratitude was his conviction, like many other Chinese statesmen before him, that all sets of teachings, religious or otherwise, should be placed securely in the service of the throne. Graduands pretending to be Buddhist novices and expressing loyalty to superiors other than the emperor represented an unacceptable Buddhist intrusion into the examinations, which fundamentally were affairs of state. Thus, the spark that ignited Li Deyu’s desire to lay his objections before the throne was the way the ceremony of gratitude fostered the spread of factionalism at the court. Wang Dingbao’s text of his memorial continues: I thought that the state had established a degree in order to find true and upright officials, and thereby to implement the strengthening of customs. Its meanings should be rooted in affection for the ruler, which, if extended to his court, will make [a man] into a vessel of the state.73 How can people hope for personal favours of gifts in the form of promotions and forget the fundamentals of civilized teachings? To call oneself a disciple is now immutable, and it is the reason why contemporary mores have degenerated.74 To what purpose can the virtue of a subject be employed? Establishing factions75 and abandoning impartiality are the inevitable results.

By the 840’s the factional activities of examination candidates had become extremely intense. At the beginning of the eighth century, Feng Yan (fl. 800) records, deep divisions had already set in among students enrolled in the official schools at Chang’an.76 Following what Li Zhao and others had already recorded, Wang Dingbao was also aware that by the 740’s factionalism was rife in the official schools

73 guoqi: the locus classicus of this political term is Xunzi: 98.27.49. Sima Qian used it in recounting the list of loyal followers whom Han Changru promoted (Shiji: 108.2863). For the association of the term with the jinshi degree, see the biographies of three Tang statesmen: Fang Xuanling (c. 578–648) ( JTS: 66.2459; XTS: 96.3853); Wei Cigong (752–818) ( JTS: 159.4179; XTS: 164.5045); Zhang Zhongfang (766–837) ( JTS: 171.4442; XTS: 126.4430). 74 qinbo: compare Ban Gu’s (32–92) usage of this term in his biography of the upright minister Wang Ji (d. 48 BC), where it precedes a claim for ritual as any government’s highest commitment (Hanshu: 72.3063). 75 shudang: “If subjects at court form factions to overawe their ruler, and form alliances within the state to carve away territories, then the kingdom will be in danger” (Han Feizi: 22.14.13; cf. ibid.: 31.11.6). 76 Feng shi wenjian ji jiaozhu: 3.13; and, TYL: 8.713–15 (no. 1028).

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at Luoyang (7c).77 Factionalism continued to flourish even amid the decline of the official education system after the An Lushan rebellion,78 and it took hold among competing urban officials and their relations. Certain leading clans became notorious. The Yangs, for instance, produced ten jinshi between 820 and 840, and thus attracted scores of hopeful hangers-on to their faction. The famous southern pavilion of their Chang’an garden, which attracted a stream of visitors by day and night, was cynically dubbed the “mobile secretariat” (xing zhongshu) in reference to this powerful group’s influence in political brokerage outside the normal confines of court exchanges.79 Factionalism was evident at many stages in the examination programme. The preliminary examinations in the metropolitan and nearby prefectures were particularly tense junctures. According to Lu Yan’s (d. ca. 863) Miscellaneous Stories (Zashuo), large examination factions were active in Chang’an.80 In addition to factions named “East and West” (dong xi ), “Great and Small” (da xiao), the “Completed Promotions” (zhuyi ), the “Four Terrors” (si xiong), Chang’an also boasted the “Ten Wise Men of the Fragrant Grove” (Fanglin shi zhe), the eunuch-controlled group in whom Wang Dingbao was so interested. But, subscribing to a view that Li Deyu tried to suppress the ceremony of gratitude because of his jealousy of degree-holders, Wang Dingbao never considered that the major thrust of his memorial was against examination factionalism. Wang Dingbao recognized that crushing factionalism was the common political agenda of several leading figures of the period. He collected documents that illustrate this agenda in the voices of Cui Gong and Wei Ao, the governors of Chang’an whose reformist efforts were discussed in chapter 3. The activities that Cui Gong had attacked in 837 were still rife less than one decade later, and Li Deyu’s denunciation of the ceremony of gratitude as an agent of factional strife struck another blow in the campaign that one of his political protégés had already launched at the level of prefectural selections at the capital. Even so, Wang Dingbao seems to have viewed Li Deyu’s political motivation as not

77 See also Duan Chengshi’s reference to student factionalism in this period at Youyang zazu: B/4.232. 78 See Liu Zongyuan’s reference to dire factional infighting in his letter to the students (Liu Zongyuan ji: 34.868). 79 Nanbu xinshu: 7.82. 80 Zashuo in TPGJ: 181.1353, and in TYL: 4.378 (no. 553).

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only exceptional but aberrant. Perhaps a double standard operated in Wang Dingbao’s judgement of these issues because only Li Deyu had directed his attack straight at one of the examination programme’s most cherished rituals. As the political temperature rose during the 830s and ’40s, the factions proliferated. Their leaders, armed with the letters and credentials of their followers, campaigned blatantly for their own faction’s success in both the prefectural and state examinations. The atmosphere for many candidates was often depressing, as factional struggles reduced hopes of starting an official career in the bureaucracy’s fast stream to the vagaries of chance. Indeed, according to one ninth-century observer, a game called “promotions dice” ( guzi xuan), perhaps a forerunner to the famous society game “official promotions chart” (shangguan tu) was invented sometime in the 830s.81 Taken in context with events at the prefectural level of administration, then, Li Deyu was one among a group of men who worked hard to protect the annual examination programme from factional abuses. The question raised by his remarks on factionalism is whether the ceremony of gratitude actually promoted a lasting effect on factional alliances at court. A peak period of popularity for the ceremony of gratitude coincided with one of the most intense periods of factional struggle, the 830’s, when Li Deyu and Niu Sengru (779–847) enlisted many officials into their opposing factions. Contrary to the early claims of Chen Yinke, later work by Tonami Mamoru showed that these two factions did not attract members on the basis of their entry into official life by means of hereditary office or examinations success.82 Both factions, according to Tonami, had roughly equal proportions of men from each background, and so did not represent social polarities. Furthermore, many officials switched factions at different times, changing their views and allegiances to suit each new re-alignment.83 In other words, no faction had a stable membership

Ganding lu, in TPGJ: 136.978. Chen (1942); Tonami (1962). On factionalism in the ninth century, see also Dalby (1979). 83 Du Mu (803–58) is the classic example of the agile courtier, praising his mentor Li Deyu in correspondence of the 840’s and later damning him in the lengthy epitaph that he wrote for Niu Sengru (Fanchuan wenji: 7.114–19). See also a discussion of Du Mu and Li Deyu’s relationship in Kou (1988). 81 82

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or a constant political agenda. Even though more recent scholarship acknowledges that factionalism has long been key in imperial Chinese historians’ efforts to construct their records of the court, it does not demolish Tonami’s earlier findings.84 It is impossible to identify entire factional groups whose links were forged in the examination system and remained solid over a considerable length of time. Not only did officials associate with several factions over the course of time, force of circumstances also must have dictated that, on their way from one appointment to another, they had to show gratitude to the leading men of the day for each transfer of office. Not to do so would have been political folly.85 However, although the link between an examiner and his “disciple” could only have been one strand among a vast web of allegiances, it was upheld as a lifelong, even posthumous obligation to be repaid. Wang Dingbao’s record of a performance of the ceremony of gratitude in 780 shows that early in its history even the most vexing discouragement was powerless to stop graduands and their examiners from honouring the links that the ceremony of gratitude symbolized. In that year, following a charge that names on the pass list represented an overt factional interest, the examiner Linghu Huan (d. 805) was forbidden from assuming his leading role in the ceremony of gratitude. Only ten years later did one of Linghu Huan’s “disciples” perform a formal ceremony of gratitude in front of him in the remote setting of Mingzhou (393). In addition, Tang literature provides several examples of “disciples” who performed for their examiners the final homage of composing funerary inscriptions, accounts of conduct (xingzhuang) and other forms of commemoration.86

84 See the analysis of factional groupings during the Southern Tang dynasty (937–75) in Kurz (1995). 85 See Liu Yuxi’s memorials of acknowledgement for his appointments as prefect at Suzhou in 831 and Ruzhou in 834, addressed respectively to the chief ministers Li Zongmin and Niu Sengru, and to Li Deyu and Wang Ya (Liu Yuxi ji jianzheng: 17.437 and 439–40). 86 See, for example, Mu Yuan’s ( jinshi 793) stele inscription for Bao Fang (722–90), the examiner of Mu Yuan’s brother (WYYH: 896.7b–10b); Yang Sifu’s ( jinshi 805) preface to his examiner Quan Deyu’s collected writings (Quan Zaizhi wenji: preface; WYYH: 707.3a–4b; Tang wencui: 91.7a–8a); Du Mu’s ( jinshi 828) account of conduct for his examiner Cui Yan (d. 836) (Fanchuan wenji: 14.207–11; WYYH: 977.6a–10b); three pieces by Sikong Tu ( jinshi 869), including a recollection, account of conduct and a eulogy for his examiner Wang Ning (821–78) (Sikong Biaosheng wenji: 1.2a–4a, 7.1a–6a, 9.3a).

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Accounts of conduct, in particular, could exert lasting effect on the promotion prospects of the subject’s descendants.87 Still, Wang Dingbao also shows that obligations between an examiner and his graduands went farther than loyal words at the graveside or phrases directed to literary posterity. In fulfilling their debts, some men tried to re-enact the drama of the ceremony of gratitude at the highest levels of court politics. Wang Dingbao, perhaps reading from Zhao Lin’s Yinhua lu, recounted a famous ministerial investiture ceremony in 835. When Yu Chengxuan (d. 835) was promoted to a ministerial post that year, his former “disciple” and the minister Li Shi, presented Yu Chengxuan with his own set of minister’s robes at the investiture ceremony (419). Wang Dingbao also cites a letter by Yuan Can to Yao Chong, in which the writer expresses his willingness to act as a lifelong guardian against all sorts of calamity that might befall Yao Chong and his family. He is willing—he says— even to sacrifice his own life. And, in a significant admission that expectations of this kind of extreme loyalty commonly permeated examiner-graduand ties, Yuan Can confesses that he is not one of Yao Chong’s disciples who owes him a debt of gratitude. Instead, of course, he is keen to outperform even what is expected of examination disciples. (335). Biographies of late Tang figures reveal the unstinting degree to which debts of gratitude were repaid when “disciples” reached a powerful enough position to provide real benefits for their examiner or for his sons. During his term as a minister in the 830s Li Xun ( jinshi 823, d. 835) requested nothing less than the promotion of his examiner Wang Qi to a ministership.88 But such favour was also fraught with danger, for when Li Xun and his family were later killed in the excessive reprisals following the abortive “Sweet Dew” plot of 835, Wang Qi’s past relationship as examiner to this

87 The History Office (shiguan) collected these posthumous accounts to form the basis of official biographies. The more immediate effect of xingzhuang was to provide the relevant authorities with evidence for deciding the deceased subject’s posthumous promotions and for awarding titles of canonization. High awards meant that the subject’s descendants stood to gain real advantages in terms of privileged conferrals of office. On the compilation of xingzhuang, see Twitchett (1992): 65–77; on processes of canonization, see McMullen (1988): 11, 19–20; McMullen (1989a): 76–83. 88 JTS: 164.4279; XTS: 167.5117–8.

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particular “disciple” threatened to overwhelm him.89 His official biographers remark laconically that as an older statesman and doyen of Confucian learning he could hardly be implicated in Li Xun’s treason. Less senior men, especially the “disciples” of miscreant examiners, were seldom so fortunate. Zhang Zhongfang (766–837), for instance, was dragged down with Lü Wen (771–810) in 808, because he was the “disciple” of Lü Wen’s father Lü Wei.90 Despite these dangers the tradition of repaying one’s examiner with a ministership was so strong that favouring even the son of an examiner was part of the acceptable course of court politics. In order to repay their examiner Zheng Huan (775–839), Linghu Tao and Wei Fu, ministers during the reign of Xuanzong (r. 846–59), effected the ministerial promotion of his son Zheng Congdang (d. ca. 887).91 The ceremony of gratitude thus celebrated close links between men, even to the extent of promoting close alliances at the top level of government. Although this was justification enough for Li Deyu to intervene with a serious charge of factionalism, it seems in Wang Dingbao’s eyes not to have merited such a radical interference with the examination programme. Wang Dingbao upheld many Tang opinions on the pernicious influence of factional alliances. However, he recorded Li Deyu’s memorial to sustain primarily his belief that this enormous political figure had violated one of the most cherished ritual expressions of examination success. It is no coincidence that Wang Dingbao’s text is also the repository of a unique exchange of verse between the examiner Wang Qi and his graduands in 843 (67). None of this writing provides direct insights into the ceremony of gratitude, but its preservation indicates that Wang Dingbao applauded the kind of close examiner-graduand relationship that both ritual performances and literary production contributed so much to commemorate. Moreover, Wang Qi’s experienced and widely acclaimed stewardship of the examinations is worth considering in the light of Li Deyu’s ambitions for reform. Premonitions of worsening factionalism or of growing Buddhist influence could have aroused Li Deyu’s anger over examination ceremonies during the early 840’s. But what may have particularly 89 JTS: 169.4395–8; XTS: 179.5309–14. On the “Sweet Dew” plot, see Dalby (1979): 654–9 90 JTS: 171.4443. 91 JTS, 158.4169.

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incited him over the examination of 844 was the imminent return of Buddhist interference after the re-appointment of Wang Qi as an examiner with a set of commitments strikingly different from his own. Before his citation of Li Deyu’s memorial, Wang Dingbao records that in 844, only a month before Li Deyu presented his famous objections, the examiner Chen Shang (d. 855) had been dismissed following a charge of lèse-majesté (54b).92 Wang Dingbao records Chen Shang’s disgrace once more, but he then dates it erroneously to 846 (395). It was almost thirty days before Chen Shang’s replacement was confirmed in the person of the elderly and experienced Wang Qi. Such a long interval before confirming the identity of the new examiner at this late stage in the season suggests that the process was delayed by a fierce dispute. Li Deyu’s relative sympathies for each of these men are not clearly expressed, but assuming that he had a strong say in the appointment of examiners during these years, it is more than likely that Chen Shang represented one of his preferred choices. Significantly, Chen Shang was re-appointed examiner for the examinations of 845 and 846, both of which coincided with Li Deyu’s final years in power.93 Also, that Li Deyu voiced no more objections to the examination programme during these two years suggests that either he and Chen Shang shared common views or that Li Deyu was in complete control. Li Deyu and Wang Qi had been well acquainted for many years, but they differed on vital issues of literary commitment and recruitment policy. Wang Qi was a degree-holder; Li Deyu was not. Wang Qi was furthermore a celebrated arbiter of the examinations’ literary style,94 whereas Li Deyu voiced a strong antipathy to Wenxuan scholarship, the prestigious selection of belles lettres compiled amid the courtly traditions of southeast China in the early sixth century.95

92 Chen Shang, whose biography was not included in the official histories, was a descendant of the Chen dynasty’s (557–89) eponymous royal family. He corresponded at least twice with Han Yu (Zhu Wengong jiao Changli xiansheng wenji: 16.12b–13a and 18.5a–6a). 93 As the drafter of an edict in 845, his title is given as vice minister of rites (Tang dazhao lingji: 76.430). Xu Song cites an inscription that Chen Shang wrote at Huashan, which claims that he was still examiner in 846 (Dengke jikao: 22.807). 94 Zhao Lin lists Wang Qi among a small group of men whose lyrical writings represented the literary genius of their age (YHL: 3.82; and, TYL: 2.146–7 [no. 231]). Wang Qi edited a work entitled Excellent Lyrics from the Literary Arena (wenchang xiuju), now lost (XTS: 60.1623; Songshi: 207.5295). 95 On Tang Wenxuan scholarship, see McMullen (1988): 223–5.

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His distaste for this branch of study was by no means unusual in the late Tang, but it implied a complete denigration of the scholarship most directly associated with the literary bias of the jinshi degree. Both men’s literary outputs reflected their utterly polarized preferences for distinct styles of rhapsody ( fu), one of their period’s most complex literary genres. Wang Qi wrote exclusively “regulated rhapsodies” (lüfu), the stipulated genre of the examinations; Li Deyu composed an unparalleled output of over thirty “ancient-style rhapsodies” (gufu). In addition, both men differed in their understanding of where to locate the political authority for examination recruitment. During his administration of the examinations in 822–3, Wang Qi surrendered the examiner’s power of veto over the final pass list to the chief ministers of the day.96 Li Deyu tried to suppress this ministerial privilege in his reforms of 833–4. More generally, both men cultivated quite different kinds of political association. Wang Qi’s encyclopaedic knowledge of Buddhist scripture97 could hardly have been a political issue, but his past ties with politically active Buddhist monks might have alarmed Li Deyu. Most notable of Wang Qi’s Buddhist contacts was the Sichuanese monk Guang Xuan, who manœuvred close to the heart of Chang’an politics. He was a resident—probably the abbot—at the Da Anguo monastery, which maintained the famous wooden stupa so often used for early ninth-century jinshi inscriptions.98 In 814, to his lasting embarrassment, Guang Xuan had gained notoriety for calling on Wei Guanzhi (760–821) and blurting out the sensitive information that his host was due for ministerial promotion before the latter bawled him out of the house.99 Wang Dingbao recorded that this controversial figure had commemorated one of Wang Qi’s examination administrations with an ecstatic tribute in verse that attracted celebrated responses (66).100 This event happened in 823, but Wang

THY: 76.1381; JTS: 16.502; CFYG: 640.18b–19a. See criticisms of his conduct at JTS: 164.4278; and, XTS: 167.5117. 97 Yunqi youyi: 1.1. 98 One of Duan Chengshi’s linked verses commemorates a tour around the Da Anguo’s buildings with Guang Xuan (Youyang zazu: B/5.248). 99 Guoshi bu: B.41; also at TYL: 3.234 (no. 348). See also a satire of Guang Xuan’s social standing in Han Yu’s verse “Following a few visits by the virtuous Guang Xuan” (Zhu Wengong jiao Changli xiansheng wenji: 10.2b). 100 Liu Yuxi responded to Guang Xuan’s poem (Liu Yuxi ji: 24.724), and Yuan Zhen (779–831) responded to Wang Qi’s reply to Guang Xuan (Yuan Zhen ji: 21.242). 96

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Dingbao dated Guang Xuan’s poem to Wang Qi to 843. Garbled though these data are, they still characterize accurately the political sympathies of the longer period in question. Guang Xuan’s earlier address to Wang Qi remained in the 840’s a valuable indication of how Wang Qi tolerated Buddhist associations in a tense period of examination history. Guang Xuan’s fortunes after 823 are not documented, but his easy access to government officials typified what many late Tang ministers—and Song historians—saw as one of the late Tang period’s worst symptoms of political regression. That was the threatening context in which Li Deyu concluded his memorial with an appeal to the throne for a severe restriction on the performance of the ceremony of gratitude and the abolition of the graduands’ other seasonal festivities: Others and I have reached a decision that from now on jinshi graduands will be allowed one visit to the official in charge. In future they will not be permitted to pay their respects in vast congregations or to hold banquets at the official’s residence. As for the great gatherings of court officials at the Qujiang, the signing of names and parties, we hope that they will be restricted or abolished. Since these graduands have just won credit and fame and are truly young men of outstanding ability, and, since we have reached the spring season, it will be hard to bar them from taking cultivated outings. Three to five men holding their own celebration would of course not be forbidden. But we should not allow the full congregation of jinshi graduands of the same year to hold feasts and gatherings everywhere.

The text then states that Li Deyu’s claims were double-checked by the Censorate before the throne approved his recommendations. Finally, Wang Dingbao claims that earlier inscriptions by successful graduands were destroyed: It was then that any earlier signed names were completely erased. In all likelihood, because the Duke of Zanhuang [Li Deyu] had no background in the degrees, he thought of a means to denigrate them. Once the duke could no longer get his own way, everything was restored to its former state (54b).

In ascribing Li Deyu’s antipathy to envy, Wang Dingbao was clearly unable to imagine how a high-ranked Tang individual could command respect without the essential prerequisite of a degree title. Even though Wang Dingbao might have implied that this was a singular document, Li Deyu’s objection was not unique. Already in

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803, in a preface written to the mingjing graduate Niu Kan, Han Yu seems to have distanced himself from this ceremony: “I have never heard of [men] being passed by the examiner and then offering their thanks at his door.”101 Later, the obscure figure of Zhang Anshi, perhaps a contemporary of Li Deyu, also asked: “How can someone promoted to office in an impartial court still perform thanks in my doorway?”102 But, Han Yu at least had probably heard a great deal more about such acknowledgements than he was willing to admit. For example, the sycophancy of his close associates Meng Jiao and Zhang Ji to their respective examiners has been cited above. Moreover, in the course of his preface to Niu Kan, Han Yu modifies his initial position. Since this text is addressed to one of the mingjing graduands of the famous examiner Quan Deyu, Han Yu was probably expressing his distaste for intrinsic elements of the ceremony’s performance rather than broader implications for successful recruitment. In his epitaph for Quan Deyu, Han Yu emphasized this highly acclaimed scholar’s achievements by reference to “more than a hundred” men whose careers began with favourable outcomes in the jinshi and decree examinations that he administered.103 Elsewhere, Han Yu’s comparison of the examiner-graduand relationship to Confucius and his disciples represented an acceptable guise of intellectual discipleship.104 At the same time, he stressed the distance that he had maintained in his approaches even to Buddhist intellectuals with whom he was on good terms.105 Far removed from this, however, were forms of discipleship that acknowledged overtly the influence of Buddhist doctrine during performances of the ceremony of gratitude. Against these kinds of bond, Li Deyu, some four decades after Han Yu’s remarks, voiced his opposition much less ambiguously. Li Deyu stayed in power until 846. With the accession of Xuanzong in that year, his political career was effectively over, and his strictures against the annual examination programme were relaxed.106 Wang Dingbao probably exaggerated the damage that Li Deyu’s reform attempt wreaked on examination inscriptions. Nothing dis-

101 102 103 104 105 106

Zhu Wengong jiao Changli xiansheng wenji: 19.13b–14a. Duyi zhi: C.61 (no. 302). Zhu Wengong jiao Changli xiansheng wenji: 30.7b. On Han Yu’s ideas of discipleship, see McMullen (1989b): 625–7. Hartman (1986): 93–100. THY: 76.1385; CFYG: 641.7b.

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putes that the government was truly zealous enough to send out teams of masons and plasterers to wage war against the written word in the manner that Wang Dingbao claims. More credibly, however, in 845, the drastic Huichang suppression was the reason for dismantling and destroying the majority of inscriptions that had survived at monastic sites now threatened by the latest anti-clerical policy. Supposing that the Huichang suppression did put paid to decades of examinations’ epigraphy, it most likely also coloured Wang Dingbao’s view of the 840’s to the extent that he wrote such a vindictive summary of Li Deyu’s reforms. Despite what graduands and the Buddhist clergy had to contend with at the end of Wuzong’s reign, other late Tang texts reveal that the ceremony of gratitude survived. Graduands’ relations even started to appear at the examiner’s residence during performances in the following decade. In 854 Bi Xian (803–64), one of Li Deyu’s declared opponents and the father of one of the graduands, called to express his thanks to the examiner Zheng Xun (d. ca. 863). A decade later this practice had become so common that in 863 the examiner Xiao Fang won acclaim for the startling news that, after publicizing the pass list, no senior officials visited his residence.107 That may have been so, but Wang Dingbao also documents that this particular official fell victim to a charge of favouritism and the punishment of distant exile (396 397 398). During the late ninth century, too, an examiner might receive letters addressed to him as the “abbot” from a graduand’s grateful relations.108 In the last years of the Tang, even army officers, intent on establishing their status within the military, acquired the “name papers” which were required for performances of the ceremony of gratitude: Although they have ears they do not pick up matters of government. Only when they have been promoted to office do they buy the name papers for the ceremony of gratitude.109

Clearly, the ceremony of gratitude was performed in a widening variety of contexts, but, unless they demonstrated new political alliances

107 Both these accounts from Zashuo are preserved at TPGJ: 178.1325; TYL: 3.216 (no. 324). Cf. Lu shi zashuo: 0.2b at Shuofu (120-juan version): juan 48. 108 See Li Shangyin’s letter to Wei Fu (examiner in 847) on behalf of his successful younger brother or cousin (Li Yishan wenji: 3.2a; WYYH: 653.2b). 109 Xu Gong Diaoji wenji: 9.9a.

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with the highest levels of political society, these performances were subject to ridicule. It is also questionable whether an element as central as the transmission of the robe and bowl still retained the deep psychological appeal that it had evinced for performers in the first half of the century. Even later, under Song rule, the parallel context of Buddhist ritual is significant. Then the notion of dharma transmission placed greater emphasis on the individual’s possession of an inheritance certificate (sishu).110 Clearly too, the attitude in Buddhist circles towards a material symbol of inheritance, such as the monk’s robe, became increasingly ambivalent.111 Thus, although enactments of the ceremony of gratitude continued in the Five Dynasties, their atmosphere felt increasingly impersonal; the examiner’s role became remoter. These developments would become even more pronounced in the Song and later periods. One way of accounting for these later shifts is to analyze the significance of the next examination ceremony that Wang Dingbao documented, namely the procession through the Hall. This ceremony brought Tang graduands face to face with the highest tier of government in a formal setting unlike any other in the annual examination programme. T P   H Not only did the ceremony of gratitude emerge relatively intact after the perils of the 840’s, its significance may have inspired directly the elaborate ceremonial arrangements for presenting examination graduands to the highest of all their political masters. The procession through the Hall—the central secretariat—in the Daming Palace was also a declaration of the graduands’ obligations to senior political authority, only this time directed to all of high officialdom including on occasion even the emperor. The procession through the Hall gained far less notice than the ceremony of gratitude. Wang Dingbao documented a lengthy prescription for its performance, but few other late Tang observers mention it, and only briefly at that. This sparse record suggests that the

110 111

Foulk (1993): 159. Kieschnick (1999): 31.

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procession was the last major evolution of examination ritual before the end of the Tang. Wang Dingbao’s set of directives provides the only sustained view of Tang graduands entering the government quarters and interacting with senior officials: On this day the association controller provides a canopy and prepares food and drink ahead of time on the eastern interior of the Guangfan gate.112 Here the fellow graduands await the ministers’ ascent into the Hall before they take part in an audience. In the meantime the examiner invites as many as two in every three of his acquaintances to hold a gathering somewhere else. This banquet raises no insignificant amount of cash by imposing fines. Once the ministers have assembled, a Hall official comes to request the name papers. The disciples follow their abbot in a procession through the central secretariat. Forming a line across [the building], the ministers stand in order within the door of the Great Hall.113 The Hall official sends in word to say: “Vice Minister so-and-so of the Board of Rites has brought the recently awarded jinshi graduands for an audience with the lords-ministers.” In a moment another official relays a response in ringing tones to the examiner. Then, the examiner ascends the steps and makes a long salute before retiring to stand beside the doorway facing east.

Constituent details, such as the graduands’ entrance, the announcement of their arrival, the collection of their name papers and their response to ceremonial stage directions match this event closely with performances of the ceremony of gratitude. Even gambling, which graduands had enjoyed before visiting their examiner, reappears as a recreation now permitted in high government circles. The requirement to declare each candidate’s family origins is also repeated. One crucial change, of course, is that the examiner assumes an intermediary role between the graduands and his peers in the most senior level of government. The procession’s use of space is also markedly different. A doorway mediates the confrontation between the graduands and those inside it. This arrangement would have been quite alien to the progressive stages of inclusion that took place in the open precincts and dais used for the ceremony of gratitude. The physical structures of the highest government offices enforced separation rather than union.

The outer gateway at the Central Secretariat (zhongshu sheng). dutang: the main chamber of the Central Secretariat, distinct from that of the Department of State Affairs in the government city. 112

113

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Other superficial similarities with the words and gestures of the ceremony of gratitude also show radical departures from graduands’ previous experiences of acknowledging their new status: From the first graduands downwards, all stand in their order on the steps. The top graduand steps out of the line to proclaim an address, which states: “On a certain month and day the Board of Rites issued its list. We are fortunate and shamed to have established our names on it. That we have succeeded in standing below the lords-ministers’ furnace114 renders us barely able to control our grateful awe.” (In the presence of [retainers] of the left and right115 he would say “auspicious awe”.) When he has finished he retires and salutes. Then, beginning with the top graduand, every single man announces his family and personal names. After these announcements, the Hall official says: “there are no guests!” The examiner makes another long salute and, leading his disciples, he retires to visit the court of the [Hanlin] grand secretaries.116

Wang Dingbao’s stage directions provide two kinds of address for variable conditions. Although they are expected to perform in much the same way as they do in expressing gratitude at the examiner’s residence, words rather than symbolic gestures now alternate the performance for an audience governed by either senior officials or the emperor. The graduands’ identifications of their family backgrounds may appear no different from the same function enacted in the ceremony of gratitude. What has changed crucially is that the object of this acknowledgement is no longer the examiner. Instead, the graduands acknowledge the sagacity of senior officialdom with words that appeal to considerably less contentious notions of Daoist inheritance. Nor is this the only suggestion of the Daoist atmosphere. The short record that Qian Yi provides concerning Tang jinshi graduands’ meetings with the ministers of the day also includes a lyrical recollection of the group’s assembly at a Daoist temple before entering the palace precincts.117 Records such as these provide only brief

taozhu: early appearances of this Daoist notion of transformation are at Zhuang Zi: 2.1.34, and at Mo Zi: 78.46.4. For early Tang historians’ application of the same practical image in Confucian contexts, see the biographies of the celebrated canonical lecturer Chang Shuang (Beishi: 42.1554; Weishu: 84.1848); see also comments by Linghu Defen after the biographies of Yu Xin and Wang Bao (Zhoushu: 41.744). 115 Periphrasis for stating the presence of the emperor. 116 sheren: these scholars, whose special responsibility was an to draft and finalize imperial texts, held an office for which the jinshi degree was an obvious training stage. Their offices were located on the western side of the Daming Palace. 117 Nanbu xinshu: 3.33. 114

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glimpses of the Daoist imagining of graduands’ sense of obligation to temporal authorities. There is no doubt, however, that the Daoist conception of monarchy at least was as strong as ever in the Tang’s closing decades. It was central in loyalist support for the last serious attempt to restore the dynasty following the court’s return to Chang’an in 885.118 What Wang Dingbao’s records of examinations ritual also suggest, however, is the extent to which Daoism in the ninth century pervaded examinations graduands’ vision of their social ascendancy and their fitness to serve in government. The final section of Wang Dingbao’s prescription then details a visit to the Hanlin secretaries, members of an advisory and drafting section founded in 738. Its prestigious functions close to the emperor had first gained hightened recognition soon after the An Lushan rebellion.119 Indirectly, many Hanlin secretaries owed their position to their past achievements in the jinshi examinations, and they comprised thus a body of government who justifably expected to greet a cohort of degree-holders that contained a number of their future successors: The examiner’s robe is undecorated. The grand secretaries wear official dress and silk slippers,120 and they receive the examiner graciously. But the grand secretaries’ ceremonial appearance and their show of respect are heightened. Staff set out lines of cups and wine and they arrange them at the front of the steps; they create an area of mats and cushions and they request the grand secretaries to take their places. The graduands all bow and the grand secretaries bow in response. The top graduand steps out of the line to proclaim his address, and he too bows. The grand secretaries bow in response as before. The graduands then come out to the outer compound and wait for the examiner to emerge. They express a single farewell and that concludes the ceremony. Straight afterwards they call at the examiner’s home to perform the ceremony of gratitude, and then they repair to their banquet venue. (49)

These last actions recall much of the ceremony of gratitude. But, the outward signs of the participants’ presence differ once more. The

Verellen (1994). Bischoff (1963); McMullen (1988): 16 et passim. 120 saxie: literally “straw slippers”, but by the Tang period usually made of silk. Ma Gao (c. 850–c. 933) states that such shoes were worn by emperors, and he recounts that the first Qin emperor wore them with other immortal apparel when entertaining hermits and seeking methods of immortality (Zhonghua gujin zhu: B.33). 118 119

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examiner dresses so as not to manifest his rank; the secretaries put on footwear that emphasizes that they too participate at this event not as celebrants in an official court function but as colleagues in a less formal gathering. The visual allusions in their costume may have evoked again the Daoist atmosphere that the graduands spoke of moments earlier. Of course, even though the essential stage directions for the central moment of this visit to the Hanlin secretaries match the ceremony of gratitude, the position of the examiner has now become less obtrusive. He co-operates with the Hanlin secretaries as an important guest, but nonetheless a guest rather than the host in his own residence. Tang documents reveal few instances of performing either the procession through the Hall or the visit to the Hanlin Academy suggesting that the procession had been performed from early in the ninth century, Wang Dingbao collected Du Mu’s famous poem written after returning with a degree title awarded in Luoyang in 828. He used this piece—none too aptly—to claim that Du Mu “processed through the Hall” in the western capital (58). Whether this indicated a procession performed during the examination programme so long before Wang Dingbao’s lifetime is highly questionable. Other references to processing through the Hall include a ceremony of the same name that was significantly not a part of the annual examination programme. A recorded instance of it dates to 807, and it reveals that new office-holders processed through the Hall following the selection (xuan) procedures administered by the Board of Personnel.121 Wang Dingbao’s other records of this ceremony’s performance date to a later period, and they are considerably more dependable. In one story, cited already in chapter 2, Wang Dingbao introduces his readers to his grandfather, Wang Gui, who persuades Jiang Yong in 866 to keep his distance from spendthrift companions at celebratory outings once he has participated in the procession through the Hall (61). By the 860’s, then, the procession was perhaps the most significant marker of progress through the examination programme. Even more interesting is the story of Zhang Shu who, in company with his friend Cui Zhaowei, visits a soothsayer and hears

121 In 807, Wei Guanzhi and Wu Yuanheng (d. 815) meet at a procession through the Hall after they had participated in the xuan selections (Xu dingming lu, cited at TPGJ: 154.1110).

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the prophecy that he will process through the Hall only after Cui Zhaowei has been appointed minister—exactly what happens in 891 (311).122 Fortune-telling stories are invariably crucial gauges of popular sentiment concerning institutions and rituals. In this case, of course, the internal logic of Zhang Shu’s story demands a ceremony at which both graduand and minister can meet, and the procession through the Hall is thus the most suitable climax. Nevertheless, that choice may also indicate that social interest in examination ceremonies had shifted by the 890’s. Just as valid a prognostication surely could have warned Zhang Shu that he would meet the conditions of his success at the ceremony of gratitude. Ministers also attended that ceremony, after all, as Wang Dingbao makes abundantly clear. But, during the Tang dynasty’s final two decades, the procession through the Hall supplanted the ceremony of gratitude as the object of many graduands’ highest aspirations. The only other writers who described participation in the procession through the Hall were some of the Tang dynasty’s last degreewinners. They included Han Wo, Du Xunhe and Xu Yin ( jinshi 892), all Wang Dingbao’s senior contemporaries who wrote lyrical accounts of the ceremony’s performance. Han Wo’s poem, composed in 889, invoked mythological images in a vision of entering the palace precincts that recasts his experience as the culmination of a Daoist quest for enlightenment. In a revealing parallel with both Wang Dingbao’s prescriptive stipulation for the examiner’s costume and other epithets for graduands in white robes, Han Wo’s poem describes himself and his companions in hempen gowns.123 Du Xunhe used the same terms in the poem that he composed after his participation in the procession of 891.124 Perhaps composed after his degree award in 892, Xu Yin composed a rhapsody entitled “The white-robed enter the Hanlin Academy”.125 Just as remarkable as the sudden fashion for writing on this theme is the possibility suggested at the end of Han Wo’s poem that painters had adopted the procession through the Hall as a subject of visual representation.126 After Wang Dingbao’s For Cui Zhaowei’s promotion, see also 198a. Yushan qiaoren ji: 0.15a–b. 124 Tangshi jishi jiaojian: 66.1789. 125 Diaoji wenji: 5.4b–5a. 126 His poem ends: “Luminous for a fraction of time and surpassing any description in images.” Han Wo was a well-known painter, and pictorial allusions feature in his other verse. 122 123

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citation of Wei Chengyi’s poem on the examination night, discussed in chapter 5, this is the second event of the annual examination programme that seems to have emerged in the Tang pictorial repertoire. Wang Dingbao was no doubt aware that the procession through the Hall was a ceremony that attracted increasing interest during the final years of the Tang. His patron Wu Rong was a degree-winner of 889, making him a member of the cohort that Han Wo’s poem recorded in the procession through the Hall that year. Wang Dingbao also collected a short account of Wang Ti, whose father was promoted to minister one day after his son’s degree award in 894. In a sign that the procession through the Hall was coming under increasing scrutiny, the happy coincidence of father and son’s relative promotion and degree award required that they meet at a special and separately conducted performance (198b). One more document of the annual examination programme during the 840’s suggests that performances of the procession through the Hall strived to minimize the intimate conditions of acknowledgement pursued during the ceremony of gratitude. The unknown compiler of the Yuquan Zi recounts that in 843, Lu Zhao, Ding Leng and the rest of that year’s degree-winners undertook a ceremonial visit to the chief ministers as soon as they had heard the news of the results. Lu Zhao, the first-ranked graduand, is expected to deliver the familiar speech on his cohort’s behalf, but, because he confesses to a personal acquaintance among the ministers, he delegates his task to Ding Leng, who is a chronic stutterer. With predictably harsh Tang humour, a formal occasion descends into un-controlled ribaldry.127 But this story reveals much more. Firstly, these graduands visit the ministers straight after the issue of that year’s pass list. Thus, it seems fair to question whether only several months before Li Deyu wrote his memorial late in 843, the annual examination programme had not already timetabled a visit to the chief ministers ahead of— possibly even to replace—the ceremony of gratitude. If so, Wang Dingbao seems to have been unaware of the fact or else to have ignored it. Secondly, Lu Zhao passed up the chance to make a grand oratorical impact on his future because the minister whom he wished to avoid addressing was none other than his patron Li Deyu. The

127

Yuquan zi: 0.3–4; TPGJ: 182.1355; TYL: 7.625 (no. 903).

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Yuquan Zi is also the source that records Li Deyu’s commitment to his favourite protégé.128 Of course, this revelation of Li Deyu’s participation in an examination ceremony during 843 demolishes even further Wang Dingbao’s claim that Li Deyu despised the jinshi degree. Although not a categorical instance of the procession through the Hall, the Yuquan Zi story recounts a ceremonial expression of acknowledgement by new graduands before the chief ministers. Its setting in the 840’s when Li defining the kind of Deyu dominated the political scene could not be more significant for defining the kind of behaviour that graduands might have adopted to acknowledge ministerial power rather than to recognize the lone agency of the examiner. Finally, Lu Zhao’s tactful withdrawal from his designated role at the ceremony reveals a practice of avoiding contact that is a hallmark of public dealings in the examinations. The same condition features in the story of Wang Ti and his father meeting at a separate performance of the procession through the Hall (198b). These attempts to obliterate familiar social intercourse from examination ceremonies suggest a new formulation of examination ritual that was diametrically opposed to what the ceremony of gratitude encouraged in the forms of overt declarations of family descent and political links. The differences in both ceremonies’ aims were still a far cry from anything resembling the procedures of true meritocracy. However, they represented an innovation no less important than the developments upon which historians have commonly (and rightly) focused, most notably the first attempts in the early Song to protect examination candidates’ anonymity with “covered names” (huming).129 Just as later aims to control examination society through enforcing anonymity were unpopular, so too were Tang measures to redirect expressions of gratitude from intimate exchanges to more public acknowledgements. Even six decades after the first signs of this redirection in the 840’s Wang Dingbao had not abandoned his highly equivocal view of its implications. Other officials, who continued to take part in ceremonies of gratitude throughout the late ninth shared his feelings. The relative silence surrounding the procession through the Hall before the final decade of the ninth century permits two speculations. 128 129

Yuquan zi: 0.3. TPGJ: 182.1355; TYL: 7.624–5 (no. 902). For this institution in 992, see Araki (1969): 243–66; Chaffee (1995): 51.

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Firstly, the ceremony may have enjoyed only a brief history starting perhaps no earlier than the middle of the ninth century; secondly, it seems never to have been contentious. That it never awoke any controversy may have been because the examiner acted in a considerably more discreet role when compared with his position at the ceremony of gratitude. Nothing is stated about his appearance at the ceremony of gratitude, but, during the procession through the Hall, he quite clearly dressed down. Wang Dingbao’s prescriptive account also shows that the procession reflected the pre-eminence of senior government officials and their ruler in a manner much more subdued—but not less powerful—than the ministers’ arrival at the ceremony of gratitude. During the procession through the Hall the influential figure of the examiner stood quite literally downstage beyond the sacred portal of the throne’s power. C Wang Dingbao’s records give more historical weight to the ceremony of gratitude perhaps because more documents existed to confirm its longer existence. Just as likely, however, the answer lies in his emotional reactions. He felt a stronger attachment to what this ceremony represented, and he sought even the most incoherent reasons to rationalize what he saw as the senselessness of Li Deyu’s enmity. He subscribed to an emphasis that was usual throughout the Five Dynasties when the ceremony of gratitude remained the topic dominating early tenth-century discourse on examination ritual. Even though the Tang comprises the earliest phase of China’s long history of examination recruitment, the ceremony of gratitude in that period probably represented the influence of the chief examiner at a height to which it subsequently never remounted. Wang Dingbao’s records are crucial to understanding the early history of an examination ceremony that expressed more profoundly than any other the mutual confidence of the selected and their selectors. The ceremony of gratitude, having weathered a strong attack by Li Deyu, endured for the rest of the Tang, but during the Five Dynasties its performance was again seriously challenged. In 930 at Luoyang the Latter Tang government forbade all gatherings of successful graduands except for banquets bestowed by the emperor. It also attacked usage of the terms “disciple” and “gate of mercy” among graduands

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and their examiner.130 In 933 the same government seems to have permitted more elaborate arrangements, but the examiner’s importance was certainly reduced during performances in a palace precinct beneath the imperial gaze. When the music commenced at these Latter Tang ceremonies, the graduands performed a courtly dance of gratitude. Following the homage to their ruler, they performed a ceremony of gratitude to Confucius and only then—at this third stage—met with their examiner.131 These were innovations that brought the evolution of examination ritual full circle within only a few years after Wang Dingbao had completed Collected Statements. Wang Dingbao also prescribes a form of acknowledgement that may have developed only more recently. The procession through the Hall also deserves recognition for its relevance to debates taking place during and shortly after Wang Dingbao’s lifetime. Following the difficulties that the late Tang government faced in attempting to restrict or ban controversial performances in the examination programme, Five Dynasties’ and Song government paid closest attention to reforming the ceremony of gratitude. The fact that ultimately they re-scripted that ceremony to resemble quite closely the late Tang procession through the Hall suggests that the notion of gratitude and its ceremonial performance never ceased to dominate official thinking. What differed, of course, was the source to which that gratitude was directed. The Latter Tang began to create an imperial focus for gratitude in the examination system, which endured long after the demise of this brief regime. By the year of Wang Dingbao’s death in 940, the Latter Jin government attempted further reforms of the examination programme and justified its actions by reference to the Latter Tang.132 The same justification appeared in Song reforms in 962.133 Based as it was on many institutional modifications of the Five Dynasties,134 a Song decree of that year went farther than any previous statement since the brief period of abolition effected by Li Deyu: examiners

Wudai huiyao: 23.368; CFYG: 642.1b–4a. Wudai huiyao: 23.369; CFYG: 642.6b–7a. 132 Jiu Wudai shi: 79.1039 and 148.1979; CFYG: 642.11b. 133 Xu zizhi tongjian changbian: 3.71; Song huiyao jigao: 108, 3.1b–2a. See also Araki (1969): 274–84. 134 For a summary of Five Dynasties’ innovations in examination ceremonies, see Araki (1982). 130

131

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were simply forbidden to perform the ceremony of gratitude.135 Graduands were therefore beholden solely to their ruler, and even the “hopeful gatherings”—formerly unofficial meetings for rehearsal and fund-raising —were paid for by government grants.136 Wang Yong, the last percipient observer of Song examination ritual, regarded the abolition of the Tang ceremony of gratitude as a “total cleansing of previous habits” ( yi xi guxi ). He reasoned that, in their naive acceptance of mercy (en) issuing from the gate of an examiner, Tang graduands had fatally ignored the position of the supreme ruler of all men.137 Song officials, like their Tang predecessors, commonly believed that the ceremony of gratitude was one of the principal catalysts of factionalism.138 And so, the Song government, benefiting enormously from the changes enforced in the Five Dynasties period, shifted the focus of the graduands’ loyalty and affection from the examiner to the emperor almost immediately after it re-united China. Song emperors were not quite the absolutists that is often supposed.139 Nevertheless, their frequent issuance of direct orders concerning when and to whom graduands should perform the ceremony expressed a new imperial authority in the examinations.140 Furthermore, the Song government significantly re-organized the order of court ceremonies in the examination programme. Graduands first attended the ceremony of gratitude in front of the emperor—sometimes termed “court gratitude” (chaoxie)—before attending the ceremony to Confucius in the grounds of the university. Then, the graduands attended the “procession through the Hall”, and participated in the banquet “On hearing joyful news”, which Wang Dingbao also included in his list of banquet names. This celebration was apparently instituted as a state ritual no earlier than 927 under the Latter Tang.141 No banquet for 135 See also Zeng Gong’s (1019–83) attention to this event at Nanfeng xiansheng Yuanfeng leigao, 49.5b. 136 Nakajima (1988). The first government to award these grants to graduands was the Latter Tang in 927 (Wudai huiyao: 22.359). 137 Yanyi yimou lu: 1.2. 138 See this view expressed in a letter by Hua Zhen (fl. 1093) (Yunqi jushi ji: 24.7a–8b). For a recent discussion of factionalism, including brief reference to the ceremony of gratitude, see Chen (1992): 308–15. 139 For a modification of the common view of Song absolutism, see Bol (2001). 140 For an instance when the emperor ordered ten new graduands to perform the ceremony of gratitude to the examiner’s father-in-law, see Moji: 2.22–3. 141 Wudai huiyao: 22.359. In the final years of the Northern Song, its performance

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examination graduands, least of all any associated with the ceremony of gratitude, had been an important state ritual concern under Tang rule. Finally, at some stage in one of the “hopeful gatherings” the graduands performed a ceremony of bowing to one another in order to honour their inclusion in the examination pass list and their age differences. Termed “Bows to the pass list” (bai huangjia), this ceremony took place after the ceremony of gratitude in honour of the emperor. Its text mentions nothing of an examiner.142 Even a lengthy recollection of the bai huangjia ceremony by the high-ranking minister and diplomat Fan Chengda (1226–93) gives no indication of a moment in the ceremony when the chief examiner himself was acknowledged, and certainly no hint of what Wang Dingbao recounted as an emotional climax of weeping tears of gratitude.143 The ceremony that Fan Chengda recalled was essentially a celebration of esprit de corps and an enactment of purely lateral ties of allegiance. These became familiar to Northern Song and later society as graduand unions (tongnian hui ), and they represented influential alliances for their members in many walks of political life.144 But there is no mention in Song sources of a private ceremony to match Wang Dingbao’s vision of the Tang ceremony of gratitude performed between the examiner and his graduands. From the Song dynasty until well into the Qing, the imperial ceremony of gratitude was performed on a far grander scale. But it was a grandeur that ignored the graduands’ feelings for their examiner and directed their political commitments solely to the throne and the inner court.

was prescribed in the new state ritual code, the New Ritual Directives of the Zhenghe Reign Period, completed in 1113 (Songshi: 114.2711–2). 142 Songshi: 156.3645. 143 Fan Chengda yizhu jicun: 166–7. 144 On Song political alliances, see He (1994): 1–6

CHAPTER SEVEN

CELEBRATIONS OF SUCCESS Wang Dingbao’s documents show that when new graduands celebrated the final events of the Tang examination season, they interacted with a broader spectrum of Chang’an society than they had ever previously encountered. Society not the state organized most of the examination programme’s final celebrations. This chapter first addresses evidence in Wang Dingbao’s text that shows how every year’s graduands in the late Tang period formed a jinshi association. It also surveys the association’s agenda, which is Wang Dingbao’s list of celebratory events staged at the end of the annual examination programme. Discussion will then focus on the Qujiang, the capital’s famous manmade lake, which Wang Dingbao documented as the earliest venue of Tang graduands’ celebrations. Finally, this chapter will analyse Wang Dingbao’s accounts of celebratory events, such as flower-seeking competitions, name-signing, a special form of Buddhist relic worship and games of hit-ball. Wang Dingbao’s documents demonstrate that Tang state authorities seldom appeared obtrusively during events in which graduands and many constituencies of the Chang’an population mingled so easily. Only after the Tang collapse is it apparent that some Five Dynasties’ governments attempted to control the same performative acts with representatives of the state functioning visibly as their sponsor and host. Wang Dingbao shows that new degree-winners played leading roles in the metropolitan calendar, but the attraction that such events held for Chang’an society did not depend entirely on the presence of jinshi graduands. On the contrary, many of these events were festivals owing none of their origins to annual degree examinations. They formed part of an old calendar within which examination events were the latest additions. Some of the fragmentary literature on the Chang’an region’s ritual observances shows that what ninth-century examination graduands had begun to think of as examination ceremonies included observances with social roots going back much farther than the rise of Sui and Tang examinations. Wang Dingbao did not make any such analysis explicit. Indeed he almost certainly

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viewed examination celebrations as the basic impetus of Chang’an’s seasonal festivities. Intent on claiming so many Chang’an activities as components of the examination programme, the irony of Wang Dingbao’s achievement is that he created an un-rivalled record of spring observances that absorbed many participants other then new degree-holders. This chapter uses Wang Dingbao’s records to suggest that late Tang graduands invented far less than they borrowed from the calendar of religious observances, seasonal festivals and sports, which patterned the life of Chang’an society as a whole. This differed markedly from early examination authorities’ concern with the annual programme’s initial ritual undertakings developed from both close readings of antiquity and observances of codified state ritual. Nor did the pattern of jinshi celebrations match exactly late Tang graduands and examiners’ innovative borrowings of Buddhist ritual to create something as completely new as the ceremony of gratitude. Instead, the participants in the annual examination programme joined performers from other walks of life to act in celebrations that would have carried on regardless of whether or not annual cohorts of jinshi graduands demanded to join in. T         Wang Dingbao shows that a new group of graduands rapidly developed the group’s internal hierarchy by means of assigning its members particular responsibilities and privileges during a series of highly varied seasonal engagements. His documents provide unique insights into the late Tang names and agencies of these processes. Whether engaged in mutual congratulation or else in further expressions of acknowledgement towards their examiner, graduands elaborated the habitual structures and familiar symbols of government careers to pursue intense performances of the bureaucracy at play. As soon as a pass list promulgated their names, they emerged with a visible group identity, which, although as transient as the season, was deeply impressive in its formal bearing and habits. The group’s members were poised to become junior officials in the central bureaucracy without any immediate expectations for substantive office or duties, but their sudden reward of status privileges forced nearly all of officialdom to notice them. Wang Dingbao reveals that they assumed the quasi-professional stature and bearing of a “jinshi association”

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( jinshi tuan). To this institution were affiliated scores or even hundreds of extra members who assisted in staging the examination season’s celebratory finale. The luxurious lifestyle that the jinshi association epitomized was partly the result of gradually eroding the barriers between consumption privileges in- and outside the palace.1 The association’s highly ritualized conduct, its assumption of rare privileges and its retention of extra staff to service its needs became defining characteristics of late Tang jinshi life. The figures who coupled Chang’an’s larger calendar to the examination programme were the association controller (tuansi ) and his associates in the jinshi association. These somewhat shadowy agents have already appeared in arrangements for the ceremony of gratitude, but their work on behalf of high officials and their negotiations with commercial entrepreneurs involved them even more deeply in the close of the examination season. Organizers of both discreet gatherings and mass spectacles, the associates must have ranked among the dynasty’s most versatile operators in all practical aspects of Tang ritual. The events that first bound graduands and associates into a tight mutual dependency were hopeful gatherings. Chapter 6 showed how these gatherings functioned to rehearse and perpetuate performances of the ceremony of gratitude. As the demand to repeat formal and lengthy ceremonies of gratitude slackened, hopeful gatherings turned into opportunities of fund-raising for the annual programme’s last ceremonies. Wang Dingbao recorded a number of events that graduands attended after they had performed the ceremony of gratitude one or more times. The exact sequence of performing these events is impossible to define, and it is unlikely that all of the events occurred every year. Wang Dingbao’s list, however, does reflect an obvious priority for differing levels of banqueting arrangement following the ceremony of gratitude: Banquet names: Great Introduction (the examiner is present and both his parents); Lesser Introduction (the examiner is present in partial attendance); Little Introduction (when the examiner has brothers); Hearing Joyful News (following a decree to feast officials); Cherries; Moon Lamp Pavilion; Hit-ball; Paeonies; Admiring the Buddha’s Tooth.

1 For some origins of this process in royal feasts duringthe pre-rebellion period, see Huang (2000).

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Banquets in honour of the examiner’s parents and brothers occurred straight after gratitude ceremonies. Family relations were doubtless also present during performances of the ceremony itself. Wang Dingbao’s list reserves pride of place for any event at which the examiner presided. He lists as many as three distinct performances of an examiner’s banquet ahead of “Hearing Joyful News”, even though the latter was a celebration promoted—and paid for—by the throne. The remaining banquet names include quite laconic descriptions, beginning with “Cherries”, which described more accurately seasonal cultural pursuits. Banqueting featured during most of these pursuits even though many were not events organized exclusively by and for jinshi graduands. Following the entry “Admiring the Buddha’s Tooth”, Wang Dingbao inserted a long note explaining the conduct of this ceremony at various monasteries in Chang’an. This note is translated with the discussion of Buddha tooth ceremonies later in this chapter. Wang Dingbao’s list then concludes: Closing Banquet (this was the largest banquet, also named the Departure Banquet. An account 2 is given above.) (51)

The “closing banquet” ( guanyan), which took place at the Qujiang, was clearly designed as the annual programme’s opulent finale. Since the lake was the venue of several feasts during the examination season, its name soon stood as a generic description of all the final celebrations of the jinshi programme. Wang Dingbao included accounts that focused respectively on the Qujiang’s early history as a resort and on graduands’ ceremonial arrangements there. T    Q  Despite what the name “curving river” implies, the Qujiang was in reality a spring-fed lake. It had existed since the Sui period, and it underwent successive repairs during the Tang to bank its edges and improves its amenities. Wang Dingbao recorded the energy devoted to refurbishing the Qujiang during the final two decades of Xuanzong’s

2

i.e. 45b translated and discussed below.

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reign, but he was probably aware that the examination programme was not the primary motivation for this development. His account provides a rare glimpse of the effects that the first flurry of government building at the Qujiang had upon property owners in the area. He reveals the rising usage of the Qujiang for prestigious gatherings, showing also how a carefully tended landscape and cultural resort emerged as the direct concerns of government control. This was to have important consequences for the location and conduct of examination ceremonies in the second half of the dynasty: Qujiang tourism, although said to date from the Shenlong reign period [705–7], really flourished at the end of the Kaiyuan reign period [742]. How do I know this?

Wang Dingbao’s brief evaluation of his citation from the historical record of Dezong’s reign (779–805) was discussed in chapter 2 as a rare declaration of one of the Collected Statements’ sources. The substance of what follows is essentially a dialogue between Xuanzong and Xiao Song (d. 749), a senior statesman who numbered among his achievements the final editing of the Kaiyuan ritual code: According to the veritable record, in the first year of Tianbao [742], a decree recounted that Xiao Song’s ancestral shrine was cramped near the Qujiang. Subsequently, Xiao presented a memorial requesting to transfer to another location. A decree then ordered some officers and troops to undertake the building work. Song presented a memorial with his apologies and contested the need to order officers and troops to undertake any construction.

The emperor and his minister differed. Xiao Song was open to moving his shrine—which honoured not least the ruling family of the Liang dynasty (555–87)—but he did not volunteer to pull down the building and re-erect it. Xuanzong then spelled out exactly what Xiao Song was meant to agree to in a statement that reads most logically as a royal act of confiscation: An amendment to the decree stated: “When this gentleman established his shrine, the area was neglected. Now, along the river, building is going on, and the whole capital comes to enjoy the sights. I have thought about this on the gentleman’s behalf, and, in order best to avoid disruption, his project merits a change of plan. In consequence I command that once the authorities have undertaken the dismantling they must complete the reconstruction. What has already been decided brooks no pretext for further apologies!” (55)

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Xuanzong’s argument for moving the Xiao clan off-site reveals beyond question that the government intended to control development of the area. Indeed, in another passage—translated below—Wang Dingbao states that the years leading up to the An Lushan rebellion witnessed building works at the Qujiang carried out by most of the leading government departments. The Qujiang’s history was long, and its maintenance was repeatedly labour-intensive. The banks of the Tang lake created an opening between the southern and eastern walls of Chang’an, so that the water surfaced an area both in- and outside the city. The lake dried soon after the collapse of the Tang, and modern estimates of its size, which was somewhere in the region of 70,000 square metres, depend mostly on Tang literary references.3 Recent research has suggested that the lakeshore featured deeper and more numerous inlets than those of previous reconstructions.4 The lake was first dredged during the Sui period, and it was supplied by springs to the south of Chang’an. The Sui capital’s chief designer, Yuwen Kai (549–606), directed the first diversions of these sources to form a reservoir inside the angle of the southern and eastern city walls.5 Later engineering, which is not documented, released this Sui reservoir into a much larger basin extending outside the city through a gap in the southern wall. The water was apparently first named Qujiang and then renamed Lotus Park (Furong yuan) in response to Wendi’s antipathy to the connotation of qu “crooked.”6 The Sui design included a royal retreat on rising ground, which eventually Taizong granted as a residence to his son, the king of Wei. It kept the name Furong yuan and endured in the Tang as a restricted enclosure beside the lake and its surroundings. Wang Dingbao’s record is typical of several Tang and later texts that focus on the reign of Xuanzong, the period when the Qujiang first attracted serious government attention in the eighth century. Other records reveal that in 732 the authorities completed a covered walkway along the city’s eastern wall, which connected the 3 Shanxi sheng wenwu guanli weiyuanhui (1958): 82. For a study that used Bai Juyi’s writings, see Xia (1963). 4 For a revision of earlier scholarship on the lake’s environment, see Wang (2000). 5 See Chang’an zhi cited at ZZTJ: 198.6243. 6 Sui Tang jiahua: A.11; also cited as Xiaoshuo at ZZTJ: 198.6243.

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Daming Palace with the Lotus Park nearly nine kilometres away.7 Xuanzong and his successors could then make more or less discreet sorties to an observation post above the lake and its parkland. Some years later, Du Fu condensed all of these features into an intensely historical and personal vision of the Chang’an landscape.8 The Purple Cloud Tower (Ziyun lou), another celebrated landmark dominating later arrangements for examination celebrations in the Lotus Park, was also commissioned and built during Xuanzong’s reign.9 Particularly interesting in Wang Dingbao’s account of Xuanzong’s dispute with Xiao Song is that the emperor justified his aims as beneficial to the “whole capital”. Rare indeed are such statements concerning major aspects of construction in Chang’an, delivered not least on behalf of a mass constituency—which meant officialdom not some one million inhabitants of the capital. By the 740’s, the government had awoken to its interest in a prime rural site as the venue for large ceremonial observances and bureaucratic holidaying. This initial refinement of the Qujiang accompanied the Tang elite’s new keenness to stage ceremonial events in open settings outside the more familiar surroundings of chancellery precincts and palace halls. Wang Dingbao’s brief focus on the 740’s shows a preliminary phase in these changing priorities when the Qujiang parkland filled up swiftly with buildings and features to service the unprecedented visits of the Tang political elite. The armies of An Lushan soon put paid to most of that construction effort. Wang Dingbao’s other documents, to be considered in the following section, reveal that the Department of State Affairs’ pavilion was the only Qujiang property to survive the rebellion. Wang Dingbao suggested a long continuum of Qujiang celebrations from the prerebellion period onwards, ignoring, however, that the lake’s development as a resort during the second half of the eighth century was extremely slow. Although cultural pursuits in the Xuanzong reign often represented a notional standard for following generations to emulate, it is unlikely that socializing at the Qujiang in the 790’s and later ever recreated conditions to match the pre-rebellion era.

7 JTS: 8.198. See also the monograph on administrative geography at XTS: 37.961. 8 Written probably in 751, “Song on the Leyou park” (Du shi xiangzhu: 2.101–3). 9 Jutan lu: B.57; also at TPGJ: 251.1951, which attributes the passage to Li Jun’s (fl. 879) Songchuang zalu.

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The damage that the Qujiang suffered during the An Lushan rebellion was severe: “even as spring lengthened it did not look like spring”, one observer lamented.10 More telling perhaps is that not all the damage could be blamed on recent warfare. The builders of the Zhangjing Monastery in 767, for instance, re-used many timbers from the Qujiang.11 Furthermore, no attempt to restore the parkland seems to have begun in earnest until the following century. By then the throne’s control of this area had weakened considerably. In sharp contrast to Xuanzong’s forceful eviction of a senior courtier from the Qujiang eight decades earlier, in 822 the government heeded a public outcry and rescinded its proposal to cart away tombs and private buildings in the Lotus park.12 In 835, however, the authorities stepped in more boldly. Du Fu should be credited as the inspiration for the new policy, since Wenzong, obsessed with the glorious literary past of the previous century, cited the great poet’s descriptions of the Qujiang landscape as his main motive for intensive restoration works. On 14 March that year he ordered the army to rebuild the Purple Cloud Tower. Seven months later, on 28 October, he presented its name board written in his own hand. The lake was dredged, and government departments were encouraged to build new pavilions along the shoreline.13 This heralded the resort’s most flourishing decades as a venue for examination celebrations at least until the end of the 860’s. In 876 when the examination authorities set a poem “Raising the water level of the Qujiang pool”, officialdom no doubt applauded a welcome turnaround in the site’s recent neglect.14 Thus, even before Huang Chao’s violent occupation of Chang’an in 881, the government’s management of its premier water feature was erratic. Not until the ninth century did serious building efforts make it a cultural site familiar even to non-residents of Chang’an like Wang Dingbao. The steady rise in the Qujiang’s popularity throughout the middle of this century was doubtless one factor that led Wang Dingbao’s attention to its early history. What distinguished his focus,

See Wang Jia’s poem The Qujiang after the disorders (Tangshi jishi jiaojian: 63.1694). JTS: 184.4764; THY: 48.847. See also Weinstein (1987): 83–4. 12 JTS: 16.499. 13 JTS: 17B.557, 559 and 561. See also THY: 30.563. 14 See answers by Huang Tao (Huang yushi gong ji: 4.2a–b) and Zheng Gu (WYYH: 183.9a). 10

11

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especially in comparison with other compilers, was his exclusive search for evidence to link the history of the site to the growth of the examination programme. For instance, other Tang accounts of the Qujiang offer somewhat forced historical allusions to features of the earliest imperial topography. A fashionable late ninth-century claim was that the Qujiang was the water beside what Sima Xiangru had identified as “Curve island” (Qizhou) of Qin times.15 More plausibly, other Tang research placed the Qujiang in Han Chang’an’s imperial parks.16 Equally interesting in the lake’s cultural significance from early on is its correspondence with Yangzhou’s local name for the Yangzi, also obvious in texts of the Han period.17 These other accounts of historical origins offer yet more insights into the lake and parkland’s cultural relevance to Chinese antiquity and the first empires. They show also that Wang Dingbao’s predominant view of the Qujiang as a ceremonial venue for examination society was only one interpretation among several, and they demonstrate that his attempt to link the history of the Qujiang exclusively with examinations was unusual. What absorbed Wang Dingbao even more than the environmental history of the Qujiang was the evidence of graduands’ organization and behaviour in its surroundings. T   Q  Wang Dingbao preserved two accounts of activity at the Qujiang that possess outstanding value in their relevance to the examination programme. The shorter of his two documents deals primarily with the rise in the Qujiang’s usage by examination graduands after the An Lushan rebellion. The second text is a considerably lengthier discussion of the practical arrangements that each year’s organization of banquets required. Both accounts suggest that only after the An

15 Shiji: 117.3055. See Tang developments of this Han toponymy at Jutan lu: B.57; and in Song chuang zalu (TPGJ: 251.1951). 16 See Yan Shigu’s gloss at Hanshu: 9.282; and, citation of Wei Shu’s Liangjing xinji at Taiping huanyu ji: 25.16b. 17 Chuxue ji: 4.124. See also the important association between Qujiang and Guangling (Yangzhou) in Mei Cheng’s (d. 140 BC) “Qi fa” at Wenxuan: 34.1569. Bai Juyi suggested another Southern association in equating the Qujiang with the Yangzi streaming past Jingzhou (“Thinking of Yuan The Ninth on the first day of autumn at the Qujiang ”, Bai Juyi ji: 9.175).

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Lushan rebellion did Qujiang ceremonies reflect the concern of graduands and their examiners to forge a separate cultural identity through exclusive celebratory and recreational pursuits. In the early eighth century, examination graduands were not unfamiliar visitors to the Qujiang. In 717, according to differing accounts, ten or as many as thirty jinshi graduands drowned after a boating accident on the lake.18 However, even though the location is the Qujiang, this group of men set out with masses of other Chang’an strollers to observe the shangsi, the spring festival celebrated on the first or third day of the third month. Festivals with no direct relationship to the examination programme were the primary attraction bringing early Tang graduands to the Qujiang. By contrast, although later jinshi graduands also participated in the shangsi and other festival activities held at the Qujiang, they celebrated their success even more conspicuously with separate feasts, processions and sports. Late Tang observers viewed Qujiang history in two distinct periods. Wang Dingbao’s contemporary Wang Renyu (880–956) recorded what has since become the most famous unattributed recollection of jinshi candidates during the Tianbao reign period stripping off clothes with their female companions and drinking to excess in the Qujiang’s more overgrown spaces. But these sensual gratifications, labelled “mad quaffing” (dianyin), were the entirely private pursuits of a group of named eccentrics, none of whom appears to have won a degree.19 Other records, including verse, reveal that events structured purely around examination success were innovations that appeared after the An Lushan rebellion. Even Wang Dingbao, who ascribed the Qujiang’s initial building developments to the reign of Xuanzong, dated the staging of examination ceremonies at the Qujiang to the decades that followed. The first of two of Wang Dingbao’s documents adds new historical information about the particular location of Qujiang banquets, and it introduces for the first time the wide spectrum of their social participants. The opening section of this document states: Before the disorders of An [Lushan] and Shi [Siming], the pavilions on the Qujiang were those of all the departments ranged along the

18 Dingming lu at TPGJ: 216.1655; Duyi zhi: A.10 (no. 66) (also at TPGJ: 163.1184); Guangyi ji at TPGJ: 279.2218–9. See also Dudbridge (1995): 185 (no. 56). 19 Kaiyuan Tianbao yishi: A.81.

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  shore of the lake. After the emperor had established his residence in Shu, all were destroyed in the flames of war. The only one to survive was the pavilion of the Department of State Affairs. The “closing banquets” of the jinshi graduands often used its rooms. When they had finished the feast, they transferred their pleasures to barges. This was the usual procedure.

The schedule for closing banquets normally occupied the fifth and sixth months.20 The banquets were multiple events rather than a single feast organized on one day, and they followed the “closing examination” ( guanshi ). Wang Dingbao defined this examination as the season’s final test, which the Ministry of Personnel conducted before taking over official responsibility for the graduands’ dossiers from the Ministry of Rites (50). The closing examination marked a highly consequential transition of the season. Graduands participating in the annual programme measured the progress of time before and after the closing examination. Equally important is what a horizontal shift of responsibility from one ministry to the next reveals concerning the Board of Rites’ gradual relinquishing of control over the annual examination programme. The eclipsing of the Board of Rites’ responsibilities for the graduands was truly complete one century later when the Song government replaced the closing examination with an imperial audience to grant graduands their new official privileges—on a much reduced scale. Governments after the Tang effectively removed patronage of the examination programme away from the bureaucracy and adopted it henceforth as a series of dispensations by the throne. Wang Dingbao shows, however, just how much more control the Tang bureaucracy exerted over the Qujiang festivities through its provision of parkland venues. That the Department of State Affairs was alone in preserving its Qujiang property in the aftermath of the mid-century wars is especially significant. This was the central government institution that hosted the development of Qujiang ceremonies during the early post-rebellion years and later. The Department’s quarters in the Qujiang and its seasonal visits there neatly juxtaposed its working hours and office space in the government city. By means of two venues, its accommodation of the examination programme’s

20

Nanbu xinshu: 2.19.

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events possessed a striking unity. Not only did the Department accommodate examinations and their results in the bureaucracy’s headquarters on the north side of the capital, it hosted the graduands’ celebrations again in its own pavilion on the city’s southern edge. Yet, as the close of Wang Dingbao’s account reveals, the Qujiang and its adjacent zones were not only the setting for overbearing government offices. Opportunities for commercial gain ripened rapidly in this season, and the obvious result was an enormous annual influx of market entrepreneurs in and around the capitals’ southeast wards: For several days before the banquet, markets were strung out at the head of the water. During those days the dukes and ministers and their families, in addition to the whole city, came here to watch everything. When there were men who seemed to have been chosen for an eastern bed, eighty or ninety percent of them they would arrive in carriages of fashioned gold, or upon saddles of pearl, together formed up as neat as a comb. (63a)

Whatever outline a reconstructive mapping of the Qujiang should dictate, the lake’s expansion into both the city and its exterior was remarkably fortuitous. “At the head of the water” the lake lapped the shoreline of urban culture. Even if this impressive rural feature lay for the most part outside the city walls and sustained for visitors to that restricted zone an unforgettable vision of tempered nature, its northward penetration of the city quarters integrated it securely within the busy transactions of the urban economy. The local streets provided access not only for market stalls but also for the kinds of showy carriages and saddles that some graduands selected in order quite literally to ride into society and satisfy the feverish expectations generated by their recent marriage contracts. These parades by future sons-in-law were important enough that Wang Dingbao duplicated the same information in his second and richer account of Qujiang celebrations. Wang Dingbao’s second document of Qujiang ceremonies provides details of delegating tasks to organize and service late Tang examination banquets. It recounts the crude standards of early Tang banquets before identifying the groups and individuals who organized allegedly much grander events in the decades following the An Lushan rebellion. Then, it turns to banquet venues, and it itemizes some of the responsibilities that organizers undertook. It also lists some of the most expensive services and commodities provided

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for banquets. The text closes with details of the graduands’ formal appearance during their passage from one event to another, raising this issue once more in the context of graduands’ opportunities for marriage with the daughters of political society’s most eminent families. This un-paralleled account reveals a growing commercialization in banquet organization as well as increasing opportunities for professional experts. In both respects, the document’s opening develops more sharply than any other record the differences that characterized examination banquets before and after the An Lushan rebellion: Grand Secretary Li Zhao’s Guoshi bu: “The great assemblies by the Qujiang were once for presented men who had failed their degrees. Their banquets were simple and rude. The vessels and cups were all such that you could toss them from behind the mountain.21 Say it was a case of taking the ground as a mat and the sky as a canopy, then that would not be far from the facts. Recently, [these events] have become increasingly luxurious, and they are all controlled by the upper ranks, since when failed candidates have no longer attended. This was why Chang’an’s roaming hands22 gathered together and called themselves the ‘jinshi association’”.23 In the beginning they were extremely few, but by the Dazhong and Xiantong reign periods [847–74] the number of people grew quite massive.

Wang Dingbao subscribed to a common prejudice that thoroughly denigrated banquets organized by jinshi candidates before the ninth century. To claim—as did Li Zhao—that all members of these parties were failed candidates seems at first sight exaggerated. What it may indicate, however, is that while successful graduands attended 21 ge shan pao zhi: this expression has no second use in Chinese literature. It may refer to one of the many throwing games that entertained all classes of society, particularly during popular festivals. The “mountain” barrier could have functioned as a view screen between opponent throwers. 22 youshou: this pejorative image occurs in Wang Fu’s (85–163) famous denunciation of Eastern Han luxurious living where it stands for commercial artisans disrupting the ideal order of agrarian production and taxation: “roaming hands perform wonders” ( youshou wei qiao). Li Xian (653–84) glossed their business as various sorts of carving (Hou Hanshu: 49.1633). The “roaming hands” feature also in the eloquent opening of a monograph on financial administration completed in the early Tang: “villages will be free of roaming hands; towns will not squander the seasons” ( Jinshu: 26.799). See the term also in Wang Yong’s description of mercantile constituencies involved in Kaifeng’s examination ceremonies during the Northern Song (Yanyi yimou lu: 2.12). 23 Given the dates that follow it, this appears to the logical point at which to close the citation from Li Zhao’s Guoshi bu.

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festivals at the Qujiang, only failed candidates organized parties exclusively for those involved in the recent examinations. If this is correct, it suggests that the famous Qujiang banquets had their origins in failed candidates’ consolation feasts. Only later did successful graduands consciously re-fashion these arrangements to suit the opposite purpose of celebration. In the second half of the dynasty, therefore, although graduands adopted and elaborated the customary behaviour of their unsuccessful peers, the latter still clung to their old privilege to organize consolation feasts. Elsewhere, citing Li Zhao again, Wang Dingbao introduces the term “beating off frustration” (da maosao) to describe what was probably quite a lavish event staged to sublimate a common burden of vexation (5a). Sun Qi, chronicler of Chang’an’s famous Pingkang pleasure ward in 881, was equally aware of this maligned engagement in the social calendar.24 The contemporary euphemism for the costs of these parties was “money to buy spring” (maichun qian).25 Having drawn a veil over the awkward existence of failed candidates in late Tang Chang’an, Wang Dingbao’s account—perhaps still in the voice of Li Zhao—introduces the jinshi association. Its composition was quite flexible, and its name was applied indiscriminately to both the core membership of graduands and to the much larger number of those more truly described as associates. Thoroughly in step with the demands of a festive timetable, the jinshi association was permitted to advance through the streets like a senior military corps. Even high-ranking courtiers were cleared from its path (78). The association’s members were pre-eminently suited for their tasks through their mixed backgrounds in politics, commerce and even the government’s fiscal administration. The chief supply from which this group drew its resources was the frequently imbalanced commerce between palace officials and traders in Chang’an’s western and eastern markets. Unsurprisingly, the later resented the palace’s demands, especially since these were most often honoured only below current market values. In 798, a year of steep price rises and the one year that the two sides’ volatile relationship is quite well documented, Wu Cou, then an imperial favourite, had some reason or other to stand up in defence of market traders. His exposure of the

24 25

Beili zhi: 0.31; Rotours (1968): 112. Yunxian zaji: 2.6a.

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worst excesses of government purchasing power includes a reference to staff working in the Lotus Park, the premier imperial venue of Qujiang celebrations.26 Clearly, by the 790’s the issue of conspicuous consumption at examination banquets had become contentious. The Association Controller (tuansi ) ran most financial arrangements. By Wang Dingbao’s day, their role was crucial in the annual accountancy of the graduands’ celebrations. In 899, for instance, the first-ranked graduand ordered the controller to pawn or sell the graduands’ mounts in order to pay for the coming season of banquets (62). Such a decision was typical of the independent nature of Tang financing during the examination season. It was not until the following century that Five Dynasties and Song governments were more willing to provide official funds for examination ceremonies. In the late Tang, then, when financing the season was still the responsibility of the graduands, the jinshi association’s members had to facilitate swift access to commodities and funds. “Roaming hands” ( youshou) was how Confucian fiscal experts described that social constituency of trade and profit that they were least inclined to acknowledge as a viable sector of the economy. By the end of the Southern Song the same term connoted various careers in professional crime.27 Wang Dingbao intended something far less pejorative, but his choice of term is nevertheless a succinct indication of the dubious status that respectable opinion ascribed to this varied and interesting group. He was at least not prurient enough to avoid naming some of the Association’s most renowned impresarios: At that time He Shican acted as master of fermented drinks. He was particularly gifted in the organization of banquets. As soon as the closing banquet for one year was over, Shican was already preparing for the expenses of the coming year’s feasts and excursions. This is why from anywhere in the world there was not a single delicacy of land and water that he could not supply. In their time they were dubbed “the three Chang’an excellencies” (Zheng Rong, head of the Southern court; Zhang Liangzuo of the Secretariat Chancellery as well as Shican were the three excellencies).

Little else in recorded about these three men who were in business on behalf of the examinations the whole year round, except that

26 27

JTS: 183.4748; XTS: 159.4955. Wulin jiushi: 6.7a–b.

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Qian Yi recorded the same public acclaim for their achievements as a trio. He also noted that He Shican’s son inherited and continued his father’s vocation.28 The functions associated with two of these men in the Southern Court and the Secretariat are more likely to have been bureaucratic sinecures rather than regular central posts. However, identified as they are by name and office, they were presumably the most senior connections in the linked affairs of government bureaucracy and market business. Wang Dingbao’s account of their responsibilities concentrates exclusively on drink and food— in the traditional order that best expresses social occasions—and it betrays a concern with luxury supply rather than any interest in the “culinary complexity” of modern anthropological interest.29 That is, He Shican and company could buy anything from trade or else acquire it in the palace stores, but none of Wang Dingbao’s documents reveals more concerning the further combination of the acquired ingredients into particular dishes and drinks. Levels of culinary complexity are socially defined by the greater and lesser demands of ritual occasions and need owe nothing anyway to the rarity of the ingredients.30 It seems, however, at Qujiang banquets just the basic commodities—albeit expensive ones—were sufficient to symbolize the cohesion of all the participants at these privileged events. This followed a common pattern in high levels of the Tang bureaucracy. For instance, imperial gifts of fruit to commended officials expressed the court’s favour with dispensations of the royal orchards’ harvests and not performances of culinary art. Indeed, the manner in which He Shican condensed the empire’s comestible produce and then dispensed it again to a select few did not differ much from imperial practice. Wang Dingbao’s revelations of the material luxuries consumed at Qujiang banquets was considerably more detailed. The industries that supported the display of examination success are not among Wang Dingbao’s chief concerns, but, for instance, “carriages of fashioned gold” and “saddles of pearl” elsewhere in the Collected Statements encourage the notion that craftsmen of luxury materials depended

Nanbu xinshu: 2.19. See the introduction “Standard Social Uses of Food” in Douglas (1984). 30 For examples of complex dishes using such base ingredients as offal one century later in Kaifeng, see the lucid analysis of regional cooking and its performative uses in the Northern Song in West (1997). 28 29

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on welcome and regular orders from the organizers of examination celebrations. Furthermore, if graduands could avail themselves of palace resources, they did not hesitate to do so. One of Wang Dingbao’s stories relates how one graduand at a feast in 873 capitalized on his relationship to Yang Yan (d. 878), then a secretary of accounts (duozhi shilang) in order to elevate the proceedings with furnishings and tableware loaned from the palace stores (74). Wang Dingbao’s text continues to focus on the association’s role in securing venues for feasts and provisioning them: Each man among over a hundred under the charge of the Association controllers had his own responsibilities. In most cases it was after the [ceremony of ] gratitude that [the Association] repaired to the Court of Hopeful Gatherings. (The Controllers first rented a large building beside the residence of the examiner for the gatherings of the new men.) Within the courtyard they provided canopies and a feast was set out. It was a grade below imperial. On that day, once the topranked graduand and his fellows had been presented to one another, they requested one member to act as recorder. (According to former precedent, they always selected the top-ranked graduand to act as recorder.)

Feasts following performances of the ceremony of gratitude punctuated the initial progress of the season’s arrangements. Tang sources seldom declare the specific addresses hired for these or any other graduands’ feasts in Chang’an, but private residences—particularly their gardens—were the most common venues of numerous banquet occasions throughout the late Tang. Entrance to many of Chang’an’s most famous mansions and gardens was highly restricted, but the common preference for staging even state banquets in these surroundings was such that the boundaries between government activity and residential life were quite fluid. A foremost example is the residence of the senior general and war hero Ma Lin (722–77) in the Yankang ward, which the government acquired soon after his death and retained for the frequent staging of official banquets.31 By

31 Ma Lin’s mansion was an embarrassing expression of opulence and scale. During preparations for the great general’s funeral, hundreds of Chang’an residents pretended to be his former staff officers in order to be permitted a glimpse inside this veritable palace in western Chang’an. Dezong ordered the main building to be torn down before the remaining structures and gardens were deemed fit for government use ( JTS: 152.4065–7; XTS: 136.4617–9).

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hiring space in the city’s residential quarters, then, examination graduands and their representatives simply followed a government routine in selecting a prestigious location that seemed apt for their purposes. This could be almost anywhere within the government city or outside in the residential wards, for in Tang Chang’an sometimes only the most tenuous distinctions separated administration and garden leisure. At least two high officials maintained famous gardens within the confines of the government city.32 The supervision of banquets fell to recorders (lushi ), whose remit was extensive. They oversaw discipline and organized fund-raising. Recorders even pronounced sonorously on issues of misconduct (60). In addition, the individual tasked to combine all these duties had to handle confidently the demands for rehearsing and carrying out ceremonial performances. This expertise, which the Tang elite valued so highly, is certainly reflected in the subsequent careers of the few recorders who are documented in other Tang sources.33 Wang Dingbao’s strong implication that by his own day the top-ranked graduand’s privilege to act as recorder had been eroded suggests that eligibility for this role had widened considerably by the late ninth century. This indicates also growing professionalization both in the management of banquets and on the part of those who presided over them. Su Guo (1072–1123) remarked that Five Dynasties and Song courtesans in Luoyang assumed the recorder’s role at banquets, and he noted that Recorder’s Lane in Luoyang commemorated Cui Xiaohong, a female recorder who lived there during the Liang dynasty (907–23).34 It is by no means implausible that, following Tang precedent in Chang’an, an artiste of such high standing could have officiated at some of the celebratory examination banquets.

32 Dou Xijie’s garden was attached to the Department of State Affairs, according to a preface by Zhang Yue (WYYH: 709.12a–b); Li Qi’s ( jinshi 725) poem “Inscribed in the hills and pools of Secretary Li of the Palace Factories” reveals another garden in the government city (Quan Tangshi: 134.1365–6). 33 Cui Pian, recorder in the 830’s, ended his career as president of the court of ceremonial for foreign guests, (honglu qing) (Yuquan zi: 0.18–19); Cui Hang (d. 881), a later recorder according to Collected Statements (60), became state examiner for two years during 875–6 ( JTS: 19B.694 and 697; cf. Dengke jikao: 23.871–3). Xu Song dates Cui Hang’s degree and hence his performance as recorder to 858 (Dengke jikao: 22.832). 34 Related in Laoxue an biji: 6.82. For a translation of this passage and comments on its significance in the Song, see West (1997): 71.

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Wang Dingbao’s account then proceeds to itemize some of the commodities and services that defined the grandeur of examination banquets: Others charged with responsibilities for feasts, alcohol, music, the hunt for flowers, tea and suchlike were all enlisted on this day. Two men were in command. One man was in command of the songstresses. Once the list had been posted, two senior section heads (from the first division) usually arrived the next morning at the Court of Hopeful Gatherings. At routine banquets junior section heads undertook the arrangements; at grand banquets, however, senior section heads did so. Even when there was no banquet, section heads still reckoned on a daily request for cash to provide tea. (In times of peace it had not been counted, but later it amounted to five hundred cash per individual per day.) Music officials of the first division according to their rank received one thousand per day; those of the second division received five hundred. All provided lamps had to be recompensed, but section heads took a double payment. When the moment approached for a banquet on the Qujiang, someone notified the Music School ( jiaofang) to request it to perform. The emperor ascended the Purple Cloud Tower and watched from behind a screen. Whenever music struck up, time seemed to stop. Thus did Cao Song’s poem state: On our wanderings, if we met with three clear notes Then our attendants had to halt for a day’s length of spring

That chosen experts could judge the best and the worst in alcohol, tea, music and female company reflected the intense commodification of goods and services in the late Tang history of examination ceremonies. Wang Dingbao itemizes precisely those definitive staples of elegance that were also central to late Tang efforts to list, grade and quantify commodities in texts written by and for a select connoisseurship. Renowned texts of the late ninth century that reveal so much about the conversation and taste of the late Tang elite include Lu Yu’s Tea canon (Chajing),35 Sun Qi’s Study of the Northern ward (Beili zhi ) and Cui Lingqin’s Records of the Music Schools ( Jiaofang ji ). Indeed, Wang Dingbao recounted two romantic anecdotes of graduands and their female companions, which also feature in Sun Qi’s history of the Pingkang pleasure quarters (75, 76).

35 The history of the Chajing, the oldest of these texts, is complicated. Originally completed by Lu Yu in 760, it certainly underwent several revisions during late Tang period.

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The goods and services that appeared at Qujiang banquets were bywords of luxury in late Tang Chang’an. Tea, for instance, encapsulates late Tang graduands’ willingness to purchase from the top of a range of increasingly commodified luxuries. The production and consumption of tea during the Tang have long been fertile subjects of speculation among economic historians. Their studies of tea prices hint at the huge amounts of money that graduands and their associates were willing to forfeit. By the beginning of the ninth century, connoisseurship had reached a level where a top grade of Sichuan tea commanded prices as high as 6,720 strings of cash for one jin (c. 600 grams). Prices for early harvests went even higher.36 Prices for the services that professional female escorts commodified were also legendary, and before the close of the century the reputation of this class of women had become truly international. Abû Zayd wrote a censorious account of their conduct based on hearsay that he collected at Siraf on the Persian gulf.37 But the commodity that interested Wang Dingbao above all was music. Like alcohol, tea and female company, musical expertise was an object pursued by all levels of the palace hierarchy as well as by many classes of the city’s population. Music was the indispensable definition of a cultural gathering, and the level of performance was almost certainly the most important criterion of its selectivity. Wang Dingbao’s fascination with musical arrangements at a social gathering was quite normal, and it matches the centrality given to musical performance in contemporary visual culture of the post-Tang world. The Ming copy of one of the most famous items of tenthcentury painting, now reproduced ubiquitously, purports to show Gu Hongzhong’s depiction of Han Xizai and his guests banqueting in Jiangning (modern Nanjing), centre of the brief afterglow of Tang civilization in Five Dynasties China. Constantly modifying the scroll’s spatial and temporal structures of men, women, food, drink, furniture and clothes are performances of music. However, Wang Dingbao’s revelations concerning music are unique in their attention to musical agencies and performers’ fees. Most interesting is his text’s narration of the hierarchical stages of engaging the services of musicians during the examination season. What

36 37

Nunome (1989): 298. Ferrand (1922): 80–1.

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began as the consent of government musicians to play at graduands’ gatherings—at the cost of the audience—progressed ultimately to the privilege of welcoming a performance by a palace ensemble. The commodification of music thus underwent a definitive change into royal gift once the examination season reached its climax. When performers of earlier concerts did not work directly under palace supervision they collected fees. The amounts of money are not easy to quantify as values, but the fees paid on banquet occasions took account of perfomers’ seniority, and they increased with inflation. Wang Dingbao shows that society was willing to pay much more than state authorities believed permissible. In 875, the government attempted to curb the excessive spending that accompanied banquet arrangements, and it set each graduand’s personal limit at 100 strings of cash. Moreover, what Wang Dingbao invariably terms the jinshi association was not to number more than fifty members. Thus, the new limits on personnel may have implied an annual cost set at no higher than five thousand strings.38 There is no reason to believe that anyone observed these restrictions. Besides, even before accounting for inflation and the total of all the seasons’ costs, five thousand was somewhat short of the 6,700 once recorded as the price of one jin of high quality tea. Wang Dingbao’s text concludes with a vision of the graduands as a cohesive unit in neat equestrian order: Once the decree was public everyone attached his cover satchel39 [to his saddle] and filled it with his seals, drinking vessels, money and silk. When they came across flowers they stopped to drink. Thus did Zhang Ji’s poem state: None of us didn’t use the garden to sleep in; Travelling anywhere we all carried our drinks and cups. The top-ranked graduand and the recorder both checked the coversatchels. Should any one item be missing a fine was issued. During Qujiang banquets markets sprang up in rows and Chang’an became almost half empty. These were days when the families of dukes and ministers all made their choices for an eastern bed, and carriages and horses blocked the roadways, but no one could possibly recount every

Tang dazhao lingji: 106.550. See also comments at Fu (1984c): 103. Discussed below is Li Kuangyi’s contemporary description of this kind of satchel slung over a horse’s back (Zixia ji: C.27). 38 39

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detail. Yet once the chaos of [Huang] Chao’s bandits was upon us, it was never again the sight that it used to be (45b).

The association leaders’ checking of each man’s possessions seems overly officious, unless considered as a consciously staged rehearsal of discipline to ensure the correct turnout and behaviour expected from officials listed on the state’s payroll. Of course, the graduands’ equal position with officials now entailed new allowances, especially the most desirable material symbols of bureaucratic life. Among the items that the top-ranked graduand and the monitor checked, the importance of money and drinking vessels during a season of parties is largely self-evident. Seals, of course, intruded into this context with less immediate practical application, but their significance for each man’s identity was deeper and more permanent. To graduands undergoing the most momentous rites of passage in their careers so far, seals were both symbolic and pragmatic agents in making their owners wholly new men. Seals possessed in Michel Strickmann’s words both an “official double” and a “juridical second self ”.40 They identified their owners, made the bureaucracy function, and they effected talismanic, apotropaic and therapeutic influences in both the everyday and supernatural spheres of the Tang world. Wang Dingbao does not specify what seals graduands carried with them, but available types of seal would have expressed each man’s persona with a wide range of private names and public sobriquets. Unlike other practical portents of the graduands’ careers in government, seals were both official and personal items that combined strong religious power with the most interior experiences of Tang bureaucratic life. Even the graduands’ luggage merited attention. The “cover satchels” that graduands uniformly carried with them are elsewhere defined as leather bags that fitted inside elaborate yet easily replaceable silk covers. Although focusing on luggage at the end of this long document might seem faintly bathetic, much more was at stake in what luggage symbolized of Tang aspirations to maintain a high social profile even when travelling on the road. Nothing illustrates this more aptly than Li Kuangyi’s contemporary description of cover satchels as highly ostentatious possessions amid even the most inauspicious implications of travel. In his thesaurus of Tang objects and

40

Strickmann (1993).

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customs, Records Provided for Spare Time (Zixia ji ), he recalls that during the terrifying days after the abortive “sweet dew” plot of 835 nervous Chang’an officials ventured abroad with their bulging coversatchels ready to lend psychological as much as practical support in case leaders of the ongoing counterplot expelled them from the city without leave to pack. These equestrian ornaments circulated also as lavish gifts, and by the late ninth century their renewable silk covers had become famous items of lower Yangzi textile production. Such conspicuous objects functioned just as certain makes of car and their characteristically dark enamel symbolize the status of senior government servants in modern nation states. Equally, Tang officialdom recognized travel as a defining cultural activity, and therefore sustained the intense production of its most eye-catching material symbols. Luggage, then, and the laborious attention that graduands lavished on it during Qujiang outings enabled them to deploy yet another status object in their expressive performance of new officials embarking on their careers. Finally, Wang Dingbao’s long account of Qujiang banquet arrangements addresses once again graduands’ marriage prospects. The emerging alliance between marriage opportunities and examination recruitment marked the gradual ascendance of degree awards as the leading criterion for selecting male partners. Wang Dingbao’s accounts of an equestrian parade of future sons-in-law reveals the notion of examination graduands undertaking a ceremonial response to social expectations that is truly startling. Half or perhaps even two thirds of each year’s graduands awaited the successful results of their examinations in order to confirm as early as possible their conditional betrothals to the daughters of eminent families. Having done so, they celebrated with a parade that was integrated within the wider timetable of examination ceremonies. The medieval period’s deep obsession with inherent family status may have been in gradual decline by the end of the Tang. Nevertheless, senior families, including no doubt some of the most prominent old aristocratic lineages, could still mount an awesome parade of their old preferences to intermarry among each other. Ironically, of course, the parade filed through the celebrations of a bureaucratic institution that was in principle devoted to selecting political talent through meritocratic criteria. At the same time, these smart equestrian events testify to how pervasively the late Tang examination programme could subject a social institution as durable as match-making to its seasonal timetable.

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Wang Dingbao recognized that, although marriage represented the notion of political achievement translated directly into social success, it also invited its fair share of sarcastic disparagement. He shows the jinshi association in quite a different light in the following reminiscence: Director Xue [Feng], during his later years, met with difficulties in his career. He was once whipping along his tired steed on the way to court when he was confronted by the new jinshi, beneath their list and emerging in formed ranks. A score or more of expediters with the jinshi association at that time saw that Feng’s escort was minimal and they moved up to announce: “Clear back for the new gentlemen!” Feng could only laugh and then immediately despatched a servant to tell them: “When you announce the route, ignore hard-up appearances. Your old grandmother, in her youth at fifteen, could also paint and dab herself up a bit.” (78)

The reactions of both parties in this encounter epitomize the moods of the season, especially the resentment of the director of the palace library. However, Xue Feng’s self-deprecating retort to those ready to ignore his seniority is not merely angry flippancy. It is a typical late Tang dismissal of keen political novices to the status of women seeking to attract men—even husbands—through the charms of sexual allure and artificial make-up. Such comparisons recall first of all the stress that candidates laid on external appearances, especially during and after the ceremony of gratitude. Wang Dingbao also recorded the verse of Lu Wang, a long frustrated degree candidate, who compared himself to the legendary beauty Xi Shi and mourned that he was one Xi Shi too many in the eyes of all his examiners (251). Xue Feng’s cynical impersonation of a female role summons not only a metaphor of political triumph as the control of sexual attraction, it raises also the issue of matrimonial alliances that never rested far from the primary concerns of winning a degree title. During the examination of 826, the candidate Zhu Qingyu and his patron Zhang Ji had first fired the popular imagination with their lyrical exchange in the imaginary roles of new bride and groom.41 Wang Dingbao’s observation of the same romantic pretensions in the 860’s— albeit in a more spiteful message—was fully appropriate to the final weeks of the examination season when the latest pass list advertised a brand new set of marriage opportunities. Few interests combined

41

Yunqi youyi: C.79; also Tangshi jishi jiaojian: 46.1256–7.

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more neatly than the state’s recruitment of top personnel and leading families’ requirement to match their children in unions that were mutually satisfactory both socially and politically. Wang Dingbao’s accounts of Qujiang arrangements reveal aspects of examination celebrations that government authorities mostly left to the graduands and their associates to plan and implement. He shows that a certain sequence of arrangements was followed in the preparation of these banquets; he reveals too that particular approaches were followed in initiating the participation of other agencies, such as musicians and the suppliers of luxury goods. These accounts provide a focussed view of banquet arrangements and some of their most symbolic expressions of graduand status in the particular context of the Qujiang resort. Despite the liberality of banquet arrangements, the Qujiang was still a space controlled and watched by the governing authorities. The site was central to the bureaucratic elite’s celebration of its own regeneration through degree selection. By contrast, then, Wang Dingbao’s records of other venues and events to celebrate the close of the examination programme reflect influences on the celebrations from much farther afield. E   C’   Wang Dingbao documented a number of other seasonal fixtures in the Chang’an calendar. These activities were instrumental in integrating the close of the examination programme more fully within the broader range of Chang’an society’s festive observances. Four key activities that Wang Dingbao documented were: hunts for flowers; signing names at leading cultural locations; worshipping the Buddha’s tooth; hit-ball matches. Both hunts for flowers and writing lists of the graduands’ names were controlled partly through the organization of banquets at the Qujiang. The usual venues for these activities were respectively the Ci’en Monastery and the Apricot Garden (Xingyuan), both situated close to the Qujiang. Other activities, such as playing hit-ball and worshipping a Buddha’s tooth distracted graduands and onlookers’ attention farther away. These last gatherings regularized the end of the examination programme within a seasonal calendar of celebrations that already existed. In most cases, by adding one ceremonial fixture after another throughout the ninth century, jinshi graduands and their associates

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held essentially the same gatherings as many other members of Chang’an society. The difference lay in participation and graduands’ frequent control of the record: graduands invited only themselves to these parties or else they recorded solely their own presence. This created a distortion in reminiscences of the examination programme that is not always easy to correct. Even when graduands signed their names at a famous monastery, they borrowed the habits and forms of a cultural pursuit undergoing constant renewal by all sorts of social constituencies other than degree-holders. None of Wang Dingbao’s documents make the process of cultural borrowing in the examination programme at all obvious. On the contrary, his priority was to give historical weight to the cultural expressions of an institution whose validity he never questioned. In so doing, he surveyed leading activities of the Chang’an seasonal calendar pursued initially far beyond the immediate concerns of official recruitment, but later configured increasingly within the annual examination programme. Hunts for flowers One of the banquets in Wang Dingbao’s list of banquet names, cited at the beginning of this chapter, is titled “Paeonies”. Wang Dingbao’s lengthy account of Qujiang banquets (45b), discussed above, also states that graduands took on responsibilities to provide flowers or perhaps to identify flower settings for banquets. By the time of Wang Dingbao’s involvement with the Tang examination programme, paeony hunts had become a common pursuit during the jinshi banquets. Indeed the late Tang witnessed a mania for collecting and viewing paeonies.42 However, earlier in the Tang, paeonies were only one of several species of flowering plants and trees that graduand-hunters sought amid the rich and enduring Tang culture of flowers. Wang Dingbao exposed his readers to a wide range of flower symbolism. Even a brief overview of the names of several trees and plants demonstrates a venerable repertoire of symbols to connote outstanding instances of examination success. This is significant firstly because it shows how Tang examination society projected new values through old literary associations. Wang Dingbao collected some floral images, which possess histories of considerable depth in Chinese

42

The best survey of this phenomenon remains Li (1969).

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texts. Most notably, he recorded many examples in the poems that Zhou Chi and Wang Qi exchanged after the latter’s administration of the examination in 843 and the twenty-two poems that graduands addressed to Wang Qi that year (67).43 This small collection of verse contains many floral symbols of political recruitment, such as osmanthus, orchids, pear- and plum blossom. But, analysis of these allusions shows how consistently writers reworked established images for new meanings in the specific context of degree success. Osmanthus ( gui ), in particular, was one of the commonest floral symbols of graduands’ new status. The name of this tree was a frequent prefix in expressions such as “osmanthus pass lists” ( guibang) and “osmanthus registers” ( guiji ), both tangible symbols of degree success and real documentary sources of examination history. However, allusions to osmanthus gained their deepest meaning from an aristocratic paradigm of bureaucratic appointment in a bygone age when Xi Shen’s appointment to a prefectural command prompted him to claim that his status as holder of a decree degree title likened him to “one branch from the osmanthus forest”. His success in a decree examination in the 260’s predated by three centuries the Sui institution of an annual degree system.44 A second consideration in surveying the range of floral tropes adopted in Tang writings on degree success is that the tree paeony (mudan) did not provide a direct floral metaphors of examination success. This may be due in part to the relatively recent appearance of paeonies among the wider range of Tang floral interests. The connoisseurship of paeonies matured on the basis of only very recent discernible origins before the Sui-Tang transition. According to ninthcentury opinion, the Northern Qi (550–77) was the first period when the tree paeony gained a lasting hold in the horticultural and artistic practices of Northern Chinese elites.45 Tang literary interest in their flowering habits developed slowly beside that for other plants and trees. The emergence of paeony blooms as central topics in shi and fu poetry was apparently a recent phenomenon during the close

See the poems by Yao Hu, Liu Geng, Zhang Daofu, Li Qian, Meng Ning. Jinshu: 52.1443. Cf. a Tang usage connoting Zheng Kan’s achievement of a degree (early eighth century), recorded in the epitaph for his daughter (Xu [2001]: 292, and fig. 250,2). 45 Shangshu gushi: 0.7. For a suggestion that the methodical cultivation of paeonies in gardens dated no earlier than the Sui period, see Yao (1982): 261. 43 44

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of the eighth century.46 In visual terms too, the paeony made a greater impact only in the late Tang period when it became a dominant motif in flat stonework.47 A sizeable mural painting of a tree recently discovered in a mid-ninth century tomb on the outskirts of Beijing is also a late production of Tang art without any obvious precedent.48 Despite this broadening fascination with paeony trees, Tang society reserved only a small number of direct metaphors for examination success and it did not include the paeony. Wang Dingbao shows that the paeony featured much more prominently in social practice. One story in the Collected Statements provides the only detailed account of how graduands behaved during flower hunts, in this instance when the dynasty’s collapse was imminent: Xu Zhou was a man of Suiyang who had a minor talent for five-character verse. In the fourth year of the Tianfu reign period [AD 904], the great royal carriage progressed eastwards and halted at Gantang. This was the moment when Zhou passed the examinations. The eldest son of Taizu of the Liang dynasty was styled the Great Minister Secretary [daqing langjun], and he had been on friendly terms with Zhou. Zhou believed the Minister was now the invisible ruler, so he followed the royal carriage to Luoyang, and he brought with him a number of his fellow graduands. Having started a drinking party in the private residence of the Liang founder, they broke off some ten blooms of the tree paeonies. The housekeeper then approached and told them: “Whenever these blooms open and fall I record their order and report to my master. What gives you eminent talents (xiucai ) the liberty to bend them off ?” Zhou heaped haughty and lengthy abuse

46 See the comment on writing about paeonies as a recent fashion in Shangshu gushi: 0.7. This comment is also cited at Liu Binke jiahua lu: 0.97. See also Shu Yuanyu’s fu “Mudan”, WYYH: 149.7a–9a; and, new yuefu poems at Bai Juyi ji: 59.1259–60. 47 A restricted yet clear-cut indication of the tree’s rising popularity as a subject of art is its decorative use on Tang epitaphs. The stones of the Xingyuan site at Yanshi are particularly informative, since they represent funeral arrangements at one site for a relatively homogeneous group of middle-ranking officials during the last two centuries of Tang rule. Only four from a total of 15 stones representing the period 740–800 show paeony designs (tomb nos M1204:1; M5108:23; M5109:19; M2845:2); by contrast, the following period 800–900 is represented by the higher ratio of 12/19 (M2544:36; M404:1; M2019:1; M5103:2; M5103:47; M2443:9; M1921:1; M1921:2; M2901:19; M1025:27; M2410:4; 4537:16). These ratios are extracted from graphs of data at Xu (2001): 164 and 245–6. 48 The mural painting dominates the back wall of the tomb sealed in 852 for Wang Gongshu (d. 848), a Youzhou circuit judge, and his wife (Beijing shi Haidian qu wenwu guanli suo [1995]: 49, fig. 7, and col. pls).

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  upon him. The housekeeper took it to heart, and he secretly sent a messenger with all speed to the Liang founder. When the Liang founder heard about it, his eyes truly glared,49 and he gave immediate orders to have Zhou bound and presented.50 It was then that the Great Minister, who had discovered what was happening, used other channels to get his own message through first. Zhou then fled for his life to north of the River, and no one knows where he ended up (79).

Wang Dingbao and Xu Zhou had sat the examinations together in 900, but evidently in this account of events in 904 Wang Dingbao chose to despise him. No doubt Xu Zhou represented a disloyal political attitude that Wang Dingbao had never espoused or else put firmly behind him. Particularly significant in the immediate context of this story are the tensions that graduands’ disruptive sport exacerbated during the seasonal norms of late Tang paeony culture. Luoyang was—and is—a centre of raising paeonies. Interesting too is the hint that Xu Zhou’s story gives of a minor textual production by senior household servants who observed seasonal change on their master’s estates with the Tang equivalent of gardeners’ diaries. That Tang graduands in the 890’s sought specifically for paeonies is well documented elsewhere. Wang Dingbao’s senior contemporaries Han Wo ( jinshi 889) and Weng Chengzan ( jinshi 895) numbered among those who celebrated their election as “commissioner-flowerhunters” (tanhua shi ) with poems evoking the feminine delicacy of paeony blooms.51 However, these documents suggest that the exclusive pursuit of paeonies was a relatively late Tang obsession. Significantly, no substantial texts of paeony connoisseurship are documented until the Northern Song.52 This is, of course, considerably later than the appearance of famous Tang texts on tea, music and female performance. Caution is therefore necessary in judging whether earlier Tang references to flower-hunting indicated equally exclusive searches for paeonies. Wang Dingbao does not add any details concerning the

“A wrong that makes eyes glare ( yazi ) will be avenged” (Shiji: 79.2415). xian “to present”: the Liang founder refers here to the presentation of prisoners before the throne, a ceremony that was recorded on many occasions during the Tang and Five Dynasties (THY: 14.320–4; Wudai huiyao: 5.77–8). 51 “Poem written after I was congratulated with a silk handkerchief because of my duties as commissioner-flower-seeker” (Yushan qiaoren ji: 0.15b); “Three lyrics on my election as commissioner-flower-seeker” (Quan Tangshi: 703.8091). 52 See the list of Song works included in Zhizhai shulu jieti: 10.297–99. 49

50

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banquet that he named “Paeonies”. One of the surviving fragments of Li Nao’s Record of annual seasons in the territory of Qin (Qin zhong suishi ji ) relates that feasts entitled “banquets for hunting for flowers” took place in the Apricot Garden. Li Nao also states that the normal arrangement was to designate the two youngest graduands to act as commissioner-flower-hunters and to fine them if they failed to outrun all other competitors in finding the best collections.53 According to Wang Dingbao, this custom had endured throughout the entire ninth century. Curiously, he ascribes the earliest record of acting as a commissioner-flower-hunter to Bai Juyi, even though it is surely Zhang Ji’s claim to have performed this role as the youngest member of his cohort in 799 (91a). Other references to the Apricot Garden do not imply that all gatherings there featured paeony hunts. The garden, located on the west bank of the Qujiang, was also the venue for name-signing ceremonies. Yao He ( jinshi 816) and Cao Ye ( jinshi 850) celebrated their degree awards with poems to commemorate banquets held in the Apricot Garden, but they do not specify what if any customs ruled these events.54 More of Wang Dingbao’s citations show clearly that the Apricot Garden had become an extremely popular graduand resort in the early ninth century. The poems that he collected also show that the garden had emerged as the conventional symbol of failed candidates’ banished hopes (300, 303). One of these poems is addressed to Wen Tingyun who also expressed for himself his residual bitterness at long failing to win a degree in an image of exclusion from the garden during its seasonal red blossoming.55 In his account of Qujiang banquets, Wang Dingbao also states that “when [graduands] came across flowers they stopped to drink”, and he implies how graduands devoted whole days to aestheticizing floral objects. Flowers, once again, do not have to mean only paeonies. Spring outings to admire flowers had been a feature of Chang’an elite life from early in the eighth century at least.56 Given that many other sources’ references to “flowers” comprise a large number of 53 Qin zhong suishi ji at Shuofu (100-juan version): 74.1b; see also text in Qin zhong suishi ji at Shuofu (120-juan version): juan 69. 54 “Thanking my Abbot at the banquet in the Apricot Garden” (Yao Shaojian ji: 9.11b–12a); Cao Ye, “Presented to my fellow graduands at the Apricot Garden banquet” (Quan Tangshi: 592.6863). 55 Wen Feiqing shiji jianzhu: 4.101. 56 Kaiyuan Tianbao yishi: A.77, B91, B.97.

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floriferous trees and plants,57 it is uncertain until relatively late in the dynasty that paeonies registered the only symbols of academic and political success. Wang Dingbao cited Du Mu’s famous poem that recounts an image of still unopened flowers in Luoyang after the examination run there in 828 (58). Du Mu’s image of “flowers” is generally accepted to mean paeonies. So too is Meng Jiao’s reference to flowers in his ecstatic poem, which documents a flowerviewing tour to celebrate his degree in 796.58 Li Zhao claimed that this period was the earliest that Chang’an residents ever undertook seasonal expeditions to view collections of flowering paeonies.59 Even so, Meng Jiao’s reference to flowers need not exclude other flowers. Zhang Ji’s role to “hunt flowers” in 799 may have been broadly defined too.60 As much as fifty years later, Zheng Gu ( jinshi 876) invoked apricot blossom as the “blooms of degree success” ( jidi hua),61 and Weng Chengzan reminisced on his progress through the annual examination programme with a poem that he inscribed on a sophora (huai ) tree.62 Flower hunts had been a seasonal fixture in the examination programme for at least a century by the time Wang Dingbao and Xu Zhou’s won their degrees. According to claims of the early ninth century, residences and religious establishments in Chang’an counted it an honour to be included on a seasonal trail of garden visits during the spring flowering. Not to feature on the route of this noisy traffic was a sort of ignominy.63 And, according to Zhang Ji, to loan garden spaces to graduands resulted each year in a spate of competing invitations.64 Less was said concerning garden-owners’ attitudes to these visits, but, if Wang Dingbao’s account of Xu Zhou behaviour is any indication of graduands’ normal attitudes, then their intrusions must have been most unwelcome.

57 For a recent discussion of Tang paeony appreciation, which also makes this point, see Weng (1999). 58 “After gaining my degree” (Meng Dongye shiji: 3.55). 59 Guoshi bu: B.45. 60 “In response to a message sent by vice-president Li in late spring”, Zhang Ji shiji: 3.41. 61 “The Qujiang’s red apricots” (Zheng Gu shiji jianzhu: 4.447). Yajima Mitsuko, who includes this reference, notes too the relevance of apricot blossom in imagined realms of immortals during the early medieval period (Yajima [2000]: 312–16). 62 “Inscribed on a sophora” (Quan Tangshi: 703.8090). 63 Guoshi bu: B.45. 64 “Rejoicing over Secretary Wang Qi’s pass list”, Zhang Ji shiji: 4.48.

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Another late Tang text reveals again the late Tang obsession with paeony blooms. It suggests also that Xu Zhou’s haughtiness was common, and it implicates an annual cohort of jinshi graduands in stealing and destroying a prize collection of paeonies during the Qujiang banquet season. This account by Kang Pian ( jinshi 877) states that many Chang’an monasteries and Daoist temples sheltered nurseries of tree paeonies that bloomed in the most fashionable colours, and it relates the fortunes of a monk at the Ci’en Monastery. This celebrated plantsman unwisely reveals to a group of visiting courtiers that, apart from the trees that they and other visitors regularly admire, he has raised an even more spectacular colony hidden from public view. Once the responsive grandees have spent a whole day admiring their host’s most prized efforts, they devise a ruse to literally hoist the whole colony out of the monastery grounds. Kang Pian’s account concludes: The first sun illuminated [the blooms] and the morning dew had only half evaporated. The whole party sighed in admiration, and it was dusk when they departed. The monk remarked: “I have spent twenty years on this cultivation, but on a whim I blurted it out and told people. Can my secret survive from now on?” Some time later, a group of youths called on the monk and, on their invitation, he went to the Qujiang to view the flowers and to take his place on the grass.65 Suddenly, a disciple sprinted up to him and said: “Dozens of people have entered your garden to dig up the flowers, and they won’t be stopped!” Everyone at the party looked at each other and laughed. When he got back to the monastery, he saw that they had removed everything by loading it into giant scoops. A young man said casually to the monk: “When it was known that you had these famous blooms, everyone in the palace66 wanted a look. We didn’t dare to ask permission beforehand, since we reckoned that it would be impossible for you to let them go. We have left thirty liang of silver and two jin of tea from Shu to express our thanks.”67

65 jie cao: an expression for holding a gathering in the open air, borrowed from Sun Chuo’s rhapsody “Roaming the Tiantai mountains”, and the commentary by Li Shan at Wenxuan: 11.497. 66 zhai zhong: lit. “in the house”. For another use of zhai in late Tang palace addresses to the emperor as “house holder” (zhai jia), see a gloss by Hu Sanxing to events in 897 (ZZTJ: 261.8506). 67 Jutan lu: B.35–36. For second text including slight variants, see TYL: 7.628 (no. 907).

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Although the perpetrators of this deceit seem to have acted on behalf of the palace, the distraction of the monk at a feast in the Qujiang suggests the connivance of jinshi graduands. The attempt to recast a theft with the appearance of an exchange of goods, cash and costly tea also recalls the kinds of financial outlay that the jinshi association organized as a matter of course each year. Perhaps thirty liang of silver is even meant to smack of a collective payment by thirty jinshi graduands. Be that as it may, graduand operations to appropriate horticultural collections clearly fitted into patterns of behaviour that were widespread among the elite classes of Chang’an. Like Wang Dingbao’s account of Xu Zhou’s visit to a garden near Luoyang, Kang Pian’s story illustrates once again how Tang society often ignored notions of spatial boundary and privacy in favour of its ceremonial arrangements. The damage that the capital’s material fabric suffered each year following the examination season was severe.68 Wang Dingbao’s story of the owner’s reactions to Xu Zhou’s tactless conduct on his property, however, provides at least a hint of changing attitudes. Song garden culture would eventually demonstrate a pronounced shift towards controlling public access to garden collections, not least during the examinations season. Following numerous efforts, the government of this period abolished hunts for flowers around the capital.69 Instead, the court permitted flower gatherings in the confines of the Qionglin royal park.70 At the same time, what horticulture expressed in Song court life seems to have been far more discreet compared to the Tang habit of externalizing floral symbolism in spatially awesome planting schemes for the palaces as well as other zones of Chang’an and Luoyang. Pang Yuanying complained during the Northern Song that the disposition of trees and plants in the palace grounds in Kaifeng looked boring compared to what he understood of Tang appearances.71 But, even if the public satisfaction that Song society drew from viewing flowers had declined, its Tang association with examination culture remained as strong as ever. The title “hunter of flowers” (tanhua) endured as the honorific

68 Du Mu documents the ravaged appearance of the Apricot Garden after a season of frequent incursions in his poem “Apricot Garden” (Fanchuan wenji: 2.38). 69 Dongxuan bilu: 6.68–9. 70 Chaoye leiyao: 2.13a. 71 Wenchang zalu: 4.54.

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address for Song and all later graduands who obtained third place on the pass list. Signing names Wang Dingbao also documented a celebratory gathering whose chief purpose was to inscribe a list of the successful graduands’ names at a prominent site. Wang Dingbao contextualized this practice exclusively in the Ci’en Monastery. Because of this establishment’s convenient proximity to the Qujiang, the monastery’s famous pagoda functioned frequently as the venue for name-signing ceremonies. This tall building was the Wild Goose pagoda first erected in 652, according to the pilgrim-monk Xuanzang’s directions.72 The Ci’en Monastery centralized some of the dynasty’s most renowned artworks, and it had long existed as a foremost academic centre in the Buddhist world, drawing together scholars from as far apart as Japan and Sri Lanka. The monastery was also one of several in Chang’an to provide the venue for theatrical performances.73 Late Tang graduands could hardly have chosen a better site for publicizing their achievements. Wang Dingbao claimed that graduands’ signatures at the Ci’en Monastery dated to the early eighth century. Other sources suggest that graduands did not write their inscriptions there regularly until some decades later. Few sources make clear that persons and groups representing many walks of life aside from the examinations were permitted to leave their signatures at the same site. What Li Zhao calls “name-signing parties” (timing hui ) refers to autographic practices of immense historical depth conducted during all sorts of social events at many different venues.74 Wang Dingbao’s interest in epigraphical records at the Ci’en Monastery, however, focussed purely on degree success: From the Shenlong reign period [705–6] onwards, following the banquet in the Apricot Garden, everyone signed his name below the stupa in the Ci’en Monastery (87).

This short statement, which is the opening of a text considered again below, is typical of the kind of prescriptive record that Wang Dingbao 72 73 74

THY: 48.845; Chang’an zhi: 8.8a. Nanbu xinshu: 5.67. Guoshi bu: C.56.

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collected. It claims that graduands signed their names at a fixed time and place, and, most importantly, in the specific context of an Apricot Garden banquet. The early date is troublesome, not least since Apricot Garden banquets are not documented before the An Lushan rebellion. However, mixed groups of graduands and aspirant candidates had signed their names at the stupa for decades before solely graduands fashioned this habit into a more regular and exclusive ceremony. Thus, Wang Dingbao probably read the most recent developments back into a period that predated their existence. Other Tang records suggest that graduands inscribing their names at the Ci’en Monastery was not an annual practice until the 770’s. For instance, Wei Xuan states: Inscriptions at the Ci’en began with Zhang Ju. After an excursion around the monastery he wrote down the men in his year. This then became a custom.75

Zhang Ju probably gained his degree in 774.76 Another claim ascribes the custom of signing names to the equally whimsical inspiration of Zhang Ju’s contemporary Wei Zhao, whose slightly earlier degree date is unknown: When Wei Zhao had just passed his examination, on a moment of impulse, he signed his name at the bottom of the stupa in the Ci’en Monastery. Others promoted after him imitated this out of admiration. It then became a custom.77

Wang Dingbao probably followed the compilers of earlier texts in a similar quest to date the earliest inscriptions at the stupa, but his efforts are more remarkable for what he managed to record of actual practice during name-signing parties. His account of signatures at the Ci’en Monastery concludes: After the closing banquet they regularly held a hopeful gathering below the Ci’en stupa and signed their names. Someone chosen for his good calligraphy among the graduands of his year wrote this record. Supposing anyone later became a general or minister, then he [re]wrote [his name] in red. Supposing, after someone had gained his degree, his acquaintances should chance upon a location that he had inscribed

TPGJ: 256.1990–91; also at Liu Binke jiahua lu: 0.92–3. Dengke jikao: 10.383. 77 Nanbu xinshu: 2.22. According to Wei Zhao’s biography, by the mid-770’s he was already active as a drafter in the Secretariat (XTS: 169.5152). 75

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before he won his degree title then they added the character “past” [qian] on his behalf. Someone’s poem says: Happening upon a place where you had signed your name I added the character “past”; When I escorted you out of the city, people begged for your former poems. (87)

Wang Dingbao also documented graduand parties in the Apricot Garden on the west bank of the Qujiang with the poem that he erroneously ascribed to Bai Juyi rather than Zhang Ji. Zhang Ji’s elegiac reminiscence mourns that his dead friend Meng Ji and he had signed their names as the most youthful graduands at an Apricot Garden gathering in 799 (91a). Other poems by Liu Cang ( jinshi 854) and Pi Rixiu ( jinshi 867)78 include the former’s reminiscence that he penned a “register of immortals” to adorn the walls of the Ci’en stupa. Wang Dingbao’s record shows how inscriptions required a lifetime of visits to adjust their biographical accuracy with changes of content and even variations of ink colour in order to symbolize absolutely the patterns of successful careers. The last part of this document also emphasizes that the optimal career of an inscription might begin years before the inscriber had gained his degree. Wang Dingbao recounts elsewhere the famous instance of Wang Bo adding new verses to an inscription written two decades earlier at the monastery where he resided in Yangzhou (147). Zhang Ji’s poem mourning Meng Ji also reveals the elegiac mode with which graduands’ inscriptions projected the memory of their subjects after death. But, aside from individual autographs and re-autographs, the authority to change old inscriptions was also distributed to the individual’s friends and colleagues. Through their willingness to add one character to requalify the status of a jinshi aspirant as a “past jinshi ” (qian jinshi ), they used the legitimation of writing to readjust the past conditions of academic careers and politics to fit the present. This highly co-operative practice was another that Wang Dingbao admired in the definitions of examination culture first listed by Li Zhao: “when someone has won his degree, he is called a ‘past jinshi’” (5a). To

78 “Feasting at the Qujiang after passing the examinations” (Quan Tangshi: 586.6791); “During the Cold Food festival following my degree award, we feasted in the Apricot Park, and I sent this to my fellow graduand Recorder Song Chuiwen” (Pi Zi wensou, Addenda: 180).

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reaffirm a friend’s new status—in a visible and permanent material—required revisiting old inscriptions. And, extra visits entailed new inscriptions in a regenerating process. The nine strokes of the character qian wove together an intertextual symbol of status by which men measured their careers before and after the moment that first permitted them to adopt it. Wang Dingbao’s account of signatures concludes with a couplet whose unknown writer uses this symbol in a positive expression of change. Pi Rixiu used the same symbol in 871 to express a quite different mood of deception: Four years ago I added the character for “past”; Until now I have still not changed my probationary office.79

No other symbol of status circulated as efficiently as the single word qian for “past”. It distinguished aspirants and degree-holders long after their transition from one status to the other. Thanks to Song archaeological interest in Tang examinations, a large number of Ci’en Monastery inscriptions were preserved in a scroll transcription, fragments of which have survived. In contrast to isolated status claims in their authors’ singly authored poems and letters, the evidence of these surviving signatures show jinshi and qian jinshi mixing on a common surface.80 For instance, one is an inscription for the jinshi Meng Jiao written three years before his degree success in 796 could have permitted rewriting his status as a qian jinshi. Wang Dingbao ignored other venues for writing inscriptions aside from the Ci’en Monastery. The availability of extra monastic venues suggests once more the appeal of Buddhist institutions to late Tang graduands. Furthermore, multiple Buddhist sites were clearly instrumental in publicizing Tang examination culture to a large and varied circulation of visitors. For instance, the Da Anguo Monastery contained a wooden stupa where jinshi candidates regularly wrote— and responded to—inscriptions.81 Not only famous for hosting a 79 “Twenty verses on my feelings written in the south, and sent to my fellow graduands, Palace Library Collator Wei Yizhi and the respectable Song Chuiwen of Shangluo,” Pi Zi wensou: Addenda, 175. 80 These inscriptions comprise two juan of a ten-juan collection of rubbings taken from the stones onto which salvaged inscriptions from the Ci’en Monastery were transferred in 1120. A transcription and partial reproductions were published in Luo (1961). 81 Ji Yougong ( jinshi 1211) mentions this venue once in the context of graduands’ signatures (Tangshi jishi jiaojian: 80.2052), and Duan Chengshi (d. 863) locates the Wooden Stupa at the Da Anguo Monastery (Youyang zazu: B/5.247).

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conference aiming to synthesize contradictory commentaries on the Vinaya during 778–9,82 this monastery was a stop on the sightseeing tour to which the government treated a Tibetan diplomatic mission in 820.83 At an obscure establishment called the Taining Monastery, the Cui family maintained lists of graduands who had passed under their ancestors acting as examiners since 807. Following his degree award under one of these examiners in 872 or 873, Wei Xiang undertook to renew these lists with stone inscriptions.84 The record of this kind of monument is interesting, for it reveals for the first time that family considerations on behalf of examiners were as important as graduands’ esprit de corps. Finally, this steady growth of celebratory inscriptions possessed a Daoist dimension. The renowned priestess and society figure Yu Xuanji (fl. 860’s) recorded her visit to view graduands’ signatures in the Chongzhen Temple in the Xinchang ward.85 Due to Wang Dingbao’s precise analysis of actual practice as much as to knowledge of venues other than the Ci’en Monastery, the familiar impression of graduands’ signatures is that their authors created them in prominent yet unofficial settings. Available space in and around government offices might seem to have been left blank. This, however, is most unlikely. A fascinating and so far overlooked document is Qian Yi’s record of a measure to collect the names of successful graduands for another readership restricted to government officials: In the year that Wei Guanzhi passed his examination [in 783] a suggestion stated: “this year, when the authorities post the list, in advance of the spring closure, it is requested that those with new degrees set down their names.” Until now this has not altered.86

What was required exactly “to set down their names” (wei ming) is not specified, but several features of this account are distinctive. Firstly, the requested timetable contrasts with the sequence prescribed by Wang Dingbao, who specifies that the graduands’ assembly to

See biography of Rujing in Song gaoseng zhuan: 15.365–6. JTS: 16.480. 84 Guangzhuo yiji: 19.1a. For a discussion of the identities of the examiners in 872 and 873, see Meng (2003): 965–7. 85 “A trip to the south tower in Chongzhen Temple to view the spot where the new graduands signed their names” (Quan Tangshi: 854.9050). 86 Nanbu xinshu: 2.22. 82

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inscribe their names at the Ci’en Monastery occurred after the closing banquet. The alternative timetable recorded by Qian Yi is a strong indication that the Board of Rites may have created a list of graduands’ names before the closing banquet, since it remained the bureaucratic body responsible for the graduands until near the end of the examination season. Secondly, the request names a practice “to set down names” that is verbally distinct from that of “to sign names” (timing) recorded at the Ci’en Monastery and other religious sites. Finally, it may be significant that Qian Yi places the document of this request of 783 ahead of his record recounting Wei Zhao’s allegedly single-handed foundation of a custom of signing names at the Ci’en Monastery. Considering that Wei Zhao was Wei Guanzhi’s father, that sequence seems surprising. However, what this precedence perhaps reflects is an institutional priority for two distinct productions of degree record. Qian Yi recorded in first place his knowledge of a genre of record practiced within the bureaucracy even though it probably developed after the custom of signing names at the Ci’en Monastery had started to attract graduands’ enthusiasm. These records of other signing practices modify Wang Dingbao’s claims significantly, for they show that graduands signed their names in two quite different contexts of display. They wrote their names somewhere in the central bureaucracy—perhaps in the grounds of the Board of Rites—but this attracted no attention beyond Qian Yi’s short record written after the Tang collapse. Alternatively, they assembled at the Ci’en Monastery and at other religious establishments to write the same inscriptions with much greater consequence for visitors who returned there in the years that followed. Only outside the jurisdiction of the bureaucracy, of course, did they fully enjoy the opportunity to revisit old inscriptions and modify them according to changing conditions. Monasteries and other popular sites offered degree-holders graphic and, most importantly, regenerative proofs of the narratives of their careers and their lives. By contrast, even the most ornamental bureaucratic records of degree success were relatively sterile. Finally, this detour into another Five Dynasties’ record of signing practices highlights an extremely important characteristic of Wang Dingbao’s interest in the final ceremonies of the examination programme. He was caught up by the enthusiasm that perpetually swelled outside the markers of the bureaucracy’s immediate control of examination practices. In his account of graduands’ signatures, for instance,

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he was interested in a form of commemorative record gaining wide public attention and undergoing the successive revisions to be expected at the centre of such a vibrant social life. His enthusiasm was not unusual, as several poems on the topic of signing names demonstrate. Only reference to a rare document of preferences inside the bureaucracy suggests that another rhythm of performance unobtrusively measured the final stages of the examination programme. But, that evidence in no way subverts the basic pattern of origins. That is, during the closing stages of the examination programme, graduands frequently borrowed social practices from their larger surroundings to enact the final ceremonies of their transition to degree-holding officials. Autographing a name was a cultural activity that many literate members of the population pursued in response to numerous motivations. Name-signing parties evidently comprised jinshi graduands, degree aspirants and many others, who signed their names at the same place on the same occasion. Wang Dingbao shows that, like any other stage in the final celebrations, such gatherings preclude drawing a clear line between graduands’ ceremonies and Chang’an society’s observances of both annual and special festivals. The Buddha’s tooth The boundary between examination ceremonies and religious practice in Tang China’s capital was even more blurred. Wang Dingbao’s lengthy explanation under the banquet heading “Admiring the Buddha’s tooth” is an example of his willingness to ascribe to the examination programme some of the most exotic events of the Chang’an annual calendar: Admiring the Buddha’s tooth: each man [paid] over two thousand. Buildings that housed a Buddha’s tooth were at Baoshou Monastery, Dingshui Monastery and Zhuangyan Monastery. When they admired the tooth of the Buddha at Baoshou, it was mounted within a crystal casket and supported by a silver bodhisattva, but they selected a monk to kneel and present it to the bodhisattva. In most cases only recorders of the clergy87 and chief abbots were allowed to present it.

senglu: these clerical officers recorded ordinations of monks and nuns on behalf of lay commissioners of merit ( gongde shi ), but, following reforms in 807, this and other duties made them the chief clerical overseers of the whole Buddhist establishment. For the reforms, which transferred the task of record-keeping away from 87

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This is a unique revelation of the presence of new degree-holders at any monastic ceremony of Buddhist worship. Thanks largely to Han Yu’s famous attack on the throne’s patronage of finger-bone relics in 819, relics in the form of a tooth gained far less attention in the long-running Tang debate on the state’s proper involvement in Buddhist worship. Furthermore, since the sensational discovery of bone relics at the Famen Monastery in 1987, discussion of material evidence too has stressed the historical importance of this kind of relic.88 Tang official records say extremely little about officialdom’s involvement in worshipping relics. Indeed, modern archaeology has been the main critical tool for discovering the complexities behind state historians’ silence. Highly unusual, therefore, is Wang Dingbao’s frank record of worshipping the Buddha’s tooth in the Tang capital. Even what he reveals concerning recorders of the clergy, who were the chief officiants at tooth-worship rituals, attracted no notice on the part of Tang state authorities. Their crucial institution as executive heads of the late Tang Buddhist church in 807 was, as Stanley Weinstein points out, a major political act that escaped comment in the Tang official records and only merited its due explanation in clerical histories completed in the fourteenth century.89 Written by a representative of Confucian officialdom, then, Wang Dingbao’s testimony to jinshi graduands’ performance in Chang’an relic cults is unusual to say the least. No other text surpasses his in detail, but he was not the sole observer to record how the annual examination programme dovetailed closely with Buddhist observance. A contemporary text, Record of the seasons at the capital (Nianxia suishi ji ), records that graduands used the pagoda housing a tooth relic at the Chongsheng Monastery in order to hold a banquet of cherries in one or more years.90 Wang Dingbao’s interest in monasteries’ use of tooth relics to sustain widespread and regular worship suggests that he entertained a strong Buddhist faith, which also informed his observations of Buddhist overtones at the ceremony of gratitude. Indeed, the notion of transmitting robes and bowls is not at all alien to the concept of relic

the Departments of Sacrifices (cibu, in the Board of Rites) and Enfeofments (sifeng, in the Board of Personnel), see THY: 49.860; JTS: 14.420; Weinstein (1987): 100–1. 88 For this archaeological recovery, see Han (1988). 89 Weinstein (1987): 100. 90 Cited at Chang’an zhi: 9.9b.

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worship. The relics at the monasteries that Wang Dingbao listed seem to have remained isolated from the sensational controversies surrounding the Famen Monastery’s finger bone. Still, discoveries at the Famen pagoda crypt offer revealing insights into Wang Dingbao’s record of ritual implements. His statement that the relic holders comprised a crystal casket and a silver bodhisattva is an exact description of the Tang objects recovered from the pagoda crypt. According to an inscription on the object, the silver bodhisattva recovered during that excavation served as a relic-bearer during liturgies performed on behalf of the throne.91 Wang Dingbao’s account reveals a similarity with these implements to suggest how tooth-relics may have functioned in equally complex state ceremonies.92 In 767, Daizong worshipped a tooth of the Buddha.93 That Wuzong later pronounced a stricture specifically against worshipping the Buddha’s tooth in 844 merely leaves open the question as to whether before his accession the throne had not quite recently been involved in the cultic performances of a faith now under intense political pressure.94 At the beginning of Wuzong’s reign, Ennin listed four Chang’an monasteries that each stored a tooth, and he records that all four monasteries held veneration services during the same eight days each spring.95 In 853, Xuanzong led a ceremony worshipping the tooth located at the Zhuangyan Monastery,96 and his reign also witnessed efforts to restore arrangements for keeping another tooth at the Chongsheng Monastery.97 The Dingshui Monastery in Wang Dingbao’s list represented perhaps a new and third deposit following the Huichang monastic

Han (1995): 72; Moore (2000): 330. The Famen pagoda crypt contained four finger bones (Han [1988]: 7), and Tang records show six occasions when one or more of these relics featured in throne-led ceremonies of Buddhist worship, concluding with the massive observance of 873. 93 Song gaoseng zhuan: 14.330; the same event is dated one year earlier at Fozu tongji: 41.379a. 94 Rutang qiufa xunli xingji jiaozhu: 4.439 (no. 485); cf. Reischauer (1955): 340. 95 Ennin recorded tooth relics at the Da Zhuangyan, Jianfu, Xingfu and Chongsheng monasteries in 841 (Ru Tang qiufa xunli xingji jiaozhu: 3.373–4 [no. 408]; cf. Reischauer [1955]: 300–2). In 842 he worshipped in front of the Chongsheng, Jianfu and Xingfu relics (Rutang qiufa xunli xingji jiaozhu: 3.383–98 [nos 411, 441, 442]; cf. Reischauer [1955]: 303–13). On Daizong and Xuanzong’s involvement with—and Wuzong’s reaction to—tooth relics, see also Weinstein (1987): 88, 125, 143. 96 Da Song seng shilüe: C.294a; Song gaoseng zhuan: 16.392. 97 See the record of a stele erected for a tooth here in the Dazhong reign period (847–60) (Baoke congbian: 7.190). 91 92

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suppression. Given what is recorded elsewhere about the celebrations attending the circulation of the finger bone through Chang’an in 873, congregations at the Zhuangyan and other monasteries may well have counted substantial numbers of the population who were willing to pay Wang Dingbao’s recollected fee of two thousand cash for the privilege of taking part in worshipping a tooth.98 The massive following that Chang’an relics commanded is testimony to the true context of graduands’ participation in religious worship. Wang Dingbao says far less on this point, but jinshi graduands were conspicuous at these ceremonies only in as far as Wang Dingbao’s text claims. They certainly did not comprise the entire audience at much publicized ceremonies of relic worship in large metropolitan monasteries. Wang Dingbao’s revelations in respect of graduand involvement in Buddhist worship are simply unequalled, but they cannot justify the notion that graduands fashioned these events as inventively as they adapted Buddhist ritual in the ceremony of gratitude. During services to worship the Buddha’s tooth, they collaborated in the pursuits of a large city population, which observed the Buddhist calendar among many other observances throughout the year. Hit-ball Wang Dingbao’s interest in games of hit-ball illustrates the same tendency to extract the importance of jinshi graduands from their wider social surroundings. This game—sometimes termed “polo”—was played throughout the Tang empire. Wang Dingbao’s list of banquet names features first the Moon Lamp Pavilion (Yuedeng ge), the popular venue of ball games outside Chang’an, and then a reference to playing hit-ball. Alternatively, if these are not separate items in the list, they may read plausibly as: “Playing hit-ball at the Moon Lamp Pavilion”. The Collected Statements is another important source of the Tang elite’s preoccupation with equestrian sports. Even though the earliest Asian origins of mounted hit-ball are impossible to define with any finality, the eager pursuit of the game by Chinese, Tibetan and

98 On the fervour surrounding the arrival of the Famen Monastery relic in 873, see JTS: 19A.683; and, an un-sourced account in TYL: 3.215 (no. 322).

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other elites of the Tang period is a major ingredient in the modern view of Tang cosmopolitanism.99 Also, later elites in China often imagined Tang horsemanship as a standard to excel in estimations of their own skills on horseback.100 In the Tang, building a ball field was a common but still substantial engineering project. Wang Dingbao documented that such activities stimulated literary commemorations by scholars with degree aspirations. He collected a story of Yao Yanjie’s abortive attempt to please a literary patron with a long epigraph for a newly completed field in Raozhou in the late 870’s (260a). The game was a feature of life both in the provinces and the capital, and at almost every level of official life some space was devoted to playing it.101 In his account of a match at the Moon Lamp Pavilion, Wang Dingbao also reveals that hit-ball became a graduand pursuit in the late examination programme. In his remarks on the Cold Food festival, Qian Yi also noted that graduands held hit-ball banquets at the Moon Lamp pavilion.102 Wang Dingbao’s account of a particular match, however, records what was clearly an exceptional event. Contrary to Tang sportsmen’s normal expectations, Liu Tan, a new degree-holder and the graduands’ star player, trounces the confident superiority of military opponents. The beginning of the account relates how the graduands had begun their tournament when a group of overbearing soldiers entered the field. Liu Tan then proposes to turn the tables on the newcomers: Liu Tan said to his fellow graduands: “If, on your behalf, I could just slightly dent their confidence, I would make them break it up. What do you think?” The first-placed and all the others agreed, and they begged him to go ahead. Tan then mounted his horse and grasped his club. He frisked over and greeted the others: “I am the new jinshi-holder Liu Tan, and I hope that I may be of service. Will you permit me?” The soldiers were all delighted. Tan galloped and charged,

99 For the notion that the game was transmitted to China from Tibet, see Zhuang (1953) and Yin (1959). 100 Liu (1985). 101 In 840, after his arrival in Qingzhou, Ennin had to await the prefect’s return from watching—or playing in—a match before he could gain permission to travel further. The game field became the venue of a prefectural banquet held some few days later. In Chang’an he also noticed the large ball field in the government city adjoining the palace (Rutang qiufa xunli xingji jiaozhu: 2.242–3 [nos 281, 283], 3.345 [no. 382]; cf. Reischauer [1955]: 194–5, 287). 102 Nanbu xinshu: 2.21.

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Of course, stories that worsted any army officer’s reputation in contests of such traditionally aristocratic skills as riding and archery were always popular in bureaucratic circles.103 And, at least one aspirant for the jinshi degree claimed to be a worthy candidate on the evidence of his skill with a ball.104 The mounted game, like Tang kickball, was dangerous, and it often led to injuries or even barely dissimulated murders in the lethal atmosphere of palace politics. Wang Dingbao’s account of a ball-hitting game thus portrays a more rugged side of jinshi qualities, which gained approval in even the highest circles. Xizong encouraged graduands’ sports with the famous remark that he believed himself worthy of a top-placed degree in ball-hitting.105 Liu Tan thus played at the forefront of fashion—at the same moment that YaoYanjie tried to have a favourable report of the game’s history turned into a cultural monument in Raozhou. Wang Dingbao’s records of a hit-ball match also provide one more strong link between the examination programme and the Chang’an seasonal calendar. Liu Tan performed in one of the most popular pursuits of the Cold Food festival (hanshi ). The unknown compiler of the Nianxia suishi ji also records the graduands’ games played at the Moon Lamp Pavilion. This compiler includes hit-ball at the end of a list of competitions organized for the conclusion of the Cold Food festival.106 Numerous poems relate the spectators’ enjoyment of matches during this extremely popular annual observance. Among its principal rites were visits to family gravesites.107 Precisely because 103 Compare an account concerning Xue Gongda, a son of Xue Bo, once Ouyang Zhan’s patron in southeast China, humiliating his military superior during a shooting competition (XTS: 159.4952). 104 See Du Mu’s epitaph for the unsuccessful candidate Lu Pei (809–39) (Fanchuan wenji: 9.144–5; WYYH: 962.10a–11a). 105 ZZTJ: 253.8220–1. See also Liu (1985): 209. 106 Nianxia suishi ji: 0.1b at Shuofu (120-juan version): juan 69. 107 See the first of Zhang Ji’s two poems entitled “The Cold Food palace feast” (Zhang Ji shiji: 4.52); Bai Juyi’s “Ten rhymes written on the Cold Food festival at Luo bridge” (Bai Juyi ji: 36.599); Wen Tingyun’s “Written on the Cold Food Festival”

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of its proximity to large burial grounds, the Moon Lamp Pavilion, where Liu Tan played, had been a popular resort in the Longshou district east of the capital from at least the late eighth century onwards.108 The whole area sustained intense bursts of social life during the cold food festival of the third month and grave-sweeping in the Qingming festival one month later. Wang Dingbao shows yet again that wherever the city population surged, graduands lagged not far behind. E     C’   Wang Dingbao’s records of the close of the annual examination programme sometimes reveal unintentionally that examination graduands were not always the dominant social presence that Wang Dingbao claimed. His own interests dictated the tendency of his records to prioritize the presence of examination graduands at the centre-stage of seasonal engagements. His list of banquet names reveals unexpected dimensions of Tang examination culture but it may also distort. For instance, when Wang Dingbao records how Liu Tan, the hit-ball champion bought the favour of senior government officials with a massive gift of cherries in 877 (72), it hardly proves that cherry feasts were an exclusive prerogative of jinshi graduands. The inclusion of “cherries” in his list of banquet names might suggest otherwise, but many other sources acknowledge gifts of the fruit to numerous sections of the bureaucracy.109 The only information concerning cherry feasts recorded in the contemporary Nianxia suishi ji states that jinshi graduands organized this event at the Chongsheng Monastery. But, other ninth-century comments show that, during

(Wen Feiqing shiji jianzhu: 4.81); the first of Pi Rixiu’s two poems entitled “Cold Food in Luoyang” (Pi Zi wensou, Addenda: 179). 108 For Yuan Zhen’s recollection of visits with Bai Juyi, see his poem “One hundred rhymes instead of a letter to respond to Hanlin Academician Bai” (Yuan Zhen ji: 10.116). 109 For an early Tang poem on this theme, see Wang Wei’s (701–761) “An imperial bestowal of cherries on behalf of officialdom” (Wang Youcheng ji jianzhu: 10.175–6). For later poems, see Zhang Ji’s “An imperial bestowal of cherries during a court assembly” (Zhang Ji shiji: 4.53); Du Mu’s “In harmony with xiucai Pei Jie’s ‘New Cherries’” (Fanchuan wenji, Addenda: 310); Wang Jian’s “One hundred palace lyrics” [no. 72] (Wang Jian shiji: 10.93); See also classic instances of imperial gifts dating back to the Han period, listed in Chuxue ji: 28.675–6, and at Yiwen leiju: 86.1479.

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spring and early summer, many circles other than those involved in the examination programme expressed their gourmet interest in cherries.110 The association of graduands’ sports with the cold food festival suggests also how the examination programme fitted into a larger dimension of ceremonial undertakings during the same season.111 The Tang court had long been interested in the cold food festival, which had been celebrated throughout the country since the late sixth century, but it had once renounced controlling it as a fixture in the state ceremonial programme. During the final weeks of completing the Kaiyuan ritual code, court ritualists had tussled hard over whether to include directives for the festival’s observance until the final decision decreed it an unsuitable subject of government administration. Dating admittedly from a long way back in the dynasty’s history, this episode is still a valid reflection of how the dominant official attitude drew the line at controlling popular ritual observances. What Wang Dingbao depicts of the spectators’ reactions during Liu Tan’s legendary match gives some sense of the popular participation in a seasonal observance that had once been rejected from direct state control. Hit-ball matches and other popular spectacles did as much and possibly more than state-prescribed rituals to stabilize the annual examination programme amid the unequal pulling powers of late Tang state and society. Other sources clarify too that even a site as central to examination culture as the Qujiang held the attention of other users and onlookers aside from graduands. It was a multivalent site whose meaning visitors defined according to their different usages. Masters of the lyrical genres that the examination syllabus promoted so consistently adopted the Qujiang as a topic for rhapsody compositions.112 Wang Qi ( jinshi 862), not the celebrated examiner of a previous generation, developed his theme by locating an historical antecedent of the Qujiang in Xianyang during the Qin dynasty. He also drew the parallel between the site’s Tang usage and the aristocratic pursuits of Wang Xizhi (303–61) and his guests in the landscape of southeast

110 On the reported intensification of flavour that cherries underwent throughout their season, see Youyang zazu: 7.72 (no. 273). 111 On the orgins and interpretation of this festival, see Holzman (1986). 112 See rhapsodies by Ouyang Zhan (Ouyang Xingzhou wenji: 5.44b; and, Tang wencui: 71.5a–6b) and Wang Qi (Linjue ji: 0.24b–26b).

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China. The Qujiang was a generic location among a larger number of cultural settings in which the ruling elite defined and redefined the social order and political priorities of the day. Other indications of the varied significance of the Qujiang are the tenth-century mention of sources such as Record of spring banquets at the Qujiang and Spring sojourns at the Qujiang. The authenticity of these texts is highly questionable.113 But, even if their spurious titles reflect only inventions created soon after the Tang collapse, the market for such literary fakes still attests to the Qujiang’s centrality in varying aspects of connoisseurship and taste. Equally important is the wider context that library records of contemporary literature emphasize for Wang Dingbao’s records of graduands’ activities at the end of the examination season. Graduands timed and located their searches for flowers and games of hit-ball, for instance, during a short period when vast numbers of the rest of the population were similarly engaged. Engrossed in such a busy calendar, these other social constituencies eventually demanded a literature to prescribe their ceremonial pursuits and participation. The Qujiang’s significance during seasonal festive observances generated what was once an even more substantial body of texts describing and commenting on specific cultural pursuits. Since the Jiu Tangshu lists of the library collection record no works collected after 722, most of the relevant titles appear in the Xin Tangshu. They include the titles of artworks and texts, which centred on the Cold Food festival, its attendance by songstresses and the common pursuits of riding swings and playing hit-ball.114 None of these works survives. Nor does the Gold Door-Bolt ( Jinyue), an epistolary reference work by Li Shangyin, which categorized data concerning palaces, official posts, seasonal pursuits and life in the provinces.115 But, the past existence of such works is a valuable gauge of the Chang’an population’s strong commitment to participating in annual festivals, the cold food festival in particular, which shared their season, space and ceremonial arrangements with the annual examination programme. Ironically, texts on popular festivals also suggest how organizers of the examination programme inherited and adapted practices from

113 114 115

Yunxian zaji: 2.5a, 8.1b. XTS: 59.1559–61. Zhizhai shulu jieti: 14.424.

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an aristocratic age that never knew the annual cycle of examinations. One of the most rewarding works and also the earliest to survive is the Record of annual observances in the Jing and Chu territories ( Jing Chu suishi ji by Zong Lin (ca. 501–64). Notably, Zong Lin records details of celebrating the Shangsi festival, an ancient spring festival held according to classical reckoning on the first si day of the third month. Zong Lin records that on the appointed day gentry and commoners set out to waterside sites where they held feasts and played games of floating wine cup down winding streams. He also links these performances to ancient espousal rituals, which bear analogously on the marriage concerns that substantiated graduands’ most opulent parades beside the Qujiang.116 That Wang Dingbao might have ever accepted that Tang examination ceremonies at the Qujiang expressed conscious or unconscious parallels with social performances of an earlier age is unknown. However, contemporary accounts of seasonal observances do draw these parallels. For example, the compiler Han E, the last commentator on surviving Tang ceremonial traditions before the Song transition, suggests the acceptance of a common ethical basis linking southern espousal rituals and Tang examination banquets. In his Chronicle of Annual splendours (Suihua jili ) he frequently cites Zong Lin’s observations, and he includes data on examination ceremonies at the Qujiang under a reference to the Collected Statements.117 Conclusion Wang Dingbao’s records are crucial to understanding the complexity of society’s involvement in events featuring many more participants than an annual cohort of some thirty jinshi graduands. No other editor can equal Wang Dingbao’s records of the otherwise unattested presence of jinshi graduands at several ritual observances that coincided with the close of the annual examination programme. His documentation of the examination programme reveals the social

116 Jing Chu suishi ji at Shuofu (100-juan version): 25.10a–b; see also text in Jing Chu suishi ji: 0.9b–10b at Shuofu (120-juan version): juan 69. 117 Suihua jili: 1.1b at Shuofu (120-juan version): juan 69. This text names the Collected Statements the Collected Poems (Zhishi ).

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life of the Chinese political elite at a moment of profound change. How the interests of a small number of graduands and metropolitan society converged in seasonal examination celebrations differed widely in the Tang and Song periods. Wang Dingbao distinguishes many conditions of Tang practice that never re-appeared in quite the same guise again. A dramatic reduction in the influence of examiners ultimately favoured Song emperors as the ever more visible officiants of examination ceremonies during their later evolution. At the same time, the government of the Northern Song capital retrieved much of the space once available to Chang’an graduands to perform rituals of success with little if any official supervision. Nothing makes the increasing control of examination ceremony and its required spaces clearer than the Song legislation denying graduands access to Kaifeng’s private gardens. The Song state even intervened to control sports that Chang’an society had organized outside its city walls and enjoyed precisely for the incongruities that vigorous sport can produce when bureaucrats have to play against soldiers. Early in the Northern Song, the government recast the rules of mounted hit-ball in a prescribed form of court ceremonial. What had been a breakneck equestrian thrill became a thoroughly staged performance of figures enacting the slow-paced harmonization so familiar in court ceremonial.118 Wang Dingbao’s Collected Statements provides the central account among a group of Tang and Five Dynasties’ texts whose authors witnessed and recounted a growth of Chinese examination culture that was unprecedented in its variety of received influences. The glimpses that Wang Dingbao’s text affords of popular festivals and graduand celebrations are brief compared to the richer documentation of a more commercialized urban life in cities farther east during the following period. The examination system under Song rule changed into a more elaborately tiered system of tests and selections, and eventually the its top tier provided the arena for ceremonial acts performed only once every three years. Nevertheless, the same sequence of the examination programme featuring graduands’ induction, examination and celebration prevailed long after their initial evolution during the Tang, just as many of the period’s other cultural models

118 Songshi: 121.2841–2. See also Liu (1985): 217. For kick-ball play in a Han court context, see Lewis (1990): 146–50.

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endured until late in the exercise of Song power. Yet while Song reforms preserved, they also restricted. In the early thirteenth century, when Wang Yong looked back at examination ceremonies of the Northern Song he based his understanding of their performance largely on Tang precedents. He observed that, as early as 977, the Song government had made it policy to define details of performance that had erstwhile been the responsibility of graduands and the jinshi association to rehearse and enact.119 No less significant was the ossified rigidity of Song examination ritual that was soon apparent in the wholesale borrowings of Tang precedent. Later examination ceremonies, like later examination systems, outshone the scale of Tang efforts. Whether they outdid the appeals that Tang graduands made to imaginative power is much less sure. Wang Dingbao captured best the Tang facility to mould the patterns of celebratory performances from an impressive variety of social models, and later generations were often challenged far beyond their means to recapture the inventive novelties that he documented.

119

Yanyi yimou lu: 1.4.

CHAPTER EIGHT

CONCLUSION The growth of the annual programme of examination recruitment during the Tang reveals the shift from a pattern of centralized organization of state ceremonies to smaller patterns of ritual adaptation more firmly in the hands of individuals and their families. This study of the annual programme has privileged the records set down by Wang Dingbao and his own preferences. An account of social history so closely tied to one primary source has several advantages. Firstly, persistent reflection on what motivated Wang Dingbao to collect the constituent documents of his text brings us closer than most medieval sources to the psychological reactions and instincts of Tang individuals during their attempts to win degree titles. Secondly, Wang Dingbao documented one of the founding state institutions of Tang and later Chinese culture, but his fascination with society far exceeded his interest in the state. My reading of Wang Dingbao’s text has concentrated on the social phenomenon of ritual performance. Even though many other possible readings of the text are possible, none can deny the Collected Statements’ value as a document of social practice. Lastly, Wang Dingbao’s scrutiny of rituals as a sequence of engagements in an annual programme provides control over the enormous subject of ritual performance. Arguably, little in the recent and distant records of Chinese society is not ritual performance of some sort or another. But to mine every available Tang and Five Dynasties text for its observations on ritual would be an exhausting exercise with little qualitative yield. Instead, a selective reading that focuses in turn on what the chief informant of this study selected is more enlightening. Wang Dingbao’s selection of defining moments in the lives of Tang jinshi provides a coherent outlook for a major focus of social enquiry. Above all, it validates a historical account of Tang examination ritual as a means to understand the transition within Tang officialdom’s attachment to changing symbols of political authority. Over the three centuries of the Tang dynasty, the annual examination programme developed unevenly. Major state ceremonies

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attracted periodic bouts of enthusiasm rather than ongoing expressions of concern. Far more consistently, graduands and examiners formulated ritual acts that symbolized their own ties of allegiance and intellectual inheritance. Evidence of some of the controversy that raged during the mid-ninth century reveals just how deeply these innovative ceremonies challenged whatever equilibrium still existed in late Tang politics. Discussion of the community drinking ceremony, court audience and the visit to Confucius showed the only instances of annual ceremonies in which state authorities exerted an influential role. Even so, Wang Dingbao’s records of the community drinking ceremony already stress reactions to the ceremony’s significance in individual career patterns. Here, of course, the opposition between central and provincial contexts cannot be underestimated. Since the community drinking ceremony was a performance relegated to prefectural authorities, its operation in the increasingly devolved conditions of late Tang government offered approaches of cardinal importance to men seeking their way towards the examination authorities at the centre. Even the state’s control of behaviour in the examination ground was laisser faire, to say the least, and it only asserted its authority convincingly again in posting the candidates’ results. Beyond that moment, however, its involvement was minimal, except in those significant instances when it was attracted to participate in the practical arrangements successful candidates undertook on their own initiative or else delegated to more commercial constituencies in Chang’an society. Other examination ceremonies, which occurred after the posting of the results, demonstrate the continuing drift away from expressions of state authority towards thoroughly personal and deeply contentious enactments of gratitude. These acts adapted the most representative symbols of inclusion in the Buddhist sangha to become personal symbols of political and intellectual discipleship. Not that this drift went entirely unchecked: ninth-century formulations of the procession through the hall were almost certainly attempts to retrieve a visible function for senior government and the throne during expressions of gratitude that gained ultimately even more intense stagedirecting in the Five Dynasties and the Song. A similar pattern of gradually re-asserting control emerges in Song perspectives on late Tang traditions to celebrate with ostentatious banquets, parades and sports at the end of the programme. This study has stressed the Tang consciousness of examinations as an annual engagement with ritual performances. That is not meant

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283

to imply that Tang men and women did not conceive of examinations in other ways as well. But, in any consideration of the Tang period, ritual performance is particularly important. The enormous efforts that Tang state and society witnessed on behalf of recurrent and complex ceremonies were symptomatic of a medieval world in which little else beyond ritual performance defined so aptly the state’s existence, the transitions of family life and the status changes of the individual. In examination society, performance was basic to the rites of passage that a scholar underwent on the way from candidate to degree-holder. His journey through the examination programme was one more experience in a lifetime of responses to a society in which a huge amount of social intercourse was ritualized. Millions of the Tang population were finely attuned to the nuances of ritual acts. If a member of this society’s vast Tang sub-class of servants and slaves entertained his fellows in their off-duty hours he reported not what their master had said—which they did not necessarily comprehend anyway—he re-enacted his formal demeanour, his public walking style, his exaggerated gestures and pauses, his generic expressions of emotion, his greetings, farewells, bows and so on. This theatre of entertainment he created out of social theatre.1 Wang Dingbao concentrated on ritual performance because it revealed more aptly than other engagements what Tang examination culture had been. He assumed his readers’ knowledge on many topics of the recent past, but he left nothing to chance in spelling out precisely what words and actions were expected during crucial stages of the annual examination programme. This editorial achievement in the wake of a dynastic collapse presupposes that he made choices in what to tell and what not to tell his readership. Clearly, as performance directives and stories of participating in examination ceremonies show, one of the chief motivations underlying the creation of his text was to preserve knowledge of how Tang degree-holders had performed in their transformation from plain-clothed examination entrants into degree-holders. His account took the intellectual gifts and the political privileges of successful degree-winners more or less for granted; what he felt impelled to communicate were the symbols of awe and the ritual enactments that in Weberian terms made “magically qualified” officials out of men with degrees.

1 For a story of a Tang servant’s succinct imitation of all his master’s actions, see Bei meng suoyan: 4.27 (no. 63).

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Since ritual was so important to defining Tang examination life, Wang Dingbao said much less concerning the examinations’ significance as an academic exercise. He recorded little if any interest in the set topics of each year’s examinations. Those that are mentioned in the pages of this study are cited invariably from other sources. Nor did Wang Dingbao say much concerning the procedures for academic tests. In fact, what he did reveal in one instance concerning his patron Wu Rong is the degree to which late Tang patrons of examination success set their clients literary tests on subjects entirely of their own choosing and with little or no regard for any syllabus authorized by the state. This provides another view of Tang examination life in its provincial context that it is probably impossible to explore much further in the extant sources. Nevertheless, it suggests how different the intellectual world that revolved around Tang examinations was from the more perceptible orthodoxy that arose in the following era. Finally, the various analyses of graduands’ ceremonial engagements presented in the chapters of this study have made several references to developments in examination history during the Five Dynasties and the Song. Wang Dingbao was in no position to comment on the complete Tang-Song transition, hence this study’s concentration on developments in the Tang dynasty. However, his interest in the examination programme, including even its final adjustments just before the Tang’s extinction, provides a valuable gauge of the Tang heritage before the gradual assertion of control over examination ceremonies in multiple centres of government during the Five Dynasties and after the new ascendancy of unified rule in 960. The debates and decisions outlined in the later sources of the following period show that Wang Dingbao identified many leading issues of ritual performance that became central questions of reform policy for the governments that ran examinations in the decades and centuries after 907. Wang Dingbao was more than an editor with an eccentric taste for delving into questions of ritual performances; he recorded human behaviour and social patterns that provided lasting inspiration as well as real models for one of the most unifying aspects of Chinese culture in the centuries that followed.

APPENDIX

CONTENT AND SOURCES OF THE COLLECTED STATEMENTS In this appendix, each document is numbered according to its sequence (1–437) in the text of the punctuated edition of the Tang zhiyan (Shanghai, 1957). In cases where the extra division of an item is arguable, because it may include documents from several diverse sources, these subdivisions are indicated with Roman letters. The second reference in parentheses is to juan and page numbers in the 1957 edition. Interpersed throughout the following notes are translations of the headings into which the fifteen juan of the text are further subdivided. General preface to degrees 1 (1.1) Establishment of examinations under the Tang, according to: a). Zhouli; b). decree of April 27, 621. Other records: XTS: 44.1163. Translation: Rotours (1932): 160. Duplication: decree recorded again at 400. Correcting and implementing the community drinking ceremony in the tribute recommendations 2 (1.1) Prefectural quotas and conduct of the community drinking ceremony, according to a decree of March 737. Other records: CFYG: 639.18a–b. Possible sources: Da Tang liudian: 30.23B; TD: 15.353, THY: 26.499 (gives April); Bai Kong liu tie: 43.11b. Abbreviated text of the recommendation regulations for the fifth year of Huichang [845] 3 (1.2) Government regulations of 845 outlining varying levels of jinshi and mingjing quotas for recommendation from different prefectures. Account of the jinshi—part one 4a (1.3) Claim that the jinshi degree was founded in the Sui, with reference to Sui jinshi degree-holders, Hou Junsu and Sun Fuqie, and other data cited from a degree register. Possible source: Zhao

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Shen, Jinshi dengke ji (not extant). Note: for Hou Junsu’s xiucai degree, see Beishi, 83.2807–8, and Suishu: 58.1421; Sun Fuqie’s degree is not recorded in his biographies ( JTS: 75.2634–8, XTS: 103.3995–8). 4b (1.3) Taizong watches jinshi graduands parade with the pass list. Duplication: the same account at 401. Account of the jinshi—part two 5a (1.3–4) Terminology of ninth-century examinations cited from Li Zhao, Guoshi bu. Source: Guoshi bu: 3.55. 5b (1.4) Identification of famous jinshi degree holders. Possible source: Guoshi bu (see note at 6a). Detached preface to the jinshi degree 6a (1.4) Claim that the jinshi degree was founded in the Sui period, with reference to entrance figures in the 650’s. Possible sources: TD: 15.353; Guoshi bu. Note: this claim and following statements (until 6d) as well as 5b are attributed to Guoshi bu at TPGJ: 178.1321–2. 6b (1.4) Verse couplet on reputed difficulty of the jinshi degree. 6c (1.4) Biographical instances of moral qualities associated with the jinshi degree. Possible source: the biographical subjects differ, but the style of these remarks matches Niu Xiji’s “Discussion on recommending scholars” (TPGJ: 178.1321–2; WYYH: 760.13b). 6d (1.5) Verse couplet lauding Taizong’s political foresight. 6e (1.5) Citation from the epitaph for Zhang Congshi whose grandfather held a Sui jinshi degree. Possible source: Dugu Ji, “Epitaph for Duke Zhang, once Assistant Chief of the Bureau of Law in the Henan prefecture” (Piling ji: 11.14b–16a). The two education directorates 7a (1.5) Establishment of the directorate at Luoyang, cited from the “veritable record” (shilu) in 661. Other records: JTS: 4.82; THY: 66.1157; XTS: 44.1163, which all date this event to 662. Source: Gaozong shilu (not extant). Translation: Rotours (1932): 164.

    

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

287

7b (1.5) Li Hua’s reminiscences about his years at the education directorate in a couplet addressed to Zhao Hua. Other records: Tang wencui: 15B.5a–6a; TSJS: 21.546–7. Note: Li Hua’s literary collection does not contain this text. 7c (1.5) Names of eighth-century faction leaders in the education directorate, cited from Li Zhao. Source: Guoshi bu. Note: Extant editions of Guoshi bu do not contain this text. 7d (1.5) Decree of 753 stipulating presentation of tribute scholars through government schools. Other records: TD: 53.1469; THY: 76.1384; JTS: 24.921 (“Ceremonial”); JTS: 9.227 (“Annals”); CFYG: 640.4a; XTS: 44.1164. Possible sources: TD or THY. Translation: Rotours (1932): 175. Note: In the Zhiyan text, 20th year of Tianbao should read 12th. 7e (1.5) Measures of 764 to revitalise government education at the capital, according to a decree of 12 August, 764. Other records: CFYG: 50.12a–b; XTS: 44.1165; Tang da zhaoling ji: 105.539. Translation: Rotours (1932): 175–6. 7f (1.5–6) Imperial attention to the education directorate and its enlargement after 631. Other records: Zhenguan zhengyao: 7.215 (dated 628); TD: 53.1467–8 (dated 631); THY: 35.633 (dated 631); JTS: 189A (dated 628); XTS: 198A (dated 632); ZZTJ: 195.6152–3 (dated 640). Possible source: Tongdian. Note: on varying dates of these measures, see Gao Mingshi (1970): 7–8. 7g (1.6) Entrance ceremony, stipends and syllabus at the education directorate, according to a decree of 662. Another record: THY: 35.634, which dates the decree to 706. Possible source: Yonghui ritual code (completed in 651). Note: for a similar prescription of the entrance ceremony in the Yonghui code, see Aida (1964): 591–2. The Yôrô ritual code, completed in Japan during or shortly after 718 was based on the Yonghui codification. 7h (1.6) Provision for provincial scholars to enrol at the College of the Four Gates, and permission to establish private schools, according to a decree of 733. Source: THY: 35.634–5.

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7i (1.6) Obligatory enrolment of examination candidates at official schools, according to an edict of 845. Source: THY: 35.635. The western education directorate 8 (1.6) Quotas for student population at Chang’an, according to memorials of 808 submitted by directorate authorities. Other records: THY: 66.1160; XTS: 44.1165; CFYG: 604.19a. Source: THY. Note: No source discloses the author of the memorial, but the President of the education directorate in 808 was Feng Kang who wrote other memorials about the official education system. Translation: Rotours (1932): 179. The eastern education directorate 9 (1.7) Quotas for student population at Luoyang, according to a decree of 808. Other records: THY: 66.1160; JTS: 14.423; XTS: 44.1165; CFYG: 604.19a. Source: THY. Translation: Rotours (1932): 179. Provincial tribute scholars 10a (1.7) The selection of provincial tribute scholars from an annual entrance of two to three thousand men before 710; names of single successful provincial candidates in examinations run by Wang Fangqing in 674 and other examiners in 682, 683, 684, 704 & 707; statement that degree registers no longer distinguished provincial tribute status after 707. Possible source: degree registers (no longer extant). 10b (1.8) Reference to Yang Wan’s memorials of 763 proposing to revive archaic recruitment methods, erroneously dated a few years later. Other records: JTS: 119.3430–32; CFYG: 640.4b; XTS: 44.1166–67; ZZTJ: 222.7143–4 and 223.7145–6. Possible source: THY: 76.1395–96. Translation: Rotours (1932): 187–9. The Guangwen Academy 11 (1.8) History of the Guangwen academy, following its foundation by decree in 750. Other records: THY: 66.1163; JTS: 9.224 (“Annals”); JTS: 44.1892; XTS: 48.1267; XTS: 44.1164. Possible source: Tang huiyao. Translation: Rotours (1932): 174. Examinations in two capitals 12 (1.9) Institution of examinations in both capitals in 765 and abolition in 776. Other records: THY: 75.1368 (dated 650); JTS:

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COLLECTED STATEMENTS

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11.276, JTS: 190B.5031; CFYG: 640.11a; XTS: 44.1165. Possible source: Tang huiyao. Note: Tang huiyao is the only other source to record abolition of this institution. Translation: Rotours (1932): 176. Examining literary genres [zawen] 13a (1.9) Han antecedents to the dissertation questions (ce). 13b (1.9) Admission of low writing standards in examination of 685, according to a decree of that year. 13c (1.9) Request to institute “scriptural knowledge” (tiejing) and “literary genres” (zawen) tests, according to a memorial of 680 by Liu Sili (given as Siyuan). Other records: Tang da zhaoling ji: 106.549; CFYG: 639.19a–20a; XTS: 44.1163; biographies of Liu Sili at JTS: 190B.5016, and XTS: 202.5753. Possible sources: Feng shi wenjian ji jiaozhu: 3.14; TD: 15.354; THY: 75.1375–6. Translation: Rotours (1932): 166–7. 13d (1.9) Conduct of the jinshi examinations in three rounds is instituted in 705. Court audience 14a (1.9) Request to place tribute scholars in front of goods during the court audience ceremony, according to a memorial of 693 by Liu Chengqing (given as Chengzhi). Other records: THY: 76.1383–4; TPYL: 629.2a; CFYG: 639.20a–b. Possible source: THY. 14b (1.10) Recent history of the court assembly until 780, according to a decree of that year. Possible source: THY: 24.457. Another record: JTS: 12.327. Visit to former teachers 15 (1.10) Decision to institute examination candidates’ ceremonial visit to the Confucian temple in 717, according to a decree of that year. Possible source: THY: 76.1384. Other records: Tang da zhaoling ji: 105.538; CFYG: 50.6a–b. Jinshi come under the authority of the Board of Rites 16 (1.11) Account of Li Ang’s failure to maintain discipline as an examiner appointed by the Board of Personnel and consequent transfer of examination administration to the Board of Rites in 736.

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Another record: TPGJ: 178.1322–3. Note: cf. another account of these events at Guoshi bu: C.56 (also at TYL: 2.185 [no. 279]), which is a distinct and briefer text. 17 (1.11) Discussion (lun) asserting that the late seventh century was the most flourishing period in the education directorate’s history; if its students won degrees they were listed ahead of successful provincial tribute scholars. The quality of recent directorate students, however, has declined. Author: Wang Dingbao. Escorting the dispatches from the metropolitan prefecture 18 (2.13) Introductory remarks about prefectural pass registers. Author: Wang Dingbao. Preface of the first year of Yuanhe [806] from a degree register citing lists of degree-worthy candidates at the capital 19 (2.13) Remarks on “degree-worthy” (dengdi ) grades. Possible source: Shenzhou dengdi lu (not extant). Abolishing degree-worthy grades 20 (2.14) Cui Gong’s judgement favouring abolition of “degreeworthy” grades, dated 837. 21 (2.14) Wei Ao’s abolition of “degree worthy” grades, submitted with the metropolitan prefectural pass list of 853. Another record: TYL: 1.83–4 (no. 131). Source: Dongguan couji: 2.108. Instituting degree-worthy grades 22 (2.14) Cui You restores “degree-worthy” grades for the metropolitan prefecture’s pass list of 877; titles of rhapsody and poetry questions for this prefectural examination. Possible source: Shenzhou dengdi lu (not extant) 23 (2.14) Names of ten “degree worthy” candidates from the metropolitan prefecture’s pass list of 877. Possible source: Shenzhou dengdi lu (not extant). The first-placed of a prefecture fails 24 (2.15) Names of nine prefectural examination candidates during 807–95. Possible source: Shenzhou dengdi lu (not extant).

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COLLECTED STATEMENTS

291

The last of the degree-worthy becomes the first placed 25 (2.15) Li Guyan in 812. Possible source: Shenzhou dengdi lu (not extant). Degree-worthy candidates disqualified from the degree examinations 26 (2.15) Names of thirty-three prefectural examination candidates during AD 812–76. Possible source: Shenzhou dengdi lu (not extant). Gaining a degree only after a long wait as a degree-worthy 27 (2.16) Names of four prefectural examination candidates. Possible source: Shenzhou dengdi lu (not extant). 28 (2.16) Discussion (lun) concerning ability and fate in the prefectural examinations. Author: Wang Dingbao. 29 (2.16) Note appended to discussion (28) defining procedure for prefectural tests in Chang’an. Author: Wang Dingbao. General account of escorting dispatches 30 (2.16) Excerpt of a letter from Liu Tui, who is selected as a prefectural candidate by Cui Xuan at Jingzhou prefecture in c. 850. Another record: TPGJ: 182.1357. Note: none of this text occurs in Liu Tui’s collection, which has suffered considerable losses (see preface to the Ming edition of 1624 in Sibu congkan). Contending for first-placed among the dispatches 31 (2.17) In 818, Linghu Chu conducts the Huazhou prefectural examination in an unusually elaborate series of five tests. Ma Zhi, who is universally despised for his obscure background, writes such an astounding rhapsody that he ousts the predicted candidate for top position in the pass list. Another record: TPGJ: 178.1323–4 (including 32). Duplication: a shorter account of this episode at 133. 32 (2.17) Luo Ye conducts a prefectural examination at Hongzhou during the 870’s. 33 (2.17) During Bai Juyi’s governorship of Hangzhou, Zhang Hu and Xu Ning dispute their literary achievements before a prefectural examination during 822–24. Other records: Yunqi youyi: B.31–2:

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TPGJ: 199.1492–3; TYL: 3.294–6 (no. 437). Possible source: Yunqi youyi. Note: Fan Shu’s text in Yunqi youyi is a more complex account of this occasion, and the verse cited in both texts shows several variants. Wang Dingbao may have used another source, but for Zhou Xunchu’s view that Wang Dingbao abbreviated Fan Shu’s text, see his note following the text in TYL. 34 (2.18) Hegan Jun and his brothers are barred from the examinations after the former had passed the Guangzhou prefectural examinations, c. 850. Another record: TPGJ: 178.1323–4 (including 29). 35 (2.18) Zhang “Three Heads” Youxin ( jinshi 814) takes first place in three examinations. 36 (2.18) Zhong Chuan administers the drinking ceremony at Hongzhou in 884. Another record: TPGJ: 184.1373–4 (unattributed). 37 (2.18) The recluses Li Qun, Fu Zai, Yang Heng, (three of the “four friends in the hills” residing on Lushan) engage respectively with the prefectural examination at Jiangzhou, jinshi degree examinations and a government career in Jiangxi, during 790’s and later. 38 (2.19) Gao Ying ( jinshi 762) composes the rhapsody “Shazhou du niao” at an un-specified prefectural examination. This account cites the rhapsody briefly. Another record: rhapsody at WYYH: 137.5a–6a. Success or failure employs the Way 39 (2.19) Li Ao’s letter to his cousin following the latter’s success in the Chang’an prefectural examinations and failure to win a degree. Other records: Li Wen Gong ji: 8.63b–4b; TWC: 90.8a–b. Possible source: Li Ao’s collection. Angry resentment 40 (2.20) In the mid-ninth century, Wei Mo clinches an indictment against Li Hui who once did not select him at the metropolitan prefectural exam. Source: unknown. Other records: TPGJ: 498.4084–5. Note: the two men’s confrontation features also in a different story in Yunqi youyi: C.58 (also at TPGJ: 217.1660; TYL: 7.654 [no. 945]).

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41 (2.21) Lu Zhao mocks the examiner who refuses to select him after the prefectural examination at Hongzhou during the late 830’s. Source: unknown. Another record: TPGJ: 251.1949 (including 331). 42 (2.21) Summary of Hua Langfu’s letter to the examiner of the metropolitan prefectural examination, who refused to select him in the early ninth century. 43 (2.21–3) Wang Lengran’s letter to Gao Changyu, who did not select him at the prefectural examination in Songzhou in 713. 44 (2.23) Discussion (lun) concerning complaints. Author: Wang Dingbao. Detached preface 45a (3.24): Account of Wang Dingbao’s examination career and his compilation of the Zhiyan. Author: Wang Dingbao. 45b (3.24): History and lore of practical arrangement for end-of-season examination feasts and music, some of which is cited from Li Zhao, Guoshi bu. Possible source: Guoshi bu. Other records: Nanbu xinshu: 2.19; Cao Song’s verse couplet at TSJS: 65.1759–60; Zhang Ji’s verse couplet from “Rejoicing at Vice Minister Wang Qi’s posting of the list”, Zhang Ji shiji: 4.48; Note: the extent of the citation from Guoshi bu is unclear, since none of it appears in extant editions of that text. Ceremony of gratitude 46 (3.25) Prescription for performance of the “ceremony of gratitude”. Another record: TPGJ: 178.1326–7. Hopeful gatherings 47 (3.26) Prescription for performance of a hopeful gathering. Another record: TPGJ: 178.1327. Selecting and proofing literary writings 48 (3.26) Rules for anthologizing jinshi graduands’ verse and selecting materials for its presentation.

294

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Parading through the Hall 49 (3.26–7) Prescription for the successful graduands’ parade through the Secretariat. Another record: TPGJ: 178.1327–28. Closing examination 50 (3.27) Ceremonies and tests prior to the graduands’ transfer to the Board of Personnel. Another record: TPGJ: 178.1328. Names of banquets 51 (3.28): List of banquet names with glosses. Placing on the register in one year and ascending to a decree degree the next 52 (3.28): Guo Yuanzhen’s precocious success in two degrees. Possible source: Zhang Yue’s record of conduct (xingzhuang) for Guo Yuanzhen in Zhang Yangong ji: 24.7b–15a; WYYH: 972.1a–6b. 53 (3.28) He Fu’s poem of 836 to his fellow jinshi graduands of the previous year. Another record: TSJS: 49.746. Miscellaneous records of signing names at the Ci’en Monastery, roaming the sights and enjoining lyrical responses 54a (3.28) Claim that the custom of signing names at the Ci’en Monastery dates from 705–6; in 788 or 789 the examiner Liu Taizhen sets a poem on the theme of the Qujiang. Another record: TSJS: 55.1483–4. Note: four examination poems survive at WYYH: 188.2b–3a. 54b (3.28) Late in 843 Wang Qi replaces Chen Shang as examiner; soon afterwards Li Deyu presents his memorial of 843 advocating restrictions to post-examination ceremonies. Other records: XTS: 44.1169; TSJS: 55.1483–4; Li Wenrao wenji: Addenda, 0.3a. Translation: Rotours (1932): 202–5. 55 (3.29) Citation of shilu recounting how Xiao Song moved his ancestral shrine away from the Qujiang. Possible source: Dezong shilu. Note: Xiao Song died in 749, but standard historical sources include the ancestral shrine affair under the year 781 during the reign of Dezong (THY: 19.387, and ZZTJ: 227.7308–9). 56 (3.29) After gaining his degree in 735, Xiao Yingshi stays at a

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hostel where he insults another traveller. The traveller turns out to be president of the board of personnel, and, even though Xiao Yingshi apologizes, his rashness stymies the rest of his career. Another record: TPGJ: 179.1333 (attributed to Minghuang zalu). Source: Minghuang zalu: A.14. 57 (3.30) Li Tuan presents a poem to Pei Tingyu to congratulate him on gaining the jinshi in 882. Another record: TSJS: 61.1660. 58 (3.30) Du Mu composes a famous poem following his examination success in 828. Another record: “Posted to my friends in Chang’an after gaining my degree”, Fanchuan wenji: Supplement, p. 320. 59 (3.30) The physically imposing Hu Zheng proposes a drinking challenge in order to rescue his fellow graduand Pei Du (765–839) from rowdy elements trying to take him hostage. Another record: TPGJ: 195.1462. Possible source: Beili zhi: 0.39–40. Translation: Rotours (1968): 167–9. 60 (3.31) Cui Hang acts as Recorder in Charge of Forfeits at the banquet of 858, and he disciplines a miscreant graduand. Another record: TPGJ: 182.1359; an unattributed text at TYL: 7.651 (no. 941) gives a variant version of the same events. 61 (3.31) Wang Gui persuades Jiang Yong, whose means are limited, that his most honourable option after his jinshi success in 866 is to accept a fine for his lack of equestrian turn-out and grand costume. 62 (3.31) In 899, Lu Wenhuan services banquet costs by obliging the graduands to pawn or sell their mounts and escorts. This solution aggrieves Liu Can who has borrowed his entourage. Another record: TPGJ: 184.1374. 63a (3.32) Habitual scenes and pursuits at the Qujiang from 755 onwards. 63b (3.32) Xue Neng lends his barge to the new jinshi graduates in the late 870’s.

296

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63c (3.32) Zhao Gu composes a poem on the Qujiang celebrations held during a period of imperial mourning in 840. Another record of 63a–c: TPGJ: 178.1329 (with 64); and Zhao Gu’s poem at WYYH: 216.9a; TSJS: 56.1538. 64 (3.32) Yang Sifu, after his second term as examiner—in 826— feasts the jinshi graduates in the presence of his father at the Yang family residence in Chang’an. Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen also attend and endure the insults implicit in Yang Rushi’s poem celebrating the event. Other records: TPGJ: 178.1328–9 (with 63); TSJS: 46.1265. 65 (3.32) In 891, following his and others’ promotion to key government posts, Wang Huan addresses a poem to the examiner Pei Zhi, who composes a second poem in response. Another record: TSJS: 66.1787. 66 (3.33) Following the examination of 823, the monk Guang Xuan addresses a poem to the examiner, Wang Qi, who composes a response. Another record: TSJS: 72.1918. Note: Wang Dingbao confuses the dates of Wang Qi’s examination administrations and dates this poem to 843. 67 (3.33) An exchange of congratulations, which includes: 1). Zhou Chi’s preface and poem addressed to Wang Qi and his jinshi graduates of 843; 2). Wang Qi’s reply to Zhou Chi; 3). twenty-two poems by jinshi graduates addressed to Wang Qi as responses to Zhou Chi’s poem. Other records: TSJS: 55.1481–1505. 68 (3.37) During his command of Xuzhou in 873, Cao Fen celebrates his son’s jinshi award with a sumptuous banquet at which the newly-arrived pass list is unwrapped, and Hu Qi, a “jinshi of that time”, submits a congratulatory address to Cao Fen. Another record: TSJS: 52.1430. 69 (3.37) During his command of Dongchuan in 844, Yang Rushi throws a banquet to celebrate his son’s success; invited courtesans commemorate his munificence with a poem. Another record: TSJS: 46.1265. Source: Beili zhi: 0.40. Translation: Rotours (1968): 173–4.

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70 (3.37) After the examination of 897, run at Huazhou, the examiner Xue Zhaowei addresses a poem to the new degree-holders. Another record: TSJS: 67.1813. 71a (3.37) Lu Jun’s supernatural servant provides financial help for the examination ceremonies in 809. Another record: TPGJ: 84.548. Duplication: reference to this account at 429. 71b (3.38) Lu Su’s servant collects the rent on a property in Nanyang in order to pay for Lu Su’s subsistence before his examination success in 898. Another record: TPGJ: 275.2166. Duplication: reference to this account at 429. 72 (3.38) Liu Tan secures first place in the examination of 877 after an ostentatious presentation of cherries to members of the government. Another record: TPGJ: 411.3336–7. 73 (3.39) Luo Jie drowns at the Qujiang banquet of 789. 74 (3.39) In 873 a monastery servant appears at a particularly luxurious Qujiang banquet, incites a riot and beats up palace security staff. The banquet guests hush up the affair when they learn that the rioter has acted in response to injustices in that year’s degree list. Another record: TPGJ: 196.1468–9. 75 (3.40) Pei Siqian spends a night in the Pingkang pleasure quarter after gaining the jinshi in 838, and he writes a poem about his success. Another record: TSJS: 49.1335. Source: Beili zhi: 0.40. Translation: Rotours (1968): 170–1. 76 (3.40) Zheng Hejing spends a night in the Pingkang pleasure quarter after gaining the jinshi in 876, and he writes a poem about his success. Another record: TSJS: 67.1814. Source: Beili zhi: 0.41; Translation: Rotours (1968): 175–6, 77 (3.40) In 842, Lu Zhao, a candidate with limited means, is snubbed by the Yuanzhou authorities who feast only his fellow-candidate Huang Po before their departure to the capital. Lu Zhao returns as a jinshi in the following year and composes his famous couplet comparing his success to winning the local dragon boat races. Another record: TSJS: 55.1487.

298

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78 (3.40) Xue Feng ( jinshi 841) is cleared off the road in front of a procession of the new jinshi association ( jinshi tuan). 79 (3.40) Xu Zhou offends the Zhu family (rulers of the Liang dynasty) in 904 by picking tree paeonies at their Luoyang residence. 80 (3.41) During a celebratory banquet in 872, the year of his degree award, Zheng Guangye hears of the death of his daughter, but he sends the banquet vessels to her mother—to defray funeral costs— and orders replacements with which to resume the party. Source: Beili zhi: 0.40. Translation: Rotours (1968): 172. 81 (3.41) Liu Tan defeats a team of soldiers in a mounted game of hit-ball at the Yuedeng Tower in 877. 82 (3.41) After a jinshi parade at the Yuedeng pavilion in 872, the septuagenarian graduand Zou Xihui, who placed bottom of the pass list, is vain enough to insist on making one more ride past the spectators. 83 (3.41) Poem by one of the graduands to the examiner Zheng Hao in 856. Another record: TSJS: 54.1470. 84 (3.42) Wen Ding, an unsuccessful candidate, impersonates a courtesan in order to insult his successful peers during a Qujiang banquet in 877. Another record: TPGJ: 265.2083. 85 (3.42) Lu Zhiyou, Tutor the Heir Apparent in 879, admits that he has attended Qujiang banquets for the past thirty years. 86 (3.42) Li Qiao stretches tarpaulins over the entire Shengping ward to shelter his guests during a banquet in the late ninth century. 87 (3.42) Various practices of signing names at the Ci’en Monastery and at other locations; citation of a verse couplet by an unknown author. Another record: the last part of this text appears with an additional couplet by Yao He at TSJS: 80.2052. 88 (3.43) Two precocious graduands, Miao Taifu and Zhang Du, both jinshi graduands of 852, sign their names at the Ximing Monastery. Another record: TPGJ: 182.1357.

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89 (3.43) Wei Chan ( jinshi 853) mocks Li Tang’s abilities by distorting a poem that the latter had inscribed at the watchtower of Zhaoying county (today Lintong county, Shaanxi province). Duplication: the same poem features in another account of this event in a different location at 365. 90 (3.43) In 891, Sikong Tu inscribes a poem at the gateway to Huashan to commemorate the inscription that Pei Du wrote there before setting off on the Huaixi campaign in 817. Other records: TSJS: 33.919 and 63.1700. 91a (3.43) To Bai Juyi is spuriously attributed the couplet of a poem celebrating his status as the youngest among a group of graduands signing their names at the Ci’en Monastery. Source of the poem: Zhang Ji, “Lamenting Meng Ji” (Zhang Ji shiji: 6.68–9). Another record of the poem: WYYH: 304.2a. 91b (3.43) Bai Juyi takes the rhapsody and the poem written for his jinshi examination to show Li Fengji, who, astounded by the quality of the rhapsody, produces twenty copies. Seventeen of them pass into new hands that same day. Other records of the rhapsody: Bai Juyi ji: 38.867–8; WYYH: 93.3a–4a. 92 (3.43) Discussion (lun) remarking that the sensationalism surrounding degrees is a relatively recent phenomenon. Celebrating degree success betokens variously an honourable pursuit by conscientious upholders of virtue and an opportunity for abusive ostentation by those obsessed with their careers. Author: Wang Dingbao. Integrity 93 (4.45) In between two visits to a fortune-teller in Luoyang, Pei Du ( jinshi 789)—frustrated after recent attempts to pass the examinations—visits the Xiangshan Monastery and restores valuable lost property to a female worshipper who needs it to secure a favourable outcome at her father’s imminent trial. Pei Du’s righteous act later earns him his spectacular success. Possible source: Ding Yonghui’s Zhitian lu to which the story is attributed at Bai Kong liu tie: 27.13b–14a. Note: Zhitian lu is a work of one juan not attributed to any compiler at XTS: 59.1543. For attribution to Ding Yonghui, see Xinbian fenmen gujin leishi (in Congshu jicheng): 18.213.

300

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94 (4.46) Lu Xuanhui trails behind his cousin Zheng Xu’s examination success from 870 onwards, even though both men had received their schooling together. By 880 Zheng Xu has been appointed prefect of Nanhai (Guangzhou), where Lu Xuanhui finds refuge during Huang Chao’s occupation of Chang’an. In recognition of their differing ranks, Lu Xuanhui thenceforth styles himself the “courtier-minister in plain robes (baiyi qingxiang), but persists in his efforts to gain the jinshi degree until his eventual success in 891. 95a (4.46) Despite her blindness in one eye, Sun Tai remarries his deceased wife’s sister. 95b (4.46) Sun Tai buys what appears to be an iron lamp, but, discovering that it is silver, he restores it to the seller. 95c (4.46) In the early 880’s, after Sun Tai has bought a property in Yixing, he waives his ownership rights when he discovers that the resident old lady’s son closed the sale without providing her with new accommodation. Other records of 95a–c: TPGJ: 117.820. 96 (4.47) Discussion (lun) concerning canonical definitions of virtuous conduct. Author: Wang Dingbao. Old connections with the “merciful land” 97 (4.47) In 860, Liu Xubai presents a poem to the examiner Pei Tan who was once his fellow candidate. Another record: TPGJ: 182.1360; TSJS: 60.1630; TYL: 6.580 (no. 835). 98 (4.47) Meng Qi performs the ceremony of gratitude in 875 in front of his examiner Cui Hang, his junior in age whom he had once taught. Another record: TPGJ: 182.1360. 99 (4.47) A certain Zhang mocks his friend Changsun Ji for giving up one kind of career for another, whereupon Zhang’s elder brother— or cousin—Zhang Ji defends Changsun Ji with the Confucian maxim that to realize one’s true vocation for the way is the highest goal in life (Lunyu: 4.3a). Another record: TPGJ: 182.1360 Note: the figures in this account and their circumstances are obscure. Changsun Ji, however, may indicate the monk Dao Yin (668–740), who once bore

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the same family name. His given name is not recorded, but he gained the jinshi degree in or shortly before 688 and then joined the priesthood (Song gaoseng zhuan: 5.97–9). Finding teachers in friends 100 (4.48) Li Hua arrives in Huaiyang (Chenzhou) in 757 and visits his friend XiaoYingshi before making an official visit to government headquarters. Another record: TPGJ: 201.1511. Note: The TPGJ text sets this story in Weiyang (Yangzhou), which is more plausible. 101 (4.48) A list of the “Four Kuis” (Si Kui ) clique includes He Zhangshi, Li Hua, Lu Dongmei and Han Qu. Variant records: the four Kuis are given as Cui Zao and three unknown figures in Liu Binke jiahua lu: 0.77 (also at TPGJ: 151.1087–8). Cui Zao’s official biographies name also Han Hui, Lu Dongmei and Zhang Zhengze ( JTS: 130.3625–7; XTS: 150.4813–4). This last list appears also in Nanbu xinshu: 3.31–2. Note: Han Hui is identified as leader of the clique at Guoshi bu: C.58. 102 (4.48) Following Pei Jie’s death in 813, his friend Zheng Yuqing performs private mourning rites appropriate to a deceased friend, and, on his own initiative, he selects zhen as Pei’s canonisation title. Note: this canonization title was later officially confirmed (THY: 79.1460); Zheng Yuqing’s mourning is recounted in Pei Jie’s biographies ( JTS: 98.3083–4; XTS: 127.4455). 103a (4.48) Qiao Tan ( jinshi 754) looks after the affairs of his deceased friend Yuan Dexiu. This account concludes with a citation from Li Hua’s “Discussion of the Three Worthies”. Duplication: another account at 163. Other records: Li Hua’s discussion at WYYH: 744.5a; TWC: 38.5b. Note: the text of this short citation varies considerably with the text at 163. 103b (4.48) Li Hua extols the conduct of Yuan Dexiu and Zhang Youlüe. Following this claim is an unacknowledged citation from Li Hua’s funeral inscription for Quan Gao. Other records of the citation: WYYH: 970.5a–6a; TWC: 69.6b–7b. Duplication: a reference to Quan Gao’s funeral inscription at 164.

302

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104 (4.48) In the late 790’s, the examination experiences of Li Zhi and Li Xingmin share many facts in common, as celebrated in a couplet of Li Zhi’s poem. Another record: TSJS: 50.1352–3. 105 (4.48) Li Zhou and Qi Yang maintain their friendship despite the huge difference in their ranks. This account cites Li Zhou’s letter to Qi Yang discussing friendship and official status. Another record: TPGJ: 235.1804. 106 (4.49) Complete citation of Li Hua’s sacrificial ode to Xiao Yingshi (708–759). Other records: WYYH: 980.4a–b; TWC: 33B.9b–10a. 107 (4.49) Complete citation of Han Yu’s burial inscription for a broken inkstone that belonged to Li Guan. Possible source: Han Yu’s literary collection. Another record: Han Changli wenji jiaozhu: 8.325. 108 (4.50) Citation of two of Du Fu’s poems to Zheng Qian. Possible source: Du Fu’s literary collection. Other records: Du shi xiangzhu: 3.174–6 and 3.249. 109 (4.50) Partial citation of Han Yu’s letter to Cui Qun discussing friendship. Possible source: Han Yu’s literary collection. Other records: “Letter to Cui Qun”, Han Changli wen ji jiaozhu: 3.108–110; WYYH: 679.10a–12a. 110 (4.50) Cao Ye gains a jinshi degree (in 850), but waits for his friend Liu Jia to win the same degree (in 852) before leaving the capital. 111a (4.50) Complete citation of Mao Jie’s letter to Lu Zangyong (d. c. 713) discussing common Daoist interests and appealing for friendship and help. 111b (4.51) Complete citation of Lu Zangyong’s letter in reply to Mao Jie. 112 (4.52) Fang Gan and his teacher Xu Ning exchange satirical remarks concerning Fang Gan’s and Li Pin’s ( jinshi 854) examination triumphs in different years. The account includes also a couplet of Qing Yue’s verse celebrating Fang Gan’s and Li Pin’s

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relationship as friends of the same teacher. Other records: Chan Yue ji (SBCK ): 0.8 (poem no. 7); TSJS: 63.1689, which attribute Qing Yue’s poem to Guan Xiu addressing Fang Gan. Note: He Guangyuan (fl. Five Dynasties) attributes the same poem to Fang Gan addressing Li Pin ( Jianjie lu [Hubei, 1877]: 8.6a). 113a (4.52) Accolades to Han Yu’s genius as the teacher of Zhang Ji, Li Ao and Huang Po. Following is a citation given erroneously as Han Yu’s letter to Cui Lizhi. Possible source: letter “Discussion of literary values addressed to Feng Su” in Han Yu’s literary collection. Another record: Han Changli wen ji jiaozhu: 3.115. Another citation is from Li Ao’s letter to Lu San. Possible source: Li Ao’s literary collection. Other records: “Letter to Lu San”, Li Wengong ji: 7.49b–50b; TWC: 85.1b–2a. Duplication: a longer citation of this letter at 126. 113b (4.52) Huang Po becomes a pupil of Han Yu at Yichun. Years later he passes Lu Zhao’s stele inscription for Han Yu and spits on it. 113c (4.52) Citation of a “veritable record” (shilu) concerning Han Yu and his disciples. Probable source: Jingzong shilu (not extant). Note: Han Yu died during the reign of Jingzong, and standard practice would have attached his biography to the record of that reign. 113d (4.52) Li Shangyin becomes the student and protégé of Linghu Chu, and—even though he later gains his jinshi degree under the examiner Gao Kai in 837—he refers to himself in company with Linghu Chu as his “disciple” (mensheng). Generosity 114 (4.53) Aged sixteen, during his career as a student at the education directorate, Guo Yuanzhen (656–713) donates his living allowance towards a stranger’s funeral costs. Another record: TPGJ: 166.1213. 115 (4.53) Xiong Zhiyi ( jinshi 783) provides financial aid during Fan Ze’s attempt to gain a jinshi degree. Another record: TPGJ: 168.1223 (attributed to Zhiyan). Possible source: a longer account in Guoshi bu: A.24.

304

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116 (4.53) Guo Yuanzhen buys slaves to service royal halts at Tongquan county, and, during an imperial audience there, presents his essay “On an ancient sword”. Possible source: Sui Tang jiahua: C.28 (also at TYL: 2.107 [no. 166]). Another record: Guo Yuanzhen’s official biography at XTS: 122.4361. Note: Sui Tang jiahua locates these events at the neighbouring county of Shehong. 117 (4.53) Yang Yuqing (d. 835) donates his finances to Chen Shang, then a jinshi degree-holder with whom he is not acquainted. 118 (4.53) Using money that he had reserved for his wedding, Li Yong (678–747) helps a stranger. 119 (4.53) Ma Zai ( jinshi 844) secretly sends financial help to the family of Xu Tang whose degree prospects have been long frustrated. Another record: TPGJ: 235.1804. 120 (4.54) Eulogy (zan) on the previous section’s exemplars of generosity. Author: Wang Dingbao. Perseverance 121 (5.55) Li Xiang is amazed to discover that his servant has enough education to be able to correct his mispronunciations when reading the Spring and Autumn Annals. 122 (5.55) Han Yu was renowned for composing “Mao Ying zhuan” and for his love of gambling. Zhang Ji is therefore moved to write Han Yu three letters arguing that a love of tales and gambling do not suit his position. Han Yu responds on the issue of gambling and declines Zhang Ji’s advice. This account contains a partial citation of the first of Zhang Ji’s letters and part of Han Yu’s first response. Other records: see Han Yu’s two responses and two of Zhang Ji’s letters at Han Changli wenji jiaozhu: 2.76–9. Note: Texts of the long versions of Zhang Ji’ letters do not feature in collections earlier than the Song edition of Han Yu’s works edited by Liao Yingzhong (d. 1275). 123 (5.56) Wu Rong collects rhapsodies from Yang Shaosu and Wei Tuan ( jinshi 897) before awarding the latter first place in a prefectural examination.

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124 (5.56) Zheng Xian grants Chen Qiao ( jinshi 886) an audience after three years’ of visits and gives him some literary advice. Another account: TPGJ: 183.1370. 125 (5.56) Wu Rong receives a submission of Wang Tu’s rhapsodies, and warns him not to slacken his efforts. Another record: TPGJ: 183.1367. 126 (5.56) Partial citation from Li Ao’s letter to Lu San discussing writings of Li Guan and Han Yu. Other records: “Letter to Lu San”, Li Wengong ji: 7.49b–50b; TWC: 85.1b–2a. Possible source: Li Ao’s literary collection. Duplication: shorter citation of the same document concerning Han Yu at 113a. 127 (5.57) Partial citation from Li Guan’s (766–794) letter to his younger brother encouraging him to compete for the mingjing degree. Another record: Li Yuanbin wenji: 5.4b–6b. Possible source: Li Guan’s literary collection. 128 (5.57) In 893, Zhong Chuan sends the monk Cong Yue to present one thousand editions of the Fahua jing to the court where he makes a good impression. Dai Siyan composes a farewell poem before his return to the South and he asks Wu Rong to compose a response, but Wu Rong thinks little of the first poem and declines. Another record: TSJS: 66.1790–91. 129 (5.57) Complete citation of the first of Huangfu Shi’s three letters replying to Li Ao’s discussion of the “unconventional” (qi ) and the unwelcome compromises that the examination syllabus demands of literary style. Another record: Huangfu Chizheng wenji: 4.3a–4a; TWC: 85.2a–b. Possible source: Huangfu Shi’s literary collection. 130 (5.58) Complete citation of the second of Huangfu Shi’s three letters replying to Li Ao about the “unconventional”, which evidently responds to Li Ao’s even more trenchant criticism of current literary style produced in the examinations. Another record: Huangfu Chizheng wenji: 4.4a–6a; TWC: 85.2b–4a. Possible source: Huangfi Shi’s literary collection.

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Presupposing a man’s lack of talent makes for a surprise during his examination 131 (5.60) Han Yu and Huangfu Shi receive Li He (790–816), then aged seven, and they are amazed at the precocious talent displayed in the poem with which they test him. Note: another account of Li He’s first meeting with Han Yu suggests that it took place some years later (TPGJ: 170.1247; TYL: 3.278 [no. 413]). Duplication: a longer accont of this meeting at 283. 132 (5.61) On his way to the capital examinations in the late 860’s, Jiang Ning stops in Xiangyang. Here he meets Xu Shang whom he impresses with his instant response to a rhapsody topic that Xu sets him. Duplication: another account of this meeting at 171. 133 (5.61) In 818, Linghu Chu conducts the Huazhou prefectural examination when the initially unimpressive candidate Ma Zhi, whom everyone present despises, writes such an astounding rhapsody that he ousts the candidate formerly predicted to win the top position on the pass list. Duplication: a longer and more coherent account of this episode at 31. 134 (5.61) Li Fengqi arrives late for the examination—in 777—and spreads his mat close to the examiner’s screen. The examiner has his progress monitored and, following reports of what Li Fengqi has written, he realizes that he deserves that year’s top position on the pass list. 135 (5.61) Aged fourteen, Wang Bo (650–676) gains the favour of an initially prejudiced host who places him in a literary contest and then hears incoming reports of the most famous phrases from the preface for the Xi wang pavilion. Other records: TPGJ: 175.1299 attributes the text to Zhiyan, but contains a number of variant expressions; for the complete preface, see Wang Zian ji: 5.1a–3a; WYYH: 718.1b–3a. 136 (5.62) Discussion (lun) that draws on some of the previous letters and stories to assert that recent times show a decline from past ideals of valuing individual teachers. Author: Wang Dingbao. Impartial recommendations 137 (6.63) Wu Wuling asks the examiner Cui Yan to grant fifth

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place in the jinshi pass list to Du Mu—in 828—on the strength of Du Mu’s rhapsody “Apang Palace”. Another record: TPGJ: 181.1349. 138 (6.63) Duplication: see longer account at 158. 139 (6.64) Lu Yanrang has few hopes of gaining a patron in the prefectural examinations of central China, since most people belittle his literary ability. Finally, Wu Rong reads his writings, and recommends to no avail that the authorities in Jingzhou forward him as a provincial tribute scholar. Both men meet in 898, and Lu Yanrang weeps in gratitude. He gains a degree in 900. Another record: TPGJ: 184.1374–5. 140 (6.64) Complete citation of Wang Lengran’s letter to Zhang Yue (667–730, examiner 701) in which the author upbraids the great minister for failing to use opportunities to advance the author’s career since gaining his jinshi degree in 717. Note: see a discussion of this document at Cen (1947): 5–6. 141 (6.68) In 901 or 902, Han Wo composes a memorial to recommend his examiner Zhao Chong for a ministerial post. Another record: TPGJ: 500.4102–3. 142 (6.69) Complete citation of Cui Hao’s (d. 754) letter to an unknown addressee, recommending the Xiangzhou candidate Fan Heng for the jinshi degree. Another record: TWC: 86.4b–5a. 143 (6.69) Complete citation of Cui Hao’s letter to an unknown addressee, recommending the jinshi degree-holder Qi Xiaoruo for a provincial service post. Another record: TWC: 86.4a–b, attributed to Linghu Chu. 144 (6.70) Complete citation of Li Ao’s letter to Zhang Jianfeng, written in 796 or 797 to recommend his friends Zhang Ji and Meng Jiao for service in Zhang Jianfeng’s staff. Other records: Li Wengong ji: 8.54a–57b; WYYH: 689.9b–12a; TWC: 86.2a–4a. 145 (6.72) Eulogy (zan) on the wise promotions illustrated in the previous section. Author: Wang Dingbao.

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Rising from obscure poverty 146 (7.73) In 622, two brothers Li Yichen and Li Yidan, and their cousin travel from Yecheng (once capital of the Northern Qi) to Chang’an to take the jinshi degree. The weather is bad and the inns are full, but a Xianyang merchant accommodates them. Later, Li Yichen becomes magistrate of Xianyang and he finds the merchant in order to thank him. Other records: TPGJ: 179.1330; Unkei yûgei: 0.7a–b (an abbreviated edition of Yunqi youyi published in Hiroshima in 1848). Possible source: Yunqi youyi. 147 (7.73) Wang Bo (759–830) studies during his youth at the Huizhao Monastery in Yangzhou. Twenty years later, having returned as the region’s governor, he finds inscriptions that he wrote on the monastery building, and he adds two more quatrains. Other records: TPGJ: 199.1494–5; TYL: 6.574 (no. 825); TSJS: 45.1231. Note: see analysis at Zhao (1986). 148 (7.73) A monk prognosticates success in Zheng Lang’s life and career provided that he does not gain a degree title. Zheng Lang passes the jinshi examination—in 821—but promptly suffers disqualification after a re-examination. Subsequent events prove the rest of the monk’s predictions also accurate. Possible source: Ganding lu, cited at TPGJ: 155.1113–4. 149 (7.74) Li Zhang curries favour with Yang Shou by presenting opulent gifts only to be implicated in the latter’s demise when the government confiscates his property. Possible source: Duyang [za-] bian, cited at TPGJ: 237.1828. 150 (7.74) Xu Shang ( jinshi 831) studies for the jinshi degree at the Wangu Monastery in the Zhongtiao mountains (in southern Shanxi province). This fact is later commemorated in the Xu family stele. Possible source: epigraph (not extant) 151 (7.74) Wei Zhaodu ( jinshi 867) studies for his degree at Chang’an under the supervision of the politically influential monk Jing Guang. Disposed to passing the lonely and obscure 152 (7.74) Li Fengji’s examination administration in 816 favoured

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candidates without famous aristocratic associations. A quatrain by an unknown author celebrates Li Fengji’s thirty-three choices for the jinshi degree that year. Another record: TPGJ: 181.1345. 153 (7.74) Li Deyu was sympathetic to non-aristocratic entrants to the examinations, so that his final banishment to southern China deceived many examination hopes. A couplet by an unknown author sums up candidates’ grief. Another record: TPGJ: 181.1345. Possible sources: a fuller account from an unknown source, cited at TYL: 7.614 (no. 887); Yunqi youyi: B.50–52 contains a long text recounting aspects of Li Deyu’s career, ending with the same couplet. 154 (7.74) The claim that Emperor Zhaozong favoured the intake of jinshi candidates from less established families is set in context with the controversy surrounding the pass list of 895. Another record: TPGJ: 184.1372. To advance or block those who follow 155 (7.75) The “three Yangs” (Yang Rushi, Yang Yuqing and Yang Hangong) monopolise patronage of the jinshi degree during the 830’s. Other records: TPGJ: 181.1352–3; TYL: 4.377 (no. 551). 156 (7.75) Cui Shenyou, Wang Ning, Pei Zan and Pei Anqian become leading arbiters of success and failure in examinations and other bureaucratic enterprises in the mid-ninth century. Another record: TPGJ: 181.1352–3. 157 (7.75) Wang Chong of Taiping and Dou Xian monopolize the gifts of bureaucratic patronage, and they treat degree titles as indispensable to deciding any appointment in someone’s favour. Their power become the subject of a popular adage among candidates. Another record: TPGJ: 181.1352–3. 158 (7.75) Niu Sengru (780–848) arrives in Chang’an to take the examinations, and he meets with Han Yu and Huangfu Shi. Impressed with his writings, they help him find lodgings. Later, having called and found him not in, they inscribe a prominently visible message on his door, and Niu’s reputation in the capital then soars. Another record: TPGJ: 180.1341–2. Duplication: briefer account of these events at 138.

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159 (7.76): Discussion (lun) arguing for the priority of intrinsic values over superficial appearances with reference to examples of recruitment from the previous section. Author: Wang Dingbao. Patrons 160 (7.76) Partial citation of Li Ao’s letter to Yang Yuling, intended to prove that Li Ao was the most important chronicler of both Zhang Yue’s patronage of Fang Guan and Dugu Ji’s patronage of Liang Su. Another record: Li Wengong ji: 7.48b–49b. 161 (7.76) Complete citation of Li Ao’s preface to his “rhapsody on sponsors”. Another record: Li Wengong ji: 1.1a–2a. 162 (7.77) Li Guan’s opening sentence of “Epitaph for a friend”. Another record: Li Yuanbin wenji: 1.10b–11b. 163 (7.77) Complete citation of Li Hua’s “Discussion of the Three Worthies”. Other records: WYYH: 744.3a–6b; TWC: 38.4a–6b. Note: see another citation at 103a. 164 (7.80) Identification of two more associates of Li Hua, namely Quan Gao and Zhang Youlüe, and a reference to Quan Gao’s funeral inscription. Other records of epitaph: WYYH: 970.5a–6a; TWC: 69.6b–7b. Note: see citation of funeral inscription at 103b. 165 (7.80) Claim that Yan Zhenqing (708–784), Lu Ju and Liu Fang were friends. 166a (7.80) Du Mu is impressed by Zhao Gu’s poem “Early autumn”, especially a couplet cited here, and he addresses three couplets to him. Other records: Fanchuan wenji: 2.39; TSJS: 56.1538. Possible source: Du Mu’s literary collection. 166b (7.80) Partial citation of Du Mu’s poem addressed to Zhang Hu. Other records: Yunqi youyi: B.32; Fanchuan wenji: 3.46; WYYH: 261.9a & 313.1b; TSJS: 52.1417 & 56.1522. Possible source: Du Mu’s literary collection. 167 (7.80) Han Yu, Li Guan, Li Jiang and Cui Qun—all to become jinshi degree-holders together in 792—visit Liang Su for three years

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before he grants them an audience. He is impressed at their qualities, but convinced that only Li Jiang and Cui Qun will rise high in the bureaucracy. Another record: TPGJ: 170.1245–6. 168 (7.81) Xiao Yingshi compliments Li Hua for his rhapsody “Hanyuan Hall”. Possible source: a longer account at Guoshi bu: A.20. Note: for another exchange on this rhapsody, see an unattributed account at TYL: 2.170–2 (no. 258). 169 (7.81) Before he has gained his degree Bai Juyi calls on Gu Kuang, who first mocks his name but then expresses admiration for his writings and apologizes for his earlier jesting. Another record: TPGJ: 250.1942 (cited from Zhiyan). Possible source: Youxian guchui: 0.1b (also at TPGJ: 170.1247; TYL: 3.277 [no. 412]). 170 (7.81) Before he had made a name for himself, Li Bai arrives in Chang’an and visits He Zhizhang who is deeply impressed by the poem “The perils on the road to Shu”. Possible source: a longer account at Benshi shi: 0.15–17 (also at TPGJ: 201.1511–2). 171 (7.81) On his way to the examinations at the capital in the late 860’s, Jiang Ning stops in Xiangyang and meets Xu Shang whom he impresses with his instant response to a rhapsody topic that Xu Shang sets him. Wen Tingyun is also present to admire Jiang Ning’s feat. Duplication: except for the presence of WenTingyun, this is the same account given at 132. 172 (7.81) Discussion (lun) on requirements to gain a patron. Author: Wang Dingbao. Access to the pass list 173 (8.82) Han Yu recommends ten candidates to Lu San for examination run by Quan Deyu in 802. 174 (8.82) In 792, Liang Su recommends eight candidates to Lu Zhi, all of whom are successful. This account rests its authority on a reference to Han Yu’s letter to Lu San. Possible source: Han Changli wenji jiaozhu: 116–18.

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175 (8.82) Following all three examinations that he administered in 890, 891 and 898, the examiner, Pei Zhi allows various members of the government to modify the pass list. 176 (8.82) In 856, Zheng Hao commissions Cui Yong to write the pass list. On the eve of its promulgation he grows concerned over the list’s late delivery, especially after a servant sent by Cui Yong claims to have brought nothing with him. Before dawn, however, the same servant produces the list hidden inside a wax ball-shot. The examiner feels trapped 177 (8.83) Lü Wei acts as examiner for the first time in 795, and the difficulty he experiences in deciding whom to pass or fail prompts him to address a poem to Gu Shaolian, the examiner one year earlier. Another record: TSJS: 47.1282. Short listed in the other world and appointed in the present 178a (8.83) The account opens with a brief reference to Lu Qiu, an examination candidate and Li Ao’s son-in-law, but this reference is only relevant to the content of 178b. Li Ao’s wife falls seriously ill, but she is saved by a Daoist intermediary who instructs Li Ao to write a memorial and to burn it. Later, the Daoist shows Li Ao the original draft and points out his writing errors. Possible source: Queshi: A.11b–13a (also at TPGJ: 73.458). Another record: TPGJ: 181.1348–9. Note: the Queshi story is longer and features nothing of relevance to examination history. For a discussion of this story in the context of Li Ao’s life, see Barrett (1992): 42–5. 178b (8.83) The Daoist, who features in the previous story (178a), reappears during Li Ao’s posting to Chuzhou—or Guizhou. Using the same techniques related previously, he forecasts Lu Qiu’s success in the jinshi examination of 826, and predicts that Li Ao’s daughters will bear three boys destined to become ministers. Another record: TPGJ: 181.1348–9. Dreams 179 (8.84) Having established his study retreat near Qianzhou and planted a pine in the courtyard, Zhong Fu dreams of a red-robed official informing him that as soon as the pine trunk has grown to a circumference of three feet he will gain the jinshi degree.

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180 (8.84) After many years, Shen Guang’s ( jinshi 866) recurrent dreams of an ocean-going vessel turn out to match his sudden vision of a vast ship during the ceremony of gratitude. 181 (8.84) Sun Wo dreams of trampling on a pile of timber the year before he wins first place in the examination of 878. A hermit predicts that his success is symbolized by his stance on top of a mass of timber/talent (cai ). Another record: TPGJ: 183.1366. 182 (8.85) Wang Dingbao visits Lushan and prays to its Daoist spirits. Subsequently, he dreams of an ordained Daoist who keeps repeating that fish ascending the Dragon Gate gorge must make three runs before clearing it. Wang Dingbao meanwhile attempts the examination three times before he is successful in 900. Listening to noises that forecast the outcome 183 (8.85) In the year of his degree success—832—Bi Xian (802–864) and fellow examination candidates spend a night listening for omens. They listen to dogs fighting over a bone, and overhear someone remark that the last dog to join the tussle will win the prize. Such a remark puns neatly with a prediction of Bi Xian’s imminent success. Another record: TPGJ: 181.1350–1. 184 (8.85) Waiting to hear the examination results, Wei Zhen listens for omens in Chang’an’s Guangde ward. He hears a man shout “thirteen” into a household and the number transpires later to be his place on the pass list. Another record: TPGJ: 184.1373. Awarding themselves the first place on the list 185 (8.85) In 791, keen to prove that his degree list is free from political interference, the examiner, Du Huangchang (736–808), asks the septuagenarian candidate Yin Shu to write out the pass list in the presence of 500 candidates who have not yet dispersed after the last examination session. Finally, he orders Yin Shu to write his name in first place. 186 (8.86) At Xingyuan, the military command southwest of Chang’an, in 886, during the court’s three-year abdandonment of the capital, Lu Yi, who has still not gained a degree, shares accommodation with Zheng Sun and recommends him to act as examiner. Subequently,

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Lu Yi controls all choices for the pass list including his own position in first place. Another record: TPGJ: 183.1370, cited from Beimeng suoyan. Note: Wang Dingbao’s account differs considerably from what Sun Guangxian recounts concerning Lu Yi at Beimeng suoyan: 4.25 (no. 56). Chance meeting 187 (8.86) Before the examination of 786, Niu Xishu and Xie Deng clear out of the way of a court procession. By coincidence, they enter the residence of their examiner Xiao Xin, who, impressed by their writings and their personalities, promises that they will pass under his administration. Possible source: An account cited from Yishi (TPGJ: 180.1339). This account concerns only Niu Xishu who, before meeting Xiao Xin, visits a professional fortune-teller. A friend decides the result 188 (8.87) Wang Qi tries to persuade Bai Minzhong to disassociate from Heba Ji in return for a guarantee to pass top of the degree list in 822. Although initially tempted by this offer, Bai Minzhong refuses to cooperate and Wang Qi concedes that he will have to award degrees to both men. Another record: TPGJ: 181.1347. Passed in error 189 (8.87) Bao Yi ( jinshi 788) behaves extremely haughtily towards Liu Taizhen during their meeting in a Chang’an monastery. Years later, when administering the examinations, Liu Taizhen tries to deny Bao Yi a degree. However, forced to name a substitute for another candidate whom ministers wish to remove from the pass list, he can recall no name except Bao Yi’s. Another record: TPGJ: 152.1092–3; Note: TYL: 4.355 (no. 514) records the story’s shorter version from an unidentified source. 190 (8.88) Zheng Xun awards a degree to Yan Biao—in 854—following his mistaken assumption that he is a descendant of the loyalist hero Yan Zhenqing. He only realizes his mistake at the ceremony of gratitude. Another record: TPGJ 182.1358–9. Duplication: variant text of this incident at 381a. Joy amid grief 191 (8.88) By 872 Gong Chengyi has spent thirty years trying to win a degree, often falling ill in the process. A rumour of his death

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summons his wife from northeast China to the capital. Gong is attending a friend’s departure when he and his wife, after a separation of more than ten years, barely manage to recognise each other on the road. They embrace weeping, but ten days later Gong wins a degree. Another record: TPGJ: 183.1365–6. People who succeed despite the disdain of others from the same area 192 (8.89) Xu Tang, a candidate from Jingxian in the area of Xuanzhou, has tried to win a degree for twenty years in Chang’an, when he is shocked to greet the arrival of Wang Zun, a county clerk from his home town. Xu Tang is constantly abusive towards his social inferior, but—in 866—the latter wins a degree five years ahead of him. Another record: TPGJ: 183.1363. People who succeed as the result of a virtuous wife’s keen encouragement 193 (8.89) Peng Kang and Zhan Ben are from Yichun in the area of Yuanzhou. When Peng Kang gains the jinshi degree—in 791— Zhan Ben attends a congratulatory feast, but has to sit out of sight from more distinguished guests. This treatment piques Zhan Ben’s wife who then successfully urges her husband to equal Peng Kang’s achievement. Another record: TPGJ: 180.1340. Redeemed after having failed 194 (8.89) Gu Feixiong’s efforts to win a degree last thirty years, and his scathing contempt for many contemporaries enlists no support. Apparently in the Changqing reign period (821–24), having been once more excluded, the emperor intervenes to have him placed on the list. Part of Liu Deren’s congratulatory poem is cited. Other records: TPGJ: 182.1355–6. TSJS: 63.1695–6; Liu Deren’s poem also at WYYH: 260.8b. Note: the dating in this account is erroneous, since it refers clearly to the events during an examination rerun in 845. 195a (8.90) In 814, Wei Guanzhi (760–821) re-considers the failed candidate Yin Yaofan following a recommendation received from Yang Hangong, a “disciple” whom Wei Guanzhi had passed the previous year. Another record: TPGJ: 180.1343. 195b (8.90) Li Jingrang excuses himself from attending several ministerial meetings in order to tend to his sick mother. During this

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compassionate leave, however, he chances to meet Yang Yuqing on a roadway and he uses the opportunity successfully to plead the cause of the jinshi candidate Ban Tuyuan. 195c (8.90) Li Cheng fails the first round of the examination—in 796—but Yang Yuling approaches the examiner and persuades him to reconsider Li Cheng for a degree on the basis of a rhapsody that he circulated earlier during the season. Another record: TPGJ: 180.1340–41. Note: The text in Taiping guangji text provides extra biographical details. Passing the aged 196 (8.90) In 901, the safe functioning of the examinations encourages the emperor in his belief that the Tang government may yet weather the most recent threats to its existence. He tells the examiner Du Dexiang to notify him of those graduands whose efforts to win degrees have been the longest in order that the throne may grant them special promotion honours. The five names selected by Du Dexiang are soon dubbed the “list of the aged five”. This account preserves part of the edict announcing these honours. Another record: TPGJ: 178.1326. Gaining a degree in close succession to one’s elders’ promotion to new office 197 (8.91) Yang Jingzhi is promoted in the education directorate soon after his two sons gain between them the jinshi degree—in 837—and a decree examination title. 198a (8.91) Cui Zhaoju and his brother respectively gain a jinshi degree and win promotion to a ministership in 891. Another record: TPGJ: 183.1371. 198b (8.91) The day after Wang Ti gains his jinshi degree, his father is promoted to minister. Father and son are permitted a special performance of the procession through the Hall ( guotang). Another record: TPGJ: 183.1371. 199 (8.91) Gui An ( jinshi 892) gain his degree on the day that his father becomes a minister. Another record: TPGJ: 183.1371.

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Gaining a degree at a privy examination 200 (8.91) Qian Lingxi and others provide the first instance of jinshi degree awards following a privy examination (bietou) in 675 or 761. Note: Because the Tang underwent two Shangyuan reign periods, scholars have dated this event in two different centuries (Dengke jikao: 2.62; Rotours [1932]: 178). 201 (8.91) Yang Zhizhi, Yang Yan and three others undergo reexamination 844, with the result that only Yang Yan is retained. Yang Zhizhi addresses a mournful poem to the graduands that year. Another record: TSJS: 59.1606. Duplication: briefer account of this event and Yang Zhizhi’s poem at 303. Note: this is not an instance of a privy examination (bietou). Retiring from the world after gaining a degree 202 (8.92) Fei Guanqing gains a degree in 807, but subsequently retires to the Jiuhua mountains. According to the edict cited in this account, fifteen years later the government tries to entice him back into service and offers him a new appointment, but he ignores it. Another record: TPGJ: 180.1342–3. 203 (8.92) Shi Jianwu gains a degree in 815, and then takes up a life of Daoist seclusion in the Western Hills near Hongzhou, but his literary reputation lives on through the long verses that still circulate after his retirement. Other records: TPGJ: 180.1343–4, TSJS: 41.1120 204 (8.92) Huangfu Ying gains a degree in the late 870’s, but he soon chooses to escape to his retreat in the Lumen mountains near Xiangyang. Entering the Dao 205 (8.93) Dai Shulun resigns his post as governor of the Rongguan command (Rongzhou) in the mid-790’s and requests the throne to allow his ordination as a Daoist. 206 (8.93) Xiao Yi (d. 842) requests to resign his court post and to be ordained as a Daoist. 207 (8.93) Jiang Shu gains permission to be ordained as a Daoist in 882.

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208 (8.93) Following his examination success—in 845—Gu Feixiong returns to Maoshan where his father, Gu Kuang, and the rest of his family had chosen to retire. Note: Youyang zazu: 13.121 relates the death and rebirth of Gu Feixiong. 209 (8.93) Discussion (lun) in which the compiler reflects on his favourite opposition of innate talent and the external forces of fate. He prioritizes the high value that scholars placed on friendship and obligation (en), and he stresses that Bao Yi’s accidental degree award (189) and Li Ao’s memorials (177a–b) are a far cry from ideal circumstance. He also draws a parallel between his own flight from the Tang collapse and others’ choices to live in seclusion after their examination success (202–208). Author: Wang Dingbao Caution that fell short of the mark 210 (9.94) Zhang Xian’s cousin gains consent to pretend that Zhang Xian’s writings are his own, and he uses them successfully to gain favour with Yan Rao. Note: Yan Rao was a minister whose assistance Wang Dingbao also acknowledged at 45a. 211 (9.94) Fang Xu splashes ink on his examination paper and he fails in 863. Another record: TPGJ: 183.1363. 212 (9.94) Li Tingbi is apprehended stealing a pair of jackets during an examination night and he fails in the late 870’s. Errors that sullied reputations 213 (9.94) Ye Jing (given as Hua Jing) gains his degree—in 861— and fails to treat former acquaintances in Luoyang, the new Liang capital, with due courtesy. This stymies his career, so that subsequently he never rises higher than a lecturer at the education directorate. Another record: TPGJ: 183.1362. 214 (9.95) Liu Zuan resides in the capital—in the mid-890’s—and befriends as well as borrows heavily from his neighbour, a physician closely allied to a certain Emeritus Commander Wu. The physician, who numbers the metropolitan governor Li Zhirou among his patients, pleads his new friend’s cause with the result that the governor ensures that Liu Zan appears first on the prefectural pass list. Li Zhirou is attracted to Liu Zuan’s association with a courtier whose commonly

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abbreviated title kai fu (Emeritus Commander) is homophonous with the felicitous expression for “leading the prefecture”. For reasons that are obscure this turns out to be a disastrous association that thwarts Liu’s chances of gaining a degree. Another record: TPGJ 184.1373. Note: The most celebrated Wus to have held the title Emeritus Commander were Wu Xu and Wu Cou, brothers of the Zhangjing empress (m. Suzong [r. 756–62]), from whom the figure in this story may have been descended. See the Wus’ biographies and that of Wu Xu’s son at JTS: 183.4746–8; XTS: 159.4954–6 and 193.5556. 215 (9.95) Pei Jun seals a marriage contract to the daughter of Xiao Gou ( jinshi 864) before he soon afterwards gains the jinshi degree. As a satirical couplet by Luo Yin illustrates, some regard this sequence of events as dishonourable. Other records: TPGJ: 256.1998, TYL: 7.678 (no. 989). Bai Kong liutie: 24.11a also cites from an unidentified shihua of Song date. Note: Luo Yin’s couplet does not appear in his literary collection. 216 (9.95) During a river gathering near Yangzhou in the late 870’s, Yang Zhuan falls into the water and soaks himself. Both the regional governor—his own mentor—and the prefect of Yangzhou summon servants with new clothes, but Yang Zhuan chooses the prefect’s loan of a highly ostentatious costume. This unwise choice insults the governor, and spawns Yang Zhuan’s later career difficulties. Being on good terms with a patron brings degree success into disrepute 217 (9.95–6) Gao Xiang halts at Lianzhou during a journey north and befriends Shao Anshi, a native of this prefecture. They travel to the capital together, and Shao Anshi passes his degree under Gao’s administration—in 877. Zhang Jie composes a poem satirizing their close friendship with erotic innuendo: Another record: TSJS 61.1669. Duplication: Wang Dingbao refers to this citation at 271. 218a (9.96) In the 870’s Cui Hang is banished to Xunzhou (Huizhou in eastern Guangdong) where he befriends Zheng Yin. All Cui Hang’s relatives and colleagues loathe Zheng Yin, but, following Cui’s pardon, both men return to Chang’an where Cui Hang is honoured with the task of examiner—in 876. Zheng Yin wins a degree under his indulgent mentor, but his career never flourishes without his close

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contacts in the south, and he ends up with no prospects in eastern China. Note: the date of this account is given erroneously as Xiankang (925 under the Shu regime). The other facts here conflict with another account of Zheng Yin’s fortunes in 218b. 218b In the mid 880’s, Zheng Yin joins the official entourage of Zheng Xu, then governor at Guangzhou, harbouring ambitions to try for the jinshi examinations. His behaviour is so obnoxious that Zheng Xu moves him out of harm’s way to a field post. One year later Zheng Yin wins a place among the Guangzhou tribute scholars, but he is poisoned during a farewell banquet. Note: The facts here conflict with another account of Zheng Yin’s fortunes in 218a. 219 (9.97) Cui Yuanhan ( jinshi 781) wins the backing of Yang Yan to enter the examinations. He and his cousin, Cui Ao, secure an approved title for the rhapsody ( fu) and dictate it to the examiner at the beginning of the session. Another record: TPGJ 180.1339. Possible source: Guoshi bu 3.57. Finding fortune in the [ jinshi] examinations discredits the decree examinations 220 (9.97) Xu Mengrong and Cai Jing pass the jinshi degree—in 776—but spoil their glory by further gaining the “exhaustive studies” (xuejiu) decree, clearly a title that was generally maligned. 221 (9.97) Discussion (lun) that first introduces various metaphors for the difficulties of entering examinations, and then argues that three hundred years of degree history have left both commoner families and the old aristocratic clans with the same obstacle of winning degrees to ensure their survival. Author: Wang Dingbao. Degrees awarded by imperial grace 222 (9.98) Having failed to pass the examination in the early 870’s, Wei Baoyi is granted a jinshi degree by imperial grace due to his elder brother’s ministerial rank. Another record: TPGJ: 183.1362. Note: This account and 223 are given as one document in TPGJ. 223 (9.98) Liu Ye is granted a jinshi degree by imperial grace in the late 860’s, and Wei Xiu writes a congratulatory letter on behalf of Li Zhong, partially cited here. Another record: TPGJ: 183.1362.

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Note: The text in Taiping guangji truncates this account and includes it with the account of Wei Baoyi (222). 224 (9.98) During the court’s escape to Chengdu in 881, Du Sheng, who holds an official post, is granted special permission to enter the examinations in the following spring. Having won a jinshi degree, he is further honoured with re-instatement in his former office. Another record: TPGJ: 183.1368. 225 (9.98) Qin Taoyu, backed by eunuch protectors, is granted the jinshi degree by imperial grace in 882 at the examination run during the court’s exile in Chengdu. Partially cited is his letter to the other graduands requesting them to recognize him as their colleague. Another record: TPGJ: 183.1370. 226 (9.98) Wang Yanchang is granted the jinshi degree by imperial grace in 881. Later, following the court’s rapid escape from the capital in 896, he wins promotions in the service of Li Zhirou, a loyal member of the royal family, before fleeing south—probably to rejoin Li who was governor of Guangzhou during 896–900. Another record: TPGJ: 183.1368. Memorials to request degree awards 227 (9.99) Anecdote about Yin Wengui ( jinshi 898) who is granted the jinshi degree in response to a recommendation by the Liang ruler. 228 (9.99) He Ze, son of He Ding, governor of Rongzhou (in modern Guangxi), fails to win a degree in the late 890’s, despite strong encouragement from Cui Anjian in Huazhou, but later he passes under Liang rule. This account cites Cui Anjian’s poem addressed to He Ze. Another record: TSJS: 66.1781–2. Detestable means to gain degrees 229 (9.99) Attracting unfavourable public opinion, Yu Zhuo ( jinshi 881) gains the patronage of the eunuch Tian Lingzi. Note: see a different account of Yu Zhuo’s success at Beili zhi: 0:35–6; Rotours (1968): 143–4.

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230 (9.100) In 838 the examiner Gao Kai is forced to give first place on the pass list to Pei Siqian, who enjoys the strong backing of Qiu Shilang. Another record: TPGJ: 181.1351. 231 (9.100) Huang Yu and Li Duan—protégés of the eunuch counsellor and strategist Tian Lingzi—meet with disgraceful ends in 888. Another record: TYL: 7.677 (no. 988). The Ten Philosophers of the Fragrant Grove 232 (9.101) A list of six names from the faction “Ten Philosophers of the Fragrant Grove”. Note: two more names appear in 233 and 234. A ninth name appears in another unknown source (TPGJ: 181.1353; TYL: 3.214 [no. 321]); a passage from Lu shi zashuo lists this faction among several others (TYL: 4.378 [no. 553]). 233 (9.101) The seventh member of the “Ten Philosophers”, Qin Taoyu, is the son of an officer in the palace guards and an adroit verse-maker. This account cites his poem pleading for political patronage in the context of palace sports and pastimes. After the court’s flight to Chengdu in 881, he enjoys rapid advancement in the salt administration under the tutelage of the eunuch Tian Lingzi. Before long, the court awards him a degree title as a special dispensation. Another record: TSJS: 63.1706. Note: see note under 232. 234 (9.101) The eighth member of the “Ten Philosophers”, Guo Xun, cannot persuade his examiner to let him pass. He then tries to control events with a shower of notices proclaiming his imminent success at the Ci’en Monastery during a congregation on the emperor’s birthday, but this behaviour provides a concrete reason to fail him. Note: see note under 232. 235 (9.101) Explanation of the term “Ten Philosophers of the Fragrant Grove” in reference to the Fanglin gate, which provided access from Chang’an’s north wall into the Taiji palace grounds. Author: Wang Dingbao. Note: Wang Dingbao does not specify which source told him the names given in 232–234, but he states that only eight names had been recorded/remembered. The Four Terrors (recorded now as three) 236 (9.102) An account of the career of the arrogant Chen Pansou,

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a member of the “Four Terrors” faction, who enters a court-sponsored round of polemics pitting Daoists against Buddhists. He wins the contest and becomes even more insufferable, attempting to calumny a member of the minister Lu Yan’s household. For this he is exiled. Later, having offended Liu Jurong, he is called to justice again, but lawless troops murder him on the road somewhere in the area of modern Hubei. Another record: TPGJ: 265.2078–9. 237a–b (9.103) a). Liu Zizhen, a member of the “Four Terrors” faction, hands in forty juan of trial writings before the examination of 868; b). Liu Zizhen delivers lectures during the ceremony to Confucius in 876. Another record: at TPGJ: 263.2061 a shorter text of this account is cited: “original source not known. See Zhiyan”. Duplication: another account of 237b at 329. Translation: Mair (1978): 54. 238 (9.103): In the early 890’s, Li Zhao, a member of the “Four Terrors” faction, gains the patronage of Wang Xingyu, then head of the north-western military command at Binzhou. Wang Xingyu pays for Li Zhao’s expenses and recommends him to enter the tribute selections. Finally, Wang Xingyu tries unsuccessfully to overthrow the Tang—he is later murdered in flight from Li Keyong’s army— and Li Zhao makes himself scarce in northwest China. 239 (9.103–4): Discussion (lun) concerning the combination of talent and different levels of moral integrity. Author: Wang Dingbao. When unsuccessful encounters with the examinations created even more resounding reputations 240 (10.105) Liu Fen enters a decree exam in 828, and he composes answers that surpass allegedly the writings of Gong Sunhong and Dong Zhongshu. But, since his criticism of current officialdom is too truthful, the examiners must reluctantly fail him. One of his fellow-candidates memorializes the throne with a proposal—not accepted—to pass up his own degree title in favour of the honest Liu Fen. Meanwhile, Liu Fen’s fame soars. Another record: TPGJ: 181.1350. 241 (10.105) Jiang Ning fails to complete a rhapsody composition for an examination in the 870’s, but the half-answer that he does

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manage to write down is so impressive that he rests his early reputation on it. Another record: TPGJ: 183.1367. 242 (10.105) Bai Juyi fails the hongci decree exam. This claim may have been adapted—with factual errors—from Yuan Zhen’s preface to Bai Juyi’s works (also at WYYH: 705.7b–9a). Two lines from the fu “Han Gaozu smites the white snake” (set for the hongci decree examination of 803) are cited in inverted order, cf. Bai Juyi ji: 38.870–1; WYYH: 42.7a–8a. Even though he failed, the compositions by those who passed prove to be unremarkable. Note: Wang Dingbao may have misidentified this examination, for Yuan Zhen’s preface says that Bai Juyi entered and passed the Bacui. Suggesting also that Bai Juyi avoided the hongci degree, Xu Song notes that Bai’s grandfather’s name Huang was homophonous with ‘hong’ in the degree title (DKJK: 15.564–5). 243 (10.105): Discussion (lun) to justify righteousness above success. Author: Wang Dingbao. General account of ill luck 244a (10.106) First of two accounts of society mocking Song Ji for his many years of degree failure during the early and mid-eighth century. Source: Guoshi bu: 3.56–7. Another record: in Taiping guangji a different account shares many of the same elements as the story in Guoshi bu and Zhiyan, and the editors attribute it to Lushi xiaoshuo [for zashuo] (TPGJ: 180.1338–9). 244b (10.106) A second account mocking Song Ji’s failure to win a degree. Possible source: Guoshi bu. Another record: this account is cited from Guoshi bu at TPGJ: 180.1339. 245 (10.106) Having failed the jinshi degree in the late seventh century, Zhang Zhuo is moved to seize an edition of a degree register and to hold it aloft, declaring that it is worth as much as the Scripture of The Thousand Buddhas’ Names. Source: Feng shi wenjian ji jiaozhu: 3.2 (also at TYL: 4.356 [no. 516]). 246 (10.106) Ping Zeng waits in vain for an audience with Li Guyan ( jinshi 812) in Huazhou before sending him a cynical poem that describes tossing in his satchel of writings to no effect. Another record: TSJS 65.1772.

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247 (10.106) Liu Lufeng fails to gain admittance to the presence of a potential patron in Jiangxi, and he confesses his despondency in a poem. Another record: TSJS: 58.1594–5. 248 (10.106) In Suzhou c. 900, Luo Yin inscribes a poem on the new pass list posted from Chang’an. Another record: TSJS: 69.1852. 249 (10.106) Zhuang Bu, having failed to gain an audience with Pi Rixiu, writes an accusatory letter that later circulates to wide acclaim. 250 (10.106–7) Once Wen Xian has gained his degree in 886, his patron in southern China recommends his promotion and pleads a posthumous degree award for Wen Xian’s father Wen Tingyun. Note: For the more likely date of Wen Xian’s degree in 889, see TSJS: 70.1869. 251 (10.107) Despite his high family status, Lu Wang fails the examinations for twenty years until his misfortune is resented in many court circles. This account cites his short poem in which he equates his hopeless position with the beautiful Xi Shi of ancient legend by reconfiguring her as one Xi Shi too many in the kingdom of Yue. Also cited is Lu Wang’s ballad “The foreign wine boy”, whose central image of futility is a rocking puppet that features in drinking sessions but never drinks. Another record: TSJS: 66.1793–4. 252 (10.107–8) Following the Tang collapse, Luo Gun is appointed assistant governor of the Zhe region for the Liang government. During his tour of duty, he addresses a poem to Luo Yin, lamenting the latter’s failure to gain a degree and rise higher in political service. Luo Yin’s poem in reply is an ironic admission of his deluded efforts to win success during his earlier years. Another record: TSJS: 68.1839. 253 (10.108) Sun Ding scorns his clansman Sun Chu’s degree ambitions and proposes that he is better suited for an army career. However, Sun Chu soon wins a degree whereas Sun Ding is fated to undergo many years of frustration. In 893, following yet another examination failure, Sun Ding addresses a poem to Sun Chu confessing the futility of his early hopes. This account claims finally that Sun Ding composed thousands of poems, nearly all of which were

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lost in the wars before the Tang collapse. Another record: TSJS: 66.1791–2. 254 (10.108) Ouyang Xie has endured twenty years of failing the examinations when he begins to centre his efforts on gaining the patronage of Wei Zhaodu. He delivers new writings to Wei Zhaodu for ten years, but the latter never consents to meet him face to face. Finally, after the court’s flight to Chengdu in 881, Wei Zhaodu is appointed examiner. He writes privately to Liu Jurong, governor of Xiangzhou, requesting that he send Ouyang Xie to Chengdu. The governor fetes Ouyang Xie elaborately and provides money for his journey. They choose an auspicious day for setting off, but Ouyang Xie dies the night before. On hearing the news, Wei Zhaodu remarks that, given the turn of events, his ten-year aloofness did not amount to an oversight. Another record: TPGJ: 158.1134. 255 (10.108) Liu Deren fails the examination for thirty years between the 830’s and 850’s, even though his brothers/cousins climb to high positions. Cited next is his most celebrated couplet lamenting that, despite his maternal forebears’ marriage connections with the imperial household, he has no relatives among the political elite. After his death, many poets compete to compose a fitting tribute to his memory. The most celebrated is the palace cleric Xi Bai’s verse with its images of osmanthus seeds spilling onto the grave mound and a new-grown shoot finally assuaging Liu Deren’s lifelong bitterness. Another record: TSJS: 53.1454. Note: Xi Bai’s poem is also collected in TSJS: 74.1741; Caidiao ji: 9.21b; Youxuan ji: 3.13a. 256 (10.109) Li Dong, a junior member of the imperial clan, is famed as a poet in Sichuan government circles, and also widely known for his admiration of Jia Dao (779–843), the famous poet who never managed to win a degree. Li Dong casts a statue of Jia Dao and performs religious rites to it. Wu Rong, Wang Dingbao’s own patron and father-in-law, appreciates Li Dong’s singular literary style, but the famous examiner Pei Zhi refuses to accept him for a degree—probably in 898. A couplet from Li Dong’s poem addressed to Pei Zhi recounts how, if this examiner lets him down once more, he means to lament before the Taizong emperor’s mausoleum. Later opinion holds that Pei Zhi’s lack of male issue is the consequence of blocking Li Dong’s career. Another record: TSJS:

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58.1583–4. Note: Many of the titles of poems cited in this document vary from the titles given in contemporary and later sources (Caidiao ji: 3.17b–18a; Youxuan ji: 3.7b–8b; WYYH: 223.4a, 262.4a, 738.7b–8a). These variations suggest that widely differing editions of Li Dong’s work circulated in the late Tang and afterwards, and they raise alternative means to interpret the poems historically. Only the couplet from Li Dong’s poem to Pei Zhi and the couplets from a poem entitled “To the Secretary Controller” (Zeng sikong shilang) are not cited in other sources. 257 (10.109) Zhao Mu (fl. 860–70’s) models his poetry on that of Li He (790–816), another poet who never managed to secure a degree. Cited at length in this document is Zhao Mu’s ballad “Addressed to wine” (Dui jiu). Another record: TSJS: 66.1792–3. Note: Wang Dingbao observes that the ballad is too long to cite in full. 258 (10.110) Cui Lu (fl. Late 9th c.) adopts Du Mu’s poetry as his principal model. This account cites several couplets from Cui Lu’s collection of three hundred poems entitled Wuji ji. Another record: TSJS: 58.1588. Note: TSJS gives Cui Lu’s collection a different title; no collection of either title is extant. 259 (10.110) Liu Guangyuan imitated Li He’s poetry, but nothing is known of what became of him. 260a (10.110) In the late 870’s Yao Yanjie writes an inscription for the new ball field at Raozhou where Yan Biao is governor, but the latter’s suggested changes to this text provokes a furious outburst by the writer. Yan Biao subsequently has the text ground off the stone, and Yao offers a poem in apology for his behaviour. Other records: TPGJ: 200.1502–3, TSJS: 66.1778–9 260b (10.110) Yao Yanjie urges Lu Zhao to invite him to a banquet at Shezhou. On arrival, he declares his low opinion of Lu Zhao’s poetry and vomits during a literary gathering. Also famed for his literary collection Xiang qi zi (20 juan), Yao Yanjie is last heard of in war-torn Hongzhou during the mid 880’s. Other records: TPGJ: 200.1502–3; TSJS: 66.1778–9.

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261 (10.111) Zhou He is a Buddhist cleric (Dharma name: Qingsai) until Yao He ( jinshi 816) persuades him to pursue a degree title. Zhou He admires and imitates the poetry of Jia Dao. This account then cites for comparison poems by Jia Dao and Zhou He. Other records: TSJS: 76.1983; for Jia Dao’s poem, see WYYH: 305.7a, Changjiang ji: 3.21; for Zhou He’s poem, see WYYH: 305.8a–b, Zhou He shiji: 0.16b. Note: for another admirer of Jia Dao, see 256. 262 (10.111) Miao Daoyun is a Buddhist cleric who leaves the sangha during the Buddhist suppression of 845. His bold writing style is most often compared to Du Fu and Li Bai. Another record: TSJS: 65.1771–4. Note: the second couplet that Wang Dingbao cites is not recorded in other sources. 263 (10.111) Hu Bin is a hermit at Lushan, where he masters numerous poetry genres. This account cites samples of his writing. He becomes friends with Li Zhi, who eventually becomes governor of Jiangxi—in 868—and then takes no more interest in Hu Bin’s fortunes. Another record: TSJS: 65.1770. 264 (10.112) Duan Wei grows up without a literary education, but he decides to rectify this by seeking a teacher in the Zhongtiao mountains. He soon proves to be a student of remarkable gifts, confounding all those who would rather see him fail. After half a year he even receives a request to write the epitaph for a deceased prefect. During the 870–80’s his swiftness in composition is legendary, especially at literary gatherings where he finishes couplets faster than the time it takes to fry cakes. Ultimately, however, he is unable to win a degree. Duplication: shorter version at 356. 265 (10.112) Ju Yan’s poetry gains the attention of Wang Zhongrong whose service he then enters. Wang Zhongrong, who changed sides several times in the wars of 880’s, was an intolerant master—ultimately killed by his own troops in an uprising in 887—and he had Ju Yan murdered. Other records: TPGJ: 266.2086–7; TSJS: 70.1861. 266 (10.112) Wen Tingyun, then an erudit in the education directorate, conducts an autumn preliminary examination in the Grand Academy (Taixue) and then displays some of the candidates’ poems in the Main Hall (Dutang). Another record: TSJS: 67.1804.

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267 (10.112) Ren Tao’s poetry gains him a growing reputation in Jiangxi, so much so that the governor, Li Zhi issues a judgement exempting anyone from obligatory corvée if they can compose to the same standard. Another record: TSJS: 70.1862. 268 (10.113) Having fled the Huang Chao rebellion in 880, Luo Qiu joins the staff of Li Xiaogong in Fuzhou (in North China) where he becomes involved with Hong Er, a famous performer of unaccompanied singing in Li Xiaogong’s entourage. When Li prevents their exchange of gifts and services Luo Qiu murders her. His romantic collection entitled Poems Comparing Red (Bi Hong shi ) is widely read. Other records: TPGJ: 273.2156; TSJS: 69.1847–8. 269 (10.113) Zhou Jian composes a fu on the ancient rite of hornbutting ( juedi ), a choice of subject that attracts much satire of his literary ability. 270 (10.113) Zhou Fan is less fortunate than his brother Zhou You whose poems adopted the style of Wen Tingyun and eventually earned him a degree (in 872). 271 (10.113) He Juan and Pan Wei were students together at the education directorate in the 860’s. He Juan apparently never won a degree, but public opinion acknowledged that his literary masterpiece “Rhapsody on the Xiao and Xiang rivers” instantly earned him a reputation equal to that of Pan Wei who took ten years to gain as much notice. 272 (10.113) Zhang Jie—perhaps the son of Zhang Xiaobiao—tries in vain to win the support of Gao Xiang during his visit to the capital in 877 to act as examiner. Later he composes a poem to satirize Shao Anzhi’s success. Duplication: this account refers to the poem cited at 217. Another record: TSJS: 61.1668. 273 (10.113) Lai Hu takes Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan’s writings as his models. During Huang Chao’s occupation of the capital, Lai Hu flees south and dies there. Another record: TSJS: 56.1518. 274 (10.113) Min Tingyan shares his literary fame with Lai Hu (see 273), and he also earns high praise from Wang Qi (not the

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celebrated examiner of the early ninth century) in the 860’s. Another record: TPGJ: 183.1370. Note: the text in TPGJ gives Chen Qiao gives rather than Wang Qi. 275 (10.114) Zhang Qiao and eleven others form the “Ten philosophers” faction (Shi zhe) during the late Xiantong reign period. Although Zhang Qiao expects to appear top of the list of degree-worthy candidates after the Chang’an prefectural examination, the place goes to Xu Tang—because Li Pin, the prefectural examiner, recognized that Xu Tang had been trying for a degree for so much longer. This account cites Zhang Qiao’s poem “Osmanthus in the moon”, which Li Pin set the prefectural candidates that year. It also cites Xue Neng’s poem addressed in condolence to Zhang Qiao and his companion Yu Tanzhi. Another record: TSJS: 70.1859–60. Note: Zhang Qiao’s prefectural examination poem is also collected at WYYH: 187.7a. 276 (10.114) Xie Tinghao and Xu Yin’s ( jinshi 894) literary talents are evenly matched. 277 (10.114) Li Juquan is a scholar of talent, but he is too easily controlled by the leading figures of the regional power struggles during the final Tang decades. He rises high in the bureaucracy, and even enjoys the honour of receiving an imperial portrait in recognition of his services. Wu Rong, Wang Dingbao’s father-in-law, assists Li Juquan to draft a memorial of acknowledgement for this gift, and this accounts cites brief excerpts of each man’s drafts. The first Liang ruler has Li Juquan murdered. 278 (10.115) Chen Xiang starts out as a minor county official, but discovers that he possesses remarkable literary talent. He then serves in high posts under Zhong Chuan, prefect of Hongzhou, and also under his son who assumes the government after Zhong Chuan’s death. Following the invasion from the north, Chen Xiang is captured and executed. Wang Dingbao records that Chen Xiang’s history and ultimate fate surprised those who were aware of his deep Daoist commitment. 279 (10.115) Tang Shi never manages to pass the examinations, even though the governors of the Hunan and Lingnan regions are

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respectively willing to write letters of recommendation on his behalf. Finally, he enters the service of Zhong Chuan, prefect of Hongzhou. His speed of composition is such that he needs only minutes to produce a text for the wedding ceremony of Zhong Chuan’s daughter. 280 (10.115) Chen Yue, who has failed the jinshi examinations many times, devotes his later years in Hongzhou to editing earlier dynastic histories, historical scriptures, Tang “veritable records” (shilu) and court diaries. Impressed by his scholarly commitment, Zhong Chuan, the prefect of Hongzhou, awards him a post in his government. 281 (10.116) Li Ninggu is a gifted writer who enters the service of Shi Pu, ultimately the scourge of Huang Chao’s rebel troops. Li Ninggu’s long campaign report written to accompany the presentation of Huang Chao’s head in the capital wins him wide acclaim. Subsequently, Li Ninggu omits to thank Shi Pu for the rewards that he received from him, and he falls into disfavour. Wei Zhuang’s memorial requesting posthumous honours for recent generations of men who did not gain degrees 282 (10.116) This and the next eleven accounts (until 293) include short biographies of men who feature in Wei Zhuang’s memorial. This account of Meng Jiao is followed by an annotation remarking that Wei Zhuang’s claim that Meng Jiao never gained a degree is erroneous. The account recounts briefly Meng Jiao’s associations with Li Guan, Han Yu and Jia Dao, and it cites Jia Dao’s poem “Lamenting Meng Jiao”. Another record: TSJS: 35.958–9. Note: see poem also at Changjiang ji xinjiao: 3.24. 283 (10.116) Li He, apparently only six years old and a child of precocious talent, gains the interest of Han Yu and Huangfu Shi when he recites his poem “The arrival of the high carriage”, cited in this account. Later, despite even a formal plea on his behalf by Han Yu, Li He is not allowed to enter the jinshi examination because jinshi was a homophone with his father’s given name Jinsu and consequently a taboo offence. Other records: TPGJ: 202.1522; poem also at TWC: 15A.8b; Li He geshi bian: 4.7a–b. Duplication: a shorter account at 131. Note: the composition of this famous poem dates more likely to c. 809 when Li He, aged 19, had already failed to win a degree.

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284 (10.117) A common reading of one of the poems in his collection The Seasons in a Drunken Land (Zuixiang ri yue) suggests that Huangfu Song satirized the sex life of his uncle Niu Sengru, who never recommended him for the examinations. Another record: TSJS: 52.1411–2. 285 (10.117) Li Qunyu submits his collection of three hundred poems to the court and gains a junior library appointment in the palace library. 286 (10.117) Lu Guimeng, a resident in Suzhou, who is famed for his conversational wit and his widely circulated collection Songling ji (ten juan), dies of a sudden illness. Yan Rao writes his epitaph, and Wu Rong composes a sacrificial ode, which is partially cited here. Another record: TSJS: 64.1727–8. Note: these funerary writings are elsewhere not extant. 287 (10.117) Zhao Guangyuan is well-born and talented, but he ignores polite restrictions, leading his companions on visits to courtesans in the Pingkang ward. This account credits him with compiling the Beili zhi, otherwise usually attributed to Sun Qi. Note: on this attribution see Rotours (1968): 19–20. 288 (10.118) Li Gan’s degree in 824 is recorded in a degree register (dengke ji ), thus contradicting Wei Zhuang’s original claim that he obtained no degree (see remarks under 282). 289 (10.118) Wen Tinghao, younger brother of Wen Tingyun, died before he could win a degree. 290 (10.118) List of Liu Deren and seven others who failed the examinations. 291 (10.118) Gu Meng, a master of both Confucian and Buddhist scriptures, is also famed for his Buddhist epigraphs written in the early Tang style of calligraphy. During the Huang Chao wars in the 880’s, he lies low in southeast China, only to lose one of his concubines to the prefect of Runzhou. For this his reputation suffers. He then flees to Guangzhou and makes a living by instructing beginners to write the Thousand character essay. After his early death, his

    

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

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fame rests on his expertise in divining with the Yijing as well as on his work Dashun tu (three juan). 292 (10.118) Luo Ye receives instruction from his elder clansman Luo Yin. He is favourably received by the governor of Jiangxi, but shunned by other officials in his entourage. Because he is placed in a low service post, his prospects to be recommended for a degree are permanently jeopardized. 293 (10.118) Fang Gan is esteemed by Xu Ning. When Wang Gui is governor of Zhedong he agrees to recommend Fang Gan for a position at court, and he requests Wu Rong to compose an appropriate memorial. But the plan comes to nothing when Fang Gan dies of a sudden illness. 294 (10.118) Partial citation of Wei Zhuang’s memorial requesting imperial grant of jinshi degree for the nineteen men who feature in the accounts 282–293. 295 (10.119) Discussion (lun) of fate as the agency of failed careers. A citation of the ode “Wind and Rain” (Shijing: 4/4.5a–b) also emphasizes the Confucian attachment to stoic persistence in adverse conditions. Author: Wang Dingbao. Returning to lay life and gaining a degree 296 (11.120) Liu Ke leads a Buddhist monastic life and then prefers Daoist seclusion on Lushan before entering the examinations. Another record: TPGJ: 181.1346. Possible source: an account concerning Liu Ke at Yunqi youyi: B22–3. Note: on Liu Ke’s stay at Lushan, see Pulleyblank (1959): 148–50. Returning to lay life and not gaining a degree 297 (11.120) Zhang Ce is a high-ranking cleric in the palace until Huang Chao’s capture of Chang’an, after which he abandons religious life and tries to enter the examinations. The examiner Zhao Chong denies him entry. Zhang Ce then tries to enter the hongxue boci degree, but, since Zhao Chong has meanwhile moved to the board of personnel—the administration controlling this degree—he is once more excluded. Subsequently, Zhang Ce rises high in the service of the Liang government, the same regime that persecutes

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Zhao Chong to death. Note: See another account of this dispute between Zhao Chong and Zhao Ce at Beimeng suoyan: 3.20 (no. 45). To be dismissed before even holding an official post 298 (11.120) Meng Haoran has arrived to meet Wang Wei in his quarters in the palace when Xuanzong arrives unannounced. Meng Haoran dives under a couch, but Wang Wei has to admit that he is present. Xuanzong then asks Meng Haoran to recite any of his poems, and Meng Haoran tactlessly obliges with a verse on his rejection by the court. Xuanzong takes the poet at his word and tells him to return to his retreat in the mountains. Another record: Meng Haoran’s poem “Returning to Nanshan at the close of the year”, Meng Haoran ji: 3.1b. Note: Sun Guangxian (d. 968) recounts a different story concerning Li Bai’s authorship of the same poem (Beimeng suoyan: 7.53 [no. 122]). 299 (11.121) Jia Dao is so enrapt in composing verse that he often completely ignores his surroundings. He is even arrested one night for wandering into the path of the Chang’an city governor. On another occasion, during a visit to the Dingshui Monastery, he meets Wuzong and fails to treat him with due respect. Consequently, his career is spent in exile in a number of low provincial posts. Another record: TPGJ: 156.1124–5; for citation of a phrase from the poem “Recalling hermit Wu from the River [lands]”, see Changjiang ji xinjiao: 5.52. 300 (11.121) Wen Tingyun sells compositions to candidates and causes other disruptions in the examinations during the 830’s. His case receives unusual treatment: despite his lack of official status, he is exiled to a county lieutenancy in Suizhou. In literary circles his punishment stimulates a spate of farewell poems. This account cites Ji Tangfu’s poem comparing Wen Tingyun to the legendary southern exiles Qu Yuan and Jia Yi. Other records: TPGJ: 265.2077–8; TSJS: 61.1656. Recommended for a promotion without success 301 (11.122) Linghu Chu sends in a memorial to recommend Zhang Hu whom he has known throughout the 810–20’s. The memorial is submitted with three hundred of Zhang Hu’s poems, but Yuan Zhen advises the emperor that Zhang Hu possesses only negligible literary talent. This account cites part of Linghu Chu’s memorial

    

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

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and a couplet of the poem that Zhang Hu composed to lament his rejection. Other records: TPGJ: 181.1348; TSJS: 52.1419. 302 (11.122) Wang Lin performs with uncanny brilliance during the “ten thousand words” (wanyan) test in Tanzhou (Changsha) where he is examined by a certain Cui—probably Cui Jin, prefect of Tanzhou during 874–6. However, his arrogance at the capital provokes the fury of the minister Lu Yan who recommends the abolition of the wanyan examination. Other records: TPGJ: 183.1366; TSJS: 66.1779. To succeed only then to fail 303 (11.123) Yang Zhizhi and others have to undergo re-examination in ostensibly 845. Having already won places on the pass list, re-examination removes them from it. This account cites Yang Zhizhi’s mournful poem addressed to the other graduands that year. Another record: TSJS: 59.1606. Duplication: fuller account of this event and another citation of Yang Zhizhi’s poem at 201. Note: the date of the re-examination should be given as 844. 304 (11.123) Zhang Fen and seven others fail on re-examination in 845. This account cites a poem by Zhao Gu commiserating with Zhang Du’s misfortune. Other records: TPGJ: 182.1356; TSJS: 56.1538. Note: Other records give Zhang Fen’s name as Zhang Du. To avenge a wrong with virtue 305 (11.123) Pei Ji, once he becomes a minister, promotes the examiner who failed him for a decree exam. Possible source: Guoshi bu: B.40. Another record: TYL: 3.245–6 (no. 369). 306 (11.123) The examiner Pei Zhi, who administered three examinations, has suffered earlier insults from Jia Yong, but, following Jia Yong’s third attempt to pass, he puts aside his grudge and allows him to succeed. Another record: TPGJ: 183.1371. Apologies for sins 307 (11.124) In the examination of 900, Huang Gou claims that Xu Zhou once suffered a beating. Xu Zhou visits his patrons and undresses to disprove Huang’s fabrication. Both men fail. Another record: TSJS: 67.1815.

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308 (11.124) In 899 Su Zheng and Chen Di lodge together. To enquire about his examination prospects, Su Zheng writes to a relative and patron, Su Pu, but he asks Chen to address the letter. Disastrously, against conventional taboos, Chen signs under his own name unaware that Di is also Su Pu’s father’s name. Other records: TPGJ: 242.1870. 309 (11.124) In 888, Chu Dai, attempts to present two scrolls of writing to two potential patrons in Hongzhou, but he presents the first scroll to the wrong man, who is offended by the text’s use of his family names. This account cites part of Chu Dai’s letter of apology. Another record: TSJS: 59.1598. Angry grievances (including also blind courage) 310 (11.125) Li Shangyin visits Linghu Tao during the Chongyang festival, but he is not granted an audience. Before leaving the residence he turns his indignation into the poem “Ninth day”, which he inscribes on a screen wall. Other records: TPGJ: 199.1497, which cites this account from Beimeng suoyan; TSJS: 53.1451; see also poem at Yu Qisheng shiji jianzhu: 2.349. Note: Sun Guangxian’s account contains some extra details (Beimeng suoyan: 7.57–8 [no. 131]). 311 (11.125) Zhang Shu and Cui Zhaowei seek a joint prognostication. Subsequently, Zhang Shu wins his degree and Cui Zhaowei is promoted to minister in 891. This account cites a poem by Zhang Shu. Other records: TPGJ: 183.1370–1; TSJS: 66.1789. 312 (11.125) Cui Jue is offended when his patron Cui Xuan invites him to attend a performance by a zither-player whose prospects he wishes to encourage. This account cites the cynical poem that he addresses to Cui Xuan. Another record: TSJS: 58.1581–2. 313 (11.126) Written in or before 749, Zhang Chu’s (decree degree 719) long letter—evidently a reply—to Daxi Xun reminisces on aspects of their common past: both men served in posts in eastern China; together they entered a decree examination at Luoyang. Since then—some thirty years—Daxi Xun has risen much higher in the central bureaucracy. Zhang Chu’s letter is, of course, an appeal for help to gain a central post in the capital.

    

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

337

314 (11.130) Written in a style that Wang Dingbao calls “blind courage”, Ren Hua’s (fl. mid 8th c.) letter to a certain Yan—probably Yan Wu (726–765)—congratulates him on his most recent promotion and reminds him that he had once promised to secure a higher position for Ren Hua too. 315 (11.130) Ren Hua’s letter to a certain Du claims that he is not seeking help to enlarge his reputation or advance his prospects. Instead he is concerned to point out the recipient’s recent lapses from the ideals of conduct set out in the Confucian scriptures that Ren Hua cites. 316 (11.131) Ren Hua’s letter to a certain Yu—probably Yu Zhun— is evidently a reply which claims that it will cost Yu little effort to help him to advance his career. 317 (11.132) Ren Hua’s letter to a certain Jia—probably Jia Zhi— criticizes his recent neglect of the scholars whom he once patronized. It delivers its message through lengthy allusion to a story of Zhao Sheng (d. 251 BC), who was allegedly persuaded to kill one of the women in his household after her mockery of a lame scholar had caused half of Zhao Sheng’s large following of scholars to desert him. Her death restored his position as the leader in the Zhao state’s scholarly community. 318 (11.133) Cui Guofu’s ( jinshi 726) letter written to He Lüguang after the latter had been punished for his lack of etiquette during a court audience. Cui Guofu persuades He Lüguang to redouble his efforts to study ritual forms. 319 (11.134) Zhu Wan’s (fl. early 9th c.) letter is a farewell to Cui Kan, reminding him that it has been impossible to gain an audience with him for two months. Another record: TSJS: 45. 1213. 320 (11.134) Discussion (lun) of the Confucian virtue of stating forthright views. Author: Wang Dingbao.

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Self confidence 321 (12.135) Partial citation of Du Fu’s poem “Don’t mistrust me”, which recalls his hopes of a career when Xuanzong once esteemed his writings so highly. Another record: Du shi xiangzhu: 14.1213–14. 322 (12.135) Du Fu’s poem addressed to Wei Ji is a reflection on his own life, and it recalls his attempt to pass the jinshi examination in 735. Another record: Du shi xiangzhu: 1.73–77. 323 (2.135) Cui Shi and Cui Di (fl. late 7th c.) reckon themselves as the aristocratic Xies and Wangs of a new age, and they boast of their privileges to hold high offices. Other records: TPGJ: 265.2072, which gives records a longer text without citation; TSJS: 9.235. Note: In his notes to Tangshi jishi, Wang Zhongyong ascribes this account to Chaoye qianzai. 324 (12.136) During his assessment examination for an official post, Xue Ju is bold enough to ask to be appointed registrar at Wannnian county, but senior ministers deny that such a post is open to a junior degree-holder. Possible source: Feng shi wenjian ji jiaozhu: 3.18. Other records: TPGJ: 186.1392 (citing Zhiyan); TSJS: 25.656. 325 (12.136) Zheng Renbiao’s ( jinshi 868) boastful couplet concerning his writings, which have enhanced his career and built a towering reputation for him in eastern China: Another record: TSJS: 61.1658. 326 (12.136) During a drinking session Zhang Shu and Du Xunhe trade belittling remarks in colloquial Chinese to dispute each other’s fame as jinshi degree holders. 327 (12.136) Lu Yanrang presents his poems to Wu Rong, even though Wu Rong prefers to patronize writers of rhapsodies. The short citation from Lu Yanrang’s poem “Discussing poems” is a confession that the language of rhapsody-writing is mostly unintelligible. Another record: TSJS: 65.1745. 328 (12.136) Xue Baoxun, self-styled the “Diamond Vajra”, habitually presents heaps of trial writings to his potential sponsors. Gatekeepers, who sell most of the examination candidates’ writings, delight in the extra income that Xue Baoxun’s deliveries provide. Another record: TPGJ: 181.1350.

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COLLECTED STATEMENTS

339

329 (12.136) Liu Zizhen defies restrictions on trial writings circulated before the examination of 868. Duplication: a longer account at 237. 330 (12.136) Yuan Jie’s preface to his “Praise for the dynasty’s revival”, which boasts that none other than he is fitted to write such a memorial. Other records: Yuan Cishan ji: 6.1b; TWC: 20.1b. 331 (12.137) Following his arrival at Chang’an in 842, Lu Zhao stands up to his seniors who cast aspersions on Yuanzhou, his own native prefecture and the one that forwarded him to the capital. Other records: TPGJ: 251.1949; TSJS: 55.1487. 332 (12.137) Partial citation from Han Yu’s epitaph for Wang Kuo, who, despite the nature of the task set him, did not express himself cautiously enough in a decree examination called “forthright statements of intense criticism”. Another record: Han Changli wenji jiaozhu: 6.250–2. 333 (12.137) In a poem inscribed as a postscript to his literary collection, Xue Neng expounds on his lyrical gifts to the next generation. Another record: TSJS: 60.1644. 334 (12.137) Wang Zhenbai’s poem to Zheng Gu boasts that his latest five hundred poems are like magic textiles created in fire and awaiting only an immortal hand to weave into official garments. Another record: TSJS: 67.1805. 335 (12.137) Yuan Can’s letter to Yao Yuanchong (also known as Yao Chong) is an unsolicited offer to “sell himself ” to Yao and to serve the latter “for ever”. Yuan Can admits that he has no previous ties to Yao Yuanchong, such as the status of an examination disciple (mensheng), but he lists a series of disasters in which he would be willing to offer practical help, including even offering up his own life if needs be. Flippancy (including also mockery) 336 (12.139) Partial citation of Liu Chongwang’s letter in which Gu Yun reads an uncomplimentary reference to himself. Another record: TSJS: 67.1819.

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337 (12.140) Partial citation of Li Bai’s poem mocking Du Fu’s careworn appearance. Other records: Benshi shi: 0.16; Li Bai ji jiaozhu: 30.1700. 338a (12.140) Zheng Guangye and one of his relatives survey the scene in the examination ground and comment on the writing stands pasted with white paper. Another record: TPGJ: 251.1953–4. 338b (12.140) Zheng Guangye and his relatives own a leather trunk into which they toss worthless trial writings. They call the trunk the “sea of sorrows”, and they sometimes read its contents for entertainment. Another record: TPGJ: 251.1953–4. 338c (12.140) During the examination night, Zheng Guangye endures the interruption of a frantic candidate who asks for all sorts of petty services. Another record: TPGJ: 251.1953–4. 339 (12.140) Partial citation of Luo Yin’s letter thanking Pei Tinghan for presenting his poems with allusions to low-grade presentations. Another record: TSJS: 69.1851. 340 (12.140) Jia Dao can never grasp the procedure for presenting his examinations papers, and he invites mockery from the examination ground’s patrollers. Another record: TPGJ: 181.1350. 341 (12.140) Xue Zhaowei, like his father, loves to mock. He pokes fun at Li Xi and Wang Rao by punning maliciously on their names. In 902, when he is dismissed from the Censorate, the minister Yan Rao observes that he has reaped the seeds of misfortune first sown by his father. Another record: TPGJ: 256.1996. 342 (12.141) To conform with new sumptuary enforcements in 875, graduands must ride donkeys instead of horses. Zheng Guangye writes a satirical quatrain about their appearance. Duplication: another account of the same events and the same verse without attribution at 424. Note: for the 875 restrictions, see Tang dazhao lingji: 106.550. 343 (12.141) Discussion (lun) on the perils of flippant attitudes. Author: Wang Dingbao.

    

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

341

Strategies of eccentric behaviour to buy fame 344 (12.141) Zheng Yu, prefect of Nanhai (Guangzhou) in 868, visits Cui Xuan in Jingzhou, and he wears a series of inappropriate costumes at various meetings following his arrival. Another record: Beimeng suoyan: 3.16 (no. 34); TPGJ: 202.1524; Bai Kong liutie: 91.24b; TYL: 3.288–9 (no. 428). 345 (12.141) Wang Lin appears for a decree examination in a strange mixture of dress to attract attention. Another record: TSJS: 66.1779. Drunken errors 346 (12.141) Cui Lu’s poem written to apologize for his recent drunkenness. Another record: TSJS: 58.1588. 347 (12.142) Partial citation of Wei Yuangui’s letter written to excuse himself for drunken insults that he expressed to Ding Gongzhu. 348 (12.142) During a gathering in Chengdu, Du Fu gets so drunk that he yells out the names of Yan Wu’s father and his own grandfather Du Shenyan. Possible source: Yunqi youyi: A.14; Other records: TPGJ: 265.2074 (cites Zhiyan); TYL: 4.329–10 (no. 484); TSJS: 20.498. 349 (12.142) In 866 Han Gun insults Ouyang Lin during the ceremony of gratitude, and he then rudely questions whether Jiang Yong’s father should be present at the Apricot Garden banquet. Jiang Yong’s father threatens to disown his son unless he revenges this humiliation. Afterwards everyone is wary of drinking with Han Gun. 350 (12.142) Shi Zhang’s letter to a certain Secretary Li is a lengthy apology for Shi’s recent drunkenness. Shi had evidently been in Li’s retinue for the past thirteen years, and during the last two years he has been trying to pass the examinations. His recent indiscretion has clearly been extremely serious, for he has shaved his head in atonement and begs forgiveness. He assures Li that he would kill himself, except that he is still un-married and the only decendant still alive to tend to his ancestors’ tombs. 351 (12.143) One night during Yuan Zhen’s tour of duty in Zhedong, in a drunken struggle to grab the drinking slips, Xue Tao flings a

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wine pourer at Yuan Zhen’s nephew. He is expelled from the governor’s entourage. Upon sobering up, he delivers to Yuan Zhen his “Ten poems on separation” to express his regret. Ostensibly Yuan Zhen writes a poem in response. Other records: TSJS: 49.1339–40; see also poem no. 1 at Youxuan ji: 3.19a; on Yuan Zhen’s poem, see following note. Note: To whom Xue Tao delivered his poems as well as the attribution of a poem to Yuan Zhen are problematic. The Youxuan ji (ibid. loc.) attributes a poem from Xue Tao’s series to Wei Gao. Yuan Zhen’s poem is also attributed to Bai Juyi (“My feelings on joining guests to take wine in search of the passing year’s plum blossom” [Bai Juyi ji: 20.449]). 352 (12.144) Discussion (lun) on the folly of getting drunk and the vanity of dressing to attract attention. Author: Wang Dingbao. Fast reactions 353 (13.145a) Just before an investiture ceremony for five princes, the authorities discover that no one has prepared the texts for the conferral of the royal titles. The minister Wang Ju dictates the texts at high speed to five clerks. Another record: TPGJ: 174.1289; TSJS: 7.181. 354 (13.145) Li Bai is revived from his inebriation with a sluicing. Then, in Xuanzong’s presence, he drafts the preface to “When white lotus bloom” as well as ten palace songs. Possible source: Guoshi bu: A.16; the same event is also recounted at Benshi shi: 0.16. Other records: TPGJ: 201.1512; TSJS: 18.475. 355 (13.145) Wen Tingyun composes rhapsodies during his examinations without writing a single draft. Other records: TPGJ: 182.1359; TSJS: 54.1475. 356 (13.145) Duan Wei receives a late education, but he is gifted with swift composition skills. Duplication: this is a briefer version of the account at 264. 357 (13.145) Wu Rong composes ten decrees for Zhaozong with legendary swiftness. 358 (13.145) Immediately following Li Shen’s request, Zhang Xiaobiao

    

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

343

composes his masterpiece “Spring snow”, which is cited here. Another record: TSJS 41.1118. 359 (13.145) During his term as governor of Jingzhou, Bai Minzhong holds a party attended by Lu Fa. The two men trade poems that pun on famous family names. Other records: TPGJ: 251.1950–1; TSJS: 66.1783. 360 (13.146) Du Mu and Zhang Hu exchange couplets on dicethrowing. Another record: TPGJ: 251.1948. Note: the Taiping guangji citation includes this text in a longer account. 361 (13.146) Yang Rushi and Liu Tang exchange poems after Yang tries in vain to pressure Liu into drinking a huge draught of wine. Possible source: Yunqi youyi: B.42–4. Another record: TSJS: 58.1579. 362 (13.146) Wuzong has long been irritated by a palace maid, but he offers to spare her any punishment if Liu Gongquan (778–865) can instantly compose an entertaining poem on her behalf. Liu Gongquan manages this easily; he gains a handsome reward, and the girl is ordered to thank him. This account cites his poem. Other records: TPGJ: 174.1291–2; TSJS: 40.1107. 363 (13.146) Wen Tingyun is alleged to have helped eight candidates during an examination. Other records: TPGJ: 199.1496–7; Beimeng suoyan: 4.29–30 (no. 68). Note: Taiping guangji cites this text from Beimeng suoyan. 364 (13.146) In c. 873 Pei Qianyu and Li Wei set off on a river outing, but an oarsman mars the proceedings by splashing water onto the finery of one of Li Wei’s songstresses. Li Wei is annoyed, but Pei Qianyu saves the day with the poem—cited here—which recasts the incident as a portent of erotic pleasure. Other records: TPGJ: 251.1953; TSJS: 60.1649. Note: The text in Zhiyan gives Pei Qiangyu’s name as Qingyu. 365 (13.147) Wei Chan mocks Li Tang’s abilities by distorting a poem the latter had inscribed on the wall of the Changle poststation (in Fujian). Other records: TPGJ: 256.1993–4; TSJS: 58.1569.

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Duplication: the same poem in a different account of the same event in another location is given at 89. 366 (13.147) Zheng Renbiao stops at a relay station near Shanzhou— between the capitals—where the station chief insists that he inscribe a plaque. He composes a poem on the surroundings, which is cited here. Another record: TSJS: 61.1658. 367 (13.147) Pei Tingyu and Yao Ji are each renowned respectively for swift and slow composition skills. Oother records: TPGJ: 257.2005; TSJS: 61.1661. Contradictions 368 (13.147) Linghu Tao and Zhang Hu meet at an informal banquet in Yangzhou, and Linghu Tao proposes a verse to satirize their gathering. Zhang Hu responds with a matching verse to put Linghu Tao firmly in his place. Another record: TPGJ: 251.1948. Note: Taiping guangji cites this text with 371. 369 (13.148) Shen Yazhi and a travelling companion swap couplets that mix literary allusions with colloquial expressions. Shan Yazhi’s contribution also expresses his distaste for this kind of frivolous writing. Another record: TPGJ: 251.1948. 370 (13.148) An un-named Chang’an monk annoys Zhang Ji with his uncanny ability to find faults in poems and to recall lines that match the same content in different poems. Zhang Ji tries to catch him out with a couplet that cannot be paralleled, but the monk still recalls a line of Zhang Ji’s own poetry. Another record: TPGJ: 198.1491; see also the couplet from Zhang Ji’s poem, “Home thoughts when travelling north of Ji [prefecture]” (Zhang Ji shiji: 2.13). 371 (13.148) When Zhang Hu composes “In memory of Cudrania spray” Bai Juyi accuses him of stealing some of the words from an examination poem. Zhang Hu retorts that Bai Juyi plagiarized the story of Mulian for his “Song of eternal regret”. Other records: TPGJ: 251.1948; partial citation of “Song of eternal regret” (“Changhen ge”, Bai Juyi ji: 12.238–40). Note: Taiping guangji records a longer version of this meeting, and it includes the account at 368.

    

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

345

372 (13.148) Zhang Xiaobiao gains the jinshi degree and he addresses the poem cited in this account to either Li Shen or Bai Juyi. The recipient’s response mocks the illogical content of Zhang Xiaobiao’s imagery and deflates his pride at winning a degree. Other records: TPGJ: 251.1949–50; TSJS: 41.1118. Note: other sources do not support the attribution to Bai Juyi. 373 (13.148) At a party Fang Gan produces a poem to taunt a certain Li’s sick eye, so the latter composes a poem to draw attention to Fang’s harelip. Another record: TPGJ: 257.2006. Possible source: a similar exchange between Fang Gan and a soldier named Wu Jie is cited from an unidentified source in TYL: 7.678 (no. 991). Cherishing fame 374a (13.149) In an uncertain period, Li Pin requests the prefect of Mingzhou to transcribe his earlier poems inscribed at the West Lake near Cixi county and to send the plaques (shiban) to him in Chang’an. 374b (13.149) During the mid 860’s, Xue Neng removes almost all the total of more than one hundred poem plaques (shiban) mounted in the Feiquan pavilion beside the Chang’an-Chengdu road. Apparently, none of the plaques showed firsthand inscriptions by the poems’ composers. 375 (13.149) Partial citation of Han Yu’s epitaph for Li Guan, extolling Li Guan’s literary achievements and his conduct. Another record: Han Changli wenji jiaozhu: 6.201. 376 (13.149) Li Cheng composes the rhapsody “the sun’s five colours” set for the jinshi examination of 796. A famous line is cited here. Some years later he hears that the same title has been set for Hao Xuzhou in the boxue hongci examination of 822, and he frets that Hao will use his earlier composition to his own benefit. To his relief, when he obtains a copy of the examinations answers, he discovers that Hao Xuzhou’s composition is quite different, so his own reputation is intact. Another record: Li Cheng’s rhapsody at WYYH: 5.2b–3b.

346

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377 (13.149) Yang Rushi, Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen compose linked verse at a banquet given by Pei Du during his governorship of Luoyang. The account cites a couplet by Yang Rushi. Another record: TSJS: 46.1265. Note: this assembly is problematic, since Pei Du became governor of Luoyang in 834 three years after Yuan Zhen’s death in 831. 378 (13.149) At Yuelu Monastery (near Changsha) Wang Lin meets Li Qunyu who treats him arrogantly and proposes that they compose some linked verse. As soon as Li Qunyu perceives the sophistication of Wang Lin’s first couplet—cited in this account—he pretends to be distracted by other matters. Another record: TSJS: 66.1779. 379 (13.150) Discussion (lun) in which the author denigrates a current fascination with speedy composition skills, since these have nothing to contribute to the true teachings. Author: Wang Dingbao Denouncements by anonymous figures 380 (13.150) An anonymous writer who styles himself only the “Dweller from East of the Mountains” (Shandong yeke) writes a letter to Liu Mian denouncing as corrupt both Liu Mian’s administration of the promotion tests and Chang Gun’s administration of the degree examinations. In particular, the writer denounces the lacklustre literary abilities of five men promoted during the assessment tests. His letter ends with a poem summarizing the inside dealings that led to these men’s success. 381a (13.152) The examiner Zheng Xun assumes mistakenly that Yan Biao is a descendant of Yan Zhenqing and grants him the jinshi degree. Duplication: variant text of this incident at 190. 381b (13.152–3) In 878, the examiner Cui Dan sets a rhapsody on the theme of benevolent government that stimulates an anonymous verse-writer to mock the dynasty’s declining influence in the face of the Huang Chao rebellion unfolding in eastern China. Another record: TPGJ: 257.1999. 382 (13.153) In 866 Zhao Zhi sets a rhapsody title that attracts comment, because it contains the name of the candidate who passes top of the list that year.

    

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

347

383 (13.153) In 868 Liu Yunzhang sets a rhapsody title that Du Yixiu immediately attacks as too weak. Subsequently both officials are demoted. 384 (13.153) A couplet mocks Jiang Bo and Zhang Hu for the means by which they won their degree titles: Jiang Bo was rewarded for sharing his expertise in Daoist alchemy; Zhang Hu paid money. 385 (13.153) Discussion (lun) acknowledging that anonymous denunciations are an old practise, only worth heeding if they are written with genuine concern for the common good. Author: Wang Dingbao. Fulfilment for Examiners 386 (14.154) Yang Jun administers four examinations. Another record: unattributable passage at TYL: 8.719–20 (no. 1031). Note: text in the Tang Yulin gives two administrations. 387 (14.154) Xue Yong administers four examinations. Another record: unattributed passage at TYL: 8.719–20 (no. 1031). 388 (14.154) Bao Fang is promoted to metropolitan governor during his administration of the examinations in 786. 389 (14.154) Li Fengji is promoted to minister during his administration of the examinations in 816. Possible source: Yinhua lu: 2.79. Another record: TYL: 4.363 (no. 527). 390 (14.154) Li Jian, then serving at the Court of Sacrifice, is promoted to Vice minister of the Board of Rites during his administration of the examinations in 820. 391 (14.154) Yang She is promoted to minister after his examination administration in 904. 392 (14.154) Zhang Wenwei is promoted to minister after administering the examinations at Luoyang in 905. Disappointment for Examiners 393 (14.154) Linghu Huan is disgraced for lack of impartial administration during the examination of 780. Another record: TPGJ: 179.1337.

348



394 (14.155) Qian Hui is demoted on charges of maladministering the examination of 821. 395 (14.155) Chen Shang is replaced as examiner by Wang Qi ostensibly in 846. Note: the year was 844. 396 (14.155) In 863, following charges of favouritism, Xiao Fang is demoted from his post as examiner midway through the examinations and sent away to govern Qizhou. The charges and his punishment are outlined in a rescript of his provincial appointment by Yuwen Zan. 397 (14.155) Xiao Fang’s submission to the throne acknowledging its leniency after his dismissal to Qizhou in 863. 398 (14.157) Xiao Fang’s report, addressed to Zheng Yichuo, pleads for rehabilitation of his examination “disciple” Xue Fu ( jinshi 863), accused of being the son of a trading family and disgraced following Xiao’s own demise in the examination scandal of 863. Note: Zhiyan gives Zheng Yichuo’s name as Zheng Shangchuo. 399 (14.158) Cui Ning is demoted after his examination administration in 895. Miscellaneous records 400 (15.159) Decree of April 27, 621 to establish examination intake from the provinces. This document also lists totals of prefectural entrants for the examinations in 622. Another record: XTS: 44.1163; Translation: Rotours (1932): 160. Duplication: decree also cited at 1. 401 (15.159) Taizong watches successful jinshi form up in procession beneath a banner showing their names. Another record: TPGJ: 178.1325. Duplication: the same account at 4b. 402 (15.159) Lore concerning the appearance of pass lists. Another record: TPGJ: 178.1325. 403 (15.159) The security arrangements for posting the pass list evolve rapidly after a disgruntled student rips up the list in 811. Another record: TPGJ: 178.1325.

    

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

349

404a (15.160) In 837, the emperor selects the title for the poetry test, which is adopted the following year for the title of the rhapsody. Possible source: Lu shi zashuo: 0.2a–b (Shuofu [120-juan version]: juan 48). 404b (15.160) The emperor presents his name card as a would-be jinshi graduand to Zheng Hao during his administration of the examinations. Possible source: Lu shi zashuo: 0.2a (Shuofu [120-juan version]: juan 48). Note: Zhiyan gives Zheng Hao’s name as Zheng Gao. 405 (15.160) Taizong wrote Wei Zheng’s inscription, and dreamed about him on the night of his death. Other records: Wei Zheng’s biographies recount these events ( JTS: 71.2561; XTS: 97.3880). 406 (15.160) Emperors’ personal forms of address for five famous ministers. 407 (15.160) Wenzong writes a commemoration of Pei Du after his death, and it is placed in Pei Du’ tomb. Other records: Pei Du’s biographies also record this ( JTS: 170.4433; XTS: 173.5218). 408 (15.160) Following the death of Bai Juyi, Xuanzong composes a poem, which is cited here. Other records: TSJS: 2.40; Bai Juyi’s biography at XTS: 119.4304. 409 (15.160) After the examination of 818, Chen Biao presents his colleagues with a poem, which is cited here. Another record: TSJS: 66.1780. 410 (15.161) Xuanzong (r. 847–60) honours Linghu Tao with a torch-bearing retinue to escort him home after a nocturnal audience. Possible source: Dongguan couji: 1.92. Other records: TYL: 1.54 (no. 91); a longer account of this audience at Jutan lu: A.1–2 (and TYL: 2.155 [no. 242]); Linghu Tao’s biography at XTS: 166.5102. 411 (15.161) Wei Ao and Sun Hong suffer upset stomachs after a session with Xuanzong (r. 847–60) during which they all eat palace delicacies prepared with curdled milk.

350



412 (15.161) Wang Yuanzhong injures his head in a game of football at his home in the Taiping ward of Chang’an. 413 (15.161) Bai Juyi composes a poem—cited here—to describe the sensual delights of a party for high officials given by Pei Du during his residence in Luoyang. Another record: “Night banquet”, Bai Juyi ji: 32.724. 414 (15.161) In 821, late in Zhao Zongru’s career, Li Yi recalls forwarding him from Luoyang to enter the jinshi degree. Possible source: Guoshi bu: B.45. Other records: TPGJ: 497.4079 (cited from Zhiyan); TYL: 3.246 (no. 370). 415 (15.162) Citation of Bai Juyi’s two poems to Yang Rushi, his uncle-by-marriage, then posted in Dongchuan. Another record: Bai Juyi ji: 33.754. 416 (15.162) Partial citation of Li Zhi’s letter written on behalf of Li Shi to congratulate Cui Xuan on his promotion to minister. Possible source: a longer citation from the letter is given at TPGJ 175.1303–4 and cited from Nan Chu xinwen. Another record: TYL: 4.381 (no. 557)—Zhou Xunchu does not propose any source. Note: The Nan Chu xinwen was a late Tang work compiled by Yuchi Shu (XTS: 59.1542); some fragments of an edition of the work survive in the Shuofu, but none of them contain this document from the Zhiyan. 417 (15.162) Xue Neng’s protégés rise to offices that equal his own of some years earlier. This account cites a chiding couplet that he addresses to them. Another record: TSJS: 60.1643. 418 (15.162) Cui Anjian governs Xichuan when the Huang Chao rebellion drives the royal household into his custody. The most surprising promotion during this episode is that of Li Ting, a junior general in Cui Anjian’s army, who shows himself to be remarkably loyal to the Tang cause. 419 (15.162) Li Shi honours his past examiner Yu Chengxuan by donating his official robes to him during the ceremony conducted for his promotion to minister. Possible sources: Yinhua lu: 3.83

    

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

351

(also at TYL: no. 532); Zhuoyi ji: 0.8. Another record: TPGJ: 181.1347–8 (cited from Zhiyan). 420 (15.162) A monk in residence with Linghu Tao forecasts success for the general Ma Ju. Another record: TPGJ: 224.1723. 421 (15.163) Zhao Guangfeng runs the examinations at Huazhou in 899 and awards a degree to Liu Can whose career swiftly overtakes that of his examiner. Three years later, once Liu Can has been executed, Zhao Guangfeng in turn becomes a minister. After ten years he retires but is soon reinstated as a minister under the Liang. Another record: TPGJ: 184.1374. Note: The account in New History of the Five Dynasties varies, for it claims that, thanks to Liu Can’s request, Zhao was first appointed a minister before his former graduand’s disgrace and early death (XWDS: 2.26, and 35.379; see also accounts of Zhao’s careers at JWDS: 8.126, and 58.776). 422 (15.163) Wei Chengyi inscribes a poem—cited in this account— on the wall of the examination ground. Another record: TSJS: 56.1541. 423 (15.163) During Zhao Gu’s absence at the examinations, the governor of Zhexi seduces Zhao Gu’s concubine. When Zhao Gu gains his degree, the governor regrets his actions and sends the woman back to Zhao Gu, but she dies after meeting him. This account cites a couplet from Zhao Gu’s poetry written to commemorate her loss. Other records: Zhao Gu’s poem at WYYH: 263.5a; Youxuan ji: 2.14b; Caidiao ji: 7.14b; TSJS: 56.1539. Regulating the jinshi degree 424 (15.164) To conform to new sumptuary enforcements in 875, graduands must ride donkeys instead of horses. Someone writes a satirical quatrain about their appearance. Duplication: another account of the same events, and the same verse attributed to Zheng Guangye at 342. Note: for the 875 restrictions, see Tang dazhao lingji 106.550. Jinshi from the Min region 425 (15.164) Xue Lingzhi, a scholar from the Southeast, passes the jinshi in 706 and inscribes a poem in the palace of the heir apparent.

352



The emperor later sees it and adds his own quatrain. When Xue Lingzhi retires to Changxi, an edict orders that the town’s taxes be set aside for Xue Lingzhi’s personal use. Other records: TPGJ: 494.4059 and TYL: 5.451 (no. 655) cite Minzhong [or chuan] mingshi zhuan. Note: Surviving editions of the works do not contain any references to Xue Lingzhi. 426 (15.164) Partial citation of Han Yu’s lament for Ouyang Zhan. Other records: Han Changli wenji jiaozhu: 5.176–8; WYYH: 999.6a–7b; TWC: 33B.10a–11a; TPGJ: 180.1338. Worthy servants 427 (15.165) Despite the poverty that Xiao Yingshi and his loyal servant endure, the latter cannot be persuaded to find another position because he so admires his master’s talent. Possible source: Chaoye qianzai: 6.133. Other records: TPGJ: 244.1887 (cited from Chaoye qianzai ); TPGJ: 269.2109 (cited from Zhiyan). 428 (15.165) Wu Gonghan serves Kuai Xiyi faithfully until the latter gains his jinshi degree, and Wu resigns. This accounts cites Kuai Xiyi’s couplet praising his servant’s steadfast service. Another record: TPGJ: 275.2165. 429 (15.165) The compiler’s reference to earlier accounts of respectively Lu Jun’s and Lu Su’s loyal servants. Duplication: accounts 71a and 71b. Note: this reference states that the two accounts are under a category “banquet gatherings” ( yanji ), which is not evident in transmitted editions of the Zhiyan. 430 (15.165) Partial citation of Li Guan’s letter to his brother mentions a servant who paid off his debts. Another record: Li Yuanbin wenji: 5.5b. 431 (15.165) Xiahou Mei’s servant remains utterly loyal throughout testing times. Other records: TPGJ: 275.2164 (cited from Zhiyan); essentially the same account of Xiahou’s remarkable career without reference to the servant’s role is recorded at Beimeng suoyan: 3.11–12 (no. 23).

    

COLLECTED STATEMENTS

353

Old sayings 432 (15.166) Injunctions with commentary concerning correct behaviour in seeking support to win a degree. Strict taboos 433 (15.166) Injunctions. Note: although it does not contain any of those listed in the Zhiyan, the Yishan zazuan—variously attributed to Li Shangyin and Li Jiujin—provides a rare example of a collection of this genre of humorous aphorism, and it contains examples to match closely some of the themes of Wang Dingbao’s collection of injunctions. No commending qualities 434 (15.166) An Lushan requests a re-examination of the decree examination candidates in 743, but the candidate Zhang Shi still fails to turn in a single character. Possible source: TPGJ: 186.1393 cites Lu shi zashuo. Another record: a longer account of these events at CFYG: 638.8b–9a. Note: Surviving texts of Lu Yan’s Zashuo do not contain references to this episode. 435 (15.167) Gao Huan, son of the examiner Gao Kai, constantly fails the examinations. A verse couplet satirizes him as a piece of dung that one hundred and twenty dung beetles cannot shift. 436 (15.167) During the early 870’s Xue Zhaojian is mocked on account of his brother’s continual failure to pass the examinations. 437 (15.167) Discussion (lun), which states the importance of benevolence, ritual, virtuous conduct and literary values.

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CITED WORKS

The following lists of cited works comprise: 1). Abbreviations; 2). Primary sources (works written before 1900); 3). Secondary sources (works written after 1900). A CFYG JTS SBCK T. TD THY

TPGJ TYL XTS ZZTJ

Cefu yuangui . Comp. Wang Qinruo (962– 1025) et al. Beijing, 1960. Repr. 1988. Jiu Tangshu . Comp. Liu Xu (888–947), et al. Beijing, 1975. Sibu congkan . Taishò shinshù daizòkyò . Tongdian . By Du You (734–812). Ed. Wang Wenjin et al. Beijing, 1988. Tang huiyao . Compiled in successive stages and finalized under direction of Wang Pu (922–982). Beijing, 1955. Repr. 1990. Taiping guangji . Comp. Li Fang et al., 977– 978. Ed. Wang Shaoying . Beijing, 1961. Tang yulin jiaozheng . Comp. Wang Dang (d. c. 1107). Ed. Zhou Xunchu . Beijing, 1987. Xin Tangshu . (Comp. Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072), Song Qi (998–1061) et al. Beijing, 1975. Zizhi tongjian . By Sima Guang (1019–1086). Commentary by Hu Sanxing ( 1230–1287). Beijing, 1956. Repr. 1992.

P S . By Bai Juyi . Beijing, 1979. Bai Kong liutie . By Bai Juyi Chuan . Taibei, 1969.

Bai Juyi ji

(772–846). Ed. Gu Xuejie with additions by Kong

356

 

Baoke congbian . Comp. Chen Si (c. 1200–c. 1259). In Congshu jicheng . Baopu zi . By Ge Hong (c. 281–342). In SBCK. Bei Qishu . Comp. Li Baiyao (565–648). Beijing, 1972. Beijing tushuguan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian . Ed. Beijing Library Epigraphy Team. Zhengzhou, 1989–91. Beili zhi . By Sun Qi , AD 884. Published with Jiaofang ji . Shanghai, 1957. Beishi . Comp. Li Yanshou (c. 600–680). Beijing, 1974. Benshi shi . By Meng Qi . Preface dated 886. Shanghai, 1957. Bowu zhi jiaozheng . By Zhang Hua (232–300). Ed. Fan Ning . Beijing, 1980. Cai diao ji . Comp. Wei Hu (fl. 907–931). In SBCK. Cen Jiazhou shi jiaozhu . By Cen Shen (715–769). Ed. Ruan Tingyu . Taibei, 1980. Chanyue ji . By Guan Xiu (832–913). In SBCK. Chang’an zhi . By Song Minqiu (1019–1079). In Song Yuan fangzhi congkan , vol. 1. Beijing, 1990. Changjiang ji xinjiao . By Jia Dao (779–843). Ed. Li Jiayan . Shanghai, 1983. Chaoye leiyao . Comp. Zhao Sheng (fl. 1270’s). In Wuying dian juzhen banshu (1773–83). Repr. Fujian, 1847. Chaoye qianzai . By Zhang Zhuo (657–730). Ed. Zhao Shouyan . Published with Sui Tang jiahua (q.v.). Beijing, 1979. Chongji Yuyang shuba . By Wang Shizhen (1634– 1711). Ed. Chen Naiqian . Beijing, 1958. Chongwen zongmu . Comp. Wang Yaochen (1001–1056) and Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072). Reconstituted by Qian Dongyuan , 1799. In Xu Yimin and Chang Zhenguo eds, Zhongguo lidai shumu congkan , first series, pt 1. Beijing, 1987. Chu ci jinzhu . Attrib. Qu Yuan (c. 340–278). Ed. Tang Bingzheng et al. Shanghai, 1996. Chunqiu Zuo zhuan . In Shisan jing zhushu (q.v.). Chuxue ji . By Xu Jian (659–729) et al. Ed. Si Yizu . Beijing, 1962. Repr. 1980.

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357

Da Song seng shilüe . By Zan Ning (919–1001). In T. 54, no. 2126. Da Tang chuanzai . Comp. Unknown (830’s). Published with Youxian guchui and Zhongchao gushi . Beijing, 1958. Da Tang Kaiyuan li . By Xiao Song (c. 669–749) et al. Published as Dai Tô kaigen rei, with introduction by Ikeda On . Tokyo, 1972. Da Tang liudian . By Zhang Yue (667–730), Xiao Song (c. 669–749) et al. Published as Dai Tô rikuten. Ed. Hiroike Senkurô and Uchida Tomoo . Tokyo, 1973. Da Tang xinyu . By Liu Su Preface dated 807. Ed. Xu Denan and Li Dingxia . Beijing, 1984. Daban niepan jingshu . By Guan Ding (561–632). In T. 38, no. 1767. Daizong chao zeng Sikong Dabian Zheng Guangzhi Sanzang Heshang biao zhiji . By Yuan Zhao (8th c.). In T. 52, no. 2120. Dengke jikao . By Xu Song (1781–1848). Beijing, 1984. Dengke jikao buzheng . By Xu Song . Ed. Meng Erdong . Beijing, 2003. Dongguan zouji . By Pei Tingyu (d. c. 907). Ed. Tian Tingzhu . Published with Minghuang zalu (q.v.). Beijing, 1994. Dongxuan bilu . By Wei Tai . Preface dated 1094. Ed. Li Yumin . Beijing, 1983. Du shi xiangzhu . By Du Fu (712–770). Ed. Qiu Zhao’ao . Beiing, 1979. Duyang zabian . By Su E (jinshi c. 887). In Baihai . Duyi zhi . By Li Rong (9th c.). Ed. Zhang Yongqin and Hou Zhiming . Published with Xuanshi zhi . Beijing, 1983. Fan Chengda yizhu jicun . By Fan Chengda (1126–93). Ed. Kong Fanli . Beijing, 1983. Fanchuan wenji . By Du Mu (803–853). Ed. Chen Yunji . Shanghai, 1978. Fashu yaolu . By Zhang Yanyuan (815–876). In Congshu jicheng . Feng shi wenjian ji jiaozhu . By Feng Yan (fl. 795). Ed. Zhao Zhenxin . Beijing, 1958.

358

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Fozu tongji . By Zhi Pan . Preface dated 1269. In T. 49, no. 2035. Guangchuan shuba . By Dong You (d. after 1130). In Jindai bishu . Guangzhuo yiji . By Yue Shi (930–1007). In Biji xiaoshuo daguan . [Tang ] Guoshi bu . By Li Zhao (d. late 820’s). Published with Yinhua lu (q.v.). Shanghai, 1957. Repr. 1979 and 1983. Guoyu . Ed. Shanghai Normal University Ancient Texts Editorial Team. Shanghai, 1978. Han Changli jinian jishi . By Han Yu . Ed. Qian Zhonglian . Shanghai, 1984. Han Changli wenji jiaozhu . By Han Yu . Ed. Ma Tongbo . Shanghai, 1957. Han Fei Zi . Ed. Zhou Zhongling et al., and published with index as Han Fei Zi suoyin . Beijing, 1982. Han shi waizhuan jishi . By Han Ying (fl. 157 BC). Ed. Xu Weiyu . Beijing, 1980. He Shan xiansheng daquan wenji . By Wei Liao-weng (1178–1237). In SBCK. Hou Hanshu . Comp. Fan Ye (398–445), with commentary by Li Xian (653–84). Beijing, 1965. Huang yushi gong ji . By Huang Tao ( jinshi 895). In SBCK. Huanhua ji . By Wei Zhuang (836–910). In SBCK. Jiankang shilu. . By Xu Song (fl. 750’s). Ed. Meng Zhaogeng , Sun Shuqi and Wu Yiye . Shanghai, 1987. Jiaofang ji . By Cui Lingqin (fl. 730–780). Published with Beili zhi (q.v.). Shanghai, 1957. Jilei bian . By Zhuang Chuo . Preface dated 1133. Ed. Xiao Luyang . Beijing, 1983. Jinhua zi . By Liu Chongyuan . (fl. 937–75). Published with Yuquan zi (q.v.). Shanghai 1958. Repr. 1988. Jinshi cuibian . By Wang Chang (1725–1806). First printed 1805. Repr. in Shike shiliao xinbian . Taibei, 1977. Jingde chuandeng lu . Comp. Dao Yuan 1004. In T. 51, no. 2076. Jinshu . Comp. Fang Xuanling (578–648) et al. Beijing, 1974.

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CHINESE CHARACTER LIST Except for names of dynasties, rulers and reign periods, this list provides characters for Chinese words transliterated in chapters 1–8. Characters for words transliterated in the Appendix are included if they are not integral to the Collected Statements’ content. An Lushan Ba ai bacui bai huangjia baiyi baiyi qingxiang bajie bang Bao Fang baoen Baoshou Baotang baoyi bodai Beiju wenyan Bi Hong shi Bi Xian Bianzhou bin wang bingong Biyong bowen qiangshi boxue hongci Bozhou Bukong buyu cai Cao Fang Cao Buxing Cao Song Cao Ye ce Chajing Chang Gun Chang Shuang

382 Chang’an changdi Changsha changwu Changxi Changzhou chanta chaojian Chen Ao Chen Jing Chen Pansou Chen Shang Chen Yue chen’ai Cheng Xifan Chengdu Chizhou chizhou Chongfu Chongsheng Chongwen chongxuan ju Chongzhen Chu Dai Chu ju zi chuanqi chunguan chunwei cibu cichang Ci’en Ciren Congzhi bigao Cui Gong Cui Hang Cui Hao Cui Jiruo Cui Lingqin Cui Pian Cui Qun Cui Xiaohong Cui Xuan Cui Yan Cui Yin

  

   Cui Yu Cui Zao Cui Zhaowei Cui Zhiyuan Da Anguo da maosao daqing langjun da xiao Da Zhuangyan dalong Daming daoju daren Daxingcheng deng yu tianfu dengdi dengke ji Dezong shilu dianyin Ding Leng Dingshui dong xi Dongdu Dongdu fu Dou Xijie Dou Zhengu Du Xunhe Du Zong Duan Wei Dugu Ji duozhi shilang dusheng dutang duwei Duyang zabian Duyi zhi en enmen Ennin Famen Fan Zhi fang Fang Gan Fang Xu

383

384 Fang Xuanling Fanglin shi zhe Feng Kang fengge fota fu Furong yuan Fuzhou Gansun zi Ganding lu Ganlu Ganlu zishu Gao Changyu Gao Kai Gao Ying ge ge shan pao zhi gong gongde shi gongju ren Gongsun Hong gongyuan Gu Hongzhong Gu Kaizhi Gu Shaolian guan guang guan guo guan guo zhi guang Guan Xiu Guang renwu zhi Guang Xuan Guangde Guangling Guangwen Guangyi ji Guangzhou guanshi guanyan gufu Guhua pinlu gui guibang guiji

  

   guiyu Guiyuan bigeng ji Guo Dongli Guo Yuanzhen guoqi guoshi guotang guoxia guozi jian guzi xuan Han Han E Han Fei Han Hui Han Wo Han Xizai Han Yu Hangzhou Hanlin hanshi Hanyuan He Guangyuan He Ning He Shican hebao Hedong Hegan Ji Hejian Henan fu Hezhong Hong Xingzu honglu qing Hongwen Hongzhou Hou Junsu Hou Yunzhang Hu Guang huai Huang Chao Huang Po Huang Tao Huangfu Shi Huangfu Song

385

386

  

Huashan Huazhou (capital circuit) Huazhou (Henan circuit) hubu huming Huzhou Jia Dao Jia Gongyuan Jia Yi Jia Zhi Jian Jianfu Jiang Yong jianglai zhuangyuan Jiangling Jiangning Jiangxi Jiangzhou jiansheng jian yao jiaofang Jiaofang ji jiaozhu jidi hua jie jie cao jiesong jieti jieyuan jin Jing Chu suishi ji jingying Jingzhou Jingzong shilu jinshi Jinshi dengke ji jinshi tuan Jinyue jiu en Jiuhua Jiuri juan juchang jueran

   Junge yatan junshi Kaibao tongli Kaifeng Kaiyuan li Kang Pian kaogong Keshan Kong Yingda kuang fei Kui Langye lansheng Li Ao Li Bai Li Bo Li Deyu Li Fengji Li Guan (766–94) Li Guan Li Hua Li Jing Li Jun Li Kan Li Kui Li Maozhen Li Nao Li Ninggu Li Pin Li Qi Li Qi ( js 725) Li Qian Li Shan Li Shangyin Li Shen Li Shi Li Tingbi Li Wo Li Xian Li Xun Li Ying Li Yisun Li Zhou Li Zongmin

387

388 liang Liang Su Liangjing xinji lianpian libu gongyuan libu shilang Liji Lin Jianyan Lin Yun Lin Zao Lin’an Linghu Chu Linghu Hao Linghu Huan Linghu Tao Lingnan Liu Cang Liu Chengqing Liu Chongwang Liu Geng Liu Lufeng Liu Qi Liu Qian Liu Sili Liu Tan Liu Tui Liu Xian Liu Xubai Liu Yan Liu Yin Liu Yunzhang Liu Yuxi Liu Zizhang Liu Zizhen Liu Zongyuan Liudian liyi zhi long Longtu Longxi Lu Lu Fayan Lu Guangqi

  

   Lu Guimeng Lu Ji Lu Jun Lu Luan Lu Pei Lu Qiu Lu Wang Lu Wei Lu Xuanhui Lu Yan Lu Yanrang Lu Yi Lu Yu Lu Zhao Lu Zhi Lu Zonghui lü Lü Duan Lü Jiong Lü Wei Lü Wen lüfu luantai lun Luo Binwang Luo Qiu Luo Yin Luofu Lushan lushi Ma Jingde Ma Lin Ma Yisun maichun qian Man manhu maocai Mei Cheng Meng Haoran Meng Ji Meng Ning Meng Qi mensheng

389

390 menxia sheng Miao Jinqing Miao Sun Minchuan mingshi zhuan mingfa mingjing mingshu mingsuan Mingzhou mingzi Minzhong mingshi zhuan modi Mu Yuan mudan najuan Nan Chu xinwen Nan Yue Nanchang Nangong qi qi fu Nanhai nanyuan Nanzhao Nianxia suishi ji Ningyuan Niu Kan Niu Sengru Niu Wei Niu Xiji Ouyang Xie Ouyang Xiu Ouyang Xun Ouyang Zhan Pang Juzhao Pang Yuanying Pei Du Pei Hao Pei Tan Pei Yaoqing Pei Yue Pei Zhi Pi Rixiu Ping Zeng Pingkang

  

   pu pudi Puyang Qi qi qian Qian Hui Qian xianggong jinshi Qianding lu Qianfo mingjing Qieyun qiji Qin Taoyu Qin Xi Qin zhong suishi ji qinbo Qinghai qingjin Qingping qingyun Qingzhou qinruo Qionglin qiujuan Qizhou qu Qu Yuan Quan Deyu Quanzhou Qujiang qunxun rao rao Raozhou Rongzhou Rujing Runzhou Ruzhou san chang shi san zhu Sang Weihan saodong saxie senglu

391

392 Shanbei shangguan tu shangji shangshu sheng shangsi shaolao Shaoxing Shen Bin Shen Guang Shen Jiji Shen Quanqi Shen Xun Shen Yunxiang Shenzhou Shenzhou dengdi lu sheren shi shi bai shui Shi Pu Shi Siming shi zhe shidian shiguan shilu Shu Yuanyu shudang Shufa Shuijing si xiong sifeng sike Sikong Tu silu canjun Sima Xiangru sishi sishu song Song Chuiwen Song Ji Song Zhiwen Songcheng Songchuang zalu Songling ji

  

   Songzhou Su Guo Su Qin Su Ting Suihua jili Suiyang Sun Chuo Sun Fuqie Suzhou Taiji Taining Taiping li taiwei taixue Taiyuan Tang Chi Tang Qu Tang Te Tang zhiyan Tangyun tanhua tanhua shi tansi taozhu tianhuang tiejing timing timing hui Tongchang tongnian tongnian hui Tongzhou tuansi Wanchun Wang Bao Wang Bo Wang Changling Wang Chong Wang Dingbao Wang Fangche Wang Fangqing Wang Feng Wang Fu

393

394 Wang Gongshu Wang Gui Wang Hong Wang Huan Wang Ji Wang Jia Wang Jian Wang Kuo Wang Lengran Wang Ning Wang Pu Wang Qi Wang Qi ( js 862) Wang Shi Wang Ti Wang Tuan Wang Xianzhi Wang Xizhi Wang Ya Wang Yanbo Wang Yanchang Wang Yaochen Wang Yuanzhong Wang Zhenbai wanjuan shusheng Wanshou Wei Ao Wei Biaowei Wei Chengyi Wei Cigong Wei Fu Wei Guanzhi Wei Ji wei ming wei ming qiu yi Wei Shu Wei Tuan Wei Wen Wei Xiang Wei Xuan Wei Yingwu Wei Yizhi Wei Zhao

  

   Wei Zhaodu Wei Zhi Wei Zhuang Weinan wen Wen Feiqing Wen fu Wen Qi Wen Tingyun wenbang wenchang Wenchang xiuju Weng Chengzan Wenming lu Wenxuan Wu Wu Cou Wu Renbi Wu Rong Wu Wuling Wu Yuanheng Wu Zihua Wuanzhou wujie jinshi wujing wujing boshi Wulu Wutai Wuzhu xi Xi Shen Xi Shi Xi Xiang xiake xian xiang yinjiu xiangbao xianggong Xiangji Xiangqizi xiangshe xiansheng Xiangzhou

395

396 Xiao Fang Xiao Song Xiao Xiang fu Xiao Xin Xiao Yingshi xiao zongbo xiaolian Xiaoshuo xiaoshuo xiaoshuo zhiyan xiaowen Xie He xie’en Xinchang xing zhongshu Xingfu xingjuan Xingwang fu xingxian jinshi xingxian kaoneng Xingyuan xingzhuang xiucai Xu dingming lu Xu Hun Xu Pan Xu Tang Xu Yin Xu Zhou xuan Xuanju zhi Xuanzang Xuanzheng Xuchang Xue Bo Xue Deng Xue Feng Xue Gongda Xue Lingzhi Xue Neng Xue Zhaowei Xun Shuang Xunzhou

  

   Xuzhou Xuzhou (modern Xuchang) Yan Biao Yan Rao Yan Yuansun Yan Zhenqing Yang Dong yang sanlao Yang Shaosu Yang Sifu Yang Wan Yang Yan yang yu wangting Yang Zantu Yangzhou Yankang Yao Chong Yao He Yao Hu Yao Yanjie yazi Ye Jing ye xianshi yi bo yi xi guxi Yichun Yijing yin Yin Hao Yingtian Yingzhou yipin baishan Yisheng Yishi yong jian Yongning youshou youshou wei qiao Youzhou Yu Chengxuan Yu Xin Yu Xuanji Yu Zhun

397

398 Yuan Can Yuan Jie Yuan Taizhu Yuan Xian Yuan Zhen yuanri Yuanzhou Yuchi Jingde Yue Yuedeng ge yuefu Yuezhou yunqu Yuwen Kai Yuzao Yuzhang za zhuanji zan Zanhuang zaoshi zashi Zashuo zawen Zazuan zhai jia zhai zhong Zhang Anshi Zhang Chu Zhang Congshi Zhang Daofu Zhang Du Zhang Ji Zhang Ju Zhang Liangzuo Zhang Shu Zhang Xian Zhang Yue Zhang Zhengze Zhang Zhongfang Zhangjing Zhangzhou Zhao Gu

  

   Zhao Guangfeng Zhao Guangyuan Zhao Lin Zhao Lu Zhao Shen Zhe zhe chong Futu zhe xian zhen zhen Zheng Congdang Zheng Fang Zheng Gu ( js 876) Zheng Gu Zheng Guangye Zheng Hao Zheng Huan Zheng Kan Zheng Qian Zheng Rong Zheng Xuan Zheng Xun Zheng Yichuo Zheng Yin zhiji zhiju zhike Zhishi Zhitian lu zhiting Zhiyan Zhong Chuan zhong wai Zhongchao shiji Zhongshan lu zhongshu sheng Zhongtiao Zhou Chi Zhouli Zhu Qingyu Zhu Yizun Zhuangyan

399

400 zhuangyuan Zhujia kemu ji zhuyi Ziyun lou Zong Lin zong wenji Zongmi zongzheng si zui tui lishi zuozhu Zuixiang riyue

  

INDEX

“Abbots” (zuozhu), 193n, 194–6, 205–6, 217, 219, 259n Amoghavajra, 195, 197n An Lushan rebellion, 20, 25, 27, 31, 67, 70, 77, 84, 86, 125, 131, 143, 175, 208, 221, 235–42, 264 Apricot Garden (Xingyuan), 254, 259, 262n, 263–5 Bai Juyi, 142, 153n, 163, 169n, 177, 193, 196, 235n, 238n, 257n, 259, 265, 274n, 275n Baoshou Monastery, 269 Baotang school, 197 Bi Xian, 217 Bianzhou, 79, 126, 136, 201 Bingong degree, 11 Bozhou, 78–9 Buddhism, holy relics, 206, 269–72; influences, 9, 56, 135, 167–8, 185, 204–7, 213–6; practical resources, 133, 141, 157; prognostications, 173; rituals, 127, 133–4, 181, 190–8, 218 Bukong, see Amoghavajra Calligraphy, 36n, 160, 168, 172–4, 264, see also orthography Cao Buxing, 151 Cao Fang, 130 Cao Song, 248 Cao Ye, 187, 259 Ceremony of gratitude (xie’en), 5, 9, 134–5, 137, 143, 168–9, 181–2, 186–229, 231–3, 246, 253, 270, 272, see also mercy (en) Ceremony to Confucius (shidian), 103–4, 127–35, 192, 228, see also visit to the former teachers Chajing, 248 Chang Gun, 111–4, 118 Chang’an, monasteries, 191, 198, 205, 233, 261, 263, 269–272; prefectural examinations, 39, 40, 56, 59, 68–100, 132; seasonal calendar, 254–78; Wang Dingbao’s residence in, 29–31, 37–8. Changsha, 40–1, 89

Changzhou, 133 Cheating, 164–5 Chen Ao, 39n Chen Jing, 142 Chen Pansou, 134 Chen Shang, 213 Chen Yue, 53 Chen Zhensun, 41 Cheng Xifan, 142 Chengdu, 47, 150, 153–4, 197 Chongfu Monastery, 206 Chongsheng Monastery, 270–1, 275 Chongwen College, 122, 129 Chongzhen Temple, 267 Chu Dai, 151–2 Chu ju zi, 150, 202 Ci’en Monastery, 155n, 198, 254, 261; signing names at, 9, 206, 263–8; Closing banquet (guanyan), 233, 240, 244, 264, 268 Cold Food festival (hanshi ), 106, 274, 277 Collected Statements (Zhiyan), date of completion, 27–8; compilation of, 44–66; contents of, 2–3, 46–65; texts cited in, 52–65; transmission of, 44–6 Community wine-drinking ceremony (xiang yinjiu), 8, 21, 103, 107–22, 131–2, 135–7 Confucius, see ceremony to Confucius Court audience (chaojian), 8, 123–9, 132, 137, 282 Covered names (huming), 225 Cui Gong, 93–5, 208 Cui Hang, 247n Cui Jiruo, 27, 47 Cui Lingqin, 248 Cui Pian, 247n Cui Qun, 188, 193 Cui Xiaohong, 247 Cui Yan, 210n Cui Yin, 37, Cui Yu, 99 Cui Zao, 169, Cui Zhaowei, 222–3 Cui Zhiyuan, 204n

402



Da Anguo Monastery, 214, 266 Daizong, 271 Daming Palace, 48, 125, 218, 220n, 236 Daoism, communities, 114, 116n, 141, 206, 261, 267; degrees, 14, 133; influences, 167, 222–3; prognostications, 173; rituals, 127, 133, 181, 220–2; scholars, 110, 134, 206 Decree degrees (zhiju, zhike), 15–16, 162 Degree registers (dengke ji ), 51, 55–7, 68 Degree titles, 13–6 Degree-worthy (dengdi ), 81–93, 97–8, 118 Dezong, 53, 111, 196, 234, 246n Ding Leng, 224 Dingshui Monastery, 269, 271 Disciples (mensheng), 22, 69, 143, 168, 191–2, 196, 201, 207, 210–2, 216, 219–20, 226, see also “Abbots” and Buddhism Dou Xijie, 247n Dou Zhengu, 154 Du Fu, 31, 110, 236–7 Du Mu, 95n, 159, 194, 209–10nn, 222, 260, 262n, 274–5nn Du Xunhe, 194, 223 Du You, 14, 55n, 61 69, 71, 105, 108, 123–4, see also Tongdian Du Zong, 89 Duan Chengshi, 208n, 214n, 266n Duan Wei, 191 Dugu Ji, 14, 116–7, 133 Education directorate ( guozi jian), 10, 13n, 20, 72, 76, 103, 130, 171 Empress Wu, 16, 33n, 172 Ennin, 195, 271, 273n Examination ground ( juchang, wenchang) 5, 8, 139–70, 176, 179, 191 Faction names, 91, 95, 134, 208 Factionalism, 49, 52, 68, 84, 92, 95–7, 100, 147, 153, 161–2, 169, 181, 198, 202–18, 228 Famen Monastery, 270–2 Fan Chengda, 229 Fan Shu, 170 Fan Zhi, 198 Fang Gan, 33 Fang Xu, 160

Fang Xuanling, 11n, 207n Feng Yan, 56, 92, 164, 207 First-placed (zhuangyuan), 183 Fuzhou, 112–7, 135 Ganlu Monastery, 206 Gao Changyu, 77–8 Gao Ying, 193, 196 Gaozong, 53 Gate of mercy (enmen), 187 Gongsun Hong, 55n Gu Hongzhong, 249 Gu Kaizhi, 144n Gu Shaolian, 196n Guang Xuan, 214–5 Guangwen Academy, 73, 114–5 Guangzhou, 26–8, 32, 35–8, 41–3, 47, 49, 62, 68 Guarantees, 82–3, 88, 161, 164 Guo Dongli, 175, 178 Han E., 278 Han Fei, 144n Han Wo, 89n, 149, 223–4, 258 Han Xizai, 249 Han Yu, 63, 74n, 79, 86n, 87n, 135, 142, 192–3, 216, 213n, 214n, 270; “Lament for Ouyang Zhan”, 111–3, 116–20 Hangzhou, 48, 68, 86n, see also Lin’an Hanlin, 27, 48, 220–3 Hanyuan, 125 He Ning, 178, 198 He Shican, 244–5 Hegan Ji, 188 Henan prefecture, see Luoyang Hongwen College, 122, 129 Hongzhou, 30–1, 53, 68, 111, 119–21, 150–1 Hopeful gatherings (qiji ), 9, 85–7, 181–5, 189, 228–9, 232, 264 Hou Junsu, 1, 2 Hou Yunzhang, 93 Hu Guang, 97 Huang Chao, 30, 81, 91, 237 Huang Po, 90, 120 Huang Tao, 176n, 237n Huangfu Shi, 63 Huazhou (capital circuit), 39–40, 50, 68, 76, 80–1, 99, 111, 145, 147, 171, 179 Huazhou (Henan), 206n Hunts for flowers (tanhua), 248, 254–63 Huzhou, 160

 Jia Dao, 149, 185 Jia Yi, 163 Jian river, 96 Jianfu monastery, 271n Jiang Yong, 34, 222 Jiangling, 43 Jiangzhou, 68 Jingzhou, 68, 80, 118–20, 135, 238n Jingzong, 53 Jinshi, historical origins, 1, 10–11, 13–15; syllabus, 16–18; numbers of degree-holders, 19 Jinshi association ( jinshi tuan), 232 Junshi degree, 1, 11n, 13 Kaifeng, 45, 48, 67, 100–1, 126, 136, 154, 157, 162–3, 242n, 245n, 262, 279 Kaiyuan li 25, 108n, 119n, 122n, 125n Kang Pian, 59, 176, 261 Langye Wangs, 32–8, see also Taiyuan Wangs Li Li Li Li

Ao, 63, 111–2, Bai, 77, 167n, 198, Bo, 146n, Deyu, 41n, 94–8, 181–2, 202–17, 224–7 Li Fengji, 188, 190 Li Guan (766–94), 63, 112–6, 131 Li Guan, 121 Li Hua, 93n Li Jing, 155n Li Kan, 159 Li Kuangyi, 250n, 251 Li Kui, 163 Li Maozhen, 111 Li Nao, 87–8, 259 Li Ninggu, 186 Li Pin, 167 Li Qi, 116–7 Li Qian, 256n Li Shan, 261n Li Shangyin, 79, 142n, 217n, 277 Li Shen, 198 Li Shi, 94, 211 Li Tingbi, 161 Li Wo, 27, 40, 47 Li Xian, 242n Li Xin, 247n Li Xun, 211–2 Li Ying, 97 Li Yisun, 112n Li Zhao, 39n, 55, 59–60, 62, 82–3,

403

87–8, 114, 141, 154, 156, 162, 177, 195, 207, 242–3, 260, 263, 265 Li Zhou, 164n Li Zongmin, 210n Liang Su, 133 Lin Jianyan, 192n Lin Yun, 117 Lin Zao, 117 Lin’an, 67, 157, 184n Linghu Chu, 81 Linghu Hao, 82–3 Linghu Huan, 210 Linghu Tao, 83, 212 Lingnan, 28, 37, 41–2, 49, 57, 203 Liu Cang, 265 Liu Chengqing, 123–6 Liu Chongwang, 41n Liu Geng, 256n Liu Lufeng, 147 Liu Qi, 90 Liu Qian, 28n Liu Sili, 16, 153 Liu Tan, 273–6 Liu Tui, 80, 118–20, 135–6 Liu Xian, 13n Liu Xubai, 170 Liu Yan, 28n, 38, 42–3 Liu Yin, 28n, 37 Liu Yunzhang, 134–5 Liu Yusong, 32 Liu Yuxi, 117n, 147n, 176n, 210n, 214n Liu Zhiji, 62, 65, 85 Liu Zizhang, 151 Liu Zizhen, 133–4, 147 Liu Zongyuan, 89, 147n, 192, 196, 208n Lotus Park (Furong yuan), 235–7, 244 Lu Fayan, 164n Lu Guangqi, 150, 202 Lu Ji, 27n Lu Jun, 146n Lu Luan, 133 Lu Pei, 274n Lu Qiu, 173 Lu Wang, 253 Lu Wei, 151 Lu Xuanhui, 33n Lu Yan, 208 Lu Yanrang, 27, 40n, 47, 194 Lu Yi, 47, 202n Lu Yu, 248 Lu Zhao, 120, 224–5 Lu Zhi, 131, 142–3, 164n

404 Lu Zonghui, 93 Luo Binwang, 110 Luo Yin, 90 Luofu, 114 Luoyang, 21, 35, 62, 67, 76, 78, 93 (n 62), 100, 108, 126, 135, 208, 222, 226, 247 274 (n 107); Community wine-drinking ceremony, 112–4; Examinations, 154, 178; Paeonies, 257–8, 260, 262 Lushan, 39, 191 Lü Duan, 203n Lü Jiong, 131n, 132 Lü Wen, 113n, 212 Ma Jingde, 12n Ma Lin, 246 Ma Yisun, 201 Marriage, 23, 77, 241–2, 252–3, 278 Mei Cheng, 238n Meng Haoran, 110 Meng Ji, 265 Meng Jiao, 193, 216, 260, 266 Meng Ning, 256n Mercy (en), 186–7, 193–5, 206, 228, see also ceremony of gratitude Miao Jinqing, 76 Miao Sun, 76 Military degrees, 14 Mingzhou, 210 Moon Lamp Pavilion (Yuedeng ge), 232, 272–5 Mu Yuan, 210n Muzong, 206 Nanchang, 30 Nanhai, 27, see also Guangzhou Ningyuan, 41–2 Niu Kan, 216 Niu Sengru, 95n, 209, 210n Niu Wei, 194 Niu Xiji, 169n Nourishing the three elders ( yang sanlao), 108, 186 Orthography, 160, see also calligraphy Osmanthus ( gui ), 204n, 256 Ouyang Xie, 150 Ouyang Xiu, 21, 28, 41–2, 46, 47n, 61, 88, 163 Ouyang Xun, 187n Ouyang Zhan, 111–20, 135–6, 150, 274n, 276n

 Paeonies (mudan), 232, 255–61 Pang Juzhao, 42 Pang Yuanying, 262 Pass list (bang), 8–9; 75, 94–6, 140, 154, 170–7, 180, 182–3, 194, 217, 224, 231, 253, 256, 263; interference with, 205, 210, 214; bows to, 229 Patronage, 7, 12, 18, 21, 38, 40, 48, 65, 69, 77, 88, 100, 110, 114–20, 139, 141–52, 163, 165, 169, 179, 187, 194, 204, 224, 240, 253 Pei Du, 80 Pei Hao, 201–2 Pei Tan, 170n Pei Tingyu, 61, 96 Pei Yaoqing, 78, 109 Pei Zhi, 194 Pi Rixiu, 126, 142, 166n, 192, 265, 274 Ping Zeng, 147 Pingkang ward, 60, 201, 243, 248 Prefectural dispatch ( jie), 45, 70–3, 80–90, 96–8, 101 Prefectural examinations, 6–8, 39–40, 49–52, 56, 59, 67–102 passim, 118–9, 141, 145, 155, 171 Private examination (sishi ), 87 Procession through the Hall ( guotang), 9, 34, 181–2, 218–26 Promotion dice ( guzi xuan), 209 Provincial tribute (xianggong), 67–76, 115 Purple Cloud Tower (Ziyun lou), 236–7, 248 Qian Daxin, 32 Qian Hui, 163 Qian Yi, 48, 87n, 134, 220, 245, 267–8, 273 Qin Taoyu, 153–4 Qin Xi, 116n Qinghai, 37, 43 Qingping, 78n Qionglin, 262 Qizhou, 238 Qu Yuan, 27n, 31, 163, 166n, 167 Quan Deyu, 113, 210n, 216 Quanzhou, 112, 114, 116 Qujiang, 9, 40, 52–3, 114, 182–3, 185, 206, 215, 230, 233 Raozhou, 273–4 Recorders (lushi ), 247 Ritual, examination ritual, 2–10, 21–5

 et passim; state ritual, 8, 43–53 passim, 75, 103–38 passim; Zhou ritual, 71, 107–8, 128n, 166n, 201n Robe and bowl ( yi bo), 189, 194–8, 218 Rongzhou, 41–2 Rujing, 267n Runzhou, 95, 119, 151, 206 Ruzhou, 210n Sang Weihan, 201 Selections for office (xuan), 12, 177n, 222 Shaoxing, 45, see also Yuezhou Shen Gua, 179 Shen Guang, 186 Shen Jiji, 54 Shen Quanqi, 169n Shen Xun, 165 Shen Yunxiang, 91 Shenzhou, 84, 86 Shenzhou dengdi lu, 56, 86, 118 Shi Pu, 186 Shi Siming, 239 Shizong, 127 Shu Yuanyu, 159, 257n Shufa, 160 Signing names (timing), 9, 254, 263–9; Suppression of, 215–7 Sikong Tu, 210n Sima Xiangru, 238 Song Chuiwen, 265n Song Ji, 169 Songcheng, 77 Songzhou, 68, 77 Sophora (huai ), 87 (n 42), 88 (n 45), 260 Staying the summer ( guoxia), 87 Su Guo, 247 Su Qin, 97n Su Ting, 152 Summer trial writings (xiake), 87, 141 Sun Chuo, 261n Sun Fuqie, 1 Sun Qi, 59–60, 243, 248 Suzhou, 159, 210n Taining Monastery, 267 Taiping ward, 27, 29, 35–8, 99, 170 Taiyuan, 32–8, 77, 93n, 206 Taizong, 1–3, 172–4, 235 Tang Chi, 89–90 Tang Qu, 193n Tongchang princess, 99n Tongdian, 53–55, see also Du You Tongzhou, 68, 76, 80

405

Veritable records (shilu), 51–3, 61, 234 Vice Minister of Rites (libu shilang), 24 Vinaya (lü ), 195–6 Visit to the former teachers ( ye xianshi ), 8, 127–35, 137, see also ceremony to Confucius Wang Bao, 220n Wang Bo, 173, 265 Wang Changling, 88n Wang Chong, 38 Wang Dingbao, career, 39–44; identity, 29–39; life, 27–9; et passim Wang Fangche, 192n Wang Fangqing, 33–7, 73 Wang Feng, 33 Wang Fu, 242n Wang Gongshu, 257n Wang Gui, 33–4, 222 Wang Hong, 38n Wang Huan, 27, 32–7, 48 Wang Ji, 207n Wang Jian, 122n, 275n Wang Kuo, 112 Wang Lengran, 77–80, 91, 102, 109 Wang Ning, 210 Wang Pu, 27, 31, 33, 36–7, 202n Wang Qi, 34, 64, 131n, 156, 211–5, 256, 260n Wang Qi ( js 862), 276 Wang Shi, 114 Wang Shizhen, 45 Wang Ti, 224–5 Wang Wei, 275n Wang Xianzhi, 30n, 31 Wang Xizhi, 36n, 276 Wang Ya, 210n, Wang Yanbo, 38, 185 Wang Yanchang, 35 Wang Yaochen, 46 Wang Yong, 228, 242n, 280 Wang Yuanzhong, 35, 37–8 Wang Zhenbai, 142 Wei Ao, 95–9, 208 Wei Biaowei, 192n Wei Chengyi, 166–8, 224 Wei Cigong, 207n Wei Fu, 212, 217n Wei Guanzhi, 95, 214, 222n, 267–8 Wei Ji, 110 Wei Shu, 238n Wei Tuan, 144–5 Wei Wen, 95 Wei Xiang, 267

406



Wei Xuan, 264 Wei Yingwu, 169, 187n Wei Yizhi, 266n Wei Zhao, 264, 268 Wei Zhaodu, 150 Wei Zhi, 143, Wei Zhuang, 57, 59, 167n, 174 Weinan, 89 Wen Qi, 90 Wen Tingyun, 82, 146, 162–3, 165, 171, 185, 191, 204n, 259, 274n Wenchang xiuju, 213 Weng Chengzan, 258, 260 Wenzong, 237 White robes (baiyi ), 54–5, 169, 223 Wu Cou, 243 Wu Renbi, 194 Wu Rong, 40, 47–8, 144–6, 150, 194, 224 Wu Wuling, 170 Wu Yuanheng, 222n Wuanzhou, 37 Wutai, 197n Wuzhu, 197 Wuzong, 52, 94, 204, 217, 271 Xi Shen, 86n, 256 Xi Shi, 253 Xi Xiang, 114n Xiangzhou, 150 Xiao Fang, 42, 217 Xiao Song, 53, 234–6 Xiao Xin, 196 Xiao Yingshi, 93n Xiaolian degree, 12n, 17, 97 Xiaoshuo, 36 (27n), 46–7, 57, 60–2 Xie He, 151n Xinchang, 267 Xingfu, 271n Xingwang fu, 27 Xiucai degree (and title), 1, 10–6, 55–6, 74, 97n, 113–4nn, 257 Xizong, 274 Xu Hun, 122n Xu Pan, 206n Xu Song, 18, 34n, 79n, 125n, 213n, 247n Xu Tang, 148 Xu Yin, 223 Xu Zhou, 257–62 Xuanzang, 263 Xuanzheng, 125 Xuanzong (r. 712–55), 8, 109, 124, 128–32, 135, 233–9

Xuanzong (r. 846–59), 200, 212, 216, 271 Xue Bo, 114, 116, 274n Xue Deng, 14, 143 Xue Feng, 253 Xue Gongda, 274n Xue Lingzhi, 57, 116–8 Xue Neng, 65n Xue Zhaowei, 111, 145 Xun Shuang, 55n Xunzhou, 42, 49 Xuzhou, 79, 93n, 94 Xuzhou (modern Xuchang), 117n Yan Biao, 199 Yan Rao, 27, 47, 146 Yan Yuansun, 160 Yan Zhenqing, 160, 199 Yang Dong, 168 Yang Shaosu, 144 Yang Sifu, 210n Yang Wan, 14, 17, 98 Yang Yan, 246 Yang Zantu, 27, 47 Yangzhou, 35, 39, 93n, 151n, 173, 238, 265 Yankang, 246 Yao Chong, 211 Yao He, 259 Yao Hu, 256n Yao Yanjie, 65n, 120–1, 273 Yichun, 45 Yin Hao, 151 Yingtian, 126 Yingzhou, 12n Yongning, 99 Youzhou, 257n Yu Chengxuan, 211 Yu Jiaxi, 32 Yu Xin, 220n Yu Xuanji, 267 Yuan Can, 211 Yuan Jie, 142 Yuan Xian, 78n Yuan Zhen, 214n, 238n, 275n Yuchi Jingde, 172n Yuezhou, 33, see also Shaoxing Yuwen Kai, 235 Zhang Zhang Zhang Zhang Zhang

Anshi, 216 Chu, 24, 195 Congshi, 14 Daofu, 256n Haipeng, 46n

 Zhang Ji, 79, 149, 169n, 196, 216, 250, 253, 259–60, 265 Zhang Ju, 125, 264 Zhang Liangzuo, 244 Zhang Shu, 222–3 Zhang Xian, 146 Zhang Yanyuan, 144n, 145 Zhang Yue, 203n Zhang Zhongfang, 207n, 212 Zhang Zhuo, 153n Zhangjing, 237 Zhangzhou, 121 Zhao Gu, 194 Zhao Guangfeng, 28 Zhao Guangyuan, 59–60 Zhao Lin, 56–7, 83n, 89–90, 176, 188n, 211, 213n Zhao Lu, 57 Zhao Shen, 55–7 Zheng Congdang, 212 Zheng Fang, 45–6

Zheng Gu ( js 876), 237n, 260 Zheng Gu ( js 887), 142 Zheng Guangye, 147, 157–9 Zheng Hao, 56, 200–1 Zheng Huan, 212 Zheng Kan, 256n Zheng Qian, 115 Zheng Rong, 244 Zheng Xuan, 128–9nn Zheng Xun, 217 Zheng Yin, 49 Zhenzong, 158n Zhiyan, see Collected Statements Zhong Chuan, 111, 119–21 Zhongtiao, 39 Zhou Chi, 256 Zhu Qingyu, 253 Zhu Yizun, 45 Zhuangyan monastery, 269, 271–2 Zong Lin, 278 Zongmi, 191

407