Complete Collection of Liu Yuxi: An Annotated Chronology

Author: (Tang) Liu Yuxi / Tao Min / Tao Hongyu (Annotations)
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2003-11-01
Features: Liu Yuxi (772–842), styled Mengde, was originally from Luoyang, later moved to Xingyang (now part of Henan), and claimed descent from Liu Sheng, the Prince of Zhongshan during the Han Dynasty. In the late Tianbao era, when central China was in turmoil, Liu Yuxi followed his father Liu Xu to the Jiangnan region, spending his childhood in places like Jiaxing, where he studied poetry under the poet-monks Jiaoran and Lingche. In 793, he passed the imperial examination and the civil service examination, being appointed as a copyist in the Hongwen Academy. In 794, Liu Xu, who was in charge of the salt and iron bureau in Pujiao, fell seriously ill and died in Yangzhou, prompting Liu Yuxi to take leave and return east. After completing his mourning period, he was recruited by Du You, the military governor of Huainan and also of Xushi, as the chief secretary of Xushi. When Du You relinquished his post in Xushi, Liu Yuxi was reassigned as the chief secretary of Huainan. In 798, he was transferred to the position of chief clerk in Weixian County (now part of Shaanxi). The following winter, he became a censor and served alongside Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan in the censorate. In January 805, Emperor Shunzong ascended the throne. Soon after, Liu Yuxi was promoted to the position of assistant director of agriculture and concurrently appointed as the director of the Dazong Emperor’s Mausoleum, overseeing the salt and iron cases. He actively participated in the reform movement led by Wang Ren and Wang Shuwen. That same August, Emperor Shunzong abdicated, and the reforms were thwarted. In November, all participants in the reform movement were exiled, and Liu Yuxi was banished as the magistrate of Lianzhou (now Lianxian, Guangdong). On his way to Jingling (now part of Hubei), he was further exiled as the assistant magistrate of Langzhou (now Changde, Hunan), with the decree stating that even if he received amnesty, he would not be relocated. In 815, Liu Yuxi and other exiled officials like Liu Zongyuan and Han Tai were recalled to the capital and appointed as magistrates of distant prefectures. Liu Yuxi was assigned to Lianzhou. In 818, his mother passed away, and he returned north to mourn her. In 822, he was reinstated as the military governor of Kuizhou (now Fengjie, Chongqing); in the autumn of 824, he was transferred to Hezhou (now He County, Anhui). In 826, he was dismissed from Hezhou and returned to Luoyang. In 827, under the patronage of the prime minister Pei Du, Liu Yuxi was appointed as the assistant director of rites with a post in the eastern capital, marking the beginning of his career without official responsibilities. The following spring, he returned to Chang’an as the assistant director of rites and concurrently a scholar at the Jixian Academy. This was exactly 24 years after his exile in 805. The following year, he was promoted to the director of rites, still holding the position of scholar at the Jixian Academy. According to tradition, the director of rites was responsible for drafting official documents and was known as the "Southern Palace Scholar," with a mandatory promotion to the position of drafting official decrees within 100 days. However, soon after, Pei Du was sidelined by Li Fengji and others and appointed as the military governor of Shannan East Circuit, leaving Liu Yuxi without further advancement. In the winter of 831, he was appointed as the magistrate of Suzhou. For his contributions to disaster relief in Suzhou, he was awarded the purple robe and gold seal. In the autumn of 832, he was transferred to the position of magistrate of Runzhou (now Linru, Henan). The following year, he was promoted to the position of magistrate of Tongzhou (now Dali, Shaanxi). Tongzhou was one of the fours and was often used as a temporary posting for officials. However, by this time, Liu Yuxi was already 64 years old, and he soon witnessed the "Sweet Dew Incident" in Chang’an—the brutal massacre of over a dozen prime ministers and military governors by eunuchs. Thus, in the autumn of 836, also known as the first year of the Kaicheng era, he resigned and returned to Luoyang, being appointed as a senior advisor to the crown prince with a post in the eastern capital. There, he engaged in poetry and wine with Pei Du and Bai Juyi, who were already in Luoyang. Later, he was reassigned as the director of the imperial archives and concurrently a senior advisor to the crown prince. Until his death from illness in the autumn of 842, he never left Luoyang. After his death, he was posthumously granted the title of Minister of War.
Liu Yuxi was a materialist thinker and an active political reformer. He was versatile, skilled in calligraphy and music, and achieved great success in poetry and prose. His contemporary classical prose master Li Ao once said, "I once joined Han Yu as the leader of the literary alliance, alongside Liu Yuxi and Liu Zongyuan." Later, Zhao Lin remarked, "Since the Yuanhe era, those who excelled in both prose and poetry included Liu Zongyuan of Liuzhou, Liu Yuxi of the Ministry of Rites, and Yang Jing (Yang Jingzhi)." Beyond prose and poetry, Liu and Yang were also renowned for their compositions. His poetry was bold and spirited, rivaling Bai Juyi in fame. Beyond the popular-realistic and the bizarre schools of poetry in the late Mid-Tang, Liu Yuxi carved out his own distinct style. Bai Juyi once enthusiastically praised him with terms like "Poet of the People," "National Master of Poetry," and "Divine and Marvelous."
Liu Yuxi was diligent in writing and paid great attention to compiling and preserving his works. In addition to compiling his own poems with those of Bai Juyi, Pei Du, Linghu Chu, and Li Deyu into collections such as The Collected Poems of Liu and Bai, The Luozhong Collection, The Pengyang Collection, and The Wu-Shu Collection, he also compiled his own works into a 40-volume set. In the seventh year of the Daxhe era (833), while serving as the magistrate of Suzhou, he edited out a quarter of the collection, creating a 10-volume Brief Collection of Liu’s Works. However, both his self-edited 40-volume set and the Brief Collection were lost. The New Book of Tang·Bibliography IV records "The Collected Works of Liu Yuxi in 40 volumes." This collection includes works from the Daxhe era onwards and was not Liu’s self-edited set. Volume 27 of the editor’s notes states, "The above poems were not originally included in the collection. They were later added to the end of the volume as they had been published in musical compositions." The tone suggests it was written by Liu’s later followers. By the early Northern Song dynasty, 10 volumes of the original collection were lost. Song Minqiu (1019–1079) compiled the remaining works into a 10-volume External Collection, combining it with the original set to restore the 40-volume collection. Thus, Liu’s works are now available in both 40-volume and 30-volume editions. The 30-volume edition includes an Ming-era printed copy of The Collected Works of Liu Mengde, held in the National Library of China. In 1974, Shaanxi People’s Publishing House published a photolithographic copy based on this edition. Another 30-volume edition comes from the Guangxu-era (1879–1908) printing of The Jili Series by Wang Shi of Dingzhou, which was later used for the Comprehensive Series. The 40-volume edition survives in three Song-era printed copies: one is a Song-era Sichuan printing of The Collected Works of Liu Mengde (30 volumes) and The External Collection (10 volumes), now held in the Chorin Collection of the Fushan Library in Kyoto, Japan. In 1913, Dong Kang of Wujin used photolithography to print 100 copies, which were later used by the Four Great Classics Collection for wider dissemination. Another is a Southern Song-era Zhejiang printing of The Collected Works of Liu Biyao (30 volumes) and The External Collection (10 volumes), which lacks Song Minqiu’s postscript and Dong Qi’s inscription of the Dingchou year (1157), originally held in the Chenghuang Villa of the Imperial Summer Palace and now in the Palace Museum of Taipei. In 1923, Xu Senyu of Wuxing borrowed it for photolithography. The third is a Song-era Sichuan printing of The Collected Works of Liu Mengde, now only surviving the first four volumes, held in the National Library of China. Additionally, there is an Guangxu-era printing of The Leftover Series by Zhu of Renhe, based on a Ming-era manuscript, which was used for the Comprehensive Collection of the Four Great Classics. This edition also includes Liu’s works in the Jiye Series.
The current collation is based on Xu Senyu’s photolithographic copy of the Southern Song-era Zhejiang printing of The Collected Works of Liu Biyao (referred to as the Xu edition), with reference to the Ming-era printed copy of The Collected Works of Liu Biyao held in the National Library of China (referred to as the Ming edition), the Four Great Classics Collection edition of The Collected Works of Liu Mengde (referred to as the Comprehensive Collection edition), the Jiye Series edition of The Collected Works of Liu Biyao (referred to as the Liu edition), The Complete Works of the Tang Dynasty, The Complete Poems of the Tang Dynasty, and The Literary Splendor of the Tang Dynasty and The Essence of Tang Prose. The 13th volume of the Xu edition is missing pages 3 and 6, which have been supplemented with the Comprehensive Collection edition.