Heroes, Rogues, And Religion in a Tenth-Century Chinese Miscellany (Report‪)‬

This narrative contains several features often found in tales relating to Taoists in Chinese medieval anecdotal collections. The Taoist appears as an unusual, solitary, unapproachable figure. The encounter takes place suddenly, without warning, not in a temple or at a home but on the road, and the two parties never meet again. He divines the future of an educated man and offers healing prescriptions that turn out to be efficacious. By dint of his modesty and filial piety, as well as his assistance in the rebellion's suppression and later in his service at the court of Tang Zhaozong (r. 889-904), the beneficiary proves worthy of such attention, despite the anecdotalist's final note of skepticism. The Taoist also affirms the imperial order, then gravely imperiled by the Huang Chao Rebellion (874-84). What makes this story especially notable is its source, the Beimeng suoyan [??], or Sundry events from the north of Yunmeng, a miscellany completed by the literatus Sun Guangxian [??] (896-968) in the 960s. As an example of biji [??], or "brushed notes," the work exhibits the rich variety typical of the genre. We learn about the personalities of various Tang emperors, as well as about methods for extracting terrapin urine. Two features in particular distinguish this collection. First, the Beimeng suoyuan belongs to the tenth century, a period of remarkable literary obscurity, especially when compared with the glittering talents and productivity of the ninth and eleventh centuries. At its present size of roughly twenty-five chapters, Sun's volume numbers among the largest extant works composed in the tenth century by a single author who did not belong to the Buddhist or Taoist clergies, and ranks as the largest miscellany of its time. (4) Second, despite Sun's conventional note that he wrote his book to transmit the "enduring fine reputations of the court and countryside" of the late Tang and Five Dynasties era, (5) the collection as a whole portrays a polity and society in ruins. Feckless monarchs, scheming officials, brutal warlords, and presumptuous scions of noble families serve as Sun's main dramatis personae, who combine to produce a world of constant insecurity, corruption, gratuitous violence, and sudden death. In a manner matched by few works, the Beimeng suoyan reflects the troubled atmosphere of China's second, uncelebrated era of disunion.