During his father’s absence, Liu dutifully took the imperial exams every year. But as the son of a man banished by someone as powerful as Tou Shen, it was hopeless. It was not until Tou Shen himself was banished that Liu Tsung-yuan passed, with honors. It was the second month of 793, and he was twenty-one years old.
With his son’s future looking bright and his own as well, Liu Chen decided it was time to conclude his son’s marriage to the daughter of the Yang clan to whom his son was betrothed nine years earlier. Unfortunately, Liu’s father died in the fifth month of that year—he was only fifty-four, and the marriage had to be postponed.
Although the customary three-year period of mourning prevented the young Liu from accepting an appointment in the government, it didn’t mean he had to stay home. He joined his father’s brother in the border post of Pinchou 豳州, 100 kilometers northwest of the capital. His uncle was serving there as administrative assistant to the military commissioner. During his years studying for the exams, Liu had formed relationships with a number of officials in the capital, and it hadn’t taken long for them to notice his literary skills. Even though Liu was “in mourning” and living in a military encampment in a border region, they began asking him to write compositions, including drafts of memorials they hoped to present at court. Liu was thus able to put his sabbatical to good use, which laid the groundwork for his future rapid rise through the ranks.
When the mourning period ended in 796, Liu returned to Ch’ang-an and consummated his marriage to his betrothed. He was twenty-four, and she was twenty. On his return, he also received an appointment as an assistant in the palace library. It wasn’t much of a post, but it provided an income and allowed Liu to prepare for another exam, a special one held later that year for recruiting especially talented men. Liu failed, but when the exam was held again two years later, he passed. He finally received his first real appointment. He became a proofreader in the Academy of Scholarly Worthies 集賢殿書院, which was responsible for compiling works for the palace library. It marked not only the beginning of Liu’s career as an official, but also the beginning of his literary career. His talents had already been noticed while he was a student and later while he was in mourning. He now became a sought-after writer of compositions of all kinds.
Liu was not only gaining a reputation as a writer, his reasoning abilities caught the notice of a group of reform-minded officials headed by Wang Shu-wen 王叔文 (753–806), who was chief adviser to the crown prince, Li Sung 李誦. It was also around this time that Liu and his mother moved into his grandfather’s former residence in the Shanho ward 善和里 (the name was changed to the Hsinglu ward 興祿里 in the T’ang, but Liu always refers to it by the old Sui-dynasty name). It was directly opposite the main gate of the Forbidden City and couldn’t have been a more prestigious address. But whatever joy Liu experienced in life was invariably soon balanced with sorrow. The first year at his new post, his wife had a miscarriage, and the following year she died giving birth to a stillborn infant. We don’t know much about Liu’s relationships with other women, but two years later, in 801, he fathered a daughter with an unknown woman. Perhaps she was a singsong girl Liu met at one of the parties the literati were always attending. He called his daughter Ho-niang 和娘, Happy Girl, and she lived with him the rest of her all-too-brief life.
Liu’s three-year appointment to the Academy ended the same year his daughter was born. It would have been normal for him to be sent out to the provinces then as a magistrate—to round out his experience with a local assignment. But Wang Shu-wen and the crown prince wanted to keep Liu close by—Liu later described his role in this group as its “secretary.” Wang arranged for Liu to be appointed commandant in charge of military affairs in the nearby town of Lantien 藍田. It was only 60 kilometers southeast of the capital, but Liu didn’t have to go even that far. It wasn’t a real appointment. The metropolitan governor at the time was Wei Hsia-ch’ing 韋夏卿. Wei’s authority encompassed the entire Ch’ang-an area, including Lantien, and he arranged for Liu to work in his office as a secretary so that he could continue taking part in meetings with Li Sung and Wang Shu-wen and drafting memorials for the crown prince to submit to the emperor.
Two years later, in the tenth month of 803, Liu’s Lantien appointment ended and he was “recalled” to the capital. This time he was appointed investigating censor in the Censorate. It was a major step up the bureaucratic ladder. He was joined there by Han Yu, the other great prose writer of the T’ang, and Liu Yu-hsi 劉禹錫, who would also become a major poet, as well as Liu’s literary executor. Liu Tsung-yuan wasn’t quite thirty, but already he was conferring regularly with the group of advisers gathered around the crown prince and was making friends throughout the court. A year later, in the winter of 804, Li Sung suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed and unable to speak. It changed the nature of the group’s meetings, but its members continued to draft proposals for the crown prince to give to his father, Emperor Te-tsung 德宗 (r. 780–805). Two months later, in the first month of 805, Te-tsung died, and Li Sung, despite his partial paralysis, ascended the throne as Emperor Shun-tsung 順宗. Wang Shu-wen moved quickly and had the members of their group appointed to senior positions. Liu Tsung-yuan became a vice director of the Ministry of Rites, and his friend Liu Yu-hsi a vice director of the Department of State Affairs. These were heady titles but really beside the point. As they began implementing the policies they had discussed over the previous five years with the crown prince, their influence stretched into all areas of the court.
At heart, these policies were meant to curtail—if not end—a wide variety of forms of corruption and usurpation of privilege. They were chiefly aimed at limiting the power of the regional governors and the palace eunuchs and strengthening the power of the central government. Among other things, they included dismissing and charging corrupt officials, reforming the tax code, ending collusion between local officials and state monopolies, and getting rid of “palace shopping,” whereby eunuchs or their henchmen entered shops and took whatever they wanted.
The entrenched officials at court and the more powerful eunuchs naturally opposed these policies aimed squarely at them. They conspired with other officials, who were now being left out of the decision-making process, to bring all this to an end. Things happened fast. In the fifth month of 805, less than four months after becoming emperor, Shun-tsung was forced to make his eldest son, Li Ch’un 李純, crown prince. Then in the eighth month, he was forced to abdicate, while his son became Emperor Hsien-tsung 憲宗 (r. 806–820). In addition to putting an end to the reforms, Hsien-tsung banished all those who took part, which, of course, included Liu. Wang Shu-wen had already left Ch’ang-an in the sixth month when his mother became ill. Shortly after he arrived at the family home in far off Shaohsing 紹興, she died, and he began the threeyear period of mourning. A few months later, at the beginning of the following year, he was given permission to commit suicide.
Meanwhile, in the ninth month of 805, the eight men who formed the core of the reform movement were exiled, among them Liu Tsungyuan and Liu Yu-hsi. All eight were appointed magistrates of posts in South China. Liu’s post was in Shaochou 邵州 (modern Shaoyang 邵陽) in Hunan province, and he left a week later with his sixty-seven-year-old mother, his four-year-old daughter, a nurse, two cousins, and his friend and fellow reformer Liu Yu-hsi. Because Liu Tsung-yuan’s mother was ill, they decided against the shorter, more difficult route through the Chungnan Mountains 終南山 via the Wukuan Pass 武關. Instead, they traveled east through the Hanku Pass 函谷 關 and then took the easier Hsiaokuan Pass 崤關 south. From there, the route took them overland, across the Yangtze, then across Tungting Lake 洞庭湖. While on their way, they learned that the emperor had decided he had been too lenient. Their assignments were changed. Liu Yu-hsi’s new post was actually an improvement. It was changed from far-off Lienchou 連州 to Langchou 郎州, just west of Tungting Lake. Liu Tsung-yuan, however, was ordered 100 kilometers farther south to Yungchou 永州. But the emperor’s point