Liu Guangzu

Life

He received the jinshi degree in 1169, the fifth year of the Qiandao era, and was appointed legal officer (推官) to the Jiannan Dongchuan military commissioner, serving also as judicial inspector (檢法官) of the Tongchuan circuit judicial commission. In 1178 he was summoned to be instructor of the Imperial University (太學正), rising to collator of the Palace Library (校書郎) and Right Remonstrance Official (右正言) before being sent out as prefect of Guozhou. Summoned to an audience during the Chunxi era, he argued on the recovery of the north, holding that both headlong advance and supine inaction were equally ruinous to the state.

On the accession of Emperor Guangzong he was appointed deputy director of the armaments bureau (軍器少監) and then investigating censor (殿中侍御史), leaving the capital as a transport supervisor in Tongchuan and judicial commissioner in Jiangxi before being transferred to Kuizhou. On the accession of Emperor Ningzong he became censor (侍御史), then assistant director of the Court of Agricultural Administration (司農少卿), and was promoted to the posts of imperial diarist (起居舍人、起居郎).

He was impeached and driven from office after remonstrating over the dismissal of Zhu Xi. During the Qingyuan proscription of "false learning", his record for the prefectural school of Fu Zhou (涪州學記) was denounced as slander; impeached again, he was stripped of office, granted a temple sinecure (奉祠) and afterwards banished to Fangzhou.

When the proscription was lifted he was appointed prefect of Meizhou, then judicial commissioner of Tongchuan and acting prefect of Luzhou. After Han Tuozhou was put to death he governed Xiangyang (1209–11), Jiangling (1210–14), Suining (1211–12) and Tongchuan (1214–16); he was promoted to the rank of 顯謨閣直學士 and given a temple commission (提舉宮觀). He died in 1222, the fifteenth year of the Jiading era, aged eighty-one. A biography of him appears in juan 397 of the Song History (宋史).

Zhao Ruyu said that his remonstrances were as vehement as those of Su Shi and as earnest as those of Fan Zuyu — a judgement his contemporaries held to be apt.

Writings

His prose was "vigorous and upright like the man himself," and his poetry was especially clear and graceful. His collected works, the Houxi ji (後溪集), are variously given as ten juan or as more than a hundred; the collections Xianshan, Helin, Jinquan and Meishan, together with his lectures on the classics (諸經講義), are all lost. A later compilation, the Helin ci, runs to one juan, and the bibliographic record also lists a Shantang yiwen (山堂疑問) in one juan.

Associates

He exchanged letters with Zhu Xi, who wrote to him recommending his fellow-townsman Jiang Tai; Liu in turn recommended Lü Shu and wrote to Zhao Ruyu on public affairs. He expounded the orthodox teaching of the Way (道學) together with Zhang Lai, to the approval of Emperor Guangzong, and he wrote a preface for a work by Chao Gongwu as well as tomb inscriptions for Shi Sisun and Cheng Gongshuo. After his death Wei Liaoweng wrote colophons, a sacrificial address and a lament for him; Ye Shi and Du Zheng also composed sacrificial addresses, and Zhen Dexiu wrote his tomb inscription for him, which is preserved in juan 43 of the Zhen Wenzhong gong wenji.

Family

His father was Liu Shi (劉寔) and his maternal grandfather Jia Hui; he had four sons, Liu Duanzhi, Liu Jingzhi, Liu Yizhi and Liu Hongzhi.