Liu Yu

Life

His great-grandfather was Liu Junying; his grandfather was Liu Guangheng (1395–1458), and his father was Liu Qiao. His mother was from the Ouyang clan and his stepmother from the Kong clan. He had five elder brothers—three listed only as Liu Mou, alongside Liu En and Liu Zao—and five younger brothers, one listed as Liu Mou, alongside Liu Ting, Liu Kui, Liu Bi, and Liu Huang. His wife was Xiao, and he had a son named Liu Que (劉愨) and a second son recorded as Liu Que (劉慤).

He was a shengyuan, ranked 62nd in the Jiangxi provincial examination. In the bingchen examination of Hongzhi 9 (1496), he ranked 25th in the metropolitan examination and received the 140th place in the third degree of the jinshi list.

After passing the jinshi examination, he became magistrate of Huixian in Henan and then an investigating censor; he also served as an itinerant censor and an education commissioner. At the beginning of the Zhengde reign, his opposition to and impeachment of Liu Jin led to imprisonment, removal from the registers, and return home. After Liu Jin was executed, he was restored to office, serving from 1511 as an assistant surveillance commissioner in Henan, from 1514 as a vice commissioner in Fujian, and from 1517 as Left Shaoqing of the Court of Judicial Review.

In 1519 he became Left Assistant Censor of the Nanjing Censorate; in 1520 he was promoted to Right Assistant Censor there and took charge of river defence. He was subsequently appointed pacification commissioner for Yunyang, again supervised river defence, and took charge of the Court of Judicial Review. When Zhu Chenhao rebelled and attacked Anqing, Liu Yu led troops to its relief; for his role in suppressing the rebellion, he was promoted to Right Vice Censor-in-chief in the sixteenth year of Zhengde (1521), and later held the corresponding Left post.

In the first month of the third year of Jiajing (1524), he became Vice Minister of Justice on the Right and then on the Left; during the Great Rites Controversy, he joined the remonstrance at the Left Shun Gate. In the ninth month of the sixth year of Jiajing (1527), he was implicated in the Li Fuda case, stripped from the official registers, and placed on inactive status; he died at home. At the beginning of Longqing, he was posthumously granted the rank of Minister of Justice; his posthumous title appears as Duanyi in one form and Duanmin in another.

Scholarship and works

Liu Yu had a broad command of the classical canon and investigated the foundations of astronomy, geography, military strategy, military regulations, ritual institutions, and law. His poetry was praised for its graceful refinement and restrained resonance, while his public career was marked by integrity. Works attributed to him include the twenty-volume 《執齋集》, the one-volume 《執齋易圖說》, 《疏稿文集》, and the one-volume 《已瘧編》.

Literary associations

He wrote epitaphs for Li Mengyang and Meng Feng and a biographical account of Liu Ting. Cai Qing wrote to him, while Lin Jun presented him with poetry and prose.