CHAPTER TWO

XUN XU’S FIRST POSTS, CA. 248–265

Shang 商: The Harmonious Step Moving away from gong is made comfortable by the harmonious and harmonic shang note. In modes and melodies, shang forms unoffending chords; it cooperates with other notes, like zhi and yu. Harmonics masters knew that the circle-of-fifths derivation, based on gong as “9,” resulted in the pleasing whole number “8” for shang. Xun Xu began his career under the Jin by fitting in with the new regime and cooperat- ing in court projects.

We know next to nothing about Xun Xu’s childhood and youth. But from the previous chapter we do know that his family was used to power—power that had first been local, then on the move defensively, next serving Cao Cao’s court at Xu, and finally the Simas in Luoyang. The Xuns offered important political service to the Cao-Wei dynasty, even if the fate of Xun Yu at the hands of Cao Cao had weakened Xun loyalties to that family. Cao Cao’s heirs began to rebuild Luoyang pal- aces and state offices in the 220s, so by the mid-230s such Xun men as Xun Can and Xun Yi began residing there, and the young orphan Xun Xu relied on them, as well as on in-laws, for political grooming and entree. His biography states: Xun Xu was styled Gongceng 公曾. He was a Yingchuan 穎川, Yingyin 穎陰, man, and the great-grandson of Xun Shuang 爽, an [Eastern Han- dynasty] Minister of Works. His grandfather was Xun Fei 棐, who was a Colonel of Archers Who Shoot by Sound. His father Xi 肸 died when Xu was young, and Xu had to rely on his maternal uncle (of the Zhong family 鍾). He was precocious and matured early. When he was only a bit over nine, he was able to compose texts. His maternal great-uncle Zhong You 鍾繇 (the father of Zhong Hui; see below), a Grand Tutor under the Wei, said: “This boy will be the match of his great-grandfather.” In fact, when [Xu] grew older, he went on to become broadly learned and made his mark in government affairs.1

1 JS 39, p. 1152. TPYL 385, pp. 7b–8a, cit. “Xunshi jiazhuan,” writes: “When he was 92  

Only toward the end of Cao power late in the 240s do we begin to learn of Xun’s state positions that launched his career. If he was born in 220, or even a bit later, then we may be missing, at most, records of a minor cadet office from about 237–244. One aspect of the years of waning Cao power concerns how schol- ars who were remaking themselves would steer through a certain po- litical conundrum. Dozens of scholar-officials of the last years of the Cao-Wei dynasty, including Xun’s second-cousin once-removed Xun Yi, faced a challenge. In 238, just before the Wei Emperor Ming died (Cao Rui 曹叡, 206–239; r. Mingdi 明帝, 227–239), an order was made to ensure that Sima Yi 司馬懿 (179–251) and Cao Shuang 曹爽 (d. 249) would oversee the court of the child Emperor Cao Fang (芳, 231–74; deposed 254). When Fang came to the throne in 240, advisers deter- mined that the regency should assume the reign-name “Zhengshi 正 始,” or “Correct Beginning.”2 The Zhengshi regency pitted Sima Yi and his kinsmen and support- ers on one side, and Cao Shuang and his on the other. Even as early as 226, with the death of Wei Emperor Wen (Cao Pi 曹丕, 187–226; r. Wendi 文帝, 220–226), Sima Yi had begun to be active militarily, aid- ing the dynasty with temporary victories against the southern king- dom of Wu, and in 238 he accomplished a speedy defeat of Gongsun Yuan 公孫淵 (d. 238) in the northeast (today’s southern Manchurian area). Cao Shuang’s faction was brazen and effected policies to increase central wealth and their access to it; yet they lacked the military abil- ity of their forbears and were eliminated by the Sima faction ten years later.3 The Cao clique would become excoriated in literature as im- moral—if not the “bad last emperor,” then the first bad Cao. Young officials, Xun Xu and his kin among them, had to consider whose side they were, or had been, on. Who might be tainted by association? In cultural and ritual matters earlier, Cao Pi had asserted his own style of music, literature, and court formulations. He also reached out to allay and recognize specific leading families, as well as non-Chi- nese leaders and western religious sects; and Mingdi continued at least twelve nian he could understand Chunqiu and compose text”; following this passage, TPYL cites the above source to the effect that Xun Shuang had had those same skills, and was also praised by a great polymath of his day. 2 On Cao Fang’s new reign, see SGZ 4, p. 119; TCTC/Fang 1, pp. 622, item 24, and the note on p. 634. 3 See a detailed study of the people who composed Cao’s bloc and a political inter- pretation of Cao Shuang’s rise and failures, in Meng Xiangcai 孟祥才, “Lun Cao Shuang zhi bai” 論曹爽之敗, Shixue yuekan 史學月刊 (2004.8), pp. 20–24.