CHAPTER SIX A NEW DAY, NEW ANTIQUITIES, NEW FACTIONS, CA. 277–284 Yu 羽: Reaching A description of the ancient five scale-notes in Jinshu says that following zhi 徵, which stands for a pause in affairs 事 after a high point, yu 羽 represents the “ten-thousand things’ 萬 物 reaching abundance” then giving way to relax- ation. Yu makes people “respectful and appreciative of ritual.” 1 Xun Xu was not a melodist, nor a Dao- ist of the lanes and hills collecting ballads, so he may not have paused to drink in the metaphysical beauty of it all. He did, however, believe in ritual and law, especially as ideals of perfection that guided his work, work that reached outward through laborious and frenetic investigations. Xun Xu had devoted the previous several years to research and innova- tion in order to reform the ritual lülü and thus regularize the pitches and scale intervals used in performances. As we saw, around 275–77 his new sound of court music was punctuated by criticism from Ruan Xian and his supporters. Yet, the tête-à-tête could not dampen Xun’s political stature: he remained a prominent thinker and factionalist. In fact, on September 25, 275, the emperor honored him and about nine others, including Sima princes and officials who had been the chief supports of the dynasty 佐命功臣 since its inception. The context is not given, thus we cannot tell if Xun was being recognized for mu- sicology. Some of the honorees were recently deceased, for example, Sima Ziwen 司馬子文 and several whom we have met like Xun Yi, Pei Xiu, and Wang Chen. Among the living honorees were Xun Xu, Jia Chong, Yang Hu, He Ceng (see Chapter Two, Table 1), and the prince who many (but not Xun and Jia) thought would be a better heir-ap- parent—namely, Sima You 司馬攸 (248–83). All of them, regardless of factional disparities or personal grudges, were “grouped for announced 1 JS 22 (“Yue” A), p. 677. 280 sacrifices 皆列於銘饗”: on occasion they would be honored at dynas- tic rituals.2 The period from 277 to the end of 279 was for Xun simply a con- tinuation of fifteen years of leadership in court policy. This chapter looks first at two policy opinions voiced just before the Wu War. Then, in mid-281, about a year after the war concluded, we encounter Xun’s poetic lauding of victory, a smart tactic by a former anti-war partisan. Just as the Xuns and other social and political leaders had emerged from their Cao–Wei commitments after 249 ad, now both the pro- war faction and the anti-war Jia–Xun faction had to change: soon their leadership and motivations would begin to shift. The victory consti- tuted a new day for leading courtiers. But to an even larger degree, it was a new day in scholarship thanks to the discovery of ancient texts and objects in a plundered late-Warring States tomb—the Ji Tomb 汲 冢 (literally, “Ji tumulus”). I translate an extant writing by Xun that describes the approach to the Ji Tomb texts taken by his team in the Imperial Library. As usual, Xun concentrated on materials and appear- ances, and their technical and even craft significance; he used certain skilled court personnel for this work, reminding us of earlier antiquar- ian searches and his use of personnel in those cases. Their task was en- larged by a decision to elide the work on Ji Tomb texts with the earlier project to catalog the entire palace library. Subsequently the chapter shifts to individuals, nexuses, and fac- tions that impacted politics, in some sense the politics of scholarship and knowledge. In modern times, experts in ancient chronology and history have revived Ming-Qing “Ji Tomb studies” with new interpre- tations of the nature of the Ji Tomb texts. In this chapter I am only interested in the Western Jin scholars themselves, men who in the 280s-90s curated the bamboo slips or worked on transcriptions, and the roles played by careers and personalities. The first study to look at the scholars was by Zhu Xizu 朱希祖 (working in the 1930s-40s), fol- lowed by Edward L. Shaughnessy (beginning with articles in the mid- 80s and a chapter of his recent book). In addition, the mainland China scholar Cao Shujie 曹書杰 has remarked on this topic. (I cite these works as they arise.) Zhu briefly raised the matter of how calligraphy expertise affected not just Xun’s group, but numerous others who got to see the bamboo slips or the transcriptions; Shaughnessy opened up a fertile line of reasoning about the impact of political factions. I 2 JS 3 (“Wudi ji”), p. 65..