Crow Terrace Poetry Trial: Difference between revisions

The Crow Terrace Poetry Trial (or Crow Terrace Poetry Case, 烏臺詩案) was an event of the year 1079 in Song dynasty, China. The most prominent figure who was accused was Su Shi. His works of poetry were produced as evidence against him.

General background

Approximate map of Northern Sung China, with neighboring empires indicated.

Further information: Song dynasty

The Crow Terrace Poetry Trial took place in 1079, the 2nd year of the Yuanfeng era (Yuán Fēng 元豐; "Primary Abundance") 1078–1085 of the Song dynasty. The disparate states of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period had been unified by the first Song ancestor, Zhao Kuangyin (Emperor Taizu of Song); and, the capital city established in Kaifeng. The Crow Terrace Affair occurred during the reign of Emperor Shenzong of Song, who was then emperor: he was born in 1048 and reigned from 1067 to 1085.

Poetic background

Further information: Xiaoxiang poetry

As Angela Murck puts it: "Poetry pervaded the lives of of educated scholars in the Song dynasty" (51). The poetic legacy was greatly derived from poetry of the Tang dynastic era. Especially important was the work of the Tang poet Du Fu (Murck, 52-59). Du Fu (712 – 770) had a revival of interest in his poetry during the Song dynastic era. One of Du Fu's poems was "Autumn Day in Kui Prefecture": written in and about the exile experience in Kui Prefecture.

Su Shi's early life

Su Shi Dongpo, according to an artistic impression.

Further information: Su Shi

Su Shi (1037 – 1101) also has betimes been known as Dongpo. It was he who was put on trial in 1079, in the Crow Terrace Poetry Affair. Su Shi "Dongpo" was already a prominent and popular poet, as well as being deeply involved in the factional political of the time. Su Shi's career began with particular promise. His father, Su Xun, was a known scholar-official and his brother, Su Zhe, followed. The brothers passed the imperial civil service tests in 1057 with honors (followed up in 1061 with specially-decreed examinations). Thus, Su Shi came to the attention of emperor Renzong, who reigned from 1022 to 1063. Not only that, but Su Shi obtained the patronage of prominent government official and renowned poet Ouyang Xiu. When Renzong died in 1063, he was replaced by Yinzong, who ruled 4 years before expiring. The new emperor was the 19 year-old Shenzong, who was eager for a full treasury to fund his ambitions of re-conquest of the former Tang empire's northern territories, which had been incorporated into neighboring, non-Chinese empires (Murck, 32).

Wang Shi's New Policies: initial implementation

Further information: Fan Zhongyan, Wang Anshi, and Sima Guang

Although theoretically, the emperor was the final and absolute authority in Chinese politics during the Song dynasty, in actuality many factors importantly affected events: these included other politically influential persons such as the emperor's in-laws and other relatives and also party politics. Party political division at the time was severe: Wang Anshi lead a group of "reformists", also known as the "New Policy party", whose ideas were perhaps ahead of their time. Su Shi was part of the politically-opposed "conservative" group, later known as the "Yuanyou party", after the era-name during which they had exercised most power. Wang Anshi's New Policies had their ups-and-downs in imperial favour, but initially he was able to sweep the political field of oppositional voices. Sima Guang, the main oppositional leader retired to Luoyang, as did various others in his faction. Su Shi's patron Ouyang Xiu ((1007 – 1072) was demoted, exiled, and eventually permitted to retire. Su Shi was not identified as a main leader of the opposition party and was exiled as governor of Hangzhou, which in itself was not the worst place to be sent, or the worst position for someone pursuing a career in politics, but it forbade his appearance at court, and consequentially denied him direct influence or interaction with the imperial government, at the national level.

Hangzhou: life and poetry in exile

Su Shi Dongpo caused a causeway to be created across West Lake. This is a view of it from 2005.

Su Shi's political vulnerability had been increased by his first sentence to exile, before the Crow Terrace incident. His first exile was relatively mild: it was as governor of Hangzhou, on beautiful West Lake, where the poet Bai Juyi had previously governed, a city which would later become the capital of the Song dynasty after the fall of Kaifeng to invasion (much after Su Shi's lifetime), and where then Su Shi had obtained a small farm-hold. Su Shi did service as a local official. As governor of Hangzhou, Su Shi employed more than 200,000 workers in environmental works to dredge mud out of West Lake, and preserve it from becoming filled in and no longer being a lake. The dredged material was used to build a causeway (the poet Bai Juyi had done similarly, in similar circumstance, back in the Tang dynasty era). Su Shi's works helped endear him to the local population. His sobriquet "Dongpo" derives from this period of exile to the "Eastern Slope", where his farm was located. An anthology of Su Shi's poetry from his Hangzhou era came into circulation, collected and published by his friends (Murck, 48). David Hinton (364) describes this first exile in Hangzhou as the time when he "consolidated his mature poetics".

New Policy: continuation without Wang Anshi

While Su Shi concentrated on making the lives of the local people in his charge better, and pursued his poetry which his position allowed time for, Wang Anshi's policies went awry. Were they bad policies, or were they badly implemented, or were climatic changes leading to drought and poor harvests to blame? These are all serious questions, important to historians of the time, and nowhere near to being definitively answered; but, they are rather subject of great scholarly debate. What is certain is that Su Shi was exiled until emperor Shenzong became somewhat disillusioned with Wang Anshi (and the powerful empress dowager had never been much of a fan of his). The Kaifeng merchants were becoming angry at the price inflation of wholesale goods together with additional tax increases and imposition of fees; and in north of the country a major drought followed by horrible famine occurred in 1074, displacing thousands of refugees (Murck, 37-38). In late 1075, this was followed by a spectacular comet, traditionally viewed as a sign of great changes on earth, even the fall of dynasties (Murck, 48) These events helped to lead Wang Anshi into a gentle but real exile, and to lead to the restoration of Su Shi and other banished officials to positions of power and respect, aided by empress dowager Cao. However, this was just the warm-up to a bitter and deadly political struggle between the two factions in the ensuing years: now both groups had had their ranks decimated, and all sorts of charges of criminal impropriety were our would be filed. Ouyang Xiu had even already been charged with incest, and placed in early retirement: the battle lines drawn, and Su Shi would soon be charged with treason to the state.

End of exile

Su Shi was no longer in formal exile, but he avoided returning to the court in Kaifeng. His persecutor Wang Anshi had been removed from there. And, Su Shi had the support of Renzong's widow, who recalled his stellar performance in the examinations. However, despite recall and promotion, in the field of bitter factional politics, this made Su Shi a target for whatever charges could be invented or discovered. Even avoiding the harsh scrutiny in Kaifeng would not guarantee safety, instead Kaifeng would visit him.

Accusation and arrest

Su Shi Dong Po's poetry was not only popular with the literate set: his poems were even sung in the streets (Murck, 49). This came to official attention. In the summer of 1079, Su Shi was arrested and spent the next 4 months in jail, in Kaifeng, during his trial. He was also beaten (Hinton, 364). When his family packed up their goods and followed him to Kaifeng, they were brutally seized and searched by soldiers sent to stop their boat and search for incriminating manuscripts: as a result the women of the family burned most of Su Shi's writings that the soldiers did not take away (Murck, 50). Fearing that any of his writings could be used against him, Su Shi's wife burned his papers on the deck (Hinton, 364). Despite this, some 2,400 of his poems yet survive (Hinton, 365).

Trial

Su Shi's trial lasted for 4 months, starting in the summer of 1079: he was accused of writing or allowing writings to circulate that the government might consider too be treasonously derogatory to the person of the emperor or to the state, which were considered to be basically equivalent. The charges were of "denouncing the imperial chariot" (Murck, 49) and of "great irreverence toward the emperor" (Murck, 49): conviction carried a mandatory death penalty by beheading, according to the statutory Song penal code, although this had never yet been applied (Murck, 49). Among the evidence were poems by Su Shi (also known as "Master Dongpo"). Su Shi defended himself, denying accusations, or explaining how the lines of his poems really referred to the results of the actions of corrupt ministers, which according to ancient tradition it was incumbent as a duty of a loyal official to point out. In his trial, Su Shi confessed to such things as comparing the attachment of unscrupulous officials to their salaries with an owl's attachment to eating a rotten rat (Murck, 76). In the end, he was convicted.

Commutation of death sentence

Su Shi avoided the death sentence, partly due to the embarrassment which the government would face for decapitating a popular figure for some verses of poetry which it took them 4 months to explain as being derogatory towards itself, and partly because of the intervention of empress dowager Cao, Renzong's widow. In early 1080, he was sentenced to exile, 2 years of house arrest in a very remote and difficult place, the small village of Huangzhou District, on the Yangzi River. Technically the sentence was penal servitude (Murck, 304, note 75). At the end of the 2 years he was allowed to apply for recall from exile, but this was not automatic.

Social and political import

The Crow Terrace Poetry Case had an important and lasting affect on Song dynasty society and culture. The fact that a popular poet and popular government official could be censored and relegated to extreme exile had a chilling effect on freedom of speech (Murck, 49):

"The 1079 trial and conviction of a prominent figure, one of the realm's most respected scholars, marks a further change in political culture. Civil bureaucrats were losing security along with respect. Su's conviction caused consternation.... Already habituated to elaborate indirection in their commentaries and poetry, anti-reformers were revising or burning poems that might be interpreted as seditious" (Murck, 49).

See also

• Classical Chinese poetry
• Eight Views of Xiaoxiang
• Huang Tingjian
• Mi Fu
• Shen Kuo
• Song Di (Fugu)
• Su Shi
• Wang Anshi
• Wang Shen
• West Lake
• Xiaoxiang poetry

References

• Hinton, David (2008). Classical Chinese Poetry: An Anthology. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. ISBN 0374105367 / ISBN 9780374105365
• Murck, Alfreda (2000). Poetry and Painting in Song China: The Subtle Art of Dissent. Cambridge (Massachusetts) and London: Harvard University Asia Center for the Harvard-Yenching Institute. ISBN 0-674-00782-4.
• Chinese Wikipedia article on the Crow Terrace Poetry Trial (in Chinese)