Academic Tradition and Official Career of the Gao Family Clan in theMiddle and Late Tang Dynasty: A Research Centered on the Newly Discovered Gao Shaoyi’s Epitaph
Yang Qiong
School of Literature, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Abstract:In recent years, many inscriptions of the Gao Shilian family, one of the founding members of the early Tang Dynasty, have been unearthed, which provide us with rich and precious materials for studying the extension of the lineage, political change and academic culture of the Gao family clan after they entered the Tang Dynasty. Collected by the Steles and Rubbings Center of Zhejiang University Library, the epitaph of Gao Shaoyi is another newly discovered epitaph of the members of the Gao family, the owner of which was an important scholar-official implicated in the political and academic development of the middle and late Tang Dynasty. The epitaph can not only revise and complement the historical records of his life story but also provide significant materials for the study of the academic tradition and official career of the Gao family clan in the middle and late Tang Dynasty. By virtue of Gao Shiliang’s feats and his identity as one of the relatives of the emperor, the Gao family clan became fairly prominent in the early Tang Dynasty. However, since incriminated by Zhangsun Wuji and some family members had been entangled in the Prince Zhanghuai conspiracy case, the Gao family clan thereafter increasingly declined. In the middle Tang Dynasty, the brothers of Gao Yuanyu and Gao Shaoyi were again among the senior bureaucrats, laying the foundation for Gao Qu to serve as Prime Minister in the late Tang Dynasty. For the Gao family clan in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, becoming an official was closely related to their academic tradition. As a typical representative of the criteria based on Confucian classics and history for official selection in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, Gao Shaoyi passed the Imperial Examination with his mastery of Confucian classics. Emperor Wenzong of the Tang Dynasty laid special emphasis on Confucianism in the selection of talents for he was keen on ancient culture and worshiped Confucianism. In the 8th year of Dahe, he broke with the tradition of choosing officials by literature and formed a pattern of valuing classics over literature. During this period, by virtue of his study of I Ching, Gao Shaoyi served as the examiner twice and experienced the controversy between the study of classics and literature in the Imperial Examination, which can be regarded as an important symbol of his way to become an official via Confucian classics under the reign of Emperor Wenzong. During the years of Kaicheng, Gao Shaoyi, his younger brother Gao Yuanyu and his uncle Gao Chong were successively appointed by Emperor Wenzong as Hanlin Scholar of Lecture, which not only further demonstrated the Gao family clan’s academic achievements of Confucian classics but also promoted their political status in the late Tang Dynasty. In addition to the study of Confucian classics, the Gao family clan also had outstanding historical talent. A Brief History of the Gao Family Clan written by Gao Shaoyi’s great-grandfather Gao Jun was once more popular than some official histories. Gao Shaoyi’s historical talent is mainly manifested in the writing of diplomatic history. Yi Wen Zhi of the New History of the Tang Dynasty documents ten volumes of Gao Shaoyi’s Siyi Chaogong Lu. According to the epigraph, in the middle of Huichang, an emissary of Qir Qis once visited Chang’an. Alarmed at the new regime that had smashed Uighur, Emperor Wuzong ordered Gao Shaoyi, Wei Zongqing, Lin Zan, and Lü Shu to write Siyi Liguo Ji in the Jixian Academy. Although this book was not circulated, through the epitaph and the background of the book the process of Gao Shaoyi’s official appointment with his historical talent in the history of the Wuzong Dynasty can still be uncovered. As the members of a Shandong scholarly family with classic and historical inheritance, though Gao Shaoyi and Gao Yuanyu carried on their familial academic tradition and created their official space based on them, they were proactively committed to literature, the dominant way to launch an official career in an environment where literature is the mainstream. Gao Yuanyu was not only famous for his classic achievements but also excelled in literature and became an official through it. He also took the cultivation of his son Gao Qu’s literary talent seriously. Gao Shaoyi’s children inherited their father’s knowledge, and all of them passed the Imperial Examination with their mastery of Confucian classics. Through an investigation into the inheritance and transformation of the familial academic tradition of the Gao Shaoyi family clan in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, it can be found that the inheritance of familial academic tradition and the commitment to literature coexisted in the old scholarly family.
杨琼. 中晚唐高氏家族的学术与仕进[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2023, 53(6): 116-131.
Yang Qiong. Academic Tradition and Official Career of the Gao Family Clan in theMiddle and Late Tang Dynasty: A Research Centered on the Newly Discovered Gao Shaoyi’s Epitaph. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 2023, 53(6): 116-131.