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Abstract The Tang poet Cui Bei’s family has seven epitaphs unearthed at present, which can supplement and detail the information of Cui Yuan, a descendant of Cui Zhiwen, who has been recorded briefly in the historical books. Cui Bei came from the Qinghe Cui Clan. His great-grandfather, Cui Zhiwen, was a prime minister in the Tang Dynasty, and his grandfather, Cui Taizhi, was a minister in the Ministry of Works. His father, Cui Yuan, history books does not contain, there is no epitaph unearthed. This article takes the seven-party epitaph of Cui Bei’s family as the main body, and combine the handed-down literature to conduct a more detailed textual research on the poet Cui Bei’s family, official position and poetry. Cui Yuan, Cui Bei’s father, was born by Cui Taizhi and his second wife Li, and he inherited the title of Duke Qinghe. After research, it was found that Cui Yuan was not the “Cui Chengli” mentioned in Cui Taizhi’s epitaph, and “Cui Chengli” should be born by Cui Taizhi and his late wife Lu. Between the second year of the Shangyuan era (761) and the first year of the Dali era (766), Cui Yuan, with his mother, wife, and children, Sought refuge with Cui Yuan, a clansman who was then the governor of Yangzhou. Since then, the descendants of Cui Taizhi have always lived in the south and never returned to their homeland in the north. In the eleventh year of Zhenyuan (795), Cui Yuan died in Wuxing, Huzhou and was buried here. Cui Bei’s brother, Cui Huangzuo, who was not an official and did not have a job, always accompanied Cui Yuan and married the daughter of the Great Wall Lieutenant of Huzhou as his wife. One year after Cui Yuan’s death, Cui Huangzuo traveled to Tongguan County and died at the brigade house. In the spring of the eleventh year of Yuanhe (816), Cui Bei died. Cui Bei’s dying words for the ancestral mother to be buried back to the ancestral tombs, so the Cui clan planned a reburial that took more than five months. The burial sites were Yangzhou, Wuxing in Huzhou, Danyang in Runzhou, and Tongguan County. The reburial was carried out in two ways, Quanzhong moved the coffins of Li, Zhao and Yan from the east of Jiangnan Road, and Jingyu went to the Tongguan County to migrate the grave of Huangzuo, The funeral procession finally met at the ancestral tombs in Luoyang. Examining Cui Bei’s epitaph and related poems, we can sort out Cui Bei’s employment history as follows:
After the first year of Zhenyuan (785), Cui Bei was appointed as an inspector in the western road of Jiangnan. In the eighth year of Zhenyuan (792), Cui Bei was invited by Zhang Pang, the salt and iron transporter of the various provinces, to join the Jianghuai Patrol Court as an inspector. In the tenth year of Zhenyuan (794), Zhang Pang was dismissed from the post of Salt and Iron Transit Envoy for offending Pei Yanling, while Cui Bei remained unchanged in his post, but his place of appointment shifted from Jiangxi to western Zhejiang. In the eleventh year of Zhenyuan (795), Cui Yuan died, and Cui Bei was suspended from his duties to serve in mourning. In the first year of Yongzhen (805), the transfer ambassador Li Qi had the intention of rebelling, Cui Bei and Pei Du, Lu Tan left the western province of Zhejiang one after another.In the second year of Yuanhe (807), he was invited by Wu Yuanheng to go to Xichuan to be the judge of fiscal. In the fifth year of Yuanhe (810), Cui Bei returned to the imperial government to serve as the imperial diarist and the Minister of Rites. In the sixth year of Yuanhe (811), Cui Bei was added to his official position as the drafter. Cui Bei and his grandfather, Cui Taizhi, both had poems and writings in existence. Cui Bei currently has six poems in existence, two writings, and four incomplete sentences, while Cui Taizhi has four poems in existence. Combining the works of poetry and related historical materials, analyze the experiences of Cui Bei and his grandfather, and verify the time of writing the poems. It is believed that the creations of the two poets reveal the ecology of the literati in the view of the officialdom at that time, and enrich the literary landscape of Cui Bei’s family as a poet. Examining the information on Cui Bei’s family, official position, and poems can further enrich the study of the poet’s family in the Tang Dynasty.
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Published: 03 May 2024
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