The Grand Scribe's Records, Volume X by Ch'ien Ssu-ma; Nienhauser William H.; Chan Chiu Ming

Author:Ch'ien, Ssu-ma; Nienhauser, William H.; Chan, Chiu Ming
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 2020-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

1 Liu Ch’ang 劉長 was the seventh son of Liu Pang 劉邦.Wang Shu-min (118.3199) refers to the taboo practice of the Huai-nan Tzu that replaced all 長 characters with a hsiu 修 whenever it was used in the sense of “long” and not “mature” to show that his praenomen should be accordingly pronounced: “Ch’ang.” See also the Han shu parallel (44.2135-45) and his entry in Loewe, Dictionary, pp. 271–73, and the parallel account of the life and death of the King of Huai–nan, on Shih chi, 101.2738–39 (Grand Scribe’s Records, 8:328–30).

2 Tung-y üan is located five miles northwest of modern Shih-chia-chuang 石家庄 in Hopeh (Tan Ch’i-hsiang, 2:26). Liu Pang went there to fight against the “remaining rebels” of Han Hsin 卓韋信.Later on, Liu Pang changed the name of the place to Chen-ting 真定 [Truly Stabilized]. According to “So-yin” (118.3075), Chen-ting, former Tung-y üan, was also the hometown of Liu Ch’ang’s mother, who was buried there after her suicide.

3 As the following anecdote reveals, one of these Beautiful Ladies would probably have come from the Chao 趙 family of Tung-y üan.

4 The King apparently still treated the Emperor with greatest honors and remained grateful, while Kuan Kao 貫高,an old companion of Chang Erh and Chancellor to his son, felt deeply insulted by the way Liu Pang had treated Chang Ao on his visit in 200 BC (see Shih chi, 89.2583). At the age of over sixty years, he wanted to murder the Emperor in order to restore the dignity of his King together with his colleague Chao Wu 趙午.Ignoring the King’s explicit interdiction, they laid an ambush at Po-jen 柏人 (located about fifty miles south of modern Shih-chia-chuang 石家庄 in Hopeh; see T’an Ch’i-hsiang, 2:26), hiding an assassin within the side walls of the local post station in 199 BC. But Liu Pang had a premonition to avoid this stop and chose another route. One year later, the failed scheme was made known to the Sovereign by an old enemy of Kuan Kao and led to the subsequent arrest of all parties involved. As opposed to his collaborators, Kuan Kao chose imprisonment over suicide in order to convince the Emperor that his King was not involved in their plotting. Only when he had accomplished Chang Ao’s release, and despite the Emperor’s pardon, did he end his own life, deeming himself no longer fit to serve his King. See also Shih chi, 89.2583–5 (Grand Scribe’s Records, 7:20–23) and his entry in Loewe, Dictionary, p. 135.

Chou Shou-ch’ang 周壽昌（ 1814–1884; cited in Takigawa, 118.2) calculates that if Liu Pang passed Chao in the winter of the eighth year (199 BC) and the assassination plot of Kuan Kao was discovered in the twelfth month of the ninth year (198 B.C; according to Han shu, 1B.67), the child would have been already born by then.

5 Ho-nei is the name of a commandery situated north of the bow of the Huang Ho, established in 205 BC on the former grounds of the short-lived state of Yin 殷， a fief awarded to the Chao General Ssu-ma Ang 司, 馬卬 (d.

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