A question of loyalty : Xun Yu, Cao Cao and Sima Guang

Abstract

In 212 AD, as the army of the great warlord Cao Cao 曹操 was moving south against his southern rival Sun Quan 孫權, there was a sad incident in the camp. Xun Yu 荀彧, a leading counsellor and one of Cao Cao's oldest supporters, died at Shouchun 壽春 city on the Huai 淮 River. There are varying accounts and opinions whether he died of natural causes or whether he killed himself, but Cao Cao was embarrassed and Emperor Xian of Han 漢獻帝, though close-held under his control, made a point of mourning Xun Yu. Nine hundred years later, moreover, as Sima Guang 司馬光 of the Northern Song dynasty compiled his chronicle Zizhi tongjian 資治通鑑, he took the death of Xun Yu as the occasion for a powerful essay on proper conduct in troubled times. The story of Xun Yu and Cao Cao, therefore, not only touches the tensions of loyalty and legitimacy between a falling dynasty and a rising power, it provided one of China's greatest Confucianists with a case-study for his moral teaching.

This article first appeared in Sino-Asiatica; papers dedicated to Professor Liu Ts'un-yan on the occasion of his eighty-fifth birthday (Canberra 2002). The original pagination, from 30 to 59 in that volume, is indicated in brackets []. Show more