Lìnghú Chǔ 令狐楚 (766–837)
Zì Gǔshì 穀士 (var. 殼士). Native of Yízhōu Huáyuán 宜州華原 (modern Yáozhōu 耀州 in Shǎnxī). One of the leading mid- to late-Táng zhìgào 制誥 stylists, prose-letter master, and political patron.
Jìnshì of Zhēnyuán 7 (791); entered the staff of Wáng Gǒng 王拱, Guìguǎn guānchá shǐ, and later served as Tàiyuán jiédùshǐ pànguān before being summoned to court as yòu shíyí 右拾遺. He rose under Xiànzōng, becoming Hànlín xuéshì and Zhōngshū shěrén. Implicated in the dispute over Péi Dù 裴度’s edict in Yuánhé 12 (817) he lost the xuéshì title but kept the shěrén post. Under Mùzōng and Wénzōng he reached Lìbù shàngshū and Jiǎnjiào shàngshū zuǒ púyè; he was finally appointed Shānnán xīdào jiédùshǐ and died in office in Kāichéng 2 (837), aged 72.
Lǐ Shāngyǐn 李商隱 received his apprenticeship in zhāngzòu 章奏 (memorial prose) from Línghú Chǔ, a debt acknowledged in both the Jiù Tángshū and Xīn Tángshū biographies. As a poet Lìnghú was less distinguished than as a prose stylist, but his anthology, the Yùlǎn shī 御覽詩 KR4h0011, compiled at imperial command before 817, preserves 289 mid-Táng jìntǐ poems by 30 hands and is one of the principal early-ninth-century anthologies.
The CBDB lifedates 766–837 are followed here; the catalog meta gives 765–836 (a one-year shift reflecting a different reading of the same biographical evidence).