Liú Kūn 劉琨
Style name Yuèshí 越石. Native of Wèichāng 魏昌 in Zhōngshān 中山 (modern Hebei). Western Jin general, statesman, and poet. CBDB id 31719 (dates recorded as 0/0 in the database; lifedates 271–318 follow Jìnshū 晉書 juǎn 62).
Liú Kūn came from a distinguished Han aristocratic lineage (descended from the Han prince Liú Yú 劉輿 of Zhōngshān). In his youth he was a member of the brilliant “Twenty-four Friends” (èrshísì yǒu 二十四友) literary circle centered on Jiǎ Mì 賈謐 at Luoyang. A companion in this circle was the poet Lù Jī 陸機; another close associate was Zǔ Tì 祖逖, with whom the proverbial anecdote of wén jī qǐwǔ 聞雞起舞 (“hearing the rooster crow, he rose to dance [with his sword] before dawn”) is associated, memorializing their shared determination to serve the Jin state in its crisis years.
After the Yongjia upheaval (311 CE), when the Xiongnu Hàn state sacked Luoyang, Liú Kūn served as Governor of Bīng Province 幷州刺史 and the last effective Jin loyalist commander in the north, holding Jìnyáng 晉陽 (modern Taiyuan, Shanxi) against Xiongnu, Xianbei, and Jié 羯 forces. He maintained a steady stream of appeals to the Eastern Jin court at Jiankang, none of which resulted in significant reinforcement. In 318 CE he was captured by the Xianbei chieftain Duàn Pǐdí 段匹磾 — nominally his ally — and executed. His biography is in Jìnshū 晉書 juǎn 62.
As a poet, Liú Kūn is celebrated for his expressions of patriotic grief and martial longing in a time of dynastic catastrophe. His letter-and-poem set 〈答盧諶八章〉 (Eight Compositions in Reply to Lú Chén, a cousin and literary friend) is the most important surviving item in his corpus. His literary remains are gathered in KR4b0080.