Liào Gāng 廖剛 (1071–1143)
Zì Yòngzhōng 用中. Hào Gāofēng 高峯. Native of Shùnchāng 順昌 (modern Fújiàn). Lifedates 1071–1143, CBDB id 1144. Jìnshì of Chóngníng 5 (1106). A senior men-disciple of Yáng Shí 楊時 (the Guīshān Master, transmitter of the Chéng-brothers heritage southward), and so a peer-and-kinsman of Chén Yuān 陳淵 in the second-generation Northern Lǐxué line.
Career bracketed the dynastic transition: held Yùshǐ zhōngchéng 御史中丞 (Censor-in-Chief) under Huīzōng in the late Northern Sòng, and served again as Yùshǐ zhōngchéng under Gāozōng during the contentious 1141 Jin peace negotiations. Retired with the Tíjǔ Míngdàogōng sinecure.
Historiographic record on his political stance is contradictory. Zhū Xī’s Yǔlèi classifies him as a peace-party supporter (with his Zhāngzhōu bèizhào shàngdiàn memorial as evidence). The Sòngshǐ by contrast records him as a strong post-1141 critic of the settlement after the Jin broke it, with his demand that Zhèng Yìnián 鄭億年 stake “a hundred mouths” on Jin good-faith and his demand for the recall of former chief ministers of virtue. The Sìkù editors at KR4d0223 propose that Liào changed his mind after the Jin breach. He was hated by Qín Huì and dismissed to a sinecure post in his last years.
His Letter to Chén Jǐsǒu (= Chén Yuān, 陳淵) — preserved in the surviving Gāofēng wénjí — discussing the failures of the Zhī zhìgào office is the volume’s most-cited single piece.
Surviving in Kanripo:
- KR4d0223 Gāofēng wénjí (12 juǎn, WYG; surviving as a poorly-preserved late transcript without Sòng-era printed edition).