Late-Yuán 元 Hànlín official, Jiāngxī xíngshěng cānzhèng, and major Yuán-Míng-transition zhōngyì (loyalty-and-righteousness) martyr. Zì Chǔqí 楚齊; hào (collection-name) Wéishí 惟實. Native of Yǒngfēng 永豐 (modern Jiāngxī). CBDB 35419 records 1290–1364.
Career.
- Huángqìng era (1312–1313): recommended for Yángzhōu xuélù
- Hànlín xiūzhuàn — alongside Yú Jí 虞集, Ōuyáng Xuán 歐陽玄, Jiē Xīsī 揭傒斯
- Jiāngzhōu zǒngguǎn
- Jiāngxī xíngshěng cānzhèng (Jiāngxī Mobile-Secretariat Vice-Councillor)
- Defended Sháozhōu 韶州 (Guǎngdōng) against the Gànkòu 贛寇 (= Red-Turban / Hóngjīn rebels) in the late-Yuán Yuán-Míng-transition warfare; failed to break the siege; was captured; refused to surrender; died maintaining his integrity (kàngjié sǐ).
Historiographical erasure and recovery. Yuánshǐ (Míng compilation, 1370) omitted Liú entirely — no biography established, name lost. Shào Yuǎnpíng’s Qīng-era Yuánshǐ lèibiān supplied a brief martyr’s-biography in the Zhōngyì zhuàn — but only for the death-event, not the earlier career. The Wéishí jí KR4d0489 preserves the principal biographical record through the wàijí paratexts (compiled by his descendant Liú Yútíng 劉于廷).
Poetic style. Ōuyáng Xuán’s preface to the prose-collection praises Liú as “good in all six forms” of poetry. Jiē Xīsī’s preface places Liú’s poetic gāochù (high place) “between Táo Yuānmíng and Ruǎn Jí”. The Sìkù editors evaluate: fēnggǔ qīngqiú (style-bone, clear-and-firm); not merely friend-praise but substantive endorsement.
Family origin. Family residence Fúyún shūyuàn 浮雲書院 was a subject of tíyǒng exchange-inscriptions from Yú Jí, Ōuyáng Xuán, Jiē Xīsī, etc.
Family-collection-name origin. Wéishí jí derives from the family-instruction shīdào guì shí 詩道貴實 (“the way of poetry values substance”).
Within the Kanripo corpus. KR4d0489 Wéishí jí 惟實集 (撰).
Note. Not to be confused with the late-Qīng novelist Liú È 劉鶚 (1857–1909, author of Lǎo Cán yóu jì) — a different person; CBDB 65779.
name: 劉鶚 pinyinName: Liú È alternateNames: [鐵雲, Tiěyún, 公約, Gōngyuē] dynasty: 清 birthDate: 1857 deathDate: 1909 cbdbId: 65779 dilaAuthorityId: created: 2026-05-19 updated: 2026-05-19
Liú È 劉鶚 (1857–1909), zì Tiěyún 鐵雲 (alternate zì Gōngyuē 公約), was a native of Dāntú 丹徒 (Zhènjīang, Jiāngsū). CBDB 65779 records his dates as 1857–1909 (corresponding to Xiánfēng 7 – Xuāntǒng 1), consistent with standard reference sources.
Liú È never passed the civil service examinations and pursued a career in practical affairs: he worked in water-conservancy engineering on the Yellow River under Wú Dàchéng 吳大澂, dealt in commerce and banking in Shanghai, and became involved in negotiations during the Boxer Uprising of 1900, most controversially by purchasing and distributing grain from the Tàicāng 太倉 granaries to feed the Beijing population — an act later used as a pretext for his prosecution. He was arrested in 1908 on charges of selling state grain without authorization, exiled to Ürümqi 烏魯木齊 in Xinjiang, and died there in 1909.
He is best known for his novel Lǎocán Yóujì 老殘遊記, first serialized in the Rì Rì Xīn Wén 日日新聞 (1903–04) and reprinted in book form in 1906. The novel follows the wandering physician “Old Cripple” (Lao Can) through Shandong, offering a sustained critique of official cruelty and social injustice. It is widely counted among the “four great novels of late-Qīng denunciation fiction” (wǎn Qīng sì dà qiǎnzé xiǎoshuō 晚清四大譴責小說). He also wrote a sequel, Lǎocán Yóujì Xù 老殘遊記續 KR4k0171, which survives in incomplete manuscript form and shifts in tone toward Daoist and Buddhist metaphysics.
Liú È was also a noted collector of Shāng oracle-bone inscriptions, having acquired thousands of bones during the early phase of the Ānyáng 安陽 discovery (c. 1900); he published them as Tiěyún cáng guī 鐵雲藏龜 (1903), the first printed corpus of oracle-bone rubbings.
Within the Kanripo corpus. KR4k0171 Lǎocán Yóujì Xù 老殘遊記續 (撰).