Page:A Chinese Biographical Dictionary.djvu/486

Rh dynasty replaced the Ch'i, he was specially invited to Ch'ang-an and employed in drafting State papers. He threw in his lot with the founder of the Sui dynasty, but his strong protest against the slaughter of the members of the former reigning House (see Yang Chien) interfered with his promotion. In 581 he drew up the revised legal code; in 589 he was degraded to a Magistracy. Most of his writings were lost in the troubles that ushered in the T'ang dynasty. Canonised as 文.

  Li Tê-yü 李德裕 (T. 文饒). A.D. 787-849. Son of 李吉甫 Li Chi-fu, who was a Minister of State under the Emperor Hsien Ti of the T'ang dynasty. The father had for opponents Niu Sêng-ju and Li Tsung-min, and at his death their enmity was transferred to the son; hence the expression 牛僧黨 the rival parties of Li and Niu. Li Tê-yü's career was a chequered one. At one time he was filling a confidential position near the Throne; at another he was banished to some unimportant provincial post. He served under six Emperors, and did his best to keep in check the wasteful extravagance and silly superstition of such a monarch as Ching Tsung. When Governor of the modern Ch'êng-tu in Ssŭch'uan, he built the famous look-out from which any movements on the part of the southern wild tribes on the one hand, and of the Turfan on the other, would be at once detected. Meanwhile he had a private residence at 平泉 P'ing-ch'üan, which was filled with rarities; for instance, there was a stone which possessed the remarkable property of making a drunken man sober. Among other stories told of him is one that he used to drink a peculiar kind of soup, in which pearls, precious stones, jade, red sulphuret of arsenic, and cinnabar, were cooked all together. A bowl of this was said to cost thirty thousand cash. After rising to be President of the Board of War, he was impeached in 847 by a member of his own party and banished to Yai-chou in Kuangtung, where he