Li Deyu

Biography

Family Background and Early Life

Li Deyu was born in 787, the third year of Emperor Dezong's Zhenyuan era, in a residence in Anyi Ward of Wannian County, Chang'an. His father Li Jifu was then an Erudite of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices and later rose to Secretariat Vice Director and Participant in Determining Government Matters, becoming an important grand councilor under Emperor Xianzong. The family belonged to the western branch of the Zhao Commandery Li clan, one of the prominent aristocratic lineages of the Tang. Li Deyu's grandfather Li Qiyun had served as Censor-in-chief and was known for uprightness.

In 792 Li Jifu became implicated in political struggles involving Dou Can and Lu Zhi and was demoted to an administrative post at Mingzhou. The six-year-old Li Deyu followed him. Three years later Li Jifu became prefect of Zhongzhou, and the family moved again. Further appointments took them to Chenzhou, Raozhou, and other places. This unsettled childhood exposed Li Deyu to different regions and social conditions and was later associated with his independent and forceful temperament.

Li Deyu had high ambitions and studied the classics and histories intensely, with particular mastery of the Book of Han and Zuo Zhuan. He strongly disliked the imperial examination system and considered it shameful to compete in composition with ordinary examination candidates. The Old Book of Tang says that he had great ambitions from youth, studied with great effort, was especially skilled in the Book of Han and Zuo Zhuan, and disliked examination culture. This attitude reflected family tradition: both his grandfather and father criticized what they regarded as the superficial literary style of the jinshi examinations. Li therefore believed the examination system did not necessarily select those most capable of governing.

Entry into Office and the Muzong Reign

In 813 Li received an inherited appointment as Proofreader in the Palace Library. Because Li Jifu was then Grand Councilor, he soon resigned his capital post to avoid suspicion and entered regional military staffs. When Li Jifu died in 814, Li Deyu observed mourning.

In 816 Grand Councilor Zhang Hongjing went out to command Hedong and recruited Li as secretary to the military commissioner. Li drafted memorials for Zhang, including submissions concerning paintings and calligraphy and a picture of Emperor Xuanzong on horseback. The offerings pleased Emperor Xianzong. In 819 Li followed Zhang back to court and was formally appointed Investigating Censor.

Emperor Muzong ascended in 820. He had heard of Li Jifu while still crown prince and treated Li Deyu with favor, summoning him into the Hanlin Academy to draft edicts and ceremonial documents. There Li became friendly with Li Shen and Yuan Zhen; the three were grouped together as the “Three Talents” because of their learning and reputation.

In 821 Li memorialized against political interference by imperial sons-in-law and other imperial relatives, arguing that they should not privately associate with senior officials lest state secrets leak and court factions form. Muzong approved the argument. Li later became Director in the Bureau of Merit with responsibility for drafting edicts. In 822 he was promoted to Secretariat Drafter while remaining in the Hanlin Academy.

At this point Li Fengji returned to court as Minister of War. He had an old feud with Li Jifu dating from the Yuanhe era and used his associates to marginalize Li Deyu. In the sixth month Li Fengji became Grand Councilor and, in order to promote Niu Sengru, had Li Deyu sent out in the ninth month as circuit inspector of western Zhejiang. Li then spent roughly eight years in regional office.

Administration of Western Zhejiang and Xichuan

Li arrived in western Zhejiang after the Wang Guoqing military disturbance. His predecessor Dou Yizhi had exhausted the treasury to supply the army, leaving soldiers arrogant and public finances strained. Li Deyu lived frugally and used all savings to support the troops. Although the payments were not lavish, the soldiers did not complain, and after two years the treasury was restored and the garrison regained fighting strength.

Li also attacked local practices he regarded as harmful. Sources state that some people, influenced by shamans, abandoned sick parents or siblings. Li selected educated local men to promote ideals of filial and fraternal conduct and used law to restrain the behavior. He consulted local gazetteers to regulate temples and shrines, preserving those dedicated to worthy officials of earlier periods while demolishing 1,010 “improper” shrines and 1,460 private mountain buildings. The measures also reduced places where bandits could hide. Emperor Muzong issued an edict praising his administration.

When Emperor Jingzong ascended in 824, the young ruler made expensive tribute demands. Western Zhejiang was ordered to supply cosmetic goods requiring 23,000 taels of silver and 130 taels of gold. Li memorialized that the region's finances could not bear the burden and asked that the order be cancelled. Soon afterward the court demanded 1,000 bolts of exceptionally fine patterned silk. Li again remonstrated, citing Emperor Taizong's refusal of famous hunting hawks and Emperor Xuanzong's bans on trapping rare birds. Jingzong accepted his advice and cancelled the demand.

In 825, when Jingzong was absorbed in amusement and sometimes went a month without holding court, Li submitted the Six Maxims of the Red Screen. The six sections addressed early rising for government, correct ceremonial dress, ending excessive tribute, accepting admonition, distinguishing the wicked, and preventing small problems from growing. His language was earnest, but Li Fengji remained dominant at court and Li Deyu could not return to the capital.

In 829 Emperor Wenzong recalled him as Vice Minister of War, and Pei Du intended to recommend him as Grand Councilor. Li Zongmin, Vice Minister of Personnel, obtained eunuch support and was appointed Grand Councilor first; he then sent Li Deyu out as Military Commissioner of Zhenghua. After eight years in western Zhejiang, Li had been back in the capital fewer than ten days before being removed again.

In 830 Li became Military Commissioner of Jiannan Xichuan. Sichuan had recently suffered a Nanzhao invasion. In his first month he personally investigated mountains, towns, roads, and passes, prepared military maps, and built the Choubian Tower as a frontier planning center. He sent envoys to Nanzhao asking for the return of captured craftsmen, and more than 4,000 monks, Daoists, and artisans were released. During his two years in Xichuan he strengthened defenses against the Tibetan Empire to the west and stabilized relations with southern peoples, bringing a period of frontier peace and economic recovery.

Two Terms as Grand Councilor and Repeated Dismissal

In 832 Wenzong recalled Li as Minister of War. In the second month of 833 he became Grand Councilor, receiving the title Participant in Determining Government Matters and the fief Count of Zanhuang County. In the sixth month Li Zongmin was dismissed, and Li Deyu became Secretariat Vice Director and Grand Academician of the Jixian Hall.

His position was short-lived. In 834 Wenzong became ill, and Zheng Zhu and Li Xun gained imperial favor through the eunuch Wang Shoucheng. Li Deyu openly called Li Xun naturally treacherous, earning the hostility of both Li Xun and Zheng Zhu. In the ninth month Li Zongmin returned as Grand Councilor; Li Deyu was dismissed and appointed Military Commissioner of Zhenhai, returning to western Zhejiang.

In 835 Wang Fan, Left Assistant Director of the Department of State Affairs, and Li Han, Vice Minister of Revenue, jointly accused Li Deyu of heavily bribing Du Zhongyang, foster mother of Prince Zhang Li Cou, and of plotting through ties to the prince. Emperor Wenzong summoned Wang Ya, Li Guyan, Lu Sui, Zheng Zhu, and others to confront the matter. Although Li Deyu argued his case, he was demoted to senior aide at Yuanzhou. This was the darkest period of his political career.

In 836 he received partial restoration as prefect of Chuzhou and later became adviser to the crown prince in detached service. In 837 he was appointed circuit inspector of western Zhejiang. In 840 Emperor Wuzong ascended and recalled him to the capital, making him Grand Councilor for a second time.

Government under Emperor Wuzong

The Wuzong reign was the high point of Li Deyu's career. He directed a series of reforms. Externally he successfully resisted Uyghur incursions and in 843 suppressed Liu Zhen's rebellion in Zelu. Internally he reduced redundant offices, attempted to restrain eunuchs, and reorganized public finances. Wuzong trusted Li deeply, and their cooperation was later celebrated as one of the strongest ruler–minister partnerships of the late Tang. In 844 Li advanced to Defender-in-chief and was created Duke of Wei.

When Wuzong died in 846 and Emperor Xuanzong ascended, Xuanzong regarded Li's position and influence with suspicion. In the fourth month Li was dismissed and sent out as Military Commissioner of Jingnan. In 847 he was demoted to marshal at Chaozhou, and in 848 again to revenue clerk of Yazhou. In the twelfth month of the third year of Dazhong, corresponding to January 850, he died in Yazhou aged sixty-three. During Emperor Yizong's Xiantong era his offices and titles were restored, with the additional posthumous honor of Left Vice Director of the Department of State Affairs.

Li Deyu, styled Wenrao, was a native of Zanhuang in Zhaojun and the second son of Li Jifu. He entered office by hereditary privilege. As a child he was admired by Emperor Xianzong, and it is recorded that reproved by his father for failing to answer Wu Yuanheng's question about his favourite book, he explained that Wu Yuanheng, as a minister of state, should have asked about governing the realm and harmonising the seasons rather than about books, which were the business of the colleges and the Ministry of Rites, so that the question was improper and he had not answered it; and Wu Yuanheng, hearing this, was ashamed, and Li Deyu's reputation began. Under Muzong he memorialised in 821 against the practice of imperial sons-in-law visiting the private houses of chancellors and important officials, which he said served only to leak secrets and to connect the palace with the outer world, asking that henceforth such kinsmen transact public business only at the Secretariat; the emperor agreed, and he was advanced through the posts of examining official and drafter of edicts to be a secretariat drafter and imperial diarist. In the struggle of factions that grew out of the Yuanhe campaigns, Li Jifeng, having gained power, took his revenge: fearing that Li Shen and Li Deyu in the palace would block his plan to make Niu Sengru chancellor, he sent Li Deyu out as observing commissioner of Zhexi in the ninth month, and then brought in Niu Sengru. At Runzhou, after the mutiny of Wang Guoqing's troops and the lavish payments of his predecessor, the treasury was empty and the army arrogant; Li Deyu lived sparingly and gave all his local revenues to the soldiers, so that within two years the finances were again in order. He reformed the customs of the region: where the people of the Jiang and the ranges, believing in shamans and spirits, abandoned their homes when a kinsman fell ill, he taught the wiser villagers and enforced the law until the practice was broken within a few years; he abolished eleven hundred and ten unauthorised shrines and fourteen hundred and sixty private hill retreats to clear the country of bandits, and the people were content under him. When Bozhou was said to have produced a holy water that cured all ills, and crowds from Luoyang to Jiangxi paid for it, Li Deyu had a cauldron filled with it in the market and five catties of pork boiled in it, saying that if it were holy water the meat would be unchanged; the meat fell apart, men's minds were steadied, and the fraud exposed. Under Jingzong, whose extravagance was without measure, Li Deyu memorialised against the demands for cosmetics and for a thousand lengths of patterned damask and coarse silk, reminding the emperor of the censures of Li Daliang, Ni Ruoshui and Su Ting in earlier reigns and of the frugality of the Han; the orders were withdrawn. He presented six admonitions in the form of the vermilion screen, against late audiences, unlawful dress, exactions of curiosities, contempt for good counsel, the employment of petty men and unguarded excursions; the emperor could not use them but had a gracious edict drawn up to thank him. He was nevertheless barred from advance by Li Jifeng's opposition. Under Wenzong he was summoned as vice minister of war in 829, but Li Zongmin, with palace support, took the chancellorship that month and sent Li Deyu out as commissioner of Zheng-Hua; he had been eight years at Zhexi and, though far from court, memorialised continually, and the emperor, knowing his loyalty, recalled him, only to have him driven out again within ten days. When Li Zongmin brought in Niu Sengru, the two joined their grievances, and all who inclined to Li Deyu were sent abroad. In 830 Li Deyu was made vice minister of war and commissioner of Jiannan West. At Chengdu he built the frontier-planning tower, charting the country of Shu south to Nanzhao and west to Tibet, and for a month questioned old soldiers and frontier men, down to privates and barbarians, on the mountains, towns, roads, their difficulty, breadth and distance, until it was said he knew the land as if he had travelled it. In the ninth month of 831 the Tibetan officer of Weizhou, Xidanmou, offered to surrender the city, which was the key to western Shu - a solitary peak with the river on three sides, called by the Tibetans the city without care, and which Wei Gao had striven for years to take in vain. Li Deyu sent troops to occupy it and argued that the whole question was one of great advantage, asking leave to send three thousand raw Qiang to burn the thirteen bridges and strike at the enemy's heart. The whole body of officials approved; but Niu Sengru argued that Tibet, four thousand li across, lost little by one city, that the treaty of peace had just been sworn and good faith must be kept, and that if the Tibetans reproached the breach and rode to the Xianyang bridge within three days, a hundred Weizhous would be useless; and the emperor agreed, ordering the city returned and Xidanmou and his people handed back, whom the Tibetans put to death horribly on the frontier. Li Deyu's resentment of Niu Sengru grew the deeper. After further accusations over his dealings at Zhexi, Li Deyu was made an attendant of the heir apparent in the eastern capital, then prefect of Chuzhou, then again observing commissioner of Zhexi, which he governed three times over more than ten years; and in 837 he was made commissioner of Huainan in place of Niu Sengru. Of the eight hundred thousand strings in the Huainan treasury he reported that only four hundred thousand remained, and Niu Sengru complained, the censors accusing Li Deyu of private spite; he answered that on every change of command it was customary to halve the reserve for flood and drought and for the army, adduced the registers of three predecessors, and showed that the largest amount had been taken under Niu Sengru, and asked to be punished for having failed to follow the rule; and the emperor let the matter rest. On Wuzong's accession Li Deyu was made a vice director of the Secretariat and concurrent chancellor. When the emperor hunted late, he reminded him that a ruler should model himself on the sun and come out to hold court and go in to rest, and the emperor shortly made him minister of works. When the Tian De commissioner and the army inspector wished to attack the Uighur refugee Qabix, who had come with his people to the frontier, Li Deyu argued that the Uighurs had rendered great service, were now broken by neighbours, scattered and homeless, and had committed no offence; that envoys should be sent to comfort them and grain given, as Emperor Xuan of Han had won over the Huhanye; and when Chen Yixing called this giving the bandit troops and the thief grain, he answered that Tian De had barely a thousand men and could not risk a defeat, and that if the refugees raided the frontier it would then be time to raise the armies of the circuits; and twenty thousand bushels of grain were granted. When the Uighur khan demanded grain, cattle and sheep and the surrender of Qabix, and then asked for troops to restore his state and for the city of Tian De, both were refused; and when in the eighth month the khan crossed into the Datong river, driving off tens of thousands of cattle and horses, Li Deyu held that with Qabix and Chixin gone the Uighurs could not stand, and that being fierce and reckless they must be struck at once. Troops of six commands were raised, under Liu Mian, Zhang Zhongwu and Li Sizhong, and when the emperor asked again, Li Deyu advised that north of the Pahtou peak the country was desert, good for horsemen; that the khan's strength lay in the princess, so that a strong general should snatch her back and the army then attack; and that no general was a match for Shi Xiong, who should take picked Turkmen and Chinese troops by night. The emperor passed the plan to Liu Mian, and Shi Xiong, attacking at the Shahu mountain, broke the Uighurs, recovered the princess and ended the war, Li Deyu being advanced to minister of education. In the fourth month of 844, when Liu Congjian of Zelu died and his nephew Liu Zhen seized the command, Li Deyu held that Zelu was inner territory, unlike Hebei, and that to let the seizure pass would be to lose all authority; that Liu Zhen's only reliance was the three Hebei commands, and that if Wei and Zhen did not join him he must fall, and that an envoy should be sent to the three commands to say that the appointment at Zelu stood on a different footing; and the emperor accepted and sent Li Hui. When many officials urged that Liu Zhen be allowed to inherit as Liu Congjian had, Li Deyu offered to bear alone the blame of failure and asked that Li Shen and others should not be implicated; and when He Hongjing and Wang Yuankui marched, he memorialised that in former campaigns the armies had loitered for pay and won nothing, and asked that the two be ordered to take the prefectural cities only and not the petty towns. He drove on the laggard Li Yanzuo, gave Shi Xiong to him as deputy to replace him, and rewarded Wang Yuankui with the rank of concurrent chancellor to spur the others on. When the Zelu general Li Pi surrendered and some suspected a plot, he said that in half a year no one had come over and that questions of sincerity could wait until the reward was given. In 843 the garrison of Hengshui mutinied at Taiyuan and set up Yang Bian; when the eunuch envoy Ma Yuanguan, bribed by Yang Bian, reported fifteen li of armoured men, Li Deyu demolished the claim by reckoning the pay in arrears and the armour with the field army, and insisted that so small a rebel could not be pardoned and that Liu Zhen himself might be forgiven first; the order was given and Yang Bian was killed by his own men. When Gao Wenduan, a confidant of Liu Zhen, came over and told of starvation in the rebel territory, Li Deyu questioned him on how to break the rebels, and adopted his plans for walling in Zezhou, cutting the water supply of the forts and winning over the commander of Mingzhou. In the eighth month Zhen and Wei reported the surrender of Xing, Ming and Ci; the people of Lu took fright, and Guo Yi and Wang Xie killed Liu Zhen and his whole clan to save themselves. Asked how Guo Yi should be dealt with, Li Deyu said that Liu Zhen was a foolish boy whose master in rebellion was Guo Yi, who now sold him for reward, and that he must be punished while the armies were still in the field; and Shi Xiong entered Lu and took the recalcitrant generals to the capital. When the eunuch Qiu Shiliang urged the killing of Li Jue and Yang Sifu, Li Deyu, though they were of the Niu faction, memorialised three times against it, holding that a new emperor should not lightly kill ministers; when summoned, he and his colleagues wept and refused to sit until the emperor promised to spare them, and the envoys were recalled and the two merely demoted. He remonstrated against the favour shown to the Daoist Zhao Guizhen, saying that a petty man goes to power as a moth to a candle and that the horses stood thick at his gate; the emperor would not listen. For his services he was made minister of education and enfeoffed Duke of Zhao, which he declined on the ground that only seven men had held that office since the founding of Tang, that Guo Ziyi himself had not dared accept it and that Pei Du had served ten years as minister of education without promotion; and asking, since his father had been enfeoffed in Zhao and his heir's style was to carry the succession of the eldest line, that he be enfeoffed in Wei, which was granted. In the third month of 846 Wuzong died and Li Deyu acted as chief mourner; Xuanzong, who had always hated his dominance, on taking the government in the fourth month made him commissioner of Jingnan, and men were astonished that so powerful and meritorious a chancellor should fall so suddenly. Bai Minzhong, Linghu Tao and Cui Xuan, all of whom he had treated well, now joined to destroy him; a follower, Li Xian, was set to accuse him of secret misconduct in the government, and he was stripped of his office, made junior guardian of the heir apparent in the eastern capital, then banished to be adjutant of Chaozhou and afterwards its household administrator, and in the winter of 848, journeying by water from Luoyang to Chaozhou and reaching Chaoyang, was banished again to be household administrator of Yazhou. There he died in the twelfth month of 849 at sixty-three; under Emperor Yizong his rank was restored and he was posthumously made left vice director of the Secretariat.

Major Activities

Political Reform

During the Wuzong reign Li sought to limit eunuch interference in government, reform problems in official selection, remove redundant or ineffective officeholders, and improve public finance. He favored practical criteria in recruitment and argued against what he regarded as weaknesses in examination culture. Although these measures did not fundamentally resolve the structural crises of the late Tang, later accounts credited them with temporarily improving administration.

Military Achievements

When Liu Congjian, Military Commissioner of Zelu, died in 843, his nephew Liu Zhen concealed the death and attempted to inherit the command. Li Deyu strongly advocated military suppression and persuaded Emperor Wuzong to act. He coordinated forces from multiple circuits and eventually brought the Zelu rebellion to an end. He had earlier played a major role in resisting Uyghur incursions and securing the northern frontier. During his Xichuan administration, his strengthening of frontier defenses also gave the Sichuan region several years of relative peace.

Literary Achievements

Li Deyu was also a major late-Tang prose writer. His writings were collected in the Huichang Yipin Ji. His prose favored substance and practical argument over ornament and was influenced by the literary theory of Cao Pi. Li Shangyin's preface praised him as “a good grand councilor for ten thousand ages.” His political writings, including the Six Maxims of the Red Screen, were direct and tightly argued. He exchanged writings and poems with Yuan Zhen, Bai Juyi, Liu Yuxi, Du Mu, and other leading literary figures.

Travels and Career Geography

Li's turbulent career took him across much of the Tang empire. Born in Chang'an, he followed his father to Mingzhou and Zhongzhou during childhood. He later served in western Zhejiang, Zhenghua, Xichuan, Jingnan, and other regional commands, and ended his life in exile at Yazhou in present-day Hainan. In many of these locations he left administrative measures, political writings, or literary works.

Under Wuzong Li Deyu established a frontier reserve: twelve thousand strings and bolts a year from the Ministry of Revenue and thirteen thousand from the salt and iron monopoly, reduced by a third the next year, all contributions for the army being paid into it and its accounts kept by the revenue bureau; in 849 it was renamed the Yanzi treasury. When many monks of Mount Wutai fled to Youzhou, Li Deyu told the resident envoy to warn his master that such monks would make neither good generals nor good soldiers, and that it was folly to take the credit of harbouring them, as Liu Congjian's gathering of idlers had shown; and Zhang Zhongwu set two knives at the Juyong pass with orders to kill any wandering monk who entered. The master of guests Wei Bo thought this excessive, and Li Deyu, disliking him, sent him out as deputy commissioner of Lingwu. Li Deyu was proud of his abilities and stood apart from other men, devoted to writing and to letters, rewarding the good and hating the wicked, and reading without cease even at the height of his power. He wrote the epitaph of the female Daoist Xu of the Yao Tai observatory at Huazhou, recording that she was a native of Dantu in Runzhou, named Pan with the style Zhengding, who died in the official lodging at Huazhou in the eleventh month of 829 at twenty-three, and that when he left the censorate for Jinling in 822 she was sixteen and entered his household for her talent and kindness. His writings were collected as the Hui Chang Yi Pin Ji, for which Li Shangyin wrote a preface. Under Emperor Yizong his rank was restored and the post of left vice director of the Secretariat conferred on him.

Personal Relations

• Li Qiyun: grandfather, Censor-in-chief
• Li Jifu: father, Secretariat Vice Director and Grand Councilor
• Li Dexiu: brother
• Zhang Hongjing: Military Commissioner of Hedong who recruited Li as staff secretary
• Li Shen: Hanlin colleague and one of the “Three Talents”
• Yuan Zhen: Hanlin colleague and one of the “Three Talents”
• Pei Du: Grand Councilor who once intended to recommend Li for the council
• Zheng Tan: court lecturer who frequently praised Li's ability before Emperor Wenzong
• Emperor Muzong of Tang: summoned him to the Hanlin Academy and valued him highly
• Emperor Wenzong of Tang: recalled and appointed him Grand Councilor but later demoted him
• Emperor Wuzong of Tang: trusted him deeply; their ruler–minister partnership defined Li's most powerful period
• Emperor Xuanzong of Tang: distrusted his power and repeatedly demoted him until his death
• Li Fengji: political opponent who pushed him out of court
• Niu Sengru: leader of the rival faction in the Niu–Li factional strife
• Li Zongmin: political opponent who repeatedly forced him out of the capital
• Li Xun: political opponent involved in his first dismissal as Grand Councilor
• Zheng Zhu: political opponent allied with Li Xun

Historical Assessment

Tang / Contemporary Period

• Li Shangyin, in his preface to the Huichang Yipin Ji, praised Li as “a good grand councilor for ten thousand ages” and “a lofty scholar of one age.”
• Although Emperor Xuanzong demoted Li, he was later recorded as saying that Li Deyu relied on his own talent and looked down on other court scholars, showing both distrust and recognition of his ability.
• Contemporaries praised the government of Huichang as nearly producing another restoration and regarded Li's assistance to Wuzong as central to that temporary political improvement.

Song–Yuan Period

• Fan Zhongyan praised many aspects of Li's reforms and regarded him as a first-rate figure of his age.
• Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, in the New Book of Tang, described Li as intelligent in debate and impressive in bearing, affirming his political talent.
• Sima Guang's Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance records Li's career in detail. While criticizing factional conduct, it also acknowledged his governing achievements.

Ming and Qing Periods

• Wang Fuzhi, in Du Tongjian Lun, argued that Li's talent exceeded his virtue, criticizing a forceful and inflexible personality despite recognizing his ability.
• Qing scholar Wang Shizhen praised Li's writing and statecraft as outstanding among late-Tang figures.
• Zhao Yi, in Notes on the Twenty-Two Histories, analyzed the Niu–Li factional strife and argued that although Li ultimately fell through factional conflict, his abilities were genuinely exceptional.

Modern Period

• Liang Qichao listed Li Deyu alongside Guan Zhong, Shang Yang, Zhuge Liang, Wang Anshi, and others as one of China's major political figures.
• Chen Yinke, in A Draft Discussion of Tang Political History, analyzed the Niu–Li factional strife in depth and interpreted Li Deyu as representing established northern aristocratic interests while assigning progressive significance to some of his political positions.
• Modern scholarship generally recognizes Li Deyu as one of the outstanding late-Tang statesmen and also as an important writer.