The Crow Terrace Poetry Trial (or Crow Terrace Poetry Case, 烏臺詩案) was a trial on charges including treason and lèse majesté that occurred in the year 1079 of Song dynasty era in Chinese history. The legal action conducted against Su Shi by government prosecutors has abiding interest in the case of government censorship versus artistic freedom. "Crow Terrace" designates the nickname for the Imperial Office of the Censorate (御史臺), the office which prosecuted the case, citing Song Criminal Code, Article 122: "Denouncing the Imperial Chariot". The Imperial Censorate accused dozens of defendants. The most prominent of the dozens accused was the official, artist, and poet Su Shi (1037 – 1101), whose works of poetry were produced in court as evidence against him.
The trial was a major landmark in the struggle for free speech in medieval China. The trial resulted in Su Shi's conviction and exile, as well as the conviction of over thirty other individuals, who faced varying punishments including fines and official reprimands. The Crow Terrace Poetry Trial had the significant effect of dampening subsequent creative expression and set a major negative precedent for freedom of speech, at least for the remainder of Song Dynasty China. Besides the significance of the Crow Terrace Poetry Trial for Su Shi and poetry, it is also a rather remarkably well-documented instance of a medieval Chinese literary prosecution, with surviving copies of indictments, arguments, case disposition, and also numerous poems by Su Shi which had been entered as evidence.
General background
The Crow Terrace Poetry Trial took place in 1079, the 2nd year of the Yuanfeng era (Yuán Fēng 元豐; "Primary Abundance") 1078–1085 of the Song dynasty. The disparate states of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period had been unified by the first Song ancestor, Zhao Kuangyin (Emperor Taizu of Song); and, the capital city established in Kaifeng.
The Crow Terrace Affair occurred during the reign of Emperor Shenzong of Song, who was then emperor: he was born in 1048 and reigned from 1067 to 1085.
Poetic background
As Alfreda Murck puts it: "Poetry pervaded the lives of educated scholars in the Song dynasty". The poetic legacy was greatly derived from poetry of the Tang dynastic era. Especially important was the work of the Tang poet Du Fu. Du Fu (712 – 770) caused a revival of interest in poetry during the Song dynastic era. One of Du Fu's poems was "Autumn Day in Kui Prefecture": written in and about the exile experience in Kui Prefecture.
Su Shi's early life
Su Shi was a prominent and popular poet, as well as being deeply involved in the factional politics of the time. Su Shi's career began with particular promise. His father, Su Xun, was a known scholar-official and his brother, Su Zhe, followed. The brothers passed the imperial civil service tests in 1057 with honors (followed up in 1061 with specially-decreed examinations). Thus, Su Shi came to the attention of emperor Renzong, who reigned from 1022 to 1063. Not only that, but Su Shi obtained the patronage of prominent government official and renowned poet Ouyang Xiu. When Renzong died in 1063, he was replaced by Yingzong, who ruled for 4 years till his death. The new emperor was the 19-year-old Shenzong, who was eager for a full treasury to fund his ambitions of re-conquest of the former Tang empire's northern territories, which had been incorporated into neighboring, non-Chinese empires.
Wang Anshi's New Policies: initial implementation
Although theoretically, the emperor was the final and absolute authority in Chinese politics during the Song dynasty, in actuality many factors importantly affected events: these included other politically influential persons such as the emperor's in-laws and other relatives and also party politics. Party political division at the time was severe: Wang Anshi led a group of "reformists", also known as the "New Policy party", whose ideas were perhaps ahead of their time. Su Shi was part of the politically opposed "conservative" group, later known as the "Yuanyou party", after the era-name during which they had exercised most power. Wang Anshi's New Policies had their ups-and-downs in imperial favor, but initially he was able to sweep the political field of oppositional voices. Sima Guang, the main oppositional leader retired to Luoyang, as did various others in his faction. Su Shi's patron Ouyang Xiu (1007 – 1072) was demoted, exiled, and eventually permitted to retire. Su Shi was not identified as a main leader of the opposition party and was exiled as governor of Hangzhou, which in itself was not the worst place to be sent, or the worst position for someone pursuing a career in politics, but it forbade his appearance at court, and consequentially denied him direct influence or interaction with the imperial government, at the national level.
Hangzhou: life and poetry in exile
Su Shi's political vulnerability had been increased by a prior conviction, which resulted in his first sentence to exile, before the Crow Terrace incident. His first exile was relatively mild: it was as governor of Hangzhou, on beautiful West Lake, where the poet Bai Juyi had previously governed, a city which would later become the capital of the Song dynasty after the fall of Kaifeng to invasion (much after Su Shi's lifetime). Su Shi obtained a small farm-hold, here, which he worked while fulfilling his service as a local official. As governor of Hangzhou, Su Shi employed more than 200,000 workers in environmental works to dredge mud and sediment out of West Lake, thus preserving it from silting up and no longer being a lake, as it was in danger of doing so. The dredged material was used to build a causeway (just as the poet Bai Juyi had done similarly, in similar circumstance, back in the Tang dynasty era). Su Shi's works helped endear him to the local population. An anthology of Su Shi's poetry from his Hangzhou era came into circulation, collected and published by his friends. David Hinton describes this first exile in Hangzhou as the time when he "consolidated his mature poetics".
New Policy: continuation without Wang Anshi
While Su Shi concentrated on making the lives of the local people in his charge better, and pursued his poetry which his position allowed time for, Wang Anshi's policies went awry. Were they bad policies, or were they badly implemented, or were climatic changes leading to drought and poor harvests to blame? These are all serious questions, important to historians of the time, and nowhere near to being definitively answered; but, they are rather subject of great scholarly debate. What is certain is that Su Shi was exiled until emperor Shenzong became somewhat disillusioned with Wang Anshi (the powerful empress dowager had never been much of a fan of his). The Kaifeng merchants were becoming angry at the price inflation of wholesale goods together with additional tax increases and imposition of fees; and in north of the country a major drought followed by horrible famine occurred in 1074, displacing thousands of refugees. In late 1075, this was followed by a spectacular comet, traditionally viewed as a sign of great changes on earth, if not portending the fall of dynasties. These events helped to lead Wang Anshi into a relatively gentle exile, and to lead to the restoration of Su Shi and other banished officials to positions of power and respect, aided by empress dowager Cao. However, this was just the warm-up to a bitter and deadly political struggle between the two factions in the ensuing years: now both groups had had their ranks decimated, and all sorts of charges of criminal impropriety were our would be filed. Ouyang Xiu had even already been charged with incest, and placed in early retirement: the battle lines drawn, and Su Shi would soon be charged with treason to the state.
End of exile
Su Shi was no longer in formal exile, but he avoided returning to the court in Kaifeng. His persecutor Wang Anshi had been removed from there. And, Su Shi had the support of Renzong's widow, who recalled his stellar performance in the examinations. However, despite recall and promotion, in the field of bitter factional politics, this made Su Shi a target for whatever charges could be invented or discovered. However, avoiding the harsh scrutiny in Kaifeng would not guarantee safety.
Accusation and arrest
Su Shi's poetry was not only popular with the literate set: his poems were even sung in the streets. This came to official attention. In the summer of 1079, Su Shi was arrested and spent the next 4 months in jail, in Kaifeng, during his trial. He was also beaten. When his family packed up their goods and followed him to Kaifeng, they were brutally seized and searched by soldiers sent to stop their boat and search for incriminating manuscripts: as a result the women of the family burned most of Su Shi's writings that the soldiers did not take away. Fearing that any of his writings could be used against him, Su Shi's wife burned his papers on the deck. Despite this, some 2,400 of his poems yet survive.
Other conspirators
Another major figure indicted in this case was Wang Shen, a wealthy noble and imperial in-law, who was also a painter, poet, and friend of Su Shi. Wang was particularly accused of having caused a collected edition of Su Shi's allegedly subversive poems to be printed and published. Another person involved in the case was Huang Tingjian. Huang and his uncle were heavily fined, and Huang was exiled. Another person implicated in the events was Su Shi's brother Su Zhe. There were in total more than 30 indictments in the case.
Prosecution
Prosecution was by the Office of the Censor (censorate, or "Crow Terrace"). This office, under a head official was charged with investigating and prosecuting the other officials within the imperial bureaucracy. Lead prosecutors in the case (non-pinyin) were Li Ting and Shu Tan, early supporters of Wang Anshi and New Policy party members: Li Ting had been appointed chief of the censorate in 1078. Su Shi's case involved an initial indictment, out of an eventual total of four separate indictments.
Evidence
The main evidence used by the prosecution in the trial were over thirty years of poetry and prose written by Su Shi. This was collected from many of his associates, and printed editions from the market place were also considered. The analysis as to the meanings and implications of Su Shi's writings was not clear-cut, in terms of whether they were actually treasonous, or whether they were in the bounds of acceptable expression. Much of Su Shi's testimony revolved around these points, what was said versus what Su Shi intended to imply: various matters being much open to interpretation, of erudite nature, involving scholarly allusions, often obscure, and, dating back over a millennium and more of a continuous literary tradition.
Defense
Su Shi seems to have represented himself, as according with the legal tradition in China at the time, as would have been the case also with the other accused. His defense relied on admitting that he criticized the New Policy legislation and its supporters at the court. This criticism was legal, and his poetry would not have been needed to demonstrate that he was critical of these policies. Su Shi had in fact memorialized the emperor explicitly detailing his thoughts and feelings in this regard, in forceful prose. To avoid conviction, it was necessary for Su Shi to avoid the prosecution being able to prove that he had criticized or demeaned the emperor or his dynasty: using poetry to give indirect advice to the emperor which involved criticism of his subordinates and suggested policy improvements could be construed as a service to the state, and indeed there was a time-honored tradition of doing so, dating back through the earliest phases of the Chinese poetic tradition. The main question was: did Su Shi's poems cross the line from criticizing the imperial subordinates and their actions, or did his criticism extend to actually defaming the emperor himself? Whether Su Shi had crossed this line was also key in the case of the other persons accused, as their indictments centered around publishing or disseminating Su Shi's poems, which if illegally found to defame the emperor, automatically made them guilty of criminal conspiracy, if found that they were even merely aware of the poems and failed to report them to the authorities.