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Zhang Shuo
Tang chief minister under Ruizong and Xuanzong, three times in office, who led the 725 Mount Tai sacrifices, ran the Jixian Academy and was paired with Su Ting as a master of court prose
In a council hall, a long table holds an unrolled map scroll, a brass-cornered chest and a brush pot, with tall-backed chairs around it and a bronze lamp at the left; a figure stands with their back turned on the balcony at the right, with palace roofs beyond.
Also known as Zi Daoji · Zi Shuozhi · Yanguo Gong · Shi Wenzhen
Zhang Yue, courtesy names Daoji and Yuezhi, came of a Fanyang family long settled at Luoyang. Under Wu Zetian he came first in a palace examination, and in 703 he was banished to Qinzhou in the far south for refusing to back Zhang Yizhi's false charge against Wei Yuanzhong. He became a chief minister under Ruizong, and in 713 Xuanzong made him president of the Secretariat and Duke of Yan, though a quarrel with Yao Chong soon sent him to provincial posts. Recalled to high office in 721, he reorganised the council of state as the Secretariat-Chancellery, directed the imperial sacrifices on Mount Tai in 725, and long headed the Jixian Academy. Impeached by Yuwen Rong and others the following year, he lost his ministry. He died early in 731 with the posthumous name Wenzhen, leaving the Collected Works of the Duke of Yan. He and Su Ting, Duke of Xu, drafted the court's great documents and were known together as the masters of Yan and Xu.
Life and times
Dates 667 CE–731 CE