MUZIChinese Matrix
Scholars › Historian
Scholar and Chamberlain for Ceremonials of the state of Wu whose Sanwu Liji gives the earliest full account of Pangu separating heaven and earth.
In an archive hall, tall wooden shelves hold scrolls and bound books with small tags, and one person climbs a ladder with their back turned; a long table in front holds an unrolled river map, a bronze lamp and a copper jug, with a city wall seen through the window.
Also known as Zi Wencao
Xu Zheng, courtesy name Wencao, from Yuzhang, served the state of Wu during the Three Kingdoms as Chamberlain for Ceremonials and was learned in the classics, writing a genealogy of the Mao Odes. His Sanwu Liji on the creation of the world and the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors is now lost, but fragments survive in the Yiwen Leiju and Taiping Yulan. Its account of Pangu separating heaven and earth from chaos is the earliest surviving text of the Pangu myth.
Three Kingdoms
Jinlived in the state of Wu during the Three Kingdoms
Literature · Sayings1A three-scroll Record of the Martyrs of Yuzhang is credited to Xu Zheng in the history section of the Treatise on Books of the History of the Sui. The Song-era Origins of Things and Affairs also quotes his Sanwu Liji on a divine being called the Heavenly Sovereign at the first stirring of primal qi, which shows he also wrote about remote antiquity.