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Zhang Xun
Tang loyalist who held Suiyang against the An Lushan rebels, shielding the Huai region until the city fell and he was killed.
At dusk on a hilltop, a large tent stands open with a table holding a map marked with small stones inside, a saddled horse tethered outside, and fire stands burning; campfires dot the river plain below, and one tiny sentry stands on the slope.
Also known as Censor Zhang · Duke of Deng (posthumous)
- Roles
- Commanders
Zhang Xun of Nanyang in Dengzhou passed the jinshi late in the Kaiyuan era and served as magistrate of Zhenyuan. When the An Lushan Rebellion broke out he raised troops to hold Yongqiu, then joined Xu Yuan, prefect of Suiyang, in defending that city. With a few thousand men they held off Yin Ziqi's far larger army for nearly ten months, eating sparrows and rats when grain ran out, and kept the rebels from the Yangtze-Huai heartland. Captured when the city fell in 757, he died unbowed and was posthumously honoured; he and Xu Yuan are revered as the Two Loyalists. Han Yu's Postscript defends and celebrates him.
Life and times
Dates 709–757 CE