This article analyzes the viewpoints of Liu Zhiji (661-721), the celebrated historian of the early Tang dynasty, and his close friends Xu Jian (660-729), Zhu Jingze (635-709), Xue Qianguang (647-719), Liu Yunji (ca. 650-710), Yuan Xingchong (653-729), and Wu Jing (670-749), on several scholarly issues, arguing that they had ideas in common that differed from the mainstream of their time. Like Liu Zhiji, most of his close friends had a keen interest in historiography and believed that ideal historical works, recording the truth faithfully without any distortions, could enhance the moral system and rebuild the social order. At the same time, they also tried to apply their experience of and criteria for historical writing to evaluate other scholarly issues. They criticized many distortions and fictions they found in commentaries on the classics, and even in the classics themselves. They doubted or rejected the popular correlative cosmology which linked the actions of heaven and man, observing that it was man rather than heaven that should take responsibility for successes or failures. Finally, they were dissatisfied with the ornate style that had dominated literary writing in past centuries; reluctant to confirm the independent value of literature, they held that literature should serve politics and be rooted in morality. Their opinions did not gain much interest while they were alive, but their voices did not disappear after they died. Inherited by Liu Zhiji’s sons and Yuan Xingchong’s nephew Wei Shu (d. 757), their intellectual heritage was not only promoted in the next generation, but also spread out from their small circle to inspire literati like Xiao Yingshi (717-760) and Li Hua (715?-774?), who would lead a major literary revival in the mid-eighth century.
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