Liu Shih-p'ei m ^ip m T. Shen-shu f^ u H. Tso-an '& M. Liu Shih-p'ei (2 May 1884-20 December 1919), classical scholar and enthusiastic republican revolutionary who, however, spent the last two years of the imperial period in the service of the Manchu authorities. After the 1911 revolution Liu devoted himself to the preservation of conservative scholarship and political institutions. In three generations before him, Liu Shihp'ei's family had produced four noted scholars of the Chinese classics: his great-grandfather, Liu Wen-ch'i (ECCP, I, 534-35) ; his grandfather, Liu Yü-sung (ECCP, I, 535-36); his father, Liu Kuei-tseng; and his uncle, Liu Shou-tseng (ECCP, I, 536). Although their ancestral home was in the Icheng district of Kiangsu, the family had lived in the city of Yangchow for several generations.

After receiving a traditional education in the Chinese classics, Liu Shih-p'ei became a shengyuan in 1901 and a chü-jen in 1902. He failed the metropolitan examinations at Peking in 1903 and went to Shanghai, where he met and became friendly with such young anti-Manchu revolutionaries as Chang Ping-lin and Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei (qq.v.). Liu joined them in their political activities and wrote articles advocating the overthrow of the Manchus. To show his revolutionary zeal, he changed his name to "Kuang-han"" [restore China] to identify himself with the restoration of ethnic Chinese rule in opposition to the Ivlanchus. Among his writings, the most representative of this period is the Jang-shu [on the expulsion], a title which in itself implies the driving out of the Manchus. In Shanghai, Liu also took part in establishing a monthly magazine, the Kuo-ts'ui hsueh-pao, and a school, the Kuo-ts'ui hsueh-t'ang. Both were devoted to the preservation of China's cultural heritage and were ardently nationalistic. In addition, Liu served as the editor of Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei's 0-shih ching-wen [Russian menace warning bulletin], soon renamed the Ching-chung jih-pao [alarm bell daily bulletin] . He hoped to make his compatriots aware of the 1904 Russian advance into Manchuria. When the paper was closed by the imperial authorities in April 1905 because of its anti-Manchu stand, Liu escaped arrest by taking refuge in P'inghu, Chekiang. He then became a teacher in a middle school in Wuhu, Anhwei, where in 1906 he established the Pai-hua pao [vernacular paper] .

After Chang Ping-lin became the editor of the republican Min-pao [people's journal] in Tokyo, he invited Liu Shih-p'ei to join his staff. Liu went to Japan in 1907, joined the Min-pao staff, and became a member of the T'ung-meng-hui, which had been organized by Sun Yat-sen in 1905. After being befriended and influenced by some of the more radical Japanese socialists, Liu began publishing the T'ien-i pao [natural law journal], which was one of the earliest Chinese periodicals devoted to socialism, and joined with Chang Chi (q.v.) in forming a club to study socialism. Another journal published by Liu Shih-p'ei in Tokyo during this period was the Heng-pao [journal of discussion]. In addition to his interest in socialism, Liu's writings in Japan also indicate that he was attracted to anarchism.

In 1909 Liu Shih-p'ei suddenly changed his attitude toward the revolutionary movement, broke With his colleagues in Japan, and returned to China, where he joined the secretariat of Tuan-fang (ECCP, II, 780-82), then the Manchu viceroy of Liang-Kiang. The reasons for this abrupt change are not clear, but whatever the explanation, Liu spent the last two years of the imperial period in the service of the Manchu authorities.

After the Manchu government announced its plan to nationalize certain railways in 1911, Tuan-fang, who had become superintendent of the proposed Canton-Hankow-Chengtu railway, was ordered to Szechwan to suppress opposition to the program. The revolution broke out while Tuan-fang was on his way to Chengtu, and he was killed in November 1911. Liu Shih-p'ei, who had accompanied Tuan-fang on the trip, escaped to Chengtu, where he taught at the Szechwan Kuo-hsueh hsuehhsiao [school for Chinese studies] and contributed to the Szechwan Kuo-hsueh tsa-chih [Chinese studies magazine], a journal issued by the school.

In 1913 Liu moved to Taiyuan, Shansi, where he started another journal of Chinese studies, the Kuo-ku kou-ch'en [from out of China's past]. He went to Peking in 1914, and he was appointed to the National Assembly by Yuan Shih-k'ai in 1915. Liu became one of the six original members (known collectively as the liu chün-tzu, or Six Gentlemen) of the Ch'ouan-hui [society to plan for stability], who officially launched a movement to make Yuan Shih-k'ai monarch. Liu's chief contribution to the effort was his essay "Chün-cheng fu-ku lun" [on restoration of the monarchy] . After Yuan's death in 1916, Liu retired to Tientsin. At the invitation of Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei, then the chancellor of National Peking University, he joined the faculty of that institution in 1917 and remained there until his death from tuberculosis at the end of 1919. During his last years in Peking he wrote for the Chung-kuo hsueh-pao [China academic journal] and the Kuo-ku tsachih [national heritage magazine]. After Liu Shih-p'ei's death, at the age of 35, his friends and pupils collected and published seventy-four of his writings in seven volumes as the Liu Shen-shu hsien-sheng i-shu in 1936. This collection included studies of the Chinese classics, essays, poems, study notes, and textbooks on various subjects. The study notes included the "Tun-huang hsin-ch'u - T'ang hsieh-pen t'i-yao," descriptive notes on 19 items of the T'ang manuscripts taken by Paul Pelliot from Tunhuang. Although Liu was acclaimed as a scholar, particularly of the Ch/un-ch'iu tso-chuan [Tso's commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals], many of his writings lacked profundity and critical insight. As a prolific writer who communicated his opinions on a variety of subjects in periodicals established by himself or others, Liu Shih-p'ei helped pave the way for modern Chinese journalism.