Sun Deng

Sun Deng (209–241), courtesy name Zigao, was a crown prince of the state of Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms period. He was the eldest son of Sun Quan, the founding emperor of Wu. It is known that Sun Deng was both wise and virtuous, having all the makings of a great man. He studied the Classic of Changes, and was a poet and a musician. However, Sun Deng was destined never to succeed his father because he died from illness at a relatively young age of 31. Sun Deng married Zhou Yu's daughter and they had three children: Sun Fan, Sun Ying, and Sun Xi. He was posthumously honoured as "Crown Prince Xuan".

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Sun Deng (Xin dynasty)

Sun Deng 孫登 was briefly appointed puppet emperor by a coalition of Chimei "Red Eyebrows" rebels in December 26 CE, but later that month was killed by his general Yue Xuan 樂玄 when the rebels surrendered to the superior forces of Emperor Guangwu of Han (r. 25-57).

After the Chimei and Lülin "Green Forest" agrarian rebellion movements collectively brought down Wang Mang's short Xin dynasty (9-23 CE), the Chimei forces allowed the Lülin leader Liu Xuan to become Emperor Gengshi of Han (r. 23-25) and restore the dynasty. The Chimei rebels subsequently destroyed Gengshi's army and assassinated him, in order to establish their own puppet emperor Liu Penzi (r. 25-27) who was nominally enthroned in the capital Chang'an, until he surrendered after Emperor Guangwu's generals Deng Yu and Feng Yi defeated the remaining Chimei rebels. While both Sun Deng and Liu Penzi were Chimei-supported pretenders to the Han throne, "Emperor" Penzi is better known than Sun Deng.

The (5th century) Hou Hanshu "Book of the Later Han", which covers Han dynasty history from 6 to 189 CE, is the primary historical source about Sun Deng.

Sun Deng (recluse)

Sun Deng 孫登 (f. 230-260 CE) was a Daoist sage-recluse, zitherist, and allegedly the last master of transcendental whistling. Chinese literature has various anecdotes about Sun Deng refusing to teach the musicians Ji Kang (223-262) and Ruan Ji (210-263), two of the iconoclastic Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove.

The moral of the story about Ruan Ji visiting Sun Deng, who preferred supernatural whistling over traditional master-disciple dialog, is the ineffability of the Dao (as explained in the opening of the Daodejing). The Chinese poetry of the Six Dynasties and Tang dynasty developed this narrative into the "absent recluse" genre, expressing the unfulfilled desire to obtain wisdom by entering into conversation with a sage-recluse dwelling in the mountains (Varsano 1999: 56).

Ji Kang stories

Ji Kang or Xi Kang (223-262) was a prominent intellectual of the Cao Wei (220-265) period, Daoist philosopher, author, poet, and musician. He was leader of the Seven Worthies/Sages of the Bamboo Grove, a group of intellectuals and artists who met occasionally at his estate to drink wines, take drugs, play music, and engage in witty qingtan "pure conversation".