Shen Junliang (沈君諒) was briefly a
chancellor
Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...
of the
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
dynasty
Tang Dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
, during the first reign of
Emperor Ruizong.
Little is known about Shen Junliang's career before or after his brief stint as chancellor, as, atypical for a chancellor, he did not have a biography in either the ''
Old Book of Tang
The ''Old Book of Tang'', or simply the ''Book of Tang'', is the first classic historical work about the Tang dynasty, comprising 200 chapters, and is one of the Twenty-Four Histories. Originally compiled during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdo ...
'' or the ''
New Book of Tang
The ''New Book of Tang'', generally translated as the "New History of the Tang" or "New Tang History", is a work of official history covering the Tang dynasty in ten volumes and 225 chapters. The work was compiled by a team of scholars of the So ...
''.
[See the Table of Contents for the ''Old Book of Tang'' and the Table of Contents for the ''New Book of Tang''.] As of 684, he was serving as imperial chronicler (右史, ''You Shi'') when Emperor Ruizong's powerful mother and
regent
A regent (from Latin : ruling, governing) is a person appointed to govern a state '' pro tempore'' (Latin: 'for the time being') because the monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge the powers and duties of the monarchy ...
Empress Dowager Wu (later known as Wu Zetian) promoted him to be ''Zhengjian Daifu'' (正諫大夫), a senior advisor at the examination bureau of government (鸞臺, ''Luantai'') and made him a chancellor ''de facto'', with the designation ''Tong Fengge Luantai Pingzhangshi'' (同鳳閣鸞臺平章事), along with
Cui Cha Cui Cha (崔詧) (died 689) was briefly a chancellor of the Chinese Tang Dynasty, during the first reign of Emperor Ruizong.
Little is known about Cui Cha's career before his brief stint as chancellor, as, atypical for a chancellor, he did not h ...
. In spring 685, both he and Cui were removed from those posts. There was no further record about Shen in official histories, and there appears to be no historical record of his death.
Notes and references
* ''
Zizhi Tongjian
''Zizhi Tongjian'' () is a pioneering reference work in Chinese historiography, published in 1084 AD during the Northern Song dynasty in the form of a chronicle recording Chinese history from 403 BC to 959 AD, covering 16 dynast ...
'',
vol. 203.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shen, Junliang
Chancellors under Emperor Ruizong of Tang