Kong Chongbi (孔崇弼)

Overview

The translated histories identify Kong Chongbi as an envoy and official. This record brings together 4 passages from 1 chapter across 1 history, with names, dates, relationships, offices, and events preserved as source-backed claims.

Names

Type	English	Chinese	Pinyin
Personal	Kong Chongbi	孔崇弼	Kong Chongbi
Given	Chongbi	崇弼	Chongbi
Surname	Kong	孔	Kong
Personal name	Kong Chongbi	孔崇弼	Kong Chongbi
Title	Vice Censor Kong	孔常侍	Kong Changshi

Identity

Historicity: Historical
Identification: Named
Sex: Male

Sex: male
Explicit · jiuwudaishi:096:s0001

Roles

Envoy
Official

Life and dates

Attested activity

Source Date: Text: 五年 · Western Year: AD 940
Explicit event contextual date · jiuwudaishi:096:s0004, jiuwudaishi:096:s0002
Source Date: Text: 初仕後唐 · Western Interval: Start: AD 923 · End: AD 936
Explicit event contextual date · jiuwudaishi:096:s0001
Source Date: Text: 天福中 · Western Interval: Start: AD 936 · End: AD 944
Explicit · jiuwudaishi:096:s0002
Source Date: Text: 明年 · Western Year: AD 941
Explicit event contextual date · jiuwudaishi:096:s0006, jiuwudaishi:096:s0004, jiuwudaishi:096:s0002

Family

Kin of Kong Zhaoxu (孔昭序)
Kinship Term: older clansman brother / 族兄 · Line: paternal · Subject Relative Age: younger
Kinship Term: younger clansman brother / 族弟 · Subject Relative Age: elder

Career and standing

Label: Left Regular Attendant of the Cavalry / 左散騎常侍 · Action: appointed · Date Context: Source Date: Text: 天福中 · Western Interval: Start: AD 936 · End: AD 944
Explicit · jiuwudaishi:096:s0002
Label: Supervising Censor / 給事中 · Action: appointed
Explicit · jiuwudaishi:096:s0001
Label: Director in the Ministry of Personnel / 吏部郎中 · Action: held
Explicit · jiuwudaishi:096:s0001

Places and affiliations

Label: Later Tang / 後唐 · Relation: served
Explicit · jiuwudaishi:096:s0001

Works and attributed material

Kind: speech · Role: subject · Quoted: true · Note: court comment on Vice Censor Kong
Explicit · jiuwudaishi:096:s0005

Events and relationships

Kind: diplomatic · Role: envoy · Action: returned-empty-handed · Date Context: Source Date: Text: 明年 · Western Year: AD 941
Explicit · jiuwudaishi:096:s0006
Kind: diplomatic · Role: envoy · Action: sent-by-sea · Place: Hang and Yue / 杭越 · Date Context: Source Date: Text: 五年 · Western Year: AD 940
Explicit · jiuwudaishi:096:s0004

Assessments and attributes

Assessment: no other talent but skilled at banter and pleasing others · Provenance: Mode: historian-judgment
Explicit · jiuwudaishi:096:s0003

References in the histories

Open any source group to read the Chinese and English passage in context.

Old History of the Five Dynasties, Chapter 96Volume 96 Book of Later Jin 22: Biographies 11: Kong Chongbi, Chen Baoji, Wang Yu, Zhang Jizuo, Zhen Ruan, Hu Rao, Liu Suiqing, Fang Gao, Meng Chenghui, Liu Jixun, Zheng Shouyi, Cheng Xun, Li Yu, Zheng Xuansu, Ma Zhongji, Chen Xuan · 4 passages

Open chapter

孔崇弼，初仕後唐，自吏部郎中授給事中，時族兄昭序繇給事中改左常侍，兄弟同居門下，時論榮之。 Kong Chongbi began his career under Later Tang. Promoted from director in the Ministry of Personnel to supervising censor, he served at the same time as his older kinsman Zhaoxu, who had moved from supervising censor to left regular attendant. With both brothers holding posts in the Secretariat, contemporaries took it as a mark of family distinction.

崇弼，天福中遷左散騎常侍。 During the Tianfu era Chongbi was promoted to left regular attendant of the cavalry.

先是，浙中贈賄，每歲恒及萬緡，時議者曰：「孔常侍命奇薄，何消盈數，有命即無財，有財即無命。」 Before this, tribute gifts from Zhejiang routinely amounted to ten thousand strings of cash a year. People at court remarked, "Vice Censor Kong's fate is unusually meager—why should he need a fortune? Appointment and profit never come together for him: if he gets the post he will have no money, and if he has money he will not live to enjoy it."

故自崇弼而下，善者既書之，其不善者亦書之，庶使後之君子見善如不及，見惡如探湯也。 Therefore from Chongbi onward, virtues are recorded and faults are recorded as well, so that later gentlemen may strive toward good as if they cannot catch it and shrink from evil as from scalding water.