Xu Yan (徐偃) | 24 Histories

Overview

The translated histories identify Xu Yan as an official and scholar. This record brings together 12 passages from 2 chapters across 1 history, with names, dates, relationships, offices, and events preserved as source-backed claims.

Names

Type	English	Chinese	Pinyin
Personal	Xu Yan	徐偃	Xu Yan

Identity

Historicity: Historical
Identification: Named
Sex: Uncertain

Roles

Official
Scholar

Career and standing

Erudite
Explicit · hanshu:027:s0179
太常丞
Explicit · hanshu:075:s0088
博士
Explicit · hanshu:075:s0086

References in the histories

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

Book of Han, Chapter 27Volume 24b: Treatise on Trade 2 · 1 passage

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犯法者眾，吏不能盡誅，於是遣博士褚大、徐偃等分行郡國，舉并兼之徒守相為利者。 Unable to enforce universally, the state shifted to targeted investigations of major profiteers and complicit officials.

Book of Han, Chapter 75Volume 64b: Yan, Zhu, Wuqiu, Zhufu, Xu, Yan, Zhong, Wang, and Jia 2 · 11 passages

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元鼎中，博士徐偃使行風俗。 During the Yuanding era the court scholar Xu Yan was dispatched to inspect local customs.

偃矯制，使膠東、魯國鼓鑄鹽鐵。 Xu Yan forged imperial orders and had Jiaodong and Lu cast iron and boil salt on their own.

御史大夫張湯劾偃矯制大害，法至死。 Imperial Counselor Zhang Tang impeached him for counterfeiting orders with grave consequences—a capital crime.

偃以為春秋之義，大夫出疆，有可以安社稷，存萬民，顓之可也。 Xu Yan cited the Spring and Autumn principle that a minister abroad may act on his own authority if the altars and the lives of the people hang in the balance.

有詔下軍問狀，軍詰偃曰：「古者諸侯國異俗分，百里不通，時有聘會之事，安危之勢，呼吸成變，故有不受辭造命顓己之宜； An edict ordered Zhong Jun to examine the case. He questioned Xu Yan: 'In ancient times each feudal state kept its own ways; a hundred li might as well have been a world apart. Envoys hurried between courts because fortune could turn in a breath, so a minister might rightly assume emergency powers without waiting for a written order.

偃巡封域之中，稱以出疆何也？ You never left the emperor's domain—how can you call that "crossing the border"?

偃度四郡口數田地，率其用器食鹽，不足以并給二郡邪？ If you reckoned the population and acreage of the four neighboring commanderies, could their usual tools and salt rations not have supplied both kingdoms?

偃矯制而鼓鑄者，欲及春耕種贍民器也。 You forged orders to cast tools, you say, so peasants would have iron for the spring planting.

偃已前三奏，無詔，不惟所為不許，而直矯作威福，以從民望，干名采譽，此明聖所必加誅也。 You had already memorialized three times and received no imperial reply. Not only were you never authorized to act, you forged orders, threw your weight about, pandered to popular opinion, and traded on moral prestige for personal fame—conduct that any enlightened ruler would punish with death.

偃窮詘，服罪當死。 Xu Yan had no answer left; he confessed and accepted that he deserved death.

軍奏「偃矯制顓行，非奉使體，請下御史徵偃即罪。」 Zhong Jun memorialized: 'Xu Yan falsely invoked imperial authority and acted on his own. This is not the proper conduct of an envoy. I request that the matter be sent down to the Imperial Clerk, and that Xu Yan be summoned to answer for his crime.'