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Ts'ao P'i Transcendent: The Political Culture of Dynasty-Founding in China at the End of the Han. By HOWARD L. GOODMAN. Seattle, Wash. and Richmond, Surrey, England: Scripta Serica, 1998. 249 pp.
An entirely new press, specializing in traditional Sinology, is inaugurated here with the publication of an impressive piece of scholarship: Howard Goodman's scrutiny of the intricate maneuvers surrounding the abdication of the last Han Emperor, and the enthronement of Ts'ao P'i (Cao Pi, 187-226) as the founding Emperor of the Three Kingdoms' Wei dynasty in 220. As Goodman says, his "focus is tight" (p. 1). Most of the events discussed here unfolded over a period of only a few weeks, as the court wrestled with legitimizing the impending change of Heaven's mandate.
The backbone of this study is formed by meticulous translations of some fiftyfour "documents," chiefly drawn from a contemporary annal embedded in the commentary to the San-kuo chih (San guo zhi). A suitable climax is provided by the text of a stone inscription, erected in Henan in 221 as "a ten-foot-tall national advertisement" (p. 194) for dynastic legitimacy. These materials are supplemented by biographical sketches of each of the seventy-odd individuals named in the texts, intended to suggest the...