One of the prince's teachers, afraid of dying with his pupil. The only voice the record keeps from inside the eastern palace: proof dug up by an accuser, he says, proves nothing.
The chancellor's son, the two princesses and the Wei have all died under this charge. Now the shaman and the imperial officer dig, and proofs appear; but none can say whether the shaman laid them there or they were truly there.Shi De, Junior Tutor of the Crown Prince, to Liu Ju in 91 BCE; Hanshu, juan 63, Biographies of the Five Sons of Emperor Wu
Appears in
Relations
- Liu Ju patron — He was the prince's Junior Tutor and feared being executed with the rest of the household, so it was he who told his lord to forge an order and arrest Chong.
- Jiang Chong enemies — His whole speech is aimed at the commissioner: an accuser who digs up his own proof cannot be answered, and the precedent he names is Fusu, who took the sword when the order came.
Myth vs record
The rising of 91 BCE was the crown prince's own plot and his tutors merely followed him into it.
The record reverses this. Shi De, afraid the tutors would die with the prince, is the one who argues the household must strike first, on the ground that a proof dug up by an accuser proves nothing and the prince cannot make himself clear to an emperor lying sick at Ganquan. Ban Gu keeps the speech, the Fusu precedent and the prince's agreement because he wants the reader to see a frightened household choosing an act it could not undo. After the prince named his tutors to lead the divisions, Shi De appears in the book no more (Hanshu, juan 63; juan 66).