ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the significance of Chang Hsun for scholars of the post-rebellion period. It offers an overview of Chang's career and his defense of Sui-yang and looks at the special circumstances that prompted Li Han to write his Chang chung-ch'eng chuan. The chapter examines Li's arguments on behalf of Chang and their significance for men living in a world where rebellion and disloyalty had suddenly become commonplace – a world in which many men were forced to make difficult choices that their fathers and grandfathers had never had to face. Since what had happened at Sui-yang was too well established for Li Han to ignore or deny the fact that it had happened, he had to confront the condemnation of Chang's cannibalism directly. Chang Hsun was adopted as a loyalist icon not in spite of his cannibalism but because of it.
