Liu Xiaobiao 劉孝標 (Liu Jun 劉峻)

Liu Xiaobiao 劉孝標 (462-521), actual name Liu Jun 劉峻 (Xiaobiao is his courtesy name), was a writer and philosopher of the Liang period 梁 (502-557). His father Liu Ting 劉珽 served as Administrator (neishi 內史) of the Prince of Shi'an 始興. When Xiaobiao was a small child, he was captured and enslaved by Northern Wei 北魏 (386-534) troops. They were able to return to south China during the Southern Qi period 南齊 (479-502). He served the Qi as a judicial official (xingyu 刑獄), and with the foundation of the Liang, he became Adjutant of the Section of Revenue (hubu canjun 戶曹參軍) of the province of Jingzhou 荊州. Towards the end of his life, he lectured in his private school at Mt. Ziyan 紫巖山 in Dongyang 東陽.

Liu Xiaobiao is most famous for his commentary on Liu Yiqing's 劉義慶 (403-444) story collection Shishuo xinyu 世說新語. Yet he was also known for his poetry.

In the early Liang period, the imperial library was in a sad condition. Ren Fang 任昉 (460-508), who served as Director of the Imperial Library (mishu jian 秘書監), personally undertook the task of editing and proofreading texts within the imperial archives. He assigned Liu Xiaobiao and others to conduct careful collation and textual verification. Additionally, he separated the works on numerology and divination into a distinct category and commissioned Zu Geng 祖暅 (456-536) to compile a catalog for them.

Furthermore, Liu Xiaobiao guided the compilation of a book catalogue titled Liang Wendedian zhengyu sibu mulu 梁文德殿正御四部目錄, which listed 2,968 bundles (zhi 帙) of books comprising 23,106 juan 卷 of texts. This work served as the official imperial book catalog of the imperial collection. Unfortunately, this catalogue is lost.

Liu Jun's writings stand out among Southern Dynasty authors, with his representative works being a treatise discussing the belief in fate, Bianminglun 辨命論, and a treatise on friendship, Guang juejiao lun 廣絕交論.

The central thesis of the Bianminglun is that a person's success or failure is determined by "Heaven's mandate" (tianming 天命), not by human efforts, nor by the influence of spirits or deities. As Liu Xiaobiao puts it, the force generating all things is the Dao 道. When it gives birth without control, it is called Nature （ziran 自然）. Nature means things are as they are, without knowing why they are so. In other words, wealth and poverty, nobility and lowliness are not consciously arranged by any divine will. To support his thesis that human fate is shaped by unknowable, random forces, Liu cites historical examples: some who did good met with fortune, while others met with disaster; some who did evil were punished, while others prospered. The Bianminglun is included in the anthology Wenxuan 文選.

Liu Jun inherited the intellectual legacy of Dai Kui 戴逵 (c. 331-396) and sharply criticised the Buddhist doctrine of karmic retribution. His critique of Buddhism was perhaps influenced by Fan Zhen 范縝 (c. 450-510).

Liu Xiaobiao's Guang juejiao lun exposes the pretentious social relationships and opportunism among Southern Dynasty scholar-officials. In the early Liang period, Liu Jun was highly appreciated by Ren Fang. After Ren's death, however, his son lived in poverty, and few of Ren's old friends offered any real help. This deeply angered Liu Xiaobiao. In this essay, Liu Jun categorises and critiques the unreliability of so-called "friendship" in the world. He identifies five types of worldly social bonds, namely power-based friendship (shijiao 勢交), wealth-based friendship (youjiao 賄交), fame-seeking friendship (tanjiao 談交), hardship-based friendships (qiongjiao 窮交), and calculated friendships (liangjiao 量交). He asserts that all five types are motivated by selfish interest, born from calculated intent rather than genuine feeling and thus cannot be called true friendship. Liu Xiaobiao paints each of these with vivid, biting language. Through such imagery, Liu lays bare the hypocrisy and moral decay lurking beneath the façade of elite society. The essay touches on the collective psychological state and moral character of the entire elite society of the day. Because of this, the essay stands as a rare and remarkable work within the ornate prose (pianwen 駢文) tradition.

Liu Jun also wrote an autobiographical preface (Zixu 自序), recounting the hardships and misfortunes of his life. However, only a fragment of the text survives today, but despite its fragmentary nature, this piece exerted a certain influence on later generations.

Only a few of Liu's poems have survived to the present day. Liu Jun was generally skilled in descriptive landscape poetry. For instance, his poem Zi Jiangzhou huan ru Shitou shi 自江州還入石頭詩 expresses disillusionment and a longing for retreat from public life. Another poem, Shi ju shanyingshi 始居山營室, is even more steeped in themes of reclusion and transcendence, evoking the spirit of Daoist immortality. His poetic style is rather simple and unadorned, reminiscent of the Jin and Song dynasties, and stands apart from the more ornate and refined poetic trends of his contemporaries.

Liu Xiaobiao's disciples called him posthumously Xuanjing Xiansheng 玄靜先生, a name showing Daoist influence. His collected writings Liu Jun ji 劉峻集, with a length of 6 juan, are lost. The collection Liu Hucao ji 劉戶曹集 was reconstructed by Zhang Pu 張溥 1602-1641).