Suzi 蘇子

Suzi 蘇子 "Master Su" is a political treatise written by the famous coalition advisor Su Qin 蘇秦 (late 4th cent. BCE) from the Warring States period 戰國 (5th cent.-221 BCE).

The imperial bibliography Yiwen zhi 藝文志 in the official dynastic history Hanshu 漢書 says that the Suzi was 31 chapters long. It was apparently lost before the Tang period 唐 (618-907). Some scholars believe that the Suzi was, from the Jin period 晉 (265-420) on, called Guiguzi 鬼谷子 "Master of the Ghost Valley" and therefore disappeared in bibliographic lists.

There is another book with the title Suzi that was written by the Daoist philosopher Su Yan 蘇彦 (see Su Yan's Suzi 蘇子).

The Qing-period 清 (1644-1911) scholar Ma Guohan 馬國翰 (1794-1857) collected statements about the Suzi from various historiographic sources and compiled them into a short book with the title Suzi that he published in his series Yuhan shanfang yiji shu 玉函山房輯佚書.

In 1972, a book on coalition advisors was discovered in the tomb library of Mawangdui 馬王堆 in Hunan in which 16 paragraphs about Su Qin are included that cannot be found in transmitted sources.