Niu Sengru

Niu Sengru (牛僧孺) (780 – January 27, 849), courtesy name Si'an (思黯), formally Duke Wenzhen of Qizhang (奇章文貞公), was an official of the Chinese dynasty Tang Dynasty, serving as a chancellor during the reigns of Emperor Muzong and his sons Emperor Jingzong and Emperor Wenzong. He was commonly regarded as the leader of one of the two court factions at the time — the faction later known as the Niu Faction — during the Niu-Li Factional Struggles.

Assuming that Niu Sengru died in the Wuchen year of the Dazhong era (847-859) of Emperor Xuānzong as asserted in the commemorative text written by Li Jue, Niu was born in 780, during the reign of Emperor Dezong. He was a descendant of the prominent Sui Dynasty official Niu Hong (牛弘). His grandfather Niu Shao (牛紹) served as a consultant at the ministry of worship, while his father Niu Youwen (牛幼聞) served as a county magistrate. His father died when he was young, and he tended a farm at Xiadu (下杜, near the capital Chang'an) that his family had previously been bestowed to make a living. He was capable in writing, and eventually passed the imperial examinations in 805, in the same year as eventual colleague and ally Li Zongmin.

Niu Sengru eventually did serve as the magistrate of Yijue County (伊闕, in modern Luoyang, Henan). In 808, when Emperor Dezong's grandson Emperor Xianzong held a special imperial examination for the examinees to give honest criticism of government, the officials in charge of the examination, Wei Guanzhi and Yang Yuling (楊於陵), selected three examinees who gave blunt criticism — Niu, Huangfu Shi (皇甫湜), and Li Zongmin — for top marks. However, the chancellor Li Jifu were stung by the criticism that they gave and viewed these as personal attacks against him. Li Jifu tearfully complained to Emperor Xianzong that the reviewers of the scores that Wei and Yang gave — the imperial scholars Pei Ji and Wang Ya — had conflicts of interest, as Huangfu was Wang's nephew. As a result of Li Jifu's accusations, Pei, Wang, Yang, and Wei were all demoted, with Wei initially demoted to be the prefect of Guo Prefecture (果州, in modern Nanchong, Sichuan), and then further moved to be the prefect of Ba Prefecture (巴州, in modern Bazhong, Sichuan). Niu, Huangfu, and Li Zongmin were not exiled, but they were said in the Zizhi Tongjian to be effectively stalled in their careers, forcing them to find governmental positions themselves under regional governors. However, the other traditional accounts of Niu's own career did not indicate that he served under a regional governor at all; rather, he continued to serve as the magistrate of Yijue, and then the magistrate of Henan County (河南, one of the two counties making up the eastern capital Luoyang). He later served as an imperial censor with the title Jiancha Yushi (監察御史), then Kaogong Yuanwailang (考功員外郎), a low-level official at the ministry of civil service affairs (吏部, Libu), as well as an imperial scholar at Jixian Hall (集賢殿).

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