Political career

Li Quan was native of Longxi (in present-day Gansu) in Tang Dynasty. He served in several official positions during the Kaiyuan reign period (713-41), first as deputy commander of a regional defense force in the south, then as a Vice Censor-in-Chief (Yushi Zhongcheng) at the capital, and finally as a Prefect (cishi) of a prefecture in Hebei. His career in government came to an end when he offended the dictatorial chief minister Li Linfu (?-752) who demoted him. Thereafter, he forsook government service, took up the life of a Taoist recluse and roamed among the holy mountains of China.

As a Taoist

He came to a cave dwelling at the Tiger Mouth Cliff on Mount Song where he found the scripture Huangdi Yinfujing (The Yellow Emperor's Scripture on "Unconscious Unification"). He copied the several thousand new chapters without understanding its meaning. Years thereafter, he came across Mount Li where he encountered Lishan Laomu. Lishan Laomu explained Li Quan the meaning of the Yinfujing. He made annotations on this classic and published it so as to enrich the theories of Taoist medicine. He also transcribed the text and published it with his commentary Yinfujing Jie (陰符經解). He later wrote the military treatise Taibai Yin jing (the Scripture of Venus and Yin, 太白陰經), about checking the enemy by divine surprise and contains the oldest known depiction and description of the volley fire technique.

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