Local government and remonstrance
Ouyang Xiu, styled Yongshu, came from Luling. After passing the jinshi examination he served at the western capital, where friendships with Yin Zhu and Mei Yaochen connected literary discussion with public affairs. Han Yu's prose became an important model for his writing.
When Fan Zhongyan was demoted, Ouyang criticized remonstrator Gao Ruone for failing to defend him and was himself sent to Yiling. Examining old judicial files there sharpened his concern about wrongful decisions. Later posts involved remonstrance, frontier policy, taxation and local administration, including service at Chuzhou.
Political association and examination prose
In Discourse on Factions, Ouyang distinguished cooperation grounded in shared ethical commitments from alliances pursuing private advantage. Addressing disputes over appointments, he asked the ruler to judge the character and conduct of associates rather than condemn every group of mutually supportive officials.
As chief examiner in 1057, he rejected deliberately obscure and extravagant prose. Some candidates protested, but his biography associates the examination with a change in writing practice. His support for younger writers, including Zeng Gong and the Su brothers, also linked literary judgment with recruitment and patronage.
Histories and inscriptional evidence
In the official revision of Tang history, Ouyang worked on annals, treatises and tables. Separately he composed a private history of the Five Dynasties. Historical narrative allowed him to examine conduct and political outcomes through carefully shaped accounts.
He also collected inscriptions, compared their wording with transmitted records and recorded the results in Collected Records of Antiquity. This brought evidence preserved on stone into historical inquiry. He retired in 1071 and died the following year; the cultural heritage authority at Zhengzhou records his burial at Xinzheng in 1075.