Dictionaries of Modern Standard Chinese usually define liuyan as “disseminating baseless talk,” “rumors”;1 “baseless talk (usually refers to talk that makes comments on people behind their back, talk that is slanderous, and talk that stirs up disagreements between people).”2 Chen Hsueh-Ping, a Chinese psychologist in the early twentieth century, averred that “rumors are either referred to as liuyan or referred to as eyan” – in other words, liuyan is rumor.3 Contemporary Chinese social psychologists may have a different understanding. For example, they believe that both liuyan and rumor are “imprecise information,” but there are certain differences between the two. The main difference is that “the former is often misinformation that has been disseminated unintentionally, while the latter is fabricated on purpose.”4 Some mass psychologists classify them this way: “Liuyan has an origin; a rumor is fabricated from thin air.”5 I have already explained in the Preface that the rumors discussed in this book, be they ancient or modern, are not necessarily speech information that is baseless, false, or fabricated. How then, are liuyan and rumor related to each other? What was liuyan like during the early imperial period?