禹貢會箋

Yǔ gòng huì jiān 禹貢會箋

Synthesizing Notes on the “Tribute of Yǔ” by 徐文靖 (zhuàn 撰)

About the work

The standard Qīng-period continuation of 胡渭’s Yǔ gòng zhuīzhǐ (KR1b0053), in 12 juǎn by Xú Wénjìng 徐文靖 (1667–1756) of Dāngtú 當塗. The work is structured in three layers: a Yǔ gòng shān shuǐ zǒng mù 禹貢山水總目 (general index of Yǔ gòng mountains and rivers) at the front, drawing primarily on the Shuǐ jīng 水經 with Xú Wénjìng’s own arguments appended; followed by 18 maps each with explanatory text; followed by a passage-by-passage commentary that cites Cài Shěn’s Jízhuàn (KR1b0017) first and then adds jiān 箋 (“notes”) drawing widely from earlier sources and arbitrating with the author’s own opinion.

The Sìkù tíyào’s verdict is decisive: “Yǔ gòng explanators since the Sòng have been like tangled silk threads; only when Hú Wèi’s Zhuīzhǐ appeared, demolishing-and-clearing-away [the tangle], did one have an arrangement that could be checked. Wénjìng was born after Wèi; building on what Wèi had already said and pushing further to investigate what Wèi had not yet reached, this work, compared to Wèi’s, is more precise. He who continues an enterprise has it easier to make new contributions.” The Yǔ gòng huì jiān is therefore the second canonical Qīng Yǔ gòng monograph after Hú Wèi’s, and on specific points (notably the Jiǔ jiāng / Dòngtíng identification) explicitly corrects Hú Wèi.

The single criticism the Sìkù compilers register is methodological: Xú Wénjìng credits the Shānhǎi jīng 山海經 and the Zhúshū jìnián 竹書紀年 too much without sufficient critical examination — “biased love of antiquity, fails to investigate truth-or-falsity” (pǐ yú hào gǔ bù jiū zhēn wěi zhī shī ěr 僻於好古不究真偽之失耳).

Tiyao

Imperially Authorized Sìkù Quánshū. [Classics, division 2.] Yǔ gòng huì jiān. [Books-class.]

Précis. Your servants etc. respectfully submit: the Yǔ gòng huì jiān in twelve juǎn — by Xú Wénjìng of our State. Wénjìng, zì Wèishān, was a man of Dāngtú. Jǔrén of Yōngzhèng guǐmǎo (1723); in Qiánlóng 1 (1736) was recommended for the Bóxué hóngcí examination but did not pass; in [Qiánlóng] 17 (1752) was again recommended for canonical learning, and was specially awarded the post of Hànlínyuàn jiǎntǎo.

This book at the front lists a Yǔ gòng shānshuǐ zǒng mù, taking what is recorded in the Shuǐ jīng as the principal authority, with [Xú’s own] discussion appended below. Next come eighteen maps, each accompanied by an explanation. The body of the book in every entry first cites the Cài zhuàn, and then continues with [the author’s] jiān notes — broadly drawing on the various books and arbitrating with [the author’s] own opinion.

For example: that the Fénshuǐ enters the Hé from the west, not from the east; that the Túhài 徒駭 is precisely the main flow of the Hé, not a separate flow; that Sān jiāng jì rù 三江既入 in the end has the South-Jiāng, North-Jiāng, and Middle-Jiāng as the correct reading; that the Jiǔ jiāng is in Xúnyáng and not Dòngtíng — none of these is hemmed in by the Cài zhuàn. As to the Càishān 蔡山, he leaves the matter as doubt and does not adopt the Huányú jì’s identification of Zhōu Gōngshān as Càishān. On Dūnwù 惇物 he takes the Jīn shǐ dìlǐ zhì identification: that it is in Qiánzhōu’s Wǔtíng county, two hundred li southeast of modern Wǔgōng county. On Sān wēi shān 三危山 he cites the Xīhé jiù shì identifying it as Shēngyǔshān and holds that the Shǐjì zhù’s Bēiyǔshān is a graphical error, and concurrently refutes Hú Wèi’s error. All of these have substantive verifications.

For Yǔ gòng explanators since the Sòng have been like tangled silk threads; only when Hú Wèi’s Zhuīzhǐ appeared and demolished-and-cleared-away [the tangle] did one have an arrangement that could be checked. Wénjìng was born after Wèi; building on what Wèi had already said and pushing further to investigate what Wèi had not yet reached, this work, compared to Wèi’s, is more precise. The continuator of an enterprise has it easier to make new contributions.

Only: he trusts the Shānhǎi jīng and the Zhúshū jìnián too much. This is a fault of biased love of antiquity, of failing to investigate the truth-or-falsity. Respectfully submitted, Qiánlóng 43 / 1778, sixth month.

— Director-General, Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. — Director of Final Collation, Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

The Yǔ gòng huì jiān is the standard mid-Qīng Yǔ gòng-only monograph, completing the Qīng tradition that runs Zhū Hèlíng (KR1b0052) → Hú Wèi (KR1b0053) → Xú Wénjìng (the present work). Composed by Xú Wénjìng over an extended period of his long life (he lived from 1667 to 1756), the work was begun after Hú Wèi’s Zhuīzhǐ had become the standard reference (i.e., after 1701/1705) and continued well into Xú’s old age; the composition window in the frontmatter (1700–1750) is a defensible bracket. Submission to the Sìkù was Qiánlóng 43 / 1778.

The work’s principal substantive achievements are six specific philological corrections, each strengthening on or correcting Hú Wèi:

1. Fénshuǐ 汾水 western entry to the Hé. Where Cài Shěn and earlier commentators had read the Yǔ gòng as describing the Fén entering the Hé from the east, Xú Wénjìng restores the correct geographical fact (the Fén in fact flows from northwest to south through Shānxī, joining the Hé from the east bank — meaning the canonical “east” reading must mean the eastern bank of the Hé, with the Fén’s actual flow direction being from the west).

2. Túhài 徒駭 = the main flow of the Hé (one of the Jiǔ hé of Yǔ gòng’s Yǎnzhōu), not a separate channel.

3. Sān jiāng jì rù 三江既入: the South / North / Middle Jiāng reading (the orthodox SòngYuán reading) is correct.

4. Jiǔ jiāng 九江 in Xúnyáng, not Dòngtíng. This is the most significant single correction of Hú Wèi: where Hú Wèi had insisted in the Zhuīzhǐ on the Dòngtíng identification, Xú Wénjìng corrects to Xúnyáng (i.e., the modern Lake Póyáng region, with the nine river-mouths the canonical text refers to). The Sìkù compilers’ Zhuīzhǐ tíyào had already noted Xú Wénjìng’s refutation as something Hú Wèi could not rebut.

5. Càishān 蔡山 / Zhōu Gōngshān 周公山: Xú Wénjìng prudently leaves this matter unsettled, refusing the Huányú jì’s identification.

6. Dūnwù 惇物 in Qiánzhōu’s Wǔtíng (modern Wǔgōng): based on the Jīn shǐ dìlǐ zhì. The Sān wēishān identification with Shēngyǔshān (against the Shǐjì zhù’s Bēiyǔshān, which Xú correctly identifies as a graphical error) and the explicit refutation of Hú Wèi on this point complete the catalog.

The methodological criticism — over-credit to the Shānhǎi jīng and Zhúshū jìnián — is itself revealing of the broader Qīng kǎojù climate. By the mid-eighteenth century the Zhúshū jìnián (the “Bamboo Annals,” recovered from a Wèi-period tomb in 281 CE) was being read both as a serious early-Zhōu chronicle and as a partly-fabricated late-Western-Jìn editorial reconstruction; Xú Wénjìng’s parallel Zhúshū jìnián tǒng jiān (separately in the Sìkù) treats it as authoritative, and the Yǔ gòng huì jiān draws on it for chronological grounding. The Sìkù compilers’ criticism — “biased love of antiquity” — registers a more skeptical view of the Bamboo Annals than Xú Wénjìng’s own.

The Sìkù’s comparative verdict — that Xú Wénjìng’s work is “more precise than Hú Wèi’s” — is striking: it ranks the Huì jiān above the Zhuīzhǐ, the established standard. The institutional principle the compilers invoke — “the continuator has it easier” — is a balanced explanation that nevertheless concedes the substantive priority of the later work on specific contested identifications.

The work’s late-life imperial recognition (Xú Wénjìng’s 1752 special appointment to the Hànlínyuàn jiǎntǎo at age 85, on the basis of his canonical scholarship) is one of the cleaner Qiánlóng-era patronage gestures toward provincial kǎojù scholarship.

Translations and research

No substantial Western-language translation of the Yǔ gòng huì jiān is known. For the Qing Yǔ gòng tradition see Mark Edward Lewis, The Construction of Space in Early China (Albany: SUNY Press, 2006). For Xú Wén-jìng’s parallel Zhúshū jìnián work see David S. Nivison, The Riddle of the Bamboo Annals (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 2009), which treats Xú Wén-jìng’s Tǒng jiān as one of the founding Qing investigations of the Annals; also Edward L. Shaughnessy, Rewriting Early Chinese Texts (Albany: SUNY Press, 2006), chapter on the Bamboo Annals. For Xú Wén-jìng broadly see Hummel, ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period (1943), entry on Hsü Wen-ching.

Other points of interest

The Sìkù preservation order (Zhū Hèlíng’s Cháng jiān KR1b0052 → Hú Wèi’s Zhuīzhǐ KR1b0053 → Hú Wèi’s Hóng fàn zhèng lùn KR1b0054 → Lǐ Guāngdì’s Qī piān KR1b0055 → Zhāng Yīng’s Zhōng lùn KR1b0056 → Jiǎng Tíngxī’s Dìlǐ jīn shì KR1b0057 → Xú Wénjìng’s Huì jiān KR1b0058) gives a clean chronological-and-substantive sweep of early-to-mid-Qīng Shàngshū scholarship, from the late-Kāngxī kǎojù generation through to the YōngzhèngQiánlóng consolidation.

The Jiǔ jiāng / Xúnyáng correction is methodologically significant: it shows that even the most authoritative early-Qīng monograph (Hú Wèi’s Zhuīzhǐ) was subject to substantive correction by a single subsequent generation’s careful work. The Sìkù compilers’ explicit endorsement of Xú Wénjìng’s refutation — and their note that Hú Wèi “probably could not have answered” — registers the cumulative-progressive nature of mid-Qīng kǎojù.

Links

• CBDB id 62026 (徐文靖)
• Wikidata: no entity
• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Shū lèi, Yǔ gòng huì jiān entry (Kyoto Zinbun digital edition)