Chūnqiū wáng bà liè guó shì jì biān 春秋王霸列國世紀編
Compiled Generational Records of the King, Hegemons, and Various States in the Spring and Autumn Annals
by 李琪 (撰)
About the work
The Chūnqiū wáng bà liè guó shì jì biān 春秋王霸列國世紀編 in three juan is a Southern-Sòng Chūnqiū state-by-state historical reorganisation by Lǐ Qí 李琪 (zì Kāibó 開伯, of Wújùn 吳郡, Guózǐ sīyè 國子司業), completed in Jiādìng xīnwèi 嘉定辛未 (1211). The arrangement: juan 1 covers the Royal court and the Hegemonic states (Qí, Jìn, Wèi, etc., with Qín Mù, Chǔ Zhuāng demoted, Sòng Xiāng preserved, and Lǔ specially appended); juan 2 covers Zhōu’s same-surname states with the Three kè 三恪 (descendant-houses of pre-Zhōu dynasties); juan 3 covers Zhōu’s other-surname states, with Qín, Chǔ, Wú, and Yuè placed at the end among the small states. Heavy implicit reference to contemporary SòngJīn relations. The Sìkù base reproduces the WYG copy.
Tiyao
The Sìkù tíyào (text from the Kyoto Zinbun digital Sìkù tíyào):
By Lǐ Qí of Sòng. Qí, zì Kāibó 開伯, was a man of Wújùn 吳郡; held Guózǐ sīyè 國子司業. The work was completed in Jiādìng xīnwèi (1211). It takes the various states as the warp; takes the events recorded in the Chūnqiū and categorises them as the weft. Each section has a preface at the head and a discursive conclusion. Juan 1: the Royal court and the hegemonic states; among the hegemons, Qín Mù 秦穆 and Chǔ Zhuāng 楚莊 are demoted, Sòng Xiāng 宋襄 is preserved; further, from Jìn Wén 晉文 down, ten lords from Xiāng to Dìng are listed, with Lǔ specially appended. Juan 2: Zhōu’s same-surname states, with the Sān kè 三恪 (descendant-houses of Yú, Xià, Shāng) appended. Juan 3: Zhōu’s other-surname states, with Qín, Chǔ, Wú, Yuè placed last among the small states.
The arguments often have a contemporary purpose. The condemnation of Jìn Wéngōng’s “borrowing Qín to oppose Chǔ” and Jìn Dàogōng’s “joining Wú to harass Chǔ” — these target Sòng Huīzōng’s “joining Jīn to destroy Liáo” 通金滅遼 (the catastrophic alliance that opened the path to the Jìngkāng disaster). The condemnation of the lord of Jì 紀侯 for “neighbouring an enemy and yet failing to strengthen himself” — this targets Sòng Gāozōng’s appeasement-treaty programme. The intent is admonitory — preserved as a warning. In citing that Lǔ, after its destruction, was still a state of lǐyì 禮義 down through the QínHàn — this is a self-justification of the southern crossing’s military weakness. In demoting Chǔ Zhuāng and Qín Mù among hegemons but elevating Sòng Xiāng — this is a self-justification for the failure of the běiyuán (north-bound) restorationist programme. In placing Qín, Chǔ, Wú, Yuè at the end — this implicitly suggests “suppressing the Jīn and honouring the Sòng.”
Borrowing the Chūnqiū to express contemporary affairs is roughly the same approach as Hú Ānguó’s zhuàn KR1e0036; but Hú still firmly maintained the fùchóu 復讎 (revenge) imperative; Lǐ merely dresses up empty argument. The work’s circulation has been long; we register one school’s voice, demonstrating that even after the Southern Sòng’s progressive weakness, the literati class still leaned on classical texts to manufacture rhetoric for self-justification — a sign of the dynasty’s secular decline. Preserving it equally serves as a clear admonition.
Abstract
The Sìkù tíyào makes the principal points: that this is a Southern-Sòng Chūnqiū state-by-state historical reorganisation by Lǐ Qí, completed in 1211; that the work’s interpretive categories — demoting / promoting hegemons, placing QínChǔWúYuè at the end — encode contemporary political-ethical judgement on the SòngJīn relationship; that this politicised reading parallels but is intellectually weaker than Hú Ānguó’s Chūnqiū zhuàn; that the editors register the work as a representative example of Southern-Sòng literati’s classical-text instrumentalisation, and as a “clear admonition” against such practice.
The tíyào’s tone here — explicitly evaluative against the work’s contemporary ideological function — matches the editors’ general suspicion of late-imperial Chūnqiū dogmatism. The work is preserved less for its scholarly merits than as a documentary witness to a Southern-Sòng intellectual symptom.
Translations and research
- Lǐ Wěitài 李偉泰, Sòng-rén Chūnqiū xué dōu lùn 宋人春秋學論衡 (Tāiběi: Wénjīn 1995).
Other points of interest
The implicit SòngJīn referencing in Lǐ Qí’s hegemon-rankings — particularly the suppression of the steppe-imperial QínChǔWúYuè to the end — is one of the more transparent late-Sòng applications of Chūnqiū huáyí 華夷 (civilised-barbarian) categories to contemporary geopolitics. It anticipates Yuán-Míng-period Confucian writings on Sòng restoration.
Links
- Zinbun Sìkù tíyào: http://kanji.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/db-machine/ShikoTeiyo/0054701.html