春秋會通

Chūnqiū huìtōng 春秋會通

Comprehensive Synthesis of the Spring and Autumn Annals

by 李廉 (撰)

About the work

The Chūnqiū huìtōng 春秋諸傳會通 (full title) in twenty-four juan is the Chūnqiū commentary of Lǐ Lián 李廉 of Lújiāng 廬江 — a Zhìzhèng 2 (1342) jìnshì and Xìnfēng 信豐 magistrate who died in office during the late-Yuán wars. The work is a huìtōng (synthesis): under each classic-passage it juxtaposes (i) the Zuǒzhuàn event-record, (ii) the earliest expositions of Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng, (iii) the standard commentaries of Dù Yù 杜預, Hé Xiū 何休, and Fàn Níng 范寧, (iv) the zhèngyì 正義 sub-commentaries, and (v) Hú Ānguó’s 胡安國 Chūnqiūzhuàn (KR1e0036) as the determinative judgment, together with substantial extracts from Chén Fùliáng 陳傅良 (KR1e0038) and Zhāng Qià 張洽 (KR1e0048). Lǐ’s own jǐnàn 謹案 (“respectful note”) then weighs the alternatives. The whole was completed in Zhìzhèng 9 / 7 (1349), thirty years after Lǐ began to study the Chūnqiū.

Tiyao

The Sìkù editors respectfully note: The Chūnqiū zhūzhuàn huìtōng in twenty-four juan is by Lǐ Lián of Yuán. Lián, zì Xíngjiǎn, was a man of Lújiāng. According to Yáng Shìqí’s 楊士奇 Dōnglǐ jí 東里集 of Míng, Lián passed his provincial examination in Chūnqiū in Zhìzhèng rénwǔ 至正壬午 (1342) and was placed in the jìnshì roster of Chén Zǔrén 陳祖仁 in the same year. He served as magistrate of Xìnfēng 信豐. When bandit-armies disturbed the realm, he kept his integrity and died. Because the north-south routes were broken, he was not registered for posthumous honor in time. When at the founding of the Míng the Yuán shǐ 元史 was compiled, no surviving acquaintances were in office, and the local authorities did not know to report the case for inclusion. The history accordingly omits him. So Lián was a man of true loyalty and righteousness, not one who only “explained the classics with empty words.”

This work pulls together the theories of the various commentators into a single edition. Its self-preface says: “First the Zuǒshì — the events; next Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng — the earliest expositions of the classic; next the three zhuàn commentaries — the school-traditions; next the zhèngyì — the resolution of doubts; the synthesis is governed by Húshì — for he is the judge; and Chén and Zhāng are juxtaposed for the choice of their strengths.” Lǐ further draws comprehensively on the various Confucians’ settled theories and other historical works, lightly combing them for distinctions of agreement-and-disagreement and right-and-wrong, beginning-and-end. He thinks his way through every one event in doubt, one word in difference.

Now, although the work takes Húshì as its principal authority, in its corrections it also frequently differs from him; and in collating the various schools, it is also able to choose their strengths. On a doubt of one event, on a difference of one word, all are tied through to the whole classic to be weighed: as in his arguments that Zhòngzǐ 仲子 was not the principal consort, so Yǐngōng cannot be styled “regent”; that Qí Huán’s hegemony rests on the foundations of Xī and Xiāng; that the prosperity of the Sān Huán 三桓 has its roots in Lǔ Xī; that the non-recording of “Wú defeats Yuè at Fūjiāo” 吳敗越夫椒 censures Lǔ for not avenging the wrong; that the recording of “burying Zhāogōng” censures Lǔ for not treating the Jì 季 family as rebels; that the recording of “burying Liú Wéngōng” 葬劉文公 censures the jīnèi 畿內 lords for usurpation; that the recording of “building She-yuān park” 築蛇淵囿 censures Dìnggōng for receiving the female-musicians-bribe and falling into dissipation. Throughout his discussions the standard is plain, upright, and large; his hundred-odd general arguments weigh events and principles, and capture the principle of associating the wording with the events (bǐshì shǔcí 比事屬辭). The imperial Qīndìng Chūnqiū chuánshuō huìzuǎn 欽定春秋傳説彙纂 (KR1e0094) accordingly draws extensively on it.

Lǐ’s preface is dated Zhìzhèng 9 / jǐchǒu (1349); he says he had read the classic for thirty years, then “after passing the southern roster, was burdened with heavy administrative office, and now have completed this book.” The Yuán shǐ dates the Chén Zǔrén roster to Shùndì Zhìzhèng 2 [1342]. Lǐ’s provincial-examination year and jìnshì year are the same; but he came to office relatively late, and so was able to settle in private to ancient meanings rather than be deflected by examination scholarship.

Respectfully presented, Qiánlóng 42 / 5 (May 1777).

— Editors-in-chief: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅; Editor-of-Collation: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

The Chūnqiū huìtōng is the most balanced Chūnqiū commentary of the late Yuán: where Chéng Duānxué 程端學 abandons the zhuàn (in the Sānzhuàn biàn yí KR1e0062), where Wáng Yuánjié 王元杰 defers exclusively to the ChéngZhū tradition (in the Chūnqiū yàn yì KR1e0063), and where Zhào Fǎng 趙汸 recovers the Zuǒ against Hú Ānguó (in the cluster KR1e0066–KR1e0070), Lǐ Lián takes the synthetic middle: every major commentary is given its own layer; the editor’s jǐnàn mediates. The result is the closest the late Yuán came to a working synthesis of the Chūnqiū tradition, and it is not surprising that the early Qīng court-compiled Qīndìng Chūnqiū chuánshuō huìzuǎn (KR1e0094) drew on it heavily.

The composition date is precise: Lǐ’s own preface dates the work to Zhìzhèng 9 / 7 / 1 (1349). The work was first circulated in copies — Lǐ’s preface complains that copies were already being made before he had wished it released — and was first printed in Fēngchéng 豐城 by Jiē Gōng 揭恭, who pressed Lǐ for a preface even after the printing was complete. The bracket 1349–1349 is exact.

Methodologically the Huìtōng belongs to a small but important late-Sòng / Yuán type: the zhūjiā jíyì 諸家集議 (“collected discussions of the various masters”) commentary, in which the editor’s own contribution is principally the discrimination of priorities among the existing tradition rather than a fresh exegetical thesis. Lǐ states this explicitly in his fánlì 凡例 (general principles), reproduced after the preface: “All the assembled commentaries here have Zuǒ, Gōngyáng, Gǔliáng, Hú, Chén, and Zhāng as the six masters, because all six are complete works.” This is methodologically scrupulous — a master who is preserved only in fragments cannot be ranked with one whose whole zhuàn is preserved.

The cluster of mid- and late-Yuán Chūnqiū commentary works in this division — Chéng Duānxué’s three (KR1e0060–KR1e0062), Wáng Yuánjié’s Yàn yì (KR1e0063), Lǐ Lián’s Huìtōng (this), Zhèng Yù’s Chūnqiū quēyí (KR1e0065), and Zhào Fǎng’s five (KR1e0066–KR1e0070) — collectively constitute the most concentrated period of Chūnqiū scholarship between the early Sòng and the late Míng.

Translations and research

• Sūn Wěimíng 孫衛明, Sòng dài Chūnqiū xué yánjiū 宋代春秋學研究 (Bēijīng: Zhōngguó shèhuì kēxué chūbǎnshè 2009) — for the methodological background.
• Hóu Měizhēn 侯美珍, articles on Sòng-Yuán Chūnqiū commentary tradition.
• Liú Yúnjùn 劉雲軍, work on the Yuán Chūnqiū commentary corpus.
• No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.

Other points of interest

The Huìtōng is methodologically the closest the Yuán came to producing a variorum edition of the Chūnqiū: every layer of the commentary tradition gets its own slot, and the editor’s voice is the single jǐnàn at the foot of the entry. It is a model that the early-Qīng court-compiled Qīndìng commentaries took as their principal precedent. The Sìkù editors’ praise that Lǐ’s principles are “plain, upright, and large” is rare in the Yuán Chūnqiū notices and is to be read against the strong adjectives applied to Chéng Duānxué (biànběn jiālì 變本加厲, “intensifying root-and-branch”) and Wáng Yuánjié (zhòngtái 重儓, “slave of slaves”) in the same group of notices.

The fánlì contains an unusual methodological scrupulosity: only commentators whose work survives in full are admitted as “the six masters” — a consequence of which is that Chéng Yí’s incomplete Chūnqiūzhuàn and Zhū Xī’s scattered Chūnqiū remarks (the very materials that Wáng Yuánjié’s Yàn yì assembles) are excluded as principal layers, and Hú Ānguó stands as the sole medieval authority. This is a quietly different methodological judgment from Wáng’s.

Links

• Sìkù tíyào: from KR1e0064_000.txt in source.
• Lǐ Lián’s original preface and fánlì: from KR1e0064_000.txt in source.