Yù zuǎn Chūnqiū zhí jiě 御纂春秋直解
Imperially Compiled Direct Explication of the Spring and Autumn Annals
by 傅恒 (奉敕撰)
About the work
The Yù zuǎn Chūnqiū zhí jiě 御纂春秋直解 in 12 juǎn (the Sìkù tíyào and the imperial-roster note that Zhuāng-, Xī-, and Xiānggōng’s chapters are split into sub-juǎn, yielding “really 15 juǎn”; the SKQS catalog entry takes the headline 12) is the Qiánlóng-era 御纂 imperial Chūnqiū commentary, commissioned in Qiánlóng 23 (1758) under the zhèng zǒngcái 正總裁 Fù Héng 傅恒 (d. 1770). It is the third of the three Qīng imperially-commissioned Chūnqiū works, complementing the Kāngxī-era Rì jiǎng Chūnqiū jiě yì (KR1e0093) and Qīn dìng Chūnqiū chuán shuō huì zuǎn (KR1e0094). The title zhí jiě 直解 (“direct explication”) deliberately announces a methodological program: to reject the convoluted name-and-particle bāo biǎn 褒貶 readings of Sūn Fù 孫復, Hú Ānguó 胡安國, and the late-Míng Chūnqiū over-philologisers, and to read the text directly as a record of events from which moral significance is to emerge unforced.
Tiyao
The Sìkù tíyào may be rendered as follows:
We have respectfully examined the Yù zuǎn Chūnqiū zhí jiě in 15 juǎn. Compiled at imperial command in Qiánlóng 23 (1758). The work organises the twelve Lǔ rulers as 12 juǎn; Zhuāng, Xī, and Xiāng each have somewhat extended sections and are split into sub-juǎn, making 15 in fact. Its main aim is to draw out the basic intent of the Sage from Mount Ní (Confucius), and to clear away every kind of round-about, twisted reading; hence its imperial name Direct Explication. It is prefaced by an imperial preface declaring Hú Ānguó’s zhuàn’s far-fetched correlations and arbitrary assertions, openly to publish to the empire — its methodological orientation is in concord with the Qīn dìng Chūnqiū chuán shuō huì zuǎn.
Examining: Bān Biāo’s discussion of the Chūnqiū says, “level and easy, upright” (píng yì zhèng zhí 平易正直) is its meaning. Wáng Chōng’s discussion of the Chūnqiū says, “When Gōng and Gǔ do not give complete day-and-month notation, they straightaway impose intent: ordinary events get strange readings, plain wording gets twisted meaning — this is not Confucius’ heart.” Sū Shì’s discussion says, “Chūnqiū is the proper duty of the scholar, but it has a subtle use that few scholars master; many seek it within rope-bindings, edging toward the legalist tradition’s harsh and entangling — to what avail in the end?” Zhūzǐ on writing the Chūnqiū also says, “The Sage in composing the Chūnqiū did no more than directly write the events; goodness and badness then appear of themselves”; and “The Chūnqiū zhuànlì are largely unreliable; in the Sage’s recording of events, how could there be so many yìlì 義例?” If so — the Classic’s law-and-warning is plain to all to see and hear; the Sage’s encouragement-and-deterrence is also easy to know and follow.
From the time Dàn Zhù 啖助 and Zhào Kuāng 趙匡 advocated the abandonment of the zhuàn in interpreting the Classic, the practice was that everyone made their own private guess, busy at being clever to outdo the next, and so the Chūnqiū was wasted; from the time Sūn Fù advocated his “blame without praise” thesis, the Chūnqiū commentators were obliged to scour every entry for the basis of its blame, and where the basis could not be found, fabricated and forced into a crime — and the Chūnqiū was wasted yet more thoroughly. Yú Rǔyán 兪汝言 (兪汝言) in his preface to Chūnqiū píng yì (KR1e0099) said: “The failure of commentaries on the Classic lies not in superficiality but in over-deepness; the Chūnqiū is the worst case.” This may be called piàn yán jū yào 片言居要 (“a single phrase that hits the essential”) — a true diagnosis. This compilation respectfully receives the imperial instruction to weigh the qínglǐ zhī píng 情理之平 (the balance of feeling and principle) so as to recover the subtle intent of the Classic. Whatever any commentator has said in the way of strain-and-fragmentation has been wholly rejected and not adopted; the great purport of the editorial bǐxuē 筆削 stands forth all the more brightly. Students who have respectfully read the Yù zuǎn Chūnqiū chuán shuō huì zuǎn to determine right from wrong, and now further respectfully read this compilation to grasp the essentials together — for them the learning of the Chūnqiū is exhausted of all that is hidden. Respectfully checked and submitted, Qiánlóng 41 (1776), ninth month. Editors-in-chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; chief proof-reader Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Yù zuǎn Chūnqiū zhí jiě completes the Qīng imperial trilogy on the Chūnqiū. It builds explicitly on Kāngxī’s Huì zuǎn (KR1e0094) — Qiánlóng’s preface explicitly acknowledges this lineage: “Whoever takes up this Classic should anchor by my Sage-Ancestor’s Chuán shuō huì zuǎn, which has melted down all opinions and adjudicated with precision; the subtle words and great purport are clear as sun and stars.” The zhí jiě is conceived as the more focused, more direct companion to that broader compilation. Methodologically, it takes the position — already laid out in Kāngxī’s preface to the Huì zuǎn — that the Chūnqiū is a record of events from which moral significance emerges directly, and not a code of name-and-particle bāo biǎn. Qiánlóng’s own preface (in the front-matter, juan 序) deepens this position with a substantial polemic against Dàn Zhù — Zhào Kuāng — Lù Chún for “selecting Classical shūfǎ and forging them into rules” xuǎn qǔ jīng wén shū fǎ, zuǎn ér wéi lì (an explicit citation of KR1e0013 / KR1e0014 / KR1e0015).
The zhèng zǒngcái Fù Héng (d. 1770) was the high Qiánlóng-court commander and Manchu noble who supervised the compilation in his institutional capacity (he had been First-Class Loyal-and-Brave Duke since 1756). The substantive scholarly work was done by the zuǎnxiū guān 纂修官 Liáng Xīyú 梁錫璵 (named here as zhānshìfǔ shǎozhānshì jiān Hànlín shìjiǎng xuéshì) — the same Liáng Xīyú who had served as principal zuǎnxiū on the Yù zuǎn Zhōuyì shù yì 御纂周易述義 (KR1a0118) under Fù Héng. Other named officials in the front-matter职名 (KR1e0095_000.txt, juan 職名) include the fù zǒngcái Zhào Huì 兆惠 (Wǔyì móuyǒnggōng), Nà Yántài 納延泰, and Liú Lún 劉綸; the tídiào officers and the ténglù and supporting clerks. The work was completed in 1758 and a supplementary imperial tí cí 題辭 was composed in Qiánlóng 戊戌 (1778) on the canonical opening “Yuán nián chūn wáng zhèng yuè.”
The dating bracket here is the year of imperial commissioning and completion, 1758 (Qiánlóng 23). The Qiánlóng tí cí of 1778 is a post hoc reflection rather than part of the composition.
Translations and research
- Yáng Xiànghuá 楊向華, Qīng-dài Chūnqiū xué shǐ 清代春秋學史 (Bēijīng: Zhōngguó shèhuì kēxué chūbǎnshè 2014).
- Pi Xirui 皮錫瑞, Jīng xué tōng lùn 經學通論 (rpt. Bēijīng: Zhōnghuá 1954) — substantial treatment of the imperial-canon framing.
- Hsia, R. Po-chia, Cambridge History of China, vol. 9 (CUP 2002–2016) — for the broader Qiánlóng court intellectual policy.
No major Western-language monograph located on this specific work.
Other points of interest
The Qiánlóng emperor’s quotation of Yú Rǔyán’s piàn yán jū yào — “the failure of commentaries on the Classic lies not in superficiality but in over-deepness; the Chūnqiū is the worst case” — and the Sìkù compilers’ agreement with this judgment, give an extraordinary glimpse of the late-eighteenth-century imperial position on classical exegesis: a private 1676 Chūnqiū scholar from Xiùshuǐ (兪汝言) is here cited as authority against the centuries-long Hú Ānguó tradition. This is the same evidential-school methodological line — Wáng Fūzhī, Gù Yánwǔ, Yú Rǔyán, Mǎo Qílíng — that the Sìkù compilers themselves represented institutionally.
Links
- Sìkù yǐng yìn Wényuāngé: V174.1, p1.
- CBDB record for 傅恒: id 510988.