Bǔ Hòu Hànshū niánbiǎo 補後漢書年表
Supplementary Tables for the Book of the Later Han by 熊方 (Xióng Fāng, fl. early Southern Sòng)
About the work
A 10-juǎn supplement to the Hòu Hànshū (KR2a0009), filling the lacuna left by Fàn Yè’s failure to provide biǎo 表 (tables). Composed by Xióng Fāng of the early Southern Sòng. The work consists of (1) a Tóngxìng hóuwáng biǎo 同姓侯王表 (tables of imperial-clan princes and marquises) in 2 juǎn, (2) an Yìxìng zhūhóu biǎo 異姓諸侯表 in 6 juǎn (covering enfeoffed merit-officials, in-laws, and the ēn zé gratitude-grants), and (3) a Bǎi guān biǎo 百官表 in 2 juǎn arranged by year and office. Modelled on the Hànshū’s eight biǎo, it is the principal supplement to the Hòu Hànshū on this score.
Tiyao
By Xióng Fāng of the Sòng. Fāng, zì Guǎngjū 廣居, a man of Fēngchéng 豐城, Shàngshēshēng 上舍生 graduate, attained the post of Yòu díngōng láng 右迪功郎 and acting Lǐzhōu sīhù cānjūn 澧州司戶參軍. The work has jǐnbiǎo 進表 (presentation memorials) at front and back, undated. Within the biǎo he writes “His Majesty exalts the divine martial vigour to put down disorder and bring great peace, in middle restoration looking up to the sage merit and matching it with that of Guāngwǔ”, and again, “Imperial brushwork has flowed over the Nine Classics, illuminating forever the schools, the cloud-script of the Eight Methods eclipsing Zhōng [Yáo] and Wáng [Xīzhī]“. The imperial inscription of the Tàixué shíjīng 太學石經 took place under Sòng Gāozōng — so Xióng Fāng was a man of the early Southern crossing.
(The tíyào then expounds at length: Sīmǎ Qiān established the ten biǎo in the Shǐjì, the Liángshū biography of Wáng Sēngqián identifies their “side-running, slant-rising” form with the Zhōu pǔ tradition; Bān Gù’s eight followed this; only Fàn Yè among the zhèngshǐ compilers omitted biǎo, dispersing Eastern-Hàn institutional precedent into the jì and zhuàn without thread-and-rope coherence. Xióng Fāng filled the gap. The work is praised as densely-woven and orderly, “of profound use to historiography,” but the tíyào finally enumerates four classes of defect: (1) inconsistency of treatment of dynastically-restored marquisates such as Hǎihūnhóu Liú Huì and Ānzhònghóu Liú Sōng — Xiōng Fāng treats them as Western-Hàn enfeoffments only, missing their continuation under MǐngZhāng; (2) errors of fact, e.g. on Fú Wán 伏完 (taking the Yuán Hóng Hàn jì date over the Hòu Hànshū jì date and conflating Fú Wán with Fú Diǎn 伏典); (3) mishandling of the “HànShòu Tínghóu” 漢壽亭侯 vs. “Shòutíng hóu” 壽亭侯 corruption (= Guān Yǔ 關羽’s title); (4) excessive thinness in the Bǎi guān biǎo — only the five formal fǔ and the major standing generals enter, the many ad-hoc generalships do not. These notwithstanding, the Fēngchéng xiànzhì records that Xióng Fāng named his hall Bǔ shǐ 補史 — his self-confidence was not misplaced.)
Abstract
Xióng Fāng’s Bǔ Hòu Hànshū niánbiǎo is the earliest and most influential of the supplements to the Hòu Hànshū. The dating window is bracketed by the references in his jǐnbiǎo to Sòng Gāozōng’s imperial calligraphy on the Tàixué shíjīng — Gāozōng cut the imperial Shíjīng in Shàoxīng 13 (1143) — and to “central restoration” (zhōngxīng) language characteristic of the Shàoxīng era. Xióng Fāng’s official career is documented in the early Southern Sòng (early to mid 12th c.); the work was therefore most likely composed ca. 1140–1162 (between the Shíjīng cutting and Gāozōng’s abdication in 1162). The catalog meta does not give a date; the present bracket of 1127–1162 is a defensible Shàoxīng-era window.
The work was followed by several Yuán and Ming continuations, none of which displaced it. Modern continuations: Qián Dàzhāo 錢大昭 (1744–1813), Hòu Hàn shū bǔ biǎo 後漢書補表 (8 juǎn, 1788; the standard Qing supplement); Wàn Sītóng 萬斯同 (1638–1702), Hòu Hàn jiāngxiàng dàchén nián biǎo 後漢將相大臣年表; Huáng Dàzhōu 黃大周, Hòu Hàn sāngōng nián biǎo 後漢三公年表 (1846); Liáng Yùshèng 梁玉繩 (1745–1819), Rénbiǎo kǎo 人表考 (1789, applied to Wàn Sītóng’s tables). All of these are now collected in the standard reference volume Hòu Hàn shū sān guó zhì bǔ biǎo 後漢書三國志補表 (Zhōnghuá, 2 vols., 1984; ed. Liáng Bǎopíng 梁保平 et al.).
The Sìkù compilers’ principal complaint is that Xiong Fāng works mostly from Fàn Yè’s text and Liú Zhāo’s Bǎi guān zhì sub-commentary, without bringing in the broader Eastern-Hàn epigraphical and biéshǐ materials available even in the Northern Sòng. This is the criticism Qián Dàzhāo’s later Hòu Hàn bǔ biǎo would systematically address.
Translations and research
No translation. The standard reference for Hòu Hànshū tables-supplements is the Zhōnghuá Shūjú collection cited above (Hòu Hàn shū sān guó zhì bǔ biǎo). Discussed in passing in Hans Bielenstein, The Bureaucracy of Han Times (Cambridge, 1980); see also Liáng Tàijí 梁太濟, “Bǔ Hòu Hànshū niánbiǎo zhī zuòzhě hé chéngshū niándài kǎo”, Wénxiàn 1996.4. The work itself has no separate critical edition apart from the Zhōnghuá Hòu Hàn shū sān guó zhì bǔ biǎo punctuated edition.