Xīn Tángshū jiūmiù 新唐書糾謬
Investigating the Errors of the New Book of Tang by 吳縝 (Wú Zhěn, fl. late Northern Sòng)
About the work
A 20-juǎn kǎozhèng monograph identifying and correcting errors in Ōuyáng Xiū and Sòng Qí’s Xīn Tángshū (KR2a0027). The work covers more than 400 specific errors organised in 20 mén (categorical headings). Originally entitled Jiūmiù 糾謬 (“Investigating Errors”), later re-titled Biànzhèng 辯證 (“Distinguishing and Verifying”), but the original title prevailed in transmission. The Sòng Shàoxīng-era recutting at Húzhōu by Wú Yuánměi 吳元美 of Chánglè (a Southern Sòng man) reverted to the Jiūmiù title.
Tiyao
By Wú Zhěn of the Sòng. Zhěn, zì Tíngzhēn 廷珍, a man of Chéngdū. He once served as Cháosàn láng 朝散郎 magistrate of Shǔzhōu, and later held several prefectural posts, all with benevolent administration. He composed this work to refute and correct errors in the Xīn Tángshū — 20 mén and over 400 entries. Originally entitled Jiūmiù, later changed to Biànzhèng. In Shàoxīng (1131–1162) Wú Yuánměi of Chánglè had it cut at Húzhōu, still under the title Jiūmiù; hence the old title sticks.
Wáng Mǐngqīng’s Huīzhǔ lù says: when Ōuyáng Xiū was recompiling the Xīn Tángshū, Zhěn — through Fàn Zhèn’s 范鎮 recommendation — sought to be on the editorial team; Xiū rejected him for being too young and too frivolous; Zhěn went away resentful, and on the new book’s completion picked at its faults to compile this work. Cháo Gōngwǔ once cited Zhěn’s discussion of Zhāng Jiǔlíng as chief minister, calling it a misjudgement and slander. Today examining the work, indeed there is an undertone of deliberate attack. As to juǎn 20, Zìshū fēi shì 字書非是 — listing radical-and-stroke errors to ridicule Xiū etc. — most of it is hair-splitting.
Yet Ōuyáng and Sòng’s compilation aimed at literary excellence and was thin on kǎozhèng; contradictions and errors are by no means few. Zhěn’s zìxù 自序 of eight defects originally hits the disease deep; one cannot say his work is of no use to shǐxué. The current circulating impression has juǎn 20 from the Liǔ Zōngyuán biography to the Sū Dìngfāng biography — six entries entirely missing, replaced by the juǎn 6 entries from “Guō Qiányào different surname” downward — duplicate and corrupt, no longer a complete book. Only the LiǎngHuái submission is from a Southern-Sòng cut, with the six Liǔ Zōngyuán entries originally complete. We have collated and corrected accordingly.
Abstract
Wú Zhěn’s Xīn Tángshū jiūmiù is the first large-scale kǎozhèng monograph on a contemporary zhèngshǐ, and the methodological prototype for the great Qing tradition of dynasty-by-dynasty critical commentaries. Working systematically through the Xīn Tángshū (KR2a0027) issued in 1060, Wú Zhěn identifies more than 400 specific errors organised into 20 mén: factual contradictions between jì and zhuàn, geographical mistakes, dating errors, mistransliterations of proper names, errors of citation from sources, character corruptions, etc. The personal-grudge backstory (preserved in Wáng Mǐngqīng’s Huīzhǔ lù) — that Wú Zhěn had been refused a place on the Xīn Tángshū compilation team and wrote Jiūmiù in revenge — does not significantly weaken the kǎozhèng substance, as the Sìkù compilers note.
The work is paired in Wú Zhěn’s own corpus with the parallel Wǔdài shǐ zuǎnwù 五代史纂誤 (KR2a0031, 3 juǎn), critiquing Ōuyáng Xiū’s Xīn Wǔdài shǐ (KR2a0030). Together they constitute a sustained attack on Ōuyáng Xiū’s historiographical work as factually unreliable despite literary excellence.
The text was already partially corrupted by the late Sòng. The standard transmitted text — apart from the LiǎngHuái submission used for the Sìkù — has juǎn 20 contaminated by accidental textual transposition with juǎn 6, with six entries (Liǔ Zōngyuán to Sū Dìngfāng) lost and replaced by duplicates. The Sìkù editors restored the original 20 juǎn sequence.
The work was not held in high regard by Ōuyáng Xiū’s intellectual partisans in the Sòng, but was thoroughly rehabilitated in the Qing. Qián Dàxīn 錢大昕, Wáng Mínshèng 王鳴盛, and Zhào Yì 趙翼 — the three great Qing commentators on the zhèngshǐ — all use Wú Zhěn’s work as their starting-point on the Xīn Tángshū. Wú Zhěn is also paired in the Sòngshǐ tradition with 沈括 Shěn Kuò and 洪邁 Hóng Mài as the three foundational figures of Northern Sòng kǎozhèng.
Translations and research
No translation. Discussed in: Étienne Balazs, Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy (Yale, 1964) and especially in Hans van Ess, Politik und Geschichtsschreibung im alten China (Harrassowitz, 2014); Denis Twitchett, The Writing of Official History under the T’ang (Cambridge, 1992) — the best modern English-language treatment of the Wú Zhěn kǎozhèng tradition. Standard Chinese-language scholarship: Wáng Mínshèng 王鳴盛, Shíqī shǐ shāngquè 十七史商榷 (1787); Cén Zhòngmiǎn 岑仲勉, Suí-Tang shǐ (Gāoděng Jiàoyù, 1957) — uses Wú Zhěn extensively; Huáng Yǒngnián 黃永年, Tang shǐ shǐliào xué (Shaanxi Shīfàn Dàxué, 1989).
Other points of interest
Wú Zhěn’s methodology — categorising errors by type (geographical, chronological, attributive, etc.) — became the model for all subsequent kǎozhèng monographs on the zhèngshǐ, most notably Liáng Yùshèng’s Shǐjì zhìyí (1787, 36 juǎn) and Qián Dàxīn’s Niàn’èr shǐ kǎoyì (1782, 100 juǎn).