Jiù Wǔdài shǐ 舊五代史
The Old History of the Five Dynasties by 薛居正 (Xuē Jūzhèng, 912–981) et al., by imperial commission of Sòng Tàizǔ; reconstituted from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn by 邵晉涵 (Shào Jìnhán, 1742–1796) and the Sìkù editorial team in 1773–1774; Qing collation notes by 永瑢 (Yǒng Róng, 1744–1790, the Qiánlóng emperor’s sixth son and Sìkù chief editor).
About the work
The eighteenth of the Twenty-Four Histories, in 150 juǎn (61 jì, 12 zhì, 77 zhuàn), with an additional 2-juǎn table of contents (mùlù). Covers the Five Dynasties — HòuLiáng 後梁 (907–923), Hòu-Tang 後唐 (923–936), HòuJìn 後晉 (936–947), HòuHàn 後漢 (947–950), HòuZhōu 後周 (951–960) — together with the Ten Kingdoms peripheral states. Composed under imperial commission of Sòng Tàizǔ in Kāibǎo 6 (973), 4th month, with Lú Duōxùn 盧多遜, Hù Méng 扈蒙, Zhāng Dàn 張澹, Lǐ Fǎng 李昉, Liú Jiān 劉兼, Lǐ Mù 李穆, and Lǐ Jiǔlíng 李九齡 as compilers under Xuē Jūzhèng 薛居正’s chief supervision; presented in Kāibǎo 7 (974), intercalary 10th month — only 18 months from start to finish, drawing on the recent court records (the Wǔdài shílù of each of the five dynasties) and Fàn Zhì’s 范質 Wǔdài tōnglù. Originally entitled Wǔdài shǐ 五代史; became Jiù Wǔdài shǐ after Ōuyáng Xiū’s Xīn Wǔdài shǐ (KR2a0030) supplanted it. After Jīn Zhāngzōng’s edict of Tàihé 7 (1207) abolished examination use of all pre-Xīnshū Five-Dynasties histories, the work was lost in transmission. The present text was reconstituted in Qiánlóng 38–39 (1773–1774) by Shào Jìnhán and the Sìkù editorial team from extracts preserved in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn 永樂大典 (the Ming imperial encyclopaedia) — one of the most celebrated reconstitution-from-fragments projects in Chinese textual scholarship.
Tiyao
By Xuē Jūzhèng et al., by imperial commission of the Sòng. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì: in Kāibǎo, an edict to compile the histories of Liáng, Tang, Jìn, Hàn, Zhōu — Lú Duōxùn, Hù Méng, Zhāng Dàn, Lǐ Fǎng, Liú Jiān, Lǐ Mù, Lǐ Jiǔlíng co-compiling, with the chief minister Xuē Jūzhèng et al. supervising. The Yùhǎi citing the Zhōngxīng shūmù: Kāibǎo 6, 4th month, wùshēn, edict to compile the Wǔdài shǐ; 7th, intercalary 10th, jiǎzǐ, the work was complete — total 150 juǎn, table-of-contents 2 juǎn; jì 61, zhì 12, zhuàn 77 — based largely on successive court records and Fàn Zhì’s Wǔdài tōnglù.
Later Ōuyáng Xiū separately compiled the Wǔdài shǐ jì 五代史記 (KR2a0030) in 75 juǎn, kept at home; after Xiū’s death the text was made public and printed; learners thereafter ceased exclusive study of Xuē’s history. Yet the two books continued to circulate together. Until Jīn Zhāngzōng Tàihé 7 (1207), an edict that the Hànlín use only Ōuyáng’s history; whereupon Xuē’s work fell into obscurity. From the Yuán and Ming forward, scholars rarely cited this text, and the transmitted copies progressively perished. Only the Ming Imperial Library had a copy (recorded in the Wényuángé shūmù); from it the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn drew its substantial citations.
We respectfully note that the Sage dynasty venerates literature and consults antiquity, gathering up the lost and abandoned, threads cut and fragments — all are in turn collated and edited. We the editors took the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn’s rhyme-by-rhyme citations of Xuē’s history, sorted them by entry, arranged them in sequence, examined their piāndì, and recovered eight or nine parts in ten. Further consulting Sòng-period works that cite Xuē, every entry adopted to fill in lacunae — and we have managed to organise them per the original juǎn numbers and complete the text. What was hidden has been revealed, what was scattered has been gathered — a sacred protection truly guarded these for our time. Such fortune is not chance.
(The tíyào then balances Ōuyáng Xiū’s literary excellence and severe historiographical method against Xuē’s looser but documentarily fuller approach, citing Sīmǎ Guāng’s Tōngjiàn and Hú Sānshěng’s Tōngjiàn zhù preferring Xuē; Shěn Kuò, Hóng Mài, Wáng Yīngzhì showing balanced use of both — concluding that Xuē’s first-hand documentation, together with Ōuyáng’s analytical concision, “two complementary, hard to dispense with either”. Especially, Ōuyáng’s Xīn Wǔdài shǐ has only the Sītiān and Zhífāng monographs, no other zhì; whereas Xuē preserves zhì on rites, music, official titles, examinations, criminal law — institutional history of the bridge from Tang to Sòng — without which there would be no jiàn. The two books’ breadth-versus-concision are each their own virtue; learning must take both, not be partial. The recovered Xuē shǐ is therefore necessarily included in the zhèngshǐ.)
The recovered text is divided into: Liáng shū 24 j., Tang shū 50 j., Jìn shū 24 j., Hàn shū 11 j., Zhōu shū 22 j., Shìxí lièzhuàn 2 j., Jiànwěi lièzhuàn 3 j., Wàiguó lièzhuàn 2 j., zhì 12 j. — totalling 150 juǎn; mùlù 2 juǎn. The principles of compilation are set out in the fánlì.
Abstract
The Jiù Wǔdài shǐ is the older of the two surviving zhèngshǐ of the Five Dynasties (907–960). Composed at extraordinary speed (18 months from start to finish, Kāibǎo 6/4 to Kāibǎo 7/10閏 = April 973 to November 974), it draws on the Wǔdài shílù — the shílù compiled at each of the Five Dynasties’ courts and inherited by the Sòng — and on Fàn Zhì’s 范質 Wǔdài tōnglù 五代通錄. Xuē Jūzhèng was the chief supervising editor; the working compilers were Lú Duōxùn, Hù Méng, Zhāng Dàn, Lǐ Fǎng, Liú Jiān, Lǐ Mù, Lǐ Jiǔlíng — most of them senior late-Tang / Five-Dynasties literati now serving Sòng. Each of the Five Dynasties has its own běnjì and a separate set of lièzhuàn (organised dynasty-by-dynasty), supplemented by Shìxí 世襲 (hereditary regimes — the Ten Kingdoms), Jiànwěi 僭偽 (usurper regimes), and Wàiguó 外國 (foreign states — Khitan Liáo, Korean Goryeo, Tibetan empire) sections.
The work was never as widely studied in the late imperial period as Ōuyáng Xiū’s Xīn Wǔdài shǐ (KR2a0030), which after Jīn Zhāngzōng’s 1207 edict became the standard examination text. By the Yuán the Jiù Wǔdài shǐ was already rare, and by the Ming it had ceased to circulate independently. The text survived, however, in two channels: (1) the Ming Imperial Library held a copy (recorded in the Wényuángé shūmù); (2) extensive citations were preserved in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn (1408), arranged by rhyme-character. From these two sources, plus citations in Northern-Sòng works, Shào Jìnhán 邵晉涵 (1742–1796), as one of the Sìkù compilers, reconstituted the work in Qiánlóng 38–39 (1773–1774). The reconstituted text recovers some 80–90% of the original — the most celebrated and successful of the Sìkù-era reconstruction projects.
The zhì (12 juǎn) include monographs on rites (Lǐ zhì), music (Yuè zhì), official titles (Zhíguān zhì), examinations (Xuǎnjǔ zhì), criminal law (Xíngfǎ zhì), and astronomy (Tiānwén zhì) — institutional documentation that is largely absent from Ōuyáng Xiū’s Xīn Wǔdài shǐ and uniquely valuable for the bridge from Tang institutions to Sòng. The Wényuāngé text further carries Qing kǎozhèng by Yǒng Róng 永瑢 and Shào Jìnhán (catalog meta gives 30 juǎn of kǎozhèng).
The standard modern punctuated edition is the Zhōnghuá Shūjú Jiù Wǔdài shǐ (6 vols., 1976, ed. Chén Yuán 陳垣 et al.); a substantially revised Xiūdìngběn in 12 vols. (Chén Shàngjūn 陳尚君 et al., 2015) incorporates additional fragments recovered from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn photograph series and from SòngYuán lèishū.
Translations and research
No translation. Standard scholarly studies: Wang Gungwu, The Structure of Power in North China during the Five Dynasties (Stanford UP, 1963; reissued Stanford 2007) — the foundational English-language study; Edmund Worthy, “The Founding of Sung China, 950–1000: Integrative Changes in Military and Political Institutions” (PhD diss., Princeton, 1976) — uses both Wǔdài zhèngshǐ; Hugh R. Clark, “The Southern Kingdoms between the T’ang and the Sung,” in Cambridge History of China vol. 5.1 (CUP, 2009). Standard Chinese-language scholarship: Chén Shàngjūn 陳尚君, Jiù Wǔdài shǐ xīn jí huì zhèng 舊五代史新輯會證 (Fùdàn Dàxué, 2005, 12 vols.) — the definitive modern reconstruction, far more complete than the Sìkù; Zhāng Yánmèng 張延猛, Jiù Wǔdài shǐ jí běn fā fù 舊五代史輯本發覆 (1936); Tāng Yòngtǒng 湯用彤 etc.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù reconstitution project on the Jiù Wǔdài shǐ is the canonical example in Chinese textual scholarship of the recovery of a “lost” zhèngshǐ from a lèishū (the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn). The success of the project established the methodology for many subsequent reconstitution-from-fragments projects (e.g. Lú Wénchāo 盧文弨’s Bǔ jí Sòngběn jīngjí zhì 補輯宋本經籍志; Yán Kějūn 嚴可均’s Quán HànWèiLiùcháo wén 全漢魏六朝文). It also gave Shào Jìnhán his lasting scholarly reputation.