Xīn Wǔdài shǐ 新五代史
The New History of the Five Dynasties by 歐陽修 (Ōuyáng Xiū, 1007–1072); annotation (zhù) by 徐無黨 (Xú Wúdǎng, fl. mid-11th c.); Qing collation notes by 孫人龍 and 王文清.
About the work
The nineteenth of the Twenty-Four Histories, in 74 juǎn (the original title is Xīn Wǔdài shǐ jì 新五代史記, 75 juǎn; the present 74-juǎn count reflects later editorial reorganisation). Composed privately by Ōuyáng Xiū over the period of his rustication and political middle career, ca. Jǐngyòu 3 (1036) to Huángyòu 5 (1053). The work is the only one of the post-Tang zhèngshǐ to be a sīzhuàn 私撰 (private compilation) — not commissioned by imperial decree. After Ōuyáng Xiū’s death in 1072, an imperial edict ordered the manuscript taken from his family for printing at the Guózǐjiàn 國子監; thereafter it has been counted among the zhèngshǐ.
Tiyao
By Ōuyáng Xiū of the Sòng. Originally entitled Xīn Wǔdài shǐ jì; “Wǔdài shǐ” abbreviates the prose. Of all post-Tang histories, only this is a private composition; in his lifetime it was not submitted to the throne; only after his death was the text by edict taken and cut at the Imperial Academy, and so today it is listed among the zhèngshǐ.
The general thrust: praise-and-blame ancestral to the Chūnqiū, with strict yìlì; narrative ancestral to the Shǐjì, with elevated and concise prose. But facts are not handled with great care. The various critiques scattered in other works are too many to enumerate. Among those that constitute dedicated monographs: Wú Zhěn’s Wǔdài shǐ zuǎnwù (KR2a0031), Yáng Lùróng’s 楊陸榮 Wǔdài shǐ zhìyí — both pulling on threads, hitting at the principal points; though their pursuits sometimes overshoot, one cannot say they wholly miss the mark.
If so, then Xuē shǐ is like the Zuǒzhuàn’s narrative — fact-laden start to finish, but loose in duànzhì; Ōu shǐ is like the Gōng and Gǔ’s opening of canon — bāobiǎn clear but chuánwén often inaccurate. The two works’ co-existence should be like the three zhuàn’s simultaneous survival. To rate this single work as covering all of the Five Dynasties is to use the weight of name to determine the worth of history.
(The tíyào gives a long list of structural defects: only the Sītiān 司天 and Zhífāng 職方 monographs, with no others; institutional history of rites, music, official titles, examinations, criminal law from late Tang to early Sòng entirely absent; though Wáng Pǔ’s Wǔdài huìyào 五代會要 collected 30 juǎn of late material, why under Xiū does this all fall away? — this is the work’s gravest fault, traceable to Liú Zhījī’s mistaken proposal of abolishing tables and treatises [in the Shǐtōng]. The compilations of SòngLiáoJīn under Yuán, of Yuánshǐ under Ming, and of Míngshǐ under our dynasty all followed older practice and not Xiū’s example — clearly because to break the ancient method is no model. As to failure to record Hán Tōng’s posthumous award [Sòng Tàizǔ’s edict of bāozèng 褒贈, in the Sòng wén jiàn] — a single defect by oversight — common to all zhèngshǐ, no especial fault.)
The annotation by Xú Wúdǎng is rather shallow; transmitted long, recorded together. Xiū’s prose is the crown of the Sòng; this work’s editorial sharpness particularly displays a deep mind; its bearing on social-moral instruction is great. Only its kǎozhèng is unevenly attentive — laid out as above for those who come after to discriminate.
Abstract
Ōuyáng Xiū’s Xīn Wǔdài shǐ is the only one of the Twenty-Four Histories from the Sòng forward to be a private composition rather than an imperial commission. He worked on it from his early career — beginning ca. Jǐngyòu 3 (1036) when he was demoted from the central court, continuing through his exile and rehabilitation, to Huángyòu 5 (1053) when the manuscript was substantively complete (he continued small revisions until his death in 1072). Modelled in editorial spirit on the Chūnqiū and in narrative style on the Shǐjì, the work is by design a deliberate aesthetic-moral revision of the Jiù Wǔdài shǐ (KR2a0029) — adopting the Chūnqiū-style exemplary-criticism (bāobiǎn 褒貶) approach throughout the jì and zhuàn, with substantial implicit moral commentary embedded in the choice of formula and word.
The structure deliberately departs from the conventional zhèngshǐ: the four-times-the-same-name Liáng běnjì, Tang běnjì, Jìn běnjì, Hàn běnjì, Zhōu běnjì are each renamed Liángjì, Tang-jì, etc. (without běn 本) to mark their non-imperial-orthodox status; the Shíguó shìjiā 十國世家 collectively documents the Ten Kingdoms peripheral states; the Sìyí fù lù 四夷附錄 collects external-state material. The work has only two zhì: the Sītiān kǎo 司天考 (astronomical observations) and the Zhífāng kǎo 職方考 (administrative geography) — with all the institutional-history coverage of the Jiù Wǔdài shǐ (rites, music, officialdom, examinations, criminal law) deliberately omitted. This is the principal scholarly weakness of the work, as the Sìkù compilers note at length.
The accompanying zhù is by Xú Wúdǎng 徐無黨, a younger scholar in Ōuyáng Xiū’s circle; the Sìkù compilers find it shallow but transmit it because of its long association with the text.
The work was made publicly available after Ōuyáng Xiū’s death in 1072 by imperial edict. From that point it gradually displaced the Jiù Wǔdài shǐ in scholarly use; after Jīn Zhāngzōng’s Tàihé 7 (1207) edict making it the sole permitted Five-Dynasties text in the examination system, it became canonical. After the Sìkù reconstruction of the Jiù Wǔdài shǐ in 1773–1774, both works again stood side by side as the dual zhèngshǐ of the Five Dynasties.
The Wényuāngé text further carries Qing kǎozhèng by Sūn Rénlóng 孫人龍 and Wáng Wénqīng 王文清 (catalog meta gives 12 juǎn of kǎozhèng). The standard modern punctuated edition is the Zhōnghuá Shūjú Xīn Wǔdài shǐ (3 vols., 1974, ed. Xú Wúdǎng’s zhù preserved); revised Xiūdìngběn 3 vols., 2015 (Chén Shàngjūn 陳尚君).
Translations and research
Standard partial translation: Richard L. Davis, Historical Records of the Five Dynasties (Columbia, 2004) — the first comprehensive English translation of the work, with extensive scholarly apparatus. Earlier partial translations: A. C. Moule, Quinsai with Other Notes on Marco Polo (Cambridge, 1957) — the Wúyuè shìjiā; Edward H. Schafer, The Empire of Min (Tokyo, 1954) — the Mǐn shìjiā. Standard Chinese-language scholarship: Wáng Mínshèng 王鳴盛, Shíqī shǐ shāngquè 十七史商榷 (1787); Zhào Yì 趙翼, Niàn’èr shǐ zhájì 廿二史劄記 (1799) — the canonical Qing critical reading; Chén Shàngjūn 陳尚君, Wǔdài shǐ shū kǎo zhèng 五代史書考證 (Fùdàn Dàxué, 2010); Tāng Zhángrú 唐長孺, WèiJìn NánBěicháo Suí-Tang shǐ sān lùn (Wǔhàn Dàxué, 1992); Cài Chóngjié 蔡崇傑, Ōuyáng Xiū yǔ Xīn Wǔdài shǐ 歐陽修與新五代史 (Bǎihuā, 2008).
Other points of interest
Ōuyáng Xiū’s Xīn Wǔdài shǐ established the model of the deliberately-stylised, Chūnqiū-method zhèngshǐ — a model not subsequently followed by the imperial commissions for the Sòng shǐ (KR2a0032), Yuán shǐ (KR2a0036), and Míng shǐ (KR2a0038), all of which reverted to the conventional BānSīmǎ form. The work’s literary excellence — particularly the lùn 論 sections at the head of each chapter, of which the Língguān zhuàn xù 伶官傳序 (“On the Court Musicians”) is among the most-studied pieces of Sòng prose — has secured its high standing in the gǔwén canon entirely apart from its historiographical merits.