Jīn shǐ 金史
The History of the Jīn by 托克托 (Toqto’a / Tuòtuō, 1314–1356) et al., by imperial commission of Yuán Shùndì.
About the work
The twenty-second of the Twenty-Four Histories, in 135 juǎn (19 jì, 39 zhì, 4 biǎo, 73 lièzhuàn). Covers the Jurchen Jīn dynasty (1115–1234), founded by the Wánjyán 完顏 clan under Aguda 阿骨打. Compiled at the Yuán court under Toqto’a in Zhìzhèng 3–5 (1343–1345) — companion to the Sòng shǐ (KR2a0032) and Liáo shǐ (KR2a0033). The Jīn shǐ is generally regarded as the best of the three Yuán-court compilations, on account of (a) the unbroken Jīn court historiographical tradition through to 1234 and (b) the long-running private project of Yuán Hàowèn 元好問 (1190–1257) at his Yěshǐtíng 野史亭 in northern Shānxī after 1234, which preserved the Jīn-court materials that survived the Mongol conquest.
Tiyao
By Toqto’a et al. by imperial commission of the Yuán. Jì 19 juǎn, zhì 39 juǎn, biǎo 4 juǎn, lièzhuàn 73 juǎn. The Jīn dynasty rose in the Eastern Sea, occupied the Central Plain; institutions and canons were richly developed; documentary base provides what was needed.
(The tíyào notes specific examples: the Dà Jīn diào fá lù 大金弔伐錄 in one volume — recording the Tiānfǔ 7 (1123) handover of YānYún to the Sòng, the Tiānhuì 3 (1125) renewed war on Sòng, the Tiānhuì 5 (1127) abolition of Sòng and establishment of Chǔ, down to Gāozōng’s southern crossing — all the guóshū, shìgào, cèbiǎo, wénzhuàng, zhǐhuī, diéxí recorded with year and month, the documents preserved in the old archives — has chronological framing for editing into a book — so from the start of the dynasty there was no break in transmitted record. The Wényì zhuàn on Yuán Hàowèn — saying that in late life Hàowèn took historiography as his task; that since the Jīn Yuán ruled All-under-Heaven, with rules and institutions almost matching Hàn-Tang, the dynasty’s fall imposed historiography on him; that the Jīn imperial shílù was at the Shùntiān Zhāng Wànhù household; that he proposed taking it but was blocked; that he then built the Yěshǐtíng and composed there: every utterance and act of the Jīn rulers and ministers, every bit of news he could collect, written on slips of paper in fine script — over a million words. The Jīn shǐ compilation is mostly based on his work. Further citing Liú Qí 劉祁’s Guīqián zhì on the affairs of late Jīn — also full of evidence. So the historiographical succession was unbroken.
The presentation memorial of Toqto’a says: Zhāng Róu 張柔 returned the Jīn shǐ to the throne earlier; Wáng È 王鶚 collected Jīn affairs later; the imperial commission for compilation issued in Yányòu, did not complete; Tiānlì renewed but did not finish either. So the Yuán court had been working for years, unlike the Sòng and Liáo histories taken in haste. Hence the work is well-organised: simple but not sparse, ample but not weed-grown — among the three, uniquely the best.)
(The tíyào enumerates structural strengths: placing the Shìjì 世紀 ancestral genealogy at the front, with Jǐngxuān, Ruìzōng, Xiǎnzōng arranged in the Shìjì bǔ — adopts the Wèi shū’s example. Lì zhì takes Zhào Zhīwēi’s Dàmǐng lì, and treats the survival of armillary models. Lǐ zhì draws Hán Qǐxiān’s Dà Jīn jí lǐ, with attention to ritual minutiae. Héqú zhì’s detail on the 25 dyke-stations; Bǎiguān zhì’s opening with founding-era institutions — all on solid foundations and well organised. Shíhuò zhì’s grief at the early-Jīn slack-tax later proving fatal; Xuǎnjǔ zhì’s closing observations on the corruption of the lìngshǐ — strike at the heart of the matter, full of yǐnjiàn (hidden lessons), with the bearing of a good historiographer.)
Yet the lièzhuàn contain various incongruities. Yáng Pǔ assisted Tàizǔ’s founding (recorded in the Liáo shǐ); not given a biography. Jìnwáng Zōnghàn’s letter petition for exemption (in the Běiméng huìbiān); Shěnwáng Zōngbì’s deathbed instructions (in the Jiànyán yǐlái xìnián yàolù) — all bearing on national policy, but not in the biography. Hǎilíng’s shīdé — already in the jì; the various favorites’ shamefulness — again detailed in the Hòufēi zhuàn — duplication. Wáng Lún surrendered when on diplomatic mission, never accepted office; placed after Lì Qióng and Lǐ Chéng in his biography. Zhāng Bāngchāng — already noted Sòng shǐ has biography, see Zōnghàn etc. zhuàn — yet again copied from the jì and inserted before Liú Yù — all violations of formal canon. Jiǎo Gànzhī’s southern flight, Shī Yíshēng’s disclosure of plot, Yǔwén Xūzhōng’s accusation of slander — variant accounts not finally settled. Also from being too dependent on the shílù without further checking against books.
But the Sòng shǐ records of the two-state warfare drew much from Sòng readers’ materials, often inflated. Like the Cáishí battle — at the time Hǎilíng’s troops, hearing of Dàdìng changing the era, with hearts disengaged self-disintegrated; Yú Yǔnwén’s claim of victory was not the truth. Yet this work alone has the truth. The Tàihé and after various ministers’ biographies are particularly able to convey the spirit of events. Probably from Yuán Hàowèn etc.’s direct witness — different from where second-hand accounts diverge. Juǎn 33 and 76 have lacunae — Ming Imperial Library editions errors; today supplied from inner-court Yuán impressions, completed.
Abstract
The Jīn shǐ covers the Jurchen Jīn (1115–1234), the great north-Chinese empire founded by the Wánjyán 完顏 clan that destroyed both the Khitan Liáo (1125) and the Northern Sòng (1127), ruled North China for a century, and was destroyed by the Mongols in 1234 at the siege of Càizhōu 蔡州.
The Jīn shǐ is widely regarded as the best of the three Yuán-court dynastic histories, and is methodologically distinguished from the Sòng shǐ and Liáo shǐ by (a) the unbroken Jīn court historiographical tradition through 1234 (the Jīn maintained continuous guóshǐ and shílù compilation with only minor disruptions), (b) the rich documentary base of Jīn-era diplomatic, military, and institutional records preserved in family archives, especially the Dà Jīn diào fá lù 大金弔伐錄 documenting the JīnSòng diplomatic exchanges of 1123–1127, and (c) above all the long-running private historical project of Yuán Hàowèn 元好問 (1190–1257), the great late-Jīn poet and historian, who after the dynasty’s fall built his Yěshǐtíng 野史亭 in northern Shānxī and over more than two decades collected the yán xíng (sayings and actions) of Jīn rulers and ministers — over a million characters — saving them from total Mongol-period oblivion. Liú Qí 劉祁’s Guīqián zhì 歸潛志 was a parallel late-Jīn private historical witness.
The Yuán court’s compilation team — Toqto’a as supervising editor; Ōuyáng Xuán 歐陽玄 as principal compiler — drew principally on Yuán Hàowèn’s accumulated material. The Wényì zhuàn of the Jīn shǐ itself records (in unusual self-reflexive detail) the project’s dependence on Yuán Hàowèn’s earlier work. Compilation took just over one year (1343–1344, formally complete Zhìzhèng 5 = 1345).
Structural innovations: (1) the Shìjì 世紀 (juǎn 1) preserving the Wánjyán pre-imperial ancestral genealogy on the model of the Wèishū; (2) the Shìjì bǔ 世紀補 (juǎn 19) for the posthumously-honoured Jǐngxuān, Ruìzōng, and Xiǎnzōng; (3) the Héqú zhì with detailed coverage of the 25 sào (dyke-stations) of the Yellow River course-management; (4) the Yúfú zhì 輿服志 with rare detail on Jurchen costume; (5) the Bǎiguān zhì opening with the founding-era Bójíliè 勃極烈 (Jurchen tribal-confederation system) before transitioning to the Hàn-style bureaucracy. The Jiāopìn biǎo 交聘表 (juǎn 60–62) is a crucial source for JīnSòngXī Xià diplomatic relations.
The Wényuāngé text further carries Qing kǎozhèng (extent not specified in the catalog meta).
Translations and research
No complete translation. Substantial partial translations: Tao Jing-shen, The Jurchen in Twelfth-Century China (Washington, 1976) — the principal English-language scholarly work on Jīn ethnic-political history; Hok-Lam Chan, Legitimation in Imperial China: Discussions under the Jurchen-Chin Dynasty (1115–1234) (Washington, 1984); Hok-Lam Chan, The Historiography of the Chin Dynasty: Three Studies (Steiner, 1970) — foundational study of the Jīn shǐ compilation history; Herbert Franke and Denis Twitchett (eds.), The Cambridge History of China vol. 6: Alien Regimes and Border States, 907–1368 (CUP, 1994). Standard Chinese-language scholarship: Liú Pǔjiāng 劉浦江, Liáo Jīn shǐ lùn (Liáoníng Dàxué, 1999); Sài Mǎlābūdùn 賽馬拉布頓 et al., Jīn shǐ jiào yǐ 金史校議 (Hēilóngjiāng Rénmín, 2000); Liú’s Sōngmò zhī jiàn (Zhōnghuá, 2008).
Other points of interest
Yuán Hàowèn (1190–1257), traditionally regarded as the greatest poet of the JīnYuán transition, is the textually-attested ancestor of the Jīn shǐ — his Yěshǐtíng project is documented inside the Wényì zhuàn itself (juǎn 126), an exceptionally direct zhèngshǐ acknowledgement of an earlier private historian. The Dà Jīn diào fá lù — the great Jīn diplomatic-document collection — survives partially independently and is one of the most important Northern Sòng / early-Jīn primary-source collections.