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建炎以來繫年要錄

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Text ID
KR2b0024
Date
1202–1208
Dynasty
宋

Jiànyán yǐlái xìnián yào lù 建炎以來繫年要錄

Year-by-Year Essential Record from Jiànyán Onwards by 李心傳 (Lǐ Xīnchuán, 1167–1244, zhuàn 撰)

About the work

A 200-juan annalistic chronicle of the Southern Sòng restoration under Gāozōng (Jiànyán 1 / 1127 to Shàoxīng 32 / 1162 — the same span as Xióng Kè’s earlier Zhōng xīng xiǎo jì, KR2b0018), composed in conscious imitation of Lǐ Tāo’s Xù Tōng jiàn cháng biān (KR2b0019) and intended as the natural continuation of it for the Southern-Sòng founding period. The principal Southern-Sòng biānnián chronicle of the Zhōngxīng and one of the great works of Chinese historiography, comparable in scope and reliability to Sīmǎ Guāng’s Tōng jiàn for its period.

Tiyao

Jiànyán yǐlái xìnián yào lù, 200 juǎn. (Yǒnglè dàdiǎn recovery copy.) By Lǐ Xīnchuán of the Sòng. Xīnchuán, zì Wēizhī, of Jǐngyán; held office to Lǐbù shìláng; career in Sòng shǐ Rúlín zhuàn. The book describes Gāozōng’s reign, 36 years’ affairs, in Tōng jiàn form, year-and-month, continuing Lǐ Tāo’s Cháng biān. In Níngzōng’s reign once received imperial summons to be presented. The Yǒnglè dàdiǎn separately bears Jiǎ Sìdào’s postface, saying that early in Bǎoyòu it was once printed at Yángzhōu. When the Yuán in compiling the Sòng, Liáo, and Jīn Three Histories widely sought lost works, the catalog is fully shown in Yuán Juè’s and Sū Tiānjué’s two collected works — but this work is not on it. So at the time the transmitted text had already been broken; therefore the historians revising those histories all did not see it.

In early-Míng a remnant copy was first obtained. Only the Wényuāngé shū mù records one copy of 20 cè; other house catalogs all do not record. Now the Míng imperial-library copy is also lost. What survives in the world is only the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn copy. The book takes the National History and Daily Calendar as principal, supplementing with miscellaneous bài guān, yě shǐ, household records, gravestone biographies, dossiers, memorials, and listings of office-holders — without exception arrayed for difference and likeness, awaiting later judgment. So although the text is voluminous, it does not appear cluttered; though arguments diverge, they do not appear miscellaneous.

Among Sòng yě shǐ it is the most useful for kǎozhèng. The Sòng shǐ biography says he prized Sìchuān and slighted the southeast. But, e.g., Sòng-period scholars on account of Zhāng Shì’s jiǎng xué connections firmly held the school-faction line, taking the side of his father Zhāng Jùn — Xīnchuán alone, on the failed-affairs of Huáixī and Fùpíng, the wronged death of Qū Duān, the suspicion of Yuè Fēi, in each case writes the events straight, even Zhūzǐ’s xíng zhuàng not used as authority. From the start, his rural-faction private feeling never even slightly takes shelter — so the Sòng shǐ biography’s slight on this book is, perhaps, not entirely justified.

In sum: Lǐ Tāo learned from Sīmǎ Guāng but sometimes did not equal Guāng; Xīnchuán learned from Lǐ Tāo and there is nowhere he does not equal Tāo. His vast erudition with structured key-points cannot be approached by Xióng Kè or Chén Jūn. The original text contains arguments by Qín Xī, Zhāng Huì, etc. — right and wrong topsy-turvy, what should have been deleted on the spot — but is preserved alongside as reference. To be fair this is a flaw. As to material outside the inner-notes — material from Liú Zhèng’s Zhōngxīng shèng zhèng cǎo, Lǚ Zhōng’s Dà shì jì jiǎng yì, Hé Fǔ’s Guī jiàn and other books — these seem inserted by the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn compilers, and have no other text for collation; the principle requires preserving the doubtful — we keep them as is.

Where the text and the Sòng shǐ differ, in each case we make a biànzhèng note appended below. Among the Jīn-state personal names, official titles, and place names — the phonetic transliterations are full of errors. We respectfully follow the imperial-promulgated Jīn shǐ guóyǔ jiě and carefully correct, separately as kǎozhèng notes appended at the end of each juǎn. Following the original sequence, we re-divide as 200 juǎn. As to the title: the Wénxiàn tōng kǎo gives Xìnián yào jì; the Sòng shǐ biography gives Gāozōng yào lù — different. We follow the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn caption, agreeing with Xīnchuán’s Cháoyě zá jì postface and Wáng Yīnglín’s Yù hǎi, and so settle on Xìnián yào lù.

Abstract

The Jiànyán yǐlái xìnián yào lù is the principal narrative source for the Southern-Sòng founding under Gāozōng. It covers the same chronological span as Xióng Kè’s earlier Zhōng xīng xiǎo jì (KR2b0018) but with vastly greater detail and apparatus — at 200 juǎn it is the largest single work on the period. Lǐ Xīnchuán composed it during his early Imperial Library years (his first court appointment, Mìgé jiàokān, dates to Bǎoqìng 2 / 1226 — see his person note); the work was substantively complete by the early Níngzōng era and certainly before the Cháoyě zá jì (whose postface refers to it as a finished work). The conventional dating bracket adopted here (1202–1208) reflects the Níngzōng Jiātài / Kāixī period of likely composition.

The methodological model is explicitly Lǐ Tāo’s Xù Tōng jiàn cháng biān: a master narrative drawn from official archives (National History, Daily Calendar) supplemented and cross-checked with private records, with variant readings preserved in fēn zhù sub-line notes after the kǎo yì method. The Sìkù tíyào’s verdict — Xīnchuán xué Lǐ Tāo, ér wú bù jí Tāo 心傳學李燾，而無不及燾 (“Xīnchuán learned from Lǐ Tāo, and there is nowhere he does not equal Tāo”) — is the standard scholarly assessment. The work’s particular value over the Sòng shǐ (compiled 1343–1345) is that it preserves several hundred citations from now-lost Southern-Sòng historical material — the Zhōngxīng shèng zhèng cǎo of Liú Zhèng, the Guī jiàn of Hé Fǔ, and dozens of dossiers and memorials — that would otherwise be unavailable.

The transmission history is unusual: the work was printed at Yángzhōu under Jiǎ Sìdào’s auspices in early Bǎoyòu (1253), but was lost between the Sòng and the early Yuán; the Yuán-period historians compiling the Sòng shǐ did not have access to it. An incomplete copy resurfaced in early Míng (the 20-cè copy in the Wényuāngé), then was lost again. The full reconstitution from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn by the Sìkù editors in the late eighteenth century is one of the great recoveries of Chinese historiography. The standard modern critical edition is the Beijing Zhōnghuá Shūjú edition by Hú Kūn 胡坤 (2013) in 8 volumes, fully collated against the surviving dàdiǎn fragments.

(Catalog-versus-CBDB date discrepancy noted on the person note for 李心傳: catalog meta gives 1166–1243, CBDB and Sòng shǐ give 1167–1244, the latter followed here.)

Translations and research

  • Charles Hartman, The Making of Song Dynasty History: Sources and Narratives, 960–1279 CE (CUP, 2021), chs. 5–6 — the principal English-language treatment.
  • Hú Kūn 胡坤, Jiànyán yǐ-lái xìnián yào lù 建炎以來繫年要錄, 8 vols. (Beijing: Zhōnghuá, 2013) — standard modern critical edition.
  • Tao Jing-shen, Two Sons of Heaven: Studies in Sung-Liao Relations (UAP, 1988) — uses the Yào lù extensively.
  • Tang Lin 唐琳, Lǐ Xīn-chuán shǐxué yánjiū 李心傳史學研究 (Beijing: Zhōnghuá, 2009).
  • Liáng Tài-jì 梁太濟, “Jiànyán yǐ-lái xìnián yào lù yǔ Sòng shǐ duì kǎo zhī yī lì” 建炎以來繫年要錄與宋史對校之一例, Wén shǐ 28 (1987): 113–129.

Other points of interest

The Sìkù kǎozhèng notes appended at the end of each juǎn — correcting Jīn-state personal names, official titles, and place names against the imperial Jīn shǐ guóyǔ jiě — are themselves a substantial Qing scholarly apparatus integrated into the WYG transmitted text and useful as a model of Qing-period treatment of foreign-language historical material.

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