宋史全文

Sòng shǐ quán wén 宋史全文

The Complete Text of the Sòng History by 闕名 (anonymous, zhuàn 撰); Yuán-period composition

About the work

A 36-juan annalistic synoptic chronicle of the entire Sòng dynasty (Tàizǔ Jiànlóng 1 / 960 to Dùzōng Xiánchún 10 / 1274), composed by an anonymous Yuán-period scholar. Sometimes spuriously attributed to Lǐ Tāo as a Xù tōng jiàn cháng biān (book-house forgery) or to Hú Hóng as a Xù tōng jiàn cháng biān continuation (Sòng Luò’s hypothesis); both attributions are rejected by the Sìkù editors. The principal Yuán-period synoptic chronicle of the entire Sòng.

Tiyao

Sòng shǐ quán wén, 36 juǎn. (Imperial palace copy.) The author’s name is not given. The original text is captioned Xù Tōng jiàn cháng biān, with Lǐ Tāo’s Cháng biān-presentation memorial placed at the head — directly treating it as Lǐ Tāo’s Cháng biān. On examining: Lǐ Tāo’s book was completed under Xiàozōng; what is recorded extends only to the Northern Sòng. This text actually records affairs of the entire Southern Sòng. That it is not from Lǐ Tāo’s hand is plain enough.

Checking this book, every juǎn’s title-rubric carries the four characters Sòng shǐ quán wén. The Yǒnglè dàdiǎn “Sòng” rhyme also extensively records Sòng shǐ quán wén — a wholly distinct book from the Cháng biān. Further, the original text’s table-of-contents has at the front a book-house’s title: “this hall obtained a fine edition of Sòng jiàn; it is by a famous master, was widely circulated under the former Sòng — re-given to woodblocks.” Apparently a Yuán-period person’s compilation, and the book-merchant attached Lǐ Tāo’s name and falsely claimed it had been current under the former Sòng. Only — for dàdiǎn materials, all are recorded in the Wényuāngé shū mù; Sòng jiàn there is to as many as six copies, but the name Sòng shǐ quán wén alone is absent. Perhaps Yáng Shìqí et al. in the dàdiǎn compilation, on account of the title-rubric, fell into error.

There is also a separate-edition closing postface by Sòng Luò of Shāngqiū: “Sòng Lǐ Tāo had the Tōng jiàn cháng biān in 168 juǎn; the Xù Cháng biān jí yào in 68 juǎn; the Xù Sòng biānnián in 18 juǎn. Today book-collecting houses everywhere thirst after them. This 36 juǎn is the Yuán-period printing; the head-of-juǎn book-author’s surname has been excised; the end-of-juǎn ‘great Yuán’ two characters have been excised; that this is the Yuán Hú Hóng’s Xù Tōng jiàn cháng biān is beyond doubt.” But this too is conjecture; he produced no firm evidence.

The book runs from Jiànlóng through Xiánchún, in biānnián form, ordered and arranged. The Jìngkāng and earlier portion is also based on Lǐ Tāo’s Cháng biān, with considerable abridgement. The Gāozōng and Xiàozōng portions take Liú Zhèng’s Zhōngxīng shèng zhèng cǎo. We here cross-collate the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn’s Shèng zhèng cǎo — the texts are broadly similar with small differences. Liú Zhèng et al.’s appended case-notes are also frequently cited. After Guāngzōng and Níngzōng, there is no separate primary base; it is wholly the compiler’s own composition. So the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn under the Guāngzōng and Níngzōng heads also wholly takes this book’s text — collation in agreement.

For various scholars’ discussions, the gathering is particularly rich: Lǚ Zhōng’s Jiǎng yì, Hé Fǔ’s Guī jiàn, Lǐ Háng’s Tàizǔ shí lù lùn, the Zúguó lùn, Fù Bì et al.’s Shì, Lǚ Yuán et al.’s Zēng shì, Chén Guàn’s Lùn dà shì jì — though their arguments are not all polished, the original texts are mostly lost to the world; sufficient for reference. Only the original juǎn 36, on Dùzōng, the Boy-emperor, and the Yìwáng / Guǎngwáng affairs — all are listed but with no text; the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn also did not gather them. We follow as is.

Abstract

The Sòng shǐ quán wén is the principal Yuán-period synoptic chronicle of the Sòng. Its compositional structure — declared in the Sìkù tíyào’s analysis — has three layers: (1) for the Northern Sòng (960–1127), it is essentially an abridgement of Lǐ Tāo’s Xù Tōng jiàn cháng biān; (2) for Gāozōng and Xiàozōng (1127–1189), it draws principally on Liú Zhèng’s 留正 Zhōngxīng shèng zhèng cǎo 中興聖政草; (3) for Guāngzōng and Níngzōng (1190–1224) and onwards, it is the compiler’s own original composition, with no surviving prior chronicle to draw on. The work is therefore — paradoxically given its anonymity and contested attribution — the principal extant primary chronicle for the late Southern-Sòng court politics, comparable in importance to (and partly overlapping with) the Liǎngcháo gāngmù bèi yào (KR2b0030).

The work bears a uniform internal title-rubric Sòng shǐ quán wén on every juǎn; nonetheless its early-Yuán book-house transmission attached it to Lǐ Tāo’s name as Xù Tōng jiàn cháng biān — a deliberate forgery or commercial mis-captioning. The Sìkù editors decisively reject the Lǐ Tāo attribution (Lǐ Tāo was Northern-Sòng coverage only) and also reject Sòng Luò’s later conjecture that it is the Yuán Hú Hóng’s Xù Tōng jiàn cháng biān (which Sòng Luò produced no real evidence for). The work’s compilation is therefore Yuán-period, anonymous; the dating bracket here is set to 1280–1300 (post-Sòng-fall, i.e. after the Dùzōng / boy-emperor entries become possible, through the Yuán Sòng shǐ compilation period when the work was being read).

The work’s particular value lies in (a) its unique position as the principal Guāngzōng / Níngzōng / Lǐzōng / Dùzōng chronicle independent of the Sòng shǐ; (b) its preservation of substantial citations from Liú Zhèng’s Shèng zhèng cǎo (now lost in primary form), Lǚ Zhōng’s Jiǎng yì, Hé Fǔ’s Guī jiàn, and others; (c) its appended case-notes which preserve Sòng-period editorial commentary.

The original juǎn 36 (Dùzōng, boy-emperor, Yìwáng, Guǎngwáng) was already lost in the Sìkù editors’ time and has not been recovered. The standard modern edition is the Beijing Zhōnghuá Shūjú edition by Wāng Shèngduó 汪聖鐸 et al. (2016) in 7 volumes.

Translations and research

No translation. No standalone Western-language monograph. Discussion in:

• Charles Hartman, The Making of Song Dynasty History (CUP, 2021), index s.v. Sòng shǐ quán wén.
• Richard L. Davis, Wind Against the Mountain (Harvard EAC, 1996) — uses the work for late-Sòng court politics.
• Wāng Shèng-duó 汪聖鐸 et al., Sòng shǐ quán wén jiào diǎn 宋史全文校點 (Beijing: Zhōnghuá, 2016).

Other points of interest

The work is one of the most important non-Sòng-shǐ sources for late-Southern-Sòng historiography, and its anonymous Yuán-period authorship is a major puzzle in the textual history of SòngYuán historical writing — see Hartman 2021, ch. 7 for a recent discussion.

Links

• Wikidata Q11084125
• Kyoto Zinbun Sìkù tíyào 0104602.
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §49.5.