聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

資治通鑑前編

6 min read

Text ID
KR2b0033
Date
1280–1303
Dynasty
宋

Zī zhì tōng jiàn qián biān 資治通鑑前編

Antecedent Annals to the Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance by 金履祥 (Jīn Lǚxiáng, 1232–1303, zhuàn 撰)

About the work

An 18-juan annalistic chronicle of pre-imperial antiquity from Yáo (legendary date Jiǎchén) down to King Wēiliè of Zhōu (the Tōng jiàn’s opening date of 403 BCE), with a 3-juan Jǔ yào index. Composed by Jīn Lǚxiáng (a leading late-Sòng / Yuán-period Zhū Xī orthodoxy scholar of the BěiShān sì xiānsheng school) at his Wùzhōu retreat after the Sòng’s fall, in conscious correction of Liú Shù’s Tōng jiàn wài jì (KR2b0015) — which Jīn faulted for trusting “hundred-school” sources rather than canonical evidence.

Tiyao

Tōng jiàn qián biān, 18 juǎn; Jǔ yào, 3 juǎn. (Held in the home of Biān xiū Shào Jìnhán.) By Jīn Lǚxiáng of the Sòng. Lǚxiáng’s Shàngshū biǎo zhù is already on record. Look at Liǔ Guàn’s Xíng zhuàng of Lǚxiáng: “Sīmǎ Wénzhèng made the Zī zhì tōng jiàn, year-and-period-set; Mìshū chéng Liú Shù made the Wài jì to record prior affairs. But its intent was not anchored in the Classics; it trusted the hundred-schools’ speech, not enough to transmit-as-true. So he used Shàoshì Huángjí jīngshì and Húshì Huángwáng dà jì models, with additions, deletions, and adjudications, all anchored in the Shàngshū. Below, reaching to the Shī, Lǐ, and Chūnqiū; sideways, gathering old histories and various Masters; charting years, hanging events, again adding xùn shì (gloss-explanation). Cutting from Yáo down, joining to the Zī zhì tōng jiàn, finalising as one book.” On completion he gave it to his disciple Xǔ Qiān, saying: “the splendor of the Two Thearchs and the Three Kings, their subtle words and beautiful conduct — the later kings ought to take as model. The Warring-States ShēnHán arts, their harsh laws and disorderly governments — the later kings ought also to take as warning. From Zhōu Wēilièwáng 23 onwards Sīmǎgōng has already discussed in sequence; before the Chūnqiū there is no biānnián book — this compilation cannot be left out.”

Apparently Lǚxiáng’s compositional intent lay in citing Classics and using ancient texts to correct Liú Shù’s Wài jì’s love of the unusual. Only — Lǚxiáng was tutored under Wáng Bǎi, who was bold in altering the Classics; Lǚxiáng too was fond of holding new theories. Such as glossing sāngtǔ jì cán by citing the later “sāngjiān” as evidence; glossing fēng shí yǒu èr shān, jùn chuān, saying Yíngzhōu should be “the mountain Jiéshí, the river Liáoshuǐ”; treating the Dǔ GōngLiú and Qī yuè two piān as the poems of the Bīngōng’s own time, not Zhōugōng’s later commemoration; treating Qī yuè as Bīn shī, Dǔ GōngLiú as Bīn yǎ — all unable to escape the charge of arbitrary judgment.

Treating the Chūn qiū’s “Yǐnshì died” as identical with the LǔZhèngcìfāng Yǐnshì who returned together with Yǐngōng — particularly forced. As to citing the Zhōu shū in recording strange things — at Zhōu Zhāowáng 22 recording the Buddha’s birth — his citation of the various texts and the propriety of his selection are not necessarily at all above Liú Shù’s. Yet his evidential citation is quite broad; his examination and settling of various theories are also often mutually elucidating with the Classical glosses. Among the jiǎng xué (philosophical-school) authors, he may still be said to have applied his mind to historical books, not to be a yóu tán (idle conversationalist).

Lǚxiáng’s own postface says: “having compiled a year-table, by rule it must have headings; so I separately made the Jǔ yào in 3 juǎn. Whatever I cite from the Classics, Commentaries, Masters, and histories, all is in large script; only the gloss-explanations and case-notes are in small dual-line — appended after.” Apparently avoiding Zhūzǐ’s Gāng mù form and slightly varying the Tōng jiàn form.

Later the Zhèjiāng re-cut edition listed the Jǔ yào as the gāng and the Classics-Commentaries-Masters-histories text as the mù, with gloss-explanations still mixed in between — already not the original. Further, the Tōng jiàn gāngmù printed editions sometimes place this book at the front and entitle it Tōng jiàn gāngmù qián biān — also a later changed name. We follow the original; with the Gāngmù separately catalogued. To preserve the truth.

Abstract

The Tōng jiàn qián biān is the principal late-Sòng / Yuán biānnián chronicle of pre-imperial antiquity, composed in deliberate correction of Liú Shù’s Tōng jiàn wài jì. Where Liú Shù had been content with broad source-gathering, including legendary and Zhuāngzǐ-style material, Jīn Lǚxiáng — a strict Zhū-Xī-orthodoxy scholar of the BěiShān sì xiānsheng school — insisted on canonical anchoring: the Shàngshū primary, then the Shī, Lǐ, and Chūn qiū, with old histories and Masters as supplementary. As Liǔ Guàn’s Xíng zhuàng records, the methodological innovation is the systematic use of canonical Classics as the primary chronological backbone. The Sìkù editors note this as a kǎojù virtue but criticize Jīn for some of his particular textual judgments (the Bīn shī / Bīn yǎ re-attribution, etc.) as arbitrary in the manner of his teacher Wáng Bǎi.

The work was composed in Jīn Lǚxiáng’s Wùzhōu retreat after the Sòng fall (he had refused service under the Yuán); the dating bracket is set to his yí mín period 1280–1303.

The original form was: 18-juan main biānnián text plus 3-juan Jǔ yào (general-headings index) — a deliberate departure from both Sīmǎ Guāng’s Tōng jiàn form (which embedded the Mù lù as a separate apparatus) and from Zhū Xī’s Tōngjiàn gāngmù form (which interleaved gāng and mù). Jīn’s chosen form preserves the chronicle as a unified narrative with the analytical index separate. Later printers re-cut it to look more like the Gāngmù (with the Jǔ yào as gāng and the chronicle as mù) and re-titled it Tōngjiàn gāngmù qián biān; the Sìkù editors restored the original form and original title.

The work, with Liú Shù’s Wài jì, Sīmǎ Guāng’s Tōng jiàn, Lǐ Tāo’s Cháng biān, Lǐ Xīnchuán’s Yào lù, the Liǎngcháo gāngmù bèi yào, the Sòng shǐ quán wén, Chén Jīng’s Tōng jiàn xù biān, and Bì Yuán’s later Xù Zī zhì tōng jiàn, completes the Tōng jiàn lineage from antiquity to the Sòng’s end — Jīn Lǚxiáng filling the pre-403 BCE slot for which Sīmǎ Guāng had left only the unfinished plan and Liú Shù the Wài jì draft.

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. Jīn Lǚ-xiáng.
  • Yáng Yún 楊雲, Jīn Lǚ-xiáng Tōng jiàn qián biān yán jiū 金履祥通鑑前編研究 (Hé-běi shī-fàn dà-xué thesis, 2010).
  • Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (UH Press, 1992), §11 — discusses the Běi-Shān sì xiānsheng school in which Jīn Lǚ-xiáng is the third figure.

Other points of interest

The work is the principal late-Sòng / Yuán example of a Lǐxué-orthodoxy historian deploying canonical sources as the primary chronological backbone — a methodological position that anticipates by some 350 years the Qing kǎojù school’s similar use of Shàngshū and Chūnqiū against the post-canonical historical record.

Graph View

Backlinks