宋史紀事本末

Sòngshǐ jìshì běnmò 宋史紀事本末

The Sòng History Topically Arranged by 馮琦 (編), 陳邦瞻 (增輯)

About the work

The Sòngshǐ jìshì běnmò in 28 juǎn / 109 sections is the most-consulted topical-history treatment of the Sòng dynasty, modelled directly on Yuán Shū’s Tōngjiàn jìshì běnmò (KR2c0001) but extending its scope past 959 to include the entire Sòng. The project was begun by Féng Qí 馮琦 (1558–1603) of Línqú, then Vice-Minister of Rites, who died with the materials still in draft. His papers passed via the Nánchāng Censor Liú Yuēwǔ 劉曰梧 to the Jiāngxī jìnshì Chén Bāngzhān 陳邦瞻 (c. 1557–1623), who completed the work and brought it to print in Wànlì 33 (yǐsì, 1605). The Sìkù compilers reckon Féng Qí’s contribution at about three-tenths and Chén’s at seven-tenths. Each of the 109 sections is given a topical heading and runs from the founding of the dynasty (Tàizǔ supplanting the HòuZhōu) to the death of Wén Tiānxiáng 文天祥 and Xiè Fāngdé 謝枋得 in 1283. (Note: the catalog meta lists the principal author as “馮琦原” — the “原” appears to be an artefact, not part of the name; the person is Féng Qí 馮琦, as the Sìkù tíyào uses throughout.)

Tiyao

The Sòngshǐ jìshì běnmò in 28 juǎn was composed by Chén Bāngzhān of the Míng. Bāngzhān, zì Déyuǎn, was a man of Gāo’ān; jìnshì of Wànlì wùxū (1598); he rose through office to Vice-Minister of War. His career stands in his biography in the Míng shǐ. — Originally the Vice-Minister of Rites Féng Qí of Línqú had wished to follow Yuán Shū’s design and to topically arrange the Sòng affairs as a continuation, dividing them by category and matching them by class, but he died before the work was complete. The Censor Liú Yuēwǔ of Nánchāng obtained his surviving manuscript and turned it over to Bāngzhān to revise and complete. Of the present text, what comes from Féng is about three parts in ten, what comes from Bāngzhān seven; from Tàizǔ’s replacement of the HòuZhōu down to the deaths of Wén Tiānxiáng and Xiè Fāngdé, the work is divided into 109 categories. — In one age’s record of rise and fall, of order and disorder, the outline is set down in summary; among Yuán Shū’s design and yìlì the most encompassing and broadly learned, with melt-and-cast and threading-through wrought to greatest exactness; Bāngzhān has held to the principle without veering, and the order of his arrangement is therefore everywhere clear. — Of the various histories, the Sòngshǐ is the most disordered and weed-grown. Unlike the Zīzhì tōngjiàn, which has its own veins to follow, this work parts and divides, drawing every detail into its place; though it falls short of Yuán Shū’s, the labour of its tracing is twice his. — Only this: the work, in covering Sòng affairs, takes in both Liáo and Jīn; given that the three states were divided north and south and could not be united in one, it should properly be called SòngLiáoJīn sānshǐ jìshì běnmò — to be free of method-wandering. To title the whole Sòngshǐ alone is partial. — Further: the Yuánshǐ jìshì běnmò he separately wrote already exists; yet within this Sòng book the sections “The Establishment of Mongol Rulers” and “The Founding of the Mongol State” relate the affairs of early Yuán, which ought to belong to the Yuán book and let beginning and end run together — but he placed them under the Sòng compass right up to the fall of Lín’ān. This is most a failure of bordering. — Beyond this, where he has carried the Sòngshǐ’s old slips and gaps without correcting them, these too are not few. Yet within the welter of mixed entries lies the real merit of clearing a path through the brushwood. The reader of the Tōngjiàn may dispense with Yuán Shū’s book; the reader of the Sòngshǐ cannot dispense with this one. — Reverently collated, Qiánlóng 46 (1781), 11th month. Chief compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Senior collator: Lù Fèichí.

Abstract

The work is the great Wànlì-era continuation of Yuán Shū’s enterprise, made urgent by the Sòngshǐ’s notorious bulk and disorder (496 juǎn, the longest of the standard histories). Féng Qí, working from inside the Hànlín, designed the rubric and drafted opening sections; Chén Bāngzhān, after Féng’s death, completed the bulk in seven years, dating his preface Wànlì 33 (yǐsì, 1605). The 109 topical sections cover the political, institutional, factional, military, and economic high points of the dynasty: the founding (太祖代周, 杯酒釋兵權), the wars and treaties with Liáo, Xià, and Jīn, the Wáng Ānshí 王安石 reforms, the Yuányòu 元祐 partisanship, the Jīngkāng 靖康 catastrophe, the Yuèfēi 岳飛 and Hán Tuōzhòu 韓侂胄 episodes, the Mongol wars, and the deaths of the Sòng loyalist martyrs. Each section closes with a paratactic lùn. The work absorbed Liáo and Jīn material into its scheme — for which the Sìkù compilers fault its title (it should properly have been called SòngLiáoJīn jìshì běnmò) — but the practical effect is to have given two later centuries of readers a tractable narrative path through the Sòng historical archive. Chén would within a year follow up with the much shorter Yuánshǐ jìshì běnmò (KR2c0008), forming the MíngQīng jìshì běnmò “trilogy” with Gǔ Yìngtài’s Míngshǐ jìshì běnmò (KR2c0020).

The Sìkù edition (28 juǎn) and the larger 109-juǎn private editions (one juǎn per section) circulate side by side; modern Zhōnghuá editions reprint the 109-section text with the topical scheme intact. Wilkinson (Chinese History, ch. 50) lists the work prominently in the jìshì běnmò family and notes the unbroken Zhōnghuá reprint tradition.

Translations and research

• Sòngshǐ jìshì běnmò. Punctuated edition, Beijing: Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1977 (often reprinted, 3 vols.). Standard reference text.
• Hartwell, Robert M. 1982. “Demographic, Political, and Social Transformations of China, 750–1550.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 42(2): 365–442. (Cites the work as a principal source for several of the topical zhuān it gathers.)
• Levine, Ari Daniel. 2008. Divided by a Common Language: Factional Conflict in Late Northern Song China. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. (Treats the partisan-history sections.)
• Wilkinson, Chinese History, ch. 50.

Other points of interest

The compositional arc — a senior court scholar designs the project and dies before completion, his draft is rescued by a young provincial jìnshì who finishes it — is itself a notable case in late-Míng historiographical practice; Chén Bāngzhān’s preface to the printed text candidly explains the division of labour. The pairing with Chén’s Yuánshǐ jìshì běnmò gives SòngYuán historiography a continuous coverage no other Míng-period work achieves.

Links

• Wikipedia: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/宋史紀事本末
• Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11103851